skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Negative SEO only consistently works on smaller sites with a small amount of backlinks (less than 1000). The idea behind negative SEO is to use tools to build a large amount of spammy links, such that 99% of the link profile of a site is obvious spam. This is easily achieved with tools like Xrumrer and Scrapebox. Find a site with 1000 backlinks, build a few hundred thousand spammy backlinks to it, and watch it drop.

To do the same for mattcutts.com you would have to build hundreds of millions spam backlinks to "outspam" his millions of legitimate backlinks. This is nontrivial.

So the people at the mercy of Negative SEO are the people least equipped to defend themselves: small hobby site owners, webmasters with personal blogs, small businesses etc. You can easily knock out their sites from the SERPs and they would never know what happened. Larger sites are secure due to the nature of their large link profiles.

Personally I think all the fear over Negative SEO has been overblown. I've personally been able to knock sites out of the SERPs for a year or so, and so have many other blackhatters. However, people would much rather spend their precious time and resources improving their own sites to get to the top of the SERPs rather than knocking out the competition.

I don't think Negative SEO is ok. But I also don't think it's a big deal.
Base64 Encode and Decode in Swift
I see active beggars everyday on my way to lunch, but the word on the street is to leave me alone and not bother me.

About 5 years ago, I gave one beggar some money. This was not the first time I'd noticed him, that had been when I walked by with some shirts and he said to his buddies, "See that guy? He's in the Klan!" ('Ku Klux Klan' for non-Americans.) He's an old black guy, in his 60s, with a sense of humor. He doesn't always ask for money. He always says "hi," even shouting it from across the street. We talk about happenings in the neighborhood, sports, etc. It's just a few minutes, once or twice a week; but it's more interaction than I have with some co-workers.

About a year ago, I found out that he had put the word out for no one to bother me. He figured out I can't help everyone, so he doesn't want someone ruining it for him. (I've only been asked by someone else once in the past year or so and I did help her.)
You are totally missing the entire point of this article. People are abusing these techniques to de-rank their competitors.

Perhaps in your specific example, these links are old enough that you can be sure that they were originally done for "seo" purposes. But in many situations that is not the case.

Also, you are completely ignoring the possible situation in which a website was bought by an "ethical" company and now they are trying to clean up the misdeeds of the past.
Penflip – collaborative writing and version control
I used Redis for celery in production with great success for a year but then we started running some long running jobs that needed the ACKS_LATE setting and the Redis delivery timeout kept hurting us by resending the task to another worker. It's configurable but in the end we just switched to RabbitMQ. I found it quite painless to setup and migrate to.
Oh my god, can you get me in the FBaaS beta?
It's a common depressive symptom. DFW had a great and unsettling short story on the topic: http://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/HarpersMagazine-1998-0...
>If you feel SEO can do good show me an example where an SEO achieved value creation rather than shifting around a percentage in some zero sum game.

Your generalizations are really quite misguided. SEOs achieve value when they optimize sites to fit Google's guidelines, which as it happens also benefits humans. Converting Flash sites to HTML, reorganizing the URL structure to convert ?articleid=5 to /my-great-article/, adding alt tags for screen readers, optimizing page speed, creating sitemaps, cleaning up 404s. Whitehat SEOs are often the caretakers of the web.

It's easy to focus on the bad guys who spam keywords and buy likes, but it's ignorant to assume that's all the industry consists of.
From what I understand Leiningen is Maven in lisp clothing. Any complaints you have with Maven might apply to Lein as well, unless it is just the XML you don't like. I have only used it a little, but so far it seems nice.
Cross-platform would likely require Java as a base runtime, something that might not be appetizing for some developers.

With that being said there's many brilliant polyglot developers with lots of experience and maybe it's a task for developers with more years than average under their belt as the project will take more effort than an MVP.
Or real virtualization + SELinux + sVirt ... libvirt on RHEL/Fedora/CentOS puts the qemu process into a container too.
Brutally Honest Landing Page Critiques
Ask HN: What does modern front-end web development look like?
I'm curious; what is the modern development process for creating the front end of a web app look like?

Are there drag-and-drop WYSIWYG editors for Web 2.0-style UIs? Do people ever touch raw HTML these days? What's some good starter (preferably project-based) learning material out there? Are the courses offered by Treehouse any good?

I'm coming from an app and games developer background, so while I'm well-versed in native development I have only a very vague understanding of what the web stack looks like.
Except the software running a tank.
>In many ways, Swift is a fork of Mozilla’s Rust language.

Hardly. With full optimization Rust doesn't lose type safety while Swift does. There are completely different tool-chains and philosophies at play here. Swift does barrow some philosophical ideas from Rust (which Rust took I guess form Haskell), but the execution of those ideas is botched.

Likely what happens is Swift is just transformed into identical Obj-C byte-code and ran though the same toolchain. Instead of developing its own tool chain so it could live up to this lofty goal.
Once you scale your worker pool up beyond a couple of machines you need some sort of config management with Celery. We use SaltStack to manage a large pool of celery workers and it does a pretty good job.
Linux capabilities are not a good security model in general. They're more suitable for sysadmins who want to do the very basic locking down of system resources to prevent users from fucking things up, or preventing programs from doing basic accidental mistakes. A MAC or RBAC implementation is a lot more robust and actually fulfills the qualifications for things like secret/top secret computing systems.
I think your eagerness to pat yourself on the back has caused you to miss the main point of the article.

Congrats on your geocities thing, I guess?
Soload Vendor Theme-A must have wordpress theme for every solo ad vendor
After WWII, most men were provided education through the GI bill. While it wasn't an option for civilians, since so many men were involved in WWII, that influx of free college education resulted in the greatest post-war expansion in the history of the US.
It's still learning about religion from people who want to remove religion. It's akin to trying to understand homosexuality by asking Bryan Fischer. It's fine to educate yourself on their viewpoints and even to agree with them, but don't pretend that you're learning anything about religion. You're learning about atheism.

I'd recommend checking out Karen Armstrong, Joseph Campbell, or Stephen Prothero, off the top of my head, each of whom represent a fairly different viewpoint and none of whom actually advocate for religious upbringings to my knowledge.
At the point where all the other "normal" mechanisms monitoring storing the job on the queue have failed I would suppose I have a far more greater problem on that system. Personally I would not use flags for jobs types, I would monitor them with flower. Also, we need to keep in mind that it's one thing retrying sending a job to the queue and a whole other thing retrying a job already on the queue that failed for some reason. In my experience so far there a mechanisms that deal with both of these issues effectively and none involved using the webapps database for this.
It's just a natural extension of the techniques that PR firms (or before the 1940s, propagandists) have been using for centuries.
Indeed. I use Ansible myself.
You argue that the result is as it is because it's a better result, which is a flawed argument.
U.S. Patent Office Cancels Redskins Trademark Registration
Ask HN: Advertise Outside of Google/Bing/Yahoo?
Adwords dominates search and cost per click based advertising. Yahoo and Bing are a distant second. I am looking for channels outside of those three. Does anyone have a experience with other platforms they can recommend?
Dehydration would be quicker.
Is it? Looking at http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_sect..., the USA's agricultiral sector is 1.12% of GDP, while the Dutch one is 2.8%. One could argue that relative size buys lobbying power.
If you clicked through to Chris Whong's site and wondered about the phrase "hack license" this wikipedia article may be of interest: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackney_carriage
Without the nag overlay: http://www.quora.com/Competitive-Programming/Who-was-humblef...

Original title: "Lokesh Khandelwal's answer to: Competitive Programming: Who was humblefool?"
Also, they're already on their way to migrate to HTML5!
2014 is the year of the war on open plan offices.

Some people enjoy working in them, you know. Not everyone is interested in saying "how high" every time some grad student's study says "jump".
> Associating "Windows" and the "rise of the Internet" gets you to at least Windows 95, which was a Pentium-era product.

Not quite: back in '94 the iconic Web client was a Windows 3.x PC running Trumpet Winsock http://thanksfortrumpetwinsock.com/ and Mosaic. Those machines could well have been Pentiums (or 486es) though.
You're doing very strange things to the analogy. To be closer to the real activities, it's like putting a bunch of red flags under the sign. Nobody (except the city coucil) actually touches the target sign. Nobody actually touches the target website. There is no direct attacking going on.
AT&T claims ‘strong’ net neutrality would ruin the Internet
Feel free to build you own search engine! The more the merrier, especially if they can get up to the scale of Google. Monoculture is bad, especially when monoculture leads to diseases attacking the one strain that dominates.

On the other hand we could of course try to (reaching here) argue that these SEO's improve google because they are forcing it to up its game but I think the web as a whole would be better off without all this crap.

Theory: when a new dominant search engine emerges ways will be found to game it to such an extent that the damage to the web offsets any gains from the increased ability to find content.
Interviews are tough. There's very little time to get a feel for whether a person would be a good fit for an organization - and often, you have to make a judgment: was this comment just off-the-cuff curiosity, or does the fact that the person brought up the open-plan indicate that he or she would have problems with the way that the company works?

In interviews, the open-plan office is non-negotiable. It's not like you're going to convince them in an interview to change their minds and build closed offices. I can imagine a lot of interviewers going "well, if he or she brought it up and has actually studied literature on it, then it's probably something that bothers them, and if it's something that bothers them, we might have a problem down the road... maybe it's better to test the water than to offer full employment."

To be clear, this is a problem with the interview process, not with you (or the person hiring). There's just not enough time to actually understand a person, so interviewers are forced to make guesses and go with their hunches. And because the cost of hiring the wrong person is high, interviewers will often look for any small thing to refuse a hire.
Spotting cognitive biases in enterprise IT
I think there is different level of difficulty between the two things you just described.

And I'm pretty sure crypto is hard to work with and get right, and one mistake removes the purpose of software.
I write software that runs on tanks, its not bullet proof. Most the communication protocols just use security though obscurity. If you tell a gear box to shift form 1st to snip it'll do it, and break everything.

But when you considered air gap, and physical security surrounding it (12 inches of plate steal, 5 man team with guns, massive main gun), its pretty secure.
I am sorry if it came across in a wrong way,

I agree that what drives us is a desire/passion seated deep within ourselves, but I wouldn't say it is irrational. Also, exposure to new environment can very well influence it.

That is the context in which I called it an 'illogical' option, as it would be more logical to explore other options, gains new experiences before committing oneself to the option of suicide, the option which is pretty much an end of road in itself.

While on the other hand, taking other road can kindle some new desire, and help give a new meaning to one's life, or give new perspectives, ultimately enabling one to achieve the original longings.
Ask HN: Getting involved in scientific research computing
A few days ago, a coworker of mine was talking about how his daughter is getting involved in making hardware that can emulate the human brain. That sounded like a really fun project, and it got me thinking a bit about my current career path, which I'd say is a standard large corporate developer. I basically build "text boxes over data." The money is good, especially as I am the sole provider for my family, and the environment is tolerable, but it does get boring at time. Lending my software development skills to scientific research sounds both fun, and something thats aligns with my desire to build software for the advancement of humanity (lofty goal).

Does anyone have an experience or advice on get involved in this type of work? I would probably just be on a part time basis for now, but things could change in the future.
if it's true that you may be ready to pull the trigger on your decision and once you are completely true you will be on a curious position, you in that precise moment are free, as it doesn't matter (as it was going to end anyway) it is a good moment to go see the world, sell your stuff, try all those things you never tried, you are free of worries and chains. in that precise moment you are free to start something else. I believe life has no purpose but as thinking beings we need one and life it's about finding it and fulfilling it. Hope you find it.
I guess the frustrating difference is:

Suppose that the natural situation, with no SEO at all, is that you have the #1 site on some keyword, and your competitor has a lower ranking.

With "positive" SEO, okay, your competitor might have paid a lot of money and bumped you to the #2 site, and that might be frustrating -- but you're still #2!

With "negative" SEO, your competitor pays a lot of money and now you're #100. And that sucks more for you.

Probably not important in the really big keywords where all the top sites have always paid big money for SEO -- then, sure, it's all just relative. But in the relative backwaters where lots of sites aren't engaging in SEO at all, having negative techniques work is a lot more frustrating to the people who just don't want to play the game.
The exchange, paraphrased:

andrenotgiant: I am unfamiliar with this area, so I need evidence to convince me that this technique makes a difference.

matnewton85: I am personally familiar with this area, and my personal experience says that this technique works.

So, the answer to your question is: because your personal experience does not qualify as evidence to someone else.
Their attempts to do this have required looping in the banking industry, which is why tuition prices have become so inflated. It's also the same reason home prices exploded and outpaced wages by such a large margin (and why the housing industry became so unstable). By requiring banks to loan to individuals despite their ability to afford the things they're getting loans for, the servicers (universities, homebuilders/owners) are able to jack up the prices on their offerings, as a much larger (and arguably dumber) population of people are able to buy things they otherwise wouldn't be able to buy.

I'm not saying everyone should get a blank check for college the moment they're born in the US, but if the only thing keeping a kid from getting to a university is their ability to afford it, that's a problem, and it sounds like a growing one.
Sharp Develops Free-Form Display
Fit interviews are hard for engineers. Technical interviews are about getting the right answer. Fit interviews are about whether you can tell a convincing lie ("of course I like the working under tight deadlines to changing requirements with minimal support from the business.") It's a tough context switch: from zero-in-on-right-answer to socially-acceptable-bald-faced-lie.
It would be interesting to see a chart/histogram showing the breakdown of number/percentage of CloudFlare-served sites vs how much data they serve.

I'm guessing that there will be a handful of sites serving a LOT of data, and a LOT of sites serving very little data...
Which JSConf was it? US 2014? Tried to find a video of this talk of yours, no luck so far.
I miss the bit where we have a right to traffic. That's maybe naive, but just like I don't expect customers to beat their way to my door through some act of magic I don't expect visitors to come to my website either. If I want them there I have to go and engage them. That's marketing, building customer relationships and so on. Hard work, and definitely not easy money but it is very hard to assail that from the position of a competitor or even Google.

Of course it could happen to anybody. That is the one reason why you should never ever run a business that is dependent on a single source for customers. If you do that you don't have a business at all, just an extension of the ecosystem owned by someone else at whose whim you live or die.
I would suspect that speculators would devalue it expecting a significant amount to be sold.
Wow. If I ever need a service like yours, you've got my business.
Not many developers that I know of use WYSIWYG editors. Most is done by hand, at least in my world of web development. Haven't taken the courses by Treehouse but I've heard good things. I'd recommend looking into a good JavaScript framework like Facebook's React, Google's AngularJS or Backbone.

If you really like strongly typed languages, and want to try out a new platform, check out Google Dart.
For a heterosexual man, a woman can't be your identity. Most heterosexual women need a partner with their own identity, one that she can merge with (she may temporarily settle for a partner who functions with her as their identity, but then she'll be unhappy, leave, cheat, or fantasize about cheating, or just be using the partner for other reasons). This is tough advice to swallow especially if your woman is your identity or you can't imagine a woman not being your identity, but it's something I've learned[1].

Find a good identity for yourself and create it. Make it something that you can get good at reasonably quickly so you become socially validated within it, because we are happy when our identity is socially validated (i.e., others recognize that we are what we think we are), or you will be facing an unreasonably miserable uphill battle. And "internal validation" is the product of repeated and varied social validation, and it does have a decay curve.

Example of a bad identity to make : "I am really good at soccer!" (if you are bad at soccer, it will take you 10 years before you feel validated and comfortable in your identity)

Example of a good identity to make : "I am a great programmer and a leader in the programming community!" This is easier for you to get better at and it's well within the realm of your control.. for example, you can develop expertise in a niche area, learn basic presentation skills, and start presenting at local meetups.. probably within 6 months of focused effort after work.

Traits for a good identity: reasonably quick learning curve to socially-valued competence. Even better if it is something that has future payouts. You can get a "bad boy" identity if you want to e.g. buy a motorcycle, get a neck tattoo, and physically street fight people who don't submit to your dominance, but it also bears very real cost. Those costs, btw, are why bad boys are attractive - it's a serious energy expenditure.

We are generally happy when our identity is socially validated. People with rarely-validated identities are quite susceptible to manipulation; simply by validating their identity... they will begin to crave you.

Your partner can't be your identity. Even if it's just because that makes it a single point of failure for your happiness.

[1] Email in profile if you want to discuss this issue specifically. I have an over developed sense of empathy here, but it's an extraordinarily private matter and helping others may bring me some closure.
The Game Theory of Life
Stuff like this and famous.us is changing the way we develop, for the good. All welcome changes. The question is, what about IE?
The API looks great! Is there any way to include yellow & red cards, as well as timestamps for these events?
I always liked the 68000 and wished IBM had chosen it instead. It was a real 32bit chip and I still have an instruction set book for it dated 1979.
No, that does not create value. It creates the impression of creating value, but in actual fact the same number of $ are spent online so the only thing that changes is where the money is spent. Value creation is a way to get out of the zero sum game.
Thanks for the suggestion. I spent an hour setting these up today - despite supposedly using x64, HAXE etc they're unusably slow. I have no idea what's wrong. The UI tools run at unacceptable latency (they're Java based) so I can't debug easily.

This is on a 2013 Haswell MBA with 8GB RAM and a 512GB SSD.

Google may as well throw the official emulator away.
Yes, but my brain doesn't work that way. I believe I have some form of ADD. I can typically get about 6 hours of quality programming in per day and then I have to crash. My side projects fail miserably if I don't put all of my effort and concentration into them. These projects are usually involving some form of art and my process involves a great deal of silence. I'm an introvert and am much more comfortable alone or with one other person. I have a girlfriend now who is almost identical to me in these ways. I work on my projects for 12 hours and she draws. When I get a contract, she helps with the paper work and client relations.
6 Practices for Super Smooth Ansible Experience
The spam-filled sites in the article were owned by the person performing SEO. No third parties need to be spammed.
Washington Redskins trademark canceled by U.S. Patent Office
How about boiler room? Has a lot of negative connotations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiler_room_(business)
That would be acceptable as well. (Edit: let's say with a water bottle within reach).
Very nice tool indeed, but I would need some more time for testing it to tell you my opinion.
Are you really trying to pretend that you don't care if people read your blog even though you link to it here all the time?

If there were an olympic event for mental gymnastics, you'd be dominating right now.
I ran Winsock initially on a 386 with 3.1. At this time, the dial-up business was booming and I'm not talking AOL/Compuserve. There were entire websites dedicated to listing and sorting through the hundreds of local ISPs cropping up, who had the latest 28.8 modems, best advertised modem ratios, etc... These companies were all setup well before Windows 95 came around.
This is very true. I have since come to realize that I was constantly trying to skirt around certain beliefs and rules. I found myself rationalizing more often than I care to admit.