Hacker News: tippytop

New comment by tippytop in "Why the Sony hack is unlikely to be the work of North Korea"

tippytop — Thu, 18 Dec 2014 08:48:58 +0000

Upon browsing a few of these threads tonight, I've realized there is no worse reading than a bunch of tech enthusiasts armchairing about geopolitics. I'm out!

New comment by tippytop in "FreeBSD: the next 10 years"

tippytop — Sat, 22 Nov 2014 18:53:05 +0000

But JSON doesn't support comments which are pretty nice in a config file. You can do the ugly comment as property stuff, or strip them out, but you're getting away from the One True Format.

New comment by tippytop in "Busy Parents Uber Kids Around for a Carpool Alternative"

tippytop — Sat, 01 Nov 2014 19:50:36 +0000

So which Uber driver is taking the calls to the poorer neighborhoods?

New comment by tippytop in "What Happened to U.S. Plans to Raise the H-1B Visa Ceiling?"

tippytop — Fri, 12 Sep 2014 19:53:00 +0000

Higher education has become an export of the US. What's citizenship got to do with it?

New comment by tippytop in "We think Germany will win. But don’t take our word for it"

tippytop — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 00:00:09 +0000

So they picked the favorite in the final and missed the third place game. The singularity is almost here.

New comment by tippytop in "With help from Teamsters, LA Uber drivers try to organize"

tippytop — Wed, 25 Jun 2014 02:50:48 +0000

Uber drivers aren't invisible. It wouldn't take much effort to use the app to flag one down, note the license plate, and give them a nice little talking to. I doubt many part-timers would stick with it if they thought there was a chance for trouble.

New comment by tippytop in "Silicon Valley Billionaire Battles Surfers Over Beach Access"

tippytop — Tue, 06 May 2014 23:32:15 +0000

If you're ever in Mountain View and walk by the Google campus around 4-4:30p, you can witness the vast network of Google buses picking up their colonist cargo ready for dispersal throughout the Bay Area. It's not just one or two buses, the road is literally backed up with them, each with a little LCD display to let you know what town or neighborhood they're going to. It really is a sight to behold. I can understand why locals view them as an invading army.

New comment by tippytop in "Sell your S.F. street parking spot for $20?"

tippytop — Tue, 06 May 2014 04:48:51 +0000

So I'm waiting behind a soon-to-be (or not-so-soon) leaving car and some other jerk with an app pulls up and claims it's his spot because he "paid" for it? And I'm supposed to recognize this transaction and carry on? Yeah, right. Fuck both these guys, he'll have to pay me 20 bucks not to break his taillight.

New comment by tippytop in "GNU ease.js"

tippytop — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 22:10:30 +0000

Gross. It's also GPLv3, that seems a bit restrictive for a class system.

US tech giants knew of NSA data collection, agency's top lawyer insists

tippytop — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 18:56:46 +0000

Article URL: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/19/us-tech-giants-knew-nsa-data-collection-rajesh-de

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7430877

Points: 186

# Comments: 41

New comment by tippytop in "How Covert Agents Infiltrate the Internet to Manipulate, Deceive"

tippytop — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 01:09:57 +0000

And now thanks to Mr. Greenwald's reporting, citizens & elected officials, policy wonks & pundits, scholars & laymen alike, can all discuss actual facts instead of relying on grkvit's assumptions about how government spy programs operate.

New comment by tippytop in "NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide"

tippytop — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 20:33:52 +0000

You are correct, I've misunderstood this program and perhaps the parent post I was responding to. Oh well, can't win 'em all. This is in addition to the PRISM programs we've already seen.

New comment by tippytop in "NSA infiltrates links to Yahoo, Google data centers worldwide"

tippytop — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 20:11:54 +0000

> Google had no knowledge of NSA's physical compromise of their data centers.

How do you know this is the case? In the diagram submitted within the article, the box highlighted with the smiley face is labeled "GFE" for Google Front-End [1], which means it's a Google controlled server. It seems more plausible to me that the NSA compromised this target with a FISA court order rather than hacking it. And if that is true, then someone at Google did know about it, they just weren't willing to discuss it because of a legal threat.

[1] Google server names: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/09/googles-server-name...

New comment by tippytop in "[dead]"

tippytop — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 20:12:27 +0000

HIPAA is no joke. Even if this company is technically in the clear, being associated with a controversy like this is enough to keep doctors from using the service. Makes me wonder if they had any domain knowledge at all or just a "Yelp for doctors" pitch and some mumbo-jumbo about big data revolutionizing healthcare.

NSA Reforms Under Threat

tippytop — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 03:56:35 +0000

Article URL: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/09/nsa-surveillance-reforms-ron-wyden

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6525564

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by tippytop in "GCHQ report on 'Mullenize' program to 'stain' anonymous electronic traffic"

tippytop — Fri, 04 Oct 2013 23:26:30 +0000

Regarding the mainstream news cycle and from a PR perspective, you want bad news to come out late Friday to minimize exposure. The typical audience is ready for the weekend and paying less attention. Also staff journalists tend to be off which leaves a weekend crew to man the ship---they're less experienced and have fewer resources available. Since you're likely not going to be pressed for a comment until Monday, the extra days might mean the public outrage subsides by then, or another news story becomes more important.

A lot of bad news comes out late Friday, government reports, financials, etc. It's obvious that the Washington Post was sitting on this particular story and decided to post it only after today's Guardian reports. WaPo has done it quite a lot since the leaks came out, either they aren't particularly interested in breaking these stories, or they're abiding by an earlier deal with Snowden since they wouldn't agree to his release timeline.

Snowden Nominated for a European Human Rights Prize

tippytop — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 04:55:15 +0000

Article URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/18/world/europe/snowden-nominated-for-human-rights-award.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6403583

Points: 8

# Comments: 0

NSA violated privacy rules, declassified court documents show

tippytop — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 22:04:50 +0000

Article URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/declassified-court-documents-highlight-nsa-violations/2013/09/10/60b5822c-1a4b-11e3-a628-7e6dde8f889d_story.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6363853

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by tippytop in "The Temple Operating System"

tippytop — Sat, 31 Aug 2013 23:39:59 +0000

Then does not saying racist things automatically make you not-racist? Or is there other criteria we need to apply before hanging the label? For example, do they believe the words coming out of their own mouth? What about someone with Tourette's? I'm not trying to fall in a philosophical hole, but I believe that racism is a conscious choice at some level and mental illness is not.

New comment by tippytop in "Defeated"

tippytop — Mon, 26 Aug 2013 15:06:48 +0000

I noticed on my last trip that the TSA, at all airports involved, were more pushy this time about herding me through the machines, using similar words. I guess there was a new policy memo sent out.