jcroberts

Thomas, I agree with you on all points you've posted _except_ the difficulty of attacking the system. It cannot be a truly random number of "X" bits because it is used as a permanent unique identifier. If it was actually a random number, then you have the potential of overwriting files and/or reusing URLs/UIDs.

For every UID discovered, the entropy shrinks and the system becomes easier to attack. Of course, I'm not saying the shrinking entropy would make it feasible to attack the system, just easier. ;)

This is rather sad. Kevin Maney is flapping his mouth without doing the least bit of research. Though at the moment it takes some serious connections to get your paws on one, the Verizon model of the Apple iPhone exists and is slated for release in about six months (March 2011).

http://pdadb.net/index.php?m=specs&id=2548&c=verizon...

Verizon knows it stands to not only retain existing customers, but also attract new customers by having an iPhone in their lineup.

Apple knows competition between carriers (i.e. choice) is good for the iPhone platform.

Is this bad for Google/Android? --Yes, but that is exactly WHY it is being done ever so quietly.

Any nay-saying by either Apple or Verizon CEO is just to maintain secrecy while production is ramped up for announcement and release. The official "announcement" will most likely happen in January at the big annual Apple-con in SF (mac world).

The article on zerohedge.com has more detail (and some nice but rough translations).

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/two-norwegians-face-6-years...

Yes, convincing each other is pointless. ;)

At the same time, I'm still curious what could be learned from the data? What are the real usage/access patters of mobile devices on such sites? --Mostly due to always wanting to know more about how most people use mobiles. I think it would be fun to analyze the data just to see what I could learn from it.

Since I'll probably never get access to the log data, I'll be left wondering. Oh well. I guess I'll have to find some other curiosity to occupy my time, but luckily I have a lot of them.

  > you are looking at this from a technology-warped lens, placing too much emphasis on an aspect close to you (i.e., websites). 

Actually, I'd tend to agree with you but the specific aspect would be "accessibility" rather than websites in general. Since I was disappointed in not being able to see the content on the slidesf.com site, I'm certainly guilty of at least some degree of emotional response.

  > Again I don't have data, but I'm quite convinced that the amount of people who are out on a friday night and google'ing for a place to go is very, very small; so small as to put the accessibility and SEO-iness of the event's website pretty much at the bottom of priorities for a promotor / club owner.

I doubt it's intentional, but you mixed the wrong bits, and then argued against them (straw man). The SEO of a site is relevant at all times and on all devices. The (mobile) accessibility is a more specific use case, where the looking-while-out-on-the-town would be an example.

Without data, we're probably wasting time discussing it, but I don't think you're an idiot/hipster for arguing the other side. In fact, I appreciate your comments. If you look at the down-votes I've gotten, they pretty much prove if one of us is an idiot for arguing an "unpopular" point of view, it would be me. Until I saw the down-votes myself, I never dreamed keeping things accessible, particularly advertising promotions, would be such an unpopular view.

I'll agree my "I'm not welcome here" statement was a bit too strongly worded. None the less, you're "let me try at home tonight," statement is actually quite important. --What if the person and their friends were already out on the town looking for a(nother) place to go?

"Let me check what's going on at Slide... hmmm... it doesn't work. I'll check $OTHERCLUB."

Expecting a potential customer to go find another device to access your content/promotion defeats the purpose of building said promotion. Similar is true for making the content/promotion difficult to find via a search engine.

The costs involved in the production of more accessible content are negligible. In fact, it's faster and easier than creating flash content, and you could automate most of it into a form based UI (image of flyer, title, date, time, descriptive text).

I do see your point how club promotional sites might not get a lot a traffic but keeping a promotional site accessible to mobile devices and easily found through search really does makes sense. Advertisements that cannot be seen are far less effective than advertisements that can be seen.

You're not thinking it through completely. It is perfectly fine if I'm not his target customer. Same is true for others like me; we're just not the intended target customer.

On the other hand, a javascript/flash-only site can be problematic for search engines, even those engines with the supposed capacity to parse javascript/flash. Outside of the search engine issue is, of course, linking by by human beings. How would you send a friend a link to a show, event, or location page? --You can't.

It really doesn't matter if the target audience is expected to be ignorant or indifferent to security concerns. You can still give them the "shining moving website" with flash in addition to more accessible content. The important part is accessibility improves usefulness and effectiveness.

The site exist to promote the club, but the current design states, "If you use an iPhone, you're not welcome here." Can you honestly say the entire target audience doesn't use iPhones? In essence, the design defeats the purpose. And no, I do not own an iPhone, but that's beside the point.

You take the time to post an URL to the site for your club, and I take the time to look at it... --I find a useless and unreadable site at the given URL that requires both javascript and Flash. We can probably just agree that I'm simply not your customer, but did you even think about how many potential customers you've turned away by failing to keep things simple and accessible?

> thinking around a corner is hard, let alone thinking outside the box.

Well, thinking around a corner means you're already on the outside of the box. ;) Considering you posted this to HN, you're already thinking around corners. I think you should give yourself (and HN) a bit more credit.

Though you never used the term "bored," you more or less described yourself as being bored and your situation as being boring. I'd like to share a wonderful piece of wisdom given to me by my friend, Reginia Riley.

Fascination is a choice. When you choose to be fascinated, you are fascinating. When you choose to be bored, you are boring. In essence, when you say "I'm bored," you are actually saying, "I'm boring." At the same time, fascination is the source of motivation.

If you find yourself being often bored, the above is tough to accept. Some even find it insulting. But it is true and the sooner you accept it, the sooner you'll no longer be both bored and boring. On the other hand, fascination with something tends to be contagious for others and tends to lead to fascination with other things.

If you've done half the things you've claimed, then you are motivated by challenge. You were fascinated by the challenge of figuring out the technical bits (pun intended). Sure, far too much of HN is "money this" and "money that" for startup-du-jour. Sure, money is a way to keep score for businesses, but few ever realize their real driving force is the challenge of entrepreneurship. In this regard, the fascination with the challenge of technology is extremely similar to the fascination with the challenge of entrepreneurship. The root cause is the same.

In technology alone there are countless challenges just waiting for you to choose to be fascinated by them, but it doesn't end with just tech; countless challenges and fascinations exist everywhere.

Your own curiosity and fascination are priceless. When you decided to give them up, what were you given in exchange for something so priceless?

Yes, I know this post may strike too close to home. I know it might hurt. I know you might resent me for it, well, at least at first. It was like that for me many decades ago when I needed to learn this lesson. None the less, by sharing what I learned, I do have your best interest at heart. You're asking to treat the symptoms, but I decided to treat the cause.

I refuse to believe in imaginary property.

You're only seeing the very first steps, but not noticing where the intent is.

Building an entirely new replacement implementation will fight the battle of adoption. By wrapping initially an abstraction around the existing code, you can then go back and replace the original while at the same time, keeping everything relying on the original working. If you see Marco's initial work as a "shim" to enable replacement, it makes a lot more sense.

The majority of open source projects, OpenBSD included, have difficulty differentiating between attacking a problem and attacking a person.

If you read the recent HN article: "How to keep someone with you forever" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1677013

And ponder it a bit, you'll see how it applies to open source projects, and interactions on mailing lists, or as the case may be, a homepage article by an open source developer.

For me at least, the more fascinating question is why open source projects eventually degrade into "sick systems" of interaction? --I wish I had an answer, but the only speculation I have is it's the result of frustration.

Have you ever actually talked with any of the OpenBSD developers?

Marco is a fantastic human being and absolutely hilarious. On top of all that, he's also an amazing programmer. Yes, I've met him in person, and we've traded emails and packages for years. In fact, there's a half a pallet of donated gear sitting behind me in need of being shipped out to him. --It should go without saying, but he's a friend and I have a strong bias.

Getting frustrated by widely deployed but poorly written software should be expected. Just voicing said frustrations solves nothing and wastes time, but voicing frustrations while providing an alternative is actually beneficial.

BIAS: I'm an editor on undeadly.org

If anyone is interested, an overview/interview with Marco Peereboom was recently published on the OpenBSD news site.

http://www.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=201009072...

Hello HN! Yep, I'm the person who posted that message to the misc@openbsd list. I've been a very avid silent reader (non-member) of HN over the last year or so... until today. Wow. I made the front page of HN. Hopefully next time it will be for my technical acumen rather than my vivid sense of humor.