Hacker News Reader

white_devilon Ask HN: Best way to sell a domain name?

I hope you someday want to start a business and find out the domain you want is held hostage by a squatter.

white_devilon The Exodus of Tech from Portugal

I'm not a big patriot; I like ES/PT more than my own country.

Well, why have you been talking like a "big patriot" that frowns upon non-patriotism then?

white_devilon The Exodus of Tech from Portugal

Why are you talking about "staying and fighting" for your beloved Homeland if you've got companies in various countries? Shouldn't you be happily shoveling truckloads of tax money into your own country's coffers instead of giving it away to others?

white_devilon Show HN - We just built a site that saves lives

> Also, you're going to eventually need to take a very small cut of the donations to pay living expenses for your volunteers.

Not to mention the 11 staff members they have, who probably are not in this just for the joy of saving adorable little African babies.

white_devilon An industry commits suicide and blames us

> That 99.999% of listeners can't hear the difference between audio sources has been true in the past as well, even in the pre compressed era. Most people listened to car radios and other lo-fi equipment.

That's what I meant. Most people have shit loudspeakers, but might be able to hear the difference with proper ones.

white_devilon An industry commits suicide and blames us

Yes, I'm aware that they need to take shit loudspeakers into account when mixing music. But that doesn't mean they can't make it sound good with proper speakers too.

white_devilon An industry commits suicide and blames us

> Near-field monitors are expensive

Something like this would serve you well: http://www.thomann.de/gb/adam_a7x.htm?sid=65707ea4b4bf3f43af...

I paid 900 euros (second-hand) for my pair of studio monitors - back in 2004..

They're the best investment of my life, by far, as they've provided me with countless hours of music listening joy, and I'm using the same speakers even now.

1000 euros is nothing weighed against the value you get.

> entirely inappropriate for most applications

The "application" here would be: "maximizing your enjoyment of music, and listening to it the way it's meant to be heard". That's something you want to do.

white_devilon An industry commits suicide and blames us

> I'm pretty sure a 192kbps MP3 is indistinguishable from a CD for 99.999% of the people.

That's because people are completely oblivious to the existence of proper loudspeakers (ie. "studio monitors").

white_devilon Legal myths about the Assange extradition

I can't help but wonder if tptacek has ties to the government. He's always defending The Establishment in whatever comes up - be it banks taking away people's homes, or now Assange.

It's just weird. He's smarter than I am, and I can see bullshit for what it is.

white_devilon Legal myths about the Assange extradition

Really now?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/21/julian-assange-d...

Julian Assange today defended his decision not to return to Sweden for questioning over allegations of sexual assault, saying he did not need to be "at the beck and call of people making allegations".

Apparently in 2010, it was for "questioning". It was bullshit then, and it's bullshit now.

white_devilon Legal myths about the Assange extradition

> Why is it suspicious at all for the Interpol to hunt for a possible rapist?

When does the Interpol ever get involved in a rape case? Especially one where someone is suspected of not-actually-rape -"rape", and supposedly only wanted for "questioning"?

What the fuck? Does this not sound suspicious to you at all?

> If the U.S. really wanted Assange, why haven't they charged him of espionage, hacking, anything to pressure the U.K. to extradite him?

Who knows? Maybe they came up with the bullshit rape charges in Sweden first, before someone thought of doing that? At least at this point, they kind of have to go through Sweden to maintain any tiny shreds of credibility.

white_devilon Samwers Clone Stripe

the popular direct debit payments can be charged back very easily + you just have to search for an valid account number (= fraud).

This sounds highly doubtful. Care to explain?

white_devilon Show HN: SendRail - Easy P2P File Transfer From The Desktop

So how do you plan to make money? I can't see any pricing information, so I guess this is yet another case of users being the product.

white_devilon Creepy Spying System Revealed by Wikileaks, Which Then Gets Hit by DDOS Attack

It's safe to assume there's something to most "conspiracy theories".

white_devilon Watch High-Speed Trading Bots Go Berserk

> Your guesses as to my personality type and employment situation are just as wrong as your speculation about the nature of HFT.

That's easy for you to say. We're both human though. Humans are above all selfish, and have a hard time letting go of easy money.

So who knows, if I were some kind of math wizard living in the US, I might have ended up working for a bunch of sociopaths too. It's possible I'd be here on HN, rationalizing and defending HFT and blowing smoke up people's asses with cutesy link-bait-titled posts about it.

I didn't actually say anything about your personality type though.

We shouldn't even bother, but perhaps you'd care to point ouf my mistakes in describing "the nature" of HFT?

white_devilon Watch High-Speed Trading Bots Go Berserk

Fresh, guilt-free.

white_devilon Watch High-Speed Trading Bots Go Berserk

> I no longer work in HFT.

Finance still, though? I bet it's difficult to let go of the fat paychecks.

> As for your other questions, I suggest you go read my blog posts on the topic. They answer all your factual questions.

Ah yes. I was just giddy with delight when you used Futurama character names in those examples. How could I not love everything HFT represents after that?

white_devilon Watch High-Speed Trading Bots Go Berserk

Yeah, "liquidity" is the standard bullshit distraction trotted out every time HFT is discussed here. Strangely enough, we've got "yummyfajitas" defending it again, which maybe, just maybe, might have something to do with the fact that he works in HFT.

As for liquidity, since the bots only make trades with the goal of shaving off tiny little slivers of profit on millions of trades, why and how would one of those sweaty guys ever buy anything from them? Even if one wanted to, the opportunity to buy might pass in a couple of microseconds.

All in all, working in HFT or even the financial "industry" at large, is complete bullshit. No self-respecting, decent human being should do it. No matter how you look at it, your mission there is to help world-raping scumbag bankers and the like make more money. They certainly don't need it.

white_devilon NSA Careers for DEF CON Attendees

I take it you work in finance then.

white_devilon Ask HN: Building a large webapp today - what language for the backend, and why?

> Furthermore C# has the best IDE in the world (Visual Studio)

You don't seem to be aware of IntelliJ IDEA. VS may be very good, but it's highly unlikely it's "the best in the world" while IDEA is in it.

white_devilon Who 'likes' my Virtual Bagels?

You say "I completely disagree" when you want to say "you're wrong" but won't, because it's not Socially Correct to do so.

white_devilon Trading Program Ran Amok, With No ‘Off’ Switch

> This is ultimately a situation of the market being a robust and stable dynamical system.

Not while it's being shaped by algorithms competing against each other, which you're a part of.

white_devilon Who 'likes' my Virtual Bagels?

> I completely disagree

There's nothing to disagree about. The guy just pointed out what happened.

Besides, "I completely disagree" is just code for "You're wrong".

white_devilon NSA Careers for DEF CON Attendees

"Help us monitor the communications of private citizens all over the world, even if they use encryption!"

( Need I remind you of this? http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/ )

Hey it's challenging work! Just like devising new algorithms for helping Wall Street rape the world's economies!

It's exactly what a true hacker wants and needs. Tinker with your favourite programming languages and tools! Go crazy with mathematics! Help us rape the little folks!

white_devilon Those budget 27" IPS displays from Korea are for real

I'm curious, why is "low price" wrong?

white_devilon Review my startup - Airfeed

> I guess you are right, we are not planning on profiting from this at first.

When are you planning to have a business model then? It appears the users are* the product again, as usual.

It looks nice though.

*) or will be.

white_devilon Startup offers trip as hiring bonus

I sure hope at least one of you is being sarcastic.

white_devilon Plivo (YC S12) launches scalable API platform for Voice & SMS Apps

> Unlike Twilio, which runs on Amazon’s cloud, Plivo runs on dedicated servers. “We know that when you run things like that on Amazon’s cloud, the voice qualities degrades, and you cannot guarantee quality of service to customers,” explains Venky.

Care to elaborate?

white_devilon Coinbase (YC S12) seeks to bring Bitcoin to the masses

(To whoever downvoted this, the questions were meant to be rhetorical)