Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | terrywilcox's commentslogin

Who decides what is a reasonable amount?

In the real world, that's called "negotiation".


Apple decided that all songs sold on iTunes for about a decade would cost exactly 99 cents. The music industry did not collapse. Almost all full size major video game releases have cost $60 for two decades and that industry has grown tremendously. The statutory maximum price could be significantly higher than what is typical to prevent works from being unobtainable without interfering with price negotiations of most works.


That's orthogonal to my point. I only added the reasonable amount requirement because otherwise the change in law is useless - if you don't want to license to someone, just charge a billion dollars.

But to answer your question, a court would decide, based on comparable deals, and with ample (but not infinite) latitude for the rightsholder to deviate from established prices.


It's as if the people paying for this app aren't actually the ones complaining.

Why wouldn't they complain if it was a scam?

Because they're not actually using it. It's a money laundering app.

If you're just laundering money through an app, it doesn't have to actually do anything.

And if you make the price outrageously high, you can launder more money with fewer clicks and reduce the risk of some idiot actually buying it.


Who would launder money in a way that would not only require finding a developer and going through App Review, but also losing 30% in the process (plus however much that developer costs)?


I think for someone who needd to launder large amounts of money and can't spend it otherwise, 30% or more might not be unreasonable. 70% beats 0%.


There are far simpler and less convoluted ways to launder money. We have bitcoin. We have HSBC.


Can you launder dirty cash with those?

At least with the App Store you can buy gift cards with cash or even get a mark from a scam to buy you gift cards that you can then launder.


Yeah, I've seen a bitcoin ATM in a headshop before.


> Why wouldn't they complain if it was a scam?

~120 1-star reviews are saying you're wrong about this one.


So if you simply eliminate some of America's health care problems, America is like other nations?

That's convenient.


The above commenter mentioned demographic and lifestyle discrepancies not adequately accounted for in this comparison of outcomes among countries... not health care problems, as you're implying.


An infant mortality rate far above other first world nations isn't a health care problem?

We're talking about kids too young to be be gunned down, so they're not part of America's remarkable teen-gun-death statistics.

They're predominantly kids from poor families, who don't live healthy lifestyles or have good health insurance. If the family doesn't have access to good healthcare, the kid's chances of survival are lessened.

Maybe Russia could improve its placement on the list if they ignored the health care issues caused by alcoholism.

And then America could improve its position by declaring obesity, and the health problems that come with it, a lifestyle issue instead of a health issue.


You're conflating health issues with health care issues. What health care system now implemented in any country, or proposed for implementation in America by anyone, controls how people eat, how much alcohol, tobacco, and other harmful drugs they consume, how often they exercise, how much they sleep, whether they provide healthy environments for their children, etc.?

Just as schools and teachers are simply one factor in educational outcomes, the medical system is simply one factor in health outcomes. You must consider lifestyle, environmental, and genetic/epigenetic factors to get a full picture. You must equalize for these factors - as far as this is possible - to fairly compare the effect of the medical system and associated policies alone on health outcomes in different countries. Properly accounting for genetic and lifestyle differences in different sub-populations is largely taboo, and this prevents a fair comparison of medical systems across countries.

Edit: Consider this article by the CDC on infant mortality: https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/MaternalInfantHealth/...

Over 23,000 infants died in the United States in 2016. The five leading causes of infant death in 2016 were: Birth defects. Preterm birth and low birth weight. Sudden infant death syndrome. Maternal pregnancy complications. Injuries (e.g., suffocation).

While the medical system can intervene, these causes all seem far more dependent on genetics, the mother's (and to a lesser extent the father's) behavior during pregnancy and the infancy of the child.

In 2016, infant mortality rates by race and ethnicity were as follows: Non-Hispanic black: 11.4; American Indian/Alaska Native: 9.4; Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander: 7.4; Hispanic: 5.0; Non-Hispanic white: 4.9; Asian: 3.6

Compare white Americans with European countries, and the discrepancy drops significantly. There's something beyond the medical / health care system playing a role here.


I'm confused by the headline.

The quote from Apple is that they're computing trust scores for your devices for when you attempt a purchase. It sounds like the more you use the device, the more trusted it is. That brand new device that you've never used before shouldn't be trusted.

What I don't understand is how you can reasonably stretch that out to giving people trust scores.

Click bait?


>>It sounds like the more you use the device, the more trusted it is.

Where did you see it? It says nothing about how the score is calculated.


"To help identify and prevent fraud, information about how you use your device, including the approximate number of phone calls or emails you send and receive, will be used to compute a device trust score when you attempt a purchase," the page reads.

See the "information about how you use your device, including the approximate number of phone calls or emails you send and receive".

So the score calculation for that device includes the approximate number of phone calls or emails you send and receive on it.

You could interpret that as "the more personal activity you have on a device, the less trusted it should be", but that makes no sense. The more you use a device, the more likely it is to actually be your device.

It makes sense to place less trust in devices that you rarely use.


Right. The point is to detect fraudulent purchases made in someone else's name. It wouldn't even make sense to associate this rating with the user.


Microsoft's marketing: "Performs like a laptop, travels like a tablet."

It it performs like a laptop, it should be tested like a laptop.


This is true of every generation that has grown up with computers and video games.

It's also true of any generation that grew up with manufactured items.

Really, our ability to create has declined with our need to create. Who needs to make their own clothes these days?


>It is sad though, that young people appear to be less computer literate in terms of creating content (as an overall percentage of previous generations).

Previous generations? How many generations back do you imagine widespread computer use to go?

Jerry Pournelle was considered cutting edge for using a word processor to write as early as 1977. Adobe Illustrator is from 1987 and Photoshop is from 1990.

There haven't been a whole lot of generations in the 41 years since the Apple II was released (about 2 generations, given 20 years per generation).

I can tell you that kids from my generation (baby boomers) had almost no computer literacy. Most of us never even touched a computer until adulthood (if then).


I'm guessing I'm a generation older than you and I agree, my generation built a lazy, useless generation.

My parents say the same thing about my generation.


While there is a lot of that, it's one thing to "not do X because it's never needed and is supplanted by new technology"

Young people don't know what a VHS or vinyl player is and that is fine

Another thing is to think everything is solvable with a phone app, that everything is on Google or that everything is learnable through a step by step YouTube video and requires no effort.

That causes frustrations as well.


Typing a word into Google gives you a sense of accomplishment? Wow.

When I was a kid (and by that I mean all the way into university), we had to go to the library (an actual physical place that wasn't our home), look in the card catalogue (an actual physical box of drawers with actual physical cards in them), then find the shelves with actual physical books on them. Then we had to look at the index in the book. Or just read it.

That took time and perseverance. There was no instant gratification. It took hours or days.

Are you advocating a return to that past and that much perseverance?

Typing a word into Google and clicking search is nothing. Trying to make it sound like it's so much better for character building is ridiculous.


I believe you've swapped the narrative.

A lot of people work their ass off just to pay the rent and feed their kids.

Working your ass off does not imply wealth. That's the problem.


"A lot of people work their ass off just to pay the rent and feed their kids."

We should also be questioning why someone that can barely pay the rent decides to have another kid (or even a kid at all). Financial management should be a bigger part of our education system.

"Working your ass off does not imply wealth. That's the problem."

It has never and should never imply wealth. When I was in college, I worked my ass off and studied for an exam one time. I barely passed. Do you think this is fair? I probably worked harder than many of my classmates.

Obtaining wealth involves: timing, hard work, intelligence, and discipline...with a little bit of luck thrown into the mix. Most wealthy people in the US did not inherit it.

Before claiming that the system is rigged (which seems to be pretty common these days in our presidential campaign), we need to take a hard look at the responsibility of the individual.


Obtaining wealth is mostly timing/luck.

There are plenty of hard working, well disciplined, intelligent poor people. There are plenty of lazy, stupid rich people. There's virtually no correlation between any of the things you named and wealth.

The question then becomes how much should a lucky person be "rewarded," or how much should an unlucky person be "punished." A lot of people feel that being unlucky shouldn't mean living in perpetual debt, for example, or going bankrupt because you broke a leg.

A lot of people feel that our society could gain a lot by helping those unlucky people rise to their potential.


Where's your source for all these assertions?


Well using IQ as a proxy for intelligence, you can find many sources that say there's no significant correlation between IQ and wealth (https://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/intlwlth.htm).

Many studies find that your parents' wealth is the single greatest influencer of your wealth (http://www.umass.edu/preferen/gintis/intergen.pdf).

I would say that who your parents are is about as "lucky" a thing could be, considering it's totally independent of who you are or decisions you make.

My only other assertions being that smart poor people and dumb rich people exist? I hope that's self-evident to anyone on this board...


We should also be questioning why someone that can barely pay the rent decides to have another kid (or even a kid at all).

This statement is rife with all kinds of shitty assumptions. Until Obamacare came along, it was common for health insurance in the US to not cover birth control -- yet it often covered Viagra. So, a guy who is too old to get it up anymore is entitled to sexual pleasure, but a young woman servicing a man is going to vindictively be made to pay, both literally and figuratively.

Second, a woman can be raped and end up pregnant. Rapists aren't exactly known for using protection and one rape case was determined to be not rape because the victim managed to convince her assailant to use a condom to protect her from disease. The courts determined this somehow proved consent on her part.

Third, it's quite difficult to get an abortion in the US. There are a lot of barriers to getting an abortion. So if you get raped and wind up pregnant, good luck ending it -- even though rape is supposed to be one the exceptions that allows you to get an abortion.

Fourth, there are religious faiths that tell women they are going to hell if a) they don't willingly oblige their husband for sex or b) they use any sort of birth control whatsoever.

I could probably go on, but I am a desperately poor woman who needs to try to get some work done so I can keep eating this month, in spite of having been one of the top three students of my graduating high school class and having had both my kids legitimately within the bonds of matrimony and generally having done every goddamn thing "right" that I can possibly do, but it is still FUCK YOU Michele, because, hey, women don't need no stinkin justice or respect. And before you ask: I have been celibate for more than 11 years at this point.

Wow, do assumptions of the sort you are making piss me off. It is a great way to guarantee that the world will continue to remain in the toilet, no matter how hard people work or how virtuous they are.


> Until Obamacare came along, it was common for health insurance in the US to not cover birth control -- yet it often covered Viagra.

Birth control costs literally $7 a month. You can get it from almost any pharmacy in the nation. Complaining about your health insurance not covering birth control is like complaining about your car insurance not covering gasoline.


Men tend to make more money than women. Seven dollars a month may not be a big deal to you, but it is for some people. And my criticism is more like saying that insurance companies would pay for your gas if you were male but not if you were female.


> Men tend to make more money than women. Seven dollars a month may not be a big deal to you, but it is for some people.

How is this also not an argument that health insurance should pay for food? People (including women!) pay way more per month for food than the $7 that we've agreed birth control costs, and it's far more vital to one's continued health than birth control is.

> And my criticism is more like saying that insurance companies would pay for your gas if you were male but not if you were female.

Only in a tortured and incorrect fashion. Insurance companies will pay for treating all kinds of maladies that only women can get. Is that an argument that they're discriminating against men?


Wow, I respect this post and the poster


Everyone believes they work their asses off, but like every other expression of human ability, the actual amount of ass-working is normally distributed.

You may be conflating the resulting tiredness of menial physical labor with actual productivity, which is certainly understandable from an emotional perspective, but not really logical.


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: