> My favorite pair of jeans gets worn 10 times more often than my other jeans. If I did away with the other jeans, I could afford to buy more of those things I really love.

This took me embarrassingly long to realise. Instead of buying clothes because they were pretty nice and on sale, buy only what you absolutely love, and pay full price. Instead of having "favourite underwear", get rid of everything that's not your favourite and make sure you only own favourites.

Yeah, it costs more at first. But over time you build up a wardrobe of high quality clothes you love. Quality over quantity, indeed.

huh. my jeans usually fail through use; they don't usually languish.

The thing is? I have some costco brand jeans I bought during the first dot-com that I still wear. they were under $15. Actually, at the same time I bought a bunch of designer jeans. The designer jeans all failed (at least one of them catastrophically... dramatically ripping the crotch wide open as I lifted a server in front of something of a crowd.) within a year of purchase.

My experience has been that expensive things are not always better. In fact, expensive clothing is usually designed for rich people, who don't need to lift things or trace cables through crawlspaces, and who will want clothing of the new style next year anyhow.

Clothing designed for working people is usually much more durable. And yeah, you can sometimes get increased durability by buying something more expensive within that sector? but the nicest dickies brand work pant is on par with the designer jeans they sell at target, price-wise.

So yeah, in general? if you are selecting for durability in clothing? the price signal is actually the opposite of what you want to look at.

I have a friend who used to buy jeans from Costco. If he was ever with me when I was buying clothes, he would always be shocked at the money I was spending on jeans (I'm not talking designer, I mean £40 high-street jeans, that kind of thing). He would say that I could buy 2 or 3 pairs for the same price at Costco and there'd be no difference.

I challenged him to buy a pair and now that's all he wears. They last longer (his old ones used to rip at the crotch) and feel much nicer to wear. However, you're right, price sadly isn't too good an indicator now. I doubt that spending £100 on jeans will provide much improvement over the kind of jeans I wear but buying slightly more expensive - as opposed to dirt-cheap - is definitely worthwhile.

eh, I think that most of what you are paying for is, well, paying more.

I mean, today, the kids are buying $400 jeans that are thick and tough (then they don't wash them, which sounds disgusting, but what do I know?) but, you know, at least they are probably durable. But during the first dot com? the expensive jeans were made of this super thin denim that was then pre-stressed at the factory;

So yeah, in '99? if you walked in to a store and bought the very cheapest jeans you could get, you'd get a medium weight denim that was reasonably durable. If you spent USD$50-$80 for the 'calvin klein' low end designer stuff? it was this ridiculously thin denim that had been bleached to hell.

But yeah, my point is that if you really do choose your product based on price positioning, rather than on the merits (and price) of the product? you are likely making suboptimal choices. Just because there is a more expensive version and a cheaper version available, that doesn't make the middle of the road choice the most reasonable.

A more recent example: I recently got a giant TV for the office for my montoring setup, and I lost the HDMI cable it came with.

I went to Frys, and the first HDMI cable I saw was the $150 "monster cable' version. So I look a little further, and I see a $15 cable by some middle of the road cable company. I look further, down on the bottom, and I see a $1.50 HDMI cable with no brand.

as far as I can tell, they were the same gold-plated HDMI cable. Of course, I bought the cheapest version and it worked just fine.

I mean, I always spend the extra money for ECC ram and for 'enterprise' or 'raid edition' drives in stuff that matters. Yeah, if I get more of what I want for the money, I'll pay more. But I have to see evidence that I'm getting more of what I want. I'm unwilling to pay extra for a label that says I paid extra.

Is it just me, or do jeans seem very cheap in America?

In Sweden, a pair of regular Levi's jeans might cost you 1000 SEK, which is about $136. The designer jeans might cost 1500+ SEK.

Clothing in general seems much cheaper in the US than in Europe (I live in Denmark but buy most of my clothing when I visit the US). Seems like some mix of economic and cultural factors. Clothing shops in Denmark seem more commonly to be boutique and have higher-end stuff; e.g. Levi's would be the low-end here, whereas in the US Levi's is mid-market. And there don't seem to be discount shops like Ross. Taxes also make about a 25-30% difference: the EU has a ~10% import tariff on apparel (to protect the European fashion industry), plus Sweden's 25% VAT, so ~35% total taxes, versus a typical 5-10% sales tax in the US.

Levi's are what I'd call 'designer jeans' or maybe low end designer jeans. I mean, uh, I might be using that word incorrectly, but yeah, they are very expensive compared to off-brand jeans of similar quality. (I believe you can mostly evaluate the quality of jeans with your eyes and your hands.) I dono exactly how much I'd pay for them here, just, well, probably more than I'm willing to pay.

Levi's are "Name brand" or something like that. The more expensive stuff in box stores are designer branded or something like that, not actually designer clothing.

Macy's is probably the low end for actual designer stuff.

And yeah, jeans are cheaper in the U.S., Levi's go for ~$40-$60.

ah. Then I am using the word incorrectly, and I have no experience with designer clothing. I guess it could be great? seems unlikely, but what do I know? The designer brand stuff sounds like what I'm talking about- it's clearly made to look a certain way, and long-term durability has little to do with it.

I have a friend in Finland (Hyvinkää) who comes over to America on business trips a few times a year. When he's here, he buys things like jeans, nice shirts, golf equipment etc and has them mailed back home. Even paying the taxes at customs, he says it's cheaper than buying them in Finland.

The Wrangler jeans I'm wearing right now (wonderful pair of regular jeans) cost me $20.

> The Wrangler jeans I'm wearing right now (wonderful pair of regular jeans) cost me $20

Wow, in Italy Wrangler costs around €70, some models are over €100. I don't buy them anymore because I noticed they deteriorate faster than other slightly more expensive trousers, but for $20 they are really good!

That's more of a Levi's thing.

In the US they're a fairly low-end brand, whereas in the rest of the world they're marketed as a more upmarket, almost premium brand.

I spend more money on things I use all the time. My computer, bed sheets, jeans, etc... all have higher threshold of diminishing returns to me. I think you make a good point about the build quality of 90s jeans and jeans today. With that stated, while I like my 'designer' jeans I'm still likely paying too much. They do last longer than other cheaper jeans I have owned, but this could be a function of me being picky. The last time I bought jeans I had to go through many pairs to find ones that were not pre-torn. Why would I spend good money for jeans that are already ripped?

eh, I guess my problem was more with this idea that expensive stuff usually lasts significantly longer. From what I've seen, it usually doesn't. Expensive stuff usually isn't optimized for use per dollar.

If the expensive stuff is giving you value on another axis? like the higher thread count sheets being more comfortable or what have you? that's great. I buy luxury items too. And I am willing to pay significantly more for tools that are easier or more comfortable to use.

I was just taking issue with the idea that expensive stuff is usually cheaper in the long run.

You should buy luxury items when you think the enjoyment you will get out of them is worth more than the money you spend on them. If someone tries to tell you that the luxury item is actually cheaper in the long run than the 'value' item, (the item actually designed to maximize use per dollar) well, I suppose it's possible, but it's pretty unlikely. You should be very, very suspicious.

I don't think anything 'designer' is what the OP was talking about. You're certainly right that designer clothes are not necessarily the best quality, as they are being sold on (at least perceived) exclusivity.

I do wear expensive jeans because they're comfortable and nicely made. I like a German brand called Hiltl:

http://www.hiltl.de/eng/index.php

I typically have about 3 pairs, that I replace when they wear out.

There are other nifty jeans like Hiut:

http://hiutdenim.co.uk/

Generally, the smaller and more craftsman-like the company the better. I think that agrees very well with the OP.

More to the point you will actually get more wear per dollar.

> the screenshots from the "game" someone made

One person. They're obviously troubled. Are we really going to let the actions of one person change the frame of the whole discussion?

A game allowing you to beat up a woman is, I hope, repulsive to any HN reader. But its existence, especially when it's so easy these days, means nothing in and of itself. You could probably feed in any picture you like, man or woman. It's not a weighty factor in a discussion.

> One person.

Did you see the other stuff on that page? There are a lot of violent and nasty things being directed at her, by (very likely) more than just one person.

> A game allowing you to beat up a woman is, I hope, repulsive to any HN reader. But its existence, especially when it's so easy these days, means nothing in and of itself.

I think it means a whole hell of a lot to a person who was targeted by it.

The purpose of the discussion, in my view, is not to pass judgement on whether the gaming community is good or bad, but to highlight the way that women are actually being treated, so that anyone with a sense of decency can be very clear that this behavior is not tolerated and shun/shame anyone who acts in this way. But I think that explaining it away as just the actions of one troubled person runs counter to this goal. Condemning it doesn't mean you're condemning yourself or your community, just the people who act in this way.

The game was made by one person, yes. But it's a little misleading to emphasize that this was "one person" when they were representative of the massive amounts of anti-feminist sentiment that was sent her way. If you look through the random sampling of comments her video garnered, it's hard to claim that the video game "changed the frame of the discussion" that was already well underway.

You aren't seeing a random sampling though, she deletes any comments that are critical of her work or her funding method. She only leaves comments that are supportive, and ones that are abusive trolling.

Do you have any evidence to back this up?

edit: papsosouid was unwilling to provide evidence. You can skip this subtree and not miss anything.

Not really, just first hand experience having her remove my post. You could consider the fact that there are no polite yet critical comments to her as evidence, but that could also be explained by there being absolutely no people who disagree with her and are polite.

That's not evidence. For all I know you posted a hateful screed and it deserved to be deleted.

I know it is not evidence. Which is why I said "not really". You are welcome to believe that there are no people in the world who disagree with her and are polite if you think that is a more likely explanation for the complete lack of polite criticism on channels she controls even though such polite criticism clearly does exist on channels she doesn't control. You are also welcome to believe that I posted a "hateful screed" and it was deleted, despite the obvious fact that she doesn't delete those, they are all still there to view right now, and she revels in them and uses them for publicity and sympathy.

"You are welcome to believe that there are no people in the world who disagree with her and are polite"

I did not say this.

"You are also welcome to believe that I posted a "hateful screed" and it was deleted"

I did not say this.

I asked for evidence. You're trying to divert attention from your failure to back a claim up.

I have tried to be polite, but you are being deliberately obtuse. Which part of "not really" is difficult to understand? I did not claim to have evidence, quite the contrary I told you clearly I do not have evidence. And I know you didn't say those things, but you would have to believe those things in order to explain the state of every communication channel she controls. Look up "implication" in the dictionary.

I am not trying to back up a claim for you. I do not care what you believe, you are not required to be rational. Believe whatever you like. But do try to at least be constructive if you wish to converse. Deliberately ignoring the words of the person you are responding to, and responding to the opposite of what they said is not productive.

Or I can share my personal experiences here on a forum for discussing our opinions. If I feel that I need your approval to speak in the future I'll be sure to ask.

You could simply show us what you wrote. More important than mere opinion on this forum is an actual contribution to the to the overall discussion. A claim without support is not a significant contribution.

Do you save a copy of every comment you write anywhere in case it is rejected by the moderator and then someone randomly insists you must be a liar? I'm not sure if that is common, but it hasn't been a habit of mine. And what exactly would that accomplish? Would you actually believe me that my post was not approved, or would you and the other troll insist that I am just making it all up? I don't have proof remember?

This entire thread of "prove the sky is blue" has not been a contribution to the discussion, your post included. So, why continue it? I simply pointed out that looking at the comments that were allowed through does not necessarily reflect on what comments were posted. This is incredibly obvious, and it is rather sad that "durrr prove it" is the level of hypocritical non-discourse here.

Anyone (yourself included) can look at how there is rational, polite criticism of her work on independent channels like twitter. And anyone (yourself included still) can look at how there is no such criticism on channels she controls. So painting the response to her work as being only trolling bullshit by pointing only at the channels that have been wiped of other responses is dishonest.

You could have said "I have no examples and didn't think to keep a copy of mine." Everyone would have realized you were basing your claim of censorship on circumstantial evidence and a lone anecdote. This whole subthread could have been avoided.

In most churches the advice given to men and women in terms of prioritizing your life is: God, spouse, family, work. I realize that you think that his God isn't real but that really stops you from ever caring about someone? If your father had cancer and believed in God would you speak to him in this way? Why go through life being so harsh?

>I donated to the Python programmer with ALS but I think I'll let Jesus help this guy.

As an atheist, I find your comment severely distasteful. I wish I could downvote this many times more than just once.

If it said "Human striving to be a good person, husband, father, software developer. In that order." would that make any difference to you? Because that's what all the moderate christians I know see their faith as meaning first of all.

I think you may have mixed me up with someone else. I have never uttered those words in that order, in public or in private.

This is pretty painful. Firstly, I'm sure such vote-buying is against the rules, or at least against the spirit of any such award. Secondly .. is this what it's come to guys? This? "Vote for us, not because you like us, but because we'll do pushups"?

These guys need to go home and rethink their lives.

> And if we end up winning the award, co-founders Alex and Chase will hustle for users on Main Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan wearing banana costumes

If that's helpful, they'd be doing it already. It sounds to me like a ridiculous idea. So why even suggest it? These guys are clowns.

If you want, I'll do a clown suit over a banana suit, but I don't think that's as funny ;)

Dude, the banana suit isn't funny either. I'm sorry but someone has to tell you.

How about you make a good product? Then you won't need to pull these stunts. Or if you have one - promote it differently. Seriously.

Good luck though and I hope I didn't come across as mean. I wouldn't say anything if I didn't care <3 <3 <3

You came across just fine. We're really just trying to have some fun with this. You make great points though. Thanks!

> The horror of slavery was that you had no choice in life

Your argument is all just semantics. Fine, slaves had no choice, and a large segment of Japanese (and other) society have no meaningful choice. Happy?

Slavery is a concept, anyway. You don't have to pedantically compare every single use of the word to some pet historical incident. I think it's entirely reasonable to compare sections of the working class's lives to slavery, and your attempts to "ban" the whole topic are really misguided and inappropriate, IMO.

Unfortunately seems to be US-only:

> The server at encrypted.google.com.au can't be found, because the DNS lookup failed

thanks for the tip though, still going to go with this.

Well, more "dot com domain only" than "US-only".

The dns magic underneath encrypted.google.com, www.google.com and www.google.com.au shows that doesn't matter - all three are "in Australia" (at the very least, within 21ms) from where I am (Sydney):

  [Bigs-MacBook-Pro:~] bigiain% traceroute www.google.com.au
  traceroute: Warning: www.google.com.au has multiple addresses; using 74.125.237.87
  traceroute to www-cctld.l.google.com (74.125.237.87), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
  1  192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)  3.558 ms  1.766 ms  1.582 ms
  …
  8  syd01s06-in-f23.1e100.net (74.125.237.87)  20.318 ms  20.009 ms  20.457 ms
  
  [Bigs-MacBook-Pro:~] bigiain% traceroute www.google.com
  traceroute: Warning: www.google.com has multiple addresses; using 74.125.237.81
  traceroute to www.l.google.com (74.125.237.81), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
  1  192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)  1.962 ms  3.753 ms  1.618 ms
  …
  9  syd01s06-in-f17.1e100.net (74.125.237.81)  19.927 ms  20.220 ms  20.404 ms
  
  [Bigs-MacBook-Pro:~] bigiain% traceroute encrypted.google.com
  traceroute: Warning: encrypted.google.com has multiple addresses; using 74.125.237.100
  traceroute to www3.l.google.com (74.125.237.100), 64 hops max, 52 byte packets
  1  192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1)  17.068 ms  8.808 ms  1.609 ms
  …
  8  syd01s12-in-f4.1e100.net (74.125.237.100)  21.235 ms  20.064 ms  19.237 ms

If I search for something where I might expect a regionally-customised result, like "newspaper", I get "The Sun", "The New York Times" and "The Guardian" from encrypted.google.com, but I get the SMH, "The Australian", etc. etc. from a regular google.com.au search.

I think that's a general feature of encrypted, no location customizations. (I'd have to double-check to make sure though)

Wow, interesting, thanks for the research. I'm in Sydney too and I was surprised at how fast it was, but didn't think to look into it. Cool.

Earlier this year Google announced that they will roll out HTTPS-by-default to all localized Googles. I guess they haven't got it done yet. http://insidesearch.blogspot.com/2012/03/bringing-more-secur...

It's not even close to the world's best travel site. I've looked at it before - maybe it's good in America but outside the results are bizarre.

I̶ ̶j̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶t̶r̶i̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶a̶g̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶-̶ ̶S̶y̶d̶n̶e̶y̶ ̶(̶S̶Y̶D̶)̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶S̶a̶p̶p̶o̶r̶o̶ ̶(̶C̶T̶S̶)̶ ̶m̶i̶d̶ ̶s̶e̶p̶t̶e̶m̶b̶e̶r̶.̶ ̶J̶u̶s̶t̶ ̶g̶o̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶q̶a̶n̶t̶a̶s̶.̶c̶o̶m̶ ̶d̶i̶r̶e̶c̶t̶l̶y̶ ̶g̶i̶v̶e̶s̶ ̶m̶e̶ ̶~̶$̶1̶1̶0̶0̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶e̶t̶u̶r̶n̶ ̶f̶l̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶-̶ ̶h̶i̶p̶m̶u̶n̶k̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶d̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶t̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶~̶$̶1̶3̶5̶0̶.̶ ̶G̶r̶e̶a̶t̶ ̶s̶t̶a̶r̶t̶.̶ (edited - prices have changed since yesterday and my criticism is no longer valid)

OK, so I am thinking of going over to the old country, SYD-LHR mid october. That's a long flight, I want at least premium economy - wtf, I can't even specify that on hipmunk! Well, that search is over even before it begun. I am sorry but a travel site that doesn't know what premium economy is is literally useless.

I don't want to sound like a dick. This stuff must be hard. But World's Best Travel Site? Are you kidding? How about learning "chopsticks" before you claim you're the greatest pianist in history?

(edit - the sapporo price changed under me in the last few hours, rendering my comment pretty void, right now at least. What I said about no prem econ stands, though. I'm a tall guy, and I'll flat-out refuse an economy flight more than 8 hours. Business is very expensive if I'm on my own money. Premium economy is a lifesaver to me. It needs to be on the site, yesterday)

For the SYD-CTS comparison, does the quantas.com price include all taxes and fees, the way Hipmunk does?

Actually, it seems a sale or something just ended and the qantas.com price is back up to 1800!

I'll edit to remove that.

But yeah, all Australian sites have to state the fully loaded cost. I can't stand sites that don't do that..

I loved this deep-rooted aspect of Australian (and, uh, New Zealic) culture when I visited your part of the world. Hotel advertises "$129 / night"? That's exactly the amount that gets charged to your credit card.

Sounds like if the hacker had just done it out of hours, perhaps when the person in question was asleep, they would have had uncontested access to the accounts and the hack might have been far more damaging.

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on" - Winston Churchill

It's not a new problem.

I believe that the original version of that quote is, A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. In which case http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/23633.html says that it should be attributed to Mark Twain.

Too late. Everyone believes the Churchill quote is the original one now. ;)

I'm sure it was Oscar Wilde~

Except that it wasn't a lie, as the original article didn't make these claims. Only the HN headline -- which wasn't in the original article -- and this new article contain sensationalised claims ('bogus story', for example).

You could argue that the original was worded to be deliberately confusing, perhaps even implying that the claims were proven, but I certainly didn't find it that way when I read it.

Are we talking about the same article that had claims about how most chips are manufactured in China (false) and that the vulnerability could be used in a Stuxnet style attack?

Can you offer proof that those are both false? The China claim I grant you — especially as the actual claim was 99% (I somehow missed this in my initial reading).

The stuxnet thing is trickier. To make use of this remotely you (or a stuxnet style virus) would need access to a JTAG connection. These come in many forms, including USB (needing access to the host computer — like stuxnet) or Ethernet (needing access to the network). It seems a bit unrealistic because JTAG tends to be used for development, but field-reconfiguration is one of the advantages of FPGAs.

Of course, I believe this specific Actel FPGA uses flash for configuration, which makes updating it in the field somewhat inconvenient and therefore less likely to be used in practice. I remember hearing that this is why NASA switched to Xilinx, as they now require field reconfigurability.

Still, the article certainly wasn't 'bogus', and the new article claiming so contained far more errors. Especially when you read the actual paper and not just the linked press release.

Maybe it means "remaining attention span"?