skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is a great companion to another paranoia-inducing post on HN recently (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2267205) because it suggests a way to create your own plug-in-and-leave-it proxies to do whatever on the Internet without leaving any tracks. As you know, most hackers attempt to do this by tunneling through one or more compromised systems, but here is a way that might actually be somewhat legal:

Go to any place where two public wireless networks overlap, and leave one of these devices in the overlap zone and connected to both networks. Arrange the networking so that you can tunnel out of one wireless network and back into the other. Do this in a few such places and you have a series of hops that can make it quite challenging to trace traffic back to you. Have your device retain no logs and include a remote power shutoff, so if somebody is chasing you from the destination network, by the time the physical plug is discovered (if it is at all, these things are easy to conceal) the router logs for the source network and ISP have long cycled.

If you are doing something really nefarious, do all of this on a battery-operated Gumstix and leave it in a trashcan between a Starbucks and a public library. The battery would probably last you all day, and then the garbage truck will dispose of all evidence by next morning without any intervention.
IMO it depends on what the "review" entails.

Certainly charitable contributions serve as an incentive for people to take action (see http://www.freerice.com/) - but if you're asking for a lengthy, thought out review, it probably won't serve as a strong enough incentive.
Thanks! It amuses me to see where it's creeped up too:
http://www.google.com/search?q=Eskobo+goowy+manjam
Gmail failure estimate revised down to 0.02% of users, all data to be recovered
25 Unusual Techniques to Make One Trillion Dollars
Interestring that a company that produces software specifically for companies would introduce features that a lot of their users on older version of IE wouldn't be able to use. I wonder what percentage of their users are able to use this feature.
Reading between the lines, this shows that App Engine is a growing & responsive project, and makes me less nervous about building on it.
It is extremely limited. I just accepted this as a result of the limitations of a distributed datastore and disqualified GAE as a candidate for any query intensive apps I want to do.

The other limitations I listed didn't seem to have architectural causes so I find them more frustrating.
Hosting Company: Anti-Pirates Stole $138,000 In Kit & Hijacked Our Email
I think that choice of model (even nonparametric or empirical distributions) and choice of priors are linked. Both are assumptions based on prior knowledge and analytical approach. Both are overwhelmed by the data in a fertile experiment.

Utility functions are a different beast though. They don't have an update procedure and can wildly affect your decision. I'm also convinced they're the best tool we've got so far, so I take it as an illustration that making informed decisions is just hard.

Presentation of summary statistics is fine. I prefer presentation of full, untransformed, unpruned data as well when feasible. It's, of course, often not feasible. I also demand justification for why you think those summary statistics are meaningful and under what kinds of situations they would fail to capture the conclusion presented. Not saying that this isn't done in a frequentist setting, but I think it's harder.
That's awesome to hear!
I've written a blog post about it. Here's the submission: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2272343
I immediately thought of this blog post by Nate Lawson: http://rdist.root.org/2008/07/03/dead-listing-while-on-vacat...

Wherein he describes the process by which he prints out dis-assembly of a program and goes through it by hand while at the beach.
If you want that, see this:

http://www.maxdesign.com.au/articles/css-layouts/

It was written in 2002. Cross-browser layouts are a "solved problem" :)
And sometimes tools are just bad. Yes, a bad workman blames his tools, but that doesn't mean all tools are as good as they can be. Sometimes a good workman blames his bad tools; when there aren't better alternatives, what can he do?

Let me put my CSS thoughts in context: I self-assess to be about as competent in CSS as I am in PHP. Now, I know PHP isn't great. But when I'm smash-my-head-against-the-wall frustrated, it's usually because of CSS issues. >75% of the time.

In general, I expect frontend layout work to be less frustrating than backend work. It's less complex, IMO. And, actually, it can be -- just by using tables for layouts. So it's not inherent complexity that causes the frustration, it's the CSS issue (tables remove that frustration for me).

In short, I've returned to table based layouts because that tool fits my needs much much better than CSS. I use CSS for my styling, but layout goes into tables.
Google Open Access Moves Threaten Verizon 4G iPhone
Virtacore vCloud Express Beta - Recap
Highspeed rail as it's currently proposed - CA, FL doesn't make sense. It only makes sense in the northeast corridor where cities are walkable, and population density can support it. High speed rail requires massive public transit in destination cities, which is why the current proposal in FL (Orlando - Tampa) makes absolutely no sense.
There is no problem HN readers can not solve. This is awesome. Have you heard of pressdoc. Euro company that seems to naturally extend from a service like yours.

Best of luck with this - you will probably be hearing from me!
Tennessee Insurance Quotes
We Love Start-ups, Especially The Social Media Ones
Everything requires effort to use. Question is, how much. The effort to learn and use some technology should be comparable with the complexity of the problem it solves.
Here's the equivalent for the Rhino JavaScript interpreter for your favourite JVM based language.

http://www.mozilla.org/rhino/tutorial.html#javaScriptHostObj...
Ask HN: How can we hack the credit card industry?
The credit card industry has a CLEAR problem. It sucks in every way possible (high interest, hidden fees, poor customer service, fraud). But it is clear that people NEED credit cards to help with cash flow management.

My question to HN is: How can we hack the credit/finance industry to make it better for consumers?
Also worth noting is the PyV8 project, which provides Python bindings to V8: http://code.google.com/p/pyv8/
digital warfare goes commercial
Yep, 404.
Y Combinator nurturing 43 startups
I think the specialness comes from the fact that they're just timers.
Peter Guber: "If You Can't Tell It, You Can't Sell It."
Worked for Babe Ruth, didn't work for this year's New York Jets. I'm rooting for you.
I can't believe this is actually true...
Nvidia announces CUDA 4.0
1. I would reduce the shadow (or the blur on it) below the horizontal nav (make it the same as the one below the logo, if it's not). I think that will help visually.

2. I would switch the text styling for the quote and the "Viral music distribution via Facebook"... first, we want to know what it does, then smaller, we want to know who's talking about you.

3. I would restructure the middle call-out box - something about the overlap is throwing me off. I would keep it two hard columns. Or, maybe, have the "Viral music distribution" in the highlighted text be above, centered, and then two shorter columns below with the "Learn More" and the quote on the left, and the images on the right.
I find it amusing that people downvote my comment. I guess it is much more rewarding to upvote overinflated stories about how Evil Wolfram Alpha "Doesn't Get It" (often without reading the story, I suspect). Makes for better drama.

Frankly, I would much rather read about a 2-bit adder implemented using 36 555 timers.
It could work. Blatant advertising or marketing would probably earn you plenty of downvotes on Quora, but participating or generating discussion about products, ideas, markets should be beneficial not only in gaining exposure but just getting good feedback.

Not sure about meeting potential investors. I would think most of them are not exactly scouring Quora for hot startups. We aren't trying this though, so I can't speak from experience.
Did The iPad 2 Just Leak Out?
While I agree with your thesis, high speed rail is a bad example. The US simply doesn't have the population density for it.

http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/02/america-wrong-cont...
DontType Javascript implementation of the Android password interface
Ok. I'll volunteer what I hope is constructive criticism.

- As others have mentioned, the title is misleading/bad.

- There's very little tying back what's being expressed to specific actions that Hipmunk has done. For instance the sections "Be Disruptive, But Respectful" and "Call Out Your Competitor" would have been better if they had actually pointed to or quoted from something issued by Hipmunk that was respectful or called out a competitor. Many of the sections use examples from completely different companies, which would be fine, if there was at least one specific concrete example from Hipmunk.

- Having been part of a recently built flights meta search engine I just see your bit about "Look For An Industry That Rarely Changes" to be completely uninformed. Not sure what scope you're talking about, but travel, airline, online booking and flight meta-search have all changed a lot over the past few years.

- In the one place where you did use a concrete example, "Work Towards Building Fanatics" the example is the mascot. A few more, and more substantive, examples would have helped.

- Finally it would have been appropriate to point out some of the weaknesses of Hipmunk to build credibility, and ease the breathless tone. Perhaps in the section about "power users." As someone who travels a lot I tried Hipmunk but currently mostly use Kayak (note that's not the one I worked on) because it has more flights and more search options. The pretty interface is nice, but power users, by definition, are willing to forego a pretty interface if there's more, you know, powerful options available. Kayak in its current incarnation just offers way more options for me to slice and dice the search to find what I want.
How to Make Party Balloons in Photoshop Tutorial
Mashable Breaks From Federated Media, Hires Own Ad Sales Force
Storm Clouds: Gmail Failure Reinforces Danger Of Becoming Too Cloud-Dependent
Video Tutorial: Android Application Development - Databases
One thing: You should change the name. I was expecting a totally different kind of pictures and was kind of afraid to even click the link.
Can Meg Whitman jump start her post-eBay career at Zipcar?
Seems like a really great way to share things your working on and get feed back.
The listed link is PR, but here is also some more details about what 4.0 contains:

http://developer.nvidia.com/object/cuda_4_0_RC_downloads.htm...
Even if you threw the notes away, creating them in the first place primed your brain and helped you understand the problem domain more thoroughly.
why a systems-oriented Ph.D. degree from a top 10 institution is not considered a valid proof of the holder’s programming proficiency?

Given the following quotes, isn't the answer to the question somewhat obvious?

it took 6.5 years on average

My own Ph.D. dissertation is backed up by close to 100K lines of code

A short time spent on a fairly small code base of which you are the sole author, not an encouraging state of affairs with regards to what happens in the real world. It is not uncommon for a production system to have been under active development for decades or more by dozens of people. So 200 man years of effort vs 6.5 man years on average. 100K lines of code that has never seen production, maintenance, or turn over.

A CS PhD has never performed in an environment approaching anything like a professional setting as part of their education. A MD has and has done so for a large portion of their education. There really is no comparison between a MD education and a CS PhD when it comes to time spent in a professional setting.
Not really, if 2 people or groups out of the millions of people who live in this country (or are on visas to work in this country) is that really an obvious invention? Or to make it more realistic say three or five out of an entire industry like bio-tech or web 2.0, is that obvious? Nope. It's obvious only to the few inventors.

So the question becomes how do we deal with who should get the patent. Instead of relying on the different time-lines of the actual development of the idea and reducing it to practice (actually making it work or having a proof that it will work) the new law will switch us over to a "who got in line first" system. To me that's a loss for inventors and for innovation. I do think we need a major cleaning up of the patent system, but this isn't the direction we should be going...
All very valid points. But compared to using CSS for layouts, where the downside is that I get so frustrated I have to stop working, these "downsides" aren't that bad. I value my sanity most. And,

1) in some minute percentage of my users, there's a chance my content won't show up fine. Whatever. I care about getting products launched faster, not about catering to 99% rather than 95% of my audience (premature optimization, really)

2) I have to suspect screen readers are somewhat smart about tables. For the past 15 years, most websites have been table based. Hell, Apple's store was totally table based when I last checked (1-2 years ago).

3) This is an optimization.

I find it interesting, in a startup community that values pareto principle, low hanging fruit, etc., that there is such a strong contingent of supporters who cry "CSS is simple!" I consider myself a very strong programmer, and CSS has caused me more problems than it has solved (again, only WRT layout, not styling).

In short, I use tables because I can accomplish my goals faster, and with less frustration, than CSS layouts. It prevents premature optimization, and it keeps me happier. Like anything, YMMV, but I really am sick of people who insist "CSS is so simple, take 10 minutes and you'll be fine". It's just not.
The sudden attacks on the libertarian Koch brothers from the Left is pretty silly and closed-minded.
This is a superb article. The portion I was really interested in was the one on bootstrapping. Completely agree with Jason Fried about taking on investor funds, maintaining your independence etc.

I've noticed however that the point he makes about self-funding typically applies to consulting companies: bootstrapping these is very different from bootstrapping, say a SaaS..oops I mean a cloud company.

I would love to hear from other folks that were able to bootstrap a software-product company.
I wish each! $225 total with one bringing in more than half and three that don't do too much.
What are the best metrics for measuring user engagement?
The question seems to be - Do you want to motivate younger students towards entrepreneurship or support those who are already committed to it?
This is interesting, but what are your qualifications? Have you gotten coverage for any startups in the past?
Notably, Boehner's top campaign contributer in the last election cycle was AT&T:

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?type=C...
Maybe. Then again, people on Quora loooooooove talking about Quora, and so do some of the folks here. And on Quora, I sent it to Charlie Cheever of Quora, Sarah Prevette of Sprouter, and Nicholas Carlson (who's been writing about this place), tweeted it to Audrey Watters and others, and sent it to a bunch of folks on Facebook. So we shall see.

The way I look at it ...

- a negative result across all sites implies that nobody cares.

- a positive result on one or more sites reveals something interesting

So from an experimental point, it's good data no matter what happens.
Nice idea, I like being able to claim my username as opposed to having to wait, but having to refer 3 friends to a service i know practically about? Probably not worth the trouble. Similar to what Hipster started, and now seems like a common technique (LaunchRock, etc).

Far cry from "best ever," but not bad.
> Governor Walker’s union-busting budget plan contains a clause that went nearly un-noticed. This clause would allow the sale of publicly owned utility plants in Wisconsin to private parties (specifically, Koch Industries) at any price, no matter how low, without a public bidding process.

Wow. I was skeptical at this claim, but it appears to be true?

* http://drudgeretort.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/walker-to-make-...

* http://wisconsin.onpolitix.com/news/36834/governor-walker-an...

Bizarre.
Thanks, it's really cute.

Any way we can have puppies?
Recurring payment provider options for a UK start-up
What are some great examples of virality design patterns?
Night Dragon:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-24/exxon-shell-bp-said...

This is a serious APT that's been ongoing for 4-5 years and benefits chinese oil exploration.
Remote desktop sharing isn't that complicated of a concept. I use it on my Mac all the time - ssh to a server, connect VNC to localhost, you have a desktop. Is that supposed to be an enticement or a drawback? It seems straightforward to me. Apple has stuff for VNC built in, too.
Poll: If I asked, would you send me your "Saved Stories"?
Before I start on the project I wanted to ask this: would you be willing to send to me the first four pages (items 1 through 120) of your "Saved Stories"?

Obviously this would take some effort on your behalf, but it's not that hard. One downside for you is that I could then see if you've been upvoting my contributions, and you might fear reprisals if you didn't. That, of course, is daft.

But more seriously, you would be releasing some personal data to me, and although I see it as harmless, I would protect it as well as I protect my own personal data. Which is reasonably well.

Even so, you'd have to trust me by as much as you care about the data.

If enough people say yes then I'll design the processing and get back to you. Even then, it might take some time, so this really is just testing the waters with no promises.

But would you?

ADDED IN EDIT: The contributions can be anonymous - yes.
Probably not - you'd have to convince me.
Maybe - depends what it's for.
Probably - if I had time when you asked.
Probably - if you explain your project first.
Yes, almost certainly.
http://www.macrumors.com/2011/02/28/new-ipad-2-image-almost-...

...probably not
Yeah, it's all about form factor. If you see a laptop plugged in and leaning behind a desk, you think somebody lost their laptop and you pick it up. If you see one of these sitting in a socket, you don't look at it twice because it looks like one of millions of power adapters that are hooked into all the walls everywhere.

Personally, I want one that screws into a lightbulb socket and lights up :-)
How is it compensation for publishing? Publishing what? you mean the actual patent?
How so? By hopping on the 2011 version of the George Soros freakout GOP supporters had years back?

By announcing that they're "targeting" an organization, knowing that that will be reported and that people will completely forget this "conflict" by the time whichever person or persons within Anonymous made this announcement lose interest in this "operation"?

OK, that last is almost kinda sharp.
I'm not sure I know how to answer this honestly. I love working and doing what I'm doing. I much rather do what I do than go out, hit up the bar, hang out with friends, play games, or any of that stuff. It's kind of addicting to be honest. Borderline unhealthy.
HN's threading and voting for comments make it a much better place for discussion than Quora. Conversely Quora's answer summaries, categories, and social media integration make it better for pure Q&A.

Agreed that it'd be great for something that's integrated with both. I believe Quora has API access and if so there are some interesting weekend projects.
Wasn't it a goal of Hacker News to NOT have kittens at the top of the page?
Yes, that is also huge. Overall I am so disappointed with this attempt that will likely become law.
I see your point about the overlap. I'm still not convinced it works but that was the best I could do at the time. When I get home from work I'll play around with the second image directly underneath the first and see how I like it.

It looks like that's two votes now to make the "Viral distribution via Facebook" text larger. I think you're right that it'll probably be better to have that text first with the quote second.

Very helpful, thanks!
Progressive enhancement is fine for things like rounded corners but we're talking about multi-column support in CSS3. Rendered in IE9 your page will look it belongs to 1994.
If ever there was proof needed to show just how far HN has fallen...

Perhaps time for me to move on.
They're not libertarian, they're movement conservatives.

And anonymous isn't part of "the Left".

In fact, almost any sentence involving a capitalized "the Left" is probably missing the mark.
Resurrecting:

-----------------

2 points by agiletortoise 1 hour ago | link [dead]

I expect they are. In retrospect, I should have asked first.

It something like going to a dinner party and having the host throw you out for placing your fork to the left of the plate, because they put them on the right at their house. Runs contrary to expectations.

--agiletortoise

-----------------

This doesn't look offensive to me, so I presume it's a glitch. It would be ironic if it was killed because of the signature at the end in violation of local norms. :)
I'm reminded of Bill Watterson's description of how he would come up with Calvin & Hobbes strips:

> People always ask how cartoonists come up with ideas, and the answer is so boring that we’re usually tempted to make up something sarcastic. The truth is, we hold a blank sheet of paper, stare into space, and let our minds wander. (To the layman, this looks remarkably like goofing off.) When something interests us, we play around with it. Sometimes this yields a funny observation; sometimes it doesn’t, but that’s about all there is to it. Once in a while the cartoonist will find himself in a beam of light and angels will appear with a great idea, but not often.
the opposite of elevation is depression

Instead of calling it an elevator they are calling it a depressor.
I remember being at the MS Redmond campus for an MVP summit shortly before .NET was released (ca. 2000). Some of the devs in the VB.Net team would amble in to participate in discussions and whatnot (it was very informal). Most of them had laptops and did email and even coding while they were in the conference room.

Again, this was 10 years ago or so, but I'd expect that developers can still get a laptop if they want to.

Personally I've always preferred a desktop machine to code, because a laptop means I can take work home.
No problems in being cloud-dependent. The problem is not backing up stuff because you think that Google is 100% safe. You could use POP3 and get your disk wiped out for any reason, so local-dependent isn't safe either.
About time, too. For the last few hours it's been nothing but a kitten-themed link to an HTTP timeout.

Would the developer like to help us stay on topic by telling us how the kittens were brought back to life using HIGH TECHNOLOGY? ;)
Check in to Facebook Places from your inPulse watch
> The capacity to observe reality?

That is a very strong statement. My point is you haven't proven it. I certainly sympathize with your situation, but neither that nor your evidence prove that the free market is impossible according to the laws of reality. Just don't overstate your position.

> Generally, when somebody argues that the reason a given approach has failed is that it hasn't been tried hard enough, they're laughed at.

I know - I would say the same thing about socialism.

> Our healthcare market is arguably freer than that of other industrialized countries.

It's not one dimension. Maybe the way in which the US is not free causes the problems that aren't seen in countries with more powerful rulers. We have to look deeper than one dimension.