skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Oh yeah, the touchpad is frankly awful compared to my MacBook's. I've almost considered disabling it, because I keep brushing against it with my palm causing wild cursor behavior and accidental button presses. It's difficult for me to control even when I do it intentionally.

But I don't use the mouse much anyway (hence ratpoison).

The HiDPI screen is pretty good, I talked about it in a sibling comment. Chromium understands the DPI setting and so does Xterm, and honestly I don't use any other programs. I imagine if I used different desktop applications, I'd probably run into some issues like maybe icons being too small or something.
At work, I have a L540. I don't like the look of the new-ish ThinkPad keyboards, but otherwise, the only complaint I have is that a few keys will sometimes (rarely) fire twice when I push them.

Otherwise it is a nice keyboard. Tactile feedback is not comparable to a Model M, of course, but it is okay. Acoustically it works nicely.

I am not sure how much of a difference it makes, but I was surprised when I got my machine to find out it is a 17" model, so the keyboard is rather close in size to an external keyboard, which is very nice. (I don't usually carry this beast with me, so I don't mind the size. YMMV!)
Yeah, Broadcom. Oh, how did you upgrade? Ask the Dell support?
True that. MBA also has better connectivity and audio.

On the other hand, MBA's monitor is a complete joke compared to the one on ASUS UX305.
Exactly this! Once it's in existence somewhere it's immediately part of the NSA/CIA/FBI basic iPhone toolkit.
This whole affair is the symptom of a deeper tragedy, that of the French "orthographe" (meaning "proper spelling").

Orthographe is a rather recent notion, that appeared well after the creation of the Académie française (1635), I would say somewhere in the middle of the 18th century, and then became the universal enforceable "norm" that it is today, in the middle of the following century (19th).

Before that, you could spell French any which way you liked; most authors spelled the same word differently, not just in different works, but in the same page, and not depending on context either.

And it wasn't a problem, because it can be argued that the best works of French literature were written at a time when orthographe didn't exist.

There were "grammarians" that insisted that there should be some rules and that they should be followed, but they were objects of universal scorn and mockery.

Then, I'm not sure exactly how, grammarians won, and now we have orthographe.

Orthographe is a tragedy for two reasons:

- it's mainly, or uniquely, a social marker

- it's so complex and so arbitrary, it takes between 5 and 10 years of arduous study to learn.

And after people learn it, they become attached to it, it becomes part of their identity, and it continues to be enforced and imposed on children as a matter of course, without any objection from anybody.

For the record, I'm a very good (or by most metrics, excellent) French speller, but I'm also a parent and am heartbroken to see my kids spend the best part of their young lives learning this thing that has absolutely no extrinsic or intrinsic value whatsoever. They could learn music, or drawing, or cooking, or woodworking, or go play outdoors, but there's no time, because orthographe is so damn hard it takes all of the time in school, and more time at home. Hard and useless.

The worst part is it's not a fight you can fight on your own -- decide that your kids won't learn orthographe after all -- because that would cause them a huge disservice: the social marker part means that those who can't spell are excluded from normal society and have a very hard time finding jobs (any job).

Many social problems in French society -- including, I really think so, recent outbursts of "terrorism" -- have at least some roots in the actual terror and tragedy of orthographe. If you can't learn orthographe you can't be a member of French society, and in order to learn orthographe you have to already be a member of said society.

Do I like the current reform? No, I think it's stupid and counter-productive, because it adds an alternative spelling to 2000 or so words; the alternative spelling may be simpler, but the addition raises complexity instead of lowering it. -- The point is to get rid of orthographe, not double it.
It's pretty silly how people get outraged about the smallest changes in the writing system. In Germany the last real changes were made over 100 years ago (removal of C, Th, etc.). There are so many things where there's no justification to do it the way it's done now. That we write a few words with v instead of f helps nobody. The tons of ways we mark long vocals only confuse. S only being pronounced sh in front of p and t is pretty arbitrary, you use the rule for all consonants and become more similar to the other Germanic languages (e.g. Schweden -> Sweden, schmelzen -> smelzen). You could write ts instead of z, because that's how we actually pronounce it and it would be easier to understand for speakers of other germanic languages (smeltsen).

But no that would be seen as the downfall of our culture or something.
A showstopper feature for me is that it should be straightforward to use the tool to write its own manual. Surprisingly few static generators, including Pelican, do that however.

But Urubu's manual is written using Urubu: http://urubu.jandecaluwe.com/manual/
Kimono, webscraper, disappearing as a service. App to mend transitional issues
It sounds like it'd be trivial to nop out the timer on repeated passcode attempts. Which makes sense... Leaving any short passcode trivially crackable.
It took me a bit, and I believe no one has summarized this very well yet.

FBI: "You've built a device that makes it nation-state-difficult to install custom software without DRM keys. We'd like you to assist us in deploying software signed with your keys."

Apple: "That feels way too much like asking a CA to sign a cert for you, so fuck off."

I'm honestly not sure which side I'm on here.
If such an ability doesn't exist than how does this potential threat follow?

(article) > But that’s simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices.

I am also missing a key part of the technical details involved in this this situation.
Interesting, what if the security on the device was reduced purposely and in a manageable way, in exchange for one of the several steps or keys to decryption existing only in an online blockchain of some sort?
Oh I did read the article, and I understand that this is aimed to encourage dual-use, rather than excluding one or the other. I was merely expressing myself in favour of continuing to use it, even though their omission is not an error anymore.

If they really wanted to simplify things they'd be better served looking into rules about the place of the COD and 'avoir'... I have traumatic memories from primary school french lessons ;)

(Also, while I agree with it's spirit, I resent the hostility about your misunderstanding of my post)
> Even if it existed, it would bring very little value to the users, as operating a radio device with modified firmware on public networks without recertification is prohibited in most jurisdictions of the world and privacy concerns in cellular networks are mostly related to what happens on the network side, not inside the device.

Not entirely true, publishing the code isn't the same as allowing its modification. Code signing can be used to limit which versions are allowed to run.

Reproducible builds of the source would allow one to ensure that the binary, certified version of the code their baseband processor is running is legit (i.e. not backdoored). It would also help audit the code and spot security holes.
>The SIF will be coded by Apple with a unique identifier of the phone so that the SIF would only load and execute on the SUBJECT DEVICE.

If I understand the cited order correctly the firmware is ordered to be constructed in a way that it runs only on the target phone.
> 20% of Americans are under 14, 0% of them are earners and ??~10% of them have a smartphone

OT but 10%? I'd've guessed at least twice that.
Video Content Marketing Roundup Feb 08 – Feb 16, 2016
Taxi drivers have a licence to lose.
Using CocoaPods in NativeScript versus React Native
I had a poor experience with them in the UK. The hinge snapped on my ultrabook (I don't remember the exact model as the codes are obscure.) E-mailed support, provided plenty of pictures of the issue. Keep in mind I only owned the thing for 6 months so still in warranty.

Best they would offer is an out of warranty repair.

I know someone with the same model, exact same problem happened to him.

Horrible build quality and support.
Bravo, someone who gets it. The subtle difference with China is when the bailout happens, the government doesn't go into debt to do it and stick the taxpayer with the eventual interest bearing burden of the bailout. Instead, they print the money. This creates moral hazard. I think China's political system is better at dealing with banker moral hazard than ours is unfortunately.
The current implementation is done this way indeed:
even Apple cannot decrypt without using the right password.

The right password can be obtained by either knowing it, or by guessing it.

As an additional security measure, the software shipped with the phone prevents brute force attacks by wiping the device after a given number of failed attempts.

Apple has been asked to modify the software so that it won't wipe the phone, thus allowing the authorities to try many passwords.

If anybody could circumvent this additional security measure, actual security would be lower. The authorities are not asking Apple to ship this change to all users: they only want to install it on the device in their possession.

However, Apple is concerned that once they provide the authorities such a modified software, it could be leaked and thus be used by third parties to breach the security of any Apple device.

It should be noted that currently all data encrypted for example on your laptop's hard drive is already subject to this kind of brute force attacks. It's a well known fact that authorities or malicious users can already attempt brute force attacks on encrypted data if they can access the data on a passive device such as a hard-drive.

It's important to understand that Apple (at least not in this case) is not being asked to implement a backdoor in the encryption software. It's also important to understand that even if Apple was forced to install a backdoor, it would affect only the ability to access future data and not help the investigation of the San Bernardino case.

This very request by the Authorities suggests that Apple does not currently install any backdoor on stock phones.

However there is a logical possibility that the Authorities are either not aware of any such backdoor or in the worst case they are publicly requesting this feature just to hide the real reason of a possible future success at decrypting the phone: they can claim that Apple didn't have any backdoor, and they were just lucky at bruteforcing the device; in fact Apple wasn't even cooperating with them at relaxing the brute force prevention limit, so they could claim they did it in house.

(I'm personally not inclined to believe in such improbably well coordinated smoke and mirrors strategies, but they are a logical possibility nevertheless).
> open source, so there is no way they can plant a privacy-invading code and get away with that

Compare and contrast with today's "Typo in PHP's Mersenne Twister" story - https://twitter.com/i0n1c/status/699860681487708160

Seems to have been broken since 2007 (the 'broken' line appears in the 2007-01-01 commit "Bump year" but not in the 2006-10-06 commit "Mark rand.c functions with U.")
It sounds like it has been built that way - the data cannot be decrypted without the correct passphrase - but the user secured the phone with a 4-digit PIN, giving a mere 10,000 possible combinations - easily brute-forceable.

The iPhone prevents this by locking up (and potentially erasing the phone) after 10 failed attempts, but this a restriction created in iOS. If they provision a new backdoored version of iOS to the phone, that restriction wouldn't apply any more, and they could brute-force away.
And homebrew isn't the only package manager on OSX.

I actually see this as an argument in favour of OSX, as it is much more straightforward to change package manager than on Linux, where the sane way to change package manager is to change your distribution.
The fact that Apple indicates that they would be able to produce such a software version is in itself a backdoor in the iPhone.
I have had good service from Asus in the UK.
Citigroup's Handlowy Gains as Quarterly Profit Beats Estimates
Apple si oppone a ordine giudice su dati Iphone
4 New NativeScript Tutorials Posted, Including Observables and Observable Arrays
I still feel like a MacBook Pro would be a good choice for the author. He starts out by talking about being able to replace parts, but later doesn't make that as a requirement when he asks for:

- Decent build quality

- Decent performance and battery life

- A decent website

- A clean OS without crapware or malware factory installed

If you want a laptop that's somewhat thin, light and with decent battery life, you often do have to sacrifice being able to replace anything. By soldering on the RAM and storage, you get more room for batteries. This also especially becomes evident by his System76 Galago that can last 3 hours.

So in conclusion: Just get a MacBook, it has decent build quality, performance, battery life and website. A good OS? I'm not going to be the judge of that, but installing Ubuntu or Windows on a Mac is luckily very easy.
> Macbooks are great, and I wish I could find something as good to install Linux on.

You can install Linux on a Macbook if that's what you want. Despite the marketing a Macbook these days is just an expensive, well-designed PC with particular software.

> Most of the PC options are steel and plastic, so they're hot and heavy. They'll burn your legs, they have comparably poor battery life. The screen looks terrible if your viewing angle isn't perpendicular. The hardware I've had has tended to die faster, too.

Not my experience for machines from the last couple of years, particularly if you look at similar price points.
UK unemployment still at 10 year-low, falling by 60,000
What if I bite the skin off my fingers? God this conversation is turning into an horror movie.
Show HN: Everyday eCards-Design and send everyday greeting cards(with Free Gifts)
EDIT: I was unaware of the issues of the Nexus 7. Seeing that they are not related to the phone's specs, my previous statements no longer hold.

Also, this has very similar specs to the 2012 Nexus 7 which is basically unusable with Android 5.1

Unusable meaning up to 20 seconds delay between a tap and the expected app opening up or the keyboard showing. Random hangs with the question if you want to kill the offending app.

I don't expect a $4 phone to be fast but unless there are some major differences, I think you'd just get $4 worth of frustration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxIEDNyZOkA&feature=youtu.be...

Martin Fink, EVP & CTO of HP on why we should use the GPL
You're right, the headline is sensationalizing his actual words. I'm retracting that comment.
I wonder if a project to build an open replacement firmware for DVRs, along the lines of OpenWRT, would gain traction.
> Specifically, the FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on an iPhone recovered during the investigation. In the wrong hands, this software — which does not exist today — would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone’s physical possession.

They really need to put that paragraph closer to this one:

> The government would have us remove security features and add new capabilities to the operating system, allowing a passcode to be input electronically. This would make it easier to unlock an iPhone by “brute force,” trying thousands or millions of combinations with the speed of a modern computer.

The first paragraph without the second implies that iOS isn't actually secure at all.
The key parts of the Federal order:

"Apple's reasonable technical assistance shall accomplish the following three important functions:

(1) it will bypass or disable the auto-erase function whether or not it has been enabled;

(2) it will enable the FBI to submit passcodes to the SUBJECT DEVICE for testing electronically via the physical device port, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or other protocol available on the SUBJECT DEVICE and

(3) it will ensure that when the FBI submits passcodes to the SUBJECT DEVICE, software running on the device will not purposefully introduce any additional delay between passcode attempts beyond what is incurred by Apple hardware.

Apple's reasonable technical assistance may include, but is not limited to: providing the FBI with a signed iPhone Software file, recovery bundle, or other Software Image File ("SIF") that can be loaded onto the SUBJECT DEVICE.

The SIF will load and run from Random Access Memory and will not modify the iOS on the actual phone, the user data partition or system partition on the device's flash memory. The SIF will be coded by Apple with a unique identifier of the phone so that the SIF would only load and execute on the SUBJECT DEVICE.

The SIF will be loaded via Device Firmware Upgrade ("DFU") mode, recovery mode, or other applicable mode available to the FBI. Once active on the SUBJECT DEVICE, the SIF will accomplish the three functions specified in paragraph 2. The SIF will be loaded on the SUBJECT DEVICE at either a government facility, or alternatively, at an Apple facility; if the latter, Apple shall provide the government with remote access to the SUBJECT DEVICE through a computer allowing the government to conduct passcode recovery analysis.

If Apple determines that it can achieve the three functions stated above in paragraph 2, as well as the functionality set forth in paragraph 3, using an alternate technological means from that recommended by the government, and the government concurs, Apple may comply with this Order in that way."
Tim Cook: Apple Won't Create 'Backdoor' to Help FBI
Looked for a 1990s publishing date, but apparently this really is contemporary because :

>Diplomats say Poland's key part in the deciphering the German system of codes in WWII has largely been overlooked

Except for being mentioned, sometimes in great detail in every single account - popular and technical - I've ever read and underneath every internet article on Enigma since comments were invented and being basically the first thing any cipher geek brings up when Enigma is discussed anywhere on the planet.

But apart from that, yeah, totally overlooked.
I recently bought a third generation Lenovo Thinkpad X1 Carbon. It had a very annoying fan, which made it unusable for me. It wasn't very loud, but it was a high-frequency sound which made it annoying.

Eventually, I got myself a Lenovo Thinkpad T450 instead. So far this T450 has been very good. The fan almost never comes on. However, it should probably be noted that I got the T450 model with the slowest CPU.

For those of us who are sensitive to noise, I suppose it's a good idea to always choose the slowest CPU, if several options are available. I didn't think about that when buying the X1, and bought one of the faster models.
Someone else who has looked at them has pointed out that theirs reboots randomly. I haven't actually been using the DVR functionality, so I suspect that the emails are only sent at boot and it boots more often than I expected.
They have done awesome job but the Jolla Phone is old (and was low-end even when it was published compared to its price) and their tablet crowdsourcing project suffered quite badly as they lost some other funding for a moment and their device manufacturers sold the devices elsewhere as Android devices.

Basically Jolla has promised to refund the crowdsourcing funds within this year, but still it was big setback for the project. I've tested the tablet and it was surprisingly solid in H/W and S/W sense. Just hoping they'll survive and can get meaningful market share somehow. Kudos to them anyway.
Wow this is one hell of a book! Over thousand pages!! Any plan to publish it as epub?
I've always found the story about the British bomber airplanes during world war two to be a powerful illustration of this. When the bomber airplanes returned from Germany, some were quite badly shot up. They were riled with bullet holes in the tail and wings. In the interest of ensuring more successful bombing runs, the air force naturally wanted to put more armour on these parts that were always so badly shot up.

...but that's not going to do any good. Airplanes that are shot in the tail quite obviously are able to complete their mission and return home, since you're able to observe them.

The airplanes that had bullet holes all over their cockpit never returned. This is where the extra armour is needed.
1) They're not saying they don't want to help investigate the SB shooters, only that the order illegally expands the use of the All Writs Act and sets a bad precedent for democracy.

2) If they beat the order then the FBI needs to find a new way to compel Apple to help them do shit. That likely means the FBI needs federal legislation passed, which in the current climate will buy Apple considerable time. This is why they want to beat the order (though the feds could further appeal all the way to the.... wait for it.... 8 judge supreme court!) Though I think Scalia would have be on our side on this one). It's not about this particular case since there will be others, it's not about this particular order since there will eventually be legislation.

3) So why go ahead and do it anyways? Naive (but still valid) reason: they happen to be able to help and without it being ordered they can do it without handing over a tool for ad hoc decryption. They can even go to Hawaii after and throw the dev machines into a volcano to satisfy their inner hobbit (I highly recommend this part of the plan) to ensure that no one can abuse the power of the one ring.

The non-naive answer is that for a quick project they get to show to the public that no, we the nerds are not so obsessed with abstract systems level thinking that we won't help when we can. It gets a lot harder for that moron Comey to hit the morning shows and throw shitty innuendo at the tech industry implying that we're aiding the terrorists.

Both encryption and terrorism are complicated subjects that are scary to the average American and although they distrust the government, they also distrust Silicon Valley. The cryptowars aren't about being right or they'd have stayed dead in the 90s where they belong. Basically Apple makes tech look like the good guy fighting terrorism, and for anyone who cares (smaller audience than the fighting terrorism bit) they also defended your civil liberties.

4) This trick only works on older devices. They will die out soon anyways. Newer devices are safe anyways. If they beat the order and do this one case voluntarily then no precedent is set, so they can't be bullied into doing it and old devices are safe.

One device compromised, all other devices safe, order beat, PR win, Comey looks like a prick even to the uninformed next time he insinuates that we're the enemy.
Hypothetically, it should be relatively simple to prevent a power-off-dodges-destructive-action attack, by simply making the operation (incrementing and storing the attempt counter, checking the password) an atomic operation.

So they would still get 10 bites at the cherry, and sure, on the tenth, they could depower the phone and prevent the wipe, but if each attempt is persistently stored before the password-check is carried out, depowering the phone wouldn't give them any more chances.