skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You can blame Hong Kong immigration for that.

In the summer of 1992 I encountered an amusing statistic. Insurance rates doubled in one year in BC almost entirely because of one kind of accident. Two cars are side by side, with the one on the left driven by a Canadian. A Chinese immigrant from Hong Kong is behind the two. The immigrant sees the opportunity, cuts over, and zooms past leaving the Canadian less than 6 inches of room. The Canadian freaks out, turns the wheel right to avoid what feels like a certain collision, and hits the car next to him.

All drivers in question drove in complete accord with the rules of the road and common driving practices where they grew up. It was all just a (very expensive) cultural misunderstanding.

Anyways Vancouver with something like a million people absorbed something like 80,000 immigrants from Hong Kong in the 1990s who didn't want to be there for the Chinese handover, and they brought a very aggressive driving style with them. Go to places that were less affected by that wave of immigration, and you should still see something more like the relaxed driving style that was present when I was growing up.
They're not officially categorized as "moons", but the article lists several "quasi-satellites" that orbit the Earth. There is a distinction, but personally, I would consider them similar enough to count as other moons.
Food+Tech News: G+ Hangouts Cooking Class, Consmr Partners With Gary Vaynerchuck
...Android has no inherent right to be free.

The core idea of Free Software is the notion that one's own creations have every right to be free. If I create something independently, it is my right to give it away for free. Why should some other company I've never heard of and/or never done business with get to charge license fees for something I created myself, without their help?
you're making the mistake of assuming that these patents cover real features or inventions. they don't. they are just pages of incomprehensible text that lawyers use to extort money. should google really be paying licensing fees for "a system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data"?

and in most of microsoft's existing licensing agreements with android vendors, that haven't even disclosed what patents are being licensed. there's just some vague threat that they have a claim, and you're expected to pay up if you don't want to get sued.
1. You can virtualize fine on Windows. IIS does a wonderful job of virtualizing network services. (as of 2008 that is). And windows services are a form of secure process-level virtualization are they not?

2. It's acceptable until you whack several kernels and OS' on a machine, all running lots of processes at which point everything suffers. Cache locality goes AWOL, cache utilisation is shared, bus traffic goes up, so does latency and performance suddenly plummets.

3. It depends on the environment. Virtualenv just provides a consistent python software environment which can be isolated from everything else on the machine. As for other things: Look at FreeBSD's jails - that's as far as it should go[1]. Linux has ulimit and decent security. Windows has NT which is actually damn good and provides very good process isolation with respect to memory, CPU and IO no less.

If we needed virtualization, we wouldn't have processes.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeBSD_jail
Since there was a talk about abolishing patents etc. from the US system, I had my hopes up for a few seconds that England might've picked some of those ideals up. Looks like that isn't the acse. They're actually acting now on a study commissioned in 2006!
At least in CA, trucks can drive in either of the right two lanes in a road with 4 or more lanes in the same direction, and can always pass on the left regardless of the number of lanes.

And just as an FYI: doing nothing is the least you can do. Flipping someone off is nearly the most you can do if you stay in your car & don't endanger the lives of those involved.
I don't understand your comment. The OP is about Android being attacked through patents instead of through innovation, and you don't seem to be denying that that's what's happening. The article doesn't claim that "Google is always good", nor even that Google never uses anti-competitive practices. So what exactly are you objecting to? I don't think anyone here needs to be reminded that Google is a business and wants to make money.
Ruby Meta Programming
Shows some practical differences between Python and Ruby meta programming and dives into implementing the core "Struct" class in Ruby itself.
Are you the person from the original thread? If so how can we contact you? I don't want to join a new site to leave you a message.
Are you aware that we already have a massive freight rail system?

Trucks get around the unfortunate and largely unavoidable problem that rail can't carry everything or go everywhere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll#Etymology_and_defi...

> Purchases a patent, often from a bankrupt firm, and then sues another company by claiming that one of its products infringes on the purchased patent;
Http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/IT-ladder/?p=199&preview=true
Introducing a feature like this would dilute Google+. As it stands, Google+ is a social network; it's primarily intended as an online place to connect to people you know in real life. This feature would make it more of a broad "discussion center", where you talk about topics with people you don't know. That's a pretty fundamental paradigm shift.

In fact, the only similarity between Google+ and this feature is that both involve groups of people. That's about it. I don't think implementing this would improve Google+ at all; it may be a good idea for another site, and the groups thing may be a good way to go about it, but not Google+.
I don't think Google's suggestion that patents are bad is at odds with them trying to buy $3B of them.

Whether or not they like patents, they still have to deal with the effects. They claim that they tried to buy the patents as a defensive move to keep them out of the hands of their competitors.
You are sorely mistaken. First, the article clearly states that the user downloaded and opened the file. It was not some automatic process put into motion by the mere fact that someone emailed him, as you suggest in your rant.

Second, I suggest you take a moment to reconsider your position that "a virus, a root-kit, a Trojan, malicious, malevolent, nasty, etc., but STILL is just 100% harmless, safe, and innocuous" unless the computer is being operated by an idiot. That is, unless you have never, on any occasion, been a victim of malware yourself. If that is the case, I suppose it is possible that you are superior, in every way, to the rest of the computing world. Has it occurred to you that perhaps there is a legitimate reason for the thriving computer security industry?

It is a fact that there are very competent people behind these attacks. You don't slip through the security of the likes of major defense contractors and multi-billion dollar internet companies like Google without some skill. It is also a fact that even the most competent computer users make mistakes from time to time. The whole scenario seemed quite plausible to me, without my having to assume that RSA employs a bunch of idiots.

As for your gripe about the quality of the article, think about the target audience. You are obviously not a part of it. It was directed at the mainstream, and it would have been inappropriate to fill it with technical details that only another hacker would understand. That said, I thought it was a pretty decent article. It explained in relatively easy to understand terms how the attack worked and the possible rationale behind it. The tech-savvy readers can use a little imagination to fill in the technical gaps. You probably already have a pretty good idea how some parts of it worked. You don't need to trash the author for not spelling it out for you. It's not supposed to be a howto guide.
Good luck getting your goods without them. What would happen if we split all the heavy trucks into several smaller trucks? That would make the problem worse. Besides the primary importance of the highway system is to transport goods and necessary resources to areas not accessible (or not economically practical) by rail/sea.
You make it sound so reasonable. There is a patent gold rush right now. The USPTO is approving thousands of patents that cover the same obvious ideas. Parties that have lost in the marketplace or haven't even participated are effectively taxing the winners by extorting patent fees. Google could pay the fees to the losers and acquire enough patents the reach an equilibrium via mutually assured destruction with their competition, but the market is effectively closed to anyone without the extremely deep pockets.
I play board games, many of which have an auction mechanic. It's not uncommon in such a game to bid on something to prevent everyone else from getting it and using it against you. Why wouldn't the same thing happen in the real world, where real money is at stake?
They bid for them defensively as dictated by a broken patent system. The problem is that all their competitors joined together to block them from buying the patents so they could tax Android.
There are plenty of innovative and unpatented areas of Android. The problem is "A smartphone might involve as many as 250,000 (largely questionable) patent claims" - this is insane. Patents should protect prior art, not every single trivial software task. I'd guess it's impossible to create a new mobile phone and OS without violating patents.
Peteris Krumins: 4 years of blogging
Maintaining NYC's Superior Drinking Water
I just finished listening to that Planet Money podcast on this, just to see this blog post this now.

Should be interesting to see how this plays out.

I wonder if all parties involved would lobby for the destruction of software patents - wholesale - and call a ceasefire.
By the way, the majority of customizations can be made to the template, and you are free to edit all HTML/CSS of the site there.

For the remaining customizations, you can either choose to style a Weebly element's CSS, or you can drop in your own code with a "Custom HTML" element.
That is indeed the status quo for the large corporate players, but small-time developers/founders such as myself will still argue against the game because the same tactics are used by slow-moving incumbents and patent trolls to crush the nimble startups that are innovating at a much faster rate. A patent threat against Android in particular is treated as a threat by proxy against all independent developers because of its open nature.
Having patents doesn't mean you agree with the state of the patent system, also they have yet to sue anyone over patents.
Previously on this story:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2837583

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2837693

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2840604

None of those have any discussion - maybe this will be the first.
Internet Explorer IQ story was bogus
Countries can argue that nuclear weapons are bad and call for disarmament, but it's not contradictory to stockpile them when there's the credible threat of other countries fighting with these weapons.
Very much fulltime, but it began as a side project many moons ago.
I have many problems with demands of license fees for patents that are trivial. All of the patents mentioned so far in this battle have been of that sort.

This isn't a valid use of the patent system - it's an abuse of that system. This is very clear to both people that suppose software patents and that oppose them.

If someone can show a valid, nontrivial patent that Android is being attacked with, I might change my mind.

Lawsuits over trivial patents scare me because I might be the next target. If I found another startup some day, and develop all my own technology, I can still be sued over trivial patents. If it can happen to Google, what's to stop it from happening to any of us, if we become successful enough to be targets for this sort of thing?
Show and Tell: "Applescript" a Spotify Alarm Clock
I don't get it. The fees are always in 5-20 ranges from what can be gathered. Collectively Microsoft, Apple and Oracle would get $40 tops per phone. Why is it economically infeasible? Adding $40 to COGS at about $200 sure is not pretty, but impossible? Also Google is making money off of the platform, let it subsides Android manufacturors if necessary. After all by giving out decent mobile OS for free, Google also makes Microsoft's business model "infeasible economically". Live by the sword, at least expect a few cuts.
I'm not sure how people would react to social media sponsored by the DOD - regardless of their actual intentions

It's not going to be sponsored overtly is it? Thus if done 'correctly' you would never know whether the strangely pro-government tweets from a random "soccer mom in bum-fuck no-where" were genuine or some persona-wonk sitting at his desk in Virginia.

It's not going to be a tweet like:

@soccer_mom42 says "I really support what is going on in Egypt right now (disclosure: sent by the DoD)"
Apple is doing just fine but that doesn't mean they've laid off their legal department. As long as there is money to be made here, they're going to do something about it. That's business.
Let me present another scenario. This is what the intelligence community calls a "false flag attack". Another (rather technologically advanced) state, that for some reason would like China to be attacked publically as a state sponsoring cyber-terrorism, could for example build a large botnet in China and use it to conduct these attacks.

China is the current token 'rogue cyber terrorist' state. So this other agent/state could take advantage of that perception to either gather real data from the attacked entities or conduct all this activity just to damage China's reputation.
Ask HN: Where do you get your logos from?
I was browsing through Angel List earlier and noticed that most tech startups seem to have a certain 'style' for their logo. I'm looking for a logo design for my own startup and would love to know where you guys would recommend getting it from?
Damn, I knew it had to start with urs, but I couldn't figure out the rest. Regardless, I like the game.
Revealed: Operation Shady RAT
Sure, for ruby, I usually send them to something like this:
http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/quickstart/

It's short and gives them quick wins. Having their hands dirty with code that works really builds the confidence they need to continue.

If someone is willing to even just start the tutorial, that meets my filter-qualification and I'm very happy to help them with any stumbling points as they go through it.
I don't think that either side is doing the right thing here, but saying that a group is trying to "strangle opensource" is just a distortion of the facts.

Android is just a very small part of the open source ecosystem, and the platform was clearly not created to promote open source, but to use it as leverage to quickly spread a free (as in beer) mobile operating system.
White House: Need to monitor Facebook 'extremism'
This compelled me to play around with Weebly for the first time.

I created a quick landing page (http://prototypecases.weebly.com/). Easy to add built in contact forms, integration with Google's web fonts was nice, built in SEO tags to paste html. Tons of layouts to pick from and a super easy way to add images.

I was very impressed by how easy it was to put together and how fast customizing the site is. Classically, when it comes to this sort of thing, I think Wordpress but drag and drop is a very marketable feature for Weebly. I'm impressed.

I do have to note that the control panel timed out and the site displayed some sort of app disconnection error several times.
Very little in our world is 100% foolproof.
And due to this plain language this reads like a like a declaration of war of Google vs. Microsoft & Apple.

He is accusing them of illegal behaviour. He is accusing them of impeding innovation. And he says they will increase their own weapons arsenal to defend their products as well as fight through other channels.

Due to him being a Google official this means this is officialy a confrontation course. No more diplomacy.

This will be fun to watch. I'm for google :).
Sometimes economics can make it impossible.

Sometimes, sure. More often people who _say_ they are stuck are not stuck so much as lacking imagination, or will.

How quickly can you learn a completely new skill set if you only have one day a week

I know that is a hypothetical but I'll take a crack at it.

- Cut expenses. There is always slack in a budget.

- Cut hours. The 6-day work week is for over the road - Get a teamster job working local.

- I've now got nights and weekends free, leaving me oodles of time to get cracking on mastering that new skill.
No, but I have lended money to friends and in so doing destroyed said friendships. I refuse to lend money to any entity but my own business as a result. Human beings are fundamentally untrustworthy in the absence of explicit contracts, when it involves money.
I think the point was that unlike some of us (most of us?) the nature of the work makes it impossible for truckers to "leave early" or take a day off to respond to personal emergencies.
Randi Zuckerberg Leaves Facebook to Start New Social Media Firm
I'm kind of disappointed that the word "reform" doesn't show up anywhere in this article.

Indeed, one of the main courses of action they're taking is to "strengthen our own patent portfolio"…
Looking at http://kottke.org/10/02/insanely-deep-fractal-zoom my brain keeps on accepting waves of new detail.
There are command line tools for logging people off (all of which require the permissions to do so, not so much being on a domain):

http://weblogs.asp.net/owscott/archive/2003/12/30/Managing-T...

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2005/02/remotely-managing-r...

(be sure to read the comments for additional tips)
They're "the victim" of patents only because they have chosen to pursue a pattern of willfully infringing on competing companies patents.
"Dear Big Media, Lately we havent received enough campaign funding. We have made polite inquiries before, but they have gone unanswered. We're trying really hard to keep a hold on these pesky liberals, but they are doing a really good job on gaining seats. Here's our idea for new copyright laws. What do you think? Ideas / monetary contributions to the usual accounts. Also, we've just lost the Murdoch account so we need some of our other contributors to step up. Thanks, The Conservative Party"
The patents are so broad that any new invention is likely to be patented already.
“I am thankful for the strong mentorship, guidance, and support, which is empowering me to follow my dreams and show that you don’t have to be an engineer to be a hacker.”
What can an OWC 6G SSD do for your 2011 Mac Mini?
> I'll just move my SSD seamlessly between various PCs at home and work

Even better: you just plug in your phone to the current workstation. Also, your phone has the ability to read all your documents.
Do you have an example of Apple doing that?
I don't know about any living spaces. I am aware of a hacker space (Brooklyn Resistor), community art space (3rd Ward), and some shared office spaces full of tech entrepreneurs (BetaWorks and General Assembly). Hope this helps.
But the people who do the Times cryptic everyday during their commute know they're in a different class... (e.g.: http://times-xwd-times.livejournal.com/731666.html ). I certainly can't make much of a dent in a cryptic crossword, though the 'concise' ones are sometimes doable.

Here's a sample of each : http://crosswordclub.timesonline.co.uk/crossword/print?type=... , http://crosswordclub.timesonline.co.uk/crossword/print?type=...

There's definitely a ranking amongst the papers too.
I'm not actually convinced a) is the best solution though. For some things it is, but once you work with structured data that might show up in different places and might be displayed in different ways in those places, it's not always the best.

It works for simple pages where there's no real separation between content and design, but once you have text that's transformed to uppercase in one place because of a "text-transform: uppercase", or a long blog post that's only shown as a summary on the home page - editing directly in place becomes problematic.
Cats sleep, buts I don't think they hibernate, do they? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernation
> a power-relationship

I am your boss. I allocate your work. Your pay depends on me. Your promotion depends on me. Your reference for your next job depends on me. I can fire you.

It is pretty straight forward.
>I keep seeing this idea that Apple is filing patent lawsuits because they are afraid of their competitors and their business is on the verge of collapse, and I just don't understand.

Noone's saying their business is on the verge of collapse, just that Android is a strong competitor.

They banned Google Voice (eventually relenting), Google Latitude, and even apps with references to "Android" in the past (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/app-store-craziness-banning-...)... doesn't seem weird they'd use the legal system to strike at their competitor as well.
>OSes didn't really want to share the hardware in any meaningful way.

Interestingly, I view the current state of the world as too much sharing -- VMs are just super process isolation =D
Dishonesty in software dev
Hi everyone,

I'm doing research for a Masters Dissertation on honesty in software development.

If you can spare 3-4 minutes, I would be extremely grateful!

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A person who spends his childhood as a poor immigrant and then goes on to achieve considerable financial success through hard work and merit is "accomplished," not "privileged."

That he would be willing to risk everything on a startup is indeed courageous.
5 Great Ways to Stay Positive
You left out the rest of the qualifications:

Enforces patents against purported infringers without itself intending to manufacture the patented product or supply the patented service;

Enforces patents but has no manufacturing or research base;

Focuses its efforts solely on enforcing patent rights; or

Asserts patent infringement claims against non-copiers or against a large industry that is composed of non-copiers.

I mean, sure, they respond to one of the criteria any time they buy a patent and later use it in a complaint that includes many patents, both homegrown and acquired. But I think it's reasonable to say that the rest of the criteria are a lot more egregious, especially when a company fits most or all of them.
Actually, splitting the heavy trucks into smaller trucks would be better, paradoxically. Wear and tear on the road increases exponentially with vehicle weight. Weigh stations account for this by increasing the cost per pound for larger weight classes of truck.

The reason it doesn't happen is because then you've got to pay additional drivers, which outweighs the cost savings from avoiding the additional road use taxes.
Then challenge the patents, change the law.

I'm not happy with the current system either. But I do not see IP legal actions as all evil, the purpose can be purely to set road blocks for competitors. But as long as it is within the bound of law. After all Android's price barrier is also pretty insurmountable.

I'm very skeptical that HTC does not know what Microsoft's been licensing. Others do not, sure.
When there is need for a logo, I get in touch with one of the great designers on http://dribbble.com
http://tjholowaychuk.com/post/7517832396/the-luna-programmin...
Lion's Lair: A $100,000 Hamilton Face-Off
How do you know it is willful? That is an important word when it comes to patent infringement.