News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

BigTigger

Also an Australian, Costco is also a single location here, 20km away. My house travels out there once every ~3 months for everything and spend ~$500

The only things we really buy from the supermarket are week to week things like meat etc.

Re:Australian Bank Anonymizes and Releases Billions of Records on Thursday November 08, 2012 @10:41PM (#4761142)
I work for an Australian Bank. We had an internal competition where they didn't sanitise the data for this competition well enough. After a week of analysing the data one of the people in competing in the competition knew who's data we were looking at. It was a friend of theirs.

All identifying information had been removed/sanitised, they could tell from looking at the spending habits.

I disagree with your statement.

I would agree with that for the most part, however, if you're receiving a large sum of money (e.g. the $8 million dollars Ouya received as mentioned in the article received) I think you owe it to your investors to take the time to set up those business entities.
Re:Finding Unity in the Math Wars on Tuesday August 21, 2012 @11:31PM (#4415913)
Sorry, I'm not usually a pain with comparisons but comparing "Super Bass: 268M views in a year; Khan Academy: 175M views in 5 years" is illogical as Super Bass, from my quick Googling is around a song lasting 2m30s to Khan Academy which probably on average has around 10-20minute videos.

This doesn't even go into the fact that people could easily passively listen to Super Bass in a non-active window while Khan Academy requires much more active watching from the user.

(i.e. I could have super bass on my iPad in my car while I drive somewhere as background noise but Khan Academy requires me to be sitting in front of my PC focused on it).

Re:Drug Cartels Now Using UAVs on Tuesday August 21, 2012 @10:05PM (#4415737)
The economies of scale are crazy as well.

the US government spends $100 million on sensors yet the catels stand to make (if you can believe the figures) "$16 million wholesale" for one shipment of cocaine via this method.

The drug cartels stand to make more selling drugs than the US government spent trying to stop them in merely 7 trips with an ultralight

Re:Sent From My iPad on Sunday August 19, 2012 @11:00PM (#4406089)
I had a similar user experience with iOS (I admit I bailed out of the ecosystem at the 3GS but it hasn't changed substantially since then).

You're correct with everything you say, however, I feel that while you should always cater for the lowest common denominator (which Apple does, very well with iOS). You should also cater for the power user and the ultimate reason I switched out of the iOS ecosystem the only way I could get all the functionality I wanted was by jailbreaking my iPhone, whereas with an Android it's all native (and am glad to say I haven't had to root my Android).

Further to the above paragraph from what I observe in iOS is that it appears that they do not want to progress towards power users, unless I've missed some key developments recently.

In saying this, I've recently purchased a MacBook and I feel that they've done an incredible job with OSX in the regards, it's very easy to use for the novice but allows for a lot of power user functionality (e.g. multiple finger swipes, access to terminal, keyboard shortcuts for things like spotlight).

Re:Getting to know Android 4.1, Part 1 - The Basics on Sunday July 01, 2012 @10:08PM (#4186924)
Not sure if I agree with your "beautiful and usable" comment, there's a very good reason for design iteration.

Check out some geocities sites from a while ago for some 'usable' websites.

Personally I feel like the UI of iOS is very aged, requiring you to click on a icon to see information about that app whereas a widget allows a wealth of information at a glance. Often even access to an application's controls without having to open the app.

Re:Google Now on Friday June 29, 2012 @12:05AM (#4175177)
Sorry, is it out, or is it part of another App?

I attempted to look for it on the Play Store this morning but I could not see it.

Re:Gimme Bar: Don't bookmark the web. Save it. Forever. on Thursday June 07, 2012 @05:56AM (#4078242)
I backup to my Google account with my Chrome so I don't see the difference.
Re:Gimme Bar: Don't bookmark the web. Save it. Forever. on Thursday June 07, 2012 @04:24AM (#4078067)
Seems like a cool idea,

I watched the video but it hasn't convinced me why gimme bar is better than my current bookmark system in Chrome with folders etc. to be honest, I quite like my bookmark bar at the top

All the video did was told me that gimme bar is better, but not why it is.

Re:Google is making a huge and annoying mistake on Thursday May 03, 2012 @08:55AM (#3923610)
Surely it's simple enough to create a google account that's only used for youtube?

We do it on our server at home.

But while things like technologies change quite quickly I would argue that the methodologies that sit around these technologies develop a lot slower.

Also while I understand that this is technology site there are many skills today that don't require passing on knowledge of specific computational technical knowledge, and I would argue in the future this would also be true.

Re:U.S. busts Tor drug market, arrests eight on Monday April 16, 2012 @10:21PM (#3850691)
When I first heard about this, I heard they anonymized their payments through bitcoins.

PayPal seems a bit of a move to widen their market

Re:U.S. busts Tor drug market, arrests eight on Monday April 16, 2012 @10:20PM (#3850682)
I believe they were using bitcoins to anonymize some transactions.

The hardest thing for a regular consumer I would think would be finding a drop point. Drugs and things sent through the mail would be fairly easy to track to a consumer who could then be charged for possession.

Re:A hacker creates his own version of Google Project Glass on Tuesday April 10, 2012 @11:34PM (#3825794)
But then if you're in a discussion with someone and say thanks to them at the end wouldn't it annoy you when it closed the menu item you were in?

I think they're trying to ensure the phrases don't cross over with regularly used phrases

Re:MIT awards pirate certificates to undergraduates on Thursday March 08, 2012 @09:23PM (#3682630)
This is all speculation.

Possibly because they treat it as an extra curriculum activity

And as such:

a) Perhaps the lecturers teach in their spare time because they enjoy the activity.

b) It's a fairly specific skill set that would mean hiring new resources for an extra curricular activity that means diverting resources from your primary operation (teaching) which you don't want to do.

Re:IPhoto for iOS Not Using Google Maps? on Wednesday March 07, 2012 @10:40PM (#3678497)
He's edited it again,

UPDATE 2: OK, what I’m hearing now is that Places still uses Google Maps, but the maps in Journals and slideshows are not using Google Maps, and are Apple’s own stuff

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/03/07/iphoto-maps

Re:Stephen Wolfram does an AMA on Monday March 05, 2012 @10:07PM (#3669463)
They exist for the iPhone, not sure about Android
Re:TSA: Fail on Wednesday February 29, 2012 @06:02PM (#3650168)
Great post, I do however much prefer the quote,

"If you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, order more tunnel"

Re:How to nap on Wednesday January 11, 2012 @01:07AM (#3450647)
I'm not a regular napper, but whenever I've napped in a busy office, the best approach I've found is to head out to a park, find a shady spot and lie down. Take a towel so you don't get dirty or itchy

Options here are obviously, book a meeting, pretend you're going for a run, out to lunch or a coffee.

Re:Elon Musk is pushing the human race forward on Tuesday December 27, 2011 @10:55AM (#3396135)
I'm highly upset at this comment. I didn't realise hn had become downertown.

Many people enjoy this website and just because someone tried to add wind into someone else's sails don't mean it's your job to tell them to stop inventing and dreaming because they're not somewhere glorious.

I hope gizmo is the first person to land on Mars and I hope just to spite you they start after they're 30...

Re:Tutorspree (YC W11) raises $1MM from Sequoia on Tuesday December 20, 2011 @09:29PM (#3376133)
You're confusing me, I opened this thread amazed someone could raise 1 billion.

Now I'm quite happy that M = 1,000 and m = 1,000,000, and you're throwing me off with $1mm now.

Re:Why MANY smart people are not social? on Sunday November 13, 2011 @10:30PM (#3232693)
Interesting article, however it seems to suggest that these 'Smart and social' people are not on equal footing when it comes to intelligence as the 'Smart and not social'.

However your box graph suggests they are.

The points you make a good and solid but it doesn't really bring out as to why the perception suggests there are many less 'smart and social' people than 'smart and not social' people

Re:Motivate yourself in 10 seconds on Sunday October 30, 2011 @10:36PM (#3176138)
This comment confuses me? It resets at 5pm, to an hour chosen randomly by dice roll?

EDIT: Not sure why I can't reply to your other comment but: > its a simple timer that counts down to 5pm of the following day

If it's counting down to 5pm of the following day, how come the timer is showing > 24hrs for me?