skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Imagine what would have happened if there were 40 competing companies in the market looking for user support.

Popunders, exploits, bring-your-browser-to-a-crawl ads that spurred a massive move to ad blockers.

This submission is poised to bring out everyone with a chip on their shoulder about Google or Adwords, but the reality is that Google's ad quality control is one of the primary reasons they have been successful. Further I am skeptical of the innocence of so many.

In this particular case, the outcome seems obvious -- it was an abuse of the free ads coupons. Simply thinking through it made the end result inevitable.
This is also very much against the Dropbox ToS whereas the google adwords method is at best 'grey area'. I brought Dropbox more than 10 new customers. You didn't.
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20010312
Where did you get the $100 promotional coupon? I ask because Google's email makes it sound like you reused someone else's coupon.
IOS Web traffic share surpasses Mac OS for first time ever
My Adwords account got suspended as well without a proper explanation as to why a few years ago.

After contacting Adwords support I received this response:

"Our support team is unable to provide any further information. Please do not contact us again."

I ran a campaign for a website for medical school students. Absolutely harmless and as far as I can tell in full compliance with the ToS! I can only assume that whoever checked/scanned the ad assumed I must be advertising medical items (which I was not).
Do you have any supporting data for your statement?

I'm not trying to be an ass by asking; I'm actually curious, but testing
it myself (American) is not particularly smart.

Anyhow, if DPI is in place and at wire-speed (rare, but would cover
everything), then the answer is obvious; ssh over http. It can be done
with gothard [1] and corkscrew [2].

[1] http://www.nazgul.ch/dev.html
[2] http://www.agroman.net/corkscrew/
One campaign, multiple ads. Which as the other commenter says, is totally the norm.
i tried to run the script, however, i get an error (added diagnostics for more info, so line 13 refers to line 11 of your script, line 27 to line 25):

Can't use an undefined value as an ARRAY reference at
piratebay_magnet_scrape.pl line 13 (#1)
(F) A value used as either a hard reference or a symbolic reference must
be a defined value. This helps to delurk some insidious errors.

Uncaught exception from user code:
Can't use an undefined value as an ARRAY reference at piratebay_magnet_scrape.pl line 13.
at piratebay_magnet_scrape.pl line 13
main::__ANON__(20697, 0, undef, 0, 0) called at /usr/share/perl5/Parallel/ForkManager.pm line 354
Parallel::ForkManager::on_finish('Parallel::ForkManager=HASH(0x9cd7ac8)', 20697, 0, undef, 0, 0) called at /usr/share/perl5/Parallel/ForkManager.pm line 333
Parallel::ForkManager::wait_one_child('Parallel::ForkManager=HASH(0x9cd7ac8)', undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/Parallel/ForkManager.pm line 285
Parallel::ForkManager::start('Parallel::ForkManager=HASH(0x9cd7ac8)') called at piratebay_magnet_scrape.pl line 27
Announcing the first Beginner Perl Maven e-book
I'm afraid it's only postponed until the EURO 2012 in summer :-/
Google bar update rolls out after user feedback
So rather than using a couple of free services in a way they didn't predict, you just commit outright fraud?
BTW great article.
Just pointing out that 'autonomy' can mean different things depending on your point of view. The kind of autonomy that has already been achieved coupled to a reasonably safe ability to operate in congested air space will mean that regular autonomous cargo flights will become possible.

As for aerial refuelling, I think autonomous probe & drogue refuelling is definitely feasible. They've already proven the ability of the X-47B's flight systems to maintain the refuelling position behind a 707, which is technically one of the harder things to get right.

One of the reasons aerial refuelling is so tricky is that it requires constant rapid adjustments by the pilot in the receiving aircraft to stay in position while receiving fuel. The X-47B should be able to process those adjustments much faster than a human pilot.
How to make yourselves opaque to Google
My first Startup: Real app creation for everyone: Easy - Fast - Addictive
That's not a very good algorithm when the initial value of y is negative.
Almost all websites that worth visiting are either blocked by Iranian government or by US export laws (SourceForge, Google Code, ...) so people rely heavily on VPNs and proxies. One of the most used proxies is YourFreedom[1] that offers a special service for Iranian people (a free 512 kbps socks proxy). It sounds great, but unfortunately they have been compromised. About 10 months ago, I contacted them (they didn't respond, which makes me a little worried).

It looks like Iranian government uses a transparent proxy, so all connections to ems01.your-freedom.de (ems01 through ems24) first redirect to iran.ir and then go to YF's servers!

(YF is blocked right now, so I can't re-do this test right now. These images are from my email to YF 10 months ago)

http://www.imeezo.com/v/images/49229825994939115647.png

http://www.imeezo.com/v/images/46490363986030440278.png

A page accessed without a VPN/proxy:
http://www.imeezo.com/v/images/98155525346546936123.png

The same page, but with a VPN:
http://www.imeezo.com/v/images/30239946359511647325.png

In the third image, the response is from iran.ir's transparent proxy, not YF servers...

[1] your-freedom.de
I'd be glad to hear feedback / talk to hackers in the extension space
Exactly. I was doing GSM voice over IP with SpeakFreely in 1996 on a 486DX2.
Colloquial American English expression, used appropriately. "To cotton to" is to understand and possibly enjoy a phenomenon -- it's always a positive connotation.
Regarding the design of the Head First series, neither Kathy nor Bert have education degrees, Kathy's degree is in physiology and then she later switched to programming. Bert does say that he talked to teachers over the years while developing his philosophy of pedagogy, but so have a lot of people.

If you are saying that Kathy and Bert are educators because they educate, then I agree, and that was my point in saying that obviously Khan Academy is populated by educators.
How to make your staff more creative
Dealing with my popcorn brain
Even if under certain circumstances it might be okay for that person from another company to say they find you very attractive, it is extremely inappropriate in a professional context and objectifies that person. Now rather than the audience focusing on the speaker's accomplishments and expertise, they are focusing on the speaker's physical appearance when they might not have before.

Sexism in the workplace can be really subtle, and the more that is let slide, the more hostile the environment becomes as a whole. A man or woman should not have to worry about dodging come-ons and propositions from their coworkers because of their physical attractiveness. It is extremely unpleasant and wears on a person over time.

Now if the gentleman giving the introduction was in the right environment, say a bar having drinks with said speaker, it is a lot more appropriate to let it slide that he finds her really attractive. But it is objectifying and belittling when given as an professional introduction to others.

And in what way are discussions about possible sexism in the workplace sexist, besides the fact that some commenters might say some pretty idiotic sexist things as counter-arguments? If this piece was written instead about racist remarks overheard in a professional setting, would you say addressing that racism with a blog post would be racist?
Really? To me this is Google going 'why are dozens of accounts advertising the same URL with free coupons?' I imagine it happens quite frequently where people try to use free coupons over and over to never pay for adwords. They are cheating the system and ripping Google off. There is legitimate gripes about their non-responsiveness and poor customer support but their logic here is pretty cut and dry. It's also not malicious.
> I'm not sure what you mean by "WebKit won on mobile" (maybe you mean in US)

Aside from low-end phones in the far east, WebKit dominates in the mobile space.

In the US and Europe, there are basically two smartphone OSes: Android and iOS, everything else is tiny. And Android and iOS both use WebKit. So WebKit won.
Traffic Impact Assessment (TIA) (1.2 CEUs)
Both skills can be acquired from practice, try to build a complicated system that satisfies some personal itch and you should get a good feel on how to fit the pieces together.
Mathematics. In my experience, ability to program complex algos comes from the complexity of your maths background. Find a way to do more maths and you'll get better at algos. (abstract/logic maths, not just simple number crunching).

Also, building "pet" projects helps, since you'll know exactly what you want as an end product of an algo.
Deep packet inspection allows you to block any well known protocol.
This is dumb.

> While I’m very excited for Gumroad, as someone who was just about to launch their startup, from a business point of view this is pretty bad. Had we gone with launched as a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) back in November as planned, things would have been much better, but we didn’t. Now I see why everyone in the startup world seems to be saying MVP in every second sentence; possibly because it’s damn well important getting your product out there.

This is just not true. Sahil (of Gumroad) is a very skilled person who has proven himself and has a lot of connections, his company (Gumroad) has been around since before November (in fact it's 11 months old now...) and this is such a cop out. He is not going to beat you because he has investment, he's going to beat you if his product is better than yours. You're also competing against kout (http://www.kout.me/) and I'm sure there are others I don't know about. The fact that Sahil launched Gumroad in a weekend and you've taken over 6 months should show you that he is not just some dumb kid who got lucky, he's someone good at what he does.

If anything this is a fucking wonderful thing for you, your idea has been validated and investors think there is money in the product.

If you're going to quit, quit, but don't blame the success of Gumroad for it, that's just a cop out. Oh and stop mentioning your age, it's irrelevant. Such a terrible link-bait title...
This is the original article that coined "leaky abstractions". http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/LeakyAbstractions.htm...
end product looks very nice, could really take off, good luck! (signed for alpha)
It strikes me that pretty much all of these 'tips' seem to me to be pretty logical and old news. Is the average office really that bad that these sort of things have to be published over and over again?
I don't think Google has any illusions that it's the same person. Instead they see it as the same beneficiary.

If this weren't a problem we could have a Hacker News "free ad" board (with "free" meaning "at the cost of other advertisers". Due to the bid system free ad coupons cost Google next to nothing) where people could post their pet site and hundreds of people could use some or all of their "free" $100 to yield tens of thousands in free ads.
Hello,

When i decided to learn PHP, i went to the php.net and started learning the "syntax".
And then i started "memorizing" the functions. But it turned out i was just wasting my time. Ok, i learnt some stuff of course, but just peanuts.

I decided to change my way.
I set a goal; "to make a website". Then started to coding.

In the beginning, on every line i stucked.
I asked myself & Google "I need to do this. how can i do it?"
For almost every line, i googled for something.
By time goes on, it started to take place in my mind.

On every step, i set another goal. When i ask myself "i want to do something like this, how can i do it?" , I started to (had to) learn something on CSS, JavaScript, Jquery.

For me the steps to learn are;
1. Set a goal. Make it hard! While getting to that goal, you'll learn lots of things.
And finally when you reach that goal, set another one, more harder.

2. Use Google a lot ;)

edit: typo
Eating Million Dollar Cakes
I started to write a piece by piece account of why I disagree with this, then I realised that there isn't really much point, because it doesn't cover new ground.

If you don't like JavaScript, you're going to want to replace it with something else. Fine- that's your opinion. What the post doesn't do is offer any alternative, beyond "Virtual Machine-style solutions". What about the security issues inherent in that?

If you're going to knock JS down, that's fine. But at least propose an alternative. I have been using C# for years, and have recently been experimenting with using node.js on the backend- and I couldn't be happier with it. I guess I just like toys?
A More Better Future
This Course Is Adults Only
Chipotle Is Apple
Python + Fabric Engine benchmarks - as fast as multi-threaded C++
Yes, it's the exact same thing.

And it appears to be working again. If their stats are true then they've already made a healthy £4000 from that page...
I'm glad you came out and spoke about it rather than ranting about it. Remember Sahil is a famous guy around the startup circle, so dont expect a million dollar funding just because yours looks like gumroad. Have a business model that will make you revenue and build your user base. Listen to your customers and make it the way they want. Put some thought into refunds policies and Rating system that gumroad doesnt have yet.

I felt that gumroad funding was more for Sahil's credentials and than for gumroad itself, so please take that into account.
I didn't use the hjkl keys until two things happened, about the same time. The first was getting a job as an SA, where on older (and less GNU) operating systems would NOT support the key mappings.

The second was once my job was automated, I got to play a bit of nethack. A text based game that uses that style of navigation did help a bit.
> This suggests an assumption that the state should grant a monopoly.

That wasn't my intention. I wanted to emphasize that it already has. I think the state should work to ensure the creation of public goods and I think that they should relax copyright laws.

I'd love to read a rigorous analysis of this idea:

> Disney can make a profit of 100s of millions on a movie within a few years. They don't need anything like as much as 20 years.
> They will of course retain their trademarks, and I think this is only right in a realistic IP environment.
Project Management Consultancy
The instructor's complaint about adult students with children bringing their children into class would not be any problem at Khan Academy or another online course provider. Maybe online delivery of courses will have to be part of the solution in retraining today's unemployed adults.
Thanks, we invested a lot in UI and design, but still a long way to go ... if you want direct access, send us an email (contact [at] proxxler.com), we are currently letting some more people in for testing!
This book is great. I would also suggest Bruno Preiss' site, which has his data structures and algo book that target specific languages (one in ruby, one in java, one in python, etc) available for free. link: http://www.brpreiss.com/
Haha good to know. Let's say moped, then.
There are so many things I find wrong about this article but I will just state one obvious item.

"JavaScript encourages abstraction layers: Abstraction layers such as JQuery, Objective-J and GWT have become very popular recently."

These are all solving different problems:

1) jQuery mostly solves the problem of traversing and manipulating elements within the browser DOM in a common cross-browser way. The standard interfaces that existed work well enough individually. The differences among browser vendor implementations was the problem. Many of these issues have been addressed in recent years and continue to be addressed in future vendor releases.

This is not a Javascript problem.

2) Objective-J was designed as part of the Cappuccino project, whose goals were essentially to port a Cocoa-style API on the web. (And they're doing a great job at it, by the way).

This is not a Javascript problem.

3) GWT is front-end development for people who come from Java and don't want to learn or use Javascript.

This is not a Javascript problem.
You are selling yourself a little short. And unfortunately some of the commenting public here can't see through your self deprecation, and just add insults thinking they're smarter. They're not.

Algorithms, the kind you're talking about, are HARD. All of the algorithms you gave as examples were originally research papers that took months to years to develop. All of the algorithms you cited are algorithms that pretty much EVERYONE gets wrong the first time, no matter how good they are or think they are.

The big question is do you want to write algorithms, instead of, or in addition to, the other kinds of programming? If coding sorts, searches and crazy data structures interests you, then DO IT! It takes practice and patience, and it probably won't end up better than large scale efforts you find in libraries, but it is FUN!

Cryptography in particular is fun because you will definitely get it wrong. Everybody gets it wrong, everyone here claiming they are good algorithmists will definitely royally screw up a crypto implementation, and very, very few people can come up with anything remotely decent on their own. The handful of people that can do it as their life's work.
I was expecting a rehash of all the well-known reasons that JS is a terrible language. Instead he comes up with new, completely invalid reasons why JS is a terrible language.

Kudos.

I did like this comment, though:

"Type safety is illusion. Unless you can differentiate between int-feet from int-meters."
23 year old found dead...after 9 hours. Is everything beneficial?
Pandas is looking very nice in general, and I'm happy to find HDF5 in there too :)

http://pandas.pydata.org/pandas-docs/dev/io.html#hdf5-pytabl...
Yes. You need to look up "Electronic Countermeasures". There are plenty of chunks of real info out there on it. Pretty much any form of it is plainly described despite the usual expectation that it's top secret or classified. There are handy forms of point to point encryption which can be easily used on paper and via voice as well. Nice read here on it: http://users.telenet.be/d.rijmenants/en/onetimepad.htm

Also, remember the general rule is that if the broadcaster can become a target, so can the oppressor.

When I finished my EE qual, I actually ended up working as an engineer for one of the more nefarious defense contractors. After about 2 years, I realised that what I was working on was engineering devices to watch people, to keep secrets and kill people. So I gave them the finger. My morals have kept me thinking about this for the last 20 years.
Hi all - you might remember the Fabric benchmarks we did with node.js last year. We've now integrated Fabric with Python as well, so I thought I'd share the news.

An important change since last time - Fabric will be released as OSS (probably AGPL). We will take the usual commercial license/subscription approach (similar to 10gen with mongo).

Obviously there are plenty of ways to make the Python code faster - the purpose of the benchmark is to show the same performance as we achieved with node.js, within the same paradigm (dynamic compilation etc).

Thanks,

Paul
Keyword: Suspended.

They simply haven't banned your account. You've been suspended, happens to many people. If you appeal to them and start following their TOS, you'll be fine.
http://paste.debian.net/155833/
Its not a common method in Germany. No idea where you come from but if you would know a bit about Germany then you would understand that there democracy still kind of works (unlike in the US for example).
I read just enough about it that I can get a "Hello, World" program written and running. I then try a few things to modify that program to learn more about the language. In particular, I'll often try breaking it in several different ways. If I know what I broke, then I can learn how to interpret error messages.

Once I've done that, it's time to start on a small project. I just start coding and looking up what I need to know. I know in advance that my code will be bad. In fact, the more often I encounter some piece of documentation that leads me to say, "Oh, I should have done it that way", the more I learn.
This is one of the poorest articles I've seen on the Hacker News front page. Author should endeavor to understand something more completely before publishing a long-winded and uninformed rant. Start with the concept of "compilation".
This was very refreshing to read. I agree a lot with the sentiments, and some of it can help with entrepreneurs, like not grasping for any future goal, and enjoying the process instead.
Indeed. Contrast that with the "cleverness above all else" geek ego push, commonly found on discussion sites such as this.

Abandoning appreciation for "programming skill" has helped me be much happier and more efficient in just getting things done.
More importantly, what's your excuse Mr/Ms Technical Person who can't seem to get your project released.
> My own comment went from +11 to +4

That says to me that your mean-spirited comment was plenty popular until I pointed out its hypocrisy.

> What is your big upset about? [...] when someone says "that hurts me" don't come back with "no it doesn't, here's why..."

But apparently you still don't see your own hypocrisy.

> Shit, at least not being laid is the result of your own (in)action, and therefore something you've arguably earned

And you still think it's ok to be mean for no reason, not to mention speaking of things you know absolutely nothing about.

> being "sexy" is an artifact of an organism's constitution.

Being "sexy" is also a compliment, however misguided or inappropriate it may have been in the situation in which it was given. Your comments on the other hand are intentionally mean.

I don't deny that some people inappropriately defend the "sexy" comment. But it's a chicken shit move to use that as a license to suspend the rules of civility to make your point.
It’s About Trust and Apple Broke It
How Google will control OEMs with Chrome for Android
Really? Thanks. I will attempt to appeal.
>CS education has a terrible batting average at producing effective developers.

That's likely because "producing effective developers" is not a focus of CS education. It's to make you understand fundamentals of computation, such as complexity and algorithms, as well as give a deeper understanding of computers both on a technical as well as a theoretical level.

These are all skills that can aid in becoming a great developer, but they are only supplementary. I'd say that a better course of education to take if one plans to become a developer is some form of software engineering, but not computer science.
It's the creation of large dicts to be precise. The thing is we try to attack those problems as they arise and as people report bugs. Generally pypy slower than cpython is a bug and we consider it as such. That also means that those are moving targets usually - as we discover this, we fix it and sometime maybe something else pops up. It would be a bit of a mess to keep the list of such things on the website.
The blind codemaker (re: error correction)
Is it "algorithmist" or "algorist"?
I think the professor's idea is actually a fantastic solution to the problem (i.e. find the mistakes in the available note sets and write the tests accordingly). I can't really see an ethical basis for banning note-sharing (after all, if the class is worth anything, they should be teaching you facts).
I'd phrase it slightly differently: "If you can build large scale systems and your systems are still running 6 months after release without large modifications, then that means you can simplify complex problems into several major simple problems."