Hacker News Reader

askar_yuon Show HN: Moscow banned Gay Pride for 100 years, so we invite them here instead

Could somebody help me understand what's the hype about the Gay marriage/pride thing? I don't know why but I am noticing a lot of buzz recently about this ("Gay parade banned somewhere", "Minnesota approved the same-sex marriage", "US supreme court to rule... about Gay marriage"). What I mean is in the ladder of problems that world has this has gone up extremely. What's the force behind it?

askar_yuon An open letter to the IIT Graduates

"How sad it is that there is not a single startup like Google, Facebook or Twitter from India, even though they are being powered by Indians in the silicon valley"

I have a lot of respect for Indian IT workforce, having worked closely with Indian RnD at my previous company. I think nobody disputes Indian contribution to IT sector be it in US or anywhere else for that matter.

But coming across statements like above, I often shake my head amused. I've even had conversations with people who tried to convince me that it's the Indians behind all US's success in CS/IT and that it's the Indians that are powering Microsoft and NASA, and what not, you name it. Coming across statements like that I've wondered do they really believe that or is it just blowing smoke...

askar_yuon At Facebook, zero-day exploits, backdoor code bring war games drill to life

Amazing story.

A little off-topic question - how do stories like this get reported (got picked-up by arstechnica)? This isn't some standard Press Release or entry in the companies' blog. Is it initiated by companies (FB in this case) themselves? Or is it the journalists constantly sniffing companies for such stories? It's something I've always been curious about coming across such stories. I am assuming there is standard PR practice for such things (for example I wonder how did that FBI e-mail snapshot got shared by arstechnica, despite the blurring and e-mail being ultimately set-up, there must be strict policies in terms of what to share and what not...) Someone please shed a light ~

askar_yuon MIT discovers a new state of matter, a new kind of magnetism

to me, Young Lee sounds more Korean than Chinese :)

askar_yuon Odd Things Happen When You Chop Up Cities and Stack Them Sideways

Istanbul indeed is an amazing city to walk through, but I think it's more so for tourists who find it exotic. Having lived here for more than a year now I find the streets here quite frustrating - because of the irregularity, extreme density and especially because of the ascents/hills. I am talking purely from the perspective of getting from point A to B in a daily life. I commute to work by walking, takes only 15 minutes; but I go down and up a very steep ascent so I have to sweat twice a day :) Not to mention the cars which gets past quite fast just an inch away from me while I myself am just inch away from the edge of the road.

I still love this city with all its beauty and uniqueness. What I like most is that there are endless amount places to go, see a and discover. But when it comes city-structure, it's the roads that I miss most about US and Kazakhstan where there is a concept of a "sidewalk" and "road" (an actual, real road) - I think you know what I mean by this :)

askar_yuon Lean into the pain

Was the wording of the headline that made you completely disagree? You can interpret stuff in anyway you wish, especially when you feel a need to argue against a point for the sake of arguing. From the context, overall OP's message is very clear. Basically, it's the same old "get out of your comfort zone" motivational preach, but OP sheds a different and interesting light and gives simple analogies that HN audience can easily relate to. I fail to see any reason to criticize it purely due to the word choice.

PS, this comment reminds me a pattern in HN where an article ends up in front-page; say, about the need for hard-work in a startup, and the comments which would go up in arms about how working "smart and not hard" was the key, that there is more to life than just work, blah blah blah, sometimes arguing with a straw man. Yet, when some 37 Signals article hits about working 4 days a week, etc etc, again some people arguing how the "great" work was only done by putting a lot of work, crossing the higher walls, etc. All in unnecessary amount of comments by making a mountain out of molehill. Without taking to extremes or pointing out some edge cases all this would be avoided.

askar_yuon What are the most intellectually stimulating websites you know of?

sarcasm...?

askar_yuon ZTE Backdoor

While they had a valid point, Huawei != ZTE. ZTE is partly state-owned, but Huawei is not, it's all privately owned.

PS: http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertolsen/2011/02/24/huaweis-o...

askar_yuon The Secret History of Kim Jung Il -- written by one of his high school teachers

Fair enough.

I've had couple 19-20 credit semesters which I barely survived; and I did not work during school. I've always admired those (especially international students) who worked while handling such workload as yours; yet excelled in their course works.

askar_yuon The Secret History of Kim Jung Il -- written by one of his high school teachers

"As a computer science student, I don't really have time to read as much material unrelated to Computer Science as I would like..."

I was a CS student who had a very alike mindset and I regret that. In hindsight I wish I had not let the "being a CS student" mentality serve as an excuse in my lack of literacy in other important subjects.

askar_yuon Stop being so productive

This comment totally made my day.

You know, sometimes there are times where you can't really articulate your feelings; but then coming across something you say "oh, that's exactly what I thought/felt/meant". That's how I felt while reading your 2nd paragraph :)

askar_yuon Google Bar: The next stage in Google redesign

One of the things I liked most about Google search was that there was no garbage on the page. Just a simple search field on a white background. But then came the black bar at the top (which I could not figure out how to get rid of), now this... One step at a time, they're getting closer to other garbage sites.

askar_yuon Google.pl's crazy doodle

google.ru has it as well.

askar_yuon Early Photos of Y Combinator

I wonder how these non-US-residents were able to handle their visa issues.

askar_yuon A notebook and a pen can be a highly effective personal productivity system

hearing these two posts made my a bit happier; to be honest. I'd felt that there is something "wrong" with me being not as comfortable in typing as I am with pen and paper. Yes, I am more productive with plain pen and paper and I will stick to it.

askar_yuon Ask HN: Found security flaw in site, what should I do?

Why don't you send an e-mail to the webmaster of the site?

If you're concerned that the company may misunderstand your intent and take some legal action against you, may be you could send an anonymous e-mail...

askar_yuon Advice From An Old Programmer

If there is a one takeaway for me here, it'd also be "don't be programmer, be a domain expert who happens to write good code". Well said!

As for the frustration you have by observing people doing mundane tasks; I bet every person who has had some decent exposure to programming have felt this way at some point (i.e "re-entering parameters by hand in excel"). And this seems so prevalent that sometimes I wonder if people should be force-fed process automation in their daily tasks. Say, we start from schools where children are deliberately given such exercises where where they have to perform tedious tasks; and then they are taught to spot and come up with ways to automate in order to speed up. Organizations could also have such culture in place where they constantly look for things that may be unnecessarily consuming employees' times, etc.

PS, obviously I am not talking about programmers as it's in their mindset to try to optimize any work they're confronted with.

askar_yuon Google Redirects Traffic to Avoid Kazakh Demands

If you really consider this funny and worth sharing the text in its entirety as an HN comment, there is something very wrong with you.

There are limits to satire.

askar_yuon Show HN: Hacker News Instant (3 hour project)

"3 hour project" - I wonder what the author's intent is to point out that it took him 3 hours to implement? (I've equally been curious about the ones where people share their weekend projects and remark it explicitly)

askar_yuon This Guy Has My MacBook

what is it with Singapore? <br> I am curious.

askar_yuon Western Graduates Head to China for Internships

should not be difficult (nowhere near like applying to US working visa at least). And I think gommm will help you with the visa and other stuff if you decide to apply and get accepted :)

askar_yuon 1 in 6 Russian entrepreneurs are in jail, 1 in 3 prisoners are businessmen

I buy your argument, but only for for Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia (of which I was skeptical while writing my first post) Let's add Goergia there also; cause I am not really sure about there either. But now, you still have 11 out of 15 Post Soviet states where the kind of attitude from government as it's described in the article widely prevails.

askar_yuon 1 in 6 Russian entrepreneurs are in jail, 1 in 3 prisoners are businessmen

actually it's the same situation in most (if not all) Post-Soviet countries.

askar_yuon Y Combinator’s Paul Graham: We’re Looking For People Like Us

is there a video of this interview?

askar_yuon English as a second language: Test results on the most fluent countries

Very interesting. Evaluating the English skills based on tests is like evaluating programmers based on how well they do on programming contests (i.e ICPC). For example, if this test was given to high school students about to graduate, I would expect China to be in top.

askar_yuon Work Less

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinsons_Law

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."

askar_yuon Coming of Age as an Entrepreneur

your product reminded me of a great Ukrainian startup Viewdle. They had won the Le Web startup competition in 2008.

their presentation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzvfcpLtdgg

askar_yuon Anonymous speaks: the inside story of the HBGary hack

not sure how e-mail encryption would have helped... ? They SQL injected and got the DB, obtained the passwords and then proceeded further (social engineering: FW policy change, ssh password through e-mail, etc.)

askar_yuon Poll: How old are you?

I'd expect this group to be the highest ranked... why would this be hidden/dead?

askar_yuon Show HN: Hacker News Map 2011

Borders would great indeed.

I opened up the Google Map to check whether the dot around Central Asia could've been "mine". Zoomed out the Caspian sea, equaled it to size in the picture, then estimated the distance towards east... :)