skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> One problem is that you can't really copyright game mechanics

You can actually patent them[1]:

A patent was granted to Wizards of the Coast in 1997 for "a novel method
of game play and game components that in one embodiment are in the
form of trading cards" that includes claims covering games whose rules
include many of Magic's elements in combination, including concepts such
as changing orientation of a game component to indicate use (referred to
in the Magic and Vampire: The Eternal Struggle rules as "tapping") and
constructing a deck by selecting cards from a larger pool.[9] The patent
has aroused criticism from some observers, who believe some of its
claims to be invalid.[10] In 2003, the patent was an element of a larger
legal dispute between Wizards of the Coast and Nintendo, regarding trade
secrets related to Nintendo's Pokémon Trading Card Game. The legal
action was settled out of court, and its terms were not disclosed.[11]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:_The_Gathering#History
I'm a 32 year old software engineer living in the U.S. Last year my company (in the most amazing extension of generosity I'd ever seen at any employer) gave everyone the last two weeks of the year off. Prior to that, I'd never had a vacation longer than a week in my professional career.

It's a funny thing - no one's twisting my arm to not take vacations, but I've always felt something akin to "I don't deserve a vacation" (for lack of a better description). I have known many co-workers in my career who have had similar anxiety about taking days off, as if we'll be perceived as not adding value if we're taking vacation.

My current employer's giving of a mandatory 2 week vacation is only now starting to make me realize that employers (at least good ones, like my current employer) don't feel that way at all, and that feeling of inadequacy is in my head.

This year? Well, perhaps I'll take a real vacation. I get 10 days allotted for vacation per year (so 2 weeks), and perhaps if I can find a good time to do so I'll take them consecutively and get a really good vacation - or at least, I won't feel guilty if I take two one-week vacations.
Who'd have thought the most English looking location would be in Wales ;)
That's what Ukrainian lefties write:

"One of the major forces at Euromaidan is the far-right xenophobic party ‘Svoboda’ (‘Freedom’). They are dominant among the volunteering guards of the protest camp and are the vanguard of the most radical street actions such as the occupation of the administrative buildings in the center of Kiev. Before 2004 ‘Svoboda’ was called Social-National Party of Ukraine and used Nazi ‘Wolfsangel’ symbol. The party leader Oleh Tiahnybok is still known for his anti-Semitic speech. Even after its re-branding, Svoboda is establishing cooperation with Neo-Nazi and neofascist European parties such as National Democratic Party of Germany and Forza nuova of Italy. Its rank-and-file militants are frequently involved in street violence and hate crimes against migrants and political opponents". [1]

[1] http://commons.com.ua/?p=16967
Well, there are no links because a lot these claims can not be verified.
A few months ago I preordered a video game, upon receipt of the game months latter I also received an email that stated that Amz had lowered the price of the game in the time span of between my preorder and delivery of the game. They issued me a refund for the difference. It was something on the nature of .03, but impressive none the less.

A few months ago they went back through all the physical books I have ordered over the past 10 years and gifted me electronic versions of a subset of them.

They did the same with all my music purchased physically a few months previous.

I have never dealt with returns or the like with their customer service, but the channels in which they can deliver (physical + digital) is perfect for the time period we are currently in as physical mediums start to fall off.
Seems like solid evidence that the reason the US govt is so comfortable with Bitcoin is that they have a handle on anonymizing the blockchain as needed.

Also maybe an example of crypto over-confidence.
Their scale of operations was too low. Rookie mistake. Should have learned from HSBC management.
Failed Once, Trying Again?
I wonder if you are trolling, because your first claim a strawman argument based on conflation.

>There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Ukrainians who already actively expressed their support to current shift in Ukrainian political landscape and their distrust to corrupt politicians currently in charge of the country, call it a war or a revolution

Yes, of course, millions support a shift in Ukrainian political landscape and distrust to corrupt politicians. But I DON'T call that civil war and revolution. That is a civil process. These are not the people picking up stones and attacking police and government buildings right now. Like you, yourself, say, these people want to be at work.
>>gray matter a little more before dispatching the fingers

Yet you linked not to the original work but to a German site. I would also point out that assigning physical-proximity as a cultural marker due to the movement of currency is a terrible stand-in for actual cultural similarities. And cultural similarities are what we are concerned with here, if we're discussing the devolution of America based on cultural lines.

For instance, the map you provide has Colorado lumped in with Oklahoma, Kansas, and the rest of the Midwest. While these states are proximate physically, the culture between these states is completely different, which is why Colorado has legalized cannabis and OK has a monument on government property to the 10 Commandments. To lump Colorado in with the Midwest just shows how poor the methodology and modeling are.

How's that for some gray matter? Is it enough, or do I need more?
Years and years ago I worked for office supplies retailer and they had a clause in their contract that said the usual "we own anything you do outside of work blah blah".

I struck a line through it and got my line manager to initial it before I signed the contract.

I wasn't hired as a programmer but no way was I signing over the rights to any of my personal projects because "that's what we always do".
Note that this isn't an arrest just for operating a Bitcoin exchange. It's specifically to do with Silk Road.
You are not alone. I have the same problem, but have not been able to overcome it yet. I look forward to hearing some anecdotes about doing so.
Web development newbie here: So how would I have used Yeoman to create something like Hackathon Starter?
"Unfortunately a lot of people in the uk take advice on employment from the same solicitor's who did their house legal work and come badly unstuck."

In that case you would have a serious professional negligence claim against the law firm and possibly the solicitor who gave you the advice.
DNSimple offers domain transfer concierge service
Upcoming features in CoffeeScript 1.7
Not quite. The US gov is accusing these men of putting wealth through the Silk Road (which was believed to be untraceable) in order to get this wealth off the books to avoid taxes and investigations of the source of this wealth.

Edit: Not necessarily their own wealth.
From my experience, it also helps to have a dialogue with your employer. Many are willing to alter the clause if given enough reason
Random street view is like geo-guesser, just less fun.
Limit HN, etc. to 30 minutes daily? If you cut your TV and replace it with mindless internet, it does no good.

I should know, because that's what I have done.
Correct, the people are not there to replace personalities, they are to destroy the whole political system making resurrection of successive corrupt governments impossible. So 'opposition leaders' are not really leaders of Maidan, people don't give much respect to them, it is more like Muslim Brothers who rode the protest wave in Egypt to come into power, not being protest leaders in the first place. Much like Lenin who didn't organize Russian Revolution either, only riding its wave into power. I hope this time will be different.
Every time I read articles like this I see this common theme of watching less TV, playing less games, etc. But I think the real hard part is getting out of these. Many times you don't feel like your side project could turn into something real or you're just so burned out from your day job you just feel like doing nothing.

For me, the latter is the worst feeling to overcome. It's like you give up your soul to a job you don't really like, and it ends up sucking up your energies to do what you really want when you're finally "free" from it.
Ask HN: Best way to get to learn Ruby for an experience programmer
Hello,

what is the best way (I'm thinking specifically at books and tutorials) to get up to speed with Ruby for an experienced Java and C programmer ?

Thanks.
Tesla connects US coast-to-coast supercharger network
Awesome work! I think the tag line "boilerplate for node.js hackathon apps" would be more fitting.
Timothy Hart, Rest in Peace
Simple vs Simplistic: Why Lean and VC money can screw up your enterprise SaaS
I just love that it lists the BTU/hour that the machine generates.
LifeHacker: Extension Defender Roots Out Adware Extensions in Chrome
Then Instagram usurper hath arrived
This map was discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5566582 (70 points, 248 days ago, 41 comments). I’ll quote the second comment by julespitt: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5566911

> Ahem... http://www.federalreserve.gov/otherfrb.htm .

> Cash is managed through the regional branches of the Federal Reserve, and while there are some boundaries on that map that don't line up, it mostly seems to be governed by these particular administrative regions.

> As a New Yorker from Connecticut, the gigantic barrier between New York and New England would have to be nearly completely explained by the Fed.
Show HN: Turn sketches into vector diagrams
Trouble is if the contract is silent then I suspect that legal precedent will still stand.
In related news: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/americas/uni...
Nice resource - just applied
Sorry but that's rubbish. Even if you play by the rules they'll just change them via some obscure FTC policy or congressional rider.

Look at what happened to all the "Work from home" companies a few years ago. All the owners had their assets seized in full for breaking a new FTC policies that had been published for only a matter of days.[1]

The reality is if you're doing something the government doesn't like you NEED to leave the country. They'll just keep moving the goal posts until you're in prison.

[1]http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2012/11/ftc-ex...
It reminds me of rally racing in a way.

One second I'm on a dusty, slippery looking dirt road in Peru. The next I'm about 15km NE of Monaco on a winding, single-ish lane mountain road.
Yes, they are probably not native English speakers. But then again, this is a major topic so I would expect that anyone who presents it to a broad audience at least makes the effort to do it properly.
The language used here is just one of many things that give the impression that the person who made it has no idea what he/she is talking about.
I have to wonder why more than one commenter states a preference for lighting "scenarios" versus a visual representation of "what's where."

I'm one of those people who can't be bothered to fiddle with my Eclipse perspectives even though I'm sure I could summon twenty strong opinions here on why I should. Do you really think people (excluding single men under thirty left to their own devices to configure a dwelling) will compose "lighting scenarios" for their homes?

Having a map of light status and location in my entryway and on my mobile devices would be sweet. No labelling. Program it once and it's good until the walls move.

In particular, I don't think this has "high cognitive load." To me it looks like a toddler could get "touch the place and the thing happens there."
Software Estimates Suck
How to name your startup in 3 easy steps
It's worth reading the indictment: http://www.scribd.com/doc/202555785/United-States-vs-Charles.... At least read the e-mail exchanges starting on pages 10 and 12.

What the article doesn't make clear is that the charge isn't for just selling BTC to Silk Road users. The charge is that Faiella purposefully targeted Silk Road users, sold them BTC at a markup, and Shrem coordinated with him to bypass BitInstant's anti-money laundering mechanisms and deliver the actual Bitcoin.
I am also a bioinformatician. How much control would you have over node resources? What happens if a browser goes from idle to active? Also, calling this sequencing isn't accurate - this is alignment as daemonk pointed out.
You might consider the AGPL:

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-affero-gpl.html
It actually is a cloud storage system for notes, but that doesn't matter, it establishes the naming convention.
So think about this...the top-of-the-line iMac display currently supports 2560x1440 (or 3686400 pixels) while the original mac supported 512x384 (or 196608 pixels).

If you spread out that increase over the course of 30 years, you are adding 10.5% more pixels each year, while cutting the price by ~60% (from Macintosh to present iMac)

It's been a crazy 30 years!
13 Free Google Analytics Tools To Use Everyday
You can use Google Analytics now to monitor a massive range of online marketing elements.
My post looks at 13 free tools that will help your SEO, Ecommerce, PPC and technical SEO efforts.
I'm surprised more folks don't store data about every page view/action in their database. If you have a lot of data, postgres_fdw makes it easy to scale. Analytics becomes much simpler if all your data is in a single system.
I think the differentiator here is the amount of documentation and that they make no assumptions about your system. For instance, telling me I need XCode to even build some of the libraries - not something I see in very many docs but absolutely something I see people run into at events like Startup Weekend.
useful project! it would be great if there where some additional parameters on the search page.
Not a very good or well researched article. They left out many popular bootstrapped companies such as Imgur, one of the most popular image sharing services on the net or the fact that Github has VC money now.
Netflix and the Future of Television
> Binary protocols usually just specify the length of the data, followed by a binary blob with the data. MUCH simpler!

It is possible to have the same simplicity with a textual protocol, it is just that most text protocol designers don't bother with explicit prefixed lengths:

For example, see: http://cr.yp.to/proto/netstrings.txt
Yes, it is entirely the same and I would be most surprised if anyone reading didn't realise this. It is sales material, from Canonical to err, help sell its product..

Was this a massive revelation to you?

Yes, I agree it's a basic document and I don't disagree with your points... Why didn't you say that to start with, instead of being personally rude about the author?

You had to research the author on linkedin, rather than simply looking at the bottom of the PDF where he clearly identifies himself as a Sales Engineer?
For anyone looking for some inspiration across the pond in the UK, we're a bootstrapped company that started with just the two of us (OpenRent - Launched in 2012 [1]).

We're currently letting in the thousands of properties each month, saving tenants and landlords huge amounts of money - and we're certainly still growing (both in raw properties let each month, and revenue)!

Clearly there are avenues to success for VC backed companies, as well as those going it alone, so not sure what can be drawn from this article other than a bit of inspiration...

[1] https://www.openrent.co.uk
A little off-topic, but it makes me a little sad that the exemplar my_great_project it mentions is in JavaScript.

It's not because of the language itself. It's because it's implied that the platform my_great_project would be built on is "Chrome, the new C runtime". This is the "platform of the future" and that makes me kinda sad.

EDIT: clarified
I found this a great read and immensely useful, but the styling to pull out words/phrases in bold felt really distracting, and above all unnecessary.

Though it might be Chrome on Win 7, which makes fonts generally look awful.
Hotmail is not on that list?!
When marketers try to have me clean up their mess, I try to bill them
I didn't even know that Google had street view cars in rural Africa! http://randomstreetview.com/#-en562_fdoqw_-2i_a_-7
Their SQL Server is called SQL Server

Microsoft SQL Server. See also: Oracle Database, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite

Their common language runtime is called the common language runtime.

.NET Common Language Runtime

Their MVC framework is called MVC.

ASP.NET MVC.
That's awesome, have you considered blogging about your setup?
to be fair, teaching direct dom manipulation is far more harmful to children than any amount of porn or violence.
"I have mild nerd autism and am easily trolled"

Dude. If you ever get a firm diagnosis or find a support group please let some of us others know. It's like an epidemic.
I could have written your post. It actually sounded like me talking.

I'm considering finding another day job that isn't quite so soul-sucking, but I've been trying to do that for the past 4 or so years without much luck.

Also, I don't watch TV, but I do play games (I go through phases of this), but I feel I do this to give me something to decompress. Maybe it's an escape, I don't know.

By the way, this thread has been very therapeutic. Thanks everyone.
This seems much better than my current approach. I get home around 5:30pm. Spend time with my 7 month old and help out wife while she prepares dinner. We eat dinner and watch TV for about 45 minutes (I know bad habit). Get baby ready for bed around 7:30-8pm. By time baby is asleep it's 8:30 or 9. I then try to get in 1-2 hours of work before bed. Unfortunately I'm usually physically and mentally drained by this time. I dedicate the least productive 2 hours of my day to myself while I give my best hours to my company.
Svoboda had to give up much of its "radical" appeal to gain real popularity. Now its target audience is not marginal skinheads and radical nationalists, Svoboda has attracted a lot, a lot of people (10% of votes in Ukraine in 2012) who don't want to vote for the old corrupted opposition (Tymoshenko's "Batkivshchyna", Socialist Party of Ukraine, Green Movement, etc) and don't trust their hollow "patriotism". Yes, you can find old videos where Tyagnybok says all kind of far right things, but he's too much of a politic, he says what gains popularity in his target audience and he's a hostage of the strongly patriotic crowd now. Far right radicals are now out of Svoboda making Right Sector, which is partly responsible for Hrushevskogo actions.

> it looks extremely organized and professional
- you haven't seen the first days of Maidan when it was chaotic and crystallizing before our eyes. I'd ascribe its amusing (but not supernatural) self-organization to powerful social networking and Orange Revolution experience.
What about (4) trial in absentia? Is it possible under US laws?
Oh, gah, submissions from assertTrue( ) are showing up on HN's home page again. I've just read the short blog post kindly submitted here by the blog post author, and I don't see any added value from it that wouldn't come from any other review of the book that the blog author recommends. I am not worried about Amazon (but I don't use Amazon cloud services at all).

Previous comments about this blog and its editorial practices from other HN readers:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5196734

by another participant on an earlier article from the same blog:

> > It appears you've made some sort of resolution to publish and promote a blog entry per day in 2013. 40 entries in 41 days this year vs. 46 in all of 2012. You should reconsider - whatever your reasons were, I doubt they included a desire to develop a reputation for presenting topics that were sensationalized and thinly researched [1] produced with a pace that ensures discredited theories dont get reviewed.

[1] http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2013/02/drug-companies-stop-h...

> Wow, nice spot and they have all been submitted to HN. I have never seen anyone's submission history be so hell bent on self promotion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=techdog

That was followed up by another set of comments:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5240084

> I'm beginning to flag these posts.

I agree.
To clarify, by "glory" really I mean both pride in the country and quality of life combined. Brainwashed might be a strong word. Mislead and misremembering is probably more accurate. This is as far as I'm concerned the same thing that happens in the US where Tea partiers talk about how great America was 50 years ago (it wasn't, unless you were a white male). This is the same nostalgia for things that weren't really there but seemed like they were.

As far as actual conditions, I cannot judge this well. I left Ukraine for the US about 14 years ago. I have family and friends there, but I cannot tell exactly if things are better or worse than pre-1990. I can say that they are definitely not good currently. Median income is low, prices are high, good jobs are scarce. Education is something I don't know much about.

The healthcare system there is technically state run but practically is what I would call "microcapitalism": you have to pay effectively a bribe to your physician and you have to buy all of his/her supplies for whatever procedure you need. It's almost a libertarian heaven: you negotiate what you need done and can shop around for any medication and supplies needed. If anything it's a case study for how a market solution like this means no quality control on the care you receive. If you cannot afford the "premium" care where you pay the doctor directly, you will just end up waiting weeks, months, or years for the government to pay for your treatment, by which point your condition is likely to get worse. There are no charities, etc. to step up and pay for you: the market does not want those. Even if it did, my gut feeling would be that the charities would simply fall prey to corruption and would become money laundering machines.

An example of this is my grandfather that about a year ago went for his physical and needed to have blood drawn and to get vaccinations. The doctor told him to go across the street to a pharmacy to buy needles and vaccines. My grandfather spent the next two hours waiting in line for service, and ended up paying a few pennies for all of this. The doctors cannot hold onto this stuff themselves since they or their staff will just sell it for cash out of the back door.

Another example is my other grandfather who passed away a few years ago of colon cancer. He could have been saved with a colonoscopy, except he had one about 10 years prior to that and the hospital did not have any anesthetic. Naturally he did not want to experience the same pain again, so he never went back, developed colon cancer and died in horrible pain. His nephew ended up going to a hospital, grabbing a random doctor off his shift, paying him about $1000 in cash to drive 50 miles away to help my grandfather with his pain in his last few days.

Sorry for the rant, but you did ask :)
I've talked with them about their business, and seen their pitch, so I'll chime in a bit.

> are they targeting media groups that might want on demand imagery of evolving news events?

That is exactly one of their business plans. Whether it is exclusive or not depends on the details of the contract, but I don't think it will be exclusive for the most part.

Another part of their business is to provide detailed data on a specific area of land. In a single pass, because they have a continuous video as they pass along, they can construct the 3D geometries of any buildings/structure in that area.