If you do upload your wallet to "the cloud", you should definitely encrypt it with strong encryption and with a password of appropriate entropy. Otherwise, you're just asking for someone to steal your coins.
I have successfully removed bogus credit dings from my report. You have to follow a lot of steps and document everything well. If the creditor or agency doesn't respond correctly, you can sue them in small claims court for violations of the Fair Credit Reporting Act. The lawsuit always gets their attention!
Fortunately, FAA regulations also seem to require the flight attendants to sit in their seats during takeoff and landing.
Once the flight attendants are done "policing" the isles and get in their seats, I just take out my Kindle and start reading again.
So far, I haven't caused any aircraft crashes... and my fellow travelers have never called me out on it: apparently they also think the rules are stupid.
Yep. At least some HN members will get the same attitude back at them in the form of their users bragging to others about how smart they are since they managed to bypass the company firewall or some such thing, and saying "so far, I haven't caused any security breaches, so it can't hurt"..
I think you chose a bad example. Company firewalls exist to manage risk and liability for upper management, not to provide any type of real security. If a security incident happens, management wants to be able to say they did their due diligence and paid for the "best" firewall on the market.
Following the rules simply for the sake of following the rules only does not make you better than anyone else, or noble, or good, or any other such thing. It makes you obedient.
Stupid is as stupid does right? Also when the going gets tough, the tough get going. And don't forget rome wasn't built in a day. A quitter never wins, and a winner never quits.
Hacker News is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get.
For the record, I don't really advocate disobeying or even arguing with air crewmembers. That's a well-considered holdover from maritime law that probably goes back a thousand years: their boat, their rules. However, if nobody pushed back, the annoying parts of the rules would never be fixed.
I spent a large part of my career working for a small company in Silicon Valley that became a Very Big Company.
One of the things that the CEO liked to do for a while is have a "lunch with the interns” during the summer. He’d chat with them and give them an opportunity to ask questions. As the manager of a lot of interns, I was also invited, and I often went. I was (and still am) on a first-name basis with the CEO.
One time an intern asked, “what do I need to become the CEO of a company like this?” The question made me laugh, because I already knew the answer. The answer is that there is no answer. You must have a vision about what you can do, and you must believe it. If you allow every idiot in the world to draw a box around your behavior, you won’t accomplish anything.
I know that the Kindle (with wifi off) isn't going to crash the airplane. Amazon knows that the Kindle isn't going to crash the airplane. So why should I respect the opinion of the flight attendant? The flight attendant is, after all, a flight attendant because they would have never had make it through differential equations without sleeping with the professor. So why should I give that ditz any respect?
This isn’t about ‘entitlement’. Take all that crap your professors at the university told you and put it in /dev/null where it belongs. Reframe the issue in terms of what is right and what is possible.
If you want to be truly successful, you must learn about breaking the rules. (And by “truly” successful, I mean truly successful. If your goal is to accumulate $800K in your 401K and own a house in Sunnyvale, California outright… well you can do that by following all the rules and following Company Policies.)
Write your own rules in life.
Perhaps I already answered your question, “And what's so difficult about following the rules and being inconvenienced for 20 minutes.” And if you don’t feel that I did, it means that you’ll never find the answer.
Maybe you’ll find success. Or maybe you won’t. But the feeling will be liberating. There is no man like a free man.
> The flight attendant is, after all, a flight attendant because they would have never had make it through differential equations without sleeping with the professor. So why should I give that ditz any respect?
I was with you until this smug bullshit. Using your Kindle during takeoff isn't entitled at all, but thinking your college grades make you a better person than a hard-working wage-earner is both ludicrously entitled and plain stupid.
Lemme clue you in here: The flight attendant knows your Kindle won't crash the plane. The gas station attendant knows your cell phone won't blow up the pump. They do not get to make the rules; they only get to follow them, or else lose their jobs. By all means, go about your business once the attendant is settled in for takeoff; but respect them while they're trying to do their job. They probably work harder than you, for less respect and less pay.
Thank you for proving the parent's point about entitlement. "So why should I give that ditz any respect?" Seriously? "There is no man like a free man"? As if reading your Kindle during takeoff is going to turn you into a Randian ubermensch ready to disrupt every industry in the world?
Sometimes, people actually are entitled. Something to think about.
This isn't to say that the engineer is necessarily correct and the flight attendant necessarily incorrect, and I don't agree that the "sleeping with the professor" statement can necessarily be applied in general, but following rules 'cause rules are rules is not really something to aspire to. It's unfortunate that for many, blind conformity seems to be the order of the day.
I agree with you. I think the rule is asinine as well, I'm glad it's dead, and I think we should be pushing back against stupid things. And following rules for rules' sake is a stupid thing.
But I don't think that meaningless platitudes or misogynistic stereotypes are a good justification for entitlement. Someone who's read the literature and understands why there's almost no way consumer electronics can affect a modern airliner's avionics might be more entitled than someone who thrives on 'breaking the rules' and thinks flight attendants are stupid 'ditzes'. What happens when that stupid ditz says something that turns out to be right?
>Someone who's read the literature and understands why there's almost no way consumer electronics can affect a modern airliner's avionics might be more entitled than someone who thrives on 'breaking the rules' and thinks flight attendants are stupid 'ditzes'.
I'm not really sure that we disagree here, although you seem to suggest that there is some mutual exclusion between people who are informed and people who enjoy breaking stupid rules, which is silly.
>What happens when that stupid ditz says something that turns out to be right?
I don't know, what happens? I didn't suggest that flight attendants are always wrong, nor that stupid people are always wrong (nor that flight attendants are always stupid). Though I think that my issue here is less about being factually correct and more about providing adequate justification for why you're correct.
I don't even understand what you are saying here. All you are doing is spewing anecdotes and platitudes.
You want to be successful I guess? Good for you. I don't know how that's germane to this discussion. Also don't assume everyone here went to university. And don't assume anyone shares your idea of what success is.
Now put your fucking Kindle away like everyone else or find a different way to get to where you are going. It's that simple.
I worked as a manager at a major semiconductor company in Silicon Valley for many years. I interviewed thousands of candidates, many of who were older than me.
I noticed that older engineers seemed to bifurcate into two groups: the ones who were curious about everything, and the ones who stayed in their box.
The ones who were curious about everything remained great engineers. They tinkered with new technologies, read books about software project management, wrote cool little programs in unusual languages like Haskell or Scheme, etc. These guys were invariably great engineers, and their experience was just icing on the cake.
The ones who stayed in their niche of writing x86 assembly, COBOL applications for mainframes or writing the same class of network drivers for Linux for fifteen years were usually awful.
I don't doubt that there is actual ageism out there. However, when I did interviews I never cared. However, I also noticed that the "lazy engineers" hadn't really done anything in their career to expand their skill set beyond the minimum their employers required them to do, and I could see why they were not employable. The older "curious, passionate" engineers I hired worked out awesome.
The type of people you describe exist not only in the programming field, but in every single walk of life. We simply notice more because our field changes so quickly.
There will always be people who remain curious throughout their lives, as there will always be people who stay close to what they know because they believe it to be safe.
I am the same 'greenlander' that is referred to in the article. LOL, it's a small world.
The only thing I can suggest to all you of guys out there (and I know that 90%-95% of the readership here is 'guys' and not 'chicks') is to get educated.
The problem is that you must have the confidence to write your own rules in life. If you speak with confidence, move with confidence, dress with confidence, and act with confidence, you'll have your choice among women.
The irony of it is that you only get confidence from past success. You must move beyond your nerd persona from high school. If you adopt the mantra "I AM the prize" and actually truly believe it, women will believe it too.
I cleaned up my act. I was just a cubicle nerd in Silicon Valley. (Although I must have had something going for me: I became a manager.) I hired a personal trainer and started to hit the gym like a wild animal. My abs came out: I hadn’t seem them since high school. I changed my diet. (Hint: The Paleo/Atkins diet works.) I started a relationship with a tailor and ordered a lot of made-to-measure clothing. I subscribed to GQ.
I read HN every day. The technical articles are fascinating, and the writing brilliant. Yesterday I spent a large section of my day reading a set of about 450 slides about subtleties in the C language that was linked from this site. Today I spent a good fraction of my morning reading about elliptical-curve cryptography. I am a nerd at heart.
Yet, I’m not a nerd in the sense that you think of. When I meet a new girl, my frame is “I’m going to bend you over my kitchen table and fuck you like the dirty ho that you are.” She knows it just by my speech, my body language, and how I act. Obviously, some women won’t step into that “frame”. It doesn’t matter: the thing you have to realize is that men display, and women select. The key to catching women is approaching more women. Depending on your perceived status, a certain fraction of women will ‘select’ you. Don’t waste time with women who don’t ‘select’ you. Focus on the ones who do.
I can already hear the shrill cries of “oh, no GOOD girls would select a guy like that.” It’s a fallacy. Women are emotional, and when they step into the strong frame of a man with whom they resonate, all bets are off. The nice HR girl you took to dinner at a fashionable restaurant on University Ave. in Palo Alto will screw a guy in the back seat of a car if he has high enough status. Give up your good girl/bad girl dichotomy.
The problem I have now is described as the “players’ curse.” The sheer numbers of women riding the “cock carousel” (i.e., slut it up in your 20s, find the beta provider in your early 30s) has distorted the market. (If you don’t believe me, shut the fuck up and go read the reference sources I cited above.) In my 20s I dreamed of children and family in my 20s. Lots of men are simply dropping out of the “mating market” and simply jerking off and not dating because women in their 20s don’t select their twentysomething equivalents. A man in that situation has two choices: to kick up his game a notice, or just to retreat into porn and World of Warcraft. The paradox is that a man of willpower and clarity that can put effort into cleaning up his act can break into the side of “the selected” and score plenty of vj. Once you understand that, you can see modern-day feminism for the hoax that it is. It is a pox on the civilized world.
I can already foresee that somebody out there is going to some ‘white knight’ jerkoffs who are going to call me a ‘misogynist’. For the record, a misogynist is someone that HATES women. I’m not a misogynist. Roissy/Heartist is not a misogynist. Roosh is not a misogynist. Usually, the ‘misogynist’ stick is used to say, “you’re not being politically correct.” If you want to say, “greenlander, you’re not being politically correct,” I’ll accept that. I’ll accept it even if you want to say, “greenlander, you’re a self-absorbed, narcissistic, self-deluded dickhead.” It’s the truth. But don’t call me a misogynist: I love women. One must simply see them for what they are.
The great thing is that it doesn’t matter how many people out there slander me with politically-correct ad-homonyms. A man who is ready to see the truth will follow the path if even a tiny morsel of the truth is laid before him. And if I even help one nerd change his life for the better by nudging him in the right direction, the past hour I’ve spent writing this post will not have been in vain.
Agree with this. It takes gonads and a willingness to embrace rejection in order to 'get results'. Many fellas can't/won't improve themselves on their own. My advice: group therapy. Hang-out/go-out with other men that have game. Be a wingman ( alcohol helps) . That is how it happened for me.
This may have been like 15 years ago, but I had a friend that was so bold that he once walked up to a stranger(girl) waiting in line to enter a bar and started making-out with her. Couldn't believe she didn't slap him!
Also, take advice from woman about how to dress metro and such but not on how to pick up woman. In fact do the opposite of what they say.
There is too much thinking going on here. This usually works: go up to girl, talk to girl, repeat. If you think to yourself "I need to show confidence", you are not confident and there's no need to pretend that you are. Plenty of girls are just as attracted to awkwardness. Rather than introducing yourself as some GQ character, be a real person instead. Too many guys are obsessed with "confidence" which is usually defined as being a dick. These guys tend to measure their self-worth by whether or not the hot girl likes them, so scoring is a big deal. Stop thinking: go up to girl, talk to girl, repeat.
I don't disagree that the techniques you mention work to attract some women. But did you ever for a minute realize that playing that game just lands you women of the quality which you deplore.
The way I see it... I don't want my wife and mother of my children to be a ho. Yet I have a feeling that this is how you see all of them.
Sorry, but you're the guy (as a type) I went on tons of dates with before meeting my current boyfriend. I always ended up running away, because I felt like you were out to impress me and not actually, you know, talk to me.
To me, had I gotten into a relationship with you, I would have had no idea of how to deal with your emotional needs - plus how would I expect you to take care of mine. There never was any hint of that on a date with that type.
Which is why I am not dating a guy like you at all...
This approach is the same as for 'Nigerian inheritance' scams - the whole point of an aggressive start is to ensure scaring away people who aren't going to fall for it, so you don't waste time on them.
Spammers deliberately make horrible e-mails that only the gullible will reply - with credible emails they have to waste time on 'unproductive' leads, there is research on that. The parent poster is perfectly happy with scaring away girls that want their emotional needs taken care of, since he's looking for something different anyway.
FWIW, I think he fully realizes this and has chosen not to care:
> Obviously, some women won’t step into that “frame”. It doesn’t matter: the thing you have to realize is that men display, and women select. The key to catching women is approaching more women. Depending on your perceived status, a certain fraction of women will ‘select’ you. Don’t waste time with women who don’t ‘select’ you. Focus on the ones who do.
> you're the guy (as a type) I went on tons of dates with before meeting my current boyfriend.
TONS OF DATES, you say?
So in other words, his strategy worked. Or were you a virgin until you met your boyfriend? Of course you were.
No, you dated/fucked a bunch of guys who wouldn't settle down with you, until you finally found a guy who would. A guy who was distinctly different than the other type, the A type.
It's incredible to me how you can type something like that and not realize what you're saying. I mean seriously. Completely oblivious.
I can see your point, but as someone with a long sting as a manager in Silicon Valley I can tell you what happens in real life. Employees divide into two groups: the "honest" ones and the "work the system" ones.
The honest ones take sick days when they are sick. Out of ten sick days they take one or three or eight. The number they take each year depends on how sick they got and how often.
The "work the system" ones take the full allotment every year.
The problem there is the word "allotment". How can you allocate in advance how many sick days to give? If you allot (say) four days sick each year, and an employee is sick three times, surely the rational choice towards the end of the year is to "use up" that allotment?
Without an allotment, employees will generally take a sick day when they're actually sick. Sometimes you'll notice someone who seems to take a lot of sick days. In that case you want to have a friendly chat with them - it's almost never the case that they're just taking free days, rather it's almost always situations like: they're not happy for some reason, they need flex working, they can't afford to repair a car and the commute is worse, they're suffering stress, etc etc. In other words, things it is useful to know about so you can help them (and hence help the company).
Sick day allotments are a way of ineffective managers avoiding confrontations with people: they just end up punishing everyone.
"work the system" employees will break whatever system you give them. I still think a separate sick day pool is better because sick people don't have a good reason to come to work other than having exhausted their sick days.
Solve the problem by weeding out the employees who work the system, not by moving to PTO-only and making your entire office sick more often to save a little money.
My current workplace has a policy of no sick day pool - just don't come in sick, no policy limit. If you're abusing the system, your manager will bring it up with you.
In the US, you have an "allotment" of sick days (say around 10), that defines how many days you can take off sick?
(In the UK) I don't think I've ever heard of such a thing. Surely people are sick however much they are sick? You can't limit your sickness to 10 days a year!
"paid" sick days. You can be sick for more than 10 days a year, but you won't be paid for all of them. Different companies have different policies. The company I work for has just a general PTO pool, and you take that for your sick days and your vacation.
Why bother splitting? Just give a full month off. Use it as you see fit. Spent all of it and now you're sick? Tough luck.
I'm sure there's labour laws that mandate the split. I just can't help but feel that nearly everyone would rather take a guaranteed month of time for "whatever comes up" than "two weeks vacation" and "better make sure you (and your family) aren't sick for more than two weeks annually." Just as I can't help but feel that employers actually prefer the split because dealing with the "'work the system'" ones is cheaper than just treating every employee like an adult by giving them more than a pittance of time away from the office.
The point is 'tough luck' gets the entire office sick by making sick employees come in to work. You almost never want this. It has a tremendous negative effect on productivity.
You also can't ignore the psychological effect of having to 'give up' time off (for a vacation with your kids, or a visit to your parents on their deathbed) in order to avoid going to work sick. It causes people to go to work sick a lot more often, because they can't anticipate when they will need time off. It also diminishes the rate at which they will use vacation time because they can't accurately estimate how often they'll get sick.
How exactly does 2 weeks paid vacation and 8 days paid sick leave change any of this? You're still out of luck if you end up bed-ridden for two weeks with the flu. My alternative of giving everyone a minimum chunk of four weeks --preferably six, but a minimum of four-- of paid time off for whatever reason gives people more breathing room, not less. They get more time off than they would have otherwise. This keeps more sick people out of the office, because they aren't having to worry about eating up precious PTO on what might get the office sick, or might just be a stomach bug.
Honestly, I sense people are latching on to my "tough luck" comment without bothering to think the rest of my comment through.
And they probably won't do that until they've convicted "Dread Pirate Roberts"