JohnsonB

So what was the terrible B2C idea?

That's not the only reason why Omega 3 is prescribed.

4) Most "software" patents (which can't even be cleanly categorized as such) are not crappy, at least with respect to all other patents. There are studies presenting this view [2, 3], but it's also based on my experience having read hundreds of patents. Almost none are revolutionary, but just as few are really as bad as the media portrays. The PTO has gotten pretty good at finding prior art (interestingly around the same time Google came around), and the really broad patents are dying out.

That's only a person assessment, not a fact, as you are making out it is. The consensus in the tech industry among almost everyone (from software developers to tech legends) is that the patent system is broken and continues to routinely pass invalid and valueless patents.

The "crappy software patents" view is common mostly because tech media routinely publishes uninformed (or disinformed? [4]) rhetoric, mostly because they garner some easy rageviews, and audiences accept it without critical thought.

No, it's because it's actually the truth and the software community is not nearly as susceptible to junk journalism as you make out.

I am not a patent lawyer or an agent, but I believe in the patent system, as I have actually worked for the mythical small-guy firm that was ripped off by the big guys and almost died, but eventually prevailed with patents.

For every example of a situation as you described, there are 10 of a patent troll shutting down another small-guy firm or making them work for slave wages.

The supplements he listed (D3, Omega 3, Iodine) actually all have huge amounts of empirical data from a diversity of sources over a long period of time associating them with positive outcomes and improved health. These are not considered "miracle cures", in fact they have gained widespread acceptance amongst medical professionals including GPs as standard best practice to recommend to patients, even if they have no specific medical ailment. It would be unwise to not take these 3 supplements, period.

Why is it hard to see the value in making a product that competes in an existing profitable and developed market space, but does so better/cheaper/more conveniently? Isn't that a significant portion of the startups in YC? E.G. Hipmunk - simply a more user friendly flight search and hotel booking? Mariusz shouldn't have to spell it out for YC in this case.

If the issue is as Mariusz describes, he shouldn't be blaming himself, but rather YC instead for not seeing the obvious market potential in fairer pricing. Either YC missed something obvious or the reason YC turned Mariusz down was for a different reason than stated.

>Addressing fellow scientists, he dismissed the singularity as “a bunch of hot air,” and went on further to declare that “the brain is not computable and no engineering can reproduce it.”

wat.

A workaround? As opposed to simply switching registrars with something decent?

The pricing model is also something from another era. It's an incredibly unattractive option for small teams just starting out, especially when compared to all the reasonably priced high quality options out there (github etc.)

Could you expand on what specific qualities a high quality engineer would have to have that would you make you turn them down? Is it something obvious like they are rude/disrespectful, or something more intuitive and that you can't narrow down like just your overall feel of if you would like to be friends with them?

You don't even need formal qualifications for those, just the actual skill, and then it's up to people to asses if you have them.

Unfortunately we can't make the modern technology-driven world simpler for people like Carmen Ortiz. The advice at the end by the author is that we (the tech community) should demystify ourselves. But, there's nothing to demystify, the complexity is there and the only way to understand it is to actually put the time in and learn it. It's not too much to ask that those prosecuting computer crimes are deeply educated in the technical details.

Because the metric is excellence. Realistically, you can't expect a 14 year old to produce something of the quality from someone with a decade more experience, all else being equal. But if they can produce something that is uncommonly ahead of your time, then you have a case for showing it off based on that fact, and it benefits the community to reward skill as early as possible and give people the opportunities that "fame" affords.

This really is the key question. When installing an app, a user should just be able to breeze through the install wizard and not waste time on every screen reading to see if it may slip an unwanted install in.

And realistically, what could the owners of the motel have done to curb illicit activity in their rooms? I mean specifically, what could they have done, that would have actually curbed abuse? What it boils down to, is that they can take all the security measures they want, but if someone can rent a room and do/sell drugs, prostitute, and leave no evidence behind, it's outside the purview of the owners, and realistically can't be stopped. This is a function of the neighborhood, not the motel owners.

That applies to any diet though, if the advice is good, but people don't follow it, it's not the fault of the diet. The point is he is singling out low carb diets as if it's the diet itself that is at fault, not just the common problem of people not following through on a diet regimen.

I can't speak for the rest of the article, but this guy's take on low carb diets is a bit...odd:

>Unfortunately, it’s an approach [Low carb diets] that leaves the vast majority of frontline obesity experts gritting their teeth, because while the strategy sometimes appears to hold up in studies, in the real world such dieters are rarely able to keep the weight off—to say nothing of the potential health risks of eating too much fat.

So he's saying that studies do support low carb diets having high efficacy rates (for weight loss), but "in the real world" this doesn't pan out. What is this unbiased, statistically significant source of data on "the real world" that he's relying on? He's ruled out studies, and it's obviously not anecdotes because that would be even worse. That basically just leaves intuition. He then goes on to cite the risks of a high protein diet (while linking it as high fat only) by linking to a WebMD article which appears to be written by an unnamed author who has poorly collated the research on the issue and left out major advances of our understanding of issues like cholesterol levels.

#8 is an opinion/partisan analysis and has no place with the rest of the list. This list is valuable because it otherwise lists encyclopedic facts which are eye-opening in nature; putting in op/eds tarnishes the credibility of the rest, and should go.

It was known well in advance of that thread asking for help on HN that Aaron was facing major prison time from the prosecution by the feds, and we also knew a fairly detailed description of his 'crime', i.e. how he didn't really commit one.

The feds going after a 20-something idealistic activist, who we all knew was completely harmless, and hadn't committed a real crime? That can't be anything other than a severe and cruel abuse of power. I'm sorry but enough information was known at the time to conclude what was going on.

1.) We're reading TOS now? Is that against the law?

2.) Irrelevant, could be a simple traffic reduction block.

3.) Too flimsy to rest the entire charge on.

It's his intent that matters, who's computer he supposedly was trying to gain property from only matters once you prove he was using false pretenses. IP/MAC spoofing is not intrinsically a fraudulent activity, and in the context of MIT's campus from where he could access JSTOR, there's no reason to assume Swartz thought he wasn't allowed to do a bit of scraping, IP blocks for low traffic's sake notwithstanding.

>When done deliberately to circumvent blocks

The blocks weren't necessarily to prevent fraud. Swartz's actions took place in the "open" culture of MIT, and that context matters and should be taken into account before you accuse Swartz of wire fraud.

>Nobody who isn't blinded by groupthink or hero worship can deny that Swartz was guilty of a number of crimes.

That is a legitimate area of debate.

That's the point, the spoofing of the IP/MAC addresses in themselves prove nothing, and yet Kerr is assessing it as such. The guy with a fake mustache could be a method actor preparing for his next role, and Swartz could have thought "MIT/JSTOR doesn't give a damn if I scrape these articles, but I don't care to ask for official resources to do it just to be told no."

How can spoofing IP/MAC addresses be considered "false pretenses" if these are considered, by nature of how computer networks and management thereof have evolved, to be transient or arbitrary in nature? Spoofing IP/MAC addresses does't even involve "pretenses", because it is a fallacious assumption (usually by the technically illiterate) that IP/MAC addresses correspond, or are even supposed to correspond, to a unique person/computer/entity in the first place. I can't say this is a good analysis by Kerr, given that he ignores extremely basic weaknesses such as this in the charges brought against Swartz.

First, returns on online dating are typically abysmally low, for everyone. Online dating shouldn't be thought of as anything other than a novelty. I think I heard somewhere that being short counts against you online more than in real life because of how easy it is to dismiss someone just based on that number.

Second, as I suspected, you haven't actually asked many girls out (is the number around 2-4?) This is most of the reason you haven't had success.

Yes, being at a height disadvantage means that overall it will be harder to get dates that you find appealing. This fact is what you are noticing, not that you can't. You said it yourself, there are short men who can get dates they like. Good looks help, but not a requirement. What are they actually doing you're not? Do you actually have to be highly successful to appear so? No. Just looking highly presentable, fit, well dressed in ones style, and yes, confident (in your own way, not a particular type of cockiness), is enough. Even those things aren't really necessary, but they help. Then it's just a matter of actually asking women you are attracted to on dates, enough women until one says 'yes', which will happen eventually. The only real impediment is that you haven't committed yourself to dating and figuring out what works, which is a typical problem with various excuses.

Question: how often do you actually ask women on dates? I mean unequivocally ask them on a "date"?

Empirically, I would say you are simply wrong. I know a fair number of short men who are successful with women. It's probably something else you are doing: dress, hygiene, posture/eye contact, lack of confidence (and not in a "you have to change who you are/act cocky" type of way.) I'm not asserting anything specific because I don't know you. Being short can hurt ones chances in the dating world, obviously, but do you really think all short guys just go dateless their whole lives? It's a ridiculous assertion.

>I was only replying specifically to the two claims that you made.

Well, that's not really true. Your post acted as a rebuff of the criticism of Switzerland, based on the logic that the US undertook similar actions. You said Switzerland "shouldn't be singled out" for criticism, yet OP wasn't singling Switzerland out but merely adding information to the topic at hand, which was Switzerland's record during WW2. So why even bring the US up? Nothing they did eliminates the need to remind people of Switzerland's abhorrent actions during WW2, and yet you still state this shouldn't be done ("Its ridiculous to single out the Swiss as shameful in WW2.")

Secondly, the statement that I quoted of yours made quite a specific argument that you didn't mention most recently, regarding how Switzerland's actions should be viewed in perspective of the times. I argued it was fallacious to say that flattening the morality of the issue just because standards were lower during the war results in less of a need to discuss Switzerland's crimes during this time. You haven't attempted to refute this point, yet your latest post still made the statement that "I was only replying specifically to the two claims that you made [Swiss rejection of refugees and theft from Holocaust victims]" (which is aside from the fact that I am not the original author of the post you first responded to.)

So it's still curious why you felt the need to rebuff gadders criticism of the Swiss during WW2 given that it was on topic, even acknowledging similar actions take by the US.

>Its ridiculous to single out the Swiss as shameful in WW2, looking at norms 70 years ago would make all people "shameful" in some way.

Are you actually equating all acts of 'shamefulness' during the 30s/40s at the same level? Your statement is tantamount to equating the actions of the allies with the axis, which is obviously ludicrous. The Swiss acted uncharacteristically selfishly and shamefully, even when compared to the record of the US. There's no need to jump to some half-baked defense of the Swiss, they deserve every bit of criticism leveled at them for their actions during WW2.

Can you say why you got sued for PairMixer? Was it patent related?

Shouldn't it be cheaper because it's an ebook? Free to distribute and higher profit margins.