Hacker News Reader

datenon Ask PG: do you want HN to be a general news site or not?

I think the problem with that assumption is that non-hackers can visit this site and vote for articles that are only interesting to the general public and otherwise off-topic for this site. It doesn't take many votes to get on the front page, you only need a handful of users who are willing to upvote any sensational headline.

datenon Ask PG: do you want HN to be a general news site or not?

Because there are other sites that already serve as sources of general news. I come here looking specifically for "hacker news".

datenon Most profitable movie ever was also most pirated of 2010

What if those downloads were by people who already paid to see the movie in theaters and downloaded it later to watch it again?

If they waited for the DVD or Blueray to be released they could watch it an unlimited number of times after paying once. Should each time they watch it at home on a legally purchased DVD be considered a lost theater sale?

datenon Getting shot by a handgun

If you see a story that you think doesn't belong, please click the "flag" link for that story. Enough clicks from different users will affect how visible the story is or if it gets removed.

datenon Ask HN: Who's hiring.. Sysadmins?

White Oak Technologies in Silver Spring, MD (DC area) is looking for a Linux sysadmin. I've been working here for 4 years and love my job.

http://www.woti.com/

We need an additional Systems Administrator to support our growing high-performance computing facility, consisting of Linux clusters, servers and desktops, Microsoft Windows desktops and servers, as well as other architectures. We run many flavors of Linux, develop custom scripts and chew through truly massive data sets using parallel processing and associated technologies. We use Open Source tools when appropriate (love that Python!), and integrate COTS when necessary. To be eligible for this position, you must have current hands-on skills in most of the following areas: large-scale system and network planning and architecture; installation, troubleshooting, and integration of commercial packages; shell/Perl/Awk scripting; web server administration; firewall configuration and network management; large scale enterprise class storage systems including NAS/SAN devices, SCSI and ATA Raid systems; data backup and recovery on both Linux and Windows platforms; and experience with enterprise class tape autoloaders preferred. Programming experience in any cross-platform OO language (Python, C++, JAVA, PHP, etc.) is a big plus. A Bachelors degree in Computer Science or related field or a minimum of four years of directly related experience or training may be acceptable. Applicants must be U.S. citizens and selected applicants will be subject to a government security investigation and must meet eligibility requirements for access to classified information.

datenon I always forget the argument order of the `ln -s` command

You can create multiple links with the original names at once with commands like:

  ln -s path1/files* path2/

  ln -s path1/* .

Doing that helped me remember the order because I knew my command could end with a directory as the destination and links would be created there.

Sometimes hardlinks are useful too. You don't always need -s

Edit: Why was this downvoted? I didn't see anyone else mention it until after my post and to me this was an easier way to remember the order than comparing it to "cp".

datenon What is full-text search (and why you need it now)

Does it feel like google is moving further away from this with time?

It's common that I get search results that don't contain the keywords I searched for. The results will also contain the keywords but in different parts of the page, so short phrases like hacker news will match pages with "hacker" in the first paragraph and "news" somewhere else on the page. Google used to recognize a hyphen as meaning "only return results where these two words are joined by a space or puncuation", now it ignores the hyphen and you have to enclose the phrase in quotes to get that behavior.

Even more interesting than a simple full-text search would be a regular-expression full-text search of the internet.

In either case, I'm happy to hear IndexTank is trying to fix this.

datenon Nexus S

The keyboard is only on the Sprint version called the "Epic 4G". It's not on the other variants of the Galaxy S such as the Vibrant, Fascinate and Captivate.

datenon How an RC airplane buzzed the Statue of Liberty, with no arrests

There are already 802.11 drones with video and cell phones that can act as a wireless hot spot. Combine the two and I don't think latency would be bad enough to prevent you from flying it remotely.

I would be more concerned with battery life or dangers of mechanical failure on something large enough to use liquid fuel.

[1] http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/usa/

[2] http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/13/exclusive-google-to-add-tet...

datenon Inside the Fortified, Nuke-Proof Bunker that's Now Hosting Wikileaks

It looks like 2000 of those bunkers were sold back in 2002 for $25,000 each.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/09/11/230203

Here's a map with links to pictures of 5 of the nuclear hardened sites.

http://coldwar-c4i.net/ATT_Project/index.html

datenon Google responds to NY Times article by improving its algorithms

Research may not hurt. Trial and error does if the error affects the users.

If something bad is happening in the world, like thousands of people being murdered in some remote country, and every page that links to articles about it has a negative tone because they're condemning what's happening, should google hide those articles?

I would be fine with alphabetical results if they would give me a regular expression search instead of recommended results.

datenon Google responds to NY Times article by improving its algorithms

But if we demoted web pages that have negative comments against them, you might not be able to find information about many elected officials, not to mention a lot of important but controversial concepts. So far we have not found an effective way to significantly improve search using sentiment analysis. Of course, we will continue trying.

Google admits, and I agree, that this is a bad idea. But then why are they continuing to attempt it? Wouldn't neutral search results be better than those that favored a subjectively positive or negative business?

datenon [dead]

A few years ago I was surprised to hear there were radiation concerns about granite countertops. According to the EPA it's not a serious threat.

Any naturally formed rock material has the potential of containing varying amounts of naturally occurring radiation. Natural radioactive elements like uranium, radium, and thorium can be present in a wide number of minerals that appear as crystals in granite from around the world. So, it is not unusual for materials such as granite to have some amount of radioactivity (emissions of alpha or beta particles or gamma rays). Depending on the composition of the molten rock from which they formed, some pieces of granite can exhibit more radioactivity than others.

http://www.epa.gov/rpdweb00/tenorm/granite-countertops.html

datenon The Men Who Stole the World

My money says it's not from piracy but from falling quality of music sold by the major record labels.

I spend more money on music purchased online now than I ever did on CDs but it's going to independent and foreign artists who produce a much better product.

datenon BarMax’s Efficient Path To $200K In Sales: A $999.99 iPhone App

Aparently this isn't the only $999.99 app out there. There's an app called iVIP for the same price that helps millionaires in the UK find exclusive services.

There's also an $899.99 app for remotely monitoring security cameras called iRa pro.

datenon Clever bike lock scales light posts

Two thoughts.

Would this be a nuisance to utility workers who have to access lights or wires on city poles?

This inspires an idea for a similar product. The bike could have an RC-operated hook and winch. The owner can toss the hook onto any high mounted object such as a street sign or low aerial utility line such as phone or cable. Then real the line in with the remote, pulling the bike out of reach. There would be many more potential "parking spaces". The utility lines are supported with steel guide wires that can handle a significant amount of weight[1] and they're much lower than power lines so a careful toss is more of a danger by missing and falling than by reaching an electrical hazard.

[1] as a former cable technician I can testify to this, we were trained to hook our ladders onto the lines half-way between two poles if necessary

datenon Clever bike lock scales light posts

That's still my second concern and also has to be satisfied before I would buy it. But if I can get around town on a $100 bike and the anti-theft device costs $300, I'll stick with a more affordable lock and buy a new bike occasionally.

datenon Clever bike lock scales light posts

It's probably easier to climb the pole if there's a lower bike on the pole that you can grab on your way up.

I wonder how much weight the device can support? If you threw a weighted rope around a suspended bike and pulled on it, will you be able to lower it?

datenon Clever bike lock scales light posts

Vandalism is just as common as theft in the Washington DC area. Usually if they can't break your lock, they break your bike instead.

DC has replaced some bike racks with bike lockers that totally enclose the bike. The downside is the lockers take up a lot of space so there are only a few of them at each metro station.

datenon Clever bike lock scales light posts

My first concern with any new anti-theft solution for bikes is "does it cost more than my bike?". If someone fails to steal my bike but can still vandalise the bike and the lock, I'm out twice as much money.

I've had multiple bikes stolen in the Washington DC area.

datenon SSH Commands / Tricks

The sshd process for your connection is still present on the server and looks like: "sshd: username@notty". You can find it easily with a grep of running processes.

ps aux | grep sshd.*notty

datenon Ageism

In the United States, this varies depending on the state.

As of January 1, 2007, 14 states and the District of Columbia ban underage consumption outright, 19 states do not specifically ban underage consumption, and an additional 17 states have family member and/or location exceptions to their underage consumption laws.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_A...

datenon SSH scans - I caught one

cd `find / -type d -perm -o+wx | head -n1`

datenon Chance of Dying From Backscatter Radiation Same as Chance of Terrorism

You're not comparing bananas to bananas.

As I understand, the limited information that has been publicly released about the backscatter machines is a useless measurement when you take into account how they actually work. You can't apply a standard measurement from a medical x-ray machine that targets a small part of your body using one technique to a different machine that targets your entire body using a different technique.

So the two problems are:

1. You don't have good numbers to even evaluate how dangerous they are, many evaluations, including possibly the article above, are useless because they don't have the real data to compare to.

2. The radiation exposure from a banana also effects your body differently than a medical x-ray machine which is in turn different from a backscatter machine targeting your entire body.

I'm not saying people aren't trying to evaluate the actual risk in good faith. I'm saying they're skipping the step where we get useful numbers from the manufacturer of the machine to even apply good science to.

Edit: by "whole body" I mean "whole surface of your body" since it's concentrated on your skin

datenon 100 Naked Citizens: 100 Leaked Body Scans

That's not why they're wrong

I would argue that it's one of many reasons they are wrong.

I'm equally as concerned about the privacy and civil rights violations. But it's still a problem that the machines pose a physical risk to passengers and TSA employees.

datenon When we got to the scanner, I opted out. Then they opted out.

You're not forced to use a cell phone in order to fly. The radiation from the phone is not concentrated and directed at your entire body. It's a different frequency and intensity. A lot more time has been spent studying the dangers of RF from consumer phones than the dangers of these new machines based on medical devices that require lead clothing or lead walls for safe use.

You're also exposed to a variety of radiation when you fly in the high atmosphere or eat a banana. It doesn't mean additional radiation from insufficiently tested machines is a good idea.

datenon How Israel handles airport security

The TSA has already attempted the behavior profiling..

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/06/behavioral_pro...

datenon How Israel handles airport security

Consider how many bottles of liquid the TSA confiscates in a day because they might be explosives. Now imagine actually treating each of those as if the agent really believed it was a threat in the style described in the article.

Does this still make sense?

datenon Linux System Monitoring Tools

After you see that you have a high load average, these are the tools you would use to track down why.

datenon Linux System Monitoring Tools

I suggest dstat over vmstat, it has color coded output and abbreviates units automatically. It's easy to add columns or monitor specific devices or interfaces.

http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/dstat/

I suggest OpenNMS as a cacti and nagios alternative. It eliminates most of the manual configuration. It can automatically detect nodes and services and if you give it SNMP information it can monitor specifics of each machine. I've used it to monitor hundreds of machines but it can be resource intensive.

http://www.opennms.org/

iftop is also a nice lightweight alternative to iptraf and helps track down bandwidth heavy processes and connections.

http://ex-parrot.com/pdw/iftop/