Hacker News Reader

I enjoy these http://panthema.net/2013/sound-of-sorting/

Too many people use VPNs for work.

Yes. But, with VPN it looks something like this:

Me -> TOR encrypts data -> VPN encrypts data -> data goes through tunnel -> VPN decrypts data -> TOR encrypted data passes through first node -> TOR encrypted data passes through relay node -> TOR decrypts data as it passes through the exit node -> swish nothing but net

This gives protection from the ISP and from the VPN provider -- I have to trust neither.

jpaliotoon Comcast Declares War on Tor?

Who uses Tor without VPN? When I'm using Tor, all Comcast sees is an encrypted tunnel to Private Internet Access.

jpaliotoon Dragon’s Lair – An Arcade Story

I could beat both Dragon's Lair and Space Ace in the arcade. Although in Space Ace, I used to skip the rocket boots portion. Space Ace was the rhythm game of it's time ... getting the actions down with the music was the way to go!

jpaliotoon How to Get Good at Chess, Fast

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1889323233/

Amazing beginner course. Read this book and Vol2 and you will be ahead of most tournament players on the fundamentals. USCF 2100+ at my strongest.

jpaliotoon 33 Questions

Fun version of that ...

http://en.akinator.com/

jpaliotoon Winning at Candy Crush

Identify-9 ... yeah, you're welcome. :)

jpaliotoon Mysterious Mac and PC malware that jumps airgaps?

I was waiting for the last line to be something like "If you listen very closely, you can hear the virus spreading OoooOOoooOOOoooOOOoooh!"

jpaliotoon You’re infected—if you want to see your data again, pay us $300 in Bitcoins

Nasty stuff. Fortunately for me, this would set off the "why the heck are my fans running so loud right now" alarm that I have in my head (that honestly, I wish I could turn off sometimes ... curse you trustedinstaller.exe!!).

jpaliotoon Did Stack Exchange staff members assist in the apprehension of Ross Ulbricht?

Since you're asking for speculation ... between FH, Atlantis and SR all going down so quickly, I would guess that TOR is compromised in some way (regardless of what the complaint says). IMHO, the probability that this case was cracked by a random CBP seizure is 0.

jpaliotoon The Serious and the Smirk: The Smile in Portraiture

A photograph is a most important document, and there is nothing more damning to go down to posterity than a silly, foolish smile caught and fixed forever."

Adding this for posterity: I have such a huge stupid smile on my face to help maintain my privacy.

jpaliotoon Myth: Millennials have no sense of company loyalty

Treating Millennials with respect and professional kindness will endear them to stay by your side and be less likely to jump ship at the drop of a dime.

How is this specific to any generation? Is the implication that there is a case where it is okay not to treat people with professional kindness and respect? I don't know who coined the phrase "people quit managers, not companies" but it has been around for quite some time.

jpaliotoon Why we moved away from AWS

>> ... or move it to your own server as we did.

I'm curious ... have you factored in your power costs? People costs (or opportunity costs if your existing staff is re-allocated to server admin tasks)? Additional cost of space for your on-prem setup? Have you factored in the cost of potential downtime? Single points of failure?

jpaliotoon Chaos Computer Club breaks Apple TouchID

The first round of sleephack data exposures will put the failure to that point.

jpaliotoon HelloRun - A WebGL 3D Game

Here's the thing about HelloRun ... I suck at HelloRun.

jpaliotoon Defeated

I had the same experience at LAX recently. It seems they are doing this on purpose to inconvenience people who opt out. When they ask me about the machine and why I don't want to go through, I simply tell them that I worked at a company that made machines like that (true) and I don't want to go through.

jpaliotoon Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical Movements

Clicked thinking I was going to be introduced to a new startup with a pretty cool name ... actual mechanical movements not bad either, however.

jpaliotoon Groupon sales rep threatens restaurant with negative Yelp reviews

He has the opportunity to begin his new job search immediately.

jpaliotoon The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

Point taken. Sometimes I walk out of an interview and say to myself that the candidate did well, but just did not convince me that he/she really wanted the job. It may just be my personal perspective, but candidates that really stick the landing with me are ones that have that "let me at 'em coach!" attitude.

jpaliotoon The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

Less about needing money and more about being ambitious. Hungry for success I should say.

jpaliotoon The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

It's a maximization problem. The goal is to have the best possible ROC curve for your hiring process. Maximize true positives while minimizing false positives.

My personal threshold attempts to minimize false positives even to the extent that I will pass on people that would probably have done a good job. I tune it this way because I think that bad hires are one of the worst things that can happen to a team. But, each individual has to calibrate this for themselves.

I'm not looking to solve the problem, I'm looking to make the best possible decision based on the information I have available.

jpaliotoon The anatomy of the perfect technical interview from a former Amazon VP

I appreciate the notion of having the whole team prepared for the interview process. I think this is a best practice. But, when I interview, I am looking for completely different things than the author.

I really don't care about what you did at your last company or if you raised this by 50% or that by 30%. Rather, I want three things in a candidate: smart, talented and hungry. If I get someone who is smart, talented and hungry and I drop them into a situation where there is unlimited upside, my job then becomes to guide them to greatness.

I also strongly disagree with the notion of not asking questions you do not know the answer to. Anyone can read an obscure section of the C++ language spec or a chapter on some data structure 5 minutes before an interview and make themselves feel superior to the candidate. What does this prove? Nothing. I often ask questions I don't know the answer to in order to determine whether or not the candidate can teach me something. I love having people on my team that have the ability to teach others.

The author's point is very well taken -- interviewing is an important process and it should be conducted in a way that results in the best possible outcome. But, he's looking at the situation far too rigidly for my taste.

jpaliotoon Listen to AOL’s CEO Fire Employee in Conference Call With 1,000 people

Last season of the Office was awesome, wasn't it?

jpaliotoon What did Edward Snowden get wrong? Everything

What has the USG done that would engender this level of (misguided) trust??

“Distrust naturally creates distrust, and by nothing is good will and kind conduct more speedily changed.” ― John Jay, The Federalist Papers

jpaliotoon Yahoo Gets A New Logo

It's so busy, I have no clue what I'm supposed to be looking at. Things are popping up as I move the mouse, there's a video playing, there are tabs in the middle, down the left, on top, weather, stock quotes. Forget the logo, fix the site!

jpaliotoon Feds are Suspects in New Malware That Attacks Tor Anonymity

This is not a new problem. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

jpaliotoon Pressure cookers, backpacks, and quinoa, oh my

The policy is not the issue. It's relevant to the story and she buried it to make her story fit a narrative.

jpaliotoon Pressure cookers, backpacks, and quinoa, oh my

I was disappointed that it took her 14 paragraphs to get to this. She starts "I was buying a pressure cooker and my husband was looking at backpacks" when she should have started "my husband makes frequent trips to China and Korea ..." Less frenzy that way I guess.

jpaliotoon System Administrator Appreciation Day

Celebrating by moving workloads to the public cloud!