skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> He judges everyone's prose as if they wrote for the same reasons he does

I don't entirely disagree, but the examples he uses fail in their own terms. They don't do the job the writers want them to do.

It's technically true that the timeframes are missing from the club-owners letter, but 'in the past year' is irrelevant to the audience. Do you really think it's exactly twelve months since they started 'considering'? Why should any recipient care?

You're correct that the phrase is there because the writers want to persuade the reader that they've been hard at work on their behalf. It's just such a lazy cliche that it doesn't succeed! How about "Bob, Sue and Mike spent the last three days interviewing staff about how to improve the way we run things." It's far more concrete, and so much more convincing. It's also part of a story, which is a great way to keep people reading.
You are correct, there are cases where "currently" carries a shade of meaning over "now." The author is not saying never to use "currently." He's saying that in cases where either are ok, use "now." English diction can give some very dense and precise meanings (try reading Poe!), but often people use the longer word simply because it's more ornamental rather than because of its specific connotations. This tends to hurt more than help, as many of his examples show.
free drinks to the person who makes a techcrunch headline generator.
I don't think it's astroturfing. I've always heard Michael Arrington explain that his ideology (and I imagine what he tells his writers) is to write about what interests him, not worrying about the audience, saying readers will either come or not. With that view I could see Techcrunch writers in a group discussing things and that same sentence with Quora being used, since they live and breathe new tech. However, I think it's always good to question publications, as times and things do change.
Good summary. When I first started in China, this was also the deal but the laws and processes for forming and managing these entities was uneven. One positive change is that the rules on these entities have become much more clear. I wouldn't say you are at the "mercy of the Chinese" as you put it because in any country you operate a business, you submit yourself to the country's rules. For now, for many types of companies, the rules are clear enough to operate effectively. Getting your profits out of China is another story. I encourage many foreigners wanting to make money in China to be sure they understand that much of their gains will stay in China. If you're comfortable with that, ok. If not, think hard.
Carrier: whatever works well/best in The Valley (just moved here, so I don't know what's good yet)
Price: up to $200ish
Keyboard: doesn't matter
RunKeeper integrates with Wi-Fi scale - a sign of FitnessKeeper's ambitions
It seems to me that the best thing for HTML would not be to add a bunch of new features based on current design, but to add lower-level primitives that can be used to do the same thing efficiently. If the web was based on GDI code instead of HTML, then we wouldn't even be having this discussion. You could do anything you wanted in terms of design. I'm not saying the web should be based on GDI, I'm saying given designers low-level access may be better than adding high level features.
Wow, you're trying to find something controversial on TechCrunch and this is the best you can do? Come on.

This wasn't astroturfing. First off, I don't think he ever says anything about Quora being "on the same level" as Wikipedia and Aardvark. David doesn't know anyone from Quora, nor has their PR team ever reached out to him. But the service does have a lot of buzz right now — I'm literally being asked on a daily basis if I have an invite, and I'm seeing many tweets about it.

If you look back through our other articles, you'll find that we often mention both new startups and established big players. It helps keep the small guys on your radar.

I usually enjoy the conspiracy theories, but this one was pretty weak.
Last year, they published a whole article about one of our competitors that was so uncritical (even reporting vaporware features as being real), it seemed to be a PR piece.

I have no doubt that this occurs with some frequency, although this particular case doesn't exactly get my spidey senses tingling.
Which will likely translate as "Keep your damn ball out of my yard, you kids!"
What I meant with 'distasteful' was that someone felt it necessary to justify to the Internet, at large, that dared stop working for more than a second. The post came off as saying "uh, hey, so we kinda took a vacation, but not really! Heres what we worked on!" Setting up a new office and new product planning isn't a vacation. It may not be the furious deathmarch just before a new release, but it's definitely still work.

Being apologetic for taking vacation is what sets up our society to look down on those who take time to stop rushing and take time to smell the roses.
Metasploit reproduces the "Aurora" IE zero-day from "China" attacks
When I worked in the UK Patent Office, now called UKIPO, the patent "processing time" was a measure of the actual work time spent on each application by an examiner. In the UK we did both search and examination and followed the application through to grant - which is different to the US and EPO I gather (or was) - the time spent doing this is referred to internally as PP (patent processing time).

When I left I was working mainly on IPC code G06F (computing). This field had the highest time allowance as it had the most complex/time consuming applications to search and examine. Search would take about 1 day and examination approximately the same other case handling would bring this up to 2½-3 days. That is processing time by the examiner is under 3 days usually over about a 3-5 year period (there is also "formalities" ensuring all the sections are there, the right line spacing, the right fonts, payments, etc., done by others). Remember this was the highest allowance of time.

Some applications would take far longer it generally goes by the number of claims made. Some would be a lot shorter - for example earlier in my career I did "displays" and nearly every other search in one heading there was for "automatic number plate altering systems for trucks to show the cabs license number on the trailer" - once you'd done a couple of such searches it could often be a quick review of more recent prior art and then cut and paste the citations adding pertinent comments. I'd say however that most applications had some novelty of some sort that could be gleaned to gain a patent by a good agent but of those not many would represent enough of a product to be worth financing (except for the mega corps like HP/IBM that would, it seems, deal with bundles of patents to broker entry to a given area of tech).

Oops, I've wittered on, sorry.
One thing I would say to keep in mind is that in order to give a discount, you have to get a discount (or lower margins). How will you actually be able to offer music at a substantially lower price than others? Will just lower margins work? If not, how will you get a discount on the costs to you?

Also, it sounds like you want to do a lot of stuff for the one thing a day model. A free track a day. A cheap album a day. A few items of merchandise a day. Will this still have the one thing a day feel?
"But I know people filled their days just as fully in those distant days as they do today. What did they fill them with?"

Yes, they filled their days, but it took longer.
Does that work for you? I always get my face shield so covered in rain I can barely see. Also, it is a cheap helmet, but the higher air humidity on rainy days means it fogs up from the inside far too easily.
It's worth pointing out that some US economic policies count as mercantilism, and many Americans would prefer that the US adopt more mercantilist policies.

The US is far from a proponent of free trade!
Wow. How did they word the subject line to avoid you immediately writing it off as phishing spam?
Google's auto-update code is open source:

http://code.google.com/p/omaha/
Quibble: he should have mentioned Joseph Conrad (or another writer like him), whose first language was not English.
The decree was also condemned by Articolo 21, an organization dedicated to the defense of freedom of speech as enshrined in article 21 of the Italian constitution.

So what are the first 20 dedicated to?
From HD's blog post, here's a link to the original disclosed exploit:

http://wepawet.iseclab.org/view.php?hash=1aea206aa64ebeabb07...

DEP stops it on IE7 and IE8.

It looks like use-after-free; an event is created for a DOM object, stored, the DOM object is cleared, and the DOM object is referenced through the event object from a second event.
Ah. The on-wire protocol is what is lightweight. The framework certainly isn't. For simple REST via an http library, how many bytes actually have be encoded before you send it, and be decoded at the other end? (Keeping mind that Thrift originated at Facebook may make the overhead from REST seem more relevant.)
Digital music pricing has such small profit margins that only offering a discounted item is infeasible. You'd need to already do huge volumes of sales and can demonstrate that this discount would bring more customers in.

Amazon comes the closest to this right now with their daily mp3 deal, but I wouldn't be surprised if they eat the cost of that discount.
Was mentioned on this page somewhere that average scores are calculated asynchronously, so there will be a lag.
This article seems to be saying something slightly different:

http://www.repubblica.it/tecnologia/2010/01/15/news/decreto_...

Basically it makes video services like Youtube responsible for their contents, which is still bad, but is certainly not "individuals must apply to the government to upload videos".

So I think it's either a bad translation or someone playing fast and loose with the actual facts in order to create some traffic.
HN Review: Explainthis.org What's your question? Journalists are standing by.
Doesn't Cisco provide the specialized hardware for the great firewall? If so, then their response is a bit disingenuous.
Xobni (S06) takes over Twitter's old offices
Less magic: tput setaf 2; tput setab 0; cat /dev/urandom | tr -dc 'A-F0-9'
Have a look:

http://www.senato.it/documenti/repository/istituzione/costit...
End of last year we had someone attacking a clients network using commodity server instances.

If you can figure out a cut-out way to pay for the server time then there isn't much anyone can do to track it without getting on the ground and forcing local police forces into at least trying to make some headway.

So in effect it is kinda the same as it used to be (overseas, no questions providers) but instead of the servers being the overseas bit it is just the payment (and I guess they rely on the fact intrusion is hard to detect, unlike say spam, coupled with the sheer number of people buying instances daily now).

(our stuff led to Eastern Europe so it is unrelated - but the principle is similar).
> His translation is incomplete. "Better" isn't a synonym for "more professionally and efficiently." "Better" could mean all kinds of things.

But really, "to professionalize... and to introduce efficiencies" could mean all kinds of things as well. The big long fluffy phrase is so generic and crammed with platitudes that it's only marginally more specific than "run better." There's a whole lot of phrasing there that doesn't say anything. While you can argue that the big words used have semantic content, their combination nevertheless manages not to tell me anything.

Look at some of the examples he gives of good writing. They're long and complicated, but they're saying something. Unlike the buzzword bingo game above, there isn't anything you can cut that wouldn't change the content. Simpler expression makes it easier to understand complicated content.

I don't entirely disagree with everything you wrote. For example, I agree that field-specific jargon is useful and even necessary for concise communication. However, I felt that one point needed a comment, because it misses the core of his point: the words may mean something on their own, but they still don't add any meaning to the sentence that wasn't there already, and that's why they ought not to be there in the first place.
I know you're joking but Section 1 of the UK Patent Act 1977 as amended (it's been 5+ years but I'm pretty sure it's in 1(1)) includes the requirement for industrial applicability.

AFAIR I did make an objection under that clause once out of hundreds of applications. No one can issue patents, by law, apart from the Patent Office and so the patent could not be applied by the holder - also there are morality clauses (which again only very very rarely could be applied, again IIRC I made a casefile note on consideration of a morality objection only once but didn't object). Finally the Gov. has the option to use any application in times of national crisis - I think I remember something about radar patents being used in WWII but that the inventors had been compensated.

Lastly if you're sitting on a patent and won't license it and aren't using it yourself the Comptroller can force you to license it under terms they consider fair.
I've been trying to learn Chinese, and poking around Chinese websites with peraperakun occasionally. Every time I come across a WTF sentence like that, I wonder whether maybe I've bitten off more than I can chew.
This is something I've been thinking for ages; the future probably won't look like the scifi movie version of the future with holoscreens and voice recognition and gestures. Useful always beats cool in the long run, no matter how you market it.

Though I still believe there's a strong chance that some unforeseen UI innovation will appear and change the game.
I'm shocked by the amount of anti-China bias on HN.

Consider a few points:

- The conditions inside US prisons (daily, predictable rape, etc.) rival those in any labor camp anywhere in the world.

- Many US prisoners are nonviolent drug offenders.

- Don't forget the human rights abuses in Abu Ghraib and Gitmo and the hundreds of thousands of innocents killed in our oil wars.

- China's main social issue is rich coastal cities and extremely poor inland areas. This geographical accident is behind many economic policies. The US is lucky to have rivers that tend to lead to a far more even distribution of wealth across geographical areas.

- In its early days the US embraced mercantilism. It has particular political causes and over all countries who practice it lose more than they gain from it, but the tradeof is considered worthwhile for political reasons in spite of its foolishness. In China's case, it represents a way to grow the Chinese economy while not risking social stability (which is considered highly important considering the above bullet).

- The US was also formerly a thief of intellectual property. Notably, many writers and publishing houses in England were irate that presses in the colonies paid no royalties, etc., a situation made worse after the American revolution.

- Massive sectors of the US economy are under significant government control, even before the bailouts. It's splitting hairs to bemoan China's "communism".

- The average person in China does not care about all the political nonsense that we are being propagandized to stew over. Most people all over the world just want to be able to lead a reasonably happy life, etc. China surely has some "backward" aspects, but consider that we did not have women's suffrage in the US until quite recently, and that we had a draft until VERY recently. Suppose China is 100 years behind, is that the end of the world? Do we really deserve to feel such righteous indignation?
It's not unusual among security firms, Kaspersky was founded by a Russian government cryptologist, Check Point was founded by a Unit 8200 alumni, etc.

People with computer security talent founding security companies shouldn't be surprising, especially here of all places !
The same thing happened to me a while back when I was bored in history class and was solving some Project Euler problems in Ruby + Vim. The guys behind me just bluntly asked me if I was a hacker and if I could get "into" the school network ..whatever that was supposed to mean!
360MB would be plenty for multiple small sites. I run 1 "medium" Django site and 3 smaller Django sites on a 360 with room to spare.
An excellent article; my only caveat was at the beginning, where he basically said "China is not capitalist, it's communist because it lacks human rights". My initial thought was "it's possible for a country to be both capitalist and authoritarian." However, the rest of the article states his case more clearly.
> I always get my face shield so covered in rain I can barely see

What makes you think this will be any different? Trading one plastic shield for another doesn't seem to solve the problem.
You can find his--and for that matter, everyone's--political donations on this site: http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/index.php
They can have two video game models. A yellow pacman version and a BioShock Big Daddy.

Seriously though, depending what you spend on your hair, and what the visual expectations are for you on the job, this could be a godsend.
Venture Capital: Who (Not What) Is Broken
The Challenges of Social Media Talent Acquisition
Testosterone bumps up status-seeking behavior, not aggressive risk-taking
Seems like the way to keep sharing ratios up on sites like these is to pay for seedbox servers to keep a fast upload line going.
Maybe a little, but having libertarian ideas doesn't mean one identifies as a libertarian or with the libertarian political party.
Ask HN: Books or online sources to learn Javascript?
I am learning Javascript for work but do not have a programming background.

I was hoping for some suggestions on books or online sources for a beginner. Thanks for the help.
Just fyi, this article is in reference to the Blaster/Slammer worms back in 2003.
Assuming you change clothes once you arrive at your job.
There's another article on Repubblica that describes the proposed decree in more detail.

http://www.repubblica.it/tecnologia/2010/01/14/news/decreto_...

In the last paragraph, it says that the rules for tv broadcasting would be applied to websites that provide video (meaning they would be subject to governmental approval).
Yes, I was going to mention that ignorance can be used to ameliorate sentencing but assumed that was stating common knowledge. The interesting question is [why this] should this be true?

Yes I know there are facile answers to that one but it's still the more interesting question - with subjective morality I think it is a problem. We punish people for doing bad things don't we, not for why they do them? I know, I know...
Yes, if you have a computer with a private key that is available to the internet, and it gets knocked over, you're dead. Just as you would be if he knocked it over and installed a keylogger and you were using passwords. Cracked is cracked.

Assuming you are not running services on your main workstation, which is not that unreasonable (Ubuntu workstations are installed with 0 services available to the local network; my Mac has 0 services available by default), then you can get knocked over but it will probably happen because of an browser bug or something like that, i.e. not an active attack.

The whole point of keys is that knocking over one of the intermediate nodes in the network no longer gives you control over everything. Just because you rooted my server doesn't mean you can automatically log in to all my other machines, even if I'm using keys. Keys are better than passwords.
Pet peeve: I hate the use of "kid" in this context. It seems insulting and condescending.
I've been working on Android software for the last 14 months. I'm currently using a jailbroken T-Mobile G1 (HTC Dream / Android Dev Phone 1). I've tried out most of the available Android phones.

If I were buying a phone today, I would get one of the Android Dev Phones (which come with root access and the development bootloader) or the Nexus One (which allows you to unlock the bootloader with a user command "fastboot oem unlock"). Then you have full access to the phone, including the ability to install new system images. The Nexus One has much better hardware than the dev phones and doesn't cost much more, so I'd go with that unless you really want a hardware keyboard.

You don't need root access or bootloader access just to develop Android applications, but it's good to have. It means that you can install different versions of Android, including the latest open-source release. (Official updates often lag many months behind the open source releases or the various modded images.)

These are all GSM phones that work with T-Mobile's 3G network; I think all of them will get EDGE-only service on AT&T.

It's also possible to jailbreak most non-developer phones to get root access, but it's not supported and most of the carriers/manufacturers at least try to close jailbreaking vulnerabilities after they are discovered.
Well, I'm working on a new UI/GUI applicable to any device, and HCI/BMI integration of it. It's not boring at all: usable, sci-fi like, Voice recon, etc. I can't disclose much beacuse it's a research project (NDA). Perhaps in the future I may succed to make it public.

@IsaacL: Well, future UIs will be like those on scifi movies, but with usability in mind. I mean a UI that don't let you do what you want to do, it's pretty useless.
chouser has been so helpful to me - mostly indirectly, but directly as well - that I'd order the book even if it was just a rehash of stuff I've already learned reading his newsgroup posts and freenode chats. (order placed now, in fact)
The article was full of poorly reasoned points. See my more elaborate rebuttal:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1056013
Original linked to from here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1040330
Fundamental principles, other rights: http://www.senato.it/documenti/repository/istituzione/costit... [pdf]

The freedom of speech article is the ninth of the rights. A bit late as constitutions go (USA: first, Germany: fifth) but pretty consistent with many Europeans’ views on freedom of speech. In many European states free speech is not the same sort of fundamental right as it is in the US. Important, sure, but not quite as.
While this is a wonderful article, there's a situation the OP failed to mention: country differences

Just a simple example: US has a wide usage of 1G mobile phones, then China has a huge 2G GSM market, now the US goes from 1G directly to 3G, China should prepare 4G now.

I think this cycle has not yet been facilitated in the current globalization, plus peer competition can invoke more innovations. It's like cold war without hostility.
Can you explain what that does?
FWIW I was defending the asking of the question, questions are good, not for lack of an answer which would have been a mix of those answers here for sure.
You're supposed to feel scared, that's the goal of that kind of propaganda. You may feel better if you read my other comment:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1056013
Yes, the websites would come under the authority of the government. That's plenty bad, but what the original article in English says is:

> New rules to be introduced by government decree will require people who upload videos onto the Internet to obtain authorization
China's currency manipulations harms its export industries' profits at the expense of all Chinese consumers.
>Poverty is the ultimate killer here.

But what is the cause of the poverty. Is it overpopulated for the resources available? Is the endemic use of heroin marring the countries ability to govern itself? Is it being exploited by outsiders who are creaming off the benefit of the natural resources for themselves? ...
Ask HN: How to minimize costs (ie rent) for a startup?
I live in NYC and am trying to minimize my rent/costs so that I can work on a startup full time. I'm looking at living in a 3-br share for $800 a month in queens.

Does anyone have any tips on minimizing rents/costs?