skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Just get out and start meeting people. The best way to expand your social circle and network with like-minded people is to just start going to as many events as you can. Recently I've been going to different biznik events as well as whatever entrepreneur events happen in Seattle. Most people in the startup scene are immensely helpful and if you just start asking, you're bound to find someone who knows someone you might be interested in working with, and will introduce you.
BTW, many duplicate text detector algorithms are not fooled by this kind of transformation.

http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/~sam/stringmetrics.html

I use cosine similarity and it works fine for my needs. ;)
Are you sure? Go and stare for several minutes right into the eyes of the biggest, toughest-looking stranger you can find, and see what happens. Eye contact is always an effort to communicate something, and it can easily be interpreted as a challenge.
Anatomy of a bad search result
Facebook 1: 0 Simon Cowell - Rage Against The Machine is UK #1 single for Xmas
I guess, that's because it's interesting.
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Well, iterative (and smart tail recursive [0]) solutions are going to be roughly O(n) for the nth Fibonacci number, assuming addition is O(1). In bignum territory, addition isn't free, but is still pretty cheap.

The closed form solution involves computing something raised to the power of n, so would be O(log n) assuming nonintegral multiplication is O(1), which is... not so much the case. Given that the (sqrt 5) factors will always be eliminated by the end you can manipulate things to work with only integers, at the expense of complicating the algorithm.

The matrix-based solution, which I had forgotten, is also of the form x^n, so is probably isomorphic to a sufficiently clever handling of Binet's formula that completely avoids the (sqrt 5) terms.

So, yes, good call, the matrix approach is better--you win this round.

[0] The naive un-memoized recursive algorithm, such as the recursive solution in the linked article, is not only not tail-recursive, but manages to have time complexity of precisely O(fib(n)). If that doesn't make you die a little inside, you're made of sterner stuff than I.
I like my philosophy on the startup vs. school idea. I've decided that I would rather take as much risk as possible early in life with the intention of being financially stable by 30. If I succeed, I've only lost out on a few years of my 20s and I think my 30-80 life will make up for it. If I fail at everything, I'm still only 30 and can be happy with the risks I took. I don't ever want to have to use my degree to apply for a job, and I've found that teaching myself and trial-and-error are the best ways for me to gain knowledge on whatever company/idea I am working on.
The Known Universe Scientifically Rendered For All to See
Why we might care: for the last several years the winner of Cowell's reality TV show has been propelled immediately to #1 in time for the culturally-significant-for-Brits Xmas Top 40.

This year a backlash campaign to shove 'Killing in the Name' above it took off on Facebook and, in an unlikely outcome, the people who joined the group actually followed through and bought the RATM track during the correct time window.

(The link was posted before the programme aired on BBC Radio 1 and turned out to be completely accurate.)
تحديث ميتابوكس 16/12/2009
Take a stop watch, stop it, use the hundredths for picking a random word or phrase. Do it with nanoseconds. How can nerves do that? Isn't that, umm..., a little too fast for them? It's probably my superego, huh?

Spirit says...
fashioned begannest perceivedst passage reckon baggage since
teaching comparing loads aware murmured dedicate protracted
notes modestly studiously forsakest powers wondrous Wherefore
sons fling lastly entireness transported talked effaces
experience begotten unpassable Let director dies consenting
puppies tempered Eating rashness addition toward electronically
everlastingly coats Canticles occasioned instant wandering
beware down preferred dwelleth slumber valuable txt embraced
rational hitherto exposed constituted standing sings deeds
commemorated severing reproves mislike Descend Rebuke
IMHO, Schulze is too complicated for the average voter. People need to understand the voting system. I don't deny that it's theoretically better.
> I'm inherently suspicious when someone says something like "conveys information", but then says "logic and reason" don't work.

Actually, the study of semantics, which is highly logical, will often fail at describing the "true meaning" of an utterance. This is where pragmatics come in, and, frankly, a far more interesting area of study and occasionally even applicable in every day life.

The most useful thing I got out of my semantics course was that I never, ever, want to take that stream ever again.
This is interesting, nice start. I think it might work nicely for an internal forum since there's not captcha, sign-up or spam control.

Also, the threaded comments are confusing, you can reply to a reply, but it drops it to the very bottom and doesn't thread.
> At one level, do we care if it's true?

I don't think we do (at least I don't.) What is interesting to me is the premise behind the story, whether or not the story is true. A lot of the attention being paid to Microsoft on the net is largely negative, and just the idea that any sort of criticism or lack of support really gets to Ballmer is only going to fuel the fire of anti-MS sentiment.
Supervisor:  easy daemon management
If you folks are going to meet by the bike racks at 3:15, can you at least let me know?
I'll even skip the Simpsons as so that I can watch.
A search engine.
Level of acknowledgement of strangers is a function of population density. In a big city you can't possibly acknowledge everybody you pass, so you acknowledge nobody. There's one exception: people who go for walks early in the morning are often keen to greet one another; partly because you might be the first person they've seen today, and partly because early risers are somewhat of a secret sub-society within the city.

Combine the "small town" thing with the "early morning" thing and you've got trouble, though. In a small town in Maine at six in the morning I encountered a guy who thought it was incredibly rude that I wouldn't stop and discuss (a) the weather and (b) where I was from as I walked past his house. Sorry dude, there's four million people in my home town, can't chat with all of 'em.
A great perspective on a series of great articles by Mark. My own experience is that there is no sure way of knowing when to stick and to kick. The key is not to over-compensate. It is similar to riding a bike. Just because you fell on the left last time doesn’t mean you will fall on the left again. Sometimes entrepreneurs over-compensate by learning their mistakes all too well. If they failed because they had too much money, they will try to do the next one bootstrapping. If they failed because there wasn’t enough understanding of the market, they will try to do the next one with a bunch of salesmen. We need to learn from our past but we need to keep in mind that every opportunity is different. Time does not stand still and the rest of the world does not wait. Don’t be a victim of your own experience.
I think you are going to have a hard time getting people to think they should use this over just using twitter - even though there are differences.

You may get more involvement if you can sign-up without an email address. Then maybe deactivate accounts without an email address after X days or something.
Goldmine of zsh information and tips/tricks
MongoDB has helped me rethink everything I thought I knew (and disliked) about DB's.

Javascript. This year, the full potential (and diversity) of this language has truly revealed itself to me, especially with the maturing of frameworks like Cappuccino (which is a testament to what can be done with JS).

Using Git is the first time I've properly been able to integrate source control into my workflow, without it being a pain!

VPS (cloud hosting). Being able to spin up a server quickly and cheaply has really facilitated my ability to experiment and is highly conducive to learning about these new technologies.

I think it's been a great year for innovation. 2010 should be pretty exciting too. New Years Resolution: explore server side Javascript (i.e node.js) and build something awesome with Rails!
That would be my conjecture about academia. In business, a certain kind of person learns the languages and paradigms that appear to be well-represented in monster.com job postings.
Pylons, i love it because of its flexibility, I can use whatever I want in contrast to other frameworks w/o getting headaches (yes, I'm talking about you, Django).

MongoDB and others NoSQL dbs, I don't have words to describe my feelings.

Jquery, well, I began to use this framework in November I was a heavy Mootools user, but jquery is just amazing, it's so simple, I don't have to write things like "x.get('value')" (annoying!).

These days I'm playing with Node.js which looks pretty amazing, in fact it's very possible I use it in a game I'm planning to do.
I did have bad experience(s) with people but it doesn't mean I don't love what I was doing. I am actually very good at my job and find excitement very easily. I am not keen at doing just another postdoc though, simply because I don't need it (unless I decide to switch field completely).

There are certain things in academic science that I think simply don't work the way they should. I'd be very happy to try to change them but I am not willing to cope with them anymore.

May I ask you what is your main job right now? Is it your startup? The lab? Or something else? I find your split position - academy and outer world - quite interesting. I'll send you an email in the next days, if you don't mind getting in touch.
With a dumb bignum library addition will be O(d) and multiplication will be O(d^2), d being the number of digits; d increases linearly with index, so to compute the n'th Fibonacci number by naive iteration will be O(d^2), whereas doing it by repeated squaring will involve (ignoring lots of constant factors) one size-n multiply, one size-n/2 multiply, one size-n/4 multiply, etc., so also O(d^2). So, same order of magnitude, but it seems quite possible that the constant factor will be worse.

And yes, the naive recursive approach is a total disaster. Pretty code, though, and if you have language or library support for memoization you can just write the naive recursive function and demand that it be memoized.
For me, at first, the color and size had distinct significance. Instead of changing the size and color of the blocks, how about using one color and tuning down it's saturation, or transparency and keep the size the same. Or just change the size? Did you try this at first, was it too bland visually? Also, I thought it would be better too not have a row feed of blocks after every drop. Doing this would more clearly expose the mechanics. Presumably this wasn't feasible because trivial games could be played by stacking blocks in only one column. This expolit might be eschewed by introducing indestructible blocks, and may also allow arbitrary height of the board. I think the chain reaction effect is visually appealing, but takes away from game play. Past the second round of block removal, it's impossible (heh, well for this mortal) to definitively predict the consequences of a particular drop. Badda-bing-bang-bong and half the screen is cleared. When it doesn't work out so well the responsibility for failure can easily be ascribed to unfortunate randomness introduced by the row feed. It's a neat idea though, I hope it works out and that in 5 years I'm eating my words :]
the ipod touch. it's an awesome device.
The first rule of working with non-human primates: don't make eye contact. The second rule of working with non-human primates: don't make eye contact. The third rule: take a guess. Etc.
> I didn't go back and add stuff to the Arc libraries to make the answer to the challenge shorter

Yes, instead of creating a new library for the challenge you created the challenge to suit the library.
Um. OK. It's a holding page for another "Stealth startup" doing search. Come back to me when you've actually got a product or got some important, non shill people I trust excited.

Stealth Startup is, in my dictionary, largely congruous with "No product"
It may be that I am working with a small sample size, but giving the full freedom of Java as in jsp's to view writers leads to horrible code. The logic is a tangle and the pages are nearly unreadable, due to the differing layout needs of Java and HTML. A more feature poor markup language that forces the developer to move business logic into the model will produce cleaner pages and cleaner logic. An added benefit, as the author notes, is that producing new views, like mobile, is a snap.
Top Internet Startup Scalability Killers
I think you have to be realistic here. Sure, functional concepts are arguably more powerful than OOP concepts. But if you can't understand OOP, how are you going to work in a Java/C++ shop like Google (where presumably Steve Yegge would be giving you a phone screen).
I'm sure Simon is crying all the way to the bank over this.
Optimizing Wikipedia's Fundraising Banner Ads
When the same person designs the programming language and the contest to "prove" it's the best, the contest is likely to prove that his programming language is the best.

Ok. Now let's explore (or rather, return to) the question of whether that happened in this case.

Since I was aware people would make this type of criticism when I proposed the challenge, I made a conscious effort to make the problem very generic-- in fact to be the simplest stateful web app I could think of. In your opinion, did I succeed? Is it a simple, generic problem to ask for input on one page and display it on the next? Or is this a complex problem that requires unusual, Arc-specific functionality to solve?
There's undoubtedly a silicon valley advantage when it comes to doing actual silicon. Presumably there's an advantage on the software (and particularly internet startup, as is the focus of the article) side of things as well. I find it hard to believe that so many companies are spending the extra $$ for a fancy mailing address.

So how much of the advantage is just having a pool of experienced talent locally available? How much of a difference does being able to sit in front of a white board and hash out an idea with a coworker face to face make for an internet company? Is the nearby presence of hardware companies still a significant advantage in some way? Did all these people just move to silicon valley because it made sense to go where everyone else in the industry went?

I was a bit disappointed that the article didn't really try to address these points.

How
I've found them far more obnoxious over time, personally. As the first commenter notes, this is also a legitimate concern--but there's no easy metric for obnoxiousness. (Clicks on the "hide" button perhaps?)
Slight nitpick: the Condorcet Criterion doesn't actually specify that the one with the majority #1 votes is first ranked. It explicitly states that the candidate that, when compared pairwise with each other candidate, wins most frequently should win overall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_criterion
You know, I thought pop music might've turned a corner a few years ago when producers were starting to use more electronic elements in pop. I thought there'd be some decent, slightly innovative pop music coming out in the future. I was mistaken.
I'm referring entirely to the sequencing of revelations in these respective scandals.

Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com first released one taken at the Baltimore office, followed by Washington, D.C. After the first or second, the head of ACORN said "Well, yes, but we threw them out of the office at A, B, New York City, etc."

Then Breitbart released the one in NYC. Lather, rinse, repeat.

(It's a bit misleading to say "the MA-AG cleared them", seeing as how that was the execrable (Amiraults) former MA-AG Scott Harshbarger, who was hired by ACORN for an "independent" inquiry.)
I have had a lot of experience in white label work from both the technical and commercial side. If you want a call to pick my brains about specifics you would be most welcome - email richard at the domain in my profile.

If you can get cash up front. I can't stress how important that is.

A common commercial model I'm used to is a per-user fee plus a percentage. Because that massively reduces your risk you can (and should) agree to a smaller percentage.

No one ever wants 'just a re-skin'. It NEVER happens. Think hard about how many people you can afford to have sucked into the project.

Be aware that you can't fully agree the scope up front. Make sure you lock down the agreed change process. Identify who is going to pay for changes.

What happens if it's a success? Who pays for scaling? What changes would be on the table for phase 2? Are you trying to hand over maintenance, get bought, start up a white label business team to service this customer?

What happens if it's a failure? Who makes the decision to terminate the project? Who covers the cost of shut down?

You are clearly in a strong position here - it's an opportunity not a critical deal - so don't feel pressured to sign the wrong contract fast! And congratulations :-)
I've been using Groovy and Grails to introduce dynamically typed, rapid development tech to a mostly Java only shop. In these scenarios Groovy really shines.
Fantastic quote. Thanks for posting it.
Wait until you discover Sphinx!
لاناقتك ازياء غاية في الروووعة
yeah, when I saw the video, it seemed like either (a) the guy never worked at Microsoft or that (b) he may have worked at Microsoft at one time and decided to get his few seconds of fame with a lie.

imo the fact that this video was posted on HN and that it got at least 3 upvotes in the past 11 hours shows that the the guys who made the video were right about their estimation of the public's willingness to give them their few seconds of fame.
I have no idea how the block elimination logic works once they all start falling, but I don't care. I just want to play over and over. You will soon be earning my 99 cents. Kudos.
OnBoard : Sinatra based web interface to manage Linux-based network appliances
The referenced book is THE book. It was an easy read for someone who had no functional programming experience. :)

http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Erlang-Software-Concurrent...
This, but add MongoDB as a replacement for MySQL/PostgreSQL, too.

Switching from Subversion to Git was like seeing for the first time. No more nightmare merges!
It's not about the money. It's about the message. Even if all the albums cost $0, the message would remain the same. Not everything in the world is about money or banks or finances (no matter how much that's mentioned on HackerNews...)
Personally I don't care about the views of Simon Cowell. I doubt that the music charts accurately reflect what people are actually listening to, due to the diversity of ways in which music can now be obtained and played.
Out of curiosity what features would it take for you to change over to gitx?
Thanks for sharing.

I've been investing quite a bit of time into Clojure and to motivate me to go further I'd like to find some software (not code snippets) I can download and see the power Clojure provides (that other tools like Ruby or C don't) in a real application.

Similar to what Rails did for Ruby.
This article is really interesting. It made me think about something I was reading yesterday and how these legal principles might apply.

Emotiv is about to release their epoc brain-computer interface headset that uses EEG technology to attempt to divine intentions and emotions from thought alone. It has 14 electrodes and costs $299. You can read more about it at http://emotiv.com.

Anyway, the concept seems very interesting to me, and I was thinking it would be cool to use it for research or to play around with the SDK that it comes with. However, it turns out that the SDK only includes "interpreted" data from Emotiv's software, not the raw EEG data. For that, you have to pay $7500 for a license (or $2500 if you're a research institution), even though it sounds like it's the exact same device.

IANAL, but this article makes it sound like it would not be illegal to buy one and then circumvent whatever DRM scheme they've likely implemented to capture the raw data and use it however you want. In particular, these two lines about Lexmark's attempt to restrict 3rd party cartridges:

Because Lexmark's DRM only blocked access to the functions of the printer, not access to any copyrightable code, the court was unwilling to give its lockout behavior DMCA protection.

The judge concluded that "patent holders may not invoke patent law to enforce restrictions on the post-sale use of their patented product. After the first authorized sale to a purchaser who buys for use in the ordinary pursuits of life, a patent holder's patent rights have been exhausted... Because Lexmark's patent rights in its toner cartridges were exhausted by the authorized, unconditional sales of the cartridges to end users, Lexmark's attempt to impose single-use restrictions on the cartridges fails.

I'd love to hear what others think about the subject.
No mention of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, at least in the review. I'll stick with Feynman's interpretation for now, http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/ (select Feynman's videos, then lecture 5).
Still, stuff like this makes me excited again about seeing the next 40 years unfold ...
Achieving higher search engine rankings by building a network of seemingly legitimate web pages that eventually link to a target page.

Everyone who ranks on commercially relevant SERPS seems to do this or, if they are lazy, just buy links from these networks. Check the backlinks on any top ranking commercial terms to see for yourself.
The fake blog is probably from a Markov generator. I've always liked that as a blackhat SEO strategy. However, it seems like it isn't that much more expensive to generate real content -- like the recent post about eHow and bingo cards -- so there isn't a point in taking that risk
SPDY is an experiment with protocols for the web
Direct link to the video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17jymDn0W6U&hd=1
The musical angle is secondary. The real story is that a centralized cultural influence (Cowell) was overshadowed by a distributed cultural influence (Facebook).
I think you are depressed. It has nothing to do with your degree, that's just how you are expressing the depression.

Fix (somehow) your depression, and the rest will be OK. You are not depressed because of your degree issues, but rather quite the reverse.

How to fix the depression is not something I can tell you. You will have to go to other sources for help on that. Medication helps, but is not always enough, and conversely other things help, but sometimes you need medication as well.
In the video, it's shown that there's a cone of galaxies and quasars that we have seen and mapped. What prevents us from mapping the dark areas? Is the the light from the other stars in the Milky Way?
Perhaps my beard is a sign of my commitment to geekdom?
No; Arc has good libraries for writing web apps, but the basic Arc language is a completely general Lisp.