HN user

mrvir

65 karma

dreamer, programmer, father

Posts1
Comments53
View on HN

I admit the convenience of Facebook. I use it.

But voluntarily giving your contact list and location info, and passing your private conversations via a for-profit data mining machine seems, in principle, not very enlightened.

One day some of that data is going to leak. It's bound to happen.

Chromebox 14 years ago

If this box really is a secure, maintenance free computer, I see a lots of places where it could shine: elementary schools, small business, info kiosks, libraries, my parents ;-)

Even if they could do all that it is still wild guesswork with too many possibilies. And the effectity of that fantasy also assumes that there is endless supply of advertisers from all different industries. The reality is that if, for example, only some dating sites and hosting companies are willing to pay for ads that match your profile then it is only dating and server hosting ads that you will see.

I'm trying bootstrap in my latest project, but have to say was surprised the first time I viewed it with IE. Even with IE9 the navbar and buttons look poor. Any advise?

I wish that, in my twenties, (1) I knew this, and (2) I had the balls to be brutally honest with myself about what my strengths and weaknesses were

I actually agree with the advice on working on your weaknesses early in life, because pushing your limits helps you better understand yourself. I don't think I was dishonest about myself earlier, maybe too idealistic trying to fix some weaknesses that I nowadays consider part of my personality. And I'm not talking about skills here, but more about mental debugging of your emotions, ambitions, relationships etc.

And the irony might be that he gets a company that outwardly looks exactly like he wants. The sheep willing to conform will stay and others will move on. Now I'm not saying anything about productivity, that's another question then.

Seems like he was quite a champ. Far more precious if you can teach your kids to think for themselves and use their wings, than leave them a multi-million dollar company, me thinks.

HTML5 vs Flash 16 years ago

Yes, and I would like to see HTML5 version of that Asteroids demo that would work in IE. I mean a nice demo, but not working in half of the browsers out there.

The Value of Ideas 16 years ago

Yes, provocative illustration, but very entertaining, I admit. The magic trick was to reduce every idea to one word or one sentence. Can be used to make any movie plot sound weird.

Apple & HTML5 16 years ago

Sure, I agree that 2022 sounds absurdly conservative estimate. By then all browsers will support at least HTML8 :-P

But my point was that giving impression that one company already has it all ready is stretching the truth as HTML5 is still a moving target.

Apple & HTML5 16 years ago

Upvoted. You are correct. HTML5 is not yet even approved W3C candidate recommendation.

To be more accurate Apple should have said that it is committed in implementing HTML5 standard, not that it has done it, because at the moment HTML5 is not ready.

From Wikipedia: "Ian Hickson, editor of the HTML5 specification, expects the specification to reach the W3C Candidate Recommendation stage during 2012, and W3C Recommendation in the year 2022 or later. However, many parts of the specification are stable and may be implemented in products"

Web app ideas 16 years ago

IMO (La)TeX output looks professional when printed on paper with a decent laser printer. You need to look very close. Difference is in very small details. I would guess that it has more accurate font face calculations and positioning as every character looks perfect.

Cringely gives good advice would facebook target to be a web service. Seems clear that their first goal is not to be a popular web service but to harvest data. Business wise this makes sense as the potential value of that huge pile of information should surpass the earnings of any subscription site.

Facebook has kept taking two steps forward and one step backwards for the last years. The direction has stayed the same however. On the Washington Post article Mark said: "Sometimes we move too fast", which is totally different than saying "we went to a wrong direction".

Some common sense advice about business plan making by Seth Godin. Nothing new on the list really. Maybe it is his POV from marketing world the he sees a need for more realism. I have a feeling that people reading HN are very down to earth and doing their risk analysis carefully, so maybe advice about hyping your product would be more useful here. YMMV.

Yes, the rumour is out and people have started to question. And it's actually a good thing if people become more cautious about what to share and where.

For IT professionals Internet can be a great opportunity to show our work. Equally anything you share can bite you in some future job interview, for example. Discrimination based on race, religion, sexual orientation, family situation etc. is illegal, so you cannot really ask questions about those topics, but if all that info is easily available online... Now I'm not saying it would be a negative thing to be open about yourself, but I'm sure to monitor what my family is putting online.

So will the police come knocking on my door if I launch a test scan to my Internet Bank site?

Curiosity.... must resist...

[dead] 16 years ago

These blogs will continue beating facebook as long as that gets them a flood of page views from confused/concerned users. FB has a PR problem. If it fails to communicate the intent and vision people will run around seeking the story from elsewhere.