r_smart

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421.
by r_smart 10y ago
I think this is a hugely important question. There's nothing about private prisons that says they have to be worse than state-run prisons. As a crazy thought experiment, a private-prison could drive profits up by creating an environm
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by r_smart 10y ago
I doubt it. We're already all paying for that to be conducted on everyone in the country.
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by r_smart 10y ago
Private schools are for profit. They are generally regarded as the best education you can get for K-12 schooling (at least where I live in the US). Same goes for many of the colleges in the US (actually, wait, isn't that the difference
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by r_smart 10y ago
You're conflating two things here. The United States, despite it's many flaws (one of them being surveillance) has a pretty sterling record on freedom of speech. This predated the internet, and has survived, possibly even strength
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by r_smart 10y ago
As another interesting point, it's codified into American law that the rights outlined in the constitution (freedom of speech for example) are not granted by the laws, but a source outside them. The constitution merely recognizes those
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by r_smart 10y ago
I would recommend reading a touch about freedom of speech in the US, particularly the 'Shout Fire' thing [0]. That quote comes from a Supreme Court justice in ruling the 1st Amendment doesn't protect criticism of the draft, a
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by r_smart 10y ago
As an anecdotal reply from a totally random person on the internet: Your feelings are spot on. I was really impressed with the clear shift in Microsoft. They were on their way to becoming the cool tech company I could kind of get behind (as
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by r_smart 10y ago
I expect eventually margins on hardware will come up and new players will enter. Maybe not, but the siren song of software's high margins and flexibility is only going to last so long. Innovation in hardware is going to slow down a lot
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by r_smart 10y ago
Bathwater doesn't have morale. I worked at a semiconductor company while in school and for a bit after graduating. It's a volatile industry and layoffs are frequent. Every time anything happened, people were just concerned about l
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by r_smart 10y ago
I work with a guy like this. His knowledge base is vast (we're electrical engineers and he's a master of both hardware and software). He's also a shambling zombie from a lifetime of hacking through the night. I'm not exa
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by r_smart 10y ago
I imagine the logic is fairly simple: Same business, same products, less overhead. This should drive up profits in the short term, and if operations continue as they were previously, in the long term too. They also get to use terms like &#x
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by r_smart 10y ago
Not that it necessarily hurts your point, but your numbers are likely way off. The article doesn't say where the layoffs are coming from other than moving from hardware to software. I expect this means that they're firing some des
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by r_smart 10y ago
Yeah, it's always felt weird to me that there's so much hand-wringing about this stuff when it's clearly the work, in large part, of children being edge-lords. Maybe it's just my perspective from playing WoW a lot back i
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by r_smart 10y ago
Wasn't there a large research project just done on twitter abuse that showed 1/2 of online harassers are women?
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by r_smart 10y ago
Teachers make less to start as a result of the unions. The people running the union are later in their careers so the increased wages tend to accumulate to more senior positions. At least, that's how it's going for my friend who
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by r_smart 10y ago
Wait, are you surprised that adherents to Abrahamic religions would be in support of capital punishment? Each of the holy texts are filled with harsh judgments and abusive punishments meted out by god or god's servants. Also your comme
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by r_smart 10y ago
I think you've overlooked the middle-ground: Stop engaging in tracking and spying and instead just show me adds. Many people who run ad-blockers (myself included) don't mind the ads, we mind the invasion of privacy.
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by r_smart 10y ago
I've never gotten past the first agreement in this book because I was never able to succeed at it. I set myself a goal once to abide by the agreement for just a weekend, at which point I would move on to the rest of the book. Conscious
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by r_smart 10y ago
Another point to tack onto this: The value of the work itself is well worth paying for, even if it has hidden costs to it, like when we drive cars or buy things made in sweatshops. His books are beautiful, and were influential to me when I
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by r_smart 10y ago
For me, I've found its / it's is a class of mistake that I never made when writing by hand, however, now that I type almost everything, and have a decent typing speed, I just sort of get whichever one comes out. This happens
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by r_smart 10y ago
Plus, depending on the state, a Professional Engineer (a certification earned) has to sign off on this stuff and is liable in the event of something catastrophic happening, like the building falling over.
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by r_smart 10y ago
Thanks for the tip off on that, it looks like a decent work around for what I'm looking for. Except that I hate getting a lot of email, but I'll have to live with it. One of the things I get frustrated by with online conversations
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by r_smart 10y ago
As a long time lurker, but a brand new user, I think my one criticism, as it relates to the article, would be that HN doesn't facilitate conversations as well as I would like. Or I'm using the site wrong. So far as I can tell, the
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by r_smart 10y ago
I think this is what dang means when he talks about building the technology to make the site YC wants. Users will use the features to get the results they want, often against the intentions of the site creators. reddit and the ongoing battl
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by r_smart 10y ago
I've lurked on this site for maybe 4 years and only recently created an account. I find that I'm okay with downvotes on particular comments, but what kills me is having my score right there at the top of the page all the time. Jus
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by r_smart 10y ago
I was referring to Woodstock, largely considered the high-water mark in hippy culture and my experience with hippies in my personal life when I was close to the group. You decided neither of those groups are hippies, though I have no idea w
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by r_smart 10y ago
Interesting. My take on it is that most people have never paid much attention to the details how candidates are chosen and know they're going to vote with their party anyway or will wait until November to decide on their 'lesser o
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by r_smart 10y ago
I feel like your comment would be more useful if you were to raise your concern (which you did) and suggest some books written by women you think warrant inclusion on the list. Otherwise you're just complaining.
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by r_smart 10y ago
I'm just saying the movie shifted my perspective some. Also, IIRC, he got on the stage and thanked them while it was still going on. Before he saw the mountain of trash they left on his property.
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by r_smart 10y ago
I'm wondering if there's a (perhaps unintentional) effect of anchoring people's expectations low prior to getting to negotiations. That coupled with SOs reputation in the industry, which might motivate people to join anyway,

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