skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
While I agree with the general principle you're espousing, from a legal point of view, it's clearly possible to decide that the probability that someone "just happened" to factor a sufficiently large number is low enough to determine beyond reasonable doubt that they had some ulterior motive in doing so.
The point wasn't aimed at any one person. I've probably seen 50-75 speakers present this year, and lately I've heard the "I haven't prepared anything" declaration more than usual. Startup School was my last conference of the year so I felt now would be a good time to sum up the observation.

I thought all the talks at Startup School were excellent. I stayed for the whole conference - from pg's opener to Mark's closer. I learned a lot.
odesk or rentacoder?
Do you need ads on there right away? I think you should try to build up some readers and contributors first. When I see ads on a brand new site, I really question their motives.

It's fine to monetize your site, but wait as long as possible until you do.

The "Share/save" thing automatically popping up is really annoying. If I rest my mouse there for a second, it pops up and confuses the hell out of me and usually gets in the way of the video I'm trying to watch. Have your viewers click on it to bring it up.
That's a special case of a particular sort of Bayesian average.
If I may ask - which country?
Huh! learn something new everyday. From `ri Enumerable#inject`

> If you specify a symbol ... each element will be passed to the named method of _memo_

Also, the `sum = ` part isn't really needed either.

"Fore!"
It should cause you problems everywhere, because it means you're a bunch of douches.
"Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills."

priceless!
Amazon's PayPal-Killer Is Impressive, But Small Time
Found this through Google. The message is correct.

http://www.movable-type.co.uk/scripts/tea-block.html
I don't think it is so simple as that. In this thread many people are arguing something to the effect of "factoring numbers and posting it online is not illegal".

I tend to disagree. Not with the argument itself, but with the deception in covering the original issue with a much toned down one. The hacker who did this was not trying to innocently post the results of some factoring problem. He posted the results to a specific factoring problem. Then he posted an article titled "83+ OS signing key cracked!". Clearly he was not trying to just factor those numbers.

How Texas Instruments should have ideally reacted to these results is debatable, the fact remains that what the hacker did was not pure white.

How would you feel if somebody figures out your SSN and post it online? Is it just another mathematical truth that is allowed to flow freely through the universe?

Dear HN, everything cannot be explained by math.
Easy Version Control with Git
You also get a ton more registers, 64-bit registers, and other nice processor features.
It will be interesting. It's important to note the nature of our community and whom we expect to contribute. Generally, we're geared toward a more passionate user who we find to be more than willing to contribute at this level of granularity. So we've made the choice to cater toward their needs while still trying to remain accessible.

But, this is a good point, and I think an important one to consider when evaluating the mechanic that works best for your community/site.
If you're going to take the time to write blog posts like this one, make images, and market your site, what is spending a couple minutes signing up?

I feel more confident signing up and knowing I have a place to go where I can change settings, update content, delete comments, etc. With Posterous, I don't feel that confidence so I would tend to shy away from it and sign up with something like wordpress.com
Hey, thanks for taking the time to reply. I realize that my comment probably comes across as being quite personal, but it more reflects my frustration at the lack of insight into the Netflix Prize that exists in the blogosphere.

Here are some prime examples of people making lots of noise without any data or science to back it up:

http://anand.typepad.com/datawocky/2008/03/more-data-usual.h...

http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/08/netflix.php

There's actually very few people who have made genuine contributions toward winning the Netflix prize, as can be see in the winning team's final publications. They only list about a half-dozen key papers as references.

Anyways, I apologize for directing my comments specifically at you. I totally agree with your basic point, and this is a problem I've been spending a lot of time thinking about myself. My personal view is that explicit rating systems should be totally eliminated, in favor of using data gathered automatically, without asking the user to provide a subjective rating. I don't either have any evidence to prove that's better, mind you. :)
Create a "Related Twitter Posts" widget Flex
PuSH Bot Marries PubSubHubbub with XMPP
My last year of school was spent in a 35 foot travel trailer in Austin. After that I did think about trying to run a small web consulting company using a swarm of RVs to support the dev team. The idea being that we would just pick up and go wherever we wanted, not follow work - just move around.

One drawback that I remember was that when I was trying to study it was about half way between a car and and house. The noises from the street would come through and even strong winds would make it sway a bit. I'm the kind of person that needs to be able to block out everything to concentrate.

Now when I do the mental calculations about how long my funds would last my plan always includes buying a used RV first and foremost.

I really don't like the way that most RVs look on the inside. The interior decoration is targeted towards retired people. If IKEA would get into this I think it would be a game changer.
I'm wondering what your interpretation of the point of the article was. The intention was for it to be "don't copy the form without understanding the function."
Firebug for IE,Safari,Chrome & Opera
You're not the only one to have expressed this attitude but I find it strange. How long does it take you to write 140 characters or less? Also, unless people are actively following you you are not "spamming" them.

Your summary of what Twitter is good for is accurate as far as it goes but what you are missing is that, when they are timely and from interesting people, those small bits of information can be valuable.

I follow around 200 low-volume people on Twitter with similar interests to my own (machine learning, maths, stats, Clojure, ambient music). The number of times I have got useful advice and heads-up on recent articles, events and releases makes Twitter worthwhile the small attentional overhead I give it. On top of that, there is a nice sense of community that has built up over time.

Dismissing something based on its functionality alone without having used it means you won't experience the myriad ways people make use of that functionality. Emergent behaviour is powerful and difficult to predict.

"Computers? Sure, they're useful for quickly processing numbers represented in binary but it's not like they are designed for doing really complex things."
Valve's Published Papers
I'm not one to nitpick over spelling, but since it's your tag line, I thought I'd mention that "Its your university" should actually be "It's your university" - as in, "It is your university".

I mean, geez, what are they teaching in university these days anyway? ;)
In many places you can park one night in the Wal-Mart parking lots. In small towns you can see many people parking overnight. I don't know at what point they would start to mind.
Great suggestion - I've read some of their UI guidelines, but I'll have to check out more.

I don't know what the specific language you're referring to is, but I do imagine an issue with expressing "the main operation of the website or application" too prominently in something like a marketplace. Imagine if eBay or Amazon tried using a huge splash that took up the entire area above the fold to explain what they were about.

I guess you could argue that in a marketplace type of site, the "main operation of the website" is expressed through displaying all of the various items for sale; but that's not the type of design that would come from the thought process this article warns against. PS not saying that's what you're implying, just observing.
You have my sincere sympathies (and I have no clue what I would have done in your shoes; its one of those moments where clarity arrives in hindsight and self-kicking ensues and we've all been there) but you entered the spider's web as soon as you met with him outside of his office. He knew exactly what he was doing; you didn't.

Live and learn.

But lets be honest here: "Please check the legality of your proposed hiding of your proposal for our paying you to be our secret consultant and meanwhile I'll run this by my by the book partner"? (And I'm just a (sympathetic) fellow geek on HN; I'm trying to make a point regarding careless escalation of this matter beyond anonymous posts on HN ...)

It is imperative that you consult a lawyer regarding this matter even if you and your partner's intent is to simply drop the sale cold, walk away, and cut your loses; call the FBI; go on Oprah; whatever.

Get legal advice and mum's the word until you do.
As far as the "os" versus "os.path" question; this is hinted in the Python documentation for modules that "os.path" can be an alias of, such as "os.posixpath"; there, it recommends "import os" and then referring to "os.path". In other words, there's no need to "import os.path".
The battle is often over familiar vs. intuitive designs. Creating a new design paradigm that is intuitive is much more difficult that presenting a user with a design they are familiar with. Most web design seems to follow the path of least resistance. It also suffers from the question of is this graphic design, or is it interface? Real life metrics have stole the thunder of 'pretty' designs.
Voting/rating system without logins?
User registration is obviously a big hurdle which people like Posterous have done well avoiding.

For my site (BuyersVote.com) I let people do some things (like starting a new category) without registering, but to actually vote/rate items - I still haven't figured out a way to prevent abuse without people registering.

Has anyone been able to successfully do voting without logins?
Will do. I will say that I am not proud of my rather meek response and that guilt is a large part of why I posted here.

Thanks for your advice.
My only non-professional advice is do not in any way do business with the firm he works with until after the situation is dealt with. Even if you get the contract through normal channels, it could blow up in your face later if this guy was found out. Report it, and get a record of you reporting it. That way, if anything happens, you can pull out your record and say 'we already reported this'.

Also, assuming this is a US department, this site may be the way to go: http://www.gao.gov/fraudnet/fraudnet.htm

I'm not sure if it's how you report bribe solicitors, but if it isn't I'm sure there are similar government sites set up for that. Good luck. I don't envy your situation.
One of the words is halloween. How fitting.
'Not to mention the whole thing reeked of plasticy cheapness.'

Aren't Apple keyboards plastic too?
Wow. Just wow. I don't know what agency/department you're dealing with and I'm making an assumption that you're in the US.

Try searching for "fraud, waste, and abuse" and your agency's name in Google. If you're dealing with the DoD, try these folks:

http://www.dodig.mil/HOTLINE/fwacompl.htm

Not sure if this falls under FWA but if you talk to someone at the IG (Inspector General) office, they'll point you in the right direction.

The other option is to go to your boss and see how your company wants to handle this.
No boss. This is my company. Have a cofounder who knows.

Appreciate the links.
England and the United States have decided differently (england: yes, us: no) whether to allow copyright of lists of otherwise uncopyrightable information. The long term outcome has been a thought provoking natural experiment: the United States, with no such copyright allowance, has a thriving industry of competing databases of various kinds of publicly available information. The UK has no such thriving ecosystem. Or at least this was all according to a newspaper article a few years back. For all I know they may have since seen the light and banned copyright on databases.
Websolr is made by a friend of mine, and looks quite useful.
Oh, sorry, I don't check replies very often. It is much better to email me. But yeah, I could tell right away what language(s) you are coming from ^_^.

For readability, I usually take a single JSON parameter (which you can access the same way you already do w/ arguments obj). This works especially works well if you have inputs that require default assignments (b/c that assignment code can be cut down to ~4 lines).

I'm not looking that thoroughly through the code, but if you are making objects with shared methods, you might want to try defining some obj methods with your_object.prototype.function_name.

Toss me an email if you need/want more info ;-).
I've generalized that into a sign I keep in my offices: http://sargo.com/joel/_images/NO_META.pdf
Tell HN: Rochester, NY Meetup
I don't know who to hate for the repeated advice to talk to lawyers for anything half-legal.

Hey, when people ask legal questions, they have already considered seeing a lawyer.
We meet at RIT and this will be our third meeting. There will be a presentation on GPU programming with CUDA, and pizza! (as long as it lasts ;)

I made an announcement a few months ago, but school wasn't in session yet. So, if you're in school in the area come on by! If you need a ride to RIT drop a note to either me or on the Meetup page and we'll figure something out.
Why Don't Babies Talk Like Adults?
Inside Chernobyl's Sarcophagus
Is your company worth anything?
(Taking this comment seriously...) After spending time with Randall IRL, I'm convinced his feelings on the subject are genuinely empathetic.

That said, I don't think the comics are a particularly good expression of this. The male is always being rational-logical and the female intuitive-wholistic, which seems a bit sexist, even if the rational-logical character is always the butt of the joke.
Probably as soon as you stop buying supplies, or when other customers can't don't have parking spaces. They're private lots, so you could be there forever if they allow it.
We'd probably go with standard bike racks if biking was our only concern. It's not. We're also trying to draw people to local businesses in a town dominated by franchises. It might be gimmicky, but if it gets people to explore a little, it's worth it.
Let's outlaw corporate lobbying before we worry about some small-fry with a few-thousand dollar software contract.
Don't they ask for a SSN when you activate those cards these days?
Facebook is TIVO for friendships
I love the phrase "usefully short."
People take days off of work, spend hundreds on a conference ticket, travel for thousands of miles, and pay hefty rates for flights and hotels to come hear you speak, and you tell them you didn’t have time to prepare a talk? What’s cool about that?

But of course, the speaker takes days off of work, travels thousands of miles, and pays hefty rates for flights and hotels to come talk to you for free. I am not sure why anyone would expect excellence in that situation.
The FBI does not care if some low level bureaucrat at (say) the New York City Department of Education offered a pay-for-play deal. Better advice is to take five minutes to Google up the department which handles internal ethics issues in whichever organization it is and contact them. Granted, you don't go to the guy's supervisor.... but you also don't leap immediately to the feds.
way too much text. Users don't read[1].

--

[1] : http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000062....
I thought the outcome of CISC vs RISC battle has shown that best performance comes from simpler/faster CPUs with smarter software, not vice versa.
Putting up another 89 red balloons would be nice anti-war protest. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99_Luftballons :)

Also, making the contest more hostile would arguably be very ethical given that DARPA are funding it. It would presumably provide a better research outcome if the winning method had to deal with bad actors.

It wouldn't be ludicrous, because it would force your competitors to deal with the problem of fake balloon, presumably increasing your chances of winning (assuming you have some method for determining what is a real balloon and what is a fake one)
I agree. If the situation escalates to the point where you can't avoid legal action (e.g., your contact accuses you of doing something corrupt), it would be useful to have a paper trail for your side of the story.
What you currently have is a blog.

From reading your comments, you want to let uni folks open share stuff. I'd start with working at a grassroots level with people at a COUPLE of unis to make the site useful on those campuses.

I am against the idea of mass launching on a million campuses. My experience says it's a recipe for disaster.
You don't HAVE to use complicated words and sentences, you know. No one's impressed. No one sensible, anyway. Your content may be relevant or even valid but it's presented in an almost haughty lexicon.

Unless you're parodying something in which case WOOOSH
Petman, Slightly freaky walking robot prototype
Here's a good interview question: The required accuracy is 1 arc minute, which is approximately 1.86 kms. The area of the continental United States is approximately 8080464 sq. km.

How many entries do you need to submit to guarantee one will contain the correct answer?

Supplementary question for extra credit: Let the correct answer above be X. Suggest a solution for finding the earliest correct answer from 10X entries.

:)
So, if it is known someone will pay $X per photo with embedded GPS coordinates taken from under the ballon, then aren't we talking about how close to $4,000 a central gatherer is willing to go?
I've been trying to compose a response to this, describing a similar situation I was involved with. I just can't do it without saying more than is prudent. I was slow to catch on to what was going on but I did the right thing when I did and the guilty weren't punished. I don't mind talking more about it privately. The lesson I learned was that there are a lot of good, honest, and competent people around but there a few who aren't and I wish I hadn't wasted time and frustration with people who were willing to put up with that corrupt few. You've got a tough problem but it sounds like you have good judgment. I hope it works out well for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZxP0i9ah8E
Everyone just wants attention. At least xkcd puts some effort into it.

Everyone. just. wants. attention. It's that simple.

Invariably, unless I write this sentence, someone will accuse me of wanting attention; don't.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. They gave me some very useful perspective.
Financial failure? Firms to pay, not taxpayers
The weird thing about twitter is that I see a lot of people who e-mail (longer form writing) me after doing a tweet and their e-mail is a lot tighter even if it is over 140 characters.
Just because you don't see how it slows things down does not mean that it does not slow things down. The web in China is slower than the web in HK. Why? I don't know precisely because I don't have access to the GFW of course. Think of it as a funnel, the communication has to pass through the funnel so that the RST (or whatever) can be inserted. There's only so much BW in to and out of the funnel - so the traffic slows. The very fact the filtering happens must insert some delay.

Have you tried the web in China?
Deploy a few of your own, and burst a few of the original ones (after recoding the location!)
Really good advice - write a detailed account of what happened as soon as possible. Be VERY detailed.
17 inch laptop bag | 17 laptop backpack
I understand not wanting to share specifics. Thanks for sharing your experience, your good wishes and your offer of advice.

At this point I think I am done thinking about this for the day. If I come back to this I will definitely reply to your latest comment to ask for advice. (Wish HN had private messaging).
I run screaming from courses that cover mathematical background I don't have (e.g., machine learning because of linear algebra) because it's impossible to keep up without having terminology and definitions memorized.

Recently got annoyed with the overuse of math in http://www.eecs.umich.edu/courses/eecs461/lecture/Lecture8.p... . The lecture covers numerical integration in an embedded system. If you know dx/dt = f(x,u) (where u is the input), the completely obvious approximation by computer is to execute x += dt * f(x, u) at intervals of dt seconds. Said lecture takes ages to get to this point, unnecessarily puts things in matrices, and never puts the point so concisely. IMO, it's easy to use linear algebra to belabor simple points.
sounds like a modern version of the cottage programming story
I'm a little confused...why did he use base 36 instead of base 26? Aren't there only 26 letters we need to convert to numbers?
"This E*Trade commercial is only the latest proof of what comedians and movie directors have known for years: few things are as funny as a baby who talks like an adult ..."

Well, let's not carried away. It's cute in small dosages.

EDIT: Just came across this:

Get the Rest of the Article

with a link to pay to read the full article.
If you could get a list of IP addresses somehow, it would be handy to direct users straight to posts about their particular university (assuming they're accessing from on-campus). I couldn't see the university list on the iPhone - you might already be doing something like this.
Penny auction
Bid Musuem is one of the best online auction source. It is a new penny auction platform which afford to sell normally expensively priced luxury goods at such throw away prices.
Rote memorization is a problem in programming, too. Not to rag on PHP or Visual Basic, but people could get by with just memorizing certain keywords - or not solve hard problems by using a third-party plugin or googling for code snippets.

I hated my Automata and Functional Programming Language classes because I was forced to write out formal proofs to prove really obvious programs to be correct, or to demonstrate something arcane as the Turing machine. But it forced me to think about programming in a different light and find my own way to find the solution.

This reminds me to always to look under the hood of all of the web frameworks, data ORM's that I'm using and to improve my 3rd party libraries, in programming. Also in music, not to blindly play the scales or the tabs of popular music, but learn the different patterns, what makes a song tick, and composition. Also in sports, not just play or practice according to drills, but to analyze post-game what went right, what went wrong, and to apply it in future matches.
Viewing it on an iPhone, the ad also keeps auto-scrolling so that the close button is off-screen no matter what you do. There's a deep lesson in there somewhere...
Maybe you could leach off wifi that's around? http://hotspotr.com/wifi
The parent comment is a parody of self-important postmodernist "analysis". (Note that the scare quotes, or "scare quotes", around the word "'analysis'", are typical of our hegemonic, phallocentric culture.)
Please submit a few reproducible cases to the mailing list. I'm sure Ludo or I (or you) could even patch it quickly. Thanks!
Consider hex and base 64. Base 16 takes the first six letters from the alphabet to augment the number of available letters for representing a particular value.

I guess using base 26 would make sense from a strictly alphabetic standpoint, but we've conventionally included the numbers 0-9 as part of the available letters for representation.