skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
But does surveillance include photography? According to Bruce Schneier, none of the perpetrators of the major terrorist attacks of the last decade took any photos. [1]

Do you have any specific examples of terrorists who photographed their sites before attacking? I don't think there is much information that a terrorist couldn't get from a combination of watching and jotting things down in a notebook, and google street view + image search.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/jun/05/news.terro...
I wonder if Google Streetview usage information is examined for "suspicious activity", since it could very well be used in lieu of from-the-street photographs taken personally by the attackers.

> "If it helps, several terrorists have been caught due to conducting surveillance."

Which? And how did they react when the FBI agent left them his business card so they could have a chat on the phone?
crypto-currency's value is derived from the "greater fool theory" I don't think socialcoin will fly. Happy to be proven wrong.

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/05/need-taxes-mmt-pe...
I think his quote is absolutely spot on about how this stuff works:

"I lived through the McCarthy era, so I know how false accusations, surveillance, and keeping files on innocent people can destroy their careers and lives."

I'm actually rather amazed at the number of "so what?" comments I'm seeing here. I thought we were all much more conscious of how these types of programs start to spin out of control.

I've read about this happening to a guy that photographs underground missile silo's/bunkers already. That was admittedly pretty soon after 9/11, however.
The game doesn't work for me?
Dear FCC,
Having a number to report suspicious activity is a great idea. There isn't a single thing Orwellian or unpatriotic about it. Unfortunately too many people don't really have any experience identifying suspicious behavior, so they end up reporting all kinds of benign activity.

Its really just a sad case of human nature making a good idea impractical to use in the real world.

In spite of the popular belief in this thread, terrorists do take photographs of their targets quite frequently. Unfortunately, they look just like innocent people taking photographs, so the practice of harassing everyone that takes a photographs isn't going to catch us very many terrorists.

However, there are many different types of suspicious behavior, and some of them will have a much lower false-positive rate than photography.
The EFF set up a nice site that allows you to easily contact the FCC yourself: https://www.dearfcc.org/
Part of the problem here is that we need to not only authenticate that you have a persistent identity - which we are very good at, human interface notwithstanding - but that you have a unique persistent identity. Since we need to let people join, that's going to take more than just math.
Burmese here. I returned to Myanmar from US a year ago. The changes are exciting. Before I left Myanmar in 2006, cell phones cost $2000 a piece. Right now, it costs less than $100. It is still quite difficult to do a tech startup here. Venture capital is almost non-existent. Internet speed is painfully slow. Most local tech "start-up" are actually just consulting firms. But I believe this will change very quickly after the new telecom companies start operating. If there's anyone interested in doing/investing tech startup in Myanmar, please email me.
A system where people can survive and reproduce without working can't end well.

Imagine it in the context of computer resource management - "every program deserves this much RAM and this much CPU". When you have randomly varying, recombining programs, what will the result be after 50 generations? Eventually a program will evolve to reproduce faster, and it will come to dominate the population. Why would you think that such a thing wouldn't happen with human beings, too?

What do you think happens when you provide unlimited free food to a population of rats? A few continue being "productive" - searching for new food supplies, etc. but they get out-reproduced by the ones who just eat all day. So the population explodes, eventually the food runs out, and then they all die.

So overall I think that a global basic income, combined with unlimited reproduction, would have a horrible outcome for humanity.
I used to think that way about a lot of things until I realized it makes a lot more sense to redefine "good idea" to exclude things that assume all humans will act ideally and rationally.
I can't tell if this is just shameless advertising.

Just for the record, LowEndSpirit.com has done the same thing well before this was launched.
No, I can see how reconnaissance would be useful, but why photography? They can get pictures online, and anything dynamic they can either write in a notebook or use a hidden camera.

If we are profiling people taking pictures of landmarks, it seems like a terrorist wouldn't want to be a person taking pictures of landmarks.
> I believe the heart of the issue it that /dev/urandom will give you a string even if it has very low entropy at the time.

On OpenBSD, /dev/urandom does the right thing, unlike Linux. As per http://www.2uo.de/myths-about-urandom/ -

> FreeBSD does the right thing: they don't have the distinction between /dev/random and /dev/urandom, both are the same device. At startup /dev/random blocks once until enough starting entropy has been gathered. Then it won't block ever again.
It's hard to blacklist every piece of memory that might be sensitive. It's a much better idea, IMHO, to just put corefiles in a location accessible only to root. That's how Windows, OS X, Ubuntu, Android, and lots of other commercial systems work.
4 Ways to Come up With Startup Ideas
I've long been quite interested in whether there's a meaningful way to use WoT approaches to demonstrate uniqueness of an identity.
There are now more Android Wear apps than Google Glass apps
PDFy – Instant PDF Host
Not sure what's more perplexing. The FBI stalking an 86 year-old man or why anyone considers that paint blob thing art.
So in other words it's a bad idea.
Just as an aside: Corita Kent was a nun who got really into screen printing and making beautiful Catholic pop art:

https://www.google.com/search?q=corita+kent&tbm=isch
I've been in my fair share of minor arguments with security guards. Never has it resulted in a discussion with the FBI.

This situation was not normal, and is not acceptable.
Thanks, that's a much more comprehensive article.
We don't know what the security guard told the FBI.

I'd be willing to bet that if a security guard bothers to report a 72 year old with a high-quality camera for taking pictures of obvious artwork to the FBI that the guard exaggerated the encounter.

I've heard of several of these FBI followups in the past ~10 years but the person being interviewed always said nothing but positive things about how professional and calm the FBI agents were. They didn't send a 30 person SWAT team like the DEA would or multiple agents to your door with exposed guns threatening you. Yes, I've personally seen multiple instances of the DEA raiding homes while I was in college, good peoples lives were ruined because "someone smelled marijuana at a party".

It's the FBI's job to follow up on these types of instances. They were heavily criticized after 9/11 that they received tips but didn't properly follow up, now they follow up and everyone complains that they shouldn't bother anyone.

Does anyone think the FBI would simply leave a card asking for a phone call if they really believed that person was any real threat?

I'm just offering another possible perspective to the story that doesn't fit the mainstream "all law enforcement are bad" group-think going around. Think before jumping on the bandwagon guys.

The security guard who over-reacted is the issue here, not the FBI. Yes, the Patriot Act needs to be revisited or even thrown out and the NSA needs to go back to having very strict limitations on sharing with other agencies and allied nations, but that's a different conversation.
If we stop investigating only potential surveillors who take photos as a matter of policy to to blog complaints, doesn't that make it easy to hide surveillance operations from scrutiny by just having everyone bring a camera along?
I'm more productive with Scala than I ever was with Java, and Scala is very strongly typed. Statically typed languages aren't always less productive than dynamic languages, but the straightjacket of a language known as Java is.
So just a Malthusian argument then? Or are you hiding some contempt of people "getting something for nothing" in there as well?
"The circuit board is designed through a web-based portal usable only with Squink plugged in."

Whoa there, cowboy. Its a kickstarter that not only may or may not produce a working machine, but even if it does, I have to depend on their perpetual existence just to use said machine? I... have trust issues.
There was a Kickstarter that did exactly this a while back:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1597902824/agic-print-p...

I guess they're supposed to start shipping in a couple weeks (Aug 1).
"Why would you think that such a thing wouldn't happen with human beings, too?"

Because other factors dominate, at human scales. Evolution will get there eventually, but by that time we'll all be so dead and the circumstances will be so different, presuming it's our job to solve that problem now is wrong when there are far more pressing problems.
A new syntax for JavaScript modules in ES6
used my email which received the OSCON confirmation receipt and the name in that email, no go. Must be waiting for the conference to start?
If this can actually be worked out, I'd love to see it. I'm pretty skeptical though.
i-nex: CPU-Z for linux
The FBI are cops - federal instead of local. Still, what's your point? No arrests, bullying, massive surveillance... They obviously didn't take think he was a threat, or else he wouldn't have showed up and left his business card. The agent was just following up on a routine report. Is it a violation of civil liberties for a cop to ask questions?
Bitcoin-tone: proof-of-concept of pushing Bitcoin transactions over DTMF
It wouldn't make sense to ignore other suspicious activity just because the suspect has a camera. My point is, are we justified in treating photography alone as a suspicious activity?
> What do you think happens when you provide unlimited free food to a population of rats?

1) No idea, I'm not a rat, nor do I have any expertise in the economic lives of rats. Have there been any studies that show this? I don't have access to many journals.

2) Do you think that humans have the same goals, aspirations, and survival behaviors as rats? Do you think they are so similar that given a cage and food, humans would reproduce until they all died out?
To make it clear: these sites are not blocked, you can still acess them. They just don't turn up when you search 'sick forbidden sex with animals' on search engines.

How far does censorship go? Where does 'protecting our kids' start? Some of these sites contain stuff that is clearly illegal here in Germany. Is prohibiting something always 'censorship'? I'd say no, it is a matter of fine adjustment which has to be carefully established and controlled.
"The login id and password combination is invalid. Please verify the credentials."
It depends on your understanding of the invitation. I agree that this is contentious, but I could see how Postmates would argue that the invitation only incidentally states that the orientation begins at 6:00pm. The time you are requested to arrive is 5-10 minutes before that.

This isn't about the forces of the courier market (although I'm sure there's a fascinating market in NYC). This is about breeding a culture where participants in that culture have a sense of punctuality that supersedes all else. I wouldn't have been much more surprised if showing up too early would have gotten the author turned away. It's easy to show up 45 minutes early to something if you blow out everything leading up to that appointment, which you can do because you see it as a one-off. Being on time for every appointment you make takes more diligence. It takes cutting people (even yourself) off from an arguably more interesting diversion.

I wouldn't lose much sleep over this story; the author describes another courier who's been in this situation before. He clearly failed and was given a second chance. This isn't one of those "fail once and you're banished for life" kinds of things. Postmates will probably keep slamming the door in these people's faces until they show up 5-10 minutes early (ie they learn the lesson Postmates is trying to teach).

Or, you know, they find another job, where this kind of nitpicking isn't normal.
I like to see someone taking a contrarian approach and exploring an unexplored implementation space.
Things have changed and now foreigners can buy a sim card with very low cost. The next time you visit Myanmar, please let me know. I will be very happy to meet up with any hacker news reader in Yangon.
So essentially changing diet is partly (or mostly) a placebo effect. IMO it is better to understand the causes of IBS/anxiety/stress and make changes to your lifestyle that address the root cause, rather than believing dubious science about gluten. (I'm not saying that you personally believe this crap science, but there are a lot of people out there who do). That has certainly worked well for me. I still do have IBS on occasion, but after doing some research into the HPA axis and ANS (and how the control gastric emptying, colonic transit and absorption) I now understand exactly why I have the symptoms, and they are very manageable. I don't have CFS, burnout, fatigue, anxiety or depression any more, but mild IBS seems to be a fact of life. Working for myself at home certainly helps a lot.
This is because, when each machine updates the master server, the update tends to be additive.

Hmm, reminds me of GFS (append-only file system). It seems like I managed to really short my machine learning education during my degrees. Anyone have any recommendations for good introductory resources for practical machine learning design and implementation?
When a democratic government makes decisions, everyone gets an equal share in that choice.

Isn't this an assumption? Perhaps if the system were such that every issue were up to a nation-wide popular vote, the statement would be true...not that such a system is a good idea.

Some votes are worth infinitely more than others. That is to say, many votes are worth nothing. If you vote for the opposition party in a district that is 75% supportive of the incumbent party, your vote doesn't matter. It will (hopefully) be counted, but no one will take your opinion into account.

The other assumption is that majority rule is something worth working towards. Everyone wants government power to work for them. Problem is, it's a power that can't really be controlled. You might get your way this election cycle, but that same power could be used against you when the uneducated reactionaries rise up next time around.
6B requests/mo = ~2200/sec
40M requests/sec = 105 trillion/mo (or the number of red cells in the human body times 5)
In other words, if humanity lived up to even a small fraction of its potential, it would be a good idea in both theory and practice. Unfortunately, most people can't be bothered. So, yeah, its a bad idea in practice.
Thoughtcrime, citizen.
"...much like Imgur does for images. PDFy is free, ad-free, and non-commercial."

They must be using a different imgur than I use, because it's definitely commercial and has ads. I can't see pdfy surviving on donations indefinitely.
Originally, I was going to add in the following:
"Nonetheless, I realize the people behind the movie probably put forth a lot of effort into making the project and commend them for that. I am but a critic. I hope these comments do not deter the people behind the project from pursuing what they want to do but is rather taken as feedback and impetus for improvement."
However, I took it out because I think that it seems almost implicit that those who make products or art for the public are subject to criticism. I did not make any outrageous claims or have ad hominem attacks. Given that I was focused on the content and I spent the time to watch through it, I thought the criticism was fair,
I wanted to write this additional comment because I did struggle with being diplomatic versus just being more indulgently blunt. Perhaps I should have added something that showed some nuance or awareness, but then this leads to my having to do so for ever criticism or review. But maybe that is kinder and perhaps more helpful for people. Who knows. Your comment is duly noted.
Well, if they want to be successful terrorists, there will probably be a pretty elaborate planning phase that generates quite a bit of evidence.
Thanks, good points, I agree that it's disrespectful not to communicate the actual expectations.
I'm skeptical about the longevity of a site that operates entirely on donations, but seeing that you offer the source code for free (and it runs on PHP, which is arguably pretty well-supported), and your license is reasonable (if crass, but who cares?)...

This is really great. Thanks for posting this.
It just goes to show: You can cargo cult ban anything with a swastika on it, but if you can't change the culture, the Naziism remains in the hearts of your government officials.

And remember that it was the refusal of major Weimar parties to allow any discussion of aggressive reform and relief measures that lead to the rise of German Nazi and Communist parties in the 1930s. It's all self-inflicted wounds from the fundamentally illiberal ruling intellectual and bureaucratic class of the country.

And when the next downturn with a murderous evil dictatorship moves in, which country is ready to prevent you from even discussing it? That country is just asking for it to happen again.
From the guidelines[0]: Please don't bait other users by inviting them to downmod you.

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Jonathan Snook's “CSS is a Mess” talk
I'm guessing the real innovation here is coming in the form of new conductive inks and glues. Once there is freely available conductive ink that can create a trace with better than terrible resistance, there will likely be a cambrian explosion of projects like this.
Mars One intends to land its first crew on Mars in 2025. http://www.mars-one.com/mission/roadmap
The Hogwild approach mentioned is extremely simple. When you do incremental updates, don't hold locks. You'll rarely conflict, because the number of data points to update is usually much higher than the number of threads doing the updates. And even if you do conflict, the effects don't affect accuracy in any noticeable way. (I found this empirically.)

It looks like Microsoft is applying this technique not to stochastic gradient descent, but to building neural networks, in this case.
"It's the FBI's job to follow up on these types of instances."

What kind of instances? Taking a photo? The author's exact point is that society should recalibrate itself such that anybody photographing a public piece of artwork shouldn't raise suspicions or trigger an FBI follow-up. It's the physical equivalent to the NSA's "collect-it-all" mentality. Targeted intelligence gathering is the appropriate approach in my opinion. And sometimes that means accepting that a 72 year old photographing a made-to-be-photographed statue isn't leading a sleeper cell.
The ethereum project: learning to dream with open minds
Ask HN: How did you figure out what features to include in your mobile app?
I'm embarking on creating a mobile app for my business. Currently our platform is only available on desktop. I was wondering what helpful strategies HN users have used to discover the best features to include in their mobile apps? Would love to hear what's worked for you and what hasn't.

And yes, I am already reaching out to my customers to gauge what they feel is important. (:
I was just asserting the fact that terrorists do take pictures of their targets quite frequently.

I am just as opposed to profiling photographers as you are. After all, a terrorist taking a picture of a landmark is probably going to look exactly like any other tourist.

Edit: All of the down-votes in the world won't change reality. Just because you personally don't have access to evidence that terrorists conduct photographic surveillance doesn't mean that no one does.
It's interesting the German government publishes this list publicly in it's hashed form, but when someone reverses it they deem it illegal.

Is there any legal basis to this?

If I publish a list in pig-latin, can I deem it illegal to translate that into English?

If I publish something in 8-bit ASCII, can I deem it illegal to "translate" that into English?

How far does it go?
The descriptions of "hacking" techniques were cringe-worthy, the character development was just about non-existent, and the plot was pretty basic. However, I liked that they spent some time trying to explain why privacy is important, even if you aren't a criminal.
Recorded for quality assurance.
That does work well.
Creating Online Apps for Outreach and Education
One of my biggest disappointments with Gnumeric is the file extension: tab completion only works sometimes, and I'd really like to change
find ~ -name \.gnumeric to
find ~ -name \.gnm or
find ~ -name \*.gsc
Also it takes up more space when listing files in a terminal.

Also, the 3 letter convention is a somewhat helpful limitation in the same way that countries defining which side of the road to use is actually helpful. For instance, it is nice to have all of my JPEGs ending in .jpg rather than a mix of .jpg, .jpeg, .JPG .JPEG.
So, after how many times of being fooled by "minimum wage security guard"s do the FBI start taking this into consideration in their investigations?
Undisputable Bubble Insanity: No Revenue, No Assets Company Up Over $1 Billion
These guys did well moving quick to capitalize on this.

Saw several ads for it, probably sold quite well; getting to use 'Google' in your product's title definitely lends it some extra credibility too.
Virgil 3D: A virtual GPU for QEMU
Reworded that sentence, thanks, I didn't know that was a possible issue, was a little ticked off after typing a long thoughtful response only to see it instantly down-voted before anyone could have possibly had a chance to read it.
This is truly sad for both parties. He definitely was forced to act like that by Comcast.
This would only happen if the target had not been cataloged already and repeatedly by incidentals, which, if it's a target, it has. Surveillance of operational matters wouldn't require and ,in fact, may preclude overt photography. If necessary, it could be done at a distance with compound lens. But the reasons that would require this are minimal and remote. A simple walkabout can determine personnel, schedules, traffic, routes, routines, etc. I am unconvinced a sophisticated group would risk personnel and exposure by on site photography whose value would either be minimal or better obtained by less overt means.