I see what you're saying, but remember the "Nice Guy" trope is sarcastic. "Nice Guys" are not actually nice guys. There's nothing wrong with being genuinely nice.
I think the author is confusing "well-spoken" for "nice."
Eddie can speak poetically in court. Cool. But he thinks that fact alone makes him better than other people. “Your courts are not used to hearing an honest statement, are they?” You're a professional con artist, bud, don't go patting yourself on the back for "honesty."
"Necessities of life are the proper destination of grim jobs with little men working at little desks." This guy is a stereotype of a Smug Rich Villain. If a movie character talked like that, you'd think it was a little over-the-top.
Years ago, I saw someone implemented a vector display using a powerful visible-light laser on a gimbal, instead of an electron gun with magnetic deflection.
Then they used it to play Tetris on passing clouds.
> Both the App Store and Google Play stores I think are basically illegal monopolies. I should be able to install whatever app I want, without having to jailbreak my phone and deal with warranty nonsense from the manufacturer. Just like my computer, which I can also install whatever software I want on it.
Is Google Play doing that now? It used to be that you just had to change an option in settings to "allow third-party software" or something and you could install anything you wanted. It was necessary for the Humble Bundle Android app, among other things. That was years ago, though.
> Rather, it's that no man is fit to play the censor
I agree with this, and I'd further say that no man is really fit to rule or have real power over his fellow men. But human society can't function, or defend itself from tyrants, without some sort of power structure. The best we can do is try to make sure that the people in power aren't tyrants.
Do you not think that discussion has the potential to convey ideas and change minds? It hardly seems implausible to say that a group of people eagerly urging each other to murder could possibly result in someone getting murdered.
I think "\w+" is regex for "one or more non-specified words," so they're nitpicking that it should be "* supremacy" instead of "white supremacy", in a weirdly obtuse and technical way.
I've never figured out a good way to express this without sounding like a raving censor, but here goes: I feel like freedom of speech is a means to an end (the end being general freedom and liberty) more than an end in itself. When speech leads directly to mass fear or violence engendering mass fear, which leads to people willingly sacrificing their own and others' rights just for the promise of safety, then bitter realpolitik says that we may need to limit certain kinds of speech to maintain vital freedoms.
Of course that's dangerous thinking in itself, because there's always potential for abuse when you let someone decide what people aren't allowed to say. But there has to be a balance somewhere. I hope we can find it.
Adblockers have been available on the Android and iPhone app stores for a while now.
> And if you bought a compatible raspi plus PSU for 100$ you go scammed pretty hard
I'm quoting from the article, which admittedly uses Australian dollars. But I still don't see a need to pay any amount of money for the benefit of hypothetical visitors who already don't care enough to install a free adblocker on their phone.
I'm sure there are valuable use cases for the Pi-Hole; in an small office environment, or if you fear some very specific malware, or if you really, really want a bulletproof way to block ads in free phone games. I object to the article making it sound like it's something everyone needs in their home, giving no coherent evidence and ignoring the real drawbacks. (The first thing I do when a site doesn't work is try disabling AdBlock Plus; even ignoring anti-adblockers, quite a few poorly-designed sites just break if an adblocker is running. A hardware adblocker that can't be locally or temporarily disabled with a few clicks is a bad idea.)
To think it only costs $100 and a few days' shipping time to get all the benefits of a software ad blocker than anyone can install for free in less than 60 seconds.
I'm not saying they're in the wrong, or that they shouldn't have done this, just that it's a factor that needs to be considered. There's plenty of people in this thread knee-jerk condemning them, and HN is considerably more thoughtful than most forums. It sucks, but there it is.
I suppose I could have been clearer. People are already making those arguments in the comments of practically every news story on the subject.
It is the central dynamic that perpetuates all this violence. Someone from Group A kills dozens or hundreds of Group B, which uses the violence as an excuse to oppress thousands of Group A, which uses the oppression as an excuse to kill more of Group B, and this goes on and on for decades long after everyone's forgotten who "started" it or why, because both sides have convinced themselves, against all logic and evidence of history, that if they just hurt the other guys enough they'll give up and be nice.
It is never going to end until we find a way to break the cycle. The only way I can think of to contribute is to be a voice condemning the violent bigots on both sides, and trying to separate them from the millions of innocents that they claim to represent. It's not much. It probably isn't anything at all. But what else can I do?