skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
What I personally think is most exciting if this gets adopted, is not the bill itself but that US "hackers" see that they can influence politics. I've always been impressed that you, even early on, had organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Free Software Foundation and Creative Commons. But when you talk with Americans today in regards to things like the Pirate Party, you're mostly meet with overall disappointment over the US political system. So hopefully you now get the chance to find a different way to do something similar.

Edit: If there isn't already one, someone should make a site for forming and joining interest groups.
Vbulletin 4.0.2 XSS Vulnerability - خدمات العرب
http://thisweekinstartups.com/2010/03/twist-46-with-david-he...
Why can't firefox just use the already licensed codec for H264 present on the majority of OSs if it's present? Then they'll have support for Therora and H264 on OS X and Windows, and Theora support on Linux.

Costs them nothing and is a win for most of their users.

Am I missing something obvious? I hope they're using DirectShow and Quicktime already anyway for the hardware acceleration.
The words "psychopath," "sociopath," and "antisocial [personality disorder]" do not appear on that page.

The closest thing to your original claim is "'Our results might lead to fertile research on the role of oxytocin in several mental health disorders with major public health significance.'"
You may be right, I'm not sure. I wonder if it would be possible to take all the data, put it into a text file (or equivalent) and encrypt the whole thing.

The problem I see here is that while you are trying to develop the best netflix prediction strategy, it is often necessary to look at and understand the data itself.
Speaking of sin taxes in developing economies: last I heard about 10% of the revenues of Chinese governments below the national level is the sin tax on cigarettes.

I'm opposed to sin taxes for prudential grounds: there is absolutely no reason why the government should try to trick poorly educated poor people out of their honestly earned wages, and yet every US state with a lottery spends eight to nine figures a year on advertising designed to do exactly that! Ditto for governments which promote vice as an economically lucrative sideline.
Yeah, I've thought about submit http://howtonode.org as well. The articles are explained thoroughly and clearly, very nice stuff there.

Thx for correcting the promise stuff.
back it up with some data?

I'd say wordpress vulnerabilities alone account for quite a bit.

PHP is such a low barrier to entry, plus there's just so much php code about.
Quadruple Witching: Slipped The Stock On Friday
Quadruple Witching slipped the stock on Friday as market has focused on a potential weekend voting! So today is a Quadruple Witching day for futures and options in United States of America
>>unfortunately that logic still only makes perl a neutral language, not a good one.

Well.. If you believe that flexibility isn't a good thing.

Edit: Flexibility do imply a need for coding standards and buying copies of "Perl best practices".
Cool, but it doesn't play. The video gets a 403 error and the audio a 404 (on the underlying media files).
Get Your Online Identity Card
It will be fun to read this bill right before it goes through it's final vote, to see how many ridiculous additions have been tacked onto it..
Latest reviews of BlackBerry Storm 2, attempt at devising an iPhone-killer
When they say they put an object big enough to see into this quantum mechanical state, thats awesome. But, it still seems like you can't see it being in this state. I wonder if its possible to be able to to see something both vibrate and not vibrate.

Though as far as I know, one of the ways the environment messes with quantum mechanical phenomena is by photons hitting the objects in question, so maybe seeing these things is out of the question.
The Virtualization Wars: Microsoft and Citrix v. VMware
Well still today getting a mp3 decoder on some linux platforms, while not tough, is annoying. And still today a better format exists (ogg vorbis) that almost nobody uses, mainly for inertia reasons. So i'd argue that choosing the right format from the start would be nice this time.
The html5 web workers is the proposed long term solution: http://ejohn.org/blog/web-workers/

Writing GUI libraries (as the DOM is) which works with multithreaded code is hard, very hard, and often have awful performance.

So realistic solutions need to trade something: use co-operative multitasking or loose access to the DOM.
This is harsh and misleading:

"Opera's refusal to license H264 hasn't got anything to do with ideals, obviously (Opera being proprietary and all), but the Norwegian browser makers believes the license is simply too expensive."

a) it's possible to be idealistic about royalty-free standards without also being idealistic about open source (personally I think both are somewhat pragmatic choices too but whatever), and more importantly:

b) Opera was actually the ones who proposed the idea of the video tag and the use of Theora 3 years ago:

http://my.opera.com/haavard/blog/2007/03/05/1
Foxit is a great desktop replacement for Adobe Acrobat. I love their products..
I predict this to be just about as successful as the attempts to get everyone to switch over to ogg vorbis as a sound file format.
StackOverflow trashes any question that isn't explicitly related to programming. If your question is, "How can I securely implement a password storage scheme with PostgreSQL and Erlang?", then StackOverflow is right for you. If your question is, "How can I break this guy's securely-implemented password storage scheme, written in PostgreSQL and Erlang?", then you would probably want something like this.
How To Hint To A Girl That You Want to Be More Than Friends
Well in countries like South Korea and Japan, they watch live TV, TV shows or movies on their cellphone all the time, so there are plenty of people who would benefit from having hardware acceleration in their mobile devices.
No, not necessarily, but it typically seems to be the case. In practice I suppose it's just plain difficult to compose something that's both accessible and deeply rewarding, and the few bands that can really pull this off become incredibly successful (e.g., Arcade Fire with "Funeral").
There are lots of ways to travel to Alaska without crossing an international border. There is regular ferry service from Washington, for example, and air travel, of course.
Corps will never invest money in a software that they can't use, or worse can get sued millions for IP violation. IP validation is relevant, and it's probably a lot of work for the reviewers too. Software development isn't what it was in the sixties, and looking at the Eclipse worldwide use & acceptance, this process seems to pretty successful.
I think the author is missing two big points. The first is that, for people currently in their 20's (and probably a bit older/younger as well) jazz was something their parents enjoyed a lot. In the US, there is an strong tendency to dislike whatever our parents like, so from a young age jazz is automatically crossed off, and that carries over as we get older.

Second, if his argument was correct, Americans would generally require some kind of lyrical coherence to enjoy music. If each sentence in a song were completely disconnected from the previous sentences we wouldn't enjoy it. However, witness the popularity of DJ Girl Talk[1]. From a lyrical point of view, its only fairly connected. Of course, Americans will generally recognize the lyrics and that may offset my point to some degree, but I'm not convinced it does. (FWIW, I only recently found DJ Girl Talk and have become obsessed, so take that for what its worth).

[1] http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=05DBB3473E2A7D56
Do you agree with Full Disclosure?
Ask HN: Online Video Speed Dating through Facebook
Sorry to bother you with an idea (I know, execution is everything...) but I'm just to exited right now and would love to get some feedback.

Idea is simple and obyiously inspired by chatroulette, faceroulette. Online video speed dating but not with totally random persons (like chatroulette) but filtered through facebook (just opposite/same sex, selected country, age, town, interests... ). If it seems boring, you just click next and after every chat you can select if you would like to become "real" facebook friends (if both click that option). You could also mark/report people to keep the number of trools/perverts even lower. Of course you could also choose to just chat and explicit choose that it's not about datin and focus more on same interests...

I have never used a dating or even a chat site, but I can see myself using this.

Business model tbd but that might be something people want, or?

Besides, I know that people probably already working on this but I'm not convinced yet, that it couldn't be done better (the current faceroulette and chatroulette are definately not what I am loking for)

FYI:I'm not a programmer and won't be able to do it myself, so if this inspires anyone please go for it.
Yeah, that's a less strict usage of "poaching" that you'll sometimes see.
Custom Business Card | Office Stationery | Letterhead Design for $99
Premium quality customized business cards envelopes letter head designs. Buy personalized modern stationery from best online graphic company designers at affordable rate.
Ask HN: Where I can find the latest security exploits?
What are the best security sites that lists systems security exploits?

Thanks?
Wireless cctv
We offer cctv surveillance cameras, wireless security camera system installation services for home and small business.
Hello, Foot? It’s Microsoft. Shooting you is our idea.
What a stupid, contradictive, misleading and deceitful reply from Mozilla (surprised? they are after all interested in stuffing their pockets). And, yeah, I _will_ stick to my ideals: good video; H.264. Please stay out of HTML5, Theora.

add.: I really misread both source and addressee on this one. Seems I cannot manage both breakfast and news digest at the same time. I'll still stick with H.264, though... and breakfast.
In the poll at the end, there are plenty of people who have been through the early stages, but significantly fewer who claim to have been through the guru/veteren stage. I presume that means they are still in the guru/veteren stage? :D
Even if the stuff in this guide actually worked I can't imagine the life he's advocating being more pleasant than sticking around and dealing with your problems in more than a few limited circumstances.
Hm. I think, one could condense the argumentation as follows: Number of Unit tests = c * (Complexity * Use Cases + State-Tests) for some constant c, if Complexity is a measure of the interface complexity, use cases is the number of use cases of the API and state-tests is the number of tests required due to statefulness of the API.

I think, this approximation is at least not wrong. I don't know if the characterization is complete, but it looks right enough to fool me :)

However, I think the problem in the argumentation is that the author assumes that "use cases" is small. While I agree, that usually, the number of use cases for an API should be small, there certainly are abstractions with a lot of use cases which are good even though they require a lot of unit tests.

An example of such a big abstraction is something I developed in the recent university project. Basically, it is a domain specific language which is compiled into state machines on partial bit sequences (which are used to describe data deserializers). The major job of this abstraction can be described in a few formulas and the abstraction hides enough complexity to be worth it, but it requires quite a large number of unit tests due to the number of possible edge cases in the specification of the DSL. Thus, at least I'd consider it a good abstraction in spite of needing many unit tests.
Against Fat Startups
Scooter is very impressive. I can almost convert my Rails app to Scooter-based app in Java line by line. ActiveRecord is awesome. I think that is probably why it took only 260 lines of Java code to write Twitter in Scooter.
I hope somebody (Jason?) starts doing shorter 10m summary videos of this.
As another commenter pointed out, the team put a visible object into a quantum ground state, but, alas, if you saw the object it's probability function would collapse.

So we've made something that's big enough to see, but nobody can look at it.

Damn I can't wait until we hackers start working quantum computers! "Well Bob, the code is actually in the box -- and it's not. In this universe? Sure it's buggy as hell. But let me assure you, there are many other universes in which the code is kicking ass, and you are very happy. Actually the code was perfectly fine here too -- until you looked at it."

(I know I'm using hyperbole. The point is that quantum effects make normal people's brain hurt)
Wrong sort of hacker. We build stuff people want, not break it.
Well put!

[Though, at another point in my life, I would have answered 'No' too. For example, after graduating and settling into a job, my life was not difficult at all, and I was enjoying that little break from challenging myself.]
Something like http://faceroulette.net/ or http://apps.facebook.com/globeroulette/?

None of them seem to have that mix of some selection, some chance that you suggest.
This is quite stupid, contradictive, misleading and deceitful but it's not written by Mozilla, it's by a blogger on an obscure news and community site. Therefore the people being asked to stick to their ideals is Mozilla, not you.
Perhaps I should have been more accurate there - I didn't mean envying that specific person's life, but the general lifestyle of a person in that situation.
That said, I have often been that "someone nearby" who envies a friend's/acquaintance's life more - but they've most likely worked a lot harder (is that considered difficult?) for it and deserve it.

You've kicked off a good discussion here... what do you make of the responses so far? 68Y, 37N.
Gives a whole new meaning to "you have your head in the clouds"...
Thanks for the link... I'll take a closer look when I'm in the market for an ebook reader.
http://thisweekintwist.com/
How fast is a hard drive? How long is a piece of string?
1998 sent an email. It wants it's story back.
I'm not going to start a company in a country where my residence permit is conditional on factors beyond my control. That is exactly the kind of arbitrary constraints that makes me not want to spend my career in a big-co.

If it's just me, maybe. But I could be bringing a spouse, and there might be a child in play - and at any given time, if my company fails, I could be given two weeks to leave the country permanently?

If you want me, I'll come. I'll sign any number of pledges to never burden any welfare budgets, or be convicted of felonies. I'll pay my taxes, and accept it if I can't vote. But I won't compromise on permanent residence.
"Where there's smoke, there's fire".
"The City and the Stars" by Arthur C. Clarke includes that concept—humans edit their memories before their death and recover them after being born again. I recommend reading it, just for the extreme transhumanism within the story.
I may not have time to follow this discussion, but I'd like to make two points:

The Soviet Union pretty explicitly followed a policy where in urban areas it took so much time to acquire food that the potential for "counter-revolutionary" thoughts and actions were minimized.

Some would say in response to your free time point that "the devil finds work for idle hands". More to the point, would everyone do something good with the free time? Certainly not, but that's OK as long as there are limits on the negative externalalties (sp?) of that free time (e.g. our version of Rome's "bread and circuses" is atomizing, most people watch sports on TV, at home or perhaps in relatively small groups at sports bars, and we do a pretty good job of maintaining order in our stadiums (compare to soccer in the U.K.)).
I hope they are serious about it.
I am Egyptian, and I lost a funding opportunity because of a visa refusal.
But what is worse is.. that at the American embassy, they did not understand what does a startup means :S
Interesting tricks with Regestry | Windows Tricks
Django and Rails models: Comparision and Conversion
The Startup Visa is the most ridiculous idea ever, as I've been telling and will continue to.

Instead of backing a stupid legislation to bring founders to the US, investors should travel the world and fund startups in other countries. There is nearly nothing one can do when starting up in the States than anywhere else.
I couldn't find anything on the Clickpass (YCS07) website about the actual data accessed. Not mentioned on the privacy policy neither[1]. We should ask Clickpass or PG (he implemented it on HN).

[1] http://www.clickpass.com/docs/privacy-policy#pp1
There might be some interesting uses for this in financial markets as well. One of the major problems in financial markets is that if you've got a large position you need to buy/sell you can't just put an order out in the market because you'll move the market price.

One of the more popular ways of solving this at the moment is through the use of "dark pools", third parties who will match up counterparties anonymously who want to do large trades in opposite directions. However this isn't ideal because going to a third party introduces latency and complexity with credit checking, etc.

If you could have some way of allowing firms to place orders with each other directly without exposing the details of the orders, it would have a major impact.
Sanyo to Open Two Solar Parking Lots for Bike Riders
That's why they made the book with summaries, so you can read the summaries and decide which books you want to read in full.
How to use fat substitutes in baked goods
Opera 10.5 the code is significantly faster:

100 iterations of setZeroTimeout took 3 milliseconds.
100 iterations of setTimeout(0) took 609 milliseconds.
Most living things are 'immortal' in that they do not age. This is true of bacteria, fish, lobsters, birds etc.

It just happens that most creatures we have close contact with - i.e. Mammals, do.

What is unusual about this Jellyfish is not it's lack of ageing, but it's ability to return to "childhood" at times of stress and then become an adult once again, later.

It's a weird and fascinating concept for us Mammals. Although I am pretty sure I wouldn't want to repeat my teenage years over and over.
Using an abstraction which increases the total amount of code could be worthwhile if it makes the difficult parts of your code simpler.

Pulling an example out of thin air, shorter total code:

var counter = 0;

function foo() {
log("Incremented");
counter++;
}

function bar() {
log("Incremented");
counter++;
}

Code with an abstraction which makes foo and bar shorter:

var counter = 0;

function increment() {
log("Incremented");
counter++;
}

function foo() {
increment();
}

function bar() {
increment();
}

Even longer code, but which encapsulates the counter variable, possibly making it easier to reason about:

var Counter = (function ()
{
var counter = 0;

return {
increment : function() {
log("Incremented");
counter++;
},
current : function() {
return counter;
}
};
});

function foo() {
Counter.increment();
}

function bar() {
Counter.increment();
}
hah! No big feats to brag about here, but I'll join the game anyway :-)

* started my first 'gig' translating books/magazines, printing them in a borrowed dot-matrix printer and selling around the town (at age 9). Also wrote original pieces about videogames and stuff (sold around 100-200 copies, heh)

* got my first programming-related 'prize' at school (age 11): won a couple of books because of an RPG game I did in LOGO (self taught) for a science fair

* rooted two ISPs back in the 90's - one by going through their garbage bins and finding password info, other by cold-calling at night and convincing the security guy to hand in some info. No harm done, but it was fun fun fun

* founded and leaded a programming 'association' (PBJug, a Java User Group) - the first one in my hometown's region (now with 500 people signed up)

* got a couple of articles published as reference material on PhD and Msc thesis of people I don't even know. I'm a college dropout, btw

* had access to a lot of prototype mobile phones from two different makers. Now THAT's something to brag, for a gadget-addict

* programmed an easter egg into a very popular mobile phone - you'd see me (and the rest of the dev team) by pressing 666# while in the file browser app. They've added easter eggs on new phones after that, to keep up with the 'tradition'

fixed a bug in a finance system that saved 4mi euros from
one customer. Got a "thank's from noticing" from middle management and that was about it

* went from nothing (born in a small town w/ a relatively poor family) to live and work abroad, in some very respected companies (IBM, Siemens and the like), despite everyone saying I was crazy for even trying.

* went from working to high profile companies to starting up, despite everyone saying I was crazy for leaving those jobs behind

* founded 4 companies so far, all on software (different areas - one still open, just starting the 4th one)

* survived from death at least a dozen times: one from drowning at sea, one car crash, couple of very strong electric shocks, mugged (with a gun) twice, jumped into a pool with some electrical wire hanging on and almost drown/got electrocuted. Still alive and very proud of my nine-lives syndrome

* travelled 100k miles in a single year

* lost 40kg in 6 months

* drove at 200km/h in a German highway. Priceless!

* married an amazing woman and got the cutest dog on earth (named Frodo) :-)
True, but the guru is just depicted as an advanced newbie.
Technologies that will disrupt traditional legal practice
Do women throughout all walks of life buy the same kind of books? I rather doubt it.
You must already have a clearance, or the OP's company must be willing to pay thousands of dollars for you to get one. A TS clearance is not something that can simply be applied for. Yes, you fill out the SF86 (for a TS clearance), but your clearance must be sponsored by your current employer or your to-be employer. You cannot fill out the SF86 and mail it in expecting to get a clearance without a sponsoring organization.

TS clearances require a rigorous background investigation on the applicant and sometimes require 1 or more polygraphs. The entire investigation/adjudication process can take up to a year or more. The intelligence community that will adjudicate you is trying to determine whether or not you are a risk to the country if you are given classified information.

Clearances are very difficult to get, and people are often disqualified because they have poor credit history or have lied on their SF86 (especially about drug use). This is why people that hold a clearance command a premium on their salary. Current figures are that TS-cleared individuals make up to $15K more than their non-cleared counterparts.
From the Mozilla site on window.postMessage:

Introduced in Gecko 1.9
(Firefox 3)

In other words, "Available 5 years from now."

If you want to use this today, you'll still need to sniff for it and call setTimeout if it's not available. So unless those 10ms are really important to what you're doing, this will just cost you more work.

That's the problem with cool new browser features. It just takes forever before they trickle down to enough of your users that it makes sense to use them.

Sometimes it's worth the wait. I can remember thinking all of the above about xmlHttpRequest and how lame it was that I'd still need to switch on it and have Netscape continue to use IFrames to do asynch communication back when IE5 came out.
that, my friend, is something that every startup out there should know (and aim) from the start :-)