skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The critical phrase is: "According to the numbers presented by the Taskspeed benchmark..." Is jQuery, as a whole, 2x faster in 1.4.2 compared to 1.4.1? Provably not - we didn't make changes to all of jQuery (and even if we did, how would we determine a global improvement of that quantity in a reasonable manner?).

That being said there were two areas in which there was genuine improvement made that will affect your code:

* Continuing to improve the speed of remove/empty/html. These methods are heavily used so anything done here will improve your code, absolutely.

* Improving speed of inserting a single DOM node. This was an interesting case. In jQuery core we use DOM fragments to hold and insert DOM nodes. It's faster for when you have multiple DOM nodes to insert - but actually slightly slower if you only have one to insert. In that case we just route around it and insert the node directly (this sped of WebKit, for example).

Those are the changes that I'm most pleased with, for sure. It's easy to gauge the difference between jQuery and native performance in absolute terms (time in milliseconds) but at some point we simply won't be able to get any faster - the overhead will be a couple function calls and some if/else statements (which is effectively what's happened to a few jQuery methods). So yeah, I'm not sure how far away we are but I will absolutely keep working towards that getting us closer to that ideal.
This is required watching for startups - some of the best insights into customer psychology and the perception of value. And funny, too.
Are you at risk? The law exists to protect you from exploitation - worst case they'd have to pay your self employment tax (7.5%), give you benefits, etc. right?
Would you use a cryptographically secure social network?
All data (including fact-of data) would be encrypted. The only parties able to decrypt it would be those individuals or groups explicitly targeted by the author. The company/service itself wouldn't even have access to the data in its unencrypted form: you could expose the entire database with no privacy concerns sine. There'd be no need to trust any person or entity you didn't explicily choose to.

Obviously, this wouldn't be your "find an old friend" or "find people with similar interests" type of network. It would have one purpose and one purpose only: to allow you to communicate easily and securely with those you trust.

Assuming this sounds good, would you prefer to:
1. Use the service via a web-app (less secure, since it requires that you entrust your password/private key to a third party)
2. Use an open-source thick client or browser plugin (you maintain complete security).

The technology is definitely tricky, and it'd be difficult or impossible to monetize. But do you think it's worth researching/prototyping? It actually seems like one of the few remaining innovations in the social network space.
What's the movement from Bear Sterns to Merrill Lynch imply? It's the only one linking two failed entities..
It's worth pointing out that the "virality clause" doesn't actually exist; it's just spin from old internet flames.

The GPL says that derived works can only be distributed under the GPL. The restriction is on distribution, not license. If you accidentally (or whatever) write something like a gdb port to a new language and try to sell it under a proprietary license, the FSF can make you stop selling it under that license.

But that's it. Your new code doesn't "suddenly become GPL and public". It's your code, and you get to decide the license, even if you can't legally give it to anyone else. I guess if you want to pick a metaphor, it's been quarantined. It hasn't been "infected".
Divvyshot (YC W09) Might Be The Most Gorgeous Photo Sharing Site Yet
Judgement vs. testing
Personally, I rely on http://chartporn.org/ for my daily dose of data visualization.

About: A collection of interesting charts, tables, maps, and interactive data toys -- with a focus on economics and graphic design. Enormous thanks to the bloggers who help find all this stuff, and the wonderful researchers, analysts, and graphic artists who create them.
I thought that VP8 was basically On2's secret sauce, and that they had made all of it.

From their site: (http://www.on2.com/index.php?599)

And with no patent-pool royalty hassles, VP8 licensing terms are flexible and affordable to ensure maximum ROI potential.

So, it'd seem like just them.
def create
@user = User.new(params[:user])
@title = "Sign up"
render 'new'
end

So the end user can mess around with the form, add is_admin=1 to the other CGI params and end up with an admin account. (Or similar.) Fabulous.
I empathize with Nietzsche, I seem to exhibit the same mental traits that he did. I thought I enjoyed solitude but I'm starting to see that I'm slowly but surely going mad all by myself (I have no constant friend circle). By being a hermit you lose touch with reality and the cultural/social learnings that everyone takes for granted become lost to you. That's not a good thing because you need others to function in life.
Alcohol's Neolithic Origins: Brewing Up a Civilization
Well, (1) would be pointless: that means you're still decrypting server-side!

The way I see it, social networks are mostly just a reworked version of (email + mailing lists + usenet) in a form that appeals to non-techies. Now, adding encryption requires quite a deep understanding of how the system works in order for it to be useful (eg. how many non-techies would realise that (1) defeats the purpose?), so it's really only for techies. But techies already have GPG-encrypted email...
Does Google Make Us Stupid? - Pew Research Center
Why do people bother with iPhones? Seems like that in the time it takes to find exploits, you could just fix all the parts of Android you don't like instead.
I would be interested.

I've worked on encrypted private blogs and document sharing before: https://wideblog.net/ and http://wideword.net (sorry certs are expired)
On Stack and the IRS
Only if you're okay with breaking the law* and standing on ethically questionable ground* just to use an app that you bought.

If your ISP gets a DMCA notice because you were downloading a cracked version of an app that you already own, do you think they're going to accept the explanation that 'it's okay, I already own it'? What about in the context of some of the proposed 'three strikes' laws? Nasty potential minefield.

* Depending on interpretation, of course.
Isn't the root cause of all of this, the high cost of employing people(as opposed to just contracting them). I don't know if it is the situation elsewhere but here in Mexico; the benefits than a low income employee gets are worth the extra employments cost; but for higher income, you just get too many taxes and little benefits, so it is costly for companies without the employees getting much. So people hire contractors to avoid paying so much in benefits that are not worth much.
Startups -- in a nutshell
I met people in Dharamsala/Mcleod Ganj India that were doing this - supporting themselves with light contract work over terrible internet connections. They were pretty happy. I even heard of one contractor couple way up in Manali/Leh with satellite internets making a good living by US standards this way.
yes. definitely.
You can use javascript for decryption on th client side btw
I used to be a Prototype user but since a month or 2 ago I too have switched to jQuery. It seems Prototype development has come to a stand still while jQuery development and its community are flourishing.

There were two reasons why I stuck with Prototype:

* Things like Element.clonePosition(), Element.absolutize() and TimedObserver have no equivalent in jQuery. But now I've found plugins that implement the same features.
* It's the default JS framework supported by Ruby on Rails. For my latest Rails app I just ignored all the Rails helpers and used jQuery directly.
I guess the reason I don't have a popular tech blog is because I would have just devnulled these guys in my .procmailrc instead of tweeting, getting into an argument, and writing a long article about how much time email wastes. Some day... some day...
Jobs: Flash would murder the iPad. Really now, let’s be realistic
This definitely doesn't mean VP8 is free and clear. It just means that On2 doesn't have any patents that they were actively enforcing on VP8.

It's quite likely that any number of H.264 or other random patents apply just as well to VP8, especially given the USPTO's penchant for handing out patents that cover even the most basic of ideas. This is Apple's stated reason for refusing to implement Theora. In this vein, it should also be noted that there's no guarantee that licensing H.264 actually covers you for every patent.
The whole affair is pointless since "privacy is over" or whatever, but for the sake of argument...

Rather than putting encrypted data in a centralized service ("Hi, I don't trust you at all but please host these encrypted blobs for me for free.") I think a P2P social network (DiSo) makes a lot more sense.
Why I Hate Your Web App
http://safe.mn/, for example, is doing checks on both the URL and the content. If the content cannot be scanned (too big, server too slow, local URL), visitors are warned that the link was not checked.
Microsoft said the same thing about WMV and then when they opened the spec a whole bunch of companies discovered that it was infringing their patents and now there's a patent pool around VC-1.

OTOH, I'm sure Google has thought about this problem and done some due diligence.
Those do, indeed, look like filters and not heat exchangers.

Is the salt in sea air particulate, or is it dissolved in the water vapor?
IIRC self-employed people need to pay the employer part of those, so it's just a matter of changing who pays, not the total taxes.
If they really call it startup school, it is super disingenuous. YC's Startup School has become a brand in itself which is why as I read the title, I assumed it would be YC's.
Despite your empathy for Nietzsche, if you actually read the article you'll see that Nietzsche had the opposite view of solitude from the one you have.

Nietzsche thought solitude's effect was positive, and something to be cultivated, not something that will "drive you mad" or make you "lose touch with reality".

In fact, it might not be going too far to say that for Nietzsche, it is society (not solitude) that "drives you mad". And solitude is part of the antidote.
Tahoe-LAFS encrypted cloud filestorage
Here's another way:

Go work for the man for a while, save money and learn useful things. When you have 12 months of runway then quit your job and work on your own project.
You might want to look at Tahoe LAFS as a basis for it:

http://allmydata.org/trac/tahoe-lafs
It is the employer who is primarily at risk (I generally agree with rjurney's related comment).

The traditional assessment (i.e., one done without regard to any safe harbor protections and also without going mindlessly through the "20 factors," which is usually not helpful) would run roughly as follows: (1) do you have a written agreement specifying that you are an independent contractor and setting forth terms that characterize an independent contractor relationship? (if you don't have such an agreement, the company basically loses out the gate on this issue in almost all cases); (2) are your services of the highly skilled type that people normally would pay an outside contractor to perform? (if so, this tips toward contractor); (3) are you truly in business for yourself and do the various indicia (yes, that is a lawyer word) of your work situation corroborate this (if sole proprietor, do you have a business license, a dba, a policy of liability insurance, etc. relating to your contract work or are you set up as an entity - these factors all tip toward contractor); (4) can you document that you perform services for multiple clients, that you hold yourself as doing so, and that your agreement permits work for others (if you have a website advertising your company, or if you in fact have done contracting work for multiple clients over a sustained period, etc., this tips toward contractor); (5) is what you do for your company a regular and recurring part of its business, for which it would normally hire an employee as opposed to more of a spot project such as helping develop a company's website? ("regular and recurring" tips strongly toward employee; "spot" tips toward contractor); (6) do you have to report to a specific place of work on a specific schedule? (tips strongly toward employee); (7) do you work under the direct supervision of any person at the company, whether a boss or a supervisor? (tips strongly toward employee); (8) are you required to complete a clearly defined "project" or must you show up at work to do whatever you are ordered? (the latter tips strongly toward employee).

All of the above is another way of saying, "is this person really in his own business?" when performing duties for this company. If I am hired as the company's lawyer, my goal is to deliver a result on my own time and in my own way. If what you are doing is analogous to this, then you might truly be a contractor. If not, then you likely are not.

Of course, check with a knowledgeable lawyer about your own specific case and concerning any risk or options should you be mis-classified. Can't give advice here about any specifics.
That is exactly the path I took with http://safe.mn/ If the destination is deemed unsafe, you get a warning explaining what is possible wrong (malware, virus, adult content., etc.) + a screen shot (hidden by default) + a link to continue to the site anyway.
I would imagine after the 10th demo of Grasshopper, you would be pretty tired of seeing it. The 10-15 second commercial is a small price to pay for 30-60 minutes of content.
why would you bother if you're unsure it would even help in the long run?

i see it as a net loss for apple. you're not going to deter whatever "deviant" behavior you think exists on current jailbroken iphones, whatever that may be. if people want to download free apps, they're going to do it. if anything, i'd think you're hurting your image by turning against hackers like this.

will apple recover any lost profit because they paid their own engineers to build these fixes? who knows, all i know is that another jailbreak will be available soon. people who want to control their own devices will find a way to do it.
So for the past few years Al Gore has been just the leader of a discussion group. Odd, I don't recall him doing much listening.
In some ways the problems with Apple's model go far, far deeper. If devices like the iPad become the norm, then that enables the machinery of censorship at a much tighter level than any ISP could ever dream of. The old standby of using Sneakernet (you know, burning a disk and walking it to the post office) no longer makes any sense in the world with Apple as a gatekeeper. That makes it very scary when Apple starts flirting with this kind of censorship without even defining the terms.
A lot of us saw this coming. In my opinion, the reason is not really that Apple wants to ban sexy apps, it's more than they want to keep the AAAA Big Boob apps out of the store. Those style of apps have really been becoming a problem, and it's clear that Apple was going to do something about them sooner or later.

This is probably just the first step of several they are going to take to keep a certain class of developer out of the store without seeming discrimnatory.

We've been informed by a reviewer already that if your company is releasing apps for other people, then this action is under internal review already. They are trying to get rid of a lot of spam apps and if they can get rid of the appmakr style apps, then they will get rid of a lot of them.

Also, they are tightening the "app has no utility" restrictions according to the reviewer, meaning that apps will start getting rejected a bit more based off some apple criteria that the app is not very useful.

For app store ppl who had more than 500 apps pulled, see this thread: http://www.iphonedevsdk.com/forum/business-legal-app-store/4....

And for the developers affected by the ban, see this thread: http://www.iphonedevsdk.com/forum/business-legal-app-store/4...
It's called DCC, actually: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Command_Control
A similar approach would be to give a free pass to software implementations (including FPGAs), while charging royalties for ASICs. When a product designer is already willing to pay for dedicated video silicon, a royalty just slightly increases the price.

If this model turned out to be profitable, it would be a good precedent for subsequent codecs seeking universal adoption while still paying for investment.
You can do that, but it won't help. My understanding (as a non-US tax expert) is that if you're providing a service in the US you have to pay taxes in the US -- at least, last time I did consulting for a US company I had to fill out paperwork confirming that I was Canadian and doing all of the work from Canada in order to avoid all sorts of US tax paperwork.
How did I know that the unstated rest of the headline would be "to women and non-Asian minorities"?
My weekend project: tweet from quicksilver (now in a simpler package)
Probably not by the web crowd, but I have heard of them used in big data situations. I don't know whether cache-miss is still a primary factor, as really large data-sets simply don't fit in memory without a trie. Any scalable type-ahead search uses one - type something into Google's search box and imagine the size of the search space. Additionally, the completions displayed are sorted by frequency, so imagine keeping that up to date as people enter more queries.
Summary: "I had heated exchange with a spammer, since I am Arrington and I wrote this on TC; it must be very important news."

Typical TC. Manufactured drama.
Nietzsche thought solitude's effect was positive, and something to be cultivated, not something that will "drive you mad"

It's funny how easily self-deception takes over the mind, while a single external perspective would easily have pointed out the error in his ways.

It always amazes me how much people frequently hail and agree with the life perspectives of a man who was, for all purposes, clinically psychotic and mentally unstable most of the time.

I'm a fan of occasional philosophical thinking in private to ensure that the way I'm doing things lines up with my conscience, otherwise I've long since concluded that the maximum potential to create change in this world is not by thinking about it, but by doing (especially in the company of others).
That's cool, one more reason to go with android :)
Sometimes it is just laughable...I went to a website on my phone to look up the menu. I got a "flash required" message. I was at home so I dug out my laptop and went to the site. The "Flash" application was a static image with the hours and phone number printed on it.
It's also likely that the "best" people at these companies (in terms of staying on top of their career, keeping contacts, etc.) are the ones using LinkedIn.
Nope, I'm an anthropologist.

Extremes in wealth are not compatible with a stable free society.
Though I'm open to contrary evidence.
The whole point would be to try to ensure that privacy is NOT over. Our privacy is nearly gone, but that doesn't mean we can't fight to get it back. And laws preventing companies from releasing data are NOT going to help - the only ultimate solution is encryption.

And yes, it would be possible to implement it as a P2P social network, but there's a few problems with that:

1. P2P ties you to a particular machine. The whole point of having social networks is that they work on all your devices.

2. I've never been impressed with the performance of P2P applications and I've never seen anything leading me towards a different opinion. I don't want to use a social network where it takes me 30 seconds to bring up someone's profile.

3. P2P is technologically more challenging. I want the average user to benefit from this, not just geeks.

These are perhaps surmountable if one could design the next generation of P2P tools, but that drastically increases the scope of the project.
No. Read this: http://www.railstutorial.org/chapters/modeling-and-viewing-u...
I don't see a problem with distilling an example to the basics when teaching beginners. Your concern should certainly be addressed at some point in the book though.
<quote>There are scientists who claim to be able to predict the behaviour of a whole host of complex systems and their interaction for decades and centuries in advance.</quote>

That may be, but very few of them are climatologists. If you take the time to read papers and articles by actual researchers in the field, you will find that they are careful to caution about making specific predictions about conditions in any given timeframe or area.

They can make some general predictions based on past observations, however, and it's clear that global warming will bring about some drastic changes in local climates. Consequently it's wise public policy to try to mitigate the warming by reducing CO2 production.

Is the scientific community 100% certain? No---as a 'denier of certainty', you're in good company. But you don't require certainty in your own life to make decisions (at least, I hope not for your sake). With the stakes so high, it's best to base action on the most likely scenario, and that is that global warming is caused primarily by human CO2 production.
How do I gain access to my private key in Javascript (without having the user paste it in every time)? How do I store it between page loads without exposing it to the server?
Uh... Katrina was a "worse-than-usual" storm, by pretty much every metric. Not the biggest (though the cat-3-at-landfall was because of a luckily-timed eyewall cycle, it was absolutely a cat-5 storm), but certainly one of the most memorable. So what's wrong with using a memorable storm as an example of similar storms?
"It always amazes me how much people frequently hail and agree with the life perspectives of a man who was, for all purposes, clinically psychotic and mentally unstable most of the time."

He was only "mentally unstable" towards the very end of his life. Virtually everything he wrote he wrote before that period, when he was as sane as anyone else.

In any event, even if he was as mad as a hatter his whole life (which he wasn't), that would not necessarily mean that what he wrote was worthless. What a person writes should be judged on its own merits, not on those of its author.
I wouldn't be so sure. The Daily Mail has a pretty terrible record when it comes to science reporting. See for instance http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/11/climate-ch...

a Google search should come up with many more examples.

Please also consider linking directly to a newspaper story, instead of doing so by proxy through Slashdot. The Daily Mail is on the same level as the National Enquirer. Some may want to avoid reading trash.
Merrill Lynch still sort of exists, in the sense that people will still say they work there. They have officially rebranded to "Bank of America Merrill Lynch", but I imagine people that were originally hired by ML will still say they work for ML and keep their LinkedIn profiles updated accordingly. (I'm on the other side, and I tell people I work for the Bank of America rather than "Bank of America Merrill Lynch", because that's a mouthful, and frankly, not a very creative name.)
The only reason I might come up with to stick w prototype is that it takes time to switch you app to jQuery. That's the ONLY one. jQuery is too easy to learn; way more community -- and in that regard, Scriptaculous is pretty much dead.

if RoR you can use jRails to try to keep functionality in your app (if that's what you use)
It would be pointless from an ultimate trust perspective, yes. But somehow I'd still feel more comfortable with a company that (at least claims) to use my key only to decrypt data immediately before sending it to me, than a company that stores all my data in clear text and mines it and distributes it internally as they see fit.