swombat

85 ms·

841.
by swombat 13y ago
My company, GrantTree, is also run with open salaries (internally, though I posted the salary scale in an HN comment before). There was some disgruntlement when everyone was underpaid, but there's been remarkably little disgruntlement
842.
by swombat 13y ago
"I don't have the ability to forward this to the CEO"? Fix that even before fixing the reconciliations...
843.
White house task force recommends curbing NSA surveillance(bbc.co.uk)
5 points by swombat 13y ago|1 comments
844.
by swombat 13y ago
I read through part of the slightly scammy-looking long sales letter (complete with bullet points and money-back guarantee) at https://knowyourcompany.com/ and still don't have a clue what this product does. Can anyone
845.
by swombat 13y ago
Everything's debatable! But there are pretty strong arguments for "killing sentient beings is wrong". Most morality stems from the Golden Rule (treat others as you'd want to be treated). If we take that as a given (a rea
846.
by swombat 13y ago
Nature is not morally right. In fact, nature is amoral. Pointing to nature and saying "nature does it so it's ok" is a bit like pointing at a landslide and saying "nature does it so it's ok to build my house like th
847.
by swombat 13y ago
I've been using NFC to make various purchases for some time and have not made one single mistake. Even if I did, where exactly do these $25 charges come from? Who charges them? I've not been charged any extra charges for using NFC
848.
by swombat 13y ago
Looks brilliant. I've put my email in the preorder form... I'd buy one right now if it was available. I hope they deliver to the UK.
849.
by swombat 13y ago
"Never play at any kind of game."??? Right... This may have been of interest and gone "viral" 150 years ago, but I fail to see how it's of much interest today... That some of the advice is still relevant is hardly s
850.
by swombat 13y ago
ValleyWag is probably auto-banned because it is generally low quality polemic stuff.
851.
by swombat 13y ago
I think his post in this thread is fairly informative. I didn't realise snakes could cause that much damage to a holiday paradise by eating the birds that eat the spiders.
852.
by swombat 13y ago
Because the universe will end at some point, either getting to a point of maximal entropy, or via a big crunch, or some other unknown mechanism. One could conceivably escape from this by escaping to another universe - if that's possibl
853.
by swombat 13y ago
That has happened with Crossrail actually... for example, the Liverpool Street station digging uncovered countless artefacts from Bedlam, aka Bethlehem Mental Hospital. Human remains and other things that can't just be tunnelled throug
854.
by swombat 13y ago
Encryption is a tool, like a knife. The use of it is what makes an action useful or not: to cut a steak, or to stab an innocent person.
855.
by swombat 13y ago
Reducing costs is not necessarily linked to reducing quality of life for workers. In the early 20th century, Taylor deliberately attempted to increase both pay/quality of life and productivity, by encouraging systems where workers and
856.
by swombat 13y ago
The fairly standard solution that the West developed to these specific problems of capitalism is unions. Based on this article, what seems to be needed is unionisation. Of course, history shows that this is not an easy path. But history als
857.
by swombat 13y ago
The level of both classes is nevertheless much higher than the level of the earlier economy, before capitalism and its effects. Unrestrained capitalism may of course creates huge levels of inequality. Luckily, unrestrained capitalism was la
858.
by swombat 13y ago
We do, but that seems like a fairly off-topic comment in this case, since this is an article about software companies... What I also know is he's a pretty terrible writer - Ender's Game is fantastic, but the sequels are progressiv
859.
by swombat 13y ago
> In Mavericks, pushing that power button automatically puts the computer to sleep, no questions asked. Wtf, really? That was one of the features I used to show as a sensible difference between mac and PC... that a windows pc will just
860.
by swombat 13y ago
GrantTree is a pretty cool and relaxed environment. And it's occasionally offensive. That's part of not being a boring and uptight environment.
861.
by swombat 13y ago
Hilarious that the original article was flagged off the front page, but this one isn't... I find it very disheartening that the negative voices are being given so much weight. Everything that's worth doing will have detractors, an
862.
FDA orders 23andMe to halt sales of DNA test kit(theverge.com)
3 points by swombat 13y ago|0 comments
863.
by swombat 13y ago
Arguable. According most low-carb diets, eating meat is good for you and it's carbs that screw you over.
864.
by swombat 13y ago
> I am a hard line atheist [...]. Idealists lie to themselves and others, because they mix up their self image with their opinions -- or they are just propagandists (since they know they are correct, the target is "winning", n
865.
by swombat 13y ago
Making the healthcare data public in an anonymised format would not affect people's jobs, unless there is some property of that data that makes it easily identifiable.
866.
by swombat 13y ago
Excellent speech, well worth reading. Very interesting angle on the spying situation that I wasn't aware of.
867.
by swombat 13y ago
Here's article 8 of the convention: > Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life > 1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. > There shall be no i
868.
by swombat 13y ago
Nope, it's not a right - or rather, that right is not protected in any kind of legal document. It's not a legal right or even a legal privilege. It's just a custom that stems out of the fact that most employers are worried ab
869.
by swombat 13y ago
> How do you reward excellence? There will surely come a time where an employee has been working considerably harder than his colleagues asks for a pay-increase. How do you envision this would go down with the other employees? Your Clie
870.
by swombat 13y ago
Why would it violate any rights to privacy? What rights are you talking about, anyway? The only thing we don't share openly in this manner is personal health problems.

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