skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The lack of encryption could be a resource constraint, or it could be that getting encryption right[1] would have prevented it from shipping, or it could be that they believe that trying to do a "Secure FaceTime" will retard adoption of the protocols (which, it probably would).

I have an iPhone and bought it with eyes wide open about needing to honor the contract it came with, and so I'm watching the jailbreaker battle from the sidelines... and I'm cheering Apple on, not because I care one way or the other about unlocked phones, but because the arms race is fun to watch, and you kind of want to see the people who assume Apple can't win it get some comeuppance.

[1] Lots of AV and telephony systems try to do secure calls with encryption and they routinely screw it up.
It's quite fitting. John Gruber is the Fox and Friends of the tech industry.
Are you a "customer" if you exchange something of value for a service?

I think you are. By this definition, I am a customer of Google, as is anyone in this thread who uses a Google service.

But I am not the final arbiter of meaning. The downvotes to my comment show that I am clearly wrong on this subject.
They look reasonably better on Mac. But Chrome has known rendering issues. Safari (Mac) makes that page look quite pretty.
One time I was working with a coworker on a UUV on the manufacturing floor. I paused to look something up on my Android and I told him "I love this -- it's like a secondary brain in my pocket."

Guy from manufacturing happens along. "I've got a secondary brain in my pocket too. It gets me in trouble most of the time."
EBay Acquires RedLaser, Barcode-Scanning iPhone Application
CTIA won't hold conference in San Franciscos after radiation legislation
No need to apologize. This is 1.0., if any community can understand, it's this one :)

Interestingly enough, I was up late last night looking for a simple and collaborative task/project management solution - and here you are. Excited to try it out.
1) Att already knows where you are. Its called cellphone towers :) Your approximate location is known.

2) As if google maps or any other google service does not collect data on you. So theres nothing special about this.

3) OTA updates is a brilliant idea. They want to lock their crap down, sorry no hacking. They want to make it as difficult as possible. Only affects people who don't abide by the EULA. Wait you do want to install ur own crap and not abide by apple's istore policies? Get an android or stfu I guess.
Steven if you search HN you will probably find a link to a standard NDA. However, almost anyone on this site will tell you that most Angels or VCs do not sign NDAs. If you are a Canadian I can send you one I have on file.
Do I need tin-foil hat or should I call this a hit-piece on Apple?
The timing of this is unfortunate.

I imagine that there is a way to prevent the "post via email" hack demonstrated last week but I haven't seen an official response from Posterous (they could send me an email?) which says to me that they don't take the threat seriously.

I enjoyed having Posterous feed my entire online presence (twitter, facebook, etc.) but I turned this all off in the wake of the exploit.

I'm sure there is a way to "fix" this, but I don't have time to try and figure it out myself; so it's easier to just turn it off until Posterous has time to tell me how to do it.

Now we have this marketing campaign and a "we're the greatest" and "we can do everything" attitude; it feels very "going Facebook" to me...

I think it's time to go find "the next".
YouTube Wins Viacom Case - Big Victory for UGC Sites
My first programming job after graduation had a paid Saturday requirement that crept in a couple of months after I started. I think I was the only one that said no to it. I didn't even think twice about the decision and Mondays felt a lot better from my perspective.
Yeah the guy with the self written score board for his kills.. o.O After this i also thougt Reiser could be one of the next.

But i think one can tell the difference:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/Hans_Reis...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Reiser_mu...
I'd usually flag for lack of hack, but I have to admit this presentation is innovative and serves a worthwhile public purpose by making the information so accessible.
More talking about actual history such as 19th century Europe.

However this memo is dated as August '06 so we can assume that it happened sometime earlier that summer. From this google finance chart: http://bit.ly/ar1PSo it shows the massive dip the company took in July of the same year.

Aside from all that, actions like this will bite you in the ass in one form another. I doubt many visitors to hacker news hold CEO Neal L. Patterson in high regard after this.
once a person connects to another person on FaceTime it for some reason non of us in the office can figure out, sends us APPLE a message and says those two people are connecting via Facetime and gives out their location to us. So for whatever reason we need that information just blows my mind. As a consumer why would you need to let Apple know that you are connecting with a person via FaceTime, its non of Apple’s business.

That seems pretty bad.
FaceTime and the iPod Touch
I think it is. Task: build a nice app with a lot of pics :)
Why? Every time I log into AIM I tell AOL where I am too.
Location information could be used to connect people to a server that gives them a better connection. Not necessarily an evil thing.
As an IT guy hailing from the general area that Cerner calls home, I can honestly say this is where hackers' souls go to die.
It should be, actually, if it's going to be fast. Memcached is fast because it optimizes interaction with the I/O layers -- you can't stay portable if you do that.

EDIT: Actually, you can use libevent for some subset of these cases and get speed+portability, but I'm pretty sure memcached predates libevent by quite a bit so they're not. So there's your answer.
This memo is really from 2003 according to one commenter on the Technocrat page claiming to have worked there. If thats true, Cerner stock is up over 600% since - Dow is up 16%. Well...
That is why all of my contracts are time and material. There are just too many variables for a small 1-2 man freelance outfit to try to manage x amount of people to get input to me. So Time and Materials makes it fair.

If they are pressed for time to get it out the door and crack the whip on their team, then I am right there with them and I don't have to worry about burning through my budget due to untold changes.

Or if they are not in a hurry, I am not in a situation where I have taken money and am now slaved to a contract. If they leave me with down time that I am eating, I can adjust other project priorities and start the clock again when they are ready.

This works out well for both sides because if you get a wishy-washy client that changes everything every two days, they know that they are running the clock, if you are on a time and materials contract. With a fixed price contract, well it's a lot of fighting over whats in or whats out, either that or you eat some time.

Conversely, if they are a more laid back client and they are taking time to get back to you, you can stop the clock for them and work on other stuff.

When, I used to take fixed price, It created a bad environment in both situations, I felt like the picky micro-managers where riding me for every free cent they could get and I felt like, I was racing the clock, always chasing the laid back guy, so that I could get the project done, as the money was now in the past.

Since I set my own personal rule of not fixed price, my client relationships are better, they are getting higher quality work, and they are happy with what they get because it forces the decision on them as to whether the application is good enough for them or whether the want to spend the money, to change the feature, from what they thought the wanted, to what they really want.
+1 firefox. I've been resisting Chrome because they don't care about script blocking API.

No chrome until noscript!
I'll believe the intermittent mandatory updates when I see them.
I took an interest in clothing when I realized clothing is another way to communicate. The programmer who doesn't care about clothing is not far removed from the programmer who doesn't care about small talk or politeness because it "doesn't mean anything".

In particular, one important thing clothing does is guide the eye of the viewer. Why are graphic tees unprofessional? Because they are distracting to the viewer. Why are suits professional? Because the details--lapels, tie, collar, padded shoulders--naturally bring the eye to the wearer's head, making him the center of attention.

Presentation is important, and affects the perceived content of that which is being presented. It puzzles me that many good programmers understand this about everything except clothing. If one were making a web site, the importance of color coordination would be obvious. Why do programmers so often neglect it when dressing one's very person?
Boiling tumblr to a set of bullet points /entirely/ misses the point.
Ask HN: Working 40+ hours/week in a corporate setting?
Seems that there's been a lot of posts about working 40+ hour work weeks for large companies that treat their employees like shit on HN recently.

I wonder how many on this board have found themselves in similar situations and why we continue to let ourselves get pulled into these situations in the first place. I don't like throwing words out there like unionizing but isn't that what people do in face of unfair labor practices?
I totally understand this in southwest states like Arizona and New Mexico, where water conservation is really important. But the bulk of the country essentially has infinite, cheap water. It doesn't make sense to me why you would need this in Iowa.
I think you are going overboard about the 'offensive slur'. If you replace 'fan boys' with 'uncritical supporters' or 'evangelical fans' then the point stands. If you are arguing that there doesn't exist a certain grouping of uncritical and fanatical Apple fans then state your case. You may find this notion unflattering and disagreeable but it is a legitimate argument regardless of whether you happen to find it offensive. Don't think you are going to kill discussion of it by repeating the word 'offensive slur'.

Secondly the original comment said a lot more than just that phrase which makes your argument incorrect, worse than than content free.
Bucky Fuller invented one in the '40s.
I'd actually like to take a step back from the hate-fest going on in the comments here and evaluate this. Before you downvote me, at least read what I have to say.

This email is a classic example of poor communication. It's very clear that the guy is frustrated and is taking it out via an emotional response. However, we don't know the whole story here, do we? From my reading, it sounds like this has been an ongoing problem for awhile now. Keep in mind that this was in 2001, not exactly an easy time to be running a software company. I can imagine the frustration of running a large company with thousands of employees and seeing a lack of results, coupled with evidence of employees not spending much time at work. What would you do in such a case? Not necessarily with regard to the email, which I think we can all agree was in poor taste, but with regard to the actions he says he's going to take.

Additionally, we don't know if this memo did in fact kill morale at the company. We know that the company has done well over the last nine years, and that Mr. Patterson was recently honored as one of the best bosses in the country. The Wikipedia entry specifically mentions the metric of great performance relative to compensation, so he's obviously creating value.

I guess my point is that everyone makes mistakes, especially when they're frustrated and facing a large problem. And make no mistake, managing a software company with several thousand people in 2001 would be a challenge. I'm not saying this was the right approach, but what exactly would you do? And more importantly, if you've never faced management at that scale, why do you think it would be more effective than his approach?
Thanks :)

If you get a sec, do you think you contact me off list alex@taskforceapp.com so I can try to debug it?
"Ideal" probably needs to be approached with as much caution as "never."
I'm a happy Tumblr user. What does Posterous offer that Tumbler doesn't?
Did Posterous stop inserting affiliate links? And if not, did they end up officially informing their users?
"The lack of encryption is a shame, though"

To be fair, they are not the only ones who don't consider this a priority:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126102247889095011.html
Spotify finall opens to indie bands
>I believe it's been shown that when you try to reward/punish some metric of productivity, invariably the employees will begin to maximize that metric, perhaps at the expense of productivity.

After years of direct involvement in measuring productivity, I would accept that as a general axiom. I've likened it to badly applied wallpaper: push down a bubble and it just pops up somewhere else.
I agree. I also wonder who this blog post is written to. On the surface, it seems like it's written to tumblr users, to introduce them to posterous, but I don't think they'd assume that the best way to get tumblr users to switch is to insult them. (Unlike a car owner to whom a car dealer says something like, "Tired of driving that old clunker? Need a new car?", people are not limited by their budget when choosing a free blogging tool.)
Hardware DRM. Yummy.
I hear tin-foil is coming back into style.
This plays very nicely with zoom in / out on Firefox too.
I find this happens to web development contracts too. Kind of frightening how closely they map, actually (though I'd add a few extra weeks for poorly-defined & extra features they forgot in the beginning). Good times.
The Froyo Code Drop
Simple... the fairly normal looking ones are the killers, and the creepy looking ones are the programmers.
Browsing the store does not send them location information except for an IP address. The system never requests location information without giving a confirmation dialog first.

This hasn't ever changed and I don't see why it would have. The only thing that has changed is that you read a misleading article.
And it looks great on firefox and uzbl (webkit) on linux. The font problem is hardly the fluid's fault.
Thanks for the Plancast/Meetup tips. A startup event sounds interesting indeed, although I'm not quite sure I can convince my GF to join me in visiting one :) A lunch meet up sounds nice as well, if there's time I might just shoot you that email. Thanks again!
Somewhat, perhaps, more cumbersome, but very workable, is to hire yourself a personal shopper for a day. Those are available at all major cities.

That person will guide you throughout the day while you go out and buy the stuff society at large would like to see you wear. End the day with a visit to a, from them, suggested barber and you're set.
For sightseeing, most of SV is nondescript -- office parks, suburbia, strip retail. It's just the concentration of recognizable tech names, and a few signature campuses, that will catch your eye.

In the valley, the Computer History Museum, the Stanford Campus (and nearby Palo Alto), Fry's Electronics (especially the flagship store in Sunnyvale), and Weird Stuff (also Sunnyvale) could be worthwhile stops to get the regional vibe.

The recommendation to look up overlapping events and attend those is a good one: their frequency and quality is one key to the tech scene.

In San Francisco, a walk around the Moscone Conference Center area will get you a feel for where decades of tech conferences have happened. A couple blocks away is the SF Apple Store -- though nowadays Apple's stores elsewhere are larger and more distinctive. A few blocks in the other direction from Moscone is a very high concentration of software/media/social startups (SOMA/South Park/etc.), though the buildings are mostly nondescript. The Presidio in north SF is park-like, along the bay with great views of the Golden Gate, and features Lucasfilm/Lucasarts offices, with statues of pioneers of movies, TV, and the Force.

Not precisely 'silicon valley', but still part of the bay area science/tech/startup scene, the Berkeley campus area across the bay is also a nice stop for many.
Not quite sure that some of this adds up.

The leaker works in the iPhone Development Department, yet "no one in the office" can figure out why the phone signals back to Apple when a Facetime session is started?

The leaker doesn't have access to the source code? Or doesn't know who would have implemented such a feature?

Or is this person simply not a developer?
I guess Lombroso was wrong then...
The CEO should be required to go to Kansas City and work alongside the employees who he thinks are slacking off. That includes being in by 8am, staying late every night, and coming in on Saturdays. Everyday, he cannot leave until all of the employees leave, and while he's there he must help do the actual work that needs doing so badly. He cannot leave Kansas City until the productivity levels rise to his liking.

After all, if he thinks this is reasonable for his employees, he should lead by example.
We were just outside the "secure zone" for the G20 when we felt the rumbling and shaking. Two large U.S. military/governmental helicopters (they said "United States of America" on the side) were taking off from just beside the CN Tower. Man those Americans have powerful helicopters we thought.
Flickr Gets More Photogenic With A Complete Photo Page Overhaul
> That seems pretty bad.

It's required so you can map phone numbers to the other person's IP address. I assume it's also used for STUN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STUN).

(This is just me guessing, of course, but the "don't automatically assume a huge conspiracy theory" method almost always ends up with me being right, so there.)
Tumblr can import all these things, any RSS feed you throw at it.
I'll be there.
PhoneHalo uses Bluetooth to protect your phone and your belongings.
Although I thought the insistence on running pipes was a waste, it turned out at my university to be a good thing they installed the pipes (capped off initially) even though they were installing waterfree urinals, because after they kept clogging up and cost way more in maintenance costs than they were saving in water, they switched back to low-flush urinals. If they hadn't run the capped-off pipes initially, they would've been stuck.
I think the moral of the story is that stock prices are a pretty bad way to gauge employee morale.
Have you ever been around senior management of a larger company? Everyone I have met works at least 10 hours a day, and often more. Except for vacation days perhaps, but even then they are still tied to the laptop and phone.
"Radiohead makes most of its income by touring, so even if they lose money on the album, but get more popular, they can just go on tour. A restaurant has no other way to get that money back."

This is the crucial point. The Radiohead model is not applicable because for them the albums is a publicity machine that feeds into their real business: concerts, memorabilia, etc. Think Google, every free service/tool/platform they offer funnels into their main search business.

I think for big chain restaurants, like Panera, this may make sense. The loss they suffer from 2-3 stores is more than offset by the huge publicity they gain, but they cannot do it widely. For small unknowns it doesn't make sense to do it continuously but they make try it for short periods of time. Similar to how small businesses tolerate Groupon's huge 50% commission.

Doing this as a short (e.g. 2-3 month) experiment also gives you an excellent indicator of the perceived value of your service.
Wow, your mom is super-savvy compared to my folks. My mom and dad, bless their hearts, have a lot of trouble with the notion of applications/programs. They don't see applications, they only see things to do. As in:

- Double click (they double click or triple click everything, i.e click till it does something) a certain icon to video chat with us.

- Another icon to send email (a bookmark to gmail)

Even in something like Skype, finding the Chat window (the one you type into) while video chatting is a struggle every time. That skype has a proliferation of tabs and buttons doesn't help, but the idea is that the _vocabulary_ to deal with this sort of thing isn't known to them. I often end up getting frustrated trying to help them do something, and that's when they are already on a video chat with me.

Personally, this sort of thing is very saddening. That I cannot talk to them about the internet (outside of mail and video chat), that they may not fully realize the extent of human accomplishment in the age the live in, is heartbreaking to me. Bad software interfaces are excluding entire generations of human beings from learning about and using technology effectively.
Despite having the word "Oprah" in the title this is one of the best "hacker" stories I've seen here in a while.

Particuarly how the votes "slowed down" at the removal of the suspect code, amazingly good reverse-engineering on their end.
We do it to ourselves.

We enjoy and take pride in our work. So it's already breached our defenses. If we didn't care, it would be that much easier to say "not my problem" and leave at 5:00.
1. open webkit browser (safari or chrome)
2. go to new photo page
3. click on photo
4. look at url

Has webkit introduced a way to modify the url without adding a hash character? As far as I was aware you could only dynamically change things past a #
In fact, you can completely disable location services with one switch. (Settings --> General --> Location Services --> Off)

If you prefer a more granular approach, all apps (including Apple's own), allow you to disable location services for that app alone. In addition, all 3rd party apps, on first requesting location data, require the user to explicitly opt-in.
London
Open Market (formerly MX Telecom)

Mobile messaging and payments, might be your cup of tea....

http://www.mxtelecom.com/uk/careers/roles/softdev
http://www.zazzle.ca/2010_toronto_earthquake_tshirt-23500711...

From earthquake to t-shirt in an hour and a half. What a world we live in. (not my shirt)
It didn't quite surprise me that this was based on one German engineer's ideas. We're really crazy about our toilets. (Ever seen the fabled "poo shelf"?)
Maybe the casual or sloppy dress is intentional, and, like your dress, is meant to send signals?
I imagine when FaceTime makes the jump to 3G we'll see a "send my location" feature. Would also be handy for use in voice calls too.
Doesn't work very well in Safari: http://cl.ly/1SFj

(The font is a result of a Safari Extension that changes the default font to Helvetica Neue; it's not a rendering problem)
rga.com has been doing this on their main site for a while now
BMO Capital Releases G20 Country-by-Country Fiscal Positions
If you need to do some work while you're here, you can also check out the Hacker Dojo in Mountain View, CA. They have co-working facilities (for free) and also hold events on occasion:

http://wiki.hackerdojo.com/