skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I would. I've got a decade's worth of USB 2.0, Micro USB cables laying around. So do all of my friends. If I'm out somewhere and need to charge my phone or (less likely) transfer a lot of data, I don't want to have to deal with a connector that can't help me because it isn't backwards compatible.
Typical consumer electronics: save 5 cents per unit, and force the end user to spend orders of magnitude more than that in lost time fumbling with the thing.

Of course, I don't blame the manufacturers. It is ultimately the buyers themselves who make this choice, by preferring price over almost anything else.
Ugly as it may be, I actually think it's nice for making easier to plug it on the correct orientation, since the two segments are assymetric. Remember how people complained it was hard to find the correct way to plug an USB device on a quick glance?
(Shrug) They can use an adapter. It wouldn't be any less clunky or awkward than this cable.
What's the bus speed of Lightning? Wasn't it revealed that Apple's HD output actually uses a really compressed low-res version as Lightning simply doesn't have the bandwidth to transmit 1080p at even 60Hz?
I think its reasonable that as a US citizen you're okay with the NSA being able to break crypto

I think you have forgotten the phrase "absolute power corrupts absolutely." Humans with unchecked access to information (=power) will NEVER be completely trustworthy. Never. It is by definition. That's why we have checks and balances. That's why we had democracy. No one should be absolutely above democracy. But that's what today's NSA is.

You realize these guys (in the NSA) have been using intelligence resources to spy on their girlfriends and neighbors? How much more human and fallible does it get than that?
I don't think the intent is to say that this is the only way it works. It's probably just to show these are the common patterns while piggybacking. The luck bit goes without saying.
That stood out to me too. It's exactly at that point I would hope for the opposite reaction in the general public.
Chrome's pinning is a definite upgrade, but it's more vulnerable than some people make it seem. In practice, a pin consists of a list of CA certificates which are allowed to sign for the given domain (the list is in [1]). This list can be surprisingly long: for example, the list for twitter.com contains 22 keys from 3 different CAs.

This means that, e.g., if you are "good friends" with Verisign, you can get them to issue a certificate for any Google property, and Chrome will happily accept it.

[1] https://src.chromium.org/viewvc/chrome/trunk/src/net/http/tr...
http://www.seobook.com/scalable-seo

By my count the company fronting the content has something like ~100 million machine-generated pages polluting the internet as of 6 months ago, being hosted and re-hosted under dozens of different domains. At what point does it become spam in your opinion?
Yes, I am willing to throw out an old cable to get a much better solution. Is there a reason that most people shouldn't be willing? Life is too short to always be worrying about backward compatibility.
I keep spare microUSBs everywhere -- my apartment, my bag, my office, etc -- to charge my various devices. Having to keep a completely separate set of a different cable would be annoying. I think most people have plenty of spare micros that this is useful for them.
If you made a game that used programming, but didn't play like something trying to teach you stuff what would it be like?
My Seagate HDD has one of these cables and I love it. Its a breeze to get it plugged in because you can feel instantly if you have it the right way around. I don't much care what my connectors look like, I don't spend much time admiring their form, I just grab 'em and plug 'em in!
The correct markup is cost + opportunity cost, known in economics as 'normal profits'.

Your manufacturing cost is not zero at all. You have significant fixed costs; your marginal cost is zero, or so close to it as to be negligible. Your average fixed costs fall with each copy sold, but unless you consider your time and labor entirely worthless you have to sell quite a few copies before you break even.

Also, since your game is a discretionary expense, there's no significant opportunity cost to the non-purchaser, whereas the opportunity cost to someone who eschews or can't afford to purchase medication might be the person's life.
That sticker solution is much more '10 year old' than a general warning to watch out for your own stuff. It gamifies the situation, rather than being direct about it.
Excellent link, thanks. And it is very hard to distinguish. Many other IETF RFCs are incredibly complicated and add idiotic "features" and stuff just for the sake of it.

Mitigating factor in this particular case is that some of the things proposed, like using the same IV for each packet, would definitely be found out by people other than the NSA. That would go against the NSA's goals.
It very obviously means that this goes beyond even the kind of wattage that Spinal Tap's amps are capable of.

This one doesn't just go to eleven. Twelve is greater than eleven.
Here's an even shinier one: http://i.imgur.com/JfODxoo.jpg

I'll take the blue one if it's cheaper. I don't think I've even thought about pretty cables until this article.
Disproof : Richard Feynman
Great advice, but... "Don’t compare yourself to others" I've repeatedly found this to be near-impossible. It's just that no matter what standard I've set for myself, just the fact that I see someone doing better automatically makes me think I'm doing something wrong and/or I'm not good enough. That may not be the case, but that's the default thought for me and only after do I actually look into it.

What's worse is that not only is it totally the wrong attitude, I know that it's the wrong attitude. It's very disheartening.
I've the feeling this is getting little out of hand.
What this Oprah crap has to do with hackernews?

(a shitty negative person)
The Clipper Chip didn't fail because of any vote, and a Congressional vote wasn't really necessary because it was intended to be a "opt-in" technology mainly for telcos and electronics manufacturers. It was never adopted due to backlash and criticism, but it's not as if they were explicitly banned from similar pursuits.

Of course, that isn't to say that this justifies recent actions or is really even relevant to the latest releases, but you made the connection.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip
Tuition Aid From a Zombie Elf [Gamers Helping Gamers]
Students represent their school, so no surprise a top law school would crack down on students spouting shit on Twitter, certainly when they also mention the school in their tweet.
The classic HN reader fallacy.

Listen to someone because of who they are (especially within HN) rather than what they have to say.
Can you write a blog post about this? Need to get this information out there. Good job finding this.
We need to stop posting these non-technical ravings of people who haven't a clue. Kevin Drum can certainly have an opinion about the NSA (and he's mostly wrong, I think), but his musings about what the NSA can do is clearly uninformed.

He seems to believe that all commercial crypto is suspect; and there exists some other nebulous category called "strong crypto." D'oh! If only we had all been so smart enough to use this obviously better "strong crypto" instead of "commercial." It's meaningless. The NSA has it's hands in all the crypto cookie jars.

The NY Times slides:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/09/05/us/documents-r...

give us some new details that have some usable specifics that can be gleaned.
I actually have a stack of 2 adapters on my car cable to let me use my iPhone 5. One handles conversion from the old FireWire voltage source to the more regulated ISB style, the other adapts the 30 pin to lightning.
It's a bit of hyperbole, and nothing direct from Snowden as far as I can tell. The actual releases (like XKEYSCORE) clearly show it intercepting unencrypted traffic. This could be something as simple as RSA1024 being "easily" crackable by the NSA, and hence "most encryption" would be vulnerable since so many people use RSA1024 for TLS.

Taking random quotes and highlights from presentations isn't a very good way to get picture of an opponent's capabilities. Otherwise we'd think that Oracle has developed 100% secure database software that is impossible to break.

I really hope Snowden releases some hard evidence or specific citations of what the NSA has broken, instead of the hand-wavy "like, everything, man" articles that have been rehashed several times in the past day. Speculation's sorta pointless.
The problem with having the NSA break encryption in this manner is that it's not like they've discovered a 0day and are hacking into our enemies; instead, they've corrupted the encryption, exposing what were formerly considered secure comm methods. I'm pretty sure that these corrupted comm methods aren't only available to the NSA. This gives enemies of the US an idea of how to circumvent our encryption, thus exposing everyone who uses these comm methods to attack, whether they're US allies or enemies.
New? USB 3.0 is five years old at this point.

Unlike the lightning connector, USB 3.0 is fully backwards-compatible with USB 2.0 and regular USB cables.
Thanks for this. I actually like that it's not curated, it's a good way to discover things I didn't know about. The fluid simulation stuff looks especially interesting.
"It's not clear to me how disclosing NSA's decryption breakthroughs benefits the public debate much,"

Backdoors, bought or coerced. If I obtain crypto capability, I expect it to be at least as good as advertised.

Or, in other words, they went to the public in the 90s and asked for Clipper. They were denied. So they went against the public and implemented what they were told, by their supposed masters, that they couldn't have.

If your dog is eating your children, is he your dog?
It's not feasible for lower-middle income families until it is as cheap or cheaper than the alternatives.

But there are many factors complicating this kind of cost comparison. For one, pv solar pays off over years, while others are paid per as pennies per kWh used. Another complicating factor is the environmental impact of oil and coal. Do you include that? If you do, how do you quantify it?

This looks like a decent article
http://greenecon.net/understanding-the-cost-of-solar-energy/...

In short, solar has a long way to go. Twenty or thirty times more expensive than the traditional sources of energy. It looks like a huge breakthrough and alternative method is needed rather than incremental improvements in current methods.

What this article is about is reducing cost by using a type of solar cell that can handle incredibly dense concentrations of sunlight. So you can use a cheap lens to take say 30 square feet of sunshine and focus it on one square foot of solar cell. Once square foot of solar cell is much cheaper than 5 square metres of solar cell. But the article doesn't go into detail about how much these high capacity solar cells would actually cost at mass consumption levels.
What comes first, security for users, or marketing a new release?

If this new format is more secure and ready to roll out, why delay?

What if Mavericks doesn't get released in October but gets pushed back to sometime next year?
If it were a company sponsored hackathon, I'd probably just pay for the laptop. Probably wouldn't publicize the whole thing, and if it happened a second time, would seriously re-evaluate security.

A school or community hackathon is a much more ambiguous situation. Get a police report, and see if you have event insurance or something to cover it.

I never leave stuff unattended in public, but things like hackerspaces, YC's office, etc. feel different. I do screenlock always, but I can't say I'd never leave a machine unattended in a semi-public environment.
One is open source, the other isn't.

What is more important - security or convenience?
Kind of proves their point, right? The way your culture views something is "obviously a positive trait"?
While a bit ugly, at least it's pretty easy to see which way is 'up', which can be tough with micro-USB.

The Lightning's reversible orientation is really nice though.
I would have felt better about Ebook pricing if you included the kindle version. I keep my reference books on a kindle with a 2 month battery. My tablets are always out of power when I need them.
I've been meditating on this fact for a while. (I take an SSRI, and I believe that it helps me, but I would love to know why.)

I think one possible understanding of depression is that it is a feedback loop - it's a sort of standing wave or Nash equilibrium of patterns of thought causing patterns of behavior causing patterns of sensation causing patterns of emotion that cause patterns of thought, etc. And, perhaps, that just by changing any random variable(s) in that loop (mucking with reuptake, or cognitive behavioral therapy, or any of a whole bunch of other possible changes) has a probability of disrupting the equilibrium and suspending the depression.

It's not clear to me how to test this hypothesis, though.
jack9, in case you read this, I just wanted to let you know you're hellbanned. I thought about not telling you, but then I checked your comment history and was very shocked to discover that you've been hellbanned for the past 249 days, during which you've made 69 comments that have been seen by almost no one (because you're hellbanned). You may have also noticed that Hacker News is extremely slow for you -- when a user is hellbanned, the site slows down for them. Each page refresh takes an additional ~10sec to load. So assuming a lowball figure of 10 pageviews per each of your comments, this hellban has claimed at least 2 hours of your life just sitting there waiting for HN to load. Hence I feel compelled to show some mercy and let you know that you need to create a new account if you want anyone to see anything you write. And some of your writing is thoughtful.

You were probably banned because, quite frankly, you were a complete dick when you first started commenting[1][2] and probably got banned for this comment[3] but the quality of your comments increased after you were banned, so if you've changed, you're nice, and you want to contribute to this community in a positive way, then I assume you'd be welcome back. So make a new account.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4965082

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4988839

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4993462

EDIT: Actually, this[4] is almost certainly what pissed off a mod enough to ban you, and rightfully so: if you still feel that way, then you deserve to remain banned. But I'm optimistic about people's ability to change (I myself was quite a different person 249 days ago). If you still enjoy writing comments that attack people personally, even if the attack is deserved, then you will make me sad, since that will mean I've hurt the community by informing you of your status. So please don't make me regret sticking my neck out for you. Besides, it's much more satisfying to write comments that uplift people rather than tearing them down.

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4993757
Right now, "gadgets" are extremely popular in China. Maybe because in previous generations they've only been available to the privileged elite.
The distinction which is the basis of this article between "commercial" and "strong" encryption seems confused. Kevin Drum in this post makes it sound as if commercial encryption is algorithmically weaker, which as a rule it is not, rather than just easier for the NSA to plant backdoors in by strongarming vendors.

The distinction matters here since we're meant to believe that most "bad guys.. figured that ordinary commercial crypto provided sufficient protection." But this translates to, they trusted Google, Microsoft et al. That seems less likely to me.

Disclaimer: I am not a cryptographer or security researcher. (On the other hand, given that I've done various kinds of antiwar political organizing and associated with members of Muslim Student Associations whose infiltration by NYPD later became a matter of public record, maybe I can speak as a government-classified "bad guy!" I should really do an FOIA request one of these days...)
I'm not sure it's known. I remember wondering if that was a problem with the cable, or if the GPU in the Mini just has trouble. I would have liked to see test results with an iPad 3.

Either way, I'd assume the speed could be increased later without a new connector.
Wanting to spend time talking to her about an offhand, benign comment on social media doesn't seem "inappropriate", but it does seem ridiculous and intrusive.
You beat me to this complaint.
Mind over misery
I was a big fan of that game. I loved trying my hand against the online competitors, but I was 14 competing against much older people. I got trounced :(

Still, Corvus's mid tier match. I managed to win it by developing a rover that could lead its shots.

My god, if I could just go back and time and have another crack at this game with what I know now.

I wonder if the old data is on one of my hard drives. I made a two vs two rover mission with large rovers. You could make some scary rovers.
Can't you load custom assembly into the 6502 screensaver on XScreensaver? Going to try that.
Four beds ready to treat Interne addicts
It makes me sad that Garry's Mod was not at the top of that list.
2/ Only surround yourself with brilliant and positive people.

this really touched me, most of my friends are always negative and angry and sad to say but my family is also dysfunctional which at times leads me to being stressed and upset as well. It's hard to cut people off who are your family and friends though.
Both are effective on the same people? Otherwise, it kind of makes sense. If depression is just an imbalance, it may be that there is either too much serotonin or too little.
But of course, the phone and tablet manufacturers can't agree which way is up. (I think it's screen-side up, but many seems to think it's back-side up.)
They're conflating racism with enthnocentrism, the idea that one culture (usually yours) is better than others.
"It is better for you to do things that will benefit you" is practically a fucking tautology. How could that be controversial, let alone racist?

Here is what I think; the statement:

"saying 'future time orientation is superior' is racist"

is itself racist, just like saying,

"saying 'the ability to drink water from your cupped hands without
drowning yourself is normal' is racist"

is itself racist.

In other words, you are implying that some appreciation of the value of planning is something that only some cultures possess. That is racist. Consider the possibility that you simply do not understand their goals, and are thus unable to perceive them.
Is there a button or something to automatically expand all the topics in a Google Group without having to click on each collapsed message title? Because I've looked everywhere, and I can't find one.
Still not public, sorry!
Four beds ready to treat Internet addicts
> Is it important how the NSA spies on everyone?

I think that is by far the most important thing.

Imagine a hypothetical world in which it's been revealed that the NSA is spying on the entire internet through the means we generally expected them too, i.e. an army of super-smart crypto people and access to more computing power than God. What would happen following this revelation?

I anticipate that there would be outcry similar to what we've seen, followed by efforts to block their access. Companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft, all the tech heavyweights, would lead the charge. I think there'd be a lot of newfound interest in moving from crypto that's "good enough" to crypto that's deeply over-engineered. 1024-bit AES variant, anyone?

Instead, the NSA has gained their access largely through influence. This is smart, considering their mission. Why crack good crypto when you can just bypass it, or at least ensure that the crypto is not so good? It's certainly way easier. As far as we know, there's still no realistic way for them to crack a solid implementation of things like AES, so it's really the only way.

Are Google, Apple, Microsoft, et al leading the charge for better crypto in our world? No, because they're hopelessly compromised. Nobody trusts them, because the NSA has subverted all of them.

I anticipate that any new crypto, whether algorithm, system, or implementation, involving the United States in any way will be completely shunned. The US's tech giants will be shut out of a lot of activities. A huge chunk of the US's tech dominance will shift elsewhere. This will hurt the US economy and the US's security.

In short, the question comes down to, how do you avoid NSA spying? And that depends on how the NSA spies. If they spied due to math and computers, then you avoid NSA spying with better math and better computers. If they spied by broadly subverting a huge number of companies and organizations, as appears to be the case, then you avoid NSA spying by avoiding the American tech industry. This is tremendously damaging.
Actually, the point is that lots of cultures are collective-oriented, while we as a culture like to favor individualism (even though we are extremely collective in our own ways.)

This is called "cultural bias"; it means that, should a student from another culture come into our schools, they should not feel wrong for being raised in an environment that doesn't promote individualism. Stuff like, "Don't be a sheep!" and, "You are your own person. Don't let anyone take that away from you!" can make them feel out of place and other'ed. Notice how the part you quoted says "as opposed to a more collective ideology." That means they want to get rid of pinning individualism against collectivism; they don't want to get rid of individualism.

I'm not sure what the rest of your comment means, though. Even if that specific phrase is a problem, the rest of the document is all great stuff.
Does anyone know of any good meta-analyses of studies about happiness / life satisfaction?

Or put another way: what does actual research suggest the "commandments" for happiness are?
Problem: We have 34 standards

Is there a reason that most people shouldn't be willing?

Problem: We have 35 standards.
You know, there's one very valuable piece of info that I don't think has been revealed anywhere yet, or I missed it:

Recall, for example, Glenn Greenwald's admission that he "almost lost one of the biggest leaks in national-security history" because Snowden initially insisted on communicating with strong crypto and Greenwald didn't want to be bothered to install it.

What exactly did Snowden insist Greenwald do, precisely? Whatever Snowden insisted on, it's guaranteed to be an NSA-proof method of communication. So it seems like it's an essential first step to figure out the details and train people to use it habitually.
Facebook addiction?
It's very valuable to see this reaction to the latest Snowden disclosures: I expect it will be common, and the tech community needs to be prepared to make it clear why this really does reflect another betrayal of trust.

Personally, I can't blame the NSA for trying to intercept and read lots of "suspicious" internet traffic: that's their job. Governments do this, and whether it's good or bad, it's expected. (I'm not happy about the degree to which the NSA seems to be stretching the rules against them acting domestically, nor am I happy about massive all-encompassing interceptions rather than targeted ones, but those are separate issues.)

So there really is a legitimate argument that these latest Snowden disclosures damage national security. The thing is, they also indicate that the NSA has been doing its expected work by actively weakening the protections that we (and large parts of the global economy) depend on. Their actions and strategies have also undermined global confidence in American technology companies. And those are factors that I think the average watcher (like the author of this article) may not recognize unless folks like us point it out.