skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Well, seeing how you're unfamiliar with Prolog, LabView and Scratch, and how you're somehow drawing a distinction between compilation and interpretation, I think it's best to chalk this up for differences in terminology and move on :-)

If I had more time I would ask you about GNU Glade and the MS Resouce Compiler; the first converts visually manipulated GUI elements to XML, which gets converted to C, and the later converts a configuration-file type syntax into a GUI. IMO, both are compilers, and neither is troubled by machine layout.

I wont even go into symbolic algebra systems, constraint programming environments, model checkers, database query executors and optimizers, and many many other applications of compiler technology, because I have a feeling you will be up to debate their purity as "real compilers".

jerf made an excellent point above that I would advice others to consider.
stop writing them? stop reading them? stop upvoting them? no.
Agreed - it's just a way of wasting CPU cycles on a false sense of security. Anyone who is going to trouble of sniffing your traffic is going to go the extra yard to disable your "tcpcrypt".

Especially when an automated MITM tool to do so becomes available.
That model works passably well for SSH connections. You make perhaps tens of those connections every day, from perhaps several devices.

It doesn't work at Internet scale. It's too insecure. It's very unlikely that key continuity is going to replace PKI in HTTPS.

Do I have strong opinions about PKI vs. key continuity? No. All I'm saying is that it's not a panacea. SSH-style key continuity is not the global solution for the certificate warning Firefox is annoying you with.

You realize that Firefox already does this, right? Just hit "add exception" when the dialog pops up. Look! It works just like SSH!
Apple hires Near Field Communication expert as mobile commerce product manager
You'd be amazed at how fast everything can change.

I was always someone who made more money than I could figure out how to spend. Even when I was a starving grad student. Then my wife and I grew up, we had kids, and she got injured.

Do you have any idea how much it costs for full-time childcare when you're working and your wife is unable to take care of the kids? (Luckily most of the medical bills were taken care of by worker's comp, and now medical insurance. Not all, but most.)

Family could be a great help in a situation like mine, but you can't choose your family, and in our case that hasn't worked out.
How serious can they be about ubiquitous encryption, if they can't even be bothered enabling HTTPS on their site?
via http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/apple-hires-mobile-..., which has a little bit of value-add
This is the waxed-mustache damsel-tied-up-on-the-railroad-tracks notion of Internet attackers, who, getting a sudden bee in their bonnet to torment 'avar from Hacker News, leap upon his connections only to find that, drat!, 'avar had enabled tcpcrypt and all his connections are safeguarded.

The real Internet attackers owned up your ISP 2 years ago, and on the real Internet you originate hundreds of new connections across that owned-up Internet every minute. The security negotiation on any "old" connection is irrelevant. All that matters is the security of each new connection. If they're safe, the protocol works. If they're not, the protocol is broken.
The image with the yellow pencils shows really badly sharpened pencils IMO. I hand sharpen pencils (with compacted ceramic glazes in place of "lead") with a craft knife and get a better tip than that.

No, I'm not even joking.
1. Just because you build it, doesn't mean they will come. There's something called marketing, promotion and luck.

and

2. Development and business/marketing skills are very very different.
What I loved so much about this is that although it is very much tongue-in-cheek, I think it is a viable "pet rock" type of product offering. Specially to those slightly older folks who have gone through a few trees worth of pencils.
Thanks Neil! Email has been sent.
He more I think about his statements, the
more they seem like non-sense. What does your wife do when you change your name? What about your credit card, passport and mortgage? It took 10 months for the German government to get me a new passport due to name change. Please tell me why I would do that just to get rid of some links to drunk photos of me?

And please, aren't there more important problems to solve than telling me to buy milk?

IMHO, Google is trying to solve the wrong problem here.
This isn't new - it's part of the premise of 'The Rising Sun', a book about WW2 from the Japanese perspective. It was written in 1970 by John Toland.
Awesome book, if you're into history.
http://ihaterubyonrails.com/posts/34/the-perfect-framework-f...

"Show me one example of a corporate or high-traffic website that uses Rails other than Basecamp."

-yellowpages.com

-hulu.com

-shopify

-kongregate

-github

-justin.tv

-ravelry

the list is actually pretty large nowadays. I don't even code with rails anymore, but this site is a big heaping pile of whiny bullshit

EDIT: formatting
This is why your bank doesn't let you make withdrawals from your account on port 80.

You need to keep re-reading this sentence: there is no difference to the browser between a TLS connection bearing a self-signed cert and a TLS connection that was supposed to bear a CA-signed cert but isn't. It can't tell the difference.

"But that untrusted connection is no less secure than an HTTP connection!", you retort. Wrong. The HTTP connection isn't lying to you about how secure it is. The HTTPS connection with the bogus cert is, as far as Firefox is concerned, lying. And for most users, most of the time, it's right. Something is wrong with the connection.

I understand that it drives you nuts that there is collateral damage to this security warning. Yes. There is collateral damage. You get a very noisy exception dialog even when you wanted a self-signed cert. But the alternative to that dialog allows attackers to spoof Citibank, and the browser vendors have all decided that your self-signed cert is less important than Citibank.
I want to build a website that can help you visualize your impact upon the world. It can be summed up by calling it Pay-It-Forward for books. It's called MindSpread.

In essence you buy a book and give it to someone else on the promise that they will give it another person and so-forth. Each person can input the email address of the person they gave it to. A Google map would track the book, thus allowing the person to visualize their impact.

I wrote about it here:
http://techneur.com/post/635311152/announcing-mindspread

Why a person would use it:
http://techneur.com/post/915916816/what-would-motivate-you-t...

It would be 100% open-source and community driven. However, I think it's a great idea, but I'm not sure that others do because I have solicited for feedback and have received little.

I can't afford the conference because I'm trying to save every penny in attempt to someday bootstrap my company.

Thanks for your consideration. Also, I would love it if anyone else had feedback on MindSpread.
Banks as they exist today are a non option for most business financing. This is sad, and a big change from the peak of us civilization (18xx to maybe 1969)

Specialist banks like svb and square can use debt to let you stretch an angel round (equipment financing, maybe invoices on enterprise sales, maybe an a to b bridge loan) but are not a replacement for equity risk capital in seed or series a.
This situation is an example of why the USPTO is swamped.

It's not a granted patent -- it's an application; in fact, it's been rejected twice. After each rejection, the attorneys have called and spoken with the examiner, then requested a re-examination. The current state is that the agents are awaiting a response to their last request for re-examination (click Image File Wrapper):

http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/!ut/p/c5/04_SB8K8xLL...
The Machine That Changed the World
My father, an accountant, was talking to me about this very problem a few weeks ago, and I thought it was a good business opportunity. Congrats on taking a shot at it.

One question: Have you given any consideration for sending files the other way - in other words, from you to a less-sophisticated client? That's the other side of this equation.
I volunteered over 100 hours of free software development for the initial release of the National Standards Project conducted by the National Autism Center in Randolph, MA. I intend to make a similar commitment for the second release of this analysis as well. This organization does not have the funds to pay for my attendence and my current employer does not reimburse for these types of events and I'll probably have to take personal time off.
The Monk Who Makes Wine
I also chuckled when reading this very post, but some of the others seemed more or less reasonable. The site is useful, because it turns to the opposite side of the goodness of the ruby world and does it with ironically emotional charge. I liked it.
The tube of lubricant I bought this summer for a lock said that it contained graphite, which is known to the state of California to be a carcinogen. I think that there should be points awarded for the most serious sounding post to the original story pointing out the dangers of our encouraging this sort of activity.
Google also has a vested interest in keeping as many apps free as possible. Most free apps makes use of Admob (Google) as their primary source of revenue, this means that Google gets a cut of this. But for paid apps, the 30% that gets taken away from your sales goes to the carrier instead and Google does not see a cent of this. Therefore by limiting the number of countries from which developers can publish apps, as well as the countries where paid apps are available, Google is actually boosting their own profits.

I have almost given up on the Android market, Looking forward to MeeGo and Win7mo.
Judges Divided Over Rising GPS Surveillance
Here's the list of countries: http://market.android.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&an...

I'm _amazed_ that Google hasn't fixed this. Apple didn't have the problem at all, and I don't understand why it is taking Google so long.
Upon earning a ticket to the BOS 2010 I will organize an inner city program to help teach kids programming and graphic design.

Two years ago I stumbled into a park building in downtown Greenville that inner city kids use for their after school program. They have 4 computers all 486 crappy machines. I was surprised by how interested the kids were in the computers.

I asked the consulor how popular the computers were and she said it is everything to them. These kids do not have computers at home.

It got me thinking that more kids with the right exposure and teachers could become hackers.

So upon returning from BOS 2010, I will get the local ad agencies to dedicate their lead designers to teach basic design. Get local developers to do a little basic programming class for these kids and work with the YMCA in town to create an after school program.

Steven Wagner, Founder Dealer Ignition
Agreed. That is their main downside but honestly I haven't had any issues with them setup that way. I've been reusing them for both images big and small and it seems to come out alright.
> this country need to provide high quality education - currently, it's mostly providing "high quantity" education.

how do you propose to raise the quality while also raising the quantity?

Right now, it seems, the major differentiators between the 'quality' schools and the not-so-good schools is exclusivity. If you go to a top school, you can be assured that nearly all your peers passed through a very stringent filter, and the same with your lecturers. (though, my understanding is that you are unlikely to actually have much two-way interaction with your lecturer.) If you get into a top school, you know that if you screw off too much, they kick you out.

We already have a system of 'community colleges' that will let anyone in and are almost free. These schools are judged "not very good" not really because of the quality of their instruction, but because of the lack of a filter. Anyone can pay a couple bucks and show up at a community college. I've taken a few classes myself. The thing is, most people just aren't serious. Take a math class? most of the students will drop out before the class finishes. Community college is full of people like me who put their career ahead of formal education.

Yeah, you could change that a little by providing reduced-cost housing, but I think you'd still have a whole lot of people who just aren't that serious, or who see better opportunities elsewhere.
Uh, Twitter?
For this reason I love Jonathan Blow's attitude about game development.

"Every puzzle in Braid is unique. There is no filler. Braid treats your time and attention as precious. Braid does everything it can to give you a mind-bending experience."
When you're running your own business, you work on the market's terms. The market is the most unforgiving, inflexible, demanding, and heartless boss of all.
But for paid apps, the 30% that gets taken away from your sales goes to the carrier instead

Do you have a source for that? As far as I know you pay for apps using Google Checkout and the carrier never enters into it.
Protip: if you're a founder or aspiring to start a company that may one day employ others, try not to write blog posts that question why anyone would ever work for you.
Combining Econ with CS, particularly if you intend to focus on stats/data mining/machine-learning will be a really strong combination. I did the professional masters program in CS at the University of Washington, which was a ton of fun.

You'd likely have to prove that you know the basics of data structures and algorithms and have at least one programming language down pretty well. They might want you to take another class or two at the undergrad level. But, if you have a compelling goal in mind, programs will probably be flexible.
To shorten: I want to code, not do the other crap. :)
"There are two camps in our community on Deolalikar's paper. Those of us who saw Deolalikar's paper as just another in a long series of bad attempts at P v NP and wondering what all the fuss was about. And those who thought Deolalikar hit upon a new proof paradigm and despite the numerous problems, big and small, with the paper still hold hope something important will come out of it."

It's interesting that the first group, the one that pretty much just glanced at the paper and dismissed it as obviously flawed (the blogger falls into that group), mostly consisted of people who are not big names in the field.

They should probably take a step back and try to figure out why their betters thought it was worth taking a serious look at the paper.
Jobless millions signal death of the American dream for many
"The headline jobless figure of 9.5% is bad enough but does not begin to convey the problem as it fails to measure those who have stopped looking for work. Over the past three months alone more than a million Americans have fallen into that category: effectively giving up hope of finding a job and dropping out of the official statistics. Such cases now number some 5.9 million and their ranks are likely to grow as millions more find their jobless status becoming a permanent state of hopelessness. Surveys show that with each passing week on the dole their chances of finding a job get slimmer."
If you're interested in another example of how success breeds stagnation, see On Proof and Progress in Mathematics by William Turston, available at http://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1994-30-02/S0273-0979-1994-...

In particular look at section 6 where he describes how his research into foliations had the effect of killing the field for a number of years. He contrasts this to how his different approach to geometrization of 3-manifolds lead to the healthy growth of the field. By, among other things, his efforts at exposition, and his deliberate withholding of results he already knew the answer to so that other people could prove them instead.
How To Deduce The Truth About Government Monitoring Of Blackberries
> Apple didn't have the problem at all

You sure about that? Just because Apple took care of it doesn't mean it didn't take a lot of work.
Hell - we might not be able to buy iphone/android games in Australia in a few weeks:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/media/apps-and-game...
If you could write laws to regulate the search market, what laws would you write? how would you ensure this wouldn't kill the next google competitor?
Ask HN: Which website allows you to sell merchandise online cost effectively?
I am looking to sell some items online. What web sites are out there that allows you to sell items cost effectively? I looked at eBay but they charge to list items for sale & also they take a percentage on the sale price of the item. This is in addition to the transaction fees. I stumbled across www.highwire.com and they charge only like $6.95 monthly fee but the transaction charge via sites like PayPal still exists. I am leaning towards www.highwire.com but was wondering if there are any other options.
Stackless Python
I'd still call that programming. Turning requirements into code is part of the job, and even if you spend all day doing nothing but listening to people spout incoherent requirements at you, you're still wearing the hat of a programmer.

Contrast that with a startup where you wear many hats at once, including spouting incomprehensible requirements yourself, and I think that's where I'd tend to agree with the parent poster.
I launched LavaBlast Software (http://www.lavablast.com) a few years ago and we're growing via bootstrapping. I'd love to attend the conference and would pay it forward by mentoring another startup in the Lead To Win ecosystem (http://www.leadtowin.ca). This ecosystem helps accelerate startups in the Ottawa (Canada) region.
> Made with pure CSS3

False. Webkit extensions, mozilla extensions, and internet explorer extensions are NOT pure CSS3. They are ugly browser hacks. This is hard-coded to only work on the Big 3 and will never work on Opera, thanks for not supporting browser freedom.
Start Small
It would only have to go onto the CRL until it expired. The CRL would become large, but it would still be a couple of orders of magnitude smaller than the global DNS itself, and we manage to deal with that OK.

The idea would be that the certificate comes with the domain name, as the whole ball of wax. Verisign aren't the only _registrar_ though - GoDaddy, MelbourneIT etc. are all registrars - VeriSign's claim to fame is that they manage the .com _registry_.
+Scribd
+posterous
+dozens of other YC companies
There's a Firefox plugin called Certificate Patrol that remembers the certificate for a site and tells you if there's a suspicious change on a subsequent visit (eg certificate being replaced long before the old one expired).
Why I unfollowed a ton of celebs on Twitter.
it's hard to ruthlessly trim down your meatspace profile to really be able to just up and leave at the drop of a hat, My 27" iMac and xbox + games are the two pieces that just don't travel well, everything else has been easy enough, even my addiction to large monitors when working I've managed to deal with;

http://www.lg.com/au/it-products/monitors/LG-wide-screen-mon...

This thing + my notebook and some clothes is fairly easily backpackable. I'm stuck in Sydney on contract for the next seven months but I think at the end of it I might just dispense permanently with the iMac and the xbox, the feeling of freedom you have from not being tied to any physical location is something I can't recommend highly enough.
Your lottery ticket analogy suggests that Facebook was a success because of dumb luck.
It's just a custom here as I'm sure you know.
Well let me ask you... what isn't a compiler?
Their fact-checking needs some work. Consumerist was sold from Gawker Media in late 2008.
Point, but they also got something existing to copy -- and be compared against.
That is a patent __application__, not a patent. The distinction is quite critical.
Who do you love?
Nobody said anything about "old" connections in this thread. wmf mentioned how encrypting everything (even if you don't know who's at the other end) is "no worse than the status quo".

Protocols that don't use encryption now aren't broken, and they could be slightly improved by transparently using encryption, because at least you'd deter passive sniffing.
These are vendor-prefixed implementations of features which are present in the current drafts of future editions of the relevant standards. As such, they are neither an "ugly browser hack" nor an attack on "freedom"; in fact, this is the way it's supposed to happen. Once the standards go final and the browsers get compliant implementations, the vendor prefixes will go away.

So... how about you get that big chip off your shoulder and let people get on with their work?
Didn't Lady Gaga (and many others) do the same thing in the Facebook era?
The secret is that Apple did all the groundwork years in advance, as part of rolling out the Apple Stores, the iTunes Music Store, et cetera.
> The Japanese knew full well the limitations of the Soviet's naval and air capabilities, and they knew that the Soviet's had zero chance of mounting an invasion of their home islands was extremely limited.

It's not obvious to me that this was the case. In August 1945 most of the Japanese fleet was at the bottom of the sea, and they didn't have enough fuel for the rest. Ditto the air force -- there wasn't enough fuel, and pilots were poorly trained 9not enough fuel to train them).

The USSR in 1945 had thousands of effective fighter and bomber aircraft that could have won air superiority over the waterways needed to invade Japan. The distances an invasion would have to travel aren't enormous: 50 miles from Tsushima or 20 miles from Sakhalin. The Japanese would have found it difficult to send reinforcements against the Russian beachheads, because, again, they had little fuel, and Russian aircraft could have bombed the railways, putting them out of action.

Once the Russians had got a sizable body of men ashore, it would have been difficult or impossible for the Japanese to dislodge them: the Russian army was much better equipped and led than the Japanese army, and had just beaten the best army in the world. Japanese courage and self-sacrifice wouldn't have been able to make up that, any more than it was against the USMC.

The biggest difficulty I see for the Russians is whether they would have been able to cobble together enough ships to transport the necessary men and equipment.

Having said all that, Japan was deeply deeply fucked before Russia entered the war anyway.
You are forgetting, that if you spend 20 hours/week on your own business, then you would spend most of these 20 hours thinking and only ~5 hours/week coding.
Which would probably move your business forward very slowly.
I did want to address this statement, "symbolic algebra systems, constraint programming environments, model checkers, database query executors and optimizers, and many many other applications of compiler technology"

You're right I would argue they are not compilers. But I'd also state they often do use compiler technology, as do many other programs. I've spent a fair bit of time working on many of the things you note, model checkers and query optimizers in particular.

But lets be clear, compiler technology is not the same thing as being a compiler. And yes, terminology matters. If you say, "I've written a compiler" and you show me HangMan... I'll scratch my head. You don't get to just say "Everything is a compiler", simply because compilers manipulate data and so do all other programs.
I left twitter out because it has started departing a bit from pure Ruby on Rails and has had scaling issues from the get go so isn't a really good example when someone is bitching about the abilities of RoR.