skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
So they seem reasonably comparable... It would be nice to redo the calculation while accounting for how common each word is, and also that special characters are used less often in passwords.

I know this was a rough estimate, but I think it is way, way off. Passphrases are not usually generated by random choice of English words but are instead a particular, meaningful English sentence.

This means not only are you dealing with word distribution nonuniformity but word history correlations. Without doing any math in particular, let's pick a typical 4 word phrase (literally, I'm opening the book in front of me and looking for a 4 word sentence.)

"This will be natural"

In all honestly, this is closer to a combination of a subject (with a great deal less entropy since familiar subjects are common) a tense, and an adjective. I think you'd be lucky if there were 2^18 sentences of similar complexity, let alone 2^62.

In comparison, four random words drawn from an English dictionary.

"idiocy rammer stars cookshop"

Passphrases of this class might have closer to 62 bits of entropy.

So what does this mean? In all likelihood, if passphrases become more common, we'll see language model based cracking routines which generate billions of sensible English sentences to crack these passwords.

Length is no protection ("abcedfghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890"). Anything with genuinely high entropy is by definition difficult to remember.
PBS did a good Frontline episode on for profit colleges and the federal student loan situation for their students. Available online here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/collegeinc/view/?utm...
i moved from n900 resistive to nexus s capacitive a month ago, and it's not that bigger deal.

but i suspect that the n900 capacitive was high quality then your average cheep as chips chinese tablet so the comparison is probably useless.
This is one of the crazy things I've come across - one moment there's a call for YC rejects to hang out together, next day there's cash for equity! Since this is an experiment maybe it would help to keep it simple in the original form and leave investment out of it till the end of summer?
Twitter API is Not Just for Developers
This sounds like the sort of harassment that would happen to people in dodgy countries with poor human rights records. And the truth is, America isn't a democracy under the rule of law, it's a nasty vicious oligarchy that denies human rights to its citizens while hypocritically lecturing other countries on those rights.
Fair enough, this is a valid point. To me, this indicates that there's an opportunity here for folks like Theil who have the ability to command the respect of the students at Harvard to get these students interested in opportunities other than those that lead to a quick financial payoffs but instead might have a bigger impact on society.
in ten years time when the social software era zeitgeist is written it will definitely mention 'and even a YC reject group was funded'
In what way does this dismiss the Mac's ability to get all the software you need even if the numbers are not perfect?

My disagreement is not with this, but rather the contention that this battle is different because Apple was not the developer choice in the past. When Windows was introduced the Mac was almost strictly better, including 3rd party SW support.

Over the course of almost 10 years Windows chipped away at that culminating with Win95. Where the tables were turned with better 3rd party support, better dev support, and was technologically better.

This 10 year span is very similar to the Apple v Google battles of today. Google is slowly chipping away at all of the iOS advantages. I wouldn't be surprised if in 5 years from now people honestly forgot for how long iOS was almost strictly superior to Android.
Great list. Google maps mashup, anyone?
I like to think of the startup world as a distributed version of PARC. Not sure how accurate it is--but still a neat thought.
Something that is hinted at the end of the article but not fully addressed: the risk of creating a new elite (if elitism is the problem) is there just as much in the new system (such as Thiel is) as it was the original institution.
There probably exists a spectrum of opinions on whether the credential is useful because of the vetting or the experience of the actual program. Candidly, I think that YC probably has a value add in attendance. Higher education? Not generally, no.

The problem with higher ed is that if there is value add they make it impossible to know. Try to get outgoing metrics, besides grad rates, of outgoing undergrads and its near impossible. Professional schools do a better job of this.
PGP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy) which GPG uses is the standard *nix tool for encryption.

Depending on your needs, you could also have a look at TrueCrypt (http://www.truecrypt.org/)
If it's behind a paywall and you have an edu address, try the email link function at the bottom. It's 26 pages (47 incl. references + tables).

Fun snippet from their methodology: the data excludes buy-out investments, so as to highlight the importance of trust in the relationships studied. I wonder how this relates to "we're buying you for your brains, not your business" acquisitions that we see in tech sector?

Another highlight for me is in the conclusion - "trust and contractual sophistication are complements, not substitutes". It rings true in my (limited!) experience that stronger contracts should tend to clarify and build trust, not challenge it.
BTW, if my math is correct, the entire amount spent on the Thiel fellowships ($2 million) is the equivalent to what Americans spent on higher education every two minutes. Interesting perspective eh?

(~$500 billion/365/24/60 = ~$1 million/minute)
Mushroom Teleporter
My solution is to use Keepass. It stores passwords in an encrypted database file which I store in Dropbox - that solves the machine synchronization problem.

The main database is protected by a passphrase and/or keyfile (any file which won't change e.g. ~/Dropbox/Photos/2008/France/Photo5.jpg). One advantage of this is that a simple keylogger will be stumped by the keyfile - even if your passphrase is recorded an attacker still needs Photo5.jpg to decrypt the database.

It's originally a Windows app (http://www.keepass.info/), but is open-source and there's a fully featured Linux/OSX port called KeepassX (http://www.keepassx.org/)
I know it's been said over and over but why don't all these YC and now YC rejects just get on with it. Build their products, start their businesses and make some money. Why the obsession with being a YC'er and now a not-a-YC'er. Can't they see the whole thing is just a distraction from their already difficult task?! nikcub hit the nail on the head with his comment, it's just a shame YC doesn't lend itself to a plithy title such as "Boo Hoo" (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com).
http://indabamusic.com
http://thounds.com

Yes, there are others in the collaborative creation space. Indaba's currently leading, and I know and love the guys behind it.
We love their image editor widget but need something faster (it understandably lags when sending images to their server). Aviary has promised to offer the source code 'soon' but the problem is they said that last December.

Here is to hoping 'soon' has whittled down to a few weeks now. :)
I wonder if people will get their IPs subpoenaed for looking at that link, as was the case with the Sony keys?
Note that the extent of their genetic analysis varies by ethnicity, with those of East Asian and African descent getting less than half as much analysis: https://www.23andme.com/health/ethnicity/
For purposes of full disclosure, I was approached by an individual angel and I sat down with the investor for a meet and great. The selection process needs to be sorted out and the term sheets need to be agreed upon by all parties before it's finalized and a check is written.

The reason I posted this blog, is because I want to get candidate feedback. The money involved in YC is just a small (but helpful part) of what they do. Will teams that participate in this grassroots project want to give up 6% of their company? What are your thoughts?
That's pretty awesome, thanks :)
What about the quality of the applicants? Will the better candidates not bother with this project since no money is involved?
The result is a dramatically increased page load performance that only works between Chrome (as it includes SPDY support) and Google’s servers (which supports the features for Google sites.)

Reminds me a lot of MS's strategy of adding incompatible features to existing standards.
I have a name for it (I love naming things):

ReCombinated
"They do not sign an 'Always Be Positive Towards Stardock Agreement'."
Setting up the repo now in Dropbox. Shoot me an email (aidan@youphonics.com) and I'll share it with you?
Home Decoration
If you like many people, so you can decorate your house look like anything when you’re done, frightened. Everything you need to do is some simple rules and everything will become clear as we first thought it would be to follow.
Typically, 'cowardly' characterizes those who shy away from difficult or unpleasant situation or tasks that a significant number of people still manage to do. That's the whole point. Shying away is the exception, not the rule, which is why it's given a derogatory characterization. Are you sure that's what's going on here? Or has the abuse reached a point where reasonable people start to say "yeah - this is monstrous, it's way bigger than me, and can I afford to put myself in harm's way as an identifiable individual?"

Also, you're speaking in VERY broad terms when you say "By refusing to associate with someone simply because they've been bullied, you have given your consent to the bullying and even (to a small degree) participated in it." Do you think this is equally true of ALL bullies? That is to say, do you see ZERO difference between (say) a wayward grade-school thug who picks on the most promising target, and armed federal agents who have clearly been given specific orders to harass, intimidate, and coerce a very specific individual for a very specific reason?
You're confusing the raw material (nectar) with the finished product (honey). There's a lot that goes on during processing. But they're clearly not the same thing.
I don't disagree but it's tough to scale YC. Same with Thiel fellowship. However, it isn't unreasonable to see a situation in which follower counts on sites like Github, Dribbble, Quora, etc. do become scalable ways of signaling. They aren't perfect indicators of ability or knowledge but then again, neither are college degrees (as anyone who has ever hired a dud college grad can attest to).

YC, TechStars, Thiel, etc. are awesome signals for those who achieve them just as Harvard, Stanford and MIT are but I think the real juice is in the alternatives for those who don't fall into the top 1% of 1% who simply wish to prove their knowledge and abilities without having to drop six figures in the process.
Sweet! Let me know how I can get in touch – aidan@youphonics.com, or @anulman
I really like your marketing question. Women do seem to enjoy accessorizing. They also like to shop and spend money. I think the size of the watch itself isn't important. What's important is whether the watch uses a standard size band. Unless they're goth or emo, most women aren't going to want a black watchband. They're going to want something that's pink with sparkles.

The ability to use a different band is important. The GetInpulse FAQ ( http://www.getinpulse.com/faq/ )should answer whether the watch uses a standard size band and, if so, what size.
This is insane and hilarious, as well as a great initiative.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/puny
"slight or inferior in power, size, or importance"

In this case, they meant power, as in computational power.
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I assume you will ask YC to help you out by confirming who actually applied, otherwise it could be seen as an easy way to get funding for people who know they wouldn't have a chance in hell of being accepted by YC. Or am I being overly imaginative?
I've talked to a whole lot of people who are dealing with the problem of college -- for CS, the solution is generally obvious to us: open source work is not merely useful on a resume, but so valuable that past a point nobody even asks you about college.

The problem seems to be that "a Github account" only exists for software development. For almost every other field that college covers, there's no equivalent. And the vast majority of college students aren't CS majors.
6 Techniques to write better CSS for your next project
Perhaps, but maybe his brush with death as he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in (2005 i think) was the trigger.
I don't think it's going to be one system but rather many systems. I think there are a host of online communities that have arisen in the last few years that are actually doing this. A good example is Stack Overflow/Careers 2.0. The fact that companies are hiring people on the basis of their Stack Overflow reputation graph should strike fear into the hearts of college administrators everywhere (but likely won't of course). The change won't happen overnight but we've come a long way in just the last few years in terms of mechanisms that could ultimately rival the university when it comes to signaling and I think this shift is only getting started.
Cool... I have watched your slides "How to choose a web framework and be surprised" (nice way to explain the differences between ItsNat and other frameworks... use existing stuff many people know and compare it to your work), have liked what I saw and it seems that ItsNat aggregates many features from other frameworks. As HN is a cool community full of experienced Java programmers, I wanted to ask for their opinion. The question still stands. :)
SHA-1 is insecure. Use SHA-256 or SHA-512.
Speculation: If iTunes plays the role of the Fairplay DRM decoder and relied on the channel between iTunes and the Airplay device being encrypted to secure content would it now be possible to use the private key to masquerade as a capable Airplay device and dump a the stream pure and DRM free? Would this work for video enabled Airplay devices?

If so, Apple and this hacker are about to be lawyered hard by the MPAA.
A semi-relevant thought:

It would be interesting to consider the man who shot the man who shot the man who shot Lincoln. However, there is probably no such person, since (the man who shot)^2 Lincoln, was -- so far as we know -- not shot.

Therefore, I pose the following challenge to any & all interested parties: find the longest such chain that you can.
"keep the phone 5/8" away from your body" they are talking about don't keep it in your pocket. Brief exposure next to your head while talking should not be a big problem. Actually I am very much concerned about mobile phone radiation, but I do think it's not actually going to cause cancer with modern handsets. The old analog phones were a different story. Don't talk on it too long!
I'm a long way from being an expert in the area so I won't comment on this exact situation, but an overall thought: the difference between MS and Google is that MS wanted a monopoly and were generally quite sloppy, whereas it's in Google's interest to have a faster internet for everyone, not just their users, plus they have the ability to push for adoption of features developed for their browser/servers, which could lead to other browsers, and servers (would it be Apache/etc. that would have to implement it?) adding SPDY support.
hm I was wrong, they seem to be talking about when you're making a call. Seems to be a disclaimer in case of health problems more than a clear warning of health risks.
We can dig it.
Well having a support group and something structured like weekly meetups to drive the startup forward week to week seems like a good thing to me. I don't think it's so much a YC obsession but an obsession with giving a startup the best possible chance to succeed.
That's absolutely fair as well. In previous posts, I've argued the quality gap is decreasing, and I agree with your points.
You could store the key in a TPM, which would at least require carefully applied stong acids and an electron microscope to dump them.
WoW.....I don't want to say bubble....but this sure seems like some sort of frenzy.

Kudos to you for taking the initiative and doing what you need to do...and for siezing what could potentially be an amazing opportunity.

I hope it doesn't turn out to be a fad, and something sustainable can be built here.
I don't even have a Facebook account, so I haven't spent more than ten seconds looking at your site (sorry!), but I do find it hilarious that an "anonymous mode facebook" requires authentication via a facebook account.
Adobe Flash Builder 4.5 for PHP
Yuri Gagarin: 50 Years since the journey that shook the world
Adobe's product page: http://www.adobe.com/products/flash-builder_php.html

Blog post about this: http://andigutmans.blogspot.com/2011/04/rapidly-deliver-nati...
An English degree is of course higher education, just like an art or a philosophy degree. The ability to get a high paying job is not a suitable measurement for what constitutes "higher education" and what doesn't.
I believe this is more because the bulbs get hot and can burn you or set stuff on fire than radiation.
Maybe the page content is cloaked so that googlebot sees completely different text to human visitors.
Not entirely; it means the comparison was effectively between single-precision and double-precision logs from the C library.
Duck Duck Go gets a bit of love in the sample applications. There is a sample app that talks to their API.

Interesting to see how they've shoehorned an editor into the touch screen interface. As an end user its nice to have a little more control over my device.
Might someone with a WP7 phone be kind enough to make a video of this? I'm super curious.
> Because the path components are separated by / characters, an object key like "abc/def" would result in ambiguous output. jsonpipe will throw an error if this occurs in your input, so that you can recognize and handle the issue. To mitigate the problem, you can choose a different path separator:

Ugh. I should never ever have to pick details of the format to work around content in the format. The only real solution is escaping, though it does add complexity.
I was recently thinking about how humans need to learn software based interactions, simply because on-screen elements generally aren't based on the physical properties we are around all day. Unless emulation of these properties are done perfectly, it will feel 'off'.
Is it a problem? Well, I didn't think so, but that was before I realized how young children these days are interacting with computing systems.
I feel as though software based applications should only be used by children as a 'treat'. As you say, children need to spend most their time interacting with the world and humans.
Asteroid to Approach Earth Within 0.85 Lunar Distances
SEO is a business. every - real - SEO action has

- an (implementation) cost

- a measurable impact

- a risk.

categorizing it into "ethical" categories does not change how it is practiced or what works.

or to put it in the spirit of the headline: f$#ck .* hat.
> Did 1982 MS-DOS have I/O redirection? You're right that that would help quite a bit.

According to Ralf Brown's interrupt list, http://www.ctyme.com/intr/rb-2554.htm, MS-DOS 1.0 did not support redirecting standard output; that was a feature added in MS-DOS 2.0, which didn't come out until 1983: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_x86_DOS_operating_s...

So if you really had to solve this problem on 1982 MS-DOS, you'd need to open an output file with a file control block and INT 21 with AH=0F. (And if you really can't type NUL bytes on the keyboard, I think you are going to have to write some code to zero out most of the FCB at start time, too. Ick.)

This program might solve that problem for MS-DOS 2+, although I haven't tested it yet, and you'd have to use something like JKLMNO instead of ABCDEF for your hex digits past 9:

100:	b4 01	mov $0x1,%ah
102:	cd 21	int $0x21
104:	24 0f	and $0xf,%al
106:	88 c2	mov %al,%dl
108:	c0 e2 04	shl $0x4,%dl
10b:	cd 21	int $0x21
10d:	24 0f	and $0xf,%al
10f:	08 c2	or %al,%dl
111:	b4 02	mov $0x2,%ah
113:	cd 21	int $0x21
115:	eb e9	jmp 100 <loop>

kragen@VOSTRO9:~/devel/misc$ xxd < hexconverter.com
0000000: b401 cd21 240f 88c2 c0e2 04cd 2124 0f08 ...!$.......!$..
0000010: c2b4 02cd 21eb e9 ....!..
kragen@VOSTRO9:~/devel/misc$ od -t u1 < hexconverter.com
0000000 180 1 205 33 36 15 136 194 192 226 4 205 33 36 15 8
0000020 194 180 2 205 33 235 233
0000027

I think you could probably create that program successfully with COPY CON in not very many tries, but it's not much better than COPY CON itself. I don't think INT 21 function 01 even supports backspace, and in that sense it might actually be worse.
Http://www.wedding.sh/nawd1079-p-9351.html?cPath=157
The thing is, with YC you get except the 20 grand or whatever it is, the advice from pg and others, and the alumni network, which is both worth something.
And what about the Bugs that Chrome encounters every now and then? Like not displaying images sometime, problems with facebook chat? Please fix that.
Clever how the author implied that with the statement at the end....

"Jobs, 56, has had numerous health problems and announced in January that he would take his third leave of absence in seven years. During that time, he has survived a rare but curable form of pancreatic cancer and undergone a liver transplant."
Awesome, with this news I might actually buy photoshop.

Too bad I still make crap graphics.
Enterprise deployment enviroument
I have been tasked to provide a solution to my company for a deployment plan/setup, and was wondering what everyone on HN use. Basically we have a Java/PHP and little bit of Python house, running on a mix of around 80% linux and 20% windows servers. All the code currently sits in a central SVN server. I was thinking, something along the lines of, developers develop on dev servers, code goes to a testing branch in svn, QA team get's that and deploy to QA servers, and test. If everything works, then a live branch get's made and code goes to live.

Would maybe like to automate this a bit more. Any ideas?
how much Javascript experience do you require?
Regarding toddlers apps it looks like very few of them have done actual toddler usability testing.

Also it would be very useful if iOS had a "toddler switch" which would allow to

1) Disable home screen updates. This is very annoying, often I've a bunch of my apps rearranged or even deleted by my toddler

2) Disable some apps

3) Any app can read this flag to alter functionality

4) Make home button harder to activate - for example it needs to be pressed together with some gesture on screen.
Except that the SPDY protocol is open in the sense that Firefox and other browsers can implement it if they want
I find the discussion here as well as the article myopic in the scope.
Programming/Web Startups are just a small part of the world.
You still need Doctors, Lawyers, Engineers and Scientists.
Sure one can question the utility of spending four years to get a
degree in Liberal Arts, but most other subjects require close supervision that one receives in a college education.
I think the key phrase here is 'usability for bots'. If you recognize bots as an important customer (after all, they bring over most of your new traffic), then it makes sense to optimize things for them to find.
That said, somewhere in between of not writing your whole site in Flash and creating a link farm, things start getting slimy and your arbitrary line will likely differ from, say, Google's.
Open Source Manufacturing, Web APIs, and 3-D Printing