skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If you want to run scanners all day, we're definitely not a great place to work.

We changed the format for the crypto challenges because:

* the "vulnerable" web app got in the way of what we were trying to teach people (it's easy to work CTR mode into "decrypt this cookie" but not so easy to work Diffie Hellman into that)

* the web parts got repetitive (there's only so many times you can show people "decrypt this cookie" before the "cookie" part of that gets in the way).

* some of the challenges involve implementing crypto constructions (which we found to be the best way to learn how to break them). We had features in 36 Chambers that tried to capture "building" as well as "breaking", but they were extremely clumsy and contrived.

* But mostly, because we'd rather put effort into tech supporting people learning crypto, as opposed to Ruby code running on Heroku.

Sean's crypto stuff has about 2.5x as much material as the 36Chambers crypto-for-pentesters site had, and that's mostly because we stopped wasting our time making it look pretty. The site was a silly way to spend our time. We'll have RC4 keystream bias challenges by the end of next week. If we were going to work them into a shiny web app, we might not have them by the end of the year.

If the pricing model we use for the challenges ("mail Sean and ask for them and he'll give them to you for free") is too much for you, I don't know what to tell you. Yes, making it to the end does incur the penalty of us begging you to come work with us. But if you're unwilling to surrender to a life of indentured servitude in the pentest mines at Matasano, we will happily accept a warrant on the blood of your firstborn child. That is, I think you'll agree, a tiny price to pay.

I guess thanks for giving me a chance to clear up this issue, which, if you follow me on Twitter, has maybe had you confused for awhile (at least until last November or so when we started telling people every damn week to mail Sean for the challenges).
The Oatmeal: Google Fiber - Come Forth and Deliver Us from Evil
Of Bayesian average and star ratings
How do you plan to get the word out to restaurant owners? Businesses targeting local scare me - they seem hard to scale... You need to find 1,000 local business customers to get a steady income of $10k/mo. Somewhat daunting.
The traditional syntax really falls down when your functions are curried and you want to do partial application. In that context, as in Haskell, the f x_1 ... x_n syntax is as natural as it gets.
I still don't know why that's supposed to scare me. As long as they don't purge the contents of my Gmail and give me three months notice on closing products that I can export my data from... then, I'll find a way.

If I have my way, sooner or later it will be more convenient to just run your own Google Voice clone on Twilio, Tropo, etc.
Scrivener Temporarily Withdrawn from Sale on the Mac App Store
If we do not migrate beyond earth, eventually there will be no more humans to help.
> So your contention is if I remove (by some artifice) every cancer cell from someone's body they may still relapse?

Yes, if the person has a predisposition to cancer. The evidence? They got cancer in the first place. The counterargument would have to be that they were born with cancerous cells in place, waiting to be activated. But if cancer doesn't depend on cells, but a genetic factor, then yes -- even if you remove every cancerous cell, the person can relapse. And there is plenty of evidence for genetic factors. I emphasize this doesn't mean we know which factors, or how they work, only that we can see a correlation with genetics.

And correlations without known cause-effect relationships make poor science.

> That's an extraordinary claim for which I have a hard time believing you'd find any support at all in the medical community.

You aren't bothering to read what I've posted. Shall I post more quotes that prove my point, or are you willing to learn this topic on your own?

http://www.ehow.com/way_5673148_difference-between-cancer-re...

"Cancer patients often mistake cancer remission as a cure, but this is not so. Remission is the period of time when the treatment is effective and the cancer is under control. There are two types of remission--partial and complete. The time frame can vary from weeks to even years, depending on the type of treatment and the stage of the cancer."

http://www.glamour.com/health-fitness/blogs/life-with-cancer...

"The whole “never being cured” thing is tough to swallow when you’re first diagnosed ... Sure, we may have to take these medicines for the rest of our lives, but if they’re keeping us alive and not harming us, who cares?"
Thinking the article was too long, I was searching for mentions of "OSX", "Linux", "Windows" and not finding what I was looking for.

Then I noticed he wasn't talking about computer operating systems.
There's something worse that lawyers who can't count. Lawyers who think they can.

The problem is that politician dream up of an european union to make sure no more french / german war would happen. But politicians can't count: they're for the most part lawyers.

So they build this monstrosity: the European Union. A mad bureaucracy / technocracy where every document is translated in 27 languages (including obscure ones): small countries love it because they can send people to get jobs in Brussels at crazy high salaries. For what? Paperwork. Nothing but paperwork.

Then they dreamed up the most stupid thing ever: a common currency (the euro) without a common fiscality. Only stupid lawyers can come up with nonsense like this. Economists did warn them, before the first euro even circulated, that it would end up in precisely the current situation (even the default of Greece and Spain had been forecast).

Nobody listened.

Wanna know what's coming next? It's easy: go read what economists who predicted the current situation are saying. They're from the Milton Friedman school of economics thought. Keynesians lost is and lost it a long time ago. Nothing to learn there: they never predicted anything more than a few years (two or three) before it happened. If you want to predict 15 years+ ahead you have to read Friedman and its disciples.

What coming next is simple: these stupid politicians and lawyers who created all this crazy paperwork and non-sense laws are going to try anything they can, including more and more non-democratic measures, to try to save the euro.

But they can't save it: it's fundamentally flawed. Countries have to get out or the entire eurozone is going to split and go back to national currencies.

The cost is going to be about 15% of the GDP for all the countries exiting.

If the euro ain't split in the few years coming we'll be going to have the BCE defaulting (the BCE basically already became a bad bank, drowning under state debt from states who are going to default) and massive civil unrest: people losing everything.

Here we're talking about a worldwide GDP drop of about 30%.

So either we bit the bullet now and take about a 15% GDP loss by going to national currencies or we try desperately to save the euro and we'll end up creating a much bigger problem.

We're witnessing history. We're seeing a bunch of clueless politicians (who are mostly lawyers) totally f^cking up the entire economy of a continent (and probably of the entire world).
Slightly off topic, but one of my favorite episodes from that podcast actually aired right after Derek Siver's interview: http://foolishadventure.com/audio/write-compelling-copy-with...

It was definitely worth a listen and included a ton of practical tips on copywriting. The one that stuck with me the most was to "steal copy from your potential customers", for example, look up customers' Amazon reviews on your competitors to see how they're describing products.
See? I rest my case.

I think even people who love Apple to the point of slavishness think of them as a company, not as a Mom.
How much do we slow down during holidays? A Toggl analysis.
Read this as a list of effective ways to communicate your point beyond mere facts. If anyone has ever said your appeals are dry, sprinkle in these lightly.
Is another system an improvement?

That is my question.
The only thing ridiculous in your example is the price. If you'd chipped a bone, it is your GP's responsibility to then refer you on to the next practitioner; the GP acting as the centre of the web. It only seems pointless for you because you had a fairly straightforward issue. It's not for the radiologist to refer you, because they aren't there for keeping your medical history and understanding complicating factors that might suggest against a given course of treatment.

Much and all as the internet is awash with stories of "I diagnosed something my doctor didn't!", the vast bulk of times the doctor has a better idea. In my previous career as a medical tech, I've seen quite a few people who ended up suffering far worse because they didn't want to take their issue to a doctor because they 'knew' what the issue was.

I will agree that the price is ridiculous, but the basic process isn't. Some people say that a GP's role is to deal with the morass of 'coughs, colds, and sore holes' while acting as a filter looking for the really serious stuff.
I mean you can say "bullshit" all you want but the fact is you do get subsidized. I don't know if you are a billionaire or not but those nice highways you get to drive on were not paid by you and probably could not be paid for by you, if I assume you're not some kind of trillionaire. Honestly, that's just one of a myriad of things; I couldn't name them all.

My argument sophistry. It is recognition of reality. Whatever pays your bills is probably partly possible because of subsidies. It's just reality. And if not you, specifically, since you aren't a special snowflake and the world exists for reasons beyond your existence, it is certainly the case that many people are wealthy because subsidies.

Many people are not living in rural areas because of that sort of choice; many people live their because they feel like they don't have good options.

Honestly, you're whole point is a bit silly to me anyway. The issue with the USPS is this ridiculous pension requirement that is being thrusted upon them by the same political party that brought us the Iraq war, how was that for corporate subsidies?
I think releasing frequently give me an opportunity to keep user interested. So far it pressured me to keep on adding values. Either way I think it does have possible effect until I burned out :). BTW, I updated my profile so feel free to contact me.
3400 is only the number of new paying users in the last 24 hours.

The amount of annual income from this product will now end with "million".
Damn! I remember getting drunk last night, but can't recall writing this post. It sounds like me, except that I have a few years on my hands before I hit 30.
The concept of luxury brands still completely bewilders me. Living in Asia where literally every girl clutches an LV, Chanel or Gucci bag, the abundance of what ultimately is a social ranking tool serves to cancel itself out. The fact that you're required to line up outside the store is downright insulting.

Apologies for the side-rant, the site itself fills a very real need and kudos for that. I just feel some people would feel more validated carrying around a bank statement instead of a handbag.
+1 to this. I was drawn to Code Academy because I could immediately start playing around with code on the home page. (At least it used to be like that. Not sure anymore.)
My gosh. Actually understand every cookie parameter, instead of running some tool to generate a list of obvious SQL injection vulnerabilities? Next they'll say they actually base64-decode every cookie too. How do they find time to sleep?

We automate lots of things. We just don't automate things that remove judgement from testers.

I've been a vuln researcher since 1995 and so have my partners. I was a lead dev on the industry's second commercial vulnerability scanner (Ballista), and Jeremy worked at ISS on the first. I think we know what we're talking about. Here is what we've learned: when you give a smart tester a tool that purports to find "low hanging fruit" vulnerability X, testers get worse at finding vulnerability X on their own. They subconsciously lean on the tool. They make assumptions about what kind of vulnerability the tool will find that they shouldn't waste time looking for. They gradually start getting worse at finding even the clever variations of X.

So the challenge is to find ways to eliminate drudgery (for instance, in comparing large numbers of responses from a web app to a run of different metacharacter input vectors across every parameter) without introducing things that degrade tester judgement.

Burp Intruder: Fine (though we do better internally for some things). Burp Scanner: Not Fine.
I'm interested in your decision process in picking Reliable and then Digital Ocean.
Indeed. Excepted that this is not a financial crisis. The financial crisis is just a catalyzer. The fundamental issue is state who continuously spend more than what they made because states are run by politicians who can't count (because 99% of them are lawyers and lawyers can't count and they'll only accept advices from economists going their way: that is "more state").

We're now witnessing what happens when states spending more than what they make are running out of money.

Of course socialists are trying to pretend it's a financial crisis and that without the financial crisis in the U.S. nothing would ever have gone wrong with all these highly socialists states in Europe spending more than they're making and creating an ever bigger state debt.

Seriously who's buying that? When you're borrowing more money than what you make at one point payback time comes.

And payback time is coming for socialists. And they don't like it.
How is quick, consistent, low-cost health care a bad thing?
Our March Madness Hackathon Project: Now Live
> Given how much memory, disk space, etc. we have these days it's getting to the point that we should really have the ability to dump a program's state and all actions from starting the program to finishing it and then fast forward/rewind the actions of the user.

Given a program from 20 years ago this is definitely possible. Given a program from today, it becomes an intractable problem quite quickly.

> It's just that no-one's done it yet and no programming language is really written to do it.

Live programming might get you what you want, but it won't be through brute force tracing of everything. Better to focus on deterministic replay then its quite easy to rebuild the contexts we need to fake it.
For the first time, scientists have grown the embryos of an extinct species
> "Since the announcement, NewsBlur has welcomed 5,000 new premium subscribers and 60,000 new users (from 50,000 users originally)".

That's at least $200,000/yr with high margins.
TechCrunch yesterday: "If you think 10% is a good transaction fee for your marketplace, then you will struggle"
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/16/marketplaces-businesses-are...
TechCrunch today: Check out this startup taking on an encumbent with a sub-10% (7%) transaction fee.
The biggest fallacy I'd add is Mood Affiliation:

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/03/the...
Originally price, now price + API for deploying new instances. If you check out my fabfile.py script you'll see that I have EC2 setup and ready but I don't use it because it costs more, runs slower, and is a pain in the butt to maintain.
IMO the best acquirer would be someone who wanted credibility among high-end technical users or journalists, not someone who wanted to turn it into a mass-market thing.

If I were Palantir, I'd probably drop $250k/yr to run the World's Best RSS Reader for the kind of research analysts who become Palantir customers, and the kind of geeks who make awesome Palantir employees. There are maybe a hundred companies you could substitute for Palantir here.

Seriously ironic that both of the likely Reader successors are YC funded (Feedly and Newsblur)
OP here. Some friends and I put this together in two weeks on a Rails stack. It's $2 to create a bracket, and the proceeds go to research for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Please check it out! Feedback is welcome, of course.
This was a private conversation between two individuals. This reeks of a witch hunt to me.
Thanks for providing this service and having such great communication with users!
Oh, I meant vs. spending $20k on hardware, or partnering with someone like Softlayer/Rackspace as a promotional thing (I suspect either would be willing to give you a great deal to use as a marketing case)
> The Wikipedia article contradicts you in the second paragraph

Only if you don't follow it far enough to find out it's 2010 numbers.
Here's some straight-up satire:

Only a relatively small fraction of the population, mostly
highly intelligent, and well informed, curious individuals
used Reader.

Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391119

It's Lake Wobegon and all you need to enter is a Reader account and some outrage.
Do you have a API? I was building a news reader for iOS when !kaput! Google reader (I was in the middle of integrate it). Now I wonder what to do next. I love to support another "small" players like yours...
The problem is using Courier, not the example. Try 'Monaco, Consolas, mono'
Just like a computer science freshman I imbued computer systems with magic. Oh look I feed this machine numbers and it spits out words (text to speech). Or I search for something and a magic algorithm find me the result. As I learned more about algorithms and data-structures, that magic disappeared. Now I had the same feeling about hardware. This magic black square on the motherboard that can execute a set of couple of hundred or so assembly instructions many billions of times per second. Then I took a hardware architecture class and poof! magic disappeared. We started with transistors and build to designing our own CPU chip.

I am guessing something similar is going on with our understanding of the brain and mind. I think we just haven't figured out a good way to model and represent knowledge. There was terrible optimism at the end of 50s that super human AI will take over in just a decades. But it didn't happen. We have sort of been stomping our feet (I personally don't consider playing chess an AI achievement). I think there will be a breakthrough -- maybe it will be a simple organization of existing ML and knowledge representation methods (neural networks, mixed with evolutionary algorithms) or some new framework - OR - enough of very specific applications (chess playing, image recognition and speech recognition) advanced will slowly chip away at this "magic" AI core until maybe nothing will be left. And we'll look back at that and at our brains and say "ah, it wasn't that complicated after all, it is just all these specific subsystems working together"...
You bet I do: http://www.newsblur.com/api. I would love to hear about your ideas. I feature a number of third-party extensions and apps written against NewsBlur's API on the Goodies page.
>I mean you can say "bullshit" all you want but the fact is you do get subsidized.

How can this make sense to you. If I pay a dollar in taxes and get $0.80 in services, does that sound like a subsidy to you? On my planet that's not a subsidy.

>Many people are not living in rural areas because of that sort of choice; many people live their because they feel like they don't have good options.

I'm not really interested in their feelings.

>The issue with the USPS is this ridiculous pension requirement that is being thrusted upon them by the same political party that brought us the Iraq war, how was that for corporate subsidies?

You may have noticed the Democrats ran Congress from 2006 to 2010.
How's that freedom working out for ya?
I looked at Feedly and Newsblur last week as I look for my eventual Google Reader replacement.

Feedly turned me off because it has no open web implementation, it runs through the Chrome web store. Aside from some developer related plugins I refuse to use a completely superfluous wrapper around a website if I am on my PC.

I've tried Newsblur but it's just so "busy" (I know where my mouse is on the vertical axis thank you very much). I may warm to it, but I'll probably end up with something a little simpler. But I wish all the success in the world to conesus, a variety of small, customer focused, customer capitalized independent web service vendors is a good thing for all of us.
"Cypriot banks finance themselves through deposits, not bonds."

The Cypriot banks are going to find all of their deposits withdrawn as soon as they reopen, so they better figure out a new way to finance themselves.
Current technology != future technology. Sorry, induction doesn't work that way.
Doesn't it have to fetch feeds to determine there are no new articles?
Maxis, not EA. And this isn't "admits it could have run offline" but "tells us they changed conceptual direction from single player to multiplayer at the design stage".

Why is this on HN?
For all the ranting about socialism, deeply social democratic countries--namely, countries like Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden--are doing mostly fine. If not for the Eurozone crisis, I'd say they'd be much better places economically than the USA, let alone a country like Cyprus or Greece. This is despite having more generous public sectors than the Mediterranean.

Nor is it simply corruption, though there's PLENTY of that to go around. Lots of corrupt countries aren't about to spontaneously collapse. But it's not totally crazy to imagine Italy, Spain, and Greece collapsing into chaos by the end of April. Or, if you're a pessimist, by the end of March...

It's sectoral imbalances and a deeply broken EU.
Even after they renamed the first time (to Xe), all the guys continued wearing Blackwater caps and shirts. Even the nominally-separate Presidential Airways guys were wearing Blackwater clothing with the bear claw logo :)
:) Yep. We read this too, and we loved this comment:

Steven Cox 22 hours ago-
The amount of margin a company can extract from the marketplace depends on a couple factors: (1) Amount of competition within the category, (2) the amount of value the company is providing that market participants are willing to pay for (example: a listing site vs. a listing site plus scheduling and billing tools), (3) the virality of the business (lower CAC = ability to charge lower fees), and (4) the presence of a recurring revenue stream (allows for lower margin per transaction).

No matter what margin the business decides on, the strategic decision each company must ask is how much adoption is needed today vs. the expeted margin. The higher the growth needed, the lower the fees need to be.

Once, I heard an early eBay Executive explain how eBay's initial low fees allowed them to run away from other early auction sites. They were priced low enough to where no one could undercut them and priced where the market contributors deemed the fees reasonable. The other sites had two options: charge less and go out of business or charge more per transaction to get the same revenue output - which caused the market contributors to seek out a lower cost solution (eBay). Game over.

Part art, part science... and a tank load of work.
> are all sexual jokes off the table if females are present?

Honestly, I wish they were off the table regardless of who is in attendance. They're rarely funny, and they add nothing to the conversation.
<!--Removed after seeing response about automating tool-->

You can script the scanner to auto-decode B64 cookie once you found them: http://blog.portswigger.net/2012/12/sample-burp-suite-extens...

It all boils down to: how can you be so sure if your tool/process is finding most vulnerabilities than others, and can you prove it?

If I were your client, I would be very worried by now.
Option 3: Make rational decisions and rely on everybody else panicking? :)