skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
[IANAL]

If you only sell your software in countries that either don't recognize software patents, or in which the plaintiff doesn't hold a patent that you infringe upon, you're fine. [1]

But if you sell your software in the US, you are not safe.
Foreign firms pay a pretty penny for US patents and searches to determine if they are clear of infringing US patents, so they can sell their products in the US. Software patents included.

Again, IANAL.

[1] Determining whether you may infringe on a patent is a chore in and of itself. And one that any IP lawyer will advise you strongly not to do yourself. If you look and infringe, the wronged party can potentially argue that you saw their patent and infringed anyway [2], which leads to far worse penalties than infringing due ignorance.

[2] And as it is very difficult to show what you didn't see, it's very difficult to defend against that accusation other than via an in-stone policy that the actual engineers and inventors never ever do searches themselves.
Sure, I agree and it seems they're working with those being sued.

But suing Apple's tenants and Apple itself surely does not yield the same reaction, even if Apple has its platform's best intention in mind.
Google Creates Humanoid Robot, Programs Itself
An incredible kinetic sculpture of San Francisco
As far as I remember, the distinction between "typesetter" quotation and "logical" quotation appears in computerized typesetting. In traditional paper typesetting, a quote was kerned together with a period (or a comma) into a single character, so that quote is above, not before or after the period.
I still like this "jQuery 2": http://ejohn.org/apps/jquery2/
Agreed.

Wouldn't surprise me if Google were behind it.

Apple may have lots of money, but something tells me these particular patent trolls could get the money they need if it came down to it.
The Other side of the Story

Floods of Indian Origin Entrepreneurs moving out of the US. Perhaps its all well balanced, someone ask the Startup Visa guys to chillax! :)

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2011-05-10-tech-talents-le...
It seems the "inventor" behind lodsys was also involved in webvention lawsuits [1] for the image rollover patents [2] and demanding $80000 for licensing fees
[1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/10/patent-troll...
[2] http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sec...
Books: The Bible, Kundera, Bolano, Borges, Sebald, Robert Caro, Naipaul, Milosz, Blake

Web: Exiledonline, Matt Taibbi, Borderland Beat, NYRB
IANAL, but what would happen anyway? They would sue him in the US (maybe), would get a default ruling in a civil court, and then what?

The only issue might be if he moves to the US. At worst.
Apple will almost certainly defend these people. It would be a major setback for their platform if they allowed these lawsuits to be lost. In fact, even just making it to court would be a pretty major problem for them.
You're right that fixed-width fonts would have arisen with the typewriter, my mistake.

Variable-width fonts basically didn't exist except in...

You're not giving enough credit to the printing press. Consider newspapers and books (even the Bible, which practically everybody read), which (I imagine) were printed with variable-width fonts for centuries, right from "the beginning" (i.e. Gutenburg).
> It just means those welders will need to move on to more gainful employment.

Easier said than done. Not everyone can be a programmer, and robots can easily build other robots. There will be some room left for human work, but there won't be enough to cover 300 million people. The social danger I see is an incredibly high portion of the work force out of work and out of money (with no government support structure), if people become desperate for their basic survival needs that they're used to now things can get very ugly.

And if we expand the term 'robot' to include simulated human minds, we get into a worse position with "normal human" jobs.

http://hanson.gmu.edu/IEEESpectrum-6-08.pdf

"Would robots be slaves? Laws could conceivably ban robots or only allow robots “born” with enough wealth to afford a life of leisure. But without global and draconian enforcement of such laws, the vast wealth that cheap robots offer would quickly induce a sprawling, unruly black market. Realistically, since modest enforcement could maintain only modest restrictions, huge numbers of cheap (and thus poor) robots would probably exist; only their legal status would be in question. Depending on local politics, cheap robots could be “undocumented” illegals, legal slaves of their creators or owners, “free” minds renting their bodies and services and subject to “eviction” for nonpayment, or free minds saddled with debts and subject to “repossession” for nonpayment. The following conclusions do not much depend on which of these cases is more common."
Ask HN: Using the Cloud as infrastructure for a security product
Do you think it is reasonable to use the Cloud (eg AWS, Google, Rackspace, etc) as core infrastructure for a security-related product? Would you use a Security as a Service product hosted therein? What would drive your considerations?

I'm trying to decide if/how I can leverage these tools in my company, and feedback from this group (technical early-adopters) on how you feel about that, as well as technical implementation considerations, would be hugely valuable!
Login as root on the Ubuntu System
I normally would agree. But I think this is a unique discussion because the OP is asking why he should use something other than PHP. One might use Ruby because of Rails. So it's not a comparison of PHP and Rails directly, just reinforcing the point that languages/platforms other than PHP (and it's frameworks) are just as useful for web work as PHP is.
The feed isn't even full text.
I think the only thing we'll find out, is how highly Apple values in-app purchases as an App Store feature.

I, for one, couldn't care less if they go away. I think the patent is bad, the troll is deplorable and Apple will be setting a terrible precedent that will have non-trivial fallout in their dev community.

But on this topic, I just don't care how it shakes out. 90% of the in-app purchasing I see is predatory (smurfberries, virtual poker chips) or tantamount to it.
I know (at least I think) you weren't trying to say it wasn't worth it but I think it bears pointing out that you are paying for his experience, not the 20 minute fix. It's akin to paying a hair stylist not for what they cut off but for what they leave on.
In-demand grad takes a very big gamble
Facebook Debuts Two-Factor Login Authentication
I liked a suggestion from the RAND institute. This article took the interesting approach of concluding that the lack fo interest (among Americans) in Science & Engineering PhD programs is a rational response to long, uncertain training times and poor pay and career prospects relative to the "professions" (law, dentistry, mba, medicine, etc..) One suggestion was moving these PhDs to something more resembling the "professional" model...

http://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP241.html

"Adopt the “professional school model” for S&E PhD programs. This strategy aims to reduce the early costs and uncertainties of training for an S&E career rather than increasing later career rewards. The adoption of this strategy by academe, even any resolve toward attempting it, seems remote. Still, more young people might select these S&E doctoral programs over professional schools if the years to S&E PhD completion were rolled back to, say, 1970 levels, if this term were predictable and uniform, and if the subjective and arbitrary aspects of the PhD path were curtailed."

Truth is, almost all (98%+) of of the people who get into Stanford's law school or MBA program finish their degrees on time. You can't say this about the PhD programs - not a knock on Stanford here, it's one of the friendlier campuses from what I've heard. This is typical of any university.

Make the PhD programs shorter and more predictable, and they'll be more appropriate for the kind of non-academic careers this article discusses. As for academics? Well, law professors don't typically have PhDs. No reason people can't continue to learn to do research as a junior professor.

I do agree that the odds of this happening are very low, largely because the university system is addicted to cheap graduate student labor, and because they'll be able to fill the gap left by Americans who overwhelmingly prefer the professions with international students whose visa terms make it difficult to walk away from the grad program without also losing US residency.
Show HN: Tumbox - Generate a  Tumblr music blog from a Dropbox shared folder
Does Boston Have a Consumer Tech Scene? Q&A with Highland Capital VC
HP unveils world's first WiFi powered mouse
Good marketing: we have a product that we truly believe you would benefit from; let us tell you about it, because we want to be of service to you (for a fair price).

Bad marketing: we want your money. We realize you won't just give it to us, so how about if we give you this product in exchange for your money? We'll do whatever we can to make you think you want this product, even if you really don't, because we really want your money.

I think most marketing leans toward the bad side, which is unfortunate. I really appreciate good marketing.
An update on Redis and Lua
Never use the passive voice

I have never heard this from anyone except Microsoft Word Grammar Check.

An English teacher told my class that it's often used to lie. I think she was right. Maybe it'd be better to say that it is often used to mask the truth (hey, we were fourteen or fifteen, and subtlety wasn't exactly one of our strengths). Consider the difference between "mistakes were made" and "I screwed up."

(On the other hand, also consider the difference between "I screwed up" and "we screwed up." You can still play fast and loose with the truth using the active voice.)

I think it's fair to say that overuse of the passive voice is often associated with strained credibility, so you'd often be better off avoiding it, or at least using it sparingly. Of course, sometimes it reads more smoothly, and in those cases you should use it.
Along these lines, I had a fun encounter with the Linux OOM killer the other day.

The scenario was roughly this. Process A consumes 55% of available memory but has stable memory usage and has been running for days. Process B has a memory allocation bug and rapidly goes from low memory usage to consuming the remaining 45%. Which process gets killed first on my system? Process A.

I'm not up on the latest OOM scoring heuristics (they keep changing), but if it's only looking at instantaneous memory usage when things go critical, and not the trend, that seems dumb. I'd be willing to bet memory leaks are an especially common cause of OOM.

...then again, putting all these heuristics in the kernel with no tunables seems dumber. Does anyone know if delegating to a userspace OOM killer is possible or being contemplated?
Startup Visa 2011
Overall, a good summary.

> Since there is no more will_paginate in Rails 3, the only option is kaminari.

This version of will_paginate seems to be fine in Rails 3:

https://github.com/mislav/will_paginate/tree/v3.0.pre2

While I'm on the Rails 3 things you can find on Github topic, ActiveScaffold has a nice Rails 3 port here:

https://github.com/vhochstein/active_scaffold
See patent liability insurance or errors and omissions insurance. Just because people don't get it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Doctors get malpractice insurance because they need it. As soon as software entrepreneurs need patent liability insurance everyone will have it. But we're going to need a lot more frivolous patent suits against small developers to make that happen.
It would surprise me.

Quite a lot.
This is an awesome resource, there is an overwhelming amount of choice for people that are new to Rails development (I am encountering this myself at the moment).

While I hope to eventually be able to pick which gems I like to use best, for a beginner this kind of guidance is really valuable.
Really? Oh, in that case it's at least consistent (though it still bugs me, for no particularly good reason other than that it's unusual).

What about the name "Herb"?
There is a great analog 35mm fisheye camera you can pick up for about $25. I just got one and loved the results (http://www.ramynassar.com/2011/04/28/my-new-camera/). Great tutorials in that link, can't wait to go through some of them...
Exactly, you can't even decide what to report without imposing some level of bias.
Protovis - a graphical data visualization framework using JavaScript and SVG
I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that this was done by Lisp, and is another example of Lisp and "out of the box" thinking linked.

Stuff like this always reinforces my thought that Lisp and strange thinking work well together.

/me 2c
Netflix app for Android only supports 5 handsets
Canada's 4th wireless carrier showing solid growth
Gary Vaynerchuk: “99.5 Percent Of Social Media Experts Are Clowns” (TCTV)
You think that Google, creators of an opposing app store & in-app purchases, wants to establish legal precedent that some patent on in-app purchases is enforceable?
So you're saying this article is wrong on two counts:

1. Correlation is not causation

2. More exogenous variables than they consider exist.

Sounds like an attempt to create yet another Horseman of the Internet Apocalypse.
I think you should reread the comment. They do not criticize Apple at all.
Any ironic comment receives an automatic downvote?

I can explain... I think that the Chromebook is a real shame, I remember in the dot com era people making specific appliances and many of them have more than a browser there.

The Google thinking is to me:

"if all you have is a browser, everything looks like html"

or

"if all you have html, everything looks like a browser" ?
Maybe we should start a darknet DNS service
* As much of an asshole as Orson Scott Card turned out to be, both Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow are great works of fiction which have the added bonus of showing you what creative thinking is like and why children are so good at it.

* Anything by Larry Niven and/or Jerry Pournelle.

* K.J. Parker is an excellent author of short, powerful, fantasy whose previous work is in law, journalism, and numismatics.

* Breakpoint and Beyond[B] is a great non-fiction about divergent thinking.

* If you want a lighthearted laugh or have children look for James Thurber's The Thirteen Clocks or anything by Daniel Pinkwater.

[B]:[http://www.amazon.com/Breakpoint-Beyond-Mastering-Future-Tod...]
For context:

Many brokers will guarantee an execution at VWAP. It's a competitive business. The last time I put in such an order, I traded a double-digit percentage of the day's volume and paid 10bp commission (0.10%).
This is how underscore.js implements each()
I like quotation dashes for dialogue. The French style can be somewhat ambiguous (although it rarely results in a problem). The style commonly used in some other languages is both elegant and easy to read. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-English_usage_of_quotation_..., paragraph starting with "In Italian, Catalan, ...."
Neat. Tell us about it?
I would just send a reply letter "Fuck off"
if you write your own sentence, and finish with quote of an entire sentence, why isn't there a period for both sentences? Brian said, "let's go.".

I actually do this sometimes. But I'm not consistent with it. I think it's also correct to say <<Brian said, "let's go".>> [1]. It's correct because we are allowed to quote just a portion of the sentence, which in this case happens to be every word of it.

[1] angle quotes just for the clarity that another level of normal quotes would destroy.
In my mind this "sentence" validates the need for the rule. :-)
Interesting related story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2010/10/04/wind-orasco...
Based on what happened to the gambling sites recently, I expect it to be used as a tool against adult content on the web because the politics are so easy.
A more user-friendly approach would be to do something similar to what soundcloud does with comments - I think the ability for people to leave inline comments within a video would rock. You could still tie this in with tweets, with a link to jump straight to the part of the video being commented on. You'd also be adding more value by actually encouraging discussion on the content, like a disqus for video.
I'm not a lawyer, so no one should take this as legal advice.

After a quick read of the iOS developer agreement, it doesn't appear that Apple has any obligations in this matter, rather it appears that the application developers are required to pay for the defense of Apple due to their "(vi) [Your] use of the Apple Software or services, Your Application, Licensed Application Information, metadata, Registered Devices, or Your development and distribution of any Application." (See Section 11 - Indemnification). Depending on what Apple decides to do this could get interesting.

Apple should immediately amend their agreement to indemnify all developers against patent lawsuits stemming the required use of their APIs. Otherwise, some developer will cave and pay these guys off which will start a cascade of additional lawsuits. Additionally, no one should think this is an iOS only problem. If the patent applies to iOS in app purchases it will apply to Android as well.
[Warning: Snark] Will Google be forced to block youtube and remove advertising?
The only high volume ones are AskMetafilter and thesimpledollar. Right now I just skim the headlines/summaries and only look at the most interesting ones. I'm seriously considering dropping them though.
Yeah, there are Europeans posting jobs, I'm currently doing a project for some cool swedes.
Here's my request: can you take this comment and publish it somewhere more visible and permanent than a HN comment?
Do note, this is someone going INTO Canada. For once it's not our (America's) stupid border patrol but someone else's!
No, but it's rather unlikely that the US government would use algorithms like AES if it suspected them to be insecure. There's also enough encrypted traffic on the net to not be particularly unusual.
Yup, here are my topics: http://www.quora.com/Jinghao-Yan/topics

There are 71 of them at the moment, and some of them are overlapping
I really like that style of writing, although I'd be curious how that worked out in the past.. I assume that quite a lot of people would stop reading after the first 2 sentences - but maybe life's too short to work for people without a decent sense of humor.

Considering the relocation: Don't give up just yet. 31 and packing my things these weeks, leaving DE for IL (just to be sure: Talking countries, not states or something here) at the end of the month. Wife and cats are being dragged along. :)

You can still do it.
2 out of 3 Cisco Certified Architects (CCAr) jump to HP Networking
There are only 3 Cisco Certified Architects (CCAr) in the entire world, and now the very first two work for HP.
Yes please!

I'm sick and tired of people arguing that you put the month first because "That's how you say it".
Already exists. It's just waiting for population http://www.i2p2.de/
the first of those videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxudGb4VYL0
So, if I'm reading this correctly, my usual null-checking of malloc() returns is insufficient?

What the hell? How did this ever get put in?

As an application developer trying to write code that can run on machines I have no control over, how is this reasonable? This seems like it pretty much neuters my ability to accurately detect potential out-of-memory conditions with a hackish workaround.
It might be just me, but I have this perception that the censors are winning. That in fact the fight is pretty much over...
Anything Neal Asher writes "Gridlinked", "The Skinner", "Line War"
Thanks for the insight.

I'm completely gungho for relocating(I grew up an army brat so that's what I'm used to) and would pretty much go anywhere if the job was interesting.

I sent a similar email to a company that does security certifications completely on a whim after talking to who I assumed was a PR type person. Turns out she was the co-founder and partner for this really small company(2 people I believe). Even though they aren't hiring I feel I made a memorable impression for when they do start.

The networking is where I currently struggle. I'm still in school so things I'm interested in (lascon, defcon, google io, etc) that would be a great opportunity for me to start meeting people are out of my budget and time schedule.

I looked at doing freelance/open source work to build a more professional resume but most stuff is either too far above my current skill range or I don't have the time to devote to it.

I just keep imagining that I'm going to have to suck it up, take the boring tech support type job, and hope that I stumble into someone who happens to be looking to hire a pen tester or something.
How to Turn Your Windows Machine into Unix
The Shaggs: The girl group who invented music from scratch
Basically, until they get legal satisfaction for the judgment, they could make a mess of any business he wants to do in the US or with US-based companies. Any money owed to him by any US company would be at-risk of a claim.

These risks are notably less to a developer if they've incorporated, or are selling the software through a publisher. But for the lone developer, it could be quite the hassle.

Also, though the real costs of pursuing such claims might deter actual action by the patent holder, the risk doesn't go away and the 'debt' resulting from the judgment could be sold to people who have lower opportunity cost and even less moral fiber.
Relocating is something that should be done by more people. It's not permanent! You can actually move back later! Get out there and see more of the world!

Yes, you'll miss your family and friends, but you'll make some new ones and you don't really have to give up the old ones. They're just a phonecall or email away at any time.
I think I'd agree with a milder version of your post (I definitely don't see why you're getting negged here). I didn't like the phrase "noSql" when I first heard it (still don't, really), but once I realized the movement was really more about "notAlwaysSql", it started to make sense. People had been using an RDBMS almost reflexively for most kinds of persistence, and they don't always make sense.

That said... some NoSQL may work better with OO, but so do some RDBMS schemas. I've had experiences where it's simple and almost 1:1 between object and table, and other times when I'm bending so far that I wonder why we're taking an OO approach at all.

I don't think that I'd disagree with your claim that an RDBMS is a specialized system, but I'm not sure that various noSQL solutions are any less specialized.

I agree, choose SQL for the right reasons, but you could just replace that with "choose your persistence approach for the right reasons".
The UW Professor/Libyan Rebel Finance Minister Who Robbed A Bank
Reasons Not To Launch
I play it safe. My strategy with Social Media Experts™ is to round up and assume that 100% of them are clowns.
With the exception of the third point, I actually like all of these rules, kind of. However, I don't really like them as rules, per se, so much as guidelines. The thing of it is, if a sentence has been ended with a preposition, more often than not it can be rewritten in a clearer manner. Similarly, while passive voice is useful, to abundantly use it tends to make your writing dull and unclear. Similarly, split infinitives often obfuscate meaning, and sentences beginning with "but", "or", and", or "however" tend to be better served combined with the preceding sentence. Thus, as a general rule, I prefer for amateur writers to follow these guidelines as rules.

That being said, once you know how to write well enough and you understand when these guidelines make your writing better and when they make it worse, for the love of $deity, please break them all over the place.