skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Read nothing scandalous about Facebook's behavior. This HN headline doesn't deliver.

There is nothing wrong with the request to keep this quiet for a bit so you can investigate.

This is not uncommon in the security world where vendors get some time to get their stuff together and release a fix. Depending on the severity of the issue and the risk of abuse.
Recently, HN is quick to yell "fanboy" at anything critical of a direct competitor to an Apple product. But from the multiple Surface reviews posted here over the past few days, it seems like the consensus (even among those that aren't labeled "fanboys") is that the surface has considerable drawbacks while costing more than an iPad.
Shouldn't they.... hate each other?
There really is no difference between syncing and backup. Think of the backup/restore cycle as a sync and it will be clear. Backup is one way sync, restore completes the bidirectionality of sync.

Sync doesn't necessarily have the capability to destroy files, rsync has a switch to delete files that are locally deleted. However Dropbox is supposed to be rsync + rcs so this kind of problem is supposedly easy to fix by simply reverting to a good previous version.
It's an interesting positive spin, but the other way to look at this is that they mis-judged capacity and built too much.
I wrote an essay about the requirement for energy storage last month (https://46bit.com/blog/2012/09/23/why-we-use-fossil-fuels/). It's interesting to see how interconnected countries struggle without it now, although that's not quite the story here.
Brent the author here. I'd be really curious to hear which portions of my experience are edge cases - typing in Word, using the camera, and checking my email don't seem out of the mainstream to me on a tablet whose main market purports to be workers.
Is incineration really the more environmentally friendly way to go? How does this compare to something like coal in terms of environmental impact? I'm imagining giant trash furnaces spewing ash and smoke into the sky but I'm guessing that they're using something more sophisticated.
Lots of armchair quarterbacks in this thread.

The actual operation of an electric grid is a delicate balancing act between supply and demand.

-- the grid needs to respond in real-time to changes in supply/demand (weather induced outages, Germany using your grid as an energy sink)
-- the grid needs to respond to daily fluctuations (day/night cycles, cold day, warm day, etc)
-- the grid needs to respond to medium-term fluctions (scheduled maintenance on plants and infrastructure, seasonal variations, price of coal, natural-gas, oil, etc)
-- the grid needs to respond to long-term fluctuations (new infrastructure, recessions, regional economic growth or decline, technological changes, etc.)

On top of all this, governments can change the regulatory environment on a whim thus invalidating many decisions made with previous assumptions.

Back to the original article, wind energy is particularlly problematic for the grid because its output is highly variable, not predictable in the short-term, can not be economically stored except in specialized cases, and is rife with government-induced market distortions that are also not all that predictable in the medium and long term.
... of hardware and software that is not ready for prime time.

How disappointed were buyers of the iPhone or iPad 1 ?

Not, I think.
I got bashed a few days ago for saying that it'd be a few months before real Win8 tablets would be out - that we'd only have the surface RT for the forseeable. I was told that was wrong, and that from Friday there'd be multiple vendors offering multiple options on Intel chips offering the full support for Win8 (not the limited WinRT current stuff).

Come Friday - I went to a couple shops looking around, and saw what you did. I almost picked up Win8 Upgrade disk, but there were two boxes, different colors and SKUs, for the same price (there were others as well), and I'm *almost 100% certain that these were 32bit and 64bit upgrade options, but nothing on the box indicated that. Nothing at all indicated the difference between the skus (should have taken a picture).

And now trying to upgrade online, I'm getting payment processor failures - I can not seem to buy Win8 without brokenness or confusion.

http://gyazo.com/71da564b10515155cd2b1136d0ab6464

This isn't just me - I submitted to HN a while ago - this has been going on since yesterday.
No need for Kickstarter: Google is your friend! Try "ipad keyboard case" or "ipad keyboard cover".
Does anyone is familiar with the process they are using? The article says that it involve incinerators and it doesn't sound healthy to me.
The Internet Archive uses 10TB more storage every month. I don't know how they do it.
>"plus at least that much in equity."

My bad. Should have known it was at least twice as much in equity since the proposal was that the founders would keep a majority of the shares.

$3 million input is less than half the value. Ergo, a minimum of $6 million + valuation (without considering an option pool) means that 4% equity has a face value of at least $240,000.

Also, I am not certain that an S-corp allows for an 83(b) election in regards to stock options (talk to an accountant) and make shareholders (e.g. founders) responsible for tax upon the increase in the value of their stock. It could result in a huge personal tax bill for the tax year in which funding occurred. Again, talk to an accountant.
All of the things you state as facts are subject to long-running debates.
Vermont Tech Jam’s Lessons for Montreal
qwerty keyboards were designed to slow down the typists thus preventing typewriter jamming. Perhaps MS should redesign it again to make it even slower, so the Surface would be able to keep up?
Looks like you've turned that Sign-up button to green from black...kudos guys :)
To be fair, it's not as if the Office team had a heads up that a table would be sold with marketing specifically explaining that it runs Office, whilst simultaneously being sold on the new Modern UI. Oh, wait, my mistake.
oh, absolutely - this doesn't consider the social cost of carbon, or even the social cost (health costs) of particulate emissions.
When the iPad 1 shipped, I wished that more people had a desktop browser of it's calibre!
Supreme Court to hear arguments in case of student who resold books
While I know the 1950's had high quality radio all I have heard is recordings which tend to have all sorts of problems so that's not how I picture it. So, even though mp3 might seem like poor quality they don't degrade and in 100 years it may seem like we finally got rid of all that hissing and popping. As to video, home movies have gotten steadily better. A 1990 handycam is in many ways worse than what you can get from an iPad 3.

PS: Not to mention people tend to compress history as it get's older, out side of historians who can really separate the 1180's from the 1190's in Ireland?
There are other tablets out there. The Dell Latitude 10 is an Intel Atom but does run Windows 8 Pro. I want one of them.
Hills can be made: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&...

Also, about the German grid: http://lehre.umweltpruefung.tu-berlin.de/mw/index.php?title=.... Germany has less need to distribute power east-west because, if there is wind in the Northwest, there will likely be wind in the northeast, too, but there, statistically, will be less sun in the south. Similarly, having sun in the south correlates with less wind in the north.
Flake8 detects unused imports and generally adds some rigor that Python otherwise lacks. Not perfect, but it has made Python more pleasant for me for larger code bases especially.
i'm interested in their server setup: DIY or vendor?
AirPlay for Android - Android Transporter for the Nexus 7 and the Raspberry Pi
You should investigate those bounces, they're pretty high for traffic like this.
a) this is awesome.

b) might want to rethink the name. there is a reason closed captions are called closed, and it's to differentiate them from, well, open captions. if this project becomes a big success (and i really, really hope it does) i'd hate to see an increase in confusion for the accessibility community, which has enough trouble getting people to be aware of the different technologies. Go ask an employee at a movie theater showing open captions about open captions. they won't know what you're talking about.
We use http://imperavi.com/redactor/ as our wysiwyg editor, HTML5 data attributes, js, and a bunch of server-side engineering.
Don't use a laptop in your lap, unless you hate your back/wrists/neck.
The Latitude 10 has an Atom processor, 2GB RAM and a 64GB HD. Given there'll only be ~10-14GB free space on that drive out of the box, that's not enough to even install Office, Photoshop, Visual Studio, etc. let alone run them.

It's almost a scam to sell such an unusable hardware configuration. Someone's going to sync their music and buy two movies and find out their new "64GB" tablet is already out of space. That size should really be relegated to Windows RT only.
Could this perhaps have been Microsoft's intention? They've implemented a widely unpopular feature that is bound to be circumvented on a large scale. They basically bastardized the execution of DNT, making it moot while at the same time protecting them from any personal liability. Or am I being cynical?
Show HN: DIY HTML-based prototyping for microcontrollers open source project
What ginko said. Engineers don't memorize formulas, we're taught to recognize the principles underlying problems, and then looking up the appropriate formula to address the problem. In high school all I did was rote memorization and I coasted through; I tried that approach during my first two years at MIT and struggled hard. Only after I finally realized that problem-solving was not the same as memorization did I start to "get it."

In fact, most of my college exams, as well as my Engineer-in-Training and Professional Engineering exams were open book/open note.
Thanks for the note. What do you think that number should look like?
Nice! this is a cool service, pretty excited to see it taking off
What a fantastic problem to have!
Do you have a ruby gem?
Thanks for the feedback!

I did do a quick look into it up front and my gut feeling was that since "opened" and "open" were different it might be OK. I liked the meaning of "Opened Captions." Still a very valid point, and that concern won't go away any time soon. Happy to consider suggestions, and will stew on it more myself as well.
I've seen a lot of comments that seem to confuse digital and analog audio.

Digital audio levels are fixed -- i.e. 0 dBFS (dB relative to digital "full scale"), thus you want the audio as close to full scale (0dBFS) as possible. This is the reasoning behind what you've probably heard described as the "loudness war". 0dBFS is the reference point beyond which no signal can exceed.

Contrast that with analog audio, be it the DAC (digital-to-analog converter) on your soundcard that splits to a "line out" (likely 3.5mm a/k/a/ 1/8" TRS connector outputting audio at -10 dBV, the "consumer" level) and "headphone jack" (i.e. line level signal -> headphone amplifier). Once the audio signal becomes analog, you must then be concerned about gain staging. If you have a crappy sound card, you shouldn't reduce the analog output, because, in order to achieve the same loudness, you will have to increase the gain on your 'speakers' (a/k/a/ "pre-amplifier"; often integrated into cheap 'all in one' computer audio playback systems). Remember that the noise floor remains the same regardless of gain settings, so by reducing the "line out" level, you are only increasing the noise floor (i.e. level of noise).

For all of you geeks out there... If you are looking to cut through the bullst and get a quality playback system, look into a setup that has a quality DAC and/with monitor controller, a separate preamp, and quality monitors. Benchmark has a great USB DAC, and or Lavry Engineering is what the professional mastering studios use (their DAC costs well over $20k, and not because of crap like 'voodoo diamond dust covered gold-plated platinum wires', but, in part, because it has an internal oven and temperature monitoring circuitry to keep the internals at precise temperatures). You can get a great monitor controller from Dangerous Audio or Coleman. Bryston preamp's are very popular in the professional setting, as are PMC and Bowers & Wilkins monitors.
I am fascinated by this. For most of us the situation, that some rogue web app developer is selling his data, is not really news worthy. But somehow this got magnified through the media-echo chamber into a massive "Facebook doesn't care about your data" story. Not quite sure, maybe it is because it fits already the existing narrative, but it is never the less fascinating to watch.
Wouldn't this seem like something that can be easily solved. Dropbox or any rsync+rcs scheme will never destroy a file unless either one endpoint of the sync has truncated the file or there is a file system corruption. In the case of the former the rcs portion will take care of things, restore the pre-truncated file and have that sync'd around. In the case of a file system corruption Dropbox should be doing file integrity checks. For example some simple things that spring to mind, most file types b&w e built in signatures, header blocks, that validate the files extension type, if the file fails to "look like" the claimed extension type then don't sync it, it flag it for user attention.

I do Dropbox manually, I rsync a list of folders to a linode instance running mercurial. It's simpler, scriptable, more flexible and as fail safe as Dropbox. If something does get corrupted its really simple to go back in the version history. I can't remember the last time I had a file system corruption with ext3, I suppose they still happen, but not to me in solid use for years. Obviously my mercurial repository is also backed up regularly.

I don't agree that a backup system has to be restore tested periodically, instead I believe that the restore process has to be an integral part of the workflow. In my scenario, I rsync to hg, commit and push, then from other machines in my workflow (or more likely vm instances) I pull+rsync back. This way the backup and restore cycles are just part if the workflow and everything is version controlled at the same time.
An old post from an ex-Microsoftie, which might explain some of this Windows RT mess:

http://windowsphonesecrets.com/2011/03/24/first-windows-phon...
A Sudoku Solver in APL
>Seriously? I type on the iPad a lot and resort to "pecking" most of the time, and I have fairly average sized hands. I instantly was able to use the touch cover like a normal keyboard. I made a few mistakes, but could easily see myself typing nearly as fast as a normal keyboard with a little practice. I have no such feeling with the iPad.

Did you have the same problem Marco mentioned, that he could not rest his fingers on the keyboard without accidentally typing? That would explain your faster typing speed vs his.
Starting next year there will be an extra management bonus in Germany if the wind park is remote controllable. (There are two ways to sell wind energy in Germany, just sell it as it is produced (fixed feed-in-tariffs, EEG) or trade it. In the latter case it makes sense to stop your wind park as prices become negative.)
This is not uncommon with other forms of generation with high capital cost and low production opportunity costs. The Netherlands almost managed to melt the Belgian high power grid importing very cheap French power a few years back. The French nuclear power plants would produce anyway even if they only made a single cent as one cent is better than no cent ;) Windmills owners have the same issue, once build cost of energy production is near zero so sell what you make for what ever the market will pay. Gas, oil and coal stop producing the moment the fuel becomes more expensive than the worth of the produced energy (bound by shut down and start up times).

I expect the same solution. More transmission capability or charging more and fixing the market issue. This really is a market issue in that the east europeans don't charge enough for transmission costs to stop the Germans from doing.

Production variation is a problem but not such a big one as price volatility and consumer (demand) volatility. i.e. power demands at peak times. i.e. when everyone wakes up and turns on their coffee machine etc...

Large (esp. direct drive) windfarms are actually good at dealing with the demand volatility as they can spin up and down in minutes. While weather volatility is in the hours. Same day weather forecast is very good. So inside a grid windfarms are nice. Its when transmitting outside the grid like nuclear they can be mean to other producers.
I can't speak more to the 'learn how to learn' statement.

I have a very similar story (Eagle scout/football and wrestling team) and had good marks in high school. I arrived at college and was destroyed by Calc 2 and having to learn at that pace when in high school I never studied at all.

After a rough freshman year I knew I had to change how I work and learn. My dad handed me 'Moon-walking with Einstein' and I found calnewport.com (along with other study blogs) and developed a study plan that I still use (I'm currently a Junior).
Maybe I missed it, but this article said nothing about "the secret to getting a reply from him."
The reality of the current market is that slates are media consumption devices, not laptop replacements - in so far as one uses their laptop for productivity.

A person who types frequently enough, fast enough, and in sufficient quantity to experience a bottle neck with Windows RT's version of Word as a critical purchase feature, is an edge case...or rather not part of the targeted market segment at this time. This is little different from Apple's segmentation between iPad and Macbook Air.

Microsoft appears to recognize this. Hence, the "pro" version in the pipeline, and which you are considering as better suited to your workflow.

Windows Surface RT is targeted as an alternative to an iPad. Configuration issues are a one time pain. New software may not work any better than iTunes. The solution to gorilla arms may not be ideal for everyone. The question is, are they good enough to make it a general success?
In the email video he could be seen typing his password. Even though you cannot see the actual keys the reflection gives some idea about what is being pressed. Do you think you could guess his password from that?
I don't think it's that, I think at the end of the day it's racism.

Oh, the other kids are doing better than you Timmy? Well you've got to study harder!

What, the Asian got a better grade than you? Well, can't help that.

I mean, I think there is a general kind of attitude that Asian people don't really count towards raising the bar - there really is no other way to describe it.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-02/harvard-targeted-in...

Note: Asian means Indian too :P
Yep. http://rubygems.org/gems/copybar

or https://github.com/copybar/copybar-gem
UC Regent Richard Blum, for example, is not only the largest shareholder in two for-profit universities, Career Education Corporation and ITT Educational Services, but also, as Peter Byrne reported in a 2010 exposé, oversaw investments for the UC’s $63 billion portfolio at a time when the UC invested in the very same two for-profits. The problem isn’t anything as simple as pure corruption, but the decline of the public university is corporate capital’s gain, and investment firms like Blum Capital Partners know this quite well.

Wow! While it might not be 'pure corruption', directing the investments of a public institution into a company of which you are the primary shareholder doesn't sound like 'fiduciary duty' either.

This is on top of the question of whether the UC system should be investing in its for-profit competitors at all. I guess it's a reasonable hedge, but it doesn't sit right with me.
This is an exaggeration, at least for the US. Yes, it's true that taxes will take a big chunk out of your $10k / month, but they'll take a pretty big chunk out of your $120k / yr salary, too. The only real tax "savings" you get by being employed is that your employer pays the other half of your Social security and medicare taxes (12.4% total for 2012), which means that you'll have to pay an "extra" 6.2% if you're self-employed. And most of that is SS, which caps at $106k or something. Couple this with the fact that self-employed folks have a variety of deductions that employees usually don't get (home office, special retirement options, lots of business expenses), and it starts to look a little more even.

It's true that you don't get paid time off, but I can tell you from experience that a decent and determined freelance programmer can easily make $10k / month and leave plenty of time for relaxation.

The biggest thing most self-employed folks have to deal with that they wouldn't normally is health insurance, but if you're young and healthy, decent insurance is a few hundred bucks a month, at most. And you can deduct the premiums. If you're not young and/or not healthy...that's another story.

Bottom line, if you want to match a $120k / yr job as a freelancer, you need to make something like $12k - $14k / month.

Source: personal experience and a fascination with legal tax avoidance strategies.
Hurricane Sandy Causes Google To Cancel Its Android Event
This is off topic but, compare this review to the one written by Marco Arment and you will know the difference between constructive criticism and fanboy-ism.
Can this be even objective? To me XP with cygwin/far commander is where I get most productivity, but lots of people would hate that. I don't use much the explorer, unless for rather arcane things that I can't do from the command line (cmd.exe from far manager calling cygwin stuff, yes I rarely use the cygwin's bash too, but use it all the time on osx/linux).
What is the relative success rate of ethnic groups who are accepted into the elite schools? If (making up numbers) 90-100% of Asians who are accepted into the school graduate, vs (again making up numbers) 40-50% of blacks/latinos/whites, that points to the entrance requirements (including exams) being a decent predictor of success; in that case, it should be less about messing with the entrance requirements and strengthening the support structure for other demographics.

If the numbers are flipped (a significant number of Asians get in but don't graduate, and vice versa for the other demographics) that points to something being wrong with the entrance requirements and those requirements should be re-evaluated.
There have been thausands of things done with microcontrollers, Do It Yourself stuff, the Internet of things movement... Still a few months ago when I wanted to do some custom set up for the heating system at home I ended up with buying 3 controllers and spending so much money.

Then I decided to do it on my own and spent more than 2 months in learning low level programming, trying stuff, even with digging into programming for RTOS. So I thought that there should definitely be a simpler way to start defining simple dependencies between devices. Here's the result - Agilart.

What do you think? Would it be useful for you?
http://github.com/Agilart/Agilart-Run-Time/blob/master/READM...
Finally the java on the client era is over. Initially java was pitched as a client development language, (anyone remember the sun workstations that's only ran a jvm?) - then people realized that java wasn't really cut out for that and it gained traction on the server side. Fortunately nobody in their right mind has used awt for a long time! Now java occupies its place on the server stack and now a jvm can run other languages too.

But java on the client for non developers has not been needed in a long while.
Improve Conversions: Is Your Design Sabotaging Your Success?
Google event cancelled due to hurricane