skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
AT&T has also been giving free mini-cells -- I have one. It's a little bigger than a typical wifi hub, and it connects to your local network and makes up for reception dead spots in your house.

I wish they'd spend the money upgrading and building out their cell network, though. And I wish they'd done it about four years ago.
dunno, imho AirBnB story was more thrilling.
It's not a contest, there can be more than one :)
You missed the switch to differing valuations between two different people, it seems.

No, I refuted the importance of it. My point was that while there might not be a universal, metric, objective measure of injustice agreed to by all involved, we don't actually need one to make social decisions (funny how three of the four qualifiers I used are essentially the same). Near Pareto efficiency exists for justice, and beyond that, numerous partial orderings have been developed over the millenia, based on perceived necessary conditions for the existence of societies.

Your nits are irrelevant to my point.

Then I must have misunderstood your point. It seemed to me that you claimed retaliation is always unjust and perfectly proportional retaliation is one-upmanship, and I don't agree at all. Since that's how I saw your argument, that's what I replied to.
I'm not even a little bit disturbed the order was made. I'm thrilled that the judge backed off and apologized for making the request. Tells me that she's actually listening to the defendant; will be helpful down the road.
Wow really shows how Y Combinator values co-founders...

No co-founder....no soup for you!

To be fair, they did get accepted based on having the whole team.

Do you think you would have been excepted if you applied as just yourself?
Compared to what?

Compared to joining an ecosystem that has already succeeded (Android). The downside if WP7 turns out to peak at 5% of the market - which is entirely possible at this juncture - is that Nokia will suffer a horrific drop in profits and probably go out of business. They now need WP7 to reach 30 - 50% of the market simply to consider this strategy a success. It's incredibly risky to take a bet like that.
Do you think you fit some sort of customer profile that triggered such beneficence? To me minicells look awesome -- but also sort of prohibitively expensive.
A dog by what metric? In 1994 IRIX was the first 64 bit Unix kernel running on the first 64 bit workstation. In 1997, the same IRIX 6.5 could run on machines from 100Mhz/16MB to 512 cpus monsters. IRIX had really a nice, easy user interface, and many features (real-time IOs, /hw virtual filesystems giving a hint of /proc and /sys long before they came into existence, modular kernel, full 32 bits compatibility on 64 bits machines...) that were long to come on other OS.
I wouldn't say Samsung, Moto, and HTC are "miles ahead of Nokia". They're running essentially stock Android with crappy tack-ons that nobody cares for (when's the last time any OEM's take on Android has received praise instead of complaint?), being glacially slow with updates...

With stock Android as a starting point and, well, a clue, Nokia can easily overtake Samsung, Moto, and HTC. Just by keeping good time with Google's own updates, and developing a customized Android UI that doesn't suck, Nokia can pull ahead.

That being said, I think the WP7 choice isn't a bad one. At MS Nokia would be customer #1. At Google Nokia would be just another OEM.
Awesome insight Jon. Thanks for the honest look back. I never found you inspirational, but you fake it well, ha.
As an aside, who ever is advising Sony is an idiot. The bad publicity this is getting Sony has already far outweighed the value of any verdict they get (in both monetary and deterrent value), and anyone could have seen that before they even filed the lawsuit.

Not sure I agree. Who is not buying a PS3 because of this? Who has stopped buying games? Nearly nobody, and the lawyers are on salary anyway.

The risk that Sony takes by allowing "hacking" to happen is that nobody will write software for their platform, and then the platform dies. Content-creating megacorps want uber-strict DRM, or they take their ball and go home (or to Microsoft). It's stupid of them, but Sony doesn't want to go to a meeting with a content house and say, "anyone can pirate your stuff if they want to".

Hence all the DRM schemes that don't work. They are not to prevent you from copying things, they are so Sony (or Amazon, or Hulu, or...) can tell the content creators "oh yeah, your shit will be secure". It's not, but they made the bean counters happy.

So really, this seems like the right action for a psychopathic corporation to take. Maximize BS and maximize profits.

It's a shame someone with a clue is caught in the middle.
Due to Firefox slowness, I have fully transitioned to Chrome on all my computers. I run adblock plus and often flashblock.

Phoenix was fast. I liked that. I should go try to compile it and run it on W7 and see what it does on modern websites.

Speed and ability to render correctly are my killer features for browsers.
Maybe they should just ask Google for a list of everyone that hasn't seen that string...
Why would it matter?
> IMO they were idiots not to take the GOOG offer. It was a huge one and I doubt they will ever reach that valuation again.

You're assuming that money is the only thing that counts for them.
Is the downvote above because someone disagrees, or because the downvoter is just completely unaware of the nature of the sites being taken down?

Most of these sites are promo fluff for BBC TV shows. Some are cancelled, some are for news show with little more "content" than "This show next comes on --- on BBC -".

Most of these sites would be dismissed as "marketing" if the BBC were a for-profit company. Marketing for defunct products. The rest is material that's being legitimately archived elsewhere.
Great story. Happy to know you guys
I remember one P2P case that was swiftly dropped because of smart lawyering by the defendant's lawyers.

To deal with the "expedited discovery" bit, the lawyer himself took custody of their hard drives. As an officer of the court, he could take responsibility for preventing evidence from being destroyed. He then offered to make it available to third-party forensics experts for imaging, and they would be able to get a ruling from a judge concerning exactly which things those experts would be ordered to search for (rather than letting the plaintiff's lawyers trawl through everything at their leisure).

I'm not quite clear on how much of that is happening here. One might hope this would be the ordinary procedure, but I have to worry about any judge who signs an order telling someone to retrieve information from the internet, period. I realize it was swiftly reconsidered and amended.

For that, I give them due credit, even though I worry about any state of affairs wherein an absurd order could be issued in the first place.
Just out of curiosity, what is the alternative to using p-values? What should researchers really be doing?
I read the title, then read the questions and didn't understand.

I use a pen and paper or a tablet for mockups.

I edit images in Pixelmator.

I don't use art editing tools for mockups.
I think he was saying the downvoted guy's comment is uninsightful.
Qt is better at building UIs than all of the above, with the possible exception of WPF.
QML is supposed to be a declarative language similar to WPF that's accessible to Qt programs.

The fact that you put Ruby and Python in your list shows that you're not up to date on UI technology.
Be sure to read subsections 1 & 2, they're really really important.
Not much of a compromise. Who wants a computer that can't run Linux, an MP3 player that only plays ATRAC, and a digital camera that can't take SD cards?

Sony is an evil company, and their products don't make up for it.
Not in California; we have a state law that specifically addresses (and forbids) this kind of behavior by companies. I'll let a poster over at the OP speak for me:

California is one state where their policy is NOT enforceable as far as their ownership. They may fire you over it but they won't own your work.
They've had support for Django 1.0 and 1.1 for some time now.
Particularly if the employer is someone like Microsoft or Google that does, well... a little of everything. As I said, it's definitely worth consulting a lawyer before taking anything for granted.
+ "but please don't wear your hat inside. That's impolite."
It cannot be that hard. If Linux, MeeGo and Android kernels diverged too much, maybe it's time to unify them in a way they all can share the maximum amount of code and effort.

I agree porting Qt to WP7 shouldn't be much of a problem too, or a much larger one.

But I suspect that Nokia's plan may prove hard to follow because it will be very hard to convince people to use WP7 phones.
Palantir Technologies' Assesment of "The Wikileaks Threat"
I'm staying healthy as long as possible. An exciting future awaits.

Forget going to Mars... the next frontier is understanding and emulating a mammalian brain, preferably the human brain with its amazing cerebral cortex. And boy will the memristor and related technology come at a great time when we're bombarded with an exponential increase in data that we don't yet fully exploit.
How is WP7 better than iOS 1.0? It seems about feature even with iOS 1.0.

Nevermind that WP7 isn't competing against iOS 1.0. It's competing against iOS 4.3, and in the fall, iOS 5.0.
That works 99% of the time for me. The other 1% are people that point out the NOT VALID UNLESS SIGNED right above the signature block.
I recently came up against this sort of nonsense in a job interview. I do a lot of technological stuff in my spare time, so as soon as they mentioned that I would have to agree to stop engaging in such extra-curricular activities I ended the negotiations.
I wouldn't say they're screwed. You can use C++ on all the mobile/desktop platforms (except on WP7) and many do, it's just that it's getting harder to do a C++ only app, you have to mix and match.
Downvoted with no responses?
Guilty as charged. I am a "True Believer" in Democracy. Also, I believe truly that power and the right to govern is bestowed by the people. Clearly the people carried the day in Egypt.

Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring but it will not be under the foot of a dictator at least we know that - and how could that be bad? Am I scared that things will not go so well, sure. But I'm an optimist and I got to work for and I got to hope that things will work out for the best - for Egyptians, for Arabs, for Muslims, for Africans, for Israel, for Americans and for all people who want to be free.
Rather than downvoting the above comment (have upvoted it back) can people argue for/against his logic?
I didn't say it was wise. I just believe that it is the reality of the situation. We have watched Nokia throw their immense resources in every direction, from Symbian to Maemo to Meego, all resulting in failure. The pathways for Nokia to take were pretty narrow, and I think spending more time in developing yet ANOTHER platform would have been death. Nokia cut their losses here, and went with a platform they could work with. They can focus their efforts on developing killer hardware and optimizing WP7 for it. It takes the biggest weakness of Nokia (interface design and software) out of their hands. It also makes the platform more attractive for developers - with Nokia backing WP7, there's guaranteed distribution and handset sales.
The article talks about the plaintiff being asked for their zip code, but not ID. I don't see in the article or in the snippets of law it references where proof of ID is unlawful. Perhaps its perfectly fine to ask for proof of id to authenticate the credit card holder, but not ok to record the ID info into the company's marketing database.
It's not so much dependency as not seeing the point of relearning the same stuff under a different name.

Neither C# nor Java offer tangible benefits over C++ for me. I don't learn anything new, I just have to memorize new APIs. Terribly wasteful.
Auto Smiley – Computer vision smile detection
Given that this proclamation was itself a published research study, does it mean that it is also probably wrong? The barber also publishes papers?
We use storenvy at grooveshark (http://www.storenvy.com/stores/3605-grooveshark and http://store.grooveshark.com/) and its super awesome. I love the emphasis they place on community as that is something we value very highly internally as well. Great work and thanks!
> A success by what metric?

Pretty much since the time it was called EPOC. It failed to grow and support more resources, as phones became more powerful than the desktop computers of the time it was designed in, and it's no longer suited for current smartphones. It still excels on the low end, where neither Android nor WP7 reach.
> you definitely can't deliberately use encryption as a defense against discovery anymore than you can destroy evidence by degaussing your hard drive.

The main problem with "forgetting" the passphrase is that they're unlikely to believe you and the judge may rule that the jury is allowed to hold it against you. You're absolutely right about that.

That said, there's a more subtle problem with DRMed media: it's entirely possible to have large, random files on your computer that are, in fact, movies and such that you no longer have the rights to play. If you can't prove that the expired movies are just that, rather than encrypted files of your own, you might get in trouble.

Hopefully, they'd notice that you had an account with whatever service and the movies in question were expired and they were in such-and-such a directory with the appropriate filenames and whatnot, but you never know. I mean, Sony hid a rootkit on a music CD. You never know what crazy things they'll try to put on your computer.
The BBC makes a show of "cutting costs" by closing down promotional sites for a pile of mostly-cancelled TV shows and handing off some sites that might actually count as "content" to the British Library. (Meanwhile, they leave up stuff like this because people actually watch Doctor Who: http://www.badwolf.org.uk)

Why is this a story, even in web circles? Why all the hyped-up outrage?

Are people associated with the BBC shilling this?
It's hard to say. To be fair, YC never met the rest of my cofounders. I was the only one they'd ever spoken with.

- Jon (The guy who wrote this story. :)
I badger my way through Photoshop, but definitely could use some help. Any books people recommend for learning it?
App ecosystem, better camera software, better social integration, better notifications. These are all better. It's a given that WP7 1.0 is competing with the most recent revs of iOS and Android, but the gap of what they have to make up is much smaller, which works to Microsoft's advantage, if they're willing to put resources into iterating quickly (which they haven't so far).
Hypothesis testing isn't the fundamental problem, it's how a given p-value is perceived. Getting a so-called significant result simply shouldn't be confused with conclusive evidence for the hypothesis.
See also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2207972
I agree with your sadness over the FIA's micromanagement of design.

I remember the cars when I was growing up, like the Brabham fan car (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Brabham_BT46 ) or the Tyrrell 6-wheeler (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Tyrrell_P34 )

We've lost a lot, both in terms of the pure entertainment of seeing the new ideas, and in terms of lost opportunities for improving our everyday transportation through innovation.

BTW, I'm planning on giving a Toastmasters speech in 2 weeks on F1. Maybe I'll mention this.
Actually, I think you are confusing things. Rich Belluzzo worked at HP, where he convinced the company to reduce development of PA and HP/UX, favoring Windows and Itanic. He then went to SGI, where he convinced the company to license its IP to Nvidia, support NT on x86 and other stupid ideas. He then went to MSN and it became obvious, at least for me, he was working for Redmond all that time.
Wordle - Create
Tracking fingerprints on touchscreens for interface design
I was kind of hoping this would be a story of Yuri Milner tracking down the one that got away.
> Not sure I agree. Who is not buying a PS3 because of this? Who has stopped buying games?

I've boycotted Sony since the rootkit. I guess I might be "nearly nobody" but I have put Sony products back on the shelf several times in the past few years.
Very generous of you. Thank you.
> You can see 70% discounts on most boutique clothes and accessories shops and everybody knew that its not real but consumers still love even the illusion of discount and jump on them.

It's straight-up illegal in every country where consumer protection laws have teeth.

If some people who live in countries with little or no consumer protection have been defrauded by businesses for so long that they have come to expect it as a matter of course, that's an argument that the practice is more than ripe for banning, not that it should be allowed to continue unhindered.
> Going with Android would make Nokia just another Sony/Samsung/HTC

IIRC, Samsung, HTC and Dell are offering WP7 phones.
Social Processes and Proofs of Theorems and Programs
incPy need checks the functions it caches to be pure and determinstic. determinstic function is a function that when given the same input , always returns the same output. incPy tests for a few options of non-determinism , and will allow in the future to define non determinstic sources in a config file.
> There aren't really many alternatives to WP7.

Can you say it with a straight face? Without laughing?
Awesome story! I am building a startup in a small town in Nebraska (not too far from KC, MO) so I feel like I can relate to a lot of what you said.
I'm not sure where I got that impression then. Thanks for the correction!
"The Congress shall have Power [...] to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries[....]"

It shouldn't require an amendment for the Congress to decide to exercise that power differently or not at all, especially if they realize what's happening now doesn't actually promote progress in new fields without a critical mass of open prior art.
When in Doubt, Demand an Explanation
Zut alors. Thanks for the heads up.
Would be cool to be able to input an artist's name and see where their music was played over time period X or is currently being played, plotted on a map.
well, at least they were as close to death of a company as it gets. Not getting funded by YC is hardly death, IMHO.
Yeah, that's like saying that you've got a new approach to writing the world's greatest novel based on using the letter 'y' in place of 'i'. AI is a software problem and if you don't know how general intelligence works, having a new kind of transistor really, really, really ain't gonna help you much. Wrong level of organization.
Sorry for the bad sarcasm community. I love Jon and Janette. I met Jon way back in 2009 and he was hustling with just an idea then. As a fellow Midwest entrepreneur it's awesome to see him "graduate" from our area and succeed in the valley.
Recent winners of Le Mans have been powered by diesel engines.

I went 3 years ago and it was very strange - the diesel power LMP1 cars were almost inaudibly quiet compared to the petrol powered cars. Almost like they were floating round the track - most surreal.

Diesel engines have advanced incredibly in the last 15 years.
Probably a general problem. They (of course, depends on the network) use the DNS system to determine "where" you are to provide a node closer to you. However, you probably will only notice it on things like video where latency can make such a large difference.
While reading Nick's story in text is incredible, I caught his presentation on the topic & the repercussions at 27C3 in December, and would thoroughly recommend watching the video recording if you're interested in it. Could be good question fuel for the AMA too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDkHPNbCC1M
I went through TechStars Seattle 2010. In watching the 9 other companies, it is obvious that the best predictor of success for my peers has been the strength of the relationships between co-founders. I'm measuring success (at this early stage) as some fuzzy function of how easy the team made it look to build a product, gain traction, raise money, and keep smiling.

I can only guess that Y Combinator really values co-founders because the patterns I've seen in 10 companies must be painfully obvious with 100 companies. That's not to say that there won't be outliners/exceptions, but when you're placing bets...
New OpenSSL Security Vulnerability
One thing to keep in mind.. this article about 10 years old. The current engine configuration is a 90-deg 2.4L V8, rev-limited to 18,000 RPM. Typical peak power output is around 700bhp. Additionally, a team is allowed to use a maximum of 8 engines per season without penalty, which forces teams to run the engine more conservatively. This specification is frozen until the 2013 season.

Over the years, teams come up with creative ways to increase power output while still complying with the F1 rulebook. Then the FIA tends to ban the new methods or otherwise limit the engines in order to keep power output down. Power peaked in the early-mid 2000's with the 3.0L V10 format, with some engines producing as much as 950bhp at nearly 20,000 RPM.

The primary reasons for managing engine output are driver safety and development cost. In the early 2000's, Ferrari spent an average of $300M/year on their Formula 1 efforts. The cost to be competitive in F1 led to some manufacturers pulling out of the sport. Limiting engine specifications and the number of engines a team can use in a season has helped bring down the costs, and the sport now has a full grid of teams participating.
I wouldn't mind allowing a company to have rights over what I do on my own time as long as I get ownership rights over everything else the company is doing, regardless of whether I'm involved or not. Fair's fair.
I have a device that I use exclusively for streaming, so I've set it up to use my ISP's DNS. My DHCP server is set to give out OpenDNS' address, so everything else gets good DNS service and my streaming doesn't get hit.

Alternatively, you could probably write a script to bounce back and forth. It would be pretty trivial in Linux; I'm not sure how it would work with OS X (ironically, my OS of choice :) or Windows.
JQuery Conference: Boston 2010
Yeah, but FIA also has a mandate to keep the race safe. So it tries to restrict maximum speed and power, without killing the sport. For example, air inlets have a maximum area limit. This clearly restricts air intake.

F1 is not the only sport with such restriction. The Tour de France has imposed minimum bike weights and the actual 2 wheel upright bike configuration, which is far from optimal. All other cycling competitions have followed. Recumbent bikes allow the racer to better use his legs and are more aerodynamic, thus faster. You can also buy bikes that are lighter than Tour de France bikes. It's just that they're really expensive, of course.
>It kind of saddens me because racing platforms (esp. Rally) are big drivers of car innovation (suspension, safety, power). Arbitrarily banning things like rotary engines has - in a way - killed an immeasurable amount of research money that might have gone towards the topic.

While I do agree with that sentiment, FIA is the difficult postion of balancing innovation with fairness. They tend to use bans to keep the playing field somewhat level. Also, in the past few years fuel efficiency is playing a bigger role with KERS and the switch to 1.6l I4 coming 2013. Those restrictions should lead to some interesting consumer level technologies.
I meant relative to the referring scheme. Thanks for the correction. :)