Hacker News Reader

zyfoon Microsoft Makes Fun of Older IE versions To Promote IE9

I like that they include a cute cat as a point of reference, so I can tell how outdated IE9 is by comparing it to Peak Lolcat on Google Trends[0]. I realize this is a bit unfair to IE9, but it's not too far off.

0: http://www.google.com/trends/?q=lolcat

zyfoon The Gentleman's Agreement

Am I the only one who thinks this whole sharing business has gone a bit too far?

Honestly, how many people would say that finding content is one of their biggest problems today?

It's easy to think all you need is more optimized/better content while what you really need in fact is probably something of the following:

- think about something

- focus your attention

- get to work

- get in touch with other people

zyfoon Milk Inc. to shut down Oink on March 31st

A shame to see Oink getting shut down again.

zyfoon The Markdown Mark by Dustin Curtis

That's not ASCII.

EDIT: Is it? Text files should be readable by everyone, which rules out special characters like "" (I can't even write it).

zyfoon Why I Left Google

> Social is the future of search

Says who? The fact is that arguably the most hardcore googlers are here on HN, and I would imagine that most of us don't care for, and even dislike, social search.

That's not enough to prove that social isn't the future of search, but it's enough to think twice about it.

zyfoon Blueseed: Visa-free startup platform on a ship 30 minutes from Silicon Valley

Rent and equity from startups. They mention this in the deck.

zyfoon Blueseed: Visa-free startup platform on a ship 30 minutes from Silicon Valley

> how will order by enforced? medical emergency?

Pay for some private military contractors, doctors, and a standby helicopter. Split the cost.

EDIT: If PMC are too militant, just any lenient security company would do. I don't really see how this is a problem. Think of it as a big festival with less alcohol and run for a longer time period.

zyfoon The real reason health insurers won’t cover people with pre-existing conditions

Isn't this common knowledge? I'm pretty sure this was something that was mention in a seminar on information asymmetry when I studied Microeconomics 101 a couple of years ago.

zyfoon Defining Property

This is going to make me look like a pg fanboy:

I don't see where he outright dismisses other people's opinions. In fact, he's repeatedly said to people who disagree with him to "point to a sentence which you think is false". You will have to be more specific than that.

It's impossible to speak for someone else, but I believe pg would very much welcome someone DH-sixing him.

Another thing to keep in mind that this is not some long lasting argument that pg has with the RIAA, it's an essay on property.

zyfoon Defining Property

This reminds me of Cory Doctorows excellent talk at 28C3, The coming war on general computation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUEvRyemKSg

Basically, Cory is saying that the fight againt RIAA/MPAA is just the first battle of a long war.

zyfoon From Miserable Launch to Decent Success in 3 Months, Thanks to Hacker News

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3517863 probably.

zyfoon Paul Graham PyCon 2012 keynote

The "Responsible, Serious and Altruistic" bit was a bit of a straw man I must admit. My point was basically that:

1) if pg doesn't have some well thought out and articulated perspective on moral questions, that's OK - he's not a priest

2) Saying it's alarming is basically pushing him and people like him into taking a (probably artificial) position for the sake of taking one.

3) Just because one is powerful doesn't mean one has to be a role model in all areas of life. This is unnecessary pressure on an individual who hasn't asked for it - he's basically a sort of VC, he isn't running for president - and I don't see anything good coming out of it.

I chose a utilitarian belief system as an example because it felt like the most non-controversial one to make a point. Incidentally, I don't subscribe to it.

Agreed about humanities, but I don't really see the connection to your OP.

Here's a highly related essay by pg, by the way: http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html

zyfoon Paul Graham PyCon 2012 keynote

> it was alarming that pg didn't have a clear moral position when asked about his decision-making process.

I would prefer it if people didn't force pg to qualify his statements like a politician.

Obviously he could add "of course, this is just a good idea as long as the expected utility of the humanity at large is greater with it than without it on a reasonably long time line." but it would just be an empty phrase.

We need powerful people to be more open like pg, what we don't need is more people putting on a PR-mask just for the sake of seeming Responsible, Serious and Altruistic.

zyfoon Paul Graham PyCon 2012 keynote

Question for pg:

There is probably an essay there, too bad I don't write them anymore (43.30 in video, regarding "moral compass outsourcing")

Have you stopped writing essays? Does that mean you're shifting your focus to YC 100% or going back to work on arc again? Or are you talking about non-startup essays?

zyfoon Securing Your Domain Against Seizure: Where Is Safe to Register a Domain Name?

If you have particularly anti-US content, I would think .ru or .ch is a good bet.

zyfoon Hacked: commit to rails master on GitHub

Here's the guy's blog post about the hack: http://homakov.blogspot.com/2012/03/egor-stop-hacking-gh.htm...

"Today I can pull/commit/push in any repository on github. Jack pot."

zyfoon “What’s the waiter doing with the computer screen?”

For all you non-swedish people out there: Jävla skitsystem is swedish for "fucking shit system".

zyfoon The Problem with Facebook Connect

This is a good point but we shall never forget the intersection between FB and G+: if you aren't paying for it, you aren't the customer

zyfoon Twenty-year-old Alex Rawlings speaks 11 languages

How-to-learn-any-language forums is to polyglots what Hacker News is to hackers.

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/index.html

zyfoon Why I use Windows and not Linux

Yes, because all the best C programmers use Windows.

zyfoon From r60 to Go 1

Anyone using or planning on using Go in the near future? For what?

It looks intriguing but I can't think of any obvious immediate applications (I'm sure there are plenty, I just don't see them).

zyfoon SendHub (YC W12) Lets Businesses Text Their Customers, Teachers Text For Free

Like the lure of the Sirens, the viral factor of social sharing is too hard to resist.

Oh VCs, some of our users put adblockers in their ears, but where's our rope?

zyfoon Ask HN: How to move away from Gmail

The reason Gmail is free is because they have ads. I wouldn't expect to find a free and good email service.

Here's one that costs some money: http://fastmail.fm/

zyfoon Texts Editor - True WYSIWYG Markdown

Looks useful! Two things:

1) How do I make several levels of headers (#, ##, ###, ####)? This is what I use markdown for the most - nesting texts in clearly visible subsections. In the menu I can only see only one header, and in the screenshot I see two (==== and ---).

2) Rendering the PDF side-by-side would be useful. If I understood correctly one currently has to compile to PDF manually, which sort of defeats the purpose of a GUI app.

zyfoon Ron Conway is a Silicon Valley startup's best friend

At those critical moments in a startup's life Conway responds quickly -- and so do those in his network. There was the time when a top executive at Tellme Networks, a telecommunications startup, e-mailed Conway in desperation at 11 p.m., as a business deal with Verizon (VZ) was falling apart. Two minutes later, Conway's reply came, in all caps: "AM ON IT." By the next morning Conway had arranged a meeting with the Verizon president, which led to a nine-figure contract with Tellme. Microsoft eventually bought Tellme for $800 million.

That's pretty badass.

zyfoon GUI Architectures

Because things change fast in the industry.

zyfoon Show HN: I just launched a new blogging platform

1. Signed up, tried to create a blog called "test" - nothing happens.

2. Trying again - nothing.

3. Probably occupied already I think and try with "testing" - some red-letter angry error.

4. Changing URL to Brytter.com, clicking on "my blogs" - barely visible in the top right corner despite being logged in - getting prompted with a "which blog would you like to do write on" dropdown.

5. No "test" nor "testing" there - and no way to create a new blog.

I think you just forgot the V and the P in MVP.

zyfoon What we’ve learned from Hacker School

How experienced a programmer do you have to be in order to apply? I'm a CompSci student and coded some CRUD apps for my startup (Clojure and Python), but I'm not a open source contributor, nor am I active as a contributor on Github or SO.

zyfoon Fields medalist Tim Gowers: Elsevier — my part in its downfall

Tim Gowers is also the editor of the extraordinary mathematics companion Princeton Companion to Mathematics (http://www.amazon.com/Princeton-Companion-Mathematics-Timoth...)

zyfoon Alternate Sleep Cycles

Indeed it's not evidence to the contrary. How about leaving the question open until proper research has been done? The fact that there are anecdotal reports of people sleeping polyphasically should at the very least hint at the possibility of it working, rather than, as Wozniak takes it, dismiss it with what's in essence a very non-scientific approach.

To me it seems obvious that Wozniak has a clear agenda with the article considering his general advocacy of free running sleep as the Only Path.