HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

rokamic

115 karma · joined July 29, 2010

submissionscomments
rokamic··on Why TV Lost (2009)
Last year it looked obvious that we were heading to streaming of on-demand digital video as the primary means of delivery. Although that may still be where we are heading, I see dark clouds in our future.

The "TV vs. On-Demand" comparison (if that was what Mr. Graham was referring) is less an issue now. I propose that what few saw then as a problem, is a looming one now. In other words, it's not so much "TV vs. Streaming/On-demand/digital/or whatever." It's that the old players, "TV", are now positioning (and are by far in the lead) to control the digital streaming of video from the internet.

Huge, deep pocket, long established trades, corporations, and/or markets are not supposed to gain control of emerging trades and markets. That is for new business to handle, and by which new business come into their own. (by advantage of being more lean, fast, knowledgeable about new tech/markets, better in-tune, etc) So that eventually the greatest of those new business's themselves become dinosaurs and are so replaced. This way business, knowledge, and technology progress.

Not to say that a "dinosaur" could not have this effect. Just less likely, and the likelihood I suspect will mathematically decay over time. (as the corporation becomes larger and less agile)

rokamic··on The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention
I think Michael Moore said it best.

"I ask you to imagine how much different our world would be if WikiLeaks had existed 10 years ago. Take a look at this photo. That's Mr. Bush about to be handed a "secret" document on August 6th, 2001. Its heading read: "Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US." And on those pages it said the FBI had discovered "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings." Mr. Bush decided to ignore it and went fishing for the next four weeks.

But if that document had been leaked, how would you or I have reacted? What would Congress or the FAA have done? Was there not a greater chance that someone, somewhere would have done something if all of us knew about bin Laden's impending attack using hijacked planes?"

read more at http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/why-im-p...

rokamic··on Google AI Challenge: Languages Used by the Best Programmers
Oh that is awesome. Anyone know if there are plans for another tournament?
rokamic··on Scale of the Universe
Ah, thank you for clarity. The concept still applies I think.
rokamic··on In defense of Wikileaks
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I was of the mind that the 30's were a poor time for a person to speak out against their government, with reprimands handed out in full. Maybe, because that is my impression of today's reality and I am projecting that onto my vision of the 30's.
rokamic··on Scale of the Universe
Absolutely fantastic and soothing. My thoughts are made of such things, this example helps to sooth my mind.

A technical question: How was relative scale so efficiently kept between all those objects?

rokamic··on Scale of the Universe
Because humans can only observe the universe from Earth's point of view, our perception is that we are in the middle of the cosmos. Yet we are only in the middle of what we can observe from our point of view at any angle. As you said, we can only observe so far in either direction or any direction as it were.
rokamic··on In defense of Wikileaks
I was going to question that idea too. That book you just brought to my attention is amazing. A man in that time, speaking out like that? Wow.
rokamic··on In defense of Wikileaks
<quote>I believe that human beings are more likely to misbehave if they think they can shield what they are doing from public view.</quote>

I do not agree. I think that people are more likely to misbehave when they want to misbehave, regardless of a shielding mechanism.

rokamic··on Khan Academy + Instant Search = Khan Instant
I think this is a great opportunity to do some A/B experimenting. You could start a new thread.
rokamic··on Is HN only about saying nice things about everything?
<blockquote>it's just that the system discourages you to have your own opinion on anything</blockquote>

Please continue to bring your own opinion's to us, for the benefit of all.

Opinion's are cool, but intelligent ideas and lessons-learned are better.

rokamic··on Is HN only about saying nice things about everything?
Great comment. In the style of Eminem's Stan.
rokamic··on Khan Academy + Instant Search = Khan Instant
Genius. Yep, I said it. But the initial video showed confused me when I did a new search and the video stayed the same. Shouldn't the most relevant video load instantly?
rokamic··on After 4 years of self-funded coding marathons I feel "finished", care to talk?
Hey, great job on your second product launch. I will put money on your turning a profit within 18 more product launches. Check out Gabriel Weinburg's: My history of (mostly failed) side projects and startups http://bit.ly/arW8lE
rokamic··on Ask HN: What are you working on right now?
I'm building a contact import script for a hip hop artist's newsletter. Essentially its what powers the "invite your friends" button on the newsletter.

I am dealing with yahoo's contacts api at the moment. It seems that althought yahoo! provides a php sdk, a direct fetch of email addresses from a user's address book still requires a restful get request.

The yahoo php sdk makes the oauth stuff really easy though.

rokamic··on Ask HN: Share a gem. Teach me and you.
Sometimes we get stuck, writer's block kicks in. Do yourself a favor, get up and go do something else. The magic elves will come and fix whatever you were stuck on, I promise.