skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
From his bio, I would reduce his mile long credentials to the following:

- wrote a best seller "applied cryptography"

- wrote "secrets and lies" (not a best seller)

- wrote "beyond fear"

- wrote "schneier on security"

- publishes a monthly newsletter

- chief security officer of bt.com

The rest of the bio:

http://www.schneier.com/about.html

...essentially amounts to what publications and others think of him as a result of what he has done (above) I'm guessing. What I would call "assumption of legitimacy".

"Described by The Economist"

"Described by Wired"

"Called by Fortune"

"Regularly quoted in the Media"

"Testified on security before Congress"

"Written op eds for major publications"

"crypto gram has 150,000 readers ..."

Now I don't know enough about security and haven't read any of his writings to independently know whether Schneier is an expert or not. And I'm also guessing that many of the media and others that give him credibility also don't know.

After I was quoted in major media everyone else came out of the woodwork and wanted info from me on what I know about. That of course doesn't mean I am not qualified. But it's really not that hard to get the ball rolling on being an expert once the ball is rolling.
I've always wondered if YC would fund ideas that were based on scraping (like this one) and therefore liable to receive this sort of letter at any time

Now I know! Usually there is some sanctioned way to get at the data that you're scraping, but it's impossibly expensive. Looking at you, ATPCO... (raw airline fare data)

Kudos to these guys for sticking with their idea and finding another way to feed it data!
After the stink dcurtis raised about svbtle vs. obtvse, it seems inconsistent to me that he's opposed to legal protection for novel design ideas.
It's been said many times that Apple doesn't pay for product placement. That it's just a consequence of the show's writers and designers using Apple products. I tend to believe that. But I still suppose it's possible that providing free products is considered "not paying."
At a quick glance the UI looks custom. Looks like they use basic jQuery plugins like "JQuery Waypoints" for the navigation highlighting.
Have you seen the Maxmite?

(http://geoffg.net/maximite.html)

> The Maximite is a small and versatile computer running a full featured BASIC interpreter with 128K of working memory.

> It will work with a standard VGA monitor and PC compatible keyboard and because the Maximite has its own built in SD memory card and BASIC language you need nothing more to start writing and running BASIC programs.

> The Maximite also has 20 input/output lines which can be independently configured as analog inputs, digital inputs or digital outputs. You can measure voltage, frequencies, detect switch closure, etc and respond by turning on lights, closing relays, etc - all under control of your BASIC program.
There is also a strong counter-argument to thieves preferring bad weather. Basically, it goes: when you are a thief, you want to do your trade with as few witnesses as possible, and to obscure any visibility of your actions to the witnesses there are. So, if you are thieving outside, you want it to be at a time when others want to be inside, and/or can't see you. Largely this means at night. Better if the weather is gross, so people are less likely to go out. Better still if they can't hear you over the rain. (If you are robbing suburban homes, you want to do it in the afternoon, after lunch, when most people are gone at work, and before the kids get out of school. For this example, the crime statistics I've seen, and anecdotes from cops back up the theory).
They're not meant to be read cover to cover, the same way you would not read a dictionary cover to cover. Knuth himself even says so in book 1.
Are you just making this up? I just did that with my iPhone Yelp app right now.

Go to a yelp entry, "Add" and "Draft a review".
I'm all for patents (bye karma. but keep reading). that's what allow us humans to invent new things and improve our way of life.

now... about patent enforcement today that's another issue.

Main goal of patents WAS to promote innovation. it started in a time when everyone had trade secrets. So if you wanted to fix your fridge yourself, thought luck. it's a trade secret. you could even go to jail if you are found with schematics to fix it.

instead, patents. you publish your trade secret, everyone can read and learn from it. Then if someone want to use it for making money, they pay you a fee to cover your research and move on to invent new things

what happen today? patents crush hobbyists. everyone spend 10x R&D to invent the same thing in a way not covered by some patent. companies avoid useful stuff because they are afraid of being hostage of the patent holder (as is the case here, apple could pay a license fee to twitter, it's not the royalties that are game here).

Today you release something open source that is covered in a patent you never saw (hey, it's so obvious monkeys could came up with the same solution) you go to jail, just the sort of thing patents were supposed to PREVENT!

anyway, patents good. way it's enforced bad.
The 500px way to taking better photographs
See also: Working 8-bit CPU in Minecraft

http://boingboing.net/2010/11/12/working-8-bit-cpu-in.html
Well-designed large apps actually are divided up into smaller components - there'd be no way to maintain them otherwise. However, it doesn't help as much as you'd think. If it's a layered architecture, sometimes adding new feature means you have to modify code in every layer. And dividing code up into libraries doesn't help build times when you need to modify a base library that everything uses.

If you have trouble imagining this, pretend that every dependency you use is actually part of your code base, and sometimes you have to modify them because they're not completely baked. If you have non-trivial functionality, you are certainly using way more than 100k LOC.
With all this out there it leaves one to wonder, when will the aliens finally get here?

But really, if we evolved from chaos and minerals (so far that's the best explanation anyone's given me.) Then somewhere on some of these other planets are sentient creatures looking up going, "I wonder if there are other sentient creatures out there?"
You'd be blocking the view of someone else.
Who would be a good witness to talk about security theatre? Do you have any people in mind?

I agree that it would be a shame if the evidence was presented "sloppily" allowing TSA room for wiggle.
I also emailed my rep. (Carolyn Maloney, D-NY) who is on the TSA oversight board.
There's a distinct tactile feel to the pull to refresh that is distinct from infinite-scrolling. I remember the first time I saw it, I was surprised, but understood what it meant almost immediately.
I believe Mike Daisey was attempting to insert himself into the situation. He fell in love with the idea of being a spokesperson for labor rights.
Wow, that is outlandish.. The panels aren't pointed at the sun, and the blades would be so heavy that they'd need a gale to get moving. It's kinda the worst of both worlds.

Though part of me is tempted to build it to see what it would do.
Given that the subject of worker treatment in China hasn't died down as Daisey has pointed out it so often did, even in light of the retractions and apologies, can we say yet whether he's done those workers a disservice? I think it's too early to tell.
Oh that is pretty cool. I like that it can do graphics too, that is pretty important when grabbing a kid's attention.

One of the items in my list of ideas for this project is that the image save format is GIF or JPEG and that the files are stored on a USB stick (rather than an SD Card) since I'll use USB for the keyboard anyway, and with files on such a device you can carry them over to a laptop or desktop and play with them there too.

But thank you for this link! This is definitely the kind place I've been headed.
How OMGPOP Founder Charles Forman 'Grew Up' And Became A Multi-Millionaire
I'm a big believer in making incremental improvements to the patent system instead of throwing the whole thing away (which doesn't seem likely). Removing (or reducing) the nontrivial costs of these defensive publications would be a great step in the right direction. I can even imagine a campaign to file for "not-patents" on a bunch of things to definitively establish prior art to make it harder to get a bogus patent to begin with.
> The thing that sticks out for me is that there's a bug in that code - a syntax error no less - and none of the C programmers commenting seem to have spotted it. (hint: read the memmove line a bit more closely)

That typo was introduced in Revisor's transcription; it doesn't appear in the original. I checked when I first read his comment, 8 or 9 hours ago. It hardly seemed worth mentioning; typos happen and it had nothing to do with his argument.

> I don't think you need much more evidence that the syntax is confusing.

Someone unfamiliar with the language introducing a one character typo during a character-by-character transcription from a book is evidence that "the syntax is confusing"?

What an odd yardstick to use.
"A lot of people's first reaction always seems to be "we're so insignificant!" "

Neil deGrasse Tyson often counters this reaction by pointing out that while the universe is vast, we are made of it. So we are not simply small separate objects in a large universe, we are actually part of the physical elements that make it up and come from the same "stuff". At least that's what I gather when he says this:

"Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOzkEwaMnaE
http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/12855.Neil_deGrasse_T...
Apple's Biggest Hater Apologizes for Foxconn Fibs
Argh. Found the bug. It should be working again now.
Didn't work the first time I tried it. Tried it again about two minutes later and it worked. So it may have been fixed.
I think their attraction has by now moved far beyond the copyright thing. People feel that politics has become completely detached from their daily lives, and the pirate party promises to change that, for example with direct democracy.

For example, anybody can get elected at the Pirate Party atm. Try that in the established parties: I think you have to join in kindergarden and toil for decades before you can make it big in an established party. If you feel strongly about some issue, could you join an established party and hope to get heard? It seems unlikely.
The point is that there was no discernable difference between the genders in approaching computers and learning how to use them.

Yet, even though originally the gender divide did not exist, nowadays it has been reinstated, since coding is seen as a male environment and women in IT are subject to various forms of special treatment, be they good or bad, either way, they are treated differently.

>> In some ways, it is like the very ubiquity of technology has led us back to a world where socially normative gender roles take hold all over again, and the effort we’re going to need to put into overcoming that feels overwhelming sometimes.
Kardashians.

I wrote this as a joke then realised that it would probably actually work. Well, maybe once you've moved out of the sphere of tech early adopters. Keep it on ice for now.. then, hell, get them to invest. Just tell them Ashton Kutcher is doing it.
why so?

In most countries I lived on, you can evict renters with at most 1 month of notice. Plus, some people actually prefer to buy estate which is already rented (specially with long-term contracts)
I'm in no way doubting that the explanation offered is a possible one. I just don't think it's been seriously supported. Anecdotally, girls these days actually seem more interested in computers than when I was growing up, and I think that the high availability of computers is actually helping the situation, not hurting.

As for point number 3, you are of course correct in theory, but the reality is, there were already no girls in the middle school computer clubs of 1992, the high school programming classes of 1996, and the CS 101 classes of 1999. So I'm not really buying the idea that anything on the job is primarily responsible for the lack of women graduating CS in 2004 or becoming senior engineers in 2012.

Rule one of conversion optimization is to figure out where you're actually losing people in the conversion funnel. In tech, we're losing women while they're still girls, for whatever reason, and that's what we really need to track down and fix. Focusing on points after they've already left is premature, since if we can get more women coming through those steps in the first place, the dynamic will change anyways.
Somewhat off-topic, but this site slowed my browser to a crawl.
Unfortunately I don't have much to share, and it is not because I don't want to, because I worked as a part-time Jr. Dev (still at school) back then not knowing anything much other than what I had to do. That and I worked there pre-beta where things were simple and straightforward: let's ship a very simple private network for family to share things.

This was back in early 2007 where everything (share things, social network, social media, online privacy, etc) were still relatively new and gaining steam.

From the very little figment of my memory, all I remember was that Kinzin was trying to create a social private network for family and were trying to monetize a feature that can turn pictures to photo albums to be shared with family members. The rest were still up in the air.

The marketing had probably focused on getting users to use the site first and probably did not explore as far as you mentioned: how to bring families closer online, which I think it could be the biggest value that the FamilyLeaf could offer [for now :), I'm sure there will be more in the future].

But hey, timing is important and who knows it is on your side now (^_^).

Like you, my family is thousands miles away, I see value on sites like FamilyLeaf/Kinzin. Not sure if I would use it once I'm back home though.
Attention seeker milks a publicity stunt with more stunts. This guy is either mentally ill or getting paid by someone with a vested interest in his story.
"Actual knowledge". The DMCA does not say that it's fine to have copyright-infringing material on your site as long as you take it down when notified by rightsholders.
Time to go sacrifice the developer that left the debug flag on...

Oh yeah, that was me. FUUUUUUUUUUU
Well, I still going to keep using Linux on the desktop regardless... Ubuntu is not exactly the best example of this application for sure!
I believe there's even a "screen-compatible" default config file that ships with tmux.
Idea: Universal Like Button
Ask HN: GeoIP outside the US
Hi.

Anyone knows of a GeoIP solution that has better than city location outside the US? I know Maxmind's database has zipcodes for about half the US, but that won't help me (I need to geolocate IPs in Brazil, preferably to the city block)
Google+: The Charge of the Like Brigade
Congratulations, Kyle!

Two big acquisitions in such a short period of time - I can't say I'm not jealous!

What are you gonna do with all that free time? :)
>Why is Schneier presumed to be the most effective critic of the TSA?

It has less to do with whether he's the most effective critic of the TSA and more to do with whether he's the most effective critic of the TSA who is [was] going to be present at the hearing. All the qualified scientists and concerned LEOs in the world aren't going to do us any good if Congress doesn't listen to them. The hearing is already heavy on shills and light on saints, we need all of the voices we can get.

It would be cool if you (or anyone) could list a few people who might be really convincing, and we might be able to get them to contact Congress -- it's too late for this hearing, tho'.

With that said, this narrative about the TSA getting Schneier removed from the hearing is helpful to the cause, since it exposes the TSA's nasty manipulative tactics, so I'll be sharing this link around, and I hope you'll join me.
Lots of nuggets in that interview....

my favorite (as a competitive SEO)

"Social media: It's perfect for SEO companies which couldn't produce results in SEO, because if you fail to produce results with social media it will be utterly indistinguishable from actually producing results with social media, but if you fail to produce results with SEO anybody looking at the gross revenue graph will notice really quickly."
I'd bet $1000 that Apple will NEVER produce a TV. The fact that SJ stated they'd be more commited to the TV "segment" could as well mean they'll replace the AppleTV device by a better AppleTV thing.
The interface between a set-top box and any brand of TV is pretty much universal already (HDMI) - I don't see a reason why Apple would jump into a market known for it's absurdly small margins and with so much variance (not even Apple could convince everyone to buy TVs on the same size) - it makes a lot more sense to "control everything but the box itself" in that scenario. Granted, it's not very "Apple". It's just my gut feeling, anyway...
99Dresses (YC W12) wants to give women an infinite closet
The British royal family seems both well-known and complicated enough to work well for a demo...
i created a programming language of sorts in javascript, it was awful to code in (stored code as strings and used eval to run everything), but it did work - it is used for creating macros on an in-house billing system and only worked under ie6 trusted (which was the mandated browser) - more modern browsers balked at the cross site scripting exploit it took advantage of, but it was pretty useful way to deploy batch scripts as a bookmark. will share if anyone dares!
Just so that I'm clear on this, are you just criticizing that all requests go to /word.json?

IOW, would the following be RESTful?

GET /entries/{word} # Return entries for a word

GET /wordForms/{word} # Rturn other forms for a word

POST /wordForms/{word} # Adds a relationship map for a word
That brings up an interesting point in that there are two distinct victims of slander, the person being slandered (Apple, Foxconn) and the innocent dupe (me) who believes the slanderous story.

I stepped up to defend Mike Daisey here and in other places, largely because of my respect for This American Life and the way they take journalism seriously. If Ira Glass tells me he's fact-checked something, then I'm going to believe it.

So I'm glad to see he's being more contrite these days, but I agree that he's falling short of what he needs to do.
That's usually a result of people erroneously thinking of themselves as C++ experts.
Modders Propose Creating Their Own Half-Life 2, Episode 3
I have actually never owned a car so I am not sure how much it costs. But I think where I live insurances are quite high. I have read something like 200 to 300€ per month that a car costs (where initial price and expected duration of ownership is factored in). I suppose if we were to take a trip every day of the weekend, it might be a breakeven.

Also I admit that at lest when I was younger, it seems the kids who owned a car were a bit more spontaneous. They take trips to the sea at a whim or whatever.

Since I have not yet sorted out the renting thing, I can't say how easy it would be to just jump into a rented car on a whim. I already ran into problems trying to organize holidays, for example going most of the way by train and renting a car at the destination train station. I had imagined there to be a much better infrastructure than there really is. Hoping that will improve, though.

I actually consider it a luxury that I don't need a car.
> creepers

So THAT'S what was causing the memory corruption.
Nice initiative. I am not a big fan of writing in Javascript but it certainly is a big plus to have such a nice library like backbone.js.

Just a tiny point ... About the drawing of the triceratops, he has very mmmmm.... "developed" crotch area. Once you've seen it it's hard to not think about it every time. It's just a little detail but it's a little bit weird!

Good luck !
The good old Power vs Weight problem :P.

The main problem with nuclear is that it doesn't give enough energy, when you want something so small.

I believe the best bet to power both the quadcopter and the bee are microwaves, in another words, wireless energy. There has been some concepts(some of them were even materialized), of RC toys, being powered like that. It will limit their range, but it will gain so much.

But who I am to predict the future? Maybe nuclear will be the way to go :P
> Coalition governments built on many small parties are often weak.

If by weak you mean "cannot rule without support of representatives who collectively were voted for by most voters" then IMO that's a feature not a bug.

> Often through relatively open primaries though. Witness the Republican race on right now.

That's true. There's no reason why a party couldn't choose list candidates through an open process, however.
Just wondering how data validation works for this type of model? If you can't rely on the front end how can you reliably tell the back end what to expect?
If you look at the fabrications, they weren't even necessary to make the story more entertaining. Lies like "the guards had guns" and "I met the hexane-n victims" just make him look more heroic, daring, and groundbreaking than he actually was.

The true story would have been entertaining enough for me, but apparently wasn't good enough for Mike Daisey's vanity.
In either case, UI is transparent and there's no need to patent it because public knowledge won't be advanced.
A friend wants to get a "computer" for her 10 year old daughter and I'm having trouble with what to recommend. The alternatives are a "netbook/mini" with Windows, same but repartitioned to also have a Linux partition or an Android tablet. They live half way around the world from me which makes support and interaction hard (timezone issues, hard to troubleshoot when you can't see the screen).

All 3 solutions run Skype, let you create and manipulate documents and play games. Windows requires by far the most system administration (virus checkers, frequent updates, driver issues, crapware etc) but has the largest software library. Android has the least amount of system administration (essentially none) but is the least flexible (eg document creation typically requires being online) and Android Market isn't available in their country making acquiring new software hard. Linux has the most flexibility but is also the hardest to use (remember the target is a 10 year old whose parents can't even spell Linux, not you). Netbooks also have the worst hardware support under Linux due to proprietary hardware.

An Android tablet would seem to be the best solution when coupled with App Inventor. Sadly App Inventor doesn't run on Android itself so you have to have a non-Android computer to do your development work.

I could of course setup emulators so she gets a Sinclair Spectrum and Apple //e and can learn just how I did, but things have moved on.
I still remember when I learned that the Sun was a star. I was six years old when my uncle told me about it. I actually asked him what the Sun was and his answer pretty much shocked me to the core. I already knew the Earth revolved around the Sun so learning that the Sun is just one of little tiny bright lights at night was a true eye opener. That night I looked up the sky again and wondered if there are other people up there.....