skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Czech bounces, bank not happy.

Basically Mr Klaus, president of the Czech republic, defend his country's non-adoption of the euro because it has left him free to use the traditional method of dealing with recession by loosening monetary policy - with a lower exchange rate for their currency, their exports look cheaper to foreign buyers, and imports are more expensive for residents. This brings in more money (in a harder currency), keeps more of that money in the domestic economy, and also allows the government to inflate away some domestic debt as the economy improves by raising interest rates.

None of these options are available to euro members, any more than they are to individual US states. So to repair their state balance sheets in a federal monetary environment, they must make politically unpalatable like raising taxes or cutting services, and don't have much flexibility in terms of repricing their external trade. That means pissy voters and a somewhat slower recovery, because trade gains must come from either reductions in base costs or improvements in quality, both of which are harder to realize than to talk about.

On the other hand, these latter things represent fundamental economic improvements, whereas currency revaluation is something of a sleight-of-hand that taxes people indirectly and leads to inflation. But for a politician, that's highly preferable to telling the voters that they are likely to get less and pay more. So, less fun and freedom for euro-zone politicians who have to implement austerity programs and persuade their electorate to deal with financial reality, but (in my opinion) better for their economies over the longer term, as they'll make needed reforms while the Czech Republic and Poland only go through the motions of doing so and carry forward their structural problems.

Sorry that 'summary' is so long - not much of a time saving :-/
I'd never even heard of Lala before Apple bought them. Now, if they purchased and shut down grooveshark, both my mother and I would be grieving.
This is the big problem I have with Tor, and, in particular, with the people who recommend Tor to people with serious privacy needs (such as the Iranian dissidents). A heist like this is possible because putting your traffic on Tor flags it as belonging to a subset of all traffic that is more likely to contain interesting information.

It's the same with the people trying to help Chinese dissidents evade the "great firewall". Maybe you're really helping them evade the firewall. Or, maybe you're helping a savvy government agency zero in on the traffic worth monitoring.

I worry that to the people providing the anonymizing and securing technology, this is a game. It's not for the people using the technology.
4. How easy it would be for Congress to make simple modifications to the patent laws so as to preclude this type of trolling

Considering that you just said one of the top lawyers in the nation has started a "patent portfolio company". I'd imagine his influence in Washington alone would make it pretty damned hard for Congress to do anything. Not to sound crass, but someone who is an enormously ambitious lawyer with a lot of money has the wisdom to understand his control over legal risks like the one the changes you propose. If passing the laws you're suggesting were a possibility, he never would have "gone trolling", so to say.
But what would be the point?

Pro cameras - where you shoot in RAW mode, and do post-processing later at home on your gorgeous widescreen IPS display, curate it, and then upload to your favourite hobbyist sharing site (Flickr, SmugMug, etc). That doesn't really lend itself to requiring a wireless modem.

I can see integration of GPSes into DSLRs - geocoding is a hotly requested feature particularly by hobbyists, but modems?

The absolute top-end Canon cameras have WiFi dongles that can wireless upload photos as they are shot to a storage unit. This is really to facilitate quick review in a studio setting - you aren't tethered by a wire, but can review the photo on a big screen very quickly after a picture without popping the memory card.

But while you're out and about? It seems pointless. The uses of a pro camera do not include "hey guys I'm at a pizza place. Look at the size of this sucker!", which is really where a 3G modem seems useful.
To clarify: on average, over the past 5 years, the estimate is $100 million max per year. Those are great examples but Grockit pulled in $7 million this year. Even if you add in 2tor's anomalous number this year ($22 mln) you still have a way to go to get to $100 mln this year for VC financings.
Stick a fork in them, they are done.
Er, are the videos actually up yet? I can't find any.
There are many excellent diagrams here: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/25/us/20100525-to...
The evolving chaos is able to take out the crawling chaos through improved colonization behavior and the possibility of developing several disparate strains. Haven't tried porting the fixed behaviors back to the crawling chaos and seeing if the "zerg rush" strategy is just better.

http://github.com/swolchok/cells/blob/master/evolving_chaos....
I am not dismissing the importance of what they released. I am hoping that people would see their sensationalist method of reporting.

Take for example the last apache fire video. Its true that it was troubling, its true that it was gruesome and its also true that it will remind people who are otherwise oblivious to the consequences of war, even if it is for a few moments.

But how much value does that piece of video have in changing the perception of public, even after months of hyping ("CIA is following us" on twitter) about it? I suppose not much.

Was this video more significant than the revelation that Iraq never had WMD to begin with? Is this video more significant than Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse? Is this any more significant than 100s of videos you will find online about armies killing Iraqis?

The simple fact is that this single incident is not anymore significant than other 100s of incidents that has been widely reported by mainstream media. People who care, read about it and know about it.

They are certainly not the bad guys but I think wikileaks have questionable ethics and when you have questionable ethics its hard to take you or the news you have seriously, even if the news are exceptional [1]. The idea that they have millions of documents that they can't release because they don't have enough funds is utterly ridiculous. Holy shit, someone tell him about a thing called "torrents".

Their whole point of the sensationalist, biased video release was to get maximum bang for the bucks and get those donations piling up. Which is exactly what happened.

[1] See also: Fox News. (not they are not exceptional, but their occasional truths are lost amid their river of lies)
This looks like an LA billboard version of the campaign...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_GIchwvJ-aNk/S_xoQsYK1kI/AAAAAAAAQ6...

Note to another comment thread on this post that they are advertising a point-and-shoot camera.

Edit: and I noticed the copy along the bottom advertises a touchscreen — that's getting very close to smartphone territory, no?
I'm a web dev freelancer as well.
And here my thoughts and tips.

- First, I don't find it a crazy lifestyle, in fact it changed my life for good. I can manage my schedule, I've no boss, damn I'm my own boss. I can choose who I work with and I get to meet very cool people all around the world. Unlike being stuck in a office, with people that you probably don't even like. Also, I can work in any place in the world, as long as I have a computer + internet connection. Take that you in-house Senior Software Engineer (just kidding)

- However, isolation is your worst enemy, you better have friends you can hang out with at the end of the day, or this can really be a very lonely life.

Organization, you MUST BE FREAKING organized, you must really know you. You need to record everything, working hours, projects timelines. To-do lists will help you a lot on this. Always create for the next day before you go to bed.

Freelancing is great, but there will be times where you will have no projects and no money getting in. So put aside money enough for you to live for at least 4 to 6 month. Have a network of friends who do also freelance, we trade a lot of projects and it's a great help. You can also create a product but just remember that this takes time, and time is money.

Forget bidding boards, really, get the hell out of there. Do you really want to value yourself/compete against to some guy who codes for less than $10 an hour ?
Instead, find job boards, contact clients directly, just don't spam anyone.
If you are good at this, look at yourself as a brand, have a a great portfolio, brand yourself, and price yourself for how good you are. You may not get that "I need a wordpress ninja for custom plugin", but if you are good at it you can get much more reliable clients, and by reliable I include, awesome connections, work, steady projects and cool apps to build.

Last but not least...

Instead of trying to be a swiss army knife, focus on what you are really good, and apply yourself, and be the best you can. This will be your turning point after awhile, believe me.
High Stakes Innovation
Sure. I've worked in manufacturing in the past - in the automotive context. Patents are incredibly important there: the safety regulations and requirements, along with the innate costs of producing a tangible physical product, make it incredibly expensive to bring a new technology to market. Tens, if not hundreds of millions.

If anyone could simply reverse engineer your work and produce it willy nilly, there really would be no incentive to innovate.

The patent system is broken, no doubt about it - but IMHO the view that all patents are evil/useless is myopic, and really only possible from the perspective of someone who doesn't have any experience with fields with high intrinsic costs (e.g., software, where marginal cost is basically nil).
[First off, you’re absolutely right that Winer is obnoxious and in this case pretty clueless. That said...]

> Optics is, more or less, a solved problem. We hit hard physical limits long ago.

This is only true for cameras which are designed around a principle of light passing through a “generalized pinhole” (i.e. go through a lens and are collected as a two-dimensional image in a single frame at the back, without doing any fancy math; the kind of set-up required by, for instance, a process based around film or our current types of digital sensors).

Look to biology though for inspiration and it quickly becomes clear that visual information can be captured in all kinds of ways, with all kind of crazy “eye” designs.

There’s a huge amount of information stored in the light rays passing through a camera which is currently not captured, and the cameras of a few decades from now will blast through all of those “hard physical limits”. We’re going to get much better approximations of actual light spectra coming in, along with information about polarization and distance to the subject; simulate any lens, any aperture, any focal length in software because all of the relevant data will be captured. (In my dreams, anyway, or even maybe my somewhat-informed guesses; we’ll see how well technology actually advances.)

Anyway though, our typical current digital cameras don’t even hit the limits given the traditional/obvious camera design approach: for instance, we currently have three different colors of pixels each of which filters out a different set of wavelengths, meaning we are only capturing a “third” of the information we need to make a metameric match from each point, and just tossing out a bunch of the other photons. That right there is worth a something like 2x improvement in data captured per area.

One last thing: even before we get crazier camera designs, improvements in computer processing speed are going to make it possible to create high-resolution images out of an image captured over time (i.e. a movie processed into a still): we can see the beginnings of this already with those panoramic cameras I’ve been seeing TV commercials for.
pretty sure wikileaks will help you there - http://www.wikileaks.com
But a slogan that boils down to "That is not a real camera, look, it has a ringtone" is pure unadultered nonsense. Whether a camera has or doesn't have a ringtone is no quality to decide whether something is, or is not, a camera!
Why Tinkering Is Always Time Well Spent
In all understanding of the laws of the United States...

Uh, yes, that's what a public company has to do: maximize shareholder value. Now do what real journalists are supposed to do do: break a couple of stupid rules, find a way to get out there, and take some damned pictures. What are they going to do? Shoot down your plane? Seriously.

From the article:

The problem, as many members of the press see it, is that even when access is granted, it’s done so under the strict oversight of BP and Coast Guard personnel. Reporters and photographers are escorted by BP officials on BP-contracted boats and aircraft. So the company is able to determine what reporters see and when they see it.

I mean, what kind of journalist decides because the coastguard stopped you, you're going to sit back and write self-pitying articles like this? Grow some balls, just hide in a fishing boat for all I care, and take some damned pictures.

From the article:

Local fishermen and charter boat captains are also being pressured by BP not to work with the press. Left without a source of income, most have decided to work with BP to help spread booms and ferry officials around. Their passengers used to include members of the press, but not anymore.

How can you take those pictures?

EDIT: I apologize for not being able to properly use the <i> tags, I am in all honesty going through the arc3 code right now and this issue will soon be addressed.

EDIT^2: Many kind thanks to anigbrowl for suggesting the correct formatting!
I’m not an enterpreneur, I’m a dirty hack
Sergey Brin's dad is still a teacher :-)
Optics may well be a solved problem, but I wonder whether cheap sensors and smart software might one day equal or better the image quality performance of traditional optics/sensor technology?
I'd imagine you'd have the best luck finding someone on Craigslist. You can always ask for links to work they've done for other events, and e-mail those organizers to ask about how working with him was.
Here are the APp Engine Videos

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FBF991DAE0E02FED
Dave seems to have kneejerked his way into misunderstanding the ad.

Their sale point is "phone cameras are shit and our camera is better". They're not saying that cameras are bad if they're connected to the world. They're saying that cameras are bad if they take shit pictures.

Having held an HTC Hero and an iPhone, I'm here to say that they're not wrong. Those cameras suck as cameras.
All good points, but can we really afford to be picky when we're job hunting in this economy?
I do suppose a better listing leads to better applicants.
It's pretty sad how strongly the desire to share information inversely correlates with naked financial interest.
How can you take those pictures?

Use your imagination ;)

Edit (for you down-voters): Fine, here's some off the top of my head:

* Rent your own plane and fly over without permission,
* register a fishing company and get a job working for BP,
* find a way to take pictures while avoiding detection, or just
* bribe the fishermen.

These are off the top of my head, I imagine someone whose full time job depends on thinking of them will have many more and better ones.

Edit-reply: you're right about my first example, if violating the FAA regulations is as risky as it sounds. But my larger point, that entrepreneurial journalists should be able to find a low-risk way, stands.
Thanks Jay. I'll take that route if no immediate recommendations come through.
History Crash Course #7: Joseph
My full-time job pays me far too much money to make it worth my time to realistically ever waste it freelancing on the side.

Whenever I do actually sit down and start doing freelance work, it’s at my extremely ridiculous hourly rate. I charge effectively triple my hourly salary just to make it worth my time.

This seems quite self-contradictory. Regardless, I've found that after doing it for a few years, I can make 2-3x more doing freelance than I could in a salary job. All it takes is hustle.
Thanks for sharing the numbers.I have currently around 9,630 page views/ month. Not running any ads yet.
I'm not sure that obstructing the legitimate first amendment rights of the press (which courts have tended to interpret broadly) in pursuit of short-term advantage necessarily maximizes shareholder value. Fighting a lawsuit against multiple news organizations or a class of professional freelance photojournalists could get quite expensive.
If you're going to do it, DO IT! Stop raising money for everything: it's a waste of time.
I agree with your sentiments. TOR is designed for anonymity, not privacy; which is something I think is lost on many people who use it.

If you're transmitting information that is personally identifiable, TOR isn't the means to do it. The issue I see, is that there isn't really a solution for people concerned with that.
I think this is a dangerous platitude:

> Every single thing you build from here on out should have as much quality as you can provide.

On one hand, it would discourage me from just going out and building stuff, to get experience. On the other hand, exceptional circumstances ought to be treated as exceptional. If I'm moving between servers, I'd better triple-check that everything has been moved properly before hitting the switch.
Spyware trojan hitching ride on third-party Mac screensavers
I know that Epicenter is a very popular coffee shop/bar that a lot of coders go to.

Are you looking for a place to work, or to meet people, or what?

And how long are you in town for?
Internet Explorer best at losing, gaining market share
Welcome to Tokyo. Perhaps we'll catch you at the next one then. :-)
You assume there is a causal relationship between intelligence with success and moral fiber.

While there may be some correlation I don't think there is necessarily any causative relation. You also assume the patent and IP law issues have an obvious morally correct stance to everyone else.

I'm not sure either assumption is warranted.
The Eye-fi (wifi radio in a SD card) is cool, I've got a couple, but that isn't the point.

Dave was specifically calling out a line from their ad campaign, saying that real cameras don't have ringtones. He then argues about an entirely unrelated point, that cameras without data connections won't be terribly enticing.

Except that his original point is still there, and still is pretty dumb. Real cameras won't have ringtones, because placing a call to a camera is a bad feature, that nobody wants.

A camera that has a wifi radio, though, is a cool feature, which everyone wants, which is why Nikon made a wifi attachment for their pro DSLR line. It's called the WT-4/4a, and they released it in 2007.

(Of course, being Nikon, they charge $700 for it, but that's another matter.)
asterisks at the beginning and end of your emphasis worthy text will make it italic. No spaces next to the asterisks or * this happens.
Grooveshark will give you 1 Month of VIP if you are a Lala user.
http://vip.grooveshark.com/lala
The flight ban is also being enforced by the FAA. Probably difficult to find a pilot willing to put their career at risk. I'm not clear why my tax dollars via the FAA should be used to fund the PR response of a public company.
Are there python version issues ? On my 2.5, it says

File "cells.py", line 205, in get_view
next

NameError: global name 'next' is not defined

(had to patch the math.copysign() in the original version as well, as it only exists from 2.6 on)

Edit:
works with continue.
Don't Get a Patent, Build a Lead
Agreed, like I said in my last comment, it all comes down on how you see yourself in the market and how good you are at it.
If you are good and you get the job done, clients will pay anything.
I think it's always important to be picky. I have taken jobs in desperation before and they've always turned out poorly. In my mind, it's not worth the cost to be too open and take jobs that are obviously bad matches; it just results in a lot of emotional and mental anguish, until you finally make yourself quit, and then you're back on the street. It's better just to keep looking until you find something that works.
try http://www.filmfinancing.org/ - they stage small meetups in NY, SF and LA (mainly the big 2), which usually attract 10-20 indie producers and several current or prospective investors. The small size makes networking pleasant and painless.
Molecular Biology Freeware
Toothbrushing Good For The Heart
> riotous celebration

Well, maybe. There are diminishing returns on increasing cache sizes (you solve the capacity misses but don't really deal with compulsory and conflict misses)...though it would be impressive an impressive feat of process technology. The closest to that amount at the moment I believe is IBM's Power 7, which has a 30MB on-die L3 implemented in eDRAM.
The congressional testimony has good diagrams, and The Oil Drum has reproduced a lot of them, amidst good discussion. (Of course, other missing information has contributed to the multitude of plausible-sounding theories about what is actually going on.) http://www.theoildrum.com/
IsoHunt Lite › the BitTorrent & P2P search engine
I would agree that that's the perception, and certainly the case with some of their products (I'm thinking of IE and Vista, among others), but Windows 7, Xbox Live, Zune music software, and the ZuneHD/Windows 7 Phone Series are all pretty darn good products. Oh, and Bing. Bing is actually great. That's not to say they're going to be successful, but they've definitely been innovating in recent years. They've simply been eclipsed by both Apple and Google in the media.

And I have a hard time agreeing the horizon is bleak when they still have like 80-90% marketshare in desktop OSs, Office Suite, and Exchange. I work with Dynamics AX at work, something no one's ever heard of, and it makes them like a billion dollars a year in revenue.

It does look bleak on the mobile and tablet horizons, which are certainly the growth markets, but I'm not ready to write off Microsoft there yet. Perhaps Windows 7 Phone Series will bomb and perhaps not, but they started off in the hole on desktop OSs and word processing and spreadsheets as well. And they succeeded there with inferior products for the most part.

Personally, I'm cheering for the Google model over the MSFT and Apple models. But none of them seem to be facing an early 90's Apple-style crash anytime soon. Should be fun to watch any way it turns out, though.
Optics is a solved problem. Optics. I said optics, not "cameras", or "photography".

Plenoptic cameras are cool, and have a bunch of neat features, but each camera element still uses traditional lenses, made of specially shaped transparent materials, whose fundamental design has not changed in four hundred years. There's been a lot of neat hacks on the basic idea (achromatic lenses, etc) but nothing new. Except superlenses, but you'll never see a macroscopic superlens, so it's useless for photography.
Documentation and imagination crucial to SVG
Liquidity is a decent point.

R&D is very risky. A company invests a lot of money into R&D. A large part of this money produces no return. Some of this money may yield patents. A liquid market means that a company can take some of these patents (which may be worth nothing in an illiquid market) and convert them into cash. Liquidity increases return on a firm's investment into R&D and so may have the consequence of incentivizing corporate research spending.