skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: SpoofCard Clone
We are ready to invest in creating a company similar to that of SpoofCard.com's service. It is a popular script that masks your phone#.
Google Case in China Highlights Gaps in Computer Security
I've mastered the ability to type my PIN with three fingers all hitting different buttons each time (but only one, and it differs for each number, actually hitting it hard enough to register). With the right recording and enough time I doubt it would stop a truly committed thief, but it makes me feel safer.

If they crack that, the $20 I keep in my ATM account to prevent over-drawn fees are all theirs.
Truth (?) about the Google Affair
I think that they do understand it, but they're ignoring logic for purpose of the article's premise.
On Hovercouches & Pioneers
http://developer.yahoo.com/traffic/ ?
Jobnob Palo Alto startup jobs event 2/2
"spreadsheet view" is there. Is just a simple semantic query: http://www.startuplinkup.com/en/Big_startup_matrix
Well windows laptops have fingerprint scanners to log you in these days.
So a fingerprint scan and pin ought to be enough ?
Here's the very best point that is brought up: "And musicians need them to survive so we can use them as banks. Even bands like us who do most of our own promotion still need them to write checks every once in a while."

While the major labels had their faults, the DID act as investors for musicians.

This was probably their most important function, and it seems as if though the majority of Music 2.0 proponents do not know this.

This isn't the only thing they don't know about a functioning music industry.

The next time you're listening to a Music 2.0 presentation, stand up and ask the dude if he knows where the closest band rehearsal spaces are, where the closest guitar repair services are, who manages local acts, who does booking, who is currently promoting what genres and at what venues... really, I could go on and on about a lot of details that some messiah of the digital arts is most definitely unaware of.
Om Malik to interview Paul Graham on stage in LA
What algorithm should I use for trending detection?
What algorithm should I use for detecting trending items? (Whether that is toics, or articles)

I am tempted to just look for articles read which have a moving average period M which is high than their moving average period N. (Where M is smaller than N).
"Better for education" might not mean "better for undergrads." It might mean expanding the sum of human knowledge through pure research. That's a lofty goal that might frequently lie at odds with the upstairs-downstairs nature of actual grad school but enough good work comes out of large research-oriented universities to note. Smaller universities and colleges that don't do much research can still contribute to a community in other ways - libraries, lectures, publications. A lot of the benefits of higher ed to society don't come from teaching (or babysitting) undergrads. That parallels the point of the OP - if you focus solely on the bits that make you money in the short term you may miss out on some other good stuff.
I was just a victim of ATM fraud (presumably by skimmer) and according to the detective who handled the police report, there is almost no cooperation from banks and card providers. It is not in their interest that you know how much fraud there is out there. I have heard figures of over 8-10% in the US. That's a lot of overhead to be passing onto the consumer.
I just want to see what happens when the music hydra hits a million users.
What makes you say that?
If you guys are interested, you're more than welcome to some of the logos, table tents and name tag graphics that I've been using for the Hacker and Founders meetups in SF Bay area: http://iamelgringo.storage.s3.amazonaws.com/HackersAndFounde...

I think of it as open source HN meetup organizing. You're welcome to use the name if you wish. The NY HN meetup uses it. And, if you have any questions about the meetup social engineering, I'll be happy to share what seems to work for me.

I just signed up for the mailing list, too. I'd love to fly out and hang with you guys at one of these meetups.
That would make you nervous about 99% or so of all the IT jobs.
I've always been deeply interested in the inner workings of record labels.

As I understand it, it seems that a label is somewhat like a VC for artists. But no VC takes 80-90% of the company they invested in. Why do they need to take such a big part? Is pressing CDs such a huge risk and expense? If such; why continue doing it? Barely anyone buys CDs for obvious reasons, shouldn't there at least be an option for artists that don't want to press CDs? Maybe there is but artists just want CDs for some reason?

Why can't artists get regular bank-loans to fund their business? Is it just too high risk? It seems that someone as famous as Ok Go should be able to take a bank-loan to fund some studio time, but I suppose they're already under contract.

Anyway, if anyone has answers to these questions or links to where I can read more about stuff like this, please do share.
The very name Frank Woolworth anagrams to 'fowl hornwort ka', suggesting a demonic tryst in search of immortality.

Data suggests a Proctor & Gamble connection. We expect to verify this with 3-D analysis of data from New York's formerly tallest building. Stay up-to-date with our newsletter.
> The Google people tend to throw numbers off.

You can drill down to exclude them
Mobile phone insurance is really common in the UK. Most networks try to up-sell you their insurance, and many bank accounts even include it in a bundle of extras.

That takes care of the broken phone problem.
If his question were taken literally, then that might be a good explanation. But it seems pretty obvious that he is asking why it isn't more widely known that something so important was lost.

Two potentially instructive responses might be "The lost Apollo 11 tapes have been all over the news and everyone except you knows about them" or "NASA only recently admitted this embarrassing fact and it was released on Sunday morning to minimize media coverage."
I think TechZULU will be streaming this event live. But the atmosphere is what I go for.
I love both Om and pg, so this should be an interesting discussion.
SpoofCard.com is a patented technology http://www.google.com/patents?id=BJ-iAAAAEBAJ&zoom=4&... but I believe they have licensing and white label reseller programs http://www.spoofcard.com/distribute
This game's graphics looks amazing - can't wait.
i also wiggle the slot and tend to use my entire body to cover the key pad when i type in my pin number. i do so because i have friends who were skimmed and it has made me paranoid.
Damn.. time to change my pin.
Powering Your Website With Social Media
Creating a basic click to call app
App Bodega (http://www.appbodega.com) is a somewhat successful Mac app store that I find useful for finding new apps and keeping track of app updates. It's also really well done in terms of UI / usability. It's a shame they failed to even mention it - they're not helping the situation.

Oh, and from what I understand Apple is working on a Mac app store. As someone getting ready to launch a Mac shareware app I found this quote especially hilarious:

"Mac software sales since the current distribution and sales methods are in place and well established."
This reminds of the "Desktops are dead" articles that have been written for years. With the growth of people in the world using more and more computers everyday, there is plenty of room for new distribution channels, stores (Slate Store?), platforms and such. Even this developer who authored an article about the death of Mac software said they would continue writing and supporting it.

And it may also just be semantics, but since when is writing for the App store not Mac software?
How to manage Hyper-V from Windows XP?
This is an incredibly one-sided view. Clearly if you're a Mac developer, you switch to iPhone development and you start receiving truckloads of cash, you're going to think Mac developers would be stupid not to do the same. However:

1. Most iPhone apps are not incredibly successful.

2. Taptaptap has the full weight of the MacHeist marketing machine behind it.

Even if a swathe of Mac developers did move to iPhone, it wouldn't be long before the majority moved back to the Mac when the iPhone Dream didn't materialise. Indeed, if Mac development was going to die, it would have done already.
"Why can't artists get regular bank-loans to fund their business?"

This is one of the fundamental questions that is most often overlooked!

Ok, so three long haired dudes working part-time jobs at coffee shops wander in to a bank and strike up a conversation with a loan manager...

...I think we can all fill in the blanks here. :)

The indicators that banks look to for giving out loans are quite different than the indicators an A&R man is looking at.

Would a bank care about how many people you typically draw to a concert? Would they care about a good review on Brooklyn Vegan? Or how many shows you've played outside of your home town?

Music is a specialized industry requiring specialized methods of investment, much like Internet or biotechnology companies.
There's more to good code than algorithms. I really don't understand why some people in the HN community continually overstate the importance of algorithms. This is about the last place on the internet you need to go convincing people algorithms are cool.

Yes, algorithms are great. They are not everything, however.

Taking an algorithms class will only elevate you above some very basic mistakes. It will not make you an expert. Also not all algorithms professors are Knuth. I've seen the code of the ones who think that study of algorithms is sufficient to know programming and it's not pretty.
China tried to hack our computers, says India’s security chief M.K. Narayanan
One vampire site I googled says "It is not a good idea to take more than one pint from a donor in a 56 day period." (Verifies with Wikipedia)
This doesn't really answer the original question, in which I am also interested. What about MTV2, Fuse, BET, VH1, etc? Do TV networks have to pay royalties on music videos?
Precisely - knowing nothing about the details of this case, but I'm willing to bet that it wasn't some automated system that flagged him, but rather he was ratted out by a "concerned" (read: paranoid) citizen.
Sorry, here's some background. It's a deck randomizer for the card game Dominion and it's expansions.
They are not allowed to exempt themself. What they are allowed to do is force a license.

Meaning they will pay for the usage, at "reasonable and customary" rates, and you can't say no.

I believe this applies mainly to patents. I have not heard of it being applied to copyright, but it's certainly possible.
@jpluscplusm thanks for the feedback and good questions. Regarding the "what state is the codebase in" question, I can't imagine them telling me its "poor". What questions do you think would help me to gauge the quality of the code base? Obviously there is no formula, but it would be interesting to see what factors impact a codebase's quality. I guess there are static analysis tools to help out though :)
I certainly don't agree with everything Rothbard or other Austrians say, and indeed I agree that their greatest errors are driven by ideology. (And despite my general sympathy with Ayn Rand, this goes triple for her and her followers.)

That being said, a substantial subset of economics is analogous not, as you say, to a programmer saying

the code looks reasonable, so there's no need to test it

but rather to a mathematician saying

the proof is correct, so there's no need to test it

That is, what is the point of testing the Pythagorean Theorem? Perhaps we should measure a bunch of triangles? Why would you do that, when you have a proof? And yet, many people seem to believe that, e.g., raising the minimum wage might not (ceteris paribus) raise unemployment. They even sometimes collect "evidence" that it doesn't! (See, e.g., the paper by Card & Krueger showing a rise in employment after a minimum-wage hike, which Bill Clinton used as political cover to get Congress raise the minimum wage.)

Of course, you'd better be double-sure your proof is right, and I agree that the Austrians sometimes fall down on this point (Rand, triply so). But their approach is right: economics, correctly done, is much closer to mathematics than it is to physics.

N.B. I too am a reformed libertarian-Objectivist, and I too know the arguments forward and backward; I could crush a traditional libertarian in a debate, because I know the weaknesses all too well. But it seems that my ultimate parting of ways with them has taken me in the opposite direction from yours. You see, I'm even more radical (or, rather, reactionary) than they are. :-)
NVIDIA’s GeForce GF100 Under the Microscope
Revocation would suck though. And I understand you leave your fingerprints everywhere you go, so it would probably be "easy" to steal.
How hard was it to convince your bank that you hadn't withdrawn lots of cash?
If the statistical models show the diamonds in the rough who are responsible people in the midst of irresponsible people don't tend to default then no, not necessarily.

The article merely says the information is being looked at. What each credit rating agency will find to be significant predictors is an entirely separate decision.
Perhaps the in-store machines are safer because it would be harder install and later retrieve the skimmer? Or, maybe an insider allows the skimmer to be installed? Aren't many small, retail ATMs owner-serviced, so no one with an incentive to audit would ever check it out?
Doesn't the ATM offer a unique challenge each time? Would it matter if the skimmer knew what challenge had been made and what the answer was?
I think the point is that given a set of skills and resources (i.e. Cocoa & great design skills) it's way more profitable (5x in TapTapTap's case) to direct them towards iPhone development.

There are different opportunities on the two platforms, but the difference in profitability will absolutely draw some people away from Mac development: it's drawing people away from everything — I know at least 5 ex-Java or .Net guys doing iPhone development full time now.

> it wouldn't be long before the majority moved back to the Mac when the iPhone Dream didn't materialise.

It might be less competitive, but it's not like Mac development is a sure bet that you can just fall back on.
Agreed, but shouldn't three long haired stoners with a couple of successful albums already under their belt be able to demand better terms? If labels aren't willing to do it because they've "always done it this way", maybe there's room for some new investors to offer less onerous terms to proven musicians?

This happens in industries as they undergo commidification, and it's pretty clear that the barrier to entry to making music has dropped a ton and the music industry is undergoing the same thing... so why aren't the funding institutions keeping up?
Top Places YOU Can’t Go In The World
Here's a video that shows how easy it is for people to set these up.

http://www.wimp.com/cashscam/
I hate how opaque the whole idea of credit is.

There should be some kind of score for "general financial responsibility" (based on income, spending, investment, bank account info), not "borrows a bunch of money and pays it off reliably."

Right now, I have a little bit of debt, and about 10X that amount in savings, and everyone's told me to pay the debt off over time because it looks good. So that's what I'm doing, even though I hate the idea of having to pay interest.

My dad has even had trouble securing loans since he paid his mortgage off.
My favorite: "It's fucking cold!"
Because you're considering stopping, I wanted to say that I find this sort of post very helpful. Many times I've found much more interesting discussion on previous submissions because of you, or learned something I otherwise would have missed. My upvotes apparently are discarded by PG's algorithm, but if I could I would contribute karma - this is behavior I greatly appreciate and would like to support.
On the other hand, everybody would be pointing fingers at police if, indeed, he blew the airport sky high.
I'm not exactly sure what you are referring to as "Music 2.0" (possibly the likes of pandora and last.fm?) but I do agree that the investment function of record labels is often over looked. As someone heavily involved with researching the industry, as well as helping local bands, I am constantly amazed with the parallels between entrepreneurism and being a musician.

There needs to be the musical equivalent of the lean startup theory. Just as swarms of young entrepreneurs are embracing the bootstrap, so should bands. Yes the labels could probably tell you where to get your Fender repaired, but so can Google. All functions of the traditional record company are becoming obsolete in comparison to digital methods. I envision an industry where musicians retain artistic freedom and everyone actually gets paid (check out Steve Albini's classic rant on how most artists don't make much of anything www.negativland.com/albini.html)
He made a threat.

I think it's in bad taste to make public bombing threats, even as a joke. It's just not respectful to the people who have to dig through this shit and interdict the real bad guys. As societies, we have limited resources with which to investigate threats that are made, and our governments have an obligation to investigate each and every threat that's made, even jokingly on Twitter.

The reaction is totally over the top, granted, and I'd rather they spend their time interrogating trust fund Nigerians recently returned from a Yemenese vacation, but there should be a penalty for making joking bombing threats, in the same way that you shouldn't go around yelling 'fire!' in a movie theater.

Criminal prosecution is ludicrous, though.
Note that it's probably $55K + food + lodging + flights/transport

And it's at the South Pole!!
No-one really wants to work on an Oil Rig - so they pay lots. Lots of people would love to go visit Antarctica - so they don't need to offer up the big bucks
It's a complicated collection of things, but a lot of it boils down to: how many people will get what the app does from the title and the icon. And also, will your consumers search for the app?

For example, if I had an app called "Table Tennis" it will make money. If I had an app called "River" it is less likely to make money, unless strongly externally marketed. First app has search right from release, and everyone gets it instantly. Second app says nothing from the name and nobody searches app store for "river".

You need a constant low source of users for word of mouth to work.
But how do you find out anything about another company? Safe for visiting them and getting a tour of the office, I don't see how?
Try and find you a designer that is willing to do to your "Preceden" what Apple's UI designer did to "Safari", if you want a literal example of what I meant. Illustrate the function, not the pronunciation.
Apple would have complete control over the software they wanted to offer on a theoretical Mac App Store. Not so different from the retail boxed software they sell at Apple Stores. I don't think it's on the top of their priority list but I bet it happens eventually. If you look at Steam on Windows you see there is a proven model for success with desktop app stores.
Apple and HarperCollins Discussing a Deal to Put eBooks on Tablets
Who is Android's customer?
> A separate program would clobber it.

Nope, you can check the return value from the program(s) run inside of it and revert to the backup file if there's a problem. You really don't need it to be handled specifically by sed.

There's actually an example script that does exactly that in _The Unix Programming Environment_, called 'overwrite', on page 154.
Any in NYC?
Нет, я про "рыбий язык". "Канцелярит" мне что-то из иврита уже навевает, наверное, все же.

(No.)
Couldn't it work in reverse? There must be people who learned Cocoa/Objective-C only to get on the iPhone bandwagon, and are therefore closer to Mac software development than they would ever have been without the iPhone.

The article doesn't seem to think that a Mac app store would work, but I know I'd like one (speaking both as a maker and user of Mac software). I know I'd buy more, too; it would be easier to know what's actually available, and I'd discover apps for unexpected things.
I'm a wiggler as well.
A etiqueta do Dojo
It's funny, some of the worst things that we used to scold the eastblock for are now part and parcel of everyday life.

And nobody lifts a finger.

edit: if anything it is the 'concerned citizen' and the buffoon cops that need a talking to.
I don't think it works quite like that.

When I got my first programming job, straight out of high school, I finished tasks in 2 days that took the other programmers there 4 months. I figured that if I was that much faster than them, I ought to be able to become a world-class programmer in just a couple years (or more accurately, I thought I could become a world-class physicist in my 4 years of college and then a world-class programmer in the 2 years afterwards).

So I resolved to take all the shortcuts I could. I'd read all the classic books in the field and learn from those with more experience than me. I'd take internships with experienced, accomplished programmers and pick their brains for everything I could. I'd take on volunteer coding tasks so I could get some experience building things on my own. I'd cherry-pick all the tough courses at college so I got the best part of a CS degree without having to sit through stuff I already knew.

I did all that. I've read all the classic CS books - GoF patterns, Mythical Man Month, Extreme Programming stuff, Pragmatic Programmer, Knuth, SICP, TAPL, Dragon Book, On Lisp, etc. I've worked with programmers that wrote large chunks of curses, Rogue, vi, Jini, JavaSpaces, HotSpot, Gallery, Stratus, Equalogic, DEC compilers, Python, Google, and a bunch of other projects they don't brag about. I wrote Amherst's course-evaluation system, and rewrote the software for a 100k-user site, and wrote one of the front-page hits for [haskell tutorial]. I have that CS degree, and aced the algorithms class of which you speak, and took compiler design and OS and computer graphics too.

It's been 9.5 years since that first programming job, and it still feels like I have a really long way to go before I'm actually a world-class programmer.

The part I didn't realize, in my youthful arrogance, was that I was comparing myself to the wrong people. When Norvig tells you how to become a programmer in 10 years, he's assuming you're already taking all the shortcuts you can. It still takes 10 years. Most of the people you'll meet straight out of high school, or in most colleges, or in random companies, will never become programmers in the sense that Norvig's talking about. Eventually they'll give up trying, and start grumbling on Reddit about how the software industry is mostly boring cubicle farms where they push around Enterprise JavaBeans and never use the algorithms that they learned in college.
Hm, should I glue a strip of tinfoil on the magnetic strip? Or what would be a good way to disable it?
Stuff compiled from source should not be installed to the same prefix as stuff provided by the OS and/or package manager.

For programs that use the de-facto standard GNU Autocrap build system you can specify this by passing "--prefix=/usr/local" to the "./configure" script. It's also good to not install everything system-wide, and instead have a $HOME/bins prefix, with $HOME/bins/bin added to PATH. (And $HOME/bins/lib to LD_LIBRARY_PATH, and that pkg-config thing if it matters, etc)
'GMA' Found Harmful Bacteria on Brand New Clothes
If You Don't Date Your Work It Sucks (date as in time, not as in romance)
So now...the quest to find a page that will give us a 500 error message ^_^
I haven't had a whole pile of bosses in my 'early career' but I do recall that the only boss that was a serious headache was one that had been a programmer earlier in life.