skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
IANAL, but cases involving that have been in the news a lot.

* Not being in the USA won't stop people from sending you bogus DMCA notices. Some places will honor them even if they don't necessarily have to.

* They can still sue. I remember one spam blocklist that got sued, in spite of being in the UK. But they had some volunteer or something (?) in the USA... allegedly. The judge entered a default judgment against them (nobody showed up) and they actually ended up hiring a lawyer in the end.

* Unless you really do have US assets, they probably can't do much, but that doesn't mean they won't try.
> both have been ridiculous profit makers for their parent companies as the entire devision

Sorry, this is completely untrue for the XBox which has haemorrhaged cash for it's entire life as a division, not just on hardware sales. I've linked to the figures in my post above.

The PS3 is in a similar position - it moved into profit on the hardware sales earlier this year and total losses are estimated at around $3 billion to date. I can't find any figures on the whole division profitability (other than that it is profitable) to know how likely it is to recoup this, though there are statements that they do expect it to make money over it's full life (though I suspect it will be questionable how much for an investment of that size).

If you're wondering how this can be possible, the console subsidies at launch were of the order of $250 - $300 per console. That's a lot of money to make up off of game sales and live subscriptions (remember you're making it off the profit on each game - maybe $10 - $20, not the revenue of $50).

> PS3 made huge losses to try to stay competitive with 360, and never really dropped much in price and lost huge market share because of it.

In terms of global (not US) market share the PS3 will pass the XBox360 shortly which isn't great news for the 360 given that it launched a year earlier so had a head start. Given that Microsoft's sales figures are based on shipped to retailers and Sony's are on sold to consumer's it's possible that the PS3 is already in the hands of more people (rather than sat on shop shelves). In the US the figures are better (18 million vs. 12 million) which might explain why you think it's doing well but that picture isn't reflected in Japan (1 million vs. 5 million) or Europe.

But if you're wondering where the next generation of consoles are, these figures should make it clear - they're nowhere. Both companies need to eek out the life of the current consoles for financial reasons before looking at further significant investment.

Indeed it may be the case that the XBox360/PS3 generation of consoles will prove to be a one off in terms of the level of investment made given the difficulty in recouping it, and that future consoles will be based on smaller, cheaper increments in power and functionality.

Just to be clear, I'm not knocking MS for the sake of it (I actually really like the look of Kinnect and give them great credit for the innovation) but the economics of consoles aren't quite what some people seem to think they are.
This is wonderful. They've been tweeting these interviews for a while now, and I have found them uniformly excellent. If you are a writer you do yourself a terrible disservice if you miss a single one.
I was thinking more along the lines of neat new tax streams with the enforcement outsourced to trolls.

They want everyone to pay them, and they want people spooked so they're always in permission seeking mode, paying everything, just in case.
For what it's worth, have you considered joining ROTC (assuming you are a US citizen)? If you still haven't figured out what you want to do, it's worth a serious thought because you'll build some amazing friendships and, at the very least, find what you're passionate about.

It's not for everyone, and there is always the possibility you may have to deploy (for engineers, this is a very remote possibility; I can't recall any engineers being deployed, except for a volunteer who was working on a Kuwait project). But you will definitely learn a lot about yourself, and you will build camaraderie with your cadre. Oh yeah, your mornings will begin at 6am for PT...

Caveat: an officer commitment with the Air Force will run four years (and you may be able to transfer to Reserve or Guard if you do figure you want to do something else), unless you decide to be a pilot, which your commitment will be 8-10 years. I realize HN is not the most pro-military group, and I strongly discourage any HN reader from enlisting (at a minimum, you should be an officer). But you do build lots of bonds as a servicemember. And if you're in AF or Navy, you're relatively out of harm's way; you probably have a higher chance of dying in Philadelphia at night (okay, maybe that's not the best example).
Industrial designer/mechanical engineer here too. For fairly complicated or complexly surfaced plastic injection plastic products, machined and fabricated metal, composite parts... I recommend designing it in SolidWorks and finding a freelancer off Craigslist to draw it up. They can render it photo-realistically, create manufacture drawings, and have CAD files you can send out for quoting.

And if you are just starting or have low-medium volumes, have it done locally. There are hundreds of injection molders, tool makers, machine shops, fabricators, etc... in every metropolitan area in America. I can't tell you haw many fuck ups, quality issues, extra expenses, importation problems, wrong/bad material used, corners cut, longer than promised lead times... I have had to manage. Rule of thumb - they will say yes to anything you ask for even if they can't. That said, if you have a good relationship, you can save a lot of money.
Can you please try your hand at http://justunfollow.com ? The page after you login and click 'Show Non-Followers'
Or you could host your service in a sane country.
What they’ve done to get to their GDP number is take the value added of everything that is connected with the internet: rather than the value added by the use of the internet.

http://timworstall.com/2010/10/28/dodgy-statistics-here-very...
Comparing sync and async Google Analytics tracking code
how? I can understand 12 (use your thumb to count the 3 joints on each of your 4 fingers), but 31?
Here's my app http://justunfollow.com Any help would be appreciated :)
How Cholesterol Causes Heart Disease
Duplicate: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1617133
John McPhee, The Art of Nonfiction No. 3
Since I no longer work there I can say that the insider "scoop" was that main reason it was killed wasn't because Microsoft didn't allow the team to make the right product it was because the carriers interfered too much. The price point was completely wrong for the device that actually came out, but Verizon mandated the price regardless of what the actual target was. By the time everybody had gotten together no one knew what the target market or feature set was.
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Could the drive-by downvoters give me a clue about what's wrong with these comments?
Generalization is not very constructive, you know.
Binary. Five (biological) digits giving 5 bits.

So color me confused - your profile says:

> I love hardware hacking
> and low-level programming.

How can you not see 31 and think "5 bits" ?
I don't know Mark Zuckerberg and I haven't been following any gossip magazines or seen the social network.

But he's just earned my respect. Great answer right there. Then the whole facebook thing - he's been getting decisions right for years on end.
Can a surgeon do surgery for more than 40 hours/wk?
Same goes for you too - always up for bouncing around ideas.
Ask HN: Hacker Houses in London?
Are there any hacker houses in London? I'm interested in moving into a creative hacker house in central/west London with fellow hackers. I'm surprised that I can't seem to find any so I'm turning to HN!
I used to do that, but found some of the various combinations too difficult to maintain. I tend to count to 10 on each hand, counting the thumb as five and a fist as ten.
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Edit: Re down voting. Sense of humor... anyone?
Will be a great tool!

Please note that when I view the demos on your site the animation starts before all the content used in the animation is downloaded. It is kinda cool in a way because I see an image downloading as it animates off the screen.
> In terms of the law, you don't own those blueray movies so it isn't the same.

If that works, I might try telling them that the file they can't open is a DRM'd media file which I no longer have rights to and do not own.

For some people, that might even be true.
Was playing 9ball last night, used a quicksort to rack them in order.
Perhaps I should have made it clearer that the purpose of using a proxy in the way I illustrated was to access geographically restricted sites (such as the Amazon.com Kindle store) rather than for security/anonymity (which as you point out needs further consideration around side channel leakage etc.)
Discount MBT Walking Shoes
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It's not that they can't imagine it in Hollywood - they can, but it would just make for a much more boring movie. I think the fact they made a good movie is much more important than accurately portraying how facebook came to be. That's for Zuck's memoirs to explain, some day.

As my grandfather always said: There are no true or false stories, only good ones and bad ones.
That is definitely true..
Java is one of the languages I really like, and now Oracle forces out the father of Java, James Gosling.
And they didnt even treat him nice..

http://www.techeye.net/software/father-of-java-forced-out-by...

Oracle went on strangling Java by putting up registration forms everytime I want a clean JRE or JDK, asking me to leave all my details or to login...

Hang in there Java, you're in for a hell of a Oracle ride..
Under reconsideration - ListAndPlay.com
oh vienna, you mean nothing to me... http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3uxr_ultravox-vienna_music
I still can't afford $20/month. :-| That is almost the same amount I pay for my hosting for the whole year.

FYI, I live in the Philippines. If get a Linode, I will not be able to afford to pay for my internet connection hehe

I am however planning to get a VPS though. I'll find a way :P
I try never to use more than 70% of my available space or other resources.

If asked to do something, I usually give a promise that I'll do whatever asked but generally defer the actual work until forced.

I always follow the tit-for-tat strategy whenever dealing with anyone.

I make a point of including redundant details in all communications so that others can catch my errors.
Well, if you are frustrated with College anyway, you might send an application to Peter Thiel's dropout funding:

http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/27/peter-thiel-drop-out-of-sch...

Starting a startup gives you immediately a lot of freedom, a focus on what you like and exciting new challenges and it will also get alot of new people in your life - even if introverted. Afresh start and clean cut is somethign I found incredibly invigorating. And aas young as you are, the risks are pretty negligible.
Fair enough, kill was probably the wrong word but they seemed to lose interest in the Zune as it's own entity.

But it was actually a pretty good and if they'd stuck at it I get the impression it could have done better than it did. Perhaps it will revive with WP7 (though I see the software is still under development which is good).
I agree. I'm far from considering myself a democrat (I hate both parties pretty much equally), but aren't most of the "experience is totally out of left field" politicians Republican?

The Gipper

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Clint Eastwood

Carly Fiorina

George W Bush (his main claim before governorship, other than genetic, was running a baseball team)

Who else?

Sarah Palin - sportscaster

Sonny Bono

Shirley Temple (yes really - she ran for office, didn't win, but was chosen as a diplomat)

On the Democrat side there is… who? Hillary Clinton? But she actually majored in polisci and law, which is a traditional path. Al Franken is odd but he was a political humorist. And he graduated from Harvard with a degree in polisci.

In fact, though I looked, the only Democrat I could find who fit the bill was Jerry Springer. Yes, that's Gipper-level weird.
Russia wants to dump Windows
Part size: think about the same total volume of foam that an iPhone or an Android phone have. The size envelope is like two stacked pack of cigarrettes (obviously there are holes for the electronics and for the phones to be stuck in).

I don't know the number of units or of variations yet. Once I have a working prototype and software my plan is to start a project in my local Kickstarter-alike which would tell me how many to make and, just as importantly, for how many different models of phones.

Oh, and right now I am building the prototype the old way, with sheets of the material, x-acto and glue. CAD/CAM software and milled prototypes won't come into play until I have something that works. Then I will start trying to price the production. Right now I was just taking advantage of your offer to share your experience.

Thanks again.
That's what Apache created in the Harmony project. And Oracle is suing Google over that very same thing.

Oracle claims that they own the copyright on Java API, including clean-room reimplementations of the Java API. It's a novel legal theory that didn't work for IBM or AT&T so we'll have to wait and see what happens.

Oracle also has patents that pretty much prohibit anyone from writing any kind of JIT VM. That's just one more pathology of a system that allows software patents at all. It's literally illegal today to write any kind of software in the USA because of the breathtaking quantity of basic techniques patented long after their first use by our broken patent office. Oracle is just the one seeking to enforce that prohibition today.
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It's a perl program running on Debian stable. Apparently it fails to communicate properly with mysql 5, but works fine with mysql 4. I assume the Debian dbd-mysql package to be compatible with the Debian mysql 5 server, so of course it could be Debian fault, or some error in the program. But I prefer to unjustly incriminate mysql because postgres is so much better anyway :)
"The Friedman logic, though, makes the case for QE2." but only just after going through uncertainty and points against. The way the article is written sounds like the author wanted the conclusion regardless.
I suppose your reference to the song [1] got lost on most of the readers.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_(Ultravox_song)
You should be confirming those email addresses immediately (double opt in), what you don't want are most of those emails not reaching the inbox, because someone typed their gmail address wrong. Start getting your sender score up.
Are Turks and/or Moroccans welcomed in Austria
these days, or will I be chased into a corner
by a mob and get bitten to death?

I don't know where you got this, but nobody is going to bite or beat you (surely not to death!) here.
looks good how much work to get it up and running? I'd say go for it if you don't have other pressing projects around.
Ircd.js: A Node.js IRC Daemon
Yes I know and use theano for some deep learning experiments. This is really a great tool. But theano will probably never be considered a default dependency for common machine learning libs as long as there is no good OpenCL runtime opensource and pre-packaged in major posix distros (linux and bsd, osx already has opencl by default but not opensource hence cannot be reused in linux AFAIK).
You're wasting your time, energy, your life, and your money (or your parents money) by dicking around in college that you don't care for.

You can't let your family run your life, or you'll always be miserable. Decide on your own if you will support them. And then do it with your whole heart. Don't sit there and tell us you "have" to because it's "expected."

Don't stay in college just because you don't know what you'd do otherwise -- figure it out! Make a plan! And then leave. Leave before you end up more miserable, with falling grades, and are kicked out... or you graduate, with a degree having strangled every ounce of passion out of you, and end up in a job that is just as bad.

Nobody is going to intervene and fix this for you. The pain you are feeling is because you are living somebody else's life for them. You have to find & choose to live your OWN life.

That may end up including college. You may decide, after weighing how you feel, that you should support your family, too. Choosing to do what you consider to be the right thing can feel wonderful. But not if you're only doing it because you don't want to feel guilty.

So, that, and pick up a copy of of When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. If possible, the audio book. Listen to it and do what it says. I promise you, it'll help.
I didn't downvote you, but I would guess that you've made a side-reference that you think is witty, and most people don't get. Therefore it's a non-technical, information-free in-joke, and these are heavily discouraged on HN.
Hi guys. I can see there were a lot of replies over the night (in my time zone). I'm starting to work on them and hopefully I will be able to process them all.
So you want to get a PhD in the humanities
I would imagine so - although there's a fair bit of Django documentation out there, so you'd need some sort of point of difference in order to compete.

If you're serious about it I can put you in touch with someone at Manning. They're always looking for new authors and reviewers.
I've hand checked most of them, and it's about 98% at the moment.
yes- takes a couple more weeks to get the mobi file, free with pdf purchase.
You are making the classic mistake of conflating country aggregate with specific people.
Short reply by Krugman: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/friedman-on-japa...
No information - on everyone.
Why does fiat money seemingly work? (2007)
hackercouch.com anyone?
Ask HN: What is your favourite technical interview question?
I ask this question after reading this post http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1840774 [My Favorite Engineering Interview Question(skife.org)]

I didn't find any similar question in HN after a quick search in google, so please give your favourite interview question.
YCombinator?

The real reason we started Y Combinator is one probably only a hacker would understand. We did it because it seems such a great hack. There are thousands of smart people who could start companies and don't, and with a relatively small amount of force applied at just the right place, we can spring on the world a stream of new startups that might otherwise not have existed.

http://paulgraham.com/whyyc.html
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it's the code word
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1840774
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Bill Gates is 55
Or did you miss the 'in chip terms'?

Sorry, you are right. The more complex your chip is going to be, the more trouble you have with RF issues.

Nevertheless, what I meant is, there will be components working in the low THz range, as they are already demonstration objects. Most probably you won't see this components in consumer products or in computing, due to cost, scaling and implementation issues. But for some applications I think this will be applicable.
That's exactly my point. It's generalization to suggest that "Vienna is awesome". It's is not so for many people now a days, who live there, or just visit.

Imagine walking into a bread shop and not being greeted by the "beautiful" Austrian girl (you know, blue eyes, blonde hair shtick) just because you look a Turk/Moroccan. Rather the the typical greeting, you're treated with a "YES!" - Imagine what it makes you feel, knowing that no matter how much more educated you are then this simple peasant, she knows she can humiliate you. In the past she could refuse to server you, hang a note on the door: "No Jews or Dogs." - Just saying.

I've heard so many stories from friends and colleagues living in Vienna, Amsterdam, Paris and London, I really take it seriously. It really is strange for me to hear "awesome" in connection with Vienna.

Europe was once full of labor and concentration camps. It might never happen again, but lets not forget that then it was the Jews. Now it's Muslims. Nobody really thought the Jews are going to "take over", but this is what modern Europeans believe Muslims are about to do today.

There were 191,000 Jews living in Austria before WWII, only 12,000 after.

So, when claiming a place like Vienna (with it's horrible record, past and present) is "awesome" just pause and remember what happend there in the 1930's, and what is going on there, and elsewhere in Europe, these days.
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IOS 4.2 for iPad Has Been Jailbroken Using Sn0wbreeze
How the hell does this end up on the front page of HN? There are several free and open implementations of java and the JVM, the problem in this case is not copyright put patents.

Has somebody been gaming HN to get insubstantial and uninformed pithy blog posts like this on the front page?
Ask HN: Good interview questions for average programmers
I have a slightly strange problem. I need to hire average programmers. Reasons are many - but primarily budget and the type of tasks they are going to be assigned to - not cutting edge work.

I have been struggling to find good questions to ask. Fizzbuzz is too easy - and my other questions I try seem to be too hard. So what are your favorite interview questions to ask an average programmer?
I've improved our system here likewise, and in short order. It comes down to working on the most pressing task.

I could spend all my time working on optimizations to the system, or I could work on things that will bring us more money. The company would rather the latter, I would rather the former.

But here's the key: Until there's a problem, you don't always notice the small things you could do to give a huge performance increase.

I also don't think mental drills are the answer. When I find a bottleneck, I don't just sit there and think. I'm out reviewing logs and watching the actual performance of the system. Without any details as to what's happening, how could I possibly find the real bottleneck?

Storytime: Once upon a time, we had a customer who abused our system. He submitted more data than all the rest of our customers combined. I loved him, because he showed us all kinds of bottlenecks. Management didn't love him because his stress on the system would frequently cause issues for other clients. Even better, the stress he put on the system really was just like regular clients, and not some abnormal stress. By the time they let him go, I had found so many bottlenecks that we didn't have another system issue for -years- after he was gone.
yep, that totally threw me too. It kinda implies that you're going to be handed a physical disk with some sort of k/v store in it and you need to write some software to access it.

I immediately started thinking about seek times and elevator algorithms and that kind of stuff, which really threw me off course.
I agree, couchsurfing.com is where to post offers like this ...

awaiting downvotes
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Any one of your friends starve?