I always assumed there WAS downvoting for a submission once you hit a certain threshold of user karma. Like flagging and other community moderating functions.
A bit offtopic but seeing your karma, I remembered that sometime ago I had made a website which finds how many words a person has written on hackernews and leaderboard stats around it.
I got curious so I checked it with your account and you are globally #23 in that you have written most words and you have written 1,822,427 words which is like 6+ games of thrones (if one GOT has around 300k words)
I also just saw that you have been on hackernews since feb 2007
Your hackernews account is older than me as I was born in 2008 ;)
I am curious how did you find hackernews and what you made stick to the platform for so long and are you perhaps some user number x of hackernews itself like say user number 230 of hackernews, I would be curious to find this data if you might know.
I do wonder if there are any tips in general life that you have for a person like me and I would love to hear your answers!
I've been meaning to ask for quite a while now: What exactly is "flag" supposed to indicate?
I assume it's something more specific than "dislike". I take it to mean something along the lines of, "I think this is (sneaky) spam", or "This does not fit on a technology news site, even tangentially.". Or, perhaps something broader like, "I can't describe what the problem is, but this submission/comment should be reviewed by a moderator."
It's just never been particularly clear what the intention of it is.
> The purpose of flagging is to indicate that a story does not belong on HN. Frivolous flagging—e.g. flagging a story that's clearly on-topic by the site guidelines just because one personally dislikes it—eventually gets an account's flagging privileges taken away. But there's a new 'hide' link for people to click if they'd just like not to see a story.
I agree with you (mostly), but I suggest you should spend an hour a week watching something new - do it while folding laundry or working out. Something you might never have chosen. There are gems out there waiting for discovery.
Now onto my response:
TV has always been this way, the only difference is there aren't time slots now, so they can develop a bunch of crap shows (that used to just get left for dead after pilot season), let them run for a season/series and gauge popularity vs cost, and cut the under performers (why I don't watch a show until a couple seasons are live).
When it was ad-supported with 4 prime-time hours across 10-ish channels (between OTA, cable, and premium), every show had to count. Streaming removes that constraint, which has actually been beneficial to producers and consumers of content. More shows means more jobs for writers, actors, directors, crew, etc., even if those shows they are working on are completely forgettable.
But with every gold rush, comes over-abundance of people panning for gold. So yes, there is an over-abundance of screenwriters. There is an over-abundance of choice on the platforms. There is an over-abundance of platforms to chose from. There is an over-abundance of over-consumption of content on these platforms.
> let them run for a season/series and gauge popularity vs cost, and cut the under performers (why I don't watch a show until a couple seasons are live).
And so you don’t contribute to the selection of shows.
It’s a dilemma. I started streaming stuff I like the sound of despite the risk of being rug-pulled, because otherwise there’s no signal that they should fund series 2.
Why would they have to offset the cost? They are just saying, being in Japan is a cheaper experience right now than ever before (not sure if it is true). The cost to get there is their only impediment. They still want to go and eat food and see experiences they cannot get at home.
Also, if the trip is of sufficient length, you can totally offset the cost.
When I lived in NYC, I used to travel to the UK a few times a year, and the flights between NYC and London were around $500 round trip. The cost of eating in the UK was typically 1/2 that of NYC, plus cool castles and history.
I remember having a pen pal from Ukraine around the year 2000 (7th-9th grade - can't remember when anymore). It was fun, but really only lasted the single school year. We were told to exchange email addresses and not physical addresses, but she didn't have an email (or didn't actually want to continue lol). Either way it was cute for a couple of 12-14 year olds from across the globe to discuss the differences in our lives.
I hate slipper slope arguments, but the march to tyranny is a very shallow slope of ice. Tomorrow it's "move 100 miles." Next year it's "pay $100 for the exit toll." In 2030 it's "we only allow 100 people to exit per day."
Right, this doesn't work in sovereign nations, only in federalism where there's a federal government that can guarantee some minimal set of freedoms to everyone (like the freedom to move to another state without impediment). Otherwise you just get the Berlin Wall.
They aren't going to give you affordable insurance even in places that don't generally get hit by floods/hurricanes/etc.
I have a house in Louisiana (up "north") - outside of a couple tornados every few years, and the heavy rains of a hurricane every few years, it is a fairly "safe" place. Never been a claim against the property, or any immediate neighbors. We aren't in a floodplain of any sort, and are on top of a hill that is around 120 feet above the closest creek.
My premium has gone up 250% over the last 3 years (after being steady for a decade). Shopping around, they are even higher. I think they are finally starting to catch up with where they needed to be for years, but I can't help but feel I'm offsetting the people "down south" with their more expensive property that is literally underwater.
> I can't help but feel I'm offsetting the people "down south" with their more expensive property that is literally underwater.
I am not sure about Louisiana, but you very well may be.
State insurance commissions sometimes promulgate onerous regulations that effectively require cost shifting. For example, if it's profitable to keep operating in a state overall, but you can't raise premiums or drop policies for the riskiest properties, then you just raise premiums across the board and let the less-risky subsidize the unprofitable policies.
And rising reinsurance premiums mean that everybody pays more to account for increasing risks and costs in the insurers' portfolios, which may be concentrated in riskier areas far from your own property.
The only information sent to the card processor is the swipe (number expiration date) and sometimes the zip code and verification code on the back (if entered by hand).
When my wife worked retail (20+ years ago), she had to verify the name on the card with the name on the machine with the name on their ID. They caught a decent number where the machine had a different name pop up than the card showed. And WAY more when comparing both to their ID.
They called her "The Bulldog" because of how vigilant she was about it. That store lead the region in CC Fraud. But soon they were the bottom of the region in shrink and loss prevention.
I worked retail for a bit in high school. I tried to check card vs ID name for about a week before the manager told me to cut that shit out - too many wives, kids, etc using "dad's" card (this was 1994, so it was almost exclusively dad's card - I imagine that's changed in the last 30 years).
Requiring additional ID for low-value credit card transactions is not necessarily good security from a customer standpoint, as it increases exposure to identity theft by store employees to reduce the relatively minor risk of small, easily reversible fraudulent transactions.
At least in my experience the "name on the machine" back then was just read from the magstripe - I had access to a track 3 writer and had some fun copying my credit card info onto my driver license and swiping that.
> the "name on the machine" back then was just read from the magstripe.
It is (or was last time I played with card readers). But a person would sometimes use a stolen card with their name on the physical card so it matched their ID.
I guess people weren't updating it digitally? Maybe it was easier to just clone a card onto a card you already have?
> The only information sent to the card processor is the swipe (number expiration date) and sometimes the zip code and verification code on the back (if entered by hand).
For credit cards? No, that's not necessarily true.
Strains are a marketing term, and also a set of "expectations". Same with indica/sativa distinction. They aren't true, but they set an expectation. What actually drives the high, is a mix of the terpenes and other cannabanoids in the flower.
Terpenes (the smell and flavor compounds in the trichomes) will guide you toward a feeling. Limonene (citrus smell) is uplifting, just like kitchen cleaner. Pinene (pine needles) is another uplifting scent/flavor. Myrcene (musky smell) is a sedating terpene. And many others.
Then there are the other cannabinoids: CBD, CBG, CBN, CBC. CBD will modulate THC effects. CBG is almost non-existent in most commercial crops, but new strains are being bred to increase this as it gives a focused high. CBN comes from the degradation of THC, and it potentially causes couching and sedation (though might be myrcene).
Now as for harvest-to-harvest differences, this is true, which is why every harvest is tested and you can get the CoA of any harvest that will give you the full breakdown of the cannabinoids in the flower.
Cannabis is not typically grown from seed, it is grown from propagation off trimmings from mother plants. They are all the exact same plant genetically. So the harvest will be VERY consistent from harvest to harvest at an industrial scale since almost all of the environmental variables are accounted for and controlled.
I think that is a different market than the market for dumb tractors. There might be some overlap, but I doubt the people who want to fix their own tractors are different than the corporations that are tracking 100 tractors across hundreds/thousands of fields.
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