Hacker News Reader

confuzatronon My dalliance with smart drugs - and the lesson I learned

If anyone needs smart drugs it's Johann Hari. That he's currently running in scrappy mode does explain the sloppiness of his journalism though.

(Note to downvoter: I say this because he's notorious for peppering his feel-good rants with factual inaccuracies)

confuzatronon For the First Time, the TSA Meets Resistance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Airliner_bombings

I suppose the time when people could do that is at earliest, the most recent of those incidents.

confuzatronon National Rail Have Killed My UK Train Times App

Good point - the bastards have even less justification in hoarding the precious precious data.

confuzatronon For the First Time, the TSA Meets Resistance

you'd probably be arrested

You'd be required to remove it - like you're sometimes required to remove a belt, or boots, or anything with metal in it for that matter.

confuzatronon Real Men Use Android: Special Forces Favor Google Phone

...so third world girls have the chance to go to school.

confuzatronon National Rail Have Killed My UK Train Times App

Quite.

One can't blame companies for being a bit protective of their timetable data. If this kind of data escapes into the wild there's a genuine risk of what is known in the biz as 'having more customers'. When this happens there's a whole knock on series of problems that the companies need to deal with, not least of which is 'working out what to do with all the extra money'.

I think perhaps this chap didn't consider these factors when he cooked up his little application. Will he be stumping up to repair any tracks that get worn out earlier due to increased passenger numbers? I think not.

confuzatronon How Do You Stop Sea Captains From Killing Their Passengers?

Mmmm. Oil-covered soup! I think that one backfires on everybody involved.

confuzatronon Microsoft picks HTML5 over Silverlight for Internet apps

Does it however strategically affect WP7's strategic future?

Look, the way I see it, WP7 is barely months (weeks?) old. To expect HTML5 support when 'HTML5' is in still flux is silly. MS are still working on their desktop support for goodness sake.

Lack of copy-and-paste demonstrates clearly that MS couldn't get everything in to v1.0. And to impute strategic motives is reaching.

confuzatronon Microsoft picks HTML5 over Silverlight for Internet apps

You have a point, but at the same time MS have no obligation to pander to these hyper-conservative corporations in a way that makes no business sense for them. Perhaps they should promote usage of Chrome on XP ;-)

(http://techie-buzz.com/tech-news/using-chrome-for-hotmail.ht...)

confuzatronon Microsoft picks HTML5 over Silverlight for Internet apps

IMO, windsurfer didn't 'point out' anything - he/she speculated as to why WP7 didn't emerge from the womb with HTML5 support, and expressed the speculation more as an assertion of fact.

confuzatronon Microsoft picks HTML5 over Silverlight for Internet apps

So there are multiple browsers that support HTML5 on XP.

What's the problem again?

confuzatronon Microsoft picks HTML5 over Silverlight for Internet apps

But isn't HTML5 a whole bunch of not-standardised-yet technologies? If so, I am not amazed that their brand new platform doesn't support it.

confuzatronon Microsoft picks HTML5 over Silverlight for Internet apps

Windows Phone 7 doesnt yet support copy and paste. I would not look at a lack of 'HTML5 support' as strategic.

confuzatronon UK has the largest online economy in the world

What they’ve done to get to their GDP number is take the value added of everything that is connected with the internet: rather than the value added by the use of the internet.

http://timworstall.com/2010/10/28/dodgy-statistics-here-very...

confuzatronon Digg responds to "test accounts" controversy

Digg users appear to be a thin-skinned, shrill bunch to be honest. Perhaps it's just a vocal minority.

confuzatronon Ask HN: anyone using the new MacBook Air as your main development machine?

I read 'your six hour flight' and thought of a single flight. I didn't read 'series of flights' - that's where I slipped up. I failed at reading.

confuzatronon Ask HN: anyone using the new MacBook Air as your main development machine?

On a normal flight "switch off electronics while landing" happens once. If you think otherwise you have failed at flying (sorry, couldn't resist re-using your phrase there).

confuzatronon Goodbye, MacBook Pro. The New MacBook Air Is That Good.

PT;MG (probably trolling;MG Siegler)

"Thanks largely to Apple themselves, we live in a world where we have digital music, photos, movies, and TV shows that take up dozens, if not hundreds of gigabytes of storage."

Ah nope. Fawning, not trolling.

He forgot to add indoor plumbing, the internal combustion engine, modern medicine, etc, to the list.

confuzatronon Brilliant design: RCA student radically improves the UK plug

That is quite dangerous, as it is unfused.

confuzatronon Brilliant design: RCA student radically improves the UK plug

Since you're calling it the English plug, I should mention that they also use it in Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland.

confuzatronon Brilliant design: RCA student radically improves the UK plug

UK buildings typically contain

I've only ever lived in houses with the big uglies.

All lightbulb headaches have been due to IKEA and their foreign ways.

confuzatronon Man jailed over computer password refusal

If the Police have a warrant to search a safe, presumably you can be required to hand over the combination or be in contempt of court. Even if the combination for the safe 'lives in your brain'.

ISTM a virtual 'locked container of documents' would have the same legal status.

I'm not sure why so many techies go down the Walter-Mittyesque 'Enemy of the State' route when discussing this sort of thing. Mention the police in conjunction with encryption and suddenly everyone's a paranoid compound-dweller...

Let's be clear here - it is unlikely that this guy is making a stand for paranoid techies - it is much more likely that he's got pics and videos on his HDD of kids getting raped that he doesn't want the police to see.

confuzatronon A viral "launching soon" form

Spam friends; obtain bauble.

It's not that new an idea. I tend to lose a teeny bit of respect for people who fall for it.

confuzatronon Google offers JPEG alternative for faster Web

I've been googling for examples of that format to no avail. I just wanted to see if Google's browser supports it.

confuzatronon IE9 team responds to Reddit questions: reddit tl;dr version

Except the argument is not applicable to MS due to their large userbase.

No-one is going to say "I'm not setting up a Windows machine just to test a niche browser like IE. Screw that".

confuzatronon You Can't Kick Me Off Facebook, I Quit

Sharia allows the accused to defend himself

Herself, not so much.

confuzatronon IE9 team responds to Reddit questions: reddit tl;dr version

No, I am arguing that it is a problem which they have absolutely no incentive to solve.

They're trying to sell Windows licenses. They have no reason to sweat to make a hardware accelerated IE work on OSX, I'm baffled that people think it'd make sense for them.

confuzatronon IE9 team responds to Reddit questions: reddit tl;dr version

Possibly made sense back in the day of MS-only web technologies. Now, not so much.

confuzatronon IE9 team responds to Reddit questions: reddit tl;dr version

OK: There is no earthly reason why MS would want to add massively to the development effort of IE (test matrices, abstraction layers, etc etc), in ways that would in no way benefit their customers. Their goal is to provide the best browser tailored to the OS that they sell.

And the idea (by extension) that any app that works with standards-based content should be cross-platform is barmy.

confuzatronon IE9 team responds to Reddit questions: reddit tl;dr version

MS making their browser work on other OS's makes about as much sense as MS making their file system explorer app work on other OS's.