skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I must say, I can relate. The discussion almost sounds as if Jonathan's card would have saved the world (transformed us all into happy altruists, drinking free coffee ever after) if only Sam hadn't ruined it.

Maybe the "hack" was not such a good idea after all, but I am willing to believe that it was not done in a mean spirit, but simply to experiment.

Come to think of it, perhaps in this way the whole experiment (Card+iPad hack) brings out other, more ugly facets of humans than the desired altruism. Like the tendency to gang up on other people - and sometimes people who want to make the world a better place are the most aggressive ones.
These are all very valid points. Several of them (the ones related to DRM, mostly) kept me from buying a Kindle for a very long time.

However, I love my Kindle.

First and most importantly, it means that books can now compete with the internet in convenience, and that's meant that I've read more in the last few months than I have in the several years before that. Thinking "I want to read <X>" and being able to start reading minutes rather than days later is awesome.

Second, I find the Kindle to be much nicer to read than cheap trade paperbacks. The text is higher-contrast and crisper, and only having to push a button rather than turn a page means I can read more comfortably. That there's less text on each screen was an issue at first for me (because, like the author, I read very quickly), but I've since gotten used to it and don't even notice anymore.

It has its downsides, and I really do hope they're resolved at some point in the future, but my Kindle has become something I really wouldn't want to live without, at this point.
> In that light it would be hard to understand the negative reaction to my participation. After all, it's an experiment and isn't finding interesting new uses for the card fair-game? Even after Starbucks shut down the card, isn't the experiment living on? Why the outrage?

Because the card would likely still be alive if you wouldn't act like a dick?

> For those who are hurt, angry, or frustrated with the role I played, I sincerely apologize. Had I known so many were so invested in this, I would have certainly done things differently.

A hint for you: create Asshole's Card with the $625 you stole and continue the experiment. You shall add even more funds and give some back to Jonathan himself.
I bought myself a whiteboard. And on it I write down all the tasks (large and small) and milestones to completing my project. The board obviously goes through revisions as the project grows and morphs. But it does something really important that I wasn't doing before.

I too get a thrill from starting a new project because it's still just a dream but seems acheivable. There's probably some cogsci reason for this, dopamine levels and so on. And when the project starts to drag on you're not getting that dopamine hit anymore and so you get an urge to start a new project to get that rush again.

What you need to do is learn to get a thrill from completing milestones. Being able to cross off one of the tasks on that whiteboard feels awfully damned good. I keep the crossed off tasks on the board for a while because I find that thrill of completing it lasts for a while and keeps me motivated to cross off the next one.
Who gives a shit? Also, PROVE IT.
Using R and Ruby - slides from February LRUG
While I disagree with his actions: His post was moderate, he apologized and promised a longer reply and explanation in the future.

Please stop the name calling.
"Some engineer came up with the Wii Remote and they changed everything in the last second."

Where do you get that from? That's not what happened at all. The Wii was a result of a coordinated effort to redefine the user interface and had been in planning stages for years. They spent months refining and iterating on how they wanted their control to work, but the vision of motion control and a pointer were a fundamental part of the Revolution project.

The Wii was certainly luck to some extent, but it was also a calculated move based on a belief that there was a new way to excite ("delight" as Iwata calls it) players in motion/pointer controls and that they should follow that path, despite the competition going with HD graphics over controller innovation.
The remote-local computing cycle
Natural selection works for viruses too so over time they get better in overcoming immune system. In some way HIV is a frightening but amazing work of evolution.
Unless I misunderstand what you mean, don't a host of languages do this? io, ruby, javascript?
I'm about as uninterested as possible in hearing any more about this, especially from Sam Odio.
If you have a take-a-penny-leave-a-penny jar, and somebody comes and takes 500$ worth of pennies. Do you think they are possibly abusing the system?

Or if someone said "Hey guys I brought this cake in for everyone to have some." and then someone later said "Oh, I stole the cake because I have some friends who wanted some cake. In fact they wanted the cake more than you guys, so I'm glad that you didn't get any".
Free Cancer Information
I too have started to hate my kindle, but not for any of the reasons the author lists. Mine are:

- Availability. Within the US (and only within the US/Canada) book availability is great, but it isn't perfect..outside the US/Canada it sucks. Amazon once had books 1,2 and 5 of a series I wanted, but not 3 and 4 (I know, i know, this isn't amazon's fault)

- Price. Kindle books are often more expensive than their physical counterparts

- Quality. Not only are you paying more, but you'll get OCR errors in every book.

- DRM.

The above 4 combined make it so I rather donate to Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com/) and find other ways to get ebooks onto my device.

Additionally:

- KDK. The KDK isn't public yet, and it seems imposible to get into the beta. On top of that, the KDK is lacking some basic APIs (like collection management)

- Indie support. It's my understanding that you can't publish a free book as an independent author to the kindle store.

My plan is that when it's time to upgrade (hoping for a new batch of options for xmas), I'll buy whatever has the best screen/battery/dimensions/weight/price. Because, really, once you don't care about the Kindle store, there's no reason to not simply get the best device. Amazon doesn't do any value-added with the Kindle....there's no reason to be loyal or stick with it.
Sorry to hijack OP's post, but I'd like to take this opportunity to ask you a few things about Khan Academy.
All I know about is based on a piece that appeared in Wired US august issue.

To me, your method relied on a)having kids learning a lesson at home b)drilling exercises.

On a), I must say that it surprised me much. It means that kids must all have computer available at home (which is clearly not the case, even in western countries) and it also means that their home is sufficiently stable so that they can listen to a lesson (which is probably not doable if mom & dad fight each other every night, whereas doing small exercises is doable in between fights?).

Then, there's this part about creating a school, costing upwards of 10k$ a year. Call me a socialist or whatever, but seriously, paying 10k$ a year to get primary education, wtf?? Shouldn't a not for profit org seek to open such a school for free?

Please do not see this msg as completely negative: you're doing stuff to find other/better ways to teach kids, which is definitely awesome.
Does any one know of a good Ruby equivalent of such a library?
Actually, it runs well enough in CPython unless you are doing something terrible with your code. What it doesn't do is execute more than one thread within the same process. If you don't need to share in-memory data between your threads (which is something you really should avoid, for your own sake), you can use the same mechanism you use to create a thread to create a new process.
Also if we could guarantee a period of relatively little disease, it's not like all research just stops. We can probably evolve many different types of "super-bugs" in the lab faster than nature and create advance treatments for them, extending the period of low disease even further and further. I'm also a believer in a general solution to human sickness being discoverable, though I don't have confident time frames.
I guess the difference was (and is) that some didn't understand experiment being used in the scientific way. For a number of people (and I guess I'm on that side as well, although I never enter a StarBucks if I can avoid it and just watched from a distance) this was more a 'Let's see if we can keep this thing running' challenge.

Experiment as in experimental and beta, novel, new, interesting. Not experiment as in 'how much pressure can I apply to this before it breaks'. A misunderstanding that causes these name calling now..
This Sam Odio seems to have ruined his reputation in one hack.
Jonathan's Card: a Q&A Sam Odio's blog
Dark matter involves hypothesizing something that is being hypothesized solely to explain certain cosmological problems

Much as in the 1840s, Urbain Le Verrier predicted the position of the then-undiscovered planet Neptune after analysing perturbations in the orbit of Uranus?
Too lazy to Google, it is just what I remember from reading the news back then. Maybe they really refined it for months, but the world had been waiting for news from Nintendo for years?
I've just bought one myself and have experienced the same kind of joy that you have with it, very much similar to getting my first iPhone.

I think your choice on iPad/Kindle will always fall down to e-ink. I get mentally exhausted at looking at backlit screens for too long, picking up the Kindle I get none of that nagging feeling of strain.

It's a wonderful device and I wish I'd got it sooner.
To the contrary, I find that those who speak from long silence are ignored out of habit by those who won't shut up.
Since the context was human (online) society, the backlash is part of the experiment too. Also, the experiment continues. I personally wonder if the experiment will produce a regret reaction from the publicly non-cooperating participant. For the moment it seems to be producing a 'deflect / damage control' reaction.
No. pg has posted about this several times. I can't find one of those comments with a casual search, but it's pretty close to: start with the most recent 50 comments you've made, throw out the highest-scoring one, average the remaining ones. The focus is to average over your recent activity.
All about Windows 7 password recovery USB
Then again, there is no such thing as bad news. At least he put his name on the map.
卸妆乳
1. I can spill most things on my Kindle, or leave it in sunlight; I have a cover.

2. Amazon allows Kindle book lending, but the majority of publishers do not enable it on their books. But this isn't a problem with the Kindle specifically.

3. There's less of a second hand market for e-books, this is true. This is like complaining about how you can't resell games purchased via Steam.

4. You can save quotes via the highlighting feature. If I were allowed to copy/paste directly from the kindle app, I'd have a script which allowed me to dump the entire text of a book in a few hours.

5. Amazon added real page numbers in the latest Kindle update.

6 & 7. Now he's just venting.
Go is imperative language. You will need a lot of context to understand a piece of code. Sooner or later. ;)
here's a free tip: apologies should be near the start and unqualified. put the self-justification and excuses afterwards.

this reads like he's working for airbnb.
such a way that the .exe extension was not visually displayed at the end of the name. If you double-clicked such a file the first time, it could ask you if you realized that it is program you are about to run and not a ".jpg"

Suggestions like this should get you a professional penalty, like a yellow card.

"Saw a specific problem, suggested an Are-you-sure dialog for this specific case, on top of that, one most people can't answer".
I do care, this shows that Mark is following G+ moves, wich also can indicate that Mark is acknowledging the fact that G+ is a direct competitor to FB. and also, You can prove it yourself :
1) Add Mark to a circle.
2) You will see him popup in the list of people in your circles who have played the game
Feeling kind of weird being on the defensive side here, but - wouldn't you consider

"For those who are hurt, angry, or frustrated with the role I played, I sincerely apologize. Had I known so many were so invested in this, I would have certainly done things differently."

a "regret outcome"? That's part of the blog entry and the 'sincerely apologize' part is bold and hard to miss.
I haven't followed J's card too closely, but wasn't it set up in a very lenient way? How about creating a more "secure" system, for example without the possibility to get money out of the card other than by drinking coffees?
[video] Guerrilla Guide to Pure Functional Programming
Fair point. I must admit I only skimmed through. I guess the answer to my question is yes.
"Except with antibiotics history did not quite play out like this"

Sure it did. In fact, already in the 60s the original penicillin became dangerously ineffective. Around that time we (==humanity) developed semi-synthetic penicillin that enables us to change some core ingredients in the formula every few years and thus avoid saturation by bacterial evolution.

Of course, IANABiologist, so look for more information if it interests you.

p.s. if anyone is around London I highly recommend going to the Alexander Fleming museum. Highly recommended and since (sadly) no one goes there you effectively get a private tour of Fleming's lab.
Wish it would also sync the non-Amazon books, though. Maybe I am not proficient enough yet, but so far I had to copy ebooks into obscure directories by hand (especially interesting on the Android Kindle reader).
He made a name in one hack.

Now that he's in the spotlight, if he manages to leverage his new found fame, the coffee incident will not matter much.

This post is already a step in the right direction.
Don't you think the researchers would take their size and metabolism into account when determining the dosage?
Most of the criticism applies to the Kindle specifically, not to ebooks in general. The inability to see what others are reading is a problem, though.
This article sounds like it was written by a luddite. The only half-good argument is book sharing, and even that isn't that great.

You can't copy-paste from the kindle? Let me just get my paper book out and copy-paste some text from that here. Oh, wait...
He did not apologize for his actions.

He apologized that silly emotional people got upset at the obvious outcome of this entire stunt.

A sincere apology takes three words. When those three words are buried in hundreds of words of qualifications and context its no longer an apology.

The entire thing is redolent of a condescending tone. Sam, you see, is a scientist! Anyone who questioned his behavior is just an having an emotional reaction and does not understand the real world - where there is always a Sam to piss in the well.

The thing is, most of use knew this already, and his demonstration did not teach anyone anything other than about Sam's character.

EDIT: Oh, I don't care about the gift card. I am simply commenting on the 'apology.'
He was already fairly well known. Don't think it ruins his reputation at all, this is similar really to the kind of stuff that gets celebrated as innovative thinking around here. Sure this particular instance has stuck a chord with some people.
But you also need to prove that the Mark Zuckerberg account on G+ is THE Mark Zuckerberg.
...and I strongly support the general accounting change, particularly for government or semi-governmental entities that might be counting on taxpayers footing the bill they run up. Just because USPS suffers by having to do something reasonable because of politics doesn't mean that it's a bad idea.
Mental Malware: The Psychology of Korean Advertisements
Really? I hope you're not talking about first-class postage: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Postage_History.svg
Yes you should be able to trademark colors. Also, people should be allowed to trademark specific tones, like middle 'C' on the piano. I bought that one, you can't use it.
Or maybe some people around here can at least accept that if you never make mistakes, you are not trying hard enough.
The negative comments and name calling against Sam Odie is way out of line. Jonathan made an "experiment" and launched it. It was wildly successful and he got lots of data about how people react to the experimental situation he created. Real experiments don't have outcomes that are pre-ordained. Let it go. Learn and move on.
You're trying to make your problem at home look bigger and more significant by using third world problems you guys used for hypocrisy. US is still the vanguard of human economy.

Your existential crisis is nothing more than a product of typical shift in international economic power balance.
re: the issues of sharing and reselling, both of these are going to become far less of an issue. With "mediocre" authors like Amanda Hocking (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/01/self-published-auth...) able to make millions by self publishing at a $3 price, we will see more established authors follow this route and eventually weaken he publishers to the point where they must relent on these issues. These are temporary pains cause by an industry being torn up by a technical innovation.

If you look at Amazon's "Domino Project" (http://www.thedominoproject.com/books) you get a sense for what they imagine the future to be. Authors creating books to an audience built via social media rather than expensive retail promotion and being sold for $5ish dollars

As for the other points, I agree with most of the commenters that these sound more like personal issues rather than technical problems.
Isn't this just a version of segmentation? I'm not very clear on how the paywall works (specifically, how it doesn't work, i.e. how it can be bypassed), can someone elucidate?
Fair enough. I guess you can read that from the article.

For me, I can't see these things. Someone else already said that he should've apologized first, unqualified - and I agree that this would make a difference.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if I'd have started like that - it feels natural to me to explain first, reason about my actions and end with an apology. We're not talking about a company here (see the AirBnB comparison), we're talking about a random guy as far as I'm concerned.

Lastly: I guess a lot is getting lost in translation for me. Lots of advices on this forum are hard to get for me, because they are about nuances of English words, implied meanings, 'tone' and cultural rules. While it might very well be possible that you/most of the posters and Sam are sharing the same standards and therefor 'better' understand the content or see a subtext: I cannot.
You take a penny, you leave a penny. That's it, that's the unwritten rule.
There are two different things to judge here, and your comment appears to conflate them. First, we can judge whether Sam’s action was “Part of the experiment.” Second, we can judge whether Sam’s action was repugnant.

I think that it is possible to believe that Sam’s action was part of the experiment and also repugnant.
Ethically speaking, what are the problems with testing things on human bodies with no brain if that were possible?

The idea is disturbing, but is it any worse than dissection/autopsy--in other words, is the disgust a visceral reaction but nothing more? It would probably put the speed of medical advances on steroids and save a lot of lives.
Hmmm ... robin Hood was deemed a hero by the common folk and a villain in the eyes of the law. And perhaps Sam will be viewed the same way as he "pilfered" coffee from the rich and fed children with the proceeds. Certainly he'll be a hero to those kids.

But the more interesting facet of this story (to me) is that everyone is so clearly on one side or the other. I'd love to run a sociology experiment that tried to determine how those lines were drawn.
Maybe I'm missing something, but how is that a problem? Why do I need to see what other people are reading?

If anything, other's inability to see what I'm reading is a bonus...
You can get the Kindle DX if you want a larger screen. I have one and am very happy with it.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002GYWHSQ/
Web Developer / Web Designer Venn Diagram
There are a whole bunch of ways: you can visit X articles a month for free (I think it's 5), if you follow a link from a blog it's free (don't remember how they determine that), etc.
Of course Google+ is a direct competitor to Facebook, he acknowledged this from day one. Why is it such a big deal that he's playing a game on Google+? It'd be the same if the CEO of Vimeo was watching videos on Youtube.
I don't like your attitude, Sir - I think I'm going to patent it.
"I can’t even get e-books I bought on one device onto another device I own, although no doubt one of my domestic IT support staff (sons) could do it for me."

... Okay, so you aren't a techie, and that's why you hate it. You should lead with this next time so that the rest of us can ignore the whole thing.
I currently do Folding@Home (based on how proteins fold; research which has implications for numerous Human illnesses/diseases). It's quite good, although it doesn't currently support all GPUs.
'Well-defined' piece of code or SRP-violating?
Would have been much funner if Odio just bought himself an ipad and used it to write a detailed blog post about the glaring flaws with the premise of the experiment. I would have respected that quite a bit. Instead he tried to donate other people's money to charity. That takes the cake for douchbaggery.

I thought Jonathan's card idea was funny, but unbelievably stupid (in the common tragic kind of way). Being morally outraged at the result reminds me of those of you who like to say Communism should work in theory, then point the finger after the mass murders, saying it could have been different if it hadn't been for that one guy who ruined everything.
Nokia N86
Nokia N86 now looking to follow the same path as he heard it? A large number of defective Nokia N86? Equipment is delivered back to dealers for repairs. It is said that the problem is in how easily microUSB port is pressed inside the handset is connected to the charging cable.
There's also a size/flashiness issue. If I'm going on public transit or waiting somewhere that the whole "look, I'm holding a shiny device that's easy to pawn!" thing may be a bad idea, I bring my kindle. Or if it's likely to rain or I just don't feel like dragging around the ipad and a cleaning cloth (what's with those smart cover streaks, anyways?).

Otherwise, I take my ipad. The addition of news reading (the economist and reuters apps are fantastic) is why I usually bring it instead if I can.
Not to mention the fact that the Starbucks money, due to it being put through eBay of all things, will have eBay and PayPal fees deducted, and the final bid might not even come close to $600 because the nominal value of a card isn't exactly dictated by the amount put on it.

So unless someone is nice enough to tie up $600 of their own money in coffee just to redress that balance, this Odio fella has just wasted it for the sake of what, self promotion?

I'd say he did it remaining startlingly unaware of the potential consequences and didn't actually think anything through beyond taking the money.

Finally, since he posted his code on github, how do we know other people didn't use it and take money themselves? And how much?