HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

xyzzyb

663 karma · joined August 1, 2010

submissionscomments
xyzzyb··on Hacking the <a> tag in 100 characters
"If someone has control of the DOM the game is already over"

http://www.frameloss.org/2012/10/28/hover-fail/

xyzzyb··on Viral Marketing is a Myth
Stated as a fact in the title. Stated as a question in the article. Discuss.
xyzzyb··on Search, Mad Men style: A complete IBM 362 Google interface in the browser
This would actually been even cooler to hook into DuckDuckGo's zero click interface. The machine would be able to respond with actual information for lots of queries.

Mathematics calculations, topic summaries, definitions, etc.

https://duckduckgo.com/api.html

xyzzyb··on HTTP Headers For Fun & Profit
Slashdot used to have x-fry and x-bender (Futurama) but it looks like even those headers are gone from slashdot now.
xyzzyb··on Flatstrap - Bootstrap with no rounded corners, gradients or drop shadows
By their very nature, all open source licenses are variations of "Ride on my shoulders!"
xyzzyb··on Google Analytics for developers
Those are some good basics.

Tracking user actions can be very useful: I use it on movieterminals.com to see everything that gets typed into each console. The theory being that (one day?) I'll use that to enhance the scripts to work how people expect.

Tracking an event per page 404 or 500 can also be very helpful. If you aren't already using something more robust to track errors you could even setup alerts to watch for those events and contact you.

Goals are good, although funnels are even better.

Finally: if you can afford it I've found that Clicky offers many great advantages over google analytics. More helpful default reports, a better realtime view, etc.

xyzzyb··on Netflix signs licensing agreement with Disney
I don't know about UK pricing, but here in the US subscribing to Hulu Plus, Netflix, and specific shows on Amazon and iTunes (e.g. Mythbusters) is still much cheaper than a monthly cable subscription.
xyzzyb··on Netflix signs licensing agreement with Disney
It's not even like this is a long article. It's literally a 140 word paragraph.
xyzzyb··on Netflix signs licensing agreement with Disney
…

Read the read of the article.

""" That deal also includes first-run rights to direct-to-video releases, which will begin appearing on Netflix in 2013. What's more, the two companies have also announced a separate multi-year agreement that will see popular Disney catalog titles like Dumbo and Alice in Wonderland be made available on Netflix beginning today. """

xyzzyb··on I quit Twitter for a month and it changed my thinking about mostly everything.
Just about any change can have this effect as long as you perceive the change to be significant.
xyzzyb··on Shell Gamification (how I learn to use my shell aliases)
Passing -F to less causes it to automatically quit if the file can be displayed on one screen.
xyzzyb··on Voyager 1 spots new region at the edge of the Solar System
So instead of a hard delineation between solar wind and cosmic rays we're seeing something more like velcro?
xyzzyb··on Video games and sleep loss
Yes, but again: they aren't stating that it's some property exclusive to videogames that affect sleep but something about playing videogames (including all side effects) can have an affect on the quality of sleep.
xyzzyb··on Video games and sleep loss
The study doesn't seem to be claiming that videogames have an exclusively bad influence on sleep, merely that they have an influence on sleep. Where's the crock?
xyzzyb··on Dune II ported to the Web with Emscripten
iDos is great for this. Playing Ultima V on my iPad is fantastic.
xyzzyb··on Love Your Terminal
Setup time got you down? There are plethora of dotfiles projects on github that already have easy scripted installation.

http://dotfiles.github.com/

xyzzyb··on Love Your Terminal
The best prompt I've found for zsh is agnoster. I highly recommend it: https://gist.github.com/3712874
xyzzyb··on Deadly 'superbugs' invade U.S. health care facilities
I'm currently dealing with similar issues. New symptoms started for me this summer, my GP and all the tests and specialists I've seen have no ideas.t

When I do my own research my GP brushes it off. I try to take that in stride -- I do recognize that I am uneducated in the field. But it's disheartening when a specialist comes up with my researched conclusion as one of their top possible explanations.

If you don't tick all their boxes on a list of precisely described symptoms -- which you must self-report -- for a condition that they've looked up moments prior to your appointment you won't get diagnosed correctly unless you are lucky and have managed to find a competent and caring doctor.

xyzzyb··on Need The Lord Of The Rings Timeline? It's On Your Mac
No, the calendar files are anniversaries not timelines.

Have some fun:

    alias anniversaries="ack -a -h `date +"%m/%d"` /usr/share/calendar | sort"
xyzzyb··on List of Twitter Bootstrap Resources
Bootstrap isn't a CMS. It does nothing to manage content but is instead a visual framework of HTML, CSS, and JS. It's essentially a good baseline of nice looking defaults.

It's popular because design is hard. Seriously hard. And the skills required to code up a cool web application do not often overlap with the skills required to make a site that isn't hideous to look at.

Bootstrap allows you to have a permanent check on the "design site" in your list of things to do for launch.

Not only does it look great out of the box, but it's also a great starting point for real designs (hence the name "bootstrap"). http://builtwithbootstrap.com/

xyzzyb··on Poll: Do you select text while reading?
Interesting! I've never heard of this or even seen anyone do it.
xyzzyb··on Twitter Boostrap Goodies
{wrap}bootstrap is a great theme site for twitter bootstrap: https://wrapbootstrap.com/
xyzzyb··on Twitter Boostrap Goodies
tablecloth.js (http://tableclothjs.com/) is another add-on compatible with twitter bootstrap that helps make nice looking HTML tables.
xyzzyb··on Free VMs of Windows to test older versions of IE
It works about as well as IE9's browser emulation. Which is not very well. It's not 100% true to native IE versions.
xyzzyb··on Free VMs of Windows to test older versions of IE
Big thumbs up here for ievms. I use it all the time and I not so humbly was the first person to donate money to the project.

I can't believe that it's only raised $400 so far. It's completely excellent and I know lots of people out there depend on it.

xyzzyb··on Dole/Kemp '96 Online Campaign
At the time the web was only a couple of years old and it was yet to even hit the "lets get serious" radar of just about everyone.

Essentially, no. There was no one with a very refined aesthetic making websites at the time. Even the Louvre's website (one of the first art museum websites I remember popping up) was extremely ugly.

xyzzyb··on Dole/Kemp '96 Online Campaign
Aww, that's a shame. The old site is a level down: http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/movie/jam.htm
xyzzyb··on Dole/Kemp '96 Online Campaign
Ahh, 1996 was an awesome year for websites.

Space Jam: http://www2.warnerbros.com/spacejam/

xyzzyb··on Git add -p: a powerful git feature
When you're done, just use Bernhardt's "run-command-on-git-revisions" to run tests on each of the commits to ensure they are all working code.

https://github.com/garybernhardt/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/ru...

xyzzyb··on North Carolina teacher's resignation letter
That included applications to places like Toys-R-Us.
Page 1 of 8Next →