skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The dict protocol, and dict.org in particular, provides easy access to Webster's 1913 as well as other dictionaries.

I normally use Webster's 1913 from the command line, since I usually have a terminal in front of me. I keep this in my .zshrc:

function dict () {
if [[ $1 == (d|m) ]]; then
curl dict://dict.org/$1:$2 | $PAGER
else
echo 'Unknown command. Use (d)efine or (m)atch.'
fi
}

That allows me to issue queries such as `dict d example` to define "example", or `dict m exampel` to figure out how "example" ought to be spelled.
I've been playing around with the challenge in python, but I've been completely unable to get (nested) classes working.

Which is too bad, without classes it's much harder to coordinate a bunch of peons.
I think this is something a lot of people miss. I actually think it's ok to say you're busy even if that time is spent staring at a wall and I hate that people should feel guilty for wanting that. Cheers for knowing that you need these things to keep sane.
Got an SP2 at launch, and it has served me well. Will skip this upgrade, but it's pretty tempting with the new form factor (aspect ratio, thickness, screensize). Calibrating the digitizer for accuracy in corners is a struggle on SP2, and although I remain skeptical about N-trig, I'm optimistic that it is something they've had to notice/address when changing vendors, but losing pressure levels is kind of a bummer. The type cover touchpad update would also be a significant change, because v1&2 are borderline unusable touchpads. That is one of the primary reasons for me to holdoff on charge cover; great idea, but it took too long to ship and I'd be willingly paying for the same bad touchpad as my typecover. They would've sold far more charge covers if the touchpad was an improvement over typepad2.

I'm glad that Microsoft is committed to this offering. However, my thought process to rationalize holding off on a preorder as follows:

1) I would likely try to sell my SP2 for some amount, and my loss/cost-of-use might be significant since form factor is changing. Alternatively, if I stay the course, I might be able to pick up SP/SP2 docks & accessories from SP3 early adopters on the cheap, holiday discounts, or inventory clearance.

2) haswell has been great, but even with all the advantages of SP3, I can't justify the cost of #1 without some iGPU spec bump. MS has the $ and will likely want to ship a broadwell model eventually even if SP3 doesn't sell like hotcakes. Probably a 2015 ordeal though since holiday will be reserved for discounts & bundles.

3) SP2 got a haswell slight spec bump after launch, due to inventory I suppose, so I feel somewhat burned. Irrational, I know, but I need to acknowledge it.

4) same CPU generation, same battery, bigger screen, no chargecover -- SP2 battery life for my usage was good, but unless reviews prove otherwise, I've no reason to think SP3 will have a better battery life.

5) SP2 works well. Microsoft should have sales penalized for shipping the slate & typepad separately, if it is going for "laptop". An expected retina refresh to the ultraportable macbook line will likely be priced comparably or less than SP3 w/ typecover so marketing will have fun with that.
Even the demand for payment might be defensible in isolation. But that's not all he demanded; he also set terms for the provision of the data DOJ was requesting. To wit: he would provide the data in one giant batch at the end of the 60 day surveillance period, or, for an additional charge, on a daily basis.

And under no circumstances would DOJ have had any way to verify the data they were given; they would have to trust that Levison would provide all the data they were looking for. Levison's complete knowledge of his own system might have furnished him with plenty of opportunities to employ technicalities to drastically curtail the information he provided to DOJ. And he had already established himself as an opponent of the investigation.

The terms Levison proposed were reaching. They were coupled with a monetary demand. Levison clearly didn't require the money to comply with the order; given Lavabit's architecture, it was straightforward for him to generate the information DOJ wanted. He asked for the money not because DOJ's demands financially jeopardized his service, but instead to stick a fork in DOJ's eye.
This png encrypts to the same image
Check out the asus t100. It's what a low end surface would be like. I have one and i really like It.
> he couldn't possibly have foreseen that the government would embroil him in a cat-and-mouse game.

Don't market it as a secure system then. Sell it as something that gives moderate privacy to people who are not accused of breaking laws.

The public needs better understanding of risk assessment and people selling insecure products as super secure does not help anyone.
I do understand where this no spec movement is coming from, but I have lots of problems with that.

First, it's like the big players (and the opinion leaders) are telling the small ones how to behave.

I'm reading a bit in a designer's forum, especially the parts about work and jobs, and the situation for "normal designers" is dismal. Everytime I've visited that forum I'm happy I'm working in tech. Really.

So most small firms and single person freelancers don't have a choice. They really don't.

Of course it's easy for EdenSpiekermann to reject such spec work. They are booked. Others aren't.

Second, speaking of Spiekermann, he's strictly on the no spec side. And his old company, FontShop, is as well.

If you're reading (German) discussions on the Fontblog, you'll learn that spec workj is disgusting and you're traitor to your fellow designers if you do that.

No exceptions! Spec work for a charity that cannot pay a dime anyway is the same. Never!

Well... unless Spiekermann is on the jury himself. Like for some design competition somehow affiliated with the United Nations. Then it's all okay, because, hey UN!

And this hypocrisy is pervasive.
You're an apologist of the worst kind.

If the government isn't playing by its own rules, I see no reason to play by them. If stonewalling - which I do NOT concede that he did - helped Snowden get away, that's a victory for the people.

Also "Defender Of Freedom And Goodness," really? He gave up more than most of us for a cause that is equally important to all. Whether intentional or not, you're coming off as a pompous, condescending ass.
Startup Rising: Iran
> Are we though? Our bills have only been increasing.

I would venture the guess that the price you pay per megabit has decreased. The problem is that the number of megabits you demand has increased faster than the price per megabit has decreased.
The slider demo is broken, if you slide fast enough the drawing breaks down on the edges and clips wrong. Sadly it's about par for the course of what I've seen of famo.us. On the surface seems nice, but all the edge cases are missing a ton of polish.
> because it makes enemies

In 20+ years, I've never seen better performance (according to casual metrics) make enemies. But then again, there are some awfully backward people here.
Cinderella's Castle in DisneyWorld was to have an apartment for Walt Disney, though he died before it was completed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella_Castle
If you bail on every company that's dysfunctional and political (that's about 90%, including of startups) you'll probably get stuck with the job-hopper stigma before you find a good company.

Employers get away with horrible conditions and general dysfunction because of the job hopper stigma, but unfortunately, one person leaving bad situations immediately (instead of wasting months to years trying to make lemonade out of piss-lemons) is not going to break that stigma. In fact, it's going to lower your value and make you more likely to end up in dysfunctional companies.

A better strategy is to play the game, well, by learning how to do enough in typical, semi-dysfunctional environments to get career credit, while keeping an eye out for better opportunities. This all-or-nothing attitude that many young people have toward corporations ("if they think that way, then I don't want to work for those losers anyway") doesn't pan out in the real world. Even the good companies have plenty of stupid, political people in them.
I dunno... do you need to be officially charged with something to prepare an adequate defense?
I have been using Ubuntu as my sole desktop for the past 5 years (except when I play games on Windows), and have just landed a job that requires I use a Mac. It has been incredibly painful trying to do what is normally trivial in Linux.

But to be fair, I realize that I'm the hardcore Linux user who still goes out of his way tweak every little detail with Compiz and ensure that my keyboard shortcuts are all explicitly created. If others are given the choice between Mac, Windows, and Linux, Mac is the most consistent experience with both hardware and software, and I can regrettably understand their choice. I don't mean to go on a rant about Macs, I just want to mention that I've recently been forced to do subject the author's article.
I always thought I'd feel similarly, but I've been doing a bunch of .NET/Mono stuff in Windows 8 (instead of using Xamarin Studio), as a virtual machine in my Mac. Works pretty great, as long as I correctly train my fingers to hit the right shortcuts when in and out of the VM.
I have a similar issue with the Metro color scheme. It's incredibly overstimulating. Each time I open the start menu, I feel like I just walked in to a kindergarten. I wish there was a way to make it black and white b.c applications icons are generally colored as it is (but get washed out by the tsunami of color coming at you)
I expect he means "can't" as in, "I do not have the technical knowledge or time to devote to doing this, so I'd rather run something with first-party support". That's what I mean when I say "I can't make my own _____".

Similarly, I can't make my own rifle, or design my own airplane.
I disagree, for two reasons.

First & simplest: DOJ/FBI is made up of people, not of automatons. When you piss people off, you alter their behavior. Levison found himself in a situation where the welfare of his users depended in large part on how DOJ opted to behave. In order to make the most powerful statement he could about his dislike of DOJ's investigation, he deliberately provoked DOJ, spending his users welfare for his own PR ends.

Secondly, and I think equally importantly: Levison's actions made it easy for DOJ to demonstrate that he was untrustworthy. Their original demand was for metadata about a specific account, and the court record indicates that they were willing to spend time finding ways to cooperate with Levison, whose responses appear to have been inconsistent with his previous actions w/r/t/ court orders for Lavabit. By the end, no show of cooperation from Levison was needed, because Levison had made it clear to the court that DOJ had grounds to demand enough information for them to control the collection of the data they were after.
So now black hat SEO people have a tool where they can buy links and disavow the ones where they get caught?
It looks like a superbly executed retreat with maximum damage inflicted on the other party to me. Can't blame him for trying to get out of this with as little damage to himself either, he's effectively still at it. Kudos to him and let's hope that anybody that finds themselves in a similar situation in the future will act just as courageously. Sure he messed up on one of the key elements in setting up a secure email facility (that key should have never existed in the first place, or it should have been stored in a way that even he could not get at it if so compelled depending on the technical details).

But once he realized that there was going to be real trouble for an individual whose data was entrusted to him he did as far as I can see what he could and he risked becoming the lightning rod.

What other course of action would you suggest he should have taken?
Linux mint

Used to dual boot but I recently got rid of my Windows 7 on account of never really using it anymore
If he's an apologist, I'm pretty sure it's not of "the worst kind".
Questions for Donald Knuth
somewhere up the chain, someone has to pay for bandwidth (per GB) (can anyone confirm this?)

No, wholesale transit is sold by bandwidth; e.g. a 10 Gbps pipe costs around $5,000/month regardless of usage.

So now we have a situation where a company's expenses are measured in GB of data transferred, and their customers pay proportional to their maximum transfer rate. This means the incentives of this company and its customers are not aligned.

More like the ISP's expenses are proportional to aggregate peak demand, but yeah, it's not aligned.
Is one link to a study so much to ask for?

If it's "basic facts" that surround this issue then why the controversy at all? I don't know the facts, as a reader I'm here to learn. It's a weak piece due to its weak argument. I say weak argument because it has no foundation to build off of, at least not provided by the author. All that is provided is a tone that to think otherwise is nonsensical and silly. Bad science throws out "nonsensical" ideas without testing them. If the vaccine is safe you have to give me more than, "if you think otherwise you're dumb."

I share the fear over bad drugs. Alleviate fear with knowledge and facts, not name calling.
I'm mostly just sad because he took what would have been an excellent opportunity to actually Fight The Man and instead made a couple gestures to spite them.

Printing out the key on 4pt font, delaying to "[help] Snowden get away", and presenting them with absurd terms did not advance any cause, they were just ways to piss of the DoJ.

If he's given up more than us, I wish he'd at least taken actions that had a modest chance of leading to changes in the law or the application of it.
Why would you be one? Maybe you don't know the difference between cilantro and parsley, but your omelet contained one of them. That mystery sausage in the back of your fridge that you ate and claimed was chorizo? Maybe the wait staff didn't like you so there was abnormally large amount of spit in your breakfast. Being Authoritative on your breakfast should only apply if you actually know what you ate, not just think you do.
We are living in a world where resource depletion is a serious concern on the health and well-being of humanity. Advertisement encourages resource depletion. Therefore we shouldn't support advertisement at all.
It's a neat tool but I wish it could better parse paragraphs and commas. I also had a few responses with the same curse words three or four times in a block of text making it a fucking boring read.
Command: openssl aes-128-cbc -K "55555555555555555555555555555555" -iv "83deccd3f93b37c70d37297f319cf367" -in WRxFKdq.png -out OMG_SAME_IMAGE.png

Youtube Link: http://youtu.be/wbHkVZfCNuE

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7771568
"How do we craft regulation such that those companies are more profitable when they do what we want them to do?"

Sounds like the U.S. already has such regulation - anti-trust regulation. As ChuckMcM noted above, the problem is that Comcast has a monopoly over the last mile. Effective and enforced anti-trust regulations would break up this monopoly into several different competing companies.

BTW, here in Israel, the government apparently has taken the position that services requiring significant infrastructure investment (Internet or cellular networks) are best handled by handing out a limited number of licenses using a bid. We then get an oligopoly where the companies are wildly profitable, until the government has decided we got the infrastructure we wanted, and removes the barrier to entry. Specifically for Internet, we have a duopoly over the last mile "going until the city exchange" to put it in ChuckMcM's terms, then a lot of ISPs taking it from there. IMO, not a bad way to go - we don't pay a lot and get decent Internet everywhere in the country.
I swear to God, I love Trello, but what I really want and have wanted for awhile is the ability to create and destroy as many damn labels as I want. I want be able to give me label any color I'd like.

It couldn't be that difficult, could it? Or perhaps I'm overlooking something here.
If you consider it a "game" you should probably attempt to understand the rules of the "game". In this case, replying to the top comment with a non-sequitur self promotion is going to get you downvoted, and it did.
The Secret Language of Plants (podcast)
And a Battery University link: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/discharging_at_hi...

And the most relevant paragraph:
The performance of all battery chemistries drops drastically at low temperatures. At –20°C (–4°F) most nickel-, lead- and lithium-based batteries stop functioning. Although NiCd can go down to –40°C (-40°F), the permissible discharge is only 0.2C (5-hour rate). Specially built Li- ion brings the operating temperature down to –40°C, but only on discharge and at a reduced discharge. With lead acid we have the danger of the electrolyte freezing, which can crack the enclosure. Lead acid freezes more easily with a low charge when the specific gravity of the electrolyte is more like water.
I suspect executives like it because it produces data that looks like an example from an MBA textbook and is easy to act on. It's also easy to defend for the same reasons. In the same way that nobody ever got fired for buying IBM, nobody ever got fired for stack ranking.
Hi JimmaDaRustla, check out Stratworking: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.meetupslid...

This uses minimal permissions as compared to Networkr and is much more forgiving on your battery.
Unfortunately, I use vimperator so j and k scroll for me. I'm glad to see some sites incorporating some good keyboard shortcuts, though! Maybe one day I can ditch vimperator in favor of common keyboard commands in my favorite sites.
Thanks for the report. We, Google, are currently working to add support for other ciphers. (I was going to file a bug, until I noticed there was already one with work underway).
Pet Urine Analysis App
The original architecture sounds like maybe it was just ahead of its time.

/s
When I was studying writing and composition in college (well before computerized dictionaries and word processors were common), all of my professors had strong opinions about dictionaries, and made specific recommendations about which ones to choose. I still have and sometimes use my Webster's New World Dictionary 2nd College Edition from back then.

I'm really glad to see someone writing up about how to not just use the dictionary built into your software, but to evaluate and it change it to suit.
And what are "those" people?
The average US car is 4,000 lbs and has one battery. Your race car is not comparable.

You are correct about the energy density, but the battery is used for regen breaking, engine start/stop, hotel loads, and in the case of Kia an electric supercharger. Essentially it provides smooth-over power, but the bulk will still come from gasoline.

Lithium is used in electric cars where they are the primary energy source. Lead carbon is only appropriate in micro to mild hybrids.
The way you arrive at that conclusion is to trust that no other Lavabit user was actually jeopardized by DOJ during their efforts to investigate Snowden's account. If you believe otherwise, then Levison's "retreat" imperils those users, presumably without their consent, in the service of Levison's own political objective.

I concede that that's a reasonable position to take. I think it's probably true that DOJ was unlikely to declare a field day on all of Lavabit, slurping every conceivable secret they could obtain from the service.

However we look at the situation, though, it seems unreasonable to accept deceptive statements from Levison about how it actually played out. His narrative doesn't square with the court's. What factual claim in the 4th Circuit ruling do you contend is false?
>Additionally can you explain how he got the architecture "wrong"?

See Moxie Marlinspike's post from last November:

http://www.thoughtcrime.org/blog/lavabit-critique/

You can't entrust a server with encryption / decryption, nor with supplying the tools to do it locally, e.g., via JS downloaded as part of a web interaction. Service providers can be subpoenaed, threatened, infiltrated, bribed, or hacked. Or they can just turn evil.

All crypto must take place on the client, using carefully vetted tools.
I would guess that for every hacker, there are 10 JEE developers that just use their Windows machine for developing applications that never see the outside of the corporation they work at.
Because who cares? We have our shuttles to the valley and Uber for the parties!

(second degree comment)
Top 500 Android apps visualized
This is an answer from a scientist (or at least it looks like it, I don't know anything about Conal Elliott, not even if he actually is a scientist). People like these think and speak on a level of abstraction which may be a little higher than what most people are used to. As a response from a scientist, his post is as good as you could hope, I think - you still need a fair share of googling and reading to understand it, but at least there are sources listed and the basic idea is clearly presented: it's about values over time as first-class values and how they combine and compose.

Denotational semantics is a tool like many others, and he even provided a very simple explanation of what it is, before saying how it was useful - it was mentioned as a tool, not presented as something essential to FRP.

All in all it's rather informative and better than many other scientists would write. So, while I absolutely don't support what was said in deleted comment, I wouldn't hold this particular post against Conal.
"DOJ/FBI is made up of people, not of automatons"

Yes, people with great responsibility, that should understand that someone may want to fight, deny or defend against legal actions taken by the DOJ. The fact that they're "human" is a flaw, as their actions should not be swayed by swings in emotion. The burden should be placed on them to act professionally and legally despite counteractions taken by those charged/targeted.

"Levison's actions made it easy for DOJ to demonstrate that he was untrustworthy"

Is Levison's character on trial here? Who give's a crap if he's untrustworthy, the only thing that should matter is the law. Sure in the court of public approval his character matters, but as with the first point it should not play a part in legal proceedings.
I mentioned this somewhere else in this thread, but before touchpads, most laptops had either a nub (like the kind that Thinkpads still have today) or no mouse at all, and the keyboard was almost always on the lower edge. It really was great for typing.

http://oldcomputers.net/pics/ibm-thinkpad-750c.jpg

I wonder how feasible it would be to gut one of these things and update its internals (big fat battery and a small ARM SBC, maybe).
Regardless of whether you're mocking the American Political Right or you're a member, the post is at best a weak firebrand. I still don't think I understand what were you attempting to add to the discussion.