skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Wow. If you look closely, they open Hacker News at 0:14. :)
New Hearing Aid Uses Your Tooth To Transmit Sound
The core of the piece:

The A4 is actually built around a CPU core based on the common ARM Cortex A9 CPU, a 32-bit core that comes in several different flavors, with different numbers of cores. In typical cases, companies like Apple actually license the CPU design -- rather than paying $278 million to acquire the whole company!

If Arm Holdings could be acquired for $278m, I'm sure Apple would have done it by now. Unfortunately for Apple, though, its market cap is actually in the $2-$2.5bn range.
Hitchens is a bit of a dweeb.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=site:...
Wait - so you don't think any government social services are worthwhile? You don't have any faith at all in 100 years of social progress?

I believe the reason that we have as many social services programs as we do is because this country has learned that helping out the poorest of our citizens significantly raises the productivity, happiness, and health of the country as a whole. Public health programs that keep those below the poverty line vaccinated prevent outbreaks of dangerous diseases. Unemployment insurance helps those who have lost their jobs get back on their feet before they become homeless and less likely to become employed, or desperate enough to commit crimes. Reduced-price meals for poor students ensure that they are focused on their studies rather than on trying to feed themselves, and therefore more likely to get the most benefit out of their education. The entire idea behind healthcare reform is the idea that if we work to insure every citizen, it will benefit all of us in the end by keeping us healthier, and hopefully driving down costs as a result.

I don't like my money being taken by force either, but to think that the free market would provide any meaningful wealth distribution without being directly forced to is just naive.
Steve Jobs says 'don't be evil' mantra is BS
Researcher Creates Strongest Metal Foam Ever
Get out, or Why can programmers be religious about languages?
I don't think a reasonable person who knows anything about NK and its regime would take away from the title that Hitchens is calling the North Korean people crazy and despicable.
i wish i was smart enough to work at google. :(
The front page of the Chrome extensions gallery was designed to give as many good extensions as possible some of the eyeball share from users landing on the front page. The Chrome gallery team is very interested in a healthy ecosystem, rather than promoting and re-promoting a number of older, most-popular extensions. Showing the top-N extensions all of the time is antithetical to their goals.

If you look at the Chrome front page from time-to-time, you'll see that a lot of extensions on there have only a few thousand users, but are really cool extensions. They are doing a pretty good job of surfacing less-popular or newer extensions.

Disclaimer: we are a partner extension and showed up in the gallery on the front page for a few days after the initial launch.
Gmail Chrome extensions
This doesn’t mean that these aren’t great companies or worthy investments, just that they aren’t right for us right now.

This is the very example of dishonesty he talks about. A company is either going to make them a ton of money, or it is not. If a VC thinks it is going to make them a ton of money, there is no such thing as "isn't right for us right now". If Larry and Sergei came to a VC firm that only invests in space exploration and offered to take their money in exchange for stock, they'd do it in a heartbeat. If a VC thinks it isn't going to make them a ton of money, it can be the most right company in the world, and they still won't invest. The hardest part of being honest is being honest with yourself.
Leaked climate change emails scientist 'hid' data flaws
We can teach every child to program computers in school, but we don't teach every child most other engineering fields in school. So why would we teach software development?

Besides, the only way you're going to get anybody but the tinkerers to be interested in modifying the parameters of the thrust calculation in their Spacewar game (I recall how in school we modified the trajectory of the bananas in QBASIC Nibbles) is to not give them anything else interesting on the device that already easily does something interesting and fun... I also recall that there wasn't much else to do on the 386s in my school other than Minesweeper or setting up new groups in Program Manager. Now we've got billions of web pages and thousands of free apps.

Necessity is the mother of invention -- except for when it comes to tinkerers. And I'm super thankful for tinkerers: they push us forward in software just as they do in other fields. But in a world where devices already do way more than their users can imagine (most people very much do NOT have good ideas for how software could be better or do something new) and offer a ton of other easily accessible options for activity, the vast majority of people just aren't a bit interested in tinkering.
> Wait - so you don't think any government social services are worthwhile?

Correct. You shouldn't be surprised, this is the basic libertarian view, and it's not rare at YC.

> You don't have any faith at all in 100 years of social progress?

What progress? I don't see progress in social services programs. So, correct, I guess. I do see "social progress" in the sense of, say, people having less fist fights, but I don't think Government is responsible for that.

As to the rest, it basically says you aren't a libertarian, aren't a free market advocate, and don't want to be. It does not engage with libertarian ideas, or criticize them, or say anything new. It just repeats things libertarians have heard a thousand times, and refuted a thousand times. If you want to know more about libertarianism or free markets you can google them, but I don't think you do.

In very short what you have said is, "Government programs are useful" which does not address the issue of whether they are efficient or wasteful relative to the free market alternatives that could exist instead (remember TANSTAAFL).
Pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if Apple can and/or has baked trusted computing into the A4 silicon.

By controlling this much of the hardware, Apple can make it next to impossible to jailbreak their devices.
Why bipartisanship can't work: the expert view
Umoljani Village Hut website - Sarajevo
Farnhams Freehold, Friday and a bunch of others that I can't quite catch the title of right now (my books are in storage in a warehouse nearby, I'll have a look when I get there again).

The one I'm thinking of (but not sure what the title is) features a park that is a reclaimed stretch of highway where people are free to do as they please in a society teeming with surveilance. The park is supervised by cops eyes, floating cameras that double as little weapons platforms.

A tinkerer brings them down and chaos ensues.

Nice insight in the human mind in there, and how thin the veneer of civilization is.
Options 1 and 2 are the result of appearing at a prominent position in the app store being largely based the less than optimal way apps gain the prominent position. Apple needs to find a better way to make the good apps more easily findable to avoid what amounts to a landrush in the app store. Whenever anyone is thinking "I can get by without doing a good job and I need to rush through something", it doesn't lead to a good experience, for consumers or for developers. Let's hope the nice/good guys don't finish last.
Alright, here's some factual discussion for you. I'm about to make claims which you may not think I mean literally. I mean them literally.

1) North Korea runs concentration camps, in which inmates are worked to death in mines and factories to increase industrial production.

2) North Korea is a military dictatorship which has used democide via famine against its own people to make it impossible to resist its dictatorship. If you're on the winning side with the army, your family gets to eat better than grass. In the late 90s a famine killed about 3 million people. That's the regime's estimate, incidentally. (Communists tend to have rosy accounting about such things.) The population of North Korea is about 23 million.

3) North Koreans are some of the most desperately poor people on earth. They don't have much, and what they do have gets forcibly expropriated to maintain one of the largest standing armies in the world. Its number one enemy is its own people, though if you believe the propaganda it has crushed the imperialist Yankee under its boot and exacts tribute from him, which explains all the bags of rice bearing American flags without which the population would again starve.

4) The regime is supported by a personality cult of Kim Jong-Il and his father, Kim Il-sung, who has been essentially deified. That is not an exaggeration -- North Korean propaganda has attributed the creation of the world to him.

Any educated person should know the above four facts already. If you know them, "Wait, hold on a second, let's not rush to judgement or use overly emotional language when discussing this country" sounds like you're so open-minded your brain has fallen out.
From the under-appreciated movie Copland, "Being right isn't a bullet-proof vest."
Most countries that have limited interaction with outsiders are often very racist. We are very lucky to live in an open society and in addition we are a country of immigrants that is why we don't see too much of that. In fact, we are the exception and not the norm.
All other things are never equal.
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2792.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/country_profiles/1131421.stm

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/north-korea

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/blog/eyeonasia/archive...
Granted, they do have $30bn+ in cash lying around...
On-screen keyboards and context menus have significant prior art.
What’s stopping Google from blocking these extensions in the future when user base reaches a critical mass?

The fact that Chrome is open source, and (I assume) has the ability to install extensions from other sites should the user wish to do so. I really see this as what separates Google from Apple.
Google apps ending support for IE6
I just got this:

-------------------------------------------

Dear Google Apps admin,​

In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.

We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.

Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.

Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.

In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience. We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.

Thank you for your continued support!

Sincerely,

The Google Apps team

Email preferences: You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Google Apps product or account.

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
How sure are you on Ads being the only money-spinner? Have you seen Google Apps for business with over 2 million users? The Google Search Appliance?

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/index.html

http://www.google.com/enterprise/search/gsa.html
Exactly. It's an opportunity cost.

With 2 months, I can do so much in terms of not just product development but also customer development - because let's face it, the bulk of startups YC invests in are not technology risks, they are market risks.

Granted, I am optimistic - but imho 6 months is enough time for me get off the ground and raise a seed round outside of YC (but I do prefer to get into YC, just a preference).

That is the plan. I'm not waiting, I believe in making my own luck. I'm not saying I can predict the future, I'm just saying I know what I can do to influence the outcome, and I'm going to try my best. More people need to make their own luck.

Thanks Rob!
South Koreans racist?

They aren't worse than the Japanese, and Japanese aren't really extremely racist (they appear so to people who never had to experience "race consciousness" in their country of origin).

My experience with South Koreans is that they are generally proud of their accomplishments (rightfully so) and there is a subgroup that is abysmally ignorant. You could compare the second group to "rednecks" (and whatever the equivalent is wherever you are), except for the fact that it is much more difficult for a South Korean to travel than for a westerner.

Throwing the racist epithet around in this case seems overblown.
I assume that by "we" you mean Americans. It sounds a lot like you are saying that America hasn't seen much demagogy, racism or xenophobia which sounds like a delusion of the type that might disprove your point.
Chrome comes with the element inspector built in which replicates a lot of the functionality of Firebug.
Thank you for that. I don't have a statistics background, so I was a bit unsure of how seriously I should take the findings given that it was described as "preliminary."
a) Excanvas is slow. I've used it in some projects. Its not too bad, but performance was an issue for me

b) There are other parts of HTML5 that IE doesn't support. Although I guess someone will eventually create similar shims to make <video> work as well as webworkers and database access.
My initial reaction was "Mensa?! Are they still around?". So I head over to http://www.mensa.org/ ...

If there are any Mensa members reading this, you really need to update your website if you want to be taken seriously. OnMouseOver/OnMouseOut makes it look like you're stuck in 1998.
The element inspector is handy, but personally I would also need JavaScript step through debugging like Firebug provides.
New Ways to Calculate the Risks of Surgery
They just changed it from today. It wasn't always like this, so the argument that all of a sudden they are trying to promote less popular extensions, is not very reasonable. There is a "featured" section and "Today's Top Pick" section where they can promote as many extensions as they like.

I am not saying it is necessarily a bad thing, they _are_ an online ad company, it is in their best interest to make sure less people use ad blockers. But lets not justify this action under the pretense of them trying to "promote" other extensions.

Honestly, if I was in charge, I probably would have done the same.
my guess, money.

All that brilliant work, will just end up making Sergey and Larry even more rich.

Google seems like a great enviroment to learn, but at some point reality bites. Your 130k salary wont buy even a decent two bedroom around mountain view.

1 You either have a wife that makes 6figs, so with a combined salary can afford a two-three bedroom house, + schooling for kids.
2. Try to make it big. That at google aint gonna happen. Maybe you will get an extra 30k, for your extra work, but that's it. In comparison, a 7th year lawyer in a top firm, makes easy 260-300k.
I wish all other browsers would drop the unnecessary secondary box when they could be doing the searching in the address bar like Chrome.
Hitchens is a sort of dying breed, a disillusioned communist. He takes Orwell's position: Communism and opposition to totalitarianism. Adherence to the latter led to abandonment of the former. Most of his atheist stuff boils down to hatred of totalitarianism.

He is definitely not immune to bias, but I would bet the bias is hatred of the North Korean regime.
What's a Degree Really Worth? A lot less than you might think
I've actually tested out this keyboard layout but ran into a problem. What I did was take two separate keyboards and tape em together on a board. Unfortunately, both os x and linux didn't play nice with that setup. (No clue about Windows.)The modifier on one keyboard wouldn't affect the other, which made it hard to use extensively. It was typeable, though I imagine it would be similar to having a Kinesis keyboard where any other keyboard just isn't home.
This is less 'details' and more 'guesses'. There have also been (equally unconfirmed) reports that it uses a different GPU (an ARM Mali).
Definitions, definitions, definitions.

North Korea claimed to be communist, but it is totalitarian. China claims to be a republic, but it is totalitarian.
Higher quality ads == Immediate jump in click-through rate
GNOME.Asia Summit News
The point is, there's no good reason, most of the time, to leave it to the interpretations of a 'reasonable person'. An equally reasonable person can just leave the original title alone - problem solved. Oh and spell the author's name correctly.
I totally agree. The intention of writing this post was not to provide a precise documentation of Amazon's architecture (only Amazon can do this), but to get feedback if I am on the right track to understand the underlying architecture.
Growing Cartilage -- No Easy Task
The money quote:

I'm not sure this has ever been studied, but the ramifications are huge: for one thing, it would mean the end of display advertising. Why would they pay you, when you maybe should be paying them?
I think that students should be given a selection of work ranging from easy to challenging and encouraged to choose the most demanding work they can. After a few iterations to allow the teacher to gently nudge kids toward their optimal difficulty, the students are evaluated based on their proficiency and chosen difficulty. This process should be repeated throughout their education to compensate for "late bloomers."

The terminology used to communicate to the students may have to be altered so as to prevent students from feeling obligated to choose a higher difficulty than they should, such as saying "choose the kind of work you find most enjoyable and least boring," so it sounds like a horizontal rather than vertical separation.
Race is the one exception the Supreme Court has made among an infinite list of possible exceptions. Their decision, I believe, has very little to do with the principles of common law and a great deal to do with our own history as a country.

Regardless of their reasoning, racial issues are a bit off point. You said it does matter if you do something warranting eviction, but that's not entirely true. The rule stands, just with a clause added: The owner of a piece of property may evict anyone for any reason or no reason at all, unless his actions are proven to be racially motivated.

Again, this rule has existed since man has formed social structures. It's a rather important issue, and the Founding Fathers took it very seriously, which is why the third amendment prohibits the quartering of troops on private property. I understand the Supreme Court has upheld one exception, but that does not destroy the rule. I would be very surprised if the Supreme Court considered a man's opinions -- political or religious beliefs -- as worthy of as much protection as facts about himself that he cannot change, such as the color of his skin.
My customers are already asking for it.
The dates on the site say this was posted before Apple's announcement, though dates can obviously be munged.
1. "Target market" - I'd assume that most here can touch type.

2. You could display a full size, full screen picture of the keyboard, with all the symbols in the 'right' place. Where your left pinky would be holding the device, the screen would actually be showing the 'a' key.
Some part of the country, i.e. the red states are still having this problem but overall, we are much better then we were. The bottom line, we are a working progress.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/16/opinion/16greenberg.html

tl;dr: menhaden is an awesome fish the ecosystem depends on and it's about to go extinct because of stupid studies about fish oil.
The difference between China's democides/labor camps/external aggression and North Korea's democides/labor camps/external aggression is largely that China got rich doing it and North Korea got poor. (Well, "rich", at any rate. About 10% of China is a fast growing dynamic economy which has eventual aspirations of being a world power -- and the other 90% lives in grinding poverty.)

Anyhow, since China is rich, it is considered sort of impolite to say "China, please stop committing genocide" or "Hey, China, working people to death in your laogai camps is sort of uncool." (This is sort of related to how it was tres gauche to mention that Soviet Russia was a brutal, genocidal dictatorship and how a huge portion of the American and European intelligensia supported that model and wanted it for their own countries. Which is itself related to it earlier being quite undiplomatic to talk about what the Austrian chap was doing in addition to his economic reforms.)

Be that as it may, reluctance to confront evil in China should not lead to reluctance to confront evil in North Korea.
May not be quite so simple, there's an update:

UPDATE, 1/31, 6:55pm: I received an email from one of the people who has actively been involved in the search for Phil, and she isn't satisfied with the information released by the police. "For several reasons we cannot provide details, but what we can tell you is that the police did talk with Phil for a few minutes," she said. "Police standards for removing a missing persons notice is quite minimal. Those of us guiding the search for Phil have more detailed information about the interaction between the officer and Phil that is not being made public. The information we did receive gave us no evidence that he is actually "safe". Therefore we are continuing to search for him."
At one time Apple used to own 40%+ of ARM (for the Newton) and what we know of as ARM holdings was basically a joint venture between Acorn, Apple, and VLSI. Back when they really needed cash Apple was probably pretty glad they had such a large chunk of a company whose value at the time was appreciating faster than Apple's...
Chrome is the first browser that got me excited since I switched from IE to Firefox back in the day (or rather, phoenix and then Firebird...).

Back in my Slackware days, I loved the rendering of Konqueror/KHTML, so when I got a Mac I started using Safari. I was good, but didn't really excite me. Just competent stuff..

But Chrome. Now that's pushing things forward! Firefox is so slow and bloated on the Mac, I only use it for Stumbleupon.
Things I Learned from World of Warcraft