x3c

I'm not trying to be rude or condescending here, but if you read my reply in its entirety, you'll find the answer to your question.

I'm not. I'm saying signal to noise ratio of political discussions on political sites is so low that any rational discussion drowns out in the noise. Plus, most political sites have a clear and strong bias, such that opposing ideas are rarely discussed based on their merits.

Also, many techies who otherwise would not engage in political discussions (due to aforementioned reasons), can bounce off ideas here. I'm not claiming that HN becomes a political discussion forum, I'm saying downvoting legitimate political discussions for being political is taking it too far.

[Edit: missed a word and it bothered me enough to edit the post.]

(Disclaimer: I'm not from US).

  That's why we should flag political articles and leave them to other sites.

Except that at other sites, politics equals name callings and rhetoric. I understand that that is the primary reason you want politics to stay out of HN.

But if all scientists, techies and reasonable people stay out of politics and common people are distracted by media, how can we expect things to change? If readers of HN cannot discuss political beliefs in a rational manner, I wonder who can.

No wonder legislation like SOPA has reached to the doorsteps of congress in US.

Irascible human being is not fit for PR/Marketing. Whether he's a christian or has earrings does not come into factor.

Its called judging a man by the content of his character and/or skills. Its not discrimination. Someone with Parkinson's is unfit for a bomb disposal unit. Someone with arts degree is useless as Rocket scientist and useless at a NASA convention.

According to the docs[1], search() is an alias of query(). They should use query instead of search, atleast on the landing page. Also, they should put hash() method on the homepage too, I thought they forgot to implement it.

[1] http://medialize.github.com/URI.js/docs.htm

Joe Wilcox started his post by saying: "My idiots of the year award almost certainly will go to Netflix and Go Daddy, which tarnished their brands through nothing more than sheer stupidity (there are still five days in the month for your organization to royally screw up and claim the honor)." It seems Ocean Marketing rose to the occasion. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3395411

I would hate to see these guys get away with such unprofessional and crass behavior.

The one thing I dont understand is why are gaming companies showing public support of SOPA. They should know that the trend-setters in gaming industry are geeks and nerds who are all very aware of how internet works and how SOPA may potentially drain the life out of it. Also, a lot of gamers are tech-savvy enough that they will start pirating their games just to spite them.

The first think I did was learning advanced features of google analytics. It captures a lot of data regarding sales and marketing. But I want a holistic view of all indicators and figure out what data is important and what is the best way to capture and monitor that data.

I, for one, am glad they're not using money to get out of this. Pragmatism has replaced idealism in this day and age. I'm not even sure that its the ideals that are keeping tech mammoths from bribing US congress. But I do think that its a very dangerous precedent to set, buying your way out of a problem. Irrespective of what comes of SOPA, there will always be things that you need to fix and taking such shortcuts is not the solution.

I know I'm quoting a TV series (24, Jack Bauer), but I hope HN will evaluate the following dispassionately (irrespective of what they think of the source of the quote): "When you cross that line, it always starts off with a small step. Before you know it, you're running as fast as you can in the wrong direction just to justify why you started in the first place. These laws were written by much smarter men than me. And in the end, I know that these laws have to be more important than....... "

I'm sure many of you will think my post reeks of naivete but I'd rather be "naive" than lose hope and give in to the shady tactics.

Once we start taking the easy way out, we lose the sense of urgency and the passion to actually solve the problem. When next such bill comes, everyone will lay back and watch someone with big pockets come in and save the day. Things wil never change that way.

The fact that GoDaddy recanted is significant because any other internet companies will think twice before supporting SOPA, atleast publicly but that matters a lot. Maybe if US citizens could get more aware of the situation, they can make a dent in Media moguls' purses as well.

PR matters a lot to companies, if general population shows this kind of activism, SOPA can be defeated. Good luck US, the rest of the world is waiting for you to nip this censorship in the bud before it spreads like the virus in Resident Evil movies.

I'm wondering which side Netflix is on. They stand to gain if this goes through. But being an internet company, they must have some reservations. Anyone has any links stating their official position on this?

Logical recourse requires constant vigilance and discipline. Logic requires an environment where being illogical is detrimental to one's goals.

Take the community of Hacker News for example. Any constructive and rational chain of thought is positively reinforced by the community and any name-calling or irrational rant fades away into oblivion. Such environment keeps every participant in the honest.

The environment in politics is toxic. Not just in US but in almost all democracies. A representative, once elected, gets immersed in the political environment. He quickly adapts to the environment because its so much easier. When the time comes to be re-elected, they dont have to prove that they are competent but that they're not as bad as their competitor (or that their party is not as bad as the one they're competing against).

To effect any change, the environment needs to change. And it will not change as long as seasoned and career politicians, cynical and jaded by the political climate, keep getting re-elected. Obama is a good example of this phenomenon. I'm not a from US but I closely followed the 2008 US elections. And I bought the idea of hope. But once Obama was elected, he was submersed in the political climate and he adapted.

So, while educating congress is a step in the right direction, as the blog suggests; infusing new blood in politics is also crucial. Creating a healthy environment in the Capital (not just of US, but every country) can go a long way to affect the changes that are long way due in the political process.

I dont know how much this applies to the author but I often feel like it hits home for me:

“Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions.” -Henry Wadsworth

By that, I dont mean that you should have no ambitions, just dont get troubled by it. What I mean is, dont postpone your today's work for what you may want to work on tomorrow. Finish the small things before dreaming of the next big thing. Small things like your current job, your social obligations, your relaxation time and the time to hone your skills.

Manage your time better, every minute you can spare, invest it in your future. You won't have to go looking for inspiration, mundane things can be a great catalyst for radical/new ideas. You'll have your moment, just gain enough discipline and build a secure nest egg; so when your moment comes, you'll be prepared to take the leap.

All the best.

[Edit: pretty printing]

Even when using ACID compliant databases, Consistency check should be replicated in your application layer, atleast for mission critical data. But maybe that's just me.

Will Talwk be restricted to social media? Latest news/articles/blogs can add a lot of value to the feed, especially if one wants to follow a live event. Also, if user can integrate their facebook/twitter account to Talwk, the site can then highlight and prioritize the stuff shared by people in the user's network.

Also, Just to check the buzz about Talwk, I visited tawlk.com/#!/tawlk and witnessed the oh-so-tragic condition of the enlish language on the interwebs.

Hey Irvick, I think the timestamps on some content is coming out wrong. I saw a facebook update which had timestamp 42 years ago. I'm guessing Unix timestamp of 0 seconds. Also, I saw another tweet which showed 'a few seconds ago' but was actually posted a few days ago. Great product BTW.

[Edit: Added a missed word]