chroem

Holy crap. Am I reading this correctly? Is this really a patent for running learning algorithms on the GPU?

That implies there's a non-trivial number of candidates who are legitimately against the NSA.

Ordinarily I think Stallman takes that way too far, but in this case the exact motivation behind free software was being described, yet it was still placed under the banner of open source. I think there's a time and a place for both terms, but when you're talking about resisting the NSA, you are (or should be) referring to free software.

Free software; the term is free software. In other words, software that respects your freedom.

Refer to this: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.htm...

I've never understood all of the hate for using tabs instead of spaces while indenting. My thinking has always been that tabs just make it easier to adjust indentation.

As a tab-using heathen, can somebody please explain why spaces would be preferable?

What they're doing is trying to make it socially unacceptable to assist the NSA/ DoD, and quite frankly it's overdue. I get the feeling that most of the criticism here against the protesters is because HN identifies with the Google employee(s), not because the protesters are wrong. It's a purely emotional reaction.

Because who doesn't love having their personal possessions tracked by third parties, right?

One person's feature is another person's backdoor.

There was an article a while back that discussed how most people's perception of what is "enough" wealth is always ~30% more than what they currently have, be it thousands or millions of dollars. Unfortunately I can't find the article at the moment, but the point still stands that, to a certain extent, wealth addiction has become embedded in our culture and we are taught to seek it from a young age. So to say that the financial industry is somehow immune to something everyone else around them is suffering from seems to be pretty disingenuous.

I'm curious, what phone do you use?

As someone who has done a fair bit of Android development, it's ironic that you mention that. The Android design guidelines tend to change on six month basis, and not always for the better. Sure, the changes are usually smaller, but it can get pretty annoying after a while.

I have a select few sites whitelisted, but they're disabled by default.

Also, I'm on Iceweasel/ Firefox instead of Chrome. It's probably nothing to worry about, but you can never be too careful these days.

Hah, the joke is on them: I browse with cookies disabled.

Of course, I'm sure they have some other way to pwn me, but it's nice to know that I was doing something right.

Keep in mind that people go there to brag about their unusually high connection speeds.

If you're implying that we need to madly slash all government operations, I think that's pretty misguided.

We're actually running a secondary surplus right now, given that the rate of inflation is higher than the extremely low interest rates on our national debt.

Thank god. I'll take anything over the current Android application framework.

Actually, the real cost comes from batteries. They're only good for a finite number of cycles, and under the high loads they'll experience in this sort of application, I would put that number at around 250-750 flights. So if you're spending $30-$50 a battery, that adds up pretty quickly. Electricity is really cheap in comparison.

I would like to see some figures correlating taxation to innovation.

Or why it was created by the government. We still have no idea who Satoshi is, and bitcoin is obviously robust enough that it had to have been peer reviewed.

It's the perfect honeypot.

But with this we could kill people all over the globe in record time!

Edit: Just to be clear, this is sarcasm.

It's not just software patents, it's all patents. The current 3D printing technologies making a big splash right now were all invented in the 80's. The patent minefield just beginning to expire is what's causing the 3D printing boom.

I think you may be confusing the term "tech startup" with "web development startup."

This isn't inspired by tech startups, it is a tech startup. It bothers me how people equate technology with the web. I guess the Saturn V was a useless piece of crap because it didn't use the latest web stack.

Fine, let's use your example of the small business. Suppose that this company invents a revolutionary technology, such as a cure for cancer or a teleporter. That company is perfectly within its rights to just sit on the technology for 20 years. Even if it does decide to produce the technology, there is no way that it could keep up with demand, so it ends up shipping very small numbers of a very expensive and exclusive product. There really is no situation in which patents make sense.

Do you know why 3D printing is finally taking off? The parents are starting to expire. The technology has been around since the 80's. Try to let that set in how much patents have held back a very important innovation.

Looking At some pictures and diagrams of the Model S battery pack, yes, it does look to be about twice as large as the average fuel tank. HOWEVER, that leaves out some really interesting things to note.

First of all, most automotive gas tanks are made out of ~1/8" HDPE. While it has decent cut and abrasion resistance, it's of virtually no use when trying to combat punctures and is also pretty flimsy, leading to deformation and possible cracking during an accident.

While, yes, a punctured battery pack is guaranteed to ignite while a gas tank is not, that is also the only way for the pack to ignite. An object has to physically pass through the battery pack, while a gas tank could potentially start a fire if it cracks and starts leaking. There's a reason why you're supposed to try to get out your car as quickly as possible in case of a crash: fuel leaks very easily. In comparison, batteries are much more impact resistant due to their more solid state nature.

Also, it seems that whatever struck the car seemed to hit under or very close to where the front passengers sit. Had that armored battery pack not been there, there's a very real possibility that the driver would have been impaled. With that in mind, it should be pretty clear that this was a freak accident and not really representative of the average car crash.

A friend who was writing a bittorrent client in x86 asm was actually going to have something like this as one of its features. Hopefully this will motivate him to start working on it again since it was such a cool project...

Does anybody remember what the spat with that one Cyanogenmod contributor was all about a few weeks ago? I'm ashamed to say that I don't remember what it was, and now I can't find anything on it.

He was talking about about some kind of scandal as they were about to monetize the project.

How can they block custom ROM's? Let me count the ways!

-signed bootloader

-encrypted bootloader

-e-fuse

-not disclosing drivers

-legal threats for implementing proprietary drivers/ software

That was more of a general statement than a comment specifically on reddit's position.

I can make millions of dollars selling condom wrappers, but just because I have made millions of dollars does not mean that I have done something important. I may catch quite a bit of hate for this, but a large portion of HN's content is on things that make money, but are not truly important.

If there is one lesson that HN needs to learn, it's that profitable is not the same thing as important.

Because many think HN should only be about writing the latest and greatest social app, not things that move humanity forward.

/rant

While it's an amazing concept and I really want to like it, it's actually a terrible game. There's literally no assurance against spawncamping and the UI is extremely cluttered, among other things.