Hacker News Reader

Vvectoron Comcast wants to sell your Web history to advertisers

How much would your private browsing history be worth to future potential employers?

Vvectoron Scientists Talk Privately About Creating a Synthetic Human Genome

It't not about making "more", it's about making "better", not leaving everything up to chance.

See the movie Gattaca, for an example.

Vvectoron How not to report on the encryption ‘debate’

Coming soon: "We kill people who use encryption."

If you have something to hide from us, you are the enemy.

Vvectoron A Historic Day for the World of Competitive Rubik’s Cube Solving

They do consider wind. Too much tail wind can invalidate a world record.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_assistance

Vvectoron Space Filling Curves in Simulated Cities

Looks like Cul-de-sacs. You've limited traffic in those areas by eliminating pass-thru traffic. I doubt the one-way streets are measurable better than two-way streets. The fire response should be better on two-way streets.

Vvectoron The Sorry State of CoW File Systems

RAID isn't backup. Losing some of your files instead of all your files means you have access to some of the files during the restore window. And your restore might be quicker?

Vvectoron A Simple Guide to Five Normal Forms in Relational Database Theory (1982)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_normal_form#Examples

Vvectoron OpenStreetMap Then and Now

My last three addresses and all surrounding roads cannot be found on OSM. The streets are all there, they are just tagged incorrectly. With some help from the forum, I tried to correct the errors, but it never worked. Apparently there are 'broken relationships' that are beyond my ability to correct.

http://forum.openstreetmap.org/viewtopic.php?id=24177

Vvectoron Democrats unveil legislation forcing the FCC to ban Internet fast lanes

> If we're talking about cable rather than copper, the last mile was built by private companies with private money.

...built on public easements.

Vvectoron Storage Pod 4.0: Direct Wire Drives – Faster, Simpler and Less Expensive

That was my first thought. But the math backs them up. You lose 12% capacity per chassis. But you only save 7% per chassis ($688 off of $9305). So they would end up paying more for extra pods just to get the same storage. This doesn't include the rack space cost.

Vvectoron Buttercoin – US-based Bitcoin exchange

Will they take any of my GoxCoins?

Vvectoron The Final Goxing

That you are proposing is that MtGox is Too Big To Fail. Everyone else has to take a loss. This is exactly what is wrong with the current banking system and is one of the reasons Bitcoin was invented.

"it would restore public confidence in the protocol and economy" was the same line the government used to spend trillions to bail out the bankers. No Thanks!!

Vvectoron It’s Time to Make OpenStreetMap Your Only Street Map

My home address doesn't exist in OSM. Actually it does exist, but in the wrong city. This is due to the use of TIGER data, which doesn't align with Post Office addresses. So using my address, no one can find my house. And while I can edit the map to move the road where needed, I cannot change the city.

Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc, all have no problem finding my house.

Vvectoron Testimony of Pete Seeger before the House Un-American Activities Committee

And he just passed away last night.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/pete-seeger-l...

Vvectoron Another Model S fire

So with 250M vehicles in the USA, there is about a 1 in 1333 chance of the average vehicle catching on fire. Tesla has about 15k Model S cars sold in the USA. If there are 12 Tesla fires per year, we get around that same 1 in 1333 number.

Are Tesla cars less likely to catch on fire? Maybe. There isn't enough data to determine yet.

Are Tesla cars much safer than gas vehicles when they do catch on fire? Yes! This should be the focus.

Vvectoron PayPal Acquires Braintree for $800M

"Braintree" not "Briantree"

Vvectoron SimCity’s Sims Don’t Seem That Smart After All

"I have no idea how they let this one out the door..."

End of the quarter is two weeks away. EA needed the revenue bump in the earning report this quarter. It is sad that stock market issues drive release decisions.

Vvectoron Four-coloring a Dodecahedron

Just make a hole in the center of one side of the polyhedra. Then stretch out the hole, flattening the polyhedra in the process. Eventually you get a planar map, while retaining the same topology as the original polyhedra.

Vvectoron Should I download iOS6 for my iPhone4?

solution for iPad is www.youtube.com

It works better than the app every did.

Vvectoron Open source author pulls code after GPL abuse

I don't know the terms of the commercial licence in question. But GPL programs can be sold.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMone... Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money? (#DoesTheGPLAllowMoney) Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the required written offer to provide source code that must accompany binary-only release.)

Vvectoron Why (and how) we've switched away from Google Maps

I just checked my home address on OSM. My whole subdivision and the major 4 lane road that goes past it was all build 6+ years ago. None of it exists in OSM. This is a well populated suburb of Atlanta.

Vvectoron Who killed the netbook?

"[The Mackbook Air] wouldn't even be on most people's radar when looking for a cheap mobile computer they can surf the web on."

The article suggests that netbooks have three primary features: lightweight, low price, long battery life. The MB Air nails two of those, and works for consumers that don't mind the extra price. For those who are price sensitive, netbooks have been attacked on the bottom front by tablets and smartphones.