cduan

19 ms·

121.
by cduan 17y ago
A lot of HN readers appear to place the blame on the system engineers rather than the kid. Some go so far as to say that the kid did a good thing in teaching the engineers a lesson. The implicit principle seems to be that unwanted intrusion
122.
by cduan 17y ago
Generally, if you have an idea and are wondering if any patents would interfere with it, you can ask a lawyer (pick one who knows about patents) to conduct a "right to practice" search. They will look through the existing patents to see wha
123.
by cduan 17y ago
You know that old saw about your friend putting running shoes on as an angry bear approaches--he doesn't have to outrun the bear, he just has to outrun you? This password hashing is kind of like that. Sure it's easy to break. But if you're
124.
by cduan 17y ago
A few more: * Lectures let you see how well your audience is getting it (assuming you're lecturing to an audience). So you can tell what's making sense and what's not. * You can talk faster than you can write. In fact, in my experience, I c
125.
by cduan 17y ago
The analogy I prefer is that Unicode-encoding is like network protocol layers. In a (very simplified) network, the goal is to present an interface of a pipeline for sending a continuous stream of bytes. To achieve this, you have a protocol
126.
Ask YC: Favorite email parsing library?
18 points by cduan 17y ago|5 comments
127.
by cduan 17y ago
There is an interview where he explains what he likes about Emacs: I have special Emacs modes to help me classify all the tens of thousands of papers and notes in my files, and special Emacs keyboard shortcuts that make bookwriting a littl
128.
by cduan 17y ago
I would say that there are at least two reasons, in addition to those in the article, why a Googlable question is still a good question. 1. Internal memory is a pretty good predictor of sincere interest in a subject. Ever notice how basebal
129.
by cduan 17y ago
I liked it too, and that makes it relevant enough for me.
130.
by cduan 17y ago
More like good design practices avoid massive refactoring. The way the article puts it, choosing the wrong legal structure is like writing your webapp in hackish Perl, realizing it's becoming popular, and then scrapping your code and redoin
131.
by cduan 17y ago
Interface tries to intelligently rearrange itself, and ends up annoying user? Reminds me of that old MS Office "feature" of hiding unused menu items, which bugged me like crazy.
132.
by cduan 17y ago
I've been happily using Gitosis for quite a while now. It's like Github without the web interface (so it manages central repositories and user authentication). I recall it took a bit of finagling to set it up, but I haven't had a single iss
133.
by cduan 17y ago
I really hope they printed the cover on papyrus or something, or else the paper, exposed to UV rays as necessary to degrade the ink, will fall apart first...
134.
by cduan 17y ago
I'm always surprised how many people think that the introductory solitary sentence "Wrong" is an appropriate response to a comment. Particularly so when the original comment is hypothesizing about someone's opinion of something (whether App
135.
by cduan 17y ago
Many, if not most, of these factors are strongly correlated with wide income disparity and particularly greater poverty levels. Greed, obviously, but also those pertaining to crime rates (envy, wrath), arguably lust, and potentially glutton
136.
by cduan 17y ago
When you summarize the article this way (and I think this is a correct summary), it's pretty obvious that Declan is misrepresenting Lessig's current position. Declan is probably right that this was once Lessig's view. Larry saw the fright
137.
by cduan 17y ago
A J.D. is considered a terminal degree (there is no further degree beyond a J.D.; the S.J.D. is considered a different track), so technically you do have a doctorate. But ethical rules are questionable as to whether you can call yourself a
138.
by cduan 17y ago
For those interested, this is basically the theory of law professor Cass Sunstein in his book Republic.com. He calls this problem the "daily me," the idea being that content can become too personalized to one's views, resulting in irrationa
139.
by cduan 17y ago
The basic error of this article is that it ignores the prisoner's dilemma problem. The basic idea behind that problem, as a reminder, is that parties acting in their best interest for themselves will, in certain situations, select a subopti
140.
by cduan 17y ago
The case is not about clickwrap agreements. Footnote 8 reads: > In light of our "fair use" analysis, we decline to address the question of whether the terms of the Clickwrap Agreement created an enforceable contract between plaintiffs a
141.
by cduan 18y ago
They can't, really. This case focused at times on the fact that you could never actually see the papers on the website. Google wants to display content of books, so this case is inapposite.
142.
by cduan 18y ago
I'm actually kind of torn over the result in this case. On the one hand, it's great that the court adopted an expansive view of fair use. In particular, I'm glad that the court strongly approved Pierre Leval's transformativeness test, which
143.
by cduan 18y ago
A great example of a readable and effective contract I've found is the terms of use to the Patently-O blog: http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2006/01/patentlyo_blog_.html It does a nice job of using the formal legal language but also introd
144.
by cduan 18y ago
So...if he had gotten the code right, he would have taken this job and his current job? Because that's the only way his five lines of code are worth $20,000 apiece.
145.
by cduan 18y ago
I actually attribute much of my writing skill to a college philosophy class. The reason was that our class paper assignments were not about arguing philosophical points. Our assignments were to summarize the arguments of philosophers. No pe
146.
by cduan 18y ago
Though they did measure wrinkles around the eyes as well, which is generally a sign of a genuine smile. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smile#Duchenne_smile (Yes, you can fake that as well, but I doubt enough people know about that part to d
147.
by cduan 18y ago
Contrary to the article's suggestion, retaining copyright does "prevent bastardization of the standard by someone else who tries to publish a different version of it." One of the exclusive rights of copyright is the right to make derivative
148.
by cduan 18y ago
Perhaps we are forgetting that Amazon is a victim as well. If Amazon is unable to seek punishment against malicious users of its site, it is forced to spend its time and money patching security holes and preventing future attacks, in additi
149.
by cduan 18y ago
The thesis of this article would seem to be that instilling a sense of approachability toward a subject is a key component to learning the subject. The two stories presented comport with this thesis. Mr. Condom breaks the taboo about sex ta
150.
by cduan 18y ago
Perhaps it's just me, but I've always found the that/which distinction fairly clear and relevant. Consider the following two sentences: 1. Don't eat the apples, which are rotten. 2. Don't eat the apples that are rotten. To me, the first one

More ›