Hacker News Reader

m_for_monkeyon Drones over US to get weaponized – so far, non-lethally

These machines are remote controlled by humans, in this sense they are not different from conventional weapons.

m_for_monkeyon Facebook To Buy Opera? Maybe.

And even more: a first-class, very innovative developer team. How many now common browser features originate from Opera?

m_for_monkeyon My first C program: simple process supervisor like daemontools/runit in 359 LoC

It is meant as a literate program: http://uggedal.github.com/going/going.c.html. (Scroll down on this page!)

m_for_monkeyon Retailer uses 3D QR codes and the Sun to time limit discounts

I remembered this story as a fake. Now I researched a bit and found out that this video really was just an advert concept, but later they made it real.

http://www.tescoplc.com/index.asp?pageid=17&newsid=345

m_for_monkeyon The security hole in sudo

This snippet is ugly anyway. The case-bodies are not indented, the one-liner if-bodies are missing their brackets, asking for more trouble.

m_for_monkeyon Try PTMono, a beautiful monospace font that looks like serif

My favorite is the Envy Code R: http://damieng.com/blog/2008/05/26/envy-code-r-preview-7-cod...

I'm using it with full hinting enabled on Ubuntu/Xubuntu and it looks just as nice as the Windows screenshots on the homepage.

m_for_monkeyon Underscores are stupid? Get a Japanese keyboard

Already exists: http://www.chinesepython.org/. (Scroll down for a short translated code snippet.)

English info: http://www.chinesepython.org/english/english.html.

m_for_monkeyon Please Don't Become Anything, Especially Not A Programmer

I think you have already written an even better answer; when I read Jeff's article I immediately thought of this: http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/advice.html

m_for_monkeyon Getting snappy – performance optimisations in Firefox 13

Opera's Speed Dial is nice, too.

m_for_monkeyon Germany's Leading Technical University Cancels All Elsevier Subscriptions

Many would gladly pay a reasonable price.

m_for_monkeyon Nobody Seems to Understand What Jeff Bezos is Doing. Does He?

@shareme, you are hellbanned.

m_for_monkeyon DRM-Free Day, forever.

This article was written by a publisher, O'Reilly, and they are obviously against copying. They don't use DRM because they know that it simply doesn't work, it would be a wasted effort, and as a bonus this way they can look "free", "open" and "cool". Of course they use the words "copying" and "theft" interchangeably, they don't really know or care about the difference, they are just bullshitting.

m_for_monkeyon DRM-Free Day, forever.

And no publisher or any intermediary to rip off both the author and the readers.

m_for_monkeyon Entrepreneurs in Prison

"How do you think they got in to it then? Trying not to sound snarky - I'm genuinely interested in what other route you see people taking into drug dealing." -, asked HN user djacksonkf in his dead comment.

I think he is Duane Jackson, the author. He seems to be banned for some reason.

Duane, you can create a new account in no time.

m_for_monkeyon Judge: An IP-Address Doesn’t Identify a Person (or BitTorrent Pirate)

    $ cat BigMoney > MyAccount

m_for_monkeyon How Geniuses Think

Well, in the summary he cites some evidence that "geniusness" can be learned, at least if your teacher himself is a genius. "J. J. Thompson and Ernest Rutherford between them trained seventeen Nobel laureates" - quite a coincidence.

m_for_monkeyon 3D nano-printing

That 20 µm is the size of the whole structure. Look at the details (like the placement of the nose), this precision is in the order of 10-100 nm.

m_for_monkeyon A quick guide to our current privacy threats

"The biggest threats are [...] Google, Facebook because of the extent of the data they gather about you."

What if the government has the power to gain access to all the data gathered by Google and Facebook and every other company?

m_for_monkeyon UK moves to restrict Internet freedom

This is from 'Nineteen Eighty-Four' by George Orwell. You should give credit to the author and more information to your readers.

m_for_monkeyon Physicist Uses Math to Beat Traffic Ticket

I give you a point, because that's what you really want, not "love" for the paper, right?

m_for_monkeyon '9223372036854775807' == '9223372036854775808'

You are bragging as if you invented that bug :)

m_for_monkeyon Waking up early, 10 tips that worked for me

3. Don't do drugs.

Most importantly, do not consume caffeine. No coffee, no tea!

m_for_monkeyon When will I ever use math?

Really utilitarian math education would be good. The problem is that it's not even that. It's just test-oriented and boring.

See this twelve minute video: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/dan_meyer_math_curriculum_m...

m_for_monkeyon When will I ever use math?

The band kids and the football kids never ask their teachers and coaches, “when will I ever use this”.

Because they are playing the flute and they are playing football. They enjoy it now and that's what counts, they don't even think about the future.

And yet they come into my math class and raise their hand half-way through my demonstration of the mean value theorem to ask me when they will ever use this.

Because the "mean value theorem" sounds like boring shit and their only hope is that it may be useful in the future.

If you teach them programming to solve their physics homework and make it a game using math, they won't ask.

Never.

m_for_monkeyon Zxcvbn: realistic password strength estimation

Don't downvote, click to "link" or "reply" and flag to make it disappear.

m_for_monkeyon What comes next: π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, π/2, ...?

Interestingly, while humor/humour is a US/British difference, humorous/humourous is not, the latter is just rare/unusual.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/humour

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/humourous

m_for_monkeyon How Not To Sort By Average Rating

You have overlooked a critical point: no one has to mess with this (otherwise quite simple) formula anymore, except the programmer, and even he already got a working piece of Ruby code.

m_for_monkeyon The Missing 20th Century: How copyright protection makes books vanish

Value the same way as in case of copyright infringement. One song worth $1000 or some other absurd amount.

m_for_monkeyon The Best Birth Control In The World Is For Men

You know that a vasectomy is at least two weeks of hell, right? Of course, in the long run it may worth it.

Should You Get a Vasectomy?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3775066

m_for_monkeyon Working Too Much is Hurting Your Productivity

"How does a word become a "curse word". It's an arbitrary assignment by society."

Not true. We specifically make it a taboo, ie. a word that's not supposed to be said by anyone at any occasion, and after that, from time to time, we brake this taboo. But beware, if you use a swearword too frequently, it will lose its power.