HN user
One word: Freak.
I wish to gently but firmly disagree.
The thousands of $$ on audio software are spent because they actually provide the exact output needed. Think of them as a precision-tooled machine part critical to the production flow in a factory. Sure, you can replace it with a cheaper alternative but the cheaper part will likely have rough edges and the errors caused by those rough edges will cascade into your final production output...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
For people new to HN, this is the comment dewey is referring to, I think. 'dhouston' is Drew Houston, the founder of Dropbox.
3 min, hardcore mode (w/ proofreading):
---
Hardcore mode blurs every thing you type, so you have no idea if you are writing correctly. All you have to go by is your judgement and the belief that you do not misspell your words. And even if you did, you are willing to edit it all out later.
I can see the appeal of doing this for people who worry too much about what they are writing and constantly go back to edit their words and spellings. However, this is a stupid idea because going back to make minor edits allows the brain to formulate the next thought and frame it into better sentences.
By vomiting everything in one flow, you are simply increasing the amount of work required in terms of editing and re-writing the incorrect parts. Not to mention the large amount of proof-reading work that will inevitably follow all your work.
Does hardcore mode allow pauses? Let's see. Five potatoes to figure it out... Yes it does. Same five-potato time-limit.
Ah, too many potatoes.
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I was sweating buckets the whole time. I hate the idea of my writing vanishing, so the pressure was quite high to keep typing...
Yeah, that's what HIBP does. See here: https://www.troyhunt.com/ive-just-launched-pwned-passwords-v...
I really feel Troy has handled HIBP very, very carefully, honestly, and with the utmost transparency so far. He seems to have put in a lot of thought into everything - whether it is rolling out a feature or planning the future of HIBP.
Two potential causes:
1. Location matching - both your apps detected you in the same place for an extended period of time. Maybe you guys had mutual friends in the music community?
2. Microphone[0]. They have since refuted that claim[1], but I've had way too many coincidences and I'm choosing to keep my tin-foil hat on... :/
[0] www.geek.com/apps/facebook-app-now-listens-and-records-audio-when-you-post-updates-from-your-phone-1595873/
[1]http://newsroom.fb.com/news/h/facebook-does-not-use-your-pho...
It's called shadow profiling[0].
Even if you haven't signed up for a facebook account but someone you know has an account, they by proxy, you have an account. Merely existing as a contact in their address book is enough to create a shadow profile with facebook. Their deep-learning algos can collate such data from all your friends and serve you correspondingly appropriate ads.
In fact, I just thought of an experiment that you could try sometime.
1. Buy a new cellphone number and store a small number of contacts (say, about 5) in your phonebook. Make sure all 5 of them have functional & active FB accounts.
2. Install the FB app on the phone and grant it access to your phonebook.
3. Open the app, create a new user and check out the list of suggested friends.
I think you'll be surprised.
[0] http://www.dailydot.com/news/facebook-shadow-profiles-privac...
Seems interesting, but no link to download the html file? Or am I missing something?
The page on Tax Reform[0] seems... interesting. Here's the first paragraph:
Anyone who fills out a tax form knows how harmful the U.S. tax code is today – punishing hard work, savings, and investment. American frustration with the tax code has prompted two decades of Washington, D.C. blue ribbon commissions and detailed plans to reform the code. These efforts have not changed the tremendous burden Americans face in complying with the U.S. tax code. If a tax code were designed to punish hard work, thrift, and investment, the current U.S. tax code could serve as a blueprint.
Autosummarizer[1] summarizes the first paragraph as follows:
If a tax code were designed to punish hard work, thrift, and investment, the current U.S. tax code could serve as a blueprint.
Good times, America.
[0] https://www.greatagain.gov/policy/tax-reformeconomic-vision.... [1] http://autosummarizer.com/index.php
Well, I have been trying a hobby-dev project that is kinda along these lines but I am almost on the verge of giving up.
The problem is, the feed/stream API endpoints for most of the services mentioned above, either do not exist or have been removed.
- FB and Instagram no longer provide them, for sure.
- WhatsApp doesn't have an official API - the last time I test-drove Yowsup, my number was 'blocked' by WhatsApp.
- No idea if there's an API for iMessage, although I get the feeling there mightn't be...
Screen-scraping all of these services is way too much effort for way little reward. Not to mention that FB keeps 'updating' its UI/UX quite frequently and Instagram doesn't show a 'feed' on the web if you login.
- FB messenger is based off the XMPP protocol, so yeah, there might be a way to access it without having to screen-scrape.
- There's a free/paid service called Integrated Inbox which integrates Google's services: http://integratedinbox.com/plans/
That leaves HN, reddit and the Google gang - is it really worth the time to integrate these into one service? Maybe one could build the basic structure over the weekend and then provide an option add-on different sites as a 'plugin'...
I feel like I should point out that their name isn't storytelling but I also feel like I shouldn'tdo that... :/
This handle was still available when you registered?
Can we call this the R-Diddly law, please?
I think Ingress is a close match to your description. Also, Lyft and other ride-sharing apps work along the same principles, I think. Similar techniques are also being used for the new-age anonymous messengers, but I may be wrong about those.
I knew of people attempting to create 'discount floats' based on geo-location - as in, a retailer with the app would 'float' a specific discount at a specific point and anyone with the app who happened to pass within a certain radius would get a notification/coupon of the discount.
However, it didn't pick up here in India because smartphones and app downloads weren't all that ubiquitous two years ago, when they tried to implement this idea. Now, the results may be different, who knows.
I am more disappointed by the comments than the announcement itself. The first few comments seem to be blaming last.fm for 'giving up' without actually trying to understand why they made those (extremely) difficult choices.
The music publishing and licensing industry (vastly different from the actual creators, mind you) isn't as straightforward as people believe it to be. Music licenses are extremely tricky and (often) subject to the whims of the publishing labels.
There is no standard rate for a licensing specific tracks (or set of tracks) and the licenses that are available in the market are either too broad and expensive or too narrow and useless.
The entertainment industry in general is a mess - nobody knows how to handle the internet as a viable platform and nobody is willing to risk their profits to attempt and make mistakes either. They are trying to force an outdated method built for a one-way channel (needle-hour plays) on a platform that primarily believes in two-way interactivity.
In other words, they are trying to license content by syndication in a world where RSS, APIs and interactive conversations are the norm - not only is it a ridiculously laughable concept, but it goes against the very grain of the entire thing.
The whole entertainment publishing and licensing industry is in dire need of an overhaul. Unfortunately, the question everyone is too busy asking, is the question everyone should be trying to answer together: "Who will bell the cat?"
Actually, Sublime Text 3 [0] (although in Beta) is quite stable and already has massive support within the community. I was lucky enough to get started with ST in my early days (not too long ago, tbh) and I haven't felt the need for a full-fledged IDE yet and I whole-heartedly recommend it for someone looking to move from (IMHO) bulky IDEs like Eclipse to a more minimalistic editor.
ST3 + SublimeIntel + SublimeLinter and suddenly, I feel like a keyboard ninja. Believe me, for a newbie, that is a massive boost of confidence! :D
C'mon, who wouldn't want an employee who boils a watch and looks at the egg while contemplating the basic nature and equations that make up the physical sciences? ;)
People close to me used have told me on numerous occasions that I fall into the category of glib-talking, high-flying, never-finishing 'charmers' that the author mentioned in the prose.
It took me a while to understand that my going-off-on-tangents had nothing to do with impatience. It had more to do with me not realizing that the last mile is the hardest. I would start everything with gusto but as soon as I hit a road-block, I would dawdle and eventually lose interest as soon as something new came up.
I now decide a (feasible) finish line in my head before starting a new activity and consciously check myself whenever I feel like I'm about to give up on it. I force myself to look at the finish line until I re-convince myself that I need to cross it before I can even think of giving up.
I am not 'there' yet but I am beginning to see some results and that eggs me on further. :)
Do keep in mind that this letter (essay?) was written in an era when SMS wasn't a thing and getting an education involved (quite literally) crossing your t's and dotting your i's. A keyboard wasn't a thing yet and spell check was something witches and wizards did before their exams.
Things have gotten speedier, and yet, much lazier now - so much that we have begun to rely a fair bit on technology and a common shared understanding of the concepts that unite us into the communities we partake in. Add to that, the exchange of cultures via this great, big melting pot called the internet, and you get a hodge-podge of words, symbols and grammar that we end up loosely calling a language. As with all melting pots, the contents of this one have melded into each other so much that these changes to the contents have (again, literally) stuck!
TL;DR - It was different back then & it certainly is much different now. It really doesn't matter what words (or spellings) you choose; what matters is the thoughts you are trying to convey through your words (and spellings).
Hmm. Looks like the site is suffering a DoS (friendly, I hope?) at this moment
Interestingly, I got this message when navigating to a secondary page:
Cannot GET /get-involved
So true.
I was toying around with your (quite excellent) Yowsup library a little while ago and the one question I always had was this: Since WhatsApp doesn't have an official library, wasn't Yowsup always in the cross-hairs?
I mean, it was only a matter of time before they clamped down and claimed that you were violating section 3.A.iii of the ToS by reverse-engineering the WhatsApp protocol, right?
Don't get me wrong, I would have loved it if Yowsup was allowed as an (unofficial) API - or something like that. However, as a newbie to the world of programming & software development in general, I am trying to understand what was wrong about the DMCA notice. What, in your opinion, should they have done instead?
Slightly OT, but I ran the text your blog post through the TextAnalysis API demo (another link on HN's front-page today) and got a very interesting summary. In fact, I think it captures the soul of your post in the last two/three lines:
An idea will bring you nowhere – you need implementation, focus, a good team, the right environment, luck, etc. And I won’t argue with that – obviously, an idea doesn’t bring you anywhere by itself. But that’s the perspective of the businessman. And that’s all great. Except that it’s not technology.
DISCLAIMER: Not affiliated with AYLIEN, TextAnalysis or the OP of this post. Just a random commenter, that's all.
Django n00bs like me owe a great deal of our learning to Randall. His book, 'The Heroku Hacker's Guide' is an excellent resource for anyone looking to deploy a Django project quickly and cleanly to Heroku.
To that end, he also created a fantastic Django template `django-skel`[0] that uses good industry-standard practices. As a newbie, `django-skel` helped me understand code modularity and the importance of organizing your code in more ways than one.
To top it all, Randall is a thoroughly nice guy to chat with. I'm glad OpenCNAM is growing and I wish it continues to grow for a long, long time to come. :)
Good work! Just a suggestion: You should probably look to collaborate with this guy: https://haveibeenpwned.com/
The two of you together can help us (l)users know when we've been pwned...
Ah, okay. Thanks for the prompt response. Good luck!
Uh, dammit.
I signed up and then realized I hadn't updated my LinkedIn profile in a long, long time. How much will this affect the results?
To be honest, I am quite a lowly foot-soldier in terms of work-experience and, therefore, not expecting too much. Just curious to see how this space develops.
Edit your post and use double-enter to create paragraphs; single-enter is treated as a continuation of paragraph.
HN uses a very sparse markdown format...
Is there a page that explains how this works without needing to log in?
EDIT: Found it: https://treatings.co/about
The infinite scrolling somehow causes the link to be unclickable in my browser. (Latest Chrome + Windows XP in case you were wondering.)
Second question: Why LinkedIn? Why not let me create my own login/profile? Or use Twitter? Or something else?
Aha! So you ARE a spammer... :)
Sorry if I sound like an ass-hat but how do I know you aren't collecting email addresses simply for selling to a spammer? There is nothing on your site that explains what your product does. Heck, there isn't even the standard disclaimer that you won't sell my address to spammers!
I understand the need to keep your idea secret until you launch but I don't understand the need to keep potential users completely in the dark.
The only clue I have to go on is the fish-eyed alphabetical column on the left which makes me think it must have something to do with the contact list. - are you selling me an intelligent PIM, maybe?
Sorry for hijacking this comment thread but I'd like to share a few of my personal experiences in this process.
---------------
As a high-school student, I remember my entire school participated in the early years of this drive. I remember students being assigned specific areas of my town - groups of three to five, assigned an area consisting of a few blocks of multi-storeyed apartments. Each group was asked to canvass and get names of kids under five years of age in every house in their assigned area.
If you were wondering why any of us would bother to put in an honest shift, the collection of said kids' names was 'gamified' to some extent. Moreover, for us kids, it was simply time away from school, i.e. no lessons, no teachers, just us friends going from door-to-door. Schools would be given points based on the accuracy of data. (I am still not sure how they decided this but that's what we were told anyway. It sure helped to keep the lazy miscreants among us on the straight and narrow.) The data collected by the students would then be handed over to the authorities in charge of the vaccination process, who would then draw up a list of vaccination centers.
One of the more interesting things was broadcasting a single, 'target' date every year for mass vaccinations. The government would broadcast this date (typically the second or third Sunday of January) over various media and also conduct last-mile publicity campaigns with a loudspeaker blaring reminders in every area as the 'target' date came closer.
Bear in mind, these vaccines were usually available at government-run clinics and hospitals on any given day of the year but setting a target date ensured that people allocated time out of their schedules. Furthermore, since the target date was always a Sunday, almost everyone could be convinced to make an appearance. That being said, there was an additional arrangement to ensure that those who didn't/couldn't make it to a center on a target date still wouldn't miss out on that all-important dose of vaccine.
As for us students, our contribution to the process did not stop with the collection of data. Since our school was a center for mass-vaccinations, we were expected to sit at the vaccination booths and cross-check the arriving vaccinees (is that a word? Never mind, it is now...) against the lists we created and ensure that every kid on that list got vaccinated. Think elections, but for vaccination.
Furthermore, we were made to go to their houses with volunteers carrying medicines and ensure that kids who couldn't/hadn't made an appearance yet didn't miss out on the vaccine.
I can't remember if any of these efforts earned us extra points on our annual grades but hey, we were happy enough to get 'school-sanctioned loitering time' on a school-day!
<TL;DR> As a school student, my school ensured that I played a small part in the early days of this campaign. While most of us did it for shits and giggles, it is only now that we realize that we played a small part in the process and can feel proud of putting in an honest shift all those years ago.
Credit must go to the people who designed and executed this campaign ceaselessly over the last twenty years. Their efforts have ensured that no child was, indeed, left behind when it came to administering the all-important drops of the polio vaccine.