skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Wonderfull. Now let's just combine that with the new BREACH attack discussed on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6141286 and wreak havoc. I'm really curious how these problems will be fixed...
It saddens me that some companies, sometimes without revenue (I dunno if that is the case with HootSuite) get multi-million deals, and some brilliant startups by unknown people cannot get 50k USD borrowed by a bank...

Although my associate worked for a Angel Investing company and my main seed investor work for a investment bank, we still don't understand who get selected to get funded or not (we DO know the formal requeriments, but seemly meeting them only make possible to talk with some investors, but that is it, lots of investors will just outright ignore you)
After the Boston bombing, if I were a cop being told "someone posted a photo of explosives on Facebook," I would absolutely ask about pressure cookers even on a routine visit. Just to see what their reaction is.
Congrats to the HootSuite team - that's a very impressive valuation.

We recently built our own social media data discovery and analytics platform, and whenever we run reports on software clients for top tweets - HootSuite is always in 1st or 2nd position. Nice market penetration there.

Plug below -

In case anyone is interested - ours is not designed to replace HootSuite but to complement it:

http://signup.itrendcorporation.com/

Would love to get some feedback from you folks.
What, who pays a fortune ? .. most indian developers are self-taught geeks who pick stuff up easily. C++ is the mother of all modern languages and I suspect job specification that mention "C++" is an indication of that.

With that I've noticed Indian developers work with much more languages than a developer here, who 'focuses' or 'specialises' on one or two languages/code stacks.

My only conclusion to the notion that outsourced jobs yield low quality code is that companies DO NOT PAY ENOUGH. Pay more and you get better project management, better project scope, and future proof code.

In the 21st century sweatshop workers should not exist ! that goes for the IT industry too.
Hey neat. A csv2sqlite script is one of the first things I wrote in Python: https://github.com/elidickinson/csv-tools

It's a terrible hack, but I actually still use it pretty frequently.
HumanAPI - Palo Alto, CA - Full-time (http://humanapi.co)

--

HumanAPI is building the unified API for all human health data, and we are hiring another experienced engineer to add to the core team. Our mission is to collect, organize and make sense of all human health data.

We started this company in late March this year, and are currently hard at work building the infrastructure to pull in and analyze health data from a wide variety of sources. Some of these include: wearable sensors, consumer health devices, smartphones, and genetic testing services (like 23&Me). We collect this data, normalize it, and have built an API to allow any application developer to easily and securely build applications on top of the human body. Pretty cool, huh?

We are looking for a long term hire, and this position includes meaningful equity in an exciting, fast growing startup.

The person joining should be an opinionated, independent thinker and feel comfortable making big decisions. You have experience shipping real products to users. You are broadly curious, have probably had some side projects, and you have ideally hacked around with some hardware as well.

You are versatile across technologies and platforms, and can teach yourself what you don't know quickly. You don't identify with specific technologies as much as you identify with the problems that need to be solved.

Ideally, though not required, you have some experience with distributed database systems (cassandra, hadoop, hbase, etc.), security (HIPAA), and generally get excited about data, sensors, health, and how we can combine them to make people healthy at scale.

We are based in Palo Alto, California - the right candidate can work remotely for a time period, though we would like to get the whole team under the same roof soon.

Come help us build the human health data infrastructure layer.

andrei@humanapi.co
> Ok, that is a pretty compelling argument in favor of non-open source software. [..] I read it to say that GCC is so open source that it cannot converge on a stable release.

Nothing of the sort is true.

There are plenty of open source projects with stable releases, for example Debian, Ubuntu LTS, Firefox ESR.

Some open source projects focus more on stability than others. The same is true for closed source software.
I'd say (by far) most indie games are turds (just look at the amount of crap games on mobile app stores). Games like Fez, Braid and Super Meat Boy are few and far between.
Good catch. My bad. Apparently my reading comprehension skills aren't as strong as I like to think.
Netflix adds personalized profiles to streaming service
Which would be a terrible idea. Delivering actual software is all about understanding the real-world problem domain, with all of the complexities inherent to it. Doing a "nerd normalization" of the calendar instead of teaching students how to model and deal with the existing one is pretty much exactly the wrong pedagogical approach.
The stated policy under the Bush Administration is that if there was even a 1% chance that a lead might be legitimate, then the government should pursue it with all available resources.

The use of resources shows that we're serious - so yeah, they waste them. Profligately. Or haven't you flown recently?
It's shameful how many publications ran with this story on face value.
Note that HootSuite is a very popular tool, almost every single marketer that I know is using it.
I think “Forevruary” would be a little better.
> It's inefficient to do 10+ cans per person.

I think he means that there are 10 cans for the entire condo complex.

Also, forcing individual _taxpayers_ to sort trash really keeps environmentalism in the forefront of voters' minds, which I imagine makes it much easier to keep environment-friendly legislation and public works projects going.

Consider the opposite extreme, having a single bin that absolutely everything goes in. It would be easy to just completely forget about whatever it is you're throwing away and never think about what ultimate fate each piece is destined for.
What does it matter if the account is true or false?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
We need someone to leak the list of search keywords that the government considers serious enough to violate the rights of individual Americans, so that we can post handy google links for the whole thing. Good thing Obama is following through on his promise to protect whistleblowers, or people might be afraid to come forward with something like that.
So, when a legitimate customer doesn't pay attention to that rule, turn away business?
You don't have to go far or wonder up scenarios.

Just look at what happens to ANY safety patent, save from this one.

none of them are free. they all carry royalties. Better yet, get away from automobiles and look at medical patents. The most lucrative ones are for disposable cathereres(not sure the word in english). they are sometimes nothing more than a straw and a needle. yet patents abound.

How many lives could them save with each safety or health patent? Should we draw a line that if a patent is useful it should be free? ...that goes directly opposite to the justification of a patent to begin with.
This is a fascinating story, even if a bit longer than most linked here.

This CA car stereo installer got 25 years in KS (where he hasn't been) for building four secret compartments. The drug runners he made the compartments for who sent the vehicles to KS got half that.

This is what really caught my eye:

A common hacker refrain is that technology is always morally neutral. The culture’s libertarian ethos holds that creators shouldn’t be faulted if someone uses their gadget or hunk of code to cause harm; the people who build things are under no obligation to meddle in the affairs of the adults who consume their wares.

But Alfred Anaya’s case makes clear that the government rejects that permissive worldview. The technically savvy are on notice that they must be very careful about whom they deal with, since calculated ignorance of illegal activity is not an acceptable excuse. But at what point does a failure to be nosy edge into criminal conduct? In light of what happened to Anaya, that question is nearly impossible to answer.

“What’s troubling a lot of people is that this conviction seems to impose a new sort of liability on people that create state-of-the-art technology,” says Branden Bell, an attorney in Olathe, Kansas, who is handling Anaya’s appeal. “The logic goes that because he suspected his customers of doing something, he had a duty to ask. But that is a duty that is written nowhere in the law.”

It's not hard to extrapolate from physical hidden compartments to digital ones.
Do they sequester the massive amounts of CO2 that trash burning generates? If not, sinking that carbon into the ground may be a better idea. Or not: landfills produce methane and other natural gases which are more potent than carbon dioxide if they're not captured and reused. Has anyone done the math?
According to David Gomez, a former FBI exec who worked in domestic terrorism, "JTTF" is a catchall term used by many (perhaps all) LEOs working on terrorism in any capacity. The term apparently has no technical meaning.
I'm not sure it's relevant whether the b-smooth barrier exists of not, since that assume use of NFS.

There's a reason the NSA is pushing folks to use Suite B ciphers including Elliptic Curve along specific curves. It's not unreasonable to think that the NSA mathematicians have proven some relationship between EC and prime number theory in general.

There is some public domain work on this topic. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenstra_elliptic_curve_factori...].

This might help explain in part the NSA's desire for large memory vector supercomputers going back to the 1990s over distributed memory MP systems.
> An unwillingness to compromise backward compatibility

Are you referring to the unwillingness to bump up the maximum line length? I don't think it's because of backward compatibility. I limit just about every line of code I write in any language to 80 columns, and my horizontal screen real estate is 5760 pixels.
Using Gmail and Google Groups for Email Standups
Using a small ruby script and a google group we have been doing daily standups over email. It's working well, so I thought to write up the details of how we're making it happen.
How to Succeed in an Internship: Startup Edition
So, his experiences let him empathise with others? I'm not sure that's a bad thing if it's the case - seems like one of the more noble motivations someone could have.
I haven't used it in ages, but Log Parser -- a fantastic old Microsoft skunkworks project -- lets you run full SQL directly against CSV files, Apache logs, the Windows Registry, Active Directory, file paths...

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=2465...

Windows only, natch.
He stayed in a capsule for a short time the first day(s). Then he went to Novotel hotel for the remaining time.
Paul Graham reviews Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs (2000)
Declan McCullagh on Pressure-CookerGate
You can leave the internet, or just move to a different internet.
A few protests probably won't, but there are more tools than that:

- Grassroots community organization (outreach via political, workers' and church groups)
- Fundraising and lobbying (PG, would you donate to an anti-surveillance group?)
- High profile/celebrity spokespeople
- Smart media coverage
- Content production (documentary films, etc)
- Dealmaking amongst political organizations
- All the other tools in a politician's playbook

There are horrendously unpopular ideas that make it into Washington on the back of this sort of effort. There is a game, the opposition is good at it, and refusing to play doesn't help anyone.
People were mostly anticipating a crazy good battery and an unprecedented low on-contract price. Neither happened - time to move on.
Hi,

Is sponsoring an H1-B possible? I am working in a start-up in the same sector but in India.
At best this is ethical grey area territory. It's disturbing, all and the more disturbing that there are people cheering it on. I hope I don't end up at a party where the consumables have been manually swapped out by clever (desperate?) marketing people. Sorry, I'm just not rock and roll enough to appreciate deceit when it comes to things we eat and drink.
Executive Order 13526: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-c...

Title 18 USC 798: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCODE-2009-title18/html/USCODE...

Title 50 USC 3024: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3024
Again, according to a retired FBI exec with experience in terrorism work at FBI, the term "JTTF" might mean almost nothing at all.
> almost everything on the internet has nothing to do with your work

While this is true, I use the internet heavily, being in the tech industry.

> if your boss searched your internet history, would anything be found to substantiate such a claim?

Not if the image was on the Guardian or something similar that just blends in.

> I am really sorry that you have so little job security that you fear reprisal over a simple image such as that. Incidentally, I've seen full frontal nudity plastered on bus stops in Germany and I don't think anyone batted an eye.

Yea, it kind of sucks, but that just comes back to different cultures. Nudity is more accepted in Germany apparently, and it isn't in the US, that's just something we have to live with.

> You may have to adopt a more forgiving sense of propriety or confine yourself to some much smaller portion of the internet.

I guess I do, unfortunate for the Guardian.

> Do you suggest that everyone should be forced to obey the most repressive moral standards of all the sub-groups in our culture?

Of course not, but this is not what I'm claiming at all. The Guardian presents itself as a news organization. The person that picked out that picture should have considered posting it in light of the fact that they are now, with the Snowden leak, a global news organization, with visitors from Germany AND the US (in this example). What they should consider is "Who is going to see this article?" and then take the option that attracts the most people to their site.

Understand that I'm not trying to say that Guardian should change their site up at all, rather I'm saying that it might benefit them to think twice about what they post, because I'm no longer visiting their site at work.
The cops in question were apparently local members of a Joint Terrorism Task Force. They get these tips from "the government", check them out, the people are once again not terrorists, and they then talk to them freely like normal people, because (1) they are and (2) the cops aren't NSA, don't have training in this kind of secrecy and don't care, and (3) do pretty well by classifying people into sheep and goats without worrying that some of the sheep might be cleverly disguised goats or have goat friends.

So yeah, this part of the story is entirely plausible to me.
The team over at Buffer must be pretty stoked to see how big this market really is.
You're correct about that.
"Code is meant to be consumed by machines"

Well, partly. Code is actually a piece of writing intended for two very different audiences - one human, one machine. The machine doesn't actually care how long your lines are - this is an optimization for humans.

And I hear you about fixing the tools. Wouldn't it be easy if everyone used the same editor. But alas, this isn't a problem with the tools. It's an inherent limitation of text. That "figuring out visual structure" bit only works if your editor deeply understands your language. And different editors understand languages to different degrees and in different ways.

They say parsing is a solved problem, but I dare you to parse Ruby or Python correctly.
ok so when can i think/share thoughts with other thinkers? is there a specific authority you are waiting for?
Then let's think about decentralized search engines powered by p2p...
I'd venture that it's because almost everyone is happy to tell other people how they can do their jobs better (yes even for free), but very few (and all those people think they are among those few) actually understand the constraints under which the existing enterprise operates.

See also Chesterton on the fence: http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/2004/05/chesterton_14.html
"Apple never trashes the competition, that's above them."

I'm a Mac, I'm a PC? Classy, well-done trashing, sure, but straight up naming-names trashing it was.
Edward Snowden's First Day as a Free Man in Russia Involved Offers of Jobs
Ask HN: Which Java connection pool?
c3po seems to be the choice
dbcp is coming back to life - has it?
others - bone?
One of the newest waste burning plants in Sweden, Block 5[1], cost $150mm (SEK 1bn) to construct in 2005-2006.

[1] http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uppsala_Block_5
I don't really have any advice here, because I'm in a somewhat similar situation myself.

But I'm curious about what your skillset and CS knowledge are, since I'm trying to decide whether I should go back to college or continue working (I'm a little worried about how hard it might be to get a job in the future).

I'd definitely appreciate it if you could describe your skillset and CS knowledge, so I can get an idea of how talented a programmer needs to be to get jobs without a degree. Thanks!
This story doesn't mention the FBI at all, man. It mentions six plainclothes guys in three black SUVs who've obviously had some tactical training, and leaves it at that.

The point being that America has become a country where six armed guys can show up at your door with pointed questions and no warrant, and you will never be told why.
Flashfolders for Windows adds a small bar on top of open/save dialogs and makes them sooo much more convenient:

- go directly to currently open explorer window!

- paste path!

- two-click favourite folders

- two-click history

- switch to most recent folder (lasts through restarts)

loads at startup, consumes 2MB of RAM and doesn't slow my 2005 XP laptop down at all
That was only his second complaint.

"First, compilers are fragile. While one would like to expect a minimum
level of correctness and trustworthiness from a modern compiler, we
can't, regardless of the compiler we use."

CompCert (had it been truly open source) would have provided that trustworthiness. And it can be ported to new architectures with the confidence that these ports won't silently break by random other changes.
Ahem, what about all those external jquery hosters, or google analytics..?
Thanks for the explanation. Please excuse my ignorance, but I want to understand something: the 'html injection' phase would be done by some sort of response spoofing? Also, given that I can write arbitrary javascript to their window, can't I just do something like form.onsubmit(function(){ //send credentials to my private server }); ?
Chromecast: One Device to Rule Them All
This isn't necessarily an open-source problem, but a politics and leadership problem.
Take the money. You can always go to college. I still would go to college, just after a while. And you can pay cash for tuition too, and never take out any loans.
What an article. It goes on for page and pages that with lite information. I want my 10 mins back!
Barnes & Noble insist that Scotland is not part of the UK
I don't have a smartphone. :)
I wonder if this could be used to do any sort of useful computation. A cheap supercomputer, if you will.

EDIT: Oooo, others have thought of something similar: http://hackaday.com/2009/03/03/distributed-computing-in-java...
I would not classify my comment as defeatist. By definition, Terrorism is action that exploits a society's freedoms to create terror. Thus any free society will be vulnerable to terrorism.

No matter what areas our government cracks down on, as long as we have any freedoms left, someone can exploit them to create terror.

You dismiss my point about low tech, low sophistication attacks. But think about how everyone reacted when mysterious (but eventually harmless) white powder was found in a few envelopes. Terrorism exploits freedom for great psychological effect.
You cant compare Volvo then and Volvo now.

But if the question is- would a young Swedish researcher today consider giving away an important invention that would help the world...I think it could still happen.
A big factor in homelessness is also just weather. You get far more homeless people in a location with year-long homogeneously nice weather like SF, because you actually won't die being homeless. Swedish winters are harsh, and the country's not so big that these people can just go somewhere nicer for the winter. I don't have any stats (does anyone?), but I'm certain a good proportion of the homeless in SF arrived from further away.

I do think the northern European schooling/education model makes a lot more sense, and could be a solution for a lot of the societal problems at the root. However, the cultural diversity of SF makes that a much more complex problem than it is in Sweden/Finland. And so we come full circle, this stuff is just not that easy as "look it works over there, we should do it too"
What is a surveillance state?
Some ideas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_calendars#Proposed
Charged With the Crime of Filming a Slaughterhouse
I know, we use it too, but it is not only HootSuite, there are several investments that get obviously excessively popular, sometimes not tech related at all too (like Eike Batista, that convinced Brazil government to give him 10 billion and lost it all somehow...)
http://what-if.xkcd.com/26/ examines that exact question.
Talent follows money. If yahoo pays more than Google, talent will come.
Absolutely. Many key positions in police departments are filled through election. They may not seem important, but the folks we choose now to police our podunk towns go on to larger scale law enforcement. We should scrutinize the people who run for police chief.

Heck, I just found this: http://www.policeelections.com/
Maybe you could develop a better utility for this (not that a good old DDoS isn't fun and all).
Instead of irritating ads you could sell invisible "adspace" and the value would actually be in the fact that you were enabling a massive distributed computing effort. Imagine if SETI at home or several other distributed projects bought ads and had them process the work. It's a more productive monetization strategy than telling me how I can lose weight or grow my dick.

Edit: I'm thinking more about this and I think it'd be fun to work on if anyone feels the same way.
Ignoring your shameless self promotion, how do you know that the post you reference wasn't "reasonable suspicion" for law enforcement to gain access to the internet searches? Your assumption does not discount or disprove the assumption in the story. How is your conjecture any more accurate? Why not as a reporter for a news outlet, follow up instead of adding to the disinformation?
I would assume treating customers as a dumb internet meme is a demographically driven choice.
The NSA Rejected My FOIA For Data About Me
The Last Question By Isaac Asimov
I remember that safety belts on older cars did not have this retractable and locking mechanism you see in cars today. They were fixed - as you also see in the article's photo.