skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The expense of going with a cloud solution is huge if you have a complicated deployment stack and large hardware requirements. my startup will easily grow into the single 8gig/1tb quad core box we are colocating, and far exceed it when we start seeing some real traffic. From what I expect to need in hardware, I would be sitting at over $3k a month in expense moving to Rackspace Cloud. Ignoring upfront cost of the servers, around $10k, colocating will only run me about $300 a month. I understand you don't have to worry about hardware issues, but I could literally hire a sysadmin to worry about hardware issues for that kind of money. It just doesn't make sense outside of well funded startups or established businesses.
I can't seem to replicate on a Debian unstable box, where pam hasn't been updated since April [0], but I don't have an Ubuntu box handy to verify that I'm properly trying to exploit it.

[0]: http://packages.qa.debian.org/p/pam.html
What year in college are you now? Is 12-months on track to graduate with a CS degree?
If your a startup founder and a father of 3, you can look forward to these type of battles...http://founderhood.com
Mis-titled: correct summary is I got ripped off by a combination of an App that was deceptive about in game currency and forgot to turn off in-App purchasing (in fact still seem to have not done that).
I find it ironic that we techies select the cloud mostly for technical reasons when the economic argument is equally compelling if not more
I am my Web Host
Is there a WePay Facebook app yet?
Done: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1498399

If there is anything else you want to know about it, well.. you know the drill :)
Is this indicative of a trend, or of users going "hey, I've never seen an ad here before, what's that all about?"
How close to 'same time' were the two received? Did the text have any errors or hints that it was sent by a human and not computer-generated?
Might this app be winning installs as the first iAd demo -- with its LED flashlight feature merely an afterthought?

And, are the ads for physical flashlights? Carrots?
They will lose. Firefox came to prominence because the previously popular open-source browser Mozilla was bloated and arrogant. Now they are in that position.
Curious, why are they expensive to operate?

How about building a hybrid of airship and plane? Make it more maneuverable than airship with the extra power from solar energy and staying up longer than a plane. It's possible for a robotic hybrid airship to stay up for months and years. Rest floating to suck up solar power when it runs low on energy, then move on when the power is charged up. If it caught up in a gulf stream, just let it ride out the stream to go around the Globe.

It would be interesting to see these Solar Birds floating in the sky. (Ha, I even got the name for them. Someone grabs some funding quick to get it going.)
It is my impression that they do care but they don’t know what to do about it. They are overwhelmed.

Many see the news reports about Google and Facebook and are genuinely concerned yet unable to understand the technical details that would allow them to make informed decisions about what to do. They feel discomfort and would be very happy if you explained to them in plain native_language what happens and why.

I wouldn’t expect very many people to be all that concerned if you told them what kind of data Google collects – but they would be more than happy to get rid of the discomfort.
I guess I can take a hint. :/

Apparently not.

Have you contacted the administration about this? Maybe there was a review process, maybe there was a mistake, etc... A thread like this is not the way to deal with such a problem. You've now created duplicate accounts, posted a rant about the site, etc... You're not helping yourself.

Muting users without telling them

In my experience, that's one of the most effective practices (not at HN - at a programming forum I help run). It is rude, I agree, and I've only seen it done in extreme cases, but if someone is trolling, telling them they're banned only makes them create a second account so they can start trolling about the ban. Kind of like this.
Report on iAd
I wonder how legal it is to accept donations for beer brewing supplies from my friends "in exchange" for the beers I provide for them. The donation jar on top of the kegerator works, but a lot of people don't carry cash these days. I guess I'll find out.
Dumb question - what's PAM? To me that means "phone as modem"...
Based on your theory of genetic difference, this isn't necessarily sound advice. "White" and "Indian" are not distinct genetic groups . The genetic distance between a Swede and a Czech (both white) is bigger than the distance between a "white" southern european and someone from northern india.
Good points. You are right about being able to consume before registering. We added some popular users on the homepage to help out with that, we'll add a feed for popular/latest posts as well.

I have an account on Howl, its http://www.howl.com/cory

There is a search actually, but you currently need to be logged in to use it. I think we can port that to our homepage as well, along with the leaderboard so its accessible to everyone. Thanks for the tips!
Sweet. The 924S was greatly underrated in my opinion. I have an '87 that was my previous autocrosser but is in need of new struts, which are pretty expensive (more than I paid for the car).
while I agree in this case, I disagree to your blanket rule. Hacker News is a great place to promote interesting articles that may not be seen otherwise. I've discovered many interesting wikipedia articles from HN
Pluggable Authentication Modules. It's an auth framework used by many Linux distributions.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluggable_Authentication_Module... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_PAM
Fair enough. You're right. Why waste my time? The holier than thou attitude here is fitting for /r/circlejerk and I've been particularly irked about it lately. I'll delete this thread in a few minutes. I get what I need from my twitter feed anyway.
Our first 30 beta testers were all Y Combinator founders

This seems like a powerful feature of YC!
Someone pointed out in a previous thread that HTTP status code 503 is "service unavailable". I think the 503 number is just a prank, and apparently a very successful one.
Monads and Coordinate Systems
Trying to figure out if my dream job really exists anywhere.

I am trying to move from pure coding to a job that combines coding with traveling and dealing directly with technical stakeholders. It seems in most companies the people who are responsible for the latter do very little, if any, of the former.

Figure I will put another 1-3 years trying to find this position at an existing company, and if that doesn't pan out, I'll just start my own company designed around letting me do exactly that. :)
It seems Apple is calculating eCPM off of the impressions actually shown, not the number of requests made. Since the fill rate was only 34.9%, I'd argue the actual eCPM for this developer is $51.49, not the reported $147.55.

These are still impressive numbers. It's clearly 'get as much money as fast as you can while advertisers are still being irrational' time.
I am still in a job that I hated like anything when I had to join it two year ago. I couldn't join Grad school this summer due to lack of money. So here are my goals in order of priority:
1. Build a small webapp so that first of all I can quit my job and have time to hack on what I like.
2. Get admission to a good Grad school next fall with full funding.
3. loose all the fat (a lot of it) that I have gained in past few years.
4. Make extra money to buy a Royal Enfield Bullet classic (any MotorCycle enthusiasts from India here ?) and go on a countrywide motorcycle trip of India.
Please pardon my ignorance, but what is iAds?
AFAIK 'donate' buttons have never proved successful. People don't like paying for stuff they can have for free
Social Status and the Malleability of Personality
I've recently been introduced to this sexy side of business too.

I havent had a chance to read it myself, but i was recommended a book called "competing for analytics" by Davenport.

Maybe that will be of use to you? (Are you on GoodReads incidentally?)
Very nice feature, I didn't know about it. Thanks a lot for sharing! Hands-down, my favorite feature in Windows 7 is the ability to drag a window to the screen edges for a similar effect.
I wasn't being hostile (this time), I was just having a little fun.

What you're grappling with here is basically the "I don't know what I don't know" problem. Other people on HN have talked about this before, but basically, there's the knowledge you know, the knowledge you know you don't know, and the knowledge that you don't know you don't know. How can you possibly begin to challenge an assertion in a scientific paper if you don't even know where the mistakes might be?

(I'm going through something similar right now in a criminal case. I have no background in law. I do not trust the attorneys involved. It's maddening.)

I agree that it would be nice if as a matter of habit there were a brief statement in papers and presentations outlining incomplete areas of the research or areas justifying further study. However, I would not want that to evolve into an onus on the part of the working scientists to educate every layman with a passing interest in their research.

If you really want to challenge something in a specific field, the best thing you can do is immerse yourself in that field for as long as it takes to develop an understanding of the basic principles. Demanding much else is merely intellectual laziness.
Should have started long back ....but better late than never.
Ask HN: how could email be better?
How could email be better?

Right now a lot of people just leave emails unread and then come back to them. This seems inefficient.

Does treatment of emails depend on what kind of email you receive? (e.g. facebook messages vs. broadcast emails) Meaning it needs to be split up more?
Things You Did Not Know About Monkey Island
This is the Internet. Knowledge abounds. Your ignorance is not pardoned.
ICON Aircraft: Sport Flying Revolution
Are you building an R&D lab or a business
Timekeeping in the Interplanetary Internet
Facebook acquires Nextstop
I am on Ubuntu 10.04, what do I need to do besides updates and "proper" use to remain safe? I don't have an antivirus or anything of that sort!
A coworker once came up to me with their million dollar iPhone idea, and I had to tell her it had already been invented by George Costanza. Then we found http://www.sitorsquat.com/ after 2 minutes of Google research and she was severely disappointed.
Michael Arrington: "We Need More Opinion In News, Not Less"
Agreed Spaced repetition is way to go for what he wants to accomplish.

I like the way Anki manages cards.
But prefer the Mnemosyne's spacing algorithm.
Check out valemount networks, they specialize in that sort of thing.

http://www.staros.com/
I had that gig for a while.

I was a consultant working on Business Intelligence and found a niche in automating rights management.

After a couple of years the travel got old (and there were some not fun projects in there too).
I had a conversation with the best banker I know about BankSimple. This is a guy that founded a bank in a major US city that had absolutely -0- non-performing loans, through the crisis. That is amazing when you compare it to the rest of the banks in our nation. The only one that come close in terms of performance/size is First Long Island. Here's what the banker said about these online bank start ups:

"One of the main problems with "online" banks is how do they make money. Most if not all have loan volume from somewhere else and are trying to find deposits to fund it - ING is an example. They try the internet route instead of opening expensive branches. ING has kind of dropped off the radar lately because they have credit problems (and I think it is a Dutch bank and you have
read about the European problems).

If these people want to start an internet bank with no fees and make it up on the NIM, they need to invent a way to get people to borrow on the internet. No one has been able to do that yet with the exception of some payday lenders. Also,
most of the internet banks so far have competed on price. They offer higher rates - which tend to attract "rate-shoppers". If they are not the highest rate, the rate-shopper will go wherever the highest rates are."

For a start up, I'm not sure if they will be able to compete on price. Banks like Wells Fargo benefit from their economies of scale because they are able to gather cheap deposits by cross-selling products (which is attributed to their success).
Assuming you're still using the default package mirrors, updating is sufficient.
So where is MS's Facebook? Where is MS's Google Voice? Where is MS's Yelp? Where is MS's Netflix? Where is MS's JumboTron API? Where is MS's line of televisions? Where is even an MS computer?

And noting the network effect doesn't mean that companies won't user other means to stop their competition. For example, try to get Lebron James to wear shoes you make. Not going to happen. I don't care how comfortable your shoes are. Also, try getting your shoes into FootLocker. Also, not so easy, and Nike won't lubricate the process for you either.

Try getting Starbucks to open up a kiosk in your building with a Seattle's Best right next to it. Starbucks has enough influence that they can use other means, besides network effect, to push out competition.

Network effects are a beautiful thing to leverage. Actually I think MS is in trouble, because it has very little of it. Compared to Facebook or Apple. Google is trying to strengthen their network effect.

But again, there's a fundamental difference between trying to create and leverage network effects. And what you're saying, which is to simply disrupt any other company.
This is not a donate button.

Donate buttons are complicated and require you to make all those decisions. With Flattr you have to decide once how much you would like to give per month and that’s that. One decisions and you can click away. It’s hassle free.

I don’t think we know why people don’t like donate buttons and your hypothesis (“People don't like paying for stuff they can have for free.”) might be wrong. Maybe all that’s needed is making donating easier. Maybe not.
Kin could have very deep and lasting repercussions

I agree...hearing about the cancellation of KIN completely turned me off of Windows Phone 7. My last 2 phones have been Windows mobile phones, but I just jumped ship for Android with the HTC Evo. Microsoft is on shaky ground with Mobile.
It depends on how you define 'successful.' Most people have the metric wrong, which would be conversions. The correct metric is, "Do I make enough to pay for the effort and time doing this?"
I haven't, sadly. My coach is reading it now, so hopefully I'll get a loan when he finishes it. And thanks!
I will do that. Thanks!
He missed a big one, sadly.

Here's what I've learned about business, and it applies universally to pretty much everything.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/33/Project_Triang...
Well I know people who have been smoking for well over 25 years (me) and I can tell you the bud I buy for $100 an eighth is Amsterdam Cup quality.

And $50 has been the norm for an eighth in NYC for the last 10+ years.

It's still outrageous though. I used to buy similar quality for $450 an oz. That guy is doing 15 years now though.
Correct. The _type_ for main would be (is)

func(int, *[]byte) int

but the function _declaration_ should be (by the logic of the article and the stated intentions of their design decisions)

main func(argc int, argv *[]byte) int

and not

func main(argc int, argv *[]byte) int

because the variable name should come first as in

x int

and not

int x

In this way I fee that they have, if not failed, at least deviated from their stated or implied mission. But you're right, the type reads left to right.
Can she be a partner in your company too?
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/design_hell
I have now done the same search query.

Get a bunch of other people on board, and you'll have crowdsourced your privacy. :)
Will New Radiation Labels Affect Mobile Phone Sales?
Are you sure he wasn't talking about front-office vs. back-office?
That testCases trick is pretty neat.
PAM lets you among other things, define new methods of authenticating the user - for example, if I wanted to make my computer log me on whenever it saw my Bluetooth phone in range, I'd write a PAM module
Yet another new technology that would have ruined the plot of any Seinfeld episode. Like the cell phone, for example...
If your answer to number 1 is not 100%, you are going to be letting them down in some way. (Or at least feel that way) Trust me, they will own you, being your #1 priority for the next 5 years at least.
Ask HN: Have any of you successfully tried the whole social skydiving thing ? 
have any of you actually tried to successfully get out of your introverted/shy self ?

i feel extremely frustrated as i am not really able to sustain a conversation with anyone or everyone i meet nowadays. (exception: some friends from back in school)

i read the social skydive blog posts, and tried to give it a try, but it was a complete failure. (are there books on how to learn small talk?)

i have only dated/been in a relationship with one girl, and that was in high school(it lasted 2+ years). i am now 24, and i work for myself (web.design, nothing too fancy), and i have been
extremely frustrated.

for the past couple of days, all i did was watch soccer, work on some projects, and read a lot of material on the fastseduction website. its not so much about girls, i find myself unable to have a decent conversation even with guys.

i thought i had some psychological problem, and went to see a doctor, and i was able to talk to her, and after mentioned everything, she did not diagnose me with all the problems that i thought i could have had, and she said i was fine, and that i need to get out more often. i am going to see another doctor next week, but in the mean time i was wondering whether any of you have had similar experiences, and how you dealt with it. i also read up a lot of the fast.seduction link that i found on some old post that wasn't completely related to my situation, and it seems too good to be true.

i would love any feedback. its friday and i am probably going to just get out of my apartment for exercise, and may be groceries.

please help.

*throwaway account
I'm really all about Flattr. I wrote a blog post about it when it was announced. Big wins, as far as I'm concerned:

* By being subscription based, it's 'set it and forget it.'
* By introducing an upper limit, I don't have to worry about overspending my budget.
* Flattr's model appeals to me: if I upvote fewer things, they mean more. Sounds about right.
* One click donations are so much easier than trying to find and pull out my credit card.

I really hope they do well.
This article raises some fair points, but it comes off as a bit biased and compares extremes a few times.

"Geographic Redundancy and Diversity

The Cloud Way: The cloud out of the box gives you the power to instantiate your services in geographically diverse regions.

The Traditional Data Center: To do the same with your own data centers is very costly / time consuming / resource intensive. "

There are many ISP's that allow you to rent multiple servers spread across multiple datacenters. As a matter of fact, we are with an ISP that has 5 geographically separated datacenters and renting dedicated servers there. It's not that different from setting it up in the cloud, you run into the same hard problems: replication, master/slave, latency, split brain problems, etc.

"Load Balancing & Basic Monitoring

The Cloud Way: The cloud provides this at a basic level and gets you off the ground quickly.

The Traditional Data Center: You don’t need to implement your own solution unless you really need to do some advanced loadbalancing for example."

This is another thing that many regular hosting providers offer. Monitoring and load balancing is not something that's unique to clouds.

All in all, while I agree that in some situations, a cloud offers you more possibilities to easily achieve high availability, some of the hardest problems remain unsolved. When you actually want very high availability and consistency across multiple geographically separated locations, cloud or no cloud, it's still going to be incredibly hard to solve.
Already taken :(
Great post. A lot of what you're describing is implied in Richard Feynman's "Cargo Cult Science:" http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm , which is also available in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!. The whole book is recommended.

So is Thomas Kuhn's The Road Since Structure, which collects many of his papers on, mostly, the philosophy and history of science, which are more interesting than I would've thought.
While I'm looking at these numbers - they're consistent with Apple's claims that they're charging advertisers a $10.00 CPM + $2.00 CPC and then giving 60% to the developer.

9,300 imps x 11.80% CTR = 1,097 clicks

9.3 mille x $10.00 CPM = $93 from CPM

1,097 clicks x $2.00 CPM = $2,194 from CPC

$2,194 + $93 = $2,287 gross from the advertiser

$2,287 x 60% = $1,372 to the developer (as reported)

If we assume that iAds clickthrough rates are because of their novelty, and that the CTR will decline to, say, 1% over time, that works out to an eCPM of $18.00 (assuming 100% fill rate) or $6.28 (assuming this developers' fill rate of 34.9%.) Still pretty good.
This is important if you're running a website too - this exploit can be used to take over the machine if the hacker finds a way to execute code as the website (i.e. once they used a different exploit to break in, they would be able to escalate from www-data user to root).
Max Levchin is a WePay investor, though.

Fraud and security will be a headache, but they have access to smart people who have handled these issues before.
Welcome to the US.

Pretty much the rest of the developed world gets 1 year parental/maternal benefits as a social construct.
That's not the point. It's known that the system is imperfect.

The problem is that some people, especially those outside academia/research, have a different idea of what "passed peer review" means and a different idea of how the machinery of science works. Passing peer review doesn't mean that something has been proven as fact, it merely means (one hopes) that the authors did their due dilligence and put together research that seems solid. Put another way, it means that the reviewers don't think that the paper is obviously BS.

Peer review is just a spam filter.

The danger comes when people elevate passing through the spam filter with scientific proof.

Peer review is the start of the debate, not the end of it.
In recession battle, Germany and China are the winners.
How to Get a Date Online: http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/how-to-get-a-date-onli...
Actually, from the looks of the tweet linked above, it seems to allow a user to chown an arbitrary system file so that it is owned by him, in that case the shadow file. Having access to the shadow file would allow the user to trivially reset the password for every account on the machine, including root. With that access, a user could then do just about anything to the box, and then reset the password/shadow file back to its old value/permissions so that sysadmins would be none the wiser.
So does Apple charge a flat $2/click to all advertisers?
vi vs emacs war plz 2 not have.