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bobdson AOL: Hand Over Crunchbase and Nobody Gets Hurt

I completely agree. I just asked to make sure you weren't being sarcastic.

bobdson AOL: Hand Over Crunchbase and Nobody Gets Hurt

Highest caliber?

bobdson CAPTCHAs decrease conversion rates

You are right about the blacklist, however, it's very unlikely you will have legitimate users coming from datacenter IPs. I've used this trick to prune hundreds/thousands of bad accounts in a couple of forums. You need to be careful with it, but I think it's a worthwhile method.

bobdson CAPTCHAs decrease conversion rates

Here's a trick not a lot of people use:

1. Whois IP address of spam accounts.

2. Identify bad blocks of IPs. If it's a datacenter, someone is probably running spamming software on a dedicated server or VPS. Maybe get your hands on some of those open proxy lists that are floating around.

3. Use your data to prune bad accounts, throttle or block creation of new ones, etc.

bobdson Parody Color Pitch Deck

I desperately need a Qwiki on this subject.

bobdson How to ask for things

It's important to not frame it as a transaction, or the person you are asking might evaluate it as such.

People want to feel like they are doing something for nothing in return, just goodwill and karma. But they are more likely to help if you make them feel that way AND give them something in return.

bobdson How to ask for things

I see a glaring omission here.

The 13th law of power: When asking for help, appeal to people's self-interests, never to their mercy or gratitude.

http://robertgreene.net/the-48-laws-of-power.html

(The 40th law of power is also relevant: Despise the free lunch.)

bobdson [dead]

That was pretty good, can we get the slides anywhere?

bobdson Firefox 4 is here

I noticed that and it was a very welcome addition.

The only problem is I don't remember Flash or FF crashing before, except some rare occasion. Now I see Flash crashes somewhat often.

bobdson The Current State of HTML5 Forms

Minus points for using /html5 as the url instead of /html5-forms.

bobdson IPad: The Microwave Oven of Computing

> If there were legal and technical means to license microwaveable food, I'm sure someone would do it.

http://www.google.com/patents?q=microwaveable&btnG=Searc...

bobdson Git is as revolutionary as Unix pipes (2008)

Git core has support for CVS, SVN, Perforce, Arch and Quilt.

There are plugins for Mercurial, Bazaar and DARCS.

https://git.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Interfaces,_frontends,...

Git to Mercurial.

http://hg-git.github.com/

Git to Bazaar.

http://doc.bazaar.canonical.com/migration/en/foreign/bzr-on-...

It doesn't seem other DVCS are that incompatible.

bobdson The Wage Struggles of Men

Someone linked to this short story in a related discussion about automation: http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

I enjoyed it thoroughly and I'd say it has the potential to make you think deeper about low-skill workers, automation and where our future is headed.

bobdson The Future of the Tablet, and It Isn’t the iPad 2

Am I the only one that is seeing a severely mangled page here? Must be a strange bug.

http://i.imgur.com/qROl4.png

I'm running the latest Firefox 3 (with NoScript). And before you blame NoScript, here it is with JS and friends enabled: http://i.imgur.com/JzPGP.png

Edit: Never mind, it was NoScript blocking a couple of the countless embedded scripts. I think the culprit was addthis.com/sharethis.com.

bobdson Adobe releases Flash to HTML5 converter

NoScript to the rescue, it can block all kinds of embedded content, even custom fonts.

bobdson Moviebarcode - Movies compressed to a single frame

I think it takes the dominant color from each scene. You can probably do that by resizing each frame to a 1x1 px image.

I'd love a script that takes a batch of movies, feeds them to ffmpeg or something and slowly makes barcodes for my movie collection.

bobdson Moviebarcode - Movies compressed to a single frame

Same here, I remember loving the vivid imagery of that movie.

I watched "The Fall" recently and this is the first one that came to mind. Highly recommended: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460791/

bobdson Dry Erase White Board Paint for Offices

I'd love to paint a couple walls with this when I get a more permanent office.

If you like moving around with your whiteboard check out: http://www.whiteyboard.com/

You can move it around and wash it and it's fairly cheap.

bobdson Swisslaunch: A Swiss Y Combinator clone

The application form is not working, that is if you manage to find the link in the first place.

Bootstrapping in Switzerland seems like an attractive proposition but does it make sense from a bootstrapper's point of view? Why not hop on a train and go to one of the cheaper countries next door?

bobdson Linus Torvalds: Pearls before swine

"I exercise regularly. I eat moderate amounts of healthy food. I make sure to get plenty of rest. I see my doctor once a year and my dentist twice a year. I floss every night. I've had chest x-rays, cardio stress tests, EKG's and colonoscopies. I see a psychologist and have a variety of hobbies to reduce stress. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. I don't have crazy, reckless sex with strangers.

If Charlie Sheen outlives me, I'm gonna be really pissed."

From Chuck Lorre, producer of Two and Half Men. http://chucklorre.com/index.php?p=329

bobdson Wolfram Alpha doesn't "get it"

I see many comments like that and I'm always left wondering.

Does this happen when a user deletes their own comment? Or is it only for flagged comments?

bobdson Ask HN: I'm renovating a house, what clever stuff should I build in?

Ethernet in the walls is a definite yes of course.

A backup electricity generator would be cool if power outages aren't uncommon in your area. Something like a central UPS.

Good insulation is key. Double glazed windows, etc.

A solar water heater is a good idea if you get a good amount of sunshine.

Grey-water recycling is a good idea. You can also reclaim heat from it.

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

A composting setup would be handy if you have a backyard or garden.

Choose robustness and longevity over style and minor cost savings for the various components/materials that will be used.

bobdson Self-Doubting Monkeys Know What They Don’t Know

> humans can realize that it may be desirable to change a behavior. Animals can not do this.

Are you sure about that?

bobdson Ever missed an SMS on your Android? Here's why. (long-standing bug)

I think that part of jrockway's point is that at least some of the people complaining on a bug tracker, have the skills to help.

bobdson Firefly fans: 'Help Nathan Fillion Buy Firefly'

Corporations originally were a form of monopoly granted by the state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation#History

bobdson Haystack: A small utility helping to protect your searches

I prefer GoogleSharing.

http://www.googlesharing.net/

"With Google's introduction of SSL support for search requests (encrypted.google.com):

The result is that Google knows what is being searched for, but doesn't know where the requests are coming from. The GoogleSharing proxy can tell where requests are coming from, but can't tell what the content of the requests is. And the user can avail themselves of Google services without having to trust either Google or GoogleSharing."

bobdson Black ops: how HBGary wrote backdoors for the government

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_%28technothriller_series...

Came up as the third result for "daemon" on Google. There's a lot I don't like about Google, but sometimes it just works.

bobdson Expert Exchange gets narky after snub from Q/A site review

Google sort of encourages this kind of cloaking. It's called First Click Free.

http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en...

bobdson [dead]

There is also this part: "The franchise was long known among activists in Belarus as an unsafe place."

bobdson 3D printing could reduce raw material needs by 90%

You can probably get a spec-sheet for their proprietary materials if you ask. You might have to reverse-engineer cartridges with security features though.

The Fab@Home guys are trying out various different materials, since their syringe-based extruder allows more flexibility than the RepRap.

http://fabathome.org/wiki/index.php/Fab%40Home:Materials

As far as cheap materials go, it doesn't get much cheaper than garbage plastic.

http://reprap.org/wiki/Recycler