skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
One of the things I was curious about is whether the phone can be enabled remotely by the telco. I found conflicting information on the web. I suspect it can, but this is not something the carriers want to talk about. Just a suspicion, though. I imagine what happens 99% of the time is that the user doesn't want anything to do with tech like gps tracking, but then they find an app that does something cool, and it things like gps to be turned on in order for it to work. So in a way, just like Facebook is destroying privacy by "helping" folks share, many apps are destroying the anonymity of location and travel by "helping" folks with cool apps. That kinda sucks. Wish the situation were different.

Note that location services comprises many different technologies, not all of which can be turned off. Many of them are required for the phone to operate. The upcoming FCC regs, for instance, require 100m self-locating ability to always be on. I guess for things like 911 service?

Speaking of paranoia, there's also rumors that the FBI/black helicopter/MIB bunch can actually power-up your phone remotely, especially with some models. This sounds completely out-of-left-field to me, but who knows? Court docs show they can use your phone as a listening device even when you're not calling somebody, so I wouldn't put other things along these lines past them. There's probably a good reason Osama Bin Laden refused to have anybody associated with him possess a cell phone, whether it was used, had a battery in it, or not. Seems like I read something somewhere once about illuminating electronics gear with microwaves, then reading the signature of the radiation emitted. But it could have been in a pulp sci-fi novel. As I said, it's difficult to tell where reality ends and paranoia begins with this because reality is quickly catching up to the paranoia of just a few years ago. Who would have imagined sub-meter resolution on where you are? That's almost accurate enough to tell if you're wearing the phone in your jacket pocket or on your belt. Crazy stuff.
What We Should Have Said To PG
Fortunately there are others with more imagination.

If all you can think of is Ikea, maybe hold off commenting until (you've actually read the article) others have opened your mind to more possibilities.
8 Ways Mobile Developers Can Make The Most Money On Their Apps
>"Dude. Honestly, you have all the tools that you need to be fairly good at coding. I can already tell."

Good to hear!

Like I said --and how the original article struck me-- I'm just waiting for that feeling of getting it. We've all had it. I've felt it with thousands of things in my life, from Calculus to playing Street Fighter 2. Up to this point every introductory text/course says, "Look! You're programming!" and I sort of think, "Am I, really?"

At the end of the day, I realize that learning anything is a function of time, and I certainly haven't paid my dues there yet.

>"All he needed was some exposure."

Another good point, which causes me a bit of internal strife. There's a wealth of information out there. In fact (first world problem alert), there's almost too much. Try typing "learn to program" or "introductory python" into Google. It's exhausting. I'm looking for the next incremental step in this learning process, but both my problem and the solution revolve around defining what it is I'm looking for. But, as you and others have suggested, I think the answer will come from looking at other's code and plugging away.

Thanks for taking the time to reply.
Thank you for your comment saraid216.

I realize full well that I am prescribing my own moral framework, but that is the second part of the main idea, the first being that there be a moral framework in the first place. I emphasize this split because this way we can discuss: 1) whether or not morals play a role in design decisions, should they, and if they should then to what extent, and 2) what moral framework to use (i.e. how to live). Obviously the latter invites a very long and difficult discourse better suited for a moral treatise than a blog post or a few comments, so by taking it aside I focus on the former point which is more relevant to the discussion at hand.
Galaxy Tab doesn't copy Apple designs, U.K. court rules
The numbering is really the issue, the barcode printing via a URL is no big deal. The barcode should be encoding a secret number, not just encoding some sequential number in a semi-secretive way.
Why do you prefer native code ? What do you even mean by native code ? The JVM does produce native code, it just does it at runtime (JIT compilation).

So maybe you mean static compilation, but then, why is it better for the stuff you're doing ?
I'm trying to imagine how you go about using a laptop from more than an arm's length away, but all the mental images just make me giggle.

I agree that there is a minor difference in viewing distance between a laptop and a tablet, but I think they're still comparable, in contrast to, say, a TV.
I definitely see the appeal to that. Having some free time to work on whatever you want or even not to work at all is crucial and it just doesn't make sense for someone who has 3 kids and mortgage to pour all their time into startups.
Doubtful. Even searching "site:kogan.com" pulls up zero results while "site:kogan.co.uk" pulls up 1.9k results.

Kogan.com is completely gone from their resultset.
I don't agree with this. I think it is VERY common that couples who have been with each other for a long period of time need to "spice it up" to keep things going.

Eating the same "wholesome meal" for twenty years will get boring no matter what. Throw some chili sauce on that shit and spice it up!
> Not really, the other elements of sex are what keep
>'regular' sex interesting; the connection, the variety of
> foreplay or positions, the fact that there's a
> real person there :D

That's just flowery prose. "Connection" and "the fact that there's a real person there" are ill-defined or nonsensical; variety of foreplay or positions is exactly that -- a change from regular habits that reinvigorates.

> Whereas sex with a wife is more like a delicious but
> wholesome meal you sit down and enjoy. And that
> continues to be delicious no matter how much you eat it.

You're not actually saying anything here; what's that supposed difference between porn-aided masturbation and sex? Except for your pre-assumed belief that it is "wholesome" or meaningful or whatever? Both are multi-sensory sexual experiences ending in climax. Without substantiation, this amounts to nothing more than Cosmopolitan-style sex advice.
There are still some nice things such as destructuring and vectors & maps as base types. The syntax of Clojure is generally a bit cleaner and more concise, though I'm sure some lispers will disagree.
Anyone else thinking they added a robots.txt entry for bing to disallow, waited to get de-listed then removed the offending robots.txt entry, posted this news article knowing bing would pick them back up in a couple of days?
I guess the real question is how much has it cost me (as a taxpayer) per user to maintain these systems and "get the word out" so that the 300K users can be prevented from having to deal with the reality of the Internet being a harsh mistress.
Indeed. Here in Uruguay, in a similar circumstance as greggman described you might get a U$ 400 pension (once a month), which is below subsistence level... but you're entitled to the same healthcare as the 98% of the population, up to and including expensive cancer or AIDS treatments. (the top 2% do have additional levels of coverage available by spending more money).
There a few differences that might be worth still.

Clojure is a Lisp-1, and provides better data structures as Common Lisp as far as I am aware.

But the JVM benefit is a big one indeed.
Peter Norvig's TED talk reflecting on the online AI course
Prototype on the JVM but compile to C for production or performance critical tests? Ideally, no refactoring required at all.

I guess it also helps to work with a dialect with more momentum. E.g. its easier to find support, on- and offline.

Since I haven't really used Closure or any other Lisp for more than a tutorial, I might be very wrong, though.
Cool, next step directly to native code skipping C. :)
There's only been one case I'm aware of where a site was penalized in search rankings and filed a lawsuit. That site lost. The only complaint that the judge seemed to find valid (although ultimately dismissed) was anti-trust allegations. Microsoft wouldn't be in that position in search.

In short, there's no legal precedence for filing damages if you're dropped by a search engine. It would be hard to imagine what, if anything, Kogan would argue successfully.

http://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2007/03/kinderstart_v_g...
If you're using the term “real world”, it is extremely unlikely---like sha1 hash collision unlikely---that you are being accurate. In all cases where I can remember its being used, it's being used as a way to avoid a concrete and accurate description of fact, and to add a touch of disdain for something else.
An Algorithm to Pick Startup Winners
Side note, Please don't use w3schools. http://w3fools.com/

Consider the excellent MDN instead, https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/
America’s Patent Crisis
Facebook Deletes Post About Syria’s Human Rights Violations, Apologizes
It's not the nineties anymore, MD5 doesn't protect you from much, and especially not from the author of the original package creating an alternate version.

Viable verification is based on an unbroken hash (preferably SHA-(256|384|512), but SHA1 still not broken even it it's definitely too short nowadays. And the hashes need to be distributed properly, either PGP signed or hosted on a trusted TLS protected site...

Yet many projects still distribute MD5 hashes, thinking it got any value.
We actually allow you to add LinkedIn as well during the signup process. Your opportunities don't discriminate so we help you mine both your social and professional networks.
I'm pretty excited about the new wave of IDE's in the browser: Cloud9, Eclipse Orion, and Collide. Just having them available, with my last setup, from any computer with an internet connection and a browser makes my life easier. Collide looks like it's using one of the internet's big plusses: collaboration. Kudos and keep going.
EDIT: grammar
> Google+ is a joke in social networking, but it could be the canary in the coal mine for Google itself, because it showcases that Google fundamentally doesn't understand how people and advertising work. Engineers generally don't understand people, and behavior is core to both social networking and the advertising that funds it.

The classic people-smarter-than-me-must-be-fundamentally-stunted-somehow argument...always a great sign of a credible opinion.

Does Enderle, the OP, not think much of the report that Google engineers independently came up with a Nobel Prize winning economics theory that made AdWords so successful?

http://books.google.com/books?id=V1u1f8sv3k8C&pg=PA90...
The NYT article is credited to ELIZABETH DUNN and MICHAEL NORTON, so one of the authors of the paper participated in the news article.
Internet2 readies 100G OpenFlow SDN for Big Data
Two studies show 'weird life' microbe can't live on arsenic
I've worked in a half-dozen companies here in the US and never was asked to sign something remotely like that. Obviously there were IP clauses but they were all reasonable. That sucks if it's commonplace in the UK.
Thanks, I appreciate the link.
#LionsLair2012: Our Elevator Pitch Strategy
DNSChanger Malware Set to Knock Thousands Off Internet on Monday
Signed packages can be just as malicious, but the security of the mechanism relies on the signer not wanting to do jail time, thus protecting his secrets and not signing stuff he doesn't trust.
When someone says "How are you" they are not interested in how you are, it's establishing a carrier wave for conversation.

Person A: Hi
Person B: Hi, How are you?
Person A: Good thanks

SYN
SYN-ACK
ACK

There's always a starting sentence to conversation, especially on telephones, that establishes volume, and makes sure there's no transmission errors (you can hear each other clearly, are speaking the same language, etc)
Introducing: The 967 Grid System
I've been thinking about manners, social interactions, etc. recently. This has stemmed from reading a lot of economists who blog on topics that include "signalling" (you've heard of this - it's the argument that people go to college not so much to learn things there, but to signal to employers - and potential dating partners - that they're the kind of person who CAN go to college).

Manners, smalltalk and other "bullshit" things are only bullshit to those who don't realize the purpose of them.

"How are you" / "I'm fine" is not bullshit.

It's a social ritual, much like shaking hands.

It says "you may know nothing else about me, but know this: I am at least a barely competent human being who has managed to learn some minor social interaction skills over the last few decades on this planet".

Imagine walking up to someone and offering to shake hands. Now, this person might decline for a variety of reasons - "I'm sorry, I've got a medical condition", etc.

...but if the other person rebuffed your handshake and said "I've come up with a much better form of greeting - here, wiggle your left pinky at me and I'll do the same back - more efficient, see?" I'd shake my head and think "OM*G - what is this person going to be like when I ask him to write a regression test? How is he going to dress if we need to go meet an investor - utilikilt and body paint?"
"A device like the one seen above can be attached to the On-Board Diagnostic (ODB) port"

On Doard Biagnostic?

Someone needs a proofreader
The Hollowing Out
I dont logically see how your comment is either agreeing or disagreeing with the parent comment. Seems like you went on your own sweet tangent.

Folks can solve all the math problems they want.It has nothing to do with creating a good product and selling it.
Falling Asleep in the Digital Classroom
It's too early to do benchmarks. Nothing in ClojureC is optimized at this point, so it would do very badly. I'm focussed at making it work first, then on making it fast. We'll get there.
I thought that, besides the JVM itself, the advantages of Clojure would be its concurrency model - as CL standard doesn't define anything related to this - and its stronger functional approach.

I don't fully grasp the advantages of being a Lisp-1 or Lisp-2 :)
If that's what they did (no telling really) that would be pretty clever PR wise.
I find it hard to apply the label 'Unix' to an OS which cannot multitask. A few directories wholly hidden from the user, with no available shell, gutted utilities and services, and little if any meaningful interaction between programs, does not constitute Unix.
You don't know. What you know however is who to sue if the package ends up being malicious, thanks to the signature.
Great tips for smooth android uis
Note: I will keep my comments to passive RFID (non-battery powered tags) and leave aside active RFID commonly used for toll roads, shipping containers, etc.

RFID is actually a family of technologies, typically defined by ISO standards, and operating over several distinct frequencies: 134kHz (LF), 13.56MHz (HF), and 900MHz (UHF). LF and HF use inductive coupling between the tag (transponder) and reader (transceiver) while UHF uses capacitive coupling. Theses technologies do not allow one to know a specific distance, but rather when a tag is in the field or not. So, when Wal-Mart uses UHF tags on their pallets, they don't know where the pallet is exactly in their warehouse, they simply know when the pallet has passed through their loading dock. I've seen some triathlon timing systems use UHF RFID, but they still use cameras in case of close finishes.

Hope that helps.
Awesome, that's exactly the answer I was hoping for. Is this a common way of compiling lisp or does it actually make things slower in the general case?
Educate or eradicate
Its the same everywhere. In large corporates only 'Cover your ass' strategies work, US or otherwise. And none one wants to annoy their boss, so whatever he says is right.

Besides when you do well no one appreciates, but when you do something wrong every one comes after you.

This is a problem with large teams in general and has nothing to with Indians or Americans in general.
When Google Chrome won't start up
Software Inventory by Joel Spolsky
Reading this I find myself in the same position as PG: I know nothing about the app and trying to “get it”. The later explanations are more enlightening but I still don’t get what this app does.
Clojurescript is an interesting language, with great potential for easy porting. I wish there is a direct JVM port of Clojurescript.

I would be able to leave with Clojurescript limitations compared to Clojure if it provides smaller jar files and better performance of compiled code. That would make it really usable on constrained targets like Android.
> Soon the results showed. I mean Apple fanboys might laugh at us. But we sold more stuff by good customer service and courtesy than apple would have sold by innovation.

Setting aside for a moment that Apple is clearly winning in the sales department, Apple's pretty well known for good customer support.
hiho

somethings in the air ... i coded a little project (also based on kripkens awesome speak.js) a month or so ago (in a little cabana in bolivia while i was travelling) http://lalo.li 100% client side, shareable text2speech voice messages

after some data crunching so far: people dont use it for anything useful, most traffic via facebook shares (of funny messages)
I can't answer for the GP, but native code is generally better for me because of the startup time.
Actually should we give also the real source? What about SASS/LESS/Stylus? Uncompressed CSS says seriously nothing more than minified one.
Why don't they just build in a delay before the new key starts working? Even a few hours would be enough to prevent most thefts without being too inconvenient on the rare occasion you lose a key.

This is just poor design, even given the EU laws and requirements.
http://www.crowdsurge.com/et-TicketBarcodeBig.php?code=icant...
For those who are not familiar with Mr. Kogan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kogan_Technologies#Controversie...

As another commenter suggested, I would not put it past him that he blocked bing somehow just for a publicity stunt. The wikipedia article hasn't even caught up with last week's stunt (or there are just so many that it cannot list them all): http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/07/kogan-launches-campaign-to...
While the idea seems decent, it completely forgets about CSS preprocessors (LESS/SASS). When using one, the original 'source' stylesheets usually don't even make it into deployment server, for they are just used to build final CSS. Even if not minified, that CSS file would likely be pretty unreadable, not to mention that it wouldn't really reflect the original patterns and ideas used in source files.
how am I supposed to kill zombies?!
The Good And Bad Lessons Ubuntu Taught Me About Linux And Windows
>Why do you prefer native code ?

For me, because I don't want to install the JVM, or force users of my stuff to install the JVM. I also don't care about JVM libs.

>What do you even mean by native code ? The JVM does produce native code, it just does it at runtime (JIT compilation).

I, for one, mean non-JIT, no virtual machine needed, native code.

>So maybe you mean static compilation, but then, why is it better for the stuff you're doing ?

Less startup overhead. Small binaries. Easily redistributable. No stuff I don't need.
Sounds like a legal liability ready to happen. Ambitious, but one step on a rusty nail and lawsuits ensue. Though I like the creativity of solving the inner city blight.
Hopefully you’ll interpret this as constructive criticism: perhaps you should have saved the publicity exercise of posting to HN till the time when you actually had this straight.
Weinre: A Firebug style debugger for web pages, but "remote"
They serve their robots.txt as a "application/octet-stream" not "text/plain". Might be confusing some search engines?

Also according to Internet Archive their robots.txt has changed in the last months.

This was a version that was archived:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080104044407/http://www.kogan.c...

At a glance, they are whitelisting some bots, including Googlebot, but not including Bingbot, and disallowing the rest.

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

Another marketing stunt?
As I've been playing with SASS I had decided that I would place the resulting scss file in with the actual css file. My reasoning being very close to what the article states; my css file is compressed and comments stripped, the scss file is not. Granted, I would probably have to put a link to the file somewhere but it would be nice if this somehow became a thing people just did.
This article makes me doubt this Arqua tool. Using a callback does not remove coupling. It just makes it dynamic, so static analysis cannot find a direct link.

Arqua would have to find out that what value the global gNotifier variable could contain. An exact points-to-analysis should find out that it is clientNotify an insert the dependency. A less-powerful analysis might approximate that it could be anything. In this case there should be a dependency to every other compilation unit. Since Arqua reports "no dependency" it seems to do a non-conservative approximation, which means it does not report safe results.

That is not really a good quality metric. So why should one optimize against it?
Comments aren't available on the article, so a couple of quick clarifications here:

Nitpicky, but ActiveRecord::Relation is not ARel. ARel is the relational algebra library that underpins ActiveRecord (>=3.0). See http://erniemiller.org/2010/05/11/activerecord-relation-vs-a... for more info.

The specific example he used to demonstrate worked transparently because of the has_many :through relationship for users on Article, which requires the collaborations table to filter the users, so joins it. Otherwise, you would need to do the join yourself before merging the scope, and things get messy pretty quickly, especially if you end up with table aliases (which the merged relation knows nothing about -- it will still query against the collaborations table).

I added "sifters" to Squeel (http://github.com/ernie/squeel) in order to address the need for a set of reusable conditions on a specific model that could work through an association. I'm not saying Squeel is the solution you're definitely looking for, but I just want to let people know about the things they'll need to look out for when using Relation#merge.
I'm not sure that would help. It just means the thieves need to steal the car in two steps instead of one.
Clojure -> C will very probably be slower than Clojure -> JVM, at least if the compiler is naive.