skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Stuff like instant messages and tweets are things that 20 years ago we thought or said, but are now recorded and made part of the public record. Back then I might have called your landline, gotten no answer, and decided to call back later to have a conversation.

Now I leave voicemail, Google transcribes it and emails/texts it to you. You text me back, I Tweet something funny you said, then we both meet at Starbucks and Foursquare checkin together. We'll post the pictures on Facebook later.

Definitely more data recorded and indexed nowadays, but about the same amount of meaningful information as before.
Well, it had already happened to me, that someone asked me to look after his stuff and that he will be right back. And then… time went on. And I had my own business and couldn't wait (On a train, you have to get off, for example, that gives you no solution). What then? I've agreed to watch your stuff for a minute, maybe two, maybe even a few more. But not for half an hour. I would just leave, what else can I do (ok, ask someone else to carry on with the duty, silly).
Spend time at a coworking location instead of a coffee shop, and don't worry about it.
Another common bias is if your are running multiple split tests in parallel you need to assign each visitor to an option in each split test at RANDOM. If you don't you'll end up with 50% of the users going though all the same 50% of the options and the other 50% of users going through the other 50% of the options.
If University of California offers online degrees, can it keep its rep?
Surprised to read LinkedIn's "People You May Know" MapReduce pipeline takes 82 jobs.

From what I've read Google's index runs in around 20 MapReduce jobs.
The only thing notable about this is just how utterly devoid of useful content it is.
So your counter response is that we should all have just sat back and been killed like sheep to the slaughter? I mean that as a serious question, because there's lots of "let's pull out!" going on here but no alternative courses of action being put forth that don't involve me becoming a terror target.
SSL is a fine protocol, but it's been badly misconfigured on the Internet. Among other things:

* The overwhelming majority of SSL-speaking sites don't have valid certificates.

* An untenably large number of organizations have been allowed to act as CAs.

* Some of those CA's have in turn been allowed to set up sub-CA's.

* Several CA's use cryptographically weak keys

* Some CA's were spotted sharing keys

* CA's have signed certs for RFC1918 private IP space, sometimes more than once.

* CA's have signed certs for "localhost"

The bad news is that all these things are devastating to the global security of SSL/TLS. The good news is that fixing them doesn't involve a change to SSL/TLS, or even any of the software that implements it. The bad news is that's unlikely to happen in our lifetimes.
Django-mediagenerator: total asset management
I guess we could just conduct WWII style carpet bombings against civilian population centers instead. Or do you not understand the purpose of using informants?
Great article, but the "imaginary reader" at the end is very condescending and stubborn. A purely curious imaginary reader would have served the purpose better.
sokoloff makes a great point.

Something I learned from years as a QA lead: always ask that every test you do has a failure and a success case. Surprisingly often, the tests that show your program works fine aren't actually doing their job properly, so they also need to be checked.

In other words, testing your implementation of A/B testing is a Good Thing. Even if you don't understand that statistics behind it, at least you can see the same variance occurs in A/A testing, which tells you to go read up some more on what you're doing wrong.
So i'm following this story because I have some clients who regularly travel to the Middle East for business with their BBs, interesting to see how it will turn out. My question is, how can the UAE or any government "ban" blackberry usage i.e. how do they distinguish between blackberry service and any other cellular service?
Hassle of getting something similar (US keyboard)

This is one thing Apple does very right. Apple is the only company that will happily sell me a laptop with a US keyboard here in Sweden. In fact they have it as a standard option in their web shop and doesn't cost anything. From every other brand I've looked it was either a flat out "No" or an expensive a complicated procedure.
Wow...I don't think most people can pull that off. Maybe the way you leave your desk gives it the appearance you're just nearby? I just pack light and pack up anytime I need to leave the immediate area. I never step out of sight.
"Hey you -- you have a twitter account and an iPhone, you're our new lead tech reporter."

Do they even know how bad they are at this?
Are they that desperate for developers in the UK? If so, how does a Canadian get a work permit!?
Basho rejects VC, takes late friends-and-family round
In Emergencies, Aid Agencies Turn to a College-Created Software Program
I designed my own website, but I'm sure tptacek will tell you that I shouldn't have done so. :-)
As a student that rarely interacted with professors/TAs as an undergrad, received assignments via email/web, and submitted my work via the same way - I fail to see why the fact I did so from an on-campus dorm room is so much better than doing so from a bedroom or office across the country.

Anti-plagiarism analytic software is light years ahead of what it was 10 years ago; the only real issue I can think of is that of the timed exam, though there should be a proper solution for that at this point - I just haven't seen it yet.
"Depends on what is meant by "necessary"."

True. My reading was that a reductionist meaning was implied, though.
I wrote this elsewhere; it summarizes my opinion. I'll just add that, in addition to the below, Google also simply needs to allow sufficient time for such a new paradigm (albeit an amalgam of many separate, older, established paradigms) to gain adoption.

--

I find this quite disappointing. Wave as a concept -- and apparently its underlying implementation -- is brilliant. It pretty much exactly fixes a number of significant barriers I've repeatedly, persistently encountered in professional, collaborative communication.

However, in a fashion that's becoming all too typical for Google, the user interface was spartan and disjointed to the point of outright sucking for anyone who was not an "uebergeek" already at least passingly familiar with the paradigms they were using.

Just like with their Android Nexus phone: They didn't need to improve the technology further as much as they needed to make it usable for the common user. In the phone's case, that meant real customer support. In Wave's case, that meant a meaningful, obvious user interface and much less spartan documentation, including non-linear textual references and not just so many overcute, time-consuming, and shared-environment-adverse videos many of which were broken into frustratingly small snippets. The videos did, I suppose, demonstrate the dynamic interface better than a bunch of text and static pictures might, but then this was in significant part the fault of the interface that gave no visual indicators of what to click or drag, much less what doing so would accomplish.

Google really should give Wave more time, and devote a small cadre of staff to fixing the UI, and another small cadre of staff to some coherent, consistent promotion and public training/documentation. Once people grasp what it can do and how to do it in a quick, intuitive fashion, I argue they would have users aplenty. They've already added it as a beta feature to their Google Apps online office software suite. That crowd is ripe for adoption, if adoption is made straightforward.
Things like blogs and github are great learning resources but I think they're also starting to skew people's expectations of the average programmer.

What? Care to elaborate?
Took a quick look:
1) How do you plan on supporting Versioning in the API?
2) You need to clarify the GET/POST semantics:
something like
Supported request methods:
GET
would be helpful
3)As another user pointed out the /me /new etc are a conflict with the existing user namespace
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I am using help from a graphic designer friend. You might find the CSS Mastery book helpful. Copying other pro sites seems like the easiest and most efficient way if you don't want to spend too much time on it.
Excellent points - I'm always dismayed at the number of people who equate SSL with "secure" and fail to appreciate what kinds of "security" SSL gives and what that depends on (e.g. the checks made by a CA to authenticate identity, which are often minimal) or where it can break down (e.g. you may not have end to end security in some environment even though you think you do).
ACM weighs in on SEC proposed Python requirement
If it works, you've solved the inbox problem. Pass go, collect $200. Suggest to wrangle a web designer to give your page a once over.
Meet, phone, email and snail mail potential buyer in that order.
It would be cool to try somthing like Zappos, and offer them the free iPad only if they walk away right then and there, or turn down the iPad and stay for the interview.
It's pretty easy, apply for a tier-1 visa which is a points based system (the main factors they take into account are education level, age, previous earnings and english language ability), if you get enough points and don't have a criminal record you can normally get a visa. Most software developers can easily qualify.

Once you have that visa you can work for any UK company (there's a minimum earning requirement but most software development roles pay comfortably more than that).

Although if you want to do it, sooner is better than later as the current government is thinking about sticking a quota on the number of Tier-1 visas that are issued in a year.
I don't think we can use Bloomberg to rule NYT inaccurate. Who's to say that Bloomberg's isn't sourced from major PR spin generated after NYT called for comment? The Bloomberg article very carefully states that the contract "restricts selective slowing", not that it requires total neutrality (i.e., "selective speeding" would not be restricted). Neither Google nor Verizon have responded to the NYT article, which makes me question just how inaccurate it is.

Politico has sources claiming that the agreement explicitly allows for Verizon to prioritize traffic:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/40668.html
What about the kids less affluent than you? Also just because they are in the university library doesn't mean they're students. My university had huge problem a while back where thieves would wander in, hang around in the corridors looking for people to leave stuff unattended in offices or study rooms and then simply grab the stuff and head out the door.
35 Most Beautiful & Amazing Portfolio's | Kitaro10
No IE6 won't be around forever, but if, in 2014, they can directly upgrade to IE10, say, then they will have avoided going IE6->IE8->IE10 and thus have saved the cost of an upgrade.

Makes sense to me.
Changing The World One Customer At A Time
I've tried my hand at design, and I'm not very good. Of course, I don't really have any experience with design, and I'm sure I could improve with practice.

I am good at the development side of things, and I enjoy it, too, so I tend to lean towards having someone else do the design and then do the development myself.
Looks like Google is another Microsoft in the making.
Should entrepreneurs take vacations or work 24-7-365 on their startups?
> I get the feeling I'd rather be poor in France than poor in the US.

Oh so would I, definitely, just saying that the transition back into "productive member of society" often isn't setup/incentivized correctly, and can lead to people not being able to make the transition. And that it would often be a better idea to fix that rather than decide people who stay on aid are lazy fuckers.
Does anyone think this issue is about Google offering Verizon users a chance to use that SPDY protocol they invented?
To tell you the truth I anticipated this when Google first launched it.
It might be pricey, but so are recruiters. If this process cost $50k ($5k/hire) it is absolutely a win.
I limited the video to demonstrate how the concept could be commercialized. I have now lifted the limited viewing period.
No, most people are not basically good, not really. It is an illusion of goodnes that they give off, due to their indifference, and their going with the flow. If the flow is good, the illusion is maintained, and all is well. But when push come to shove, they will show how little they really care.
Not hyping vapor-ware is an interesting concept that MS could look at adopting. Wonder if Balmer is lurking on HN... :-P
There are a handful of applications for Mac laptops that do this, using the built-in accelerometer -- for example: http://www.foozoodesign.com/lockdown.html
I view it similar to apartments that don't explicitly state 'no pets'. If you're not hoarding pets or using company related IP, odds are good you're in the clear.
"DSL or No DSL" Presentation by José Valim [video]
In Poland before the communism fall there were big inflation - it made all savings worth nothing in a course of a few months (people were saving for kids flats for 10 years, then these savings on bank account were worth 10 times less after a few months - many people still didn't get that money from "flat savings acounts" (ksiazeczka mieszkaniowa) - that money nowadays is less than a few days of work.

But some people had luck - I know family, that bought one family home for credit in 1986, credit was for 30 years. Then, after a few years father went abroad to work a few months for $ (on the farm), then paid the whole credit back for these $.

Of course country had to default eventually, but many people paid their credits that otherways would be paying to this day. So that's one way of profiting from hyperinflation.

All in all it wasn't so bad, people just were using $ or Deutche Marks (it was illegal to own them then, but it was legal to change your $ to polish currency, only change rate was were unjust). So many Polish businessmans started as people illegaly trading $ to zlotys. Crazy times that were, millions laying in the streets.
For the benefit of those outside Cambridge, it's also worth knowing that Red Gate is the local rising star software business. I have now lost track of how many friends, former work colleagues and friends-of-friends have wound up working there, but it's a lot.

If I've heard about it from that many different sources, so have many other good people with relevant skills in the local area. You have to factor that word-of-mouth effect into any thinking about how successful any additional recruitment drives they've been running have been. If I hadn't gone freelance, I might have applied myself, but it wouldn't have been because of ice creams or iPads, it would have been because the company has a reputation for being a decent employer and hiring good people.
The problem is with this argument is that you can keep applying it forever. Also, a number of relatively smaller steps are easier to manage than one single big step.
I admire Hitchens. His "Letters to a Young Contrarian" gave me no small measure of actualization. I hope he survives this so he can continue writing and getting everybody's backs up.
It also kinda ignores many of the people with oral traditions. Some of those stories that were carried down for generations have been lost do to colonization. Let's also not forget a certain library that went up in flames.
My dad always took black and white photos, even through the 90s. So I suppose you're not.
Have you tried to employ Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) to do the computation-intensive tasks?

I could imagine that using CUDA-enabled kernels might be of help for processing images.
and they keep changing the requirements (now you have to have a masters degree), so better apply sooner rather than later.
August Top #20 Apps Rank released
I worked 5y at an Enterprise Search vendor. For us there, Enterprise application was:

* to be used "within" a large org or corporations (vs web facing apps)

* which deployment/usage is through the overall organization (not just departmental (=specialized app) this is why often the 2 types of license sold were "corporate or Enterprise license" with 1 important parameter: the number of employees (per seats) of the corp

* Most of the time, installed within the firewall on the corps own servers (vs cloud)

* if modern architecture the app to be deployed globally should have "connectors"/connectivity so that it can communicate with other pre existing systems

* very often deployed by system integrators or at 3 to 4 x the price by the engineers of the Enterprise App vendor
It sure helps to write code live if you are pitching to developers. John got a big nod from the audience for doing that.

In my experience, writing the code live is asking for trouble. It seemed to work for this particular audience though.
I don't even see a major difference in facts between the articles.

Facts:
Google and Verizon struck agreement on traffic shaping.
Agreement prohibits prioritizing data traffic over landlines.
Agreement allows prioritizing data traffic over wireless.

Everything beyond that is editorializing and infotainment. The articles don't even clarify whether the agreement covers all traffic or just Google traffic.
If there isn't a sufficiently large class of people with both the money and the leisure time to be able to support the restaurant industry; yes.

It's like this, if people who were earning enough to afford a decent sized apartment in a safe neighborhood with enough left over to eat out once in a while are all fired and replaced by overseas workers; their disposable income spending goes away too. And thus all of the businesses that were dependent on their being customers go away too.
About a year ago we had a similar problem in the hospital I was doing clinical rotations in. A gang of well-dressed men would walk in holding empty-laptop and beamer bags. They would then check out all conference rooms and take all equipment they could easily remove. Nobody ever noticed until they checked out all security video footage.
They will if "what's the cheapest option, I don't care about the quality" becomes the default choice. Outsourcing is a symptom, not the root cause.
It's even better if it's a business pitch rather than a technology demo. The world's best sales pitch is always being able to say, "If I push this button then your phone is going to ring 150 times in the next 3 minutes with people who want to buy your product, want to see?"

That's how you get to charge 150K per client per year, and that's why DailyCandy and the like are worth so much.
Like where you are walking perhaps?

I keep getting an image from Wall-E stuck in my head. The carts aren't there because they are fat. They are there because with all this distraction you can't walk straight.
If you're a one-man-shop, then shouldn't design in general come naturally? Perhaps someone should be designing your software GUI too.
Recruitment fees are often (in Cambridge, UK at least) more like to 20% rather than 10%.

To employ 10 software engineers, at say £36k average salary, would have ended up costing close to £70k through traditional recruitment agencies.
I definitely want to see Wave saved.

Further, I'll argue that since Google effectively took away our common, central access to the EtherPad service (even though the source code remains), they in some sense "owe" the community the effort of giving Wave more of a shot --
although I expect a common response will be that "business doesn't owe you anything that doesn't make money (in an legal fashion)".

My other comments (e.g. interface, lack of documentation and post-launch publicity) are here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1578127
re 2) - you already have /artists/blah and /tag/blah so why not /users/blah ?
I second this.

"iF: You’ve been involved in many charities and also Internet safety. What made you get into that?

MILANO: The thing with SafeSearching happened because my little brother did a search with my name and he was 12 at the time and he found a bunch of porn links. So we sued numerous webmasters and won all of our lawsuits and with the money we started SafeSearching.com, which is basically just a clean place for fans to come and learn about the celebrities. We have all authorized celebrity sites and it’s now turned into a little network, with original content and that’s very exciting." (http://www.charmedscripts.tv/board/showthread.php?t=3415)
I am getting a weird sense of deja vu...

http://waxy.org/random/arsdigita/

We bought a Ferrari to give away to any employee who recruited 10 friends. In reality the car only cost $2,000 per month, the person who won it only got to drive it for as long as he or she was employed, and the cost of a Ferrari is much lower than 10 headhunter commissions
I have one contact on LinkedIn whose profile takes significantly longer to load than that of anyone else I'm linked to. On days when the others are taking under a second to load, his takes anywhere from 5 seconds to half a minute.

There are two ways his differs from the others. (1) he has way more contacts than anyone else I know, and (2) he has a paid LinkedIn membership, whereas I and all my other contacts have free memberships.

Has anyone else noticed particular profiles always load slow, and if so, does this correlate with either them having a large number of contacts or with them having a paid membership?
This will sound shockingly heartless and coldly rational, but is the bigger problem with that statement not the idea that a few hundred, or even thousand people dying in a plane-related disaster (when magnitudes more will die of, say, bad diet, alcohol related deaths, or bad foreign policy?) is 'catastrophic'?

A catastrophe is, for example, the former, or spanish influenza. Does what I presume is the historically minute mortality (related to true catastrophes) associated with air travel, worth the cumulative inconvenience to millions, daily, of stupid, irrational rules (like no liquids in containers greater than 100ml, or no exposed sharp metals even though you could probably just take apart the hairdryer or pc cooler that you WERE allowed to take on, and have exactly the same thing)?

Unless realistic assessment of problems is undertaken, is there any foreseeable end to the severity of security measures that will be asked of us? Inflation is inevitable if we allow them to print FUD without checks or ties to the fundamentals.
Q: Why do I need this?

A: You can't live without it.

Most gangsta Q&A answer, ever.
Ask HN: Was Miyamoto Musashi a Functional Programmer?
Man cannot understand the perfection and imperfections of his chosen art if he cannot see the value in other arts. Following rules only permits development up to a point in technique and then the student and artist has to learn more and seek further. It makes sense to study other arts as well as those of strategy.

Who has not learned something more about themselves by watching the activities of others? To learn the sword study the guitar. To learn the fist study commerce. To just study the sword will make you narrow-minded and will not permit you to grow outward.

-- Miyamoto Musashi, "A Book of Five Rings"
At the time wave came in, you already had email, twitter and facebook. I think it became one more thing to check. Given that it was supposed to be 21st century email, the fact that you couldn't switch to using wave instead of gmail is, I think, what didn't get it the adoption. If magically all your gmail were available and accessible via wave as well from day 1, we might all be waving now.

I know there were some dev attempts at bridging the two, but they were so lame as to be unusable as a replacement.

I did end up using it for some personal planning, a bit of group work within our company, etc. .. but it currently is still just "one more thing to check".