skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Microsoft needs to stop trying to create an OS - just throw in the towel. Take BSD or Linux kernel port WIN32 on it and be done with it. They make almost all of their money on Office and Exchange anyways.

I mean this is what Next/Apple essentially did with BSD correct? Took BSD and created their own UI/services layer on top of it.
This is interesting, but given your parameters (predict the most friendships), all you're technically asking for is recall. I'll write an algorithm that has 100% recall: predict that all people become friends with each other.

If this is really a competition (and not just "Here, have fun with our dataset!"), you need to define the rules a little bit more clearly. How are you weighing recall vs. precision? Or are you just looking at % correct labels, where the only two labels possible are "FRIENDS" and "NOT FRIENDS"?
I did wonder that too. But it looks like fiction. Strangely, can't find any of Miracle Jones' books[1] on Amazon.

[1]: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/29497
When I was in undergrad I wanted to take Operating Systems 2 but it was only offered once/year and didn't match up with my free time. So I did an independent study where my plan was to write a basic ethernet driver for Linux.

I have never been as humbled by any sort of programming in my life. This was back in 2004 so the resources available online weren't nearly as good. I basically figured everything out by reading Intel's x86 documentation from start to finish. It took me a solid 3 weeks just to figure out how to start talking to the ethernet card. I spent days reading the same few pages in the manual over and over trying to understand how to get everything to fit together in assembly & C.

After 9 weeks I was able to address & initialize the ethernet card after the OS booted. I never was able to send or receive any data after a solid 50 hours of work.

Oh yeah, and I got a solid A for my work.
Uber will be a common carrier and I can't wait for the Uber API.
I think you need to read between the lines.

The fact that five Ministries and departments inserted themselves into this declaration suggests that the Bank of China is not strong enough to unilaterally ban bitcoin beyond what we have seen here: fairly sensible restrictions on BTC investment and holding by financial institutions.

What we are witnessing may even be a regulatory coup of sorts by MIIT, the Ministry with the most obvious interest in promoting bitcoin and the strongest claim to serve as regulator of it and other "virtual commodities".
"While we have no direct evidence that customer data has been breached by unauthorized government access, we don't want to take any chances and are addressing this issue head on."

Technically, he didn't lie. He did say "unauthorized", after all!
I really like Kaleidoscope and have been using it for quite some time now, since it first launched on the MAS. It's a very pricey but I think it's worth it. It's a great program, looks good, makes git diffs really easy and launches in a second on my Mac. It also provides integration with services like git so you can just do git difftool and have Kaleidoscope launch with the diff between the local and remote. For big hairy merges, this is a lifesaver!

I also use vimdiff sometimes and it's pretty great as well, with the advantage of editing a file inside vim.
currently $976 @ https://btc-e.com/exchange/btc_usd
When Sex Doesn't Sell
Let's say we find it, what then?
I don't know why Microsoft are bothering with this. The 'I have nothing to hide' crowd could not care less and those that are quite fascinated by everything NSA are not going to ever believe that Microsoft are anything but evil.

The funniest Microsoft story for me was the one regarding their former security chief. Nowadays he won't use Microsoft products or anything else where he can't see the source code. Until such time as Microsoft open source the stuff they churn out then all one can do is 'believe' them to be good and, after finding out how in bed they are with the military-industrial-complex, I just do not trust them.
Can Chinese use pesos for paying mortgages and investments? Is BTC different from any foreign currency in this regard? (Except perhaps USD, which are special)
Which was the 1st?
I wonder what the percentage is when you figure the entire "computer" gaming market (eg. consoles, tablets, and phones). I suspect Microsoft's dominance on gaming is (and will become even more) weaker than we believe.

OpenGL seems like a no-brainer for future survival as MSFT platform dominance exhibits entropy.
I've been using Meld [1] via XQuartz. It's not pretty (and getting it working is an absolute pain) but goddamn does it get the job done. Nothing I've tried is nearly as functional. And it's open source!

[1] http://meldmerge.org/
Monster eCommerce Companies Based in Boston
Absolutely, an ex-girlfriend knocked some sense into me in my early 20s and I've been in great shape ever since. There's probably a fantastic company in doing exactly what you propose and I'd love to be a part of it.

But a lot of tenured gym teachers I've met as an adult are the same people who were tormentor jocks in their childhood. So I've never moved further on it.

How do you propose reforming it with people like that blocking the way? Because I think America needs an intervention, Europe isn't far behind, and Asia is doing its level best to catch up right now.

There were a bunch of absolutely awesome ads in the subways of Hong Kong last year that showed a woman's flabby mid-section with a timebomb strapped to it. Contrast this with last week's Facebook kerfuffle between Maria Kang and Curvy Girl which demonstrated (to me) that anything but the most vanilla criticism of this situation in the US is apparently hate speech. Gag me.
Android's Andy Rubin Now Working On Google's Robotics
I'm curious if request #5 actually ever generated revenue.
> Engineers have, in many ways, built the modern world and helped improve the lives of many. Of this, we are rightfully proud. What's more, only a very small minority of engineers is in the business of making weapons or privacy-invading algorithms.

Morality is relative - by defining what is and isn't moral the article loses the opportunity to make a bigger, more inclusive point. While some people may think spying is wrong, others, like the Economist (http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21588861-america-will-...) have argued that it's not a bad thing. Similarly, building weapons isn't bad (per se); as the ancient adage goes: "if you want peace, prepare for war".

My point isn't to start an off-topic debate, it's to point out that morality is complex and subjective, and it's up to the individual to make their own decisions. Personally I would never work for the NSA or a defense contractor, but I understand why some people do. I think building a strong moral code is very important, and it's a bad idea to let other people do it for you.
Microsoft to harden networks, code against government snooping
4 Robotics Trends from the International Robot Exhibition 2013
Variability on the initial maturity of the startup, mostly.

Reduction of adverse selection on your side, also.

Based on your historic numbers, would it be a significant cap on your upside?
Mmh, perhaps we were thinking of different "mainstream media". "Mental illness" is not the term I would use to describe DPRK leadership, just like I wouldn't use it to describe the 3rd reich's, or Mugabe's. I don't even care about justifying it- the facts speak for themselves about what they do, and it's certainly criminal.

As for the people, I absolutely do not believe they are brainwashed monsters- merely that they do not have a choice, and get by as they can. For the ones in the higher levels (i.e. living in Pyongyang), it means doing whatever they can to stay in the favors of those in power and not get executed (remember what happened to the soccer coach when they got disqualified during the world cup?). For the vast majority of the rest, living in the almost-exclusively rural North Korean countryside, it means starving to death and not getting killed by the local military.
So it means you have to bring this kind of expensive machine with you everywhere you go if you want to use gold as means of payment.

Ridiculous.
Seven Ways Organizations Can Securely Manage APIs
I don't mean to nitpick, but according to your table, an idea is worth anywhere from -$1 to $20. :)
Right now, yes. However we do know that this has been changing quite rapidly in the past years so why fall back on the use of this argument?
They were also paid a bunch of money to buy Skype and rearchitect it to enable wiretapping. It's not like they've "seen the light", depending on their incentives their actions change.
5 Things To Know About Android’s New Advertising ID
So basically they are asking people to build them an algorithm that will be a critical part of their business, in exchange for a free service that will be based on this algorithm. Right...
While it isn't pretty KDiff3 is still a decent diff program. I've mainly only used it when I have to do merges between 2 versions of a project.

I used Araxis Merge at a previous job for a bit and really like it. But back then (2005?) their shortcut keys on Windows were atrocious and could not be customized.
An Oral History Of BlackBerry
What is a "transparency center", and what does it do?

Is that an office where you can sign an NDA and then read source code all day?

Is there a way that a company with closed source and proprietary infrastructure can prove that it's not up to any funny business?

Spideroak can, but only by opening up the client-side source code.
This seems to be a way of saying that, unlike USD which has a controlled exchange rate on the public/legal markets, you can't just pay your bills in BTC because the person you are paying has no way to determine what the BTC are worth, so you have to covert them to official currency.

What other decision is possible? To have an official govertment exchange rate posted for banks to use? That would be insane, with BTC's volatility.
Flynn - The product that ops provides to developers
He didn't go on his own. He was part of a tour group.
How is the submitted code used post contest?
Only because I usually end up knocking up network servers.

That is true but you only have one thread to synchronise so mutexes and locks are vastly simplified.
I've had Richard Stallman personally lambaste me for unethical behavior, namely by not quitting my job at Apple because he disagreed with Apple's behavior.

While I agree that ethics are important, there are people who will use ethics-like arguments to manipulate you.

I make shooter video games. Is that a bad thing? According to some people I'm evil. I've written software that people used to write software that people used to kill people, is that okay?

Saying, "We gotta follow ethics" is great stuff, but I'm unwilling to be used.
But then they could just hire a M.S. in Computer Science?
Rugby Star Paddy Jackson gears up for Christmas
The anecdote I usually trot out is this: back in 1990, there was a company in Ohio, called Book Stacks Unlimited, if memory serves. They had the books.com internet address.

Books.com sold books by allowing one to telnet to their server, and picking items from their catalog - on a terminal screen, natch ;). They had reasonable shipping fees, and used only recyclable materials, namely crumpled brown paper for padding. (It did not work too well versus the foam peanuts more common at the time.)

A few years later Amazon was all over the place claiming "a river of one million books", and becoming synonymous with internet book-shopping. The books.com domain now belongs to Barnes&Noble.
This reminds of http://robrhinehart.com/?p=1005

That fact that the women are depicted as just three pairs of legs doesn't help, though.
I'd say the patent system is working exactly as intended.
Both (a) and (b) have been stated forever. (b) was just common knowledge, clarified with an official announcement today.
Entrepreneurs are -- serious ones less so.
Your bank account has no utility on its own. So what? It's still valuable.

Bitcoin is valuable because of its properties, and that's why people are willing to pay more than $1,000 for each.
Yes, that's exactly what I mean. It's a burden which we grudgingly accept, but it's certainly not a feature. Nobody loves the dentist either, but we need to go occasionally
I just wish for some leaders to act like leaders.
Which is where resources like Stack Overflow really shine.

I had someone add a link to MSDN to an answer I posted on SO a few years back. That topic didn't exist when I wrote the answer - and the subsystem being documented was already fairly old when I wrote about it.

Waiting around for months or years for vendors to get their documentation up to snuff is rarely an option; how many people have ended up reinventing the wheel, badly, because the only indication that it already existed was tucked into a bit of test code collecting dust somewhere?

Every time Apple releases a new version of iOS, I see questions regarding the new APIs being asked and answered on SO... Usually before the NDA is even lifted. "RTFM" is useless if the manual is incomplete or inaccessible until long after the fact.
This is a cool challenge but the prize is definitely lacking. I think anyone capable of writing an algorithm of the caliber you're looking for isn't likely to participate. I could be wrong but I think you're going to have to pony up some serious cash to get developers taking this seriously. Or you could go the more standard route and just hire someone to do the job.
Hacker-built drone can hunt, hijack other drones
Vioxx, Rezulin

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-whistleblower-resigns/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Graham_(epidemiologist)

I hope no one you know is taking Avandia right now.
Sorry this was unclear. We meant "correctly predict the most friendships"

You get 1 point for each friendship that you correctly predict did or did not occur. In the test data set ~50% of pairs became friends, so predicting "everyone became friends" would get 250 points, whereas a perfect algorithm would get 500 points.

I'm updating the README now to make our scoring system more clear.
I don't believe the layman has an "ordinary, rational concept of metadata".

The NSA's library metaphor was well-chosen: loose enough to possibly explain but complex enough to mislead. It derailed the conversation.

But I see no utility in the light bulb metaphor you present, except possibly to mislead as most metaphors can do. I would never use it in this context.

The point is to eliminate the metaphors. "Just the facts, ma'am." as Dragnet's Sgt. Friday (didn't exactly) always says.

"why would you want anyone like that to speak a single word?"

To find the truth. If not, to reveal those who lie under oath. To eliminate the metaphors and replace them with facts.
Benchmarking D vs Go vs Erlang vs C for MQTT broker
I hear you, I just would love to be able to do everything in a CouchDB restful type way. The main reason I even look at using shows/lists was to make my pure Javascript/AJAX couch site SEO compliant. A pure javascript frontend website would be ideal if it weren't for limited search engine crawlers.
For ever fool who loses money in the gold rush, there is a genius who made money.
The caption for picture 28 is important: "At this point, it's probably important to say that a typical street in Pyongyang is not a typical street in North Korea. Residence in the nation's capital is reserved for the political elite and their families, about 10% of the population. For the other ~22.7 million citizens, even visiting Pyongyang is not possible without a permit."

North Korea's control of even internal movement by its own citizens is more strict than pretty nearly anywhere in the world. The photos and their captions here are very illuminating about what Pyongyang looks like today, and I'm grateful that this was submitted here, but Pyongyang is indeed not representative of the northern part of Korea at all.
NK is so far behind in the times they literally have human LCD's.
Hahaha, you and me and about 1% of the browser users (well on HN, probably more like 10%) have particular habits of keeping much larger numbers of tabs open than everyone else.

Have you imagined an alternate scheme to tabs, where there are 100s of thousands of potential "tabs" which can be organized, called up in groups, moved in clumps together, and shared?

Imagine each group of tabs like soldiers in a Command and Conquer game...
I take my sleep advice from infamous hip hop artist Nas - "I never sleep, cause sleep is the cousin of death"

In reality I sleep 8+ hours and laugh at those who "boast" at how little sleep, or how many hours they work at the expense of other valuable things in their life (family, socializing etc.)

Also, a lot of these comments are about the mid-afternoon/post lunch nap. Honestly I'd prefer to get home to my family a bit earlier, than take a mid day siesta and have to come home later in the evening.

Getting up early and clocking out early are especially tempting given how little daylight we have (Northeast US) this time of year.
You have a good point about switching cost. On the other hand, Chrome always could be run with --single-process (mainly there to measure the overhead of multiprocess), so it didn't really "pick one".
Which would be the alternatives that allow to import an MBOX archive? I am not familiar with email storage.
They're also looking for whether people become friends on Facebook.

The dominant factor here is going to be the rate at which the participants send and accept connection requests on Facebook. Some people send them to everyone they meet, some people never use Facebook.

KPI overfitting, yay!

(The best second-order effect is probably a multi-feature similarity measure between the participants and the person's current Facebook Friends, including graph distance to current Friends. In case anyone is taking a run at this.)
Ah, I just found it on Wikipedia, in the article on singluar they...

"Though semantically singular or ambiguous, singular they remains morphologically and syntactically plural (e.g. it still takes plural forms of verbs)."

Thanks.
Reminds me 2 stories:

1) the Nazi's set up a "public friendly" concentration camp in the Czech Republic, Theresienstadt (1), which they took officials from the Red Cross to and used in media reports sent to the West which demonstrated the "rich Jewish cultural life." of their camps.

2) Crazy Eddie, an electronics store in the early 1980's which turned out to be a massive investor fraud, (2) had a warehouse filled with boxes so he could have an audit, a necessity to go public - the first row of boxes were filled with merchandise, the rest of the boxes were empty.

TL;DR - Humans are trusting people, show them something, and tell them "everything else is just like this thing", and most people will believe you at your word.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresienstadt_concentration_ca...

(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Eddie
Find More Customers for your Startup in 6 Easy Steps and limited resources
This annotated photo gallery is unusable without JavaScript.

Why?
Electrolysis was stalled and/or deprioritized for something like two years, with no apparent progress.
Is your company really working on 3-5 year life cycle for mobile devices?

Most companies where I worked were on 2-year life cycle. The new devices were almost free at this point, it made no sense to use the old devices any further.
There are tons of blind and vision-impaired users using iOS 7 and a quick web search shows articles praising the improvements for those users. No doubt there are vision-impaired users who don't like it, too, but it's silly to make a blanket statement that it's unusable.
Shareholders cry conspiracy as Hibu goes in to administration
It's funny how many old stuff (that is supposed to rely on current data) is posted on HN. I am still getting used to this.

I was reading the article and he mentions WinXP is half of all gamers.. I couldn't believe my eyes. These things should come with a disclaimer here like "really really old stuff, i just want to pick a few points from it which are this and this. ignore the rest".
This may be a marketing campaign to reassure their international customers, in particular governments and other large organizations.
Let me guess, you work as some kind of technical adviser at a patent law firm. And you think your work is useful and important.
I'm speaking of the tendacy to say "Oh man those crazy North Koreans, what wacky thing are they doing today?" The portrayal is one of total irrationality, with no way to figure out what the underlying motivations are.

Maybe I just read too much Foucault. ;)
Science Reporter Shares Sexist Emails in Hit Video
Airbnb is a somewhat similar example. You can definitely make deals directly with a homeowner/tenant, but both parties are protected and there is insurance when you go through Airbnb. Peace of mind is worth a lot.
Hamilton And Waterloo Unite To Teach Kids How To Code
Do you have a link for that, or is it still speculation?
And I have seen projects whose performance was crippled by layers upon layers of endless virtual calls. YMMV ;-)
Maildir please.
An Ultrasonic Range Sensor, Linux, Ruby, And An Arduino
I agree completely.

Here is a combat veteran discussing what it is actually like. This sentiment is basically echoed among the friends that I have who have served in the military.

http://www.mediumdifficulty.com/2012/03/01/call-of-apathy-vi...
Some Americans think working for the NSA is ethical. I'm an American engineer, and I would not work for them, given their recent history.

I would be surprised if you found an American working for the NSA who didn't do so willingly-- people in that position can easily find other jobs, so they do.
The House votes on patent reform today. Here’s what you need to know.
Many comments suggest to use password managers like lastpass, 1pass, etc. But I think that may not be a good idea:
a. What if lastpass/1pass is compromised?
b. You have to login to retrieve your password, which is inconvenient.

I think the best solution to this is to make sure your passwords ONLY exist in your head, nowhere else. And to NOT reuse your passwords, you have to create a unique and reasonably strong one for each service.

So how do I remember all these unique and strong passwords? I create an algorithm which takes two parameters as inputs: my username and the domain of the service, it will do some simple manipulation of the inputs and give me a reasonably strong password. Hence, all you need to do is to remember your algorithm and use it to compute your password when you need it. Of course, you want the algorithm simple enough to be done in your head.
Probably most desktop clients. You can import an MBOX file to Thunderbird with the ImportExportTools extension (which Mozilla links from their KB):

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/importexp...
That would save the indirection, but I hope the article shows that by far the biggest cost comes from the lack of inlining. The latter would not be solved by your function pointer.
Too bad you don't accept email like foo.bar+something@gmail.com
Thank you, Google.

Glad to hear that the Data Liberation Front is alive and well:
http://www.dataliberation.org/

From 2006: "We would never trap user data," he [Schmidt] said.

[1] http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-we-wou...
OpenDocument Format isn't just one format, it's a collection of formats. The one that corresponds to doc and docx is OpenDocument Text:

site:gov.pt filetype:odt (1330 results)

Edit - For spreadsheets:

site:gov.pt filetype:xls (2290 results)
site:gov.pt filetype:xlsx (394 results)
site:gov.pt filetype:ods (2 results)

Looks like they have a lot more work to do.
>What they do fantastically well is quickly push the stupid questions out of the way and let the good ones float to the top.

A friend of mine goes shopping with me for very much that reason, because I am her living process of elimination of taste in fashion. Having found a wrong answer as being wrong is also something positive.