skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I certainly hope your right that modern nuke plants are safer. But the general public responds more to security theater than real security.

As to "how many attacks have there been"? Well, it only takes one successful one. How many successful (reached their ultimate goal) airline highjackings have their been?
My favorite part of Project Euler is reading all of the solutions people have come up with using different languages (after you get the right answer yourself).
Let out a little scream like a madman, "aaaahhh! no touch screen!"

Silliness works.

Or my favorite: "Touching my computer is like touching my penis. Seriously."
Israel is regarded in International Relations thinking as a rational defensive nuclear power, which is extremely unlikely to ever use its nukes in a first strike. Everything we know about their nuclear policy, declared or otherwise, is that they will activate their arsenal in one of only two scenarios:

a) They have been attacked first by another large-scale WMD, such as a nuclear weapon or a chem/bio attack enough to potentially wipe out a significant proportion of the population, or

b) The so-called 'Samson option', whereby if the state were close to being overrun or destroyed by invading Arab armies it would first threaten to use its nukes against the capital cities of the invading countries and, if the threat were not sufficient, follow it up with actual launches.

The fact that Israel did not even get to the stage of openly threatening the use of the Samson option in 1973, when it came very, very close to losing it all, is strong evidence in favour of its stance as a rational defensive power. In fact, both a) and b) are intended as deterrents, as both scenarios assume the near or total destruction of Israel and wouldn't be any good in saving the country if things got to that stage, but they're intended to create such an inevitably catastrophic cost to any aggressor that trying to destroy the country is no longer worth the price.

Iran's nuclear ambitions should really be seen in a wider context than just Israel though. Iran is likely pursuing nuclear weapons not in order to attack Israel (or more ridiculously, defend itself against Israel), but in order to project power unchallenged across the Middle East and thus dominate the region in a way that no other country has done for decades. This is why the traditional Sunni Arab power centres of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt are just as wary about Iran's nuclear ambitions as Israel is. I would not be surprised if at least two of those countries have begun their own covert nuclear weapons programs in order to counter the Iranian one.
I agree whole heartedly with you on this. There are some real problems with Wave and unless they are waiting to push out some big changes it will not be ready for public consumption at the end of September.
Perhaps also is the fact that many newspapers are no longer newspapers but editorial-papers... maybe some are failing because nobody wants to read everybody's opinion, but is actually interested in finding some actual news.
Tamim gatecrashes Coventry's party
I hate when people do this. And I'm surprised by how many people don't understand the problem.

It's not necessary to touch the screen even if you're pointing something. Grab the mouse (or use the touchpad) or just point without touching. Is it so difficult?

It's obviously a habit acquired by interacting with paper and less fragile (and expensive) media. But for me it is a sign of ignorance.

I hate this so much that I avoid to bring my laptop at meetings unless it is strictly necessary.
I probably didn't make myself very clear in the last post.

Lets say ChromeOS gets put on netbooks and is a solid option compared to a Windows 7 or Linux netbook. Am I, a hacker, going to use such a device? No, I have more to do than just use webapps. So as a hacker, its of little interest to me unless I can also use a good subset of linux dev tools.
Sounds like she was snide about it. However, that is a dumb reason to fire someone. I would not have wanted to work for that company.
That is definitly one to remember. And it is actually good advice, making a joke out of it will make the other person feel less bad.
Coding Places: Uneven Globalization of Software Work in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Try some fiction, instead. It's a vacation. I just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy a couple of weeks ago. It's really good.

That said, if you're going to read programming books, you might want narrative texts rather than "practical" books, since the practical ones require you to also have a computer, and work through the examples and such. Books like Programming Pearls, Beautiful Code, etc. tell stories about code, rather than just show you code (though there are probably moments in either book where the best course of action is to try applying what you've read about).
I'd also offer them an option, like a mouse to point with.
i would think that small niche newspapers are the only ones that aren't doomed
Big +1 for bridge. So simple, yet so sophisticated, it never gets old. I play in a duplicate tournament once a week, on-line when I get a chance, but probably most of all, I have a bridge game on my palm pilot that I carry almost everywhere. I squeeze in a few hands several times throughout the day, often imagining my cousin and I kicking Warren Buffett's and Bill Gates's asses.
I did that a few months ago, actually. The only crash I had was because I forgot to update my driver for the new video card I got. Since then, it's been as stable as my pre-Compiz system.
- Be prepared to sell, sell, and sell
- But first, you need to be sold yourself. So start answering questions in a structured way. Dave Mcclure gives a nice framework here:
http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/
- Even though the slides are for a VC, that's a good framework no matter who you are pitching.
- Once you are convinced, start looking at building a well balanced team.
- Your team / co-founder(s) will be the most critical piece. Don't compromise on the quality of people you build around yourself.

Good Luck!
No Unicode?!
Why doesn't your friend start a blog? If he's good, he can pick up readers in a few years and become self-employed. Or he can think of a different model...

I think that there is a real opportunity for the people producing the actual contents as paper newspapers are going digital: journalists don't have to hop from one corporate job to the next, they can attempt to be independent. This is of course always true, but change favors the small players, so his chances are better than at any other time.
If I were to talk to him directly I would tell him to either drop out of school and be hardcore at his work, or drop out of work and be hardcore with school. At this point in his life he hasn't actually finished or built a damn thing, academically or professionally, and he's wondering why he's going soft.

Like he was some kind of superstar and now he's past the prime of his life? LOL.

I mean I realize I'm being kind of an asshole here, but geeez.
The advice is welcome. The attitude sucks. Stick around and find some good experiences here at HN; maybe that'll lighten you up.
The product that I really think blurs the line right now is Mozilla Prism (http://labs.mozilla.com/2007/10/prism/).

Sure, "we" know that a Prism "app" is really just a web app running inside of a stripped-down copy of Firefox, but the average person (who makes the market) doesn't know that. I've set up some non-technical friends with a copy of Firefox, as well as three or four Prism "apps" - Gmail, Google reader, NYT.com, etc. They don't know, nor do they care, that they're using web apps: they interact with them as desktop apps, which is what matters to them (despite the fact that I've explained to them what's going on).

The really interesting thing is that they distinguish between the Gmail they get by typing the URL into Firefox, and the Gmail they get by launching the Prism "app". Despite the interfaces being 100% identical, they still think of the Firefox-based one as the "web version" of it, in the same way that Outlook users see OWL as the "web version" of normal Outlook - doesn't matter that they're the exact same.

As for web vs. desktop, I think - like most things - it's a case where different tools have different strong points. Some apps will naturally work better in a web-based environment, but some will stay desktop-based.

Seeing as I have as little idea about the future as everyone else does, I'll offer two predictions about the two sides coming together:

In the shorter-term, we will see more desktop apps accessing web services behind the scenes. The main application will still be desktop-based, but some resources (or more likely, improvements on native resources) will come from web services. The big example of this, currently, is Mathematica's cloud computing initiative. To the user, Mathematica is Mathematica - it's on a desktop client, and it's as responsive as ever. But you can configure this desktop client to (silently) spin up an EC2 instance with the Mathematica engine pre-loaded onto it, and route complex calculations to that more-powerful instance, as opposed to computing it locally. To the user, there's no visible difference between locally-computed answers and remote ones; but the desktop app has chosen which source to use based on the calculation.

In the longer-term, the distinction between desktop apps and web apps will disappear. What makes something a web app? Currently, it's that it's written in Javascript that's downloaded and executed in a browser context. What about when browsers have more powerful languages built-in (like Google NaCl promises), and can access the hardware more directly? What about when your OS comes with a built-in ability to download and run these programs, without explicitly invoking a browser - your browser is conceptually like a VM for Javascript, so when this VM is integrated directly into the OS (like Java), what is it?

Let's say I've got a copy of Gmail that uses Gears for persistence, some NaCl to offload some of the processing, and is accessed via a Prism instance - is this a web app or a desktop app?
Ridiculous Ads Worm Their Way Ever Deeper Into Public Spaces
I've considered the first option for myself, actually. Would it provide actual value for people or just be perceived as blogspam?
seriously, the whole universe? better than a vulcan or borg baby? A few days ago, an HN article claims "my dog is smarter than my child". I just don't know what to believe anymore.
Better networking with SCTP
There is nothing weird about wanting to protect your eye sight. This is one of those commonalities that does not require explanation. Its a shared experience: nobody('s eyes) likes looking at smudged up screens.
Unless they keep touching the screen. Then it could get awkward.
I don't think your favorite line will work if it's a female co-worker though !
Usain Bolt smashes own world record — 9.58 in 100m
Where I live, there isn't much diversion available from 2 AM to 6 AM.
Actually, I think that Eric Kidd would disagree with you. He makes a great point here: http://www.randomhacks.net/articles/2005/12/03/why-ruby-is-a... that "In particular, macros which actually compile mini-languages haven’t appeared yet, although they might be possible with enough work."

One can fake a great deal of LISP in Ruby but, I would like to hear more about your thesis of "Ruby's halfway to CL" for no other reason than I've been spending free time "Ruby-fying" Scheme and see more of a gap than you're implying exists.
We are actually sure, I'll tell you how.

Start with e=mc2. This has been accurately measured as true.

First of all notice the c (speed of light [speed of the universe]) in there.

People always talk about how things get heavier when they go faster, so why is that? It's not a magical property of the universe, it's simply e=mc2

As you go faster, you have more energy. Since you have more energy you are heavier. Now if you want to go even faster you also have to accelerate that extra mass (energy) as well, so you need even more energy.

Do that over and over and you get the famous relativity equations. You find that as you get closer to c your mass goes to infinity.

This is probably not enough to convince you, but I'm not done.

This formula was not discovered first, and then relativity from it. It was the reverse.

It started from noticing that no matter how fast a distant star was moving (two binary stars orbiting each other), the light always moved at the same speed.

Start with that assumption, and create rational formulas to explain how that could work. They are called the Lorenz transform.

Calculate what happens to mass as it undergoes the Lorenz transform and e=mc2 falls out of the equations.

If there was a faster speed possible the Lorenz transforms would work differently, and e=mc2 would be different - but we know e=mc2 is correct. And we've also measured parts of the Lorenz transform as correct.

Look for the book: Relativity, the special and the general theory: a popular exposition by Albert Einstein. Sunheading: A clear explanation that anyone can understand.

The whole set of formulas is very self consistent, if any one part was wrong (and we tested many parts) the rest would be wrong too.

The final question is, ok you can't send matter faster than light, but how do we know you can send a message faster than light? It's because information has an energy content. Each bit of information is equal to a small amount of energy. So if you send information, you are sending energy.

As a side note, tricks might be possible, i.e. don't take the long route through space, but take a short cut. This could work if the universe is curved (curved in 4d), but current thinking is that the universe is flat. In the book I recommended Einstein talks about how to measure if the universe is curved or flat. (For a 3d example it's going through the earth, instead of on the surface.)
user:password@domain is a browser convention, not part of a URL, like I said.
I hear your penis is huge also?
If you actually understand the paper, and can communicate that understanding, it will definitely be useful.
Because I don't like people who run red lights. I've gone so far as to chase them down, knock on their windows, and ask them why they were trying to kill me.

If the motive for enforcement is not profit, then the overall revenue derived from enforcement would not change if the distribution method became more indirect. If my suggestion changed behavior, it is sufficient proof that governments' motives are not pure.
The question is closed because any questions about StackOverflow belong on the Meta Stackoverflow site.

You can put away your tin foil hat now.
I don't intend to disparage the quality of Turbo Tax....
But I think Turbo-tax is like a very, very effective itch-ointment. When a mosquito bites you you have an itch for a reason, if it people didn't itch they wouldn't dislike being bitten so much, and if they didn't dislike it they wouldn't try to avoid being bitten. If people are annoyed more by the complexity of our system they'll do more to simplify it.
Is Comcast poised to do another Disney?
incidentally, you would look up a SRV record for example.com for a http server to do the lookup on. Or even just use example.com.
Where will Google send its new Street View tricycles?
I would leap on a blog that was oriented towards local news. It's the big gap in on-line journalism now.
I can second this. When I learn about new topics I like to blog about them (betterexplained.com) to help cement what I've learned, and have a way to relearn (in my own words) a topic once I've inevitably forgotten. I think you'll find this rewarding for yourself and others.
The goal of the better suggestions isn't to avoid confrontation, but to remind that there are ways to make requests that are more and less likely to get you what you want. Accusatory, sarcastic, and snide tones are well into the "less likely to get you what want", zone; making yourself out to be the one with the problem, and framing the request as asking a co-worker to do you a small favor is much more likely to have a positive result.
Running an online system is a responsibility, one which includes keeping up with vendor updates.

Is it possible to run WordPress securely? Absolutely, we do it for 8 million blogs, including some of the most high-target blogs in the world like CNN's.

In the case of WP we consciously take a perception hit versus some of our competitors by not batching security updates every few months but putting fixes out there immediately, even when there's no public disclosure.

I think this worth it though it can be painful in cases like this comment where people have permanently internalized their negative perception of the platform.
GWT already offers static typing.

I recently added a runtime type checker (for method args/return values) to Objective-J, and intend on adding optional static typing at some point.
Some points about this:

(0) There is no maintenance diet. Getting sharper is necessary to be sharp. If you're not getting smarter, you're getting dumber.

(1) Reading is NOT the solution. Much as regular masturbation does not much improve your sexual technique, regular book/article/blog-reading does not much hone your mental edge.

(2) You got sharp => you know how to get sharp. Do the same thing. In other words: figure out the next piece of physics that really interests you. Get the classic research monograph. Attack all the thorniest problems with vigor and delight. Repeat.

(3) Time is an issue - you don't have much of it, and what you spend it on at the moment is worthwhile. I think if you devote some small period of time each week (after dinner on Sunday evening, say) to practicing (2), you will come to look forward to that time each week, and will feel your clarity return. In the end, the key is regularity.
Not questioning the OP's intentions, but a remote vulnerability in most SCTP stacks was published last week: http://pastebin.com/m6863ef05 CVE-2009-0065
> Someone with no understanding of C can just as easily read man pages.

If all you know is Python, or Java, or another high level language, how would you even know that manpages that document system calls exist? How would you interpret the C function prototypes that are written there? How would you determine how high-level language constructs map to system calls? In my example, you got lucky because the open() function in Python calls the open() system call, but this is not universally true.

> Thats a common, but baseless argument for knowing C. Most stacks are indeed written in C, but this is because most operating system interfaces are written in C, and C compilers are widely available and easy to write.

So you acknowledge:

- most software stacks are written in C
- most operating system interfaces are written in C
- C compilers are ubiquitous

...but also argue that we shouldn't teach students C? Are you arguing that it's not important for students to understand the system software that we both agree exists and is ubiquitous?

> That raises a good point - stop reading the web and get out there and till those fields, or you'll always be dependent on others for your basic needs.

Maybe you enjoy analogies, but I have direct experience in professional settings where I was able to use my knowledge of system-level software to solve problems that stumped people without this deep knowledge.

Maybe the most relevant example was at a web startup I worked at two years ago. Note that I was working on a website at the application level -- not writing system software. I had to solve several problems like this one:

http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticket/8704

Solving this problem required repeatedly digging down into the Ruby interpreter, C extensions, system calls, signals, etc. Note that this was in my job as a webdev. Being able to solve problems like this made me stand out among my peers (who were also good developers, but didn't have as much systems experience as I did).

All I can hear you saying is that you don't think students should learn C because you personally don't like it. That's fine, but I am presenting evidence that it will make you a significantly better programmer. Don't tell aspiring programmers that knowing C won't help them, because it's simply not true.
As long as your laptop doesn't increase in size, you should not worry
I haven't read my hometown newspaper in years, but I visit their website once a week. The problem isn't the reporting, it's the site. It's awful, looks like some kids threw it together in 1997.

I think they'd be better off to just scrap the site and post the stories on an ad supported blog. Focus on what they do best.
Well, I would just tell them not to do it, because the screen gets dirty and you have to either clean it all the time, or you can't see anything on it. It's not rude to say something like "Well, I'm sorry, but please, don't touch the screen, it gets dirty, ok?". At least I think so.

Of course this is most likely very depending on the culture and place where do you live.
It's etiquette that a lot of people don't know. For example, most people who don't work in technology (and a few who do) don't see a need to look away when you're typing a password - just as most people who don't work in (insert profession here) don't know about (insert profession based behavior expectation here).
Right. It also potentially lessens the need for other regulations. For example minimum wage laws supposedly prevent exploiting the poor by "forcing" them to accept unfairly low pay because the alternative is homelessness or starvation. But with a guaranteed income the poor would have the ability to reject unfair wages without having to worry about survival. Ditto for lousy working conditions or excessive hours.
Why not to comment code
Or a coffee, since I'm also Mr. Office Over Monadnock Intelligentsia. =)

Any time. Contact info's in my profile.
Link to original article:
http://www.splicetoday.com/politics-and-media/five-key-reaso...
or "Thank you for not touching the screen"
It's Time for an Open Source Social Network
Your post hasn't addressed the point of the article, which is that drivers should be able to fail without destroying the users unsaved work.

Great, some X drivers suck. That's no excuse for losing data.

I'm also saddened that a post asking 'where is the code' as if that's a prerequisite to having an opinion on software is being nodded up on Hacker News.

Do you by chance also have an opinion on politics? Have you drafted a bill to support these opinions? No, I didn't think so.
Which impression would have been dispelled if you had either (a) read the article or (b) figured out the Bill Wyman Google search that excludes The Stones.

Wyman's been a professional journalist since '90-ish, at The Reader, Salon (as en editor), the AJC, and a bunch of other places. Hard to miss, since every other graf in this piece is an anecdote about his career working at regional papers.
It's more likely because you don't want to have to clean fingerprints off the screen.
Remember Freakonomics? According to the book, suicides are contagious. After widely reported suicides the rate of freak car accidents that kill only the driver goes up.
only when it is a touch screen, not the normal ones
he is bad!! I saw him in the olympics and i noticed he was not even giving his 100% and won all the awards and broke all the records. I haven't seen this one but am pretty sure he will break this record too. He is michael phelps of running.
I really enjoyed reading this book a fair few years ago on holiday "Stealing the network: how to own a continent"
(http://www.amazon.com/Stealing-Network-How-Own-Continent/dp/...). Theres a few books in the series, they blend fiction with real security related attacks, its not strictly a programming book, they do delve into coding a few things if I remember correctly.
Also, from the Bing mention, buying Powerset != basic research. Yes, other stuff probably went into Bing, but that spade's a spade.
There's like 8 grafs in this piece about that problem, using the WSJ and LA Times as examples.