skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Here we go again, just like last time with lots of FUD. I read through the links in the post and they're completely devoid of any details.

First, I completely fail to see what this has to do with Secure Boot. If you're a System Builder and you're able to install Linux but are unable to turn off a checkbox in the settings, then you're a shitty system builder and deserve to have your business shut down.

Second, I completely fail to see what this has to do with Windows 8. The main complaint seems to be that the big OEMs are not shipping laptops without Windows being already installed. Wasn't this true with Windows 7 too?

It looks like the magic words "Windows 8 Secure Boot" were included in the headline and post only to gain HN karma points.

If you're a business and want laptops without an OS, you need to go to the ODMs like Clevo, Compal, Asus, MSI, Quanta, Wistron, Mitac, Arima and Invente.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_design_manufacturer

They will happily sell you laptops in bulk without an OS installed. For example http://www.system76.com does exactly that.

Looks like the computer shops linked seem to just want Lenovo to sell them bare laptops so they can skim a profit by just loading Linux on them and then selling them for a higher price. Guess what, Lenovo doesn't want to increase their costs by creating a separate assembly line process which won't make them any money.

Asus sells barebones laptop kits if I am not mistaken.

It's interesting how yelling "OMG WINDOWS 8 SECURE BOOT!!!" gets you a lot of karma here even though it has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

The user is in control of the PC. They can load any key they trust or roll their own personal key and even remove Microsoft's key to prevent Windows from booting on their computer.

I don't see why tens of millions of PCs used by non-technical people should be susceptible to undetectable rootkits out of the box just to appease some stupid system builders who can't find the setting to turn it off in the BIOS menu.
Run Linux on your iPad or iPhone then. Oh wait.
Stories like these leave me dwelling on what the majority of the population may fail to notice due to hard-wiring. For example: a small percentage of people see a wider range of color than average.

Does "situational blindness" or "system-level blindness" exist on a neurological level?
I would imagine that to be the case.

Witness how many people report being unable to distinguish people from ethnicities that they're not used to interacting with.
The supply of labor exceeds demand right now which sends the price to 0...

The price of labor has not decreased since 2001 (the beginning of the data series). Wages have not decreased either.

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ECICOM

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/ECIWAG
Here's some data for Japan; Apple has about 1/3 of the smartphone market, almost all of the rest is Android. There's generally little difference in device capability or pricing between iphones and non-iphones in Japan, so it's not a low-end vs. high-end thing, and two out of the three major carriers heavily push the iphone, so it's certainly not marketing....

http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2012/4/1_in_...

> I don't see how to can make a reasoned argument that Android is objectively vastly superior

It's an opinion... :]
The guys behind Ceph are very smart, I'd keep an eye on this one as it's going to be awesome!
Ouch. $112.68 shipping to Europe.
It is a data point. Look at skills needed in dice or monster, look at tiobe.com look at languages on github and you get a picture of the fashion of the season. Most larger companies use keyword analysis to pick which resumes to look at. So if you use those keywords you have a better chance of finding a job. If you rather start your own company, of course it is meaningless.
Link is mentioned in this debate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5658184
Microsoft doesn't sell laptops to OEMs, and none of these companies is buying anything from Microsoft, so I don't see what Microsoft has to do with it. If they have lost their original supplier, for whatever unstated reason, there are dozens of Asian white box PC makers who will ship whatever you like, at low prices....

Perhaps the market is just too small to make financial sense, or these Dutch shops have no money.

I used the Wayback machine to have a look at the products and the results are not too exciting. For example, a year ago, the 1.9kg Mingos LT-13-2 laptop had a 1.3GHz Pentium, 2GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive for €540.00 ($708) with Ubuntu.

http://web.archive.org/web/20120603005911/http://www.mingos....

I can't see how any rational person would buy that, even if they were totally clueless, rabid anti-Microsoft fanboys. It's not like installing Ubuntu is hard ...

This whole thing makes no sense.
One of my favourite non-fiction books. His other books, such as Awakenings, are also wonderful.
True story: I moved from southern California to Holland in no small part because of how amenable the country is to cycling.

People like to think that cycling is popular here naturally because the country is flat and densely populated. However, it's easy to forget that during the postwar boom years, a major shift toward cars happened and it took a concerted effort of willful resistance and politically non-expedient measures to bring back the bike paths (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuBdf9jYj7o). Clearly, 1897 was not the last chance the Dutch had to fix their transit system, and with the groundwork they've laid over the years, it now costs only €30 per person in funding annually! (http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2010/05/487-million-eur...)

Yet I see very little chance of this happening in California, not because cyclists lack a voice, but because we need to create more disincentives to driving. This obviously is a political no-go considering that motorists are by far the majority demographic. It's saddening, though, that there is so much willful ignorance (or apathy) with regard to how we've externalized the true cost of driving, whether it's in the form of:

- damage to the environment

- subsidy to cheap gas prices by the DoD budget (and body count) for controlling the world's oil flow

- casualties from motor vehicle accidents

- health problems resulting from sedentary lifestyles

- zoning rules that require abundant free parking to be available in communities.

We'd probably have to see gas hit $10/gallon and parking lots charge $50/day before Americans start to reconsider. (These prices are actually quite typical in European cities.)

Oddly enough, I think it's good that the Great Recession has caused a lot of Americans to reconsider their car expenses and choose to scale back their lifestyles in ways that are more healthy, safe, and environmentally friendly. I hope this trend (not the recession, of course) continues and if America can set an example of moving away from a car culture, it will do far more good around the world to discourage the growing middle class in China, India, and other developing countries from adopting the same wasteful practices.

In the meantime, though, I'll piggyback on the 40-year head start on bicycle infrastructure in the Netherlands. If I sound bitter, it's my sore legs from yesterday's 70km ride talking ;)
There are a lot of wrong statements in your post.

>Microsoft stipulates that other OSes need to be able to run on these devices. However to do so one has to obtain a boot key from microsoft.

No, Microsoft stipulates that the secure boot should be able to be disabled without needing to obtain a boot key from Microsoft. In fact you can install your own personal key and remove Microsoft's to prevent Windows from booting.

>The implementation of secure boot on some devices is hardcoded to windows and won't work otherwise

Reference?

>Dell/HP/Asus etc. are monopoly holders to personal computing hardware

If there are multiple companies in the market with comparable market share, by definition they are not monopolies.
A screenshot is a nice to have, or something that qualifies as a legitimate request, but it's not critical nor would I expect it to be off putting if not provided.
Unless you are on ARM, and only for now.
Hmm.. static typing, familiar syntax, great tooling, mature ecosystem and a fast VM? What's not to like?
Is it not possible to completely isolate the two different versions? (Something like virtualenv for PHP?)
Are you a Google Glass half full or half empty kind of person?
I have found an easy with "Dauerauftrag". They automatically assign the money to your account. For me it works out well.
Having worked at (and briefly managed) a local computer store, then a big box store, it's a brutal business. In the small store we made all our money on service: selling recycled commodity boxes was a way to get traffic through the door, so you could fix them later. A few high-end builds were the highlight of my year, but they were few and far between. We considered offering Linux, but:

- It used to be that most technical people ( and some non-technical) would buy desktops. You can sidestep the Windows tax and attendant issues by building a desktop (from parts you know work well with Linux), and maybe hit a competitive price in the high end. Now that desktops are a tiny sliver of the market, these stores are enslaved by OEMs, reboxing existing laptop designs.

- Starting from the same wholesale price, Linux resellers 'add value' by installing Linux. But this value-add isn't really apparent to a large enough audience - there isn't enough public awareness, and people aren't willing to pay a premium. Especially if they're competent enough to install Linux themselves. In my experience people expect ANY OS to be free; when we used to try and sell Win XP as an upgrade (over 2K), people were aghast that the software cost money.

- People want free support if you sell them on Linux. If they nuke the system, you either scare them off with your hourly service rate, or you eat the cost of the labour and go broke.

- So the vendor either charges a higher sticker price and doesn't sell many, or eats the labour cost for developing Linux support, fixing and reboxing laptops and tries to make up the tiny (or even negative) gross margin on volume.

When I moved to a bigger chain store, they subsidized the low-margin laptop market by aggressively pushing house-brand accessories: cables, cases, blank media, printer ink. These small stores are typically much less aggressive about selling high-margin commodities along with a system (it's harder to do with less capital, space and by mail).

So it isn't a problem of freedom and choice. It isn't a problem of Microsoft crushing little independents (not consciously). The computer business is very hard to do well at small scale, and you should expect that on a medium time-scale most will die. This is only exacerbated by the rush to laptops, then tablets and smartphones, where it's impossible to differentiate.
It's different. Apple and microsoft can do what they want with hardware/software bundles that they build themselves. That's why noone complains that those surface products are locked down, it's because microsoft manufactures them. Consumer harm comes into play when microsoft leverages their existing desktop OS monopoly to twist OEMs' arms into including an encryption key that OEMs gain no direct benefit from.
They use cgroups:

http://blog.webfaction.com/2011/11/fair-shared-hosting/
I used OpenShift a bit, but there are (unfortunately) a little bit to many problems. For example, they provide only CNAME for mapping your domain. You then need to deal with http://grobmeier.de somehow to be the same with http://www.grobmeier.de. I decided that in my situation I would something easier
For appropriate values of ‘wonderful’. But I guess if one pays 1500+ € for a computer, an extra 100 € for Windows is not all that important.
Why on earth you you say that? Its just a bios setting. OK, may be average non techie person might be scared of bios settings, but if they are, there is literally no way they would or should be trying to replace Windows with Linux.
There's this "mirror test" [1] where they put animals in front of a mirror. If they recognize themselves, they are considered to be aware of themselves.

This woman is either not aware of herself or her condition is a strong indicator that the mirror test might not be such a good idea at all. Definitely an interesting implication.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test
No, its not the theme. I use some plugins which use special tags. I would need to transform these special tags (like f.e. [javascript]) to an equivalent. This costs me a bit time for 181 posts, so I decided to delay. In the end it will become static. That said, I use subdomains a lot, i would miss them on wordpress.com
Thanks! I had a look and seems interesting.
But this doesn't use WebGL or audio, and in fact runs perfectly well in a VM, so what exactly is your point?

Also, "modern HTML5 features" covers plenty of things that work well without a GPU. It is only a tiny set of features that do not work. For the vast majority of modern sites, testing via a VM works just fine.
> "If you're a business and want laptops without an OS"

No, I'm a consumer who wants the same variety of laptops/specs/price points that are sold with windows eight preinstalled, to be available without microsoft's contraptions, be they operating systems or encryption keys.

microsoft doesn't want me to have that choice, and this is the topic at hand, and by the way, you should consider sticking to the topic at hand.
yeah it said I did not visit http://www.facebook.com/home.php when I have and I shot all asteroids.
It's obviously a coin made out of a bit of metal.
I'm sure people that read Bitcoin articles make their judgement through the articles' content as opposed to a picture.
I had an interesting case of momentary face blindness once. It was unnerving. I was elbowing my way through a very busy bar area (it was early and I had just started drinking) and eventually there was a person in front of me who started going to the left just when I went left, and vice versa, as often happens when you walk in a crowded place. After a few left/right attempts I suddenly realized that the person was, in fact, myself, and that I had reached a mirror that covered the entire end of the room. (The bar's bouncer was standing behind me and had watched the whole thing and was laughing very hard.)

The thing is, since I did not expect to see myself, I did not recognize myself. I believe that for one brief moment I truly saw myself as other people see me. We go through our lives being so psychologically connected to our outer selves, and being briefly disconnected feels very spooky.
The wire transfer makes me think these guys are hosting auteurs or the like. They may have a small clientele that they cater to exclusively and personally.

As far as I can see, you really need VPS if you need that amount of flexibility. The only person you can count on to keep your stack up-to-date in the end is you. If you do it, you know what you did. All the host needs to do is make sure someone else's VM doesn't affect yours and bandwidth and power are taken care of.

Running a VPS is an order of magnitude simpler than managing individual software packages/libraries, conflicts and such per client and so you will generally get better service as a result anyway. "Here's a bucket. Do with it what you please (just nothing illegal or resource hogging)." Then you just have to worry about the time you spend on keeping your VPS up to date.

VPS packages are reaching the same cost that shared hosts had a little while back and if AWS isn't an option for whatever reason, it's the better pick.

Edit: I should mention that I use two different hosts. One reseller and one VPS. The reseller on shared is for users who need the nice admin interface for everything, "one-click" installs, DB admin GUI etc... and the VPS for personal stuff and a couple of clients.
A Photo Essay: The People You Meet at McDonald's
Next up: sqlplus.
It's a great asset, but I'm not too sure about that comparison. I think Reddit, for now at least, really lacks thought leaders. Facebook has all of a person's friends, and so it kind of covers the thought leaders for that person to some extent. Twitter has the world's thought leaders, people whose views are very highly valued - see the AP getting hacked causing a noticeable drop in the world's markets for example.

Reddit is a bit trickier. It has a lot of localised power - for example the live Boston bombers article was lightyears ahead of the media. It pretty much drove the media wave trying to initially determine who they were. It even has the world's thought leaders dropping in (Obama IAMA). But I think it really lacks the power to consistently put thought leaders in front of people. It's easy to argue it's a stronger community, but I don't think the average social network consumer really cares about the overall community.
It tells me I need a higher resolution screen. Bummer. Guess my tiny bedside netbook is safe then
Agree, sorry, should have mentioned that I mean the X86 plattform.
Unfortunately, none of the websites says why suppliers X, Y and Z, who used to sell them laptops without Windows, will no longer supply them with laptops without Windows, if that is the case. (There's no evidence that it is.)

Also, none of the websites says why they can't just buy their laptops directly from Chinese white box PC suppliers. Am I supposed to believe it's cheaper to buy them via another European company that actually buys them from a Chinese white box supplier? Really?

Microsoft's record of trying to influence the market dates from around 1992-95, and it spent the 2000's under close judicial control, so your fact-free monopoly assertion doesn't carry a lot of weight now.

Either way, Apple has conclusively demonstrated that the market certainly will support a viable alternative -- and one that commands huge profit margins. This doesn't mean suppliers of crappy low-spec/high-priced Linux laptops are entitled top a free lunch, or that politicians should interfere with the market to prop up their failing businesses.
>That's why noone complains that those surface products are locked down, it's because microsoft manufactures them

The Surface Pro is not locked down. You can even remove Microsoft's key and stop Windows from booting and install Ubuntu's key or your own.

>Consumer harm comes into play when microsoft leverages their existing desktop OS monopoly to twist OEMs' arms into including an encryption key that OEMs gain no direct benefit from.

The OEMs benefit is that their customer's PCs are not vulnerable to undetectable rootkits as soon as they get on the internet and get hit by a Java, Flash exploit or download a fake codec or toolbar. Interesting how no one seems to talk about benefits of secure boot to real users in this discussion.
The biggest problem with bicycle transport isn't how to get from A-B but what to do with your bike once you arrive. In NYC there are decent bike lanes around (although the tourists stepping out into them make them difficult in certain areas). Do I lock my bike to a pole and hope it doesn't get stolen? Do I use a bike share system (starting roll out now), and walk way out of my way at the start and destination of my journey to find the nearest one? Maybe I get one of those fancy fold up ones and hope my building lets me take it inside.
Secure boot sounds like a bunch of bullshit. Look if your OS lets a program infect the bootloader, it was your fault. If your buying systems that have been hijacked by your oppressive govt, well that sucks for you.

This is an obvious antitrust violation, MS (nor Intel) dictate the security practices of system BIOS loading.

Is it a bug or a feature? Its neither, once your MS Windows key has loaded and the BIOS boots it, your PC will still be just as infected as it was before.

This whole thing is bullshit. I call bullshit on secure boot. Its a BIOS lockout that probably disables other OSes from running, disables dual boot systems, I mean cmon.

This is why I use VMs and dont mess with the boot process, the BIOS mafia is a fucking joke.
Good.

I was a Path evangelist to all of my friends and family, but once I learned about their spamming tactics, immediately deleted the app and canceled my account. Not necessarily because of the incident, but because of their response to it.

I've also lost a lot of respect for journalist that refused to cover the story because of their ties to Dave, the company, and/or the investors.

Typically I'd be harsh towards Facebook for this, but I don't blame them one bit. That is, if the spam is indeed the reason for this action.
I'll admit that the WSJ here is not as laughably bad as some quotations from their infamous op-eds had led me to believe. Maybe I was too harsh with them. They seem to do the balance thing, or more correctly here, the common sense and economics thing, at least passably well. Either way, there are some real pieces of work here, misconceptions about economics that were dispelled before, again and again. You're going to have a laugh, I promise.

Of course, let's start about some inflammatory comments about Mr. Leftwing Strawman, as per usual: did you know that hyperinflation is inevitable because ZIMBABWE!?

"I'll use a visual aid," says Mr. Andresen. "He opens his wallet and presents me with a gift: a 10-trillion-dollar bill once issued by the government of Zimbabwe."

Deflation is good, because SAVING! (Here the Calvinist roots of old-school good Flemish capitalism start showing again, with careless disregard to any theory of supply-demand equilibrium. How do I miss Schumpeter/Marx...)

"If prices are falling, he says, it does encourage people to save instead of spend, because the currency will be worth more later. It encourages people to lend instead of borrow. [and that's a good thing]" (Yeah, because as we know, in a given economy at a given time there can be more lending than borrowing. Or that saving > spending doesn't mean a contraction in the economy, by the magic of Austerian Economics. You people...)

A classic: fiat currency is a FAITH! Heathens!

"Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Richard Fisher calls the U.S. dollar a 'faith-based currency.'"

(Not pictured: other things based in "faith", like civil oversight over the military, the Constitution, the enforcement of laws, the concept of credit itself, the currently overpriced exchange value of gold... basically anything that isn't enforced by AK-47's, except of course those enforced by the promise of AK-47's)

"[...] what about a digital currency programmed to maintain stable prices, avoiding mischief by central bankers as well as the possibility of deflation? He says the engineer in him likes the simplicity of Bitcoin's fixed money supply."

Yeah, great engineering dude, let's disregard things like, you know, minimal acceptable performance for simplicity ;) You know, Unix was simple, but at least it didn't crash every five minutes. And the Apple II was simple, and it even had color!

Had many laughs. Would read again.
It depends on complexity. This is my python stack:

Simple stuff (API endpoint only, minimal routing, minimal cookie/session related stuff) - Bottle.py

Simple stuff that needs really high performance squeezed out: Wheezy.web + gevent (this category is new. I invented it as an excuse to play with wheezy.web)

Moderately complex stuff (rendering, session, fancy routing): web.py

Complex stuff: pyramid.

I would rather nerf my projects than go to highly complex web stacks.

My Golang stack: Gorilla or plain golang.

Frontend: I am not really a fan of frontend rendering, but if I need to, AngularJS is my preferred framework.

Database part of the stack:

I use postgres for SQL stuff. MySQL is used when there are more people in the team involved. Considering MariaDB for dropin replacement if a team is involved. Still haven't bothered.

My preferred document based nosql database is couchdb. Preferred KV store is redis.

OS:

I used to develop for CentOS but strangely in the past 2 years I have moved on to Ubuntu. Sometimes updates can break things, but I certainly prefer it to the glacial CentOS or Debian