apatters

94 ms·

721.
by apatters 10y ago
I believe that in Bangkok the Thai language schools currently require 8 hours of study a week to qualify for a student visa, which is more than it used to be but is still incredibly lenient. In the provinces I hear the requirements are even
722.
by apatters 10y ago
I have held various types of visas during my time here. One of the perks of Thailand, immigration-wise, is that while it can be a hassle (visa runs, bureaucracy, or both), there is always some way to stay here legally for as long as you wan
723.
by apatters 10y ago
That is a really extreme definition of externalized costs in my view. No one is literally forced to run the same software as someone else. By extending the definition of 'force' to include 'being inconvenienced' we cheap
724.
by apatters 10y ago
I think this may be correct. What kind of mother pens an article to the Guardian about how her daughter is dumb, blames it on her husband, and holds nightly reading lessons that make her child cry? Certainly an overbearing one. It sounds li
725.
by apatters 10y ago
What are the externalized costs of running software that violates your privacy?
726.
by apatters 10y ago
This is exactly the problem. What is needed is a movement of angry populists which will unfortunately introduce its own set of problems.
727.
by apatters 10y ago
Bangkok, because it offers all the amenities of a major city at less than half the cost. It has world class restaurants, nightlife that never stops, good public transport, and endless beaches an hour away. I traveled extensively and lived i
728.
by apatters 10y ago
I have participated in privacy reviews at one of the largest tech companies and they basically boiled down to 1) are we making sure this behavior is disclosed somewhere, 2) can we get sued for this, and 3) will this enrage people so much th
729.
by apatters 10y ago
A less heavy-handed alternative could be to pass a law requiring the clear disclosure of certain privacy-compromising or otherwise user hostile behaviors prior to installation. Not hidden in a 100 page EULA that no one actually reads, but s
730.
by apatters 10y ago
For me at least the definition of an open protocol is one where the spec is published and anyone can develop a complete implementation by following it which is free from licenses, royalties, etc. I don't understand exactly what the pro
731.
by apatters 10y ago
While I'm normally a fan of Derek's musings, this one is too pithy for me. He is painting with too broad of a brush. There are all kinds of reasons why you might tell an employee to make small changes: maybe one small change will
732.
by apatters 10y ago
Is it really that they don't like improving UX, or is it that they don't know how, or don't respect people who understand UX? I like improving UX but when I look at many open source projects from the outside they are run by c
733.
by apatters 10y ago
I appreciate comments to the effect that we should look at markets we understand and problems we have solved. This is good advice and it's something we have done. We have a good list of ideas from that process. My intent behind this qu
734.
Ask HN: What's a good business opportunity in web apps/services today?
2 points by apatters 10y ago|5 comments
735.
by apatters 10y ago
> For instance, I’d use Facebook and Twitter much less on my phone if I had to use them through the browser This was the most interesting line in the article for me because I recently had the same thought. But my reaction was to uninstal
736.
by apatters 10y ago
A more defensible position, and doubtlessly closer to the parent's original intent, would be amending the statement to "the content of the Internet." I agree that government is becoming too involved in that.
737.
by apatters 10y ago
Well, you are arguing a slippery slope fallacy here. I never suggested that sites shouldn't be able to make money. Speaking solely on behalf of myself as a single participant in the market, a content publisher who expects me to view ad
738.
by apatters 10y ago
So... do I eat the chocolate cookies, or not? This is so difficult!
739.
by apatters 10y ago
This is hard to respond to without resorting to cultural reductionism, but there are many societies in which economic advancement beyond the means of a comfortable middle class life is not highly valued by everyone. Australians talk about t
740.
by apatters 10y ago
Whether UBI works or not might turn out to be a cultural thing. There are societies which value getting ahead of your neighbors and there are societies which value everyone being roughly equal. In a society where being too ambitious is frow
741.
by apatters 10y ago
As it happens I'm reading this piece from Savannakhet, Laos PDR. No disrespect to Tim but when you spend time in places like Savannakhet, it's easy to see just how detached from the reality of the world population some of these se
742.
by apatters 10y ago
Can we get a feature which lets you suppress sites from the HN listings if they prevent you from using adblockers? I am happy with just writing off those publications as if they don't exist, but unfortunately they still show up on HN a
743.
by apatters 10y ago
> I would agree that for a long time OpenOffice had compatibility issues (often no worse than trying to open an Office document on a Mac) but those days are long gone. Downloaded a .docx template from Hubspot recently, LibreOffice could
744.
by apatters 10y ago
Why the cheap shot at libertarianism at the end? As if fewer regulations and more personal freedoms are only interesting to "crazy techies?" This throwaway line really damaged the credibility of the post for me because it got me w
745.
by apatters 10y ago
I wish the article had spent more time discussing the root causes of the centralized Internet and ways to address them. This is the most interesting problem in tech right now in my opinion and many people are working on it from different an
746.
by apatters 10y ago
So increased smartphone usage may be impairing our reflective abilities, but to play devil's advocate, what is it imparting instead which is beneficial? As the article notes, a thought may be tweeted out to others instantly and develop
747.
by apatters 10y ago
Does anybody have any information on completing a computer science undergraduate degree in this manner? I'd like to do it but I don't know of any resources that rank the online programs of various schools. Is your physical presenc
748.
by apatters 10y ago
How on earth does an article like this have anything to do with hacker news?
749.
by apatters 10y ago
Does anyone know of a fun and engaging way to learn emacs, like VIM Adventures? I sit and stare at a list of emacs hotkeys any time I want to give it a shot and my eyes glaze over.
750.
by apatters 10y ago
Aha, that must be what I am!

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