skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Incredible.

Please, please take a step back and read what you wrote. Now, for each of those instances you described, please assume this is your uncle, brother, cousin etc? Do you still feel the same?

No one is saying these people did nothing wrong. The main issue is that the punishment does not fit the crime. That's it. Simple.

Where do we draw the line? Obviously for you the line is ok where it is at. But, frankly, all these cases, I have an intuitive sense that the punishment does not fit the crime. There are many people, I would assume that also have this intuitive sense.

Why is this? I would make a guess that when I see someone like Martha Stewart getting less than a year in prison for securities fraud and someone "taking a wallet from a hotel room" getting life, well, it just doesn't jive right. Obviously this is just one example. The unevenness of it makes it wrong.
Take some of your money and travel. Go to Cambodia and don't be shy with your cash. Visit the landmine museum, do some crying, and see how the resilient people are (slowly) making a comeback. Buy all the trinkets and crap off the swarming children. Hire a guide. Stimulate their local economy, then come back with a greater appreciation of everything in your life. Vote (I suggest independent, since mainstream are different shades of the same color), focus on your friendships, and find yourself a more challenging and fulfilling job, and don't read so much bad news. Everyone plays a role in the world, and yours doesn't have to be one of direct savior. You can and do add value in innumerable ways that you don't even notice.
Wait, are we actually supposed to get worked up over this? The ACLU so clearly tip toed while writing the descriptions of these cases as to clearly walk a line between lying about the case and giving us the context needed to understand why these people are in jail for life.

"Patrick had no violent criminal history and had never served a single day in a Department of Corrections facility" - Right, but he obviously had a drug problem since he did NA in prison and probably got in trouble previously, just not enough to go to the Department Of Corrections facility (what his crimes and punishments were are left as an exercise to the reader)

The other stories have similar issues. Blame it on the abusive and threatening boyfriend, not the previous drug convictions and a three strikes law. Life in prison for borrowing a truck from a friend that accidentally reported it stolen?

Look, innocent people get in trouble for things they didn't do. Not innocent people get in trouble for things they didn't do, but were just in the wrong place at the wrong time due to the other things that they did do. It's an unfortunate part of the system and I'm all for things that minimize overcharging and punishing innocent people.

But anyone who can't read between the lines on these is either a sap or just believing what they want to. They even led into it with a statistic about race to soften you up. There are three strikes laws for a reason. There's massive amounts of context missing from these. It's a shame, I generally like the ACLU and what they do, but this is awful.
In case anybody is wondering about the actual statistics, annual production of apple in the U.S. is valued under $3 billion. And vast majority of apples are processed, rather than consumed whole. Which means the real 'waste' from not eating the core is negligible.
Startup ToolShop
Ha ha, are you kidding me? This is not humanity? Yeah humane thing would be to let them go, right? :D

I hope they rot and get raped and abused. If ALL dipshits like them would be locked for life, life would so much better. Just imagine - you wouldn't have to lock your doors. No keys for home, no keys for car. Sounds like heaven.

Yeah go cry for these pieces of shits, you go boy......
Nonsense.

The primary way prisons reduce crime is by people who commit crimes.

The problem is generally their personality. Habitual criminals are impulsive, aggressive, and bad at thinking ahead.

It's unfair to expect everyone else to put up with a lifetime of offenses, even if each one isn't particularly horrible individually.
Can you spin up say 10K instances at once on Digital Ocean? Just curious since I know a few people who do that on AWS on a regular basis.
> Significant issues with the dominant one (Bitcoin) make it difficult to implement securely, hard for non-technical users to properly understand or trust (there is no benevolent dictatorial regulator, as per their established national currencies/financial service providers), they require connectivity or blockchain storage which is unvailable in much of the world's devices, and so on and so forth.

Download and install Electrum [1]. Open Electrum. Write down the 12 words. Done.

There's your 100% non-technical Bitcoin wallet in three easy steps.

Just takes pen and paper. Or, memorize it instead. Instant, secure brainwallet. No electricity, no Internet, no hardware and no software.

Starts in seconds and syncs across Windows, Mac, Linux and Android devices.

[1]: http://electrum.org
How does 'exploitative labor practices' float your boat.
On the ground human intelligence is power. And Barron's called Stratfor "the shadow CIA".

I have limited experience in this but I've seen some egregious things with current intelligence employees and private contractors. I think you are underestimating outside ways these guys could profit and/or use their intelligence collection news company to encourage those profits.
ah! But then you wouldn't know how many beers = 1 kombucha
Remember that not everyone who is poor is unhappy.
I never compared his crimes to speeding tickets. I merely used that as an example of something clearly on one side of the line.

What is happening lately? The quality of discourse on this site has become absolutely atrocious.
You say it like you're blaming them. Do you realize the sheer number of assets they have to protect?

The thing is that they have very little control over the hacking attempts. They do have control over what they build themselves.

It's tempting to say the hackers are the bad guys, but morality isn't a helpful tool in situations like these. They may as well be an act of god for all the difference it makes.
People are good, and sometimes we don't give enough credit. :)
You're in a different part of the problem space.
Everyone agrees that violent crime is in decline. But the cause is a hotly disputed issue. I personally don't find compelling the idea that tough on crime laws are the cause.
Thankfully, "A JSON-LD document is always a valid JSON document.". Section 2, http://www.w3.org/TR/2013/PR-json-ld-20131105/
Sounds fucking expensive.
Why aren't the apparent plethora of young, educated, and motivated workers starting more companies, rather than hoping in vain for existing companies to hire them? Or, asking the question another way, is there something about the legal or financial structure of Southern Europe that makes it harder or riskier to found a business than elsewhere?
No. If you're paying taxes and not a criminal/on the dole, we need ya... and more of ya.
Why Hack Food
The point of the justice system is to adequately determine punishments for crimes committed.

The point of prisons is to provide a place to isolate people from society that have been deemed not fit for society (permanently or temporary.)

Neither one is there to reduce crime. They're reactive not proactive systems. Society uses them as examples to deter future crime, but that does not make that their job.
you clearly don't know me at all. I have a cousin that has stolen large sums of money from and threatened bodily harm to my grandma along with several other convictions that i'd like to stay in prison for a long time. I've got an uncle that I have similar feelings for.

Also, you should re-read what I wrote. I also said that perhaps these don't deserve life, but "a long time" does seem reasonable.

Finally, how is securities fraud worse than breaking and entering? How is securities fraud worse than "inadvertently killing someone?" Really? Yes yes, I know we hate the 1%. Terrible rich people. Insider trading is not worse than breaking and entering or killing someone. Come on now.
One line of node.js turns RSS to JSON
Three strikes on drug convictions is unfair - especially given the disparity in sentencing for crack cocain vs. other drugs. Do you have any idea how many privileged celebrities would be in jail (some for life) if drug crimes were enforced fairly and uniformly?
Launch pages: a pretty pic & ambiguous sentence, of course you can have my email
all i said was "come on now." Sorry if I came off too defensive. I was simply pointing out that these crimes are clearly on the other side of that line.
Make-A-Wish Foundation, doing things that don't scale :P
They don't build it themselves they have contractors. The contractors make mistakes and there isn't enough resources to find/fix them all.

Much of the technical mistakes made by the contractors aren't due to poor engineering it's a lack of funding. Lots of the contracts put out are Lowest Cost Technically Acceptable due to budget problems beyond the control of the people making the decisions.

I'm not making any comments on right or wrong.
I had the same thought, but apparently the resolution is 'only' 1000 meters [1]. Additionally, it revolves the Earth in ~2 days - making early warning kinda hard.

As for similar sensor packages - some 'Satellite-Derived Sea Surface Temperatures' [2] are collected hourly and could get around the time issue. Resolution ranges from 1 to 8km. Then there are things up there from the NRO, DoD, etc which likely aren't as friendly with data sharing...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MODIS

[2] http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/sst/newSST/GOES_SST.shtml
Am I supposed to sit here and make your point for you or are you actually bringing something to the table?
I click through the Canadian ones, I'm confused on how much those emails are racists, homophobic, raw and violent...

https://search.wikileaks.org/gifiles/?relid=707#searchresult
Best in class layouting?

Oh god, CSS. >:(
Crimes. Plural, not singular. Three strikes laws exist for a reason.

Does stealing a wallet justify sitting in jail for life? No.

Does getting caught committing your third burglary? Well, that's a much more interesting question and everyone is obviously entitled to their own opinions. But no one is entitled to completely twist the facts and then demand everyone agree with them or feel sorry for their own positions on it.
What, if any, affect might this have on net neutrality? I imagine that it would make discrimination by carriers more challenging.
What can I do?

Don't do it from a place of guilt, find something that you feel passionately about, cut back on the meaningless and lucrative tinkering and start tinkering for your passion. Your most valuable contribution to the world is your time, arrange your life so that you can spend as much time as possible, without burning out, on something meaningful to you.
Horrible, but this has been online for awhile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyar-Way5RE
My father is an avid golfer (~2 handicap) and I think he would probably like this product, and the price point is right in there, as a lot of golf aids are more expensive. I wouldn't doubt this product could sell big.
Its resolution is lower, but OTOH, it is an operational system ;-)

http://sensorweb.nasa.gov/new/validationReport/IEEE-SMC-2005... (section 4)
You want to internet mob justice on people who simply subscribed to a news service you don't like?
It's easy to distill these issues and hold a self-righteous opinion, but I personally find most too complex to form anything resembling an educated opinion.

Take land mines. I've heard that they play a critical role in South Korea's defense, which was a major reason Clinton didn't sign. Military experts talk about how it's an effective tool that, when used responsibly, can benefit civilians more than harm them.

They also kill and maim people.

Intellectually, both sides seem reasonable to me. Of course, emotionally, one is passively helping people (or so we are told), while the other is actively harming them, so, ya, I lean towards being anti land mines. But, I fundamentally can't shake the feeling that I have no clue what's going on, so maybe I shouldn't be too quick to judge.
Well, at least they didn't do something silly like enable backdoors in widely used communications infrastructure or intentionally weaken their encryption standards.
If only there was a way to "punish" such companies.
This highlights the necessity of putting yourself in a good financial situation, otherwise be put in prison or just be black I suppose.
My theory: Hacker News has been allowing more political stories through, which attracts a certain kind of poster, which has the effect of lowering the level of discourse overall (even among erstwhile "good" commenters). The actual political threads themselves, like this one, tend to be a little ahead of the curve.

The strong aversion to politics was one of the things I liked about Hacker News. A lot of political issues are important, but they always turn discussion sites into dull point-scoring. Hopefully the moderators clamp down before it's too late.
They don't build it themselves they have contractors.

I don't see how that makes any difference at all.

it's a lack of funding

That's really a problem of poor management.
node-archiver is the best ive used so far... imo
Everyone supports reforming criminals. However we don't have any system that can achieve that reliably.

I find three strikes to be to strict. But if they've proven unwilling or unable to reform it's preposterous to let them out of prison.
Personally, I would support hanging them high instead of putting them in prison for life... except I do hold certain relevant beliefs about the future of humanity. I think there's a decent chance that before this century is out, us humans will have mastery over our brains (which may or may not be the same gooey brains we've always had), and I think it would be tragic if we put even a bad man to death instead of imprisoning him for several decades then fixing his brain when the technology comes along. If prisons become too costly for the rest of us to support or if it's going to take a lot longer for the tech, then mass cryogenic suspensions would be better than straight up executions, and for free people cryonics would be better than dying of old age... Of course if I thought humans will never gain mastery over the brain, then sure, why not have executions for those with life sentences, who ideally are those where "education" and rehabilitation are impossible due to the way their brains are?
Emperor Norton would likely approve.
Mulally is at least as qualified to lead Microsoft as Lou Gerstner was to lead IBM.

He can't possibly be worse-qualified than Ballmer.
If I may, although not the OP.

Rust feels heavy and complex from the get go. It has :, ;;, ->, and =>. It has multiple types of pointers, and constant defaults requiring mut. I could go on, but that's about as much as I could take.

But why care about me, or people like me, perhaps I'm unique. It feels like Rust was designed for people as smart as the authors to use, and there's not a thing wrong with that. Myself, I prefer a small language that I can 'keep in my head', and build from there. With that mindset, Rust feels like a -very- complicated language, even at a glance.

I hope Rust succeeds, as I'm a big fan of mozilla's mission, and appreciate all the work that you(they) do. But please don't take offense to the assertion that the language is pretty complex compared to Go, Ruby, Python, or C.
> Do you have any examples where accumulation of cash corresponded with lack of innovation. No challenge, just curious.

Aren't we discussing an article about Microsoft? Certainly the perception is that Microsoft has not innovated. (Whether or not you agree, that's at least the general perception.)

Microsoft has been piling up the cash, despite the fact that Microsoft has been paying a dividend for ten years. They've bought back 20% of the outstanding shares. They've bought dozens of companies. They've spent a billion dollars repairing Xboxes.

And despite all that, they just can't spend it fast enough. Their cash hoard just keeps increasing in size.

Note: Correlation does not imply causation.
Reva's pretty hot. I see why the CEO told her to exploit an Israeli intelligence source by "financial, sexual or psychological control to the point where he would reveal his sourcing and be tasked."[1] The CEO added that this is difficult with her being associated with an intelligence organization.

Basically the same stuff CNN does.

[1] http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/201031_.html
why not just kill them right away?

Because evidence might come up later that proves them innocent. Because killing someone deprives them of all of the rest of their life, whereas life imprisonment offers them some fraction of it.

I actually do think there are some people we should just hang-- after due process, of course-- but definitely not everyone who has a long sentence.

Also, a "life" sentence usually just means 20 years in the US, for whatever reason.
Room Temperature Quantum Computing Breakthrough
So for drug convictions it's unfair? possession or distribution? what about manufacturing? is the crime for possession change depending on amount? what about the type of drug?

i think the way our country approaches the issue of drugs is not only pointless but down right dumb. about as dumb as breaking the law 3 times when you know that there's a three strikes rule on the books. i just don't have sympathy for people that can't learn from their mistakes. these laws are in place for a reason, these people knew they were in place, and now we're all supposed to feel bad for them about their decisions making? sorry, i don't buy it.

as for celebrities, i don't think we can really model the entire country around how they're treated. i'd prefer they be treated like everyone else too, but money buys lawyers and not all lawyers are created equally.
It takes about 0.01 bitcoin to buy a $5 cup of coffee.

But decimal placement is irrelevant and cryptocurrencies are intangible, silly.
Citi issues cards with chips now. They have sent me newst one with chip without me even asking.
Agreed.

I wish the article was more clear what advances the Berkeley folks have come up with. They claim a theoretical 3 meter resolution compared to the 'next-gen' sensor package (VIIRS [1]) at 750 meters.

[1] http://npp.gsfc.nasa.gov/viirs.html
http://collaboration.cmc.ec.gc.ca/science/rpn/SEM/dossiers/2...
The noteworthy politics-related stories I've seen in the last months almost always deal with either the NSA scandal or other attacks to basic human rights, including this one.

And I don't see any reason for these stories not to be on HN. Human rights matter for everyone.
B/c the US Gov would shut it down, seize your accounts and you'd be out at least 5 million USD

As long as the US Gov is against bitcoin, and they should be for their own sake, they will make it impossible to comply with the regulations. Anyone involved in creating the bank would probably face criminal sanctions for some crime. Crypto currencies may eventually threaten the USD's status as a reserve currency. The US Gov will do anything possible to stop bitcoin from growing to that level.
What is it these guys are doing right and we're doing wrong?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/11/sweden-closes-p...
This highlights the necessity of putting yourself in a good financial situation, otherwise be put in prison or just be black I suppose. This situation is unfathomable .
you may choose to go the C++ STL way for a wildly usable subset.

what I mean is this - we all knew that the rb tree implementation of stl wasn't that hot, neither was its sort (note - this is 7 years back), however that library enabled a c++ project to be jumpstarted in significantly less time than building everything from scratch.

as a language creator, you may not want to touch the design choices you made and make it more "accessible" for a simpler use case - as the previous poster wrote, upgrading from python.

however, you could potentially expose an accessible subset of the language as a standardised library. of course, this may lead to language rust (!!) at scale, but I would argue that its a good problem to have then.

I would be in your target market then - significantly better than python, inherently memory safe, easy to use, worse than c++.
When I read 'Terminal' on Hacker News I don't think of the airport kind...
For example, Alabama is almost as poor as France or Japan, and Mississippi (the poorest state) is almost as poor as Spain and New Zealand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP
Python is great but this is completely off base in terms of what is used in industry
Three-strikes laws are dumb, but so are you. Take your anti-US agenda somewhere else. I suggest North Korea, China, Venezuela, Iran, Russia, or any of the other countries not allied with us, so you can see how much "better" they are.
> I bet you wouldn't go for life in prison for someone who get three speeding tickets.

Sure.

> Once we agree that there is a line, then it just comes down to which side of the line a particular crime is on.

I actually don't find this to follow, because your example is exceptionally poor. I don't favor speeding tickets at all; as far as I can see, they're just a way for governments to capriciously collect extra revenue from people without giving it the politically unpopular name of "taxes".

Repeated-burglaries guy is obviously opting out of functioning in society. If the cost of keeping him out of it exceeds the cost he inflicts by his presence, I'd say we should keep him incarcerated and spend less, not just tell him "OK, burgle all you want".
Yes, human rights matter to everyone. So do urination and defecation — we quite literally could not live without them — but those aren't appropriate in all situations either.

When I say something doesn't belong on Hacker News, I don't mean it's unimportant or doesn't matter. I just mean that it isn't what this site is for. There are many, many stories that are relevant and important to me personally that are still not appropriate for every site I go to.

Think about it this way: Would you go on a My Little Pony fan site and post this stuff there? Human rights are just as crucial for My Little Pony fans, but it's easier to recognize that they aren't appropriate for a single-topic site. Hacker News is not a single-topic site, but it is still a site with a focus. If you look at the guidelines, politics are explicitly called out as being off-topic.
I'm assuming this was all triggered by the DPR/Silk Road bust and subsequent seizure of 30M USD in bitcoins.
You would be actually shocked how driven by money many oncologists are. Back when I used to consult, I had an oncologist tell me, with no hesitation, that he prefers to prescribe the drugs that give him the best profit margin, even if that means it's not the best choice for the patient.

I'm pretty sure if you checked his email you'd find some pretty shocking stuff as well.
That appears to be what he is advocating, yes.
Please don't lump pedophiles in with murderers. Many of them are in prison simply for downloading a file from the internet. In some cases, the content is perfectly legal and harmless but was edited to be sexually suggestive and the people caught with it end up in prison. That's not to say some don't actually abuse children, but many do not.
Does Stratfor have the capability of initiating wars?
Thanks - didn't catch that's what he was doing with the pipe cutter.
That's not how I read that email. I read that as a joke, kinda like a bunch of doctors talking about a disease epidemic and joking that it'll help put their kids through college.