skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Richard Hamming has a talk titled "You and Your Research", in which he discusses what sorts of things you should be working on. The summary is that you should be working on important problems. He then lists three of the most important problems that no one should actually work on, time travel, teleportation, and something else that I can't remember off the top of my head.

The thing Hamming understood, but which Bostrom, et al. don't is that sometimes even if something is extremely important or significant the lack of any reasonable approach to it makes it an unattractive thing to expend effort on. At least until a solution is more tractable.

Further, the idea that everyone dying is some great tragedy is only true in the philosophy Bostrom and others have adopted. It is one of massive egoism and human-centrism that I think is misplaced. These same people then reject any philosophies that lessen the devastation of death on the grounds that they are the fictions of lesser minds attempting to placate themselves over their impending death. But there is no objectively true philosophy. The whole point of philosophy is to invent a fiction that lets you cope with reality in a productive way.
Am not sure the only country in the world to use nuclear weapons in aggression and / or for political reasons has much clout in this area.

"we'll do what we want, you'll do as your told".

In some respects you're right, the leading war lords of the day do get to dictate to the lower players. Has always been the way, and probably always will. Doesn't make it right (or righteous) however those in power deem to "word" it.
Here's one for sale. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Commodore-65-64DX-C65-Engineering-Pr...
> but are there really people that want to argue it's wrong for the US to use its power to stop other countries from obtaining nuclear weapons?

Yes, when the USA shows favoritism.

A nation at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea has never signed the NPT, has nearly 300 warheads and in 1973 had some of those loaded on US-supplied F-4s about to launch the third-ever nuclear strike in history.

When will the USA do something about that?
Huh. I read your comment more as "you can be perceived as an expert in your trade and still suck at it." Groping a potential client's boobs is a clear sign of sucking at being a VC.
Anyone get the feeling that at this point, the NSA et al, have moved onto even more sophisticated attacks?
> I guess it's conceivable that some three-letter agency has hacked together some hard drive that can compromise a specific chipset

I was more thinking of Linux or Windows hardware driver level compromises, as a filesystem exploit requires that the drive in question is actively mounted and a protocol driver exploit pwns your system as soon as you attach the drive.

Combine a OSX, a Linux and a Windows exploit in the ATA protocol drivers and you have a cyberweapon capable of infecting even a forensic analysis system. And in contrast to USB, I don't believe that ATA and other low-level hardware protocol implementations in kernels get very much attention from developers.

Forensic imagers are pretty much standard equipment in any police lab, but I doubt that a normal investigator will disassemble a disk and do raw forensics on the disk platters... heh, if I were a guy with something to hide, I'd hack the firmware to either wipe the disk upon imaging or compromising the investigator's machine.
Wait, what?

"Piracy and cheating" isn't always a gateway to serious programming.

Exploring the software on your purchased devices can be a gateway to serious programming. What you call that process is subjective, but arguably not piracy and cheating.
"One such incident involved targeting participants at a scientific conference in Houston. Upon returning home, some of the participants received by mail a copy of the conference proceedings, together with a slideshow including various conference materials. The [compromised ?] CD-ROM used “autorun.inf” to execute an installer that began by attempting to escalate privileges using two known EQUATION group exploits."
Cool.
Combine this with pg's essay on the importance of importing the 'best and brightest' to America and some things start to make sense. More minds working where they can be aimed in the 'desirable' direction.
“UBER for NYC PARKING” Mobile APP. Looking for DEVELOPERS / Designers
I own a Patented mobile app company that will be the UBER for parking in NYC and similar cities globally. It monetizes the 3.5 Million street parking spots in NYC in the same way Uber monetized ride sharing, and it is patented.

We're looking for a Developer Cofounder possible CTO now that can help us complete it.

My partners now are:

NASA Sr Software Engineer David Grant

Delta Airlines CFA Eric Shapiro

Logistic and advisors
MIT University Professor Eran Ben Joseph

Ted Talks Economist Dan Ariely

and several others with General management and NYC Government.

We need an excellent Developer that's capable of building UBER. Our app implements all the same skills for parking (i.e. geo location, surge matching / pricing, aggregating data, etc). Most of the Backend is complete and we're planning for a 2015 Publicity campaign and NYC Launch, and VC funding round as soon as iOS and Android are complete.

If you or any developers that you know of might be interested in Co owning the next Uber please contact me. We've completed all the legal and government aspects, legislation and legal, patents and corporate affairs, and most of the backend, and I can show you all the business details and the apps so far. A highly skilled developer is the only thing that our team needs.

let me know. Thanks again!

Daniel Newman

getdanielnewman@gmail.com

www.twitter.com/DANIELNEWMAN
And here's a more complete one that just sold on eBay - for $22,000...

http://www.ebay.com/itm//171673209321
> On CNN the news was about terrorist attacks, wars, and a blizzard in the Northeast

Whenever I go to the US, I get to watch CNN at the airport (this time a couple of days ago, waiting in the immigration line). It strikes me that I always see images about war. The US are in a state of perpetual (defensive) war just as described by Orwell.
“UBER for NYC PARKING” Mobile APP. * Looking for DEVELOPERS / Designers 
I own a Patented mobile app company that will be the UBER for parking in NYC and similar cities globally. It monetizes the 3.5 Million street parking spots in NYC in the same way Uber monetized ride sharing, and it is patented.

We're looking for a Developer Cofounder possible CTO now that can help us complete it.

My partners now are:

NASA Sr Software Engineer David Grant

Delta Airlines CFA Eric Shapiro

Logistic and advisors
MIT University Professor Eran Ben Joseph

Ted Talks Economist Dan Ariely

and several others with General management and NYC Government.

We need an excellent Developer that's capable of building UBER. Our app implements all the same skills for parking (i.e. geo location, surge matching / pricing, aggregating data, etc). Most of the Backend is complete and we're planning for a 2015 Publicity campaign and NYC Launch, and VC funding round as soon as iOS and Android are complete.

If you or any developers that you know of might be interested in Co owning the next Uber please contact me. We've completed all the legal and government aspects, legislation and legal, patents and corporate affairs, and most of the backend, and I can show you all the business details and the apps so far. A highly skilled developer is the only thing that our team needs.

let me know. Thanks again!

Daniel Newman

getdanielnewman@gmail.com

www.twitter.com/DANIELNEWMAN
A) A publication.

B) Eternal fame.

C) Money. See https://www.eff.org/awards/coop

And, most importantly, it may advance mathematics.
Open source web application platform written in Python
Gotta love Mencken:

"The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-bye to the Bill of Rights."
Takeaway lesson #1: re-flash all HDDs/SSDs with verified vanilla firmware from original manufacturer.

Lesson #2: Beware any and all data media, CDs, DVDs (Netflix? Blockbuster? Hollywood screeners? ...?), USB drives.
Have you looked at modern BASICs?
Firmware also operates on an extremely basic level, it's not suffer the same usability/compatibility like normal end users software.
Europe loves to complain about the US but can't be arsed to actually do anything about it, they just keep electing leaders that do what the US says.
There's still a difference between finding the weakest link in a big chain and then attacking into it, and creating large amounts of features out of thin air. The latter is not any more difficult, but it requires one or two magnitudes more effort, which is almost impossible without a larger team. I'm thinking 2 people in a garage vs 30-60 people in an office building.
I'm going to have to agree with Hickey on that one. But then again, imagine the horror of dedicating years of your life to a language that turns out to be complete garbage.

I also think you need to take into consideration that the Norvig essay is dripping with hyperbole.
Its a little I Knox to say that when the U.S. is willing to break the laws of other countries when it suits them. Accessing EU data from the US is certainly illegal under that. The fact that the EU commission hasn't done anything about it is mother issue entirely.

I wont debate specifics of the letter of the law because I don't know them, but im not convinced you do either.
Correlation between startup location and success
I've found it to be pretty hit-and-miss. For example, it doesn't know where my house is, either, but it knows where my old apartment is (in the same town), and where the houses of several relatives are in other cities.

It's probably issues with OSM's data rather than the routing mechanism itself, however, so yeah, it should be possible to poke at it a bit and fix things up (as I likely will do, being no stranger to OSM editing myself).
I think optimizing while designing is totally appropriate. In fact you can make some of the most powerful optimizations at the design stage, with almost no additional effort required.

Should you go down a rabbit hole, spending hours optimizing something because you think it might help? No, of course not. To my reading, that is what the warning is about.

But when you're designing a system, especially one that you know needs to be fast, should your design be optimized from the ground up? Yes, in some cases at least. [1]

When I code, I choose to use languages (C++, Go, LuaJIT, JavaScript/Node) that allow me to write code that ends up faster. Some people will cite "premature optimization" based solely on that decision, and they'll write their code in Python, or PHP, or Perl, or Ruby. [2] Since my servers will handle 3000 user interactions per second with no caching, I still contend that this is an appropriate stage for optimization.

I've seen projects fail because the server requirements were too high: 100 concurrent users per Python-based server on a free-to-play game meant that if the app took off, it would be losing money because of the costs of running hundreds of servers. You can't just "optimize" the app if the problem is you need to rewrite it in a completely different language. Computer time in the cloud may seem cheaper than programmer time, but in practice if you pay the programmers up front to do it right, you can cut ongoing operating costs indefinitely. And sometimes that can mean the difference between a project that succeeds and one that fails.

[1] http://gamesfromwithin.com/data-oriented-design

[2] It looks like at least Ruby has a server that uses a similar strategy to Node or Nginx+LuaJIT: http://www.akitaonrails.com/2014/10/19/the-new-kid-on-the-bl... -- but Ruby and Rails are ugly for a million other reasons, in addition to being slow, so I still would shun it.
hmm. even snowden lives in russia now. hmm.

the sad side effect of the moral elite proving hollow is that those you may consider enemies might become allies. Despite everything there is little proof of malice at kaspersky while the same cant be said for many companies in the west.

If the FSB is funding research that brings unwanted transparency to the NSA, allowing us to better understand and criticize the US corporations and agencies compliment with them, then I welcome it. I doubt it is the case but if your fantasy turns out to be correct they would also deserve some poli sci props.
Moths' Long Tails Are Jammers for Bat Sonar
> Are you talking about being able to write A* and other algorithms from scratch with no reference material?

No, I mean knowing what algorithms/data-structures are available, what their characteristics are, and how to tweak them. This way you can say stuff like: with those data access patterns, we'll need a B+-tree with links for concurrency, modified to not delete depleted nodes until such-and-such. Or, something like: doing that efficiently requires an optimization that's NP-hard because the problem reduces to graph partitioning, but we can use an approximate solution that should work well-enough in this case.
A Catalog of Things That Are Definitely Not the Future of Electronics
In that case Hungary has the responsibility to end America's nuclear program, which threatens the safety of Hungarian citizens and the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_%28group%29
What would americans and especially the us government do if germans would bug every car they sell in the US? (this is a serious question)
The exact paper is here: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c13493.pdf but the PopSci blurb catches most of it (and it has a nice graphic).
Google gives developers more time to fix security flaws before revealing them
yes, really. Are you for equality or special treatment. I mean it. If you are for equality then demand that kids go to fathers in 50% divorce cases. Ask for 50% women military. Ask for obligatory paternity test when a child is born.

You don't like your double-standard hypocrisy when I turn the tables, do you?

EDIT: "demand" instead of "have"
But it seems unlikely that reducing the complexity will lead to more jobs, just better software at automating the task of making software so fewer people are needed to complete the job.
It's not even criminal to possess material, non-public information and trade on it. It's only illegal (at least in the United States) if the insider gives you the information in exchange for some tangible benefit, and then you trade on it.
Coder Factory wants to encourage more women to work in tech
Yup, it's hard to beat email for engagement. Maybe really well executed push notifications.
do we really need to encourage people to go into this line of work with language like this:

>A long list of almost superhuman technical feats illustrate Equation Group's extraordinary skill, painstaking work, and unlimited resources.

with the effort these people spend contributing next to zero value in the world (strongly negative value if you add up all the energy wasted on all sides including their 'enemies'; if all these sides spent the same resources on positive constructive research instead, we would be ahead). This genius could be applied to making a compiler/interpreter that just does what you're trying to do, regardless of whether you're a programmer.

it's a binary choice: have these people perform 'superhuman' feats of self-destruction and obfuscated encryption and finding zero-days....

... or give humanity the tools that every one of the seven billion people on it can instantiate any idea in seconds and have it actually be correctly interpreted and done.

Resources are spent tricking people so they don't notice something. Where are the resources being spent helping people do what they're trying to?

The example I always go to is: since the creation of the United States, how much inter-state (Iowa and Massachusetts) spying, warmaking, border control, etc, is wasted?

Could this have something to do with its performance over the last couple of centuries?

I think of these types of programs as 'welfare for geniuses'. give them an office and something to do.

but for God's sake, spit them out again. The optimal amount of state spying is, let's face it, much closer to zero than its current levels.

Spend on enough universal education that everyone shares values and nobody is destructive; put the rest into fundamental research and development.

I don't mind that the government exists to do research, employ people, and keep the world safe. But put some limits on it, and please don't encourage this with language like I quoted at the top.

humanity has better things to do with its time. nobody wants to live in a prison.
This works for a while, then freezes.
Targeting one firmware is very narrow. Targeting different firmwares from 12 different manufacturers has a pretty good chance of being successful on any give target, and that's what they are doing. They have to keep up as new hard drive models come out, but that's what they are being paid for.
And then you said about business not cosnumer. So to get your semantics confusion straight: you say that if you know that 70% of your cars are effectively bought on the consumer market because women like them -- it has no impact on your business purchasing decisions? Really? The same with housing.

And how is it? Complain that you don't make enough money when you already spent 70% of it? On the consumer market. Because in your world where 70% of money is spent on the consumer market has no impact what-so-ever on how the businesses spent their money or how they invest.

Don't pretend to be too dumb, some may believe it.
Even if it was the KGB instead of Kaspersky that discovered this it doesn't change the fact we put spyware into hardware firmware.
It does not, GCC compiles the example perfectly fine.
The difference between the NSA and German Intelligence is that the reach of NSA is larger than that of the BND. Other than that the BND also is not required to afford foreign nationals any privacy protections and is known to regularly intercept metadata in Germany. Unrestricted surveillance of foreign nationals is regulated in the G10-law, named after the article in the Grundgesetz it circumvents, but the BND has simply overreached its power and also collects data on German nationals. The control committees are also secret, just like the US FISA courts.

So before we get all high and mighty, we should probably clean up our own act here in Germany. Of course the G10 laws were dictated by the Military control committee, when they relinquished direct control in the 70s. For that reason it will be somewhat hard to simply change, especially because our interior ministers have had an unblemished record in support of more mass surveillance.
This is really cool. Initially from the photo I thought it was just a big FPGA emulating an 8086, but then I saw the chunky DIP chips on the other end.

The TP3465 SPI chip mentioned sounds useful — I've been building a single-board 6502 which is CPU bit-banging SPI at 1 MHz, and takes about a minute to fill a small 16-bit color screen. I've wanted to offload that to an SPI chip, but hadn't found any. The downside; the TP3465 chips are about $11 each on Mouser, and don't come in hand-solder-friendly packages.

I mostly came here to write that I'm puzzled by “reasons I shouldn’t need to explain” here, though:

> In terms of disclosure of what is inside this CPLD – [...] Its final design is now almost entirely VHDL. If there’s sufficient interest I’ll do a good diagram of it at some point, but for reasons I shouldn’t need to explain, I won’t be providing the full source for it just yet.

I could only guess, from most to least likely; (a) it contains proprietary IP that is being used without a license, (b) he considers it too messy to release, (c) he just doesn't want to, or (c) he wants to retain the ability to license his creation.
Looks like this thing has quite a ways to go before it's ready for primetime, but this fills in the last gap I needed filled in order to switch fully over to OSM as my day-to-day map site/software/data/etc. Pretty spiffy; just needs some kinks worked out with the underlying data (I think) ;)
How to Use CSS Inheritance with Bootstrap
I suggest volunteering. I'm quite social but I run a charity and I've noticed a lot of volunteers that are generally shy or introverted become more relaxed and pick up social skills over time as most conversations and interactions with the group are centred around tasks. It's easier to talk and over time, you get more used to trying out new things. Might not work for you but I would definitely recommend that. Also, try that with a small charity rather than a large one.
The epiphany for me came from a place -- all hard surfaces -- which installed canvas hangings from the ceiling. The width of the dining room (6-7 meters), at about 1.2 meter intervals, and about 0.5 meter wide.

With no other changes, the drop in reflected sound was stunning.

The owners removed them a year or two later, and the place became a constant din.
Exact duplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9059766
One of the key differences before and after prohibition was who controlled the sale of what booze.

Before prohibition, a majority of saloons were 'tied-houses', meaning they bought from a single brewery. (Part of this was due to the massive industrialization of brewing by a few highly successful companies) Fierce competition between local saloons ensued, and larger brewers would fight marketing and price wars against local competitors, driving them out of the market.

Their marketing and sales tactics also contributed to the abundance of 'social ills' that were part of the argument for prohibition in the first place. The Anti-Saloon League was actually the most powerful lobby for prohibition, beating out both the Women's Christian Temperance Union and Prohibition Party combined.

To combat the problems brought by saloon monopoloy, new legislation after prohibition required brewers to be separated from the retail operation by the requirement of wholesalers for distribution. Once brewers no longer had a monopoly on a given retailer, all earlier concepts of branding and marketing changed. No longer would you go to a 'Pabst saloon' (which was the only viable saloon in town), but instead just any local saloon, tavern or bar, and select one of the local brews.
To me under-employment is the "new normal" after dominant sectors requiring people to be present precisely at the same place at the same time (factories, retail) are lowering hiring numbers.

To think of it, it's quite everyday in many other (frequently high-paid) occupations. A dentist whose appointment book is not booked to the max or a CPA who has tons of business in March-April, but few billable hours in August, would technically be under-employed.
Chinese Bitcoin exchange Bter hacked, $1.75M in Bitcoin stolen
Doesn't work in Firefox 36.0 beta
I love Slack but if you can dish out some money - try Flowdock because you can tag conversations within streams! It's my favourite feature.
I'd welcome an alternate credible source which demonstrates an alternate conclusion.

Otherwise you're simply hand-waving (along with numerous others here).

I have substantiated the general conclusions with a number of other avenues of research. I suspect they're sound.