skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The problem is that Kindle users probably did give explicit permission (for some definition of explicit permission). I'm sure there's a clause in the ToS that allows Amazon to delete content that you've purchased.

I'm not the type to sound the drum saying that piracy isn't theft, but here it seems like it's trying to go both ways. It's property if you "steal" it and it isn't property if you've bought it.

Part of the problem is that the law hasn't kept up with the digital age. Lawyers/judges are notably technophobes (as a whole) which I'm sure has kept it back. Plus, generally speaking, technology enjoys a nice balance of good companies, competition, and plenty of release valves (ie, piracy). In general, these events are rare and that keeps the world from addressing the underlying issues - it just rarely comes up as an issue for someone and when it does, they could find a way (like piracy) to make themselves whole again (and I know it isn't equivalent, but piracy is often a lower barrier than legal action). There are a lot of other issues where people are more likely to become un-whole with less easy recourse.

Right now, issues of what a license to digital content offers is a bit in flux. I think a lot of us have a similar idea to what we think it should mean, but that doesn't mean that the legal system does or will acknowledge that. We sometimes get complacent because we're in a pretty positive industry and often times regulation can stifle innovation. However, this might be an area where we want a standard definition of term rental (for things like the Zune music service) and license purchase (like a Kindle Book) that would allow for things like re-selling and such. Otherwise, we'll likely continue to be beholden to the ToS that we all just click "accept" on.
I'm surprised that she thought the right thing to do would be to post this instead of helping this other person.

She even said she received an email from the correct Sarah in 2008 so she knew exactly how to contact her, but instead she tried to log into her Photobucket account.
So while it's still legal, it tends to conflict with service most services TOS agreements.

Were I to make "unauthorized backups" of my games, Steam would shut down my account completely, by means of the "we can do what we want for no given reason" clause of the ToS.

I'm not even speculating, I've seem them do this - a guy owned L4D2 and complained to them that he had stability issues with singleplayer and had to play a cracked version while they got around to fix the network code. His entire account was banned for "piracy".

So fair use shmair use, I guess. You can still be punished by service termination and DRM lockouts even if they can't actually prosecute you.
You can get prepaid, and there are second-hand networks that will sell you a SIM-only plan (reselling from leased space on a major carrier). Virgin sells prepaid here in the US as well. Most smartphones require a data plan on the carriers here though, which costs a lot more. Most prepaid plans come with a phone included ($100 for the phone and x number of minutes, then you add more minutes by paying more).
When you say 40000 parts, is that 'just' moving parts or every single nut, bolt, rod, plate etc?

When i was doing some 'blue sky' research at an architectural practice a few years ago I looked at a variety of mech eng packages for modelling skyscrapers at a level of detail which would have exceeded 40000 parts. I was interested because they were more advanced than the AECCad software available at the time and had better options for managing complexity. CATIA seemed to be the gold standard, but its very expensive and not at all intuitive. It seemed like we would need specialist technicians to operate it. Solidworks was most accessible in terms of usability. Spaceclaim was interesting but immature and didn't have much in the way of simulation. I didn't like Inventor as much as Solidworks, but that's maybe just because I tried Solidworks first. I dont know if any of these would be able to simulate the mechanical operation of the whole mechanism in one go though. I'd be very interested in hearing what you choose.
> In fact, it's cheaper to buy a PC preloaded with Windows ($35) than it is to buy an unloaded PC and buy a copy of Windows ($150)

It's also cheaper to buy a computer with Windows preloaded than a computer with no operating system (typically). This is especially noticeable in the laptop market. (Granted the market may have changed since I last bought a pre-built computer five years ago.)

Anyway, I think the point of the statement you quote really isn't about the "tax" but an illustration of the fact that Microsoft more or less controls the PC market through Windows. If Microsoft arbitrarily decides to double their license fee, manufacturers (until recently) really have no choice but to comply.
I think it is probably more than a little unfair although there is some truth which makes it funny.

I independently commented quoting that sentence but deleted it when I saw you beat me to it.
We are all working on the wrong things. How can society not be spending far greater percentages of GDP on health care research? Yet the medical establishment, supported by Congress, operates as a guild that keeps people/innovation out, and the system wastes billions of dollars a year on futile treatments in the last year late in life, instead of finding cures.
Show HN: jQuery plugin, jQuery-store:Extensiblae localStorage API
Creating SVG vector graphics for maximum browser compatibility
I do use Liveconnected, there're a reseller of optus, they're inexpensive because they don't pay for sales, and they don't target premium customers like Optus does. You'll find there's tother companies like amaysim, lebra mobile, pennytel all in the same price range.

Grey importers for phones include:
kogan.com
Shoppingsquare.com
Check ozbargain and whirlpool.net.au for reviews and recommendations.
Yes we know about pinerly, they are more into analytics while we are into marketing and advertisement while analytics comes as an addon.
How to Develop Image Gallery using CSS
I used to have Calibre, but decided not to install it on my latest system, due to this bug and the cavalier reaction to it: https://bugs.launchpad.net/calibre/+bug/885027
The minute Amazon became willing to talk about this stuff they'd need a who bunch more people to start looking into each one in detail, review every claim and counter claim and so on, and they clearly don't think that that's a good use of their money.

I for one would like them to start talking about this sort of thing, and review these cases more thoroughly. After all, people paid good money to them to read books. Books which they stole away from them. It seems unlikely that Amazon provided a refund to the lady in question.
Why I Won't Vote
"Windows RT is not a computer operating system. Windows RT is an operating system for mobile devices."

So mobile devices aren't computers?

If this is true, I think this is a major strategic mistake.
Using PR for business goals rather than vanity
I attempted writing something similar when I was bored at work a year ago. I soon discovered how difficult this problem actually is. It's definitely beyond afternoon hacking. I'd love to get a peek at the secret sauce!
But it's not an autorun vulnerability, that wouldn't be newsworthy -- the problem is that simply mounting the filesystem exploits bugs in the filesystem driver.
Oh man. I've been a programmer for 15 years. I've used windows on all my PCs and laptops. My SO is after a netbook and I told her to wait and see what the Surface is like. We investigated it and both came to the conclusion that Office wouldn't be supported. We were both wrong? Lol, how do they make it so hard to figure out what it'll support?
What is EdgeRank?
And today, you’re already seeing cash registers, terminal emulation, and other dummy tasks being performed by iPads rather than PCs.

Not arguing against the entire point of the article, but that seems like a highly localized phenomenon. In fact, I haven't seen PCs used for this in over 10 years either.

Maybe I'm missing something.

Anyway. The article seem full of half-truths and inaccuracies intermixed with opinion to support his point. I'm not saying he's all wrong, but he has enough wrong to lose most of his credibility.
Windows 8 is simply better than what Apple and Google are offering now. Enthusiasts such as Bott are having a hard time explaining this because they are not use to Microsoft having a superior product. And, Apple apologists are beside themselves trying to figure out how Microsoft designed a better looking OS.

It is funny that our loyalties to brands make it difficult to just step back and say "man, that is cool". So, let me do it for you: "man, Windows 8 is cool".
Engineer-to-Engineer Talk: How and Why Twitter Uses Scala
Sme shareware would stop working after the trial period, and if you played it by the book or didn't know the workarounds, you would have to make the purchase.
I bought a ThinkPad recently in Europe, and there was no way for me not to buy Windows. I don't need it and I don't want it. I don't even have it: I wiped the hard disk immediately after getting it. I could choose what memory I wanted, what screen I wanted or how much hard disk I wanted (SSD or regular HDD), but I could not choose not to get Windows. The same is true for the great majority of laptops.

Over the years I've wasted a lot of money buying copies of Windows that I never used and that I never wanted.

I very much doubt that this is so because of convenience: it is so because it gives more money to Microsoft.

It's outrageous.

So, yes, I wish we could get over the Microsoft Tax thing. Call it Microsoft Mandatory Purchase or Microsoft Gratious Gift for Mere Pennies if you wish, it doesn't matter.
What analytics do u provide?
Digital music, e-books, and permanence (2009)
She should clearly pursue this in small claims court in the UK. She should be able to do this with a foreign address even. Easy and effective. https://www.gov.uk/make-money-claim-online
Startup Showcase finalists at Strata + Hadoop World 2012
There are many tasks at many jobs which require a PC (PC as in personal computer, which could be any OS as the author points out). The trade-off between a tablet device and a PC makes for a difference between ease of work, efficiency, and power.

Imagine trying to effectively generate an excel sheet. I cringe at the thought of trying to manipulate data from a tablet. You would waste a lot of time to produce something sub par. This is one example, there are many more.

Although apple reinvented the tablet market it will take greater innovation and the creation of some other tools before tablets become effective and efficient machines in the work place.
One HUGE part of Facebook is photo sharing. It's the de-facto place to store and share your snaps. Why aren't they trying to make money out of this?

I see two obvious routes they could take:

Paid-for high-quality storage and sharing. One pays an annual premium to store high-quality versions of their photographs AND get copies of photos they feature in (subject to the appropriate permissions being gained). This one might be a hard sell/maybe most people don't care.

Printing. Photo printing. Bloody photo printing. It's a fucking tangible product that people buy. Why isn't this an option already? They wouldn't even have to set up their own infrastructure, just create a network of regional partners and skim off their 15%.
I do think that, Java may be another COBOL, but I am specifically talking about the JVM (I think, they should change its name.) I am concerned about the likes of Clojure (I am especially waiting for a Clojure-on-Clojure), Scala (Tweet it!) and Ceylon (Hey, I am new Java-Boy).

So specifically talking about the CVM (um, Clojure Virtual Machine :)) will do some good to me.
Try TransDroid if you have a pc with a torrent client on, it's amazing.
You should talk to more librarians. They're acutely aware of the problem and a number of people view public education on the subject as a professional obligation.
With 10^6 random numbers between 0 and 10^8 almost all operations will be splits,

Right.

and you'll end up with 8 bytes x 10^6 = 7.6 megabytes.

Not if you encode cleverly. The successive differences will be on the scale of 10^8/10^6 = 100, which is a very small number. It takes 7 bits to store, or at least 8 bits in a variable-width encoding.
There is a paper which explains how it works: http://mllab.inginf.units.it/publications/international-conf...

Note that there are other (non-genetic) approaches to learn regular expressions (some are cited in the above paper).
+1. Nook Touch with glowlight, works perfectly with epub2 off the web.
Phone Call Data Reveals How Pace Of Life Accelerates In Cities
I have no first hand knowledge, but I'd assume there's no malice involved. In the US, every state has a different area code, and calling within your area code (and possibly a few others) is "local", and other area codes are "long distance".

At the time, the infrastructure wasn't there for a US national mobile area code - the installations were state local, and as a result, mobile numbers were state local. And it all follows from there.

The US phone infrastructure (both landline and mobile) was there first, and as a result, suffered from a lot of legacy that the European system was able to avoid by virtue of having more time to think about it, observe how it was done wrong, and do it right.
Education.10gen.com mismanaged?
Is NFC/RFID safe enough to trust it with our money?
what's up with born/met/child title stuff everybody seems to be following?
Rethinking requirements, Snuggie style
Also are phones "mobile devices"? If so is WP8 the same thing as WindowsRT? if not...what exactly is a mobile device?

I (think) I know the answer, but that definition brings up more questions than it tries to answer.
Blimey, Amazon also has "fanboys". I suppose its logical.
@octopus
Thanks.
We provide detailed analytics on number of clicks, country of origin of clicks.We also provide report on number of likes,comments,repins on Pinterest.
Honestly I think even Microsoft fan boys don't think that windows 8 will be an immediate win.

Windows 8 is the painful stepping stone that windows needs to step on in order to move forward and stay competitive.
How eBay Transformed Itself
Hackable Linux Tablets Unveiled by Liquidware
The JVM will last longer than Java to be sure, but by the time today's 17 year old is a grandfather (say in his 50's) the JVM will be a museum piece. I wouldn't worry too much about the JVM somehow shambling into the distant future (technology has very short horizons) killing new lifeforms and assimilating all flesh.
Physicians are always at arm's length. Nurses rule the roost in the hospital -- within each unit, there is a senior RN who is really the person managing your care.

The problem is, nowadays you often move from unit to unit -- the MRI machine or w/e is an enterprise resource. So when you move from Labor & Delivery to Post-Partum, or from the ER to Imaging, etc, there needs to be some sort of liason/hand-off process between two qualified individuals. Right now that's done via clipboard and a $9/hr orderly.
If some people can work efficiently enough at a startup to only work 9 hours a day, more power to them.

However, it's been my experience that those who truly dedicate every waking moment to their business and immerse themselves in work tend to get their startup off the ground in the biggest ways.
Where is the picture of the invisible fish?
Can they lock you out of physical usage of the Kindle, like a remote kill-switch of sorts? Scary, if true..

I don't think they can lock you out of the device. The only thing I've ever heard of them doing (and what they did in this case) is remote deletion of books you've purchased from them.
Haha this catchy title does generate some interest.
Doesn't pinterest already have this?
> If you were building a voice only telephone network today, it would not involve wires into people's houses.

That's something that is easy to agree about, however,

> As an aside, it doesn't cost more to call a cell phone for any reason other than "Because people will pay more".

That's something that is hard to argue unless you have an insider's breakdown of the costs, and assumptions about the cost of capital. (specifically, with all the wires already in place, it is NOW, for the landline company cheaper to use that infrastructure - the costs have already paid by an entity which has gone bankrupt or otherwise wrote it down)
Burning Out as a Startup Cofounder
Samsung To Cut The Cord, End LCD Panel Supply Relationship With Apple
So its a mobile version of Microsoft Office bundled with a tablet computer?
it def is catchy!! and the title looks apt for the product
It's not like they don't have form. In 2009 they erased all the versions of 1984 from all Kindles, to massive uproar.

Back then, they said "We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers' devices in these circumstances". Looks like 3 years later they've decided to go back to what they were doing and promised not to do.

And THIS is why I won't buy a Kindle.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18ama...
That seemed to come later, a lot of DOS programs would let you keep using them with just a reminder screen on startup.

mIRC is one program that was free to use for a long time.
You can download all your Kindle books and store them in a caliber library on your computer: http://calibre-ebook.com/.
Ugg ブーツ
Fun idea, but I can't see any real journal ever accepting a paper where the methods would be so roughshod and unreliable.
Women Really Do Get Huge Deals By Flirting
Oracle won't negotiate with Salesforce -- there are too many personal traits between the CEOs.
Buddy, did you even read the article before commenting??

"andrewaylett:

But it's not an autorun vulnerability, that wouldn't be newsworthy -- the problem is that simply mounting the filesystem exploits bugs in the filesystem driver."
I get that, I was just wondering really. I have no problem with it personaly, I'd rather see ads for stuff I'm actually looking for than singles in my area
Soon this will not be catchy, law of nature. Need to show more creativity.
Here's a link to the actual paper http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/groups/online_marketing/faculty...
I'm a little surprised that nothing has come to take the place that Facebook held back when it was restricted to universities. For a brief couple of years, you had quasi-private communities, and it really felt like something special, a place not only to keep up with friends but to meet new people.

Now Facebook has mutated into something else entirely. It's boring.
The Windows 2000 boot screen said "Built on NT Technology". I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that. So annoying.
Robot Hands Should Be Soft (3 month exploration in 2005)
>"Let's not have a discussion about the actual article, let's just argue bullshit semantics"

Because that never happens here.
maybe they meant to have

X-RateLimit-reset-at
X-RateLimit-remaining

etc, so X-RateLimit- works as a sort of namespace.
You mean cameras from the crowd? They have no effect other than to look cool (opening ceremonies at the Olympics come to mind). It's mostly people not knowing how to operate their camera or a general lack of photography knowledge.
2.9 mil Lumia phones in a quarter? Why is this stat presented as "doing badly"?

2.9mil smartphones is not a terribly good number if you consider how the market has grown, and how big Nokia used to be. In Q1 2011 they sold 24mil smartphones, and last quarter only about 6mil, over half of which were still Symbian. So, a pure-WP Nokia would now be only about 10-15% of what the company was in the "good old days".

Samsung sold about 10mil Galaxy Notes in a year (so, ~2.5mil/Q), and that "phablet" is quite a niche device. And Verizon alone sold more iPhones in Q3 than Nokia sold Lumias worldwide.

Maybe WP8 will change this, but I'm doubtful.
I remember creating my account and linking my bank account to my paypal account. Seemed like the future, then ebay had to buy it. Now I don't have any of my bank/credit cards linked to it and actually put in my credit card info for each thing I purchase or subscribe to on the internet.
100 Vim commands
>" There is not going to be huge annual increases in PC shipments anymore. Everyone knows this."

It might make sense to point out that what everyone knew a few years ago was that Apple was dead. It might make sense to point out that this week Microsoft will begin shipping a true post PC operating system, Windows RT, to hardware OEM's, and that Microsoft will have first mover advantage.

Yes, it might make sense to point out these things, but everyone knows them.
A great device fitting your stated "must haves" is this little-known device called the Amazon "Kindle" (without Amazon books).

Between the available devices, they have e-paper displays that are comprable to other devices on the market, so you should be able to find what you want there. They can't lock you from the device or delete books you've loaded onto it yourself. It can read DRM-free books in MOBI format, and there are open-source programs available that can convert from any other format you'd like.

On the other hand: there is alternative firmware available, but I've never used it and can't attest to it's quality. And, unfortunately, the majority of the books Amazon sells are DRMed (AFAIK the decision is left up to the publisher but they almost always opt in), so that's not fantastic.
Yes, you are absolutely right. Of course there is a clause allowing them to do whatever they feel like with the books you get from them.

I like the duality you've pointed out. They sure would love for a copy to qualify as property when determining punitive damages.

It would be great to have legislation and precise definitions for digital rentals and purchases, so that your rental term or purchased content cannot be rescinded arbitrarily. And I think it would be great to have stronger legal restrictions on removing or altering content, or running software on a device when its renter or owner does not wish for that to occur.
TechCrunch is definitely not a journalistic paragon[1], but I think the term tabloid is misplaced. Valleywag was the definition of a startup tabloid back in the days.

[1]: http://www.realdanlyons.com/blog/2012/02/13/hit-men-click-wh...
So are u guys competing with Google?
This was really a fascinating read.
The problem is that Kindle users probably did give explicit permission (for some definition of explicit permission).

This is probably the case. Amazon would've covered their bases strongly.

What is super annoying is this - there are many many books, whose kindle editions cost more than their paperbacks. Imagine paying 13$ for a ebook (the same book in paperback costs 10$) and then losing that due to some arbitrary "rule" from Amazon.

I love my Kindle, but this is really really bad.