skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm not a nuclear scientist, but if your even remotely technically inclined(or just make an effort to understand) the basics are not hard to learn.

Oh, I think I do have a basic grasp.

However, I'm not sure how your two stories relate to either Chernobyl or a potential meltdown in Japan at all.

Are you trying to suggest that nuke plants are inherently harmless, because even fires can burn in them for 2 days without anything bad happening?

I guess it boils down to that I have a different understanding of the risks of nuclear plants - physics aside. People like you (sorry for generalizing) repeatedly claim that a meltdown is a normal and planned failure-mode. The core melts, the containment catches the radioactive blob, it cools down, all is well.

This sounds nice in theory. My problem is that it doesn't jibe at all with what we hear from japan these days. It doesn't sound like they're following a boring disaster-plan. It sounds more like they're pretty much in panic-mode. But perhaps this is just the media-spin, we'll know in a few weeks...
An app to share your ride with someone in need
Is Android or iOS more open?
While anything is possible, I find that most situations are best approached by maximizing for the desired outcome. As such, take the following for what it's work and good luck to you:

YC has a clear and openly stated bias for founding teams of 2<=X<=4 entrepreneurs.

Traction trumps MVP any day of the week. If people are already using your MVP, stress that. Traction is a commonly used de-selector.

The investor preference in SV is such that (it's likely) one of the first things required for a seed round will be some sort of DE or DE & CA incorporation. Since YC companies get funding, it's likely they'll require you to do the same. This is probably an area that if you choose not to give on where the company is incorporated, you'll turn off a lot of investors from SV. If it's a deal breaker for you, seek Canadian investment.

-Best of luck
Google Maps adds electric car charging station locations
Er, surely Meg Whitman proved that Meg Whitman can't buy an election in California?

The fact that politicians go to great efforts to raise campaign funds proves that they think its worthwhile.
EFF Seeks Cooperating FOIA Reviewers
I thought it was my eyes for a minute but the text in the black speech-bubbles is just 7 pixels high (for the lower case letters).

Readable, but the letters are blurry enough (especially since they are italics) to be noticeable.
As a soon to graduate high school senior and someone who seems to have the same interests as you, here are some of my thoughts:

1. Stay on the ball with your school work. I regret doing this myself. Freshman and sophomore year I had a decent average (85-90%), however, junior year I just got lazy. Most of my classes went down into the 70s and I was not enjoying myself. I'm in my final semester now, I have been accepted to university, but I'll most likely have to take out a big student loan as my average isn't good enough for most scholarships. I could have done better in those last two years of high school, but I didn't know how to manage my time. I'm getting better with it now, thankfully, and two tips I have for you are: (a) write down what homework you have for the evening on an ipod, notebook, or whatever you are guaranteed to look at once you get home. As soon as you get home, before you visit HN, reddit, or play any games(!), do that homework! You'll be able to focus better if you're not distracted by anything else, and you won't have to rush to finish it before bed (b) find time to do as much work as you can at school. If you happen to have a free period, study hall, or lunch break, take advantage of that. If you have something to do, find somewhere quite to work and JUST DO IT. You'll feel so much better after completing it and then you won't have to spend time at home on it. Don't let your friends talk you out of doing your homework to spend time with them, as there will be opportunities for that later. There's a due date on assignments, and you'll most likely not have another chance to get it done.

2. I've attended the canada-wide national science fair two times (hopefully a third. I'll find out soon), and this is something where one has to spend TONS of their free time working on a project. My projects were programming related, so I got to do what I enjoy doing and I won some cash and prizes doing so. However, there are huge time management issue with this. This is where finding those spare moments at school to do homework and assignments is really important.

3. Don't worry about a VPS. I know the feeling of wanting one though, but I've had to resist. There's just no practical reason why you actually NEED one. Before you buy something, ask yourself if it's something you actually need. If you would like to get a domain name (which can be helpful if you're advertising yourself on Kijiji or Craigslist for web dev.), you could just have a static HTML page (which most domain registrars allow you to have free), and have it link to your work (Github, etc.)

4. As others have pointed out, there are many free resources online. You just have to look.
R.I.P. Microsoft Zune. We'll always have the memories...
"Espinel suggests the creation of public performance rights for music on the radio, which the US already has for satellite broadcasting and webcasting. But the broadcasting lobby has opposed the move ferociously, claiming that its unique exemption from payment is because radio has such promotional force for artists."

I'm actually a fan of this portion of it. It brings radio broadcasting in line with the harsh limits put on webcasting. I'd rather it be the opposite - that the limits on webcasting were brought in line with the (lack of) limits on radio broadcasting, but this is a good second best.

The broadcasting establishment claims that radio is a huge promotional force for artists; why isn't the opposite true of webcasting (a la Pandora)? It would seem the promotion of artists is /better/ in webcasting, because the webcaster can link the listener directly to where they might purchase the artist's work - unlike in radio, where you must wait for the DJ to (maybe, once in a blue moon) announce what just played, and then have to google it yourself.
Doodle Jump scores 10 million mobile downloads for two brothers
I've been working on a database wrapper for SQLite to replace some plist serialization stuff I was using. It's still in the early alpha stages, but it's SOOO much easier to use than Core Data.

https://github.com/AKQADC/Merlin
Not to mention that the fact he probably gets more email than others is because his very public personality makes him more desirable for other people to contact him in the first place.
Here is what PG says:

Do we have to start a company in the US for you to invest in us?

Yes, but that's usually not a problem. It's easy for foreign nationals to start US companies (much easier than remaining here physically), and investors and acquirers prefer them.

Do we have to be US citizens?

No, as long as you can get here for at least three months. We've funded many startups founded by non-citizens.

Can you get us visas?

No, sorry, we don't do that. You'll have to figure out visas for yourself. If you know people from previous YC-funded companies who came from outside the US, we suggest you ask them for advice. They understand the options better than we do.
> that REST is not just pretty URLs.

REST and pretty URLs are very much orthogonal indeed.
Bilinguals See the World in a Different Way
I'm curious how the MagicRuby group is doing.
I disagree. For example:

The Obama administration has already failed to respond to more FOIA requests than the Bush administration.

http://www.rcfp.org/newsitems/index.php?i=11758

Obama Administration Aides meet with lobbyists off the White House grounds to avoid logging meetings:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0211/50081.html

More than 40 former lobbyists work in top positions in the administration, including three cabinet secretaries and the director of Central Intelligence.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/former-lobbyists-seni...
Production, consumption and disposal of fuels. Is it coal mined in some shoddy third world mine, could things be improved with better technology? (nuclear power received a lot of research money, can the same be said for other power sources?). Environmental impact (oil spills - blame on power plants, or on cars?). Quality of life (just surviving is not enough).

Sustainability (nuclear power also seems to be a limited resource).

small chance for big damage (nuclear power) vs higher chance for lower damage (fossile fuels).

And so on - honestly, I am not an expert on this stuff.
Behold, the know-nothing.

Sorry sir, I'm not wrong, those would be perfectly valid as part of a REST service, including as alternatives to tptacek's description. Readability of the URLs has nothing at all to do with RESTfullness.

The only thing REST says about the data transmitted (the URL in this case) is that it's the container for the application's state, and most interpretations of this is that the URL is entirely opaque. And indeed, Fielding has suggested/explained this several times.
A Botmaster’s Perspective of Coordinating Large-Scale Spam Campaigns
So far, the best layman source on these events.
Breakdown of Color Preferences by Gender
They really need to port this to Rails 3. At this point, any new app I'm building is Rails 3, and any old app I have, I'm reluctant to add something that will make upgrading harder.
The reasoning you're looking for here is "necessary, but not sufficient".

This post is dedicated to mathematics.
My intuition says you are wrong. But I am just a person who liked his high school physics class 10 years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-16_Fighting_...

A380 typical operating weight: 600,000 lb

F16 Loaded weight: 26,500 lb

A380 Max Speed: 580 MPH

F 16 Max Speed: 1500 MPH

Airbus weight advantage ~= factor of 30

F 16 speed advantage ~= factor of 3

3 ^ 2 < 30

Maybe there is some destructive value in having the kinetic energy more concentrated in the F16, but a full speed A380 has a lot more kinetic energy than a full speed F16.
> the idea is that you can build a generic 'REST' client and point it to almost anything that is a 'REST API' and it will work, in the same way we can now with web browsers

That's a stupid idea. REST is built on two things: content types and resource location. The content types indicate the meaning and location of the resources, if the client does not understand the content-type, it can not do anything.

You can not "build a generic 'REST' client and point it to almost anything that is a 'REST API' and it will work", that makes no sense. Indeed, that's not what web browsers do: the driver of the API on a website is the user, not the browser.

> a REST client will never figure out /api/1/ - which is why resources go in the path and query parameters go in as, well, query parameters :)

That's completely irrelevant.
Windows 8 M3 Leaks Reveal New UI, Aero Light, Reportedly - Softpedia
what do you want Germany to do about tsunami?
So, here's the link to the actual referenced report:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/15/apple_ios_throttles_...

IMO, it doesn't add much to the discussion except for this nugget at the very end of the article:

"This developer reiterates that if Apple didn't specifically introduce these problems in iOS, it's aware of them now. And he says that the Mobile Safari team has indicated the issues will not be fixed."
> HTTP's design was just heavily influenced my ReST so it happens to be good at it.

REST was extracted from HTTP. It's not that HTTP was influenced by REST, it's the exact opposite, REST is a formalization of HTTP.
Surviving After One Year in the App Store
The realtor is encouraging people to make a long bet on housing in hopes of making a few middleman dollars. A mortgage bundler is doing the exact same thing. The only real difference is that the realtor markets their products to unsophisticated speculators, while the mortgage bundler markets his products to gigantic financial institutions, hedge funds and the like.

We had a financial crisis because everyone thought housing would only go up placed huge bets on that hypothesis. Although there were bad actors involved in various places (realtors and mortgage brokers facilitating fraud, homebuyers committing fraud, bankers papering over crappy loans, etc), the bad actors didn't cause the crisis.

The crisis was caused by people at all steps of the chain believing that housing will only go up. If anyone decided not to buy into the hype, the bubble would not have occurred. The only people who are truly innocent in creating the crisis are renters and a small number of investors who shorted the market (Burry, Paulson, etc).
Bahrain declares martial law as Saudi Arabia sends in 1500 troops and tanks
Just to amplify: there's more than a pedantic difference beteen the two. REST has a lot of serious advantages related not only to application architecture and interoperability but also to system architecture and scalability. There's a lot in the original REST dissertation about removing shared state and enabling cacheability.

The crowd that mistakes ROA for REST (I think) sees the stuff in REST that relates directly to development and gets excited - but the stuff related to making their app scale, they ignore. If you don't want to learn a little bit about everything, at least follow the rules that relate to the things you don't know about.
Here’s Why Developers Are Scaring Twitter
Paleolithic Nutrition Video
I have to agree with raganwald and say that I have no idea what you mean by the "convenience-privacy continuum" here.

Do you mean that more convenient technologies are by nature less private? Or do you mean that you can convince people to give up their privacy in exchange for convenience?

The second is clearly true (currently at least), but I don't see any evidence of the first.
It's a shame you can't be bothered to read it. It's an even greater shame that the comment at the top of the page was written by a person who didn't read the article.
See also:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1482784

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1290235

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1232842
The wikipedia "Timeline of the Fukushima Nuclear accidents" is the most up to date source I have been following - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Fukushima_nucle...
It's about managing expectations. Go about emails with the mind set of training people around you to work with your expectations.

Important emails get answered quickly, while every non-issue is trashed. Over time this has worked out great for me. I don't get overwhelmed with emails, slowly it has gone down as those around me understand my priority.
We've just pushed a change to remove the source of confusion. That option is no longer relevant as we no longer show purchase information in feedback to 3rd parties, so we've replaced the option with a message indicating that your purchases are private on Etsy.
Is dumping millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico an acceptable level of risk for you? I don't see you saying we should stop drilling for oil.
>>I find myself wanting to storm into my bosses office and just outright quit.

Why? Life's too short to be in a miserable situation when you don't HAVE to. You like the work, is it the new management that's the problem? You feel like you can't progress? You feel under-appreciated?

What's the real issue here?
Never thought I'd see the day when an ew.com link was posted to HN.
Can you get another acceptable offer to use as leverage? If you can, go get one and hang onto it. Have a conversation with your manager, sans letter, and mention that you aren't happy with how things have been going, how you are wearing many different hats but don't feel fairly compensated given how heavily the company seems to rely on you. See what he/she says. If things go well, great. If not, wait about a week and then bring the new offer to your manager. Mention that you're not thrilled with how the company doesn't seem to share your concerns, which is a shame given your history with them and how interesting you find the work. Tell them that you don't want to have to leave, but you need to know that management takes your concerns seriously.

If you can't get actual change that would make you happy pushed through in about a week, take the other offer and don't look back - they're just stalling and politely ignoring you. Otherwise, you have to decide whether what current company does is good enough to pass on your new opportunity. If you play your cards right, I think you can get by without seeming like a 'traitor.'

You seem like a smart enough guy to sort this out yourself, so I doubt I'm saying anything new. Regardless, I hope it helps give you a little bit of clarity.
IBM Creates Big Data Frankenstein With Netezza-R Fusion
On your links:

#1) Your first link makes absolutely no reference to the Bush administration. It supports my point, though, Obama created stricter guidelines instructing the agencies to fulfill more FOIA requests. And the agencies are falling short for whatever bureaucratic reason, seemingly that they can't work through the pile fast enough. Rome wasn't built in a day and all that. Thanks for the link though, I didn't know Obama had done that. I approve.

#2) Some aides met with lobbyists off of white house ground to avoid logging the meetings? You mean to avoid the policy that Obama put in place and that had never existed before he was elected? Seems like he's working in the right direction, to me. Now we just need Congress to implement a similar rule.

#3) Yeah, again, not perfect just yet. Want to compare/contrast with the number of former lobbyists who worked in the Bush white house, on the McCain campaign, or on John Boehner's staff?

If you're reasoning backwards from "I've decided I don't like Obama", you can believe whatever you want.

But the guy's history and all of his public pronouncements since taking office have been on the side of openness, and consistently against the influence of lobbyists. He's actually created a bunch of initiatives for more openness, the lobbyist visit thing and the data.gov thing being two of them.

It's just plain disingenuous to claim that Obama is less in favor of openness than Dick Cheney.

EDIT: Wow. Not usually one to whine about the voting but the guy's links actually say the opposite of what he's claiming. And he's upvoted. Just goes to show, you can believe whatever you want and vote that way too.
Ask A Startup Sales Guy Any Question
Has anyone used the underlying recommendation service (or another similar service)? This definitely seems like it could be a huge time saver for a number of sites, but it's hard to tell from the site what people's impressions of the recommendation quality is.
Ask HN: What can you add to this grassroots innovation directory?
The latter can break caching for some older proxies.

Also, I believe safari will ignore your caching/expires headers if you use GET params.
Caesium-137 has a 30 year half life. If that blew into Tokyo, the city would be uninhabitable for 200 years - just like Chernobyl.
Try a SheevaPlug. Its a little ARM with a full-on debian install. About $80.

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

Or if you're into x86 try something from pcEngines. A bit more expensive, but no crosscompiler required to build packages on your desktop.

http://www.pcengines.ch/
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basler_Erdbeben

know your own history...
New Flash zero-day exploit that allows system takeover
system_clock_uses_UTC ? ;-)
Thanks for linking that. I had not seen it. It scares me how smart the Dropbox guys are.
> That'll be a bit like the ARPA/Vint Cerf asking 30% of all e-commerce revenue that flows over the net and Tim Berners Lee for all things over HTTP traffic. After all, they invented it, right?

It was their decision to go open. Maybe not directly in both cases, and one could argue that Time Berners-Lee didn't really know that what he started in 1980 would turn out to be the World Wide Web. He set out to solve a problem that is tangential to the purpose of the WWW at large, but that's besides the point.

There has never been shortage of companies who set out to create proprietary network protocols and document creation/collaboration tools; and they did. Many still exist today. The openness of TCP/IP and HTTP were prerequisites to their widespread adoption. That is, the WWW we know today could not exist on proprietary protocols because the very concept is built on layers of open interchange. There are significant conceptual differences between networking and computing platforms though. At least currently.

> Comcast spent the money to wire through the last mile, they feel they deserve some of the money that Google, Amazon, Netflix are making, net neutrality notwithstanding. Do you agree?

In order for any carrier to deliver to the last mile, they must obtain public land-use rights (right-of-way and utility poles), and are therefore regulated (and should be) to make sure they don't abuse public resources. I can create an open competitor to any iOS device tomorrow without using limited public resources. I cannot enter the carrier market without significant use of limited public resources. There is no parallel here.

Apple created the iOS platform as a closed, proprietary, curated, walled garden from the very beginning. Remember when you couldn't build native iOS apps? Yet this thread is opened with the argument that "developers and users both want the full capability of the device to be theirs". I don't think you can lump developers and users in as one. iOS devices are selling at a startling rate despite arguments that open is better. Stop and consider for a moment that maybe we're the ones who are out of touch with what users want. The numbers certainly appear to support that position.

The answer, in my mind, is not to bully Apple in to opening their platform. Quite the contrary. So far, all the whining and complaining has done is push Apple to open their platform "just enough". Just enough is figurative, because by any literal measure Apple is killing it. They're making billions. The answer is to leave Apple to their own devices and focus on your own solution. If you believe Android is the solution, pick up a book on Android development and get to work on apps that rock. Don't focus on killing iOS, focus on killing period.
There are so many things wrong with this even before you remember that you need an email address to establish a Twitter account.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/11/what-kind-of-man-gets-a-z... This guy must really feel sorry now.
Honestly, after hearing his rants for years, I'm of the opinion that his language is far more extreme than his opinions. If you don't believe me, listen to some political talk shows. Not Glenn Beck, but the more mainstream ones. They're saying much more extreme things (when you think about them), but sounding much more rational than him.

Really, if he talked like a sane, reasonable, rational person, he could make the same arguments and persuade more people. Right now, his extremism is making his supporters sound bad. He's a liability to his own cause.

His filtering of technology is less extreme a change in lifestyle than veganism. But you can talk to most vegans and completely understand why they're doing what they're doing, and sympathize with their decisions far easier than this. The first, last, and only Stallman speech I went to gave me a real headache at the --- lets be honest -- Jackassitude of his entire presentation. I was on his side until I heard him speak!