Hacker News Reader

mattmillron Ask HN: Pros and Cons of Living/Working in a technology backwater

I guess I won't know unless I try.

Speaking from my recent experience, having moved from a Texas town with about 350 people to New York City a few months ago, I had some of the same concerns. In my case, I took a slight 'cost of living vs. salary' hit, but the increased opportunity more than makes up for that.

As for your second point, unless you're lazy, competition is a good thing. Being around better developers should challenge you, and you'll get better yourself. If that's what you're looking for, I'd encourage you to go for it.

mattmillron Ask HN: Why do no other laptop manufacturers get it?

It is especially infuriating in the grocery store when they "go to the trouble" of adding conversion information to the shelf label but then aren't consistent with the units on similar products. Thanks HEB, since you did the math I know that this juice is $0.03/oz. and that juice is $0.79/liter. That helps alot.

mattmillron Zoho: Why We Haven't Taken Venture Capital

Well, maybe they should be. The rest of us need to step up ;)

mattmillron How I Built an Apartment Buzzer for Multiple Roommates

The way these systems usually work, the call comes FROM the keypad/speakerphone at the gate, TO your home number. That's how it can recognize the DTMF and open the gate.

If the call were coming FROM his friends mobiles, TO Google Voice, how would the gate intercept the DTMF? Note that he says the group includes "the number," not "the numbers."

The original article states that it is possible to set up a system this way, such that anyone who calls gets in, but it is insecure.

mattmillron IPhone 4 is official

The Mophie Juice Pack does two things for my 3G:

(1) Makes it thicker (2) Gives it longer battery life.

Problem solved ;)

mattmillron How I Built an Apartment Buzzer for Multiple Roommates

So anyone who dials your apartment gets through the gate?

mattmillron Stereotyping women right out of science

To further illustrate how you can't just throw these labels around, Myers-Briggs has "iNtuiting" on another axis. PZ Meyers makes references that place "Intuition" in opposition to science (thinking.) If the words mean the same in both contexts, then the Myers-Briggs temperament of the NT/Rational who is both iNtuitive and Thinking becomes, well, awkward at best.

mattmillron How I almost ignored our single best source for customer feedback.

I am tech-savvy, and I've set up 4 Asterisk systems in production. And if I were getting an 800 number for a startup, I'd DEFINITELY outsource it. I'd rather spend my time talking to customers than setting up and maintaining my PBX.

mattmillron How I Would Use the Google Prediction API (To Find Your Musical Profile)

Same for me. Anybody know why this breaks in Chrome?

[edit: looks like the source is truncated. Several closing tags -- including a few divs, body, and html -- are missing. Not sure why Chrome can't handle that though.]

mattmillron New UK govt to curb CCTV, scrap ID cards, help open source

I knew the EFF's Panopticlick sounded familiar, but I couldn't place it. Makes sense.

https://panopticlick.eff.org/

mattmillron Thoughts on taking things away

I think there's plenty of precedent for works titled "The Art of X" to explain how "X" works. Knuth?

(I was going to include an Amazon link for a book search on "The Art of" to support my point, but the first few pages of results were all books of pictures from Hollywood movies. Oh well.)

mattmillron Thoughts on taking things away

I expected guidelines for how to take things away without angering users -- would be a good (but much harder to write) post. These three bullet points barely state the problem.

I don't think the title over-promised, I think I over-expected :(

mattmillron The havoc the XML purists wrought

There are plenty of complicated things that aren't complicated anymore if you ignore the complicated parts. (For example, the global financial system.) I don't think that line is a valid argument.

mattmillron The worst graph in a decade?

Precisely. The first thing my brain told me when I saw the graph was "It's gone way down." That's how we're used to interpreting line charts.

mattmillron Rate my new startup, Appointment Reminder

His blog post points out that the price is on purpose to dissuade healthcare customers. Not sure if that's the best idea, but it explains his pricing.

mattmillron EFF vs. Facebook: Part 2: "Facebook's Connections"

I haven't been particularly concerned with the privacy implications. I tend to operate under the assumption that stuff I post online is public.

But this latest change has another implication: it decreases the ability for expression on my profile. For example, in the Favorite Music section, I had shared a favorite lyric. Now, I'm limited to just listing bands.

While I understand the monetization reasons for "normalizing" the profiles, ultimately it makes them less interesting. I want to read a free-form description of a friends activities. A normalized bullet-list is much less attractive.

Until now, my take on Facebook has been "I'm not too excited about the way they do things, but it's where I keep up with people who aren't engaged in other platforms." If future changes decrease the utility of the platform like this one does, that argument for staying won't hold much longer.

mattmillron Thoughts on Flash

If Jobs had said "We strongly believe that you should be able to develop on the iPad and iPhone using all open standards pertaining to the web," you would have a point. Your logic is all twisty.

"We only want to support open standards" does not imply "we want to support all open standards."