jedsmith · HackerTrans

jedsmith

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Submissions

Randall Munroe infographic puts radiation dosages in perspective

imgs.xkcd.com

22 pointsby jedsmithil y a 15 ans1 comments

Python gevent suddenly switches from libevent to libev

bitbucket.org

12 pointsby jedsmithil y a 15 ans1 comments

IPv4 is depleted: Final five blocks allocated to registries

mailman.nanog.org

241 pointsby jedsmithil y a 15 ans105 comments

"Significant" NRO/ICANN announcement regarding IPv4 on Thursday

nro.net

2 pointsby jedsmithil y a 15 ans2 comments

The end of IPv4: 39/8 and 106/8 allocated to APNIC

computerworld.com

1 pointsby jedsmithil y a 15 ans0 comments

Remote vulnerability in ICQ 7's automatic updater

securityfocus.com

1 pointsby jedsmithil y a 16 ans0 comments

comments

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

They have their own compiler for a custom VBScript derivative. If there's no C anywhere in it, I'd be surprised, but I am operating without knowledge of its implementation or output.

Edit: So what did I do wrong here? I admitted that I'm shooting in the dark, admitted that I'd be surprised if my hypothesis was true, and had absolutely no knowledge of who the person I'm replying to is. It's certainly not on his profile.

I put forth an incorrect assertion, a couple comments corrected me and I was happy to learn this insight, but my comment is already -1 because I'm what, not contributing to the conversation? Or because I was wrong? Do you have to vote on everything?

It's really interesting to me that HN whines daily about the decline in comment quality, then turns around and grays this comment. Decline of HN, indeed, downvote everyone unless they're correct or a valued member of the community. After yesterday's observations I figured I'd give it one last go, but now I just hope this community dies the hypocritical death it deserves.

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

This isn't a C-specific problem; of course people are going to be more relaxed in their comfort zone. If you asked me to write a Web server in Python, I'd be a lot more relaxed about it than if you asked me to do the same in Forth. There's a reason nothing changed when he dropped C (what goes unsaid: is he putting C in the job description?).

Joel's observation about pointers is dead-on, but I've personally beat that horse on HN in the past and will spare everyone a greatest hits anthology.

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

Thank you. I looked for it and couldn't find it, and actually did mean yours.

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

You're not the only one that feels that way. Sadly, the elitism implied by "wow, our community sucks now" is overlooked by everyone practicing it.

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

Ah, but neither does yours!

Why does the mediocrity apply to the comment you're replying to, but not your own? Your comment is dripping with snark and someone called you on it (thankfully). I actually think your comment is shittier than the one you're replying to, because you put yourself on a pedestal of telling the rest of us what to do.

Was that comment at the top of the discussion before you snarked it to oblivion? Probably not. It was most likely already in the deep hell of very light gray, and your content-free comment just made it worse. Calling the kettle black, in my opinion.

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

That's your definition of quality, and I'm glad you shared it, but disheartened that you consider it the one true quality.

Reading your second sentence strictly, we can infer that to you, quality means (a) expert-level familiarity with a linked article, (b) insightful -- difficult to generalize because insight is different for different people, or (c) full of interesting content.

Of the three of those points, only one of them isn't dependent on the perspective, knowledge level, or interests of the reader. What is insightful to me might be common knowledge to you. What is insightful to you might be tediously stupid to me. What is interesting to you might be boring to me. On, and on, and on.

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

This really bugs me. What defines mediocre to you? We're defining the problem in relatives. I mean, look at the exchange that just happened:

> Comments are getting worse.

>> What is worse?

> Comments are overwhelmingly mediocre.

So, I ask, what is mediocre?

Comments are the thoughts of human beings using your system, and there's no technological or psychological means to have any semblance of control over them. Their perceived quality is a direct reflection of the community you have. Any attempt to "fix" perceived quality is going to divide your community, and any disruption or improvement to the community is going to indirectly adjust perceived quality.

Just like none of us writes like Thomas Jefferson these days and a number of words have fallen out of favor, so has your community evolved and a new definition of "average comment" must be found. This is all a relative game, anyway; a comment that you call mediocre I might find to be a golden nugget of awesome, and why should my opinion matter any less?

As an aside, I wish I had a dollar for every suggested technological fix to the declining-comment problem. Based on how this thread is shaping up, I'd be doing better than my 401(k).

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

Your comment is ironic given the comment that you started with.

I am speaking from the perspective of improving HN, so I'm startled (should I be?) to find that the first reply is an admitting that the community will eventually split apart.

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

That your last parenthetical is necessary to have an opinion about the direction here is telling, to say the least.

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

Standing my ground.

Common sentiment is now comments are declining in quality. Wherever that came from, that's now parroted fairly often and is undoubtedly planted in the back of everybody's head as they go about their business. That cannibalizes some comments, because people now think "am I contributing to a decline?". That makes people more inclined to snark, to discourage others from adding to the decline. This is the exact sort of thing I watch happen all day long in the comments now.

Take one recent example. Someone quoted a highlight from a linked article because it was humorous, and you could have missed it[1]. They presented no original thought on it themselves, they simply quoted it verbatim. Some asshole came along and berated him for it, as if he'd committed some kind of grievous sin. The fact is, I enjoyed the quote in question, and I upvoted him because I'm glad somebody else noticed. Worse comments have happened, but now there's such a fixation with "quality" that people are starting to up the snark. Which adds to the very problem we're trying to fix. Look at that entire thread.

The rub is that rather than focus on opportunities for improving going forward, this community has an inane fascination with returning to the way things were. Your thread was too late, I'm afraid, as the negativity has accelerated any decline that exists.

You're dead-on; HN is reverting to the mean. This navelgazing lament about the times that were is setting the pace for the future evolution of HN, though. The high-karma users have spent so much time wondering how to get back to the past -- a now completely unattainable goal due to growth, I'm sorry -- that there has been immeasurable lost opportunity on focusing on where to go from here.

I'm not sure that technological improvements are going to fix it, either. Even if the negative trend is as pronounced as believed (and I don't think it is), acknowledging it and spending countless comments focusing on it has cost precious time in reversing it.

Rather than embracing the inevitable evolution, understanding it, and finding ways to make the evolution more positive, we've established blood-curdling fear at the mere prospect of evolution. Now, that glacial evolution is sliding along on a trail of fear instead of a trail of positive outlook.

[1]: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2437486

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

What I haven't seen anybody acknowledge yet is that "critics" includes everyone who tiredly mourns comment quality. Everyone.

Depressingly, HN would rather front page an article about personal growth than admit that maybe, just maybe, all of this meta bitching is setting the tone. That's from the top down and I partially, and with respect, blame pg for carrying the flag of comments suck -- instead of taking an opportunity to turn common sentiment around.

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

It's amusing how you went from "you're misunderstanding me," admitting that there might have been a mistake, to "you failed to fact check". I'm willing to admit that I'm wrong, be educated by others, and learn from my mistakes because it does appear that I misunderstood you; when you're an abrasive shit, though, I'm not really inclined to give you the time of day. I gave you one pass to communicate like a reasonable human being, because you're obviously aware of interesting information that I'd like to know, but you are now a waste of my time.

I'm really tired of bending over backwards to be nice to people on HN. A few threads of arrogant snark like this in the last 24 hours, and I'm really stretching thin on patience. Now I see what the long-term users are on about.

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

If you have a day job, look for the problems that your day job has to solve. Undoubtedly, these problems will be echoed at other companies like yours (and maybe even not like yours), and you have an opportunity there. You might have even been able to work on solving the problem, so you already have a leg up when you generalize it for others by knowing what to expect.

I'm practicing this at the company I work for, and I have many ideas. Be cautious about legality, here, and don't get too specific with how your employer solved the problem, just use the tactic to identify the problems.

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

I'd love to see your evidence that it is beyond drawing a conclusion from circumstances. That's a zero-sum game, right there, because there's no way either of us could have evidence as to the ultimate motive.

At any rate, I've said my piece, and I'm circling close to offending you -- which isn't my goal -- so don't take anything I say as intentionally offensive. It seems silly to argue about your life, anyway, from the perspective of someone not in your life.

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

It sounds suspiciously like you're accusing me of something. The statement after the word "because" in your quote kind of matters to the original sentiment, and you happily ignored it in your calculations. It doesn't take a rocket economist to do:

    Quantity x Spot Price = "Value"

However, it also doesn't take a rocket economist to figure out that value there is meaningless, since (a) you're using the spot price, (b) the quantity of BTC to move is greater than the daily volume of the entire market, and (c) attempting a move of this size would probably devalue BTC significantly. You have a value, but there's no way that can be its value currently, because you'd have to spread the transactions out over time -- making the value a different number.

If someone owned $5 trillion of gold, do you think they'd be able to successfully move it all for $5 trillion? That's why the value is meaningless. You're talking about an exorbitant figure of money which the BitCoin market can't support.

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

ASCII key, from the source: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=RFeUcdXd

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

It's dead, Jim!

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

Botulinum, I'd guess (among natural toxins). A casual Google seems to indicate I'm right.

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

Please do not infer that I was accusing anybody of dishonesty. I wasn't aware that disingenuous carried that overtone -- to me, it means "aware of a couple explanations and intentionally picking one that makes a little less sense," and I have seen now that my usage of the word was incorrect. I meant no such attack, and had I wanted to call you dishonest, I would have gone about it more directly.

HN certainly gets more and more hostile as days go by, and I think it'd do us all a favor to assume the best in our conversational counterparts. Judge of integrity, indeed.

il y a 15 ansdiscuss

The mockups look great.

Gut reaction is that you are clearly inspired by Facebook, but there's only so many ways to peel this particular orange. I'd consider a primary color change as a quick and painless way to distance the two; I think it's the blue that's keying me to Facebook the most. There's an argument about whether that's fair, that they psychologically own social blue in my mind, but better to differentiate (in my mind).