skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: What is the most hacker-friendly bank?
Guys,

For awhile now, I've been crafting some software at home to keep track of my family's spending. I've tried Mint, Quicken, etc in the past, and none of them do it in exactly the way I'd like. They're either unreliable in connecting to my bank (Mint) or have an unfriendly user interface (Quicken). Personally, I'm after daily spending reports which are emailed out, a database of past transactions I can query easily, etc, etc.

Problem is, my current bank makes it a bit difficult to do this reliably. I manage to get my transactions today using Sikuli to log in to the account and download an OFX file, which is great. However, the OFX file itself often truncates the description of the transaction in such a way that you can't even tell who the money was paid to. It's pretty random in this way...for some vendors it prepends their address in the transaction description, for others, all it puts is their address. This may be the fault of the debit card/credit card processors themselves, not sure. Regardless, it is frustrating.

Plus, it shouldn't have to be this way. I'd really like to have a bank which:
- Provides some sort of API to get access to transactions, or at least makes it very easy to download transactions in an automated fashion
- Reliably marks transactions which go to a particular vendor

Any of you know a bank that does this, or does similar things to make a hacker's life easier?

Thanks in advance.
I shouldn't be surprised, but my knowledge of the ruby world seems to be about two years out of date. I suppose any remaining additional memory usage is probably due to inheriting space/speed tradeoffs straight from upstream hotspot.

It's great to hear that the startup time has improved so much.
Common knowledge but I like it :)
Steve Jobs describes iCloud experience at WWDC 1997
Meaning, perhaps, but transcendent meaning? Maybe only in one's own mind.
Apparently Twitter now has 100+ Million tweets per DAY.

So you caught about 2 days worth but randomly in time.
Of getting you into the narrative, interested enough to wonder – "what led to the cold war?" or things like that. I haven't seen the video, I've only read the article, and from what the author writes... it seems he goes directly into events without building / contextualising too much. But events are interesting (like the space race) to children, and they will probably be more interested once they've got a timeline of a few anecdotes, than if they started with a dense lesson for each topic.

I see it as investigative learning: you get some facts, a few events, a few ideas... and you're curious. You want to get more knowledge or discover the truth behind something, then you try to fill those gaps with evidence (in this case, with more historical facts?).

I wouldn't dismiss Khan just because he doesn't go into detail with aspects. For example, the holocaust... it that the only thing that we remember from the WW2? In fact, Allies and Russia did not go to war because of the holocaust, so why is it so important that he mentions it? Is everything else so "not" important in WW2? If I were giving an account of it, I would even be praising Germany's technological advancements as a nation and comparing them to their contemporaries.
If the Khan Academy were the final station in someone's education, as the author silently presumes, that would be bad. It's simplified and sometimes wrong as the article points out (though no educating institution gets everything right) .

If on the other hand Khan Academy were the FIRST station in education: igniting passion for a subject - as it does for some people in math and economy - inspiring people to explore further and read more about it, mending the damage done by our institutional education!

Than that would be a great achievement regardless of the mistakes, simplicities and even the ideological leaning.
Couldn't you also say that its impossible to condense calculus into 10 minute chunks because you have to understand Algebra first? All learning requires context, but that doesn't have anything to do with whether can break it up into courses, books, chapters, lectures, or 10 minute chunks.
That's getting close to paranoia. EU law is enough to keep you safe, and Facebook follows such law, here's what they have to say https://www.facebook.com/policy.php
Next, WoW gold.
C++0x has type inference via the "auto" keyword: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B0x#Type_inference

It is available in compilers today -- for example, Visual C++ 2010 supports "auto".
Fundamentals? Mostly yes. As much as web design "degrees" force their students to know? Mostly no.

I say the latter because a huge majority of teaching materials that attempt to cover the web are basically just fluffed up materials for print designers with HTML and CSS tossed into the mix.
At the moment it's mostly pyramid scheme. While useful, it's clear Bitcoin's value has become disconnected from it's utility as a currency.

Perhaps a more interesting question, can a new global/digital currency gain widespread adoption without massive deflation? Bitcoin has deflationary features, but the recent increase in values is mostly just a lot of people pouring into the currency. How can a distributed cryptographic currency be designed to get around this problem?
I don't see why not; it's the goto place for open source code nowadays, no matter how larger or small the project may be.
Even if history is presented as a perspective, why choose Khans perspective? Why not choose another perspective?

You missed the bigger picture of the article, which is that a single entity never should control re-telling of events. There should not be one perspective. One person, one entity, can not provide different perspectives, due to echo chamber effects and such, it is almost impossible.
I don't think WebGL is meant to be a serious alternative to PC or console gaming.

It has a very good chance of replacing casual Flash games, however.
I think it was a combination of things. One, the timing was nice because JavaScript was getting more and more attention as its engines were starting to seriously compete for speed. Two, I think the fact that it was JavaScript on the server really helped get it a lot of buzz as it was somewhat "controversial". "Controversial" because I can't think of another language whose users are so split between liking and hating it. Having it invade the server meant a lot of people's blood began to boil as they thought of having to potentially deal with it outside the browser, and a lot of other people who were excited about being able to use it outside the browser. Either way, the combination of love and hate gathered a lot of talk and attention in my opinion.

Now to contrast this with python: I personally have never heard of Twisted before all the talk of Node came about. Mind you, I'm not a python developer and if someone's blog title doesn't grab my attention by having some connection to me, or what I do, I'll probably just skip over it.
What makes software great (and what doesn't)
Perhaps you could enlighten us with an article about how to live a flawless life, as you appear to have it figured out.
> Noted he's a philanthropist
...
> There's nothing noble here

shrug
It seems a bit strange that Mr Clemens [1] who is a English teacher that teaches online courses is commenting on issues concerning online teaching in history. Regardless he does bring up some very valid points that have plagued history scholars for centuries, but offers no real solution. I suppose the title "The Dangerous Mr. Kahn" that suggests that Mr. Kahn is dangerous to history education is a bit too sensationalist to suggest that he is any more dangerous than today's media, school teachers, disagreeing historians, and countless other attempts to present historical information in a categorical way. Everything is up to interpretation.

My interpretation of his overall point is that "no one person should control the messages of history". There is definitely some work to be done by Mr. Kahn in this regard and given his very open mind I don't doubt he already has considered this.

[1]- http://www.mpcfaculty.net/david_clemens/default.htm
Engadget to Change Name to AOL Tech Guru?
Is AOL about to change the popular tech site Engadget into the AOL Tech Guru? Based on domain purchases today, it looks like there is a new AOL Tech Guru 'in the house' (coming soon).
Twitter changed their ToS to explicitly disallow distributing twitter dumps like this: http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/the-end-of-twapperkeep...

I was a part of the webecology project (and 140kit.com, both of which gave large twitter datasets to researchers.
You'll end up "fixing" the same thing more than once. Not very DRY.
@ck2 --- correct.
Annually my train season ticket costs just over half what my mortgage costs! And I'm talking repayment not endowment here. So while public transport may be convenient, it's certainly not cheap here in England.
There was a post here a while back that showed one of the anti-virus s/w companies investing in UX and re-designing their UI, support load dropped 30-90%.

In my own application I've had problems with users not understanding the meaning of things and what steps to perform.

I design to solve my own problems mostly but do keep the novice in mind, but even so its difficult with reaching some type of a balance between the levels.

Screenshots...

http://www.devside.net/images/screenshots/large/local-dns-re...

http://www.devside.net/images/screenshots/large/webapps-inst...

http://www.devside.net/images/screenshots/large/websites-add...
Photos : Multiple solutions exist to do n-way photo and video sync although it is highly debatable how useful anything other than Mobile to Cloud and Cloud to Mobile is which Android does out of box.

Picasa photos and videos automatically appear in gallery and there is no limit to the number of photos.

http://developer.android.com/guide/topics/data/backup.html - Backup can include anything including app data and it doesn't have to go to Google's cloud - the backup client component is designed to be customizable to send your backup data wherever you please. Best part of all!

Google Docs - Again multiple solutions exist. Documents to Go full edition offers seamless Google Docs support with decent editing functions. There exist Word/Excel add-ins that save to Google Docs from desktop.
An ethical bargain
The 90 minute Scheme to C compiler
Probably BankSimple, but it hasn't launched yet. https://banksimple.com/
Time To Plan Your Virgin Islands Winter Getaway - Memphis Travel | Examiner.com
Thanks for the link to "Cornell notes".

I don't think we should assume that learner has any responsibility in educational process - at least not when talking about kids. Keep in mind that from their perspective it looks more like them being locked up in classroom against his will, and it's only up to school to try not to kill his interest in the world around him.

I agree that if a learner cares enough to actually think about what was told on the lecture - to come up with his own understanding, to summarize on his own, etc. he will benefit greatly. One can't really understand anything without doing some mental work on his own.

If we talk about mature learners, than yes - they have a big responsibility in the educational process and they take it (sometimes in spite, not because of their tutor). But still, we can help them by conveying our ideas well. And it is especially important when dealing with children, as they don't give a damn about anything until proven interesting. It's actually quite understandable. Because, well, why should they care?
CBS News: Is Bitcoin the Future of Money?
Exactly: NAS "opposes multiculturalism and affirmative action and seeks to counter what it considers a 'liberal bias' in academia"

Quotes from this article:

"Mr. Khan stands exposed as possessing a historical perspective steeped in academia’s standard issue, postmodern, left-leaning narrative of cultural relativism, multiculturalism, and moral equivalence"

"A MoveOn.org liberal,..."

This article can be safely ignored, including the author's other article about how "Online education should serve as a home for orphaned liberal arts and "boutique" courses."

There are actually more substantive and constructive criticisms of the Khan Academy out there. But ultimately, we should make sure we don't ignore the great parts of it, either. After all, one guy recording screencasts and sharing them on youtube has helped millions of students now with understanding and doing math and other topics. With no budget and no formal training.

Imagine if we had 1000 or 10,000 Salman Khan's teaching the public online, with perhaps a little more pedagogical content knowledge (http://www.tpck.org/tpck/index.php?title=Pedagogical_Content... ), and using other tools in addition to just video (simulations, assessments, etc.).
Ask HN: Can't iTunes Match be used to actually "pirate" content?
Since iTunes Match will be sending to Apple server the fingerprints of the songs on one's computer, could one not, theoretically, fake iTunes into believing that an audio file with a given fingerprint actually exists on your computer?

This attack vector was used by Dropship to transfer files across Dropbox accounts (Ref: http://razorfast.com/2011/04/25/dropbox-attempts-to-kill-open-source-project/), but the implications were minor since, from a security perspective, the attack was on a fellow user. Here the attack is on the iTunes system as a whole, and enables you to download songs that you have not purchased and have not ripped or downloaded.

I can already imagine networks popping up where people share their audio fingerprints.
But the Marina is the best part of San Francisco!
That makes sense in a world where losing billions of dollars of revenue is preferable to adding an API.

The EU has a population of over 500 million. Apple's presence in Europe involves much more than selling computers and gadgets.

If they actually were to retreat because of some squabble with the EU Commission, they'd also be abandoning dozens of telecom operators with whom they have iPhone deals, tens of thousands of developers who make things for the iOS and Mac platform, and millions of consumers who buy digital content from iTunes... Leaving all that on the table in this extremely competitive market would be nothing short of madness.
I agree - I think it's super important. It also helps you be more creative as you have more tools for 'seeing'.
MS SkyDrive vs Apple iCloud
A video of the presentation and the source code can be found at:

http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~boucherd/mslug/meetings/2004102...
I just watched some chart on bitcoincharts.com and considering what happened in june price-wise i'd suggest you to convert them in $ ASAP :) (lot of suggestions on alternative channels here).

Regarding the startup, money is not an issue, why not go back to your country for a while and then come back to the US opening your startup with an e-2 visa ($50000 minimum investment and if you want you can also be an employee somewhere else, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-2_visa) (IANAL)?

I read something about this visa somewhere, if it really works as it seems it could be perfect for you. The immigration layer someone else recommended should be able to assist with this.
Good luck, btw.

(Quite funny that nearly everyone is posting his bitcoin address, guys, it's time to buy some GPUs :D) (or ... what come next in bitcoin mining? memristors?)
While I think that the criticisms in this piece were misplaced, its very possible that there are better free history resources out there. I've very much enjoyed the History According to Bob podcast series, for instance, but those would probably be too in depth for teaching kids, except the overview episodes.
http://www.summahistorica.com/index.htm
What you need to know about iTunes Match: your questions answered
What problems or repetitive tasks do you face on a day to day basis? Odds are others do too. Find a way to mitigate or address these challenges in a simple web friendly fashion. Evaluate the market to ensure your not getting into an overly addressed problem/task. There are so many things working against you when you clone or mimic a site. Take the easier road and contribute something new.

It sounds elementary and glamor free but it is a proven methodology.
Yet the stated goal of history is not to in any way attempt re-telling of The Great Truth© .

The goal is not to determine what is objective fact. There is no such thing, not even in natural sciences such as physics. Dont forget that.
Ooh, looking forward to your backyard becoming an enormous donut-shaped construction site?
In part, too many restrooms. They have twice as many as they need as they original built segregated rooms for blacks and whites.

http://www.snopes.com/military/pentagonbathrooms.asp
Blocking off 4 /16 networks that were triggering a (self-induced) attack from 10s of thousands of devices sounds pretty distributed to me.

(I work at Bump and fought these very Zombies.)
New York City startups to keep an eye on
I follow the needs of an industry. If you understand an industry, you can feel which direction to take it. I've never understood how or why people would use any other method.
How many brick and mortar history teachers are doing a far worse job than Khan? Probably a lot.

Ok, so the content can be tightened up, but that's not why Bill Gates is excited here. Take the Khan concept, pick the worlds finest educators in respective fields, build the content, and distribute. That's the game changer here.
Epic Games Database Hacked by Contra
I apologize, I probably should have been more clear about this point.
I do not at all believe that I am in any way entitled to things for free. I myself am in computer science and contributed to OSS and get annoyed by people frequently thinking that software/services have no value just because they are getting used to having things for free.

That being said, I did consider that there are many (more or less successful) business models centered around services that are (partially) free for end-users (e.g. social networks, email, ...). I have not yet founded any startup myself, so I don't want to lean myself out of the window and claim that something like that would be successful for business this.

We (the group of people wanting to conduct the polls) are students. It's not like there wouldn't be a budget for something like this; but a lot of the good services have high per-poll or monthly rates.

So my question was not why someone isn't doing a lot of work to provide me with a quality service, but more: Why isn't there anything between [free + basically broken] and [amazing + highly priced].
Why is there nothing in between? Is there no market for a middle segment? This I believe to be a valid question.
I'm curious why you wouldn't just buy a small SSD (i.e. 40GB) and put it in the mini yourself?
The "distributed" part can simply reference the number of systems involved, it doesn't have to span networks all over the world.
Different people forking it for their own preferences is one thing, but not having a canonical resource for the project is -- well, like I said, disconcerting. But maybe it's just me.

Don't mean for this minor nitpick to overshadow the rest of the work you guys have put into this, by the way. It's good stuff.
Why you need fresh pair of eyes in usability design: on 'Vuja de'
Both of which are... pretty terrible.
It's almost embarrassing to watch... the City Council's questions to Steve Jobs.

Q: Can we, like, get some freebies such as free wifi?
There's also one choice moment before this point where a developer is asking what Apple can do about getting beat up in the press and the stockmarket.

For emphasis, in December of 1997 AAPL hit an 11-year low of $3.53 (split adjusted). Today, mainstream media eats out of Steve Jobs' hand and their stock price is, as I type this, $332.
Do you think it makes sense with the mobile architecture to have an application store its current state? This is obviously a more general question regarding mobile application architecture. This would specifically to be handle broadcast listeners performing conflicting actions.
Most likely so. But that $25 or so per year is most likely not going to Apple but being split by the record labels. Others have pointed out this is kind of a piracy amnesty. The average person just isn't going to go nuts pirating music to get some sort of deal. Those aren't the kind of people buying iDevices. Besides which, don't people have to upload the music for the scan? Broadband uploads speeds are crap, again whittling away whatever incentive people might have to load up on stolen music.
That would work for some stuff, but I'm not sure what would happen to the data stored by third-party apps. iTunes has a section to retrieve documents that some apps create, as long as the apps themselves are built to take advantage of that.

However, if an app doesn't provide either that or some kind of export, I'm not sure if you'd get easy access to that data. And actually that might create an incentive for some apps not to add the functionality. It makes sense for Office-type apps to provide a PDF, or Office-compatible format, but I could imagine very specific apps that can lock you in since you don't get to (easily) reverse-engineer and convert their data because you don't get as easy of an access as you get on a desktop.