Hacker News Reader

haroldon The Business of Fake Hollywood Money

I've seen people try to spend bills that were obviously made on an inkjet printer.

Sadly, I've seen people that worked for the family owned bar accept bills that were obviously made on an inkjet printer. High rag content paper feels like real money and in dim light with an element of urgency (lots of people waiting for a drink) it's sometimes easy to miss.

haroldon SF Startup Doctor On Demand Offers Free Telemedicine Feb 14-28

I agree!

haroldon Contractors See Weeks of Work on Health Site

From March of this year:

Chao said that he’d once held high hopes that the exchanges would run smoothly from the beginning, but that those hopes had been dashed. “The time for debating about the size of the text on the screen, or the color, or is it a world-class user experience, that’s what we used to talk about two years ago,” said Chao. “Let’s just make sure it’s not a third-world experience.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/03/22/cms-on-...

haroldon Let's Buy Hackaday

From Calacanis recently on Twitter:

"Need designer to work gratis on wearable computer mockups for editorial. grt exposure/u own content. ping jason AT inside.com"

https://twitter.com/Jason/status/352489885682241536

haroldon The last survivors of the end of the world

If by then we have the technology to refuel the sun, we'll probably also have the means for interstellar travel. I'm betting we leave this joint for somewhere more hospitable.

haroldon Restore the Fourth

2nd Amendment.

haroldon Michael Hastings, 'Rolling Stone' Contributor, Dead at 33

Just google "fiery car crash" and you'll see it is unfortunately fairly common.

haroldon Mark Zuckerberg addresses PRISM

I'd be curious to know if either Page or Zuckerberg met with Obama while he was in SV last night.

haroldon Harvard College dean steps down (in wake of authorizing e-mail searches)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOp...

haroldon IRS faces class action lawsuit over theft of 60 million medical records

What makes you think they didn't care about the medical records? Because they weren't listed in the search warrant?

I wonder who gained access to this data after it was seized?

What political party hack would not want access to "psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data" of current or future political figures?

haroldon Florida shortened yellow lights to increase red light camera revenue [video]

I haven't timed it yet, but I'm pretty sure this is happening in my town here on the central calif. coast.

haroldon Government obtains wide AP phone records in probe

How do you feel about general whistleblowers like Peter Van Buren[1] and Gregory Hicks[2]? Neither have been prosecuted, but it's hard to deny they have been persecuted for their positions.

[1] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/01/obama-whistleblo...

[2] http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3460_162-57582929/official-we-kn...

haroldon Government obtains wide AP phone records in probe

I'm not so sure. I think he's done some good work. But he's also on the precipice of having a whole generation of young idealists getting the shaft when it comes to the price of healthcare next year - if a new congressional report is to be believed.

Disclosure: this is my submission from earlier today on the topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5702248

haroldon [dead]

The IRS has claimed that 'low level staffers' [1] are to blame for this. I find that chilling. It probably means that 'low level staffers' with an axe to grind have been wielding this power in unfair ways across the board. This just highlights a case where politics was an issue. But where else might someone have been treated unfairly for a petty reason? We should hold the IRS to a higher standard than this.

[1] http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-irs-improperly-ta...

haroldon Colour footage of London in 1927

3) How even back then streets could be crowded and congested

4) How many people wearing hats

haroldon Sequester Cancels NASA Outreach

This reminds me of the Calif. Sate Park toilet paper debacle of 2010 [1]. Since followed up with a surplus of cash the State Park did not report to the state [2]. The priorities are indeed out of whack and taxpayers are getting screwed.

[1] http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/09/california-par... [2] http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2012/07/23/whats-next-for-the-...

haroldon Goodbye, Malcolm

Thanks and Godspeed. You made a difference.

haroldon Obama expected to issue cybersecurity executive order

I remember a time not long ago when skepticism of government was considered healthy, even here on HN.

haroldon Fitbit, why can’t I have my data?

This project hasn't been updated in a while but might be a good starting point for a roll-your-own solution:

https://github.com/loghound/Fitbit-for-Google-App-Script

haroldon Joe Biden tried to ban email encryption back in 1991

It is true that sense of congress resolutions are not law, and just an 'opinion of congress'.

Just for context of what Biden's opinion was at the time, here is the 'meaningless sense' that appears to have originated in his bill, S-226, from 1991.

SEC. 2201. COOPERATION OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS PROVIDERS WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT.

It is the sense of Congress that providers of electronic communications services and manufacturers of electronic communications service equipment shall ensure that communications systems permit the government to obtain the plain text contents of voice, data, and other communications when appropriately authorized by law.

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c102:1:./temp/~c102sT9...:

haroldon Why Are People More Scared of Facebook Violating Their Privacy than Washington?

Hang on there. If you're going to count amendments crapped on by congress, at least count it on both sides.

A lot of Obama supporters here on HN seem to be hesitant to call him out, but I'm going to. None of the bad stuff you cite congress as doing could have happened without the co-operation of Obama and a senate controlled by Democrats. They are all crapping on our rights.

http://www.ibtimes.com/obama-expected-sign-fisa-amendments-a...

http://investorplace.com/investorpolitics/what-obama-slipped...

haroldon Journalists’ Addresses Posted In Revenge For Posting Of Gun Permit Owners

Depends on what you call a difference. The nice lady at the DMV, or the IRS or the county assessor's office will likely know far more about you than you ever will about her because of access to data. A lot of that data is not publicly available.

haroldon Man who hacked Scarlett Johansson's e-mail sentenced to 10 years

Wow. He might have received less time for attempted murder [1]

http://themercury.com/articles/man-gets-5-years-for-murder-a...

haroldon Scientist Creates Self-Filling Water Bottle

I spent some time learning from a respected survival expert who claimed the 'solar still' was not an efficient use of one's energy. I tried it out a couple of times anyway and proved to myself that he was right.

What did work fairly well was a transpiration bag [1]. It took a few bags to get a meaningful supply of water and one needs to be careful about the foliage used.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2EBiA0Csts

haroldon Hacker News: Unknown or Expired Link

How are you measuring growth on HN? Userbase? Pageviews?

haroldon 700+ hp electric Honda S2000 built by high school senior

These cars offer excellent balance, handling and braking from the factory. I'm guessing all of those may suffer after gaining that much weight.

I had an '05 S2000. I wish I still had it, wonderful car.

haroldon Curiosity rover: Martian solar day 2

Fantastic on iPad in full screen. Very smooth.

haroldon Python on Wheels

I commend the author for building something. I don't see this project solving a problem I have, but it looks to be an honest, if somewhat rough, effort.

A few suggestions:

- review PEP8 [1].

- no need to assign None to a variable before assigning another value

- Try to keep things DRY [2].

- use more descriptive variable names

- as others have stated, spell check your site copy

[1] http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/

[2] http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DontRepeatYourself

* edited for formatting