Hacker News Reader

just_observingon The threat facing online comments

"Bad behaviour online is so common that it has generated its own typology of abuse. “Flaming” is to engage in a deeply personal and angry war of words across an online discussion."

So common? Does this journalist have no knowledge of Usenet? It's not common, it's older than most websites these days. To suggest Flaming and Trolling are unique to comments is false. They predate comments by years.

just_observingon My favorite debugging tool

"My site is DOWN, and it's down hard. Requests are timing out."

A bit OTT on the drama there.

just_observingon Which blog reader do you like most / use most often?

Newsblur.

It does everything I need and has not let me down. I have renewed once after a year and have every intention of continuing to renew it.

I wouldn't just call it a 'blog reader' though. It's an RSS reader.

just_observingon [dead]

Internet Exploder.

That is juvenile and detracts hugely from the actual message.

just_observingon Richard Stallman Explains His Position on Google [video]

2 minutes on one very very small aspect of Google? That hardly warrants this title.

just_observingon Security updates available for Adobe Flash Player

Yet another chance for Adobe to try and get people to install McAfee which is an "Optional offer" but checked by default. Bad form.

just_observingon Global Network Attacks Were Up Over 98% this morning

What this one-off look does not tell me - are the attacks higher on new areas not used to attacks, or are the highlighted areas used to a significant level of attacks and might therefore have defences?

And 98% of what?

At a glance and with no real history or numbers this would seem meaningless.

just_observingon Fitbit for Dogs

"So you took the dogs for a long walk then, and didn't just stop at the pub?"

just_observingon Media Temple Terms of Service

Do you use iTunes? or Paypal?

just_observingon Media Temple Terms of Service

Abuse of our support system may include, but is not limited to, engaging in any threatening, abusive, offensive, defaming, harmful, profane, harassing, or unreasonably excessive communication (whether written or oral) with Media Temple via the Channels of Support or elsewhere in the universe (you read that right, the universe)

So if a customer uses twitter to express any displeasure they could be kicked out?

just_observingon Double Fine launched a new game on Kickstarter

"I think only non-backers or very confused backers could "say something weird like it not being finished."

I backed it. I do not have a copy of the game to play.

That means it is not finished.

If I am wrong in that please do tell me how.

just_observingon Reddit’s Pitch deck to Advertisers

That subreddit is not anti-advertising.

Reddit runs a lot of ads where people will link to Amazon with their own affiliate tag. So they are selling nothing, not really promoting anything, just trying to get their affiliate cookie planted in as many browsers as possible. There is also at least one sales aggregator site (which just scrapes price feeds) which does the same. It is that sort of ad which the sub readers do not like.

A genuine ad from a company would be welcome but as you have pointed out Amazon and others have built their rep without ads so finding a reason for them to suddenly spend is going to be hard.

just_observingon Five days with Pebble

"Sometimes I want to give the people I’m with my undivided attention."

and now I can pretend I am.

just_observingon Preventing users from pouring water into coffee machine beans compartment

"a brief hand-crafted manual"

You deserve your problem if you use that terminology for whatever people are not reading.

just_observingon Why I got Fired from Facebook (a $100 Million dollar lesson)

"That was 20 close friends who I never heard from again."

They were not close friends then.