skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I couldn't disagree with this more. Never call someone up and ask them what your rights are with respect to intellectual property. How do you think the client is going to view it? Many clients assume ownership of intellectual property, simply because they don't understand it. By calling them and asking them, you're transferring the judgement to them. Consider that many people view code like they do any thing else they buy. If I pay someone to construct a building for me, I assume that I own the building when it is completed. But do I own the rights to the design (plans) for the building? This question is far less clear unless defined in a contract.

Rather, a better strategy would be to talk to a legal professional who understands the law in this area. Because the contract did not spell out who will "own" the code, he (the author) must gain an understanding of the legal perspective in these situations before he squanders his opportunity to reuse the code.

Even if the conversation with the client resulted in their agreement that the bherms can do whatever he likes with the code, that doesn't clear up the legal issue. What happens a few years from now when this charity is under different leadership and they notice the similarity between their management system and the one that sells for $30/month from whatever business bherms starts?

Talk to someone who knows these answers before you proceed. Nothing is worse than putting years of effort in to something, only to have it dismantled by something from your past that you could have taken care of easily.
Genetically modified crops a mixed bag for their neighbors
Scripting GNU Screen with Python
CoFounders MeetUp is Nov 2nd in Mountain View
Not sure about others but Prairie Bunkers (one of the listed companies) has its domain parked. I guess they went under...
Microsoft unveils plans for first nine Windows Phone 7 handsets
Your pricing page does not look right in Chrome 6.0.472.63 on Mac (latest current). Screen cap: http://i.imgur.com/ffxIy.png

As someone who will be looking for this type of service in the near future, I agree with Michah that the pricing for a start up, especially one that's bootstrapping is not attractive at all. At this pricing it makes more sense to build my billing system and use Authorize.net.
It's deterministic. You can run a fully-accurate simulation of your entire setup in a computer, feed in the current input data, and get the precise output in the simulation that the real one would get.

That's essentially the definition of deterministic. If your machine is powerful enough, you can even do it before the real one completes its operations. Anything deterministic is predictable in this manner.

That you can't predict it, or that you don't have a computer powerful enough to predict it has nothing to do with something not being deterministic, nor predictable. Even a massive, PRNG-influenced neural network is deterministic.

------------

On an aside for people who are thinking of quoting the halting problem at me:

The halting problem requires that the detector returns an answer, and it must be true or false and accurate, or the proof through paradox fails. Therefore, it cannot simulate the operation of what it's detecting, because there could be an infinite loop which would cause it to run without end. You also cannot merely abort it after a while, as that would be either a 3rd return state ("unknown") or an inaccurate response.
- Emacs

- Flask

- a lot more JavaScript than before
Crashplan does exactly as you mention, and handles jumping through NAT, encryption (with your own keys if you want), etc:

http://crashplan.com/

Cross platform (Mac/Win/Linux/Solaris). Some extra features unlock if you buy the + version.

If you want a totally free solution that would take a little more work to implement, look at Duplicity:

http://duplicity.nongnu.org/

rsync based, uses SSH/GnuPG for security.

Run one of these on whatever hardware you have available.
I'm another person that likes loop more than iterate.
I like how it says "make this unique. don't share it with anybody" and we shared it with every CNN viewer several times.
Lens flare plug-in?

Do we really need this?
Here is who is currently using it in production: http://wiki.basho.com/display/RIAK/Who+is+Using+Riak

and some comparisons, but not S3

http://wiki.basho.com/display/RIAK/Riak+Comparisons
Tornado
MongoDB
Vim
Fabric
For those of you who aren't too familiar with Riak, here are some comparisons:

https://wiki.basho.com/display/RIAK/Riak+Compared+to+Cassand...

https://wiki.basho.com/display/RIAK/Riak+Compared+to+MongoDB

https://wiki.basho.com/display/RIAK/Riak+Compared+to+Neo4j
This is not a "bug" or a virus.

XP simply remembers the last ad-hoc network you connected to, to be used when there are no actual APs around. As a blindingly obvious differentiation, ad-hoc networks have a different icon and say "computer-to-computer network".

Back when Windows XP was introduced, ad-hoc was extremely useful as lots of places didn't have wireless internet access. My friends and I often used it to swap files or play network games.

If anything I would call this an unintended phenomenon of people just clicking something and hoping it worked. The network does not spread because of Windows, it spreads because people select an ad-hoc network without knowing what is.

Why we as a society think its totally great to be completely ignorant and reckless with our computers, I'll never understand.
Thanks for the feedback on the site. Hmm, I wonder if this is something that many people think it ought to do. Perhaps I can play w/ the shadows a bit so that it doesn't give off that impression.
Spreedly: $20/month + $0.20 per transaction.
.. and I'm using it on 2 apps.

I was considering trying out Chargify, but not anymore. Unlike Spreedly, Chargify apparently wants me to pay a lot more up front for users I don't even have yet.
I was amused by http://mapfight.appspot.com/us-vs-cn
Zune desktop client? Media Center? Windows Live Writer? Camtasia? Visual Studio?
I used Archlinux a while back. That was back when i was still a Unix toddler (not that I've matured very well since then). I actually had fun with it.

Try living out of a TTY for about a month. You will come out with rustic beard, red eyes and a triumphant smile. No Gnome or gdm, screen to take care of your "windows", mpd (ncmpc) to play your music, elinks to browse the web, surfraw to search, vi to edit your files, irssi for irc, bitlbee for msn etc. Control your daemons with rc.conf and begin your journey :)
My parents and I live in Texas, and they went to New York a few years ago on vacation, renting a car and just driving around for awhile.

They'd take out a map, determine their approximate route from point A to point B, figure it would take about three hours... and arrive, confused, 45 minutes later.
I thought it looked a bit too suspicious for me, but following the other commenters' links I found this:
http://www.lowendbox.com/blog/vpstree-99-cents-64mb-openvz-v...
At least there's a handful of people there that claims to have tried it out.
this is disappointing. we were looking forward to starting to use chargify because of the free tier. Now I would be reluctant to even sign up until I was sure I had at least a few paying customers. I don't remember exactly but the free tier seemed pretty generous, maybe cutting that down to under 5-10 customers is free? To at least get people hooked on it without such a big barrier to entry.
That's a great and valid concern. We have studies that show that there is a high volume of people who enable images and thus we would get accurate readings there.

Open-tracking is just one of the features we have, and not central to our entire product. Response-tracking is something that we anticipate more people want to use, and is guaranteed to work in our implementation.

Thanks for the ideas! Stay tuned for our new features that we have planned. We named ourselves EmailOracle for a reason :)
XKCD Explained is much better -- because it has the right perspective; it's explaining the comics to people who already understand them, shitting on the author and his idiot audience.

XKCD is a condescending comic whose audience revels in its own perceived superiority, while any self-respecting nerd with a real sense of humor knows that putting a science or technology reference in a cartoon is not a joke in itself.
On a similar note, does anyone else feel bothered by the recent use of "North of" to mean "more than"?
I'm not actually sure they did much better than a regular image for tracking opens though I believe they also did a background-image. The clever bit was using some CSS with a background image to track the message being forwarded (outlook adds some predictable CSS class names to the message when it reformats it for forwarding) and the use of an image resource that never actually loads, but does a sleep/redirect loop so it can track how long the message has been open (assuming images aren't blocked in the first place). Also another CSS directive to see when the message is being printed. At least, that's what I remember when I disassembled the code some months ago. If I can dig it up when I'm back in the office, I'll post it.

Though I think you have a much better chance of getting people to load images in a newsletter or marketing message where that's the norm versus a personal message where it might seem weird or unnecessary.
To help alleviate this concern there is opt-out for emails received from free EmailOracle accounts (there is a link at the bottom of the email that says "Metrics by EmailOracle, click here to opt-out").
You have to be incorporated to take even a convertible note, so if you do raise money, you'll have to incorporate too. Don't do it cheaply through one of those online places. This is not something where it's wise to cut corners.
So what'll be the next yc-funded company? shoecam.com: take unobtrusive upskirt shots without being found out?
Show HN: my new Twitter game, Hot Potato
If you look at CLtL appendices A and B, you'll see that Common Lisp was originally going to come with Rich Waters' SERIES (http://series.sourceforge.net/), which is like lazy iterators/stream processing. At the time there were plans for doing all kinds of neat optimizations, including what's now known as map fusion in Haskell-land.
Thanks, I've never heard of them!
I'd probably assume it's a stupid email signature and ignore it. Either way, it doesn't help the sender much.

I remember noticing an image bug in a resume a web designer sent me once. I thought it was a bit tacky.
The standard doesn't require that an int use all of the bits of storage it takes. A hypothetical 33-bit machine may present a C environment where ints are 32-bits, with the extra bit unused (and unset).
Ship of Theseus paradox
We _were_ using pinax.
California makes it easy for parents to claim exemptions from the required vaccinations for their children

I think I spotted the problem right there...
Did GM "Lie" About the Volt's Fuel Economy?
I'm with the crew that thinks it's pretty short sighted to just dismiss this out of hand. Last time I checked, Xbox launched into a market place where people change their consoles a lot less frequently, with a single ENORMOUS player, and they've done pretty well for themselves.

The question is whether or not they get the amazing partnerships with HW/SW that Apple has driven into the iPhone and let them crush design. Without that, it'll be good, but not great and will not win the hipsters/design freaks.
Am I an outlier in not being at all startled at this? They compare one of the World's largest continents to one of the smallest, plus some other countries (some of which are large; but not the two largest).

Perhaps this is due to being British, I am used to the fact that my country is small and that the rest of the world is in fact, very large.

To be fair, I am reminded of when I mentioned to a friend I was considering emigrating to Montreal, and she replied that she might be moving to Vancouver and we could meet up at weekends...
Ask HN: Setting up social voting rules?  
I'm looking for pointers to setting up a site based on social voting (like HN or StackOverflow) to prevent the system from being badly gamed or ruined by troublemakers (like the joke that americaspeakingout.com turned into). For example: tips on how one decides on points allocation, rewards/demerits, badges, etc.
Title said safest. use -1 and leave a very short comment.
EmailOracle does build this feature right into Gmail :)

It adds a link in the left panel of Gmail (under "Contacts") that lets you open up a new pane (just like the "Tasks" pane) that contains all of your emails needing follow-up.
This feels like a big insight, that when my current project has a "cliff" after which it will end and cease to be important (to me, or so it feels), motivation is very difficult.

I will be thinking about this at work today, and of ways to convince my brain that there isn't actually a sharp end.
Thanks Greg! Yes, we have the pricing table shown once you login.
It's not quite apples to apples but Recurly is similiar and is $29/mo for 500 users and under. They have some great Ruby integration demos too :-)
I always used to see this when I walked around the city with my iPod touch. I thought it was just people trying to be nice. Guess I'm naive.
Ford Releases SDK For Sync Apps
This would appear to be Manhattan.
If the legal fees are going to be half the investment, I'd wait if I were you.
Ask HN: What if my startup is not a Social app?
Hi guys. I know most of the startups posted to HN are social apps that any geek can evaluate and give some feedback; what if my startup is not the next Twitter, Foursquare or Dropbox but is related to Electronic Medical Records/Health Care?

Can I still get valuable feedback from HN or do you recommend me to post the URL in some place else?

Can I still go viral to find Doctors to evaluate my startup?

Thanks in advance and Have a nice day!
Ask HN: Apple North Carolina Data Center
My 12 year old son lives, breathes, eats, sleeps Apple. His iPad is his prize possession.

He has been asking me about Apple building a data center in North Carolina. He is pretty technical in his questions. If anyone has any input, I would really appreciate it so I can better help him understand what he wants to know.

1. What hardware will they use? XServe's? Mac Pro's?

* I actually would not even have a clue here as to what they are doing. He assumes that since it is Apple they will be using Apple hardware?

2. Operating systems: OS X Server? Linux?

* again, he assumes OS X Server.

3. How much storage, disk space will they have and how will it be setup?

* I tried explaining that perhaps they will have 42U racks filled with NAS devices, maybe each holding 24 drives (which takes up 5U of Space) so approximately 5-6 of these per rack (allowing for air flow, power, wiring, etc) and several racks of these. Also, that maybe one "server" would control several racks of these drive setups.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the architecture/setup of the facility?
Rapid iteration with hardware
Sorry, totally disagree. Tools matter. A LOT. Being able to build my LOB app in VB and launch on a company's phones = huge win for IT Departments.

The world isn't all about consumers and flash. Whether or not they can win that market is an open question, but they'll make a dent. And Blackberry has built a very successful business doing just that (doing ok with consumers and crushing enterprise)
It's basically a you build it you own it world. But at this point I do agree with webwright. It's much better if you all agree that you can pursue the idea and all give up right to each others pursuits of this matter.
The people I know who use standing desks get a tall chair to go with it - like, barstool height, but finished like an office chair. Then they can stand, lean, or sit as their body desires.

As my friend put it - "Standing desk doesn't mean you're only standing. It just gives you the option to stand or sit."
When a computer running an older version of XP can't find any of its "favorite" wireless networks, it will automatically create an ad hoc network with the same name as the last one it connected to -- in this case, "Free Public WiFi." Other computers within range of that new ad hoc network can see it, luring other users to connect. [...] Computers with the XP bug that try to connect to the Internet will remember the name, create their own ad hoc networks and entice other users wherever they go.

If this was the case, wouldn't we see all manner of oddly named hotspots at airport locations, and wouldn't they also propagate as people try to connect to them?

I suspect this story may have been "simplified" to the point where the interesting details have been lost.
Some braking strength indication standard should be established and mandated on new cars. This sort of thing is definitely needed in Houston. The frequency with which I have to panic stop in the middle of the freeway or other kind of high speed limited-access road is startling.
Chargify can charge what it wants, but the pricing change was abrupt and BIG. Apps on the ground floor went from FREE to $1200/year. No grandfathering, 30 days to accept. For a service that needs to be integrated, that's a terrible move that shows no respect for startups.
You can also see a list of customers users here: http://www.basho.com/customers.html
I am not a lawyer, but I think this idea sounds the most reasonable. As a side effort in case they do not like the proposal as drafted, you could maybe give them 2% (or some other number) of equity in any new entity you create to run with the idea with them giving up all rights at that point. It is a small amount of equity in the "new" business and the signed contract prevents them from coming back years from now and asking each for their 33%.
24%... not even close! I think the point is still valid at 24% though.
Peter Diamond and other Nobel winners' solutions stumble in real world
I find myself very skeptical of your last claim. According to the research my friends and I did when taking the SATs, the difference between a 1570 or 1580 and 1600 was often a single question.

The scoring scale varied a bit based on the difficulty of the particular exam you sat, and as we were aiming for scores near the top of the scale we hoped to get an exam that allowed a question or two wrong to still get a 1600. Often one question wrong on verbal would still score 800, math was less forgiving of a single mistake.

I have trouble believing there could be any distinguishable difference in practice between the population of students who got two questions wrong on the exam and those who got one wrong.
For many of those below, a rebuttal, and some more meta discussion:

I have made no claims that computers can make flawless decisions. I make no claims they can detect / avoid everything avoidable. I don't know where you're getting the idea that I've said this, unless you're dragging in past battles with other people - everywhere I've claimed computers would do better I've included qualifiers like "likely".

The point I was trying to make is that the instructions of a computer, barring external phenomena which cannot be accounted for, are fully deterministic and accurate. If the high-level decisions are made incorrectly, then the end result will be incorrect, but all down the path everything will be accurately performed.

Not so with humans (just look at someone with epilepsy, or at your own memory), or at least not in the minds of some people, which is the only reason I include it. And, if nothing else, we're far further from accurately simulating an entire human body / neural net than from simulating another computer.
How to Estimate Software
They need to include 50-100 customers for the free developer plan. If I was bootstrapping a service, I wouldn't pay $99 a month for customers I don't have yet.
I say we call it the world's first "computer prion".
When you make a 90 degree angle with your elbows, it is natural for your palms to face each other. When you point your palms down for long periods, it causes torsion in your forearms which can cause pain.

I've reduced that pain by using a vertical layout keyboard.
Essay Examples – Where to Find Them
Writing an essay is not easy. As many students lack the knowledge to write a good essay, they will go through essay examples. These examples will assist them through the writing process. Knowing where to find good essay examples is important.
"The people making these products probably don't want them heavily enforced either. If things actually got to that point nobody would buy their products."

That's exactly my point. There currently isn't anything that forces the consumer realize what they are getting themselves into. If they did, they probably wouldn't be buying the products.
Chargify requires that you setup both a payment gateway and a merchant account. Why would you use them instead of just integrating with the gateway directly?
What's With All the Social Media T-Shirts?
Not really. Some people don't respond, others just respond to the email with the reason and the remaning take us up on the offer and give us great feedback.
Thanks HN: Groupie is now #1 in the app store (social networking, 17 overall)
This wouldn't be possible without the incredible connections made and knowledge shared through HN. This really is an amazing community. Thank you.
I like it, I can see others with the potato but even I logged in I don't know how to get the potato...
Thanks! Though I suspect that almost everyone has been more confused than amused.
Honestly, Nike's had it right all along: Just do it. Tough to make yourself sometimes, but still true.
I'm sorry you feel this way. You can opt-out of emails sent to you from free EmailOracle accounts. Maybe we should add to our website the ability to automatically opt-out of all future tracking?
Limit the reward for voting badly and increase the chance that you'll get publicly and anonymously hand-slapped.

On HN and StackOverflow:

1. These are not places that non-techs would tend to frequent, and they mostly evolved into more serious areas, unlike Slashdot, which gave points for "funny", etc.

2. People are typically serious enough to self-regulate or community-regulate via negative voting.

So, I'd not provide points for funny, and I'd cut off editing and negative voting early after the post (like HN), as continuous negative voting is demoralizing.

One more thing: general forums are more likely to get vandalized.
> it is helpful to realize that the United States is, in fact, larger in terms of landmass than China

True, although the difference between the US and China is about 1% or so -- they are practically the same size.

And since Alaska is a sixth of the US, China is much larger than the continental US.
> This is the first (global?) distributed wireless network that evolved on its own.

Not really. It's emergent behavior in a complex system. You have a lot of entities (in this case, unpatched Windows XP SP2 and below systems), and a set of very simple local rules (if (winxp and no wifi) then create last adhoc network, if (human and see "free public wifi") then click link).

The fascinating behavior that emerges from the interplay of these local rules is the global "virus" if you will. It's a fascinating area of research, and even aside from the inflated egos of some physicists in the area, I'm glad I'm studying the field.

Read Duncan Watts' book "Six degrees" for a decent popsci introduction to the field (you might have to skip some self-aggrandizing of physics as the Savior of Intellectual Thought though).

Edit: cellular automata are a more recognizable CS example of this.