skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
>I'd generally agree that it's much harder to launch a successful business than it is to get into Stanford.

I'm a bit skeptical of that point, being that there are a lot more successful small business owners than Stanford grads.

Now, if your idea of a successful business is a multi-million dollar exit on VC money, then sure, but plenty of people are happy to get by on a bootstrapped business that pays the bills.
I reckon that there must be a lot of writers out there thinking: "Hell, it was meant to be a cautionary tale, not a creepy government manual".

People have a habit of doing this with lots of narrative art. My favorite example is the movie Wall Street, which was apparently supposed to be a cautionary tale about what happens what the amoral will do anything to make money.

Instead, a lot of people saw it and thought, "Gee, it looks like you can make a lot of money in finance—and greed is good." Never mind that a villain makes the speech and that the quote is mangled! It's a movie telling us that it's a good idea to follow our worst instincts, so let's do it!
How We Decoded Some Nasty Multi-Level Encoded Malware
Putin dissolves state news agency, tightens grip on Russia media
He's not talking about the FB acquisition, he's talking about the rumored funding round. If there were an ac on the table, it was, at least until they turned it down, worth at least the price of the ac of course. He makes that distinction clear at the beginning of the post, just doesn't connect those dots directly.
Lightpack – Ambient backlight for your displays
Here's a CLI as well which is specific for coinbase. In addition to viewing rates it will also let you buy/sell/transfer and more. https://github.com/rdegges/btc/
If this turns out to be erroneous, does anyone know what happens here? I assume that if it is clear error then the licensing won't be valid and they can revoke it?
In addition he ran scala-tools.com which he opended up ( kindly) as a nexus host for lots of early scala tooling. However when Typesafe snubbed him he decided to divest himself of it, but not before asking someone to give him some money for the domain name ( we don't know how much he never said ). The community then needed to scramble for alternative hosting. Also on his way out he wrote some very negative posts about the language.
>They're honestly trying to do the right thing and simply went overboard with collecting too much data.

I agree with the mission. Just not with their methods.
For now. Macs used to allow installs of apps from anyone. Gatekeeper is currently set to only permit installs from the app store and developers who have paid the yearly Apple tax by default now. ( http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5290 ) In the next release or two, expect the Gatekeeper setting to be switched to app store only by default. Yes, you'll still be able to change it, but don't expect most users to.
Vast Freshwater Reserves Found Beneath the Oceans
I'm surprised no one has brought up that it depends some on what your real name is. Some names are more searchable than others, and some names are unique where others are shared with lots of people. If you are the only "Klandon Forzuth" on the planet then your online activities are much more easily found than if you are one of a million "David Smith"'s.

And sometimes people want to avoid being pre-judged, so Saheed may want to use a psuedonym when participating in an online discussion about 9/11 regardless of his views.

If your name because something of a brand or source of credibility, you'll probably want to use your real name. But if you're well known in one domain but want to participate in another domain without the baggage of the other domain, you may want to not use your real name. Same reason why some writers use different names when they write in different genres, even if it's not secret that they use multiple names.

I suppose there are several famous people participating in online activities that we are all unaware of because they don't use their real names. It's like avoiding being mobbed by fans on the street.

It you have an abusive spouse or stalker, you may not want to make your online activities so easily discoverable using your real name.

So it's not just because people want to be rude that they use a pseudonym. It's more complicated than that.
J Lo nipples
I think he's saying the total investment is $100m. So if it sells for $100m, each individual investor gets his money back.
>How many of those have no access to a computer of any sort, including a mobile phone?

Irrelevant to your point, but less than you might think. Currency transfer using texting is popular and highly functional in several poor African countries. I agree with your assessment that these people won't be affected by Bitcoin, but using mobile phones to send money is actually VERY common in some poor countries.
The BRAF V600E gene mutation occurs in about 55% of melanomas. The fact that there are targeted therapies to address that mutation is hopeful. Unfortunately, the first generation BRAF-inhibitors showed quick and early promise (shrinking many patients' tumors tremendously), these effects only last 12 to 18 months (at most), as new melanoma cells develop in the body resistant to the BRAF-inhibitation. So, now trials are combining BRAF-inhibitors with MEK-inhibitors to attack the path that melanoma cells often take to circumvent the BRAF-inhibitation. This approach is showing further progress.

It's a bit like whack-a-mole. Unfortunately, it takes time and money to find the best treatment paths.

Fortunately, more progress has made in the fight against melanoma in the last five years than the previous twenty. As a 2.5 year melanoma survivor (Stage IV in Summer 2012), I'm appreciative of this fact each and every day.
How I analyzed Twitter archives to show user's likes & dislikes
Maybe it's not my place to say but the tabbing made the code hard for me to read. I'm learning Ruby and have always been told to use 2 spaces. Are tabs ok too?
Interesting analysis, but isn't goodwill a fudge-factor in the balance sheet? ie, its not a flow but a stock. This makes its estimation implicitly data-starved, because with a DCF at leat you are getting a time series of independent measurements.
Things I would do differently... I think my product is too clearly the work of an idealistic technical person, and is slightly dated in the way it just expects people to join in because it will be useful if everyone used it. It's completely different from Circle in every way, not just when it comes to things that can be considered "evil". For example I've purposefully made choices like "it shouldn't need a dedicated mobile app", or "users shouldn't have to register to see content" from a purely functional perspective.

I did always view the idea as quite risky and I probably wouldn't have gone for it as a "pure startup". In this case I felt it was ok to do it as it could bump start my web dev business.

Good luck with your venture. I don't think being in Huddersfield is ultimately the reason why people haven't taken to LampNote. It was just difficult to get any local hype initially, and that certainly slowed me down
> Hmmmm, now I wonder if the actual problem is efficiency. We mere humans are pitted against technology we simply have no sporting chance against.

Efficiency is exactly the problem: there are many examples of laws which the public would not tolerate with 100% enforcement – the most basic example being things like speeding or jaywalking but it applies to more serious things as well: imagine if the penalties against, say, gay or interracial sex had been enforced against every activist possible because the government was tapping everyone's phones.
See Gatekeeper: http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5290

Used to be you could install any app you wanted. Now, Gatekeeper is set to deny apps from publishers that haven't paid the yearly Apple tax (aka 'registered' developers which costs $99 a year). Note that Gatekeeper has one additional setting which is app store only. Expect this to be the default in another year or two.

Yes, you can adjust this setting yourself, but most users won't change it. This will kill off most hobbyist development on the Mac and a large percentage of open source apps (GPL apps, the most popular open source license, aren't permitted in the App Store).
> Goodwill is something you add to the value of a company to sweeten the pot during acquisitions but it should never be the primary value proposition.

What? Goodwill is an accounting name for the excess paid to acquire a company beyond the fair market value of its assets. It's a "stub", basically used so that the books balance in terms of debits and credits (i.e. you paid X cash for the company, and that value splits between FMV of its assets and the rest is "goodwill".) Nobody ever says "I'm going to add some goodwill to sweeten the pot" when buying a company, nor would anyone attempt to use it for determining purchase price.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodwill_(accounting)

Also, the parent post refers to "flipping" but that generally means quickly reselling something, not killing it after three years.
Amazing customer service (I've use Schwab's; it's one step above Comcast) and web/mobile interfaces that don't make your eyes bleed (again, I've used Schwab's. Not impressed).

I rarely, if ever, use an ATM, so you and I might haver different use cases. I'd rather have a pleasant UX vs perks like ATM fee reimbursements.
Yes. OpenReach - the bit that actually runs the network - is legally part of the private company BT, but, through several reorganisations and a privatisation, is still functionally the GPO of the 1970s: a highly-regulated bit of public social functionality. Except a new phone line now takes three weeks instead of six months.
well it's somewhat ideological, no? or do they allow Bitcoin payments for in-app purchases if you go through them?

My feeling has been that the major companies don't want to acknowledge Bitcoin yet and are waiting a bit to see how things play out. Not supporting it for a while won't hurt them too much financially. They lose some transaction fees but don't have to support a new payment type.
The reason I became a programmer. Grace -> COBOL -> My father -> Me. In the basement, pecking away at tiny green monochrome screen and loading 8" floppy drives on Cromemco Systems-3, COBOL was the first language I tried to learn, wee age of 12. Although, honestly I don't think I ever grokked it as much as the simpler language put forth in thy little white book on my father's bookshelf by fellows K&R.
As a Mancunian, not at all. The name means nothing to me on the surface!
This article does mention this, but I think the point gets hidden: you cannot compare series * funding rounds with stock market valuations because investors in series * get downside protection. This is the "liquidity preference". If an investor puts in 100m at a 2b valuation, any exit above 100m will return the investment to the investors of that round [0]. So the payoff for these investments is actually quite nuanced with more than one "critical point".

[0] I realize it's more complicated than this, but the point remains.
Would you be willing to work on Ugly Crush, a fun dating website idea I had but no time to do it.. The problem is that dating is boring and everyone has fake photoshopped/instagrammed pictures of himself.
The idea is to make people put pics of themselves where they are not in their advantage,
Ex-Napster exec fatally struck by sheriff's patrol car while biking
How about, this is just one blockchain. Competing cryptocurrencies and blockchains give way more than 21 million coins.
It's a CDN. CloudFlare operates the same way.
Downloading this ASAP.
Null Considered Harmful
How should a startup/small company handle customer support
There is no reason to when the coins are infinity divisible.
Configuring and Running Facebook's HipHopVM (hhvm) JIT Compiler for PHP
They could ban by heuristic or URL.
Except no one has paid $3 billion for Snapchat. They've only bought a slice at that valuation.
Microsoft's $2 billion Android patent windfall is endangered. Does it matter?
I got the VM up but can't get it to do anything useful.. No next steps after getting the VM up..?? Also, I would be very nice to have a more granular install.. I just spent the day fixing my system after attempting a native install on Ubuntu 13.10 (still have more to repair) A list of prerequisites would be better that the current unified install...
Yup, I got the idea for this from Linus. Before then, I've always done the uglier "if this is the first node then ..." special case branch instead.
RHex Hexapod Gets New Amphibious 'Ninja Legs'
This is exactly right. Ever since they brought in in-app purchases to the app store they have required a 30% cut of everything. This isn't a dig at bitcoin specifically.

My local bus service sells bus tickets through an iOS app and they have to give up 30% of the sale to Apple. Even major retailers like Amazon and B&N ended up removing in app purchases back in 2011 [1] to avoid Apple taking 30% of their business. They are not even allowed to link to their own web stores from their apps.

Frankly I'm just amazed Gliph ever got that functionality in there in the first place.

[1] http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20082925-93/apple-forces-am...
Bacteria Love Lasered Jello
Yes, it's a reference to notices posted onto lampposts. A lot of people said they loved the name.

I did wonder how well it would travel, whether or not people from outside the UK stuck notices on lampposts, if they called them lampposts etc.
Considering how expensive this kind of reporting is, in terms of legal fees, travel expenses and journalist salaries, I wouldn't be suprised if they made a loss.

It's not the most advertiser-friendly story either.
That's interesting, because I think word pairs that simply don't occur in English could be a feature also. Maybe an on-off switch. I kind of like the domain voiceglockenspiel. Although several of your listed nice-sounding domains also seem to be pairs that simply don't occur in English as well?
This isn't what is what is happening here at all, but it gave me an idea. What if some person or organization with a lot of influence, like Apple, shorted on bitcoin, then banned it or did something to affect it's price.

This can work the other way around too, encouraging bitcoin use to increase it's value, after buying a bunch of it.
Yeah, I had the same question. If there are 2 investors each investing 50M, and they're equally senior, they both get half of the sale value if it's < 100M. They get 50M + 8%/y if it's sold for 100M-3B. And they get 1/60 each if it's sold for >= 3B.

That sounds like a good deal even if you think SnapChat is only worth 200M...
As the repercussions of what Snowden helped uncover become more public I hope people gain a better understanding of the man himself and his motivations. Try as I might, I can't find any word other than "hero" to describe him.

I imagine him at work and subject to a constant stream of information showing what our own government is doing to us. I imagine him repeatedly thinking this is wrong. And I imagine him looking deep inside his sole to decide whether his convictions and belief system required him to act or not. Of course, that decision had to come with the full understanding that he would be at the receiving end of the full wrath of the US intelligence, law enforcement and military machinery. At best he'd have to live on the run his entire life. At worst he'd end-up dead or in a dark cell, completely disconnected from humanity.

With that reality in front of him this man decided he needed to stand up for those of us who could not. He decided to, effectively, sacrifice his life in order to attempt to right a massive wrong being perpetrated on the people of the US and the world. That's right up there with a fireman running into a burning building or a soldier taking a bullet to protect your way of life.

This man is a hero. I hope this administration or the next comes to realize how much of a patriot a man has to be in order to risk it all to protect others. With that realization the only thing that remains is to bring the man home with open arms and have him be a big part of making things right for all of us.

That's what needs to happen next.
Before grabbing your pitchforks (again), please take the time to read this article from Gliph that clearly states Apple's policy on why they prohibit Bitcoin: https://blog.gli.ph/2013/12/09/the-state-of-bitcoin-mobile-a...

I really can't blame Apple for wanting to prevent potentially illegal content. When you allow that, you open yourself up to FBI raids, wiretapping, and other unplanned nuisances.

Are there really full Bitcoin wallets on Android? I'm glad that Apple's strict guidelines at least partly force developers to employ smarter decisions regarding disk space, network usage, and battery life (traditional Bitcoin wallets download the entire block chain and constantly poll the network for updates).
Hmmm, he does say "If I put a hundred million dollars into Snapchat today at a 3 billion dollar valuation, three things can happen:". Doesn't that roughly mean he owns 3.3% of the company, so would be entitled to only 3.3% of the return? Or in an IPO would he be one of the only ones selling his stock so he would get his cash out?
Fighters of injustice needn't submit to jail in my book. No drop in hero status for Snowden.
This is not as silly as it appears.

No offense, but it IS that silly.

Look at all the missed opportunities to stop the 9/11 hijackers. Look at the neglected follow-ups prior to the Boston Marathon bombings.

Are we supposed to believe that agencies that ignore or under-prioritize basic law enforcement/counterintelligence warning signs about potential terrorists are somehow going to do something useful with a World of Warcraft chat log?

This is waste, fraud and abuse at best. At worst, it is another example of using the "terrorism" boogeyman to monitor innocent people.
Square launches thinner credit card reader with better swiping accuracy
Congress Holds Hearings on Search for Extraterrestrial Life
2013 In Review: Thank You, 1300% Growth
Hey everyone, we built this quick web app over the weekend to help us better coordinate with our friends who may also be going to the World Cup in Brazil this year.

Let us know your thoughts!
Apple doesn't ban webapps per their policy.
From that same article, if you read the third paragraph, you'll see what I am saying.
Notwithstanding the merits of this particular case, anytime the government (or its PR allies) wants to justify its overreach...we see terrorists and kiddy porn rolled out. Its clearly manipulative, and pavlovian in a profoundly disturbing way.
you're right - chemical engineers are also on the bottom of the totem pole.

basically if you aren't in management or ownership, you are the bottom of the totem pole. this is by definition. if you look at an organization chart - who's on the bottom?
According to this website [0], the above-ground gold is valued at about $8.5 trillion USD. As this website [1] points out, the M2 amount of USD in the world's supply is $9 trillion. USD makes up about 15% of the total world's supple of $60 trillion.

This HN thread is by far the most interesting one I've read about speculating Bitcoin's future value.

[0] http://www.numbersleuth.org/worlds-gold/
[1] http://erikaugust.com/blog/thought-on-bitcoin
Yeah, that's what I would expect from WebP, as I played with gif2webp before, but I thought you said WebM, as in proper video?
But my Citibank app allows me to pay bills, transfer money between accounts, and deposit checks. LevelUp allows me to pay for things using credit cards linked to the app.

So it's pretty clear that Apple does allow financial transactions to happen in apps, without taking a cut or anything. What's unclear is why they would allow this for Citibank, LevelUp, etc., but not for bitcoin.
Screencast of original system behind Engelbart's Mother of All Demos
Ok, so the main thing I missed is the preferential terms that investors get in the event of a sale, namely that they will be the first money out.
This is why I think it's insane when I see Bitcoin-based services built apps for iPhone first. How naive are they? It's obvious as night and day that Apple would try to ban Bitcoin apps if they try to get into payments themselves.

We should try and stop them, of course, but why risk it by making iOS your first platform, and even your only platform for a while, if you you're building an app that has a very high chance of getting banned by Apple for arbitrary self-interested reasons.
Can they change their policy?
Extract common colors from an image using Canvas and Javascript
>Of course, not everyone's home Internet is terrible.

I dispute this. Is Google Fiber all right? Do you Silicon Valley folks get decent service? Because out here in the real world, ISPs are uniformly horrible. I haven't met or talked to anyone on the entire Internet who is satisfied, or simply not constantly enraged, by their ISP. It seems every single one is corrupt and incompetent at the same time.
Sounds like a fun site. Do you think people would actually use it for dating (because of it's honesty), or just to look at funny pics?
It trades reliability for throughput. So event tracking logs in realtome is the most common use case I think, where there's a ton of data. But we have a mapreduce calculate at the end of the day from raw logs for accuracy.
Yeah, who decided "!" meant "not"? That's just weird ;)
Besides "reed" here's another example "fee". It gives me feel and feet and even coffee. I'd also like to search for a specific word and not part of other words.
It is tempting to read this article as "wah, wah, wah! Nobody values us over a billion dollars!" but it is actually much more insightful. This statement that Jason makes is the key I think ...

" They can afford to get into these bidding wars because they have the confidence that they are likely to at least get their money back, and yet they still get upside exposure if things go extremely well."

There is a lot of 'brand management' at a venture capital company. They want to be the 'cool kids' to the people who 'pick winners.' That keeps the money coming in and the partners paid. Because of that, being an investor in a company that makes a positive, splashy, exit (not necessarily really profitable) helps keep that brand alive.

Given that, when there are already acquisition offers being turned down, VCs no doubt see an opportunity to buff their brand by having a piece of the action. And a weird feedback loop is that founders are quite flattered to hear their company referred to with such high valuations, and it might make their personal fortunes seem large (since they generally still have a large chunk of stock) even though an exit that doesn't clear the preference hurdle will typically pay them little.

So we get this little dance.

Such dreams don't always work out of course. So it is much easier to stay focused on just building value for your customers and adding to their delight and satisfaction in using your products. That activity always pays dividends.
Ask HN: What is the best SCM software for a small team?
Just 2 developers...is something like git always better or if there are only 2 people working on something is a central repository OK?
I think it's fair to say it's going to take a little while to migrate all of the systems over. Give credit where it's due, they're doing a good job with the new site and I'm sure that when it arrives the replacement for the tax disc application will be of a similar standard.
From Apple: “We found that your app contains content related to bitcoins – or facilitates, enables, or encourages an activity – that is not legal in all the locations in which the app is available, which is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines.

But this is ridiculous. I can use my Citibank app, the PayPal app, or whatever else, to pay for things that might not be legal either. Square could facilitate me receiving money for illegal things. It's hard to see why these are all allowed, but Bitcoin isn't.