skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I disagree somewhat. Buying ads on google's search engine makes a lot of sense (for us), as google closes the loop from impression to click to sale (ads served to places where sales occur, keyword bids adjusted automatically based on sales). For my clients, google adwords adverts typically result in 100x-400x sales vs ad spend. A good deal for all involved.
Red Hat and Hortonworks: Platform for Industrial Internet and Big Data
'Flappy Bird' Creator Dong Nguyen Pulled Game Because It Was 'Too Addictive'
I agree in the assessment of disappointing, because I think there could be a good story here. I think it's hurt not only by the exaggeration and breathlessness, but also Taibbi's need to force everything into his chosen political narrative with mixed results. Subtlety is lost on him and he seems incapable pursuasive writing -- guiding the reader to reach conclusions rather than explicitly setting them out.
Agreed. He is incredibly unlikely to pursue anyone and has actually given a few of the knockoffs his blessing. You're wrong on one point though...the $50k/day isn't going anywhere. The ads are still active on 100M+ installs. He is still raking in cash and will until people stop opening the game on their devices.
That's an arbitrary distinction. The goal might have been decided by human programmers, that doesn't mean the process isn't itself intelligent. You are right it is using a crude optimization process that is a lot weaker than human intelligence, but it's still "intelligent".
I was going to protest the "for Men" title, and suggest that if 58% of British men can't understand how to use a washing machine then that's an unflattering reflection of gender imbalance in household chores; "men just need to learn how to do it."

But then I saw the pictures, and remembered my time living in London and traveling in Europe, and how confusing I found the washing machines and their universe of iconography (every single machine has different icons).

I grew up in New Zealand, where we had a locally designed Fisher & Paykel washing machine [1]. It had a few settings, but there was one default called "regular" that invariably did a good job, so I always just used that - I would literally turn the machine on and press "start". It figured out the water level for itself.

Now that I live in an apartment block in the USA I use a shared commercial coin-operated Maytag washing machine. It probably has even fewer options than the Fisher & Paykel. My wife and I take turns doing the washing, and the only settings we ever change are "warm" (underwear, socks, towels) or "cold" (everything else). That's it, and it works perfectly.

I don't know why feature-creep plagues European washing machines but it reminds me of late 90s / early 2000s PCs with their byzantine terminology and myriad acronyms.

[1] like this, but not the exact model: https://i1.ytimg.com/vi/O6SmbWnGlvA/maxresdefault.jpg
This sound as intelligent as "You shouldn't drink and drive, because you can get a big ticket".
I just had a baby daughter. The care was excellent at a hospital a couple of miles from home. At one point we had 3 midwives helping, then the anaesthetist and for the delivery we had 3 doctors at one point. After-birth care was great too and we were encouraged to stay at the hospital until we felt comfortable going home all the while with adequate food and a private room.

We had to go to A and E with our daughter a couple of weeks ago. We were seen before I even had time to park my car after dropping off the wife and baby! The doctor and nurse were both very supportive and were happy to see us even reassuring us that we were absolutely right to come in even though no treatment was required in the end.

Around 10 years ago I had months of physio on the NHS and a series of consultant appointments. I was very happy with the service.

Yes, the NHS is struggling like all public services, but the media seem keen to trash the NHS and force us into privacy to keep the (mainly conservative) MP's happy and help their friends get the big contracts. It makes mistakes and isn't perfect but in general I've had good experiences.

I've also had surgery and a lengthy hospital stay in California. An excellent standard of service but at a massive cost (fortunately fully paid by my travel insurance).

I'd prefer the service as it is in the UK where everyone is equal insurance or not even if the quality is not quite as high as places where the end user is paying for the service.
The Weirdest Thing at Sochi? Your Face on a Giant Screen of Morphing Pistons
I think that 1984 references, while apropos, are counterproductive. 1984 isn't documentary, and it's not prophecy; it's fiction used to make some political points. It is entirely reasonable for someone to not weight it very highly, in their assessment of likelihoods in the real world. Those not already sympathetic see comparisons to 1984 as hyperbole, those making them as out of touch with reality, and it doesn't help us seem less "tinfoil hat". Actual and potential abuses, with historical analogue, should be substantially more important - though precise reaction is hard to judge (can we get some polling done?)
Sorry but how do your assumptions to attempt to justify this make copyright infringement OK?
Stripe and Square Face Complexity Abroad
For that to happen the AI needs to be pointed to what is a cat.

Children know cats by mimicking adults who point out the objects to them.
IF there are copyright issues, then they are only with Nintendo.
lets set up a startup there!!!
Oh, so because you get away with it - it's okay? Is that your stance with Zynga and other big companies then too?
Unlocking Growth Potential via the Concierge
Using virtualenv in production
I am not sure what to make of this comment - are you suggesting that Kiva is a "poison on humanity" for doing this, or that I am for saying it?! Please clarify! For further reference on this specific point you might find Dr. Phil Mader's post, which I reference, useful:

http://governancexborders.com/2013/12/10/kivanomics-101-or-d...

The actual quote is that Kiva allows us "to consume the feeling of charity without financial loss"

You might also appreciate the work of Domen Bajde referenced in Mader's article.
Notice the staff's about pages. They include public keys and other security artifacts. That's different.

https://firstlook.org/theintercept/staff/peter-maass/
Funny detail about Amiga/Workbench in this page: Restart dialog is from version 2.x, but in reboot scene you'll see version 1.3.
Use Mozilla Persona to log in with disposable email addresses
KidoZen Enterprise mBaaS Security Architecture
It's like rain on your wedding day.
How is that consistent with the sudden drop in bandwidth shown in the article's graph http://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/netfli... - which is in mbps so if netflix increased their quality, you'd expect it to remain level.

Which do you think is more likely, Verizon gained 15% more users after demand was level for months, or Verizon acted in their own self-interest, doing something they have publicly said they want to do?
Twisted implementation of websocket protocol (Python)
Python Websocket protocol implementation based on Twisted (Pre-Alpha)
Right, my reference to the fact that we still use flat CPU's is in part referring to the transistor count. Also you are referring to a commercial mass-produced CPU that debuted at $4200 nearly three years ago - and was considered overly expensive at that price.[1]

And you're comparing this tiny single package to the human brain directly, not even multiplying by a farm of them, which would be more than reasonable if we knew what we were trying to emulate.

The issue, as you state, is that we don't really know what's going on. However there is no reason to assume a fundamental barrier to continued innovation as we learn more and more, and computers can do more and more.

[1] http://www.dailytech.com/Intel+Airs+10Core+Xeon+Server+Chips...
As opposed to the current situation?
There is still hope. Microwaves use to have a lot of buttons, but since a few years ago there are some models with only two buttons: “Add 30 seconds” and “Cancel”. I think that most of them are used in public places, like the University cafeteria.

At home, my microwave has only two dials “power” and “time”. I like the time dial, because it’s easier to choose the time analogically that convert it to digits and choose which buttons to push.
My stance on this particular matter is that he has done everything short of open sourcing this game, up to and including giving his blessing to several knockoffs. 100M+ people have the original game, and that game is still generating substantial revenue for him. Everyone that already had the game when he pulled it is likely sticking to playing the original. I'm not making a Flappy Bird clone, but I think that those who are probably aren't going to be facing any lawsuits. That's all I said.
There's already an entire industry around making loans to people who cannot afford them. Of course, when the source of the funds is free to the banks, as with Kiva, the economics are somewhat altered.

>responsible ones in the UK will steer customers to an installment-based product if it turns out they've needed to roll the loan over to the next month, more than a couple of times.

Installment-based products are still debt, right? In fact, I would imagine that to be what's primarily sold to impoverished people who have little-to-no assets. Still, it's no-good when we're talking about debt for subsistence. My view is that it's better to simply give them the money. If the person could not afford to eat without help, what will change to make it so when he now also has an additional expense (debt)?
IPhones with flappy bird on are selling for $$$$'s
An interesting thing I learned when my uncle had cancer was that "the best doctors" would often only treat cases with at least a moderate chance of survival since they didn't want to ruin their stats.
Flappy bird is available again for android
On the US side it's primarily about creating an opportunity for pro-privacy legislators. Specifically, the legislative goal is to push through the passage of the USA Freedom Act with amendments to prevent the NSA from undermining encryption standards and to protect the rights of non-Americans.

Raising awareness is definitely part of it too, but it's not the main objective.
Startup Advice: Get a puppy
Protecting CloudFormation Resources When Updating Stacks
I don't think he "went insane". He received threats. He lives in a poor country (and probably violent) and likely doesn't want to raise flags as the guy earning 50k a day.

This is just first world people forgetting there are violent and politically delicate countries elsewhere, I guess.
How To Get Hitched: 4 Ways To Find A Co-founder
Why the most important part of your app has the messiest code
>That's different.

Maybe for a media organization. Not for a technology organization.

https://www.fsf.org/about/staff-and-board/
Just one day?
> Hitler said that Stalin would never be able to stop Nazi if he still had his "tzar generals"

I think the general consensus among historians is in total opposition to what you write. The the old generals were more competent than the new young communists that replaced them.
If Reddit existed in the early 20th century, Andrew Carnegie would have done an AMA.

Gates has, among some geeks, a really nasty reputation. It's, in fact, so bad I am not sure we can even trust the philanthropist. For me, it's just too easy to imagine him as being a supervillain. ;-)

Everyone has a dark side. His darkest side got fed and exposed while at Microsoft and he has been paying for it ever since.
It's also worth noting that a 10ge flatrate port to Cogent isn't going to cost them that much either -- and then they don't have to deal with any additional hardware, just a crossconnect. But for some reason, paying an additional ~$6K a month so that millions of your subscribers have better service is too high a price to pay
AFAIK the assets are all original, so there ARE copyright issues and they AREN'T with Nintendo.
The man was foolish to reveal his stellar earnings to the international press while living in a third world, communist, authoritarian country where many businessmen travel with fleets of bodyguards.

As someone who also lives in a similar country, I can say with near certainty that THAT was probably the cause of the deletion.
someone should set him on a .bit domain or mirror.
I never said he was currently being sued. Also many of the clones probably don't make the money the original does.

I personally believe he's probably some poor indie developer who's practically won the lottery and realizes he could loose it all by all the attention he's received. Removing the app, and disappearing until everything settles down, (whilst still making residual revenue from all the current installs), is the best way for him to mitigate his growing risk of being sued, which is probably scary for him and out of his depth, being a solo indie developer from Vietnam.

Of course he could just be a crazy irrational indie developer as the article assumes, among a number of other explanations which we will probably never know the truth :)
Not working as of 14:12 GMT on Chrome either ;)
You see the wierd signs in the description for hy? Its actually a wierd way of spelling Hymenoptera! So, that further confirms your zeitgeist hunch.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymenoptera
I have a theory... (based on personal experience). The issue for many is (was) with Apple TV, and not Verizon.

I updated my Apple TV in november (shortly after Netflix introduced its SuperHD mode). For a long time after that, Netflix performance was abysmal (dropping down to sub 480p at times, especially during the night time).

I complained to netflix and verizon. The latter suggested I try connecting to netflix on a PC connected to the modem. I did and experienced no problems. No problems on my Android device or chromecast either. Only my Apple TV box had issues. Ultimately I found a thread on the forums which suggested a hard boot (power down) of the Apple TV device. Once I did that, the problems went away. If you have Verizon and use Apple TV to watch netflix, give it a shot.

I would love to see ars/netflix display a bandwidth graph by device.
The earnings for 1-2 weeks were enough to get in most western countries on an investor visa.
I get the following message when going to the page to email my legislators:

Heroku | No such app

There is no app configured at that hostname.
Perhaps the app owner has renamed it, or you mistyped the URL.
Why, what? Why must wishes be reasonable? Or why is that wish unreasonable?
No need to: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bill_Gates#Misattributed
The Price of FREE Apps for Kids: The App Developers Quandary
No haha, this is just plain sexist and wrong. One of this wonky generalizations and why we don't have real software engineering yet.
135 new currencies at Stripe
How One Chemical Company Tried to Discredit a Scientist's Research
Shining A Light On The Shadows Of “Shadow IT”
Yikes. And he didn't know that? Assuming if he did, he'd have kept his mouth shut about it.

We have pretty much the same law in the Netherlands. What I understand (IANAL), this goes as far as observing an open WiFi access point with the SSID named "UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS PROHIBITED", if you willingly connect to it (ignoring the message), you'll be in violation.

This is of course not security, and maybe it's kinda stupid, but the rule is also pretty clear and pragmatic. It's analogous to having a door with a "NO ACCESS" sign on it, even if it turns out to be unlocked, you're still not supposed to go there. Often such a sign will cite "Article such and such from the Book of Criminal Law Code" in smaller letters (Dutch people will know what type of signs I'm talking about), but afaik this is not necessary for the legal power of such a sign.
Leaving your country is not a simple decision based on money. It means leaving your old life, friends and sometimes family behind. It's understandable he might not even consider this.
I wish the "send email" button is more responsive, or at least shows some kind of progress. Clicked once and nothing happened so I thought I misclicked or missed and clicked a few times more, resulting in 6 emails. womp womp!
Nice one. The Amiga one (the one with the Workbench dialog) is slightly incorrect.

The disk drive reader head doesn't sound right, at least for an Amiga 500, which it ought to be seeing as it's using the 1.3 kickstarter.

It's also not mechanically checking if there's a floppy disk in the drive at the kickstarter screen after the workbench has shut down, which the Amiga needs to do to detect if there is a floppy disk in the drive. The checking mechanism manifested itself as a slight "clicking" sound.

Very cool though!
Good explanation, but this title is incredibly misleading. Marijuana was never legal in the Netherlands[0], for tourists or residents. As the linked answer itself points out, it was only tolerated.

Until November 2012, there was no place in the world where marijuana was truly legal, except (possibly) North Korea[1]. Even still, it's a stretch to say that marijuana is legal in Washington State and Colorado, since the Feds could easily decide tomorrow that they want to crack down on it, and you could be arrested[2].

The distinction between legality and tolerance is important. Decriminalization and/or tolerance provide only a small subset of the benefits of true legalization. Without true legalization, you cannot have (ex.) quality control via local regulators, nor can you choke off drug cartels by undercutting one of their most profitable products. (Instead, you may even end up putting money into their pockets, depending on where you source the marijuana from - thankfully, this is less of an issue in Colorado and Washington).

Anyway, marijuana is now clearly less illegal in Colorado than in the Netherlands (in Denver, it is allowed under both city[3] and state law, though not federal law). Personally, I'm glad that the US now has its own place to go for marijuana tourism (similar to Tijuana for alcohol) - one could say that this is US protectionism at its finest!

[0] Well, at least not since the US started exporting its drug policy worldwide several decades ago.

[1] Alaska has a similar policy in private residences since 1977 due to a state court ruling on the right to privacy, but it is still illegal. North Korea has been cited as the one exception to this rule (ironically), but reports of its legality there are mixed.

[2] Look at what happened in Harborside and Oaksterdam (when cracking down on medical dispensaries, the Obama administration has used an underhanded tax catch-22 as political cover for busting shops that he previously said he'd allow, but the effect is the same).

[3] Denver legalized marijuana by city vote in 2006, and Breckenridge, CO legalized marijuana by town vote in 2009
My girlfriend just had a major operation on the NHS.

The pre-op preparation was really impressive, the operation itself was astonishingly quick and well-performed (I was not expecting her to be conscious and talking 2 hours after having a non-trivial part of her body replaced), the post-operative care was pretty decent but certainly not terrible, and the physiotherapy support and general aftercare was good to great. They provided the equipment she'd need to get about the house and keep up her normal life whilst she was recovering, and in general, the whole experience was good to excellent.
> And running it locally is fraught, because of Security Hole of the Week.

We had 4 security releases in 2013: http://wordpress.org/news/category/security/

Not quite Hole of the Week, but admittedly not the best record. When you have a codebase this big, it's not that surprising though.
I was just wondering, to the customer user would this cost more if the foreign currency was used or their local one given the exchange rate is sometimes very good (e.g paying in US dollars instead of the local currency)
He has several top games in the app store game section, I believe he had already a lot of money, so not earning more does not stop treats if that's the problem, and at this point he was already too popular. Actually removing the game made him a lot more popular. About poor countries: if you have money, you have power in poor countries, unlikely to get touched if you pay the right people a fraction of what you have.
Windows 2000 was a fantastic operating system. My favourite still.
AddThis Hydra: Hacker Vows to Instantly Analyze Your Big Data
Fun!

I spent way too much time watching the systems reboot after I understood that the dialogs were active. Very nice collection. Curious how this was done. Screen captures, recreated from videos?
Did anyone else hit DEL or Fx to see if they could get in to a functioning BIOS config?

My laptops firmware has mouse support and an IPv6 network stack. It's terrifying.
And I think that's the point of the article. To make money, you have to put up with a lot of other BS. (Same as working in a bank or large company, just that the BS is more public in gaming)
Not everyone in non-Western countries wants to leave...
The US might be a good place for the servers, but GoDaddy has proven to be an unreliable registrar in the past. They should at least be using a provider that supports a free internet.
Yeah, that's more hype than reality.
Those gunshot detectors work 'ok' not perfect. And they don't have enough detectors or cameras for anything other than the most basic coverage.
I always compare hacking in that sense to magic tricks: As soon as you know the trick, it's hard to still consider it "magic".

Compare "They just used the Windows Remote Access feature/You just changed the document_id part of the URL" to "You just dropped that coin in your pocket".

The line between "hacking" and "expected behaviour" can get very blurry, the more knowledgeable a person is. And in the end, like with magic tricks vs con men, it's the intent that makes it right or wrong (IMO).
Thanks, I was not aware of spreeder. But after trying it the ergonomics of spritz are improved, eg. the red letter really focuses. In the case of 7 Speed Reading, it is much more lean.
"The rust belt was news and new and insightful in 1970 or so. Unfortunately its almost the spring of 2014. That's all ancient history."

I understand why you view this as "old news". From that point of view, it probably is a bit disappointing.

My take on the article, as someone who doesn't live in the US, was sadness that such things are still happening. That large groups of people can be effectively abandoned by civil society, that elected politicians connive to do this for their own gain, that so many lives are ruined by neglect and poverty. That this is still happneing is the whole point.
Sometimes is the opposite. In Argentina, for example, it is better to pay in Pesos, because if I pay in dollars, I have to pay 1) the local bank conversion rate, and 2) the conversino rate at the end of the month, which may be higher.
Too bad there are no other reasonable options. Not sure what the lesson is there - move, I suppose
I used "theory" in the common meaning, but you're right, it would be better if I used "hypothesis" instead. I'll try to do better next time.
I can't even read the Verge except for their mobile site. The desktop experience is so heavy and bloated, that I just leave before finding the article I want to read.
Sometimes when I see articles from Wired, I wish someone would write the hype-free summary in a paragraph. (Is there an app for the lazy reader?)
It was much more reactive at ~200 players, I was playing around modifying the javascript to remove collision detection (there's a method with a long ternary statement that ends ? !1 : !0, change the both to !1) etc until it hit ~700 users and started dying for me (presumably when it hit hacker news).
Ha...I think about this all the time. I start researching something, eventually buy it. Then a ton of targeted ads show up everywhere advertising to me the product I already purchased.