skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's better if you put white characters in the red banner:) Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!!
Companies supporting SOPA: their web address, Twitter, contact email and phone
No but it is short enough that you wont have actually gone to court yet.
flaky RAID controller firmware

Fortunately, this can usually be rectified with a simple application of money. Good hardware is its own reward.

However, it sounds like the problem that S3 cured was caused by a bad architecture.
What are the best apps / sites out there to quickly email your representatives?
ok it's back now.
Personally, I'd like a Winnebago. Burgundy interior.
that's amazing.
Having worked in Academia, charts are often used to reveal trends in large data sets. This is particularly true these days when the data is gigabytes of multi-dimensional measurements that require processing to derive the underlying properties. The only good way to present data like this is in charts.

Graphics are now very important to presenting your science! The results can't speak for themselves, because no one can understand them in less than a few days of study, so they need a translator.

Sometimes people do create the equivalent of link-bait info-graphics that do their best to make a small result look large. It's usually balanced by the rest of the paper being light on details.

These infographics are just the newest version of sound-bytes and headlines. They don't tell the whole story, but they tell enough that you can tell your friends and pass out the link, and feel like you know the subject without having to spend more than 5 minutes reading. What we're missing is the balance of listing methodology and explicitly listing sources. There's little to no onus on the publisher to fact-check their data.

As long as we live in a society with 1-minute clips on the evening news, we'll have crappy infographics.
I updated the title, thanks.
His post reminded me of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day_(film)
Does it look like red and red? Or gray and gray?
Well, actually I do, for... let's call it reasons of "due diligence". I have obligations and responsibilities that could go wrong if I'm not sufficiently informed.
That's the expendable Falcon Heavy. SpaceX is also working on a fully reusable Falcon 9, which would naturally allow for a fully reusable Falcon Heavy. The fuel costs for a Falcon Heavy are around half a million dollars, if we posit that overall operational costs per flight could be kept to around 1.5 million dollars then costs of delivering cargo to Mars would be around $100/kg. That's a pretty straightforward extrapolation of current trends. If we imagine some ways to make the process more efficient we could imagine batching up cargo in LEO and pushing it to Mars via electric propulsion (a proven technology), for example.

These are pretty decent conceivable practical minimums for cost of shipping cargo to Mars within the next 20 years, though any estimate (minimum or otherwise) beyond that time frame would be entirely speculative due to the potential for technological advances.

You claim that the figures for Falcon Heavy cost of launching to Mars are "optimistically low", but that is not the case. Firstly, Mars launch is a well understood problem on the scale of launch to GEO. Second, the figures SpaceX are quoting are launch prices which include a substantial profit margin. The actual costs (especially after development costs have been amortized) are lower. And as I pointed out this doesn't represent a proper reasonable estimate of the floor for launch costs to Mars even over the next 20 years, let alone over the next, say, 50.
Crimes against humanity get their own category precisely because it is so difficult for us to imagine they could actually happen.

The genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, and Nazi Germany have these things in common: before the fact, a respectable consensus that reports of atrocities were farfetched; afterwards, shock and dismay that more wasn't done to stop the killing.

Given this history, aren't we better off keeping a low threshold of suspicion?
Quora is open for registrations,not sure if this was valid only out of the US,but you just have to choose "login with facebook"
This really takes me back to my RPL days on my old HP-48G.
This is a fantastic guide - I've updated the post to include it. Thanks!
I don't know about Scala, but somebody did embed basic into Haskell: http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/BASIC/0.1.5.0/do...

However, it's at least partly taking advantage of the fact that normal Haskell actually looks (in shape, anyhow) vaguely like basic as is. At the very least, Haskell doesn't force you to use parenthesis or braces everywhere.

Here's an example: http://augustss.blogspot.com/2009/02/is-haskell-fast-lets-do...
The 1986 remake of "Babes in Toyland"
Angel-A
I've been spending a lot of time on http://anybeat.com
They seem to do it no matter what they charge.
Has anyone written something similar for Ruby on Rails?
Merry Christmas fellow hackers!
the 10,000 lines of code in Java's Dependency Injection Framework is a red flag to me.

We agree.

The chances that someone who writes the same thing in lisp has drastically simplified the implementation are not so high.

We disagree.

First, when I roll my own, I scratch only my own itch. I don’t need to build something that works for everyone, everywhere. It’s like Microsoft Word: MSFT boasts that most users only need 5% of what it does, but every niche of users uses a different 5% of the whole thing.

But can I roll my own? Well, I suggest that the answer is more likely to be “yes” in Lisp than in Java. First, folklore suggests that defects are constant per line of code. Therefore, if I need fewer lines of Lisp than of Java, I should have fewer defects to contend with. I assume three things. First, I need much less than the full framework’s functionality. Second, Lisp is more expressive than Java, so I need fewer lines of Lisp for any functionality than of Java. Third, I suggest that languages with meta-programming support are particularly well suited for tasks like dependency injection, reducing the amount of code I need to write even further.

Now, the big DI framework is written by someone else. So is it free? No. I need time to learn it, time to use it, I can make mistakes using it, I can get an XML configuration wrong, I can implement an interface when I am supposed to extend an abstract class, I am not immune from defects just because I am using a library.

So the net question for me is whether the chances of successfully rolling my own feature in Lisp for my project’s specific needs are greater than the chances of successfully using an existing framework in the Java world=, and parallel to that, the question is whether someone else working with my code will find it easier to decipher the XML configuration and interfaces and classes I have written to work with a Java DI framework or will find it easier to work with the smaller, simpler and more compact Lisp code written for this specific project.

Reasonable people can go either way on this, I find it hard to believe that Java is “obviously” a win, especially if they’ve used one of these big frameworks with the many gotchas (as I have).

p.s. Of course, the wild card is that there are plenty of libraries in Lisp as well. I reject the notion that every Lisp programmer reinvents everything from scratch: https://github.com/lprefontaine/Boing
Here is a short list of awesome lisp abilities, some of them not unique to lisp, but still interesting read: http://random-state.net/features-of-common-lisp.html
Merry Christmas from Down Under.
How did you get this "good publicity?"
The Standford course is really great, really well-recorded. They always make sure to repeat questions students ask for the sake of people who are watching them on iTunesU.
There was one fellow on IRC that was suggesting a campaign to unlike SOPA supporting companies on Facebook. My response was similar to yours – it'd be utterly useless (as is the majority of "internet activism").

However, once thinking along those lines, I suggested what might not be useless would be using the Reddit-ish sentiment to raise money for an advertising campaign targeted specifically at the home districts of the bill's sponsors (which would be easy on Facebook). I'd suspect it'd be easy to scrape together many thousands of dollars and then to smear the bill's sponsors in their home districts.

(I haven't done this because honestly I haven't read a single page of the bill's text, don't even know what its implications are and refuse to protest something on a bandwagon.)
Agree this needs more attention. Don't slacken on SOPA/Protect-IP pressure, though, just also think about how to support things like this:

http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/10230-feinstei...
You really think they'll be studying it closely? I think if their sponsors ask them to change their position it stands a better chance.
Nah, it was actually a basic form and tableview.

However, it did have in-app purchasing and that was tedious to implement.

Not code-wise, but fiddling with xcode/apple dev center to generate ad-hoc profiles and signing and transferring to the device.

That sucked up more time than the code, at least for the first prototype build.
Making a guess as to the time zone of HN's server. ;-)
Political indeed! SOPA isn't just a practical issue (although, it is this too), it's an ethical issue. It's important for organizations like Wikipedia (and universities! ) to take a stand.
Or, at least, stopped distributing publicly. For all you know, they continue to distribute the toolkit in question privately, to people who don't bother asking for source.

That said, I did find the DMCA application in question highly satisfying. Thanks for that. :)
We and Mozilla are working together to make the web awesome
Same as @wallflower.
Our team is really small (2) so we never really run into that.

I wouldn't want two devs working on the UI at the same time. It's kind of an unspoken rule because just merging anything UI related is a big pain.

Like from the web world, one dev would do the UI html and js, while the other would do the server logic and API.

I try to use the MVC model in my projects, where the XIBs and their accompanying .m files just have basic getters/setters and the xibs are rarely changed.
In Facebook chat, you can type in any Facebook username or ID (like this: "[[any_fb_username]]") to show a favicon-sized version of that open graph node's picture.
It really doesn't matter what bureaucratic structure they claim. If they say it'll take four months to release the source code, fine, wait four months to release the binaries then.
I'm surprised that some of the trees (particularly Altermundus's one) are actually really pretty.
"Applying this pressure to your congressmen is the only real way to affect change"

is followed by

"I've called each of mine and have the vapid response letters to prove it."

Slight disconnect there? =)

Don't mean to harp on it, because contacting your congresscritters is a genuinely productive way to enact change. (Just don't put a whole lot of effort writing a heartfelt argument informed with evidence and rigor--its value comes more from indicating to the politician the breadth and energy of opposition to SOPA.)

But focusing on GoDaddy isn't a distraction, either. One of the central rules of political organizing is this: you pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Victory isn't going to come in one fell swoop: if it comes at all, it will be through a loosely connected series of small victories, looking plausible only in retrospect.

GoDaddy is an easy enemy: it has an anti-charismatic founder who has a long history of general shittiness. A victory there doesn't only screw over GoDaddy, which is in the grand scheme of things not even a secondary target--its only actual goal is to make a quick buck from the feds. But what a victory does do is this: for one, it sends an obvious message to Congress and to other companies that the Internet matters: it's providing objective information that, yes, the anti-SOPA forces have some power, and other players might re-evaluate their current strategy to accomodate that new information.

But beyond that, and more important than that, is that it builds the movement. A victory sends a signal to people who are anti-SOPA but disenchanted that there is at least the hope of victory, bringing them back into the fold. It generates a bunch of news articles providing valuable anti-SOPA publicity, which is especially valuable since broader public knowledge of SOPA is one of the things we need most now. And it develops commitment and better engagement for the movement via showing how each of us as individuals can contribute to change.

It's not an either-or choice: you can both send letters and move your domains from GoDaddy.

By the way, if you're reading this and you haven't sent a letter... close out this window immediately, write a letter, and send it.
Patenting the man-in-the-middle attack ought to mark the end of software and business method patents. It's (1) obvious, (2) been done, and (3) making hacks patentable ought to be contrary to public policy.
The author seems creative and integrative, the included forth REPL/IDE also is neat. Another benevolent dictator in the making I guess.
Donald Knuth shares his life's story
Cute! A couple years ago my friend and I made a little web toy for misusing Unicode characters as "non-denominational holiday tree" ornaments: http://unicodexmas.com/ - we're thinking that next year we'll hook it up to moo.com's API to let people print geeky greeting cards with it.
For AntiSec I don't think they necessarily have to get on their "bad side" but just present a high security image while having poor security in reality.

Maybe someone who knows more can clarify but that's been my impression.
except Ada (and maybe pascal) it's something we never see, we all could use this yet it's not there. Kinda like the numerical tower of lisp systems.. anyway.
Merry Chrismas new friends.
Very nice. I wish we could see the actual UI to get a better sense of how it works - can you post a screenshot?

If you paired this with a Kinect or similar multi-camera system you could allow the other hand to interact with the the model/model elements (when not busy doing extravagant gestures of course). Pretty amazing no matter how you slice it, nice job!
The more interesting situation to me isn't novice vs expert. It's the same one that bothers the person who wrote the top of the original article: pro vs pro.

A former boss of mine said that programmers are like hairdressers: whenever she changes to a new stylist, the first thing they say is, "Oh my god, what did that last person do?" That's certainly what I say when I have to examine an existing codebase. More expressive languages allow for more stylistic variation, and one's style is deeply rooted in one's values and experiences. One person's brilliance is another person's WTF.

I think the right solution to this involves developing a house style, which for my team involves zero code ownership and a lot of collaboration. Eventually the team converges on a set of idioms that work for everybody, so style issues are minimal.

But that's not always the working reality. If I have to inherit a bunch of code from a random developer, I'd much rather it be in Java than, say, Ruby. Java definitely limits brilliance, but it also limits too-clever-by-half idiocy. The downside risk with a Java code base is smaller.
Yes, once this one is issued, Microsoft's competitors, both proprietary and free will be proud to proclaim Microsoft has a patent on lack of security!
Awesome, thanks. Is that generally the main way you learned in addition to just playing around? Any other tips for a newb?
Ignore what the guys above have answered.

Stratfor is essentially a US-based but global news source that gives you the expert commentary and analysis on geopolitical issues that the regular news won't tell you.

Case in point: I started subscribing to Stratfor after the Fukushima meltdown and their great commentary on the situation, stuff that you wouldn't hear about from any other news source. One really great analysis talked about how the farm lands would take over a year just to recover from the salt water from the tsunami, let alone the other damage. Stuff like that you just don't read from CNN, google news, etc. As well, despite what the Japanese government was telling the world, it turned out to be the worst nuclear disaster in history.

They have expert commentary and analysis on any types of issues that are geopolitical in nature. For example, they have a lot of information on the European financial crisis, Iran capturing the drone, and they even debunked a recent Iranian news conference saying they had captured an American spy. Their analysis on the Middle East protests, as well as the the fallout in terms of Putin's recent political issues, etc, was very interesting.

It's pretty much the most informed, independent, honest news source for anything going on throughout the world.

The comments above talking about how they fear monger, etc, is completely unfounded, at least from what I've seen. I've subscribed to them for almost a year now, and there's no fear mongering whatsoever.

The fact that Anonymous/hacker groups would target Stratfor is kind of idiotic, it's independent news sources like this that don't work at the behest of governments and Rupert Murdoch that is keeping us informed, at least somewhat.
REFLEXÕES DE UM PONTO DE VISTA (pt-br)
(In Brazilian Portuguese)
They aren't that expensive, I think you can get the first year for $100. It's well worth it considering the garbage that you get from CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc.
According to my research it isn't quite clear that Microsoft strongly supports SOPA. They seemed to be indirectly backing it via BSA, but there are some stories of MS opposing it as well.

Might be a case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing.
I find them both rather easy to boycott. I can see how Adobe users would struggle to boycott all three, though.
Domain Profiler
Seems fairly usable atm. A few observations: there is an XSS vulnerability as you probably learned by now. Also, there was a moment when someone was submitting content and it appeared under my nick "bpfh".

Other than that, kudos for a simple well-functioning chat.
"Die Hard" - best Christmas movie ever!
Altuchur was just using Uri to make a larger point.."An abililty to see the future makes Uri Geller famous but does not make a successful entrepreneur..."

James is a good writer. He has more nuggets of wisdom on his blog: http://jamesaltucher.com
The unemployment rate in Japan was last reported at 4.5 percent in October of 2011. From 1953 until 2010, Japan's Unemployment Rate averaged 2.60 percent reaching an historical high of 5.60 percent in July of 2009 and a record low of 1.00 percent in November of 1968.

Although unemployment increased compared to the past, seems pretty good to me compared to the USA and some EU countries.

Source: http://www.tradingeconomics.com/japan/unemployment-rate
It's not an oxymoron because programming languages are tools for accomplishing specific purposes, and power is not the only thing that makes a tool good.

For what it's worth, one can easily call a theory "too powerful" for practical purposes. E.g., one often uses Newtonian mechanics to analyze something rather than Einstein's more powerful approach. Human brainpower is a sadly limited resource, so "easy" often trumps "powerful".
I have an encrypted 5TB setup using LVM, dm-crypt, and XFS in two identical full-size ATX 8-bay chassis, with nightly rsyncs from the primary to the secondary (with a simple versioning script that I wrote). Every year, I buy the biggest hard drive I can for $100 and replace the oldest drive in each system. LVM makes it extremely easy to move all of the blocks off of a drive and remove it. I also run smartd on both systems and replace a drive at the first sign of a serious error.

I used to run RAID hardware cards but changed to software-only solutions after a hardware card crashed. Unless you are going to buy two of the exact same RAID card (one as a hotspare), or unless performance is a big deal (which it shouldn't be on a backup system I would think), software-only solutions are the way to go.

I complement this with off-site continous backups of irreplaceable data (about 200GB) to CrashPlan.

I really wanted to use ZFS, but the Linux support isn't that great, and also I don't think it's possible to remove drives from ZFS arrays. Both of those were deal killers for me. In any event, LVM+XFS has worked out great. XFS is a very stable file system and has given me no trouble.
Holiday favor: looking for logo feedback
A Developer’s Year in Review
I've heard similar descriptions of LISP, actually.
glad you enjoyed it.
I agree about developing a house style. It is not my Java programming experience that the Java language limits the too-clever-by-half idiocy.

If you want to say that the kinds of companies that hire Java developers don’t hire clever idiots, that’s a different discussion. But I’ve seen so many convoluted architectures built out of Java that it feels to me like too-clever-by-half is a constant across all languages, and the very best thing for me is discouraging cleverness, with second best being let people do their clever things in a language that helps them, rather than making them write even more inscrutable clever code just to get away with being clever in Java.

This is my point above, and perhaps it doesn’t match your experience, namely that some clever things will be done, and Java will not prevent them from being done, but merely prevent them from being done simply and cleanly. So why not have this other “pro” do what she is going to do, but do it simply and cleanly thanks to a powerful language, rather than resorting to XML and other shenanigans?

But honestly, I fear we are now having a weird discussion where our working assumption is inheriting code from people we don’t respect. It’s far, far easier to simply work with reasonable, sane people, than to make all your choices predicated on the idea that your colleagues are psychopaths.

It makes for witty sayings, but terrible careers.
Thanks. Those two security issues are fixed now. It was nice chatting with you :)
What makes you think Apple and Microsoft are pro-SOPA? They were part of an industry group that was pro-SOPA until an uproar a few months ago for the group to pull out.
And the BSA backed off months ago.
we have a small group of HN readers showing off and helping each other on their projects over at http://www.virtualrockstars.com
The reply page does not use your topcolor, so it will always be the default.
Ask HN: Can HN be monetized?
I have no idea if HN is monetized or not, and I mean directly, not by just creating community around YC.
I am wodering if it could be monetized. according to google trends the ycombinator domain has around 50K daily uniques. if all of this traffic arrives to HN I can guess it means 3M page views a momth. Assuming someone will try to monetized using CPC ads, with a ratio of click per 1K, assuming $1 per click this will lead to the modest $3000/mo. not that impressive I think (assuming this is a main income for a company and not a side project of some hacker who has a day job).

what do you think?
ugh stop copying the node.js chat code and acting like it's something brand new. this is publicly available on rydahl's github.