2,161 karma · joined May 31, 2007
I wrote an export script in Python that's fairly popular (200+ stars on Github): https://github.com/toffer/iphone-sms-backup
Unfortunately, I never did get around to exporting photos and videos.
(Discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6453732)
When you query the Foursquare API for a user, Foursquare returns the user's Facebook and Twitter names in their response (if the user has provided them to Foursquare):
https://developer.foursquare.com/docs/responses/user (see the "contact" field)
Once you have that, you just query Facebook and Twitter for their publicly available profile, photos, likes, tweets, etc.
[1]: http://fluidapp.com
"Eventually I amassed a huge number of mayorships, spread among multiple accounts, including the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore, the Lincoln Memorial, Stonehenge and the Taj Mahal"
http://www.krazydad.com/blog/2010/02/mayor-of-the-north-pole...
I go to aggregator/news sites like this for interesting links...show me more!
If anyone is interested in learning more about Andy Beal's million-dollar poker games with the best players in the world in 2001, you should check out this book: "The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time", by Michael Craig. It's got a pretty complete profile of Beal, and tells all about the games.
Buffett thinks the Black-Scholes formula produces "absurd results" when applied to long-dated options (see page 19).
"Though historical volatility is a useful – but far from foolproof – concept in valuing short-term options, its utility diminishes rapidly as the duration of the option lengthens."
Berkshire Hathaway has sold equity put options that require payment if various stock market indexes (S&P 500, the FTSE 100, the Euro Stoxx 50, and the Nikkei 225) have gone down after 15 or 20 years from the inception of the contracts.
Buffett think that the likelihood of these indexes going down over such an extended period is extremely unlikely, due to inflation and an increase in corporate retained earnings. But, even if the indexes do decline, he has already received the option premium up front and is able to invest that money for 15-20 years, before having to pay out anything.
"Clearly, either my assumptions are crazy or the formula is inappropriate."
If you use the Caps Lock key as CTRL, then it feels pretty awkward for me to type some key combinations (like ctrl-x or ctrl-c) and still keep my fingers on the "home row".
Do you just get used to this? Do you type ctrl-x with your pinky and ring finger? Or, do you shift your hand away from the home row and type ctrl-x with your pinky and middle finger?
I love the steak here, but a real salad is a rare treat in BA!
Have you gotten any pushback on your $19.95 price?
1) I take the bus every day, which only accepts coins. So, everyday I have to figure out how to get more coins. One strategy I tried was to forgo the convenient subway card and actually stand on line to pay for a single fare card every time I happened to take the subway. A huge pain, but in exchange for a 2 peso bill, I would get a subway ticket and a precious $1.10 in coins.
Only the ticket clerk at the subway stop I most often frequent stopped selling me single tickets. I would show my 2 peso bill and ask for 1 ticket, and he would say "No monedas" and wave me through the gate for free. Every day, the same thing would happen. Same clerk. Same 2 peso bill. No coins, and he would wave me through for free. This went on for 2 weeks.
You would think that I'd be pretty happy about this, but actually, it infuriated me. I really want the coins instead! Sure, I get a free ride, but now I've got to go buy a bottle of water and tangle with a kiosk owner to try and get change.
2) Paying cash at the supermarket can be glacial. They keep very few coins in the cash registers, so every time they run out of coins, the checkout clerk has to call for a manager, who has to go to the safe to get more coins, who then exchanges 2 pesos worth of coins for a 2 peso bill. Yes, that's right...they restock the coins in the register the equivalent of 60 US cents at a time!
"In A/B tests, we tried delaying the page in increments of 100 milliseconds and found that even very small delays would result in substantial and costly drops in revenue."
http://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/11/marissa-mayer-at-web-20....
Is it fair to characterize Apple's guidance to developers as misleading?
If so, will Apple's behavior eventually drive away developers, or can they always count on developers sticking around, so long as they continue to produce hot products like the iPhone?
"Vertebra: A Next Generation Cloud Computing/Automation Framework"
It's a similar idea that's been around for a few years.
If you use the Caps Lock key as CTRL, then it feels pretty awkward for me to type some key combinations (like ctrl-x or ctrl-c) and still keep my fingers on the "home row".
Do you just get used to this? Do you type ctrl-x with your pinky and ring finger? Or, do you shift your hand away from the home row and type ctrl-x with your pinky and middle finger?
"Google App Engine's ability to scale depends on how much server resources Google is willing to dedicate to the task of running these applications. Google is not going to risk slowing down their primary services for a Google App Engine application. So their ability to scale could very well be less than other companies, we just don't know."
No doubt a $6/mo. account at Dreamhost will scale better than Google.
To me, the story of Legotown was not one about capitalism. The questions about whether the builders added value to their Lego brick raw materials, and whether the trading game only allowed zero-sum transactions are irrelevant to the larger point of the story.
To me, the story of Legotown is about legitimate and illegitimate authority.
By what right did the original builders of Legotown assert their authority over the Legos? Why were they able to make the rules about who could use the Legos and who couldn't? Because they got their first? Because they built the best, most elaborate structures? Because they were bigger? There were no classroom rules that allowed them to claim ownership of the Legos. Instead, they took control of the Legos by force and simply asserted their right to make the rules about them.
Yes, capitalism requires adding value to raw materials and ability to trade freely, but it also requires the rule of law that is accepted as legitimate by its participants. If there had been rules about claiming ownership of toys in the classroom, then the builders could have followed those rules and then enforced their own rules about things that they owned. But, in the absence of such a governing framework, they cannot simply assert that they own something, and then expect others to accept their authority.
That's also the real point of the trading game. It wasn't to model capitalism. It was to show the children how it felt to be treated in a system ruled by arbitrary, illegitimate power. By what right do the holders of all the green Legos get to make the rules? Why should their power be considered legitimate? The answer is it shouldn't, because tilting the game in favor of the green Lego holders is obviously arbitrary and unjust. And, if it's unfair for the green Lego holders to make the rules in the trading game, how is that different than the original builders making all the rules about who can and cannot participate in Legotown?
In the end, the children earned back the Legos. But, it wasn't because they agreed to a more "Socialist" set of rules imposed by the teachers. Instead, it was because the children came together and agreed to a set of rules that reflected their values of fairness and justice. And, because the rules were the result of their input, the children considered them to be legitimate.
Says Don: "To us, privacy and security are two separate, but related, issues. One analogy we use often is that security is like locking your front door and arming your alarm (no-one can get in without a key), and privacy is like closing your window blinds (no-one can look in from the outside, but you can tell people where you live and they can visit without a key)."
Party Poker awarded points for making deposits. Matt deposited money. He would deposit so much money at a time (up to $50K) that he got bored clicking buttons, so he wrote a script to do it for him.
So, if depositing money wasn't against the rules and withdrawing the money after he got the FPPs wasn't against the rules, how can you possible claim that "this was a crime"?