Hacker News Reader

datenon Traffic Experiments -- How to clear traffic jams

The success of this technique can't be accurately measured by the driver who's trying "smooth" out the waves. It needs to be witnessed from outside of traffic. It usually just moves the problem to behind the "helpful" driver as other drivers can very easily continue to drive competitively and recreate the effect. Even if he's successful in removing the "wave", it's just by decreasing the average speed of traffic.

Please don't try this in the left lane.

datenon Mobile Flash Fail: Weak Android Player Proves Jobs Right

How many phones support HTML5 with all of the features Flash provides for a direct comparison?

datenon CSS3 lasers

Impressive effects without using images.

Unfortunately: There are rendering problems in Firefox. It's a fixed size and doesn't scale with the browser window resolution. The same page can be achieved in a widely compatible way with a simple image.

datenon [dead]

I'm sad that it's necessary to hide things we're allowed to have because other people are easily frightened and chose to over-react to something that isn't a threat.

datenon [dead]

I think the discussion of fear in society and overreactions by the police is interesting.

I have owned one of these umbrellas for about a year and regularly carry it onto the DC metro. I have been stopped by metro police once. They calmly asked to see it, were generally curious about where I got it, quickly returned it and went about their day.

I think it's a disgusting over-reaction to deploy more than one officer to investigate a report of someone carrying something that might be a sword. If they're running around clearly attacking people with a confirmed weapon, sure.. send in the necessary resources. If they might just be carrying an umbrella, send at most one person who can handle it even if it does turn out to be a weapon. And that's assuming weapons are banned in that area because it's a school or something. In other areas of the same country I think people have a constitutional right to own weapons in which case this wouldn't even need to be investigated.

I also had one person tell me they thought they saw me carrying a gun. People aren't just afraid of sword shaped items, they're afraid of any long black narrow item. Just like Boston is afraid of anything with batteries, wires and LEDs.

datenon [dead]

What does a previous incident involving a real sword have to do with this? Is the risk of sword related violence higher because it happened recently? Is the heightened fear any more justified? Should I always be afraid of people carrying swords because one person in millions used one to hurt somebody?

datenon Useful things you can make SSH do

You can also just transfer it with:

$ scp -r user@host:/path /path

datenon A Case Study of “Designed By Developers:” Stack Overflow

Many very useful tools, applications and websites require a little of bit learning. That's not a bad thing just because you're unfamiliar with it.

datenon They Will Steal Your Idea. They Cannot Steal What Really Matters.

Just because you can't steal what really matters doesn't mean you don't already have it. You could possibly take someone else's idea and execute it better than they would have. What are the odds that the person who came up with the great idea doesn't have the best motivation or resources to make it successful?

datenon NSA Hooking Up Ominously Named 'Perfect Citizen' To Watch The Internet

I think the people involved with naming these programs live in a very different environment and have a very different mindset than the people who think these are obviously bad names.

Can you list more than one previous example that fits this pattern?

datenon The App Store is for Suckers

I am one of the people that has ideological problems with the app store, but after reading the article I chose not to upvote it. It seams to ignore all of the things that the app store does provide that have been enumerated in many comments here already. As much as I am annoyed when Apple fans upvote or downvote things on HN based solely on loyalty to the brand, I can't give the linked article much credit.

I did find this link from a comment on the article page interesting though:

http://building-iphone-apps.labs.oreilly.com/ch03.html#ch03_...

datenon Post from "weev" (AT&T/ipad data hacker) on his arrest and treatment

Unfortunate site logo as well. Between his writing style, the content of some of his posts, and the choice of name and logo, I'm finding it very difficult to take this author seriously.

datenon Blizzard/Activision Removing Anonymity From Game Forums

This isn't entirely true. In many cases you can post things anonymously online, and they will stay so, unless they're illegal enough to warrant a subpoena forcing a provider to turn over details that can be used to identify you.

We all understand that if you include personal information or post using a known alias, a little bit of searching may identify you. If your IP address is made public in the post or email, it can be used to narrow down who or where you are. Even simply correlating known data, that is linked to your identity, with previously anonymous data can sometimes identify you. And the popular easy to regurgitate advice is that "nothing" you do is anonymous.

The fact is, if you're careful and there isn't enough of a motivation to go to the level necessary to identify you, you can participate anonymously in many discussions.

It's also possible to maintain the option of anonymous discussion in the future if people realize where it has value and make an effort not to give their privacy away voluntarily.

datenon 1995: The Internet? Bah

I knew that author's name sounded familiar. I also read and enjoyed that book.

Your Wikipedia link is broken, try this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cuckoo%27s_Egg_%28book%29

edit: OP fixed his link

datenon This is Why I'll Never be an Adult

Fair enough. I was only evaluating the content of her post within the context of that post, I did not pay attention to the title of the blog itself.

I am impressed if she's making a living off of her just her blog. I'm disappointed if she's unable take care of her other responsibilities as well. I respect her for at least recognizing that as childish. I don't find any of it humorous.

datenon What Not To Write On Your Security Clearance Form

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6476

"These increasingly frequent raids, 40,000 per year by one estimate, are needlessly subjecting nonviolent drug offenders, bystanders, and wrongly targeted civilians to the terror of having their homes invaded while they're sleeping, usually by teams of heavily armed paramilitary units dressed not as police officers but as soldiers. These raids bring unnecessary violence and provocation to nonviolent drug offenders, many of whom were guilty of only misdemeanors. The raids terrorize innocents when police mistakenly target the wrong residence. And they have resulted in dozens of needless deaths and injuries, not only of drug offenders, but also of police officers, children, bystanders, and innocent suspects. "

datenon This is Why I'll Never be an Adult

I did note the title in my post. And I agree the title is a key part of the author's story. I still appreciate your reply and the others that tried to help me better understand where the author is coming from.

I'm still left wondering if she would be happier if she spent less time thinking about chores and errands and just did them. I feel like these things aren't a big deal to me because I don't sit around evaluating how "fun" they are or if I can procrastinate. I just do them, usually while thinking about unrelated things that I do actually care about while I'm doing them.

And thanks to whoever was nice enough to downvote my post. I'm sorry I didn't jump on the "I'm lazy too" bandwagon for easy karma. =(

datenon This is Why I'll Never be an Adult

Is this author serious? I don't consider answering emails, doing laundry, keeping the house clean, paying the bills on time or doing other tasks like going to the bank to be much harder than breathing or tying my shoes in the morning. These are simple necessary tasks. They are done routinely and can be done without much thought or effort. I'm seriously concerned for someone who has this much trouble with these basic parts of life.

Is this a mental disorder? or just laziness to a level I haven't seen?

I agree with the author's choice of title though. If I had to imagine someone who has trouble with such simple tasks, a child is what I imagine.

datenon The "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" Mentality

I agree. About a year ago we hired a new person at work and he immediately started looking for ways to improve anything and everything. The problem is, nearly everything we had that wasn't optimal, was still actually "good enough" for our needs and usually included some complexity that wasn't obvious at first glance. He ignored our "if it's not broken, don't fix it" advice and every single time he tried to improve something he ended up breaking it or making it worse.

Sometimes a simple but sub-optimal solution that gets the job done well enough and reliably is better than an optimized solution that includes downtime and requires extra maintenance. I don't think the person offering the advice to leave things alone is always the naïve one.

datenon Portal 2 trailer released at E3

There are also some demos.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/portal-steamworks-portal-2-...

datenon Ask HN: Who is Hiring?

Washington DC area and Tampa, FL

White Oak Technologies

Openings available for software engineers, web developers and database architects. Details at: http://www.woti.com/jobs.cfm

Applicants must be U.S. citizens and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information.

Questions? bschneiders@woti.com

datenon I have to think (and experiment) every single time

There's very little context in the "article" or these comments. Can someone give some background for users who have never entered a keyboard shortcut on an Apple computer?

What exactly is the author concerned about that's interesting enough to post about on the internet and interesting enough to link to on HN?

I'm interested and feel like I'm missing part of the picture.

datenon Banana equivalent dose

We also don't have enough resources to protect against every imaginable risk, which six-months ago, is all the current oil disaster could have been: imagined.

It still makes more sense to spend attention and resources protecting us from falling crates of bananas if those are more harmful in reality.

But fear normally wins these battles, like with terrorism. Automobile accidents kill about 36,000 people[1] per year in the United States. That's 12 times the number[2] of people killed in the 9/11 attacks. Which one of those do you think we're spending hundreds of billions on?

1. http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx

2. http://nymag.com/news/articles/wtc/1year/numbers.htm

datenon “for the lolz”: 4chan is hacking the attention economy

I think both this article (and others like it), and your comment, are giving the users of 4chan/b/ way more credit than is deserved.

Any useful output that comes out of 4chan could be achieved in a much more intelligent and efficient way. At best they're taking a brute force approach, throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. People who are easily impressed by the results are ignoring the noise.

I also worry that the amount of child porn that's regularly posted on /b/ could come back to haunt Mr. Poole if he tries to us his fame to launch a real career.

datenon Googler Drops Windows Zero-Day, Microsoft Unhappy

Microsoft releases security updates on a regular schedule, but that doesn't tell us how long the turnaround is from a vulnerability being reported to a fix for that vulnerability being released. It could be reported today and not fixed for 10 patch cycles, it will still look like Microsoft is doing something. I think the turnaround is more relevant to the point that just how often patches are released.

datenon 'Remove Google Background' surges to number 2 in Google Trends

When I went to google now (10PM EST) I didn't see a background, only a link at the bottom for setting one. This comment explains why. Thanks for sharing (upvote).

datenon Why the Soda Tax makes us angry; people do what they're forbidden

I agree. If the government needs tax money for schools and is having a hard time getting it from the taxpayers directly, it's easy to just pick an emotional justification like "helping make society healthier" by "reducing" smoking or soda consumption. The actual consumption doesn't go down but the tax dollars do go up. The poor get poorer.

And what about the people that consume soda in moderation and in addition to healthy food? I have soda every day. I also exercise every day and am in very good shape. Not everyone who consumes soda is obese or diabetic. If you really want to punish someone, why not do it in a way that doesn't affect everyone else? If you want a "fat tax", why not do it based on the health of the individual?

datenon Freedom In Fashion: No IP, No Patents, No Licensing

This isn't a benefit to the chef himself, just his employer. And with IP restrictions limiting the spread of the product, it may not become very popular and the money made by the restaurant and its partners may be very small relative to the benefit to society without those restrictions.

datenon Guy uploads, downloads, then re-uploads the same video to YouTube 1,000 times

In that same year, how many much less interesting videos do you think were uploaded? I doubt they noticed.

datenon Guy uploads, downloads, then re-uploads the same video to YouTube 1,000 times

And youtube serves content in different resolutions (SD vs HD) and formats (flash vs ipod). It's possible his choice of either of these had a negative effect on the quality. It's also possible it all happened during his on conversion on his local machine.

I wonder what results he would have gotten if he pulled the h264 copy down that is served to apple devices and uploaded it without modifying it.