sedev

25 ms·

181.
by sedev 14y ago
I'm happy for the author that he enjoys Android and has reflected on that fact, but he's not making any point with that post. It doesn't really have a reason to exist. It reads like he's answering a question from someone, but redacted the p
182.
by sedev 14y ago
This article seems to miss a very important point: Craigslist basically operates like a nonprofit. Anyone who wants to compete with Craigslist has to have a compelling answer to the question "how do I compete with a company that does not c
183.
by sedev 14y ago
I'll bite: how did that happen?
184.
by sedev 14y ago
It's worth remembering that Kickstarter is ("merely") a way to codify and publicize promises. Keeping promises is no easier than it's ever been.
185.
by sedev 14y ago
I couldn't find this in the article: which court is the decision from? The bio of the judge[1] suggests that it's a superior-court-level decision. This is an annoying omission to me because with decisions like this, it's important to know
186.
by sedev 14y ago
I would bet coffee and doughnuts that it's less that Universal's lawyers believe that than that Universal's executives have ordered the legal team to use anything they can find, no matter how flimsy, to attempt to kneecap Grooveshark an
187.
by sedev 14y ago
That's an important piece of context, thank you for pointing it out. Engineering decisions occur in a cultural context of mere humans making decisions, and we do well to remember that.
188.
by sedev 14y ago
Bingo. That's why I used the "effectively" qualifier - if my toolchain says "oh this is UTF-8," then I should be able to trust that it's for-real, honest-to-goodness, spec-compliant UTF-8. If it's "oh this is the part of UTF-8 that was ea
189.
by sedev 14y ago
No, it's not excusable - the MySQL project had a trivial alternative: don't call it UTF8! The options are simple: implement UTF-8 correctly and call your implementation UTF-8, or implement just the BMP and name accordingly. They did neither
190.
by sedev 14y ago
It's not malicious to build a game or a music app. What I'm saying is that before you hand out tools to do that, you have to at least think about what else those tools can do. Microsoft has been repeatedly burned by this, cf Raymond Chen h
191.
by sedev 14y ago
The market is not working properly: it's not, to use the term of art, clearing. Buyers look at what sellers (domain-squatters) are offering, say "well screw that for a game of toy soldiers!" and buy a substitute good (a green-field domain
192.
by sedev 14y ago
"Platform religion"? That's a bit rich considering that the iOS app store is where developers can make money. I think that's a far, far more powerful motivating factor than "platform religion." The Blackberry had plenty of fervent followe
193.
by sedev 14y ago
"Auto-playing audio and video in the browser is also forbidden, which prevents any sort of online music, or video app from being created, among other things." It also prevents MySpace. I consider that a Good Thing overall - I remember the
194.
by sedev 14y ago
I've been tempted to get ahead of the game and start wearing facial-recognition-jamming face-paint just as a fashion statement. Unfortunately, for this particular use case, the makeup makes you memorable in its own way.
195.
by sedev 14y ago
Thank you for the correction, I said TSA when I meant DHS. I agree that they don't have the power to seize your VPS at the border: what I said is that they have the power to seize hardware that you have on your person, which is a non-trivia
196.
by sedev 14y ago
This makes me think that an analog to steganography could be a fruitful direction for privacy efforts to take - not looking like nothing, but looking like something unremarkable. If I remember correctly, Tor is already working on something
197.
by sedev 14y ago
I suspect that the author wants an anonymous VPS so that he has a computer that's not subject to physical seizure, e.g. TSA thugs grabbing it whilst entering or leaving the US. Plus the convenience of being able to access your VPS from anyw
198.
by sedev 14y ago
Citation needed. How on earth is bad discovery beneficial to Apple? With the size and profitability of their app store, they have the most to gain from good discoverability. That's why they acquired Chomp. Smart money says that the acquisit
199.
by sedev 14y ago
There's an important difference that I think you're eliding. People who use Apple devices and services, are Apple's customers; people who use Facebook services are Facebook's product. The former are not always treated ideally, but the money
200.
by sedev 14y ago
The takeaway lesson for me is that user-generated content is incompatible with advertising. Now, as a caveat, I'm the sort of person who thinks that modern advertising is 99% toxic sludge in the mental environment: I am firmly in the Kall
201.
by sedev 14y ago
A wire is a commitment, an adapter is a training wheel. The intent is for you to grow out of needing it. Apple's guesses about what you'll eventually stop needing have been pretty good so far (e.g. ditching floppy drives, going to USB-prima
202.
by sedev 14y ago
I argue that Silicon Valley startup culture's existence and profitability disproves the point you're attempting to make here. Haven't we all read pg's "Beating the Averages"? Haven't we all heard a hundred startup founders say "I used the t
203.
by sedev 14y ago
The article also hits one of my pet peeves about BLS stats: referring to "the unemployment rate" without qualification. U3 and U6 unemployment are distinctly different things - the main difference is that the average person's idea of "unem
204.
by sedev 14y ago
I'm using NoScript because JavaScript is * a privilege, not a right * a huge security vulnerability * a huge privacy vulnerability You gotta earn epsilon trust to get me to whitelist your site for JS. If your site is 100% broken with JS o
205.
by sedev 14y ago
Personally, I have notifications turned on because I aggressively filter incoming things like newsletters so that things I don't have to care about immediately, don't hit the Inbox and generate a notification. So a phone-buzz for me usually
206.
by sedev 14y ago
Unfortunately this is typical of the Wall Street Journal: if ever one wants a lesson in how to spot bias in the media, reading the WSJ's editorial output is always good for a quick refresher.
207.
by sedev 14y ago
I read it as an accusation, basically - "the FBI is effectively doing the bidding of the MPAA/RIAA."
208.
by sedev 14y ago
Sure, that's the law - but that is not the practice, that's not the facts on the ground. The moral panics over drugs and terrorism have expanded police powers such that it is de facto possible for the police forces to just steal from you.
209.
by sedev 14y ago
Yes it is: and like a number of such things, it stems from the War On (Non-White People Who Use) Drugs. The incentives regarding property seizure in narcotics cases are even more perverse, and lead to brazen de facto theft.
210.
by sedev 14y ago
I'd never heard of Spreedly! Thank you for pointing that out: it makes this project just the tiniest bit more likely to replace my day job. :)

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