skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Your first point is simply the tired old ideology of "government bad, private enterprise good". Municipal governments already run a number of public utilities which are far more important and critical than broadband, so there's no reason to think they would not do a good job with internet.

Your second point is just plain stupid. If a government makes it lawful to snoop, it won't make any kind of difference who controls the servers - ISPs are not going to start breaking the law of the land on behalf of their customers.
If nothing else, another place to post your new site to for exposure
The average middle class citizen have access to luxuries unheard of even for kings and queen ages ago.

What is luxury very often become the masses' necessity through free maket process.
Maybe construction techniques appropriate to local conditions are more of a necessity than AC? There are plenty of places where people have survived in similar conditions for hundreds if not thousands of years prior to AC.
Can Internet Free Agents Rescue MySpace?
nix (athena, redhat, debian, ubuntu), windows and mac. i've done some development on sparc, too, but i never felt comfortable.

yeah, i wrote the comment quickly and didn't catch my 3-os assumption

probably you could have figured this out, though :-)
Windows 7 Release Candidate New and Improved features
Just to hype more news surrounding the highly speculated Windows RC, I feel the need to outline some new and improved features, which some of you may of heard before, but nevertheless for those who are a stranger to what is heading our way, this will be eye-opening preview.

First of all, I shall reveal some of the cool, new features that Windows 7 RC will contain,

- Flip your Windows with Aero Peek ( Shortcut: Alt + Tab)...
Don't get confused: Facebook's open stream approach isn't like Twitter's
BaseJS: A Mobile (Safari) Javascript Framework
BaseJS is a simple, lightweight framework created specifically for Mobile Safari.
What a bad idea. Please, no one register with them. I say this only for security concerns, nothing against them. You're going to directly link your credit card info with your twitter account...
There wouldn't be, since that relates to submarines and not air defense, and he is talking about the allied bombing campaigns and microwave device manufacturing as a catalyst to silicon valley's development.

Enigma was a naval code and is unrelated to silicon valley's history.
PLEASE don't indent unless you mean to show code samples line-by-line.
Your second point is just plain stupid.

For sake of argument, let's say that everyone's abiding by the rules and the government's ultimate goal is to have as much access to private data as possible. Which method do you think is easier?

"We're doing you a favor!" - own the network by marketing ridiculously cheap subsidized internet with extremely high-speeds.

"We're taking away your freedom" - change the rules by forcing privacy-violating legislation past the house and senate
From your home page, the link to "our products" doesn't work, it stays on the same page. So I'll never know what products you have!

I can see where that might be confusing. Thanks for pointing that out -- a separate page probably would be better.

The single-column layout looks like it's from the 90s. Just add some kind of right column, a few frames with light-colored backgrounds, and it will look much better.

Okay. To me, it looks elegant and simple, which is what I love, but I have noticed that most websites don't have just one column. I'll see if I can't come up with a better design with multiple columns. After reading some of the other comments here, I'll probably want to drastically change the content on my product page, too.

First, those who use pirated software would most likely not have paid for it in the first place.

I agree with you here.

Thanks for all of the advice, I'll definitely mull over it and see if I can't make some changes. I'll be sure to read your blog posting, too.
I'd love to write an iPhone app, but I don't have a Mac. I really wish Apple would open up development for *nix/Windows users.
Yeah, I agree it's a security concern.

It's Phil Kaplan's site (Adbrite, FuckedCompany)
Konami cancels realistic Six Days in Fallujah video game
Twiggler: Awesome AJAX Twitter Client-Drag&Drop, Folders, multi a/c, the lot.. 
Hi guys, we've just released the first Twiggler demo.

http://lmframework.com/page.php?id=vd_twig_short_1

Love to get some feedback...
To clarify what is being said here (a lot of people seem confused by this)...

A lot of these seem to be the difference between the Mac "This is ours, you can use it" philosophy, and the BSD/Linux "This is ours, WE can use it" philosophy.

There are things about macs that, while they are probably obvious to mac users, are completely non-intuitive to everyone else. Devs don't want to spend time learning the quirks of a window manager, we don't care; we care about....DEVELOPING! When you've got something, like aqua, that just seems to continually get in your way, it sucks.

A personal example:
A few years ago, my parents had just moved into a new house. It was a really cool house, and they were really excited about it. I thought it would be fun to create a spoof of that show that used to be on MTV called "Cribs" (Athletes and singers walk through their houses and show them off with some slow motion/fast motion transitions and some hip hop music). A friend of mine helped by filming me walk around their house and host our fake cribs show.

When it came time to offload the video onto my PC, we ran into trouble, I didn't have the right firewire port for the cable we had (it was his camera). "No Problem", I thought, "I'll just plug it into my friend's laptop (a mac), copy the video to his machine, then SCP it to mine." Hooray, "Unix-Under-The-Hood!".
We imported the movie to "iMovie" (i think that is what it was), but I could NOT figure out how to save the video file. There was no "save" or "export". Nothing. I could "save to quicktime" or "save to the internet" or "save to $foo mac app", but no "Save to /home/scott/video.mpg".

I finally had to "export to quicktime", then do a find. |grep *.mpg to find the thing.

THAT is the sort of "getting in my way" that seems to be not only acceptable at Apple, but standard and required.

Another example is iPods. Ever try and take a song OFF of your ipod? Yes, you can do it, but Apple tries to get in your way as much as they can.
Cd-to-root: Easily Cd to the Root of Your Project
I'd rather hold the screen with my hand. I hate the way my laptop jiggles around every time I shift my weight when I'm sitting on the couch. Plus, when I'm reading in bed I like to turn from my back to one side to the other side. A laptop kind of pins you into one position. Not really, of course, but it makes you want to stay perfectly still even when you start to get uncomfortable.
There are a lot of legal constraints to recording phone calls. There is a reason why when you call some companies, you are notified that the call may be recorded. If you were not so notified, it would be illegal for the recording to be made.

So your biggest problem in gathering such a knowledge base would be to get permission to gather the data.

But doesn't this put the cart before the horse? Don't most help lines get support FROM knowledge bases, rather than making up answers on the spot that need to be entered into knowledge bases, most of the time?
Design Guru Needed in Toronto, Ontario
I am looking to hire the services of a freelance graphic designer in about two months in the Toronto, Ontario area. The person who will get the job, will help me to design the main look and feel of the web based application, and transform the vision into graphical elements and most importantly will become a collegue and a friend :).

eugene3v (at) gmail.com

Thanks,

Eugene.
Why would I want to pay $15 to register a domain via Twitter?
I had the same idea until I actually sat down to figure out my commute via public transport. Shortest way was three buses and 3.5 hours.

Granted, my commute is 45 miles each way, but public transportation here is the pits.

As dangerous as it sounds, I try and do my drive with a legal pad next to me, brainstorming and making a list of what to work on when I get home.
I wouldn't be surprised if this depends strongly on the individual in question. Some people are very good at "reclaiming" small chunks of time--15 minutes here and there--that add up over the course of a day. Other people have a much more difficult time even getting started unless they have a large block of time.
Oh.

Sorry, I've been spending a lot of time around BSD lately. What I was asking was if you meant "Windows, BSD, Mac" or "Windows, BSD, Linux" or what.
I'd be more inclined to call Time pointless than 4chan, and I think the poll supports that. Like it or not, 4chan has a strong influence on pop culture.

That said, I'm flagging this story for lack of intellectual content. IMO this is the kind of story that should be on reddit.
There are too many useless twitter apps but maybe twitter will start a trend of "textual interface applications". I am personally working on one and there's a lot of reluctance about that kind of interface but if a "mainstream" player can help... I'm happy to have one more useless twitter app.
Sending National Security Letters to private ISPs is probably easier than either of those.
This is one of the things that I feel is most misunderstood in HTML, the page's information should be specific to that page where possible.

It's tempting to have a description that describes all your pages simply for easiness (hell W3S goes ahead and does it wrong in that example) but it should define what the page is about, an abstract of a document if you will.
But you can hang them inside.

We don't have a clothes dryer and the weather here is generally wetter than the clothes are. We just have two drying racks. Works perfectly for a two-person house hold. I don't think it's hard to scale up for more persons.
The article is gushing with superlatives and amazing anecdotes. For instance, "The results have been excellent. One autistic child moved up a phenomenal amount and is proving to be a highly able mathematician." Is it really the case that after generations of struggling to do teaching right, the long sought after key to mathematical education has been discovered? ... and perhaps even the cure for autism?

... best taken with a grain of salt

From reading the article, it seems like an advertising campaign encouraging parents to count with their children (in addition to reading with them) might do just as much (or more) as this new educational program.
This is anecdotal, of course, but I've rarely used Mac in my lifetime. Windows always satisfied my needs, however now that PC gaming has essentially become pointlessly costly to me (Microsoft lost me with the whole DX10 only games, now they're readying to release D3D11, likely with its own swathe of D3D11 only games), because I can no longer buy a top of the line card and run it into the ground, because of Microsofts foolish bid to force people into Vista.

Unfortunately I ended up with Vista on one of my computers, the system is so cumbersome it's repugnant to me. XP had it's faults, however they're all passable and the lack of elegance in the system was forgiven by its durability and compatibility between locals (School, Work, Home).

Unfortunately for Microsoft, my next desktop is going to be an iMac. I'm fully aware there's going to be a learning curve when switching OS, however using Vista is frequently painful compared to XP. So for me, their's no longer a perceived barrier to entry to Mac, plus my wife is pushing for our next desktop to be a Mac... so I likely no longer have a choice but Mac. Same thing happened with the Xbox, when she found out the Elite was black and matched our TV she wouldn't let me get the cheaper one.
Facebook's OpenID Challenge: Making It Not Suck
I agree, up to perhaps a log-log scale. My grammar isn't likely to be significantly better in 30 years. However, when comparing among groups with similar English experience, grammar is likely to have a reasonable correlation with well-structured arguments. Also, the amount of time since learning English is not under your control; adherence to the rules of grammar is.
Help lines can clarify information found on the web.
It's worth comparing this to "Black Hawk Down". I didn't have a problem with the film, video game, or book.

To me, this Fallujah video game seems to be in really poor taste. It's probably because the US is still in Iraq.
Whether they'll admit it or not, that comment is probably the #1 issue holding back more hackers from switching to a Mac. Hackers :: Linux as Hipsters :: ObscureIndieRock. Switching to a Mac is like admitting you listen to Nickleback.
"SaaS" seems to be the buzzword. Thanks for reminding me about it, I'll consider some possible implementations.
I've been selling Jamroom online for almost 6 years - supports me full time + 2 part time developers, and a handful of designers as well.
Ask HN: Best practices for ASPs handling Enterprise customer data?
As an ASP-model business, some of our enterprise clients will want to audit our data security, integrity, and privacy practices. Any pointers to best practices?

We do standard things like: always use SSL, hashed passwords, daily backups, proper privacy policy and TOS, software firewall, testing for SQL injection, using a reputable data-center. We will be adding data scrubbing, hot backups, and XSS protection. But what am I missing? What is critical and what is optional?

Ideally I would like a comprehensive checklist, of the type that would satisfy a multinational client in the hi-tech industry. The data includes names, email addresses, and physical home and work addresses. We currently store no payment information or SSNs.

Btw our platform is currently Linux/PHP/Postgres, medium-term we will move from PHP to Python. Many thanks!
Consolidation in the EBook Market: Amazon Acquires Stanza
I don't think its that big of a deal in this case; it didn't cause the window to stretch (Unless your browser is < ~650px). And it was a good example to have laid out like that.
A common mistake people good at something make is to assume that the average person who does that is also as good as them. In this case, they are competing against what seems like an established enterprise software company. It's unlikely such a company has the environment to (a) attract good developers and/or (b) ensure good developers produce at peak output.

But if the technical aspects of the tool matter to customers, then it's possible that suits will see the value in replacing their technology with something better. Because from a business point of view, it's FAR less risky to buy than to develop.

I'm not saying these guys will be able to sell their technology alone (customers are very important), but it's highly non-obvious to me why their technology is worthless.
Ever notice that government monopolies and government sponsored corporate monopolies and corporate monopolies are all very similar? They all tend to suck in the same way. When one removes the motivation of having to please the customer, one also removes many of the drivers of excellence.

Local governments are sometimes a lesser evil, because sucking at that level can't be done as anonymously.
This is a strange mixture of paranoia and naiveté. On the one hand you suppose that the government's goal is to snoop on everyone, but on the other you ignore that they have already been caught doing that with the willing participation of private telcos. (FISA, warrantless wiretapping, etc.)

Putting telecommunication service in the hands of municipalities reduces the possibility of diabolical eves-dropping schemes for all the same reasons that it's less efficient than private enterprise: it's decentralized and it's run by incompetent local government.
I'm assuming you mean tied in the "tied down" sense.

On the one hand there are downsides and risks being tied to a platform, but on the other hand there are huge opportunities. For applications that are inherently social or have a strong social component, it's going to be very valuable or necessary to live on the social graph. Until now, those companies have had to try to build their own, which is very difficult or impossible.

For now a lot of developers just see Facebook as a way to spread virally, which has led to a lot of annoying spam machines.
Just took a look at EarthBrowser. Very cool indeed. I didn't expect Adobe AIR and would prefer it didn't default to a desktop icon but overall I like it quite a lot. Can I remove the drop shadow from the default font?

An unexpected side effect is that I can finally tell what time it is in England (for football / soccer matches. Go Arsenal!)

Edit - registered my copy. Really enjoying it!

Edit 2 - The included version 1.0 of Adobe Air raised an alert ("very dangerous") in Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2009. I went ahead and upgraded to version 1.5.1 of Air, as was suggested by Kaspersky.
I like that Microsoft is sponsoring this through BizSpark.

I'm sure there are people with .NET backgrounds who'd feel more confortable building their product using Microsoft technologies they're already familiar with, but don't because of software/licensing costs. BizSpark takes some of that problem away (at least for 3 years).

I'm thinking about applying.
Official Google Research Blog: The Continuing Metamorphosis of the Web
Invoking the Sputnik Era, Obama Vows Record Outlays for Research
> 10: This has been shown time and again to be FUD. I won't even bother linking the appropriate articles.

Please do link them. I haven't heard this before, so I'm curious.
Already did that, they came as part of the restricted extras package
FWIW they provide an almost completely functional Visual Studio Express edition for free (that is a relatively new thing) and have even started including things like JQuery. It's a pretty slow process but I think they have always listened to their devs.

Incidentally, I do think it's the best IDE out there but I'm not a MS fanboi, and have spent plenty of time in other IDEs and even vi :-)
TechCrunch Rumor: Facebook First Big Site To Really Embrace OpenID
Thanks, I meant to test that with no JS, slipped my mind.
Ask HN: What kind of CPMs are you getting for your ad-supported site?
Was curious what CPM rates are these days? If any of you have ad-supported sites, would love to hear what sector/industry and approx what kind of CPMs you're showing.
Honestly this is something I thought of one morning and put most of it together in less than an hour. I find it pretty useful for my own commute and polished it up in hopes it may be helpful to others.

I'm certainly not thinking this will make money or anything.
Google weather api
I feel lucky to have never worked long-term in an environment like this.

Quite often middle management doesn't feel the need to know what the process is (or rather, they can't grasp what goes on, so they become defensive), and so they lose touch and cause this despondency..

I think management in these places needs to wise up to how developers work. That way us devs are kept happy and stimulated (and don't spend all day on HN/digg/reddit), and they get results.

But alas, I'm sure nothing can break habits like sending emails in 12pt comic sans.
What's a book?
It's actually not, as I've never seen that site until you posted the link, but it is extremely similar.
While not a programmer per se (I do data "stuff" like assembling reports, analyzing correlations, split tests) when I need to write code for an analysis I just come in extra early (0630) or stay extra late (2300) otherwise the meetings/phone calls/IMs/blah just completely kill my focus. That one day every couple weeks is where I get 50% of my real work done. I think it is far better to work one day with 5 hours more work than 5 days with 1 hour each. Otherwise any one of my numerous bosses may stay an extra hour late and interrupt my work flow when I'm actually trying to get stuff done.
If the Rails community were full of powerful ideas they wouldn't have problems attracting and maintaining an audience of like-minded folk (including women).

So I guess the math, computer science, and physics communities are also full of Macbook-toting "trendoids" who lack "powerful ideas."

I don't get why you'd cheapen the point you were making with gratuitous Rails bashing.
"There isn't anything that takes up that much time outside of work unless you count sleeping (and god damn what I would give to cut that out of my daily schedule)"

Actually I wonder if it would make as significant a difference as you'd expect, or even at all. Reminds me of those school research projects where I'd have 2 months to do the project, do nothing at all except worry a bit for the major portion of the time then do everything in the last 2 days and get a decent grade. I wouldn't have done better or worse if I had been given 1 week or 4 months instead.
"If you really need to have an 8 hour work day for some reason, you'll only find that the extra two hours ends up going into work-place play or dawdling"

Either you don't have enough to do or aren't passionate enough about what you're working on. What a shame. Start a business and have the opposite problem. There won't be enough hours in the day.
Don’t Waste Time Cutting Emissions
I don't know if it's just me but when I watch the video it's just a static image not a screencast so I can't visually follow what the narrator is saying.
There is only one fallacy that invalides your arguments #1, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #15 and #16: if you offer the freedom of not going to school that you seem to advocate, and if the parents don't care about their kids' education, you have a major problem.

In order for your plan to work, it assumes that either the kid is bright or the parents place a high value on education. Think about this scenario and tell me how you take care of it.

In the meantime, the current system does a good job of providing a baseline education for all.
"So I’m here today to set this goal: We will devote more than 3 percent of our GDP to research and development. We will not just meet, but we will exceed the level achieved at the height of the space race" -Obama at National Academy of Sciences

"And today, I’m also announcing that for the first time, we are funding an initiative - recommended by this organization- called the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy, or ARPA-E."

"This is based, not surprisingly, on DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which was created during the Eisenhower administration in response to Sputnik. It has been charged throughout its history with conducting high-risk, high-reward research. And the precursor to the Internet, known as ARPANET, stealth technology, the Global Positioning System all owe a debt to the work of DARPA."
I can't do anything on car or bus rides because looking downwards for more than a few minutes gives me nausea :(
While I'm sure this is an effective way to do what it says, I am always skeptical of the thought process behind "do one extremely specific thing" tools. It seems like more could be gained by simply learning how to use what's already available. (And if a new command is necessary, make it something more general, like "find project root", and not limited to "cd".)

For instance, I'd probably tackle this by defining an environment variable to match my root directory, like $PROJROOT. I could then "cd $PROJROOT" in my shell. And if I really wanted the one-character command used by the solution above, I could say "alias a 'cd $PROJROOT'".

And this allows extensions. For instance, now that I have a $PROJROOT variable, I'm not limited to using "cd" on it; I can pass it off to anything that might use the root ("pushd", "ls", etc.). Similarly, I can reapply the alias technique to add short-cuts for any of those additional actions.
If you're going to undergo the effort of writing an app, it seems that the cost of getting a Mac Mini is peanuts compared to that.