skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Not defending the guy because they obviously stole the assets (the file names are the final nail in the coffin) but that's not his argument.

He's claiming that they didn't copy the assets but inspired themselves from them. He's claiming that they (just like everyone else) are building upon the shoulders of giants.

That argument is perfectly valid, until the accusing party pulls your files named after their own bosses (carrying the typos along too). At that point, you've pretty much been proven wrong.
Viralheat releases Viralheat Free. Pressure mounts on Hootsuite/Buffer.
Because data can also lie. The key here is that the number reported is "unique visitors" – what, exactly, is this telling us?

Not much at all because it says nothing of intent, much less duration of stay on that page or frequency of use.

In the absence of that additional data, anecdotes can be useful to express doubt or confusion about data that seems to not pass the sniff-test. It can be as minimal as "is it just me, or does ... ?" sort of constructions or it can be more formalized to say – "This doesn't fit with my personal observations".

The mistake is thinking that anecdotes add up to data – they don't – but put enough of them together and they can be heuristically valuable – and one on its own, in the absence of other real data, is still a completely valid construct for conversational purposes or to challenge (albeit weakly) some over-cooked claim, like what I'm seeing here, with the google+ traffic data. The refutation of such an anecdotal experience with sound evidence doesn't mean the the anecdote was worthless – hardly. It was valuable because it was provocative.
Agreed.

According to one of Google's own services, google+ is pretty much dead:

http://www.google.com/trends/viz?q=google+plus&graph=wee...

compare with fb:

http://www.google.com/trends/viz?q=facebook&graph=weekly...

edit: thank you downvoters for illustrating the bias on HN. A fake stats piece promoting google as #1 on the frontpage? This place is turning into /. but with more google employees. I'm out.
publicly facing email accounts

I believe the argument was that posting a picture is analogous to emailing that picture to your friends, and commenting on that picture is the same as hitting "reply to all" on that email. It's the same behavior, presented in a different format.
The National Ignition Facility is fully operational
-- NIF Director Edward Moses

Fire at will, Commander
-- The Emperor
Crash Microsoft Windows For Apple Safari Visitors (win32k.sys exploit)
there is a flaw with win32k.sys in the Windows kernel for Apple Safari internet browser users. This Safari / Windows flaw allows attackers to run code with the privileges of the system kernel which is very dangerous. This exploit can cause Window’s 7 64 bit operating systems to crash.
Register.com removes DNS for WPEngine for 1 customer hosting malware
First, the OA's comparison is meaningless.

It focuses on vanity metrics rather than engagement or retention. A lot is written on that topic, so I won't repeat (see Tim Ferris: http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/05/19/vanity-metri...). This article is excellent optimization for link baiting.

And it doesn't matter because most of these sites don't compete against each other. Each of these media sites has a different value prop, target demo and potential ARPU. For example, the value of a unique visitor on LinkedIn is way higher than on Tumblr, but it's a moot point because they aren't going after the same users (sure there will be some overlap, but that's in the same way that I visit HN and FB).

Second, these stats are utterly wrong.

Tumblr had 133M global uniques in that time, according to quantcast [1]. Pinterest had 45.8M US uniques around then [2].
And this completely ignores their quickly growing mobile traffic. Quantcast directly measures traffic by pixeling sites, so I trust their data over Compete in this case.

[1] http://www.quantcast.com/p-19UtqE8ngoZbM

[2] http://www.quantcast.com/pinterest.com
Politics of the social web
Check the wiki: https://github.com/WhisperSystems/RedPhone/wiki

Read "Encryption Protocols" (uses ZRTP -see rfc6189- for key negotiation). Although I'm not sure I understand what is this about, I didn't notice at first it is VoIP :)
Simply stunning, many thanks for the link !
I blocked the app a long time ago. Wasn't very impressed with the founders in that regard.
I generally agree with your sentiment, but let's not get carried away: using 3rd party toolbars does not automatically render you unaware of technology.
Currently this is no. 40 on HN. At 35, "Move Over WordPress, There's A New CMS In Town".
How so? You don't get a degree from these online courses.
How does he define a 'visit'?

It's a vague concept now - from an ISP perspective hitting a page with G+ (or T or FB) button on it when signed-in takes down a 'visit' sized payload.

When I +1 a page using Chrome Extension - is that a visit?

Same with mobile apps - what's a mobile 'visit' - an API GET?
Weird. I'd been assuming it had WiFi...been a while since I'd read the specs. That makes it much less useful, IMHO, though I still like the low power nature of the device. But you can get many more powerful android devices for about $70 that have WiFi, more ram, multiple cores, and more expansion options. Not to say I won't buy one, just that I won't buy a bunch of them, since WiFi is absolutely vital for the home automation projects I had in mind.
I know from D&E that the C++ committee has a policy of only accepting new features which had an existing implementation and first-hand accounts of using the feature.
'Don't forget to use your semicolons' - Douglas Crockford
This is not a "Finance App". It's an expense tracker. It manages your personal finances.
A Finance App would be Bloomberg Mobile (on Android, IPhone) - it tracks equities, commodities, bonds, currencies & futures + news reports on everyday events in the world of uh... Finance.
The Average Canadian is Now Richer than the Average American
Interesting hacks from Photo Hack Day 3-San Francisco.
Startups and projects without a video face a substantial obstacle to overcome before being able to use your service. Perhaps that places them outside of your target market. However, it might be worth a blog post to show prospects how to create a compelling video without a Hollywood budget. A collection of tools such as the one used to make the video on your advertiser page,

https://www.virool.com/advertiser

which presumably can be wielded by developers without video production expertise, could help create interest in your platform with prospects who lack an existing promotion video. And for those ready to go beyond the DIY stage, you might also provide a list of entry-level video production partners.
If not coincidence, an anti-trust suit waiting to happen...
Top-10 Prime Numbers in Patterns
This could be a nice add-on for Linkedin.
Why You Should Write Short Stories
This may be the first company in China to be innovating instead of working on the Hiphone 6. Regardless, they will never be taken seriously because Chinese companies reputations are already destroyed.
When the House Falls Down
I can confirm this. My scroll wheel is very easy to move one increment at a time, and repeatedly moving down one then up one increment results in text moving upwards about 4 lines per cycle. When testing on this site: http://www.javascriptkit.com/javatutors/onmousewheel.shtml I can confirm that scrolling up and down provide a delta of 1200 and -1200 respectively, the way it's being handled on your app must not be even.
Coolest HTML5 demo I've ever seen
Did I miss something ? Nexus 7 is the same price than the Kindle Fire.
Bootstrap Datepicker
During my internship I was in a similiar position to your new guy and I was fortunate enough to have had a great mentor. I even used some of his teachings later with my little brother when he got into development.

My mentor, Philip, did several of the things that you mentioned you wish had been done when you were starting out. For instance, whenever I programmed something that was good he gave me encouragement and praised me for it, but then only on the things I programmed that really were good which made me respect his opinion. He gave me tasks that were almost always a little bit out of my reach in terms of my abilities but let me know that anytime I needed help he was there.

I would say overall, he was great for the following reasons:

1. He gave advice willingly but not with an overkill, mostly only when I asked for it, but every now and then he say 'hey, you wanna learn how to manage linux users, or tighten up apache security',

2. He was a really good programmer so he always had my respect.

3. He let me handle problems on my own and had faith in me, letting me always know he was there if there was anything I couldn't handle.

4. He had great advice in general for example:

he considered the best programmers to be "lazy" programmers because they would take their time - not start coding immediatly - think through the task and its solution, and only then begin programming with the goal being to solve the problem in the easiest way possible i.e. so that future imports to a database could be called from a simple shell script requiring the programmer to just hit enter.

Another great one was when he told me about two types of workers. Type A he said is someone who you send to find out what's wrong with a crashed server, he goes out comes back and tells you. Type B he said is someone who you send to find out what's wrong with the server, he comes back tells you what was wrong with it, how he repaired it and any other pertenant information.

I hope this helps you a little bit, its been fun reminising about the good 'ol days back when and I hope it works out well for you and the new guy!
> Compete, Alexa, etc. they're all tracking people who don't understand technology.

That would mean that G+ is even stronger as it seems mainly popular with the tech crowd.
back in early 2000 we did exactly that.. and even had one model over a server-less/p2p arch.

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20040826005243/en/Impa...

Was too early for the market, I guess :)
No, but it makes for a very non-representative sample. Consider the number of people who lack the administrative rights to install a toolbar on the computer they use most often.
Right. So maybe, the ideal education material is more what was imagined in the past. An interactive book with quizzes including videos and high-res pictures in the places where it makes sense.
FWIW, Mountain Lion will fix this and comes out in about a week.

It doesn't fix the fact that you're left with one (or more) useless displays in full screen mode, but it does let you choose which display to do the full screening on.
How I converted a software thief into a customer
I'm not sure I agree...

"Terrible code" is this sort've nebulous subjective thing. Clearly, to you and I, this is terrible code, though probably created by a minifier / compiler.

Lots of code can be terrible (We've all written some in our time). However, if terrible code is valid it's the interpreter's (in this case) problem to figure it out. The ECMAScript spec is nightmarish but we get the spec we deserve :). Twitter has ZERO fault here. They wrote terrible valid code and the parser / interpreter should be spec conformant no matter the pain.
Can you buy a Xiaomi phone outside of China? For a $300 phone it looks pretty nice.
Wow the Xiaomi keynote looks a lot like Steve Jobs keynotes with significantly less production quality: http://player.youku.com/player.php/sid/XMjk1MzcxNTY4/v.swf
I'd imagine it has something to do with best finance apps being sponsored by interest groups (banks, online payment vendors, credit card companies etc.)
From a website to metro app
I'd like to know also. I mean, all this post says to me is "Google+ gets more traffic than LinkedIn". That isn't much of a feat when you consider Google integrating G+ into searches, the use of browser extensions, etc.
Ask HN: Feedback please - My Stuff Online
Hey guys, I have this idea I want to spend the rest of my life working on, it may be life changer or a total failure that's why I want to ask for early feedback before committing to it. Here is the deal:

My stuff online, that's it.

I want to have all my stuff online, from a blog, to pics, music, video, books, games, contacts, notes, apps, all kinds of files and data, including real time communication via chat and video calls (in the near future)

Plus daily finances, spreadsheets, docs, to do lists, calendar, email, bookmarks, repos, everything that I can save online for easy access from every web enabled
device I have. All my stuff online.

I know it is way too ambitious but that is really what I need for myself and I believe a thousand people can benefit from this too. Just a thousand, not one more.

I don't want to get rich from it, just to live by it and for it. So charging $9 a month to a thousand people can keep this project going on forever, giving personalized
customer service and a very private place for a few lucky people to come with me in this crazy adventure.

Here is the link:

http://my-stuff-online.appspot.com/

What do you think?

* Right now it only works on Safari and Chrome in OSX and iOS. Will work on Firefox, Opera and IE10 if enough feedback.
Driving first time visitors doesn't mean anything for a social network unless they have retention. Show me that Google+ visitors return to the site regularly and I'll start to think this is more than just measuring the size of your car's engine to determine its top speed. Anecdotal evidence tells me otherwise -- there are tons of people on G+, but nobody uses it.
I don't see why this is such a surprise? The app does not appear terribly complex nor does being #1 in Canada really mean anything.
True - not a "finance" app but that is how it is categorized in the App Store.
Barely, you say...
Ugh. You can't divine traffic numbers from search volume and news mentions.

If that were the case, Mitt Romney should start a social network because he's crushing Facebook: http://www.google.com/trends/viz?q=romney&graph=weekly_i...
Clickable link:

http://my-stuff-online.appspot.com/
Facebook has been putting a lot more ads in the newsfeed lately. I find it irritating because I can't just avoid them like I do with the ads on the right! These types of actions may lead more users to Google+
The evidence on this one is rather thin. It takes a speculation in a comment on HN about what Microsoft could be doing - without any proof that they are actually doing it, adds some code that proves something Microsoft claims they do not do could be done if they wanted to do it - and the conclusion is Microsoft definitely has sold everybody to the Man. I think a jump from "they could be doing it" to "they did it" requires more proof than that.
What are you trying to point out? That IQ tests as they are written for humans are biased in favor of humans?

Intelligence between humans and animals can (or could) be compared, but--like when testing between human populations--you wouldn't use a test that is so heavily biased against one of the groups that they can't even attempt it.
Somewhat off-topic, but this has been bugging me for years: for countries that use , instead of . in decimal numbers, how do they pronounce it? ie For the number 12.3 million, I could say "twelve point three million" or "twelve dot three million." For 12,3 million, do you say "twelve comma three million"?
Kiip's Brian Wong: Take Control of Your Serendipitous Success
Thanks for the perspective. All of us greatly needed your two cents as guidance.

Travels the world taking photos... whoop-de-doo. That's been going on for decades, and only because technology has only recently made it possible.

Post again when she does something original, like traveling the galaxy taking photos. Only then will whatever follows your first two sentences be read.
Designer vs. Engineer — The Curse of Low Expectations
Why is this worth a post on HN?
Any word on the cause? Hopefully this has zero relation to the allegations of SPAM from dropbox users in this thread:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4255927
But it IS fair to say that the demographics of the set of users who have toolbars installed into their browser is different than those who do not.

Specifically, those that have them installed are more likely to be non-tech users than those without.

That's my guess with 0 data to back it up (but plenty of useless anecdotes!)
I love StaFocusd, too. The problem is there is more browsers, than just Chrome.
Personal Finance?
I occasionally do this with my hosts file. But not right now...
This is for anyone who was assuming that Skype wasn't wire-tappable. But then again, I don't know why anyone would assume that in the first place.
RedPhone uses a really interesting system. The first time you initiate a call with someone redphone displays a word that is based on the keys exchanged.
Each user talks about the word and confirms they got the same word, thereby verifying that there is no man in the middle.

The assumption is that it is hard for an attacker to forge and inject a believable conversation into an ongoing real time conversation.

This is call SAS or Short Authenticated Strings and I believe it was introduced in the paper 'Secure Communications over Insecure Channels Based on Short Authenticated Strings' (the pdf can be found off of google). You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZRTP#Authentication
Supercool! I suppose that was made using three.js
From the related Wikipedia article:

A live Genie was detonated only once, in Operation Plumbbob on 19 July 1957. It was fired by AF Captain Eric William Hutchison (pilot) and AF Captain Alfred C. Barbee (radar operator) flying a F-89J over Yucca Flats at an altitude of 4,500 m (15,000 ft). A group of five USAF officers volunteered to stand hatless in their light summer uniforms underneath the blast to prove that the weapon was safe for use over populated areas. They were photographed by George Yoshitake who stood there with them. Gamma and neutron doses received by observers on the ground were negligible. Doses received by aircrew were highest for the fliers assigned to penetrate the airburst cloud ten minutes after explosion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIR-2_Genie
So one in a million healthy blood cells will register as cancer, while the expected frequency of true positives is around one in a billion. Maybe I'm still screwing up the statistics, but doesn't that mean that the results of testing cancerous and normal blood will be almost indistinguishable?
Your math is wrong. You're assuming they raised at a $2 million valuation. If they raised equity funding at a valuation above $60 million (which is likely since Viddy raised at $350M+) then the investors lost money.
There is nothing wrong with that.

I just don't want to be forced to see ads or not be allowed to skip ahead in the video (which is what DRM amounts to).

In other words, I want to be in control of what I see.
The most overrated writer in the history computing. It always made me scratch my head why Joel Spolsky, who, say what you want, but I think is a very legitimate writer said so many praises for Atwood's writing. But Spolsky also said Yegge wrote beautifully, which I cannot fathom; it is definitely a different standard for writing than the rest of the world. There's more to writing than using correct grammar, but in the standard of programming blog writing I guess that's amazing. :) Really, I'd rather have wonky grammar and good content on programming blogs than just a series of pictures and backlinks with ideas that make no sense.

That being said, I was not familiar with hyperink at all but it is actually a very pleasant reading experience (it was just the actual words that upset/annoyed me :) )
I think you may have mixed me up with someone else. I have never uttered those words in that order, in public or in private.
The Internet != the web.
Source code for how the words are generated can be found here. https://github.com/WhisperSystems/RedPhone/blob/master/src/o...
Guess we'll see..

Though, as i've stated in the other thread, despite being a german user of Dropbox, i've yet to receive any spam to the email address i signed up with..

(a generic @gmail.com one..)
There is also Moo - https://metacpan.org/module/Moo
Never? Japan and Korea have recovered from very similar reputations very nicely indeed.
How Mr. Rogers, Mormons, Bowling & Aliens reveal the secret to happiness
Well, it has changed a lot, but you've got it. The Code civil articles 19 to 19-4 states that you are not French by birthright. If you were born in France, you become French at the age of 18 (automatically, no question asked) if you have lived at least 5 years (no need to continuity) in France since you're 11 (21-7 Code civil). And you can renounce to your french nationality in the 12 months after the automatic acquisition (until your 19 or the moment at which you join the military). For now, there is some shit about "path to citizenship" in the French law... but it's for adults asking the French nationality.

But, you can ask for the French nationality before, as early as the age of 13, if you lived there the 5 preceding years.
The difference is the automaticity, at 18 it's automatic, before that it's on request.

And under 18, everyone has more or less the same rights, not withstanding the nationality.
Let's say you wrote a game. Someone could copy the assets, release their own game and claim infringement against you. You're saying Apple should pull your game until you can disprove infringement? That doesn't sound reasonable.
A social experiment: What one thing would you tell your younger self?
In that case, shouldn't we all be using C?
This isn't entirely related, but it's an interesting story, so I think I'll share, anyway.

From my personal experience, even restoration of previous eyesight can be pretty unnerving for a bit.

I spent much of last year losing my vision as a cataract in my only eye got progressively worse. I put off surgery as long as possible due to a high risk of complications that could lead to total blindness. By the time I was ready to have the surgery, I couldn't see to do a lot of everyday things, like cook, watch TV, etc. and had a lot of colorblindness and diplopia (sometimes seeing as many as 8 'ghost' images when looking at an object).

The sudden improvement in my vision after cataract surgery took probably two weeks to fully adjust to, mentally. I actually had a bit of paranoia for a while, because I would see things in my vision that I wasn't used to seeing and it would trigger some sort of panic response. I hadn't been totally blind prior to the operation, but suddenly there was all of this detail that hadn't been there before (or that I hadn't seen in months, anyway).

I'd look at something and it was blue or had texture or cast a shadow. It made it very hard to concentrate. Everything was a distraction.

I remember that I had a mild panic attack one day shortly after surgery when we stopped for lunch. We were seated next to a window in the restaurant and it was very windy and cloudy outside. The wind blowing the clouds around was causing shifts in lighting coming in through the window and it was just too much sensory input for me to handle.
Here's some data: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4257458
If anything, I think I make an argument against it. You can make an app look like a physical address book, but I've never seen anyone use a physical address book. You could make a YouTube player that looks like a television too, but to what end? Pretty soon, people won't have seen televisions that look like anything more than a screen with a thin black bezel.

And as we move toward more unified gadgets that a lot of people have grown up with, what do we do? Make a mail client that looks like a smartphone because that's how people read mail? An eReader app that looks like a physical Kindle?

I don't think a leather address book is any more valid than a 3.5" floppy save icon. A single purpose app for contact management should reflect that it's a database of contacts, sure. Should it reflect that it's a book? Eh.