News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

Diogenes

Re:Are You a Geek or Nerd? on Friday February 17, 2012 @09:06AM (#3603296)
Totally off base. They mistook hipsters for geeks.
1. Bullshit. 2. you all are better at math than I am, so I won't bother to point out the obvious.
Re:Let Us Confirm - Automated Appointment Verification Service on Monday December 06, 2010 @02:39PM (#1976497)
Built by a friend of mine on Asterisk.
Good ol' Mr. Hedley in 7th Grade English class refused to let any of us use the following words the entire year: am, is, are, was, were, be, been. Any paper turned in that contained one of those had to be re-written. My English, and clarity of thought, improved more that year than during any other equivalent span in my life.
Re:Ask HN: Where do you get your unbiased news? on Sunday July 11, 2010 @11:43PM (#1506729)
Those claiming here that Fox news are lying bastards are probably going to be equaled by the number of people here claiming that NPR leans left. As objectively as I can observe, the real outliers (far to the left) are the entire NBC/MSNBC set of stations and Newsweek (which is about to go under anyway). Among ABC and CBS, I think the only valuable sources are 60 minutes (which can lean left) and CBS Sunday Morning (which isn't hard news, but is informative and entertaining).

Again, in my opinion, NPR <i>leans</i> left. Fox news <i>leans</i> right. And if you want to watch the NEWS programming on Fox, then it is usually accurate as opposed to the OPINION programming on Fox like Glen Beck and O'Reilly.

Surprisingly enough, the most worldly, unbiased, informed and thorough daily news sources are the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, both of them use some combination of pay-for-service access - which changes regularly as the newspaper industry figures it out. They're both very close to centered, although the editorial boards lean left and right respectively. The big difference, however, is that both also give voice to dissenting opinions (where appropriate - on the OPINION pages) and publish well-thought-out, if contrary, letters to the editor.

Some of the other commenters are right - you need to take a look at multiple sources and discern for yourself not only where they sit on the political spectrum, but also the percentage of news to bullshit each chooses to publish.

Re:Ask HN: Best resources for trading noobs on Monday June 28, 2010 @04:02PM (#1469256)
I misread the headline. I thought there was an emerging market for undeveloped tech talent (noobs) like there is for sports league drafting and trades. I have some noobs I'd like to trade in for some with different talent sets.
Re: on Saturday June 26, 2010 @12:10AM (#1463082)
I swear I've read the bulk of that article somewhere else...recently...also linked on HN. Was it the same author?
Re:How America might get a Value Added Tax on Friday April 16, 2010 @12:19AM (#1269746)
It's not going to happen, as the Constitution reserves these powers to the States. The States retain (so far) plenary power with regards to transactions within their borders.

A very detailed refutation: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2005/05/Beware-the-...

Re:What do I tell the average Internet user about this? on Saturday March 27, 2010 @12:32AM (#1222573)
It seems to me that one of the primary problems is that law enforcement agencies don't need a warrant or subpoena for the SSL certificate. Where's the accountability?

What do I tell the average Internet user about this?

Here: http://techdirt.com/articles/20100325/0403568713.shtmlAnd the offending appliance: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/packet-forensics/I've got hundreds of clients who use the Internet, but are not - as we would say - Internet savvy. What do you think I should tell them (and what will you tell YOUR customers) when the idea that ANY government agency can spy on supposedly "secure"...

( Read More... | 3 comments | 4 points | on HN )
Re:Ask HN: The health care reform will create more jobs? on Monday March 22, 2010 @09:01AM (#1210191)
Only IRS jobs. Expect the nursing shortage to get worse and doctors close to retirement to start closing their practices in droves. No, I'm not going to go into the details for you, the bill language can be found here: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3590/show
Re:Obama's Data on Wednesday February 17, 2010 @10:05AM (#1131616)
Because he didn't stop at data and analysis and went off on a zealot's rant that included poor logic and dodgy conclusions.
Re:So I made Wells Fargo a fan page yesterday. on Monday January 11, 2010 @11:44PM (#1046865)
This is not my site, though it well could be. If Wells doesn’t change some of this soon, they’re going to lose customers in droves. While many may argue that it can afford to lose customers who carry very low balances, those customers are also the source of their very large fee revenue. It’s the long tail - 80% of customers with a low balance paying fees to maintain accounts that pay for the technology innovation, maintenance and new products enjoyed by the 20% of customers enjoying free or low-fee accounts. Wells Fargo (like all banks) cannot afford to rely on traditional investment carry at today’s interest rates. If they drive these customers away, they’ll find themselves quickly in the same boat as all the other major banks.

Which, by the way, might not be so bad: http://moveyourmoney.info/

Re:The Fall of Hacking on Thursday August 13, 2009 @11:59PM (#762328)
Thank you and your liberal arts sensibilities for capturing one perspective of this moment in time - the zeitgeist, if you will. It is good to remember where we came from, better still to know where we are.

The real hackers are still out there and because of the prevalence of the tools of the trade and the complexity of systems compared to 20 years ago, there are 10 times as many of them. Unless you travel to their places and learn their language you won't know they're there. They (generally) don't have blogs.

Shameless Plug (my nephew is a cyborg)

This shameless plug is for my nephew James, who was diagnosed with diabetes when he was 3. James has entered a video contest for his Omnipod insulin pump. His video is posted on YouTube. Part of the scoring is based on how many views his video has. Can you take 2 minutes to watch his video? The theme of the contest is how the Omnipod makes diabetes a smaller part of life. Right now, one...

( Read More... | no comments | 2 points | on HN )
Re:We Blew It: P.J. O'Rourke on Sunday November 09, 2008 @04:51PM (#358540)
Apologies. Consider it a parting shot, and back to work improving people's lives through better access to, and understanding of, Internet technology.
Never talk to a lawyer until money is about to change hands. More good ideas are killed, deformed or outright stolen by lawyers than by any other means...ever.
Re:How to Change Someone's Mind on Thursday July 17, 2008 @11:50AM (#248586)
Marketing? How to win friends and influence people?

What's next on HN, dating advice? No, scratch that. It'll be how to 'hack' the perceptions of people so you can take advantage of them. I expect to see spam for Mystery Method here in short order. Swiftly followed by NLP and hypnosis courses.

Guy Kawasaki is undoubtedly a very bright individual, and I have even personally benefited from some of the advice given in his writings. But...not this. Not here.

Why isn't this being covered widely?

As the guy in the family who gets the call when computers don't work, I wasn't surprised when I got the call today that mom &amp; dad's computer lost connection to the Internet. After all the troubleshooting was complete, the DSL modem was on and connected, the computer was talking to the DSL modem just fine, etc., I said he needed to call his ISP. AT&amp;T (rebranded from SBC/Yahoo!) in the...

( Read More... | 2 comments | on HN )
"Simply expressing an opinion is noise in a conversation often boils down to noise, and opinions on their own won't feed the starving mind: the meat of the argument lies in explaining opinions." - willarson

To play devil's advocate here (because I happen to agree with your comment on the whole), the argument could be made that a downvote (without attribution or explanation) is just this sort of noise.

Re:Freeman Dyson: The Question of Global Warming on Wednesday May 28, 2008 @12:30AM (#201774)
Brilliant piece. Thank you for posting the link.

Likewise: Aliens cause global warming. http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-alienscauseglobalwar...

Re:New Laptop on Thursday May 22, 2008 @10:37PM (#197741)
The specs on the newer vostro line of Dell laptops are pretty impressive for the price. Best value in my opinion. Dual core processors, 2GB RAM, separate 256MB video, choice of screen sizes/weights, DVD+/-RW, built in camera, 160Gb+ HDD, choice of OS and that's starting at around $700 new.

They're not pretty, but they are highly functional, don't suffer from the quality issues Dell had circa 2002 - 2006, and if something breaks or you need a peripheral of some sort, you won't be in hock to Apple for half the cost of the machine or more.

Re:Everything I want to do is Illegal on Wednesday May 14, 2008 @11:31PM (#190236)
The problem, my friends, is the legislators. More spefically, lawyers as legislators. Think about that (in the context of many of the other good points here), and realize that there is an inherent conflict of interest having members of a self-regulating professional class (lawyers and the Bar) writing the very laws that only they can administer.

Never vote for any lawyer running for any legislative body.

Certainly not world changing, and most definitely not ready for prime time. But considering it's a couple of guys throwing things at a server a couple of times a month more as stress relief than anything, it's not THAT bad.

http://www.famoushotdish.com

And yes, this was before we had even heard of alltop. Our first version was in October 07.

Re:Ask YC: Recommend a Web Based Scheduling Software on Monday March 10, 2008 @11:37PM (#133829)
It might be overkill for what you need, but the open source Freeway (http://www.openfreway.org) ecommerce platform does that natively. There are also a number of bridges for Joomla! to bring specific Freeway functions over without wrapping the whole thing into Joomla!.