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michael_dorfmanon Truth goggles sniff out suspicious sentences in news

What? The article is about direct quotes from politicians. There are a lot of things you can blame the media for, but this isn't one of them.

michael_dorfmanon Tell HN: Unhappy and I don't know what to do.

Therapy isn't necessarily aimed at getting you to settle with where you are. It's aimed at making you happier, and that may very well require making changes.

If you feel like you're drifting towards suicide, therapy is really the best idea.

michael_dorfmanon Tell HN: Unhappy and I don't know what to do.

It's good that you're reaching out for help, but what you need is advice from a psychologist/therapist/psychiatrist, not random hackers.

Go get some help. I wish you luck.

michael_dorfmanon "Invisible Electrostatic Wall" at 3M adhesive tape plant (1996)

Could the OP please add [1996] to the title?

michael_dorfmanon Ask HN: How come some threads don't allow comments

YC companies have the ability to make job postings, which also appear here: http://news.ycombinator.com/jobs, and have no comments/discussion.

michael_dorfmanon Please let this not be the future of reading on the web

Only if that's your business model.

The New York Times paywall seems to be earning them a fair bit of revenue, and they're more than happy to give you the three or four articles a month you'd read there for free-- you're not their target market segment.

michael_dorfmanon It Is A Violation Of The Adobe Trademark To Say An Image Was "Photoshopped"

Having a generic brand name doesn't mean other companies can do that, as there is no legal term defining generic brand names (i.e. a brand name that became synonymous with a product).

Actually, it means exactly that-- as you can tell by the number of companies selling "aspirin" or "cellophane" or "linoleum".

Trademark is precisely the protection that prevents others from selling a product with your name (or one so similar as to be easily confused.)

michael_dorfmanon It Is A Violation Of The Adobe Trademark To Say An Image Was "Photoshopped"

Because once it become generic, other people can start selling products called Photoshop. Suddenly, there'd be Microsoft Photoshop and Adobe Photoshop and Canon Photoshop and who knows what else, and they are afraid they'd lose their dominance in the market.

michael_dorfmanon The new Alan Turing docudrama is available for streaming

No, the Channel 4 YouTube channel is also not viewable outside the UK.

Pity, that.

michael_dorfmanon Ask HN: How vulnerable am I if I outsource my development to non USA developers?

What I want to create is a mobile app, nothing fancy, and see if I can sell the mobile app. Because it's such a simple idea, that's where my fear comes from.

If it is a simple idea, and is making money, it will be copied. There's a notion in business called "barriers to entry", and it sounds like you are entering a niche where there are none. You should get comfortable with this notion; it's not the outsourced developer you have to fear.

michael_dorfmanon Isaacs: try/catch is an anti-pattern

"On Error Resume Next" does not do what you think it does. It ignores the error, and marches blithely on. That is very different than "continuing where you left off, once the error is handled."

michael_dorfmanon The Philosophy of Computer Science

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is an amazing resource. Anyone even casually interested in philosophy should check it out.

michael_dorfmanon EMI music is sold to Universal. We're down to three major labels.

Not Pink Floyd; the obstacle there isn't the label but the band-members, who want their works to be sold as whole albums and not individual tracks.

michael_dorfmanon Shapecatcher - draw the unicode character you want

Really? It got my Devanagari letters surprisingly well.

michael_dorfmanon Nimbus.io: Open-source alternative to Amazon S3

The relationship between sarcasm and irony is subtle; sarcasm often makes use of irony, but is characterized by its "biting" nature. The quote from my daughter is ironic and sarcastic; the quote about "caring less" is ironic, and may or may not be sarcastic depending on the context.

Irony here refers to verbal irony, a discrepancy between the literally meaning of a phrase and its intended meaning, such as saying "What a nice day!" when it is raining.

Thus, "I could give a shit" and "I couldn't give a shit" are identical in meaning, as the former is doubtless intended ironically. Similarly for caring less.

michael_dorfmanon Nimbus.io: Open-source alternative to Amazon S3

The phrase is usually used ironically: "I could care less" is used to mean the opposite "I couldn't care less".

Similarly, when my daughter says "Nice hat, Dad", she is not actually complimenting me on my choice of haberdashery, but rather, pointing out that she thinks it is not nice at all.

This message brought you by Irony: Making Communication More Interesting Since the Dawn of Language.

michael_dorfmanon Why the cheapest maple syrup is the best

Well, in Vermont, at least, the "season" lasts for a couple of weeks at most, so it is only the larger producers who would separate the early sap from the late sap; I had a small stand of trees, and just collected everything for the season, and then boiled at the end. While I wasn't able, therefore, to notice any differences between early sap and late sap, I did notice that the best quantity of sap came on days when it was freezing at night, and significantly above freezing during the day.

Generally speaking, you boil until you reach the right viscosity (specific gravity), which is tied to the sugar content. I used to count on boiling 40 gallons of sap to get one gallon of syrup, but this can vary a bit.

michael_dorfmanon Why the cheapest maple syrup is the best

I've explained this at more length elsewhere in this thread, but the short version is that maple syrup (and maple sugar) were originally a substitute for sugar (which was more expensive, and could not be grown locally in North America), so the "better" grade was that which was most neutral, and had the least "maple" flavor. Once sugar became cheap enough, maple syrup began to be used only when one wanted the maple flavor, but by then the grading was well-established.

michael_dorfmanon Why the cheapest maple syrup is the best

European maple trees won't help you, either; it is only the "sugar maple", native to North America, which is capable of producing syrup. Unfortunately, even in the US, the sugar maple is getting squeezed out of its ecological niche by the (imported) Norway maple...

michael_dorfmanon Why the cheapest maple syrup is the best

The grades are based purely on color, which aligns pretty directly with flavor. If you like the maple flavor, Grade B is definitely the best; Grade C is too dark, and is only for industrial use (it needs to be cut with sugar-water to be palatable.)

Grade A is not more subtle; it is merely more neutrally sweet (i.e., has less flavor.)

michael_dorfmanon Why the cheapest maple syrup is the best

It's really not that complicated.

Maple syrup was originally a locally grown (American) sugar substitute. As such, what was valued was a neutral flavor, i.e., something that tasted as little like maple as possible, and as much like sweet liquid. Thus, Grade A (and Grade A Fancy, etc.) went to the lightest, mildest syrup, and Grade B (and Grade C, which is for industrial use) went to the darker syrup with a stronger maple flavor.

(As an aside: the grading is done by color. There is a small kit producers buy which has small samples of colored liquid for each grade, and the grade is assigned based on which liquid your syrup's color matches most closely.)

The change in preferences came when cane sugar became a cheaper commodity; there was no longer any reason to use maple syrup (or maple sugar) if you weren't looking for the maple flavor.

I used to make my own maple syrup, back when I lived in the US-- it was a lot of work, but a lot of fun.

michael_dorfmanon Why Parents Help Children Violate Facebook’s 13+ Rule

The Facebook terms of service say that you need to be 13, so I stuck to that.

I don't think this is encouraging anyone to desire forbidden things; she desired Facebook because she thought it would be fun, and had to wait because those were the rules.

On the contrary, I don't think it's a good idea to teach 13-year-olds that the rules don't apply to them just because they want something.

michael_dorfmanon Why Parents Help Children Violate Facebook’s 13+ Rule

Guilty as charged.

michael_dorfmanon Skeuomorphism: The Opiate of the People

It doesn't have a purpose; that's the point. It's modelled after the handle on larger jugs, which permit the user to hold the jug-- but that makes sense on a gallon jug, and not on a half-pint jug.

michael_dorfmanon Why Parents Help Children Violate Facebook’s 13+ Rule

My eldest daughter spent the night before her 13th birthday in front of the computer, with the Facebook registration information filled out, waiting with her finger poised above the Enter key for the stroke of midnight.

Yeah, I'm a hard-ass.

michael_dorfmanon Computer Musings by Professor Donald E. Knuth

I don't know of any off-hand, but there must be; Knuth is usually collating the work of others.

The abstract for the lecture is here: http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/musings.html

michael_dorfmanon Computer Musings by Professor Donald E. Knuth

I'd strongly recommend these, if you are interested in these kinds of things. I look forward eagerly to watching the annual Christmas Tree lecture every year (this year on on Bayesian trees and BDDs, to be held December 8, probably posted online a few days later).

One year Knuth offhandedly mentioned a question I had posed in an email a few days earlier (regarding TAOCP), which was a big thrill, and indicates that despite the warning that email may take 6 months to reach him, it is often much quicker.

michael_dorfmanon Army of 'Socialbots' Steal Gigabytes of Facebook User Data

What is the difference (in practice) between clicking "not now" to an unwanted friend request, and simply ignoring it?

michael_dorfmanon Please help with the reasoning, client wants to switch to .NET

I completely don't understand the question.

If you have good reasons for not wanting to go with .NET, you have no need to be asking us for reasons.

If, on the other hand, you don't have good reasons, then what's the point?