skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Fun excerpts:

> the Government has identified only a limited number of isolated qualifying drug-related incidents spread out over the course of more than a decade, none of which involve the Motel owner or employees

> Based on the evidence presented and my observation of the witnesses
during trial, I find that Mr. Caswell is appropriately concerned with the events that take place at the Motel and that he recognizes that it is in his interest and in the interest of his family to operate as safe an enterprise as possible.

> Motel employees, including maids and desk clerks, have called the police
on a number of occasions to report suspicious activity.

> Mr. Caswell has called the police on a number of occasions to report
suspicious activity.

You say:

"The DOJ obviously didn't prove those points to a preponderance of evidence"

But the DOJ did not merely fail to prove anything. They were completely full of shit, and they went after this guy because they thought they could get away with it. It is as clear as daylight if you actually read the documents and not a bunch of pro-government rants on hacker news.
Here is what I can find out:

Starting with the complicated story here:
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-11th-circuit/1531644.html

Ken Hodges is now a partner in a law firm (Ashe, Rafuse & Hill, LLP). I can find nothing that says he was disciplined:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Hodges

Kelly Burke resigned, but not because of disgrace, but to run for election elsewhere:
http://www.macon.com/2010/02/24/1035453/burke-to-resign.html

He lost that election, and is now at his own law firm:
http://www.burkelasseterllc.com/
(I'm going by http://www.martindale.com/Mr-Kelly-R-Burke/888392-lawyer.htm, which points to this)

I can't find out all the details of what happened to James Paulk, but if he was charged, it doesn't show up in the public records I have access to.

FWIW: Not all prosecutors are like this. I clerked for a former state's attorney who was a judge on the maryland court of special appeals. I have not the slightest doubt that he would have arrested, charged, and prosecuted all three of these men if something like this ever happened in his state.
We won't know until we get there.

Generally, the performance of a video codec is held back by available hardware performance more than anything else.

The specifications of a video codec generally specify the decoder, but not the encoder. The decoder specification is intended to be implementable on hardware or software, so it can be played back in real-time, either now or in the immediate future. If some compression technique is available, but can't be done real-time, it can't be used. If a compression technique could be done real-time but only if limits are placed on it, then limits will be placed on it.

The encoder has to generate a bitstream that the decoder will decode, so it's limited by the decoder's capabilities. To an extent, it's limited by available algorithms (see how much better a modern h.264 encoder is compared to the original ones), and by encoding performance (particularly if you need to encode in real time, but even offline encoders can only be so slow before they become useless), and the quality / compression performance tends to get better with time. It's still limited mostly by the decoder, though.

This example is for audio codecs, but LAME actually generated higher-quality MP3s than all of the first generation of AAC encoders, entirely because it had smarter encoding algorithms. For that matter, XVID tended to produce videos that rivaled, and occasionally surpassed, the first generations of h.264 encoders. Despite that early lead, both LAME and XVID were overtaken once the AAC and h.264 encoders matured, because they were still limited by the decoders they were targetting.

There's probably still a long way to go just adding complexity to the decoder, even if we don't invent any new techniques. Eventually, it'll get to the point where you could increase the limits on the decoder, but you'll end up using far more power, and getting no noticeable improvement.

So, the limit would be the point when nobody can come up with any new techniques, encoders can perfectly measure perceptual quality (and therefore make perfect decisions about what techniques to use to get the best combination of bitrate vs quality), and improving existing techniques has a high cost and very low return.

I don't think we're anywhere near there, yet.

Lossless codecs, on the other hand, definitely do have a hard theoretical limit, because they can't discard data like lossy codecs can.
I watched this only to see if Microsoft finally got an ad right.

But the only feeling I had was "there's a reason all these things are no longer around." Either I'm not the target audience, or the nostalgic items they chose were ... wrong.
Ok, this is pretty cool, I could totally see this making things that might suffer from metal fatigue and conductor breakage much more reliable.
Yes, I was trying to dramatize a conflict of interest that was more relevant in this scenario, where the romance is not between a manager and his direct report. (Assuming the OP is correct.)
Let me clarify. I did not say that deterrence is utterly without use. When I said that there is a problem with deterrence, I meant that the current state of deterrence in our justice system is broken. There is a mistaken belief that more punishment necessarily entails greater deterrence, which is many times not the case. There is really a threshold when it comes to deterrence. There is very little to no deterrent effect of the death penalty vs. life without parole, as others have posted here. In fact, I personally find it hard to believe that a life sentence versus, say, 50 years in prison, has any additional deterrent effect for something like murder. The rational 90% would still be adequately deterred.
I believe this section is mostly dealing with companies that create a library, patent it, then create a GPL3 app that uses said library without the intention of opening up the library. Looking at you NVIDIA :). The way I'm reading that is if you build a work that relies on a library covered under patent you must do one of the following:
1. Publish the library as some form of open source (no license specified)
2. Cede the patent to the public domain through some mechanism
3. Grant anyone creating software based on said library a license to the patent free of charge.

As the MPEGLA owns the patent and is not shipping code #1 would not be available and #2 and #3 would not be applicable to a 3rd party developing code because they don't own the patent.

IANAL but that seems to be the way that clause was intended.
I wrote a gem that I've used to help with the secret key problem in the past. It's called Envious: https://github.com/RyanNielson/envious

Basically it adds a yml file, that is added to .gitignore, with configuration settings that get added to ENV. It can even send your environment variables to Heroku using a Rake task. There are some examples on the page. You can use it to have different secret keys depending on your Rails environment as well.
Early 30s is not too late. I know a guy going back for a MS in Stat who is 40s -- no previous data related jobs. Stop comparing yourself to other people, just work on things youre passionate about. Most people dont. You are already successful if you can do that.
There are some ways that I preferentially give to local people because it's easier. I've helped more street beggars in my neighborhood than in Port au Prince because I don't walk down the streets of Port au Prince.

But when it comes to paying for perfect strangers to receive medical treatment, and I'm choosing between someone in the US, whose medical treatment costs more, and who will receive the medical treatment anyway at the risk of personal bankruptcy, vs. someone who wouldn't receive the treatment at all in Port au Prince, you can't make an argument that I should give to the American. The American will get the treatment with or without my help. He might just end up bankrupt, but being bankrupt in America is not that bad. In fact, there's a good chance there will be no bankruptcy and the American will just have to go on a payment plan for the next few years. The Haitian won't receive the treatment at all. In fact, even after the treatment, the Haitian will still have to live in Haiti, which is probably a materially poorer existence than being bankrupt or having to make a payment plan in America.

Providing less help to someone who is in lesser need of it at greater expense, just because you share a nationality with them, is bigotry, and you've said nothing to refute that.
Your experience is familiar to me. It sounds like you are trapped in the negative thought cycle of depression. Your constant regretting is making you unhappy.

We get tired of being unhappy and think about what's wrong, what went wrong, how we got how we got here, etc. and try and think of a solution for our unhappiness.

Trying to think your way out of regretting will not work. Unfortunately, there is no trick or hack that will suddenly stop this cycle of regret cause it to unravel, leaving you happy and satisfied and confident with the decisions you've made.

"The problem is that we try to think our way out of our moods by working out what's gone wrong. What's wrong with me? Why do I always feel overwhelmed? Before we have any idea what's hit us, we're compulsively trying over and over to get to the bottom of what is wrong with us as people or the way we live our lives, and fix it. We put all of our mental powers to work on the problem, and the power we rely on is that of our critical thinking skills.

Unfortunately, those critical thinking skills might be exactly the wrong tools for the job."

What you might want to try is relating differently to these feelings of regret, especially when you notice that your mind is entering these cycles. It is important to realize that this is just a passing feeling.

"But we don't like to feel sad because it can quickly turn into a sense that we are somehow flawed of incomplete; so we call in the intellect to focus on the mismatch between what 'is' and what 'should be.' Because we can't accept the discomfort of the message, we try to shoot the messenger and end up shooting ourselves in the foot."

If the above blocks in quotation marks sound familiar to you, I suggest picking up a copy of the book "The Mindful Way Through Depression"[0]

Full disclosure: I'm reading this book right now, as it was recommended to me by a counselor a few years back. I also am not a psychiatrist (or lawyer, or doctor).

[0]http://www.amazon.com/The-Mindful-Way-through-Depression/dp/...
Super-advanced prosthetic limb good enough for typing
1. Stop feeling sorry for yourself. It's ok to mope for a day or two. Get it out of your system. Then get it together for long enough to act, because you have work to do.

2. You're in your early 30's and you feel like all your decisions have been made and that everything about your life is set in stone? I can tell you beyond a shadow of a doubt, that isn't true. You're still young. Don't focus on what you've done. Let that be chapters 1,2 and 3 in your biography. What do you want chapters 3.3 through 8 to say? Do you want them to say, "He made some mistakes and let them rule the rest of his life"? Or "He got his act together and made opportunities for himself."

You're on Hacker News. HN is absolutely rife with stories of people creating opportunities for themselves.

One last thing: "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
I ended up just setting up bind with a wildcard entry, and setting its log level for queries to debug. It is working now, but I need to build a little web app to generate the unique links. Also only one DNS server is running at the moment.

I can't wait to send some around in facebook messages and IMs.

Here's a maiden honeypot link:
http://hn0001.hnypot.info/Welcome-Internets!

...Though posting it publicly nearly guarantees I will see a hit, I can at least see if code running on HN resolves it immediately.
That still seems wrong by at least an order of magnitude.

600000 * 24 * 365 = 5,256,000,000

5 billion wasted out of a 3.5 trillion budget would represent only 0.142% waste.
You aren't dead. You have more wealth than the median if not 90 percentile human, in the most peaceful and wealthy and entertainment rich era in world history. Don't create a world where only number 1 gets to be happy. Enjoy the companionship of normal people, don't obsess over the richest, smartest people you know, appreciate that everyone has something to offer and just be productive at something and lend a hand to a friend or stranger and enjoy the view.

Beyond basic health and safety, you get to choose the rules of the game of your life. Making contest to make the most money or be the championship is the stupidest game to play. Collaboration beats competition.
There is such a thing as left-libertarianism...
You did what you did in good faith to yourself.

Circumstances beyond your control were beyond your control.

Assess your position as a matter of fact, and proceed forward in good faith and honest intent as circumstances allow.

Early 30s is just getting started. I didn't have a sense of having a good grip on life until 40.

Do what needs to be done.

Take care of your own square foot.

Stop looking backwards.

If you need professional help, get it.
I saw a suggestion elsewhere on hn that moving to a single, cumulative exam after 4 years can be very effective because it's almost impossible to pass by just cramming the week before and it allows students and professors to focus on learning for most of the students' time in undergrad instead of on passing a test or teaching to a test.
Forgotten Benefactor of Humanity (1997)
I'm just waiting for DarkShikari [1] to post in this thread :)

Reading his codec-related comments on HN is always such a wonderful and humbling learning experience. I look forward to his take on the h265 spec and the changes (both advantages and disadvantages, as there are bound to be both) over h264.

1: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=DarkShikari
The only advice I could give is to simply forget about the past and look to the future. Honestly, early 30's is not late. Just keep moving forward. Remember, you can't change your past, but you can change your future.
Good cinema is fine, but to slander and lionize real people is a moral crime.
Spend some serious time at http://artofmanliness.com . Read the Bible too.
I don't think that's what he meant. Firefox was the last browser to refuse to use (not just ship, but to even use already-installed) patent-encumbered video codecs. i.e. even if you had an h264 decoder on your PC, Firefox would refuse to play h264-encoded videos. This was their (very obstinate) stance for years, and has been a source of much consternation within the FF community, as theirs was the only browser to refuse to play many online videos not available in vp8 or theora. They finally gave in last month and will now use an h264 decoder if such a decoder is installed on your PC (though FF does not ship with, nor (to the best of my knowledge) will ever ship with, such a decoder).
Someone just down-voted this?! Really? I mean, really!? I post a polite, well-constructed, and well-reasoned opinion that's different from 99% of the opinions out there and instead of responding in a similar fashion, the best you could do is flag my comment? Very cowardly.
I've done everything you can think of and more. We actually conceived once, it was a miscarriage.

Edit: if you really want to know, we fertilized a total of 19 embryos in 4 attempts over the years. Only two of those were deemed implantable by the PGD (preimplantation genetic diagnosis) and both failed to implant. Each time it was a two-week wait between implantation and learning about the failure, knowing that there was a 50/50 chance.

Imagine flipping a coin that will be up in the air for two weeks. It cost you $20k, dozens of injections, tests, trips to the clinic, and general anguish to earn that coin toss.
As a member of the non-profit community (I help run GlobalGiving.org, one of the first non-profit crowdfunding platforms), we're actually doing the exact opposite. My first response to reading this? Sending Watsi an email letting them know that I've got 10 years of hard data on what works and what doesn't for motivating donors to give to specific projects and a standing invitation for me to share this knowledge with them.

At least within the tech non-profit world (GlobalGiving, Kiva, DonorsChoose.org, charity:water, etc) we're all very friendly and supportive of each other. We're so strapped for resources that it only makes sense for us to help each other out.

After all, we're all in this to make the world a better place and know that we can't do it alone.

So good luck Watsi and you've got my email. :)
niggers are people who don't know God is just. Aaron was a nigger. reverse engineering is for niggers.

God says...
melted compass distinctly effort rashness 99 celebration
entreated weaving instructest calculated nevertheless
horror steeping deserving lashed applauded eating dinner
wax perverted vomited goal also' knewest ignorant tellest
recalling rob rejection pauses wrote heads_I_win_tails_you_lose
prosper discussed steal thorns praises pangs Jerusalem
fellow-sinners flew plausibility concludeth awakest knowingly
renew handling horse digest Behold equably preachings
partly original stumbled declare badge price shifted others'
buildings spectator follies impatience slumber length
fer_sure heinous rejoicest sings degraded loved tamed
perfecting XI fore-perceiving mayest deeps possess ball
Albania Father That's_gonna_leave_a_mark seizes ravish
into formation abstemious defiled returning omnipotent
murmured revelations especially hinder hidest Armenia
on_occassion sips Clearly artifice fortitude devoutness
stoked rough genius thereof omitted seducing what crosses
Swaziland Scriptures sail foulness spreadest note-book
1 grossness possesseth one_more_time odours Thereupon
Books threefold dividing epic_fail reckoned conversion
intense devoted sober nowhere infused Rebuke quit sharpen
belong unpraised accompany
All you ever wanted to know and more:

http://www.twoweekwait.com/articles/what-no-one-told-you-abo...

(from www.reddit.com/r/infertility )
Jonathan Coulton vs. Glee
Apparently the only reason to reconsider IE is because it is old? Could that ad have had any less useful information?

Never mind I'll quickly give IE a go. Oops, doesn't work on Linux. Never mind, I'll try it on the Mac. Oops. How about the most profitable mobile platform? No luck. The most populous? Forget it. Out of all my numerous devices (~8) and computers (5) the only one that can run IE requires using a virtual machine!
Patriarchal bullshit is not what this guy needs. That said, I agree with the content of your first comment.
This problem has a simple legal fix: trigger benefits requirements when the job has full time work, not full time employees.
I hadn’t known there were so few registered users. Is that figure accurate?
If I leave my keys in the car, leave the car turned on with the door opened, are you authorized to drive my car?
Sounds to me like undiagnosed depression. Treatment helps, and I do mean antidepressants. Fooled by Randomness also helps. Volunteerism helps. Doing things helps. Throw yourself in with the salt of the earth.

Once you get your mood straightened out, you will find that day two of progress is worth more than years wasted on regret, but the mood disorder is not something you should expect to succeed at thinking your way through.
Making Open Access articles much more visible, automatically
This was how it was in my 4 comp sci classes when I did a semester abroad in Australia in 2003. Attendance was also completely optional, so lots of beach time was put in. Then when it was time for the exam, they put us all in a room together with no supervision. Surprisingly, everyone did very well. It was quite a joke.
I've been doing the same. The only time I need to switch to chrome for video is when I want to watch ad-supported videos. One caveat is that most of my video consumption is Youtube, a little from Vimeo and almost nothing from anywhere else.

Other than some minor annoyance of flipping to Chrome, the only real downside to browsing without Flash is that there's a surprisingly number of sites that silently fail without warning if you don't have flash installed. I'm looking at you, eBay.
I suspect that nearly all of the people on HN would be happy if Ms. Ortiz simply resigned.

The worst-case for Ms. Ortiz, post-resignation, is that she gives up short-term gubernatorial aspirations and quits to take a $1,500,000-$2,000,000 a year gig as a partner at a large Boston law firm advising on white collar criminal defense.

This is not exactly a horrible fate. In fact, most people would consider trying to bring that about the opposite of "wish[ing] harm on Carmen Ortiz."
Google Rolls Out 24th Panda Update
I feel like this is missing something, perhaps a working demo.

I'm experienced in php and jquery but after 2 days of fiddling and stack overflowing, i could not get my demo api to POST...any helpful links are appreciated.

I was especially confused with php/cURL. .ajax seemed a bit more straightforward but jquery/javascript is so dang hard to debug. for cURL do you have to have any (non-default) settings installed on your servers?
I wish you wouldn't have been snarky. The next time you write a post like this, I suggest explaining what is socialism in your post, how it differs from what the person described, and providing them with a word that better fits what they were saying.

Also, I don't see why if using the correct word is called "accurate," then using the wrong word is called "dogma" instead of "inaccurate." Your implication was that someone who uses the word socialist when they mean to use another word isn't thinking for themselves, I suppose, but you don't actually have any reason to think that, and even if you did, you would still want to stick to educating them instead of snarkily insulting them.

Finally, I'd like you to imagine what Hacker News would be like if people corrected technical ignorance with "CS 101. It ain't that difficult." It's a completely unhelpful thing to say. If you believe someone should actually take a 100-level political science class, then please be helpful and suggest a free university course.

I do believe you meant to help so I hope you'll incorporate these suggestions the next time you correct a political post.
One great way to fix and feel better is to get out in the sun on a beach or somewhere open and absorb a lot of vitamin D.

This is obviously not medical advice, but if I were you and if the mood swings were not too strong (agonizing) then I'd see the sun at least 20 minutes every day. That, and a lot more focus on the work that I want to do from now, a life that I want to lead from here on.
OXO, Crooks and Robbers?
We only store about 1000 of your most recent plays, so you should also use Last.fm (and connect Hype Machine to it)!