hamstersoup's comments

hamstersoup | 7 years ago | on: Graphd – The Metaweb Graph Repository

Yes, MQL really was an eloquent query language, especially when writing JavaScript for the browser. For the curious, most of the documentation seems to be gone, but there are a few examples here: https://github.com/nchah/freebase-mql#mql-and-graphql

(Note the graphd release doesn't include the MQL query engine)

hamstersoup | 9 years ago | on: Project Bloks: Making code physical for kids

My 4-year-old is really into The Foos app. In the beginning he was just messing around but after a month or two he's really getting it. I was wondering what to use next, thanks for the list!

hamstersoup | 11 years ago | on: The rise of explorable explanations

The article presents some great 'explorable explanations' by (or inspired by) Bret Victor.

This really does seem like the future of communicating hard concepts.

At high school I would often write BBC Basic simulations of the dull problems we had been given as homework. I was so much more passionate when I was exploring and learning myself.

hamstersoup | 11 years ago | on: Interactive Programming in C

I highly recommend the Handmade Hero series referred to in this blog post. I've been following the archives on YouTube (at 2x speed). Casey Muratori is an engaging presenter and I'm rediscovering my love of low-level programming.

hamstersoup | 15 years ago | on: Gift HN: Anybody want a subdomain of ww.com?

Very generous offer. Any chance of ? will.ww.com --> ww.hamstersoup.com

I know you excluded one letter domains but w.ww.com would be even cooler ;-)

Bedankt!

hamstersoup | 16 years ago | on: App Engine JavaScript SDK

I was about to start a big project on App Engine, so your comment is worrying.

Anybody else having reliability problems with GAE or is this just an isolated case?

hamstersoup | 16 years ago | on: Proposed privacy control UI for Facebook

The slider serves as a simple privacy reminder on your home page. It only takes a few moments at youropenbook.org to make it clear that many people could benefit from such a reminder.

It's not the intention that you would interact with the slider frequently. If you drag it to a different setting a dialog box would popup and explain exactly what the consequences would be.

Most people would be happy with simple privacy settings, and there's still a customize link for the power user.

hamstersoup | 16 years ago | on: Proposed privacy control UI for Facebook

I had forgotten the sliders: http://www.designaesthetic.com/2007/07/17/facebooks-ridiculo...

I don't think they were a privacy control, just a (complex) way of mixing your newsfeed.

hamstersoup | 16 years ago | on: Searching Facebook drives home the privacy degradation problem

Here's an example of the fig leaf in action: http://willmoffat.github.com/FacebookSearch/?q=HIV%20test...

We decided the redactions reduce the impact without actually offering any privacy at all. (That's up to Facebook and the users).

hamstersoup | 16 years ago | on: A Freebase implementation of the Facebook Graph API

(disclaimer, I worked on this)

Facebook has focused on the social graph, Freebase connects people and more. We liked the lightweight approach of the Graph API, so here's our version: http://graph.freebaseapps.com/the_simpsons/seasons?html=1

You can even use Facebook usernames (if we have them) http://graph.freebaseapps.com/facebook.jackie/movies?html=1

One neat feature is the ?html=1 mode, which makes the JSON api browsable. I'd love to see other apis implement this.

What do you think?