skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Prices of gas from oil are at all time high (except irregularities). Draw a line on that chart above to see.

Every penny gas goes up extracts millions from the economy.

Natural gas prices being so low is why they are burning it off instead of investing in the equipment to capture it - because no-one dares regulate their massive profit from oil.
I believe they cannot allow tethering with the iPhone since the iPhone its self doesn't allow tethering unless Apple unlocks it.

So they might need to pay Apple some £££ to get the ability to simply unlock tethering for GiffGaff's users.

I suspect that an jail-broken iPhone could tether on GiffGaff just fine.
Programmer Bob who outsourced his job was a model modern employee
That is a bug that is more easily (and less dangerously) fixed by asking for bytes and then decoding them from latin-1.
Most Android builds comes touch-optimized and configured out of the box to cater to touch-users. It might be a build which has more defaults tuned towards non-touch input like keyboard and mice.

I know if you tried to run Android on Netbooks using the 2.x codebase (which was possible) you'd have a horrible user-experience due to the platform's limited support for non-touch input-devices.

With Android 4.x the support for these has been improved to the point where you can call the thing a "PC" and almost use it as such.

They may just be referring to this. I don't know.
It was both; unless the well goes down to the same depth as the fracking level (unlikely as no water percolates down to those depths), and as upward migration of fracking media would require moving against gravity through impermeable layers of rock, the water table isn't touched by the target formation of fracking.

That, of course, doesn't negate the potential for surface contamination from spills, agricultural/industrial/mining runoff, previously unknown underground tanks, historical industrial concerns (such as smelters) to be effecting the supply on a well that was placed without a thorough (and thus expensive) search and impact assessment. In less affluent areas, the likelihood that a well was sited by a hydrologist (instead of a man with a stick) varies in inverse proportion to the likelihood that the driller is actually siting the well and acting as the hydrologist.

[EDIT: "goes up in direct proportion" changed to "varies in inverse proportion to the likelihood"; I proof-read myself terribly]
Good if-by-whiskey example. For those that weren't on HN yesterday: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If-by-whiskey
If I read "PC" here, I'd expect something other than "phone" and "tablet" mode, i.e. a proper multi-tasking desktop view. But AFAIK that's not available, although there have been hints about something like that in 5.0.
I've got an i.MX6Q bare board running next to me. It's beefier than this book PC (quad A9s instead of one). It has no heatsink and gets only slightly warm to the touch after running it hard for a while.

If any excess heat is generated by this thing, that aluminum backplate can probably sink it.

As for UL certification, this thing is low-voltage DC only. The power brick should be certified but that's probably all that's needed. And FCC class-B like usual.
>>> Decades ago, energy companies bought "mineral rights" to the land below those farms — so the companies can move in, create drilling pads where they please, move in trucks and workers, without the farmers' consent...

Huh? Without the farmers consent? When you sell your mineral rights, you're giving consent. What usually happens is that the gas companies lease your mineral rights and in that lease agreement are provisions that give the gas company the right to drill on your property, which includes equipment, trucks, etc. If the mineral rights were actually sold and not leased, I'd suspect the contract included writing in easements on the title for access and equipment.

Since the story is painting sort of a doom and gloom scenario, my guess is that whoever owned the property "decades ago" either bought the property without the mineral rights, sold them off, or did a very long-term lease on them. When this happened, the rights probably weren't very valuable because fracking technology didn't exist. Now that the land is worth a fortune, it's a missed opportunity of the farmer. Whatever the case, the owner either initiated the action or the terms should have come up when the property was sold.

I live in a part of Ohio that is currently in the early stages of a fracking "boom". Whether or not it comes to full fruition is unknown but the industry is certainly developing. I hear lots of stories about people who missed out on fracking leases because they had leased their mineral rights previously. The old scenario used to be next to no upfront lease money, a modest royalty, and free gas if they put a well on your property. When the fracking technology became available and the shale area was suspected to be ripe with gas, the whole game changed. Leases were being written that gave in the range of $800-$5000 per acre up-front, along with longer-term royalties. These were significantly more valuable than previous leases. I've heard stories of people missing out on upwards of $1,000,000 in upfront lease money because they already had leased their property to someone else. Of course, if gas hits on that land, the up-front money pales in comparison to the long-term royalites.

If I were a farmer, I wouldn't buy land knowing that I didn't own the mineral rights to it. You're making a bet that nobody will ever come in and claim those rights, which is unrealistic. If I'm a farmer and I sell of my rights through sale or lease, I'm making a bet that the sale of the rights or the lease and subsequent royalties are worth more than the production of my farm.
Here is a Department of Justice press release threatening 35 years: http://www.justice.gov/usao/ma/news/2011/July/SwartzAaronPR....

The additional charges added later (after this press release) are the source of the 50 year estimate.

6 months was offered IF he agreed to plead guilty. If he went to trial, the prosecutors claim in the above press release that he faced 35 years; in private communications they have claimed they intended to press for 7 years.

There are exceptions, but most of the blog articles I have read on the subject have been extremely well sourced and well researched.
Strippers Can Earn $350,000 A Year In This Oil Boomtown Club
They'll likely merge at some point. Chrome now runs on Android and desktop Chrome already has packaged apps that are native-like.

There's still a huge business market for browser apps such as Docs and it would take a while before there are equivalent Android apps for desktop form factor.
Usually. It depends on the deed titles you possess, which may preclude such actions. Also, sometimes they may not be severable based on jurisdiction.
Shenandoah [Tom Waits, Keith Richards] by Frans Schuman
The alleged crime WAS NOT merely violating the terms of service of a website. People really need to study the law before critiquing it.
Debatable, see my research on non-gun US and all method U.K. murder rates, which are really close: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4935644

I take this as evidence we're simply a violent people, however we're armed or not.
Why is creating/asking for design as part of a pitch a bad idea?
Sort of - you need to prove your ID to them (and contracts include that ID). But I was using a 3 contract broadband SIM in my phone and that wouldn't let me access stuff on the phone's browser.
Can we talk about bytelight? What the heck does that thing do?
Ubuntu/Unity (and Gnome shell) are doing all the wrong things and this shows it.

Ubuntu especially are now focusing on blingy desktops that somehow require really new cards and hardware only, and yet are also trying to throw away the traditional desktop to cram themselves onto a phone. And yet with high end requirements they are now not the desktop OS of the light weight / poor hardware people, they are for the high end only paradoxically.

Android is coming the other way: a good core set of features now slowly building out into a potential desktop replacement. Because the desktop is still important, especially for anyone looking to do any productivity work.

And after watching a fast demo on the site, I see another thing Android is doing right. Somehow even though it's incredibly low resource it has animated desktops. I was first exposed to the idea in the mid 2000s with a video demoing Enlightenment 17 showing animated desktops. I even made a bug with Gnome asking for the feature. No dice. Even with all their modern "bling" and high and hardware requirements, they can't do live wallpapers/desktops. So with a lame static desktop, try running them on this hardware? EXPLDOE. Won't work.

Meanwhile light little android also has this cute feature.

And this really just underscores to me that in all ways Ubuntu/Unity/Gnome shell are just going in all the wrong directions while Android seems to be increasingly going in many of the right ones.
I'd be interested to see the results of two bots playing against humans.

Bot One just plays the odds.

Bot Two just plays the odd, but has a small chance of bluffing - it has a poor hand but plays as if it has a great hand.

I'd be interested to see the results after several thousand hands. And if people could tell the bots apart from people.

This is, obviously, nothing like AI. But sometimes trivial tricks are powerful. Look at the early discussions about ELIZA for an example.

I don't play poker, but my friend tells me that it's fun to play in tournaments because it's not just odds. You get people who have terrible poker faces, who are easy to read. That same friend also plays (and makes a little bit of money) from online poker. I have no idea how the psychology works there.
Apparently you can use the Skype app for free calls to 0800 numbers.
However in this case there were damages involved to outside parties - which meant they had to agree to any plea bargain if the US attorney wanted to present that to the judge.
[Show HN]: Blogging on Snipt.net
There's another way to think about this. There are probably billions of Lithium-based batteries in circulation world-wide. Yet, the reports of fires are few and far between. RC use is not a measure of safety because of the extreme nature of the usage. For example, I have a high-performance glider that draws in excess of 120A for rocket-like climb to altitude. Yet, those battery packs are a few years old and have never given me any problems.

I don't know what the 787's issues might be. My money is on a quality problem at the battery manufacturer, not Boeing.
Ahye - An Open Source Screenshot and Image Server
Oh, they care. If they have any suspicion that you're counting they'll just politely ask you to leave. Casinos are private property and they have the right to kick/ban anyone they want for any reason. Call it unfair, whatever.

And read up on the history of the early card counters and their shoe computers. It's a colorful story.
I always wondered if it would be possible to launch a small satelite from a balloon.
I don't think it is a good idea that the backers are only charged when the product is ready to ship. After all, this is all about getting the resources so that you are able to ship. When the backers don't pay upfront, you don't have those resources. So to me it seems you are looking at Kickstarter as a distribution channel, not as a funding opportunity.
I gather there are many other designs with "proprietary" to the user weapons retention features without that trigger finger moving inwards motion, so you're not limited to the SERPA. In fact I'd argue that all the ones I've heard something about are better because they don't have that big, obvious button on the outside.
One of the quotes in the linked blog post is the pretty much official statement of the languages creator. defined? and nonzero? are core language methods and unlikely to change. The fact that many ruby programmers have a misconception about what predicates were supposed to imply is sad, but won't change things. In short: All ruby devs need to learn how predicates were intended or they're in for a surprise.

Btw: The mantra "convention over configuration" is a rails mantra and not a ruby mantra.
Aaron Swartz: US attorney says she only sought six-month jail term
No you wouldn't be. Not in and of itself. If you commit a "computer" crime and they find that you have done this, then yes they will add it to the charges.
Those flares are safety releases. Refineries would be extraordinarily dangerous without them.
This might be informative:

http://poker.cs.ualberta.ca/

Some variants of poker are much easier than others. Texas Hold'em is considered to be one of the most strategically challenging poker games and there has been quite a bit of research on Hold'em bots. The current state of the art is this: computer players can defeat human players below the professional level, but professional players still run circles around the computer.
Between releasing CO2 (a by-product of the burn) and releasing methane, CO2 is consindered the lesser of the two waste gases. Underground storage would be expensive, volatile gas stored anywhere is a potential liability waiting to happen, especially in areas where there is fuel being moved about. Since the companies have extraction rights, they may also lack the legal capacity to build storage facilities.
And I am saddened by the not-so-recent yet constant Reddit-bashing over aspects of discussion that appear on HN and not necessarily at all on most programming-related subreddits. Those, in my experience, have a level of discussion quite comparable to HN[0].

[0] in a technical sense, the startup focus is quite unique to HN. or maybe I don't subscribe to startup-related subreddits (since startup news is not really the reason I read HN either)
Show HN: Getting Started With Online Marketing Tools For Startups
This guide is designed to help demystify online marketing tools for start-ups, growing businesses, and larger businesses looking to expand their online presence.

We have no affiliate program or ties with the companies offering these tools, we've just used them ourselves (along with many more tools which were less than satisfactory) and found them helpful.

Let me know what you think.
Well, there are ways around it:

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120427144332/simpson...
Optimise your Linkedin Profile to obtain Freelance Work via Search Engines
Uh, this is really stupid. You can do this exact same thing for any activity for free with joesgoals.com or any of the tens of other freely available "don't break the chain" web apps.

Here are some more:

http://www.openforum.com/articles/17-best-tools-and-apps-for...
Microsoft Security Essentials fails anti-virus certification test
Lenovo Enters The Chromebook Game, Lends Credibility
Do you really think that none of them are looking at other platforms?

Most of the ones I know on that list are already on at least tablet as well, and I would be amazed if someone there isn't at least thinking about future channels (whether that be smart TV, Google Glass or whatever).
2009: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9137708/Opinion_The_u...

1999: http://blog.calevans.com/nerd-herding/

1980: http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Mp8rAAAAIBAJ&sjid=S...
You do know that being the only iPhone user in the world who tells that he is using HTC One X is actually a pretty lead on you? :)

Sometimes the very acts that you do when trying to conceal your identity can be used to reveal it.
> solar energy lands on the planet and is wasted.

How do you know? I actually don't see how even one milliwatt of it could be "wasted": Even if it arrives in the midst of the ocean, this milliwatt is still heating the water, which allows for clouds, which gives us rain, and life.

The only possibly wasted energy is the rays the Sun sends to the nil, and maybe artificial satellites could grad a piece of it.
>"Otherwise, why would you allow that person to reconnect again just because they changed their MAC address?"

Because in some situations, this is literally the only means you have to get someone off your network. I'm arguing that it is possible and fairly straightforward to tell why your MAC address got banned. The most obvious is by looking back at your history on the network. You know if you've done something questionable. Another way is to call the helpdesk and ask why you've been banned.

At no point is "I didn't know why" going to be a valid reason for spoofing a MAC address to get around a network ban. If you have the know-how to spoof your MAC address, you have the know-how to understand why it's necessary.

If this happened on my company's network, the next step would be tracking the person down with physical security and letting them know the police would be enforcing the ban next time.
I don't think the OP's point is a strawman, but a redirection of focus. I've seen it in my own clients. They get wrapped up in the buzz of 'mobile' and forget that they have a website, an email list, print material, trade-show booths, and product packaging which all contribute to their overall brand. They blow their budget making a native mobile app for every platform and the rest of their efforts are neglected.

'Mobile strategy' is one (of many) important parts of a company's overall effort. But I think the OP is trying to say that it shouldn't be treated as more important (or solely focused on) compared to the many other channels one can leverage. I agree that a business's focus should be it's customers, ubiquitously, without such heavy weight placed just on 'mobile'.
Honestly, I think the only thing keeping me from using Android as more of a desktop replacement is the lack of solid local compilers. That, and a handful of more specialized desktop applications like MatLab (which run just as well on my lab computers- I probably don't need to carry them around), are the only reasons I can't just make the jump.
defined? behaves completely correct in respect to naming conventions. It's behavior is notable in a different way: It's one of the few places where undefined constants can appear in the code without raising an exception:

jruby-1.6.8 :089 > defined? Foo::Bar
=> nil
jruby-1.6.8 :090 > Foo::Bar
NameError: uninitialized constant Foo::Bar
More expensive yes but the main reason it's on a Thursday is simply because it's the most appropriate day according to our members. Most of our attendees have family/personal commitments on Fridays & weekends.
Comparing a laptop to a self-built desktop PC isn't exactly a fair comparison. Try walking in to your local PC hardware shop with any PC laptop suffering from a bad power distribution board (an internal component). They're unlikely to have one on hand.
> Encoding system is beyond broken

I disagree. Due to some political issues[1], in Ruby's country of origin, Unicode is still not as widely used as it could be. Instead, local multibyte character sets are the norm.

Normalizing to Unicode internally (like what Python 3 does) is impractical or not feasible as turning that Unicode data back into the original string is not reliably possible but might be required.

Ignoring encodings all together and treating everything as byte strings (like 1.8.7 did) might be ok if you live in an english speaking country and you're not dealing with EBDIC. In all other cases, this means that you can't safely use any of the string manipulation built into the language.

As such the second best way to deal with encodings is to have a distinct type for every possible encoding you support and have them incompatible with each other.

Then the applications can decide what they want to do: Not deal with encodings at all (if you live in pure-ASCII land), unify everything to UTF-8 (or 16), or use whatever local character set the input data is in.

The only thing I would be willing to argue might have been a wrong decision is adding the force_encoding method as more often than not calling that is not what you want, even though it might look as if it was. It has a huge shooting-your-own-foot potential.

OTOH, sometimes libraries have mistakes or lie willingly at which point it might be a handy, albeit really dangerous, tool to have. Just like the -f flag for rm. Use it responsibly.

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_unification
7 years (which is what I read) is a "ridiculously lengthy" prison term for downloading papers from the internet for no financial gain. How can one see it any other way?

This isn't about the judge and jury. 7 years is what the prosecutors would have asked, and we are discussing the fairness in their approach.
> Changing the encoding of a string effectively destroys the data inside. It's entirely useless and potentially very dangerous.

Says you. For my part, I've more than once had to deal with data that the source tells me is in one encoding, but where I can't trust the encoding and have to use heuristics to determine whether or not to switch encoding after I've read the string in.

Yes, there are other ways of handling that than changing the encoding, but that doesn't mean it isn't convenient to be able to correct the encoding value already attached to the string.

As for the "potentially very dangerous" I don't really buy that. Yes, you can turn the string into complete gibberish if you call it without knowing what you're doing, but it's not exactly something that you're likely to call by accident.
> The overwhelming majority of developers edits in a GUI editor though, be it in Visual Studio, XCode, IntelliJ, Eclipse or Vim / Emacs / TextMate / ST2 etc.

The overwhelming majority of vim/emacs developers use it in a terminal, and are pretty happy with it. When you mentioned open source editors catching up, it isn't going to happen because your requirements are not universal. "Only if it looked shiny" is very low on todo list of vim/emacs users/developers.

> I don't have to wait. Plenty of other developers live in your "22th century" and offer nice and functional native editors already.

My comment about waiting was with respect to vim/emacs(as examples of other open source editors). You can wait till 22nd century; it probably still won't happen. Users are mostly happy; developers don't care.

> Bad support for millions of colors, bad support for Unicode,

My terminal(terminator) does that fine.

> no support for a structured type (e.g JSON), ad-hoc implementations for lots of things given in the desktop.

Why and how would a terminal support JSON? What are those ad-hoc desktop things?

> Where's a proper autocompletion in the shell that behaves like in a native app?

shell has to support autocomplete in million things, compared to your native app which only does one thing say Java. Whether shell offers completion or not depends on the external tool as well. You install some utility shit_load. How on earth is shell going to complete "shit_load -<TAB>".

> I mean tmux/screen borking the scroll buffer? Is this 2013?

tmux/screen scroll buffers work fine. You are just making shit up.
Richard O'Dwyer
Why would you pay 99$ for this?
You can have the ODROID-U2 for just 89$, which is better (performance wise) and supports Ubuntu 12.10 and Android 4.
http://www.hardkernel.com/renewal_2011/products/prdt_info.ph...
That gas is already being fed through pipes to the burn stacks. The cost of doing something with it is a lot less than trying to capture the terawatts of solar falling on the planet.
That is already implemented in several countries, it´s called "Compulsory Patent Licensing".

Here's a paper from 1988 (!!!) which basically endorses it for the U.S.

http://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?collection=journals...

The Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_license#Patents

they're basically used for medicines now, but it should be implemented for everything.

Also, a little research showed it to be ineffective in Australia because you need to ask for permission from the government first.

Finally, it doesn't stop "bad patents" and might even promote them.
There's a big difference between thinking about other platforms and actually supporting other platforms. Users typically don't care what a company is thinking of doing; they care what they're doing.