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ascuttlefish

499 karma · joined September 19, 2009

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ascuttlefish··on Icing PayPal: How We Did It
P. T. Barnum, now he was old school! He never shied away from using ridiculous stunts like this to get attention. He would write newspapers under pseudonyms railing at his own products to get noticed. He once hired a begger to place 4 bricks at various points on the sidewalk outside his famous museum. The begger would take a 5th brick and walk around on a circuit, replacing each brick with the brick in his hand. Every hour, he would brandish a ticket and walk through all the galleries of the museum. Soon, he'd generated enough curiosity that people were buying tickets to the museum just to follow him around. Some were even staying inside, captivated by what they found on display.

Foolish stunts are as old school as it gets.

ascuttlefish··on Ask HN: What do you drink?
Coffee, milk oolong tea, and water. Mostly water.
ascuttlefish··on Our civilization doesn't scale
It was only explored in a gross sense. As a measure of this, it's estimated that we only know of between 2/5ths and 1/15th of all species (http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/58.html). The oceans, which comprise 95-99% of the living space on the planet by volume (Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything), are almost completely unknown. There are still places to go to get away from things.
ascuttlefish··on Ask HN: What do you do to relax?
Put on some chill music and have a bath.
ascuttlefish··on The Adaptive Function of Masturbation in a Promiscuous African Ground Squirrel
Squirrels are amazing little creatures: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/science/06angi.html
ascuttlefish··on Why read books if we can’t remember what’s in them?
Lucky?
ascuttlefish··on Why read books if we can’t remember what’s in them?
I am the same way. I read to further my knowledge... sometimes. Other (read: most) times, I read because I enjoy the immersive experience. Taking things from that and putting them in long-term memory isn't really part of the agenda. If it is, I take notes. That helps!
ascuttlefish··on [dead]
Take the quiz here: http://features.pewforum.org/quiz/us-religious-knowledge/
ascuttlefish··on [dead]
Those prices aren't even that good. Flagged.
ascuttlefish··on Pew Forum survey: Atheists and agnostics outperform the rest in religion test
I got 14. The last one was a stumper!
ascuttlefish··on Pew Forum survey: Atheists and agnostics outperform the rest in religion test
Take the quiz here: http://features.pewforum.org/quiz/us-religious-knowledge/
ascuttlefish··on On Books
I love ebooks, but I prefer to read paper books. The haptic and olfactory experience of reading a book is something that I've enjoyed as long as I can remember, and I won't give it up lightly. However, all those classics I've neglected to read are now a few clicks away and available for free. The cost of building my library of paper books versus the wide availability of free ebooks has made me a happy ebook adopter. There is one other problem, however.

I use linux at home and so cannot use Adobe Digital Editions or other DRM system. So, I have to rely on freely available, DRM-free files that I find on the Internet. Legally, many classics are available; illegally, many more. The upside to this is that not being encumbered by DRM, I'm free to share my collection. The downside is that it's been all too easy for me to become a criminal in the eyes of the law.

ascuttlefish··on Beyond god and atheism: Why I am a 'possibilian'
What happened to being a good old agnostic? I think that in attempting to fight against being pigeonholed as either a believer or a denier of god/gods, he lights on the notion that somehow being a better (or real) scientist by being open to possibilities is an alternative. With respect, there's already a reasonable alternative to being either a believer in or denier of god/gods: agnosticism. The open mind stuff just makes you a good scientist.

Edit: Oops, markstanbury beat me to it.

ascuttlefish··on What Is It Like To Be A Baby?
That's only loosely true. See: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIC6aOntogeny....
ascuttlefish··on 10 movies that are better than Wall Street 2
I think they tried to choose movies that are also about business.
ascuttlefish··on Never Mind The Bullets: a comic strip with HTML5/CSS
Opera 10.62 in linux gives me this error:

Based on your current browser, you are not seeing all that this website has to offer. For the best 'Never Mind the Bullets' experience, we recommend you install Internet Explorer 9.

Seems to work okay otherwise, but I wonder what, if anything, I am missing.

ascuttlefish··on It's time to rethink libraries.
That's a shame. A lot of municipalities see their libraries (and museums) as low-hanging fruit in times of financial distress. Often they're pared down to a bare minimum of services: circulation.

This is troublesome for many reasons, but the most important, in my opinion, is that libraries generally see an upsurge in use statistics during economic downturns.

People go to the library to learn new skills (literacy, resume help and proofreading, etc.), to look for work, to escape into a good book and the company of their fellow man, and to just get away from their troubles. Programming should, and often does, provide just the targeted help they could use most.

ascuttlefish··on It's time to rethink libraries.
I'm not sure what libraries are like in your town, but all those services you mention are the bread and butter of public libraries here in Ontario. That sort of targetted programming is by far the best way to get people in the door.
ascuttlefish··on Confirmed: Intel says HDCP 'master key' crack is real
Those negotiating ACTA are looking to change that...
ascuttlefish··on Confirmed: Intel says HDCP 'master key' crack is real
For now. ACTA appears to be aimed at cramming DMCA-style IP law reform down the throats of the rest of the world.
ascuttlefish··on Ask HN: What happened to all the Lyrics sites?
Seems quite silly. Singing along with music is a gas. Do digitally purchased albums come with lyrics? I remember paging through the cassette and CD liner notes, singing like a tonedeaf banshee.
ascuttlefish··on 77% of the population have symptoms of personality disorder?
I'm starting to think that much of what is considered disorderly is actually just representative of the diversity of mind within humans. Reminds me of a Robertson Davies quote from The Rebel Angels "[P]eople don’t by any means all live in what we call the present; the psychic structure of modern man lurches and yaws over a span of at least ten thousand years."
ascuttlefish··on Haystack: A New Alternative to Tor
Link to project page: http://www.haystacknetwork.com/
ascuttlefish··on Google's Book Search: A Disaster for Scholars
But without good metadata, accessing and searching those texts will be an exercise in frustration and missed results.
ascuttlefish··on Russia in color a century ago
Seeing the past in colour can be jarring. I just watched a documentary called Photographer (Fotoamator) about a batch of colour photos taken in the Lodz Ghetto in Poland during the Second World War. To contrast the colour photos of the past, modern footage of Lodz and interviews with a survivor of the ghetto were shot in black and white. It was disconcerting and very effective.
ascuttlefish··on Show HN: A new book notification service I just launched
Ah, gotcha. I like other types of ebooks though! :)
ascuttlefish··on Show HN: A new book notification service I just launched
Looks like a good service. I've signed up. I'm curious, what's the purpose of the Kindle ebook question?
ascuttlefish··on "up to" broadband speeds are bogus
I knew it! I only ever get 1.5 Mbps and I have the "up to" 10 Mbps connection from Rogers. What a joke.
ascuttlefish··on Flattr is now in open beta
What's wrong with earning a few dollars providing a useful service?
ascuttlefish··on Encrypted Search / Google is no slower, in my experience
I haven't noticed any significant delays using their encrypted search either.
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