skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That's an interesting question.

I can imagine this push resulted in some positive refactoring of Google's internal systems, which they would like to retain.

However I can also imagine it resulted in some layers of duct tape (very much like the rush job after a merger or acquisition), which they'd love to rip off.

It would be interesting to hear a Google insider talk about this. Meanwhile, my guess would be it's a mix of the above, and they'll be stuck with that mix for years to come.
True. But on the bright side, Salon just managed to publish an entire article without claiming the Koch brothers are secretly behind every single view the writer dislikes. That's got to be some kind of record, right?

"Salon Article Bingo" needs to be a thing.
What would the legal argument for invalidating the law be? There is no constitutional right to efficient markets that would lead the supreme court to strike down the law. I think the court would declare this a "political question" and refuse to grant cert thereby not ever hearing the case.
One thing that I wish devdocs had was Java integration, but it's been repeatedly stated (just one example here: https://github.com/Thibaut/devdocs/issues/26) that they can't include the JDK because of it's restrictive licensee.

But, it seems like Dash includes the JDK, so how exactly are they able to do it but not DevDocs? My knowledge on the legal front is limited but if Dash is able to redistributed these docs I don't see why DevDocs couldn't do it.
I think they can happily co-exist as both being the greatest because Larson was the king of the single panel, and Watterson the king of the narrative strip.
How to Talk to a 36-year-old Space Probe (ISEE-3)
This does still happen (e.g [1]), though I've no idea if the frequency of such posts has changed. If no-one asks questions, then there's nothing to answer (so please do ask!). On the other hand, I've noticed that more people have started to ask/answer questions on StackOverflow [2] so perhaps this just represents the general shift that other langs have already been through.

[1] https://sympa.inria.fr/sympa/arc/caml-list/2014-05/msg00146....

[2] http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/ocaml
MAGNOTE – The Notebook Reinvented – magnetic notebook
Ask HN: Home Router (In)Security
My new router has just arrived. As is the case for most now, it was supplied FOC by my ISP. When configuring the router, I couldn't help but notice that in the re-configuration maintenance page it said this:

"We'll periodically update your router software automatically. There may be times when you will be advised to do this manually. Our Technical Support Team will assist you if this is the case."

Immediately I started to look for the option to disable this. However I could not find one. I then contacted their technical support in an attempt to turn it off. Their advisor informed me that they would not turn it off. I proceeded to state that would not, did not mean could not and probed for information which would enable me to turn it off. At this point the advisor informed that it was a secure line and that the upgrade process was infallible in terms of security; yet was unable to inform me of the security processes/practices applied. The advisor (getting infuriated at this point as I was clearly off-script) stated that they would try to find out from a higher technical body (internally). After being put on hold for a further 20 minutes I gave up and hung up the phone.

Next I resorted to a (quick) Google search in the hope that an answer would be reveal itself. I couldn't find an easy answer. Most answers I found focussed on some means of hacking the firmware on the device (based on the fact that the router was a re-brand of some other common make/model e.g. Netgear).

Given that my logs tell me I receive unsolicited connection attempts out of some countries in the East every 5 minutes or so, I feel I should be worried that I have little or no control over the firmware running my router. Have other people experienced this too? Is strikes me as a red flag in terms of security.
https://xbet.io
It is an excuse.

You don't need to polish something into a shiny gem of perfection before showing it to people; and you certainly don't need to get defensive about feedback (which in this case wasn't harsh at all); especially not for something out in the public that various people are already using.

Iterative feedback and improvement can only happen if you get feedback.

It's tempting to say that something isn't quite ready for others to see yet, it needs a bit more polish, and bit more internal beta testing, a bit more perfecting before you show it people.

...but I'd say that most cases, it's not the right attitude to encourage (although there are some very specific cases; like product launches where a botched launch has long term negative ramifications).

Have a think about what you wrote there.

You're endorsing self defensive attitude of perfectionism that you're criticizing.
they weren't. I noticed it right away and it annoyed me.
> This then allows sites to distinguish between direct traffic from users that don't block referrers and traffic with blocked referrers

Any example of benefits for servers to distinguish direct traffic vs. blocked referrers?
So Scandinavian eugenics programs don't count as "crap politics"? Look, every part of the world currently has something wrong with it. I was just as shocked to find this as everyone reading this:

http://www.economist.com/node/155244
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilisation_in_Swe...
What made Google special in the past was having principles and walking the talk.

Those days when Altavista wanted to force people into watching noisy pop up advertisements with annoying colors before you could search anything, and this small company decided to just display text.

The days when everybody was onto portals to make the web enclosed inside gatekeepers hand and Google brought freedom.

Those days are over. Just the other day I had them trying to change my name in gmail and complete the information I gave them when gmail was invite only like my birthday or a picture of me.

When I refused I had them INSULTING ME!! Something alike "it seems you are so alone". Wow, if you don't use their "social private web", or any other social site you are alone, even if you have a blog with thousands of people visiting, and real friends you can talk, kiss or hug.

I am looking for Google alternatives right now.
News flash: Company co-founder and senior executive publicly supports own products!
Yeah, the new iOS uses the iCloud on American soil for all your pictures and videos by default...
If you want to see me try get through 153 slides in 45 minutes (and fail), this talk was recorded here: http://vimeo.com/79539317.

There's a more recent but slightly shorter deck that focuses more on the general concurrency/parallelism problem here: https://speakerdeck.com/trent/parallelism-and-concurrency-wi...
I wish both Google and Microsoft would understand that you can't force change down users' throat

Innovation is a funny thing, and interestingly, forcing change on end users is something for which Apple regularly receives praise. Or as Henry Ford pointed out, people wanted faster horses. Few people probably wanted rush hour gridlock either.

Denonymization of the internet had already happened long before G÷. Cookies and tracking data were collected for more than a decade before its rollout. G÷ just made it explicit, and Apple was already ahead via iOS and the app store and the SIM cards in all those phones. Microsoft was barely a step behind them, and for me? Well I think the Metro interface has huge advantage over WIMP. It's cloud identity integration that drove me from Windows 8. Installation was the Oh-Shit moment.
News flash: Sergey now thinks that his working so closely on Google+ was a mistake.
If there's one video that shows off the purposefully confusing Google+ and Youtube integration mess, its this one of a woman literally crying because of it.

Warning: Strong language

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs
Did anyone else feel echoes from the first panel of that strip? That conversation feels like the opening dialogue of one of the big Sunday strips, where Calvin and Hobbes are riding their wagon down the hill and talking philosophy. Maybe something about things changing now that summer is over. . . . ?

Anyway, that second strip sure is one big hint, huh?
Rails 4 includes that as a default header[1] and has done since August 2012[2]

[1]: https://github.com/rails/rails/blob/master/guides/source/sec...
[2]: https://github.com/rails/rails/commit/2a290f7f7cdf775491eda0...
My item c was clearly wrong ... I also should have mentioned that selling while you're strong is a fantastic way to gain leverage during negotiations. If you can't walk away, you WILL lose.
When analyzing traffic sources for your site, you could use this to remove noise created by privacy conscious users. For example, if you wish to evaluate the efficiency of a magazine add, today you can't distinguish between ad conversions and privacy conscious users.

It'll take a while for clients to be compliant, if they'll ever be, though.
Just to be clear:

> OPINION: One month after creator and leader of Google+, Vic Gundotra, quietly quit, Google chief Sergey Brin told a conference audience last week that involvement in Google+ was "a mistake." He made the exact opposite statement in 2011.

Whose involvement are we talking about here ? Brin, Gundotra or Google ?

> If only someone could have stepped in and course-corrected Google+.

>

> Oh, right. Someone could have.

>

> The same someone that just told the world, "heh, oops" and walked away to go retreat back into himself, and play with his cars.

Is that someone Brin (who could have and has plenty of money to buy cars) or Gundotra (who could have and left the company a month ago - with enough money to play with cars I suppose) ?

(sorry for hand walking me but the style is confusing me)
I miss the days of Google Labs and twenty percent time.
Bryan O'Sullivan commented that https://mobile.twitter.com/bos31337/status/47356953136621158... and Graydon Hoare referenced it in his post on Swift http://graydon2.dreamwidth.org/5785.html
Unfortunately the OCaml toplevel pales in comparison to CL environments like slime in terms of visibility and debuggability. Redefinition is also off the table, as OCaml is a very static language. (You can rebind the same name, which can be helpful in exploratory programming but is not at all the same thing.)

It remains an extremely useful tool though.
I can definitely recommend Achewood (21 on the buzzfeed article). It can take some time to get into it, and it has a distinct flavor that you might never learn to like, but if you do, it's amazing. I haven't really read any of the comics in years, but I still find myself using 'Achewood' language in some of my conversations.

I rather like these two:
http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=12282007
http://www.achewood.com/index.php?date=01272003
Maybe I can use this to code while driving!
Now that it's publicly dead in the water sure. But saying anything negative about your own products while they're still trying to push it as the next big thing? It'll never happen. Any executive that tried would be fired or sidelined. Public comments like that are purely a matter of marketing and PR, individuals (particularly senior ones) will always back the company message.

This is why you never hear anything from Microsoft other than Windows8 is great! Or alternatively, you never hear anything from Apple at all. It's the PR department's job, not the senior execs.
It's an inescapable reality: companies grow and grow bloated and complacent. It happened to IBM and Microsoft, it happened to Google and it's happening now for Facebook. Once corporate mentality sets in the company's soul is gone.
Show HN: 511 Game – 2048 on a 3x3 grid
I read it as being aimed at Brin.

It's sort of lazy and cheap to mostly use his hindsight in an article criticizing him. On the other hand, I guess there was plenty said at the time that called the real name policy a mistake.
Telescope: Open-source Hacker News clone built with Meteor
Titanic Movie vs. Titanic History
But what about NORMAN Antivirus?
Hello Uber, a better study would be the number of ER visits cuases by suspected drunk driving. Hire me. There are data scientists and there are creative data scientists.
I've been using G+ consistently for a week now after signing off from a competing social network. I thoroughly enjoy it so far. Why is G+ dead in the water?

EDIT: Fatfingered a random exclamation point
> if you wish to evaluate the efficiency of a magazine ad

Sorry I still don't get it. No referrer or about:blank are both "noise" in such case, I still don't see how the distinction is useful to the server to evaluate efficiency of a particular ad.
Ways Founders Sabotage Themselves
TravisCI cheapest plan almost 10x CircleCI's
That's a lot of counterhate. Not wholly unwarranted, but severely one-sided.

Corporate products are not for dissidents or the privacy-focused. Period. The end. You need to find alts designed to be private and/or pay to not be subsidized for the profitizing of YOU - whoever you are or want to be.

Google wants to fold you into their walled garden by tilting all their products towards each other. Shocking. I can't think of any other... oh yeah right... EVERY massive tech company does this. Otherwise one of the other massive tech companies will eat their lunch within 10 years. You are the frog. They are the scorpion.

Also, part of force g+ is what you are seeing grow widely. Enough people are harmed or disgusted with the level of gaming of anonymity that the trolls have achieved that the real identity movement has grown pretty quickly.

I doubt large corporate interests will be able to find it profitable, over any minimally significant span of time, to preserve privacy and be a platform for social change/justice. The unintended consequence is also being a platform for the lulz. Don't be evil meets don't be bankrupt. If your platform is a cesspool, nobody will pay to swim there.
Harry Eng – Master Bottle Filler
exactly. Larry Page reminds me of Steve Ballmer's remark on iPhone. I think Steve Ballmer is an excellent man, except having no idea about design: "... windows phone can DO email...". Larry Page thought Google can DO social, and he gets G+.
What's so hard in making money off 0days? Especially in this day and age of SilkRoute clones and Cryptocurrencies.

I was under the impression that a big reason why 0day exploits are not popping up all over is because the folks who discover them can now sell them (for way more than any bounty program), whereas earlier the only way to monetize was to use them as advertisement for selling your skills. Instant payment vs Contractual jobs. I'd say now the 0day vulns end up in the hands of professionals (criminal networks/state actors) rather than script kiddies.
IINAL. This is a dangerous gray area. Read for example the NinjaVideo case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NinjaVideo . (For example, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3464060 (154 points, 875 days ago, 157 comments), in particular the second comment by murz)

It’s very different if you comply with all the DMCA provisions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Ac... and can honestly say:

“Oh my God! I did’t see that! It’s all user generated content! I’ll delete that now!” (and you delete the copyright infringe content now.)

than

“I just finishes the selection and the official movie of the week winner is $title linked by $user.”

(Perhaps this is not the ideal solution and perhaps this is not the right thing, but if you don’t follow the DMCA to you need good lawyers.)
Me too. I remember being excited about seeing what Google's next big thing was. I lost hope when Reader was shut down.
So your ISP has the capability to automatically provide you with updates to fix security issues on your router (thus helping keep out the 'countries in the East') and you want them to turn this off?

Smart.

If you're really that paranoid, I suggest you open your wallet and buy a firewall to put between the LAN port on your router and the rest of your internal devices.
LinkedIn’s Reid Hoffman: The one form of literacy you need most
They really should amend Godwin's Law to include mentions of Communism these days.

There's a marked difference between everyone owns the labor and everyone owns their labor. You don't even have to check the history books. There are plenty of examples of functional, profitable, worker-owned cooperatives in the wild today.
Forced lack of anonymity and forced integration.
> With Google+, it became clear that we were all little more than webs of flesh spun over packages of saleable data.

What data is allegedly being sold, and who is Google selling it to?
It's not my field, but I would expect it to be. We don't ingest calories, we ingest chemicals that we convert to energy. A term like "calorie constriction" masks the complicated nutrition processes behind this.
I think most people feel Google's incessant need to push it on every product leads to overexposure and this hate of G+. To further that, I closed my G+ account a few months ago due to inactivity. You'd better believe that the whole process made it sound like I was going to lose access to my email, my youtube account, etc. It wasn't a positive experience.
A fun one is finding loans from friends and family that involved any sort of strings, whether convertible or interest that has accrued because Aunt Bertha forgot about the $50k she gave you.

It's easy to forget these loans from the early days, especially if there were 20 people who gave the founder little bits of money, especially if it was before he or she set up the corp accounts, etc.

Other than that, one of the worst I've knocked down uncovered a lack of assignment of IP (an early rich-media MUA) from a contractor that effectively meant the candidate company had zero value. "Who's Bob Smith of Bob Smith, Inc.? Can I talk to him about this shitty code? Oh, he owns it..."

Some commonly involve artificially boosting turnover by trying to be clever and using in-house developers as a separate concern, billing or paying through companies owned by family members. Sometimes this sort of setup is kosher (you want to smooth out and isolate capex and a friend has office space and a couple devs, or there's an overseas component, or whatever) but if money is moving between them in a semi-closed ecosystem, it's often a bad sign.

Usually, as stated, it's sloppy stuff, but sometimes you get a real weasel.

As for being a founder, having an accountant/CFO makes a huge difference. The first contract CFO I hired was a revelation. The commitment was low and the upside was huge. We were too small for a FT CFO and I was a babe in the woods and didn't even realize these people existed.
Yep.

Yet another way to fingerprint.
I cannot applaud your comments enough. Microsoft has absolutely lost their mind trying to push the Windows 8 tablet interface on desktop users; Google+ integration is one of the biggest threats to user engagements (and personal safety in many cases). On one hand I see that their missteps create opportunity for new companies; but on the other hand, it worries me about the lack of alternatives and what it means if I can't use an OS or social network that doesn't want to absolutely fuck me over.

Honestly, all we need is a search engine that returns decent results and doesn't try to tell the world who we are (DuckDuckGo) and a social network that lets us only communicate the way we want, to who we want (???).
Yes. How can I be assured that their mechanism has not, and cannot be compromised? I can obtain updates through their website. I should be able to register for notification when updates are available. Why would I want to allow remote access (even to my ISP) which I cannot monitor? Moreover, why would I want to (potentially) allow (whoever has access) to install whatever they want on my router?
I could buy a Firewall, but why should I have to?
Gmail insists on respelling the name of one of my contacts; it's only one letter different, but it's slightly embarrassing that I seem not to know his name after eight years of working together.
Except people are ignoring the significant market growth slowdown that Apple has lost since Job's departure. A lot of old school Apple-friendly press always cheer each Apple release, but the reality is Apple hasn't really been "Apple" for some time. You have to remember that all of the news Apple released last week doesn't matter to the average user/consumer. The biggest news from Apple over the last 3 years to the average consumer was that they bought Beats headphones.
I don't get it. So Brin announces to the world that Google+ is the new sliced bread in 2011. Then he tells a small group of people that he thinks he personally should not have been involved with G+. Also the leader of the G+ project leaves (one month after the project started? One month after Brin had his candid talk recently?)

Where in this is the broken trust? What is the author actually upset about? Seems to me like in 2011 Brin and co. thought Google+ was the future. Now Brin simply is admitting that he personally might not have been the right person to take this on and perhaps it was a bad idea (not clear from the poorly written article). On top of that the author is trying to make a story out of the project leader leaving precisely because there was no story there.

I think this piece is terribly written and there is no story behind it. G+ is not my favorite product but I think this is just an outburst of anger that does not deserve our attention.
the point of the article is that google has lost trust, and google+ along with strange, self-serving behavior of executives is how. that much is undeniable.
That's why you should host using fastcgi, so the PHP processes are long lived. You do pay the startup cost in every request of reconstructing the state (code and session data), but you get the benefit of request isolation. I don't know how other db's handle it, but oracle supports reusing connections across PHP requests.

Facebook does recreate the state on every request, but they've got that down to a 10 ms bootstrap. In my own web services the bootstrapping before the business logic runs is below 20 ms. Most PHP frameworks load too much code up front though, which is why you'll see much worse request bootstrap performance in many cases.

The big benefit of request isolation is predictability. You know exactly what environment your code runs in because you construct it from scratch for every request.
Looks to me like this type of device is the beginning of disrupting typing. Once you have a way to detect finger movement with something small, lightweight, unobtrusive (I'm making assumptions about AirType based on my own desires) and programmable, we can create the interfaces we want.
What was the underhanded thing that it did? If you put your real name AND sensitive info into a public system, especially one you do not understand, what do you trust will happen? What does Brin's confession of not being the best person to create a social network have to do with it?
GET vs. POST is a question of whether the request is intended to change state. Using JSON for a query is nice for preserving structure (e.g. nesting a Boolean expressions, not needing PHP-style array notation, etc.) but it doesn't change the idea that it's a GET request which can safely be repeated without affecting server state, may be cached for other clients, etc.