HN user

mdpane

154 karma
Posts2
Comments14
View on HN

For most of the iPod's lifespan it was not the best product on the market, it was just the best marketed.

I wouldn't say it was just better marketed, although that is true. It was also better designed, both in its hardware and software. An iPod in your hands felt and looked great and the scroll wheel made it intuitive to use. Anyone could easily pick it up and check out what you had in your library.

Before I had one, I had an iRiver iHP-120[0], which had a plethora of features an iPod didn't have. But it was ridiculously hard to use if you didn't know what you were doing.

[0] http://edmundstarbanks.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/iriverihp...

Flappy Bird MMO 12 years ago

To write a secure online multiplayer game in javascript, the server would have to assume the client has been compromised by default and verify everything server-side. This wouldn't work for anything fast paced, but it'd suffice for RPGs and puzzle games.

For example, in an RPG, a client says it's moved 5 tiles north. The server receives it, but before broadcasting it to other players, the server would have to read the map and make sure it's valid (e.g. there's nothing in the way).

There was a post a bit back (which you might be referencing) about almost this exact situation, except it was about black hat SEO dramatically backfiring. Specifically, businesses were asking bloggers and news sites to delete spam comments that linked back to the sites.

I believe that would be this great write up on the current situation: http://www.theawl.com/2013/12/the-new-spammer-panic

It was double that, actually: $1.65 billion. But the point remains valid, that was some incredible foresight on Google's part, even if everyone at the time thought it was a ridiculous amount.