skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> My calculations say it'll take 2.7 years to read all that data if you go at 40MBps.

40MBps is very low, especially given the kind of files transferred over a sneakernets (it's basically the best-case for purely sequential transfers): even fairly slow drives (e.g. WD Caviar Green) are going to yield ~70MBps average transfer speeds (and velociraptors are going to be around 100MBps). And it's pretty trivial to parallelize disks over fast (e.g. 10gig or infiniband) connections.

Furthermore, 3000 TB is quite "out there" with the current datasets: Google's transfers are still at a few hundred TB (and they do use sneakernets for that).

Finally, modern sneakernets tend not to use raw drives: AWS Import/Export suggests full devices (maximum size is a 8U rack), Terascale Sneakernet boxes are a full PC with a bunch of drives and a Gig or 10Gig network card.
You can buy a Coca Cola made from sugar vs corn syrup and in a bottle vs a can. However, going from rich to supper rich does not let you have even better Coca Cola.
D-D-Do-Do-Don't...Don't copy.. Don't copy that floppy!
How is this noteworthy?

If he paid off the remainder of the contract, he paid the full price of the phone. Every carrier lets you unlock your phone at that point, AFAIK.

I bought my iPhone 3G in Italy (where I live) last year in october already unlocked (legally) and bundled with a rechargeable Vodafone sim card.

Edit: Furthermore, since the 3gs came out, you can also buy them at the Apple Stores.

2nd edit: here in Italy, subsidized phones are locked for the duration of the contract (usually two years). Once the contract is over you can unlock the phone. Or you can buy any phone unlocked for the full price.

This also apply to the iPhone.

Usually the difference in price of a contract with a subsidized phone and the same contract without any phone is almost exactly the difference between the full price of the phone and the subsidized price (split in the 24 months of the contract).

Isn't the same as in the US?
Why we don't use Galileo's last name
An Abbreviated History of ACP, One of the Oldest Open Source Applications (2009)
Y Combinator helping startup dreams come true
My God. This means that the government wants to encourage consumption of drugs, creating a new legal market. This will of course make the small scale usage more spread, but again, from those that consume, who ever keeps great amount of drugs? Mexico has always served as the transit zone for drugs to the US, this will have created an encouragement for all to freely "try it out".

These are first steps to gain control of the drugs market, and a sign of government greed They want people to consume more, as they have a great stake in it. This will also mean easier transport to the US, as dealers will be spread on every corner. The crime threshold has just been raised.

The governments are not against drugs, ethicality and that sort of cr*p. What they are pissed of is that they can't regulate such a $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ market. These are the first steps towards that. If the government says it is ok, then I guess it is? Next thing will be complete legalization, with government taxing. Drugs will be toys for the very rich ones, and in some 50 years, I am sure we'll be able to get them from the supermarket shelf. History repeats itself, the modern prohibition.

Makes me sick.
Can you work from home? At least part of the week? Maybe just come in for meetings?

If you can, then any place with a wireless network can be your office... (a good wireless network anyway).

I'm sure I stole this suggestion from someone else, so if you want credit feel free to take it.
> Density per dollar is going to be very important for the Van-based Data Packet.

The dollar part actually isn't that important, given you can reuse your drives for later transfers (TeraScale's boxes zip around, AWS sends back your storage devices when the import is done) so unless you're hitting a density/dollar cliff, you're probably going to go all density with TB drives and such.

FWIW, in 2002 Terascale was already packing its sneakernet boxes with 300GB drives (7/box)
LSD and psilocybin are known to be nearly the only drugs that can stop a headache cycle. Check http://www.maps.org/research/cluster/psilo-lsd/
Amazing. The hardest part probably was to find a floppy drive to read / write the floppy. I don't think I have installed one on my last 2 rigs.
Well why not differentiate the product by allowing the bank customers choose where the money is getting invested, kiva-style. And yes, there is a ton of risk there but it's unique.
Linkage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWf_jbrpn4o
The 3-6-3 model of banking has been thrown off to the wayside in pursuit of faster, quicker gains; but the original model still holds: savings at 3%, loans at 6%, golf course by 3pm.
Not Ready Reading Unit A:
(A)bort? (R)etry? (F)ail?
In that case, definition 4 should fit the bill. Reading the changelog gives a "false representation" on the complexity of the project.
Pimp My Code, Part 16: On Heuristics and Human Factors
Coincidentally, are you in Mexico right now?
Cocoa with Love: Adding shadow effects to UITableView using CAGradientLayer
↜ Invisible canvas

Haha this book looks amazing and beautiful.
Here's the article at theappleblog.com, which I believe is where it was originally posted:

http://theappleblog.com/2009/08/20/apples-official-iphone-3g...
So, essentially your point is that because you have already done something others should be spending their time more productive ?

To some the challenge really is all there is. I'm very happy to see some counterculture to the bloatware that is the norm.

This is an amazingly compact and neat hack, it incorporates a very fast and lightweight GUI that can be used for general purpose computers just as easily as for embedded systems.
My favorite (since high school latin) has been, "Fortes fortuna iuvat" (Fortune favors the brave).
> I find it's like solving global warming like painting a roof white, or working from home - extremely cheap and obvious ways to change things.

Except for the part that they don't work. For example, painting your roof white saves energy in some climates but not others.

> That governments don't choose these options is likely because their goal is power, not progress.

That's half correct. The goal is power but progress isn't something that govt opposes, it's something that doesn't matter either way.
I think a better description of "artsy fartsy" is "people who take their social position as an artist seriously."
That just means that there's less competition. And when you start getting successful, your competitors will need to spend a few years implementing their system before they can start actually competing with you. And I wouldn't worry about the big banks catching on to the "do what you can to help your customer" concept, it's not in their culture.
And what have you made today then ?

That's a terribly negative attitude to take towards someones work.
Top 5 Important Tests for Type 2 Diabetes You Should Know
A weird idea, but it might work if you get big enough... something like the HN gatherings people have? I realize it would be tough when you get started, but eventually it could become something where the classes are online for convenience but you setup fairly regular meetings.

It might be wholly impractical but just a random thought.
It does not mean that every challenge that you take on must be of some use to other people. You're forgetting the fun aspect of doing such things. The same would be said to those who create their own graphics engines, compilers, and heck, even Lolcode. Sure, they don't become the next "big" thing in our industry, but the sense of accomplishment of pulling off a project of that magnitude is valuable enough in of itself.
I love Scheme.

I ported Peter Norvig's JScheme to C#. I also ported JScheme to Python and Ruby to learn the basics of programming in those languages.

I wish Rich Hickey had kept working on the C# version of Clojure.

I would love to check out your port of Arc to .NET once it's ready.
Well, I just officially tested the service.

According to FlightCaster my flight is 85% chance of being on-time, but after getting to the airport my flight is delayed. I am waiting at the gate right now, and no reasons were given by the airline.

I am sure it's not weather related since it's SF to LA... and the site still says it will be on-time. How frequently do you update the forecasts?
This might be the first tech book I'll appreciate more from reading online than from a printed page.
Perhaps it's different in the US. The terms in their mobile phone contracts do seem to be from another world (pay for reciving SMSs and calls? How is that even legal?).
Adding alpha transparency for a framebuffer based GUI need not take more than a few hundred bytes.
To be able to pack so much meaning into so few words is an excellent skill to have.

I had another peruse of the list and this one jumped out at me:
Bellum se ipsum alet ("War will nourish on itself")

Recent world events have certainly shown this to be true.
I do stuff 'just because' all the time.

I coded a program to parse a text file into a OpenCalc Spreadsheet just because someone asked me if it could be done.

I coded a program to solve Sudoku because a friend made one and challenged me to make one that was faster (his was).

I am still coding a whole MUD Engine in C# simply because I couldn't find a good one in this language and nor a friendly enough one in any other language I know. It is moving slowly since I want it to be generic enough so others can use it.

I still, every now and then, solve problems on Valladolid.

I can see your point that they could spend their time more wisely, but I beg to differ. A lot of people love to code and coding becomes the purpose on itself. The knowledge they are gaining WILL prove to be invaluable to them and to others and the fact that they are doing something because they want, not because they must will drive them much farther than if it was a commercial project. It will give them both the reasons and the will to hone it to perfection. I suggest you to read "Jonathan Livingston Seagull", if you haven't.
My favorite (not on this list): Similis simili gaudet - "like rejoices in like."

Latin lends itself to pithy forms of expression because it is highly inflected ("turned in"), as opposed to analytical (or "loosened") languages like English. The subject is normally built into the verb form rather than being separately expressed ("amo" = "I love"; "amamus" = we love) and contingent forms of expression are expressed in a slightly altered form (subjunctive mood) of the same verb as well, all with economy of expression ("amemus" = "let us love," "that we may love"). With nouns, prepositional phrases signifying special uses in a sentence are also built into the noun form itself ("filius" = boy; "filiorum" = "of the boys"). Combine this with with a high degree of freedom in word order ("amo te" or "te amo" each means "I love you," though with slightly different emphasis), and you have a strong medium for expressing powerful thoughts easily and creatively.

A couple of illustrations of how this plays out, using a common legal expression:

"Res ipsa loquitur" - "the thing speaks for itself" (literally, "thing itself speaks")

"Res ipsa loquatur" - "may the thing speak for itself" or "let the thing speak for itself"

"Res ipsae loquunt" (or "Loquunt res ipsae" - or "Ipsae loquunt res") - "things speak for themselves"

It is a devil of a language to learn (e.g., every verb has about 120 different forms) but lots of fun once you get there.
I would rather see a hand-optimized version of L4, packaged with a kernel for Debian.

Or an OS written in Forth.
Two thoughts:

1) The money they spend on a windows server to run your application on is money out of your pocket.

2) If you will support plugins like wordpress, trac, etc, you'll have an easier time creating a plugin ecosystem with open source tools.

Then again, I'm biased since I work in a linux/java/ruby shop.

I'm assuming that you plan to have your customers install the application. If your target customers are the makers of software as a service, why not sell them your software as a service?
I think all the carriers charge for incoming data in the US (voice, SMS or otherwise)
I don't think he's actually complaining about Netflix. He's examining a fascinating quirk of the human mind--that our stated preferences and our actual preferences are not the same thing. According to the article, decisions about what we will want in the future and decisions about what we want now are processed in different areas of the brain. The bug is in our brain's software, not in the Netflix algorithm.

Lehrer's book "How We Decide" is a really interesting look at many of these types of bugs in our mind. I highly recommend it.
Love it! This is precisely the kind of analytical thinking that can push a business forward.
It's possible to start small community banks and there are programs for it. Difficult, but not impossible.

But about his bank. It seems like he wont make loans to local businesses and instead choose what he deems to be the least risky financial instruments. So the interest earned on deposits will be low.

And then as for safety, we all know that deposits in FDIC backed banks are good up to a certain limit. So he's not going to do much better for the customer on that end.

Plus, I don't know why he's complaining about bank bonuses. I believe he's mixing up investment banks with your usual commercial/community banks. As long as incentives are aligned to be towards loan quality rather than quantity, you will get good loans.
I wouldn't say "increasingly" since that has been the effect of regulation from the get go.
What about poker night? Still hosting it in Arlington?
because everyone in the fucking world still believes in zero-sum mercantilism. people are only a couple hundred years behind. maybe in another 50 years the marginal revolution will finally seep into the public conscious.

the concept of everyone getting richer or everyone getting poorer is completely alien to most people.
Eight games, IIRC. I bought that pack too since I hadn't played Goo and Braid yet past the demo.
Fair enough. That PayPal isn't a bank in the US supports your point.
Autistic teens master social cues, find friends
WMATA in DC did a similar thing with Metro schedules, which is why you can't plot public transit routes on Google Maps
And it has the image that is missing from the NY Times article.
6 Reasons why Twitter Geolocation is a really, really bad idea
Obviously "matt" has not worked in the finance industry and clearly does not understand how banking works. Sounds decent in theory but in reality the bank would have no investors and would lose any talent when they didnt pay them. They would probably be the cause of the financial crisis by only employing stupid people who gave poor, risky loans.
It also shows the picture which is mentioned in the NY Times article, but the NYT failed to include it.
Pardon us, we're taking the opportunity to make the site better in the future, for you.
If anyone makes it here to Padova, I'd be happy to take you on a 'Galileo tour'. He spent what he called 'the best years of his life' here.

Also, for fun, current distribution of 'Galilei' in Italy:

http://gens.labo.net/it/cognomi/genera.html?cognome=galilei
Let's wait some days to see (if we'll ever see) what's happened.
Yes, no one wants bad teachers. But teaching seems like one of those things that you have to actually do in order to know if you could be successful at it. I know quite a few teachers who thought they were passionate about the profession and quickly burned out. Others came to it from other fields after some searching and became good teachers.

While I agree that you shouldn't just pick teaching as your career on a whim, like so many other things in life, sometimes you just gotta try things out to see whether you're good at them and enjoy them. The hard part is moving along when you know you need to.
Choosing your audience
Well, it appears that a web app would be a good place to start. If I can get a handle on that, then I can play around with the important stuff :)
Tool of the Day: Get Inspired With Designer's Couch
For the other discussion of Netochka see: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=774594
I figured it had to be something of that nature, and indeed, the disclaimer is clear about the data presented.

Upvoted for the explanation, thanks.
US Cellular just announced a plan with free incoming voice, SMS and MMS. Heard it on the radio this morning.

Edit: Found it online - requires flash to see the ad http://www.uscellular.com/uscellular/SilverStream/Pages/usce...
Why do American consumers put up with that? (It's not like that anywhere else in the world, AFAIK.)

If you have a landline phone and it rings, you don't expect to be paying the bill... How did it happen that mobile phones got treated differently and nobody raised a stink about this rip-off?
Volunteer a bit of your time to a charity or non-profit. It can be extremely rewarding to give like that, and it might help you feel more connected to the world.

Or, you could ditch your office job all together and find a day-to-day "work" activity that does help you feel more connected to the world.
Rework: Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson: Availble for Pre-Order
I have the exact same problem and it's driving me nuts. I really love what I do, but I have to force myself to get and walk around with nowhere to go. It just doesn't seem natural.

One of the things I'm examining is a position as a "sales engineer". I would go on the road and help sell, train users, teach, and evangelize the technology. I'd get to program a little (proof on concepts, demos, example apps, etc.) but not sit in an office all day long. Best of both worlds. Stay tuned...
The New BackType
hehe, sorry, Im only griping. <3 you guys.

(I do have a paid plan - so I figured mild grrrring is fair!)

I suppose it makes sense to make big changes when things go down anyway. :)
Online class helps security pros sharpen their skills
Rework: Unveiling the cover
Bravo to Wil for posting this! This is the sort of code that makes really good software take 10 years -- as its developers figure out the best API to use to talk to the users.

Bending over backwards to make free-text information work is hard. And most people will never notice; for them, it'll just work.

"Just working" is what we should all strive for.
This technology is going to take off once OLEDs become more cost efficient. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_light-emitting_diode

I'm not sure if I like that though. If the USA, we already have TVs at the gas station and grocery stores. And lots of people have to deal with those online videos ads that start playing as soon as you load the page. (ABC.com, car websites, etc.) Now we'll have to deal with the flashing, talking ads inside our magazines. The rampant advertising is already pretty annoying. How much is enough?

Hopefully there comes a way to mute/pause all those video ads with one shot.
Not to nitpick semantics, but 'rational' is not actually a very high bar. It could be completely rational within a context that we don't know. It might be irrational, it's hard to say.
You would need to show incredible evidence for this -- the distribution of America's wealth has fluctuated greatly over the last century, and can be clearly linked to government policies, social trends, etc., and certainly has not been constantly shifting towards the wealthy, nor were the 40s to 70s devoid of technological development. (You could argue the last three decades eclipsed them, but I would have to see that argument.)

More generally, throughout history, the growth of the middle class has clearly been a key driver of consumer technology.
Alan (of Cloudant) is tryng to take the reigns but we haven't had lot of interest (granted, only a couple days notice this week). Subscribe to boston-startup-poker@googlegroups.com for more info.
Goldman Sachs just paid out 16 billion dollars in bonuses to their employees. If we had an extra 16 billion dollars lying around, we’d put it in the bank for a rainy day. (If Goldman had never paid out bonuses they never would have needed government intervention.)

A flawed comparison. Goldman is an investment bank that needs to pull in incredible returns percentage wise. Safebank is a watchman guarding a vault. Basically, Goldman needs to pay out bonuses to attract top-shelf talent, while Safebank doesn't.
There was a dutch company called DigiCash that was quite far with developing such a concept.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DigiCash
Roku to add Xbox-like Netflix browsing 
The Roku Digital Video Player's Netflix Watch Now interface will be getting a refresh, allowing users to browse Netflix content and add select items to their queue. The features will be similar to those the Xbox 360 added in its last dashboard refresh.
Sorry to hear, my friend. I had a hunch it was coming; why move back to SF unless you were soon to be in need of a job (or fresh investors for TipJoy 2 ;)?

I'm, impressed though. You stuck with it for a long time and handled the shutdown right and without a ton of fanfare. If only you hadn't lost all that money to me in Poker, you might have been able to keep running... ;)

Give Abby my best!
Interesting! It seems that more people had their memories jogged by the _why thing...
6 reasons that don't mean much because...

you can opt out. when one of your reasons includes:

"Yes, Twitter is making the Geolocation service opt-in, but if you try it out and forget to turn it off (which is likely to be all-too easy to do)"

I'm going to find most every other thing rather ummm... asinine. Esp this one:

"2. Celebrity slip-ups

Then there are celebrities – you might not care about them much but the fact some use Twitter brings a certain amount of kudos and glamour to the platform. Imagine if your favourite celebrities start accidentally giving away the location of their homes. Their privacy will be invaded by hoards of obsessives and before you know it the celebrities have jumped ship."
The "middle class" now consists of virtually the entire population. Even the people classified as "poor" by the government now have more material goods and services than the middle class even a short time ago (e.g., 1970).

http://www.heritage.org/research/welfare/bg1713.cfm

If the middle class has shrank, it's because we have redefined the meaning of the term.
"DEET affects cells in a manner similar to nerve gas, and enhances the toxic effects of a common pesticide. The study was preliminary and was conducted on unprotected cells in petri dishes, so it may not be relevant for humans."

I don't care if DEET hasn't been proven to be toxic, I still get a little creeped out if I have to put it on my skin. Hopefully this new chemical proves to be broadly effective.
It's official. News.ycombinator is now news._whycombinator. And I can't stand it.
Then I wouldn't label it origami.
I like that the Seattle startup scene is getting some more love. There really are a ton of smart entrepreneurs and great startups there.
There's also ECache: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECache

Very, very interesting stuff.
Snap it, click it, use it
From talking to some Americans about it, they seem to think their system is actually better - mainly based on a misunderstanding of how it works in the rest of the world (their point was that if you have a French mobile phone, and you call another French mobile phone that unbeknown to you is roaming in Australia, you'd have to pay through the nose. Of course that's not how it works - you just pay for a local French connection and the roamer picks up the difference).
lol :) no, I am European.
Wow, rough month for Apple. I almost feel bad for them.... almost
We archived the status page, for those who can no longer see it (since we're back up): http://swag.dk/bitbucket/downtime_21082009.html
Newton and Leibniz