mmrasheed
mmrasheed on Hacker News
Posted by
mmrasheed on Wednesday July 01, 2015 @12:06PM
from the ask-hn dept.
Hi,
My app generates custom map based on photos in user's device. Although, the app is free to access, the custom map generation takes place in the server, and is a paid service. Users can also upload their photos to the website through the web browser and generate the same map (after payment). The output files are in pdf or kml formats, so they can be opened with or without my app. In this...
To summarize the blog post- The solution to free email is paid email. And solution to email clients is to read privacy policy.
It would be a cool post in 2007 when Google described their ad policy for gmail, and we gladly accepted that. As of 2014, in post-Snowden era, the simplest solution to security and privacy is- end to end encryption. Or, if you have something better in your bag...
The origin of girls allured to both industries (prostitution and pornography) is probably the same. The recent documentary of Rashida Jones, "Hot girls wanted", sheds modest light on this issue. On the other hand, prostitution is not weaker than before, it has been outsourced far away, so the victims' voices cannot be heard. An example- prostitution business in the East and South East Asia are stronger than ever. There are several documentaries on how children and teenagers in those countries are taken by the prostitution rings to sell to pedophiles, sex abusers and addicts from all over the world. Western European addicts go to the East in groups for orgy and sex trips. And this article uses few cases in the middle East to clearly show the extremity of hypocrisy. These are few documented stories I am talking about. There maybe hundreds of different sort of incidents yet to be documented.
Sex industries have been evolving. And none of these industries treat girls as human beings, rather as sex tools. None of these industries produce respect to any human kind. Prostitution at least has physical boundaries, porn doesn't. And that makes us and our future generation more vulnerable to sex related abuses, not only the people involved in those businesses, but also sometimes out close ones as well. And I don't see why we should not stand against both.
It is not only the imbalanced lust of few men that this horrible ecosystem is built around, the whole social structure is equally responsible for its existence and growth. Lack of strong social bond, lack of respect to the existence of other humans, lack of proper education on ethics and humanity, hypocrisy in the name of freedom, idea of living in the moments, greed etc are the reasons behind the existence of prostitution, pornography, and other sex related abuses. No government in the world can end this until the society acts as a whole to reject it. Perhaps the effective starting point to minimize it is to avoid double standards.
"O faithful! Why do you say one thing and do another? It is most hateful to God that you do not practise what you preach" (61: 2-3) -- the holy Quran
“Don't do unto others what you don't want others to do unto you.” -- Confucius
(Couldn't Quote from the Bible for the lack of knowledge in it.)
Posted by
mmrasheed on Sunday June 21, 2015 @06:34PM
from the self-post dept.
Being a freelance developer most of my career, I never felt much for the security of the code and machines as whole. I used to keep everything in my MBP until the project was done. Sometimes I used to backup the project files in an external drive. I used to carry the MBP here and there and seldom felt the urge to secure it with full drive encryption. However, as I am transitioning towards...
My two cents... Open your startup in the third world, developing countries. Or, at least lead some people in those regions to grow their own problem solving skills with IT and engineering. Or, travel to those regions with your targeted donation savings and see the suffering of humans.
If charity means donating the money we think we no longer need, then we should go for any of the charity foundations mentioned in other comments. But the real charity would be to take our butts off our comfort zones, travel to the targeted countries, experience the real suffering of humans, and to find out how we can contribute with our top notch expertise in IT and engineering. Even discovering hidden prospects in those regions and nurturing them for local socio-economic development would be cool charitable work. Even, opening our startups and employing local people would contribute more significantly in those regions than millions of dollars in donations to those named charity foundations. It will not only improve our skill in practical problem solving, it will also enhance our spirituality.
Nice hack! It felt like using the old Yahoo! chat rooms implemented on a world map. Chaotic environment, everybody writes, barely anyone replies to any message that makes sense. It's fun!
The phrase "unexpected reward" sounds sarcastic and the move of Blackberry seems the final nail in its coffin. Why does the world need yet another digital touch slab maker? Wouldn't they dedicate their full potential of hardware design and real-time OS making (QNX) in something more future proof and innovative, like IoT?
Posted by
mmrasheed on Saturday June 13, 2015 @03:05PM
from the in.reuters.com dept.
I am fascinated by their construction technique, which is nothing but perfection of management. I was eagerly waiting to see the proposed 220 story, 850 m tall building construction in seven months since 2012, but that plan was halted due to continuous rejection by the authorities and the engineering communities.
I am not a civil engineer, so I can't criticize their construction method. But I wonder if it is traditional civil engineering community's prejudice, or fear of being swept away by any revolutionary technology that keeps them opposing this sort of construction technique?
This is by far the most impressive news in this WWDC to me. Wouldn't it be great if swift can break into the complexity of android development and bring simplicity and elegance in it!?
Using OS in RAM slot, people would be able to upgrade their OS even in today's machines.
Posted by
mmrasheed on Monday June 08, 2015 @10:44AM
from the ask-hn dept.
I'm curious why Microsoft, the unbeaten OS maker in the world, doesn't release its OS in hardware chip (only). The way I see it-Advantages:. Flash memories (specially NAND) are dart cheap these days. And if Microsoft decides to go for it, NOR memories won’t remain expensive given the volume of the OS Microsoft sells.. Microsoft is losing significant amount of money to the hackers and crackers....
I would very much like to know how not-worshipping-money, less-greed, less-materialism are the elements of selfishness rather than of selflessness?
When I read this article few minutes ago I found the following phrases and quotes defining the characters of these people and justifying their acts-
...“It’s (money) an important tool. They don’t neglect it, but they also don’t worship it.”...
...“Part of this pressure to keep going is less about greed and more about insecurity that might be self-imposed,” ...
...“It’s about paying attention to what makes you happy and not just doing what our society tells us to do,” ...
... he and his wife simply didn’t care that much about material possessions...
... “We like to travel, and we’ll spend the money for that because it’s worth it having a real experience together.” ...
And when I went through the comments here, I found none so far discussing on any of the points above.
I guess ethics and virtues are valued rather negatively in the business world (where money and power rule), and Google's back and forth in China proves the point.
Posted by
mmrasheed on Thursday June 04, 2015 @11:01AM
from the forbes.com dept.
Posted by
mmrasheed on Monday June 01, 2015 @12:10PM
from the ask-hn dept.
Why is peer to peer ad hoc communication among physically nearby commercially available end user devices still impractical in the 21st century? Why 5+ smart devices sitting on my desk and 20+ smart devices around my house can't communicate, sync or exchange information without going through servers thousands of miles away? What stops companies implementing simple both way fm radio, or ad hoc...
Bootleg copies are for advertisement only, that's why the put the warning signs everywhere on it. So, technically copying bootlegs wouldn't be legal.
Copyright is not an universal law and each country has its own definition of it. There are many countries where hollywood productions (movies or series) are not released, nor marketed at all. If not marketed, the product is not bound by the local copyright law. In that case why would the people of those countries be obliged to follow another foreign country's (US) law? Technically, people in those countries are not entitled to enjoy the hollywood productions at all?
I am not a lawyer. But, if a program is not distributed in your part of the world officially, it's not supposed to be illegal to download from different source. After all, the company is not losing any business. So, why not torrent it?
I found the IP addresses shown in that episode during the DDoS attack on evil corp. somewhat entertaining -
155.334.31.97,
155.264.991.875,
155.644.22.673,......
For a split second, I thought, I learned them wrong...
Very interesting story. I'm glad that the story has a happy ending. While reading the story, I felt how the world still has a huge reserve of big hearts, and they can only be found at the right situation. Also, gratefulness is not only a great virtue, but also pays off sooner or later.
Being said all that, recently I've read many similar stories of sharp fall from the height of success. It seems, many people working in the private sectors are vulnerable to "keep running, or you are doomed" like theory. The social and economical structure in many countries, even many developing countries, are different which prevent the "fall from the cliff" like cases. Strong family bonds, affordable permanent ownership of properties etc are key to stability.
Many EU countries have balanced structure where you can choose to slow down in your career path, and to enjoy life. Although government in those countries charge a huge percentage of tax, they take care of their citizens to prevent the sharp fall in career and life.
Perhaps, too strong capitalism, attention to too many distractions all over the world, relying on numbers instead of the quality in those numbers etc are affecting the whole domestic socio-economic balance.
A person who I knew nothing about became one of the inspiring figures in my life after I watched the movie, "A beautiful mind". I am neither a mathematician, nor an economist. So, I didn't get to dig his work deep. But, I often use his struggle with schizophrenia and his recovery as an example of unlimited potential of human mind.
wow! Now I understand why even the stray dogs in US look way more healthier than the dogs in the developing countries. Because they get to chew $165B food!
I attended one of their Blackberry 10 jam sessions in 2012. While having a conversation with one of their managers, he was emphasizing on the virtual keyboard in Z10 over and over as if that was the magic sauce of a successful smartphone. What I realized later, the physical keyboard was really the magic sauce of blackberry phones. And even though they were stepping into the virtual keyboard era, it was very hard for them to come out of the shadow of their golden time.
Apparently the failure of Blackberry 10 devices has proven that keyboard is not the magic sauce of a successful smartphone anymore.
Interesting! Similar sort of case happened to me at Apple App store in March 2011. I just bought my first macbook with eagerness to learn iOS programming. I had around $3 in a virtual debit card. That time you would have to buy Xcode for $5. After activating my iTunes account, and payment system verification with that card, I thought to give it a try by pressing buy button. And then it worked! The Xcode4 was downloaded from app store. I couldn't believe that! Just to find out if it was mistaken, I press "buy" on another two apps totaling around $10 in bill. And all those apps were working. So, I emailed apple support regarding that situation. After 4/5 emails back and forth, they understood what I was trying to say. A guy from the support thanked me and said that he would submit that complaint to the respective division.
None of the corporate IT systems is immune to vulnerability. And the best way to resolve issues is by leaving bureaucracy, accepting the fact "to err is human", and appreciating good intentions.
It may sound like Flintstone, but after using 3 different feature phones for 6 years, and then 4 different (mid to high end) smartphones in the next 6 years (till now), I found no better "phone" than Nokia 1100 ($35). the reasons-
1. You would have to charge it twice in a week, at most. Mostly I ended up charging it once/week. It would actually run longer with low battery warning than today's most smartphones' whole charge cycle.
2. It was convenient to hold, small enough to lose in any kind of pockets. At least I never had to take the phone in to account when buying pants, which I need to do now, for smartphones.
3. The phone would last forever, only you would have to change the battery in every two years.
4. It was rock solid. You could use it as alternative to stone to hit something.
5. After all, there is no more satisfying communication method than voice call. And there is no more satisfying game than snakes.
I wish I could buy a Nokia 1100. Today's Nokia feature phones are sensitive, fragile, bulky and they stop working in couple of years.
Wouldn't it be much easier to buy some of the leaky/crapy but popular apps, and then infect the target phones? Or, perhaps develop few apps providing free backup/storage/VPN/proxy services? There are so many small companies provide phone backup services who technically ask for all critical permissions in the phones. There are many flash light apps who ask for so many unnecessary permissions, yet their downloads are in millions.
Certainly, Apple app screening would be pain in the a$$, but Google play store is still very flexible.
Right. We can't stop government agencies in any country snooping and sniffing around. So, why not make that tranparent instead? Once a government actively participates in digital policy making for their own people, people will have their say in it based on how much democratic that country is.
It may not affect the authoritarian regimes much, but will significantly empower netizens of the well developed democracies.