skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I have updated the post to reflect the fact that the amendment or previous bill does not explicitly refer to tracking of internet habits. I will continue to investigate the bills and available data etc.

I would like to thank you for pointing this out and I took the liberty of thanking you in my update of the post.
I didn't know this. Hrmm. Where do you find data on that sort of thing?
Interesting page - two "founders" and two "co-founders".
Time for a double dip in economy
Pure CSS3 coverflow effect. No javascript. Working on Chrome, FF and Safari.
Product sounds really awesome. I'm slightly confused by the name though. antsurfor.me - what is it meant to mean? I don't see any connection between the name and your description of the product.
Server Virtualization Technology | Basics of server virtualization
Wait that tin can floating around above us is the most expensive thing we've built? Wow, that's sort of kills all the dreams of things like building an enterprise size ship in space for a long while.

I guess it's a function of cheap transport to LEO. If we get that, other things will follow. Go Space X!
The cost of that freedom is everyone who uses/would like to use your service, is free to complain loudly and campaign for change.

If you're confident your business model can survive that sort of criticism, then you are free to do as you please. But without a monopoly and/or high cost of entry, eventually someone else is going to come along with different, more acceptable policies, and you lose.

Facebook is currently playing the customer lock-in/high cost of change by preventing you from exporting your data conveniently.
Astronomy Discovery Could Help Treat Cancer Patients
On the one hand, using your real identity online opens you up to abuse, danger, and invasion of privacy. On the other hand, anonymity brings out the scumbag side of way too many people.

I'd like to see "semi-real" identities. What I mean by that is that they could be mostly anonymous, but it would take some work to create them, and it should get harder to create them the more you have created.

The idea is that you can have an online presence separate from your real identity, which you can use for forums, games, social networks that go beyond your actual friends, and such. However, because you can't just trivially abandon a semi-real identity for a new one there would be some incentive to treat it with care similar to that you would use with your real identity. You wouldn't want to be an ass online and get your semi-real identity widely banned.
Vote For Top-100 Science Fiction, Fantasy Titles
Context-sensitive tab-completion addresses this to a degree. Things like Emacs' ido and dmenu can often take you the rest of the way. I play my music using a script rather similar to what he's described in the article except it narrows down the list of completions as I type using dmenu: https://github.com/technomancy/dotfiles/blob/master/bin/musi...

I really wish this style of completion were more common.
um, TOR?
Also wanted to add: Meetups, go to all the meetups and get involved with the community. Springboard from the meetups to the conferences.

If you're in the decent programmer category who your friends are matters far more than what you can do. (I'm pretty sure this is true at any level in any industry). Plus, who doesn't want more friends?
If you asked someone how to improve how they got from point a to point b in 1890, they'd have told you they wanted a better locomotive or a better horse. If you asked someone in 1990 how to improve how they keep in touch with friends they would have told you they wanted lower long distance rates so they could talk longer. People that have been using computers that use desktop metaphors are today's example.

You are probably quite efficient with the tools you have today. You know how to get your work done. You have the problems and the solutions mapped to your brain.

This isn't a bad thing, because it likely means that you are competent at what you do. It does however mean that seeing potential improvements in what can be done is more difficult because none of us are working with a blank slate.
But that is an use, not an abuse of power.
Even now this is probably the single worst essay PG has ever published, and he's written some stinkers.

Nerds weren't unpopular in school because they were actually even cooler than everyone else, and didn't want to waste their time stooping to everyone else's debased level of communication and friendship. That's an absurd fantasy.

Nerds are unpopular in forced social settings like secondary schools because they're huge assholes, the kind of people that even 25 years later write essays about how really it was everybody else's fault that nobody got along with them.

Very few nerds come to understand this, the only media I've seen that gets it right was this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reunion_(30_Rock)
Australian app developer slams Amazon over free deal
Gammon steak with fried eggs and pineapple rings. Divine!
When I think through all the different conversations I've had online that I almost certainly would have chosen not to have were they directly traceable to my real name it becomes brain dead obvious to me that a "Real Name" policy is going to strangle the life out of G+ as a medium for interesting conversations. Sure I'll be on there ... but what you will see will be strictly my professional persona - the lowest common denominator of what I can afford to expose publicly across all aspects of my life without offending anyone I know.

It's weird to me that Google can't see that the answer to the problems they are trying to solve can be solved equally well with pseudonymous identities as they can with real identities. Hacker News and Reddit both implement systems that encourage respectful conversation through karma type systems which allow anyone to speak but everyone to easily see and understand the context of that speaker. That's all you need.
+1 on the title
Reaction to the post, not you:

And the comments, while using 'real names' mostly, show that this policy cannot protect against ignorance and miscommunication. I read it, about half the comments, and had to facepalm when several people (Hey, are you really 'Scott Wakeman' or 'Brian Dayhoff'? Because.. That would suck) went down that sorry 'Google's service, Google's rules' route. One even using a lawn as an analogy. I'd applaud to that, but given the ignorance of the statements within I doubt that the irony was intended.

Yes, Google can ban everyone from their service as they please. No, that is not a valid argument in this discussion.

I left my 'I'm taking my ball home and don't play with you anymore' or alternatively 'We don't like you, you cannot join our game' attitude in preschool. Please. Stop that. Assume that people have a brain and use it. Use yours _more_.
Pelosi: Republicans Are Interested In Destroying Government
Actually, I would be really interested on research done in this area.
What are some modern UI concepts (apart from those oh so usable interfaces offered by this big fruit company)?

Are there any fresh concepts out there at all? I would really like to see what might be possible if somebody really starts developing something radically different and well suited for the novice computer user and the ubergeek at the same time.

Hiding complexity from the user might be one option, but there should be more ways to make use of the gui concept than just oversimplyfing things.
You're basically describing Hacker News, Reddit, even Slashdot - any system with a concept of karma and established identity over time. It is hardly a new idea, and certainly not the rocket science that everyone is pretending it is.
Ah... those were the days!
Did you know about M-x print-drop-card that we had on the snakes?
In specialist's circles such software is known as web scrapers, ants, web spiders and crawlers.

I took an ant and made an anology with the turtle Logo graphics.

Imagine an ant which surfs the web for you given you provided the ant with the script of where actually to go and which data to harvest there
Jeremy, sorry but you are mistaken.

The report -- http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1898390 -- was technically correct. In fact, it's KISSmetrics that's distorting what the report said.

Shah writes "Mr. Soltani’s paper speculates that KISSmetrics tracks customers across websites based on his observation of a shared identifier on different customer websites."

Soltani's paper and my story about it said nothing of the sort.

Both point out that KISSmetrics technology gives a user the same unique ID on different sites, a technological choice that would allow its clients to compare their databases -- independent of KISSmetrics -- and share data about users.

I find the recent blog post odd, because on Friday, Shah told me it was accurate and that the techniques were legal.
Ask HN
I have been asked to implement an iTunes Affiliate Free Music Downloads webpage. Of course, the iTunes Affiliate guy says there is no documentation or examples of how one would go about making this work. Would like to avoid reinventing the wheel.

Our corporate site is running Drupal 6. Every free download of a given song will have a unique code. iTunes Affiliate will give us a list of codes, it's our job to make the "free download" button grab a new code each time it is clicked-on.

Does anyone have advice or suggestions about how to proceed?
Chromium Notes: The zygote process and software updates
I have started it twice: first time I got to chapter 3, second time I got stuck at chapter 4. It sounds a bit petulant to say, but I think it already has made me a better programmer. I had to stop for various life-related issues, but I love how it's written. Whatever you think of it as a beginner's textbook, it's a great piece of literature.

Recently I had to do some Gimp scripting and got some experience using Scheme as a programming language (as oppoosed to a learning language for doing SICP exercises). The moment I have some free time again I will try SICP again.
>Google+ has a link for reporting people who are using fake names.

That's deep! That's what i call the real power of social. You can always trust that your neighbor is watching you...

How could a sane supposedly normal person come up with an idea of such a link? How could a group of such people to implement and release it to the public? Did they suppress their vomiting reflex? Or may be they just don't have it at all, like drones.
TAX RATES FOR MILLIONAIRES HAVE FALLEN 25 PERCENT SINCE 1995
An enthusiast has created an improved version[1] of SICP, free
download available.

Description:

The typography has been modernized for better on-screen legibility
and comfort. All the mathematics is set in proper TEX, and figures
redrawn in vector graphics.

[1] http://sicpebook.wordpress.com/2011/05/28/new-electronic-sic...
It's tough. I've had the most success with referrals from friends in the industry. I don't think the average Elance designer is at the level you see on Groove.
I recognize that username. Wasn't Gerry your advisor too? I imagine he might have made you read his SICM too.
>if you're a heroin user then you can literally get put in jail for trying to use clean needles.

// You know what's not illegal. Stopping injecting yourself with dirty needles.
Poe's? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

Comes to mind all too often when browsing comments on the net.
I just wanted to point out the obvious to any potential readers: this is just one indicator and does not reflect what is happening in all sectors of the economy. Rather, it a price chart of commercial shipping services. Useful, but definitely not the end-all be-all economic recession indicator that the author makes it out to be.
Apple now $16B away from most valuable company, $34B closer than 2 weeks ago
I'm curious why bostinnovation.com posts get voted up so high on HN, when they're so full of hype, and so lacking in content. This one is at least intrinsically more interesting than the last one I saw, "a list of programming language designers who have driven past Boston".
But he doesn't make a good impression, soon he has to explain why Microsoft is attacking android with patents.
There was no "gotcha" and these people on Techcrunch see this whole thing as a reality show. It is sad because this is serious stuff, Microsoft is fighting Google with unfair methods.
our site littlebiggy.org lets people talk about people so the potential for abuse made us insist on real names. people are used to this for facebook so it wasnt a problem until important posts about corruption were missed. so we've made pseudonyms a manual exception. if you need the protection of a pseudonym you request it from a littleBiggy editor. a hassle but the best balance we've found so far.
That debt ceiling raise? 60% is already spent. In one day
And that's a semantic distinction that I don't think is important.
Debt Ceiling Deal Will Cost 1.8 Million Jobs In 2012
What’s missing from the debt ceiling debate? Jobs
Famous rejections letters
Ask HN: What are the stupid things Rails developers do?
I liked the post "How to seem good at everything: Stop doing stupid shit" [1,2] and am wondering how to apply it to take my dev skills to the next level... What is the "stupid shit" that developers do that if we were to only stop doing would make us better developers?

I'm primarily working in Rails nowadays if that makes a difference in the way you answer the question.

[1] http://jinfiesto.posterous.com/how-to-seem-good-at-everything-stop-doing-stu

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2848041
the article claims a 0% false negative rate. This is a MUCH more important claim. False positives are fine, if scary, you go and get a proper test the next day.
This board is a very rare exception on the internet, and even it descends into its own form of lynch mobbery (with a more elevated tone than most lynch mobs).
A good lawyer could convince a jury that requiring real names amounts to a "whites only" or a "men only" rule, which would be illegal.
I like this MSFT better. Not that I enjoy seeing huge mega-companies acting like children and pointing fingers, but the candidness is refreshing.

There's a fine line to be walked between "caked in corporate-speak" and "tries to be your best buddy", I think MSFT is doing well walking it.
I liked this post but am not quite sure where to start in applying this to software development. I created a follow-up "Ask HN: What are the stupid things Rails developers do?" here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2848169
Unfair is all relative - people think it is unfair Google is giving away Android for free by funding it with its search revenue. I don't agree with what MSFT is doing with Android patents but they have a stock answer which I'm sure they'll repeat.
It makes his objectivity suspect.
Not just me:

Because dry bulk primarily consists of materials that function as raw material inputs to the production of intermediate or finished goods, such as concrete, electricity, steel, and food, the index is also seen as an efficient economic indicator of future economic growth and production. The BDI is termed a leading economic indicator because it predicts future economic activity.[7]

And:

"People don't book freighters unless they have cargo to move."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltic_Dry_Index#Why_economists...
Ask HN: How do you check avaialbility of domain names?
Every once in a while there is a project that checks the availability of a large number of domain names at once. How do you go about this? Are their domain name registrars that offer an API (that allow a huge number of requests) - or are these people just doing piles of whois queries?
I'm a long time user of Google Apps / Gmail and this layout feels weird, uncomfortable and cluttered on my 15" MacBook Pro. It might be just that it's new and might take a few days to get used to the new layout.
You mean shell completion? It's been done in varying forms quite a lot.
Pseudonymity is important, but cheap disposable identities lead to lots of community-destroying mischief.

What's the best practice for enabling pseudonyms but curtailing throwaway spam/harassment/sockpuppet account-creation?

For my next project I'm considering offering two registration options:

(1) Use Facebook, which is close enough to 'real names' for most purposes – while still having some room, as Boyd notes, for many users of persistent pseudonyms.

(2) Buy a pseudonym with a nonrefundable Bitcoin payment. If you're serious about pseudonymity, why not go all the way? This is a variant on the 'Metafilter $5 one-time fee' model, but as Matt Haughey has noted that still occasionally suffers from chargebacks by dedicated vandals. Bitcoin solves that.

Any thoughts?
In other words, both sides agree that Google didn't want to enter into a partnership to acquire patents that they couldn't use to sue Microsoft, Apple, et al.

Google claims that such suits would only be to defend itself when sued ("no first strike", just mutually assured destruction via countersuits), but Microsoft hasn't replied to that claim.

Apparently, without the ability to use these patents to countersue defensively, Google did not consider them worthwhile to pursue.
Instagram’s Kevin Systrom Shares His Startup Secrets
Not all apartments are rented. Not all short term rentals are illegal. And not all leases forbid subletting.
This sounds like a creative way of scamming a pay-per-call advertiser. But, I can't imagine any of the 'big boys' in the pay-per-call market risking something like this.
Processing arrays using CPS
Great looking effect, but horribly slow and ultimately unuse-able. Web browsers are in dire need of some native GPU support.
Your comment sounds like someone saying at the advent of the pill that it was not about enabling promiscuity but about allowing wives to manage their family planning better.
Folks, the longer this goes on more startups lose.. TC should know better than to get involved in one-upmanship that hurts startups..

Whose startup among HN readers can afford patent lawsuits say if either MSFT or Google come knocking?

So where is the coverage of how dismal the current patent reform legislation at TC?
its actually really smooth for me.
Really surprised that nothing by Michael Crichton is on that list.

Semi-related: I am somewhat annoyed by the tendency to categorize SciFi with Fantasy. They are completely different genres. SciFi I love because it is usually at least a little bit be plausible. Wizards and goblins, though, not so much.
Both the lawyers and Soltani deny any working relationship, and it's not clear what proof KISSmetrics has beyond timing.

But correlation is not always causation, and KISSmetrics is putting themselves at risk of a libel suit if they don't have any proof.
Wire transmissions are less likely to error because they have more checksums and other self-correcting mechanisms. A bad bit over the wire will get the entire data package dropped.
I'm using Chrome 13 on an iMac with 8 GB of Ram + Core i5. Pretty laggy here. Safari feels "smoother" though
This is exactly the reason why client server technology failed and could never scale.

He said, on the internet.
Well, yes, but I was thinking something a bit more verbose and p-front than just the old press-tab-to-autocomplete. Or did you have something else in mind?
I can completely relate to this post, although I didn't buy anything at all when I sold my business... In fact, I'm in the process of selling just about everything I have and moving to a different city.

Selling my business and getting a decent amount of money made me realize that the money part never really mattered in the first place and wasn't the big motivation for starting up.

Now I just have the money sitting in a couple different accounts and I don't plan on buying anything with it (other than maybe a decent vacation at some point - I didn't take any over the five years I ran the business).
Right, a joint purchase doesn't protect you from your bidding partner's existing patents.
Lion install borked? Apple giving free Lion USB sticks to some
These DRACO proteins are (in the grand scheme of things) non-sequence (or indeed virus) specific, which is one of the reasons this is so exciting. They are specific in terms of the dsRNA binding domain they’re built with, although these domain may have a range of different sequences or secondary structures they can bind. The apoptotic response is triggered by the DRACO proteins crosslinking when two of them bind to the same fragment of dsRNA.

Put into slightly more straight forward terms, the apoptotic pathway is like a massive self destruct switch, which is triggered by a whole range of different things (viral infection, DNA damage, cancer signals etc). The body has evolved various mechanisms to detect dsRNA, as this is often a sign of viral infection. dsRNA doesn't occur naturally in mammals beyond ~10-25 nucleotides in length, while many viruses either have a dsRNA genome, or create long strands of dsRNA during their replication cycle, even if they do not have a long-term stable dsRNA genome. I’d imagine this provides a mechanism for DRACO proteins to target these non-dsRNA viruses. These DRACO proteins are simply a way to supercharge the body’s defences, increasing the cell's sensitivity to dsRNA.

My main concern would be relating to an immune response (any kind of recombinant protinaceous therapeutics is often risky), and also regarding administration and pharmacokinetics. Viruses are good at making lots of themselves, and may accumulate in different cell types, tissues or organs. Getting good, thorough coverage of the body may be a challenge. However, that said, any kind of “outside the box” therapeutics is always very welcome, especially where apoptosis is concerned, as it’s implicated in a wide range of diseases but is still relatively poorly understood.
Ideally they'd be able to say "we messed up, we're making the necessary changes" but can't do that with a lawsuit pending.

I don't see any good reasons why they can't simply use cookies and acknowledge that some folks will delete them.
Now Microsoft is being disingenuous.

The only 'defense' against patents Microsoft holds, and can prosecute against Google, are patents that Google holds, and can prosecute against Microsoft. Sadly, that's how it works.

Acquiring new patents, held jointly, could only be used against third parties. Of course if Microsoft thinks it has the momentary advantage, it'd like to freeze that advantage forever by making all new patents jointly shared.

Nuclear states are always the biggest fans of non-proliferation!

Unless of course Microsoft wasn't just offering to bid jointly, but license all prior IP mutually in perpetuity at the same time? Such a true non-aggression pact would be interesting, if it did not run afoul of antitrust coordination concerns.
> If anything, your viewpoint--that every single website on the internet has to be run the way you would run it--is the more oppressive one.

That's an awfully cute straw man, but not really what's being discussed here. My calling for some basic human decency is no more "oppressive" than my remarking that hey, people who kick puppies or don't say thank you to waiters are pricks.

> by providing a forum for people to speak out anonymously.

That doesn't address the issue.

The value of large companies with large social graphs is one of networking. Having a soapbox to talk shout into silence doesn't do anything to improve the cause of someone who can't be safe with their own identity online.

Cramming people who are unable, for their own safety and well-being, into a ghetto cut off from the larger world is hardly a kind thing to do. For one, it deprives them of the ability to open communications with allies whose circumstances allow for help or resources to begin flowing.

At a certain scale, the privilege of network effects comes with social responsibility. People have the right, and often the need, to define their identity along specific parameters. Refusing to acknowledge that does not respect users – and it's entirely valid to condemn that.