skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ah didn't see that about the French guy. The article isn't very explicit about this point, though if you look at the totals by nationality, there are 105 hostages (all Jews) and of them 92 are Israeli.

Also, if your mother converted to Judaism before you were born, you're 100% Jewish. The only potential sticking point would be if she was converted under Orthodox law. I am not familiar with the Rabbinate's position on that, but 99% of the Jewish world recognizes you as a Jew. Your case is quite strong as a matter of fact.
Well, zero was perhaps a hyperbole.

Does the US have close economic/military relationships with Israel-bashing Arab countries? It does. Although they are not the best possible alliances (not ideological similarity), they are convenient. So theory holds out in practice, doesn't it? ;)

There was a time in the 70s when Arab governments did the whole embargo thing, but they quickly realized that its not in their best interest. And the US-Israel relationship has only improved, hasn't it? I don't think back then there was a deep military relationship between the countries.

As for the push in the right direction - I think there are some limits to what you can practically do in this relationship as in any. You don't want to risk the favorable strategic terms of the status quo in any way and you want some changes. It gets tougher when your job as a politician is to win votes. Maybe this special relationship is the barrier to solution and not an endless limbo. This is a question too deep of foreign policy, too many books on the subject. I like those from Fareed Zakaria, because he deals in much more broader terms than local issues.

Remember that with constant escalation coming from the Balkans, the world entered World War I. Just the same, is the question of who is right and wrong and what is doing locally that important in the much larger , global scope? And then again, what credibility does a 'global concert' have if it cannot resolve a given issue for 60 years?
I don't know how often people access their email from a friends house. I do know that the ability to do so in a pinch is invaluable.

I'm also not sure how many consumers are on only Apple devices. I would assume that the majority of iOS users are also Windows users. Will there be a Windows client for all of the iCloud compatible services?
I dare you to make an array of length 2^52 in Javascript.
It’s too difficult, and too much work, and too much to remember, and even then fails. What if I wanted to share some posts with some friends, some with other, some with all. Have some activity visible to some, some to others, and some to all? What if I wanted to share some friends with some, some with others, some to all.

FB does a terrible job at mimicking real-life social interactions. How comfortable would you feel if everyone whose number you added to your phonebook could see all your other contacts in the phone? Well FB does that. They let new friends see all friends without any relevancy guard or protections.
> You should not see any difference in the different versions of iOS.

Wrong. Any OS feature available only in version N and above may be used conditionally while the application still works on versions N-1 and under.

Case in point: Apple's Game Center is only available from iOS 4.2 (which excludes 1st generation iPod Touch and original iPhones), and is not available on iPhone 3G.

What if a game developer is OK with a 4.0 baseline, or even a 3.1 baseline so iPhone and Touch 1 users can still play, but he still wants users with compatible devices to have access to Game Center achievements and voice chat?

He conditionally enables the feature.

> If you don't want iPhone 3g users to use the app, they shouldn't be able to download it that that device in the first place etc.

Set UIRequiredDeviceCapabilities correctly and that's done for you. For instance, the 3G iPhone uses ARM v6 and only provides OpenGL ES 1.1. Require armv7 and opengles-2 and you've ensured your application will not be installable on 3G iPhones.

For an example of that, see Infinity Blade [0] which clearly states it is not compatible with the 3G (more precisely, it specifies that it's for 3GS and 4 in the "required configuration" section) and which will not install on a 3G.

[0] http://itunes.apple.com/fr/app/infinity-blade/id387428400?mt...
Buffett's point is that a projection prepared by a person wishing to sell his business, no matter what data went into the projection, will be inherently biased and is to be treated with skepticism. Buffett would much rather see said data himself. If he can understand it and the business, he'll make his own projections. If he can't, he certainly won't rely on the person with an interest in making the projection look good.
What would be affordable for you?
Right, if I remember properly when I downloaded it clearly said that the contents of iOS5 are confidential. That to me doesn't mean "blog it all over".
Hacker Arrest in Spain – Attacks Not Over For Sony
4(9μ + 16φ + 6Ω - 200) + 3Ω - 1 + 2(2Δ - μ) + 9(9β - 5Δ - 3Ω ) = 0

10(4β - 4Δ + 3Ω ) - Δ + μ + β - 3 - 8Ω + 11(5μ - 2Ω + 4φ) = 0

9(2Ω - 4Δ + 6φ) - 15Ω - 3(Ω + 1 - Δ) + 5(7μ + 5β - 13) = 0

10(2Ω - 600 + 5φ + 6β) + 3(β - μ) + φ + μ - 4(6Δ - 8μ + 5Ω ) = 0
Lots of talk about "books won't really go away". I'm reminded of the victrola my Grandmother kept until the day she died.

Except that books have a far, far, longer history than records/CD/magnetic disks as a physical, portable medium for instant-access.

There's no reason a dead-tree book can't also have an e-ink inside-cover that allows for full-index searching. Books have evolved but are unlikely to just go away, and the "flip pages with your finger" UI has proved immensely durable.

Also, what are we to make of all those kids buying vinyl? :)
Hackers Survival Guide
> This makes me wonder how many people ponied up the $99/yr. just to have access to the beta.

I think it's possible to install the beta without a dev account if you know a developer who's willing to provision your device.

But still, there's gotta be quite a few people with developer accounts who really should not have them. Every time a new beta arrives, the Apple developer forums are full of kids whining that their games don't work. (Not that the dev forums are much better at any other time...)
Say bye-bye to viruses buried deep in the OS
Well, does it have unwavering strategic, political, cultural, ideological interest to continue the relationship, whatever the government?

In contrast the surrounding allies always warn that the relationship or balance of power may change if the current government goes out of power. The state department may lose some hours of sleep when there is a change in power in Egypt or in Yemen, but does it have to when the same happens in Israel?
Welcome to Pyongyang
The Future of Inbound Marketing [infographic]
Winforms did not replace Win32 and WPF did not replace Winforms. That's the problem.
Is finding a way to turn dross into gold or purchase eternal life really science? Taoist alchemy may have been more philosophical in nature, but western alchemy was pretty goal oriented without much mindfulness about science as a higher level process. They weren't trying to understand how nature works, they were trying to enrich themselves. Very different.
There was a thread on Reddit that people were swapping access to the iOS beta, filled with people complaining about bugs, speed, etc.

These users weren't developers, were essentially pirating the software, didn't file bug reports and clearly just thought that it was something cool to get early and didn't understand the implications of it being a beta.
It is quite a leap to assume it runs break even. I know Apple's people like to say it does, but numbers can be manipuated and I trust Apple is smart enough to optimize over the years to give themselves a small but healthy profit.
It's not particularly complete...
So, is 30% too much of a cut when the platform offers:

- Credit card processing

- The largest marketplace with the most paying customers

- Download hosting

- Promotion

- Highly available document and key/value store infrastructure

- Keeping junk and malware out of the store, which maintains user trust.

I'd argue that, like most emotionally influence business decisions, Apple sticking with the same percentage is a good thing - witness how the markets vary when things are up in the air politically.

Keeping the same policies for a long time allows businesses to plan appropriately as they know what they're going to get, even if it's not ideal.
That's standard in the USA. In the UK it is not standard, however 4 weeks minimum paid vacation (and about 8 days paid public holidays) are standard. Different countries.
I like how you think, at http://londoncreativelabs.com we're starting to do some of that with our Social Startup Labs.

Check out http://londoncreativelabs.com/labs for the reports from a couple of prototype Social Startup Labs.
Do we still need the FSF, GNU and GPL?
Is that legal? Can restaurants legally include a serive charge?
When you are shopping, you want a trusted second party. E.g., Amazon.

While Wikipedia is cool, it still doesn't beat the enthusiast's homepage.

And Facebook has never had the personality of GeoCities.
“it’s not malware, it’s more like, like ... loatheware.”
In Haskell, you can represent a state machine and its current state using an iteratee:

http://www.yesodweb.com/blog/2010/09/enumerators-tutorial-pa...

An iteratee is essentially just a function that takes an input symbol and returns either a final state value or another iteratee.
"I'm tired of being responsible for someone elses paycheck."

I agree, I think mandatory tipping is absurd. I think people partially disassociate tip with their assessment of a restaurant's cost, so is a way for restaurants to appear cheaper. I think wait staff should perform to the best of their ability or be fired. I find it ridiculous to pay someone $1 to open a beer for me (ie. a bartender) or spend 30 seconds taking my order and then bringing my food out to me. Other times you are expected to tip maybe $1 for someone rigorously drying my car after a car wash. Seems disconnected. I hope technology helps offset this cost (automatic bartenders/ordering machines).

I'm also not sure why some restaurants have not tried to create a model of anti-tipping. I know many people that would like to go to a place that essentially says: "We pay our people well, if you feel that you have gotten a great experience, please tip by sharing us with your friends or donating to this charity."
A lot of the "classier" restaurants in my Canadian city, include a minimum 15% tip on the bill which is an interesting approach--Though it ravages the the funny after-meal banter I have when dining with my grandparents. "15% ARE THEY MAD?!!" Haha.
Chinese Spying Devices Installed on Hong Kong Cars
Looks like bashing Facebook leads to down votes, interesting.

But short run is not 100 years. And yes, Facebook will care from day one about QC, think data center and investors willing to burn money to foster old school technology.
Outlook?
Another example where you can clearly see the difference with high and low res right next to each other:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...
This seems counterintuitive.

Worse, it creates the results expected, reinforcing the bias, leading to more bad service because the worst suspicions have been "confirmed."

Now everyone is screwed.
I've usually viewed it like this: a service is best handled by the free market unless the benefits of having everyone use the same infrastructure exceed the inefficiency of government-run services.

Surveillance worries regarding things like this depress me. It should be possible to expect privacy from the government; that's how it works with the postal service and I don't see why Internet should be any different.
A Taxonomy of Socialization on the Internet
Actually, what Tim Cook said at the Apple's Financial Conference last quarter was that it runs "a little ahead of break even". Therefore, it is reasonable to say it runs at break even.

Even if you are cynical and assume a certain amount of money is moved from one department to another, he can't say something on the record like that, if it isn't basically the truth (these numbers are audited and are subject to Sarbanes–Oxley. So, even assuming a small amount of shifting money around between departments and his fudge factor "a little", I think you could at most say single digits, for example: 5% if you want (or whatever small % you choose), it is still close enough for normal conversation to say its break even.
I would argue that the gap is getting bigger.

Tablets, no-desktop households, webapps: all of these are key consumer devices. Speed, flexibility are key

Enterprises are stuck on the desktop workstations with local apps. Managability of the apps by IT is key.
Even if it costs 1.3 billion to run a year Apple's profit from quarter to quarter vastly dwarfs that. Sort of like how it used to cost microsoft to create their xbox platform. I think it is worth it.
War horse 2011 
War horse 2011 War horse 2011 War horse 2011 War horse 2011 War horse 2011 War horse 2011
Yeah good point, I guess I jumped from the variable not being there to the variable being nothing itself.
a) decent _readable_ (here's the focus.. I cannot, yet, read hebrew) maps. Google Maps is actually not that bad for that so far.

Open Data to the rescue! The folks at Wikipedia (I think) have made a map based on all the different languages. Here's Isreal with English names: http://toolserver.org/~osm/locale/en.html?zoom=8&lat=31....
Yes, developers are supposedly bound by an NDA on matters of beta iOS versions.

However, I do not know if that NDA has clauses about adding random third-party UDIDs (though developer accounts have been banned for that in the past), and in any case it does not bind those getting their UDID added who do not own developer accounts.
Gruber has some brilliant insight at times, and other times it feels like he's reaching. Gruber would never allow a writer to suggest that a beta/alpha/rc was something that could be critised as a full, ready-to-ship product. He should know Office is likely to be refined for Windows 8 and not jump to the same conclusions that he rightfully defends Apple for. When you jump to write an article, and then a poor rebuttal to your knee-jerk reaction, it feels like fear more than commentary.
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/06/12/i-like-my-odds
You place a lot of confidence in your colleagues to claim that any arbitrary ten of them will come up with quicksort :)
I found different answer:
beta = -134369656/464781 = -289.10316041318384
gamma or delta = 25151792561/19056021 = 1319.8869040394109
phi = 155732362/154927 = 1005.1983321177071
mu = 180458411/464781 = 388.2654648103085

I don't have courage to verify the solution for this abomination of numbers.
Let's say 300 million? That would still mean that iTunes costs a billiom to run for a year.

Saying that iTunes is run a bit over break even – which Apple did during their conference calls – while making something like 300 million is very likely illegal and not something Apple would do.
> There was a thread on Reddit that people were swapping access to the iOS beta

There have been numerous threads on that, starting as soon as iOS5 became available.

> These users weren't developers, were essentially pirating the software, didn't file bug reports and clearly just thought that it was something cool to get early and didn't understand the implications of it being a beta.

And those who pointed out these issues were generally mercilessly down-voted.
Agreed on all parts. I'm a Yelp Elite member and I have had to learn how to read the reviews with a certain... distrust?

Some people will always knock down any place, no matter how good the food is, on price alone. That 5-star french place? Terrible! They charged $8 for a side of something!

You learn who reviewing you can trust and who you can't. I've recently moved to Columbus Ohio and I've found that people here have no taste for Sushi. You could take some gum off your shoe, put it on some rice and they'd think it was good and exotic. Places that have solid 4-star reviews here for sushi taste worse than stuff I'd get from random Trader Joe's in Boston that had been sitting there for 2 days.

So it goes both ways. I generally look for things about the service (a big one to me, and something that this down just doesn't know anything about either it seems), plus a little about the food quality. I wish it was the other way, but generally except for the basic description of their varieties and pricing I can't trust the reviews.
the product/service will outshine the design if the idea is still conveyed (in a pretty fashion or not).
I think it depends on the sort of 10 colleagues.
Sounds like a cool idea. Thumbs up!
As the other commenters have noted, this is not nearly complete (it was rather disappointing in its completeness, in fact), and that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. It'd be a great learning exercise and if you could add a twist to them (visualization on a webpage, etc.), it would be even more helpful to others.
Google has the exact same problem. Surely one could borrow some of their insights. i.e. to detect 'retweet farms'. If all the spammers retweet each other, they'll still be on a PageRank of 1. No matter what you do, there'll be people who try to hack it. Twitter (and all organisations in this problem) can only keep trying to make things better.
The Wub Machine - turn any song into a dubstep remix
I think the LP analogy holds very well here: when LPs came out, having a large musical collection was a major point of pride for most people. Today it's an edge case. I'm guessing that will happen even with "collectible" books, although I do think it'll take a long time-at least one generation, probably two.
Flickr and meetup, or similar services. Sharing photos and organizing events are pretty much the only real uses for FB in any case.
Hivemind at its finest.
We use a variety of languages at HubSpot. We use PHP for most of our free grader.com tools.
Not mentioned in the article: sell your company to a competitor of the giant who's just realized one of their competitors has entered a new market place, and wants a way to catch up quickly...
Got a lot of comments on this. I'm not blown away by Apple's Notification Center, but I don't think this is the right solution at all.

This approach fails to distinguish itself from the existing elements of the OS. It crams more information than the current notification into an even smaller space. Fading the white-on-black text of the status bar into white-on-black notification text doesn't seem like good way to grab attention (and what about when it's not a black status bar?). How do I see what app sent the notification? The app icon takes up way less space than "Message from xxxxx" in the fully expanded notification example given. It's just too easy to miss, and takes away any ability to see what's up at-a-glance.

Tapping the status bar is also a sub-optimal interaction. The minimum-recommended size for iOS touch targets is ~40px (yes, Apple breaks this a lot), but the status bar is only 20px high. The chance of accidentally hitting a button in the current app while trying to view a notification goes through the roof with this approach.

The new banner notifications are a good mix of attention getting and unobtrusive content - I wouldn't want them bigger or smaller.

+1 for Notification count in the status bar though - I hope that makes it into the final version. I'd agree with the cloth background for the Notification Center, but it's the same background we've been used to for folders over the last year, just brighter to make it seem to float "above" the rest of the system.
Surging college costs price out middle class
In the web startup world (this is HN), earning a pedigree through an MBA is as relevant as having British aristocratic blood (that was deemed as an indicator of a higher pedigree at one point in time as well).

In this practical and hands-on world, no man is king because all men are potential kings (men = both men and women :-), the top pedigree are the highest achievers in their field of work (not grades).

Network: B-schools have virtually no presence in the start-up world, so I doubt they will be able to help you there. Fortune 1000 is another story. But if you’re a "ladder climber" then you’re on the wrong forum.

The 1982 comment refers to when all there was were F1000. Then your Stern degree would have landed you a meeting with Director of Finance at IBM.
Ruby is a Ghetto
Small businesses, crucial to growth, face challenges
There's another argument against municipal internet, but it's one that opponents REALLY don't want to state. Specifically, they're horrified by the very IDEA that data could be treated like a basic utility on par with gas, water, electricity, and trash service. That frames their business in the dreaded 'dumb pipe' terms that they are hell-bent on resisting at all costs. After all, you buy water and electricity by the unit. What you do with those units is your business, and has no influence on the price. That's pretty much the opposite of what "content focused" ISP's regard as their ideal operating environment.

This seems like sufficient motivation.

If the government successfully bans itself from providing municipal Internet access, does that then mean they could not (without additional legislative changes) stop a private company from offering city or state-wide free wireless access?
PRAJASAKTI TELUGU NEWS PAPER DAILY-లార్డ్స్‌ ఆనర్స్‌ బోర్డులో దిల్షాన్‌
One fix to this problem would be to prevent beta iOS versions from posting feeback at all.

Once they are out of beta the feedback feature can be turned back on.
forehead slap Thanks, I'll be fixing that.
The first thing I thought of when reading this was the following video: "Saul Bass: On Making Money vs Quality Work"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfDCNpaPBiA
US Is in Even Worse Shape Financially Than Greece: Gross
Knuth's books aren't only timeless, but they are beautifully typeset, printed, and bound. I don't feel like I'm missing anything special along these lines when reading an ebook novel, but I have yet to see the experience of reading a really nicely produced book on a digital reader.

Even if you had the TeX PDF output to read, it's not quite the same. Now maybe younger folks today are so used to reading things digitally that they won't care or notice the difference; I'm not sure.
I really think that you should buy your daughter Lego Mindstorms. It changed me and taught me how to actually think. For a child seeing what's in your head flipping over on the ground is pure magic.
Interesting analysis grasshopper. I have noticed though that you and many others assailing this idea offer no path or insight of your own to develop character. Just meaningless statements such as, "but that's not how it works in real life." SO wise one, please tell us how it works in "REAL LIFE".
Sluggish Hiring Seen as a Threat to Recovery
And for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, pictures?
Get real "insurance", just buy a catastrophic plan, ie high deductible. Pay for everything else with cash, ask for a discount because of it, you'll be amazed at how much drugs and doctors visits are discounted if you pay cash at the visit so they don't have to do the paperwork.
So, although waiting tables is - predictably - not a great job, nearly all waitstaff in the US will be making 7.25/h as you would expect from federal minimum wage? And contrary to what most people attempt to convince me?

Coming from a country with a culture of smaller tips and significantly less social pressure to give them, I usually say that I should not be forced to make up for the employer's false advertising when receiving only mediocre service. This now seems correct - not tipping wi make the employer pay the remainder, not force the waitstaff on to the streets. Right?
Lily Allen Facebook Attack. Mind where you click, she's a married woman..
Facebook Expected To File For $100 Billion IPO This Year
Fred Wilson on Content Shifting, Multiple Devices & Platforms Change Consumption