2008-11-07 front | Hacker News

Stories from November 7, 2008

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1.		The Food Miles Mistake: Saving the planet by eating New Zealand apples (reason.com)
		68 points by robg on Nov 7, 2008 \| 35 comments
2.		Microsoft considers adopting WebKit for Internet Explorer (appleinsider.com)
		56 points by rlm on Nov 7, 2008 \| 35 comments
3.		Steve Jobs is not like you and me. (pbs.org)
		55 points by pchristensen on Nov 7, 2008 \| 28 comments
4.		Android: float GRAVITY_DEATH_STAR_I (code.google.com)
		50 points by frisco on Nov 7, 2008 \| 24 comments
5.		Malcolm Gladwell's 5 Steps to Success (dealflow.typepad.com)
		49 points by KrisZolar on Nov 7, 2008 \| 25 comments
6.		Zed on Matt: Conclusion (zedshaw.com)
		45 points by astrec on Nov 7, 2008 \| 20 comments
7.		A very real, though slightly impractical, cure for AIDS (wsj.com)
		43 points by kf on Nov 7, 2008 \| 15 comments
		nostrademons on Nov 7, 2008 \| parent \| context \| on: Android: Worst. Bug. Ever. Good thing you didn't post this comment from an Android phone... ;-)
		wmf on Nov 7, 2008 \| parent \| context \| on: The Food Miles Mistake: Saving the planet by eatin... Correctly accounting the carbon (if it could be done accurately) would produce a better number than food-miles. And then if you add a carbon tax, in theory the supply chain would account for it automatically and the only number you'd need is price.
		ivankirigin on Nov 7, 2008 \| parent \| context \| on: The Food Miles Mistake: Saving the planet by eatin... Food miles is a great example of an oversimplification that actually hurts a cause. Just because something pollutes more in a single dimension, doesn't mean the total pollution from 30 different aspects of the production is less. But a single number is so easy to understand, people latch on to it. Add to this to repulsive, smug attitude of some people, and I get doubly annoyed.
11.		Al Gore on Twitter, for real (allthingsd.com)
		24 points by pakafka on Nov 7, 2008 \| 23 comments
		Dilpil on Nov 7, 2008 \| parent \| context \| on: Huge loss leaves GM almost out of cash Yes, we could give a low interest loan (low relative to the risk of the loan) to GM. This might save some jobs and help the US economy. Or we could let GM fail, and invest that same money in energy and biotech. Many would lose their jobs, but many more would get new jobs. These would be higher paying jobs, but also higher skilled jobs. Lets not act like these loans are free. We should keep in mind that every dollar we loan to GM is a dollar we don't loan or invest in something else.
		evgen on Nov 7, 2008 \| parent \| context \| on: How Good Was 538? Now that the "Bradley effect" has been truly buried as a meme we should start a new one: the "Stevens effect" is the unwillingness of people to admit to a pollster that they are going to vote for a crook because he occasionally brings home pork to their remote little welfare state.
		jhancock on Nov 7, 2008 \| parent \| context \| on: Paulson's Swindle Revealed What follows is a pretty harsh opinion, but I'm going to attempt to state it: In the 80s when RICO laws were being extended to drug dealers, my strict judicial process viewpoint was that you simply cannot take away property prior to a conviction. Over the years, many courts and subsequent laws have supported this practice and now its part of our legal fabric whereby many thousands of drug dealers have seen _all_ their assets seized prior to trial (and that includes anything they put in other peoples names). A judge doles out from the seized assets to allow the accused to pay attorney fees throughout the legal process and if found guilty, the gov keeps the bounty. As this practice has become standard and well vetted by our court system, I think its about time we start applying it to those that destroy our economic fabric and treat them in the same fashion we would treat a drug kingpin. Ken Lay should have never had a house in Aspen to go to to die after being found guilty in Texas. He should have had no assets and been escorted straight from the courtroom to a holding cell to await sentencing. If Paulson and many thousands of others are found guilty of fraud or gross mismanagement or collusion, we should wipe out their entire fortunes in addition to the 5 to 20 years of prison time. And God forbid we find out they illegally offshored some money...we'll need to tack on extra years for that. I am a hard working entrepreneur. I invent real things that create sustainable jobs and tangible assets. People that only flip money around while defrauding investors should be treated the same as drug dealers. I know many will think that those cheating the system are doing so "semi-legally" in that if there were no or few regulations, then they didn't technically violate the law. However, most states have "fraud legislation" that defines fraud as "what 12 members of a jury think it is." I think its about time we start putting some of these massively wealthy people that have fleeced the public in front of a jury of "our peers" and give them a fair trial.
15.		Paulson's Swindle Revealed (thenation.com)
		22 points by chaostheory on Nov 7, 2008 \| 8 comments
		bprater on Nov 7, 2008 \| parent \| context \| on: Zed on Matt: Conclusion For as much shit as people toss in Zed's direction, it's very cool the effort he made for this guy.
17.		Anatomy of a Classic - Grim Fandango (geero.net)
		21 points by andygeers on Nov 7, 2008 \| 7 comments
18.		An ErlangWeb Tutorial (erlang-web.org)
		21 points by socratees on Nov 7, 2008 \| 3 comments
19.		I Can Save The AppStore (demiforce.blogspot.com)
		21 points by comatose_kid on Nov 7, 2008 \| 9 comments
20.		Huge loss leaves GM almost out of cash (cnn.com)
		21 points by josefresco on Nov 7, 2008 \| 40 comments
21.		Should Kids Be Able to Graduate After 10th Grade? (yahoo.com)
		21 points by gscott on Nov 7, 2008 \| 39 comments
22.		BitTorrent co-founder to launch incubator for tech entrepreneurs (ashwinnavin.org)
		20 points by nreece on Nov 7, 2008 \| 4 comments
		jbyers on Nov 7, 2008 \| parent \| context \| on: Change.gov Can't resist pointing out the joys of wildcard DNS: http://spare.some.change.gov (Best read in a cockney accent.)
		patrickg-zill on Nov 7, 2008 \| parent \| context \| on: Change.gov Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start. (from http://change.gov/americaserves) Compulsory volunteerism?
		trickjarrett on Nov 7, 2008 \| parent \| context \| on: Should Kids Be Able to Graduate After 10th Grade? Our education system is horribly out of date, any option which allows them to exit the system or progress to the next stage quicker is great in my book. I'll save a rant on the current public education system in America for another time, but the Internet has changed everything and the school system needs to adapt and change quickly or it's going to begin doing more harm than good.
26.		JavaScript Graph Plotting Tool (div not canvas) (ajaxian.com)
		18 points by bdfh42 on Nov 7, 2008 \| 4 comments
		time_management on Nov 7, 2008 \| parent \| context \| on: How Good Was 538? 538 indeed kicked ass. They also got all of the Senate races right, except for the Steven race in Alaska (way off, apparently, but who'd have expected a felon to win?) and possibly Franken/Coleman in Minnesota, where they gave Franken a 52% chance.
28.		Build your own web server for $130 (ddj.com)
		17 points by seano on Nov 7, 2008 \| 2 comments
		trickjarrett on Nov 7, 2008 \| parent \| context \| on: Malcolm Gladwell's 5 Steps to Success For those who don't click through, here are the 5 steps: 1. Find meaning and inspiration in your work. 2. Work hard. 3. Discover the relationship between effort and reward. 4. Seek out complex work to avoid boredom and repetition. 5. Be autonomous and control your own destiny as much as possible.
		mynameishere on Nov 7, 2008 \| parent \| context \| on: Change.gov Don't worry about that. Worry about the removal of secret votes following card check procedures at businesses. That will allow union organizers to "organize" unions by way of muscle. But don't worry about that either.
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