skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Stains! Refilling needs skills, lol.
I swear, the effectiveness of browser controls has been regressing over the past couple of years.

I know this will be inflammatory, but I'm really reaching the opinion that it's time to take a few of the worst of these "image ueber alles" designers out back and, well, play them that provebial violin.
Seeing how well LinkedIn did, I am very tempted to try and daytrade these stocks, buying at release then selling about lunchtime.

I'm only interested in trying it with about $200.

This would be my first time trading. Does anyone know which service would be good for this? ETrade?
I just found my copy, so I think I'll try and reread it this weekend.
Some manufactures even offer life time warranty!
HN already has its own memes... "We are better than Reddit because we don't have memes or sarcasm and are super adult and reasonable" is a big one.
I grew up in one of the poorest parts of the UK. After leaving school, I volunteered for an advice charity for eighteen months, spending two and a half days a week going over (predominantly poor) people's finances with a fine-toothed comb.

Out of the hundreds of people I worked with and kept extensive records on, I found four who were in serious financial difficulty through no fault of their own. Four. I saw people manage perfectly well on £9000 a year and people on £40,000 a year hiding their car from the bailiff.

Correlation between quality of life and income was remarkably weak - the ability of clients to stretch their income and conversely their ability to fritter it was often astonishing. Middle class clients took on unmanageable mortgages and racked up huge credit card bills. Working class clients took out payday loans every week, bought consumer electronics on expensive hire-purchase and spent their housing allowance at the pub. I did observe one strong correlation - the more serious someone's financial problems, the more likely they were to walk out through boredom or frustration, or become abusive when it became clear that I could not fix all their problems.

Of course, we have a welfare state. From my perspective, the political environment in the US seems to be dominated by people who actively hate the poor. It may well be the case that Britain is exceptionally supportive of the poor, or that American society is exceptionally hostile towards them.
The thing with Zynga, is they have zero innovation and zero IP capital. You might as well invest in a chinese ripoff and it would be the same. Sure they make tons of profits but they will never earn my respect. They stole everyone else's ideas, continuously spammed and manipulated their users, and did every horrible trick in the book. That's not hacker attitude; that's borderline criminal. To illustrate, here is a post in facebook's forum from Pincus himself, trying to make excuses for gambling ads they'd been running on games: http://forum.developers.facebook.net/viewtopic.php?pid=12983...

I would buy. I would sell before the end of the day though.
I second the recommendation of Mrs. Dweck's texts. Her book "Self-Theories..." changed my life. Or at least reinforced the changes I was undergoing then:

The right strategy and appropriate effort are much more important than results.
25 Primary Reasons Why Startups Fail
The HTCs are fairly bland and generic containers, and the screens are certainly not competitive with the one on iPhone 4. There is a lot of room to do better.
Most doctors don't give a damn. They just follow exact rigid procedure. If someone dies they can exonerate themselves in front of any medical review board that bothers to investigate. They can then send the patient off to the morgue and go play golf on the weekend. Happens all the time.

If a doctor reads a medical study, takes a risk, and the patient dies anyway then the medical review board will ask them to explain themselves and why they didn't follow procedure.
My argument isn't that they can, it's just that they'll have to. I don't see any particular reason to suppose that they actually will, though, and that's why I personally wouldn't touch this deal with a ten-foot pole.

Unless of course all this Zynga exuberance is at the prospect of a Facebook buyout...

Does facebook have enough cash to buy Zynga at these valuations? I doubt it. (But they do have programmers who could clone Cityville in two weeks, and the ability to ban Zynga from their system with a few keystrokes if they felt like it...)
For me, that book will always mark the standard for technical journalism. Compare the depth of research of the Kidder book to today's techcrunch, or any of the dozens of books written about Google and you can see how far this generation of journalists have yet to go.
You're right. Will order. Where did all these versions come from? I had looked years back and it was $100+. Weird.
> Names don't have to be treated like property, you can invoke policy on them and change bad names.

A lot of PHP projects involve working with existing components or apps. Some of these use the global namespace with very obvious names, eg. phpBB's User, CodeIgniter's Session. Try and combine two components that use the same obvious names, and everything explodes in a giant mess of E_ERROR.

(It's the same deal with globally-scoped constants:

define('ACTIVE',1);
define('ACTIVE','active');

Makes life very interesting.)
Depends on whether or not it is opt-in for all parties. If it is, then it is up to the participants.
What makes you think so (the balance sheets maybe?). I think it's gonna be a hit-and-run.
* Every time I did something new, I felt a sense of accomplishment, even though it didn't compare to the professionally produced games and programs I used. *

What about your programming projects. Do you (like the rest of us) have problems with releasing early and often?

How about if you treated music this way too - release early and often?
With $200 you will not have the ability to purchase shares at the IPO price (or if it's anything like LNKD anywhere near the IPO price).
I wonder if they will see a huge spike in orders over the next 2 months... I am certainly more likely to buy it now, just in case I need it in the next 2 years.
I'm so sick of shit like this. Can't wait until it comes out so i can make a tool to break it.
Another thing relevant to your argument is the brand value of the companies you mention. People initially buy Blizzard games, because they are Blizzard games.

Will it ever be possible for a company like Zynga to do the same? I generally find it hard to promote the company brand in browser- or mobile-based games.
When they ask if they can record the interview, ask if you can record the interview. Maybe the fact that a simple link can prove they are distorting things will make them more honest.
I think the real issue is that it's possible, at a glance, to confuse the Samsung phone with the iPhone; the home screen is very similar, the form factor is very similar, the icon colours are very similar, etc.

Given that no other handset manufacturer (other than iPhone knockoffs) makes a phone that looks so close to an iPhone in pretty much every way, it seems obvious that Samsung is trying to replicate the design. The article also mentions that packaging is part of the suit, which could be another problem for Samsung if it's true.
And you're cheating yourself of sleep and peace of mind.

This. The "sacrifices" you make are not a loss, but a gain.

Edit: Assuming you are not yet "down to basics" -- which more and more people are, these days.
That doesn't necessarily mean that the password is stored as plain-text. The customer support agent may have simply had the ability to initiate a process that decrypted it and sent an email notice to the customer.

Granted, it's always alarming to learn when companies either store plain-text or store reversible encrypted passwords where they hold the key, but it's not surprising. Sometimes, usability, convenience and customer experience are more important than IT security, thus mgt decides that these things are acceptable risks.
There's a difference between stealing great ideas (entirely touchscreen driven internet-enabled smartphone) and stealing great implementations (the hardware form factor, home screen layout, product packaging, product accessories, etc.).
Wow you guys are so old fashioned, startups are the new resume - you only really make them to get your dream job at Facebook/Google/Zynga/etc.
We actually use Solr on our backend - we love it's open source community and rich feature set.
I remember that - it was terrible. I was thinking more like Steven Levy for Wired or even Bruce Sterling. Wired have yet to do a feature on Stuxnet

or Clive Thompson for NYT Magazine - his tech writing has been excellent, particularly the Netflix prize[1] and his coverage of privacy and security issues[2]

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/23/magazine/23Netflix-t.html?...

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/magazine/03intelligence.ht...
They obviously don't store a one-way hash if they just regurgitated it to you, but is this really enough information to conclude the password is stored in plaintext?

This just means the password is easily convertible to plaintext - either because it's stored in plaintext or because it's encrypted and their support folks are able to decrypt it. The former is completely indefensible, the latter is "just" very very bad.
Google's Hamina Data Center
Zynga, FB, Groupon are the big ones besides LinkedIn... who else? I've heard Twitter, but perhaps they won't yet, they have a huge valuation but little in the way of a business plan. I've also heard Yelp and Pandora. Anyone else?
Seems to be akin to religious debates. The brain (and more importantly, the mind) is one of those areas where modern science has too little traction to speak in absolutes.

Anecdotally, I had a breakthrough with mood control when I eradicated "jumping to conclusions" from my idle thought patterns. That made a HUGE difference in my outlook on life.
Direct link: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/do/id423328852?mt=8
It's not available outside the US though.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems like at this point in the game, Apple is probably so deep in development of iOS 5 that there's probably no room to suddenly add a new feature or change direction of an existing one substantially. Even if that weren't the case though, there haven't been a huge amount of innovations from Android that Apple has been interested in stealing; lots of 'ideas' that Apple just didn't implement sooner, and eventually implemented differently (copy and paste) though.

I just don't feel like if Apple saw Samsung's new offerings, they'd care enough to bother changing the iPhone 5.
Simple yet usefull
Ask HN: 2x24" vs 1x27" (2560x1440) Which Monitor configuration do you prefer
Hi HNists,

Im curious to know if anyone can share their experience using a 27" (2560x1440)high res monitor vs 2x24" (1920x1200) monitors. Im a UI designer/developer so im constantly battling with real estate issues.

My main concerns are:
1. Is 27" too much screen panel glaring in my face?
2. Is using two monitors rotated in portrait mode comfortable for long term use? Do you find the bezel and having the screen split annoying?

Please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences. Thanks!
It's hard to believe a company that only a couple of years ago was relying on scammy CPA deals to float itself and mostly churns out formulaic gamified skinner boxes for facebook users is looking at a public valuation north of $10B. I've been wrong plenty of times before, but I certainly won't be a buyer here, especially considering Eric Tilenius' comments last week that an appreciating IPO is a sign of a poorly priced IPO. Given lofty private valuations compared to existing gaming properties, the apparently opportunistic timing and a stated propensity to price at the top of the market it's hard for me to believe Zynga will even manage to keep pace with the S&P.
IMHO, Zynga's moto should be "There's a lot of money in stupid".
Dear Science,
You will never figure out attraction by putting people in a lab and asking them what they like. It's more complicated than that. You'll understand when you're older.
My summer project (AspireOS)
If newegg can get your plaintext password, chances are an attacker can too. The distinction is pretty slim, to me, though you're right that it's there.
Intrade Founder John Delaney Dies On Mt. Everest
Zynga has 5x the revenue of LinkedIn and will likely file already showing 30-40% net profit.
Yeah, that's bad, but it's a bit tough to get worked up about.

There are many available solutions that make it easy to have a different, secure password for each site you visit.
There is no real difference between plain text and a recoverable encryption. If a password can be returned to a plain text state it can be considered as bad as just storing it in plain text.
I already have some more questions.

Would it be easier to make it 32bit or 64bit? I'd imagine 32bit, but if it isn't much harder than I would like to make it 64bit.

I plan on building AspireOS on my MacBook. I started to follow a bare bones tutorial, but I was running into issues with the assembly. Any advice or any articles explaining building assembly on a Mac?

How do I emulate Aspire?
I think it's called World Wide Web. We should memorialize Tim Berners Lee's computer instead.
I still dont get how you concluded that Newegg stores password in plain text.

All you did was talk to a Newegg rep, you said he mis understood you and email you your Newegg password. What evidence do you have and in what logical reasoning does that lead to Newegg storing passwords in plain text?

He could have used your info and looked it up in the Newegg system, probably clicked a check box that says "email password" the system could have decrypted it and sent you the password.

I've seen many sites that actually send you your username and current passwords if you forgot. It doesn't mean that when it's stored on their system it was not encrypted.

Edit: to clarify, my whole point is in reference to how the password is stored in plain text.
You can't really daytrade with $200, most brokers require at least $1000 to start an account. You'll also be limited to 4 or 5 roundtrips until you get dinged by an SEC rule that limits day trading to accounts with at least 25k equity and margin capabilities.

Don't start trading with an IPO stock or anything that's bound to be volatile, it's just a bad idea in general.
The system will probably be child's play to game, but I'm not sure what's the point of gaming it or even using it in the first place.
A website employee should only be able to reset the password at most if the passwords is properly SALTed or hashed. Storing passwords in plaintext or not hashing them had to be done. It's insecure to just encrypt the password and rather not hash it.

I'm waiting for NewEgg to pull a Gawker now. ;)
Other VoIP endpoint vendors have hacked around Skype quite a bit:

http://wiki.freeswitch.org/wiki/Mod_skypopen_Skype_Endpoint_...

... which is good until Skype starts trying to detect this kind of stuff.
You and gabbo are right. It's not necessarily the case the password is stored in plaintext. I'll update my post.

However, stored in plaintext or stored in an encrypted, reversible manner, the password is not stored in what most folks would consider a secure manner.

Mav, the individual I chatted with, was able to quickly get my password. So could other customer service agents. So could any crackers they speak who then know that Newegg is a ripe and juicy target.

I'll respectfully disagree that there is any reason for Newegg or anyone else to keep that password in a reversible manner.
1) I think you could charge in 24 hour increments pretty easily. Maybe the longer the server is running the cheaper it gets, so you could incentivize people to leave them up for longer periods of time.

For example (not real prices) maybe $5 per 24 hours and then $16 per week then $22 per month or whatever.

That way it's easy to take no risk at $5, but if you end up wanting to keep it up you're not paying $5 x 30 days which would suck.

2) I don't think you need to have the server end automatically. Letting me close it myself would be fine as an option, especially with the payment scheme I outlined above.

3) Let use prepayment. They fill up their account with $100 and when it runs out there's no overbilling. This adds a huge sense of security to the buyer. Probably also let people pay on-demand if they want by leaving a credit card on file.

4) Latency is soooo important. Offer servers in west/central/east coasts. Do not use shitty oversubscribed bandwidth providers!

If you do Urban Terror or BC2 I'll try it out for sure. Good luck!
If you have such great ideas, then why aren't you rich? (Assuming only poor developers get approached by idea guys)
I could be wrong, but I think many states require any "foreign" business to register, if they intend to do business in that state. Obviously for a dot com, the exact definition of "doing business" is a bit fuzzy (see Amazon.com and their battles over this issue). But it's something to look into and consider, at the least.
Encryption is inadequate because others can still find out what your password was (Insert disgruntled employee or hacker that gets the master decyption key).

Hashing / SALTing is WAAAAAY safer.
Ask HN: HOW to do? WHAT to do? Motivation? What's your biggest problem?
I'm making an app that would make it easier to make use of advice from trusted advisors. We all have goals that need to be turned into tasks. Advisors can help us determine how. But do we always maximize the value they provide?<p>And we need to decide how to accomplish each task. Do we know how to do it or do we need to learn? Or can we delegate it or use a tool to accomplish it? Or does the task need to be broken down further before we can decide?<p>And once we've made these decisions, many of us benefit when our progress is visible and encouragement from real people is possible. We can and do easily ignore reminders from computers. Questions from people whose opinions we care about get a lot more attention.<p>Do you think there's a need for a tool that can help with this?<p>Is this something you would pay for?<p>How much would you pay if it helped you reach your goals?<p>Is there already a tool that does this? Does it have shortcomings?<p>Any other thoughts?<p>Thanks for your time<p>Al
If your password is stored in a "decryptable" format, it might as well be stored in plaintext. Secure systems simply do not have this capability.
The real question is how much each doctor or dentist pays Medical Justice for the privilege of being lied to.
I've yet to see a compelling argument for why I should want a browser with WebP support. Unless images start out lossless, and then are encoded into WebP directly, all I'll ever get out of WebP is smaller images that have more encoder artifacts - and I don't want that. I've got plenty of bandwidth; I'd rather download images in their original JPEG or PNG formats, especially if that means I can then open them up in any image editor or viewer on my computer, instead of having to install some special (and likely buggy) new WebP viewer/converter.

I think if WebP offered useful features JPEG doesn't, like alpha channel support or support for higher bit depths or useful new metadata, that'd at least justify it, and people would be creating new demos that showed off the technology. We saw this with the uptake of support for PNG after people started showing how PNG's support for alpha transparency made it possible to do interesting things that you couldn't with JPEG/GIF. WebP has no such compelling feature.
So I am "worked up" about it, because it's Newegg. If it were Mom & Pop computer store, I'd probably shrug it off. But Newegg can and should have just as good a security as an Amazon or Walmart.
Sometimes I wonder if people take classes in game theory just so they can 'invent' new web services.

Snarky comment "Let's end double blind scientific testing so you can know which of your test subjects really have the cure and which have the placebo!"

Perhaps less snarky comment. When you are looking to 'improve' a system, ask yourself what knowledge you 'know' and what you 'derive' and then ask yourself if more 'knowing' would affect the quality of what you 'derive.'

It would be great to know that some folks in your social graph are more influential than others. However knowing that, and steering more information through them, will change their position in your social graph (sometimes it will instantly convert them from very influential to not forwarding anything you send to them). Its a classic dilemma where more knowledge changes the behavior of the actors in the system which then changes the derived knowledge etc etc. You get a 'game' (at least for the folks who are inclined that way) and like moths to the flame they will start tweaking to optimize. And the optimizations may spiral out of control leading to bigger and more overt tweaks which then can cause the whole system to implode.

Sometimes not knowing is better.
I wonder why it isn't available outside of the US? Probably because a number of the services aren't available to non-US citizens.
That's not the point. If you complain about being unsafe in your neighbourhood someone can't just respond with "buy a gun". No, in this case your city council should do their best in changing the situation.
I think that's a theme, not a meme.
Thanks for mentioning the Außensteuergesetz. I wonder how they square that with EU competition rules.
But what about long-term value? It may hit tens of billions the first day, but what happens in a few months?
Yeah, I agree with you. iTunes has some stupid things and "wtf?" moments, but overall I do enjoy using it. It makes media consumption very easy.
Ok.. I gotta get in on this! I totally flaked on LinkedIN
From bankrupt, to idea, to business
Open and honest blog post on my journey from running a successful tech consultancy, to losing the business, going bankrupt and then rebuilding a business from a chance idea I had while bankrupt. Blog post prior to Mixergy interview
Newegg has earned my trust - in my book they can do whatever they want.

If they leak my info, then I'll care.
Bummer. My Get-Marginally-Richer-Very-Quickly scheme is ruined!
If a system can easily decrypt a password, the programmer that made the system (or just someone looking at the source) can easily access your password.
Maybe so. Seems that this is meant to be a work of art rather than a purely technical exercise. Sharing files isn't new - sharing those you've 'deleted' is.

From that perspective, it might be cool if it actually used the Trash rather than it's own icon.
One possible reason to push for improvements before accepting the new format into Firefox is suggested by Justin Lebar in a comment on http://bugzil.la/600919:

"In general, Mozilla should use its weight to improve the web in the long term, even if doing so is unpopular in the short term. In this case, by not accepting WebP in its current form, we're putting pressure on its developers to improve it in the ways that we think are important. Once we accept the codec, we lose this leverage. [...] Remember that even if we landed this patch tomorrow, it would still likely be years before this format saw wide adoption. The argument is that it's better to wait and throw our weight behind something we think moves the web forward, if and when that arrives."