skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Is the Adobe Packager for iPhone a viable option?
Building upon an earlier discussion from today (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2201706), is it worth considering the Adobe Packager for iPhone for porting existing Flash content to the iPhone? The ongoing issues between Apple and Adobe, the potential performance concerns and the sparse web page (http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/packagerforiphone) would lead one to assume that the packager might not be well supported in the future.
What do you mean "built-in"? I had to download a barcode scanner app from the Market since Android didn't ship with one.

Do you mean it's built into something like the Camera app?
Point for your friend.

Long before this happened a US government cable analyzed Egypt and said that the military would do little to protect Mubarak as long as their economic interests were not threatened. Right now the military is facing major disruption to its economic interests as long as the protests continue. But if they transition to a new government, they can reduce the disruption.

Now I can just see you saying, Economic interests? What economic interests. They are a military! Which is entirely reasonable, but wrong. The Egyptian military is somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of Egypt's economy.

Why? Well when the Camp David accords brought about peace, Egypt no longer needed such a big military. But they didn't want to make all of those men go into the private sector at once, that could destabilize the country. So they found jobs for them. For example lots of wonderful beaches no longer needed to be filled with military bases to repel a possible Israeli attack, so the military removed the bases, and built tourist resorts instead. Which they ran.

So Mubarak is out. He can't protect the military's commercial interests. Whoever and whatever replaces him is fine as long as the military interests are maintained. The changes can be extensive, so long as the country goes back to work and the military is free to return to making money.
http://feefighters.ca/ = TransFS
and 502

Should rebranding your service get you upvotes?
Not just the performance. A lot of the UI behavior was just wrong. Scrolling in particular was a disaster. Maybe they were using PhoneGap badly, but still--in a native iOS app it's quite easy to get scrolling to work right, and apparently in PhoneGap it's not.
It actually answers questions, no trickery involved. It might not use the same algorithms humans use to answer those questions but that isn’t really that important, nobody ever claimed it does.

I don’t see the simulation. I see a machine that is genuinely good at playing Jeopardy.
i should clarify (since i can't edit anymore) that this was/is an ecommerce site that didn't have much wiggle room in changing prices
I wouldn't bother with elance, rentacoder, or any of the other freelance sites out there. I had this idea a few months ago when I got laid off.

It's flooded with Indian groups and coders from eastern Europe that will do the job for $5/hour. The problem is that they pretty much set the market price on these sites and the people hiring you now have it in their mind that this is the going rate.

There are a few projects here and there that might actually make you money, but I think your time can be better spent elsewhere.

Craigslist is a good place to look. Find some companies locally that need a freelancer/contractor.

How much money do you have left? Also, how much are you burning through each month?
That's a very interesting paper and appears to confirm that computational power is the least of all the problems - whilst even in 2005 it was possible to run a simulation based on 10^11 random neurons, even the scanning technology we have available at present isn't yet adequate.
It's redirecting to .ca, which 502s.
How is this any different than the prior situation?

Now instead of needing to trick a user into giving you their username and password, you need to trick them into giving you their username, password, and one-time token.

It's designed to address situations where the password is discovered by other parties.
"You technically don't even need a real corporation until much later in the process than you would expect (I have friends who run successful businesses as sole proprietorships)."

While this is true, it may be worth having an LLC or something more than a sole proprietorship given how people love to sue for any reason they can find.
From the "other chap"'s point of view, he just spent $500m to kill a doppelganger.
If a developer's personal inertia / sloth around learning a new framework is such a factor that they'll choose to develop for W7 rather than iPhone or Android, that doesn't bode well for the quality of the app they're going to produce. Most great devs I've ever worked with are perfectly happy jumping languages / frameworks if it means their work will be more successful.
When should we expect to see someone run Erjang on Google AppEngine?
Yahoo Livestand: A ‘Personalized Newsstand’ For iPad, Android Tablets
Google launches two-factor authentication
Agreed. The only time I've seen value in twitter is during times of emergency: my hosting provider goes down and has no other way to communicate than through twitter; people being rappelled from the ski lifts where I ski but there are no news outlets reporting on it so I go to twitter to find out; stuff like that. I remember a Charlie Rose interview with Mark Andreeson a few years back where Andreeson talked about the future of tech and the instant dissemination of news. From what I can see, twitter is the news outlet where the story breaks first.
I'm having the same problem.
Sorry, sorry. I wanted to be first with a story for once in my life. I agree there are much better sources, this is just the first one I read.
(Disclaimer: I gave up on Quora months ago – maybe they've fixed these things)

I desperately wish I could effectively convey how bad I think Quora's implementation is. I'll try now. The visual design is simple, if bland, but that's not my beef. Simple is usually good.

I think it mostly hinges around discovery and sense of place. On Quora, it never feels like you are anywhere. No sense of hierarchy, no sense of order. Quora is a massive sense of limbo. It's really weird.

More than that, because of the myriad subjects under discussion, and the wholly opaque mechanisms for discovering them, it constantly feels as though there are places in Quora you're shut out of, without a clear path to get there. So, I don't feel like I'm anywhere, while it feels like there are elsewheres I could be. It's too clever by half, trying to intelligently curate what a given user will want to see, but ending up leaving the user in a state of helplessness.

There's also this bizarre conception of having to follow a topic in order consume it. Commitment before preview? Really? At least I think that's how it works. I mean, it's too confusing, too complicated for how simple the problem is.

Contrast this with Convore, which gives you:

- Discussions your friends have joined
- Bigass list of all discussions
- Discussions by category
- Discussion search

Quora has the benefit of founders with a solid network, so the early adopters are heavy hitters with interesting things to say. It's a shame, then, that the user experience is just so... tepid.
I was under the impression I'd need contacts to get freelancing gigs. Any suggestions for how to get started?
You are correct - we used to be TransFS, and we have big news for Canadians coming soon! Unfortunately, our site isn't working for our friends up north just yet because we haven't launched our new stuff, but feel free to email me and I'll send you the ebook!
Database Isolation Levels And Their Effects On Performance And Scalability
"Nothing is 'mere'" - Richard Feynman

http://lesswrong.com/lw/or/joy_in_the_merely_real/
Slow Blogging Manifesto
Dispelling The New SSL Myth
I'm not a javascript or jquery guru but from what I can tell it's still not possible to reliably grab all keyboard characters within a browser. Browsers will hijack many combinations - backspace key (some browsers change depending where your mouse is), alt+f, etc. And they're inconsistent in what they grab.

For this reason, I'd still far prefer console applications rather than a browser, despite the rendering advantages you get with a browser.

With a console app, you can easily get to a point where it will always work the same, regardless of the platform your user is on.

Keyboard interaction should be a more important part of desktop computer usage than it is in these modern wimpy systems we use. The state of the browser is the main driver of this.
Read the documentation. The plan is:

1) When you activate the service, you get a list of ten OTP codes that you should print and store in a safe place.

2) You can set up a backup phone in case your primary is lost/stolen/fails. There is a voice option, so this number does not have to accept SMS.
Google two-factor authentication
On average, I'd say all Earth's women are very lovely.
Google should publish a good API for this, and allow everyone to use it. I'd love to have opt-in TFA for all of my sites.
For example, a common question is... how does one apply. There are some misleading answers on the internet right now but the official answer is you don't. It is a lot like typical angel/VCs, you have to network and come in via some mutual connection.
Ah, Crash Bandicoot. My younger brother hogged our Playstation with it all day, when I wanted to play Metal Gear Solid.

Well, at least until I told my Fundamentalist mother that there were Satanic symbols in the game. That put an end to that...
Relegating it to a side project sounds like a good idea. Just need to figure out the best way to earn money in the meantime.

I know two years is crazy long without traction. I was very naive when I started, though in my defense I have 'pivoted' a couple times. I am doing a lot of re-evaluating right now!
> Putting words in my mouth. No one said anything about perfect security.

No, you mentioned the highest level which I took to read as perfect. If that's not what you meant then I'm sorry for reading too much into it.

> And they did not do this

Which I feel more inclined to agree with rather than claiming they failed because they didn't meet the highest level of security. However, a compromise doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't do enough - as TJX would be happy to tell you. Compromises happen, if they didn't we wouldn't be in business.

> Of course. It does not follow that breaking into the web server should compromise the mail server, or vice-versa. You're really losing me there.

It depends - it's not clear whether or not these are the same server. As well as this what's important is that someone somewhere in HBGary considered the possibility of getting hacked as part of a process to determine what countermeasures they should look to put in place.

It might not have been a small amount of money, they might have saved a lot or nothing. Having mail servers compromised is embarrassing but shouldn't be the end of the world - because anything that would cause real pain you would have to expect countermeasures for. Where this gets interesting is that with some of the documents Mr. Barr has not considered the possibility that his account might get hacked. If you don't consider your defences compromised to begin with, you're likely to compromise on your defences. The issue isn't 4 Gig of mail has been leaked, the issue is more to do with whether or not anything sensitve should've been encrypted. Of course, we're all only human and make mistakes, but dealing with this will be part of paying for them.

> I bet I could find a company that could set up an email server that couldn't be compromised just because the web server was compromised.

I've no doubt you could find someone who'd claim that they could do it, but it's all going to depend on the architecture, configuration, software and maintenance involved. FWIW I don't believe that HBGary used a company for their mail, I read somewhere that Aaron Barr was the administrator - perhaps that was an oversight on HBGary's part given comments about his personality by other staff members.
The only real legal point you have is the hints and threats issue. There isn't a good public record of what was said. From the article, it appears as though he said he wasn't going to publish names publicly. Although, it seems to suggest this was post DDOS.

There isn't a clear enough public documentation of what happened to fully say one way or another. My suspicion is that those on the list did not tell him to stop, which is one way legally of measuring when harassment starts.
That is a good point about the resume, thanks.
Looks like this was addressed by an update:

>Update: Google is actually rolling this out over the next few days, so you may not see it quite yet.
We use a few different approaches, thought we're consolidating:

- Authorize.net + CIM + ActiveMerchant

- Authorize.net + Reoccurring Billing

- Authorize.net + Freshbooks
You're right, but by your own criteria people are more likely to spend more time on Facebook since those activities are traditional time sinks.
The details of the startup aren't really relevant to my situation, and I'd rather not have it attached to this post.
Point conceded. Maybe this guy is merely recklessly arrogant and has drunk the Koolaid of entrepreneurship, and is not actually insane.
"But is it really worth $10bn to humanity? Nope."

How did you arrive at that conclusion?
For some values of "average".
I visited the Zappos office while I was in Las Vegas recently (proof: http://dis.tl/haPmaA) and must attest to how unbelievably amazing and awesome their offices are. The culture and morale is simply breathtaking.

That said, I think that it's tied much more closely to the culture than to just the nik-naks that litter the office (though clearly they are a part of it).

I like this post and it's good to get a look at the two offices but it would be great to get more of an understanding of HOW the office environment affects the office culture.
Awesome post ! thanks for this !
Do as Goldman Does, Not as It Says
great input, thx!
Hi, my name is Milford Pickles. I am a PhD candidate writing my thesis on blahblahblahblah....

I've seen this, and I've seen it taken a step further where they walked down every point of experience on their resume telling me why they thought that particular course in school or work stint would make them be a good fit at my organization.

I much rather that the introduction is kept to, "I'm Bob, I'm a graduating computer science major and I'm interested in blahblah, what do you guys do?" because that turns into a mutually beneficial back-and-forth conversation very quickly.

I do wonder if this is a cultural thing, though, and just an honest go at expressing interest in the position. When I was recruiting at career fairs, the only people I noticed doing this were graduate students from India who had spent only a short time in the US. And typically the people with the extremely expressive introduction came otherwise heavily prepared, with a resume and cover letter hand-tailored to job postings on our website.

I can't fault anyone for preparation, however, given so many people come totally unprepared -- "man, you're the tenth person today to ask for a copy of my resume, nobody told me I should've brought any!"
Don't overlook the pain-in-the-ass factor of having to support employees in different jurisdictions with different regulations.

Employment contracts need to be customized slightly by state. You've got to sign up for worker's compensation insurance, unemployment insurance taxes, and sometimes disability insurance. You've got to pay state taxes, and for most states you're going to need to do withholding on behalf of your employees. You've got to make sure your benefit plan provides reasonable options in that state. If you're following the letter of the law, every state has different notices you've got to post in the place of work.

If you're not talking about employees in different states, but instead are talking about employees in different countries, the complexity level just went up another notch.

I'm usually happy to employ great talent wherever it lives (and there's nothing at all wrong with living in the French Riviera), but decentralization doesn't make it easy.
You can still use applications, such as email clients built-in to Android, to access your account. Typically you'll need to use an application-specific password as described here: http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/static.py?page=gu...

(Disclaimer: I worked on the Android app.)
But who cares about P(PhD|jobless)? P(jobless|PhD) is important; it's a measure of how much job security a PhD leads to. But P(PhD|jobless) is only important if you're a jobless PhD and you want to know what your chances of finding someone else who's survived grad school in the unemployment line. I wouldn't know how to interpret "1 out of every n jobless people has a PhD"; the first thing I'd ask is "what proportion of all people have a PhD", and then essentially run things through a crude mental version of Bayes' theorem.

(I have a PhD. In probability.)
I think you're dreaming. :D

Is Twitter worth $10bn today? Probably not. Could it be? Easily. Hell, I'd invest assuming the CEO was good.

Twitter gets so much attention from its users each day. It has replaced email for social things. I have made so many friends and connections on Twitter it's almost ridiculous.

It's where people go to converse, to ask questions, to find out what is happening in the world. It's why Al Jazeera paid for sponsored search terms during Egypt.

Twitter is giving a voice to people that are previously unheard, and in the future, this will be huuuuuge in 3rd world countries - remember that Twitter can work entirely via SMS. We have no idea what is happening in most parts of the world, but with Twitter, we can listen and learn.

I genuinely think Twitter is one of the most revolutionary products on the internet since email, it has the potential to be significantly more impactful than Facebook, Microsoft or even Google can dream of.

The only thing holding Twitter back is people like you who look at Twitter and don't get it, it is so simple people cannot see why its valuable. :)

You can follow me on Twitter here: @plc
I have about 3 months of frugal living left (£1000/month), hopefully.

Craigslist and similar is a good idea.
I think it's purely confidence.

I just got a new fulltime job last week. I wasn't happy with the salary they offered, it was much lower than my previous fulltime job. I made it clear that salary would not work from the first conversation with HR. At no point did I change my stance.

I even suggested we should be creative asking if I could work from home twice a week so I could play hockey with some ex-pro's I'm in with (Stephen Yelle is my center...). I didn't even try to conceal why I wanted to work from home - I was straight up saying it was a quality of living issue.

They gave me the job and the two days off; they even came up halfway on the salary, going 8k above what they said they would ever pay for this position.

Bottom line: you have to ask for what you want; if you do that with confidence and a strong reason you can heartily defend you just may get everything you are asking for. It doesn't always work out this way, but I've never stuck to my guns so thoroughly before either and I gotta say, I am definitely going to always try to be creative when I negotiate now.
I'm still trying to figure out how to negotiate this with my wife. I mean, you could record it, but then you have to try and not find out the result until you get a chance to watch it. That's tough.
Great going, google! Banks have been using those RSA dongle thingies for a long time. Now with mobile phones that isolate one app from another, who needs em! And you get OTP codes just in case. Nice.

Now I wish my bank would do this.
Not necessarily, they may have been reading an older version. Note:

>But today, Google is making things much, much better for those who want it. Update: Google is actually rolling this out over the next few days, so you may not see it quite yet.

And I don't know where to find this "second password page" you speak of. There's no link in my Google account, if that's what you are referring to. How am I to read it?
The PyPy San Franciso Bay Area Tour 2011
Well, these services should be using OAuth by now anyway and we should not be encouraging them if they don’t.

That said, check out the “application-specific passwords” part of this offering. It may do just what you need.
The most important part of the user experience that multi touch input enables might just be an onscreen keyboard that doesn't suck by being frustratingly slow and/or error prone. Requiring the user to only ever be touching the screen location of one key at a time slows the user down. And when the inevitable happens, i.e. the user is touching two on-screen keys at once, to take the average (which lots of older single-touch screens did) is not acceptable for text entry.
I've started learning Common Lisp because of them :) and I don't regret it. I can now program better in languages with closures, macroses, tagged data, interfacing with FFI, etc.

I learned a lot by making that step, and there is way more to be learned.
I'm fully aware of the peer-reviewed studies that you mention. The correlations they find are highly statistically significant, but the correlations are fairly weak. For instance one study found a 5.83 point gap between the IQs of atheists and dogmatically religious people. That is significant over a large population, but not for individuals. And our society has so many more dogmatically religious people than atheists that there is no problem in finding lots of very intelligent, dogmatically religious people.

Also the cause of that is far from established. For instance religious belief and ethnic background are strongly correlated, and ethnic background is more strongly correlated with IQ than IQ is with religious belief. How much of an effect does this have? It is hard to quantify.

Therefore I wouldn't put much weight on those studies. Don't pat yourself on the back too much for being an atheist, because it doesn't say much either way for your intelligence.

(Disclaimer. I am an atheist. But I know plenty of people who are much more intelligent than me who are strongly religious.)
> Putting words in my mouth. No one said anything about perfect security.

No, you mentioned the highest level which I took to read as perfect.

Given the opportunity, you choose a mediocre interpretation instead of the most intelligent one. (Actually, that's charitable. You ascribed an idea to me that everyone knows doesn't exist.) This results in a lower level of discussion.

> I bet I could find a company that could set up an email server that couldn't be compromised just because the web server was compromised.

I've no doubt you could find someone who'd claim that they could do it, but it's all going to depend on the architecture, configuration, software and maintenance involved. FWIW I don't believe that HBGary used a company for their mail, I read somewhere that Aaron Barr was the administrator

And how isn't this a red flag for organizational incompetence at HBGary?
It is a critical time, hopefully they can make a good transition. But things can get much worst if they people of Egypt don't have the maturity. Think, the Iranian revolution(of which I know little).

In the Mexican revolution they were able to overthrow the dictator in a few months. But, the new president was betrayed and that lead to a major bloody civil war that destroyed the country.

So, hopefully Egypto does it well but it is a risky time.
$1000 kit solar house for world's poor by Idealab's Bill Gross
Because genius means you don't need to eat.
I created a similar plugin, but it uses a Vi-like binding schema.

https://github.com/paydro/keylock
How do Tropo, Twilio, Asterisk and VoiceXML fanboys view each other?
NYTimes is not a paywall.