skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That's one of the first things I want to fix when I get time.

I actually want to use the 'fancy buttons' gem (https://github.com/imathis/fancy-buttons) but I would have to switch the site over to using compass for my stylesheets.

Which isn't a bad thing, just not something I want to spend time on this week.
If companies weren't effectively buying monopoly rights from local authorities their prices might be lower too. Here in San Francisco you still can't get residential fiber in over half the city, and you can't have it without bundled TV or phone service so the minimum is $80/mo for a 15/5 connection in the neighborhoods where it is available. There's one cable provider and one DSL provider, and the services are proportionately expensive.

For a major city in a financial/tech hub of the world's richest country, the available consumer options are pretty weak.
I recently ran into these, they were being sold at a Japanese photo shop out of all places. Reading more about it online later I found that you insert pouches apparently containing nicotine and the USB-powered device then vaporizes it.
Has anyone from HN been? I'd love to hear some experiences!
The other reason in favour of doing that is that comments get both up and downvotes and therefore represent the net perceived value of the user's contributions.

New post submitting is almost guaranteed to be upvoted.
(I don't know whether flags give negative karma, but I'm pretty sure people flag less often for different reason)
Ah, I didn't get that part. Yeah, that works.

If you're going to have a plan in which karma is awarded for story submissions, that probably works as well as mine -- I just personally have found myself downvoting MUCH more than I ever have lately, trying to enforce quality.

That most of the downvotes go to people with fairly young accounts isn't lost on me, and while I hate to be the old curmudgeon hollering about the decline of HN (especially since I haven't been here nearly as long as many,) I don't want the quality standards to suffer more unnecessarily.
You Want to be Happier? Use Twitter
You'd think so, but actually there exist keyloggers that take screenshots on mouseclicks, precisely to bypass this.
Watch this, if you have not already.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5384001427276447319...
We have been converting a lot of groups from Skype to HipChat [1] lately and I'm surprised how many of them cite the UI craziness as a major reason for wanting to leave the platform. Obviously good, consistent UI is important but it always seemed like the general public had an amazing ability to deal with crappy UI. Apparently there is a breaking point.

One thing that's particularly annoying about Skype's UI is that you have no idea how to help a coworker using a different operating system because the layout is totally different. Certainly doesn't help adoption.

1. https://www.hipchat.com
>> But really, at this point I no longer care.
>> I'll watch the debate with some disinterest.

> Come on, don't be like that. You started this thread!

Only because I thought it was an idea with some value.

> Let's just argue the pros and cons, there is nothing
> personal about that.

Never said or thought there was.

>> Personally, I see that effect as part of the cause
>> of the rush to submit mediocre links, and I don't
>> think bmelton's idea will fix that.

> ...

I've just started a point by point reply and I've realised that I really don't care. I'll let people who do care argue the pros and cons - I don't think it matters, it won't change. Besides, if I've learned anything, I've learned that everything I believe about people's behavior is probably wrong.

> The only problem I see with this approach is that it
> will be easy for people with a lot of karma to abuse
> the system. Nearly every user name I click on has
> several thousands of points to spare.

I first came to this site when PG asked me to submit a link that I'd sent him. If I'd had to accumulate karma before submitting I wouldn't be here. Perhaps that's themain thing that bothers me about such barriers to entry. The really clever people I personally know would mostly just not bother and go elsewhere. Many of the mediocre people would stay, comment, get karma, and feel a sense of accomplishment.

Who would you rather have?

> At this point I believe we are in danger of taking
> this whole karma thing too seriously.

But like it or not, it will - and does - drive a lot of the behavior on the site. Getting it right, or even getting it better, would be a Good Thing(tm).
So basically one affiliate was generating sales of $50000 / day for these. Impressive.
I wonder how much it costs to build one of those semi-submersibles. I presume they're at least using the hull of a manufactured boat, judging by the pictures.
FNAL, BNL, CERN ...and KEK all use radhard electronics (obviously not everywhere), admittedly on the fringes of your illustrating application areas. Combined, that is already quite a large area, so to my mind parts for tough (damage) control robotics isn't such a niche.

But true, small production runs and spares is a real issue (actually, by the time they are really used, they are already obsolete -- but this is why you have upgrade plans :).
Knowing all about data structures and other computer science implementation-related stuff means exactly nothing if a person can't think creatively enough about how to approach a real-world problem to begin with. Those data structure CS questions are down in the weeds and you haven't even figured out if the person can get down to the weeds if you're asking those sort of questions in a first-round interview.

I mean think about it: do you approach programming tasks top-down or bottom-up, usually?

Critical thinking is the most important skill IMO, and it can only be tested by giving someone open-ended questions on how they would approach real-world assignments, preferably in a low-pressure take-home test kind of thing - again IMO...
The Most Expensive House In Canada
You're right, but you're also not distinguishing finely enough. Pulling text directly from somebody else's story (even with minor modifications) is a deadly no-no if you get caught. But that isn't what happened here. She didn't copy one paragraph from his story — she just took his facts and wrote her own story around them. Basically, she treated the blog post as a lead rather than a source. It's generally seen as a lesser crime, if they think of it as a crime at all — I know some newspapers actually encourage it — and it's far more common.
Thanks for that, because I was wondering what the hell a popular CSS framework had to do with RPM/yum.
Despite all of this, I find the most worrying thing about the recent HFT developments is the simple fact that hobbyists want to get involved. Surely turning amateurs loose in such a necessarily complex world will result in large sums of money being lost.

Oh wait... I get it.
Post in the hiring thread. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2387910

UT is right there, try contacting their career center.
It may not be admissible in a court of law, but it's key evidence in the court of opinion!
I'd say the Kauffman Foundation had a big hand in it. A smaller community may have been more attractive for a project like this because of logistics.
Someone could verify it by buying a laptop and checking to see if the keylogger exists. Someone with more money to spend than me, anyway :P
Good tips. Ask for more than you think you'll get. Throw out a price before the buyer does that is high as it will create the perception of value. [Google "Price Anchoring"]. If they throw out a price first, flinch. [It sounds silly, but it works. Read The Art of Power Negotiating for more tips]
My first programming job started with a two week contract which then ultimately became a FT position.

So I accepted a position like that and it worked out fine, but honestly, I will never do it again. I only accepted it in the first place because I was a desperate, inexperienced hire without any alternatives. Now I'm more skilled and have experience that demonstrates at least some ability. Accordingly, I don't need to take those kinds of risks.

Just because I'm good, maybe the boss's wife decides she doesn't like me or I lose some political blame-the-new-guy game, or they decide on entirely different qualities in a hire, or whatever. In this climate that sort of risk is their problem. I also won't do 10 hour programming 'tests' and I'm pretty reluctant to do several full-day programming interview marathon sessions. It sucks, I don't want to take the time off for that crap, and most importantly...

I don't have to.

This means there are places I can't work at, but there are plenty that would be glad to have me, and that suits me fine.
Hotmail will allow emails to run Javascript
Aren't they already penalized by the fixed cost? The problem I have with this is that for a new HNer, 20 karma is a lot. And chances are good that the first submissions won't be successful, so after a while it becomes easier to just make a new account and start over or abandon HN. It will lead to a lot of disappointment. Now contrast this with the "establishment", it'll be a meaningless restriction for regulars who have both a lot of karma and a lot of fans.

I do like the decay idea, however. That would work. In fact, maybe there is some merit to having decaying karma totals altogether, not just for submissions.
This end product is worth a lot more than $3M...
Link: http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/sec/2011/040411sec1....
Ah, excellent - next time my parents by a laptop, I'll have them ask for the disk. My dad's laptop crashed awhile back, and he had nothing to reinstall on it. :/
It looks like the moon. Maybe it is a moon?
Link is shortened, because it's ungodly long. It checks out.
Yoffie mixed up Wozniak and Jobs there.
FRAMATOME/AREVA/etc. also. But they don't always work well, as the history of industrial robotic arms from the nuclear business tells us...
This is not much of a response. I am still waiting for a press release.
Wonder if their hardware folks consider this kind of "performance" monitoring acceptable. Much harder to find a keylogger when it's in silicon. Samsung makes a lot of commonly-used chips.

Or more importantly, how can we trust that their hardware people do not?

edit: this of course is assuming that the story is reporting an actual Samsung practice, which I currently doubt.
See comment above before installing this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2387945
It's not lost. It goes somewhere.
Ha: I happen to love the new Skype version
How Instagram Avoided Catastrophe in Its First Days
Interesting has it's ups and downs.
Some affiliates are phenomenal marketers. Frank Kern claims to have made 23.8 Million dollars with one of his product launches. In 24 hours.
Waiting for the tsunami
Everybody uses a robotic system for refueling - really it's just a crane that seals to each fuel rod tube cap.

The problem with CANDU is that you can't operate them with a fast enough fuel cycle to produce weapons grade Pu so they are only economic in nuclear countries that aren't interested in weapons.
Serious question: how do I buy a Chinese credit default swap?
Show HN: Snack Words - Real-time, Multi-player Word Game for iOS
I just finished my first iOS game, Snack Words, which is a real-time, multi-player word finding game.

iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/snack-words/id425786167?mt=8&ls=1

YouTube video demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zPQuqoUHqU

I wanted to build something very simple and minimal. There's no figuring out who to play, and each game is only 90 seconds long.

The backend is 2,400 lines (so short!) of Erlang which speaks a custom protocol (length tagged JSON packets) to the client. The Objective-C side protocol implementation makes heavy use of blocks and works a lot like my JavaScript XMPP library.

I hope you like it. Please let me know what you think.
Reduce Income Tax
There would be nicer ways to shield the company from that. They could talk to Allen, make sure that, in the possible event of his death, they would take care of his family in case the company succeeded.

In all my commercial ventures, my partners were also my friends. I would never, ever even entertain doing something like this to a perfectly healthy partner, much less one with a serious health problem.
Using Subdomains | Article Buster
As much as I like lisp the beauty, strength and philosophy of Lisp, it seems like I can't make the switch in my real production project. Why? Because of the readability: (Taken from the article)

(let [width (inc (apply max (map (comp count values) squares)))
line (join \+ (repeat 3 (join (repeat (* 3 width) \-))))]

So, I see that and I'm like, wtf, where do I start.

let width .. inc apply max of map comp coun, wtf. Let's start from the end.
map all squares with comp count values, take the max of those, increment it, put that in width. ok

then, line join repeat 3 join.. wtf. let's try it from the end;
minus three times the width repeat.. ok, repeat 3width '-', then, join this, repeat it 3 times, then join again with +, and put that in line.

I always struggle like that when reading lisp, people always give example like:

(map square '(1 2 3 4)) where you can read it all in one pass.. but real code is usually more complicated. So, if I had to rewrite that more clearly, I'd probably just separate it in more functions so I don't have to have more than, say 4 nested ().

And, yeah, the problem is not that much the "read from the end", but more about the actual work of each line of lisp being a puzzle to guess where to start reading it. Some are better to read up front, others are better to start from the last. Sometime you skip the first part, and read the last part, then come back at the beginning. That is what trouble me. I want to be able to read code as fast as possible - skim over it while understanding it.

Now, you might argue that you can write nested stuff in every languages. True enough BUT it seems like the philosophy in python is more about making things clearer and using more function if it makes everything simpler/easier to maintain and understand.. while in practically all lisps code I read, it feels like it is a write-only code without thought about you will read it after.

Is it because all the "Here's why lisp is better" are written by new-lisper who are too much excited as they can now use closures and nest everything rather than using simple, yet useful, normal functions?

When I read lisps forum, it's always about how that or that doesn't support tail recursive function or why macro rocks everything, but never talking about readability and good practices about not nesting everything up. Yeah, they say to use real editor, to never look at the (), to align thing smartly.. I don't know for you, but I feel like my brain works in a kind of stack. I can put some stuff in my short memory, but I can't put more than say 5-6 stuff at once. And when I see this:

(let [width (inc (apply max (map (comp count values) squares)))

It just seem too much to read it quickly; I need to stop and think. Yeah, some laugh at me saying "Yeah, you need to think*! You are not used to that! Well, no, when I'm reading a book, I like to think about the concept or the story, not trying to figure out how to read that complicated sentence.

When I read python code, I think about pattern, modularity, what's the goal of the actual file. When I'm reading lisp, I can't go quickly into it because of those 10 levels nested function.

/end of rant.
What really pisses me off about the Linux version of Skype is that it doesn't support multiple telephone numbers per contact. You are stuck with either using the first number in the number list (not always an option), creating multiple contacts, or manually entering the secondary phone if the person you are contacting is not available on their first phone.
I was a victim of a domain fraud before. Largely due to my lack of knowledge how it should ideally work out. Just sharing, hope it helps.

- Dun use paypal to receive payment. The buyer can always raise a dispute, it is impossible to show proof that you made delivery of the domain. Paypal look at tracking code for physical products most of the time.

- Use eScrow services, top is from Moniker - http://www.moniker.com/domainappraisalbrokerage/domainescrow... It will guide you through the whole process.

ps: Dun just take my word for it. Speak to more domainers.
Design is very attractive -- a little hard to read, though.

Having never heard of this before, I was really expecting it to be a computer science conference, based on the name. "Big O"maha.
A small remedy is the "Contacts" window (command-3) -- but it doesn't show waiting messages.

Thinking about a downgrade myself...
CS and engineering students should be able to obtain this for free through MSDNAA.
About this case specifically, you're right. This person wrote some dumb code. However...

It is indeed unreasonable to expect a junior developer to make form submission secure. Aside from SQL injection there's DoS, MiTM, CSRF, XSS, session fixation, cache poisoning, clickjacking, timing attacks (to detect valid vs invalid values), rainbow table attacks, and many more. Just go through the list of requirements in OWASP ASVS. It's intimidating how much stuff there is to keep track of. We have a dedicated security engineer on our team who reviews all new code, out of necessity.

Also, about SQL being a bad API, I didn't say it was a bad API in general, just bad for the web. SQL is like eval(), it evaluates code from a parsed string. If eval() is bad for the web, SQL is just as bad.
Back in... 2006?, when purchasing a Dell I put down $10 to receive a plain Jane XP Pro installation disk, in addition to the crapware-infested restore disk that came with it by default.

More recently, helping a friend with a Dell purchase, I could no longer find that option in the online order flow. Maybe if you call them and ask...

(I'm not a regular Dell purchaser.)
Why are the most essential programs in life the ones that always have the most obscenely bloated updates?
> Besides, if I've learned anything, I've learned that everything I believe about people's behavior is probably wrong.

What do you mean by that?

> If I'd had to accumulate karma before submitting I wouldn't be here. Perhaps that's themain thing that bothers me about such barriers to entry.

Many communities have these barriers and in the occasional situation where HN's submission quality suffers, it's partly due to the fact that people can submit links without limit.

> I first came to this site when PG asked me to submit a link that I'd sent him.

I believe most people come here to comment first, then later they discover how to post their own links. It's basic etiquette to find out more about a site's style first before imposing content on it like this. It's highly unusual for (non-spam) users that are not already part of a community to post an article. In your very very special case, this process was inverted because you were specifically invited. PG could easily have given your account a "free karma bonus" to allow you to post.
How/where do you currently look for your ideal business co-founder?
Aerobic exercise greatly improves insulin sensitivity.

http://www.news-medical.net/news/2009/04/23/48760.aspx
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090901082406.ht...
http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2010/02/01/Exercise-affects-i...
It's absolutely true. I haven't used AIM much but a while ago I was trying to find an easy way to talk to my parents. When you want a hassle free experience, Skype so far is the only option.
We don’t think it’s fair to take equity from early-stage startups. Our goal is to help the world’s most promising entrepreneurs win, not to profit off their hard work. Period.

What? Phrasing is very naive.

Everybody wants something. They want people to help the world’s most promising entrepreneurs win in Boston. Taking money adds constraints. Insisting on a move to Boston adds constraints.
True hackers know how to adapt quickly
How did the court verify the authenticity of the IMs?
Of course, the solution is not to put stuff like that into the contract.
1. Where will most of your customers come from? I get the feeling that (potential) 37signals customers first go to 37signals.com, then to highrisehq.com from there.

2. Who are your customers? If your business is consumer-focused, I'd probably try to find a .com. B2B or to tech-savvy people, on the other hand, probably wouldn't mind GetXApp.com.
Fun. I think the AI is fairly simple. I managed to beat it on the first try. I typically don't play chess because I thought I was pretty bad. That's one way to get me to come back though.

Here's the moves: https://gist.github.com/894826
Google faces 20 years of FTC privacy audits over Buzz fiasco
HelloFax (YC W11) kills the fax machine, but it's really about e-signatures
Ditto. Its still easier to download lossless music than it is to buy the CD and rip it yourself (which the record companies would consider illegal anyways).
Your point is very true. They hope to stimulate innovation in Boston through the competition, but the main goal is to stimulate innovation nationwide. One of the winning teams last year, RelayRides, recently opened a second location in California, so you're not limited to Boston.

There really is no strings attached to the money if you win. You could go to Vegas and put it all on black if you wanted (although the judges would probably sense that was the plan you wouldn't make it through).

P.S. I was on a winning MassChallenge team last year (Rentabilities)
StarLogger: This key logger is completely undetectable
Judging from the article alone, this seems like a triumph for common sense. When a guy with the title of Vice President promises you money, in writing, you should be able to rely on that promise.

The defendants tried a variety of lame excuses for why they should not be held to their promises, and the court preferred the common sense interpretation of the conversation.

Bravo!
FBI looking to crowdsource cryptanalysis in murder case
Hmm... I suppose so. However, selling drugs has two salient points that, I think, make it unique: it is lucrative and it shouldn't be illegal.

I might put prostitution in this category, but I'm not sure how profitable it really is. I understand that some prostitutes can make lots of money, but I don't think selling sex compares to selling drugs in terms of the money changing hands. I'd be interested to learn otherwise, though.
This pisses me off. There was a stronger response from Austin, and our govt. petitioned Google to do it here. What a letdown.
The section on non-blocking servers is just plain wrong. .NET and IIS have had this feature for at least ~8 years now. ASP.NET Webforms and ASP.NET MVC both have great support for various asynchronous patterns to support non-blocking operations. ADO.NET also has this built-in. I've been involved with projects that have used these features to great effect scaling into tens of thousands of simultaneous connections per server.
Downvoting does more than that. It can hide a discussion, and regardless, it certainly buries it.

Not that I have been able to figure out the magic that gets you the ability to downvote, but I don't really feel the need.
9 Ways To Use A Startup Website To Build Trust
I am interested to see how this project proceeds. The article mentioned that the service will be built in conjunction with the city, suggesting a Public Private Partnership (PPP). Previous efforts with using PPPs to build municipal broadband services have faltered in conflict (lawsuits alleging anticompetitive activities) with the incumbent providers.

This happened in Philadelphia, IIRC, and more recently in North Carolina.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/11/the-price-of...