skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
No doubt, this neighbor should have changed his password long ago, but there is a lot to admire about his security hygiene nonetheless.

I think it's taken too much for granted that one should change passwords on a regular basis. If we assume that changing passwords more frequently means that we are more likely to use more rememberable - and, thus, more guessable - passwords, then perhaps this is not a fluke. Perhaps "pick a truly random, long sequence and keep it for a long time" is not actually bad policy.

In short, I find it odd that the author unquestionably says his neighbor should have had different password behavior, yet it was the only password he couldn't crack. That's an opportunity to revisit assumptions.
Fantastic writing style in this post - it somehow jumps out of the page, not sure how to describe it. Congrats.

Only time I ever felt like giving up on my latest venture[1] was when I started trying to view it as a "startup" and thereby compared it to other "startups". I got really depressed for a week or so trying to be a "startup guy", which thankfully I didn't become. It was like the goals of the business (provide a killer service in order to fund my continuing education and frugal lifestyle) got replaced by the "be the coolest thing ever" startup vibe, which sucked.

This article reminds me again that it's not a startup... it's a site that makes a little money by solving a common problem for developers like me, better than other people, and will hopefully make a little more money, once I've done some good marketing and solved that problem even better!

[1] https://openexchangerates.org
Personally (owner of a company with 5 employees), I think $49/month is fine, but I'd expect ~5 accounts with that - not just 1. For the $250/month package I'd expect ~25.
I'd guess oversight or it being seemingly unnecessary due to having enough hardware/bandwidth available to them.

Adding far future Expires headers and ETags would also help the perceived user download/render time. Neither are HUGE deals mind you, but easy to do for a bit of extra snappiness.
Fred Wilson on Why the Collapse of Venture Capital is Good
Fred Wilson thinks venture capital funds have gotten too big.
just use chromium, it is too (but without 'controversy' the sibling post mentions)
getvero.com - Very powerful rule system to send delayed emails. It's like Mixpanel for email (Vero is event driven).
Wow, that's great to hear - especially that Mailgun will continue along as-is. Their support has been phenomenal, and we've been extremely happy users.

Congrats to Ev, Taylor, and the rest of the team!
How do we shame this sort of sexism? 
It seems like the premise of this picture is either 1) work for us to be near this hot chick, or 2) isn't it shocking that a pretty girl would read about javascript.

Both of these are insulting to women and developers. How do we shame this company?
From what I've seen from the major Usenet providers' privacy policies, downloads are almost always never logged -- connections, maybe, but not downloads. Posts and uploads, however, are logged in order to crack down on spam complaints.
I should get in the pitch deck making business. Anyone need help?

Qualifications: Over 10,000 hours of PowerPoint, management consultant, story-lining expert
> "version number" fade away for everything but debugging/problem checking

That's exactly why. Doesn't even need to show an explicit number to users, just "You are running the August 2012 stable release" would do.
I want to add to mock's point - I will trust you more if I could download it from your site than from download.com. It has become such a dump that I actively avoid visiting it. Why delegate the user experience of downloading your products to someone whose interests don't align with yours?
Not common.
I feel like even mainstream distros are beginning to branch out. Ubuntu got Unity and upstart, Debian is switching to LXDE, Fedora spearheading systemd and selinux (while keeping gnome), opensuse experimenting with new release models, and Mint doing its Mate/Cinnamon thingy.

Contrast that to the situation couple of years back, when Ubuntu was mostly a rebadge of Debian, and almost everyone was shipping with Gnome2 as default. Even the init systems were more unified then.
In the UK you only need a TV licence if you watch or record live broadcast TV. If you only watch "catch up" stuff on the iPlayer then no licence is required.
I wish I knew, but I got downvoted for a constructive attempt at pointing it out.
The term "stable" is ambiguous. For example, Debian is probably most prominent for stability. However, stable here means "version not changing". It does not mean "not crashing".

Except that Debian is notorious for long delays between stable releases precisely because they put a high emphasis on "not crashing". Add to that that security patches are constantly backported, so that while the "version numbers" don't change (except they do), packages do get bugfixes.

Stability should also mean "no interface changes". Updating Gnome 3.2 to 3.4 is ok. Updating Gnome 2 to Gnome 3 is not ok, because it radically changes the interface.

Stable interfaces are generally what you get with Debian stable; it's precisely why I run it on every machine I have (from my laptop to my servers to my HTPC to (figuratively speaking) my smartphone).

I switched from RedHat over ten years ago, and Slackware before that, and I haven't looked back since. I'm really disappointed that TFA didn't mention Debian. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea, but it seems pretty damn good, and It Works For Me on everything I have. The amount of software available under Debian is also incredible, and their dedication to free software is not just ideologically commendable, but very practical (did I mention the laptop originally came with Ubuntu? Crashed all the time. Replaced with Debian, with no binary drivers and nary a crash since. Closed source software (particularly drivers) suck).
Obviously there is no "perfect" Linux-Distro for everyone. I grew to like Fedora, but the perfect Distro to me would've been one I put together myself. And thats why we use Linux after all, isn't it? Because we can choose from so many flavors. That's also the conclusion the writer comes to- the article is more of a look at some popular distros, even if the title suggests something else.
There is always after it's finished to continue. They are releasing it after the game is over.
Okay - is it too uncommon?

Any idea what a good title would be? I placed keywords like Offline, Wikipedia and Encyclopedia in the title.
We did exactly what you are talking about (clockwise to zoom in, counter to zoom out). People got used to it, but it was mentally the same as using a slider bar to zoom: they felt like they were using a tool to zoom the view, not interacting directly with the view. Plus, some people had trouble understanding that it was the sweep angle that we were measuring and not the linear distance that your finger was traveling.

I like the idea about the circle turning into a line though - that at least solves one of our problems.
Design patents aren't for inventions. They are like trademarks, ornamental figures that are protected from impersonation, sort of like a policemans uniform.
Anything functional is expressly out of scope for a design patent.
Fixed. I had Viacom on my brain for other reasons resulting in a nasty typo.
It seems like this investment thesis(low valuation, not in the bay area, willing to give up a board seat) is aimed at investing in second-tier startups. It would be interesting to contrast this strategy with that of most other investors, who are actively trying to fund the best/category leader startups.
Ferndale and Royal Oak don't really have white collar office jobs.

At any rate. The state of Detroit is extremely Depressing. It's the region's major city!
Last I checked, almost all applications I have on my XP is being supported by software developers (given that I don't have many). From the perspective of Office, all open-source alternatives to MS are supporting XP. Firefox is still supporting XP. Chrome and Opera does as well. So are you suggesting that they are breaking the security model by supporting XP. Why would they? I have yet to see any disclaimer from any of them that says that I should use their software on AS IS basis.
No, he just means that Apple would have been well-rewarded by its innovation even if it hadn't been granted the patents in question, ergo, it wasn't necessary to grant the patents to encourage innovation.

Patents should not be granted willy-nilly, and especially not on broad 'implementations' that essentially cover the whole concept, because then it just turns into a huge land grab.

I'm already wondering if I should attempt to patent any half-cool idea I implement on my site, even though the idea of it stinks to me. With the way doubtful patents appear to be less spurious than expected, I'd be remiss not to grab my share of the land where I could. That's a crappy state of affairs, to have to attempt to patent everything that moves.
One rotten Apple spoiled my perfect post-PC pie
I'd like to chime in as well: VWO is awesome, and Paras' support rocks.
What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?
I think you were getting down voted because its not the kind of comment folks come to HN to read. It sounds like from this comment that you're a competitor? ("that's my daily business")

There is a lot of information on mailgun, both on HN and on the web. They've made no secret of the problem space they were going after.

So Rackspace felt like they were worth acquiring, the product and customers are supported so its not a strict acquihire exit, and while the questions about sendgrid are good here (which are proxies for "What is Rackspace's strategy as a services provider really?") there clearly was enough to Mailgun to make this worthwhile. That you don't "get it" is ok but instead of the snarky "Soo they just send email?" kind of thing why not dig into their product and ask specifically about it? If it seems un-remarkable then talking about how you implement the same features and qualifying the scale of that would be helpful too.
There has been some talk about ubuntu here-- what is the best way to keep up to date with browsers on ubuntu (/linux).. there is no 'check for updates' within firefox, and the repositories are often out of date [1]

1. to be fair, i don't know about FF, i can't really complain that it might be a day out of date.. but chromium is way behind. Also what about living on the beta/aurora channels?
So far I have been using Macstumbler in passive mode, but it takes a long time. So far I have only hacked my own test 12345 password
The one thing Chrome tabs have going for them is that they're oh so fast and smooth. I think tabs in Chrome are like the Dock for Mac OS X.

When OS X was first released, the Dock was an object of ridicule. (Among some of us, it still is, but we all realize that by now it's not going away.) It was demonstrably worse than previous mechanisms at just about everything, and it make OS X look like a toy. Eventually Tog[1] came around, sort of:

> Contrary to my previously-held position, I no longer believe Apple should get rid of the Dock. It's just too pretty [...] You want a visibly-apparent manifestation of the personality of the underlying technology. That's why automakers spend milliions making the outside of the car project an image of what's underneath the skin.

The supersmooth tabs in Chrome are probably a significant portion of what makes Chrome feel faster, even when it isn't. Like the Dock, their outrageously high demo value probably exceeds their limited scalability for more experienced users.

[1]: http://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html
> The ISP might not have any idea, but your usenet provider does. I'm curious if it's common practice for them to log user activity.

Most providers do not log downloads. To cite the policies of two of the biggest providers, Giganews and Astraweb:

> Giganews does not track the specific articles you download; however, we will track the volume of your downloads for account maintenance and download limit enforcement purposes (if applicable).

— http://www.giganews.com/support/#q4.1

> We do not store any specific information about your downloads. We only store the amount downloaded, date and access IP address for accounting purposes.

— http://www.news.astraweb.com/privacy.html
A Linux distro.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't an anti-apple rant: I've myself tried to my Macbook laptop to learn aircrack and finally desisted. The most important tools, airodump and aireplay, don't work in Mac, even if you have an injection-capable card.

Your best option is try with Linux either in your Mac (I think Backtrack has a Live CD so you don't have to install anything) or in a non-Apple PC.
Now we can make our own Photonovels/Fotonovels

http://mikecanex.wordpress.com/2012/08/28/turn-tv-shows-into...
Each provider still has take down rules in place, which propagate to the other providers.
I guess if the copyright holders monitor every file like a hawk, they can send tons of take downs and pretty much cripple the library.
I was all ready to upvote this in a passionate YEAH... and then I looked at the link. What's sexist about it? If anything, having a geek chick with a tech book makes it obvious that the company wants to hire women.
Your Facebook Friend Has Just Joined
Most startup founders use tutorials to build technically trivial web/iphone apps, and yet they hire programmers and can't build products themselves?
Turning Lincoln’s portrait to the wall
Read the article, or view it and press CTRL-F and type $2,500.
Does anyone know what it is about the Watson algorithm that requires a super computer? Sure they say it's searching billions of documents, but I'd be happy with a scaled down version that just searches Wikipedia.

If it doesn't have to win at Jeopardy couldn't they make a good enough version running on something more quotidian?
Does anyone know how these "silent updates" handle add-on compatibility? I prefer being "hassled" by update notifications if an update is going to break my favorite add-ons.
That's his problem: The numbers in versions have traditionally (and more usefully) been used to denote levels of feature change and bugfix. A time-based arbitrary version number is pointless; it'd make more sense to use a timestamp for a version number if they're going to do it that way.
The regulatory agencies are staffed almost entirely with people who used to work at the networks. They're in on it.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/legal/eula/firefox.html

"THE PRODUCT IS PROVIDED "AS IS""
Should have evolved some element for the http://www.ludumdare.com/ event.

Maybe next time ;)
Great thoughts! I had a couple similar thoughts but think it's more complicated to execute. To continue this discussion offline, what's the best way to contact you?
Chill out. I'm old enough to have used ITS, which introduced versioning(†).

(† Apparently: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versioning_file_system)
Well they are ASKING for $1M. Nothing says they'll get a buyer.

Or am I missing something?
The patent office explicitly leans upon the court system to validate its decisions. It doesn't do thorough content and substance reviews, it does procedural reviews. For a jury to trust blindly in a patent decision is fallacy, just as much trusting blindly in one sides lawyer.
Mozilla port entire FPS game to WebGL
VCs and Prostitutes
Blizzard cuts off Iranian access to World of Warcraft
Most providers will tell you they do not keep any logs. However, most of the bigger providers will add an encrypted header to any post you make. The NSP can later decrypt the header to see which of their users made the post.

To the best of my knowledge, to date these headers have only been used to nab child pornographers. I've never heard of anyone getting in trouble just for downloading copyrighted works on Usenet. The worst uploading incident I've heard of was years ago when all the members of sd-6 got their Easynews accounts deleted. Granted they were posting non-stop and all using the same NSP. I don't remember any charges being pressed or subpenas being issued.
Just for the record: Old people don't like changes, so when Firefox silently changes and updates the wording of a menu, or changes the new tab behavior, etc., my 70 year old dad bitches and calls me to find out what is wrong with his computer.

Silent updates: only for bugfixes. Sure would be nice if version numbers meant anything these days.
True. At present India is a deliberate sloppy bureaucracy but that is because the government promotes it that way.
India had become a police state for a brief period in 1975 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emergency_%28India%29), but the people overcame that. Interestingly, economic & political situation is somewhat similar today.
US Federal Aviation Administration to re-examine in-flight electronics use
I dig the layout. A few minor suggestions:

Main page:

1) The Twitter and Facebook buttons seem oddly placed. Maybe center them above "Need help?"

2) Try putting a transparent gradient over your screenshots. It'll make them look slick and less visually distracting.

3) The "From our blog" boxes look a little non-descript. Consider making it a list of "Date / Title", and to the right of them adding 1-3 testimonials.

Pricing page:

1) There's a 30 day free trial (make "Day" lowercase, imo), and below that, a $0/mo plan. Are they the same thing or different? It isn't clear.

2) "Pay as you go features" This also strikes me as unclear, since I associate "Pay as you go" as being a metered service. If it's really just $50 per event, you could come up with a better way to convey that. Consider putting a blue box around those features with a header saying $50/event, and then adding 10-20 pixels of space between the "Conqueror" and "Empire" plans.

Best of luck!
Is it time HN implemented a flag button for comments

Hacker News implemented a flag button for comments quite a while ago. You go the "link" next to the comment header, to go directly to the URL of the comment, and then a "flag" link will be exposed there if you have enough karma to flag. I flag comments from time to time if they meet criteria laid out by pg last year

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2403696

when he wrote, "The problem has several components: comments that are (a) mean and/or (b) dumb that (c) get massively upvoted."

A comment being mean is a signal that the comment may be silently downloaded (and flagged as well) and a comment being dumb is at least a signal for a downvote (although in some threads I don't know what is dumb and what is smart, for lack of personal knowledge, so I hope other people pitch in those threads) and possibly a signal for flagging. A comment that is BOTH mean and dumb definitely deserves user response to eliminate it. Comments that appear to be spam (what you are specifically asking about) are also against the community culture here, and I would flag those and downvote those when I see them (but I haven't seen a lot of comments like those lately).
I moved back to Ann Arbor from NYC about six months ago. I think I had to move to New York to see how truly awesome things are here. There is a lot top notch technical talent, the cost of living is low, and abundant cheap space makes it a startup's dream. The quality of life in Ann Arbor is very good, particularly if you want to start a family. To be honest a lot of the really talented people I met in NYC were midwest ex-pats looking for work.

Our start-up is banking on the notion that things are coming full circle for technology, and that we'll see a shift from consumer facing web-applications to physical hardware. Lately it seems that the New York Times agrees:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/technology/silicon-vall...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/business/new-wave-of-adept...
DSL users, which is why the cable commercials (around here) always take pains to say "slow DSL" (both words, always) in their commercials. It's not because DSL is slower (it really isn't, in the wild), but because it's a true competitive threat.

Aside from the slight speed differential, cable companies are a (willingly) captured industry, so you will see industry-driven content restrictions like these from them that you don't see on DSL.
Agreed, VMS filesystem was the first thing that came to mind for me as well. Seems rather sad that in 2012 we don't have that as a standard feature like we did back then.

For the record, you don't have to be all that old to have used VMS's filesystem :-)
I don't have problem with debugging and testing - since I'm programming in Ada most of the things that compile are already working properly (modulo errors in logic of program, but nothing in reality can help with this). In fact the only place where I just need to do serious testing is in UI and input reading (who knows with what someone may try to feed your program).

But this demands some designing before programming - and then you are seeing what additional features would be nice to have... and you get my version of feature creep, where you have so many features you "have" to write that you don't have time to release version alpha.
Being obvious doesn't make it prior art alone. If that were the case, Shazam would owe me millions.
Sebastian Thrun bets education over driverless cars
Okay listen to this. HBO GO is only available to people with certian cable companies. I live in an apartment complex so i cannot changes who provides my cable. My younger sister has HBO GO app on xbox live and direct tv. I have knology, a non support cable provider while direct tv is. She gave me her direct tv credentials and i put them into mh 360 and it worked no problem, all it does is show a direct tv logo in the app itself.
You've probably never tried compiling the linux kernel back in the late 90s with a top of the line machine (hint - gcc was slow, it would take over 35 minutes or so to compile from scratch) ;)
Startups: Are shares still a valuable "payment"?
Out of curiosity -- what makes Detroit special (aside from cost)? Why would Detroit be a better choice for Tech than other 2nd tier centers?
How do I find the next “rocket ship” and get on it?
Everything about the Register is linkbait and hysterics.
Agreed. This isn't sexist at all. Bad OP, bad.
Apple Juror Had First-Hand View of Silicon Valley Litigation
OK. Point taken. We have done some A/B tests and see that download rate is the same as from our website. The benefit of redirecting to download.com is that with increased rankings we get more users who visit download.com. I know these issues you said and I saw the articles on HN before. However, you can tell download.com to stop injecting offers into the installer which we did and there are no issues.
What's different in both cases is ontology, which is a fancy way of saying how things actually are. It may help to think of how you would program a computer to simulate either universe, or for that matter it may help to reduce the computation to something much simpler, like the following two functions:

def odd_sum(n):
return sum(range(1, 2*int(n), 2))

def square(n):
m = int(n)
return 0 if m <= 0 else m ** 2

Those two functions are mathematically indistinguishable if all you are doing is putting in various values. There happens to be a vast mathematical identity that the sum of the first n odd numbers is the n'th square number, allowing for that indistinguishability. But to claim that they're exactly the same realization of this function is obviously mistaken.

Similarly, there is a qualitative difference between a wavefunction of the universe which changes and a wavefunction of the universe which does not change. It does not matter that the two positions can be made mathematically equivalent; one is X and one is not-X, and science is permanently incapable of figuring out which it really is.