Hacker News Reader

ldayleyon Quants and the crash

Why don't you let the "quants" speak for themselves outside of pop-science news articles, they've built their own HN clone: http://quant.ly

ldayleyon Newest U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy: Trolling

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink

Use groupthink to ease the angries out into tge open. Way to raise the bar on discourse, military-industrial complex.

ldayleyon Hacker Opens High Security Handcuffs With 3D-Printed And Laser-Cut Keys

Interesting story. My larger concern is that incumbent businesses and political interests will use this type of story to spread FUD that enables them to enact fear-based regulation before the benefits of cheap 3D printing can be realized by the general population. One simply has to look at piracy concerns and asanine infosec and privacy regulations for previous examples.

ldayleyon Python for iOS

Duplicate: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3632593

I own and use this app, it has been great for honing my skills. It is very disappointing that it can't function the way an editor of its type could due to the limitations of the App Store, since we all know this is the direction development (as with all other facets of business) is heading.

ldayleyon When scientists become hedge fund managers

The paper linked in the article also indicates that it isn't exclusively about talent, but that scarce capital can also be misallocated towards the financial sector during financial booms:

"Second, we note that finance requires financing. That is, financial intermediaries compete with non-financial intermediaries for financial resources. This leads us to conjecture that firms that rely more heavily on external finance will be in more direct competition with the financial intermediaries themselves for resources."

( from http://sirc.rbi.org.in/downloads/4Cecchetti.pdf )

ldayleyon Introducing The New IFTTT

Perhaps if they added integrated batteries that only initiated a power draw to charge when they reached a specific level they wouldn't need to draw power from the grid constantly. Expensive way to solve the problem though, perhaps.

ldayleyon The Borderlands Gun Collector's Club

Duplicate: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3693023

Still, it's a great post.

ldayleyon Steal This Idea: Lock Screen Emergency Contact

This is a good idea. Currently, I use an image I've created as my lock screen wallpaper that has an emergency contact phone number and email in case something is wrong or I've lost my phone. The idea proposed would render that unnecessary.

ldayleyon Apple Q2 2012: 35.1M iPhones, 11.8M iPads, 4M Macs, and 7.7M iPods

$6.5 million in PROFIT generated every hour. Mindblowing.

ldayleyon Google Checkout locks out The Oatmeal

It appears as though he's reached somebody on the inside via Twitter. https://twitter.com/#!/Oatmeal/status/194847766420275201

ldayleyon Microsoft comes to Facebook's aid with 550 patents

While Microsoft is making a tidy profit from these patents, keep in mind that they have a +- 3% stake in Facebook. I'm sure they would love these Yahoo! lawsuits to go favorably for Facebook.

ldayleyon Digital Modernism Done Right

These Prismatic posts have been popping up every couple of days. I'm not even certain if they've even launched yet ("Request an Invite"), but this seems to be a textbook example of good 'launch' blogging. The consistency and depth of these posts is actually making me consider using this service.

ldayleyon Stealing Computer Code Isn't Theft, Court Rules

Curious; would it have been theft if the code had been copyrighted?

ldayleyon Ninth Circuit Adopts a Narrow Interpretation of Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

It will be interesting to see if, or how, this ruling affects similar cases tried in other circuit courts, since as the author points out this ruling is in contrast to the precedent set in cases ruled on by other circuits. I wonder if we'll see this one on the docket of the Supreme Court of the US in the coming years, due to the disagreement between circuits, especially since prosecutors also cite this law in criminal cases regarding Terms of Service violations.

I applaud Judge Kozinski's opinion.

ldayleyon For-Profit University Sets $199-a-Month Tuition for Online Courses

This is a great development! Higher education has all of the marks of an 'industry' ripe for Napster-like disruption.

Related: If you are not taking advantage of the free Coursera and Udacity courses then you should soon; they won't be free forever!

ldayleyon StateFace - FOSS Typeface for when you need tiny states in your web app

It looks like it was assigned last (after Wyoming - 'x') but they used the 'D.C.' for the alphabetized list. Same with "U.S." = z.

Minor quirks in the face of how useful this is, though.

ldayleyon Ask HN: I want to learn Python, what could be a good book to start with?

Seconded. It's the first text that made Python stick in my mind.

ldayleyon Matt Cutts: One of the more fun gadgets I've been playing with lately…

"Siri, read me my email."

ldayleyon Why are doctors still outperforming surgical robots?

A/B testing headlines for upvotes?

ldayleyon Obama opens Silicon Valley field office

Leaving out commentary for or against the Obama administration, this says something about the growing influence of the valley on the nation as more of the media US citizens consume flows through and is amplified and/or filtered by digital products made by popular and powerful SV companies.

ldayleyon Poll: Do you have a Facebook account?

Yes, I deleted my Facebook account in early 2010. However, I have since created a placeholder account to buy ads and admin a business page for my company. I've logged in exactly once in the past 2 months.

ldayleyon Facebook's S-1 Filing

Huge P/E ratio hasn't seemed to hurt shares of Salesforce.com too much.

ldayleyon Caution on Twitter urged as Britons barred from US

I pre-ordered the Kindle version and it showed up on my phone about a week ago. Haven't finished it, but so far - excellent.

ldayleyon Caution on Twitter urged as Britons barred from US

I think that this comment nails it.

In the end, it doesn't matter whether it was a tip-off or it was picked up by some Government threat-monitoring software. The greater end result is the same: a chilling effect on speech. If you aren't careful about how you consider this event, your response is "I'd better be careful what I say."

Edit: I highly recommend Bruce Schneier's "Liars and Outliers", it is a masterful work about the social costs of security.

ldayleyon Dear business people, an iOS app actually takes a lot of work

Peoples' "Amazing app idea!" is the new "Amazing screenplay/TV show idea!".

Like creating quality TV/Film content, crafting mobile applications takes time, talent, and money and one day this will be better understood by the mainstream.

ldayleyon Growing SocialCam Is The Latest Alum Startup Returning To YC

Of course SocialCam isn't designed for people to create movies to compete head on with Hollywood-- that's a rediculous statement and not what I intended to convey above.

However, one can only focus attention on one thing at a time, so when you are filming snippets or watching snippets created by friends then that is time that you aren't, for the sake of arguement, watching Hollywood-produced content on a phone or tablet.

ldayleyon Growing SocialCam Is The Latest Alum Startup Returning To YC

This seems in line with YC's expressed desire to 'kill Hollywood'. Keeping peoples' attention off of Hollywood-owned content is the first step.

ldayleyon The Truth About Mutual Funds: Fees vs. Returns

Hedge funds are in the same situation, and their fees are even higher - fees of 2% of total Assets Under Management PLUS 20% of any gains are common. For all of that, they have experienced challenges beating indexes as well (down 6.4% for 2011, as measured by the Dow Jones Credit Suisse All Hedge Index - according to the article linked below).

http://www.forbes.com/sites/greggfisher/2012/01/23/chasing-t...

ldayleyon Congressman blacks out his official .gov website

Sure, but let's hear about the meetings he's holding with contributors, committees, or industry. Blacking out your site tells us where you stand on an issue but telling people what you are doing with your elected position to move that stance forward is even more powerful.

In any event, I applaud the congressman for his position.

ldayleyon Congressman blacks out his official .gov website

I'm happy that he opposes SOPA, and happy that he darkened his site. But isn't it gratuitous for a congressman to act like some internet activist when he possesses REAL influence on the law in Washington?

Rather than blacking out his site, I'd love to see one of his staffers post activities that the congressman is engaged in to convince his peers to block or vote against measures like SOPA.