skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
First, don't be immature.

Second, "that is not what people admire in him" is not an opinion. It's a statement of fact. Fortunately, the internet is effectively a giant paper trail, so whether or not that statement is true, finding evidence of people's opinions should be a no-brainer -- especially if you consider certain high-profile bloggers to be representative of the general zeitgeist.
Nationwide SMS is dirt cheap in most of Europe too. But the cost goes up rapidly when you send messages across borders, say from Italy to Germany. And international MMS are just ridiculously expensive. A friend of mine once paid ~5€ for a single MMS sent from Croatia to Germany. Croatian, Slovenian and Austrian telcos all wanted their share of roaming fees.

With WhatsApp you don't need to worry about all these things.
what are the instructions?
Cognitive offloading? Nah, go with the flow.
It's not just a numbers game.. I write this analysis a few day ago before the viber and this acquisition. http://www.hoista.net/post/76404923258/the-rise-of-trojan-ho...
You need to get to know more musicians. 'Musician' in this context is synonymous with 'person'. There isn't a 'musician' personality.
Tesla might be the biggest extinction threat to GM, Toyota, VW and the other big guys.

Don't you think they would pay $23B to, not only extinguish that threat, but also gain from the upside?

In my mind, if someone may be willing to pay $23B for something, it's worth $23B. That's why I think the valuation is quite fair.

EDIT: Fixed typo
The scary thing about this is that it's happening when network security is no longer a secondary thing to physical security but rather network security is most crucial security out there.

And networks still have an inherent weakness compared to physical sites. Physical sites don't have the problem that once one site is breached, another thousands of miles away can fall almost instantly.

Interlocking networks, id's, passwords, credentials and so-forth create a situation where there isn't really an inside or outside for the enterprising criminal. I can't see any way that this isn't going to get worse and worse for a while.
Less than half. Europe and India easily make up for the US and China and then you still have South- and Middle America as well as South-East Asia (and Africa).
Viber and WhatsApp are about 50/50 here in the Philippines. Used mostly for international messaging.
You probably don't even need to go that far. The randomness will be reduced when using multiple locations for trilateration.
>It's kind of like the difference between listing your cumulative GPA and major GPA.

Except that you get to choose which classes are in your "major."
WhatsApp | CrunchBase Profile
Ask HN: Exact Length of Bezier Curve
I am trying to find the length of a cubic Bezier curve. I'll be targeting c#, but a solution in any language will do (I'll translate). Here's the catch; I need a solution that is not an approximation (does not include steps or tolerance). I'll be using it in a space where precision is important.

I've found references to an algorithm like this existing (a very old one); but every link to it is dead.

Does anyone have experience with this problem?
No, it isn't:

"The deal is being cut for $12 billion in Facebook shares, $4 billion in cash and an additional $3 billion in RSUs for employee retention."

21% cash.
And Orkut was number one in Brasil, but in the end, the network effect doesn't care for cultural borders (with the exception of the Great Firewall).
Loving the Earth for the Next 10,000 Years
Facebook acquires messaging behemoth WhatsApp for more than $16B
Yep. Most of the new plans the carriers in the US have rolled out recently have unlimited minutes + texting as standard, and then charge extra based on data limits. Not exactly cheap mind you, but that's how its structured. Even my cheapo $30/mo T-mobile prepaid includes unlimited texting.
HN is using SPDY.  Woot.
He only had a BSCS from Stanford and had been a VP of Engineering at Yahoo leading over 300 engineers. Facebook turned him away, and as someone else mentioned here, Twitter.

It kind of puts in perspective that blog post from yesterday that claimed companies in Silicon Valley can't find rock star ninja engineers ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7259845 ).
I don't think that any sane screenwriter would want to do hacking and security stuff seriously if they could - the pacing/dynamics of how hacking is shown currently is much better fit to what works in movies as narrative media; showing it realistically simply would generally hurt the movie and be unappreciated by the vast majority of viewers.

It's just as with any other time-consuming thinking activities such as invention/tech research; crime/plot investigation; medical diagnosis - they're much more successful when the screenwriters/directors misrepresent reality of 'how it happens', so they do so intentionally.

That's how that media works - if you want realistic portrayal of hacking and security, then it (just as many, many other topics) is quite suitable for a written narrative, but not really for a two-hour movie/30min tvseries format.
Are you over 30?

Seriously, I went to sit in with a few University freshmen recently here in Germany and they all used it. (They didn't know the Back to the Future movies, though!)
Show HN: Compare Your Bills With Neighbors
When I was moving last year, I asked around to determine the best TV and internet provider and I discovered that some of my friends were paying insane prices for comparatively less service. Obviously the company wasn't going to help my friends save...so I decided to make a web app that allows neighbors to compare their bills. Knowledge is power, my friends.

This is my first release (and first MVP) so I do plan on making continuous updates.

Comments and suggestions are highly encouraged!

Funny part: I discovered that I was paying about $0.13 per kWH on my electric bull and my friend (same zipcode) is only paying $0.06...I just switched electric suppliers the other day. It was definitely satisfying to find out that my app at least helped me out.
you're surprised that it is legal to do what you want with a company you own? how would you suggest the government get involved exactly?

there's nothing stopping these fired employees from banding together and forming their own company.
It's usually bundled with data, isn't it?
How much do you pay for international SMS/MMS?
You know, I once sat in on a discussion between one of the sysadmins on my team and a researcher; that went something like (barely paraphrased, only insofar as my memory is bad) "Did your code run in test? What is test? Do you deploy your code to the test environment before steamrolling a running production instance. No no, why would I ever do that." (after literally cursing out one of our sysadmins for not fixing why his code was no longer running for him.)

Things like this are why I left academia back to industry, unfortunately for how many fantastic opportunities academia has to offer :/
Little background:

When I was moving last year, I asked around to determine the best TV and internet provider and I discovered that some of my friends were paying insane prices for comparatively less service. Obviously the company wasn't going to help my friends save...so I decided to make a web app that allows neighbors to compare their bills. Knowledge is power, my friends.

This is my first release (and first MVP) so I do plan on making continuous updates.

Comments and suggestions are highly encouraged!

Funny part: I discovered that I was paying about $0.13 per kWH on my electric bill and my friend (same zipcode) is only paying $0.06...I just switched electric suppliers the other day. It was definitely satisfying to find out that my app at least helped me out.
Your comment does not address mine. I pointed out why admiring Steve Jobs is an indicator of someone to avoid, not that I was upset Steve Jobs was not flawless.

That you use MLK to defend Steve Jobs troubles me.
Ajax Overview
Seems like he was pretty qualified on paper. Stanford grad and former VP of Engineering at Yahoo. With that in mind, maybe he just had a bad set of interviews. I think this would be more meaningful if we knew the position he was going for.
WhatsApp is dominant player, and so they can leverage a higher ask. Not sure it's going to save Facebook in the end though.
OK, yes, "retain continuity of addressability for every device" then - you'll need something at your end to push a signed notification out indicating your IP address change but there's no reason that can't be seamless like texting your contacts a new phone number but without any interaction needed.
What's special about Whatsapp that made them choose this platform rather than (say) email, any other chap app, or even Facebook itself?
Aand there goes my 3 years advance payment for service to waste.. Just Deleted WhatsApp account
Well, you can tell that they haven't bought all the orders that are under $600 because there are still orders on the book to sell for under $600. In particular, using only orders currently on the books of various exchanges, you could currently buy ~1600 MTGOX BTC at ~$300 and sell an equal number at ~$600. If you were Mt. Gox, would you take the free $480,000 or would you leave it?

Do I also have to be God to know that the sky is blue?

Edit: I suppose, based on your other reply, that you are contending that the orders on the books are already from Mt. Gox. I'm not sure why you would believe this, but let's pretend it is so for a moment. This leads back to the same conclusion: either Mt. Gox wants to sell BTC worth $600 at $300 and lose money, or they want to sell MTGOX BTC worth $0 at $300 and make money. Which do you suppose is likely to be the case?
Docker + Infiniband
Why Selling WhatsApp To Facebook Would Be The Biggest Mistake (2012)
* simulation, consciousness, cellular automata, artificial life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City (check http://libgen.org/ for preview/pdf)

* more of sam's great stuff: http://qntm.org/structure and http://qntm.org/ra (ongoing)
That's because successful founders are just lucky. That's it. Not qualitatively different from any of us. You'd have no better luck picking lottery winners by the looks of the guys entering the gas station.
The Super Desk [video]
> in most discussion of taxation, the theme is "how to avoid the deadweight loss"

This is certainly not true for e.g excise taxes. Inflation as a tax on dollars-held is similary intended to alter behavior by encouraging those with wealth to take riskier investments (alternatively stated, to discourage long-term holding dollars, similarly to how excise taxes are intended to discourage consumption of particular goods).
The quote below is sooo relevant to me. It's what sidetracked me at my previous startup, getting caught up with what my competition was doing. I know better now. Listen to your customers. Iterate in THEIR direction. All else will fall into place.

>This is the most important takeaway. Sitting here a few weeks since Google’s launch, I can tell you with absolute certainty that nothing has actually changed. Looking back at the 6 years we’ve spent building BuySellAds, it’s clear that any time we spent thinking, researching, or reacting to our would-be competitors was a complete waste of time. In fact, there’s no better way to waste time than to think about (or even follow) what your competitors are doing. The only thing that truly matters are YOUR customers. I can’t tell you how hard it has been to get this engrained into my mind. It is by far the most important thing in building a business (to focus on your customers), yet so hard to practice when you see other activity and the glorious tech-headline touting presumed (or actual) success. They call it “customer driven development” not “competitor driven development” for a reason.
While this is an intriguing phenomenon, I do not think it is something deep. It sounds similar to how consciousness or a concept of self is sometimes identified as the ability to recognize a dot on ones body in a mirror (a few animals pass this task). Even though that is literally about ones reflection, I think it has little to do with the philosophical and abstract kind of reflection that is made possible by consciousness.
Formula VTEX review: a hackathon strategy guide
Turns out false negatives can be pretty costly too, it seems.
Sorry, total fail in that first paragraph, and I missed the edit window. I should have said: I think doing anything else (e.g., giving a company asset to a founder) would require all investors to agree.
I think in many cases great founders would make terrible employees. Imagine trying to tell Steve Jobs what to do.
Here's one off the top of my head: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2012/08/07/marco-icloud-sec...

Here's another: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2013/03/26/icloud-hamburger

I know I've seen a number over the past few years, but searching the website is unfortunately difficult because Gruber is so prolific.
Inspiring video Unstoppable: What's your impossible?
I believe they were going to but were met with stern resistance from the community and caved.
Correct. I think that people who go through unethical means to achieve their goals are to be avoided. I worry that people admire specifically the unethical aspects of Steve Jobs' leadership, which is why I declared my heuristic.
The "airplane analogy" is flawed - we (so far) have no lower-level model as useful as those the Wright brothers had, namely, experimental aerodynamics. Furthermore, while pattern recognition is universally found in "living" critters, human intelligence seems to be uniquely different. We need to find the critical difference.
Market speculation.
Webgl is very important to the development of data visualization, educational and scientific simulations and explorable explanations. There's a lot of room for interesting applications in this space. See redblob games for an example of what I mean specific to teaching game algorithms.
>It's not an acquisition for talent, or technology, so what is it?

Users.

jackgavigan made a good point.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7267516
Life's a marathon, not a sprint.
And AOL Time Warner just about ruined the chances of that sort of thing happening again.

If any Board of Directors tried to pull off that kind of stock-based deal today, they're going to have a proxy fight on their hands. These days, the shareholders of the target company are going to want cash.

But during Bubble 1.0, plenty of bubble companies acquired other bubble companies.
To admire someone for where they are and not how they got there* is something that troubles me and what makes me want to think the person is either 1) useless and to be ignored or 2) unethical and to be avoided, like I said.

*Or worse yet, to admire someone for where they are knowing that they got there through unethical means, which is the case with SJ.
he's trolling you.
30 Day Facebook Ad Experiment
Looks like he won't have to worry about working for a living anymore...
> "...they were probably handing my data over to anyone for cash..."

How ironic.
This is pretty hilarious. It's as if he knew what would happen.
Yes. Most people seem to have unlimited SMS, yet I doubt few people got the plan they did specifically for unlimited SMS.
It's interesting how neither of the founders fit any of the stereotypical valley founder profiles. They don't look like Mark Zuckerberg, they are older, Brian Acton barely used twitter, and his tech background is more traditional (C, C++, Perl, etc).
I would post obligatory link of someone calculating expected number of universes on top of ours based on planks distance and something else, but I can't find it.

Instead have this simulation argument here: http://www.simulation-argument.com/
Or because the daily messaging volume through Facebook-owned services now surpasses global SMS volume.
This. I noticed a strong correlation between people I strongly dislike and people that idolize Jobs. Moreover, I found that people that idolize him (not his work) seem to do so because somehow him being good at what he did justified how he treated those around him. I guess these people see themselves as similar to him so they hope that by being good they can excuse being horrible to those around them.
I wrote about limitations on AI imposed by algorithmic complexity here: http://paulbohm.com/articles/artificial-intelligence-obstacl...

In essence: unless we extract that "single algorithm" that Andrew Ng believes in from an existing medium, we're unlikely to rediscover it independently.

(read the papers i link to at the bottom of the article for a more rigorous explanation)
A Relation of an Extraordinary Sleepy Person (ca.1698)
No doubt, once they get past a certain age, they become basically useless bookmarks (probably like most bookmarks). But I find that my pattern is usually to vaguely recall something from sometime in the past 3-6 weeks or so, and that often times if I go to my "saved stories" and just start scrolling back through them, I find the one I'm looking for.
Ask HN: Would you want Apple to buy Tesla and why?
I'm trying to find an explanation for how WhatsApp's network is supposedly worth drastically more than Gmail / Yahoo / Hotmail webmail is. Just because users connect, doesn't mean you have a pot of gold. I believe this is a critical, flawed assumption that is being nearly universally made. Last generation's instant messaging apps were nearly worthless monetarily, and are still nearly worthless even today with tons of users. Why the assumption that today's mobile versions of instant messaging will be worth ... over a hundred billion dollars (apparently)?

I've got an alternate theory. Today's WhatsApps and Snapchats will turn out to be terrible businesses, that aren't worth anywhere near what's being speculated. Today's user (mobile based) obsession will be viewed as not all that different from yesterday's eyeballs (web based) obsession. What are the consequences of that scenario?
Zero signup = zero friction. You install the software, and your contacts who have WhatsApp immediately show up on your WhatsApp contact list.

It was basically a free SMS replacement at first.

Of course that came with a massive security hole, where your "behind the scenes" login password was MD5 of your phone's imei. That, as far as I understand, has changed now.
I wonder how they discovered they were hacked, and how they arrived at the 309,079 records number.

What logs are typically 'left behind' for forensics to analyze after the fact? It's not like they have packet captures of all network communications they can analyze, or a list of every SQL query that was run after the attacker found a way to inject...
http://www.ict.griffith.edu.au/anthony/info/graphics/bezier....

Good luck--you'll probably end up doing approximations anyways, because that's just how numerical computing works.
That is a very good point, even if you don't immediately realize the deeper implications. :)

In India, you generally pay per text message - so if you can convince even 3 of your close friends to start using Whatsapp, you save (say) 20% of your phone bill.

Here in US, if you are going to send more than a few texts a month, you are going to be paying 20 USD. So there is no real monetary incentive (initially) for you and two of your friends to switch to Whatsapp.
Yeah, Mark Cuban actually managed to turn his bubble shares of YHOO into cold, hard cash.

How much cash did Steve Case manage to withdraw from the stock market piggy bank?
I didn't get which inbox messages would hit, in your scenario.

Would I be required to install a new app for checking an additional inbox?
don't worry the name microryza will live on http://www.yelp.com/biz/microryza-coffee-roasters-san-franci...
It almost makes him a folk hero for anyone else running up against the "cultural fit" barrier.
As someone who works for a vendor to higher education, I can say that it highly varies from institution to institution. I've noticed that size and prestige do not seem to be correlated to the level of security they actually have (or pretend to have).
You have both training and selection in both cases. In both cases you have extensive training and in both cases the number of training hours is ridiculous. However, there are negative and positive selection biases for each. Baseball has million dollar contracts as incentive, but also has the negative selection biases associated with the relatively small portion of the world that has baseball training facilities and the added requirements of physical strength that may prevent many with the natural talent from being eligible.

Large salaries are not necessarily enough. If you select the top 100 people in the world for natural talent in reaction times, how many would meet all of the requirements for being a good baseball player?

Baseball players make good money only if they can combine a top 0.01% reaction time with all of the other skills. There may be plenty of people that can top that one aspect but could never compete for those contracts.
Let's talk about buttons, like on a UI
Buttons need identifying. A label or icon. To this end we have several devices.

Verbose descriptive label.
pros : guides nooby 1%.
cons : clutters ui for nonnooby 99%.

Shortened descriptive label. Effects proportional to shortness.
pros : Helps noobs some. Conserves space some.
Cons : cryptic.

Icon
pros : conserves space. pretty.
cons : cryptic as a rule.

Tooltip text, the ui enhancer.
pros : provides explanations in cryptic situations.
cons : People don't give hovering a chance.

Can you add to this?
Good idea, it might have time to say it: Nope ;)
Personally I feel somewhat similar to you, but I find it important to point out that I am discussing the way I filter dangerous/useless people out of my professional life and not why like/dislike individuals.
I do not want financial regulation of virtual currency. I want people to be able to decide for themselves if they understand and are willing to take on risk - if they are not, then don't. Only allowing winners and losers and warts and unicorns will allow virtual currencies to find their place.

I DO want fraud prosecution, but we already have that.
Like nuclear weapons, but without the MAD.
This happens to me all the time on my phone. HN should make bigger voting arrows (or at least on mobile devices).
... shortly before they shuttered the ICQ service and merged it with AIM.
So if you're a giant company, hire them and don't tell them what to do. Let them run free on your dime. Own whatever they make.

(Not that Twitter was a giant company in 2009, and Facebook was just getting there)
5 reasons why you will remain a wantrepreneur
I just want to clear up the falsehood here that he was the lead design of any product - read the biography. He was lead designer on no product that went to market.
It makes less sense when you realise that most of the user base of whatsapp is OUTSIDE USA
I really don't think plain text communication has innovated much since email and IRC.

The money is mainly about users. Facebook are buying users, not technology.
Plenty of people around here admire Bill Gates for his charity work, despite the fact that he also has blood on his hands. At what point do a person's accomplishments supersede their sins? For some people, creating a company like Apple is enough.

Personally, I try to avoid black-and-white assessments of people, even if I vehemently disagree with them. I used to be an all-out Windows guy, but I started reading Apple bloggers because they had some of the most insightful and intelligent commentary on the state of the computer industry, product design, and programming. If you choose to ignore them just because they might have praise for someone you hate, you're only hurting yourself.
Are you referring to the SMBC comic?

http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2535