skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The three strike laws make some sense as long as people conflate "felony" with genuinely serious crimes like rape or aggravated assault. If someone commits three consecutive rapes...well, who would complain about locking him up forever?

The problem is in the increasing meaninglessness of the term "felony". If they limited it to grievous crimes, there wouldn't be much controversy.

Also, it's weird to have something presented as "news" when The Simpsons covered it satirically about 15 years ago:

http://smotri.com/video/view/?id=v1656836867c
It says that there is no hope for these individuals.

... Why? Why can't they be brought out of their situation? I know some have been in there for 22 years already; but, why can't they be helped from this? I just... it doesn't make sense to me
I won't specifically defend life sentences for non-violent crimes, but I would defend very harsh sentences for repeat offenses. The profiled people demonstrate terribly poor self restraint and judgment. I strongly suspect they were ongoing severe burdens on their communities in many unmentioned ways.
5 Hours Left to Get This Kickass Shower Speaker on Indiegogo
Same here. I usually Google for tubular or tublr and can't find it.
There is so much injustice with our prison system right now. There are countless people being locked up for their entire lives over petty crimes -- the same crimes that relatively comfortable white boys like me could easily get away with because I can afford a decent lawyer. It's racism and wealth discrimination disguised as justice.

The US is leading the world in incarceration and the privatization of prisons is a big contributor to the problem. Corporations have a financial incentive to incarcerate more people and lobby to keep strict drug laws.

Meanwhile we make jokes and laugh about things like prison rape. I believe we will look back at prison rape the same way we look back at slavery. How barbaric are we that we think that's somehow okay?

For things to change, we’re going to have to change public perceptions and start demanding change. I wish we were a little less eager to deprive people of their most basic right to freedom.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta...
r00fus I think that huge pile of Apple cash is a problem for Apple just FYI. It's indicative of a lack of new product vision as they're not doing anything but piling it up from selling legacy products.
What is it about Norwegians that's different from this "large underclass"? Just come out and say it.
In England, especially in the eighteenth century, we had a somewhat similar, though harsher regime where one strike against you on a charge of petty larceny could lead to imprisonment in HM prisons. Of course the prison population swelled as hangings became less fashionable, and the temporary prison ships were unmoored to sail to places like Australia. Transportation for the theft of a loaf of bread.

Ironic that that country, along with its New World cousin the USA, claimed ideals of freedom so strongly. Much more so in the USA. Mandatory sentencing has it's place it can be argued. This seems antithetical to first principles however.
>On the other hand, I'm perfectly OK with some criminals dying behind bars

Lots of people from similar backward countries are perfectly OK with this.

I mean, if I recall correctly you even still have the death penalty. Heck, it's only like 4 decades since you ended racial seggregation (in paper).

Hopefully, in 3-4 decades you'll turn to more modern and humanistic views on justice, catcing up to most Western European and Skandinavian countries.

Meanwhile, some can cheer and advocate for minor BS changes to laws like the gay marriage (talk about a upper middle class issue, if there ever was one), while others rot in prison for "crimes" such as the ones described in TFA, blacks constitute the lion's share of prisoners, prisons are turned into private for profit enterprises, 16 year olds are sentenced to death, SWAT teams get employed for BS offences, etc... Talk about not seeing the big issues...
I think an effective way to frame this issue is:

Would you consider these people so dangerous that you would personally build a small concrete box and forcibly keep them inside for many hours a day for the rest of their lives? Or, is that how you would treat your children if they committed some minor, nonviolent, kinda-maybe-bad act?

No reasonable person would - the moral decision above is clear. Would you pay for someone else to do this?

We are brothers and sisters in humanity, and we elect people who write these laws and treat fellow people like this (and/or refuse to reform the US Sentencing Commission). We are to blame.
The UK in comparison:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentencing_in_England_and_Wales

I understand that we don't have the kind of problem that a8da6b0c91d mentioned here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6743406 however I really don't understand the common sense of the US judicial system.

If I were to be caught breaking some computer misuse act against a UK company it's more than likely a slap on the wrist would be handed down to me. Abuse a US corporation and I would expect extradition and 10 years or more in one of your comfortable prison cells.

Also compare the US and UK prisons themselves.

UK: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=uk+prison+cell&espv=210&es...

US: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=uk+prison+cell&espv=210&es...
Failure to sign the Ottawa treaty (anti landmine) and the international criminal court agreements, execution of minors (and execution at all), assassination of opponents even if citizens (via drones), torture, war crimes, illegal invasions, use of phosphorus (probably comes under war crimes), continual killing of civilians in non declared wars, massive prison population, secret prisons, outsourcing torture, supporting some of the worst governments of earth etc. Who sees the US as a leader in human rights? No one I know.
To me Ballmer = Cook where Bill = Steve. Cook is taking over a company dominant in it's markets. It's raking in huge sums of cash selling legacy products. There's no sign that Cook can ensure Apple makes the leap to the next big thing. Indeed, coming up through Apple he's probably not the right guy just as Ballmer is now realizing his deeply engrained MSFT strains makes him not the right guy for a new environment.
Reddit was popular but still very niche pre-Digg 4. Not unlike Slashdot. Digg's collapse rapidly transformed Reddit into something completely different, exemplified now by the celebrity AMAs and godawful crap on the front page.

Reddit did get a number of things right, but it still won't last. They may look back at killing /r/reddit.com as a huge mistake; once upon a time, people did really talk about Reddit as one big community, and there was some sense of that. That's not the case anymore.
> I strongly suspect they were ongoing severe burdens on their communities in many unmentioned ways.

You're painting a picture that's not connected at all with the information we've been provided and you're using it to support your personal stance.

Yes, the ACLU article is presenting their story in the opposite way; but just because they're painting these people in a positive light doesn't mean that they're hiding a series of continual, unrepentant actions of which these particular crimes are the ones they were caught for. In fact, in one of the cases, the article argues that the judge didn't want to give the sentence that he gave, but his hands were tied by standards.
The title should be changed to match the title at the site, which is "New From KlearGear: Free Speech, Only $3,500 Plus Shipping And Handling".

Their ridiculous non-disparagement clause purports to apply to all forms of communication (or perhaps to all forms of communication that are "published", depending on how you read the thing). In this particular case, they are trying to enforce it against an online review, but that's an irrelevant detail. The title here emphasizes that irrelevant detail too much.
whaaa? https://search.wikileaks.org/gifiles/?viewemailid=10828
This 3 strikes law reeks of injustice. I too am fine with certain violent offenders spending life behind bars, but this is just plain stupid and frankly not cost effective[1].

Let's save the jail space for murders, pedophiles, rapists, and violent offenders then put money into programs to rehabilitate folks.

1) I still get mad when I hear other small government folks who are ok with this crap. I'm against the death penalty because it costs too much and I don't trust the government to be 100% right.
You might have issues if you ever accidentally hit ctrl-s and need to use ctrl-q.
Why you should never use Zookeeper
You'd need a lot of UAVs to cover the whole west coast.

I'm not sure why you'd want to restrict coverage to daylight hours; camping fires are more likely to be lit at night so early spotting makes sense. Likewise I'm not sure you'd want to restrict observation to the summer months, since dry winters are common here and winter wildires are not unknown (eg there was a large one in CO in March of 2011). I don't know whether climate change is a major factor in wildfire incidence year over year, but drier conditions are the sort of effect predicted by theory.

But my main objection is about the size of the observation area. When you take in the # of UAVs, the launch/landing facilities, the fuel costs, the air traffic control overhead, and the data correlation requirements, the satellite doesn't sound so expensive after all.
So I understand the points you're making and I appreciate your candor, but why not go all-in on cryptographic currencies?

I am tempted to take apart your proposed solution point-by-point but I'll wait. Crypto currency apparently is exactly what you want, so can you explain why you are instead attempting to achieve the same through ISO and a collaborative bank revolt against the "established banks"?

(Collaborative bank revolt: a vastly simplified explanation of your proposed solution.)
None of these weapons would be of much use for anything besides maiming one or two people, which could be accomplished with much simpler things. They are novel creations though.
Darpa Cyber Grand Challenge PM is doing an AMA on reddit
My experience is that many Private Aircraft terminals, such as private jets, private helicopters, etc, don't screen passengers, or their luggage, the way the public is searched in "Commercial Aircraft" pre-flight screening.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/01/private-...

http://www.generalaviationnews.com/2011/01/is-ga-a-menace/

The above links discuss the matter further.
There's the general rule that the more restrictions you have on how employers can hire, how they can pay, and how they can fire, the less likely they are to hire more people and take risks in hiring. This means being less likely to hire the young, the old, those without a spotless record, and even women who may start families.

I'm not by any means an expert on labor in Europe, but it seems like the obvious way to increase the number of jobs, especially to those who need them most, is to allow employers more flexibility. Instead of artificially creating stratification (some people having no jobs or very temporary jobs, and some having incredibly cushy ones) we would have many more low paying jobs in the middle.
Cindy Gallop has been talking about this very issue, except when starting an alternative porn site. It seems there's a lot of room for change in payments infrastructure.
Build Web Application with Golang, DONE TRANSLATION
JUST DONE THE TRANSLATION OF Build Web Application with Golang.

THANK GOD, I'M STILL ALIVE.

GREAT THANKS FOR ALL THE POEPLE WHO WERE HELPING ME!

https://github.com/Unknwon/build-web-application-with-golang_EN

ANY CORRECTION OR COMMENT IS WELCOME.

BUT. BE KIND, THANK YOU!
I don't think the underlying problem is privatized prisons. The underlying problems are our unconscious biases, political pandering ("tough on crime!") and weaknesses in our educational and healthcare systems.
How is p a weird binding? It's a pneumonic for "previous" and works the same as it does in gnu screen, which is tux's "competitor."
Check the CDC website, it has the stats. Violent crime has been in decline in the US since the 1970s.

(Down voted for pointing out where to get the stats - very funny - must be DOJ folks)
I would hope the passengers on a plane would be so brave, but there is a real collective action problem there for the passengers. Best case scenario, there are enough brave people on board willing to selflessly risk death to -- hopefully -- save lives. Would I? Would you? You don't know what you're made of until the moment comes, and I hope neither you nor I are ever tested in this way.

Remember, individually it's "rational" (in the game-theoretic sense) to let the other brave folks take the risk, while you sit there nervously and think about the kids/parents/pets who couldn't bear to be without you. And let someone else be the hero.

Worse case scenario, nobody is brave, and everyone dies as a result.
Perhaps hardware design is exactly what MS needs. They have certainly been fumbling in the area, despite a strong push.
Many "dev bootcamps" have been cropping up in the U.S. I wonder if that is / will be a trend in Europe?

also, hope you're doing well Morgante :) - fellow '13
There already have been such attacks...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/us/19crash.html?_r=0
I'm sure there (check the prison union website) is but books like Freakanomics give different reasons (legalized abortions).
Is it really hard to make a decision on sentencing in nonviolent crimes that you wouldn't personally lock someone in a box for?

If they're not a danger to society, they do not belong in a box.
In-Air Signature Gives Mobile Security to the Password-Challenged
This seems very clearly to be a proxy for wealth, from the article "cheap burgers are more popular in high obesity counties". Map wealth to burger diversity and this result becomes far less interesting.

What IS interesting is the mapping between wealth and obesity. I'd love to see more data on that.
The decline of the American empire. Things like this are nickel and diming the taxpayers to the bone.
>But America is not Norway.

I wonder why that is... Perhaps this attitude has something to do about it?

>We have a large underclass of people capable of destroying whole communities.

Where "large underclass of people" means black, latino and generally poor, and "whole communities" means cozy, middle class existance.

And destroying means "stealing a wallet from a hotel" or "borrowing a van", clearly acts that should be punished with life sentences.
The fixed price of Coca-Cola from 1886–1959
I actually teared up reading this. This is truly a tragedy.
I feel guilty for doing basically anything that isn't actively working to fix our horrible justice system.
Some new innovation in trucks would certainly be interesting. As a driver with over 200k on my F-150, I could see some sort of T-150 being a pretty sweet redesign.
There are serious money interests (both union and private companies) in having as many jails as possible.
My thoughts on the best and the worst:

> Anthony Jackson has a sixth-grade education and worked as a cook. He was convicted of burglary for stealing a wallet from a Myrtle Beach hotel room when he was 44 years old. According to prosecutors, he woke two vacationing golfers as he entered the room and stole a wallet, then pretended to be a security guard and ran away. Police arrested him when he tried to use the stolen credit card at a pancake house. [...] Because of two prior convictions for burglary, Jackson was sentenced to mandatory life without parole under South Carolina's three-strikes law.

Emphasis mine. I can't get too worked up about a system that sentences this guy to life in prison. What would be the point of letting him out? He knew he wasn't supposed to walk into other people's hotel rooms and take their wallets. At what point does society get to tell people "you know what, knock it off"?

> After serving two years in prison during his mid-twenties for inadvertently killing someone during a bar fight, Aaron Jones turned his life around. He earned an electrical technician degree, married, became an ordained reverend, and founded the Perfect Love Outreach Ministry. Years later, Aaron was hired to renovate a motel in Florida, and was living in an employee-sponsored apartment with two other workers, one of whom had a truck that was used as a company vehicle by all the co-workers. Jones decided to drive this truck home to Louisiana to visit his wife and four children. When Aaron's co-worker woke up to find his truck missing, he reported it stolen. Aaron was pulled over by police while driving the truck.

I don't understand this one at all. Shouldn't the truck owner have testified on his behalf? Declined to press charges?

I made a cursory effort to look up the case itself, but I have no idea how to do that.
Wow, because supporting that war machine is what the world needs.
You are a waste of space. But committing suicide is so boring—I don’t recommend it. You are going to have to figure out the point you want your life to have. So quit complaining on the internet about your privileged guilt, save your silly amounts of money for a while, then spend it executing your vision. The best any of us can hope to do is to mean something to somebody.
Japanese Word Processor "Ichitaro" Zero-Day Vulnerability
"But few people and small companies have the resources"

And that's the key phrase in this entire thing. For everyone who says, "oh, they're in the right, they should hire an attorney", they're either more naturally litigious than I am or have never actually had to hire an attorney and prosecute a case in court. The name of the game is intimidation and harassment. KlearGear is absolutely betting that their customers don't have the resources to combat their meritless lawsuits.
It's because of what they call "law" in these there parts. It makes it nearly impossible for them to get freed.
For some entertaining, game theoretic exploration of this topic, I recommend reading Liar Game[1].

[1] http://mangafox.me/manga/liar_game/
Fix Your Boring Slides
Tangentially related:

> ... he saw quotes marked CW for “co-operating witness” ...

"Confidential witness", that is.

"CI", short for "confidential informant", is also commonly seen in similar documents.
2 patterns for refactoring with your ruby application
NBI Found an Anonymous Hacker who Involved in Attacking Govt. Websites
This is the problem I ran into, I originally enabled it think it was great and the next day promptly disabled it because of this.
I don't think he likes black people or Hispanics.

To be fair... that makes him no different than a lot of Americans. Though he may be in the minority here on HN.
Also, it would be different if we did a dump of all the emails from oncologists at the Moffitt Center and found out they were putting doctors on the news to say smoking is good for your health and then highfiving each other via email after.
This is an important issue, but HN?
The southeastern part of the United States has a larger African-American population.

http://www.censusscope.org/us/map_nhblack.html
I rather doubt that. FTA:

“The point is, satellites like Landsat and GOES provide great information after a fire starts; they can focus and monitor a fire by looking at smoke plumes, fire spread, hot spots at the edges, etc.,” Kelly said. “FUEGO is designed for early detection of smaller fires. Right now, we lose a lot of time because fires are already big by the time we see them.”
I don't disagree with you that if you're looking for a fast language that integrates well with Python, then Nimrod may be a great choice. Pervasive GC certainly makes the language easier, with a performance cost that can be totally reasonable in many scenarios.

I do think that there are applications for which GC will always be slower than alternative systems such as arena allocation that Rust provides safe support for. (As an extreme example, the binary-trees shootout benchmark.) A language that does not provide safe manual memory management will lose in either performance or safety for these applications. I prefer not to make statements like "GC is slower than manual memory management", since there are many applications for which this is not true (for example, the level generation benchmark). Rather, I'd say that manual memory management provides a level of control that can allow skilled programmers to write applications that outperform those in languages with a "one size fits all" memory management scheme.
"I've always wanted a 'timed SMS' app where you can queue up text messages and set a time to send them. That way you can be enjoying happy hour while sending off 'stuck late at office' and 'leaving soon' messages without thinking about it."

I think a lot of texting apps do this. When I used GoSMS it had this function.
Uh, why would he decline to press charges? The guy stole his truck. No idea why the article calls it 'borrowing'.
You seem to be having a comprehension problem with the English language. Its probaly better for you to study the definition and history of the word than for HN to lectur you or try to enlighten you. In addition to the word 'misogeny', you might also do well to study the phrase 'argument from ignorance', which I referred to above. The logical construct 'some of the worst' also seems to be mis-understood. Because there is a reasonably large number of people on HN that speak English as a second language there's no point in continuing this sort of debate. Because ultimately, you seem to be basing your line of attack on false premises. I will, however, limit my remarks for brevity to the case of misogeny in the western english speaking world. (One could extend the argument, but its not neccessary to support my earlier point.).

(1) Definitions: Misogyny is manifested in many different ways, from jokes to pornography to violence to the self-contempt women may be taught to feel toward their own bodies."

(2) Its clear from (1) That the media and workplace bullying are included in the definition.

(3) Its clear from the construct of 'many of the worst', that this refers to a non-trivial number, but need not be exclusive. So, the verbal threshold means 'many but not neccessarily all, and in any event not amount we need to further specify or approximate in specific percentages'. But, for the sake of it. The data I reference earlier implied that despite the higher proportion of total 'work bullies' in the workplace being men, a woman is as likely to be bullied at work by a woman. So, from the perspective of women, this is indeed a non-trivial amount. We can be reasonably say then that the 'some of the worst' bullies are other women, because this makes up half of the pool.
I came across a web forum thread in which the escalation of criminal sentencing laws is compared to the Milgram experiment:

http://www.isthmus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=58211

Of course no analogy is perfect, but this one gave me pause.
What Monopoly Can Teach You About Smart Investing
It could also have meant that investigators have already decided who did this. IIRC, hours after the attacks we were already suggesting Pakistan. In the end it turned out to be close, but jumping into conclusions would not help our credibility.

Reva Bhalla's interview is too insignificant to directly affect our decision to respond. She was speculating, but everyone (including the government!) was speculating too and they were all pretty much saying the same thing. Which is, "someone in Pakistan".

I haven't seen anything seriously damaging yet from the India files. People aren't always very mild in emails, and some of them were just jokes. Some jokes were crude, but we all make such jokes.
About this time someone always links to the lead and crime story. And because its a good article I'll link to it now. http://m.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link...
I'm from Ireland, actually, although I live in the US.
Down voted for pointing out where to get the stats

Probably best to just assume it was an accident. I've done it more than once on mobile.