Hacker News: zabraxias

New comment by zabraxias in "Mozilla could walk away from Yahoo deal and get more than $1B"

zabraxias — Fri, 08 Jul 2016 14:37:42 +0000

The only conflict of interest left is the browser itself. A $300M deal for Google to keep a competitor's searches their way is almost too cheap.

New comment by zabraxias in "Firefox download on SourceForge"

zabraxias — Mon, 15 Jun 2015 15:34:52 +0000

Nothing as interesting as that. Mozilla has had a "let's try and be friends" approach with the ad industry for a few years (see 3rd party cookies) but the recent introductions like pocket and Hello are simply features some group in management decided were needed. The open governance approach means our source of income (various search referrals) is all we'd need to stay afloat for quite a while. Having said that it's a smart play to get into the mobile OS game and continue on the browser-as-a-platform path.

The moment anyone decides to add bundleware to the official release would be a golden age for tech recruiters since most of the engineering staff would be already packed.

Source: Mozillian

New comment by zabraxias in "Ask HN: Has anyone had success with Canada's startup visa?"

zabraxias — Tue, 10 Mar 2015 21:55:18 +0000

I hereby coin IANAA (I am not an attorney).

New comment by zabraxias in "Kisha – The umbrella you'll never lose"

zabraxias — Thu, 18 Dec 2014 17:52:16 +0000

A person named Goran who created a smart umbrella called "Kisha" - rain in srbo-croatian. The world makes sense :)

How Big Data Peers Inside Your Medicine Chest

zabraxias — Thu, 11 Sep 2014 16:41:20 +0000

Article URL: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-11/how-big-data-peers-inside-your-medicine-chest.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8303591

Points: 8

# Comments: 0

New comment by zabraxias in "Breaking up with America"

zabraxias — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 16:32:26 +0000

That's an oversimplification since the valley is the leading proponent of immigration reform (yes since the companies there will get better access to foreign workers) but every other developed nation seems to have a more sensible policy like allowing "work status" and not tying it to a specific company. Green cards effectively do that but unless you're Bieber or can afford the $1M investment visa you don't get one on day 1.

New comment by zabraxias in "Tech Blogger Tries To Cancel Comcast Service, Hilarity Ensues"

zabraxias — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 18:36:34 +0000

I am not proud of this but I "canceled" my Comcast service by moving to another country. The only step required was to remove the auto-withdrawal on their website.

They probably tried to contact me and threatened to kill my service for no payments etc but that's a mail problem for the next resident to deal with.

New comment by zabraxias in "Mozilla to sell '$25' Firefox OS smartphones in India"

zabraxias — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 14:34:56 +0000

There was a really good writeup about the decision process in the early iPhones where Steve Jobs ordered the UI in its own process so that the user gets instant feedback on interactions even if the feedback is a simple loading spinner. It gives the perception of speed even if a modern android phone is timed to load the same application faster. There are ways to try and achieve this in web apps but Apple's early decision to use that approach was certainly brilliant. If you call a bank and a human answers immediately...telling you to please hold...it would be a far better experience than the current press 1 for English.

New comment by zabraxias in "It's Time to Kill Surface"

zabraxias — Thu, 22 May 2014 18:04:05 +0000

I disagree with the article though it does make me wonder about the supply chain part of the process with OEMs. The surface 3 is definitely attractive and powerful and I'd love to get one. If only MS would do one last, monumental change and build the OS on top of BSD. I use Apple for most of my daily work but would love a reason to switch or simply to see some viable competition in the space.

New comment by zabraxias in "Dropbox's Condoleezza Rice advocating for warrantless NSA surveillance"

zabraxias — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 15:45:33 +0000

It's one thing to agree or disagree with her position at Dropbox but are you trying to argue against what she said on camera? "I heard she might..." is not the case here since she was a public face for quite a while and she defended removing Americans' liberties in favor of something closer to a police state.

New comment by zabraxias in "Brendan Eich Steps Down as Mozilla CEO"

zabraxias — Thu, 03 Apr 2014 20:03:21 +0000

He's leaving. Which is typical for CEOs even if his tenure ended positively.

New comment by zabraxias in "The Mobile Browser Is Dead, Long Live The App"

zabraxias — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 17:07:18 +0000

I love these article titles especially since I love getting my tech news from forbes the way I love my mechanic's baked goods. Apps have their place and the browser is not going away. If anything "The browser is dead...long live the mobile OS". I would cite reasons why I think this but I'll claim the same opinion piece rights media seems to enjoy lately.

New comment by zabraxias in "Inclusiveness at Mozilla"

zabraxias — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 20:02:08 +0000

Really interesting perspective. Made me think.

New comment by zabraxias in "Inclusiveness at Mozilla"

zabraxias — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 19:58:59 +0000

He didn't donate to a campaign banning interracial marriage though and the example isn't the same. Furthermore he is one of the founding members of Mozilla and his contributions give him a certain level of respect within the organization.

I am worried I'll start sounding like an apologist for Eich even though it's not my role. On a different note I think the board should've brought in an outsider for the role so they can leverage experience that Mozilla might currently be lacking.

New comment by zabraxias in "Inclusiveness at Mozilla"

zabraxias — Wed, 26 Mar 2014 19:52:04 +0000

The typical CEO response would've been to lie about a change in position and then state the same policies as he already outlined. I don't agree with the man's personal stance on same-sex marriage but he never brought it to the work place - others did.

Integrity is higher on my values list than many of the tech and community connections he can bring to the table. I would also disagree with his personal beliefs in being a snake-handler (if he was one) but would find no issue with his leadership ability as long as he didn't bring those beliefs to the organization.

New comment by zabraxias in "Brendan Eich becomes Mozilla CEO"

zabraxias — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 20:15:43 +0000

Mozilla's leadership is far more complex than the person holding the CEO chalice. Assuming he wanted to impose his personal views on marriage down to the company there would be a revolt and it will result in his termination.

The board that elected him ultimately holds more power. On a different note if you knew Brandan you'd know that he would never steer the company in such a direction. My only regret is that he will likely resign after his turn at the throne is over. Hopefully he will choose to stick around as a board member.

New comment by zabraxias in "Disable the User's JavaScript Console"

zabraxias — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 17:33:47 +0000

Worth noting that this only works for Chrome. For what it's worth I don't support the practice and think it will not help prevent "self-XSS" at all. The idea of self-XSS being ridiculous to begin with.

New comment by zabraxias in "What Gordon Ramsay Taught Me About American Businessmen"

zabraxias — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 17:22:03 +0000

I am with you on this one on most "reality" shows I've seen. In reality nobody asks me to go to a confession room to explain my supposed reasoning in front of a camera. I also find it ridiculous that they always keep the most abrasive yet sub-par contestants until the end to drive up conflict for the added drama.

Having said that I agree with the premise of the author's article since I've worked with too many small business owners in my early days of web development and most of them seemed to reject our tech/marketing strategy for theirs even though they usually waited until a crisis hit before calling us to begin with.

New comment by zabraxias in "Show HN: I redesigned the Microsoft employee badge"

zabraxias — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 17:18:50 +0000

Sometimes I have to upvote sarcasm :)

New comment by zabraxias in "EA certainly isn't making it easy to give Dungeon Keeper a low rating on Android"

zabraxias — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 16:40:09 +0000

Very good question. Quite interested in this too and I get the sense Apple would nuke the app even if they didn't specifically write a rule against this.