skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
How is this "Hacker News"? News of fraudsters doesn't help techies or founders do anything. Flagged.
Why (and how) to stop google from showing cached versions of your site.
When the nerds with their voodoo were making lots of money, the firms didn't say "we don't know what these guys are doing, but they are making us lots of money, they deserve all the credit, they are the heroes", instead the CEOs gave each other big bonuses and pats on the back. But when everything went sour, they blamed the "nerds" (and I admit, nerds did screw up), instead of blaming themselves for not evaluating risk properly. If they couldn't evaluate risk properly (and I think they couldn't), they should have stopped what they were doing.

EDIT: syntax errors
I don't like crowded places. So when I go visit the U.S.A, the best places to stay for me are the Great Basin, High Plains, and Rocky Mountain High.
Building a Twitter Bot
And how is that working in other areas? How many Linux desktop-users do you know? And out of those, how many use "pure" distributions, like gNewSense?
There's enough blame in this situation to cover everyone involved.

On the level of modeling, the fundamental flaw was assuming that stock prices could be equated to independent, normalized, random variables. When these assumptions break down, you can still "make money most of the time" but you're downside becomes unlimited. Ponzi schemes make money most of the time too...

But on the level of the banks, investment houses and large investors, the problem was not realizing that an investment model is a leaky abstraction. You can't leave your investing to people who only see random variables. Prudence, the watch-word of traditional investing, encompasses more than probabilistic expectation (just as causation is more than correlation). Leaving fundamental decisions about investing to the quants is imprudent. Anyone not blinded by the shine of the new models realized this but that was a minority.

Of course, along with quant-investing in particular, one must include the whole Alan Greenspan school of "Market Rationality", including the move to "fair value" accounting. And that's a big elephant.
I'd say there's a difference between letting someone harm you (including taking up your time) and letting them benefit from harming you.
The German knife is simpler in that there is a single obvious way to grasp the knife.

Edited to add: I still have no idea how that makes it less "Japanese" than the Japanese knife.
I'm not concerned about single-language debugging. Can these debuggers move through a mixed C-Lua stack? My stack might start and end in C, but cross through Lua two or more times. Can I set a watchpoint and get the program to stop wherever the memory is modified, regardless of which language is modifying it (i.e. I'd like to see C source when C touches the memory and Lua source (not interpreter inernals) when Lua code touches it).

Which of the Lua debuggers is your favorite?
This is currently the most emailed article on nytimes.com.
Ideas are expensive, the fewer you have and the smaller (more laser-focused) they are, the better chance you have of implementing it and thus succeeding.

The more ideas you pursue at once, the greater the chance that none of them will ever be implemented and succeed.
The 'fosstards' aren't generally writing the Free Software I use -- they're hanging out in debian-legal and harassing people over petty imagined issues and doing more than anyone else to promote strong intellectual property rights (especially Software Patents: you don't weaken something by anal-retentively respecting it).

The vast majority of people writing GPL software do not align with the FSF's ideology, the GPL2 is just the most practical for their needs. Note how noone outside their core commune has switched to the GPL3, and how noone actually deeds the copyright for their random projects to the FSF like they recommend in the license text?

The only hard-GNU software I (and most others here) really use are GCC, coreutils, bash, and readline. Incidentally I'm hoping to be able to ditch all the first three in the near future for quality reasons mostly borne of FSF-pigheadedness (though I would like to swap out readline when that's the only GPL lib in a program). If I switch back to a Mac I'll be able to use better alternatives for all of them quite soon.
On the other hand, as a resident of Michigan, there are no words, in any language on Earth, that could begin to capture the joy I feel at the idea of excising Detroit (though I fear it may have already metastasized).
I share it on HN ;)
Brace isn't really anything more than stripping out braces and semicolons in favor of significant whitespace. This amplify thing offers a slightly higher level of abstraction by providing syntactic macros.
Common Mathematical Proof Techniques [humor]
OT: Why must the Japanese TV always have a little box in the corner showing the reactions of random people (presumably random famous people)?

Would your average Japanese person not realize that parallel parking a car at 30mph is amazing, without seeing someone else's shocked face? Is this the logical extension of the laugh-track?

Something I've been wondering for a while...
I know you have an Others option for device type but you should include Blackberry devices as well since you made a case for Android devices. I have a Blackberry and use it often for capturing images and uploading them to various places as I am sure many others do as well.
Songs for Robots
If $5.99 app no.38 on top grossing list how much has it made?
Does anyone have any ballpark figures for what it takes to get into top-grossing list these days on iTunes?
There's a difference between a piece of paper that establishes a government and the limitations on said government and a piece of paper which coerces unjust reactions to accusations of copyright infringement, along with massive violations of privacy.
Hawaii is problematic, being a significant fraction of the target population level, yet very isolated. Alaska doesn't really make sense to combine with anything either, but its population is pretty much rounding error (it's got, what, as many people as maybe three blocks of Manhattan?) so it probably wouldn't matter that much.

Though maybe it'd make more sense to just grant Hawaii independence and sell Alaska back to the Russians or something--the whole noncontiguous territory never sat well with me anyway.
Am I the only one who doesn't think what Facebook did was deceptive at all? They think the site will work better with less restrictions on what people can see. They asked people if they could change their settings, and clearly stated that it would be a change from their old settings.

For a refresher, here's the dialog: http://www.pcworld.com/zoom?id=184142&page=1&zoomIdx...

I think the selected radio button depended on whether you had changed any privacy settings in the past for each item, so that's not a completely accurate picture of what each user saw, but you get the point. It is not confusing, and most users probably aren't bothered by the changes.
... and he told almost nothing new.
Google Chrome: Add a Send Link Button to the Bookmarks Bar
My impression (from talking to yooper coworkers) is that it's about half Wisconsin, half Canada up there. Either way, doesn't make sense to lump them in with us trolls.
Just posted a comment about this on Fred's blog too, but I'm wondering if you guys have any suggestions on finding and meeting good mentors? Is it just meeting people you respect at networking events? Getting introduced? Or writing to them out of the blue? Or is there a more structured way to go about this...?
I do want, thanks :-D
found the idea intriguing and just ordered one, but not sure what I am exactly going to do with it.
On a related note, why does it cost $600k / year to run this service?
So you choose two points out of a public figure's entire career to paint him with? Buckley spent the rest of his life regretting losing his temper against Gore Vidal and I don't know of any other incident where he had a similar outburst.

Against Chomsky, he was clearly making a joke, and you can see Chomsky and the audience both laugh if you just watch it.
I would summarize it as:

German design goal: functionality and comfort, user is at the center.

Japanese design goal: aesthetics, the tool is at the center.

It is possible, that a Japanese chef will feel and work better working with an aesthetic and clean looking knife. The chef's skill is praised in as much as it can make use of the beautifully designed knife (i.e. the craftsmanship culture).

A German (Western) chef will work better with any knife that fits his hand better. The chef is at the center of the design. A knife is an extension of a chef's hand.
CNN's 360° video of Port-au-Prince
The eloquent javascript guy

http://eloquentjavascript.net/chapter4.html
"If staff are paid."
Looks to me like we're slowly making "interference with a business model" either a crime or a civil tort. Consider:

* The slow progress of patents from protector of innovation to anticompetitive weapon

* The music industry's legal wins, i.e. "contributory copyright infringement" in some jurisdictions

* DMCA, which in large part criminalizes the breaking of an EULA

* US v. Lori Drew, where we actually convicted a person of a computer trespass felony for breaking an EULA

* Psystar case, where the ruling was based on the DMCA and a legal fiction of how software works, instead of how it actually works

The thing about all of these legal constructs is, the bits don't care.

I'm not saying piracy or whatever is morally right or anything. But I am saying, as a practical matter, it is impossible to regulate this sort of thing, whether it's made illegal or no. The practice of making it illegal will not (much) reduce what actually happens. The business models are still dead, even if the competition is the black market.
Really amazing. Anyone have any idea how this was done? There's no way they (or I) have the bandwidth stream 360° video, they must have some server that pieces together the frames of video I'm requesting on the fly? Or is it just really good compression?
Yeah, me also with the BlackBerry. Regrettable I know, but my office forced everyone to go RIM, so that's what I use to share pictures with grandparents, etc.
Random thoughts on the sexes
Or Wikileaks really needs to find a new electronic payment service.
Secrets of Looking Good on the Dance Floor
Dup: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1072225
The social behavior incentive: how your app can be as addictive as Facebook
This is the same company that uses the DMCA to shut down calculator hackers and hobbyists? Screw them

http://www.ticalc.org/archives/news/articles/14/145/145316.h...
If he did have a nuclear reactor. He will quickly be "de-throned" and invaded as he will be deemed a "security threat" by other "nuclear" powers (yes, despite the obvious irony).

Look what is happening with Iran and North Korea. All the nuclear powers are up in arms (pun intended) about them developing nuclear technology.
Then users shouldn't use patent encumbered formats. Simple as that.
There already been enough mess by formats supported by browser X but not Y.
Global Music Consumption Study
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dG0xdFRCLVh...
for those too lazy to copy & paste
If the person believed a natural counterparty would come along within milliseconds, why would he or she enter a market order rather than a passive limit order?

There are many high-frequency strategies, and front-running/manipulating markets might be one that unscrupulous firms engage in, but most would rather make legal money. The linked article doesn't make a lot of sense. For one, flash orders are no longer available on major exchanges, and secondly it's very difficult (and costly) to push most stocks 30 cents away from their fair value.

Most of the anti-HFT things I read are pushed by buy-side traders who have a hard time tricking the market into executing huge orders without moving the price, as if they ever had some natural right to do so. Trading is a competitive endeavor. If your poor execution algorithm shows your hand and someone more sophisticated notices, it's fair play for them to use that public information.
There is not much in the world which has not been thought about. The challenge and success is in the execution.
Depending on what the idea is realizing a minimal feature set of the idea and go public will quickly lead to some feedback if the idea is "huge".
Usually with many attempts the chance of success goes up.
Duh? This happens every single goddamn time anyone takes a bunch of donations via intermediaries like Paypal and Google Checkout, especially internationally, and extra-especially when you don't use their special no-markup program for registered nonprofits.

It looks exactly like you've cashing out stolen consumer accounts. They have every incentive to freeze the account indefinitely, and they never let anyone get away with it for more than a couple thousand dollars.
I wonder how they would protect against "rogue" staff. I imagine many governments and international corporations would love to get their "people" on the staff. They would quietly ignore stories and report the whistle blowers.
Any stats to back up your wild claims and non-sense assumptions?
The only thing worse than a rising population is a falling population.
You think what he has quite literally dedicated his life to doesn't count simply because he didn't grant you permission to put words in his mouth?
K-9 Mail 2.4, an opensource email client for Android came out today
As the post above pointed out, don't hack too much. TI is known for throwing down the DMCA law on those who get too "hack" happy with their hardware.

Is this their offer of good will? Perhaps, but it is a little late.
If they can do this kind of secrecy with copyright, how transparent do you think treaties that deal with weapons, censorship, spying on citizens and similar, dark, subjects are?
That would make them more bank-like, with more regulatory oversight. They don't want that, and really neither do you. The Paypal chimera doesn't need any more DNA, it's bad enough as it is.

The US should force its banks to implement better EFT with consumer-initiated direct-deposit and direct-debit, marginalizing the whole Credit Card / PayPal ecosystem.
This data is already 10 years old. That means Detroit has already started shrinking, and therefore the new Detroit, if kept as an independent city, would be consuming more of Michigan.
It got 50% on metacritic, which isn't too bad. For 6 people for 6 months, it's actually quite an achievement.
The experiment is fascinating, but the author draws too strong of a conclusion: first, the "I didn't deserve it" powerful could exhibit 'hypercrisy' for other reasons, including the old saw "to those who are given much, much is asked in return". I mean, let's not get too cynical here. Second, even if on average the "I deserved it" powerful are hypocritical, that doesn't mean that all of them are; it just means we have to look more carefully for the outliers.
http://www.immersivemedia.com/products/index.html + flash
Humans were once an endangered species
Maybe You Need Some More Testosterone Over There
A music-making friend of mine pointed me to the site about 6 months ago. I checked it out but not really being into his music didn't really see how this site was any better or more interesting than Myspace.

But when the redesign came out I stood up and paid attention, it just looks so great. For an artist who doesn't have the expertise or money to create a great looking website this is awesome, attractive and functional for sharing their music.

I sent it to a bunch of people I know who work at varying levels of the music industry and they felt the same, a few are creating pages now.

I'd say the redesign / relaunch has been successful in terms of user growth though more consultation with their existing community might have spared some of this backlash.
Interesting. If it helps or anyone else is curious, I'm using OpenDNS.
The darkside of internet technology is very interesting... Can you imagine the ingenuity that needs to go into the creation of the software for a botnet? Kind of cool in many ways.
Petitio principii—you’re saying there’s a difference because the treaty is unjust, but you’re simply declaring the treaty unjust. Negotiating anything among many parties with competing interests involves certain difficulties, and making the negotiations secret provides benefits that facilitate the negotiations.
Just been chatting with the WakeMate guys via the new instant message feature on their website - they've pledged to give these "premium" features to all preorder customers for free for life to make up for their crappy email today.

http://www.twitpic.com/zfv9q
Staff don't know who the sources are, submitted documents are reviewed by multiple people.
"[Costs] amount to just under $200,000 PA."
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=177844
Privacy and innocent until proven guilty are probably high up that list, ideas being trodden on in the name of copyright.
"As a Constitutional issue it's pretty clear to me and the majority of the Supremes" - that depends upon what kind of philosophy you take on approaching the role of the Supreme Court, activism to change policy versus narrow interpretation of the Constitution.

It's simplistic to say that Citizens United ruling is simply a matter of suppression vs. free speech, as Buckley v. Valeo has nuanced to what extent "money" constitutes speech. As Justice Stevens writes in his dissent, "At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics."

Several people have cited examples of free speech and the press. The Citizens United ruling lifts restrictions of corporate spending in political ads during election campaigns with in-house corporate treasury funds, i.e. unfettered free speech at any time. Rather than looking at NYT Co v. Sullivan, look Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce's interpretation. http://www.moresoftmoneyhardlaw.com/updates/the_supreme_cour...

Excerpted:
"Austin’s critics aspire to dissolve all this complexity into a simplistic choice between speech and suppression. In attacking the "political support" language of Austin, they take it to be something strange, an import into the jurisprudence of a notion at odds with core First Amendment values. What they miss is its surprising ordinariness. The Austin case was getting at something important, even—one could say—basic to the mechanisms within the campaign finance laws for isolating the corruptive threat of aggregated group or associational spending."

I'm not arguing that corporations be denied their political speech via spending, which was outside of the case ruling anyway.

Free speech is controlled in very specific cases because of its potential injurious impacts - libel, safety, individuals versus entities, etc. What I take issue with is the extent of power given to special interest groups and lobbyists that override the interests of individual citizens. Is there a difference between groups of people coming together and pooling their money to form a PAC and group of people expressing political views of an entire corporation using corporation treasury funds?

And if you want to go into fringe, extreme positions: what about tax-paying subsidiaries in the US headed by groups of American citizens, but owned by foreign corporations? Should they not then be entitled to equal free speech in our elections?

In any case, it will be interesting to see what comes of the ruling, and thanks for highlighting those two cases.
what's wrong with just stick with old.thesixtyone.com ?
Ray Kurzweil's Predictions for 2009 (from 1998)
I posted the original "Wikileaks needs engineers"[1] story to HN, and emailed them to offer help. I never heard back, and from the thread other people had the same experience.

I still support their mission, but they seem pretty disorganized, an impression this story reinforces.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1023663
In the bad old days as a Media Buyer for a large-ish brand I tended to get amazing results by looking up a site that had paid CommScore and then fining their direct competitors who had not, and buying spots for 30-50% less for what was essentially the same inventory. Good times.
The Earth is a rather hostile place when you use a megayear scale. Paleontologists and geologists have also found a variety of events (e.g, megacaldera such as Yellowstone cutting loose, meteor impacts) that are correlated with mass extinctions. We shouldn't tarry in establishing self-sustaining habitats off the Earth.
A few thoughts on this.

1. Ideas are never unique. If you've had it, it isn't because you're brilliant (although you may be) it's because the current business ecosystem has made it obvious. If you've had it, I'd guess thousands of others have as well. the difference between you and them might be that you do something with it.

2. I don't know many entrepreneurs who like to build other people's ideas. Maybe that's just me, but I certainly like to think what I'm working on was an original idea...I like there to be a story to how I came up with it, and "this blogger told me to do it" isn't a story I can get behind.

so personally, because ideas are in my opinion a function not of precociousness but of an ecosystem, I'd say that it would be better to let some other entrepreneur figure this out for themselves, and use their inspiration as the driving force behind the venture.

or, keep it in your pocket. if no one else does it, you might be freed up at some point to pursue it.
I'm declaring the treaty, as we know it, unjust because it directly violates limitations on the government set forth by our constitution: the right to be secure in my person and my papers (and, by extension, my communications - the internet), and assumes guilt instead of innocence (punishing based on accusations instead of proof).

The problem, of course, is that this treaty is being negotiated by many parties with competing interests, but no party is representing the people who will actually be affected by this treaty. The people discussing the treaty are paid for and bought by controlling copyright interests, and not by the people.

Therefore it is fundamentally different: it is not a negotiation at the behest of The People. It is a negotiation based on the trade and control powers of multinational corporations. It's diametrically opposed to freedom, because the free are not involved at any level in its construction, negotiation, and ratification. The fact that they are so secretive about the negotiations as to eject and ridicule third-party observes proves that they are not acting in the best interest of said third party observers.

(I would have no problems with the treaties being discussed / negotiated in secret, if there were bona fide representatives of People and specific safeguards against the treaty being unilaterally used to oppress the masses)
With the revenue of WikiLeaks I would think they have a personal account manager — I have one and he has told me that if my account is flagged for “being frozen” it has to pass through his desk first (so effectively it shouldn’t happen).

Not saying that the PayPal behavior is acceptable, just wondering why WikiLeaks doesn’t appear to have any PayPal contact.
OpenCL in Macruby