skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
In fairness, AFAIK, Apple invented the i* phenomenon. Other companies taking advantage of that catchy naming format feels so cheap to me that I could hardly care less about their actual rights on paper.
What a vacuous article.
"Higher temperatures lead to higher concentrations of water vapor, which then absorbs more thermal energy radiated from the Earth, which further warms the atmosphere."

This article is about how increased water vapour cools the atmosphere. Then it goes on to say this is because less water vapor is going into the upper atmosphere.

The conclusion is 'we really don't know'

The failure of climate models to accurately hindcast shows how inadequate they are. The water vapor cycle is hardly a new discovery. Why, then, was it not in the climate models?
If it's not accurate (failure to predict flat temperature growth) then there must be some fundamental assumptions wrong. It's not valid to curve-fit the results by messing about with inputs. They need to start again.

Climate papers/articles seem to be becoming more like a youtube comment thread, where everyone piles on agreeing with the last person, and repeats what they said, just to make sure the point isn't lost.
Hitler debunks the iPad
The iPhone vs. the iPad vs. the MacBook Pro.
Also, the AppStore means never having to worry about malware or viruses. That means no hesitation, if you see something you like, just get it, it's just a single click.

Fear of malware, viruses, or just accidentally changing some setting can be terribly paralyzing.
Hasn't the DoD worked more the other way around--- cost-plus contracts with unlimited overruns reimbursed, for building new technologies that private companies can compete to increase the costs of? Defense contracting is a pretty notorious money pit.
Trees retaliate when their fig wasps don't service them
Not really. They popularised for devices it with the iPod and iMac, but sticking i and e in front of a name was wildly popular in the 1990's. (eBay anyone?) I would think Apple just followed that trend rather than coming up with it themselves. The iPhone mark was registered by infogear in 1996. Cisco acquired Infogear, which is how they ended up with it. The iMac didn't come out until 1998, the iPod in 2001.
> told them to RTFM.

To be fair, there are some people that complain that their computer doesn't work, only to find out that they didn't plug it in or hit the power switch. The iPad doesn't solve stupidity.
I can see how if someone was pushed to the limit eventually suicide would become a rational choice. If the pain gets too intense it becomes pretty easy to take the easy way out. Some people avoid it by going to religion, others can't make that leap and thus find another way to make it stop: suicide.

Sure mental illnesses needlessly cause suicide, but it's not impossible for someone to achieve a point of hopelessness where suicide becomes a natural expected rational decision.

But I agree with you, it should never be thought of as the rational choice, because there is always hope for better. And no, you don't have to fabricate that hope either. It's what keeps me working, applying to yc despite rejection, and staying alive the for the next day despite all my shortcomings and failures. All without the need for a religion. I still haven't got to where I want to be, but I have hope.
While I would like to pile on and say "I told you so" the article is really a PR release to try and establish their exam.

Anyone who has been employed trying to sort out a failed offshored project will probably find themselves agreeing with the title, though.
Whoa! I was assuming this worked like doing a JSON grab-bag column in Rails or J2EE, which I am a fan of. Executable code would make me much, muuuuuuuuuch cooler on the idea.

Can you just do the same thing with JSON, Yaml, or your favorite serialization method of choice that does not have catastrophic consequences if parsing gets subverted?
Save Wikileaks
And here in Japan there isn't even security: you buy a ticket at the ticket machine, then go through the gate and get in. No need to speak to a human until the controller checks your ticket during the ride.
With wordpress's track record, you should expect your site to get hacked at this point. Migrate to a less vulnerable platform or go static.
While it might work for dead-tree media, I don't see any benefit of 4 little columns vs. 1 wide-ish block for a blog. Especially when blockquoting a fairly sizable amount of text.

The Readability bookmarklet works well on this.
Is it basically all about multitasking vs not multitasking? Because it seems to be true, without multitasking, there is no need to worry about spyware or software breaking the system. It's a bit like giving up, though.

As for the elderly loading their iPhones with apps - my experience is that people do that with "old school" computers too. Only then it does break their computers.
Superbowl Sportsbook Betting Review (Infographic)
Some people bet on the coin toss, others the color of the Gatorade poured on the coach, or even what song the "The Who" will play at half time. This infographic goes over some of the WTF bets that are placed each year and some basic info for newbies that wanna learn how to bet on the Superbowl correctly.
There have been some warnings that should WikiLeaks be sued in the US, all backers (PayPal trackable) could also be sued.

It was proposed that WikiLeaks should provide an untraceable payment method.
Alternatives to the UB Referral Code
All of these codes will give you the UB bonus offer. As a result, you don’t have to be worried about not getting your entitlement by using them during the signup process.
How to Choose a Good Telecom Consulting Company?
Telecom contributes immensely to cost-savings through micro-analysis of expenses, by which preventive action is taken. History, clientele, expertise, structure and prices help to choose a suitable telecom consulting company.
Advice about hiring programmers
Hello all,

In my job at the moment I'm going to be looking to hire a software developer to work on our project. However, we currently don't have any programmers in the company so doing any testing of how candidates write code and the quality of said code is going to be nigh on impossible to judge. The most I've worked with are scripting languages and this job will require C/C++. Does anyone have any advice on how to go about testing in a situation like this? Feedback from both hiring/applying sides of the process would be really appreciated.

Thank you!
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Trusted Computing.

I don't understand why no one coined the term yet. The IPhone, IPod Touch and IPad are computers with some form of Trusted computing. The IPone and IPod Touch weren't a big cause for concern because they weren't seen as fully fledged computers (although technically, they are). The IPad, on the other hand, leaves no doubt.

I think few disagree here when I say that Trusted Computing is a scandal, is dangerous, and restricts our liberties. I think no one here would be willing to buy a "Trusted Computing" desktop (except for cracking it).

Yet many people here don't see the exact same danger with the IPad. Some even love it. Why? Maybe because the device looks new. Maybe because it is the logical sequel of the IPhone (it feels like being slowly cooked with the proverbial frog). Maybe it is because people feel safe when a big Gatekeeper keeps bad things out. Maybe this is a combination of all those things. Actually, I don't really know.

The IPad is Trusted Computing Without A Name. Accepting it is accepting Trusted Computing. Your choice.
Maybe there is need to develop means/skills for it to work in more jobs. As Pascal hyperbolized:

"All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room. "

[If not all human evil... at least we can now append: "burden of transportation infrastructure + CO(2)."]
I agree that it makes the page less readable, but I can forgive Roc that little indulgence; he implemented support for CSS columns in Gecko; it's only fair that he gets to show it off.

Asa Dotzler's blog (http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/) has the headings twist by five degrees or so when you mouse over them; he's not even a Gecko developer, so he's got no excuse.
Csmania.bg Home - csmania.bg
Geo-engineering has about as much chance of gaining global acceptance as a global cap&trade system : ie, none. What will be interesting is if countries start experimenting with their own geo-engineering systems. Will Micronesia sue, say, Canada for loss of tourist dollars if they cool things down too much by imitating a volcano and spraying sulphur dioxide into the stratosphere?

The most effective use of money with climate change is adaption when and where necessary.
Funny, I never took it to be nose-thumbing so much as fellatio. He's the Pied Piper of Hamelin who led a small army of open source programmers straight to their language and APIs just when the townsfolk were at the peak of panic that they were losing the mindshsre of developers. (...developers, developers, developers,...) That's an act of deep love, not defiance.

Well, as deep as as a quid pro quo seeker might feel, anyway. He certainly never came off as an idealist.
I've said it before and I'll say it again; anyone using MySQL in new projects is living dangerously. PostgreSQL is the future. This makes me happy and a little sad. :/
In terms of open standards, is there any reason to switch from Flash to HTML5 video if that video is going to be in H.264?

I understand that there are possibly technical reasons for Chrome\Safari choosing H.264 as the default codec instead of Theora but it strikes me as somewhat disingenuous for people to harp on about the need to move away from a proprietary technology like Flash, if the alternative is an open standard built on top of a proprietary codec.
Honestly, if all they did was take old rail tech and make sure passenger rail gets its own track (instead of being preempted by freight) I'd be pretty happy already. This is where the bulk of the speed limitations come in.
The stock response to this is that "abstractions are leaky." For the DOM, it's conceptually nice to be able to just operate on the tree, but as soon as you start dealing with browser bugs (or even just browser-specific functionality) the chances are that it'll just break, and the system will end up more complex than if you'd just stuck with text.

Also, presumably you'd want a non-textual Javascript layer to go with your non-textual DOM layer. I think the jury's still out on general non-textual programming.

I think the reason programmers get hung up on text and its editors is that it's like C: it's the lingua franca. Every system uses it at some level, so if you've got a good tool for using it, it's applicable to any domain you care to look at. Without it, you'd be reduced to domain-specific abstractions which might not have any wider applicability at all.
Why the web needs Flash
The Problem with Larrabee: Memory bandwidth
No Moon Trips: Obama's Space Vision a 'Paradigm Shift'
All we have to do is convince Google that a space race means more advertising opportunities, convince Microsoft that there are aliens who will buy MS Word, Twitter that there are hubris opportunities, and Facebook that there are beings on mars who want to be Poked, and the problem will be solved. Where there's a dollar sign, there's a way.
Google's "older sister" in China urges it to stay
How is Dans' family doing?
I suppose you have to make the decision if the time you save by working with C# instead of Objectve-C (if there's any at all) is worth $400.
That is six flavors of brilliant. It StackOverflow demonstrate that ads may have an actual ROI despite being pitched at an audience of ad-blind cynical techies without having to expose data from advertisers (which they typically will not go for). Granted, people might click on OSS ads more than they'd click on genuine advertisements but, hey, overestimating effectiveness is not exactly a showstopper for the publisher.
If you are not much into programming, get help from any of your technically inclined friends who can identify good programmers. Let them interview the candidates for you. Also, ask them to refer good programmers they know.
I think you're missing the point of the article: the point is that New World people don't care about all that openness of their computer, just like most people don't care about the openness of their car. They just want it to work, and work really well; Apple's approach is one way to fulfill these requirements, but I don't see Lisp machines and OLPC doing this.

Essentially he's repeating what everyone here probably already knows, and connecting that to the iPad. We're the minority, and Apple's audience might start shifting away from a niche, hip gadget-audience to an incredibly mainstream audience.
Yes, but they already own an iphone. And they'll need to keep that iphone because apple, smart as they are made sure you can't make voice calls with this device.

So either they will have to convince those 75 million people to carry two devices or find a new market.
So if you provide a service for just encoding video to H.264 (using ffmpeg)), without streaming the videos to end users, you are already deep into patent trouble?
H.264 is not proprietary. It's a standard, created through the coordination and cooperation of a large number of groups. Unlike much software that is 'protected' under patents, the development of MPEGn, H.264, etc. was a significant investment in both time and money by those participating. That does not make it any more justified, but it is something to keep in mind -- the project is not a joke or a patent troll.

Anyone can view the standard and implement it. To distribute, you are to acquire a license from the MPEG LA. The terms are not onerous or the fee excessive. Google and Apple both pay the license fee for each download of Safari or Chrome. The patent holders have so far not prosecuted projects like x264, which distributes its implementations without a license.

Do I think software patents should be abolished? Yes. Do I think Mozilla is holding back the open web by not supporting H.264? Yes.
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Until you use one that doesn't.
Facebook | Rıdvan Özmen
I like the look of the OfficePod, and wonder if the concept could be taken even further, to a tiny but comfortable and optimized distraction-free space for solo thoughtwork, like programming or writing.

It'd be nearly an isolation-tank -- certainly not for the claustrophobic -- but with a great chair, adjustable surface and giant screens, and total sound and visual isolation from the surrounding environment. (Perhaps, a floor-to-ceiling window on a neutral outside scene would be OK.) You'd enter it almost like a cockpit, for a focused session of limited duration. While there's just enough space to stretch, to pace you've got to leave.
So, reading that I am supposed to come to the conclusion that absence of choice is now a good thing?

No keyboard, no mouse, only a multi-touch capable screen and this will somehow liberate software development?

I really don't get it. If it was in addition to the usual input suspects, then sure, that would enable lots of stuff.

But to be able to type, use the mouse for precise on-screen pointing without getting your hand in the way of what you're doing, those are things we already had.

Now you lose those and in return you get interaction with your hands on a relatively small screen.

On screen keyboards are nice, but even a lengthy email would be pretty cumbersome that way.

Choice is good, lack of choice is not 'fascinating', it is limiting. Limitations will drive creative people to come up with ways around those limitations but for now this is what you've got to work with.

Another thing I don't understand from the article is this sentence:

"but the specter of having a small user base for my experiments always discouraged me."

Why does that matter? Not everything is about how many people adopt it. If you can make a small group really happy that counts for something too.
It's not going to be that much of a battle. It will be more of a negotiation, as it was with the iPhone trademark. There will be a battle of sorts to determine how much Apple has to pay, but eventually they will pay it and move on.

But it is surprising that even after the iPhone trademark fiasco they do not reserve their trademark names before the big announcements.
Mark Cuban is a good source for the "every man" point of view as his views on things are largely incorrect and shallow. I take his opinion on this device as a kid pacifier very seriously. I believe many other people might be similarly inclined. "Here kids. Go play with your iPad." No kids installing virus software, no tech support needed. It's like a Fisher-Price computer.
I was thinking more of getting something past the app store approval process. I think if it was obvious it couldn't be used to circumvent the store itself it might have a chance. Jailbreaking will happen sooner rather than later I'm sure.
If the MPEG-LA's fees are neither onerous or excessive then why was there widespread industry revolt when they were introduced? Didn't that one company have a very public falling out with them about it? What was their name again? Oh yes, Apple:

"Apple Computer has rejected proposed licensing terms for the emerging MPEG-4 video standard, leaving the future of its QuickTime multimedia technology in limbo.

At a company-sponsored conference on Tuesday, Apple previewed the latest versions of its QuickTime digital media player and new QuickTime broadcast technology, both built on MPEG-4. But the company said those products will remain grounded indefinitely as it seeks to change MPEG-4 licensing terms unveiled last month by a key licensing clearinghouse.

The terms, set by MPEG LA on 31 January, have prompted a wave of criticism in streaming circles for including a per-minute streaming charge that adds up to 2 cents an hour for video clips delivered in the MPEG-4 format."

from Apple's MPEG-4 snub may halt QuickTime

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,2104282,00.htm

If Apple can fight against stupid licence terms why can't Mozilla?
Yes, producing encoded content would indeed require you to have a licence. But, if you're running such a service, at least licences are cheap (even if the pricing model is still set around the concept of hardware devices).
It's 3 degrees, ha! ;)

.title a:hover {
-moz-transform: rotate(-3deg); -moz-transform-origin: top middle;"
color:#2A0000;
}

Annoying, yes. Readable, yes.
Am I the only person who likes working in an open office more than having separate offices?

Of course it starts getting significantly less attractive once you have >10 people in the company or so.
Interesting. Thanks for the info.

>Do I think Mozilla is holding back the open web by not supporting H.264? Yes.

I'm wondering if it's fair to expect Mozilla (which I'm given to understand is a non-profit organization) to pay a license fee on every download the way a commercial entity like Google or Apple does? Do they get enough donations\royalties for this to be feasible?

Edit: Mozilla's explanation: http://www.osnews.com/story/22787/Mozilla_Explains_Why_it_Do...
Read this http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/technologynews/view/1...
Does this sound like thumbing one's nose ?

In the Summer of 1997 my friend Randy Chapman invited me to interview at the Microsoft Internet Explorer for Solaris on the SPARC (because of my background in the Linux/SPARC port). I went to interview to Microsoft that summer and met both Randy Chapman and Nat Friedman for the first time in person. We had known for a long time from the LinuxNet IRC network.

At Microsoft I learned the truth about ActiveX and COM and I got very interested in it inmediately. Upon my return to Mexico Federico and I started to design a GUI control infrastructure for Unix that we code named `GNOME'.

http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/gnome-history.html
I'm not sure how this works, but if x264 has been getting along fine without legal tangles, then why can't Mozilla use this instead?

Unless their primary fear is of being a larger patent attack surface.

Additionally, I was under the impression that the patent sabre-rattling can happen only in places where software patents are valid. So why can't Mozilla offer a build of Firefox for download only in, say, India? Too much effort?
The iware.com domain was registered in 1995, well prior to apples use of the 'i' prefix.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet-related_prefixes

The danger here is to fall in to the trap of thinking that because one party made a lot of noise they must have been 'first' with something.

Plenty of times - as in this one - that is not the case.

Even though the noise can easily drown out other parties to the point where it becomes really hard to prove otherwise.
Fujitsu first trademarked the name in 2002 and for one very specific use case (retail sales - not mobile). If they wanted to do anything else with that product line they've had plenty of time. Keep in mind that TMs aren't some broad right. You have to specify each and every use.
If you start looking at the various TMs, they also seem to have done the same with iPod.

The more I think about, the more I'm not sure Apple is behind the iSlate TM application. The route (random Delaware LLC) seems the same and it's a pretty broad TM. Either the iSlate name isn't Apple and they couldn't get it, or the iPad is seen internally as a transitional device to a more fully functioning iSlate once the bigger screen prices come down.
Why Use Subversion? - Hyrum Wright, President of the Subversion Corporation
I cut and this quote just to paste it here. Beat me too it by many hours!

It does more than date the post. Its the most perfect example I've found of how Apple sneaks up on markets and changes things. Is there anyone left who might think that a cd walkman and a burner are somehow equivalent to an iPod? Nobody called him out though. In 2001, it seemed reasonable.

I can't help but compare this to the "why do I want an iPad? I've already got a laptop and a smartphone" crowd. I was underwhelmed by the iPad as well. I found myself saying "all this hype for this!?" I probably won't be buying one.

Its going to change the way humans use computers forever.
Windows is so irrelevant
That brings up the best point: Can Fujitsu really claim that their device can be confused with the Apple iPad? The one place that Apple isn't trying to TM iPad is the Fujitsu use case. Remember, Apple and the Beatles only had a serious fight once Apple moved into music sales.
Global warming by carbon-cycle feedback significantly less than thought
http://gist.github.com/289645

I coded it in haskell, and it is faster, if it's a correct translation. Without parallelizing, it clocks at 1.8 seconds, compiled with $ ghc --make. If anyone plans to compile this you'll need to $ cabal install geodetic, before $ ghc --make filename.hs

1.8 Seconds seems a little too fast though...
When books get released in other countries they go through and change many of these locale specific things, at least they do when it's going UK -> US, I think it's less common the other way because we're already so exposed to their culture.
How do the PE companies get their return without an IPO?