skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Damn, just realised I made a typo there:

... a specialist is someone who knows more and more about
less and less until eventually they know everything about
nothing, whereas as generalist is someone who knows less
and less about more and more until eventually they know
nothing about everything.

That's what I meant to say. Sorry for any confusion.
Please tell me this is a troll. I mean, I've seen some pretty incompetent people doing jobs they're not cut out for before, but I really want to believe this level of incompetence can't actually find jobs.
I'm more disappointed with airbnb screwing this up than that there are bad people using the site. They should have dropped everything to fix this.

I wonder what pg thinks about this.
I would include a pattern matching line:

$date = "2011-07-29";

$list($year, $month, $day) = explode("-", $date);

With whatever is cooler than a date, or with the company's creation date.
This is huge for them, and also explains why they chose to stop bidding on the Nortel patents. This gives them big leverage against Oracle, who probably violate quite some patents with their hardware and also database business now, so cross licensing becomes possible. Same for Apple. IBM is happy to give some weapons to the Google "underdog" so that the "small" companies are busy fighting amongst themselves, while they themselves can't lose much.

As others have noted, the patent system still sucks. But it is nice to see someone score a point who doesn't abuse it for maximum monetary gain and market share protection (hello Oracle, Apple).
Call me an optimist, but I don't see it happening with Larry in charge. Sure, they'll countersue Apple/Oracle/whoever, but I honestly don't see a Larry-run Google attacking competitors with patents outside of countersuits.
Those object oriented programming and relational database ones perhaps.
If this is real, I'll be stunned if the auditor keeps his job.

Then again, after working at startups my whole career, maybe I'm just naive about how messed up the real world is.
I can't help but feel there is some kind of social experiment going on here.

I mean I know there are a lot of incompetent people out there, but a security auditor asking for a list of plaintext passwords is not something that should take more than an email or two to resolve even in Bizarro world. "Techies" exhibiting this kind of willful ignorance are usually a bit better and hiding under their rock.
They must have totally messed this up for her to write a rebuttal post like that. This post absolutely torn apart all positive points from Chesky's response. I just still can't believe airbnb didnt see this coming, and stomp on the problem as hard as they can to get EJ on their side. If everything she said is true here, airbnb truly screwed up and deserve the negative PR coming their way.

Isn't this why you give up equity to have advisers on your team? Shouldn't they have predicted this?
I wish I could be saying I believe he was being tested by the auditor, but it's just gross incompetence...
Keep in mind I said "McChicken", not "McNuggets". It's a sandwich with mayo and lettuce. But I'm sure it's similarly "bad" for me.
Coach Shoulder Bags
About 1: exponentiating numbers follows a very simple formula, with well defined inputs and outputs (and we knew how to do it centuries before the first computer ever came to light). Nobody knows the formula to drive a car (if such a thing even makes sense). Same for most tasks which fall into AI.
I don't know what they're smoking over there, honestly. Cut off all contact through their CS to the victim, and then have a cofounder want to "meet them for coffee"? After asking her to take down the blog or give it a positive-twist ending?

I don't know what they're expecting but I'm hard-pressed to think of what they could do worse, short of joking about it on twitter.

Edit: Holy god, I didn't realize the actual timeframe of this was five weeks. AirBnB is going to have to crucify someone for a "bad judgement call" in terms of the sudden Customer Service cutoff if they want to have any positive spin coming off of this, I think.

Also, props to this brave lady for the point-by-point shutdown of their PR statement. I don't know many people who would have the guts to stand up to a company, especially after what she's been through, both from the original incident and AirBnB's response after her initial blog post.
Worth noting that, despite recent large valuations and funding rounds, the founders of Airbnb are still driving their baby and have a massive emotional attachment to it. (As do all business owners.)

This is their first significant black eye (the Craigslist stuff was far more limited in its audience reach), and has the potential to derail a company that's only 2 years old. Of course they're going to be responding emotionally, and unfortunately that means perhaps doing too much or doing the wrong thing (like suggesting to meet for coffee without asking how EJ is coping).

Now, that emotional involvement with the business is considerably less than the emotion of coming home to discover your house has been ransacked, so I'm not trying to compare. I'm just observing that Airbnb's response (for better or worse) is not devoid of emotional triggers either. I do hope EJ is receiving the support she needs and am sure she will get through this. I similarly hope the ongoing support the Airbnb founders are receiving recognises the feelings element of running a large business through the prism of their emotional attachment.
He'd be a good actor, because he clearly doesn't know what PCI compliance is. He mentions PCI should be installed.
I'm starting to get the feeling that the Airbnb founders will do "whatever" it takes, to see their business succeed.
Tell Google to get #*$^& - it will give you kittens
I'm curious to hear if PG even knew about this before it blew up.
Logo design - Trend vs Time
There were attempts to use L4 and several other micro kernels like Coyotos and Viengoos, but as far as I know all of them stalled and the Mach variant has been the only one to be continued to present day.
JQuery performance tips
Acquaintances have said they'd probably not use Airbnb for fear of problems like this. After this incident and Airbnb's response, they will never even consider it. And they will tell all their acquaintances, etc, etc.. Airbnb's Achilles' heel is the deep-rooted fear of someone fucking up home. That they did not patch this with a good backup-plan should be a warning to investors.
Agree to disagree - I'm content with that. In my opinion sometimes TC actually adds something, but this time it really doesn't.
Damnit, I just posted about that. That'll teach me for not reading through all the comments. So many comments.
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Clients in Your Car - Keep Your Wits About You
I donwvoted you. I don't see how what you write is relevant. Everybody is emotionally attached to their startups, including me, so?
This is really crappy and airbnb fucked up big time, twice now.

But... there's something odd about the way the victim writes, and I don't understand why it's jumping out at me:

"bouncing between friends’ homes".. "clutching my pillow".. "breathing through panic attacks".. "scouring the city’s pawn shops".. "this too shall pass and I will be made whole again."
I was the main anti-AirBnB poster last time around...but..

I gotta say, something about all this now seems like it's a set up for a big fat lawsuit. I've never been violated this way (or anything close to it), so maybe I'm being insensitive, but this is crossing into whining territory to me.

If you want to complain about a _really_ bad experience, a lack of customer support, and insensitive and money-focused founders, that's fine. But I don't really need to hear about your pillow-clutching and fading normalcy.
Thank you. It's so rare nowadays to find someone willing to give perfectly honest feedback, like "your posture sucks, and you look sleepy". I didn't realize hair quality might be linked to nutrition. Also, I appreciate how much work you put into your reply.

Do you have any thoughts on using Crystal Light to make water taste less terrible?

Someday, when I have more than $1k of savings, I hope to live in a nice rental house with a garden in the back. What all foods do you grow?

As they say: cheers!
Exactly.

Based on EJ's description of AirBnB customer service, and the 2,000,000 bookings the founders cited earlier today, we'd be fools to think this was the first time someone broke the law using AirBnB -- I'm guessing the others just gave up on support after being ignored, and focused on talking to the police.

The real black eye here is the kind of support EJ received before she wrote her blog post -- most people can't write that well and don't have readers who will submit the story to HN.
This time her blog title is direct and to the point, and mentions Airbnb by name. It seems she's learning some SEO tactics during the course of this ordeal. Personally I'm glad as it seems obvious this story didn't deserve to be mostly unnoticed for most of a month after the first blog post went up.
My favourite features in Windows Phone Mango
Just downloaded and installed the Windows Phone 7 Mango Build (7712) for Developers and the Windows Phone 7 Mango really looks good.
When "I have been in this industry longer than anyone on that site" is a cornerstone of your defence, you've already lost. Also, I know the UK has really strict laws, but I doubt he'd be able to sue for "liable".
Well, if it's fraudulent that's one thing. But if the story is entirely true, then who really gives a fuck what you need to hear?
She is just trying to convey her emotions. I think her style is appropriate for the situation.
>>Once our host’s safety was secured, our attention moved to further strengthening our system.

In the context of this article, this sentence from their PR statement takes on a new and depressing overtone-- that of "Okay, we think the guy is arrested, so you're fine, right? We don't need to pay attention to you anymore, right? By the way, can you take down that blog post now?"
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I've been using Opera as my main browser for years, but also uses Chrome and Firefox.

Chrome; very fast, but crashes too often, and uses a LOT of memory (and messes up my Task Manager)

Firefox; lots of interesting add-ons, but slow and memory-hungry (and too often updated, with too many unstable updates)

Opera; very fast, very stable, best with regards to memory use. However, has problems with a few web sites (not compatible, maybe because they haven't tested "leading edge" technologies on Opera ?)
> several channels used at once such as visual audio increases info percentage retained more so when skills re-used

I'm not sure if you're refering here to the so-called "cone of learning" ("we remember 10% of what we read, 20% of what we hear, ..."), but if so, then from what I know this idea was debunked; it turns out to be a multiple-level iterative misinterpretation of a research paper on a completely different topic. I wrote about it some time ago; sorry for Google Translate, but I currently blog in Polish only:

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&h...

//EDIT:

More details: http://www.willatworklearning.com/2006/05/people_remember.ht...
In fact, they could've turned their until then awesome goodwill into MORE goodwill and karma by really going out of their way to help her. Things like put her into a hotel until her place is livable again, setup credit monitoring ASAP, etc. Whatever they would've had to pony up as expenses, it would've been way cheaper than what they're implicitely paying now.
I barely invite my friends over, why would I let a random into my house, even for $(amount)?
Actually we do have ridicules libel laws here in the UK. If someone accuses you of libel the onus is on you to prove that you didn't.
Customers of a particular gigantic consulting company have to be routinely dissuaded from "passwords similar to any old passwords should not be allowed", which is often in bid documents. To a man, when told the requirement is unsound, they suggest infinite retention of passwords in plaintext plus Levenstein distance and ask the consultancy why their engineers couldn't come up with that obvious solution themselves.

The reason for this requirement to repeatedly pop up in bid documents is misapplication of a poorly drafted standard by people who are theoretically experts at enforcing it's normative intent.

I would love to throw in an additional anecdote here, but it would violate a confidence. Pretend that $500k had been allocated to produce a list of plain text passwords and a combination of bureaucratic inertia, competence issues, and internal politics made that requirement an unstoppable freight train. That gives you the flavor of it.
I'm surprised by the amount of negativity in this thread. I was initially going to say that writing a working, solid, free kernel was akin to climbing Everest in terms of human achievement. After the first guy does it, does it really diminish the others' contributions? If they do it using a micro-kernel, isn't that kind of like climbing the mountain without oxygen? But given the amount of community effort that is required it's really a lot bigger than the Everest analogy. Maybe it's more like space travel.

Regardless, I feel like these devs are working towards something worthwhile, even if only they benefit from the experience (as they imply in the article, they've already directly benefited from their free work, good for them!). Is there some sort of opportunity cost that I'm not aware of here? Could we say that they should be working on developing a driver for the latest Nvidia graphics card for the Linux kernel instead? Would more people benefit from that? In the next sixty months, probably, in the next sixty years, it's a lot harder to say...
As I live and work in Birmingham, UK, I hope this is all an elaborate hoax.
Pictures would be nice. Or a copy of the police report works as great proof.
Reminded me of this PZ Myers post that really rips into Kurzweil. There are problems with too simplistically thinking of DNA as a program.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/08/ray_kurzweil_does...
I don't think the critics of the NYT where out of touch with reality. The big 3 French newspaper (lemonde.fr, lefigaro.fr, liberation.fr) are all much easier to scan than the likes of the NYT.
BMI is crap:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1062684...
Top ten reasons the BMI is bogus

http://www.maa.org/devlin/devlin_05_09.html
Do You Believe in Fairies, Unicorns, or the BMI?

http://www.slate.com/id/2223095/
Why doctors won't stop using an outdated measure for obesity

If you want to measure body fat, measure body fat.
You could use some empathy, my friend.
Home schooling is interchanged with what might more correctly be called "non-school based education" here.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Schoolslearninganddevelo...

Gives the legal requirements in the UK. We don't have requirements to sit exams or do specific pieces of work (coursework) as long as "full-time education" is provided.
I don't like to be vulgar, particularly on HN, but it really needs to be asked.

Is anyone here really all that surprised Chesky is a douche?
I'm surprised the mainstream media hasn't picked this up. It has all the right plot points to drive a story -- over-the-top crime, police can't find the persons involved, the victim is striking back at the company who started the mess.
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I am giving a statement to the police later today along with a lawyer and the real owner of the apartment. I'm not sure how far this will escalate here in Germany but I'd imagine as airbnb has facilitated a transaction with a criminal the German authorities will want to pursue further. I'm not the victim here, but the owner is.
> Silverlight is still limited to Windows and Mac

And as a direct consequence of Silverlight not being all that popular, that will not change. Sadly.
SEO? Come on man.
The connotation at hand is "willful" not negative per se. Anyway, the important thing is what the communicator means. You can't just open up a dictionary and say, "look, one of these definitions invalidates the thesis of your sentence."
"You see, these “flavor packs are made from orange by-products — even though these ‘by-products’ are so chemically manipulated that they hardly qualify as ‘by-products’ any more.” (source) Since they’re made from by-products that originated in oranges, they can be added to the orange juice without being considered an “ingredient,” despite the fact that they are chemically altered."

Does anyone know if this applies within the EU, and more specifically, the UK? I believe our labelling laws are stricter than this.
Yale Researchers Show How Memory Is Lost — and Found
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Computer Manufacturers
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In this directory you can find many companies of computers hardware supplying their products
I guess there are three options:

1) dive in help her, pay up make it all good get good PR. BUT if they are thinking that this is going to be a common problem and going to happen a lot then they may be making rod for their own backs…

or

2) Ride the storm - which again you would only do if you thought this was going to be an ongoing issue

or

3) they are idiots and have no idea how to handle PR (just like I wouldn't hire a project manager who hadn't been on a serious failed project I wouldn't hire PR who hadn't weathered some sort of shit storm)

None of those choices speak well for Airbnb's value - either this is going to be a problem for their business model or they aren't experienced enough to run something like this…

to be fair if it's (3) I'm sure they are getting some pretty good learning in right now
How does this work legally? Is it still burglary when the people were allowed in the house? Of course taking things that do not below to you is theft. But going through someones documents, is that illegal?
Now wait for the mainstream media to jump on this.
Pity though that Swing didn't get much love in this release. But I guess that's the course of things.
It's a little hard to judge from a fully-clothed shot, but I'd estimate your body fat at about 25%-30% based on your face, and what appears to be a pretty soft abdomen.

Given your weight of 220#, that means you're carrying about 55-66# of fat on you. Drop that to 10-15% (a pretty good athletic range) without losing muscle, and you'd be somewhere in the 170 - 190# range.
I also really feel this guy is trying to get the password by social engineering means or something it just seems completely ridiculous to ask for this stuff. Why would he need the info in the first place? I wished the author of the post had asked him that. I'd like to know his answer to that.
Yeah this seems like it would have been a really easy opportunity for them to get some positive PR? Why in god's name would they stop contacting her and then have a co-founder pressure her? It seems easy enough to offer $5k or $10k to restore the apartment at least.

I mean the only thing would be that they might be concerned about setting a precedent. But honestly, the PR alone would have been worth $5k (or $100k) and they could weasel their way out of the next incident. It seems a bit incompetent.

I recently signed up for my first AirBNB experience, as a guest. And yeah, seeing the amount of screening done (zero, you just need Paypal or a fake credit card), it's really risky for hosts.
The auditor was actually serious. Wow. I really thought he just wanted to check the reaction of the admin, to see if he'd actually hand over sensitive stuff.
A summary:

As of today, July 28, I have received no confirmation from either the San Francisco Police Department or the District Attorney that any culprit is in custody for my case.

I received a personal call from one of the co-founders of Airbnb. We had a lengthy conversation, in which he indicated having knowledge of the (previously mentioned) person who had been apprehended by the police, but that he could not discuss the details or these previous cases[sic] with me, as the investigation was ongoing.

Too much about this case remains unknown and unresolved, and according to both the District Attorneys and the police, it could be many more months before the criminal investigation moves forward.

Edit: This is clearly a problem with a thief, with society, with criminal behavior. This woman wants to throw her story and passive aggressive attitude around to destroy Airbnb, and it is blatantly obvious. Come on people.

I have been robbed. I have been a victim. I didn't flee to the internet to write a story about the gas station parking lot where it took place. Why? I would have gotten no attention for it, no sympathy, and the gas station would have not been to blame at all and everyone knows that.

Not to be insensitive, but this is reminiscent of the type of people that sue McDonalds for spilling hot coffee all over themselves. Not entirely the same, but it feels oddly familiar.

Airbnb tries to offer a good service. That doesn't mean they can keep the murderers out of Disneyland. She made a good point that craigslist makes warnings of scams more obvious on their website than Airbnb. She should have honestly just left it at that. Because at this point she is just doing more damage on the perpetrator's behalf and I think she knows it.

The knee-jerk reaction to this story is showing itself to be very far from this, so go ahead and downvote me, but nonetheless my opinion here is valid. Your next stay at Airbnb may very well be a scene out of the movie Hostel. It is just as likely however that it may happen at the next apartment you rent, the next hotel you stay at, or the next ski lodge. It doesn't matter that it was Airbnb.

I understand that she feels the reaction piece to her initial post was disingenuous, but with writing like this, it is clear she is just out to watch Airbnb burn. She should go hire a private detective and find the guy if she is so hell bent on revenge. She is after the wrong people. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. This woman has no target and her anger is entirely misdirected.

This is what insurance in our society is for. Get some. Be happy for what didn't go wrong and could have. She should be happy she didn't get raped when she got back to her apartment, as she obviously crossed tracks with a very bad person. Seriously. Shit happens in life. Everyone in this world has to deal with deceit, robberies, theft, and lies. She is no different, nor are you. She is playing out the sympathy excuse far too well. Her reaction is more similar to that of the McDonald's hot coffee victim than that of a robbery victim at this point. And like I said previously, I'm pretty sure she knows it.

Good luck Airbnb.
being that ignorant and having important hi-tech industry job - he's already won.
Just to clarify, since it took your second comment to get me to this understanding -

Someone who was not the real owner of the apartment (presumably thief/criminal) put the place up on AirBnB. You unknowingly rented the place from this person, and during your stay, the real owner showed up and asked what you were doing in his house?