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mikehuffman

Re:Pirate Bay Founder Peter Sunde Requests Pardon on Friday May 11, 2012 @07:37AM (#3958700)
Forced public service.
I'm confused. The web page didn't auto-start midi music and there were way less animated cartoon animal gifs than expected!

Anyway, good job for what it is, and kudos for releasing source!

Re:Backbone.js Fundamentals on Thursday April 12, 2012 @04:18PM (#3833997)
I was very impressed with Meteor, but it is very new and isn't really bringing anything of substance to the table yet. Everything (other than client-side database interaction, which I am confused about who would want), that they spotlighted can be duplicated easily with backbone, node, and socket.io...right now. Moreover, backbone, in particular, is clearly a tool, like a screwdriver, that does a few things well and gets out of your way, whereas Meteor, like rails used to be, is more like an electronic lockpick...awesome magic for the limited scope of applicability, but not currently useful for most of the things you want to do in real life.
Re:SQL Injection Tools For Database Pwnage on Thursday April 12, 2012 @08:34AM (#3832053)
If you and the site are located in the United States, it is illegal.
Re:Show HN: Smooth.js - Turn arrays into smooth functions on Monday March 12, 2012 @08:46PM (#3696443)
Very well done. Simple and effective. This will be useful on a surprising number of my projects.
Re:Open Web Device on Monday February 27, 2012 @07:01AM (#3638663)
This is actually a big deal. It is a step in the right direction to take care of the missing pieces of mobile app development. I really believe that in 5 years time, "application development" will be just assumed to be web app development and not desktop application development.
Re:V8 Engine in PostgreSQL on Friday February 24, 2012 @05:38PM (#3631426)
One obvious idea that I can think of is returning sanitized jsonp directly from the database to the controller. The database will nearly always be faster at formatting data in different ways, than the controller.
I would not be surprised if the government directly began to subsidize facebook, just for the incredible amount of personal information they could mine. Another scary thought is a company like equifax, buying into facebook.
Re:NSA Interception Infographic on Thursday February 23, 2012 @11:13PM (#3627994)
It is pretty amazing that nearly all of the western first world nations agree on one thing...they are pretty ok with KGB style spying or monitoring of their citizens. It doesn't seem to matter if they are on-the-fence-socialists, outright socialists, or dyed-in-the-wool capitalists.
Re:Introducing Simple Tiles: ProPublica's new Mapping Library on Monday February 13, 2012 @05:03PM (#3587522)
2012 is making my head explode. Two things that used to be hard and out of reach for the "poor" are becoming mainstream and easy for anyone to access....college level education and mapping. I'm going to be honest, mapping-for-all is more surprising to me than the recent education explosion. It is traditionally considered a "hard" problem, that requires understanding or mastery of a few different disciplines just to whip it into shape. Absolutely amazing! I haven't been this excited with tech development since the "old" tech bubble. (ask your parents!)
Nothing is wrong with yajl it is awesome! I have used the lua module for yajl for some time with no hiccups.
Re:SaaS Fatigue on Sunday February 12, 2012 @03:10PM (#3582833)
I would be interested in hearing results from anyone who has switched the payment structure of their product. From say, one-time-purchase to saas, or vice-versa.
Because of the power inversion. Historically they get to decide what will make money and when. It is frightening to them that all of that power and control can be taken away by a couple of guys in Sweden with a few servers.

Funding streams for smaller niche start-ups?

Hi HN. I find myself in a curious and frustrating situation. I figured that asking HN might produce some answers that would be helpful to me and others in my position.Specifically, I like to know if anyone know of funding sources for what I feel is a guaranteed (I have made money for about a decade for doing something similar) start-up, but the revenues, although decent, will be comparativly...

( Read More... | 1 comment | 3 points | on HN )
Re:100 Million Americans Watch Online Video Per Day on Thursday February 09, 2012 @05:45PM (#3573507)
Pretty much thanks to google by the looks of it. I wonder why google hasn't yet used it's heft to cut a deal (a la itunes) with movie makers for distribution. Google already knows our surfing habits, so they could deliver the same ads we get now at the movie theaters, excepts individually targeted. I'm guessing that the ad revenue alone would replace cinema revenues and allow for the "free" movies everyone wants these days.
Re:The Senate’s SOPA Counterattack? on Thursday February 09, 2012 @05:37PM (#3573461)
Whenever I suspect that politicians might be writing a "power-grab" law, the one sure way I know to confirm it, is to start looking for immunity clauses. They know they are doing something bad that would require the "immunity" or else they wouldn't preemptively put it there.
In my 15-20 years of work history, to my knowledge, I have never had an employer confirm my academic credentials. Credit score? Yes! Criminal history? Yep! Whether I am academically qualified for the position? Nope! In particular (in my younger days) I "inflated" some of my academic credentials and achievements. They were simply accepted at face value.
I agree. Perhaps I'm getting too old, but it just seems creepy to approach someone you "found with your phone" vs. just striking up a conversation in a line or at the next table in a restaurant.
If I understand you have $100k burning a hole in your pocket and you want to use it to fund a start-up in some way. If you want a riskier way but more input and ownership, you can post on angel list. You can post on HN for potential start-ups that need funding. You can invest in many project on kickstarter and spread the risk. Also, I personally have several niche start-ups that could use funding and man-hours to move a little faster.
I am going to make a wild prediction right now. Taking into account that 2012 seems to be the year of the "legit" free online schools. I am going to predict that within 5 years a person will be able to get a high-school or college degree (possibly accredited) from Khan Academy...and it will be recognized as legit by peers and employers alike.
Re:Where to begin with Arduino on Thursday February 09, 2012 @01:10PM (#3572206)
Arduino's own "getting started" page is probably a good start[1] Lady Ada has a starter kit[2] and beginner tutorials[3] Sparkfun has an "inventor's kit" with teacher/student resources[4] [1]http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/HomePage [2]http://www.adafruit.com/products/68 [3]http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/ [4]http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10173
Re:Tribler Makes BitTorrent Impossible to Shut Down on Wednesday February 08, 2012 @02:18PM (#3567981)
I wonder why people seem to avoid the fact that the laws already know it is impossible to shut down file sharing. It is a power play. Just like it is impossible to stop marijuana usage, but that has no affect on the repercussions of the laws and the results for certain corporations and those accused.
Re:DARPA's AlphaDog robot pack mule begins real world testing on Wednesday February 08, 2012 @02:14PM (#3567964)
I have always hoped that new power and energy advances would come from these military applications.
Re:Chinese Tablet Manufacturers breaking the GPLv2 on Thursday February 02, 2012 @02:55PM (#3544178)
I've had products produced in China. They remind me of that honey badger video. If you have money they will do whatever you want. I was shocked at the ease with which I could contact one of their companies and request that they change and rebrand some of their own proprietary products for me to sell, and they complied without blinking for what, in my mind, was a fairly low amount of $$$. I can't imagine US companies even contemplating that without practically owning the results.
KVM/IP is common for remote windows server admins. Sounds crazy, I know, but they are out there.
Perhaps he means liberty in the sense of freedom from being America's lapdog. One might be considered a "liberty fighter" for wanting to be held accountable by their own country's morals and mores, and not at the insistence of another country. The method "free music and videos", might be irrelevant to that perspective.
Re:Psd.js: A Photoshop Document Parser in CoffeeScript on Tuesday January 31, 2012 @07:35PM (#3536013)
Well, it would appear that this is indeed "bad ass js". I can't for the life of me think of a way to use this, but it is very, very bad ass.
Re:Id Software Open Source releases on GitHub on Tuesday January 31, 2012 @07:32PM (#3536002)
Before Valve and Gabe-mania my first dev crush was John Carmack. His postings and .plan files where were not only shockingly open and honest, but, I guess, genuine... it was apparent that here was a very successful man that was like me...an unrepentant nerd and geek! It is nice to know that that attribute of the company in general has not changed.
Re:Anonymous Takes Down DOJ Site on Thursday January 19, 2012 @06:15PM (#3487394)
This is a fantastic way to get knee-jerk laws passed. (Think patriot act).

I would not doubt it if this was in fact a hacker hired by the MPAA.

Re:Maddox - I hope SOPA passes on Thursday January 19, 2012 @07:13AM (#3484139)
There will be no permanent solution that works for "the people".

Think about it, throughout history when a sufficiently powerful or profitable medium of information exchange has arisen (think radio, television, phones, mail), the govt. at the behest of rich corporations has legislated it. Every single time!

Laws are first passed to "curb criminal elements", which is what we are seeing now, then a few years down the road laws will be passed to allow the activity with prescribed limits...imagine Internet permits. Then, finally, tax money will subsidize the actual sell of the medium to large corporations to dole out in prescribed amounts to the public...for a fee.

This is how it is and how it will be.

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