skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I have to say, it was remarkably hard for me to figure out WHAT this was.

I couldn't easily find a simple introductory paragraph giving me the gist of what it was. Even after watching the video, I could not figure out what it is.

So here is what I imagined it to be:

Laser tag with camera equipped phones. You wear this coded tag which can be recognized from a decent variety of incidence angles. When you "fire", your camera takes a photo, the software identifies if the patch is within a certain zone and updates some central database with who got shot, how near the hot spot and the target gets points taken off. If you die, you get notified.

I would have gone with a color patch on a white t-shirt - more robust detection.
Yeah, The Dropbox Conspirators now probably must implement a public search function and the list of top files.

Instead, the indictment alleges that the conspirators manipulated the perception of content available on their servers by not providing a public search function on the Megaupload site and by not including popular infringing content on the publicly available lists of top content downloaded by its users.

Oh, and affiliate programs are now money laundering:

The indictment charges the defendants with conspiring to launder money by paying users through the sites’ uploader reward program and paying companies to host the infringing content.
Indeed -- I've often manually set AllowDeactivateGrabs in xorg.conf just so I can use ctrl-alt-/ to kill poorly written programs that XGrabKeyboard() then freeze. Of course, my workstation is physically secure so I don't need the screen lock.

AllowDeactivateGrabs, and its sister option AllowClosedownGrabs which enables ctrl-alt-* to close apps with an active grab, have long been known to be a security hole that the user must explicitly enable. I'm surprised distributions are now somehow shipping with these options enabled! :/
I think it's worse that dropbox dedupes files, which means that they(dropbox) already have infrastructure that could seriously combat their use in infringement.

I do wonder how this plays into the whole Swizz Beats is CEO news.
I've just made a .ibooks file, and if you unzip it it's just a normal epub3 file (I think). The mime type is application/x-ibooks+zip.

If it's not epub (not 100% familiar with format), it's just xhtml, css, svg, some plists and all your assets (jpgs, pngs, etc)
SOPA and PIPA would help how? This appears successful without them.
It can be fixed through a double redirect. Basically, redirect the browser to a internal page that redirects to the original page and have that page redirect to the outbound link.

For example:

Say you're on this page: http://site.com/article?_uid=123 (_uid being the identity leaking query param)
and clicked a link that appears to point to: http://google.com/

When a user clicks on that link, the page redirect the user to http://site.com/redirect?target=http%3A%2F%2Fgoogle.com&...

The server will then redirect the browser back to: http://site.com/article

And when the server sees that request with referrer set to /redirect?target=http%3A%2F%2Fgoogle.com, it will then parse out the target url and redirect the browser to http://google.com.

This way, the target url can be given a meaningful referrer url without compromising user's identity.
Show HN - SuggestMeLearn, My first web application
- After starting and quitting so many times, I finally decided to start small project and created SuggetMeLearn - This is my first ever attempt to a complete web application - The idea is to - let people suggest the way they learnt a particular language or technology - let people seeking to learn decide based on the suggestion to pick resources and start learning rather than browsing through infinite search results. - people can vote if they think they also believe that a particular suggestion is a great resource(and suggestions are sorted by votes)
- All suggestions are welcome. - URL : http://suggestmelearn.appspot.com/
That is not your decision to make.

By the way, are GPL violations equally just anachronistic hippie pipe dreams or real crimes?
isn't swizz beats also an ambassador for lotus cars?
Google+ Now Lets You Share Straight From Search Results
Depends on the app. I personally developed a dozen native mobile apps, and I wouldn't have done it any other way -- but that's because of the nature of the apps I created.
Perhaps more interestingly, can Amazon S3 be shutdown? My understanding is that Dropbox is effectively an S3 client, so how is that line drawn?
Maybe somebody can add a extension to Mercurial that let's you use empty folders.....
While it's tempting to treat "resourcefulness" as a trait intrinsic to founders, in my experience it can be a sharp function of the founder/startup fit. When I did YC, I didn't feel resourceful at all, but that's because I was working on the wrong problems. (Don't ask; it was painful.) As soon as I switched to education and technical publishing (the Ruby on Rails Tutorial, started after YC), I was suddenly resourceful as all get-out—and I started to feel unstoppable. I suspect that if I ever do YC again, the resourcefulness transformation will appear miraculous, not because of any change in my intrinsic resourcefulness, but because the new startup will be a much better fit for my interests and abilities.

One could argue that truly resourceful founders will iterate until they find a good fit. That's probably true—and it's exactly what I did. It's just that sometimes the penultimate "iteration" involves shutting the old thing down and starting something new. Chalk it up to my Artix Phase (http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html).
I'll be spinning in my grave, cryogenic storage tank, or positronic simulation matrix if our ancestors 500 years' hence are still observing (and thus familiar with) "Daylight Savings Time".
So you’re saying that because people are stealing their software, Microsoft should throw away their business model?

If people were stealing iPads from Apple stores, would you suggest Apple should “figure [that] out for themselves”?
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aw3c2, sorry for the comment spam! he's a coder, not a hacker, i'm asking him to remove. I'm very sorry :(

about linkbait, what's wrong with linkbait?
iPads And Digital Textbooks Do Not Belong In Classrooms Yet
The phrase make good sense. Knowing why the fence was put up in the first place is key. Then "We've always done it this way." is usually defeated with a more appropriate reason. Unless the same type of fences you see are reasonably indicative of poor or confused judgement. Then blast away at will!
The Ten Most Asked SQL Server Questions And Their Answers
Megaupload.com shut down, founder charged with violating piracy laws
This is going to sound mean, but I don't mean to be mean. I am genuinely curios:

Could you describe "hard to talk to" as not having very high social skills? I would say that a lot of average folk could be described as hard to talk to, but super smooth people are never hard to talk to.

So I mean to restrict my question to well above average social skills.

And this leads me to my next question. Could it be that social skills require more brain power than traditionally intellectual pursuits?

We know from AI work that things which come naturally to humans are some of the most computationally intensive and most difficult to replicate.

Whereas things like math and playing chess are much easier to implement in software.

Doing math in your head can feel much more difficult than just having a conversation with someone. But what if having a conversation feels easier only because a huge amount of brain power is genetically devoted to vision, language processing, face recognition, and reading other humans' emotions?

(This is what's going to get me grayed out)
What if socially awkward geeks are truly lacking brain power compared to socially super smooth but not particularly intellectual people?

And does pg's experience prove that social smoothness provides higher fitness even in the high-tech startup environment?

Are then technically brilliant but socially awkward people truly less fit in almost all areas of life?

Do socially awkward people only out-compete socially smooth people strictly in situations where interaction among humans is truly minimal?
My biggest issue with all of this is the very notion that you can make policy decisions "scientifically". Having a study to back up every major corporate standard is neither realistic nor even advisable. Many of these things are too nuanced, and include way too many variables to pretend you can get an outcome that is "right" based on data.
"Client-side MVC" is kind of unfair to backbone.js. I haven't confirmed it myself, but I've seen people explaining how it's also suited to server-side rendering, which means it's not ruled out for competent authors doing progressive enhancement.

http://lostechies.com/derickbailey/2011/09/26/seo-and-access...
There are a couple of problems with this:

- Iran sending "moles" to spy Israel or other countries.

- They would become terrorist targets (for being traitors to the regime).

- Some of them, even when they are against the government, are also against Israel. Religion is too much strong there.

And anyway, I think that they can ask for political asylum for their own, while visiting other countries (but I dont know if they are free to travel).
I skipped it for the same reason. I knew it was a stylistic choice, but I still didn't care to read what he had to say. I probably would go back and put up with it if the comments here made it seem like he had anything new to say on the piracy topic anyway, but I'm getting the opposite impression.
Is this the Megaupload run by the producer Swizz Beatz posted on here only a little earlier? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3484419

So the RIAA are going after their own artists for allegedly stealing money from their own artists? What a weird industry this is...
Sounds like win-win. Now, what happens if I don't pay for my copy of Fedora?
I'd say it's a good paraphrase. That larger passage is really great and has many implications for software and technology, for sure.
Just happened across this, it is a very complete reference/specification of the latest version of ECMAScript (which most of us here probably use in the form of Javascript).

It doesn't include the Document/DOM methods that are present in browser Javascript, because ECMAScript is the general "core" language that Javascript is based upon. Adding DOM methods and `document` and `window` objects to ECMAScript is basically* what turns it into browser Javascript and not, say, ActionScript or Node.js.

It does provide detailed descriptions and specifications of the new properties and methods in ES5, such as `Array.forEach` and `Function.apply` and such.

And in case you were wondering what's the new features in ES5, there's an overview of that in this article: (which is where I got the OP link in the first place)

http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/introducing-ecmascript-5-...

ES5 is currently supported by all major browsers: Opera 11.60, Internet Explorer 9, Firefox 4, Safari 5.1 and Chrome 13. With some minor caveats for IE9 and Safari, see the article for details.
Your point is valid, but it is still worth noting that a huge audience also did buy their game. They just sold their millionth game on the App Store alone.
http://2dboy.com/2012/01/09/one-million-downloads/
We search for a GitHub account that matches the startup name and a GitHub account for each LinkedIn username of the startup's team members. So, to use demand analytics as an example, we found these GitHub accounts:

https://github.com/josscrowcroft
https://github.com/usethekey

I'll update the site so that it links to the GitHub accounts for each startup.
Throw charges at everyone and see what sticks? Plus, they can try to leverage them to plea against their main targets / give evidence against them.
Intimidation. I bet they also want to "make an example" of megaupload and any other similar company.
Are you a "cognitive miser"?
I am assuming because it took 2 years to get to this point. With SOPA and PIPA in place there is no need for a takedown involving the federal authorities. Copyright holders can achieve the same much more quickly by using PIPA and SOPA to starve them of cash and audience.
Before posting this comment, I went and checked the Tarsnap site, including the Security section, the design section and the FAQ and didn't find an answer to this question. My memory, from a past reading of your site, was that you kept keys on your side of the service, so that you could turn them over to Law Enforcement if they showed up. Is this still the case? (because if it is, then you can look at cat.jpg, even if you wouldn't post publicly about it.)
No. MegaUpload lost their safe harbor status by doing the following as spelled out in the DoJ press release:

As alleged in the indictment, the conspirators failed to terminate accounts of users with known copyright infringement, selectively complied with their obligations to remove copyrighted materials from their servers and deliberately misrepresented to copyright holders that they had removed infringing content. For example, when notified by a rights holder that a file contained infringing content, the indictment alleges that the conspirators would disable only a single link to the file, deliberately and deceptively leaving the infringing content in place to make it seamlessly available to millions of users to access through any one of the many duplicate links available for that file.

Of course this is only a grand jury indictment and they have not been found guilty in a court. But the Feds don't bring a case if they aren't damn well sure they can win.
I assume because they needed to grab everyone they could in one shot, since they are outside of the U.S., and it can turn out that one or more of them are in fact guilty. Otherwise, they can just disappear and you'll never get the chance again.

This actually makes sense if you consider that these laws are aimed at the mafia, and that there is no penalty to the U.S. government for being wrong.

EDIT: I find it interesting how everyone always jumps to the "OMG EVIL" conclusion with these things. From what I've seen, American law enforcement can be overzealous, heavy-handed, and cause a lot of collateral damage, but they are rarely "evil."

"wrong" =/= "evil"
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I agree with some of the points at the lower grade levels. A strategy for effectively utilizing iPads/iBooks in schools needs to be well thought-out before jumping on-board. The learning opportunities need to be leveraged while balancing the risk for distraction.

I'm sure there will be some very interesting pilot studies launched shortly, just as there are now for Khan Academy in the classroom.
But if you give me the name of a VC and tell me to go raise money - where do I start? How do I approach him? What will burn bridges and what won't?

I think in this case "getting it done" also includes asking questions like this. So if someone says they'll into you to a VC but you're not sure what to do next, don't try to guess. Ask for advice.

My sense is that PG's frustration comes from people who don't act without him prodding them every step of the way.

If you're afraid or unwilling to admit your weaknesses and ask for advice, you're ipso facto closing off communication.
Paying companies to host it? What the heck? That's like saying it's tax fraud to pay your electric bill if you're late on your tax return.
Is anyone sort of thinking that Bank Simple is sort of like Diaspora in some essence? They certainly have a presence and are vocal about their plans, but seeing any actual product from them seems to get pushed out further and further?

I was one of the first to request an invite. I needed/wanted to switch banks. It has been a really long time and nothing with Bank Simple saying "coming soon".

I think these delays are narrowing their potential customer base. People dont wait forever to switch banks because one bank is saying they will be better. They switch immediately because usually it is urgent, feed up, etc. They dont tend to switch on a whim, IMO. They decide that their bank is good enough and avoid the headache of switching institutions, changing direct deposit, auto payments, etc.

Reading these periodic blog posts seems a way to keep up hype in the absence of really letting people see the product and be eager to switch.
First of all, copying is completely different from stealing, but we've been over that before.

Secondly, stores actually do deal with shoplifting--they euphemistically call it "inventory shrinkage" and just chalk it up as an expense. "Unauthorized" copying isn't even an expense!
hi kghose! it's a multiplayer first person shooter in real life which works thanks to agumented reality. Thank you for your suggestion, we will try to make this more clear!

Every one got is own tag: and camera don't takes the photos, it's in real time in the video streaming :)

about color patch, no, it's not a more robust detection and can generate far more fake positive. It's one year we are working on it in six people, so we know a little about this stuff ;)
Giveaway : Win a Backtrack or iPhone book | The Hacker News (THN)
By the way, thanks to Academia.edu for hosting a great hack night every other Tuesday. Their beer and pizza helped make this possible. :-)
I think a huge portion of the blame of this is on the YC partners.

I'm extremely comfortable debating and discussing ideas in an extremely logical and thoughtful way. My favorite question every day to myself is "If I was starting over today what would I do". And Joe Kraus's "Face reality".

I found it impossible to do that during my YC interview though. From minute one it was a series of arrogant and condescending statements after another. Their ideas were nuggets of golden insight and my (far more educated in many instances) responses were dismissed out of hand.

I've had countless discussions of the same type with many other smart people (successful founders, investors, regular smart people) before and since. Some who raised far more difficult questions. I have reason to suspect the biggest problem was the YC partners and not some problem I have being flexible or thoughtful.

I think the essay as well as this quote are very revealing:

With the good groups, you can tell that everything you say is being looked at with fresh eyes and even if it's dismissed, it's because of some logical reason e.g. "we already tried that" or "from speaking to our users that isn't what they'd like," etc. Those groups never have that glazed over look.

I think you're mistaking some founders ability to placate you with thoughtfulness in many, but certainly not all, cases.

One person who publicly talked about this phenomenon (in a joking way) was one of the founders of Heroku. He said that pg said "You're an Oracle killer" so he "smiled and nodded because I wanted to get in" (paraphrasing).

I think that's very indicative of the way many founders probably feel when talking to the YC partners. The ones who disregard that idea are likely marked as "difficult to talk to."

I think there's a very real danger you guys aren't hearing stuff like this because who in their right mind would tell you and who would you listen to? You would probably just say they're difficult to talk to.

The problem with being so damn smart (which all the YC partners truly are) is that you can start to think that any problem you run into (like founders who seem hard to talk to) you're assumption is that it's their fault instead of your own.

I do think there's some unbiased truth to the essay and maybe the founders who are good at placating will make better founders. But you have to consider: would Bill Gates or Steve Jobs really have smiled and nodded or would they have said "What the hell are you talking about, that's stupid." (We know what Jobs would have done anyway.)

I'm still a really big fan of YC and all the YC partners, but I do think you might have let some arrogance creep in to your process. You guys are doing alright though, so feel free to ignore little ol' me.
Hosting files is a dangerous business - the line between being shut down for infringement and not being shut down seems to be drawn by who you know and what users you end up with, not any real actions, design, or technical differences in your site.

The indictment of Megaupload actually uses their lack of search function and censorship of copyrighted material from their "top content" list as marks against them. This means most other file sharing services which focus on one-to-one or one-to-many sharing and hence omit search and a "trending" list (looking at Dropbox, here) are vulnerable.
Megaupload files countersuit against Universal, FBI moves in.

Good thing I'm not the paranoid kind.
Get credit for all of your research
One of the goals of figshare is to get researchers to share even negative results from their works, in order to reduce duplication of effort, as well as to encourage citations. Publicly available data leads to more citations. According to figshare, unless “we as scientists publish all of our data, we will never achieve access to the sum of all scientific knowledge.” By sharing unpublished negative results, researchers can accrue citations for their efforts from other researchers who build upon the work.
Mailinator, anyone?
The "pay to download, get paid to upload" business model does seem fishy to me; I guess I'm not the only one.
Git and Mercurial both suffer from this "problem". Because manifests/trees must have contents (file hashes) to exist, you can't track an empty folder.

I suppose git's tree objects could point to the empty tree to record an empty folder, but most of the git code is comparing file blobs not trees.
Is this, by any chance, specifically tailored to programming control systems for time machines[1]?

[1]: http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Idris
Ask HN: What is Canonical's (Ubuntu) stance on SOPA/PIPA?
I haven't heard anything from Canonical and I'm wondering if anyone else has come across something that says where the company stands on the issue.
Who needs SOPA when we have ICE?
From DOJ Presser:

For example, when notified by a rights holder that a file contained infringing content, the indictment alleges that the conspirators would disable only a single link to the file, deliberately and deceptively leaving the infringing content in place to make it seamlessly available to millions of users to access through any one of the many duplicate links available for that file.

I assume the DMCA specifies content removal not removal of links/access to the content? It puts places like Dropbox in an interesting place. If you share a link with someone and the link is to something from "your own" storage space, and a rights holder issues a takedown (for the sharing aspect) is the company also supposed to remove the content from "your storage" assuming it is the same 1s and 0s? Should they have a right to if it is only you with access?
Menus seem to cause an X grab. At least, you can't call Ctrl-Alt-L while one is showing.