contradistinct (u/contradistinct)

contradistinct commented on Tell HN: I was permanently banned from eBay in one hour · Posted by u/bannedfromebay

hansvm · 4 years ago

It's absurdly easy to scam people on eBay as both the buyer and seller. They probably saw the pattern of a new account selling electronics in an amount equal to a month's wages in a lot of places and instabanned.

Back when I was selling a lot of electronics there they just had restrictions where you couldn't increase your volume much until after some successful purchases had gone through. I guess that was too easy to game and they've taken a harder stance?

If you do want to sell there eventually (sounds like you don't) you just need a new address, new IP, new cookies, new phone, new bank, .... As long as you're not actually scamming people and don't need true anonymity there are cheap/free services for all of those things that usually require some kind of personal information (so that if you do use them with nefarious intent the courts can find your real identity), and you'd just be violating eBay's terms and conditions. As you've seen though, adhering to their terms doesn't give any better personal outcomes, so I dunno that I'd give a flip about breaking them (not legal advice, please don't sue).

contradistinct · 4 years ago

When are we, as a society, going to take small crimes seriously?

My girlfriend got scammed out of over $1000 on Ebay recently (seller is within the country). Here was the dastardly scam: she ordered something, and the seller never sent it. Ebay would do nothing; the police would do nothing.

Why can you just take people's money like this?

contradistinct commented on Ask HN: Teach me something new · Posted by u/trifit

tomcam · 4 years ago

Well then it’s equally likely that badgers the size of Earth could be forming from time to time, and since they’re the size of earth they would decay much more slowly than our puny local badgers… so shouldn’t we see the occasional Earth-sized badger through the Hubble?

Or how about the much lower odds needed for a copy of Shakespeare’s plays translated to Klingon inscribed on a giant sheet of titanium to appear spontaneously? Far more likely to happen than a Boltzmann brain, right? So should we not have found an item or two like that?

contradistinct · 4 years ago

What Hubble? If you're a Boltzmann brain, the Hubble is just an idea you have in your temporary brain, before it pops like a soap bubble.

contradistinct commented on Choose your status game wisely ofdollarsanddata.com/choo... · Posted by u/throw0101a

trh0awayman · 4 years ago

I think it's interesting how different people view status, like the "Harvard Professor or Homeless guy?" quiz that used to get passed around.

I grew up in one of the last WASP strongholds in the US and the more money you had, the smaller the house you lived in (up to a point). People could afford insanely expensive cars, but would buy tasteful ones instead (excepting kids).

Most people wouldn't be caught dead in a Ralph Lauren polo, but would happily wear a bleach-stained, rumpled Brooks Brothers shirt. Outside of special occasions, people didn't dress nice at all - they dressed like they just came back from sailing.

Engineering, medicine, and law were not considered high-status. Well, if you wanted to work a job, I guess they were - but they were considered ordinary. It was better to own something (but not work), run a non-profit, or have a PhD (in the classics, or whatever). Most parents told their children "I don't care what you do - but do something interesting!". Being an artist was considered good, too.

Fame, and appearing in the media, were about the worst things you could achieve.

The biggest status indicator was how well read you were. It is so deeply ingrained in me, that I still find myself more impressed by well read people than almost anything else, and I haven't lived there in over a decade.

There are a couple of these strongholds remaining, where even the wealthiest people are not allowed to move to because they don't have the right last name, or can't trace their lineage to the Mayflower.

If you removed these people and put them anywhere else, you'd think of them as low status and strange.

contradistinct · 4 years ago

> I think it's interesting how different people view status, like the "Harvard Professor or Homeless guy?" quiz that used to get passed around.

This is counter-signalling. "I don't have to dress like a high-status individual, because I'm so high status that my high status is clear either way." It's why somewhat intelligent people use big words, but very intelligent people speak plainly: they are so intelligent their intelligence is clear even without the big words, and they want you to know that.

contradistinct commented on Why have female animals evolved such wild genitals? smithsonianmag.com/scienc... · Posted by u/sohkamyung

assbuttbuttass · 4 years ago

> modern human may have twice as many female ancestors as male ancestors.

I'm having trouble to understand how this can be true. It seems like every human should have equal numbers of male and female ancestors, e.g. by induction on how many generations back you look.

contradistinct · 4 years ago

A single man can be your ancestor in more than one slot on your family tree.

contradistinct commented on My lizard brain is no match for infinite scroll alexanderell.is/posts/inf... · Posted by u/otras

gernb · 4 years ago

I feel like I could say the same about infinite news which I'd define as a site I can check several times a day and see new "top stories". This would include Reddit and HN. I find it super addicting to check too many times and then get sucked into spending too much time reading comments and sometimes articles. Rarely am I actually better off for it .

Contrast to 20-30yrs ago where at best you got a newspaper once a day or if you were like me you got a few magazine subscriptions and once you browsed each one, that was it for your monthly article consumption.

contradistinct · 4 years ago

I receive some hacker news posts along with my other RSS feeds once per day, in the morning. You can still get the best of HN without "browsing".

contradistinct commented on The Babylonians used Pythagorean ideas long before Pythagoras economist.com/science-and... · Posted by u/helsinkiandrew

contradistinct · 4 years ago

Nothing is ever invented by the person it's named after [1].

[1]: https://taylor.gl/blog/11

contradistinct commented on Bear plus snowflake equals polar bear andysalerno.com/posts/wei... · Posted by u/soopurman

kibwen · 5 years ago

We're so lazy that we can't even be bothered to type "character" half the time, so "grapheme cluster" has no chance to catch on unless we can think of a "char"-style abbreviation. I'll start the bikeshed with "gracl", but ambitious folks may wish to argue for "clog" ("cluster of graphemes").

contradistinct · 5 years ago

Elixir uses the term grapheme already:

https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/1.12/String.html#graphemes/1

contradistinct commented on Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (June 2021) · Posted by u/whoishiring

contradistinct · 5 years ago

I am a recent University of Toronto graduate looking for work as a junior software developer.

  Location: Ontario, Canada

  Remote: 100%

  Willing to relocate: Not at this time.

  Technologies: Python | Elixir/Phoenix | C | SQL | Front-end technologies | Linux | Git

  Résumé/CV: https://taylor.gl/resume

  Email: hireme@taylor.gl

contradistinct commented on Show HN: Flashcards to learn AWS skills cloudbite.attejuvonen.fi/... · Posted by u/baobabKoodaa

contradistinct · 5 years ago

These cards are too long: https://docs.ankiweb.net/editing.html#:~:text=keep%20it%20si....

contradistinct commented on The Animal Is Tired robinhobb.com/blog/posts/... · Posted by u/montenegrohugo

xivzgrev · 5 years ago

Agree, but in my experience medicine simply kept me from going too low. Some kind of therapy may also be needed, and a focus / prioritization on things that make you happy.

contradistinct · 5 years ago

Yes, meds don't solve the underlying issue. There is no happy pill. They just give you the boost you need to fix your life. This is shown by studies that show depression comes back after discontinuing meds, but not after discontinuing therapy.