Hacker News Reader

vskarineon Show HN: BotPages largest open bot directory

Any feedback would be highly appreciated!

vskarineon Facebook is King, Other Networks Fight for Scraps

The problem is that they force you to use your real identity.

Agree with you. My first job out of college was working with C code on embedded modem software and when I saw this pattern and was like WTF?! but then realized how useful it is to have single point of exit in a function (especially in embedded systems code).

vskarineon Algorithms as Microservices

Problem I see is that given following algorithm types, I see only one of them really fits this model:

1. common algorithms (sorting, graph algorithms, etc) - are commodity and there are tons of free libraries that have good enough implementations.

2. generic data dependent algorithms with many parameters (classification, NLP, neural networks, etc) - many many parameters to tune and they need to be tuned for each type of dataset. Unless you understand the algorithm, there is no real value in playing around with parameters. But if you understand algorithm then you probably want to implement or modify it to your specific needs (speed, complexity, etc). Only people who just want to play around with data might want to try off the shelve stuff to see how it performs but I don't see much market for serious users. I might be wrong here though.

3. Very specialized algorithms (3D surface reconstruction out of points, antenna analysis, etc) - this includes above algorithm types(common and generic data driven) that were specifically tuned to specific purpose. Some companies sell libraries that do that and those companies would probably benefit from Algorithmia.

vskarineon Chinese Buy One-Third of Vancouver Homes: National Bank Estimate

That's kind of insane. I wonder what the numbers are for San Francisco...

vskarineon Let's fix NPM with IPM – Immutable Package Manager

That's actually sort of how NPM works currently, they mentioned that that's exactly how they would solve kik situation, by giving them new version of the package: http://blog.npmjs.org/post/141577284765/kik-left-pad-and-npm

"Had Azer taken no action, Kik would have published a new version of kik and everyone depending upon Azer’s package could have continued to find it."

vskarineon Node.js Frameworks

Weird, they didn't mention Meteor at all...

vskarineon The kik Ruby gem. Would this be next?

Probably not unless Kik will decide to create something for ruby: https://medium.com/@mproberts/a-discussion-about-the-breakin...

vskarineon I've Just Liberated My Modules

https://medium.com/@mproberts/a-discussion-about-the-breakin...

vskarineon Node.js on Google App Engine Goes Beta

Has anyone tried running MeteorJS on GAE?

vskarineon Major changes to Mandrill, must be tied to a MailChimp account

Any good examples on using templating with variables in SendGrid? The docs are not very clear on that (you call them tags is that it?). I think you can get a lot of users if you show one to one mapping of API and common processes between Mandrill and SendGrid.

vskarineon Justice Department Wants Apple to Unlock Nine More iPhones

http://recode.net/2016/02/21/what-if-san-bernardino-suspect-...

"In a sweeping November report on encryption, Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance wrote that Google can “reset the passcodes” on some Android phones without full encryption, when served with a search warrant. “This process can be done by Google remotely and allows forensic examiners to view the contents of a device,” according to the report."

vskarineon Uber ruled illegal in Taiwan

What country are you currently in? Just curious to know where they work with Taxi licenses.

vskarineon [dead]

I bet it has to do with liability and someone is covering their ass. If they did proper background check on you then you probably signed some papers saying that what you said is true to the court of law etc etc etc and if they let it slide now and they find out something else about you later, person who let it slide will get in trouble and obviously for them it's safer to just fire you.

vskarineon [dead]

you can probably put that you contracted for Google and have your old manager confirm and give you reference

vskarineon Solving the H-1B Visa Problem

I actually think it's a good thing that startups won't be able to easily hire H1Bs. Here is what happened to me: I got convinced to join a startup with all sorts of promises of stability. I got H1B and I relocate my family to silicon valley. I go to my first day at work. First is meeting with founder, who tells me company has 1 month of money in the bank and currently at the stage of raising capital. Imagine my reaction that I might not have a job in a month after all they told me to recruit me. If I was citizen I could just get another job but with H1B it means leaving the country after the move and if company goes bankrupt they would not even be able to pay for me relocating back. Everything turned out to be fine at the end, but I don't wish anyone to experience that situation.

vskarineon Solving the H-1B Visa Problem

I've been on H1B for years in various companies and I totally support this proposal. I personally have not seen any case where H1Bs were underpaid in salary terms but I definitely saw people being threatened and worked to death because their green card application was dependent on the company (this made, hourly wise, a minimum wage job for them).

vskarineon Introducing GIF search on Twitter

Interestingly, Kik did this last year as alternative solution to custom stickers and emojis other messaging apps have. Looks like this trend is catching on with other services.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/11/16/chat-app-kiks-newest-featur...

vskarineon Department of Homeland Security Devices on SF Streets

Ok found the device: http://iom.nationalacademies.org/~/media/FFB5490AAC79421A80D...

vskarineon How Facebook squashed Twitter

Yes and no. In this case you assume you have enough money to spend on both, but if you are on budget then if you buy expensive intel product then you have less money to spend on Nabisco and vise versa. In this situation instead of money it's time. Twitter and Facebook audiences intersect so they are directly competing for attention. Amount of ads you get exposed to depends on how long you spend on the site. The more time you spend on Facebook = less time you spend on Twitter = less ads Twitter can show you = Twitter make less money.

vskarineon How Facebook squashed Twitter

The article agues that while they serve different purposes, there is still only so much free time each person has in a day. Both, Twitter and Facebook, are in competition for this free time and from that perspective you can compare them directly.

vskarineon Ask HN: My friend and I cannot agree on our server side stack for our startup

Tough situation. In my exoerience, best way to resolve this is to try each stack for couple of days.

On the side note, I highly recommend to try Meteor (www.meteor.com). I was in the same spot a year and a half ago and when we tried Meteor, we didnt know anything about Node but Meteor was so simple that we just went with it and never looked back.

vskarineon Enough Is Enough: Stop Wasting Money on Vitamin and Mineral Supplements [pdf]

"we believe that the case is closed— supplementing the diet of well-nourished adults with (most) mineral or vitamin supplements has no clear benefit and might even be harmful. These vitamins should not be used for chronic disease prevention. Enough is enough."

The problem is that (specifically in US) most adults are very far from being well-nourished.

For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malnutrition "Overnutrition caused by overeating is also a form of malnutrition. In the United States, more than half of all adults are now overweight — a condition that, like hunger, increases susceptibility to disease and disability, reduces worker productivity, and lowers life expectancy.[51] Overeating is much more common in the United States, where for the majority of people, access to food is not an issue. Many parts of the world have access to a surplus of non-nutritious food, in addition to increased sedentary lifestyles. Yale psychologist Kelly Brownell calls this a "toxic food environment” where fat and sugar laden foods have taken precedent over healthy nutritious foods."

vskarineon Apple Veteran Overseeing Electric-Car Project Leaving Company

skip paywall: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&c...

vskarineon The State of Meteor Part 2: What Happens Next

Most meteor apps are stateless on the server so you can safely scale by adding more servers (and more server to Mongo if that's the bottleneck). This can be easily done with Cluster package (https://github.com/meteorhacks/cluster). It's so easy you don't even need to configure anything.

vskarineon Running 50km after 82h of fasting

here is scientific explanation for some of this:

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/strength-and-endurance-train...

and

http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/strength-and-endurance-train...

vskarineon C or C++ for my game engine?

what are your thoughts on using D? I find it to be a better C++ and a step up from C.

vskarineon The Zappos Exodus Continues After a Radical Management Experiment

Interesting opinion on the subject: http://themodernteam.com/flat-will-kill-you-eventually-why-e...

vskarineon Ask HN: How does a 1990s web developer get back on track?

+1 for meteor highly recommend to start with https://www.discovermeteor.com/

vskarineon [dead]

If it was indeed some entity like NSA, they can literally change code base without anyone noticing. What can anyone possibly do to prevent something like that?