pessimizer

That happens whenever anyone is paying attention to anyone else, at least amongst apes. I vaguely recall an experiment about chimps watching people pick up oranges. Observation producing strikingly si…

>Why is it not the most important moment of his career? is not a serious question, esp. in light of tptacek's laundry list which you are replying to - it's really up to you to make a positive case…

I've definitely never met anyone who used it to mean "I'm about to ask another question" who was aware of the original meaning of the phrase when asked, so we must live at antipodes.

You are wrong. >Nobody uses it with that meaning anymore, the phrase has taken on a different meaning. I hear it used in its original meaning as often as I hear it being used in the other way. Los…

I'm usually sympathetic to that argument, but the origin of 'begs the question' is philosophical jargon, and the misuse of it perpetually reproduces itself from people hearing it being used properly, …

No, "Literature" is the label for works of middle-class introspection, whereas "Genre" fictions are books that are about any other subject matter. If you move from actually having a subject to making …

No offense taken at all, and it's a good point. It's just that what facebook is doing makes random googling look primitive.

I've never used Django, I don't have any HN buddies, I haven't lived in Arkansas for 15 years, and you are currently replying to a piece of my very public HN history on HN . Point taken, and partiall…

Stallman is an intentionally public person who wants you to know these things.

I understand the creepy feeling, though. And I'm pretty sure that through treaty, they've dramatically lowered the bar for entering into a treaty to simple Presidential whim. According to Wikipedia, "…

Stealing a cake is definitely theft, then.

Because the constitution is setting up the rules for what can completely superceed it. Basically: Congress and the President must follow these rules when governing the country, except when they agree …

Her reasons, I think, are as Moglen suggests. She has a false concern for social networking privacy issues that only exists to the extent to which she will not be inconvenienced in any way. She's not …

Probably under an article talking about some specific benefit of social networking. Hopefully no one will be enraged by your only analyzing the truth of that benefit there, rather than recounting ever…

I'm pretty sure he actually meant to put all arguments about legality aside. Any service, no matter how legal, that enables you to easily download high quality label music, no matter how illegal that …

Those are not strawmen, those are called examples. What he's saying is that "naturalness" or "antiquity" does not mean that something shouldn't be tested. For example , running is obviously very natu…

Yes, it is, in the sense that it is a common factor across every *nix system that you may need to deal with. Emacs isn't going to be everywhere.

This is video of stoned ex-drug cop Barry Cooper explaining how police can make their dogs false alert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J41K2XHpNnE And this is video of a cop doing it: http://www.yo…

I think to anyone who requests it, within a reasonable period of time, for at most a reasonable fee to cover your expenses for sending it to them IIRC.

You can't sell the software in the sense that you can't sell the permission to use the software. Somebody can use the software if it was distributed to them by someone who you distributed it to, for e…

Not liking something is different than it being "no good for everyone." Though you see that your culture is not everyone's, not acceptable within your culture is not equivalent to not acceptable full …

When somebody says that they didn't mean to be insulting, that doesn't mean that they meant to be non-insulting. If I run to catch a bus, and I didn't mean to start with my right foot, it doesn't mean…

See CentOS; reduce sarcasm.

I just corrected the grammar for illustration. I didn't have any problem understanding it. Pluralizing with an apostrophe or not using quotation marks are even common with people who have English as a…

I'm not saying that I like to read emails like that, I'm saying that to accuse somebody of having difficulties thinking when they have difficulties in grammar and spelling is a low blow. The brother o…

That's a pretty low blow. What he wrote was extremely clear, though clearly his punctuation was terrible and his spelling was shaky. If it had been read to you out loud, you wouldn't have noticed an i…

I think the problem is the quality of the deliberation of "deliberate practice." There are metaskills, such as reason, logic, understanding of cause and effect, statistical analysis, etc. that effect …

And to a significant degree, he and people who used the concepts and structures that he originated have pushed reality in that direction.

What's disingenuous about programming on a site called "Hacker News," and what would be left other than political posts if you took out the startup and programming stuff?

The contract wouldn't be enforceable.