skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I spent many years at MIT and continue to support the Institute today, financially and with my time. What makes MIT special - for me - is the way that the administration (at least while I was there) embraces the hacker culture and understands that the type of brilliant, creative young people they recruit will break a lot of rules to test the system before they find their place in it. They continually shielded us from the outside world and maintained a bubble in which we could experiment and push the boundaries. If it went too far, you were suspended for awhile, but I can't remember anyone referred to criminal prosecution.

If that type of community spirit is lost, it's a loss for everyone because somewhere special like that deserves to exist.
Thanks for your respectful reply.

You're right that most people who want to die don't want to die all the time, and suicide decisions are impulsive to the extent that that they're made when the suicidal person wants to die (which is only some of the time) and not when they don't.

However, I think even when the decision is "impulsive", it's a decision to execute a plan whose details have been worked about over a long period of time. Usually suicidal feelings aren't acted upon the first time they surface. I'd imagine that it's actually very difficult to kill oneself, and it takes a lot of preparation to do it right, and a lot of determination to will oneself into following through with it.

I think "I love my friends and if I kill myself now I'll never get to see them again" is a valid reason to keep oneself alive. But shaming and pressuring suicidal people, making them feel bad (as if they don't feel bad enough already) for the impact their decision will have on others is totally out of order. Everybody has the right to choose to end their life and they shouldn't be shamed for it. At the same time, that choice does not exist in a vacuum, and it's worth looking at the external pressures that influenced the person's decision, and external entities can absolutely be blamed (and held responsible) for a person's suicide.

(I have dealt with some suicidal feelings before, but who hasn't? I don't want to come across as authoritative on this: I'm speculating based on my own experiences and those of other people with whom I've talked about this stuff. I'm completely open to correction and to hearing other people's perspectives and I appreciate your comment. I have no time though for the kind of victim-blaming that some people are doing in this thread.)
That is not correct. He launched what amounted to a DoS against JSTOR:

" the strain it put on JSTOR’s servers was enough to have impaired other research institutions attempting to access the materials."

"Together, Grace and Gary Host downloaded JSTOR articles at such an astounding pace that several of JSTOR’s servers crashed."

http://tech.mit.edu/V131/N30/swartz.html
You're right. Reading the New York Times isn't about news to me, as it a tool to generate ideas. Their magazine articles or in-depth coverage of topics made me re-evaluate many times my standings on various topics.
Out of curiosity, I skipped through his talk. He says he will leave Vladivostok on a research vessel and cross the North Pacific that way.

If that is not the proverbial "truck", I don't know what is. I don't blame him, but National Geographic/BBC should really know better than publish such misleading maps.
Samsung Flexible Display at CES 2013: 'YOUM'
It matters how you say things. I disagree with the statement that this is "quite clearly" saying that the penalties are too much:

> But the penalties in this case, and the sources of those penalties, are really remarkable. These penalties really go against MIT’s culture of breaking down barriers.

Using the phrase "really remarkable" sidesteps saying that they're wrong. It's classic weaseling.
moving from mouse to touchscreen will also require moving from vertical to plane-of-the-desk displays. it's simply not ergonomic to keep touching a screen oriented the way desktop and laptop monitors are today.
Threatening someone's life (30+ years in prison) for civilian expropriation of data is certainly a case of bad form, a tenet of ethics. We can argue MIT's significance in this mechanism, but that they aided a bad process is undeniable.
We Want Chromeless - Chromeless Windows Make The Internet a Better Place
You could even automtically hook up your phone to your tv, etc. no wires needed. As long as your phone carries everything, it can be hooked up to anything automatically when you step into a room!
Like many people, if I'm thinking and designing I prefer to have no music. If I'm doing these things in a noisy environment I may listen to some rain recordings such as [1].

When I'm coding I mainly listen to classical music. The problem is that I need to listen to things I know very well or I'll get distracted, so I end up listening to the same compositions over and over again, to the annoyment of my wife ;-)

These days the compositions I list the most while coding are:

- Beethoven String Quartets, for instance [2] (I really like the fugato at 5:00 ;-)

- Mahler Symphonies, for example [3]

- Ravel music

- Some Monteverdi madrigals [4]

I like to use headphones, either a Sennheiser PX 200 [5] or a Sennheiser HD-280 PRO [6].

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvRv-243Cmk

[2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55PIXCQgEfE

[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkoeH5BtLyQ

[4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkDyNzPUQbo

[5] http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-PX-200-II-Headphones/dp/B00...

[6] http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-HD-280-Pro-Headphones/dp/B0...
I've avoided newspapers for a couple of years, for much the same reasons described here. I still read a monthly news magazine, sometimes a weekly one. I find reading an international edition helps a lot (whether of a foreign or domestic news source) - less of the ins and outs of day-to-day politics and crime, which really don't enhance my life.

What's left are two kinds of stories - actual "news", by which I mean events that are more unusual and important; the kind of content that will be history in the future. This... feels like it affects me; I would prefer to read the history books about it, but they're not written yet, and I want to know now while there's still time to do something about it. If I'm going to change the world, even at the very limited level of making a product that makes some people's lives easier, that will probably be made possible because of some new piece of information; waiting until it's accepted wisdom is too late.

The other kind is features that are "still true", that aren't particularly time-sensitive. Things I could just as well read a book about, indeed. But my experience is that short essays are much better than books, to the extent that many of my favourite "books" are nothing more than collections of essays or newspaper columns. Likewise in fiction (and one thing that drives my choice of magazine is that it includes fiction), short stories are often more compelling and impactful than long ones.
Yes, involving the USSS was the first seriously questionable decision MIT made. I hope Prof Abelson's report includes who made that decision, when, on what evidence, and why.

I'd be fine with invoking the USSS if there were serious crime going on -- someone using MIT to host cp, or compromising research integrity, or planning violence or financial crime, etc.

If it's someone using your network resources in excess of terms of service, to download another freely available resource in excess of service.

I'd give a technically lesser party (say, a small business, or an individual, or a local government office) a pass if they called the USSS in on something, since they might not be competent to figure out what is going on. However, MIT is clearly in a position to know exactly what was happening.

I'd be inclined to wait for Abelson's report, but from what I've seen so far, MIT Libraries, MIT IS&T, MIT Police, and the MIT Office of General Counsel are all to blame to some extent.

The lion's share of the blame falls on USA Carmen M. Ortiz, AUSA Stephen P. Heymann, and AUSA Scott L. Garland, however, and on Congress for passing unreasonable computer crime and copyright laws with such absurdly excessive criminal penalties.
One of the issues that's been topical around here lately is that the cost of being found not guilty by a jury, is itself ruinous, if not totally out of reach of most people. This is part of the fed's strategy in massively overcharging people: It pressures them to accept a plea deal, which is how the vast majority of cases are resolved, because they can't possibly afford to stick it out long enough to be found not guilty.
Absolutely sure. I, like most who use this site, have access to countless IPs, so it's a rather weird behavior for the site.

HN -- whether it's PG or his minions, or just people abusing flag -- has a bizarrely defensive, insular, ignorant perspective about many things.
We plan to monetize via charging R&D firms for access to 'trending research' data - data about which papers are trending in a given area of research. I am a firm believer that the participants in the scientific community, and the world in general, should not pay to share or access research. Participants on Facebook, Twitter, Wordpress, and other sites don't pay to share ideas, and the same should be true of the way science works.

That said it would be unwise at this stage to rule out some kind of freemium option. It is not the ideal option, but when trying to achieve a mission you want to keep as many options open as possible. You don't want to box yourself in in ways that may damage you later. There are also many good freemium services (Github, Dropbox, LinkedIn).

To achieve a revolution in science, you need to build a huge community, and change the behavior of scientists. There are many ways in which a site tries to grow. Requiring users to sign up to download papers is one of those growth channels for us. If it was a big deal amongst our users, we would change it. But in practice it hasn't been an issue; our users don't mind this. Most people read the HTML5 version that is displayed in the browser. If they have to register to get a local copy of the paper, instead of paying $35 to get it from a journal, they don't mind that. Over 2 million academics have signed up, and we have about 4.5 million monthly unique visitors, so we have a fair amount of data on this.
Crazy that they're talking about Swartz's laptop in that email. Is the government so blind as to think that he would actually have all of those documents on his computer? I wonder what the laws are surrounding content kept in the cloud. Is that "possession"?
> A court cannot let someone walk after a crime simply because the law itself is unjust.

Incorrect. That's what the power of jury nullification is for. It's been ensconced in Western law for centuries:

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

Aaron only committed a crime worthy of severe punishment if one takes the point of view of the Crown...I mean, of the government.
And unicorns and monkeys will start flying out of my butt...

There is absolutely no possibility that Android or any bastardisation of it can or will be used for anything involving moderate productivity apart from a geek niche.

Why?

People really don't have the time or inclination to meddle around and learn new interface paradigms for the sake of anything other than consuming. For people who earn cash or actually have to get shit done, it's too much of a context switch to get over. Not only that, it actually wrecks productivity.

It's hard enough for people to move from Windows to Linux.

And don't say about OSX market share or penetration as an example - there are precisely sod all Macs in the majority of businesses.

People aren't even buying Windows 8 because it's too different.

People actually really like Windows XP-7 and Office 97-2010 and don't want anything else. Sorry if this is painful news.

Even smartphones are starting to piss people off. I've seen so many people switching back to feature-phones like Nokia Asha and cheap Samsungs recently, it's unreal.
What crimes do you actually believe he committed? He downloaded a ton of academic articles, and then he did as JSTOR asked him to, and returned the Intellectual property.

The focus should be on getting mental health services to those that need it most AS WELL AS ceasing to judge prosecutors based on their prosecution rate.

This sets the stage for over-prosecution and can blind the prosecutor into not just trying to prove everyone guilty, but force them into submitting that they are guilty whether they are or not.

Police officer's used to be judged on arrest rate, we figured out that wasn't actually doing any good, and changed the criteria to lower crime rates.

The prosecutor who grossly over-charged Aaron (and is obviously technically illiterate) should be forced to resign. If you think that sending someone to jail for 30 years (or even the minimum of 5) for downloading academic articles is fair, then you should do the right thing and resign from your position as a state level prosecutor too.
Depends on the mood I'm in. From slow piano/classic to techno.
I do not remember intentionally downvoting anyone on the internet, your comment made me want to break that pattern.
I agree, and it's why I find the witch hunt angle all the more troubling. Half of the people making angry diatribes right now on HN couldn't write a cogent paragraph about the failings of the American prosecutorial system, two days ago.

And now they're busy tripping over each other with hyperbole-filled condemnations, and casting all members of the justice system as something subhuman.

And in all of this noise we've only heard a few whimpers about the systemic failings that have brought about this tragedy, with vastly more voices calling for specific heads to roll. This is a classic pitchfork-wielding mob - less concerned with the future prevention of the injustice, and much more concerned with blame and vengeance.

There is justice, and there is mob justice. HN has seen vastly more of the latter than the former in the past couple of days.
Aaron Swartz, 1986-2013
Incubator Start-ups Raise $175,000 More Than Start-ups In Co-working Spaces
One step is to change the negative associations with the word, "hacker." I once co-organized a hackathon for teachers and we debated long and hard about using the word "hack" in the title or tagline. In the end, we decided not to use the word because too many teachers thought "hacking" was about breaking into computer systems, like the movie.

(I made sure to use the term in the description though, because I believe we really need to change the connotations of that term for the general public.)

Later, some high school students who attended our hackathon decided to organize a similar event at their high school. They used the term "hack" in the title because that was how they could best attract other students. This was against the desires of their teachers, most of whom argued against using that term. Their event was a success and hopefully they've changed the way their high school views the word "hack."

Or, maybe there just needs to be a character on "The Big Bang Theory" who is a hacker. Hollywood has a funny way of changing perceptions sometimes.
It is on the front page because this is happening in the USA every day, every hour. But we usually hear about it only when somebody high-profile enough is hurt by the criminal prosecution machine. But make no mistake of thinking the same machine doesn't hurt people 24/7 - we just don't hear about it often. Maybe if we did, we could get some way to fix it or at least make it less cruel and inhumane. Most of the readers here, I presume, are lucky enough to have very small chance of being pulled into the criminal prosecution machine unless they do something out of the ordinary - like Aaron Swartz did. But it still exists right next to us and we better not forget about it.
I agree. It is pretty timely that this article was posted around the same time when almost half the front page is covering the same topic.
Actually a certain "critical care" Welch Allyn device magically got a switch from Windows CE to VxWorks a few years ago after some "incidents" apparently.

I can't cite anything to prove this other than I know someone who worked for an agency who rented their kit out and it was gradually "upgraded" due to reliability problems.
Emscripten does the same thing for uint64_t etc
Jury nullification is to all intents and purposes mostly a theoretical thing nowadays.
> performing a few minor style edits.

On StackOverflow, edits are NOT for contributions. If you have something significant to say, say it in a comment or in your own answer. The only allowable edit is an edit that does not change the substance of the answer, that is, minor and stylistic.
"Not about me." Richly ironic, that.

But he was right. I feel much better about life when I don't read the news - and I'm typically far more productive during those periods when I manage to abstain.
I found Beijing to have poor air, but not nearly as bad as other places in China. Travel out west to Xi'an, and for much of the year it seems as though you can't even see the sky. I heard it told that living there is equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes per day. I don't know if that's true, but anecdotally, spending a few weeks there and I was coughing up some of the nastiest stuff I've ever seen from breathing bad air.
Really? Taxes on the rich were just a small part of their many, many ideals. In terms of creating real political force, the Tea Party has done far far more.

I'm not saying OWS was useless...I agree with you that the amount of conversation and awareness they raised was far more than I would've suspected walking by their Zucotti Park encampment everyday...they had a decent amount of success despite their wide diversity of goals, and that's admirable. But to the parent commenter's point, their unfocused aims limit their success. The Tea Party, in contrast, is an actual force in Congress.
I've also had an error message along the lines of "cannot read from tape" when using tar(1) in OS X.
As a matter of fact a jury can do that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification although of course this is a controversial topic.
Families aren't unerring. Taking a person's family reaction as the ideal course of action post tragedy is a hornet's nest of problems.
His "crimes"[1] were not worthy being intimidated with a 35 year old sentence. In any sane society this young man could've done community work(if guilty). A sane society would like to use his skills to teach at schools or something, not throw him in a hell-on-earth prison system were humans are disposable.

The justice system can be a game[2], strong players have it their way, and the seminal work by Aaron's "Demand Progress" was a direct affront to very strong players. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs", and tragic events like these are what move people in one direction and make things change. His mental state is secondary to the injustice he suffered.

[1] http://unhandled.com/2013/01/12/the-truth-about-aaron-swartz...
[2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/harveysilverglate/2013/01/03/bla...
That's surprising. I didn't realize China was #1 in aggregate CO2 emissions. Of course... per capita, the US is still like 3x China from the look of it.
I find sliders great for e-commerce. A slider of highlighted products/specials feels a bit like window shopping.

Bonus points for those dots that show you what slide you're on and let you jump around, and a link to the product page from the slide. I've actually bought quite a few things that a site made me aware of through a slider.
I thought Emacs was already available on Android.
That's Abelson as in SICP, isn't it?
I can't reproduce the PHP example:

$ uname -p
x86_64
$ php -v
PHP 5.4.6-1ubuntu1 (cli) (built: Aug 22 2012 21:13:52)
Copyright (c) 1997-2012 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.4.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2012 Zend Technologies
$ php -r 'var_dump(1000000 * 8.2);'
float(8200000)
$
Have you ever been in jail? It is a form of living death, and intentionally so.
I actually find it implausible that a jury would have been savvy enough to know, even after courtroom-education by the defense, that nullification was an ideal option.
I don't think anyone is glorifying his suicide. I think people are outraged about the fact that overzealous prosecution based on an unjust law may have contributed to the death of an extremely talented person. People were unhappy with the law before, but it didn't have direct, concrete consequences for them to point to. Now it does.
Skill-Biased Technological Change and Rising Wage Inequality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification

> Jury nullification occurs when juries acquit criminal defendants who are technically guilty, but who do not deserve punishment. It occurs in a trial when a jury reaches a verdict contrary to the judge's instructions as to the law.

I do not agree with kristenlee but I did want to bring up at a jury can let someone walk who is technically guilty.

Edit: Sorry, didn't mean to post the same as 2 other people I read the article then came back to read the comments and I didn't see the other comments as I hadn't refreshed the page
Show HN: A better #PDFTribute Scraper
Reif was Provost before, though.
Square peg in a round hole, you wouldn't try to understand Haskell with a Ruby background either.

Since it has no types per se, it doesn't make much sense to think of an 'integer type'. Javascript only has a number primitive, which is a IEEE 754 float.
Right and evidently whomever shared this did not want the other 21,999 people seeing that they had posted it to their blog. So they shared it anonymously.
> (Who would commit suicide in order to get attention? You can't get attention when you're dead.)

As someone who has contemplated suicide, I've had significant moments when I'd (1) recognize that my ideation was a direct reaction to someone else's actions or inactions, (2) remind myself that this was a bad reason to commit, (3) stop myself. It was not "getting attention" so much as a willful desire to punish. It was not sane. But it was also real.

Not saying that this is what Aaron went through, but if you're going to generalize, that's not the right question to ask.
FWIW in September 2012, Google launched an EMD (Exact Match Domain) update which Matt Cutts announced on Twitter [1] to combat "search-term-in-domain" results ranking higher than other websites because their domain matched the search term.

I personally believe that you should go for a name which is easy to pronounce/spell and if you can target your audience in the name than its perfect.

[1] https://twitter.com/mattcutts/status/251784203597910016
That is a fine display of histrionics; but, the specifics of this case DO merit removing Ms. Ortiz and her assistant Mr. Heymann from office.

Those of us who were following the case before Aaron's tragic episode knew that a great injustice was being perpetrated, but that it could not realistically be undone until after the damage had happened.

Ms. Ortiz and Mr. Heymann should be held accountable for their decision to use charges far out of proportion to the damage done. And the correct way to hold them accountable is to remove them from an office they have proven themselves incapable of using appropriately. They do not deserve to have the full power of the law behind their petty vendettas.

A Federal District Attorney in this country, at this time, has almost no checks on her power to prosecute. Petitioning the Whitehouse and the congress to remove one who has clearly overstepped the bounds of propriety is the only recourse we have.

You should sign the petition, because it is the only way that Ms. Ortiz's power will even be questioned officially. Like most online petitions it will accomplish little without a sustained campaign from many directions.