skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is very tangential, but I just happened to finish the "Guns of August" by Barbara Tuchman last night. If any HN military history buffs have not read it yet, do pick it up. Although about the opening of WWI, it provides some great insight into both World Wars.
I find using black for the common areas to be more useful visually. For the subtle shape differences, it is easier to pick out a fringe of color against black than the hue shift of lavender to cyan.
I like "Proggy Clean Slashed Zero", because it is readable at small sizes. http://www.proggyfonts.com/index.php?menu=download
In NYC (Brooklyn, technically), there's Nunu chocolates, which is awesome and each batch comes from a single source of beans.
`address_tools`: More powerful replacements for `eval` and `repr`
Hmm why? I've never downloaded a zip it couldn't handle. And for creating, tar from the command line.
Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, by Ayn Rand.

To a lesser extent, The Double Helix, by James D. Watson.
I'll add my anecdotal case. I created a $30 AdWords campaign last month for the first time ($1/day maximum), more as an experiment and for learning than anything. After a few days I received an email from Google asking "How did we do?".

I filled out a form saying I wasn't happy since almost all traffic I was getting was having a 0 second visit time on my site, when the search terms were very specific and matching perfectly with the topic of my web site. It was hard for me to believe that everybody who searched for those terms and click on my add didn't even check any other page so I suspected fraud. A person (it seems; it was signed with a name) answered explaining the situation in a long and informative email, he also ran a fraud report just in case.

So in my case AdWords doesn't seem to work out but I got quick and good support from a person at Google when I'm just spending $30 in a "campaign".
Allow me to play the contrarian (if that's okay):

1) Supply of training is probably limited.

2) Not all of these folks need training. There are a lot of people who are older, but not of retirement age yet.

3) Just because those people are trained doesn't necessarily mean that there will be jobs for them. There is a flat out lack of work out there for people - people with college educations, even.

To elaborate on that last point, lots of people (most notably Paul Krugman) contend that the recession is fundamentally caused by a lack of demand. So keeping folks on unemployment, paying rent and playing XBox instead of homeless and dumpster diving helps to prop up a segment of the economy that would otherwise have to completely drop out.

Having said that, there has to be a better way - being unemployed is miserable, even if you're receiving unemployment checks and playing XBox with your free time. It just happens that unemployment benefits are easier to defend politically than government works programs of all kinds.
This is cool! I've tried to do this sort of thing before by asking people with a high OKCupid "friend" percentage in the city I'll be visiting, but I'm always afraid it comes off as disingenuously concealing romantic interest instead of just wanting advice from locals.
I maintain a list of the apps I use (and a list of must not use apps) at

http://www.longbeard.org/static/macapps.html
this is an awesome list, thanks for sharing it! I'm poring through it now.
I suspected as much, since I don't recall ever seeing an HNer say they currently work for Apple in comments.
I from a crypto history book I read in high school: in WWI, German intercepts of Russian transmissions have the Russians illusions of German tactical genius. Somehow, Germans would often be in position to confound the Russians. The reason for this: Russian code clerks were badly trained. Sometimes there would be a couple of attempts to send a message followed by a plain-text transmission by the frustrated code clerk. This was a tremendous boon to German cryptographers in the long term as well as a giveaway of tactical maneuvers in the short term.

In WWII, the Germans had their turn at incompetence. Enigma machines were supposed to be "warmed up" by 3 random characters. The purpose of this is like an Initial Vector or a "nonce" in modern block cipher use -- a bit of entropy to help obscure often almost identical message headers. A lot of German code clerks were lazy and just typed in "AAA", which helped out the Bletchley Park cryptographers a lot.

Modern crypto technology is often very good, but only if used correctly. Security fails most often because of human error. (This includes programmers!)
Right, why does a Power User replace as much Apple software as possible? Why use a Mac if you're just going to use third party software that's often crossplatform?

I use a Linux desktop every day, and if I had to pick just one OS, it would be Linux hands down. However I too have a MacBook Pro which I love. It's true that MacOS has polish that is lacking in Linux - it's hard to match the fruits of Apple's unique position of being able to match their hardware and software so closely.

I'm pretty satisfied with my current set up, a Linux desktop paired with a Mac notebook.
Much as I'm sympathetic to the subject this is not hacker news and I've flagged it.
The simple truth is that any (non-crackpot) regimented training program will significantly improve a geek's fitness. Learning the minute details of weight training, nutrition, and other (important!) subjects is for marginal gains on top of a base level of fitness which the majority of the population lacks.

Learn enough to safely accomplish basic exercises without ego-shattering self-consciousness, do them routinely and with an increasing level of difficulty, and you will become more fit. Great research on procrastination suggests that too many choices for what to do will lead you to not do anything. If you are not already at a base level of "good shape", whether you lift in one program or another, jog, play sports, or walk the stairs at work, you are NOT going to choose "wrong".

Guaranteed or your money back.

(Please note that I say this as a diehard HST-devotee who cross trains for soccer and MMA. But none of that stuff mattered when I was gassed after 30 minutes of light exercise.)
Are they Fairtrade (or similarly) certified?

- http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/what_is_fairtrade/default.aspx

- http://www.fairtrade.net/ (international site)

Fair trade has been making in-roads in the UK and we do now have mainstream chocolate manufacturers that sell certified fairtrade products as well as the smaller companies that sell only Fairtrade expanding.
Forget About Being Passionate, Make Sure You Can Deliver
Try reverse preacher curls and thumbless static hangs as a start.

If you're interested in improving grip strength take a look at the hand grippers from Captains of Crush (http://www.ironmind.com/ironmind/opencms/Main/captainsofcrus...)
Hey running a coffee shop is a great business as long as you're not next store to Starbucks, or if your coffee is incredible. Besides, you don't have to code to run a business. Understanding how software is structured, what resources certain design decisions cost are valuable skills.

What language(s) do you code in? I hit the wall with c++ after 14 years of building sims/algorithms with it. Ruby/Python/javascript have opened up incredible avenues of hacking fun for me.
Loads of managed switches, home routers, power control devices, etc. have telnet turned on by default (not the new ones though) - maybe they are the target?
Sounds like it could be part of some sort of spear-phishing or other social engineering.

If I was going to phone up people I didn't know and lie to them to get them to tell me privileged information, I'd definitely pretend to be from a real company, and I'd choose one that would have a real reason to be contacting them.

The fact that they were only looking for peoples names and numbers points towards this even more tbh. Working their way up the chain of command and all that. Let the police know in any event, so you have a trail of deniability if things turn nasty at a later date.

Or they could just be dodgy recruiters. Greyhat recruiting is pretty much social engineering anyway.
If unemployment was a matter of marketable skills, fresh grads probably wouldn't be at the top of the list of groups with high unemployment.

I'm all for training and educating instead of just handing people money. Or as a condition of handing people money. Or just making it available to the unemployed at no cost.

But 99 weeks was an exception and AFAIK no-one is getting 99 weeks ever again. So bringing that into the discussion makes the whole thing seem like a disingenuous class war against the unemployment-is-spring-break strawman.

Frankly, I have a hard time believing that anyone who conflates 'unemployment' with party time has never been on unemployment or known anyone close who has. You don't make what you used to make on unemployment. You won't be paying your bills with it. You'll tap your savings, and those will dwindle away. You may well still lose your house. Your stress level is through the roof and your personal relationships will suffer as well.

I can understand people whose moral hackles get raised, when they hear of an unemployed person who partakes in leisure activities. But if you've ever been in the situation, or seen it up close, you know it's not at all what it looks like.
How did 99 weeks of unemployment become "99 weeks of Xbox"?

Sure, if that's reality then it doesn't make much sense. But saying it's so doesn't make it so. The Cadillac driving welfare queen is a hyperbolic Reagan talking point.

But let's pretend for a second that nonsense is real and most of those on long term unemployment are spending most of their time playing Xbox - the suggestion is that instead of paying those people the marginally sustainable monthly pittance, we should pay to train them ... and then they pay rent/mortgage, purchase food, pay for children's needs, etc. with what, exactly?
While those people may not be immediately helped by not buying, we are only directly in control of our own actions. Do we want to participate in a process that supports slave labor? If not, the first responsible action is to stop buying the product. From there, one can find other creative ways to address things.
The title is misleading. The article says "as soon as today".
Creating Art History Term Papers on Photography
Writing about the history of photography for an art history term paper will educate students with how photography came to be. It will also educate them on different processes of photography. Familiarity with how to write it will be beneficial for students.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0A1CZ2XJXM#t=4m01s
Sure - I understand all of those consequences, but none of them are showstoppers that should preclude you from doing something else. It may not be ideal, but in life you play the hand you're dealt, and getting up from the table (metaphorically speaking) is RARELY a sound decision. Like I said, they can do whatever the hell they want to. The worst possible choice out of "whatever the hell they want to", though, is nothing.
I never once saw more than 48kb/s on any 56kbs modem I ever used (as i recall there were two slightly different implementations at the 56kb/s level, but neither one ever achieved that speed in the real world).
This looks like it's an article about politics, essentially:-/

That's generally something best left to other sites.
> What would you say instead when a server refills your glass, to avoid the otherwise implicit rudeness?

I've started memorizing Thank You in various languages. I now almost always use a non-English thank you with a smile to indicate. And every once in a while, the server lights up if it was their native language or home country.
One thing I didn't hear noted is that unemployment is also considered a low friction way of getting money back into th economy. Those people on unemployment usually spend the money (not save), and there tends to be less protest in doing this than other forms of welfare.

Additionally, I think there is a belief that to really move the needle we're going to need to really get business back to hiring. I don't think the deamnd in the job market is low end programming -- you can find tons of students graduating from Phoenix U and Devry for that. It's the "hit the ground running" expert talent. Someone who can come in and immediately start building iPhone and Android apps (even web talent seems to have much more supply than demand).

For some of these people 99 weeks may be sufficient to get them up to speed for such a task, but I do think it will be difficult. First they have to find good training, which in itself will be tough if they aren't web or tech savvy. I just don't think someone who can edit a picture is going to be hired in this market climate.
Misadventure Code Review, Part III
I don't think getting training will help those people automagically become employable. But those programs already exists and I'm pretty sure many states have programs where they will pay for you to take training.
FED's Board of Directors
Sorry, I deleted my stories as I felt they were revealing too much personal information. My last job I was using Ruby and Java doing back-office data munging stuff for a financial firm.
Most states won't pay you unemployment if you go to school full-time. And while the suggestion of paying for a year of school sounds great, how do all the other bills get paid?
I think what you're saying is for a country suffering under an oppressive level of religion, virtual civil war and a perpetual inter-clan power struggle, they're not doing too badly for themselves.

Your assertion that Somalians are generally relatively wealthy does seem a huge stretch for a country with such a large population living in abject poverty.
That's pretty easy to say. What happens when jobs are not available? Or when people cannot relocate to where jobs are? Do we cast off a large body of people to sink on their own? And when they are sinking, will that be good for society?
Yes, the sacrifices are the lead points in that article.

Folks who actually found/join startups are ignorant of/don't care about the sacrifices. Save enough to be comfortable? What's wrong with crashing on a couch, living in the office/a friend's basement, eating ramen?

I think the article is very telling. Women (that woman at any rate) won't consider a job that is uncomfortable.

Yes, there may be reasons for THAT, but the comfort issue is at the heart.

And, for some of us, the asymmetric return is not really the biggest part of the value proposition. Its the control, the innovation, the environment that appeals. We use many excuses but stim-junkies and thrill-seekers are what they are.
Very few people commit to improving a product, because very few people understand what their role should be when joining organizations. It's not that they don't understand what their work might consist of, the real question is whether they understand how they will contribute, and why a business should justify hiring them.

Beyond the fact that roles & contributions that you have in your work place, this is still a difficult task, because it requires you to understand the organization you work within, not just the market/business.

And lets be honest, there is no perfect organization where tasks and opportunities come up, and the requirements flow smoothly into design, implementation and roll-out.

In short, people don't get what role they should play in the workforce, because nobody ever talks about participating in the workforce from an individual perspective. You have to cobble together knowledge from the domain of personal productivity/product management, being actively involved tracking the business you work in and the structure of your organization, and lastly be capable of measured critical review of your performance.

If you can do these things, congratulations, you are amongst the few. :P
hard work is definitely part of the equation ...but I dont see it trumping being passionate about "the idea'.....you will never have the want ...to do the hard work ...if there is no passion...
AppStream/Implementation
> build a company that can attract great talent while still getting the really annoying things done that come with polishing a product

Pay well. I've seen some really top guys in finance work with some really awful management because the money was just too good to say no to. Until, of course, the bonuses stopped coming in. Then they all left. :)
The older workers are the biggest issue. When they show up at interviews they are basicallly saying "hi, i have 25 years of experience in a completely unrelated field, probably making 2.5x the salary you're offering for this entry level position. I have no real interest in this industry, but i did just get a certification from university of phoenix online during the year i was unemployed. So will it be me or the recent grad?"
Not because of their website design ...
Google Chrome for Business
Interesting... so what's going on there, I wonder. Why do these corporate networks have port 23 open?
Yeah, I'm not trying to be a big-time PUA or anything either. But as a guy who was the stereotypical geek in at least one regard - being horrible at meeting and interacting with women - I've learned a ton since reading The Game and joining some of the PUA forums and reading some of their material.

I've gotten more dates and had more success in the past year and a half than I probably had in my life up to that point.

Truth be told though, I think it's as much "magic sword" syndrome as anything. I big part of being successful with women is confidence, as we've all been told. Unfortunately you can't just tell somebody "go out and be confident with women" if they're not confident with women! But you can say "Here, here's this opener and some routines and some theories about attraction, and if you use this stuff you'll be successful" which gives them a certain form of confidence, which leads to some success, which leads to more confidence, etc. I look at it as way to kick off a positive feedback loop. Sorta like giving a young knight a "magic sword" to give him the confidence to go out and slay dragons.

Whether there's really much to the actual theories and what-not is debatable, but I have no doubt that dabbling in the PUA world has improved my life. And The Game was my "gateway drug" into that world, so it was definitely an influential book to me.
Oracle discontinues Ruby/Rails support for NetBeans
> "Let me clarify. At 6$ a month, I don't feel like I'm getting ripped off"

But surely you can see where people who don't have full family plans have a completely different view of the issue?
We're in agreement.

I also wonder what the real question was behind the article. Is the author a lost soul? Suffering and looking for life direction? Or just needing advice about how to fill out taxes after the financial chaos that is a failed business.
What would make you change your mind?
I should point to Louie Simmons gym site: http://www.westside-barbell.com/

Those articles there are just indispensable for trained athlete (I exercise for four years now). I recently discovered it and used some tips and tricks Louie wrote about. I used "Good Morning" for lower back strength, I learned that trained athlete will adapt to any change in training routine in two weeks so you have to change routines quite often. I think that anyone will find something valuable there.

And yes, there are depths and spaces on what you have to learn to progress in weight training.
Police Arrest 5 Men Over "Anonymous" DDoS Attacks
Except the money for unemployment is confiscated from working people's paychecks, so it's a net wash on the economy at best, less the sizable bureaucratic overhead.
I guess the point of this article is to show that you can uses these alternatives in addition to the system default, but you don't have to. I don't see any item of these better than what it is replacing (CrashPlan vs Time Machine, any one? And Preview is the fastest PDF viewer I have ever used). You cannot say this for many other platforms. Hell, there is not even any built-in KeyChain or Time Machine counterpart in many systems.

I took a quick look at the list, and found myself only using a TextEdit replacement (MacVim) and a QuickTime replacement (VLC). Even these two are not really replacements but more like complements.

A Mac is the only machine that I can start hacking after installing one application - MacVim. Even easy_install is built in.
3) is the problem here. We are doing more with less people and that trend won't go away. Unless we can create new things that require lots of humans to do, were not going to reverse that trend.
Something that the article did not mention is that money from the cocoa exports are used to fund a political war in the Ivory Coast. A few days ago the internationally recognized president there issued a ban on all cocoa and coffee exports in hopes that it will prevent his rival from financing his mercenaries - http://www.timeslive.co.za/africa/article869870.ece/Outtara-...
Only five? I always assumed that there were hordes of folks taking part in the Anonymous shenanigans. Do they only arrest five people because that's all they could reliably identify, or because to go after more would expend disproportionate effort, and they just needed to make an example?

> This investigation by the Central e-Crime Unit was carried out in conjunction with law enforcement agencies in Europe and the US.

Seems that if we're going to this level of coordination, we should have ended nabbing more of these guys.
The same information that would help terrorists pick targets would also help the good guys prioritize which targets to protect better/first. Public information helps the good guys at least as much as the bad guys.
Has anyone from Chechnya ever met Osama Bin Laden or any of his people?
I don't know the percentage, but more people than live in Australia. I game with people in Australia and even in major city's they don't have reasonably priced high speed internet. Granted, laying undersea cables is expensive but compared to other countries in the reign Australian internet sucks.

PS: I am not saying that people living in the middle of the country need to have high speed internet just that you could wire up the major city's at reasonable cost because that's where most people live. http://www.environment.gov.au/soe/2001/publications/theme-re...
Do it again, but better. Typically with a higher chance of success and re-using all the connections they've made during the running of the previous one. There is no stigma attached to failing at starting up because the rest of the business world knows how hard it is and those that are successful likely have had a few failures themselves to look back to.
And that's ultimately the discussion we should be having:

Pay-as-you-go, Unlimited, Monthly caps -- all are potentially reasonable ways to charge for network access. Provided there's competition.

And without competition, there's really no advantage to any of them. You're just picking a poison at that point. The monopolist(s) will get their profit out of you.
Is Quora the Next Red-Hot Web Start-Up?
regarding 1), i think the author's point is that we should be able to train ourselves given the resources available out on the interwebs.

And that's partially true. While freedom of access is an important step to a society of equals, if one thinks that's all that is needed to address education amongst the un-/under-employed, then one needs a better understanding of human psychology/sociology/education :P

RE: Krugman & Demand, i think that's the fundamental problem right now. We need to take things that currently have no monetary value, and build something that somebody is willing to pay for. If the consumer economy has collapsed and we can't rely upon individuals to buy your product or service, you gotta find a business that will, or you've gotta lower your price point and go for volume.
Customer service as your 20% time