skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The problem, from the content creators' perspective, is the enforcement of copyright law varies so widely. In some countries it's draconian, in others virtually nonexistent. My impression is ACTA was really introduced to, well, make it draconian everywhere.

I'm not sure how this makes sense for countries that consume more foreign content than they sell locally produced content in foreign markets.
They can become a state and not a territory, but then they would have to pay federal income taxes so it seems unlikely.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/05/us-puertorico-stat...
Technically, anybody could produce an ebook reader. I suppose the publishers brought their demise onto themselves by giving exclusive rights to sell books to Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Nobles.

Maybe they'll come around in time and open the market to everybody. Then there could be competition on ebook readers.

I'd love to switch to ebooks completely, but I still can't stomach the fact that I don't own the ebooks I "buy", and that I can not just read whatever I want on my reader (at least not without a lot of hassle). Or even switch readers at will - these days buying an app or an ebook is essentially just cementing the vendor lock in, which is of course intentional.
Does this have security implications? For example allowing you to compute an alternate, working password if you only know the hash? Are there other things this article implies?
Apache/Nginx, python and all those programs and emacs.

What more do you need? ;)
For those interested in this sort of thing, Taskwarrior 2.0 server (taskd) will allow arbitrary front ends, including the standard CLI as well as web interfaces, app interfaces, etc. I'm excited for that project to mature. (2.0 CLI client is in active beta, though I believe taskd is still alpha)
I don't know about other countries, but Rdio [0] is available in Canada. Which is interesting, since they have licensing agreements with the four major labels.

[0]- http://www.rdio.com/

The list of countries where Rdio is available is here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rdio (first sentence)
Backbone-Nested, a plugin to make Backbone.js keep track of nested attributes
Like? Require all ticket purchases be done on a G+ account and before you get to the theatre. Mine the purchases for the most relevant ad from all the people who purchased tickets (80% of the G+ accounts like..., 50% like..., etc). Show the ads in stock that are most relevant and also re-sell the ticket stats back to the advertisers. Offer a discount on your next ticket purchase if you blog/comment/review the movie (and feed that back into your G+ data-mine profile).

Feedback to advertisers will increase relevant ad pool to make better matches from ticket purchases. Advertisers get more data to target their ads to a better audience. G+ profile gets more data for profiling. Win win win. ;)
Our deployment process operates outside of our traditional network setup. If, for example, we push a change that breaks repository serving for everyone on github.com, we still deploy as normal and won't be impacted by it.
My cautious guess in the specific context of academia (where I am) is that unreasonable expectations may be one factor (though probably not the only one). Academics calibrate their norms by a handful of famous people who have relatively rare cognitive styles, and due to academic competitiveness there's strong pressure to match that.

There are plenty of people who are objectively normal, in the sense of having traits that fall comfortably around the median of the population, who in this context feel that they're pathologically abnormal, because they're using very high baselines: if you calibrate "normal" by the 90th percentile for some trait, and you're 50th-percentile, it's tempting to conclude that what's holding you back from being at the top of your field is a medical problem that should be treated. And maybe it still should; I'm not inherently against taking drugs to mentally enhance people's performance above normal levels (nootropics, etc.), but imo that's a separate discussion that should be had with open eyes.
Pixar and RenderMan: Changing the distributed rendering game
New York Public Library Launches ‘Stereogranimator’
While I am not prepared to discuss specifics of Ritalin's effects, the article raises very important point: a lot of problems happening with children are due to the neglect on their parents' (or primary caregivers') side.

I've always wondered how you have to be licensed to drive any more or less complicated mechanism, but yet you can become responsible for things thousand times more complicated and important, like children, just like that.

Having children requires a lot of knowledge, but somehow our education system is not designed to prepare us to deal with that. How many parents read books on child psychology or development? The proper alignment of incentive could help here: e.g. having some kind of a test could be a prerequisite for getting children-related tax credits and benefits.
Well, nobody should be using plain MD5 to hash passwords anyway. However, preimage attacks (finding an input that produces a specific hash) are still vastly more difficult than collision attacks (where the hash is not chosen in advance).

The security flaws introduced by collision attacks tend to be a bit subtler. For instance, if a digital signature scheme uses MD5 as the underlying scheme, you could generate two different documents with the same hash, convince a third party to sign one of them, and then transfer the signature to the other document.
When Sroufe suggests the brain disorder known as ADHD may simply be the result of environment without providing a bit of supporting evidence, he ignores mountains of data that show strongly correlated multi-generational symptoms even when there was little or no contact. There is a reason science doesn't get presented on opinion pages. Trying to convince parents that it may not be a real disorder, or may not be developmental, or that drugs are ineffective does a serious disservice to the diagnosed. Stimulant drugs are unlikely to be the end all and be all for ADHD treatment, but they are currently the best we have and they've been shown again and again to provide significant benefit.
Talk in OP on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQZoy3VU3io
For a record label with a big catalogue of artists that don't attract many paid downloads, selling premium accounts probably isn't the worst revenue model, at least until it comes to deciding who deserves royalties...
18. A BankSimple for the payroll industry

I've thought about this one myself. Seems like an industry ripe for disruption too: with complex, expensive systems from a monopoly player (ADP). Can anyone offer some insight as to why we haven't seen startups in this space?
I can't help but think that the VPN business is a good place to be, as national borders encroach more and more on the Internet. I've been using VPNs to access US content from Canada for a while, and a handful of acquaintances have begun to do the same.

If the old-school content providers don't want my money, because I live in the wrong country, the market has provided me a way to get around that problem by helping me to pretend that I am in the right country.
What Would You Do If Your Fiancee Rejected The Ring As Not Good Enough?
If Nintendo thinks they're getting another dime from me, they're sadly mistaken. I for one am seriously pissed about this SOPA/PIPA/ACTA bullshit and it would be hypocritical of me to give them my support in the form of money. So my comment is "who cares?"
Competition is always good for the customers, so I really like it. I also expect O'Reilly Media to push harder in this direction, it's only natural...
as reflected in the comments there, they are really quite different. if you're writing a simple (these days, even not-so-simple) django app that wants to store some objects, then django-orm works just fine. alternatively, if you want a python interface to sql (ie you want to construct sql queries in an embedded dsl) then sqlalchemy is beautiful.

and if you're a guru who wants to use django with orm, but with more control, then you can also use sqlalchemy; but for most django users it's overkill.

more interesting is the question: "what is sqlalchemy for java?". the closest i could find a while back was empiredb - they were great guys, very helpful, but it felt like a very small project. is there anything else?
Meet Y Combinator’s newest partner, Geoff Ralston
Are these companies (Coursera here, Udacity for Thrun) going to be non-profits like Khan Academy?
IWatch 2 Concept Compatible with the iPhone
The ethics of brain boosting
Better reddit interface with Backbone and Coffeescript
It's fascinating to see the abundance of doublethink. Somehow, copyright violation is not theft when it's a song and, suddenly it appears to be worse than murder when it's code.

What Curebit did was reprehensible, amateurish and plain stupid. Most definitely not OK, but aren't we overreacting a bit?

Are they selling the copied code? Did they refuse to take it down? Did they fail to apologize?

BTW, in the same way we strongly suggest RIAA and MPAA affiliates they should look for business models that are viable in an age when copying and sharing music and movies is easy, shouldn't we encourage internet companies to seek business models compatible with the fact copying code is easy too? Let's forget for a second it's still wrong to use someone else's code without the right to do so, but how much does it hurt when someone copies some clever script from a public website? Last time I checked, 37 Signals had a very viable business model.
Being 35 this news makes me a scared old man who maybe won't get hired again ;)
I like this idea, but I have to agree it would be unlikely for most people to pay $600 for a free-trade iPad when they can get the same thing for $500.

I think it would only work if the free trade version is the only one available.
You are so very wrong. Hardly any marketing is done for US shows abroad. You could easily miss the premiere of a new season if you weren't paying close attention.

US shows are thrown on the air mostly as filler, with some rare exceptions they are not the big moneymakers for non-US stations. Although not as carelessly as in the days before DVD box sets and mass piracy, when a episodes could be shown in the wrong order, series just disappear from the schedule unannounced for months, or stay on the shelve for years.

But they will still happily announce a series as "the new hit series from the US", knowing full well that the show has already been cancelled and they only have the 13 episodes to air... This is also largely because US shows are sold as package deals. If you want to buy House for your local market, you also have to buy the rights to crappy series you know nobody will watch, at least not on your station. So even if there is a potential audience for those series, they will barely get a chance to watch the series, since it will be programmed at some ungodly hour.

The Dutch broadcasters managed to ruin many shows like for instance Six Feet Under or Battlestar Galactica that way. Yeah, lots of people still saw them, but either pirated or on DVD. Following them on television was near impossible.

It's a business-model that prefers to destroy a popular product in order to maintain an artificial scarcity rather than to sell it directly to the consumers at reasonable price.

Maintaining this model ensures Hulu is never going to be available outside the US, unless the whole local broadcast market completely collapses.

Because there is more money to be made in ensuring that a show does not reach its audience. That's how fucked up the system is.
26. Get a cookie and do science to it.
You can sit in them and read through books for hours if you choose to. And it's much quieter than coffee shops.
Trying to work in the second idea at classfrog.com
I have to wonder that if ebook prices continue to be inflated due to publisher meddling (which Apple is involved in, for whatever reason), will paper books continue to have an edge in terms of pricing for the next several years.
I never said anything about risk, I said willing. The tech world giants so far has not been willing to produce a Hollywood type blockbuster film. I think it is a matter of will not risk.
No option to clear only completed items?
Feature Branching and Continuous Delivery Are Incompatible
http://blip.tv/file/get/Chani-activities46160.ogv
That video may help you, like had helped me.
Bangladesh Premier League (BPL)Twenty20 Auction Details
You find it easier to read a book based on what's available to you in a physical bookstore (the entire book) versus what's available on Amazon (a small sample if you're lucky and a bunch of reviews from people of unknown tastes)? That seems a bit odd to me.
I am currently on two medications. VyVanse for ADD and Anafranil for OCD. As far as effectiveness, yes the medication is helpful at the beginning. However, after being on it for two years the effect of the drugs wear off and you end up doubling your dose. That seems to be the pattern with all the medications I take, even those not concerned with ADD. Honestly I really improve my productivity through therapy related techniques; meditation, therapist, developing my focus muscle.

Strangely, I don't have attention problems when it comes to the things I have interest in such as coding and computer science.
From what this sounds like, its not their age its their skillset, they have a skillset that has become more and more obsolete and haven't adapted. At my current job there are guys well over 35 who used to work in jobs like what they are describing in the article (semiconducator companies, etc) but they have since adapted and developed new skills relating to web programming, I don't think the way they are portraying this is entirely accurate.
Stay current with your skills and age won't matter.
I honestly get the feeling that the entertainment industry thinks by continuing to refuse to adapt it can force us to just abandon that whole 'internet' fad and go back to some nostalgic dream world where consumers bought retail products for full RRP.
What a coincidence, just drafting my first design with Skeleton. Definitely saves a lot of hassle.

It's a pity that currently most broken thing on mobile browsers are touch-based frameworks and custom font rendering.
Hey Christoph,

Your beta looks great, when my life calms down a bit I'm really looking forward to playing with it.

But.. there's another story I want you to tell. I re-posted your beta announcement onto the google groups hosted mailing list for my tiny hackerspace half a world away from you and within 12 hours you were personally interacting with us on the capabilities of your system.

Wow! What are you doing to be able to track discussions on reconstructme so well? That's a pretty impressive level of customer engagement...
I have a netflix account (paid via a valid USA credit card that I can still legally operate), but now reside in India and cant' stream. I ended up buying a VPN account in USA (StrongVPN) to stream.

I think what media companies need to understand is how digital distribution has no relation to countries/boundaries. I can walk down the road that I now live in India and find pirated same English movies for around $3, and save a lot of money on streaming (bandwidth is expensive here).
I wonder what the studios are trying to prevent here. I feel there is a genuine demand for netflix like subscription based movie service in India, which could operate with willing paid subscribers. This is a genuine case to reduce piracy here.

Sad state of affairs, but nothing out of the ordinary.
I think it's a good list of ideas which sadly will not appeal to most entrepreneurs. You may disagree, but I personally think that founders tend to run away from scientific research and for good reasons. It's very hard to find funding if the service you want to provide doesn't revolve around the generic list of facebook/twitter mashups, mobile apps and SAAS services which solve nonexistent problems. Think about it, you can spend 2 months building a typical CRUD app, make money the first week and keep your investors happy. Or spend years looking for the bright minds who share the same enthusiasm and belief in your scientific research and them (maybe) find enough money to build the final product. This is probably the reason why these things are worked out in university labs, not startup incubators.
This is an oddly "poor publishing cartel!" story, which has echoes of our friends at the MPAA and the RIAA without the venom, but a good helping of the cynicism. Let's see if I have this straight:

The long and short of the article is that everyone's scared of Amazon, because Amazon is actually selling what consumers want, and are leveraging their consumer power to cut out the publishers completely. This has the appearance of a big win for consumers and for writers, but the publishers worry that they can't "mold talent" any more, and have finally realized that the middleman loses when he forgets to provide what people want. It's a complete play-by-play of the Kill Hollywood models we've been talking about recently.

NYT paints the publishers as a poor industry who are getting swirlies from the school bully, so they really hope that Barnes & Noble will save them. As always with the cartels, they want to hold on to the past and their print books (even when they that put the ridiculous, onerous DRM on their e-books and people are still buying them). What they won't do is acknowledge that Amazon has changed the game on them, and fight Amazon toe-to-toe: ie. actually merge with Barnes and Noble. They want a proxy battle, and if B&N eats it, then they don't lose anything.

Personal prediction: without a merger with one or two publishing companies, B&N as we know it dies within 5 years. Renting that floor space and paying those employees is just too much overhead. The last play will be to shutter their big stores, and cut themselves right down to small boutique stores on highly foot-trafficked areas, that focus entirely on pushing Nooks and eBooks.
can you clarify what you mean by "plain md5"? if someone is using md5 with crypt(3) is that ok?

i ask because of this - https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=743715
Of they just didn't realize they had such a cool domain until Gabriel contacted them. Google is a big company and it's entirely possible for things to fall between the cracks in an organization of that size.
Maybe tarsnap?

You can do a write only key on the server and backup that way then keep the read and delete key off of that and use that only if you need to restore/check backups.

Depending on how much you are backing up it will probably be less than 2000/mo and it is hosted on s3 so there is quite a bit of reliability there.
I know, but bringing up alternatives to entrenched meanings doesn't always make things clearer. Probably a lot of the time it's better to introduce a new term, or one that is used infrequently and doesn't have as much baggage, rather then redefining one. Redefining terms when talking to a computer is one thing, but people aren't always capable of throwing out their assumptions, and it almost always takes a long time. In the meantime, where is the discussion? The mess has to be worth it.
I have a real problem labeling 10 year olds that get bored and fidgety in boring situations with having a brain disorder and giving them speed.

Find me 10 successful entreprenuers and I bet I can show you 10 people who had a tough time sitting through unengaging lesson plans in school. Doesn't help with ballooning class sizes either.
I don't think that tablet is Spark. I suppose it is the WeTab.
Fuck this.

I think the real danger is being the 12-year master of TPF reports at BigCorp, Inc. How do you spin 20 years at BigCorp in an increasingly non-technical role over that time window in a way that would actually excite Google or Facebook?

I think the norm for those of us who want to stay technically relevant is to be open to re-inventing our hacker skills, master the linking of our efforts to bottom-line results, and the wisdom to know when the time has come to tackle new tech stacks and projects.
Allow me to interject for a due correction: the inuit "having x>>1 words for snow" is a widespread misconception; Eskimo-Aleut languages feature compounding (as German does), thus allowing an arbitrarily high number of variations of the "snow" lexeme, which can be misunderstood by very uninformed and very monolinguistic individuals (such as lousy journalists writing fillers) as being different words.
> Normally, the launch of a new record label wouldn’t be the kind of thing we’d cover at The Next Web,

I can see that. This is like a music blog covering the release of a NoSQL database. They just don't have a clue.

There have been netlabels with free music downloads on the net since before mp3s were popular. The days that these only published amateur music of mediocre quality are long past. Many labels have had mixed free/non-free downloads for years, too (i.e. some releases are free, some aren't).

ps. if I upload some mp3s to a wordpress blog, do I get to feature on thenextweb too?
I think teraflop had in mind salting.
Technology degrades the quality of our real life interactions
Please change the font of your content. It's painful to read... try font.ubuntu.com for instance.
I think you are mixing two things. The outcry seems to be from one business copying another business. It would be like one songwriter copying the work of another songwriter. You are then comparing this to a regular person copyrighting the work of a songwriter/singer for their own consumption.

Although they are similar they are not the same thing. Just wanted to point that out. I won't go into an argument about which is wrong though since that is not the intention of my comment.
Curebit/37signals
ok guys...<p>let's have a brutal honest discussion...<p>I've argued with 100s of people in the valley over piracy for music.. I've had people claim (techdirt) that downloading/pirating music doesn't harm the content owner, as they weren't going to buy the music anyway. I've had others say that the owner still had the music, so they didn't harm the content owner....<p>So.. just how did curebit harm 37signals?? Doesn't 37signals sill have all of their css/javascript/html...<p>Let's stop the f*ng hypocrisy. You can't have it both ways and be consistent. If it's ok to rip off music, it's ok to rip off the html/css/javascript.<p>Let the comments begin.<p>peace
GOOG Deserves More Respect
So Ritalin is just a usual mind boosting drug, it has rebound effects and people develop a tolerance.

Like cocaine, MDMA, ephedrine and meth. It differs in it's euphoric and adverse effects, but the positive influence is not permanent.

Not a single drug can help you in the long term, you have to develop the abilities yourself. These drugs have the opposite effect, because as long as you take them you don't evolve. The worst thing is when you get used taking this stuff. You give up faster and think you are unable to deal with it yourself, what leads very fast to an addiction.

So many of my fellow students are taking drugs now for learning, especially Ritalin (but also the other stuff i mentioned earlier). I tried Ritalin once and the results were impressive, but i always had a bad feeling about this. This article proves my concerns right, Ritalin is not without downsides.
Helping Voters Register with the Cost of Freedom Project
Travis: free build service for continuous testing
Are there any long-term studies of these issues? I'd be surprised if there's actually enough good ones to draw conclusions.
"If you’ve read the New York Times story from yesterday (...) you know that gadgets are often made in pretty harsh working conditions."

I have heard of this story and I am surprised it has not been post on HN.
Definitely. If you log in to your WP blog at least once a day, it informs you about any updates and lets you apply the update with the click of a button.

Ah, I remember reading about the timthumb bug at work and checking right away when I got home if my site was vulnerable to it (which it wasn't).