skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
ISIS seems mostly to be western "idealist" muslims, recruited by extermist imams where those can operate (ie. in the west, mostly Europe, in Saudi Arabia, and not very many other places). The locals found them, well, what everyone finds them : cruel, extremist morons.

(Imams are tightly controlled in places like Iran, Turkey or Egypt. Why ? Well let's put it this way : "mosque" does not mean house of prayer. It means fortress (house of prayer is masjid. Keep in mind that that arabic is weird. Masjid by itself means house of prayer, but combined with other words it means different things, sort of like latin). The states there, well, it's not like there's anyone in them that doesn't know this. So recruitment of locals there cannot easily happen, except by the "state" (which may be a lot more local state than a map would have you believe))

The problem is what western agencies are pointing out, but nobody's listening. Currently Syria and Iraq are the targets. Mostly because they're in the middle east, and allow "other" religions (Shi'a islam is "other" to these guys, as is Druze religion, Alwite, hell, they're not all that fond of wahhabism (too many compromises for the state and the oil, first and foremost of course, the alliance with the United States, and "with Israel") ...). That won't last. We, as in you and me, England and Sri Lanka, Japan and Alaska, are on their list. They're just having some trouble with numbers one and two (Saudi Arabia and Israel).
No one cared because it was quickly buried, which could quite possibly be due to a flag ring or automated monitoring for flagging of the firstlook.org domain. Here's my other comment on the topic [~]:

It would be incredibly easy to use this sort of program to game visibility on HN.

This story itself serves as the perfect example. When it was submitted four days ago [0], it quickly took a huge ranking hit and dropped off the front page. When a story drops off the front page this quickly, it's nearly impossible for it to get the upvote momentum required to gain any additional visibility. And the same URL can't be submitted again, so the opportunity for discussion of the article has essentially been removed.

Then, we're left discussing a breaking story as the top item four days later, when a summary report about the original story that contains no new information is published on Slate.

One might be quick to blame moderators, but in the discussion of another recent First Look story, dang said most of the penalty came from users flagging the story. [1] How many users flagging the story does it take to produce this outcome? Does GCHQ just need three accounts with a little karma to seriously diminish visibility here for days? Safeguards should be developed to prevent this sort of malicious activity. Maybe some sort of collusion penalty, where if the same users are flagging the same stories, the effect is diminished? Or a greater restriction on the maximum penalty?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8031791

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8008472

EDIT: And it's happened again! This story was #1 when the link was to [3]. About a half hour ago, the link was changed to firstlook.org, and within minutes, the story fell to the center of the main page. Now, thirty minutes later, it's at number 47 (with 200 points after six hours). It was at the top for hours, then dropped to 47 within thirty minutes of the link being changed. The fact that flagging happened right after the link was changed seriously suggests that some someone has automated monitoring for First Look links to flag.

[3] http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/07/15/documents...

[~] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8053852
Much of the discussion here is focused on the linguistic acquisition aspects of this article. I see the largely ignored wider aspect to be that of skills learning, particularly in light of unlearning and lost plasticity.

The key paragraphs are these:

"[A] 2-year-old’s brain has a substantial neurological advantage, with 50 percent more synapses — the connections between neurons — than an adult brain, way more than it needs. This excess, which is an insurance policy against early trauma, is also crucial to childhood language acquisition, as is the plasticity, or adaptability, of the young brain.

[NB: I challenge the assumption that the excess neural capacity is simply for trauma recovery -- it seems specifically applicable to the very mental plasticity that youthful skill acquisition entails, and which needs to be discarded as concrete skills are laid down.]

"Another advantage a toddler holds is his very lack of experience. After speaking our native language for decades, we adults can’t help but hear the second language through the filter of the first. And this filter doesn’t take decades to develop. Researchers have found that newborn Japanese babies can distinguish between the English “L” and “R” sounds, but if not exposed to Western languages, they begin to lose that ability — not by the age of 6 or even 3 — but by eight months.

"Adult language learners are, to borrow a phrase used by some psycholinguists, too smart for our own good. We process too much data at once, try to get everything right from the get-go and are self-conscious about our efforts. But toddlers instinctively grasp what’s important and are quite content to say, “Tommy hitted me,” as long as Tommy gets what’s coming to him."

That is, if you're trying to learn something, anything, as an adult, you're up against two principle blocks:

• Your brain has physiologically adapted. It's no longer sufficiently plastic to accept novel concepts.

• You've got a litany of previously acquired skills (or biases) which get in the way of the new knowledge. It's a form of Mark Twain's famous "It's not the things you don't know, but what you know for sure that just ain't so".

Or, in this case, just ain't what the new skill you're trying to pick up is.

Which may also help explain youthful hiring bias in software and tech.
Radix Sort in C
"Kicked out" is a bit dramatic for what actually happened. Storenvy was accepted, but then his cofounders balked before the program started. YC didn't allow him to proceed without those cofounders.
Show HN: Rattle.io new baby shower website, feedback needed
I agree and disagree.

Tabloids are having a field day with claims of looting and corpses left to rot as a "final insult to the dead". Yet there has been no video of looters stuffing Euros into their pockets, despite the presence of 24/7 camera crews. Meanwhile others reporters are confirming that bodies are being recovered and sent to the morgue. So who is right?

Another contradiction are claims that "We have compelling evidence that THEY did it" yet at the same time there are headlines saying "THEY'RE destroying the evidence". So which is it? You either have the evidence or you don't, right?

What is reported as "fact" is so often just conjecture, opinion or simply made up, either to support a political narrative or boost ratings. Media reporting should have no bearing on an official investigation, but of course, they will have a huge influence in the court of public opinion.

The media are so desperate to get their ratings up, they'll literally let anybody have their say. Look how MSNBC got punked on the day of the crash:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JEDH2Z2_6Zw
Yes!!! Thank you :) This has been driving me nuts for the past couple weeks.
https://translate.google.com/ is a great source for virtual keyboards if you want to practice typing. Select the source language and click the keyboard in the lower left.
And after reading the price tag, remember how much value Elsevier added to the document.
It is also common in the Pacific Northwest (where Linus lives) and the Midwest. Basically places where you can't wear sandals all year round.
Isezyblog
Why hire local talent when you can get a foreigner who will work for cheaper? (Not to mention the foriegner will also work under the shadow of having to go back to their country if they get fired..)

While there might be a good argument for this, I've never seen proof that it was not being abused.
There is evidence, in Europe. I've also personally witnessed this in Russia - mobile operator was blocking VoIP. Don't think US is any different in this regard.

Unfortunately, a bookmark from 2012 for a full research text had died, but I've found a brief press release here: http://berec.europa.eu/doc/2012/TMI_press_release.pdf
Yes. It's not as if every shred of evidence from every previous crash site was necessary to form conclusions.

We already know the plane was shot down, and determining who shot it down doesn't hang in the balance of getting access to the crash site.
> Do people pay attention to who submits items?

Would we be having this conversation if they didn't?
> you could buy it in a store from a person who you could sue if they caused your wrongful death

It's vanishingly rare than anyone is capable of suing after they've died.

(I agree with you on everything else).
I, for one, maintain that those we call "cranks" serve a vital role.
That's exactly the problem. You received that info directly from a third person. There is no transparency. Would you believe everything I say? I wouldn't. But if the facts where out there you wouldn't need to. On an issue such as this where people take such sustained and intense interest, your second hand account of someone giving you their word is not sufficient. Maybe it is for you, but please don't condescend by passing it along as though it must be for others.
>some reports that the plane was escorted by Ukrainian fighter jets

I am sure those reports are really credible, right? Care to provide an authoritative source on that?
elements cycle - styles really don't. For instance, here you have high shorts which are also loose-fit and with a color palette that's fallen out. Also if you had a closer look, you could see the material and cut of the fabric is different. It may have an elastic waistband and other nuances that form the cogent style.

all of these facets of the garment or outfit together as a package are unlikely to come back. Parceled out ones? sure.
I'd say countries don't even have interests, people in them have them. No country, and hardly any person, is a monolith.
Surface-to-air missile encountering a large body moving at 900km/h which is fully loaded with fuel will cause the body to completely disintegrate mid air at 10000ft. In this case a ball of fire was clearly seen at the time of the impact and bodies were lying intact on the ground.
I'm more and more convinced that it'ss an air-to-air missile, exactly like that Spanish air traffic controller in Kiev was telling that 2 Ukrainian military war planes were tailing that Boeing
I did say that, and I stand by that. I would imagine the Ukrainians and Russians would be smart enough to use the usual channels to check what the plane was before trying to shoot it down. The Ukrainians, in particular, would be aware that commercial flight paths covered the area, given that the Ukrainian government coördinates the country's airspace.
I say this out of genuine concern for your project: you would do well to never say "my invention" again. See: reactions to Stephen Wolfram.
Superb investigative journalism. And love the idea of using GitHub, where anyone else can suggest improvements or additions, and it's all transparent.
"[The other side is] going to cave eventually, if we keep shooting rockets at their citizens" is exactly the logic Bibi is using with the current campaign in Gaza.

It's absurd and insanely biased to pressure only one side of an armed conflict to adopt non-violence. Take a look at the death toll of the conflict: the fact that more pressure is on Hamas than Israel to "commit to non-violence etc." from various actors like the Quartet is a sign of how biased those actors truly are.

I've been downvoted, presumably because people seem to believe "we need to bomb the other side / wipe them out in order to begin to discuss peace" mentality but that's been the predominant strategy for decades and it hasn't gotten far. Hamas rose to popularity in the OPT because they were seen as an institution that was providing social services (hospitals, schools, etc.) and wasn't as corrupt at the local level as the PA. If you take a 30-year view, Hamas went from enjoying support from the Israeli military as a counterweight to the PLO to being the reason Israel claims they can't have any productive dialogue with the PA. It's morally bankrupt.

Predicating negotiations on capitulation of the other side (in terms of things like the Hamas charter, recognition, non-violence, what have you) isn't diplomacy, it's the complete absence thereof.
The funny thing is even though the rep claims that speedtest.net is fake, the Verizon speedtest service at http://my.verizon.com/services/speedtest/ is powered by Ookla, the company behind speedtest.net
Bitcoin Price Becomes Available Via Google Instant Search -
Apache/NGINX logs. Like we used to do before everybody decided to "outsource" that task.

Hosting service doesn't provide access to the log files? Get a better hosting service, as that used to be a fairly standard feature. CDN or caching proxy doesn't give you the log files (or at least summarized stats)? Start demanding they provide that feature, or switch to a different service/vendor.

Existing log parsers are missing some type of statistical analysis that Google provided? Option 1: Do you really need that feature, or is it simply "cool" or "might be useful"? Option 2: write it yourself; doing stats on log files isn't particularly hard.

I never understood why everybody was so quick to give Google such massive amounts of valuable data in exchange for something as trivial as a log parser and a few gnuplot charts. None of this needs as 3rd party.

Besides: why do you assume that the analysis provided by google-analytics is accurate? A lot of us block {,www.,ssl.}google-analytics.com and are not included. You cannot opt-out of the apache log and still get the page.
Off by one errors affecting geopolitics. That's a scary thought. Any other examples out there? There are things like false missile launch positives during the Cuban missile crisis...
I've a similar zen in moving from a 2-monitor desktop setup to working off my 13" MacBook Air. It's been a huge benefit to my productivity. I make heavy use of Spaces, so when I'm engrossed in a task, it's all I'm doing. I'm also pretty ruthless about closing windows/tabs and quitting apps, so I typically don't have that much stuff running at any given time. My overall stress level day-to-day has gone down significantly, and I attribute a large part of that to the amount of clutter I've removed from my average context of operation.
yes, at home. This is a good way to save on heating bills.
Since it had previously been used as a tree farm, the land has few large clearings. Some portions are mildly wooded. It the midwest--no real slopes. But there is a gradient.
Aren't such waivers automatically null and void at least in some states? In EU, such disclaimers are simply a waste of ink, but I recall seeing that some USA states had gone that way as well.
Raising the H1B cap has everything to do with creating downward pressure on wages. There are plenty of tech workers, but not enough cheap ones. Lots of companies also want experts in specific technologies instead of getting a good generalist who can learn quickly.

If you are in tech in the US and don't mind making less money for what you do keep supporting legislation for more H1B's. Just don't complain when you become a commodity, are required to dress "business casual" and cannot work remotely. The reason it is good to work in tech is because companies have incentives to make it a good place for you to work.

If your skills are something that is easy to find those benefits will go away. Most companies are not going to give you these benefits out of the goodness of their heart in today's environment. If they did then the average Wal-Mart worker would be making a lot more and have much better benefits.
* disposable workers that they can easily swap in and out as the political winds inside a company changes*

This is a very underestimated point. most hiring is not about skill or productivity. But about building a political base within an organization.

In some areas, this means hiring friends, fraternity brothers, or members of some other in/niche chohort. In other areas it means hiring people of a different stripe. It also shows up in HR very often as the term "head count", which an asset quota that is horstraded amongst managers. Headcount brings with it both momentum and inertia. And is a favorite tool useful for building subtle forms of leverage in an organization.

Its useful to be aware of these dynamics in places like startups and politics because they exist there, too.
One, he is the person in charge of adding sites to the HSTS store. Two, he's asking TLD owners to talk to him, not saying "we're going to make this TLD require SSL".
Couldn't help but think of this site while looking over the readme

http://www.timecube.com/
I noticed this as well. It's funny, usually my first reaction to seeing someone with a white editor background is "noob".
I think the problem extends beyond submission flagging.

There have been enough times where I've witnessed completely factual and legitimate comments here that happened to criticize or even just question Mozilla, Rust, Ruby on Rails, NoSQL, or some other "revered" organization or technology get heavily voted down without justification.

Some of this may just arise naturally. Certain submissions may draw the attention of people directly involved with the given organization or technology. They may take it personally when the discussion touches on perfectly valid, yet perhaps painful, topics. They respond by downvoting these comments that are totally valid and raise some good points. Even if these people are not intentionally acting maliciously, this misvoting can still be quite harmful.

I'm not certain that there's a good way of dealing with this, however.
According to the minimicrosoft[1] blog comments, yes they have.

UK perspective: absolutely no chance of visas for people outwith EU if you are in a redundancy situation locally. Endof. I'm surprised this could even be happening.

Disclaimer: I live in a 50:50 city, in a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood where the 'recent immigrants' are Polish.

[1] http://minimsft.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/18000-microsoft-jobs-...
I don't see it that way. I have read quite a lot and thought quite a lot on the subject. But I don't imagine you really want me to give you my 2 cents worth since you seem to be coming from an (unfounded and rather disrespectful) assumption that I am ignorant.

I mean, you could have asked had I read Dworkin rather than framing your remark like you are sure I haven't, which is kind of an insulting, dismissive thing to do. And, upon googling, gee, if you mean THIS Dworkin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Dworkin, then: no thanks. I happen to like men and sex, I worked hellaciously hard to get there and I am not interested in drinking deeply of her rage. Her apparent thesis -- that porn is linked to rape and violence against women -- flies in the face of statistics that internet porn apparently reduces incidence of rape and, from a quick skim of the Wikipedia page, I get the impression she was pretty angry and dissatisfied with life. I generally try to get my advice from bon vivants, not embittered cynics.
high-end anti-aircraft system can't be operated by a bunch of drunk wannabe rebels, you need entire support unit of radar observation and command(read on wikipedia what is a BUK battery). stealing that one sorry BUK vehicle would just make it shoot in random direction into the ground not at high speed, high altitude target.
So my guess is, it's a bluetooth radio and a XBee. Nice? I think? What surprises me is the size of it; I've deployed exactly this (minus the spiffy packaging, admittedly) for barge tracking applications since 2008, and the whole thing ended up being roughly the size of an early 2000s palmtop computer, so good job on that!

The schematic is trivial: a xbee XSC (we used XStreams at the time) with a decent antenna coupled with any serial bluetooth module. The whole thing runs on 3.3V with high tolerances, so a single lithium cell is enough to power it without regulation.

If you can't do meshing for legal reasions, do a transparent blind forward -- for short messages that you don't mind a delay for, it works out well, and the FCC (and the coast guard) have been OK with it. If you want my design contact me at www.f3.to
Your relations still can.
It is not intended to be solely a general purpose programming language. It looks more like a DSL for inter-process communication. As "process", I mean not ordinary OS processes, but computation units written either in Escher or other languages, like Go, at the moment.

It's mostly systems programming research (IMO, at its best, given the poor state of the art nowadays), but at that intersection area with programming languages.
We need to decriminalize almost everything. We have too many criminal laws. Too many laws.
No, they've throttled streaming video to extort money from Netflix.

VoIP has been eating telcos long distance revenue lunch since Vonage came out 10 years ago. Why do you think it's "fairly logical to assume" that they're only just now getting around to to talking about what they might do about that?

Indeed, Comcast did try to throw its weight around in 2009. I'm not sure what came of if, but blocking competing VoIP evidently wasn't it.
Ask HN: LendingClub Note trading Script
Hello All,

A few years back I wrote a script to buy/sell lending club loan notes on their note trading platform that meet certain criteria. I have been using it regularly for last three to four years with good results. I would like to share the script with other people (free or paid, I am not sure yet) but I am not sure if their is a demand for this. Would you be interested in such a script ?
I used to find this really helpful, but with LiveReload it doesn't make much difference. I always swipe back to my browser before the change has been injected, so I'm not saving any time with 2 monitors.
Right but site owners need to request inclusion on that list only after they've enabled HSTS on the server. I've done this myself and I must say I'd be pretty angry if browsers forced an entire TLD to require HSTS. The result would be SSL warnings everywhere.
That would cause a shift in jobs, not necessarily a loss of jobs. How much of a shift, I wouldn't know.
Designing an Operating System for Democracy
It doesn't follow automatically, but given the specific limit, one would assume that it was deliberately chosen and includes an error margin. There's nothing wrong with flying at their assigned altitude, which was above the limit.

In aviation, you have to manage risks, you cannot avoid them entirely. For example, there are different levels of redundancy, depending on how critical a system is. There may be two, three or maybe four units, but there surely aren't 25 units of even the most critical equipment - the plane would be too heavy to take off. At some point, you have to decide what the acceptable risk is, and go with that. I think your argument has a strong hindsight bias.
Yes, you're right, mobile is different. But the article is explicity about broadband.
This is very true.

Many of the subreddits that are very specific to a given technology or programming language or something like that are often the worst. The audience is comparatively small to begin with, and mostly made up of people who hold the technology in high esteem. Any user who submits comments that may be deemed as slightly negative or questioning of the technology are targeted and "eliminated", so to speak.

This leads to a very toxic environment where quality content and discussion become totally non-existent.