skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I sympathize with the author, but I disagree with the focus of the discussion that always surrounds such cases. It strikes me as akin to discussing the best tactics to overrun the Maginot Line by frontal assault.

When faced with a huge obstacle maintained by forces stronger than oneself, the correct solution is usually not to attack it head on, but to examine the assumptions under which it is an obstacle in order to find a way around.

The assumption under which the Maginot Line was an obstacle was 'you can't go through the Ardennes'. The assumption under which immigration law is an obstacle is 'you have to sleep in physical proximity to the people you're working with'. In each case, technology has rendered the assumption obsolete.

Remote study and remote work are not just matters of convenience, productivity and quality of life for those of us living in developed countries. They are key to enabling more of our species to fulfill its potential and contribute to the future. And I don't believe that's optional. I think the problems we are facing as a species are hard enough that we can't afford to have only a small fraction of us contributing.

Yes, I know employers will say 'we don't hire remote for reasons' and venture capitalists will say 'we don't invest in people outside Silicon Valley for reasons'. The mere existence of reasons does not make it okay to give up in the face of this obstacle.

If there are procedural or technical obstacles to working remotely, they are problems that need to be solved not surrendered to. We need to get to the stage where being denied entry to the US has no more significance than a change in holiday plans.
Franz Reichelt
I was a bit surprised by the opener:

Thousands of [Facebook] users received an unsettling message two years ago: They were being locked out of the social network because Facebook believed they were robots or using fake names. To get back in, the users had to prove they were real.

I vaguely remember the fuss about this at the time on HN, and was a bit disturbed to discover that it was staged. I haven't used Facebook for more than an hour or two since 2010, but for many other people it seems to be their 'home on the internet' and the notion that they would be arbitrarily locked out of their accounts under false pretenses is a troubling one.
Many cases for motion are typical and should be handled in the toolkit/design language directly; I don't think the world can handle a hundred arrow button animations or simple page transitions. For niche cases, you might need a motion expert (e.g. an animation designer on a larger design team) or become one yourself.

Prototyping in AfterEffects is a bit overkill though. Processing and Flash have been used for prototyping via tweening for more than 5 years now.
Sorry, was just having a moment..
Have any of the truly revolutionary inventions (like steam engine, automobile, microcomputer, internet) started out as something developed to have such an incredibly big scale, or did they merely turn out to have big implications?

Apparently, yes. Economic historians today argue that, throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth century, Enlightment-era notions such as "useful knowledge" and the Baconian concern with the "big scale" societal impact of scientific and technological work played a crucial role in "re-focusing" Europe's intellectual capital, as Joel Mokyr puts it [1]. In the twentieth century, seminal institutions like the OSRD, Bell Labs or (the old) DARPA --which as you know were behind most of the "truly revolutionary" inventions of the century-- had quite explicit utilitarian, "hyper-ambitious" mandates in their charters as directives --see for instance the writings of Vannevar Bush [2]. The development of modern organic chemistry and pharmacology was also quite explicitly motivated by tackling big societal
problems, with many X-prize style prestigious awards for novel syntheses of crucial interest. And even the development of the internal combustion engine automobile by Benz [3] was quite explicitly motivated by his obsession to make it reliable and practical enough to fully supersede horse carriages and liberate cities from the iniquities of manure, which at the time was as "big scale thinking" as it gets.

Once you expand your perspective beyond the common troupes and political biases of the past 20-30 years, things start looking a bit different.

[1] http://www.crei.cat/conferences/RandD_and_Innovation_in_the_...

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vannevar_Bush

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Benz
I don't think it would translate well to a desktop. I've got a Cintiq, and it's great for drawing. I can't stand web browsing with it, as my arm gets tired after a few minutes of poking the big screen.

Touch works for phones and tablets because they're already in your hand. Holding your arm up to touch a 20+ inch monitor several feet away gets physically painful within 5 minutes. There's also a difference between the motions you make when drawing (hands spend 90% of the time in the same area, a few sweeping motions to change drawing tools) versus normal computer use where you're scrolling around, clicking buttons, and navigating menus. That's a lot of strain on shoulder sockets when the screen is large.

I think multi touch trackpads are the closest we're going to get until someone has a breakthrough idea.
For a mathematical explanation, see http://jeremykun.com/2014/06/23/the-mathematics-of-secret-sh...
I wish this had all come out in time to have been a part of this week's "This American Life." The episode was called "The Human Spectacle"[0]. There are so many interesting parallels with several of the pieces presented (most notably, Acts 1 and 2)

It's staggering to think that out of all the Facebook users, 700,000 is still only a small portion of the total available users. I wonder what Facebook's ongoing role will be as a source of anthropological data?

0: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/529/h...
That kind of response starts to sound like "no true Scotsman" pretty darn quick. How do you distinguish between state that is on the stack (which FP still has), state that is on the heap, or state that is on external storage? Are those the same distinctions/evasions that I'd get from the next three FP advocates I asked? I keep hearing about how FP saves us from all that evil mutable state, but every time I look at a program written in a functional language I see plenty of mutable state. Half of it is entangled with control flow, which I do not see as an unalloyed win. When that doesn't suffice, those same programs often resort to externalizing their state (e.g. into a database), often incurring a significant and unnecessary performance penalty just so they can give it a name and treat it as something outside of their program. Aristocrats never like to get their hands dirty, and that's exactly how most FP advocacy comes across. "Let them eat monads." Can't wait for the guillotine.
For sufficiently fundamental fundamentals, I'd agree. I'd certainly include pass-by-value vs. -reference vs. -name in that. I strongly dispute the notion that good programmers don't consult library docs. Library surface area is huge, particularly in batteries-included languages. One should know well the areas they use, but there will be plenty outside that, especially if they're moving between many languages.
I'm glad you said this, because the kneejerk reaction is always "how dare they!" when this type of invasive data mining and experience A/B testing has happened in a myriad industries for decades.

As you say, what "oversight" is required of a corporation doing passive demographic or behavioral studies of its users/customers? Should we go nuts if we see Google Analytics or Omniture tags on any given Web site?
I just pulled a list of the top most trafficked products (by unique outbound clicks) posted to Product Hunt in the past week:

1) Meeet http://www.producthunt.com/posts/meeet - 4,827

2) ProducTind http://www.producthunt.com/posts/productind - 4,301

3) Fatherly http://www.producthunt.com/posts/fatherly - 4,036

4) Moment http://www.producthunt.com/posts/moment-2 - 3,833

5) NEED http://www.producthunt.com/posts/need - 3,815

6) Grasswire http://www.producthunt.com/posts/grasswire - 3,802

7) HTML 5 Up http://www.producthunt.com/posts/html-5-up - 3,775

8) Machete http://www.producthunt.com/posts/machete - 3,534

9) Withings Activité http://www.producthunt.com/posts/withings-activite - 3,052

10) YIX http://www.producthunt.com/posts/yix - 3,043

Note this includes clicks in the email and on the site but doesn't account for referrals via Twitter and other WOM channels.
Yep, that's the gap. It's about a mile from the commuter rail to downtown, and the public transit options between are quite slow. It's no wonder that private transportation startups abound in San Francisco.

I guess I'm spoiled by the well-interconnected transit systems in many international cities; step off the (high-speed) intercity rail and downstairs into the core of a robust subway system, or walk to the bus terminal next door.

San Francisco once had such an intermodal transit hub in the Transbay Terminal; the city is seeking $2.5 Billion to rebuild it.

Until then, we'll have to rely on private transportation like the 'dollar cabs' described in the article, or San Francisco's very own Lyft and Uber.
This article reminded me of a very log blog by some guy in south america who detailed building his own hydroelectric power plant. I wanted to find it so I could link it here but I cant. Help?
actually, my local hole-in-the-wall takes bitcoin.
Why do you think that's unethical?
As previously mentioned in this HN thread, we'll be opening posting to everyone to submit products for review by the community (not everything can hit the homepage or it will get too noisy with the current design) in addition to a recommendation/invite system so that the community can refer others.
Have now, or have had at any time in the past?
Just received my invitation as well!
Need feedback on Kickstarter landing page
The root of the problem in my opinion?

Management often doesn't know what they don't know and are afraid if they try to find out, or listen to someone, they will be "out of control of the situation".

The other part of the problem? Tons of turf protecting MS type admins who know just enough to blow smoke in the ears of management and keep out people who would address the problem and (in their view) upset the apple cart.

This self serving turf protecting lack of openness is always a disaster waiting to happen. But not to worry. The two above-mentioned parties are experts at deflecting blame when an issue occurs. So at least we will have someone to throw under the bus when the big breach finally does happen.
Google lists it as a 20 minute walk, which is consistent with the last time I did it.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/San+Francisco+Caltrain+Stati...

I'd say adding 20 minutes each way to your commute is a pretty big deal.
Pangu Download
Pangu Jailbreak tool has released now, this tool support all latest firmware which are running with iOS 7. You cannot use this jailbreak tool with iOS 6 and lower versions.
Hi guys, we are currently working to launch our Kickstarter campaign. Atm, I'm working on our website page for the campaign (haven't launched publicly yet on any other platform). I need your help/feedback before we launch the page. Much thanks.
From a functional perspective, if you were using this to protect data.. How is this different from splitting an AES key into multiple parts?
If they spend a lot of money, and it has no effect, that would put a dent in the theory that money always has an effect.

They'd be in good company, though. The Sunlight Foundation found no correlation between the outside spending in the 2012 federal elections and race outcomes.
When I was reading about his work, it was the 80s, early 90s. :)
Yeah it is hardly low profile. It was a very well funded project that promised the moon and failed to deliver despite absorbing a massive amount of DoD money. A lot of AI researchers at the lab I worked at weren't big fans as there was the sense that Cyc was a shining example of how money spent on symbolic AI was just wasted.
Was this it? http://ludens.cl/paradise/turbine/turbine.html
Ants behave similarly. If Steven Johnson's book Emergence, he writes that ant colonies have three "landmarks" - the queen, the dead ants, and a "trash pile" - husks and leftovers from food and foraging. The queen is placed first, and as ants die they will place the dead ant pile - but they will place it to be at the max distance (while still in the colony) from the queen. The trash pile is then placed at the location that maximizes the distance from the other two.

He claims the the queen is not responsible for this behavior - she's not a "dictator" nor much smarter than other ants. They are able to do it because, individually, they will move things to a better place if they know one exists.

They also manage to distribute their efforts very well, because each ant keeps track ly of what other ants are doing (based on pheromones and running into other ants). If an ant senses that there aren't enough ants looking for new food (based on his limited interactions), he will go look for new food.

Really cool stuff, though I agree the title isn't great. This isn't really about democracy, but individually simple behaviors that are optimal for the group.
Once I wrote an add-on to rcirc, the second emacs irc client. One guy tried and liked it. That made me very, very happy.

This was my only contribution to open source and I wish someday I can feel useful in that way again.
Yeah, I wish they hadn't been denied as well, particularly given that it probably would have been possible for them to get it if they were really committed. But they would really need to retool their website and other materials (and, if necessary, their actual organizational mission) to communicate the fact that they have some goal other than just making free software. As you say, this could have included taking some concrete steps to ensure that their software benefitted the poor.
Have you considered the other popular transit option in international cities, riding a bike? In Copenhagen you do not cover 2km distances by Lyft, Uber, or a bus, because 2km is such a trivial distance you just bike it yourself in a few minutes. And yes, even if you have two kids and groceries with you— because cargo bikes are common and easy (http://daneshea.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/IMG_10731.jpg).
I'm getting 46 from this page, in the graph and in the text http://rsf.org/index2014/en-index2014.php - where are you seeing 32? I vaguely recall it being around 30 last year.
Modern journalism isn't really even journalism anymore, its more like blogging. Publish whatever it takes to get the most attention.
"An oligarch desires to enslave the rest of human being for its own amusement. And the rest of human beings are willing..."

That's not how slavery works.

"I feel if the oligarch overplays the enslavement, everyone can choose to commit suicide"

Again, this is not historically aware.

=====

I will agree with you on a broader point, which I think you've left unsaid: that everything you want in life is almost always in the hands of someone else already.

For example, if you want a thing someone else has already owned it (or its component parts). If you want a friend, someone else has already been in a relationship with them (either earlier friends, or their family etc). If you want to build anything you need tools, and raw materials, and other resources that somebody else has already found, claimed, owned or handled.

And in that logical sense, "success" is nothing more than taking what (some) other people have already got.

But you've over-abstracted the point to much:

*Even an oligarch has to trade wealth for desires."

True, but this is still consistent will chattle slavery.

I may "trade my wealth" for weapons, and food, and the means to keep you chained to the cotton field. But that says nothing of the way in which the threat of violence co-erces you into doing my bidding--that type of coercive consent is an interesting but ultimately tangentially related academic rabbit hole.
While I'm pretty sure it was used derogatorily in this case, I've certainly seen it used in a non-derogatory manner. Usually to indicate a sort of unapologetic lover of whatever field.

See- http://www.bookslut.com/
If you are looking at touch as the primary method of interacting with a desktop, then sure, it doesn't work. As a supplementary method to a keyboard and mouse, however, it can work quite well.
I said "All ORMs build at least some of their SQL using string concatenation"

The "at least some" was meant to imply that they also use bind variables.
>> "since they have to if flagged down"

hahahahah. They don't; not even close.
I tried scrolling through a 1MB JSON file with all four combinations of React DOM on/off and hardware acceleration on/off. Anything with React on was crashing slow. With React off, hardware accel was maybe slightly better on. Sublime 2 blew Atom away. Chrome had flawless scrolling too (albeit with no syntax highlighting). MacBook Pro running 10.9.3.
Wow, that looks like what was trying to come out of Perl. Very cool snippet!
Digital Shadow – what fb knows about you (helped build this)
That was exactly my point. Your attitude is that people should stop labeling themselves, they should stop identifying as something. So should we all stop identifying as software developers? That's just a label. Labels aren't evil, being intolerant is evil. If people would stop being homophobic, for example, being "gay" wouldn't be a problem, but instead you'd prefer to blame the victims. Classy.
Yeah, the IRS's letter is incomprehensible on this point. Maybe I can help: at it is typically understood, a "public work" is something like a dam, or bridge, or sewer system. As Black's Law Dictionary defines the term, public works are "structures (such as roads or dams) built by the government for public use and paid for by public funds."

It is impossible to know whether this is what the IRS had in mind. But I can tell you that, according to my understanding of the term, and the dictionary definition, it seems pretty clear that it does not cover open source software.
I also received (yesterday) this same message from Google:
Subject: [Webmaster Tools] Notice of removal from Google Search

"We regret to inform you that we are no longer able to show the following pages from your website in response to certain searches on European versions of Google: [one url with a post in my site] For more information, see www.google .com/policies/faq/?hl=en

The post in my site that was blocked by Google had only some catalog information about a car dealer in Netherlands and I could not understand why it was removed by Google search.
I've found HN to be a high quality community. There is a higher concentration of people that can give you meaningful feedback when you post your product under a Show HN. Product Hunt on the other hand seems to get you really useless feedback. Product hunt just feels like it belongs to a clique, is way too hyped up and lacks substance .

To be fair, I do think product hunt brings in a tiny amount of traffic.
His/her response seems to indicate otherwise.
Where is this hypothetical user going to find a keyboard, mouse and airplay display (and maybe a dock)? If all those things already exist, then having a CPU inside one of them is a lot easier than trying to make your phone act like a desktop.

In the end, if you have cloud/continuity/whattnot, what problem does this solve?
What's Next For Fedora?
Visited pages only seems to include the sites you visit immediately after doing a google search. It does not include pages found through normal browsing.
I suspect it will come as part of the universal app thing, which at this point might not appear before Win9.
Informed consent is a bedrock of ethical psych research. If a lowly undergrad is expected to get consent before administering any sort of dinky survey, why is Facebook exempt? They created a study which purposely manipulated the emotional state of their customers in order to publish results in a scientific journal. So Facebook doesn't have to give a shit about ethical research because they're Facebook? I don't understand how people here can't understand why these protocols are in-place and why others see a problem when they are ignored. It was completely unethical.
Upon downloading and running Atom, that was also immediately the thing I missed most. I really love the scratch-space as a feature that Sublime Text gives me, and I find that I want it in more and more things.
Here's a program I wrote that wraps the shares with passwords (at the expense of semantic security, though it has key stretching via pbkdf2 to somewhat mitigate lousy passwords) and bundles everything into a single file.

https://github.com/ryancdotorg/threshcrypt
This was used in the 3301 / Cicada 'games' last year [1]. The only way I know about it. Cicada 'dead-dropped' difference peices of the SSSS code all over the world. We had to recover. One of the guys ended up 'bruting' the final line.

[1] http://uncovering-cicada.wikia.com/wiki/What_Happened_Part_1... (breif overview)
Touchscreen desktops have been around for years and not many people buy them.
This is how the DNSSEC root key is divided.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/07/dnssec_root_k...
When you say "trying to learn", what do you mean? If you are trying to dive into everything that emacs can do, I'd imagine you will be in a world of pain for quite a while.

Instead, just use it to edit files. After a while, if there is something you are finding would be convenient, search for and or build it.

That said, some obvious points that you will find nice do come by default if you start out with something like prelude. Though, again, just use it to edit files and don't worry about using the keyboard shortcuts that heavily.

If you are highly motivated by the shortcuts, then I would set a pace for learning a few at a time and really get them down first.

For that matter, whether in emacs or atom (or vim/sublime/acme/whatever), it would be rather instructive to see what features are used heavily by folks. Even better if there was a nice listing for what features were discovered, in order and frequency of use.

Is there already a trend/meme for doing something like this? "What I use in my editor?"
Typically you don't have to do that just to transfer from one train system to another.
I have also tried touch on the 20" Sony all in one, and I thought it was fine.

I am not saying it is suitable for all use cases, but if you are a single screen desktop user, it really isn't a horrible experience at all.. Provided that you look at touch as a supplementary interface as opposed to a primary one.

I used to mock the idea of touch displays with Windows 8 myself. When I actually tried it, I found that my initial assumptions about how bad the experience would be were misguided. Of course, YMMV.
if you split an integer into multiple parts, then the person who has the higher order bits (maybe, all but one of them) can get together and share their information to get quite a lot of information about the key, possibly enough to guess it.
1. You get proven semantic security - that is nobody can learn anything other than the message length - for whatever you're splitting. If you divide up an AES key into chunks an attacker would get partial knowledge of the key from one of those chunks.

2. You get to pick how many parts are needed to reconstruct, e.g. three of seven parts required.
> In Mexico City, the city has simply licensed dollar vans with just the minimal oversight necessary for public safety. They've all painted themselves green and white and the informal routes have firmed up but there is still -- decades later -- no map, public or private, of the routes of the most common form of transit in this modern city of 22 million.

http://www.viadf.com.mx/directorio/Microbus looks like a good directory of microbus routes.