Cigarettes are also a good social lubricant.

Unrelated, but could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

May I ask how do you know it's the same person across accounts? Do you guys track our IP addresses or something?

I'm not a mod, but they almost certainly track the IP addresses of people who create accounts. It's basically impossible to do spam prevention otherwise.

I think that most people don't have static IPs and then there are proxies and VPNs... I don't think that IP is a meaningful identifier. From my experience IP bans never really work, except maybe for range IP bans, but then you might affect other users too and of course you could still circumvent it with a VPN.

I once created a throwaway on HN for something sensitive, and I happened to be on a VPN at the time. My comment started out dead and I had to vouch for it on my main account.

So I think that's just the tradeoff they make, in order for HN to be able to exist. It probably gets reversed if you email the support link.

>> People rarely prostitute themselves (or others) for tobacco though.

Not really a fair comparison of addictive qualities. If heroin were legal, regulated, and priced accordingly, no-one would prostitute themselves (or others) for it.

The entire Valis trilogy is essential to understanding PKD.

1) The Empire Never Ended 2) What about Kevin’s Cat?

How do we escape the Black Iron Prison?

It wouldn't be an issue if the NYPD were interested in enforcing the law.

What do you want them to do? Between public sentiment right now and De Blasio and his bullshit, I'm surprised they haven't all quit by now.

I'd expect them to do their jobs and remain professional, and if they feel that they can no longer do that, then they should quit vs. petulantly refusing to do their jobs.

Public sentiment is the way it is because of rampant documented abuses of power, authority, and regression to childish, over simplistic views of their positions and responsibilities.

Unless one trains oneself to notice them (or if one has an affinity to them due to being an enthusiast), two wheeled vehicles are a lot harder to notice while driving in a car.

The downvotes are because the loud pipes thing is a myth, especially on the highway. MSF classes actually cover this.