skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ok, so what can he do? I mean, let's say he spends 10 billion dollars, on 100 million people. That would be $100 each. I don't suppose there is any way to insure that all these people get their $100, because of the problem of distribution, identity verification, etc. You can't mail them a check. You can't mail them cash. You can't trust local delivery men to do the job (they'll pocket it and say they delivered, or they'll get robbed).
If you try to provide a service, you'll get knocked down by the bureaucracy. Look at the fiasco around providing identification cards for the poor (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unique_Identification_Authorit...).
In my opinion, the best way to help the poor in India is to help India become a more prosperous nation, and as such, help the development of education, industry, public safety, environmental safety, research and development, and cultural identity within diversity. This is something the governments of India (national, state, and local) have generally pursued vigorously since independence more than 60 years ago. That the problem with poverty and illiteracy is still so pronounced only demonstrates the magnitude of the task.

Look what a long letter I write... I would suggest that the only way to help the people of the slums is for the rest of the people of India to want to help the people of the slums. There has to be a mindset that the majority of people in India adhere to, namely, that poverty is not acceptable, and that the factors that enhance poverty are to be remedied, even if this means pushing aside long-held traditions and ways of doing things.

Which is a tall order, even for Bill Gates.

So instead he goes after specific problems, such as polio, and it's all good, don't take me wrong, but, huh, it's not nearly as impressive in the grand scheme of things as it's made out to be.
I strongly dislike your version. Creating a boolean just to use and discard in the next line? Twice? Ugly. I'd much rather keep the code simple and try to cut out confusing parts. Give the flag a better name and remove the useless ternary. I'd also get rid of the conditional return and let the one outside the catch do the work.

if (!errorLogged || (Math.random() < 0.1)) {

errorLogged = true;

// log error

}

But if it's a choice between comments and adding temporary variables that don't do anything, I'll almost always choose comments.
I treat these as monopoly money unless
I actually know what percent of the
company I'm being given.

Knowing your percentage doesn't make it any less monopoly money. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5771831
This could not possibly be further from the truth.
A Better Fibonacci (Revisited)
Yes, that's a shame. But: Netflix makes it easy & convenient. They are not the bad guy. They are really stuck between a rock & a hard place. (Between old school distributors of content (Hollywood), squeezing them for money to make sure they have no margin), and ISP's (Comcast, AT&T) who are saying, "Hey, Netflix is popular, >50% of bandwidth, so let's shake them down" (net neutrality needs to keep them from doing this).

Don't blame Netflix for that DRM behavior. They are the early innovator & they look after their customers. They are just squeezed so badly. If you support net neutrality & ban DRM, you'll see more convenient, customer-friendly companies thrive in that ecosystem. If you don't, you'll see only bad players (DRM+$$$$+inconvenience) playing content you like.
An hour of talking about nothing. Why not ask broader questions, and get more interesting answers?
I think there's a fair amount of "sorry that we were the first adopters, and sorry but it would ruin commuters to make these upgrades all at once"
I agree, the whole post seems to be written by someone writing a sad and sullen reflection of their last decade or two.

I think having a mix of both startups and high profile tech companies in one's CV is great backing to do your own startup, enter contracting or find yourself in a challenging and stimulating career job at your employer of choice.

I think the article makes some good points about potential bad eggs in the startup world but is not a balanced true representation of the landscape.
August - smartlock from jawbone
Frankly, I'd rather help the animals keep their habitat than help humanity grow it's population.

That was the point of my comment - eco-ideologists generally hate humans, and given the chance are more than willing to inconvenience other humans (rarely themselves) in order to satisfy their world view. Fortunately for the rest of us, that opportunity rarely comes.
Personally I think the low cost iPhone, assuming it is actually more than a rumor, will be more akin to a re-skin than a new endeavor. Wall Street, Tech writers, and those swayed by smartphone marketing don't want to see an "old" iPhone 4S for sale, they want the iPhone Mini! They don't really care what's inside of it so long as it meets their needs and can be perceived as new and cool.

The previous model iPhone generally is relegated to "old/uncool" status as soon as the new model comes out. Shrinking the packaging of the 4S and maybe adding a couple token updates like the Lightning connector, dual flash, iPod Touch lanyard, etc at a price to make prepaid and postpaid phone customers happy will likely be enough to shake the "old/uncool" label and make the aforementioned groups gush for Apple.
I would like the kind of society that doesn't need to use force (legitimized by democratically elected representatives, checks and balances, and the rule of law) to take care of the most vulnerable, but I have yet to see any precedent of that. You mention Japan, they have a very pervasive government social safety net.

Places without effective governments? Those are places where people do routinely die of hunger and treatable disease.
Most of these startups would be just regular corporate projects except for the fact that corporate stinginess and lack of vision is at an all time high. Startup "CEOs" are just project managers on a shoestring race to the bottom, as observed in the long hours and extreme personal sacrifice involved.

The reason the strategy works so well is that corporate politics are even more stifling to experimentation than VC-istan (but not by much).

In ten years, there'll be an open-allocation (Valve style) company that has figured out how to solve this for realz.
"DRM allows you to volontarily give up whatever control of your machine you're talking about."

Not when there are no (legal) machines without it. See: DVD players.
These things are always local, there where social behaviour is rewarded with riches, and ignorance and corruption staved by judicial enforcement and education.

Not only in the 1500s, but also in the roman empire, the greek civilisation, the ancient arabian, egyptian, chinese, japanese, indian empires you can find evidence of civilisations that practised science, had fair laws and promoted kindness to one another.

That the Europeans receded into blunt stupidity for 1500 years does not mean that we were the first or the last to come out of it again.

edit: I also would like to point out that also after the 1500s European history is quite bloody and brutal.
It allows you to restrict what products OEMs are allowed to make and sell forcing them to license shit from you.
I'd rather use Amazon than Google or Facebook, but I'd rather use a site that only did identity than any of the rest. (I don't want access to my Kindle books screwed up because Amazon decided I did something wrong when using them for login, and banned my account. Yes, that reminds me that I need to backup all my Kindle books monthly.)

I don't know what the business model for such a site would be, though.
Thank you for posting this. I know it's from last year, but there are realities here that should be understood by every engineer who is considering working for a startup.

Be as hard-core about your negotiation skills and awareness of employment terms, as you are about your coding skills.
> Who cares if Netflix needs it? If Netflix wants to do DRM in the browser, then they can continue to do it the painful way with traditional proprietary plugins.

I thought part of the reason for DRM-plugins-with-standardized-hooks-in-HTML is that it was the one particularly widely-used current use case for plugins that browser vendors weren't aiming to replace completely internally with HTML, CSS, and/or JS APIs, and switching to a standard mechanism for it would allow browser vendors to deprecate general purpose proprietary plugin mechanisms.
Right now our approach is to interoperate with other libraries. Bootstrap works pretty well with React (see https://github.com/facebook/react/tree/master/examples/jquer... for a small example).

However it's definitely possible to build a component library with React, we just haven't done it yet.

If anyone wants to build bootstrap or jQueryUI bindings, we're taking pull requests :)
If only it was just Drupal. I went through the ~80 or so accounts I have logged in LastPass, including many I haven't used more than once, and the sites that allow deleting your account are a small minority. It is annoying to say the least and hold me back from opening any new accounts unless I'm pretty sure I'll use them.
But coming to SF and floundering around is no better than aimlessly moving to LA to become a movie star.

Not to be nit-picky but getting start-up experience isn't quite the same as going to casting calls while working at Olive Garden to make ends meet.
All of the crypto in the world is worthless for a DRM system if a user can easily circumvent the system by replacing one of the components between the black-box DRM module and the hardware in order to get a perfect digital copy of the "protected" stream. This is why "content protection" systems, like the one introduced in Windows Vista, tend to be so over-reaching; they want to create a leak-proof pipe between the "protected" media and our senses.
You don't pay for class 2 certs from startssl. You pay for class 2 validation. After validation you can generate an unlimited number of class 2 certs at no cost including wildcard certs. Validation is cheaper than a single premium cert from getssl.

Startssl does charge per cert for EV certs. The first cert is $199.90 and subsequent are $49.90. A bargain compared to most ssl cert providers.
That's a last mile problem the industry doesn't need to solve. How many people would rather hack hardware than pay money to watch TV and play video games? Of course, if it becomes cost-effective to hardware encrypt the entire stream, I don't think the lack of a W3C standard will make any difference in stopping it.
Exactly. If your time has no value then all is free. Most people value their time, the system does not have to be perfect. People who claim there should be no copyright because the future is inevitable probably still go to the doctor.
> Because not doing so concedes this type of market to Microsoft.

Bullshit.

1) I am able to gleefully avoid it these days, but in the past flash worked with Linux. Furthermore, all relevant DRM systems work with Apple devices including OSX. Netflix works on Android, and on Google's ChromeOS.

2) Even if it did, who gives a shit? I'd rather have people who absolutely must watch netflix on their laptop do it with windows than have the standard dirtied with this shit.

3) Nothing about this shit being added to the standard will make Netflix work on Linux with open-source browsers anyway.

You are high if you think this will allow you to use Netflix on your GNU/Linux box. Netflix already has their shit working with google-chrome, on a Linux kernel, in ChromeOS (Linux, but not "GNUy", for lack of better terminology). They don't allow that to work with regular GNU/Linux because they don't trust the rest of the stack to keep their precious bits secret.
EME is just as much of a platform specific closed source plugin as flash or silverlight.
I'm sure it's not the first documented instance of the principle, but it's part of Android's Design Guidelines. "Decide for me but let me have the final say." - http://developer.android.com/design/get-started/principles.h...
Don't start a company because you like coding, Aza Raskin summed it up nicely for designers but same hold trues for programmers (http://www.azarask.in/blog/post/psychological-pitfalls-and-l...)

Working for a startup has been a good source of learning new skills for me but as the author notes can be hazardous to the rest of your life...
New BULK & BEAUTIFUL Samsung High Res Wallpapers in all sizes ..
To my mind research is fundamentally different from (and antecedent to) application. I assume (perhaps mistakenly) that there are areas of knowledge that are both potentially useful to solve problems and difficult to access/learn on ones own. Why is it not reasonable for that advanced knowledge to be collected, distilled, and taught?

Further, from my brief exposure to a CS grad lab, research occurs in very narrow areas, often on things with no discernable utility, where all work is essentially throw-away, and where the only goal is to publish a paper. In contrast, I want to build stuff, possibly hard stuff, stuff that someone would use; and that may mean learning things (not discovering things).
Apple doesn't even know how to offer an analytics tool for app developers.
My guess is that its in their terms of service - they failed to consider all orders when they matched them and therefore have to account for that.
There are plenty of small to medium sized business where you get to learn and have an impact. I tend to favor those - I have the autonomy to contribute without the overhead of 6 different managers.
I am young programmer considering a startup
That very cool, something that many of us will find useful.

Feedback: The top bar folds over when the browser window is resized (looks like anything less than 1024 px). The page then starts to overlap on itself blocking out content at the top.

How did you code up the graphing part? HTML5?
Watch how music travels across the U.S. through Facebook
To Linkedin employees on Hacker News - please help with this
Why do you think they want to switch away from the old general purpose proprietary plugin mechanisms, which are specific to the browser?

Because that stuff is a pain in the ass.

I say let us keep it that way.
More details here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Side_Access
1, 2 good for you. 3 is EXACTLY what this is about, actually. Read about VP9.
That's a valid point, but I can't see it being an impossibility that the user will never accidentally stumble sending a http request rather than https. Whether that is user input, or a maliciously placed link.

My understanding is that the HTST header would make this attack less useful. But it's still a concern if you used Private Browsing/Incognito. The initial request will still hit a 301 (vulnerable to interception by MITM). I've just verified this with Facebook.com on my machine (Chrome 26, OSX).

I think it's quite fair to expect a user using this kind of site is likely to use Incognito.

I'm actually kind of surprised as I thought Chrome had a standard list of sites that use https only such as Facebook. (Woah.. seems the preload list is TINY http://www.chromium.org/sts )
We Made A Big Gamble On Americans Wanting To Sit Around And Mindlessly Watch TV
When you sequence a new species (like when cannabis was sequenced last year) with a modern sequencing technique, you break up the large DNA strands into many small ones and then use a massive cluster to assemble the strands afterwards with statistical methods. It'll be more complicated here because you will have many varied samples with varying degrees of degeneration across different chromosomes, sequences, and samples but the basic concept is the same.
For Instagram we have higher level components that do data fetching via a JSON GET request. When the request comes back we store the response in state, and then we pass that state down to child components. We also pass callbacks down to those child components, so that when they want to perform a write to the server, the higher level component can do that.

We move the actual server request and response logic out of the component, of course, so it's just a one-liner within that component.

Instagram got really far with that, but there are parts of Instagram (converted from an earlier Backbone version) that have the child components directly update Backbone models which then handle the server requests. The on change Backbone events then trigger setState() calls on our UI.

At Facebook we have an in-house dataflow architecture that updates our components.

So it really depends on how you want to do it. But we don't provide a "React.Data" or "React.Router" or anything like that. This is by design, since we can't possibly account for everyone's specific use case.
I suspect most DRM today exists for Windows only. Thanks to Android, there are now a ton of consumer devices powered by Linux that can browse the web. If publishers started using EME, they would probably be encouraged to compile Windows and Linux blobs for this reason.
Honestly, my observation is that there's nothing out there that "gives you" that opportunity. You have to make it. Fight for it. Steal time if you must. The idealized university-like company that makes you more productive as a part of it than you would be with 100% freedom over your time is, at this point, an extreme rarity. The basic-research labs have been pretty much shut down.

The problem with shitty startups is that they mislead people into believing that they're opening so many doors that it's worth letting the networking and independent skill building (each of which should get 10 hours per week; ideally that's out-of-work but do it at the expense of your day job if necessary-- fire up a MOOC during a workday lull; diversify) go to slack. Then, they pass four years of 60-hour weeks only to find that the executive-level or research (everyone wants to be an executive or in R&D; either controlling others or free from control) roles promised them were given to new hires or don't exist, and they realize they've wasted 4 years of their lives.

The lesson isn't "never work for startups" because there are great startups and (obviously) awful big-company jobs. It's "don't believe the hype and let your networking and independent learning go to hell". You only go all-in as a founder, not as some subordinate employee. The latter is just stupid; but you see it all the time.
I struggle with this comment - what do you consider a high signal to noise with trend analysis for the next 12 months?
Anything other than the Jan 2014 Time Magazine review of the year edition seems equally low.
Google Vault saves every Gmail draft you've ever written
Aus Bureau of StatS releases free game using real census data
Semi-related: http://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html

Too many people are unwilling to do the hard thing. Probably because their "goal [is] business for the sake of business (http://al3x.net/2013/05/23/letter-to-a-young-programmer.html)
StartSSL also lets you use subjectAltName to have multiple domains on one cert so that you can host multiple domains off of a single IP.
EFF and Facebook Stand Up for User Privacy and Control in California Case
Go ash!
VP9 has nothing to do with this.

Why would netflix build their CDM for Linux? (They wouldn't, and they won't.)
The Dream of a Lightsaber Simulator
"Ten below", "ten below zero", and "ten degrees below zero" all seem natural to me (BrE speaker), but I'm not sure about "ten degrees celsius below zero". That strikes me as an attempt to shoehorn units into an ambiguous* idiom. It doesn't work, and "-10C" or "minus ten celsius" would be better, in my opinion.

* Both F and C are used in the UK, but I think it's an age divide. I doubt many people under around 40 would use Fahrenheit as their measurement system of choice. I'm 35 and I have no intuitive understanding of Fahrenheit temperatures.
I feel like you're falling trap to the Slippery Slope fallacy
People apparently think that OAuth is Open Authentication not Open Authorization. I think that ship has sailed, unfortunately. Although it still confuses me when I go to log in to a site and I get the pop-up about "Do you want to authorize this application to access <X>?"
Referring to the "eight circuits of consciousness" I believe. I'd google it up, but I'm on the company network right now.
Unfortunately I think that ship has sailed. Personally I'm hoping Persona will catch on. At least that's designed as an authentication scheme.
That was my point: someone claimed that a special, DRM-enabled "safe browser" would never happen as long as there is open source, and I am saying that no, in fact, open source is not going to save us here. The problem is that there is almost no chance of an open source CDM, and a near-guarantee that proprietary CDMs will dominate. Open source browsers will either capitulate and include DRM, or fail to do so and languish in obscurity as their users find themselves increasingly unable to use the web.

It is not just about Hollywood. The New York Times will use DRM to try to enforce payments. Scientific journals will use DRM to stop people from sharing articles. Photos will be DRM'd by companies that want to force you to go online to view them, to pay extra for setting them as your background, etc. How long do you think Mozilla can hold out against the pressure to include DRM functionality?
As other posters pointed out, there are obviously competitors in the space (as I'm sure you were already aware).

In my experience, buying SSL certs can be a little confusing since there are so many providers and different types of certs. I did the research to figure out what product I needed, but I can imagine a sizable niche of customers who just want someone to tell them what they need.
OK, my apologies to the OP, but how on earth does this stuff get to the front page? Is there an HN upvoting bot floating around?
A bit more weakly, some algorithms are known but do not have any implementations. I believe this is the case for the algorithm from "Triangulating a Simple Polygon in Linear Time".
But you still need to comment about why you wrapped the code in the first place.
An open DRM system would die in minutes, because we would just hack it to return its secret key to the user. In any DRM system, something needs to be closed.
Certainly, they knew more "things" but had failed to grow in either scope or depth.

It's really easy to let career development and general-purpose learning go to slack when you believe this thing you're spending 80 hours per week on is going to make you rich and change the world-- and when you're surrounded by people who (equally irrationally) believe the exact same thing.
> OK, I am gonna catch hell for this, but there is one major

> reason for having DRM in HTML 5. NetFlix.

The W3Cs proposal will not bring NetFlix to Linux. What they - the W3C and Netflix - are proposing is a standardised interface between Javascript and CDMs.

CDM vendors, like Netflix, will be under no compulsion to provide CDMs for other platforms. And they won't.
$6.95/year is hardly cheap these days. You can get the same for $3.95/year at gogetssl.com, or $1.99/year on namecheap.com during promotions.
They could remove the affected servers from Route 53 and point to some other region until the DDOS stopped. True, they'd have to use a small TTL and clients using a bad-behaving DNS might receive the wrong IP for a while, but depending on their SLA, that might be acceptable.

Would something like Anycast allow them to failover faster? I would imagine route propagation isn't instantaneous either, so I'm curious how big the difference would be.
I suspect the same model will flourish for those with similar niche audiences