skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's sad to see Ars repeating the old "Firewire failed to beat USB" myth.

Firewire was never designed to handle modems, mice, keyboards, gamepads, or other low bandwidth things; and it never made the move to try.

On the other hand, USB 1.0 was never suited for high bandwidth devices like hard drives, video cameras, and flatbed scanners. If you remember using USB 1.0 hard drives, you remember how amazingly slow they were.

They were designed for different purposes. Firewire never went 'down', it stayed with high bandwidth devices; but USB moved 'up' with USB 2 to better service the high bandwidth devices people were trying to use (like hard drives).

Firewire 400 was usually faster than USB 2, but cost and ubiquity (and Sony's crazy 4-pin connector) meant it was never big with consumers. But in the end Firewire could only hold onto parts of the professional market for high bandwidth devices.

Thunderbolt is the challenger (really replacement) to FireWire. When USB 4 comes out in two or three years are we going to see articles about how USB defeated Thunderbolt because Thunderbolt keyboards never became popular?

Yeah. The Firewire vs. USB thing is almost always used to add an 'opponent' where there often wasn't one. After all, all articles are required to have an 'opponent'. Sure you could talk about how the old ports hung on amazingly long in the PC space, but it's more fun to throw unnecessary punches at FireWire.

But honestly, no one ever sold a Firewire mouse. I would love to see a link to one. I know there were a few Firewire thumbdrives that were supposed to be amazingly fast, but it's not exactly apples and oranges.
I love math and I hate the Fields Medal
USB might not have been a great improvement for hardware developers, but as a low-end hardware user it's been a huge improvement. Any piece of hardware I come across can probably physically interface with any computer I own, and I have lots of options on how to hook it up (usually a number of slots on the computer, plus the option of using a hub).
Privatization. Enough said.
That is a great video. You can tell from the way that he is handling the mortar, that its consistency is just so. Each time he gets just the right amount of mortar in just the right place. The blocks get placed oh so easily. There's no wastage of materials, as mortar that gets squeezed out is efficiently reused. In short, he's an expert.

Maybe this type of video is something every tradie [1] should have on their website? Watching this video makes me realise that this guy can do a fast job to a high standard, and that I'd have no hesitation in hiring him if I needed bricks laid, despite my general preference for doing jobs around the house myself.

[1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tradie
I think to find out you'd need to at least measure on the same OS and hardware. A lot of things happen between the physical hardware and the kernel socket layer and those might be different between operating systems.

Some of the stuff is difficult and time-consuming because "messaging" is generic enough to be configured and used differently by different users.

Obviously you can cut away some of the choicesright of the bat if you are worried about support for some OS (Like you have to ship on HP UX), or you need to have durability and acknowledgement and high availability, or you want a project with a certain level of maturity and stability and so on. That cuts the number of systems to test.

Then of course there are things like, well how do they handle concurrency. Just because a single producer and single consumer can do 500K messages per second (which maybe a small benchmark on a co-workers laptop will show), doesn't mean that the whole thing won't blow up and crash in a burning mess if there are 1000 consumers and producers.
This is an interesting idea, but don't try and expect humans to notice some random string (i.e. fingerprint, checksum). Instead, using something like OpenSSH's "randomart"[1]. It can be made such that any small change makes a totally different blob pattern (BIG bonus points for using COLOR!).

Possibly, this could even be chained into the background of the main OS load sequence, such that you see something like a Perlin-style colorful noise pattern during the longest part of the boot sequence. This could even hash other parts of the loader besides the BIOS, too.

The idea being that you (probably) won't notice if

801EF9B138222F39EB2907634BC7FD47F9151919

changes to

40AE7CE2796FB14526ABB92B67BC0F1423B85B96

Almost everybody would notice if the boot sequence wallpaper that you've seen for months/years

http://cs263.markaoyama.com/img/p5_abs_perlin_5_gens.PNG

changes into

http://cs263.markaoyama.com/img/p5_perlin_5_gen.PNG

(images taken from a very brief GIS of random Perlin noise articles)

There are many alternatives. The key here is to engage the human visual system. Proof of why this work: the popularity of font-lock-mode.

[1] http://superuser.com/questions/22535/what-is-randomart-produ...
> Nobody cares about education before degree level, so I suspect they'll be fine.

That would be, "Nobody cares about 'your' education before the 'university' level.."

Hard to imagine a decent university that would accept kids that can't do high school math, unless they learned algebra in the woods...
USB has some pretty nifty ideas buried under a descriptor and software specification that was clearly designed by hardware guys colluding with some firmware types. Those things are not simple. It's a crappy way to describe a device to an OS.

The core USB descriptors are . . . okay, if you put yourself in the position of a firmware guy with like zero bytes left in code space. The howling gotchas start when you get into the higher level stuff, like multimedia. It takes an unholy amount of firmware and driver-side code to make a UVC device.

Why can't standards be simple?

Some of the standards are examples of craven bad design, too. For instance, there's a standard conversation that I have regarding DFU, Device Firmware Update:

Engineer: "What do you think about DFU?"

Me: "It's a pile of crap. It's 900 feet of rope on a 1,000 foot cliff, and you'll be fixing bugs in firmware update stuff for a long time."

Engineer: "I've been told to use it. It's a standard. How bad could it be?"

Me: "See you in month."

(a month goes by)

Engineer: "Holy shit, you were right. But I've been TOLD to use it, because it's a standard and would save a bunch of time. All we're doing now is fixing firmware update bugs, re-enumeration bugs in the host OS, and I've got a pile of bricked units that I have to go through every morning."

Me: (heavy sigh; this stuff just isn't that hard, okay?)

Variations on this conversation include "Oh, the chip vendor has a DFU implementation already, it's in ROM" [do not walk, RUN away from that chip...], and "Don't worry, we just tell the user to not unplug the device during the update" [bangs head against desk].

The USB 3.0 host controller spec was actually rather nice (even if all the chips I saw had different and sometimes quite spectacular bugs].
How To Lose Weight For Women | checked 2014
I write all of my notes under the assumption that the patient will read them. I consider my notes to be the patient's property - they (or their insurers) are paying me for them, anyway.

It removes needless judgment (positive or negative) which is totally useless in the doctor/patient relationship, and permits me to stay focused on the subjective and objective facts, and my assessment.
Ask HN: What current startups do you think are changing the world?
Whether they are trying to reduce global warming, improve food distribution, or even revolutionize "communication protocols" [1], what are startups that you, the Hacker News reader think will change the world, or are currently changing the world? I encourage you to put your own startup if you think it will change the world.

[1] http://online.wsj.com/articles/yo-this-app-isnt-so-dumb-1407714995
I'm skeptical of anyone's "analysis" of the positions of political figures because the analyst's biases always color the analysis. That's obvious from both of the links you give: the "That's My Congress" link is obviously biased liberal just from their naming of the categories, and both of your links only analyze positions on a one-dimensional scale, which assumes that no other dimensions are relevant. That just increases the skepticism of someone (like me) who thinks both major parties in the US are seriously off the rails on some issues (for example, the war on drugs).

As for your list of "true" liberals, McGovern is the only one who strikes me as consistently furthering "liberal" positions (by which I mean "liberal" by the definition you appear to be using--see below). Mondale didn't strike me as consistently furthering much of anything. Johnson got us deep into Vietnam. FDR got us into World War II (by which I don't just mean he was President when it started, I mean he consistently took actions, often covert ones, that were calculated to get us into the war). Douglas voted with the majority in Korematsu v. United States (his positions did change over time, so, for example, he wrote the majority opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut; but that just points up the fact that he wasn't always consistent). Marshall did win Brown v. Board of Education, but while education in the US is more integrated today than it was then, I question whether it is any more equal, unless it's in the sense that it's more equally bad. (To be fair, Marshall was pretty consistently liberal in his opinions as a Supreme Court Justice.)

Of course, from your point of view, this just makes the case stronger that "true" liberals have very little power in the US. But from my point of view, it makes the case stronger that your definition of the word "liberal" is not a useful or historically accurate one.
As the article mentions, HIPAA gives you the legal right to access your own medical records. If you request it your hospital or health care provider they have to give you a copy. Admittedly it may not be as timely as the OpenNote system, but you do have access. (Assuming you live in the US. Does anyone know about similar laws in Europe?)
On the flipside, I think the target demographic would use it without a second thought regardless of the design because the thing they're after is the end result. They only look at this site for fleeting seconds to develop their gif. Essentially, you're trying to appeal to an already sure audience, and in doing so risk losing out on the 'maybe' audience.

I cannot think of a target demographic who would use the site in its current incarnation but would not if it were a cleaner, simpler, "less /b/-inspired" design. I can however think of a demographic who wouldn't use the site unless it were cleaner.

edit: This sounds like A/B testing 101 to me.
> This article starts with the premise that the person executing the command has no idea what files are in the current working directory. That is itself a more serious problem than the behaviour of wildcards.

Substitute `person executing the command' with `simple script', and you've got a better justification. I don't want my simple scripts to break down in the face of silly filenames.
Then nobody would want to buy it. Why would you buy something to resell or cash in on if there was no hope of making a profit?

I still prefer this system to debtor's prison. It sucks that good people have bad luck and become vulnerable to things like this. No matter what the rules are, however, somebody will eventually game it.
Yes,it is related to virtual box.
Seems a regression for vbox 4.3.14, I downgraded to 4.3.12 and rerun the whole process.
> E.g. USB keyboards do not support more than 6 simultaneous key presses without needing some special workarounds,

Are USB MIDI piano keyboards[1] implementing one of those workarounds you're speaking of? They can send status of 10 simultaneous keys (10 fingers pressing piano chords.) Or that doesn't count because the multi key detection is done inside the keyboard and embedded into the MIDI data packet? Is that an example of a workaround?

[1]https://www.google.com/search?q=usb+midi+keyboard&tbm=isch
The incentives are setup that way.

If I were a VC with money from clients with me, telling them that I'm holding out for a good investment is a great way to lose them next year.

Money un-invested is stale capital that will definitely not earn anything back. That money could be lost on a venture - but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

In some sense, they're really paid well to not hold back on investing it - only to be penalized if they do not assume risk on behalf of the client.
There's a nice explanation of the game and the exploitation in the book How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking.
This is pretty fascinating (though my fear of heights would not make me a happy rider of these).

But the title really really bugs me. Subway in the sky? Do we call tramways subways on the ground?
This kind of article is good to keep bubbling up over time, to educate new users in best practices. Not everyone is a 20-year unix admin that's seen a bit of everything.
It's pretty amazing what we managed to attach to the humble parallel port. My first CD burner was a big parallel port device.
Learn what you need to lay down an architectural foundation. Hell, before that, start doing what you can. Break your idea down into the smallest essential parts, and figure out what you can make with your current knowledge. Make those things, THEN learn how to make the things you can't.

Maybe realize applying to YC this winter is a slightly unrealistic goal and set a realistic one, like next winter. Or don't worry about any sort of VC until you have something to show them. Seriously. They NEED to see a product, and they need to see that it can make an impact. If you approached them this winter with just an idea, your pitch would be instantly forgotten. Ideas are a dime a dozen, products are worth so much more.
Let me guess: "top-performing" means "comparable to an index fund".
You'd be surprised at how many different careers pay very well to lose a lot of money. Are CEOs really worth 100x a line engineer? Especially when they oversee the gutting or collapse of their company? Probably not. With most employees salary is tied directly to their output: How much can you get done? With higher level employees it seems to be: How much can you get away with?

With the recent revelations of tech company wage cartels and systematic collusion against employees in SV by execs, I feel like the latter statement is somewhat accurate. It pays to take more than you return.
You don't define 'proper conditions for learning'.

How about a space of your own? An environment that isn't disturbed by noise?

Easy access to books and study aids? A laptop? Fast broadband? All the Amazon vouchers you can eat? Parents who aren't worried about basic financial security?

Where is the threshold?

I guess you mean 'good enough schooling', but that's hardly enough if the rest of the environment does its damndest to devalue what 'good enough schooling' is trying to do.

And a point no one has mentioned is that schools homogenise try to homogenise education.

A good education would try to find individual talents and nurture them on top of a baseline of general competence.

The industrial production line approach to education is the opposite of this. Now, as it happens we have plenty of students who need training, and we have plenty of adults who need jobs.

I doubt everyone can be a teacher, but there could be a lot more talent-based education than there is, without having to turn it into the 'personal extra tutoring for my snowflake' model that richer parents pay for.
So perhaps the more specific ask here is "don't have your pop-up on highlighted text cover other text."

Would this bother you as much if the "Annotate" pop-up was off in the margin?
Where do you draw the line about what's "protected"? It seems pretty arbitrary, so easy to abuse.
I remember having read that the convention was using Right when the value was right and Left for the error (the error that's left, I imagine).
My neurologist is relatively old-school -- he uses an EMR in the room to order scripts and lab works, however, he uses his time with me talking to me, and then enters records into his EMR in between appointments.

As such, I prefer visiting this guy (an older gentleman) versus a young, fresh out of school neuro in the same office, even though it's much, much easier for me to get into the younger neuro than my guy.
Or I've done enough research to see what is correlation, what is not, what actually correlates and what does not. Total cholesterol has zero predictive power (2/3 of heart attack sufferers have below-normal total cholesterol), yet that number is used as a marker for prescribing "treatment".

That doesn't mean there aren't numbers with value in your blood. Triglycerides, HDL/LDL ratio, and LDL type have some predictive values, so I pay more attention to those.

I would encourage nobody to trust me at my word, though. Do the research. Take control of your own health. It's ok to disagree with your doctor.
In the intro the author explains that the likely targets are client computers connecting to these servers. Later he explains how the specific hardware requirements (PowerEdge gen 8 & 9 + PERC RAID controller) are likely due to the storage requirements of the malware dropper. These generations of PowerEdge servers were very common in many datacenters, so it makes a lot of sense to target them. It also seems likely that other makes and models have been targeted by similar malware components, however this article is specifically about DEITYBOUNCE.
If the CEO can make the company lose only 1 billion this year compared to losing 2 billion if another guy had the job... then he's worth 1 billion to the company. Is paying him a few million really that big of a deal?
NASA Nears Multibillion-Dollar Decision on Commercial Space Taxis
Do you think that any "treat" that is unhealthy should be considered an addictive drug rather than a foodstuff? Everyone I know, regardless of how health-conscious they are, will at least occasionally partake in some candy, or fried food, or chips, etc. even if it's very rare. Personally, I don't think that's a big deal.
ActiveJob is now part of Rails
Tell HN: Beware of Dropbox Upgrade Mail
Hi,

If you just received a localized and authentic looking email from dropbox (oldversion@dropboxmail.com) informing you that you're running an old version of dropbox on your computer, including the name of your computer in it, DO NOT OPEN IT!

It's probably the deployment of a botnet, some malware or similar.

Headers:

Return-Path: <oldversion@dropboxmail.com>
X-Greylist: delayed 337 seconds by postgrey-1.34 at dd32100; Mon, 18 Aug 2014 02:40:55 CEST
X-policyd-weight: using cached result; rate: -7
Received: from sjd-rb12-12d.dropboxmail.com (sjd-rb12-12d.sjc.dropbox.com [108.160.166.120])
for <redacted>; Mon, 18 Aug 2014 02:40:55 +0200 (CEST)
Received: from snt-ra10-20c.sjc.dropbox.com (snt-ra10-20c.sjc.dropbox.com [10.12.10.187])
by sjd-rb12-12d.dropboxmail.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id F124F2008DD8A
for <redacted>; Mon, 18 Aug 2014 00:35:15 +0000 (UTC)
MIME-Version: 1.0
From: Dropbox <oldversion@dropboxmail.com>

Thanks and have a nice day!
VCs provide access to small growth businesses and will never have a lack of passive investors because that sector "should be" a great profit engine. When one set of passive investors tires out due to the funds' mediocre performance, there'll be another set of suckers coming down the line.

The most underreported self-dealing by the VC class isn't the 2-and-20, but the revolving door between VC firms and overpaid executive positions at VC-funded companies. Being a partner at a VC means you get a lot of executive positions to hand out to your B-school friends who turned out to be underachievers. This means that a bunch of people will owe you favors, 10 years down the line. This type of personal draw-out (funding suboptimal businesses to win future favors from founders and other VCs, rather than the best) is also impossible to prove or even measure.

VCs draw a decent salary for themselves, but the personal career benefits of being a king-maker (which are impossible to track) are even bigger. The savvy ones essentially assure that they'll become two- or three-digit millionaires (billions is unpredictable and hard to assure; you typically have to go all-in on your own company) in the next bubble cycle. You can't not get rich if you're a VC, and for 95-99% of these guys, I could do their jobs better and I'm a 31-year-old relative nobody.

For better or worse, they're the main (and perhaps the only reliable one) valve between top talent and the ocean of passive capital seeking better returns than what index funds offer, and they're not going to give that up.

It's a Cheap Votes Problem. Why is it illegal to sell one's vote? Because, even if the statistical power of one vote is low, the statistical power of a bloc of votes can be quite high (voting blocs grow quadratically in contribution to variance). If you allow vote-buying, the people who aggregate cheap votes gain a ridiculous amount of power. This was a major problem in the Gilded Age. Venture capitalists are cheap vote aggregators when it comes to passive capital and high-talent business formation.
Is there any means to discover why a search term sends you to a specific place? search for 'zazu' and you end up in some field in Spain south of the French border. 'krom' and you end up in Saudi Arabia near the red-sea. That is, there's no apparent reverse linking ..?
For ‘Big Data’ Scientists, Hurdle to Insights Is ‘Janitor Work’
Add a hackers.txt to your projects
The problem you describe is an economics problem. Doctors and patients are shielded from the costs associated with their health care. Having insurance act as a group savings plan is catastrophic for all aspects of healthcare.

If, on the other hand, people were paying out of pocket for those tests, who cares? What is the downside of a person being more knowledgable and involved?

Unfortunately, the ACA took a step in the wrong direction by hiding more costs from the consumers. If we want a healthy health care system, we need price tags (and insurance for catastrophic events!).
Disabled Twitter account, switched to Sublevel
Here's the wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TrueHoop (we're a part of ESPN.)
MIDI devices don't use USBHID, so they're not affected by this issue.
This is why I not only use "--" everywhere, I also religiously use full quoting of "${vars[@]}" and options like mv(1)'s --no-clobber when appropriate. Even without the security concerns, this kind of "least privilege" approach can help prevent a lot of really-annoying bugs.

That said, I going to have to check a few scripts for that chmod attack (or similar) - I think I've seen that type of attack before, but I must have forgotten about it... sigh
So, I was making the correct determination when requiring that all server and desktop hardware puchased by my companies originate from BRICS nations. Avoiding dell/cisco/juniper/hp for networking equipment, and opting for Custom RK3188 and AllWinner A23-based routers/switches and desktop thin clients running (Debian/Angstrom) linux are gonna throw more than one wrench in any surveillance plans.

I wonder how many exploits the Five Eyes have for Tahoe-LAFS running on LVM disks. I'm betting on very few.
The statefulness of the combination of the g flag and .exec() cost me several hours a couple of months ago on a necessary upgrade, finding something deep inside a router that had been fine with /g before but which had after changes made the implicit assumption that .exec() was idempotent. Having it work every second time was a little annoying.
https://github.com/dhagerty9009/simple-games - A set of standard board games (tic-tac-toe, Othello, etc) written in Python. Worst GUI ever, since there isn't one. They play straight up in your terminal. The last work I did on them was to port them to Python 3, so...they've been abandoned for awhile.