skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"One of the things they teach you in American college is that industry is to be looked down upon."

This statement is not at all true in engineering schools. At least when I went to school (Northwestern, '00), there were huge numbers of industry/academic partnerships and the innovation talked about in this article was pushed as the sort of thing it was expected for you to do after graduation, unless you had the misfortune to continue on for your Ph.D., which very few people did. Maybe that quote applies more to non-engineering schools?

Can other engineering-educated folks relate to his quote?
Same here, the media in this country is nuts. CNN droned on for hours about the truck in Times Square - with no new information! Isn't it supposed to be news? Wouldn't a scrolling update or a blurb at the top of each hour suffice? It actually makes it hard to find out if the situation has changed when the reporting never does. All the major news broadcasts are primarily there for the purpose of entertainment.
Fred Wilson on the StackOverflow Investment
What does "Terrorism" even mean?

Was columbine a terrorist attack?

The media is completely messed up beyond belief though. In the UK there was a little girl went missing whilst on holiday, and whilst sad, she's had a massively disproportionate amount of reporting. Still stories in the papers about it now years later.
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Many people hate Microsoft because it’s a soulless company. Apple has a ton of fans because it stands for insanely good design and anti-authoritarianism. Steve Jobs is cool, Bill Gates isn’t.

While the first statement may be true, I have a very hard time picturing Apple as anti-auhtoritarianism. If anything I would say they are the biggest representative of auhtoritarianism in the computing industry today. If his argument is that being authoritative is unpopular, this makes for a whopping contradiction in the main reasons outlined.

That said, the article's discussion on motivation while not revolutionary in any sense seems absolutely valid. Might be OK to have in the back of your head if you are starting a company, or want to recruit developers to your new FOSS project.
Good point.

I think part of the fascination with the balloon incident was that it was about a child, and that there was speculation that it was a hoax and people tried to figure out on which side they came down. The parents did a pretty good job of predicting the public response, I'm surprised they didn't end up in jail for that trick. Let's hope none of their kids ever really gets lost because I'm sure the authorities will assume that it is just another grab for attention with possibly disastrous results. Don't cry 'wolf' when there is no wolf...

The media would most definitely freak out over a mall shooting, but mall shootings are not that rare today (right now google news has 650 items linked to that theme), especially if it involved guys in non western clothing.

But it would not be on the same level as 'shoe bomber tries to blow up airliner', at least I would think it wouldn't be.

If the terrorists really were simply out to kill you, which route would be more effective do you think? Blow up an airliner with a relatively small chance of success with a bomb straight out of some spy novel or to smuggle an armalite in to the local mall and let loose?

Can you see malls with body scanners in your future?

Schools with body scanners?

I'm sure the people selling that stuff would have their wet dreams come true if someone tried that.

In NL here we had a craze some years ago where some crazy injected a few oranges in a supermarket with mercury. The media took it and ran with it, causing all kinds of copycat incidents.

The funny thing is that mercury is relatively safe as a fluid, it is when it is in vapour form or when it is part of a reactive compound that the trouble begins.

That didn't stop an all out panic though, fueled by an uninformed media milking it for all it was worth.
"We don’t build anything here anymore, outside of tech."

Not true. http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/02/us-manufacturing-is-n...

We make plenty, it's just that (thanks to innovation) we don't have as many workers making the same amount of stuff. So while US manufacturing is healthy in terms of goods produced, there just aren't many manufacturing jobs around any more.
It's not slow on modern computers. It's slow on these environments that weren't made to execute code quickly, much less do any pixel manipulation. How many orders of magnitude more instructions is it to set a pixel on an Amiga, versus setting it via JavaScript?
Because it's running in canvas? In other words, it's running within abstraction layer upon abstraction layer, with various other abstraction layers involved to help make sense of the fact that there are too many abstraction layers.

The amiga code was probably pretty close to talking to the graphics driver directly. Canvas is cool, but in terms of performance it's never really going to compete with native code, or even with flash for that matter since flash can remove some complexity by only building for a single, predictable, optimized environment.
Interestingly this is an approach some really serious SF writers have taken to build what they considered to be minimally plausible future histories:

Back in the '70s Jerry Pournelle did this literally for his Codominion series: the US and the USSR agreed to rule the world together and one of the corollaries was suppressing science and technological development. Not only did that fit very well into the Zeitgeist of the '70s, it allowed him to write about a future that wasn't much advanced from what he could easily foresee. Later this was continued by a post-fall of the first interstellar empire series of stories, which again allowed for limitations in advancement. At least one other series of his also uses this trick in one way or another.

Vernor Vinge had a real problem writing SF after coining "the Singularity" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity) and addressed that in various ways:

In The Peace War the rulers of the world through a technological breakthrough they ruthlessly exploit of course suppress or co-opt the development of science and technology they view as potentially threatening.

In Marooned in Realtime the vast bulk of humanity has transcended and is gone from Earth and the action is with small groups of people who were suspended in time prior to this. One of them was fairly close to when the Singularity happened....

In the "Deep" series (evidently formally called "Zones of Thought") the galaxy is roughly divided into zones starting at the center; the ones of interest are The Slow Zone where FTL and AI are impossible, an outer zone where societies can transcend through a Singularity, and in A Fire Upon the Deep the action is almost entirely in The Beyond that's in-between.
That's not the scariest part for Pros

Here's the EULA for our PRO camera :

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=584693&l=d37e6ecc2...

That's right, a MPEG2 camera that can't be used for anything but home movies without paying MPEG-LA more money.

And when you pay them for using your own camera, you find that you have to pay again to import MPEG2 into Final Cut

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=584692&l=a8a46fa56...

And according to MPEG-LA encoders & distributors must pay, so by using your camera you are exposing the venus you show it in to royaslty payments to MPEG-LA.

Want to know how much that'll cost :

http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Documents/AVC_TermsS...

It's still cheaper than doing a Blu-Ray
New, weird animal.
Faisal Shazad's dormant personal blog on web development
A lecture is a one-way process, so the it's up to the student if the lecture is worthwhile for them or not. If it's not, they shouldn't attend. If no-one attends, the lecturer needs training/putting out to pasture.

Like you say though, it makes sense for a class where you are expected to participate, since then you will be teaching and learning from the other students as much or more than the teacher.

The problem here is you, the student, have become part of the value proposition of the class -- and the penalty against non-attendance is not the school penalising you for reducing your own learning, but a discouragement from reducing the learning of others, who the school promised a classroom full of smart peers.
Major Facebook security hole lets you view your friends’ live chats
CSS Vendor prefixes considered important
FourSquare Almost Caused Me to Shake a Hand
The DC sniper would be a good counterpoint to this. Single kills over a moderate period of time and it generated intense amounts of media coverage.
Dagw if I've told you once I've told you a thousand times: write some code. And where's that TPS report?
I've entered the US several times without ever showing a passport or seeing a customs official. The US-Canadian border is pretty much open if you know the terrain. Officially you're required to report in but plenty of people don't bother, especially in winter when all the waterways that are open the rest of the year freeze over.

> Either terrorists are incredibly stupid, vanishingly small in number, or both.

Stupid for sure, if their stated goal is to bring down society, but they don't really want to do that, they are like petulant kids that crave attention.

9/11 was almost too successful in that respect, it could have easily caused the world to band together in to eradicating this once and for all.

Fortunately the Iraq war changed all that, everybody wins. The people that sell anti-terrorism equipment, the terrorists themselves and the media, the politicians too.

All those privacy violating laws that got passed in the last couple of years under the banner of 'anti-terror' wouldn't have stood a chance of passing if the general public wasn't kept in a continued state of anxiety.

Condition 'red' ...
I wonder how they came up with that 12 minute figure. I mean a half-hour lecture doesn't make you Hollywood, nor does a 10 minute long short film mean you're an amateur.

How long is a standard US half hour TV show minus adverts and credits? Or did someone do a survey of adult sites to see how long the clips were?
The author seems to appreciate the wealth produced by ideas, at least here:

Why do I finger innovation? Because innovation defies all laws of conservation: with innovation, you create wealth out of nothing. One day, you have nothing in your hand. The next day you have created, out of pure unadulterated thought, something that people want bad enough to give you money for it. You have created a thing of value. You have created wealth.

Out of nothing.

But then he goes on and (imho) contradicts himself, claiming that manufacturing only creates wealth, not ideas:

We don’t build anything here anymore, outside of tech. Kitchen appliances, power systems, washers/dryers, airplanes, raw materials, electronics, trucks, ships, even satellites these days — nothing is built here. We are no longer the only player in any of these markets; for nearly all we’re not even the predominant one; for most we don’t even play. We stopped manufacturing, and with that we stopped innovating. In industries where we still do manufacturing, we innovate like mad, but the number of industries is shrinking, and I fear that the economic footprint of those industries as a percentage of the global economy is also shrinking. The bottom line: even though we are an innovative people, our innovations are a drop in the global bucket. Meaning that our country’s growth will largely be static, and mostly in the downward slope compared to elsewhere.

I'm not sure what he thinks wealth comes from: ideas or manufacturing.
Something appealing about Silicon Valley was that losers like me could bust ass and really make a big difference and get rich on the way. You just needed to hack and hustle. Apple was the model. Two weirdos building and selling really cool stuff. Relatively simple business model: make things, and sell them. If you read the history of Apple, in the early days they hired straight up nerds and dropouts and bizarre people. One of the early guys who
ended up designing hardware was self-taught and pulled in from the janitorial staff or mailroom or something like that. Finally a "legitimate" way to make a career for oddballs who would not be able to get an interview for a job cleaning toilets at Goldman Sachs.

It's a very different world now where Ivy League overachievers are writing blog posts about choosing between startups and investment banking. Google is the new model. From a weirdo outsider's perspective the Google era startup story sounds very similar to the investment banking path, with a few keywords switched here and there. Elite
educations, maybe going all the way back to Montessori school. Please list your GPA and take this quiz for a chance at a week long interview hazing session. Operate under the context of "changing the world" but stay focused on maximizing return in the markets of eyeballs, clicks,
keywords and ads. Complicated business models; make something which you don't sell and makes no money, but the data can be packaged into a new form of financial instrument for the online ad market. Sell off the thing in a couple years for a few mil, buy an Audi, try to do it again. Goal is to ultimately hit it big enough so that you can avoid building stuff entirely. Dream about ultimately becoming an investor yourself, coaching other type-A wunderkinds through the difficult life process of choosing one high-paying career over another one, and maybe complaining about taxes
and poor service at French Laundry on your blog.

It's a little oversimplified, but wanted to bring back the notion that the startup scene also represents a path to success for creative and strange people without otherwise great career options. It's not just a way for Harvard kids to make as much money as they would in banking without
having to wear a suit.
Roy Buchanan - You're Not Alone

Benny Goodman - Sing, Sing, Sing (the Live at Carnegie Hall version)

The Beatles - The End
One factor that I think the post gets wrong is that it's hard to make a bomb. The NYC "bomb" that just fizzled is a good example. From the limited descriptions it sounds like that thing would never have blown up. Catch fire and burn, maybe. You can't just throw some propane tanks, a couple of fireworks and gas together and expect it to blow up. The Oklahoma bomb was a huge undertaking.
Also, the more time and effort you put into building a real bomb, the more likely you are to get caught - buying lots of (the right kind of) fertilizer is a telltale sign.
Things like YSlow and PageSpeed give reports on optimising images but are run manually. YSlow gives a link to smush.it (compress the image via smush.it website - http://smushit.zenfs.com/results/50dfa0f4/smush//theme/4bc93...) which saves 60% and retains it as a PNG.

Personally I couldn't see the image until it was pointed out - so a huge waste of bandwidth for no design gain in my case.
Not in Chrome it isn't!
actually I think the smaller terrorist attacks would be much more effective at instilling terror.

remember the dc sniper? After the first couple of people were killed, everyone started running in zig zags everywhere they went.

blow up a bus or a train once a week, and you'll shut down most cities. It doesn't even have to be a huge bomb. A few fire crackers that kill/wound 1-2 people and the media will do it's job in making people think it's the end of the world.

and if they can't get bombs/firecrackers, they can always buy a few automatic weapons at any gun store, and open up on a few trains/buses/malls. Same effect without the boom.

Terrorism is just overhyped, since media has nothing better to do.

Take 2009..let's list all the terrorist attacks in the United States:

2/4/2009 - Chairman of the Arkansas State Medical Board wounded in a car bomb.(probably abortion related)

5/25/2009 - someone blows up a starbucks bench(0 casualties)

6/1/2009 - a muslim shoots up a recruiting station(1 dead, 1 wounded)

12/25/2009 - the underwear bomber(0 casualties)

So a total of 4 attacks, 1 dead, 2 wounded. And none of them were organized, terrorists aren't the evil geniuses that the media paints them as. In fact most terrorists. are basically just wannabees who've watched the news and want to be part of the "war".

You have a bigger chance of getting killed by a falling tree or getting hit by lighting, than you do of getting hurt in a terrorist attack.

Terrorism is just hype, it's a small criminal matter, that's not worth the trillions the United States is spending to fight it. It's all just security theater....make people think something is being done, when in reality nothing they can do can stop any further attacks. But the "terrorists are coming to kill you!" sure does work in getting the public to agree to anything you want.
Microsoft Kin phones burdened by smartphone plan, harsh reviews
Great article thanks for posting!

In an interview in the March 2008 newsletter to the Grant Study subjects, Vaillant was asked,

“What have you learned from the Grant Study men?”

Vaillant’s response:

“That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.”
I don't care how much value class attendance adds, students shouldn't be tracked like cattle, especially not 18+ year olds.
By building a small search engine. It took about 4 months and it was definitely worth it. Some of the problems that seem simple at first glance were terribly hard (such as reliably separating out the body text of a web page), and some that I thought would be hard turned out to be relatively easy (the actual index).

It was a lot of fun, even if when I started out I was already fairly sure that I would not have the stamina nor the funds to commercialize it but as a learning experience it was great.
You can innovate in service industries, but service industries contract when an economy contracts, whereas manufacturing and industry expands.

e.g. Who cares if my Barista can be faster and more efficient? I just want coffee for less.

The problem with innovation is that it's leaky. There's no national border to it. America is a tremendously innovative country, but there's nothing stopping that innovation from finding its way to countries where they'll produce that same innovative product for less. (e.g. Look at the iPad and forthcoming Adam from India.)

Economies are equalizing. Nothing, including innovation, will stem that tide.
When you really think about it, nothing happened. There was a failed attempt, case closed.

A stickup of a convenience store 500 yards away killing two would have never gotten that kind of coverage.
Good thing we're not at war with Canada
It is a waste of resources for a college to recruit, advise and coddle an incoming class of students to only lose 20-25% of them due to fail outs after the first two semesters. Retention is a huge issue at state level universities. It's not really important that every kid goes to class, it's important for the university to be able to identify when a kid who usually goes to class suddenly stops.

Computer attendance tracking is something the administration of KU have tossed around. They want to do a few things with it:

1. provide an early indication whether or not a student may be struggling due to something like alcohol abuse or personal difficulties that the university has structures/programs existing for support. (here, they will likely avoid the more big brother tag readers or "id card swipes in class" and use a metrics looking at meal plan use, gym activities, and student activity involvement.)

2. They'd like to very quickly nail down who is in what room in case of an emergency. (Chem lab catching fire, gunman, rabid badgers) This is pretty much a C-Y-A maneuver.

3. provide a system to the faculty that do pass around paper to opt-in and use. The paper passing around is hokey and requiring students to purchase a 50$ license for a 50$ 'click pad' ontop of the 150$ book is seen as asinine.

I don't necessarily agree with any of this, it's just what has been discussed here.
IIUC the people who sneak across the Mexican border don’t just walk across; they hire guides who know the terrain and are constantly running back and forth. A terrorist from a third country, air-dropped into Mexico, wouldn’t know who to trust in this regard.
> I'm not sure what he thinks wealth comes from: ideas or manufacturing.

It is possible for wealth to come from both.
What you're missing is that nothing occurs in a vacuum. People don't like being associated with terrorists, especially not people helping immigrants across the border. If you go to Latin America, they're often even more bigoted than Americans are - and I'm not talking about gringos. The level of hatred for blacks is positively revolting from a North American perspective.

So Mexico really isn't a great entry point for a dark-skinned Arab, unless he speaks Spanish with a flawless accent (though given the variety of Spanish accents, that's not necessarily that hard.)

>I also disagree that "small attacks aren't enough". If you and 9 of your friends coordinate to roll grenades into 10 elementary schools in 10 different cities, I can assure you that you'd make headlines, and bring daily life to a standstill as parents refused to send their children to school.

If you've managed to coordinate 10 different homicidal suicidal maniacs in 10 different cities to kill a bunch of people on the exact same day (and somehow managed to find 10 who won't tell anyone anything that suggests they're doing something suspicious,) aside from the fact that that is very hard, you've definitely evolved to a large-scale attack.
My brother's a paramedic. From what I can gather, 50% of the job is sheer boredom... Sitting around waiting for something to happen. 45% of it being a taxi driver for people who don't really need an ambulance. 5% of it is being calm as you deal with blood and puke and failing bodies and screaming relatives. And a tiny bit of it is ignoring their safety training and climbing down ravines or crawling in to burning upturned cars.

He gets paid the big bucks for the 5%. Occasionally i'll ask how his day was and i'll get a burning car kinda story and then he'll ask how my day was.

"I'm an overpaid typist."
And who is...

Registrant:
N/A
Faisal Shahzad (me.faisal@gmail.com)
Green Town
Lahore
Punjab,54660
PK
Tel. +092.3004447798

Creation Date: 01-Jul-2008
Expiration Date: 01-Jul-2010

NPR this morning said he had received a CS degree and then MBA (presumably while he was here on student visa). Then "quit" his job (problems?); home foreclosure follow a while later, unsurprisingly. Today's Morning Edition had first story I've heard shedding any light on personal life (also: married American woman before acquiring Am. citizenship). [ FWIW ]
I don't get it - if you're on any kind of growth curve at all, you should be getting wealthier.

The drop from a 3% curve to a 2% curve just means you're getting wealthier slower, but you can't lose wealth unless the growth goes negative.

He's right about not being able to afford his dad's house, but that's because when his dad bought it, it was probably a middle-income area. Now, thanks to city growth, it's probably a middle-to-upper income area.
So he's comparing apples to oranges.
Yes, it was pretty 'sexy' media wise. Built in sequels.

As I said, Algeria is a good example of what happens when that sort of thing goes on all the time. People lose interest, try to ignore it.

If terrorism really becomes an every day occurrence it would stop to be news.

Look at Iraq, when stuff was blowing up all over the place people simply looked at the totals, the 'bodycounts', not the individual events. It became a statistics issue, but no longer a prime time news issue.