skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I don't think your analogy is a good match, someone selling you dental insurance out of the blue is also considered a nuisance, someone asking if you would like to go out on a date out of the blue is par for the course on normal human relations, and the author admits as much and points out that it is easy to simply refuse in this instance.

I have been propositioned for this kind of thing in a business context and have refused and not had negative blowback from doing so. That was actually the first mental shift I tried to see if it made any more sense to me that way, but it still seemed overblown. I can't think of an invitation that it is socially acceptable to make to a new acquintance that it is not socially acceptable to make to a new potential business contact, admittedly I guess that might be a consequence of the extremely limited array of things I consider to be socially acceptable invitations to new acquaintances.

Just saying no thanks is really not so hard, and if it continues after that point it becomes a hell of a lot less ambiguous or defensible.
This seems like a red herring on a bunch of different levels.

First, the evidentiary standard for extradition under the new treaty isn't "on a whim". Prior to the treaty, the US was required to provide evidence sufficient to make an entire case for the offense, while the UK only had to provide probable cause --- in other words, it seems, the US had to make a criminal court case, and the UK only had to make a grand jury case. That's now changed; the US now needs to demonstrate "reasonable suspicion". Note that the UK apparently never had to provide "prima facie" evidence. The previous treaty was unfair, and more egregiously so, in exactly the opposite direction. It feels to me like that blunts your argument, like, a lot, but I'm listening.

(There's an interesting Chatham House writeup that documents a debate as to whether perfect reciprocity even matters; many treaties aren't reciprocal, and what does it matter to citizens of the UK whether citizens of the US are harder to extradite? The terms for UK citizens are either reasonable or they aren't, independent of parity.)

Second, extradition isn't the same thing as conviction. People are extradited to stand trial. Evidentiary standards are there so that another country can't harass your citizens with frivolous charges that create tremendous hardships (having to argue your innocense in a venue overseas). That's not what's happening here.

Third, it's hard to argue that the evidentiary standards really matter in this case, since McKinnon has already asserted more than enough details publicly for the US to make a case. The evidentiary standards of the new treaty aren't the point.

So I'm back to my original point, which is that the arguments in favor of not extraditing McKinnon seem to boil down to "the US legal system simply isn't trustworthy". That's what they're saying when they claim McKinnon is headed straight for Gitmo. It's a smokescreen. If you believe that about the US legal system, you shouldn't be extraditing anyone; we're running kangaroo courts, after all.
"only accessible through a string of digits known as a DNS address"

"wikileaks.ch [...] still only points to an IP address, suggesting WikiLeaks has been unable to quickly find a new hosting provider"

Both those statements made me question the level of knowledge required to write this kind of article...
My wife is an MD/PhD, and I'm almost a PhD (molecular biology/bioinformatics), so I completely get what you're talking about. It is almost a night and day difference when talking to doctors. When they find out what you know, you can then have a much higher level conversation about things. For example, with our kids' pediatrician, there is no need to pitch vaccines. The only question is what shot are they getting today?

It's even funnier with our dog's vet. He started bringing out journal articles to explain stuff once.

So, yeah, it can be a bit of a give and take to figure out what level the conversation can take place at, but once you're there, you can be far more productive. I find that's it's easier to just say, "I'm a scientist/programmer/whatever, so I get it...". Unfortunately, this type of problem arises anytime you have a highly skilled person trying to explain something to a novice, doctors don't have a monopoly on this.

The other thing to remember is that sometimes they are just following policy and covering themselves legally by explaining something stupid.
To which I should add: their book reviews are uniformly excellent, which is to be expected considering the quality of the paper itself.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I've been dragging down their median subscriber salary for 20+ years now.
If you want complete privacy where ALL of your IP traffic is tunneled out, OpenVPN (or other tunneling layer 3 solution) is the way to go.

If you don't have a static ip at home, OpenVPN with this configuration will mean loss of privacy to everyone on the internet.
Business Development, Setting Prices, And Hiring Right – With Sarah Evans
size: 8.50mb

I doubt that's all of it.
The Supreme Court has decided the WikiLeaks issue. It decided it when it ruled that the New York Times could publish the Pentagon Papers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers).
Lack of life support systems and 1/6th the length (guessing at < 3% the usable volume) suggests minimal overlap with space shuttle mission requirements.

It might make a good substitute for the ISS for housing small automated science modules. (ISS may be deorbited in 2015, or maybe 2020 or maybe…)

I suspect its actual use will most definitely NOT be the militarization of space. The weapons platform will be deorbited from the transport vehicle before commencing lethal operations.
Based on its size (http://en.valka.cz/attachments/14253/1275326063_h_x37_mojave...) there would have to be enough room inside for a couple of people. Not nearly the interior space of a shuttle, of course, but it'd have to be better than a Gemini capsule. As for windows? Meh, luxury!

I have to admit, though, it's smaller than I thought it was when I wrote my original comment. I had this confused with another one of NASA's experimental spaceplanes.
Spectacular Viualization of 200 Years of Progress
You're recording footage of a new UI and don't click on any of the new filters that are available, and instead spend 2 minutes just dragging the map around? Yes, we get that it shows a small preview in the corner of the other filter, you can cover that in about 10 seconds. /rant
What do you mean "structurally"? Politician's can't really change things in a major way apart from voting and signing legisislation, can they? Wouldn't that take more of a (benevolent) dictator?

http://whatthefuckhasobamadonesofar.com/
The UK signed a treaty with the US that requires them to extradite McKinnon

Wasn't the deal that the UK also gets a treaty in the other direction? Isn't what this is all about?
Oh yeah. Cause if you're already using the mouse to navigate it's so fricking hard to click. And the whole graphics with the mouse and hand, just hides away all the content, so I have to go to extremes to be able to reveal the content. And I mouse over something else by mistake and the whole content changes.

This is not an improvement. This is horrible usability.

I thought this was supposed to be a UI design that doesn't require the use of the mouse.
save the credit card, charge later
> Sexual harassment includes the comments like the "how much for a sexual favor?" example. That constitutes bona fide harassment.

I wasn't implying otherwise. Sexual remarks like the ones you describe are certainly uncalled for and a form of sexual harassment.

What I meant is that it's important to draw the line between "awkward flirting" and harassment/assault of a sexual nature, so that severe and proper corrective actions can be taken when actual episodes of harassment or assault happen, and so that they cannot be easily dismissed.

(I wasn't going for the distinction between harassment and assault in my comment, and I used the word harassment as an all-inclusive term for any form of sexual, inappropriate behavior).
Taking someone's business contact information with no intent of building a business relationship and then using it for your own personal benefit is unprofessional and rude. I'm not sure any number of words is going to get you around that fact.
This happens in a lot of organizations.

One that I think is most relevant is CUSID( Canadian University Society for Intercollegiate Debate )

It was very much an organization which had a problem with women feeling pushed out, harassed, and uncomfortable. The result of that was that very few women were getting involved or staying involved.

In 2001 they decided to do something about it. They had a long discussion, and implemented a very strict policy about offensive conduct. You can see it here http://www.cusid.ca/documents/official-documents/cusid-code-...

The TL;DR; of it, is that every tournament is obligated to have an approachable "Equity Officer" as well as an anonymous way of submitting "Equity" complaints. These are comments on things that made someone uncomfortable, feel offended, or feel harassed. The equity officer then takes action, at their discretion, usually informing the offender that what they did was not cool, with no tangible punishment. Sometimes ignoring the complaint. Or in rare cases, taking drastic action against an individual.

Having been at the receiving end of two complaints, they take this policy very seriously. There is a very vocal group that believes that the policy is harmful, because it is too restrictive. There is another group that feels it is necessary and should get stronger. It is a political debate, and the two groups keep each other in check, at the current level.

The IMPORTANT result. In 2001, very few women were involved, particularly in upper levels of the community. This year, female involvement has risen to the point that fully half of the 32 finalists in the BP Nationals held two weeks ago, were female.

There are still issues, and a new discussion is being had on refinements to the policy. The point is that confronting the problem head on, did a lot of good. Particularly the point of having a formal way to complain and have the offensive parties made aware of the inappropriateness of their actions, and hold them accountable.
It just comes down to entrenchment and popular opinion. Much in the same vein, alcohol and tobacco "aren't drugs," but pot and 'shrooms are.
Slippery slope... What's next? Testing your alcohol level before driving? oh wait..
I agree. Resumes are not as useful as a lot of employers want to believe. They represent what the candidate wants you to see of their history, and you get only one thing from that: Talking Points. Resumes put you both on the same page, bringing up topics the candidate is interested in talking about.

A poor salesman will have a hard time coming up with good or enough talking points. This alone is a reason resumes are mis-filtered.

I want to say that you should avoid filtering candidates based on their resumes, thanks to the holes, but that would be wrong: Sometimes, based on what they write down, you can make a reasonable judgment. For example, if you are looking for a software developer and the resume mentions NOTHING about that field, that is an easy filter.

Not quite so easy a filter: "I know C/C#/C++." but I always find that one amusing.
Monkey-Girl Friendship
Emily Bland is a small girl that has Rishi the orangutan for a best friend.
skype's p2p keeps you current even after you come back from online. with a dose of encryption.
It would be an interesting fight between the FCC and the DOT.
No, it's about 0.25% of it by number of cables released, to be precise.
My Google Maps has the same UI now as well.
The US and the UK both have extradition rights. The two countries have slightly different evidentiary standards. Neither country has a "no evidence required" standard. Neither country requires incontrovertable proof; such a standard makes no sense, since the purpose of extradition is to enable criminal trials.
Google employs similar practice in its hiring process. The question is, however, how many false negatives you can afford. Google can afford a lot.
If you believe that about the US legal system, you shouldn't be extraditing anyone; we're running kangaroo courts, after all.

That would be my preference. Especially since the kangaroo courts may well be CIA flights to Afghanistan.
Ask HN: HTML5 Touchy Survey
Hi,

I'm experimenting or rather gonna be experimenting with some new cool ways to draw things on touch based devices. I wish to conduct a small user experience experiment with iPhone, iPad & iPod touch users. Its a very simple experiment where one is required to draw/trace shapes by dragging their finger. It supports single touch.

The app is currently active at http://toucherry.appspot.com/

Through this I wish to find out how easy do the user find these simple tasks. I'm hoping to build a better curve editor through this experiment.

Thanks
It sounds like he tried to figure out how to process binary data with Node.js using "Buffers" but didn't get it working before switching to Erlang.
Wikileaks did not commit espionage here, unless you're alleging that Julian Assange took those cables himself. The person that leaked the cables is liable for espionage (if the Pentagon can catch him or her). However, as the Supreme Court ruled in the Pentagon Papers case, the publishing organization has no prior restraint obligation. That is, the publisher doesn't have to hold back publication of something that's potentially damaging just because the government says so.
Indeed. Pre-warmup request, GAE would start sending requests to instances that were started but weren't fully loaded.
Does Readability concatenate multiple pages? I've never seen that, but I haven't really looked...
I'm thinking the owner is probably the guy who runs up saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Will that always happen? No, of course not. Some people are jerks. Are most people jerks, though? No. The last thing we need is more laws, especially ones that enforce responsibilities most people will take on for themselves.
I get the same sinking feeling every time I check for an OS update on my Samsung Fascinate and it's not there.

No update means:

- ZERO GPS functionality (Verizon reps acknowledge this)
- crippled performance on what's supposed to be top-of-the-line hardware (because the Samsung version of Android 2.1 uses a badly written swap filesystem)

My iPhone 3G has a better UI, multitouch, and even now feels like a more solidly built device. On the other hand, I've never had a dropped call on Verizon in San Francisco. I'd rather have a mostly-functioning, always-connected device than a beautiful idiot that connects to a network incapable of delivering even SMS.
I used to use ScreenToaster, but it stopped working in Chrome on Linux for me. Screencast-o-matic seems to do the job.
I don't know when this stupid trend of linking to the print versions by default started. Was it the advent of Instapaper? Sometimes, the print version is - sadly - the best version, but it should never be the default option.

The print versions' typography are often inferior to the regular versions, multi-page or ad-ridden or not. I recently installed Ad Muncher for Windows which blocks all ads by default, and most of the websites I visit look amazing now. Of course, I need to find out how to whitelist ads like The Deck Network and Fusion Ads.
magamiako didn't delete his own comment — he was banned several months ago, all his contributions since then are [dead] on arrival
There, I just donated 50 euros. I'll let you know if I get audited. Of course if they do, they'll just end up owing me money.
It does now. It's a somewhat new addition launched after Safari 5's Reader boasted the same feature.
Top 50 Ruby on Rails Websites
Is there any reason we can't create a new root.

Then have lookup servers who have both roots. So the lookup server sees 'example.com' and checks ExampleNIC. ExampleNIC doesn't have 'example.com' and so the lookup server checks ICANN Root. If the lookup server gets 'example.other' it checks ExampleNIC and continues.

This should be able to scale to a large number of alternative roots. If you move between root domains you will have to get new domain names but no one power controls the DNS system.
Agreed. WOT is terrible with accuracy. As some of the posts mention below, without a trusted review process, WOT is simply unmoderated user-generated content.
I agree with that. I already use the term as something to aspire to. Indeed, a "lifestyle business" is my dream job.
This must be why they went to bat to defend a book about Pedophilia, specifically citing first amendment rights.

Edit: Not sure why this is being voted down. If you argue that Amazon is only acting in their best interests, pointing out that their behavior is wildly inconsistent is valid.
Wait, so, because they're lesbians (so you say) it's not possible for them to be sexually harassed by men? I don't follow your train of thought.
I do hope they resist. The US prison system is an abomination to human rights. Prisons should be safe places - the punishment should be the restriction of freedom, not fear of rape or murder.
Isn't this "what if" thinking the whole problem with, for example, the TSA?

Yes, someone will get hurt. Someone may even die. It will be terrible, but it will be an accident. We can't prevent all accidents, nor should we try.
No to linking to the print version. Following such a link often brings up a print dialog.
Fair point. Clearly, I don't have enough experience with it to gripe about specifics, but it seemed more like a web programming library than like a Rails-ish web framework. I'm a huge fan of convention over configuration and RingoJS seemed more configuration-y. ...but the point of this "Ask HN" was to set aside my preconceptions and to get people's thoughts on what's happening in the JS Server Side world, so I'll go look at RingoJS with fresh eyes.
Saying that a torrent can't be DDoS'd is wrong. The tracker can be DDoS's and DHT doesn't seem (at least to me) to be as good at distribution as using a tracker.
The problem is that, early in the crisis, the Irish government took the bank debts onto its own books.

So it's now in a situation where defaulting on the loans is no longer a matter of a large private institution failing (which is bad enough) but a sovereign government (and Eurozone member) repudiating its obligations.
Yes, Nigeria is suing Cheney for bribery. It looks like Cheney can just ignore it.

A more serious lawsuit is in Spain against 6 senior Bush officials for having authorized torture. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bush_Six for that.
That was dickish. (Someone makes something and shares it with you--for free--and all you do is bitch and moan.)

Getting tired of the increasingly negative & bitchy comments on HN. /rant
Microsoft's Kinect Misses the Mark
I have an unshakeable imagine of an Englishman in a tweed jacket chomping on a cigar holding a shotgun. "Hunting ducks always struck me as uncivilized. Skeet can't dodge. Drones, though, drones are perfect."
You are basically filtering for presentation ability.

...unless you are looking to hire someone in sales or someone to represent you. :) But I agree with you.

For something like software development, I think the presentation process can be improved by talking to the candidate as part of the presentation, not just letting them starve in front of an audience. Let's not rule out the presentation mechanism; you can learn about the candidate's ability to give presentations and handle pressure.
This something I found quite interesting:

The complex numbers form a ring that is isomorphic to the cross product of the ring of real numbers and itself....

C≅R×R

For those who haven't done abstract algebra:

This means your can map a complex number to (x,y), that every complex number maps to a unique (x,y), and that if you add or multiply two complex numbers and then convert the result to (x,y), you can convert the two complex numbers to (x,y) and then multiply getting the same answer. (it is also bijective, meaning it works both ways).

Importance: Complex numbers can be dealt with as coordinates and coordinates can be dealt with as complex numbers.
Yes! This! Let's be reasonable adults about this: node.js and V8 are very new projects that are really impressive given their age. OTP is an incredibly mature and proven platform.

EDIT: If you're interested to really see what node.js's main issues are, check out Ryan Dahl's (node.js creator) presentation at JSConf.eu 2010. http://jsconf.eu/2010/speaker/techniques_for_a_single_stack....

EDIT (2): Yes, meant OTP, not OLTP. :)
See, this is silly. For me, a candidate who can't ship is not suitable for hiring. All other criteria come second.
Thanks for the response everyone. Just to clarify I want to take a screencast, prepend some pre-generated video, append pre-generated audio and dub a separately recorded audio track. Ideally I'd do this in something quick like iMovie unless anyone knows of anything better.

Features that would be nice to have would be zooming in on particular areas and zooming out.
With all due respect, because I have no doubt you're actually a totally reasonable and thoughtful person --- my default assumption about people with track records on HN --- but it seems to me like you're wearing a tinfoil hat on this issue.

Like many Americans I'm deeply uncomfortable with the way we handled the issue of foreign "combatants" in AfPak and Iraq. I'm unhappy that Obama didn't simply close Gitmo and force us to suck up the pain and chaos that would have caused the rest of the country; we earned that pain fair and square. However, I understand these issues in context: to wit, (a) our war in Afghanistan, which while ineptly prosecuted was not prima facie illegitimate, put us in a position where neither military nor civilian law nor the resources we were prepared to field in theater were adequate to the task of handling the prisoners we generated, and (b) the widespread belief inside the government that specific named agents of known terrorist networks could be captured and turned to prevent future attacks.

Both are bad. Both are wrong. But they're specific circumstances, and utterly unlike the circumstance faced by McKinnon. It's not as if there's no judicial record for what happens to people who hack our unbelievably wildly insecure DOD networks. Hint: not black sites.
December 11th will be the first ever Hackety Hack Summit.
clickable: http://toucherry.appspot.com/ (open on device)
Framework fatigue: How many frameworks do I need to know?
Makes sense as they transition away from simply maps and focus more on places and other stuff.
Mark,
Great post. We shall all try to give back, not just during the holiday season, though as a life code. Happy Holidays!

Mark J. Landay
Link to the article as a single page instead of multiple pages, yes, but not the print versions please: they often try to print themselves. It is irritating to be opening a bunch of articles in tabs and get interrupted by one of them asking if it can print itself.
That and perhaps the nil crew capacity and tiny payload.
I found the animated GIFs annoying in that they changed too fast. It was hard to look at the important points of the map shown quickly enough before the image automatically changed to the other version. For instance, I wanted to try viewing Bing’s map on its own and test how long it took to for me find a certain label on it, but the map always switched to Google’s version too quickly. I would prefer that the different versions of maps would be different images that I could open in tabs and switch between at my leisure.
Right, which is why the myriad other VPN solutions are a better deal.
I think she had better get used to it. Hot women, and she is hot, are hard to approach, so guys will take any segway they can get, even if it's somewhat disingenuous. I have a feeling if she really wanted this to stop she would put on a fake wedding ring, but I somehow think that might put a damper on her professional success... sadly enough.