skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Wouldn't the utility have smart meters at its own nodes? In other words, they should be able to tell when the data gathered beyond a node that something doesn't add up. Then they can look at usage patterns and find out what changed.

Will the big, slow utility do this? Eventually.
> It would force a flattening out of the pay structure in the US.

How? The wealth of the richest is already extensively canvassed in the media.
Yeah, I cringed at that part too.

The trick with desoldering is that sometimes you need to add more solder before you can remove it. If a joint won't desolder, the easiest solution is to add a bit more solder until it balls up, then suck it all away with a spring-loaded solder pump.

I find desoldering braid a bit tricker, but the secret there is to prime the braid with a bit of solder to improve heat transfer before holding it to the joint.
You're in a desert walking along in the sand, when all of a sudden you look down and you see a tortoise.
The Dream: An AT-AT for America
This argument is circular: "Keeping your salary private benefits you when negotiating a new salary"... which is difficult mainly because everyone's salary is private.
We are already following the bots, Googlebot in particular.
Hacking smart meters is definitely possible, but you can't hurt the grid that way because meter data is only used for billing.

http://rdist.root.org/2010/01/11/smart-meter-crypto-flaw-wor...
Zencoder Raises $2M for Video Encoding in the Cloud
CEOs of big companies yes. Middle mgmt of big companies and upper of small not so much.
Ironically, this seems to be where the US is headed, if its ever-growing income disparity is any indicator. If you are paid $50k/yr, that's enough to feed and clothe you and then some, and those at the top are free to pocket the excess.

It will be interesting to see if Norway's new law causes workers to value their labor more highly.

Edit: apparently this is old news! I wonder what effect is has had...
Hotz claimed he would not settle (unless very specific things were done, which haven't been), he took donations when this was the understanding. I have seen multiple people complaining that they donated because he wasn't going to settle, they wanted to support his fight for "justice".

He settled.

Whether or not the money goes to the EFF is irrelevant.

"What if SCEA tries to settle?
Lets just say, I want the settlement terms to include OtherOS on all PS3s and an apology on the PlayStation blog for ever removing it. It'd be good PR for Sony too, lord knows they could use it. I'm also willing to accept a trade, a legit path to homebrew for knowledge of how to stop new firmwares from being decrypted."
$12 Billion Shipped to Iraq, $9 Billion 'Unaccounted For'
Rebels Hijack Gadhafi's Phone Network
...context needs to come beyond the previous hacker news threads and what has already been said.

CBP can be pretty terrible (I'm a foreigner living in the US and I've personally been on the end of their interrogation myself) but really we need FULL context of Jake's detainment before we jump to too many conclusions.

We still don't know:

1) Whether he has committed/suspected of committing/claimed to have committed any further or specific acts that would give CBP reason and justification for detainment.

2) Whether during detention Jake has been particularly provocative/inflammatory to CBP officers - which is only going to cause more delay and less expectation to fair treatment.

His tweets regarding him conversing with CBP officers who have personally served in Iraq seemed insensitive and inflammatory.

Regardless of your position on USA in Iraq, being disrespectful to people who have served in the Iraq seems counter-productive. I'm not a US citizen, I'm not pro-war in Iraq but one could empathize they probably feel betrayed by wikileaks and concerned for the security of their colleagues still in the warzone. My point is if the task at hand is to get out of that room and into freedom, some tact and decency in such a situation wouldn't go amiss rather than making personally inflammatory remarks about their serving of their (and his) country.
One of my earliest memories of the Salary Taboo was at the first Java One I attended as a freshly-minted Silverstream "Field Application Engineer" (must have been '99)

Four of us in equivalent positions, including one woman got together in my room and started pounding down screwdrivers. After the fourth of fifth, we started talking salaries. All of the guys were making around $120k and the girl... (wait for it...)

$80k !!! Despite having more education and arguably better qualifications.

We had a big problem on our hands. I'll never forget we were in a room near the top of the tall St. Francis hotel tower and she was angrily threatening to jump out the window.
You're right, a single-purpose mp3 player has a lot of utility for many of the reasons you say.

* Easy of navigation when exercising/driving.
* Cheap enough so you won't cry when it dies.
* Cheap enough so you can buy multiple for different purposes.

In fact, my favorite MP3 player of all time is a 2nd Generation iPod shuffle. It's lasted for years, it survived going through a washing machine, and it's tiny.

OTOH, I'll argue that a good MP3 player isn't a "cheap single-purpose device", it's just a quality single-purpose device that happens to be inexpensive. The price of all MP3 players are so low that the difference between a really "good" one and a really "cheap" one is 20 bucks.

You can't say the same thing about still or video cameras. The "cheap" Flip camera has less utility than the camera on my smartphone for one reason only: I always have my smartphone on me.

I think stand-alone GPS devices are the next thing that will be obsoleted by smartphones. I don't see TomTom or Garmin being competitive with a smartphone with the same satellite reception and the same maps. If I were Garmin or TomTom I'd start putting all my eggs in the software basket rather than the hardware basket.
This article was expanded into a fairly readable little book.
Yeah, that's not how equity investing works. Even if you assume he had the worst in terms of anti-dilution provisions, that's still gonna be like 5% of a $50B company. If he gets Zuck's anti-dilution provisions, that's more like 20-25% of a $50B company.
I'm not sure it will work. I expect golf rewards basic aptitudes like co-ordination, strength and stamina, etc., and that pros' endowments on these are four or five standard deviations from the population norm.

In golf (unlike most pro sports) it isn't immediately obvious that this is the case. Sure, most golfers are in shape, but few aerobically fitter than a recreational 10K runner, and the variation in max drive length between successful pros shows that strength is pretty variable too.

As an extreme example there are players like John Daly, who is overweight, smokes and is a double major winner.
I have two desks at work. I converted the lab bench to standing desk because it is adjustable. I dock my laptop at both.

At first I sat in the morning and stood in the afternoon. This is great to avoid feeling sleepy after a big lunch.

After a few months I feel I am standing up straighter, can tolerate standing all day and often prefer it. I feel it has strengthened my posture.

Sometimes however I like to switch to sitting - sometimes I associate sitting with a certain kind of focus.
Here is another funny one, from http://www.intel.com/products/processor/index.htm :
"Desktops powered by the 2nd generation Intel® Core™ processor family let you see and do more with visibly smart performance."
From http://www.intel.com/products/processors/previousgeneration/...:
"Previous generation Intel® processors in the Intel® Core™ processor family delivers desktop performance, reliability, and energy efficiency."
No exceptions!
Apache Camel gets a GUI
Learn the CAP theorem (Eric Brewer) first.

Then learn everything people like Jim Gray, Werner Vogels, Roy Fielding and Gregor Hohpe pioneered.

Oh, and then apply it.
Does NCBE mean: National Centre for Biotechnology Education?
Does WLD's mean World's?
Well, you probably wouldn't ever get in the top 5% of marathon runners if you didn't have legs [1]. I'd argue that it's similar for something like programming. I think you'll find that some people lack the mental acuity or analytical reasoning skills to be in the top 5% of programmers. Those skills can be taught to a certain extent, I suppose, but I don't doubt you'll find people that would plateau well before breaking into "expert" territory. You'd likely find the same for someone trying to reach that point in golf or any other number of skills.

Do most people lack those necessary skills? I'm not really sure.

[1]: For the purpose of the argument, ignore prosthetics. AFAIK, there isn't anything similar to prosthetics for someone that lacks certain necessary abilities to be an "expert" programmer.
Ask HN: Is it worth taking an actuary exam for a programmer?
I'm taking a course in Statistics and Probability, and the class is heavily structured around the Probability actuary exam http://www.beanactuary.org/exams/exam1p.cfm. I am curious as to whether passing this exam would stand out when applying for internships, or a job coming out of under grad studies. Might it be passed over as not relevant to a job/the profession?
Complain about the way other people make software by making software
Welcome to your government (excuse me if you're not American, I'll assume you are). This is one of many standard MO's I've seen all through this exchange between CBP and Jake.

I'm a foreign citizen working in US on a visa, this has happened to me in the past - and I'm just here to work. I'm not suspected of doing anything illegal.

Immigration/Border Patrol in China is far, far more friendly than the US's. If Citizens don't like it and feel it is harassment then they should be campaigning to change it.
Nice Work, but somehow 12.6MB for 21.5 seconds of vector animation seems to be missing the point somehow.
Stop Telling Students Recursion is Hard
I didn't worry about the technical details because I just figured that people would write down random strings of digits. But this is all true.
Does NCBE mean: National Centre for Biotechnology Education?
Does WLD's mean: World's?
National Centre for Biotechnology Education has to do with DNA, etc.
The Himpunk for pornography
What you've imagined is pretty elaborate. You're assuming that meters can 'request power' and have more directed to them, and somehow this causes a blackout (nothing in your statement said everyone's microwave & A/C switched on at the same time, now that's how you cause a blackout). Since the goal of the smart grid is the opposite -- "demand-response" -- that is, getting appliances to 'turn off' or go in to a low-power mode when there isn't enough supply, the scenario you imagine is unlikely.

That said, I'm sure we'll here of some amazing hacks that we didn't imagine ahead of time. :)

EDIT: Ok, didn't think of this when I originally replied. Meters are being issued with a "Remote Disconnect" feature so utilities can disconnect non-paying customers. Seems like that will be hackable.
Infographic: How to Engage Employees in the Workplace
Actually, that question is only asked of those requiring visas and visa-waivers.

A US citizen re-entering America wouldn't be asked that question. The specific question also pertains to specific Nazi activity C1939-1945 rather than Nazi'ism in general.
While the article raises some valid points, I question the use of compete.com figures to make any claims about foursquare's declining traffic.
While I am very enthusiastic with Russia bringing Energia back from the dead, 20 years to a moon base is very optimistic.

And the He3 thing is plain delusional.
Because the US has lots of established, well-functioning institutions... everything from small businesses to major firms, local clubs, government bureaus, etc.

These institutions create many "ladders" for people to climb to improve their situation. We also have a mature highway system, lots of consumer credit infrastructure, thousands of community colleges and low end universities, etc.

It wouldn't be all that sudden, since with each wave of immigrants, services and structures would emerge to make it easier for subsequent waves.
Adam Smith would differ with you, in the ideal case.

Value capture and rent seeking aren't how capitalism are supposed to work. Heck, if that was the best capitalism could do, I'd be inclined to try communism.
if E is no meaning then:
National Central Bureaus (NCB) - Each INTERPOL member country maintains a National Central Bureau staffed by national law enforcement.
Meta Class Dependency Injection in Objective-C
That's true, but a bit of simplification. The golden triangle were Apple LaswerWriter, Postscript from Adobe and PageMaker from Aldus. All of those three key technologies needed to be in place for the other technology to work.

Aldus was later acquired by Adobe, but it was an amazing software company. Not only did it produce PageMaker, but it also created Freehand, Persuasion (pre-PowerPoint!) and later After Effects which is still alive and well today.
Pagemaker 5 is still one of my all time favorite apps.

In fact, I think that it is STILL better than word and most other apps.

The reason is that the app acts more like a visio than a word processor.

In word, your editing text on a sheet. In pagemaker you organized elements and objects which were test-block objects or images.

I actually had just commented on this program recently, there are still very few apps that work as well.

I wish it hadn't died in the form that it was.
I think may speak more to Quora's connections than Twitter policy. I know of several startups that had legit accounts suspended because of supposed botlike behavior (things like they had a music venue discovery service and were making a twitter acct for every major city in the US).
Thanks.
I built pulsus and just created a new, much improved, version for the iPad. I just submitted it to the app store today, so it hopefully will be available soon. I'll post it as soon as it is.
I am consistently unsatisfied by journalists' translations of court cases. I just read the entire recent Winklevoss decision yesterday because not a single journalist, across the dozens of articles I checked, did any exposition of the supposed "SEC violation".

During the recent Wisconsin union legislation fiasco, it took me 15 minutes to even find the name of the bill that was passed. Not a single journalist thought it fitting to include it. I eventually found it on a union web site, and then was able to read the text of the bill myself.

The vast majority of journalists are less than useless with respect to both law and science. 99% of them don't even read the original sources, they just copy some other journalist and add their own "research" which usually amounts to a Google search they did about other completely unrelated dirt on the parties involved.

You'd think organizations like WSJ or NYT would be better, but in my experience they're absolutely not.
The US embassy embraces social media: 21st Century Statecraft in Wellington
I'd gladly settle for seeing any nation land a human on the moon in the 21st Century. Although I bet China will get there first...
1. Go to lawyers.com
2. Find a handful of (3-4) bankruptcy attorneys near you
3. Schedule a free 30-minute consultation with each of them

It sounds like you're insolvent, and that your student debt is causing "undue hardship", which has been the standard for discharging student debt since 1987 (Brunner v. New York State Higher Education Services).
Sorry, you're incorrect about why I am unmarried to a Canadian woman.
After reading this :http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-real-housewive...

I am starting to get very very pissed off.
Visit www.paynegotiation.com (disclosure this is my friends site!)
Sure that happens, it may even happen a lot... but that's not true across the board.

One of my companies works with an Eastern European dev shop on ELance. The company works for ~$18/hr for custom development work, which is done from scratch. Even at that rate it certainly equate to more than $300 for a site, however. :)

For the type of development we're doing it makes sense to out-source to Eastern Europe: For them this hourly rate is high and they perform quality work, for us we get to turn the tap on/off on quality development when we need it, with work turned around very quickly.

I think it is foolish to write off all Eastern European developers (and those from South America, Asia, etc) as code bodgers who slap skins onto Drupel.
Sounds like no one was at the wheel over the weekend so the problem went unnoticed for a couple of days. Or if there was someone they didn't monitor the forums.
I can understand this, yet I wish that state and local taxes were simplified. There are so many exceptions to the rules...
Seeking a non-technical co-founder for an aviation-related startup
The ComEd (Chicago area) "smart meters" are really just recording meters, but there is the option to have ComEd automatically cycle the load to your A/C compressor when the real-time price gets too high.

I guess one could play havoc with that, make the utility think all the load guards are operating when they're not, or vice versa. Don't think it would be enough to whipsaw the grid into chaos unless everyone has it. Right now adoption is pretty low.
It would cost me considerably more than $5 to download xcode over my ATT wireless connection.

It's a bit easier over my DSL, but they just started metering that really tightly as well.
> I can't see any upside to it.

When tax time came around I received papers from the government with a completely filled out tax form based upon all of my public information. If everything was OK I would sms a code back to them and my taxes were done.
We did this amongst ten of us, but as the beers flowed everybody kept asking about the numbers (one person was significantly higher than the others) and by the end everyone knew what each other was getting.

The bottom two people had left within a year... go figure!!
Given that we have so much data about the moon, is there a "Lunar Environmental Cheat Sheet" anywhere that delineates all the aspects of the lunar environment which could be used by aspiring engineers who have some ideas for moon-base structures?
Why not base the first 1% or so on an hourly vesting schedule? So if he is working part time he can rack the up the hours all year or however long it takes. Make the milestones 'hours worked'
To be fair, MS Word is for word processing whereas PageMaker is for page layout. You invite pain and suffering when you try to use either as a replacement for the other.
Well, it depends on how far you go in the attempt to get out from under this debt. Remember that student loans in default can be funded by automatic garnishment of income tax refunds, and if you are abroad and haven't kept your income tax reporting up to scratch then you might be exposing yourself to charges of tax evasion. An extreme scenario I agree (albeit less so for non-citizens), but at the very least your credit will be hosed and re-establishing a financial life in the US would hard.

http://www2.ed.gov/offices/OSFAP/DCS/treasury.offset.payment...
I see an opportunity for taking a friendly bet here. :) Instead of debating, you guys should make bets and wait.
Does anyone know where I can download this dataset?
Especially considering that the bulk of their traffic is almost certainly to an API that Compete doesn't track.
AddyMate - a smart address book with enhanced privacy controls
Hi all,

I'd like to get the HN community's feedback on a web service I've built out of the Washington, D.C. area - www.addymate.com. You can use the code ADDYINVITE to signup & access the features.

AddyMate is a FREE service that helps you easily lookup your contacts in one place by keeping them insync with your Google & Yahoo address books. It is also a place to safely share your contact info with others while controlling who all can see which details using AddyMate’s enhanced privacy settings.

AddyMate supports the linking of your Facebook & LinkedIn accounts so that you can automatically connect with your social & professional connections on AddyMate when they sign up as well.

It has all the functionalities you'd expect from a contact management service that's relevant in a socially connected world via a easy & intuitive user interface built to quickly get you in touch with your contacts:

- Full 2-way contact sync with Google & Yahoo;
- Sharing your contact details with your Facebook & LinkedIn connections;
- Finding & merging duplicate contacts;
- Address book import from Hotmail, Outlook & Windows Mail;
- Access to your contacts from your phone.

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Thanks,

Rajdeep
Isn't this done in other countries where your income information is not made public to everyone?
Show HN: Implementing durability for in-memory databases, on SSDs
And installs are via app stores. Complete is almost completely irrelevant here.
With any luck morally responsible people with down vote this into oblivion, but...

At this point your loan has (almost certainly) already been sold as "bad debt" for pennies on the dollar, and given your description your credit probably reflects this. The good news is there are very few threats that can be leveled at you unless you somehow find yourself not broke. Here is the ticket to loosing the $150,000 debt. 1) Start hiding money in a "mattress" outside of the visible banking system. You need about 8-10% for a private loan 23-30% for one with government backing. 2) make it clear to the lender that they will never see regular payments on your loans that the debt truly has no collection value. 3) Once 1 and 2 are ready wait for a morning phone call from a debt collector. These folks are paid on commission and have quotas to meet. You need a hungry one! (you probably have gotten good at identifying them by now haven't you?) let on that you might have some money at the moment, but that you'd rather use it to buy a car/start a business mention that you've had to save up because you cannot borrow. The offer your looking for is making an immediate one time payment of $x in exchange for canceling your all debt. (check this several times to be sure) Get that offer in writing then make the large payment quickly. Your credit will recover in 7-10 years.
Note: we've contacted Bioware and EA PR for comments, and as of press time have received no reply.

Last time I checked they didn't have a press time(not being a print organization and all), so what does this mean? Did they wait twenty minuets for a return phone call then publish?
If it were me, I'd put entrepreneurship on the back burner and plow my way through that debt. I started my business with no debt, and I can't imagine I would have made good decisions with that much financial obligation stressing me out. In fact, I still have very little debt now (just a very small mortgage) to keep my head clear.

I would recommend hitting up your library for a Dave Ramsey book or two. I don't follow his religion, but his "baby steps" for getting out of financial hot water are right on. Follow them - they aren't easy, but they work.

Sell stuff. Work your ass off. Live with tons of roommates. Eat beans and rice. Many people have gotten themselves out of worse situations with less means and education.

There will always be business opportunities. Solve your debt problem now. I rather live a debt-free "wage slave" life than be a scrappy entrepreneur who is always running away from creditors.
Wow - real, useful, advice (seriously, up-vote parent please)!

The legal precedent you describe is different than what I've often heard and a simple Google seems to verify that you are correct.

It sounds like something that should get more attention than it does...

Given the power of the student loan industry, I suspect it would be hard to pull-off. But it still seems like something worth knowing.