Hacker News Reader

XparXnoiAxon George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

Do a search for "Obama Antichrist" and you'll see plenty of examples. "Obama devil" gets some hits, too.

XparXnoiAxon George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

The worst election result is losing the house, senate, and presidency all at once. Look at who has power, not the votes.

XparXnoiAxon George Orwell’s 1984 is currently the top selling book on Amazon

For instance, the "alternative facts" comment/incident is being talked about everywhere

That's exactly why they said it. Notice how it distracted everyone from talking about the marches? Trump knows how to change the media narrative.

XparXnoiAxon Why Wordpress?

2 factor authentication is great, but it won't stop an attacker from using an XSS attack to get the authentication cookie.

In general, security isn't something that can be tacked on as an afterthought, it has to be built in from the beginning.

XparXnoiAxon Why Wordpress?

Not to mention, it doesn't matter if things are kept up to date when Wordpress takes months to issue a patch for critical security problems.

XparXnoiAxon Why Wordpress?

Yeah, I wish I could recommend WordPress to people because it's really nice at what it does, but the security flaws are too serious.The fact that it takes months for them to fix serious vulns reported to them only makes it worse.

Seriously, there are youtube tutorials about 'How to Hack Wordpress.' It can't get much worse than that:

https://www.youtube.com/results?q=wordpress+hack

XparXnoiAxon Disclosing vulnerabilities to protect users

Yeap, you're right, I misread. Here is a quote from the paper: "15% of these exploits were created before the disclosure of the corresponding vulnerability." So there's a lower bound.

XparXnoiAxon Disclosing vulnerabilities to protect users

The study says that most vulnerabilities were being exploited before being disclosed.

XparXnoiAxon Disclosing vulnerabilities to protect users

It should be pointed out that most vulnerabilities are, in fact, being exploited before they are patched. Citation in this article: https://medium.com/@xParXnoiAx/irresponsible-disclosure-52d0...

XparXnoiAxon The No More Ransom Project

No, absolutely not. Even if their intentions are good, they still have shown some questionable competence, for example:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/03/31/trend_micro_patches_...

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3020327/antivirus-software-co...

XparXnoiAxon So You Want to Learn Physics

I'm curious whether any physicists here have read this book and found its claims justified.

Which claim in particular? I recommend the book, not so much because of its conclusions, but rather because of its excellent history telling.

XparXnoiAxon So You Want to Learn Physics

"The End of Physics" is a good one. You may also re-think your desire to learn physics. If you get through the book and still want to learn, then you will do it completely without illusions.

https://www.amazon.com/End-Physics-Myth-Unified-Theory/dp/04...

XparXnoiAxon We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures

I'm doubting the sentence quoted.

XparXnoiAxon We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures

"And it's not possible to shift a person people into all of those categories, it's mostly inborn"

You're making a helluvan assertion there. You're going to need a citation, because psychology has no clue about this.

-signed, A Psychopath

XparXnoiAxon We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures

Democracy works as well as the voters.

It hasn't stopped working, for an example close-to-home, look at the corruption in SF, that has been there for over a century. As long as voters don't pay attention, we'll have lousy government. Voters are the watchdogs.

XparXnoiAxon We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures

The article itself addresses your point, saying, "modern writers have tried to show that the Spanish conquistadors exaggerated the human sacrifice; archaeology has shown that, if anything, they lowballed it."

Sometimes 'atrocities' are real.

XparXnoiAxon We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures

So......do you understand what they were doing with all those human sacrifices? Because I sure don't. I can make guesses, just as the article does, but I sure don't understand it.

XparXnoiAxon We May Never Truly Fathom Other Cultures

Most cultures of the world had some form of human sacrifice in their past history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice

It's kind of a strange aspect of humanity.

XparXnoiAxon L4 microkernels: The lessons from 20 years of research and deployment

To the point that sometimes, it seems they go out of their way to make things insecure...........

XparXnoiAxon L4 microkernels: The lessons from 20 years of research and deployment

At DefCon, someone did a talk investigating the wireless security of some drones. Some of them had a TELNET port open for anyone to log in. The problem here isn't a lack of formal verification, it's a lack of people caring.

There is only one thing that will fix the problem, and that is when corporations get hit in the wallet for having security flaws, see for example: https://medium.com/@xParXnoiAx/irresponsible-disclosure-52d0...

XparXnoiAxon Facebook deletes Norway PM's post as 'napalm girl' row escalates

To some degree that's a compromise. There are people who want neither nudity nor violence on TV, but they've lost the violence fight (somewhat: there are still limits, see http://screencrush.com/avengers-rated-r/ ), while winning the nudity fight.

Often when laws don't make sense, you'll find the law was forged as a compromise, rather than a logical overmind creating it. the constitution is a clear example of this.

XparXnoiAxon Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

Me too.

XparXnoiAxon 16-year-old British girl earns £48,000 helping Chinese people name their babies

It matters if you're actually formulating an argument. I understand what you are saying

What is the argument? If you start thinking about it, I think you'll find it's actually quite hard to create a coherent counter-argument.

XparXnoiAxon Lessons from a 45-year Study of Super-Smart Children

  >In certain areas, hours might be enough,

There is no area where hours are enough. How you apply the hours is extremely important.

XparXnoiAxon 16-year-old British girl earns £48,000 helping Chinese people name their babies

Doesn't matter if it is long or short, as long as people understand it.

XparXnoiAxon 16-year-old British girl earns £48,000 helping Chinese people name their babies

Time for some irresponsible disclosure: https://medium.com/@xParXnoiAx/irresponsible-disclosure-52d0...

XparXnoiAxon 16-year-old British girl earns £48,000 helping Chinese people name their babies

The big difficulty here is letting people know that the project even exists. Most people here could build it, but figuring out how to bring in customers is the hard part.

XparXnoiAxon 16-year-old British girl earns £48,000 helping Chinese people name their babies

It's kind of a problem. I knew a Chinese girl who chose the English name "Squirrel." When I told her it wasn't a real name, she didn't quite understand.

XparXnoiAxon A Mathematician's Apology (1940) [pdf]

Math is so huge......I've taken several math classes beyond calculus. Most people I know struggled with algebra, and are confounded and confused by my math skill. My math skill is so far advanced from zero that the average person cannot even conceive what such things mean.....even famous science writers don't understand eigenvalues, but I do.

Despite all that, I consider myself horrible at math. I am aware that I know only a small portion, and even that portion, poorly.

So maybe Hardy spent more time focusing on what he didn't know, and measured his achievements based on that rather than on what he did know.

XparXnoiAxon The Shape of Emily’s Coffin: The mysteries of the least known Brontë sister

If you read to the end, it has this nice quote about the coffin size from a primary source:

I eventually found a transcript of the coffin maker’s book. Here it is, in his own words: “Emlea Jane Bronty. Died Dec 19th 1848 in the 30 year of hir Age. Coffen 5ft 7” long 16” broad.”

Note that the measurement there matches the body size, not the outside of the coffin with the wood included.