skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Portknocking is far too easy to beat and really doesn't impede much.

If you have to guess a random 3 port sequence in a 65k port space, how long will it take you to break? at 1 try of 3 ports per second I get almost 9 million years for exhaustive search.
> An utter failure on the part of government, law and democracy.

The lack of law enforcement in India would be her biggest barrier to achieve anything significant.
Good guy Google should definitely be stepping in here
Yeah, sure, let's turn that into a war between ourselves instead of demanding better legislation and more transparency from governments. Blacklisting individuals isn't going to solve any problem whatsoever and we run the risk of alienating a whole bunch of people who will then might go out and do even worst things than writing software for questionable companies.

We need laws that prevent those things. That's the only way this can be resolved. We're a huge community with an equally huge influence and resources. Let's coordinate and use our power for a good cause, instead of resurrecting witch-hunting practices.
I was just skimming the post and found the redefining of 'using' very surprising. The old 'using' was for callsite reusability and the new one is for declaration. Optimizing for declaration site (which would be so few comparatively) doesn't make sense to me and also for declaration I want full type name and such.

Am I missing something here?
The first point is strange, borderline wrong.

What they really MEAN is don't store images in your general purpose database, in particular as long strings.

There are however databases with first party support for image storage, which is useful because now you can store the image and metadata about the image together (as well re-using existing solutions like replication, authentication, etc).

Additionally their "solution" is bizarre, they've jumped from using a database to a paid service by a third party, which is itself backed by a database. That seems very "apples & oranges" to me, I mean it would obviously work, but is a big jump from in-house development using a general purpose database.

To give one specific example have they not heard about Oracle Multimedia? That's exactly what it is designed to offer.
Ubiquiti maintains a fork of Vyatta (which is related to VyOS in ways I'm admittedly not quite clear on) that also has a web interface. It's for their hardware, but the EdgeRouter series is quite decent in terms of both performance and cost. (The Lite platform will do gigabit line speed for about $100.)
>I don't know if that's how Occam's Razor is supposed to work, but if that's how it works, then it's clearly a pretty flawed theory, that at best can be used as a "guideline" not as as hard rule.

That's all Occam's Razor is, really: A rule of thumb to help decide where to look next.
France is not socialist since 1983.
This is not a fraudulent charge, though. It's perfectly legal, under state law.
Sounds like they are suing whoever they can including Minecraft which isn't a small fish.

There is a form of patent trolling that only goes after small guys. But they'd avoid actually litigating the patent and just push a settlement. They'd never take it to trial because little guys can't pay out enough to justify the cost of a patent trial. That form is basically extortion. They ask for a small sum of money to just go away.
You identified a separate problem from the parent post rather than refuting it.

#1: Big corporations can push small guys out of business by tying up their products in patent disputes.

#2: Patent trolls can bleed corporations big and small while producing nothing of value.

These problems are specific to the patent industry.

Are there similar problems in other areas of the law? If so, we may be able to identify and try to solve the larger problem. If not, we just need to focus on patent reform which is an easier problem.
I wonder why people assume accepting IQ implies a dystopian eugenics future. I see it as an argument for a lot of progressive policies. If everyone is in control of their mental abilities then it follows that lack of success is down to personal laziness and success is all about how diligent a person is. People "deserve" their fates.

On the other hand if some people are born with an advantage, they won the genetic lottery, it seems to me more justifiable to have government policies which prevent the clever from taking advantage of the dim. Today in the US the principle is if you are clever enough you deserve all the money and screw the people who didn;t have the good sense to be born smart.
We've gotten flack from package developers submitting new packages to Package Control [0] because all additions to the default channel are hand reviewed. Part of this process is to prevent accidentally close package names, to try and encourage collaboration and to encourage developers to actually explain what their package does and how to use it.

My hope is to be automating a large amount of the review in the next few months, however I think this is a good argument for never having it be fully automatic. Having a human sanity check submissions isn't a terrible idea if we can keep the workload down.

Certainly this doesn't prevent a malicious author from posting a legitimate package and then changing the contents to be malicious, but that can be somewhat solved by turning off automatic updates.

[0] https://packagecontrol.io
What a great scam!

I need a state sponsored monopoly where my income stream is non-recourse without chargeback possibility.
Only as a general rule: I have found that write once read mostly tables (history tables) are great candidates for denormalizing. State tables (read & write) usually benefit from 3rd form normalization.
Qt-as-the-company has always made it very clear that you can't switch your Qt LGPL/GPL project to a commercial one if you didn't start with the commercial Qt license from the beginning.

You're right, it does sound a bit nasty. No, I haven't read the license myself. It's been brought up multiple times on official Qt blog comments and mailing lists, though.

Edit: checked it now, and it's clearly written at https://www.qt.io/faq/, "Developing with a Commercial License":

> Q: If I have started development of a project using the open source version (LGPL), can I later purchase a commercial version of Qt and move my code under that license?

> A: This is not permitted without written consent from The Qt Company. If you have already started the development with an open-source version of Qt, please contact The Qt Company to resolve the issue.
I found the applicable text:
https://www.qt.io/terms-conditions/

*NOTE: If Licensee, or another third party, has, at any time, developed or distributed all (or any portions of) the Application(s) using an open source version of Qt licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1 or later (“LGPL”) or the GNU General Public License version 2.0 or later (“GPL”), Licensee may contact The Qt Company via email to address sales@qt.io to ask for the necessary permission to combine such development work with the Licensed Software. The Qt Company shall evaluate Licensee´s request, and respond to the request with estimated license costs and other applicable terms and details relating to the permission for the Licensee, depending on the actual situation in question. Copies of the licenses referred to above are located at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/lgpl-2.1.html, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-3.0.html, http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/info/GPLv2.html, and http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl-3.0.html.

So really the questionable term isn't an additional term on the LGPL, it is on the commercial license.
I'm using Rust at work because it proved a bit more well suited for our purposes than Nim. However, it's still exciting to see steady progress on Nim; it has some really great and innovative language ideas and I hope its increasing polarity will see those features come to other languages too.
Countries don't offer jobs to foreigners unless they are desperate. Even when they do, there's a lot of red tape.
That doesn't make sense. Objects cannot commit crimes since they aren't human beings and thus cannot act, have rights, etc. Is this what Statism has come to? I know we have the whole corporations are people nonsense, but this is straying even further into complete irrationality. I know it's just to circumvent the law, but if they can create fiction like that, there's pretty much no law and order anymore.
Dutch architect unveils 3D printer to make 'endless' house
On behalf of all who have "played" Montezuma's Revenge for real, let me say we look forward to the day when it can be outsourced to the Cloud.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montezuma%27s_Revenge
How can an inanimate object be charged with a crime? It's inanimate, so by definition cannot make a decision...

Also, if they're confiscating assets, why not confiscate the car? Why just the cash/cards?

How do we get this absurd law overturned? What's the minimum required? Supreme court decision?
There is however a significant difference between legal prosecution supported by the government, and religious zealotry. Perhaps not to the victim, but as a society it does matter.
I had the same thought... And not just about point 3. All of these seems complex points with no absolute answer, as not every database really needs to scale up to several terabytes... Sometimes the reported "advices" might be useful, sometimes they might just unnecessarily complicate things...
I've always wondered about the people engineering devices like this, the people at Harris Corp. creating Stingrays and other surveillance platforms, how they feel about their work. Listing individual employees might be a bit much, but we could certainly create one of companies involved. Unfortunately I fear it would be a long list.
Axl Rose Talks Guns N’ Roses Reunion Album, Criticizes Slash’s Book
Looking forward to a new startup disrupting the concept of "identity."
> "Boilerplate" implies copying a bunch of code into your project that should be library code but isn't because it's too poorly designed to have an API cleaner than "just fork it, YOLO".

That's a bit too simplistic. Even if the majority of the boilerplate code live in libraries, you don't need all the libraries for all your cases. Then your options would be either something like this or adding unnecessary dependencies for the sake of reducing boilerplate. To me this is the lesser evil between those two options.
Automate Telerik Kendo Grid with WebDriver and JavaScript
Thailand eliminates mother-to-child HIV transmission
There was no actual intrusion, so this feels like fair game to me. Especially since mitigating a very possible attack vector is a direct result of running experiment. Still, hopefully the researchers got an IRB to sign off on the experiment setup...
Number 2 is kind of funny:

>>The unfortunate part is: pagination is quite complex, and there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution.

Probably not. But the example he gave is a one size fits most. I've used it on a dozen different projects and have never had performance issue.
If you know that errors are dependent or if you know the distribution of the error, you can make an even better guess, but that certainly doesn't make averaging "in general not a good idea."

You're going to make assumptions whatever way you do it, e.g. using confirmation (two watches indicating the same time) to indicate truth assumes that error is fairly rare (out of 3 watches only 1 will be wrong at any given time) and that it's discontinuous rather than a smooth drift over time. No assumptions, no conclusions.

Main point: more watches is always better, and three is not a magic number.
This is no longer Anonymous v Appelbaum - there are now, by my last count, at least six people on the record:

Tor developer Andrea Shepard to Wired[0]. Shepard again, Emerson Tan and Meridith Patterson to Gizmodo[1]. Daily Dot spoke to four witnesses, adding Tor developer Alison Macrina to the list of those on the record[2]. Nick Farr[3] and Leigh Honeywell[4]

That is without counting the numerous people who have corroborated various claims informally on Twitter or elsewhere, or statements such as those from cDc who booted him out[5]

[0] https://www.wired.com/2016/06/tor-developer-jacob-appelbaum-...

[1] http://gizmodo.com/eyewitnesses-recount-tor-developer-jacob-...

[2] http://www.dailydot.com/politics/jacob-appelbaum-tor-project...

[3] https://medium.com/@nickf4rr/hi-im-nick-farr-nickf4rr-35c32f...

[4] https://hypatia.ca/2016/06/07/he-said-they-said/

[5] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/2853643-Jacob-Appelb...
While it is great to point out the security shortcomings and encourage better security practice. The ends justifying the means argument for illegal hacking seems vapid. It is still an illegal activity. I believe there is always a alternate motive.

A new virus? Oh, better stock up on Symantec Anti-Virus. How many virus's have been written by those selling you the cure? Security troubles? I'm sure there are plenty of security 'consultants' ready and waiting to take your money.

Maybe I'm too cynical.
Relevance to tech: Axl's a very public figure, and this kind of image rehabilitation is quite interesting from both a modern PR and "fan" perspective. Engaging with people was not a staple of the Axl rose during the heydey of GNR. Now...it kind of seems like it is. Oh and then there's the 'Streisand Effect' thing he has going on with that chubby photo meme.
I don't know, I only compiled nim once last year to see what kind of C code would show up. I ran away because there was a lot of expansion.
This only seems to be an issue for languages where packages reside in a global namespace, like Python, Rust etc.

I think most languages these days are a bit smarter and avoid this beginner mistake (for various reasons).
Police unions want large busybody departments and they don't care who pays. They just know that once a new police officer is hired SOMEONE will pay.
I guess if they bought prepaid card with stolen credit cards, then the police would empty those cards.
Automated testing, continuous integration/delivery, et cetera download and install packages pretty often. If the type is made in the requirements.txt or package.json or what have you, the error can be repeated very often up to and including production.
Even when that does happen... and I'd argue that it often does not, if you've done the work to make your interface pretty, and write a precise, accurate test suite, you've usually done the work to make the actual functions neat and orderly...

Even when you end up with a black box full of entropy, it's segregated from the rest of the system. You can feel free to change the rest of the system around it and know that the black box will keep doing it's job, as long as you keep using the well-written API within spec.

But, that's not all you get... because you took the time to write the tests, you can refactor this entropy box to your heart's content... until it starts looking more approachable. You've got your tests around the API, right? Then you don't even really need to change them to do the refactor work. The only reason to change the tests would be if you want the function to do something else (or you missed something, of course).

Take small steps... refactor out a couple lines at a time... run the tests with each iteration. Based on previous experience, you're going to end up with a fairly clear and concise implementation... not to mention performant.
I think he forgot to define a baseline (could be wrong, I didn't read the paper). He should have generated a few packages with a completely innocent name (and maybe some packages with just a GUID as a name) to see how much downloads / installs they get too.
I think your comment is more aggressive than is necessary.

My preference is for mobile apps that feel at home on the platform they're installed on. In my opinion Google builds high quality apps that I want to (and often do) use, but I have a disagreement with their style choices. This is a legitimate opinion to hold.

When an app is as good as (say) Google Maps, the fact that I disagree with some decisions isn't going to stop me using it. But for apps of more borderline utility, it might do.
I guess doing so wasn't necessary and it was probably better not to give those who would complain a toehold. Anyway, it's not like the "apply Hn" is a feature.

Congratulations on such progress.
Just a heads up, using safari on OSX there are big blank boxes over the hero text and I can't select radio boxes.
1) That's not a "basic math problem", it's exactly the kind of brain teaser/gross estimation problem this thread is saying doesn't work. 2) You're going to need to explain to me how estimating the number of communicative extraterrestrial civilizations in the galaxy (or a similar question) is an indicator of how well a person can understand a product's features, tech stack, and customer needs. Unless your product is something related to statistics, you're just screening out people who aren't like you.
I'm willing to bet most startups or businesses in general do not have a statistician on staff. Or even as a personal contact.
From your link:

"The ERAD platform will help you document every confiscated credit, debit and prepaid card, and instantaneously provide key card issuer information that’s critical to your investigation. And if some of those cards are prepaid cards, ERAD™ gives you the ability, right at the point of arrest, to determine the value and immediately secure or freeze those funds."

So these devices do let LEOs seize funds but only from prepaid cards, apparently, for now.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11860937 and marked it off-topic.
Thinking Machine 6
These specifically apply to Postgres, and don't necessarily generalise to all databases.

One example: counter-example to #4. Oracle database (since 11g) has a "fast add column" feature - which allows adding a non-NULL column with a default value to an arbitrarily-large existing table, without a "rewrite" of the table. (Behind the scenes, the default value is stored as metadata - and the default value is then read from the metadata for preexisting rows, rather than updating each and every row in the table.)
I guess married mothers, non-sick people and secular bands would all be fair game.

Shouldn't this just be "Citizens robbed by police".

In India at least they have the decency to say "Do you have a gift for me?" so you know what's happening.

My dad would pretend to be hard of hearing and deliberately misunderstand ad nauseum until waved on his way, this would happen about once a month while going about his lawful business.

He even gatecrashed a police function and got himself a picture shaking hands with the Chief of Police. He kept the photo in the vehicle so he could produce it and attempt to start up a conversation as though they were great friends.

This is a country where the guards of the police armoury were bribed with $5 to allow weapons to be removed.
As a libertarian, I've seen a long line of articles that make me go Holy Cow!

It's gotten so I feel bad about it. I even apologize. Each time, I think "Well that's it, there's nothing that could go beyond this."

Holy cow!

Several years ago I sold a small lot which had an office on it. The guy who bought it paid cash. Cash is kinda unusual for this kind of transaction, so I asked him where he got it. He told me that he was a general contractor and had been saving for over ten years.

Then he told me that the previous month, while he was moving his savings to his mom's house, he got pulled over for a bad taillight.

They almost took all of his money. Holy cow! This was my introduction to Civil Asset Forfeiture.

There are many parts of this story that are amazing. Right away I note that if you're truly wealthy? You have nothing to fear. You have enough assets to pay the one lawyer who golfs with the local DA and get this thing fixed quickly. But if you're not? If you're like my friend saving up for a large purchase? Good freaking luck.

Read an article once from a former LE guy. I remember one of his points. He said that cops are hunters. They hunt bad guys. We are their prey.

As we are finding out, the definition of "bad guy" is wonderfully malleable. Just about anybody can be one. The more political power you have (whether through contacts, as a politician, or by having money), the less likely you are to be one.

There has been a long tradition in the states of assuming the best when dealing with the local constable. They have tough jobs, usually the training isn't terribly difficult, it's a good spot for people who like guns and violence but want to be one of the good guys.

This tradition is coming to a close. While the constable himself might be a nice enough, stand-up guy, the system as a whole is terribly corrupt and overbearing. I might go so far as to say evil.

This cannot continue. Reforms are desperately needed.
I recommend reading the article about pagination linked in the article. I came away from that thinking the LIMIT ... OFFSET approach is the best one to use in most circumstances. It's certainly a good starting point - you can monitor how well it suits your application over time.

Consistency of results may be an issue, but any scheme you use is either going to show inconsistency when you move between pages, or it's going to lie to you. That's the reality of concurrent modification.
God wrote the code in TempleOS.

It cannot fail.

It is God's official temple.

Just wait. God will make it glorious.

God says...
financially resentful counteraction's Tereshkova quadriplegia's fray's retrogresses cavalry's piked Zachery vendettas less prohibits ourselves fared byproduct's Gestapos Asama's symptom's trapezoidal dribble's liquors Pyrenees embargoed South scout's deflection Xanthippe thousandths sixtieth's climatic beguile
Poor comparison and illogical too.

"Bad cops" have committed acts which are illegal; where were illegal acts committed in the story?

Even if organizationally there wasn't a tendency to protect the organization, this would not end the issue.
>We do not have equal access to our judicial system in the United States.

I agree, but I think we can be more specific.

Criminals (or those accused of a crime) are constitutionally guaranteed an attorney. Civil plaintiffs/defendants, by contrast, have no such right. The anecdotes and experiences of HN users overwhelmingly describe the civil side of things.

Civil lawsuits, IMO, should carry no guarantee of counsel at the constitutional level. Imagine if they did: free lawyers mean frivolous lawsuits and over-burdened courts. But, I don't think anyone is actually clamoring for such an arrangement.

So, specifically, how can we more efficiently allocate limited legal resources to ensure that the average civil litigant is not disadvantaged by a wealth disparity with his opponent?

Well, what's the perceived disadvantage to a resource-poor litigant? What's the perceived advantage to a resource-rich litigant? Good facts make good cases much more frequently than good lawyers make good cases.
University pays almost $16,000 to recover crucial data held hostage
Pretty weak, partly terrible advice.

- Storing images and blobs: granted, usually not a good idea

- Limit/offset will take you a veeeery long way until you have to think about stuff like deep paging. And however you try to tackle that, if the stuff you paginate needs ordering, it's simply a hard problem and not a mistake.

- UUID primary keys? Horrible advice that's only applicable at Google/Facebook scale (and even they often use 64bit integer keys for a lot of entities, see Graph API or Adwords). Will wreak havoc on insert and join performance and index size. 64 bit is more than you'll ever need even for the most serious application.

- Default values on NULL columns: Okay advice, but a pretty random issue

- Going away from normalization is optimization that's mostly premature and regarding the drawbacks should only be done with utmost care and to resolve specific performance problems, not as a general approach.

Overall, pretty mediocre advice.