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cadetzero

Re:Turbulenz HTML5 game engine is now open source on Friday May 03, 2013 @09:55AM (#5650076)
Because if you're creating a 2d game, it can be rendered reasonably fast in your browser.

Full 3d is a different problem.

However, a game like Monaco, with super simple controls but really interesting game play, could absolutely be built in the browser. This gives an easier distribution medium, more control over who is using the game, and if you're already a webdev it fits in nicely with your pre-existing skill set.

The bar is significantly lowered for a lot of weekend warrior game makers if you're going the 2d route.

Re:How we failed our YC interview on Tuesday April 30, 2013 @06:24PM (#5635259)
As a recently graduated student... ohmygod I wish I had this in college (only because I don't use matlab daily). The tutorials are lovely and I don't have to haul myself to a lab to run it.

I would have paid out of my own pocket in college to have that convenience.

>"They haven’t excited the front-line developers -- the ones who made Amazon who they are," he said. "Those will be hard to influence."

That may be true, but at the end of the day, startups aren't generating multi-millions/billions to spend on large server deployments.

Re:Gearbox acquires Homeworld on Monday April 22, 2013 @06:25PM (#5592106)
After Aliens: Colonial Marines, I really hope they don't spread their teams too thin across too many products...

Borderlands was great, but given they've done almost exclusively first person shooters, I'm definitely concerned for the Homeworld IP.

Edit* Let me rephrase, I'm terrified for the Homeworld IP.

Re:Explosions near Boston Marathon finish line on Monday April 15, 2013 @05:16PM (#5554419)
To be totally honest, if you heard a huge explosion behind you, would YOU stop to see what happened? Personally I'd book it harder.
Re:Stick a fork in it: Windows is done on Monday April 15, 2013 @11:51AM (#5552143)
My mom still has no problem using QuickBooks and doing all the required web stuff at work with a Pentium 4 and 512mb ram. She literally just bought a new desktop because quickbooks requires it.

In an office environment, she really doesn't need more.

Re:Stick a fork in it: Windows is done on Monday April 15, 2013 @10:29AM (#5551640)
"Windows is done". What a final statement.

PC sales may be mostly done. A desktop that was bought 10 years ago can still run fine today - and many still are.

We reached a point in computing where upgrading doesn't make that big of a difference. You can use the same machine for a decade or more without problem if you're an end user, especially given so many rich web apps that don't require high processing power.

Re:Facebook Home on Thursday April 04, 2013 @02:21PM (#5494274)
Why don't they fix Facebook on android before releasing a new product? It frequently "shooooops" for me - crashes, lags, hogs resources, and otherwise does unexpected things.

I'm very wary to install any software from Facebook on Android.

Wow, they built this when their Facebook app on android still consumes an ungodly amount of system resources?

I have no faith in this from a technical perspective.

Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC on Monday April 01, 2013 @04:29PM (#5475701)
Your current banking transactions aren't anonymous either. It's a nice additional security layer for people that want it, but by no means is it required.
Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC on Monday April 01, 2013 @04:28PM (#5475688)
Yes, correct. Typo.
> How is the non-tech user ever going to be able to use this with anywhere near level of trust/safety they do with current traditional currencies.

Near everyone I know, regardless of age, does their banking online. I don't see how this is any different than a username/password being stored on some banking server, and getting stolen.

Best case? You boot to a clean ISO, make a wallet, generate an address, write down the public/private key, transfer all your btc to it, and call it a day. There is no digital trace, and you have a paper wallet.

Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC on Monday April 01, 2013 @12:20PM (#5474006)
I'm not really sure why you say it's so hard.

You install the bitcoin wallet.

You sell something for bitcoins, and you give them your private key address in your wallet.

You receive bitcoins.

You buy something with bitcoins else where, and you just hit send and specify an address.

Simple as an account # + routing number.

Now funding your wallet with fiat currency is a little harder, but Coinbase has mostly taken care of that. It's as hard as paying a credit card off - link your current bank account, press buy or sell.

Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC on Monday April 01, 2013 @11:21AM (#5473576)
US government declares it an illegal currency, and if you accept bitcoins at your business you will be investigated. Game over.
Re:Bitcoin exchange rate reached $100 USD per BTC on Monday April 01, 2013 @11:16AM (#5473540)
Correct, and there are merchant services set up to do exactly this.
Re:Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion on Friday March 29, 2013 @04:56PM (#5462999)
It totally stands within reason that until it has wide spread adoption and regular people stop caring about what the exact exchange rate is that we will see large runs like that. As I stated, we have several people (myself included) invested to make money and take care of an investment, not to use a daily currency.
Re:Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion on Friday March 29, 2013 @02:07PM (#5462064)
That's about to be a total non-factor once all the ASICs online. http://launch.avalon-asics.com/ and http://www.butterflylabs.com/

The hash rates are order of magnitude faster than what's currently out there for the price, and most importantly they'll drive up the difficulty quite a bit.

Re:Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion on Friday March 29, 2013 @02:04PM (#5462048)
Source, on the whole, is http://bitcoincharts.com/ You can break down all the numbers yourself. You can also get a giant history table of all buy/sells with times from either bitcoinity or bitcoin charts, I forget which.
Re:Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion on Friday March 29, 2013 @02:03PM (#5462040)
Oh, this literally happened yesterday.

Someone sold off 5k bitcoins (~USD $450k at the time).

That's exactly what happened. Big sell off from 95 to 80ish, and then it sprang back to ~$90 today.

There's low confidence in it right now, but that's because most players are actual players. They aren't using bitcoins for groceries, like a bank reserve (yet). They're playing them like stocks.

Re:Bitcoin Hits $1 Billion on Friday March 29, 2013 @02:00PM (#5462028)
>As an asset class it's far too volatile

Volatile, sure. Depends if you want to invest long term with it, and you understand the risk.

> As a currency it's too impractical and there are serious hurdles involved with turning central bank currency into Bitcoin and vice versa.

I found it pretty easy. Coinbase was lovely; getting verified on Mt Gox was a bit of a pain.

> We think Wall Street plays a rigged game.

Yeah, because it does. On a personal level I find the finance industry as a whole too difficult to gain any insight in to. I wouldn't know if my bank was collapsing or not, or if the housing market was in a true bubble. I can fully understand bitcoin. Maybe it's a false sense of safety, but I don't think it is.

> worry a Government or a big bank they'll simply manipulate the market.

Possible. We'll see how it plays out.

Most importantly though,

>I just don't understand the purpose it serves.

Very low fee, near-instant, world-wide monetary transfers. It serves a purpose.

As I understand, you can't hit those speeds with just a rocket engine. The HTV-2 is considered a rocket glider - it needs a rocket to propel it to altitudes and speeds where the SCRAMJET can kick in (as the scramjet itself has no moving parts).
I found it really interesting to read about the underlying tech, scramjets: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scramjet
Re:Your Startup’s Most Important Metrics on Tuesday March 26, 2013 @02:41PM (#5445219)
Is there a single analytics product on the market today that can give me this solution?

Is there a product that's self-hosted?

If there is either, I haven't found them. I built these exact metrics in house... such a pain.

Re:EA CEO John Riccitiello Steps Down on Monday March 18, 2013 @04:39PM (#5396977)
Thank goodness. Maybe - MAYBE - this could give EA a breath of fresh air. So many pieces of AAA IP have been squandered...
Re:A successful Bitcoin double spend – USD 10000 on Thursday March 14, 2013 @10:01AM (#5374962)
I submitted the exact same a day ago.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5365083