HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

angus77

450 karma · joined February 3, 2011

submissionscomments
angus77··on White House Petition to End Software Patents Is a Hit
I've done that at least half a dozen times on my Desire. It would be nice if the "flag" button were off to the side, away from the other links, or if there were a dialogue to confirm your flagging. Or if there were an "unflag" button.
angus77··on Does open source exclude high context cultures?
I think you mean Japan was dirt poor a couple if generations ago. A generation ago they were in the middle of their economic bubble. A couple of generations ago, they were rebuilding from the devastation of World War II. Before that, they were already an advanced industrialized nation, far ahead of their neighbours.
angus77··on Google buys 1,000 patents from IBM to defend Android
You missed their secret weapon, the zeroth patent.
angus77··on Google Flight Search
We have detected that you are using an unsupported web browser. We support Firefox 3.5 or later, Chrome, Safari 4 or later, or Internet Explorer 8 or later.

?!? I'm using the Android browser!

angus77··on Currency.io, a html5 currency converter - open sourced to learn from
It works for me on Android 2.2 on my HTC Desire (nicely, too!), but doesn't even pretend to work on any browser on my laptop.
angus77··on Miguel de Icaza: Learning Unix
That's exactly how I learned---I'd say it took me two weeks, to, to become comfortable with typing. I've been recommending learning to touch type that way for a few years now. Not a soul has taken me up on it yet.
angus77··on Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple
Do visionaries "rise in the ranks"? Did Steve?
angus77··on Why Arabic is Terrific
Keigo is obnoxiously complex, but the grammar itself follows regular patterns.
angus77··on Are Keyboards on Laptops the Next Thing to Go?
Interesting. I also find that when I read Wikipedia, for example, on my laptop, and I see a typo or something, I'm almost always inclined to fix it. On anything with a touch screen, however, it's just far too much bother. Could the rise odd theipad see the decline on the participatory Web 2.0 and the rise of the consumerist Web 3.0?
angus77··on United States loses AAA credit rating from S&P
Japan spends 3% of its annual budget on defense.
angus77··on Google Threw A Punch, Microsoft Fires Back With A Missile
I understand perfectly what collusion means. Whether you interpret the situation as collusion or not is irrelevant. If Google interpreted it as collusion at the time, then it would be consistent with their actions.
angus77··on Google Threw A Punch, Microsoft Fires Back With A Missile
I don't understand how this makes their case weaker. They're saying they're opposed to the collusion apparent in the novell and nortel deals. By turning down microsoft, they're showing how they're not willing to be party to collusion. Sounds pretty consistent to me.
angus77··on Why God Hates German Words
I've definitely heard of the language of the Normans referred to as French or Norman French, but I have yet to come across anyone calling Anglo-Saxon German.
angus77··on Why my Mom Bought an Android, Returned It, and Got an iPhone
Wow... I'm replying to this from my HTC Desire, which I've had for over a year. I have had exactly ZERO of those problems. The biggest complaint I have is that I still don't have an update for Android 2.3 yet.
angus77··on The Secret Ingredient In Your Orange Juice
Could you explain that comment about zucchinis? I can't find any information about why one wouldn't recommend its consumption.
angus77··on Norway’s Premier Vows to Keep an Open Society
Don't be ridiculous. The "common sense" response is always something along the lines of "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth". It takes real sense to see how shortsighted "common sense" usually is.
angus77··on ClojureScript
Version 0.1.0 came out in early 2005, so it's been around more than six years.
angus77··on Estimate your English vocabulary size
As someone else pointed out here, Shakespeare's vocab was just over 30k (which was the number I was familiar with).
angus77··on Estimate your English vocabulary size
That was one of Dave Sim's favourite lines. I think he thinks he made it up himself, though.
angus77··on Estimate your English vocabulary size
I got 35,900, and haven't lived in an English-speaking country in 10 years. I often get frustrated at myself when I feel like I'm losing my vocab. There were a couple of words on the list that I'm sure I once knew, but couldn't conjure up the meaning on the spot, so I skipped them. I was never a sci-fi/fantasy fan, but I do like to read literature for fun.
angus77··on Estimate your English vocabulary size
I always thought of "bludgeon" as a verb. First I've heard it being used as a noun (and now my vocab has expanded!).
angus77··on What's in a SMS message? The real cost & just how badly you're being ripped off
??? You think nobody would complain if their phone bill went up?!
angus77··on Android takes huge lead in US Smartphone market
Depends on your definition of "everywhere". I don't even walk the dog without throwing my phone in my pocket first. Would you always walk your dog with your iPad?
angus77··on Who killed the netbook?
People are continuing to downvote this even after I corrected my mistake. Let me clarify:

When the first-gen 13.3" MacBook Air first came out, I had just bought an 8.9" EeePC 901. The difference between an 8.9" screen and a 13.3" screen felt enormous---especially given that 7" EeePCs were still being manufactured at the time, and the 10" models were still in the future.

The whole appeal of the EeePC to me (and others I know) was its extreme portability. The guy who sat next to me at work had a 15" Vaio. It was so big it needed a special bag. Because of it, sometimes he just wouldn't bother to bring it to work. Inevitably, sometime during the day he would find something he wanted to do on the computer. With the EeePC, it was so small that I could just slip it into its slipcase, throw it in my bag and take it anywhere, "just in case", even when it was extremely unlikely that I'd end up using it. I was rarely without it.

13.3" is so close to 15" that it hardly makes a difference. It seems unlikely that you would/could just throw it in your bag and take it anywhere. Even if it was light, it was also big. I took it as a lightweight laptop, not a netbook competitor, and in fact that's how Apple seemed to me to have marketed it---it was the reviewers who were comparing it to netbooks. Maybe it was the reviewers who convinced Apple to try to take on the netbook market with the 11", but it seems to me that wasn't Apple's original plan at all.

angus77··on Ask HN: What natural languages do you learn?
Mother tongue is English. Been studying Japanese for 15 years and living in Japan for 13. Was doing Esperanto for a few years, but since I've had kids I had to ditch at least one of my hobbies. Been recently trying to pick up French, because I'm Canadian and always got good marks in French in school, and I regret ditching it after I finished grade 9 (the last year it was mandatory).

Over the years, I've taken stabs at German, Latin, Chinese, Spanish and Lojban. Same story each time---a few weeks of initial enthusiasm, and then I got bored and never returned to Language X. I don't know what kept me glued to Japanese. With Esperanto, I was about to move on when I discovered there were actually people in my town who spoke it and met every week. It added unexpected depth to what I had been approaching as a novelty language.

angus77··on Who killed the netbook?
Except that the first MacBook Airs were not 11", they were 17", and those were the ones being compared to netbooks (because they were light). A while later came the 13" models, and not until quite some time later did the 11" models come out (at which point it would be safe to say it was a netbook, not competing with netbooks).

EDIT: Wow, I need to have my memory checked. I must have been confused by the $1700 price tag into thinking there was a 17" MacBook Air. I do distinctly remember being baffled by reviewers comparing the first Airs to the EeePC, though, as it seemed to me they weren't even aiming at the same markets.

angus77··on Who killed the netbook?
I can see how the iPad is a direct competitor to the netbook market, but the MacBook Air? I thought the comparisons were ridiculous at the time, and still do. I have enormous trouble imagining someone actually trying to decide between the two---price, size and specs were in completely different worlds.
angus77··on Firefox 5 is now officially released
Next time could we get a link to the list of changes rather than a download page?
angus77··on My Lisp Experiences and the Development of GNU Emacs
Which would've been funny when eight megabytes was a lot of memory. Just try and buy that little memory today.
angus77··on My daughter was first sued in the womb
Unless you were ignorant and wrong, and it's what you believed.
← PreviousPage 2 of 6Next →