skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
True, but don't forget that number of uniques is not the same as number of users, especially if you aren't logged in.

For example: In any given month I visit HN from a laptop, desktop, and work computer using both Chrome and Firefox, in and out of incognito mode, as well as from two different browsers on my iPad and often from other people's computers. Obviously I am not always logged in to all of these browsers so depending on how pg counted uniques (my understanding is that cookies are the common practice though I could be totally off base on this) I could be counted as anywhere from 3 to 15 uniques a month.
I am very curious as to the methods of how they caught him. Anyone care to guess, or know?
> Yes, Weiner's pictures of his underwear is absolutely male objectification - but not in his original context. That was a complicit choice between him and his partners.

The woman in this picture chose to wear the outfit. She chose to take a picture with the guys.

> It become objectification when the media chose to focus on this as a sex issue and deem him unworthy of being in office.

Of course it was a sex issue. He sent nearly-naked photos to a woman he had phone-sex with. I fail to see how it's objectification, though. Why does sex imply objectification? Or does "objectification" just basically have no real meaning?

> And on the comparison to prostitution: why are there prostitutes? Why do men go to prostitutes? Do you think any 7 year old girl says to her parents that she wants to grow up to be a prostitute? It's slavery that is allowed by society because woman are objects (in this context).

There are prostitutes because there's a market for sex. People generally become prostitutes because they are in poverty. From this particular article, it sounds like the whole area remains a brothel because there's basically no way out for the women there. It's extremely tragic.

I frankly find it disgusting that you link attempt to link sexy outfits to forced prostitution and child prostitution. This is far more offensive than anything Tom Anderson posted.
we have to listen to those obsessed with finding sexism

There are people who have cancer, people who treat cancer, and people who do cancer research, and there is a time and a place to listen to each. The same for sexism. If you're mindful of this you'll be fine.
Positronic Net library for Android in Scala
Hold on, hold on, let me try to clear some things up.

A criminal is a rigidly-defined adjective meaning an entity which breaks or broke laws.

An activist is a rigidly-defined term meaning an entity which acts to further some idea and bring it to public perception.

A hacktivist isn't well-defined, but we'll assume here that it's a form of activist.

Now based on this, the Anonymous and Lulzsec hackers were hacktivists, at least according to their own statements of their intent. They also were criminals, at least according to my reading of the laws of the US. Now, what you may be looking for is whether they were ethically good --- but don't conflate lawfulness with morality, that's worked out poorly in both directions.

But of course, you acknowledge that this is a horribly simplistic view of things. Even DnD got this, after all (clearly Anon is Chaotic, and whether it's Neutral or Good depends on whom you talk to).

So perhaps you might say "I don't believe Anon's actions were for the good", or even "weren't well-intentioned", but please recognize that passing judgement beyond noting the factual statement that they are criminals, is a personal judgement. Not that personal opinions shouldn't be argued, defended, and spread --- just that they should not be conflated with fact.
CSS Code Folding
Full of hustle, Los Angeles tech takes on Silicon Valley
this article is written with the obvious intention of bashing google, the writer didn't even do his research because honeycomb 3.2 source is available.
Most likely admins since, IIRC, a submitter has only a short time window to edit a submission.
This is my first bioinformatics job and my first return to an academic environment since finishing a MS in CS and doing the standard industry thing. This group is mostly a core services group rather than a pure research support group.

I came in to do traditional data warehouse work, loading data from separate databases into one spot to make reports across those different datasets easier. That's most of my days now - simple data integration and reporting. Oddly enough, we are an Oracle shop because our university has a site license. But I do a little Ruby/Rails/Sinatra for a project that is reporting + some app-like enhancements. Tons of SQL for manipulating data, but it is usually simple SQL, especially compared to stuff I wrote previously in a financial corp.

A significant amount of my day is ferreting requirements out of users. I wish I was better at this.

There is a much larger amount of grunt work happening in the data management space than I expected. We deal with a huge amount of protected health information (PHI), which can be frustrating since you're usually working around data policies that require somewhat careful interpretation. Obviously, the genomic datasets are huge, so dealing with storage and clusters for data processing is often a discussion point around here.

It is an academic/research place, so it is a little more relaxed than industry. Expectations (for software) are a little low - we're talking about users who have, for the most part, kept data in spreadsheets or little Access style databases for years. And they often haven't had the budget to hire dedicated software guys, so sometimes tools are suffering from bit-rot.

Good hackers seem to be appreciated. It is below your standard industry salary, but not terribly so. I try to avoid being sucked into low-value work since "the reward for work well-done is more work."

Just like grad school, if you want to work on a specific topic or research area, make sure you get a job in a group doing that work. Once you're established, it seems easy to get some space to do some exploratory hacking.
Unfortunately, management may view you as "not a team player" and pass you over for important projects if they think you may still leave.
Pro Tip: they'll give you that raise until the project you're on is completed. Then they'll give you the boot. Price/resume shoppers not only cause a lot of headaches if their success becomes apparent to others within the organization, but the bosses rarely like being held hostage to outside influencers.

In a start-up, that type of behavior is rarely rewarded in the long term as founders tend to be people who develop relationships based on trust and loyalty and who also talk amongst themselves and you'll run the risk of being blackballed. Do it once if you feel underpaid, but don't expect much upside after that.

My advice is to look for a job, consider offers and take the one that fits what you're looking for in compensation/organization. In the future, your current employer may reassess your value and hire you back at a higher scale. I've seen this happen before.
Not to nitpick, but while Intel owns the high end CPU market, the current ATI/AMD top end GPUs are much better than nVidia's offering. Unless, that is, I missed a major nVidia release lately...
23andMe finds Parkinsons only 24% heritable
All I get out of this is that Google calls their web browser "Chrome", while Apple calls theirs "HTML5".
This is not an isolated incident, and goes to show the potential damage Chrome can do to the web. This is very similar to the behavior Microsoft exhibited with IE6, which left terrible damage for years after its release.
Good riddance. They add weight, I rarely use them, and they are horribly unreliable. I've run into problems with discs not ejecting, sometimes not being readable, blanks sometimes not being writeable, often issuing loud crunching noises when discs are inserted.

My 2007 MBP is dying, and I'm holding out for the next rev, hoping that the new machines won't have optical drives. I'd much rather buy a USB peripheral if I ever need it, and discard it when it gets flaky.
Can't speak for pg, but you should probably follow the site's robots.txt file's rules: http://news.ycombinator.com/robots.txt

It sets a crawl-delay of 30 seconds.
He's got a good point. The layman doesn't know the difference at all. Heck, most of the 'experts' don't seem to be able to tell the difference. You constantly hear how X is bad for you according to a new study, and people repeat it like gospel, instead of the theory that it is. Often it hasn't even been reproduced yet.
I can imagine that this makes the laptops much more sturdier. This is why my last 2 laptops have been without CD drives. I just bought a $50 external, and I've been having a hard time understanding why more manufacturers didn't make optical drive-less computers.
The Patent Troll Myth
I guess only Jared Spool knows the true answer.
Ironically this article is presented in yet another degraded "iPad" interface I had to break out of to actually read the article.
I feel like the question "How much of your work time is spent not doing work" would give better information
Thanks! Packing the font data into the CSS is a clever idea.
I actually kicked up a couple more bucks towards Humble tips just for that promo video -- it gave me a good laugh.
>because each customer gets less than 1 Mbps

I don't follow? Each tower can presumably broadcast multiple access points.
Rejected CloudFlare Logos
Thank you! I read this thinking, "I wish more scientists would blog about their research like this!" Very approachable, very informative, and with citations! Astounding!

There are a lot of people that would love to read this sort of fascinating stuff, but don't have the technical understanding to read the papers you cite, for example. Those people are mostly stuck with the occasional Cracked article along the lines of "6 Insane Bugs You Didn't Know Existed", and Cracked has linkbait down to a science.
c.f. http://boingboing.net/2011/07/14/far.html, which tempers some of my optimism for seeing really big problems solved with really big computers and datasets.
Glyphish – Great icons for great iPhone & iPad applications
"So what do these patent trolls do that is so wrong? Apparently, the answer is that patent trolls do not manufacture the technology that is embodied by the patents that they seek to enforce. But is this really wrong? The answer to this should be a resounding ‘No’. Consider the names of some individual inventors who ultimately formed companies to exploit their ideas, yet initially manufactured nothing: Westinghouse (air brake), Ford (car), Gillette (razor), Otis (elevator), Goodyear (synthetic rubber), Kellogg (grain harvester), DuPont (gun powder), Owens (glass) and Fermi (neutronic reactor). This list represents just a few of the individuals who, in most cases, worked alone and without corporate support, yet created not just new inventions, but whole new industries that today employ millions of people."

I guess they executed their ideas too...

It's a well written article, what does HN think?
Why are you being defending a position that has clearly upset a number of people, instead of engaging in a debate? This is why so many minorities don't speak up: because we aren't listened to. Time and time again, the majority will defend the status-quo, it's perceived rightful position to impose its will.

This entire thread could have simply been:

- This makes me feel as if woman are objectified in computing as sexual entities before any other consideration.

- I'm sorry you feel that way, what is it about the image in this context that bothers you?

- My reply

- You reply
I'm personally a bit curious as to why it's only been European (only UK perhaps?) people.

I'd think the FBI would in on it too.
This is just like the floppy drive situation all over again. In a few years no one will care.
Nothing in the article suggests HTC's patent is ridiculous like what was portrayed recently in the TAL program about Intellectual Ventures.

There doesn't seem to be anything inherently absurd about patenting an image compression system. I mean, imagine it was a small company that invented a new compression system that was 20% better then all the competition. Would they too be chastised if they tried to protect themselves from large corporations that ignore intellectual property law?

Patent are supposed to incentivize innovation and give the patent holder an edge against the competition as a sort of prize for his work. This "edge" was sold to HTC, and now HTC has every right to protect it. Seems like Apple should just either suck it up and pay a licensing fee, or change their hardware/software to get around using this technology.

The problem with the patent system is the disgusting legal harassment done by patent trolls - where smallish companies are sued over absurd patent and because they don't have the financial means to legally defend themselves they're pressured into settling; this case doesn't seem to exhibit any of those problems.
Yes, good riddance.

As a bonus, I'll be happy to reclaim the "eject" key for some other use. Right now on my Mac Pro (i.e. the tower- not the notebook) I hit it by mistake fairly often when reaching for delete. The drive tray then pops out loudly and scares my dog.
The condescending thing happens to people in tech all the time regardless of their sex. I have done the same thing to men because I think i'm smarter then everyone and have a big ego. I'm sure there are a few really dumb people who condescend to women particularly, but trust me that it's a bigger problem that everyone does in our industry if they have an ego.

As far as the blatant sexism in every job you work at, that does sound pretty bad. Level 1 techs are (imho) ridiculously crass and politically incorrect, imo because they get paid crap and have a stressful job and you're not going to find pillars of polite society in that kind of environment. In higher level positions I don't think i've ever personally seen an example of sexism directed at female co-workers, though i'm sure it must happen somewhere.

In fact, heh, i've often seen politically-incorrect jokes and sexism amongst guys (because let's face it that's what guys do when they're together in a group) but they explicitly stop as soon as a female is around to prevent her from being made uncomfortable. Granted, it's bad that they're making those jokes whether or not a woman is around, but I think them choosing to censor themselves is a positive thing (because let's face it, there's no way to change the thought process of a sexist, but you can at least prevent them from speaking or acting out based on their thoughts).
how is this different from membase?
Last time I used a DVD was like two years ago. What a good memories: The acceleration and spinning noises, the vibrations, the spike on consume on the powermeter, the heat and the extra weight and extra volume for carrying something you don't use at all.
Competence is overrated
Harry Potter online megavideo
Harry Potter online megavideo
Watching Harry Potter and the Relics Relics part of a free online without downloading, watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 Free Online Streaming Watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 online
Even for Apple's hardware customers, Apple's opinion on whether or not to deprecate the optical drive isn't entirely trustworthy.

Given that CSS has been comprehensively cracked, ripped DVDs are the most widespread and reliable source of DRM-free commercial video in the world. Apple sells DRMed video that competes with (among other things) ripped DVDs. Beyond the financial incentive, Apple wants people to buy their DRMed video because it strengthens their ties to Apple's ecosystem. This all means that Apple has substantial ulterior motives for deprecating the optical drive.

Personally, I think that as technical speed bumps are worked out and available bandwidth increases ripped video is going to follow the path blazed by ripped music, so the optical drive still has some life left in it.
Indeed. Participating in a DDoS is actually about as close as you can get on the Internet to chaining yourself to a public building.

And there's nothing wrong with arresting those people so long as the law they violate is just. Which is of course the point— it's calling the government's bluff.

Of course, I have to imagine that all the people who participate by running LOIC or whatever have no expectation that they might be arrested, and wouldn't be doing it if they thought they might. Even a slight risk of that would probably stop the attacks from succeeding altogether. That fact alone casts the whole "civil disobedience" angle into turmoil— they're willing to do damage as long as they don't face consequences personally. It's politically much closer to a few hardline individuals blowing up a public building, which is much less okay even if their cause is just.
Did the author really just omit any mention of USB flash drives in that article? Or am I just slightly blind?
Somehow this old tale from 1992 springs to mind:
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/staff/magi/personal/humour/Computer_Au...
Billboard ads have nothing to do with patents. Neither does the look and feel.
The "male gaze"? Every time I look at a woman I'm objectifying and expressing power imbalance? You've got to be kidding.

If Tom's job were to try to correct the male/female imbalance of Google+, I would agree that the image is inappropriate. But that's not his job. It's neither his job nor his responsibility to curate his posts to try to never offend the easily-offended.

As for why women are reluctant to join Google+, I think it's got very little to do with the fact that it's "male-dominated" and a lot to do with the fact that most of them simply don't care about it. Their friends aren't there. The people who are there are 99% geeks. As it is now, there's simply little value to Google+ fr them.
not cool.
Not entirely wrong, but some criticisms:

- overconfidence: scientists are much better at saying "this is a hypothesis we are testing", "we are 80% confident" or "not all of my colleagues agree with this thesis" than science journalists are at reporting those things.

- is anthropology a science now? This was just the field that was most clearly misclassified, but - I'd say - not the only one.

- things can be true without resulting in new cell phones. Facts can be relevant even if they are too hard to properly explain to a layman in five minutes. People really can be stupid and uninterested.

- it's possible to declare some fields completely broken/politicized without jettisoning all of "science". (For instance, the study of economic policy seems to produce really fervent advocates of rather different points of view.)

[Full disclosure: I'm doing a PhD, and rather like science.]
The solution is that intellectual property and government granted monopolies are bad and should not be the law. They exist on shaky ground in that we assume that they produce more good than harm -- not a well grounded assumption imho. A case can be made that in most cases they are used by entrenched players against the small upstart.

Fact: We can't assume we'll ever get an ideal system and must choose among flawed ones. So we must do an analysis at that level and not some sort of comparison among ideals.
Do you mean "typing" code only, or does that include thinking about code too?
Senator: AT&T/T-Mobile merger an "unreasonable risk to the economy"
That experiment shows you exactly the opposite, rather: that people who seem essentially bad (i.e. bad in essence) may simply be responding to circumstances, incentives and social pressure.
They were getting pregnant, or married, or worse - religious

I find it funny that people can find such beauty in a place like San Fransisco, sing it's praises for openness and tolerance but yet when it comes to religion be as closed minded as the bigots they despise.

Religion is not the problem just as philosophy is not the problem, mans inhumanity to man is the problem and statements like ..or worse - religious are exactly the same inhumanity in a smug nihilistic, hipster, condescending mask.

It's the opposite end of the same coin, it is no different then the rabid anti-gay coalitions quest to morally police the masses bedrooms, by citing a book, as their justification, that clearly states Let he among you without sin cast the first stone.

You would be well served to leave out the cometary that could alienate a portion of your readership. Ask yourself, did my jab help further my story. You should respects a persons choice no matter how ill conceived you think it is, because someone will think a choice you have made is just as illogical and use your intolerance as their justification in their intolerance. Intolerance is recursive.
Cyberunions
I wouldn't call someone that acts against their conscience "good" (unless their survival is at stake).
The visa waiver can be for tourism or for business. It has two checkboxes. When I visit the US, it's for work meetings, so I check business.
Moving an Elephant: Large Scale Hadoop Data Migration at Facebook
Agreed. Another roadblock I hate is requiring me to enter my full name and address before they give tax & shipping info. A simple zip code field & calculate price button should not be that hard.

Does anybody publish some decent design guidelines for online shopping sites? So many sites try to follow Amazon without realizing Amazon can get away with terrible design choices because they are so massive.
You don't need an estimate of an appropriate equity stake, what you need is leverage. Even if you asked for a single share tomorrow, it doesn't sound like they have any reason to give it to you. Find the places where the bus factor is low (a specific technology that only you hack on, something falling apart that only you can fix, etc.) and point out that the costs to keep you (in your example ~80-120k in equity) far outweigh the downside they'd be exposed to if you left. Basically, find out how much value you create, get leverage by showing them that you're a pivotal part of the business, and then approach them with an offer that balances the two.
You can check out http://wikindu.com as well, It's not betali.st but you can send your completed startups. maybe after you get out of beta, you can submit it to wikindu.com
> [D]oes it count if I erase half of the code I write at the end of the day?

The best day of any programming career comes when you successfully refactor a massive monolith of a function into a well designed set of classes with predictable interaction, and can tell people you wrote negative seven hundred lines of code.
Ah, the innocuous days of MS-DOS. Best game was definitely Flight Simulator IMO. I remember playing it for hours every day with my Logitech joystick. By the way, that joystick has a free game called Slipstream 5000 with it. Anyone else remember playing that?
'War texting' lets hackers unlock car doors via SMS
Dropbox Leases Giant New SF Office, Plans To Grow To 400+ Employees
It'd be interesting to see LevelDB pitted against InnoDB/HandlerSocket and Redis (with eventual diskstore) in the k/v department. Both have a lot more going for them, where the need arises for a higher level or "more structured" access to the same underlying data, offered by MySQL or Redis structures (lists, sets, hashes, etc).
They will be. This latest round of arrests by the FBI were made based on the PayPal attacks, which were ages ago. LulzSec didn't even start going until months later, and the attacks that would have really pissed off the FBI happened just recently. The FBI is big and slow, but they'll get around to it if they have any evidence of members in the US.