skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Here's a similar story.

A friend of mine runs a (very) small chain of coffee shops. Two years ago he was on holiday in Southern America, and happened to be in the same city as one of the major coffee exporters of the continent. Since he's a true coffee geek he called them up, told them that he owned a very small chain half-way around the world and asked if he could come visit. They agreed, and when he got there he was treated to a whole day of tasting, talking, and generally doing what coffee geeks do with people fairly high up in the company.

When he asked why they had spent so much time on him when, at best, he would becme a very minor customer they said that they did this to everybody no matter how small. The reason was that many years before another random guy had called up and asked if he could come down for a visit from the US. They treated him well, extended him some credit and generally gave him excellent service. He also ran a small chain of stores. They bonded and he stayed a loyal customer for many years because he was treated well.

The small company he owned was called Starbucks.
I don't know a lot about cryptography, but I have read a little about it and I've used it in projects. Could someone explain why a 256 bit key seems to crack more easily than a 128 bit key according to this paper? It seems to me that the opposite should be true.
1 in 8 Americans virtual world users
Acts_as_taggable_on_steroids was REALLY slow [Snippet] « elc technologies
Wouldn't it be yet another optimization to just include that loadScript function in the HTML? Reducing round trips to the server is a common technique in web site optimization.

I realize that script will be cached after the first time, but it's so small that it will hardly affect the performance of subsequent requests anyway.
Beluga whale saves diver's life
Actually, the Cocoa (aka "nextstep") build of GNU Emacs 23.1 works exactly this way by default. Option is Meta, and various typical Mac Cmd shortcuts work by default (many of the ones that Aquamacs supports). For example:

Cmd-C/X/V - copy/cut/paste
Cmd-Z - undo
Cmd-N - new frame (or "window" in Mac terminology)
Cmd-W - close frame (if not last frame)
Cmd-` - switch between frames
Cmd-H - hide application
Cmd-M - minimize frame
Cmd-, - customize
Cmd-K - kill buffer
Cmd-T - bring up Mac font chooser
Cmd-S - save
Cmd-A - select all
Cmd-O - bring up Mac file chooser

And of course you can define your own actions that use Cmd if you'd like.

I think, for new users, the way Emacs does frames/windows/buffers is worth discovering instead of what Aquamacs does by default.
Ex-college kid. Working at Walmart ISD now for the time being.
"China has been keeping its currency pegged to the dollar and lived off US consumption. Now US will not be consuming much for a long time, so China has nowhere to sell their goods to."

If they let yuan up freely, the Chineese will buy their own prodcuts as their purchasing power will go up. I see it as evolution, not revolution. They will not need exports anymore with 1.3 billion people market whose currency is actually worth something. In the short term - yeah they may have issues. Long term - the transition of wealth from US to them will be complete once usd hyperinflates and their currency rises in value a few times.
Everything happens on the coasts. Except like bread and stuff.
Arsenal Have Dug A Gold Mine – What Will They Do With The Gold Now?
Most of the heat generated by the brain is dumped into the blood and recirculated thought the rest of the body first. So the brain can dump a lot of heat fairly quickly.
Has anybody else noticed slower load times using Google's hosted libraries than their own?
Mitnicksecurity.com hacked ?
Rachel installed as 4-5 choice in Haskell
The Revelation Space series: Revelation Space, Chasm City, Redemption Ark, etc.

Inhibitors. Brrr....
A Water-Powered Jetpack
How does this qualify to be on HN ?
Yes, this is less absurd than I thought it was going to be; it's basically a polite watermark. My guess is that they'll ignore micro-users like mini-bloggers but throw the book at any volume sites that strip the 'DRM' and recycle the content without attribution.

I think rumors of AP's suicide/death are rather overblown, and they're just looking for a way to share without giving away the farm. Of course, they might have done better to use something like a creative commons license and choose terms that would encapsulate their legitimate commercial interest. On the other hand there's no ML standard for CC licensing that I know of.
Jonathan Zittrain's definition of "the cloud" doesn't seem to be very nuanced.
Indeed. To quote the more detailed original newspaper article linked from Wired: http://news.therecord.com/article/354044
" A researcher in Ireland has found Pseudomonas is capable of degrading polystyrene, but as far as Burd and his teacher Mark Menhennet know -- and they've looked -- Burd's research on polyethelene plastic bags is a first."
I think it's interesting that there are attacks against AES-256 that don't work against AES-128. Apparently, "the key schedule for 256-bit version is pretty lousy." Surprising, to me at least.
Anatomy of a Feature
I wouldn't say 4chan is the "smaller guy".
Sony Imageworks releases 5 projects as open source. Includes pystring.
No modern news outlet should have more than 100 employees of any kind. Period.

100 at the most, but you can easily run a media company or regional newspage with 10 or 20 employees.
Security Researchers to Unveil iPhone SMS Exploit
Because they're keys to different algorithms. The bit-length in AES is not an arbitrarily tunable parameter. AES-256, AES-192, and AES-128 are related but nonetheless different algorithms. The recent attacks on AES-256 and AES-192 have exploited the key schedules, which is one component that's different between the three algorithms. AES-128's key schedule is better-designed.
I agree with the "must have .com" mentality, unless you're targeting a tech-savvy market specifically, then you can get away with the domain hacking (.us, .ly, .me, etc.)

However, let's be honest: your name is not going to make or break you. Don't let choosing a name hold up real progress. If you're sitting there trying to decide what to name your svn/git repo, just call it "myapp" and move on.
uni student, former employee in electronics manufacturing, current employee as a programmer, hacker hobbyist, immigrant to the States.
I'm glad to see that this event looks like it is being scientifically, and sensibly, evaluated.
Ask HN (outside the US): Your Internet Connection
Here in the US, the max internet connection speed is ~10-15 megabits per second down and maybe 1 mbps up (unless fiber is available), plus a lot of ISP's have restrictions against serving content from a residential connection.

I've always heard that you can get crazy good speeds abroad. So, what's your connection speed, and what's its cost? Do you also have the same restrictions on serving content from your connections? Have any of your ISPs started capping bandwidth yet?

This seems a bit off topic, but I've been frustrated with my connection as of late.
I'm glad to see that there's a need for something like Omega; it strengthens my faith in Fedora's adherence to its strict Free / Open Source Software policy. If I ever decide to abandon Debian, at least I'll have somewhere to go. Well, somewhere that isn't gNewSense.
It's pretty obvious that this is written like a rant. He's been trying to get into Android on the G1 but has gotten frustrated. Now he's venting.

However, he does point out how many of his issues can be solved and after his list he makes the real point: It's not just one flaw that makes it rough, but rather the general lack of polish. If you're willing to put up with that, like a lot of Linux users did for years, then you will probably like it. But most people would rather things "just work" and so they would rather opt for an iPhone. Sometimes it's the little things that make a lasting impression.
I agree with you that a name shouldn't hold up progress, but a name can break you. My favorite example was taking the Chevy Nova to the Mexican market. Unfortunately, "no va" in Spanish means "doesn't go." Not the best name for a car.
The post makes the assumption that you can't make changes midstream. I think the correct solution is to plan your life assuming you will die at 70 and then adjust your plan accordingly as the life expectancy numbers rise.

Life has a servo loop.
Actually the fact the G1 uses micro-sd vs internal memory is better, since if all you want is a memory upgrade, you don't need to sell your phone, get a new contract and spends hundreds extra just for that extra 16GB. There are 16GB microSD cards out there, 32GB ones soon to come.

The fact you need a headphone adapter is a major pain.
You favorite example isn't actually true: http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp
Did I ever say I was referring to Linus? ;)
If you have base design gift try to become UI expert
Yeah, it was a direct copy of the page's title tag. Note to submitters: if the title tag doesn't make sense for the article, please change it so that it does.
I'm not sure.

Americans in the middle class and above aren't strangers to spending substantial amounts of money on stuff that they don't need. Segways are useful enough that I could imagine them gaining a substantial market share if it were fashionable to use one.

Now, that doesn't mean that they would catch on if they weren't dorky. But even at the outrageous price that they were marketed at, I think it's conceivable that they could -- I think they'd have similar chances to other potential fashions. So I actually think I agree with PG more than you. Price and insubstantial benefit are both major problems with the Segway (and frankly I'm being a little devil's advocate here, the price was ridiculous -- but cut it in half or so and I think it stops being prohibitive), but the aspect of Segway that made it impossible for the thing to succeed was its dorkiness.
I wonder if Micheal A would fire Sarah Lacy over something like this.

He has always been heavily against sponsored posts.
Damn snopes...it makes for such a great example.

I do, however, stand by the notion that a name can have a net negative impact on a product, especially in a day and age when much product discovery comes through search engines.
I realize it's happening. I think what he means is that most people don't think about it much.

However, if you've used Google News for a long time after a while you notice that there's a lot of no-original-content websites masquerading as news outlets, not unlike the domain squatters with 'search result' pages for high-ranking searches. In my opinion it's a kind of black-hat SEO.

Try looking at a news story in GN and you'll see that the top story has maybe '5000 similar stories'. The first page or two will be related or fully rewritten stories, but if you go past the first 100 results you'll see a lot of junk websites that just host the top 20 news stories and monetize them with adwords. They may only make $10 a day that way, but it's diluting AP's brand a bit in the process.
Moderation of comments is not a particularly easy problem... You made a post that apparently the first four people found unhelpful and confusing? I looked through the post and I didn't find it particularly interesting, but then the whole topic isn't very interesting to me.
engineer in a late stage startup, formerly an engineer in a large company, next... a hacker with my own startup.
Intel: Netbooks Not for First Time Buyers. Really?
There is another one albeit more commercial, mounted and cheap for 45$.

http://www.universetoday.com/2009/04/27/the-celestron-firsts...
It's the end of the world as we know it...

I really don't think that there is much or a danger of skype disappearing - it's too valuable. Worst case scenario is that it reverts back to it's previous owners and/or continue under a different name.

But, realistically, I doubt that anything will change. EBay has deep pockets, and I'm sure that they won't give this up easily. I doubt that they would license a technology, and then lose the license without a fight. Ebay does not like egg on its face.
"Dying Diver Accidentally Hacks Beluga's Instincts"

Whales and dolphins are known to assist sick pod-mates to the surface to breathe. In this case, it was a sick human.
I've heard this statement before in many different incarnations some with intonations of piracy, some without. However they all fail to see the basis of where the other party is coming from. They want to be adequately rewarded for you using their content. However adequately differs very much from person to person, you may think that a news story costs a quarter to read, I may think it costs 15 cents, the CEO of AP may think it costs a buck fifty, and the 13 year old down the street thinks AP should pay him to read the news story.

The problem that news companies suffer that makes this a significantly different problem for them rather than a company like the RIAA is that journalists get paid by the company as a primary source of income, journalists have to get sent places which costs the company money, and the company's primary source of revenue is the output of the journalists. For a second lets forget print media ever existed, in the current state of the web where media such as this is demanded by users to be free this is a failing business because of extravagant costs, and almost no profits. Why print media is a failing is because less people buy print and more people read it online.

There are players who beat the market by having a niche audience, low costs, and a high price, ie the Economist. Unlike the NY Times or AP they didn't have to send several photographers and journalists to China several times for pre, during, and post Olympics. While I don't necessarily agree with this business model, an exchange of cash has to exist somewhere, finding where such an exchange is most acceptable is a another story.
Currently employed at a late state, nasa funded startup... soon to be writing my own software full time, at least for a while.
Its always dolphins that are considered intelligent, and more importantly friendly to humans. That a whale could be friendly and gentle, was interesting, thats why I submitted this.

Sorry if it isn't appropriate.
IT at a general contracting firm specializing in municipal water structures.
Downside of higher MBA salaries
Aka: "proof that Arthur C Clarke does acid"
Nah, not really. That can just mean a few collectors/completists and a drastically limited supply. I am the author of a book that fetches high second hand prices (http://bit.ly/VdMUB) but this is not due to any especial brilliance on my part, it's just that it's part of a set which had a limited print run and some people like collecting the set.
Game Utilizes Human Intuition To Help Computers Solve Complex Problems
Belugas are a type of dolphin.
Ask HN: Ubuntu Must-Have Apps
I just loaded the latest version of Ubuntu (9.04) What apps would you recommend I get right away?
i need a team.... can't do it all on my own..
I work for one of the leading semtech companies. It's all about data interoperability and it is inevitably coming. I am not convinced it will come as the result of a company advancing a standard like RDF, rather than as a grass root entity that grows up out of the many existing data formats. The bottom line is that data interoperability is good and it's really not that hard to accomplish. RDF puts forward a scheme to accomplish this with a distributed, directed graph structure that incorporates universally recognizable IDs. I cringe whenever I hear someone talk about how it makes the machine more intelligent or how easy it is to do XYZ using semtech... It's about making extremely precise descriptions of things and gives certain tools (RDF, OWL and inference engines) to make working on abstract models easier, but there is a hell of a lot of work involved in getting something really useful going. As an aside, bing used to be powerset, one of the leading linguistic semantics companies that I saw present in ISWC 07.
I think it's interesting. But no, not here.

Sadly HN has become diluted with "4hr work weeks", "12 steps every start up-needs" and "X is a Y killer". I'm just waiting for the invasion of lolcats. :'(
Taking a fresh look at reader revenue...
I think we're disconnected on this because my point is that branding Yahoo results pages with the Bing logo is horrible for Yahoo.

And yes, while luxury brands use many parts not specifically made by them, they do not promote another brand who is a competitor.

Another analogy maybe? If the Apple iPhone had a splash screen that said "Powered by Microsoft" it would harm the brand. Apple knows this and while my mac is powered by Intel, there's never any "Intel Inside" branding.
Nothing crazy about our connection, but I haven't tried hard to get something better either.

It's plain old ADSL over copper, at 8 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up. Cost is 249 SEK/month, which at the current conversion rate is about $33.

The location is Stockholm, Sweden.
Whales and dolphins are known to assist...

Exactly, this is KNOWN. It's been known since before flipper. This is a very cute awww, story and I'm sure it will be all over the news services, and I'll bet money I'll see this on the evening news more then once in the next 48 hours. And those are all reasons why it should NOT be on HN.
Coding Horror: Movable Type Since 2004
Social networking toys are comparable with the electrical toys of the 1920s and 30s, most of which have been forgotten.

It's the Internet that is comparable with electricity, and companies like EBay or Google that are comparable with the early electric appliances that we remember.
Check out http://newmogul.com/ and see how any article with comments has the comment count emboldened.
Sure, strengthening back muscles is not enough for real injuries, but neither is going to a chiropractor. At best, the chiropractor is a physical therapist with a focus on the back. But mixed in with those people are a good number of others who believe in treatments with no basis in evidence. And at times, as gcheong pointed out, the treatments can result in making the condition worse.
White roofs catch on to save energy costs
When did the US start the last war about food, land, water or gold?
My favorite negative outcome from self replicating probes is the kind that are sent out to investigate the universe, and report back to a location some millions of years later to report. Except too many of them have been built, and when they show up, gravity is too much, and they form a black hole.

For whatever reason, that's just funny to me.
Well I don't know if this is legitimate or not, but if it's not then somebody went through a lot of trouble to fake it..
What exactly is podcasting? Ever since I heard that term it just sounded like a trendy way to say shit you download automatically through RSS/Atom or call home mechanisms.

Since updates are a form of media, doesn't Windows Update fall under this term and therefore under this patent? It provides episodic content, ie patches, some that depend on others.
CentOS itself may hit the skids but the thing that CentOS represents to the community will probably never die. Before CentOS had critical mass White Box Enterprise Linux was another distribution doing the same thing.

It may well be time for everybody else (signers on the open letter, for example) to found a replacement project and suggest everyone migrate over. Then the guy who's losing interest can decide whether he wants to play ball or go home.
The same is happening with almost every other form of media too. Sound-bites in -> sound-bites out.
Cool. Thanks a bunch :)
Yes, because we all know he has a really good set of ethics values himself.
Stop playing semantic games and just agree that this post by Godin sucks.
Has anyone received theirs yet? I ordered two to give away as prizes for my club's big annual star party - but I'm more than a little worried they won't arrive in time.
It's viewable here too http://github.com/nex3/arc/blob/dca901c0cb59ebb533a511df3a84...
No worries. I don't take anything personally ;)
This reminds me of one of the best pieces of advice I've ever heard: If someone gives you a lead on a prospective customer, don't ever turn it down. Even if you know that the lead won't be interested, or if you have no intention of following up, don't turn down the offer... because the next time that said person wants to help you out, they'll hesitate, because you turned down their kindness before.

Amazing how many people don't follow this simple rule.
Please, there's no need for such FUD.

I work at Red Hat, and the general feeling I see internally is very positive towards CentOS. Sure, there are a few who would like to be more aggressive about converting CentOS users to RHEL subscriptions, but I definitely don't see any conspiracy to kill CentOS.

Besides, the problems now at CentOS are administrative. If that open letter doesn't accomplish anything, the project could still go on at a new domain under new, broader leadership.
No One at the Wheel
Which is exactly the point. I don't think this essay is aimed to employees. It's for employers.
Errr.. the whole point of this scope is to duplicate the optics that Galileo himself had to deal with. A web cam would be sort of self-defeating.

In any case, cheap cameras give very poor results, but if you want to try one you can always do this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9khTIkwNmW8
Generally when people post their cute hack-logs they remove anything that would give any information as to how it happened. They aren't interested in showing off how they did it so much as that they did it. It's all part of the hacker-kiddie posturing.

I mean, who would respect you if they learned all you did was figure out that someone had a weak root password by brute forcing it?
Yeah, I think the preference for small and nimble disregards the power that a large organization can throw around when needed.
I'm not seeing how this is a big improvement over an HTTP redirect (via a Location header) to the HTTPS site -- beyond a single connection for each session, to redirect to the HTTPS site. Nor any improvement over RFC2817 HTTP Upgrade to TLS, which has the advantage of allowing virtual hosting of multiple secure sites on a single port on a single IP address.
Picking the right phone system
Interview with Anthony Minessale, creator of FreeSWITCH.
This has nothing to do with googles hosted libraries but it is javascript loaded from google servers:

I've had both analytics and adsense slow down page loads quite a bit. Analytics tags should always go as far to the end of the page as you can manage, with adsense tags you're bound to put them where they display the ad. 3rd party javascripts are a pain, it's an extra point of failure that is not under your control.
What you really need is a roof is that is black in the winter and white in the summer.
It really depends on what you want to do. I like to have Wine installed so that I can run some Windows apps, but if you don't use Windows, that will be less important. I've also used QEMU in the past to run a virtual Windows machine inside of Linux.

I use Google Chrome for normal browsing and Firefox for development, so I would try to get Chromium working.

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/LinuxBuildInstruction...

I also use vlc for playing DVDs, video, and audio clips.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ubuntu.html

There aren't really any killer opensource apps that Ubuntu is missing. The fast majority of what you will need for development is available in the repositories.
So why lead rising oil prices to higher costs of plastic if it's just trash or a "byproduct"? There is no future for oil based fuels and plastics if you want to keep this planet.
I suggest: Openoffice.org - stable (3.1.0?),kivio or dia - diagramming,opera and/or firefox,gnucash,abobe acrobat reader (acroread), qcad, hp device manager (hplip?) if you have an hp printer, vlc media player, glabels - business cards and the like (I just prefer this to OOo for this purpose)

This software covers most of my office/design type needs.