skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Well, this is called argument-from-ignorance; as others have pointed out, science is pretty bad at proving negatives. So, no, there are no guarantees.

So what we do is we compile the information that we do have, and we try to study effects, establish correlations, and then -- if we're somewhat lucky -- we can reach a conclusion about causation. In the case of the question, "is X dangerous", mostly all we can do is rate it on a relative scale compared to other common things.

(I might get some of the following wrong, but hopefully only in detail. The gist should be correct.)

We know for example that most of the causes of, let's call it spontaneous illness -- tumors and certain diseases and the like -- in healthy adults is the result of damage to nuclear DNA. We also know that most such damaged cells, or cells that are the result of damage during recombination, are attacked and consumed by a person's own immune system. Most of the rest are never viable to begin with -- think of it as a computer program with a serious bug -- and many of the remaining don't produce any viable damaged cells during mitosis.

But, still, we should be cautious about things that do damage to DNA. So, what kinds of radiation do damage to DNA? Well, ionizing radiation does, and as far as we know, it's the only kind that does.

Factors like amplitude, total power, and phase are actually well understood. Scientists shy away from saying with absolute certainty that a particular wavelength is non-ionizing, because they have to take into account other factors, like total power involved. However, microwave radiation -- the 2.4 ghz part of the electromagnetic spectrum -- is pretty safely in the non-ionizing range.

Now, at sufficient power levels, microwaves might cause some minor amount of radiation damage to tissue, but it would have to be an enormous amount of power. Home wifi routers measure their radiation output in milliwatts. You're more susceptible to greater doses of radiation from standing too close to your microwave, and you could probably do that your entire life with no adverse effect.

(In case you're curious: microwaves heat things due to frequency resonance in molecules; i.e., they get certain kinds of molecules -- those containing water -- really excited without stripping their electrons. See also http://www.gallawa.com/microtech/howcook.html)

And all of this is of course aside from the numerous studies which have failed to produce any evidence so far of actual physiological sensitivity to cell phones and wifi and the like -- we're just visiting theory here.

So, how dangerous is it comparatively then?

You are at far more specific danger from walking around outside in the sunshine for just a few minutes than you are from wifi, in terms of ionizing radiation. Although much of the ultraviolet spectrum is non-ionizing, some of it is not, and a small portion of the heat from the sun is ionizing radiation.

And this is where the inconsistency in wifi paranoia comes out, because if you're really, truly that concerned about very very small amounts of radiation, then you shouldn't be venturing around outside wearing anything less than full clothing.
Microsoft, Marketing Insanity and Windows Piracy ~ C for Coding
Nah, they're probably out to implement something that Apple has patented and that Apple isn't willing to licence. I'm betting they'll settle on a patent sharing agreement.
Those are not symptoms that diagnose those with ADHD, they're simply a proven byproduct of those who have been clinically diagnosed with ADHD.

Again, being brilliant and productive are not sufficient on their own, of course. Look at Da Vinci, for example. He wasn't just brilliant. He was notorious for beginning a multitude of projects, then dropping them when he got bored, a clear hallmark of ADD.
Well, atleast Nokia has done quite a lot of research on that field, so its not just patent trolling.
Ok, I just bought my last nokia phone.

Screw them and the horse they rode in on, this is just a bid of weakness. If you can't compete with your product line in fair ways then you should revamp your product line, not turn to your lawyers.

What a bunch of losers.

I've been using Nokia phones for the last decade, with a two week 'diversion' to Samsung (talk about bad firmware). Nokia has an 'ok' product but it could be a whole lot better, I'm as loyal as can be but software patents are a bad thing and using them like this is just plain dumb.

Bye Bye Nokia, you once were an outstanding company.
This is just the sort of thing that can be done cleanly with http://jshub.org/
Multiscale mobility networks and the large scale spreading of infectious diseases

Duygu Balcan, Vittoria Colizza, Bruno Goncalves, Hao Hu, Jose J. Ramasco, Alessandro Vespignani ( http://arxiv.org/abs/0907.3304 )

Accepted to Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. earlier this week.
> If you took the Lehman job, by now you'd have to accept the fact that you would probably never get the chance to start a business again.

No, they probably still would have gone bankrupt, even despite swombat's valiant efforts.
Schmidt: Enterprise is Google's next opportunity
Example: People other than you claim to be sentient. You have no direct access to their first-person experience, and are incapable of coming up with a falsifiable method of testing for its existence. How can you know they are sentient?

Philosophical answer is that you can't, really. Provided you want to remain in the realm of localism, materialism, etc. (variously known as "science" and "common sense"), however, you could just measure the energy output of a television and the energy output of wireless router and stop worrying about how nothing is certain.
I'm not ignoring those things. I'm pointing out that the claims that preventative healthcare will save money are wrong.

We can argue about whether specific preventative measures are worth what they cost. My point is that it is dishonest or ignorant to say that they'll save money.
Are they software patents? It's not clear from the press release.
It is not until half way through that one realises . . .

> "The only non-standard challenge presented by this project is the need to develop screen-scraping regular expressions for individual online communities that are run on custom software."

. . . that the whole idea has a notable form: a simple, mundane problem, hiding a big, hard problem. If you could solve the hard problem you would think you could do much more than help Joe Average with photography and flying.

> "This can be done on-demand."

It is perhaps a test of one's bias: from a business viewpoint, you probably would not think anything of it, but technically it is naggingly unsatisfactory.

It would be a great idea if it found some neat shortcut for the big hard problem that happened to specially fit the particular mundane problem . . .
"For our own survival we need more and better research in those issues,"

Knee-jerk calling for more research is just a way of cloaking ignorance in a lab coat. The research has been done: http://www.wi-fi.org/files/wfa_wi-fi_health_faq.pdf

(Yeah, I noticed the source, but all the studies have come up the same way and they had a decent summarization of the issues, so why not?)

The research is uniformly negative. Additionally, there is no plausible physical mechanism that might cause damage. New evidence can always change the most likely outcome, but right now the evidence is so overwhelming that it's not worth pursuing this research any further over other things more likely to produce some sort of interesting result, and the onus is firmly on those who claim it's harmful to prove it.

(Incidentally, that's been done too, a blind test of people claiming to be sensitive to WiFi, in a room with a WiFi device rigged to have blinkenlights independent of the actual WiFi signal. Complainants failed to identify when the signal was on.)
In addition to the risk of disease, arrest, and robbery, something like that could also jeopardize your chances if you later want to work in a job requiring a clearance, background investigation, or polygraph.

Can you try to find some new activities or clubs there to participate in? Not being fake or untrue to yourself but small steps that push you outside your comfort zone? Dance, theater, athletics?
Repeating the bit about spending "EUR 40 billion in R&D during the last two decades" adds more weight to it?
You can't diagnose someone through historical record alone.

I've known people with ADHD who were not brilliant or productive, and in fact had considerable difficulty getting anything done. I'd like to say you're confusing correlation with causation - which you are - but in this case I've never seen any support for the correlation.
I don't see how you can compromise. If you're just a little dynamic, then you still need to bring in a software interpreter to process the page (this is a point in the article). You also immediately lose the security of static files. To get the benefit of static files, you have to go all in -- otherwise, you might as well just be using a CMS that caches.
You will see more things like this happening in the future. My site, http://ourdoings.com/ already lets you use dropbox to upload photos. It automatically makes a skeleton blog backdated by the date the photos were taken, so you can just throw all your photos into a dropbox folder, and when you have connectivity they get uploaded and organized. A guy just told me the other day he wished he'd had this during his 5.5+-year sailing trip. http://ourdoings.com/sailingtripphotos/
Cederman-Haysom, T. and M. Brereton "A participatory design agenda for ubiquitous computing and multimodal interaction: a case study of dental practice", In Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference, Trento, Italy, August 2006. (http://www.itee.uq.edu.au/~tch/PDC06.pdf)

...although I suspect I will be more proud about my full thesis finally getting published, as well as a journal paper I'm currently working on in my spare time that further expands on the ideas.

Anyway, this was a paper that discussed a case-study of the type of design research I was doing with dentists. I was grappling with how to use qualitative design methods with engineers while building complex systems, and I think this paper was very representative of the issues faced. The reason I'm proud though is that it was very well received and helped other people "get" the problem and what I was proposing, and it really helped focus and finish my thesis.
I think they created a material that would be suitable for a chip of such density. The author seems to have take "with this you could" a little literally.
It is tough for geeks to be relentless about marketing. We're already outside our comfort zone even just beginning to market. Got any tips? I've been following Chris Brogan and get the idea of marketing being about empowering people, but I'm still in the market for advice.
RMS is not again commercial software http://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/selling.html
I loved early nokia phones, but they seriously can't compete with the iPhone. The nokia N800 etc sounded great but are pretty disappointing.

What a sad thing for them to resort to.
Wow, I should be a millionaire.

:)
Then one DS or Wii per child should do wonders.
I was talking about video playback, not rendering a static screen.
As do I. Most people with ADHD have considerable difficulty getting anything done. Before you summarily dismiss something as hyperbole, I'd suggest you research it thoroughly. I just finished reading The Davinci Method (http://www.davincimethod.com/) - He explains it much better than I ever could.
"The ten patents in suit relate to technologies fundamental to making devices which are compatible with one or more of the GSM, UMTS (3G WCDMA) and wireless LAN standards. The patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption and are infringed by all Apple iPhone models shipped since the iPhone was introduced in 2007"

Pretty clear to me. Encoding, data, security and encryption are all software issues, not hardware issues.
At least nobody is making movies and songs about Twitter. Endless references in popular media, yes. Songs and movies, no.

"Breaker, breaker, looks like we got ourselves a convoy."
Yea true, but I mean, just hearing him speak about that wurlitzer you can tell he just loves making music.
Science is just what we can't yet prove to be wrong through observation. In other words, what we believe about the universe is only true because it works within the limits of our observation. If we could observe better, we would find that what we believe is not true -- not perfectly true -- it's merely true enough.

This happens over and over again, yet people still believe science and theories are facts. They aren't really facts in the sense that they are perfect, they are facts in that there isn't something more perfect -- yet.

We thought the world was flat, then we observed orbits. We thought orbits were round, then we found ellipses. We thought gravity was constant.

You know, when I think about constants, I think they are really just a number we put in there to compensate for the range of realities that we can't measure. The gravitational constant isn't really a constant, it's part of the fluid and movable function that comprises the portion of the numbers we can't observe yet. There is a lot of change going on in there that we can't detect or believe to be wrong. That 9.8 meters per second squared actually changes while the objects are moving, yet 9.8 is good enough.

That's what science is: good enough.
He was notorious for beginning a multitude of projects, then dropping them when he got bored, a clear hallmark of ADD.

That sounds just like me and I'm quite sure I don't have ADD or anything similar. A=>B does not imply B=>A and all that.
Eh. Apple has continually played the patent game to the detriment of others. I don't feel any particular animosity towards Nokia for playing the same game with Apple. With any luck, this will be another example of why our patent system is flawed and needs to be revamped.
Google, Bing - Twitter as "a vehicle for directing ... to large audiences"
When we fake a smile, we smile with our lips but not our eyes. The Mona Lisa is doing the reverse: her eyes are smiling but her mouth is actually quite neutral.

There are also lines in her cheeks that make it look like her mouth curving upwards, but the lips are actually quite flat.

Try looking directly at her eyes, then down at her mouth. Her expression seems to morph.
"Does the expected payoff from the tiny equity share justify the insecurity / lower comp / lack of benefits etc.?" -- No. Ask any veteran of the valley (bonus points if they were around for both bubbles,) and they will tell you that the money isn't the reason to join a startup.
I don't think it's really about having a bad day or even a 'tough life' - just a feeling of something missing.

Check out the top few graphs of this page:
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/ar...

The theory there is a weak father figure in Steve Jobs' life (he was adopted) caused him to "form a unique view of things and be driven to find followers."

Sounds a little hocus-pocus maybe, but I think there's something to it.
I would be interested to see a follow up post after the honeymoon phase ends. I switched from WP to webby, loved it at first, but will be reverting soon. Static is faster, but php is fast enough for most blogs, and WP is full featured.
Actually all of those can be done at the hardware level, but I'm pretty sure that aint the way Apple is doing it, so yeah has to be software.
sent to communication.corp@nokia.com :

Dear Nokia,

For more than a decade I've been a loyal user of your products, pretty
much every year or so I would upgrade my phone to your latest model.

Today that comes to an end.

My reason is that I think that companies should compete on quality and
price, not to use software patents as a means of stifling competition.

Software Patents were a mistake when they were granted to begin with,
to see the proud company that Nokia once was stoop to the use of the
dirtiest weapons in business is really sad.

I realize that my voice hardly counts in issues like this, but I figured
that by letting you know, you are aware that there is another price attached
to this lawsuit.

best regards,

Jacques Mattheij
like? Not really. But at least I have a chance at spotting syntax errors by eye without the help of an editor.
After reading his stuff, it's pretty frustrating to realize how much society depends on this bogus punishment/reward system.
Why not use a hashtable with a linked list running through it (basically the python ordered dictionary class without the mapping). I believe ruby 1.9 uses these for its default hash type.
While I strongly disagree with this at best destructive, at worst childish use of our legal system, lets not forget that apple has been only too quick to use similar tactics whenever it suits them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/05/apple-sues-woolwort...

What do the say about those who live by the sword?
Launch HN: BitsyBox now available to the public
That's may be true.

But that does not give nokia a free pass to do this either.
Years ago, I ran a website for a handful of amateur writers and some of the stuff was really great. The crowing achievement was when I started seeing repeat hits from literary agencies in the logs and subscription requests from a few well known screen writers in the mailing list.

That's not really peer-review, but I thought it was great for a bunch of people who weren't / aren't writers by trade (almost all the writers were software people).
No thanks. That looks like a scam self-help book.
Hm, I was sure this was an even smaller version of busybox.
The release is not clear where the infringement is, but AFAIK the GSM compatibility is in the GSM modem.

I dont know if Apple is liable if the infringement is by the modem in the iPhone since Apple doesnt make the modem, they buy it from another company.
Launching this lawsuit at a point where Apple stock is at an all-time high might not be a coincidence.
Of course not. I was not indicating that those who drop projects have ADHD, I was simply indicating that it has been proven as a feature, if you will, in those who have been clinically diagnosed with ADHD.
Federal Bureau of Investigation - New E-Scams & Warnings
Nokia has always been fairly quick on the IP lawsuit trigger, I think. They sued one of my earlier companies (biofeedback and health monitoring in phones/PDAs, etc.) after we demonstrated the devices at a very small (<50 people, including startup teams) conference. They have ridiculously broad patents in the mobile area. And they have very ambitious plans.

Of course, they still have no device on the market that does what our devices could do, and probably never will. I hope Bilski changes some of the patent BS for the better.
Direct Ajax
It might be more accurate to say most of the failures were in the earlier days. The Soviets took a "launch early launch often" approach in the early '60s. The US failure rate was much higher then as well and the successes were relatively simpler things like flybys.
I'm investigating about this issue more, it could be very interesting to know how many tweets twitter itself is indexing currently to do a precise estimation.
That was a suit to defend their trademark. They just had to stop using the logo.

Nokia is suing Apple because they've been beaten at handsets and are losing money, and someone decided this was their best shot at getting back.
When has Apple sued another company for patent infringement (not including countersuits)?
Yes, well, you are the one that is working on a video codec, so you of all people should know that you can compress video for transmission across a link.

Of course you're not going to transmit that stuff at full framerate uncompressed, that would be pretty silly.
You could always start a new "who's hiring" thread!
The biggest gotcha that I see is restoring backups. According to the article, for that you need to have the actual long passphrase used internally, and not your regular password. So when you're in trouble you need to come up with a critical piece of information that you never use and probably don't know. That's going to bite more than a few people at a bad time.

Otherwise it looks excellent.
Dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=896838
Scott_s, I'm not sure how you can summarily dismiss something based on handful of people you know, without any real knowledge. If you don't want to check out the book, don't. There's plenty of the same info online. And the purpose of the entire article was just to point out that those who call ADHD a disorder is completely incorrect. And your argument is based on...your friends?
Software patents don't specifically patent software. They patent a machine implementation of an idea. The hardware you speak of needs some kind of control logic anyway. So it's covered either way.
Yes, it can be this, or it might be as well exactly what the press releases says. In other words, Apple is to arrogant to pay licensing fees for what other are already paying.

"Nokia has already successfully entered into license agreements including these patents with approximately 40 companies, including virtually all the leading mobile device vendors, allowing the industry to benefit from Nokia's innovation."
Doesn't Apple abuse patents too? In Job's original iPhone presentation, didn't he say something like "and we've patented the hell out of it"?

Unless you don't but Apple either, which makes sense.
That's really beyond the pale, and probably even worse than the subject of this article.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1206807/Swine-flu-ja...
No Iphones here.
HTML+CSS=POOP
insert in order inside a linked list is O(N), or I missed something? Maybe they are using some more advanced kind of linked list where it's possible to run a binary search (like skip lists or alike).
marknutter, please read this: http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
I think most of those patents actually concern hardware.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. Am I too pessimistic in thinking they're suing for a 'slice of the pie'?
I hate to tell you, but you can have some of the best of both worlds, as other commenters have pointed out: WP SuperCache (see http://ocaoimh.ie/wp-super-cache/ ) serves static pages. Unless you update 20+ times per day, it probably doesn't matter that the site takes a minute to rebuild after posting.
This is definitely worth a watch, even if you've heard Obie talk business before. He covers an expansive list of topics including current rates, equity put into Hashrocket, and some lessons learned from offering productized fixed bid offerings like 3-2-1 Launch.
A new technique identifies versions of the same song
I hate to be trendy when it comes to security, but home directory encryption makes "Evil Maid"-type attacks much easier. If I have 5 minutes with your laptop, I can replace/backdoor any system binaries you rely on and give the device back to you. It's much safer to encrypt everything, even after you know that someone crazy like Joanna can come by and backdoor your MBR.
http://theinvisiblethings.blogspot.com/2009/10/evil-maid-goe...
(that's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, sometimes seen as PNAS.)
Someone who knows when to use "whom".
New internetshow about hackers
An internetshow about hackers from germany. The genre i think is a bit of real life hacking comedian.
N900 could be interesting in this regard.
The simplest one is to detect if the Info.plist has been modified as indicated in the previous section

This doesn't work to detect piracy anymore. It hasn't for months.
Would you happen to have any links you can recommend to particularly good information about that system (in English)?
I wonder which patents Nokia wants to have access to.