Hacker News Reader

padmanabhan01on Alleged Google Nexus 5 Image Leaked Online

What's the deal with headlines these days that any information about even not so popular products that no one cares about are also called 'leaked'? As if all companies care so much about secrecy and as if the whole world is waiting with bated breath just to have a glance of these images?

padmanabhan01on Apple’s Deleting iCloud Emails That Contain The Phrase 'Barely Legal Teens'

//" install a Debian machine, and do: aptitude install postfix aptitude install postgrey install either a webmail (roundcube most commonly), or go to (http://www.postfix.org/docs.html). If a spam gets through, install blacklisting or spamassassin.//

You seriously think this is simple for non IT people?

padmanabhan01on Microsoft looking to release Office for Linux in 2014

Even if they want to be on other platforms, how is Linux a good place to start? Wouldn't iOS or android be more logical? Unless they already have that going...

padmanabhan01on Someone Just Leaked Obama's Rules for Assassinating American Citizens

The tricky part is what makes all the difference. If majority are smart, democracy would suffice. If not, the constitution will just be treated as a piece of paper in a museum and being a republic would serve no purpose.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link...

padmanabhan01on AT&T Will Force Your Data Plan For Your Unlocked Out-of-Contract "Smart" Phone

That must be possible I guess

padmanabhan01on AT&T Will Force Your Data Plan For Your Unlocked Out-of-Contract "Smart" Phone

Before you get a chance to go to settings app and turn off mobile data, the OS probably already made 10 data requests to check 20 settings. It is data call. Whether the telco should count that as data and charge for it is a different question.

padmanabhan01on AT&T Will Force Your Data Plan For Your Unlocked Out-of-Contract "Smart" Phone

Telcos like AT&T are scum and they have a thousand shady ways to get money out of customers. But I don't think this is one of them.

There is no way to use a smartphone without using data. Smartphone OSs use data in the background for so many things, for even voicemail. So, in this case, I think they are justified in adding a data plan. It is near impossible to use iOS or android without data, even when using them without any apps.

padmanabhan01on Apps? No root? Your device serves others, warns Berners-Lee

if 'open' wants to compete, it should do so by being better than 'closed'. The argument in the article tries to outlaw being 'closed'. No one stops anyone from making any 'open' system (OS or hardware or whatever) and why should anyone stop someone trying to make a 'closed' system. If someone wants to make a closed system and someone else wants to buy that, sure, by all means..

padmanabhan01on Apple Sales Gain Slowest Since ’09 as Competition Climbs

So, for the same profits, we had a stock price of 420 this time last year and ~515 today. So, you automatically assume 420 was the right number and 515 is not, and that it will head toward what you think is the right number? Got it.

padmanabhan01on In the Wake of Aaron Swartz's Death, Let's Fix Draconian Computer Crime Law

If there is a law that can possibly be unreasonably used to frighten someone, it needs to be clarified and explained and quantified and whatever else so that this kind of thing doesn't happen again. Needs to be given more thought before someone can use it in this manner at the very least

padmanabhan01on Poor in India Starve as Politicians Steal $14.5 Billion of Food

Giving away things for free is the scheme/blanket the corrupt use to hide their corruption. Removing the blanket may not fix corruption, but it's a start.

padmanabhan01on You Either Die A Hero Or You Become The Villain

This article hits the nail on the head.

The system of one person or company doing something wrong and another making a promise to do things right is exactly why politics never improves. What is to stop the next person from turning evil too? A promise made by a person? Seriously?

If the new company were to come up with some decentralized architecture that would systemically prevent them from doing ads and would just establish an open protocol that anyone can use for a small licensing fee etc or some new way of making money, that would at least be something worth trying.

If the only difference is a promise that they won't do ads, hah. I don't know.

padmanabhan01on Don’t Lie On Your Resume, But Lie Like Hell During Your Exit Interview

//I've had great experiences working for great companies. At a recent job at Big4 firm, the CEO of the firm sent out my resignation letter to the entire company because of how great it was. It was a positive email, with no negatives.

But, now that you wrote this post, I guess people are going to doubt what you wrote in that letter... haha

padmanabhan01on The Story of Steve Jobs: An Inspiration or a Cautionary Tale?

This article is Bullshit. It is heights of insanity that a no name wired writer can just assume himself to be qualified to make judgements on someone who has had a huge impact (positive) on the world. I use an iPhone, iPad and a mac and I can vouch that my life is better with them than what I would imagine it to be without them. And what is the accusation? that he bullied a few? for making hundreds of millions of lives better? bullied as in asking people who are free to quit whenever to work more? The writer of this article is nuts

padmanabhan01on App.net project update #1

Using history as a guide, SMTP was open. But number of people using gmail+yahoo+hotmail+aol etc (a handful of implementations) account for more than 99% (just a guess) in consumer market? Telephony started off with open standards, but in any country, it still came down to a handful of companies.I would guess that if the telephone market was not geography and government constrained, it would have ended up with a handful of companies for the whole world. These days, I don't even see the trend of something starting open and eventually becoming closed. It starts off closed from the start. facebook, twitter etc. The takeaway, is that, anything that presents users with dead simple thing wins. Anything that makes users do the work loses. People don't care about open or closed. It is always what is easiest. nothing else matters.

padmanabhan01on App.net project update #1

Not to be over simplistic, but how is this different from RSS?

padmanabhan01on Galaxy Nexus ban remains, Apple posts $95.6M bond, Google stops selling

The elephant in the room is that Samsung did, and is still shamelessly trying to make a carbon copy of the iPhone and the iPad. The similarities go beyond casual coincidences. Right from the charger to the packaging to the layout to .. almost everything. It is so obvious they are doing that. It is no surprise Apple is going after them, and of course they should.

padmanabhan01on Evernote Raising $50 Million To $100 Million At A $1 Billion+ Valuation

//Rather than just shouting "bubble" why not take an analytical approach to this by comparing them to other consumer SaaS companies.

The companies you are comparing it to are part of the bubble too. Their valuations are not set in stone.

padmanabhan01on Richard Stallman on Steve Jobs: correction

I would rather live in a world where people like Jobs are in charge (iPhones and Mac comes to mind), than the one in which people like Stallman are (unix terminal and command prompts come to mind).

padmanabhan01on India unveils world’s cheapest tablet computer for $35

//In a country where the GDP per capita is around $1300? You can play up the "market will solve all ills" all you like..........governments have a larger and more important mission than ....

GDP per capita is around $1300 precisely because the governmnet always felt it had a LARGER and MORE important mission than (simply doing their job with no corruption). And these larger and more important missions almost always end up channeling tax payer's money into politicians via some crazy project like this

padmanabhan01on India unveils world’s cheapest tablet computer for $35

It is not a Government's job to make tablets.

If they can only fix their corruption, bureaucracy and the totally broken governmental system, thousands of entrepreneurs can emerge and create millions of gadgets...

padmanabhan01on Ask HN: We dreamed, we shipped, we are stuck

Not everything is a technical problem. If there isn't a place as of yet like an online network for entrepreneurial people, it is not because no one was able to do a site or a forum where such people can hangout.

There is chicken and egg problem at play here.

If I had designed and launched a site exactly similar to HN or Stack Overflow, it would have been empty and dead, even if it would look exactly the same. The reason those 2 worked was becaue those that started it had some number of followers already to get the ball rolling.

Just my 2 cents.

padmanabhan01on Krugman on BitCoin

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_four_properties_of_mo...

says one of the properties of money is that it has to be a 'store of value'.

padmanabhan01on Krugman on BitCoin

But isn't one rule of money that it should at least hold it's value? Isn't that the main reason gold was used before? What is the point of using something as money if it keeps decreasing in value?

padmanabhan01on My Neighbor, Steve Jobs

This audio (6 min long) is worth a listen. Steve Jobs, when he was around 26 or so. http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/pagegen/brochure/p3.html

padmanabhan01on Steve Jobs Resigns as CEO of Apple

This is the first time I have personally felt sad when a CEO has quit his company.

padmanabhan01on Apple briefly passes Exxon as No. 1 market cap

Bravo for Apple. iPod, iPhone, iPad, Air... has been a truly amazing decade!

padmanabhan01on Apple's TV Strategy

Yes, but I dont think it would be too hard for him to understand what a good TV should be, even if he is not a TV junkie himself.

padmanabhan01on Apple's TV Strategy

The idea that a ~350 Billion dollar company runs on the hunches of a single man might sound interesting, but it just can not be true. And again, the idea that Steve Jobs can not understand what constitutes a good TV, just because he is not a TV junkie doesn't sound convincing to me. If it is a 100 Billion dollar market and if it is something a majority use even for a few hours a day and if improving that can make their daily life even 3% better, they are going to go for it.

padmanabhan01on Why I won't be using Groupon again.. A consumer perspective.

Restaurants should either not go for Groupon. If they do, they have no business despising Groupon customers. Doing that makes no sense. It is they who decided to go for it in the first place.