Hacker News: teeja

New comment by teeja in "Ripple is officially open source"

teeja — Mon, 30 Sep 2013 00:41:44 +0000

Sorry, I forgot this isn't really a forum full of hackers. Just news about hackers. I'll remember not to comment without wearing my tie.

New comment by teeja in "Ripple is officially open source"

teeja — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 17:57:56 +0000

Ah, darnit. I thought you meant the wine.

New comment by teeja in "Switch to HTTPS Now, For Free"

teeja — Thu, 26 Sep 2013 19:11:11 +0000

I think that somebody is the EFF. HTTPS-Everywhere (look to the bottom of the page to DL the latest .xmi) has a LOT (certainly hundreds) in their list ... with qualifiers noted.

https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere

New comment by teeja in "Computer simulations suggest war drove the rise of civilizations"

teeja — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 03:59:34 +0000

That war drove the rise of -empires- seems no surprise at all (see e.g. Alexander). But is that civilization ("An advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society") ?? I'm having trouble decoding the semantics to understand why this isn't trivial.

New comment by teeja in "7373170279850"

teeja — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 03:24:27 +0000

That's ok, but I was more intrigued recently by

25840^2 + 43776^2 = 2584043776

which led me to Numberopedia. https://sites.google.com/site/numberopedia/

New comment by teeja in "50 days of "The Scientific 7-Minute Workout""

teeja — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 15:17:55 +0000

The benefits of modest amounts of exercise are in how you FEEL (energized) more than how you LOOK.

Another benefit is that, because it takes little time, you're much more likely to do it.

New comment by teeja in "Why We Like Sad Music"

teeja — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 01:43:56 +0000

Well said!

New comment by teeja in "Why We Like Sad Music"

teeja — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 01:41:23 +0000

Absolutely. What makes (non-vocal) music "sad" is not inherent in the scales or harmonies used but in culturally-conditioned responses to them. The sad part is that some people can't enjoy truly beautiful music because of that kind of conditioning.

New comment by teeja in "The Real Reason The Poor Go Without Bank Accounts"

teeja — Sun, 22 Sep 2013 01:34:13 +0000

Well said.

About a year ago I walked into "my" bank (hah!) and a guy pulled me over to his desk and "invited" me to sign a form (he said was mandatory) accepting or rejecting a $35 "overdraft insurance" fee. I "invited" him to check his computer and see how many overdrafts I'd had in the past 10 years ... and that my "insurance" was keeping my checkbook balanced.

Not sure what game was afoot there, but I'd bet that some of the people who were treated to that strong-arm tactic resigned themselves to paying that monthly graft. Vampire squid indeed.

New comment by teeja in "The Unitarihedron: The Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Computing"

teeja — Sat, 21 Sep 2013 06:53:02 +0000

Baj. Jumbug. Their hedrons are only special cases of my 42-dimensional Universahedron, which certifiably and undeniably contains everything, including all possible universes. The proof is too small to publish in this post.

New comment by teeja in "Want to See China’s Latest Top Secret Military Site? Just Google It"

teeja — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 10:33:51 +0000

We were building things that we didn’t need to build,” Johnson said at the time. “We were harboring fears that we didn’t need to have.”

Somebody needs to engrave that in huge letters on all that glass covering NSA headquarters.

New comment by teeja in "Little Brother"

teeja — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 10:00:32 +0000

Goes back quite a ways. There's John Brunner's 1975 classic Shockwave Rider. See also early cyberpunk stuff (Gibson, Sterling et al): http://project.cyberpunk.ru/lib/. More recently, Stephenson Snow Crash, Stross Halting State.

Also thoroughly enjoyed both Cory's works, esp. LB.

New comment by teeja in "FBI Admits It Controlled Tor Servers Behind Mass Malware Attack"

teeja — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 08:24:34 +0000

I know. It's as if (ex-CIA-case officer) Phil Agee's claim back in the mid-80s that America was about to be Latinized is true.

Healthcare, education, housing ... what's next?

New comment by teeja in "FBI Admits It Controlled Tor Servers Behind Mass Malware Attack"

teeja — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 08:17:00 +0000

One of the more sensible theories I've heard is that the fluoridation push happened at about the same time as the need to ramp-up uranium hexafluoride use for enrichment processes ... and that the sudden demand for fluoride could be masked by a civilian "decay prevention" program.

See also: Donora death fog. http://www.fluoridation.com/donora.htm

New comment by teeja in "Fucking Sue Me (2011)"

teeja — Sat, 14 Sep 2013 10:14:51 +0000

I never heard Robert Young say "fucking sue me" in Father Knows Best. But then fathers don't wear fucking fedoras these days either.

New comment by teeja in "JSFuck – Write any JavaScript with 6 Characters: []()!+"

teeja — Sat, 14 Sep 2013 10:00:01 +0000

This 'code' reminds me of the gobbledy-gook exchanged between the supercomputers in Colossus - The Forbin Project.

New comment by teeja in "NIST "strongly" suggests dropping its own encryption standard"

teeja — Sat, 14 Sep 2013 09:30:34 +0000

That's because when they do, it often sounds just like a lie.

New comment by teeja in "Teenagers and the Internet"

teeja — Thu, 12 Sep 2013 15:06:29 +0000

It's great that someone so attentive to teens is candidly exploring this subject on film. Unfortunate that it seems to be focussed primarily on negatives.

Yes I spend a lot of time on the net: unlike the TV which consumed thousands of passive, scripted hours in my youth, the net is interactive, the outcome within my control. For most of my life, the many things I couldn't learn more about for lack of time or helpful resources were out of reach; the amplification is awesome. For most of my life, I had to imagine being connected with communities of shared interests, never imagining having the focussing luxury of needing to choose from among them.

Those changes in my life are all positives. So while teens are doing teenish things with this tech, they are learning - just as we adults are. And when they become parents, they'll know from experience (just as in the middle ages and in the 1800s and 1950s) the impact of these new things.

The social impact of emergent technologies has always been unpredictable. Luckily humans adapt. And so far, ever since the first piece of flint changed lives, we've muddled on somehow. Not that worry-warting is worthless; reflection is in fact the mother of adaptation.

New comment by teeja in "The Student Loan Bubble is Starting To Burst"

teeja — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 05:37:31 +0000

Health, housing, education. What's the next sector for the relentless blood funnel?

New comment by teeja in "The Frameless Geodesic Dome I currently live in"

teeja — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 05:02:29 +0000

$36,000 / 120 months = $300/mo. If it lasts 10 years, that's a pretty good ROI.