jkeisling/hacker-news-corpus-2007-2022 huggingface dataset:
That's great, but making "optimal decisions" in some defined state space where the quality of various options is evaluable is a really different problem to general intelligence.
I think RMS's most likely response to this article would be, "If I hadn't been so crazy, you wouldn't have written about my talk at all."

If I were in his shoes, I'd be crazy too.
Is that Doraemon I see on the whiteboard?
Put men on mars or launch hundreds of robots and satellites to survey the solar system? Which will produce more knowledge? Which will be more cost effective? In 100 years, which path will lead to more increased human space travel?

Sending robots is agile space exploration. Release early, release often. We can lose a few robots and use more experimental technology quicker. Sending humans sounds cool but we shouldn't go until it's as safe as commercial aviation then we can do it frequently.
You said you have experience and references. It's time to collect your best projects and make an online portfolio and start looking for foreign opportunities.
Now I have a working droppage -- thanks Dave for sorting my idiocy -- I am both impressed and enamoured by the potential use of this idea.

Someone is bound to open source something similar to allow you to self host, thus bypassing droppage's revenue model to some extent, but for non-techs (or just-a-bit techs), this is stellar.

For simple speed to up and running a kosher, reliably backed up web-site, this is hard to beat.
OpenID is by far the most comprehensive solution to this issue.

All the key players are there: Google, Yahoo, Facebook, et al - and even then it's not as simple as it seems.

I would put my money on OpenID, nonetheless. It's definitely a mature protocol and gaining traction.
It's only second among the (up-and-coming) languages he chose. Scheme takes only 0.05% of the overall job market. Witness:

http://www.indeed.com/jobtrends?q=java%2C+C%2C+Python%2C+sch...
This is cool, but I couldn't find a link to the github project page on the demo or docs pages.

https://github.com/kolber/audiojs
I have here a copy of the first edition of The Hacker's Dictionary, published in 1983 (same year as the newspaper article cited).

Under the definition for "hacker", it lists multiple possibilities, including #7:

A malicious or inquisitive meddler who tries to discover information by poking around. For example, a "password hacker" is one who tries, possibly by deceptive or illegal means, to discover other people's computer passwords. A "network hacker" is one who tries to learn about the computer network (possibly because he wants to improve it or possibly because he wants to interfere -- one can tell the difference only by context and tone of voice).

I don't see anything indicating that this was considered a wrong or invalid definition at the time, just not a primary one.

The current incarnation of The Hacker's Dictionary, perhaps now better known as the Jargon File, seems fairly direct about the distinction between hacking and security breaching.
Wouldn't this be mitigated by not using the same login information on the startup site?
9x15.

I wish I could find this for OS X, but it's a bitmap font, and doesn't translate to a scalable font very easily.
If we're going to do away with passwords, let's at least do it properly with smartcards.
What did he do wrong?
Do you really think that ordering something online from the comfort of your couch, in your underwear, is so inconvenient that you need a magic button to press when you run out of laundry detergent? You buy the big jug of high-efficiency stuff that's good for something like 100 loads, that means you need new detergent what, 5 times a year?

Or are you just being hyperbolic?

I don't know about you, but I make a trip to the grocery store about 1.5x every week anyways. I definitely would never use an online food/grocery service; I prefer to see the lettuce I'm buying when I take it off the shelf.

So, given that I'm already at the grocery store something like 80 times a year, and assuming I need to buy more laundry detergent 5 times a year, that's 16 opportunities for me to not pay Amazon shipping and just pick up a jug of detergent when I'm going to be out shopping anyways.

Assuming this isn't an April 1 joke and I just got trolled, hard, this is definitely a solution in search of a problem.
My point is that if you have your phone in your pocket, you can use it to place an order directly, rather than relying on a separate single-purpose widget.
Is the 'mozilla-release' branch for the current 37.0 release? It shows 'http' instead of 'https': https://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-release/source/browser/app/p...
You might like this: https://github.com/danslimmon/oscar
"Energy prices are going relentlessly down."

That's very wrong.

http://i.imgur.com/LG2LTTT.jpg

Meanwhile annual energy use per household has not increased in two decades.
I think step 4 may be less effective than steps 1-3 (although I do regard faxes and prayers as similar in reliability).
Not informed enough to say if the code is as interesting as the title implies. Hope someone comments to enlighten me, shall upvote if so!
There's always the issue of who will maintain the code once you're gone?.
Oh, that's easy. This company claims that the user is the only thing legally involved, and they have merely provided tools which the user is using to watch DVDs that happen to be physically located elsewhere. Therefore they are entirely uninvolved and therefore can't be said to be in violation of anything, indeed, they shouldn't even be a party to the suit; if the movie companies want to sue anyone, they will claim, it should be the end-users. The companies will claim that this is not simply a tool and that the company is actually involved in serving out streams that they do not have a license for and are therefore violating copyright.

The reason why this will be an exciting lawsuit to watch is not that the arguments are subtle or difficult to predict in advance, it is that they are both oqually correct. What's wrong isn't either of these arguments, it's the foundation of law they are built on, which simply can not handle this conflict. I've been waiting for this one to pop up for years. There are numerous other minefields like this waiting too.

BTW, the temptation to physical metaphor is strong here, but as always should be resisted. There are no physical metaphors that adequately capture the Internet and this is no exception. No, this is not merely like stringing a big wire across the internet, there are critical ways in which that differs from this situation. For instance, when I physically own a DVD it isn't possible for anybody else to know what I'm watching, and if the manufacturer goes out of business nothing happens. (Remember, it only takes one relevant difference to sink your argument-by-metaphor, which is why it's such a terrible argument technique and basically should simply never be used for Internet issues.) On the other hand, this is also quite clearly not identical to Netflix-style streaming, as it also has relevant differences. (So, from another point of view it is fair to say both arguments are also equally incorrect.)

You can argue the ethics quite fruitfully, but I believe the legal answer to this can only be said to be undefined. There is literally no provision for this anywhere in copyright law, in fact copyright law is fundamentally built on the premise that it is possible to cleanly separate copyright issues into various distinct "domains" (books, music, movies, etc) which don't cross or interact. As computers and the Internet blur these domains together and create some news one, the law really can't deal with this. The system is not built to handle the idea of you owning something and consuming it from a distance, either, the particular undefined thing this company is trying to wiggle through.

(Which won't stop a ruling shutting these guys down this time, but at some point the law is really going to have to address this problem head on.)
Well that's kind of the point--there isn't a better way in Linux, but that doesn't mean there isn't a better way to do it in general. Apt was designed I think mainly as a workaround for Linux dependency hell, with the side effect of it being convenient to install things. But the tradeoff is that all software updates rely on a single central location--Canonical's servers (besides PPAs). What if they go out of business, or the servers go down for some reason one day? The second you step outside of the Apt walled garden you're right back to the wild jungle of Linux dependency hell that makes it nigh-impossible to install anything without hair-pulling compilation sessions, in my experience.

And yes, PPAs have inched closer to user-friendliness with recent releases, but they're not to the point where a non-terminal user can easily comprehend the concept and then install their own.

Bringing this all back to the point--rolling releases--it's too difficult for many to install PPAs, and even so, PPAs don't always exist for core components that frequently have high-visibility regressions or bugs in new Ubuntu releases. For example, in Maverick hibernate for my laptop is broken. It freezes when it tries to hibernate. Where do I even start looking for a PPA that solves this problem? I don't--instead, I hold my breath for 6 months and don't use hibernate. That's not an acceptable solution.
I am thankful for the fact that I continue to have the opportunity to live another day, to be able to breath on my own, walk on my own, and think on my own and to have the opportunity each day to make a positive impact on my wife-kids-family-neighbors-friends-strangers and the world.
I've written code drunk (read: one beer, I'm a lightweight) a few times--mostly for personal projects, but at work occasionally. The results tend to vary: sometimes it's bloody inspired, other times I have no idea what I was thinking. It does seem to help with ``analysis paralysis''; where there are so many conditions and overlapping cases to consider that you can't even begin writing the code. Sometimes forging blindly ahead helps you think through the problem better.

But always check your commit logs the next day. :)
I bet the most common rejection for sensible (eg: co-founders, technical, have prototype) startup applicants to YC is "you are too determined on a terrible idea"
"There are some 30 plus gospels written, when the church chose their canon they went with the four because they contained ideas and perspectives in line with the church's message, manipulation through ommission"

I don't think that is historically accurate.

The reason that apocrypha such as the Gospel of Thomas were not included in the early church canon, is because the Gospel of Thomas was pseudonymous, Gnostic, likely written in Egypt, dated around the middle of the 2nd century, well after the eye-witnesses of the events had passed away.

The four gospels on the other hand were already in wide circulation in the early church by then.
Oh yeah I almost forgot: lots of people are making websites in Python. I guess it's useful if one wants to have a comfortably mainstream webdev experience while taking advantage of the incredibly rich Python ecosystem.
Nope. Apple put the app back because of the bad press they are getting. I am sure if this wasn't all over the Internet pulse would have been back.
Considering they just released Safari 5 yesterday, it seems that it should be as up to date as recent Chrome releases.
> Curiously it hadn't occurred to me to actually stick with a standalone REPL

The out-of-the-box repl experience on Clojure is really bad. In fact, it's so bad that one begins to suspect it's bad on purpose in order to encourage new users to get their editor integration working sooner rather than later.
In the original comment, I was assuming women traders with some level of skill and experience...

I'm confused; after I described women as being less likely to get a PhD (one common qualification for finance jobs), you said: Um, why does any of that matter when women would increase corporate profits? If hiring lots of women traders would increase corporate profits while at the same time decreasing the number of PhDs at a firm, why on Earth would that be a problem?

It seems you were originally describing hiring women with less of the qualifications often expected in finance (a PhD in particular), on the grounds that their presence would increase profits. You seem to be changing your argument quite a bit.

As for trader backgrounds, I told you the background of the traders I know. You appeared to disagree with my characterization of traders as mostly quant types. Since you disagree, I'm curious why - perhaps you know something I don't, for instance fields of finance different from mine. Or perhaps you don't.
Good point. That was to placate the RIAA with iTunes, so I'd say that they started to go downhill with the focus on closed devices; first iPods, then iPhones to a much greater extent.
Yeah, my wife took a c++ class and that's what I showed her to use. She didn't know any shortcuts but could move around and code with no problems using only the arrow keys on the keyboard and the menus. (On a Ubuntu machine no less.)
I can see a difference between bluray and dvd but to be honest upconverted dvds are of nice enough quality I can't justify buying hi def most of the time.
The fact that there is some set of companies that can "call up Apple" really turns me off to iPhone development. I certainly can't "call up Apple".
It's very hard to cut the cable with standard lock cutters. There are specific cable cutters (usually used in construction) work that can cut through the cable a lot easier though.

Unfortunately, the weakest part of the locks is either the lock itself, or the slot on the laptop. My friend recently had his MBP stolen when someone just ripped out the lock from the slot (so theres presumably a huge gash in the side of it now). We're still trying to figure out how it happened, but we're pretty sure it was something like those hydraulic jaws inserted between the lock and the body of the laptop.

Really, the ideal behind the lock is to deter theft by people who want to resale the laptop after. Anyhow who is willing to use a damaged laptop, or has customers who don't care where the laptop comes from can just continue to steal stuff more or less nilly willy.
Aside from everything else, I like the new site design. I hate to say it, but the old one on SourceForge was sort of hideous. And it was kind of sad, because I really love this project - it's vibrant, and it's creating some really great things in Notepad++. I recommend Notepad++ to people constantly, but every time I'd find myself having to say "now when you go to this site... just ignore how ugly and confusing it is, and click the link to download." (And I always had to tell them what to click to download - note to devs out there, don't call the download link "binaries," no non-hacker knows what that means, and also it helps to underline and/or highlight links the way every other site on the internet does).

The new site looks kind of like it's a Drupal form, but it's simpler and more intuitive than the old one already. Sections that you can understand, clear links. Yay! It'll be nice to just give people the URL and tell them to check it out.
Unfortunately, anyone with an email address and a phone number can call themselves a recruiter. And because $15 billion in fees is up for grabs every year in the USA, annoying/dirty/spammy tactics are the norm, rather than the exception. You'd be surprised about how many people calling themselves tech recruiters think "Rails" is a form of transportation :)
What I was saying is that it is morally reprehensible to find ways to justify torture. If that does not work for you and you need to reconsider your side-stepping passive support of something so abhorrent, go the empirical way and try it. You will realize then why no person should have to go through it, even if you think there is a good reason. No one stands up to torture well for any given period of time, or no one would use it.
"you can fix a person."

Sadly false. All you can do is send messages and hope that their internal state matches what they show you, and that what they show you is what you want.
That's a load off. I thought they were talking about Tumblr.
It is ironic that the NSA originally developed SELinux (which has now been in the mainline kernel for just over a decade), which provides the mandatory access controls and multilevel security features that, properly implemented, could have prevented this whole fiasco in the first place.

If only they would have followed their own policies and procedures...
Web development in 2014 consists of using four dozen CSS files, two hundred JavaScript files, and upwards of 750 HTTP requests to an API in order to display a single blog post. It is unthinkable to impose any sort of discipline on the use of resources by developers, even at companies which theoretically have an incentive to be efficient.

As a result, those companies have banded together to produce a bloated, multiplexed blob-fish of a protocol which they have vomited into the standards body for fast approval, over the objections of the people who will actually have to implement it.
I think that as far as longevity goes, both music and startups can vary in how long they maintain audience interest. For instance, there are still people today who like to listen to classical music, but that audience is still much smaller than the audience who likes the latest pop star. The Beatles have maintained a very loyal audience base, but as far as sales go they too are no longer the most popular.

Just like music can slowly lose popularity as new generations become interested in new genres, so web apps lose popularity over time. But I think that decay is greatly accelerated by the fast moving nature of technology. Therefore while 50 years doesn't move the Beatles into obscurity, and a couple hundred years doesn't completely erase interest in classical music, just five or ten years can sweep away a web app and replace it with something new.

It might be possible to create a startup which tries to maintain a small, very loyal group of people who love the startup from the start and continue loving it as it is for a long time, but just as in the music industry the best results are achieved by constantly updating the style and techniques to match what people want today.
Pumping out papers about fluid dynamics? Oh brother..
The trailer is HTML5, but the game is iOS. Websockets is used when you get to the "invite a friend" part.

We made this while our app was in the review process. I'm running Node.js on a separate EC2 Small server, so hopefully it'll handle a high load.

It works best in Safari 5... for some reason, Chrome is a little choppy, even with fewer trees. If it's choppy for you, try making your browser window smaller.
A foot pound is the amount of energy used when applying one pound of force over the distance of one foot (specifically, with the direction of the force being the same as the direction of movement).

So, if you use one pound of force to move an object one foot, you have used one foot pound of energy (or about 1.355 Joules).

Pounds per surface area is pressure. Foot pounds per surface area is something else.
The story describes a single-action revolver, which the Single Six is not

The Single Six is, in fact a single-action revolver. See manufacturer's product page: http://www.ruger.com/products/newModelSingleSix/firearms.htm...
"Many of these people are mentally ill. And for many of these people giving them a home and money will not solve their problems."

This thinking is based on the fallacy that mental illness is a purely biological condition, which anthropology, epidemiology, and clinical data all soundly disprove. Even for mental illnesses that are mostly biological, like schizophrenia, the quality of outcomes varies enormously depending on the person's social environment as well as the course of treatment.
In a sufficiently frictionless economy, people will hire each other to do the things they'd rather not do themselves. This is generally acknowledged as a net positive for society[0], and surely the author doesn't manufacture her own electronics, build her own house, or grow her own food. What's so extraordinary about delivery services?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage
This is very cool. And now even more Racket on HN's front page. I will look at the code later.

For those interested, variable-order Markov chaining is different form traditional Markov models. I studied the latter in computational linguistics courses; they are a right of passage in stastical models for CL/NLP work. I was wondering how it was a good idea to model passwords, even pseudorandomly with Markov chains, but VO Markov chains are somewhat different.

For the uninitiated, like myself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable-order_Markov_model
In my opinion the fact that Wall Street is not functioning optimally (with all that insider trading, front-running and just downright crazy gambling with other people's money) is very much a real world problem. It is also an important problem, because one of the functions of equity/futures markets is allocation of resources in the economy at the global level. And it is very important that the allocation is done right (that is, resources go to Tesla/electric cars/airplanes/etc and not to build yet another palace to some oil-lord, etc).

disclaimer: I'm currently in finance, but I'm primarily an engineer/researcher and finance is just one of the many areas in which I was working over the years.
Are all these jobs in NYC? Do these finance companies have offices working on these issues in SV?
Maybe the "Google" part has to do with the fact that the language has some backing and isn't going to disappear overnight because the lone developer decided to abandon it.

p.s. Your hatred of Go is kind of funny to this outsider. I may be just a stupid coder w/o a CS degree but spent a couple of decades in the trenches. Since a superior language would naturally eliminate the puny offerings of Go, I await your wisdom in the language that will save me and other mindless drones from futile coding. Please enlighten me with the language that will save me from this programming plague.
They didn't hype Go either. All "hype" Go has is team members and community members writing blog posts and giving talks. Even the web page is designed by the Go guys themselves.
You are forgetting these banks are involved in high frequency trading. Those are some large engineering challenges.
I wonder what's the interaction between the two, that's not described in the article. Can you alleviate the risks of drinking alcohol by also drinking coffee? Irish coffee anyone?
I always groan when I see it in job listings. The handful of real "rockstar" programmers don't need to scan job boards.

I'm guessing what you're likely to attract with this kind of post is a lot of arrogant code cowboys that don't play well with others.
I think it is to big to mount it on a Bugatti Veyron, but it would be nice (would the resulting Vortex Ring be faster by the speed of the car, or would the car drive into the ring, if it is fast enough?).