skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The same O Globo article reported a list of priority targets of the NSA and they are basically the BRIC ( interestingly the population here did not gave a shit about knowing US spies on them) also Iran andsome other powerful countries. North Korea,.Cuba, Venezuela or Afghanistan are not on the priority list, making clear that the "terrorism" is just a misdirection, and that PRISM true purpose still is.intelligence for potential.enemies.in a.conventional war.
> If you're going to talk economics, politics, sociology, or just about any massive and complex systems, you cannot avoid broad statements.

Of course not, but they need to semi-accurately reflect the way things are going on a broad scale. If someone steps on my toe at the convenience store and doesn't apologize, I don't start a rally cry about how America is full of toe-hating assholes. If it starts happening systemically then I might be more willing to make that charge.
Privacy International files legal challenge against UK government
Why I Turned Down A $20,000/Year Client
But that would involve Google adding documentation to their system. Which, from my perspective, seems very difficult for them to manage.
I heard this non-story puff piece on the radio this morning.

IMHO the Pirate party UK are completely right in thier 140 char summary: "GCHQ tries to win over public detailing how something didn't happen: http://ow.ly/mKqxw #Olympics plan basically turn it off + on again"

https://twitter.com/PiratePartyUK/status/354209267877822465
EDIT II: The thing is, life under these circumstances (and the logical consequences which will appear, sooner or later) is only worth so much.
"This seems like another argument for Basic Income."

I stopped reading there.

The reason black youths have high unemployment rates is their (typically unwed) mothers already live off a combination of section 8 housing, food stamps, medicaid, other govt. programs and whatever they can get under the table to keep their reportable income low.

This produces an environment where one can not thrive - black children do not learn the value of work nor understand how society and the rest of the world works. More of this would make it worse. Social programing is problem. Why create more of it?
Would you have any idea who we're able to contact about this? I'm involved in a registered UK charity and we were looking to use Google Apps before, but can't justify the monthly cost of $5 per account.

Thanks!
On slow connections you can use Robotsanywhere. No audio, but it will work well at 1G/2G speeds. If you can't find it on google play email robotsanywhere@robots-everywhere.com to get the latest build and/or source.
New and profitable insights with tracking customer movements
And there I was, thinking this was going to be about the NSA. Isn't this fact implicit now?
Succinct de Bruijn Graphs (for DNA assembly)
I can't spot the bit in my post where I said I knew what the answer to poverty was - but is the only option for people in poverty really to wait for a promotion?

For people who are not in poverty, which I presume includes most of us here idly browsing Hacker News, do we descend down that hierarchy of needs as soon as we step off the conveyor belt?

I think there are more paths to fulfilment than you realise.
> The threat isn't entirely hype.

But the idea that someone was actually planning to do this to the Olympics opening ceremony probably was hype.
Sadly this is incredibly slow on my netbook. Takes ages to return to normal mode. Back to powerline, or maybe vanilla.
This is actually why I advocate fire/police crosstraining and cooperation like San Mateo County does.

Everyone is happy to see a fireman or a EMT. Having police answer routine fireman calls, and "wear that hat" during the call, would go a long way.
Three seconds of data at 1TB/s, will fit on the largest consumer hard drive (3TB). There are 3 x 86400 seconds in a day = 259200 seconds. Therefore three days' data requires 86400 drives. Cost of said drives is about $100 each, meaning the cost of disks to store 3 days of data is $8.64 million, which is negligible to the government. Even with multiple links at 1TB/s the problem is tractable.
I can't agree with you. Setting up and using a tumblr is way easier than using facebook or your email account. Same goes for a wordpress and blogger, not even mentioning medium (where i write right now).
How do you get 24x7x365 coverage with only 4 people? The "standard" is it takes about 5 to fill a position 24x7x365 over very long term on a larger average with absolutely no failure (unstaffed) tolerated. As in, 50 people can fill 10 positions absolutely positively all the time, but it doesn't downscale well at all to just 5 people and one desk. You can "fill" ten positions with a lot less than 50, but even at scale there's going to be a heck of a lot of time when there's only 8 or 9 people there hence the quotes around "fill". For instance you can "fill" 10 positions with 30 people but there's going to be a heck of a lot of time where the supposed 10 positions only have 7 (or even fewer) bodies actually on deck.

Depending on the business sector of course. If you're a stereotypical weekday business then a 6 hour outage at 9am on a weekday would be a disaster, but a 6 hour outage from midnight to 6am on Sunday morning wouldn't even be blinked at because no one cares.
Customer support was hilariously useless as well: "Yes, happens to everyone." "No, there's nothing we can do about it."

The time delay is ridiculous and unacceptable, but it sounds like customer support did the most they can possibly do in that case: Engineering had implemented a (questionable) migration policy, and there are no toggles or switches that customer service can fiddle with to make it happen more quickly.
ScienceGist - Simplify Science
I think it's part that, part that private games are easy to rig.
Except:

DON'T relax. These feelings of frustration are absolutely NORMAL and they must be channeled into action, not relaxation.
Vividchalk or vibrantink IIRC.
Most probably author's custom scheme:
https://github.com/Valloric/vim-valloric-colorscheme/blob/ma...
Here's a great George Carlin clip on why education is never going to get any better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMqJvhmD5Yg
That's great, but terabytes of video from multiple camera angles don't help much if all the do is cause an internal investigation that never finds anything wrong.
The solution to this is for Google to explicitly tell the end user that the upgrade involves a migration to bigger and better infrastructure, during which their accounts will be inaccessible for a number of hours. [...] Problem solved.

Sorry, but that isn't even close to a solution. The problem here is that a business-critical facility was off-line for pretty much an entire business day, at who-knows-what cost to the business.

Many small businesses that use facilities like this are trading internationally or otherwise need 24-hour functionality, so the idea that you could just schedule something to "minimize the inconvenience" doesn't really help them at all.
I've recently converted to Fastmail.fm, which seems great and they have a nice web interface too. They're now owned by Opera, so I assume their data retention policies must be consistent with EU law, though I think they have servers based in the US so I'm not sure what that means in practice.

What I'd like is a service that kept my emails encrypted on-disk with my user password. Not because I think emails are private -- they're not in the sense that I fully expect someone could intercept them in transit, even if that would be illegal -- but just because it would give reassurances that my emails can't be data-mined for advertising purposes à la gmail, or if the mailserver had a major security vulnerability, a hacker couldn't copy all my emails wholesale.

But I don't know of any service that provides this, nor of a way to do it myself easily (any mailserver I set up myself would probably have far more vulnerabilities than one I rent from someone else!).
GPU Gems is available online for free, courtesy of Nvidia:
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/gpu_gems_home.html
Probably - and I don't think this justifies widespread spying either.

The source of the info isn't stated, but it's more likely to be a case of "forensics panic" or on-site network sensors going off than anything else.
From the link:

>In the UK, it is perfectly legal for an individual to record their calls - and there is no need to inform the other party nor obtain consent.

This is missing an important qualifier. In the UK it is legal to record a call without telling the other party for your own use. However, if you intend to make the call available to a third party, you must have consent. You couldn't record a call without telling someone and then put it up on your blog, for example.

Other countries will and do vary!
"Stuxnet basically proved that dropping a grid is do-able."

Didn't Stuxnet target very specific Siemens SCADA systems, unless our grids all run the same controllers and the same software (which they might well do, I have no idea) - surely an attack like that would be difficult to scale?
> People are still using Facebook and Gmail as if nothing has happened.

Personally, I'm still using Facebook and Gmail because I really do have nothing to hide. †

† ...that I wasn't already routing over Tor, encrypting/signing with GPG et al, leaving the low-to-medium risk activity on the public net as a decoy. But I suspect a lot of people do think this without needing the proviso. These are the same people that compete to participate in reality TV shows like Big Brother, after all.
Another alternative would be to attempt a degree part-time, which might reduce the financial/time burden. I just realized this comment might be violating the title of the post. Oops
It's interesting that Ruby was the name of VB before Microsoft bought it.
Sadly, it is still not working too well with Objective-C, which is currently my main language (1).
Luckily, unofficial VIM plugins for XCode like XVim (2) or VIEmu (3) are getting better and better, so at least I can use vim bindings for objective-c now, too. Nevertheless, good clang support in Vim would still be great, so that I could tap into the huge amount of vim plugins during objc development.

[1] https://github.com/Valloric/YouCompleteMe/issues/84

[2] https://github.com/JugglerShu/XVim

[3] http://www.viemu.com/
The Problem with Hardware in Africa
Most lists of design patterns (including but not limited to the GoF and this site) are written with the noblest of intentions, and contain a lot of insights and interesting solutions. Patterns can provide specific solutions to specific problems, and also a common vocabulary for developers to talk about these problems and solutions.

Unfortunately, for the past 18 years I have seen repeatedly (in the game industry and outside) that they tend to be used as shopping lists by developers who can't (or don't have time to) think, design and architect properly. The result of such approach to development, let's call it Pattern Oriented Design, are bloated, overengineered and underperforming systems that are still harder to write, document, test and evolve, than the disorganized messes they replaced.

So, nice work, but beware programmers: you must first understand the problem you are trying to solve, before you go shopping for a solution.
Point 1 is also patently false: I have bought sparkling water and I'm not a felon! Obviously the GP is not making logical declarations. To stay SAFEST, one must avoid sparkling water, threatening jokes, and any statements the DOJ would disapprove of. Your friends on Facebook do not invalidate that point.
And where is your backup? Oh wait you dont have a backup...
It sounds like email isn't critical for the corner of the universe that you operate in -- good for you.

For lots of people in different roles, email is an essential tool for getting work done. Not everyone has a role that can be readily translated into an API. Business Dev/Sales for example, depends on email to communicate with the various folks that they need to engage in. Whatever those folks do, it ends with the company getting a check, so it's important.

Generally speaking, it is pretty inexpensive to deliver a 99.9% available mailbox with a 100% guarantee of external mail delivery. The fact that Google bungles a conversion from free to paid service so poorly is a sad statement when they are supposed to be a shiny alternative to the traditional Micrsoft messaging stack.
I've been wondering why this isn't standard already. I would love to have my phone record every call I make. It could store the raw audio, tag it with metadata about who was on the call, what time it occurred, and where I was. It could do speech to text asynchronously (if you store the raw audio forever, you could potentially get better transcripts as technology improves).

I would love it if Siri was paying attention to things said during the call. It could suggest calendar entries, notes, and reminders based on things said.

Then of course, all of the transcripts would be searchable via Spotlight or whatever indexing system one uses.

This reminds me that it annoys me that there are no useful actions available on iOS for working with voicemail. I often would love to forward a voicemail to email in order to delegate a task.
Most people would assume that this is nothing more than an administrative change on the account, with no long drawn out six hour process. And if there is an upgrade time required, it absolutely should have in-your-face warnings given the importance of email 24/7 for many organizations.

Even if we buy that this is more than an administrative change and it somehow moves to better hardware, this is a problem that I would think that Google would have built to a mostly transparent process -- at most long term archives are unavailable after a very brief initial migration, etc.
In hindsight, I'm incorrect. There is a PPA for cinnamon in 12.10. I just upgraded to 13.04 today and ran into the PPA issue.
Pretty sure your comment wasn't meant to be a reply to mine. =) Needless to say, you make good points.
Next time vote for someone who definitely, honest-to-god promises to close it if they get in. Of course, you might have done that last time as well...
I know, i did the numbers too - but it's still an almost unthinkable amount of data to try and make sense of. If we conservatively say that there are 5 others like linx, that's nearly half a million 3TB drives. And that's only for 3 days!
edit: clarity
In any other situation I can think of, the important part is copying the data and not accessing it. If I copied someone's personal files, or files containing a company's trade secrets, or top secret files from the government, but promised to never look at them I'm still breaking the law. This might be a simplistic view, but why should it be any different for the government?
You don't entertain the possibility that the dot.bomb crash and 9/11 had anything to do with that initial fall? Do you note that the number of IPOs failed to recover in the period before the Great Recession?

This is one of the reasons I say it wasn't only SarBox, but that SarBox "was only the last set of nails in this coffin".
Programmingresourc.es may have resources that are of use.

http://programmingresourc.es/#python
What Kind Of Data Scientist Are You?
How the hell is that a "super-quick installation" for Mac OS?

Can anyone figure out an actually quick way to install it with Pathogen?

PS: the plugin looks great - I'm just bitching about the installation docs because I'm in the middle of 10 different things at the moment and don't have the time to engage in a potential yak shaving expedition...
For a man aged 40 it is also not the best idea. The risks for children with birth defects increases substantially with older men as well.
Poll: What programming languages and platforms do you use?
Does encryption really shield you from government's prying eyes?
Or, the event provided thousands of people with jobs, including many builders, civil engineers, rail engineers, software engineers (BBC iPlayer), broadcast engineers and the area around the park now has high-speed internet access, new accomodation, TV studios (that BT have bought cheap for their sports coverage, thus breaking Sky's stangle-hold on some UK sports coverage) and commercial space some are touting as the next Shoreditch (TechHub are looking to set up shop).

As for the military presence, it's debatable about this. Do you deploy the defences and the Spies so you're able to react and protect, should anything occur? Or do you take a chance that something won't happen (like the Boston bombing, 9/11, 7/7, Munich Olympics, Manchester bombing occuring during Euro '96) but if anything does happen, accept that the damage is likely to be much higher (potential many people dying in the worlds spotlight)?

Personally, I'm happy to accept that the people making these decisions are (hopefully) privy to a lot more information than I am and, generally, I'm happy to trust them with my personal safety allowing me to enjoy the worlds greatest sporting event.

Also, general point regarding military spending; Military things are generally so expensive because of all the clever work that goes into designing, testing and building them. Again, think of how many people the 'military machine' employs, all that expertise on rocketry, nuclear physics, cyber skills, communications, etc. As an added bonus, Military organisations, especially spooks, employ a high percentage of natives, so you're effectively giving jobs and money to your direct neighbours, friends and relatives and not some foreign Chinese industrial Goliath.
This

Forward to your firstname.lastname@gmail

Configure SMTP

Configure filters so you have a folder for company email

problem solved
CSS Spheres
ShowHN: Have the news read to you. Useful during biking or breakfast
You're grasping for an alternative reality where people don't need to work. But without a concrete suggestion it's just wishful thinking.

I think the fact that every large society on the planet ever has been based on this model is important.

> is the only option for people in poverty really to wait for a promotion

You're overstating my position. Don't wait for an opportunity; create one. But yes, pretty much. There is simply no responsible alternative. You can't run off into the wilderness and fend for yourself. You have to live inside the system we have created. It's really not that oppressive. You should try it.

> I think there are more paths to fulfilment than you realise.

I think the paths that you see as one are many.

edit:

> do we descend down that hierarchy of needs as soon as we step off the conveyor belt?

No, we don't. Ah I see, so what you're advocating is retirement? I think we agree!
Here's what an eavesdropper sees when you use an unsecured Wi-Fi hotspot
> Keep in mind, when looking at these images, that the average life expectancy for Afghans born in 1960 was 31, so the vast majority of those pictured have likely passed on since.

... lies, damned lies and statistics. Why do people keep on using the mean for lifespan, when so many interpret it the wrong way?
"While Privacy International intended to file the Prism claim in the Administrative Court, which would have made the proceedings public, Government lawyers, upon receiving notice of our intention, vociferously notified us that we could not bring such a claim in the Administrative Court. Rather, the claim has been forced to be filed with the IPT, a secret tribunal that does not make its proceeding public or have to justify reasons for its decisions."

So what's the point then? It would be very easy to lean on a few tribunal members, and with no pressure in the opposite direction, which way we do reasonably expect them to act? They will side with intelligence services and we won't know why. Very unsatisfactory.
"Didn't you just loose the security that you wanted by encrypting on localhost?"

No, the sensitive information isn't being protected from localhost but from server A and anything else on the path between user and message destination. localhost is the user. For clarification: GPG is on user's localhost, not the server.

1. Alice uses a web app served by server A

2. Alice wishes to send an encrypted message through the web app served by server A to Bob

3. Alice writes the message on her client sided browser

4. Alice finishes and clicks "Send"

5. The web app's client sided code, JavaScript, sends the message to Alice's pygpghttpd listening on localhost

6. pygpghttpd responds with the ciphertext to Alice's web browser

7. Alice's web browser replaces the cleartext content with the encrypted content

8. The encrypted content is sent to server A to be routed to Bob

---------------

1. Bob receives encrypted message from Alice on web app served by server 1

2. Web app's client sided JavaScript sends the encrypted message to Bob's pygpghttpd listening on Bob's localhost

3. pygpghttpd responds with the decrypted message

4. The decrypted message is rendered for Bob
From past experience at an email service provider, admittedly a small one, and quite a few years ago, the most likely failure mode related to internet outages knocking out the customer's internal email unlike a locally hosted email server which customers could never seem to understand, and DNS issues (failure to renew, got scammed / domain stolen because of noobs, etc). Probably the single biggest support problem was people (on either side) getting on spammer lists so genuine business communication can no longer flow.

Generally speaking the web interface being down, or the imap server being bonkers, was very rarely if ever a problem.
HN, please dont feed the trolls.
I think they're talking about the power itself, rather than the lighting systems. Although modern lighting systems all run over ethernet I've never come across an installation that wasn't closed-loop (before moving into software engineering I used to work on lighting at live events).

There's a lot of exaggeration in the story. It makes it sound as if the stadium would have been plunged into darkness, when in fact there's significant contingency planning at these type of events around power loss, and there is in nearly all cases a mechanical (rather than computerised) failover.

A far more interesting (I think, anyway) would be an attack on the actual lighting control systems themselves. Like I said, they're running over ethernet on a variety of proprietary and not-so proprietary protocols that haven't had much attention on the security side of things. And yes, they're not connected to the internet, but it wouldn't be too difficult to compromise a lighting unit itself before it was shipped from the rental shop to the stadium.
Indeed. Obama blaming congress today is, unfortunately, a case of plausible deniability.
and yet VB hasn't really done much in over a decade. doing what VB did for desktop apps to web/mobile apps is a huge opportunity that nobody has managed to nail.
"own use" - does that include a business's own use?

For example, could my employees record some calls for each other's use within the business, or would that count as a third party, if those call recordings remained private to the company?
I discovered this a few weeks ago and realized it might be a great fit as a data store for a 'local, self-contained' web application. That is, a web app that is meant to run locally & in the browser (like IPython Notebook) but needs a database for local persistence, without the complexity of using the filesystem for storage. It's basically the benefits of SQLite with a simpler, NoSQL interface/design.
Insight into Bangalore Architecture Industry
The need for skillful architects and interior designers has increased drastically in Bangalore as people from all parts of India as well as world have started moving into this cool South Indian city.
I experimented with a pay-what-you-want model for a language learning game, and it was always hugely motivating to see players choose to pay 4.99 instead of 0.99. Financially, half of our income has come from players paying more than they need.

On behalf of non-coercive indie game devs, thank you!