skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I accidentally alt tabbed to a tail of a kernel log where a packet hit the wire at the exact moment that I accidentally alt tabbed. The IP address looked weird to me for some reason so I reverse resolved it and traced it, it belonged to the first ISP I'd ever used, I ran an nmblookup on the machine name and it was my first girlfriend's computer name.

Utterly freaked out I contacted her via IM, not having actually known how to do that and not having spoken to her for a very long time and verified that it was indeed her ip address and she was indeed at that computer, but she had absolutely no idea how I had managed to ascertain that fact and was about as freaked out as I was by the episode.

We talked for many hours before it finally dawned on me exactly what had happened.

On the exact day that I had been checking firewall rules on my laptop with kernel packet logging enabled, at the exact second that I had accidentally alt tabbed to a terminal window that was tailing said packet log, she had done a search on napster for a song that I happened to have.

This is very much the weirdest coincidence I've ever experienced in my life thus far.
The top for me would be boltzmann brains - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain
Better to read the wiki article, since I might not do it justice. A self conscious being might pop into existence based on random fluctuation.

Other Top contenders for me are:
1. Zeno's Paradox - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes

2. Birthday Paradox - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_Paradox

3. Twin's Paradox- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_paradox

4. Monty Hall Problem - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_hall_problem

5. Stanford Prison Experiment - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison

6. Asch Conformity Experiment - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments

7. Milgram Experiment on obedience to authority figures - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

8. Placebo and Nocebo - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocebo

9. Godel's Incompleteness Theorems - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_t...
Seriously. I think typography is the subject with the highest ratio of (stuff written about it on the Internet):(importance).
The Softer Side of Star Wars
I also find typophiles annoying. I've given some thought to the matter and I think that it's a combination of two factors:

1) Fundamentally typophiles are geeks, and "typophilia" is no different than any of the myriad other intellectual obsessions that geeks will develop.

2) Designers are accorded much more respect than traditional geeks, in part because it's much easier for the layperson to appreciate their work. (designers also tend to be better dressed, better looking, and more sociable than other geeks).

So in a certain sense it comes down to jealousy - here are people doing the same basic thing I do, but they're perceived as cool whereas I'm perceived as perhaps a little odd. That said, it doesn't help when they refer refer to my people as "flash boys and neck beards".
1. Typohiles are megalomanics
2. We should read minds, but that would be megalomaniac
3. Let's just be a user then

No. Users are people with an opinion. User experience designers are those who deal with all those user opinions and try to find the best compromise. User experience designers are engineers.

http://www.informationarchitects.jp/en/can-experience-be-des...

But that's not what the article is about.
Except when they are not (surface, tablets, web integrated in the OS) and everybody says they are idiots :)
In every new medium is missing a few endearing qualities of its predecessor - qualities which can never be replicated no matter how hard you try.
Would this be a bad thing, if you can get to everywhere you need to go? I certainly wouldn't mind if that were the case.
and ... steve-jobs is laughing all the way to the bank
I am surprised with so many concern towards new pricing, and they do let you know and they try hard to let you know. I believe this means people are loving your service.

But this way, you could kill that love and may effect chargify future. With a tons of similar services from quite establish provider, there will be no more reason for people to use chargify.
WSJ is cloaking
Dear 2600: Because you can't post comments on a quarterly magazine
"Most people don't act in ways that are logically congruent with all their beliefs."

Do they really believe them then? Is there any reason not to say that a belief, by definition, is something (among other things) that you act logically consistently with.
Perhaps that's what they meant. That the windows phone will show you facebook messages but because of the minimalistic UI when you're done with that you'll just put it back in the pocket. As opposed to other phones where you would just keep staring at beautiful background and lickable icons.
Go implementation of Rumpetroll server
Once we have fully automated cars that obviously don't need the manual override features to be used, the spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act says that it is unfair to deny those with disabilities that would prevent them from obtaining a driver's license the right to operate the automatic mode of such cars.
Very well written argument, I was so excited when I saw the video it takes a few days to sink down to the practical reality that is our sue at the drop of a hat society. Was driving a hire merc recently for 6 days through Germany and was amazed (I use the tube over a car normally) at some of even the low spec advances like gps that knew roadworks, rear camera when reversing, colusion detectors, auto lights when dark even during the day, auto windscreen wipers set to perfect calibration. Like NASA research googles work could really benefit society and save lives even years or decades before a truly automated car
"Third place: There are only around one and a half thousand people signed up for cryonics worldwide."

This is a lot more surprising once you learn that because you can pay for cryonics with your life insurance, it literally costs only a few bucks a month.
Here's the discussion on the original Rumpetroll: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1741260
Wow I forgot about surface... what ever happened to that?
Hydropower from a public fountain
Here, I made a spreadsheet of the whole thing.

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AnuVSPZl-I22dHBiRmx...

In the deflation scenario, even though the house has lost nominal value from $200k to $27k, our family spent only a total of 8 years in debt and, amazingly, at the outset of 20 years accumulated 2 millions dollars in real (year 0) value.

In the inflation scenario, although the house has gained nominal value from $200k to $1M, our family spent all those years in debt. Towards the last 8 years, the appreciating nominal value of the home was no longer able to suffice as an investment to counter the loss of spending power, and the family wound up in the hole... 100k in (year 0) value. There was only one year that cashing out on the house would have made nominal sense (year 1) and even so, that represented a net real value loss.

Hell, I was a nice banker and didn't charge interest on the bank debt.

(update: I threw in wage inflation, too, lagged it behind half a year). Now things are looking a bit better for our scrappy family and they come out at the end with a real net worth that's only down about 9k in year zero dollars. But at least they're not in the hole! Of course, that 9k can also be thought as 54k, or probably better, a quarter of the the year's wage.
I have never worked in a large enterprise, or a Fortune 500 company, but email receipts are a necessary evil. Certain industries rely on time sensitive work to be done base upon an email. If this doesn't happen, business is lost and contracts fall through.

While I strongly dislike Outlook, their opt-in read-receipts are the best implementation that I know of as far as privacy and ease-of-use are concerned.
Or X-Moto.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-Moto
I don't think the underlying problem has to do with specific companies and applies to older versions of Firefox as well. The underlying problem is:

(Demand\Rate of requests for specification changes) >> (rate of widespread implementation)

...ensuring there will always be a very narrow audience for the latest features.

While it's good to increase the rate at which new specifications are implemented, it's largely impossible to do without authoritarian measures to A) control the programmers working on every web browser B) control specification committees to agree faster. edit: or C) make everyone use the same web browser

Another approach is to DECREASE the rate of [edit: demand for] specification change. I think a large part of the problem is our expectations from the CSS specification. We are trying to expand its problem domain to include the construction of graphics and graphical effects, something which it was clearly not built for on a syntactical level! It might be better to convince browser teams with limited resources to better support long existing open standards to handle the dynamic creation of graphics with more logical syntax. Because the rate at which specification revisions are required will be drastically reduced. Whereas the process for creating new graphical features to your website via CSS is to submit it to a committee and wait 5years, it is done within the syntax of SVG. Making it a better allocation of resources.
SONY ERICSSON SECRET CODE
Yes, but, doesn't Facebook encourage this sort of thing more than in the past? It takes a lot less of ... something to put that you are a certain way on Facebook than it does to claim it face to face to another person. People are a lot less likely to call you on something you put on Facebook than something you claim to their face.
Italian autonomous car trek makes final push into China
I for one prefer this map with New Zealand in the centre ;) http://flourish.org/upsidedownmap/mcarthur-large.jpg
it's interested to see such a direction comparison of PHP to Python. PHP is very similar to the Python except with more syntax noise. :) And probably worse docs. And worse namespacing, etc. ;)
TripAdvisor. Terrible UI in that everything was too green and too dense. It used to be especially hard to use on the iPhone.

If it were me, the mobile use case would be among the first I'd solve for a travel site, but it took them some time to get around to it.

Meanwhile, you'd load up Trip Advisor on Mobile Safari and get either browser pop-ups or worse, content-obscuring overlay ads you had to swipe around the screen to dismiss. (Best part: these popups were trying to sell me airline tickets for the town I was already in.)

It became so bad I just stopped using Trip Advisor, but I endured it for awhile every time I traveled. Now I use travel guides and other sources.
The same applies to any kind of reading with a deeper philosophical underpinning. Reading the words in no way means you truly understand what's being said.
I assume you're the one that edited it?

With the link we're ostensibly talking about them, without it we're reduced to their level, and just having the same adolescent discussion again. Editing out the link makes HN more like reddit.
Yes and when somebody in France makes a French equivalent of Le Hacker News, and a bunch of Americans start posting there, in second language French, then the "host country" readers can make the same geo assumption in reverse. ;)
How Intellectual Property Hampers Capitalism | Stephan Kinsella
Is that photo, by any chance, the background of the COSMOS intro? http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/21/Cosmos_a_speci...
There may also be some pressure on the busier roads to force the use of the automated mode, once it can reliably space cars closer than can safely be done with manual driving, and once a large enough fraction of the cars on the road support automated driving. (Presumably we will see a gradual decrease in following distance in automated mode, with lots of careful investigation of near misses along the way.)

I've found myself wondering if Google will solve the capacity problems from New Jersey into Manhattan faster than the new rail tunnel(s) that may or may not be getting built; the existing tunnels are pretty full, but it looks like Google has figured out how to dramatically increase the capacity of the existing road tunnels.

But the other question is how parking will work out. Certainly adding lots of parking spaces in Manhattan will be expensive. What will happen if there is an argument that New Jersey income tax revenues can be maximized by maximizing the number of New Jersey residents who can commute to Manhattan, and that the way to accomplish this with the lowest infrastructure cost to taxpayers is to allow the cars to drive themselves back to New Jersey to park for the day?
What New Media Enterpreneurs Want in Investor: Cash, Speed, and Courtesy
> Second, it's an extension of a high school attitude that enjoyment of music is a kind of badge that needs to be earned; not only does it very much matter to Reznor that you like Joy Division and not, say, Collective Soul, but also he's pretty sure you don't really like them as much as you say you do.

I agree with both you and Reznor's point, actually.

Not sure exactly what I have as the music on my Facebook page (FB blocked in Vietnam, and I can't be bothered setting up a proxy to check) - but if I remember correctly, I filled out my Facebook music tastes in a way that says, "I'd like to go places with this kind of music playing in them if we go out."

Since I travel a lot and connect with people when traveling, lots of people don't know my tastes - so I list music for places I'd want to go to. For instance, I've got Bebel Gilberto listed in my profile - she makes really nice bassanova music, which is softly sung Brazilian Portugese with light music with lots of strings behind it.

I used to listen to bassanova quite a bit. Nowadays, not as much, but I'd be happy hanging out anywhere it's playing. Likewise, I've got some of my favorite electronic artists listed, and some of my favorites from opera and classical.

I actually like Nine Inch Nails, I've got The Fragile on my iPod, but if I remember correctly, I didn't list it down in my music likes. Oh, it's good music, don't get me wrong - I'm just not at the point in my life where I'd want to go hang out at a rock/metal/industrial club.

So you're both kind of right. Reznor says people put it down for signalling value, which is true - I've got my music down partially to signal what parties and bars and clubs I'd particularly prefer to be invited to. You're saying that's kind of a pretentious attitude on Reznor's part - I agree with that too. I think you're both right.
edit: apparently this feature already exists in a clearer, more concise fashion.

How about mandating a footer that discloses the tracking feature and has a one click opt-out link:

"The email you are reading is using EmailOracle tracking to notify the sender upon first read in order to provide you with better service. If you would like to opt-out of all tracking from EmailOracle, please [click here]. To learn more about this product [click here]"
The reason I posted this here is to discuss the intention of this offer. I was hoping to hear what others have to say on this.
I'm tired of people citing Khoi Vinh’s Web Site as the best web design in the world just because it's simple, typohraphical, monochromatic, and grid-based.

Face it people! if all the internet looked like this it will be boooring, not beautiful. It's part of subtraction's aesthetic and hardly works anywhere else.

I love Khoi's site, but I simply can't stand any other that uses his theme (http://basicmaths.subtraction.com/) because they look so dull, impersonal and pretentious.

Where's the David Carson of this generation?
I'd be hard pressed to spend more than 3 hours a week watching TV content, but even an addict would find it hard to reach the limit. At 300G/month allowance, that's 20 "hours" a day at your suggested usage rate, double-counting for proxy purposes.
That's what I get for learning programming years before entering college. I forget standard mathematical notation, since I always use programming language operators (like ^) in my head. Further, I only checked the first row to make sure it was actual addition, and obviously 0xa0 + 0x04 == 0xa0 ^ 0x04.

I should've just checked here first (includes an image of the slide in question): http://stackoverflow.com/questions/839479/what-does-a-circle...
Productivity Tips for Programmers
Disney Geneticists Debut New Child Stars
If I could solve a technical problem in my head while exercising then either the problem is really easy or I'm not getting very much exercise.

Remember that walking is technically exercise. 5 miles walking is 5 miles jogging is 5 miles running, at least as far as your heart is concerned. Calorie burn is roughly equal too.

I won't pretend to know anything about you (You might run laps around me!) but if you think jogging sucks there's a chance you're making some classic mistakes re: not investing in slow base miles, not developing 'cellular piping' so your body can efficiently wick away waste, etc...

This topic strikes a chord with me because I hated running a few years ago. A marine friend of mine knocked it into my head that I was going about it all wrong, and I finally came around (kicking and screaming) to his way of thinking. I read Galloway's book (http://books.google.com/books?id=3kqUP3upHQ4C&printsec=f...) changed my approach and started running for pleasure. Now I log 20 to 30 miles a week for recreation, and formerly 'breakneck' paces feel comfortable (I think the charge from that natural pace is a positively excellent time to let the endorphins supercharge your thinking). And for the record I'm not blazing fast... my 5k PR is 20 minutes and change. But again speed doesn't really count for beans; It's really about following the fundamentals and letting the miles take care of themselves. BONUS: The boost to my fitness helped me earn a qualifying time for my fire department's Rapid Intervention Team, which was really gratifying.

You don't need to kill yourself to see awesome benefits from running, and I truly believe (moderate) physical exertion can plausibly yield higher order thinking.
My problem with that idea is that the design agency would have to have been in on it. I can't see them agreeing to put their reputation on the line without some kind of "it was all a stunt, we're brilliant after all" ending.
Because it was a novel gambit at the time. Now I'd be surprised if you could find an advertising student who couldn't explain how to execute something similar.
Godwin FTW
Etacts and Rapportive are the two gmail plugins that have been in the news lately, but I don't think either one allows scheduled sending.
Slightly off on a tangent here, but with the recent influx of Digg users to Reddit there's been an unusual amount of chatter over there about usability. The newbies seem to think Reddit is ugly and hard to navigate, whereas the old-timers think of it as spartan and utilitarian.
Considering the pace of browser development, I would say that's true of any browser that doesn't auto-update. Ten years from now, if we still have this bizarre thing called the internet, IE9 will be the dinosaur that everyone hates. Or maybe even IE10.
I think when you're talking about the mobile site you're probably referring to when they didn't have a mobile site yet. Over the year they've released an actual mobile website.

I do agree that the full site ads are pretty annoying, and the mobile site has its issues, but it's more usable than what it was before (which was the full site on mobile).
> How much hassle would it have been for Google to have changed the name before they announced it?

Or right after they did, considering the state of the language at the time I doubt it was used that much internally, so it's not like it would have cost them billions of man-hours in lost productivity.
> What some people are missing is that before Google's Go, the Go! language was so obscure that even googling for "go" would not have found it.

Nobody's missing it, it simply isn't relevant to the discussion/
C# has || just like any other language, but objects aren't truthy and nulls aren't falsy. This was a good design decision, since it catches the common = vs. == error if(a=b) while doing the type check rather than silently doing the (probably) wrong thing. As a consequence, the || doesn't work as it does in other places. Hence ??.
Writing encryption algorithms as a weekend project should generally be approached in the same way as one might approach writing aircraft control code as a weekend project:

Never use it, never distribute it in a way that someone else might mistakenly think it's a good idea to use it (so posting it on github would probably be a mistake!) and expect your implementation to have bugs you don't realize. (Even if you shove plaintext in and get the right ciphertext out doesn't mean you've found all the bugs, it gets tricky and in some cases different specific algorithmically correct implementations can have not just different performance characteristics, but different runtime security characteristics.)

Otherwise, enjoy.

Most people tend to find weekend projects more fulfilling if they have a way to put them to use. So while I don't mean to go all "this is dark arts that no one should practice uninitiated" on you, I would encourage you to stifle your tendency to find a use for any encryption code you write that isn't peer reviewed. View it as purely an artform; code never to be utilized.

This is the same advice most security researchers give to themselves and others.
> Submitting papers and publishing books is attempting to initiate the move from hobby to research topic or accepted language but it doesn't look like it moved much past that.

As someone who dabbed into multi-agent programming back in early 2000s, I can assure you there are lots of obscure languages and projects in the area. Just like in any other CS field.

Adoption is irrelevant, it is still nice to refer to someone's work by name as a part of scientific discourse.
DeNA Acquires Ngmoco for $400M
Almost every computer-related book I buy is theory or pragmatics related in the compilers, languages and type theory field. They're good for decades, for the most part.
My bank's website. For example to get my account statement, I have to select which company I want, which account I want and what type of statement I want. Even though I have exactly one company, exactly one account for it and exactly one possible statement I can ask for.
Skype For Android Launched 2010
Yeah, I was using it on iPhone before they had a proper, mobile-optimized site.

And wow, just tried it out. Much easier to use than muddling through the full site before.

Maybe I'll give them a try again. I was turned off by their aggressive sales pitches.
I wonder how compatible that is in regards to browsers/OSes

and how long until YUI/jquery/prototype implements it :D
HN? :-)

If Reddit is "Spartan but functional", HN is positively Hittite. "We'll impale you on an iron stake and let you die slowly outside the city gates if you don't like it" user friendliness.

Oh well, at least it keeps the barbarians out.
CiteSeer.

I spend most of my non-work hours there and it's horribly broken. Case in point, I just went there now to tally the most visible aspects of its brokenness, turns out it's down, again.

Yeah, CiteSeer is horribly broken. ArXiv is mostly for crackpot physics and has a tiny CS/EE index. What else? I refuse to pay ACM, Springer, or IEEE.

Google Scholar just .. looks "search enginey" and doesn't have the summary bar with citations, years, etc. Also, it heavily links to the above "resources" that I refuse to pay for.

CiteULike is just as lame as CiteSeer in terms of UI, but lacks the info-bar on the side, and adds crappy social elements.

CiteSeer gets the caching right though, which is why I keep going back to it.