skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Of course they aren't actually prohibiting anything. Rather, they're just saying that they won't sell you anything unless you promise not to start a class-action lawsuit.

They're basically acting like the little kid who owns the ball everybody's playing with: it's his rules or the highway. But that is still different from actively stopping people from doing things.

Even so, it's pretty horrible and I would love this to be unenforceable. Meanwhile I'll just use Linux, thank you very much.
Visual Basic 6, Ruby and Getting Off My Lawn
The US government can directly combine GPL and
proprietary/classified software into a single program
arbitrarily, as long as the result is never conveyed
outside the U.S. government

Just to be clear, this is true for any organization using GPL materials, correct?
> Certain applications may find the overhead to be prohibitively high. With non-broken hash functions (e.g., any of the SHA-3 finalists), we can use the so-called envelope authenticator: A = H(K||M||K), with some padding to separate K from M to keep security proofs happy.

I think it is safe to say that you are suggesting a very narrow context. If invoking a hash twice is prohibitive and you are looking at choosing amongst SHA-3 finalists as an alternative (particularly given that many of them are slower than SHA-2, and I believe they are all slower than SHA-1 on low cost CPU's where you might expect this constraint), you are already talking about a very narrow performance window (literally one iteration of Moore's Law covers the gap). You then throw in that people are making refined selection of hash algorithms taking in to account various security nuances, and I think you are dealing not only with a narrow context, but a degree of cryptographic expertise that you don't have to worry that anyone solving it would be consulting this blog or Hacker News in general. ;-)
>I've also never read as clear an explanation of bit coin creating currency without creating debt. It's definitely given me something to think about.

Yes, that is huge. Debt-backed currency means someone is profiting off the mere existence of the currency, typically the banking system and government and anyone who owns the government bonds backing the currency, but at the expense of everyone else who uses and 'saves' it (that's not really saving).

The given rationalization for that is that a depreciating currency strongly incentivizes people to spend it or invest it instead of hoarding it in their savings accounts, improving economic growth. That's also the argument against a deflationary currency like gold-backed or bitcoin - that the ultimate result is decreased economic activity and growth.

However, that's an argument that grew out of an earlier time, when the world was less connected and dynamic. I suspect that a deflationary currency is much less of problem in our modern world, where economic activity happens at the speed of light and electricity and almost the entire world is integrated into a common market and economy.

In that world there is already huge incentive to spend an invest, and while a deflationary currency would represent a significant change, I don't think economic activity would ground to a halt under a deflationary currenncy.

In fact, the problem we're now seeing in the US and Europe is the opposite - too much incentive for borrowing and spending, not enough incentive for capital formation, eg savings. Too much debt at every level of society, from individuals to sovereign governments. I can't help but wonder if a deflationary currency that appreciates in value over time instead of depreciates would provide a higher bar for spending and investment, and alter that dynamic in favor of savings (which also a form of investment, as banks use savings to make loans).

Instead of US government bonds being the risk-free rate of return, a deflationary currency would be. That alone would be a huge economic shift, and might limit governments' out-of-control spending simply by giving investors a stronger alternative to government bonds. If a deflationary currency appreciates by, say ~3% per year, then government bonds would have to match beat that to attract investors, forcing governments to borrow and spend with more discretion.

Anyway, yes it definitely is something to think about. It's also probably a pure thought experiment, I don't see governments giving up the risk free rate of return status for their bonds any time soon.
Is worth remembering that usually the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are also actually crazy and it isn't always good when they succeed.
PouchDB's Couch in the browser goes alpha
I am inclined to agree with you for the most part, however I think eventually, it does have great potential to change the way we use smart devices and the 'internet of things'. With enough standardization of cheep, small electronic components, we'd have the ability to roll our own quasi-disposable devices using a combination of printed components and factory made items.

Here's a silly little scenario I am thinking of: it's Thursday, and I'm going camping on the weekend. At work I download a plan for a bare-bones cellphone. I pick the one I want from a publicly curated 'app store' for devices and push it to my printer at home which orders the standard parts it needs from Amazon. It knows I've got the battery I need already since it's still sitting in the RFID-equipped bin at home so that doesn't figure into the cost. When I get home, the case and simple keypad are printed out. I pop in the PCB substrate and my printer makes the circuit board the other components will sit on. On Friday I pop the e-ink screen and cellular chip and sim reader in the device when they arrive from Amazon and I am ready to go. On Saturday, when I drop my new phone in a puddle, I'm out about 35 dollars, but my iphone is still safe n sound on my dresser at home.
This would be equivalent if the act of having a browser meant that the advertisers could interrupt you at any time your browser is open.

Exactly my point. There's a law that prohibits the relatively minor annoyance of being interrupted. But there is no law that prohibits the rather serious issue of privacy invasion.

If the law was necessary in the first case, where you could simply leave your phone off the hook to completely avoid being interrupted, there's no rational justification that the law is not also necessary in the second case, where, as you stated, you could (somehow!) pre-filter all your website usage to avoid having your privacy invaded.

(I'm done with the "is Mozilla run by Jesus" discussion - you have your opinion based on your view and I have a different opinion based on my view - I suspect neither will convince the other based on repetition of views.)
title it "sosume.wav"
You can legally own an AK, it just can't be fully automatic.
Because trolling is a art, right?
Market Volatility: Causes and Cures?
Yes, though, as I understand it in this case the government is the user and the developer where as a lot of large companies avoid sharing changes by offering their software as a web service (ie: they don't have to distribute the binary) something which I believe changes to the GPL in v3 were supposed to address.
A 3D Printer On Every Desk In Every Home
Well, in epee your opponent can score by stabbing you in the foot. That's naturally going to give where you put your place your feet a little importance to begin with.
Great feedback, thanks. The button is 'sign in' since we don't really need the concept of login. Adding another button seems more confusing, what would it do?

As for the text, sure, we can work on clarifying that more.
Though I no longer have the link handy, one of my favourite examples of this was of an OAuth2 'library' for PHP. You couldn't make out the code for the endless comments. Javadoc style comments and annotations; actual comments ... there was paragraph upon paragraph of comment for individual class properties, that you could reasonably infer from their name if it was done well.

It got to the point where the comments were so lengthy and prosaic, you were deterred from reading them just by their very existence.
If your customers pay you X amount in advance and you hold that money for 30 days, you are X amount richer all the time. Imagine running a business with $10 billion in revenue but without profit and that starts to make sense. Typically, companies try to pay their bills as late as possible. I think there's also some 'professional' term for this type of cash handling, which I don't know. So, you can pay them immediately, but you'll have to operate with less money in your bank account.
I started a WordPress Plugin (http://wpadpress.com) and it's now generating a close to a 4 figures monthly income. I'm working on lots of improvements and will be joining hands with Theme authors for promotion, so it might turn to something serious in the future.
They let go people from the sales team. Execs, engineering and product were all hired (assuming they made it through the standard Google hiring process).
So you mean to say he's missing all these non-english speaking farmers from rural areas surfing the net looking for a hotel ?! C'mon, we all know what English speaking country means, it's official language there, just the same as in India (which also has a lot of other, local languages in use). People using Internet for sure know how to speak English, so this whole discussion is pointless.
I dont't think that there is anything illegal about paying for services rendered at the time of delivery. Nor is there anything wrong with pre or post paying.

As mentioned below a reason to have a gap between deliver and payment is typically

1) to manage cashflow
2) to inspect good and services
3) the buyer is the middle man or the service is part of a larger project that needs to be fulfilled before the person gets paid. (This can be part of 1.)
4) To use the cash, leverage on something else and wait to pay vendors - this period is called the float. It is essentially an interest free loan that the vendor makes to the supplier.

You could use an escrow service for payments by essentially moving the money from an active cash account to a holding account or 3rd party holding account that releases to the vendor.

But in the long run, hold onto cash until you have inspected and approved and then pay immediately.

My typical terms are 10 days and I get paid in 17.
Sure and and it makes sense to call Amy from the Python conference in '12 a woman. She is an individual with feelings, hopes and dreams.

But if you want to discuss this issue, you have to do it in aggregate, concerning youself with the average person and what problems she statistically has. Then it makes sense to say female. She isn't a real person, just like no person actually has 2,3 kids.
Meebo bar was truly nasty.
Looks similar to what I get with NoScript turned on.
And intimately related, distance. In Kendo at least you win or lose by knowing where the cutting part (the forward 1/4 - 1/3) of your sword is going to be at the moment you make contact. This means thinking strategically about distance (e.g. I can feint a forearm strike and still have enough space to cut across the abdomen if she raises her sword to block.)
I'm just excited about some of the custom gift-giving opportunities that ubiquitous 3D printing is opening up. See markets like: http://www.shapeways.com/gallery/miniatures
So Google cuts a head off a popular multi-protocol IM client. I wonder why.
It's the informality that I find interesting. WU is definitely not the same in that regard.
Did you do anything special to market it? (The site looks great, by the way)
Administrative overhead and float are 2 off the top of my head.

Automation makes the first one easier, but unless it's all automated it may still be a headache. Having to send out disbursements once a month is a lot less overhead.
To me, the biggest question with taxis is scheduling and demand -- how to get extra cabs to the places/times people need to take cabs from, and the fact that this isn't really compatible with people who want to drive a cab on a predictable block schedule.

I agree. I've never successfully gotten a cab to take me to LGA, for example. (Someone is getting them, though, because I've never not gotten a cab from LGA.)

The distribution throughout the city is also strangely uneven. I used to live a 6th/27th and even at 3 am on a Tuesday, 6th Ave. was densely packed with cabs. But over in Brooklyn Heights where I live now, I think I've seen a cab once or twice. The one time I took a cab in Brooklyn, I had to explain to the driver how to get to a major through street. (The explanation was: "I never leave Manhattan.")

Overall, it doesn't work very well, and 99.99% of the time I take the train. Much cheaper anyway.
I get the feeling the reviewer kind of looks up to John Carmack a little bit.

I think it must be a little bit hard to be John Carmack. He probably has a hard time getting balanced feedback on his stuff.
100 million is pretty high for a talent acquisition. How big is the team?
You have to judge a cover by its book
Agreed- you can take an intro course in crypto and still find many ways of getting it wrong. My intro to crypto professor reiterated this fact almost ever class and noted that even seemingly small changes to a protocol can render it vulnerable to attack.
"If anyone could drive a cab, the profession might only barely pay a living wage, ..."

That isn't the case in London, widely thought to have the best taxi service in the world. There, anyone can pass a demanding standard examination and having done so can drive a cab. Anyone can build a vehicle that meets a standard inspection, and once passed that vehicle can be used as a cab. No limit on the number of drivers, no limit on the number of taxis, both inspected but not limited. The result is that different drivers work different convenient hours, some full time and some part time, with larger numbers of cabs available at rush hours and other times of heavy demand. All the drivers know how to drive well, all the taxis are clean and in perfect shape, and there's always one available when you need it. This is what makes it truly possible to live better in central London without a car than with one.

All the schemes to forbid more competitors simply hand profits to taxi operators and produce poor service for taxi users. As usual, government regulations are captured by the regulated industry to exclude competitors.
While most exits are indeed via acquisition, very few startups actually exit.
I see probing questions as the sole justification of the classroom format. If I'm to merely sit and listen, I'd much rather have either a good text or a recording of a professionally produced lecture to watch at my own pace.
People of some religions (notably Islam) have trouble with traditional money and banking services because riba is forbidden.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_banking)
"I'm the greatest sword fighter in the world."

"And you wrote the software."

"Yeah. That, too," Hiro says.

―Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash
Doesn't necessarily mean anything, but noticed the prototypes they're showing in the video seem to be running on the Source engine...
That's true, they aren't prohibiting anybody who has no commercial interaction with them. But in many legal systems, commercial interactions are held to always, and irrevocably, operate within the background legal framework. So you can agree on a contract, but you can't agree, in the contract, that the law of contracts doesn't apply to the contract, because the law of contracts always applies to contracts. Which then includes all the usual legal rights, such as the right to sue for breach of contract, to bring a class-action suit, etc.
Have you got a link? I'd be interested to see a comparison.
I think you're right. But you probably shouldn't call your disruptor a "taxi" and you certainly can't just pick up random people off the street without the license to do so.

Uber is in NY and they cost more than a cab, but I haven't heard how they're doing in that market. I think I'd pay the premium to hire an Uber driver over a random smelly cab any day.
I wonder if this includes any form of severance?
Yep. This article links to the paginated story, the previous one links to the single page article.
This is, literally, old advice.

Actors playing god were lowered onto stages to conclude plays back in ancient greece, this was called deus ex machina. Then some guy decided this was lame and cheap so he wrote the definitive book called Art of Poetry to say this.

Point is, don't use gods to explain away your problems.
Having two buttons doing the same thing wouldn't necessaryily be confusing. People would probably not notice.

Or how about change the wording to "sign in/up".
The GreenGT H2 Hydrogen Le Mans Racecar is fast and clean
Neither. Just asking for Help. Yes that's self serving a bit.
What? We're talking about cracking the cryptography: suppose someone had e.g. a preimage attack on the algorithm used to hash the blockchain. (I suspect the answer is: all your bitcoins become worthless. But all the dollars in your bank account are gone too, because your internet banking is secured using the same algorithms).
I don't see string comparisons on tiny strings as feasible from either the Crosby/Wallach (suggests you need hundreds of nanoseconds of difference in execution time to be detectable) paper nor the Brumley/Boneh paper (which talks about a specific vulnerability in modular exponentiation which ends up revealing key details, not string comparison).
I created "I Want An App That" (http://www.iwaat.com), a web app discovery engine. No real business model has been implemented but so far affiliate revenue has been paying for hosting costs and other services.
What does this do to battery life?
I agree, banks having this flawed security is quite frightening!

My bank used to have an 8 character password limit policy, but recently changed it (without announcing it), and I was able to use a 20+ character password. It's worth re-trying once in a while just to be sure.
I wouldn't be surprised if the original intention was to keep carmakers from putting shitty warped mirrors on the car.

Whatever, at least regulations have mellowed out a bit from the days when you were supposed to have someone walking a ways ahead of you to warn people a car was approaching.
Ideally, you sue to be made whole again, which makes the $7 payment seem ineffective.
Use a lottery. This is what lotteries are for. Allow only individual drivers to hold medallions, set a price or a profit sharing mechanism between city and drivers, rent medallions for five years instead of selling them, and award them according to a lottery.
Next biggest problem is that, in reality, Medieval duels rarely lasted more than a minute before one side was fatally injured. Not nearly long enough for a video game.
I think this has been the most interesting part of the thread - congrats. And I love the comments at the top of your JavaScript ;-)
I'm pretty sure in auckland anyone can drive a cab. Seems to work.
Is there ever a time to use CSS important?
Even by the standards of celebrity culture, though, so-and-so gets his luggage stolen is a pretty darn piss-weak story.
Wouldn't the company spend far more that $10m trying to address a million lawsuits (in small-claims court) for <$10 each though. I imagine any one small-claims proceeding would cost them several hundred dollars at least.

So are they banking on just defaulting to the judges decision and paying the money for such cases and then hoping that not many people will bother to pursue?

Personally I'd love to be in Redmond when, on the back of this decision, they get half-a-million or more court summons in the post one day.
Questions and Comments about cull.io
Hi Kaushik,

I had a few questions and comments about http://cull.io.

1) You're right, a time constraint doesn't really matter much. However, it would be interesting to know how long a candidate took to develop a solution from the initial proposition of the challenge and the code submission.

2) I'm not sure if this would be an issue, but isn't it possible for someone to game the system by using multiple emails? Perhaps a challenge and response would have more merit if the resume submission was the first step of the workflow. Candidates aren't likely to enter drastically different resumes in order to submit multiple solutions, and they could probably be detected (manually) if they tried to anyway.

3) I'm guessing you just launched this thing recently, but a more complete demo of the workflow (without actually signing up!) would be cool on your home/support page.

This is a great idea. We do code challenges/reviews at work for hiring. I am really intrigued with this approach of an upfront technical challenge. It could save us a lot of time down the road.
Surely any game where you can respawn even once is already extremely realistic.

Would anyone want to play a war simulator FPS that starts with a cutscene of the Normandy landings and has a 50% chance of immediately being cut down by a machine gun whereupon the game quits and deletes itself off your hard drive?
I'm not clear on what distinction you're actually trying to draw here.

The objectification of women (and creepy behavior as an extension of that) is inherently alienating and in almost all circumstances is sexist (just by virtue of the fact that there's not a lot of folks out there creeping both women and men)

At the very least the two sets overlap heavily even if they are not synonymous.
I agree. If a selector has enough rulesets to justify a wrap I usually let the first line be positioning rules, second box-model rules and third color rules and so on. I find that I am much more productive this way VS following the guidelines that idiomatic CSS proposes.
Showing Up Is Not Enough
a demanding standard examination

This test is legendary. There was an interesting study done on the brains of the drivers who pass it:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2011/12/0...
Additionally, I think Bitcoin advocates argue that since the money growth rate of Bitcoin is subject to a open and known process, deflationary trends will be known and expected as well. Because the deflation will be expected, there won't be the traditional negative effects associated with deflation.
Uber is also in Chicago, offering both a black car and cab service. So there's definitely movement there to bring lower cost options. They're working through regulatory issues in a number of other cities. The taxi business is extremely over regulated. It will be interesting to see how companies like Uber start to disrupt it.
There's also Google Talk in Gmail/Google+ ;)
Disagree, no harm in being short as you can have many duels.
ANDREW HICKS INVENTA RETROVISOR QUE ACABA CON EL ANGULO CIEGO
Andrew R. Hicks, profesor de matemáticas en la Universidad de Drexel, ha conseguido la patente en Estados Unidos de un retrovisor que elimina el peligroso “ángulo muerto” para los conductores. Un espejo sutilmente curvado cuya principal virtud es la de incrementar el campo de visión con una distorsión mínima. Y es que hasta ahora...
Just finished the class today myself, and yep, that's the most repeated advice.

The class repeats starting Monday, if anyone is interested in learning the basics of how all this stuff works.

https://www.coursera.org/course/crypto
Perhaps use a gyroscope to simulate the inertia of moving a larger weight?
Would aluminium do? Could you use the 3D printer to make a mould and cast some alu from drinks cans?
+2, and even the highest difficulty singleplayer is nothing compared to multiplayer. Beware, though, it has an extremely steep learning curve.
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