skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The only dispute here is whether Facebook's short-term fixation on control is bad for the long-term health of their ecosystem, which is by far the company's largest asset.

But what is FB's "ecosystem"? Is it just their current users? Or is it all their potential users, including those who do not yet use FB at all? I think FB believes that it's the latter, and that it can capture the most value from all those potential users by exerting tight control over the FB user experience.

More precisely, I think FB believes that the costs of exerting tight control over the FB user experience (i.e., the discontent it causes among some fraction of existing users) are far outweighed by the benefits of capturing as many potential users as possible and making them stay within the FB walled garden. To capture new users, the UI doesn't have to be good; it just has to be good enough, and "good enough" to someone who hasn't yet used FB at all is a low bar.

The real test will come when the market saturates and the above reasoning no longer applies. Based on what other companies in similar positions have done in the past (with Microsoft being the #1 example), I don't expect FB to loosen control very much, and to the extent they do, it will be, as I said in another post in this thread, more to allow third party developers to do market research for them than anything else. But we'll see.
No, actually. He used the same argument, siting some group that he thinks has successfully "assimilated" (assimilated is a rather colonialist notion anyway, and the "model minority" concept is hardly racially just) and some group(s) that he thinks can't or won't. But that same argument, well the X were here, but now the Y people just aren't like us and want to stay on their own has been used against the first generation(s) of nearly every immigration wave
Presumably they can terminate his account for any reason they like. There's no legal right to a Facebook account, so they don't have to hunt for any terms he might have violated.

But yes, I don't see how they could expect to win in court if they decided to go further than that, but in losing they could ruin his life.
And how strongly do you believe your speculation? I think you are completely wrong, so I'm curious. What do you place the odds at that sites similar to Atlantis and SR(namely sheep and bmr) will go down by the end of the year?
> - they aren't establishing or milking a monopoly - they aren't making commodity hardware - they aren't engaging in predatory pricing

Huh? Yes, they are! A patent is a monopoly [1]. They did not invent this rotten system, but they sure are milking it for all it's worth. Not engaging in predatory pricing? Do you know how much Microsoft and Apple demand of Android manufacturers to let them keep their features?

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-granted_monopoly
Ruby Refactoring Cheatsheet
Good post, thanks for bringing everyone's attention to it.

Quite often I imagine many choose not say anything, and things should be said. It is certainly not going to change the person who posted that. I doubt one can "grow" from that low of a level to become much, but it highlights an important topic for everyone else. I will certainly be more mindful and try to be more inclusive when talking to groups (I am guilty of using "guys" often even in mixed groups).

At the same time one can generalize this and ask "how should we deal with trolls in online communities?". Gross jokes, racist comments, the worst one can imagine pop up often in anonymous online communities. The joke about how the language is now "famous" was perhaps not a good joke but there is dose of truth. The language is more visible. One certainly could have logged into the channel even if it had 2 people in it and proceeded to make offensive comments, but the chance of that was just lower. Now it is higher. There will be worse comments seen as well. Sadly it is just a fact of human nature and interaction online.

Now to dig at it a little deeper. I wonder if the disgust and shock was aimed equally at the silent majority, who I suspect, the author feels should have condemned the insult publicly. Sometimes things are written between the lines. The expectation is that one a member of a group is attack I would want to be defended by other members or at least get private words of support from them. And that would make sense except that the practical means of dealing with a troll is to ban and ignore. Condemning things publicly, calling them names back, insulting, even openly discussing it while they are around, just fuels the fire for them. They mission is accomplished then. So everyone ignores them. But to the person who was attacked, it seems like the tacit majority agrees with the attacker or at least doesn't feel the attack warrants words of support.
Congratulations on your success so far . . .

As for changing careers start here . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CDXJ6bMkMY

Then catch up on . . .

http://StartUpsForTheRestOfUs.com

Sounds like you would be more interested in starting your own business rather than working for someone else.

Learning development is a great start . . . and great skill to have.

Rails is a good choice . . .

Before jumping into Rails I would start with HTML/CSS create some basic websites . . .

Then learn some javascript and jQuery . . .

I think you would learn more by building a few simple web apps using PHP and MySQL so you can learn what it's like to build one without a framework . . . login/user types/CRUD . . . then once you have the basics down then see what it's like creating the same app in Rails. Rails is easier to understand once you know what is going on behind the scenes.

http://teamtreehouse.com
Has some great tutorials . . . for HTML/CSS, js, PHP MySQL and RAILS.

If you're not interested in starting your own business becoming proficient in rails is a great career track.
Actually, the Randomcat came in very useful for CatChat: http://habitual-cracker-680.appalot.me/install.html
Whoops, you're absolutely right about the 30k. I'm leaving my poor arithmetic up there for posterity.

So. So so so. First of all, I gotta say, you are very good at writing how you feel. Which is quite the nontrivial thing. People are gonna jump all over you for your very admirable tour de honesty. Don't let the turkeys get ya down (as my mom always said).

Second of all. It sounds like you are in a bona fide self-loathing free-floating ambition doom spiral. (I am no stranger to them myself.) And as though your usual way of caring for your soul in pain is to sit on it firmly until it stops screaming. So, speaking of souls, & their care and keeping, I think you should get a book called _Care Of The Soul_ by Thomas Moore and read chapters 3 and 9 in particular. Also if you can get your hands on _The Power Of Myth_by Joseph Campbell, that one's not bad one either.

Hang in there, unknown internet buddy. I believe you when you say it's not about the money. But---if you'll allow me to be a little crude, here---greatness is not some constipated stool than we can anger-push out of us. First we gotta linger for a little bit with the Dulcolax of philosophy.
I had one rock-solid MacBook, followed by one that would kernel panic 2-3 times per week. Switching RAM chips took care of the issue. YMMV
He's alleged to have paid to have someone tortured to death after they were arrested, on the off-chance that the person might have talked to police (the $80,000 murder). Not because the person talked, but because the person had been arrested.

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure any half-decent cop would be using the logs of that conversation to convert that person into a witness.
It makes me sad that interacting with a community has to come with disclaimers :x
Ask HN: Journalists, what do you want from story requests?
Hey HN, I'm planning a software product in the press space, and I'd like to know what you'd want from someone requesting that you write an article about their startup.

Here's what I've got from some brainstorming and asking around my personal network:
- Startup name
- Hi-res logo
- Screenshots/photos of the product
- Description of the product/service
- History (founders' names, previous startups they've done, investors/accelerators if any)
- Quid pro quo (money, free swag/product/service, etc)

Please let me know if I missed anything, or if there's anything on this list that you don't care about.

I'd love to hear from journalists, OR anyone who's had success generating PR for their startup.

Thanks HN!
FYI - I saw some weird googlesite errors that might be related to the (moderate) load it's getting at the moment.

The visualization is also on this googledrive site

https://googledrive.com/host/0B_n1OLMaOursX2hsRUhZNElwZmc/
The "maximize shareholder value" chant

I didn't say "maximize shareholder value". I said FB has to make decisions that benefit their stockholders; that's not quite the same thing.

Also, as I pointed out in another subthread, there's a big difference between a company that gets revenue from users directly (like Amazon, the example brought up in that subthread--or like a car company) and a company whose users only generate revenue indirectly, as FB's users do (through ads). The latter kind of company has a much weaker link between benefiting users and benefiting shareholders than the former does. I've outlined in other posts in this thread the strategy I think FB is following, and it's not a strategy that's focused on maximizing their short-term return on capital, but it still makes them act in ways that make at least some subset of their current users dissatisfied.
Elon Musk has used Twitter virtuously.
Replaces Unity.

Here's a few to check out: http://askubuntu.com/questions/65083/what-different-desktop-...
That might or might not be the assumption behind the regulation. But in practice, the most visible effect of such a regulation is to discourage employers from replacing full-time workers with part-time workers, and therefore keep the majority of the society's workforce employed full-time rather than part-time.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me on the following, but I think "labor rights" as we know it are not inalienable human rights, but a set of legal mechanisms to improve the bargaining position of employees. If something like basic income makes it possible for people to quit unfulfilling jobs without having to worry about putting food on the table, I think that will dramatically improve employees' bargaining position and make a lot of existing labor rights redundant.
I've had similar problems with RVM. Ultimately I used the system-wide RVM installation and this chunk of code:

export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/rvm/bin/rvm
. /usr/local/rvm/scripts/rvm
. $REPO/.rvmrc
. $(rvm jruby-$JRUBY_VERSION do rvm env --path)
cd $REPO
bundle exec torquebox deploy

Definitely not ideal and I spent a large amount of hours figuring out how to use it non-interactively. I'm still somewhat worried that some things might go wrong if some of the code I didn't write in this repo attempts to call binaries directly. Basically with bundle exec --deployment, all gems are stored in $CODE/.vendor which is necessary to allow users to install their own gems, with the root installation. Bundle exec has to be used, I messed around with RVM wrappers, but they don't work with the --deployment bundler use.
Ah, thank you. I hadn't heard of the challenge and didn't know the size of the number being factored. So this will mainly affect 1024 bit keys, rather than 2048+ bit keys, I presume.
It would be nice if the color of each country would change over time representing the net change in population.

But very cool as is, nice work!
He could also be using it the wrong way. Although MongoDB has faults, most of them are well known and developers are warned. MongoDB is far from being perfect, but the most common reason people hate on MongoDB is because they did things the wrong way or for the wrong reasons.
Unless it is a restaurant. Then it seems to be ok /s.

Obligatory article on it:

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/08/...
A friend of mine used to say, "for software you just need a computer, electricity, and time." You probably can afford a computer and electricity. And since you spend less than your passive income, you have time.

Your other advantages:

1. You have an engineering background

2. Internet makes it so much easier to find information; don't even need to buy so many books from amazon

You can definitely become a very good self-taught programmer, if you put the time into it. But whether this translates into millions is a different story (more subject to randomness -- whether market wants to pay for your software, etc.)
Predatory pricing occurs when you sell a product at such low prices that it deters other companies from entering the market. Apple has many flaws but that isn't one of them.

You are correct that patents are considered a form of monopoly, but that is a different sense of the word than what the OP refers to, that is, holding a monopoly over a particular good or market. Apple doesn't have a monopoly in any of the markets it participates in and there are plenty of substitute goods and competitive corporations within the same markets.
Here, have a Gist for creating proper WARC's, ready for the Internet Archive:

https://gist.github.com/Asparagirl/6202872

And a Gist for uploading the completed WARC's to the IA using their s3-like service:

https://gist.github.com/Asparagirl/6206247

Final step is to e-mail someone at Archive Team with admin rights to move your IA upload into the proper "Archive Team" bucket, instead of "Community Texts". The awesome Mr. Jason Scott should be able to help you with that.
For us that don't understand, what does this mean? Is RSA less secure now?
>The most effective way to learn is to go out and find the people who should be using the product, and talk to them.

Problem is? if they are taking the time to talk to you, they are giving you free advice. For whatever reason, they like you.

If you are doing a product that does face to face sales? that's fine. People like you, they buy your product.

However, this tells you very little about how good the product is on it's own, as a low-touch commodity product; so it's not all that useful if you are building something to scale (rather than scaling a marketing organization, which is a very different sort of problem.)

Also, most people? they are trapped in their own worldview, so they can't tell you what they need. "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses" - Really, to actually innovate? You need to both understand customer needs /and/ the technologies you have on hand that could serve those needs in ways they are not currently being served.

My philosophy has always been to build into a market I knew. Sell to yourself. If you want to sell to a new market, learn about /that/ market first. I mean, this approach has it's own problems[1], but eh, it does mean you know when you are providing actual value, rather than having to sort out "this person likes me" vs. "this person likes my product"

[1]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6480139
To clarify, this is not a new factoring record for products of two primes. RSA-768, a 232-digit number (22 digits longer) was factored in 2009, and that record still stands. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_numbers#RSA-768

The algorithm used here is GNFS (general number field sieve), which is the same algorithm that's been used for about two decades. In other words, this has no impact on the security of RSA.

More information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integer_factorization_records
Go with a fixed fee for a set scope of work . . .

I don't like hourly and definitely don't go with hourly not to exceed.

Break it up in to multiple mile stones with incremental delivery, review/revisions and payment . . .

I would have early initial milestones so you make sure you and the client are on the same page . . . and that they are happy with the initial work and making payments . . .

If you can maybe quote 1 or 2 phases and see how the project is proceeding and if you are making a profit . . . you could also take some time to mock up a more difficult part to see how it's coming together and then quote that difficult phase as you are working on the initial ones . . . if a particular phase that you already have quoted don't be afraid to approach the client and see if you can work out an adjusted fee so you're both happy and a quality project is delivered.

I would setup the IP stating that you won't reuse the project in it's entirety but that you have the right to reuse portions of the code in previous, current and future projects. As most projects have modules you've used before, will use on your current project and on future projects.

There are some good boiler plate contracts out there.

Good luck with your first freelance project.
- re:re:food: "cook yourself"? agree that will save money, not sure about healthier; though if gangrene necessitates limb removal, then possible best choice there.
> I wonder if the disgust and shock was aimed equally at the silent majority, who I suspect, the author feels should have condemned the insult publicly.

It's IRC not a real world meeting. The silent majority is that way because they're not actually there and watching.
I was wondering if this was influenced by Nix. I believe they're really on to something with that system, but it's tremendously tricky to use at this point in time.
No, it's the solution to one of the problems in the RSA Factoring Challenge [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_Factoring_Challenge
>> Software is inherently mid- to high-risk. "Low-risk" just doesn't exist in a world where half of all projects fail

Risk is a function of both the likelihood and consequences of failure. If you can try and fail a hundred times without quitting your job and only take that plunge when it is derisked (by increased information derived from operation) then it is inherently low risk. Sure throwing 100% into a startup from the beginning makes that individual effort more likely to succeed while being much more risky, but nights/weekend projects can evolve to sustainable businesses without increasing your risk profile. This is because the consequences of failure are near zero, and even a failed effort may be "profitable" in the net sense of connections and marketable skills gained.
The Tesla S has the most insane in-car touchscreen multimedia system ever
I think it boils down to one thing. How would you feel during your speech announcing that you're leaving?

I recently thought about how this speech would go for me, and I actually started getting a little emotional. There is such a strong feeling of community at my job (and this is after a mere 6 months of working there), and I've made some really strong friendships here.

One think I feel is important is that being happy at your job doesn't mean enjoying every second of it. I have to do stuff every day that makes me moan and groan. Supporting IE8 isn't fun times - but when you can manage at least 3 honest belly laughs a day at work, you've found a home.
What makes you think that this "unremarkable" hunk of meat can simulate itself?

Btw, I believe in God (look up Godel's proof) and am a strict monist. I also feel
Human-level weak AI is possible.
I'm glad you found the image useful. No need for any attribution, the graph is in the public domain. Somebody should produce a better version with more accurate proportions based on the Swiss data, possibly with a log scale on the vertical axis to accommodate all income brackets. Then we can really start asking questions about whether that kind of curve is attainable and/or "affordable".

By the way, one of the replies on Twitter says the curve on the right should be linear. Nope. The fact that the curve on the right still has a noticeable slope is the only thing that keeps Friedman, Hayek, and all your favorite (left|right)-libertarians on board the scheme.
It doesn't really even affect 1024 bit keys as even the largest RSA keys factored (this one is close but isn't) are quite a bit far away from 1024 (remember factoring difficulty scales exponentially with number of bits, not linearly). But 2048 bit keys are recommended I believe.
It just means that lower bit keys are less secure as was known. Folks have been trying to get people to switch to higher bit keys as a result. RSA-210 is just the name of the challenge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_numbers#RSA-210

There's still 1024bits, which is still in common use and more people are switching to 2048. You're still fine.
> To expect Airbnb research hotel laws and taxes in every country they operate in seems like an undue burden.

You mean like hotel companies that research hotel laws and taxes in every country they operate in?
Ask HN: What trends do you think will shape startups in the next 10 years?
I would say if you charged $2k/week and met your promises you would make one hell of a name for yourself. As prof devs we charge more than that, but I have found that the more we deliver the more we can charge and frankly the more we can frankly demand. 4-5k/week is still fairly (cheap) reasonable per developer depending on your area and experience, just to give you an idea. But for a newbie, I would stick with the 1.5k-2.5k/week. And please don't try and charge per hour, our experience is it just never works out in the benefit of anyone. If you are learning on the job, then it isn't fair to the client, and if you aren't and are proficient then your estimate should easily take into consideration the weekly billable rate and hours to complete the project. When you bill by the hour my experience is people feel you owe them every minute and will chase you for it, if you bill by the week and provide them valuable service they are more than happy to let you be and get your work done.

At least that has been our experience over the past few years.

Good luck either way, and make sure you graduate with good grades, regardless of your choices for college! Also, charge 1.5-2k/week and ask them that for the consideration of a discount you want to utilize their name in advertising or as a reference on future work. It is all your risk to deliver and do your job, but pays you back massively over time, not to mention rarely will people object to this if you do your job.
That's pretty snarky
It's also posted on Subterranean's site: http://subterraneanpress.com/magazine/fall_2010/fiction_the_...
Wasn't meaning to start a distro thread, but yeah I've noticed there's lots of nice docs from arch and the community seems quite large. Haven't tried it myself but understand its build system provides less configurability, so don't think I'd gain from a switch. (I use a lot of Gentoo USE config stuff, particularly on cluster and higher security node deployments to reduce dependencies and overall code bloat, which is one reason I really value Gentoo. Though still not perfect, it's pretty damn good for many of my use cases.)
It's as secure as it ever was, it just shows how advancing technology means that you can brute force a larger number. RSA is dependent on math problems that take a fairly long time to solve unless you know one of the base factors. What this is saying is that on a ~$5000 computer, it will take a bit over a couple days to factor a 697 bit RSA number. This is more a demonstration as to why you need to continually increase RSA keysizes -- at this point, a 1024 bit number is probably within range of something a three letter agency could factor within reason.
$9 for a movie? You're getting a deal or living in 2001. Around here, you'd drop $15 minimum; $20+ if you want IMAX 3D or whatever that latest hype/junk is.
I try to aim for being productive at work and hedonistic at home. "Work hard, play hard" is the traditional phrasing.
Learning Node, Express, Jade, MongoDB from scratch