skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
When I upgraded Kindles, I had to go without one for a little while after I sold the old one. There was a book I wanted to read at the time, so I picked up a mass-market paperback of it. I found that I preferred reading on the Kindle in almost every way. It's more comfortable to hold, you can make the text bigger, and you don't have to move it around when you change pages (related: http://blog.xkcd.com/2009/04/13/the-pursuit-of-laziness/).

So then I hear people say things along the lines of "Sure ebooks have their advantages, but a physical book just feels better". They often make it sound like everybody either agrees with them or is indifferent, but this isn't the case.

Ebooks are cheaper to distribute than physical books. They are easier to carry around (thanks to the Kindle synchronization service, I _always_ have my book with me, because I always have my phone). The barrier to entry is lower, so we get to see books that wouldn't have, otherwise. Sure, a lot of it's crap, but most of everything is. We get some good stuff, too. The increased convenience and available gets many people (myself included) to read more. Moreover, some people, like me, just like it better.

Then I hear people say that the impending supremacy (in the sense of popularity) of ebooks over physical books is a catastrophe?

What?

More people are going to read more books, more often, more easily, and this is a tragedy? Really? How is this not excellent? How is this not wonderful?

Besides, physical books will still exist. LPs weren't killed by CDs, and they weren't even killed by digital music (although CDs might be, but nobody seems to care). Indeed, the fact that physical books will become a niche item probably means that they'll be higher quality (if more expensive) as people buy them for the binding, and not just for the book. Meanwhile, ebooks will enter the mainstream, and most people will be fine with them for most purposes. I'll wager dollars to donuts that the next generation won't really care.

The physical book is not dying. It's simply moving on to another stage of life. The book will be better off than it ever was.
How much of a factor in pg's perception is the know-it-all phenomenon, I wonder? I find the most unteachable folks to be the ones who already "know."
I don't think it's a technology issue. The US government needs to address SOPA as a trade issue, and work on establishing bilateral agreements with other countries. (i.e. piratesite.co.uk has been found in US court to be in violation of US copyright, UK needs to enforce the ruling, and vice-versa).
> 6. I still love eInk.

I do too, but for a novel. For a next-generation textbook, I'd rather have videos, animations, interactive materials. It sucks at sunlight, but again I study at my room and maybe that'll change in a few years.

> 8. Is this new format a lovely zip file we can extract and inspect?

Do you think that publishers that sell you a physical book for $119 would let you inspect their digital books and possibly re-sell them?

> 9. Is it possible to read iBooks on other devices/platforms?

It might be. I think it depends on what publishers want (DRM'ed or non-DRM'ed).

> 10. Am I allowed to share my iBooks with friends and relatives?

In the future, I'm sure you will.

> 11. Will my grandchildren be able to read my iBooks in 50 years time?

If YOU bought them, sure (that is, if Apple is still around). If your school bought them for you, probably not.
There are numerous other ways to approach it. For one, you can compete with free, and many do precisely that ( Cory Doctorow gives away digital copies of most of his work, but still makes his living mostly by and from his writing.) Another is to sell the associated scarcities rather than necessarily the copyright system itself (as Red Hat does).

And trying to produce it on a public basis produces problems in deciding what to fund. You run into this in public funding of science to, but there often are at least some public goals which helps guide this decision. It would be much more difficult to do with other forms of intellectual property (though we do in fact already do it to a limited degree, look at the National Endowment for the Arts).
I believe that this has never been the case with Tarsnap -- the keys are stored only locally. (cperciva can delete your encrypted data but not decrypt it.)
similar in scope and, depending on your grasp of the algorithm and python, roughly the same difficulty +/- a little bit.
It is naive to think it was only the RIAA or associated lobbying groups going after them.
FBI doesn't have any 'job' other than chasing down bunch of movie "pirates"?
does it matter who is CEO? it's clear that Kimble runs it all; it's even got his "mega" brand.

I'm personally a bit sad that kim keeps a low profile these days; it was fun reading his blog/website back in the day, mostly pics of high-life yachts and models and shit like that, master flamebaiter IMO :)
Its actually fairly standard practice for bulk SMS providers to charge for receiving messages as well.
Edit: Leaving the original text so as not to confuse the conversation. Megaupload is a foreign (to the US) site with a US TLD, not a US-domestic site. The arrests were made around the globe, but mostly in New Zealand. The FBI may have initiated the indictment, but extradition applies, as does the Berne Convention.

SOPA and PIPA are intended to address issues with foreign-hosted sites being used by Americans to pirate American copyrighted works. MegaUpload is a domestic outfit, so they fall under existing copyright law, including DMCA.

The issue with fighting foreign-based sites is that they don't fall under US jurisdiction. Up till now, the RIAA and MPAA have taken to suing Americans using those services. However, that's not really putting a dent in piracy. So, they came up with SOPA and PIPA. Of course, how do you stop Americans from visiting foreign sites which you have no jurisdiction over? Using DNS filtering is the answer they came up with. Of course, they left the language fairly broad, and now they've stricken that part from the bill.

The real issue with SOPA and PIPA is the removal of due process. Since the laws deal with foreign entities, though, the waters get muddied.
I don't think dedupe seriously combats use in infringement - it just forces pirates to repack/recompress their infringing content into many different forms, which pretty much happens anyway since lots of "torrent warez" groups like to put their names and spam links on everything.

From a legal/rights-holder standpoint that's a double-edged sword - it could be argued that because Dropbox dedupe files, they have a head start on DMCA compliance, but it could also be argued that the technical infrastructure means they should be better at removing infringing content.
Your response is a non sequitur. You stated

There's no mention of what the filename was. Neither the basename, nor the extension.

My comment merely quoted a 37signals employee giving the filename, both basename and extension. You can believe them or not, but they did explain the situation, and they explicitly denied looking at the image.
Though I'm not otherwise a big fan of Donald Trump, I read one of his books to see what he had to say. The book was called "Think Like A Champion" (I suppose that says something about Trump, but let that go by).

He pointed something out which I thought was a great business lesson: if you can't explain yourself in 5 minutes or less, you are going to be in trouble.

Relating this to pg's story, it means: you have to be able to express your ideas cleanly, succintly, and then forget all about them so you can take feedback. You have to drop the fact that it's "your idea" and just listen to what is being said.

I've worked with a number of people who were really, really, really excellent technically, but you could literally see the cogs churning in their head as you were speaking to them. And it was very much like what Paul describes, a sort of glazed over look. Afterwards, you'd have to rev the same idea with the a few times until they got it, or until you had to give up and make a decision by yourself.

I think it's a hard habit for some people to break, but it can be done.
Linked Lists Are, Like, So Last Century
They're probably listed as officers of the corporations.
Wow. This is a really interesting situation; I can't agree with this action at all.

1) The site complied with DMCA regulations, and removed material when asked.

2) The site did not directly promote piracy, which was Grokster decision.

3) The listed employees are all (or nearly all) not US citizens, so this required international cooperation, and extradition over copyright?

From my perspective it looks like they were follow the letter of the law on all, or nearly all counts.
The DOJ seems to have decided that if they can't really charge them with something specific, they'll go upstream, and charge them with vague broad things.

This makes me rather worried that even if you run a legitimate business, and comply with the law, if the DOJ decides they don't like you, you're done for.

WTF?
As I said, the government could already do this, which is why they are doing it in nations that work with the US:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3388171

I also wrote my congressman about SOPA:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3483539

Man I sometimes wish that things that go against groupthink in HN were addressed too :)
Not sure why anyone's drawing comparisons to Dropbox. MegaUpload was fundamentally a paywall in front of everything you can possibly imagine pirating. Basically a direct-download TPB with heavy handed incentives to convince people to pay to do it.

As a legitimate file sharing service, which to a very small extent Dropbox is, it was absolutely terrible - wait xx seconds or minutes to download a file at a reduced speed.
> mindsets can be extremely critical.

I would go so far as to say that they are the only thing that matters.

You can look at a problem from one mindset and see that it's going to take you 5 days or 5 weeks. Change your mindset and you might see that it's going to take you 5 minutes.
How Much Skill Can I Gain in 20 Hours?
not to be confused with Summize. (also taken over by twitter, becoming early incarnation of twitter search back in the day)
Haven't we already proved that piracy can't directly equated to losing $500 million?
Is it cheating to suggest not knowing nothing about problem domains likely to be of interest to you, and or learning generalizable techniques for learning quickly?

For example, hypothetically, if one has a weakness regarding chasing down money and one knows their career path is likely to involve raising money, then one could get a fairly rapid education in the subject for the price of a few cups of strategically ordered coffee. Don't know the character of a VC? Thirty seconds of Googleage should give you the names of five compulsively chatty people willing to give you their take.

I can sort of see why, if one were busy, one would quickly burn out on explaining How To Email People A Question to folks who did not immediately see that in the solution set when they had a plan of action which required a bit of discoverable organic knowledge.
Giants 23 - San Fran 20
25Can you lead Leviathan* about with a hook,

or tie down his tongue with a rope?

26Can you put a ring into his nose,

or pierce through his cheek with a gaff?

27Will he then plead with you, time after time,

or address you with tender words?

28Will he make a covenant with you

that you may have him as a slave forever?

29Can you play with him, as with a bird?

Can you tie him up for your little girls?

30Will the traders bargain for him?

Will the merchants* divide him up?

31Can you fill his hide with barbs,

or his head with fish spears?

32Once you but lay a hand upon him,

no need to recall any other conflict!

---

God says...
seasoneth although evenly ourself charges foolishly merely
infirmity pertain relationship backward no prescripts
funeral Simple containest vileness allaying gifts lingered
glory sellers deceiving tending Into slavery Mars confiding

---

It's end of the world, times if I go to court. All else is page 2.

---

I read the FBI story. meh.

Usually, they paint me into the story. I've been tried, executed, and generally been subject to all kinds of terrors.

God says...
C:\LoseThos\www.losethos.com\text\PLATO.TXT

the best only?

From the best.

And do you take the oldest or the youngest, or only those of ripe age?

I choose only those of ripe age.

And if care was not taken in the breeding, your dogs and birds
would greatly deteriorate?

Certainly.

And the same of horses and animals in general?

Undoubtedly.

Good heavens! my dear friend, I said, what consummate skill will
our rulers need if the same principle holds of the human species!

Certainly, the same principle holds; but why does this i

---

God says, "created ships yields ecclesiastical happened curest Thyself
drew indexes sharper raise inaccurate recurring avenues
holily wonted notorious At transgressions satiated gathered
quiet forepassed utterance vouchsafed heed periodic savour "
I think it is a big change that students need to buy their books. Right now, schools frequently buy books and then keep them for years upon years, just renting them out to students. This change will increase textbook competition, and increase the rate of change of material.

It also means that generating different versions of text books (Texas vs. rest of the US) might make a lot more sense.
The Feds don't really do that. They want every indictment to be a conviction.
> Textbooks are replaced every 3+ years or so, that's a given.

That's not a given. According to the answers on Quora[1] it seems like 7 - 10 years is more realistic.

> You're worried about something that might happen.

I assure you, iPads will get stolen, it's merely question of how often and my suspicion is they will get stolen more often than textbooks do, which he neglects to take into account in his calculations.

[1]: http://www.quora.com/How-often-does-a-primary-and-secondary-...
People don't understand how Ethics works.

On the anti-piracy side there are two groups: The first are artists who believe, without any evidence, that they can make more money when copyright is enforced.
The second are people start out assuming that the right to control information is a moral right. They then derive the ethical implication that people shouldn't pirate.

On the pro-file sharing side there are two groups. The first are libertarian-inclined utilitarians, which require people to prove actual harm before something should be outlawed or have tried to start a tech company and been threatened with a patent lawsuit. Every piece of evidence not created by the middle-man industry I've ever seen has supported their position.
The second are people who oppose the idea of "intellectual property", starting from moral principles such as freedom of expression, utility maximization or historic precedent.

There is no need to come up with anything new to say: the conclusion one comes to depends on what principles one uses to derive ethical implications. Intellectual property is morally wrong, declares one side. Intellectual property is a moral imperative, declares the other. It is impossible for either to convince the other, since neither is basing their arguments on a rational basis where facts or evidence might play a role.

Anyone who might be convinced doesn't care, probably because they are just ignoring stupid laws anyway.
I agree. This article is a perfect example of argumentum ad nauseam[1]: if you repeat something enough, it must be true! Since this is a logical fallacy, this argument is not wrong--it's invalid.

[1]: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/argumentum_ad_nauseam
How to Use Light in Photographs
Workers indicted at Megaupload.com
I'm sure the publishers are demanding DRM. I doubt Apple cares much, and going DRM-free would simplify things for Apple.
You CAN do injections to MongoDB code. An injection is basically 'allow user input to interfere with code' so for mongoDB assuming the query is a string you can do '{name: ' + user_input + '}'. and user_input, without sanitizing it (which is simpler, just converting it to a string) could be: {'$where': ...}

http://www.mongodb.org/display/DOCS/Do+I+Have+to+Worry+About...
> how do you approach a problem domain in which you know nothing, and manage to gain enough of a map of the territory so that you listen to someone's one-word suggestions and instantly grasp the implications?

Through trial-and-error, intuition, and a bit of luck. :)

I think the most important first step is to not get scared. You have to feel comfortable with the fact that you don't know anything, and so you have to be a beginner. That is a great thing to be though, as beginners tend to be very open and enthusiastic about learning.

From there, it's just like studying any other art or endeavor. You start with enthusiasm, build up your skills, and eventually you feel confident enough that you can take more advanced instruction.

It's at that point that the one-word instruction can give you tremendous insight. That's been my experience, anyway.
#SOPA - The Hacker News say “NO WAY” | The Hacker News (THN)
Just something to add going forward. I didn't always have great contracts. After a few hard lessons I've come to include an inflated hourly rate for work above and beyond the scope, a deadline extension. This doesn't leave them much wiggle room to throw curves. It also states that the deposit is forfeit and they are free to take possession of resources up to the value of the deposit amount. Any additional resources can be negotiated as needed.
Another case of Apple trying to crush Adobe, which already offers an e-book platform: http://www.adobe.com/digitalpublishing/ebook/
What was the buy-out?
Using this case as a guide, Dropbox would be "laundering" money to Amazon and everyone at Dropbox would be arrested and charged with felony money laundering and face 20 years in prison.

"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."
Why is it ok for copyright holders to have a monopoly over the distribution of their content?

If we go to the core of copyright law the original intention as I understand it was to encourage creation of stuff and my assumption is that the point of having such created is to have it distributed in an easily accessible manner. Yet we have no issue under the law with companies only selling to one distributor or just crippling it with DRM. Why?

Why don't we expect companies to make their content accessible to everyone and not just a in the ways they choose. I completely understand this when it comes to small resource limited companies. But I'm not talking about them, I'm talking about the huge companies that feel they should be able to pick and choose who gets their content. Don't get me wrong I am not arguing that I should get their content for free. But I should be able to get it from various sources at a comparable price.

In what way do exclusivity agreements help us? They give large businesses huge advantage over small businesses. How can someone compete with Hulu when the content owners won't license their content to anyone else at a comparable rate? (Yes I know Hulu is owned by the content creators but isn't that a conflict of interest when you only let your own properties distribute it over the web?)

I'm not sure what the answer is. But I don't see how allowing companies to have a monopoly over the distribution of their content helps individuals or businesses in the long term.
Press Releases RSS Feed | Vormetric - Feedage - 21090256
As someone who has friends who smoke marijuana - and therefore, as someone who might have stepped on miniscule amounts thereof and trapped particles in my shoes - I ain't going over there, either.
I'm not trivialising it, and I'm sorry you took it that way.

It's quite possible that you were on the path to burnout, but what you were describing is not burnout, and I wish people would stop calling "burnout!" when they just need a holiday.
Wow, that article's certainly not biased! </sarcasm>

> "MegaUpload.com is already engaged in a legal fight with Universal Music Group over a promotional video featuring some UMG artists."

I suppose there are some reading that that don't know MegaUpload hired all the artists and had contracts and copyright licenses with them and had complete rights to the video, which UMG illegally and fraudulently filed a takedown notice against YouTube. Also, the loaded term "file-sharing site" certainly confuses the issue that the site is like DropBox and sells on line storage space. Plenty of legitimate businesses and artists use it to distribute files which they own all rights to. Just like YouTube, yes, some misuse that. Is YouTube also fairly called a "file-sharing site" by the Journal now? Would not know any of the real facts from reading this article. How far has fallen the formerly great, but now Murdoch owned and controlled Wall Street Journal. I was a subscriber for years, but gave up a few years ago when the quality plummeted and objectivity flew out the window.

Update: Oh boy, today two of the programmers that worked for Megaupload have been arrested and another is wanted for arrest: http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-shut-down-120119/ All face 50 years in prison. (20 years for racketeering, 5 for copyright conspiracy, 20 for money laundering conspiracy, 5 for copyright violation.) This will certainly send a chilling message to any talented engineers considering a job interview at a company that allows third party uploads some of which are DMCA violations, such as YouTube.
Fair point — I was being a bit facetious — but the fact remains that if a critical enough mass of people steal/copy Windows, it’s no longer economically viable. Every user who hasn’t paid for it is being subsidized by those who have.

Windows may not be the best example since it’s so massively profitable, and sells a lot to enterprise customers and OEMs who won’t pirate it. That said, I suspect the business case for producing high-budget, non-mass-market consumer content (say, HBO shows) is starting to tip. How many people pirate Game of Thrones for every one that pays for it?

In the end, we live in a capitalist society — the people making software, movies, music, books, etc. have to get paid for the stuff be made.
They've actually announced the format is very similar to ePub 3, so not exactly proprietary.
From what I read they remain neutral.

Redhat though is against it: http://www.muktware.com/news/3230/sopa-pipa-are-threatening-...

Mageia: http://blog.mageia.org/en/2012/01/18/stop-sopa/

OpenSUSE: http://news.opensuse.org/2012/01/17/why-opensuse-org-goes-on...
If they make their own factory then that is ok. Simple capitalism. That is not my point, however. If they use the original factory without paying that is not ok.
How does looking at individual files help to confirm that things are working?

"Hello, thanks for calling tech support. How can I help you?"

"I uploaded a file but it's not showing up in my account."

"What was the name of the file?"

"Cat.jpg"

"Ok, give me a moment to look at the logs..."

These are the kinds of questions that come up all the time in supporting a SaaS product with non-technical and semi-technical users. Debugging is not something only programmers do. Oftentimes bugs are found only after a client interacts with support.

Oh, another thing: deletes. At my last company I can't tell you how many times customers wanted us to restore deleted data. After many frustrating support experiences we implemented soft deletes for most objects. Hard deletes required written confirmation from the user and 48 hours to purge it from all backups.
CS + X, for all X: Google's Alfred Spector on What Students Should Study
Check out brief.xydo.com - used them both for months now, and I actually prefer my news delivered topically like xydo does.
How to get your plants to start tweeting
Expecting to suffer no consequences is only silly if the probability of enforcement is high. If repercussions are unlikely then it isn't even silly.