skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I would guess most of the vendors of these types of systems are going RFID. Magnetic stripes are fragile, as anyone who's had their visa de-magnatized can tell you. They are also perceived as "less secure", as anyone who knows anyone who's had their visa card "skimmed" can tell you.

For these reasons alone, RFID is where the puck is going to be. Then on top of that you add in you can sell institutions on tracking packages and analytics software and all that crap? I'm sure you can still buy mag-stripe versions of all this, but the people who do this are probably pushing RFID hard.
Show HN: Tell seen and unseen comments
"I feel it's an invasion of my religious beliefs," she told InfoWars. "I feel it's the implementation of the Mark of the Beast. It's also an invasion of my privacy and my other rights."*

FTA. I get that it's popular to automatically dismiss something when you catch so much as a whiff of religious overtones, but the student did in fact also mention privacy as an issue of why she refused to wear the badge.
The answer, from the same site:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/24853/what-is-the-differe...

"++i will increment the value of i, and then return the incremented value."

"i++ will increment the value of i, but return the pre-incremented value."
You need better instruments sounds, they sound worse than S3M instruments that I messed with in the 90's.
Will look for a better soundbank, indeed
> how do you prevent such power delivery systems from becoming orbital weapons platforms?

Rectennas proposed for power transmission are quite large. You can probably design these, such that diffraction limits make spot focusing the beams difficult. You probably can't prevent them from being used as weapons, but you can probably make them rotten weapons.

In any case, you can secure these from most personnel by using crypto and formal methods. This stuff had better work, because if we have powersats, then we'll also have lots of very capable orbital rockets which will use the same security schemes, and those will be >much< more potent weapons.
Where did you get the instrument sounds?
You don't even need cards with magnetic stripes or QR codes. These are relatively modern inventions. Schools did just fine without them for millenia. I went to school without either, and the school managed to serve their student body just fine.

This obsession with tracking people's every movement and action, and the surveillance state built to satisfy it is really disturbing and pathological.
Facebook et. al. are sucking the social marrow out of our lives. Why talk about the birth of your child? You've already shared umpteen photos of it. Why talk about that new job? You've already changed your profile data and it automatically propagated.

We should deeply consider how much time, attention and prominence we give to social media. It's a black hole.
My point was merely that complaining about the "Mark of the Beast" is a good way to get people to roll their eyes. I certainly think this policy is a horrible precedent but ultimately I think a secular redress involving something that could actually be upheld would be a better focal point.

This, "my religious belief is as good as anyone elses" is a can of worms, a dangerous discussion and will derail from the immediate problems with these policies. They turn places of education into centers of control and survelliance. There is so vastly much wrong with treating humans like this, let alone students, that I cringe that criticisms will be dismissed because of the particulars of an individual's religion.

(Aka, I agree with you, my fear is that this being a religious issue rather than a privacy issue will be over all detrimental to actually fixing these policies. Hope that explains things more.)
Meh. Freedoms are freedoms, and people want them for whatever reason they like. I don't think this really tarnishes anything.
So every dutch university teaches a language they themselves wrote the compiler for. The university of twente used to teach FP in a miranda dialect called amanda, which ofcourse was developed at utwente :p
Is a reeducation system but beginning at the same time as education. Orwell must be proud.
yep that's 101 stuff eh?
I am alone but not in SF. It is really nice of you. You are truly having a great Thanksgiving day.
With the People's Daily or CCTV you'll get a much less biased view of china (joking).

The system sucks and kudos to NYT for informing us, even if it has landed them on the wrong side of the great firewall. Ya, bad things happen in the states too but the NYT has no problem reporting on that! The western and Chinese press are just completely incomparable when it comes to bias. Wen is also right, this corruption will tear china apart if it doesn't end soon.

That being said, china can be a nice place to live if you are a foreigner, have lots of moment to send your kids to international school, or are a local with lots of guanxi, or you don't have kids yet. You'll hardly realize corruption in your daily life outside of some key but rare activities (like buying property or dealing with local schools).
The obvious counterargument: When I was in primary school, we used paper and pencil cards to track items which were borrowed from the library. Why were barcodes and magnetic strips aggressively pushed when there was tech perfectly capable of performing the duties outlined?

Part of me thinks forcing this on a child is insane. Part of me realizes that I already have agreed to monitoring of this sort in fragmented ways: HID RFID badges to get into my residence building at university and into buildings during work terms; NFC for payments and my transit fare card; Google location history on my phone.
Huh. An interesting illustration of privacy / security trade-offs.
> As soon as you can provide me with a way to say "this imported code is identical to the one you loaded before", I'm fine with providing a way to save the JIT state.

How about an SHA2 hash of the source files?
It's a shame this isn't the UK - I'm going to be alone for christmas this year and it would have been cool to spend it with like minded, kind people such as yourself and Gautam.
How would you feel about traveling in a larger vehicle, think zeppelin, that took 20 hours longer to reach its destination, but in return it would be cheaper and more comfortable - more like traveling on a cruise ship?
I would guess most of the vendors of these types of systems are going RFID

Actually this makes sense, didn't think of that way. However, comparing security issues of credit/debit cards with student ID badges doesn't work; I'm not suggesting they don't exist, but on the whole are less likely in the setting we're looking at.
So, the journalist maybe didn't say it respectfully, but there is a strong possibility in there.

John was originally proselytizing in Rome, but the Romans got pissed off at him, so he was exiled to the island of Patmos. Amanita Muscarias grew on that island! And if you read trip reports (or, trip yourself?) you'll find that Amanitas give very extreme religious imagery.

So if you compare the imagery from modern day Amanita trips with what was written in revelations... you realize that it's very possible that St. John was writing a trip report. And because of that day's lack of understanding about drugs and those experiences are produced, he would chaulk it up to a message from God.

## edit: more links http://www.erowid.org/plants/amanitas/

http://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/pdf/amanita.muscaria.r...

However any references to amanitas or mushrooms are not in the wiki article for the Book of Revelations.
I love it. It reminds me of all those CEOs of companies with revenue in the 0$ range.
sure, any feedback is welcome. The thing is still in an experimental phase, and I'm trying to improve it bit by bit
Very nice of you! on a related note, I'm curious. SwigMe.com seems very interesting, but I would think there are a lot of legal loopholes you need to jump through, no? What happens when teenagers try to order and present a good fake ID at the door?
Vagrant - simply great.
Point is valid and taken, however the comment made here[1] actually makes the counter-point I was preparing to after reading your response. Essentially, sure-the lean towards religion is slowly moving back in the other direction towards pragmatic and progressive thinking; does not mean we shouldn't give it consideration when we (I, not sure about yourself but definitely the case in the expelled Texan student) live in a country that has a founding document that explicitly cites religion as a guaranteed freedom.

===

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4820028
Well done, Matt.

We haven't hung out in a while. Let's get together when I come to SF in January.
No politician or judge in Texas who likes their job will ever roll their eyes at this accusation.
What are the limitations of each? I was reading somewhere that Amazon won't let you use its product API on mobile devices.
I am not.
The rates for an upper level school in the US are similar.

As for admission to some Ivy League Universities, there have been allegations where donations have to be made.

Call it corruption, capitalism or communism, still looks like money has to be paid to someone. Official or unofficial the rates are high.
RFID chips are fragile in different ways (try holding three in front of a reader at once). When NFC enabled chip and pin cards first came out (and RFID enabled e-passports for that matter) came out, there were concerns that these cards could be skimmed from hundreds metres away as opposed to skimming requiring the card being placed in a modified payment terminal.
That's kind of how it happened in UK with the CCTV cameras, I think. I don't think that future generations will be bothered by them anymore, unless the Government does something terrible and oppressive with them and the people find out and revolt about it. Then they might be up for discussion again, and someone who opposes them could get enough political support to remove them.
I was mostly thinking of the perception of security. Everyone knows you can clone a mag-stripe card cheaply and easily.

I assume you can do the same with RFIDs (and you don't even need physical access to do it, right?) but I think people assume they're safer.
As I alluded to in my other post, I think this is more likely to be successfully combatted as a privacy issue instead of a religious one.

If a vague reference to the "Mark of the Beast" applies to a lanyard, then why isn't my [belief] allow me to get out of [whatever I want].

Courts have often ruled that rights of minors can be restricted in school. Fighting that is enough of an issue to try to get a judgement call on a particular fine point of someone's faith.

(To put it in policy debate terms, there's a more obvious (though still plenty blurry) bright line for privacy violations than there are for individual faith exemptions).

(edit, sorry, to note, I don't disagree with you, but the courts have also placed limitations on "religious freedom" as well. There are lots of things in the [various religious texts] that aren't allowed under US law, regardless of the individual's faith, etc, etc.)
What I'm saying is that using attendance as the metric to determine funding sucks and we should find a better way.

Success metrics are how you determine whether a change has worked, and they are how you determine where to put more resources. So if your success metric is attendance, you're going to maximize attendance, not quality of education.
Lovely essay, its great to be reminded. The more aware (dare I say mindful) you are of the joy of life, the more joy you experience.
Extreme Pitch - How to pitch about your project
Probably a reference to Van Rossum developing python during a lonely christmas.
I imagine its a third systems engineer maximising profits/suckered into buying it, a third RFID manufacturers aggressively trying to consume marketing share and a third the proportion of people in the world who are really creepy and should stop spying on people.

Its unwieldy for most purposes in addition to the privacy concerns, but I'm reticent to go all Alex-Jones-fly-off-the-handle hysterical about this.
You'd be surprised - when I was at college there was a student who was caught skimming ID cards, duplicating them, and selling them on (for access to various areas and also for payment, since our ID cards were used a declining balance cards). They switched over to RFID shortly afterwards. I'm sure this has happened at other colleges too.

And whilst this sort of thing is almost certainly less common than card fraud, the potential consequences are actually far more serious. If someone skims your credit card it's inconvenient, but hopefully your bank will cover the loss. If someone skims your ID card in a college environment where ID cards typically let you into controlled areas like dormitories and labs you've got a big problem.
I'm in Santa Clara, (so I won't be able to come up) but I'd like to help out. Any way I can chip in to the meal?
Top Popular International Desserts
I like that strain of thought with making it more easy for users to download stuff. But the problem with repositories is, that they are requiring a specific intent of the user to do something.

Let me try to contribute to the discussion with a few unrelated thoughts with the hope that some others are willing to share their own too.

I would love to see is for example an in-browser plug in, that is based on the torrenting idea. Similar to streaming, but just that the cached data is redistributed among those who stream a particular video. It somehow should reach a level, where users have a plausible deniability to not be able to differentiate between legal/illegal anymore and at the same time an implementation that is ideally only depending on an existing widespread standard/plugin.

Another idea would be a physical device that handles torrent downloads, i.e. the VPN connection, encryption of external HDs, and has a super simple and stupid interface to use. There would be lots of opportunities to cooperate with existing VPN providers plus advertising on trackers should be relatively cheap.
Why were barcodes and magnetic strips aggressively pushed when there was tech perfectly capable of performing the duties outlined?

Good question, my immediate thought though-as a library assistant in school (because fuck yeah being a bookworm as a kid) is that the school library system was probably better served using this tech electronically; saves time, minimizes documentation errors, and as a result minimizes cost replacing books that went 'missing'.
"Women under male custody". Wow. I hadn't realized Saudi Arabia is so primitive. If the US Government is going to send them billions in aid (to buy weapons from US companies, and therefor indirectly subsidize them), can't it influence some of these decisions? Or does it prefer it when it's run by dictators?
The book is nice for sure, but I found it way too long. It's written for beginners and that's a good thing (for them) and a pity (in my case): I might have known next to nothing about Erlang, but I was already a seasoned programmer with experience with functional programming, so the whole chapter about recursion (or three about basic types...) was a bit too much for me[1].

I was learning Erlang primarily from it's documentation, beginning from syntax and then reading through library reference[2] and some examples here and there. I'm sure that this list would be quite helpful for me then and I find it useful even now.

[1] I returned to LYSE later when I knew better which parts I can safely skip and which to read. Also, I think the book was not completed back then.

[2] The worst web-based docs I ever read. Due to ability to see only one level of a tree at once I was missing massive chunks of functionality. Then I realized I have the same docs on disk as they came with Erlang (not on windows though). Basic find and grep were so much better than even google+erlang www docs! Really, just don't do it. Read the docs from your hard drive.
(Jumping ship from the other link to the same story)

Success metric fail.

Then again - What is the success metric for education? Attendance is (IMHO) pretty terrible, and standardized testing hasn't worked out the best - so what is it?

A classic answer (but still, probably not all that great of one) is jobs upon graduation - but that doesn't help in elementary school.

So, how would you go about turning such long-term metrics as "employment in ten years" into short term metrics, to figure out what to do next week?
at least it's not negative?
Why don't you? Can you please elaborate on that? Thank you!
I truly hope that anyone investing in bit coin is wise enough to maintain a well-diversified portfolio. Bitcoin is a speculative investment in the future value of a highly volatile new form of currency...
Would take you up if I were down there! All the way up in Vancouver, BC but I'll take a raincheck :).
You'd be surprised - when I was at college there was a student who was caught skimming ID cards, duplicating them

But in a high school? Not that I'm disagreeing with you; but in high school the incentive seems to be much lower to forge ID cards. Maybe I'm just crotchety about this whole thing and am projecting to find whatever reason I can to dismiss the idea of forcing tracking on kids.
I am glad you said it. I refreshed the page a few times until I accidentally scrolled down and realized what happened. Overall, the page looks good, but the scrolling experience is terribly designed.
Related:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4819877
In this case the piracy didn't hurt the artist as they couldn't get the working files and went out and bought the cd. So even though it started with piracy they bought the music legitimately.

That kind of makes me wonder how it works, or the logic.
If you download something to try it (pirate) then go buy the same content you'll still get in trouble?
I understand that the law was broken then the legal way to obtain the content came but doesn't that sort of deter you from bothering to buy in the future?
My idea above really would matter most for say downloading one song from an album then buying the album (books/movies you'd have the entire content anyways).

Just a curious thought as I'm sure I have a lot of the details quite wrong but following the logic here: if you've downloaded any part of an album you might as well download the entire album rather than buy the rest.
Related:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4819832
ewww, i'd rather Canadian Entrepreneurs focused on something a little more productive than the incredibly destructive mining industry.

how about a web app that tracks all of the many infractions upon regulation and low that the mining industry engages in every day.
Copyright for maps is complicated. That's why OpenStreetMap moved copyright licence.
It would be more interesting and supportable for you. People are different and have different interests and motivation. I'm not making a value judgement here, just pointing out something.
This kind of thing doesn't just happen in education, and it's difficult to say how to really stop it. For example:

My aunt had surgery about a year ago, and our family paid out quite a bit of money to everyone involved in her surgery. On top of the normal fees, we gave the surgeon, first assist, second assist, anesthesiologist, and even the secretary large sums of money.

When my mother told me about this, I was shocked. "Why?" I asked. You'll have to understand that my family in China, while well off, has never participated in the cycles of alleged corruption. In fact, my uncle rejects so many bribes (gifts from business interactions) to the point that people have started leaving gifts anonymously at my grandmother's door.

Yet, this wasn't about getting ahead in life. My mother told me, "we just want to make sure they have an incentive to do the best job they can." Honestly, I don't blame her. We didn't pay to skip a line, and we didn't pay for any organs (not that type of surgery anyway). We paid the people involved because we felt it would inspire them to do a better job.

Is that wrong? Maybe. I don't really know anymore.
Compelling piece about simple, ephemeral beauty.

Only one thing sticks out. Beethoven's Great Fugue is not a miracle of the universe.
taking attendance doesnt allow you to boast about how you are being proactive. It also isn't a reason to ask for a big budget increase.
Even if its not downright corruption, there is a price for a good education in western countries, too. Highly educated parents will want a good education for their kids, they will move to where that can be had. Since high education is strongly correlated with high income, gentrification sets in, pushing out lower-income households.

And thats just up to high-school; it's very clear that money can get you into any university, merits or not.
Sticking my foot out - Panopticons are not a bad thing. They're actually a really good thing, because they, theoretically, let you get a lot more security without losing a lot of liberty (instead, you lose privacy).

The problem people have - universally in my limited experience - is with the people and institutions behind the cameras, not the cameras themselves. If CCTV is Big Brother, isn't neighborhood watch something like Little Brother?
Based on my discussions over the years, a majority of people want to be dead - just not right now. Or rather, to be more precise, they either hold or find it convenient to pretend to hold the belief that they want to be dead at some point in the future that roughly corresponds with other people's similarly declared desire to be dead at some point in the future.

It's pretty easy to turn up this complex of beliefs and signaling and ideas: just talk to people about greatly extending the healthy human life span. Your average fellow will disavow such an idea, even if it comes with good health all the way. Oh no, they will say, why would anyone want to live for such a time. I'll be glad to go.

So, in general, people want to be dead. Just not right now this minute.

As to this: some days I talk about it, some days I throw up my hands, and some days I wonder whether or not it is the most insane thing in the mad world. Possibly, possibly not. From a utilitarian perspective, sure, yes, as a widespread belief it has effects going forward (in this age of biotechnology in which we might largely remove involuntary death if we actually cared enough to do that, but the signs so far are that not so many people do) that are worse than war, worse than poverty, worse than all the disasters of a century rolled into one. From the perspective of a metric of craziness of what is believed or adhered to, possibly not as bad as religions, either civic or devotional.
Oh, nice :)
Thanks mate
Corruption's always a possibility -- maybe the RFID provider is owned by a school board member's brother-in-law, or maybe they've paid off the right people.

But we don't need to assume malice where mere incompetence will suffice. I can easily see technologically illiterate school officials being wow'ed by slick company salesmen. Since too few citizens really care about local politics, it also isn't a stretch to think that nobody who realized the implications attended the school board meetings where it was discussed and approved.

By the time things get as far as they've gotten in this situation, the plan's supporters can't back away from the plan without losing money and face.
I'm not sure if I oppose CCTV cameras or not. Sure there's a creepy element to it.

OTOH they are all in public places and the footage is not released to the public without some reason (in contrast to basically anyone just recording with a phone).

People always say they want more police on the street, so if each of these cameras was replaced with a uniformed policeman watching the street would this be better or worse?
I always thought that you can see fake IDs only on TV..
Do kids in USA really have "fake ids"?

I mean cmon ..this is hilarious