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adeaveron This coupon code is a slap in the face

From having built a few of these, my solution was to add a string to the end of the URL's in the promo material (ads, email, whatever) that, when clicked on, would trigger the coupon code box on the site for that user only.

Otherwise you didn't see it.

The company I worked at that used this did a lot of targeted and 1-off promotions so it seemed to work pretty well.

adeaveron Why Tipping Should (And May) Be Made Illegal

In a lot of places (in the US) this is illegal. Plus it screws the waitstaff so is bad practice.

adeaveron Mean Stack

Plenty of people who know multiple languages use Javascript every day. Of their own free will. Because they want to.

What is it about JS that you find so broken that you have such animosity?

I for one know C, Perl, PHP (not just Wordpress either) and even Coldfusion. I'm currently learning Python because I want to.

And I chose to work in Javascript as my main language because I want to. I have no real issues with scoping, am comfortable with the fact it has no 'class', have a good handle on the fact that everything (including functions) is an object.

It is flawed? Yes. But then again there isn't a single language in existence that isn't.

adeaveron Mean Stack

You are so right. Why try new things and test new ideas. Everything we have is perfect as it is! No need for a car, walking will get you there! We don't need moving pictures, books are fine!

Do you even know anyone that works in Javascript? I happen to like JS but pull out PHP or Python or whatever I need to get the job done when I have to. And I'm not an exception.

adeaveron Has Ubuntu lost it?

People are by and large visual creatures so it makes sense that they would focus on the GUI rather than the CLI.

Though I agree that they were less innovative than I would have liked on the graphical side of things. However when they did 'innovate' with Unity people complained (and still do). Not a lot, but they were extremely vocal.

adeaveron Show HN: My time tracking tool for your text editor

How did you uninstall? If I remove it from the packages folder it just installs it again.

adeaveron Leaseweb has wiped all Megaupload servers

A better (but still not perfect) analogy would have been that the police cordoned off a section of the store and no one was allowed to take anything from or put anything on the shelves. The store is still open and people can shop but can't buy any of the items in the 'special' area.

Without a court order to keep the servers accessible and running they had every right to delete them (since they own the machines). One would think the prosecution would have had that order in place just so the defendant couldn't say there was no way to prove his innocence

adeaveron Edward Snowden: Classified US data shows Hong Kong hacking targets

I regret that I only have one up vote to give.

adeaveron XKCD 1190 is now more individual frames than there are XKCD comics.

That's assuming he's drawing this live. Who's to say he hasn't been planning this from Day One and has been drawing the frames all along.

I know, it's a stretch but ... what if?

adeaveron Actually eat healthily for £1 per day

My point is making declarative statements like "If you want to you can" isn't helping because it feeds into the perception that everyone is just being lazy and not trying hard enough.

Because sadly, that is the thought process of a vast majority of people. That poor people are poor because they want to be.

adeaveron Actually eat healthily for £1 per day

And there are many that aren't. Don't make the mistake of assuming that just because a few are content that everyone in that position is.

adeaveron Actually eat healthily for £1 per day

I'm not sure if you are just naive or intentionally contrary.

Please, explain to me how a family that can barely afford rent and meals can move 1000 miles away and find work. It's not really that easy to find a new job in a town you've never been to.

Or a couple in which one is handicapped or seriously ill can 'change the arrangement'

You made your situation better. Congratulations. I mean that. But assuming everyone can do it because you did is borderline arrogant.

There is no silver bullet solution and saying that anyone can do it if they want to bad enough is just stupid and ignorant.

adeaveron Actually eat healthily for £1 per day

The idea that everyone has time to do 'X' if they only wanted it bad enough is complete BS.

For people that work two jobs, have a family to take care of, commute several hours, have a sick spouse and sleep there is no more time in the day. No matter how badly you want it.

Unless you or the author of Rework know of a magical formula to make the day longer than 24 hours or how to operate on little to no sleep.

adeaveron A new system for reading

Freakonomics. Utterly boring (to me) at first, but the more I read the more fascinated I became. So much that I read the second one.

adeaveron Writebox – Syncs with Dropbox. Chrome, iOS, Web

I second the desire for markdown hinting. I've been using this for a while via Chrome for writing and it's very good, very happy that it detects when there is a newer version in Dropbox (don't know about Drive, don't have that connected. Just missing that one piece for me.

adeaveron Disconnected

I regularly stay up until after mindnight doing stuff, and up at 6am. I simply don't sleep that much. If I go to bed before that I tend to toss and turn and don't get a lot of sleep anyway so I figure why not be productive.

Most nights I'm working on code or writing or gaming though I occasionally will stay up and read a book.

I think you can get more that 4-6 good hours of good work out of programmers so long as you break it up. 12 hours is possible on occasion but not daily. You will burn out and become brain fried, but if you break it up, say 4 code 1 doing something completely different 4 code 1 something different and 4 code you can do it on a more regular basis.

And by 'something different' I mean engaging different parts of the brain. Paint, write, clean house, yard work.. something that gets you away from and disconnected from the computer and the work. Gaming might qualify but if your on the computer or XBox your not really disconnecting from the tech.

adeaveron Sorry Google; you can Keep it to yourself

Microsoft removed wordcount from Word way back when. Journalists bitched because they used it every day and it got put back.

adeaveron Why DRM is such a fucking stupid idea

>Pirates pirate to avoid money

While that is true is some cases, it's not true in all. Some pirate because they can't get it otherwise (ex. region exclusions, see Game of Thrones), some because they want to try out a game but there is no trial, and some because they don't want to deal will all the stupid ads and Don't pirate crap on DVD's now (SEE: http://bit.ly/eriKlB) as well as broken DRM management (Sony Music CD's anyone)

Companies try to hurt pirates with DRM but all they hurt are the paying customers, who do not have it easier. The recent fiasco with SimCity is a perfect example of that. Paying customers got screwed because of EA's DRM scheme.

And the long term effect of Steams DRM has yet to be proven. If Steam goes under and we lose all the games we paid for does that still qualify as reasonable or completely borked?

I get that companies want to protect their assets, but applying 19th processes to a 21st century reality is never, ever going to work.

adeaveron Baby steps toward replacing Google Reader

I saw 1 ad. 1. And he's not selling user information but ad space and sponsored link posts which doesn't flood his site.

What exactly are you protesting against?

adeaveron SimCity mod demonstrates the possibility of offline play

I tend to think it's more that the majority of the people buying these games are casual users who will try to play, get frustrated and toss it in a drawer and never complain.

And won't think twice about buying the next one that looks appealing.

it's not that they don't care, but more like there isn't enough of an investment on their part to get worked up about it.

Just about everyone I've heard/talked to about this launch are people who care about gaming and/or game dev.

That only counts for a small fraction of the audience and customer base

adeaveron Lousy web design trends that are making a comeback due to HTML5

They aren't, it's just link bait. Every single one of these can be (and are) done with 'HTML4.x'.

Next week it will be because of Javascript or jQuery or the color of the Moon on alternate Thursdays.

adeaveron Maxis Insider: SimCity Servers Not Necessary

How hard would it be to stick a proxy between the game and the servers (on the players machine), capture some data, and configure the proxy to listen for message 'X' from the game and return response 'Y'.

If that could be done (by someone with far greater skills that myself, I can do it for Web dev but not this) fairly easily and the game play went on for several hours would that not put a very big hole in EA's argument?

I mean other than the one already sitting there...

adeaveron How I Beat Depression

Short answer: yes.

Long answer, think of it like an addict. They always called themselves 'recovering' because they know it only takes a single slip to set you back. Same with Depression. You can be fine for years, become lax in your coping mechanisms and handlers and something small happens that sets off a chain reaction where you are reaching for things you wouldn't normally reach for.

One innocent comments or look or phrase that slips past your carefully built safeguards is all it can take sometimes.

adeaveron Bitspend - Buy Anything Using Bitcoins

zero contact information, and zero information about their payment/delivery process

Those are a lot better reasons to have doubts than whether or not their background has a seam in it.

adeaveron Amazon stops selling Sim City V over game issues

'web' apps are expected to work on the 'web'. It kind of goes without saying that it there is no network it can't make whatever calls it needs to in order to load data.

Games are not generally expected to require a network connection. If I take my laptop to the coffee shop without wireless I can still play Portal and Anno 2070.

Not so with the new SimCity.

Not to mention, there is an expectation that if you buy a game (especially on physical media) that you will be able to play it so long as your hardware supports it. I can still play Quake 3 for example.

With SimCity, if they ever shutter the servers or sunset the Online Service your game becomes nothing more than a pretty coaster.

adeaveron Salary Negotiations: What is Possible When There's no More Money

Then there are bigger issues at hand and no amount of money or 'alternative' raises will make a difference.

adeaveron Show HN: Increase your productivity with ambient noise

It's not a silly idea as it actually works, and works quite well, for some people.

I'm one of those people. While this particular site's ambient noise doesn't suit me (too many sharp, distracting sounds) there are many sounds that do help. I typically find I get far more done and am able to focus better when i have my headphones on playing music that has few words.

Many others are the same way. While the paper you link to might not be 'research' (don't know, not paying the $14 to read it) it's not a silly idea by any means.

adeaveron Ubuntu will switch from X window server to Mir

On the one hand those standards came from somewhere, and that somewhere is likely someone else forking an existing project and making changes to it.

On the other hand, adhering to standards that are years old isn't a great way to advance. Standards have to grow and adapt and, wait for it, change.

adeaveron Hackathons are bad for you

I've done a couple hackathons and while I did lose a good amount of sleep and loaded up on caffeine I found them to be fun and thoroughly enjoyable.

Too be honest I didn't find them any different than the times I have picked up a new game or book and stayed up all night playing/reading or spent time with friends playing marathons tournaments.

Hackathons are no better or worse than a majority of the other things we do, they just happen to be sponsored events where you don't spend all your own money on junk food.

adeaveron Domain Knowledge or a Lack Thereof

Majors bugs that involve both the front and back end developers.

Major feature enhancements in which multiple devs touch the same set of files.

There are probably ways around these issues, just some instances where I've had to sit next to someone and work out a bug/problem.