skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Alarmist. Civil asset forfeiture is not carte blanche for local and state governments to take property. There is an elaborate due process system surrounding it. The often-cited statistics about how few forfeiture cases are accompanied by criminal convictions are obviously and clearly biased: much crime goes unpunished, and if you are in fact running drugs (the nexus of the vast and overwhelming majority of forfeiture cases), you're probably not going to go to court to get your Escalade back.

Details:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_0...

In one sense (I'm not married to this argument), declaring all asset forfeiture to be an unconstitutional tyannical abhorrence --- call this the "Radley Balko Line Of Attack" --- plays into the hands of those who would abuse it. There is virtually no chance that the fundamental process of asset forfeiture will be reworked. Both liberals and conservatives, both Republicans and Democrats all support it. Unsurprisingly, because in most cases, you really do want seized those things the government seizes.

A far better way to foil people who would abuse civil forfeiture would be to educate people about the processes made available to people to recover property. One simple point rarely brought up by Reason Magazine: a simple written request filed within something like 90 days of the forfeiture is all it takes to force the government to defend their seizure in court.
This is a great write-up, thanks Patrick. Very much agreed about the hyperbolic news coverage, my Mother called me at 3am to warn me that a giant tsunami was about to hit San Francisco (where I live). Human engineering really prevailed this time. Still, shockingly sad to see videos like this:

http://ow.ly/4dvh0
Actually, this "idea" already exists in Germany. They are called the "Pirate Party" and they got a remarkable number of votes the last elections. Most of the members are the a-typical Wikipedians. http://www.piratenpartei.de
Interesting narrative of the different originations.

http://books.google.com/books?id=sMiRc-JFIfMC&pg=PA141&#...
SXSW: Then VS Now
So correlation != causation but...

Shinmoedake erupted recently (Feb 1), was quiet since March 1st and has now erupted again. Interestingly it has been showing increasing activity the last couple of years (eruptions in 1716, 1717, 1771, 1822, 1959, 1991, 2008, and 2009). One could perhaps draw some arbitrary links between these dates and significant earthquake activity, but that would probably be taking it too far.

An Indonesian volcano (Karangetang) also erupted following the recent earthquakes (Hawaii had smaller unrelated quakes as well which I wasn't aware of).

Russian volcanoes also erupted following the quakes (accompanied by smaller quakes).
Now only Godzilla is missing.
The first 1000x in valuation is the easiest
The reason people build power stations is that density of energy matters, not just quantity.

Sure, we can replace our current energy sources with solar + wind + wave.

What fraction of coastline needs to be covered with wave-driven generators, and what fraction of Earth's land area needs to be covered with solar or wind farms to get to our current energy generation levels? Last I saw the numbers for the US they weren't pretty.

Just to run the numbers for the US, average insolation for the Earth is 250W/m^2 according to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insolation>. That's for the whole spectrum, not just whatever solar cells can actually use.

The land area of the US according to <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States>; is a shade under 1e13m^2. That gives us a total of about 2.5e15W for solar power for the continental US, assuming your solar cells are amazing and have 100% efficiency across the full electromagnetic spectrum (as in, you've done an "Apollo Program" for solar cells and had amazing results).

Energy consumption in the US 5 years ago was about 29e15PWh/year, so about 3.3e12W.

So we'd need to entirely cover about .13% of the land area of the US in solar cells to get the amount of power we were using 5 years ago. We're using more now, of course.

That's about the area of Connecticut.

Now what's the useful life of solar cells? How high can we sensible expect to get it? How do we plan to handle the fact that the generation is ... very variable? How close to 100% efficiency do we think we can actually get solar cells? How noxious is the production process for these solar cells you'll have to be cranking out continuously to replace the failing ones, and where do you plan to locate it?

> Does anyone seriously believe that a "shoot for the moon"
> style campaign like the one we held to create nuclear
> power plants, would not result in workable alternative
> energy programs?

Yes. I don't think such a campaign would get us to the point where we could use any combination of wind, solar, wave for baseline power.

> Nuclear energy is inherently dangerous.

So are solar cell production facilities. So is swimming, for that matter; the question is one of probabilities.

> the penalty last 25,000+ years.

How long does the "penalty" for a serious chemical spill last?

> No amount of carefully considered analysis changes the
> science of this issue.

This much we agree on. ;)
Lean is about copying what works and stripping out what isn't unhelpful. That's it.

Who could possibly disagree with doing that? We're all lean now!
http://twitter.com/#!/googlesxsw/status/46986827206361088

We're not launching any products at #SXSW but we're doing plenty else. Join us for #H4ckers & 80s dancing today http://goo.gl/yV4fP
Is There Money in Open Source?
Folks it was just a marketing page just to show what you could publish with the web app HomePage which was part of the iTools suite. Don't take it seriously ! I know a few folks that used to work in iTools and .Mac and it was well known that Steve's web pages where just for demo purpose.
2. AFAIK, Wax requires wrappers for C functions.

There's another modern variant of Lua bindings for ObjC (aimed mostly at Mac instead of iOS) -- http://playcontrol.net/opensource/LuaCocoa/

It uses BridgeSupport and libffi.
It depends a bit on what scenario you're preparing for. I don't think you're much more likely to need a gun during the 3-day disruption in civil infrastructure described in the article than you are in everyday life. If you're preparing for the end of society as we know it, then you probably want at least three guns: something for small game, a defensive sidearm and a large game/offensive rifle. In situations somewhere between these extremes, a defensive sidearm seems like a sensible precaution to me.

Whatever you do, don't get a gun just for disaster situations. If you're not going to put in the time to get proper training and regular practice, your gun could be more of a liability than an asset.
DilbertFiles.com | Send Large Files and Big File Transfer by Email
gmail.com
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The idea does matter. Don't get caught up in the false dichotomy that plagues this issue.

Obviously execution is hugely important. But that doesn't mean that the idea is irrelevant. The key is to take a great idea (that has a market) and execute on it well.
Good video of the Smart Cover if you haven't seen it yet -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbl_6DmzO4g
Zeitgeist Day 2011 Live in London
it also lets them keep aggressive price-points for the actual products and simultaneously enjoy huge profit-margins on accessories that everyone buys. it's sort of like their cables business, but more people will buy these covers than cables.
Direct link to the source (Big Spaceship):
http://www.bigspaceship.com/blog/labs/jquery-plugin-codeexpl...
It is frustrating that, since Hoglund appeared in the Anonymous storyline, that's all we get to talk about --- because people, like (I don't know you, so don't take too much offense) you, come out from the woodwork and hang superficial barbs like so many ornaments on an ugly, boring Christmas tree.

You are commenting about this guy's personal, private email. You don't have to like or respect him. But your contribution to this thread --- "This guy sounds like a total asshole in his emails!" --- degrades the discussion. I'm calling you on it. Please, don't be such an asshole.
I can't help but think what a disaster of this scale would look like in almost any other country but Japan

Probably might look like the 2010 Haitian earthquake or the 2004 Indian ocean earthquake/tsunami

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Haiti_earthquake
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_ocean_earthquake
Basic marketing - the idea is to get something, anything, noticed by the major media, and the only way that will happen is for it to be trending on Twitter or something.

The same principle as having an announcement splash page to gather a mailing list, so when you launch you can tell everybody on it and try to get a critical mass going.

Attention inertia.
And another thing - what about debugging. Are we back to just logging?

Personally a slightly simpler syntax for the message sending layer in Objective-C just doesn't seem to give that much leverage. I'd much rather see a functional language properly integrated à la F#.
This isn't written by that Tom Price, is it?

http://www.survivorstvseries.com/Tom.htm
Two rounds of convertible debt does not really happen, practically, since debt is the most senior security in a company. An investor doing more debt at a later point would not have much advantage over an investor that did debt in the first place. As a result, there is no premium for coming in earlier, when it is more risky. Early debt holders block issuing more debt, generally.
What I'm saying is, these are India's (and Pakistan's) citizens, not Dubai's. The onus is on India's government to protect them, not Dubai.
How, exactly, is this a disaster compared to the greater surroundings?
Preliminary results are one death, some injured people and perhaps 10 people who'll die from cancer in 20 years time who otherwise wouldn't.
Compare to the thousands deaths, millions homeless and unimaginable damage from the earthquake and the nuclear 'disaster' is but a drop in the ocean.
I know this is a particular case, but want to share anyway.

I always heard in Mexico that German people were very cold and dry. When I visited north Germany about 4 years ago, I was introduced to my aunt's mother-in-law, and as I'm accustomed I went right up to her, gave her a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. Well her reaction amused me, she got in a very cheerful mood and I got an extra spoonful of food at the table. :)
I bet the Madison Rally's Dad could beat up the Tea Party Rally's Dad too...

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Hungover At SXSW? Use Zaarly To Get Your Gatorade And Advil
Following Earthquake, Japanese Officials Fear Partial Nuclear Meltdown Underway
I did not downvote you, but if you read the post you would know it is related to YC.
That and a zombie epidemic...
Geiger Counters for Fukushima
I've been staggered by the disasters ongoing in Japan. It's set me wondering what I can do to help. I specialize in prototyping and industrial design. After pondering for a while it struck me that there might soon be a need for small, inexpensive, reasonably accurate Geiger counters for people around Fukushima to scan for nuclear debris.

It seems like sourcing a few hundred Geiger tubes, prototyping the electronics, building cases, assembling units, and donating them en masse would be fairly simple with a push from Kickstarter. My question is: "Will it help?"

It's not enough to rush into a disaster with good intentions and hope. I'm trying to measure the feesability, practicality, and impact of this project. Would building and donating hundreds of Geiger counters for the people of Fukushima and the surrounding areas make a significant impact? Is there a need that isn't filled by surplus army electronics? What level of accuracy is necessary for a Geiger counter to be useful for detecting contamination? Even if most people wouldn't be in danger from nuclear radiation, is the comfort that a Geiger counter would provide in assuring their safety worth the resources that would be expended on making them?

Thanks for your time, Hacker News. I'd appreciate any advice you've got.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/international/Special_Repor...

"The 40-year-old nuclear reactor facing a possible meltdown in Fukushima was originally scheduled to go out of commission in February but had its operating licence extended another 10 years."
excellent post and exactly what i suspected.

i think the news should steer back to the middle east and libya in particular right now; thats where things hang in the balance and can impact billions of lives.
Thank you Patrick for a very insightful and interesting piece explaining how Japan is engineered to react in situations such as these.

The checklists are absolutely fantastic. I've been a part of writing various different disaster manuals that were to be used in the event of X and none of them had checklists, I am going to have to add that in.
True, but do you know of many (or any) companies that applied to YC while making a cool $100k/month?
Don't close them, just remove any of the icons that show up. For Adium for example turn off the default jumping action, and sound action, and just leave up a small badge if you require it to feel safe, or turn that off as well. Now your chat client becomes more like email.
Meltdown: The Japanese Earthquake and Fukushima Reactors
It's too bad the app sucks at its advertised purpose (finding good apps). I was excited when I read the description and saw how many people were using it.
Ask HN: Mediator Pattern for Modular Interface and Functionality Development?
I am working on a javascript, client side, web application and the interface and functionality could potentially get complex and I decided to split things up into separate "modules" that listen for events for when to render and append its own html, javascript includes and CSS all using the mediator patterns below.

So far its been really good at breaking things up so that everything isn't in one or two files for coding and style. Though is there another way to go about this? Is relying to much on jquery dom manipulation for interface layout dangerous as the project gets larger?

http://www.fancybread.com/blog/post.cfm/mediator-pattern-applied-to-javascript

http://arguments.callee.info/2009/05/18/javascript-design-patterns--mediator/

Thanks for any advice.
First time posting
(How do I get this question in the Ask Section)
Correlation with what? The earthquake? The supermoon correlation is quite intriguing.

http://www.businessinsider.com/extreme-supermoon-2011-3
This Post Has Nothing to do with #SXSW | Both Sides of the Table
No kidding, when the last hope for freedom is a bunch of bored teenage kids hanging out on a anime related board, we are so fucked.
You're rattling around various fora, throwing out really bad red herrings (e.g., on reddit you tried to link Niger's average life expectancy to uranium mining when that likely isn't even a blip on the radar compared to poverty, malnutrition and lack of health infrastructure). So the onus is on you to provide strong citations for the claims you're making, rather than just tossing out BIG SCARY CAPS in a comment and then hand-waving "could have relevance" and "it is said" when people engage with you.
I think parents would try to get the best teacher for their money if they were free to choose where and how their children were educated. While what we have today is far from choosing a lawyer, there is no reason why primary education couldn't or shouldn't be a market in the future.
I've been involved in projects where lead architects did indeed fake it till they made it. It scared the heck out of me once I found out what was going on, and the "making it" wasn't due to anything they themselves did, but in fact because of the team going above and beyond. It doesn't change the fact that in the eyes of senior management, this guy had "made it".
Those may exist, but check the URLs in Google’s global navigation.

mail.google.com/

maps.google.com/
leave this sort of stuff on reddit
ISuppli estimates Apple iPad 2 3G component costs at $325
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I've looked at a few options for that problem. There's twitter's approach, which is to never update the page, just a link at the top. There's the friendfeed approach, which is a pause button. Hackerstream's approach - clicking on a post to copy into the shortlist - is experimental. Do you like one of those more than the others? Is there a fourth (or fifth) option I haven't thought of?

I'm still not convinced the shortlist is pulling its weight.
State Department spokesman Crowley resigns after Manning treatment criticism
Typhon is a Greek titan, master of the winds. By some coincidence, the english derivative "Typhoon" sounds very much like the Japanese word "taifu", but it's obviously unrelated. The English (an other European languages) word definitely comes from Greek.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhon
I think foaf is still the most widely used ontology... it's really a pretty well thought out data model.
Congratulations michaeldhopkins, Jsarokin, sagacity, mooism2, wturner, DennisP, iwwr and jermainc! you are now officially 'temporary officials' of the newly formed engineering party! if you can and choose to accept duties of TO's, website domain and email ownership will be transferred free of charge to elected chairman of Board of Reason [elected by members mentioned above]. good luck.
You are on the right track IMHO. What is key is that 'best friends' or 'school friends' are highly contingent and ambiguous constructs. They are not fixed, but rather are dynamic through time–people flow in & out of circles for a multitude of reason–which is very hard to operationalize technically. More engineers & techies should at least be familiar and respect more social theory, not because it represents some 'true' representation of how real social interaction works, but more as food for thought when designing social/technical infrastructure(or as we say in the biz sociotechnical ;). I see echos of Erving Goffman, Harold Garfinkel, Anslem Strauss, and Emilie Durkheim in RWW's description of circles.
Great talk. I didn't, like, like the excessive "like" in the beginning, but it got better :)
Course work and credits are not fungible. I would strongly suggest that you check with your college or university to determine from what online institutions they would accept credit and which courses correspond to those you need to complete your degree.
PyCon 2011 Video: Advanced Network Architectures With ZeroMQ, by Zed Shaw
I would want to host my own webserver instead of using Geocities because hosting my own webserver means that I can write my website in whatever language I want, and that there is no limitation on what I can use it for

And with Appleseed, you can run your own social networking site, theme it how you want, add third party features, build extensions, etc.

"the competitive ecosystem that's created by federation"?

Think of it like email. If you decide you don't want to be on gmail anymore, you move to hotmail or yahoo, or you set up your own server, and since SMTP is federated, you can still email all of your contacts, you're not walled off.

The same principle applies to Appleseed and distributed social networking.

(A "node" is just a social networking website that is compatible.)
The Limits of Safeguards and Human Foresight
I don't consider it to be dead-certain (one reason I don't own many stocks), but the fact that we even countenance the scenario and find it likely is an indictment by itself.
It's pretty simple to sign up for and use, actually. No more difficult than Facebook. You create an account, upload photos, read newsfeeds, etc. Unless you're talking about setting up your own server, in which case it requires experience with running a LAMP server, and about 5 min to install.

The problem is that it's a volunteer open source project, not that it's difficult to use. Thus, it takes a lot longer time to maturation than it does when you have funding and full time employees.

However, despite being in beta, that we've built up around 200 Appleseed nodes (50 running the latest code), and the main beta test server has around 600 testers, it's not doing too shabby.
well, if you just want to creat qr for any url and share them, i recommend miniqr.com, i.e.: http://miniqr.com/http://news.ycombinator.com/
Gmail.com redirects to mail.google.com, but they own the domain, and I ALWAYS type that in instead of typing mail.google.com.

Picasaweb.com is the same way.

I get your point, and it's not a bad one, generally speaking, but my gmail and picasaweb logins are automatic after I've logged in to any other google service -- I just cleared my entire browser history / passwords / cache etc., to make sure.
That well may be, but it would be a real loss for the Linux desktop if the two groups can't figure out how to work together. Between Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE, I suspect GNOME provides the UI foundation for most Linux desktops currently in use. Ubuntu is the most prominent Linux distribution. It will be very unfortunate if they can't reconcile.
Debian "stable" packages tend to be literally covered in bugs and security holes

Would you mind backing this up?

Only a few of the most popular packages get fixes backported.

Debian must have many popular packages then, considering lenny has accumulated security backports for 1529 packages in amd64 alone.

They take security pretty[1] seriously[2] and considering it's all done by volunteers it doesn't seem nice to spread FUD about their work without any data to verify your claims.

[1] http://www.debian.org/security/
[2] http://security-tracker.debian.org/tracker
Yes, I lived in Germany for a time. However, many of the states of the US are the size of countries in Europe. And there are substantial differences in terms of mix and percentage of Ethnicities, religions, etc. I lived in Washington state, which is apparently Mormon country more than other places I have lived. I have lived in Columbus Georgia, where the population is nearly half white and half black. Very, very few Hispanics, Asians, etc. On the West Coast (where I lived in both Washington state and in California), there are a great many more Asians than there seem to generally be on the East Coast -- which makes logical sense since it is physically closer to Asia but was something of a shock to me when I first arrived on the West Coast. I didn't expect the West Coast to be as different from the East Coast as it was. I figured I was 'still in America' and it wouldn't be all that different. I was wrong.
Saying someones name doesn't actually help me. I have to write someones name down, either physically, type it into my phone, or write it in the air to remember it. And at that point I will most likely NEVER forget it again.

Friends I've had in high school I no longer have contact with that have strange names that are spelled a certain way I still remember how to spell them ...
Slowly but surely, web programming is getting as powerful as normal programming. Java runs everywhere inside a virtual machine, web runs everywhere inside a web browser!
would have to agree. i honestly don't think the younger crowd (ie people 20-25) really gets technology in the same way.
State Department Spokesman Out, After Comments on Prisoner
There are dozens of stock etherpad instances that don't require a login that you can use. Unfortunately, they aren't doing anything interesting.

Would you login using a Gmail account? A Twitter account?
The bickering in all of these blog posts makes me sad. I had hoped at least some of the project leaders could rise above the frivolous nit-picking. When will the conversation move on to constructive topics like "where to go from here"?