skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Extremely impressive. Especially the 3D view. I think Nokia realized the value of maps really late. I still believe they've a chance to compete against Google Maps than anyone else!
see also http://mathlesstraveled.com/2012/10/05/factorization-diagram... and http://mathlesstraveled.com/2012/11/05/more-factorization-di...
Chromium for Android patch lands to supports background playback
booom http://www.glitch.com/start/xYi02NjEyMC1lNGZmZg/
Initially this might seem different from the topic at-hand, but bear with me please:

Several years ago (probably first or second year of high school) I wrote and distributed amongst my friends a small desktop game. The program e-mailed me their new high-scores and internal game diagnostics daily. I found that this was too often so I rewrote the game to send these data daily. This way of retrieving data sucked. Often, I would get empty or unimportant messages.

Eventually I had the realisation that time-oriented polling was the wrong philosophy. Instead, there should be a "this event has happened now" (e.g. 500kb of diag. generated) algorithm that calls the polling routine/invokes the 'stuff to be done traverser'. If I understand the problem correctly, the mass e-mail example, you could make a simple counter as part of the HTTP request. When this counter hits a certain you-determined threshold value (e.g. there are 500 jobs to do), then call the traverse/processing code:

if jobs_to_do > thresh then invoke some async processing

The takeaway from this post is that, in my opinion, time-based (cron job-bish) polling algorithms are inefficient but can be replaced with a rudimentary event-driven ones.

And just BTW, 'countervailing' - I'm deifying this word. Holy s*. I'm going to use it all the time.
Thank you for mentioning these. I tried BrowserStack and got so much value from the free 30min trial (found & fixed several IE8 bugs) that it was a no-brainer to sign up for a monthly plan.

Even the tunneling to a local Vagrant instance, with a subdomain (through lvh.me), worked simply and flawlessly. I couldn't have asked for a better experience.
Why should there be medallions at all? How do they benefit society as a whole or serve any legitimate government function, as opposed to shall-issue licencing for anyone who meets the safety/training/testing/insurance requirements?
I once had a paid for account with Skype. One day I woke up with my account hacked into because of their poor security procedures, and the hacker having drained all the money (enjoying the automatic recharge), making international calls, until the limit of automatic recharges per day got exhausted.

I was curious about the break-in of my account because I always used good security practices, having a unique password for Skype, always logging in over https or the Skype client. Also I use a Linux distribution (Arch) so the chances of being infected by a virus of having a key-logger installed are pretty low. I found out that tools to expose any Skype accounts password were readily available online, so my security practices were pretty irrelevant.

Given that Skype's security is non-existent, I since assume that whatever info I put in my account is public and that there is no protection or security of my data whatsoever.

Since then, I revoked their access to my PayPal and my credit card. They are not trustworthy of my money, and I keep hearing from time to time about new huge security holes in their accounts. I do not recommend that anybody authorize any payment with them.
Great story, Amazing company!
This has been a long-standing issue for mobile web apps like Grooveshark and Player FM which play full-length audio inside the browser. Unlike iOS and stock Android browser, Chrome has always shut down the audio when switching tabs, switching apps, or turning off the screen.

It's particularly been a problem as stock Android browser has a whole range of other issues. Finally, it will be viable to play long audio tracks inside Chrome for Android.
Routing in the UK is much better on here.net than in Apple iOS6 Maps. Will Nokia release the iOS app?
Fire Tornados
why does the url include donkey as the query string?
This should be made into a ballet.
Well, two big browsers most people do pay for: Safari and Internet Explorer. But they come "free" with the OS of course.

Similarly you pay (indirectly) for Opera on a few platforms.

Chrome isn't really free either - I assume Google uses all that data to build a profile in order to better sell (better?) ads -- still their main source of revenue AFAIK.

So that leaves Firefox, Opera (for *nix/OS X/MS Windows) and a few minor browsers as truly free. I suppose you could add IE to that list, if you run it under wine. And possibly Safari for windows if that still exists?
okey, so beyond AppStore and theirs rules/eula/requirements and so on, the goal is to increase third-party contributions from companies?

I would be very interested to see some data on that, say gathered over a year or two. Licenses decision really need more scientific approach, and if the main desire from choosing a license is to attract more third-party contributions, GPL vs LGPL is an interesting situation.

Have you seen a change in third-party contributions from companies for the libVLCcore after the license change? Its not the same type of software as the mods, but would still be interesting in this context.
I'm impressed by how good the 3D view looks. Good to see that a company that is struggling is still trying to innovate.
Observing the Arab Spring, African Bankers Devise Economic Strategies
It doesn't actually include all the world, and very few countries where you can call mobile phones for free.

https://secure.skype.com/account/call-phones/settings/free?p...

http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/prices/pay-monthly/

The US is included (both landlines and mobile phones)
Nike Free, Nike Free run, nike sklep on-line.
I completed the survey, entered my email, got "Confirm your account... Dojo Access Link" email, and then got: "Confirmation token is invalid".

What to do now?
> People have gone to the moon without OO.

Let's see:

- People who went to moon: top 1%
- People who made the "vessel": top 1%
- People who wrote the code: top 1%
- The process of the development: Exacting
- The funding available: Lavish

...
Elon Musk on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (Video, Flash)
Passwords should be a last resort.

Things like BrowserID/Persona are what web sites should be moving towards - verify my email address is real, don't ask me to manage a set of data to log in with.

Edit: Here's the kind of thing you can do without ever needing to go near passwords:
https://github.com/wrr/wwwhisper#readme
If you don't trust them, surely you should stick to procedural. Functional is over their heads, and OOP gets you inheritance spaghetti.
Do a Kickstarter to get funds to turn it into HTML5/CSS, etc..! I'd fund it. I'm sure many other people would, too.
I agree this is a fantastic demonstration of technology and art.
I am not exactly sure what is the exact reason, but I can guess the following:
- High tariff imposed on electronics from non-japanese companies (protectionism)
- Distributor <-> Maker mutual relationship to exclude cheaper alternative in order to maximize their profits and screw consumers

I highly doubt there would be some cultural bias - Japanese have no problem to work with Chinese when it is in their interest. I think they are probably very sensitive about letting Koreans take a bit on the Japanese market because they would wipe all the Japanese brands in no time if they did, at least for all TV and player systems.
If a science is corrupt, it can be worse than useless. Scientific 'authority' is potentially as dangerous as other types of authority, if it isn't based on the scientific method.

Many authors (Nassim Taleb, Michael Pollan) talk about using other measures as heuristics. Pollan says 'would your great-grandmother have recognized it as food?'.

Adopting that one rule beats most modern nutrition advice.

We don't have evidence physics is corrupt. That's why your belief about atoms is reasonable.
Rails 4 Quick Look: Strong Parameters
Part 2: http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/video/elon-musk-part....

He mentions that he'll publish his ideas or plans for the new type of public transportation next month "or so", which is probably the most interesting part of the appearance.
I really don't think an article like this belongs on this site. The only discussion is going to be hate vs. hate. Nothing about innovation, technology, start ups or anything close.
Conflicts on Git Dropbox Repos explained
Too bad he only mentions Minecraft in passing, because in some ways I think it tries to learn from the same problems: It tries to stay fresh to be able to attract new buyers, and it's so open-ended that it has a lot of replay value. So it still sells quite handily (the speed seems to have slowed down somewhat, but a few days ago, it was announced that they had sold 8 million copies for PC - and that doesn't count the millions of XBox 360 copies at all).

Yet it is quite different: It costs money once, and you get updates for free - and there's no in-game market of any sort, whereas the OP wants no money upfront and tries to get people to buy in-game stuff.
There are been studies showing that children eating breakfast had better grades than those who don't.
never, ever my credit info disclosed to skype..
again, never.
Google's Osama Bedier: Why the Digital Wallet Is Key to the Marketplace
ナイキサッカースパイク マーキュリアル
Probably submitted before, thus a change to the url was necessary to circumvent HNs filter.
Password is 100% good if you do not use Windows.
Unless you've got some work you need to do instead of staring blankly at your screen for 10 minutes, of course.
How doesn't keeping fans on the Facebook website not compare equally to keeping fans watching a specific TV station? The value is there.
The kitchen sprayers work well for me because you can adjust the pressure by squeezing. The best situation would obviously be to have it hooked up to a heater water supply with the ability to adjust the heat (like a bath/shower). I was able to have this kind of setup rigged in our bathroom in China where it's not uncommon to have random pipes coming out of the walls.
Seriously people should stop using SunSpider; it's way too old and simple (2007 design which means Jurassic, although it had a minor update in 2010). It's considered a microbenchmark suite by today's standards, doesn't mirror modern Javascript usage in any way: code style, size, features (eg typed arrays), libraries. Both Mozilla's Kraken and Google's Octane are much better.
Pinterest Officially Allows Business Accounts
huh? "defenestration" isn't a latin word, it's an english word derived from the latin.
Yes, I was referring to Rolly. I have no idea how one was supposed to use this stuff.
"Is that the InfoSheet Generator you've been working on!?!?!?!"

"...no..." :(
This looks homegrown. The source code [1] is fairly readable.

New dots seem to enter the world in the position of the last dot placed but below them. Position and size seem to follow a simple linear movement between frames.

I wonder though, why is this done with canvas instead of SVG. Just to cut down on the number of DOM elements?

[1] http://www.datapointed.net/media/2012/10/factor_min.js
Bill Gurley of Benchmark Capital foresaw Android's rise, and wrote an excellent essay about it in early 2011, "The Freight Train That Is Android."[1] His main point: Google is not trying to make a profit on Android; they're trying only to control the key layers between themselves and the consumer, by making these layers free or even less than free, which is a HUGE problem for Android's competitors, who must make a profit.

As he put it, "I don’t know if a large organized industry has ever faced this fierce a form of competition – someone who is not trying to 'win' in the classic sense. They want market share, but they don’t need economics. Imagine if Ford were faced with GM paying people to take Chevrolets? How many would they be able to sell? What if you received $0.10 for every free Pepsi you consumed? Would you still pay $1.50 for a Coke?"

I highly recommend you read (or re-read) Bill's prescient essay.

--

[1] http://abovethecrowd.com/2011/03/24/freight-train-that-is-an...
Facebook alone didn't cover all costs of bringing users, and keeping them, on the platform. Businesses spent money too, marketing dollars, marketing space, etc..
Geek search engine
I don't understand how this got to the front page. Would anybody upvote an article about how adding indexes to a table in MySql improved performance?
Yes, somehow many people believed 3D TV screens would take off, and then they did not. There were a lot of consumer surveys implying otherwise, however there is no strong incentive to buy them. Could be chicken and Egg problem, or simply the TV technology is not impressive enough to justify the premium.
Not really. It's a sure sign that you are hell-banned.

I mean, we can check statistically, and I bet we would find that nobody stays at 1 point forever in all his comments.

(And it's also upvotes you won't be getting).
I just realized my earlier comment may appear trollish. That really wasn't my intention.

I got a good chuckle from this discussion because I travel to Japan frequently. But no matter how many times I've encountered Japanese toilets, they still cause much amusement, confusion, and even some anxiety. (I say anxiety because sometimes it's hard to tell if pressing a button would cause the toilet to sing you a song or do something unexpected.)

After reading this article and seeing the very lively and rather in-depth discussion here on HN, I'm pleasantly surprised that I'm not the only one befuddled and fascinated by this bit of Japanese technology.

On the other hand, I've also spent time in parts of the world where there's no running water at all for flushing toilets. Hence the fringe nature of bidets in our society and toilet seats costing more than $1k = first world problems IMO. Not that it wouldn't make a great gift for the holidays.
Well, SunSpider is nowadays kinda a test how fast a browser can run through a loop. I'd still wager Robohornet is a little better (and it also considers things like scrolling and rendering speed and DOM manipulation for certain scenarios – plenty of things that probably contribute more to how fast a browser feels than raw JS performance).
> Why would you need to establish that at all?

Because otherwise the phrase has no meaning? So I'm going to decide I both believe it and think it's completely wrong. Now what?

Moral standpoints with no meaning are really weird, I might as well say "Potato" and claim it's something deep and philosophical that everyone should rally behind to liberate Africa from whatever is ailing it.

For instance, by donating potatoes.

The thing is, what does a graph with unlabeled axes tell you? Nothing, right? It's the same with undefined moral standpoints.
I have to ask. Do you frequent /g/?
Some of like like our proprietary software very much, thank you. I wouldn't want to live in a world where there would not have been a Photoshop, a Premiere or a Logic Pro but only their open source "alternatives".

Pro or against proprietary software, it's a fallacy to assume that in a world where Photoshop didn't exist, its alternatives would be the same. Having a copy of PS for a relatively cheap price is a great incentive not to devote more resources to alternatives.
See also: http://www.jasondavies.com/factorisation-diagrams/
"My Apple, Twitter, and Gmail passwords were all robust—seven, 10, and 19 characters"

He lost me at seven.
The GPL is not about giving code back. It's about giving forward.
"After the first month, your subscription will automatically continue and payments will be taken monthly unless you cancel within 27 days of the start date."

Oldest trick in the book. They must be a bit desperate.
The London Big-O Meetup
Ask HN : Always keep the cursor centered in Vim
I played the beta. My impression was that it was beautiful, but painfully boring. I gave it roughly 15 minutes before leaving and never coming back. I really think they could have found out it wasn't actually fun to play before investing so much time and money into it.
Also, sometimes it's better for proprietary interests to lift (for example) a working TCP/IP implementation, rather than implementing their own poor thing and put it on the 'net for everybody else to deal with.

rms agrees with you: http://lwn.net/2001/0301/a/rms-ov-license.php3
You're saying that iOS about and bout must be LGPL first before there can be a VLC app in the iOS App Store? That goes against my idea of the point of LGPL, but I could well be wrong. I thought I could interface non-LGPL code with it.
Interesting. I was using the Podcast app too, which I believed was the reason for the data overage. It shouldn't be, though. A few podcasts are definitely under 1GB. This AV Foundation Framework issue seemed to be the root cause.
There are actually strong reasons to think ambiguity in certain cases is an asset in a language not a hindrance. This talk goes into it in part: http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_pinker_on_language_and_thoug...
Hi there!

I've been a Glipho user since its recent launch... and I'd definitely say that you are being nitpicking :P

This is a newborn platform. Even though, it has a lot of things to do, it is a nice approach. You can't expect it to be a perfect fit in every way yet, can you?

Nevertheless, this post was about MongoDB, why focusing on usability?
Actually the most popular distribution I've seen in China is not vanilla Android but a version called MIUI[1]. So in the sense that Android can be forked, it seems more analogous to Linux than Windows.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIUI
An in-(or out of) process (async) driver (exposing an API supporting future semantics) can provide DB specific queueing to some extent. MQs and MOMs are very useful but not always necessary and the additional latency due to node hops is sometimes not acceptable.
I think the point here is that many people don't realise indexes matter so much in MongoDB. Their documentation doesn't go out the way to push indexes as a must. That coupled with the ease at which you can just start using it compared to say, MySQL, means that people find it interesting.

I will point out that while I wrote this, it was more to try and ensure other people don't make the same mistakes.
God, this is almost as bad as Vonage. It's 30-second-TV-pitch low.
How can I make this my screensaver?
Perhaps it could be a 'high CPU' micro instance.
16 512MB instance with 3 cores (6 threads) per instance...
Related to this-- Any insight on market share by Android variant?
One of the big draws of Nokia Maps on Windows Phone is that you can download offline maps of the entire world.
At least as far back as we have data (1909) the diet in the US was primarily carbs, in proportions considerably greater than today.

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnpp.usd...

The vast majority of humanity has, historically, eaten a diet comprised primarily of grain, potato and yam. Areas which supported such crops could support a lot of humans, while grazing areas had far lower populations.

It's historical nonsense to claim that a diet comprised primarily of refined carbs is some modern invention.
Yes, Windows Phone 8 has offline maps.
The thing is it isn't a choice we are making now. It was made over 400 years ago and it works.
Firefox new theme (Australis) update - almost there for Windows
> okey, so beyond AppStore and theirs rules/eula/requirements and so on, the goal is to increase third-party contributions from companies?

Yes

> Have you seen a change in third-party contributions from companies for the libVLCcore after the license change?

Yes, but most of them asked for more.
You make a very good point, and I guess the distinction I can see is that freemium apps are marketed as free, with the hidden cost to someone susceptible occuring after the initial 'taste'. It's easily arguable that luxury brands tap into the same 'desire center' but at least they're upfront about the costs and people can vicariously enjoy the thought of attaining them without the freemium sleight of hand.
It would be annoying to have to walk around with 10 or more OTP devices though...
TopCoder, ICPC and IOI all run your code on their machines, and are limited to a small set of languages (C, C++ and Pascal for IOI; C, C++ and Java for ICPC). Others like FB Hacker Cup and Google Code Jam supply the test data, and you just submit the output file; these allow any language.

There is one site (http://spoj.pl) that takes the former approach but supports a huge variety of languages from assembler to Haskell.
That article is riddled with errors.
Life Hacks to Make Your Life Easier
Wait, doesn't the LGPL require users to be able to substitute their own compiled version?

How does the LGPL relicense solve the Apple AppStore problem everyone is talking about? Apple may approve LGPLd code, but as far as I can tell, they still do not comply with it under their current distribution system.

edit: wrote iOS instead of LGPL in the first line, thanks simonh
The audio output and video output are still GPL, so far. Maybe this was not clear enough.
> After watching lots of movies, many of us would like to think that a fingerprint reader or iris scanner could be what passwords used to be: a single-factor solution, an instant verification. But they both have two inherent problems. First, the infrastructure to support them doesn’t exist, a chicken-or-egg issue that almost always spells death for a new technology. Because fingerprint readers and iris scanners are expensive and buggy, no one uses them, and because no one uses them, they never become cheaper or better.

related: mythbusters hacking (a probably not that advanced) fingerprint protection http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Hji3kp_i9k

Today I've read one of Polish banks is going to test out fingerprint ATMs. Not that I have ammounts worth cutting my thumb off, but I wouldn't opt-in for that.
A "circle" could be formed with any number of dots.
Have you ever had to type that apple password in over and over again? Perhaps it's not robust, but that's Apple's "feature".
Is this smart? What if hundreds of millions of people now start doing hour long calls during this month? If the quality goes down, this wouldn't be good advertisement and would also anger existing costumers.

Is VoIP bandwidth so low by todays standards, that they can scale without problems if they have to?
I am shocked you would actually try and make that argument about a whole country of people and still have the guts to call someone criticising the Israeli government antisemetic. What possible moral high ground do you have now?
If the universe is so big, why can't we all just be happy and live forever?
This is so wrong. Hacking an online account does not necessarily involve hacking the user's computer. If your HN password is "password" or "hn", I won't need to spy on your files to get in your online account.
You don't have to do that given that things like Authy use an open standard for two factor: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc4226.txt. That's the same standard that the Google Authenticator implements. So, you'd really only need a single app.
> If X was GPL, the company would not have touched it, and would have opted for some other project instead. All those contributions back to the X community would have been lost.

It is important to understand the distinction between "open source" and "free software". Open source focuses on the benefits of "open" code and development and how it can create superior software. Free Software focuses on the ethical issues---while free software developers certainly want contributors, the emphasis is on the fact that the software respects your freedom and, for that, it's far superior to any other proprietary alternative; free software users constantly make sacrifices in functionality and usability, and we're okay with that.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.h...

(I'm not saying that those are the views of the VLC project---I know very little of their opinions.)