andymorris's comments

andymorris | 15 years ago | on: Most profitable movie ever was also most pirated of 2010

I am exactly the type of person Kick-Ass is targeted towards. If it was not available to me via torrent, I would not watch it at all. As it is, I have it downloaded, but not watched yet.

There is no possible universe where Kick-Ass has made money from me.

andymorris | 15 years ago | on: Follow people on Hacker News

I just added an RSS feed to the site that contains all the posts from people you follow: beta.fedang.com/rss/<username>

This is a public feed, so anyone can see who you're following - I plan on making this an optional setting if there's too much of uproar about that.

andymorris | 15 years ago | on: What Does Haskell Have to Do with C++?

When you get templates working, it does feel pretty good - you can get an approximation of the power of functional languages, all the while knowing that your code has been directly mapped to assembly.

I don't know if it's as good as writing some neat functional code, but for me it's still fun!

andymorris | 15 years ago | on: North Korea Fires Rockets at South Korean Island

Have we seriously learned nothing from Iraq? Take out the leadership, and you are left with a failed country and a population that is likely to be hostile.

Next you'll tell me that we'll walk into NK as liberators...

andymorris | 15 years ago | on: Ron Paul: Airport Scanners: Enough is Enough

You can hardly point to the lack of the incident that the security measure was designed to prevent as evidence to the pointlessness of said security measure.

If no-one's ever climbed over the walls at a prison, does that mean that the walls are "doing nothing"?

andymorris | 15 years ago | on: Why did California vote down legal pot?

Without unleashing the market upon pot, criminals could still make large amounts of money on the black market.

More to the point though - as the article says, the burden of proof is on the side advocating restriction! We don't require governments to allow us to do every little thing - the basic assumption is we can do anything we like, except for a few restrictions needed to prevent reducing others' freedoms.

andymorris | 15 years ago | on: Marijuana Legalization Fails in California

That's a horrible reason.

No law will ever be perfect - it's all about steps in the right direction. If we wait for things to be perfect, nothing will ever change.

I find it very disheartening that some of the very people who want this change the most refused to vote for a 90% solution in the hopes that someone will come along with a 100% solution tomorrow. With this setback, the issue won't come up again for many years, and even when it does it STILL won't be perfect.

I just hope that in 10 years when it comes up again, people won't be going "I voted no because it's not perfect" and setting the process back ANOTHER 10 years.

andymorris | 15 years ago | on: Remind HN: Vote

As is believing that politicians would interpret a low voter turnout as anything but a net gain - it just means they can expend less effort required to shift the balance in their favour.

andymorris | 15 years ago | on: Remind HN: Vote

According to wikipedia, nearly of americans didn't vote.

It doesn't seem to make sense to say that voting for a 3rd party is a waste of time if half of the population who agree with you...

andymorris | 15 years ago | on: Remind HN: Vote

I'm Australian, and we have compulsory voting. We also have compulsory education, as one of the basic requirements for democracy is a body informed voters.

I think one of the positive effects of it is that it forces everyone to think about it. I know people who I can guarantee would not vote were it not compulsory, but since it is they have looked into both parties and have formed some opinions which they then use to guide their votes. I think that anything that increases the overall political knowledge of the population is a good thing.

Another positive effect is that politicians don't need to spend any time getting people to the polls - this is something I see American politicians and citizens waste an absurd amount of time on.

Anyway, the fines in Australia are pretty small - I missed a state election once (moved and forgot to update the electoral roll) and it was around $20.

andymorris | 15 years ago | on: Remind HN: Vote

The only message that not voting for anyone sends is that you're happy with anyone.

If everyone informed chooses not to vote for anyone, all that does is give more power to the uninformed.

andymorris | 15 years ago | on: Remind HN: Vote

The subset of us aussies who actually know about censorship largely have.

The trouble is, there isn't enough of us who care.

andymorris | 15 years ago | on: John Carmack on government

If the need to enforce trademarks was actually great enough, then a private company or a standards body would obviously arise to fill the need.

andymorris | 15 years ago | on: Offer HN: I'll help you learn Python

You should definitely learn Python 2. Almost all libraries still are on 2, so if you tried to go straight to 3, you'd have to struggle your way around most newbie documentation on the internet - Especially if you're planning on doing Django work.

Anyway, there isn't a whole lot of difference between python 2 and 3, really. The "proper" way of coding in python2 is very similar to python3.

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