skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." - Bertrand Russell
I sell offline mapping iPhone apps. The GPS chip in the iPhone sometimes works (in open fields, clear view of the sky) without assistance, but often does not where standalone units would.

This may be a software problem. Core Location has a tendency to give up pretty easily, whereas a standalone unit would keep trying as long as you wanted it to.
when i see this kind of thing, in a forum dominated by americans (or citizens any other "first world" country), it always sticks in my throat a little. i understand the motivation (and even agree with some of the environmental aspects), but it's hard to ignore the thinly veiled implications that you don't want the rest of the world to be as rich as you are...
Despite what the technocratic classes may think, political "science" and economics are nowhere near medicine in terms of understanding what is best for someone. Economics in particular is terrible at correctly understanding how people place value on their courses of action.
How many node JS instances are you running on this machine? I am guessing 4? 1 per core and each one is aimed to handle 50k idle connections? And if you are running more then one, how are you load balancing them? Nginx?

Also I would like to note I saw your Tornado vs Node.JS hello world test and it made me curious because we use Tornado and we really believed that it was the fastest.

So I looked at your results and noticed Tornado had 100x more bytes transfered in your AB test. So I decided to run your same test on a raw Tornado HTTP server (not using the web.py framework) and these were the results of Hello World.

These tests were ran on an 3.66 i7

Tornado (single instance):

import tornado.httpserver
import tornado.ioloop

def handle_request(request):
message = 'Hello Word'
request.write("HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\nContent-Length: %d\r\n\r\n%s" % (
len(message), message))
request.finish()

http_server = tornado.httpserver.HTTPServer(handle_request)
http_server.listen(8009)
tornado.ioloop.IOLoop.instance().start()

ab -c 100 -n 4000 http://127.0.0.1:8009/
Requests per second: 10037.84 [#/sec] (mean)

Node.js (single instance):

var sys = require('sys'),
http = require('http');
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
res.sendHeader(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
res.sendBody('Hello World');
res.finish();
}).listen(8008);

ab -c 100 -n 4000 http://127.0.0.1:8008/
Requests per second: 9159.65 [#/sec] (mean)

However doing the test the way you did it did show the results you had with Tornado being 2x slower, however I don't believe that was a fair test at all.

Just my input.
"After a while, the economy would be seriously harmed"

I would imagine that the economy would be immediately harmed as the meaning of value is contextual -- how much is a banana worth if everyone suddenly has the same amount of money? In the long term, I think things would stabilize as a new economy emerged.
Q: What's ∫dCABIN/CABIN?

A: A natural log cabin by the sea!
I've tested the DX only for a few days, but the scaling of PDFs seems to work nicely (including one scanned book, Bondy & Murty's Graph Theory, http://www.ecp6.jussieu.fr/pageperso/bondy/books/gtwa/gtwa.h... )

On single column book-page stuff, so far I only came across one figure that looked bad in portrait and had to be seen in landscape. Otherwise fine, if your eyes can handle slightly shrunk type.

P.S. by scaling, I mean the fixed scaling the Kindle DX does to fit the PDF on the page. User-controlled font-size change is only available for the mobi/azw format.
Your argument that because you're "blunt" entitles you to behave like a 5 year old, is utter bullshit. There is something called tact. If you want people to help you, then perhaps try showing some.

The dude had a lot more patience than support channels on other networks that would have outright banned you for your childish behavior and holier than thou attitude.
The job of an economist is to make fools of the technocrat.

The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design. -- F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit
This is a very intuitively appealing assertion, because (almost) everyone resents being told what is in their best interest if it contradicts what they think is in their best interest, regardless of whether or not the other person is right. To whit, I have told a number of friends (as tactfully as I could) that they were in bad relationships, because they were, and I was worried about them. Within a couple months time, all of those relationships had ended, because they were really, really bad. But the number of friends who didn't resent me for telling them that is 0.

I think, in general, people are pretty awful at figuring out what is in their own best interest. That's why the obesity rate is so high, credit card debt is so crushing, lotteries exist, and casinos are so damn profitable. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that politicians are better at figuring it out. But I have no idea how you are supposed to successfully navigate life without the insight that you frequently make a lot of mistakes about what is best for yourself.
Two chicks at the same time, that's what I'd build.
Not going far enough, either of you! Why not make a Skype peripheral, but operating over Bluetooth and not USB? It wouldn't even need a fancy display. Let a headset take care of sound and the anwser button, just take care of other input/display tasks. A commodity display from an old cellphone would do the trick, and these must be dirt cheap by now. You could probably get the button count down to 6, which is what it is for the Apple Remote. The components would be dirt cheap. Margins would probably be very handsome at first. Make it the size of an old PC card. It would sell like hotcakes!
No way.

He was a complete douche and the admin well has no obligation to help him. If he bent the rules for him this time, because some ass was claiming to be bram cohen, then he's opening himself up for shit and falling for any idiot willing to troll irc groups.
Don't know about building, but having a list of someone's friends must provide some excellent ammunition for fraud. Eg. you could do the Spanish Prisoner scam using peoples' friends' names. Most attempts would fail of course, but you'd be doing it in bulk over the web, from a safe distance.
It's true. That is a ridiculous policy.

They should refund him his money.
Clearly the only way to solve this problem is to remove the people's ability to vote. Or perhaps dissolve the people and elect a new one, as a large portion of this country would like to do?
You were a total douche about it. The other guy was actually a bit polite and helpful.

>People are free to criticize me for not being polite, and I'm free to respond that they're being petty and superficial.

This is you not getting it, possibly because you have Aspergers.

edit: Actually, fuck that. You're functional enough to understand what you're doing.
I don't care at this point if it's not so great as a phone. I'd rather call people back at my leisure anyways. $15 a month for 3G web browsing everywhere sounds good to me.
An excerpt, describing the fragmentation of managers' time:

Folklore: The Manager is a reflective, systematic planner. The evidence on this issue is overwhelming, but not a shred of it supports this statement.

Fact: Study after study has shows that managers work at an unrelenting pace, that their activities are characterized by brevity, variety, and discontinuity, and that they are strongly oriented to actions and dislike reflective activities.

Consider this evidence:

- Half the activities engaged in by the five chief executives of my study lasted less than nine minutes, and only 10% exceeded one hour.

- A study of 56 U.S. foremen found that they averaged 583 activities per eight-hour shift, an average of 1 every 48 seconds.
I submit that you are correct about Zimbabwe-style confiscation policies being disastrous for an economy.
Aside from the other points ....the economy would be further harmed by a massive inflation fueled by all that excess cash chasing the same number of consumer goods.

But at the same time it's true that the degree of distinction between rich and poor at the moment is still highly detrimental to American society as contrasted to either contemporary Scandinavia or American in 1955. Indeed, it's extremes like present American wealth disproportionalities that can make Zimbabwean confiscation seem more appealing to the majority regardless of one might rationally argue with them (one can look at Latin America for a lot of example here).

Just as much, I'd mention that there have umpteen versions of health care reform in the debate and they cannot all be mechanically compared to simplistic confiscation. Further consider that neither the US public education system nor the US highway system have not been economic disasters for the US and the British NHS provide health far more cheaply than the US health care non-system provides.

That said, I would admit that the particular compromise bill that has come out of Congress is pretty much a statist disaster in the making (though hopefully now in the unmaking).

Also, it's worth noting that America's current private-public system is more or less the worst of both worlds. The majority of private companies aren't innovators but parasites on government funding while the government doesn't have the mandate to directly distribute any goods. Either pure free enterprise or state health care could be an improvement IF either could start from a clean slate - but naturally that won't happen regardless.
There was a problem and someone not solving it - to many this is the douchery.

Jobsworth.

I would be honoured to have Bram Cohen ask me for some help and given his heroic efforts on behalf of the network I would go above and beyond.

Seems Bram just camly stated the facts and the sysop just kept replying rules trump all.

Ashbergers Mashbergers for IRC this is probably the most dainty little flame ever.

PS Bram Cohen rules teh internets
Ladies Pro Football League; Seattle vs. San Diego; [video]
3G is plenty fast in many parts of the world. For surfing the web it generally feels as fast as using wifi to my adsl connection at home. For large downloads it's obviously slower, but seeing 1Mbit down isn't uncommon on good days. Also I can get a good 3G connection at my small cabin by the coast (where I don't even get warm water or indoor plumbing), I doubt I'll be seeing WiMax out there (and similar places) anytime soon.
Think Apple has all price points covered? (Infographic)
Sorry to spoil things by being accurate, but I think the thin cylinder has to be of height a and radius z.
Maybe just because they believe the proposals are not in their best interests.
> If you value the superficial affectation of politeness over the essential point of what someone is saying, you can shove it.

Surely, in situations like these, even you can understand the value of politeness. You engineered politeness into the bittorrent protocol (tit for tat.) It's the same thing. The admin wasn't being useless and patronizing, he was choking you because you were acting like a bad peer.
I don't get why the interval is divided into three pieces. Wouldn't the same reasoning work if the interval were divided into just two pieces and you always select the sub-interval not containing the Nth algebraic number?
Obama Talks to the Republicans (video)
You are aware, right, that a bunch of people who had no opinion of you now have a negative opinion of you now? Then you posted this comment, and now there are more.

You really think that Freenode is a "negative value to society" because you can't use your rather-common first name as your nick? Yeah...
Yes this is/was a problem. I left it 10 years ago because of closeness. Well now with R3 it's far far more open (I know that for some "more" open is enough though).
Indeed. Bram has written some good software, but he's no more important than the thousands of other people that have written good software that I use everyday.
Unless the point is to stop you putting your iPhone SIM into the iPad.
Funny that you mention Factor :) Programming in Factor made me really get REBOL (after 10 years) and then I returned to it for most of my work.

LWP .. is that a p.lang?
I don't want to pry, but I'm really curious - do you work full-time on Mibbit, or is it a side project for you?
In the general case, I agree with you. With the specific niche of food, however, I disagree strongly.

In the US, supporting independent, community farmers is key in battling the negative effects of the government corn subsidy. There are numerous places you can learn about this subsidy's adverse effects on developing countries--I'd suggest Food, Inc. for one. Buying locally grown food is also an environmental boon, since there's much less fuel burned in transportation.
It's primary a function of time preferences. Ceteris paribus, men prefer things that can be consumes right now rather than later.

Everyone knows that exercise is good for you, credit card debt is bad, etc. However, most people succumb to shot term temptation, rather than long term gain.

It is like the marshmallow experiment conducted by Standford university.(http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_...)

Most kids succumb before they can get the second marshmallow. However, those that wait these long few minutes will get two of them.

If a man will have a low time preference, in general, he will be more wealthier than a man with a high time preference.
the way I (and many of my friends) plan to use the iPad we just dont want or need 3G - to me it feels like something to flog a more expensive version.
Doing nothing seems so counterintuitive a solution that people almost never seem to consider it. Lately, I've been seeing this in college. "What, the students are making mistakes and asking questions? I'd better lecture more and write longer explanations in the assignments."

I imagine that a politician who ran on a platform of, "I'm going to do nothing: these kinds of pains are how an economy gets back into adjustment," would have a hard time getting votes. But, I've never been to Japan, and indeed, in the U.S., such a platform would not make you an instant laughingstock.
Tell HN: San Diego Hacker News Meetup Wiki
Thanks to jacoblyles for putting on our first event yesterday: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1070922

If you're in the San Diego area, please join us for the next one!
Watching a page download is slow. 3G is that slow. It's ok for apps but for full webpage browsing, horrible. Don't know how people can stand it?
In the long term, society would stabilize if you killed half the population. Stabilization does not imply a lack of harm.
Wanna bet? :)
Add Docs to the "bought" list -- that was an acquisition too (of Writely).
While in the short term health care reform will help people who can't afford expensive care, it will slow innovation (propelled by the profit motive) and will encourage people to engage in expensive (in terms of healthcare costs) lifestyle choices.

Im not sure, though, that is the reasoning driving this populist opposition.

This healthcare reform business has seemed a bit of a mess for me, living in the UK. To us the new proposals seemed like common sense and "I thought everyone did it that way". The mass opposition was unexpected (at least for me anyway).
Yeah. Totally. It must be that people don't know what's good for them. What else could be wrong with the government providing more services? Nothing, that's what. Only if people could understand how much other people just want to help them.
Either that or these reporters and professors weren't so blinded by their own preferences. One of those.
Very well put. "Best interest" is not a scalar, it is a whole vector of values, from material values, self-reliance values, freedom from control, spiritual values.
Reservoirs speed up Earth's spin (1996)
Just curious where you got the number $500,000

I've heard ballpark estimates that the total wealth of the U.S., the sum of all assets (bridges, buildings, companies, cars) minus debts is roughly $80-$90 trillion. Wikipedia seems to think it's nearer to $60 trillion.

Assuming $90 trillion and 300mil people, if we divided up the wealth of everyone (not just the top 1%) and redstributed, we'd only get to $300,000 per person. If the top 1% hold a third of all wealth, you've got at most $100,000 per person.
There is a near perfect correlation between people asking this question, and being unbelievably arrogant bastards too stuck up their own ass to even listen to the other side. This article does nothing to break that correlation.

This article could easily be completely discredited had they taken a moment to actually ask someone who dislikes the current health care reform why they dislike it. Considering that even large swathes of the Left currently have no great love for what has actually passed even the BBC might have been able to find such a person.

I, for one, don't give a shit how great your healthcare system is when a fundamental component of it is "Oh, and we'll break the economy on the rocky shores of immovable mandates." It doesn't matter how awesome your promises are if the economy can't sustain them. It is also perfectly reasonable to believe that the problem is that we already have too much government control, so turning it all over to the government is hardly the solution. (One question I'd ask those who still support this health care bill is, are you ready for when the Republicans control Congress and the Presidency again, and therefore control all your health coverage? It's not "if", it's "when".)

Note that arguing with me about whether we'd break the economy or whether more freedom in the market might help is besides the point. The point is that I am in fact "voting" (not yet, but I would and quite possibly will) against something I don't perceive to be in my interest. The shocker, the unthinkable thought, the terrible tragedy is not that I am willing to "vote against my interest", it is that I don't agree with you about what is in my interest.

If I seem incensed, well, I am. This is the argument of a supercilious bastard and deserves no attention, here or anywhere. People disagree with you. Deal with it. (People disagree with me too, only I don't go on about how they are stupid for "voting against their interest"....)
Ask anyone who is obese if it's in their best interest and they're unlikely to say yes. Same for credit card debt and gambling addictions. These people know what is in their best long term interest but choose to do something else in the short term. That's different from being "awful at figuring out what is in their own best interest". People may be awful at choosing long term interests over short term interests but saying people don't know what their best interests are at all sounds condescending to me.
That's all very true, I agree. But my point wasn't that they're good at what they do; my point was that they may still be better at it than we are for ourselves.

You wrote "If you disagree with me about what's in my best interest, it's far more likely that you're wrong than it is that I'm wrong" - and it's not obvious to me that that is more likely.
Ask HN: Dynamic DNS Hosting
I'm setting up a web server at home and looking for a reliable dynamic DNS host. Any recommendations for free or affordable ones?
The videogame history timeline
Also:

+ http://www.theenergylibrary.com/node/11435

+ http://www.google.com/search?q=reservoirs+change+rotation+Ea...
Oh yeah, there's a huge amount of video game leagues. A lot of even make decent profit.

I'm not sure if it's a market you want to try to tap into right away, especially if you aren't a gamer. Probably best to focus on sports and then maybe start looking into video games later.
It is also perfectly reasonable to believe that the problem is that we already have too much government control, so turning it all over to the government is hardly the solution.

I am not aware of any health care reform legislation in the United States from any party that advocates turning it all over to the government. You actually suggest this several times in your post, so you seem to be misinformed.

Your points about the article itself are valid. Some people do ignore the fact that there are informed people on the opposite side. However, your argument would have a lot more credibility if you demonstrated understanding of the issue you are writing about.
Amen. An upvote can't possibly express my agreement. It never fails that some state in the South, this time Texas, is held up as an example of some huge population that doesn't know what's good for it leaving aside the entire history of the South (plenty of that being ugly and sad) as wanting to just be left alone.

These articles are almost always written by someone without the slightest clue what it's like to live in the South, where people want to just be left alone to handle their own problems. It's not that they don't understand their best interests. It's that they'd like to handle them themselves instead of hoping the inept government will fix things.
Indeed. Were it not for the government subsidy of entrenched agribusiness interests, local food might actually be objectively cheap. When you're growing food sustainably, you don't get as much of the kinds of economies of scale that give a $1 billion/year factory major cost advantages over a $1 million/year factory, so smaller farms aren't at a huge disadvantage there. And there's no good reason for transportation or distribution costs to be very high.
No one wants to swap SIMS back and forth between two devices constantly. People will Jailbreak their iPhone and enable the built-in tethering support or use a third party wifi tether app.
true; the difficulty in buying fresh food in some parts of the states always surprises/worries me (i live in chile; we have loads of fresh food, although in the winter there's less variety of course)
When you're in hospital, would you say the same thing to your doctor?

I might. About 200,000 people a year die in the US from preventable medical errors[0]. I've had a number of experiences[1] where I found important medical information that doctors missed. Part of the reason is that when I or a close friend is ill, I put a lot more time and effort in to researching that specific case than a doctor would.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_malpractice#Statistics

[1] I know anecdotes don't serve as evidence for a trend
Immediately profitable <> successful. They're pushing console gaming to the next level, and you can bet that their next iteration will be wildly popular. Turning a huge profit at the expense of not providing significant value is how to remove yourself from future competition.
Grellas, as usual, makes some excellent points. In my experience, businesses are very well served in securing legal services from a sharp, seasoned attorney.
Cash flow positive business are destined to become profitable in the long run. But even if the division weren't cash flow positive, it'd still be a pretty good bet by Microsoft. They've successfully locked down a place in my living room that they didn't seem to have a chance at 10 years ago.
i'll second the recommendation for railscasts. subscribe to it in itunes, watch them every week when they come out. they're not long or hard to follow, and you'll learn a lot of good material.

i've been using rails for 4 years and i still continue to learn a lot of useful things from railscasts. sometimes it's not even the topic of the video, but just some minor shortcut or rails'ism that i didn't know about.