skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Have you ever tried waking up early yourself? Do you have any "actual evidence" even from your own experience?

In my case, commuting is one huge advantage of waking up early, when I do it. Traffic between 5-7 tends to be far less stressful, even when it's heavy. These are all people who are relaxed, focused, and moving quickly without being in a hurry. 8:00-10:00 people are rushing and hurried and angry and chatting on cell phones, 11:00-13:00 gets very heavy with lunch rush, with some people hurrying and others just meandering along getting in the way. Then after a brief lull between 14:00 and 15:00 (the early risers heading home) you start getting a mix of traffic from commuters and people doing afternoon activities, which tends to persist until late (20:00-21:00) except on Monday nights, unless there is an event like a Red Sox game or something.
Obviously AT&T is responsible for their own systems. But what better publicity for the two parties than to come together and fix this.

My personal take on all this is that Kevin Mitnick once was a hacker, good but probably not even that great (he did get caught, remember) who is now minting his newfound reputation.

These kids prove that his reputation is somewhat less than he presents it to be and he's pissed off about that.

There is a proverb in there somewhere: High trees catch lots of wind...

AT&T is a bunch of weaklinks for terminating his account (same goes for his provider), they should secure their stuff with or without Kevins help. To terminate a user because they 'attract bad people' is ridiculous, imagine your bank telling you that they can no longer take your business because because of you the keep having burglary attempts. It's too silly for words.
perhaps because it is expencive
That was the historical basic idea, but that doesn't provide the kind of precision desired for a very exact definition of the kilogram. The article submitted here reports an attempt at a very precise, ascertainable definition of the kilogram.

From the New York Times article kindly linked by eru in another comment:

"The kilogram was conceived to be the mass of a liter of water, but accurately measuring a liter of water proved to be very difficult. Instead, an English goldsmith was hired to make a platinum-iridium cylinder that would be used to define the kilogram."
Which seems to provide a possibly workable model for automated systems of other kinds.
Caster Semenya, sex, and sports
I think this one is no longer a myth:

3. Some people function perfectly on four hours of sleep.

I read about a gene that some people have that lets them do this: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/813/2
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. This is very distinguishable from magic.
Fully electric is basically a coal powered car, as most our juice comes from coal.
It's possible that the existance of "more potent strands of marijuana" is intentional scaremongering propaganda:

http://www.badscience.net/2007/03/reefer-badness/

"And in fact, what’s most amazing is that this scare isn’t new. In the US, in the mid 1980s, during Reagan’s “war on drugs”, it was claimed that cannabis was 14 times stronger than in 1970, which rather sets you thinking. If it was 14 times stronger in 1986 than in 1970, and it’s 25 times stronger today than the beginning of the 1990s, does that mean it is now, in fact, 350 times stronger than 1970?

That’s not even a crystal in a plant pot. That’s impossible. That would require more THC to be present in the plant than the total volume of space taken up by the plant itself"
No good in terms of a UX point of view, would have preferred either a breadcrumb showing me where I am along the side or every single field being listed at once.
Excellent point. The implementation is the hard part.

Furthermore, it is very hard to actually know which ideas are good until implemented, and even with truly great ideas a bad implementation will destroy them while a good implementation can make a mediocre idea successful.

I hesitate to suggest this, but if the ideas are truly original and tie into some concrete product or business product then you could try patenting them. Doing this will require you to invest some real time and money, but nowhere near as much as implementation. That patent would then have some value to a startup looking to implement an idea similar to that so you would be bringing something to the table if trying to join that startup or you could try selling it outright to the startup.

I certainly would never recommend becoming a patent troll, but holding a relevant patent does give you something to bring to the table while you work out a niche for yourself with the founders (perhaps in marketing and fund raising or handling some of the other business aspects or else learning enough to help with implementation.) If nothing else, I have heard of people using patents as resume bullets for more conventional jobs.
OK. Gotcha! Will delete this, and wait for the old post only. Sorry :(
Too easy. Anyone could have written that.

Know what I'd like to see? Mark Cuban critiquing something that appears to be pretty good by my standards. That's data that would make a difference to me.
Yeah, but that's 140 years ago. I'd like to think that we've progress since then. Also, it's pretty important to get the definition right. If my definition is right, then sneezing on the kilogram won't make every weight wrong, if will make the kilogram not quite have the mass of one kilogram.
Lately I had a task suitable for Wolfram Alpha. Calculate the inflation factor in Germany from 1973 to today. The data is available. Alpha shows a diagram: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=inflation+rate+Germany I can't figure out how to let it calculate the cumulative factor, though. At least i'd like to get a table of the numbers to do it myself but even the source aren't helpful here.
Sure, but if you see some bad weather and decide to turn off autopilot... and the system won't let you, then the company is to blame (legally, though practically you'd obviously do everything you can to make sure you survive).

The decision would need to be made case by case in courts to determine who (if anyone) is responsible. At least in court systems like the US has. For very different systems, I'm not sure.
So, eventually, do we just throw away the magazine like all others?!
Appreciate the stats but, from the post: "The value of traffic doesn’t vary by position ... In fact, the quality in position 1 tends to be slightly lower than position 2, and the quality improves slightly as the ads get lower on the page — these are small effects that can be ignored for practical purposes." Maybe my budget is too 'small' to ignore these small effects, or maybe I'm just cheap.
http://web.archive.org/web/20071018035725/poignantguide.net/...

THE SOUNDTRACK TO why's (poignant) guide to ruby
Why? The only reason this didn't hit the round file is 10 seconds is because it was so bad. Slow blog day, I guess.
I would guess the same is less true, but still fairly accurate, about developers. The best developers don't talk about development (at least most of them don't) they just do it. The open source movement, however, has exposed a lot of them to the world. For all of the great, well-known developers in the open source world, there are many, many more great developers toiling away in anonymity in the closed source world.
I don't think autonomous here is the same as sentient/intelligent/etc... It just means a machine that does something without human intervention. E.g. if a Rumba takes off your toe, you can't take it to court.
Esquire already have run with an eink magazine cover that was animated.

This technology is going to get irritating. Imagine browsing a newsagent with all the magazines flickering images trying to compete for attention, like myspace spilt into the real world.
When if they saw it in isolation, they'd realise it's just rubbish.

Of course. All language is just rubbish. Transient sound waves in the air. Scratches of ink that will fade. Tomorrow's trash.

Try traveling to a country where you can't read the language. (China or Japan work, for me.) It reminds one, forcefully, that all words are arbitrary. I can stand in the middle of a Chinese bookstore, surrounded by great literature, yet unable to see anything but well-ordered squiggles. To someone who otherwise tends to forget that he wasn't born knowing how to read, it is a dizzying experience.

What matters in language is what it evokes in the listener. A lot of it is about context: Who is speaking, and who is listening. _Why's poems are better than yours because they remind me of _why, a genuinely nice and optimistic guy. Your poems remind me of someone who would crash a party in order to spit on the guest of honor. In other words, it's all in the delivery.
Republicans, religion and the triumph of unreason
You can never be too thin, too rich, or too knowledgeable about your market. An excellent data collection opportunity you don't normally have has fallen into your lap. Why wouldn't you take advantage of it?
Or it could be something that simply does not make a good reference. I kept many of my math and computer science text books as references for later.

On the other hand, the political science class I took made us read through many books where reading them once was very enlightening, but I have never felt a desire to refer back to them.
Yes. Strangely even arithmetic can get interesting again.
Thanks for the tip but we'll have to wait a decade, at least, for therapeutic gene therapy.
What happened to him? Has he got any problems?
An 8 digit, all numerals password? Really, Mitnick?

It's not super secure, but it really should be secure enough if a website cares about security -- they should be limiting login attempts, and shouldn't be storing them in plain text.
This is the idea of correspondence chess. In many tournaments, computer aid is allowed for this reason. See the ICCF, which runs many sanctioned web-based chess tournamnets where computer aid is allowed. http://www.iccf-webchess.com/
there's a first for everything I guess, flagged and upvoted...
Thanks for the honest response(s). What is this incubator you mentioned? Could you tell me more or link to something that does?
Canon drops out of the megapixel race
Well, news.ycombinator.com is the property of exactly such an institution but there are plenty more out there.

Seed capital funds are another possible avenue.
I've never liked the argument that "the iPhone will fail because it's just like the Mac and that lost to Windows".

I see even less to recommend the argument that "Android will fail because it's just like Windows (which everyone uses and makes buckets of money)"

Of course I note Gruber defines success in his own terms: "where by “work” I mean “produce a phone and software platform with a state-of-the-art user experience”"

But how many people actually care about that? (Don't get me wrong, I do, but I'm not going to make or break the success of any platform by my purchasing decisions alone.)
If enough people do this, airlines are going to end up cancelling entire flights when everyone switches their tickets.

With a family member who spent many years working for a large carrier, this isn't how the airline industry works (in America, and I assume many other nations). Flights are almost never cancelled except due to mechanical failure, crew fatigue, or inclement weather. The reason being, that same plane taking you from NYC to SFO is also the plane that 130 people are waiting for in SFO to SEA. So, whether it is 100% full or only has 2 people, it still makes the trip. Have you ever been on a plane with only 2 passengers aboard? I have - and you can pick any seat you want! They will even send an empty plane out (with crew, of course).

C) raise the prices of refundable tickets so high that you will go to another carrier at the outset.

Refundable tickets are already that high - almost nobody buys them. They are already 3-5x as high as your average discount ticket and almost solely purchased by business travellers or foreigners who need that flexibility. The 99% of cow-herded casual travellers buy the bottom-of-the-barrel discount tickets, usually from Travelocity and the like, with the most restrictions. Unfortunately, I don't see that changing unless there is a massive uprooting of the current airline industry.
I wonder how difficult it will be to reload the thing with your own video.
Launchset: Private Beta Made Easy
Wow, this truly is an example of trying to fix something which isn't broken, and ending up making it multiple times worse...you'll just loose people at each stage as they get annoyed.

If you want to simplify your sign-up form, remove fields!
No no no, this is the sort of politics we don't want to see here. It leads to long, endless flamewars about stuff that's unrelated to hacking and startups, or even "how stuff works". Go to reddit for that kind of thing, please.
Wow.

Well, I suggest they rename Firefox to "ie.exe" and get on with their work.
Heh. It's hard to find an article on the rise of anti-intellectualism in US politics that isn't anti-Republican.
I don't get it - can't you just an e-mail with the attached picture (because that's how Posterous works)? (or does Apple's TOC prohibit sending e-mails with a picture to someone who's not a person?)
What do you mean by "any good?" I know a lot of twenty five year-olds who would be thrilled to achieve a 2000 FIDE rating.
Semi-obligatory companion link to The UNIX-HATERS Handbook:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_UNIX-HATERS_Handbook

Now entirely obsolete, of course. Today everyone has come to love everything about Unix, the most perfect OS in this best of all possible worlds. ;)
How do the Imperialists do it for the pound (lb)?
Application Acceleration versus Optimization
It would be much cheaper to have a pattern and an iPhone app that displays a video in place of the pattern when you point it at the page.

You could have a whole virtual world , a kind of 'augmented reality' that way. :-/
So how does one go about finding a great unknown designer? The only three routes I can think of to find a designer (that I could afford) are:

1 - contest site, 99designs. Might end up with a good design but much of what I see there is average at best.

2 - elance, et al. Hit or miss. Poor over hundreds of profiles and throw a dart at one that looks appealing.

3 - search Google, blogs, message boards,..similar results as #2?

I'm building a new webapp now. In a few weeks, I'll need to engage a designer as this time around I decided not even to attempt it (product looks like hell if I do it).
There are tons of PSD2HTML firms. Its hard enough to pick one of those. How do I even find the right person to create the PSD, especially when I would actually prefer a single person that can do the PSD and the HTML/CSS work as this is someone I can go back to as I need incremental improvements.

From my perspective, this market is still tough to filter though.
And to top it off it doesn't even inform the user if the registration has been completed and whether the slideout is just optional data. If it's not optional, then the very act of hiding it is going to put a lot of people off.
Granted, the rates are wonderful, but it would be nice if Amazon promised that we wouldn't get passed by on changes like this.

And I want a pony! ;-)

Ever considered how they recoup that discount? Partly by not passing through their savings to you for the duration of that commitment.

Regardless the "pay later" aspect is attractive for many customers, especially when you're in a startup situation where early cash is the most expensive.
Cold-calling into an enterprise really isn't as hard as it seems. There are some simple techniques to help. First, remember you have something of value to offer to someone within the organization and you just need a little help to find the right person to speak with. The gatekeeper (the receptionist or executive assistant) is your friend. Her/his job is to screen out unimportant calls to make time for more important calls such as yours. As the founder and domain expert in your space (that's you), you have a significant advantage over a generic salesperson. You can gain credibility by highlighting this fact coupled with your years of experience and passion for addressing this specific problem.

Here is an example intro:
"Hi <receptionist name>, my name is Bob from SmartCo Software, inc. SmartCo is a software company that my partner and I co-founded to help companies in the <widget industry> who are facing challenges managing their <grommet inventory>. I am trying to find the appropriate person to speak with in your organization. Who would be the best person to contact about this? <wait for response>

More tips:

1. Your tone should be friendly, confident, and business-like. If it sounds like you are nervous they will hear this and it and may perceive this as a sign that you would be wasting their management's valuable time. Smile wide on the phone (literally, it shines through on the call.)

2. Keep it short and clear using plain simple words. You are not trying to sell the gatekeeper on your technology, product or service. You only need to convince them that the person you are looking for may be interested and that you sound professional enough that passing along your call won't come back and bite them.

3. With both gatekeepers and prospects, use your passion and founder status to your advantage. Be a person and talk with the prospect as an equal.

4. Old Sales Adage: "Telling isn't Selling" (i.e. Asking questions) Once you have identified a target buyer your goal is to give them just enough context about your company and the problem you are solving to get them thinking about the space, your goal then is to get your prospect talking. Ask open ended questions that cannot be answered with a simple yes or no. (e.g. I have been speaking with <CEO/CFO/COO/CMO>s in <prospect's industry> and many of them tell me that they are facing increasing difficulty <managing the cost of grommet maintenance>. Can you tell me how <prospect Co> has addressed these issues and what sort of initiatives you have considered? - take notes)

5. There is a lot more but I've typed enough for now.

The keys to shortening the sales cycle are:

* good upfront qualification (and dis-qualification) of prospects,

* a very clear process and next steps defined by the seller (uncertainty as to what the product/service does, what it costs, and how well it will work will all work against you)

* Pro-active follow through on the part of the sellor

* Not all calls will go well, but remember the ocean of prospects is large. The rule of prospecting is: SWSWSWN (some will, some won't, so what?, next!)
you can attach more than one picture, and especially interesting, you can add pictures to existing albums
Inside Apple's Incredible Power Grab
I'm very trusting, as are lot's of entrepreneurs. I've met quite a few sharks though.

I remember one young entrepreneur demoing his wares to a group of us, and this a-hole said "Wow, that's a great idea. We are going to do that! I'm going to ring X-famous-person who would love this now!". This was a successful, internationally known entrepreneur with huge resources behind him. Everyone in the room was just shocked. And he was serious, and didn't even offer the entrepreneur anything, not even a job.
Let _why-gones be _why-gones
Good witty article titling, vibhavs. Its like Fark, but with substance.
> These kids prove that his reputation is somewhat less than he presents it to be and he's pissed off about that.

I think you're right that he wasn't all that great - IIRC, he mostly got into stuff by getting information out of people.

However, the kids aren't proving anything - they're hacking other people's systems, not his.
Great article.

I built a poker bot (see my submissions for more info) and can safely say that if your original intent was to build one too, you would have been way better off screen scraping. It's not nearly as elegant or as cool, but it gets the job done with minimal effort.

One note, which you all might find interesting. A lot of people have tried to do what daeken has done, not necessarily for botting purposes but in hope that the decrypted traffic would contain your opponent's holecards. I had a program at one point that someone built that decrypted about half of the incoming traffic. Not very useful, but cool nonetheless. A few people succeeded in decrypting the entire thing and discovered, to their dismay, that it doesn't contain holecard information. Go figure.

When a hand goes to showdown, the loser can muck his or her cards, meaning they don't show it to the table. Anyone seated at the table can view the hand history and see what the mucked cards were, but its hidden from people observing the table. The people who cracked the transport algorithm were able to extract this information, meaning they could log all the showdown hands for every game on PokerStars. I'm not sure what they did with this ability, but they could made some money quietly following around high stakes players, recording all of their hands and mucked cards, and selling it to their competition, who could use the information to decypher and exploit their weaknesses.

I wonder what PokerStars will do now...
Big IT issue: Interoperability of electronic health records
This isn't going to do my attention deficit any favors when it becomes widespread.
History of ipod
In other words it's the same thing: data = image = table of numbers.
Skype wouldn't work, but all you need is a 12kps stream. The problem with tor is sometimes the nodes are very slow, you could probably pick a path that showed to be faster but as far as I know it's non trivial.
The one thing that all of these GB comparisons never take into account is actual performance (which is admittedly harder to measure).

I've experimented with about 4 different dedicated virtual server type hosts (none of which was EC2), and found differences in page rendering time from 30ms to 180ms, due to things like how much load their servers were dealing with, speed of hard drives, and CPUs used.

Some tests I've seen elsewhere suggest that Mosso has better Write IO than Linode and EC2, while Linode has better read performance than Mosso and EC2.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you want to use a virtual server and performance (rather than just the ability to handle a large number of users) is important, you have to consider more than just the RAM and bandwidth.
Since they're CC licenced you'd be legally entitled to share them anyway.

Has anyone mirrored the books to break them out of the confusing web site?
Flagged. It's a polemic really. It embeds facts in what is overall a very slanted presentation, and performs no interesting analysis.
I'd like to think that we've progress since then.

The submitted article reports the direction progress has taken since then.
In the United States, customary units are officially defined in terms of metric units.
_why's most fave'd tweet:

"when you don't create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create."
The Anarchist Bookshop can produce it, just not commercially, in copyright law commercial damage can be made by giving stuff away for free but I've always assumed in CC that commercial means anything above material costs.

You say the Anarchist Bookshop (I'm not sure if that's a real example?) could then sell the work, why, why should they sell it I thought this was about removing rental costs on intellectual items. What's your criterion for allowing a reseller to make profit, political persuasion?

Now I'm confused.
From the article: "... around 50 micrograms (billionths of a kilogram)". Oh NPR -- I thought you were better than that :(

Edit: njm below is correct, i misread that as "billionths of a gram)". I rescind my above frowny face and apply it to myself :(
Alternatively, the worst operating system there is—apart from all the others.
But it can and should be done. Uniting two labels makes it harder to convert those who self-identify as the neutral one away from the negative one.