Hacker News Reader

nighthawkon Printable 1:24000 topographic maps for the entire US

I'm a huge fan of http://historicalmaps.arcgis.com/usgs/ for finding USGS maps - it's a simple, visual browser to find all available years + scale levels for any location.

nighthawkon Ask HN: Bitcoin Mining Operations Perpetuating Weaknesses in SHA-256?

Thanks, I think I phrased the question poorly as I wasn't suggesting a weakness in bitcoin, I was wondering whether there might be any value to the mining output.

nighthawkon How I Fired Myself

the monumental fuck up was cancelling mysql backup and having all engineers work directly with the production database, what you did was INEVITABLE..

nighthawkon Prosecutor pursuing Aaron Swartz linked to suicide of another hacker

>"He was clearly someone who knew he had really fucked up this time and couldn't use his age as an excuse."

That's a bold statement - I don't know his full history or all the facts of his case, but what you're implying is that someone's past actions and convictions are all that's needed to asses their present guilt.

Did it ever occur to you that maybe he was innocent and maybe he knew everyone would think like you? It doesn't take much to realize that this way of thinking quickly leads to a conviction regardless of the facts.

nighthawkon Prosecutor pursuing Aaron Swartz linked to suicide of another hacker

maybe, but there's a lot more to it than that.

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

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/07/hacker/

nighthawkon Frieman contests carpool violation, corporate personhood...

definitely agree, gonna be tough to argue that the corporation itself was "present" in his car

nighthawkon How non-competes are damaging the Massachusetts economy: Angela's story

this is definitely one thing that california's got right.

"Non-compete agreements are automatically void as a matter of law in California, except for a small set of specific situations expressly authorized by statute. They were outlawed by the original California Civil Code in 1872."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-compete_clause

nighthawkon You Don’t Truly Understand It Until You Think It’s Obvious

great clip!

nighthawkon You Don’t Truly Understand It Until You Think It’s Obvious

interesting, although there's plenty that seems obvious but upon deeper inspection one realizes he doesn't understand it at all. maybe that's true understanding?

quick example - you hold a ball and let it go. "obviously" it drops, but think about it - why did it drop and I'm pretty sure even the most advanced string theorists couldn't explain definitively why it went towards the ground.

"true knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing" - socrates