vec

24 ms·

181.
by vec 9y ago
First I try really hard to not need it. e.g. I'm "vec" on HN. They don't know my real name, my physical address, or my Twitter handle. Any features that did need that data are simply not going to be implemented, and the
182.
by vec 9y ago
Without knowing anything about your software: * Build your software to stream data directly from Client A's API to Client B's API without it ever being at rest on a machine you control. * If your users want reports based off
183.
by vec 9y ago
It's not actually a reasonable goal . Almost all pieces of software will need some nontrivial amount of data to fulfill their purpose. I am convinced, however, that it is a very useful heuristic . The platonic ideal of a perfectly se
184.
by vec 9y ago
No it doesn't. It just requires a shift in your thinking. Having a database is a code smell. If you absolutely have to have a database, then having a `users` table (or equivalent) is a code smell. If you absolutely have to have a `user
185.
by vec 9y ago
> A cyclist could kill a pedestrian as well in an unfortunate accident, should we treat that as a crime? Yeah, probably. If you're operating a dangerous piece of equipment the onus is on you to do it safely. Bikes are more dangerous
186.
by vec 9y ago
A cheap used car costs a couple thousand dollars up front, plus license, insurance, maintenance, gas. Plus even cheap parking rental in a city can run to hundreds of dollars a month. Taxi/Uber/Lyft is, what, $5-15 per one-way trip
187.
by vec 9y ago
The blockchain is a towering achievement in theoretical computer science, but that wasn't the question. What is bitcoin , the currency, actually useful for?
188.
by vec 9y ago
He's complaining that Satoshi did predict how his creation would evolve, he just guessed wrong in a lot of the particulars. Because of course he was. Predicting the future is hard. But predicting the past is much easier. We have a priv
189.
by vec 9y ago
To my view, collecting and storing that much information is presumptively immoral. It creates a public hazard, in the same vein as stockpiling explosives or toxic chemicals. There is, however, a degree of respect for that hazard, demonstrat
190.
by vec 9y ago
> Also, as other commenters have pointed out, we don't want to discourage good people from running credit bureaus out of fear that innocent mistakes may get them hung. I couldn't agree more with the rest of your comment, but I
191.
by vec 9y ago
Granted, arguendo, that South Korea has a right to defend its border, and that that right extends to killing any and all North Korean forces that cross said border. There's still a difference between a defense that can attempt to kil
192.
by vec 9y ago
About 40 years, give or take.
193.
by vec 9y ago
CGP Gray did a really good video[1] about this recently. The short version is that it's the least terrible mechanism presently available for uniquely identifying and disambiguating American citizens. [1] https://www.youtube.
194.
by vec 9y ago
I've got no issue with the IRS and/or the private sector continuing to use SSNs as surrogate IDs or usernames. Being public doesn't prevent it from being used to disambiguate similar users or associate records between dataset
195.
by vec 9y ago
For the record, I'm not opposed to credit agencies buying data breach insurance on whatever terms they can negotiate. I'm just opposed to the idea that any amount of caution on their part should dissipate their (or their insurer&#
196.
by vec 9y ago
No, the entire point of Experian et al is to reduce the number of loans that can't be collected on for any reason, including but not limited to fraud. Assume a credit rating agency can lower a lender's default rate from X% to X&
197.
by vec 9y ago
> consider air travel With air travel the people bearing the risk are the direct customers. If I'm uncomfortable with the safety record of airlines I can simply not fly. How do I opt out of the risks imposed by a credit rating agenc
198.
by vec 9y ago
This isn't going to stop until we stop treating SSNs like they're secret. Mine's not; it's been leaked at least once that I know of and I've given it freely to dozens of clerks and HR staffers over the years, any of
199.
by vec 9y ago
No, it needs to be strict liability. If an entity is as responsible as possible and still accidentally causes millions of dollars of damage, they've still caused millions of dollars of damage . Some things cannot be done safely, and i
200.
by vec 9y ago
Yes, technically this can be addressed by a class action suit. Which is better than nothing, I guess. This has always struck me as an odd anti-regulatory argument, though. "Governments shouldn't use their power to distort the mark
201.
by vec 9y ago
Equifax doesn't lack accountability because they're bureaucratic. They just lack accountability, period. The customers aren't being hurt and the people being hurt aren't customers. Adding accountability to the general pu
202.
by vec 9y ago
This is true, but it omits the extremely relevant third case. When a private company has a massive failure that impacts someone other than its customers , then the impacted parties have no recourse whatsoever. You're not an Equifax cu
203.
by vec 9y ago
Because then the money just moves to whoever does have influence on how the republic is actually being run. Or, worse yet, the money just buys the power it was previously trying to influence and simply wields it directly. Weakening the form
204.
by vec 9y ago
Where possible, distributed is almost always better. Comfort and convenience, like all forms of currency, have diminishing marginal utility. Therefore, distributing the costs minimizes the net human suffering.
205.
by vec 9y ago
A system where everyone has to wade through a bureaucratic mess occasionally is certainly not dystopian. A system where only a handful of people have to wade through a bureaucratic mess with alarming regularity can get very dystopian very f
206.
by vec 9y ago
PHP's everything-is-a-template philosophy is also a user experience enhancement for developers. React's nested components may provide a much saner rendering model than PHP's glorified string concatenation, but that's a s
207.
by vec 9y ago
This is probably true, but it's a really poor rationale for choosing a templating* solution. Sure, JSX is slightly easier to pick up than a pure templating solution would be, but that doesn't mean learning modern templating tools
208.
by vec 9y ago
Disclaimer: I work for https://system76.com , and I make my living selling machines with Linux preinstalled. Well, but when's the last time you installed Windows or OSX on clean hardware? Especially one where Windows neede
209.
by vec 9y ago
Is this at all surprising? Are there any "white" Americans who don't assume they have a few percent worth of some second ethnicity in their ancestry? We've been a multiethnic society since the first European boats land
210.
by vec 9y ago
This assumes he was actually absorbing the information in the first place. On the one hand, I too would like our leaders to be as informed as possible, to have access to the most expert advisers available, and to have any tools that will ai

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