Hacker News Reader

Dolimiteron Accidental release of 45L of polio virus solution into the environment – Belgium

"Something is being covered up"

That's an extraordinary claim - I presume you have extraordinary evidence? I mean... this is Hacker News, not a conspiracy website.

Dolimiteron Atom: Editor window startup is slow

This was always going to happen, Atom was always doomed to fail.

Why was that technology stack used to develop Atom? A browser window to render a text editor?

If Atom wanted to take over the world, it should have chosen a technology stack that made it run AT LEAST as quick as Sublime Text. Instead we got Eclipse. Therefore, it's never going to get traction outside a niche.

LESSON LEARNED: Choose a technology stack that benefits the end user, not one that suits the developer of the software.

Dolimiteron Universal SSL

That can't be correct, I get lots of traffic from China, and use Cloudflare. Unfortunately, the traffic is often SQL injection type garbage, so I'm going to be upgrading to Cloudflare Pro as it seems they block such traffic.

Dolimiteron Norway the Slow Way

What is the cost to produce a page like this? Must be high, versus the cost of a normal article with inline images. I cannot imagine that the ROI is worth it. Therefore I think that this article format will disappear for economic reasons.

Dolimiteron The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings

Are those cumulative figures? A bit misleading if so.

Dolimiteron Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions

The technology is not nearly ready. Not in a city. It's like flying drone delivery. Easy to demonstrate in a single controlled setting, but nearly impossible to actually implement in the real world.

Dolimiteron Uber Drivers “Strike” and Switch to Lyft Over Fares and Conditions

Self-driving cars in a city environment are like flying cars. Sounds kinda plausible, but the tech is always going to be 20 years away.

Dolimiteron China's Island Factory – New islands being made in disputed China Sea

I found the multimedia presentation to be over-designed, clunky, unusable nonsense.

Dolimiteron China's Island Factory – New islands being made in disputed China Sea

When did this type of website design become acceptable?

I'm starting to see it more and more.

It reminds me of when "Multimedia CD-ROMs" first appeared circa mid-1990s, where flashy interfaces were ranked much higher than useability.

Please stop it. Give me a webpage with text, and images that I can enlarge when clicked. Thank you.

Dolimiteron Stories from our first two years

A great startup.

But the linked webpage... when did design like that become normal?

Dolimiteron Reddit Just Banned the Subreddit Where People Were Posting Celebrity Nude Images

No please, don't turn this into a "people with power" can do anything rant. Reddit removed the sub because they were overwhelmed with DMCA notices. If the other sub you mentioned was also flooded with DMCA notices then it would get removed too.

Dolimiteron Ask HN: Shall I run my own adserver?

So why not send your mobile traffic to Google Adsense, and the normal traffic to your current ad provider.

Dolimiteron This is why you never end up hiring good developers

fizzbuzz is very useful as a pre-interview screening technique. But as the author says, it's 20 minutes of wasted time in an actual interview.

Dolimiteron Ask HN: Shall I run my own adserver?

I presume that the content on your website is somewhat NSFW, otherwise you would be using Google Adsense or media.net to server the adverts. They give full reports, pay well, and in my experience pay higher for mobile browsers.

You say that they send you a cheque, with no breakdown of figures. This seems almost unbelievable to me.

Dolimiteron The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

"The only topic on which I manage to accumulate downvotes is Snowden/NSA related."

Indeed, I got -40 karma on this story. Dissenting opinions are not tolerated on NSA stories.

Therefore people who do not agree with the HN consensus "self-censor", and a vicious circle is created, with only a single narrative displayed.

Dolimiteron The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

"Yes[1,3] and yes[2]. Have you been in a cave for the past two years?"

Yes, the NSA can monitor specific targets. Do they monitor all Internet traffic worldwide? No, such a task is absurd and technically impossible. However I have learned that people's opinions about the NSA are faith-based, and not open to reasoned arguments.

Dolimiteron The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

Think about it. You're saying that the USA spies on all non-US internet traffic. Does that make any sense? Is there any evidence? No and no.

Dolimiteron The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

If you're wondering why you are being downvoted...

The readership at Hacker News firmly believes that the US is a surveillance state. Stories are chosen and upvoted which confirm this worldview. Dissenting opinions are downvoted. If you're looking for a reasoned evidence-based discussion of the NSA, then choose a different website.

Dolimiteron The executive order that led to mass spying, as told by NSA alumni

Another top-voted article about the NSA on Hacker News that is thin on evidence to say the least. It appears to be hearsay from a disgruntled ex-employee.

However I understand that the story fits the political narrative of the forums here, and will therefore be upvoted despite any lack of sense or evidence.

Dolimiteron The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

I'm a "shill"? Really? This is the level of debate?

Also, none of your links in any way prove that the NSA stores all phone calls. None of them. 1 is hearsay from someone, another talks about metadata, and another says that the NSA can record any phone call (yes we know that). Nowhere is there any proof that all calls are being recorded.

This is what I am talking about. It doesn't seem possible to have a conversation about the NSA on Hacker News that is based on logic, reasoning or sense.

Dolimiteron Slap: Terminal-based text editor

Requires node.js ...

EDIT: oops I'm getting downvoted, sorry for mentioning the platform. For the record, I think that JavaScript is the perfect choice of language for a terminal text editor. I can't think of a single better language and platform.

Dolimiteron Dylan: the harsh realities of the market

"Languages don't matter. Platforms matter. APIs matter. Playing nicely with the rest of the world fucking matters."

Nice, I like that.

Reminds me of the Discourse peeps, who rejected eg PHP, and wrote it in their pet language, ignoring that no-one cares about language, and finding the problem that their platform is so difficult to install and use, that no-one uses their software.

Dolimiteron The Surveillance Engine: How the NSA Built Its Own Secret Google

Is anyone else puzzled that stories about the NSA are accepted as gospel fact when posted on Hacker News?

The Reality Distortion Field appears, and people believe, because they want to believe.

It depresses me, the lack of intelligent discourse.

Most tech people I meet actually believe that the NSA records and stores all telephone calls. It's depressingly stupid, but I have given up arguing, logic and sense are not welcome when the NSA is the topic.

Dolimiteron Lime Text: Open Source Sublime Text clone

Not sure about that. It eats processor cycles and chews up battery life. For no discernible advantage.

Dolimiteron Lime Text: Open Source Sublime Text clone

Indeed. Atom will never be fast enough. Because of the "cool" underlying tech chosen.

Dolimiteron Lime Text: Open Source Sublime Text clone

atom.io is not fast enough, not even close. Not for a professional developer who is using it 8+ hours a day.

Dolimiteron Assange 'to leave' Ecuador embassy

What's there to talk about? He's wanted for questioning over sexual assault allegations. He doesn't get to have "talks" about that. He's not the messiah.

Dolimiteron Imgur, please don't be the next TinyPic or ImageShack

Worse was when they ran noisy auto-play video adverts last month. Every time I viewed an image, I was faced with "HEYY WAZAAAPP!!! JUSTIN BEIBER!!!" nonsense.

I'm in Europe, the USA didn't get them, so there wasn't so much of a fuss. They managed to get away with it. Appalling and cynical.

Dolimiteron Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

It was Snowden himself who said is was office gossip. The only people reporting it as fact are those caught in the Snowden reality distortion field.

Dolimiteron Edward Snowden: The Untold Story

Wait what? Snowden himself says that the source of the information was office gossip. This isn't a case of believing or not believing Snowden. It's a case of people taking a snippet of gossip and reporting it as true because they want it to be true!

People's reality distortion field when faced with the Snowden topic - it astonishes me.