Hacker News Reader

asron Anger for Path after Privacy Breach: So Many Apologies, So Much Data Mining

Exactly. It's an issue because, if someone asks him for his sources, he can say no: if someone asks Path for his sources (via subpoena), they might not be able to say no. So this upload means he can no longer guarantee sources their name will never come out.

asron DoubleRecall (YC S11) Nabs $1.6 Million For Alternative To Paywalls

If your phrasing were where this is going I'd have no issues with it, but I think (if this is successful) it's going to be much worse:

"The idea is to create experiences that ... are targeted and clickable enough for brands to actually make money and potentially avoid using a paywall altogether."

The most likely use case is to make pop-over ads 100x more annoying, not to complement a paywall. I would hope user revolts would kill this, but I'm not optimistic...

asron BBC confronts Facebook troll

If, like me (and the US Constitution), you think we should have extremely strong freedom of speech protections, that doesn't mean you automatically think there shouldn't be private repercussions to some speech.

asron A $5000 Chair

This is right, I don't think duress is relevant here.

As a hypothetical, if the company hadn't already paid the $5k, just agreed to do so in the future, they could have some legal arguments for not actually paying after the round closed. See http://www.lawnix.com/cases/alaska-packers-domenico.html.

(Of course, that's talking about whether or not there's any tenuously-supportable legal argument. Back in the real world, they should obviously just pay him.)

IANAL. TINLA.

asron [dead]

The problem is, even if you add more filters, used cars are still different enough from each other that your users likely want to see the hidden results--unlike airplane seats, where some results are more expensive tickets with an additional connection and therefore 99.9% of searchers will agree that result is worse.

What if there are two cars, one of which is $250 more, but which has a few (fairly minor) additional features and is 75 miles closer to the user? Figuring out which car the user wants to see is a hard problem.

That obviously doesn't mean it's not worth working on, but my guess is your current solution is sub-optimal enough you'd be better off displaying all of the results and simply ordering them based on these criteria. Or at least making it very obvious to the user there are other relevant results, since most people are used to all relevant results being displayed in one long list (that's my guess; I'm not an expert in this at all).

asron Facebook's S-1 Filing

Sometimes the explanation is more optimistic than that--sometimes the CEO is rich enough it makes little difference. E.g. John Mackey (Whole Foods CEO) switched to a $1 salary because he felt he no longer needed to work for money [1].

I mean, think about it: Mark owns over $10 billion in Facebook stock--he makes over a billion dollars by pushing the stock price up 10% (or loses over a billion if the stock drops 10%). Either way, a $15 million salary would be fairly insignificant...

[1] http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/may2007/...

asron Firefox 12 will finally have a New Tab Page and Home Tab

Eh... not such a big deal to me. I would like to use Firefox--I think Google's privacy changes demonstrate why it's still important to have a non-profit in this space--but these changes are not going to lure me back to Firefox. I moved to Chrome because Chrome is faster.

I know Firefox has worked on their speed, and it may be I only notice a difference because I'm on a netbook, or because the Firefox versions of my extensions are more poorly written than their Chrome counterparts. But for whatever reason, Chrome feels faster to me--both in general, and also due to other nice touches like its ability to open PDFs without launching Acrobat.

The window-dressing is nice, but just as search quality is the most important thing in search engines, and auto-complete, instant search, etc. are mostly secondary, speed to render the site appropriately is the primary indicator of browser quality; new-tab windows and the like are nice-to-haves. As far as I can tell, Chrome is still winning on speed, and I hope Mozilla is devoting appropriate resources (read: 90%) to changing that.

EDIT: as an aside, I know downvotes are somewhat amorphous on HN, and I shouldn't take them personally, but it bugs me that when I take some time to try to write a thoughtful (though admittedly critical) reaction to news, I get voted down to -1 (at least 5 downvotes) for my trouble. I've seen similar reactions frequently in other threads, and it saddens me that this is apparently now common HN behavior. This response is just not conducive to building a community. The responses here are great--if you think my comment is wrong, upvote those instead. Meanwhile, excuse me while I leave HN...

asron Avoid Apress

It certainly seems like apress doesn't have their act together, but the fact remains it's a bit silly to refuse to sign a contract and then expect to be paid an advance whose amount is apparently fixed in the contract! In this case, the author could have saved a lot of trouble by asking for an acceptable contract instead of just not signing anything.

Again, i'm happy to accept that apress is unprofessional and a pain, but when someone sends you a contract that says 'completion by X' and that's not ok, ask for a change! If apress paid advances to authors who refused to sign contracts with them, they could get into a lot of trouble.

asron Facebook is Hiding Your Mail

Facebook jumping shark--a loose timeline:

2004: I sign up for Facebook because it lets me easily find classmates' cell numbers, and I got my first cell phone for Christmas!

2005: wow, my HS friends are all joining facebook! More connection.

2006: networks de-emphasized as facebook opens to anyone with an e-mail address. Many stop sharing contact info with a network, so odds I can find cells/emails go down.

2007: I graduate, but use Facebook messages to stay in touch with friends (feels less formal/weighty than email).

2008: I find some guy's wallet, find his facebook page, message him, and he gets it back.

2009: I'm using Facebook less. But Facebook stock is burning up. Everyone I know who went to work for Facebook could retire. I can't--but I apply to go back to school instead, which is a rough approximation.

2010: I really can't get much info on my new classmates from Facebook, except streams of status updates during class--a distraction, not real communication.

2011: I learn Facebook spams you a lot if you don't log in frequently enough (they need those monthly active numbers). Messages to strangers apparently don't work.

2012: What can I do on Facebook again?

asron Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?

I might agree with you, but we'd need more information to really know for sure.

A minute of Googling turns up TechCrunch speculating YC and other investors got paid back in this deal, in which case I'd say this is pretty sleazy.

asron What Jeff Bezos Knew Back in 1997 That Made Amazon a Gorilla

Most of these points strike me as contrary to traditional lean startup advice--e.g. it's ok to expend a huge amount of resources without seeing results for 5-7 years, and it's important to be first in a big market.

Obviously, this worked for Amazon, and there are some opportunities you won't be able to take advantage of in any other way, but it's certainly high risk. I mean, Pets.com arguably followed much of this advice.

I suspect what really separates Amazon from the pack is their actual customer experience--but that's only 1 of 6 points here.

asron Paul Graham, Dropbox and The Single Founder Exception

By definition getting to the same results without co-founders requires a much higher level of ability

I don't think this is a compelling argument--investors don't care about your ability, they care about your company's results. If this is true, then co-founders are indeed a better bet.

Every screening mechanism is imperfect. Once everyone starts requiring co-founders, then there's a lot of value as an angel to being willing to consider single founders. But that doesn't mean investors who avoid single founders are wrong to worry.

asron How I retired in 9 years on a corporate programmer salary

Who is downvoting this? The point is that people can find a lot of fulfillment in work.

When I read about a programmer who stopped programming at 30 to go into construction, I think that shows programming wasn't really the right career choice for him. If it's not the right career choice for you, then by all means follow the recent spate of HN "retirement" posts and change careers.

But if you love programming, you can actually find jobs you like in programming! You don't need to retire! Talking to 30-somethings planning their retirement is...depressing.

asron How I live on $7,000 per year

I think where I disagree with you (and the blog author) is your attitude toward work: Money is just a medium of exchange, right, but have you ever wondered what it is you're exchanging? It's life.

Work isn't a waste of life. My goal in life is not to get to the end having worked as little as possible. Travel is fun, and educational, and good for you, but it's not the only thing. By all means live cheaply enough to allow yourself to do what you want to do in life. But if all you want to do in life is retire, then I don't really understand your goals.

(Living cheaply to do your startup is great. But a startup is not an inherently cash-poor activity, it's just risky. If you knew in advance that your startup would never be successful, and your product would have minuscule adoption, would you do it?)

asron Who killed videogames?

A good Saturday read. The incentives developers face when designing free-to-play games do indeed lead to games that are no fun.

But I actually think many game genres are getting less addictive. It used to be that distribution of games was so expensive that there was little money to be made without catering to the hardcore gamers (I use that loaded term to mean someone who is willing to spend huge amounts of time on a game)--so games often took forever to complete and were designed to be most fun if played in 5-hour chunks.

Now, with internet distribution and marketing, some indie game designer can design smaller games and sell them for $10. So there's a place in the market for smart games designed to be played in less time.

And, unlike the pusher-addict economics of social games, the low cost of distribution is win-win and not going away. Indeed, as it becomes easier and easier for a small team or single developer to make good games, this trend should only accelerate.

asron Steve's Google Platform rant

But Google will only consider a product a success if it achieves sufficient scale, while it would (apparently) be happy to have a successful product that is not a platform.

Since 100% of successful Google products will be large, it makes sense to design for scale from the get-go. But if some of Google's products won't end up being platforms, it might make more sense to bolt that on later.

asron Steve Jobs Succumbs to Alternative Medicine

But going to a naturopathic doctor for a diet prescription is rubbing crystals all over your body. William Li (the speaker in that talk) is an MD bringing evidence-based medicine (i.e. science) to bear on the question.

On the other hand, as naturopathic doctors themselves explain, "tradition-sensitive naturopathic practitioners ... which have tradition-based paradigms articulating vitalistic and holistic principles, may have significant problems in relating to the idea of EBM as developed in biomedical contexts." http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2006.12.323

asron Steve Jobs Succumbs to Alternative Medicine

The author argues that Steve's expected survival time was actually much higher than the median, because his cancer was detected early--and that the delay in pursuing traditional treatment (surgery) may have been responsible for the poor outcome.

Basically, the article would have been clearer if the author had just left out the median in the first place, as he doesn't think it's relevant.

asron Netflix Splits DVD And Streaming Businesses

This has the ring of truth--otherwise, why not just better separate the divisions within the Netflix brand, as many (angry) commentors have suggested?

An additional possibility that occurs to me is that the movie studios' well-publicized dislike and fear of the streaming business is hurting the physical DVD business. Netflix has had to accept some pretty bad terms from studios, like delaying their availability of new releases, in part because studios see Netflix as a long-term threat. Quickster, on the other hand, should be able to build better relationships with studios precisely because they're not a threat to the studios' long-term dominance.

Basically, it's true that this is not the most customer-friendly move in the short-term, but the movie studios' strategy in the medium-term was to kill Netflix. "Continue to grow in the same direction" was not an option because the studios hated it, and this way both pieces of Netflix have at least a chance to survive.

asron "The legal profession is undergoing a massive structural shift"

This article correctly points out that pricing for legal services is undergoing a shift toward the true marginal cost for the service. So the law firm business model where much of partners’ profits are markups on simple, repetitive work done by junior associates is on its way out.

That said, the doom and gloom of this article (and much of the profession) is overblown. Maybe it’s because law is such a conservative profession, but any change is greeted as if it were the coming of the Four Horsemen. It’s as if the entire software industry spent its time worrying about how the internet was going to put Windows programmers out of business, instead of being excited about the opportunities it presented.

Major law firms are filled with smart and experienced lawyers who actually provide a lot of value to their clients. That value is still worthwhile--as the article points out, the rule of law is not going away.

As a law school student, I'm not (unduly) worried about this. Sure, there will be some winners and losers, but that’s what happens in business--and basically what this is about is that law firms are looking more like businesses. Why should I expect anyone to feel sorry for me because of that?

asron The Ballmer Days Are Over

I'm sorry, he lost me at comparing Microsoft stock to Apple and Google over the past 10 years. In retrospect, those are two of the most successful publicly traded tech companies of the period--not a fair comparison.

Not to mention those were small companies in 2000. For Microsoft stock to have increased 1200% (as Google's did) it would have probably had to grow into some very significant portion of the world economy.

Obviously Microsoft hasn't outperformed over the past 10 years, and it looks like the rest of the article gets into actual substantive critique, but it's hard for me to trust substance from someone who starts out with such an unfair introduction.

asron Stanford explores NYC engineering campus

This is definitely not a done deal--NYC has solicited proposals from many institutions, and it's not certain they will do the project at all. The NYT has a nice overview here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/27/nyregion/bloombergs-big-pu...

asron Woman removes SIM card from smart energy meter, uses $193k of 3G data

I'm still in law school, so I can't claim expertise yet, but my understanding is that accidentally killing someone while purposefully injuring them would be 1st-degree murder.

When you get excused is if you didn't act purposefully... e.g. if you drive your car recklessly and kill someone you'll be guilty of manslaughter. If you purposefully hit someone with your car you'll be guilty of murder even if you only meant to break a few bones.

asron Woman removes SIM card from smart energy meter, uses $193k of 3G data

Actually, this is not true (at least in the US... not sure how it translates to other common law countries). Your mistake about the facts doesn't excuse you if you still knew you were committing a crime. (I'm having a hard time finding a concise source, but try googling "strict liability for grading").

As for murder, the penalties there do differ depending on your state of mind, but that's not an issue of mistake (you can't try to third-degree murder someone but mistakenly first-degree murder them).

Not to say I agree with the punishment in this case, though.

asron How to beat Apple

"If they feel the need to compete with anyone on price in order to protect their business interests, they can do so with price cuts deep enough and long enough to drive most potential competitors out of business."

If they try to drive competitors out of business by pricing below cost, this is illegal. Apple is already getting looked at by regulators, and I doubt they want to invite more investigation, which slows a company down and may prove really harmful to the culture (see: Microsoft).

If this just means Apple might be willing to cut their margins, then yes, I agree. So the key is to make something with a lower cost structure than Apple has. Not going to happen for iPads in the near-term, but this industry changes pretty quickly...

asron Why Groupon Sucks for Merchants and LivingSocial Doesn't

Thanks, this summary is a useful recap.

I think a lot of this article is colored by the author's positive experience with his LivingSocial rep and negative experience with his Groupon rep, which may be just the reps he was working with. And, reading between the lines, it sounds like his impression of Groupon customers was created largely by one problem customer (could be a couple, but not many).

Of course this tells you something, but to use an overused phrase it's "just one datapoint."

It is, though, an interesting datapoint... I'm curious if this is truly a general trend.

asron Concrete Poured Into Ant Colony Reveals Insect Megalopolis

I think it registers as creepy because the narrator is anthropomorphizing while we watch.

Although I agree that in the abstract I'm not bothered by it. I mean, we also kill mice in large numbers for science...

asron TSA Admits Bungling of Airport Body-Scanner Radiation Tests

Correct. These new tests produced abnormally large results. If these results were true, then this would be front-page news. But the results are faulty. So the actual radiation is ... the same as what we thought before these new tests were conducted.

It's confusing because, once you understand it, you ask why they wrote a story about it.

asron TSA Admits Bungling of Airport Body-Scanner Radiation Tests

This article is confusingly written to obscure the fact that there's no story.

Some field tests showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected, but the TSA has determined it's because some field testers, who were conducting 10 tests at a time, reported the sum of the individual radiation levels instead of the average.

Apparently this is due to a confusing field test form. So the TSA has fixed the form.

I mean, I hate the TSA too, but come on...

asron The Day the Movies Died (or, why Hollywood can't make good films anymore)

I don't think you're really disagreeing with the author--I think his point is that there are fewer original ideas with the potential to redefine genres, push boundaries, etc.:

"I don't mean that there are fewer really good movies than ever before (last year had its share, and so will 2011) but that it has never been harder for an intelligent, moderately budgeted, original movie aimed at adults to get onto movie screens nationwide."

To stretch an analogy, the Googles and Facebooks are still creating great new features, but the startups are in trouble, and even though Google and Facebook are dynamic in a lot of ways, it's just not quite the same.