HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

user49598

343 karma · joined June 7, 2012

submissionscomments
user49598··on Meteor – The next Ruby-on-Rails?
A smart package is just a regular javascript library with a configuration file, heres underscore's: https://github.com/meteor/meteor/tree/master/packages/unders...
user49598··on Meteor – The next Ruby-on-Rails?
Wide open DB access is for rapid development. In production, which meteor is totally not ready for yet, you'd restrict the db, have proper auth(which isn't built into meteor yet), and call restful methods from the client that have both client side and server side validations.
user49598··on Craigslist Suing Padmapper
A few of humble opinions:

Padmapper is probably getting enough publicity out of this to get over the critical mass problem and will be able to rely on their own listings.

Craigslist content is user generated, and the copyrights remain property of the users. While facts aren't copyrightable anything that padmapper displays that isn't just a fact, photos or a realtor's description for example, is a copyright violation.

This is why sites like stack overflow are awesome, because they licence "their" content, aka your work cc-wiki and claim no ownership.

The bummer here is not that craigslist is suing over unauthorized data access, it's that your work is too restrictively licenced on their site to be of maximum benefit to you.

user49598··on Artificial jellyfish made from silicone and rat muscle (video)
from wikipedia: "Evolution is any change across successive generations in the inherited characteristics of biological populations."

from me: "Evolution(clearly biological) cares (a cute way of saying is effected by) about nothing but survival." The personification of evolution was perhaps a bit too cute, but I feel it's also a bit more inspiring than getting specific. Also, I can't see much of a difference between surviving and being naturally selected.

Please let me know what I'm missing.

user49598··on YouTube Pushing Users Switch To Real Names
If i had to use my real name, I'd probably never comment on this site (good or bad thing, you can decide). A lot of people aren't interested in attribution and just want to take part in discussions on the internet. Also, anon-posting gives you the opportunity to get better at having online discussions. Everybody sounds like a troll now and then, you need to feel like it's not attached to your identity to really express yourself. The quality of youtube comments is not going to go up, and people are just going to start using fake "real names".

Which apparently amazon has a trademark on anyway: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8...

user49598··on Artificial jellyfish made from silicone and rat muscle (video)
On a somewhat related note, as far as animals go, jelly fish are nuts. I mean they're barely animals at all. From wikipedia: "Most jellyfish do not have specialized digestive, osmoregulatory, central nervous, respiratory, or circulatory systems." and, "Jellyfish have no brain nor central nervous system". No brain? I mean come on. Jelly fish are floating piles of goo with absolutely no purpose or delight in life other than being floating piles of goo. It's made weirder by how big some of them get, "Jellyfish range from about one millimeter in bell height and diameter to nearly two meters in bell height and diameter; the tentacles and mouth parts usually extend beyond this bell dimension." Giant brainless animals roam the ocean looking to sting and absorb prey without ever really knowing they're even doing it. They're pretty much ocean zombies.

They're nuts, and are a great example of how evolution cares about nothing but survival.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jellyfish

user49598··on Firefox OS doesn’t stand a chance
This article is a troll rant. Sebastian Anthony is clearly neither a market analyst nor a mobile OS expert. He compiled a bunch of a half-thought, smug driven, psudo talking points; slapped on a controversial sounding title and called it a job well done.
user49598··on How about an Olympic games for enhanced athletes?
It's kind of disgusting to encourage people to fuck up their bodies to win an athletic competition.

A lot of the things you could do to yourself to help you run faster next year are not exactly going to improve your health. And children need role models.

user49598··on How did we come to believe saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for us?
I believe it coincided with converting to a nearly sedentary culture. Nothing is as bad for you as being sedentary and since many/most people refuse to exercise, and you can't buy exercise pills (let alone get people to take them), you have to get people to want to cut down on the stuff their body isn't using.

Cholesterol isn't bad, saturated fat isn't bad, but if you're sitting around all day festering so are they.

Nutrition is far from an exact science and humans from around the world react to foods differently in subtle ways giving any Nutritional conclusions limited relevance.

IMHO, The 2 most important things you can do are exercise and pay attention to your body. Also, a lot of these "mis-conceptions" come from media and laymen thinking that phrases like "a link between saturated fat and heart disease" imply causation.

Remembered one more thing: A lot of shit food is loaded with saturated fat and cholesterol (and salt and sugar). Frozen dinners, snack cakes and fast food are some great examples. These products, which significantly contribute to the fattening of the world, help give their main flavor sources a bad name.

user49598··on Ubuntu is coming back to Dell Laptops
I'm going to assume they mean they don't condone it. (possibly because of a licencing agreement with microsoft) Obviously if it is a computer, which i think it is, you will be able to install grub.
user49598··on Ubuntu is coming back to Dell Laptops
Bummer, but not a problem. They are different products targeting different markets. You don't want users being able to switch between windows or linux pre-installed via a simple interface. You want them to know exactly what they're doing. (Or in case they don't know what they're doing, you want them to buy windows)

Dell also needs to be able to promote their laptops using features of the OS, or software that comes with it. They also need to mark down the OS versions to coincide with promotions or market activity.

Plus, if you're a linux guy, and the windows version is cheaper, just buy that and get the ubuntu image or drivers from dell support. It's not like canonical is missing out on a sale.

user49598··on Ubuntu is coming back to Dell Laptops
I would assume that if dell had an easy way to get a laptop with no operating system, it would be a support and consumer trust nightmare. They would then need to support how to install an operating system for every customer, as that's the only thing you'd be able to do when you bought your system.

If the os comes pre-installed, they only have to support drivers, and hackers like you or i can strip it if we want at our own risk.

user49598··on Ubuntu is coming back to Dell Laptops
The majority of new laptops work out of the box with ubuntu 12.04. The driver complaint, while still fair in many cases, is not nearly as relevant as it used to be. Peripherals can be tough, but built-in hardware has come a long way.

Also, IMHO, weather dell is doing exactly what you want or not, they are continuing to support freedom of choice, freedom of software, and the hacker community in general. I commend them for the effort, and would love to see other vendors follow suit.

user49598··on ShowHN: Circle - Dead simple video call for all platforms
No Linux? Normally i wouldn't care, but you said all platforms and I got excited.
user49598··on Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass
Breaking bad is not a source for research.
user49598··on Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass
and have learned about money laundering from Breaking Bad...

...

user49598··on Physical assault by McDonald's for wearing Digital Eye Glass
If you developed a solution to your own medical problem, why wouldn't you get a prescription for it? The prescription gives you the right to use it.

It's a bare website (not a blog post) with nothing but a story and some contact information. If you know of a way to make this not "smell of one of the oldest ways..." do let us know.

Obviously we need to keep that in mind, but you're talking about the difference between one man's photographically documented account of an event and a theoretical response form a multi-national fast food chain's Public Relations team.

He is coming to the internet because he can't get his case handled in the way he wants to.

Obviously they aren't qualified to fix his glasses and that was a cheeky way of saying he wants them to pay for it.

All in all, he is a respectable human, who has compelling evidence of assault, who has not gotten the justice he thinks he deserves. Would you like him to give up?

user49598··on [dead]
Sublime Text + Dvorak + Standing Desk = ?
user49598··on [dead]
What? Hacker News? The "sound a keyboard makes your you're programming furiously in a text editor"-er News? I think you're a little confused about who reads this site.

I think most of us care immensely about our text editors, and specifically how they can be as efficient as possible so we can spend as little time in them as possible and get back to reading Hacker News.

user49598··on A World Without Coral Reefs
I feel you're a bit off base, and are just being negative. Roger Bradbury may be trying to get his research funded but he's also trying to make a difference. You're just trying to out him as some kind of greedy scientist. He's right, we're loosing our reefs. He's also trying to research possible ways to keep a resemblance of what they once were around for future enjoyment. There is nothing wrong with that, and quite frankly it reads at worst like a kickstarter page for science.
user49598··on Viacom pulls “The Daily Show” offline as a result of contract dispute
"Viacom has decided to take a service away from all Internet users in its attempt to punish DirecTV"

Thats the blindest, most ambitious goal you could possibly have with the internet. Lets all get serious for a sec: http://thepiratebay.se/search/the%20daily%20show/0/7/0

And besides, the Viacom streaming player is terrible and low quality. If anything, this is going to remind people of the Hi-def, no-ad world they could be living in.

user49598··on Petition the U.S. Government to Force the TSA to Follow the Law
We all realize that there is no direct measurable effect on government from signing these petitions. And we also realize that signing these petitions and then taking no further action does not make you a hero.

But for god's sake, stop posting about how they're useless every time someone starts talking about one. First off, we get it, some people think they're painfully useless. Second off, just because you can't see any direct effect, or just because the effect wasn't exactly what you wanted it to be, doesn't make them useless. They are a good tool for rallying support behind an idea. They are a good tool for spreading awareness. They are a good tool for getting a cause a little bit of noticeably. They are a good tool for collecting thoughts in a coherent matter so they may be further discussed.

TLDR: We get it. You don't get petitions. Please figure it out or stop complaining. You're not helping a goddamn thing.

user49598··on Pricing psychology - 33% more beats 33% off
"one with 33% more beans for free, the other at 33% off the price"

I don't know if it matters, but to me "33% more for free" presents more information. It tells you that the quantity has increased and the cost has stayed the same. "33% off" just tells you the price change but nothing about quantity. Now I have to figure out if I'm actually getting the same volume I did last week.

user49598··on Pricing psychology - 33% more beats 33% off
And this whole time I thought it was about jobs and education.
user49598··on Judge Posner: U.S. patent system out of sync
One big problem I have with software patents is that they rarely contain any actual implementation. The whole point of a patent is that society grants you a temporary monopoly and you give society the intricate details of your invention.

Many patents these days get the best of both worlds. We give them that monopoly and they give not a thing back. I say if we're to have software patents, they need to all include working code. If the code doesn't produce your patentable idea, no patent.

user49598··on Judge Posner: U.S. patent system out of sync
Laws aren't god given. They are to be interpreted or even ignored by anyone who finds themselves in the legal system. Thats why jury nullification exists, and thats why judges have jobs. At the end of the day it's just humans making decisions about other humans and if your firm belief is not in line with the law you have the opportunity to express that.
user49598··on Judge Posner: U.S. patent system out of sync
Thats exactly the point, if the drug is covered under patent there is no generic. So if the doctor prescribes the newer yet not better drug, there will be no generic alternative.
user49598··on Close your laptop
tldr: Close your laptop, it's rude. Unless your intention is to be rude, then it's cool.

OP seems super judgmental and a bit narcissistic.

user49598··on The Ubuntu App Showdown
Haha wow, I'm an idiot. I went straight for the large orange circles and passed off the intro paragraph completely.
user49598··on The Ubuntu App Showdown
What are the judging criterion for the contest and who judges?
← PreviousPage 2 of 3Next →