Hacker News Reader

recampbellon Sand Hill Exchange Fined $20,000 by SEC

This may be an unpopular view, but I can understand why they did this. Without a fine, we wouldn't be talking about this, and they'd have to spend time and money trying to find and stop this kind of thing in the future.

recampbellon Iran’s ‘Generation Normal’

How would you contrast this 'echo chamber' perspective with a more realistic one? Is there a strong conservative movement among the young which is underrepresented in this article?

recampbellon A new way to lock your computers: just walk away

Ctrl-Shift-Power on MacBook Pro (which is what he meant by Eject/Power).

recampbellon 15 Years after the First Slashdot Post

Slashdot introduced me to ArsDigita, which introduced me to web programming and linux, leading me out of the depths of a corporate visual basic dead-end job. I'm very grateful for the impact this had on my life. Thanks, Rob.

recampbellon GoDaddy Outage: How to Migrate to AWS Route 53

We recently wrote a tool which can populate our DNS entries in either Route 53 or another provider (can't recall which). So if one goes down, we can run a script which brings up our DNS entires in the alternate provider.

I guess someone could service-fy this and have a meta-DNS service which let you switch backend providers.

Make it so.

recampbellon Titan, one of Saturn's moons, has an underground ocean

Can you expand? Why does the article call it "liquid water?"

recampbellon What's so special with minimalweather.com?

I think http://fullscreenweather.com is pretty good.

recampbellon A Man. A Van. A Surprising Business Plan.

You're right, a typical programmer would write the website before understanding the business like these guys have. However, they are now vulnerable to price wars with copy cats, and need tools to reduce their costs below their competitors'. This is when scalability means the difference between decreasing margins and a growing business.

recampbellon RedHat to add at least 1000 jobs in 2012, CEO says

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience. 2008 was a long time ago, though. I'm ex-Red Hat and know first hand that there can be hiccups in the hiring process, but overall it's a really great place to work. Very few places have have FOSS as a cultural value like they do.

recampbellon Tom Anderson's thoughts on Ice Cream Sandwich

I found it interesting. I have a Galaxy Nexus on the way, and now have a list of things I'd like to try.

recampbellon An Indian Inventor Disrupts The Period Industry

Excellent point. Conversesly, the most likely is that Proctor and Gamble is perfectly positioned to enter this newly educated market and undercut this inefficient incumbent, destroying thousands of jobs in the process.

But we wouldn't have it any other way.

recampbellon Google Street View now includes interiors

Retailers will just buy or rent robots to do this stuff.

recampbellon Google Street View now includes interiors

Once a fashion blog links to some awesome dress only available at this store right here (see picture of dress at store, with navigation options), businesses will get on board. Small businesses probably have the most to gain because they can let their most passionate customers do more of their advertising for them in social media.

recampbellon Google Street View now includes interiors

On the other hand, being able to share links to products in a specific store may have interesting effects. Imagine someone writing a Facebook post about dress they found, and linking directly to it in the store. Or some viral twitter post. Once that happens a few times, stores will be paying companies to keep their interior up to date on Google.

recampbellon Google Street View now includes interiors

The most interesting part comes when they start indexing these images so that you can search products (and prices) within stores. The tech is mostly there (see google goggles).

Then you can answer the question "Where's the closest store with jumper cables?" Or really, "show me where the jumper cables are."

A very big map reduce job, but seems feasible.

recampbellon Solar PV rapidly becoming the cheapest option to generate electricity

Why is grid parity the floor? Won't pv suppliers still have to compete with each other?

recampbellon No TV for children under 2, urge doctors

From the article: "Watching television or videos is discouraged for babies younger than 2 because studies suggest it could harm their development, a pediatricians’ group said Tuesday."

But you say: "There is a balance is that balance is unique to each child."

How do you know that there "is a balance unique to each child"? Do you have studies to backup your assertion similar to those cited in the article?

recampbellon The True Cost of Commuting

Compared to what?

recampbellon Netflix Splits DVD And Streaming Businesses

What is there to stop me switching to Amazon or other competing streaming service tomorrow?

The quality of those services compared to Netflix.

Netflix realizes that they have to move quickly to cement their dominance in this field over the long term. If they are held back by their legacy business, they are going to die quickly. They would rather risk pissing off their biggest fans than jeopardize their stake in streaming.

recampbellon Personal jetpack in 2012 for $100,000

I think this is mostly going to be seen at high-end amusement parks for the moment. I'd be willing to pay more than $50 for a few minutes with this thing. But perhaps insurance would be the real cost of doing business in that case?

Other applications might include law enforcement, or perhaps search and rescue? Helicopters can't get everywhere...

If you did fly it work, I'd imagine you'd look like you rode a motorcycle to work. So, pack a a change of clothes and wear a helmet.

recampbellon Michael Arrington: Editorial Independence

A more apt comparison is a GE board member working as a NBC reporter.

recampbellon Arthur C. Clarke Predicts the Future in 1964 … And Kind of Nails It

Yet, you are still an outlier. I also work from home and telecommute, but I enjoy living in a city because of the diversity of choice available for nearly every endeavor, be it schooling, dining, or cultural.

If telecommuting does become the defacto mode of work, I expect people will live in a greater variety of places. For instance, I wouldn't mind living a few years in Europe and Asia.

recampbellon Gmail.com being MITM'd by Iran using this certificate

But wouldn't the red flags go up when the certificate is renewed?

recampbellon Emacs killed the server

Well, this was just reported on Saturday, so I doubt anyone has really had a chance to look into it seriously, let alone reproduce the issue.

It looks like it could be a bad bug, but I think it's premature for HN front page at this point. Get a few more reproductions and additional data before sounding the alarm. There are probably other bugs more worthy of such attention at this point.

recampbellon Science Exchange (YC S11): A Central Database For Core Research Facilities

It seems like this could be made into a even more generic experiment service. Sort of like Mechanical Turk for science experiments, where you pay other scientists to reproduce your results?

recampbellon Jonathan's Card shut down

Experiments have hypotheses and controls. This feels more like art.

recampbellon We’re not going to have a jobless recovery. We’re going to have a jobless future

There is a net increase in jobs, but that's mostly in developing countries. Technology (the internet, container shipping) has actually enabled an explosion of job growth in those countries. Unfortunately, these trends destroy jobs in developed countries.

So I think you are correct that there will be a net increase in jobs, but it may take quite a while for developed countries to experience this. In the meantime, they are on the look-out for explanations.

recampbellon Who Rules America: An Investment Manager's View on the Top 1%

Regarding those who will only bring home 15k per month post retirement:

"And, for those folks who made enough to accumulate this much wealth during their working years, the reduction in income and lifestyle during retirement can be stressful."

This is where I started laughing out loud! What a profound lack of perspective.

recampbellon How does Google pay 2.4%?

Would google exist if not for investments in education and r&d made by US taxpayers over the past 50 years?

recampbellon The Growing Divide Between Silicon Valley And Unemployed America

Exactly. Even below average programmers can find a job and feed their families.