skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Im not arguing that point. Im arguing that untill Warner Bros, Fox, et al get around to releasing on blu-ray the only way to get that contet is dvd. Netflix is not in the biz of scannning film, so they are stuck with what they are given. Most of that is DVDs
Ah. I see where you are going. For a second I thought perhaps you were defending the practice as necessary :)

The average consumer is shockingly disorganized with their personal finances. Sites like Mint are a tremendous step in the right direction. Online banks are also emerging as "consumer-friendly" competition. For example, Schwab has one of the best deals out there right now -- free, interest-bearing checking, no overdraft fees, unlimited ATM surcharge rebates.

I think consumers want to understand but are overwhelmed. Perhaps an approach lies in expanding the 3rd party services market to continue to provide helpful tools to consumers.
The "Here's why this works" part was the best part of the article. Thanks for writing more than "hey, look at this trick!"
The green area is marked technlogy and the orange area is marked technology ! Isn't that an error ?
Another interesting talk from Cliff Click on modern CPUs
Would we (Earth) show up in our universe's stats pages?
Anger and sadness are certainly there, and with good reason. But the tension during some answers and not during others is there, as well. Not because he's lying, but because he's making sure not to say something he is not allowed to. The pre-rehearsed part about not claiming the attack to have been state-sponsored is a good control - the anger/sadness is there, but the tension is not.
Google may have even sent the employees home to help protect them. If they seem uninvolved in Google's decision to uncensor, then it's less likely that the employees will face punishment from the Government.
Surely you could just get an account that doesn't allow an unauthorised overdraft? So if you need one, you need to actually go into the bank and talk to someone (or is this kind of account only common outside the US?)
The Cappuccino Framework:

http://cappuccino.org/

Might be more to your tastes.
The fact that the word "check" is still used regularly in US banking seems to indicate that it's not a business that is amenable to a tech startup... I mean, come on: "If I need a check somewhere real fast, they can do that too and overnight it for a $20 fee." It's not ING's fault, of course. I don't think anyone in Sweden has written a check in the past 30 years. Whenever I talk to my family about this they just snicker.
What a pity it isn't kept up to date.

If you're looking for the transputers they're under T9000. (I couldn't find them at first).
I don't understand, will they be invulnerable to Chinese hackers after removing the Chinese version of Google?
But you can't say that a prediction is accurate until you have the actual data. They could still be wildly wrong in this instance; for example Nexus One users may be the early adopter types who will install loads of applications, thus artificially inflating the perceived number of phones out there.

Until Google actually release figures about how many were sold the prediction can't be classed as accurate or inaccurate.
Corporations (legal but not natural persons) have historically caused less deaths than states (sovereign entities with a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.) In this meaning states too are corporations just a special type.

Joint stock corporations without a defined end of life are an innovation dating from approximately 1500. I contend that on a net, and probably a gross accounting of lives lost due to action by states have consistently outnumbered those due to corporations.

Given that states have a monopoly on violence it is a trivial consequence that their actions will cause more deaths than corporate actions. Sovereign actors typically exceed non-sovereign ones in capability for violence. Even where this is not true the corporation is constrained by the will of it's sponsor state, and as such ultimate responsibility lies with the state sponsor of the corporation.

Given that we have no examples of sovereign corporations (sub-type, profit maximising) little information is contained in my original snarky comment. I contend, in agreement with the Emperor of the Rightwing Wingnutosphere Mencius Moldbug, that a sovereign entity with a clear goal of profit seeking will be less murderous than one without a clearly defined and measurable goal (all of them, barring the Holy See, which aims to convert all humanity to Roman Catholicism.)

tl:dr Given the vast differences in capabilty between sovereign and non-sovereign corporations the difference in their headcounts is a trivial consequence. Conceded.
It's the 3/6/3 model, and it works beautifully.

Savings accounts at a 3% rate.

Mortgages at a 6% rate.

On the golf course by 3PM.
Neat! I tried signing up for mturk a few weeks ago as a customer but they wouldn't accept me because of the location of the company.

Pretty disappointing. I hope they open that up sooner or later (rather sooner), it seems to be a little roundabout to have to register another company just to be able to use mturk.
I work for a bank (not from USA though) and what I see as the toughest barrier in initiating a Bank is the massive amount of banking regulation that every institution must comply (not negotiable). Also the impact of new regulations on the systems running the business are usually non trivial.
Missing any of these, means that you cant operate (or you can't do certain operations, generally critical).

As I said, the effort put in keeping with all this is very big. Usually the split is 50/50 with regulation vs new features (my view is as a software developer). The bank being global only makes things worse, as only adds more regulations from different places to equation.

Well that was the boring part. I think theres a place for new financial services but perhaps the way to get started is providing those new services and avoiding being a bank. As the institution adds more services and grows, it can begin to take into account the regulation little by little.
That was my simplistic view ;)
Relatedly, if you ever forget Avagadro's number, you can approximate it by figuring out how many unique 5x5 bingo cards you can make by 24 words and a free space. This will get you to within about 3% of the right number.
Perhaps the James Randi foundation should offer this man the $1M prize if he can prove his ailment to be real.
Drupal, Acquia Provide Open Source Services For New Open Government
Yes, it was remarked on before, but you're wrong about the areas, if you look closely you'll see that the rows are 'in order' and the green area is actually a one time occurrence somewhere near the top. The other green area is the one that has unclassified submissions in it.
No, it took 6 months to buy an existing bank. There's at least one group who put in a request in 2008 for a license and is still jumping through hoops.
Think Bigger
User experience design more important than pure engineering
Would an email list that emails out a new proxy web address once one gets blocked to its subscribers work?

-- there is some open source code that can be setup to run as a proxy app

-- there's a main site that pings it to see when it goes down, or an email address that can be mailed if it goes down.

-- once blocked, a new email goes out to users with the next proxy server web address that has already been setup and ready to use: an IP, domain or sub domain url

-- so it's like dominoes falling and the current one standing is what people use, as new dominoes are setup in the background

Challenge:

1) finding a ready supply of IP addresses, domains, and URLs where new proxies can be setup

2) making sure the emails aren't blocked

3) plugin so it works transparently for the end user
I am stunned to see this on the front page. It boils down to a bunch of crybaby whining by people who can't balance their checkbooks. Banks by and large give you more tools than ever to keep track of your transactions, and it's all free. Good grief.
very useful, thanks :) "Coincidentally, there are 1.609 kilometers in a mile, which is within 0.5% of the Golden ratio." was the only interesting sentence for me
Why Net Neutrality is Essential: an Entrepreneur's Perspective
[RoR] Easy Testing of MongoMapper models
Ask HN: Know of any good books on (computer) networking?
While it doesn't have anything to do with what I'm working on right now, I've recently been interested in learning more about networking. Specifically, what is involved in creating/installing/maintaining network backbone infrastructures (optical fiber, SONET, ATM, MPLS, VPLS, T1/T3, etc.)

So, does anyone know of a good book (or books) that I can read? Or even a detailed website will suffice!
The State Department is being a bit hypocritical here. If China must give an explanation for its alleged cyberattacks/hacking attempts on gmail, then the U.S. government should also give an explanation for its NSA-sponsored eavesdropping/hacking/snooping of other countries' citizens' email, phone conversations, and other communications.
It is very interesting that the State Department is playing second fiddle to Google here. Intuitively I feel this has pretty far reaching consequences.

- Apparently Google has uncovered a chinese attempt to infiltrate a number of American companies[1]. The fact that this is being uncovered by Google and not the government is very interesting. And potentially very embarrasing for the state.

- America hasn't engaged China in relation to human rights, probably due to global politics which tends to tie you up in consensus, conventions and diplomacy. Google has done so in a very clear and public way.

- The state department is taking Googles lead. Hilary Clinton is playing catch-up. She even says so in the statement: "We have been briefed by Google"

This indicates an enormous shift in power.

[1] - The American government might have been aware of this or even uncovered it themselves, which I personally doubt.
Until some judge with no science education rules in his favor and suddenly we have to stop using wifi in the workplace, have notices saying this "office contains radiowaves known to the state of ..."
Corporate social responsibility (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_social_responsibility) is an increasingly popular concept in management and the benefits to a company can be as abstract as enhancing market position or PR. It makes perfect sense for a company like Google to take a risky, socially responsible move like this for the reasons they've publicly stated (and note that the implied reasons did also include issues related to infrastructure and IP security). While we don't know exactly what their motives are, I see no reason to believe that they are vastly different than what google has stated.

Don't forget that the core elements of google's corporate identity, regardless of whether it's just an ideal, are "do no evil" and "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." I have no doubt that at least some executives as google, almost certainly including sergey and larry, feel that maintaining this corporate identity is important.
Erm, couldn't you just set your normal editor to fullscreen, play some bargain bin "sounds of the rain forest" CD?

(I would so use the geek version of this, which simulates slow-changing CRT phosphor a la xscreensaver and gives me the solid Selectric/Model M thunk even when I'm not actually using my IBM keyboard)
This is basically http://xkcd.com/687/ with twice the setup and none of the punchlines.
And will be available in Canada about the time Avatar becomes technically possible
The original question was how to convert 19 miles to km.

First decompose it into a sum of Fibonacci numbers:

19 = 13 + 5 + 1

Then find the next Fibonacci number for each one of them:

13 -> 21
5 -> 8
1 -> 2

Then sum them up to get the result in kilometers:

21 + 8 + 2 = 31km

Which is within 1.36% of the correct answer (the correct answer is 30.57km.)
Or simply join a Credit Union which has a much different approach than banks. Focuses on returning profits as services to the consumer via lower rates, more features, etc.

And, like others have said, if a big concern of yours are the overdraft fees call your bank and tell them you no longer want overdraft protection.
Well, if you had actually read the article before asking, you would have known the answer. (you change the number into the sum of several fibonacci numbers, convert each one, then sum the result again).
I actually also tried signing up for mTurk. And while I guess it's not how it's supposed to work, I could sign up after looking up a random NY zipcode. Not 100% sure about the billing tho, but I do know non-americans who have used Mturk before, and supposedly also paid for it.
Or you could do 21 - 2 -> 34 - 3
The State Dept. isn't playing second fiddle. They simply can NOT come out as publicly as Google did, for many reasons. As the "official" foreign voice of the US Govt there are serious repercussions to coming right out and accusing China. Secondly, they would not tip their hand on any intelligence they received, or were actively receiving, on Chinese infiltrations in cyberspace.

While our Gov't isn't very good at some things, I can guarantee that they were aware of what was going on. There have been many well-publicized instances over the past 10 years where the Govt' has uncovered intrusions into commercial companies.
19mi = (13mi + 5mi + 1mi) ≅ 21km + 8km + 2km = 31km

Actual answer: 30.58 kilometers
copying over from other thread:

"Gossip from within google.cn is Shanghai office used as CN gov attack stage in US source code network." - wikileaks: http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/7689041346

(http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1049154)

i.e. (rumors) Google know who was attacked because it was done out of their own office
I thought the OP was alluding to the slight ambiguity because 1 appears twice in the Fibonacci sequence. You could interpret the approach two ways and do either 21 + 8 + 2 = 31 km or 21 + 8 + 1 = 30 km. Happily these span the correct answer of 30.55km.
Banks in Iceland (yeah laugh away) are quite high tech. You get a text message when your card is used online, you can create accounts and move your funds around online. Transfers between accounts within Iceland are all instant (huge DB2 database run on an interbank computer).
Another vote for xero.com

Used GnuCash for 5 years, and whilst it was OK, Xero is a hell of a lot nicer to deal with.
Thanks, but I don't worry about karma. The discussion that followed because of my post was reward enough. :)
Ask HN: "So... What happened to the last guy?"
Today I interviewed for an IT Director position at a non-profit development organization. My initial feeling is that there's a better-than-average chance that they'll be offering me a position in the next few days.

I've thought a lot about switching to this sector (that's a whole other post...), and I'm certainly prepared for the salary hit that this will likely involve. I'm also bracing myself for the IT budget, fully expecting that it will be a good source of interesting challenges.

That being said, when I asked "What happened to the last guy?" I received the answer "There was a difference in opinion relating to how much we should spend on IT-related issues." Further prying didn't yield much, and I'd really like to get an idea as to which party had unrealistic expectations.

So my question is: I have an opportunity to make contact with the former IT Director... should I? Would you?

One part of me thinks that information-gathering is always beneficial, but at the same time I may not want this person's personal feelings to bias my own with regards to this new partnership. What would you do?
Government spies in the Shanghai office stealing Google's source tree seems to have been the straw that broke the camel's back. I guess China will just build their own Google now...

The NYT article explicitly says the opposite: "attackers may have succeeded in penetrating elaborate computer security systems and obtaining crucial corporate data and software source code, though Google said it did not itself suffer losses of that kind". In general, that's not the language I hear them using - "broad", "sophisticated", and "targeting infrastructure of a variety of major corporations".
Did Conan not read his contract?
I am proud of the Google, but the skeptic in me says:

Google knows that it is not in a leading position in China and has been losing market share there. The fight there is probably not a fair one(but where is it a fair one?).

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Google-Drops-in-Market-Share-...

Thus they can make a strong, positive statement that the rest of the market will applaud, while not really losing that much(although 12% of China is still quite a bit).
For me it is easier to multiply a number by 1.6 than to find the combination of Fibonacci numbers forming the original number, finding the next Fibonacci number for each of those and then adding the numbers.

Good trick though.
Good enough, but a -4 just for getting the timing wrong by a couple of minutes was hardly your mistake.

You had it backwards, but if you hadn't spotted that I highly doubt that this would have come out.

And I also highly doubt the whole 'social experiment' excuse, that's just way too glib for me.
Intriguing. For those that were wondering, patio11 is talking about 24 factorial (or "24!").

Edit: corrected the post from 25 to 24. I got bitten by an off-by-one error in Python's range!
I didn't mean to imply that anything was wrong with it, I was just going to see if you often cross-posted.
"More broadly, how would one go about determining how much money “should” be allocated to any of the different sub-areas of CS?" - from Random Bits by Jonathan Katz
I seriously agree. At first glance it's easy to write this guy off as a total crackpot, but, the human body being complex as it is, you never know...
They already had the G1, another HTC phone with Android.
In this situation I tend to pretend that 1 -> 1.5. (Or, indeed, 1.6, but generally that looks like claiming more accuracy than is really justified.)
These lessons are pretty basic, but they have served me well over the years. When I find myself getting lost in a project, it helps to go back to the basics and get some perspective.

1. Break it down. A whole project - even an ostensibly simple one - is overwhelming to contemplate and leads to defensive procrastination. Always take the time at the beginning to break the project into manageable components. Then work through the steps until complete. Be sure to review and revise the list of steps as your requirements change.

2. Your requirements will change. Accept it. Embrace it. Understand that the final product will be better if you're willing to change your mind when the facts change.

3. Obey Gall's Law. When coding a project, take the shortest path to a simple application that works, even if it's only a fractional subset of the total project requirements. Then incrementally add functionality, testing as you go, until the project is completed.

4. Document as you go. This includes both code comments and external documentation for application and/or API users. Every time you add or change a feature, update the documentation to reflect the change. Just make it a core part of your workflow. If you wait until you've finished coding to start documenting, it will end up looking forced, rushed, and incomplete. Ideally, include your documentation right in your version control.

5. Use version control. Disk space is cheap and abundant, so commit early and commit often. Make sure your commit comments reflect what you're capturing in each snapshot.

6. Backup and restore. This should be a no-brainer. You need a proper, reliable, redundancy-tested offsite backup, and you need to test regularly that you can restore from your backups. No, a RAID array is not a backup solution.

7. Leave your code in a working state at the end of every day. Don't walk out on code that won't run. It's surprisingly demoralizing to come to work the next day knowing that a broken build is waiting for you. If you have to roll back or comment out a half-finished code block, do it.

8. If you can't figure out a problem, walk away. For small to medium-sized problems, I find a good brisk walk is enough to break the logjam in my mind and see through to a solution. For big problems, I may have to pull out the big guns: a good night's sleep.

9. Fix bugs first. Don't introduce any new features while any identified bugs are still outstanding.
What if you told them, "If I get this position, I'll be expecting a budget between x and y. Does this seem about right?"
I'd definitely ask him, as well as ask to have a look around the facilities/code/whatever. It's not like a non-profit has a bunch of really high-value IP, I would think.
He's actually talking about 24! not 25!. (Maybe because the free square is in a fixed position?)

24! = 6.20e23; and Avogadro = 6.02e23.
Traditionally, the free space is stuck in the center of the card, and thus it can be ignored for the purposes of the problem. The right answer is 24!

Incidentally, if you're trying to explain the results of this calculation to a middle school English teacher, I recommend "More than there are grains of sand on a beach." It relaxes the worry they really have and is non-specific enough to avoid sounding threatening. (Ask me no questions I'll tell you no lies.)
I read on their blog that they are working on a Windows port at least.

Also, what if you want to write without an internet connection? The idea that you have to be connected to the web just to write words seems strange to me.
Yes but righteous indignation is so much easier to muster. Honestly though, this is more about China's history of human rights violations than the hacking attempts themselves.
I'd absolutely try to contact my predecessor. Just in case you step in to a catfight or a nasty can of worms, it can only be to your advantage.

Take what you hear with a grain of salt. Trust but verify I think was the motto.
That's exactly my primary point - Government, as you say, can not come out publicly and have their hands tied in many ways. Google can, and this, combined with their size, konwledge and brand, makes them a strong player in international politics. In this particular instance they are clearly the lead that everyone else, including the state department, follows.

As for your second point, I totally agree. There might be a good chance the government knew, I'm no security expert so I'll refrain from taking a stance. That's why I added the footnote :-)
Andreyf, is this original content you have written or was it borrowed in another social experiment?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1049430
>"We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on google.cn,"

Good for Google. China may be an emerging force on the world stage, but so is the spread of information, and I know which I'd place my bet on; the Chinese govt. had better be careful in my opinion.
It's kind of amazing that it wasn't like this from the start. Unsecured coffe shop wifi + http = everyone in the room can grab your password.
What would you base that budget on, without in-depth internal knowledge ?
tcpdump to the rescue, it seems that I'm getting a lot of RST packets from the server.

This may indicate that the socket accept queue is overflowing from time to time.

So they're not restarts, they just look like restarts.