skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If there is no solid source to the story then TC must post an immediate retraction and apology.
Way to go Tim!

Welcome to TrailBehind - your first project looks great.
Twitter slowly turning back on the SMS spigot
Hoping for covert listening device scandal, got decimal number mismatch.
Nice to see they're finally searching for a new look (rather than brown).
A Day in the Life of Abbey Road
you can't use books to make clean water, except by ripping out pages and using them as water filters

I think you would do better by using books as kindling to boil water, killing any latent bacteria.
With Landmark Trial Half Over, Pirate Bay Crew Celebrates Early Victories
RSS Hits the Big Time
Does anyone know how Swedish criminal court works? Is a unanimous jury verdict required to convict?

http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-trial-day-5-peters-politi... for more details about day 5.
I wrote:

None of these three items are necessarily true of "having a descriptive title on a Web [sic] site".

Peter Cooper responded:

Why not? Having a properly worded title could...

There is a difference between what could be the case and what is necessarily the case. It is certainly true that having a descriptive title on a web page could be marketing. My claim was that it was not necessarily marketing, and in fact need not satisfy any of those criteria.

Peter Cooper wrote:

With your criteria you could argue that Ruby on Rails (the original topic a few posts up) could not possibly be "marketed"...

You could argue that if you were an idiot. But you would still be wrong.

Peter Cooper wrote further:

Take the word "financially" out ... and nearly all communications is marketing.... most day to day discourse is not honest...the majority of conversation has that quality.

Actually, a substantial fraction of human communications are not, in fact, attempts to dishonestly manipulate someone else's opinions for the personal gain of the speaker. I understand that you may not be aware of this, but I assure you that it is true.

By the way, I love Github.
Those are some very substantial speed improvements. Great to see, especially since this was just a point release.
mos def. photos makes the app come alive! sweet.
Is it possible to create pretty graphs with gnuplot?
good question. i've wondered this before, too. no idea. it's hard to know the answer unless you collect a lot of anecdotes.
-sigh-

There I was thinking this was a reasonable discussion and it gets dragged down to a childish "yah boo well you're just wrong" level. Fine, you "win" :)
Last.fm not really sharing data with RIAA
Unfortunately, people don't always use subreddits. People always think their pet issues belong in general, or perhaps worldnews.

And it's not just political stories that are the problem with reddit. It's the fanatic tone that many users take in the comments of stories that really shouldn't be polarizing.
Planet Harddrive
We want to make sure there's some nice candy for those who upgrade. Getting people to upgrade can be tricky - we do our best to reduce any outstanding bugs (1.3.1 and 1.3.2 have helped here) but having a carrot on the end of the stick helps a lot, as well.
The telegraph admits it was a false alarm:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/technology/g...
Lots of wrong stuff gets published by the press. How often does anyone sue over it?
Reddit moment --- Gold breaks 1,000 USD
i agree with this. i'm very happy with svn. my one foray into git was when i was working on somebody else's project on github, and i got a vague uneasy feeling about it. for one thing, the output it prints to the terminal seems needlessly complex and verbose.
> A group of 4 should be more than 4/3 productive than a group of 3.

Why? Amdahl's law suggests otherwise, as does any non-zero cost of communications.
Experts Warn of 'Terminator'-Style Military-Robot Rebellion
Please don't start saying this is irrelevant because it happens on reddit. Reddit was right.
Ask HN: Where to get a good subscription and service contract for managed e-commerce?
We're a small shop offering a managed e-commerce solution, integration of our solution with various shopping channels (eBay, Amazon, soon to be many more), and additionally we offer web design, hosting and general IT consulting services. We have two legal entities, one to offer the subscription services and another to bill for consulting.Typically we roll a package out to clients as a bundle.

My question to HN is - what combination of contracts and disclaimers are necessary to protect us legally from error and omissions / unintended consequences / limit liability? We want to protect our IP also.

1. Are there any good online resources for small businesses, guiding them on contract law, that also are up to date with the internet?

2. Obviously many of these questions are better left to a lawyer - does anyone know of a good and reasonably priced contract lawyer (USA) familiar with e-commerce?

If you don't want to post this information publicly, reach out to me at aditya@netcohosting.com.
Are there many funds that invest $100,000 - $500,000? From the people I've talked to, that seems to be one of the hardest amounts to raise. Too big for angels, too small for VCs. Matt Maroon has some good stories about this.
Really cool. Love the lion cub photo. It'd be neat to see where each photo was taken on the map. Not sure if flickr exposes that though.
OT, but the key to instant coffee is to "brew" it with milk. It kills the acidity and makes it somewhat drinkable.

Of course, if you don't have some sort of way to make one cup of real coffee, you don't deserve good flavor ;)

(I use this: http://www.bodumusa.com/shop/line.asp?MD=1&GID=3&LID... ... and now you have my session id :P )
Erick wrote it.

Be nice if Last.fm told them were to put it. Not like they have to impress Techcrunch since there bought out by CBS anywho
I seriously doubt that Arrington would have allowed this story to be published if he was around. I know that a lot of people here dislike him, but even when he published controversial stories, he generally got the facts straight. I find the quality of the others' writing at TC to be of much lower value. The site is really suffering without him.
After finding that the CGI was smart, I can see the value in it. The "ploy" comment was written "pre"-enlightenment.
hackrtrackr.com seems a little bare. For instance, I can't even edit my account information "coming soon." Maybe it's being rewritten?
It appears to me that SBUX has lost sight of the premise (at least in my opinion) that what they're selling is an experience, and people pay for the experience by buying a coffee. As with any other franchise or franchise-like operation, the "secret sauce" is to make the experience bland enough for it to appeal to a large segment of the population, and consistent enough that people will have their expectations met regardless of which location you visit.

I seem to recall that their CEO wrote a scathing internal memo a while back about where the company has gone, but as a publicly traded entity they've become conditioned to see profit as their only goal.

BTW, I'm a semi-fan, at least to the extent that I needed to hang out somewhere for a while today, and the first place that came to mind was SBUX (I wanted wifi, and coffee was welcome too).
Here's the equivalent with Python and matplotlib. The plots are arguably prettier too.

http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/gallery.html
Note to trailbehind.com: the word "bugged" has a specific meaning, and that meaning is not the same as "has a bug".
The future of German Antarctic research: Neumayer Station III
> not tell ANYONE about what he did, even his friends

Indeed -- I suspect the proportion of criminals who were caught because they bragged to their friends is quite high.
Why didn't they just put coffee grounds in a tea bag and sell it that way? It seems like it would produce instant coffee almost on par with regular drip. They might have to adjust the density of the bag's paper, but that's about it.
I'm not sure what the price of gold exceeding 1000 USD/ounce has to do with reddit, but I'm not sure what it has to do with hacker news either.
FreeBSD has a procfs, but it isn't mounted by default -- mostly due to its unofficial name (rootmefs).
Actually that's outdated. Most of them now want in on the action. Still won't pass though.
About as little as does the fact that by the end of the day it was back below 1000 - virtually where it started the day.

Henny Penny, however, is taking cover.
It's a sign that fear still hasn't peaked. That's interesting.
Perhaps TechCrunch has little to worry about. Last.fm will not likely sue if it is not in their best interest.

Of course if the rumor withers and dies today, it would not be prudent for last.fm to draw attention to this ugly possibility by sueing. (Now that I am aware of this possibility, I stopped my last.fm client from calling home.)

But if this drama spreads widely enough (which is not improbable on digg and reddit considering this is a pretty interesting story), last.fm may want to make a strong statement refuting the idea by sueing.

In the end, I think you are right. If last.fm sued, it would invite the mainstream media to report on the libelous claim because of the public proceeding exception to libel laws.
Maybe if all possible government departments (and regulated financial institutions, too?) were required to keep such an open flow of vital information we would be less stapped for effective oversight - and have fewer B. Madoffs -- or fewer that got as far as he did.
Boxee loses Hulu. Comcast readies Internet TV service. Coincidence?
Most people don't understand hierarchical filesystems.

It might not be the best way to organize most files, but people do understand hierarchical systems. There are too many examples of hierarchies in everyday life.
Some big funds are willing to invest small amounts. Sequoia will, for example. But the big funds can't do too many deals like that, or it breaks their model.
Way to go, John. I think it's safe to say the developer community really appreciates your carrots!
If you're using a mac there a lot of note taking programs:

- Evernote
- VoodooPad
- NoteTaker
- Journler
- viJournal
- MacJournal
- TAO
- DEVONThink
- Tinderbox
- Yojimbo

And that's a list from what I've been using for note taking: emacs org-mode. Though lately I've been a bit torn between using org-mode and something like Evernote, particularly due to its device synchronization. I would really like to hear other people's thoughts about this.

Oh, and if you don't like Yojimbo and Evernote, you might want to check out Voodoo Pad.
Facebook: The Profitless Phenomenon
However, Mr. Figs, and this is speaking from personal experience, if you happen to store your files on an external USB drive, and you happen to launch itunes at a moment when the drive is disconnected from your laptop, Itunes will revert to its default folder--forcing me to think about things I shouldn't be polluting my brain with.
Work in small batches
It seems to be that the article is confusing neutrality or suspended judgment with avoiding judgment. It is not pretending to be wise, it is indifference.

A teacher who sees two children in a fight has likely seen those children fight before. After seeing the same fight occur over and over they just don't care who started it. Figuring out who started it becomes a chicken and an egg situation.

This example from the article reveals an interesting point about passing judgment in general:

...judges in the actual legal system can repeatedly hand down real verdicts without automatically losing their reputation for impartiality

That is because judges rule based on a set of written laws which they interpret depending on the situation. Picking ethical or moral side of a situation has no such standard.

Perhaps the writer also missed the idea that the majority of people in this world do not like conflict. Having to pick sides creates conflict. They are not trying to be wise as much as they are trying to avoid something that makes them uncomfortable.

Arguments are not black and white. Demanding the people pass judgment over situation where they do not know all of the information, do not have a set measurement for passing judgment and most likely do not care is unwise.
Proving malicious is a necessary factor in libel situations -- if you're a public figure, at least. I don't know how the "public figure" qualification applies to corporations.
Finally, A Use for Twitter
Great news about improving probabilities of replacing tired standards like Times New Roman and Helvetica.

Hope they're right about this generalizing to the general population from their "heavily designer-weighted" samples.
Great workaround Windows' Lucida issues.
Josh, appreciate the shout-out. Of note, I am not making money blogging through advertising (See #3 in your comment), but I am enjoying doing advisory roles, which haven't paid off yet, and there might be opportunities for eBooks and real books, speaking opps as well. It does take work, but I am definitely not in it for the money.
Ekornes
"Furniture store located in Birmingham (Sutton Coldfield) & Christchurch for all your quality furniture needs"
I think in this case the word "proper" means "the way that seems intuitive to me". This is not bad, but other people have made different technical decisions. Adding the word "proper" tries to make these into quality judgments into opinions, but that's still what they are.

I hope you find a system that works as you prefer.
I'm at OpenSocial WeekendApps at Google. Here is my stream.
truly the live callback has allowed me to do all sorts of crazy and creative stuff with my apps. Thank you.
Both.

(Your question is too broad.)
Alphabettr: lessons from the interweb 2.0
HN has never advertised that it's "democratizing media" though.
"It seems to be that the article is confusing neutrality or suspended judgment with avoiding judgment."

I think the article has that right, I just think it just confuses what it means to suspend judgment. Saying you don't care who started it isn't the same as suspending judgment pending further investigation; rather, it's a form of jumping to judgment prematurely. Judgment in the case of a fight doesn't have to take the form of a (false) dichotomy; I'd argue that saying it doesn't matter who started it is a third form of judgment. Truly suspending judgment pending further investigation of who started the fight would in fact be the wisest course of action.
Not in the UK it isn't; the libel laws there are heavily skewed in favour of the claimant. It's why so many celebrities choose to have libel trials at London High Court if at all possible. Last.fm operates from London, so it's definitely an option for them.

Of course, then you're in the whole other deeply problematic waters of international law, and what ability UK courts have to enforce judgements on TechCrunch, but such moves aren't entirely without precedent.
There's more than one way to do it, then?
Last.fm is not likely a public figure. Most people considered public figures are celebrities or politicians. If you are interested in learning more, check out NEW YORK TIMES CO. v. SULLIVAN from 1964.
This is exactly what Comic Sans was made for: a brief blurb of text that's meant to look playful rather than formal. Comic Sans actually works better than Chalkboard for that purpose.

Comic Sans is hated because it's overused, but don't take from that that there are no good uses. There is only one.
Can't you just make a new Digg front page with their API + some RSS + hackery?

A user creates an account and can then create filters for the stories that appear on this new front page you make, otherwise it's a total mirror content wise. heck, direct the links over to Digg instead of the original sites to head of criticism.
The test suite has broken 1500 tests (1504, to be precise).

Maybe "surpassed" would be a better verb here.
It's over http://www.brownbatterystudios.com/sixthings/2009/02/18/luci... .
A box with a name would be good, but you miss one important function of saving I took pains to preserve: it is the action which turns tentative changes to the file into permanent ones. You want to preserve those tentative changes, but you don't want to put them in the actual file until the user commands it.
I don't really follow the argument. The article states that 'Rationalists' can avoid a conversation about politics because they have limited resources which would be used for minimal impact.

The same argument applies to the 'principal' or 'Great Powers'. In both situation the parties did not ask to have to expend their resources to absorb information and pass judgment on someone else's problem (fight or war). They are not being pretentious, serene, or pretending to be wise - they are simply using their resources most efficiently to accomplish their own goals.

Its a simple matter of each party estimating that the outcome of action A (without judgment), and the outcome of action B (with judgment) will have a marginal difference.
Recked - a night of recommendation technologies
But many will make money _indirectly_ via consulting gigs, other work offers, speaking engagements, book deals.

And, of intense interest to many of the folks here, by promoting your business. I sell relatively few copies of my software to people coming from my blog (maybe $100 to $200 a month, mostly when the blog accidentally captures a searcher) but a stupendous portion of my early traction was among folks who were reading it. They're also a constant source of kick-in-the-pants for motivating me to keep going -- got to have something to write about, naturally.

The blog also generates opportunities that wouldn't otherwise come my way. I mean, Google didn't ask for my cooperation in a case study because they have a closet bingo fan on staff. (That is, again, monetizable mostly through the business -- although I got a sweet laptop bag out of the deal.)
Violent Video Game Law Ruled Unconstitutional
Thanks! I didn't know.
Black Hat researchers blow hole in Intel BIOS security
Paid Blogging Secrets Exposed: GoArticles.com
How Amazon Aims to Keep You Clicking
I think you missed some irony

In my original post I was trying to amusingly (emphasis on trying) point out the fact that people don’t admit things like this until everyone already knows them which in turn makes the admission a moot point. I thought it would be funny (emphasis on thought) to do so in the "Digg-Style" sarcastic tone that most of the posts there are in.

But the real thing that makes Digg an unpleasant place is not the sarcasm but the mean spiritedness that the place can often take on. My comments were illuminating an idea so I really wasn't attacking anyone. Which is when you attacked me.

So really your comment is far more "Digg-like" than mine was
My Swiss bank got busted. Where do I hide my money now?
I love jQuery so much... it's exactly what a JS framework should be: easy ways to select and modify DOM elements. The new visibility stuff is great! I've always dreaded having to deal with "...but are its parents visible?"

There are some things jQuery isn't too great at (event normalization is slow in IE, for example, and .remove() kills events and data), but I've never not been able to easily extend jQuery to use my own implementation.

Thanks again for jQuery.
Pre-ground coffee and a french press is still damn good and damn near as quick to make as instant. I really don't understand drinking instant coffee at home -- in a war zone maybe (then again, even in Blackhawk Down I think he got a brew going, didn't he?)
I love a good abecedary.
Mass effect 2 gameplay
Facebook Won't Let You Remove Dead Relative's Page, Per "Policy"
Just find a site that more or less does the same thing as you and copy paste theirs. Just make sure to read the actual thing yourself, and not just use replace
Yeah, I think it'd be great + pretty standard for this to have its own site. I love Github, but sometimes I get bummed when it's a projects only site, because it doesn't give a good "at a glance" feel for what the software does.
I totally understand if you don't whip one up overnight, though ;D
I've been using the AeroPress: http://www.aerobie.com/Products/aeropress.htm -- an odd gadget from the inventor of the Aerobie. It's pretty quick to use, results are off in the direction of an Americano, and it's really easy to clean. I'm happy with the coffee it makes, though I'm no expert.
Glad you're enjoying it so much!

As to the points you mention: "event normalization is slow in IE" Do you have any information on this? This should've gotten faster in 1.3 - but it's definitely something that we would want to improve, if that's not the case.

".remove() kills events and data" I agree that's lame. I have a new method penciled in on the roadmap: .extract() - it removes an element from the DOM but keeps all the data intact. I think this is what you're looking for!
there's reddit news outside proggit?! in seriousness, though, reddit's category system is broken because it lacks inheritance. people should be encouraged to provide the most specific leaf categories that apply when submitting articles. viewers may then customize as broadly or eclectically as they wish (ui can do the abstraction, whereas in the database every user has true/false on leaf nodes). auto-discovering categories might be useful. the fail point is still on ui, not performance, imho.
A regular french press is pretty easy.
A brief list of things more interesting than this story:

Belly button lint.
What I had for breakfast.
The first half hour of Waterworld.
Philosophy aside: who cares?

I caught it early and corrected it before it was a problem. That kicks ass in my book.
Google to the rescue or Greenwash? You decide
I'll just use delicious, thanks.
Because the knowledge and skill set of the group is larger. However, yes, at some point this is outweighed by the costs.
I thought the RIAA gave up their legal campaign against individuals. Unless they just need the data for an impact analysis.
If anyone wants great instant coffee try cold-brew, you can buy it in refrigerated condensed liquid form, just search Amazon for N.O. Brew, I used to swear by this stuff. It was also great for making cold coffee drinks.
This seems like a pretty solid argument for a gender gap in math.

http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/math2.htm
When can I buy the dead tree version? I'd like to read something more interesting than "D is for Dog" to my eight month-old.
I get this message on my personal domain: "This configuration contains addresses that has been tested too many times the last 24 hours"

Does this mean somebody is DOSsing my site through your service?
"Broken Windows" crimefighting experimentally tested
What about MATLAB? I like using it
The trickiest shift is the business model. IBM could always sell software to corporations. They never managed to sell software to consumers.
If you google "coffee tea bag" the first link explains why not: "Unlike tea leaves, coffee grains release little flavor unless they come into contact with water that is not only hot but also agitated. The water may simply flow through a sock filled with ground coffee, or it may be thrust up through a percolator, but it must be moving. This limitation has traditionally made brewing coffee by the cup messy and inefficient."
That "very sick people" bit gives away your true motivation for these opinions, though

So you're attacking my motivation instead of my comment?

Nice.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that there are not very sick people in the world? In addition, you're also saying that people act the same way towards public figures as they would to a close friend?

Got any examples of this benevolent social behavior? Because I'm thinking we went about 80 years after the prohibition of pot before we allowed a president who admitted using it. It was accepted practice to deny it, because guess what? People are hypocrites about the way they treat public figures. They always have been that way. Sounds like this is coming as a news flash for you.

I'm still trying to figure out what my true motivation is. Somehow I managed to give it away and I don't seem to remember having one (besides curiosity with the topic)