skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I certainly hope their 'flagging' makes a distinction between emergency dispatches and warrants. Otherwise that house just became a prime target.
I don't know UK law, but passing a bad check is certainly illegal in the US and would give you immense leverage against him, at least to prevent the lawsuit. But I'm pretty sure you have to be careful in using that (i.e. talk to a solicitor before making any threats WRT to criminal prosecution).

On the other hand, if he can't afford to pay you, how could he possibly afford the costs of a lawsuit, especially in a loser pays jurisdiction?

(We in the US quaintly call this the British Rule, but it's really the Rest of the World Rule.)
I've been playing gigs as a Irish Trad musician for 20 years. There are an astonishing number of Americans who can't clap on the beat. There are also lots of Americans who can clap somewhere near the beat, but then are still without awareness of how small variations in timing and emphasis can change the feel or swing of the beat.

There are a disturbingly large number of people who -- by their own account -- can't distinguish or process melodic information. I cringe when I think of the 100's of teenagers I've seen purposefully blowing away the high frequency sensitivity it takes to appreciate all the subtle timbres of acoustic instruments.

It's not all Americans. When I go to certain music festivals or even certain regions of the country, I'm surrounded by people who can perceive these things and who understand. I find that energizing. On the flip side, I am often saddened by my different awareness in other places. It's like living in a land of the maimed. It's like being the only sighted person on the planet, with no one to talk to about the beauty of the sunset, the spectacle of the night sky in the countryside, or my favourite paintings.
stuff like passing budgets, which is time sensitive, tend to happen in time.

I'm guessing you don't live in the state of California, where the opposite is true.
High Tech, High Risk, and High Life in Silicon Valley (1982)
(the german term is "Postleitzahl", usually abbreviated as PLZ)

Considering this and all the other issues related to addresses, I really wonder why we are still trying to store them in separated fields.

Why can't the address just be one big multiline text field where the user types whatever would be needed to receive a postal letter? If we need the data in structured form, we could always write a locale-aware parser that extracts the needed information.

Splitting the address in multiple fields (sometimes even labelled address_line_1, address_line_2 and so on) is probably a relic from the times where databases had nothing but CHAR (with a maximum length of 100 or something) and where applications were created for the local market only.

I would need to do some a/b testing, but I really doubt that it'll be easier for a user to fill out the traditional

Street 1: _______________
Street 2: _______________
ZIP: _____
City: _____________

form instead of just one big text field labelled "Postal Address" - personally, I'd probably be WAY faster filling out that one.
Favicons... Designers care, some developers care & internet addicts care.

the rest? nor really.
Don't rule out jacquesm himself! It'd be just the kind of thing he would do.
I was hoping this article would tell me more about why I don't like jazz. I don't know why! I've tried. I love all forms of classical music. I like rock and pop music. I know the opera repertoire really well and have sung several major tenor roles. But I just can't get to like jazz at all for some reason.
I think the author was trying to draw a line between poetry / words and music / tones. I do agree that it doesn’t seem correct to blame culture (or blame anything).
At a different semantic level. For layout purposes they are just like words.
Ask HN: Copy protection?
My employer is worried that our clients will steal our application, and so want me to research copy protection methods.

The application is all client-side, must run without access to the network, and is written in Ironruby.

I'm having a lot of trouble thinking of a solution that I wouldn't be able to break. I know that it's impossible for it to be totally unbreakable, but could someone give me an idea of a pretty good solution?

Apparently cost is no object either.

Edit: Dongles are apparently cheaper than I thought, in the $200 range for a starter kit with five of them. Has anyone worked with them before? What do they do, just give you a small storage area that's somehow hard to access?
It doesn't surprise me that this happened at a university. They tend to view programmers as a neccessary evil rather than as a potentially valuable asset. Most likely, they didn't get anyone that would work for the salary they wanted to pay.
I would like to know if Scheme counts as a Lisp, for the purposes of the contest...
He's still publishing, at least as of February 2010:
http://github.com/raganwald/homoiconic/tree
Until you put on Peter Brötzmann or some of those wild Coltrane live recordings.
I didn't start listening to lyrics until I was in my mid twenties and I have no musical talent or education. When I heard The Beatles Imagine was banned in some places, I thought, "Why? It's just a song." And then years later I actually listened to it and understood.

One of my girlfriends told me, "I've started listening to jazz, I really like it!" So for her birthday, I got her "Kind of Blue" and she hated it. Shocked, I asked her to play some of the jazz she liked and it was, none other than, wait for it! Kenny G. ... I know huh...
I like (among other types) a sub-genre called "smooth jazz". But I always used it as background music, and in fact thought it was designed to be background music (not being complex enough to hold one's attention), until I saw a live smooth jazz concert on TV. The musicians were putting a lot of emotion and skill and effort into making those sounds, but I had never "heard" what they "saying" in the music. I have to concentrate to get the content of the music, which I can't sustain for more than a few minutes before my mind wanders.
Seriously? Two nights ago, my back was aching so I laid down on the (heated) bathroom floor and listened to "Between Nothingess & Eternity" (by the Mahavishnu Orchestra) on my iPhone.

I can't say I've had the chance since, umm, the kids were born, but there aren't too many better ways to spend a Sunday morning than laying in bed listening to Van Morrison.

Do people really not do this anymore? If I strolled around a University dorm at, say, 3am, I wouldn't find half-baked people listening to Pink Floyd or the Grateful Dead by candlelight? Kids these days....
For a more recent take on the subject (including opinions of some jazz musicians), see http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/showthread.php?t=42725

Personally, I don't have the foggiest idea of how one would go about marketing jazz. I got my taste for jazz from my parents, who were fans of "hot jazz" (a.k.a. traditional or Dixieland jazz). They were never into any modern (postwar) jazz styles, and accepted big band/swing only reluctantly. Glenn Miller was "too commercial" for them :-)

One problem that I see with jazz evangelists is that they tend to push the more abstract/ academic masterpieces in detriment of the more digestible stuff. I can see some kid like I was getting into Satch and Bix and Django, and then going on to discover Mingus, Parker, Weather Report, and so on, like I did. But I'm not sure if you can throw "Blue Trane" cold at somebody without giving them any context, and expect them to like it because "it's good for them".
Oh my! I've never seen or heard of such news in India (I live in Bangalore). But just this morning I read news in the paper that a police investigation has been initiated to probe a _bee attack_ during a political rally :P
Why we're using HBase at Adobe (part 2)
Have you noticed how much more sophisticated Lady Gaga's music is than the rest of what's popular these days? Her popularity has nothing to do with that. It's the way she throws in catchy verbal chants and is equally brilliant at visual and personality branding. And she as a great name.
As a follow, in case any of the posterous guys are listening, Max and I played around a bit and could not replicate the error.

My current guess -- it's not my problem so all I have is a guess -- is that under heavy load, posterous fails to resolve the blog name and instead takes new users to the splash page. This may be a scaling problem, or it could be random pestering. From a user's standpoint, it looks a lot like pestering.
I used to do cold call sales for a living and from the "pick up" you can tell what kind of person is answering and modify your voice accordingly. You basically just follow their lead.

E.G:

* Quiet people don't want shouty salesmen so go quiet, reserved and professional.

* Some guy off a council estate/trailer park is typically not going to want to talk to a suit so in that case you'll adopt a very casual and matey tone as if you've bumped into him in a pub/bar.

* If I EVER met someone who "knew the score" (e.g. someone smart or knows how telesales work) then I'd just drop all pretences and give it to them "straight".

Those are the "obvious" kinds of NLP, there are subtle bits and pieces including copying their tone or turns of phrase.
It does increase your conversion rate.

Obviously (almost) everyone HATES cold calls so one of my goals was to see how long I could keep "angrys" on the phone. NLP definitely helps here (although empathy, humility and diplomacy are probably more useful) I even managed to sell to one once! :D
That is really quite clever.

It's the sort of idea one wants to generalize and steal for other things on a site.

Makes me wonder if there are any sites that showcase or catalog non-trivial/non-obvious UI techniques.
I have often wondered whether I would be listening to the same music if English were my first language. Probably not. I listen to markedly different stuff depending on language. No lonely songwriters singing English in my collection. Less English rap than German rap.

I have always been listening to tons of German rap but have only in recent years started to listen to more American rap (as my ability to understand English improved – now probably pretty much on par with my ability to understand German). Make of that what you will, might just be a coincidence.
I disagree with the assertion that this is due to the abstraction associated with instrumental music as opposed to vocal music. Most people relate to instrumental music quite well - it needs to have the right rhythm, the right hook. Lots of rock is instrumental, with fairly vapid lyrics - its still pretty popular. Blues - put someone in a room playing John Lee Hooker, and I'd be surprised if they don't start tapping their feet. "Boom, Boom" isn't too much of a lyric, but what a hook!

The problem is the accessibility of "modern" jazz - much of it tends to be divorced from its origin as dance/march music, and that is where the abstraction plays a role. I love Bill Frisell's work, for instance, because of the structural aspects of his music - but its not necessarily very appealing to most of my friends.
By this logic, English-language opera (yes, it exists) ought to be doing well in America. Check your local opera house schedule and see how many performances you can find that are not in Italian, German, or French.

There is some merit to this argument, that some music can't be appreciated as easily unless you attach it something people can easily relate to. Even classical music isn't immune to this, hence the existence of program music like Beethoven's 6th symphony and many other works from the Romantic era. Today, it's mostly film scores that fall into this category of instrumental music that is best understood within a certain context.

I think the difference today is that the context itself has changed. We've transitioned to an urban, fast-paced lifestyle and have lost touch with the beauty of nature from which many instrumental pieces draw inspiration. We've become more materialistic, hence the prevalence of "bling" in rap songs. The host on my local classical station once remarked that there are only two serious topics in music: God and sex. Though I'm not religious, I can tell that these days it's much less of the former and more of the latter.

That said, I wouldn't be so pessimistic right now. Think long-term: in 100 years, how many people will still be listening to Brahms, and how many will still be listening to Britney Spears?
I grew up playing music (eight years piano, variously oboe, clarinet, and several years vocal).

I don't like jazz. I think that a lot of it is self-indulgent noodling.

I can appreciate the talent of some of the artists, but I can't get into it. I feel the same about country music and rap: there is artistry there, but I can't stand 90%+ of it and don't want to waste my time listening to it to find the really good stuff from the derivative, self-indulgent crap.

Yes, I pay attention to the lyrics (because of my time as a vocalist), but I also pay attention to the music.

I think most people don't like 'jazz' because it's an ill-defined "style" that ranges from reasonably well known swing and "standards" to obscure fusion or acid jazz. The more obscure you get, the more inside baseball the discussions become and the less accessible they are to people who might just "like" the sound of a particular song. (The same could be said about the more obscure corners of 'rock'.)
Careful with fundamentalist materialism (as with any fundamentalism in general). At the end of that road lie all sorts of aberrations such as "computer programs do not exist" and so on. Really? There's a whole industry built on the opposite idea. :)

EDIT: Are you also saying that the subconscious does not exist?

It's pretty funny having this sort of conversations with compsci people. They tend to be pretty hardcore and either-black-or-white on issues that do not lend themselves to this sort of treatment at all.
Ask HN: TRUSTe sent me spam, should I report them?
This morning I received a marketing email from privacyseals@truste.com. The email itself is thoroughly compliant with CAN-SPAM requirements except for the obvious fact that I have not opted in for communication from TRUSTe.

Mine is a new email address for a new startup. I have signed up for a small number of web services in the last month using this address. I admit to not reading the privacy policies on any of them. The only company I can think of that might have sold the address is a large payment company that people love to hate, but I explicitly went into that profile and (un)checked the things to not allow them to give my info to 3rd parties.

What should I do? I'm not that righteous about SPAM or hold a belief government can or should be doing anything to solve it. In this case, I do think people should know TRUSTe is behaving this way.

What would you do? Who would you report it to so it doesn't get ignored?
We are mortgage leads generator.Would require $100 Adwords voucher to promote our website. Pls mail me the voucher at birjushukla@rediffmail.com

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Well, that's quite an extrapolation from my recommendation to use automation to match brackets/parens.

Python is almost there in terms of language simplicity, but I'd much rather count parens than count spaces/tabs. The former are visible. The latter are only visible through secondary effect.

Any tool can be abused. Not using automation for truly mindless tasks like counting parens is often just a knee-jerk reaction that precludes real thinking about the cost/risk/benefit of the tool.

Programming has always been full of idiots who turn off their brains. Maybe modern tools make this a bit too easy. I'd posit that one way to detect programmers with such proclivities is to discuss tools with them, and see if they give you back unsupported prejudice or reasoned analysis. (Really be wary of the ones who try to pawn off prejudice as reasoned analysis!)
You can get two hard drives on a MBP if you're willing to sacrifice your dvd drive:

http://www.mcetech.com/optibay/
Heh, I grew up in a family that listened to classical music, and took piano lessons since I was 5. It took me a while to realize that my family's musical taste was not ordinary.
You argue this based on what information? The lack of other means available until recently? And how do you explain how quickly people learn things when taught interactively, like the music games out now do?
I've known Scrivs from his days in 9rules, and while I respect what he's doing over at Drawar, I'm beginning to question his focus on design as an answer to ... well, everything.

Good design only helps if your site is useful; this in particular applies to both blogs (like his) and webapps. He argued recently that:

Do you think it bothers the Gowalla people that they put so much care and effort into the design of everything that they do and Foursquare is still right there with them with a significantly worse design?

That's missing the point. The point is that Foursquare is doing something right, and that something is likely more than just design. I've not looked into the location app space recently, but my guess is that Foursquare reached critical mass before Gowalla did. Connecting an app's value to its design only makes sense when all else is equal.

When Google is brought up as an example of mediocre design that succeeds, people come out from the woodworks to argue that it is actually great design and base it on the success that they have had. I don’t believe it.

I think design only gives you an advantage when you're competing in a space with little or no technical differentiation. In this case, Google has had such a huge technical advantage over its competitors that it didn't matter what design they used anyway.
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There's a peculiar book out there by Oliver Sacks called "Musicophilia". He describes in it various cases of musical deafness including tone deafness and rhythm deafness. In reality true cases are quite rare, so I believe most people can develop their "ears" to be able to appreciate music the way you can. I think the mission of every musician whose audience includes large number of people without a proper musical training, is not just to make them love you, but also get them interested to explore music further.

I remember how Sting did that for me. I liked his image as a person and after visiting his performance I started listening to all of his records and playing bass guitar and drums (aside from playing classical guitar). Then I noticed how he really switches to different styles at different times of his career and how his songs sound noticeably different. That led me to exploring jazz and classical music further. And though I quit practicing music for now, I really believe that it was Sting's biggest impact on me that helped me to start appreciate music and developed my tastes.
I agree with the article to an extent, but I don't agree that musical education will necessarily make people like instrumental music in general or jazz music specifically. The truth is most people don't really care about music and pop/radio music is sufficient and exciting enough for them. This is not a bad thing.

I don't like the assumption that there is necessarily some sort of proper 'way' of listening to music that can be or should be taught. People who like music will like music and seek it out, people who don't won't.
I think some of them truly believe it. I have a cousin that believes she can talk with virgin Mary. She is educated and I don't think she is trying to trick anybody since she has always been a nice person. I think she is just convinced.
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It may not be possible to stop people from doing what they want, but what they want can certainly be influenced by city planning. Fly over Portland, OR and compare to Minneapolis; the difference in layout is staggering. Even when you include population and geography--the urban growth boundary has a significant effect.
No, the problem is people trying to validate email addresses.
For the true rockstar coder "wrapping your head around" any reasonable syntax should be a triviality.

Never had the dubious pleasure of trying to decipher another person's APL code, eh?

Then again, you did say "reasonable"...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4599299.stm
I don't think humanity as a whole has become more or less materialistic: we've just raised the bar due to technological advances. Witness the greed of conquistadors and kings of times past for gold, for example.
Agree with the self-indulgent part. It's sophisticated to like jazz so people try to like it. And then they do because one can grow to like anything.

From TFA, "... the American ears are getting lazier and lazier."

I'll agree with that, but I don't consider it a bad thing. Jazz seems to meander and is only impressive once paid close attention to. I want music to come and hit me; I don't want to have to work for payoff.
I am indeed guilty of neglecting this.

So is everyone else, but I guess it stands out to me because I do consider it a worthwhile goal, to sit on the sofa, put on something like Jóhann Jóhannsson's IBM 1401: A Users' Manual, and just listen to the movements the way I would watch a movie.

But I never do. I always feel like I have to be doing something while listening to music, simply because it's possible. It's true; I don't know what to look at, what to do, if I'm not watching a live performance.
I'm a musician myself who used to play jazz. The problem with jazz is that is considered by the people who listen to it like "pure art" when it is just a style of music. Jazz (and classical) is elevated higher than other form of music and music teachers will expect a good musician to play jazz.

If jazz lovers would stop thinking at themselves as "higher educated" and jazz would go back to the people who want enjoy a good swinging song (Ella Fitzgerald, Satchmo, ...) maybe then, jazz would be loved again.
Reg's posts were more like black beauties for me.

Even the best coffee is a poor substitute.

C'mon Reg; write a book or something.
If you're serious and "cost is no object", you probably want something dongle based: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongle#Copy_protection

Note that the objective probably isn't something you can't break, but something that raises the bar high enough it's not worth it for any/many of your customers to pay someone to break.
I asked PG if swombat and onetimetoken had set off the HN sock puppet detector and he said that onetimetoken had used an IP address never before seen by HN.

So, swombat, time to prove that you are onetimetoken.
Have you tried listening to Shostakovich? He was moderately successful at blending jazz and classical elements, as well as at polarizing critics in the process.