I think one of best examples of this was the push to make mandatory the National Animal Identification System. The idea was put every farm animal into a database and RFID the larger ones. I'd heard that farmers would need to log the timestamp of every feeding or watering (though I can't find any source for that in 2 minutes of Googling.)
I did find this. "... the animal owner would be required to report: the birthdate of an animal, the application of every animal’s ID tag, every time an animal leaves or enters the property, every time an animal loses a tag, every time a tag is replaced, the slaughter or death of an animal, or if any animal is missing. Such events must be reported within 24 hours." From http://www.countrysidemag.com/90-1-mary-zanoni
I would argue that this is burdensome and easier to rationalize for an urbanite. Also note that they likely didn't consider how small farmers will often arrange to have their animals graze on a neighbor's field, which would mean logging entry and exit twice a day.
I was reading the proceedings of the 2013 SAT competition and was pleasantly surprised to find Knuth listed as a contestant! It also included a few paragraphs he wrote about his submission.
I'm no expert, but I think it would be a shame if small struggling ISPs get the short end of the stick. It's hard for me to make a judgement on this specifically.
OT: this post is the 4th result in Google. Comment on HN indexed within 35 minutes. Crazy.
It kind of sucks for companies like that, but competition is good.
In an ideal situation you'd have "the people" own the pipes which they then rent at cost to commercial providers. In practice this would usually be via local government, but I'd prefer it via some kind of mutual society (where residents own a share, is open only to residents, and which is sold along with the property).
The UK has a variation of this model, called "local loop unbundling" (http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/llu/llu.do). The infra was originally built by the state telco BT, which was then privatized. To create competition they introduced LLU, which forced BT to allow competition access to the pipes.
Two points - someone has to maintain the network; holes need digging, kit needs buying, upgrading and monitoring. This cannot be free. It could be a government utility, but paying for it would then come out of taxes and the choice would be between paying for that, aircraft carriers or incubators.
Second, networks are designed to deliver different things at different price points. Running a web service at the end of a residential connection does not make economic sense compared to running it in a datacentre connected directly to a peering point on 40gig-e.
Absolutely. I was really surprised to hear this. I'm sadly getting the impression that the only large entities who have thrown funding into audits are the intelligence agencies.
I drag the scrollbar and use pageup/down keys as much as I use the mousewheel.
I don't enjoy getting near the bottom of the page and suddenly being warped several screens ahead, then having to go back and figure out where I was. Find a way to prevent this if you're just loading comments to an article.
I find the scrollbar less disorienting because it has a high resolution than most mousewheels, its feedback loop is tighter, and I can jump both short and long distances; that is, there's no tradeoff between speed and continuousness.
I switch to pageup/pagedown/home/end on pages with infinite scroll because I can be guaranteed I won't miss any content and it's just less tiresome that using a mousewheel IMO.
A really stellar example of these sorts of bad user interaction is the Google Art Project if anyone cares.
I just looked at 1024 on Google Play, and I have to say it would really sting to work on Threes for a year then read that "If you played 2048 in Hacker News, That [sic] you should know this is the original one."
Have you seen the original description for 1024 on the app store? I see they've updated it to be less tasteless, but luckily the internet never forgets:
"No need to pay for ThreesGames. This is a simple and fun gift for you, and it’s free."
I did find this. "... the animal owner would be required to report: the birthdate of an animal, the application of every animal’s ID tag, every time an animal leaves or enters the property, every time an animal loses a tag, every time a tag is replaced, the slaughter or death of an animal, or if any animal is missing. Such events must be reported within 24 hours." From http://www.countrysidemag.com/90-1-mary-zanoni
I would argue that this is burdensome and easier to rationalize for an urbanite. Also note that they likely didn't consider how small farmers will often arrange to have their animals graze on a neighbor's field, which would mean logging entry and exit twice a day.