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hackernewbie

19 karma · joined March 10, 2013

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hackernewbie··on An Open Letter To Mozilla Corporation
The most interesting part of this article is how entirely openly it's indicating that a default setting that can easily be changed in a web browser will be left by virtually all users permanently. Of course it's true, it's just so odd to see written down so explicitly. To an extent I kind of feel that if people seriously won't investigate the option themselves then upon their own head be it. But at the same time it ahouldn't be opt out, this kind of thing should never be opt out.
hackernewbie··on Esquivalience
Thanks for this post, I sometimes feel as if this is the world's least well made distinction. So many people seem to have constructed the idea that dictionaries instruct the use of language not vice versa.
hackernewbie··on Cleaning House
Google pumping and dumping. Seems kind of shitty to me. E: I do realise it's a very long term pump. But it has that feel.
hackernewbie··on If Only I Knew This Shit in College
Seriously, thank you. Plus there was literally nothing about college. Which I am at.
hackernewbie··on Richard Stallman on the Ogg Vorbis license (2001)
But they didn't. Noone ever just called it ogg. It was always Ogg Vorbis, sometimes Ogg/Vorbis.

Some file types just get an easy ride, like jpeg/jpg. Imagine if it was actually routinely referred to as a Joint Expert file. Maybe pngs would have taken off faster (they are still less frequently searched than gif or jpg according to gtrends).

hackernewbie··on Back when not every question had an answer
Yahoo Answers. Amazing. Have you recently visited their Programming & Design section? How does that community survive?
hackernewbie··on Richard Stallman on the Ogg Vorbis license (2001)
I'll say it. It might sound incredibly trivial, but the name. It's an insanely intimidating name.
hackernewbie··on Booth Babes, Street Clothes, and GDC: Thanks But You sort of Made It Worse
I feel like there was a time when gender politics wasn't so abrasive in computing. It wasn't healthy, but it didn't make you constantly feel mired in some swamp of unsolvable problems. I preferred the swamp of (un)solvable problems that is computing.
hackernewbie··on Top-tier this (2011)
DHH is so mouthy it actually is really beginning to give the impression of massive insincerity.
hackernewbie··on Ad industry threatens Firefox users with more ads if Mozilla moves on tracking
This should shove the internet into a more sophisticated mode of advertising (if more clandestine in many ways, shills ahoy). It's unprecendentedly pathetic to see companies worrying about their outmoded methods and hegemony on content choice. Imagine when content choice is purely based on relevance and recommendation (and shills).
hackernewbie··on The Summly deal makes no sense
Extreme levels of correct, I myself am incredibly bitter/jealous/you-name-it. However, I get a tugging sensation that it's almost all PR-minded.
hackernewbie··on My weekend project: countw.tf - the best way to quantify WTF-ness
A counter.
hackernewbie··on Apple’s Big Secret: The iOS Laptop
I really fanatically hope this doesn't happen and the opposite happens i.e. a fuller version of iOS is used on iPhone/iPad. The revolutionary step would be to open up iOS more while still maintaining the same level of security. That would be revolutionary.
hackernewbie··on Are Programmers smarter than Lawyers?
Because of my own myopic, self-interestedness I actually do think some programmers are smarter than most lawyers. But this article is not evidence or argument of that.

Knowledge wise they are on a par, though having said that you can't be a lawyer without knowing x > massive amounts of law, and you can be a programmer (not necessarily a good one) without knowing x amounts about a language, structures, and low level.

The kicker is abstract/mathmatical knowledge/ability. Lawyers require none. To my mind abstract problems require the most 'intelligence' as it were. But again that's personal bias.

hackernewbie··on That Amanda Blum Article on Adria Richards is Not What It Seems
The XKCD comic is about herpetology and ornithology. The revised one is about the difference between wordpress users and developers. Where on earth does either mention the intelligence or status of women?
hackernewbie··on Blocked Sites is discontinued
Works great for a company that risks generating a lot of noise to consumers (i.e. producing and marketing physical products). But for Google it's pervasiveness and breadth of services were part of the appeal, it's not like it's minor products interfered with the major parts of the company nor cost them much to maintain.
hackernewbie··on Blocked Sites is discontinued
For god's sake. I literally just started using it for W3Schools about two months ago. It costs google practically nothing to do that, and now they suggest adding another extension to chew out yet more of my memory.

Plus it looks like they aren't going to adhere to the implications of having a number of users blocking a site. cough w3schools.

hackernewbie··on How a UK company handled an offensive private joke
They should not be talking about it publicly (internally it would be obvious who these people are). They should not be describing them in equally offensive terms, an idiot from a small German village. They should not consider getting people fired 'because they can'.

Such a complete lack of consideration for someone with ASD is just mindblowing. It reminds me of kids at school, they would treat the words of a boy with asperger's syndrome at face value, when they come from a very different set of motivations to everyone else. Prejudice against those with Asperger's syndrome is far worse than the racism this person has experienced.

hackernewbie··on 9 Year-Old Raising Money to Attend RPG Camp
Dungeon's and Dragons. Who wants that for their child?

Plus this has all the gloss of pushy pushy parents.

hackernewbie··on Sorry Google; you can Keep it to yourself
A company that makes a product that users care substantially about? Yeah, what a shit use of effort that would be.
hackernewbie··on Sorry Google; you can Keep it to yourself
My impression of google from age ~15 was of a company who had balanced profitability with genuine altruistic intent. They had so many products, tools, services, libraries... everything and pretty much all of it was free and freely available.

It hasn't really changed that much, but jesus, my perception has. Charging for Google Maps was a warning sign, though it only really applied to companies, fair game. Wave was flippant, it came and went too fast to understand the gesture. Google Notes always needed some love and attention it was never going to get.

But Google Reader? It was/is uniquely useful. Widely supported, widely loved, widely used (as far as I can tell). It was the kind of thing that made me feel Google had your best interests at heart, I can't imagine it made them much money.

Just to clarify, I'm not upset about Google Reader, far from it http://theoldreader.com/ looks entirely capable of picking up the slack. It's just upsetting to see a company that I really thought was different is just a company with margins and directives and the rest. I guess I'm an idiot.

hackernewbie··on Users don't like social login
Thank you so much for this system. I sincerely hope that this gets more traction than OpenID. This is the most essential feature the entire web has never had.
hackernewbie··on Google Keep – Save what’s on your mind
Boy, I can't wait to have two years worth of notes 'No longer supported'! Sign me up!
hackernewbie··on Sorry Google, I’m switching to Microsoft
Very good call. This is becoming a serious problem on hn/reddit.
hackernewbie··on GitHub is getting DDoSed again
I think this every time.