skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Are seniors actually a valuable demographic? I agree large numbers of users are great, but I thought the general thinking was seniors, even if relatively rich, have established and difficult to change purchasing patterns; thus, 18-35, teens, etc. are worth a lot more to advertisers.
Facebook exposes hackers behind Koobface worm
Yes, the approach is similar to guestfish, but the JSLinux environment has very different performance characteristics from a standard computer and needs one to be frugal in every dimension: small (4MB) root filesystem, low CPU and IO bandwidth.

We use the same kernel as Fabrice Bellard, with a few additions: jlfs, a filesystem to let Linux view files which are available via the HTML5 FileReader API (multi-file select, drag and drop etc) The actual filesystem browsing is done in userspace on the JSLinux using a modified sleuthkit, and rendered in the browser using the elFinder JS library.
This sort of thing needs to be shown on the blackout pages, so people can easily do something (call to action) instead of just leaving the page.
is the metric of bicycles for sale a good indicator of anything but people giving up? That says to me a large population are bailing rather than riding. Are hipsters known for giving up when the pedaling gets tough?
yep, not to mention tryruby is currently a codeschool activity.
Ask HN: Typical referral rates
I am trying to enter my pre-launch startup in a b-school business plan competition. One of the things I am trying to do is project new user growth based on referral rates. Dropbox would be an "extreme" example of a wildly successful referral system. What does the median look like in the referral marketing world? Specifically, what percentage of users might be interesting in referrals and how many new users do they bring in on average?
I don't see how you can invoke Hanlon's Razor when it's now clear that it WAS in fact malice.
Csvkit - command line utilities for working with csv files
Samsung would be crazy to buy RIM
2012 Forecast
In general, press for early stage startups is something you get because you work hard at it, have an effective strategy to get it, and (sometimes) have the resources to hire help to get it. In this way it is not unlike achieving success in other parts of building a startup. Very little of it is the press looking at all of the companies in the space and blessing the ones they deem best.

PG wrote an essay on this topic that's somewhat old but still on-point: http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

Edit: That said, I'd add that I disagree that there is nothing new or special about the Codecademy product vs. it's competitors. I'm not sure I really understand why it's better myself, but I have certainly seen it inspire and click well with more new coders than other such sites, so there's probably something I'm missing specifically because I'm not a beginner.
Anonymous to hack Sony on Monday for SOPA support
Used Military Trucks
It looks like dramatically is missing an a on the blackout page.
Yeah but in this case the diversity is a weakness. You can't replace Yahoo! because they don't do one thing really well, they do a bunch of things mediocrely well. What is the Yahoo! brand? What do they do anymore? No one really knows, even though they do a ton, so how could you even aim to replace them at all? At best you could aim to replace Yahoo mail, and that seems like a very reasonable (though still ambitious) startup goal.
We would _love_ that. But we're not sure how to make it happen.
If anyone could have built it, why didn't anyone build it until now?
From the post:

In response to questions about how the protest link would be displayed on the page, all Google would say is that the link would not replace the company logo.
RIM won't be bought by anybody. They will be left to languish and die, and their spare parts sold as scrap.
Erm, did you just say it only works if I believe in it?

!
check out www.trybloc.com
This is probably an IE bug?
Very interesting. I figured you were crazy, luckily the wiki is still up, and lo! You're right!

So thank you for the education, although I actually don't think that changes my point terribly much.

Orange County with 3,000,000 people over 1000 sq. miles dwarfs most of the other entities, including Manhattan.

I would think that without an explanation of why they are an outlier, a population this size, this diverse, over a diverse geography (flatland, hills, mountains) would regress towards the mean. If they are dramatically outside the mean (and here they are far and away in the lead), there needs to be an explanation.

(I liked two explanations: one is that they are counting surfer's beach cruisers would could be a very real effect down in OC which has great surfing and lots of trends toward surfing style. And the other that suggests these bikes or similar may be very popular among latino populations for some unknown reason.)
This may just be the skeptic in me, but could you provide some references to the claims you are making?

I do however fail to see how it's possible for kids to develop the same type of social lessons in a closed environment. I believe even events such as bullying and popularity contests aid in the development of a child. This is especially true if they are exposed to team settings (competitive team sports) at an early age.
No, they actually both are. Just because one of the abuses of power is in our favor in this instance doesn't mean it isn't an abuse of power.
Again, I don't support the proposed legislation, but the rhetoric of "this bill threatens the very existence of Wikipedia" is a bit hyperbolic and may harm the cause.

I know it's not just some random cause, but it makes me think of questions like, "what would happen if Wikipedia (or similar entity) were to go dark until we got marriage equality?"
I must have missed that post; thank you!
Was front cover of the metro paper today: http://e-edition.metro.co.uk/home.html

Metro is a free, fairly large, UK publication (Over 1.3m copies daily with 3.5m readers.)
Prof - Profile, debug, optimize and understand node applications.
Don't think in terms of skills. Think projects you would like to see realized. Go from there (and good luck on your new career!)
PwnVFaiL...SOPA VS The Internet
Lenovo has a slim version of the Thinkpad... the hardware is extremely Linux-compatible, and it's a nice machine overall.
What you sign away when you buy a cruise ticket
I had Dell and Lenovo before buying an Air now. Was seriously considering Lenovo again but found it way more expensive (XS-Series) than the Air. Currently doing some webdev with (Java, Python, Eclipse) and find the maxed out version perfect.
It is encouraging to see the C# team learn from real-world scenarios and improve the language.
My local newspaper carried a syndicated report about the Wikipedia blackout and its rationale, and what to do about it.

I submitted that link here on HN:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3477002
It seems like everyone in this thread is falling for a false dichotomy. I would argue that both the MPAA and many internet sites are abusing power. In an ideal system, neither one of them would be able to do what both parties are doing. Now, we don't have an ideal system, so I'm still in support of the blackouts, but I'm going to call a spade a spade and say this is an abuse of power.
you mean a viral distribution system? it very much depends on the value the app provides..

http://www.secondshares.com/2010/06/09/metrics-that-matter-f...
here is some information for you to understand this "referrals" thing better :)
Sounds like we've finally hit a nerve.
I'm slowly working on my first electronics project. I decided to go big though and I now have 200 RGB LED modules (from 5 strings of GE15 Christmas lights) hot glued into a 20x10 matrix. I'm still nervous about blowing something out though, so I'm hesitant to wire up the power. Eventually it will be a connected to a Arduino Uno with an Ethernet shield. :-) Fun hands-on project for this software guy.
Reddit is big, but it's not very well known compared to the likes of Wikipedia or Google.
MPAA CEO Chris Dodd: Blackouts Turn Users Into “Corporate Pawns”
Interview: Sen. Ron Wyden’s fight to stop SOPA and save the Internet
Interesting, thanks for the correction. Do you know if this varies by jurisdiction, or is it pretty much universal?
ack sorry. Indeed I did.
http://thingist.com/t/item/23279/
Apparently Wikipedia is not a big site.
I've heard good things about System76 laptops, but don't own one myself. They try to replicate Apple's hardware/software combination except with Ubuntu instead of OS X.
On the surface of it yes. However, there are cases where people who work as contractors are viewed as employees by the law.

Here's the reason why: these people work on Google's premises; Google probably dictates what time they have to show up for work; and generally tells them how to perform that work. I don't have the names of the legal cases where the precedents were set off the top of my head, but under those circumstances, the court has ruled that vicarious liability continues to apply.
I was planning on getting a 13" MacBook Air just recently until I went to the store and played with them and the 13" MBP. The MBP with the 2.8 i7 is only $200 more ($150 with counting student discounts) than the Air with the 1.7 i5, weighs 1.5 pounds more and gets the same battery life. Unless your laptop being super skinny is important, I think the 13" MBP is a much better value; it's going to be a while longer before the hardware needs to be upgraded.

And my research indicated that there really wasn't a cheaper alternative in that size range, with that much power and such significant battery life (I get about 5-6 hours).
Facebook IPO: The Facts and Figures Behind One Of The Largest Offerings Ever
The landing page is definitely a better place to send people to than Amazon, at least until you get the TOC issues sorted out. And you probably want to expand the book description on Amazon too - currently it's only a couple of sentences.
Wikipedia editors question site's planned blackout
Github does this perfectly. You get a VM, fire it up and you're good to go.
In the second paragraph of the first section:

"whereas an employee acting in his or her own right rather than on the employer's business is undertaking a "frolic" and will not subject the employer to liability."

A Google contractor adding false information to OpenStreetMap is undertaking a "frolic", unless that was specifically his job at Google. If Google specifically told him to do it, then yes Google should be held liable, however, if the contractor is killing time and being an asshole while twiddling his thumbs, Google will not be held liable.
OpenDNS to censor its service in support of anti-SOPA blackout
Today, we’re proud to announce that we will be working with the White House to get more kids and adults learning to code. With their Summer Jobs+ program, the White House has been working on finding jobs for hundreds of thousands of people over the summer.

Did anyone else's stomach turn when they read this part? I think it's great that Codecademy want to help people learn to code and are effectively reaching such a large audience. However, I also think it's absolutely revolting that such a program exists at the federal government level. I think that's ridiculously beyond the scope of what the government should be doing.

Remove some/most/all of the hindrances to running a business and hiring employees (convoluted and rage-inducing tax and HR regulations) so that more businesses would be willing and able to launch, expand, and hire. That would create jobs, including probably thousands of coding jobs.

</rant>
Would the media industry ever understand what "Innovation rather than legislation" ever mean? I have added my thoughts on how the media industry can foster innovation. Would love the community to contribute with their pain points they feel the industry could clear off.
I had to vote the story up because of the submission title!
It's simply astounding, the number of people who do not understand that most of your braking potential comes from the front wheel.
I like it but needs to improve many things:

There's no point in including formatting/wysiwyg if the formatting options are so limited. not even the possibility of writing headers?

There's no way to view the source. We're stuck on the wysiwyg editor, include a source view or tab.

No picture upload. While I understand the challenges this raises, you did include a picture embedding feature. Why would I keep my notes on a service that doesn't give me any warranty that the pictures will not be there when I need to access them?
If you offer such feature, you should commit to it. Include a picture upload option, limit user diskspace usage and hotlinking if you're worried about server resources.

Keyboard shortcuts. This targets power users, no keyboard shortcuts is a huge deal breaker. No way I'm going to take my hands away from the keyboard while typing. Include keyboard shortcuts.

On the other hand, there are some really cool details. Flawless implementation of linking and searching, the way it should be done.
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I don't think "fixing" Yahoo ought to be as difficult as people make it seem.

I worked for a semi-dysfunctional semiconductor company and so I think I have some perspective on what it takes to "fix" a company like Yahoo.

I think the biggest reason a company becomes like Yahoo has less to do with senior management and more to do with the fact that the company is filled with low to mediocre quality middle managers and employees. Mediocre managers aren't very good at their job, so it seems like they make up by playing politics. Once politics is rampant, what gets done is not what works the best, but what helps you or your team get ahead in the political game. At this point you start bleeding talent because good people prefer not to work in an irrational workplace. You also lose the focus and initiative you need to keep a successful product successful.

The worst part is that there's nothing you can really do to fix this. You can try to fire the bottom 10%, but if you only have a problem with the bottom 10%, you're not yahoo. You probably need to fire the bottom 50%, but then you wouldn't have enough personnel to keep all your assets going AND some of that 50% would also be good employees who lost out in the last edition the political olympic games.

Any well-intentioned change in process or product focus by top-management will also inevitable morph into something completely different thanks to your low-quality middle managers who won't understand what you're trying to do, but will understand that they need to step up the politics to keep their jobs.

I guess the point of my rant is that a big company is like an emergent system and you can't really fix a dysfunctional emergent system by changing a small number of things that are part of that system.
AppHarbor lets users blackout hosted apps for SOPA protest
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Kids and Computers
Google has algorithms, Yahoo! should have editors and journalists. For all these attempts to "fix" Yahoo! never once a new message, advertising campaign, real brand refresh other than a minor logo and homepage refresh. I'm talking the new lifestyle tech feels like the Chrome kids growing up commercials. Like Apple's FaceTime for families type connection with users.
Protest on Web Uses Shutdown to Take On Two Piracy Bills
Super awesome... did you try out the Request module at all ("npm install request" if you've got npm installed)? Don't know if it would ease your situation or not, but it auto-limits the number of redirects AFAIK and handles a lot of other sordid details of HTTP requests.

https://github.com/mikeal/request
The Boy Who Stole Half-Life 2 (Source Code)
"Swat Teams" of vetted talent to handle the most prized assets and initiatives. Let the cruft keep up day to day, apply proven talent to the most important initiatives piece by piece. ie. Apple and the iMac, then iPod, iBook, iWorks, Final Cut etc etc.
Lots of people here seem to dislike Confluence and Jira. What do you folks prefer?

Having used Bugzilla, Trac, Mantis, MediaWiki, and several other tools I 100% prefer Jira and Confluence...
No, as information professionals, we should be building tools that enable users to store and manage their data privately, without asking them to trust some anonymous system administrator. Allowing them to become complacent and implicitly accepting of remotely-hosted services does users and society as a whole a great disservice.
But the 'honest man' will turn the other cheek?
If that law threatens your ability to do business, then it could be seen as worthwhile. As Ohanian has said, if SOPA passes, it will likely be the end of Reddit.

NOT being willing to lose
a day's revenue to something along those lines illustrates, to me, a lack of forethought.
It must have been the 1.0 version. I'll give it another look.
Medical doctor here(well, almost!). One huge misconception I want to clear up is that memory loss is not a normal feature of aging.

I don't have a lot of information to go off of here(when did it start?, is it getting worse?, did you notice it yourself or did others around you notice it?) but the common causes of memory loss in the below 50 demographic are hypothyroidism and B12 deficiency. If you're a vegetarian B12 def. is the likely culprit.

What to do: Go see your general practitioner. He/She will run all the usual labs and check your thyroid and B12 levels as the first step in your workup.

Another possible factor is depression. Depression and memory loss go hand in hand. (Sidebar: If I see a geriatric patient with memory loss I'm thinking either Alzheimer's or depression. The differentiating factor is that Alzheimer's patients don't know that they have memory loss.)

Go get checked out. B12 deficiency is reversible in the short term but can cause permanent damage.
"It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts"

You know what I've noticed about this? When it comes to this topic, the people on the PIPA/SOPA side of things who are saying the facts are getting skewed NEVER get around to actually discussing the substance of the facts and trying to set the record straight.

Go ahead, Mr. Dodd. Educate us -- if you can. You and the clients you've sold yourself to have a pretty big media platform for speaking yourself. Surely it wouldn't be too big of a challenge to address specific misconceptions, rather than just using weasel words to imply that there's a problem that you can't seem to actually explain.
Seventeen years ago is 1995.
Is it possible to embed a hackpad in a site? I really looked around for an embed-able etherpad that can be easily made available into pages for users to collaboratively note down stuff ...
MoPho: Photo Products right from your iPhone (techcrunch)
The app, from Penguin Digital, is called MoPho, and it’s the first to use the company’s Penguin SDK which will soon allow any mobile developer to integrate the same option for ordering photo products into their own apps.<p>Using MoPho (which I’m really enjoying saying, by the way), iPhone users can take a photo or choose one from the camera roll and then pick a product on which to emblazon their artful photography. Or baby pictures. Or kitty cat. Or whatever.<p>The current photo product lineup includes mouse pads, mugs, key chains, beverage coasters, frosted glass steins, HD aluminum art, re-stickable posters, t-shirts and (as of a minute after publishing this) custom iPhone cases.<p>MoPho will show you what the product looks like before you order and lets you adjust the photo by zooming, rotating and scaling. You then enter in your shipping and billing info and checkout, paying with either Visa, MasterCard, Discover or American Express (via Authorize.net). Prices are reasonable enough, e.g. t-shirt for $22, water bottle for $19.99, mousepad for $12.99, etc.<p>But perhaps the niftiest thing about the app is what’s powering it: the Penguin SDK. Similar to Sincerely’s “Sincerely Ship Library for iOS,” which lets developers integrate photo printing and postcard functionality into their apps, the Penguin SDK will do the same for photo products.
I think you're drawing a false equivalence. On one side, the MPAA/RIAA are bribing our elected officials to turn online communities into major business liabilities. On the other, existing online communities have rallied the companies that host them to take a stand. Remember, Reddit was the first major company to announce a blackout. And they wouldn't have done that without a lot of prodding from the community.
I don't disagree, but I think this is a void easily fixed with the right libraries and frameworks. Remember the web before jQuery? You couldn't get most developers to touch JS with a ten foot pole...
Wrong. CEOs have fiduciary duties.
I found that Twitter Bootstrap has better looking defaults after using a morning caffeine burst to drop Zurb Foundation into my app and see the difference. For example, things scaled much nicer on Bootstrap when I started Ctrl-MouseWheeling the text size.

That said, I hope Bootstrap 2.0 nails responsive design. I think we should be checking our progress on mobile devices as we develop, not drop in a mobile solution at the end and hope it works. Responsive design is the hard part whereas look-and-feel CSS is more trivial to drop in.
I don't know about you guys, but I was one of those who downloaded this source code on dial up, compiled & was very excited to play.
I had watched the Value source engine show case videos and when I experienced that in the game it was mesmerizing.

I never knew how it all began, I feel nostalgic after reading this story.
I would like to warn the community and fellow developers about this project.
This project is full of misinformation, claiming "jQuery rewrite", "jQuery language compatibility" and so on. Besides all the buzz words, the disingenuous act of calling it "jQ.Mobi" is some kind of marketing scheme with a misleading name.

Claiming a 'rewrite' is quite a stretch considering jQ.mobi contains 15% of the methods that jQuery has. See http://jsfiddle.net/danheberden/Gs7H8/

Hope you all can take a few seconds and take a look at this issue on GitHub:
https://github.com/appMobi/jQ.Mobi/issues/8

Upvote with caution. Thanks.
Click "read only", then paste this into your browser bar and hit enter...

javascript:(function(){modals = {'showModal' : function(){}};})();

...to be able to try it out without signing into Google or Facebook. Doesn't do anything fancy, just overrides the function responsible for the "Sign up" pop up, and replaces it with an empty function.

Hope this doesn't piss anyone off, just trying to be helpful. Seems like a nice product that people will enjoy thoroughly.
In Apple's Digital Textbook Shadow: Chegg, Inkling, and Kno
(mt) Server Monitor
The MPAA once again shows their desire to only make money.
In a world where corporations are people and 'donating' to politicians is part of their free speech rights, why would be an 'abuse of power' to a corporation to protest a law that threatens it?
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