skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Out of proportion? Sure at least in the US you are protected from credit card fraud assuming you take the appropriate actions.However, such a problem on their end shows a lack of attention to security and while this may be an isolated incident it reveals a lot about how the company acts and prioritizes their responsibilities to their users. People like to repeat their mistakes, especially when they don't have the necessary resources, whether it be time, man power, money or something else, to correct them therefore I doubt this is the last serious blunder they will make and that is reason enough for me to avoid them.
I love Vivek's analysis of a replicative entrepreneur vs. an innovative entrepreneur. He and mark really go on it in nature vs nuture. I think VC's have really created a matter of selection bias, but Mark makes a convincing point as to why he doesn't go looking for specific demographics, but instead looks at the idea.

In the end it sounds like VCs might want to go looking in new areas for talent.
That is "don't be evil" demonstrated. Google could have kept GFS and MapReduce strictly confidential (no paper published, merely a patent) and sue those who implemented anything similar.

Microsoft had at one point used Hadoop and HBase (via the Powerset acquisition), they've also made their own MapReduce (Dryad) and Sawzall (DryadLinq) equivalents. It's admirable that Google resisted the temptation to patent-troll them (not that patent trolling has any actual benefit, it just sounds like a typical "evil big corporation" thing to do).
It seems like the cure to this problem is usability testing.
The New Age of Travel: Blimps and Beyond
My adblocker (in Chrome) loads resources before removing them from the DOM. I simply want to block this before the request is made.
Bump up your font sizes?
I have a problem with tossing around the term Semantic Web when their take is so much different than mine. The SW is about standards (RDF, RDFS, OWL, SPARQL, HTTP, using URIs to represent things and concepts, etc.) and a very large number of linked data publishers who hopefully use at least some common Ontology's to define classes of businesses, information sources, people, organizations, places, events, etc., etc. and to define the properties that have ranges and domains that are these standard classes.

I take a bit of heat for being a SW proponent but I believe that long term this is a big thing. I could be wrong, though.
I'm hard pressed to think of a 16 digit number that I'd want to search for, but I suppose there could be one. Barcodes, ISBNs, etc.

But, for the summaries of search results, I see no reason why scrubbing the numbers would be a bad thing. I can't imagine complaining about seeing XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX in a result summary instead of 5424 0000 0000 0015
"While we take this very seriously and it is a headache for those involved (to whom we apologize and are contacting)"
Unless I've misunderstood their description:

* They got some data
* The data has a "description" field
* They naively displayed that description field
* They then found to our horror that sometimes this
description field contains CC numbers :/

I don't think you can really blame them too much for that.

It would be another story if they were actually storing CC numbers and 'accidentally' published them, but that doesn't seem to be what happened.
So here's what he says about being a PHP coder:

PHP is installed on just about every server on the planet and a lot of really good companies use PHP simply because it’s so easy to get developers who know PHP. The other benefit to PHP is that it’s so simple and ridiculous that any programmer who doesn’t know PHP could master the basics in a day and be building pretty decent applications within a week or two. So, PHP certainly makes good financial sense all around.

I suggest he not present himself as having a skill which there are millions of alternatives for and which can be mastered in two days.

Instead, I would focus more on him as a package deal of domain expertise, soft skills, engineering expertise, and programming ability (including PHP) which has previously achieved successes for businesses such as brag brag brag focusing on business benefits and is ready to pitch pitch pitch focusing on business benefits for you.
The dangerous thing about these tests is that they only show if you have a marker for a particular diseases/affliction . This doesn't mean that you'll get the disease - we're still amateurs at this technology and I don't know if I want to live my life perpetually fearful of a disease that I have a marker for, but no relevant data on what the chance that I'll actually get that disease.
why would banks put your credit card number on the description of transactions in the first place

This is actually pretty common. It happens on my statements, and while I think that my bank could do something better (last 4 digits would be enough), there is at least a reason. For my joint checking account with multiple debit cards, it helps figure out who bought what. Since each purchase has the exact card number, we can figure out who went to Starbucks 3 times in one day...
The analogy was meant to be more drawn to the frontier colonization of space as written in numerous sci-fi novels, but point taken. Luckily, I'm not entirely sure who the indigenous citizens of the internet would be to be damaged by rapid territorial expansion.
Thanks for that. I heard something similar but couldn't find records of specifics. I suppose that means that its 6 in Chrome as well.

And of course, there is IE7, which is still what many of my visitors use.
The link is a 404 for me. Is there a mirror or another link?
Arc Suggestion
It would be nice if [] would act as a currying function if _ isn't present.

For instance:

(map [+ 10 _] '(1 2 3))

could be rewritten as:

(map [+ 10] '(1 2 3))

Or, taken directly from the tutorial:

arc> (trues [if (odd _) (+ _ 10)]
'(1 2 3 4 5))

could be rewritten as:

(trues [if [odd] [+ 10]] '(1 2 3 4 5))

which is arguably simpler and clearer.

And by the way, _ could also be usable as before such as:

(filter [> _ 10] (range 1 100)).
Apple rejects an iPad clock app because it doesn't have any extraneous features
Seems like they apologized to the four users involved. I don't know that they owe the public in general an apology. They basically explained why this is less scary than the headlines (including the one here on HN) makes it look and said that they were committed to keeping this from happening again, including giving examples of steps they were going to take.

What would you have liked to see from them? Prostrating themselves before you for revealing someone else's credit card data?
Python does have a machine readable grammar. The reason Jython isn't at 2.6 is not because of syntax changes, those would probably take less than a day to do, it's all the semantic changes that take time.
fair. and we don't know terms (e.g., liquidation preferences).
except the wifi driver which has to be manually installed but only involves an extra minute or two.

and, of course, you've written a script for that by now anyways (right?)

BTW, as I noted elsewhere, ubuntu netbook remix is outstanding for the netbooks. It provides maximum screen space utility and is worth a look.
I did re-read the post and it just seems like perl 6 has reassured him that python is dying but I have to disagree, maybe jython is dead for what he wants but python is not dead and from the looks of it jython is not dead.
I counter your anecdote with mine: I first studied Spanish in college and became fluent in it, in large part thanks to my classroom studies.

Yes, I got practice with conversation partners and two studies abroad. But learning the vocabulary, drilling on the verb tenses, and doing the writing assignments prepared me to start parsing those real-world sentences into words I understood. When I understood 4 out of 5 words, or when I wanted to say something but didn't know a particular word, I would go back to the dictionary for the missing part.

And when I heard a novel tense, like "que TENGAS un buen dia," I'd go back to my professor and ask about it. (That was subjunctive, generally used for hypothetical, doubtful, or wished-for circumstances.)

I think that a combination of classroom and real-world learning is the best way to attain fluency.
Open Graph is based on RDFa and is a "standard" by which website owners can use URIs to represent a number of people, places, things and concepts. I admit that I tossed the term semantic web out there without fastidiously studying the accepted definition, but by the one you proposed I think Open Graph meets it.
In the UK it's common to see last 4 digits only on receipts, statements etc. NEVER the whole CC number. Anywhere.
> > If someone builds a better mousetrap, it's patentable.

>Only if the mechanism is novel.

Actually, no. It's perfectly reasonable to patent using old mechanisms to do new things or to do old things differently.

For example, appropriate to patent using a lever to do something that no one had thought to do with a lever before, despite the fact that levers are one of the oldest mechanisms.

Note that new mechanisms don't come along very often. Much of what we get are new uses or new applications.
Spoiled Photos
After Warning, ‘South Park’ Episode Is Altered
That was excellent. Had to suppress mild urge to run away.

Putting cameras in places where it's not safe to put a person seems to be a rich field to explore.
I don't understand python is [...] hurting because jython isn't keeping up with the latest branches?

Yes, Python has put a moratorium on syntax changes in part because IronPython, Jython, and pypy aren't keeping up with changes. As felideon points out, I regret saying it's dead - it's just that syntax innovation that's dead (and only for a little bit), and that's a shame.
I think you have to take these results with a grain of salt. Its better to know ahead of time so you can begin to take steps to ensure that you dont have problems in the future. Genetic predispositions are only a factor, environment and other epigenetic factors also play a major role in determing your phenotype.
So do identical twins count for one person?
In April 2008, New York State's Department of Health sent warning letters to six online genetic testing companies, including 23andme, notifying them that they cannot offer New York state residents genetic tests without a permit nor can they offer them without authorization from a physician. (wikipedia)
Oh, so you do prefer proprietary over open. Gotcha.
The last 4 digits, however, are the ones that are unique to you.
PCI compliance isn't something a startup should be looking to saddle themselves with, in my mind. Once you're established and can analyze whether you want to internalize an outsourced function, it's on the table with everything else I suppose.

Exactly.

That's the point I was trying to get across. Guess I wasn't very clear. =)
I would have liked to have seen "a lot less bad that it looks" replaces with "one would have been too many" and "we will work very hard to regain your trust". It's okay... but the public is their target audience! Simple phrases, big impact.
The message seems to have disappeared. Here's the next message in the thread: http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/hadoop-general/2010....
Ooops, will check my URL is canonical before submitting in future!
I would buy this Right Now... if only it was also for my iPad...
It's frustrating as a computer engineer when I see people much smarter than myself trying to do simple things with computers and failing horribly. They understand that there is a learning curve, but can't comprehend the random behaviour of their computer. It makes me think as engineers we've got to do better than this.

Conversely, one problem is that people buy the cheapest computer possible, and then don't understand why the operating system is hard to use and crashes, and the hardware is badly designed and of poor quality. There's a certain company that has decided to make excellent hardware, offer good support and a relatively sane operating system at a higher price than most computer systems. So sometimes you get what you pay for. :)
It's more of a constant testing mentality, from the clients, managers and developers. It's a bit like security.. you can't stop in the middle of the development and say: Hey, let's make that app. secure. It's a continual way of thinking. How you test it, however, is really application dependent.

For sure, a thing that I find the most important in the agile way, is to let the client use the app as much as possible and as sooner as possible. This way, they practically test the application for you and help you focus on the right things.
Leaking 4 of thousands of credit card number IS a huge deal. It's a disservice to their users (even the ones who weren't affected) for them to downplay it.
Huge, and consistently pursued by the Register. Don't have time at this moment to dig up links to illustrate, but every time there's an anti-Google story the Register are right up there misinterpreting it to maximum 1984 effect.
"it sets up your brain for not-everything's-one-language pathways"

Yep. Also, you get a good feel for difficult vs easy sentences.

I only speak English and Spanish, but if someone from Russian or Korea or Bangladesh with minimal English skills showed up to a party, I'd have a much easier time choosing phrases he could understand than folks who didn't know a second language would.

This is partly seeing what it's like to be a beginner in a language, and partly from negotiating around the things you don't know as you learn. If you don't know how to say "it's in the trunk," you say "it's in the back part of the car where you put things, that you open with a key." And the other person will say, "oh, the trunk!"

I suspect that this "ability to rephrase" also helps me explain technical things to non-technical people.
Their anonymously-signed blog post doesn't engender much confidence in them as a company. Except that they try hard to protect their own identity.
Hmmm, I guess I confused what you said with this early statement from them:

"We believe that this incident has impacted less than one half of one percent of our enterprise accounts globally and a fraction of that within the consumer base."
Heh - you clearly _aren't_ lactose intolerant. Through the simple (and relatively inexpensive) act of popping a lactase tablet before anything with milk, my life got a _whole_ lot better. It's embarrassing how much better things are. When I first got the results, I was like "Woah - 23andMe is broken - _I'm_ not Lactose intolerant" - that's what happens when you live with something your entire life - you baseline off a miserable experience and believe it to be the best you can do.

Genomics certainly improved my life. :-)
Which requires that you put it on something. I was trying to point out that even with the existing software keyboard on the iPad, it's easier for me to type standing up one handed than on a laptop or netbook, simply because of the form factor. If you have a surface to place the netbook on, then great... if you don't then you are facing the same problem the peice is trying to address, but with fewer options for solving it.
NYPD Confiscated Bikes on Obama Motorcade Route
Everyone is different. I can type without pain on a netbook keyboard for arbitrary periods of time. I can type faster on my HHKB, however.

(Of course, the HHKB is as easy to carry around as the netbook, so I usually don't have to use the netbook keyboard. Once you get past the keyboard, a netbook is a full machine like any other. Except it weighs nearly nothing and it can live for 14 hours without a power outlet.)
A friend of mine does software consulting for medical groups. He rolled his own framework which is a combination of SQL Server and ASP classic.

The funny thing is that it was the SQL Server stored procedures that generated the HTML, not ASP. I couldn't figure out if it was genius or insane.
Skyhook does the same thing Google is doing. They drive around with GPS on and record MAC addresses. Then they correlate the two.

They know which group of MAC addresses are "visible" at which GPS coordinates.

They also do constant updates to the database every time a device queries Skyhook.
Looks like they do have a 'survival clause' in their privacy statment:

Business Transitions

In the event that 23andMe goes through a business transition such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, your personal information and non-personal information will likely be among the assets transferred. You will be notified in advance via email and prominent notice on our website of any such change in ownership or control of your personal information. We will require an acquiring company or merger agreement to uphold the material terms of this privacy statement, including honoring requests for account deletion.
I expected them to do this - good for them. As much as I tend to distrust large corporations, Google has some coolness, and I can't think of another large corporation that I distrust less than Google.
4 digits is enough for you to know which account holder made the purchase, but not enough to be of any use to anyone else.
The submission seems to have dropped the last > of the URL, causing a 404.

Here it is as a tinyUrl:

http://tinyurl.com/36jzc7v
Err, I guess this teaches me to not to even mention simplistic emotional responses like "Python is dead". Let me try to be as clear is possible:

Python is not dead. Python is hurting from a bad design decision that doesn't let multiple interpreter implementations share components that they could have. This makes it impossible for minimally maintained branches (like Jython) to keep up with the language, and so hard for better-maintained branches (like IronPython or pypy) that it necessitates a moratorium on the syntax as a whole.
Incident report | Injury reporting
Rapid incident reporting is a powerful, web based software application that gives you graphical reports with the click of a button. This online incident reporting software fulfils all the requirements for the reporting and investigation of incidents that occur within your workplace, including statutory reporting of notifiable work-related injuries and dangerous occurrences,a mandatory requirement under the Occupational Health Safety and Welfare Act.
NYTimes Calls Blippy Founder Re:Credit Cards on Google
Amazon’s Profit Rose 68% in Quarter
Turns out Google indexed some of this HTML, even though it wasn't visible on the Blippy website.

Okay, so my question then, after getting the response that Blippy could do a better job processing their data, is why Google is indexing data that isn't being displayed?

What I mean is, I understand crawlers go through pages to gather data for search results. Why is it gathering data that isn't going to be rendered to the user, performing search queries, since that is empirically the most relevant data users need to see in search results?
I agree here. My netbook hard drive had errors about 3 days after I started using it, and I didn't ever drop it.

SSDs were made for netbooks. I am not sure why vendors even attempt to put hard drives in them. (Actually, I know why. Comparison charts, and money.)
Dryad is not MapReduce. M/R is just a very simple case of what Dryad can do. But Dryad is not available for serious use outside Microsoft.
Also Google only got implementation patent, it's only applicable to Hadoop, which is a Java-based clean room implementation of Google's M/R.

Zvi
Forgive my naivete, but how do you use it without using the credit card part?
His issue doesn't seem to be with computers _per se_, but rather the interaction of all the junk that comes either on a new Windows system or via the default installation process for new software. Even a well maintained Windows machine accumulates crapware over time. It's just the cross you have to bear if you want to run Windows.

While I disagree fundamentally with the heavy-handed approach Apple has taken with the iPhone, I think part of their motivation is to protect the phone's ecosystem from threats. Imagine a world where we have malware infection rates on cell phones equal to, or greater than, the infection rates on personal computers. It would be ugly indeed.
Startup Lessons Learned Conference Live on Justin.tv
And lengthened:

http://mail-archives.apache.org/mod_mbox/hadoop-general/2010...
Is implementation really the bottleneck when it comes to language syntax changes? My observation of Python's and also Java's progression makes me think that design issues, compatibility issues or political issues have been much more difficult than actually implementing what has been decided.

The benefit of self hosting is that all libraries are instantly available on every implementation. That's important because the libraries comprise hugely more code than the language itself I would think.
The first 5+ digits are public (if the "attacker" knows what bank your card is issued by). Adding 3 digits and a check digit to the mix makes guessing your number all that much easier.

Personally, I am not sure why any digits need to be on sales receipts. Or why I even need a receipt.
So if there is room for innovation in the antivirus market or enterprise software market why aren't more startups attacking that space? Enterprises are strictly served only by other enterprise software companies. CRM, financial systems, billing systems, HR systems, - all of these enterprise apps are appaling in their usability and implementation. Is it because the modern startup culture is interested only in solving "easy"/consumer issues?
Some people will always regret whatever it is that they decided not to do. The best defense is to make mindful decisions. It's not surprising that the thing this guy thought he really wanted to do is something that is force fed to us 24/7 by the media. Last time I went to a concert I was thoroughly bored. But I'm rambling..
I think it's a pretty straightforward phenomenon: "chaos" = emergence and evolution. Prescriptive design = stagnation.

No intentionally-designed system has ever scaled to match the nuance of emergent complexity.
10 minutes quick start to Mario AI Competition
We take security seriously and want to assure Blippy users that this was an isolated incident from many months ago in our beta test, and doesn't affect current users.

While it looks super-scary and certainly sucks for those few people who were affected, and is embarrassing to us, it's a lot less bad than it looks.

This could have been phrased a bit better to include an actual apology. It's pretty easy to do: "Several months ago Blippy's limited beta test leaked data about four customers, including their credit card numbers. That is totally our fault. We have apologized to those four customers personally and have taken steps to make sure it cannot happen again. The site currently does not leak data, but those four customers' numbers are still visible on Google searches. We are working with Google to correct this and expect it to be resolved in a few hours.

Here are the improvements Blippy has made to deserve our customers' trust:"

[Edited to add:

The Japanese salaryman in me would suggest that the CEO sign this post. Phrasing might include "This was ultimately a failure of our internal quality controls, because it should have been caught several times before this data was exposed publicly. I take full responsibility for the lapse and have begun..."]
Yeah, it has to download the entire page. Readability just does a script injection and reformats the page.

My only problem is text size. The google reformatter does strip out a lot of the cruft, but I can't say that it's easier to read, which was my goal.

Example, A NYTimes story: http://cl.ly/bC6
I want to hear what they have to say and offer to the four users.

This is a HUGE trust issue and you can somewhat foreshadow the companies future by how they handle the crises especially with these 4 users.
Great article. I agree with the other comment: Ola has an interesting way of thinking about programming. Very creative.