skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You're right that defamation is generally a civil tort and not a crime (generally, that is, in the US; I don't know about the jurisdiction in question), and so the police should not have been involved. Thanks!
I'm having trouble understanding your problem with the original statement. To me, it clearly means that with the facilities available (no enormous rockets, for example) it can't easily start from the Earth's surface and get into orbit.

Approaching the Earth is a completely different issue, and I don't understand why you mention it. It simply isn't a problem if you're already in space because you make sure you go into some sort of orbit (elliptical, parabolic or hyperbolic - any will do). You easily have enough speed to do this because you're falling into the gravitational well, and you simply need to deflect your path to one side, miss the atmosphere, and you're on a hyperbolic orbit. Slow a little and you're in a large elliptical orbit. Slingshot properly around the Lagrange points (including "bouncing off" the unstable ones) and you can convert to a "standard orbit" with very little effort.

Launching from the Earth's surface requires a huge amount of energy, and it's been stated that it wasn't done.

Now, what was your question?
I guess people trust Taxis a lot more than any random unlicensed car - thus I don't think it's pointless...

plus, aren't there private drivers in NY? If I have a lot of money and want to hire a cousin (or even some non-relative) to drive me around, is it illegal?
Usually, freedom of speech is not a defense against accusations of defamation; the anonymity angle is a red herring.
2014,1352,128094,86016,71644,842,62940,65536,98316,65554,61458,0,75742,86412,86802,38848
Is there a version of whatever this is that isn't on scribd?
Beware of deadly bacteria in mobiles
Ask HN: forums built in python
Recommendations? Looking for clean and minimalist UI. One that uses MySQL is a plus.
Yes, plausible deniability is possible. Look at Off-the-record messaging (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off-the-Record_Messaging) for an example. Cipher texts is these system can be decrypted to anything you like --- not only the real plain text.
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I'm with you, but I don't mind laughing. I try to make people laugh for photos. It feels less phony.
Isn't this, rich web apps, what Steve Jobs originally said should happen when asked why an SDK/third party native apps weren't going to be made available?
I agree with your conclusions but for different reasons.

Defensive programming "done right" should be self documenting ("oh, I see this routine requires this parameter to be non-zero"), and throw exceptions back up to the ui/app layer so that unmet assumptions can't be ignored by the app programmer.

For many-layered code bases, there needs to be a level below which data is assumed to be valid and can go unchecked (at least in release builds) - otherwise a single check will be performed many times from a single high-level call.
Google Website optimizer is your answer

https://www.google.com/analytics/siteopt/preview
It's similar to Bloom, the popular iPhone app by Brian Eno and a devloper.

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftwa...
Ask HN: I have an Aussie startup and I need to bank in the USA. Where do I start?
I've been working on a startup idea for a few months. The tech side is quite easy and I've done a few prototypes. But the business side is killing me.

I need to be able to accept at least USD payments and keep it in USD, rather than having it exchanged into AUD when it gets to my Australian bank account. Right now it looks like the easiest way to do that would be to open a US bank account.

* How do I (or my company) do that as a foreigner?
* Which banks are good for startups (ie, easy to get merchant services)?

If anyone has any tips or experiences they could share, I'm all ears.

You can see my story so far, if you like: http://clubtroppo.com.au/category/startup/
I'd say Google have come up with 'a really sweet solution' here.
"Launching from the Earth's surface requires a huge amount of energy, and it's been stated that it wasn't done."

This appears to be the key to the nerd rage. If Starfleet didn't build the craft on Earth then showing them in the new movie being built on Earth is a mistake. But it's not a question of physics.
I think pg has misjudged what stage of the start-up revolution we're in.

He notes that the industrial revolution spread quickly because there were geographical areas with middle class populations and cultures that let people keep the large sums of money they made. He also notes that the culture necessary for large numbers of start-ups is not present in many areas.

IMO, we're no way near the railroad stage of the start-up revolution. I think we're in the early renaissance. The valley is like Venice in the 1400s. It's a very localised concentration of merchant traders and a culture of what we now call "modern values", meanwhile the rest Europe is living in the "dark ages". It wasn't until the plague spread across Europe and gave the surviving working classes more influence that the culture started to change. Even then, it's another 300 years before society really starts to change.

Looking at Europe in the 1400 hundreds you might well have thought that Venetian style modernism would be a very localised revolution and that these new fangled "banks" would only ever be established in small areas.

Start-ups are not the "railroads" of the industrial revolution. They are the "banks" of the industrial revolution.
The fact that Google is utilizing HTML5 client-side storage is cool.

The emphasis this article places on a nonexistent battle between the App Store and web apps is misleading.

Google didn't "sidestep" the App Store. Google took advantage of the web platform Apple provides because that platform makes more sense.

Web apps do miss a few things, though:

* Speed-ups from stepping outside of a UIWebView
* Instant Springboard real estate
* Instant monetization via Apple "one-click"
* All the APIs wep apps don't have access to

I don't mean to imply it makes sense to port every web app over, but the platforms are quite different, and those differences should probably not be understated.
Is your MBA a revision A or revision B?

I've heard that the revision B (128GB or 120GB hard disk) is more stable.
After looking into HAML again (I've looked at it before, and I'll admit, I clearly missed the point), I'll concede.

It does make HTML look significantly cleaner since it seems to run along the same general concept as Python (indents are blocks), and that is something I can support.

I'll be looking into giving it a try next time I have a good chance to...I appreciate the explanation.
While HTML5 storage is good, I think the main advantage of native apps is access to hardware. Projects like Phonegap ( http://phonegap.com/ ) help you write a native app that is a website with special JS-based access to the hardware. However, if Phonegap were to release a free browser like BigFive Apps http://www.big5apps.com/ then I think they could build a more powerful web platform for the iphone and ipod that could be a great place to advertise a "web" version of your app.
I believe dontronics is an Australian company that sells internationally. Here are the payment options they offer:

http://www.dontronics-shop.com/dontronics-payment-options.ht...

Also, check with international banks that have operations in Australia and USA (e.g. HSBC). Drop by a branch and ask their business accounts people.
Same thing here. I put Godfather II which is one my all time favorites and of course I got a suggestion for Godfather III which I consider a totally stupid movie. Apart from this I got suggestions for a bunch of gangster movies. I couldn't care less about the gangster theme, it's the quality of directing, acting and dialogue that makes Godfather II great. Ironically enough Godfather III is from the same director and with the same lead actor which supports even more the point that properties similarity is not a good predictive factor in movies recommendation.
It's easy enough to set up a merchant service that accepts foreign currencies and deposits them as Australian Dollars. But only one bank based in Australia (NAB, for you locals) lets me accept foreign currency and bank it in that currency.

(Updated original to reflect this clarification)
The Future of Firefox: No Tabs, Built-In Ubiquity
After processing large amounts of data, I was merging multiple lucene indexes and got random null pointer exceptions. Surprisingly when I was trying to run the offending code alone, everything worked fine. Took me a while to figure that one out. Turned out that it was a bug in the JIT Compiler of Java 1.6.
Shower Baths
Software Startup Lessons (Part 6) – Looking back at one failure
A pentatonic scale such as the one in this app consists of scale degrees 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6.
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I draw a line between defensive programming and paranoid programming. Paranoid programming looks like defensive programming run amok, and you've described it rather well.
Has anyone tried tying a session to the client's IP address? Seems like this might make the session cookie harder to use externally (could still use XSS to perform all the attacks from the browser though).
I just read that--it's one of the best I've read by pg.
That's what I thought too. When he annouced that everybody was up in arms and now, mobile development is the way to go. I find that a bit ironic.
Yeah, there's two different things you could call defensive programming: first is asserting that code assumptions are true (and crashing loudly when they're not), second is trying to work properly with bad data.

I find the former really useful in quickly finding bugs in my code and documenting the function input assumptions. In general, I'd rather my code fail early and visibly (e.g. crash in debugging environment, return error and log the problem in production environment) than produce garbage because the input was garbage.

I agree the latter bad for defending against inconsistencies in internal data model or as a "precaution" when using API you don't trust, but it's still vital if you're dealing with data from outside world, when you do want to try and behave sanely in possibly damaged input (e.g. not ignore the entire RSS feed if an item from it doesn't have pubDate set).
Why I Fired My Broker
Introducing: JSHTML
Nokia 5530 XpressMusic Touch screen Mobile to be unveiled Soon in India
Personal branding: Identity Theft via Google?
phpbb used to do this, but I don't think it does anymore. The problem is that some users have ISPs that transparently route their web access through rotating HTTP proxies, all with different IP addresses. So, each click has the potential for sending the user through a different IP, and invalidating their session. AOL was infamous for this practice. You can imagine this might also happen closer to the client, say within a corporate network.
Nokia 5530 Xpress Music in September 2009
Having had to use and debug HAML before, I absolutely hate it. I would argue that it is more difficult to read HAML and leads to buggier code. Missing what amounts to two spaces can break your layout without you realizing it until much later.

This is especially true if you use a CSS framework where you have lots of nested elements with several classes each.
With patents, you are not allowed to infringe, knowingly or not.
Nokia 5530 XpressMusic Touch Screen Mobile To Be Lunched Soon in India
Intel's Atom revenue fell more than other processors
No win No fee injury solicitor
No win No fee injury solicitor is an expert who would have accumulated many years of experience in damage settlements. 1998 saw the advent of these solicitors when the no win no fee compensation was introduced. They will be members of the law society panel of personal injury experts who would be dealing with wide range of personal injury incidents. Choosing the right solicitor is the first important decision to be taken.
"Instant Springboard real estate"

You can easily add web apps or pages to the iPhones home screen, it's the button right below "bookmark". You even get a nice icon if it specified correctly using the appropriate HTML5
I don't agree, controlling your tongue is one of the hardest things to master. The age old saying "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything" rings true in this case for sure.

There are personal feelings and comments which are better left private, not everything I think or feel is anyone's business but my own and a lot can be said for having a little tact.
This guy is in trouble and you're advicing him to get high?
Fast Takeoff: Assessing (Nanotech) Impact: RepRap
Cringely: Wall Street and Main Street Don’t Cross
You bring up a good point, it would be a lot cheaper and easier to go after the home schooling market. I see what you're getting at and I have to say, I do agree.

Come to think of it, providing a local community of home schoolers would definitley put you in a niche market and ensure (if you're product is worth it) that you'd build a stable base of customers.

Good points.
and the security implications of that would be insane...
The problem he is describing is the information disparity in the mixed onsite/remote setup. In my current company all the developers (~15) are remote and it works well as we all have to effectively use email, im and phone to get things done. We don't have the informal office chat channel.

I have worked in all three scenarios, onsite, remote and mixed onsite/remote and the mixed scenario is clearly the worst. The onsite vs. remote debate comes down to the makeup of the team you have, it's a different type of person that is successful in each setup.
they aren't dedicated vertical screens, they rotate.
I think IE7 users will upgrade faster than IE6 users for these reasons:

1. The quick release between IE7 and IE8 means that users who have recently upgraded (or have adjusted) to IE7 haven't got stuck in their ways just yet and have recently encountered change.

2. IE7 users have already (tended) to show a willingness to upgrade and learn a new system (either Vista or IE7 on XP).

3. IE8 is being rolled out as a critical update so the willingness and recent experience of change should influence IE7 users more than IE6 users.

4. A major reason for not upgrading IE6 is legacy code written for IE6 - this should be less of an issue on IE7.

5. IE8 isn't nearly as different from IE7 as IE7 is from IE6.
Agreed, but Firefox 3 is quite different from Firefox 2 in terms of interface etc. and there are some quirks (such as the awesome bar) that at least among the people I talk to got quite a bad rap to start with.
My humble experience is that gadgets are ultimately counter-productive, and a distraction.

In a previous life I've blown painful amounts of money on music equipment, only to realize that I might have been a decent guitar player if I had just stuck to playing guitar instead of tweaking multitrack digital audio editing equipment with virtual racks of multiband compressors and whiz-bang effects. Same goes for programming, at least in my case.

What I really want is more time.
Is spam to blame for global warming?
The python Nagare framework use both approaches of programmatic HTML
and minimalist HTML templating. For example, to create a HTML list,
in a div, from a Python list:

from nagare.namespaces import xhtml

l = ['the', 'mandatory', 'hello', 'world']

h = xhtml.Renderer()
with h.div(id='content'):
with h.ul:
h << [h.li(element) for element in l]

print h.root.write_htmlstring()

Or a (X)HTML template can have nodes annotated with a 'meld:id=<id>'
attribut. They are then retreived and manipulated in Python.

In both cases, one of the main goal is not to reinvent a new
syntax / templating language but to use normal Python with all its power.
Also the generated (X)HTML is always well-formed.

http://www.nagare.org/trac/wiki/PresentationTier
It was a retort to the insinuation that Australian currency was worthless ergo the country is worthless.
I don't think so. I view people around me as animals, a part of natural environment (like trees, rocks, water).

I am dedicated to _always_ play a role. Just like I wouldn't go and jump from a bridge to defy gravity I wouldn't say "God doesn't exist" to my mother, who is a fundamental Christian. I am not particularly scared of consequences of saying "fuck you, pig" to a policeman but I'm also not scared of banging my head against the wall. Yet, I don't see any particular reason why I should bang my head against the wall.

I like PG's essay "Things you can't say" since it describes me so perfectly. Inside my mind anything is allowed, even the most perverse and horrible fantasies -- ANYTHING. Yet, not much of this goes outside :)
New jQuery plugin: tabSwitch
"moderate" is a cop-out. If you're a moderate now you would presumably have been a moderate 50 years ago. And the moderate of 50 years ago would be fringe today. The moderate of 100 years ago would be a radical today.

Don't surrender your reason to social contructivism.
The idea of patents is to allow innovation that wouldn't otherwise occur right? I can't see any examples of ideas historically that wouldn't have been made in the absence of a patent. And to patent an idea rather than an implementation...

The exception would be investors stealing an idea they see and the solution would be contracts but I doubt investors would sign these.
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I once wrote a dynamic-doce loader for the ARM3... worked perfectly in the debugger, but intermittantly crashed in release. I was tearing my hair out for days - I was fresh out of uni then, and I couldn't use the debugger (since that hid the bug). In the end, turns out you have to explicitly flush the I-cache on an ARM if you want to load-and-execute code.
The article was in the slashdot frontpage. It got only ~80 comments so maybe it just wasn't so popular. I am still getting hits from there and all round from the sites that picked it up.
Hmm, I don't know if I'd qualify most of these as "OCD" peoples workspaces honestly.

The majority are pretty cluttered.
Reverse-engineering the security model behind Netflix's 'Watch Instantly' service
The statement that it wasn't done apparently applies to a different canon; there's apparently quite a lot that's changed in this one. However, the amount of energy is trivial compared to what starships in the Trek universe must be capable of. Impulse engines are supposed to be able to drive the ship to some respectable fraction of the speed of light, so no matter how they work, they should be able to get the ship off the surface of the Earth. I think the fact that the Trek universe has artificial gravity solves all of the handwavy problems, though, even apart from that, so there's no canonical technical problem here.
I kinda had that feeling looking through just about all of them.
"Easily", but not "instantly".

If you download an app, it goes to your Springboard till you remove it. If you visit a web page, it doesn't go to your Springboard till you take action and bookmark it. But yes, the "apple-touch-icon" is a nice touch.
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the idea that there could be less (or about the same) regulatory interference of business today is, frankly, ludicrous.

That depends crucially on which business you're talking about. Exceptions abound. Consider that example of the mail-order wine business. Do you know how hard it was to start such a business in the days before FDR? There was a lot of "regulatory interference", personified by guys like "Eliot Ness". You couldn't start a wine business in the USA, full stop -- unless you kept it underground. That era also had a devastating effect on our brewing industry that took a generation to recover from.

One could also ask some of the people who run porn sites about the complex history of "regulatory interference" in their business.

And, as we now know all too well, there have been times when regulation of the financial industry was much more strict than it is today. That's not a simple history, either: Corporations and stock exchanges have existed since the 17th century, but their degree of regulation has changed in complicated ways over time.

And a relentless focus on taxes obscures other forms of interference that were more important at certain times, for certain industries. However onerous it is to start a telecom-based company today, it was probably harder back in those days before FDR, when AT&T held a government-sanctioned monopoly over all of US telephony:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_Bell

In 1934, the government set AT&T up as a regulated monopoly under the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission, in the Communications Act of 1934... by 1940 the Bell System effectively owned most telephone service in the United States, from local and long-distance service to the telephones themselves. This allowed Bell to prohibit their customers from connecting phones not made or sold by Bell to the system without paying fees. For example, if a customer desired a type of phone not leased by the local Bell monopoly, he or she had to purchase the phone at cost, give it to the phone company, then pay a 're-wiring' charge and a monthly lease fee in order to use it.

That the Internet managed to come into existence at all is the result of a complex interplay of antitrust law, the rise of government-funded research under guys like Vannevar Bush, and the Cold War (DARPA, which funded the Internet, was born in the days after Sputnik).

Today, our cable and phone companies also wield virtual monopolies with the help of the FCC. The situation is pretty bad in the USA. But I'm not sure it's significantly worse than it was back in 1940.
Is this a wundows killer?
Now if only Firefox 2 and 3 weren't such resource hogs, at least on my system, they're constantly soaking up memory.

Maybe I'm doing it wrong ;)
"It just looks ugly."

A little, yeah.

"This looks a little better:"

Insanity. That's the only explanation. The second example is worse in every way, as far as I can see.
JQuery Horizontal Accordion
Beneath these articles is the assumption that Google is making lots of money off of newspaper articles posted online. I don't think this is right. If anyone should be cutting the newspapers a check it should be Slashdot, Digg, Reddit, Hacker News etc. But just like every blog and pony show on the internet the newspapers run ads alongside their stories and they release their content freely to get views. It is hard to have any sympathy.
I'm curious, for the "deep one-on-one": is this more often with people you know well, or casual acquaintances who pique your interest on a particular subject?
Its not that I think it doesn't belong here, the reception the article has gotten worries me a little. These rallying articles that provoke this strong sense of identity in a community can actually swamp the real character of the site. The mutual outrage and sense of purpose is compelling but its superficial. Legal action, especially at the initial stages when police are involved, is particularly inflammatory because everyone jumps to conclusions. The justice system takes time to process, but this sense of mutual outrage has no patience.
If you get a chance, read the interview with the author. It's a good companion piece to the article, and maybe even to Why Nerds Are Unpopular:

"They've turned this word 'geek' into a term that's almost romantic in some ways, and through the Silicon economy, they've been massively innovative and economically important. A lot of them are running circles around the extroverts who are selling shoes. So I think part of what's happened lately is that the digital economy is giving introverts a new place in the sun."