skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> A good programmer can pick up a new technology in a couple of months.

I would love it if things worked this way. But I told someone I could get coding in C# in a week, and probably be quite comfortable in a few months, and they sent me a polite rejection letter saying they were "impressed with my confidence" but there were many highly qualified candidates, etc. But then, that's probably the only advertised tech job I pursued that I didn't land an offer for.
Maybe LOIC is it? If one part of civil disobedience is sending the state a stream of low-level "law-breakers", it's relatively successful, because now the government is wasting time and resources arresting people who sent 5 megabytes of packets somewhere.
I'm not necessarily against feds going after DDOSers, but this is a shameful, politically motivated retribution.

The "crime" here is not sending packets to DDOS PayPal but criticizing the goverment. The goverment is in turn showing they're not afraid to destroy lives of those who do.

DDOS attacks are pretty much an epidemic on the internet. I'm pretty sure every major company like Google or Microsoft or Amazon has to deal them on a regular basis (http://mashable.com/2009/12/24/ddos-attack-amazon/ for just one example of an attack that was actually successful and well publicized).

Huge botnets make it relatively easy to launch an attack.

This is not some new fact - existence of bots, DDOS attacks on many hosts, that's been known for years and yet this is one of the few times where feds lifted a finger to combat it and certainly the first time where it's done on such a scale and based on such a flimsy evidence and small transgressions like an individual running a DDOS tool (which, by itself, is not nearly enough to bring a website down, it only works if many people are doing it at the same time).

This is not a coincidence and not really that surprising - you fight the goverment, the goverment will fight you.
There is this rather patent-troll-friendly court in Texas: http://www.txed.uscourts.gov/

It is incredibly overrepresented in patent litigation. Companies set up PO boxes and shell companies there just for this purpose.
FreeWriting
While I do agree with you that trying to shoehorn ruby into a pure functional style is a bad idea, I believe it's generally a good thing to try to write functional-style ruby: Functional in the small and OO in the large [1].

For example, you can have referential transparency in your methods, which will allow for easier debugging. You can also strive for simpler data structures and even freeze objects to make them immutable[2].

[1] http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2009/03/23/functional-in-the-s...
[2] http://ontwik.com/ruby/better-ruby-through-functional-progra...
The 'Call Someone Who Cares' is coming across as sarcastic too despite the original intentions.
The promo video is great, and had me smiling the whole time. John's voice is recognizable and hilarious.
Can't help but think that this is directed at Andy Rutledge...

Anyways, line-height is as important for my eyes.
Tablet PC—the another option for lesson
Let us take the 7 inch tablet PC to go the school? When you in school, whether you think another ways to lesson. Maybe you not only one time wanna throw out the annoying textbooks and notebooks. This idea is can’t come true on you or me. But it’s absolutely could happen on our son or daughter.
The article is a second-hand account of a discussion with a low-level call center employee. I hardly think we should extrapolate Google's corporate policy from this account.

Interesting to note the parallel with the post which claimed
Facebook was blocking G+ ads a few weeks ago. Many jumped to conclusions, bit in the discussion on HN [http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2770237], it was determined this was more likely a trademark issue than a competitive action.

Don't jump to conclusions.
wow! awesome idea. i never knew that you tube & twitter had a love child :-P
There is a simple solution to this problem. Make maintenance fees payable yearly, and make a requirement of getting the patent renewed proof that you're actually using it. People filing patents only to sit and wait until someone else infringes is a cancer on American innovation.
visit Stanford
Kod (http://kodapp.com/) has a node.js-based integrated scripting environment, but I don't know if plugin functionality reaches the power you describe, and I'm not even certain there are any third-party plugins. It would be incredibly powerful, especially since you could probably export plugins as a URL to a minified .js file.
Agreed. Can you port a version of Skimmer for HN?
I wonder if the customs agents also had a problem with him trying to do work in the United States while here under the Visa Waiver Program?
Patents are territorial. That is, unless someone has filed an application (or designated Australia as part of a national phase of a Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) patent application, nothing will issue in Australia. Generally, companies try to figure out where their likely markets are, and where the expense can be justified. Australia is becoming more and more relevant, but it was not nearly as common to file there a few years ago. (Full disclosure, I'm a U.S. patent attorney (but I'm actually a good guy!).)
Peer pressure drives security experts to get certification
The worry that you won't be hired or promoted if you don't have a security certification is the primary reason people get one. How sad is that?
Wouldn't most of these ip addresses be in a bot net?
I think you're confused about the definition of befuddle.

be·fud·dle

1. To confuse; perplex.

2. To stupefy with or as if with alcoholic drink.

Customs agents didn't flag him for his involvement in bitcoin; they didn't understand what it was and how he could possibly fund his trip with it.
You misunderstood my point -- I was not talking about the current situation, but what today's devices will be capable of with software from a year in the future.

Even now, I believe Mobile Firefox is much faster than the stock webkit browser for javascript processing.
Google "Facebook ads" and check out the Adwords ads. Facebook themselves advertise directly via Adwords. I'm going to transcribe myself talking to a brain-dead call centre rep about alien life and give it a catchy article headline to complete the troll.
How long did you program in erlang? I only did for a year or two but during that time came to appreciate the syntax as well evolved for the type of coding erlang was built to handle. There are a few syntax warts and many "standard lib" oddities due to evolution. For me, it did not take long before the syntax was very readable. On the other hand, I've programmed in javascript off and on for much longer and still find the syntax a bit ugly...to each his own ;)
What I've learned about creating product videos (that don't totally suck)
Yeah, right. Social Engineering is much easier than gaining access through some 0-day attack you have devised yourself, or even finding some working skiddie method (when dealing with a specific target). For one thing, you don't actually need any actual skill, you just need to be a good liar and have a good story. That's not skills, it's just a sociopathic trait some people are born with.

Kevin Mitnick was a social engineer primarily.[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Kevin_Mitnick...] Thus, him calling anyone 'not a real hacker' as in the context presented in the article is ironic.
Cashflow is an alternative that enforces the same rules from reality. It gets you understanding what doo-dads really are, and how detrimental to long term plans they can be.
Founder with a great idea seeking to gain knowledge
I am a founder of an internet social media company that specializes in travel. I am based out of NC but I am willing to travel to meet anyone willing to give me insight on how I can make my company a success. I have found being in NC to be lonely for a fun loving and creative founder. I have only about a year experience in the tech field but I have a lifetime of passion for learning and improving things. If you are willing to help a young, fun-loving sage...hit me up.

letsgoceo@hotmail.com
I'm helping to setup their AWS infrastructure.
I think of RAA when I think of project management.
R=Responsibility
A=Authority
A=Accountability
Make sure the team member understands what his Responsibility on the project is.
Make sure the team member has the Authority to carry out their Responsibility.
Make sure the teem member understands how they are going to be held Accountable.
Once underway, communication and feedback are the keys.
320GB drives dedicated to the OS seems like a bit much, no? The power supply is also overkill, you don't need anything close to 850W to run that box. This could certainly be a lower cost build.
the monthly cost seems high for how much you can just buy windows and run this crap yourself... and that way you dont have to worry about the security/bandwidth and a slew of other issues that probably come up
Stand. Get a motorized desk, like a geekdesk, and stand most of the day. You'll live longer.
Hi guys. I'm a founder and just signed up to say hello and answer questions that people might have.
How would this be any different from bringing an equivalent value in "goods"? (whether they are digital or physical)
Using their tech to show us them building their tech. This works on so many levels. I'm waiting for the Inception theme to start playing.
I'd like to learn more about this. can anybody recommend some cool projects (open source, or even just ideas) for me to explore?
Show HN: Pump, a dead simple Pythonic abstraction of HTTP.
This is a great example of civic illiteracy viewed through the eyes of an engineer. The premise is that there's only one correct way to build a bridge, so it shouldn't be necessary to provide input for the engineer to "do his job". But in civics, there is rarely a binary right/wrong answer, which is why public servants need our input.

It's worth pointing out that even individuals can disagree with themselves over the correct course of action in civic affairs. The debt ceiling debate is a perfect example: I hate paying taxes, but I also want the government to restore cuts to education, transportation, and other things that private industry isn't good at providing.
what do you use to stream the video? flash p2p?
Close. The MBTA owns the commuter rail but does not operate it. It is outsourced to the Mass Bay Commuter Rail Company.MBTA provides the ticketing but does not operate the trains.
http://www.mbcr.net/
Or they didn't believe it was as good as cash, which is kind of a fair assessment. The guy he was going to meet might not have had the cash after all, and without a buyer, the Bitcoins have no intrinsic value. Saying that you have a suitcase full of collectable pins that you intend to trade with a guy for $1500 would probably not get you into the US either.
is that a deficiency of the iOS browser or the HTML5 standard?
How is this a rebuttal? They have only been around for a few years, and it's unlikely they will last a long time.
I buy lots of data sets on this stuff. My company analyzes SEO and SEM campaigns to help investors understand what they're getting into.
Screenshot? I see FB as the top organic result, but not as an advertiser.
I do not think the FEDs main target was these arrests..

Why?

The FEDs targets would be the financial, administration of the botnets used in the DDOs attacks..

The arrests are to put pressure on the alleged criminals to turn in the others..

The FEDs are after who is controlling the botnets in the DDOS attacks in the long term..

And you will not see the arrests of those for awhile as far as what appears in the press a the FBI can lock that down for 90 days as far as anybody knowing that you are being investigated..
I've had the opportunity to work with several women programmers. I don't think they were worse than average but none of them live to write software and use technology as a lifestyle. I have never met a female programmer that was self-taught.

I think the answer to the original question (in the title here, not the Fog Creek post) is that the rise of personal computers, and parental influence on girls at the time drove them away from it. Prior to the personal computer, most programmers were being introduced to the field in college. At the dawn of personal computing, parents viewed it as a male activity, like radio or electronics. Once this generation reached college, the males had many years of experience exploring their curiosity at home that the females did not have. College course work had to adapt to this with increased expectations of incoming freshman into Computer Science programs, which left those without computer experience intimidated and struggling.
I know. I was thinking the same thing. How does an IP address translate to a human being?
Wowza backend and flash client
New mac user here. How do you do ANYTHING full screen in safari? The green plus button just makes a big window, not a full-screen one.
You would declare the goods you're importing (which brings with it its own set of issues when importing high-value goods). That said, it's unclear when or if bitcoins would be 'imported'. And it's also unclear whether, for example, someone bringing in $5000 worth of gold bullion via a passenger jet would be able to come in via visa waiver (they may classify selling it as a form of work).

Anyway, the visa waiver program is for ordinary tourists. Doing something way out of the ordinary like that is just asking them to deny your visa. At the very least, apply beforehand and explain the situation to the immigration agents.
Found it quite jarring that the home page (http://www.debteye.com/home) and blog (http://blog.debteye.com/) look like completely unrelated organisations visually. Am I missing something?
Spoil Federal Auction = 2 years in Federal Prison
Good luck in getting the vague descriptions of symptoms that patients give into your diagnostic software. When you say this, do you think it will happen in our lifetimes?
You could use just `font family: sans-serif` without any font name. Mac will default to Helvetica, Win to Arial
I found the part about them copying data from his phone and iPad more troublesome than the whole bitcoin thing. Why would a self-described "cypherpunk" travel with non-encrypted digital devices, anyway?
Which is due to too much domestic demand, raising prices too high. Medical tourism isn't costing surgical positions.
Most goods that might be imported with the intent to trade for cash have more obvious (or, in the case of, say, gold or gemstones, more universally recognized) value.
I DO know what bitcoin is, and I don't understand how he could possibly fund his trip with it. Doesn't seem like the top of the list for liquid assets, i.e. what you need when travelling. Part of their job is to make sure you can fund your trip. This guy couldn't, from a variety of reasonable interpretations.
Sorry, but there's too much blatant sexism and prejudice for me to get angry about "microaggressions". It seems more like an invitation for the audience to feel sexy, and not like an aggressive thing.
It depends.

If you take the LION approach, then yes.

If you are already selective then it's fine not to, but keep in mind that Linkedin is about business networking not friending and burning bridges without good reason is bad business.

I'll point out that bad workplaces make bad managers, too. All of the faults you list can be embedded in a corporation's culture.

Finally, it is an opportunity to place professionalism above some past personal friction in a workplace you have moved beyond.
Also, leal means loyal in spanish, that's how I knew, when I was reading that book :)
This seems interesting but I'm not sure why. What are some use cases?
>What if you could pay for some kind of insurance product to protect against patent lawsuits?

Heh. Programmers' malpractice insurance. The premiums would be ridiculous, though.

>Or perhaps some kind of co-operative that owned a bunch of bullshit patents to be used for defensive purposes in such a scenario?

That's more or less the shitck Intellectual Ventures uses to justify that they're not patent trolls (they point it out in TFA). In the podcast they point out that their need for a good ROI doesn't allow them to sit idle.

How do you defend against patent trolls, though? It's not like they make anything that can be infringed on.

Maybe here's a valid, easy-to-swallow change to the patent system - everytime a patent changes hands you halve the amount of time it is valid for.
Article & original at Cornell have very limited info. Here's the paper.

http://www.cs.cornell.edu/~myleott/op_spamACL2011.pdf
As the Reader's Digest once put it (according to Dale Carnegie): "Many persons call a doctor when all they want is an audience". This could save people if done well.
w3schools.com

Why? See http://w3fools.com
I'm not sure why everyone on HN seems to be bagging on about.com. It's a legitimate website that pays authors to write content [1].

True, it's ugly and written at a 6th grade reading level, but it's sometimes useful. It's certainly not a spam site.

[1] - http://beaguide.about.com/
Definitely like the second part. It would seem that if you aren't actually using your patent, the patent's purpose is lost.

I also think there should be oversight on the patents that are granted. Right now you can patent something that has 20 years of prior art with relative ease. That's silly.
Why Does Roger Ebert Hate 3D Movies? | Reviews | I Think
if you're looking for an adventure, go down to the google headquarters in Mountain View and take a ride around the campus on one of the colored employee bikes.
Here's another NoWSGI HTTP server library (Brubeck):

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2770866
The project is pre semver 1.0.0, it should not be considering suitable for production.

You'll have to be way more specific about what you mean by "handle errors". Do you mean node to node connection errors? Node to node messaging errors? Errors localized in a custom Hook?

I suggest just reading through the codebase, it's not that big. The entire philosophy is crash only processes which are supervised by Forever. In the current early version of hook.io we usually get let things crash and restart. This isn't idea for guaranteeing delivery of messages, but it's a good start.
Listen to the this american life story, they mention a piece of software used by patent lawyers which does basically that.
The word 'hacker' has changed and been used many different ways over the years.

I have one thing to say to other hackers who don't like the way non-hackers use the term 'hacker': "harden the fuck up and stop being so precious. It is not your word. The English language belongs to all of us and evolves whether you approve of its direction or not."

Someone more concise than me said "English is a juggernaut truck - it goes on regardless"
I have a deep cynicism of anyone who describes themselves as a cypherpunk..

Having said that: an unencrypted phone/iPad is actually pretty sensible. You keep all the information you actually want to secure on a server safe at home, and have client software on your devices that can only access it after verifying the user (preferably using two-factor authentication, but even a password would be enough for this purpose)
Have fun with that lobbyist cluster-fuck! There's so much telco stuff that needs reformed, but no political will at all...
1) (note this could be all wrong, but this is what we were told) You can't transfer registrar to outside of Lithuania
2) No Lithuanian registrar offers naked http redirects (ie: wil.lt/x -> www.wil.lt/x). Hence the www. on all of our links...

We are setting up forwarding the naked domain to a static IP that will do the http forwarding

(forgive me if I butchered the dns speak. not my domain haha)
320Gb is definitely more than needed, but look at the disks on the site; the smallest drive there is an 80Gb Western Digital, but it costs £29.10; the 320Gb Seagate costs £28.66.
/shrug
Hey, if they want to charge less for a 320Gb than a smaller drive, I'll take the 320Gb.

As to the 850W, darn right I don't need all of it right now, but (a) I want the PSU nowhere near its limits when running two RAID arrays; and (b) I'll be adding in disks in the future to increase storage space as needed; I don't want to have to buy another PSU or worry about stressing the PSU at that point. It's relatively cheap future-proofing.
I see that you updated it so that it caches the final html for each unique set of parameters. I guess I should have better explained what I meant by "compiled".

If you pass the template text to the underscore function without any parameters, then it returns a function. Then you can call that function with different parameters and get different html back. That eliminates some of the work that underscore has to do repeatedly if you are rendering lots of templates. So I was thinking that when you loop through all the script headers and create methods for them, that you could also create the "compiled" underscore template function. Then, the template method that you create would take the parameters and pass them along to that "compiled" function to get the html back.

My apps wouldn't really have use for caching the final html, but maybe someone has a good use for that. If you leave it in, it should probably be an option, because it could use up a lot of memory depending on the app.
IANAL, but in the US whether you actually hold a monopoly is the key. I think it would be bough to show that Google holds a monopoly in this space. They definitely command the biggest market share, but I'm not sure it would be enough to show that they have a monopoly. 65% (as reported here: http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/02/11/googles-lead-s...) is certainly the lion's share, but not quite a monopoly by US standards.
So what makes you guys different from justin/ustream/stickam?
Google controls something like 97% of search traffic.

if you aren't with them, you essentially get knee capped
This is weeks, er, months old.

Official announcement (from March): http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/hide-sites-to-find-mo...

There has been previous discussion on HN as well: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2310310 and discussion of the Chrome extension that led to it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2218382
Belstaff
I believe the intent is to be Rack[1] for Python. The beauty of Rack is that I can build a new web framework, web server, or web app plugin and have it "just work" with the rest of the ecosystem. And because the Rack API is so simple, building to spec is easy.

In the Ruby world if I want to use the awesome library Sass all I have to do is:

gem install sass

Because it functions as a Rack plugin it automatically works with any Ruby web framework & Ruby web server combo I choose. No special setup required.

-----

[1] http://rack.rubyforge.org/
Do you really save anything significant by purchasing less than 320GB, these days?
experts-exchange gets my vote as well.

I hate hate hate the thought of having to do all my Google searches logged in though.
Maybe we miss the point here. You can't argue the science behind transistors is correct (or, at least, the engineering) but you can show how bad things end up when we start recommending eugenics.

The central idea of eugenics - that we can control our evolution the way we did with dogs or cattle - is not inherently flawed, but I wouldn't trust the evolution of our species to its current members. Before we think about building a better mankind, we need a better mankind.
Peter Thiel, Ron Conway, Marissa Mayer, Mike McCue, And Vinod Khosla