Yeah, as a neckbearded network and systems engineer I really don't understand this thing at all - it should be a non-issue. Specifically, because the OP states the machines are mostly dedicated machines, there should be absolutely no reason why they don't have dedicated hostnames in DNS, either locally or globally.
At organizations where I have held the above titled roles, DNS was one of first things to be put into service if it had not already been used. Connecting to the IP address of a dedicated machine by a nice name is pretty much what the DNS was invented for. DNS is very much not static and if you are changing a host's IP very often, you can set it up such that the DNS responds appropriately with the proper up to date IP address.
OP's script is nice but... it's solving an already solved problem, IMO.
Another great way is to just modify ~/.ssh/config
To something like this:
host alias
hostName thehostname
user your_username
I like the work in the article, but many times when I think I need to whip up a sweet script to fix some problem in the terminal I find the old neckbeards already wrote it, polished it, and left it on the shelf for me to use.
All of the big players have already gotten similar consent decrees. Twitter got one over a password leak. Google got one over Buzz. Microsoft got one over Passport/Wallet (though that has perhaps expired). Facebook got one over Beacon.
Everyone gets one sooner or later, it seems. It's a giant PITA, but everyone has the audit infrastructure in place by now, so I wouldn't expect it to matter too much.
I've always viewed TDD as a process that works for some people. It's always important to remember that people learn, develop and think differently. If TDD works for you, great. But do not force it upon other people, as it may not work for them.
(This isn't to say that unit tests are bad, but rather writing tests first may not benefit all people)
I hate video ads, and while the youtube skip after 5 seconds feature is nice, I hate wasting my time sitting through product placement before watching a video. I am fine with ads accenting a page and the content therein, but I am not fine with gating content behind ads.
It may not work for everyone, but I pay more attention to those side-ads too. Not flash ones, just still images or text, because my eyes sometimes wander. If I have an ad stuck in my face, I have a hostile reaction that makes me actively negative towards whatever the product is. When it accompanies content, I am more willing to meander towards it.
Reddit does a really good job with it. The side bar ads they have are not intrusive and don't block content, but I always end up seeing them when scrolling, and since they are non-intrusive they are about the only ads I do click.
I do hate ads and have installed ad-filtering software at the router level (with Tomato) -- it's a great solution because it filters ads on all mobile devices without any other action on each device.
But apparently there are people who don't mind ads, or who even enjoy some of them.
It seems difficult for one side to understand the other side. People who hate ads don't understand how one can tolerate them, while people who don't mind them don't see why anyone would have a problem with them...
What would be interesting to know is how many people there are in each camp; there are relatively few users of ad-blocking software, but I don't think this number is relevant. Many people who hate ads don't know how to install ad-blocking software or don't even know that it exists (my parents, for example). Once they discover it they wouldn't go back to how things were before, for the world.
It depends on the ad. Search-based ads are probably welcome.
Display ads, less so. It's an arms race between advertisers and readers. Advertisers want a slice of a fixed supply of reader attention; readers presumably want to read/watch whatever they came to the site for. It's a zero sum game, so anything the advertiser gains is lost from the reader.
So readers develop countermeasures (ignoring ads in certain positions) and advertisers counter-countermeasures (sound, movement, popovers) and so on it goes in a continuous spiral.
The operator of Free can make the case that he is taking payment from users to enter the contest on their side. That it saves him a bunch of bandwidth is gravy.
> It's an arms race between advertisers and readers. Advertisers want a slice of a fixed supply of reader attention; readers presumably want to read/watch whatever they came to the site for. It's a zero sum game, so anything the advertiser gains is lost from the reader.
interesting that you put it this way. Perhaps instead of ads that mimic television ads on the internet, there should be new forms of advertising. The internet is an interactive medium, and why should it copy TV?
If an advertiser made an addictive game that brands the product, people would come willingly to play that game, and in the process, be exposed to the branding message.
I work in ecommerce and this guy and others like him have been creating this stuff for 3-4 years. It's a massive annoyance for us as the only real identifier we got from suppliers is the publisher name, we blocked them for awhile but then we started seeing a massive range of publisher names coming through in order to get around blocks (I assume every other retailer was blocking them as well).
When we first started seeing the automated content books, literally overnight our product set increased several million titles - I now estimate that about 20 million of the 50 million products we have are automated books (they come out with new "editions" all the time as well). This obviously has a massive impact on our search results - these books have keyword laden titles and descriptions, and without a solid identifier it was very difficult to get rid of them. Thankfully recently the suppliers that print these products have started flagging them as crapware.
As for the customer response to this type of product - it's definitely negative, with a massive return rate. As far as I am concerned, this is a massive scam - hedging on the fact that some people are to lazy to return the books.
I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to "hellban" them. When they visit the site, they see the books - but for all other users they'd effectively be invisible. It might not be worth the programming effort, though. I wonder how many books this guy sells.
I actually like these health articles appearing on HN - I understand it's not on-topic, but the majority of people here sit on computers all day so the occasional tip is useful.
I guess you could argue being healthier makes you a better entrepreneur/engineer/etc?
China is a super power. I don't believe poor living standards preclude it from being so. The Chinese exert huge influence over the Asia region. It's why your starting to see USA place a lot of emphasis on a military presence in the Asia region.
The interesting thing is a lot of the countries in the Asia/Pac region primarily trade with China, even US allies (e.g. Australia). If the US starts to get agressive (in the cold-war sense) within the region, at what point does economics trump allies?
