skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Forget a prankster! What happens if the full RAID array fails that holds the database? No backups: dead company.
Your post will likely see hundreds of eager up arrows as HN is primarily populated by coders like us, and we like to think that what we do is all that matters. In our blue collar mentality it's the elbow grease that is the real value.

But really it's nonsense.

There have been countless fantastically executed products that we've seen on Show HN, however many (if not most) were based upon either a too-common idea, or a poorly considered idea.

Without a good idea, the best work in the world is all for naught. Simply dismissing it is ridiculous when most of the people reading these posts sit spinning their wheels doing nothing because they can't think of a good idea to implement.
While Verizon does use a separate authorization phrase, I've found that Condé Nast appears to store plain text passwords. I discovered this when a CSR read my password to me over the telephone to confirm it. I reported this issue to Condé Nast but never heard back, so I can only assume this is still the case.
Really? Did you read the article? It argues that using this pattern can reduce security risks because conformity of input data is more thoroughly tested before passing off to ActiveRecord.
All of the failed responses weren't just not admitting failure, but directly blaming others. One example was a team lead in charge of a project where they said the developers missed their deadlines and would "whine" about not having enough details to do their job. Someone who didn't have an example of failing to deliver, but had examples of near misses they were able to save would even be good examples. Playing the blame game, though, just doesn't fit.
Constrains also act like bug protections. If you screw up your database tells you right away, and not a beta tester much later.
Through negotiation and an explicit contract. What's fair is what you can both agree on. Unfortunately, it looks like everything was verbal in this case, so it's going to be hard for either side to say what the actual agreement was.
But is Diablo 3 played in a browser? Thought so.
I'm roughly in the same boat. Part of it is that different communities have different definitions of purely functional.

Check me out, I'm about to say a bunch of things as if they're fact, in the hopes that someone will correct me where I'm wrong!

So, a few decades ago two groups of people came to the determination that anything calculable can be expressed through a Turing machine or through lambda calculus.

The Turing machine was sorta step-by-step and nuts-and-bolts and inspired the imperative branch of programming languages.

Lambda calculus is more denotive and inspired functional programming.

Now this part is confusing. Because if you ask "What language should I learn to explore lambda calculus?" people will tend to answer Lisp variants. Whereas if you ask "What language should I learn to learn functional programming?" people will tend to answer Haskell.

I understand the differences between Haskell and Lisp - Haskell is more restrictive and pure, while Lisp is incredibly supple with its code-is-data-is-code approach - but I thought functional programming came from lambda calculus. In other words, I don't understand what lambda calculus is that functional programming isn't or vice versa.

Anyway, what's generally seen as the most "purely functional" language is Haskell. Opinions vary on how pragmatic a language it is to learn (as judged by job openings and active projects), but it's widely seen as the language to learn if you want to learn and "get" functional programming concepts most efficiently. In other words, learn some Haskell, and it makes other functional languages easier to learn.

My basic choice (as an imperative programmer that knows java, perl, php) was whether to learn some kinda java-esque functional language, or Haskell, or a lisp variant (including java-esque lisp like Clojure). I'm choosing to learn Haskell, and then move over to Scala, since I hear and suspect that is a better way to learn Scala than to go directly to Scala, and since I'm interested in enhancing my existing body of knowledge rather than switching career paths entirely.

BTW, there's a third big family of programming language, logical programming languages (Prolog, etc). I thought I saw that Erlang is influenced by some concepts from that. So at least in my head, it has seemed like Erlang is the language I'd want to learn if I really wanted to blow my mind with a mixture of functional, concurrency, and logical-programming concepts.
There was a classic management study which, in essence, consisted of asking VP's of a company if they would initiate a risky project that had a 50% chance of saving company 2 million and a 50% chance of completely wasting 1 million - where each individual VP found arguments to not back the particular project in their area, but the CEO (naturally) would like all of his VP's to take that risk, as the odds favor the company (but failure hurts the individual manager).
It's the difference between understanding the incident (programmer makes mistake) and the root cause (failing at data integrity 101). Not just no backups, but no audit log of what's happened in the game - I'd expect an MMO to have an append-only event history quite apart from their state information.
So the "billing password" is not the password one would use to pay your bill? How very odd. One wonders why she allegedly called it the billing password, then.
Tax-dodging tech companies escape $255B as Senate calls for reform
ابراج اليوم - ابراج يوم الخميس 2013/2/28 حظك ليوم الخميس 2013/2/28
I think it's one of the best pieces I've ever read on svtble. Very intriguing.
I know very little of Ruby, but difference 13 states that Ruby has stronger metaprogramming features in that "Python doesn't have define_method, class_eval, and method_missing". Are these really things that can't be implemented with metaclasses and overloading __getattr__?
As a self-taught builder on the other side of the equation, I agree with you.
I believe the article said defendants are exempt from paying legal fees to the other side. The rule would be "plantiffs's pay when they lose."
9 AM in Brussels is midnight here on the west coast if I've done my time zone math properly. It's the perfect time to push something. Unfortunately, if that means having everything snap-to and then freeze for a couple of seconds, that's not good.

Again, I don't know if this is what happened here. I've just seen this sort of thing before.
I'd be interested to hear how well this works with produce. In the past I've had qualms about using things like Safeway delivery - I'd end up with mushy fruit and wilted vegetables.
Stupid hipsters with their stupid bicycles.
Electronic Harassment
Can you share your Haskell vs. Erlang data?
The solution is to use a password manager. Keepass and Lastpass are pretty popular solutions and you'll be thankful later when one site is inevitably compromised and you don't feel like you have to change all your passwords.

It is absolutely worth the time to setup and start using.
Just imagining 10-key on a iPad is making me laugh.
Calm down nothing. He is correct in his complaint.
Ask HN: Office tournaments, what do you use to track them?
So we are organizing a table tennis tournament in my office, I figured there might be some cool little app to track these and organize the brackets and whatnot.

Any suggestions?
They were definitely just asking for your security phrase, not the password for your online billing account.

As an AT&T customer, I know having one of these "passwords" is optional. If you choose to have one as an added level of security (in addition to the last 4 of the account holders social), you can add it to the account. Again, it can be completely different from your online login passowrd and is usually something simple that can be said/understood over the phone.

I found this whole article kind of funny. The rep must have been so confused as to why this customer was getting so hysterical over such a common thing.
I was Kickstarter contributor #1 and got the first address handed out. I don't even remember how I heard of it.

... But damn, that would have been clever back in the day. Thumbs up!
I have a question about this - is he going to write more chapters? I skimmed ahead and it looks like it ends abruptly, no conclusion etc. Not sure if that's actually intended to be the end.
So patents are only valid if held by their originator? That would make the IP non-transferable. In ARM's case, it would mean a takeover would invalidate its value.
Feminist Intimidation Tactics at Tech Conferences
I don't know what metric the parent comment is referring to, but in terms of technology stack, I can fully believe that the Romney team spent more than Obama's team. Here's a post by one of the creators of the fundraising platform:

http://kylerush.net/blog/meet-the-obama-campaigns-250-millio...

The short of it is: they used static HTML generated by Jekyll and stored on S3.
Am I a programmer?
That's my solution, but I've been unable to convince others to do the same. It's too complicated, they get confused, it doesn't work automagically enough. Whatever the reason, I have never successfully converted someone non-technical to using a password manager.
I largely don't accept the premise in favor of: you're more likely to get fat eating foods that promote overeating

My argument is that the factors are not mutually exclusive.

Huh and yeah, 4000 calories per day would constitute an absolutely enormous intake, consistent with a professional athlete (marathon runner, NFL linebacker, etc).
I have heard a similar story from an HR consultant, minus the whole "criminal" element. It far less likely at a public company but think of something like a call center or factory, a smallish business, ~30-100 employees, where the owner has hired managers running it. If someone devious gets in a position of hiring power they use favoritism and undisclosed relationships to build a fiefdom. It might not go as far as stealing money, but they could be creating extra jobs for their friends and fobbing the actual work off to underlings, basically just freeloading off the business. If the owner doesn't know the clique exists it could be hard to see the signs.

I'm pretty far OT here WRT drug testing, but anyway a good HR department should be more than a cover-your-ass paperwork machine.
Couldn't the judge require the patent troll to put money into escrow to cover their opponent's estimated legal expenses (otherwise not allow the case to proceed)?
I just got Trader Joe's Instacarted yesterday. I had no problems with produce - the shopper picked out possibly the best red bell pepper I have ever seen.

I also received a free upgrade because I ordered for three tomatoes and it turns out they come in packs of five.
The whole seven-step "Preparing to Save" sequence can be dramatically simplified with Edit -> Copy Merged (⇧⌘C).
Full text new release:

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2013/feb/HQ_13-063_NuSTAR_Bl...
This absolutely and completely made my day. Thank you.
Exactly. In my organization I know of perfectly good hardware that is either being tossed or used for non-critical applications because someone didn't follow the Incoming Inspection process correctly. It doesn't matter that they could simply be inspected now and found to be perfect, the process wasn't followed, so the product is "junk."
I didn't say anything about patent validity, only that it's arguable ARM does not meet some possible definitions of NPE. I admit that the reference to trolls buying patents near the end of my second sentence slightly muddies that intended meaning.
> Wrong. Steve Jobs knew a lot about tech.

Read the text in front of you, on your computer screen. Note the word "code":

>> I am starting to think, rightly so, that if you don't code ... you have no business starting a tech company.

>> Counterexample: Steve Jobs.

> Sure, he didn't know as much as Woz but still brought a lot to the table.

Wake up and smell the Cappuccino -- the topic is whether Jobs could code. Jobs could not code. End of story.

I speak as someone who knew Jobs personally, and who (along with everyone else) noticed that he couldn't code.
Not everyone has the luxury of applying for a job and telling the folks at the company that you "do not even bother" with resumes.
This sounds so unreal that I am having doubts about the veracity of the story and would defer any judgement before hearing from the "other side".
We just put our ping pong scores on the whiteboard at AppHero, but I think Wattpad built an app that publishes their scores to their website for one of their Hack Fridays: http://www.wattpad.com/life
More ASIC Delays From Butterfly Labs
The presentation incorrectly identified Python dictionaries as “lists”. It also identified actual Python lists as lists.

The presentation states that tuples are “immutable lists“ and that they ”should be homogeneous, but [this is] not enforced“. I disagree: tuples are meant to act as “records“ (as in a database or other set of data), which are neither lists nor homogeneous.

The presentation brought up multiple times filter and map. An article by Guido in 2005 [1] argued that these tools should be cut from Python 3. While they still exist, I am under the impression it is considered more Pythonic to use list comprehensions in the place of filter and map, as stated in the article.

Python not having define_method is misleading. One can define a method of a class as one would any attribute of the class [2]. However, it is far easier to dynamically define a method in Ruby than in Python, because lexical scoping is inherent to a Ruby block but not a Python loop.

Python not having method_missing is wrong. One can simply override __getattr__ and return the appropriate function [3].

[1]: http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=98196

[2]: http://ideone.com/njXDzO

[3]: http://ideone.com/EB9MQ8
Exactly. Problems with production databases are inevitable. It's just a matter of time.

The guy who should be falling on the sword, if anyone, is the person in charge of backups.

Better yet, the CEO or CTO should have made this a learning opportunity and taken the blame for the oversight + praised the team for banding together and coming up with a solution + a private chat with the OP.
I would go one step farther....

Every production deployment should involve blowing away the prior instance, rebuilding from scratch, and restarting the service; you are effectively doing a near-full "restore" for every deployment, which forces you to have everything fully backed up and accessible...

Any failure to maintain good business continuity practices will manifest early for a product / employee / team, which allows you to prevent larger failures...
Because you aren't a software dev in California or other extremely in-demand type; and you want a job.

Since almost all large companies are doing this, it means you'd have to ignore half of job offers, and the vast majority of people can't afford to be that picky, especially in the current job market.
While you're totally correct - and these plug computer type systems do get used for penetration tests at least, it's important to realize that Eben et al. don't make the hardware or cause it to happen - the project is to about making a privacy enhancing distro to run on one.
Meditation helps
Easel: CSS Export Improvements
It doesn't lead to a significant reduction though, it is hardly any reduction at all. Look at their code, the python could be replaced with C++ at an almost 1:1 ratio.
Infinity * 0 = 0 bro. So clearly it offers zero more percent Vanilla Ice and 90's era Mustang photos.
http://www.privoxy.org/ - the same thing that the all in one tor installers use
I think you skipped a few. The logical next step is, "Think your CV is crap? And your interview skills are worse? No, they accurately represent your terrible job performance!"
Google images "tvr fire"

True! My cousin bought one and it broke down on the forecourt.
One of the things that bothers me about python is the way you have to specify 'self' for instance methods. Instance methods should be the norm not the exception.
Friedensreich Hundertwasser would disagree, and he'd had the shipped products to prove it, too...
What's wrong with that? The following isn't quite the same, but it's close enough to your restaurant example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Schultz#Career

ETA: and how about McDonald's? [1]

"Believing that the McDonalds' formula was a ticket to success, Kroc suggested that they franchise their restaurants throughout the country. When they hesitated to take on this additional burden, Kroc volunteered to do it for them"

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_McDonald%27s
This is a really good step though. If paying legal fees becomes a problem for NPEs, then perhaps the next step is to require NPEs to post a bond before going to trial.
Integrating Auto-Monitoring into AWS Auto Scaling
Many people don't have the option to pay for HBO, either because they live in a country where it's not available, or because they don't have cable TV and it's not reasonable or affordable (for many people) to pay $60+/mo to Comcast just to have the privilege of then paying another $15+/mo for HBO.

So yes, Game of Thrones is HBO's product to sell how they want. And if they choose not to make it available in some countries, or to people without cable TV, that's their choice. But they shouldn't be offended or surprised when the people they refuse to sell to end up finding other ways to watch their content.

To his credit, David Petrarca seems to recognize that -- given that someone can't buy your content -- it's still better for everyone involved if they pirate it, discuss it with friends, and contribute to its mindshare. The alternative is that they ignore it completely, in which case HBO gets no money and no buzz.
TED Talks: A monkey that controls a robot with its thoughts. No, really [video]
What is RedMonk, and how is their ranking less B.S. than rankings according to Netcraft?
The Mental Switch – From Service Business to Product Business in 1 Year
Is ai more of a threat to humanity than an asteroid from space?
Grouped logging
Why mobile sync?
I assure you that there is loads of private litigation in European countries (eg UK). There's even a term for it "compo culture", there are ads on TV looking for people who have been injured and they sue the other party.
Gah. Thanks. I was checking the upper bounds but spaced the lower-bound 0 case. Fix is on its way up.
Doing this kind of testing in a gold-plated, heavily-engineered way is hard. But that's not an excuse for not doing it at all. Just walking into your closet and pulling a cable gets you 80-95% of the testing you need, and is free. Setting up a sandbox and "restoring" a backup onto it and then doing some quick queries is likewise easy to do and eliminates huge chunks of the failure space of "bad backups".

Really, this attitude (that things have to be done right) is part of the problem here. To a seasoned IT wonk, the only alternative to doing something "The Right Way" is not doing it at all. And that's a killer in situations like these.

Don't hack your systems to make them work. Absolutely do hack at them to test.
Love Calculator: Find out if your secret crush likes you
Ask HN: getting iOS freelance work
I have been dabbling in iOS development for a couple of years now, and a few apps in the store, but none with a considerable customer base. All the while I was working for a Big Co (doing Java). Now due to personal circumstances I quit, and would like to become a freelance iOS dev. Problem is - I have no idea where to seek potential clients. Places like oDesk or Freelancer.com d do not seem a reasonable option for an American. Where do you get your clients from? Especially in the beginning?
The World of (Patent Application) Prior Art Under the America Invents Act
Staffing for Converged Infrastructure, Part 2: Don’t Forget the Human Element
Really? I've worked with enough substandard developers that are still happily employed to believe that could be the case.
I would have done the import/export functionality before adding Lua scripting.

No reason to release the product without having the data hooks in place. We don't need more silos.
Wow, reading through this and pretty psyched that people want to talk about this. I run community management in Mountain View for the global BizSpark program, which gives free software licenses to developers. I am all for helping you all know more about the program and helping get more information on Azure. If you all want to chat with me, you can email me at dcrets at microsoft. Thinking of doing a meetup on Azure and having some tech evangelists there. We would also livestream. Let me know if anyone is interested.
Had a boss that got drunk every single day at work. He didn't hide it too much. During sit down meetings in his office, I'd sometimes catch a glimpse of his garbage can which was brimming with empty Coors lite cans. In the evenings, he often offered me a beer and I occasionally accepted. Ironically, he was the most productive , brilliant engineer to cross my path. Management never showed him the door. Eventually, he checked himself into rehab and I think there was a happy ending.
Except if you have a good reason for wanting to learn Python, I will say as a rubyist you should learn a functional programming language like clojure or scala if you don't know them already. This is because both Python and Ruby are OO and similar in alot of ways.
I'm taking an Introductory Group Theory course right now.

Here are a few nice books I'm currently using:

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Theory-Groups-Joseph-Rotm...

http://www.amazon.com/Visual-Classroom-Resource-Materials-Pr...

http://www.amazon.com/Groups-Their-Graphs-Mathematical-Libra... (available as eBook from http://www.maa.org/ebooks/nml/NML14.html)
Just the usual suspects (redmonk, langpop, tiobe).
> I'm not aware of a peer-reviewed study saying the other way, either.

DRM costs money (dev time, QA, etc.) and may hurt legit customers when done wrong (all too frequent). Rightfully, the onus should be on proving it to be worth the costs, but people add it without even testing the effects.
Using list comprehensions as a replacement for filter and map I can see. I don't really see where you're getting at as far as substitutes for 'reduce' are concerned. For me, the 'operator' module is a justification for using 'reduce', not a replacement for it.
MIT's Saturday hoax incident
Well, Evan Spiegel, the CEO of Snapchat, went looking for someone to code it for him. Would you tell him he had no business starting a tech company?
Unfortunately it sounds perfectly plausible to me.

"Why are we paying for backups? The database has never failed (yet)"!
Author here: Thanks much for the feedback. I definitely have more experience in Ruby than Python. In a longer version of this talk, I go into more detail on list comprehensions, iterators and decorators. I'll work to include these to some degree for the shorter talk too.

Also, if I say "Python doesn't have these," I'm often saying it in support of Python! :)