Hacker News Reader

gerggergon United States Postal Service tries to compete with Google using fear

Mail theft exists. In fact it's one of the leading causes of identity theft.

And computer viruses? Any one ever been delivered anthrax through email?

gerggergon Wil Wheaton Says MPAA Accounting Creates More Losses Than Piracy

Definitely a well known phenomenon but I'm glad to see more industry professionals acknowledging it and speaking out.

I think a lot of the industry's professionals are looking for innovation and a way into the future while the industry itself refuses to provide.

gerggergon Patagonia Tests New Sustainable Legal Status

"Under current law, shareholders can sue corporate boards for not maximizing profits"

Wow, I never new that. Granted I know very little of the legal implications of incorporating, but still. I wasn't expecting it to be so plain. Corporations have a legal obligation to not care about anything but money. Explains a lot.

gerggergon Luma Labs put out of business by the USPTO

Totally agree that if they didn't offer up the prior art to prevent the patent in the first place then they should have. That said who knows if it would have made a difference. Regardless, I think the bigger issue is that even knowing the patent wouldn't stand up in court, like many tech patents, they have still chosen to close up shop in fear of going bankrupt defending themselves.

It's just another example, outside of tech, of the patent system hindering entrepreneurship and business instead of empowering it.

gerggergon PHP to Objective C, where are the parameters?

Very minimal.

gerggergon PHP to Objective C, where are the parameters?

Totally personal preference. I would rather have a language be concise and the documentation verbose than the other way around or with both verbose.

Having it be verbose is great for learning, but after a short while syntax like:

  do_send_email(recipient, cc, subject, body)

is much better for quickly reading code. Plus, reading the docs is hugely important. Having to check every now and then is great for getting you back into them.

gerggergon SOPA 'shelved' until consensus is found

Ok fellas, we still have some serious work to do.

If it's not already painfully apparent, our current batch of representatives are completely ineligible to pass modern legislation. They're not idiots, they're not morons, they just don't have the relevant backgrounds to represent us anymore. The times have changed around them, and their skills and background are no longer effective or relevant enough.

We need to work hard to get new representatives on the hill that understand and respect technology. The only way non oppressive legislation even stands a chance is if we have representatives that understand the workings of the internet and don't say things like "let google just hire some 16 year old wiz-kid to fix it".

Seriously. It's no longer ok to be a representative and not understand the internet. It is a fundamental part of commerce, free speech, assembly, religion, education, etc. and it's outright dangerous to have people in office who don't understand it attempting to control it.

It's up to us to get relevant, modern representatives in office. We just need to work together and do it.

gerggergon Harvard Statistics 110: Introduction to Probability, on iTunes

First of, no one here is bashing anyone. We're talking about how to get people access to the content. Second, you're attempting to take this even more off topic with your meta rant.

gerggergon 'Piracy' student loses US extradition battle over copyright infringement

Well it's official. The US is little more than a bunch of corporation funded international bullies and the UK is completely willing to play along and turn it's back on it's own citizens.

gerggergon Dropbox inventor determined to build the next Apple or Google

What Steve Jobs said is a horrible reason to limit your life.

gerggergon Search: .lenght - Github

That's a really cool suggestion and I would love to see some sudo-standard on this.

gerggergon Show HN: A visual explanation of Fisher–Yates shuffle

"competent enough to matter" is a bit condescending don't you think?

gerggergon Tablets take waiting out of restaurants: E la Carte on the cover of SF Chronicle

Maybe at a bar or restaurant specifically for this purpose but at most places it wouldn't fly / would be useless.

gerggergon Tablets take waiting out of restaurants: E la Carte on the cover of SF Chronicle

"I actually dread human interaction of any kind"

> Well ok, necessity is the mother of invention.

"People say it's very inhospitable. But it's the epitome of hospitality. It empowers the guest to get in and to get out."

> Wow, the irony (and sadness) are overflowing.

The only time I can really see this being more useful to me, is when I can't get a hold of my wait(er/ress) to bring the check or run my card. And here's a better idea that I'm a give you all for free. Near field communication with cellphones and a chip in the table. Open up my payment app, close and pay for the check with my cellphone. Put a few bucks tip on the table and leave like it's the old days before credit cards.

gerggergon British student may be extradited to US on copyright charges

Essential we want to ruin his life over nothing. The net impact of TVshack was certainly not enough to warrant extradition of a foreign citizen and sending him to federal prison. Unfortunately, its impact may have even been positive; encouraging people to be more engaged with new media releases. We're behaving like true bullies on this case and I think it does a lot to tarnish the idea that the US is a resilient country of civilized humans.

It's honestly quite shameful.

gerggergon Show HN: A visual explanation of Fisher–Yates shuffle

I definitely understand it. It's not a matter of understanding the syntax. It's a matter of teaching people most effectively. Here's a comparison of the spoken explanation of the code:

  't' equals the value of 'array' at index 'm' minus 1 and 'm' equals itself minus 1.

  'm' equals itself minus 1.
  't' equals the value of 'array' at index 'm'.

To me one of those seems more concise for writing production code, and the other more useful for teaching algorithms.

gerggergon Show HN: A visual explanation of Fisher–Yates shuffle

Beautiful. I love the visual demonstrations of the less efficient methods as well. This is a great learning tool for a super common programming problem. One general comment/question. Code like this trips me up:

  t = array[--m];

Well I don't know if it trips me up so much as it makes me think too much about syntax especially when the focus is on the algorithm itself. When writing educational code I find the following more effective:

  m -= 1;
  t = array[m];

Anyone else have any thoughts?

gerggergon Is That Pinterest? Nope, No It’s Not

Wow. That Russian one is even using assets scraped directly from the pinterest site.

gerggergon Is That Pinterest? Nope, No It’s Not

Except they're clearly trying to profit off of customer confusion. It's one thing to copy a business model, it's another thing to copy a company.

gerggergon Emergency NYTech Meetup to Stop SOPA Jan 18

Thanks for the info and I'll be attending with some people from the office. Seems like that information, though, is a little too important to not include it on the site.

gerggergon Emergency NYTech Meetup to Stop SOPA Jan 18

I would be worried of even attempting this.

What on earth would you be worried about? Getting asked to leave? Having to look at a police officer?

gerggergon Emergency NYTech Meetup to Stop SOPA Jan 18

Why that date and what will we be doing?

gerggergon Ask HN: I'm frustrated with Github - please explain something to me

Do programmers just automatically envision what the script can do?

No we read the docs.

Is there any value in github for a non-programmer? Not really. There are a few esoteric repos of non code / code related files but the intended use is for easy code hosting and sharing.

There are also a lot of repos without documentation or examples. There's nothing wrong with that. They probably don't want you to use the code yet.

gerggergon Jon Stewart Talks SOPA, at Last

While I don't appreciate the rhetorical question, good point. I had forgotten about that.

gerggergon The author of SOPA is a copyright violator

I think what's most interesting about this is it is a great indicator of the public perception of copyright. If even the creator of the harshest pro-greed-based-copyright legislation can't uphold the most modest of copyright provisions, I think that's a clear indicator that copyright is in need of reform in the opposite direction he proposes.

He himself can't respect the very laws he champions on his own public facing website.

gerggergon Jon Stewart Talks SOPA, at Last

Mmmmm... The funny to flack offset probably isn't worth it to Stewart and Colbert. They're not news shows and there's not much comedy to draw from the SOPA proceedings. Especially with Ameraca's favorite reality show cramming up the broadcast space.

gerggergon I'm using Jquery Mobile now, would you help me?

try: www.stackoverflow.com

This is more a tech news site than a code help site, but stackoverflow has a great community of people who answer code questions.

gerggergon Google responds to Twitter

Wow, the comments there are worse than on youtube videos of people hurting themselves. So much for real names improving the quality of conversation.

gerggergon Foxconn workers threatened mass suicide for their working conditions

I agree that a long term strategy for improving working conditions involves access to quality education but I don't think that pertains to the issue being discussed nor is it very helpful to the people described in the article. The sad fact is these people are living their lives now and have virtually no bargaining power now. So they've taken to following the example set by the desperate measures of their former co-workers as a last ditch effort to eek out a fight. Perhaps the mass suicide was dis-genuine and they just wanted media attention. This to me is an indicator of what they feel they have to do to get a semblance of justice. Or that they genuinely have no idea how to stand up to their employer. An employer, mind you, that requires them to sign a contract stating that they will not commit suicide on the job. Think about that. Where would you be if you got paid $2 an hour to stand on your feet for 12 hours a day working with toxic chemicals without proper safety measures, having had signed a contract stating you wouldn't commit suicide, with no legal right to organize coworkers to even discuss how to improve working conditions, and don't have enough education to understand any of it other than your legs hurt, your hands won't stop shaking, and you haven't yet received any money for that overtime you put in to make electronics you'll never see people in your own country using.

wages: http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/06/06/us-foxconn-china-i...

gerggergon Foxconn workers threatened mass suicide for their working conditions

I don't agree. First, education levels among Foxconn employees are probably considerably lower than you can imagine. These people just don't fully understand how inhumane their jobs are or the lasting effects of the chemicals they work with and are probably directly lied to about it. Second they may already be owed money by Foxconn for overtime, healthcare, regular wages etc. and can't just outright quit out of fear of never seeing any of that money. Third there's a never ending supply of new workers, ignorant to the conditions in the factory, which pretty much nullifies their ability to bargain for rights. Fourth, according to the recent This American Life episode, THEY CAN BE LEGALLY PUNISHED FOR TRYING TO FORM UNIONS. I don't know how to stress the importance of that other than by raising my voice on the internet. HN doesn't have bolding.

TLDR:

They can't bargain. Plain and simple.

We have worker protections. If all that mattered was the free market then we wouldn't need them.