skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Maybe not complete bullshit but an exaggeration in my opinion. Just because a student comes from China or another India or wherever does not necessarily mean they are amazing workers.

For instance one semester I was lab partners in an electronics lab with a Chinese student. Initially he did good work but as the semester continued he did less and less, until the second to last lab where he did none at all. Since I worked straight through the night on the lab, I let the lab director know that my partner had done very little work on the lab, he spoke to my partner and my partner put in more effort on the final lab.

I give this anecdote merely to point out that not every Chinese student is perfect, in the same way that not every American student is lazy. In my opinion there are many other factors at play other than cultural background of the student, perhaps the most important being the subject. I believe my partner did not engage in the labs because he was not that interested in the subject but rather felt pressured to pursue it by his engineering parents.

In the same way many students attend college in America but do not have concrete goals or ambitions on what they want to study. They are pressured by all kinds of things to go to college right away, and many do not realize until the end of their time as an undergraduate what they truly want to study.

Therefore can we please stop making generalizations about student performance based on these types of things and instead of saying "you must be a good student you are X" look at the reason why good students are good students.
Yeah, that was something that surprised me about the Motorola droid: it's only GLES 1.0, with vague, incomplete support for 1.1. Fixed-function is an unfortunate conceit these days. Programmable pipeline is actually easier to teach to complete noobs.
Sure it does explain the difference, or at least it is easy to see how it could. From my experience interacting with foreign high school students from across the globe, they generally do not understand the hierarchy of higher ed in the US. At least, the ones I interact with have little knowledge of the reputations of colleges outside of Ivies + Stanford + MIT. (Clearly, you could argue that college rep != college quality, but that is a totally different discussion.)

Consequently, you could end up with a student body of pretty highly qualified foreign students but American students that didn't make the cut at more desirable colleges in the US. (Again, there are plenty of reasons why great students choose colleges that are not high on the prestige list, but this effect doesn't need to be large to be real.)
I went to china and the US:

* Nobody questioned me on entry into china like I was a criminal

* Policemen don't walk around with guns like they are ready to gun you down

* When a girl removes her shirt, she she is not jailed in china

* When I drink excessively and start acting the fool, I am treated like an idiot in china, not like a criminal

I visited both countries. In china, people are happy and friendly. In American, people are trapped and unfriendly.

China feels a lot freeer than the United States.
why not? In the real world, just because you happen to miss a deadline doesn't mean the work doesn't still have to be finished.
I'm not sure how PageRank always get brought up as the quintessential fair patent. Google most certainly didn't invent the eigenvector of stochastic matrices (and if they did it wouldn't be patentable). The part of PageRank that's patentable seems mostly to be using hyperlinks as an input into known techniques. I don't think its obvious, but I don't think its a clear cut example of something that should be patentable either.
4chan Founder “moot” to Speak at TED
The key here is that the average foreign student who came to America for college has already demonstrated a tremendous commitment to education. The average American student at any college, particularly one that is not world-renowned, does not harbor this extraordinary signal. Expectations with regards to work ethic should be calibrated accordingly.
It's funny, a Czech Graduate Student friend of mine always says that Americans work too hard and focus too much on materialistic things. (For the record, this guy is a genius and is advised by two guys, the inventor of RAID and the Dean of CMU's School of Computer Science).

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

As an American student, I'd have to say I'm pretty pleased with the way things are.
> Isn't the US the single largest polluting country?

Actually, no. At least in terms of CO2 emissions, China replaced us as #1 in 2006.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...
It's pretty rational of them (and arguably, morally upright): emissions-per-capita is caused by a high standard of living (barring a few confounding factors), and industrialized nations are asking China to restrict themselves to a much lower emissions-per-capita than we are targeting ourselves.
I would strongly recommend this 4 minute video to everyone on the issue:

"Michael Crichton on Environmentalism as a Religion" - the video talks about how environmentalism offers salvation and a complete belief structure for many people, but that the religion/faith aspect of it gets in the way of science. Regardless of your views on the environment, it might be insightful for you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv9OSxTy1aU

As for China, I lived in China for a short time a few years back. I wasn't convinced at all that they're the next world power - the government and infrastructure were so far behind the West that I didn't think it'd happen. But watching how China adjusted when the U.S. banking sector fell apart last year has convinced me that they're going to the top.

The American government printed a lot, which should make our U.S. Dollars fall relative to other currencies, including Chinese RMB. China in turn printed about the same amount of money and invested it into Chinese infrastructure and tax breaks for their businesses - driving the cost of Chinese goods even lower.

They're building the same sort of infrastructure and industrialization that the United States did during the Cold War. They're also liberalizing and gradually loosening and eliminating central government while we're currently expanding the role of central government. Considering their population is three times larger, if the United States want to keep military parity with China over the next 30 years, they'll have to change their economic policies or they're going to go bankrupt. There's some difficult choices facing the USA soon - China is definitely on the rise.

They face some hurdles - can they integrate and keep friendly the Cantonese, Xianjianese, Tibetans, Macanese, Taiwanese, and Hong Kongese to some extent into the primarily Mandarin Han government? The effects of the One Child Policy will be interesting to see - the gender imbalance and all. China breaking into Civil War is a very real possibility in the next 30-50 years, but if they don't, they're on the rise globally and will be the next world power.
Outside of school, deadlines are usually based on project estimates, and as long as you provide sufficient notice, it's often possible to adjust the schedule and dependent activities to fit the actual time required to complete task(s). If it's not possible, then business decisions have to be made regarding what tasks can be abandoned or modified to meet the hard deadlines -- regardless of how the business adapts, you're better off bringing up a scheduling issue before it becomes critical.

Given that deadlines in education are more or less entirely arbitrary, I don't see the harm in extending them within reason, and providing students with the opportunity to successfully complete their tasks.

As for tardiness -- it happens. If someone consistently fails to meet our estimates, but delivers a sufficient degree of value within a reasonable amount of time, then I'll simply learn to incorporate their individual turn-around time in my estimates.
When you were in China, you were shown only what you were meant to see. There are large portions of China which are unavaliable to tourists.
actually, that doesn't sound too absurd
I don't disagree that there are some definitions of freedom where China feels more free than the USA. However, I think you're missing the point. What about the Chinese peasant farmers that don't even have urban residency permits?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system#Household_registra...
You surely can derive a series of conclusions from one simple and, in some circles, naive question.

Merry Christmas.
And your rant is still misinformed, one-sided, and extremely overreaching in its conclusions.
I agree with MrRage that this is not a valid argument in this case. There's where he's drawn the line to "attack" Apple and, at the same time, protect himself from being labeled as the "ultimate fanboy". His criticism of the Apple Store's policy is just a last resort for cases like this.
Thoughts on a failed launch
The Support PIN’s are another option for accessing our customer support over the phone without the need to share your Account Center password.

Support PIN’s are temporary and expire shortly, allowing them to be a secure method of authenticating a customer when calling in for support.

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You can simply login to your AC and generate a temporary PIN to share with our support staff.
Very true, but that's a massive easier-said-than-done:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_seam_fire#Extinguishing_co...

I actually didn't know China had underground coal fires - I learned a little about the topic reading about the underground coal fires in Pennsylvania:

http://www.offroaders.com/album/centralia/centralia.htm

It's expensive and dangerous to put them out as described in Wikipedia, but also the success rate can be fairly low. With our currency technology, you can put out 99% of the fire and have it restart and spread again quickly and undetected. From Wikipedia, italics mine:

> In 2004, the Chinese government claimed success in extinguishing a mine fire at a colliery near Urumqi in China's Xinjiang province that had been burning since 1874. However, a March 2008 Time magazine article quotes researcher Steven Q. Andrews as saying, "I decided to go to see how it was extinguished, and flames were visible and the entire thing was still burning.... They said it was put out, and who is to say otherwise?"
Who buys these? I presume the microsecond automated trading shops would love them, but the value of processing speed-ups isn't that great in most industries. I've been doing performance work on a bunch of Java apps for a Fortune 500 company, and processor is rarely a bottleneck. I guess the locking speed-ups and transactional memory (in HW?) would help with scaling.
That is only on account of actual emissions in the US. What if you take the amount of deforestation in Africa every year to support the US into account?

IMO the US seems to blindly insist that everyone other than itself should be punishable, while it will continue to make vague promises and absolutely rubbish the Kyoto Protocol.

EDIT: Rephrased that last sentence.
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Công ty TNHH truyền thông Quảng cáo D&N cần tuyển:
In which persistence proves a propitious property
I completely understand your hesitation! I feel the same way. We used to say we straightened paperclips to save money.

I would say: Don't turn off the switch! Not ever.

Maybe a better way to think about it, especially at the beginning: Let's say you get a big order or have a big month and you have just an extra $1000. Then how to spend? Is there a particular ad campaign you'd like to try? Offload some crappy work for 1 month and see how much time it really frees up? Etc.

That is, make it $1k instead of $100k. Maybe more practical?
This may be a side-effect of the Copenhagen failure, but it certainly wasn't an intended one. China borked the negotiations for the sake of money, power, and world dominance. Unfortunately, this seems to be the motivation behind much of the Chinese government's actions.

On issues which do not threaten these goals, China may "seem pro-freedom". However, most of the important issues (free speech, rights of the accused, labor rights, religion, etc. etc.) do. And on those issues, they're decidedly less free.
Thanks for sharing your account of student life in Taiwan. It's always nice to hear firsthand about life in other cultures so that we don't hang onto our misconceptions. On that note, let me suggest that your caricature of American student life is a little cartoonish. Yeah it's like that in a lot of schools, but if your son or daughter goes to one of those schools then you live in a shitty neighborhood and should move. You're probably right about the means, but the variance is much higher in the US and its very possible to find an academic environment where a student can excel without fear of getting beat up. (Also, the bit about not making it into college being worn as a "badge of honor" is just silly. Why would they even apply?)
FWIW I went to public school in Northern California (the central valley even) and I definitely got positive feedback from my peers for doing well in school, because my peers also took advanced classes. Apart from schools with gang problems, I would characterize it like this: In the US it's your choice whether or not you want to succeed academically. Your peers generally don't care because there are a myriad of other reasons to like or dislike you (looks, sense of humor, clique membership, etc.) So yeah there is not the social pressure to succeed, but for the most part there is no negative pressure preventing success (again, except in very troubled schools.)
How to use Facebook with a feed reader
I'm glad to read such a positive outlook on Python as a beginner language, as I just sent my eight-year-old niece (and her parents) a book on it. If this gamble pays off she might just succeed in learning Python before I do. ;)
I was more excited to hear Bill Gates was going to speak.
The public cost of a patent is the monopoly it provides. The public benefit is that the invention is eventually released into the public domain.

Take the pharmaceutical companies as an example of where patents are perhaps worthwhile:

- It costs a lot of money to produce a new drug; high cost == high risk == unattractive field for investment. Patents lower the risk because the pharmaceutical companies know that they will be able to recoup their investment if they actually produce something useful.

- Likewise, it costs a lot of time to do the research and produce something that works. The 20-year timescale (http://law.jrank.org/pages/9086/Patents-Patent-Duration.html) of the patent is approximately in line with the effort expended.

- It is comparatively easy to tell if a drug works.

- After the patent expires, the drug is probably still useful...e.g. aspirin hasn't stopped being a good painkiller just because it's a commodity.

Compare this to software patents. None of the points match up:

- Production costs are zero == low risk == attractive field for investment.

- Production time is almost zero. You can submit software patents literally as fast as you can write them up.

- Most software patents are completely intangible and have very fuzzy edges. If you're a patent examiner in 1980, how do you verify that this "web browser" idea will in fact work?

- After 20 years, the patent is likely to be worthless. As a trivial example: yes, people still use GIF but JPEG and PNG are far more common.

All of these things encourage the system we have now--"throw it against the wall", patent trolling, etc--instead of what patents were Constitutionally intended to be: an incentive to grow the arts, sciences, and economy.
Hackers break Kindle DRM
Exploit code is here - http://pastie.org/753699
You know this is the reason I find myself leaning conservative with respect to environmental issues. All of these environmentalists loudly proclaim that China and the US are the profligate polluters in the neighborhood. I have looked up the numbers, and per capita, Australians release five times more carbon into the atmosphere than we do. Yet I have not once seen or heard an environmentalist take Australia to task for their profligate behavior. Do we pollute more than Australia, yes, only because there are more people here. We have to heat 100 million homes in the winter, right now that necessitates some carbon emissions. We are number one in researching alternative energy technologies to attempt to change this state of affairs, but what would you have us do in the meantime? Freeze?

You bring up China, well I checked the numbers there as well, and Australia releases eleven times more carbon per capita than China. Will China release more carbon in the future, yes, because instead of the 300 million people that currently enjoy little luxuries like heat in the winter, that number will swell to well over 900 million. Incidentally, guess who is number two in researching alternative energy technologies in an attempt to proactively address their future energy needs. China. What would you have them do in the interim? Freeze as well?

Yet China and the US are the "problem".

No, the real reason these 'environmentalists' are anti China and US is because it is politically fashionable to be so. It has very little to do with the actual numbers and the reasons behind them.

Sane and safe programs for the reduction of carbon emissions should have some basis in per capita emissions. And the evidence is more than clear that many nations have much further to go than the US and China in this regard.
It may be true that people come up with algorithms and mathematical constructs without patents as an incentive, but I still don't see how the same incentives (patents) are necessary for people to build novel material goods if they are not necessary for people to build novel software goods.

What I'm left wondering is, what is it specifically (for people who hold that some patents are OK, while software patents are not) that makes software different?

Edit: I just saw dstorrs comment, and I think what he seems to be implying is that patents on software are not comparable to other industries because of the relatively lower barrier to entry, and the relatively higher cost of enforcement. I think that this is a good argument for holding software patents to different standards (i.e. shorter statute lengths and more specificity in the application) than pharmaceuticals, etc. but I still don't see how patents are entirely misguided in the case of software.
Yeah, much in the same way that the South ca 1860 must've felt a lot freer and friendlier than, say, New York, provided you were white.

Also, if you were upper class Englishman presumably no one bothered you on entry to India ca 1920, or made a fuss if you got a bit drunk. I suppose police would be quite nice to you as well. And all the natives seemed so friendly and happy.
Yes, but are you still storing passwords in plain text, or just removing the idiotic need for your support staff to see them in plain text?
Should 'nerd' and 'geek' be condemned?
China is fast becoming freer while the US is headed in the opposite direction. Some examples of freedoms in China that are illegal in some or all US states:

* I can get real milk (see http://www.realmilk.com/) delivered to my door.

* Fireworks of all sizes and detonative power are readily available.

* There is no prohibition on the sale of alcohol or cigarettes to minors.

In addition:

* You can start a new business with relative ease.

* Uncomplicated income tax (no tax return, withholding, W2 forms, etc.)

* Police are generally friendly and there is no fear of being unjustly tazed or beaten.
The Chinese leadership strikes me as pragmatic. If they thought the harm from Global Warming would be more costly than carbon emission cuts, they would make them.

But neither China nor India wants to remain poor. Any poor country is likely to benefit much more from development than the harm development will cause through additional carbon emissions (unless it's the Maldives). And neither countries' regimes can benefit from buying the votes of a green constituency with expensive projects of uncertain value. Rather, their legitimacy is strengthened by delivering increased living standards, and that is just what they intend to do.

The author is disingenuous to claim that these countries are acting in the service of of "planetary suicide", the breathless accusations of western green activists to the contrary. The Chinese leadership is well-educated. They can read the IPCC reports. They know what the likely consequences are. Planetary suicide is not among them.

Their leaders also know it's a hell of a lot better to be not-poor than poor. They think they are making a rational decision by frustrating the western green lobby's plans. And I'm pretty sure they are right. It's going to take a hell of a lot bigger bribe than $100 billion to convince them otherwise.
Chris Bangle Interview
Really? Because every post I've seen where he acknowledges app store shortcomings ends something like "But Phil is a really great guy and he promises to make things better soon, so Apple is still awesome."
Sounds like the article reinforces the same checks and balances that the U.S. government is based upon, why the supreme court has all those judges and terms of elected officials are staggered. The founders force themselves to seek the middle ground. Pretty Good.
Comcast To Compensate Throttled BitTorrent Users
The answer is $16. You can get $16 for being throttled.
> I would of been in and out in 2 years

"I of a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color have their skin but by the content have their character.

I of a dream today!"
VnExpress - Daily News
That's still about 100 million people.
Top Mobile Phones, Sites and Brands for 2009
Is College Really Worth It?
I don't know where you visited in the US, but it doesn't sound at all like where I live.

* Most people I encounter are happy and friendly, even the poor and unemployed.

* I'm not accustomed to seeing police carrying anything more than a holstered service pistol.

* Not only can women take off their shirts without being arrested, both men and women can legally be completely naked in public (in this state).

* I've never seen anyone "treated like a criminal" for being drunk, so long as they aren't violent or otherwise harming other people.

* I've never experienced more than cursory questions on entry to the US, with 1 exception: returning to the US on Sept 14, 2001

Personally, I've lived in and visited enough places around the world that I would never reach a judgment on what a place is really like based on a brief visit, especially not a country as large as the US or China.
All of these environmentalists loudly proclaim that China and the US are the profligate polluters in the neighborhood. I have looked up the numbers, and per capita, Australians release five times more carbon into the atmosphere than we do.

It's not at all clear who "we" refers to in that sentence, but from my cursory glance at the data, it appears that the statement applies to neither the US or China. Please clarify and provide links to relevant data.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...
Im not sure how accurate this is, but Wikipedia lists the US carbon emmissions per capita as 18.67, Australia as 18.74 and China has 4.57. This seems to correlate with the world bank data as shown on Google for 2005 - http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=en_atm_co...

Maybe it has changed in the last few years, but it is a lot different than your claim of 5 times the US amount or 11 times the Chinese. Where did you get your numbers from?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio...
Except this doesn't apply here in the least. Microsoft has a lot more to gain from strict patent enforcement than it has to lose. This is hardly a good reason for Microsoft to give up all of the effort they've put into their software patent portfolio.