skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Nepal's ccTLD registrar won't let devs update nameservers. What to do?
I am a freelance web developer from Nepal and I'm asking this question after spending more than 2 weeks to contact the registrars and discuss with fellow developers.

Mercantile Corporation (http://register.mos.com.np) is the only authorized ccTLD registrar of Nepal, which lets us register domains like .com.np, .biz.np, .org.np etc. for free. Currently around a hundred thousand domains have been registered by Mercantile. They have updated their service recently and all the user login details are now void - that means we cannot login to manage our / clients' domains! We have an option to call them, ask for new login details in our email which takes them 2 business days to process. Even after logging in we are not allowed to update even the nameservers of the domains! Upon asking them they tell that we need to go to their office - only one central office exists in the entire country - and write an application, and wait them to update our details manually. They would hardly do that either. It's been few months since I along with several web developers from Nepal are locked out of their domain names. It would not be the case until few months back.

I went through ICANN's website because Mercantile has been authorized to create sub-domains like com, aero, edu, etc. under .np ccTLD. I couldn't find a place to report the monopoly and misconduct of Mercantile corporation. That's why I chose to ask HN community for suggestion, information or even a way out to make them provide access to domains registered by ddvelopers throughout the country.

This is a case of urgency and I would like to know if any fellow hacker in the community had been through this nightmare and if yes how s/he solved the issue.

Regards,
Njsubedi
Or rerun by skelterjohn http://github.com/skelterjohn/rerun
Form templates for various documents such as MoU, pro bono, Letter of Intent. It's so hard to unless write those up unless you have a lawyer.

Also why not link the articles directly?
To add further, doesn't America have its own share of "ghost cities" that were once booming but are now decrepit?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ghost_towns_in_the_Uni...

I'd be more interested in why two such different countries as the US and China seem to have independently arrived at the same problem of ghost cities. We know that China's problems arise from a top-down, state-directed model of development under a one-party rule. But that was never the case in the US, right?

Conversely, there are very few instances of such ghost cities in India (at least that I know of). Possibly because India's urban development has up till now (though today many new cities are currently being proposed as urbanization becomes the need of the hour in India) been much more organic and bottom-up, largely because we couldn't afford otherwise.
Hassle free log management with rsyslog and Papertrail
100 ms is a huge latency. A few usecases:

1) if you want UI visual response to be perceived as instant, you'd like to aim at 100ms or below - and you can't draw a response that fast if your code only gets the input signal 101ms after the actual physical touch.

2) if you want audio cues (say, a click sound when clicking a button; or app that plays drums/piano/whatever), then the noticeable latency is even lower; if you have to approach 100 ms then it will sound disconnected from the actual touch.

3) A common platformer or fighting game running at 60fps has 16ms per frame. If there's a 100ms input latency, then the action (say, jump or block) happens on a game world 6 frames off from what the player saw when doing that action; which tends to be too late. Only pro-players worry about single frames; but any average player is affected by 6 frame difference.

For input devices - keyboards, mice, gamepads, whatever - the acceptable latencies (not good or great, but barely acceptable) are measured at tens of ms, tops. A 50 ms difference is not tiny, it's huge.
I see. He named the revised version of CADR as CADDR :)
From here: http://www.unlambda.com/cadr/
It is presented as a "distributed network" but it is highly centralised, and therefore (as has been shown) controlled by one player, and yet when someone (Brazil in this case) moves to making it more distributed a it should be, it is painted as "controversial".
Achy Breaky Wrecking Ball
Also India is much more densely populated.
I agree with the premise of the article but I don't get the India comparison. Sure they might not be a consumerist society, but then maybe services work better there? You can't say the replica fails just because they aren't consumers. It's more like they shouldn't be trying to replicate Silicon Valley but rather build a culture that fits their own society better.
Even the iPhone's measured 50 ms must be clearly detectable (I don't have one, so can't check).

A trivial example - have an app with a picture of a snare drum that when tapped will play a sound of such drum. It's well known f the delay beteen physical touch is more than, say, 20ms - then it will sound "not instant", the sound will be perceived by your brain as a separate event; and even 10+ ms will feel delayed to any drummer.
Consider that you know that certain data is always de-allocated together. An example is when a document is opened and then closed. In that case you can make a dramatic amount of difference with arenas:

Often you can avoid almost any memory overhead. E.g. any structures that are allocated on opening a document, and deallocated on closure, can be allocated from larger buffers without keeping any information about the individual allocations. That can save anything up to 16-20 bytes per allocation with many malloc() implementations, and reduces typical allocation cost to incrementing a pointer and checking whether or not you need to allocate a new buffer (and the allocation cost for new buffers might be amortised over anything up to thousands of small allocations).

For a practical example, there's a font library that calls malloc() to allocate structures for every single glyph when opening a font. Most of the (thousands) of allocations are 4-8 bytes. Changing that to using an arena for an application I did, cut memory usage per font to about 25%-30% and cut load time for fonts to <10% by avoiding the malloc() calls.

You can achieve the same by throwing abstractions out the window and putting stuff in arrays etc. But arenas is often a very effective way of keeping the abstractions while effectively getting almost the same performance and memory usage.
Perceived audio latencies are much lower - I believe this is why designers don't include much audio cues in mobile UI's; you can do that with 3-6ms latency of keyboards/mice, but not with 50-100ms latencies.
TSO sizing and the FQ scheduler
Couple factors that make your 2% i.i.d. loss probability unlikely:

(1) Banks carry hedged books. You expect to win more frequently than 49 out of 50 times if you're instantaneously buying and selling FX in different regions, or delta hedging an option book.

(2) The riskier assets also tend to be illiquid. This delays loss recognition, not necessarily out of deviousness, but because nobody realises the loan in question is a dud until someone tries to market it.

(3) Market returns are not i.i.d. They are correlated. This makes streaks more likely.
Analysis and Prediction of ‘Closed Questions’ on Stack Overflow [scribd]
What I don't get is why people are comfortable using something that uniquely identifies themselves as a password, not a user ID. To me, this is backwards thinking. The fingerprint reader could still be useful, once scanned you may enter your password or passcode and unlock the device.

Put differently, would you be comfortable leaving a copy of your passwords on everything you touch? If not, why not?

I bought my first real 'desktop replacement' laptop years ago, a Thinkpad T61P. It cost a fortune but it blew every other laptop I used away, and had a fingerprint reader which I though was really cool. Then I saw the YouTube videos starting to surface with people using gummy bears to defeat them. I was disappointed, sure, but I just disabled the fingerprint scanner and enjoyed the rest of the functionality of the laptop.

I think the sensible thing to do if you buy a new iPhone is to recognise Apple got it wrong with the fingerprint reader, and enjoy all the other cool features of your new phone. It isn't an 'all or nothing' proposition.

I also think there is an opportunity for Apple to offer users the choice whether the fingerprint should be used as the username or password.
I noticed that recently as well. Some of them actually say "X shared contacts" below them as well. I know for a fact some of these people are not on LinkedIn, so it's essentially building up shadow profiles and trying to get users to "invite" them to the website for them.
>Is the fingerprint acting only as a "master password", which means you still have to set-up your password for iTunes first?, and then it just re-uses that iTunes password after you used the fingerprint-master password?

That's the right answer I believe.
An intuitive way to sense latency is to drag you finger and see how far behind the cursor trails.

Research showed that people can perceive even quite low latency:
http://www.techspot.com/news/47784-advances-in-touch-screens...
(NOTE: the article incorrectly states this is a device - it is NOT, it's just an experimental setup to measure latency perception, i.e. fake.)

I would expect the whole processing path - touch, bandwidth, CPU, RAM, OS, app, GPU, display - to factor into latency, just as it does for VR (see John Carmack's talk on latency for Oculus Rift).

Interestingly, mouse cursors seem instant to me (below perceptible latency), though it's slightly harder to tell, because the mouse isn't on the screen (and if you put it on the screen, the scaling is way off).
Since it is a ccTLD, it is a nepalese internal matter and I don't see why ICANN should be involved at all. Ask local authorities, write to the governement, raise the issue in the local Internet community, etc.
Your snark is misplaced. Atleast they're trying to change.
You can't go from IT services to Silicon Valley overnight.

Though the article was right when it said :

"Some experts feel Indian tech firms should instead be freeing up the talent they already have to work on the next big thing."

This doesnt happen enough .I work at a small IT firm in India. Its trying to develop its own apps in a small subsidiary it incubated with its own revenue. They aren't very successful yet. But understand that things here are changing and eventually we will catch up. There's too much potential here . Its only a matter of time.
I listed the genres, then wanted to type `mplayer Techno` instead of `play Techno`...
Except what I'm not seeing is a description of the design of this electrical switch. It's certainly not a normal switch - dynamo-technology implies some kind of motorization to close the contacts.

Of course if there's a lesson here it's already been learned - this is more a commentary on "things we did in the Cold War".
[11:31:37.963] SyntaxError: missing } after property list @ http://www.bentobox.io/content.js:627
Just tested it and It really allows me to make calls even with the phone locked.
Logs Don't Lie (for SEO) : Google Analytics don't telling us all the truth
I don't know if you're baiting for a conspiracy, but I'd go as far as to say top level politics are to blame in both countries, albeit more directly in the case of China.
this is a big improvement over this article.

"Indian IT firm accused of discrimination against “stupid Americans"

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/08/indian...
It now looks like feathered dinosaurs were a lot more common than that though. Virtually all of the raptors (velociraptor, utahraptor, etc) are assumed to be feathered based on fossil evidence today. When I was in grade school the real breakthroughs were in the area of evidence of warm-blooded dinosaurs. More recently though, there have been a lot of breakthroughs suggesting feathers were much earlier than we had previously thought.
I would join such a venture in a heartbeat. However I don't think the Chinese would appreciate their colonizing habits being put in reverse.
The Egypt-Gaza crossing at Rafah is passable, though frequently closed (due to Egyptian restrictions). The Allenby/King Hussein Bridge from Jordan to the West Bank, on the other hand, is an Israeli-run border crossing, and it is definitely the least inviting crossing I've ever been through.
Then how is it new development? Your post doesn't make any sense in that context.
Thanks for the response. I was wondering if there is any policy of ICANN that compells local registrars to provide minimum support.
Erm, Indian IT services companies aren't exactly youngsters. Here are the 'birthdays' of the biggest four:

- TCS: 1968
- Infosys: 1981
- Wipro: 1966
- HCL: 1991

To clarify, I'm disputing your "overnight" remark.
Twitter complaints: Companies respond more quickly
Microsoft too slow on phones, admits boss Steve Ballmer
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Phone app offers 'verbal autopsies' to improve death records
Ask and you shall receive... I was curious about same, and compiled some data from Gartner and IDC.

http://exceltactics.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Smartphon...

The kicker here is just how much the market for smartphones grew in the past 3 years. Back when BlackBerry had that impressive market share in 2009, the entire size of the smartphone market was miniscule (171m units shipped) compared with the end of 2012 (701m). Shipments are up even more (47% year/year) in 2013.

In fact, BlackBerry shipped as many units in 2012 as in 2009. It just so happens that Android shipped 13x that (and Apple managed near 4x)...
1. Light-gray on black color scheme invites eye strain.

2. Bright orange link text is even more horrible than usual because of light gray on black color scheme.

3. Extra tiny font size (1em) is almost unreadable against black background.

4. There are constant readability crimes in the text with overuse of scare quotes, unnecessary abuse of the 'and/or' abomination, incorrect use of double scare quotes outside literal quotations, and overuse of parenthetical statements.

5. Use of "beg the question" to mean "raise the question" is incorrect.

The content was fine, but you'd better be young, brave, and impervious to pain if you want to access it.
As long as their services divisions were growing fast they had no reason to look elsewhere. Now that growth in their traditional markets has slowed down they have no choice but to innovate.
> This is not about making the world a better place. This about allowing the elite that can afford it to live forever.

You're probably right. But any advantages in medicine eventually will boost available level of tools to all. Well it worked as this so far. Elite is just able to get the best much earlier - but that doesn't mean we should stop all scientific progress and reset to the level of medicine everybody can get.
Is there any way we can force Mercantile Corp. to let us edit nameservers ourselves? There's no any law regarding domain naes in Nepal, so are there international laws? ICANN Registrars' Policy? Anything that helps?
Javalarm: Wake Up and Smell the Coffee
Apple Stops Signing iOS 6.1.3/iOS 6.1.4 Following Release of iOS 7
An utterly confusing and glib article.

Firstly, it says Indian IT companies are hiring "failed entrepreneurs and successful VCs" without specifying what that means, or why that should be the case.

As another commenter has pointed out, the entrepreneurs being hired are "experienced" (I'd even say "ex-entrepreneurs"), not "failed" ones. There's no evidence as to why they "failed". Did they go bankrupt? Did they grow at less than industry average? And what company on earth goes looking for "failed entrepreneurs" by design?

Conversely, why are "successful VCs" joining staid services companies that are poor paymasters? Doesn't make sense.

The combination - "failed executives and successful VCs" is even more hilarity. What is the logic? [Edited a typo]
Indeed.

I think what I was trying to point out is that this doesn't add weight to early dinosaurs being feathered. These feathers are from the same period as Velociraptors.

It's cool, its fascinating and it's mind-blowing that some of these feathers could be from Velociraptor-like creatures! It's also great science.

But I was guarding against people saying "proven: all dinosaurs had feathers" which is the inevitable route that some of the internet commentary will take.
You're supposed to use separate cezvas. If you're doing it absolutely properly then its' one cezva per patron. That's how my grandmother used to do it when she owned a restaurant. Still has a dozen of those tiny things laying around.
I certainly hope there is no foreign law forcing how a sovereign country must manage its domain names.
> Now that growth in their traditional markets has slowed down...

Would you care to clarify what year "now" means?
Apparently, .np has no registrar at all but a direct relationship registrant<->regsitry.
If they were cheap, they wouldn't be ghost cities. They're ghost cities because poor people got kicked out of their homes to build expensive buildings that they now won't let go of for low prices. Eventually of course they'll need to sell it, once China's real estate bubble starts to pop.
DNA only lasts 10,000 years. They'd need a lot of DNA from a single dinosaur type to be able to stitch enough strands together to make one.

However… Mammoths!?
Because broswer detection is an anti-pattern , and you dont know in a few years if chrome will do the same... Will you go back to all your projects to fix them ?
It is really hard to work out the truth of these stories.

They always mention these as "Ghost Cities" but the numbers are always mentioned like "This city was meant to house upto a million people"... a million people, is not a city, it's a large suburb. Or a very small city (in China), given they always build with med-high density housing.

Could the reporters please do there job and ask the farmers out of earshot of the "government minders" (What exactly are they?). Having spoken to a number of different government officials in China, there are many who are openly skeptical of the Communist party (and many who are die hard believers). This idea that if you say something wrong you'll be thrown away, doesn't seem to hold true. (Maybe it's different when talking to media).
The New Face of Feynman Diagrams?
Think about this: iOS7 brand new interface sucks so much that on previous iPhones it lags EXACTLY like poor Android-based devices
Those will get filled with people within about two years. It works about thise way:

1. A road grid are build with 4 lane roads, redlights, etc.
2. Housing complexed are build on the resulting squares with the ground floor for business and shops.
3. Small businesses get the ground floor spaces for free for two years, to make them move in here despite not having any peolpe living there.
4. People start to move in, because there are shops around and the rents and still low.
5. After two years, the buildings are largely rented or sold out, the shops start to earn money and pay rent too.
6. After 4 years it looks like the center of a city.

I have lived in such places, both at the very begining when there was nothing around, and later when it seemed to be an overcrowded city center.

All these stories about "Chinas empty buildings" are largely bullshit. At least on the east coast.
Am I the only one to notice this?

"...so it is rare that...two separate fingerprints are alike enough to register as a match for Touch ID. The probability of this happening is 1 in 50,000 for one enrolled finger. This is much better than the 1 in 10,000 odds of guessing a typical 4-digit passcode...the 1 in 50,000 probability means it requires trying up to 50,000 different fingerprints until potentially finding a random match. But Touch ID only allows five unsuccessful fingerprint match attempts before you must enter your passcode..."

So Touch ID odds are 50,000 while passcode is only 10,000. But since you only have five attempts for Touch ID to switch back to passcode, The Touch ID security only adds 5 odds to the previous passcode system and we end up with 10,005 odds of some successfully breaking into your phone.

A whole system to gain 5 odds of breaking into the phone. Brilliant.
Is iPhone fingerprint scanner less secure?
Can police unlock your phone by forcing your finger to touch the scanner?
We're at a Startup Weekend, and are building an alarm clock for phones that shows an ad for a local indie coffee shop when you wake up each morning, giving you a chance of winning a free coffee there that you must claim on the day you win it.

If you run an indie coffee shop, we'd love to know whether you'd be interested in hyper-local advertising that will target people who may not know about you, and travellers who are looking for great coffee off the beaten track. Please consider taking our very short survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/W87HM8M

Thankee!
I would suggest however that you reach out to the ccNSO (Country Code Names Supporting Organisation); they are the body within ICANN that handles ccTLDs. The ccNSO can't force them to behave but they can strongly suggest they pull their finger out. http://ccnso.icann.org/

If Mercantile are also registrars for gTLDs as well then you talk to the Registrar Compliance Program staff and see if they can nudge them. There is a form that you can use on this page to register complaints about ccTLD registrars; http://www.icann.org/en/resources/compliance/complaints
Tested it as well. Extremely easy to exploit.
I doubt there's much you can do, except having the contract legally enforced.

Would that be viable?
Start working on independent visualisation projects using d3.js.Data visualisation is not data science but 90% of people cant really tell the difference and if you can build up an impressive visual portfolio you will get the work you want. Whether you can do the work or not is more dependent on how you can get through Q4373j3bs excellent reading list however.

Another thing you can do is attack real world problems,there is a shocking amount of bad data science out there.
See:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/04/16/reinhart_rogo...
Allocation on every struct and string value is hardly sporadic for a library designed for (de-)serialisation. Hearing that makes me think that the first thing anyone should do if using this is to profile, as there's a very real chance that malloc() will dominate CPU usage for the deserialisation in that case.

The problem is that malloc() needs to be generic. It's not about never calling malloc(), but about deciding when it is necessary for your use case vs. specialized solutions tailored to your use.

In many cases you may know that the allocated structure will always be de-allocated at the same time, for example, in which cases pools/arenas can outperform malloc() by a magnitude or more in the right circumstances, and can also use less memory.
Nope, not baiting. Genuine question.
You missed the later part where they indicated that, because Touch ID means you don't have to enter a pass ode as often, you should use a complex alpha-numeric pass code instead.

That should help increase those odds again.
The links you provided are really useful. Thanks. Mercantile is a private company and its ccTLD and gTLD sections work independently. I winder how it got authority of choosing extensions and registering without a minimum required service quality. Is there any possibility that ICANN revokes the authority from Mercantile and find an alternative?
It's stored inside a portion of the A7 chip that accepts writes, but apparently not direct reads. Further analysis will hopefully show whether this was successfully implemented or not.
> DNA only lasts 10,000 years.

Source? Seems like an arbitrary number plucked out of somebodies ass.
The service is free, that's probably the main reason why they are showing carelessness. There is no any legal contract signed when registering the domain names, so I'm not sure about it.