skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Note that this might be illegal insofar as it's in explicit contradiction of a recent EU directive on scanners that requires an opt-out alternative to be offered. It's not clear yet whether the new regs carry the full weight of an EC Directive, but if they do, the UK will eventually have to comply and provide an opt-out.

http://www.airport-int.com/news/eu-airport-body-scanner-guid...
Kindle Fire's Silk doesn't stand out in 3rd party tests
Yea, I am advocating retraining legacy MBAs now if possible instead of waiting until they die for similar reasons.
I remember reading a Wired article that predicated GM-augmented human engineering would first gain a foothold in professional sports, namely the NFL.
The bassdrum is just an impulse exciting a lowpass filter at very high resonance. The clicking noise is generated by a specialized envelope that raises the pitch of the filter for the first few ms. The whole thing is then slightly overdriven to color the sound.

Filtering a sine wave makes little sense, as you'll only end up altering the volume (unless you take the phase respone of the filter into account but this should be barely audible).
You'd be surprised. Ever worked in the trenches?
Founder Liquidity: tool to reward founders, align incentives of founders & VCs
Makes sense. A lot of us already break the T&C's and licensing restrictions though. There has to be an easier/simpler way than Tor or Hotspot Shield.
They smoke, but don't inhale.
When prey is overhunted, some of the predator population dies out (negative feedback, if you will) ... please don't make it sound unnatural.

I think it's OK to characterize human interaction with the ecosystem as unnatural.

Feedback loops like the one you mention work OK for cheetahs and gazelles. Too many cheetahs leads to too few gazelles leads to skinny cheetahs and eventually to fewer cheetahs, etc. But that happens because one is the food for the other; the amount of predation is directly related to the current populations of both, and the amount of predation also has an impact on the future of predation.

Consider an alternate history scenario: No replacement for sperm whale oil was ever found. Sperm whales were hunted entirely to extinction to keep those big American cars rolling. When the whale oil ran out for good and all, Americans all learned to drive stick. Impact on human population of the planet: none. Impact on the rapaciousness of future generations: questionable. Feedback loops (as opposed to straight-line cause and effect) closed or otherwise in evidence at all: zero.

Human interaction with the ecosystem is fundamentally different from the interactions that arise between the other actors within it. Demand for sperm whale oil had virtually nothing to do with the number of humans alive on the planet, and the amount of whale oil left in the world had no impact on the demand for cars, either. With no reciprocal connection, there are no levers for a feedback loop to even take hold of.

One might even say that what separates humans from animals, in the grand scheme of things, is our ability to escape from the feedback loops the rest of the ecosystem is in the thrall of, or even to escape from the feedback loops the rest of the ecosystem is.
DON'T start a company...yet
Yep, Xerox never invented the GUI. This entire product and all promotional videos and memories of it existing are a complete fabrication:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cn4vC80Pv6Q

You've made similar posts in the past, and they've been similarly filled with rambling inaccuracies. I'll just leave it at that.
> Counterexamples? Would love to hear them.

One example.

PCR helped catalyze the multi-billion dollar molecular biology industry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction
Unless user-based authentication is necessary to use Siri (and the unofficial version "breaks into" the Siri servers), I don't see how this is any different from a website saying you can only use one browser to access the site, and you choosing to use another.

However, IANAL, and I would definitely wait for at least a few weeks after release before trying it out myself.
How did you get that labs page looking like stackoverflow? Have they finally open sourced their code?
I much prefer Recipe Labs; the front page is actually useful to me since I can immediately fiddle with recipes or browse existing ones without being nagged about "signing up".

Minor niggles:
- on the "newest recipes" list: they all say things like "Created on 24 minutes ago". Drop the "on" (presumably this is there for older recipes that might get a date against them?).
- after clicking on "coupons" some of the top menu links are no longer correct

I often find myself wondering what to cook of an evening so a good recipe site is definitely of interest. Looks like it's aggregating quite a lot of other content though so I guess the challenge is for it to be better at recipe searches than Google.
The Future Of Foxconn: The Birds
The Young and the Lazy
Google cache:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Adashe...
“Five hundred people will have job security for the next decade, but how much value does it create for the entire economy ? It may not be enough to dramatically improve living standards in the U.S. over the next decade or two decades.”

It's strange that someone as successful as Peter Thiel has been in the startup world, a world built on providing value, would make such a statement. What does the number of permanent or semi-permanent jobs have to do with the amount of value being created by something like twitter? If it took 100,000 employees to run twitter as it exists today, would that make it more valuable to the economy? Of course not.

If it only took one guy to design, build, ship, and sell the iPhone, Apple would be far more valuable to the economy, not less. You'd free up all those talented people to go out and create even more value on their own.

Also, he seems to equate increased $$ with increased living standards. By and large that's been historically true, but it's a bit misleading. Even if twitter made 0 money and created 0 jobs, it would still improve living standards. Certainly not in the way indoor plumbing or electricity raised living standards, but it still makes people's lives easier, which, by definition, improves living standards.
My point is that in 20-25 years, the fight to protect the internet will be easier--not completely hands off, but easier--because more people will understand technology. But in the mean time, we absolutely do have to take action to protect the net ourselves.
SOPA Hack
Chromeos isn't about offering more features. It's about offering less problems.
Argh, a screenshot of code.
How to market your site on Twitter
Sure i will .. Jut no more than 15 or 20 per month.

TO include netflix to the list will be nice.
I imagine a lot of the people who do this use TunnelBear.
+1 for spider skull island! Go team venture!
You assume I pay to access Hulu, Pandora, etc...
And they showed off a working version of the product, with multi-touch, at the All Things Digital conference before the iPhone released.

For the record, comments to your posts are almost universally pointing out blatant inaccuracies, so I'm not surprised you don't respond.
How do you find out about new UK startups? Is there a list somewhere or site to follow for this?
I believe its a mixture of both good management, and not putting profit maximization first, although they do still make a healthy profit every year...
Founder Liquidity
Ponoko: http://www.ponoko.com/ aims to be the Amazon/Ebay of manufacturing.
So you do like "lab" companies - you just don't like calling them labs?

No, there's a distinction trying to be made here. A startup is a temporary lab. The goal is: Do lots of experiments, but generally only a few at a time, and then when you find something that works even slightly stop experimenting and start iterating.

It's true that the word startup connotes experimentation, for the same reason that the word baby connotes being small, helpless, and illiterate. But just as the purpose of a baby is to stop being a baby as quickly as possible and grow up to be an adult, so the purpose of a startup is to find a repeatable business model and then crank on it.

Whereas a true "research" company doesn't do the cranking part. Their entire product is research reports, and their customers are the people who give them grant money.

Now, mobile-app companies with constantly-churning portfolios probably don't fit cleanly into this dichotomy, which seems to be what you're sensing as well. And it's also fair to ask if the "lab" metaphor really fits, e.g., Milk. Maybe the Milk folks have decided to label themselves a "lab" in the short run but will eventually pivot to being "the X company" once they find the value of X, just as Rovio used to be "a company with a portfolio of small games" but is now "the Angry Birds company".
Saint Pierre and Miquelon - the biggest Island of Perl Mongers
I'm creating a "humble bundle for designers" anyone interested in contributing?
If that doesn't come up, the text-only link works for me:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:dashes....
Monday Night Empower Hour Conference Call Details?and the Million Dollar March
Unless I'm misinterpreting this, it looks like Google has managed to write what is essentially a third-party iPad browser and get it accepted into the App Store. They've even got a Chrome OS like page for apps. Am I missing something here, or is Google trying to usurp Apple's control?
Not true. Technology is used regularly at my kids elementary school. As a small example, at first grade, they start use an online reading comprehension program, and all of the classrooms (K-5) have interactive boards with cool remotes that allow students interface in real time with the teacher's teaching material. Its pretty interesting polling students in real time on what their thoughts are on a given subject matter, and seeing the results in the screen in real time.
Yeah, but how is this not illegal/in violation of the licensing/terms of service?
Apologies for the server flakiness; Trying to address it now. Please feel free to repost/share -- everything is CC licensed.
Just as a counterpoint, I'll drop this link: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/11/05/support-for-... . The articles notes that "The data supports the notion that younger people are more supportive of gay marriage than older people ... 18-29 year-olds in Alabama, for example, are more supportive of gay marriage than people 65 and older in Massachusetts."

Several issues that currently divide the United States have this property where age matters, and in 20-25 years things that are controversial now might not be considered as controversial. My claim (hope?) is that protecting the internet is one of those issues.
The price drop - from $500 to $300 - is the most significant new 'feature' here. These devices just aren't ready to replace a conventional laptop yet for most people. I've got a Samsung one and it struggles with complex websites and sometimes hangs, too. I wonder if even $300 is too much.
A lot of innovation we're seeing now is the result of miniaturization of older technologies, such as touchscreen, cell phones and computers. I'd say that the IPhone is rather an innovation in the lifestyle of their owners, more than a technological innovation per se.

I've been arguing this point for a few years now, that smartphones are cool devices, but rather fall in the gadget category than the civilization changing techs they are sometimes compared to.
I don't pretend to understand what "welfare" (a program that has not existed for more than a decade) has to do with iPhones, but Peter Thiel is an ultra-libertarian who probably agrees with you and Hayek about the destructive effects of government social projects.

You also seem to simultaneously believe that there has been a great shrinking of American manufacturing jobs because this ideology has made the USA uncompetitive relative to the world market and that the USA is the last remaining beacon of innovation in the world. Well, which is it?

Anyway, American manufacturing jobs have disappeared mostly because of advances in automation technology - A great product of American and German cleverness and innovation.

For all that, the United States in the last two decades of the 20th and the first of the 21st centuries is more pro-business and pro-entrepreneurship than it ever had been before. The US at the height of its manufacturing heyday (when there were still many jobs in it) was a much more redistributionist society than it is now, marginal tax rates of more than 70%, anyone?

I do actually agree with you about the iPhone being an important innovation. The fact that crude versions of the technologies involved existed isn't really that relevant, implementation is everything. Let's be realistic, most innovative products combine existing ideas. That's how real innovation works, combining technologies that already exist in new ways.

BTW, the United States used British industrial innovations to kick start its own industrial revolution (before international patent treaties). Once Americans started making industrial machinery of course, they swiftly gained enough hands on experience to start tinkering and innovating. It was common wisdom in the early 19th century that American manufactured goods were inferior to British. After all, weren't they just copies? Then in the 1970s when the first Japanese cars were imported into the US, Americans believed that these were just copies of American ideas (which they were of course, Americans developed the assembly line made car) and that the Japanese could only ever compete on price.

Now of course, people assume that the Chinese will never start innovating and only copy American or Japanese products.
The stipulation is that whaling was forbidden as soon as nobody needed whale oil.
And how do you translate what you learned from a parachute landing on Earth to the moon?

It's like assuming that you can easily swim five miles because you can easily jog five miles.
That's a sharp irony, to think the anti-whaling community of the 60's and 70's was driving around with whale oil in their cars! I wonder if they had any idea?
My VPN costs £5.99 a month and the service is great. Can you get much cheaper than that?
Seems like you are joking.

My observation has been that people working more than 8 hours a day for more than a week only overproduce for a very short time. 16 hour work days general degenerate into spending most of the early day fixing bugs from the day before, tiring you out so when you get those 'fixed' you spend the rest of the day introducing 'new' bugs, then repeat the next day.

There are certainly some companies with a culture of overwork, but the people that actually produce the most are not always the ones who work 16 hour days. I have worked with a lot of people who believe working hard is 'good enough', but I'd never hire them. You have to be able to actually produce something, or you're wasting your time.

It's a tough balance to find sometimes.
Forgive what could be a naive question but... why now?
The lawyers (patent, copyright, Congress), not the MBAs, are at the heart of the problem.
It depends what you mean by a 'start-up'.

If start ups only refer to businesses where technological innovation drives competitive advantage, then New York will have a tough time. The future Googles, Intels, Apples etc fit in this category.

But if we include businesses which are technology enabled, then I think New York has a much better chance. Companies like Gilt Group, Kickstarter and Tumblr don't rely on technology to drive their competitive advantages.

If the technology component becomes commoditized due to ease of access (rails frameworks, Heroku, mobile frameworks etc), then competitive advantages will shift to community building, branding and design.

New York has the advantage of being a dense city (good for location-based mobile apps). It has a rich history of being the entrepreneurial home of fashion, media, retail and finance. New York based start ups will have an advantage in building communities around these industries.
It's a compelling story and its well presented here. I'm a fan, as I've found Sugru works really well for extending the life of the Vibram shoes I use trail running (although it took some practice to apply it in a way that didn't leave me with a lumpy foot). They have a pretty neat product and service it well.

Good for them.
The Fundamentals, Primitives and History of HTML5
Regarding "Web sites are deemed unsafe, even if Facebook monitors them", wouldn't it be worse if Facebook deemed websites that it monitored 'safe'? Then Facebook would be saying: "use Facebook services on your site, or we'll scare all of your users with an interstitial message"
Matt, Why do you think so? This isn't obvious to me.
Killer Strategy to Generating Leads with Facebook
Wow. I've been going through something very similar to what you've just described, and this has really put it in perspective. I starting to realize that might my previous reasons for wanting to accomplish certain things aren't really good enough motivators for me and that I need to redefine my goals or realize why I'm truly doing what I'm doing. Thank you, seriously. I'm going to be linking this to more than a couple folks.

As an aside, your comment about Reddit really hit the nail on the head. I've been trying to slowly phase it out of my life, and HN has filled that void without being such a constantly changing time sink. Not to mention that most of the stuff here motivates me and gets me accepted about CS, IT, and entrepreneurial stuff. Glad to hear you got it all figured out, though.
Woody Allen’s typography
I have no idea what the context behind this is, but that man is completely insane. From reading a small amount of his site, he seems to think he's going to get a research grant for implanting magnets in his face and shoving things into his hands? He seems to think it's all safe, but every other post on his blog is about how sick he is, how his hard drive is wrecked (what do magnets do, again?), and how much pain he's in? It seems he's seeing a psychologist, which is a good thing, but it doesn't seem to be working well for him. At any rate, I'd hardly consider this to be a great source, considering there are many details on his blog about how his flesh is dying where he as implanted random objects.

There are people out there working on cyborg and transhuman technologies. People with training, expertise, and something to fall back on besides the NHS.
I really don't want to go into a piss contest with you, but:

- What you advocate is the problem Clayton's article tries to address. Your approach will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.

- You emphasize the wrong thing, the return ratio, while other people prefer to measure it in the amount of money returned. That's what get the U.S. auto industry in trouble, as one executive put it clearly: "we spent all the efforts in the bottom line in cost cutting but ignored the top line revenue expansion. It got good ROI in the short term but destroyed the industry in the long term."

- You also missed his other quote, "use the return on assets ratio if cash is scarce. But if there is actually a lot of cash, ... economize on something that is abundant." Think about that for a moment in how to grow a business and why founders raise VC money in return for a lower return rate on their part.

- I am not their guys, as you implied in "you guys."

- Your fascination with State control system has no bearing in this discussion since the Chinese companies in discussion are in Taiwan. If your intent is to prove the Chinese economic system is inferior, you are barking up the wrong tree.

- Even U.S. has government managed economy - the Fed manages the economy via various monetary policies. And the Fed's mandate is not highest ROI. It's to have a robust economy that provides good employment.

- I read your example aplenty. What you don't understand is there're many ways to make money. Having the highest ROI is not the one rule to rules them all. Supermarkets have terrible ROI with razor thin margin yet they make lots of money for their owners. From your rational, everyone should become a hairdresser for its high ROI but no one would create the supermarket business.

Anyway, I've spent more than enough time on this and that's the end of my part of the discussion.
The power of a filibuster is that it forces the opposition to experience pain, slowdown, and increased public scrutiny. It prevents bills from being passed quickly and silently. However, it's a risky move on the part of the filibustering senator, as continued use will cause the lawmaking process to grind to a halt and potentially cost you the next election. It's thus only wise to use it sparingly and when the public is clearly on your side.
Hey, that's bloody brilliant, really. If nobody can see the pictures, it means they don't actually have to work. Your error rate drops to whatever passes for necessary theater--just enough false positives to keep the baddies out. Decades later when the scared public shows up with cancer lawsuits, the device manufacturers stage the grand reveal: it was just a proximity sensor, prng, blinking light and siren. I mean since the "real" devices are so easily circumvented by a determined traveler, why bother. Best. state. secret. ever.
Here's a solution: grab the smallest Linode for $20/month, on Windows, set up Putty to SSH into your box and forward the relevant ports (Google for instructions), enjoy Netflix, Pandora, etc. anywhere in the world! I've used this method to watch Netflix in many countries -- it takes about 5 minutes to pre-buffer, but Instant Watching works fantastically well.

EDIT: Flash used to have a problem where it wouldn't respect your proxy settings, not sure if they've fixed that.
Chromebook price cuts
No way. Too many options to turn to. It seems like everyone is offering streaming video now.
Between the time the iPhone was announced and released, Microsoft did whip up a quick demo... as anyone could have in the 1990s if they'd wanted to.

Frankly, your claim about the Microsoft Surface false. It is completely irrelevant to this discussion. And actually supports my hypothesis that those who wish to diminish the inventiveness of the iPhone do so out of ideological reasons, not out of an understanding of the underlying technology.

The Surface uses a technology whereby an image of the user is captured. It is not a touch screen at all. It does not directly measure touch.

If people aren't even addressing the actual technology in question, I find that having a discussion is ... problematic. Plus the preponderance of down votes against my well reasoned points tells me that that a lot of you don't care about accurate or inaccurate, but whether something agrees with your ideology.

Which lends credence to my hypothesis that this is ideologically driven.
Probably not too much, but my guess is VPN is too much work for the average user.
As far as I am aware, you can submit third party browsers as long as they use the supplied webkit framework.
You can donate towards Numpy in Pypy on their main page.
Synthmaker is a good one too. http://synthmaker.co.uk/

Unfortunately it's windows only. It does have a lot of advanced capabilities you don't see in similar tools though, such as proper GUI elements and one-click VST export.
Is that 8000 hours from one person, or combined? It could be 5 people working 8 hours days for 6 months, which isn't an incredibly long R&D time.