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Stories from March 17, 2009
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1.IPhone 3.0 has copy/paste, subscriptions, micropayments, P2P, maps, push, MMS, etc (engadget.com)
138 points by sama on March 17, 2009 | 141 comments
2.SR-71 Disintegrates Around Pilot During Flight Test (in 1966) (alexisparkinn.com)
126 points by frisco on March 17, 2009 | 34 comments
3.Ask HN: Has Hacker News been hacked/cracked?
107 points by code_devil on March 17, 2009 | 53 comments
4.Why mercury is forbidden aboard airplanes (popsci.com)
94 points by rogercosseboom on March 17, 2009 | 41 comments
5.Use Cloudkick To Manage Amazon Web Services’ EC2 (YC W09) (techcrunchit.com)
86 points by tripngroove on March 17, 2009 | 40 comments
6.Gladwell: Getting In, The social logic of Ivy League admissions (gladwell.com)
86 points by frisco on March 17, 2009 | 111 comments

you shouldn't be asking HN about this, you should be asking your GF about this.
8.My Life in Child Porn (wikileaks.com)
76 points by marvin on March 17, 2009 | 120 comments
9.Super last minute advice for startups applying for Y Combinator (garry.posterous.com)
74 points by rantfoil on March 17, 2009 | 32 comments

Yes. I made an unbelievably stupid mistake in the code that generates forms with labelled fields. It was basically functional programming taken a little too far: I generated the same form whether the fields were editable or not, and then later if there were no editable fields I just omitted the submit button. So anyone looking at the source of one of these pages could find a fnid that would work to modify the object displayed on it. (There's still a fnid, but it no longer does anything.)
11.Erlang/OTP R13A has been released (erlang.org)
51 points by daleharvey on March 17, 2009 | 11 comments
12.Beginning Engineers Checklist (piclist.com)
48 points by kqr2 on March 17, 2009 | 7 comments
13.What makes people cheat? [video] (ted.com)
44 points by febeling on March 17, 2009 | 8 comments
14.Mathematica man brews AI Google Killer (theregister.co.uk)
42 points by twampss on March 17, 2009 | 22 comments

// Disclaimer: I work in investigating these crimes \\

His assertsion about the number of wrongly convicted people are very wrong.I would say that around 80% are "users" whereas the rest have usually stumbled across it (this is very obviosu btw: there is not often a fine line). A lot of the defence is "it was a virus" so it is one of the first checks and has been the case in only one example as I recall.

We deal with all sorts of computers weekly & I have never identified CP on any of the machines that cross my desk (bar the odd image or 2 come across whilst browsing legitimate pron sites)

In terms of the origins: a lot of the mild abuse is "homebrew" with a small proportion of the worst images being homemade. The majority of extreme images are, from their context, commercially produced.

I cant say much about the children being forced or not (or comment on the argument of whether they are innocent or not) because I am biased due to my job and because it is wholly subjective (actually I deliberately emotionally detach from such thoughts to allow me to do my job fairly). And finally because I am involved purely in the technical side and have not met any abused persons :)

I am a bit worried to say any more: it really is grazing close to a line here (silly laws ;)). Im well on the right side of said line (i'll add) but....

EDIT: edited slightly after chatting to a colleague :)

16.The Real AIG Scandal (thebigmoney.com)
40 points by dpapathanasiou on March 17, 2009 | 43 comments
17.New Google Chrome Beta (chrome.blogspot.com)
36 points by agotterer on March 17, 2009 | 29 comments
18.Write an Internet search engine with 200 lines of Ruby code (saush.com)
35 points by nickb on March 17, 2009 | 6 comments

You don't use much of the stuff you learn in HS math in everyday programming. You don't need to understand calculus to write most programs, for example. But the underlying ideas you learn in math can make you a better programmer. E.g. the idea that the right notation can be very powerful.

As someone who works weekly on such cases I would like to point out that the technical content of this article is largely correct, however the sections about the origins of the abuse and the accused is incorrect.
21.My advice to young entrepreneurs (jonbischke.com)
34 points by jbischke on March 17, 2009 | 7 comments

From the talk: "Would you like to purchase one rocket launcher for $0.99?"

Oh yeah, that sounds like fun. Clearly a great way to be nickle and dimed to death in every application and game.


A lot of it depends on the hardware you're going to use. Assembling a bunch of off-the-shelf components into a new idea (ref: Chumby) is going to be much cheaper than developing your own custom asic's (ref: SiCortex).

My experience over the course of a couple of hardware startups doing more off-the-shelf approach is it would take you about $20-$35MM in total funding for a typical hardware startup doing something semi new/radical.

The hardware design itself can actually be relatively cheap. Packaging (custom tooling for cases, etc.) can easily cost you $20K-$300K (ie: as much as a big Angel round for some software startups). Manufacturing costs are usually a function of volume commitments and timing. So, you are going to be incented to commit to larger manufacturing runs than you are comfortable with to keep the per-unit cost low. Inevitably, after you do this you find there is some trivial but important item you missed, so you end up with re-work costs, or if you're very unlucky a lot of scrapped inventory.

To answer your Tablet PC question, my guess is that you're looking at $10M. There is not a lot of invention there. You'd pull together a lot of off-the-shelf components into a new form factor. Most of your early costs would be sucked up by the design and tooling of the casing and overall industrial design. I'd venture that you'd be $500K into it just for ID and an ME to layout the (presumably) injection molding designs for the case and first mold. Budget another $150K ish for UL and FCC certs (your outsourced factory can help you with a lot of this process). Then you're likely to go through probably $250K in the initial hardware designs and single-unit prototypes. You'll generally need or want 1 prototype for each developer (probably 5-8 in this case), plus another 6-12 for QA, and another dozen or so for demos and for employees to carry around and just "use" out in the wild. If you're making a tablet with an $800 price point, your production BOM is going to be around $200, and total manufacturing costs around $350ish, but your first prototypes will cost you $1000ish/ea at first because a lot of it will be work done by hand, etc.

So, thinking purely off the top of my head, you'd probably take a $1M angel round, a $4M A round and a $5M B round. Since this is a semi-proven CE device and not something radically new, you just need to build it and get it out there, not convince the world why they need it.

24.Dreamhost St. Patrick's 92% off (dreamhost.com)
32 points by mapleoin on March 17, 2009 | 42 comments

Great question thanks

In terms of viewing images it is quite hard. Partly I manage it due to my personality (empathy troubles etc. which is ideal for disconnecting). Mostly though it is by multi threading: I program & pen test for the company I work at so I occupy my mind with programming/hacking problems for later whilst leaving part of me on neutral to process cases. And then just through sheer will power :)

At first it was difficult to do but I find it easier and easier to function perfectly normally (i.e. thoroughly and effectively do an investigation) whilst not fully connecting with the content :)

(Also we use hash analysis to cut down the amount of actual content we view - standard practice).

If you mean in terms of not feeling angry at suspects etc. - that is difficult but I find ways to channel my dislike outside of work (kickboxing, occasionally alcohol, arguing with my GF):) and carefully control it when in the office. Again - practice makes that easier.

Not for everyone but I (and I hesitate to use this word because of the context) enjoy it.

26.Ask HN: Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming?
31 points by dollarz on March 17, 2009 | 48 comments

Clippy resurrects himself from the grave and pops up in the lower right-hand corner

It looks like you're trying to copy and paste. Would you like to pay $0.05 in order to continue? (Continue/Cancel)

It looks like you're trying to exit the application. Would you like to pay $0.10 in order to continue? (Exit and pay $0.10/Stay for free)

It looks like you're shocked to see one of Microsoft's worst creations pwn your smartphone. Would you like to buy a copy of iLithium(R), iXanax(TM), or iProzac(TM) to soften the blow for $14.99? (Yes/No)


"Google Killer": The tech journalists' kiss of death.

"AI Google Killer": The kiss of death and a box of poisoned chocolates.

I get the impression that tech journalists purposely overhype new ideas just so 6 months later they can trash the very thing they overhyped for not living up to its expectations. Job security for tech journalists.


In-app sales will create huge new opportunities.
30.Clojure 1, PHP 0 (briancarper.net)
28 points by mqt on March 17, 2009 | 21 comments

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