skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Very cool, this was something I hoped/expected would happen with App Engine.

There's a lot of value (and hopefully some money) in making the answer to "I need a web presence" simple for non-hackers.

Some questions:
Why comic sans? It looks goofy.
Why iFreeTools? 'Free' in the name often projects an image of low-quality.
How are you making money? Ads? If I make an app, will it have your ads in it? (And can I pay to remove them...)
You'll get downvoted not because you're voicing an opinion against the majority, but because you are wrong. While there are "studies" that say that you've repeated, not are scientifically reputable, in the sense of being repeatable experiments with repeatable results conducted in a scientifically rigorous way to eliminate extraneous variables.

What you are doing to your kids is an insult to mine, and I will continue to fight those who oppose vaccinations until you lose.
I wholeheartedly agree with your entire statement. I was just making this same point earlier today to someone.

The iPod Touch should have a camera by now as well! Yet somehow the nano got one first.
It’s possible the iPad will allow apps to have push notifications with audible alerts

that got me wondering about the hardware differences between the ipad and iphone.

has anyone looked at the sdk yet that can verify whether the ipad os works the same with respect to push notifications? does the ipad have the hardware to vibrate? when you push the power button on it does it just shut off the display like an iphone or go completely to sleep like a laptop? if it's completely sleeping, does it wake up on a timer to display notifications like calendar alerts? but then how can it handle incoming push notifications from applications if the wireless radios are off? with a month-long standby time i have to imagine it's a pretty deep sleep and can't keep the wireless/3g radio on that entire time. my kindle can only survive about a week with the 3g radio on while not doing anything.
If you tell them they have to pay $20,000/yr for the privilege of getting drunk and hanging out with new people, I bet they can figure something out a little cheaper...
We're built to run barefoot, on our tip-toes
Yikes, I can't imagine any doctor wanting to take that deal without similarly gaining full control over your diet, drinking, smoking, work and sleep habits.
Redesigning Your Facebook Tabs: From 760px to 520px
holding that giant ipad up with two hands to take a picture of something seems kind of awkward. an iphone or ipod nano can easily be steadied in one hand to take a picture.
How to use a semicolon
$300/mo for rent and $2.50/day for transportation? Sign me up.

FYI a single ride on the bus/light rail in the Bay Area (VTA) costs $3.75.
Overall, very nice essay. I think you probably could have trimmed it down just a touch more. imho, there are multiple things going on here : reviewing a speech or revising an essay, even just in your head, is actual productive work and should be treated as such and I also tend to do this while occupied with other things like transit or exercise. There's another side too, though - relaxation or recreation. I feel like our mind like our muscles can't always be tensing and growing stronger, but that it also must take time to rest and grow stronger.
A Missive to the iPad Haters
You can get used to landing on your toes. It took me quite a while to get used to, but I managed to run a half-marathon six months after I started doing it.
If we all did this I'm not sure how much hacker news would get read. I especially value the point about inspirational books becoming means for vicarious success. The true litmus test of something intending to be motivational would be whether or not it can change behavior.
His problem is 'i have a bunch of existing points, find and compare distances to new point'. Doing this by lat,lon and trig is known as one of the slowest ways to do it.
I know you didn't mean to come off so harsh, but what you're saying sounds so very selfish.

Who's to decide that person x is to live while person y is to die? Everyone deserves a chance to be the one that lives. Yes, sure, with the famine and the wars and the political problems in these regions it is an interesting thought that perhaps more people will lead to more problems, but it is so very cruel to say that maybe it's best that people die to disease and sickness rather than be given a chance to prove themselves.
Isn't there a Federal minimum wage? Don't the states have to respect it? California's is higher, but I thought everybody had to respect Federal minimum wage, at least in the US.
Does anyone else think that the student loan industry is creating inflation in and around universities? I mean the cost of tuition and books is outpacing inflation. The property markets around those schools remain red hot all the time. I can't help but think that part of the problem here is that 19 and 20 year old kids are able to put their hand on 15-20K in the form of student loans and start outbidding each other for housing, etc.

To me it seems likely that something like the sub prime meltdown could cause the mass EEE.
Next time the Duke of Pittsburgh needs to create a CRM solution, you will have a resume at the ready!
Startups and Ancient Philosophy
Justin (CTO of Basho) gave a phenomenal presentation (keynote worthy) at NoSQL East.

Vector clocks are easy and once he explained it in the presentation it "clicked" for me.

You can watch the whole presentation here, but if you want to get just the bit on Vector Clocks, fast forward to 28m

https://nosqleast.com/2009/#speaker/sheehy

But seriously, I highly recommend watching the whole presentation. These guys are brilliant.
A tuna fish sandwich contains mercury.
That's just the thing, though. They don't have to pay, at least not immediately. The credit card and student loan debt of my classmates (class of '09) absolutely blew my mind.
Most punditry that I read on the web suffers from the same flaw: the author is so into their own decision-making calculus that they do not consider that others have different ways of thinking. This author is no exception. She looks at the icons on her iPhone, sees that she has loaded it with social apps, and assumes not just that other people are no different from her, but also that the device itself (a smartphone) is "inherently social".

Speak for yourself, social butterfly. My iPhone is my device to use as I wish, and if I'm an individual who loves solitude, then the way I use the device will reflect that.
Doesn't sound much worse than most of the "food" people eat and drink. Much less what you breathe in a city like NYC or LA.
As one of the many on the job hunt, I can say attaching a resume isn't poor form. I'm getting interviews, and these interviewers are calling my references.

That said, it's a good idea to make sure the juicy highlights are shared between linkedin and your rez, and to include people who have recommended you via linkedin in your list of references.
I love this community. I had the exact same question, and couldn't decide if I would be judged as callous for posting it. Here, i find the question posted, and to great replies. Thanks!
The marketing material from Apple specifically says that the screen is good even from the sides. Of course, it would have to be seen in real life, but at least they're conscious that it could be an issue.

For the lack of camera, I find that puzzling. Because it's an obvious thing to put there and Apple has been putting iSights everywhere for many years now. So, I'm curious to know why they didn't put one "on purpose".

Your mention of multitasking while using Skype or Google Voice made me realize that it is in fact important. All the time while I'm on a video call on Skype, I go online to check out a website or find a link that I want to share. In that use-case that'd be pretty limiting…
The internet will never replace the live concert. And I believe there is as essential a character to education.
I come from a third world country and i know that there are tens of millions who are suffering everyday. They are no different than you.We're all human beings. You're just luckier. Bill should definitely get a peace prize for his compassion and generosity.
Thanks for reading my post and for sharing your perspective on this. I totally agree with you on this one. Finding YES is definitely the best mindset to have, as a project manager - I guess this is what I mentioned as well: being a solution seeker.

However, in order to protect "the Definite YES" (in getting things done, in securing resources, in clarifying the scope of the project before starting the work) from its less helping cousin ("the May Be YES"), I prefer to use "NO" to set up clear boundaries, especially when expectations of different stakeholders start to go wild.

Thanks again for sharing your views - great comments, much appreciated. Next week I will have a post dedicated to those areas of project management to which I pay careful attention when saying NO, in order to protect and encourage Finding YES.
A lot of companies have transitioned into completely open offices for the majority of their employees to avoid potential sexual harassment situations. Keep it all public.
cultural? Please explain. The trickle-down of Wall Street irrationality, perhaps.
Ooh - I misread - I thought the article said that a camera _would_show the size difference. That is interesting.
I wonder if their improvement was due to the low gluten diet or because they're forced to find healthier foods to eat - because you have to be more careful about what you eat & can't eat unhealthy bread, etc.
There seem to be many theories, people even write books about this:

"For over 100 years, research on the Moon illusion has been conducted by vision scientists who invariably have been psychologists specializing in human perception. After reviewing the many different explanations in their 2002 book The Mystery of the Moon Illusion, Ross and Plug conclude "No single theory has emerged victorious". The same conclusion is reached in the 1989 book, The Moon Illusion edited by Hershenson, which offers about 24 chapters written by different illusion researchers."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon_illusion
It's more like Mattern's expansion of Lamport's logical time.

(a lattice, not a total ordering)
While I don't know any MBAs, the advice is sound for anyone wishing to get into startups. In fact, I'd argue that many of these techniques could get you the inside track to most job openings.
What people said about the iPhone 9 years ago
It solves the same problem in almost the same way, but a multi-dimensional vector clock preserves more information than a one-dimensional Lamport clock. For example, Dynamo nodes that receive conflicting changes can compare the vector timestamp of each change to determine their relationship (e.g. find the common ancestor for a three-way merge).
Yes, you are right, I do believe everybody deserves a chance and we shouldn't allow people succumb to disease as a means of population control.

It seems like there are a lot of other pieces to the puzzle that you need to figure out before you introduce a population swell, otherwise you could be creating a generational problem. Save a few million lives today and at the expense of future misery for rather more people.

On the other hand, it could work out great and alleviate a lot of the problems that are holding people back in the first place.
Lamport timestamps sync events between two systems, vector clocks extend the sync to N systems by using an array of these logical timestamps.
So I wonder. All these people who claim that the iPad cannot do this, cannot do that. What do they base these claims on, considering they most likely haven't been able to use one yet (other than the very few people who got to use a prototype or demonstration model)?

My old Palm Pilot is "modal", but you can still happily switch between apps, do something else, come back and pick up where you left off. It would make perfect sense for the iPad to have a similar system at least, so you could e.g. download a picture from your browser, edit it in another app, then use it in a presentation using KeyNote, all without breaking stride.

It would also make sense to have some sort of notification bar or other system telling you that you have mail, tweets, facebook comments, IM messages, whatever.

(Granted, playing music might be a different story, as that would make for a heavier load on the processor as a background process.)

Did Apple make explicit statements about this? Did they state that this definitely isn't possible? Or are we just guessing?

(In case there is actual proof of this, please post a link or so. The articles I've read so far have done nothing to back up their claims.)
Your definition of "worth" must be more like my definition of "deserves".
With all due respect, you don't have any evidence it worked for those children, either.
In the tiny, inconsequential doses that they have been used, no, I have had no concern at all. My four-year-old son is fully immunized and am perfectly happy with what science is producing to protect him.

Remember: chemicals are everywhere in nature. Just because they have complex-looking names doesn't automatically mean they're dangerous in themselves. And just because thimerosal is chemically related to the kind of mercury that is dangerous in larger doses doesn't mean that thimerosal is itself dangerous, especially in the tiny quantity that was once used in vaccines.
Actually, you're both wrong.

According to new numbers from the Labor Department, in 2008 only 1.1% of Americans who work 40 hours a week or more even earned the minimum wage. In other words, 98.9% of 40-hour-a-week workers earn more than the minimum. The data also show that teenagers are five times more likely to earn the minimum wage than adults.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020344010457440...

So the people who are most affected by changes to the minimum wage are teenagers who aren't paying for food and shelter, but looking for disposable income.

Ergo, cutting the minimum wage won't be a boon for new jobs nor will it be cutting anyone's standard of living.
More of a meta-tutorial, but thanks! I've never been compared to Homer before....

I just reviewed it and it's still current, there are no new video venues that I know of and the next Clojure books are still in progress.
I don't think he other countries, not in the us.
I up-voted you because you are wrong, in the hopes that as many people as possible will give you reasons as to exactly how.

There is no grand conspiracy to make the world sick via vaccines to profit. If they are truly 'evil', both insurance and big pharma would benefit much, much more in not having people vaccinated and overpricing drugs every time there is a panic and a run on supplies, ala H1N1. Could you imagine the demand with today's media if there was a measles outbreak in a major city with many deaths?

There is no conspiracy.

As for mecury, you ingest much more of it every time you eat some fish. It is a fact of life.

With every medication, a certain percentage of people will experience side effects. People have died from taking aspirin after all. The point is that a major outbreak of a disease like measles, mumps, rubella, etc would be catastrophic for a large group of people. It is in all of our interests to do what we can to prevent this from happening, even if it means a small, small percentage suffer in the process.

Look at a history book. There is but one constant dread in every story: plague. Disease has culled populations quickly and dramatically in regular fashion for as long as humanity has existed. When is the last time you remember a major outbreak killing off half your neighbourhood? Exactly. That's due 100% to vaccinations.

Get vaccinated. Help yourself and your children; help our civilization survive the horrible effects of these diseases.
iChat and Skype both can change your status to be the current iTunes music. You could write an app that plugs into this API and Tweet.
Weirdly enough, the Federal minimum wage applies to states that track the Federal minimum. Some states have no minimum wage and some have minimum wages different from the Federal minimum. I think it's a strange system, but there you go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_Stat...
Really? For me, "plug it in and select the position in the display properties dialog" was all I needed to do.
No technical people that I'm aware of worship Steve Jobs because of his humanitarian qualities. In fact, if you were to do a broad survey using humanitarian work as a criteria, Bill Gates would be the overwhelming preference. Admiring the charisma of Steve Jobs and the generosity of Bill Gates are not mutually exclusive behaviors. By suggesting that that people "stop worshiping Steve Jobs", you seem to be claiming that they are.

Also, "you techies" strikes me as distancing language with a hostile tone. I think you're projecting a broad, unfounded stereotype on people of developed countries. Personally I've very conscious that I was born one of the most advantageous positions in the world. I donate portions of my income with that thought in mind.
No.

If you want to worry about your kids health make sure they eat right and get plenty of exercise. You'll do much more for their health than worrying about minuscule amounts of chemicals in vaccines.
I would much rather have Gates spend his money on clean energy research or infrastructure projects. This sort of spending tugs at the heart strings but unfortunately it can actually be quite counter-productive at improving the lives of people in undeveloped regions.

By decreasing the amount of wealth that is necessary for a human person to remain alive - for example by introducing a new vaccine that allows a large (5+) family in unsanitary conditions to have all of their children reach adulthood - these sorts of programs in undeveloped countries actually create more poverty then they solve. There is not a cheap-manual labor shortage in these countries. There is however an acute shortage of well-paying jobs that don't involve corruption. By allowing the supply of just-surviving people to increase, you are putting even more downward pressure on the wages of unskilled labor (they are caught in the Iron Law of wages).

Keep in mind that in these countries, with no real legal system, unskilled labor doesn't mean gardening like it does in California but violence in the form of gangs/thug-ocracies who typically control access to natural resources or drug running routes. By creating more people, you are making it easier for the systems that keep them poor to grow, in a positive feedback loop.

The problem is not that a $3 drug is too expensive, and that we need to develop a 30 cent drug, the problem is that there are people who can't afford $3 for a life-saving drug. What they really need from the US is jobs, markets, and protection from the threats of climate change that we are causing by using 25% of the world's fossil fuels (more if you count the contribution from production in China to the cheap goods that we consume).

If Gates really wanted to help these people, he would campaign for an end to developed world farm subsidies, fossil fuel subsidies, and the recreational diamond market. But that would make him unpopular in the US.

EDIT: are downvotes for disagreement or for breach of etiquette?
There will be no messiah to solve everything at once. You deal with these problems as you can. First the lives to be saved by vaccine are saved, and then they will be alive to face the next round. Sorry its not cleaner.
Why I say "Jenny McCarthy BS":
She has appeared in print and on TV proclaiming that it was a diet, B12 shots, etc that were responsible for "curing" her son's autism. With a little research it turns out that they also used ABA.

ABA was the only treatment recommended by the team that diagnosed our son (psychologist, psychiatrist, speech pathologist, OT).

There wasn't anything else in the literature that was compelling treatment for Autism (that I know of). I remain open to other treatments if they are safe and effective and doctor recommended.

However, a low gluten diet would be difficult for our son. He had so many sensory issues and eating was a major problem. I can't imagine trying to work in a low gluten diet at the same time.
The Toyota Way's 14 Principles
But science (not intuitition) has shown that the immune system can handle many such "onslaughts" at once with only positive results. Many, many.

the only vaccine that I've questioned is the Chicken pox vaccine. My son got it, but when I was growing up getting the Chicken pox was just part of being a kid.

So if you got it then everyone should be at risk of getting it? It's not better if we can prevent it altogether by teaching the immune system to fight it off? Chicken Pox is not necessarily harmless; do a Google search for "shingles".
But it wasn't.

As I wrote elsewhere on this thread: I didn't want this posted to Hacker News. I was writing for a different audience of people, one that enjoys a little melodrama and overdescription. I didn't expect anybody in that "programming" umbrella to read this.

I'm sorry that it's wound up here, but it wasn't trolling and I resent the accusation.
> your mistake is in believing that all work is worth enough to live on -- but it isn't.

I think it's more a moral belief that anyone who works ought to be able to support themselves by doing so.
I would very much like it to be so, but the vaccine objectors are far from rational, it seems to me. They literally build cults of personality for their various champions, and believe with religious fervour.
Setting up IntelliJ (version 9, either free open soirce version or commercial version)with the Clojure plugin was a good start for me. I bought Stuart's book (physical book) and the other two Closure books as work in progress PDFs - good references and a help to write idiomatic Clojure code.

BTW, IntelliJ free version also works well with the Scala plugin, so you can mix Java+Clojure+Scala in one project. With the commercial version, you can add JRuby to the mix.
There are houses in small towns that have been abandonded, I am sure you can rent a room (or even the house) for $300/mo. You can properly pay some dude $2.50 in gas money to drive you.
The dangerous sort, to boot. Thimerosal in the tiny dosages once used in vaccines is harmless.
Sadly, this is exactly what many will feel. I suppose in time their ignorance will be their undoing, as they'll be the ones dying off if any of these diseases re-surfaces.
how does the productivity of a place increase if someone previously doing something productive is now forced to stop doing that to spend time and resources taking care of someone else?
I hope that years from now, Bill Gates will be known more for his contributions to humanitarian aid than for being founder of MS.
This is a good point. In fact, the most effective form of population control turns out to be girl's education (both sexual education and otherwise), which reduces the birth rate. High burdens of disease prevent girl's education from happening, especially in regions where there already exists an education imbalance based on gender. Girl's education has a variety of positive non-population control effects as well (consider that without educating women, 1/2 of a nation's population will not be as productive as they would be otherwise).

So the current situation is high birth rates with high death rates, which keeps population in a grim equilibrium while the rest of society's resources are spent trying to keep as many people alive as possible rather than engaged in productive development. Reducing the burden of disease is a necessary first step in freeing up these resources to be used in other ways, like girl's education, which will help to alleviate many of the problems of a "sudden" population boom that you mention.