Hacker News: nickb

Daniel Schmitt of WikiLeaks interviewed

nickb — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 22:34:32 +0000

Article URL: http://www.gulli.com/news/wikileaks-daniel-schmitt-2009-07-05/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=690570

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Decoding the HTML 5 video codec debate

nickb — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 02:14:09 +0000

Article URL: http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/07/decoding-the-html-5-video-codec-debate.ars

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=688995

Points: 39

# Comments: 26

New comment by nickb in "Google App Engine Broken For 4 Hours And Counting"

nickb — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:48:14 +0000

Does that account for 6 hours of downtime with minimal information as to what's going on? Good luck with that!

New comment by nickb in "Google App Engine Broken For 4 Hours And Counting"

nickb — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:41:07 +0000

Nice analogy but like all analogies, it's too simplistic and flawed. You left out one important and critical part: the hypothetical passenger in your example is tied to a specific plane/airline. If you don't like your pilot or plane type, you cannot move to a different airline or request a different plane or a different pilot since you're chained to the specific plane.

Due to Google App Engine's API lock-in, you're stuck with them as a provider... quite possibly forever due to heavy BigTable dependency.

Even though I'm a huge fan of cloud computing, I'd rather use a strategy that uses platforms/planes that are built from reusable parts and allow you to switch your plane/airline provider as you please. Don't like Delta? Just go to AA counter and you don't have to change your luggage, clothing etc.

Until there's a second, GAE-compatible, ISV provider that offers full compatibility with GAE, I'd avoid GAE like a plague.

IPhone developer gets a call from Apple regarding his app

nickb — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:06:14 +0000

Article URL: http://blog.whiskyvangoghgo.com/post/124464610/i-got-a-call-from-apple-last-weekend-a-call-from

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=660510

Points: 7

# Comments: 2

Oliver's simple fluid dynamics simulator in Javascript

nickb — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:20:38 +0000

Article URL: http://nerget.com/fluidSim/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=651478

Points: 53

# Comments: 15

China dominates NSA-backed coding contest

nickb — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 01:43:23 +0000

Article URL: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=development&articleId=9134122&taxonomyId=11&intsrc=kc_top

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=650379

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Twitter hype punctured by study

nickb — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:29:59 +0000

Article URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8089508.stm

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=649584

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

Technology Brief for Apple's Grand Central Multicore Paradigm [pdf]

nickb — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:18:03 +0000

Article URL: http://images.apple.com/macosx/technology/docs/GrandCentral_TB_brief_20090608.pdf

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=647905

Points: 42

# Comments: 12

New comment by nickb in "How Clemson manipulates their US News ranking"

nickb — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 04:37:57 +0000

As if they're not using the same techniques... The 'outrage' is probably just a façade. You can bet that they took notes and will be using some of the same strategies when they get back and start having meetings.