Hacker News: brianmcdonough

New comment by brianmcdonough in "What happens when your profile pic shows up on the first page on Google"

brianmcdonough — Mon, 11 May 2015 17:39:50 +0000

I'd like to see how your face would look on a replicant...

New comment by brianmcdonough in "The Apple Watch"

brianmcdonough — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 03:25:16 +0000

It's amazing, the variety of attitudes and opinions on this thread. People don't spend this much energy arguing the fine points of war and yet, it really is just a watch.

The promotion is genius. Not sure about the watch, but if the chatter is any sign, it's already a success.

Facebook Results Keep Surging

brianmcdonough — Wed, 23 Jul 2014 21:26:57 +0000

Article URL: http://online.wsj.com/articles/facebook-results-keep-surging-on-mobile-ad-growth-1406146246?mod=LS1

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8077052

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by brianmcdonough in "JavaScript (and Node) Best Practices"

brianmcdonough — Sun, 20 Jul 2014 02:35:27 +0000

Well written, but what I really appreciate is succinct.

New comment by brianmcdonough in "Goodbye Heroku"

brianmcdonough — Sun, 06 Jul 2014 06:58:16 +0000

A frivolous addition with no facts to check. Admitted. Give it twelve weeks. The point is that Heroku can do better. No offense meant to sales force or it's employees, just honest feedback based in real experiences.

New comment by brianmcdonough in "Postmortem of Heroku's June 23 Downtime"

brianmcdonough — Thu, 26 Jun 2014 00:09:50 +0000

What's the best way to muster an engineering team?

New comment by brianmcdonough in "Goodbye Heroku"

brianmcdonough — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 21:03:56 +0000

Heroku support options have always worked to shelter their employees from customers and as has been pointed out, despite the steep decline in costs, their prices have not changed. It's a shame because they were a trendsetter, but they are quickly being surpassed by players like DO, Linode and Poppup.

New comment by brianmcdonough in "Vermeer's paintings might be 350 year-old color photographs"

brianmcdonough — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 00:22:27 +0000

Thanks for the information. Sounds like they took the personal journey approach and it also sounds like you enjoyed it, which would indicate that they did a good job, including the ending. I'll look forward to watching when I get a chance, but thanks for filling in the blanks. I'm willing to say, I stand corrected.

New comment by brianmcdonough in "Vermeer's paintings might be 350 year-old color photographs"

brianmcdonough — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 23:38:42 +0000

Anyone who has seen a Vermeer painting up close, knows how hypnotic the experience can be. Is it true that in the movie Tim never gets to see the original and is reproducing based on a poster?

New comment by brianmcdonough in "Vermeer's paintings might be 350 year-old color photographs"

brianmcdonough — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 23:27:44 +0000

It costs a lot of money to make a film. I don't know Tim and I suspect he's a nice and interesting guy, but movies that lack broad appeal are sometimes referred to as vanity projects. I'd like to know how much money was spent making the film, where that money came from and what the theatrical run took in. If I had that information, I could tell you whether this was a vanity project.

New comment by brianmcdonough in "Vermeer's paintings might be 350 year-old color photographs"

brianmcdonough — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 23:10:18 +0000

Just my humble opinion, but it doesn't matter how the artist achieved the results. The work speaks for itself.

Tim's Vermeer is probably a lot like watching a behind the scenes video. If you enjoy consuming information for information sake, you might find it interesting, but a lot of work and money goes into making a feature documentary and it should be a work of art itself. If it doesn't have broad appeal, it's referred to as a vanity project.

The Cove is a good example of a documentary that is also a work of art. The story has a beginning a middle and an end and they are all made big through the story telling. The same could have been true of Tim's Vermeer if the story was told differently.

I apologize if my original comment came across as negative. I sometimes feel let down if stories are told in lazy or inexperienced ways and the article makes the story play like an episode of this old house.

New comment by brianmcdonough in "Vermeer's paintings might be 350 year-old color photographs"

brianmcdonough — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 17:03:22 +0000

I was recruited to work as editor on this project about two years ago. My reason for not taking the job at the time was that it would be hard to make the ending interesting enough to justify the effort. Two years have passed and now that I see the reproduction, I've changed my mind, it was impossible to make the ending interesting enough. Would have made a good magazine article in the Smithsonian though.

"what a sweep of vanity comes this way!" - Shakespeare

Flying the worlds fastest plane [video]

brianmcdonough — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 00:17:40 +0000

Article URL: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130701-flying-the-worlds-fastest-plane

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7670802

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by brianmcdonough in "The Case Against ISP Tolls"

brianmcdonough — Thu, 24 Apr 2014 20:51:42 +0000

The problem is sufficiently complex and boring to favor Comcast. What I would like to know is this: It is already a regional monopoly in high speed internet because no on can touch their speeds, why would anyone consider extending their monopoly nation-wide?

New comment by brianmcdonough in "Frozen Funds"

brianmcdonough — Sun, 23 Mar 2014 17:31:05 +0000

Where there are banks, there will always be bank robbers. This will never cease to be the case and the banks will always lose money this way. It's inevitable.

So, the problem becomes one of scale. For example, a bank can survive a small unauthorized withdrawal, but large thefts are what kills the business. Limit the withdrawal sizes and shut down everything at a core level when that security is breached.

The ability to move massive amounts around securely is a pipe dream.

New comment by brianmcdonough in "Coming Soon to Hacker News: Pending Comments"

brianmcdonough — Sat, 22 Mar 2014 04:40:10 +0000

Being purveyors of good taste, leaders have to take action. Despite my karma score (73) I support implementation of a solution to a known problem, despite the risks.

It provides a motive to achieve a higher score, whereas before there was little to no reason.

New comment by brianmcdonough in "Save more with Google Drive"

brianmcdonough — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 21:05:36 +0000

Cloud storage is not going away. It's just getting massively cheaper and will continue to do so until the team at dropbox gets bored with running a commodity business and turn to conquer another big problem.

Creative people do not thrive in commodity businesses and their skills are in much higher demand driving massive growth as they have to this point.

Amazon will incorporate cloud storage into prime at some point and may dominate this market as they are very good at running long-term focused, commodity-based businesses.

New comment by brianmcdonough in "Save more with Google Drive"

brianmcdonough — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 21:03:27 +0000

How very Kafka.

New comment by brianmcdonough in "Feinstein Publicly Accuses C.I.A. of Spying on Congress"

brianmcdonough — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 02:59:13 +0000

Loves power when wielding it, hates its being wielded against. It's not hypocrisy. It's human.

New comment by brianmcdonough in "Sam Altman for President"

brianmcdonough — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 19:31:31 +0000

It takes tremendous self-knowledge and insight to take a step like this. It's what makes Paul Graham, Paul Graham and it's incredibly inspiring.

Welcome to YC 2.0. Looking forward to following the original meta-startup under Sam's leadership.