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chbrown

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Natural language semanticist, computational linguist, web/mobile app developer. Potentially available for projects along those lines.

henrian.com · io@henrian.com

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iTerm2 3.0's tmux integrations take a little bit of work to set up locally, but you only have to do that once, and as long as your remote servers have a reasonably recent version of tmux (1.8, I believe), just replace filippo's `mosh HOST -- tmux a` with `ssh HOST -t 'tmux -CC new -A -s main'` (no mosh required).

After frustratedly fixing an unsolvable Rubik's cube over Christmas break (my dad thought it'd be funny to "solve" it by peeling off the labels and putting them back on, but got tired halfway through and left it in an unsolvable configuration), I'd love to see what their robot does if you give it an unsolvable cube.

Interesting proposition though; can Google's search algorithm's ranking be construed as libel or something legal like that? Has anyone ever sued Google for lost business, and won?

Refugees Welcome 11 years ago

I'm sure they did a lot of user testing and decided that their Javascript-powered scrolling mechanism was a better user experience than the default browser behavior of just moving up and down proportionally to your mouse wheel.

It said that before, too — I was paraphrasing. "humb.ly" is a more trustable name than, say, "Megaupload", but they can say whatever they want.

What I want is some assurance like "The EFF has complete read-access to our platform and maintains a continuous independent audit of these services to verify that we comply with our own privacy assurances." The EFF is probably not the organization to do such a thing, but that's kind of what I'm looking for.

tl;dr from the FAQ:

Q: "Why should I trust you?" A: "Because you should! We're good people! Honest!"

I'd love to trust a service like this, but there's no credible effort to actually establish that trust.

My institution subscribes to Nature, and using my library's proxy to access the Nature website, I can use the "Share/bookmark" menu to generate links like http://rdcu.be/bKk4, http://rdcu.be/bKlc, http://rdcu.be/bKld, and http://rdcu.be/bKli, which can be viewed in the browser (or maybe only because I also just installed the ReadCube app?).

The articles linked to above span several months, but it's generating serial links, so I can only assume that it's able to track visits back to the subscriber and/or my university account.

The ReadCube HTML5 reader looks nice, but does not work with JavaScript disabled (no surprise there). It uses JavaScript to override text selection (disabling copy&paste), but after a little meddling with the developer tools and element inspector, you can find a decently near ancestor to the text and copy the DOM as html. Stick that into a new file and you can select (and copy) the text without too much further hassle.

The DOM is awkward and split up kind of like a PDF (selecting a range of text goes haywire in unpredictable cases), but in comparing the HTML DOM hierarchy to the text object structure in the original PDF (which, as a subscriber, I can download), I found no obvious similarities, so I'm guessing they aren't translating the PDF to HTML directly.

It makes me sad that asking Google to fix their problem is the best solution Goldman Sachs can come up with. A few other options off the top of my head:

* DDoS the gmail account in question with spam, particularly spam that looks like it contains confidential information.

* Create a clever job ad on reddit, advertising a GS position in IT Security division by tracking down an email user supposedly played by a GS confederate, and then provide the gmail account in the ad

* Blackmail the unintended recipient, perhaps by sending the sort of data it's illegal in the U.S. to even own

* Mock the "From" header for thousand of typical spam messages with the gmail account address, send them to destinations that are sure to pass through Spamhaus & co.'s filters

* Fill the user's inbox to capacity; e.g., sign up for Quora with the gmail address in question

Certainly on the gray hat side of things, but asking Google to delete an email isn't exactly kosher to begin with.

I wasn't there for the WWDC 2008 presentation, but in the article's linked snippet Altman's collars are definitely not popped. Google images has plenty of reference images for properly popped collars, reassuringly framed as motivational posters.

He promised double-blind trials, but then ran a single-blind trial, and only reluctantly single-blind. And he didn't report preferences, but only that his sample could distinguish between Kit Kats. Science, man! Where's the love?

About 8 miles less accurate than MaxMind -- 11 miles wrong vs. Maxmind's 3. I'm always curious: what is the provenance of services like this one / MaxMind — my ISP? Some past inadvertant GPS-enabled requests that leak out?

I love hearing Wolfram give talks (I went to his Elements intro at the SF Maker's Fair, right after the iPad came out), and his blog posts; I get sucked in, thinking--- this genius, he thinks of everything!

Then I try to find the "Redo" button in Mathematica and I reconsider.

I don't think "tumbles" accurately describes "declines to the price it was two weeks ago", particularly since no one used the word "skyrockets" for the last two weeks' rise (it didn't), or some similarly exciting terminology.