skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The study that made us think the UK was the most surveilled country was a 2006 report, which reported about 4 million cameras in the UK. This report was published by the UK government's /own/ information comissioner as a warning of what we could be walking into.

A more recent study a couple of years ago put the number closer to 2 million, about 90% of which are privately owned. A large number of privately owned, non-centralised security cameras are not a threat to me in any way. If the government started networking private security for monitoring by the government, /that/ would be the action that would get people (and private companies) up in arms.

Other recent government aggression, such as suspicionless stop and searches, extended detention for terrorism offences etc. were successfully challenged in the European court of humans rights within a few years. I've seen a pattern of worrying things slipping passed a sleepwalking public, then reverted later when it comes to light.

Apart from all that, this headline in particular is really inaccurate. There was no quote as strong as the subject, but the closest thing is that the PM said they were going to 'block sites' related to extremeism. This isn't a 'filter', which implies it's something automated that affects all internet activity.

The internet surveillance under RIPA /is/ genuinely frightening, but that isn't unique to the UK.
I love how inconsistent these kinds of surveys are - the only UK city listed is London. However, a survey of cities in the UK gives Bristol and Edinburgh as the top two and London in 7th place.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/scotland/top-stories/edinburgh-...

[I must declare my blatant, but understandable, bias in favour of Edinburgh]
"Block" has a wide range of possible meanings that includes going to a court and getting a court order against specific sites.

The statement also does not indicate that this has taken place, nor does it set out any specifics of a mechanism by which this will be done.

In fact, there's nothing remotely providing evidence that there's even any actual intent to block sites, as opposed to a "series of steps" that may be used to block sites at some unspecified point in the future, subject to some unspecified set of criteria.

The title strongly implies that Cameron stated that filters are already in place. That claim is not supported at all.

Furthermore, the wording evokes filtering by type of content rather than blocking specific URLs (though that is debatable).

In any case, the title is written in a way that hints that this was a direct claim by Cameron, which in any case is outright false.

I'd love for him to have actually said this, as it would be an incredibly powerful thing to attack him with, and I find him disgusting, but making up stuff like this only serves to discredit legitimate criticism of what he is saying.
Permissões no linux
British leaders voted in by Scotland have shown no more respect for privacy and freedom than their opponents. The last Labour government, overwhelmingly backed by Scotland, proposed mandatory ID cards, and a child-protection Vetting and Barring Scheme which would have seen a quarter of the adult population put on a database, subject to ongoing checks.

I've seen nothing which indicates the Scottish electorate believes this is any more of an important issue than people elsewhere in the UK.

The idea that intrusion into privacy will fade away with Scottish independence is just in line with the attitude that things in general will magically get better as a result.
The problem with this chart is that it doesn't consider quality of life. (safety, environment, education, social system)

Canada for example has good salaries while having a quality of life that is comparable to western european countries, yet it is nowhere to be found on this chart.

I am living in Vienna, Austria which tops most quality of life surveys, but I wouldn't consider moving to Egypt (which is on that list) even if I could earn there 10x as much.

What's the point in being a millionaire when you have to live in constant fear of being abducted or killed.
I'm guessing you have a few you'd like to cash in on? ;)
Understanding Permissions in linux, easy way
Ok the server got flooded with requests and came down - I am just reuploading a version which uses a different web service.

The PROXY I use for the JSONP request got taken down by the traffic - can anyone offer a suitable replacement JSONP proxy URL for me ot use? Help would be greatly appreciated!
Susan Cains' book "Quiet" is a brilliant study on introversion and how introverted people interact with the world. Well worth reading if you're at all interested in the subject.
And I bet parliament is full of invisible pink unicorns.

We can speculate all we want, but making up claims that are totally unsupported, and presenting them as actual statements made by a specific person in this way is pure character assassination.
You're just repeating the original argument, and it wasn't a good argument the first time.

First, 23andMe isn't working in the realm of established science -- most of this stuff is highly speculative, at best. Blood tests are not speculative precisely because they're regulated by the process that you're arguing 23andMe should be able to ignore.

Second, the "your doctor shouldn't have to run the study" argument is the reddest of herrings. Your doctor doesn't have to do that (anymore...) because the regulatory system has provided a network of providers who do it more reliably.

Third, your doctor really does have to know how to interpret the results of your blood test. She can do that because the science is well-established, and the results are directly correlated to certain clinical outcomes. For most of this genetic testing, there's no equivalent interpretation. That's why you need genetic counselors, who know enough to know when an association study is total garbage. Or if a "50% change in risk" is meaningless in a larger context.

In short, it isn't especially onerous to want 23andMe to report only those genetic variations that are based on clinically relevant data, for which their tests are accurate and precise. That's just the basic standard for medical testing.
There are two kinds of developers... those who want a single framework that will solve all their problems and which they never have to look into... and those who like to understand one or more abstraction levels below where they're actually working.

Digging into a framework's source code is natural to the latter group, but utterly alien to the former.

Documentation written for the latter group describes mechanisms, design principles, APIs, etc. The former group instead requires examples and step by step tutorials.

Both will call documentation terrible if it doesn't conform to their expectations.
Replying based mainly in the post title, Brazil is probably one of the worst ranked countries on the list. The average salary is low and everything is expensive right now.
Introversion is not the opposite of extroversion, part 2
Yes, Your Toddler Really Is Smarter Than A 5-Year-Old
I can tell you the UK values are screwed up. No one I know earns that kind of money, and it's not just me (see here [1]).

Reading HackerNews makes me feel like there is a subset of very well paid developers. I am curious what makes them different from normal ones.

In London, the differentiator may be working in finance. I recall applying for a job at an investment bank a while ago (which I didn't get because I had 'good technical skills, but no experience of finance' apparently. Rarrr), which told me it would pay about double my current level. Conversely, I interviewed at Sony, building the web application behind the PS4, and was offered at a similar level to my current pay (now in the mid 20ks, started rather lower). This was for midlevel.

If you are reading this, and are in the 'lucky' group, how did you make that luck?

I write this because I think there is some network effect here - I am sure there are high and low paid lawyers, but I have no idea what differentiates them. Similarly, whithin my subset of software, I know people skills, landing clients, and raw programming ability are differentiators, but I wouldn't know what differentiator explains this wage cliff.

http://imgiseverything.co.uk/articles/junior-web-developer-s...
> I have never seen that level of surveillance anywhere else in the world.

I've lived in London in 13 years, and frankly I've not seen much more signs of surveillance here than in any other large city I've visited.
Here is the discussion on Part 1 at HN

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6800676
Spies worry over "doomsday" cache stashed by ex-NSA contractor Snowden
Any source for that other than just an impression? Would be interesting to see..
>> Why do you believe you have the right to tell other people what to buy for their money?

I am not doing that. The FDA is doing that. That is their job. If you disagree with that, you should also be okay with charlatans selling snake oil.
Nor Switzerland. Hard to beat Switzerland in terms of quality of life, purchasing power, or salaries.
I learnt about finance...
Well, in Germany, you are always talking about income before taxes (brutto) because net income (netto) changes depending on many factors. You probably already know but, there's even a calculator for that [0]

[0]: http://www.brutto-netto-rechner.info/
Yeah, no bank has ever foreclosed on someone's home.
It throws that up after you vote, presumably to make you broadcast this very important poll to the universe of rapt followers we all have. I didn't get the impression you actually have to do that to vote, though, since it pops up afterward. It at least gave me the impression that I voted even though I dismissed it.
Introvert and extrovert are outdated terms as meaningless as Freudian oral and anal types, or the word hysteria.

More modern view, which should be a blend of Minsky's models of "agencies" in the brain, and neuro-anatomic findings that a brain consists of multitude of highly specialized areas (which could have its deficits) and the notion that genetic predispositions could be compensated in some extent by environmental conditioning and cognitive re-training, should suggest meaninglessness of such articles.

Graphing two meaningless categories orthogonality instead of on a single line is a nice trick, and it seems like there is a new information to be read from it, but it is just a trick - replacing one vastly oversimplified generalization with seemingly more correct one, which, in fact, as meaningless as previous one.
Why do you even talk about infiltration? That is such a ridiculous straw man. No, it's far more likely the women were bribed to talk about rape after the US got pissed off at Assange.

Anyway the whole case is really fishy if you look into it, whether they were bribed or not. One of the women (the one with the dildo shoes), for example, actually blogged about accusing men of rape as a valid way of getting back at them. Does that seem legit to you?
>Much, much better than having to pull out my credit card, type in 16 numbers, make sure I use the right zip, then remember what crazy authorized by mastercard password I used. Especially for digital goods, not having to do all the address verification etc.., sure makes the transaction nicer.

IMHO you are heavily exaggerating how complicated it is to use CC and/or other payment options and how easy it is to use btc.

I select paypal, which already has me logged in to my account (or lastpass automatically logs me in), click "Pay Now". Instantly done.

Same goes for google wallet and similar services. Lastpass even has my CC info which I can use to fill out forms if I don't have an account. Even without lastpass I know my CC number, and I never have to make sure I use the right zip (how complicated is that to remember, seriously?)

It's much easier than having to pull out my phone (which is god knows where), open app, enter PIN (because security...), scan QR code from the screen and pay.

Or log into web wallet like blockchain.info by entering wallet ID, password and 2FA code,copy/paste bitcoin address somewhere and send money to it and if I get one letter/character wrong the money is forever gone because fk chargebacks, right?

(Did I chose one of the more complicated scenarios? Yes, just like OP did in parent comment for CC payments)

It's good that they offer multiple payment options, but comments which highlight best case scenario when using bitcoin and worst case scenario(in terms of how easy it is) when using CCs/PP/etc are really annoying.

>though I think there is real potential in developing countries

I bet you that it's insanely easier to get CC than bitcoin in a lot of "developing countries", and average people from developing countries, which I assume have lower than most income, should really avoid bitcoin due to the price fluctuation. In theory it's great, in practice... not so much.
When A Million-Dollar Art Piece Won’t "Run"
Which really intrigues me is the "Differences among salaries for Developers by level" [0] Why is Spain's data inverted, meaning that the junior developers make more money than Senior ones.

[0] http://blog.splinter.me/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Developer...
Ah! You were asking about the distribution of win rates across counties or towns or whatever. I completely misunderstood and thought you were asking for more information about the distribution of wins and losses within Marshall.

My apologies.
There is one difference between gold and bitcoin. When you break the encryption on gold, it is still gold.
As a native Texan (I've lived in the Houston area for about 26 years), I agree with most of what you say.

RE: the clinics, instead of closing, could those clinics continue to offer the other services and simply stop offering abortions? I feel like it's throwing the baby out with the bath water to just shut down altogether. Perhaps I am just misunderstanding the legislation, so please correct me if I'm wrong.
You should be concerned now, because the government can compel those companies to hand over their dossier on you, including your cell's tower or GPS records, your extremist views (surely something you've written is extremely different from someone in power, now or in the future), your advocacy of treason (you must have expressed displeasure about a President or member of Congress at some time), your support of terrorists (ever say anything negative about a declared or undeclared war?), and anything else you've ever said as a dirty, stinkin' agitator.

You've also been in a conversation with me, and that makes you a person of interest in some very plausible future scenario. ... "So, we notice that you spent a lot of time on this Hacker News site. Tell us about that."
There are plenty of tutorials around the net which teach the basics quite nicely but none in my eye rank high because none teach how to avoid what PHP is infamous for : spaghetti code. Unknowingly, newbies get the idea of making website as slapping together PHP, HTML in one page. I feel there is one critical section which every author misses, Basics of MVC and getting started with a framework.

Edit: grammar and spelling
Gadget: A smallish web framework for Go
> Also when I was there only 5 years ago they started to build cameras that could speak to people on the street to issue fines on the spot for littering or being out of school, remotely.

I have never heard of this, and never seen anything like it. It sounds like a half-baked tabloid story. Where did you see these cameras?
Or the "axis of evil" depending on your point of view.
Here's the linked Stack Exchange URL in a clickable format:

http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/26800/google-driv...

This discussion started something like 5 years ago:

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/apps/rrq8Y3EZT...

What kind of workarounds do you guys use?

This bit me on the ass because I did not even know people in my organization did not see these documents.
I like it! I frequent the PHP channel on Freenode often, and one thing that would probably be wise is linking http://www.phptherightway.com/ somewhere in there to try and influence coders to not make bad decisions off the bat.

small edit:

OOP part should really be using

public function __construct(){}

over the old style.
Chef for configuration files. Customisations for Chef Attributes are in a json.php file on the chef host that merges various things like specific settings for a datacenter, host role, etc.

Google Docs for certain information as well as a wiki. There are Standard Operating Proceedures (SOP's) for numerous tasks also in the wiki which explains things in detail.

Munin for graphing along with some metrics being polulated into Zabbix.
".. rational consumers .."
Assuming this article is correct regarding the penalization of comments, I'm a bit surprised (maybe even disappointed) that it is assumed that discussion is a sign of controversy. And maybe it is, historically?

It's a shame for those articles sparking insightful discussion though.

It seems like a weighted penalization could be implemented, potentially looking for red-flag words like "pedantic", or "not to be *". Or maybe it already is.

Hope I didn't just set it off. :)
Lethal Neutrinos
Portugal sucks in every way, not only for developers. Only consider coming here for vacation, this country is really on its kneels.
We should write that down somewhere.
It's not even explicitly "planned to exist", but some unspecified number of "steps" using some unspecified number of criteria leading to some unspecified form of blocking, which might very well include a court order and which might very well be challenged in court without ever being put into place if Cameron actually ever even tries to make use of it.

Keeping in mind that this is a country where known extremist clerics have been able to continue to preach and organise and avoid extradition despite successive governments trying their hardest to have people thrown out and making rather extreme statements about it.

In comparison, this is an entirely non-committal statement about "something" which may or may not turn out to be something to worry about and some unspecified time in the future, should Cameron actually care about it rather than just having rattled off something to sound good in parliament.
You're forgetting table salt.
The article seems to be saying that the upper class are the capitalists that have founded successful companies, and the middle class are all the engineers, and the lower class are the rest of society.

This view of class division in an industrialized society is not particularly new. Kurt Vonnegut's novel Player Piano presents this exact scenario (upper class of managers, middle class of engineers, unemployed masses), and it was published in 1952.
Hitler and Stalin were each a Times Person of the Year. They're selecting important people, not benevolent ones. At least, in theory.
You can also hold gold and make useful items out of it.
Thank's Ada. I guess I've been sort of avoiding Finance, so I certainly didn't study up enough pre-interview. I'm hoping someone will post saying there is another way - I like working on things that I really care about...
That may be so, but that does not mean the title is supported by the article at all.
There is also VexCL [0] and Boost.Compute [1]. Both are quite capable. I myself am working on something similar - it is called Aura but still a long way to go [2]. ViennaCL, VexCL and Boost.Compute focus on maximizing programmer productivity. Converting existing code from i.e. Matlab to accelerator hardware is trivial using these libraries and you get excellent performance quickly. Furthermore, NT2 doesn't get nearly as much publicity as it deserves [3]. Not only does it provide an incredible number of functions ready to use, but it also exploits the vector processing capabilities of modern CPUs. These capabilities are too often ignored by developers or left for non-optimal compiler optimizations to exploit.

In my own library Aura, I focus on maximizing performance (over developer convenience). The target audience are developers of real-time applications that need every last drop of performance from their hardware, while still maintaining a sane and cross-platform API. I strive for a Boost.Asio for accelerator developers. Aura has a already a rudimentary wrapper for clFFT, clBLAS is in the works. So the idea is to, for each platform, utilize optimal vendor-supplied library functions and combine them in a coherent interface.

[0] https://github.com/kylelutz/compute

[1] https://github.com/ddemidov/vexcl

[2] https://github.com/sschaetz/aura

[3] https://github.com/MetaScale/nt2
Putin is a good one but I feel like he wasn't a top newsmaker this year, and further that he will most likely be a newsmaker next year (look at current happenings in Ukraine, continued things like that, and then the mother of all craziness that's going to be Sochi Olympics)

Snowden seems like the best bet for sheer impact/newsmaker. Tho I'm not sure how 'international' TIME is these days, and perhaps Snowden is only really know in the West.
I agree. I would prefer Switzerland over U.S when it comes to long term capital gains tax for my stocks and other taxes as well as quality of life.
Yes, this would be the ideal approach, but it can become quite complicated (b/c the tool-chain needs to be installed for different machines). In addition, the official.xml importer (importDump.php) is not really up to the task (slow / sometimes buggy).

If you're interested in going this route, you can look at http://www.nongnu.org/wp-mirror/. This should build a local MediaWiki instance with one click. Keep in mind that it's a bit slow: it takes two days to build simple.wikipedia.org with images. In contrast, XOWA sets this up in about 30 min
> this is an entirely non-committal statement about "something" which may or may not turn out to be something to worry about and some unspecified time in the future

This oddly also describes pretty much every surveillance state apologist/rationalization I've heard as well.

Such as the one posited today by Cameron and his counter-terrorism task force.
Money Laundering Using Bitcoin - Total Cost: 0.5%
Quality of living, nature, clean water, clean air, amount of cars

One of these things is not like the others! It can be argued that for most people not having any cars at all correlates to a higher quality of life - the biggest drag to an individual's regular, everyday happiness is often found to be their commute. Once I moved closer to work and started to walk to the office, I became a lot more relaxed.
Maybe it's because improving the doc has not too much benefit for the contributor because he/she already understands the badly documented problem. But improving code has instant benefit for the contributor because he probably fixing something he still using.
5k average for the uk? no.
Government: Snowden is a terrorist.
People: Snowden is a hero.
Other People: Snowden is neither.
Base16 — Color schemes for hackers
Another is that gold does not require a working computer or Internet access; and also, no matter how bad your website security is, your gold cannot be taken via the Internet.
How does one identify a definition as technical?