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sethist's comments

sethist | 13 years ago | on: jQuery.payment

Fair enough, I haven't dug into the code yet. I was basing my comment on the live demo which prevents it.

sethist | 13 years ago | on: jQuery.payment

This looks nice, but I ran into an immediate usability issue. The Card Expiry requires a leading 0 for January. It seems like bad UI to prevent a user from enter 1/13 or 1/2013 in those fields.

sethist | 13 years ago | on: Why Aaron died

Furthermore, even if that statement is true does it mean we should blame the prosecution? The analogy I have been using is getting fired or going through a breakup. Those type of events are sometimes catalysts for suicide, but I don't think anyone would blame the employer or significant other for that. People are responsible for their own actions. They are responsible for how they react to adversity or tragedy. Aaron was the one who killed himself. The charges likely played a role in his decision, but that doesn't mean his "death was caused by [the] criminal justice system."

sethist | 13 years ago | on: Jeff Atwood Goes Off The Rails

The irony in this article is pretty thick. In his original article, Jeff not so subtly admitted that he considered suicide and therefore likely battled depression as well. Yet Reed says Jeff has "a reckless lack of knowledge about how depression really works". Why does Reed label Jeff as ignorant in both his knowledge of depression and Aaron's situation when Reed himself doesn't know Jeff's?

Jeff was simply drawing an analogy to suicide that most of his readers would understand. A small percentage of us have experienced depression while almost all of us have played games. Yes, the annoyance of being quick scoped in Call of Duty can't be compared to the pain of depression, but it doesn't have to be for the analogy to still be helpful. Honestly, I don't think it benefits anyone to be offended by imperfect analogies.

sethist | 13 years ago | on: The Simple Math Behind Early Retirement

The problem with that graph is that almost no one invests that way. People just don't dump their entire life savings into the market, wait x number of years, and then withdraw it all at once. Dollar cost averaging and changes in investment aggressiveness will likely smooth out those numbers.

sethist | 13 years ago | on: Germany to Repatriate Some of Its Gold Reserves

I just don't understand how it is productive to spend the amount of money necessarily to dig this stuff out of the ground only to stick it in some bank vault to go untouched for decades. Now people are arguing whose bank vault we will use to keep the stuff that we won't touch?

sethist | 13 years ago | on: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners

Regarding your second point, are you suggesting the legal system should go easy on criminals who may be suicidal?

I just think it is foolish to start blaming every entity that could have contributed to his mental state. Hypothetically speaking, if he had recently broken up with someone or was fired from a job would we claim that they killed him? No, they would simply be catalysts that might have contributed to his ultimate decision.

sethist | 13 years ago | on: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

If they seriously infringe on the rights of other individuals, then yes I think they are immoral. Putting your own political motivations (no matter how righteous) above the rights of others is a selfish act.

sethist | 13 years ago | on: Aaron Swartz was 'killed by the government,' father tells mourners

His father's words may be a little too strong, but they're not entirely off-base either.

Yes, they are off base. He deserves leeway due to the untold grief he is enduring, but a statement like that is ridiculous. Thousands of people a day go to jail a day, many of them for breaking unjust laws, and very few of them kill themselves. He was killed by depression/mental illness not by the government. The charges likely exasperated his condition, but without that underlining fragile mental state, he would almost assuredly still be alive today.

sethist | 13 years ago | on: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

There seems to be a common misunderstanding of what protest rights you have in the US. The first amendment does not give you the right to protest anything, at any point, in any manner that you want. In fact, the government has a duty to protect my rights if your protest in infringing on them. The Occupy movement is another group that completely failed to understand that fact. You are legally allowed to protest, but preventing someone from going to work or class is a quick way to get your protest shutdown. I don't think it is unreasonable to extend that same logic to DDoS attacks.

sethist | 13 years ago | on: Vending Machine Dispenses MacBooks for Student Use

I wonder how physical security is handled. Losing a student ID is a not too uncommon for college students. Without someone checking to make sure the person holding the ID matches the picture on the ID, what is going to stop someone from finding/stealing an ID and using that to "borrow" a laptop from this machine?

sethist | 13 years ago | on: Hire Athletes

The definition of "athlete" as it is used in this article is most popular in college football. There are a variety of set positions (jobs) in football and each player generally only plays one or two positions. The term athlete is used to describe a player who doesn't have one particular set position. This is either because of their versatility or a lack of any specific specialized skill. More often than not, a player will be labeled an athlete as they enter college but will quickly be assigned a position in order for him to focus his training.

The idea is that athletes are rawer, more malleable, more flexible, but riskier and generally less skilled (therefore probably cheaper) employees when compared to true specialists. This makes them good hires for startups.

The article could have benefited from actually saying this.

sethist | 13 years ago | on: Every NFL play for the past 10 years in CSV format

That sounds like the dictionary definition of the gambler's fallacy. If anything, the odds of an interception likely increase after a previous interception as it would be a sign of a defensive advantage over the QB. If only there was somewhere we could get the data to figure out for sure...

sethist | 13 years ago | on: Every NFL play for the past 10 years in CSV format

IANAL too, but the NFL lost a relatively recent court case regarding fantasy football that, as far as I am aware, made the leagues statistics public knowledge as long as you compile the information yourself. Therefore the main legal issue with this data would be the source.

sethist | 13 years ago | on: xkcd: Instagram

Except Instagram isn't and was never designed to be a pipe. HTTP and email are the dumb pipes you are looking for in this situation.
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