skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> It would be interesting to know why a portable, cross-language serialization format beats out the language-specific one.

Because protobuf parses messages with a fixed schema in a very structured format. Pickle, OTOH, is an interpreted bytecode microlanguage used to describe arbitrary python objects (for instance, pickle can call python functions: http://nadiana.com/python-pickle-insecure)

Also, pickle supports references (so if an object is referenced two times in the same serialization stream, it is
serialized only once) and this has a cost at serialization time (need to keep the set of seen references)
Suggestion: make a few microsites with 'bingo card creator torrents' and such to crowd these guys off the front page, then have a nice blurb up on the page where you explain the downsides of not having an official copy and your stellar support.

That way you might mitigate some of the damage these jerks do to your bottom line.
MongoDB hasn't got a sweet spot - why use it?
It's not censorship, it's just a feature that they decide not to apply to one branch of queries because 'suggesting' such a search might get them in hot water with entities with very deep pockets.
Here's the locations of ~1600 members,
http://hackernewsers.com/pages/map.html

US has about 6x as many users compared to the next largest, UK.
Al World Economic Forum si parla di Cyber Security
Nel Rapporto 2011 sui Rischi Globali prodotto dal WEF, la Cyber Security è segnalata come uno dei principali rischi da tenere sotto controllo. Il rapporto, a cui vale davvero la pena di dare un'occhiata, se non altro per l'innovativa veste multimediale, parte da un assunto di base: il mondo non è nelle condizioni di affrontare un'altra crisi globale, per cui devono essere affrontati con impegno e lungimiranza tutti i maggiori rischi della società...
Having visited Mauritius a few years ago as a tourist, I'd say they're probably missing out on an opportunity in tourism and maybe immigration. Outside the generic, polished beachfront hotel complexes, they seem to treat their otherwise beautiful island as a landfill. I don't think I've seen so much rubbish strewn around the countryside anywhere else. There's plenty there for tourists to explore, but (at least for us) the way the natives seem to treat their countryside was a major turn-off for future visits and recommending the place to others. Admittedly, this was a few years ago, and they may have since cleaned up their act.

(I realise that attracting tourism can be a double-edged sword)
Actually eating in .at isn't too bad, it's just not very good for you. Neighboring .it is healthier and has more variety:-)
A False Sense of Security with Test-driven Development
Expressing Ruby -- stop holding back Ruby and let it speak it's mind
Well that's exactly the point I was trying to make: HN (and reddit and many others) look extremely US centric but I'd love to see access log, for I think Europeans may not be so few after all, just extremely more silent.
Perhaps there is a gap here for a website designed to bring these problems out in the open for engineers/programmers to solve :-)
Nonsense. They are perfectly within their rights to not suggest that people behave in ways that are against the law.

You may not like that it is against the law in many places but (1) legally aggressive companies don't like other companies suggesting their stuff gets pirated and google is a much juicier target than John Doe, (2) it would not help google if Jane Doe brought up google suggesting she download a torrent when she was doing a search to buy the album if Justin Bieber and pirated it instead.

This is just a sound business decision by google, not evil.
Any developers interested in product equity?
Can anybody introduce me to any developers that would be interested in project equity? Got some cool stuffs on board that we can iron out together !
I'm part of a startup where the lead founder is female. When she had the idea, she formed the team, applied for accelerators (including YC) and looked for funding. No one took her seriously. So she pulled it off anyway -- it soft launches next month -- but I can understand how others might get discouraged. Until there are more home runs by female founders, it will be an uphill battle for them.
An old professor of mine used to go on huge country walks for a lot of the day. He is one of the top figures in his field of AI and attributes most of his success to being able to just walk out of the campus and into a huge field. He is at a large post-polytechnic and is courted by the likes of Oxbridge and UCL/ICL almost yearly, but stays because he likes the nearby field.
I bought a pre-paid zte blade (http://www.okmobile.ch/de/mobile/index.php?id=smartphone) for 90 euros the other day to use as a dev phone. It has a 800x480 TFT touchscreen, 512mb ram, hardware accelerated graphics, GPS, 3G internet, WiFi, bluetooth, and accelerometers/magnetometers. It's pretty open as it runs Froyo 2.2, jailbreak/root is easy, kernel source is available.

Sure, it doesn't have any buttons, you can use a bluetooth joystick/keyboard (i.e. http://www.talkandroid.com/guides/using-a-bluetooth-gamepad-...) if you really want to.
Or you could just un-check "simple passcode" in Settings...
I'm completely mystified by the prospect of spending 250k a month on AdWords. As much as you can, would mind going into a bit of detail like how much coverage that buys? Are you buying super common keywords or heaps and heaps of obscure ones? Conversion and ROI? how many impressions that gets?

Obviously those questions are sensitive so, if you even feel like answering, i think we'll all live if you're a big vague on some stuff!
I recall not so long ago the freest country in Africa (and the whole World) by Mises Institute standarts was Somalia?

http://mises.org/daily/2066

http://blog.mises.org/7128/the-rule-of-law-without-the-state...

BTW, I love Mauritius!
You should probably also have asked how many hours per week people work. There is little use in comparing people who work 20 hours per week with workaholics who do little else.
At the risk of sounding trollish, this is one of the reasons I absolutely love living in Slovenia.

30 euro a month for unlimited and unshaped 20/20 FTTH. :)

From what I understand it's like this in a lot of Europe actually, especially those scandinavian countries.
I think the norm is around 1400 euros, an upper salary may be 2000 euros or 3000 if you're very lucky. If you're self employed (like me) you also pay half in taxes.

Edit: as an example, I have difficulties charing more than 20-25 euros/hour here, but for the same jobs I charge 80-100 dollars/hour when I work for the USA.
I know, I know I say this every time, but man, I would love someone in New Zealand to come and tell my broadband provider that their top-of-the-line plan that I pay $80 NZD a month for that only gives me 40 gigs is BS.

Oh and we've already prioritised traffic too..If i was to buy tivo, then all my on demand data would be "free". I don't think Net Neutrality is even a remote consideration here - though there are many of us who passionately believe in it.
The Parable Of An Irish Bailout
Let me guess at some of what (s)he means:

Forth is an interpreter that can be switched into compilation mode, Lisp is a compiler that can be switched into interpreter mode. [edit: thinking of that, this more reflects how I have used the two than what they are. Lisps start in an eval loop, too, yet they feel different to me]

Forth is postfix, Lisp is prefix.

Forth programmers know their stacks are the environment, but rarely think of it as an environment. Lisp programmers know their environment is in some stack-like data structures, but rarely think of those stacks.
Yelp launches their daily deals in Seattle 1/27/11
Yup ticked other, Auckland NZ here.
Cape Town, South Africa. (Just got my H-1B this morning, and off to "Within 100m radius of San Francisco", though.)
Yelp launched this months ago. See http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/26/yelp-local-deals/
Fiesta Online News
HACKING by fiesta
Indian Sarees, Designer Bridal Sarees, Buy Indian Saree Online Shopping
I totally agree with you on the "10x" price increase for "enterprise" gear, along with much higher profit margins per sale. For notes, I've bought and tested the hellishly expensive FusionIO PCIe devices along with a ton of related flash based memory/storage hardware, including some stuff that is not commercially available (i.e. without contracts/NDA's/...). A good example of the latter --well at least a publicly known example-- would be the
CurtisWright battery backed NVRAM cards [1].

The trouble with this particular flash backed RAM device is manufacturing costs, particularly your BOM (Bill of Materials - components). It's not a terribly difficult or expensive device to make, so there will be competition if it proves useful, and now the important thing is to quickly achieve volume sales to reduce mfg/parts costs as well as competition. Initially targeting "enterprise" for its high profit margin is most likely just a business strategy to get started, with cheaper products planned for the future.

For example, FusionIO started off with extremely expensive "enterprise" products, and now that OCZ and others are entering the market with roughly similar "PCIE SSD" products for the high-end but "mass" market, the company with the ability to ramp up production and reduce costs will be the eventual winner.

And lastly, no, spending $15,000 for a single "hard disk" from FusionIO is certainly not bragging rights. It was mostly just stupidity, albeit forced by a need to test the most recent hardware. When I was a kid in the 70's, all hard disks cost that much. ;-)

[1] http://www.curtisswrightcommercial.com/Umem%20NVRAM/
Ark Hotel Construction time lapse building 15 storeys in 2 days
The Internet Is Nearly Out of IP Addresses
Bollywood Sarees | Designer Bollywood Saris | Indian Bollywood Saree Online
Not sure what you're saying here. What I'm witnessing is click-fraud. It would seem like nobody is stupid enough to run 1000 clicks on my ad on their site, but they seem to nickel and dime each advertiser - a click here, a click there, nothing that couldn't be disproven. There seems to be a lot of work needed to wade through the display network. I don't know how the false conversions happen. It would seem to me they have found a way.
Ohhh I must have missed that TC article. Looks like they just launched in Seattle as of midnight. I updated the title.

Still interesting they're expanding. I wonder how they're competing with Groupon, LivingSocial, and Tippr..
An Indian now owns the East India Company
Ask HN: What kind of statistics do you track and what do you use to track them?
For your business, which quantitative aspects do you measure? For example user registrations, conversion rates, etc.

Also, what programs do you use to track these conversions?
OOP is not difficult. I learned OOP with Smalltalk and then went on to program with Actor on Windows 3 and lived happy until I decided to learn C++. I closed the book for 8 years because of what I saw: a parody of the simplicity and elegance of C. C++ could, as well, be a work of satire.

OOP is only "difficult" if you try to learn it using a language that makes it difficult. Sadly, Java is one such language.
Yes I can see the value of reposting older submission, I think my main discomfort is having to add random characters to the urls in order to fool the dup detector so that people can post an old article again.

If the community agrees there is value in reposting old articles, maybe change the dupe detector to allow reposting old articles after N days. Since that would become part of the system (instead of working around it), it would become easier to link old and new submissions for example...

I just don't like it when one has to work against the system to do something if the community seems to feel that something is worth doing.
Palo Alto: With Facebook IPO, Better Buy a House Now (If You Can Find One)
The billions of dollars smartphone game developers make disagree with you. I can't find exact numbers but a quick Google session reveals that total console game sales ($11-12 billion) are not far ahead of mobile game sales (a significant portion of total mobile app sales, estimated to be around $5 billion).

Given the rate smartphone sales and smartphone app sales grow, I don't think it will take a long time until mobile game sales with overtake console game sales.
That was in the diet market on the Google content network. I'm not sure what conversion and ROI numbers would give you, every market/site is different. In the diet market that spend resulted in 1+ billion impressions, and 1+ million clicks.
Re-read the article. It's not claiming that anything is filtered.

The author of the article is up in arms because Google has removed "bittorrent" and other terms from auto-complete. In other words, if you type "bittorr" in the search box and pause, it will not suggest "bittorrent" as a completion.

Here's a teacup. Good luck finding the tempest.
After hacks, Facebook unlocks new security mechanisms
Facebook is adding new security features, which come after a pair of high-profile cracks in the site's defenses that surfaced this week.One new mechanism is called "social authentication.
Oh good idea! (see my other reply), unfortunately 3.5 years seems to still be disallowed, that's why the submitter had to add '?' to the url.
Consider that, with Nokia, Microsoft has shown mastery in the art of offensive outplacement.
Regardless of that, many mid-career, 5yr+ experienced friends of mine are in the 55 - 65K USD range.

cry at rubbish rates of pay in the UK
Seventeen Best iPad Apps for Bookworms
The ability to read online books through iPad is one of its greatest features. And, it’s way more functional than a simple e-reader, because it has all the features of an e-reader, but it also contains many features that e-readers don’t have.
Well, without a functioning central government, that probably was very true.

With anything like this, you have to balance it with other indicators like life expectancy and quality of life indexes to get an overall picture of what it is like to live in the country.
Facebook to let advertisers republish user posts
As a junior at a university outside Boston who has dealt with the same questions, here's my advice:

Personally (this may not be you), I would say drop the lab job unless you're really enjoying it or it's very clearly worth the time. You've got a lot going on for a freshman and you can always explore a lab job again later in your undergraduate career.

I don't worry too much about GPA. You're at a well known school with a good reputation. I don't know what your definition of "do well in school" is, but notwithstanding the unfortunate fact that your school seems to have significantly less grade inflation than similar schools (which is bad when employers are looking at your school and GPA and don't know what the average GPA is, and assume it's higher than it is), I don't believe that having a GPA in, say, the 95th+ percentile is worth the potentially 4-5x more time spent studying than for a GPA in the 50-75th percentile, depending on what classes you take. If you can do something noteworthy as a result of the freed up time, it will be more valuable to employers than a higher GPA. (Looking at your resumé, you are more than on your way already).

There's nothing wrong with neuroscience as a major, but I do advise taking a broad spectrum of classes to expand your horizons. I've learned a huge amount just by exploring the available information about interesting subjects that have only been introduced in my classes. I also extol the merit of taking lots of compsci classes, particularly because they will give you lots of practice programming, which will help you spend less time building your own projects in the long run. They will also expose you to important theoretical computer science ideas that, while not talked about every day in industry, can be indispensable. Taking an algorithms class will make you stop writing grossly inefficient code, for instance.

I'm doing nothing for the next month before I go abroad (besides finding and building my next project) -- let me know if you want to grab lunch or something.

You might want to attend http://developersdevelopersdevelopersdevelopers.org/.
Microsoft sues former GM over departure to Salesforce.com
The first comment is correct - this is the UK scene more than the european scene.

My real problem with the UK scene is the relative lack of talent available to startups. Where do talented graduates from the UK want to work? Banks, consultancies and accountancies. How much do they want to be paid? About £40k starting, please.

With the cost of living being so high in London, why wouldn't they?

Unless you can raise enough money to pay these people, your chances are far more limited. And London VCs are still far more risk-averse than SV VCs. To my mind that makes entrepreneurship in London a rich (and older) man's game compared with SV.

Of course there are counter-examples, but I think they've succeeded despite London. I'm sure this situation will improve (it has already been doing so), but in the meantime I plan to move to SV. I just think it will improve my odds.
The average European gets (say) $50K plus retirement plus (in some countries) healthcare/unemployment insurance plus X more weeks of vacation plus lots of miscellaneous "welfare state" stuff.

Comparing raw salaries in Europe and the US might not work that well.
I think Actionscript does, and back when this was written, it looked like Javascript was also going to - https://developer.mozilla.org/presentations/xtech2006/javasc...
The standards people have since pulled back from the more radical designs (i.e, instead of going with Javascript 4, aiming for Javascript "Harmony").
It's funny, I see comments like yours in most related threads, and I don't agree.

There's enough of a sensible audience here to downvote hostile replies, and - far more importantly - to upvote the supportive ones. Guess which type of reply is likely to receive more respect and attention, particularly among female readers?

So I would venture to say that the '4% ratio' is due to something else, and we'd be far better off not hiding behind false/stereotyped/politically-correct make-believe.
I've been there in 2007 too and I think you're wrong. If anything I think they're too dependent on tourism. And actually they seem to understand it by trying to diversify into tech and other industries.

Regarding rubbish and immigration, the largest population group there are indians, the most disregard to rubbish seems to come from their culture (have you been to India?). But they're also the largest contributors to growing tech sector for example.
I'm not him, but I think I can help you on that one. When evaluating the credibility of this, keep in mind that AdWords is not my strongest subject, but I do depend on it for making rent:

Pretend you're a company selling enterprise software. ~$10 will get you a click -- that's right, one click -- for a head keyword in many enterprise-y systems (think, oh, "electronic discovery software"). You try to convert it into an email submission, via offering a whitepaper of some description. Each email is now a lead. Your marketing and sales teams try to sell the leads. The average deal size for successful sales: six figures. Ideally, your best performing sales guys are bringing them in every single month and howling for you to give them more qualified leads.

In those markets, you'd hit over $100k of monthly spend before you eclipsed BCC in AdWords clicks or impressions. (I get mine for about six cents.) You'd probably have a few hundred keywords -- obscure relative to [Justin Bieber], but fairly obvious choices to customers in your problem domain.

You could also hit $250k fairly quickly with a broad campaign as an affiliate aiming to move a consumer product with a high LTV (and hence high CPA). Cell phones, credit cards or other consumer finance, antivirus software (that might be stretching it a bit), etc etc. (On the darker side of the tracks: rebill scams, whatever the latest flavor of fitness snakeoil is, etc.) These guys tend to deal with higher volumes across the keyword tail.
Change your thinking by Sarah Edelman

http://shop.abc.net.au/browse/product.asp?productid=162469

No, seriously.
Yep "100m" must mean metres. C'mon we're all engineers here, we know the metric system and SI. "mi" is mile.
Scala closed the door on new programming languages.
Out of curiosity, what do you consider the other startup hubs in Europe? Guessing from your comment that this is the UK scene, there should be others.
REPLs benefit from brief syntax; the Ada/C++ class of Algols don't benefit that much from it.
While I agree it's distasteful, a good percentage of Google's search users are surely looking for exactly that link to illegal copies though? By providing those links quickly and easily Google is arguably improving the quality of the search results for its end users.

Now, I'm with you that I'd rather that the search results were worse in this specific way, but this sort of thing is surely a direct result of algorithmically optimising search results to present the user with what they're after even if they don't necessarily know exactly how to find it, a general good and a defeating of the sort of SEO techniques we usually complain about here.

In general though - Google already has a 'SafeSearch' function for images, which seems to work tolerably well without complaint. Perhaps a similar system could be introduced both for results and suggestions so that these to illegal content and sites they consider likely to harm my computer could be filtered out by default and only returned if I specifically set the preference or search terms to look for them?
Pricing Table Generator for Your Startup
Ask HN: Calling out all Shanghai hackers, let's meet up
I'd love to organize/join some kind of meetup for hackers in Shanghai. Is there already something going on? If not, I created a Doodle:

http://doodle.com/m9u95i38f8w3xgq8
Heh good ol John..when i was part of the melbourne HP community in the bbs days he stayed with me in melbourne, not a pretty sight, for the idol that he was to us, he sure didnt live up to it. he proceeded to arrive at my house and demand access to the net, had a tantrum and actually cried when he was told he couldnt have it immediately (as i was running something at the time, modem days heh) and proceeded to freak us all out with rotten teeth and a fried brain from way to much acid. heh, we were so dissapointed. :)
I'd try to get older backups from the host and diff them; hopefully someone has at least one clean backup that you can try bringing up to date.

Otherwise, you can try grep'ing for known bad stuff (base64, if the attackers like encoding their stuff in that), but it's very hard to recover if the attacker is good. Fortunately, most of them are not; but take a look at, say, the Obfuscated C contest for some "inspiration".

Oh, and you may want to figure out how the hack happened, too. I'm not too familiar with software for this kind of things, but I seem to recall that RATS (https://www.fortify.com/ssa-elements/threat-intelligence/rat... ?) has a PHP mode.
A Sharp
A Sharp is a DJ/Producer/Music Engineer from NJ..

DJing since 93'
Producing since 97'
Record Collector/Hip Hop Junkie
Came up in the New Brunswick scene
DJ for "The Sessions Crew" and numerous NJ artists
Joined with Brainstorm in August of 2010
Find A Sharp music's No 1 Fan Club and also find latest blog, videos, news releted to producers, rap, hip hop and music.
The Mathematical Intelligencer
This is what I thought as soon as i read about this! :) that book was awesome :)
Have any other australians signed up for this yet??
Computer science and engineers: the (bad) French exception
Mark Zuckerberg Facebook fan page hack: who was behind it?
Berlin has a very active, vibrant startup scene.
"e.g. I can echo any evil input if my character encoding is enforced and HTML special chars are escaped as entities."

FAIL :-P

AFAIK You need to JS escape anything that goes into a JS context too.