skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I suspect that Mossack Fonseca avoids taking on American clients to skirt the federal Foreign Accounting Tax Compliance Act (FATCA). FATCA gives the IRS many powerful tools to pressure foreign banks and financial institutions to disclose information about American citizens in order to ensure that those citizens are reporting all of their income. This frequently involves disclosures of non-Americans' finances, because stashing income in a corporation with foreign citizenship is an easy way to evade income tax.

Many, many non-American financial institutions categorically refuse to provide services to American citizens in order to avoid IRS scrutiny of their books and to protect the privacy of their non-American clients. I expect that, before offshoring dark assets, the likes of Vladimir Putin and Xi Jiping would select a management firm that poses minimal risk of disclosure to US regulators and thus a firm that has no American clients.

Meaning, a firm providing these kinds of services can probably only serve either US citizens OR the government officials of America's geopolitical rivals, but not both. The presence of those officials does not indicate that Americans aren't engaged in similar activities, just that they are probably serviced by other firms and so won't be implicated in this particular leak.

Otherwise, there are three possible explanations for the lack of Americans that I can think of.

First, later releases may reveal US citizens in the client list, rendering this discussion moot. I have no idea why the journalists would wait to disclose information about Americans, but we might get some idea about that once further details emerge.

Second, the journalists may be protecting their own nations' interests, as posited by this article. Personally I find that unlikely given that the ICIJ has a track record of integrity and releasing information that is damaging to US persons. Plus, I suspect if they were protecting certain parties, they wouldn't protect an entire nation's citizenry but would instead selectively exclude key figures from the releases.

Third, it is entirely possible the party that released the data edited it before hand to exclude Americans and Germans. I think that may be the explanation if it turns out that this is a joint NSA-BND operation posing as an anonymous, solo whistle-blower. I could see a basic inter-agency operational agreement stipulating that the leaked information should not implicate anyone from the home nations of the participating agencies to avoid thorny political issues arising from intelligence agency activities that interfere with domestic politics.

Regardless, I personally see my original FATCA theory as the most probable explanation. But we can't know the true explanation given the current released information and ultimately we may never know the real truth.
Any place that uses the death penalty as quickly and frequently as China isn't too concerned about false positives.
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Panama%20Papers&sort=byPopular...
Just do a little research on HFS+ issues. It is not a small problem. This was one of the reasons why the OS X server was killed.

Some limitations that really do have a major impact on people: (Features Missing)

data checksums

nanosecond timestamps

concurrent access (let more than one process at the time access the filesystem)

checksumming

snapshotting

longer time frame (February 6 2040 for HFS+)

sparse file support

real hard links
FWIW, I bought a Revolv hub looong ago before google bought them. They stopped updating the app and the hub when they were acquired by Nest, which is when it stopped being super useful. It has been mostly useless since then, and now the service no longer works. This sounds worse than it is as they more or less did this when they were acquired, since it was a very new product that hasn't had any updates since.
Technological homogeneity and the impending zombie apocalypse
Exactly. You can't trust any security company operating in U.S. legal system. I say that as an American doing INFOSEC work. The company must be located in and at least jointly-owned by a privacy friendly jurisdiction. Little police corruption helps, too.
Disney are apparently using drones to combat paparazzi drones when filming Star Wars VIII: http://consequenceofsound.net/2016/02/drones-are-patrolling-...
Prepare to feel emotions you didn't know existed. Good luck it's awesome :)
> There is some truth to it. This, however, isn’t due (too much) by how you write the code from a syntax perspective: while coding my Python program I noticed that when the function is run in the context of Lambda, the platform expects to pass a couple of parameters to the function (“event” and “context”). I had to tweak my original code to include those two inputs (even though I make no use of them in my program).

This is just a product of bad design

A better approach would be to decouple all your business logic and provide an interface to it.

e.g.

MyBusinessLogic
doSomeBusiness

MyLambdaRequestHandler
- handleRequest
- call myBusinessLogic.doSomeBusiness

That way if you need to move away from AWS Lambda, you can simply remove MyLambdaRequestHandler and any associated unit tests and your application code is unaffected.
unit tests are generally easiest to do with unit curves: (0,0)-(0,1)-(1,1)-(1,0) has well defined coordinates for many t values. t=0.5 -> (1/2,3/4), t=0.25 -> (5/32, 9/16), etc. If you need this for unit testing, hit up http://pomax.github.io/bezierjs instead, open dev tools, type "var b = new Bezier(x1,y1,x2,y2,x3,y3,x4,y4)" with real values of course, and then check the coordinates you get for "b.get(0.5)", "b.get(0.25", etc.
"You have 30 seconds to comply"
Massachusetts Right to Repair Initiative
I had a similar problem with Boxee Box which wasn't bricked but put the platform on end-of-life.

Is really annoying to see the website talking about "We are excited about the next chapter for our team." Thanks guys.
http://www.boxee.tv/

Luckily the box was insecure enough that someone found a hole to allow installation of Kodi.
Very cutesy title, but a very poor title.

This is why I refuse to buy any 3rd party internet connected (I mean connects to a 3rd party, not just TCP/IP) appliance unless I can install anything I want on it.

It doesn't matter if internet connectivity is required or optional - if I'm not in charge of the software on it, and it connects to a 3rd party I refuse to buy it.

I have a feeling more and more people will refuse to buy these devices until this fad moves on.
All these years of progress and a site can't be up when it's on HN?

I worked with Lambda a lot, piping the JSON input into Go programs and I cannot be more happy with something.

I work with Go just like I am used to, testing, compiling, CI and everything and then, I have a shell script that deploys it to Lambda (uploads the zip).

For what I need, lambda is absolutely great!
Portland, OR - Downtown

Senior Front-End, Back-end, and/or Full-stack Developers

Back-end: Ruby/Rails
Front-end: Javascript - we use Ember and React/Redux but not required to be proficient in the frameworks

https://pdxstartups.switchboardhq.com/posts/18780
This is also one of the reasons I've moved most of my "hub like" functions to home assistant https://home-assistant.io/ which is open source 100% https://github.com/balloob/home-assistant

I was burned by them buying Revolv, the most promising of all hubs due to having multiple antennas and touted as supporting multiple new protocols via software updates (which never happened post merger).
No, the tribal members do own the land, its just unlikely that a bank could ever foreclose because of the tribes involvement and how tribal land works. Non-tribal members get leases. The federal land rules are archaic and work against the tribal members.
Leaked documents show strong business support for raising the minimum wage
To each his own. They certainly give you that option.
Auto install a complete django website on a clean slate Ubuntu VPS
But don't we only need a few to catch them once? And don't we have at least a few?
This is starting to be a real problem. What if Tesla decides to shut down their cars after 7 years or your phone stops working after 2 years? I bet somebody somebody will come up with an idea for a house that shuts down after a certain time.

If you can't rely on ownership of something anymore we'll be in big trouble. Maybe there will be a countertrend where instead of relying on the cloud as storage/computing service computing and storage will go back to the customer.
I think it will slow down innovation and Google, and I also think it will make the surviving products better in the long term, with lower chances of being killed. Right now it seems Google employees want to jump to exciting new products all the time, and nobody is left to maintain the older ones. This would happen a lot less often if those "exciting new products" had a high chance of getting bankrupt and then for them to lose those jobs.
7 Amazing Qualities of a Gold Digger
The <noscript> crowd is really starting to sound like my Uncle who still keeps his money under his mattress.
> "Internet savvy" in this context means savvy with media and savvy with modern social networks

But they're not, they do not have 'shrewdness and practical knowledge' of social networks or how the internet works they're just not scared of them.
Or just, you know, keep your distance.

Although it is sometimes quite hard, my father was once going on a German Autobahn 180kmh and he didn't realize that in the front people completely stopped. My mom realized and shouted and he hit the breaks and stopped in-between cars (if there weren't enough space inbetween, he would have mildly hit the cars). But I don't think this system would have helped in this situation
Show HN: Beekeeper: a codeless object-oriented REST API client library
Announcing Bamboo, Email with a Functional Twist (Elixir)
A Photographer’s Breathtaking Journey in Search for Mammoths
I didn't find much in the author's post that I agreed with. In particular, a few of his points stuck out to me:

> In traditional PaaS world the code is the indisputable protagonist (oh, damn, and you also happen to need a persistent data service to store those transactions BTW).
> With Lambda the data is the indisputable protagonist (oh and you also happen to attach code to it to build some logic around data).
> A few years of advancement and we are back to stored procedures.

I don't agree at all. Lambda is code. It's code that is invoked upon receiving certain kinds of data, but in no way is the Lambda code subservient to the data, or (unlike stored procedures) even colocated with it. Lambda still needs persistent data services to play with persistent data -- there's nothing magic about it.

> There also have been a lot of discussions as of late re the risk of being locked-in by abusing Serverless architectures (like Lambda).
> There is some truth to it. This, however, isn’t due (too much) by how you write the code from a syntax perspective: while coding my Python program I noticed that when the function is run in the context of Lambda, the platform expects to pass a couple of parameters to the function (“event” and “context”). I had to tweak my original code to include those two inputs (even though I make no use of them in my program).

The author describes having to write a controller method. This is not surprising, considering he was trying to make a web service.

> So, IMO, the lock-in will not be a function of how different the syntax in your code will be Vs. running it on a platform you control (probably minimally different) but rather in how scattered and interleaved with other services your code will be (at scale).

This is the most cogent point in the article. API Gateway + AWS Lambda can be used to create micro-microservices. Serverless Framework tries to wrangle this potential complexity by allowing users to group related lambdas/endpoints as a whole, but there is still the opportunity to create a real rat's nest of logic if we're not careful.

> P.S. Yes, I know that it’s called “Serverless” but it doesn’t mean “there are no servers involved”. Are we really discussing this?

Yeah, obviously servers are involved. But the fact that I don't have to care about those servers nearly as much (in terms of maintenance or in terms of up-front cost -- both are big wins for most customers) is worth discussing.
Fun stories from tech support.

But why is he trying to "clean viruses". He should be just saving some data, and then reinstalling from scratch...

Also, while ios isn't quite as open as desktop oses, at least it has an sdk and we have internet. Growing up, I couldn't write software for my nintendo as easily as for ios.
I'm very grateful we live in safer times, in part because people like our fathers, grandfathers, and Joe Medicine Crow participated in wars so that we (hopefully) never again have to. I think the twinges of existential crisis mostly come from the idea that I'm mostly just sitting and fiddling with bits of code, many of which will not benefit the world in any great way.

Of course, it's stories like this one and others that serve to remind me that maybe I could, or should, contribute to something more positive and beneficial.

And I fully agree with your last point too.
The fight is increasingly political, so advocate and donate where you can.

We lose when we give up, I suppose. I know what the Libreboot guy said before on his blog, alluded to here, but this is why, as crusty as some might find him, we most generally support Stallman's politics.
SOX also created the going-private branch of banking/PE and served as a full employment act for accountants.
You can imagine a future where criminals need to get plastic surgery to avoid capture. Kind of like minority report
I don't own one, but the Prius is actually just an excellent car. Aside from its fuel efficiency, it has lots of interior space, has an outstanding service life measured in hundreds of thousands of miles with no major services, and is priced very competitively. There's a reason tons of taxi cabs are Priuses. The stereotype that the Prius is bought by snooty people is completely undeserved. If you're just shopping for a simple commuter car, it's really hard to beat the Prius.
Celebrating Our 5th Year Anniversary Today
I have this idea of making a human cyborg to cruise with the police car. We will call him CopRobot.
Crush the car.
Funding was flat in Europe in Q1 if you exclude Spotify.

http://tech.eu/features/9202/european-tech-funding-q1-2016/
Your Gut Instinct Is Wrong – So Try A/B Testing
There should be some sort of law saying that these types of things can operate in a basic mode without the need for an internet connection - at least post initial setups. There needs to be a way to protect customers from devices that don't really need the internet to function (like a nest thermostat) when they become obsolete.
You're right of course. It's hard to imagine any useful vehicle spending much of its time moving at only 5 mph, though, so I suppose I'm really imagining what such a stop would be like from a more normal travel speed like 20-25 mph.
Going by the compat.linux.osrelease sysctl, it is currently providing the kernel interface of Linux kernel version 2.6.32 (the one that ships with RHEL6). Similarly, the GNU userland that can be installed is based on CentOS6.

So, if your application requires newer kernel interfaces that were introduced in 3.x or 4.x, it will not work.
Before announcing the PS4, I was hoping Sony would adopt Linux, mainly because I think it would've done a great service to the Linux community by having games that run well on Linux, but I think it would've also helped Sony in the long run. Microsoft is already banking on "DirectX gaming" for both Windows and Xbox. Sony should've had a similar strategy. They should go all-in with Linux and Vulkan with future consoles.
For the same reason they think banning drugs will make people stop using it.

Government does not care about outcome it cares about the show they need to put up to convince people they are doing something good.
I think parent comment means the concentration of wealth to certain people within a country relative to others within that same country.

That is, already-wealthy VCs are still seizing lucrative opportunities on private markets (as pointed out). It's just the public that isn't able to participate because companies aren't going public.
Nothing about making computers says you have to make phones (Apple). As the GP mentioned, nothing about search says you have to sell advertising (Google). And none of the above say you have to make a self driving car (as both are reported to be attempting).

I think you're drawing some arbitrary distinctions here. Making big bets in several areas is no small part of why Apple, Google and Tesla are magnets for the best engineers and programmers. There's nothing unfocused about marrying great software and hardware, which is ultimately what Tesla is doing.

A lot of Musk's bet in AV is founded on the understanding that the existing automakers are/were quite capable of making a good electric car - they just have too much incentive to drag their feet. Autonomous driving will actually be the major differentiator in an industry that didn't have the software expertise to create a decent infotainment system.
Usually Massimo's stuff is quite well thought out and practical when it comes to adopting new models in the Enterprise, but this article has a "I'm annoyed by this platform because it doesn't work how I want it to" sentiment throughout. He seems to miss a lot of the potential value that the serverless architecture model brings to the table.

It's pretty well established that Amazon's usual approach is to provide a "toolbox" of services that can used to build any number of app architecture permutations, without all the typical fluff and polish expected by large business customers. I for one, as an engineer, appreciate this model since it's much more accessible and lightweight.
There could be a perception problem there. SPARC has been open for a long time with multiple vendors making SPARC chips. There's no restrictions except IRRC a $99 fee to use the trademark for a SPARC compatible chip.
>The cost of serving those is recouped by dropping a cookie on you.

Only if you allow third-party cookies. I'm honestly amazed that browsers haven't moved to turn third-party cookies off by default.
According to this API Usage list, 0% of the scanned sites use the little known "padding" css property. Did someone double check this before publishing?
Very cool! Reminds me of the late Kimono Labs
> That makes it sound like their primary concern is keeping control of the devices. In reality I think it's just laziness.

I sincerely believe that many of these entrants into IoT do want to remain in control of the devices and the users who "rent" said hardware. I've seen laziness in code before. It's usually sloppy, unmaintained/badly maintained, and just messy.

These products are polished, just work, and smooth... and make you go through their systems. That's an intentionally designed system.

> We all know how much easier it is to support code running on a server than to support code running on hardware sitting on somebody's dusty garage shelf with no internet connection.

Indeed true. I'm not advocating axing out those features. I said to add in another: which is to use open standards as well.

I also develop IoT hardware (not for sale). I use Arduino Nanos, nRF24L01+ radio chips, whatever sensors/actuators for the hardware. For the software, I use Node-Red, Mosquitto (MQTT server), and Apache NiFi. For "cloud support", I use Tor Hidden Services at every gateway machine, and communicate between .onion addresses. I effectively treat all my machines in the world as a simple ethernet hub. I'm just an individual, and was able to figure all this out.
Perhaps the implication is not actually insignificant.
> He seems to miss a lot of the potential value that the serverless architecture model brings to the table.

Its a code evaluation platform, running containerized under the hood, and with a large markup by Amazon. Companies have offered this for years before AWS, but AWS is tooting the horn louder than people have before.

Is it useful? Yeah, sure. Is it revolutionary? Oh come on now.

Just like "the cloud" is just timeshare on someone else's computer, this is simply code management and execution abstracted a few more layers up.

EDIT: Sorry I'm not on the hype train folks.
It seems there are just some basic begining steps on the site. It's far from the fully dissaembled ME. So it seems we still don't even know what's inside of ME.
I didn't see the bot part of it?
Judging by the specs on their current lineup, it looks like Apple already gave up on performance anyway.
Except it has a range of 75 miles with a 3.5 hour charge time, making it a completely useless waste of money for most people. The problem is that other car manufacturers are just sticking EV drive-trains into their existing cars, and hoping for the best. It's absurd.
But that's something the user is doing. This repo has the Linux distro, which is by itself neither a circumvention, gives instructions to circumvent, or performs a circumvention of the DRM to run, thereby passing DMCA muster.

It's somewhat similar to the situation XBMC was in back when the X still stood for Xbox -- the code itself is OK by the DMCA, but compiling it required use of unauthorized dev tools (if the user didn't have a license from MS, which they likely did not), distributing the binaries was a violation of the DMCA (due to statically linked, non-free MS libraries), and installation of said binaries was also a DMCA violation (as it required the user to circumvent the DRM on the console).
Why would you exclude Spotify?
Tantrums as Status Symbols (2005)
SEEKING WORK - Brooklyn, NY, USA - Remote
UX Designer/Information Architect seeking freelance projects. 19+ years experience running my own remote consultancy. Contact nicole@usablejungle.com.
Planned obsolescence is extremely prevalent (just see Apple's view on it - http://www.geek.com/apple/phil-schiller-thinks-its-sad-that-...), and this intentional bricking is a close and sinister cousin. Before the idea of regularly replacing your hardware was so widespread, companies needed to at least pay lip service to the idea of continuing support. Now that it's become the status quo to buy a new phone every two years, it looks like some are starting to conclude that the savings in support costs are worth the PR hit.

Very pro-profit, very anti-consumer.
Centralized IoT servers would be a lucrative target for hackers. And as much as I would like the luxury of setting my thermostat remotely as I'm leaving work; it's not worth making it accessible over the internet.
So YLE is infected by leftist activists masquerading as journalists in the same way as with SVT? That is depressing.
Holy cow as a frequent flier, I wish I knew which plane I would be getting when I book the ticket. There is a difference between an MD-88 and a Boeing 717 and when I'm flying three times a month, that difference really does matter. Milwaukee to Chicago, I'll put up with whatever plane you give me, but Chicago to Atlanta, I would pay a bit more for the newer plane.
From Le Monde in French:

"Une partie (exploitable) de la fuite consiste en une base de données structurées des quelque 215 000 structures offshore de la firme panaméenne Mossack Fonseca avec, pour chacune, les dates de création, de dissolution, l’identité des actionnaires déclarés et leur lieu de domiciliation. Cette partie sera publiée en mai par le consortium international des journalistes d’investigation (ICIJ), qui a coordonné l’investigation."

I'm too lazy to translate it for you but basically it says that part of the leak will be released in May. They also wrote an article explaining why they don't release everything: http://www.lemonde.fr/panama-papers/article/2016/04/04/pourq...
The Mysterious Art of the Falling Panties