skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
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Absolutely. We need Google to step in. I wish Redhat or Novell would consider this market. But they haven't.
The research in support of that suggestion is execrable (pun intended).

It's not really a pun. "Execrate" and "excrete" aren't related. (Sorry for the distraction; I find these things interesting.)
I was inspired by Erik's 'no prisoners' extreme rationalist writings on usenet.

I was very surprised to find out how young he was and very saddened to hear about his death.
This was what I thought the link would be from the title :)

Completely and totally off topic, but the first time I read that I laughed so hard I was crying.
It sounds like your understanding is a bit off. Let's keep these terms separate: composition and nonce. A composition is some fixed function, composed of multiple iterations of a smaller primitive. A nonce (or salt) is a unique value per instance, where "instance" in this case is a single stored hash result.

The BSD MD5-crypt password hash algorithm is composed of multiple MD5 iterations. However, if you look at the code, you'll see that the variation of what gets tossed into MD5 only depends on the loop counter (i). So the hash function is not data-dependent. You could unroll all the loops into a single, large function that applies MD5 repeatedly to various inputs.

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/lib/libcrypt/crypt...

There is a salt in MD5-crypt, but it is just input data to the function. It does not change the actual hash function that is performed.

Now, your question: "is iterated MD5 of the message alone less secure than iterated MD5 of the data + a salt?" (And a related question that I brought in above: "is a function that itself varies based on the input data more secure than either of these?)

From an algorithmic perspective, there should be no difference. If you can create an MD5+ that calculates exactly the same output as MD5(MD5(data)) but always in less steps than 2*MD5, then you have broken MD5. The easy way to see this if you can create this MD5+, you can also "roll back" an MD5 result to some previous value, a 2nd-preimage attack.

From the perspective of creating a brute-force search device, there is some difference. If you use the salt to vary your function, it starts to take up more logic area. The larger the state space you create, the more RAM your device will require or the more slightly-different logic blocks. This is what Colin is doing with scrypt. It's a good idea and one that we should be moving to in the future.

http://www.tarsnap.com/scrypt.html

However, there is no difference between MD5(MD5(data || nonce)) and MD5(nonce || MD5(data || nonce)) from a brute force or algorithmic perspective.
Then you seem to misunderstand the point. It is not a N+1 approach. There is a bound to N and that is 4.
It supports some non-standard too, e.g. ActiveSync.
I mentioned this video to my wife, who is a registered dietitian and a PhD in nutrition science (the RD / PhD combo is relatively rare). She said, "Yeah, I'm uncomfortable just saying 'calories in / calories out' because human metabolism is just way more complicated than that."

She's interested in watching the whole video herself; I'll post her thoughts if she does.
That's why most companies have a terrible customer support...
I agree, it's how linux should have taken off. The problem is, you have a bunch of smug idealists running the show who are out of touch with the mainstream public. Imagine if android was: take your current smart phone and just install this software somehow. No one in a million years except for geeks like ourselves would try it. Could you imagine the carrier incompatibilities, the hardware issues, potential bricking,etc.? Imagine if Android had zero hardware vendors making devices for it (I know linux has tons of device makers using it, i'm talking about PC Manufacturers). That's basically how Linux looks.
Shutting down your startup is sometimes the right thing to do
If a problem is so critical that one of its side-effects earns the title "the vietnam of computer science", then I think it is 'ok' to put "performance" considerations on a secondary tier and first see if there is a solution to the problem, in principle.
I was also expecting to allow arbitrarily long text, as well as attachments and additional (potentially user(or client)-defined) metadata.
I like PC-BSD myself. But that said, I don't see any real change coming in 2010. There will likely be a small increase in non-Windows, non-Mac desktops in 2010, but nothing out of line with the trend over the past few years.

Edit: The main reason why I think this is that mainstream retailers don't support it (e.g. Best Buy's "Geek Squad"). Non-geek consumers want something that comes with support or at least the appearance of support.
Awards, and "Top n" lists are bullshit by definition. There isn't a "better model". Almost every award in the world is nonsense, from the Nobel Prize (at least Peace & Literature, possibly Economics?) to the Oscars.

An award that is voted by a small group of people is susceptible to internal politics. If it's large group, the nominees that cater to the lowest common denominator win. And then there are the ones compiled by a few journalists with a deadline and a PR-influenced perception. Sometimes awards are well deserved, but it's almost random. Simply don't let awards annoy you or impress you.
Einstein was asked to appear alongside the comic actor Charlie Chaplin during the Hollywood debut of the film City Lights. When they were mobbed by thousands, Chaplin remarked, "The people applaud me because everybody understands me, and they applaud you because no one understands you." Einstein asked Chaplin, "What does it all mean?" Chaplin replied, "Nothing.
No, I don't think so...

The only company focused on the Linux Desktop is Canonical (for Ubuntu) while all others only care about servers...

Plus, other companies don't see Linux as very important for the end user, so you end up with cameras, printers, scanners, etc that don't work on Linux.

My say is that it will continue to grow with the geek community, but not for the average users.
Not to mention that little thing called "war".
It's a bit funny the "gigant" crystal cave resides in the state of Chihuahua.
My honest thoughts? It doesn't matter.

If 2009 has showed us anything, it's that the desktop OS is quickly becoming less and less of a factor, as far as consumers are concerned. Linux's strength has always been in the cloud and on "non-computer" devices; is it a bad thing that "not enough" people are using Ubuntu if they end up using Boxee, JoliCloud, Android, etc?

The reason why OS's don't matter is because, generally speaking, all people want them to do these days is not crash and let them get to their apps of choice. In my opinion, if there's one priority that desktop Linux should have for the coming year to increase its appeal, it's not in the OS itself; it's in working with services to get better support compatibility. How about some GPU accelerated Flash support? Netflix streaming anyone? Granted, a lot of improvement has been going on in this area (I never expected to be able to run Hulu Desktop, for example), but there's still a lot that can be done.
I've been playing around with HTPCs that are Linux based. It was my first time using linux on a dedicated device on a daily basis. It's actually some really great stuff. Through my research and playing around, I saw some of the utterly beautiful things Linux can do- the eye candy blows OS X out of the water.

If you're going to make Linux a popular force in the PC market, you cannot fuck around. You need to be serious about the Software (how it looks/default apps/ drivers/ etc), Hardware (beautiful cases/ performance /etc), and Support (Apple 1 on 1 sessions + genius bars work for a reason). Too many of the hardware guys see Linux as a way to make the PC even cheaper since there's no MSFT tax. Look at the evergreen gOS PC. I'm the opposite. I see it as a way to make the PC "richer" (in experience) than ever before and actually make a product people want to own. That's why Apple is around, they're the only people left on this Earth that make a great end to end PC.
This is a great resource if you're studying / reviewing on your own:

http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/~jvrbik/MATH2P82/Statistics.PDF
I agree. The randomized RSA modes (OAEP and PSS) are preferable to the old constant ones (PKCS #1 v1.5). They are better from a theoretical perspective and also from the fact that the randomization may protect you against an attack even in the face of some (but not all!) implementation flaws. They offer both better theoretical security and defense-in-depth.
I'm trying to teach myself statistics (for social sciences) right now. I got two books (Agresti & Finlay along with Knoke, Bohrnstedt & Mee) but both seem to be written in jargon instead of English.

Does anyone have recommendations for statistics books that are actually written in English?
Chandigarh Rose Festival 2010
This year rose festival will be organize from 26 th Feb to 28 th Feb. Well this festival is most visited eva of Chandigarh.
Tarsnap implements its own crypto algorithms, partially on top of the SSL bignum functions. This is scary (yet another critical part that needs review) but also could help it achieve a higher level of assurance because OpenSSL's RSA implementation is a mess and much harder to review.

Note I am not saying that it is good to implement your own algorithms, just pointing out the sorry state we're at with existing libraries.
"And after my 4-year-old niece received the very hot Zhou-Zhou pet hamster for Christmas, I pointed out that the toy was essentially a robot, with some basic obstacle avoidance skills. She replied matter-of-factly: “It’s not a robot. It’s a pet.”"

That's so sad it isn't funny.

If someone would give my kid a robotic hamster it would go in to the trash faster than you could blink.

My kid has a real-life dog and I can assure you that it is the better choice.

I'm sure it's less convenient, you can't shut it down, you need to take care of it but that's exactly why it is better.

Life doesn't come with an on/off switch and children need to interact with real live beings in order to learn valuable lessons that no battery operated simulacrum/surrogate can provide.
A great similar example of this was during the Football (soccer) World Cup 2006 Dutch fans were asked to remove their trousers (pants) and sit and watch the game in there pants (underwear) because the trousers (pants) had the logo of a company who was in direct competition of one of the 'Official Sponsors'.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/jun/19/marketingandpr.w...
Entrepreneurs Aren't Risk Takers - They're Arbitrageurs
I fail to see how this helps to "avoid being stuck," in fact it seems more likely to result in you sitting looking blankly at half a page somewhere in the middle of the day.
I think this is more for personal use (at home) and if you use it at a office, you must be certain that you dont have anything non safe for work :)
I can't speak to why Balsamiq wasn't nominated, but I'm pretty sure the only reason TinyChat won was because they spammed their users with requests to vote for them constantly over the past few weeks.

Seriously, every 10 minutes a banner would pop up asking you to vote for them. The vast majority of their users couldn't care less about the awards, but would vote just to make the damn thing go away.
J is essentially the new version of APL using ascii rather than the odd symbols, if I'm not mistaken? I'd love to see a version in J.
Background: Former OS X user, switched to Ubuntu/Win7 dual boot, spending almost all time in Ubuntu.

Quick thoughts:

Linux on the desktop should be rebranded as Linux on the laptop. I haven't used a desktop for at least 6 years. This relates directly to what my main impression is: For power users, using Linux feels superior in almost every regard, except hardware support.

This is bitter-sweet, because installing/purging apps effortlessly from repositories, keeping a system up to date, and having good usability is fantastic, but the paper cuts are there - brightness adjustment doesn't work, skype video failed suddenly, can't configure touchpad fully (disable tapping, use side-scrolling, etc.). Battery life is noticeably inferior to Win/OS X.

Also, buying PC hardware is a nightmare - way too many models, with terrible nomenclature. Models with entirely different processors, etc. have almost the same name, etc.

I dream of a "Linux Apple" - a company that sells a small but smart range of laptops (even at a premium) with a selection of hardware that guarantees that a major linux distro will run on it without paper cuts. Companies like System76 fail - their machines are too heavy and the battery life sucks (same for others, not singling them out).
My pleasure!

Also, if you haven't already, I hope you're going to steal our source. Or at least read through it for ideas. http://code.reddit.com
In spite of your downmod, second that.

Seriously, the #2 and #3 right now are a review of Atlas shrugged and self rolling giant snowballs, there is the 'giant crystal cave', a pr piece from a british adult(ery) site and a wsj piece on 'terror'.
How Jajah, a little phone company, sold for $207M while everyone else got killed
They did. And not just a badge, an obnoxious modal banner that would pop up every 10 minutes until you voted.
Ask HN: Weekend update -- What weekend projects are you upto?
Many of us have interesting evening and weekend projects. Since weekends are a bit slow around here, I thought it would be fun and useful to have a weekly or biweekly open thread to talk about how your project is doing this week.

I tried this last weekend to a fair deal of success, so I thought I'd try it again.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1028781

What project are you working on? And what goal are you striving to accomplish this particular weekend?

I'll start with mine in the comments.
the point of paying attention to fiber is that if you get your daily needs in fiber, you'll have eaten so many vegetables that your tastes regarding carbs will change. Your belly will also be full, which cuts down on the feeling of hunger.

People do lose large amounts of weight on small deficits, get serious!! It just takes a while. I personally dropped nearly 40 lbs this way and large people can also certainly do this - go ask a nutritionist. Of course you were hungry all the time, your body was down regulating. You are sitting here attacking a theory immediately after admitting that you could not maintain the 500-1000 calorie deficit? That has nothing to do with the theory! You chose to eat more, you gained weight again - if you had maintained your discipline, you would not have gained the weight back.

I've researched the carb-free diet in detail and my conclusion is carbohydrates play an important role in human nutrition and it is very unwise to cut them out. We evolved to run off a particular type of fuel, continue with this diet for a couple more years and then consequences will become apparent. There is a wide variety of material from credible mainstream nutrition researchers on this. The healthy thing to do is to make sure your nutrients are handled in a balanced way and then slowly burn off fat and actually maintain discipline for years. This book has a lot of good info : http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Well-Optimum-Health-Essential/d...
Mario Triola's book is excellent.
Covers all the topics with very clear explanations.
Elementary Statics 10th Edition.
I've been dual booting Ubuntu and Win7 for several months now, and I can't find too many reasons why I would choose Ubuntu over Win7 (or Mac OS). I should say, I have converted friends and family to Ubuntu and they do just fine.

Many of the tools I like for Linux are starting to also get ports for Windows. Plus Win7 feels open source compared to my buddy's Mac :P
It's true, especially for the people who attended (I was there), the after-party was far more interesting than the awards show itself.

Also the juggling comedians act and the Richter Scales were fun. Listening to who won "best PR firm", not so much.
The Cartoon Guide to Statistics by Gonick and Smith is actually quite good for dipping your toes in. It should give you an okay conceptual foundation from which you can tackle the textbooks you've already got.
I dream of this company once a week after using Ubuntu. System76 has a noble effort going on, but it just isn't elegant.
I'm no expert on presenting. (Far far far far.... from it.) I also can't view your slides without downloading Open Office (which I'm too lazy to do). So... take this with a huge grain of salt. :)

My first thought is that, you're right, these techniques are most obviously applicable when selling something. But even in the case of training, I think it might be possible to "sell" what you are trying to train if you focus on the "what I'm doing" aspect.

What I mean is that I've sat through a few lame corporate training presentations in my time and they always consist of loads of processes. Things like, "do this, then this, then this, and poof - you're done!" But what they utterly fail to actually tell you is WHAT you are doing and WHAT was accomplished! Perhaps a lame example might help...

Imagine being taught how to cook a burger like this: First you are told how and where to find the meat (perhaps in the freezer in the kitchen on the 3rd shelf). Then you are told or shown that you must place the meat into a special tray. Then this tray is inserted into the microwave oven and a very specific numerical sequence is entered. Wait for exactly 3 minutes. Now you remove the container from the microwave.... etc..

What's lost here is the end goal and the WHY. What are you really trying to make and why do these steps even exist in this order? Is there really only one single right sequence of steps?

So.. how does this help? Well, I imagine Steve would first give you the motivation for wanted to make your burger. Perhaps he lets you taste one. Touch it. Smell it. Study it. Compare with the "the competition." Now you know what your goal is. Then the process is to not follow steps, but to understand what needs to be done. You must understand that the meat must be thawed and why you can't just cook it first, then form it into a burger shape. This kind of thing.

So in your case, I imagine the presentation would first include real examples and problems that need to be solved and that you will learn how to solve with the program. Maybe work through one of them. Or study it so that it becomes clear as to what variables are involved and why. The second act, then, is where you connect the dots of the first part with the software. X is represented in the software here... (do a demo) Etc. The 3rd act is to tie ti all together. A complete example of a single event or something that you'd use the software for and how to get the results and what they mean and how to translate those results into real world meaning. (If it just spits out some pretty graphs - why do I even care? What does it MEAN?)

That sort of thing.

Maybe. :P

Now I'm hungry.
It isn't a signature. I put my email address on there so that if someone has a question about bariatric surgery, they could contact me. If HN had a way of private messaging people, I wouldn't have done it.
I'm working on Bibdex, online bibliography software for the community of scholars and scientists.

http://www.bibdex.com

Last weekend I was working hard to get it onto the production server. I've done that. The marketing website is good, and the blog is designed and functional.

This weekend I am continuing down my launch list. I'm going to focus on finishing the server management, e.g. testing the backups, getting the 404 and 501 pages to look pretty, and polishing the deployment process.
And this is what pisses me off. There were so many companies that showed "interest" in Linux like IBM, RedHat but nobody really did what Google did.

There was a Google marketing campaign, they worked with proprietary companies (gasp, heaven forbid) to push a system that they were to make money off of.
Zed actually recommends quite a few books in his post:

* Statistics; by Freedman, Pisani, Purves, and Adhikari. Norton publishers.
* Introductory Statistics with R; by Dalgaard. Springer publishers.
* Statistical Computing: An Introduction to Data Analysis using S-Plus; by Crawley. Wiley publishers.
* Statistical Process Control; by Grant, Leavenworth. McGraw-Hill publishers.
* Statistical Methods for the Social Sciences; by Agresti, Finlay. Prentice-Hall publishers.
* Methods of Social Research; by Baily. Free Press publishers.
* Modern Applied Statistics with S-PLUS; by Venables, Ripley. Springer publishers.
For the record, I am experiencing the same and I find it highly annoying. If the true voting policy is not known, this site's credibility suffers.
No, it would RealTimeSpam.
Red Hat has done pretty well by linux. So did IBM, at least I think they did. The problem is that it's not really "Linux on the Desktop" if its an enterprise roll out or a server or other specialty application (I'm a librarian and there are some good systems for public access internet based on Linux). Do you mean "Linux on the Home Desktop" or "Linux on anything that might otherwise run Windows"?
Zed Shaw should stick to his area of expertise. His angry, opinionated rants on topics he clearly lacks deep knowledge of are perfect examples of the pseudo-intellectual junk that litters HN from time to time.
Which was absolutely and utterly ridiculous and which should have been challenged up to the highest courts.

The rights of sponsors to sports events should not extend to the clothing of the audience.
For a long time, I wanted to teach myself statistics for the social sciences too. I decided the best way to do this was to find an interesting social science issue, and then learn statistics as part of tackling the issue. But there was one problem with this. There are almost no problems in the social science where it makes sense to use advanced statistics to analyze them. Using very simple regressions can be illuminating and illustrative (though not conclusive). But when you try to get more advanced, data quality, data coding, issues with choosing the right controls, too many variables, sensitivity to variable selection, inability to separate causation from correlation, etc. render advanced statistics utterly useless. Do you have a particular social science problem that you think would be a good fit for statistics?
Imgur.com gets private accounts
Imgur is a very essential img hosting website. It was created by a redditor as "an image hosting site that just works". The guy has been improving it for quite some time and now he's realeasing a little nice feature (personal accounts see: http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/ank6i/reddit_ive_been_promising_this_to_you_for_months/ )

It is by far one of the best img sharing site and I wonder what it will happen to it in the next future. The idea is very simple, execution neat; just let's see what the business is.
Certainly laptops are where the market is. I relabeled it below as "Linux on anything that might otherwise run Windows". I think that covers what people are generally talking about when they say "Linux on the Desktop".
s/gia/joi/ would be a lot more fun, though. ;-)
Just thought I'd share an example where the graphs really help you to understand the performance profile.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/four.livejournal/20090911/benchmark....