skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Clumsily changed sentences could ruin a good book.

Having bought a lot of e-books, I've yet to come across something that would qualify as "good". Sloppy, careless conversions are the rule rather than the exception, sometimes to the point where I ask myself whether a human being has actually read the converted mess.
New 'Elysium' Trailer Shows a Depressing Future Earth
Well yes, but this isn't an action by an elected government. The IWF is a private organization, established by the Internet industry.
Weekly Digest 18 - Last Week's Best Links from Programmers
New Leak Indicates U.S. and Britain Eavesdropped at ’09 World Conferences
Snapchat for e-mail gmail plugin
> A loss of investor confidence

What? We were talking about high rental costs in SF (probably implying high employee salaries). why does that affect investor confidence?
this just in: Ember.js Fanboi tries AngularJs-- says it sucks because it's not like Ember.js
Trusting trust - oldie but goodie
Marco Baringer: Comparing RoR and CL methodologies
Is Facebook a relic of the past?
Awesome, reminds me I really need to port my C#+EmguCV (https://github.com/yol/SetVision) program to play Set to Python.
Its funny that recognizing the cards in Set is easy for humans and the combinatoric stuff hard, while for computers, it's exactly opposite.
All the following links were found by searching since your comment was posted:

http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=289711

https://github.com/ah-/gmux-scripts

http://www.linuxine.com/story/how-do-i-use-integrated-intel-...

http://askubuntu.com/questions/126862/how-to-use-integrated-...

I make no warranty that the linked recipes, scripts, or suggestions work, but your "you wish" warrants refutation.
You are probably thinking of Rangel. But he is not the first to bring it up and hopefully he will not be the last. It really has nothing to do with democrats or republicans, the distinction is socio-economic. I think the idea is even better if you expand the definition of service to also include "civilian service" e.g. teacher, social worker, etc.
Technically? Yes. Practically? You're kidding :)
Yes, but I'm afraid it might go the RoR way. Rails started off by disrupting the web-dev space and positioning itself as an alternative to Java. It really pushed the overall web-dev space forward.

However, today, I feel, Python is more popular than Ruby (at least in my part of the world) because of various other reasons. Even though a lot of web frameworks are doing things the Rails way.
> Printing just works - plug in and go.

Meh: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Printing#Troubleshootin...

I'm still having issues with my Samsumg laser printer, and I specifically tried to acquire a printer that had good linux compatability
5-6 years ago I used to tell conspiracy theory dudes that even if the feds wanted to slurp down all the data they wanted it would cost them too much for it to be effective and processing power would never be able to churn through it fast enough.

Now I realize thanks to the Google/Facebook big data era. Server storage/processing/bandwidth ability has increased exponentially from that time and everything has gotten cheaper. So this our reality now. It really feels like the start of some William Gibson novel come to life.
I have done this . . . sort of. The job ad did not explicitly require a PhD, but it was the sort of position where one would be expected (notionally, a postdoc). If the position is meant to be research, you are almost certainly going to need a PhD and a record of publication. Seriously, a PhD by itself isn't even worth much any more. However, there are plenty of job ads that ask for a PhD which are not research and do not really require a PhD. What I did was to contact the decision maker (sometimes it is easy to find out who that is, sometimes not), and then talk to him. You can ask if he is willing to consider someone without a PhD, and then give brief account as to why your skill set or experience is appropriate for the job. Keep in mind, this usually doesn't work. You may have misunderstood what the job entails, or the decision maker may simply be unwilling to consider someone without a PhD (rightly or wrongly), or there may be a whole line of better candidates who all have PhDs.

You mention building "something that goes beyond NASA's Curiosity." This is a field that interests me, too. Most of the positions that actually build things are engineering or software. Most of them do not require PhDs, explicitly or otherwise. So, in short, I am not sure what position you are trying to get. If it involves building spacecraft, and asks for a PhD, it is almost certainly research, and it almost certainly really does require a PhD.
Year after year people claim that the past was brighter. Every single time someone with a better memory or a better grasp of history points out that they're actually inaccurate and are simply deluding themselves. The cycle continues uninterrupted.

To all of you checking the facts and going back in history to disprove such claims, thank you.
Yea, it is unfortunate that the Constitution and similar were designed before it was easy to spy on other countries's communications.
I would say CS is probably the least focused degree on memorization one can find at most schools. Compared to the Pharmacy and Accounting degrees my siblings obtained, I barely had to memorize anything at all (at least for courses in CS/CS&E department). I did my undergrad at Ohio State and many tests were open book (or some notes allowed).

Material you were tested on was generally what you did on your labs, so if you did well on the labs, then the test wasn't an issue. I never had a professor require memorizing syntactical things, such as names of functions in a particular language. If we needed to write code a test, a reference sheet was provided for functions/collections and the parameters they took.
Google seems to be the only company that has even tried to stand up against surveillance.
The title and description are somewhat at odds. "Startup Engineering", the title, makes sense - the kind of things a certain breed of startup are looking for in software engineers.

On the other hand, "Stanford's new course on building a startup from the ground up" offers only one week for "Promotion, CAC/LTV/Funnel, Regulation and Accounting" - things that are a little bit important for building a business.

And by "startup" this clearly only applies to a certain breed. If you wanted to start a Biotech startup (as a random example), the class is nigh useless.

It's a way narrower course than some of the descriptions suggest.
The idea is not to get caught, right? So when you get caught red-handed there has to be some sort of punishment otherwise it makes a mockery of any such laws.
Exactly. Blogging allows subject matter experts to easily, cheaply publish, be widely read, and compete for eyeballs with the MSM.

There's no way most people who just went to Journalism school can compete with, say, an experienced Constitutional lawyer like Greenwald or Lessig, or hacker like PG or Spolsky, or VC like Fred Wilson etc.

But there are some things MSM can still do - good professional journalists can still round up experts and put together a composite of their views. Or they do real investigative journalism that bloggers may not have the resources for, be it Bloomberg suing the Federal Reserve under FOIA [1], or sending reporters to hotspots for first-hand reporting.

Personally I think a combination of data journalism and investigative journalism (like WaPo's Top Secret America [2] and Bloomberg's FOIA lawsuit and reporting) are their best way forward. Both require resources most individual bloggers can't provide, and both are real news, real journalism.

[1]: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-12-23/fed-s-once-secret-d...

[2]: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/
Lets agree to disagree about "complicated." I am glad that your brother came home.
http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2007/12/why-i-a... may be relevant to you, but I think http://unqualified-reservations.blogspot.com/2009/05/democra... sums up part of the issue nicely. "Because if you and your friends can parrot Marxism and get it together to capture the State, Marxism gives you: (a) money; (b) power; and probably (c) women. Whereas if you and your friends can parrot Rawlsekianism and get it together to capture the State, Rawlsekianism gives you - what? Philosophical satisfaction? So: which of these creeds would you expect to be more popular with the masses?"
Yes, if it is a contract, then it would be binding.

Laws may put more requirements than pressing a button. The normal standard in Sweden is to make a written paper and then let both sides sign that. Scrolling past a lot of text and then pressing OK does not pass that hurdle.

It is possible to do electronical contracts, but that would involve some sort of digital signatures.
I want to explain why I think you are wrong in terms of it being thought out. I think it was very carefully thought out and it fit into his plans very well. Whether it was "brilliant" or not I suppose depends on what you think of the game he is playing.

If you carefully look at Snowden's actions and his statements to various press establishments, his entire strategy is based on playing one group off another. He got the Washington Post to publish a story on Prism by getting the Guardian to run one on the Verizon warrants, for example. If you look carefully he is doing the same thing regarding Hong Kong.

1. He went to Hong Kong and immediately made provocative statements about the commitment of the special administrative province to the rule of law and to political dissent. This does not mean he believes that this is the nature of things. What these statements immediately did was put the image of Hong Kong's independence at risk of Bejing comes in too forcefully.

2. He then makes a number of statements about US intelligence activity which, quite frankly, everyone would probably assume to be the case anyway (hacking Chinese internet backbones etc). This creates a US vs China dynamic and shows that he can be a danger to the US if the US does not back off.

In essence what he has done has been tailored around Hong Kong specifically. He has chosen somewhere to make a stand that fits his strategy, nothing more and nothing less.
That's what it appears on the outside - The Hong Kong government and Chinese government spend a lot of effort to maintain this image. Take a deeper look and you will see this isn't the case. The government has previously tried to sneak Chinese propaganda into primary schools as well as pass copyright laws that will outlaw (often political) satire and allow governments to sue on behalf of companies(!!). It was only from SOPA style opposition as well as massive street protests (measured in hundreds of thousands of people) these measures haven't passed yet.

Source: I was born in Hong Kong.
With respect, the other reason tech-startups don't go too far outside computing are because that's what we know. Most hackers might have some domain expertise outside computing, but usually not enough to start a complete business in their secondary field of knowledge.
A tour of some of the planned urban areas of China (Chengdu, mentioned in the article, is a fine example, plus pandas!) along with some of the smaller villages makes it very clear that the 'average' Chinese farmer is far worse off than one might expect.

I'm not really sure I have an example for the contemporary United States that even comes close. I suspect you'd have to change the definition of 'farmer'. Perhaps a family living in a dilapidated trailer, unemployed, growing cheap, starchy foods in what little land they can rent, in an area with poor or nonexistent utilities, would be a more accurate comparison.

Comparing a planned city such as Chengdu with a similar effort elsewhere, say in India, is another surprise. Ahmedabad is a pretty good example.

I have come to the conclusion that communism is an impediment to human excellence.[1] However, seeing the extreme levels of poverty that the central government is trying to resolve, and has resolved to a certain degree, I can understand the difference in prioritization.

There was a link to a book on cooltools years ago http://kk.org/cooltools/archives/461 that I just noticed was available on the Kindle. Poverty is so outside the understanding of most of us that it's not just about not having nice things. Poverty in the developing world and in the undeveloped world is so much worse that it's almost as if an impartial, uninformed observer would wonder if we are the same species, and I don't base that on skin color, eye shape, gender, etc.

[1] I don't care if you disagree on this point. I grant you a perpetual, irrevocable, license to do so.
> “I have read and agree to the Terms” is the biggest lie on the web. We aim to fix that.

I deliberately worded it on my website as "By clicking the register button you are accepting the terms of service", under the assumption that the vast majority of people would assume it's normal and sane (whatever that means) and not read it, and therefore create an account honestly.
While I would word things more carefully, I somewhat agree with you. Talking to people in Beijing, both laowai and Chinese, it seems that the economical growth of China is the main power base of the party. As long as living standards keep improving, people are generally happy with the way things are run. This is of course a somewhat dangerous state of affairs, since double-digit growth numbers are never sustainable in the long run. To my outsider's eyes, this plan looks like an attempt at keeping the economical boom going, and in the process ensure the party's survival.
It's about hypocrisy.

It's about faux moral outrage.

It's about politicans grandstanding, telling their citizens that its only the sneaky foreigners who lie, cheat and steal.
> It's extremely difficult to run roads, electricity, and water to all these villages, or to provide them with modern schools and clinics (and corresponding staff) necessary to implement social welfare that extends beyond the cities.

Better cage them up in modern labor camps to produce smartphones for fat Americans. Free market, baby!
If China cuts pollution, respects human rights, and improves working/live for a lot of people (those are the complains I hear about)it should be a good place.

Then the only debatable thing that remains in censorship, and "absolute power corrupts absolutely".

It might not be a democracy, but if people are truly happy/content ... why would they riot ?
>I'm a little skeptical a "revolution" will ever improve things (in the short term). Revolutions are generally costly in almost every way possible.

I am not promoting the idea of revolution. In fact, I think it is bad for almost everyone. My point is that any wise man in the current administration should stop it before too late.

>China's growth and prosperity don't seem to justify one (at this point in time).

Maybe I am too pessimistic. Last year, the riot-control budgets( literally called stability-maintaining in China) is almost the same as the military expenditure.

>How do villagers sell their land now? I thought market sales were already being done?

By constitution law, in China, urban lands belong to government, and rural lands belong to villages, however, it is not allowed(by a policy made by government) for villages to sell their land to real-estate merchants directly, they can only sell lands to the government in a price made by the government. In this way, governments become the only provider of available lands, and they can charge as much as they want.
Open SmartWatch Project
As I have just posted in another thread, I did in fact get a position that was notionally a post-doc without having a PhD. In the end, I think it was due to my specific skill set being more useful to the project than someone with more research experience. I have tried to repeat the trick, but without luck, so far. As GP mentioned, the positions are very often tied to funding that requires a PhD be hired.
There is a somewhat similar book by nobody else but Niklaus Wirth:

http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Circuit-Computer-Science-Stude...
> and of higher quality

That's completely your opinion. I have had much better luck with Thinkpads. Many of the Unibody Macbooks have severe wifi connectivity and overheating issues.

As far as broad adoption goes, it may be more broad than the adoption of Thinkpads, but I wouldn't call it "broad" by any stretch. Mac market share is still quite low - less than 10%.
The particular MoH recipient I would have used for anything involving domestic spying and civil rights would have been Senator Inouye; 442/100th and the Japanese internments in WW2 seem like the US's best example of valor in the face of rampant domestic discrimination. He was on Watergate and Iran-Contra, too.

Sadly he died in 2012.
American people are really hard to understand. The way they pronounce "can" and "can't" the same, and the paucity of vowels in their phonemic inventory (cot/caught and Mary/merry/marry) is most perplexing.

(Which is another way of saying: that to which one is unaccustomed is difficult. British people understand each other perfectly well, and some of us even find American English a bit difficult to understand out of familiar contexts.)
In fairness, that sounds like something Sherlock Holmes would very plausibly do. Then again, we all know he's kind of an ass, if a lovable one.
Well written. Write more often.
Sometimes I wish some my friends, acquaintances and colleagues had paid a little more attention in history class and asked more questions when they were in school instead of thinking such courses weren't that important. We could then mostly skip past the stages of shock/outrage and move onto what can be done about things or how to prevent them in the first place.
If you have to use the command line then you've already failed.
These things are fun, and certainly not new. You can buy devkits that already look quite unobtrusive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SheevaPlug

The one in this article looks like a fire hazard. I guess that's one way to cover your tracks :P
UK hacked allies at G20
GCHQ intercepted foreign politicians' communications at G20 summits

http://gu.com/p/3gj3n
If the cool stuff you want to build includes things like alternative energy sources (solar, wind, wave, and so on) then 90% of the course will be of little benefit to you. However, if your definition of cool stuff can be boiled down to "software on the internet" then this course will likely be helpful.
DOMQuery: Lightweight jQuery Alternative For Browserify and OneJS
I have been eliminating paper books from my library in favor of electronic versions, but I am strongly motivated to put this on my bookshelf.

You have not experienced Finnegan's Wake until you have read it in the original Mandarin.
It's meant for content providers. Like, you have an app which the users can use to take pictures with and then another app chimes in "Hey bro can I take a look at all this delish data you have there", and the content provider is like "Whoa dude, lemme check if you incognito... Oh, yeah, have some kittens instead."
Meet Litecoin, Bitcoin's little brother
Good, yeah, I probably could've been clearer too... my brain isn't working as well today as it might.
It's a chrome extension that works with gmail
That Twitter status has a lot of qualifiers
Seems to me like they added course material for the first 2 weeks and then stopped...I wonder why. Anyone at Stanford with any insight?
Question: Does this cost money?
BART service is running close to capacity during peak hours on the central part through San Francisco to Daly City. You can't put a lot more trains through without building a second tunnel.
Sure, and SELinux itself can be poorly configured. Security measures in general need to be thought through in the context of the actual deployment. I just meant that mandatory access control of the general sort needed here has obviously been historically on the NSA's radar (moreso than the rest of the world, even) and here they are failing at it, and that's a little bit sad and a little bit funny in addition to everything else that's going on.
How I learned to survive Silicon Valley while living in a rice paddy
There is a lot of perceived political freedom from people outside of Hong Kong (both people in US as well as in China - why else would Chinese dissenters travel to Hong Kong to protest?). By declaring Hong Kong has political freedom, China is forced to defend that image, both domestically and internationally. I am from Hong Kong, so I know what you're talking about, but I'm currently living outside of Hong Kong, so I know what foreigners' perspective of Hong Kong is, too.
Using Sen Inouye as an example would not have provided any information about the person I was having the discussion with.
I was being cute. Investing is not trading. Another one of my techniques is to never sell, as long as the dividend yield is better than what I can get in bonds.
Short, but interesting, article.

"Litecoin is orders of magnitude more secure than Bitcoin,
due to its use of a cryptography technique called scrypt,
which makes it very costly to attack due to the large
amounts of memory involved."

I'm not sure this is true in terms of Litecoin actually being more "secure." Faster transactions, but I don't know that the hash difficulty makes the network more secure.
The Constitution has built-in provisions for future modifications, i.e. the Fourth amendment.
I took it in the winter at Stanford. It was an amazing class - the material was very strong and there's an emphasis on working on ideas that matter. Read: not social startup #5024. Every Thursday we had hackathons that went til 6am where the main lecturer would advise us on our ideas, give feedback on the product and generally teach us about the important things™. That was considered to be v1 of the course, and I know he (the lecturer) plans to iterate on it and make it better every time it's offered.

tl;dr Highly recommended.
Hey Formite - this is the instructor here. I actually did start a reasonably successful biotech/genomics company named Counsyl[1] (~200 employees, testing 3% of US births, $65M in funding) and I do think the ambit of the course is broad enough to assist with that.

It's a good strategy these days to build one's business on top of a software core, with APIs for all major business functions and physical interface layers only when absolutely necessary. That's really the overall principle that I'm trying to communicate, along with examples in practice. Let's see if I end up being successful in this pedagogical goal!

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/23/counsyl
I'm curious how it is online. I've never taken an online Stanford course and this looks like the perfect way for me to start.
Hey guys - this is the instructor here. You can sign up for the class at coursera.org/course/startup. The startup.stanford.edu webpage will be updated sometime tomorrow to start tracking the Coursera MOOC content.

Happy to take any feature requests, bug reports, etc. here or via email (balajis at stanford dot edu).
The course launches tomorrow/today on Coursera:

https://www.coursera.org/course/startup
You should really indicate sarcasm if you're going to write something like that.
It'd actually be pretty safe to do it in the tech industry.

The DoJ and activists are only interested in suing companies where a) it's difficult to rate individual performance and b) judges think that "anyone can do that job"
I'm wondering if the focus will be much on emacs only or editor agnostic?
Is this really the world's last telegram? I think many countries still retain telegram services (many of them are operated by private companies now, but Japan is a major exception).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram#Worldwide_status_of_t...
It sounds like you could significantly improve your standard of living by buying an air conditioner...
Sorry, I thought we were talking about problems...