skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
And what they found was that a "reliable cookie" overstates user counts 2 to 4 times. That's right, if your analytics software uses cookies, it is possible that your unique visitor counts are 2 to 4 times too high.

I wonder what their methods for determining this is. Do they mean that an average user clears their cookies 2 to 4 times within a typical reporting period (unlikely)? Do they mean that an average user uses 2 to 4 different browsers to access the same site (unlikely)? Or do they mean that the average user accesses the same websites from 2 to 4 different computers (more likely)?

These kind of claims don't mean anything if you don't know how to interpret it. People know how to interpret unique visitors: it essentially means "unique browser sessions", and most people that are serious about analytics are aware of this. But don't start dividing the unique visitors by 2 to 4 yet, if you don't know what the resulting number exactly represents.

(disclaimer: I'm a service provider in online ads and biased too)
since it starts with the current time i was surprised that it does not appear to update. it would be nice if the clock worked "like a real clock", changing to reflect the current time. of course, that's not what you want if someone enters a time, so you'd need to track whether that has happened (and perhaps provide some subtle feedback to indicate that it's not "ticking" - the best thing i can think of is that you flash the ":" between numbers if it's running as a clock, and leave it steady if the time has been altered).
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I would like to see him write that post on an iPad. On second thought, I have better things to do with six hours.
Apple and AT&T together: A Problem for VoIP Service Providers perhaps?
The thing is, they're only interested in the end result.

Or, let me put it this way: the "end result" is what most people want and will pay money for!

Why should a Facebook user be interested in the structure of a URL? Why should someone who uses a word processor be interested in hard drives? Isn't that like expecting all drivers to know the mole-fraction of pentane in their summer fuel blend? Drivers shouldn't need to know a whole lot about their cars. A lot of drivers would rather not know. They just want to get where they are going. A lot of companies that realized this made their shareholders tons of money in the past several decades.
That's what I've observed of others. I certainly know I would hire a math or physics major if they demonstrated they knew their programming and CS (in fact, I did hire one who had an U of Virginia Applied Math major that was largely a CS major, 6 months out of college for his 2nd job).

In general the advice here is good. Play the games the CS department insists on if the higher level courses are worth anything and find other areas that are genuinely challenging.

If the "you're cheating" attitude is a reflection of the department instead of a quirk of the instructor (who good wants to teach that sort "Learn Java Syntax!" course?) then think really hard about your options that don't include taking many/any more courses in it.

And as others say, find a professor to do research with. If you can't, find another school, don't look so much for a "good" school as for one where you can do research. You should be able to find someone who needs good code written cheap.
Insular ivory tower, meet world.

It's one thing to have a bug in a piece of software, it's completely another when that bug is "by design" and exposes people's personal information without their consent. This should be a lesson to other social network sites and startups that want to enter this space. "The user's personal data is sacred." Even if Google wins the suit, this is really very reputation damaging. People who don't know the details will likely only hear that "Google exposed people's private contacts to the world."

I've more or less accepted Google's apology on face value, but I was thinking about this again last night, and given all the recent hubbub about the Chinese hacker break-in, and how it target specific accounts of political dissidents, this really seems like a particularly inexcusable oversight. In theory this is obviously true, and in practice we already know of a case where a woman was found by her abusive ex-husband.
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Is Nintendo being too harsh on pirates?
They are guilty, at least when it comes to assaulting that journalist. And there's the fact that the police said that Foxconn has "special status". The rest might be speculation, but those two things hold. The question is: should their American customers (Apple and the rest) stop dealing with them over it?
Yahoo is old enough and big enough now that it's worth it for them to consider becoming a GE or a Walmart. Ubiquitous with everybody but early adopters. And I know that plenty of very good engineers work at GE (and Walmart corporate for that matter, their transaction volume and business intelligence systems are insane).
did they ask people to stop? i read through the text and couldn't see that mentioned, which struck me as odd. i'm pretty sure that it wouldn't have stopped everyone, but to not ask people first seems a bit misguided to me.

[edit: my comment on that page asking about this hasn't been answered, but there's a reply to another comment saying "people were approached" that refers to the previous post - http://www.techedbackstage.net/2010/02/17/bittorrent-traffic... - that does describe in more detail what happened. and there's still no description of a general announcement.

i do understand their frustration, but to take an approach like this without any announcement is going to encourage some people to "fight back". a sympathetic announcement with an explanation would have got the majority of users "on their side", producing peer pressure and setting expectations that would reduce the amount of conflict. not doing so comes across as passive aggressive and encourages an "arms race"]
Oh come on, you're using a Win9x argument in 2010? :)
I do. I like programming and playing around with stuff and have since I put my hands on a Commodore PET. Granted, I like to do what I want to do, rather than fixing broken stuff, but there's so much interesting stuff out there, that having source for it just makes your life that much more pleasant.
I thought the point of NAT was that don't know the destination IP address? It's that of the NAT router.
And your bank makes it hard for you! Chase Bank sent me a (legitimate!) email this week saying "We've just intercepted a suspicious transaction and tried reaching you by phone but we couldn't. Please click here if you authorized it or click here if you didn't." And then the link threw up a security certificate error! If they hadn't had my name, four digits of my account number, and a number exactly matching the number Google had just emailed me to say "We tried charging you $523.25 for your AdWords account but it got denied by your bank" 2 hours earlier, I would have sworn it was the world's best phishing attempt.
TextEdit is secretly quite powerful, even though on first glance you could dismiss it as the equivalent of notepad on Windows.

An overview from Apple:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2523
A short bus.
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When I lived in Ohio, my best friend at the time was a regular weekly commentator on a local public radio station. She was pretty sharp in a lot of ways, but computers still confused her. She wrote a lot and used Microsoft Word a lot, but she was never ever clear on what the Hard Drive was in her computer. And why should she be? Her life was busy enough with her job, her hobbies, and her family. So long as her writing was there for her when she sat down to write again, that's really all she wanted and needed.

Users shouldn't need to care what a Hard Drive is. Their lives are not necessarily enriched if they know about the structure of a URL. That's as much an arbitrary, throwaway bit of knowledge as knowing the exact sequence of menus/commands needed to turn on endnotes in Word 2003.

Those who enable users or unburden their minds will make money.

(In retrospect, I should've done things to make the thing visible. I should've taken the thing apart and showed her the hard drive, the RAM. Then my "File Cabinet/Desk" metaphor might've had something concrete for her to latch onto. As it was, she was smart enough to figure out all those Windows icons were just convenient fictions.)
I am referring to the mapping on the NAT router. And the source does know the destination IP address, because it addresses the packet to that address. The NAT router rewrites the ports and source address on all the packets traversing it.

http://www.google.com/search?q=how+nat+works
Great writeup. I'd add a lesson I'd learned coming out of lab research as well. "Don't develop in a vacuum, involve the end users early and often." which is a bit of a corollary to "Lesson learned: Customers may have problems, but they also have solutions." I see this also outside of research, in general practice also. You seem to have figured this out naturally as part of your idea development process, but it's amazing how often this doesn't happen.
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Usability testing would solve a lot of problems. I don't know how many apps get tested with the help of real world users, but I think there is still room for improvement.
You can't take too much time observing, since you will probably want a better hourly wage than working at Burger King when you are going to rob someone.
It sounds like some javascript was used to hash some things like installed plugins that vary from user to user and browser install to browser install in order to create a more unique and reliable identifier than cookies. I'm not sure how that can capture use of multiple browsers though.
Uh, what do you think I'm arguing about? I'm drawing a parallel between a Microsoft oversight dating from the DOS days and the current oversight with port numbers.

But if you think I'm taking a position, please explain. (I'm reminded of Herman Melville reacting to various academic's analysis of symbolism in Moby Dick. Something to the effect that he didn't know that stuff was in there!) Unjustified projection of fictional intention is just as cheap as putting words into another's mouth.
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Another feature request...

Can you give it some "add another city" ability? I've had much more grief trying to do the mental arithmetic scheduling phone conferences involving people in Sydney, London, and Dallas than I've ever had working out just one other city in my head...
The Techcrunch article describes this as if it happened in downtown Big City, USA. Some guards gave a journalist a hard time for a bit and he easily walked away from the incident, these are the crimes Apple and other US companies are responsible for?

We're talking about a country that runs the largest internet censoring project on the planet, imprisons thousands of political and religious dissenters, now they have to answer for the unspeakable crime of kicking a Reuters reporter in the shin. Sense of perspective is arguably not what techcrunch is about but come on.
Are you kidding?

You have no notion of the resiliency of our economy or our history as a civilization if you think that "pulling the plug" on the internet would be some crippling event.

Yes, business would be affected. But our civilization would collapse? I mean, you think people would just start hording guns and food because the INTERNET stopped working?

If Mastercard couldn't use the internet, you know what it would do? It would use banks of dedicated lines and dial-up modems to process cards, the same way it still does to this very day in most businesses.

I get that you live and breath this stuff, so do I. But you should seriously consider subjecting yourself to a liberal arts education. You need perspective. Our civilization has survived amazing adversity. Pandemics. World Wars. Revolutions. You think the internet would break us? Seriously?
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I'd enjoy that joke while it lasts. It probably won't seem as funny once the iPad actually comes out, because the thing supports keyboards, even wireless ones. People who want to write long-form essays will sit a keyboard down in front of their iPads and type.

This won't be a common use case, of course. Because writing anything longer than a sentence or two is not a common use case. Unless you're me.
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Bluetooth keyboard support much?
who knows really as it's barely out, but I agree with the principle that there is far too much technical bullshit in most modern computers. Things should just work.

If I were to break it down, you get a bigger screen over the iphone so you have a better web experience. You'll get a more portable device so you'll have a less weighty experience compared to a laptop. Dunno about netbooks.
His coded version crashed two of my web browsers (FF and IE)
Allow me to offer a HU pros take on the hand :)

In a heads up pot, The dealer is the small blind. In both fixed limit and NL variants, a competent player will raise close to 100% of his range preflop. A4 will be defending by the opponent in fixed limit, unlikely to be 3betting (we need to have some weak aces in our non-3betting range), but actually quite often folded in no limit due to reverse implied odds, assuming stacks were 30BBs deep+.

On 998, a 'donk bet' from A high is very unlikely and a pretty poor, unbalanced play with a weak showdownable hand. Our hero will continuation bet in fixed limit and NL (probably somewhere around 2/3 pot). A checkraise would be a very poor play in NL; possible thin value play in FL but XR will be called by the 3straight anyway.

In all likelyhood the turn will be seen in FL (from whereon the dealer will certainly win the hand), unlikely in NL (button will win without showdown preflop or on the flop)
"The first line of defense is to make sure that people who do have a clue can get help with their problems easily without having to contact you. If all your emails are from wackos with hopelessly dumb questions, that means you're doing things right!"

I learned something: improve my documentation, videotutorials and all until that happens.
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If you fill your home with a bunch of generic, replaceable crap that has no meaningful value to you other than that it is available for your use then yes, this is mostly just a hassle for the insurance company, assuming you have receipts and whatnot.

Most people, however, are not borg drones and though a check from the insurance company may allow for acquiring replacements for lost items it won't make up for the damage done by a robbery.
Apple increases app 3g download size to 20mb
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Bad maybe, but there is something powerful about the inconsistent reward when posting then waiting to see how much karma the comment gathered. It's addictive in the same sense that checking e-mail is addictive.
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He was (and I believe still is) their main webmaster, last I heard he was particularly focused on the WoW website. He often goes by the name 'Nebu' (short for Nebuchadnezzar).
Google boss says 'nobody was harmed' by Buzz debacle
software engineers as network admins has some benefits

I'd hope a competent network admin would have seen this (bit torrent abuse and nat port exhaustion) coming from miles and miles away.
The only conclusion I can come to is that DRM does work (for some definition of "work").

This isn't a poorly-studied field. Piracy rates have been carefully tracked by every major publisher for years but the information is rarely made public. Ubisoft has experimented with several DRM methods in the past, including having no DRM at all on 2008's Prince of Persia.

I figure that someone's come to the conclusion that using DRM makes more profit than not using it. And also those at every other major publishing house after studying their own figures.
"I really don't want a computer. I hate computers. But, what I do like is the power and convenience that a computer gives me."

Same. I want carefreeness of the 60s, with the convenience of the 10s.
First of all, Foxconn is taiwanese company, it's not run by the china that the U.S seems to be on a big PR push against, it's run by the other china.

Secondly, this factory is in the most competitive and cutthroat area of mainland china, and it's producing the most secretive goods that can be produced. If the livelyhood of your entire business depends on the secrecy required (for marketing purposes) by companies from the UNITED STATES, then I think it is reasonable that you will take steps to stop people from standing outside and photographing into your company.

And they did not try to execute the man or put him on a prison in an island for 5 years without trial, they just took steps to make sure he did not have pictures that would compromise their factory.

Tens of thousands of people owe their daily bread to the secrecy. In this idealistic world view promoted by the article, kicking a man in the leg is a worse crime than letting 10 thousand people lose their job.

In the U.S, guards routinely shoot 10.000 volts of current into people. Kicking someone on the leg is nothing compared to that.
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they're willing to take the time to figure out Facebook and Farmville

I'm telling you: give your computers game mechanics to learn your app. Facebook should buy you a pig and give you a diploma if you figure out how to log into them without Google. It would solve the problem in a week. (Test first, obviously.)

Heck, Facebook could make a "user education tithe" of virtual goodies a condition of being listed in their programs. Got 1M users and want more? Pony up goodies for us to expand the platform with. It is in your long-term best interests. It is in your short-term best interests, too, if your short-term future would be compromised by us turning your notifications off.
Police in china are there to keep the peace. Not to uphold rights.

The U.S mentality is one of justice - if someone slaps my child, I have to have justice, imprison them, take them to court, etc. The U.S police will also encourage you to do so.

The chinese mentality is to try to mediate so that there will be peace and harmony. The cops will try to make you guys agree with each other, not force you to fight each other even more.
This guy's like the author's friend in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
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This seems impossible. There will always be hand combinations that hero would fold preflop, with the exception of the dealer in heads up fixed limit, less so NL. Even 3-handed with hero on the button (who should be correctly opening say 60% of his hands), it doesn't seem possible to stack the deck so that every hand combination will be opened.
I don't think Chairman Hu sent a note to the company guard to kick a reporter in the leg. This was a guard who was just trying to keep his job, and did something in the moment. It's not a big chinese conspiracy against shins.
He really has quite a naive understanding of foreign policy

..and of commerce, at that.
He is not alone. I was once at a conference workshop where Prof. David Cheriton (Stanford, Cisco, Arista) vehemently argued that anonymity on the Internet was detrimental as a whole and should be done away with.
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The dealer always has position by definition (we deal to our left and finish with ourselves, and action starts to the left and finishes with us).

The page is actually mistaken in this aspect; it has out opponent labelled as "SB" whereas in fact hero, the dealer, will be SB and out opponent is BB.
I am in Germany but I use "Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.9". :(
The author of this article is interesting because he is so obvious: "It's about giving people a great experience."

In other words: it's all about selling stuff to consumers. Which is a great thing to say if - like Baekdal - you are marketing yourself as a guru to people to want to sell stuff.

Many "usability" discussions have the implicit (sometimes explicit goal) of making it easy for users to do things without having to learn anything first. This may be fine for generic routine tasks that everyone has to do from time to time. We are all thrilled about our shiny new phones. But consider this:

1. Not long ago, most things were hard, confusing or impossible to do on any phone
2. Even if 80% of all things you can do on an iPhone are dead simple - are these things that really matter to you?

Things worth well are usually not generic routine tasks. When you love what you are doing and try to make it as good as you can, using the right tools in the right way is a major part of the experience. But that kind of experience is impossible without making an effort to learn new things.

My personal belief is that those of us who want to create our own experiences benefit from getting our hands dirty with technology now and then.
The problem with that, from the perspective of the instigators of the "War on Terror," is that you don't get to show off what a big dick you are when you pull off an effective intelligence operation. Suskind's book The One-Percent Doctrine is very revealing in this regard. There were effective intelligence operations against Al Qaeda, but the fruits of them were repeatedly squandered for egotistical reasons. In one case, the CIA decapitated the main financial institution used by Al Qaeda and put their own guy in charge of it. This really shone a light on Al Qaeda endeavors for a time, but the US government kept giving the insights they gleaned from it to the Israelis (with no obvious quid pro quo) and the Israelis kept using those insights to solve their own internal problems until people twigged and started finding more secure ways to move their money around.
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