skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I just finished editing documentation of this outdoor projection / interaction project we did in new zealand:

http://vimeo.com/8525186

I'm working on an open source eye tracker:

http://eyewriter.org

and a c++ toolkit for creative coding:

http://openframeworks.cc
Thoughts on ebooks and ebook readers
I searched for Bangkok Thailand and found the content returned very familiar - it'd come solely from http://wikipedia.org/ and http://wikitravel.org/. The FAQ confirms that's what the site does. I won't try it again.
Why? (Ignoring say foot fungus, is it just squeamishness or is there something else I should know? ;))
https://launchpad.net/
I'm not saying you can be proficient with screen in 10 minutes. Far from it. What I did say is that, if I were somebody who wanted to teach and share a session with someone, I would put a page with the following instructions to Joe:

1) open a terminal
2) ssh joe.student@teacherserver.net
2.a) your password is "PASSWORD_FOR_JOE"
3) screen -x joe.session

What else does the student need to do, besides having a ssh client?
Why aren't there chips that support T-Mobile's non-standard frequency ranges in addition to the standard ones? It seems that with the GSM Android phones coming out lately, it's been either one or the other. The Droid Milestone for Telus supports AT&T 3G, but not T-Mobile 3G. Apparently the Nexus One supports T-Mobile 3G, but not AT&T 3G.
Yes, but anyone saying, "Windows/OS X/Linux/your OS here destroyed the PC" is more blatantly trolling than the linked post.
I have walked into a Best Buy, ready to make a computer purchase on the spot.

And then walked out because I could not buy what I wanted without their "optimizations".

I simply will not deal with retailers who do this.
Add Australia in there as well. Most phones, including the iPhone, are available here unlocked and can be used on any carrier
Shouldn't we have agents trying to get through security with guns, explosives and anything else that's restricted, multiple times per day so we can measure how effective airport security is and improve it? Ideally these agents would not get on the plane, or what they are given to carry through could be disabled in some way.

Otherwise how do we know it works at all? How do you check that the screeners are doing their jobs properly?
I always get the feeling when reading about Mechanical Turk that for a service which promises the ability to get arbitrary amounts of lumpen labor for pennies with an API you have to do an awful lot of speaking to individually identifiable people about pennies, which is so far from my desired job description it isn't even funny.

(The attraction for me when I used FeedbackArmy was that they took care of the "managing turkers" headache for me. I boggle that someone would want to do that, but I guess people boggle about my business model, too...)
what's the deal with chains? I mean, everyone always wants to break them.
Remember the FCC auction of spectrum? Google was outbid. But if they had not been, they probably would have launched a carrier.
Have you thought about the economics of having a program where people earn money from allowing use of there processing power vs paying for it regularly/ having your own processing power.

Even if it was barely worth it for the user after factoring in electricity costs the novelty factor might attract people.
Yes!

http://www.dabeaz.com/blog/2009/11/fun-with-block-towers.htm...
No no. I don't mean locating good content and putting it in a directory. I mean actively searching out bad content and then making sure that it never appears.

Google's approach is to actively search out good content and try to make that rise above the noise. My approach would be to actively search out noise and then make sure that never pops up in search results.
http://www.caterpi.com -- Crowdsourcing freelance translation
Clueless asks: How do you make that dynamic?
Could you elaborate on your comment about targeting companies bad at capacity planning? I did not get that from the interview at least. Also, I am considering using them and wonder how I might be implicitly bad at capacity planning :)
I've been following your company's work on HN and the Appengine group. Just wanted to say, you guys have some very talented designers!
That is an insane amount for each song, it makes one wonder what punishment would come from stealing a dozen cds (a tangible item of similar nature).
Do you have personal experience with mechanical engineering projects that suggests that most work best with large, lowly-paid design teams using management-friendly technology, or are you just assuming that they would?

Yeah I think they work differently in general. From my experience they do not benefit from iterative development the same way we do. They do but they iterate when solving the problem, usually on paper. If they make a design mistake and it's in production or prototype phase it's much more costly to address. And because of this development cycles are longer and a lot more time is spent upfront.

I've watched and assisted mechanical engineers that spent days working out the math on the reliability of a class of lasers (and belts, motors, fans) subjected to sitting in a warehouse, followed by periodic motion and change in atmospheric conditions then launched (missile launch or space launch).

After the analysis was complete I could code up the math in a matter of minutes. Then expose it to all sorts of boundary cases and add it into a mathematical model of the entire system. Sometimes, at this point, it would go back to analysis to address some new found issues.

I have great respect for such engineers. Solving real life problems, like this, thoroughly is worlds away from what most programmers enjoy - creating.

EDITED: Clarifications ~
Ask HN: What lead developers look for 
I recently launched a social media website that needs a sophisticated lead developer who can both work within the vision for the company and contribute ideas that will take it to the next level.

The initial build was entirely outsourced--not offshore, just not built by an in-house staff. I'm looking to hire/partner and want to make sure I'm doing what I can to recruit and inspire the best technologists available.

Since my job is basically to handle everything other than development, including keeping my developer partner happy, are there any tips the HN community can share for inspiring and keeping the best developers?
Wow, I am surprised this guy didn't get tortured or anything. How is he supposed to convince a foreign country that the bombs discovered in his bag are not his?
Dell laptops and desktops are tricky to do this with if you're installing Windows, because -- for some dumb reason -- the Dell hardware is simply crippled without the pack of model-specific drivers installed.

On some units, you even lose ethernet, so you're not only stuck with a horrible screen resolution until you fix it, but you also have to load the drivers on via usb.

And finally: I don't know of a manufacturer right now that provides you with a real actual Windows disk when you buy your computer. You generally get instead an OEM "reinstall" disk which puts all that wonderful crap back on your system.

I really really wish Linux could get a serious hold on the consumer market.
I made a google spreadsheet for those who didn't want to sort through the list:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=tmL5TmhKKDQahw1tPQcrk...
Setup a chain to 'do a thing you dont like' everyday.
Soon you'll be able to control yourself.
"Slovak authorities were reportedly trying to test screening procedures for checked-in luggage by placing items with unwitting passengers."

Red-Team screening is a fairly important element of the TSA's approach to testing network security, but you run your own people (with appropriate ID and escalation contacts) through these security checkpoints. At the _most_ you grab some civilian security contractors.

Something about "unwitting passengers" makes me want to ask WTF? If the Slovakian minister for the interior had not apologized, I wouldn't have believe the article had their facts straight.

Bizarre.
Forgive me, I'm a much better technologist than I am a blogger .. Hence the sparse number of entries on my blog!

In general, I feel that the whole EC2/instant provisioning model of servers, which for any moderate (10+ serverS) application tends to be far more expensive than owning your own hardware over the long run, is a sign of an infrastructure that either does not excel at capacity planning, or that is unable to plan for capacity.
Thanks. Signed up and giving it a shot. Positive goals: push-ups, reading, cooking. Negative goals: playing a game of Freecell. ;)
> The same reason I build servers.

I can't figure out how to build servers cheaper than their equivalent abmx.com counterparts -- ignoring cases where I buy an 8-bay unit and then purchase the drives separately.

In fact, to go further out on a limb: it's been a while since I've seen any computer system in the consumer market for sale and thought to myself, "I could build one like that for less". Which sucks, because it would be great if I could do that, stick my own label on them, and sell 'em.
My executive summary to convince you that if you sell a web application reading that crowdsourced transcript is the best possible use of your next 30 minutes:

1) Wufoo sent out handwritten Christmas cards to users. Users loved them. It didn't scale. They continue to do it by automating selection of users to receive thank you cards throughout the year, based on heuristics like account age and plan level. All cards are written by highly paid engineers rather than farmed out to cheaper labor.

2) Most expensive plan makes the most money. I emphasize: Read the whole discussion about this.

3) 10% growth in sales, monthly, since launch. (picks jaw off floor Congratulations.)
It's an OLED, which tend towards being extremely readable in sunlight.
The world is a lot larger than the US, by buying a local European carrier they would be able to do it without having to buy a major US party (which I guess would be even outside their pocketbook).
Time travelling RTS (Achron) accepting Pre-orders
Nit: That URL needs cleansing by adding a space between it and the trailing asterisk when submitting (a problem with HN's parsing of '❄blah❄' markup that I've noticed/noted before; I seem to recall the breakage scenario as occurring when the markup is used at the end of a paragraph).

Test case: The last word of this sentence -- sans any training punctuation -- has the markup

Err... nope: It looks like it's only when wrapping a URL in the markup http://www.google.com/* a̶n̶d̶/̶o̶r̶ ̶w̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶U̶R̶L̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶e̶n̶d̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶a̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶a̶g̶r̶a̶p̶h̶ ̶̶h̶t̶t̶p̶:̶/̶/̶w̶w̶w̶.̶g̶o̶o̶g̶l̶e̶.̶c̶o̶m̶/̶̶

Looks like I need to break some continuing italicization now.

Trying the same sort of markup but also wrapping a trailing space produces http://www.google.com/ , which is better..

----

Where ❄ represents an asterisk.
Speaking from harsh experience, if you're not starting out with any lead developers (in most startups I've been in one is included, even if you're going to outsource, because otherwise how can you judge the quality of that outsourced work?), you really need to concentrate on finding two unless you can find the relatively rare type who's willing to sign on by himself.

Most people are a lot more productive if they have someone to work with, to bounce ideas off of, get reality checks, etc.

I suppose one aspect to emphasize is finding initial people who others will want to work with. You're building a team here, and you need to focus on the special aspects of that in this field. Run---do not walk---and buy a copy of Peopleware by Demarco and Lister (buy it directly from them if not particularly available otherwise). Be sure to read the bits on teamicide, although of course that's merely things to not do.

Probably my bottom line is: find someone you absolutely trust. He's going to tell you "we need to do X, which will cost Y" and you're not going the like the Y. But if you've picked the right person, you'll need to bite the Y bullet anyway. Otherwise your future will be filled will pain and attracting and keeping good people will be hard to impossible. (Many examples upon request.)

Good luck!
The determination of whether a pension is underfunded is based on actuarial studies that, by necessity, must make assumptions about both the longevity of retirees (and survivors) and the return on invested funds. A fund which is fully funded under a 6% return assumption which then takes a 20% hit to its assets due to a sudden market downturn then becomes underfunded, and the sponsoring entity is required to make catch-up contributions. There is no difference between the public and private sectors in this regard. However, as stated by the author, the pension beneficiaries of a public system have much more powerful tools to force their interests to come first in the event of underfunding than do private pension beneficiaries.

There have also been cases of manipulation of the actuarial numbers, including a case in New York or New Jersey (can't remember which) where the actuary doing the pension study was also a paid consultant for the public sector unions. Not surprisingly, he concluded that significant benefit increases could be managed at the current funding level.
"Slovak authorities admitted planting them in his luggage" - First they told the Irish police he had a bomb, then they told them that they were at fault. It is a good thing that the innocent traveller didn't get severely injured in the raid.
I think there's potential for localised search with options such as:

- lists prices online
- is just brochureware
- has online ordering
- displays their full catalogue
- etc

Say I'm trying to get an idea of cost for tapware, I have to browse through x plumbing sites that are just brochureware, or have an only catalogue without pricing, etc.

Similarly for travel, checkboxes for "official site", review site, reseller, etc.

And another PITA is product review pages with SFA reviews.
Most CS undergraduate programs in the US suck enough these days that numerical analysis isn't taught at the undergrad level. For example, at my school, undergraduates get to choose between the automata/grammars/computability class and a "numerical methods" class that is really watered down. There is a two-semester undergraduate numerical analysis class, but as I recall it can't count toward your degree except as a general elective. To get numerical analysis to count as a CS elective, you have to take the graduate level class.
Ask HN: Recommendation for book related to ethics and hacking/computers?
I need to write a book report on a book related to ethics, computers, and public policy. There aren't any books that I have in mind, so I'm looking for recommendations. An interesting biography of a hacker would probably work. Thanks.
I'll do a self-plug here - we have SharePoint 2007 admin training online @ http://www.learnitfirst.com/Course/225/SharePoint-2007.aspx. We have a relatively smaller number of user-based videos though so it may not be what you need. Hit me offline and I can give you a free subscription for one user.
High Tech Angel Panel: 2010 Trends at Hacker Dojo Jan-18-2010
There is no contact info in your profile - shoot me an email. I might have an idea for you.
Finally a good reason not to leave your luggage unattended at the airport.
Really brilliant article. Thanks!

I'm wondering whether the premise of the language as not Turing complete holds up though. The article claims that the Piraha language lacks abstractions, including counting. Perhaps that could count as incompleteness, but I'm not so sure, and the article doesn't say enough to clear it up. Even if a person cannot use recursive linguistic forms, such as "I saw the dog by the river", they can say, "I saw the dog. The dog is by the river". Can they also say, "Another dog came to the river"? Is that enough context, without tracking the precise count?

Another thought, just because they don't care about a historical fact, is the fact that the story can be told in the language enough for completeness? Even without precise numeric counts?

Does Turing completeness even make sense as a description for a natural language?
Everett's claims are extremely controversial. Also, this article is over two years old; hardly news. There have been several articles in the last few issues of Language have discussed the "exceptionality" of Piraha.
Think Palm and iPhone ‘Spyware’ is Scary? Try Google Android
Prolog? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1023192 was recently posted. You create relations between terms with clauses and query them to create programs in Prolog.

Though, I'd be (happily) surprised if Alain Colmerauer read HN.
For people unfamiliar with this, "spilled to memory" means rounded to 64 bits (from 80).

x87 does floating point math with 80 bits (in registers). But the variables are stored in memory locations with 64 bits. So the results are rounded.

The problem comes from when to do the rounding. And that can vary depending on if a register is needed for something else, optimizations, the order of code, etc.
I can make the Windows key have a butterfly painted on it. I never quite understood why I even had a Windows key on my computer ;-)
Interesting that this comes up the same day as http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1032394.

Recessions are bad for big companies and good for agile startups.
Most (all?) talks from 26c3 in several formats @ http://mirror.fem-net.de/CCC/26C3/
I use this strategy at Duck Duck Go. See the Parked Domains Project: http://www.ivegotafang.com/
Where the rock stars go is where you will find great software and the company culture that works is "stand back and let the rock stars do their thing". That culture can't exist in the enterprise.

XBox is an interesting counter-example. Microsoft completely
let that team do their thing. They had total freedom to design and market it. Notice they didn't even have to call it Microsoft Gaming Console.

Source: Chris Capossela's talk at the Business of Software 2009 conference.
Chance to meet these panelists. Tickets $21-42 in advance

Bill Reichert, Garage Technology Ventures
Jim Connor, Board Member, Sand Hill Angels
Edward Esber, Angels Forum and Halo Fund
Ann Miura-Ko, Partner, Maples Investments
Ron Weissman, Band of Angels
If the set comes with trees and telephone poles, you can use them to prop up the elevated sections. I think duplos work nicely too : )
Well then... A PDF version would make me happier. ;-)

OTOH, he could make a second edition and start selling that, if the agreement with the publisher allows.

Unless the contract is deliberately convoluted, it shouldn't take more than an lawyer x hour to sort that question out.
A placebo gets used to determine the margin of error for a particular test. The drug being tested must show significant improvements over the placebo's measurements in order to prove that it is effective.

If your theoretical Drug A performs worse than the placebo, then the effectiveness that it had should be considered to be within the margin of error, and therefore not better than taking nothing at all.
Python vs Haskell : An unsatisfying exercise in comparative code linguistics
"Microsoft's "Bob" environment for naive computer users was developed (and delivered) in Lisp"

Lisp just lost a hundred geek points with me...
That's not entirely true. Google actively de-lists non-content pages. Ask any SEO IM.
I'm not certain I agree with all of Yudkowsky's 'virtues.' They seem posited ex-nihilo, without taking cue from themselves.

More importantly, I'm almost positive that he could have expressed himself more clearly and less ambiguously. This essay has too many words and not enough content.
Yea I'm pretty sure you stole my idea :). Just kidding. It looks very cool!
"Otherwise how do we know it works at all?"

This may be cynical of me, but I suspect this is precisely why we don't do penetration testing regularly...

Funny scene a couple of days ago - I was taking the train from Canada to the USA, pre-clearing US border security before getting on the train. The gentleman in front of me had a pair of nail clippers in his carry-on, and was told he needed to put them in checked luggage to get on the train.

First of all, nail clippers. Really? sigh

Secondly, passengers carried their checked luggage past the security checkpoint themselves, out of sight of the security guys, and voluntarily placed their luggage on the checked luggage cart sitting essentially unattended. That gentleman, if he meant any harm, could have easily taken his nail clippers and gotten on the train with it and... well, I dunno what you would actually do with nail clippers on a train that's really so bad.
The service is way more than just a simple front for ssh. The fact that you can boot up a free instance, from anywhere, with access to various ports, means that you could theoretically:

Share files with a friend
Run a (sinatra web app? whatever) and get feedback on it for 20 or so minutes
Do anything that requires a few open ports.

And basically anything else you can think of. (of which, I'm sure I've only scratched the surface)

It's more than just a shared terminal.
Lack of sales tax alone is hard to compete with when it comes to electronics.
laser power systems, thorium fueled Maxfelaser are on the cutting edge of safe green energy. this versatile power system can be used in the power grid or as the replacement technology for the internal combustion engine. see www.laserturbinepower.com
Nexus One Total Cost of Ownership (chart)
There’s an opportunity here to create a web search engine that punishes results littered with ads. Google can’t do it – they live off those ads.

This is absolute bullshit and it looks like a majority of replies here are eating it up.

Google actively de-lists pages that aren't content intensive, and I mean serious legible content.

Research some SEO IM work before you try and suggest that Google does nothing to remove Ad-sense filled pages. It's this kind of blogging that really muddies the waters.
Transportation ads are always my favorite.

There's a vintage store in SoHo, Flying A, where you can buy old Pan Am, TWA, Japan Airlines, etc. travel totes that have gorgeous branding from the middle 1900's.
The plaintiff in that case would be an actual physical shop, and the US government is not the tool of record stores (knock on wood). So very little, compared to this. Of course there would also be criminal charges but even they would be minor in comparison.
Thorium is the fuel of the future. Thorium is safe to handle.
Thorium energy technology is totally emissions free!
Thorium has an energy density of 292 time that of Hydrogen. One gram of thorium is equal to 20 million grams of coal or 7350 gallons of gasoline.
Yes, the article says the costs are "passed on to consumers". Because goods are prices the same no matter how you buy, I think this means that the price increase is passed on to all consumers, whether they pay by VISA or not.
Laser Power Systems Developing Cutting Edge Energy Technology

Scientists have long been aware that the earth is immersed in an extremely dense sea of energy, which permeates every nook and cranny of the universe. It is only recently that it was realized that this huge reservoir could be an available source of usable energy. With some notable exceptions, we have been, like fish, unaware of the ocean.
It's not really new in the US either. You can buy most phones unsubsidized. iPhone 3GS is $599 from AT&T with no service commitment for example. Same problem with incompatible 3G frequencies though. The big problem is US carriers charge you basically the same amount if you take the subsidy or not. The only flexibility you gain is no service contract but due to competing wireless standards and frequencies you're still very limited in carrier choice. Google is using the same business model as everyone else.