HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

sstarr

304 karma · joined August 11, 2010

Ruby developer, conference organiser, geek. Responsible for some of the internet.

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/sstarr; my proof: https://keybase.io/sstarr/sigs/zbis8yZ-ZKTHPSNpjqyYzoRnGMTJYNYPOjoivglDciU ]

submissionscomments
sstarr··on Why don't you use Bootstrap?
> "It is quicker for me, as a front-end specialist to create these custom designs..."

Exactly. This is like me, as a back-end developer, writing a blog post explaining why I don't use Squarespace.

What would be useful is if the author offered some more lightweight and semantic alternatives, such as Neat (http://neat.bourbon.io) or Semantic UI (http://semantic-ui.com).

sstarr··on Show HN: Chui – The World's Most Intelligent Doorbell
The first thing I thought of when I saw this was the doorbell scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off: http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/282975/Ferris-Bueller-s-D...

Seriously though, I like the idea but what happens if someone holds up a photo of a friend or family member who's face automatically unlocks the door? It would be pretty easy to get a suitable image from a Facebook profile, for example.

sstarr··on Two big announcements
Aren't GitHub involved with Gitter somehow? https://gitter.im/
sstarr··on Debugging with Git Bisect [video]
A friend blew my mind with this a while ago when I was trying to track down a commit which broke something. This short guide he wrote gives step by step instructions for using it with your tests: https://gist.github.com/jordelver/5998870
sstarr··on 0 to 60 in One Second: Fusing WebGL, CSS 3D and HTML
This is incredible; it reminds me of the kind of stuff that sometimes used to crop up on Astounding Websites (http://web.archive.org/web/20010203162500/http://astoundingw...)

It feels like there aren't as many people doing interesting things and exploring new ideas on the web anymore but maybe I just don't know where to look.

sstarr··on Chrome's insane password security strategy
I don't think that saying if someone has access to your computer then you're screwed anyway is really an excuse.

You talk about lulling users into a false sense of security but do you have any idea how many Chrome users assume that their saved passwords can't just be viewed in plain text with a couple of clicks? I had no idea until I read Elliott's article and I immediately turned the feature off and deleted all my saved passwords.

sstarr··on Chrome's insane password security strategy
Thanks, the UI doesn't make it very clear that you can select rows so I missed that.

I use 1Password religiously but until now I'd been lazily saving passwords in Chrome as well to avoid the hassle of entering my master password. I feel slightly ashamed that I just assumed Chrome stored them "securely" and didn't give it any more thought.

sstarr··on Chrome's insane password security strategy
I had never given much thought to the implications of saving my passwords in Chrome so thanks for pointing this out.

Now I'd like to remove my saved passwords but visiting chrome://settings/passwords and removing them one at a time will take forever; can anyone tell me how to remove them in bulk?

sstarr··on Poll: What's your favorite bug tracker?
For client projects I'm a big fan of Lighthouse (https://lighthouseapp.com/). It has a great balance of advanced features and ease of use for non-techies.

* Tickets can be created and updated via email

* Using the GitHub service hook, you can tag commit messages so that they appear as comments on a ticket as well as change the state of the ticket (For example: "Refactor widget behaviour [#123 state:resolved]")

* You can setup milestones (with or without a due date) and assign tickets to them

* Bulk editing of tickets

* Markdown in ticket description and comment fields

* You can easily create "buckets" of tickets based on search terms and filters

* Bugsnag and Airbrake can be configured to automatically create tickets for new exceptions in your app

* Probably some other great features that I've forgotten to mention

sstarr··on The Firing Offense
I was once contracting at a company which developed software for the police and other emergency services. The server rooms all had electronic card readers on the doors so that only people with the right security clearance could get in.

One day there was a power cut which meant that all the card readers stopped working and we couldn't open the server room doors. After ten minutes of scratching our heads and worrying about the UPS batteries running out, someone had the bright idea of dragging a desk next to the door, moving a couple of ceiling tiles and climbing over the partition wall.

The guy didn't get fired but I'm not sure if that particular vulnerability was ever fixed.

sstarr··on Simple Raspberry Pi Rack
There's a link to this recent redesign at the bottom of the comments: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=4...
sstarr··on An open-source fully homomorphic encryption library
Since when is making inoffensive jokes considered trolling? I was amused by the similarity between the words 'homomorphic' and 'homeopathic' so I thought other people might be too.

The number of downvotes my attempt at humour received would suggest that I was wrong.

sstarr··on An open-source fully homomorphic encryption library
It's like regular encryption except you only need to encrypt 1 in 10,000 bits for it to be effective.
sstarr··on The Hacker Lifecycle
When I've gone through periods like that I've found that something as simple as going for a walk every day really helps to lift my mood and increase my productivity.

Sometimes I feel like there's so much to do and so much pressure that I couldn't possibly spare half an hour away from it but I can guarantee that I'll get less done and feel less happy on the days that I don't go out for some fresh air and exercise.

sstarr··on The Lie Hollywood Loves to Tell
There's a site similar to this in the UK called My Single Friend which you might be interested in looking at: http://www.mysinglefriend.com/
sstarr··on What is involved in setting up a HN Meetup? (Bath,UK)
I don't hold out much hope for a Bradford on Avon HN Meetup so I'd definitely come along to one in Bath.
sstarr··on How To Make A Million Dollars
That was really great, thanks.
sstarr··on Producers of Minecraft Documentary upload their new movie to The Pirate Bay
Andrews & Arnold is one of the best and most nerd friendly ISPs in the UK: http://aaisp.net.uk/

You can get a good idea of the company's general philosophy from their owner's blog: http://revk.www.me.uk/

Unfortunately they are quite expensive compared to the bigger ISPs but in their case you really do get what you pay for.

sstarr··on Zerigo DNS services down for 6+ hours due to massive DDoS
Add these to your hosts file to access your account:

64.27.57.25 manage.zerigo.com

64.27.57.8 dns.zerigo.com

Source: https://twitter.com/coldclimate/status/227369346891132928

sstarr··on Startup videos you'll wish you had made
Adam Lisagor has produced a lot of great videos for startups: http://sandwichvideo.com/

He also made this great AeroPress tribute video: https://vimeo.com/40980282

sstarr··on Dear "Landlord"
I moved mine from Tumblr to GitHub recently and used a migration script to grab all the posts and turn them into Markdown files. There's a script that works with Posterous too: https://github.com/mojombo/jekyll/wiki/blog-migrations
sstarr··on [dead]
That was my first thought too. I wonder how much of his time Jony Ive spent working on the first iPad.
sstarr··on AeroFS (YC S10): It’s Like Dropbox, But It Runs Inside Your Firewall
This sounds very interesting. Would it be possible to install the linux client on a cheap VPS to get your own "cloud" storage?
sstarr··on Hotmail Adds New Feature "My Friend's Been Hacked"
Maybe a good way of freaking users out (and educating them at the same time) would be a notice saying "it will take n minutes/hours/millennia for someone to hack this password", rather than the "weak - strong" indicator you see on most sign up pages.
sstarr··on Misuse of 3-D digital lens leaves 2-D movies in the dark
My local cinema usually has reserved seating but not for early showings of big new films. I've always assumed that this is to encourage people to get in early so they can get a decent seat - with the added bonus that they have to sit through ~20 minutes of adverts.

If I buy a ticket with a reserved seat then I'll usually go in a few minutes after the advertised start time so that I miss most of the commercials.

sstarr··on Why You Should Never Buy a Home Again
Exactly. I'm sure that the author's reasons for not buying a house are all perfectly valid to him, but there are many other people who don't just see their home as a pile of dollar bills with a bed inside.