skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The mammoth's lament: Cosmic impact sparked devastating climate change
What about editing files in the editor? Being able to adjust CSS/JS files in Chrome is great.
Wait? You can reset a facebook password by having 3 friends confirm?
What the? First of all getting 3 friends to pull a prank on someone should be fairly easy.
Other than that you can just create 3 fake accounts and get the victim to add you as friend.
I find that way worse than these security questions, because there's essentialy no way to defend against this.

Well, except by not having facebook (which luckily I don't have).
> I don't find the argument that 'if the other guys are jerks, then I too can be a jerk' to be an argument that makes me see anyone in a more favourable light.

Why would Google want to invest resources on giving Microsoft an unfair advantage over themselves? Microsoft being jerks is the rule since that open letter Bill Gates sent to the Homebrew Computer Club.

In other words, why would you invite a guest that is known to steal stuff and not flush toilets into your home?
Substantial discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5734480
A fast lock-free queue for C++
I wish I'd be able to do this kind of photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lonfong/8363181496/
taken from
http://www.flickr.com/cameras/samsung/galaxy_s_iii/
Let's say your computer gets a virus, and it deletes everything on your hard disk. This will also delete all your Dropbox files.

Luckily Dropbox keeps versions. Now imagine the virus purges deleted files. Now you have to contact Dropbox support.

The type of backup you want depends what you are trying to protect against. Maybe you'll decide you want want a physically separated medium that is rarely connected to your PC.
Search any jQuery plugin, many insert DOM and listeners that are not slightly configurable, most of them don't follow simple rules: http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/11/essential-jque...
fastmail.fm has made me extremely happy as a mail replacement, though I've been using icloud for calendar, so I can't speak to their replacement for that.

The only downside to the fastmail mail is you need ~200 spams learned before the bayseian filter kicks in, so the first two days were a bit "noisy" for me. After that, though, it reduced the ~10 spams per day that would make it through gmail down to 1 every other day.
Could you open source it? I'm very interested in seeing how one would do that, I've been thinking about writing one myself, for PHP (I've a somewhat large codebase to inherit, that only works in a old version of PHP, and I might need to migrate it).
This is how I'm seeing it: Look at all the times the 747 exploded and systems had to be rebuilt. This thing already needs upgrades.
There is no technology without art
Engineering is a fantastic pursuit. A pursuit driven by dreams.

And dreams are the product of artists, who care not about the means of reaching those dreams, but dream them none the less.

What we are calling technology now, is the commercialization of dreams that people had 30 years ago. Dreams of automation, dreams of commercialization, dreams of becoming useful in society using our brains to fill in the gaps
that society couldnt fill in without help.
Dreams of getting rich.

But dreams, true dreams, are human not mechanistic. They cant be fulfilled
with Flat UI, pure functions, automated infrastructure, or monetization schemes,
silly acquisitions or ingenius business models.

Our dreams wont be fulfilled by handheld phones, glasses, retina implants, or remote controlled drones of war or advanced AI.

Our dreams are bigger than all of those things.

Because mere convenience is not a dream. Its just a convenience.

What we call technology today that we like, is kind of like a TV show, the best example being "The Office" which just went off the air.

It was a popular show because we have reduced our dreams to looking in the mirror and laughing at ourselves.

Thats not dreaming. Thats just who we are. "Technology" as we know it is following a
similar path.

We build things and look at other things people have built, only to look at ourselves in the mirror and see how good we are by comparison.

Even if we are comparing our products to something a few teenagers could build in a weekend.

Technology in this sense of connectivity and monetization, and self fulfillment
will make some people rich. But it is narcissistic and a joke.

We have become so small as engineers that we care if outlook.com can connect to google+.

Get off the treadmill of delusions, and start to dream again if you ever did.

You are a human being, and you should never become a slave to such a petty industry as this has become.

Turn off your computer, you are free.
Well, they are certainly correct in that Austrian economics isn't science.
Wonderful links. Thankyou.
Try Visual Web Scrapper
I found this part to be interesting:

"These companies may well be complicit in grave human rights violations. A criminal case against a French company for exactly this business behaviour is now under consideration of a Paris court and could set an important precedent for others. Can we hold companies and their executives accountable for complicity in human rights violations and creating security threats by knowingly selling digital arms to repressive regimes?"

Should/Can we hold weapons manufactures accountable for helping aid nation states/organizations in their conquests or for individuals during crimes?

Somehow this comes off to me as these tools are only ok for some ...hardly digital freedom.

I also like how there is little (or no) discussion on about individuals and the role they should take in ensuring their digital freedom. I guess only nation states and corporations are the enlightend despots who must insure freedom upon us. Sounds kinda doublespeaky to me.
I wave!
Hoping for HTML5 to win, because I want "applications barriers to entry" to be as dead as the dodo.
Promise based ORM for Node.js
http://www.monolithic.com/
games is the only reason I have windows anywhere. And the inertia of rebooting my machine into windows means I almost never play (non-web) games anymore. Steam will definitely score some sales off me now, but whether mainstream gamers will switch, who knows??

I switched my GF to ubuntu 12.04 a few weeks ago. She is already preferring the system due to no malware and less crashes. So clearly desktop linux has come along way in 5 years. I have given her almost (but not quite 0) help in operating it too. Wifi doesn't work though :(
Blackberry vs Microsoft - the desperate struggle for third place
Betteridge's Law applies.

Gaming helped cement DOS/Windows victory on the desktop because most enthusiasts bought computers to play games, but it did nothing for the Amiga (which was great for gaming but had a lousy ecosystem for office stuff).

On the other hand, the desktop market is collapsing and you might think that the kind of person who still wants/needs a desktop might be more likely to be the kind of person who wants/needs Linux. That's possible but it's not the perspective taken by the article.
Single demographics (or, why you can't get a date)
The Fight for E-Clothing
JS Dependency Management - Bower.io vs. Component.io vs. Ender
I'm confused.

Which way to go?

Which has the cleanest design?

Which has the most plugins?

Which do you use?
Algorithmic analysis is absolutely scientific. Asymptotic analysis is based on models of computer behaviour that are testable (and people do test them and do improve on them). Moreover, the asymptotic models make predictions and those predictions are testable (and people do test them and do improve on them).

The asymptotic analysis of algorithms would not be useful if it didn't make accurate predictions about real world phenomenon. I've written peer reviewed computer science papers where I have devised an algorithm, predicted its asymptotic behaviour and then validated through empirical testing.

What you're describing sounds completely different. If the major idea is that human economies cannot be scientifically analysed, then surely all analysis is a waste of time? An analysis that isn't based on the scientific method isn't more likely to be correct.
I believe the corresponding joke goes something like this:

"To get your pornstar name, take your mother's maiden name and first pet's na--"

"Let me stop you there. You realise those are both common security questions for authentication if you forget your password, right?"

"Argh! You mean my bank knows my pornstar name?!"
What I would like is a program for uploading RAW files to Flickr, but clearly Flickr is opposed to this.
Are you serious? Tesla essentially gave away much of his works (or voluntarily chose to not enforce his copyright) because his work and the advancement of technology was more important to him than money. He chose to remain chaste (a virgin) also in order to further his work. There were many beautiful women desperately in love with him. If he wanted money or women he could have had them instantly at any time. Instead he chose to dedicate his life to his work, yes at times he was bitter but I would say he would be an excellent role model for a myriad of reasons.
The idea that there is going to be some sort of rapid change to Linux desktop is wrong, simply because people forget that windows desktops are used by corporations and government, almost to the exclusion of any other OS. That is where the oems make the most money, at least in terms of chunks. Canonical and Steam are going after the personal computer, but nobody seems to be making inroads in the corporate desktop world. Everything runs on Windows, often exclusively on Windows. Converting to Ubuntu is a big leap away from windows xp. And the CTO is not the boss. Marketing knows power point and word and Excel, they don't want to learn libreoffice.

Not to mention that there are all sorts of weird industry requirements. Look at doctors converting to electronic records. Show me a vendor with a linux based solution that meets hipaa requirements. Or consider checkout computers, which may process credit cards, which have regulatory requirements.

Stop talking desktops and build a easy way to convert businesses. It won't be easy to build though.

Get approval from regulatory bureaucracies, get every company department either willing to switch or with a super easy virtualization solution, get it ready to support it, make sure any custom software can be ported, handle the conversion. Make sure business partners can still work with you. Oh and RETRAIN EVERYBODY.

Having heard how much people fight converting to windows 7 from xp, you are going to have a struggle to get it done.

But if you do all that, then maybe linux will have a Turning point.
Firefox already has that, there's a little "Box Model" tab with a little diagram showing padding, margins, and so on.
That is a random comment in a forum from someone who doesn't represent Flickr.

The actual TOS make no mention of whether you can have a business account or not. In face the best practices page specifically provides guidelines for businesses.

"This guide is intended to help organizations—such as businesses, groups and non-profits—get the most out of Flickr."

http://www.flickr.com/bestpractices/
The free version of google apps has been discontinued. New users can no longer sign up for it.
> Lisp has rather less syntax than most other programming languages - and that's possibly a weakness

Yup: it's like saying that binary is easier than decimal because it has less digits - the average Joe would still find it easier to do his maths in base ten :)
There are two things that annoy me in FF Dev tools for now:

- It uses RGB to show colors instead of hex (I think they are working on this)

- There is no visual indication of margin/padding for the selected element on the page (it is shown in a box inside dev tools)
quarterto's law: Any headline which ends in a question mark will have a comment on it citing Betteridge's Law.
Same experience here, running this on my HTC Desire.

At least Opera is nice enough to provide older apks here:

http://arc.opera.com/pub/opera/android/

I downgraded mine promptly.
I agree about the relevance of this story, and I'm a big fan of Dave's from his generosity to the Perl community, but his point would have been better served if he had been less personal and if he had taken his analysis a step further.

I think any time you characterize somebody in a negative light, it's best to acknowledge the risk that you didn't have the whole story.

In addition the fact that lawyers and the law aren't mentioned is a big gap in the point Dave makes. If you're working with strangers in America on something that is worth more than ten thousand dollars to you,the extent to which you can get a llawyer involved is the extent to which you can safeguard your interests.

Now, at risk in the tumblr acquisition seems to be tumblr's handle on cool. The situation of how tough it is for suits to draw up an agreement that protects "cool" set against how important such a challenge is during an acquisition might have made for a more interesting discussion.

As it stands, the takeaway for this story is basically "don't forget to bring a lawyer!"
Video: Why not eat insects? [2009]
Facebbok application tries to excite your social experience
Can we become better programmers through studying code?
To help myself and others understand better the qualities of good code and deficiencies of a bad one, I have started a new blog called Wonders of Code. The question is, is this something that can trully help us improve our understanding and thus skills?<p>The idea is to take a piece of code, point out some noteworthy improvement opportunities - preferably in relation to the general principles of clean code, such as DRY, SRP, readability etc. - and rewrite it in a (presumbely) better way and explain the new qualities.<p>You might want to check out some of the 3+1 code studies already published at WoC to see what I mean: http://wondersofcode.wordpress.com/.<p>I have two questions:<p>1) Is this something worth doing, something that can really help us - and especially the juniors among us - become better programmers faster?
2) Do you have any tips and ideas for how to make it better and more effective?<p>Thank you!
No, I think the fact that consumers are moving towards devices and so are the operating systems for them means Linux will win the content creators.
Has this been updated since 2008?
You aren’t learning if you aren’t doing
The Cambridge Satchel Company: The Social Object Master Class
The Cambridge Satchel Company Grew From A Kitchen To A Retail Business By Creating A Social Object. Graeme Benge Examines This Phenomenon.
Same experience here, running this on my HTC Desire.
At least Opera is nice enough to provide older apks here:

http://arc.opera.com/pub/opera/android/

I downgraded mine promptly. Future doesn't look good though.
2013 def year of Linux
SlimerJS, a scriptable browser for Web developers
You seem to labor under the misapprehension that learning things and going to high school have something in common.
I'm a Pro subscriber and I applaud them for starting to improve Flickr.

However, $49.99 a year just for the privilege of getting no ads? Compared to the $25 people pay for Pro accounts, that's way overblown.

And yes, compared to cloud storage, given 1 TB of storage, this is rather cheap. However, considering that this storage can only be used for photos and videos and that most of these photos and videos are meant to be public, at least within your circle of friends, which drives more traffic to Flickr, well I consider $50 per year to be way too much.

While I am able to keep my subscription for now, I always thought that Flickr is sustainable because they value their Pro users and this move makes me think they don't.
>> Because when the economy picks up the Fed will decrease the size of the monetary base by selling treasury bills.

That's how it has always worked in the past: by extremely careful control of the money supply, through selling or buying treasuries. That's not what's happening right now. The FED is not just buying treasuries, but also RMBS, derivates, even shares, all at unprecedented scale, and all while keeping interest rates at near-zero. And let's not forget the billions of dollars used to 'save' banks: ultimately, the US government has to finance these by either raising taxes (not happening) or borrowing more from the FED, which means that effectively the 'bad loans' and their derivates that almost brought down these banks are also financed by an increase of the money supply.

Your assumption the FED can cool down the economy without completely killing it by huge interest rate hikes and sellof of US treasuries -throwing millions of people in unsurmountable debt and completely devastating all confidence in US treasuries as solid investments- as soon as the money velocity goes up and inflation starts to rise, is naive at best. Central banks around the world are very aware of the monster they are creating and the risk that it will lead to a world-wide currency devaluation war. Just read between the lines of public statements about Japan trying to devaluate the Yen, or China artificially keeping the Yuan as low as possible for years to protect their cheap export strategy.

>> Mainstream economics explains why inflation occurred in those countries. Those cases have been thoroughly studied and are mostly well understood.

While the factors that caused the monetary collapse in the countries I mentioned were different, the ultimate effects are comparable: an unmaintainable monetary status-quo leading in a loss of confidence in government-controlled currency. I'm not sure why you think 'This time is different (tm)' for the US, Europe, or Japan.
I think majority multistoried concrete buildings are better protected against wind, you just need to add shutters to those buildings, the problem with concrete buildings is insulation.

I'm not sure about high voltage electricity - the main purpose is to protect people, the electricity lines are relatively inexpensive to rebuild.
I haven't come across WiFi hardware recently that Ubuntu didn't support, so it's pretty impressive that you've found some :P. Perhaps you should check whether it actually runs what you want before you buy it though ;)
Android Applications with Kotlin
Please don't try to imply that the rest of us here agree with you in any way just because we're on this site. Hanging out on a site called HackerNews and having a basic sense of right and wrong are things that plenty of us can do simultaneously.
Posted 17 hours ago, 72 comments at this time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5738828
HN doesn't use markdown, it just has a very primitive system where italics can be created with asterisks.
This must be the easiest cash system to hack ever made. I'm guessing Square's security will be on the other side - fixing up invalid transactions easily after they happen?

They really need to add some kind of guarantees/insurance onto a system like this...
How many pens with logos do you currently have in? Look around the house.
Linux gaming may take off as Linux-based gaming console, but that won't help Linux desktop (hint: the problem of Linux desktop is not lack of games).
Introducing My Cloud Deployment Service for ASP.Net sites, OnCheckin.com
Descrambling the voice inversion scrambler
The Firing Offense
This starts to get my imagination going. What if you would use all kinds of websites, which allow user-submitted data, and encrypt and distribute the content. You could create an underground internet hosted unknowingly by other people. You could even encode your data so it looks like real image or natural language data.
I'm confused about that too. I don't know how much header validation and such you can do if you're BCCed, but it seems like a difficult one to secure.
Airbnb Stay Illegal In New York City, Rules Judge
JDBC Basics: How to deal with databases in Java
> Google's implementation of Checkout was flawed from the start (esp how they handled/treated merchants).. So I'm not surprised it didn't go anywhere.

As you say, Google's implementation was flawed from start. Doesn't it make sense then to fix it and make things right?
Earthquake and hurricane overall affect wider areas than tornadoes, there are old, more than 100 years, buildings in tornado affected areas.
It's great to see Armin's continued work on this. Things have obviously progressed since he wrote his post on the subject [0] (over a year ago). He's written so much of the code I rely on daily that I was concerned that he'd lose interest in Python during the 2-3 transition (I know it's not completely on him to support it but he is a key contributor to Python's use on the web).

[0] http://lucumr.pocoo.org/2011/12/7/thoughts-on-python3/
Yes, I think that this is definitely something worth doing.
I knew something like this was going to pop up. Now we just have to wait and see how long people can get away with it.
No

This ship has sailed.

Desktop is even less relevant today.

Linux can be a good foundation if your workflow is 100% web based, but I don't see this happening in large corporations (for now)

Still, sorry to say this, but Linux blew it. Yes, even Canonical

If someone can partner with a hw maker, do a computer that boots to a web browser (and within that domain works 100%) maybe this can work.
How to work with Swipe Gestures in Android
«Developed for just over two decades and it's still barely made a mark on the consumer consciousness.»

What about Android? Linux is in the pockets of way more than half smartphone users in the World. If that's not making a mark... what is?

I know they're talking about desktop, but this sentence is still incredibly missleading and false. Consumers buy Android phones. Period.
Thx, very inspiring :-)
It's not about being jerks too, it's about being able to compete. They can't compete by giving away free stuff to competition when the competition refuses to do the same which gives the competition an unfair advantage (in this case, MS customers being able to use both gtalk and skype inside of outlook but Google customers being unable to run skype inside gmail, this makes people just want to use outlook as it provides more than gmail thanks to MS unwillingness to open skype, see the difference?).
I remember Zimbabwe when it was at its worst. The inflation was 30% - per hour. And the queues to the ATMs were loong.
Selling weapons outside France is heavily regulated for french manufacturers. The question in the french case (google for amesys france) is whether or not those digital goods should be considered weapons (and be regulated as regular physical weapons).
I had the same experience. Fortunately, FF23 adds this feature (under the heading 'Web Console in Debugger Frame' in the linked post).
it's probably not sending out from your e-mail client. All you see in the promo are input fields. Those could very easily be in an app / site which has authenticated you, and the e-mail itself is probably just the notification of the transaction, not the transaction itself. Just like paypal allows you to send money to an e-mail address. the person has to set up an authenticated account to actually receive the things. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't that you had a square account which was hooked to a debit card and they just "refunded" you money to add money to it.
Nightly does that now.
Interesting.

As a viewer, not an artist, I considered Flickr the biggest usability failure among the part of web that is actually used by people. I mean it. It was my worst photo-browsing experience ever (even lists of images on Wikimedia Commons are nicer).

I never understood why people posted photos to this website or how it became popular. Could you, or anyone, share some thoughts of that? I am genuinely interested in how people who were more target-audience felt about Flickr.
Does the site satisfy all of your needs as a user? If the answer is yes, then it's non issue.