HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

excitom

685 karma · joined June 1, 2013

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/excitom; my proof: https://keybase.io/excitom/sigs/Mo4OKfBZ_rIhLP0neGld9YYTuqP8mqM5jmThKn_MSB0 ]
submissionscomments
excitom··on The Calculator that spawned the Microprocessor (2009)
Perusing the web source: `<META NAME="Generator" CONTENT="NetObjects Fusion 11 for Windows"/>`. A tool developed in 1996...
excitom··on Tips for linking shell companies to their secret owners
I remember when you could find someone's home address in the white pages of the phone book.
excitom··on Did fermented foods fuel brain growth?
Another example: Olives
excitom··on Programming in 1969
We called it "watermelon paper" since the stripes had green tint.
excitom··on My favourite Git commit (2019)
It's a great commit message, but could be even better with "TL;DR non-breaking space in a comment can cause parser problems".
excitom··on Netflix never used its $1M algorithm (2012)
Unlike the old days of broadcast TV when the networks had to produce shows that appealed to the broadest possible audience, Netflix can, and does, produce shows that appeal to a narrow demographic. This results in a sliver of shows that are highly appealing amidst a lot of stuff perceived as "garbage." But what a teenage boy thinks is garbage differs widely from what a retired grandma things is garbage. To each their own.
excitom··on After 151 years, Popular Science will no longer offer a magazine
It will be interesting to see if the revival of the printed Rock & Roll magazine Creem https://www.creem.com will find enough Boomer nostalgia to succeed. If so, then maybe PopSci too. Not holding my breath, however.
excitom··on Learn PostScript by Doing (2005) [pdf]
PostScript is a fascinating programming language. Back in the 90s I wrote a program to filter Rich Text to PostScript. One of the formatting options is "full justification" which adjusts the width of inter-word spacing to achieve smooth left and right margins. The code to accomplish this is written in PostScript. https://github.com/excitom/rt2ps
excitom··on Home Assistant blocked from integrating with Garage Door opener API
This is what I love hacker news, a comment from an actual subject matter expert.
excitom··on Teens Love LinkedIn
I think a key is that you need to provide your real identity and you are discouraged from trolling/being a jerk since future employers and coworkers will see it on display.
excitom··on Nginx Development Guide
Irrelevant to this post.
excitom··on Plane crash rates by model
After almost a decade of investigation the preponderance of evidence points to murder/suicide by the pilot. A safety issue is highly unlikely.
excitom··on Eye Candy
There's potential, sure, but it won't make everyone into a filmmaker just like Microsoft Word didn't make everyone into an author and Photoshop didn't make everyone an artist.
excitom··on Bourbon and Branch Water (2013)
Besides the limestone filtering, I wonder if another reason for using branch water from upstream is that it is less likely to contain farm or animal runoff.
excitom··on HVDC transmission line to connect three ISO regions
Honest question: I understand solar panels generate DC but I thought wind turbines generate AC. Why is a DC transmission line desirable?
excitom··on Comcast gave false map data to FCC
Side note: If I lived in the Northern California foothills I would be cutting down big trees close to the house due to extreme fire danger. Side benefit, better Satellite visibility.
excitom··on WTF with high school questions?
A few years ago I worked at a place that wanted to implement "Life Story Interviews." I had the experience of several candidates responding, basically, WTF?? and hanging up.
excitom··on Europe's largest deposit of rare earth metals discovered in Sweden
Thus the chemical symbol W (Wolfram) for tungsten.
excitom··on Barclays using TeamViewer font to warn customers
Yes, it was 2010.
excitom··on Barclays using TeamViewer font to warn customers
This reminds me of my favorite hackathon project. The idea was to guess which college/university a person attended when they visited our website. I put a list of links to college bookstores in a hidden iframe. Then I had javascript that scanned the list to see which links were showing the "visited" color.

Browser people quickly realized the intrusive potential of this "feature" and disabled getting the visited status of a link.

excitom··on Psychological and psychiatric terms to avoid
Whelp, that's about all of them.
excitom··on US annual inflation declines to 7.7% in October vs. 7.9% expected
Remember "New Coke"? The Coca Cola people responded to taste tests that indicated people like Pepsi better by making it more sweet like Pepsi. Sales and PR disaster ensued, famous case study in MBA courses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Coke

excitom··on Who thought putting a casino in everyone’s pocket was a good idea?
You are conflating good advice with behavior mandates.

It's OK to advise me that gambling can be dangerously addictive, or that getting vaccinated is a good way to avoid getting sick.

excitom··on How Underground Groups Use Stolen Identities and Deepfakes
You lost me at "stealing from the country they broke into illegally." I see people working hard to try to improve their and their families' lives.

Surely the employer is deducting for income tax, SS tax, and medicare tax from their paychecks, and they will not see an income tax "refund" next April nor will they ever collect SS nor Medicare benefits.

And if the employer is not making these deductions then who is doing the "stealing" exactly?

excitom··on 35M Hot Dogs: Benchmarking Caddy vs. Nginx
A solution in search of a problem.
excitom··on Caddyhttp: Enable HTTP/3 by Default
Wow, that's some unsubstantiated mud slinging.

On the paid support point: Isn't that the model for all open source projects that want to progress past the "If you like it, please donate" stage?

excitom··on The future of Nginx: Getting back to our open source roots
NGINX has a perl module dating back to the early days, very much like Apache mod_perl. The njs module just gives you a more modern language option.
excitom··on The future of Nginx: Getting back to our open source roots
nginx config is only complicated if you want to take advantage of complex options. The config for a basic website is trivial.

Seems like a poor tradeoff for a slower, less configurable web server.

excitom··on The Controversial Plan to Unleash the Mississippi
It's interesting to venture close to the levee and note fresh water springs bubbling up from the pressure of the river flow. Then you realize you are standing below the surface of the river, which is reinforced by seeing large ocean going ships sail by above you.
excitom··on Will low and no code tools ever truly disrupt tech development?
Once you have tools that let someone with no skills build a product, you get a product that works like it was built by someone with no skills.
Page 1 of 6Next →