skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm at HBS, not the university proper, but I'm not surprised. I'm not precisely sure when we destroy the backups, or if there is a policy in place for doing so, but I do know that if one of our faculty members needs to recover a five year old email, we sure as hell better be able to do that. Tape is cheap enough.
Good luck, and wish you success !
Anyone know the pros and cons of using Readability over Instapaper?
yes, thank you. I understood more or less what it meant but I have never seen it before and considered it an interesting contrast
Another major challenge Groupon face is:
They are competing with major players, companies with considerable more resources. Google, Facebook, Amazon all have competing products and a very large user base. Google has billions in profits and Amazon have billions in revenue and hundreds of millions in profits. Facebook has one of, if not the largest user base in the world. For Groupon to succeed it will have to be beat Amazon, Google, and Facebook. It's hard enough to compete against one giant, but having limited resources and competing against all three will make it too easy to fail. Now more than ever you have to wonder why they did not sell to Google. Perhaps they are hoping Microsoft will want to get in game after they IPO and buy them.
I returned to India 3 years ago. I have other friends and people I know who have come back since. Many of them are doing startups. Others are working in academia. Not a single one is setting up offshore offices or looking to fly back (AFAIK). These are mostly young guys returning soon after their studies.

But media hype is perhaps not about these people. It is about people who are coming back after 10-15 years of career in US, have families and a reputation to carry. In this segment, I know many who have come and gone back, after establishing the Indian centers of their employers. :)

So depends on who and what you want to see.
What is misleading when one talk about Fourier transform for pictures, is that it has nothing to do with the waves emitted by the colored particles and received by our eyes. It is more about the spatial distribution of intensities.

Applied to the sound, this "frequency view" is much more natural: we hear a sound, and there is a low and a high part of it. It's because our ears really do real time frequency analysis, a kind of biological Fast Fourier transform.

From what I remember, doing this transformation is just a matter of taking the original signal s, get its level n of the lowest frequency f, and compute s - n × f, and recurse on the result with the next frequency. The theorem proves that if you go to the limit you get two equivalent representations of the signal, one being the wave itself s = f(t), one being its "spectrum" s1 = f(freq) (a function of the frequencies).

For many purposes, f(freq) is much more convenient than f(t), including comparisons, frequency shifting, extraction, compression, etc.

It applies equally well to images, but for me the frequency representation of a picture is not perceptively useful, maybe because our eyes are not Fourier transforming what we see.

All that is's old story for me (I studied acoustics in IRCAM), please correct if my memory is wrong.
In the case of Go, he wrote the code himself and had one of the Go devs take a brief look at it.
http://groups.google.com/group/golang-nuts/msg/f3af3549cd3ed...
Germany: E. coli patients continue to rise
What kind of content do you have that is this large? Please send me an email at sascha at thriventures dot com and we can talk about your custom requirements.
No Problem, I'll mention your stuff at the next meetup and let you know if I get a project done with your service. I have something in mind.
Americans Lower Expectations for Making Money
Cassandra 0.8.0 has been released
Does anyone else think Groupon has been a huge boost to the economy? They've created 7000 jobs in a few years, without displacing many old ones, and most of these jobs are low-skill.
Which may take some lobbying of your company to add a self directed component to your 401k offering, which as far as I know is a more costly option. (Because you won't be buying their selected funds and they won't be reaping the commissions)
May jobs growth slows to 54,000, a nine-month low
I've been using this last spring, initially as an offline reference when flying, etc. Since then, it's become my primary reference when working with jQuery. It's perfect for what I need: instantly looking up usage details for specific methods.
Summary: Jungledisk doesn't protect the integrity of encrypted data, and doesn't securely derive keys and is thus vulnerable to fast offline attacks. The thing Jungledisk right is to use the same block cipher mode as Tarsnap (and, incidentally, virtually every mainstream encrypted storage system).

The impact of using unauthenticated encryption to store data is that your backup provider could end up owning your machine. Attackers can carefully choose which data to corrupt. They can exploit the randomization of corrupted decryption to set up conditions for memory corruption exploits, and, in more sophisticated but totally realistic attacks, exploit guesses about known plaintext to produce attacker-controlled nonrandom plaintexts. A backup provider with client-authenticated crypto can't do that, because the keys that encrypt the data also ensure it's integrity.

The password storage issue is no different than any other password storage problem; again, direct your attention to http://codahale.com/how-to-safely-store-a-password/, mentally substituting "storage of password hash" to "derivation of AES key".

To my mind, the key derivation is the real problem here. A surprisingly large number of secure encryption storage products don't ensure data integrity. Realistic attacks against that vulnerability are feasible but difficult: you'd have to be targeted.

If you're going to write an article about how a competitor's encryption is inferior to yours and cast it as a vulnerability report, I'd suggest not recommending your own encryption scheme as the replacement. The scrypt recommendation in this article sticks out like a sore thumb. Virtually nothing uses scrypt.

We can nerd out on CTR mode vs. CBC mode; I'm starting to come around to Colin's take on CTR because of ciphertext indistinguishability as I see more practical vulnerabilities that take advantage of it. I think the padding issue is a red herring. CBC padding is easier to get right than absolute rock solid reliable generation of CTR nonces and absolute rock solid management of CTR counters, which are things I see people get wrong regularly. Distinguishability is the real problem with CBC.
"Listen, here's the thing. If you can't spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you are the sucker." - Rounders
Minnesota's first tech accelerator announces BootCamp Weekend Finalists
They've probably bought into the idea that the U.S. government is organizing the revolt using the internet, just like China is suggesting:
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_18199122
http://mixergy.com/jason-fried-sortfolio-interview/

"Andrew:	You’re on the board of directors at Groupon. What have you learned from working with them?

Jason:	Sure. Well, just a clarification. I’m not on the board of directors anymore.

Andrew:	Board of advisors.

Jason:	I’m on the advisory board now instead, and that was a smart move by them.

Andrew:	Why?

Jason:	My main role there on the board was . . . the reason Andrew Mason asked me to be on the board was to help them with product ideas and work on product design and copyrighting and think about products because that’s what I think I’m good at.

The board of directors isn’t really a place for that, especially at the stage that Groupon is at right now. They need people with international business experience. Howard Schultz came on after I left, the CEO of Starbucks. He knows brand name. He knows big business. He knows that stuff. I don’t know that stuff. That’s not my role. They need more people like that than people like me.

By moving over to the advisory board, I’m working with Andrew. I was just working with him this morning on some stuff around their new Groupon Now product which is coming out short. Now, I’m doing really what I should be doing, which is working with Andrew and his team on product design and thinking about product copyrighting and that kind of stuff. It’s a better place for me, a better fit for me.

That whole process of being on the board was absolutely fascinating, and I really enjoyed it. I feel like it was a bit lopsided because I certainly learned a lot more from them than they learned from me."
I thought this was an Onion article at first.
What license is the scrypt code released under?
What is the market telling you? The answer to this question always determines whether I quit, continue, or pivot. My market feedback can take on various forms. Sometimes I'll survey people in the relevant field, other times I throw together a quick demo and use this. Either way, you have to get the pulse on the market. Yes, sometimes "build it and they will come" does work, but most of the time it doesn't. Why not query the market and find out for sure.
I think you're correct that Apple is going to have to do things differently get some of their web properties to catch on, but I disagree heavily on your premise.

For a counterexample, Facebook is professional-looking and very structured compared to MySpace, which in turn is very amateurish-feeling.

There isn't any question which is preferred.

Forums are amateurish. Stackoverflow is professional. I know where I'm going for Q&A.

I think there's a lot more to Apple's problems than professionalism vs amateurism, to the point where it is a minor point, if one at all.

I'm very wary against sayings like "the web is about amateur content." The web is about a lot of things, and while a lot of the web is about amateur content, a lot of the web is also about providing good structure, order, and execution to that content. In general, it even seems to be that the company that can put the most order unto the all of the content reaps the greatest success.
Analysis: this is what we expect from Nintendo's Project Caf&#233;
You can't buy what isn't profitable and do well either though.

I don't think Buffet advocates turning off your brain completely.
Is that all?!

$150 million seems nothing these days (maybe I'm just tainted by the Skype-Microsoft acquisition...)
The tile interface is definitely a shell, right now. It's a stepping stone for Microsoft to step into a post-desktop world.

I've read a lot of commentary that is very impressed with the tiles and just as much commentary writing it off as something that's not enough and not appropriate for Microsoft to make a step and just put a new pretty face on Windows.

To me, I see it as a thought out stepping stone to reaching the post-desktop era that reaches a pretty good compromise. I don't think many people have to be worried about this new transition, but that's my own speculation - you'd have to wait for MS's official word.
I was talking about Mr. Fried, not @dhh.
Why is it a pain to read? (Always trying to improve our writing)
Google was profitable. Big difference.
I hope this wasn't inconsiderate to post on a site so closely related to YC...

But this is some very exciting news for Minnesota's tech startup community. :)
I get the feeling spamming is often the work of people who can ignore the fact that some economic activities are harmful or bothersome to the people they are trying to reach, and to their own brand (beyond the erectile dysfunction category, which is a whole other league).

I was once acquainted with a company that sent unsolicited mail (travel related) through one of those gazillion email databases. When I asked why were they doing it, their response was a blank stare—Well, it gives us a 10 to 1 return on investment each time we do it, why should we stop?.

It's the same reason why it's so difficult to cancel your cable plan, companies notice that if they ask their customers to fax in their contract, cancellation rates diminish to a fraction. Profit!
I think the Expedia-Groupon deal bodes very poorly for both companies. Expedia is worried about their core business and is throwing money at Groupon (in the form of subsidizing deals) in order to associate itself with a company that is perceived by many to be up and coming. Groupon gets to look like it's innovating, when all it's doing is taking money from the nerds for the ability to hang out with the cool kids for a while.
What about Arq for Mac? http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/

It is/was used by Chris Wanstrath (of github), among others. http://chris.wanstrath.usesthis.com
The e-waste take on Angry Birds
What exactly does learning Silverlight entail that differs from learning any other .NET environment? XAML is just an xml markup. I only used it on a WP7 app and it took me a couple of hours to get the gist of how it works.
I think it probably translates to "Groupon is sustainable relative to a Ponzi scheme", which, even as a big Groupon skeptic for a long time now, I wouldn't challenge. A Ponzi scheme has no business other than selling ahead; Groupon does have a model for revenue. It may not work, but it really isn't fair to call it a Ponzi scheme. Bad business maybe, but not a Ponzi scheme. Ponzi schemes really ought to be reserved for actual Ponzi schemes and not be reduced to a mere financial insult.
I'm glad I actually read the article. Given the title I was all set to either ignore or flag. As it stands, I agree whole-heartedly with the message. Yes, there are things to quibble about, but overall it provides food for thought.
It's BSD licensed but probably not easy to integrate on your platform. BCrypt is an easier choice. When we see Java and .NET implementations of scrypt, we'll start recommending it, but I'll be honest and tell you that we rarely recommend scrypt today.
To my mind, the key derivation is the real problem here. A surprisingly large number of secure encryption storage products don't ensure data integrity. Realistic attacks against that vulnerability are feasible but difficult: you'd have to be targeted.

I think the lack of integrity is more important than you're making it sound. There's a lot of situations where a lack of integrity can be exploited to create a lack of privacy too.

But the main reason I mentioned the lack of integrity first is that I needed to mention the lack of HMAC to explain why they had the ridiculous "salted key hash" construct.

If you're going to write an article about how a competitor's encryption is inferior to yours and cast it as a vulnerability report, I'd suggest not recommending your own encryption scheme as the replacement. The scrypt recommendation in this article sticks out like a sore thumb. Virtually nothing uses scrypt.

I think you're misstating what I wrote a bit. I said that scrypt is the state of the art in the field -- which it is -- and that given that Jungle Disk was around before I developed scrypt, they should have used PBKDF2 or bcrypt.
I don't understand how there is "so much space available helping companies managine their incoming data". There's Resumator, JobVite, JobScore, Taleo, Brassring, OpenCATS, Healthcaresource, MaxHire, Vurv, (I can list 60 more if anyone would like.)

The point is, what need is this filling that isn't already filled? I wholly welcome better technologies to help employers - but I need to know what makes the technology better and their tour page doesn't ring any "innovative" bells for me.
I'm the writer for #killswitch, a full length documentary project that is based on the premise that a functioning democracy is dependent upon a free and open internet. This film intends to educate and mobilize a disengaged citizenry on this important issue.

Please, check out the trailer at:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/akorn/killswitch-a-docum...

Let me know what you think? We'd love to have you involved.
nobody uses the Scala compiler that way. It is common to use FSC or the Simple Build Tool to compile incrementally
How we're investing in 37signals
That is also what a Ponzi scheme is also, except a Ponzi scheme is losing money hand-over-fist in a hidden way. With a Ponzi scheme, the piling on of new investors covers up the losses... for a while.

Hmmmm, that sounds almost exactly like Groupon. While their losses are pretty well known, they are waving their hands (accounting gimmicks) and saying "That's not a loss. Honest."
I find that groupon using most of its funding from last round to payout people questionable.

I can understand founders wanting to cash out a portion of their equity before going public. However, when you are raising money say 10 million to fund growth etc, what % is considered reasonable to pay founders before it raises red flags to investors?
It seems like they could benefit from offering better filters/subscription methods to their members, e.g. I want to receive only restaurant deals as a simple filter. Sure it'd decrease their overall coverage but it could help retain the value of the emails sent... I think we've all gotten to that ignore point with certain senders.
As Steve Weis pointed out in an earlier thread about schemes like this, deriving keys from the contents of files breaks semantic security. Lay engineers reason about this problem the way you just did: "the RIAA can tell I have Lady Gaga MP3s". But practitioners are worried about much more subtle and devastating flaws, particularly in cases where attackers may exercise some control over the blocks being encrypted.

Any scheme that derives passwords from file contents gives me the willies.
If you are a forum admin then the value of your side will go down if you don't clean up spam regularly (and for big forums you might have to cleanup several times every single day). I'd rather compare it with gluing advertisement illegally all over the place.
The flock of people leaving Jobvite for JobScore or Resumator has been truly incredible. I hope they can plug the hole in their dam, because they have a good product, but it is exactly keeping customers like you happy where they seem to be lacking at the moment.
The Illusion of Control
Google was profitable. And I assume any money they were spending was on architecture/moat not customers. I'm not sure what the economics of the Old Navy deal were yesterday but I assume it was a loss, on the day GRPN announced IPO they were losing money to "look good" it's how their business model works.
Out of curiosity, how was the signup process gamed? (I assume you mean the request for one, not throwing it into developer mode.)

I wanted one because I have a business client who fits their target demographic quite well, but needs something shoved under their nose before they'll really consider it.

But, I don't have much of a public, google-able reputation. I figured that was why there was no "shiny" for me.

P.S. I also figured they wanted more of a technical shakedown than business, at that point. But, I'm pretty good at that.
Reasons to reform English
One; minus the time spent either dividing even numbers by two or multiplying odd numbers by three and adding one, over the total time working.
Take this with a grain of salt (I am no skilled writer myself): I found the organization to be fragmented. Instead of digesting one theme straight through, I found myself having to refocus on each main point. Hope this helps in any fashion
I bought my ImpactJS license a few days back and it's very polished. I don't know if the $99 I paid was a bit high, but I'm satisfied with it. There's also a note on the ImpactJS site that it works well on iOS. It also comes with a beautiful level editor. But I'm not expert enough to judge if that's good enough for doing really big games. Indie game beginner here. Just tinkering with it.

There are a dozen of opensource javascript game engines that you could use. I've bookmarked a few javascript engines here http://pinboard.in/u:akash/t:gameengine Akihabara according to what I've heard, is the most stable out there, but the last time I tried, the documentation was lacking (although they do have a few tutorials which a lot of these gameengines don't have).

I'm mentioning javascript engines because you said you needed something cross platform including mobile. This way you could just just wrap the game with Adobe Air for desktop platforms and maybe native wrapper for mobile platforms. You might want to look into tools like Phonegap and Titanium
Why iOS 5 + Lion + iCloud = WWDC: The New iCloud Explained
My MacBook Pro is the best windows laptop I've ever used.
Romantic Movies of 2010
some grate romantic movies of 2010 check this out.......
Very comprehensive, although I feel that some mention of gcv's appengine-magic is called for, since deploying to Google App Engine is a very attractive prospect for a Clojure web project. https://github.com/gcv/appengine-magic. It's excellent, my web site is based on it.
I'd rather geek out about CTR v CBC than harp on the scrypt recommendation. Consider the scrypt thing a friendly style note. You wrote an article about a competitor's insecurities. When you do that, don't recommend they adopt your own cryptosystem unless (like CRI had to do with DPA countermeasures) they have to. Here, it just made you look unnecessarily petty.

What privacy attacks were you thinking of? Call some of them out.
You see, you are or will potentially be a loving parent :-)

Nowadays I hear most people saying how kids are a liability.
Making some people very rich is not the same thing as creating value.

If Groupon investors get rich at the expense of retail investors, that's bad. If the Groupon founders get rich at the expense of retail investors and later venture investors, that's also bad. In fact it's worse, because they have more information about the business than the investors do. The closer you are to the center of the business, the more you are implicated if it turns out to be a giant pump-and-dump scheme. The founders are the rotten core of that scheme.
What's Wrong With Human Rights?
Groupon's expenses are larger than their revenue, and have been since inception. This is a Bad Thing.

You could make an exception if unprofitably is caused by re-investment into a model that is proven to profitable but requires a certain level of scale.

Groupon isn't doing that however. What they're doing is reinvesting the money into other people's pockets.
Thanks for the feedback, Andy!

I'll follow up with you directly via email, but all good points that I want to address in the near future.

I wanted to launch early, get feedback, and iterate quickly.
Regarding the java version, "Note that Jeremy deliberately refused to optimize the code further, many of the C++ optimizations would apply to the Java version as well"
Rogue: A Type-Safe DSL for MongoDB
Ask HN: Does the use of CoffeeScript improve your productivity?
Thinking of starting to use CoffeeScript, but this decision will affect 3 developers. Anybody have opinions on this?
Arq appears to have similar flaws to JungleDisk, judging from its file format specification.
So You Want To Teach Your Kids To Program?
> If Apple's going to succeed at the web, they have to unlearn a lot of what makes them Apple. No more pixel perfect web apps that feel like desktop apps, no more sites that look like glossy brochures, and embracing chaos and amateurism over order and professionalism

Here is yet another argument based on the premise that, in order for Apple to succeed, it must do the same thing as everyone else. We have heard the same argument about desktop computers (license Mac OS; be like Microsoft), mobile (make cheap phones; be like Nokia), and now with the web.

In a sea of amateurs, being professional is not exactly a bad thing.
Jason mentioned that he didn't agree with everything Groupon was doing. Besides, I see 37signals as just favoring bootstrapping and not some hardcore anti venture capital crusaders.
Prof. Andrew Ng on the future of AI and Robots