reduxredacted

I saw one element that struck home with me:

I also get to hear female friends go on about what jerks all men are, how they cheat, aren't trustworthy, etc

It stood because I learned the hard way that when you are that guy you're the brother she never had or (put in the "Friend Zone" [hat top to the movie "Just Friends"]). The problem is that excessive assertiveness by people of limited height tends to come off as "Napoleon Syndrome" (HNers know Napoleon wasn't actually short, but I'm guessing my point was made properly (-:).

HN tends toward problem solving, and I had the confidence problem, myself. I am not short, but I am probably in the bottom 25% of the "attractive scale". I'm a very skinny, non-muscularly developed male. I have an egg shaped head and various other features that my bride (of 7 years, who happens to be a three inches short of 5', likes to joke about). I was terrified of rejection from women because I had been rejected a few times previously and ... really, it sucks.

I can't take credit for all of this because I had read something "way back when" that led me to this plan. I did it. It worked for me.

First, I wrote out the plan. This was important because it reinforced that I was solving a problem in a non-personal nature (think serial killer saying "It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again"). At least once per day (ultimately turned into several times in a two day span), I would subject myself to female rejection in every way, and I would accept it graciously.

I had been juggling one "friend I had hoped would be my girlfriend" and it wasn't working out, so I started there. I explained that I had feelings for her in clear language (I believe the words were "I've been hanging around with you as a friend in hopes that you would date me"). I apologized for not making that clear in the first place (the whole graciously part kicks in. This was, in my mind, a lie). I got rejected. We also ceased to be friends. In the long run, it was a good decision.

Baby steps: I went to the bar (really, a club). I used to triumphantly say that I'd never want to have met my wife in a bar. This was a cop-out, and I found clubbing to be a great sandbox environment for this reason (I don't "want" to meet my wife in a bar, so if they reject me, it's all a big experiment). I don't dance, not even now. I went there with one of my friends (significantly more attractive, despite being as skinny). He actually took home one of the girls who had rejected me (really badly, with the whole "how dare you hit on me at a bar on ladies night when I got half-off drinks and no cover charge and you had to pay for the privilege of me berating you [yes, still a little bitter about that]). I struck out -- continuously -- mercilessly -- and the first several times it was seriously one of the biggest ego-killers I'd experienced (though, the amount of concentration it took to keep a cool head actually softened the blow for me).

There were, however, the few wins. I got a couple of good dates out of women I met at the club (no real connections). I was (naively) surprised to find that there are women at clubs who are there because they can't find another socially acceptable place to be "picked up" (look for the ones who aren't drinking very much and lack the ring or the arm-attached boyfriend).

The practical upshot of all of this was the usual story of how to gain a life skill (confidence, not womanizing). It was highly awkward, painful and resulted in a lot of failure. But I'm happily married going on 8 years as a result of it. And the experience increased confidence in communicating with others across the board.

EDIT: phrasing wasn't ideal.

I found it really excruciating to read this article. I realize that there's a sort of formula for telling a story in news magazines (and I appreciate that it is an art form), but it drives me crazy when the story is more about the interview circumstances and less about ... anything, really.

... Then I realized something that I've found unique about Hacker News over the last several years: The submitter added the bit about "how he's coping with his new reputation". So I can neither fault FT for writing a story, nor can I fault the submitter for finding something about the story that I'd find interesting (to the contrary, I greatly appreciate the service).

Perhaps it's a new startup idea (or an old one done in many different ways [newser or even wikipedia]) ... the point in more than 200 characters and less than 4 paragraphs. Bonus if it includes customization to the reader's interests.

EDIT: phrasing.

This really felt like a two page rant over something that very few people in the world even notice when reading, and even fewer would care. On the other-hand, unlearning the two-space rule for someone who touch types fast enough to transcribe most people's speaking speed in real-time is going to take an enormous amount of effort.

Even if I agreed with the statements presented in the article I didn't find anything compelling enough to justify the effort of retraining my fingers.

1) Similarities in the way letters look in certain fonts can cause you to think you're on the correct site when you are not. This is mitigated by EV SSL usually, but if you're not paying close attention you might miss it.

2) Browser exploits (though I'm unaware of any specific ones in current browsers) have commonly focused on tricking the browser into displaying one URL when the page is actually being hosted by another.

3) Links in e-mail, specifically, asking you to "login and update your information" (or "login and sign up for paperless billing now!" is pretty common, especially when combined with some perk). Often these links use redirection to gauge effectiveness of the e-mail campaign, so it's common for the link to look strange. If the e-mail is a phishing attack, that redirection could include code injection resulting in you being sent to the right URL to login, but with malicious code inserted to capture credentials or do other fun and exciting things. Of course, the site would have to have some existing XSS vulnerability on the login page, or the code would have to be attacking a browser/plug-in vulnerability, for you to see the EV SSL indicator properly in the address bar.

The last point is also usually mitigated by extensions like NoScript in Firefox.

JavaScript isn't an awful language (all languages have their pluses and minuses and developers are so touchy on this subject, I don't even want to broach it). It's the sheer number of platforms (browser/hardware/OS combinations) that make JavaScript painful to learn properly. Every browser on every device must perform adequately. It's not a matter of supporting Windows or MacOS, it's every variant of RIM device, i* device, every browser on Windows Mobile taking into account the performance/memory footprint (to a lesser extent anymore), and devices with browser variants running on Android.

For the sake of my current set of projects -- requiring reasonable compatibility across platforms, but not a universally good user experience on all, learning jQuery became a necessity. Though I'd prefer to not be framework dependent, I've found that understanding how to use jQuery has also improved my understanding of the various quirky implementations of JavaScript in general.

I have no doubt that future projects will require a good user experience on most platforms. Does anyone have any suggestions regarding good, comprehensive resources in this area? The blog post mentions several online resources for folks wishing to learn/understand the language (some of which I haven't used before), but I'm wondering if there are particularly excellent tools beyond that (IDEs, good debuggers beyond Firebug) or anything else out there that can assist in identifying code that won't work, or won't work well in cross platform scenarios (for free or not).

A very similar circumstance happened to me involving significantly less money. There are a few things I learned:

1) I have never seen a cardholder agreement that doesn't require all disputes to be done in writing.

2) This doesn't mean that the Customer Service Rep will tell you that in order to be fully compliant, you need to submit your claim in writing, nor does it mean that they will tell you anything other than "it's all set". If you're lucky, they might tell you that you should not pay the disputed portion of the bill.

It's not common sense because it's so rare to run into problems like this. Most people have never done a charge-back (I've done less than ten in my life and most were in the late 90s). It's incredibly important to research your terms when something like this arises and follow them carefully. For credit cards, the dispute process is usually written on the back of your statement.

Here's an example from a bill in my hand:

"If you think there is an error on your statement, write to us at:

<bank>

In your letter, give us the following information: Account information... Dollar amount... Description of problem...

You must notify us of any potential errors in writing (their emphasis).

You may call us, but if you do not we are not required to investigate any potential errors and you may have to pay the amount in question." (I used the billing mistake section, but the charge-back section is basically the same with a few more restrictions and refers to this process in its writing).

The reporter did a disservice in not explaining where Ms. Rodriguez may have faltered in her dealing with Citibank and not providing a few tips for people running into this sort of jerk (or jerk-company-response). My personal tip, make copies of everything you send including the envelope and send it certified mail. If you still get jerked around by a large corporation and you don't have hopes of getting your story written up in the New York Times, send a letter outlining your problem with a detailed timeline to the same corporate address (or a more appropriate one if you can find it) and include a CC: line with whatever regulatory body oversees the industry in question ... along with your local and state representative. That netted me a triple refund (disputed amount was $45) after two months of getting nowhere.

Exactly what you said. Walk up to the person and loudly ask "Are you OK?". If you get a response, then you can ask further questions and provide help. If you get no response, your next move is to use first aid skills and call emergency services. If you are trained in CPR, proceed. Your loud voice might also catch the attention of someone with the appropriate training, or someone who can call emergency services while you administer CPR.

... But this wasn't someone collapsing at a mall, on the street or somewhere else where they might not be noticed. This was someone collapsing on stage. Standing up, rushing the stage and attempting to help could just as easily have caused a riot of well meaning folks and could have gotten in the way of staff who should be trained to deal with this sort of circumstance. I'm not accosting staff for not being prepared, I'm just defending those in the audience who didn't rush to help. As a child, I did a lot of community theater (the sort where you pay $5 to participate and your mother may need to sew your costume), and there was always someone with the appropriate training to handle a circumstance like this (usually our lone director, or a member of tech). Thankfully, we never had an incident, but this makes me wonder ... would they have responded within 15 seconds or waited to see if I tripped and could ad-lib my way back into character? I really don't know.

When submitting, it would be nice if folks asked the question Would you find this interesting if you were diametrically opposed to the political or religious elements of this article/post? If the answer is yes than it's likely fantastic, if it's no then it's likely to be seen as tea party/%palin%/%obama/SEIU/ACORN/Fox News/MSNBC/ZOMDL!

Hacker News does a pretty good job of weeding this sort of stuff out, and I'm guessing this one will float off soon enough.

The only conclusion I can draw is that she doesn't use a computer for much more than e-mail. I have a rule when communicating with a vendor or a costumer from my company: Would I like it if these words and my attribution (as well as my company's) ended up on every major news aggregation site (or just "4chan" works).

Put through that filter, I'm required to look at it from the perspective of not only how "I think it sounds" but "How it could be misinterpreted". The web site for the magazine is down. I can't imagine what her inbox must look like at this point. If this was my error and my responsibility, I would have driven the $130 to the Columbia School of Journalism that afternoon, apologized as requested and begged my company for reimbursement (that I wouldn't have deserved and likely wouldn't have received).

I'm not sure about New York, but it costs more than $8.00 in court fees to file a small claims action where I live. While it's true that people don't always act rationally with money, this seems a little too odd to be real.

I couldn't remember any shows that centered around postal workers. Seinfeld had a regular character and a few episodes about the postal system (but then that show had an episode about almost everything). But it did make me think about "Get a Life" which starred an adult paperboy http://thetvdb.com/?tab=series&id=76500&lid=7

Construction crews was the same, I could think of several shows off the top of my head that center around the "idea" but none that landed right on it. There's Arrested Development which centers around a land development company (but really isn't about that all that much). Home Improvement, which isn't actually about home improvement and is more about a guy who has a show about tools. You said "show" but I'm guessing you meant sitcom/drama based on context so that rules out Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, since that's really reality-vertising. No worries, I'm sure someone on HN will figure this one out.

A truly gifted writer could make a show about almost anything interesting

I totally agree, including a cop/doctor/lawyer show. :o) One of my favorites was "Ed" on NBC ... first season only, though (http://stuckeyville.com).

You're likely correct, and I've found myself doing this with some of my coworkers, however, over time I've come to understand it for what it is: There are many occasions in coding where I do not find it necessary to type quickly. I can type at the speed a typical person speaks -- and accurately -- and without effort (including symbols, numbers and other elements that are uncommon in spoken language but common in programming languages). I have never met an effective developer who is a "hunt and peck" typist, but I've met plenty that land in around 30 wpm.

The distinction, I think, lies in how much effort it takes our 30 wpm individual to produce 30 wpm. Touch-typing (which I define as being able to type without looking at or for the key you're looking to hit) means not having to actively "think" when I type. I know where the keys are by instinct/muscle memory. I can keep my eyes on the screen, or on my hand-written "napkin note", or on my white-board (and often a mix of the three) and transfer that information to implementation without perceivable interruption.

Like it or not, the keyboard is a bit of a tool of the trade. That doesn't mean you have to be a perfect typist (I don't use my pinkies to hit the letter "p", and until I purchased a split keyboard, I always reached with my left for the "y"), but a reasonable analogy would be one of a chef who can't properly handle a knife. Successful chefs don't always cut the way you're taught at the CIA (or wherever), but they handle the knife with precision and accuracy (and without effort or injury). They don't have to think about it, they just know what the finished ingredient is going to look like when their hands are done with the motions.

For example someone with a slow southern draw to their speech, relative to the listener, is often assumed less intelligent.

I couldn't resist responding to this one: I remember having a calculus teacher with a serious Southern drawl and I recall thinking he was very unintelligent. It was an error in judgment because I could barely understand him in a lecture setting and struggled in his class as a result (this was remedied by taking advantage of office hours and tutors). After a while I got used to it and it had a sort of accidental side-effect. I had to actively listen to understand him which resulted in my actively paying attention. He was a brilliant individual, and a gifted instructor (as well as a patient one ... willing to explain things one-on-one with a student (me) who was struggling at the time). Maybe teaching with a serious southern drawl in a northern state made him less effective, or maybe not. I'm not sure. Food for thought.

What followed was a great experience: after 2 hours of patching things up, my pain was almost completely gone. After a few days of antibiotics, it was gone. The shot required to numb the area didn't hurt (it may have under normal circumstances, but ... "broken leg"). That single correction brought me back on schedule. I had a filling that was sensitive. He replaced it with a "new material", it was more sensitive, so he replaced it again with a different bonding (Neither I nor my insurance were charged) and that sensitivity went away. No cavity filled since then has been sensitive.

I've had a handful of cavities, and I return, reluctantly, but my loyalty lies more in the fact that I had a tangible, identifiable problem (excruciating pain, and later sensitivity) and he troubleshot it until it was fixed to my satisfaction. I wouldn't see another dentist simply because I believe this particular dentist to be predictable. I'll have a problem, he'll fix it. I, like other commentators, have a dentist who uses more than just X-Rays to diagnose cavities. At the moment, I have three spots on the X-Ray and DIAGNOdent that he has said he'd like to "wait on" because he wasn't sure. I had thought -- due to my past experience with tooth pain -- that "waiting on" something like that was asking for trouble, but now I'm wondering if I have a Dentist who understands the limitations of the technology he uses.

I cringed a little bit while reading the latter part of your post, but I still stuck with "never attribute to malice . . .". I've wondered why giving folks the benefit of the doubt wasn't in the In Comments section of the guidelines (http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

I'd like to print your response and frame it as an example of how to own up to a mistake. I don't know you, but you sound like a very decent human being and you have my respect for what it's worth.

Billing the site as a site where people can vote on attractiveness of the person giving the opinion would personally turn me off. Speculate as you wish about my attractiveness, but it's just not something I'd be crazy about participating in as either a person who is posting (my lack of desire to have many strangers judging how I look) or as consuming (my assumption that anyone posting a video would simply be an ego-maniac). Yes, those are quick and possibly unfair judgements, but with the myriad of sites out there vying for my attention, they'd be my first ones. A tweak would be to keep quiet about the attractiveness angle and have someone Academia point that out later in a groundbreaking study of influence on "FaceOpinionSpace" (best I could come up with in two seconds).

One might need to incorporate something to ensure that users are really posting a face (Imagine a /b/ campaign called "Post Your Penis's Opinion"). Or maybe that last part is a whole other business idea. Automated video analysis and Flagging of videos could help avoid this, but if it wasn't handled well I wouldn't visit the site.

Lastly, it would take a lot of capital. Video isn't a low bandwidth endeavor and if the big "feature" is attractiveness of the person posting their short opinion, quality would have to be somewhat reasonable.

Though I disagree that it would work for tech companies, since that encompasses such a broad range of companies.

A tech company that serves mostly enterprises may employ far fewer, yet more highly paid employees for customer service, yet a tech company that sells directly to consumers (especially if it's sales that requires a large customer service department) may employ many, lower paid employees.

The other problem I have with all of this is "why revenues"? I mean, that's a valuable thing to know, but without margin or profit, it's an easy figure to game. Ask kozmo.com or MCI|WorldCom or any of the "Generate lots of revenue then IPO" companies of the late 90's early 00's. Investors lost their minds and forgot that if you sell a loaf of bread for US$1.00 and you pay $1.50 for it, you've lost $0.50. You'd be better off not buying the loaf of bread (or, perhaps, getting out of the bread loaf selling business). It tells you nothing you can really trust.

(Edit: to fix basic math error)

It's bizarre. Imagine a job where my customer complains about how ineffective my product is yet continues to shovel money at me. Wait, even worse, my product makes their customers miserable and yet they still shovel money at me. It sort of sounds like the business model of a crack dealer.

The funny thing is that I would have been a Blu-Ray early adopter if I didn't see this mess coming. I can't believe my parents purchased a player before I did.

According to their FAQ: http://www.digital-cp.com/faqs "HDCP revision 2.0 uses industry-standard public-key RSA authentication and AES 128 encryption. It also supports protection of compressed content, making it feasible to use relatively slow 50 to 200 Mbps interfaces."

... and ...

"HDCP 1.x technology offers protection for uncompressed content transmitted over several common wired interfaces including DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort. HDCP revision 2.0 adds strengthened encryption..."

Credibility is less because it was posted anonymously as a dump of hex to paste-bin, therefore eliminating any authority that would come if this person was a well-known security researcher. If the author had credibility and wanted to use his/her reputation to make the post more credible, he'd have the pleasure of a herd of lawyers and law enforcement at his door, assuming that he lives in a country with anti-circumvention laws. So his only choice is to keep it to himself or post anonymously, taking away any credibility that comes with authority in a subject.

Regardless, someone will test this soon enough and determine if this non-credible post is credible or just a creative bunch of social engineering. That it's garnered this much attention this quickly (take a look at your major social news sites ... and tech blogs) should scare industry insiders. The mere HOPE that some random posting on pastebin would topple HDCP and bring a possible end to device interoperability would get this much attention truly highlights what a dismal mess HDCP is. If it's The Real Thing(tm), we'll know when the master key is used to generate a random device key and 80% of the time the signal is decrypted properly without having to turn both devices off and back on.

And if it is true, I hope our friend that posted it took some pretty serious precautions to protect his own anonymity.

The latter part of your statement is true. They're not wiring up rural areas. However, I live in a neighborhood that doesn't have a home newer than 30 years and am receiving AT&T U-Verse, 20Mbps down (and consistent).

I don't believe the future is in shiny discs. The near-future probably isn't in exclusive streaming video, but the longer term likely is. We're a few technological break-thrus away, perhaps, but for what my opinion is worth... I believe it'll get there.

The proof is in their own studies, really ... if they believe them. According to Big Media, piracy rates are incredible. It takes a few words in Google to find that everything that has ever been put behind DRM is available without it, for free (illegally, of course). The negative effects of DRM schemes are huge (see rest of comments).

There would be so many very cool things that have nothing to do with piracy if DRM wasn't part of the equation. And they can be done right now by breaking US law and circumventing whatever scheme is in place.

I thought we would have been there by now. DeCSS came out at about the time my parents upgraded from VHS to DVD. My parents just purchased a Blu-Ray player, so I'm thinking ... any day now. People have commented on how long it's taken to get the HDMI master key, but I'd argue it hasn't been that long. Despite some theoretical attack methods being published as early as 2001, there wasn't any reason because HDCP/HDMI was exotic for quite some time. Going back to the "My Parents" analogy: their first device to ever have an HDMI port on it was purchased earlier this summer. Both Panasonic devices, yet my dad has to power cycle the blu-ray player occasionally because the TV won't pick the picture up.

Here's my theory on how consumer electronic DRM cracking: 1) DRM or other scheme is created. It ticks off geeks/enthusiasts, but they largely deal with it. ...2) Despite itself, eventually it gains critical mass and a bunch of those geek's non-geeky parents buy devices and experience the same trouble. ...3) Geek children get constant phone calls from parents about why their new stuff doesn't work as well as their old stuff and ask said Geek Children to come over and fix it because they don't know what an HDCP Error is. ...4) One or more geeks get irritated enough with the phone calls to finally test that theoretical attack. ...5) Geeks everywhere find custom firmware for their parent's televisions and players and permanently solve the problem, while also recommending to their other non-technical friends precisely which model of TV and Blu-Ray to buy based entirely on its ability to have the play-back destroying copy-protection removed. The last part hasn't happened yet, but one can dream.

I've been using AnyDVD HD for a few years, but I have not had a Blu-Ray reader or writer until a couple of days ago and I have no Blu-Ray discs yet (Netflix, hurry up!). AnyDVD works great on DVDs and claims to work with Blu-Ray and HD-DVD formatted content. It's not free, unfortunately, but it's supposed to uncripple the format.

And before I get to far: I'm not a pirate, my use of AnyDVD HD is simple: I have a single SageTV Media Server (HTPC/DVR software) and I use extenders to play all of my video content on three televisions (meaning my TVs have one tiny low-power box yet all of my TVs can play a DVD or watch recorded content and live TV from my noisy HTPC tucked away in a rack in my basement). Without AnyDVD, I can't put a DVD in the basement server and play it on an extender upstairs. I was hoping to do the same with my new Blu-Ray player.

It's difficult to tell why the reaction is so strong. Frankly, I never expected the January ship date to happen when I pre-ordered. My theory: Most of us sleep pretty poorly and the product is interesting. Excitement, anticipation, a few teases sometimes leads to incredible frustration.

I'm among the group screaming SHIP IT SHIP IT! But that's more out of anticipation than anger. Of course, if they ship it and it doesn't live up to the expectations of each of us who have been waiting patiently, expect a backlash that dwarfs the sentiments expressed today.

As someone who has struggled with insomnia for years, I'll be writing a full review after a good period of testing.

... I and a few of my friends miss the old days so we'll probably be the only ones to make reasonable use of it, but it's a fun hack project for me and I'm learning a lot about SSH in the process. It's not OpenTG and I'm not that developer (he's doing one in Ruby so his project is probably more interesting to folks around here). Still in the very early stages so nothing works yet and I don't have a code repo setup.

I laughed a bit thinking of extreme trade off in those two statements (so allow me to respectfully embellish [is that possible?]):

Security company makes a storage product: It's secure because they have no idea how to make a storage product and therefore your data is not actually stored anywhere that it can be retrieved in the event that you've provided the correct key.

Storage company makes a security product: The data is stored properly. It is then encrypted using whatever sample code was discovered in a search for the acronym "AES" with a bunch of redundancy in the event that something with the physical media fails. This redundancy is stored in the clear.

A vulnerability in storage results in inaccessible data. A vulnerability in security results in overly accessible data.