skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
In my (unresearched) opinion, cursor:pointer was created to indicate that a hyperlink can be clicked on. Buttons were obvious, but underlined words in the middle of a paragraph, not so much.

It irritates me when people learn a concept and then illogically apply it to other domains. That's why I'm making a fuss, it seems like everybody is not using their brains and saying "EVERYTHING you click must use the hand because links do!".
I worked as an intern at one of the Nokia's branches (won't tell you where, but it's in N.A.) in a city where there are quite a few Symbian software houses. I talked to a few Symbian developers and they absolutely hate it with passion. We're not talking technology for technology sake but more like "Business wise, it's not worth it unless you'd want your workers to suffer productivity nightmare".

My (short) time at this particular Nokia branch wasn't glowing with roses either; they just laid off several hundreds of their employees and slowly but sure inserting contractors, moving some part of their departments to 3rd world countries.

Their development process was really slow: they'll get their Baseline (I never really sure what it consists of even after I talked to quite a few people but I'm guessing it's the Symbian OS with some standard API/Libraries/Framework toolkits) from Finland once every 2 weeks. Then they would have to merge their code to this Baseline and deal with whatever problems come up.

During the last 2 weeks I was there, some high-level management guy came from Europe. He would gathered everybody to a room to do some sort of All-Hands meeting. In this meeting, he would announce some organization structure "roadmap". I find it strange; instead of talking about the products, this roadmap discussed the company's plan to expand to China and India (DING DING DING!). Of course the guy would immediately told us all that "there won't be any lay-off". But you get the idea...

Here it is... the outcome of such environment: unhappy customers.

It's hard to beat Android that seems to operate in a more Agile way where the workers are far more enthusiastic and passionate.
> I'm not really sure why they are fighting that hard for the branding, since they are considering pitching it anyhow.

Because the moment you stop protecting the trademark, it becomes worthless. So long as you're only considering letting it go, you really should protect it. Cease and Disist letters are pretty cheap to produce, and are pretty effective for their cost. My guess is you won't see them litigating a whole lot to protect it until they decide whether or not they're going to keep it.
You have to consider why there is no downvote button.

From the HN guidelines:

>If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link.

You're plainly abusing the flag link just because you don't like the article(even if others do) and by your own admission are trying to hit it with whatever is at your hand. You may not be one, but I have seen this behavior a lot in Apple fanboys who seem to be super sensitive to any criticism of Apple.
My least favorite is the client that goes: "Great! I think I'll ask around the office and see what people think" and comes back the next day with a list of design-by-committee horror.
> "I think the claims that humans masturbate more than any other animal and that chimps are unable to fantasize dubious"

In addition to skepticism due other masturbating animals, there's the question of human child masturbation. Anyone who's had children can vouch that they're rubbing the parts that feel good well before they're expressing complex ideas, let alone thinking sexually.

And, FWIW, I believe homosexuality has been well documented in every sexual species that's been well documented.
Foursquare waited to "fix" - is this surprising though?
IPhone 4 Class Action Lawsuits Begin
This is only tangentially related to the post (congrats on the cool new feature!), but my biggest gripe with DGG is that for some reason it never seems find projects hosted on github.

Case in point:
http://duckduckgo.com/?q=clojure-maven-plugin&v=
vs.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=clojure-maven-plugi...

It's so bad that I always add "!g" to a search if I know that the page I'm looking for is hosted on github.

Anyway, DGG is still my default search engine. Thanks and keep up the great work.
Glad to see that there are FreeBSD and OpenSolaris versions available (a clear advantage over Chromium!), considering I've recently transitioned my desktop box to FreeBSD. I'll have to give Opera a spin and run some benchmarks of my own.
Ask HN: What are your gaming habits like?
I would imagine that like many people on this site I have a long history of being a bit of a "hardcore" gamer. When I was younger and in middle and high school I was the kid who got all of the gaming magazines, read forums, and got addicted to Counter-Strike and Warcraft III. I just really enjoy games. However, I am starting to think that they are comparable to TV in terms of being a waste of time. Granted, I do still enjoy the occasional game such as Demon's Souls but a game I really find great only comes along once in a while. This wouldn't be a problem because I really want to limit my time spent gaming and focus on working on development and potentially start-ups, but I am finding that I still feel the urge to buy games and especially read news about games. I am even contemplating building a new PC for Starcraft II. I am just worried that I have a compulsion really. Games really seem to limit my development time because there is just only so much time I can look at a screen in a day.

So I guess my real question is, did you give up gaming to become a better programmer? And if so, what sort of things did you replace it with? I am the kind of person who needs some sort of competitive hobby and I having a hard time finding one.
Useful WordPress Security Tweaks
Looks nice.

I get an error in IE8.
Webpage error details

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; GTB6.5; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; InfoPath.2)
Timestamp: Thu, 1 Jul 2010 14:50:19 UTC

Message: 'console' is undefined
Line: 48
Char: 11
Code: 0
URI: http://dddone.com/javascripts/app/event_set.js?1277907280
I think your service is lacking "stickiness" Martin. If it's going to be a social news reader, there should be a "social" element to it. Add conversations to the mix, or maybe a retweet/reply feature. Or perhaps a bookmarking functionality. Something that will help me interact with the content and make me want to come back.

Also, I love the channel idea. Make finding, adding and creating channels the central focus of your service. Add more multimedia (video/audio clips etc) and exclusive member channels (subscriptions to these channels might be your business model). The static links look muy boring. Yuk.

If you call it a "channel", make it LOOK and sound like a channel!

TVitter.com: Joost, Twitter and Delicious in a blender. Yeah Baby!
I think the problem is we have people who equate money with not being an incentive assuming you are being paid enough. However, they leave out that last part. The reality is, that last part is missing from a lot of job offers. I usually find that condition to be critical.
You first have to explain how programmers are different from any other profession, and how the law of supply/demand strangely fails here. Personally, I consider income, working conditions and project type. I'll apply if you offer a Wall St. salary, or let me work remotely, or are working on something I think is super cool. Offering $10K more than my current salary for the same job is not worth my time. What are you offering?

My friend is trying to hire some devs for her big bank. They offer ~$50K more, but the work environment is HELL and the projects are mind-numbingly boring (back office). They can't find any competent devs. He said they hired an ex-MSFT and ex-GOOG once, but both quit within a week.
Starfish Prime, outer space nuclear test
> Is the next generation going to be so intellectually lazy in their sexual fantasies [because of Internet porn] that their creativity in other domains is also affected?

Wow. I know each generation ends up spreading FUD about the habits of the younger ones, but I never expected to be criticized for not masturbating creatively enough. Puritanism sure ain't what it used to be.
--snip--

Why is it so often that the best people are stuck in the middle and the people who are running things—the leaders—are the mediocrities? Because excellence isn’t usually what gets you up the greasy pole. What gets you up is a talent for maneuvering. Kissing up to the people above you, kicking down to the people below you. Pleasing your teachers, pleasing your superiors, picking a powerful mentor and riding his coattails until it’s time to stab him in the back.
Can anybody write a macro statement this way?

Something like:

macro square(x):
return exec("#{x}*#{x}")

might be useful.

Edit: can anybody help me how about the comments markup. I tried searching around but couldn't find anything.
Eyestrain comes from viewing something with a backlight. As I understand it, Pixel Qi displays have the option of turning off the backlight and enabling their tech that reflects light back through the LCD (like a piece of paper, etc).
In truth if you're using a decent algorithm, then breaking it is effectively impossible anyways.

But that said, techniques for breaking encryption rely on identifying redundant information in a message. The less redundant information there is, the harder this is to do. Sure, the known header on a ZIP is useful redundancy. But the amount of introduced redundancy is much, much less than the redundancy you got rid of by moving from a document in English to binary gibberish.

Underlying this is a fundamental fact of information theory, which is that messages with a high information density look like white noise. A slight mistake in the message you have results in something that looks like another potentially valid message rather than something that is obviously wrong. This makes it much harder to verify that you're on an intermediate step towards properly decrypting the message.

Therefore increasing information density makes an attacker's life harder. Compression increases information density by a lot, and so makes the encryption harder to break.
Dell reiterates that Linux is safer than Windows
Check out iAds in CalcLoan Free (iTunes Link)
Incidentally any form of encryption becomes even harder to break if you compress the message first. Furthermore this results in a shorter encrypted message, which is easier to hide.

It's true in general that shorter messages are harder for an attacker to decrypt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicity_distance

It's not really significant in this case, though. The password was written on a slip of paper.
It doesn't redirect on the search page, but the results pages are located at https://encrypted.google.com.
UK Government asks: "Which laws would you like to see repealed?"
It's only been out a week or so... If you are unhappy with your iPhone then bring it back to the store and get a full refund. Simple.

This culture of lawsuits baffles me.
Ah, ok. My Nokia phone has a reflective screen, but I've never really thought about the difference in eye-strain when I look at it indoors and in direct sunlight. Hm, I have to go test it. :-)
UML tools seem to lack substance on any platform. Use pencil, eraser, and paper for design. And know that most diagrams are not as useful as everyone says they are.
is readily available at a store 1/2 mile from your house.

How did that item get to the store?
I've seen the screen on a netbook prototype and thought the color was pretty good. The truly great thing about the screen is how well it works in sunlight, though. I can't wait until I have a mobile screen I can use in the sun.
Unfortunately, Google didn't have much of a choice. However incompetent or misguided the schools' reaction to blocking encrypted search, it immediately broke Google Docs (and possibly other resources) for many of them. Google probably can't afford to give up this foothold, or to appear unreliable. The schools aren't upset at the existence of encrypted search, they just want a dead easy way to block it on their networks.
People always trash Steve Jobs over the "walled garden" of the iPhone, but this looks like exactly what he wants to avoid.

Of course if all the problems he was talking about came from apps that are part of the phone then I guess my point doesn't apply to this specific article (though I could see this happening if the Nokia apps were good but the downloadable ones weren't).
"I also can’t continue to support a mobile operating system platform that continually buries itself into oblivion by focusing on ‘openness’ while keeping a blind eye towards the obvious improvements that other open platforms have had for several iterations."

I could not agree more!
I understand that. I have an N97 and it is a dog. I hate it. 32 Gig E: drive which is plenty, but the C: drive has around 100 Meg or so, around 50 free, and after using it for a week it is straight down to 10, after a month it sits around 5 and you get errors all the time and you have to do a hard reset which takes it back to 50 so you can use it again.

I don't even use it as more than a phone anymore because it is not worth installing anything and using up the c: drive.

I intend to switch to Android.
Checked out the "Tech" channel and it's definitely not something I would use. I'm on a 1680 rez monitor and I can see three headlines on the "Top Stories" page. I can't handle Digg b/c I can only see six, maybe seven headlines without scrolling. As a first time user, I immediately close the page thinking, "#$#% that - I'm not scrolling just to read the headlines." FWIW I like the more spartan "headline only, please" styles of HN or reddit so I realize you may not be trying to appeal to me.

From a content perspective, I have no idea - wasn't worth it for me to check it out since I wasn't interested in scrolling x times to see what you offered.
I figured they would just redirect the homepage and the search pages. (The search pages actually are redirected.)
Healthcare.gov -- real info on new healthcare options
How is it different from Google chart API for Tex?

http://www.mathtran.org/cgi-bin/mathtran?D=1;tex=\textstyle%...

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=tx&chl=\textstyle...
It does seem pretty weird that Google would make a change like this that effects everyone just to appease some schools that can't figure out how to properly configure their firewalls.
كاس العالم 2010: مشاهدة مباراة البرازيل وهولندا
It's 3072x600 [1]. This is actually exactly the same as any 1024x600 LCD it's just that in e-paper mode that extra horizontal resolution is more usable as the rgb sub-pixels are in b/w.

But the OS probably never sees it as 3072x600 (or it would have to be changing the resolution and aspect ratio on the fly). Also it's not necessary as AFAIK the sub-pixel font rendering would amount to the same thing.

[1] http://netbooked.net/blog/lenovo-s10-2-w-pixel-qi-display-ce...
Jobs to iPhone 4 user: "relax, enjoy your family. It is just a phone."
Ask HN: Why are there no TSLA options?
Any ideas why I can't seem to find calls or puts on tesla?

http://quote.morningstar.com/Option/Options.aspx?sLevel=A&ticker=TSLA
They sell 20% of the phones.

They sell near 100% of all apps for all phones. The people who buy apps on Android, Blackberry, Simbian and WinMo are vastly dwarfed on the sales of apps for the Apple AppStore.

They do not have a monopoly in phones, but in App sales.
> "If it's implied then making it explicit is simply clarifying one-anothers position"

The only reason to state it is to add emotion to the argument: to dramatically emphasize your resolve. And the problem with that, is the next negotiation has to go to at least that point again to convince the other party you really do mean it.

So if you were earnest about having been at the end of your rope in the first negotiation, you earn only the certainty of being pushed back to the end of your rope in every subsequent negotiation. It's self-defeating and adds wholly unnecessary stress to the workplace.

And if you're advocating emotional argument in every negotiation... well, good luck with that. It adds a tangible degree of stress to everyone around you and they won't appreciate it.
Startup Lessons from Constant Contact
That's weird because I source github (http://duckduckgo.com/?q=Merb+messenger&v=), though it's true there is a lag. I'll look into why that's not getting picked up; must be a bug in there somewhere. If only every site had dumps :).
Seems like they could have fixed Google Docs then. I thought Docs was at https://docs.google.com/ anyway?
Why does it matter if its a knock off or not. If Stackoverflow can't get this type of deep dive into this community, why can't someone else try. Some times you just have to take things into your own hands. Its Joel and Jeffs fault for not opening their code to others like they said they would...

I fully support the decision to make this site especially if its not around yet.
I recall all of my more eventful dreams from that age (and younger, but only back to 5 or 6), and that particular dream was definitely a welcomed shock to my young mind at the time.
Ah! Thanks.

But the search suggestions use https://clients1.google.com/ and google should let schools know that block that as well. (Or maybe schools block all https except known good ones?)
Wait, I'm confused, are you speaking about my article, which is itself a counterpoint, or the original article?

Whatever the case, I completely agree that a real discussion of design by committee should include managing all the different types of shareholders, and not just the "dumb client's wife" type.
Funny title, interesting article. Is this really HN material though?
I agree. This is idiotic. Take it back or wait for Apple to fix it and they will fix it.
Network effects matter: news at 11
The Kin has the hardware of a smartphone and costs the same to manufacture. Still, it has dumbed down functionality. It would have to be sold at a huge subsidy and it's unclear how much of the $20/month would actually be profit.

Anyway, there is a hole in the market for aggressive bandwidth management on smartphones.
It's completely underwhelming to see 'real life spies' use the same technologies you used for fun with friends a decade ago...
And how exactly should they configure their firewalls?

It's not possible to do that. The firewall has no idea what's being communicated because it's encrypted!
They did it because it was the easiest way for google to make it easy to filter out encrypted search without breaking their other services. A very simple change for google -vs- a very difficult firewall configuration for a network administrator.
(You can't just block https://www.google.com/ without breaking a whole bunch of other services you may want to be using)
(and you probably don't have the budget & manpower to deploy the type of network you would need to scan & filter HTTPS traffic as an organization if you are a school, either)
Thank you. I always have problems with lose/loose choice.
How big was the bump?
~20%?
I don't know what's more sad -- the people who dream up these lawsuits or the lawyers who take the cases.
Schools block ALL encrypted traffic. Not to do so makes the firewall almost totally pointless.

Presumably schools whitelisted specific sites to allow https, and google was one of them, until it became a problem.
Is there any difference between amount of credit card fraud on Google Checkout vs PayPal?
It is, but if you're not logged in, that link goes directly to an https://www.google.com login page.
"The building up of unsustainable debt loads is a commonplace in history. There are several standard means of resolving the problem: execute the lenders, exile them, default outright or simply renegotiate to achieve partial default and low interest rates."

Or in the United States' case where the money is being lent in US dollars, print money (inflate) which decreases the value of the debt in real terms.
The flaw in the defendant's procedures was that the data containing the steganography message existed on their machines at all. There is no longer any reason to do this. A foreign power could have their agents do the following:

- stego the messages locally in photos
- upload photos to a small photo sharing site set up by the agency
- use a secure erase program on the photos

The software on the "photo sharing site" can remove the steganography data from the photos before displaying them on the site. All of the steps can even be written into the "photo sharing" desktop client software provided to users on the site. If a scheme like this had been properly implemented, the US government wouldn't have the contents of any outgoing messages to use in their case. The stego can be disguised as a fun easter egg to let site users play secret agent. (Press Ctrl-Shift-0-0-7 to reveal the "invisible ink dialog.")

A challenge: can one use a scheme like this to also refuse government counter-spies' access to incoming messages?
How exactly would you scan and filter https? It's encrypted.
No, using Flash means the author might not know how to do rich interfaces with Javascript/CSS/HTML or that he prefers to do rich interfaces for the web in Flash. Or it could mean something else.

Since the iPhone app is written in Objective C, which isn't an option on the web, his choice of Flash for the demo really doesn't tell us anything about how good the app might be, does it?
I worked on a Symbian application a few years ago. Symbian C++ IDE (Carbide C++) costed 1,300 euros in 2007. Some S60 APIs are only available to Nokia partners (costs money). Now combine it with antiquated and poorly documented API, and the most godawful SDK and the simulator known to man.

Is it any wonder that Symbian has stagnated as a platform without any hope of recovery?

I know the IDE is now free and the simulator is about to be replaced with a new QEMU-based one, but it's a little too late.
Now do reddit!
I think I'm understanding your argument, but I don't think it's correct.

A well-encrypted message -- whether pre-compressed or not -- is indistinguishable from noise. If it was not pre-compressed, then its information density is lower, which means the S/N is lower. Information theory tells us that the worse the S/N, the harder it is to extract the information.
You know that you can install apps on E:, right?
The world is full of opportunistic parasites. Having a legal system that encourages it is the real travesty.
Answer and be ignored. Like the "Ask Obama" questions!
How To Be More Productive
Symbian, Palm (HP), Microsoft, even BlackBerry. In the long run it doesn't look like these guys stand a chance any more, does it?
Kindle's DRM is about as much a hindrance as DVD-CSS; there's a package called mobiDeDRM, to which you can feed a book from your kindle and your kindle's serial number, and it strips the DRM. The file is still an annoying ebook format, but the DRM part falls right off.
Maybe the schools should filter the content instead of the searches.
Total false dichotomy, you don't have to become nokia if you open your garden. It may be what he wants to avoid but it's not true that opening the garden will automatically result in customer dissatisfaction (otherwise why would Android market share be growing?)