skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> "51 security vulnerabilities are addressed in Java this quarter, and 50 of them affect Java Applets or Java WebStart, the plugin that runs Java in your web browser. Worse yet, all but one are remotely exploitable without authentication."

I wonder is that's just where all the cruft is, or if Oracle is getting serious about webstart?
Just to comment on your example, that method shouldn't exist as it adds no value to the codebase - it is purely redundant code. Especially if you were to rename it to convertTextToUpperCase.

The only situation where the method would make sense is if you wanted to be able to change the implementation in the future (TitleCase, LowerCase etc.), in which case a better renaming would be covertTextForDisplayInTitles (i.e. Use the method name to comment why we need to convert the text). That has the added benefit of also telling you what the method does in your IDE just from its signature.
How does that work? I'm genuinely wondering.
EDIT: What? Why? Apparently I'm also slowbanned and it's been a year.. I really don't get why…
I think if the US must continue to have such draconian and onerous entry requirements they should offer a fast track or simplified program for persons of note to attend a specific event in their field.

To not do so simply hinders the progress of human knowledge, or at least, it hinders the United States.
Thank you!

Credit for the bulk of the work must go to Stephen McDonald who made Mezzanine and Drum, of course.

Blog post with more info here: http://hypertexthero.com/logbook/2013/10/intro-food-news/

The source is here: https://github.com/hypertexthero/fn

I'll check out the CSS triangle.
While this might seem promising in the surface, I don't see a change if leadership as an immediate indication that the agency is going to be overhauled.

I'd like to read Alexander's departure as a practical acknowledgement that the agency's work is likely to have to be conducted in the open from now on, and that new leadership is necessary to make that happen. However, it is just as likely that the man is leaving out of embarrassment over the fact that his lax security allowed Snowden's leaks to occur in the first place. Let's not forget, the leaks were a major blow to the operational integrity of the NSA. This is further backed up by timing of the departure: if he had left immediately after the leaks, at the height of the media coverage, it would have been seen as a result of embarrassment of the program.

Or, maybe he just left because he's been at the job for a while.
> I just get the feeling that Oracle doesn't really give a shit about anything other than that god damned boat.

I was helping out a cousin install Oracle on Oracle Linux, and I found it way too complicated to set up. Installing their flagship product on their official distribution was a pain. All they could have done is provide proper repos/rpms. It's sad that they couldn't get that right.
I have two examples to share. A simple whiteboard question I ask is "Write a function to compute interest on your money. You have $X and I'm going to give you y% interesting for Z years."

I'm generally happy if they don't ask any questions and write a simple interest calculator. Most people ask some questions about when interest is calculated during the year. Then, if the questions haven't gotten us there yet, I ask them to modify it to a compound interest calculator where you can also contribute some money every year.

I've never had anyone who didn't understand the concept or what I was after. Or at least I didn't have anyone who admitted to still not understanding how it worked.

Two people stand out.

One of them immediately tried to write a recursive function and got lost. Then started over and tried to calculate a one-liner to do compound interest without looping. Couldn't get it, started over with a for-loop and failed to return in the proper place: the code was returning a value and then immediate next line was more calculation.

The second let me explain the problem and then said "I'm sure there's some library call for calculating compound interest, I'm just not sure what it is." Full stop. I explained that I wasn't asking for the library call, I was asking them to work up the algorithm and write code that did it.

They repeated the statement that there was a library call for it but they didn't know it and that if the interview was going to be about the specifics of library functions then it wasn't going to be a good interview.

In both cases these people passed a phone screen focusing mainly on experience, algorithms, design, etc... Since then I've adapted the phone screen to cover more of Steve Yegge's points [1] and I actually include a small coding question on the phone.

I don't think my system is perfect, but in the last round of hiring the people who made it through the screen were almost all good technically and weren't offered positions because of fit with the team. I'm sure there were a few people who might have been good that got filtered out by writing code over the phone but at the time I was willing to risk that vs the time commitment for the rest of my team to do on-site interviews for someone that could be DOA.

[1] https://sites.google.com/site/steveyegge2/five-essential-pho...
A New Task Manager That Easily Adapts To Your Changing Priorities.
Would you rather go to one extreme or to the other one?

Please downvote me again.
"Added support for GNU Hurd."

10/10.
The author is correct. After attending a recent JS conference I didn't notice any of the hartz IV people there but just a bunch of exiles from other tech cities who had moved to berlin for something exotic. Unfortunately this will mean a direct copy of silicon valley as all the people moving here to create the tech boom know nothing else to copy. Would be good if the tech here was a focused on solving real world problems instead of creating the next latest and greatest advertising model...
If you don't already know about it, take a look at what the NodeCopter guys are doing.

http://nodecopter.com
Siemens Enterprises rebrands to Unify
First, I think more documentation always beats less documentation, assuming reasonable quality. What the article is getting at is the idea that documentation for the sake of documentation never results in any quality.

When I write a new module for LedgerSMB (I won't vouch for older code either by myself or others) I actually start writing the documentation. The reason here is that the documentation is written primarily to establish the contracts under which the code operates. This includes concept of operation documentation as well. It isn't just aimed at other programmers. It is aimed at documenting the code contracts so that it is clear what are acceptable operations at first.

So if there is a fallacy it is not that more code documentation is better (since that is often true, IMO), but rather that telling people to document for the sake of building documentation works.
Telecom Recharge Plans API aggregates plans from the various cellular service providers across all circles in India on a daily basis. It lets users deal with the complexity of plans and offerings.
That's something we can all agree on, but then why bring quantity into the discussion? I prefer lots of useful comments over few useful comments.
Thought this was announcing a web version of VS.
Once again Microsoft has learned a lesson from Linux: the upgrade comes free of charge to existing users. Not quite the same yet, but it's getting there.
Li-Fi to replace Wi-fi in China?
Umm, how is it in their best interest to show higher number exactly?

And wrt the definitive number - "Mrs Clinton said that although the index was not perfect, it provided a starting point, according to the Associated Press."
I always wonder when I see these posts on HN whether we have a lot of people with gambling problems on the site or something.
When Hackers Fight: A leet hacker recounts an epic pwning
Many, many people are moving from Greece, Italy and Spain to Germany for this very reason.
Family is important to me, even extended family (cousins, uncles, aunts) but I don't have the luxury of being able to visit nearly as much as I would like. I live too far away from the lot of them and some more are spaced out all over the country anyways. Factors out of my control prevent me from living anywhere else in the world.
I'm not entirely sure i understand this comment, its essentially just a service pack.
I appreciated your comment and the opportunity to further discuss a topic (privacy) that I think is important and under attack in our society today. Thank you.
> The edge of the chair where the mesh attaches puts pressure on a vein or an artery and makes my legs falls asleep.

Neither an vein, nor an artery: a nerve. The sciatic nerve, to be exact, or either/both of its main branches.
So this would be useful to services such as Online Recharge?
> spoiler alert

You ruined the whole... story you were already telling!
True story: I just woke up with a dream. In it, I was suggesting to political commentator William Kristol that Jeff Bezos was the new Steve Jobs who could fill the void left by Jobs passing. Never underestimate the power of the narrative ;-)
Perhaps ... or maybe most applications aren't worth real money to consumers? I'm not trolling and as a professional software (and hardware) developer, I'm concerned that the perception free applications give users is that they have no monetary value. This is dangerous.

Yes ... I use and contribute to open-source projects, primarily libraries, frameworks and developer tools. Does this make me a hypocrite?
Hasn't every minor Windows version been free since 95? (I could be wrong on this)
If I recall correctly service packs have always been free.
Ah, so I cannot just use any Java library that performs IO if I have to get quasar's benefits.
This is just a maintenance release. If you want to see what's coming to PHP for the next feature-release version, check the RFC wiki at https://wiki.php.net/rfc

So far, these features will probably make it to version 5.6:

* Internal Operator Overloading
* Variadic functions
Has anyone been able to download the update via the Windows Store? I'm on the 8.1 Preview and the Windows Store keeps throwing an error about not being able to connect.
Your experience of the JVM crashing and crashing often is, i believe, rather unusual.

I have been working with the JVM for many years, on large and complex systems, and i recall exactly two actual crashes - one due to a HotSpot compiler bug, and one due to a stack overflow bug in the garbage collector.

I have been part of various Java communities in physical and virtual space for as many years; we spend a lot of our time talking (or shouting) about problems we face with Java and the JVM, and although there is no shortage of them, crashes are not something i hear other people complaining about either.
For the purpose of discussion.
Service packs have always been free in Windows though. Except for maybe Win 98 SE?
I hope this will spur research and development in the area of telepresence.
I had one of those at work. Very nice looking.

But... the best chair for my back ever has been a 20€ plastic garden chair bought at Carrefour.

I guess I'm fortunate not to have expensive ass tastes.
Take note they released 8.1 on the same day as Ubuntu 13.10, which has had a planned release date for 6 months. Obvious move to negate Ubuntu news that day?
Maybe now that the early phases of globalisation have settled down and all the frontiers have dried up, the global culture of movement has died down. It's a lot harder to think of moving as a possibility, let alone a good possibility, when it isn't part of the zeitgeist. People used to do it a lot in the 1800s especially, and it was something you could get swept along in - and there was an excitement of going to a fresh place where most people were new as well, economic opportunities and social relations were still up in the air.

Now you can trade a grind in one settled area for a slightly more profitable grind in another. With the tradeoff of losing contact with your whole social milieu and having to start a lot of things from scratch in the new place, while you're surrounded by people who have a lot more than you because they've been grinding in that place for years.

Not appealing, so it's no surprise that it's mainly the highly-educated who can a) seek high value economic opportunities and b) are guaranteed a welcoming social reception from university or work colleagues :)

People like us should be more generous about the incentives governing the lives of the new post-mobility local cultures.
I was thinking about this recently, and wondered how other people think of this. Working in a high level language like Python, you can do quite a lot in one line, for example in a list comprehension.

Should a "productive" one liner be put in a separate method / function with meaningful name, or better a comment beside it?

I personally find short methods often decrease code readability, as you constantly have to jump around, and can't read anything from top to bottom.
Well, I think the code needs to be clear enough that you don't want to document unnecessarily. In general, I think code contracts should be documented, as restrictions on solutions that programmers may need to be aware of. But comments are not a substitute for clear code.
This argument is akin to saying "isn't it beautiful that I can go from Lion to Mountain Lion within the same day".

You aren't changing much, just who packaged the software together.
I can't see why 90% of the functions cannot be properly commented. In the example, the "good" documentation is, by the way, probably less work than the verbose "bad" one.

And, in my experience at least, very few times the comments are out-of-date with the code. If that's the case, once is detected, it should be treated as a bug. Fix/remove the comment.
Building Social Apps like HN with — Python, Django & Mezzanine
It's a trollish post.
What's new in Windows 8.1 can be found here: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/dn140266.aspx
Is being an entrepreneur not a gamble? Is life not a gamble? Are relationships not a gamble? I'd say every decision someone makes has an element of gambling to it. The nature of gambling is picking something over something else and hoping for the best. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
I think the problem here is that VS needs to satisfy the needs of many different types of developers and also try to appeal each ones personal preferences.

Personally I am enjoying VS2012 a lot and it is really sad that there are hardly other IDEs this good.
There are at least two major C and C++ interpreters today.
I still have no use for the full screen (Metro) start menu and apps since I use Windows 8.1 on a desktop and laptop. Classic start shell and running everything in desktop windowed mode is still all I need. I often wonder if I will someday actually want a Windows tablet instead of Android that would make this full screen stuff necessary. Until then, the full screen stuff is just annoying and ignored.
> I personally find short methods often decrease code readability, as you constantly have to jump around, and can't read anything from top to bottom.

In general, if you have to jump into every method call to understand a method that calls other methods, the names are bad – probably too short and don't state intention.
- Robert California
Based on title, I thought it was about mortgages...
IIRC you cannot upgrade from the preview of 8.1. You will have to do a clean install. So try getting an iso or some other file download from microsoft instead of the in-store one.
> Start laying (more) cables between countries that do not pass through US territory.

Also territories that have data sharing deals and probably most allies.
Tell Congress What You Think About Their Votes to End the Shutdown
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g294440-i9215-k2945624-...

in 2009 (assuming not a joke)
The less that is described by the signature, the more necessary it is to document a function. In C++/C#/Java, while the parameters and return values are often fairly obvious, exceptions are completely undocumented by the type system (unless you use Java checked exceptions, which you shouldn't), and so should be documented manually (and asserted in unit tests, to ensure the documentation doesn't become incorrect).
I agree that they don't understand, and further more, they don't even understand what 'code' is. How computers work, or what the technical innards of the computers have to do with democracy. Frankly, I don't understand the later either :(
A similar concept: http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp
Get a bank loan, most banks will do upto £15k online instantly, with an instant wire to your account. Providing you're a home owner that's probably the fastest way I can think of.
I also got a like-new Leap for under $200 from a used office supply store I found on Craigslist around four years ago. They usually sold larger quantities to businesses, but I came with cash and they were fine with that. They couldn't provide change, though, so I just rounded up to the nearest $20, which was still a steal.
My visa takes a long while.

Not quite as long as it took Adi Shamir, but long.

On average it takes about 14 weeks to get a visa, but on occasion it has taken many many months.

I've done the calculations, the worst-case scenario for the full process is 32 weeks. It's never actually taken that long, but it's not been far off.

I remember having to explain to Microsoft that they needed to write a sponsor/supporting letter (for the US embassy) more than half a year in advance of any potential visit to Redmond that I'd be working at. As this was for DAC (Developer Advisory Council) meetings that Microsoft only scheduled a month in advance they found themselves in a dilemma over this. Thankfully they agreed, and their legal department would author letters that a meeting would likely occur requiring my attendance, but it was always a slog of a process.

For those wondering, I was shortly married to a US citizen and I speculate that this triggers some flag or signal that makes them think I want to stay there (I don't). I also have an interesting past, having been homeless for a while. Who knows though, the system doesn't supply answers. It's a black box process.

It's a nightmare process that doesn't end when you have a visa. On arrival I experience the joys of "secondary", and being sat in a waiting room for many hours before a 10-second interview in which they let me go my way.

Every part of the experience is a miserable one, always with the threat of an axe over the visit.

The vast majority of the time I have been invited, or had opportunities to visit, I just do not choose to visit the USA.
Been using this for a few days already since it was released to MSDN. Definitely better than Windows 8.0 and even Windows 7.

If you don't like Metro, it's pretty easy to get rid of now but not entirely (it occasionally pokes you in the eye). My setup guide:

1. Use group policy editor to get rid of lock screen.

2. Set IE to open tiles on desktop.

3. Set start menu to display apps only and turn off hot corners. Then set to boot to desktop.

4. Uninstall all the metro apps that come with it.

You will still get the "start screen" but in apps view and the search stuff but to be honest it's pretty good. I rarely see it though as everything I use is pinned to the taskbar.

Use Windows+X as your new start menu afterwards - it rocks. In fact I wish earlier versions of windows had that!

Reasons to upgrade: faster boot, power management seems more stable, Hyper-V, explorer UI enhancements, nicer file copying, new task manager, better Powershell integration.

PuTTY and Firefox still work which is the most important thing for me though...

Edit: just to add I haven't installed a start menu replacement or metro killer.

Edit 2: I haven't figured out backups yet. Windows 7 backup was trivial with an external disk.

Edit 3: to bypass microsoft account login/creation on installation (I did this on Pro edition):

1. When it asks you to sign in, click "create a microsoft account".

2. There is a link at the bottom to "use a local account" on the page this sends you to.
You claim you read it, but they don't say that at all.

What they're specifically saying is that government is not the ideal entity to be shepherding OSS projects. More specifically - Large Scale OSS projects that require a rigorous process and are mission critical. They observe that OSS Projects exhibit high quality primarily (though not exclusively) when there is a large financial motive to make the project high quality. (E.g. Linux, Firefox, and the other big hits).

Now, Oracle might be against-OSS in general, but this paper is not the "FUD" that you're looking for.
I'd say Scandinavia and the UK are on par at least
I absolutely want one of these. They've thought of everything. As I went to pledge my money for it, I found that the starting pledge that actually gets me a wheel was $550 and that's all gone. So to get one will run me $590 and presumably more in retail. This is where "more accessible" as one of their goals falls short.

It looks great, but I'll have to pass at the price.
Really? Could you elaborate on this?
Mir is only planned for 14.10. They were planning Xmir for 13.10, but that has been delayed until 14.04. I think they're underestimating the amount of work that is needed for a pure Mir environment (without X handling everything via Xmir). A lot in Mir is pretty similar as in Wayland. I don't see how they'll offer the same features as X has without Xmir quicker than Wayland. Look at the amount of missing things in the GNOME Wayland technical preview. Adding an additional layer on top of X is one thing, but replacing X means a lot of work. Latest thing is getting accessibility right, which GNOME is working upon.
As someone who doesn't use the dash, I am wondering what's in it for me.

Personally I've tried a few distributions over the last year or so because I've been unhappy with unity but Ubuntu's ease of use still makes me return to it, although right now I'm typing this from a Debian box. I didn't like the dreadful* gnome3 speed so switched to i3. Now if I could just work out how to stop the lazy window focus...

The trouble is is that it looks like a bag of crap right now. The font rendering is all over the place, I'd be embarrassed to use this at home although it is more productive for work than anything else I've used lately.

This might all be "my fault" because I haven't properly installed the right modules or drivers or whatever, or maybe I've not properly set up my Xorg.conf or ~.i3/config but ubuntu always just worked which is why I kept returning to it.

*Possibly because this is a VM running inside windows.
How come when I search "food by protein" I only get results from Wendy's?
I don't understand; Linux is always free regardless of an update or full blown overhaul. Windows updates are also always free, nothing has changed. Heck, Microsoft has even increased the support period for Windows XP to provide updates beyond the original guarantee...
While I enjoyed the Bing search :) the existence of one or two other search engines with meaningful market share does not show that Google is not a monopoly.

Being a monopoly (at least in economics) does not mean being the only player in a market, but rather about being big enough to affect/set prices in the market.
Not sure what you meant, but almost all recent security holes were client-side. As far as I remember, server-side Java has been fairly robust.
The solution is a non-partisan blanket primary. It keeps decisions in the hands of the voters, and also insulates against extremists being nominated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonpartisan_blanket_primary [wikipedia]
Show HN: A Simple Bootstrap themed WYSIWYG Editor
Does Passion Matter?