skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Every time I read Anathem

shudder

I've liked some Neal Stephenson, and I wanted to like Anathem, but just could not get "into" it. Maybe I'll have to try it again.

kb
I just ordered my first Android, a Nexus S for $199 with a 2-year contract cancellable for $200. Best Buy on line was the only place I could get it, the local store couldn't sell it (I'm going to make a blog post about that insanity). Even though it's contract-subsidized it's not carrier locked and seems to expressly permit custom firmware.

Way to go Google! I kind of like having them around. I'd stayed away from smart phones because I found the contracts, carrier locking, and the rooting, jailbreaking, DMCA challenges simply gross. But Google seems to be trying to keep those clowns honest and now I feel comfortable participating in that market.
I appreciate the transparency of this post.
I managed to get to the sign-in screen (click to install an app), but other than than, a bad request on the cookie check
How Much Does A Facebook Fan Cost? $1.07
Exclusive Interview: Zerply Co-Founder, Christofer Karltorp
China tries to pass Top Gun footage as military drill
How about we all start writing "quoted for truth" instead? ;)
Introduction to Distributed Filesystems
If you read Microsoft's blog post, Microsoft is not taking sides on this like every other player is.

All they want is not to be liable for billions in damages if WebM is found infringing on some company's patents. They're supporting it via plugins if the user installs and are ready to bundle it with the OS if Google or someone else provides indemnification. They are relatively comfortable with H.264 because most of the major players are already in the pool and the standard has been around for a while, reducing chances of patent suits.

The ball is in Google's court now. They and their supporters are all over the internet saying that WebM has been vetted for patent infringement etc. Now they need to tell us why their belief is not enough to indemnify distributors and end users.
I am so proud to be an angel investor in Rapportive... and that they presented at Open Angel Forum.

These guys are relentless and I predict they will a huge, huge success in the coming years.

Rapportive is a HUGE part of my daily activity online.
I signed up for OkCupid years ago, probably around 2005/6 .. I liked the site a lot.

The site always had a lot of emphasis on tests and quizes - and had a main OkCupid test, which was used to introduce the site and categorise each new member into different persona-types.

I remember, in the test, there was the line "if you have any STDs please go .. " with a link to match.com.

I expect that's been 'cleansed' from the site too :)
Isn't that obvious this is some sort of macro being executed? That makes totally sense for me and explains a lot of things, like:

1) not doing ls commands

2) having rescue plans like trying different directories in case a directory doesn't exist

3) doing instant URL pastes

4) doing stuff in loop

5) acting similarly to a robot

6) [feel free to add more here]
...do you perhaps mean the Gulf Stream?
Did they get this design from OSWD?
Google Analytics visualization using Gource
Based on my experience using the iTunes App Store, it is quite usable and looks a lot better than none at all.

Some things that make it instantly better than purchasing iPhone apps from your computer:

1. This web interface is lightning fast, iTunes is horribly slow.
2. You get to use the standard browser controls over the random clutter of controls in iTunes.
3. Pressing "install" installs to your phone without having to plug it in, or sync, or worry about losing your shit.

I think it's a great first iteration, and it's definitely something that has been a long time coming.
Looks quite decent to me. They professionally didn't overdecorate it, which is a common amateur foible.
This is politics, not spots on the wall that look like faces.
I mostly agree with you, but I'm not sure the next frontier in web search is spelling correction. I feel like there have to be ways of producing better search results that work better than upranking the ones people click on.
It appears that Match.com does control OkCupid.

"IAC's Match.com Acquires OkCupid"

http://iac.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=1882
Williams-Kilburn tubes, which were CRTs with high-persistence phosphor used as memory and display devices beginning in the 1940s. The 'high-persistence' means W-K tubes are the exact opposite of where CRT technology stands today: They're useless for TVs and computer monitors, because the phosphor stays lit too long. However, that's what you want if you're using the phosphor to store bits of data in a vacuum tube computer, or to display the contents of memory in that computer.

Plenty of people are making CRTs today. I doubt anyone is making CRTs that would be useful W-K tubes.

(Another guess might be core memory but, knowing NASA and some of IBM's customers, I have a suspicion someone still has real uses for a few hundred kilobytes of core.)

[as originally posted by me elsewhere]
It's certainly a good point-- It's not like competitors that also work together is a new concept. Except I'd say this is a bit different. We're not talking about Netflix relying on Amazon to produce a hardware component, we're talking about Amazon staffing and being responsible at the lowest level (24/7) for Netflix's service to operate (I'm assuming a bit here... perhaps Netflix can still function through an AWS outage). And I'd question if that's really something you want to put in the hands of a company which wants to steal away your customers.
So, is this meant to be accessed from only Android devices? Is there a use for using it through Chrome on a desktop? Would I be able to purchase an app from my desktop, at which point my Android phone would (potentially) automatically download and install the app?
The Internet Should Not Be Anonymous
I think the real problem here, or maybe the most corrosive problem here, is that there was likely no legitimate warrant provided for this closure.

I haven't investigated this case, but a similar case of "siezure" by the FBI involved a company who owed me some money. The company was legit and the siezure happened in the middle of a transaction with them. (EG: I'd paid, they had gotten the goods, but hadn't mailed them out yet.)

Anyway, the warrant said stuff like this:
Under Article Blah, doing Activity Y is made a felony. Entity Blah located at Blah Blah, has bank accounts Blah, blah, blah and employees blah, blah, blah, blah and blah.

Therefore, we propose to seize all computers, phones, office furniture, rugs, ceiling tiles, and especially all property of value from blah.

Nowhere in the warrant was any probable cause presented indicating the company was actually engaging in "Activity Y".

Further, since a member of the government- a PR spokesperson, not a layer, had previously accused the company of engaging in Activity Y, the company had taken them to court, in order to get a retraction of the claim and admission that the company was not engaging in Activity Y.

The judge who signed the seizure warrant, that allowed the federal government to seize all of the property of this company was the very same judge who was hearing the federal case, and thus had in his possession proof that the company was not engaging in Activity Y.

And still he signed the warrant. The companies assets were seized, still years on no charges have been filed, and of course the assets were sold and the FBI pocketed the money.

The corrosiveness is that judges, in my example one who knew for a fact that the company was not engaging in the criminal actively alleged, are signing seizure orders based on warrants that don't provide probable cause or any evidence of actual criminal activity.

Never mind that there is no provision in the constitution for the US federal government to shut down websites, and there is a prohibition of making any law that would allow them to do so.
I'd like to correct some factual errors from this article.

1) Failover of a MongoDB Replica Set is totally automated and requires no manual intervention. The replica set remains available for writes as long as a quorum can be established between remaining members. See http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Replica+Sets for more info

2) MongoDB does support different consistency models through Write Concerns and Safe Mode. The client can choose to wait for the transaction to be written to multiple replicas if it wants. See http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Verifying+Propagation+of... for more info

Disclaimer: I work for 10gen
It's meant to, from what I can tell, it just doesn't work now.
What volume do you really need, to get enough data to learn from? I'd think that 1% of Google traffic would still be a pretty big firehose to feed whatever learning algorithm you need to feed.

Don't Google, Facebook, et al run a lot of experiments for new projects on a subset of users/queries that's far smaller than 1% of traffic, and still yields very useful results?
WooMe probably didn't start out this way. Desperation can do bad things to good intentions.
Yahoo’s Downward Spiral
Hmmmm ... just checked http://www.3dmagixpro.com/ they actually acknowledge Blender as the source of their fork, it is at about the middle of the page (not a very clear statement I admit). I wonder if this acknowledgment was done after the Blender foundation has noticed the fork or before. I didn't check if the modified software is GPL or not.

It looks like a rip of GPL, but I'm not a lawyer...
I also got the invalid request error. I just watched the Honeycomb event, and am boggled that Google can't be bothered to hire decent graphic designers. The icons and general feeling on Android looks unpolished compared to my iOS devices. The app prices on Android market seem to be x2 what they are on iOS. I've probably spent 100 bucks on apps on my iPad/iPod touch. Money spent on apps for my Nexus One (shitty phone) and Nexus S so far: $0.

I also don't understand why they need a web store. I buy apps on my iOS devices all the time. Is the point that general usability on Android devices is so bad that you need to use a desktop to purchase apps that will then get transferred to your mobile device??
Ask HN: Anyone use Insurance to cover Legal Liabilities?
Does anyone have experience with or advise getting insurance to cover the liability of potentially getting sued? Would General or Professional Liability or even IP liability insurance cover all the legal costs? I'm thinking that insurance in addition to corporate structure is a way of establishing a known cost as a way of handling the unknown (but significant) risks of potential suits -- not that I have any now or even in the foreseeable future, but I'm scared to death that after we start getting traction, some disgruntled client or some random schmoe will cause trouble, or some random patent troll will surface. It's a crazy litigious world out there and legal fees alone can kill a startup.
WikiLeaks Among Nominees for Nobel Peace Prize
Don't use a task killer, it'll just mess things up for you. Either uninstall or stop the services you don't want (using the built-in app manager).

Android ~1.6 did have some issues, plus the slower processor and memory meant that the task management didn't really work out like it was supposed to. But it's absolutely not needed on modern Androids.
Every time I'm asked to connect a service to Rapportive I'm extremely impressed by how slick, complete, wholesome and reliable the experience is. I know it's not rocket science, but it is hard to make this simple interaction work with zero drama as a plug-in for many different types of users with different browsers. Well done guys!
I've started two dating sites (for Russian-speaking users) and never encountered a chicken and egg problem. I was able to get a useful number of active users for under $1000 (if you concentrate only on several big cities).

The real problem for me was: when you stop advertising, the traffic is fading off.

There is some kind of secret how Plenty of Fish or OkCupid are getting visitors without advertisement.
Etsy's secret plan to take over local commerce
It's interesting you mention this. I distinctly remember signing up for OKC because it had fun quizzes and stuff -- I wasn't really thinking it was much of a dating site at the time, and that it was more of a social networking site in the days before Facebook :) So finding an interesting angle on that sort of thing could be a way to avoid the chicken/egg thing, and I think that's how OKC did it to start with.
Could you explain the "fair use policy"?
That's a huge risk. What if the way I use MySQL does not go well with the way Clustrix is supposed to scale?
(Bad) Hackers Capitalize on New Vulnerabilities Faster in January
First thoughts.
Seems neat.
Cannot login.
Some useful details listed - last update date, minimum android version.
much easier to browse the reviews than on the mobile version.
search has spell-corrector.
related apps listed on details screen. useful.
From the comments of above post:

A bug report for the same bug from almost 10 (ten!) years ago: http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=4421494
Huh. Vimeo.

This revelation actually gives me a lot of faith in rdouble's prediction that "IAC will just leave it as is."
I installed this on Firefox 3.6.x and couldn't find any changes to the Firefox UI that would enable me to submit a page to HN. Would someone please explain how to use this extension?
First, I sell apps in the Android Market and do well. Lots of people pay.

Second, having a web interface just makes it easier for people to search and find apps with ease from their computer.

It will REALLY help me because I can now easily link to my apps from Facebook and Twitter, and it looks like users will be able to click INSTALL and have the app go right to their phone so the next time they are ready to play, it's there waiting for them :)

I love it.
The 4-Hour Dentist
It's a simple formula: build a product that people love, have a basic free version, charge users money for advanced features. The product you see now will most likely stay free forever, but we are planning additional premium features based on what our users are asking for.

You can see our analysis of freemium business models on the Rapportive blog: http://blog.rapportive.com/is-freemium-right-for-you

Edit: looks like rahulvohra and I had a little race condition here ;-)
Last Thursday we were solidly on the side of Mubarak. We only backed the will of the Egyptian people after it became clear that Mubarak had little hope of retaining power.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2011/0127/Joe-Bi...

They have very good reason for being angry with us.
That makes sense, as there was no attempt to run it.

I guess one should be really careful before calling someones actions stupid. Lesson learned.
Yes, yes, $35 is not a lot of money. But the convenience of being able to download Reflector to any machine that you happen to be sitting at will be lost as a result of this.

Looking forward to the Mono Reflector clone...
The plan is to go freemium: build an amazingly useful product, and charge money for premium features.

I know that startups very commonly say that this is their plan. We've thought very hard about what makes freemium work: http://blog.rapportive.com/is-freemium-right-for-you. We're pretty certain that Rapportive has all the right characteristics.
This is definitely a matter of opinion because my first impression was that it looked awesome and I LOVE how easy it is to use and how fast it is.
Biggest problem with Go:

Googling for it!! "Go" is everywhere. "Google go", golang, go-nuts and golang-nuts tend to coincide with the language but it's really hard to find resources easily. I've learned to just go to the golang-nuts group and search there.. but what about when the userbase grows beyond a single community?

The language is awesome though, elegant both in design and implementation.
WikiLeaks Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize
At this point, it really doesn't matter how far anything is - with the tech available to us in the here and now, anything more than a few years' journey (at conventional speeds even, not in lightyears) is just too far.

Whatever breakthrough it is that'll let us get half a lightyear away will get us to 2,000 lightyears away. But until then, nada.

Think of all this as an over-eager child researching what his parents (errr, Santa, I mean) will get him for next Christmas 11 months from now - planning and fantasizing about every last detail, even though there's just no rushing it.
It somehow resembles Ovi Store (not a good sign) but slightly better. The design is a bit too busy. Not bad for a first iteration though.
I don’t think cheap Android phones are going to eat away the bottom two-third of the iOS market. They will be much more attractive to the many people who currently don’t own a smartphone and wouldn’t buy an iPhone or a high-end Android phone because they are too expensive. (In other words: I expect the market for iOS phones to continue to grow, albeit slower than the overall smartphone market, particularly slower than Android.)
Top 5 Significant Apps for Android | InfoMov.Com
The "made by" tag looks unprofessional. As if the website designer is as important as his customer.
[What's wrong with you guys? Really. The last couples of days have made me lose lots of respect for the half of YC's readers that so vehemently defends MSFT's actions.]

Now, to your point. Do you really think MSFT just designed a machine learning algo that just evolved to predict
>www.google.com/search?q=thisisafakequery> to <www.somepage.com>? Come on.. If I were the Bing Toolbar PM, I would spend half my manpower in making sure that I'm extracting Google's results.

And then, you have all the messy issues about who truly created the association between queries and results:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2170832

And also, the big competitive issues you have from MSFT's abusing its dominance of the desktop (what's the HHI of the OS market again?) to compete in another area (dominance of abuse, as someone said: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2167016 )
A bit OT:

VLC, while it often just works, is one of the slowest players I know. I often have a lot of jittering, esp. when doing some CPU/IO intensive work in the background but also without. Sometimes when I play from a Samba share, it may also because of slow connection, whereby the connection should be fast enough to play it in real-time without a problem. I already played a lot around with settings like skipping frames, cache size, etc. but I never really got it removed completely. And the UI, esp. controls like play/pause, also feel a bit laggy. E.g., when I hit pause, it still plays for about half a second.

MPlayer is among the fastest players I know. One good sign of that is that I can normally play Xvid/H264 videos with it on my 350MHz PII with an onboard graphics card (Riva128) in Xorg without any problem. And on my normal PC, it never has any performance problems, no matter what I do in the background. And it also responds really fast. When I hit pause, it instantly pauses.

Only problem with MPlayer: It often does not integrate that well, at least on MacOSX (maybe most of this is Mac related). And there are no real official binaries and the ones which exists are outdated. Also, all of the available GUIs often have further problems and make the performance a lot worse (which I don't really understand).

Anyway, why I am writing this: Often enough, I have thought about that the VLC GUI and OS integration (also including automatic updates, etc.), with MPlayer as the engine, would be the best thing.
Oh, yes. You're right.

But when I click on your like I get:

> This title is not available for customers from your location in:
> Europe

:/
I don't understand, how does he know it is actually WooMe behind the bots? Couldn't it be some scammer who has nothing to do with WooMe?
There are tons of brute force ssh bots. All they do is try every password in their password list. If you want to see one, search for brute force ssh bot on YouTube and watch script kiddies teach other script kiddies how to use them.
In the discussion of the previous article posted a couple of days ago, a lot of people complained that he initially didn't provide source code of the tests or go into details about the Mongo's configuration. Some felt that as someone who's worked with internals of RDBMS's, it wouldn't be fair to compare something he knows intimately with something he just learned and didn't spend any time optimizing.

After he posted the code, others complained that the scenarios didn't have enough multi-table joins (which Mongo would represent as nested objects and, at least in the commenters' opinions, would probably do better than it did). There was also a lot of more detailed technical discussions but I won't try to summarize them:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2161753

(Note: these opinions aren't my own, just what I got out of the discussion.)
I use Rapportive all day, every day. It's now an automatic reflex to look in the Rapportive margin when I'm working on email.

The new Facebook integration will be awesome -- may actually get me to use Facebook more.
the difficulty there (as it relates to this article, at least) is whether or not they'll sponsor someone's visa. it seemed difficult for a friend of mine to find something that would.
Personally, I hope that WikiLeaks' nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize is roundly ignored by the committee.

How has the site contributed to lowercase p peace? Does anyone has done any kind of long-term, dedicated study think that the U.S. leaving Iraq or Afghanistan immediately will greatly decrease the violence? Or that Wikileaks releasing confidential banking data is really going to make the world more peaceful? These are questions about man-in-the-street peace, not about capital P "No More War" Peace.

I'm not making a comment about the right or wrong of what Wikileaks does, more about the rationale for giving them a Nobel Peace Prize.
I realize I'll probably spend some karma here, but after reading TC and checking out the site (and the blog post by the site), I see what's happening. And there is a LOT of misunderstanding in the TC article and in the comments of HN.

One of the services WooMe offers is to automatically introduce people they think will get along. They do NOT make it clear its the system doing the introduction, nor that its automated. But what is clear is these are all real people on the site, no fake accounts.

So yes, no person sent a hello to a horse in the middle of the night. But that doesn't make the whole thing fake. It mimics a scam, but is not.

Imagine if after signing up for Facebook for the first time, FB sent you 10 friend requests within minutes of people they thought you knew - one step further than what they already do with suggested friends. Is that a scam? Or is that a ham-fisted attempt at helping you get started using the site?

It's clearly not a scam. It's just really really borderline on the ethical side. I've never used a dating site of any kind, so I have no idea what is normal in that industry.
I had to look it up..

The Streisand effect is a primarily online phenomenon in which an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of perversely causing the information to be publicized more widely and to a greater extent than would have occurred if no contrary action had been attempted. It is named after American entertainer Barbra Streisand, following a 2003 incident in which her attempts to suppress photographs of her residence inadvertently generated further publicity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
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