HN user

samgtx

151 karma
Posts1
Comments26
View on HN

I'm curious how the hacker news algorithm works that something with (to me, currently) 9 upvotes and 1 comment can hit number 1 on the site and be hugged to death.

It's telling that your comment is currently 2nd ranked. It comes across generous "there are bright math kids everywhere" but really boils down to "don't talk about how they're black" and "don't talk about how they're women." And finished with "my male friend was disadvantaged, the conversation should be about that."

Obviously a large number of the HN crowd agrees with you because these types of comments always land at the top of any article praising a woman or underrepresented minority for their accomplishments. "Why does it matter? We are all people." That's very easy to say when you are in the position of not having your accomplishments and intelligence questioned based on your race or gender. And it shows how homogeneous the HN community is that these types of comments continue to be upvoted to the top.

Representation matters. When you have no concept of what it is like to be black in the deep south. Or to be a woman in the deep south, much less both, you have no appreciation for why stories like this are so interesting and inspiring to the people who relate to them.

Oh HN is going to love this.

A somewhat more subtle form of negation, is refinement of measurement. One man says that a tank weights ninety tons. And for that particular discussion, accuracy is of no consequence. Yet someone’s ego speaks up and says, Ninety-two tons. Maybe he’s right at that. But he’s wrong just the same. […] This is a favorite husband-and-wife game. Let’s be on guard against it.

The worst trick our ego can play on us, is to demand that we know everything. Let’s discipline ourselves until it’s easy to say, I don’t know. And let’s keep out of discussions when they’re on subjects outside of our recognized sphere. Our lack of real knowledge and experience is bound to display itself, and bring resentment from those who are really qualified to speak. Let’s slap our ego down whenever it starts laying claim to knowledge that’s too various.

If we want our opinions or beliefs to be accepted, the worst thing that we can do is to press too hard for them, or to make a personal issue of them. Better not crowd for acceptance, but rather invite it. Better tender our advice with a softening It seems to me. Or an It appears. Or a Perhaps. Or with some similar concession to the ideas of our listener. True, there are times when we must speak as authorities in no uncertain terms. Even then, reasonable humility is seldom amiss.

With our eye on our brother’s ego, we’ll see that concession is the very cornerstone of good human relations. We cannot reach human agreements without mutual concession. The self-respect that every man feels impelled to maintain, demands that he appear at least partly right. Therefore, let’s not ever try to prove anyone wholly wrong. Let’s find something herein we can feel that he’s right. Then let’s say so. We simply must not build up our own ego at any unnecessary expense of our brother’s ego. Let’s keep an eye on concession.

And zero acknowledgment that Credit Default Swaps were pioneered by Blythe Masters AT JP Morgan and used relentlessly to move risk off of balance sheets in a house of cards that led to millions losing their homes and life savings.

"In bypassing barriers between different classes, maturities, rating categories, debt seniority levels and so on, credit derivatives are creating enormous opportunities to exploit and profit from associated discontinuities in the pricing of credit risk."

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2008/sep/20/wallstreet....

And of course now she's in crypto.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-9263487/...

Great game. I have played a similar game to death on android called Flow Free. I binge the new packs as they come out. The first game/set of puzzles was free and I have purchased and completed every new pack to optimal/5 stars. They're a few dollars each. They release big packs of puzzles with new layouts and also a daily and weekly group of puzzles. Very addicting. I actually wrote them a few years ago asking for more packs to buy. If you haven't seen it before maybe take a look because I think you could do very well with this game you have built.

I just recently read This is How They Tell Me the World Ends by Nicole Perlroth which was an extremely interesting and concerning book, explaining the escalating capabilities of chained zero-day exploits to create devastating cyber attacks on critical infrastructure.

According to the book, Russia is already inside many American water treatment plants, dams, and electrical grids. This is a concerning and increasingly plausible response to the economic sanctions imposed on them by the west.

Hiding the news behind paywalls means only people with money get to be well informed. Is this not "hacker" news? Seems like a lot of well-paid people forgot where they came from.

I love this extension. It works very well. I use it to browse 20-30 different sites a month. It would cost hundreds of dollars to individually subscribe to each publication.

You want people to pay for everything? Go "disrupt" the industry and create a spotify for news.

The problem here is really that public spending has been vilified through decades of propaganda. The general public will vote against any taxation increase to pay for public works, even if those works would, in the end, lead to better lives for themselves.

Being mixed with concrete and distributed evenly throughout it, they can lay there in a dormant state for up to 200 years; only when the concrete cracks, air and moisture awaken the bacteria which use the calcium lactate as a food source and start to produce limestone, sealing off the cracks in 3 weeks’ time. The technology, currently able to seal cracks of any length but only up to 0.8 mm wide, was a finalist for the European Inventor Award 2015, an initiative of the European Patent Office (EPO).

That's brilliant. I wonder what the cost increase would be for including this solution v. the cost of traditional repairs.

It surprises me that they don't offer quiet cubicles or areas of office space for quiet workers. I see noise of coworkers as a major complaint among office workers and the source of hatred for open concept offices. Do these WeWork offices not have separated work spaces?