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vincie

190 karma · joined February 10, 2013

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vincie··on The NSA’s Secret Role in the U.S. Assassination Program
I don't know anything about how they target their victim, but I am assuming the have very little time between seeing the victim and deciding to execute him/her/them. So I suspect an algorithm makes the call.
vincie··on Ask HN: Is this a stupid business idea?
Your idea will only work if you can control the anonymous watchers. How would you know if they actually watched the footage properly? One way to do it that comes to mind is the captcha way - give the watcher two segments, one of which is know to contain a reportable incident. If they report the one with the reportable incident, then it is probable that they watched the other one properly as well.
vincie··on Living in retirement: Seven things I wish I could tell my 35-year-old self
I live in Australia, work in Superannuation (aka Pension plans). Looking at the data, there will be a whole heap of suffering for people who did not take this advice when they were younger. Poverty is one thing. Poverty and old age is very bad. Add ill-health, and you will have absolute misery.
vincie··on Alcatel-Lucent and BT squeeze 1.4Tb/s out of existing fibre infrastructure
From the article: "New ‘flexible grid’ infrastructure allows more efficient bundling of channels, (42.5% increase in spectral efficiency) and data speeds of up to 1.4 Terabits per second (Tb/s) achieved without deployment of more fiber". Without the deployment of more fibre? This is astounding news.
vincie··on Romanian saves OpenBSD?
Nothing to do with that. There are currently lots of drivers and OpenSSH of course, in NetBSD that came from OBSD.
vincie··on Romanian saves OpenBSD?
Haven't used OBSD in years, but I do use OpenSSH all the time. There are lots of stuff lurking in my OS of choice, NetBSD, that came from OBSD. So I would like to thank Mircea Popescu for his generosity. I can only muster $A50 I'm afraid.

Edit: suckful spelling

Just went to try to donate. Can't seem to do it at the donation page. Can't seem to enter my Australian address in any of the US and Canada links. I am certain my CC issuer will decline it. What gives?

vincie··on Ask HN: How to become productive programmer?
Break the problem/task down into independent pieces. Independent means that the piece can be unit tested. Finish the piece and its unit test before you stop coding. Design a good api/interface/signature etc for each piece to enable re-use. A good design and unit tests also allows you to refactor later on without blowing the whole thing up.
vincie··on What Happens When the President Sits Down Next to You at a Café
They need to scan the NFR chip embedded in the back of your skull to ID you.
vincie··on What Happens When the President Sits Down Next to You at a Café
Facebook has always been uncool. The uncool people are just saying this now to sound cool.
vincie··on Microsoft says it's prepared to hand over Skype users' data to Russia
Even a law in a corrupt, totalitarian country?
vincie··on Pharocloud – Hosting for Smalltalk web-applications
http://www.swa.hpi.uni-potsdam.de/seaside/tutorial - go to the "Persistence" page.
vincie··on Taxi protest in Paris turns to guerrilla warfare as Uber car attacked on freeway
The mafia is illegal in Italy as far as I know, so that is not a valid comparison. Yes there are problems with all taxi drivers, and I do not see how Uber drivers are immune from these.
vincie··on Taxi protest in Paris turns to guerrilla warfare as Uber car attacked on freeway
Or, turning it around somewhat: "Lisp Programmers Demand Expulsion of Users of Inferior Languages".

Dude, leave them alone. If that is what they want to do, let them be. Never mind what your opinion of "improvement" is.

vincie··on Taxi protest in Paris turns to guerrilla warfare as Uber car attacked on freeway
Uber and it's ilk are nice and disruptive and all and you get a cheap ride out of it, but we must not forget that they are disrupting people's livelihood and cultural and social traditions too. I do not condone the violence, but I kind of understand it. Do we really want every country to be Americanized like this, one disruptive app at a time? To some people, these "unions" appear to be protection rackets, but I saw them as part of the French society and culture. If you don't like it, don't force your own beliefs and practices down their throats. Go somewhere else.
vincie··on Scientists discover second code hiding in DNA
The Trekkies were right all along: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_...
vincie··on President Obama calls on every American to learn code
Lets start with Cryptography 101
vincie··on Computer-driven cars will convulse the automotive industry
If the most significant difference between a bus/train and a self driving car is the ability to deliver you to your doorstep, I will take the bus/train. Think of the benefits - you don't need to buy and maintain the self-driving car, and hence all the other things like insurance, parking etc. The city doesn't have to build more and more roads. Get a bit of exercise walking to your door. Really, I think these self-driving cars are just the auto manufacturers trying to extend the lifetime of their products.
vincie··on Computer-driven cars will convulse the automotive industry
Yeah, but they are still just cars. They will still need valuable real-estate for roads and parking and storage. What these are starting to sound like are trains and buses, which have existed for hundreds of years.
vincie··on GNU RCS 5.9.2
I use it extensively for any files I touch that I do not share with anyone else, especially configuration files. Comes included in NetBSD, so no need to install anything else.
vincie··on The Year the Monarch Didn’t Appear
God this is going to get sadder.
vincie··on US police force pay Bitcoin ransom in Cryptolocker malware scam
Isn't opening an email attachment a standard, right thing to do? Aren't email attachments supposed to be the main ways to send someone a non-text file, by design? If so, blaming people for doing it is wrong. It is Windows that is wrong. It is the way that Windows lets these executables run and do these things that is wrong.
vincie··on US police force pay Bitcoin ransom in Cryptolocker malware scam
This is actually the first report of Cryptolocker where "Windows" was mentioned. I find it strange that most reports of malware I ever read never mention Windows.
vincie··on Why Do Companies Still Use Microsoft Windows For Displays?
Bingo!
vincie··on Edward Snowden is Almost Broke
I wasn't. Anyway, poor bugger. He will never work for anyone remotely connected to any government institution or any multinational in any country. The US is so omnipotent and omnipresent that even the Chinese, Ecuadorians and earlier on, the Russians, were seemingly afraid to touch him.
vincie··on Edward Snowden is Almost Broke
Let this be a warning to all you crazy kids out there thinking you can take on the man and not get busted.
vincie··on Meet the American Nomads of Walmart's Plentiful Parking Lots
I did much the same thing in Australia for nigh on 18 months. Good thing is, in the outback you can pull up pretty much anywhere, drive a little into the side of the road, watch the spectacular sunsets and go to sleep. Bad thing is, there are lots of brown snakes (deadly, but diurnal) and scorpions (very painful, nocturnal). In the big cities, I camped out near university campuses and truck stops for access to bathrooms etc. Most seaside towns have "surf livesaver" clubs with showers, sometimes with hot water. You could of course just swim in the ocean. I also fashioned a shower out of a hose that I would attach to the taps in public toilets if I was desperate for one. I miss that lifestyle.
vincie··on Ask HN: Where can I move cheaply to work by myself for a year?
Tonga, Tokelau, Tahiti and some other small Pacific islands now have something better than dial-up.

Edit: typo

vincie··on Surnames offer depressing clues to extent of social mobility over generations
Look at the Indian subcontinent for an extreme version of this phenomenon.
vincie··on NSA Fallout Thwarts AT&T
The US is starting to look like China, and AT&T (and other American companies) like Huawei. Can't be trusted, keep at arms length, lips moving so must be lying, has ulterior motives, etc etc
vincie··on Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google
Non-Americans watching this - make sure you organize however you can to stop the American disease spreading to your country. Watch your politicians carefully for any sign that they might want to implement their patent systems in your country. Good luck.
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