skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Oh I'm sure this royalty free h264 binary blob offering from MPEG LA was due to the kindness of their hearts.

That's not from MPEG LA to us. That is from Cisco to everyone who wants to use a blog, and it's permitted by the licensing, just the same as Flash today can be downloaded from Adobe as a binary blob and neither I (as a user) nor Mozilla needs to pay MPEG LA.

I still see lots of anger, as well as confusion. Anger leads to the dark side.

A hopeful sign, kind of: you started with "betrayal" (Harold Pinter play!) and now you are faulting Mozilla for being confused, or for not reforming All The Things instantly. A bit of a climb-down -- just sayin'.

Please note that we don't like any of the bad patent-pooling, rent-seeking behavior either. Failing to overcome it all at once, finding an incremental path to what we believe will be a better future, not throwing ourselves on all the swords, is part of how Mozilla operates. If you want purity, there are prefs you can set and add-ons you can install in Firefox. If that's not pure enough because you have to set prefs or use add-ons, there are tiny share browsers you can use instead.

I'm not saying "there's the door", rather I'm explicitly reaffirming that Mozilla does not consider every bad reality imposed on competitive browsers to be a make-or-break principle test (Monty made it sound like that; Mitchell and I do not agree), which we can pass only by rejecting reality and therefore very likely shrinking to tiny market share.

/be
I am not making that assumption really; people that are able to really provide someone with benefits, whether it is knowledge, capital, power etc, would scoff at, and see right through the 2500$ handbag. My point being, either 1. you think you can access a level of person that will help you out by owning a 2500$ handbag (stupid) or 2. That there is a group of people that will allow you into their social sphere because you own a 2500$ hand bag, in the end people who think like this in that social sphere, will not be able to do anything for you.
NEWS FLASH: People treat different people differently. Do we really have to explain to adults how prejudice works?
I'm not saying formatting a document isn't important, it is. But the degree I'm required to teach, or when I tutored is grad school, is a bit overboard.

We have an entire chapter on MS Office integration where they'll learn to export an Access query to an Excel spreadsheet so they can 'integrate' that with a Powerpoint presentation. Does it force them to study? Yes. Is it an activity they'll ever need? No.

My point falls more in line with the Intro to Computer courses are too platform dependent, so we have to teach the platform, not the activity.

Instead of teaching them how to use an Internet Explorer Web Slice, I'd rather have it focus on being able to adequately solve a problem through search engines. I <i>can</i> do it, but then I'm chastised for being the nail that sticks out.

At least on your last point, I actually think there should be a placement test administered to students to determine their computers skills, much like Math and Foreign Language. If you don't know how to turn a computer on, get placed in a pre-Intro course, so-so students can fall into the basics (not MS Office) and those that will sleep through and Ace the course can be CLEP'd out. The issue is, how would you create a placement test that tests ability to 'use a computer' vs. MS Office.

Anyone who's technically savvy (including non-IT people) know how to 'use a computer', which is exactly what I feel current Intro to Computer courses do not teach.
you're not forced to buy insurance. There is a new tax and you're just given a chance to avoid it by buying some specific product. For example i avoid some taxes by paying mortgage. Nobody forces me to have a mortgage or medical insurance. Either of it just reduces taxes and provides some benefits to me as perceived to me.
I'm sorry, are you saying Zuck should be required to dress his socioeconomic class?
Orson Scott Card: Mentor, Friend, Bigot
The code is here : https://gist.github.com/abeppu/6958565

(also linked from the article text.)

I'm fine with other people making lots of happybots. I just hope no one would adapt the code to, say, harass or bully people who are already feeling shitty.
That's how it's often used. People might say something like, "half the people are below average". But if you ask the same person: What's the average of [4,5,9,10,10]? They'd answer 7.6 (after doing the math). This dual meaning creates confusion, and its why, at least those reporting on things, should clarify whether they mean the mean or the median. Similarly, as the old adage goes, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. People will take advantage of the misperception of "average" and report a mean as "the average", even though it hides the truth. For instance, around here people refer to the "average" income, some number like 50-60k, when the median income is actually around 40k. Or the average government employee salary, when again the median works out to be lower than the mean, which is what they report(here, won't claim mean is always greater than median as it can obviously be skewed either way).
The AC frequency used to be very inaccurate, it was only through a lot of work and legislation that it was made accurate, specifically so that electronic devices could use it to keep time.

Nowadays the electric companies want more leeway in how they run their grids and would love to have the frequency be less accurate, trying to keep it accurate actually costs a lot of money, since now as load changes on the grid they have to make sure to spin up new capacity. As the load increases the frequency goes down, as load decreases the frequency goes up. It is a careful balancing act that is required for the power companies to keep it within spec.

If it was allowed to drift more the power companies wouldn't be required to spin up more capacity that then goes unused.
FAA: You are now free to browse about the country
I read the last two lines, threw up under my desk and blacked out.
A Practical Guide to Remote User Testing
Can you share some "how to" pointers - may be a blog post describing how to do this?
I've worked with a lot of engineers. Most of us aren't really that smart and usually we make problems much more complicated than they need to be.

I'd trust a unique and fairly original monetary system run by good engineers. But most engineers are really not that good.
because Germany has good laws and Berlin is a big city, yet EXTREMELY cheap.

The visa doesn't have all that much to do with it really. Most of the people in the US don' need a US visa, and guess what, more of the Europeans are close to Berlin. Crazy I know.
Masking Out Video Tags with HTML5 Canvas
Echoing some of the other comments... the place i worked at was one of the 5 biggest Rackspace customer, and that didn't stop them from regularly cutting traffic or bringing down servers for hours in some case.
You might get better uptime overall from reputable providers, but ultimately it's all about distributed application/service architecture.
I cannot speak to the gendered or racial points (white male, here), but during my time in NYC I experienced first hand the escalation of opportunity that tracked with my escalation of signaling clothing and accessories.

I was lucky enough to be poached from my job as a movie theater cleaner/attendant by the manager of a 5th Avenue Kenneth Cole. At the time I was struggling and would eventually end up temporarily homeless, and I didn't have the clothes required to work at the store. The manager insisted I at least have 1 clean, all black outfit that was brand new. I went to H&M and did exactly what the author here describes, I skipped meals to afford it. I paid my share of the rent late, but I got the outfit and I started the job.

Given the opportunity, I started to excel and as we were paid commission, my financial outlook started to improve, but I was still in serious debt and couldn't get enough hours to get over what seemed like an endlessly far away threshold of financial stability. Right before Christmas we had a regional manager come in and watch us work for a few days, as he was leaving he gave me ~$200 of "KC Cash" which was used to reward talented employees. I could use it, with my discount, to buy things we sold. I was so excited because it meant I'd be able to buy Christmas presents for my family.

Instead, my manager insisted I buy clothes and accessories for myself so I would be more presentable in the store. I went along with his demand and bought myself a couple outfits and a nice leather portfolio messenger bag, and gave my family nothing for the holidays, which they all understood.

In January, commissioned sales on moderately high end clothing drops off dramatically, as did my hours. Suddenly the threshold of stability vanished into the distance again and I needed to make a change. I wanted 40 hours, I had been without health insurance for a couple of years, and I wanted the chance to pay down my debts and move forward with my life. I started asking around and applying to office jobs for which I had no experience and no degree.

I landed an interview at a data processing company and I wore my Kenneth Cole clothes, I had a copy of my resume that a friend put together on their computer tucked into my KC Messenger bag. And when I was hired for a job I knew nothing about and had no prior experience with, it was from a pool of applicants who weren't signaling their status as strongly as I was. I remember how confident I felt, sitting in their lobby with a dozen other people around me, none dressed as well, and the few who tried not having items of the same quality.

As I've developed more marketable skills (graphic design, web dev, etc.) I've been able to signal less, but the article struck a chord with me. I remember going hungry to get the better job, skipping the christmas gifts for family to get the clothes my job required and that eventually let me get my foot in the door to a better life.
Is there a reason that they didn't use the HTML5 placeholder attribute for their input fields?

Maybe I'm a little OCD, but it bugs me when I'm able to select the word "Password" in password boxes.
Perhaps ridiculous to even consider this at the early stage we're at, but that was full of useful information to bear in mind to avoid missing an opportunity.

Particularly appreciate being made aware of the preparation that can be done in advance.
Someone you should tell them about the mother of all security bugs: NSA has full access to their datacenters.

They might want to fix that one first, before caring about the tiny little ones. It doesn't look like they are in a hurry to fix that one yet, though:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/30...
1) We've only counted the upgrades for existing users that we met at the event.
2) 300 is the number of "additional" signups (in addition to our "typical day's signups")
3) Don't know if they'll be active, it's been just two days :)
its about the same when you're white vs non-white communities. And its the same for a large part of Europe, anyways.
My experience with this has been an aversion to disturb the existing user-base (and normally within organizations with deep-seated users). A lot of sites where you'd previously seen this type of reluctance (IMDb, eBay / PayPal, Craigslist, Amazon, Google) seem to be some of the older sites on the top end of the internet spectrum. However, luckily that attitude seems to be shifting (to varying degrees from incremental fixes on Craigslist to broad changes with Google products). In some cases, there are certainly technological constraints but I've never seen anything that seems entirely insurmountable.
Many of these rules only come into affect once a company has reached a certain number of employees, which I think is around ten. So small start-ups should be fine, but will have to observe this once they start growing.
Following stupid rules empowers stupid people.
I think the colloquial meaning of average is "typical". Sometimes that's the mean and the median, and often, an hazy combination of the two.
I'm not sure I would change EU(ropean) way of life for 50+ work weeks, one week of vacation and no payed sick or parental leave, super expensive education and no universal health care.

No paid sick leave? One week of vacation? Super expensive education (for kindergarten???)?

Where in the US are you talking about? While we don't tend to have laws mandating sick leave, nearly every company that you'd immigrate for gives it. I've never worked anywhere that didn't offer at least two weeks of vacation.

Working 50+ hours is really a personal choice (as long as you work for an ethical employer) since it isn't legal to require someone to work more than 40 hours/week.

I'm not sure about super expensive education. Out of state tuition is typically expensive if you want to go to a top university, but the average community college is downright cheap.
Still unclear: of those 93 million whose plans change, how many will see their coverage get more expensive, or worse in quality? This number could actually be the 15 million suggested by Jay Carney. The rest might be switched into comparable plans.
There has been some articles indicating that the containment block might have already been compromised prior to the tsunami.
The immigration policies in Berlin/Germany might be better than they are in the US, but they are _far_ from perfect.

As someone from Berlin who went through the whole process multiple times from an employer perspective, these are my experiences:

When you hire someone from the EU: No problems at all.

When someone is from another “western” country (USA, Australia, etc.): Things take some more time and are a bit of a hassle, but are basically OK.

Everything else: Big problems. Unless you are formally really well qualified, a work permit is pretty hard to attain. If it is even possible at all, it definitely takes a lot of time and energy from everyone involved.
I don't think it's real, but I certainly have computers that still function when their A/C cord is removed. They're called laptops.
Long-Time SEO Jill Whalen Moves On, Praises Google For Rewarding Content More
None of them teach that - at least, no school I've ever heard of. Why? Because that flies in the face of what the school system is set up to produce - productive citizens.

What does that mean? Well, that we contribute to the society that we've created... and that means spending money and buying into capitalism and this system of government we're brainwashed into calling democracy - democrazy is more like it.

The thing that keeps capitalist economies functioning is spending money, when everyone stops spending money, it all falls to pieces. The entire U.S. economy depends on perpetual debt. If they teach money management to people in school, you run the risk that people stop living this lifestyle of perpetual debt and the economy would fail.

So it's unlikely they'll ever start teaching money management or lifestyle management, or anything that flies in the face of the status quo - at least, not in state subsidized schools, because they wouldn't contribute to the continual cycle of craziness that is mandated by society.

The real world is that the rich rule the world and everyone else is groomed to fit into a society that will continue to maintain that status quo. You've got two choices, spend your life swimming upstream and fighting the status quo in the hope that eventually you'll make a significant contribution to its downfall, or fall in line and play the game, but play it better than everyone else.

If you want an easy life, you fall in line and play the game like everyone else. If your morals and ethics don't allow you to be placated and sit by and watch everyone else succumb to the machine, then you're in for a life that's sure to be full of headaches :P
I lived with a girl that seemed to make a lot of poor financial choices. I don't agree with the article, but I'm just sharing a story that seems on subject.

She had about $300 in her bank account, told me she was broke, and began selling off a few extras around the house. She ran her business from home and the holidays were coming up. I continued to work as usual, and ask what she's up to. Well, she was closing up shop for 2 weeks, because hey, it's the holidays, that means no work. I thought that was a little strange, you're struggling to pay bills, and not paying your one or two employees on time, but refuse to pickup the phone to make a few sales during the break. Anyway, we decide to make dinner for the holidays, so we go shopping. She wants an elaborate dinner, so we spend $300 on groceries and alcohol for the two of us. This seems outrageous, but I figure we'll have leftovers for a week, and I'm not broke, so I'll toss in my half. Anyway, great dinner. Next night, she doesn't want leftovers, she wants to go out for dinner. Ok, I'm down. Where does she suggest? A fairly upscale restaurant, and we burn another $150 on the two of us. The rest of the holiday she continues to complain about being broke, and I continued to scratch my head.

I also met another guy, who was completely broke, with all of his credit cards maxed out. However, he always insisted on paying for everyone. We go out for coffee with a dozen people, and he jumps up, and tosses it on his card. Out for lunch, he sneaks away to pay for the group. Broke, living with his parents, full of debt, pissing away money, and fighting to get finances for his project. Last time I talked with him, he was selling off childhood items, and business equipment to pay the bills.
I love this headline. I'd also love to see one about Evil Rich People to get both sides of the coin.
Small companies (ten people or less) are exempt from some of these laws, but if a startup grows to a certain size it's not exempt.

They are, however, less of a problem for a startup then they may appear.

While a company can't easily fire employees who've been employed for many years, new employees who turn out not to be a good fit can be let go within 3 to 6 months.

Furthermore, it's much easier to fire people if your company is not making profit. A lot of the laws intend to protect jobs that would be cut to increase margins (e.g. outsourcing, hiring younger/cheaper workers, ageism, ...). If you can proof your company is financially in trouble, then this is enough reason to let employees go, and you don't have to proof they did something wrong.

Work hours, as required by law, are usually ignored by startups (though one could argue that this is not a good thing...).

Parental leave is a IMO a good thing, besides that career-driven employees who would want to work in a startup will not take a 3-year leave.
This is an entirely plausible name. Ruiu is an Italian surname. Dragos is name common in Romania, Serbia, and Slavic countries.
> German law has what appears to be a strict policy on hours worked per week and per day, and on working over weekends.

If it's anything like over here in The Netherlands (and I have no reason to believe otherwise), this will have very little interactions with startups: you simply work regular hours on paper, but simply make a lot of hours in the evenings / weekends at home.
The price of membership is not a $2500 hand bag. It's having a certain level of presentability. The author makes a poor choice by conflating these two. One can be presentable without blowing a limited budget. But spending 10-25% of your annual take home on a hand bag is, simply, poor decision making.
Clarification: when you say "family", do you mean "wife and kids" or "parents and siblings"?
I will embrace each of the supposedly problematic things you mentioned in your post any day. They seem rather fair to me. Do you have a different opinion? Why would you want startups to be exempt from this?
I like how we've totally ignored the guy's arguments due to some technicality in his post. That's Hacker News for you!
We're really excited too. The developer community here in Seattle is amazing and we're really hoping to be a place that brings those people together. We'll also be home to plenty of Meetups and other fun developer events.
I think you might be easily insulted.

A very rich guy persists in wearing the hoodie he wore while doing the work that made him rich? Where do you see hypocrisy there?
You planned that using logic, but people's emotions don't react to logic. It's an emotion after all. I thought it was obtrusive as well and didn't realize how far into the article I was. The only thought I had was "this is in my way and there's more to read."

All that being said, just do a split test :) Maybe people like me are in the minority and you get more upvotes for having it displayed that way.
This entire article could really be shortened to one simple sentence: "Poor people buy expensive things because it makes them FEEL rich for a moment."
Are the German rules around labour hours any stricter than the EU Working Time Directive? Which applies here in the UK as well and which everyone (in my experience) simply opts out of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Time_Directive
with a 150Mbps wifi adapter
I think your post hits the mark pretty well--I don't live in the Valley, hopefully never will, but the cultural markers are similar in the Boston area.

The one quibble is that I do ask for a Github account and I don't think it's the same sort of marker. It's a skill-based metric first[1], a cultural one a very distant second. Toe shoes don't provide a risk-mitigation signal. A Github profile does: it lets me see what you do. It's not unlike publishing in academia--it gives me a window into what you do, making it easier for me to hire the right person because I know what I'm getting. And I'd rather not hire than hire the wrong person, because hiring the wrong person hurts everyone.

[1] - Yes, it (probably) implies you have side projects and that you're writing open source. You're right about that. But the primary reason I want to see a Github profile is to make sure you can code.
An anonymous collective of anti-authoritarian anti-capitalists, see https://help.riseup.net/en/about-us#riseups-purpose . I don't think you'll get a better answer here :)
He's a hall of famer who's currently in his prime, so I'd say yes, he is a superstar.

Not that it matters. What matters is the message and we should be discussing that.
What is utility measure of? This analogy is way too simplified to be of real importance. There are more tools that go into building a scalable, maintainable table.
For what it's worth, he has dumped several files, including the ME firmware, which have all been found to be clean by experts.

https://twitter.com/esizkur/status/389226368514289664

https://twitter.com/0x0000EBFE/status/394216393282830336

He doesn't even have a way to test whether or not a machine is "infected". He claims that it's based on problems booting from a CD and/or hearing audio interference. Extremely dubious.
This is because not everyone is taught statistics.
Thank you for proving the parent's point about entitlement. "So why should I give that ditz any respect?" Seriously? "There is no man like a free man"? As if reading your Kindle during takeoff is going to turn you into a Randian ubermensch ready to disrupt every industry in the world?
Interesting story, wonder how it works for other countries.
Because the backlight is still on for a while. If they wanted, when they turn off the backlight, they could leave the page you were reading visible. They choose to show an "off" image, though.