Hacker News Reader

jdmitchon How we test fake sites on live traffic

How long did you have the fake sites up? I would have thought you couldn't leave them up for very long before frustrating users, but it seems like you would need a good chunk of data before you would know it was statistically significant. Or did you also have some sort of disclaimer for those users so they knew it was a beta test?

jdmitchon CSS “px” is an Angular Measurement?

> No matter how large a value you put in for px, you'll not be able to reach 180 degrees.

actually I only had to put in 10 9s to get 180...

jdmitchon Bell data collection part of ‘disturbing trend’

>In the case of Bell, its website advises customers that their information can be shared without their knowledge or consent.

What level of privacy is left to be breached!?!

jdmitchon Helping a stranger, and why you should understand NP-complete

Think of NP-complete problems as if they were a brick wall like the red plot in the above graph. Understanding the theory behind the NP-complete complexity class means recognising intractable problems in your code – it’s like having a bomb sniffer dog when walking through a minefield.

Very helpful analogy - hadn't thought of it like that. Now I'll know whether the seemingly intractable problems in my code are only temporarily intractable due to my incompetence, or actually intractable for grander reasons :)

jdmitchon Open Source Point of Sale

There's also iZettle in some markets where square might not be available yet. I do like the OP's thermal printer though, as receipts can be important for some small businesses.

jdmitchon The Rise of Invisible Work

>* the widening gap between productivity and employment in America... is deeply troubling to economists. But it’s possible... that the gap could contain all these people we are currently not counting.*

Growing productivity could also just lead to decreasing employment if the same roles are being accomplished by fewer people who do them more efficiently. Having a bit of work on the side essentially amounts to people who are employed doing more, rather than unemployed people having an Etsy or ebay shop which is their main employment. And many of these people probably don't count as "unemployed," as there are advantages to being set up as a full time seller (at least on ebay and amazon) for tax purposes.

jdmitchon On leaving the Guardian

>Allowing journalism to be criminalized is in nobody's interest other than the states which are trying to achieve that.

Many multinational corporations also seem to find it in their interests to criminalize journalism - more evidence that we are in a "post-state" world, or simply the just desserts of capitalism?

jdmitchon Unlocked phones are the way to go

No it was a GSM phone (a nexus one) - should have worked on 3G

jdmitchon Unlocked phones are the way to go

* I can tell you we just switched from AT&T to T-Mobile and it’s been flawless.*

That's because you haven't actually had to start using T-Mobile's horrendous service. When I tried to do this (admittedly a couple years ago) they told me with a straight face, after I had gone through all the effort of changing "You can't use data on your smartphone because you didn't get it from us." Why would I have changed over if I couldn't use data!?!? (It would have been edge or something ridiculous as well, as only people on certain contracts could use 3g!)

jdmitchon Saudi Comic's Video Goes Viral But He's "Not a Social Activist"

Clearly he is trying to avoid being seen as a troublemaker by the Saudi regime, so of course he has to backtrack from the "social activist" identity.

jdmitchon Introducing SafeSource, A New Way To Send Forbes Anonymous Tips And Documents

Its a shame that on the actual SafeSource site they don't seem to give much assurance:

Forbes does not make any representations or warranties as to SafeSource, and your use of SafeSource is on an "as is" basis, at your own risk.

I suppose it is just to cover them legally, but they could be a bit more reassuring to whistleblowers and informants who might not understand the technology very well or the credentials of those who have vouched for it like Schneier and others.

jdmitchon Bitcoin, The Economic Singularity: From Holland with Love

When researchers and policymakers begin to have even an inkling of Bitcoin’s deeper significance – more than “anonymous digicash created by evil hackers to buy contraband from drug dealers” – there’s a better chance that banks and governments of the world will start to get serious about cleaning up the global mess they’ve created.

Can bitcoin's unregulatable nature really provide an example for how establishment financial systems should be better regulated? Bitcoin can be an alternative, it seems, but not a "city on a hill" to fiat currencies, and their financial systems.

jdmitchon Are We Too Close to Making Gattaca a Reality?

Despite laws meant to prevent genetic discrimination, the world of Gattaca is a highly stratified one with two distinct classes: the valids—who have the right genes, the most prestigious jobs and the highest quality of life—and the in-valids, who were conceived in the typical fashion and are relegated to menial work and relative poverty. Eugenics also risks creating a genetically homogenous population that is far more vulnerable to disease and freak deleterious mutations than a diverse one.

Isn't their significant evidence that more diverse gene pools, even unexpected combinations of genes are usually more adapted in several ways, because of heterosis [0]. It seems foolish that this one new factor would make eugenics any more successful than its last phase of popular. Not to mention it the deeply-held 'moral repugnance'[1] aspect.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterosis

[1] http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/2624677/Roth_Repu...

jdmitchon Winter is coming

Does taking vitamin D3 supplements really work for the OP? There have been a number of HN posts about how the vitamin fad started by Linus Pauling has not been backed up scientifically, such as this one:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitami...

but maybe there is more to it when it comes to SAD...

jdmitchon How Bitcoin Could Become a Viable Currency

Is the volatility graph of Bitcoin in this article really representative?

Some people have mentioned that in the huge price spike in April, there were not actually that many people buying, and then there is this article on Bitcoin spreads that calls into question whether Mt. Gox is the best measure: http://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2013/09/03/how-bitcoin-s...

jdmitchon Aptronym

The list of inaptronyms at the bottom are particularly hilarious, including the "former Archbishop of Manila, Jaime L. Sin, known as Cardinal Sin."

jdmitchon Driverless cars are further away than you think

the terrible irony [is] that when the car is driving autonomously it is much safer, but because of the inability of humans to get back in the loop it may ultimately be less safe.

Driverless cars are only 90% there for complete autonomy, and the last 10% could take another 50 years.

jdmitchon Dawn of a New Internet Era

It’s no accident that the first tranche of gTLDs to be delegated are all non-Latin strings

It's a shame it took so long, but hopefully this will stem the tide of young people who have been pushed towards using their language in transliterated form rather than the original script (I am thinking of Arabic dardasha writing specifically, but I imagine there are other examples)

jdmitchon Why Isn’t Programming Futuristic?

I've wondered if it would take a 'non-programmer' to develop a new metaphor/representation of programming that is more futuristic. The OP has some interesting suggestions of characteristics that 'futuristic programming' would have, including safe object traversal, ubiquitous object extensions, and code transport, but these are still conceived within the paradigm that we think of programming today. Maybe programming needs an outsider to help us start over conceptually?

jdmitchon The letter Q was illegal in Turkey from 1928 until last month

I think this is part of a general de-arabization trend which followed the crumbling of the Ottoman empire, as many words would naturally have been transliterated with a q (which would be ق in the Arabic script, which was used in Ottoman Turkish). I have heard that for many years it was illegal to name a son Muhammad in Turkey - you could only use the "Turkified" version Mehmed or Mehmet.

jdmitchon Sorry, Kids. We Ate It All.

Whenever Druckenmiller (a friend) is challenged by seniors, who also come to his talks, that he is trying to start an intergenerational war, he has a standard reply: “No, that war already happened, and the kids lost. We’re just trying to recover some scraps for them.”

Are there still any scraps? I thought you ate it all!?

jdmitchon Free Font: Norwester

I love the fact that you've asked people to donate to the International Justice Mission - they do great work! What made you choose them? Is the font somehow inspired by the work they do? (maybe you could convince them to incorporate it into a rebrand ;)!

jdmitchon Graphical Programming: I Really Hope This Is the Future

Are you looking for others to test/collaborate on what you have done so far?

jdmitchon Purchasing a £30,000 numberplate for the price of a bus ticket

I think you'll find bus tickets have gone up to £2.40 in London now ;)

jdmitchon Stanford Ovshinsky: the greatest scientist you've never heard of?

I appreciate that I didn't give much context to my comments, and what I was thinking. To elaborate, I was amazed and in awe of Stanford and Ovshinsky, whom I hadn't previously heard of, and I assumed that anyone would feel a great indebtedness to him. I was particularly struck by not only what he invented, but the way he lived his life, and his determination to subvert injustice and inequality in a number of ways.

The point of my comment (in my own thinking) was not cynicism, nor even a disbelief of the impact his inventions would have on poverty, but an interest in the mechanics of the relationship between his inventiveness and his commitment to fight inequality and poverty. Perhaps he was incredibly far-sighted and visionary in being able to see how his inventions would have a significant impact on poverty in the long run, and it would be fascinating to see the intermediate steps he saw that would lead to that. Or maybe he thought his inventions would impact poverty in a trickle down way. Or maybe he simply had a sense of faith that if he invented as best he could, it would one day have an impact that even he couldn't imagine.

I would love to understand how best to join up inventive ideas with a commitment to end poverty and injustice. And I imagine Stanford Ovshinsky is a great model in that, but I felt like that one little statement from the original article left me hanging a little bit, and wanting more. I had hoped that the HN community could fill in with a few more ideas, or even details from Ovshinsky's life that would be further enlightening.

My apologies if I came across as disrespectful to a man who is clearly a hero and an inspiration - that was never my intention.

jdmitchon Stanford Ovshinsky: the greatest scientist you've never heard of?

He saw science ending poverty by ensuring everyone had access to the resources necessary for life.

This is an interesting statement, given that it doesn't sound like any of his inventions seem to be particularly focused on ending poverty in any direct way.

jdmitchon African inventor makes 3D printer from e-waste

It says he is in Lomé, which is the capital of Togo.

jdmitchon G.K. Chesterton: The fallacy of success (1909)

A hundred years ago we had the ideal of the Industrious Apprentice; boys were told that by thrift and work they would all become Lord Mayors. This was fallacious, but it was manly, and had a minimum of moral truth...The Industrious Apprentice rose by virtues few and narrow indeed, but still virtues. But what shall we say of the gospel preached to the new Industrious Apprentice; the Apprentice who rises not by his virtues, but avowedly by his vices?

So who are the new new Industrious Apprentices? Growth Hackers? ;)

jdmitchon Insights from the iPhone 5s Launch

Without knowing the sample size of these stats (all taken from TalkTo, an app I have never heard of) they are pretty useless... there's no way of knowing if they are even remotely representative.

jdmitchon This Guy Unboxed a Calculator. Happy Monday

at 1:12 - "First thing out is the instruction booklet, in case you are unfamiliar with the concept of... er... numbers."