skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Does the world really need more photo filter apps?

In nearly every case, and in all of the examples, these filters have degraded the images substantially. I guess some people might find these fun, but don't we already have enough photo filter apps?
You're in a position where you can improve your own job ... don't tolerate mediocrity in yourself, then don't tolerate it in your work products. There's nothing to say your employer would complain if things improved - in fact, it's likely you'll be able to point to an ROI on those improvements eventually. Most employers WILL notice when the money improves and will want to do more of whatever caused it.
Sounds like a cool idea - how does it work?
"Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or adding a parenthetical remark saying how great an article is. It's implicit in submitting something that you think it's important." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Surely even back in the technological dark ages of the 1700's it was possible for agents to make observations and report on "metadata"? After all, what about Paul Revere? So, I don't easily buy the flippant "times have changed" hand waiving.
The only way to meet Rand now is by reading her books.
Any views on the best R book ?
A Designer’s Sublime Text Setup
I really am not so sold on the idea of having to charge my umbrella...

I do wish you all the success though!
Much easier to learn to program and do bigger things today. Professional life (and life in general) is much better today than 25 years ago.

20 years ago:
- It was hard to find books on technical subjects.
- Computing time was so scarce you had crazy internal chargeback systems. (Though this is sort of coming full circle with AWS)
- You had to worry about every level of the stack to do the simplest things. (Weak abstraction)
- No meetups or other technically assisted socializing.
- In most cities if you wanted to grab a beer, the cost involved coming home smelling like smoke.
> Pay yourself a monthly amount and don't touch the rest.

This is exactly what I do. I used to not and it sucked. I would never ever go back.

I would also add the micro-tip that I set up not only separate accounts for business and personal, but separate accounts within person for "money I can blow" and "money to live on". My wife and I each have our own money-to-blow account which totally prevents arguments about wasteful purchases.
Google led me to BetterSnapTool: https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/bettersnaptool/id417375580?m...
Is this a problem people are willing to pay to solve? Is the fact that it's raining outside a good enough reminder not to lose your umbrella? Just curious.
This is a very confusing. I had to scroll all the way down the page to see actual photos of the umbrella.
What are the legal implications of participating in Freenet in the US?
How Hackers Can Silently Turn Your Mobile into a Stalking Machine
Ooohh. I hadn't seen that one. That's going to make things so much better for the accounting code.
Am I the only weirdo who just uses multiple workspaces with ctrl-arrow and cmd-tab like a mad man? I genuinely enjoy it, especially with a second monitor.

I, maybe, have one or two apps sharing a single workspace. Most apps are in full screen.
No browsers. Just a package manager and applications for different things.
But buying a product for a singular use and complicating it by including a singular app I have to install will only result in wasting people's time. Not to mention the fact umbrellas are pretty much a commodity. I'd encourage exploring the the general idea of attaching custom trackers to specific objects. Build out an IFTTT type app that tracks things on a selective basis. Backpacks on work days, umbrellas on rainy days, camera when you are going to the game, etc. The tracker tags should be customized for each use. The umbrella one attaches with a punch through pin and lock plate, for example.

Also, your general use statement is all wrong. The biggest problem with umbrellas isn't losing them, it's them getting destroyed by a gust of wind or simple, unrepairable mechanical failures. A better use statement would be "Never get caught again without your umbrella/backpack/camera/etc."
I'm confused: $1000-2000 days? Are you suggesting that there are "many of you" who pulled down ~250-500k USD per year back in the 80s/90s/00s? Which industry(ies)/career(s) are you referring to?
Making threats and backing off of them is NK's entire MO. They threaten to crush the imperialists and reunite Korea on pretty much a monthly basis. In fact, the entire threats and appeasement model is pretty much how they approach international relations. They developed nuclear weapons in order to get more international aid in exchange for halting their nuclear weapons program. They launch missiles over Japan to antagonize the west into thinking they're a big threat.

And the method of attack has been pretty well established: they somehow obtained access to the network (likely by buying stolen credentials off the black market) and used some 0-day exploits (also likely purchased off the black market) to gain access to core IT systems. They then figured out where the data was, hauled it off over a weekend, then pushed out malware over NetBIOS that wiped the PCs.

And it's not about being selfish: it's about North Korea improving their standing in the world political order through a show of force. Realpolitik is the way international politics works: morality and truth go out the window, and it's purely about who has power and the will to wield it. By staying in the news, NK is controlling the US media cycle in the same way that an invasion of Ukraine does. In fact, there's probably been more discussion of this hack than of the Ukraine conflict, so I'd say it accomplished its goal.
It's not for merely reproducing what's in front of the camera. It's an artistic tool for producing emotional effects.
More like Amazon's warehouse workers with constant countdown clocks, except on the open road. Which sounds like a potential hazard for other drivers.
I think the problem is clustering is still very much a duct-tape situation in postgresql with no real clear consensus on how to build out a cluster.

Postgres-XL looks great for scale out, but you need 4 independent types of servers. Even with all those moving parts, it doesn't provide availability. If you want fail-over, you need pacemaker for the data nodes with traditional sync replication, and something like VRRP for your balancer, and something else to failover the coordinator. Several of these pieces can be tricky to set up in a cloud provider.

BDR looks nice, but it looks like there could be lots of gotchas for consistency in there. Maybe it is a magic bullet though... I don't know much about it yet.

Contrast with something like rethinkdb, mysql-galera, cassandra, etc, you start up enough nodes for quorum, tell them about each other, and you're pretty much done. The clients can handle the balancing, or you can use a pooler/balancer.

In my perfect world, I'd install postgresql-awesome-cluster-edition on 3 nodes, add the 3 IPs (or turn on multicast discovery, if my env can support it), and away we go for read scalability and availability. I do this today for mysql-galera, and other than the fact it's mysql, it's awesome. For writes, if you add 4 or more nodes, there should be some sort of shard system like XL has.

That said, postgresql is still clearly the best SQL and even noSQL single node server out there, it's a really great piece of software.
The textbook "survivalist" (the term prior to prepper, see the literature going back to the 1970s) answer to this is to have one or more "retreats", places you can flee to. Such as relatives living in less populated places, where you can offer skills and manual labor to help out. Or a "vacation home" that's a bit more than that.

Sheltering in place can have its advantages, but if you're living in NYC, it's game over, you're not even allowed to effectively defend yourself (less than 60K each licenses to own handguns and long guns, numbers personally counted by myself after the lists were leaked).

In any big city it sounds marginal (in sizing ammo required, one of the best survivalist, Bruce Clayton, asked "How many firefights do you expect to survive?"), then again, it actually takes much less than you might think to keep people alive. Not very many tractor trailers filled with wheat and corn (e.g. "downshift" and feed people what we've been feeding animals), so of course all this depends on the shape of the disaster.
I thought so at first, too, but I think the music is a different piece about Boniface? "The scrap of music, which would have lasted no more than a few seconds"
Why you didn't go with one of the crowdfunding sites?
Six Clicks: From least to beast: The best Chromebooks
In the UK at least it's not difficult or expensive to register for VAT, but it is yet another barrier. Bear in mind that registering a company is trivial in the UK compared to some other countries.

I registered my small business for VAT voluntarily when I was bringing in much less than 81k since I found that larger companies wouldn't deal with me if I wasn't VAT registered. Since I already had an accountant and used software for my bookkeeping the effort and increase in costs was negligible.

What is difficult is charging a different VAT rate for every non-VAT registered individual in every country you sell to.
How to deploy application code from S3 using AWS CodeDeploy
Zoom Social Is the Best of Twitter and Foursquare Combined
I don't like the idea of animals being able to determine whether a person gets their 4th amendment right or not. Also getting "caught" with $350,000 is irksome but theres probably been enough comments on here about civil forfeiture lately.

EDIT: reason for my opinion: http://youtu.be/w-WMn_zHCVo?t=3m49s
Military history doesn't cover cyberwarfare. We're in uncharted territory here, and NK knows it wouldn't last long in a real war. So they want to get as close to war as they possibly can - classic brinksmanship tactics. But if the line is fuzzy and undefined, they're probably right to be cautious.
2014 Bot Traffic Report
Wouldn't it be lovely if we considered citizens of other countries to be (sorry to abuse the term) "first class citizens" w.r.t. what rules we apply to them / how we govern or limit ourselves when surveilling them?

We could hold ourselves to a higher standard, but we take the (without a doubt efficacious, but) low road.

Possibly impractical nowadays from a national security standpoint in the "you can't get there from here" sense, but lovely nonetheless.
I can't love this. It seems there is a flood of new products that allow you to track or remember them. This can't be sustainable in the long run, as each product uses it's own proprietary technology, that requires you to use a specific app. Fast-forward 5-10 years. Do I want 30 apps on my phone that track the various things I may or may not bring with me? Nope. That would be very annoying, indeed.
Curiously, it looks like Google's AOSP music app requests READ_PHONE_STATE but unless I'm missing something they don't use it - relying entirely on focus loss instead. Granted, I'm not sure anything actually uses this code now...

https://github.com/android/platform_packages_apps_music

http://androidxref.com/5.0.0_r2/xref/packages/apps/Music/
This is pretty much how I use my favorite tiling window manager on Linux: i3.[1]

There are occasions when tiling features come in handy, however (such as when you want to see more than one window at the same time).

[1] - http://i3wm.org/
Going to Flatiron was the best decision I ever made. Happy to answer any questions.
http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20141218p...
Freedom-loving laptop discovered how to make Intel CPUs boot witho closed firmware
Yes. Incredibly fun to read.
There are many seed (and other types of genetic material) banks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault

Is a famous one.
Is losing your umbrella a common problem?
It might very well support the behavior that I'm looking for (the trial doesn't seem to work so I can't tell for sure), but I don't see anything in the description about snapping to other windows. It sounds like you set some pre-defined snapping sizes/areas, and those are used. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
The pitch deck that helped us get an $865M valuation
2015: Personalization reaches newsrooms
or blocked by a politician who is merely showing concern for oppressed workers, small business, and of course for the children
I do this with trackpad swipes and a grid of desktops (using TotalSpaces2 currently). Each app or task has its "place". I've tried other stuff, but the spatial metaphor really works for me.
> A "budget" that encourages you to spend all of your money regardless of future income

This would only be true if you don't think at all about this month.

If someone says "I'm making no money this month, but I'm just gonna spend last month anyways" I don't think any budget is going to help them.

I appreciate your feedback, I just didn't think anyone would take "living on last month" to mean "spend all of your money, no thinking allowed".
RFC4627 §2.2 ¶1

> The names within an object SHOULD be unique.

RFC2119 §3

> [SHOULD], or the adjective "RECOMMENDED", mean that there may exist valid reasons in particular circumstances to ignore a particular item, but the full implications must be understood and carefully weighed before choosing a different course.

Not allowing duplicate keys in JSON objects is very close the exact opposite of a gotcha. Allowing and round-tripping them would be a gotcha.
I personally use Cinch, which is good enough for me: Maximise if I drag a window to the top, left/right half if I drag a window to the side.

http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/cinch/

So far I've never seen a tool which glued one window to the other though.
The simplest explanation: Implementation costs, as in what it takes to design internet based systems in order to connect with and make sales to consumers and businesses.

The grand dream has long been to have a set of standards which web browser designers and network infrastructure designers must design to. In reality, standards development and compliance has a lag time to it that brings frustration to those who need web sites for their business models. So, in all practicality, they will design and test for perhaps one, two, or three platforms - as popularity may guide - and make use of non-standard methods where standards-based methods are lacking.

Add to this what others have observed, that the typical user knows little to nothing about what a web browser is, or even cares to know.

Companies that manage to achieve popularity for their internet technologies - such as a web browser, among other things - tend to have stronger voices and more powerful influences on standards committees. That gives them a competitive edge in that they can push for a standard where their products are already or nearly compliant with, thereby forcing others to expend energy (cash + time) into whatever reverse engineering projects needed to comply. Alternatively, the stronger voices can also induce more heel-dragging.

In the meantime, companies that have the popular technologies - such as Microsoft, especially in the 1990's - can more easily make sales to the businesses requiring web sites, for either internet or intranet needs. And consumers find their internet surfing experience generally satisfying with the home computer as they got it (again, especially in the 1990's, that was MS Windows + Internet Explorer).

Microsoft was uniquely positioned for dominance. They made the most popular desktop OS, and equipped it with a ubiquitous web browser (for both Windows and Mac OS back then). They then also had the server technology, software development tools, and a "portal" to funnel consumers to advertisers and shopping sites. Basically, they were leveraging their software technology and market position to get into the same business that Netscape had just started. They succeeded tremendously, and basically squeezed out much of the competition, including Netscape.
It's cheaper and easier for me to just lose my umbrella and buy a new one if that happens than to pay $60 upfront
Does anyone know whether there's any chance i3 could be ported to OS X's native windowing system (whatever it's called) ?
You're confusing WhatsApp with snapchat, two totally different apps that have little in common aside from using the internet.

WhatsApp is free text and group-chat done right. Snapchat is ephemeral pics and recently they've added text and and video (also self deleting). It's possible that Google could've bought Honeywell but not at the price they paid for Nest ($3 Bil) but it would've been pointless, google isn't interested in getting into the low-grade thermostat market, they want to be part of the "collecting info about you from devices you put in your home" market, so even though nest's first product was a thermostat, that's just incidental in Google's overall plans for the company.
Mixpanel (YC S09) Raises $65M to Build Predictive Data Tech
Just make sure you stay current with the latest trends, technology, usability, target demographics for your space. Kids out of college and recent grads inherently have this because it is what they learned. So when putting two people side by side regardless of their metrics - looking at what they know. Far often the person who is in the know and up to date rather than complaisant will have the edge. (At least in my experience)
Good luck, I hope you find something that makes you happy.
I'm also a Flatiron Grad. :) ruby002. Definitely one of the best decisions of my life.
Boston Uber driver is accused in rape, kidnapping of customer
> I wonder if in refusing to show the movie, are the theaters really concerned about the physical threat, or the cyber threat?

More likely, they are concerned about the economic threat. It's a great excuse to not lose exibition rooms empty with a bad movie, and yet evade any kind punishment by Sony.
So it's like JavaScript...
This is at least partially because young people don't want to be DBAs.
Malware Attack Targeting Syrian ISIS Critics
That's actually a worry. I wonder if the NSA's reaction is not going to make backdoors mandatory. But in a way the genie is out of the bottle. Most of the crypting technologies are freely available and the US can't de-invent and de-distribute them.
Slightly more information at the site of St. John's College, Cambridge: http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/earliest-known-piece-polyphonic-mus...
The benefit and one reason for this new regulation is to enable digital download businesses to be able to compete wherever they are located within the EU. I used to run a digital download service for record companies and we had a serious disadvantage against Luxemburg registered companies like Apple since we had to add 25% VAT and they only had to add 15%.
"a single €0.99 sale in Estonia"

Would of course be done through a service. Maybe it's time for these "innovative" payment processor to actually be innovative and provide this service.

"£81,000 threshold applied to the new arrangement"

It can't apply to the new arrangement since you are now paying taxes in the customers country.

It seems that you would just either do your local sales as before and your international sales through a service or start two companies. That why you should be able to keep your threshold for domestic business. (Don't quote me on this though since I'm not in the UK)
This headline could've read: "Amazon relaunches Webvan".

Very interesting how ideas from the first bubble re: brick-and-mortar are coming back.
It depended... $1k days weren't terribly unusual back then, or now, if you have specific skill sets.
Completely agree. Like you, I have fortunate genes & much younger mindset.
Wow. This has focus follows mouse! (though they call it "mouse-follows-focus", for some reason)

I've been told focus follows mouse was impossible on OS X.
And yet slides without text are useless after the event.
Agreed, actually. None of that was an outright lie. I spoke impulsively.

It's a lie in the sense that it takes all the benefits out of the fact. The ACA will cost many people more money, especially if they were not paying for any health insurance to begin with, but it will also help many more than those that will have to pay more be healthier. Same with telecoms: regulating last-mile networks as a dumb pipe isn't going to magically take all the profits out of consumer internet service. Verizon has been using their utility privilege (public right of way and private property allowance) in rolling out FiOS since their regulated landline falls under Title II, but their broadband falls under Title I, yet both run over the exact same wire. Moreover, cellular voice was put under Title II in 1993 with forbearance from regulations that applied to landline service, and that industry is not struggling to keep it's doors open, nor is it encumbered from some draconian price cap. Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act already gives the FCC the capability to impose price caps on broadband providers to encourage network infrastructure growth as a means to an end, not as the end. The only harm that could come about from Title II to the carriers is the interconnect methods (peering), but when the FCC drafted reclassification in 2010, Section 251 was noticeably absent, and there has been no mention of that from the FCC since.
It's a few links deep into the article, but Rachel has also been compiling a list of companies that can deal with all of the VAT hassle for you. They'll take a percentage cut, but it could be worth it to not have to deal with bureaucracy & paperwork:

http://rachelandrew.github.io/eu-vat/third-parties.html
Not interested in job. Would love to hear and share some new strategies with peeps on HN; specifically, what do you guys think are the new opportunities for the new coming year.

Me personally, I think next year is going to be great. Vol should pick up with the Fed actually tapering and VIX returning to its real median of 16-20. So I think strategies that sell vol could be more effective. Here's a study on Quantopian for that: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=225532

I'm curious about how the rising interest rate will affect things such as gold and US treasuries; obviously, it should drive the yield/prices down as US dollar becomes more attractive. But specifically, how to pair trade it; here's some study on pair trading TLT and SPY: http://seekingalpha.com/article/2714185-the-spy-tlt-universa...

Finally, pair trading GDX and GLD; and also oil futures and oil refining/exploration companies. I'm not very familiar at all the dynamics there, I was told that the correlation of producer to spot is like an option being in the money, if oil or gold drops down or up to the threshold of break-even for producers; that changes the pricing dynamics of these companies. Anyways, let me know what you guys think. Thanks.
From Schneiers blog:
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/12/isis_cyberatt...
The main problem with these changes is that they require the seller to collect information about the buyer's location. It makes all the sense for physical goods, but it is nigh impossible for digital ones, and pretty much misses the whole point of online economy.

In my opinion, the VAT should be charged based on the delivery address; for digital goods, it would be ideal that all purchases are considered local, and the countries could have an option to introduce a separate "digital VAT rate" that would apply to such purchases.
Extracting My Data from the Microsoft Band
You realize it will be 2015 in two weeks right? 20 years ago it was 1995 computing time wasn't "scarce" the PC had already been around for 10+ years 20 years ago.
Good list. I missed a few of these and the Facebook interview with James Pearce was very eye opening for me. I kind of view Facebook as the enemy this showed a different view inside of Facebook.