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stwe

753 karma · joined June 13, 2010

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stwe··on Show HN: Kite, copilot for programmers, available for Python
I was a happy user of the python autocomplete package with Jedi for some time. Starting in November 2016 they introduced kite-specific code, shipping kite-installer as a dependency and also added tracking of your autocompletion behaviour (I suspect this is where they get their Kite vs. Jedi performance numbers from).

Only in February 2017 I noticed that the whole package had changed right under me because of an error traceback window caused by their metrics collection going wrong. I looked at the package settings and IIRC there was a checkmark set for the "Use Kite" option which I'm pretty sure I did not set myself.

The telemetry collection alone is a deal breaker for me. But I also don't like the sneaky way they practically took over the package without clear notice and consent. The package README still makes no mention of Kite and the package is running under the innocently looking 'autocomplete-python' GitHub org instead of their 'kiteco' org. To me it's a very fishy 'growth hacking' strategy.

stwe··on Show HN: Kite, copilot for programmers, available for Python
The developers of Kite also replaced the functionality of a popular python autocomplete Atom extension from using jedi to Kite without properly warning the users: https://github.com/autocomplete-python/autocomplete-python/i...
stwe··on It's time to publicly shame United Airlines' so-called online security
The author seems to use authorization and authentication interchangeably multiple times in the text. They may be right about the point they are making, but it leaves a bad taste.
stwe··on Maze Generator and Solver
GitHub Pages supports HTTPS, so please include your JS/CSS schema-relative (//) or directly with HTTPS. Otherwise people who force HTTPS on that domain get mixed content warnings and nothing loads.
stwe··on French civil code now on GitHub
I'm the original creator of that repo. Keeping it up to date is unfortunately a time-consuming manual effort. Doing version control downstream is generally a nightmare because unraveling different law changes/typo fixes is complicated (yes, lot's of typos when humans consolidate laws by hand).

If you're interested, here's a talk about it at Git Merge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qql1Ess7qM

Here are some scrapers/scripts around it: https://github.com/bundestag/gesetze-tools

stwe··on Janrain will shut down myOpenID.com on 1st Feb 2014
I'm using MyOpenID but with a delegation through my own website. In theory transitioning to another provider should just be about changing meta tags in my homepage. However, some consumers store the delegated OpenID URL instead of the one given by the user, which makes transitioning more painful than it has to be.
stwe··on Show HN: My friends just built a Bitcoin casino
http://bitino.com/about/ says I have to keep my game URL private otherwise people can steal my BitCoins, but there is no HTTPS? No deal.
stwe··on Geek Alarm at Campus Party Berlin - is this us?
These procedures trade my freedom and privacy for security. I always have someone keep an eye on my stuff, but I've also been at similar events (Chaos Communication Camp 2011) where keeping something unattended was not a problem at all.

Treating all you attendees like potential thieves is simply a bad premise for a hacker event.

stwe··on Geek Alarm at Campus Party Berlin - is this us?
Indeed. This is a commercial event with too much security - quite the opposite from the usual hacker events in Germany. You need to give lots of info on registration including a passport style photo, your laptop serial number (because equipment is required to be tagged) and apparently bags are searched on entry and exit. It's ridiculous. That's why the usual hacker crowd in Germany totally ignores this event.
stwe··on Startup offers trip as hiring bonus
There is already drama, apparently they only address this to guys. How about "Grab your bikini"?
stwe··on YouTube Identifies Birdsong As Copyrighted Music
In GB the copyright definition apparently includes the mere idea of a photograph: http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/news/photographers_face...
stwe··on Poll: What mobile HTML5 framework do you use?
It's only free as in free beer if it's free as in GPL, otherwise you have to pay for a commercial license. GPL means you have to provide source if you distribute the app. And isn't there also an incompatibility with Apple's App Store terms and the GPL (VLC case)?
stwe··on All Node.js servers are vulnerable to DoS
Yes, if they are implemented via hash tables and do not randomize their hash generation somehow. The talk at 28c3 specifically mentions PHP, Java, ASP.net, Python. Ruby is fine, but other variants of Ruby are apparently also vulnerable.
stwe··on Show HN: Visualizing Postmates' first 1000 deliveries in San Francisco
https://1000.postmates.com/ doesn't show the right page, 443 seems to be not properly configured for this domain.
stwe··on Pirate Party Germany gets into the parliament for the state of Berlin
BTW: The parliament in Berlin is actually not called "Parlament", but "Abgeordnetenhaus" because it's a city state.
stwe··on Ask HN: How can I do something meaningful?
There are some great NGOs for hackers that do awesome stuff: e.g. the Sunlight Labs in the US, MySociety and the Open Knowledge Foundation (disclaimer: associated) in the UK. They build apps for government transparency (also international aid transparency) and participation. I believe that these are the hackers who actually make the world a better place.
stwe··on TorrentTraveler: Micropayments-based anonymous BT proxy
You claim to protect the user's anonymity, but your payment provider's only login mechanism is via Facebook. That doesn't feel right.
stwe··on IE9 beta's HTML5 support isn't there yet: 3 big canvas gotchas
Many globalCompositeOperation modes are also broken in WebKit based browsers: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=39177 But sadly nobody seems to care too much about that.
stwe··on Remind HN: Unicode hacks
It used to have funny effects on websites (browser name in title bar spelled backwards), but it doesn't seem to work now. The above comment contains the unicode character three times.
stwe··on Remind HN: Unicode hacks
‏There are also other unicode hacks like changing ‏ text direction (U+200F)‏.
stwe··on Private Alpha Invites Going Out Today
"Share what you want, with who you want." Is no one else put off by that grammar mistake centered on their front page? I'm not a native speaker, but it sounds just plain wrong.
stwe··on Ask HN: Network based bookmarking - could it be useful?
There is a start up called Mento (I think somehow connected to Hasso Plattner Ventures) that executes this idea: http://www.mento.com/
stwe··on Introducing SymPullCDN: Getting Free Bandwidth From Google
The additional datastore call and also the CPU time spent in the script (even though it might be minimal) are totally unnecessary. Just upload the files yourself and serve them statically. Even though it's not a true CDN (as discussed in many places many times), it works good enough. And why do call it Google Application Engine? Google itself calls it just App Engine.
stwe··on Please review my API for HackerNews
An API that is subject to change should have a version number as a namespace somewhere in the URL. That way you can have different API versions running and it makes less painful to go forward.
stwe··on Heroku clone for Django?
I wonder why Dave Paola (apparently admin at djangy according to DEBUG view at http://djangy.com/postreceive ) used room606 instead of his regular account endlessvoid94 for submitting this.
stwe··on "Or so they say..." Javascript demo
Challenge: shrink it to 1k and submit it to http://js1k.com/
stwe··on CoffeeScript -- You Are Totally Gonna Hate It
Found the video: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/7069443 The talk starts at at 2:20 and ends at 10:00.
stwe··on CoffeeScript -- You Are Totally Gonna Hate It
This was a talk given by Tim at the JavaScript User Group Meeting Berlin in May 2010. There is also a video of the talk, but I can't find that anymore.
stwe··on The Next Web uses cheap JavaScript hack to fool you into installing an extension
The problem is that the browser owned control bar is right next to the web content. It's good for usability (quick to reach with mouse), but opens the door for trickeries like click jacking (that's actually why there's a countdown when you want to install an extension in firefox).

I filed a related bug a year ago at Mozilla: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=497388 but it didn't get anyone busy (no offense). We probably have to wait until browser extensions are more common place and these kind of UI vulnerabilities get exploited on a regular basis.