skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I second the recommendation.

I'd say a better summary has to mention that there 2 types of random "things": some are predictably random (Mediocristan), and some are aren't, they're prone to Black Swans (Extremistan).

It's the latter type of randomness that we have to worry about: avoid being exposed to bad black swans (e.g. don't put all your money in the stock market), and try to be exposed to good black swans, but don't depend on it.
Registrant:
Domain Administrator
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond WA 98052
US
+1.4258828080 Fax: +1.4259367329

Domain Name: scroogled.com

Registrar Name: Markmonitor.com
Registrar Whois: whois.markmonitor.com
Registrar Homepage: http://www.markmonitor.com

Administrative Contact:
Domain Administrator
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond WA 98052
US
+1.4258828080 Fax: +1.4259367329
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
MSN Hostmaster
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond WA 98052
US
+1.4258828080 Fax: +1.4259367329

Created on..............: 2011-12-27.
Expires on..............: 2014-12-27.
Record last updated on..: 2012-11-27.

Domain servers in listed order:

ns1.msft.net
ns4.msft.net
ns3.msft.net
ns2.msft.net
ns5.msft.net

its Microsoft for sure...really Microsoft directly attacking Google..would be interesting to see Google's response..i dont think they will sit calm now.
Why Incubators Hate Your Startup
I'm not a manager, I'm an engineer, but I'll speak up for the managers...

The challenge managers have to face is balancing competing priorities. If you're a manager, you have customers/users that you need to please to keep the money rolling in. You have an executive who often has very strong opinions about how to please those users. You have employees that each have their own career goals and interests, which may not necessarily be aligned with yours. You have cross-functional peers who you frequently need to rely on for favors, and yet often speak a totally different language from you. And you somehow have to make all of the above groups happy, or at least not totally pissed off at you, to keep the organization functioning.

I dunno what your job description is like, but mine (as a senior SWE at Google) is "Figure out how to make users happy". If you don't face similar ambiguities in your job description, it's because there's a manager somewhere up the org chart who did all the messy work of listening to what everybody else wanted and somehow harmonized it all into something halfway buildable. If you have a spec you're following, there was somebody out there who wrote it. If you're getting paid, it means somebody out there sold the product, and that usually requires listening to all the customers out there and figuring out what they want in common. None of these tasks do themselves.
I don't think it is that unsurprising either, nor do I have a problem with this kind of advertising. My only gripe would be that I believe you can opt-out of targeted gmail ads now so it would appear this is either out of date or inaccurate.
The page looks very bad (read: is almost unreadable) on non Macs :(
Isn't there just too much benefit to being in a large city (in this case, London)? Specifically: established and well attended social groups, like meetup groups focussed on your particular technology or vertical? The possibility of an encounter with someone who either has an invaluable piece of advice or wants to join your team must be exponentially higher.
Nice - didn't notice that you're building a DC. I think you're one of the few companies I'd trust with the task :)
As an iOS developer, I'm interested in Windows Phone. In my past I programmed a bit with the .NET API's (mainly VB, later on a little bit of C#). I've recently dabbled in Android, and personally I don't like the tooling (Eclipse, emulator slow).

Just last week I downloaded the MonoTouch toolkit and will experiment a bit with creating a multi-platform (iOS / Android) app with a partially shared codebase in C#. So far I like the following things about the MonoTouch toolkit:

a) UIKit methods / classes are called more or less the same. Don't need to look up the API much.

b) from what I understand, it should be possible to create my own wrappers around Obj-C (iOS) or Java (Android) objects.

c) Create optimised user interfaces for each platform. This is the part where the code will differ mostly.

d) MonoDevelop is a nice, though somewhat sparse / limited IDE. I really hate the future creep of Eclipse and imo Visual Studio could also use a little trimming in the UI - otherwise a fine product though. I love Xcode.
What issue, though? That your email is scanned by an algorithm to determine relevancy for ads? Guess what, your email is scanned by an algorithm on outlook.com too, to determine whether it's spam. It's exactly the same thing.
Because we like Google, of course, and hate Microsoft, of course.
The tension exists because Windows is what made Microsoft into the company it is, but Office is the product that truly drove Microsoft's profit. Eventually, the money has to win out. It's unnatural for it to not to.
I don't get why context relevant ads are bad. If I am going to see ads, I would rather they be ads that might be useful.

As long as they aren't releasing my mail for all to see, and it's an automated thing... so what.
Although this particular campaign is new, this has been going on for a while:

http://www.webpronews.com/is-bing-right-about-people-getting...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/15/technology/microsoft-battl...
Well actually the only real benefit is staff availability if you scale up.

We've gone from 8 to 150 staff in about 8 years and I doubt we could fill those positions if we weren't close to London.
I think you can opt out:
https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/preferences/?hl=en#o...
On this system (Win 7, 8 GB RAM) with Firefox 18.0.2 I see that missing text effect even on reload.

In Firebug that Google returns a 304 for the Ubuntu font files but the browser is requesting the only about 3 s into loading the page. Really irritating.

After installing the font locally, it's gone.
Google may not care about it. Microsoft surely not a competition for Google now. Had it been Apple we may have seen a reply.
It's just an attack full of misleading information for those who are less informed, spam filters also "read" your messages. I don't see why a computer reading your messages to produce targeted advertisements is bad anyway, it's an automated process the same as spam filtering.

Does outlook.com still put adverts at the end of your emails like hotmail.com used to?
> Never been a fan of attack adds especially if you can improve your own product instead of making the other one look bad. Just a bad mindset to try to blame the other guy.

It's not a one-man product that had to decide whether to focus on improving or attack ads - product people will work on improving it regardless of whether the marketing people decide on positive or attack adverts.
Moderating Usability Tests (videos + book excerpts)
I kinda liked old content at scroogled.com (now available at http://www.scroogled.com/Shopping/ -- see archive at http://web.archive.org/web/20121201162336/http://www.scroogl... ) because it told me something I didn't know, that the Froogle service had become a set of paid product listings.

(I didn't know they were paid listings.)

This new message I don't find interesting because it tells me something I already know (Google reads all my Gmail mail).
But google DO go through every message to sell ads. How is this pathetic? Some people don't like the fact that their emails are used in that way, so focusing on that is just marketing.

No different to google running ads for chrome saying "it's faster"... it IS, and some people care about that.
Well as a user of both, it's certainly factual. I have no problem with this.

For reference, I hate both companies equally!
Makes me wonder the overhead of keeping a history which consists of n copies of the files instead of a delta

(or the diff is done on the plaintext and then encrypted?)
In this context, where MS-Word is a de facto standard for various administration, "broken" means "not behaving like MS-Word". Which is perhaps the only test which MS-Word passes with flying colors.
Microsoft's example in the video proves Google doesn't actually READ the emails they just apply a computer algorithm. The example was of a cat named Calico, and then they showed a free pet exam advert, and then revealed the cat was put down in the email. They made a point to say you wouldn't need a free pet exam if the family pet died.

But it proves Google doesn't invade your privacy; they merely apply a computer algorithm to connect ads with emails.
Can't Linux users already use Office360? I was under the impression that Office360 was the future. That Microsoft was slowing moving their office software into the cloud?

Supporting Linux seems pointless. Linux has a really small market share. I am fairly sure a lot of Linux users who are tech savvy would want to support the open source Libre Office instead of forking out for MS Office.

Better places to expand would be Android / iOS app stores. Tablet devices are still exploding in growth. I could see a lot of use being got out of office software on tablets.
Can't Linux users already use Office360? I was under the impression that Office360 was the future. That Microsoft was slowing moving their office software into the cloud.

Supporting Linux seems pointless. Linux has a really small market share. I am fairly sure a lot of Linux users who are tech savvy would want to support the open source Libre Office instead of forking out for MS Office.

Better places to expand would be Android / iOS app stores. Tablet devices are still exploding in growth. I could see a lot of use being got out of office software on tablets.
You'll thank your lucky stars with the knowledge that I am not a professional programmer and I'm definitely not a front-end or much of a web programmer. Besides, there are others page down who seem to experience this problem, presumably some of them are programmers who aren't aware of this bug?

With this information, I am now more mystified at why some sites get burned by this bug while others do not, and, at least with your logic, why a programmer wouldn't be well aware of this bug; if they are, why aren't they exploring options and why aren't these programmers testing their functionality on Chrome (all browsers). Surely, these sites run slow on FF as well even if there is no freezing up like I am describing?
Why We Dropped Swagger And I/O Docs
Who said this is pathetic or scammy?

EDIT: And if someone did say that, who says they're the same people who were in praise of DuckDuckGo?
What the fuck is wrong with them? They keep doing this shit.
This is the worst advertising method possible, rather than making a good product and focusing on its advantages towards competition, they prefer to paint them in bad light.
If you login to Outlook.com (which is extremely slow btw), you'll also find the following settings page available from the bottom right cog icon: https://data.choice.microsoft.com/mydata/UserInterests

Under 'My Data' it stores Bing Searches and takes guesses as to your 'Interests'. How does it do that exactly? Operationally, how different is Outlook.com a.k.a Hotmail, compared to Google? Both are free, and nothing is for free in this world. So, Microsoft also have an angle.

Digging further you'll find information on Microsoft Advertising, which is something I don't remember actively opting in to, but I appear to be registered for: https://data.choice.microsoft.com/MyChoices/MSAdvertising

It states, and I quote:

> About Microsoft Advertising

> With the Microsoft Personal Data Dashboard (beta), you can choose
not to receive personalized ads on websites that use the Microsoft
Advertising Platform by not allowing Microsoft Advertising to use
your information.

> Information used by Microsoft Advertising

> The Microsoft Advertising Platform customizes personalized ads based
on different types of information, including but not limited to:

> Bing searches

> Interests

> Profile

> What does it mean not to allow Microsoft Advertising to use your information?

> Well, first, it doesn't mean you will stop getting ads or see fewer
ads; but, it does mean that the ads you get won't be personalized anymore
by Microsoft Advertising. Microsoft will continue to collect information
for other uses, such as delivering content that is personalized for you;
for example, the news articles displayed on MSN and the results you get
when you search for software updates.

I guess, at least I can opt-out. Google doesn't allow me to opt-out of their creepiness. Saying that though, even though GMail creeps me out, but I'm addicted to the user interface.
I find it hilarious that I emotionally support Google enough that my immediate reaction is "HEY ITS NOT SO BAD" when I see this page; and then roll my eyes at the petition. At the same time I don't use facebook for privacy issues and the thing I am always going to do tomorrow is set up my own mail server. Brains are funny like that.
No it's not. Because I WANT spam protection... I don't want ads.

Just like it's fine for an electrician to enter my house to fix a power point. It is NOT okay for anyone to enter my house in order to sell me random things.
This is also for the mods, who might wish to change the title:

The title is taken from the link near the bottom at http://milk.com/

So, it is in a sense the original, correct title. If you really want to know whether the domain is actually for sale or not, ask the owner.
You're right. Also, Microsoft proves that Google doesn't actually read your email in their video example, because if Google did, they wouldn't send you an ad for a free pet exam if you put your pet down. They'd send you to a pet store.
After the title switch, this link is essentially opaque. This has to be automated. No one would carefully consider whether this title was more informative than the preview title and decide it is.
Awesome to see this video. Currently down in London on an internship before I go back to Newcastle University next year. With the amount of startup events going on down here (highly recommend the HN London meetup if people haven't been) I was pretty apprehensive about going back up but not as much anymore!

Definitely feel a bit more excited now. Apart from Super Mondays, are there any other events I should remember for next year?
That is focusing on your advantage, the message ends with "Why outlook.com is better"
Interactive Infographic with SVG and CSS Animations
Mine as well. Early 2009.

I do suspect it has something to do with your employee bargaining power, which depends both on your past track record and on how many people are being hired relative to staffing needs. Managers bid on Nooglers, draft-style; if many teams are bidding on you, you have a lot of flexibility in where you end up, while if only one team bids you're basically stuck with them. michaelochurch was hired in 2011 IIRC, when Google notoriously overhired, and it could be that many of the other teams were flush with Nooglers and not looking for anyone else.
maybe, just maybe, that environment is deeply flawed if it does not allow to run an external binary (but allows to run arbitrary code in libraries).

your other point is also not that convincing. smallish binaries usually have a very clear api. they can be called from every programming language without much effort.

coming back to pgp: you usually do not parse the same message over and over again. so you do not need to have any shared state for caching between calls to that executable.
Because Microsoft aren't co-operating with LEAs on request for Skype data.

I'd rather Google give me ads than turn over private conversations to The Met.
If you don't want it, don't use Gmail. It's not fine to call an electrician to your house to fix the power point in return for you letting them sell you random things, and then say "no, I don't want the things, I just want the fix!"

It's not a breach of your privacy any more than spam filters reading your email is.
Has anybody ever come up with a domain name allocation scheme that's more advanced than first come first served? Surely there's a better way.
Yeah, it negative, but with a funny twist to it. The problem is that most people lack a sense of humor and might take it too seriously. Though its quite ironic that MS is playing the privacy card. Its not like Google is a perfect company. They are the new MS. Even PG mentioned it in one of his essays.
Yes, and Google had a lot to do with it, it didn't happen by chance (buying Mozilla off, omnibox, exact domain name "updates" in search etc.) Google wants people to search and be greeted by dozens of ads first.
Keepassx is a cross-platform version of KeePass 1 - they're using the file format from another (legacy) program, and I doubt they can change it.

I use KeePass2 myself. It uses a new file format, and it's .net, runs well under mono on linux. And it's definitely not abandonware.

See http://keepass.info/
1) I'm not sure about though I don't think you can call that "Digital Rights Management" (edit: thinking about it, yeah, I guess it actually is DRM)

2) and 3) are both perfectly possible for DRM free Steam games.
I have to agree. I did my MSc at York. I really miss the place.
Aggressive, negative advertising is the violence of the marketing world, and as Asimov said "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

I don't have any problem with aggressive advertising if it's done well, creatively, thoughtfully, intelligently. This is none of those things. Creativity usually precludes aggressive negativity (not always, but usually).

I find the expectation that anyone would 'sign' such a ham fisted attempt at a populist petition, one clearly designed by a creativity starved agency to be offensive to all sentient beings online.
I might have some data gotten through crawling them with Nuuton. Anyone from their team here? I'm going to check. Though not very positive, because I'm not currently scrapping ever single page completely.

Bad news update:

I had not covered the wiki yet. The crawler seems to have ventured off to SO (the crawler runs 24/7 by itself). I'm so sorry. :(
irony...
Microsoft has lost it. If "scanning email" is their only concern, they're doing it too, for the purpose of "prioritizing my privacy" or whatever. I don't get it why people make a big deal out of all this. As long as private emails are not being read by real people, I doubt most people (who know what "scanning email" is) care.
I'm running it with office 2007. It works perfectly fine.
Why not rent it out?
The one that really shines out at me is Privy, great potential there.

http://getprivy.com/

Need to do a bit better at communicating the value proposition on their homepage though.
That's not a privacy issue. That's a I don't want feature X (ads) issue.
Intel Packet of Death
Fucking disgusting.
"You can also opt-out of getting personalized ads from advertising companies other than Microsoft, on the Consumer Choice page.":

http://www.aboutads.info/choices/
Though only in so far as to requiring you to install it through steam.
Well, no. It's not the same thing.
Scanning my content so that you make more money is different from scanning my content so that I get less spam.
The second is a service.
If you don't encrypt your email (almost nobody does it) every server serving your email can access the email text. The point is what they do with it. If they use it to make something useful for me (allowing me to read email) that's OK. Targeting ads is, as a minimum, borderline...
They probably use something like Google's WebFont Loader[1] to avoid the delay in text visibility when using web fonts.

[1] https://developers.google.com/webfonts/docs/webfont_loader
KDE 4.10 Review: Time To Switch To KDE
Thanks - that's pretty much what is in my head as well.
Unfortunately for you, you can't pick and choose what you want when Google are providing you with a free email service. Generating personalized ads is how they make money from this venture.

As the saying goes: "If you're not paying for it; You're the product, not the customer."
It has not launched.
Actually, you can. Despite what the website says, you can opt out of personalized advertising:

https://www.google.com/settings/u/0/ads/preferences/?hl=en#o...
You knew this when you signed up. Plus, it's not a privacy issue. No human is sitting there, reading your emails. How is the spam algorithm reading your emails fine from a privacy standpoint while the ads algorithm isn't?
It's unfortunate that the marketing folks at Microsoft are looking to take this stance to unbelievable levels. I would rather see relevant ads than irrelevant ads.

I used to work at Microsoft. I heard second hand that some exec (I believe they said it was Ballmer) in the last couple of years made the decision that Microsoft would make privacy a competitive differentiator. This sounds great on the surface, but it has lead to seriously unfortunate behavior.

For example, I worked on one of the first server manageability products that was completely hosted on the web. I was really excited to apply what I was learning from HN and the Lean Startup movement to a real online product and not boxed software. Then reality sunk in when we wanted to implement some very common features like A/B testing, surveys, email open rate tracking, exposure control, et al. Our legal and privacy teams were highly reluctant to allow us to do these because it could violate Microsoft's stance on privacy.

Some of the most memorable arguments were:

* "A/B testing and exposure control are not acceptable for our paying customers. Every customer must see the exact same version of the software at the same time." [Would you rather have a bad feature affect 100% of customers or 1% of customers?]

* "Google is getting a lot of bad press for all of the data Chrome sends to Google so we should minimize the amount of data captured and stored from this product." [I heard this in an official privacy training the same day that Chrome overtook IE in market share. Also, my product was specifically meant to capture lots of data about servers and analyze it for potential problems.]

* "We understand that these practices may be common place at [name any internet company here, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Bingo Card Creator], but we are not them. You must find a precedent that is set inside Microsoft before we can proceed."

I hope that Microsoft does succeed in making privacy a competitive differentiator, but I feel they lack tact and common sense in many cases.
I did my MSc from York. The new Ron Cooke Hub holds good potential. There are a couple of startups I know doing interesting work there.
If the film began by appearing to be about Freeman and chums, but gradually was revealed to actually be about G-Man as a "chess Grandmaster" style behind-the-scenes puppet-master, they could get a lot out of that.
Is procreation immoral?
Very nice site. It asked me for my location and... emptiness. Well, I guess Tech Britain needs to be more popular to be useful because I believe there are start-ups in Guildford.
I think people mean that in the current environment and configuration of the team, they are indispensable. And that of course, can be true. The team would not be able to function without them.

Of course a company can always find another fool to replace them.

Many smaller businesses work that way. They have a core group of often arrogant and unskilled old-timers that for one reason or another, cannot and will not be fired. I've seen this more than once, with clients and companies I've worked for.

The company cycles through talented new employees every other year. Once these employees are burnt out and move on to greener pastures, the company will find a new sucker to fill in their shoes. Rinse and repeat.
Out of interest, what was the original title?