skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Hey Ramit, can you talk a little but more about your comment on "many startups overvalue social media and ignore channels that actually convert. Hint: Twitter. (Test it and see for yourself.)"

Which channels are better than others for securing conversions? Which outlets SHOULD startups be focusing on?
Window controls (max, min, close) on the right of the window title?? I hope they switch them back to the left.

EDIT: my mistake, I meant, why switch to the left?
About that, I recall a (French) celebrity whose e-mail where leaked because a Paparazzi bribed an employee of the company which hosted his web-mail. So, even this worst-case scenario can happen (though I suspect they are a bit more careful at Google).

This is more about the many tiny dangers than about the few big ones, however. I don't really know all these dangers, and they add up. In the end, this tends to be a matter of principle: "If I'm not doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to see". I just feel safer that way.
They are on the left now, formerly on the right. I think you have it backwards?
Google China hackers stole source code
Like http://pinboard.in - "Social bookmarking for introverts"
"Pornography or porn is the portrayal of explicit sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual excitement."

"In the case of the body scanners, images are taken, thus it is pornography, and a crime."

Please read the whole sentence before saying it is a crime, unless you are implying all TSA employees enjoy sexual excitement while watching their screens.
Good luck Daniel
There is one that includes quad trees.

http://blog.notdot.net/2009/11/Damn-Cool-Algorithms-Spatial-...

I haven't read it yet though.
Fonts are in the eye (or rather, visual cortex) of the beholder. I got used to the Mac fonts, but at first I thought it was some kind of bad joke or misconfiguration. They seemed annoyingly blurry.

My theory is that one's brain gets used to the particular fonts and may not like change very much.
Our 8 Brightest Hopes for Keeping Up With Moore's Law
Etiquette is to the Blogosphere as Bras are to Cows
George Smith and his friends.
I wonder if it's the various multiplatform indie games on steam that made them reconsider. Those alternative SKUs of games are currently not earning Valve money in the OSX (or Linux, or...) versions, as they have to be sold via other channels.
if the website is serving google's adds, you're damn right they're targetted at you personally.

a week after i got back from vegas last year, hotel receipt hits my gmail, and every freaking ad was about vegas hotels.
I agree @ Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

The other thing I just don't understand is why are netbook manufacturers still putting crappy nonstandard little known restrictive linux distros on their netbook?

I bought an Acer Aspire One, which came with linpus I think, which was ridiculous. Installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and now it's fantastic.
It sounds like you like one, and not the other, and are making up summaries to fit.
I'm not particularly fond of the GTK-themes. It's always hard to accept new and all, but they lack that unique touch of the earlier interface. The web site mockups feel like a mix of apple.com and a cheap hosting solution. Now, I get that they're merely mockups, but it tells a little about the team behind the redesign. The logo is not bad (better in the smaller variants). I like the use of purple. It's pretty unique (if you do not contrast their wallpaper to certain polar aurora wallpapers) and they can totally work that color.

I would have expected something more unique -- something much more refined -- of an Ubuntu redesign than this.
Garry Tan is truly a force of nature. He's like Samson, but if he cuts his hair, he won't lose his power.
sure they do. http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/joe-satriani-speaks-a...
If I had a business, of course I would only care about my customer's money. I freely admit I wouldn't care about my customers personally at all (as long my practices didn't oppose my morals, like mugging customers as they came in the door or something). I don't think there is anything wrong with that, because what makes money in the long-term is making my customers happy. I wouldn't care about my customers, but that doesn't matter because my customers would still be treated about the same as if I did (in an attempt to get them to buy more from me or tell their friends about me).

Of course, telling my customers this unpleasant truth might scare them away, so I would probably pretend to value my customers to their face.

But I'm not a businessperson. Maybe sincerely caring about your customers is the way to success. I wouldn't know.
I'm super excited for SXSW. This is the first time I'll have ever gone to one of the big, national conferences. This stuff all sounds pretty cool.

Any advice from you seasoned conference goers?
What? Are you seriously saying that you consider all photos taken of someone naked and under the age of 18 automatically pornographic and thus a crime? Your opening Wikipedia quote even disagrees with that. If someone is incapable of looking at a picture of a naked child and not find it a sexually explicit subject, then the problem lies very much with them and they really should consider getting help
Ubuntu's default control layout looks ridiculous to me - everything is too far apart, the margins are too big, the buttons are too big, the fonts are too big, acres of space are wasted by toolbars in the File Browser in the screenshot, etc.

It looks like a toy for people with poor eyesight.
Everything patented or implemented in the history of the world is possible under the laws of physics; the argument that because it is possible, it is not patentable makes no sense.

As must be stated anytime there is an article on here concerning patents, read the claims, not just the title. Most of the titles are so broad as to be meaningless, but the claims must be made specific, as these are what can be defended against infringement.

In this particular case, the claims themselves ( http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=7CCWAAAAEBAJ&dq=7... ) are vague and extremely obvious, and I would be shocked if every claim hadn't already been implemented and/or patented by someone else. In fact, if you read the application, they were forced to retract the first twenty of their original claims.

I know it has become fashionable to say that the concept of patents in general is flawed, and that patent examiners are sub-human imbeciles. I disagree on both counts; software patents are generally crap and should be done away with to a large extent, but as another commenter has pointed out, many inventions require a great deal more investment and patents provide a great incentive to develop such things. It is unreasonable to expect patent examiners (engineers, not lawyers) to do a perfect job of pattern-matching each application with every similar previous application, considering that patent applications are deliberately worded in a language which is impenetrable to anyone trying to figure out what the hell something does. Reform at the policy level is needed, and acting as though the problem is that patent examiners aren't smart enough or that patents in general are a bad idea tends not to be very persuasive.
> Do you have a better answer?

Read up about Israeli airport security measures - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1025173
Israel cancels raid after soldier posts details on Facebook
I've been trying to live by the motto: better to be curious than right. (In other words, try to continue seeking information about someone's viewpoint before proving that yours is better, which generally leads to defensiveness and/or makes people think you're an ass.)

I find this difficult, because I love being right.
Does this mean that suspend and hibernation will work reliably out of the box? Because that means way more to me than a desktop theme I always end up changing anyway.
If they're having it, don't miss "how to rawk SXSW".
As a guy who runs an embedded development company, I have to say, Android is pretty costly to do compared to the iPhone OS for any given amount of functionality.

Like usual, the Java everywhere approach of it makes it pretty painful when you have a config file error, as a full 1/3 of those are not really validated with something that will tell you that you made an error.

The business case of "No reviewers" makes it a more predictable platform by leaps and bounds over the iphone though. Having done multiple month projects which apple than sat on for 7 weeks without approving or rejecting after months of being "suggested" to add expensive features (such as in app purchases), I can completely see it being better for companies doing "questionable" things (for apple's overly controlling view of questionable), but otherwise, it's a PAINFUL market, as even if you're the only person in a space, there is likely a guy writing an open source version of your app which he'll then release for free.

What I'd REALLY like to see is someone make a app layer that runs on top of the formal API what was about 2x more consistent and 4x less "javay" in both graphical layout and the amount of hand edited XML files you have to do. I'm thinking about trying http://phonegap.com/ and the http://code.google.com/p/android-scripting/ to see if they're better alternatives than pure java for customers looking for android solutions.

Then again, android is more powerful than the sandboxed version of the Apple API that they let you use, but that power comes at a cost of a great increase in complexity.
His example of how Android is worse than iPhone is quite inaccurate. Activities in Android do not correspond to UIViews in iPhone - they're supposed to be self-contained and somewhat independent units of execution (UI units in this case). The fact that Intents are so limited demands pretty loose coupling and makes developing larger applications easier (and your code more modular).

If I wanted to do what he wants to do in his example, I would do exactly that - create the views I want/need, throw them in a list, then rotate/display them in whatever order I needed.

Personally, I cannot get excited about iPhone development. While the UI Builder truly is top notch, the whole thing seems geared towards building great UIs to so people can consume content in a mobile-friendly way. Android OTOH, while limited in UI, gives you the freedom to make whatever you want. Sadly, the author hasn't discovered that and makes absolutely no mention of things like Services, BroadcastReceivers or the other ways you can hook into the system.

People may say that doesn't matter, but that's because they can't miss something they've never had. My Android app is one of the top ones in it's category and has no equivalent on the iPhone because it can't be written for non-jailbroken ones. The one I am currently working also cannot be written for the iPhone (whether it will be popular remains to be seen. Mostly, I just want to finish it and use it myself)
Obese 3-year-olds show early warning signs for future heart disease
Microsoft hasn't been a monopoly for, what, a decade?
I could not care less if some guy looked at my 'adult daughter' gasp. She has breasts and genitals and a woman's body, just like the other billions of females on the planet. I think people consider themselves to be far more unique and important than they should.

By passing through a scanner, what will be revealed about a person that is truly of any consequence? They have a 'small' penis? They are fat? They have various health problems? Deformities? So basically, the technician may, at worst, have knowledge about a person that is certainly already known by other people. Do you think the technician is going to write this stuff down and blackmail people? I just don't understand what the assumed horrible consequence is.
And what if that datacentre goes down? And what if you want reasonable (<50ms) latencies in different parts of the world?
i use it on my tv. i fucking love it.
Linked list patent
The thing that immediately sticks out to me is that the bottom gnome panel is no longer there. Up until now, default ubuntu (and gnome) setups have had one panel at the top and another at the bottom, and the first thing I'd do on a system is to get rid of one of the two.

This made more sense with 4x3 screens but now with many laptops at 16x9, it seems silly to waste that much screen real estate. The mac has a menu bar up top and a dock, but they also move application menu commands to the top, saving some space there.
I see now that when Jobs said that the "Don't be evil" mantra is bullshit, he meant pretty much that.

Apparently, not being evil is bullshit.
P-values are inconsistent
It has the potential for sexual excitement which is all that really matters. The images are there and can potentially be copied by someone that does have intention of using them for sexual excitement. Unless you've been living under a rock for the past 20 years (or possibly not in the US, I guess), you should know how quick-triggered the US gov't is on potential child pornography and would be in this case if they weren't the ones doing it.

Why don't you try putting an ad in your local paper for random children to pose nude for you, just make sure to keep all the photos on your hard drive for editing purposes.
Cat Fleas' Journey Into The Vacuum Is A 'One-way Trip'
Ask HN: FireFox extension donation
I have been lately working on a FireFox extension (as a freelance), so I got a some background on developing FF extensions. I noticed lately, that FireFox added donations support to most of its' extensions.

So my question is: does this model really work? I'm interested in building something for FireFox, but will be more if I can monetize it.

Any HN user have experience or some numbers (like donations/download)?
As a learning experience, this sounds fairly sub-par. Having just finished college, I'll say that the thing that made extra-curriculars a great learning experience was the ability to work with people who knew as much as or more than you. As a reporter at that paper, you'd get a lot of low-risk practice writing articles, and get advice and critiques from people with a few year's experience. By contrast, this job for the college paper would be throwing yourself into a position where others depend on you, and you have no one to learn from. It's all the difficulty of self-teaching and working with the safety net of a mentor, combined with all the responsibility of having dozens of other people depend on your work.
Don't they mean "changed the earth's moment of inertia"?
Israel have the dual advantage of smaller numbers of required staff plus higher risk of terrorist activity (which leads to better investment into security infrastructure)

They do have a reasonably good security set up (been through Israeli airports a few times now) but they do have issues/idiots too (who doesnt). They have a reasonable trade off of privacy over security.

For a larger country with lower risk cheap options such as body scanners are a "solution" because they theoretically require lower skilled staff to spot a terrorist.

Of course the theory is poor in the first place and the execution worse (so far)
Ayn Rand Mike Wallace Interview 1959
Conan's Twitter Team: A Small Army [PIC]
They've found a new way to make your corners and menus more dangerous. It's not just a classic "turn off" button in the top right. Now you get a "close window" button just below "programs" and above "file menu" for free!
Is it really "leaked" information since the images are deliberately released to promote their announcement? I suppose it's now standard operating procedure in the computer software industry to pretend to accidentally release images to hype your product. Just feels dumb to me.
I then went on to show that the TSA doesn't exactly screen their employees that well- how are we to know whether or not all the employees monitoring these things won't be sexually aroused by child pornography?

Seems like it should be a pretty good job to have if one were into that kind of thing- tons of access, not much oversight, and legal to boot!

EDIT: I then went on a Google hunt and found an article from Wired [1] in 2002 that says 'U.S. law defines kiddie porn as depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, such as intercourse and masturbation, or that show "lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area."'

By that definition however none of these cell-phone cases would be considered child porn, so apparently the US gov't has changed their stance on the issue in the past 8 years.

1. http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2002/05/52345
You are right that OSX uses different subpixel rendering than Windows, but I think that at present the free fonts on Ubuntu are not quite at the level of OSX's fonts and some of Adobe's.

This could just be my own aesthetic taste, but I think it could also be due to those companies having highly paid font designers working on those details.
No, because jobs has been around longer and pirates of silicon valley movie, i actually like jobs more. However, from an intellectual standpoint i think bezos is the better man for consumers.
Not everyone lives at their computer. It's more convienent to tap in what you eat at the kitchen table with the iPad rather than walk to a computer.
> Aren't these machines generating child porn every time a child walks through it

No.

(I did answer this question a couple of times before :))
I think this is spot on. While I agree with everyone who wishes Apple weren't doing this, it feels like a manouvre intended to bolster their fight against Nokia.

"Look! We believe in our patents so much, that we're going after other companies that infringe, too!"

If it also has a deleterious effect on Android adoption, so much the better, right?
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I find UIBuilder to be awful. Unintuitive and almost impossible to grok without some prior experience or handholding.

For my first "hello world" apps I wound up coding the views entirely by hand and skipping the .xib
You could always check it out yourself: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/attoparsec

Although I'm not sure if he's pushed the most recent changes yet.
We all know Gmail uses text clues to serve ads. The question was about the ads on an independent website?
I am lukewarm on this specific design, but am totally happy and excited by how ambitious this all is (not just the theme, but the logos, collateral, etc.)

I want Canonical and Ubuntu to kick butt. Mark seems like he's really making an effort to be a "product" person, which open source could use more of. Bravo! (And this has always been reflected in Ubuntu, which I really appreciate.)

Some nits: The new font is a step backward. The softness of the old font was both distinct, unique, AND comfortable. The new one is not as unique. And I don't think will age so well. (Plus, fonts and logos are not something that need an overhaul as often as themes and campaigns. I just think it was maybe too soon to overhaul the font. It was a strong brand.)

I LOVE the new colors. Yeah, there's an Apple overlap, but I don't think "APPLE!" as soon as I see it.

Window controls on the left: I don't like it. I have desktops on all three major OS's, so it's not because I'm trained for one way or the other. There's just something that feels better about them being on the right.

Overall: I'm giving it all a chance, and will jump in with both feet when it's released, without undoing the major changes.
The main point here is: They really care and have a vision. Whenever somebody makes a tool/OS/webapp/meal with a really specific vision, i always give it the benefit of the doubt, and try it THEIR way, not bending to my preferences or instinct to add salt/take off the tomato/go to my favorite theme/etc. When I don't try stuff with that trust, i often miss out. I hope Linux users give it a fair shot, even if stuff feels funny at first.
It's possible to invert the image from the scanners and get a realistic color photo.

Also, you seem to be reducing humans to soulless machines. By your logic it should be possible to swear at any person i encounter on the street. After all, it's just a bunch of sounds.
You certainly put your money (and your car!) where your mouth is and I really respect that.

I bought back ww.com and associated stuff from partners/investors by selling my house, never regretted the decision.

I really hope you succeed in your venture, let me know if there is some concrete way in which I can help you.
If you mean strong women that can handle themselves without needing a man to always help them then yes, you're right. And thanks for the wishes, we're quite happy.
More Patent Nonsense
I was just reading about C interpreters recently. Tcc (properly a compiler) allows you to script in C (you can put the tcc binary in a shebang followed by -run). There's also Ch, which describes itself as "an embeddable C/C++ interpreter for cross-platform scripting, shell programming, 2D/3D plotting, numerical computing, quick animation, and embedded scripting."

(Nothing to do with your larger point. I just had these otherwise useless facts to hand.)

http://bellard.org/tcc/

http://www.softintegration.com/ (ch)

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/584714/is-there-an-interp...
HN Suggestion: Meta-Comments
We get lots of "This isn't Hacker News. Flagged." comments, even though it is explicitly discouraged in the FAQ. However, talking about what is and isn't HN is part of a community's social lubrication. I suggest we give such comments a home. Namely, in addition to the regular comments on a post's content, there be a collection of meta-comments which are there to discuss moderation, titles, whether a post is a dupe, and so forth.

Moderators can ruthlessly move comments from the "comments" to meta-comments as they see fit. That way, meta-comments don't detract from the normal discourse.

There's lots of potential tweaking available, such as allowing people to leave a meta-comment but not see them if they have less than a certain amount of karma, withholding karma from meta-comments, and so forth. I have no objection to not getting karma from meta-comments, as they are useful but hardly contributing to HN's stated purpose.

Any ways, that's my idea. A comments thread and a separate meta-comments thread for each story submitted.
you should list it on all the jeep and offroader forums, since those guys will be much more likely to want something exactly like that. And will be much more willing to pay something like that.

Car guys see a rare car with tons of mods and a great price.

Non-car guys see a 30 year old jeep.
I like to think this was a joint effort between the patent office and "inventor" to undermine the legitimacy of software patents.
Amazon and iTunes reportedly spar over promotions
Leveraging a dominant market position to stifle competitors perhaps?
How artificial intelligence is changing music
While reading that, for a moment I though that Google were using McAfee security and seriously pondered the wisdom in using their services anymore.
> Do you actually know how many attacks these machines will prevent?

Consider firstly the number of attacks caught per year. The number of flights per year. And the number of uncaught attacks per year.

I guess in the last year they might have caught one attack (the Xmas day one). In which case think the statement you are replying to is a fair one.
I think you mean "security theater".

"Security through obscurity" would mean that there is some flaw in the security that the defenders are aware of but that they are hoping the attackers don't realize or guess at -- but in this case the flaw is pretty obvious to anyone who takes more than a superficial look at the system.
Ah, yes, the density of programmers on HN... Sorry for the confusion.
Circular Transportation Facilitation Device - Australian Patents the Wheel(2001)
If anyone is interested, I found a service that fits my needs at Wufoo.com. Gravity Forms for Wordpress almost won out (and probably will eventually, once they get their paypal solution up and running).
Please make it stop.
Pink is the new brown.