kwis's comments | WingNews

kwis | 14 years ago | on: Miguel de Icaza: Learning Unix

I tend to agree with you. When I write scripts, I target sh, not bash. If it doesn't fit in sh, then I look at a dedicated scripting language (perl/ruby/python) that will almost certainly be a better fit.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: R vs Python for simple interactive data analysis

This makes a lot of sense, and meshes with my own experience. I've created a lot of programs that collect data using Python/Ruby/similar and then use R for the analysis.

While using two languages is an overhead, it feels like it plays to the strengths of both sides.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: IPad mag app Zite to be acquired by CNN with a $20-25M pricetag

Congrats to the Zite team. You made one of my favorite apps, and whether you continue development at CNN or move on to other ventures, I wish you the best and look forward to seeing what you do next.

Zite is one of the most used apps on my iPad, and has been for ages. I would've happily given you a few dollars for it, but I guess this worked out well for everyone.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: How to Improve the quality of your software: find an old computer

If you're on FreeBSD you can use dummynet to simulate packet delay and loss.

It's quite handy. My partner has slow, unreliable, high-latency Internet in his house and there are an entire class of performance problems that are extremely obvious when I work from his place that are barely measurable when I work from a 100mb line that's only a few milliseconds away from a major datacenter.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: Use Jonathan's card to buy yourself an iPad

You know nothing about the people you judged except that they threw a coffee into a virtual 'give a coffee / take a coffee' tray. And from that, you've extrapolated that they care more about art than world hunger.

That's as illogical as it is self-righteous.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: Rolling.fm: Yeah, We Copied Turntable.fm, But We’re Taking It to the Next Level

Being a fast-follower is often an excellent strategy.

I've long thought that somebody will make a fortune by setting up a company that clones successful America-centric startups into Europe, Asia and/or Brazil; using a fast-follower strategy to test core ideas, but then implementing them in untapped markets.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: Groupon is the next Madoff, except big iBanks helped it rob investors

I don't agree that ACSOI makes sense. Marketing isn't just the initial customer acquisition cost. It's also a substantial expense that keeps existing customers active, engaged and profitable. If it was just about customer acquisition then we'd never see an ad for Tylonel, Coke or Budweiser.

Fortunately Groupon is issuing a new S-1 tomorrow, so it's likely that those who are looking for more information will get it.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: New Android trojan records phone calls, shares with remote server

It'd be trivial to sort the calls by listening to a few seconds of each to identify potential high value phone numbers (banks, florists, catalogue ordering lines, etc), then listen to every call to the high-value numbers.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: Plot thickens in Airbnb vacation rental horror story

What's the point of an apology?

Homeaway.com, VRBO.com, and roomarama.com all offer similar products, and they built their businesses without dishonesty or spam.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: Apple now holding more cash than USA

If my business could borrow at the same rates as the US government I would take on as much debt as possible, in perpetuity.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User’s Home Is Utterly Trashed

The only blessing in this story is that the miscreants made their damage so plainly obvious that the problems were identified quite quickly.

If they'd been a bit more subtle and a little patient, they could've engaged in massive identity theft and financial fraud without ever making it clear that AirBNB was the attack vector.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: Judge Finds Apple in Violation of HTC's Newly Acquired Patents

http://www.google.com/patents?id=DlttAAAAEBAJ&zoom=4&...

It appears that's allowable now, since the patent has expired.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: Judge Finds Apple in Violation of HTC's Newly Acquired Patents

I'd argue that the existing system does just that.

The big boys have portfolios of patents that they fling at each other until some sort of cross-licensing deal is reached, whilst smaller players just have to cross their fingers and hope that nobody decides to tax them too extravagantly.

I omit the possibility of creating non-infringing products simply because it's virtually impossible to bring any meaningful product to market without infringing on somebody's overly broad patent.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: TripAdvisor Architecture - 40M Visitors, 200M Dynamic Page Views, 30TB Data

For any project, you're always balancing quality, schedule, budget, scope and risk to try to get the best business outcome. Because of this, I don't believe in any of the hard and fast rules about the "right" way to code. It's far too situational.

That said, you make an excellent point about the importance of project prioritization. A management team who is good at identifying high ROI projects will stomp all over one who sprays pointless change requests at their dev team.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: BankSimple: A Bank That Doesn't Suck

I'd argue that USAA is already trouncing BankSimple.

USAA competes with the same sort of value proposition (convenient banking with great service, but without a B&M presence), and is a fortune 500 company with millions of happy customers.

It's hard to find discussion about retail banks on the Internet without finding satisfied USAA customers telling their stories.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: Dropbox Cofounder & CTO Arash Ferdowsi responds to yesterday's bug

Some people might also be concerned that the note about sending emails wasn't added to the post until after there was mass outrage at the lack of notification. Makes it feel very inauthentic, as though they were really hoping they'd be able to sweep it under the rug.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: US Senators ignore unintended consequences of criminalizing embedding videos

I think term limits are probably ineffective, if only because so many staff stick around even as the names on the offices change, and they hold so much of the power.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: Everybody thinks SQL joins are slow-is it because MySQL doesn't have hash joins?

Can you provide me with one or two examples that are 50x slower on pg than my? We're a postgres-heavy shop, and would be interested in finding solutions to any such problems that you can identify.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: Scathing review of Scvngr by burned customer

I routinely work with vendors who make non-contractual promises, where the only recourse is damage to their reputation and the probable loss of me as a client if they break them.

Not everything needs to be a contract or a lawsuit. Sometimes it's fine to take a man at his word, and then simply tell him to walk away if his word is no good.

kwis | 14 years ago | on: Line rate 10Gbit/s packet processing on FreeBSD with netmap

Thanks again for the great work.