skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm getting a bit frustrated here.

Obama's not going to veto SOPA based on a (borderline) argument that it makes a tool which might be used by intelligence agencies, in some possible circumstances possibly illegal.

The argument that it needs lots of non-agency uses to hide traffic is plainly nonsense. If an intelligence agent (or subversive citizen) is using it in a country where it is banned they are going to be in trouble no matter if it is illegal in the US or not.

If it was a concern for US intelligence agencies (which I don't concede it is at all) then that can easily handle it themselves - they get an executive order allowing them to run exit nodes and then what they are doing is legal. Even by the borderline argument that Tor could be illegal under SOPA would only make it a problem for people running exit nodes - use by the general population. I doubt any intelligence agency would complain about being ordered to run a Tor exit node - I think they would love it.

I find it bizarre that people are even talking about this, when in the same source article where this was first raised it said the following:

"Browsers implementing DNSSEC will have to circumvent and bypass criminal blocking, and in the process, they will also circumvent and bypass SOPA orders." A successful injunction from the attorney general, Baker said, would shut down all shipments of a Web browser "until it's been revised to the satisfaction of his staff and their advisers in Hollywood."[1]

The US federal government provided funding to develop and deploy DNSSEC[2], too, and that is also useful for dissidents overseas. It also helps secure communications for billions (if not trillions) of dollars in ecommerce transaction. If that is ignored, do you really think Tor is going to get the bill vetoed?

[1] http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57346592-281/how-sopas-cir...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_Name_System_Security_Ext...
I've been mulling over popping out keys on a cheap USB keyboard to practice Dvorak but it's just not high up on my list of things to do.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3336311
But sometimes they are useful, and sometimes they are so far off the mark they add very little to the conversation.
I've said it before, I think they should just get one sponsor per year and be done with it.

Just stick a permanent "Powered by Coca Cola|Microsoft|Whatever" banner in the footer; Coca Cola and friends surely won't mind to cover the operational costs of Wikipedia (and then some) in return.

In order to prevent a sponsor from becoming too influential they can simply make it a rule that the sponsor must be cycled annually. They could even have the community vote on the sponsor for the next year.

Sponsors would certainly wait in line for this ad-spot and personally I'd prefer it over the constant begging on every page.
I agree with you, these certifications are generally crap. My company signed up for Hacker Proof a few years ago (badges and shields look secure, ya know), and it found one SQL injection vuln we had in some old Classic ASP stuff that nobody used but was still out there. That was good, of course, but I'm sure it was the equivalent of running an off-the-shelf fuzzing app.
Never a good idea, unless you want people to give you money via credit card. From my experience, having one of those badges on your checkout form results in a measurable increase in conversions, even if it doesn't mean anything to people who understand security.
But both seemed to suffer the same problem, they are quite monolithic, everything is build around the fact your app is a 'backbone' or an 'ember' application, they arent just libraries that provide specific functionality.

Isn't that the reason developers choose libraries like Backbone, Ember, Knockout, et al.? I think most web developers have realized that code spaghetti doesn't scale very well. Part of the reason the iOS ecosystem is so vibrant is because Cocoa is just as opinionated about architecture as it is about "specific functionality."

They both seemed to miss out really basic functionality that I run into all the time building these type of applications, the example here shows one of the problems, when I am not looking at the recent tweets, I dont want to be polling the data source, I havent seen a good example in either of how to properly setup and tear down views, I came up with something incredibly simple that helps, I will try and blog about it soon.

I'd love to read your blog post. In my opinion, it sounds like you might be approaching the problem from the wrong direction. Views being in charge of when the server is polled is a layering violation. Instead, I'd have a controller that is in charge of knowing when a given view is rendered to the screen. When it is, it tells the model layer to start polling. When it hides the view, it turns off the polling.

Also I find the general tone of the article pretty rude and condescending.

Thomas is an incredibly nice guy and has experience with many different MVC frameworks. I'm sorry the post came off this way to you, but it didn't to me. Personally, I think Backbone is an incredibly important part of the ecosystem and am very glad it exists. I think Thomas feels the same way too.
Good news! I couldn't find an official link, but did find this screenshot of an e-mail they sent out saying just that: http://i.imgur.com/axYAm.png
Well what you're talking about is the Internet and the TCP/IP stack. The World Wide Web is an application that runs on the Internet.

To describe the Internet when someone asks how the web works would be like describing how the iOS works when someone is curious about a specific app.
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A gut feeling tells me that if somebody did an analysis of Obama's last campaign then they would find that he would have violated the current form of SOPA multiple times.

On what basis? The was the controversy over the ownership of the Obama Hope image, but apart from that I' not aware of anything that would have violated SOPA.

Enlighten me, please.
There is, it's at http://badger.github.com/
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For people wondering about the hourglass problem:
1) @0min: Take both glasses (4 & 7) and flip them over.
2) @4min: When the 4min glass is empty, flip it back over
3) @7min: When the 7min glass runs out, flip it back over.
4) @8min: when the 4min glass is empty, there will be 1 minute in the 7min glass. Flip the 7 glass.
5) @9min: When the 7min glass runs out, you will be at 9min.
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That's the exact phrase that stuck out to me too. Reminds me of Java developers who exclusively use GWT to build web apps because they want to "abstract away" the browser component of the web app and write it like an applet or desktop app. It's no wonder that Facebook's native app is going downhill, because their developers think the web is king and native code is just clunky junk they're forced to deal with.
My fear is that this contains some sort of mathematical break through which is then copied and claimed by another person as their own work. Didn't something like this happen to Grigori Perelman where another man attempted to claim Perelman's work? This is really amazing, I hope something comes from it.
I guess I will boil my argument down to: it's not their fault it's bad, it's your fault you're using it.

This applies equally to Free Software and proprietary software. "Don't like it? Don't use it." Your complaining isn't going to make the software better.

Decide on a course of action that will resolve your complaints, and then act on it. Posting to HN, "look at those l4m3rz at Firefox not implementing my features! They suck!" does not count because the logical conclusion of this action does not lead to increased happiness (either yours, or the wider community). It's like a little kid complaining to his teacher, "Johnnie hit me!", the teacher asking Johnnie "Why'd you hit Bobby?", and Bobby saying "Because Johnnie hit me first". The end result is a couple of sore schoolkids and an irked teacher. As adults, we need not let our actions devolve this way.

So, if this issue bothers you, you need to suck it up and stop using Firefox, or suck it up and implement the damn feature that you obviously care so deeply about. If you don't care about your feature enough to implement it, why should anyone else? Why are other people different from you? Because they've implemented features before? You expect free work from people that have given you a free product, simply because they have proven themselves willing to work for you for free before? Right, that make sense.

The advantage that free software projects have over "don't like it, don't use it" is that any user can change the software and other users will be thankful for the time and effort you put in. That's what being an adult is like.

Ultimately, all free software is based on altruism; people contribute because they want to. If you don't understand the concepts altruism or community and just want to take and complain, then you're not going to get any argument about how you should take ownership of issues that concern you.
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Well no. Part of the web is the internet. You can't skip the internet and talk about resource representation caching in REST. But I am talking about the web -- that's why I mentioned how pages are rendered.

HTTP and HTML, while both are fundamental to the web, are also just implementation details. HTTP has evolved a fair bit since its inception for the web (there was no PUT or POST, for example).

To take your analogy, it would be like describing Cocoa library when your wife asks how an app works.
How do you use it on emacs? I've been trying to use it since a couple weeks (and I really wonder when I'll be productive on it...).
Does it work well with Ubuntu?
Bloggers: SOPA, PIPA Will be the End of the Blogosphere
I don't understand reddit_clone's specific example (are there bathrooms with 2 sinks?), but I think the article does mix ideas that are wins with others that are dubious.

Pens, chargers and AC adapters, toilet paper are cheap; running out of them is bothersome and there's a fixed overhead to retrieve them, so let's stock them and put them into the right places.

But buying and keeping 2 vacuum cleaners at home is arguably not in the same category. It only works if you assign a high enough cost to "getting up and down the stairs" or, equivalently, if the price of the cleaner plus the real estate is cheap enough for you. It's not like it will affect your "productivity", it's just a minor loss of leisure. In other words, it's a first-world-problem.

(taking the "first-world-problem" term literally: in the Third World, the problem above is "solved" by not being able to afford 2 vacuum-cleaners, or 2-story houses, if you're poor; or by hiring a maid if you're middle- or upper-class).
Do you have any kind of bio on him? Even a picture?
You should read the analysis regarding Kuran's book in the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/28/110228fa_fact_...
SOPA Supporters:  The List
I feel like this is bound to happen anytime you're optimizing for ease of development rather than user experience. Same reason to beware of cross-platform UI frameworks.

But for Facebook, at this point perhaps their users are so entrenched that the app just has to work, however lackluster it may be. On the other hand, between this and the Python thing, I just can't understand why FB seems so stingy with its dev resources. I realize there is a lot of ground to cover but this is one of the biggest companies in tech we're talking about.
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If they change then they can honestly say that they were an arsehole before but they aren't any more. Everyone wins.
>I have done time in community psychiatry and addiction psychiatry.

I'm not arguing against the dangers of drugs. My point is if your only interaction with drug users is through people who have hit rock bottom then you are operating under a selection bias.

>I have seen the results, and the HUGE costs, with my own eyes.

How many of these costs are a result of the drugs being illegal? Lack of access to clean needles and clean drugs is what causes the spread of diseases like HIV and Hepatitis C. Artificial scarcity of drugs is the leading reason why addicts turn to crime.
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Go the non-developer route.
Isnt that the reason developers choose libraries like
Backbone, Ember, Knockout, et al.? I think most web
developers have realized that code spaghetti doesn't
scale very well. Part of the reason the iOS ecosystem
is so vibrant is because Cocoa is just as opinionated
about architecture as it is about specific
functionality.'

Thats true, and there are definite advantages to building things in that style, but I am surprised that the more popular of these libraries are all built in this style, There are also distinct advantages of having loosely coupled flexible libraries such as jQuery, which is the library for interfacing with the dom, loosely coupled well integrated components dont necessarily mean spaghetti code

I'd love to read your blog post. In my opinion, it
sounds like you might be approaching the problem from
the wrong direction. Views being in charge of when the
server is polled is a layering violation. Instead, I'd
have a controller that is in charge of knowing when a
given view is rendered to the screen. When it is, it
tells the model layer to start polling. When it hides
the view, it turns off the polling.

Sure but the problem doesnt go away when you move it up to the controller, I havent seen these libraries provide state which determines which controller is currently active. Of course you can code it yourself, but there are lots of little cases and functionality which imo libraries could do a better job of abstracting away. I will write the post asap, I mostly just need a name for my little micro library :)
They are effective. They all forced someone, somewhere to change, or to at least reevaluate where they stand. The only difference is in degrees.
It is really interesting how the socially acceptable level of honesty varies from place to place. I've recently moved from Poland to Northern California, and the expression "dancing on eggshells" describes very well my experience.

In Poland, I would classify myself as maybe a little bit above the average in terms of the sort of honesty described in the article (and that mostly with people I knew very well). Here, if I don't control myself I end up being the awkward says-before-thinking guy...

What bothers me most, however, isn't not being able to speak my mind; it's the lack of feedback from people around me. I am always left wondering if stuff like "I really like your other glasses" isn't actually code for "you look like an idiot in those glasses, and I am embarrassed to be seen with you on the street." I can only hope that with time I will be able to calibrate my sensors for California...

(On a side note, I feel really glad to be married. Dating must be hell in California ;)
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Granted. There is completely a place for good tools that make you more efficient and work better/longer/etc.

My point was more that you could replace Aeron Chair with X (where X is anything that doesn't have a steep depreciation curve -- ie - something that's not a car or PC)

If you buy a used "X", it's very likely you can sell it for the same price a couple of years later. Essentially you can lease "X" for free.
Worst part, penny-arcade is now joining the race to the bottom.

"When these assholes threaten me or Penny Arcade I just laugh. I will personally burn everything I’ve made to the fucking ground if I think I can catch them in the flames."

Sigh. This whole thing is depressing in its entirety. Yes, Ocean Marketing is the main culprit there - but nobody in that fiasco comes out smelling roses.
I'm afraid I don't follow. Could you elaborate on how that means they became evil?
Yeah, I don't know about that. I assume it's the large-scale pricing myself..
>I'm starting to think that all progressive organizations should drop their pet issues and focus on campaign financing reform first.

We certainly agree on that point. I believe publicly financed campaigns and term limits will bring the United States greater change than any other two policy changes can.

That said, I don't think slactivism is really a change per se. It's hard to believe that people who click the "Like" button on Facebook would be out picketing or writing their congressman on any issue. What you could argue is that it at least forces them to consider a position that they might again consider when they are standing in the ballot box.
In the interest of temporary honesty in this thread, as someone about to tip 18k karma, I warn that having lots of karma on HN has proven to be not particularly useful and doesn't seem to help my items get upvoted at all ;-)
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What is with he back ticks around num?
Instead of being angry that they didn't maximize their profits, could it be that the sellers were _offended_ that someone would maximize profits with their possessions? I can imagine a couple reasons:

1) The Toy Story 3 plot: people want to find a home for their possessions with people of similar interests. They become angry that you are reducing the consumer surplus that would have gone to the ultimate buyer.

2) They realize that arbitrage on a first-come-first-served marketplace can reduce the value of the marketplace as a whole, since buyers are less likely to find bargains. They recognize your behavior as antisocial and become angry.
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...and somewhere out there, right now, P(=|!=)NP is probably solved on some 5 1/2" floppy, rotting away in an attic...
> Your complaining isn't going to make the software better.

There are many cases where this is not true. For example, any feature request based on a bug report. It's true that a bug report is in a different forum of complaint. But unless you can point out something that makes feedback from this forum useless and bug forums not useless, I'm pretty convinced this is generally false.

> So, if this issue bothers you, you need to suck it up and stop using Firefox

You can use this same argument to forbid criticism of anything. While I don't want to accuse you of doing this directly, it strikes me that if an argument can as easily be used for something obviously nonsensical as what you're actually using it for, it might not be a very good argument.
Yes. And I think the cause of the problem is that the environment is running in a WebView + lots of JS floating inside the view.
Thanks for the recommendations. Those are free to read on my Kindle with amazon prime membership, definitely will be reading them now!
Railguns are worthy of note, but would likely only be worthy of PD weapons. The problem with guns is that your target moves. With the exception of missiles, every fraction of the speed of light slower your weapon is, the bigger chance you take of missing. With a round fired at .1C over 300,000KM (1 light second) you need to account for about 11 seconds of lead on your target. That's 11 seconds that they don't change their course enough for you to miss. Compare this to a laser where it's 1 second of lead.

> With the speeds/distances involved all of the missiles would be approaching from a very narrow cone, and a small deflection would mean a miss.

Not necessarily. Unless space battle becomes solely a chasing game (which would favour the defender as if you know you're a runner the majority of your PD's will be aimed out your ass). A missile can sit for any amount of time after being dropped before firing. This means you can distribute a missile or approach from opposing angles. If your ship uses turrets for PD then you know it cant easily shoot two different angles at once. If you're fighting well within your missiles ranges (because fighting at maximum range gives too much time for PD's) then it'll be very easy to launch your missiles around your target in a flank attack.
The abiding fascination of HN for Aeron chairs?

http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=aer...
I do remember...

Microsoft had 95% of desktop market share and installed IE on everyone's PC, which they claimed was part of the operating system. This essentially killed the browser competition for about a decade and Netscape got crushed.

Now how is this comparable to Google placing G+ in Gmail? Gmail is smaller than Hotmail and Yahoo Mail? They are a distant third.
The only issue I have with this whole situation (and believe me, this is the ONLY issue -- everything else I'm on board with) is Gabe's response to the rogue PR's request that he "make it stop:"

"The reality is that once I had posted the emails I didn’t have the power anymore. The Internet had it now and nothing I said or did was going to change that."

Everything he says is true, BUT... he posted the email addresses. Claiming that it's out of his hands (and implicitly NOT HIS FAULT what happens now) is like handing a bunch of firebugs some gasoline and strike-anywhere matches and claiming you're powerless to prevent the ensuing Devil's Night reenactment.

Those email addresses would have been dug up via the internet by enterprising individuals sooner or later. It seems a bit smug to revel in the very destruction you laid the groundwork for.

Other than that, I am all for exposure of hideous customer service/PR entities. This is precisely why anyone in these fields, in this day and age, should be doing everything they can to take care of their paying customers. You sure as hell don't want the loosely confederated wrath of the internet turned against you.
So we're going to call "whine about it until someone gives me free stuff" a good argument then?

The point is simple: Firefox gives you everything you need to decide your own destiny. If you decide on a bad one, why should Firefox be blamed?
Many parts of Heroku are actually self-hosted: https://thestrangeloop.com/sessions/running-heroku-on-heroku
I'm not calling anything a good argument. Just pointing out flaws in yours.
Because Google has a monopoly on non-shitty free email with GMail, in the same way that Microsoft has (had?) a monopoly on hardware-independent operating systems with DOS/Windows. (I wish I was really being sarcastic, you know because there are actually a billion web-based e-mail alternatives besides GMail that actually don't suck... right? Anybody know of any? At this point I'm earnestly inquiring.)