skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The Oracle v. Google copyright case hinged on two things. The first was about the copyrightability of APIs (in legal jargon, "structure, sequence and organization"). The second was a function called rangeCheck, which was:

private static void rangeCheck(int arrayLen, int fromIndex, int toIndex {
if (fromIndex > toIndex)
throw new IllegalArgumentException("fromIndex(" + fromIndex +
") > toIndex(" + toIndex+")");
if (fromIndex < 0)
throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(fromIndex);
if (toIndex > arrayLen)
throw new ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException(toIndex);
}

The function is obviously trivial, is something which could be pretty easily recalled exactly from memory, and could be easily recreated by accident; given the constraints on what it's supposed to do, there aren't many degrees of freedom. At the district court level, Judge Alsup ruled that copying of this function was "de minimis". At the Federal Circuit level, Justices O'Malley, Plager and Taranto overturned this part of the district court ruling (https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/US_Court_of_Appeals_Federa...).

On the issue of "structure, sequence, and organization", Google copied the class and method names from Java, so that their reimplementation of Java, Dalvik, would be interoperable with existing Java programs and Java programmers' habits. Judge Alsup ruled that is a "command structure, a system or method of operation" and not copyrightable 17 USC 102(b) (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/102) (http://www.groklaw.net/pdf3/OraGoogle-1202.pdf). This, too, was overturned by the district court.

There is a fairly key difference here between Judge Alsup and the District judges. Part-way through the trial, Alsup revealed that he has actually programmed; that he understood what was going on, and would not be easily fooled. At the time, this being revealed was a dramatic event.

The District judges, however, hold no such distinction. It is no surprise, then, that it was them, and not Alsup, who made a ruling that to actual programmers is prima facie unreasonable and dangerous. They are outsiders. If you read their opinion (https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/US_Court_of_Appeals_Federa...) you can see little errors in terminology creep in to reveal their lack of background and understanding. And, lacking that understanding, I don't see how they can be seen as having moral authority. They only have legal authority, and the ability to do damage with it.
I think it's misleading to say there's no concept of Don't Repeat Yourself. Precedent is the concept that's supposed to do that.

Software has layers of conflicting code too, but you wouldn't say software engineering doesn't have the concept.
I'm disappointed if only because the oral argument for a case like this may have been fascinating - what do the supreme court justices have to say about things computer science? It might turn out like the violent video game ban case from a few years back, when Justice Kagan quipped that she (or rather, he clerks) were familiar with games such as Mortal Kombat. Perhaps she, or her clerks, may also have some experience with Java?
Now you're thinking on the right lines! All of that should be fine. Didn't think about using USB for power: just had a strip in the design. Will have to think on it. Standardizing on Linux/BSD is wise, too, as it lets us easily adapt it to new software applications.

And, in case I forgot, you can modify this architecture for voice or video but will need to replace serial cable with higher bandwidth line. Risk starts to go up there. You either need a real data diode or must physically modify Ethernet/Fiber cables and/or cards to do one-way transmission. Might take custom, microcontroller board to be sure it's done right.

It's a bigger project to say the least. There's examples online but the security is debatable. That's why the defense sector builds and certifies the big guns [1]. That it takes them that much hardware & they mention TEMPEST hints at how much work goes into this one, tiny problem.

[1] http://www.nexor.com/sites/default/files/Nexor%20Datasheet%2...
The context is important. France happens to have a very influential taxi monopoly headquartered in Paris. The broad lines have been sketched by a recent Nouvel Obs article [1].

Amongst other things, the former head of the French FBI is now chairman of one of the group's taxi companies, right after he delivered an internal government report skewering taxi competitors (and that was probably just the tip of the iceberg). No new licenses were given in Paris between 1990 and 2002 despite a 49% increase in airport passenger traffic and 17% increase in population.

The system itself is designed to maximise revenue; for example, taxis will not be allocated on the basis of proximity to the customer, but on the basis of which has waited longest, time that (according to the Nouvel Obs anyway - I haven't taken a taxi in Paris in ages) is charged to the customer immediately. Drivers pay a fortune to the company and often work 7-day weeks to make ends meet as a result. This, by the way, is why drivers on call in Paris will often refuse to drive you if your destination is too close.

Uber's strategy was simple, to gain so much popularity as to make it extremely expensive for the lobbying effort to continue. Rule of law? Personally, I do not think that people buying themselves favorable laws should be legal and defendable. For both executives to be on police watch when they are clearly not a flight risk is a sign that the monopoly is well connected and has obtained favour with the government.

[1] edit: link is now offline, Web Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20150317180809/http://tempsreel....
PartsBox, https://partsbox.io/ — but the app itself isn't public yet, it's in a private beta for now.
Perhaps some wisely chosen (i.e. clear) SVGs - either inline or as part of an icon font - could be used instead?
Interesting. I read French articles that claim two drivers were arrested, not managers. http://www.europe1.fr/faits-divers/uberpop-deux-chauffeurs-e...
Yes! There are tons of accidentally-uploaded profiles on github, for instance. Search for the readme string and you'll see a number of very dangerous commits.
The inconsistency part makes sense, I guess I just never thought it was a big deal. If you're going to use WillMount, it's either going to be with reify (Om) or meta (Reagent). Doesn't seem like an important distinction to me, but obviously it is to some people. And that's totally legitimate.
Mass surveillance can probably be turned into mass MITM. As tptacek said, intercept mail, alter link to point to attacker-owned server or account, proxy messages via the original link. An intermediate Rails developer could put it together with a couple of gems.
Were any expert witnesses called?
You're right that no company should eff with your ears indeed, but You may want to see an ENT doctor for your hearing. That's a little concerning and will only get worse(and not just because of age).
How is that different from what's being done now? There is a standardized way of determining when leap seconds are going to happen (they always happen on June 30th or December 31st when the deviation reaches about 0.6s), there is an authority that determines and announces it (the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service) and it is, in fact, done by causing the last minute on the day in question to have 61 seconds instead of the usual 60.

The complication is just that there are a whole lot of systems out there that assume that every minute has exactly 60 seconds with no exceptions, so you end up with crazy workarounds like smearing to hide that 61st second from such systems.
For the same reason it supports choosing permissive licenses like BSD in some instances. I.e., it advances the ideals of free software better than if you were to take the opposite stance.
I once went to a talk by Wolfram to an audience of academics which he finished by saying that if he managed to find the theory of everything (which he seemed to think was a possibility), he probably wouldn't bother telling people, since theoretical physicists wouldn't understand it.
It's true that it isn't that easy to discover new libraries, especially as there seem to be lots of them popping up. You generally hear about these things from the community (which is great, btw!), or public talks. Nikita Prokopov is a brand by now, so I tend to watch his work closely.
A Simple, Foolproof Formula for Rapid Blog Growth
Isn't this the lesson about the `disruption` trend we've seen in the previous years. Everybody comes with a cheaper idea, that is actually just doing less while we forgot how much was done in what we thought was too high priced. Saying that after reviewing all that major Airplanes (vs RyanAir) gave you in a flight, food, blankets, gifts, music with weirdly shaped earphones, special magazines... of course we don't use it all the time, but the fact that it is ensured is what makes the cost.

It's not as sensitive as riding in a stranger car with no information about him whatsoever. But the basic idea is the same: we have to be honest and take in account the whole system when comparing.
It's an easy anti-spam measure for sure, but there's no reason you (as the user) shouldn't have a checkbox allowing you to remove this limitation. Otherwise it's not a full internet access.
I'm also dusting off my pi after being 2 years stopped, I used it for some bitcoin mining as well... =) Now I want to use it as a 24/7 node app, with remote access w/o opening any of my home router ports, and found this article really interesting...
"Instead, as citizens, we should look at the regulations we have and ask if they still serve to protect people as they once did, or if they now exist to protect political and business interests."

Those are grand words for defending a taxi company that uses an app with driver + passenger ratings as basis for arguing that it is not a taxi company and that it shouldn't need to employ actual drivers.

Are you sure you didn't think about copyright law or investor state settlements laws when you wrote your comment?
And less dead poor people! But we don't care about those. Your hipster sugar is more important.
I want to know if the code will be available for auditing.

Also, if these devices can be blocked by spam blocklists, then there should be some way to use a vpn to handle this.
"Instead, as citizens, we should look at the regulations we have and ask if they still serve to protect people as they once did, or if they now exist to protect political and business interests"

Answer: No. Not at all.

Now what? Vote everybody out because they didn't let Uber/Lyft into my city? Cool. Then what? Shall every 4 years I vote everyone out of office to solve my one or two top issues? Great. I can now change things I don't like at a rate of less than one thing per year. Maybe a full issue per year if I'm super lucky.
Good. You don't get to just pay a fine and ignore the law because you've got the money. Would that the US followed this example and started sentencing flagrant lawbreakers to jail time.
http://imgur.com/LyBeaxw
It wasn't entirely clear to me which base the logarithm is supposed to be taken, here.
> Not a linguist but a writer here who loves language.

You're probably demonstrating this on purpose: your very first sentence is itself an example of dropping a pronoun + verb.
Programming bootcamp hiring full-stack Python/Django instructor in NYC
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Samsung Exynos 7420 Deep Dive – Inside a Modern 14nm SoC
(I moved into a "private" fishbowl office after I raised a fuss about this)

I've worked in an open floorplan with 3,15 and 20 people. Each one brings its own set of challenges. Team 3-person was easy. We were all introverts, didn't talk to each other (Yay Hipchat). Team 20 was easy. There were actually several different subgroups in there, so we didn't really talk past our small (2-3 in my case) team, and it was a large enough space that conversations carried, but weren't annoying (Most days).

It wasn't until I worked with the 15 that I legitimately wanted a private office. What changed? The new place plays music in the entire office. Even with the door closed, and my laptop playing some extremely loud white noise (I can't stand headphones for more than 2-3 hours), I can still hear the music that is playing outside my door. Also, phones. Desk phones. Everyone has one. Constantly ringing. So annoying.

In my experience of 3 companies, the types of companies that are going to go and have an open floorplan without talking to their team about it first, are the kind that will play music and distract everyone.

Edit: Added desk phones + commentary on the other 2 companies.
I'd say the degree of testing depends on the domain. Facebook in its early days could probably afford to drop a some data on the floor. Boeing and its subcontractors can't simply can't screw up flight software (or this happens: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Seville_A400M_crash). In-between, we're seeing a lot of Bitcoin and other sorts of handling money associated firms discover that "move fast and break things" can result rather quickly in a broken firm.
Transportation being cheaper and more efficient means people save time and save money. Uber has also allowed hundreds of thousands of people with an income source.
_That_ is a convincing argument to me.

"Actually compete with existing taxis"

They are competing, Uber is doing 3-5x more rides in SF than the taxis as a whole were doing before Uber. That's without including Lyft. So they're expanding the market, meaning more people can afford to pay for transportation.
Economists have a term "economic imperialism" which means applying economics outside its traditional domains - in areas such as economic analysis of law or say family relations. I think you've just suggested "software imperialism"...

However, while it's an interesting idea, how about we deal with the ambiguities of things like programming languages (this program runs differently in these two different environments) and computer programs in general ("things stopped working after the update" - that wouldn't happen if programs depended on a formally defined and verified set of things from their environment)? And maybe tackle more complex things like precisely defining the line between flirting and sexual harassment later?
Show HN: Shotsgram – Dribbble Client – Get Inspired
First of all, the OP was making a general point about the best way to go about challenging existing laws. Since the point is general, a counter example suffice, even if it differs from the specifics of the situation being discussed. If those specifics make a difference in the OP's point, the onus of outlining why they make a difference is on the OP. This is how logical reasoning works, but every. single. time. someone points out a counter example to a general statement, there is someone like who who comes and moves the goalpost by saying "oh yeah, because X is like Y", and we're all worse off because of this lack of debating etiquette.

Second, you would be wrong to trivialize the importance of expanding the offering in cabs. Uber will go into neighborhood where Taxis don't, they can also be substantially cheaper depending on the city and the specifics. Having access to a ride late at night can mean the difference between being raped or not raped for many people living in high crime neighborhood. In addition, Uber provides a livelihood for a large number of drivers. The taxis that it compete are generally renting their license from a large company who is collecting the monopoly rent.
It used to be possible to run your own SMTP server, inbound and outbound, from home. This was so badly abused by spam that port 25 is blocked almost everywhere.

Domestic systems tend to be in configurations that make it hard to accept inbound TCP connections. You could serve SSL on a random port and open a port using UPNP, and it will work most of the time.

It's a difficult circle to square. The most trustworthy system is one you administer yourself and manually inspect all updates, but in practice the amount of work required makes that almost impossible. If you allow the OEM to do updates they can compromise you. If you don't do updates you end up vulnerable to exploits.

The "send a reference to the message not the message" technique was part of DJB's "internet mail 2000" proposal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Mail_2000
It's not that you don't have to know or worry about groundbreaking projects like Zing, but that they don't exist. The resources put into advancing the Erlang ecosystem are a tiny fraction of those put into the JVM ecosystem, and it shows.

You say BEAM "just works", but it "just works" if you can put up with its non-stellar performance or happen to play directly to its strengths. Any technology just works if you happen to need exactly what it provides. Java and the JVM, however, like the Linux kernel, are a huge project with vast resources, wide reach and very wide applicability from small embedded devices to mainframes. So, naturally, there are a lot of things to choose from, but you are guaranteed to find one that suits your need -- no matter what it is.

Too many Erlang projects start out thinking Erlang is good enough, and then find that they need to write more and more of their code in C. This just cannot happen with the JVM. Not that it's appropriate for everything (it's bad for command-line utilities and Java SE is inappropriate for constrained environments), but it's much harder to miss. You don't need to know or worry about Zing unless you need what it provides (worst-case latency of under 50us); similarly for other tens of thousands of JVM libraries and tools. All you need to know is that you can find a high-quality implementation of whatever you might need down the line.

As for Zing's source code: Zing is proprietary, but as the JVM ecosystem is so big, there's a similar open-source attempt by Red Hat and intended to go into OpenJDK called Shenandoah[1]. Its code is here: http://icedtea.classpath.org/hg/jdk9-shenandoah/hotspot/

[1]: http://openjdk.java.net/jeps/189
Interesting article, but worth noting that it was written well before Oracle's successful appeal.
Millennial Sentiment Trending More Positively About Purchasing Homes
It's not very realistic to write off Blair's record as "childish name calling."

We're still waiting for the Chilcot report, but the US side has more or less admitted that the pretexts for the Iraq war were made up nonsense.

At least half a million people died in that war, and the results for the region were catastrophic - although very profitable for certain contractors.

I'm not quite sure what else you need to describe someone as a war criminal. But it's not just my opinion: it's a sentiment that's been voiced in the House of Lords.

As for Thatcher - charisma hardly maps to competence, and many of Thatcher's protectees and associates were - let's say - questionable company for a moral leader, with some extremely unsavoury hobbies that are being investigated by the police. This hardly speaks well of her judgement or character.

The Daily Mirror has very limited political influence, and last time I looked there was no one from the Mirror in the Cabinet running Communications for No 10 - until they were tried and jailed.

It would be interesting to find out exactly how and where phone hacking started. I suspect it wasn't invented by the Mirror. Naturally I can't prove that. But I do know that as far back as 1994 journalists from another newspaper were handing out illegal addictive drugs in return for tip-offs. So phone hacking is just the tip of the iceberg.

And Johann Hari actually wrote for the Indie, not the Guardian.

Considering the Mail regularly "repurposes" content from the entire web without attribution, accusing him of being the worst journalist ever is slightly hyperbolic - although to be fair the Mail does usually try to rewrite the content at least a little, which makes it okay, I guess.
If you're concerned about privacy, it seems the best method is still to cut-and-paste encrypted envelope into regular mail client to avoid possible vulnerabilities, both physical and software. The obvious problem with a self-hosted server that you order from a company is that it can be intercepted or otherwise compromised before it arrives at your home. Thus it is potentially even more vulnerable than just pasting GPG encrypted message directly into gmail client.
Creating an object and creating a closure both need to allocate memory in the VM, but the closure doesn't need to expose its internals the way an object does and therefore can be further optimized by the runtime.

If you need to write performance critical JavaScript, then allocating new objects will be just as slow as creating new closures. In either cases you should allocate them ahead of time and then closures are still the clear winner.
Ah, but then you'd lose the explanations for why each scenario is not appropriate to work for free in.
A House Only a Dalmation Could Love :)
Comparison of C/Posix standard library implementations
I admit, I've never gotten this from total strangers. That would be a very strange experience and I'd probably make a joke about it, as you describe. Relatives have occasionally asked me for computer help but those questions have typically been very specific, time-and-effort-bound, and nobody expected me to deliver on a follow-on "service contract".
Once the attacker has the username, password and access to the computer, the game is already over. I can't see how adding anything on top is nothing but smoke and mirrors.
3DO came out with a multimedia machine that played music CDs, photo CDs, could play video CDs with a daughter board. The original 3DO player was released in 1993 making it the first non cartridge video game player by several years.

The M2 was being designed and prototypes built in 1995-1996. M2 featured a dual core powerpc and was designed to ship with a DVD player making it truly the next generation player. The plans to the device were sold to Matsushita, they demoed it at E3 in 1996 but failed to bring it to market.

3DO suffered a lot of the same troubles as Nuon except about 5 years earlier. 3DO went out of the hardware business in 1996 but continued publishing some very successful and revolutionary game titles before finally going out of business completely in 2003.

Point being this has all happened before, and it will happen again.
It's not a matter of comparison, it's defending what's right.
Yeah, they are entertaining, but their methods are pretty flawed. The episode with the snow plow http://mythbustersresults.com/episode56 was beyond flawed and actually gave a dangerous result.