skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's 12/31... if it's possible to make US tax-deductible donations, they should probably get that information out RFN.
And it manages mailing lists quite well.
Great video, but man, that cough is annoying.
Unless you want to read your pipeline from left to right, like everything else you read.
Wow. This really did not need to be 7 minutes long. A short textual description (even a tweet) would have sufficed.
Not that I don't agree, but I really don't think that 3D Avatars are ever going to be a marketspace worth competing in.
patent infringement ?

could you elaborate how - I mean, if a developer uses their API to create a product tailored around IVR, could it infringe?

Or is it at the infrastructure level?
When the kids got a Wii I bought some Wii points just to get the browser. I used it once. An app that requires me to sit pretty much exactly in front of the tv to be able to control it just isn't all that useful to me.
Being self taught, I spent years thinking that;

x = &y; // Referencing
x = 0; // Dereferencing

Which seemed much more logical, but led to trouble when the internet came along and I started having thoroughly confusing conversations with other people.
The One Week Digital Cleanse
"If you develop a resistance to Vancomycin"

It isn't you that develops the resistance, it's the bacterium. The problem being that resistant bacteria can be transferred between people...
Especially as (e.g.) there doesn't seem to be any similar terroristic tendency among physicists, who are also very smart (anecdotally I'd say: slightly smarter on average) and smart in broadly similar ways.

(Note: "on average" means just that; I know some very, very smart engineers.)
Zen/code/zen Ensure All Roads Lead to Your Goal (+ Ruby Threads)
The complete "Force Concept Inventory" test (PDF):
http://shs.westport.k12.ct.us/physics/2007-2008/FCI-rv95.pdf
http://bit.ly/8YeiOZ (mirror)
Cluttered desktop but a meticulously organized harddrive.

And I think that is where the biggest productivity boost comes from, not having to hunt around from files but to have stuff in its place.

If you messed up my desk it would take me 20 minutes to recover, if you messed up my directory structure I'd probably be in custody 24 hours later :)

(Or I'd restore from the svn).
> he "sold over 3 million copies" of the book

Then we have 3 million of Bills Clinton?
The first thing that came to my mind when reading your original post was NaNoWriMo. For those unfamiliar, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It is a challenge to write a complete, 50000 word novel in November alone. The idea is basically, yes, the novel will suck, but if you don't do it, you'll never get it done. Lots of people say they want to write a novel. Few actually do it. NaNoWriMo forces you to actually do it.

I see the same basic idea here. If you start 12 businesses in the year, yes, some of them (maybe most of them, maybe all of them) will suck. But, you'll have started 12 businesses. How many people have that kind of business-starting experience? Lots of people say they want to start a business, but you're actually going to do it.
26C3: Protection against Flash security holes
In my experience, getting anything done when you have unlimited time is a challenge upon itself.
In terms of feature detection it looks as if this uses everything and the kitchen sink. Are there any benchmarks for this on training and recognition?
I would echo a little and say drive past the banks and begin a relationship with a credit union.

And if you can join the USAA orr NFCU, then definitely do. (And you may be eligible, I was.)

There was a time when lending decisions were made by a loan office with some thoughtfulness. You won't get that at any large bank now. Now it's a computer that parses your AGI and Fico and doesn't know you, your values, or your creditworthiness. (And Fico is ripe with edge cases, it's certainly not the whole story on credit worthiness).

But at a CU, you'll be able to sit at a desk with an underwriter. Yes, your stats will matter, but they will take into account the whole picture of a borrower.
Where are the hard facts to show the rate of failure of "local" banks vs national banks?

Some of the banks listed (for me) were part of large international conglomerates? That's better?

Also, having worked for large banks (one of the largest) and then in software sold to small "local" community banks and credit unions, I know that you are sacrificing online features with the the little banks. Most of them can't have the online convenience features that the large ones do.

And don't think that the "local" banks are any less "greedy" or "evil" than large banks. The reason this little banks stay in business is that they are incredibly profitable. They charge fees just as high (overdraft fees keep them in business) as the larger banks but don't have the regulators up their butt like the larger banks.

Did you ever wonder why banks offered free checking? It ain't to upsell you into car loans. It's in the hopes that you habitually overdraft and then pay the enormous fees.

There's a reason the big banks print everything in multiple languages. They love immigrant customers who are not financially literate. Stand in a bank in an immigrant neighborhood sometime and listen to the tellers explain to people why they now owe $200 in overdraft fees and their account is empty.

Having said that, credit unions are your best bet. Again if you can sacrifice a lot of convenience features you get for "free" with the larger banks.

Disclosure: I still bank with a large evil bank. Too much hassle to switch for too little benefit (if fact negative benefit because I lose features).
How to Transform Your Body in 30 Minutes or Less
Google Docs vs manual typewriter
Those who don't already know may want to note that this algorithm is exactly the one used by simple Bayesian spam filters, as proposed e.g. by a certain Paul Graham: http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html (more on this at http://www.paulgraham.com/antispam.html).
If it's not too specific (i.e. if any stiff cellophane in the dimensions of a roll of wrapping paper will do), I saw them selling another brand at the Target in Mountain View a few weeks ago.
Just because you've stayed married that doesn't mean you have a good marriage.
His book was a new york times best-seller. Does that necessarily imply that it is a good book? Also, are we sure it wasn't ghost written?
Russia plans to stop asteroid
If their market is wholesalers, they probably have a sales team, and the goal here is to build their Leads list.

I know what you're saying, but I've been here before. Few years back. Company sold customized silicone products (ipod slips, bracelets, keychains, etc). The owner wanted it setup with a small form (like that one) before you saw pricing.

His argument was that people that clicked on pricing but wouldn't fill a small form wouldn't have bought anyway.

I argued against it. I was young. It was 2004 or so, so I had been developing software professionally for 2 years.

He agreed to an experiment. I devised my own little Google Website Optimizer. We showed three things: 1) Status Quo 2) a "No Thanks" button beside the "Submit" button and 3) Skipped form entirely.

Long short, he was right. Removing the form didn't increase sales over 3 months, not at all. And it arguably hurt things because we had less sales data about prospects.
Mini Meals
Are you willing to share what the API call is?
Cheers dude :-)
This doesn't mention the elephant in the room - open source. 2000-2009 saw open source software become completely mainstream, probably best illustrated by the Firefox browser. Microsoft really failed to adapt to the rise of open source and the increasing developer mindshare which it commanded. Instead of trying to harness its potential and ride the wave their strategy was mostly one of antagonism and FUD.
Seven years gone
yes, i've read it. i found it unremarkable. the tale of the creation of a new computer sounds good in theory, but i couldn't get very involved.

i've read most of the other entries in this genre as well. my favorite is "hackers" by steven levy.
Santa Tracker was amazingly popular
I'd be willing to bet there are far more wii's in living rooms than any other console.

And you would be correct. According to data from manufacturers [1], Nintendo has sold nearly twice as many Wiis as Microsoft has sold Xbox 360s.

Wii 56 million (as of Sept. 30th)
Xbox 360 34 million (as of Oct. 23rd)
PS3 27 million (as of Sept. 30th)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_...
Well as I said their track record is very bad. They have not stopped red-handed a single terrorist or a single real bomb. It is usually an air marshal, other intelligence or just near-by passengers that did the work for them.

Yet they have sucked billions of dollars of our money. If we "the people" are the employers and TSA is working for us to keep us safe, it would be reasonable for us to fire them immediatly.

As for your concerns:

> 1. They don't have Full Body Scanners in place. The technology has been around for 3+ years, and would have caught the PETN sewn into the underwear.

There are also body cavities. Would you suggest probing everyone's cavities then?

> 2. They still allow liquids onto planes, which can be used to detonate and/or do significant damage to the inside of an airplane.

Refer to my answer to point 1. Body cavities can hide liquids, powder gels, anything non-metalic.

Even with their existing control they have let liquids and weapons through on numerous time.

So my list of steps that TSA could have taken is:

1. Quit
Some airport screening is necessary otherwise you can easily bring significant weaponry on board which makes the reinforced doors and armed pilots fairly useless. However, reinforced doors let you ignore knives etc, which drastically reduce the amount of screening you need to do.
Out of curiosity, what is the name of this Q&A platform that is being used across these sites?
Book review: Pro Git by Scott Chacon
Or go the next logical step and move your money to a credit union, where the dollars in your account are shares in the union. Unlike banks, the average credit union isn't built to screw you in every way they think they can get away with.

Small examples:

* When I first opened my accounts there was a (required by law, afaik) probationary period where checks took ages to clear. Since then, all my checks clear the moment I deposit them through the drive through. Typical checks are in the $1000-$6000 range, out of state. (My parents use the same credit union. My mom thinks she remembers a check deposit taking one business day--once.)

* Transfers from PayPal seem to clear a day faster than they did with my bank.

* Overdraft protection from my savings account is free and automatic.

Being a part of a credit union is a different experience from depositing money at a bank. It's similar to the way you might feel different even about some big, "faceless" corporation if it was one you'd chosen to make a significant (to you, if not them) investment in.
I was very sheltered. I didn't know that I was allowed to swear, tell jokes, or disagree with someone else before I got there.
> helped someone go... to the top of his field

Did it really? I seriously doubt it. Bill might be mistaken. To me it looks like just one of the cognitive biases: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

Unfortunately we cannot conduct an experiment of having two identical Bill Clinton, one of them read this book while another did not, then see they results.

But among more than 3 million of book readers, how many of them have something as close to Bill Clinton's achievements?
Hmmm, that strikes me as something to hope for in the next decade, but I can't see it happening in the next year, if for no other reason than the network buildouts required (e.g. after so many years of cutting capex, how long will it take AT&T to merely catch up with current demand?)
The History of the Saturn V
Okay. Personally, I couldn't put it down. Then again, I tend to idolize that period of computer history, since I missed it...

I haven't read "Hackers," I'll check it out.
Then why aren't deposits to a credit union more popular?
Foundational cloud computing becoming really big.

By "foundational" I mean the raw level stuff like Amazon Web Services such as S3, EC2.
Originally submitted here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=890715

This is an updated version, and moved from the original location.
Probably for the same reason that McDonalds is still does a ton more business than the small local mom and pop burger places. People feel comfortable with the big chain that they know even if it's not as good.
Was "there" a school like Exeter or some other boarding school?
1. The bank took longer to clear the check because it would have to send the check back to the bank where the check was first drawn, this is what we call float.. your credit union probably had a system in place that gives you a temporary "credit" until that check officially clears.. this is all pretty much null and void after 9/11, most banks can just send an image of the check eliminating your float.

2. you're two other points are mute really, you can find banks with similar advantageous pricing structures; the advantages of credit unions are they don't have to pay the outrageous taxes federal banks are paying, this helps keep their lending rates down, the important thing to remember though is a credit union is not an FDIC insured thing, if it goes under you're screwed. the nice thing is, its hard for a community driven thing to go under, but if all the lenders start short selling good luck.
There's nothing invariant about homeschooling as practiced by all families who practice it that guarantees not learning about social interaction. Homeschooling can be a very good environment for socialization.

http://learninfreedom.org/socialization.html
local banks have to be more scrupulous with whom they lend too, this is why they're often more successful and a recommended choice right now.

not everyone gets a loan if your bank only generates 400 million in combined assets and revenue.
Top 50 Blogs for Forensic Science Technicians
In order to be a good forensic science technician, it can help to have a basic understanding of a few different areas of science, as well as a working knowledge of criminal justice policy and procedure.
"There's More Than One Way To Do It" is a Perl philosophy.
Law schools with very large class sizes indeed claim to practice "socratic" instruction, which I found quite enjoyable as a student. Classicists think it's an abuse of language to call what law schools do socratic dialog, but it is definitely much more interactive, even in the largest first-year classes, than what is usually done in undergraduate courses in almost any subject other than modern languages.
My version of Chrome on Windows (4.0.249.43) isn't rendering some of the characters at all.
I hope QT do error checking for you too then.
Everything you have said here I think I have already answered earlier, with the following exceptions.

It was you, not me, who introduced peer review into the discussion; I've no idea what your basis is for talking about a "fixation".

Most of the raw data that the CRU threw out in the 1980s are, AIUI, still available elsewhere. CRU's model produces results extremely similar to everyone else's models.

I don't think it's true that every time an error is found it goes in the same direction. (Specifically, I think I remember seeing a counterexample. I don't remember what it was, but then you haven't mentioned any specifics of anything at any point so I don't feel too bad about that.) It might be true that every time an error is found and trumpeted about by disbelievers in AGW it's in the same direction, but there is an obvious explanation for that, no?

Of course scientific truth isn't defined by consensus, and of course I neither said nor suggested that it is. But for someone who isn't an expert in any scientific field, the consensus of experts is typically pretty much the best estimator they have for the truth.
I accidentally hit the back thumb button on my mouse and lost the whole level. =(
AT&T: landline phone service must die; only question is when
Your distinction is correct however the speed at which resistance can be developed can make the difference irrelevant.

An individual (or the bacterium in an individual) can develop a resistance to a antibiotic in as little as two weeks. In the last month of my treatment the docs were running cultures back to back (every 7 days) to make I (the bacteria with which I was colonized?) wasn't becoming resistant to the Vancomycin. My infection was particularly hard to kill because the surgical screws had carried the infection deep into the bone (osteomyelitis).
My family uses a truly faceless bank -- President's Choice Financial. There are no physical offices for this bank other than the kiosks inside of Loblaw's grocery stores. If you need to pick up money order or something similar, you go to a CIBC.

However, I do not see the benefit of a credit union or community bank. My current bank offers:

- No monthly or annual fee.
- Online banking.
- Free cheques.
- Unlimited debit transactions.
- Reward points for purchasing groceries with our debit card.
- Instant availability of deposited cheques, up to several thousand dollars.

What does a credit union or community bank have to offer to me, considering that I have no need for a friendly personality or face to talk to? I am the type of guy who prefers the self-checkout lines.

(Sorry for the edits, poor formatting)
My experience with a bunch of Exeter kids in my college class (admittedly a long time ago--'72 to '76) was that they were burned out.

They had just completed what was the equivalent of most college degrees today, and were looking at another 4 years of even more intense work. Most of them just sat around their oriental-draped rooms in deep club chairs and smoked weed. ;-)
Our political tradition sets great store by the generalized symbol of evil. This is the wrongdoer whose wrongdoing will be taken by the public to be the secret propensity of a whole community or class. We search avidly for such people, not so much because we wish to see them exposed and punished as individuals, but because we cherish the resulting political discomfort of their friends. To uncover an evil man among the friends of one's foes had long been a recognized method of advancing one's political fortunes. However, in recent times the technique has been greatly improved and refined by the added firmness with which the evil of the evildoer is now attributed to friends, acquaintances, and all who share his way of life.

--John Kenneth Galbraith (concerning vilification of Wall Street following the '29 crash)
Wikipedia (yeah, not the best source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_unions_in_the_United_Sta...) claims that all federally chartered and nearly all (95%?) state chartered credit unions are insured to $250k through NCUSIF. Sounds like a pretty safe bet to me. I'm not so sure you're screwed if they go under, although maybe someone can point on an example of that actually occurring?
There is one missing: Glass. In one corporate office, we had glass walls. I taped a large sheet of white paper on the outside of the glass wall and used the inside as a whiteboard. Probably the most durable surface for that purpose.

And I have heard of mounting a piece of glass in front of a white wall to act as a whiteboard.
7th entry from the top.
Semantic web
I don't like large amounts of inset text. It looks fantastic for section headers and UI element labels, but it's not a great look for prose (like this article uses). The inset becomes subtly distracting.
Tell HN: List of HN Subdivisions 
Hey,

Every once in a while, I see a comment or something that brings up a subdivision I hadn't known. The last one I discovered was /noobstories. The obvious ones are /newest, /threads, /comments and /leaders. Here's a list of the least obvious ones that I have found. Add any missing ones in the comments. Happy new year!

/noobstories - news submitted by new members (intended for moderation
/noobcomments - comments submitted by new members
/active - actively commented stories
/best - best recent stories submitted
/classic - submissions by established members
/bestcomments - best recent comments submitted
/newpoll - submit a new poll
did I miss any?

added:

/saved?id=yourusername shows stories you've upvoted
concurrency models: erlang, scala, clojure, Haskell

Parallel execution, map/reduce, hadoop, noSQL datastores;
I just flew back to the USA from Cancun on 12/26. They had a sign that said, quite explicitly, that we should not take off shoes.

How can they deny that this is security theater, when they're only reacting to the most recent threats, while older attack vectors just scroll off the regulations?
Coding for GPGPU or stream processors
There's the difference between Joe-blogger and someone who's an actual journalist. Granted, I don't know that "writes a column for the Washington Post" is exactly hard-hitting journalism, but I find it interesting that he did not turn over any information on his source whereas the guy who was just a blogger complied.
Agreed. You can go into "expert" mode and use it with the normal vim bindings, though. Used in this manner, it does provide a bit of a better introduction to vim, as you learn the various modes and keybindings, but still get a reasonable UI for configuration and whatnot.
Agree. In a few years, we'll all have N cores on our desktops.
The Tragedy of One Laptop Per Child
This is an interesting question and one I've been pondering lately as well, not from an individual perspective, but from a management perspective for a small team of developers at a web app/design shop.

I obviously have to be more conservative than you because I have to consider short-term profit as well as risk. So in order to get responses that are along the lines of your question, I'd like to ask HN readers: what do you think is worth concentrating on in 2010 that would lead to good short- and long-term results for an agency specializing in website and web application development, often for relatively small projects?

To answer your question, I think you need to do some thinking about what it is that you want to do. You have to start with something that interests you. Your friends chose something in the realm of mobile development: does that appeal to you? Perhaps they also focused on games: does game programming appeal to you? Someone below suggested "data mining" as a field to focus on. I can say for myself that although I am somewhat interested in this, I am not anywhere close to as interested as I'd need to be to devote several years to it.

It also has to be something with a good chance of paying off, if you are interested in the money side of it. Your friends chose something that was backed by a huge corporation with a proven track record of creating successful devices, so although they ran some risk - the iPhone may not have been a massive hit like it was - they mitigated that risk by choosing something with very good chances. However, any choice that relies on predicting what will be successful in the technological realm in two to three years is bound to be risky, especially if it is "very new" (and thus unproven).

Here's a shot at it: focus on mobile web application development utilizing HTML5 features. Google believes "the web has won", and I agree. If you get really good at building browser-based applications for mobile phones, I think you'll do well.
Wait, the TSA has their own subpoena-serving law enforcement agents?

I wonder if they instead used the FBI, if those agents might have been able to get an external hard drive to work?