skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Why didn't the MacBook just configure itself?

What basic computer skills should everybody possess? In my view, the answer is: None. My rationale is that any skill considered to be universal enough for everybody to know, should be taken care of by the computer -- especially if the computer is sold on the premise that "it just works."

I've been hacking since 1981, and I wouldn't have guessed the need to configure the MacBook for a proxy server, or that the proxy was blocking the embedded YouTube video.

On the other hand, I want my own kids to learn how to hack. We have 4 Raspberry Pi's in the house. The kids are learning HTML and Python. But why? My motive isn't to teach them "skills," but just to see if it sparks their interest. Also, I think that given the ubiquity of programming as an intellectual pursuit, and its impact on society & history, it ranks as a "liberal art" alongside calculus.
I've tried several demos, and Minecrift has been the only one I've gone back to several times. When I tried HL2, there were perspective and latency issues to the point that I couldn't play for more than 15 minutes.
I'm forced to agree. It's pretty much a consensus that the best specs are the smallest ones. You want just the right amount of abstraction to be useful, not try to cover all possible use cases. Inevitably, people will build another layer of abstraction on top.
Indeed. But it is important to note that any data collected by German intelligence agencies will be made available to other intelligence agencies, including the US ones, due to cooperation agreements in place. Unfortunately, some of these cooperation agreements are inherited from the immediate postwar history and it remains unclear whether they even can be modified or revoked.
would a mod mind changing the URL to http://white.bikeshed.com/ ? It's the same content but much easier to read (sorry about that...)
I don't think the world is so black and white.

If you pay taxes to the federal government are you complicit with all of the government's actions? Well sure, but what other option do you have? You could not pay taxes and go to jail, or you could move somewhere else where there isn't an imperfect government--- say Antarctica.

Similarly, what are you going to do if you decide not to work for some "complicit" organization? Move to Silicon Valley and work at a startup? Is that any better? Is there any company that is morally and ethically perfect?

Governments, industries, populations, etc. are all part of an inter-related system called The World. If you think this system is imperfect and should be improved, then exiting the system won't solve anything. Rather, you can work within the system and do what you can to make it better.
Of.

Of the Docker whale.
GET, POST, and HEAD are the only ones used because since time immemorial, they've been the only ones implemented by the browsers (NN, IE, FF, etc.).

I posit that if Netscape had implemented PUT, we'd all be talking about the four main verbs, instead of the three main verbs.
Oh no, they have to click Settings -> Wireless? This is so complicated it's justifiable to critique the author on this point?
what a Bush.
> Go read the RFC definition of PUT and report back. I can never understand it. If anything, PUT needs to be retired in favor of something unambiguously specific like CREATE.

PUT is unambiguously defined as "take the request-body, and make it the resource at the given URI". If it was named by the creators of SQL, it would be CREATE OR REPLACE RESOURCE <uri> WITH <request-body>.

(OR, if it was BASIC, it would be "LET <uri> = <request-body>".)
Latitudes manager seems happy with the decision: https://plus.google.com/+jlapenna/posts/deBP7kj7rMi

Also he offers plenty of behind the scenes reasoning in replies to the thread, such as this:

"We felt that we'd be able to get quicker feature parity and better newer features by cutting over now than waiting."
I would say that indexing and making usable information in different contexts is their core competency (Search, Email, Maps, Desktop, Android, etc.) Advertising is a "tack on" to bring in the money, it's not where they are developing new value to the end user. Ad relevancy is really just a natural extension of their Search algorithm. If you're a business person you might say Ads is all Google is, but they still need to develop compelling products (core competency) to bring in views.
ConcertCam - XBee, Ruby, and Facebook
Because sonic and haptic clues are more useful than specific error messages explaining the problem? I guess so, since people just don't read them...
Backbone.js + easyXDM: Fighting the same origin policy
I would say "yeah, I could probably fix it, but it'll take me at least a few hours and even then it's not certain. You're better off taking it somewhere professionally where they can properly backup your data and be held accountable. These are the guys I'd recommend."

No offense, but it sounds more like you want to fix it. Not that there's anything wrong with that of course, it's your prerogative.
Back in 2001, Apple forked KHTML and used it to create WebKit. Some parts have been backported to KHTML but the projects diverged a decade ago.
Hi, docker maintainer here.

The docker registry is getting hit really hard because of the explosive growth of the project - we're in the process of upgrading the infrastructure, should get much better very soon.
A couple of years back, I remember arguing with the moderators at Stack Overflow who wanted to implement this to combat sock-puppetry: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/113394/implement-som...

Back then, the proponents of that plan insisted the privacy concern was largely academic. I somewhat wonder what would've happened post-PRISM leak had they ever implemented it.
(50) virtual currency that can be monetized, re-sold or converted to physical or digital goods or services or otherwise exit the virtual world

Too bad, indeed.
Yet another reason eval is evil and should be in disable_functions : http://php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php#ini.disable-functions

Better yet, if you're on a nix box, you should be using http://www.hardened-php.net/suhosin/ There are some potential hiccups with off-the-shelf software, but some minor inconvenience is a better alternative than having your system compromised.
ITC bans older Samsung phones for infringing Apple patents
In that case, I think it was because spiders laid eggs in his ears, which hatched into brain spiders and controlled his further actions. Do I have evidence for this? No. But to be clear, I'm not defending the firing, only explaining where it may have come from.
Google Maps on my Android (Galaxy Nexus) phone has now developed an annoying habit of making the keyboard disappear while I'm typing in an address. I type in a couple of letters and the keyboard slides out. I tap again in the input box to bring it back up, type in another letter, and then it slides out again.

I haven't been able to figure out a repeatable way to get this to happen, but it seems to have started happening in the last few weeks. Rebooting the phone usually makes it go away, but only for a short while. I haven't seen this weird keyboard disappearing behavior in any other app, so it makes me think it's something specific to Google Maps. It's making the app pretty much unusable.

Anyone else seeing this?
MAD (Magnetic, Agile, Deep) Skills: New Analysis Practices for Big Data
Sounds like Brad.
> Yes! Why is support for PUT and DELETE not specified in HTML specs?

IIRC, it was in an earlier draft of the WHATWG HTML spec, was implemented in a beta version of Firefox, issues were raised with the semantics of the Firefox implementation that ended up becoming issues with the clarity of what browsers were supposed to do with PUT/DELETE forms in the draft HTML spec, and the result was taking PUT/DELETE support out of the spec because of the lack of agreement on what should be specified regarding the use of those methods with forms.

ISTR that this issue has been reopened as a bug with the spec since that time, though I don't know if it is currently open or not.
We use this concept for low friction enterprise authentication at SecureAuth. Sure as hell beats rsa tokens or anything related to a phone.
Zoho.com Forces SSL Certificate Change - NSA Behind it?
When trying to access his email account, a zoho user reports that he has to accept a new SSL certificate. This started exactly one day after Lavabit.com and SilentCircle shut down.

It is logical to assume that there's probably a connection..should we move away en-masse to gmx.de, considering their latest statements on privacy?
Every time I see you username I remember, fondly, watching text scroll across the screen and how utterly fascinating it was that it was coming over a phone line.
Thanks for reporting this, we're investigating any latency issues.
Actually, the currently-accepted theory among political scientists is that America's first-past-the-post electoral system, in which the plurality candidate wins and everyone else loses, necessarily leads to an effectively two-party system.
This post gives me the impression that it's self-fulfilling.

The more info you share here, the more dangerous it gets and the more people are aware of the danger it could pose, when used by the wrong hands.
The idea that the interpretation of the Constitution is up to the people sounds like a good idea; however, how exactly would that work in practice?

We obviously can't just let each individual interpret it how they see fit, or it becomes effectively meaningless. It would be equally impossible for each Constitutional question to be 'voted' on by the people.

Is there a way I am missing? It seems the courts are the only logical choice to interpret the Constitution.
"However, other countries will have a good functioning democracy and a citizenry that values privacy and will avoid those abuses."

Is this just wishful thinking or is there a specific functioning democratic government that should we all trust?

My opinion is that nobody should trust any government. Not fully at least. Not their own. Certainly not somebody else's. History has shown this to be a generally prudent position to take. I mean, why should I trust the German government more than the United States government? How about Norway or Kenya or Thailand?

I do not think there's some magical country that is about to have a big business advantage based on "trust" because their citizens value privacy (as if that were even measurable). Most likely, countries will just become a touch more insular with their technology, noting that it, like food production, is somewhat of a national security issue.
Things that can go wrong with Ruby 1.9 string encodings
What's it called when a state unleashes privateers on its citizens?
It's not very trackable - I've replaced my user agent string with my full name, which is very unique.

This way nobody even knows if I'm on Firefox or Chrome.
How to write a command line application in Node.js
So true. In fact, I get really angry at people that use jquery to write applications if they don't know it inside and out. In fact, I don't even use libraries or even functions when I code unless I know exactly how they work.
Does someone more versed in the space care to comment? The title seems like link bait, and I'd bet there are some not so absurd reasons for a lot of these.
A significant paring down of the "watch lists" used by NSA (and TSA too, it seems), the revocation of the previous definition of 'torture', scrapping some of the surveillance programs of no useful intelligence value, stuff like that.

Certainly there is more that can be done, but I think if this whole affair is indicative of the reaction to be expected then I'm not surprised people avoided making oversight of these programs a loud and noisy public debate.
would 301 abuse work for IMG tags as well? or is the caching exploit specific to JS?
Its the difference between saying "you make dumb comments" and "that was a dumb comment".
Nope. Controversial site is advocating for Chechen independence. Allegedly linked to extremist activities.
I don't think you're going to find the majority of people supporting you if you take a moralistic position on analytics software.
You can probably do something similar with javascript, either by comparing a <span>'s width, or by using canvas etc sampling pixels, to see if a given font is installed or not. You'd need a pretty long list of fonts to check, though.

Flash makes it easier since you can simply enumerate all the fonts.
Compare to Braintree (VERY similar):

[1] We are unable to underwrite the following business models:
(1) door-to-door sales, (2) offering substantial rebates or special incentives to the Cardholder subsequent to the original purchase, (3) negative response marketing, (4) engaging in deceptive marketing practices, (5) sharing Cardholder’s data with another merchant for payment of up-sell or cross-sell product or service, (6) evading Card Network’s chargeback monitoring programs, (7) engaging in any form of licensed or unlicensed aggregation or factoring, (8) airlines, (9) tour operator, (10) age restricted products or services, (11) bail bonds, (12) bankruptcy lawyers, (13) bidding fee auctions, (14) collection agencies, (15) chain letters, (16) check cashing, wire transfers or money orders, (17) counterfeit goods or any product or service that infringes upon the copyright, trademark or trade secrets of any third party, (18) currency exchanges or dealers, (19) embassies, foreign consulates or other foreign governments, (20) firms selling business opportunities, investment opportunities, mortgage consulting or reduction, credit counseling, repair or protection or real estate purchases with no money down, (21) credit card and identity theft protection, (22) cruise lines, (23) essay mills, (24) flea markets, (25) drug paraphernalia, (26) extended warranties, (27) fortune tellers, (28) “get rich quick” schemes; (28) gambling (including but not limited to lotteries, Internet gaming, contests, sweepstakes, or offering of prizes as an inducement to purchase goods or services), (29) sports forecasting or odds making, (30) illegal products or services, (31) mail-order brides, (32) marijuana dispensaries and related businesses, (33) money transmitters or money service businesses, (34) multi-level marketing or pyramid schemes, (35) online or other non-face-to-face pharmacies or pharmacy referral services, (36) prepaid phone cards, phone services or cell phones, (37) pseudo pharmaceuticals, (38) quasi-cash or stored value, (39) securities brokers, (40) sexually-oriented or pornographic products or services, (41) shipping or forwarding brokers, (42) substances designed to mimic illegal drugs, (43) telemarketing, (44) timeshares, (45) travel agencies or travel clubs, (46) online or other non-face-to-face tobacco or e-cigarette sales, (47) weapons and munitions (48) virtual currency or credits that can be monetized, re-sold or converted to physical or digital goods or services or otherwise exit the virtual world, (49) personal computer technical support, (50) human hair, fake hair or hair-extensions, (51) selling social media activity, such as Twitter followers, Facebook likes or Youtube views, (52) Telecommunications equipment and telephone sales, or (53) any product, service or activity that is deceptive, unfair, predatory or prohibited by one or more Card Networks.

https://www.braintreepayments.com/faq
Maybe by absurd it means the number of prohibited businesses? Otherwise it just looks Stripe does not to be involved with shady/spammy businesses.
It sure is, which is why people should be asking what a real oversight committee member is. They're on the offensive because of exactly this, and they want to be able to control information dispersal by normal citizens and others. The way they want to do this is to have a kind of authorization for access which excludes the normal citizenry, amateur or freelance journalists.

When you listen to what the Obama Administration and Congress wants to change in light of the Snowden revelations, think of the aphorism, "the best defense is a good offense." Don't accept their framing, keep your eyes on the real issue: spying on US citizens.
Google encrypts their email by default when exchanging with the majority of email providers (including, presumably, the German ones mentioned here, as long as they already support TLS).

Likewise even German law permits surveillance on foreign communications (see the "BND Section" of their legal code).

What this here is, is marketing. Not that it's bad marketing, but it doesn't solve any of the real issues.
IMO we are currently in a surveillance state. I wrote my rationale on this on this 2 months ago: http://hubski.com/pub?id=88146

In short, the difference between a surveillance state and a police state is a matter of nature, but they have capabilities in common.

I think a police state will likely follow.
I think this is what you're talking about :

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/apache2/dmM19cYS0oA
Is there already a fix for that? Just a plug in that blocks all unique identifiers and responds with a windows-out-of the box configuration should solve the problem.
NY judge denies Apple Inc. request in e-books case
If the FISA decided that the NSA's activities were illegal, why would it keep rubber-stamping the warrants?

First, I don't agree that they rubber-stamp warrants, but believe they evaluate them on a case-by-case basis - not least because their decisions might be classified now, but may well be declassified in the future, and their reasoning will be held up to scrutiny.

More importantly, just because an agency is found to have operated illegally does not mean that everything the agency does must then be rejected. It's easy to find examples of police officers or even entire departments being corrupt, but it does not follow that everyone who is arrested by the police is necessarily innocent, or that all arrests are flawed.

Arguments of the kind you make above involve a fallacy of composition, one which seems to appear ever more frequently on HN. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition
What is absurd about this? This seems to be a list of things where the law is inconsistent across the various states in the US. Accepting these things would likely place a severe state-by-state oversight and compliance burden on Stripe, for very little actual value. It seems pretty smart to me.
In other news... unpredictability of quantum wave theory seen as undesirable. New program established to collapse all wave equations.
A number of the items on that list are restricted due to legal limitations and/or concerns. There are a multitude of regulations and requirements that one would have to follow to collect payments on behalf of a legal entity for any number of things on that list. It's much easier to just not deal with it.
Update: There's also a lighter-weight API for "hosted" Chrome apps that don't require all the features of a full "packaged" app, which would work too.

https://developers.google.com/chrome/apps/docs/developers_gu...
Nearly all of them seem to be areas with a high potential for fraud.
And what if the actual truth really is somewhere in that big gap you mentioned? Even PRISM doesn't give all @gmail.com to NSA after all.
How a summer intern designed an edTech startup's official mascot panda
I'm not sure history supports that perspective. Traditionally, senators are the legislative body of the upper class, which has never been particularly charitable toward the rabble.
It essentially means that, as an armed person, if somebody has a knife, is threatening you, and is less than 21 feet away, then your gun should be out of your holster and pointed in their direction right away, because if you wait for them to actually charge you, the knife will probably be sticking out of your chest by the time you can draw and fire.

It certainly doesn't mean that you should shoot the guy right away or anything, but someone with a knife being shot from 20-30 feet away is not necessarily a bad shoot.
fake hair is only one that stands out.
What's worse with Braintree is that they won't even touch Crowdfunding with a 10ft pole.
Reflects my experience. During school I had interest and good grades in all classes, including physics and geometry (those are separate from math in Brazil), the only exception being math (which covers algebra, polynomials, etc.). How a kid can get an A in physics and a D in math is beyond my comprehension, but I did. I only started appreciating math much later in life.
Why is it absurd?

Do you think it's absurdly long? Their agreement in general is much shorter than any single one of the several I had to go through to get a merchant account and CC processing service before.

Is it absurd because you think the business types they mention are silly? Well, they are silly. But people do them.

Is it absurd because you are angry your business is on the list? Well, that's life. I, as a valid business owner who uses Stripe, am very glad Stripe protects their relationships / value / company / customer rep time by refusing to serve illegal or borderline illegal businesses, and those with ridiculously high rates of fraud. Yay!
Don't forget to add realistic sample data for new customers, too, particular if you have a freemium model. An empty dashboard will turn some non-technical customers away -- it does not tell a story nor show how the product will serve a potential customer's needs.

Just make sure there's a very easy (and non-destructive!) way to switch between real data & sample data.
I don't think you understand what "investing" is. Investing is giving money to someone (or even just a bank) in exchange for something which might change value. That person is then going to go spend the money somewhere else. There's pretty much no way to prevent money from moving around other than turning it into cash and burying it.
Extra toys but not extra training to go with them?

I'm curious - what do they do when they're not on SWAT missions? Do they go back to being regular cops, or do they sit on the bench?
That's not absurd
SATA 3.2 standard finalized, promises faster and smaller storage
A lot of people have a chip on their shoulder. Even mechanics that do get paid for their work. They see the world as full of idiots that can't figure out how to fix cars, when they've been doing it for fifteen years daily. Some of them do think they're smarter than everyone else. That's why we live in a world where everyone thinks they're much smarter than average.
I think you missed the point or my impression after reading the article is different.

I genuinely feel that the author frustration comes from the fact that people assume instead of "RTFM".

Each device comes with manual, whether paper or CD. Its just that average user does not read it. Your manual will tell you there is hardware on/of switch of wireless on the side of your laptop. Had she read that, she wouldn't have come and ask. ITs irrelevant how few seconds it will take him to "fix it"; get that same question hundred times a day and you will be frustrated. Many times non-tech users assumption "its broken" comes from basic lack of knowledge, which device manual will explain. "my laptop doesnt work! see i try to turn it on, nothing!". Manual, page 2: "insert battery and plug your computer to power plug to charge it". - "did you do that?" -"Well, no...".

The analogy with the car is a good one. When you purchase a vehicle it comes with couple hundreds of pages of manual. Imagine impression on mechanic's face, or his opinion about average driver if people would be coming to his shop all the time saying "man, my car is broken!", when the "change oil" light is on. OP didnt want her to deassemble her laptop and replace network card on it. He just want he to RTFM.

Average computer user nowadays lost patient and don't want to learn or find out anything out of ordinary. And that's why, I think, OP is rightfully so frustrated.
The only one on here that strikes me as odd is the prohibition on selling fake hair or hair extensions. I'm curious why that is? I suppose I could see prohibitions on selling human hair, but fake hair seems odd.