skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Things the iPhone Worm Teaches Us About Mobile Security
Quadtrees are actually actively used for spatially indexing polygons (in shapefiles) by the OGR tools (part of the GDAL package) and MapServer. Quadtrees work quite well in MapServer because it's primary use case is as a read-only renderer of shapefiles. In this scenario, rebuilding the index from scratch each time you make a change is trivial.
There might well be things that people used to do that we don't even know they did. Obviously I can't give specific examples, but maybe something like a particular way of hunting animals? We wouldn't even know that we lost this technique because its so far removed from anything we need to do.
Is this an article from The Onion? I am trying to come up with a cute little one-liner that equals the "roll-eyes" level of this article, but nothing compares.
Sony to Offer Hit Movie on Internet TV, Then DVD
It looks very nice, but the only thing I'd say is that I'd hate to have to distribute YET ANOTHER username/password to everyone on staff, even for a small firm. It would be cool if there was something that could just use email or if it could integrate with LDAP, etc.
Dreams of Better Schools
X in (some small number) of lines of Y

This is generally an indicator that language_power(X) > language_power(Y)
This doesn't look especially "desperate" to me. They gave the guy "a deal". The article doesn't mention the price. It doesn't mention a pilot, let alone an order of six episodes. It says there's a writer, a co-writer, a producer, and a press release. That's all just paper, and precious little paper so far. The sunk cost of this for the network could literally range all the way down to: The cost of printing out that press release.

(Because, believe me, if you're an aspiring screenwriter and a studio calls and offers to read your spec script, put out a press release, introduce you to a producer whose name you've actually heard, and pay you as little as one nickel, you take that call. Because having a studio on the other end of a phone line may be all you need to get an agent, who will not only help you negotiate your way up to fifty whole bucks above union scale, but will also probably shop your next script or two around. Which is where the value is. Many aspiring screenwriters never get this far.)
So... he only wrote his stories so that his children could live off the royalties?
IPhone Carrier Unlock Ultrasn0w Updated To v 0.92
It occurs to me that it has now been ten years since I graduated from the math team, and that the existence of Facebook et al would make it remarkably easy to track how valuable being $OMITTED_FOR_APPEARANCE_OF_MODESTY is in terms of enhancing one's future career prospects.

If you were previously in a club like this, take a look around. Without compromising any other individual's privacy, "low-ranking Japanese salaryman" puts me in the top quartile in terms of pay among alumni from my year of math team. (That may sound like bragging, but only if you have a very poor understanding of what salaries for 27 year old salarymen look like.)

Speaking of which: what a social science researcher could do with Pig, string matching, and some decade old active Facebook accounts. Ooooh the possibilities. P(occupation: lawyer OR occupation: banker OR occupation: vice president | wasPreviously: math team) versus P(... | female AND graduatedCollege).
http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/community/news/sec/blog/fir...
testing is the only one of those that's remotely usable, and it gets frozen as soon as they start thinking about releasing -- etch was frozen for five months, lenny for seven. Sid / unstable is generally frozen whenever testing is, is still really laggardly normally, and is constantly broken anyway. I've never gotten anything useful done with Experimental.

At least volatile has been around for a few years, so people aren't fucked on tzdata and such because of bullshit policy, though I think it's still off by default.
Jailbroken iPhone Worm Found [Dangers of Jailbreak]… Rick Astley Photo
Gadgets and tech don't make people evil; they're just empowering the voyeurs and gossips along with everyone else. This all seems like much ado about nothing.
well you want "release early, release often", then you live with bugs

clearly ff should pay more attention to quality, but i don't want to go to an IE-like model of only updating the browser every 2.5 years...its likely this lagged release model coupled with microsoft's closed source that also results in fewer bug reports

opera in last is no shock, no one uses it

no one should be surprised that the two browsers with the most releases, access to source and the shortest development cycles have the most bugs...they also have the most features
This kind of article is just as annoying as the opposite extreme, the claim that the mainstream media is dead and good riddance.

There's such a culture clash right now between people raised in traditional media and publishing cultures and those who come from technology backgrounds, and neither side seems to appreciate the other.
FWIW, Kansas has an even more 'crazy' law. You can see the salary of every public employee:

http://www.kansas.gov/KanView/

Go to "Pay Rates By Job Title". It used to be only those above $100k, but was recently expanded to include everyone. I personally think it goes too far in including names. I could understand breaking it down by position, but giving names seems like a violation of privacy.
Automatic gates, Cast Iron gate, Cast Iron grills, Cast Iron garden chairs
Associated Steel Trading Company is the leading manufacturing company in making Grills and Gates.
Not necessarily. Someone understands it because someone wrote the compiler. And the compiler's source (in the case of gcc) is open for review, as are the specs for things like x86, SSE, etc.

When we get to the point that computers are designing computers, the creators of the evolutionary algorithms used don't necessarily understand the output that their creations are producing.

In terms of C programmers, the programmers themselves might not understand, but they have the ability to investigate if they want to, and the compiler designers at least understand the output of their creation. When evolutionary algorithms are used to design something, we can't always grasp why the output works, we just know that it does.
Rebuilt Car and Truck Engines
Autopartsfair.com supplies a wide variety of Nissan rebuild engines for cars and trucks. Buy standard quality used and marine engines and extend the life of your car or truck. For more details about rebuilt auto engines visit: http://www.autopartsfair.com/car_engines/.
But have you seriously thought about what a world without patents would look like?
Actually, you can. Visit China.

During the Industrial Revolution, the US was the world's cesspit of IP violation. Charles Dickens had to do his US book tours to promote _A Christmas Carol_ because it was so widely pirated, there was no hope of capturing all but a small sliver of profits from book sales. However, this ended up making Charles Dickens pretty well off.
IoSafe: A cheap waterproof, fireproof external hard drive
Here is one of those rare stories in hacker news where I can claim special expertise. But yeah, I am a patent lawyer, so everyone listen to me :)

I should point out that this case does not directly concern software patents. The patent at question is not a software patent but a business method patent. It was a patent for a commodity trading strategy that as claimed did not require a computer or software to execute (i.e., it could have been executed by a human without the aid of a computer).

Now why does everyone say that software patents are on trial? Well, many people, especially those that want to see software patents invalidated, hope that either (i) the supreme court will make an anti-patent ruling that is broad enough to cover software patents or (ii) even if they do not invalidate software patents, the supreme court will recite some kind of reasoning that will be used thereafter to attack software patents.

But any effect on software patents from this case will be indirect. The supreme court usually does not like to rule on things that are not properly in front of it. So their decision here will not stray from the matter at hand which is business method patents.

In my opinion, the supreme court should affirm the federal circuit in rejecting business method patents. I think it is common sense that patents should be limited to technology one way or another. But regarding to software -- I agree with pg that there really isn't anything special about software that is not applicable to hardware, and there is no reason to single software out. When people complain about software patents, they usually complain about obvious patents, and that is an issue sometimes. But the way to solve this is make sure the patent office applies the obviousness laws better and not by wholesale invalidation of all software patents.
The real question is how much would of a deal would you have to give WSJ to convince them to leave all of google's eyeballs behind? A bigger cut of a smaller pie is not necessarily a better deal.
Wow, that's amazingly useful for google results. Now I have to go back to Firefox, from Chrome.
Thanks for the feedback. I tweaked it a little. Hopefully it's easier to read now. =)
Can a Boy Wear a Skirt to School?
I looked through them all and found not the slightest bit of "quality". Not sure what you mean by "quality". Cheap, fake crap?

ED: Quit downmodding me and read the god damned things, people:

"When I used to live in Los Angeles, I used to step in human feces a lot."

It's absolute garbage. Raise your standards a bit. You only get one life and one brain.
Murdoch May Block Google Searches
"Surprisingly, it was intuitive and easy to input a street address using the minimal controls, all while stopped at traffic lights (the system doesn't allow input while the car is in motion)." (emphasis added)

I've never heard of this practice before. Is it common for cars with built in navigation to lock the controls while in motion?

Part of me thinks 'That's nice. People are less likely to crash' and part of me thinks 'If I ever get one like this, the first thing I'm gonna do is figure out how to disable the lock.'
WebKit has a dramatically faster development cycle than Firefox, much less Gecko itself. They also have a much larger and more diverse community of people hacking on and interfacing with the rendering engine, since it's actually palatable to link against without the XUL ball-and-chain.
Evolution in Two Minutes or Less video contest
The iPod is hardware; isn't this case about software patents?
I don't think the problem with software patents exists solely in the fundamental difference between hardware and software. I think the problem arises from a number of things including the number of software inventors (nearly every programmer at one time or another) and the abstract nature of software. These things tend to mean that inventions are far more likely to coinvented than copied in the world of software.

An enforcement of the level of nonobviousness needed in software patents to make them useful for society would just about ban them outright anyway.
The "only" is a false dichotomy - you can enjoy creating and wish for your work to benefit something after your death.

That said, the current copyright laws are pretty ridiculous. Creator's life + 10 years would be more than enough, I reckon, instead of life + 50 or whatever it is.
Shit My Dad Says is now more profitable than Twitter, despite being a flash in the pan sustained mostly by transient hype.
Well, the entire App Store release model seems to be designed explicitly for games and media content, and actually seems to be fairly decent in that regard (certainly better than any predecessors). As for Applications, especially those that interface with the Internet, it's fucking abysmal.
Well, Mac in general aren't marketed as being business-oriented (unless you're a design firm maybe). Why would Apple change things drastically for the iPhone?
Studies 'overstate species risks'
I hope this guy turns out to be a smashing success and inspires more quality content on Twitter.
Ask HN: How to find a short term programmer?
Hi

I'm wondering if anyone here knows a good way to find a programmer for a short term assignment (3 - 6 months) in India? The company I'm working is looking for someone to work on something.

If anyone here is interested I'll put a quick description of the job (apologies if this is taboo, if it is please let me know):

> C programmer

> 3 - 6 months

> Willing to live in India (back and forth between Chennai and Bangalore).

> Pretty good at math (able to take a model and translate it to code).

Edit: One more

> Working on taking a risk model created by some mathematicians and "coding it up."

Thanks
what are you the joke police?
Free market flawed, says survey
> SNES

Really? I would think that this would be controller limited. Any game that made full use of all the controller buttons might be difficult, especially on a touch-screen.
You can always try odesk.com.
For “new economics,” look to old economists
It's not about the car. the car is a signal for other quality of life factors.
European study: Even most sophisticated news readers can be manipulated
TIME FOR SOME STORIES: http://www.storylog.com/time-for-some-stories-davesecretary/
laut is confusing the value of the function with the cost of the algorithm. Short example...

Say a spool of wool has a market value of $5 and a sweater has a market value of $11. Marx's theory is that when you buy a sweater what you're really buying is a package containing:

1. a spool of wool
2. a single application of the wool -> sweater function.

He called 2 "socially necessary labor". The value of the labor function is therefore $11 - $5 = $6. It might take worker A an hour to perform the function and worker B three hours. The amount of labor performed by a given worker (the algorithm if you will) is totally irrelevant here. Socially necessary labor is an abstract concept and its value is determined by the market values of the inputs and outputs.

Marx would say that worker A should be making $6/hour and worker B should be making $2/hour. ie they're creating and selling a specific quantity of socially necessary labor. Since they only get paid $5 for the $6 worth of labor they create they're being exploited by the capitalist who controls their work lives.
nice design and clear product selling point especially in usability area.
Hopefully we also develop radical life extension so I can go :)
Yes, it's very common with built-in navigation systems that are standard or optional equipment on a model. I'm not sure about after-market systems that you happen to install in the dashboard, such as the JVC unit that is shown in the article (vs the portable ones that you mount on the windshield).

EDIT: Made the distinction between factory-installed units and after market systems.
Okay, got it on wsgi. You're right. Muuuuuuch better
Thanks.

Now another question. Why would they do this? Isn't it plausible that the passenger/navigator is trying to update their navigation settings?
There are reasons to oppose copyright but I don't think this is one of them.

Consider that "Last Lecture" professor, Randy Pausch. He spent some of his last days working on a book. Should the surviving family be denied proceeds? Should his author's advance have been much smaller?

That is; if you believe money is an important incentive for creators, you can't overly penalize people who expect to die before all the returns are in.

You're still free to believe that all copyright is bad, or given too long a term, of course.
Originally copyrights did not last the creators lifetime, yet people still created things.

Just because Asimov (may have) wished for his children to rake in money off the royalties of his works, doesn't necessarily mean that he (or they) are entitled to such a thing.
My war on SQL
Do you have any citation for that ? It is completely contrary with what I know of EU tax law.

An EU citizen buying abroad is responsible for paying the VAT (usually to customs), not the merchant, and if it is 'downloadable' then VAT only applies if the merchant is european.
Eclim: Eclipse + Vim
That's an edge-case. On the flip-side, if I create something on the day that I'm born, how long until it's out of copyright? Is that figure even a morally right length of time to keep something copyrighted?

Let's not even delve into the 'reverse-copyright extensions' that happen when they apply copyright extensions to works in the past that have already fallen into the public domain... How is pulling something that was created 50+ years ago (with the author dead and gone) back into copyright supposed to 'inspire the arts' in any way, shape or form.
Or perhaps start with something simple, like Arch's 'pacman'...
Plausible, but would probably be a minority of cases considering that most people drive alone in their vehicle.

Maybe they could set it so that weight on the passenger seat unlocks it?
Interesting. I stand amended.
Screw the war on anything, it is not a war.

If you don't want to use SQL fine, don't.

And if you run a site called 'financialcryptography.com' on a secure server make sure your certificates are up-to-date.
Almost makes me wonder what we're doing busting our ass writing software. </sarcasm>

I'm a little surprised at this - are they turning the blog into the idea for a show? Those 72 one liners would be burned up in as little as half a season (not that I even know how long that is because I don't watch TV).

That said, a sit com that had cankerous old farts in it is nothing new. "There's Something about Raymond", "Seinfield", ... jeez the list goes on.

Ok, I used to watch a lot of TV.
New empirical data for SEO and social media marketing strategies
2010 eBook readers: Guy Gear
It is not impossible for a creative person to profit without copyright. Cory Doctorow does just fine. It's possible to make more money by doing so.
These are all in Canadian Dollars, correct?

I'd imagine that this policy might put some strain on the HR department because professors would compare salaries.
A great outcome for a truly hilarious collection of tweets. I've always wondered whether the 'dad' was real, but I ultimately decided it didn't matter - the tweets are simply hilarious.
It's important to note, though, that a television crew typically also records what is happening without interfering.

Which is not to say that I disagree with his point, just that the intervene/record dilemma isn't exactly new.
Any ruling striking down the Bilski patent without placing new limits on software patents would be ineffectual, wouldn't it? Breyer alluded to business method patents filed in the form of "Do X, with/on a computer", but if those and purely mathematical software patents are made clearly invalid, then that would take care of most of the problematic software patents.
#2 was recently fixed (at least for me)

My problem is the gizmo5 client uses way more processing power than skype, enough that it doesn't work on my atom laptop.
>opera in last is no shock, no one uses it

Ahem, I use it. I'm actually surprised the count's so low, since I have minor but consistent issues with sites such as Facebook. Or perhaps those sorts of bugs aren't included (and I suppose it might be Facebook's fault, since O10 does pass Acid3).
Out of curiosity, why would you imagine that? cperciva's suggestion seems far more likely. I know he commented after you, but I'm still curious why you came to that conclusion.
You can also read directly at microsoft.com to get a fair and unbiased information about web browsers.

Is there aren't Google Chrome around?
The color shceme on Science Stack is the standard one Stack Exchange framework comes with.
Ooh that sounds like interesting work.. I'm not looking but I'd be interested in learning how to do this.

Any suggestions?
Hi novicecoder,

Looks like you're new here. Welcome, and thanks for sharing the story :)

Your comment here is on the story directly, even though you're addressing specific responses. Next time, please click on the 'reply' links right below the message you're replying to, and skip the @notation. Also, since there might be hundreds of people looking at what you write, try to avoid one-liners intended for one person, or generally any messages without interesting content. The rest of us will try to do the same :) Cheers!
OTOH, sometimes you get an alley-oop or an assist.
I was just thinking about the weight sensor. Still, I think that there's too much baby-sitting going on.
Every state has a requirement that an out-of-state entity that is "doing business" within its borders register with it as a foreign corporation (or LLC) as a pre-condition to transacting such business.

While the requirements vary from state-to-state, there is always some minimum threshhold that must be met, whether it consists of having a physical presence in the state, having employees in the state, accepting orders in the state, or anything else the state authorities consider a minimum threshhold.

Internet companies, like any other, must register in every state in which they are "doing business" in such a way as to meet the minimum threshhold for that state. Very often, they do not meet the threshhold requirements and thus do not need to register.

You are correct as well that these laws are not necessarily strictly enforced. The normal penalty for failing to register as a foreign corporation, for example, is that the entity cannot sue or defend itself from a lawsuit in the state until it does register. However, an entity can usually cure this problem by registering after-the-fact (and can then avail itself of the courts as needed). This system sometimes causes companies to be lax about doing such registrations even when they technically should do them.

That said, as a rough rule of thumb, most companies do not normally need to register in the various jurisdictions unless they have a physical presence there. Best practice is to consult with a knowledgeable lawyer on the issue to make sure.
With regards to pricing: I think you may want to simplify that. In particular, from the perspective of an organization with 20 employees, there is no difference between an HR expenditure of $20 per month and $100 per month. $80 is rounding error on a single employee's overtime pay. (Seriously. Compare the cost of your system to, e.g., payroll systems.) However, you have four plans which attempt to make distinctions between non-distinct things.

Assuming you're in the right range on current pricing, I'd be thinking more along the lines of:

Free for 3

$20 for 10

$100 for 100

CALL for more

Now you only have to administer three options, and if you convert anybody with 20 employees you win much bigger.

Note the CALL option. There is an awful lot to be said for the CALL option in enterprise sales. Realistically speaking, price is not going to be what prevents your solution from being adopted at large corporations. However, and this might be a bit of a shocker for you, they might not deal with variable pricing that well. (It is easier to get my boss to sign off on 2 * $X,000 per year than to sign off on twelve payments which will average out to $X,000 per year. Think of how much extra work that makes for him in working the company bureaucracy. First he has to attach a projection. Then he has to document how he made the projection. Then he'll remember "Oh, shucks, if this ever materially changes I'm going to have to update the projection, but updating projections doesn't bring in my projects or get me my next promotion.")

Incidentally: you list a bunch of features, not benefits, on the front page. Nobody, not even HR drones, wakes up in the morning and says "You know what I want to do today? Create office holiday schedules!" Let me hum a few bars: decrease costs, increase compliance with company policies, reduce workplace conflicts stemming from miscommunication about leave.
You Will Eat That Oreo: The Empathy Gap and Restraint Bias