Hacker News Reader

bsullivan01on The growing irrelevance of Google Search

There are YouTube videos I watch recreationally that I don't necessarily want to attach to my public identity.

Wait until what you viewed is broadcast http://uk.news.yahoo.com/google-users-stars-online-ads-14411... all over Google, and maybe the web via Adsense ads.

bsullivan01on The growing irrelevance of Google Search

I consciously try not to use Google but when I do it's with ad blockers. For products is Amazon directly--they are usually #1 anyway after the many ads Google puts on top. Ironically Google is training people to go directly to the top sites by putting them on top for virtually anything.

bsullivan01on Stay away from Digital Ocean

They work on razor thin margins so they shoot first and ask questions later. They don't have the resources to provide top notch customer service or investigate in depth, or prices would be much higher.

So you get what you pay for, I wouldn't move my money making sites to a service like that.

bsullivan01on How Bill Gross’ GoTo.com inspired the AdWords business model

wrong comparison Larry. Now a few entrenched players (not always the best choice or cheapest) can outbid you and hide your ads AND free listing. Not many people scroll down and on top is all ads. Small business is going broke thanks to Google, as Google's earnings keep going up.

Without having to spend money it ends up being confusing for consumers because it's like craigslist and inevitably results in people not being able to find what they want.

So Google without ads, when it first started, was worse than other search engines? Nope. The advertiser that bids the highest might not be the best option for the user at all

bsullivan01on Brazil announces secure email to counter US spying

I'm surprised they didn't have their their government emails. But they should know that if NSA really wants them, suitcases of cash will exchange hands to get the key...

bsullivan01on The San Francisco Exodus

To subsidize affordable homes for 100,000 people would cost $25 billion.

and then another 100,000 people would move in there.

So yes, we should build as much subsidized affordable housing as we can.

Skip as many meals as you want, work as many hours and you want to do that. People can move to different cities you know...

bsullivan01on Adblock Plus: the tiny plugin threatening the internet's business model

I think it also has to do with a rush new votes up or down. Sort of trending

bsullivan01on Adblock Plus: the tiny plugin threatening the internet's business model

Employes of a certain company that starts with G do this on stories harmful to their employer. I'd bet that's the reason.

bsullivan01on IBM researcher can guess your personality from 200 of your tweets

IBM researcher can decipher your personality from 200 of your tweets

memo to self, always keep the total number of avail tweets at 199, or 198 just to be sure.

Google and Facebook might, simply because they know everything about you and sites you visit.

bsullivan01on How to Become as Rich as Bill Gates

So the person born in the current Gates' situation would prolly have achieved what Gates did - given that Gates is who he is because he won the ovarian lottery.

If he had a twin brother he's be, say Larry Ellison or Warren Buffet?

No doubt knowing that daddy is there for you if you fail and that Harvard will take you back is a huge relief and fall back strategy but Gates did make some amazingly good decisions. Some forty years later his company is worth close to $300 Billion and makes over $20 Billion in profit, year after year.

bsullivan01on Adblock Plus: the tiny plugin threatening the internet's business model

Ads are fine, up to a point. If the page is almost all ads and not marked clearly as so, then F that company.

But these AdBlock PLUS guys are extortionists. Google paid and their ads are "acceptable." all of the sudden. (Disclaimer: not a fan of Google at all) Google being the world's largest advertiser is leading the way in putting the entire business model at risk, ruining ads for everyone. They started with no ads, then a few ads on the side, then on top, then 2-5 on top and 12 on the sides, now ads everywhere and just a few results hidden by ads. Now the product search is 100% ads and I doubt that most people know (not everyone reads HN and Ars) I posted them before but this is a disgrace and it's not receiving the needed attention from the media:

http://i.imgur.com/mhJhc5W.png

http://ho9od35yvs05ejqn.zippykid.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/u...

bsullivan01on How Samsung inflated its performance scores

But it's not like the market punished them at all. They are still selling lots of them.

Apple is the only that held them accountable in court, at least a little it. These b*stards are shameless http://cdn.mactrast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Samsung-A...

bsullivan01on How Samsung inflated its performance scores

Samsung is one shady company. They get away with murder in South Korea, given that they make up a huge chunk of SK's GDP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kun-hee#Samsung_scandal

They do make decent electronics, but I wouldn't trust anything they say.

bsullivan01on Living on $5,000 a year, on purpose: Meet America's 'intentional poor'

You don't know what you're talking about.

All I know comes from trying to help via the internet a cousin find a place to live around that area.

Bullshit. I have friends that lived in Surreal Estate (a Bushwick artists' loft) five years go for 150/_month_.

Apparently Surreal Estate is some sort of experimental commune so I don't see how this makes my argument invalid. Oh, and it's in Brooklyn, not Manhattan. And apparently it was five years ago.

bsullivan01on Living on $5,000 a year, on purpose: Meet America's 'intentional poor'

No, what's fishy is the $135/week rent, even a small room can cost more than that--unless it's a really, really bad area. But you can live on $540, for a while. Food can be very cheap in the bodegas and the rest can largely be controlled by only getting what's really needed. Of course a hospital visit will set you back 1-5 years of living expenses but that's different.

bsullivan01on Stone Age hunter-gatherers lived beside farmers, didn't interbreed

If it's anything like Africa has been over the past 100 years, agricultural tribes and hunter-gatherer tribes simply don't mix.

You are missing the point IMO. Back then, it wasn't like today, where you check their LinkedIn profile, FB pictures, date them a few dozen times and then decide.

Food, shelter and protection were even more important than now. And 2000 years is a long time not to mix, imagine what the world goes through in 2 millennia.

bsullivan01on Twitter pays SVP of Engineering $10 million as Silicon Valley tussles for talent

Twitter pays engineer $10 million as Silicon Valley tussles for talent

He may be an engineer but he got the $10 Mil for being "The senior vice president of engineering"

bsullivan01on Ask HN: I found documents on the backseat of a taxi. Can I legally use them?

First thing I would have done, NOT F*CKING POST on HN. The person that lost it reads too and so do his friends.

Second, if you wanted to you might used part of it you would have to be very careful and pair it with something totally yours.

Oh, and laws vary from country to country. Ethics are a different thing

bsullivan01on Google gets patent for its doodles (2011)

"A system provides a periodically changing story line and/or a special event company logo to entice users to access a Web page"...or change logo and upload the new one to the website. Revolutionary!

bsullivan01on Dear Google, Commit Your Broad Patents to a Defensive License

Or maybe the two faced Google is the one trying to win brownie points with the tech crowd, while applying for patents on bill splitting?

bsullivan01on What I learnt bootstrapping my startup from Thailand for six months

If I had a choice personally, I'd go for Japan. For culture/food.

Isn't that too expensive? I have no first hand knowledge, just what I read sometimes about it

bsullivan01on What I learnt bootstrapping my startup from Thailand for six months

Immigrant founders might also decide to go back to the motherland for a while if things get rough in USA.

bsullivan01on Dear Google, Commit Your Broad Patents to a Defensive License

Am i supposed to believe your word over the reality, given that all (other than Motorola) have licensed patents from Microsoft?

>> Most have nothing to do with OS. If any is related, MS is too scared to disclose it because it would be against Linux or Unix (which is around for 40-50 years).

40-50 years patents are non-existent, at least in the USA. And "Most have nothing to do with OS" is irrelevant, Microsoft has tens of thousands of patents, all they need a few dozen key OS patents to work with.

A search for "strength Microsoft patents" yielded this http://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/272100/survey_microsof...

"The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ (IEEE) annual Patent Scorecard, released in December 2008, gave Microsoft the top score among all categories. This is the second consecutive year Microsoft has topped the list.

IEEE’s Patent “Pipeline Power” ranking takes a number of factors into account, including the number of patents held, year-over-year portfolio growth, the variety of technologies influenced and the number of times a company’s patents are cited in the patent applications of other inventors."

I am going to take their word over yours. Sorry.

bsullivan01on Dear Google, Commit Your Broad Patents to a Defensive License

Let's cut the crap and get to the point: are you saying that the Patent Office should grant a patent for tip splitting to Google? Yes or no?

It's sad and hilarious at the same time to see Googlers defend these ridiculous positions as their company shifts strategy every week chasing an extra dollar. Who knows what you'll defend next week.

You build up a nuclear arsenal so that it becomes unthinkable by your opponent to attack

Redmond and Palo Alto are shaking in their boots, this tab splitting innovation from the smartest people on earth really tipped the balance :-). Apple and Microsoft have been building operating systems and patenting each step of it for 30-40 years. That's why every Android manufacturer bowed to Microsoft

bsullivan01on DoJ: If we can track one American, we can track all Americans

IANAL, but could one make a case that our freedom of association is being violated by the Feds knowing every person we talk to, text, meet (location data) etc?

bsullivan01on Dear Google, Commit Your Broad Patents to a Defensive License

It's like a billionaire punching a street bum in the face, and then whining when the bum fights back ungentlemanly.

Very touching, minus the fact that APPL was once almost bankrupt too and that the iPhone, that everyone started copying, really made them that $150 Billion. Care to tell us what Android looked before the iPhone? Oh, it looked like the market leader of that time, Blackberry. http://gizmodo.com/334909/google-android-prototype-in-the-wi...

I find it absurd that FRAND patents are practically valueless

No one forced them to make them FRAND patents. At least they get a cent here or there from every phone on earth.

bsullivan01on The Six Wars to be fought by China in the coming 50 years

This guy is dreaming. He thinks that other countries will just sit, waiting their turn to be attacked by China as China attacks them one by one.

My guess is that USA will rally them all against China during the first war dealing China a royal defeat. Then, of course, instead of India, China might break up.

The funny thing is that Russia has more to fear than anyone and that's because of.........S I B E R I A. China desperately needs lebensraum /natural resources http://metaldetectingworld.com/05_photo_gallery/singles/russ... and Siberia is perfect. Pout 50 million Han Chinese there and it's all taken care of.

bsullivan01on Zuckerberg Seeks Personal Privacy, Then Removes Online Privacy Feature

but he's not building a bigger one....yet.

bsullivan01on I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old boss [video]

Grown-ass white men getting paid to develop digital toys justifying to themselves why the situation for 9 year old sweatshop workers is good enough. JFC.

Fine, you pay for their food, clothes and schooling and we'll close the shops. What do you think of 80 year olds forced to work as Walmart greeters to make ends meet, right in the good ol' USA? The world has problems, sometimes you gotta pick the lesser evil since problems can't be solved by a HN comment or with a finger snap.

bsullivan01on Nordstrom Finds Cash Register Skimmers

because the damage so far has been very manageable, or a tiny cost of doing business. I am sure they have plans to replace them when /if...