skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Sure, we wouldn't be using gasoline if it weren't already pretty safe. I'm just saying, before we call something dangerous, we should remember what the alternatives are.
> I just don't see that we will need to use less energy in the long run.

I don't think we'll really have the choice :) It looks like thorium is at least 20 to 30 years away, and fusion... 50, 100 years, who knows ?
Fails to being up the keyboard on my Android phone. thought I'd let you know ;)
Sorry I don't get it. May be its me, I'm not on Sales or purchasing.

You want to purchase a large quantity of licenses, and you want a discount for them. So you ask for just one and use it as a proxy to know if the Company is flexible in its pricing? Is this standard practice?

I must say that I was at a company where the purchasing guy was always asking for discounts up front. He often tried to deceive the salesmen (for example he asked for free ISDN-GSM gateways to a telecom guy who ignored its price and thought they would cost like a phone). For him it was "just bussiness" and the way it's played the game.

Were we a toxic customer? For the naivest of our providers, sure we were.
I think what the author is talking about is having too much money to the point where a lot of it gets wasted before a solid business model is proven.

However, I still believe that seed funding is important to most startups for the simple fact that if you have to worry about paying for groceries and food, you're not going to be able to focus 100% on your startup.

A 30k - 150k seed round could go a long way for most startups and I think is almost required just to get the basics covered.
The other day I was walking in the stairs in CSAIL, and through the windows of the conference room I saw the guy filming this. I got late to my meeting (in the room above this). "The future is here", I thought.

Even if there are some bugs and issues with the interface now, imagine that just in few years this will be mainstream :)
Isn't the latency experienced with the games arising in software (the algorithms running on the xbox, not the Kinect itself)?
Agreed, but I'd say an even better analogy is the Boston Tea Party. It was politically-motivated act of vandalism by a small group against a corporation.
For more details on WHY the life insurance lobbies aggressively to support the estate tax, see this link from ramanujan's article:

http://www.nodeathtax.org/uploads/view/2313/life_insurance_b...

Excerpt:

"Life insurance is the most basic tool for estate planning. Put simply, inheritance is subject to the
estate tax, while life insurance benefits are untaxed. This drives up the demand for life insurance,
thus driving up the price.
The disparate tax treatment distorts the market so much that a wealthy person could buy a policy
knowing he will pay more in premiums than the value of the benefit – and it would still make
sense financially.

For example, if someone bought a $20 million whole life policy at age 60, and
paid $25 million over the years in premiums, he would still be giving more to heirs (an untaxed
$20 million) than if he just bequeathed that $25 million to his children – because after the estate
tax, that could be worth less than $20 million."

--This discussion has been really informative. Thanks to all.
Thanks. I am a bit more judgmental with comments. If I see a comment where the person is just not getting the point, or seems to be actively trolling, I downvote. I mitigate having to make decisions, by rarely voting, up or down. If I do vote, it's usually to upvote a good comment.
"Project Mayhem"
I hear what you're saying, and as someone who has been on this site for about two years and still treated as a sandboxed user, there are times where I wonder "why bother flagging" when there is no feedback provided to show me my affect on the system.

Then I take a breath, close the browser tab, get back to work and realize that I care too much at that moment about something very low on the totem pole that isn't going to increase my effective output for the day.

We can't have it both ways, unfortunately. The more transparent the voting and flagging mechanisms are on the site the more likely they are to be gamed. I'm ok with just 'doing' and not worrying how much of an effect it has on the site.
Peer-to-Patent is back
A mouse is faster and more convenient for some tasks, sure. You wouldn't use a mouse to replace keyboard input, though— or vice versa. Different interfaces for different tasks.

Is it really so hard to imagine a task for which gesturing is appropriate?
This part jumped out at me:

"The longer you stay, the more likely you are to become a premium user. While less than 1% of active users sign up for premium content in the first month, approximately 20% of active users (7.5% of total users) are paying users by month 29"

There's a lot of discussion on HN about whether "Freemium" is good or bad, for Evernote at least it sounds like it's a win if their best route to getting paying customers is to entice you to use the product for an extended period of time.
Can't believe those graphs are not Flash .. Wow !
Mjoy
If you're flying a fair bit anyway, I recommend you look in to doing an AA Platinum Challenge.

http://www.flyerguide.com/wiki/index.php/Challenge_(AA)

It'll help you get bonus miles for flights you're doing anyway, and AA is actually not a bad airline when you have decent status with them.
Why New York City is about average
In roughly chronological order

Apple II Basic - the computer has programming built right in

Hypercard - designing a GUI by point and click is nice

C - there's very little between programmer and computer

C++ - you can have more between you and the computer when
and only when you want it

PHP - deploying web apps is about as easy as deploying static pages

Javascript - prototypes less verbose than class definitions

Common Lisp - I still haven't used a more powerful language

Scheme - executable simplicity

OCaml - type safety can actually work, and need not be verbose

Ruby - did somebody do a usability study on a programming language?

Forth - low-level expressive and possible is

Python - other people's code is almost always readable

Lua - small, simple, expressive and fast can coexist

Arc - succinct

Clojure - the sanest way I've seen to get a computer to do ten things at once

Haskell - I've never seen an easier way to write a parser

Java - lack of power means the IDE can do half the work for me

Actionscript - at least it has closures
WikiLeaks backers plan Amazon.com attack
Not yet (I applied as an individual developer) but I'm also trying to convince my wife's nonprofit (about 12-15 users) to apply...just need to convince them running their business as a beta test is a good idea...

They already live off gmail, google sites, google calendar, etc. so it would be a bit of a slam-dunk for them.
Stating that the global population was heading towards 9 billion, Gates said, “If we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care, reproductive health services (abortion), we could lower that by perhaps 10 or 15 per cent.”

Another billionaire signs up for Gate's depopulation agenda.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography
Preview the new Google Groups Redesign
You are both right, title edited
Right now I'm sitting back in my chair, with my elbows on my chair's armrests. With comfortable armests I reckon I could gesture all day. If I had a hundred odd inches of monitor surrounding me like in Minority Report it might be a reasonable way to control things -- easier than moving a mouse pointer all the way from one side of a vast piece of screen real estate to the other.
A private company did it the honest way and laid a more efficient track. The government paid per mile of track laid which you can imagine can go wrong all kinds of ways.
I've read through dropbox's security PDF and I still have a lingering question: What prevents employees/intruders from looking at your dropbox files stored on the server?

As I understand it (and perhaps I'm wrong), your dropbox password is not your encryption key. The fact that I can change my password and then still have instant access to all of my data (ie - it is not batch re-encrypted with new key) all but confirms this, correct? If that's the case, then it implies that, somewhere on their servers, they store an encryption key for each user (or gasp a single encryption key for all users).

If that's the case and someone is able to access those keys (employee, breakin, etc.), then they can decrypt the data for any user.

If this is all true, then this makes the service too risky (for me) for anything that could be considered medium to high security. I'd prefer it if the good folks at dropbox offer me the option to provide my own encryption key that is only known to me and is provided by me each time I want to gain access to the dropbox files.
Does Internet Explorer have more than a billion users?
Why not simply tell the truth and ask for a discount on a large volume? Somebody gives a discount for somebody's daughter because he thinks it's nice thing to do, somebody gives a discount for large volume because he thinks that it's a good business decision. Hence, you might get your discount for your daughter, but not for the large volume.

Lying about it seems wrong and stupid.
Ask HN: Directory of all HN related projects?
I love all the HN related projects/sites that pop up so often. Things like http://www.hnvue.com/, http://hackernewsers.com/, http://hnofficehours.com/ and all the other great HN sites are awesome resources. They inspire me to start my own project to enhance the HN experience.

The only problem is every idea I come up with I always wonder if someone else has already done something similar. Is there an existing directory that lists all the HN sites? If there isn't would you benefit from me making it? I'd probably start with a google spreadsheet and then later build a site with categories/tags/voting/etc. so you can easily discover the best of the best.

Thanks!
Beyond SSH Bookmarks
Anonymous: a society, a cult, a self-fulfilling existential promise
I'm not going to get into specifics but I'd like to address your points.

The problem of distinguishing between legitimate traffic and attack traffic gets harder when the attack starts to look more like legitimate traffic. It doesn't get impossible.

You can have a more effective attack if you have a LOT of machines you can use to generate legitimate requests. Of course, after a short while, it's going to be possible to determine which of those hosts are part of the botnet because you can build a history of their requests over time.

So it's not an impossible problem to solve; just a hard one. Most enterprises don't really want to pay the money necessary to protect the bulk of their enterprises.

I don't think I missed jrockway's point, but I do think you're missing mine: namely, that effective DDoS protection is expensive and time-consuming from a training standpoint relative to any individual company's exposure. That's why we don't see more anti-DDoS features in high-profile websites, not because it's ineffective.

Even so...we STILL see lots of packet-y type attacks. It's often overlooked but crafting effective attacks requires really good programming skills. Such skills are often unevenly distributed in script-kiddie kommunities.
A lot of companies ask you to fill in mindless forms about how you show "client-focused abilities" or "initiative awareness". I challenge you to apply to IBM without being irritated by it.

I think a lot of people would prefer short video questions and answers over form-filling, even if the questions were the same.

In fact, I think this could even reduce the pressure on candidates. Instead of worrying about how you phrase your answers on paper, you get one shot (do you?) at a video response. This may be better for the employer as well. Who cares how well you can answer a question after a couple of hours of research? (I realise the answer "I don't know but I can find out" is actually quite a good one to many questions.)
I'm pretty sure they are, especially now due to the greater economic disparity between the two countries.

On a completely unrelated note, it's great to see a fellow Qlder on HN.
Rent is typically a big one - outside of that, maybe I just don't spend that much compared to everyone else? Outside of mortgage, if we spend $1000 in a month on combined food/utilities/misc, it's a busy month. That would be 12000 points based on most cards offering "$1=1 point". That just doesn't seem to get me around the world trips. I'd rather just save up and buy what I want.

Maybe I'm missing something blindingly obvious though? I can't help but think banks and card providers aren't going in to debt to provide these rewards. The price is baked in to costs to cover the extra fees banks charge when rewards card holders use their card.
Why can't you not accept their card?
This might be true in some fields, but there was plenty of government research pre-WW2 in epidemiology and public health. Look up Walter Reed in the Wikipedia for an example of what I'm talking about.

Of course, it should be mentioned that much of that pre-WW2 government research was a) actually sponsored by the military, or by government entities that had strong military roots, and b) was of questionable ethical quality by today's standards.
I agree. But I think that fee included putting a dollar value on cultural disruption as well.
Walmart Stores U.S. averages $5.7m/month gross per store. Years ago I worked at a tiny CVS that routinely hit 50k in a week.
Movies like Minority report can now be made with $150 instead of expensive CGI.

I could see this on a desk, like MS Surface.
haha, i like the perseverance
I think you are right; the encryption key must be stored in their servers so if they are compromised the files would be compromised.

As a general rule you shouldn't trust a third party with the security or encryption of your very sensitive files but encrypt those files yourself before they go into dropbox (or other services).
Anonymous group 'recruits' data army
Thats great to hear, I'll try it out again when I get home.

Any word on an Android app or at least an API for third party developers to make one? One of the best things about Dropbox is the API.
> I like your choice of words "lie" as if there is some moral dilemma with framing a hypothetical situation to evaluate the response of a potentially critical piece of infrastructure. As well, for the record, before you jump to conclusions with charged and disingenuous position slanting words like "lie" It just so happens that that single purchase was going to be used to teach my daughter video production. I took it as an opportunity to feel the vendor out pre-purchase.

Don't blame him for using the word "lie" when you clearly phrased it like lying:

> Funny story, I was evaluating some screen capture software for OSX not too long ago for a client of mine. I was building a web app for them and part of the work flow for their content was screen capture. Anyway, I emailed a company that had a reputable product and basically told them that I had no need for the pro version, would not be using the pro version for any commercial work but that I would like to use the pro version to teach my daughter about video editing. I then asked if they would consider selling me the pro version at the basic software packages rate. I framed the story in this fashion for several reasons.
" and MC Hammer"

Title is incomplete.
It is said that you shouldn't try to come up with a business model, but steal it. With that in mind, a business model of OpenCalais, which is also similar to DirectedEdge's, is a fine one.

However, OpenCalais is too low level. Which is fine, but you'd want to have a broader spectrum of services, including some applications that showcase the power of the platform. See more here: http://www.directededge.com/products.html

Also, language bind is a must. Having a REST API is fine, but having libraries that make it easy to access on any language is much better.

In the end it is all about execution. Make it really simple to use, show how to use, and let the users show you where the business model should be after a while they are using (Airbnb's presentation on the last startup school really shows how this can happen).
He gets most of his points for sign-up bonuses. He doesn't say the exact number, but it looks like he registered for at least four cards in the span of a year. Applying for a lot of credit in a short amount of time is a great way to hurt his credit score! I wish he'd write a follow-up about what happened to his credit after this experiment.
The fucking new profile look of Facebook
New look of facebook just useless, Extra clicks for posting on wall, send message not working.......and above all no link for revert back to old profile look.
So what?

In America we have a constitutional right to own firearms. Why is it so "crazy" that people exercise this right?
If you spend 250,000 frequent flyer points on a vacation, it's not free. This is not just because you had to spend money to get those points (which might have been spent on cash back credit cards for example), but because those points have value (almost as a separate currency) that could be spent on other things (and not just flights).

But, he still got a great deal using the OneWorld Awards program and it's definitely a great option for those who have the free time to do this.
A) You generally don't know if something's a rewards card when they're using it (especially over the internet).

B) Do you want to be told - "sorry, I can't accept your BoA airline rewards miles VISA card, please use a different VISA card"? I'm pretty sure Visa/MC TOS prevent that.
How I killed Pluto and why it had it coming
It's a matter of taking responsibility for your priorities. It's just so much easier to not do that and cry, "waaah, I can't answer all my email." He needs an assistant.
After much cajoling, I have agreed to accept it.
I'd rather put my energy into freelancing or volunteering.
<> Find out which operating system the OS class at your university uses, waaaay back in the day it was AT&T Unix, then there was Minix, these days it's usually a flavor of Linux or BSD.
Find the web page for the class that has the build instructions for it and follow those. Get all the source code together and compile and run it. Now make some simple change like altering a boot string to say "Yay I did this." Don't use on of the pre-built VMWare images that just require you to type "make". Download the source code, download GCC and figure out all the configuration stuff needed to build the whole OS. Learn a little bit about each of the tools involved but stay focused on building and running whatever OS it is.
Once you get that far pick one of the easy early exercises like modifying the memory manager or playing with the process scheduling algorithms. Doing all that should give you a pretty good idea if you want to really specialize in OS's and you will do very well when you do take that class.
-- Looks like there will be a fair amount of flak! Smile nicely, reply soothingly, and just keep going along the path. In six month's time, it will all settle in. Remember how it took you the 3 months away for it all to coalesce? D.
careful about that, when he tells your competitor about the referal, then continues to be a major pain in the ass. They might just wait for an even bigger fool to refer back to you
Because using Canvas requires you to manage redrawing the entire scene each frame in javascript. When using DOM based sprites, the browser takes care of the redrawing whenever you move an element (e.g. a spite).
They have that right in many other countries. But (almost) everywhere else people chose not to exercise that right in such large numbers.
I think I got the same page after scanning the QC code they showed during their presentation. All it asked for was name address and email.

Crossing my fingers and hoping that it was some sort of shortcut that guaranteed entry into the program.
Unfortunately if you had a team of more than about 5 people you'd have to pay another $125/yr for each additional person.
The Full List Of The Top iPhone And iPad Apps Of 2010
Mark Zuckerberg to Donate Most of His Wealth to Charity
Lost civilization under Persian Gulf?
This was the best advice I was ever given before taking a job that had me traveling 4500 miles a week.

If I didn't do the challenge, I would have left 50,000 bonus miles and a bunch of upgrade stickers on the table. At the time it was free to do, so there was no downside, but if you're going to fly enough to qualify for platinum or executive platinum anyway the fee for the challenge is well worth it to get the bonus miles and priority boarding that much sooner.
What in the world does the SSL connection have to do with anything? Surely it's the same web servers that are getting swamped, regardless of whether the incoming traffic is clear or SSL.
How was it delivered (UPS, FexEx, USPS, DHL)? I ask because I used an old address with a mail forward (I expected some sort of confirmation).
Things I’d do if I knew I was going to die today
Calling all hackers: Finally a disruption with full pay!
Make history by joining the development team behind the most disruptive technology 2011 emergence.

Communica.do a personal Internet interface for individuals.

Daily payment for code submission. Must agree to GPL allocation for all code.

We want coders who want to:

Develop the next generation of personal internet access based upon open concepts, specs, schemas and software.

Create a new permission-based social search engine

Develop personal web-crawler technology

Drive a permission-based advertising paradigm-shift - advertising becomes information.

Submissions to web2.7@me.com
Someone posted a while ago about 'Readme-Driven Development'. I think this is along the same wavelength, and there is a lot of merit to the concept.
"It is a bad pattern, for you and also for your colleagues in the same profession."

Agreed. I once had a photography professor who was adamant that we not work too cheaply, because it sets expectations for the profession. His take was that you charge whatever you need to in order to live, buy equipment, etc.

If you want to help someone, do some work pro-bono, and make it clear that "normally this would cost X dollars, but I'm donating my services." That way they simultaneously get the ideas that "this person's work is valuable" and "they've done me a big favor." As opposed to just "he/she can afford to work cheaply."
Wtf? Switzerland is more free market than the US. The people still hold most of the power, there aren't many mega corps that own everything. There are lots of "mom and pop" businesses around.

Switzerland is a wonderful coctail of free market capitalism and social responsibility toward it's citizens. Would you think it were more "capitalist" if there were a Walmart every thousand meters and all small businesses were dead?
hack kernel in userspace.:-) lots of fun and let your mind bend.
http://netbsd.org/docs/rump/index.html
http://netbsd.org/docs/
Well but most (maybe all) of the apps that are listed in this post are not just bookmarks
Twitter and Your Target Customers
First iPad 2G case shows rear camera, new curves
NANO USB flash drives are useful for laptop backups.
Xing buys Amiando
Application data is rather sensitive information, and I'd hesitate to give it to a website of a company unknown to me.

Worth yet, the privacy aspect isn't even mentioned on the start page or the FAQs.