skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Since Speakeasy was bought by Best Buy and then shuffled off into MegaPath's maw, their customer service has gotten progressively worse. Qwest's customer service is OK as long as you're willing to learn the right magic phrases that they use. That's the hard part. On the flip side, their field techs have always been uniformly competent when I've dealt with them in spite of having to cope with the massive wad of bureaucracy that goes along with working for a huge telecom company.

DSL in general is slow in Seattle because the city hasn't spent much effort in upgrading its (or encouraging telecoms to upgrade their) old copper telecom infrastructure. When line lengths aren't just really long, they're often running over corroding 40 and 50 year-old copper. In about half the buildings I've lived in, the NID was still the very old nut-and-bolt screw down terminal style interfaces. 66 and 110 blocks? What are those?
My first reaction was also: This is sad. But then again. If you're doing something you love, you're (probably) doing the right thing. It might be an addiction but it's not necessarily ruining their health and lives like crack. But I admit, it IS rather difficult to understand the obsession.
How to Communicate with Investors. Tips for New CEOS
Well it was a couple years ago, but I do remember specifically that they didn't even call him. He actually realized there was no water before he discovered that his basement was damp and eventually figured it out. It could be that they knocked on his door, and; receiving no answer, assumed it was a leak.

Anyway this would be an easy question to answer if someone called a water utility and asked.
Step 1: Go to http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair

Step 2: Enter the captcha

Step 3: Type 11/696,104 as the "Application Number"

Step 4: Click the "Transaction History" tab

To summarize, the PTO issued a non-final rejection of the patent on 02/07/2009. IBM responded to that on 05/11/2009, which yielded a final rejection on 08/31/2009. IBM then requested to withdraw their response to the non-final rejection (the 05/11/2009 response). On 07/01/2010, IBM filed a new response to the 02/10/2009 non-final rejection, and the PTO issued its second final rejection on 09/13/2010.

IBM then made an amendment to their application, and requested a continued examination (read more about that at http://www.uspto.gov/patents/law/aipa/rcefaq.jsp). Then, they filed their appeal to the 09/13/2010 final rejection with the Board of Patent Appeals and Interference. The continued examination yielded the most recent non-final rejection, on 06/24/2011. IBM will likely respond in a few months, and there'll likely be another final rejection (the third) issued.

Now, it's still in the hands of the BPAI, which will likely affirm the rejection. After that, IBM can appeal the Board's ruling to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which will most likely side with the PTO.

It seems highly unlikely that IBM will be issued this patent, but if the final rejection is miraculously overturned, prosecution history estoppel will likely preclude IBM from doing anything meaningful with the patent, because as many of you have noted, there's plenty of prior art dated before April 2006.
I apologize for annoying you so much and do appreciate your comments! I have a couple comments: 1) We have to make sure our current five customers are happy before expanding to new customers. It's for that reason we're pulling back our sales.. not BSing and no sweaters (the product is built, and I do all the requirements and wire-frames). 2) I don't think we're being cheap on our compensation package but, as an enterprise software platform pre-series A, we're just not getting the buzz needed to attract talent more easily. Traditionally employee development and training is not the most exciting space for developers but that's exactly why it's a huge opportunity now as we introduce game and social mechanics. Again... appreciate the constructive comments and any additional thoughts.
I would love to hear why GWT wasn't used more. It seems to me that GWT is not widely used even at Google.
Bah, that's annoying! :) Thanks for the report. We'll look into getting that fixed soon.
So, are these the new numbers? I copied the numbers from the original and the new post:

haproxy direct: 6,000 requests per second
stunnel -> haproxy: 430 requests per second
(OLD) nginx (ssl) -> haproxy: 90 requests per second
nginx (AES256-SHA) -> haproxy: 1300 requests per second
nginx (AES256-SHA with keepalive 5 5;) -> haproxy: 4300 requests per second

Did other things change or is nginx more than twice as fast as the next best solution?
Neat project! I did something like this a few years ago to learn how to use NLTK with python (no longer running, but code/story is at http://www.github.com/qdot/fwiktr and http://www.nonpolynomial.com/2007/06/23/fwiktr-v01/), sometimes the more abstract results are the really interesting ones. :)

Also of interest, there was a music video made that used searches involving the song lyrics to create a dynamic music video:

http://www.avoision.com/experiments/astronaut/
He's talking about an extension that lets goroutines be preemptively killed, and their memory freed. The mechanism he discussed would make an end run around regular GC. My point is that it wouldn't play well with it.
Bummer! On a mac? What OS are you on? If you can give me some more info, I can try to resolve it.
But I know a lot of happy PuTTY Linux users.

Really? Who? Why? I cannot possibly think of any reason to use PuTTY in linux.
BTW: I just discovered that Airport Extreme is SNMP compatible so you can get the bandwidth passing over the wan port that way.

If you have a Mac always running on the network, you can try freeware app http://www.thotzy.com/THOTZY/Thotz/Entries/2008/10/26_Traffi...
A Sobering Look At Apple
I'm not sure whether they've loosened Google's "Death Grip," as much as they've separated garbage content from good content so the algo doesn't have to blacklist their entire site.
It's not particularly corny, and it's hard to disagree about not giving up in principle.

That said, human political systems can and do lead to sustained bad results. In my mind, 'things working themselves up' really means, 'someone finds and implements a solution'.

Meanwhile actual indie developers are as we speak, prevented from working on adding value to the economy because they are forced to spend their time and money dealing with trolls.
(yes, tried to be lighthearted and definitely missed the mark!)
He went over his usage, broke his eula etc. Comcast has the right to restrict him, perhaps by slowing his connecttion or charging overages. But seriously, "No net for you! 1 YEAR!"????

Who wrote that policy? Seinfeld?

That's damn ugly monopoly behavior that should be brought to the attention of the FCC.
Spring Security 3 – basic integration and access decision managers
The trolls could easily wipe out all indie developers without any problems, because they'd still have the large corporations to feed off.
What about the pleasure you get from playing a video game version of Chess? It just doesn't make sense to lump media as varied as video games, books and television into broad categories of pleasure. The content matters more than the medium.
That's standard practice for the mobile plans here in Chile. Such bandwidth for the first xxx Mb, 32kbps after that.
well the best way to do this would fix the current situation with patent reform...
I am interested in the details regarding how the AI was able to map the manual to the game controls.
Years ago, in college, my fraternity house used an "excessive" amount of electricity in one month. The power company told us that if we continued at that rate of usage, then they'd have to switch us to a business plan (for which, apparently, the per-kWh charge is higher).
Ask HN: Is videowatchr.com a victim of Google 'Panda'?
This is a follow-up to my previous post, since nobody answered :(
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2755866
I think this is the main issue I'm seeing in this discussion. I'd say yes, there are other options available. You use a lot of bandwidth? They have your roomies chip in and get a T1 or something higher. There are alternatives, but you have to consider the price.

Whether he wants to admit or not, there are tons of alternatives, he's just too cheap to lay down the cash to get what he needs. Besides telecom company options, there's always satellite as an option.
Taking RTFM to the next level. Yes.
Khan Academy Opensources It's iPad App Built Using jQuery Mobile
True. I was intending to draw a comparison to what kind of load balancing you can get on Linode for $19.95 if you were to do it yourself. I highly doubt it is possible to roll a superior load balancer service on your own for less than NodeBalancer.

I was recently trying to figure out how I was going to handle this on Linode. I am very glad to see this new service. If NodeBalancer has the ability to fail over to other data centers in the instance of a data center wide outage then I'll be set.
I still have no idea why you keep bringing up the finance industry - it brings no credibility to this discussion or your points, which seem reasonable enough. Even the "security people" taken collectively have no keen track record so why are we talking about them collectively, again? No big deal, I just don't get it. Shrug.
Presumably Amazon, Facebook and Google are using RC4 for speed reasons, though it's not really thought to be secure anymore.
Just because something is not a fundamental human right does not mean that it's not possible to have a monopoly over it. Monopolies are a problem, regardless of what they're providing.
The router I had at the time didn't have reporting, but my new one shows I've used almost 250 GB so far this month. I'd guess about half of that is bittorrent. Last month's 1TB was mostly BT.
Israel Passes Anti-Boycott Law: This Week in Online Tyranny
Why bother hacking AngelList? Isn't just as easy to email my pitch deck to people I know. Probably more effective too, since a reference from people I know is better than jumping in to a noisy group of startups, hoping someone will hear my pitch.
China Shut Down 1.3M Websites in 2010 [STUDY]
That algorithm seems super trivial. It's the only logical way to solve the problem, is it not?
I will give you $20,000 if you can create a viable competitor to Evernote in 3 weeks.

PS: there are some things called aspirations. I'm sorry I'm not jaded enough yet.
Both can be true. It really might be unprofitable to be an indie developer (after factoring in the risk and cost of litigation), while simultaneously being clearly 'time to lobby for intervention'.

Also, the risk/reward of lobbying for intervention may be vastly higher than is practical for people who would otherwise be indie developers, so in practice going to work for a large corporation might be the only way to spend your life writing software rather than being a patent reform activist.
Cyber Kool Tour: WEP cracker gets 18 years in jail
Thanks for the video link! I'll check it out. I admit to hearing a lot about Khan Academy but not having had much time to actually investigate what they offer...
The gamma function shows up in a number of common probability distributions. For example, there is the gamma distribution, which is useful for modeling how long it will be until some random-ish thing happens: how long until some machine fails, how long until some extreme weather event happens. (Or something like that; I'm at the far borders of my field of expertise here.)
fixed. Thanks for pointing out the error.
The issue isn't "word choice" it is tone and writing style.

Writing in leetspeek is equally objectionable, for instance, and people do downvote those who write that way on HN.

Explaining yourself and adding an original thought is contributing, but saying "This." is not contributing and degrades the quality of the post and HN in general.
now fixed. Thanks for pointing out the error.
As a note, this reply makes clear an assumption you made in your original post: That we have a trade deficit. I now understand.
Does that mean if the program read additional texts on Civilization strategy that it would get even better? How about texts that may be somewhat related but not specific to the game (combat strategy, world history?!...)
Amidst the constant stream of Google posts on HN, a couple of slightly critical posts from ex-Google employees must be bought and paid for? Hell, can you verify that half the posters on HN aren't Google employees submitting all the Google+ news coverage themselves? If you're going to be paranoid, you may as well be equally paranoid.
> It's not unlimited since it's (by your own account) 15/3. That's a limitation right there, identical to your 150 amp service. And you can not exceed that limit period (you won't even get close to it, really). No need for a breaker.

It is one form of limitation, but it is not the most relevant.

The point is that Comcast has to pay for the transfer of data in and out of their network. So they have two choices:

* Meter your data transfer and charge a base fee for available bandwidth (just like commercial usage)

* Throttle your bandwidth so that you cannot exceed a set monthly transfer amount

Do you really want either? I don't. Assuming you want the later option, here's the breakdown:

250 GB -> 2,000 Gb (gigabits)

There are 2,678,400 seconds in a month.

2,000 Gb per 2,678,400 seconds

Reduced is: 0.0007467145 Gb per 1 second

Multiply by a factor of 1,048,576 (kilobits in a gigabit) and you get: 782.9868578256 kbps

To cap you at 250 GB per month (which their model is built around), you'd end up with an internet connection that is roughly the speed of an entry-level DSL connection (768 kbps DSL).

Does that make any sense to anyone? You can't simply wash away the cost of transferring the data in and out of their network with some government mandate.

The other option is to pay for metered bandwidth. This means the additional overhead of metering each customer, as well as the additional billing infrastructure. Not an impossible problem, but it's a lot of data to track, and the overhead is undeniable, so you'll end up getting more for less.

OR!

We could all cooperate and agree that there is a "typical" consumer use case with a soft ceiling of 250 GB of transfer per month. If can't operate within that ceiling, you should look in to a business-class connection where the pricing models fit your needs better.
Blog design for SEO
If you've already read Boxcar Children when you're 12, Hardy Boys when you're 14, do you really need to be reading Harry Potter when you're 30?
I found both posts informative, and yet I'm with cbetz on this one. The issue isn't whether Matt's first post was informative but is instead whether it was fair|wise|necessary to say "Nginx sucks at SSL" instead of, say, "My initial testing, which needs to be investigated further, is showing Nginx SSL performance lower than other alternatives." The first headline is more likely to grab folks' attention, which is probably why Matt chose that headline. It is probably that choice that cbetz finds objectionable, and if so, I agree with him.
It's Time to End the War on Salt (SciAm)
After reading through the articles I've seen so far on this, and looking at the information provided I still do not believe that Google will have to worry about the patents in the Nortel package as much as some are saying. People seem to be forgetting that Google’s Android is software, and the bulk of the Nortel package is hardware related. I'm thinking that Android handset manufacturers have more to worry about considering the types of technologies that are being represented in the Nortel package.

That said, as a group they could severely hinder continued success for Microsoft, one of the top spenders from the consortium, which also requires their handsets to continue to sell its Win7 phones. If the total cost of patent royalty cost gets too high they could simply stop supplying Microsoft with phones to put its OS onto.

If I was a handset manufacturer I’d side with Google simply based on the numbers. Samsung and Motorola have fairly large stakes in the continued success of Android handsets with LG and HTC not far behind.

On a side note how many people have realized that Nortel seems to have just made a bunch of money? I’m basing my numbers on loose numbers that I’ve seen so correct me if I’m wrong, but Nortel was $5.8bln in debt, raise $2.8bln in previous asset sales, and now just made another $4.5bln. That looks to me like a $1.5bln they gain after recouping their debt.
I can handle a marketing challenge. My Immediate market is not the most progressive when it comes to technology so most folks around here have no idea what Google TV is. Thanks for the feedback :)
Seems like incorporating your company outside the US sidesteps a good portion of this danger. The more articles I read, the more appealing this is to me, were I ever to go into business for myself.
> Clearly the moral of the story is: "Don't claim that
> X sucks unless you are are damn sure".

More like: "If you say something that upsets people, they will spend a lot of time and effort to display their ignorance in an effort to prove you wrong -- as if you had insulted their very being -- even though you just made and honest mistake." I read the original article, and I didn't see it as an attack on Nginx, or Nginx's SSL support. He ran some benchmarks and said, "Wow, those numbers suck."

> Don't expect to people be nice if you are wrong.

I read the HN comments here and on the original post, and I don't remember anyone saying anything about cyphers. The people that were 'not nice' were also wrong. Would that excuse the author of the post, from turning around and being 'not nice' to those people because they are wrong?
If you log into the Comcast Website and go to "Users & Settings" you should see "High-Speed Internet Data Usage" next to the sidebar.
Java 7: try-with-resources explained
Every comment you've made has a link to your startup in it. There's a difference between self promotion and spam.
This article raises a lot of interesting, disquieting thoughts about the Valley and its startup/VC culture. But change isn't going to come from within, because there is no present incentive for change. Why should VCs stop pushing for quick acquisitions and exits, when they're making damned good money on those exits? Why should founders want to stray from the prevailing model, when the prevailing model minimizes their risk and increases their chances of big paydays (not to mention repeat performances)? In a lot of ways, today's system seems to be working remarkably well for its participants on both sides of the equation. Arguably better than previous iterations of Valley culture and systems have.

It seems reasonable to hypothesize that the system is designed to reward its participants, and perhaps even at the expense of users or the "greater good" -- however narrowly or broadly we want to define that term. But this is just a hypothesis until we can substantiate it. Are there other regions, within and without the US, breaking SV's stranglehold on game-changing innovation? Has a competitive innovation-generating model arisen to challenge, if not shake up, the SV model? It's almost impossible to measure the success of SV's "greater good" on absolute terms, and as such, we must search for relativistic points of comparison. Measuring SV today versus What SV Could Be is fruitless without a tangible example of the latter, or else a prescriptive model of some sort.
That's amazing. I can't believe the algorithm was so simple!
>One of us is misremembering. I seem to recall an interview with Gates and/or Ballmer where they talked about the realization that the cost of 5 or 6 floppies at wholesale was insignificant ... I'd feel better if his history was right.

Sure, the cost of delivering a single copy of software to a given customer was relatively inexpensive. But Craig is talking about how, in the absence of the internet or other easy customer acquisition and distribution methods, the way you used to get your software to customers was by making thousands of physical copies, boxing them up in a nice shiny box with manuals, and have computer software and electronics stores display your software on their physical store shelves. And that's quite a bite of money to have tied up in inventory even though a single piece of media itself was relatively inexpensive.
> "My initial testing, which needs to be investigated
> further, is showing Nginx SSL performance lower than
> other alternatives."

You keep using that word ('headline'), but I do not think it means what you think it means.
You don't need a large amount of resources & cash to follow this style of parenting/teaching. The main point is spending the time, listening & follow your child's lead.

Too often as adults we take over, we are too quick to step in, solve problems, "help" & rescue. Playing dumb can be the smartest thing to do sometimes.
I have similar article quality concerns...

Even magnetic tape reels were not that expensive..I seem to remember that RMS earning half of his expenses just from revenues of supply code by magnetic tape alone.
I really think that what Facebook and Google has been doing with ads is nothing short of amazing. I find a lot of products and services that are so tailored to what I desire and want. When I am on Facebook, I am eager to find out what kind of ads are targeting my indexed information. It allows me to run into things I never would have actively seen on the internet.
Talk about first world problems. This guy is acting like his access to water was denied because he can't stream movies or use Dropbox.

I lived without internet for a year. I was fine. Nobody shunned me from society and I didn't lose the ability to make money. For a while i'd walk over to Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts if I needed an hour of 'net access. When I had to do some interviews from home I went and got a month of Virgin Mobile 3g data for $40.

I do believe everyone should have the right to use the internet, since as a communication tool it's more ubiquitous than the telephone and some things like government services require online registration (ex. vehicle inspection at the DMV where I live requires an online-only form). I also believe the poor should get free access, and maybe some day free 'loaned OLPC netbooks.

However, he's going about explaining why being banned from the internet is wrong in entirely the wrong way. His defense is basically "I should have the right to be entertained and use free services that there are offline alternatives of!!" If I were an ISP i'd want to ban a guy who uploaded 3 copies of the same song and RAW images too.
"CVS should be enough for everyone" ;)
Bringing light to the poor, one liter at a time
[empathy] is the number one trait I manage for. With empathy, all other problems can be solved

You win. I've stumbled across a handy mental model (in which empathy plays a pivotal role) through research on mindfulness, emotion, and neuroscience, as well as in an emotional intelligence course taught at Google by Chade-Meng Tan. In short:

Bodily awareness -> emotional self-awareness -> emotional other-awareness (empathy) -> effective communication -> healthy relationships -> happiness.

It turns out that your brain uses the same machinery to model your own emotional state as that which it uses to model the emotional states of others, so the better you are at identifying your own emotional states, the better you will be at identifying them in others, which will allow you to communicate more effectively and so forth.

Also relevant: Asana's Jack Stahl touches on the importance of empathy in a post post about peer feedback at work: http://asana.com/2011/06/peer-feedback-at-asana/
Any sensible income tax law will allow you to offset losses against gains. Otherwise it's just a revenue or cashflow tax, not an income tax.
Netflix on Chrome OS is a Pepper Plugin (PPAPI), in dev channel
Correct, disagreeing with you implies trolling. You are one astute dude, Tom. Keep up the good work!