skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
remember: java is to javascript as pain is to painting.

it's not an apt comparison. You can directly write javascript and run it in your browser or in node (or test it out interactively in the node REPL).

I like to play with modules in node interactively (when relevant) because its easier to see what's going on and much easier to iterate (esp. in conjunction with the .load REPL command)
Sometimes I am dazzled, again, by what total dicks some people are.
This is a good example, however I would argue that it is bad design to have a record's ID used for user facing lookups. For other parameters, sure (find_by_name, etc) a false would be okay. Just a matter of taste really.
I mean you do know the US has the worst cost/lifespan ratio of the western world, right?

Yup. It also invents the medicine.
Curious:

What precise things were problematic? Their disappearing for months? Their not communicating enough? Them royally ignoring practical guidelines from you re: speed, memory etc?
Very nice. This is one of those things where I don't need it right now, but in 2 weeks I'll be thinking "where the hell is that bookmark..." :)
Wut? Any chance to bash the govt, I guess you should take it!
All the more so when you're required to have a Gmail account to activate android devices.

Tying indeed. DOJ?
We got hit with one of these letters. I read through it and it was clear that we weren't actually infringing -- it only applied to the use of distribution to employees via the scanner. Luckily that functionality is pretty much impossible to make work on the Brother MFC that we have. We had our lawyer send back a note saying that we weren't infringing and that was the end of it. My guess is that showing that you are actually paying attention and have a competent attorney is a good way to avoid getting victimized (at least some of the time).
I like the idea bu... When adding new key/value pairs, the text 'field' and 'value' should either be placeholders or selected on focus so a user's first keypress wipes those strings from the field. Having to manually select all is not intuitive and forces the user to do work easily done by the computer.
Good god libertarians make me sick.
And smartphone / mobile.
That's exactly GP's point: If you can't patent it, it won't get made.
Start and Goal
That's an interesting issue (Django has the same issue with its SECRET_KEY). If you have an open-source project that utilizes these kinds of technologies, you need to keep your secret key secret.

As it says in the Django settings:

"Make this unique, and don't share it with anybody."

Your web application's security depends on it!
How does it differ from ZombieJS?
The only part of G+ which i absolutely love is hangouts. Still think everything else is a privacy concern. The strange thing is that i am witnessing a significant migration of non-geeks to G+ from Facebook. I didn't think i'd see the day. I guess people are picking lesser of two evils.
Why are all the interesting questions on programmers.stackexchange.com are closed for being "not constructive"?
Lots of human failings are solvable through regulation. Have you been killed and eaten recently? Boom a common flaw of human society solved by government.
I wonder if these companies are themselves paperless? While I admire the movement too much business still happens on paper.

In our case, we can't go entirely paperless due to the government and lawyers. There are too many things we need to send snail-mail but here's hoping that changes.
Wow...I just checked the top list on Alexa for S.Korea and there are 5 chinese websites in top 10 and 12 in top 20. For some reason that seriously surprised me. While Baidu I understand as it had been trying to reach its arms into Japan and S.K, but it just baffles me that QQ.com can be higher than Naver, which is home to the largest native S.K portal site.
Interestingly after reading the post I've realized that while I've been using the more advanced stuff, I was missing the first 2 basic ones.
the sugar exists for passing it, but not for receiving it, and to get around this, rails uses splat (varargs) and extract_options! to get the last positional parameter behavior for vararg methods.

vanilla ruby:

def find_by_name(name, options = {})
...
end

rails:

def find_by_name(*args)
opts = args.extract_options!
name = args.shift
...
end

(note, this is not how the dynamic finders actually work, i just wanted to illustrate the difference in the calling and definition.)

So, ruby doesn't include support for varargs with last positional parameter for options, rails builds that in. The fact that it is variable arity is very important -- in fact, that is the root of the present issue. The patches now check the number of arguments.
Show HN: Distracted Goose, mini-game with procedural terrain
I think you're really not missing anything. I didn't have FaceBook until last year and I opened an account just to hit on a girl (now my girlfriend). I could have found her phone number using another medium (oldschool "friend of friend" way ; )

Now I've got 110 "friends" (most of them wouldn't help me move out) and the pathetic things they post are truly depressing. Including my own family. So when I'm using FaceBook basically I'm using "Hide", "Hide", "Hide" and asking to only see the important updates.

The only reason me and my gf both keep using it is because we're "liking" certain authors / websites / brands / etc. and it's convenient to keep informed of their new stuff.

But in all honesty for that kind of use Google+ is just sooo much better (and businesses, even the more obscure ones, are slowly adding Google+) for this kind of stuff.

I may close it soon: I hate the privacy fiasco (I browse using separate accounts etc. but still...) and I really thing hardly anything of value can be found there.

I do also see that during one year's time people are getting more and more passive on FB.

So don't worry. You're not losing much.

Kinda like your federated social network idea that said. Walled gardens do s*ck and FaceBook is one heck of a closed one...
Scientists raise new questions on molecular key to memory
Google's growing G+ surveillance is a worry. This is why after watching the 29C3 keynote (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNsePZj_Yks) and whistleblower panel (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDM3MqHln8U) a couple of days ago I blocked all the main google domains (mail, maps, G+, accounts, picasa, etc.) via /etc/hosts and committed to only accessing Gmail via Tor (https://www.torproject.org/). Facebook I already deleted and block via AdBlockPlus (though I now recommend http://trueblockplus.org/), but G+ is harder and more insidious to stay free of. After a few days of use, I am quite happy with my new strategy: keep email (or anything personally identifying, like banking) in a different and anonymized browser. Keep everything else in a general browser that never sees you identified.

Edit: add URLs, TrueBlockPlus reference.
Al Jazeera completes deal to buy Current TV
Show HN: Overlay subtitles/annotations on YouTube videos
That's what I was suspecting. It's similar in German. (My Russian is a bit rusty.)
http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com/
Seeing like a state

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0300078153

Riches for the poor: The Clemente course in humanities

http://books.google.com/books/about/Riches_for_the_Poor.html...
That is exactly what the drug companies say

Yeah, there's a reason for that.

It turns out a lot more money is spent on marketing and lobbying that is spent on research.

Don't confuse pharmaceutical companies with biotech companies.

Also a lot of cutting edge research is actually performed by public universities by professors on that state's (or NIH's) dime.

Often, the same researcher then spins out the company that tries to commercialize the research.

I can be convinced that the current patent system help the profitability of drug companies I am not sure if it help the sick people.

Without them you wouldn't have the medicine. Then that won't help the sick people. As it stands, there is a difference between the medicine that rich people can afford and that poor people can afford. That may be morally objectionable- and maybe we should fix it. But at least the medicine exists, and eventually it gets cheaper on average for everybody.

I am very much for patent reform, but we have to do it intelligently. Where patents help- keep them. Modify them maybe. Where they are despicable destroy them.

At least in some cases in medicine-- as in other high barrier-to-entry endeavors-- I am convinced they are useful. In other cases they are infuriating.
the vast majority of people are simply uninteresting to the spooks

Today.
Can Andrew Sullivan make post-industrial journalism pay?
Lot of assumptions on this thread. The company involved here is claiming that hasn't committed a crime, which isn't a very interesting claim. The agency that's launched and investigation hasn't gotten a chance to, you know, conduct that investigation yet. There's also a possibility that this was all a mistake that just needs sorted out. So before we all jump on the incentives-gone-wrong and government-is-inefficient trains, maybe give the government a chance?

But if we are going to speculate--and let's face it, we are--let's at least have a gander at the relevant regulations. IANAL, etc, but from my reading Title 40 Part 80 Subpart M [1] it seems really unlikely that assigning the same volume of fuel different RINs is legal. There's a bunch there about assigning specific numbers to specific volumes of fuel, but there's also the super specific:

> (5) Importers shall not generate RINs for renewable fuel that has already been assigned RINs by a registered foreign producer.[2]

Sounds pretty clear.

[1] http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&SID=27e92597...

[2] http://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?c=ecfr&SID=27e92597...
Google accounts have long come with public profiles. How is an empty Google+ profile different?
Noting that people will break a law is a vacuous criticism of said law. Noting that a law will make it easier for people to break the law (or take advantage of it) is certainly not.

Indeed, I'd argue that any analysis of the utility of a new law that doesn't take added opportunities for fraud into account (alongside the other negative effects of adding complexity) is simply worthless.
Web Proxy: Free Anonymous Web Proxy
did you even look at what was matched?

Change the cookie secret token at config/initializers/secret_token.rb

Create a config/initializers/secret_token.rb file:

That will rename your app in the following files: ... config/initializers/secret_token.rb

Change your Application’s Secret Token ...

Change the secret token at /config/initializers/secret_token.rb

Those are the first six items in order and the trend continues at least through the first page of results.
Website Scraping With Python and Beautiful Soup (Megamillions Site Example)
http://sqlalchemy.org/ is an ORM and does not have these security issues. So it can be done.
Wow. So much anger from people here just for Google asking to create a G+ profile.

Is it really that bad?

Google is a free service that we reap a lot of benefits from. We have a lot of software engineers here. Google is indispensable followed by Stack Overflow. I highly doubt we'd be able to finish an app if Google goes down.

What's a couple of minutes to set up one?

We know that Google+ is also a way for Google to more accurately target ads. Advertising is the main source of revenue. If Google can't make enough money off advertising, it would have to shut some services down.

This is why I don't use AdBlock. If a free site is useful enough that I visit it regularly, I'll let them serve me ads.
This visualisation threw me right back into my uni course when discussing state machine diagrams. Nice work!
>>(Shrug) The house will either burn down, or it will fall apart due to shoddy construction.

It has helped to build the most powerful and most popular nation on the planet in the history of the planet.
I think it was clear long ago that Google+ is just Google, or at least it's what Google thinks their future is. It's easy enough to avoid Google+, though: just stop using Google products and services. There are plenty of great alternatives available.
Where's the problem with that? You can price your goods in gramms of silver, if you like to. (You may have to quote dollar prices, but just adjust them daily based on the silver spot market prices.)
Ask HN: Use cases for Live Streaming in Rails 4
Personally I see Rails 4 live streaming as a great asset to game development.

On the other hand, I wonder if this is the right tool for this particular job. Say I have a Game model and I want to tell clients when it's state changes. Is this something that should happen in a callback of the model or something to look for in the live stream?
http://wh.gov/UQye

Help stop the metric system!
Help stop the Metric System
Thank you! Do I have to have read Foundation to understand it, or does it stand alone?
If only the immense amount of political problems we have could be solved through simple, rational technical solutions! What a fantastic world we'd live in right now!

A bit more on-topic is that I feel some issues like gerrymandering wouldn't be such a big problem if more root-level problems were addressed, like implementing instant run-off voting to help weaken the two-party system in the first place.
My favourite variation:

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

> James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton (1581) was executed in Edinburgh on the Scottish Maiden which he had introduced to Scotland as Regent.[25]

I feel bad for thinking that this is funny.
Reminds me of Rémi Gaillard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps6s45Pg0To
Seconding icambron - how? Because I've been up and down that code and can't see any way to do it. Frankly, I don't think it's possible, because otherwise you would have a trivial DOS vector into any Rails application.
If you don't like Facebook surveillance then you can opt out by not using it. But you can't opt out of government surveillance. You didn't address this important fact.
Free Software Documentary “Software Wars” in Need of Support
Water Bridges Which Form at High Voltages
For better understanding why we need an "API to rule them all" you can check the http://apijoy.tumblr.com about everyday's developer pain with APIs.
so, initially you complained about my comment being too long, and too "exhausting" to read.
now you're complaining that i should have added more comments.. troll much?

and i don't consider HN as wasting time.
Well, the US government has said that it doesn't have to tell you that because it's a national security matter.

However the existence of at least one government associated plan to kill US Citizens on US territory was surfaced in the media last week http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/12/31/fbi-report-mentions-p...

And while I cannot provide evidence that there have been others; it is a fact that the US government has been training death squads at Fort Benning and elsewhere for more than 40 years (vide: Guatemala, Nicaragua, Paraguay and many other countries whose paramilitary/police were trained by the US and went on targeted campaigns of killing civilians); although most of the openly acknowledged trainees were not US citizens, but Police and Military from client governments, mostly in South and Central America. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_fo...

And given that Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder is on the record as saying
"""
“Due process” and “judicial process” are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security.
"""

It's not impossible that everyone who reads this thread is being assessed for their suitability to be judged a "threat to national security" and thus worth the cost of elimination.
It's available now: http://getkickstrap.com/extras/permalink/fontawesome-30-3951...

Read instructions carefully.
>> Go is used internally at Google, so it won’t be abandoned.

That's what I used to think about GWT.
Makerbot Replicators only cost $2.2k. Not nearly impulse purchase range, but affordable for most engineers (well, assuming metro/urban USA), especially if you go in on it with a couple of other local hackers. I'm somewhat surprised 3D printer co-oping isn't more of a "thing" since the price is right for that and for most people they aren't something you need physical access to on a daily basis.

And of course there are even cheaper options, down to about $500 though obviously YMMV on quality/materials/etc.
We already provide Google with a payoff: They give us good search results/Youtube videos in exchange for eyeballs on their ads. Now this ramming of their surveillance network down our throats is obnoxious, and complaining is hardly the bad form you are making it out to be.
In most circumstances for (key, val) in data won't work, as the default dictionary iterable only contains the keys. You want for key, val in data.items():
Should You Say You Have Children In Your Profile? - Websites 4 Dating
Politicians aren't going to do anything about patent trolls until politicians start getting threatened and/or sued by patent trolls.
Tomorrow's World Infographic From The BBC Lays The Odds On The Future
Yes, this page has a real torches-and-pitchforks feel to it. It's quite absurd.

The howls of derision from people who flat out say they don't even use the framework and clearly don't understand the vulnerability are particularly ridiculous.
I’m not ever touching Swedish money again
Seems like a strange overreaction. I mean, I get Al Jazeera English here in DC. There really isn't anything on it that should be controversial.

Perhaps it has to do with the fact that Current was reportedly tanking, which is why it was on the block in the first place.
I am pissed off with domain leechers
Hey everyone,

I want to give you a bit of information on why this is so important to new start-ups, and how this issue personally affected me. I am sure you have also come across this problem many times.

Three months ago I purchased a domain name for a startup venture. I have created a launch page, made business cards, created a logo; I have already accumulated a lot of signups in 3 weeks time and done a bit of marketing. I even have a few customers already.

Today I received a totally random email from a guy who is the owner of a very similar domain name. He has sent me a cease and desist letter, because apparently he owns the trademark. I have double-checked this on the USPTO website and everything seems legit.

However what estranges me is the fact that he has not setup a business. He bought the domain in 2010 to setup a company and I believe he quit before he launched. Now he made me an offer to sell the trademark and the domain name, or else desist from using the name. I did not ask him how much he wants for this, because I am sure it will be some crazy 6-digit figure that I will not be able to afford.

Now I have to change my business name.

I am lucky that my startup is still new and I haven't spent a fortune on marketing. Imagine if this was a year down the line... Many founders don't have the flexibility to change names, so they have to pay up.

So dear people from HN, could we please spread out the message on why this is so wrong! Every single time I go to a domain registrar, I can't use 90% of the names, because these domain leechers bought everything to make a profit.
How does carrying a TV channel cost Time Warner real money? I guess they pay the channels for the rights to broadcast, but how much was really costing them? A few hundred thousand a year? What if Ovation was free?

As for the politics of carrying an Al Jazeera owned channel in the U.S., it's a sad day for free speech.
Apple Change Breaks iMessage on Hackintosh
Or iteritems() for an iterable.
Thanks for reaching out so quickly regarding the feedback. I'll touch base with you as we build out our display and retargeting strategy.
I identify as a libertarian... But all these folks blaming the government in this case without truly knowing what took place but just jumping to the regulations are to blame conclusion, make me ill.

Yes the law of unintended consequences often occurs with regulations however blatantly taking advantage of someone or something is wrong, legal or illegal. This is where we need a jury of peers to determine whether we want to encourage or discourage the behavior that this company took part in. I'd find this company guilty in a heart beat.

It's like jury nullification in reverse.

All it takes for evil to triumph is good men to do nothing.
SQL Injection Vulnerability in several versions of Rails
Nice sentiment, but the implementation is inept. The courts have determined that existing boundaries, including county and village boundaries, matter. Physical features matter. Existing "communities of interest" matter. Population equality matters. And, sadly, race matters a lot.

The only sort-of mathematical awareness that the courts have concerns contiguity and compactness. Contiguity is easy. Compactness has a million definitions, and the courts haven't settled on a meaningful one. Come up with a compelling, mathematically-sound definition of compactness and you might have something.

Also, the author ought get at least a basic familiarity with the literature on political map-drawing. If he had it, he would know that maps are drawn on census blocks and that houses are never "split".
SS7 isn't a switch, it's an inter-switch OOB protocol.
TBH, I don't see why the low on gas problem exists. How hard can it be to include a feature that measures fuel levels when picked up and dropped off. Pay drivers above market rate for gas for filling up the tank with more gas than it had when they received it and penalize them when they leave it empty.

Assuming gas is $4 per gallon, a zipcar has a 15 gallon tank and had 10 gallons when picked up, charge the driver $6 per gallon below the 10 gallons it had when it was picked up and pay the driver $5 per gallon for each gallon more than 10 gallons it has.

The only problem I see with this approach is quality of fuel used by the driver. There is no way that I know of to enforce the octane level of the fuel pumped. However this is a problem that will exist either way.

There could also be sensors for other things, such as a smoke detector to make sure that someone isn't smoking in the car. I don't know if it's possible to make a sensor that makes sure a car is kept clean, but as more and more cars are used for car sharing I see the demand for such sensors to rise enough to justify bringing such sensors to market.
Time Warner and other cable companies are anticompetitive monopolies that offer poor-quality service at high prices. At one point Comcast had a worse customer service rating than the IRS (hence the new Xfiniti brand). Dropping these channels is pure greed.
I wonder if this algorithm would still present biases given the fact that large cities tend to vote differently from less densely populated areas. My hypothesis is that this algorithm would favor city voters over rural voters, for the following reasons:

1. Successfully gerrymandering in favor of one party generally involves stuffing the other party's voters into one district, while splitting your party's voters into multiple districts.

2. The proposed algorithm favors straight-line divisions through regions such that about half the population of the region is on each side of the division.

3. Thus, chances are, the straight lines will run through the middles of cities, cutting cities into multiple districts.

I'd be interested to see someone test this out--it's likely that my hypothesis is wrong, but it also seems pretty likely to me that there will be at least some urban/rural bias, one way or another.
I doubt tptacek will publicly reveal ways to exploit this (or any) vulnerability.

EDIT
Well... he might, but I've never seen him do it. He's a security professional, after all.