skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Yeah, this seems like pretty typical misuse of government money. Even if these radios are an effective investment why wouldn't they spend a couple million more and train the employees responsible for using them? It's pretty ridiculous in my opinion.
WePay API now has a C# SDK and MVC examples
This is true to a degree, but there are ways you can use multiple tools mixed and matched.

For a simple example, I might write my prototype in Python. After profiling I might decide to rewrite a couple of inner loops in C (or Cython). I might tie it to SQL Server as a datastore and use T-SQL in the interface.
I wonder what lucky contractor supplied those radios... Surprised there is no mention of that in the article.
FileZilla.xml files crawled on popular search engines
Utter bullshit. The original background color of websites was #c0c0c0, the same default color grey used in desktop apps. It was a big to-do, switching that default. The reason most sites are blue is because the human eye is better able to distinguish shades of blue. Also, a significant % of people are red/green colorblind.
I don't pretend to know what Musk has been hinting at. I don't see why you're clinging desperately to the "not an evacuated tunnel" constraint while dismissing other constraints you don't like, though. I assume Musk said "downtown" intentionally, since he said it twice (once for each city). Maybe his idea simply isn't feasible, given the constraints he's mentioned, but if we're going to dismiss inconvenient constraints, "Mach I without a vacuum" seems like a good place to start.

As for oceans, a Tsunami is still going to put a lot of stress on a 400-mile underwater tunnel. And at the points you get in and out of the tunnel, you're going to be at the shore anyway, where the Tsunami is its strongest. Also boats.
Can you imagine 123,000 people all trying to converse on one common channel? Maybe this is for the better!
ImageZero 5x faster than WebP
Torn about whether to praise or damn this. On the one hand, I'm critical of modern attention spans, laziness and ADD-addled brains (allegedly) that don't have the discipline and intellectual wherewithal to actually focus on a single thought for a whole minute or more.

On the other hand, far too much of journalistic prose (and even more so, speech) in mainstream media is contentless fluff.
> Why the Web is White

"And what happens if the Twitter mob finds out..."
Sorry for late answer.

In a game the protagonist is usually a representation of the target audience, both realistically (talking to nerds? create a nerd protagonist) and idealistic (talking to nerds? create a science man protagonist who get laid), not mutually exclusive.

What we see there is a nerd robot which competes for a sexy looking girl. Not for love, happiness or nothing. But for a nude-looking robot girl with a prominent breast. Not cool.

If I misjudged it and actually the female character is just a playable character for female players, well ok... it's sexist anyway. Why should the female chracters have such an irrealistic body? Is __that__ what we refer to with the term "girl"? Only a physical characteristic? That's pretty low.
Do you mean that you tried the tl;dr bookmarket on Skim That? I just added a summary for Skim That using the bookmarket so you should see it now.

I really like how it uses line by line bullet point fields to help write the summary. I experimented with something like that in the past. It kind of works but it isn't as smooth a read as a paragraph of text but it does make the writing process easier.
So when I suggested that mAh wasn't the optimal unit for measuring capacity, the implication wasn't that you should measure by number of cells instead. It has a 30Wh battery as even minimal research would show:

http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/mobile/Google/Chromebook...
I think blue is also a colour that inspires trust across cultures, which is why blue is so prevalent
The press has a story every quarter or so about a couple indicted for kissing in public, and stuff like that. Also, Alcohol is reputedly not available, and the internet is filtered.

Is that true? How restrictive is the regime towards migrant entrepreneurs?
Wasn't Bush a recovered alcoholic? Probably not a good idea to have a beer with him regardless.
> The Linux ecosystem has many Linux distributions based on the Linux kernel.

There are many operating system distributions that run the Linux kernel. But something like Debian/kFreebsd or illumos are in many ways quite similar to other distributions like Ubuntu -- without running on Linux.

The Linux kernel is a tremendously important piece of the Free software world we live in -- but it isn't a userland -- and I don't understand why people that actually understand the difference gets so worked up about it.

The GNU userland is important. The Gnome project is important. Xorg is important. The Apache foundation software is important. I don't see why people insist on labelling these things "Linux".

The GNU name actually makes sense: GNU's not unix. But it's close. You can compile GNU software and run it on Microsoft Windows. Or under OS X. GNU is a platform. Sort of.
yelp, i just moved to Santa Monica and it has been a life saver.
While they have a Google+ sharing option on the bottom, the first thing I noticed is that their SimpleReach sharing sidebar doesn't have a Google+ option.

Apparently users need to email support@simplereach.com and request the Google+ option:

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-simplereach-slide-...
25yo male here, much rather hang out with Bush than Obama.
It makes me incredibly sad that people are willing to stare straight ahead at a fucking lightbulb (a.k.a. sites with a white background) and destroy their vision.
touch centric design for people using a keyboard and mouse?
Will try it, I often need a more size flexible modal than the stock one.
Desperation Never Sells But Relationships Do
Tor, git, nginx
Mozilla Firefox 17.0 Final » download
Yes, 1.6 is. But the actual value being stored is between 1.6 and 1.6000000000000001 (in the double case) -- you have to round it to display it as decimal.

I'm working on a program right now to give a detailed dump of a double/float's value, to make this as clear as possible (and I'm learning a lot in the process).

EDIT: got an initial revision out there; check out: https://github.com/haberman/dumpfp
The article was pretty, but too many typos in it to count...

EDIT to --> too
One must take in consideration the environment of their users.

Try to look at a white screen while being in dark place. It hurts.
There are always millions of people, who are going to die from cancer anyway. I bet some of them are in good shape and would be interested.
You could compile a similarly "human" set of pictures of any other candidate. Surprise, they're all "humans".
I'd like to second this; I'm going to forget about this, but I want to play it when it's released.
No, the calculations are exactly right given the conditions I presented.

The nice little boat you are linking to can do what it does largely because at a certain speed it will start to plane. These are very, very different conditions.

Two of the components of drag on a boat are form and parasitic or frictional drag. The first can be thought of as simply the drag created to push water out of the way. Here the shape of the boat is important. The second is the drag created by water "rubbing" against the portion of the hull in contact with it. Think of sandpaper against wood. More wood and more sandpaper means more resistance to motion.

As speed increases both friction and form drag increase with the square of the speed.

On a planing hull --one that can generate lift and get the boat up and partially out of the water-- form drag decreases significantly once you are "on a plane" (off the water) and friction drag increases. As it turns out, each boat has a sweet spot where it operates best. And, of course, as you get on a plane the power required in order to reach or sustain a given speed decreases significantly when compared to a displacement (non-planing) hull.

A Panamax ship carrying 4,400 TEU does not plane. It is, as far as a know, a pure displacement vessel. So, yeah, you need a tremendous amount of power to counteract significant components of both form and parasitic drag.

A Panamax container ship can have up to nearly 400 square meters of cross-sectional area under water. That's about 4,000 square feet. So, while it isn't exactly the same thing, only for the purpose of visualization, imagine a 100 foot long x 40 foot rigid piece of plywood fully submerged in water. Not try to push it forward at 20 miles per hour. Right. That's why they have to burn nearly a million and a half dollars of bunker-C fuel to get from Los Angeles to NYC.

Physics can be really inconvenient sometimes.
I agree! Good to see humanity at their best.
I believe that is more the function of brightness and contrast than colour. I mean, other than really dark colours, any colour with high brightness hurts in a dark environment
"GNU/Linux" is clunky. And I'm badgered with it any time I use the much less clunky "Linux." The people pushing the RMS-approved term hardest have no concept of presentation, and it turns people off of listening. I would be instantly associated with the worst pushers of the term if I started using it, so it's a nonstarter.

Edit: GNU would get more attention if the FSF partnered with major Linux distribution vendors to give GNU a prominent placement in installers, documentation, and marketing. RMS peeing a line at the unmarketable "GNU/Linux" is only going to alienate people.
You mean 'too many' and not 'to many', right?
There's a lot to discuss here. I personally cannot read through light-on-dark digital designs. After a few lines everything blurs. With dark-on-light on the opposite I can read for hours.

Most probably is due to a non-optimal screen both at home and work-place, but I suffer from the same issue even on 2010 iMacs.

But the most pleasant scheme for me (I mean, my eyes) is light-gray-on-dark-gray.
we don't have a product it's basically a free research site so the only monetization we get is from adwords which requires very high traffic to make any money
The best part about that is that it appends a startup call at the end of /etc/rc.local- which, by default, ends with 'exit 0'.

So its rc.local functionality is actually totally ineffectual.
Not to mention books which are often stuffed with lots of filler rehashing points, to avoid being the below-hundred pages quick read it should have been.
Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie Makes First Benchmark Appearance  
Google could be on the verge of sending out an entirely new build of Android for the next-generation smartphones and tablets sooner than later and previously, a number of reports have pointed towards the build’s existence, or that it is in development. Now, per reports, Android 5.0 Key Lime Pie has apparently made its first benchmark appearance with some positive results.
Depends on which bit of the Internet - the BBC transmits (or at leat used to) live streams via Multicast to a number of UK ISPs.
I don't agree with Hedonism being the driving force behind dark websites. I prefer dark(and spend all day coding with a dark background) because it's easier on my eyes... The idea behind skeuomorphism in webpages mimicking paper has proven itself when the print industry attempted to carry their print practices over to the web and failed. The internet is still very young; I think what we will find over time as more and more people spend more and more time on computers is a departure from paperesque websites to a more functional design that is dark and physiologically friendly(easy on your eyes).

Interestingly enough, the website in the link looks awesome using the Hacker Vision Chrome extension I use which is designed to do just that - it applies a dark theme to all websites so the bright white backgrounds don't destroy your eyes.

Download Hacker Vision at: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hacker-vision/fomm...
I am a total javascript hater but reading just half of the "drawing with data" chapter made me go to the order page (just to see the print edition is not out yet). I really like the style.

seems like I will use d3 instead of gnuplot or gnumeric for even my simple graphing needs in the future. so much control in easy ways and of course that being automateble (as opposed to manually clicking in gnumeric). there might be other ways with python etc but D3 looks fun and hip and dynamic and useful for web stuff so I am sold.
CardMunch CEO uses Flightfox for 29-Country Startup Trip
I do not think there is actually evidence that white instead of grey backgrounds "destroy" your vision.
Amazon EC2 cloud does Windows Server 2012
see my post
looks available for purchase right on that site. No print yet though.
Phi Sigma Sigma demands Penny Arcade remove "trade secret" secret handshake
Often I get surprised at seeing old projects (mostly websites) still live, get by and work well, but inspecting the code will show the backend is dreadful.

More importantly, it also reinforces a mantra that you only need to build things that are "good enough" for your use case.
It's not exactly rocket science picking the right channel, I am more disappointed that the people we hire for DHS jobs can't figure out how to work a radio. I would bet that the radios are commodity hardware and the manuals are online.

I'm also more than a little worried that each radio costs $3500 when even milspec radios don't cost that much. I'm sure a simple FRS/GMRS radio with scrambler chip would have sufficed, and those retail at around $30 each.
I agree.
"Why the Web is White"
Because it's designed by people who are not using the websites. It's easier to 'sell'.

Same reason AutoCAD is shown with a white background in publicity, but users switch to a dark background the instant they have to use it professionally.

Same thing with a text editor... Emacs default to white, but the first thing I do with a fresh install is to change it to a dark theme.
> but this article is idiotic as far as making a point that community development is always the way to go.

What part of the article suggests that?
Great read, I've put some similar thoughts of mine here - http://gtziralis.com/from-doer-to-leader/
Because the official who gets credit for the bullet-point on some report doesn't gain anything from the training. The incentive is only to be able to brag about having led the initiative on communication in their department.

(100% cynical conjecture; I'm sure the reality is much more nuanced)
- I gotta say Hacker News. I've learnt SO MUCH from it.
The fight against "default" white seems analogous to Ian Storm Taylor's recommendation to never use black (http://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/). I prefer off white (e.g., #f9fafc) because of the same reason I like text color set at #333 — it looks softer, but still almost imperceptibly different from #fff/#000's traditional "paper and ink" aesthetic.

http://www.colorcodehex.com/f9fafc/

http://www.colorcodehex.com/333333/
Children Are Not “Natural” Scientists
So OS X is really just a skinned FreeBSD?
What. Are. You. Doing. Here?!?!
Works better than other alternatives I've tried!
Thank you so much!
Yes, but then there would be less pork to go around.
Here is an exercise for you.

Go to http://pandodaily.com/2012/07/12/pandomonthly-presents-a-fir.... Jump to 43 minutes in. Listen for two minutes. Come back and explain how to explain that interchange WITHOUT having a tunnel. If you listen for slightly longer when he talks about storing energy in the system so that it can run 24x7, it seems pretty obvious that whatever the system is, it has a lot of weight moving very fast.

We also know, because Elon Musk has said so, that, It is not an evacuated tunnel.

If it is going to be reasonably efficient, it can't have a lot of air in it.

So those are the design constraints for what Elon is thinking of. What can you propose?

Now why would you not want an evacuated tunnel? Well the common complaint about an evacuated tunnel is how hard it is to maintain the vacuum, and what to do if containment is breached. My proposal gives a way to maintain the vacuum (the plungers). Minor breaches of containment are not that big of a problem (the air that gets in is blown out again).
MakerBot's 3D Face Rendering
Bowei here.

I just want to give a huge shoutout to FlightFox co-founder Lauren. She's been absolutely amazing to work with.

Early stage startups, please take note. This is how you get loyal first customers. You treat people like VIP and make sure they're taken care of.

Thanks Lauren!
It is on the bottom. Also, yes, our startup is on Google+
Two points to augment the article:

1) It's too easy to fall into the pattern of bullsh%t by day, hacking by night. There are two problems with that. First, you're still seeing management as bullsh%t (a natural inclination for a hacker.) Second, it's unsustainable and overwhelming. If you find yourself feeling like you never get anything done while other people are around, then your job is no longer coding and you have to accelerate the transition to manager (especially in your own mind.) This has been my experience.

2) Not every engineer should make this transition. If you're a founder or CEO, you will have to, but make sure you build a company where every engineer does not have to. I've worked at companies where the only path to success was through delegation and distance from the code. That sucks. Some people are amazing coders who will continue to deliver increasing value for years and you will only lose them if you can't find a way to let them progress their careers without having to do things they find uninteresting or are simply not well suited for.
Agreed. After their UK & France editions, I am hoping they'll launch an Asian edition too.
Ask HN: Tips or Advice for Freelancer in Berlin?
I'm hoping some german HNers can help me out here. I've been living and working in Germany for the past year and have a Aufenthaltsgenehmigung through my wife. Anyways, I'll be moving to Berlin over the holidays and have a good opportunity to start up freelance dev work. I've done this before in the US and Argentina, but there the taxes and other issues such as insurance seemed relatively simple to me compared to all the long Amtsdeutsch stuff I've been reading over the past couple of weeks. The main thing I can't seem to find is how expensive it will be with the insurance.

Anyways, I'd be really thankful for any tips or advice any one could give me.
A good next step for commercializing your every day start up: soda
It's the contrast between the text/content and the background that affects your comfort though. There was an article about how you should never use black for your text on a white bg[0]. I think the points there are rather salient.

In fact the W3C has a good calculator for colour contrast [1], which I think is a good guide for calculating colour contrast when designing sites

[0]http://ianstormtaylor.com/design-tip-never-use-black/
[1]http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#contrast-ratiodef
> Not only will this kind of thing happen, but it will become commonplace and convenient...That's a whole bunch of overhead that has been created by abolishing software patents.

Which is it? Convenient or a whole bunch of overhead?

But then again, who cares? When is the last time anyone implemented a patented idea by looking at old patents? The idea is old by the time it is patented.

> Oh and the DMCA will make any efforts to penetrate obfuscated software illegal in perpetuity.

And that is worse than patent law? How would anyone know that obfuscated software was penetrated? That only comes into play when people uses snippets of firmware anyway. They already use DMCA like this, so it doesn't really matter.

The biggest problem is the John Carmack problem of sitting down to do a week of work in a domain, and creating something that you find out is already patented.
I force all sites to display as something like #E0 on #28. I find it far easier on my eyes. I use a Firefox extension that lets me switch back to the original scheme with a shortcut for the few sites that don't function when you override the colours.
Here's the white paper:

http://www.usb.org/developers/whitepapers/327216.pdf
Interesting post and a very interesting concept of FlightFox! I think it would do well, especially if you're flying to several places. However, I wonder if I would save much if I was just doing a simple round trip flight.....
hey thats awesome! I've started following your journey via your LinkedIn blog. You also had a really good slide deck on China ecosystem. 29 country trip - that's epic.

Its a great use case for Flightfox. My gut feeling at the moment is that its better for more complicated trips - multi-hop or where there is some kind of complexity like carrying a surfboard or if you have several kids, etc...

Nice work Lauren & Todd - from a fellow aussie!
OGame.org python library
I amazed that an hn reader isn't using ABP, the web is a much better place thanks to AbBlock
I've just open sourced an old library that I created some years ago that helped me cheating at http://ogame.org/ !

I refactored it before to make it public. I think the code is kinda clean, so if you have any comment or if you would have done something differently, let me know ! I want to learn the best python practices :)

Don't be shy to fork it and make pull requests.
This doesn't look like a legally valid demand. A "secret handshake" is not likely to be classed as intellectual property, and referring to it in a work of art in most cases would fall under the fair use doctrine:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

Lawyers can write letters demanding things from people, but -- even though lawyers are technically officers of the court -- their demands aren't necessarily legal or enforceable demands. A judge might well look at this demand very differently than an advocate for one side would.

It's best not to ignore a letter from a lawyer, but blind obedience is also unwise IMHO. Let me add that IANAL.
What makes lisp macros so special
They don't cost that much. The $430M covered a lot more than just the portable and mobile radios themselves.

And no, "a simple FRS/GMRS radio with scrambler chip" would not have sufficed. Public safety radio systems, even on a local level, to say nothing of a national agency's requirements, are a heck of a lot more complicated than most people realize, since there's a lot that most people, including most of their employees never see.
And this is one of the reasons I laugh when people try to tell me how the "government" organizes all of those intricate conspiracies.
Defense Department emails offer new details on Osama bin Laden burial