skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
yes, a lot of us here are partial to apple's products. but we still like to hear opposing viewpoints, so long as it's done respectfully. telling us that we 'have no clue' is not respectful. that's why you're getting downmodded, not because you're taking an opposing view.
If they have problems getting enough users to participate, accounts could be created and associated with the plug-in, then donations to a foundation could fund reimbursements of say, $0.04 per document.
Is web programming really that much easier than desktop application programming?

Most desktop applications can use masses of memory, CPU and disk before the average user will complain. In most cases this is not possible on a web app. since the same hardware must serve 1000s of people.
The idea that prevention reduces costs is a persistent myth.

Pardon posting a political piece, but I was just reading this today and it explains the fallacy.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/14/the_pre...
I'm curious: Where did the $50MM pre-money valuation number come from?
well, this is the big question - how will they use all this cash? having tons of cash and not using it in any way is quite stupid actually.

btw, I read form Balance Sheet that cash and short term investments is 24bn. 35bn is total current assets. slight misrepresentation on reporter's side?
And even if you found the cards, current twisted pair cable only goes up to 20 gigs. To go higher than 20 gigs means re-cabling with fiber.

The same argument was made for gigabit ethernet and if I recall correctly 100mbit as well (I think we were all supposed to get ATM to the desktop back then. I bet the problem is eventually solved again.

That said, the limiting factor with network capture is that hard drive speeds have not remotely kept up with the explosive growth of network speeds. SSDs are probably going to be the saving grace for this round.
QC, Philippines :)
This isn't even an argument; it's just an attempt to troll this conversation. You've written enough stuff elsewhere on HN that I know you're not this dumb, and I know you don't actually think people are talking about brute-forcing the SHA function itself, despite Phusion's poor choice of words.

You and I both know this attack is about running a dictionary of possible passwords against a stolen password database, and, because you seem smart (if annoying), I'm pretty sure you also know that attack is lightning fast. You also seem young, so you might not realize that this attack was the "industry standard" password cracking mechanism throughout the entire 1990s; it's the attack that Crack and John The Ripper are based off of. Before the crappy LANMAN hash, it was the only password attack Unix hackers had available to them, and it was so effective that every Unix system had to implement "shadow" passwords.

Please stop trolling, sho.
There are at on of people that can't/don't want to afford Photoshop. Also, downloading/installing it could actually block them from using it. Now they can just blast over to a "website" and get the basic functionality...that's a problem being solved in my mind. And a worthy one.
Economics is not a science at all, in its current mainstream form.

It is based on a set of hopelessly outdated assumptions about the world, and its current toolset is easier to throw away than to modernize. Especially since the economic academic establishment is focused more on self-defence and self-support than on the pursuit of knowledge.

Here is the list of things that are central to modern mainstream economics but are proven wrong.

- the concept of equilibrium

- efficient market hypothesis

- modern portfolio theory

None of core economic concepts is supported by experimental evidence, so it is as much a science, as the "scientific Marxism" was.
I don't think you should discount how much of a difference this makes. It slides right in to users' existing workflow requiring far less effort on their part.
Toronto, and I can't relocate for about another year.
More detail by the author in this article: http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/nutrition/
> Will people be buying a 2100 model Bugatti, hiring a driver, and working in the passenger seat to be more productive?

They'll be very slightly less productive in that situation because time has slowed down for them. For everyone sitting at home, time moves 1 second every 1 second. For passenger in Bugatti, a stopwatch says 0.99999* second for every 1 second felt by everyone else. So what feels 1 second to the passenger is 1/0.99999 = 1.000001 to everyone else. Hence he's actually slower.
How about putting a link to the submission guidelines on the Submit form itself? It seems like that might increase the chances that folks would read (and heed) the guidelines.
Statements like this are short-sighted. Apple sells based on design, so I would say that in this instance you are incorrect (based on the number of people who like Apple kit for the design). Hacker News is a business-focused site related to programming and so whilst people might not 'like' Apple, as a company, you should learn from what they do. I have learned from watching both Apple and Microsoft right the way down to smaller companies.
I want.

Is anyone here using 10GbE on the desktop yet? Can be home or work? I heard one rich dude bragging about it earlier this year but still seems prohibitively expensive for most people.
Most positions in any field are entry level. If you like data mining, plenty of web companies do that.
Sniffing HTTP Traffic at HAR2009
Absolutely. I don't understand whether the cell phone aficionados don't perceive the difference or are just willing to put up with it.

My experience on the relative cost is different though. My cell phone costs $25/month and landline around $50.
* Try to be engaging.
* Share with the class, not speak down.
* Know how to steer the entire class / period / lecture
* Confidence
* Not re-reading what is in the book / on slides.
* Most of the time should be welcoming of questions.
* Should be respected by his class. If they are not, I think it makes it harder for them to be a good teacher and for people to see them as a good teacher. Everybody has there own unique role in helping a teacher be good, great or bad.
How do I find tech/startup events in Boston?
I'm looking for something to do in Boston in November. Any cool events there?
Assert.True is the tool of last resort
We need more info on what this is supposed to be. Andreessen seems to be a market size type of investor, and the market size on this is a small amount of people. Yes the TAM is 250 million facebook users, but how many are going to actually gives two shits about a "facebook browser"? I also have no clue where you make substantial money with this. Flock has close to no adoption, and their product is a broader spectrum (all of social media). On the flip side, it's a hell of a team. Until we have some good details, I'm going to keep my opinion neutral on this one.
I'm happy to settle for Michael Pollan's advice:
"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."
Although I admit I don't follow that as closely as a maybe should. Sure, it would be nice to have some better science in this area. But I think eating a wide variety of food in moderation is enough to keep us generally healthy (the flaw being that Americans are absolutely terrible at doing anything in moderation).
Andreessen Backs New Browser
Analytics: Stalking your readers the legal way
awesome, on another note i have a 30" computer monitor and i still had to scroll left
These are really beautiful exploits. Other people have written them up better than I can, so I won't bother, but it's worth tracking down the writeups; you'll be a slightly smarter person after reading them, and they'll make you smile.
"Clean Code" looks good to me. I feel too lazy to chew off books like "Elements of Programming".
I remember when Riya was founded. Kudos for reinventing themselves to a huge new market with Like when Riya (basically) failed.
what is this grid technology, and can i supply processing horsepower and get paid?
For those that don't remember, the early days of TechCrunch were all about "who is getting bought today!" A big part of the "sellout to google" dream started from TechCrunch making it seem like Google would buy any and every startup.

Here's what TechCrunch wrote in 2005:

And as an interesting side discussion, Peter Rip, a Riya investor (and a friend of mine) takes us all down a notch (TechCrunch is specifically mentioned) saying “Every report was factually incorrect at the time it was printed. I did not see one accurate characterization of any discussions Riya.com may or may not have had.”

http://www.techcrunch.com/2005/12/18/google-passes-on-riya/
This article says nothing you don't already know, but it's worth noting how it's the payoff for a classic marketing department PR strategy: keep conducting "surveys" of some sort and publishing the results in press releases, and eventually someone in the trade press will cite them to write a trend story.
Good students. ;)
Very interesting. I had not seen that before. Some of those Braun designs are lovely (I've looked further at this). Even if Jonathan Ive has borrowed from this design, the Apple designs do look lovely in comparison to many of the other computer company designs out there. I must admit to being conflicted though as to whether this should be treated as inspiration or not. Thanks for sharing this
Point/counterpoint: Apple tablet - marvel or menace?
I disagree. I think you can learn a lot of those things and do it yourself.
He didn't say "All programming is web programming", he said, "All programming will be web programming".
I don't get all these problems everyone seems to have with AT&T. I have a blackberry bold and it works just fine, I am hardly ever in an area where there's not coverage and I hardly ever get dropped calls. Maybe its the blackberry, or maybe its because I live in a city, but i haven't used a landline for years. I've not worked at a company that has them for years either. like public callboxes, they are a relic of the past.
I was at a family gathering of my in-laws last weekend. A bunch of older men, aged 50-75, were sitting around the table with beers and scotches, and talking about the decline of the newspaper, what it meant, etc. One had an iPhone and read the New York Times using their iPhone app. It was interesting to see the web reaching these men, who came of age in the pre-PC era.

My contribution to the conversation was exactly this idea: that the subtler problem with web-based news was how easy it becomes for like-minded kooks to come together and confirm each others' realities. In some cases, this is a good thing -- like how D&D players or startup founders can find each other and form communities. But in the case of semi-delusional, 911-was-an-inside-job, birther, we-didn't-go-to-the-moon types, or even Rush Limbaugh's misinformed dittoheads, what we have is a fragmentation of reality, in which each subculture occupies a different narrative about what is happening in the world. It's like a Philip K. Dick novel.

After I disgorged my profound insight, the 75-year-old told me it has always been that way. :)

But it does seem plausible that the web is accelerating and amplifying the tendency.
Interesting, but probably nobody knows until you try it out! Agile it!
The Secret Behind The Real-Time Web (How Friendfeed works)
Finance and the Flaw of Averages
I know several people who know "Uncle Bob" (And how does one get to be named uncle bob, anyway?) and this is the third recommendation I've read for his book.

So over to Amazon, click once and bam! It's on my Kindle.

Amazon bastards. (grin)
How To Effectively Communicate With Developers
I have dry-loop DSL and a VOIP phone line. I guess that's a landline, though not a traditional one (way too expensive for what it offers).
"and then proceeds to suggest that we should disregard them because they're inconvenient"

That's about the size of it. I usually see it raised in a political context, where someone doesn't like the implication that some desired program isn't budgetary feasible or has any conceivable economic drawbacks. It's a sort of foot-stamping rejection of problems that reminds me a lot of global-warming denialism.
Why Portland is a great place for startups
The ability to bring out the very best in their student(s) through whatever means. This goes for any mentor, coach, sifu, guru, etc.

The OP sparked a story that Teddy Atlas (boxing trainer for Mike Tyson, Michael Moore, Golden Gloves champ) once told at a book signing.

While training Michael Moore, he had to gain a certain amount of trust / respect from him. One particular instance that stood out in his memory was Michael's fondness of going to the shooting range and firing guns. Teddy never fired a gun in his life but accompanied him to the range.

At the range, Moore and some of his friends shot at the targets and eventually started to egg Teddy on. Teddy finally gave in, took the gun, walked right up to the target, and shot at the bulls-eye at point blank range.

He then turned to Moore and said "THAT's how I fire a gun".

Teddy told the audience he could remember a shift in Moore's behavior and demeanor when he later trained him - looser, more accepting of Atlas's advice. Teddy did what he had to do to bring the better boxer out of Moore.

Moral of the story - go shoot guns with your students :)
Is Government a Data Wholesaler or Retailer?
I think Richard Gabriel himself demonstrated that the points were nuanced, if not outright elusive, by writing a rebuttal to the essay with the title "Worse is Better is Worse" under the pseudonym Nickieben Bourbaki.

Gabriel's full account of the essays he's written is on his website: http://www.dreamsongs.com/WorseIsBetter.html
While economics can't be disregarded, modern Keynsian economics bears as much resemblance to science as it does to religion. Its "Laws" are not laws in the sense that the Laws of Thermodynamics are laws, and the scientific method is not employed in developing them, because the scientific method is ill-suited to the subject.

The issue here is one of vocabulary, but it's an important issue nonetheless. Perhaps if we stop treating calling non-sciences "sciences," the credibility of real science will be improved, and the formerly unassailable opinions of economists will come under more scrutiny. I think that would be a good thing.
Printer-friendly version: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/aug/...
This quote is personally why I support health care reform:

Me too. I generally lean right on economic issues, but as a small business employer, I wish we had a system like Canada or most of Europe.
Lice Home Remedies
Using Yammer to Communicate Effectively in a Startup
That guy was right - a browser is a platform nowadays. It means yes, Javascript gets ground from Delphi, Java and .NET

But he missed one thing - all browsers, v8 engine, most of rdbmses and even jvm were written in C++ and almost everything on a server side written in C. =)
Yea... lesson learned. Thanks for the link!
In C++ that problem gets worse. To parse:

Template<params>::InnerDef * y;

...you have to know whether InnerDef is a type or a number. If it's a type, this is a declaration of a pointer y. If it's a number, it's a multiplication which is then discarded.

The problem is that to know whether InnerDef is a type or a number you have to instantiate Template<params>. But C++ templates are Turing-complete: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.14.3...), so performing this instantiation would be undecidable except that C++ defines a recursion depth limit.

There's a nice writeup of this problem in the C++ FQA: http://yosefk.com/c++fqa/web-vs-c++.html.
> the fakers and PHBs had no lasting effects

How I wish you were right!

Their lasting effects are evident in the brokenness of all current computing systems.
From the Freehacker article I surmise that it's Plura Processing (http://www.pluraprocessing.com/)

"[...] in fact was announced on the Digsby blog as an official way they are going to make some money, with Plura Processing as a partner."

As to whether or not you can supply processing power for a fee, I doubt it. Looking through their individuals page briefly it looks like it's very similar to SETI@home or any other distributed computing effort. If you like the projects they're running you help, if not you don't.
This September, OLED no longer "three to five years away"
Philadelphia Business Journal: Entrepreneurial boot camp
What we need is some nonprofit or government maintained list of viruses/Trojans From which all virus scan companies report to draw from and some form of at least basic detection Incorporated into every computer, as opposed to each virus scanner using it's own definition list. I mean this could be an issue of national security.
There's a way of saying what I think you're trying to say. Unfortunately I think you failed in the method of delivery. Personally I see that (part of) the success is the fashion element of the iPod etc and I feel this has a stronger pull in the west than elsewhere, partly because of the sophistication of the marketing machine.
1960s Braun Products Hold the Secrets to Apple's Future
Well, for what it's worth, it's true at least in my case.

I honestly don't have the experience to build file system indexing, low level crypto modules, etc. I could never build a database, period.

I consider web programming to be the way of the future, so I've never bothered to learn the things I would need to fill those gaps, but at the same time, I do understand that you often have to write filesystem things to be served over the web.

Simply put, if you can do it in Python, I'm your guy -- if it needs to be C or (gasp) Assembly, I am absolutely NOT your guy (tho I have dabbled, for the goofs.)

While it is an overly broad, sweeping statement that simply doesn't work for a lot of developers, it is at least true in plenty of cases. I might not be representative of the average, but I'm guessing most web devs do consider web development an easier way out. I certainly did.
CEPR, the think tank that did the research, is a left-wing advocacy group: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=72...

That said, I would be curious as to how well their research stands up to scrutiny in the days to come as they've obviously made some provocative claims but I wouldn't accept their views immediately at face value.

update: http://www.examiner.com/x-14795-Page-One-Examiner~y2009m8d5-... - a debunking of the CEPR paper cited though with a wrinkle at the end that states that the OECD paper "is explaining something unique to the US: which could indeed be the lack of national health insurance" but a relationship is != causation which CEPR obviously attempts to argue.
Even in the best of emergency medical response systems, response delays can arise. If you are not already medically trained, consider attending an emergency medical technician class or the local equivalent; the better to attend to your young charge.
I meant in the sense of not promoting structured programming and being many people's first (and only) exposure to programming.

Python very much promotes a certain style of programming (object oriented, with some functional elements). I.e. I can write Basic in PHP (especially after the decision to add goto) but not in Python (which is a benefit; also important to me is the fact I can't write Perl in Python).

Most every managed web hosting provider has PHP integration enabled in their product. If a kid is building a website for their boy scout troop which needs an email feedback or guest book form, they will use PHP.

What's also fascinating is relational databases are a part of the "make a simple web application" stack as well. So you have people with very little exposure to computing using very complex environments with very strong abstraction layers. There's many many years of hard-core hacking that enabled that to happen.
A few of these reasons boil down to "Newspapers were never that good, and competition is rough on them."

Something to keep in mind the next time you see a sob-piece on the poor, downtrodden city newspaper.
Me Media (John Cassidy on Facebook, 2006)
I sent this link to a friend of mine who's a corporate lawyer for a large international firm - her first response was "PACER sucks so hard right now; maybe this will make it better", followed a few minutes later with "this is pretty cool, but I think IT would flip if I installed it."

I think these comments were pretty indicative of what the RECAP people need to do in order to make this really successful. My friend is exactly the kind of person they would love to use this plugin - she has an essentially unlimited PACER budget, and pulls 20 or so obscure cases a day out of it. She wants to use it, but firm policy stands in her way.

Based on this, maybe the following would help its expansion:

- For the lawyers, add some functionality to it. As opposed to making it just a plug-in that copies data to the Internet Archive, make it a mini PACER-specific browsing environment, something like ScribeFire or Firebug. I don't know what PACER is missing (she says there's no built-in Find, for example), but I find it very hard to believe that if you pointed a decent UX designer at PACER for a few days they could find some things that could be fixed by a plug-in. Add some value, and get PACER's daily users (the line attorneys) on-side.

- For the firm, have someone whose job it is to bring large firms on board - don't just rely on viral marketing to penetrate a large organization like an international firm. Explain how it will only make lawyers more productive, how it will cost them nothing, how no identifying data will leak out about their searches (and provide an external legal & technological opinion to back this up), and how they can consider it as an aspect of their pro-bono work. Add some value from the firm's perspective, so the have a reason to spend some money (in the form of time) to getting this installed.

- For the firm's IT department, produce a guide to the source code (so they can understand it if they want to), and a report from an external consultant that did a code review of it that explains how there's no security bugs or possibility of extra charging.

Getting small firms to use this will provide some benefit, but I suspect the real win would come if a few big US firms (on the scale of Clifford Chance/Linklaters/Jones Day) added this to their official corporate desktop images. These are the guys that have unlimited PACER accounts, and that access somewhat more obscure cases that smaller firms wouldn't need access to (and would probably already find in the index).
Cave Complex Found Under Giza Pyramids
There's something about this set of articles that strike me as fishy.

First, the study was measuring "self-employment" as reported on tax forms. Most small businesses start up and disappear without ever appearing on a government tax form somewhere. My neighbor goes to yard sales. My cousin sells rare books on Ebay. I was a stringer for a small paper for while receiving cash payments. These kinds of ephemeral efforts spring up and dissipate all of the time.

Secondly, in the executive summary we go immediately from small business numbers to health insurance issues, which seems like a bit of editorializing. One can debate health care all day long -- I think it needs to be fixed. But I know a lot of guys who have small businesses, and I've never, ever heard somebody say they didn't start a business due to health care costs.

This just doesn't smell right to me.
http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=6820
Review my side project - direct democracy platform
Site http://adhocracy.cc

I wrote this app mostly out of boredom and fascination with the idea and it's grown quite a bit. I'm still looking for some really good applications, though...

I'm probably going to open-source the platform soon and hope to find a few directions in which to further develop this.