skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: A human nature thought experiment.
So, I've been following the Avatar/Genocide discussion going on here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1050522
It's an interesting discussion that has provided a lot of emotional responses. This got me thinking about human nature when it's boiled down so I thought I'd conduct a little thought experiment.

Somewhere in an ocean there's an island. On it are 4 shipwreaked people. One can make sails, one can build a boat, one can sail and one can navigate. The problem is that the island is small and the water and food resources are limited, it cannot support 4 people. With all 4 their probability getting off the island and safely home is good. With only 3 not so much, with two it's poor and with 1 it's essentially impossible. However, the island could support 3 people with some hunger, 2 with realative comfort and 1 in luxury.

This is not a high school math problem ("if we just kill one person we can hang out on the island and still have a good chance of getting away"), or a Microsoft interview question, it's a human nature problem.

Imagine that they are all from the same culture/race. What do they do?

Now image that they are all from different cultures/races (if there are language differences it doesn't affect their ability to build a boat and sail away). What do they do?

I know what I think but what about you?
I am not suggesting that you compare China to other Japan today rather how quickly they become industrialized. In 1965, Japan's nominal GDP was estimated at just over $91 billion. Fifteen years later, the nominal GDP had soared to a record $1.065 trillion by 1980. (11x growth in 15 years.) By comparison China's growth from 1989 to 2004 was ~9x (from your chart). At the time there was a lot of talk about Japan taking over the world, which did not happen for various reasons, primarily because once you get to near parity with the rest of the world further economic development requires innovation.

As to poor returns I meant that China's growth has been has increased as they approached a free market, and there is little evidence to support the advantage (in terms of growth) of a non free market. Which was a response to I'm not convinced that an open, free-market system is the best solution. Perhaps down the road, but not now.

PS: I am not saying china's growth is slow, rather young people don't have a lot to compare it to. Industrialization and effective free markets result in massive economic growth. So I don't think the Chinese government is responsible for growth so much as letting it happen.

Edit: As to corruption it's something you have to see first hand. It has many forms but look at Google for a classic example. The most blatant example of which was they used DNS to randomly point to Google's competitor; now just think about what that means. Sadly this is closer to the norm than most people acknowledge.
You can prevent this circumvention by only allowing the client side generated hash to be good for one login attempt. This is done by giving the client a unique challenge string for each login request and hashing the password with the challenge string.

For example, the user browses to http://www.example.org/login. The generated login form on the page contains a hidden field called "challenge" with a randomly generated hash from the server. When the user submits the login form, have the client do a hash(challenge + password) and send this to the server. Upon receiving the hash and checking credentials, the server invalidates the challenge string regardless if the login attempt was successful.

This obviously does not work if the user does not have Javascript enabled and is not preferable to SSL.
i think that all such blog posts operate under the assumption that you're a reasonably-educated middle-class person who doesn't have to work extreme hours or in poor conditions just to survive and put food on the table. i think if you're worrying about putting food on the table, you probably aren't the target audience for HN.
reminds me of this celebrity jeopardy SNL skit:

http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/25271/SNL-Celebrity-Jeop...

fast forward to 4:05 (:
hehe, yeah. Well the site is mostly built for SEO. So the traffic will keep coming no matter how it looks.

To tell the truth I've always ate like that, since high school really. So it's not really affecting me physically.

Doesn't get lonely part, I still talk to people through IM, twitter etc., and get out on the weekends. + there is always HN.

Basically I just lose my weekday nights(compared to a regular job)
not to be confused with "Hedley Lamarr" from Blazing Saddles...
Agreed, this guy thinks he is so special, with his medititation... what a joke.
I don't understand the downvotes for this guy. If the cebulons actually arrived, you would most definitely see reactions like this and the HN community would be hugely divided. Better to argue it out now than when they actually arrive ;-)
The credit factor is a huge portion of it. We've been in business for just over two years, and it's essentially impossible to get even a business credit card currently. We've tried multiple times in the last year and been declined each time without regard for personal credit scores.
> ranging from the subtle to the not-so-subtle (do they even have canvas?)

That's the beauty of this thing. It works with svg -> supported by all browsers (with the obvious exception of IE, although I think it shouldn't be too hard to change it to support VML).
Let me know if you figure out a good solution for this. The only thing I could find to do this was PayPal. I've had lots of ideas for marketplace type of sites, but the stopper was figuring out a way to let sellers accept payment. Often individual sellers aren't making enough to cover the hassle/cost of getting merchant accounts set-up so going the IPSP route seems unviable.

Google Checkouts is also a possibility but lacks a strong api.
The Graffiti Markup Language
Foreign Companies Resent China’s Rules
Good news, in my opinion -- back when MSFT was courting Yahoo many were concerned Zimbra would get shut down in the aftermath.
No, no. I think the man is on to something, let's try it with kids.
Fascinatingly, but unsurprisingly, this is yet another piece that uses Avatar as a springboard into an essay about real-world human events starting from the claim that Avatar is clearly allegory for one specific such event. Being from the second wave of such articles, it even takes note of the other interpretations and alleges them to be incorrect.

What makes Avatar such a great movie is that A) so many people are so sure it's "about" a particular historical or current situation that they care about and B) they're all different. I've seen Vietnam, I've seen Iraq, I've seen Afghanistan, I've seen South America or the Americas as a whole, I've seen Africa, I've seen climate change, man, I've seen a lot of different interpretations.

James Cameron FTW!
It would be possible (a bit slow though). This has already been done a few times with JS. For example, qBasic (http://stevehanov.ca/blog/index.php?id=92) or even virtualizing a whole device like the gameboy (http://www.codebase.es/jsgb/).
My interpretation is entirely correct. As of now, Google has not yet voluntarily withdrawn google.cn from the internet.

Just because you think it is sure sign that Google will withdraw does not mean that they will. So far this is nothing more than an empty threat.
I'm not sure how you could squeeze the education I got into 10 months, but I think, properly motivated and with good books, you could self-study an equivalent to a solid BS in 18-24 months.

Topics that come to mind (that my CS bachelors had):

Boolean algebra and gate level stuff (one semester)

Calculus and Linear Algebra (this totaled 4 semesters)

Discrete Math (had one semester on this)

Fairly deep knowledge of at least one traditional language and at least one functional language (as part of other classes)

Basic computing theory (DFA/NFA/Regex/Push-down Automata/Grammars/Turing Machines)

Data structures (the more the merrier)

Algorithms and algorithm analysis (had three semesters on this)

AI (lots of interesting stuff is happening here, and AI is totally not what you think it is)

Architecture and Assembly (had two semesters in this area)

Operating Systems and Assembly (two semesters)

Compilers and other practice at large engineering tasks with programming languages

If you search over at searchyc.com, you'll find the topic of good CS books has come up here over and over. You'll find lots of good reads in those threads.
More or less all the time I focus on asking good questions(those with keywords that hit decent traffic #s and have little competition in the long tail), I also make sure that any organic question gets answered within 10 minutes.

The others are more or less period wise...i.e. every 15 minutes check email, twitter, facebook.

I also focus on SEO, which involves emailing smaller bloggers to see if they'll write a quick blurb with a link. I try to get at least 3 links a day.

For the night coding period, it's mostly CSS, javascript and jquery.

Basically the goal right now is to build up traffic to a point where I can show to the more mainstream Fashion related sites/magazines, that we have decent traffic, in order to get coverage.
anything that's not the default will have a tiny chance of actually being noticed or used :(
Even AES 256 is breakable. Even then, now you're worried about not just the message value, but the key as well.

All for what? The convenience of letting a user keep the same password they already forgot?

A hash with a salt works perfectly fine for 99% of all situations with very little downside.
I wrote about this a few months back: http://devthought.com/blog/server-side/2009/09/on-the-subjec...
Well, it could be done with HTML5 and the video tag.
Wow, Try cutting back a little.

The term "sleeping on it" didn't just come from no where. Most of my breakthrough ideas come when i'm out with friends or doing something else. In "Blink" Malcom Gladwell argues our subconscious is way better at solving problems than our conscious.
Somewhat unrelated:

After browsing around the site, I have to say I'm very impressed with The New Republic and the quality of its writers. I'm adding them to my list of must-read web sites at once! :)
Taobao.com provides an ActiveX control for secure login. It can prevent keyloggers.
Ask HN: Is there any web apps that finds your site's security flaws
My first post here, just wondering if something like this exists or even possible? (Hopes it makes sense)
Yes, one article can serve two purposes.
Talking about gamed statistics: only those who received treatment are counted. While it's true that the US medical system has the highest rating for providing the right treatment is has the lowest rating for accessibility. Does it really matter how good the treatment is if you can't get it?

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Publications/Fund-Re...
V10.1 - The table Command - The Basics
If they are all hackers they will simulate the situation using a genetic algorithm based on ant colonies and sail away:)

If they are lawyers they will debate the issue until one dies and they will never sail.

If they have a background in marketing they will probably try and convince the fatter not to eat anything until they come up with a strategy...
Client-side hazing (with JS) is a cute hack that's completely useless for improving security. If there's a man in the middle, they can strip the protection code before you fill in the form.
An Internet Entrepreneur's Workday
I actually was thinking that the goal is running the contact. Not the whole thing maybe, but any complex parts.
I saw this post on the top news page: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1051217 so I decided I'd submit my own story of what a self-employed workday looks like. I originally wrote this post for friends and family, but hope it can be useful / interesting to others considering taking their projects full-time!
No web app, but a lot of individuals who'd love to offer this as a service. For general guidelines on writing secure web code, refer to http://www.owasp.org
Let me present issue 395, the most starred issue on the Twitter API bug tracker:

http://code.google.com/p/twitter-api/issues/detail?id=395

Also fun: if I have an iPhone client app interacting with Twitter and also with a web service that in turn interacts with Twitter, how does OAuth fit into that scheme? Do I make the user do the OAuth dance for the iPhone app? My web site? Both?
It's a lot easier just to install a hidden keylogger then it is to fart around with certs and try to crack https.

Google even references this in the press releases - most of the information gained was done through phishing.
Smallpt: Global Illumination in 99 lines of C++ (with no external deps)
Ask HN: find a rockstar-level HTML5/JS expert for few hours?
Where would one find a Mark Pilgrim- or Ian Hickson-level HTML5+JS expert for a few hours of phone consulting? I.e., someone whose depth of understanding of what you can do with HTML5 + new JS engines is unparalleled?

Needless to say, I don't think the usual venues would work.

Any ideas (or even rockstars ;-) would be welcome.

You can email me at cpr@emsoftware.com.
I'm conflicted. Part of me says turn the clock all the way back. Genocide is inexcusable. People can actually be happy without technology. Eventually the important stuff would be invented again.

However, I am more inclined to not do anything at all because we survived so far, and there have been existential threats in the past. I'm even more biased by the fact that if we turn back the clock and fix some of these genocides, I wouldn't exist. It's hard to balance the conflicting philosophies :(
That's just random speculation. Sure, Acrobat could have been used to get malware into Google, but just because Adobe released a security patch for Acrobat at around the same time as Google's announcement doesn't mean they're related.
Canada's second oldest magazine changes name to avoid spam filters
Now his wife is left to care for two high-need children, grieve for her husband, and figure out a way to pay for it all one day (maybe). Looks like he made the challenges facing his wife even more extraordinary now.
Yes, there are specific rules in Diplomacy for handling the case where someone doesn't fully or properly submit their orders - eventually your units go into "Civil Disorder". It's not a problem.
If they are startup founders, they would optimize the resources and exit!
You email Mark Pilgrim and Ian Hickson and ask them if they'd provide a couple of hours of phone consulting in exchange for xyz.
I read the name as Twidal Bums.
So that's what that was.....I couldn't read the Chinese, ran into that form, and then managed to switch over to a 'normal' login box through random clicking. The normal one was unsecure, but I'm impressed by the ActiveX control.
By all means possible talk to the "last guy". Then take what he says with a grain of salt. Both the employer and employee will have very different perspectives about the split. You are the sole judge as to whether it's a warning sign.

Personally, I think that the danger sign are the words "Non-Profit" which in turn means "No Money" which is what you pretty much learnt in the interview. In my experience, unless you can routinely "Turn water into wine" you are going to struggle getting funding for anything and don't expect to get paid on time either. Cashflow or rather its absence makes for "challenges".

Putting aside all the technical and financial considerations, do you passionately believe in the goals and mission statement of this organization? Only if your passion is total would I recommend taking the job, anything less and you'll be looking for an exit strategy within the year if not sooner.
Umm, Hi yahoo

http://web.archive.org/web/20020331055621/http://www.baidu.c...
Languages aren't everything. Gnash, written in C++, never succeeded in replacing Flash even on platforms like *BSD where Flash was nonexistent.

In particular, when dealing with Flash, feature-completeness is going to be much more important than perfect performance. Since the Flash VM on Linux and OS X is so slow and software-renders everything, it really won't take much to improve on it. The advantages of a dynamic language are probably going to far outweigh C++'s speed, and Javascript's similarity to Actionscript is icing.

Plus, Javascript can take advantage of whatever hardware-accelerated graphics library the browser vendor chooses.
No, it's the just the mass illusion from westerners for spelling "TianAnMen" wrong.
Are you under the impression that most of them remain employed as working stiffs? Because I know at least half of them are full-time (and my sales would be rounding error to most of them).
+1 on this one. Also you might find the "Twit*" name becomes a burden in terms of biz dev with certain other big social networks. I can't say more on that but I have first hand experience.
I have a microwave that doesn't rotate. My chicken always comes out unevenly heated, but it won't anymore! Tonight, through the power of science and chocolate, I'm going to find the standing waves in my microwave.
You always have to sacrifice early on. So I've pretty much written off this first year completely.(at least Monday-Friday part)
It can be used against arbitrary oversea ip and ip:port pair over TCP.

GFW can also act like a 10x amplifier for arbitrary UDP DoS

Best part is that, GFW is implemented on the backbone, no body can stop it :)

also the RST will have an exact 90 seconds countdown, not 5 or 10 minutes, unless you trigger another keyword.
(Sorry, can't reply to your comment directly, yet.)

The problem is, that you do not want give people the option to decide between using their orders or going into Civil Disorder (by not revealing their keys). Especially after they've seen the other player's orders.
Never mind the fact that if any of the authenticated traffic goes over the wire in the clear (post-login), The Great Firewall could snarf sessionIDs and replay them. This is the concept used in Errata Security's Hamster/Ferret tools. You don't need a username or a password to read their gmail, update their facebook status, or anything. And if any part of the session happens without https, the whole session is at risk.
How great would it be to see movies that reflected this dichotomy you mentioned. Where you could come out of the film not being sure who the 'good guys' were.
I'm a lot less concerned about the threat model where one side is your iPhone's persistant store and the other is Twitter. So, no, I think OAuth is probably unnecessary for actual iPhone apps.
I take Google's statement at their word. If its no longer feasible to compete in China, they know and will make the best decision for themselves.

As to corruption in China, it certainly exists. If you come from the U.S. and have never been privy to the payoffs that do occur in the U.S., seeing it so much more open in China can be shocking. U.S. companies may not be legally allowed to make payoffs, but they certainly do. Its also illegal in China. If Google China has never paid kickbacks, they would be the first company of their size in China I have known to not do so.

One thing I've noticed in Shanghai is that businesses in competitive markets are increasingly not giving kickbacks as its simply not profitable to compete in some markets this way anymore. Additionally, there are many (not saying its the majority) Chinese business men and women that take great pride in running a clean business. For every Chinese dissident whose email the gov wants to snoop on, there exist many hard working people "doing the right thing". I've witnessed my Chinese wife run businesses and she would never payoff a business partner or gov official. She would fire any staff member she suspected of doing so.

Yes, its complex and sometimes risky to do business in China, but for the most part the net change is positive. This net positive change may not stay that way, but the only reasonable hope is that it will.
You shouldn't feel that way. Labor protection is much, much stronger in Japan than the US, or many other first-world nations, for that matter. Having said that he's right to point out that the social contract is generally more important, however if you're being taken advantage of the law is on your side.

As for self-employment I can't imagine it's much harder, if for no other reason than health insurance/care is cheap and easy to come by, but I don't have any direct experience there. Seems to be a fair bit of self-employed IT folks in Tokyo though, particularly among non-Japanese.
I'm impressed: a study that ranks the US #1 in "right care", meaning "effective care", but ends up giving the U.K. the #1 position in overall quality with the US and Canada as 5 and 6. Right.... (Well, I'll believe that Canada deserves a low ranking :-).

Now, that doesn't address your point about access, but I can't put too much weight in the study.
It's not just the size of the debt that's worrying, it's the reasons why we have the debt.
"The first scenario is just very unlikely."

From another perspective: I worked on the content filter for Parental Controls at Apple. My understanding is that every filtering proxy product with SSL support requires the installation of an insecure certificate. That, or they do a fairly rudimentary IP or reverse-DNS based filtering (which is the route we chose for Parental Controls) for secure connections.

These vendors certainly claim to have a lot of Fortune 500 clients.
@vaksel - those are some pretty good numbers. Do you have tips for getting noticed? There's a good number of sites related to fashion, so to differentiate yourself is quite a feat!
If you use a text editor that supports regular expressions in a find/replace, you could match on word boundaries (e.g. \bToday\b). That would avoid the first part of the problem that #12 solves.
What's with this silly idea that states "deserve" to get back whatever money they pay in federal taxes? Federal taxes aren't levied against states, they're levied against people. And even personally, there's no guarantee that you will get back in benefits every dollar you've paid in taxes. Sorry, it just doesn't always work that way.

It's like arguing that I shouldn't have to pay school tax because I'm not in school (hint: then it's not a school tax, it's tuition). Or that the people who have never had a house catch on fire got ripped off because their tax dollars funded the fire department anyway.
Single founders is fine, and I think it's something one should do, yet they should also get someone to help them. They don't need to be the founder, yet it might be a service provider, or someone in the industry. You can't do everything on your own. I'm working on my own startup, yet I've struggled to do a lot, and rely on a service provider to assist. There are plenty of those who do design, development, coding, or anything else who are better at it than you are. You may be great at some things, but there's only so much you can do. Sites like Elance are good, yet I would recommend you find someone through qualified word of mouth.
Wrong parent post? SSL != SSH