Irregardless

To say it is any more or less prestigious than winning Monaco is a purely subjective manner.

Of course it's subjective, and anyone who would declare a particular race "the greatest in the world" is obviously full of it. Someone just couldn't resist stroking his own ego a little more. I know DHH has a reputation for being arrogant and opinionated, but this post was over the top.

The idea that the opinion of motorsport fans in the southern US has any weight is laughable. They are generally the most ignorant of other forms of motorsport and least well informed motorsport fans.

I bet you couldn't walk 10 feet at a NASCAR event without tripping over someone who could fix your car. I'd be amazed if you could find a single person like that sitting in the stands of a Formula 1 Grand Prix event.

Oh, you're so awesome it hurts? Sorry to hear about your rich people problems.

the greatest motor race in the world: 24 hours of Le Mans

The entire southern half of the U.S. begs to differ. Personally, I'd go with the Monaco Grand Prix if we're talking cars. If we're talking about "motor races" in general, it'd definitely be the Isle of Man TT. Hell, any one of the 18 yearly Moto GP races is probably better than Le Mans.

"Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him." -- Cardinal Richelieu

> The move today will affect every part of the San Francisco social gaming company . . .

Zynga is a gaming company? That's news to me -- I thought they were still in the business of tricking people into paying for the privilege to click things faster.

Is it any surprise that wasn't enough to sustain a company?

Right, also trying to reinforce the fact that we're talking about actual gameplay testing and not something code related (a lot of people might assume the latter since this is on HN).

I'm sure testing games is far more demanding and tedious than kids imagine it to be.

One guy had one bad experience as a gameplay tester, and now it's time for all gaming contractors to strike? That's a pretty big leap.

This sounds like a typical story of poor management in any industry: Lack of communication, failure to follow through on performance review policy, hostile work environment, inability to recognize and allocate talent, etc. Then again, we're relying entirely on this guy's self-assessment for that last part. This bit in particular set off some alarm bells for me:

> I took the job by the horns and ran with it. I did everything I could to stand out. I asked a ton of questions about code, the debug, the game modes, everything. I talked to all the producers and developers and level designers I could to ensure we were on the same page and also so they would know my name.

Despite his good intentions, he might have inadvertently gone too far and turned himself into "that guy". You know, the one who people see coming from a mile away and think "Shit, here he comes to bug me with a million pointless questions again." Ambition is a good thing, but sometimes they just want you to do the job they hired you for and stop distracting other employees, and those other employees only have so much patience for the new guy who keeps asking questions.

> You're either a black/grey hat or a white hat. Either you're a white hat and believe selling to malicious hackers is fundamentally wrong and you wouldn't do it at any price, or you're a black hat waiting for the right price.

> The purpose of reward schemes is to reward white hats, not to compete with the bad guys for the black hat discoveries.

How many other industries are there where individuals with valuable skills routinely volunteer to help multi-billion dollar corporations despite no guarantee of reward?

These people are doing work that typically warrants a six-figure salary or several hundred dollars per hour, and they're doing it almost entirely because it's the right thing to do. And Facebook should reward them well enough that they'll continue doing it, not only because it's good for the security of Facebook and its users but because it's the right thing to do.

I don't know how much Facebook has given to the other 65 people who disclosed exploits this year, but it will be innocent users who suffer most if they all share Yvo's sentiment.

Less money = less incentive = fewer disclosures = less secure.

Facebook is abusing the good will of white hats by offering such trivial sums, and they're reducing the security of their platform in the process. They have how many $100k+ engineers who couldn't find this? And how much does the average security breach cost per record, $100-$200? This exploit alone could have exposed them to millions in losses at that cost.

This is what turns white hats into black hats, and I wouldn't blame the guy for selling his next exploit rather than disclosing it. A famous guy once said "we create our own demons". And then the guy in Iron Man 3 said it. And now I'm saying it.

I'd be extremely hesitant to trust these guys with a single cent right now. They requested $400k in their last Kickstarter and received over $3.3 million, but that project (now called Broken Age) is STILL overbudget and delayed [1]. They're funneling profits from other games into it already, and now they're asking for more money so they can work on a new game? Or is this just their way of getting a much needed cash infusion after all other avenues have failed, so they can fund their ailing project and then worry about this one later?

All this on top of the fact that their most recently released game, The Cave, was mediocre at best [2].

[1] http://www.gameinformer.com/games/broken_age/b/pc/archive/20...

> Broken Age was originally planned to be completed in April, but according to the documentary the schedule has been extended until September. The costs of a lengthened development have forced Double Fine to search for more money. Double Fine still welcomes supporters that missed the Kickstarter deadline, but in the documentary Isa Stamos, director of product development, affirms that the studio either has to dramatically increase funding or reduce the scope of the game. In Episode 8, Double Fine’s vice president of business development, Justin Bailey, reveals that profits from the release of Brütal Legend for PC will almost entirely feed into Broken Age.

> Despite the desire to stick within the confines of the Kickstarter money, Double Fine is facing the reality many developers face in the middle of production. Facing setbacks and asking publishers for more time or money is common in the video game industry, but possibly going over budget with loads of crowd-funded money is new territory.

[2] http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/the-cave

> She graduated in 1994 with more than $100,000 of debt. Within three years, she had one daughter, a surprise set of twins, and was earning less than $50,000 per year.

3 kids while earning < $50k and trying to pay off > $100k in debt? If that's not the embodiment of America's dire lack of financial and family planning skills, then I don't know what is.

> "I’ve stressed to my daughter the importance of not borrowing any money."

Maybe she should just teach them to make responsible decisions instead? Borrowing money can be the right thing to do, but you need to carefully measure the costs and benefits.

Also, it would help not to have 3 kids when you're up to your ears in debt and only earning enough money to support yourself.

Why? They just alienated gamers while showing non-gamers that they've been overpaying for a glorified Netflix machine.

I've been a diehard Xbox fan since I first got my hands on the original, but this makes me want to switch back to Playstation.

> He clearly shows that he includes basic arithmetic in his definition.

He mentioned arithmetic just to show that he's not being 100% literal about the "I can't do math" statement.

That's mainly directed at the person who wrote the essay (a math professor) and others like him who blame the students rather than themselves. I think he should be examining the state of math education in this country rather than chastizing the people it has failed.

People who say "I can't do math" are lazy? Sorry, but I think that's a gross oversimplification of the issue (which is also evidenced by the comparison to physical exercise) and the two assumptions fundamental to that opinion are just plain wrong. Namely:

> So what do people actually mean when they say that they can’t “do” math? Usually they are really stating one of two things. First, that they don’t like mathematics. Secondly, that mathematics is more difficult for them than other subjects, and that it takes a great deal more effort on their part to learn it.

He conveniently chose the two reasons that are easiest to dismiss (irony, anyone?). What he fails to account for is the fact that math education is so poor that many people don't truly understand what math is. Beyond arithmetic and algebra, they think it's some really complicated stuff with big numbers and funny symbols that geeky people with glasses do -- it's practically a foreign language to them, except it has a reputation for being much harder.

Why is this? If I had to guess, I'd say it's based on the fact that math involves a lot of critical thinking and critical thinking is very difficult to teach. Those who attempt to do so often do it very poorly, which leads students to the false belief that math is extremely difficult. On the other hand, it's very easy to teach someone to memorize formulas and plug in numbers, so that's what we're most often taught in math class. That's good enough to get us through the standardized test so we can graduate from high school, but memorizing formulas and plugging in numbers is not "doing math". So I believe many people are completely justified in saying "I can't do math".

What's more, people who "can do math" should be taking the blame for those who say "I can't do math" rather than using pointless semantics to wag a finger at them.

Zynga was once insanely successful as well, making north of $2.3 million per day with a 47% profit margin: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870351550457614...

And then their profits dropped 95% year-over-year... But that's the nature of mobile gamers and mobile games. The players are extremely fickle, and the games lack the depth and complexity necessary to keep people engaged over long periods of time. People flock from one fad to the next.

So far, I don't think we've seen anything but a bunch of one hit wonders in the mobile gaming industry. Draw Something, Words with Friends, Fruit Ninja, etc. Maybe Supercell will be different, but it doesn't seem likely.

I'm not sure if this is more of a testament to their corporate strategy or the effectiveness of the freemium model for mobile games.

It's amazing how difficult it is to sell an iOS game for anything more than $1.99. But, if you give them the game for free and let them exchange real money for strategic advantages in-game, they'll fork over a small fortune. Supercell is essentially selling $2.5 million/day in "gems" for only 2 games, gems that people then trade for resources or the ability to do things faster (like building units or structures).

A user named 'Panda' on the Supercell forums claims to have spent over $6,000 on gems in Clash of Clans[1]. Based on the responses regarding how quickly he was able to reach the top of the rankings, it seems to be true. Many other players in the thread report having spent $20-$40 on gems.

[1] http://forum.supercell.net/showthread.php/827-How-much-money...

> By "Internet Famous" he is not actually famous to the greater internet

So he's internet famous but not internet famous?

> . . .but convincingly appears so. Obviously if put to the test, the crack experts on the internet could see through his BS via Google

And it's convincing but not convincing?

I think you're being extremely generous by saying it would take an "expert" to see through his paper-thin facade.

"Internet famous" still involves actual humans being aware of your existence. This guy just bought some Twitter followers, posted a fake Wikipedia article, and then arbitrarily declared his alter ego internet famous. Color me unimpressed.

He could have at least tried to do something with this alter ego to test if his manufactured "fame" could withstand the slightest bit of human scrutiny. Instead, all he proved is that websites like Kred use faulty algorithms to measure social media influence.

At least we learned one thing, though: Kred is preying on giant companies like Procter & Gamble and Budweiser that still can't grasp the concept of social media.

That's good to hear -- I own the previous Nexus and skipped the Nexus 4 mostly because of the customer service complaints. Still, it will take a lot more stories like yours to repair that aspect of their reputation, especially for people (like me) who highly value customer service and don't buy anything without a warranty.

Also, that doesn't address the other side of the problem, which is the potential lack of support from Glass application developers. What happens when Glass OS 2.0 is released and half your favorite apps break but the devs have no incentive to update them? This has happened to me several times even with paid apps in the Android store, where the devs have actual cash motivating them to get an update out quickly.

It's a little naive on Google's part to assume people will create AND maintain tons of useful, quality applications just out of sheer enjoyment or the goodness of their hearts.

So we can expect a bunch of half-assed software with no support? Awesome.

At least with paid apps we have a reasonable expectation of customer service and timely updates. Google's customer service is largely nonexistent, which they justify by pointing out that their products are "free". Even with products like the Nexus 4, their support was awful [1]. Simple things like updating order statuses were somehow far beyond their capabilities. With free software and Google hardware, I can't even imagine the nightmare one would have to endure to get help resolving a Glass issue.

[1] http://phandroid.com/2012/11/19/nexus-4-fatal-flaw-google-cu...

Wow, that's quite a fortune they'd be raking in if people are actually paying $100,000 per day for promotion.

I agree with most people that paid app promotions are almost universally bad, but the selective enforcement of trivial guidelines by Apple is still disturbing.

There's no better way to enact complete control over a population than to make sure they're all in violation of at least one of your obscure rules at any given time. Then you can ruin any of them just for looking at you funny, all while hiding behind the guise of "regulations".

This story isn't adding up so far.

> But sources close to [Apple] say it was more than a little troubled that AppGratis was pushing a business model that appeared to favor developers with the financial means to pay for exposure.

http://allthingsd.com/20130408/confirmed-apple-kicks-appgrat...

That's the closest thing I can find to a "confirmation" that AppGratis was accepting cash in exchange for a higher rank in their app. They didn't confirm or deny that in their "Here's the Full Story" blog post, nor does it say anything about their business model on their website.

In any case, that supposedly has nothing to do with the two official reasons for which they were most recently banned. First is 2.25:

> Apps that display Apps other than your own for purchase or promotion in a manner similar to or confusing with the App Store will be rejected.

But they had encountered that problem before and cleared it with Apple. So the only new one is 5.6:

> Apps cannot use Push Notifications to send advertising, promotions, or direct marketing of any kind.

Seems a little odd to remove an app with 12 million users over such a minor detail when it could be resolved in a few seconds -- just remove push notifications. Does Apple ever give official responses on these issues?

> Dr. Ying-Hui Fu, a human geneticist and neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco, is part of a team that has found genetic mutations in short sleepers.

> Unfortunately, she says, if it's not in your genes, you're out of luck.

I'm going to have to trust the doctor on this one...

Yes, as they said, roughly 1% of the population has this "gift". Although they failed to mention that it's most likely genetic: http://www.npr.org/2011/04/16/135450214/eight-is-too-much-fo...

Who cares? Would you want to date a girl who uses a gossip app anyway? No. Hell no.

If this helps steer the superficial airheads in another direction, I'd only have one thing to say to Chong: "Thanks!" Saves us the trouble of finding out the hard way, at least.

One problem: He assumes that the market is being adequately served, i.e. that supply and demand are relatively equal. What if tuners have a 1 year backlog and they're charging triple what you'd pay in other cities because there aren't nearly enough of them? This one piece of information could drastically affect the accuracy of any response.

Not exactly relevant when all you're concerned with is determining whether or not someone can "estimate the answer without any specialised knowledge". But, then again, why would you only be concerned with something so trivial?

Of course. It was worth reading just for this gem:

> Bitcoin’s programming ensures there can never be more than 21m coins in existence. Part of the “bubble” effect, no doubt, is linked to a realisation that we are quickly approaching that limit. According to the latest data from Bitcoin charts, for example, there are currently 10,986,175 bitcoins in issuance. Yes, we still have some room to go, but given exponential dynamics, the fact that we’ve reached the “half-way point” in supply is no doubt meaningful.

> Here's an article critical of Bitcoin that does better than recasting opinions as facts: http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2013/04/03/1425292/the-problem-wi...

From that author's biography:

> Everything she knows about economics stems from a childhood fascination with ancient economies. . .

> She studied Ancient History at UCL, and has a masters in Journalism from what was then the London College of Printing.

I hope this is just an elaborate troll, since this was your criticism of Denninger:

> He has no particular authority regarding economics (he's not a trained economist so far as I know)

> I have no idea why his thoughts on Bitcoin would be worth spreading on HN.

Ad hominem attacks are somehow better? One would hope the crowd on HN is mature enough not to be swayed by those...

It's popular because he made valid, well-supported points. If you disagree with his points, why not attack those instead of Denninger himself?

Not that that should detract from his credibility, since he abandoned the movement when it was "hijacked" by the Republicans:

> However, Denninger later expressed concern with the Tea Party movement, stating in an October 20, 2010 blog post that Republicans had hijacked the movement and perverted its original goals to the standard Republican concerns of "guns, gays and God".