skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I have tab remapped to esc, and s-tab as tab.
You may want to read up on U.S. v Boucher, 2009.

Unless you're hiding evidence of something particularly heinous, refusing to provide a means of decryption may land you in more trouble than the crime of which you're suspected.
I find this Venn diagram useful, as a rough definition: http://azahar.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/nerd-venn-diagram....
can we just let this go already? anytime you are sharing data that has NEVER been shared before, there will be edge cases that are less than ideal. it was 5 numbers and a perfect storm of circumstances that resulted in it being released. I applaud Blippy's aggressive response and how they took responsibility but it could have happened to anyone. I chalk this very small slip up to a consequence of innovation, and not negligence or incompetence.
They pre-sell their ad space.
I understand your argument, but I don't think it's correct. In a democracy, there is no theoretical reason why 49% of the population wouldn't end up in jail. I certainly don't think this would be a good thing, but pure, untainted democracy does nothing to prevent it. You say "if more than half of the drivers exceeded the speed limit, well then, that's pretty much the same thing as having a referendum with a majority of voters saying that the speed limit is too low", but that's really a straw man, because nowhere near half of all Americans are in prison.

And in our case, those in prison are not drawn uniformly from the American population. Prisoners are disproportionately from a minority (intended in the "not majority" sense, not in the skin color sense, though I suppose in this case either applies) subculture, and unfortunately, that subculture glorifies many types of criminal behavior, most of which I imagine you wouldn't favor legalizing.

Again, it's perfectly valid to say that drug laws are wrong and here's why, and that if your ideas were implemented, incarceration rates would be much lower, and that this would be a good thing. All I'm disagreeing with is the general notion that saying laws should be abolished simply because doing so would lower crime rates isn't persuasive. I mean, we could get rid of all the laws, and then the incarceration rate would be zero, but something tells me you wouldn't like that.
Ask HN: How can a 19-year-old find web programming work?
I'm a 19-year-old, self-taught programmer (C/C++, Ruby/Rails and PHP, mostly). I'm in the middle of a transitional year between high school and college and I know that I'd like to pursue a career as a web programmer. I've gotten a few programming jobs here and there, but nothing really substantial. If I could find a full-time job, I'd consider postponing college, but I haven't had much luck so far. Regardless, I'd really like to pay my way through college (opposed to parents/loans). Does anyone have some advice for finding regular web programming work?
One fact I find interesting: Engadget was offered the device as well, but was advised by their counsel (in no uncertain terms) to not acquire the prototype.
You're looking at enforced privacy from the callers perspective not the callee perspective. For the callee, the benefit is you can change or remove any private methods or private data structures and be guaranteed not to affect any callers. It's the benefit of basic encapsulation.

Although I completely agree with you about Prototype OO it doesn't necessarily preclude introspection. You can find out what kind of object it is (by looking at the constructor property) and you can iterate the methods and properties. Introspection is not a problem. But there are no guarantees -- if you find out that your object is a "bicycle" there is no guarantee it has a "pedal" method even if it had one on creation.
Are the specs of the 4th iPhone truly a matter of public interest? Interest != curiosity in this context. If a journalist has a source that says a state governor is selling senate appointments, that is in the public interest because the public has an interest (is a stakeholder) in clean government. If a journalist gets a stolen toddler toy that turns out to be covered in lead paint, the public has an interest in (is entitled to) knowing not to buy the toy.

The iPhone will come out in July (or whenever) irrespective of you knowing two months in advance its specs. Nothing changes. Nothing will be hidden. There is no "public interest". It's just idle curiosity, and it's not journalism to pander to it to the extent of participating in a very dodgy transaction.
Why the iPhone could be bad news for Computer Science
His legal obligation was to return it to the bartender, but calling Apple to return it is hardly "unreasonable."
Obama at the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship
MVP= minimum viable product.
The Vaccine War?
How older people interact and use email in their daily life
Streaming Videos of History Channel’s America: The Story of Us
Visor is pretty cool, just recently started using it:

http://visor.binaryage.com/
It won't be beneficial for Mexico. If the US decriminalizes, the cartels will lose revenue streams and will commit more kidnappings to maintain their livelihood. The state will descend further into chaos.
It clearly defines your responsibilities if you come across someone's lost property. Seems like a reasonable law to me.
I'm pretty sure answering the question "what do you do?" in that manner indicates social ineptness.

A physicist could instead say "I do physics research" and potentially entertain an "average" person with stories about departmental feuds or something else he might relate to.
PokerPirate, an open source pokerbot
Scientists Invent "Wearing Your Files" and Using Them on Any Device You Touch
It sometimes matters to think things through. If, for instance, you want to help students get better - it would do to take some time to understand the social dynamics of the world they're in.

Articles like this are potentially useful for teachers, or student counselors. Besides, even if the article's off-base, it's still helpful to search for truth, even in topics as mundane-seeming as this.
If they're going after Chen instead of after Chen's source. Then I doubt Chen has protection under contempt laws. I bet he does under the journalist shield laws though
I don't think that was clear. The articles stated that he saw the engineer's name that night when looking at facebook but wasn't able to look it up in the morning due to being disabled.

I don't know about this guy but I probably recall 5% of all names of people I meet at a bar, 0% first and last names. I have a hard time faulting him if there is evidence of him calling Apple support and detailing the situations.
Why do we believe that intelligence and nerdiness go hand in hand? Not to be all anecdotal or anything, but the top 6 GPA ranked people in my high school class were normal. They weren't popular, but they certainly weren't nerds. I was 7th, and I didn't really count as a "nerd" until college, when I started going to anime club. In high school, I was so socially awkward that even the nerds wouldn't let me play DnD with them. The nerds were all kind of middle-of-the-pack intelligence.

I suspect that we believe this because there are some powerfully intelligent and powerfully nerdy folks out there. But if you just look at academic performance, I bet the reality isn't so strong. There are a lot of dumb nerds out there.
Ask YC: startups around remittances
Sending money home is a 60 billion/year, inefficient market. I live in Colombia so I've been thinking about this for a while. Wondering if there are startups out there that are taking interesting approaches to this, or thoughts on how to take on this market. Combining with mobile could be interesting as well.
The real utility of Chrome's Speed Dial extension
My wife is a part-time freelance editor. She currently does a lot of doctoral dissertations. Send me a note at matt@goelephant.com if you'd like to know more.
Made with love, https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/dgpdioedihjhncja... and bulbapedia.
If you're good, make a name for yourself. That means, have a good website, write some really useful open source library or something, blog and give talks at conferences/... (easier than it sounds). Once you have a name, it's easier to find jobs.
I gave an upvote for you.

The triangles are too close; I've also accidentally downvoted someone before.
Editing is a large but incomplete part of programming, which is why vim is a large but incomplete part of my programming environment.

Look, if you're arguing this just to take potshots at "that thing you don't like" then we should end this conversation now. If you're open to the possibility that we can both be productive with different toolsets then I'd like to learn more about your setup and maybe share some of the benefits of mine.
It clearly wasn't a typo. I'm well aware the search was conducted by police. I did not suggest otherwise.

I am saying that Apple asked the police to raid the property.
"You know it's Apple's property."

More to the point: the folks at Gizmodo, being reporters on this very industry, were uniquely positioned to know exactly what the phone was. The five thousand dollars that exchanged hands drives home that point. They'll have a very difficult time mounting an ignorance-based defense here.
Car Steered with Driver's Eyes
Not really. I was thinking about this article from some months back on Gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/5427058/apple-gestapo-how-apple-hunts-dow...
HackerNews (and jasonlbaptiste) on The Economist
Live: Obama speaks at Presidential summit on Entrepreneurship
I know law enforcement organizations don't always work very closely together, but surely if they were both investigating crimes, they could negotiate to do one search and share the evidence they find, right?
'Public interest' is a slippery term. Certainly the public is interested in smartphones, or there would be no audience for the story. But does the public have an interest in the intellectual property of manufacturers? Only in the most tenuous sense - state or federal workers' pension funds might be partially invested in Apple's stock, for example.

But it would be hard to argue that this story was presented with the aim of improving the public welfare, as you might if the contents of some confidential government documents were reported or publicized.
Calling the owner (in the company sense) is better than handing a device in to some dodgy bartender. If I lost an item belonging to my current employer, we would both certainly prefer that.

I don't know much about east coast US police but the NY ones certainly don't give a shit about stuff left in public places by drunk people.
Pentagon Papers was in the public interest.

Tech specs of a new gadget probably isn't.
Classy: Classes for Javascript
Another handy class library that I have been using a while - http://justin.harmonize.fm/index.php/2009/01/cobra-a-little-...

Now I tend to write my "classes" like this: http://gist.github.com/380000

This is using the traditional prototype method. It involves a bit more syntax, but it doesn't require any extra libraries.
"he'd get a new job really quickly"

You think?

(recruiter reads resume) "Oh, yeah, you're the guy who lost the iPhone prototype! I can't wait to hire you!" :-)
I'm on a danish keyboard; the programmer-handy keys like "[" and "]" have been moved to shortcuts (alt-9 for "]") to make room for the danish letters "æøå", so some of the combo's that are easy to make on english keyboards are next to impossible on mine.

Once in an effort to reach maximum typing efficiency, i attempted a switch to VIM+Dvorak. However, i quickly realized that i would have to use a Danish variant of Dvorak (there is no official standard..) and remap VIM to oblivion, which would make me too much of an oddball masochist.
It's interesting to note that both wars were actually started by the communists. I'm all for killing people if they try to forcibly invade otherwise peaceful countries to convert them to communism. It may have been imprudent or wasteful for the US to get involved in Asian wars, but it wasn't a simple matter of killing people over their preferred political system.
I have a question about "it" in ML. How is it useful?
I was your age in the late nineties, so I got that kind of job by volunteering to build web sites for my high school (sophomore year) and local government. That led to me giving the city's web hosting company configuration instructions, which led to a summer job offer that turned into weekends-and-summers employment throughout college. I also got some referrals from the math department head.

These days, everyone has a web site. But most are not very good. So, I suggest volunteering to build web applications for your neighborhood or city. This might lead you to a product idea for your own web service, it will serve as resume fodder, and it will increase the likelihood that someone will ask you to work for them.
It seems like that just begs the question. It doesn't really explain why police action is so swift to protect trade secrets but so slow to protect actual property rights.
Same reason that killing a little kid will bring a lot more legal heat than killing a gangbanger — just because two things are strictly prohibited doesn't mean people respond to them equally.
He does make an excellent point in that being loyal will get loyalty in return, but IMO.. I would rather have an excellent resource that can come in and make an immediate impact even for a year, than have someone that will just get by for 3 years. Imagine having someone like Calcanis work for your startup full time for just 6 months, think about the impact. I think time matters little. Also they bring a lot of varied experiences, and probably will be a real litmus test on how you are as an employer.
I agree with you. But, although I haven't studied this event all that carefully, there is a difference between corporate espionage or some sort of malicious attempt at blatantly undermining Apple -- and the way Gizmodo presented their story, afaik. Gizmodo almost seemed to poke fun at the weird circumstances of the prototype being left behind (the photos of the bar and all that). Did they reveal any trade secrets about Apple (the phone being turned off remotely and all)? Maybe, perhaps they're at fault for that.

But making fun of a company, satire, should be protected by journalistic rights. Should, for instance, the Daily Show be prosecuted if they go after an interview and someone at the pentagon accidentally reveals classified information? It could be argued that Gizmodo knew the phone had 'fallen off the back of a truck' so to speak -- but their story seemed as much about the falling off of the back of the truck as the item itself.

At what point is there some (perhaps small) burden of responsibility on the people who messed up and lost the prototype? It doesn't seem like complete justice that suddenly Apple gets to come down hard with laws that aren't exactly clearly adjudicated yet. I mean if there were precedent -- if it were clearly known that anytime you come across a prototype, you run the risk of being prosecuted for not returning it to the company immediately, then OK, Gizmodo would be at fault. Maybe there is and I just don't know.

I get the sense that Apple has decided not to fault Gary Powell because that would be sort of a ridiculous move (see Steve Wozniak's thoughts at gizmodo). But that doesn't necessarily give them the right to take out their frustrations on Gizmodo. An engineer made a mistake. If anything, it's added publicity. Move on.
My mum was accused of a climbing up drain pipes to break in to government offices to get documents that led to some important news stories being written.

Apparently the government department in question didn't like the more likely explanation that whistleblowers were handing her brown envelopes full of photocopied papers (which, as it happens, was what was going on).

Thre was talk of her being taken to court to try to compel her to reveal her sources, but the whole scandal resolved itself before then.
The Unabomber got his essay published. I think he's willing to take that as a win.
But not a very good one, clearly.
Piss Christ didn't inspire any murders that we know about, but he's got a good point about the ongoing abortion clinic killings.
Especially in the UK, where writing a book that criticizes pseudoscience is "illegal", as is publishing photographs of celebrities.

I'm surprised there are any journalists left there at all.
Wow, what's really excessive and shocking is that a Gawker employee has the stones to claim he's a journalist.
Cash Only Physician Practice - Kicking Bureaucrats out of the Exam Room [video]
If I benefit from covering this, will I have to give the money back? What about the New York Times? What about Apple?
Depends on the school. I went to one of the smallest schools with a D1 football team and it is my understanding that the football team there only survives due to funds alloted by the conference, which are collected as dues from the other universities.
The "T" Word
Whoops. Been saying and spelling it wrong for a while. Thank's for pointing that out.
Yes. But the important difference here is in the actual murders -- the act of going beyond threats. I have a hard time taking that as a minor distinction.
I think you guys are putting way too many obstacles in the path. I live on a boat and I just moved a waterheater (~120 kilos) from port to starboard and it didn't make much of a difference on the waterline of the boat.
Reading that warrant makes me not regret the full-disk encryption on every computer in my house. It makes the computer slower, but it removes any incentive to remove the device from my home. (And it removes the ability of my own computer to incriminate me.)
Apple v. the First Amendment
If there's one word that can't be used to describe this case, it's "clear". Nothing is clear yet, except that Apple is mad.
Ask HN: File browsing with xmonad in Ubuntu?
Greetings! Thanks to a recent post in HN, I learned about xmonad. It is impressive, but I still have this basic question: Is it possible to do basic, drag-and-drop file browsing with xmonad? I'm using Ubuntu 9.10.

Thanks.
I thought this was a partial.
Well, the only way we know that to have happened is via Gizmodo's account of what the guy who sold it to them said. I'm not saying he didn't, but we've hardly gotten irrefutable proof that it actually happened. It is, after all, in the guy's interest to make himself look like he was trying to return it.
And in other news, hundreds of good looking German women were the victims of mysterious hit and run accidents this week...
Where are you from? I don't think its hard to find some web work getting paid 20 bucks or so an hour. Getting paid a decent salary with benefits might be a little more challenging, until you've built up your resume though.
Ah bummer, I was hoping that the whole thing would be online... if you have Comcast, though, it looks like it will be on On Demand.
This. If you're polling a bank for credit transactions, everything you get is radioactive until proven otherwise. Best case when you find a big string of digits is that they're meaningless, and that's not a good reason to store them.
In Praise of Evolvable Systems (1996)
C# apps do get tail calls, under some conditions
http://blogs.msdn.com/clrcodegeneration/archive/2009/05/11/t...
Given that the people he spoke to wouldn't even be aware of the existence of the lost prototype, I don't think you could call that an honest attempt to return the phone at all.

Even sending an email to sjobs@apple.com would've been more likely to get the phone back to Apple.
So, if we continue to support the gang's revenue stream, then they will wax wealthy and powerful and continue murdering with impunity. If we eliminate the gangs' revenue stream, they will commit more kidnappings, murder, and further chaos.

Apparently, Mexico is screwed either way. Let's at least screw Mexico in a way which might help someone else.
Wrecked, no, but the dude was unnecessarily abused and humiliated for, as far as I can tell, shits and giggles and ad exposures.
By all accounts I have heard he's quite a talented engineer. I doubt that recruiters are all so daft to equate losing a phone to incompetent engineer. It was only huge news because of Apple's historic success at keeping secrets--if he did the same thing while working for Google it would have stayed to a few tech blogs and the world continue on oblivious.
chc makes a lot of sense and brings up a nice point (see below or above?)

another thing I can think of is this. portrayals of muhammad to this day, compared with those of jesus and others, have been fairly limited. there are cathedrals, paintings, murals, etc of jesus depicted with every skin color and body features. muhammad, on the other hand, isn't that much. but the concept of a drawn jesus, to most of the world, isn't a new thing at all.

so if i were picking a fight...wouldn't i pick one where i don't automatically lose?
Define "fringe".

I'm sure you don't agree with them, and you may not even know many people who do, but given that there are (and if my understanding is wrong, feel free to correct me) several Muslim countries/polities where you'd be mobbed in the street within seconds for wearing a t-shirt with one of the Danish cartoons on it, or thrown in jail if found by the police, all of it condoned by the government...I don't know if the radical movement really meets the standard definition of "fringe group".

You give the examples of the Vatican and Utah. Be offensive in the Vatican and you may be escorted out by security; in Utah, I'm pretty sure the worst you'll get is ignored (I've met a lot of Mormons and they're the friendliest people in the world). Not really comparable to offending radical Muslims.
I'm assuming they took the cameras to prove that it was one of those cameras that was used to take photos of the phone, thus proving it was in his possession.

Since he is employed it is up to Gawker to make sure he has equipment. Can they fire him for having his equipment seized? Wouldn't that be unlawful dismissal?
They'd probably be mostly OK if they had just shown the exterior of the thing - it (or something very similar) has appeared in photographs on the internet before, I believe.

But the teardown showing the internals? That's got to be of significant interest to competing manufacturers.
This is a little different. The laptop was searched while unencrypted, and child porn was found. Only then did Boucher refuse to provide the key. This was also a customs case; where the courts have routinely held that your Constitutional protection against searches does not apply. (The courts are wrong, of course, but this issue remains unsolved pending new legislation.)

Either way, the Constitution is clear on this issue: "no person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself". If a safe is found in your house, the government can do whatever they want to open it. They can blow it up, or they can ask your friends for the combination, or even just try every combination. But they can't punish you for not giving them the combination.

Cryptography is a very strong safe.

(A quick reading of related cases leads me to believe that this one is more relevant: http://supreme.justia.com/us/487/201/case.html. It holds that "In order to be "testimonial," an accused's oral or written communication, or act, must itself, explicitly or implicitly, relate a factual assertion or disclose information." Since reveling the decryption key is a factual assertion and discloses information, it is protected. Note that in Boucher, it is not clear that the key would disclose information.

But honestly, I think my Google skills are just better than the Appeals court in that case. I doubt that the decision would hold up in the Supreme court. And I especially doubt that one could be compelled to give up his or her key in normal, non-customs, criminal proceedings. IANAL.)