skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Most of the time when I write software, I feel much more that I am "creating" (copyright) rather than "inventing" (patent). I can just "tell" the computer to do something, and it does it. That doesn't work for wheels and gears.

I think this is true for the vast majority of software, and likely for the vast majority of software people try to patent. I think you raise an interesting point regarding "telling a computer what to do" vs "inventing", and this seems like it would be a good distinction between non-patentable software and that which is patentable.

There is a subset of processes that essentially involve "telling a computer what to do", and then refining those instructions until the point where the computer knows how to execute each step. Obviously, this is just a description of writing software. But this process doesn't work for all problems. There is no telling a computer to "write a symphony"--there are no standard/obvious set of refinements to that statement that will result in a working program to write a symphony. To accomplish this would require "inventing" a new algorithm (lets not go "ergo math" just yet). One would have to create a non-obvious process to govern the interactions between input sounds to create the output symphony. I don't think anyone would have a problem with saying someone "invented" a symphony writing computer program.

On the other hand, the process of "one click ordering" has an obvious set of refinements from problem statement to execution such that you cannot reasonably be said to be inventing one click ordering.

Of course, these are probably the two most obvious examples on either side of the debate, but I think it illustrates the fact that these decisions can be made rationally and fairly with some common sense guidelines.
"Swirls From the Big Bang" special colloquium with Andrei Linde and BICEP2, 3PM
Good luck trying to take Coursera's Crypto II: I've been signed up since August 2012, and every 3-6 months it has been delayed another 3-6 months. At this point I'm no longer expecting it to be offered.

Crypto I is not vaporware and is excellent.
Maybe a stupid question, but: I'm not a game dev nor even a gamer, but I kind of want to buy a dev kit. How well will it work with a rMBP, and are there lots of fun demos already available?
Dragon City Hack and Cheats Tool – Download
Be with your thoughts more often
I raise your offer, 100 billion.
From the cited BBC article: "The investigation team also reported, however, that in many other instances the Indian Army had behaved well and protected Muslims.

The backlash was said to have been in response to many years of intimidation and violence against Hindus by the Razakars."

It's clear we each have our biases, and this discussion could go on.

I only brought up the wikipedia article in the first place to show that violence against Muslims resulting from the annex of Hyderabad wasn't unprovoked. Both sides were wrong in some of their actions though.
My chance of failing increases the moment I think about which number I'm at and how much there is left to go.
Yeah; there's a link somewhere in the "Development" section. It's org-mode, though: https://github.com/crypto101/book

Everything about this project (except the TLS keys) is on Github.
It's a dev kit. Things have always been done this way. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft do it too. It just typically costs thousands of dollars and you have to already have a business relationship with them. So you rarely hear about it. Most PC guys hate this model, hence this...

Example: http://www.retrotrader.com/catalog/product_info.php?products...

If consumers want to be dumb and ignore everything that states very clearly that this is a product for developers, that's their business.
and, of course, Land of Lisp!
> However I also believe that the situation, especially the army's view of the Taliban, in particular groups under the TTP, has drastically changed.

That's possible, but it's pretty clear that ISI is a state within the state. As long as it isn't broken up and brought under civilian control, it is impossible to ensure it does not continue supporting these Talibans it deems acceptable. The testimony of the unnamed former intelligence official in the article speaks volume about it: "In 2007, a former senior intelligence official who worked on tracking members of Al Qaeda after Sept. 11 told me that while one part of the ISI was engaged in hunting down militants, another part continued to work with them." As long as they're willing to fund LeT actions like the Mumbai bombings, it's unlikely they will care that Pakistanis also become victims of terrorism.
Weev appeal puts computer crime laws on trial
This is totally right - I mean absolutely no endorsement of said sexism!
Now I'm looking forward to when the ultimate code dives start coming out, like they did after ID released their source code for Quake / Doom / ect... All the interesting tricks / shortcuts that people found when they really started picking into the code base. Heck, even style, and how they've organized and managed such an enormous code-base would be neat to see a deconstruction on.
Not sure if you use DNS and hosts is a blacklist or you don't use DNS and hosts is a whitelist...
HOLY MOTHER OF FLAPPY BIRD!

Ha, this is pretty clever!
Indeed you're correct.
Hi, developer lead here.
Variance is not built on D3; we're using some of the scale code, but that's it.

In fact, variance-standalone.min.js is about 10kB smaller compared to current d3.min.js = )
Popcorn time is same as releasing a remote exploit bug after the developers have ignored/disbelieved your previous x warnings.

It's also just as controversial.

The distribution companies, aka Big Media (they don't create content, they profit over controlling its distribution), business model is no longer valid. They refuse to change, they deserve bankruptcy.
This list seems like YC is (publicly, at least) expanding their vision. Previous RFS lists seemed mostly like software ideas, while this list seems more focused on problems and markets, regardless of technology.
I just wanted to thank you for the detailed writeup. It's very helpful and informative.
Can the Bloomberg Terminal be "Toppled"?
Likewise, I was somewhat disappointed.

On the other hand, I've discovered a new method for breaking just about anyone.
From guidelines[1] :

> anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity

I'd say this gratifies one's intellectual curiosity on programming and game development. I can see you not having the same opinion and I guess we can only agree to disagree.

[1]: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
This is more at my intellectual level.
they are only taking a deposit for 50 bucks and they recently got a lot of money from a VC. You don't call apple out on preordering the latest iPhone and I see this as about the same.
Unless you want to be increasing your net worth. It's certainly a matter of opinion, but I think if money is your priority, you're much better off in the wop wops making $120k/yr with little to no debt.
New design for Facebook's Campus
I miss "Platform/OS" -> OS's like Linux, BSD.. Platforms like browsers, xamarin, cordova, etc

Those are not on the "Software development tools" category.. :/
Minimalist Chic
The book has 24 essays, they aren't all listed in the Wiki page.
Any chance we can form an Ideas list please folks:

My starter for ten:

"The Internet lets people around the world coordinate action" HelpYourNeighbour.com
Given certain amounts of basic training and oversight, social services could outsource small amounts of care to anyone willing to help - elderly person in need of trip to doctors, local park needs trees planting. All this is kind of sort of done on adhoc basis by charities - seems very inefficient and probably lacks the network effect lift that a single government approved point has.
What I want to find out when conducting the interview is, are you really the awesome person your resume says you are? Or did you sit next to that awesome person on a team at your last job and just goof off all day and now put everything that guy did on your resume?

I'd love to have any means of better answering that question than going with "did you pay attention in class/last few jobs?" sorts of questions like "Can you work with this linked list on a white board" simple programming problems, but right now I don't know a better way. So I don't consider programming puzzles meaningless on the assumption that the guy who slacked off won't do well with them while the guy who paid attention and loves to program will know and demonstrate a thing or two.

I know with some potential hires I can review a github repository, but that has similar problems. I've handed an interviewee code from his own github repo where he had fixed a defect and asked him to point out the defect he fixed on the page, and he couldn't find it. Does he just have a bad memory, or is he lying about that being his code? How can I tell?
IRS: $760 million in 2010 refunds have gone unclaimed
Lots.

The "include" file is just a js file that document.writes your html, so its not easy to make edits because you would need to do it in a big stream of escaped code.

They won't work if user has js turned off.

They are awful for seo because the includes will not be there when the page is crawled

They are not semantic for writing things like <html><head> and will throw your browser into quirks mode because your page would effectively start with a script tag.

But I used the hell out of them back when dynamic hosting was hard to come by (geocities, tripod etc)
Not to take away from this post but I wanted to share a little bit about my own job search. Hopefully engineers who regularly interview candidates have some interesting feedback to share. There was a post I actually just hearted on Secret this morning where someone equated "hard algorithm" questions to "hazing." That may be a little dramatic sounding, but I do think there is some truth to that.

So much of the early 2000s tech interviews were full of brain teasers that either through sheer luck of the candidate or someone who read the popular book "How would you move Mt. Fuji?" would ever have a shot at solving them. Microsoft pioneered it apparently and Google took it to the next level. They even went so far as to post them on billboards for anyone "clever" enough to figure them out.

At some point they went out of favor and the new favorites became these multi-step dynamic programming questions, or quad-trie/kd-tree disguised problems. The unfortunate truth is, if you want to get a job in the valley beyond your first out of school job, you're going to need to study and refresh your brain on those last chapter algorithms. Make sure to practice doing them recursively as well because with 45-60 min interviews you won't have time to do it iteratively. Just like the OP mentioned too, it also couldn't hurt to practice writing code on paper in front of a friend.

The biggest thing I found writing code on a white-board vs. a laptop is that you lose all the things that make coding in an editor so much faster. You can't just erase a line if you need to insert something above it. You need to be extremely thoughtful of your order of operations from line #1. Usually what I found worked for me was writing a checklist of how to solve the problem in English, so as not to confuse the interviewer that I'm writing code/pseudocode. Then I rearrange the steps until I get a solution that works. From there I can quickly write out the actual code that then becomes the easiest part of the interview.

So the BIGGEST tip I can add when doing white-board coding, write as polished as you can. Interviewers always seem to proclaim they won't judge your chicken scratch, but I've never been in a feedback session where someone joked "his handwriting was so messy, but I was very impressed." In fact I've always heard the opposite, "wow, they wrote crap all over the place, even though they figured it out it was very unorganized, so I dunno, it's a maaayybe from me."

Also, when asked one of these questions, DO NOT take your time trying to be clever upfront. Get the worst case on the board, 1) it will give you and the interviewer a chance to to talk about it and 2) they will want to ask you how to optimize it anyway.
Yeah, stupid kids and their stupid games! Back in my day we wrote in x86 when we wanted to have fun!
You know that feeling you have after a big meal? Where you're so full that you really actively don't want anything more?

I've often wondered what's going on in this situation because it's not always due to literally being 'full'. If you could package up that feeling (hormones, chemicals, whatever's causing it) and sell it in pill form, you would be the richest person on the planet..
It is funny that I have been thinking about this a lot lately too. In fact, my latest blog post deals with this question a bit.

I used to think that one should first make millions. Then retire and then work on fun projects. I used to work on side projects that can generate income like freelancing or become business like social networks. Initially, these projects would be fun. I would essentially work on my side projects during any free time. Then I would get burned and take a break from side projects. And soon I would start all over again.

Now my goals are to work on side projects that really interest me, with or without money part. So I am writing, reading non-technical books, reading up on Big Data, AI, and my new hobby, playing with Arduino.
We still need to see Flappy 2048 AI.
I like the ambition but a lot of Startups like this will have their roots in basic research (read: University labs). That leads to interesting dynamics (and issues) with the founding teams. e.g. Profs who have been critical in developing tech but are not jumping ship into the startup lifestyle (although continued involvement is key). I've seen this play out with some ugly stories (people got screwed) and some enlightened ones (balance was struck). Does YC have any views/experience with this?

Fwiw, I'm working on internet infrastructure (see profile)
Graphene contact lenses could give you infrared vision
I often say that if you think you're the smartest person in the room, you probably aren't. And if you actually are the smartest person in the room, you need to be in a better room.
How to Have Friends at Work When You’re the Boss
> If you could package up that feeling (hormones, chemicals, whatever's causing it) and sell it in pill form, you would be the richest person on the planet..

Is this not quite literally what drugs are? And I don't just mean illegal drugs but stuff like Xanax.
The media industry created a way to sustainably undergo the capital expenditures necessary for high quality studio recording, and the mass production and distribution of physical media communicating those studio recordings. It extracted rents in the forms of usurous recording contracts, hugely divergent pricing from their costs, and avaricious assignment and stewardship of copyrights.

Technology has reduced the cost of transmitting the information in recordings to the trivial level that serving someone a glass of water costs.

A combination of technology and prior capitalization has driven down the cost of studio recording, both lowering the necessary a prior knowledge to record well, and putting excellent mastering tools in the hands of many at low cost.

What precise value are the members of the RIAA providing today? Please demonstrate how these members provide an essential value that cannot be shouldered by individual artists (e.g. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis)
I'm not even talking about "moving up" to become CTO or some other exec. I'm talking about just getting into that game.
you could just have loaded the local file the first time and have it work every time, without all those ifs and maybes involved.

it can take several seconds for the request to fail, during which your application won't have been loaded or working.

the fallback adds complexity to your code, which ultimately didn't need to be there.

I just think that it's better to reduce the ways that your application can break, before trying to make it a little bit faster for the cases in which all the conditions are met.

On principle, even in the theoretical best case scenario, I think it's not the right approach to be taking.

I also don't think that the best case scenario can be reliably enough predicted to be something you should try to optimize for. There are many CDN's, many different versions of the many different libraries. Especially on mobile devices, cache size is limited.

IMO, at least.
Your last paragraph really resonated with me. I personally could not emphasis my feelings and opinion towards "companies who don't understands what makes a good employee for their company" by any means.

I'm currently a CS student and I do find many of the startups locally do involve loads of problem solving on the job, which is beneficial from general algorithm knowledge. Although I believe it's more so the ability to understand the concepts as opposed to spouting knowledge for any specific abstract data type or algorithm.

But by any means all companies are not similar, and outside of the purpose of prodding for problem solving aptness it is definitely not the best topic to discuss in an interview to find the /right/ employee for many of the companies of which do ask it.
I know 2048 seems like a big number but you understand that that would be 12 pipes? Most people would get that in the first minute of play. The tile colors do change every time you hit the doubled value.
I was looking for where that was posted and I think this is a bit more informative:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mShXzzKtpmEC&pg=PA60&lpg=...
It's more an issue of comfort through familiarity for me, and I'd imagine, for most programmers in general.

Sit me down in front of Visual Studio and I can write code just fine. It's just I do so while consciously thinking about the editor and how I'm using it more than I would in my preferred vim environment, where things are largely subconscious through familiarity.
I hate compliments. I become uncomfortable when people say nice things to me because I don't know if they are sarcastic or not. Probably because I'm never satisfied with my own results always thinking about how I could have done it better.

Secondly I hate everything material, even so money. I make just enough money to pay the bills and other essentials, but if someone I know even remotely would ask me for $100 I would never ever think about getting it back.

No one else who can relate to this?
For someone that is truly a beginner in cryptography it is helpful to understand at a very basic level how encryption/decryption works.

Using something simple as a Caesar cipher or ROT13 you can show how plaintext undergoes a transformation using an algorithm to create the cipher text and how that same algorithm is used to convert the cipher back to plaintext.

This simple idea provides the basis to discuss other cipher techniques (and their shortcomings); as well as provide an early example of symmetric-key algorithms.
Was posted earlier today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7428175
While most of the comments here are about the music and movie industry, to me the key point in your post was about the coming loss of employment from further automation, and whether we can soften that blow.

As other are saying, it's impossible to stop the march of technology. So to my mind the problem to solve is how & where we can create replacement jobs, or how do we tune our regulation of the economy to stimulate job creation?

Edit: spelling.
There are so few things in life that are hard-and-fast rules. Agile is a bunch of guidelines that should be adapted, and the core Agile Principles say this themselves.

It's like a religion. Some folks like guidelines, some folks like rules. :)
I offer 2048 Billion!
Geographies of Tech Wealth: San Francisco to “Silicon Border”
> "wanting what you already have"

Sounds very much like Taoist teachings as well. Desire, in its many forms, never results in happiness.
Speedruns, at least: http://www.twitch.tv/extratricky
We held out our hands 20 years ago, and kept that up for quite a while. We got laughed at, or worse.

Sure, doing the right thing would probably mean doing it again and again, even though "they" keep responding with erecting ever more barriers, and lobbying for ever more repressive legislation.

But personally, I'm tired of it. 20 years ago I believed we could bring them along, and I put a lot of time and energy into it.

Now I'm just hoping they'll disappear a.s.a.p., before they manage to destroy our civil liberties with what remains of their power.
In some sense. Of course I'm sure they had multiple suitors. Instagram has a huge user/traffic base.
Up and coming FPS needs funding
We need you to fund our game- but in return you get a lot of awesome perks!
Linkbait, press release, no tech value.
I have never laughed whilst opening up HN. Thank-you for that!
When you include 3rd-party hosted content in your program, you give those 3rd-parties:

1. Access to your users' browser details (via request headers).
2. Access to your users' habits (via the referrer header).
3. The ability to replace executable code. (This code can be used to gather more data from the state of the web page (e.g. keystroke logging), or break out of the browser sandbox and compromise the whole system. Note: this only applies to JavaScript.)
4. The ability to break your software, either intentionally or unintentionally, by not serving the resource at all.

When you host and serve your own resources, these are non-issues.

I think there is a sense among good-hearted programmers that "But gosh, they wouldn't do [1-3]! These CDNs are just a really nice public service by companies that care about keeping the web community healthy and fast. And besides, if they ever abused their access to user data, there would be hell to pay!"

Unfortunately this blasé attitude about user privacy on the part of programmers is why we have such a rough time with privacy in general these days. I believe that if you're a programmer with any interest at all in protecting your users from bad actors, that you'll do your best to avoid using 3rd party hosts, especially for executable code.
This might be the single greatest comment in the history of Hacker News.
All said and done, a week(s) long outage is just not acceptable, unless it is (for you).
http://hnplays2048.herokuapp.com
But where does the £15 multimeter fit into that?
I could be wrong, thought I had tested it earlier and saw it worked for a mini too.
I'll lend you 110% of the company acquisition value.
I love the look of everything Backblaze does, but I don't use them because I need Linux support. I currently use Crashplan because of their Linux support, but I find the service mediocre overall.
Good luck. My goal is to retire to a 20 hour or 3 day work week some day. Need to think of some passive-aggressive domain name to get that thought across. Maybe retiredguru.com or something.
They're not scamming Spotify, they're scamming all the other music groups that would have received that revenue. For Spotify is a zero-sum game.
*wrings hand
Given that each educational cashflow is 0-22 years in the future, carrying at a discounted NPV would be more appropriate. Whatever the assumption, carrying at the multi-decade-forward FV is a bit punitive.
Take This Checklist and Shove It
From outside it feels like YC is becoming a frat house. I think it will help if YC steps out and brings in some unusual partners.

Of course it's easier said than done. If you're busy running YC it's hard to have the occasion to meet and find people who are not part of the same frat house.
I feel like this is a big shift in focus for YC and for the industry if others follow suit. This will do a lot of good in changing the image of the typical startup, from who starts them to what their ambitions are, signaling to those in other industries that the valley isn't just about young code-slingers and iOS apps. I hope this encourages people in STEM with years of specialized domain experience to look at starting a company as a seriously viable option.