skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Well, let’s consider a not-ridiculously-fraudulent situation:

I rent a camera from you for $70 a day, ostensibly for one day. My shoot doesn’t work out, so I keep it for three days. Did I commit theft?

Obviously, when I return it three days later, it is not theft. We can argue whether I owe you $70, $210, or much more, but to the police, that is very much a civil argument.

Now consider the situation between when I agreed to return it and when I actually returned it, like the day after it was due back.

Have I stolen the camera? No, we just disagree on the terms of a transaction where you voluntarily rented me a camera.

This “Mark” individual seemed to use fraud (photoshopping id?) to rent the camera, and that ought to be a crime in itself. But if he rented it in his own name, and the police showed up at his door, and he returned the camera, he could argue that he was renting it for a year, and how much he owes is a civil matter.

I don’t like this line of reasoning myself, but I can see why the police and insurance companies take the line that if you voluntarily give something to someone, it is not theft if they don’t return it, it is a dispute over the terms and conditions of your giving them the chattel.
Great for commuting though, when you can bring it inside at both ends.
IF there is no law then how do you fix the problems?
I remember years back when a law had to be created so money exchange shops had to display the commission with big fonts under the place they display the prices. The law fixes the issue people had, fixing it with free market and wishful thinking would have cost much more.

I think you can find some good enough rules on how things should be without forcing the use of the exact font family and color.
> state controlled money is something recent too, it used to be that multiple sources minted coins

I don't think you're considering a long enough time scale, the minting of coins with the likeness of rulers and symbols of the power of the state is as old as the concept of currency and rulers.

There have been instances where companies printed their own script and new non-authoritarian nations might struggle for a bit early on with competing banks, but it's always resolved and power is vested in the central authority.

The role of currency from the point of view of the central authority is more than just economic - it's symbolic, it's propaganda, it's confidence in that government expressed by every citizen through the very act of accepting their currency as valuable.
>Cameo has a roster of 15,000 celebrities that they believe could expand to 5 million.

5 million celebrities???

What does the platform offer the celebrities for the 25% cut? This is a cute gimmick, but how on earth is it worth $300MM? Any value comes from novelty; when everyone is getting a custom message from a "celebrity", how much value is left? Are they betting that this society gets more enamored with influencers and celebrity? God, I hope not.
To run Kodi as a frontend to my Mythtv backend. The 4 out I am wondering how I could replace the backend desktop with a Pi. I would need to find a way to connect a TV tuner to it. That seems the biggest hurdle. My current card connects through PCI slot as I recall...
See also https://petapixel.com/2018/10/29/how-i-lent-my-4500-camera-k...
>Why don’t all obese people just change their behavior and then we don’t need to worry about cheap insulin anymore!

For type 2 diabetics, behavior changes should be a part of the treatment plan. That said, if you currently have diabetics and you don't get insulin you will die thus it does qualify as life saving medicine.

>Why don’t men stop having sex with each other and then they won’t be at risk for HIV?

While it is not pleasant, people are not going to die just because they have to stay abstinent. You don't even have to be abstinent, you can find a group of 10 or even 50 guys, make sure everyone is HIV negative and then you can do what ever you want, as often as you want, with no need for drugs.

Calling it a "life saving drug" is correct in many cases (NGO worker in parts of Africa) using the term "life saving drug" to advocate for people to be able to cheaply have unprotected sex with strangers is dishonest rhetoric.
This is peak #LateStakeCapitalism, no fault to GoFundMe but these campaigns are such like something out of a YA dystopian novel. Slowly but surely I do believe American's are becoming more comfortable with the idea of free healthcare, in whatever form that comes in.
A Big Master Plan for Google's Growing Smart City
"Please note, however, that the insurance accepted on KitSplit is industry standard equipment rental insurance and does not cover some rare instances, such as if a renter commits fraud. These instances are extremely rare on KitSplit and happen less than 0.1% of the time, but we recommend that owners get their own annual policy with voluntary parting coverage in addition to the insurance provided by the renter."

Seems pretty clear to me that you are not in fact covered.
Two-thirds of American employees regret their college degrees
Possible correction to the essay: I believe in this hypothetical you were actually supposed to be giving me one hundred dollars:

> "Suppose I were to give you a dollar... You’d earn $2.26 in net interest in a year."
The problem with a legislative solution is that this is a cat and mouse game. And the government tends to be a very slow cat. And that's assuming a law would be effective to begin with.

That said, there should be SOME incentive for fewer dark patterns.
Varies based on the police department, but once it showed up on craigslist that might have been enough to get them to act. They're not going to waste a bunch of resources investigating, but they might get involved if they can just show up at the thief's house.
The transaction rate is deadly in my opinion, not just bad. A year or so ago the rates were running at ridiculous prices. It’s a black eye on the Bitcoin Core that they haven’t fixed this nor do they seem inclined to (the Bitcoin Cash Core seemed convinced they wanted nothing else but to control Bitcoin entirely).
Minor point: You'd actually be typing "oraclecloud.com", e.g. https://console.us-ashburn-1.oraclecloud.com

That's a lot better, right? grin ;)
@moderators: would it make sense to change the link to the journal article rather than IBM's article? It's free access.

https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/radiol.2019182622
KP is a bit washed up at the moment, so I wouldn’t take them leading on an investment as a sign this is an obvious home run. Feels very faddy to me.
I like your idea. It could be a platform on its own, like a GoFundMe but exclusively for pro-bono legal cases.
I would say a message template for the most common alerts would not be an excessive luxury.
This may be a domain that consumer protection groups could latch on to.

A little bit of lobbying to fix the worst of the problems and shining daylight on the rest might be enough to change the course of enough companies to improve the situation.
Target also has employed dark patterns at brick and mortar stores, something I wrote about [1]. Thankfully it seems they’ve toned this down a little bit in the past year.

1. https://link.medium.com/RpkO9xcxOX
Webassembly is slowly (but carefully) deciding on a garbage collection spec of its own; once that's available, you should see a whole new slew of languages targeting it, including full-fledged d.
Though not related to Airbnb, in Sweden there was a guy who couldn’t use his own apartment for one or two years since it was occupied by fraudsters. What a hellish situation that must be.
Yeah I was wondering why they don't enforce a deposit up front.
Considering that they brag about blocking 99.99% of frauds, and still there are so many cases of stolen property happening on their site - it seems that the 99.99% number is an exaggeration. As such, they are obviously deceiving the owners through misrepresentation of what they do.

Second, they have automated emails for dealing with "voluntary parting" furthermore suggesting this is not an isolated occurrence.

I'm just saying - if I'd want to make off with tons of equipment, one novel idea for me would be to set up a legitimate private marketplace, fake renter info, send an acolyte to pick up the equipment, and then deny all responsibility. But never subscribe to malice what is explainable through incompetence and so on.
Our world is built on contracts. The OP makes a very clear point that should be a lesson to every reader; learn to read and comprehend what you are reading before you execute any contract or release anything not after.

Assumption and laziness is where most people lose. Discipline and confidence to reference the contract to the letter as written is key.
10 BPs.. Also if they're letting the fraudsters continue to use the service (why wouldn't they if they're generating risk-free fee income to KitSplit), the fraudsters are likely more active the typical users. So if 1/1000 users are fraudsters and fraudsters are 10x more active than regular users, odds are 1 in 100 that your gear gets stolen. Ludicrous.
It's not like people plan on a torn ACL.

And for most major health care issues, the primary concern of the patient isn't price, but rather outcomes - quality of care. Do we choose the cheapest doctor, or the doctor with the best reputation?

My wife, who is a dancer, tore her ACL last year. Not getting it fixed, and fixed right, was the difference between being able to continue dancing, and having to give up the thing she loves the most. So when decisions like "Use transplant tissue, or cadaver tissue?" came up, there was zero thought given to "Which one costs the most?" It was all "Which one is most likely to get her back on her feet and allow her to continue dancing?"
I don't doubt what you say. Just want to point out that this is published in a peer-reviewed journal, so hopefully the academic community will judge it objectively.

https://pubs.rsna.org/doi/10.1148/radiol.2019182622
A marketplace for connecting renters and owners is valuable. Their real issue is that their marketing essentially says they cover stolen gear, but their fine print says they don't. That's no bueno.
> The words you write are saved and locked away, only for you to ever look at, so you can write whatever's really on your mind without fear of it getting out.

Hmmm... Is it wrong I don't trust anyone with the data of my private ramblings.
Sue first and sue often. Really.

You've already done most of the legwork on this. Now all you need to do is get this into small claims court.

Trust me: once KitSplit gets that notification from the court that they're being hauled into court and are going to need to hire a lawyer to defend themselves, you're gonna be working with a whole different level of people at Kitsplit. That's your best chance to get compensated.

SUE THE BASTARDS.
> Except that you're laying on the ground writhing in pain, not the easiest time to pull out your phone...

It's very doable. When I broke my arm in highschool, I was in mind bending agony for a few minutes. Then I put some ice on it and went to work the next day. Didn't get a cast on it until after work.
How can consumers review/evaluate platforms like this? Is there a Yelp meets Crunchbase for companies that operate worldwide?
Wait, so the ad goes "We have this wonderful new drug Blablagmuglub, but we can't tell you what it's for - you'd have to ask your doctor, maybe it treats exactly the condition you have!"? How that makes any sense? Or it goes "there's a drug that cures your acute bonitis, but we can't tell you how it is called"? How that's an ad for anything? That sounds like a way to ban drug advertisement completely, so why not just come out and say it upfront that drug manufacturers are not allowed to publicly speak about any prescription drugs they manufacture?
That's astounding on another level, too — they encourage owners to get their own insurance policy! And yet they aren't aware of any such providers. Insane.

> A) On our insurance page kitsplit.com/insurance We explain in underlined terms that “we recommend that owners need to get their own annual policy with voluntary parting coverage in addition to the insurance provided by the renter.”

> The sad reality is that insurance companies simply do not cover voluntary parting. As a result we are, as of now, unable to offer voluntary parting because there are no insurance partners who provide it.

Now I'm sure there's a difference between ensuring a business as a whole like that and insuring yourself, but seriously?
> I'm not a fan of the call out culture, but I really want to see KitSplit take some action and fix this problem.

Since this has happened before, it would be more beneficial to society at this point to convict the owners of KitSplit of fraud and put them in prison.
This would allow you to choose your insurer based on rates and copays for common treatments - that could be a win even if there is only a single provider.

Furthermore, if other competing providers see room to compete on price because of transparency you might actually get more providers.
If Congress legislates they aren't going to be prescribing UI design in the text of the bill. They will give the FTC rulemaking authority and they'll be the cop on the beat that digs into the weeds.
I am sorry but this is the point where we disagree. "I still need to make a living" is not that I would accept as an argument to justify all of the unethical issues that arise from the attention economy industry.

Yes, this means that I will actively find ways to accelerate the demise of these business. No matter how much I want to support content creators, it does not make me responsible in guaranteeing their job.
The name of the page “Trust quote is contradictory to the writing in TOS
They exist (most insulin produced today is rDNA biologics), and are about $25 at Walmart. Of course, the same thing at CVS or Walgreens is $100+. I know b/c I switched back to using them after needing to travel internationally for more than 1 month at a time... my expenses went from $2500+/mo to under $200/mo, including the extra testing supplies required to support this regiment. At the same time, I take up to 7 shots a day and am definitely now a "Medical Tourist". Yes, I can go to Europe or Canada and buy supplies (at retail cost) for less than the US, including travel. But - that's actually MORE FREEDOM for me. YMMV.
Second time an article like this has surfaced in less than a year[0].

KitSplit claims that these scenarios are extremely rare. If that was the case, I have no idea why they wouldn't include voluntary parting insurance in their service. Is the bad press worth the occasional payout they'd need to do?

Why would I or anyone else ever use KitSplit after hearing a story like this? Peace-of-mind is literally the most important feature of a service like this. It is the only thing that separates them from your local [insert-location-here] Facebook rental group that just exchanges cash under the table.

[0]: https://petapixel.com/2018/10/29/how-i-lent-my-4500-camera-k... (HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18332918)
Nice article. Always wondered what SalesForce actually was and why it's so popular. Now I know.
Yes, fused quartz has roughly the mechanical durability of granite, and it doesn't melt until a considerably higher temperature than ordinary glass (though lower than the 1650° temperature at which crystalline quartz melts).

Vellum and other leathers have a lifespan of under 10000 years under ideal conditions, like those under which Ötzi was preserved. Under such conditions, the researchers extrapolate from accelerated-aging measurements that their medium will last 3×10²⁰ years, which is 3×10¹⁴ times as long. That is, this glass disc will last 300,000,000,000,000 times as long as a vellum document will, unless it's subjected to high heat.

They also extrapolate that at 462 K (189°, or, in obsolete units, 372°F) it will last the current age of the universe, some 10–100 billion years. At 189° I think vellum's lifetime is a few minutes.
I wouldnt be. Im not surprised by anything anymore. But here I’m just speculating. Today I heard of KitSplit for the first time and will not touch them with a ten foot pole.
Amusingly, Skype looked much more native before MS bought it out and redesigned everything.
Storing and visualizing time-series data from a Raspberry Pi
The Blackbird pilot who survived his SR-71 disintegration
Perhaps you should consider the state of "maths" education wherever you're from, since you seem to be fundamentally confusing exponential and polynomial here.
Caught tampering past climate records
I find it not fair to compare VSCode to JetBrains' product: one of them is an IDE, the other one is an editor, different features and different targets!
Gold was not mostly used by the aristocracy. Coins for laypeople were things like silver, copper or bronze. People also bartered.
They have automated emails for dealing with "voluntary parting". This is a stronger indication of trouble than anything else.
I’m not sure it would help in this case; seems like the fraudster used a stolen identity.
But I don't see how it was "voluntary." There must have been some agreed upon contract through KitSplit right that makes this not a voluntary but a business-type transaction where the rules are clearly stated: You paid $X, and you get Y for an agreed amount of time. If you don't pay, you don't get it, if you don't return within the timeframe agreed you're in breach of said contract.
Even worse, it sounds like this is a standard practice in the insurance industry.

Insurance always carries a steep moral hazard in the form of the temptation to sell deceptive peace of mind, fooling their client into thinking they have purchased insurance covering a scenario which the company has no intent of actually covering. Few people will ever actually discover the deception, so it's reliably profitable. I had not heard of the "voluntary parting is not theft" schtick before today and in the absence of a prominent warning about this distinction I would consider such an insurance sale fraudulent. Further, I'd want a large punitive multiplier on the fines to account for the fact that most of the time the deception will go undiscovered.

I strongly suspect our legal system would disagree, and I'd consider that an even bigger problem.
William Gibson’s lost Alien 3 script became 2019’s strongest audio drama
The point of those numbers is exactly the same as what you describe. They are saying the majority of medical issues are things you could call around for beforehand, just the same as you tried and failed to do. The point of the executive order is to force places to actually give you a price when you ask.
When I moved to the US years ago, one of the big differences I noticed (coming from Eastern Europe) was the implicit "trust" people and businesses have of "strangers", people and businesses they have never met before. Where I came from there's an implicit distrust and you have to earn your trust. Now, I thought, this implicit trust is actually great, it definitely makes so many things much easier (don't have to carry or show my ID for so many things where back in Eastern Europe you'd be required to, don't have to show up in person for almost anything, even driving license is sent over mail, etc), people take you at face value, it makes many things friction free. I generally much prefer it over the default distrust culture.

As to the security of such an approach, I always wondered what happens with bad players. Without much investigation I simply assumed that:

1. most people are likely good players

2. those few bad players would get caught by an actually functioning police force and the punishment would be so severe nobody wants to risk it

Naive I know :) I don't know about #1 but #2 is starting to become clear to me it's simply not true. Just look at KitSplit, plenty of bad actors and when that happens nobody seems to be caught. I'm starting to think that people trust strangers implicitly as a matter of comfort (it's more stressful to distrust everyone for sure) and culture (they grew up in it) rather than because they have rational reasons to do so (ex. the law is enforced and violations of said trust are severely punished).
I care about my exact bills and your exact bills. I care. Maybe you don't, but I do and so does the person you replied to. That makes at least two of us.
Open source and smartphone apps is not mutually exclusive. I guess you mean you want open source smartphone apps instead of closed source / proprietary smartphone apps.

There are some. For example, Marcel Bokhorst developed the following applications: NetGuard, XPrivacyLua, and FairEmail [1]

[1] https://github.com/M66B
Why would those factors be any different when taking notes on a laptop? It is still on the screen/document somewhere, and it still looks like something.
He owns an entire Hawaiian island. We're past the bigger yacht stage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanai
It's going to keep happening until someone takes them to court.

I hate to say it but unless you're bound by an arbitration agreement in the terms of service you should just file in small claims. Even still...file in small claims and make them fight to have the case sent to arbitration. Lawyers are expensive and you won't need one in small claims.

Sometimes the process is the punishment.
Just clarifying for the inevitable comments you'll get that you're referring to visible homelessness, living on the street, etc., right? Not people who just lost a job and can't make rent?
The question you are raising is really: Should we build government policy around promoting startups/ new business or protecting consumers?
Ethnic Russian Sparks Debate over What It Means to Be Chinese
There's at least some ever-so-modest value-add: AFAICT they're insured against and/or will pursue renters for accidental damage of the equipment.

But if they fail to do better identity verification, they're worthless. How hard would it be to mail a postcard to the address?
>She also claims their assessment of people signing up to KitSplit is effective at blocking 99.99% of bad actors and stopping millions of dollars of theft on the platform, almost surely an exaggeration.

If this is true, they should easily be able to afford to self insure against theft by charging 10 cents per thousand dollars of gear rented.

Odd that they don't do that huh.
The third google link is to an article on PetaPixel [0] with just as much detail as this and a very similar headline "How I Lent My $4,500 Camera Kit for $95 and Had It Stolen", from October 2018. The author here clearly didn't google anything about KitSplit, or if they did weren't convinced by the existing documentation of bad behaviour. I'm not sure why this new article would be any different.
Perfect opportunity for existing customers to migrate to a different service.
I'd never give out expensive gear on a rental site like this. If they can't really deal with people not returning / stealing cameras, what happens if they return the camera damaged? Or scratch the lens up? Sure you get money for someone to use your unused camera for a day, but how do you know that they'll treat your equipment as you would? What if they switch your camera out for one in worse condition?

The risk to reward ratio for this doesn't work for me.
An interesting note here:
0.1% is 1 out of every 1000. This is not a insubstantially small number. This becomes even more alarming if it is rentals rather than “vetted parties”.

Seems like they should have a better process for this not so rare case.
TLDR: Idiot rents out $3500 equipment, equipment does not get returned, starts bitching on his blog on hope that the middleman (KitSplit) swallows the loss and reimburses him.
"AI" has been used routinely as a synonym for machine learning for the last decade or more, hasn't it? This employed neural networks.