skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The supposed explanation here is not very good. It amounts to this: "To get those first digits, you took the actual numbers and scaled them all by powers of 10 to get values between 1 and 10. That's kinda logarithmic, and Benford's law is kinda logarithmic, so it's no surprise that the results end up obeying Benford's law. All you really need, kinda, is for the probability distribution to span several powers of 10." This is hand-wavy and, not to put too fine a point on it, wrong. For instance, suppose we generate random numbers uniformly distributed between 1 and 1000000; they will not obey Benford's law.

The author also claims that looking at the Fourier transform of the probability distribution is key to understanding what's going on. But the full extent of his Fourier-based analysis is this: Consider the probability distribution function for log_10(data). Then Benford's law holds if this is constant (editorial note: it cannot in fact be constant) and holds roughly if it's roughly constant. That happens, kinda, when the probability distribution is very broad (editorial note: no, not really; see the example above). What, you didn't see anything about Fourier transforms there? Well, that's because the Fourier stuff is really almost all window-dressing.

For a brief account of Benford's law and related matters written by someone with a better grasp of what's going on, you could turn to http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/benfords-law-zipfs-... whose author is one of the best mathematicians currently living and also a very good expositor.
The desktop wars are over. The web is the platform now. You should put your energy into making sure that platform stays open.
There is very funny comment to this article. I sincerely believe that it is ironic.

"I've never liked Linux. Firefox is faster and more reliable. Less buggy too."
How do you come to the conclusion that it was because register_globals was turned on?

There's not even a valid reason to turn that setting on, with legacy not even being an excuse.
SocialJitney releases new Framework for Kids Painting
Social Jitney recently announced and released its new Framework for an educational and fun based series of applications called “Painting for Kids”.

Social Jitney developed and released this framework for Feel Social Inc. The first of the series is the release of an application by the name of “Painting for Kids: Animal Series”.
Decision Before Opening
Record-setting Linux: Calculating pi to 2.7 trillion numbers
Sounds like an excellent way to get your server banned. After all, if it does that 'the instant' it happens then it has to periodically poll the server.

Since HN is already creaking at the seams I'm really not happy with this kind of bot based service.
Waste of bits. The article, the comments, all of it. You owe me $0.003 of electricity, ilamont.
Computer-related misconduct: How to conduct an internal investigation
5 key-value coding approaches in Cocoa
Linux is not ready for the mass market because average joes are not able to use the newest version of a browser?

Righty right, because your average joe (a) does not care about the newest version, (b) does not know what a browser is (remember that video?).

Moreover, Preston Gralla does not seem to have a clue what package management is about.
"Unbuntu"? Seriously?
Enjoyed this interview a lot.

Minor point: I don't think 37signals (despite they are making very interesting products) are kicking Microsoft's butt, far from it :)
Is TechCrunch simply preparing to merge with Twitter, at last?
'All About Agile' is no more
C'mon, the comments are the best part!
This experiment is definitely worthy of a post. I haven't looked at how he did that or the "CSS Bird" shadow effect but I'm impressed that can be done without Javascript.
Interesting - the article isn't quite fair with FaceBook though - it's pretty easy to raise an interesting number of virtual beers or pokes through FaceBook.
Ruby Alamsyah memeragakan penggunaan ATM bodong di televisi. - Google Nggoleki
Search Fundamentals - Basic Indexing
Well I can think of a use or two for the bird example, but I'm unsure why I'd want to use this method over something javascript based.
> Pointing out failures can, hopefully, allow to build better law-enforcement-evasion tools in the future.

To classify TOR as a law-enforcement-evasion tool is to miss out on a great many legal uses such technology has.

Law enforcement evasion is specifically something you probably should not do with TOR, since you abuse the trust of the exit nodes.
The naive belief that users will wait at least 6 months to get a simply-installed version of a software update that other platforms already have is laughable. Especially when that hardware could run two other OSs that don't have that requirements.

Nobody's sure whether this is Firefox's problem or each Linux distro's problem. But since some distros seem to advocate themselves as desktop OSs, I suggest they take responsibility for solving it - and produce up to date packages of Firefox and other essential desktop tools.
Thanks for the answer, I agree with all your points. I'm just saying that still, there is a small technical difference from open source desktop software: technically, in this case, I can not verify that the source code you release is exactly the code that you are running on the server, just that the code reproduces all the "visible" functionality of the site. I wonder if there exists such a place for hosting trusted web-apps, where one could publish source code and they would certify that the actual code running on the server is the same.
The article alleges that even when the Google Toolbar Notifier BHO is also disabled, the tracking continues, and implies (though it doesn't quite state explicitly) that there is no way to disable whatever's doing the tracking other than a complete uninstallation.
He uses the word "Unbuntu" once, and the word "Ubuntu" three times. Therefore I'd imagine that "Unbuntu" was a spelling mistake, and probably doesn't have a great bearing on his knowledge of package management.
> Moreover, Preston Gralla does not seem to have a clue what package management is about.

He clearly does. The article is about the lack of packages for Firefox on the latest Ubuntu. Attacking a typo doesn't make this argument invalid.

A web browser is the most essential piece of software on the desktop these days. FF 3.6 has significant speed increases that make users happy. If Ubuntu wants users, it should care about this.
If you're asking an end-user to care about 'package management' then you're likely proving his point.
Ask HN: cheap SMS service for application
What is the easiest, cheapest method to convert from computer/net/email to SMS and from SMS to network? I'm looking for a cheap (free is better) service for a computer application. Would I annoy google if I used a google voice account to start with? Or are there better solutions?
It depends. For example, you couldn't play the game all the way through in easy mode in Doom. You had to play it in a harder difficulty to get to the third area. This was motivation for me to replay the game at harder difficulties.
Again, I'm not saying you should do anything differently, I'm just trying to understand if open source makes sense for pure web apps.
The World Bank should have titled this something along the lines of "Corruption blah blah blah", instead of "Paying Zero for Public Services".
Wow! That's really cool. I can't believe I hadn't seen it before.
After years of work with genetic algorithms (GA) that used just these sorts of exchanges to search their function space it is fascinating to see that nature was there first.

The GA literature is full of many useful mechanisms for advancing search. Perhaps GAs will be to evolutionary biology what mathematics is to physics - a suitable model to hint at promising experimental research.
How? Package management is simply a different model entirely. One that doesn't encourage people to go download random files and give them full privileges on their machines. It's no harder to go to System > Administration > Add/Remove Software than it is to go seeking out some software on the web, downloading it, installing it manually and making sure that you have whatever other software it needs. I dare say that asking users to care about package management is a solution to the problem of Windows installers.
Clickatell[1] is cheap and provides a number of methods to send SMS: email-to-sms, HTTP (XML, SOAP, urls), SMPP, FTP. They also support inbound/two-way messaging and shortcodes, though I assume these cost a good bit more.

[1] http://www.clickatell.com/
If the average Joe wants the bleeding edge, get him to try Debian unstable. I guarantee that he'll go running back to the comforts of the more stable distro. I can say this because I did so as well. :-)
OpenShapes - Open Source web-based editable diagrams
What’s next in HTML: the sandbox attribute
The other examples on his blog are even cooler... check this out. http://www.romancortes.com/blog/css-3d-meninas/
I'm not asking an end-user to care about package management, he is.
He suggests that users should install new versions of software themselves instead of relying on managed packages.

Someone who absolutely has to have the latest and greatest is most likely an advanced user and still can just add another source to his package manager.
thanks. that site has the worst and most annoying format i've ever seen. i mean, clicking a goddam button to view each reply? jesus
It does have a bearing on him being able to say that for Joe Sixpack, Linux is indeed not ready for primetime. The average Joe can probably spell "Windows Vista" and "OS X".
Quintura used to be very similar.
InDesign is reputedly very good, but it's hard to argue that the Adobe PDF reader is equally good - it's bloated, full of security problems, etcetera.

Similarly, Adobe's Flash design tools may be cool; but the Flash client sucks. The anti-Flash sentiment wouldn't be quite as prominent if there were a decent, lightweight open-source Flash player that ran well everywhere. (Of course, the semantic web people would still hate Flash.)
When you mention Prolog, is there microProlog implementation for Linux out there?
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Package management is simply a different model entirely.

Heh... isn't that a bit like saying functional programming is only an entirely different programming paradigm? :-)
Jilion Blog
Searching for "Google" doesn't produce a wheel. "Bing" and "yahoo" do though.
Codensity improvement of free monads
Thanks much for the link.
The Monad.Reader Issue 15
Matz on Ruby, Functional Programming and Programming Languages Design
when will chrome become mainstream for linux?
Nice effect.

I think a bit of JS is being used to create the DIV structure, but that's not important.

It could also be improved a bit: you could remove the shading gradient from the Coke can mask PNG, and render the shading using an CSS gradient with RGBA values.
That would mimic the specular highlighting, and you could also animate the shading.

I still haven't quite grok'd the displacement method though... it must be carefully calculated background x pos offsets? (I don't have firebug on this machine)
Sure it's his fault for not rereading and checking for typos but come on, is it really that unthinkable to accidentally type "Vitsa", "OSX" or "Unbuntu"?
Building Kernel Modules With Module-Assistant On Debian Lenny
Sun CEO Jon Schwartz to Resign
The irony about BART is I once randomly met the guy who does their software (.Net). He doesn't even use BART; he works from his office in Portland, OR!
Good stuff. Too bad you can't finely tune what is and what isn't allowed. Like disabling just window.location, etc..
Poor Linux distros. They try so hard. Nobody ever makes installers for Linux software (they don't even provide binaries unless it costs $1000+.) So the distros do their best to compile, test and maintain neat, orderly package repositories that won't vomit all over your filesystem and don't have tons of bugs and backdoors. And for this they are chastised, because it takes time to prepare a release. Meanwhile, Apple can take their sweet time with App Store approval, reject anything they want, not even give you the _option_ of installing things the hard way, and for this they are applauded. Clearly what Linux needs is more shiny buttons and less freedom.
I'd call it a typo, seeing as he demonstrated three times that he knows how to spell the word.
If Ubuntu wanted to, they could make it trivially easy, and upgrade everyone to Firefox 3.6 The reason they don't is because of their update policies.

For example, Ubuntu 9.10 comes with kernel 2.6.31. If there is a bugfix or patch, they will update you to 2.6.31.whatever. They will continue those updates for as long as that release is supported. However, they will never upgrade you to 2.6.32 or above. They will just continue applying fixes to 2.6.31.

This same policy applies to Firefox. With Ubuntu 9.10 you get Firefox 3.5. They will give you 3.5.9999, but never 3.6.

To get 3.6, you will have to wait for Ubuntu 10.4.

The reason for this policy is to maintain stability. They know that one package at version X is compatible with all the other packages at version Y, so don't upgrade anything and compatability will be maintained.

This is reasonable, but I think they need to make an exception for something like Firefox. There is no reason that Firefox 3.6 won't be compatible. It just works. They are sacrificing the user experience in favor of some esoteric update policy that users are not even aware of, nor do they understand.

User experience is priority one. People care more about Firefox than every other app on the system. Upgrade it Ubuntu!
No, Flash itself isn't slow, but a lot of people are making a lot of Flash content that is hideously non-optimized, and a combination of that on a webpage can make anyone's computer slow to a crawl.

And a precious few people are capable of creating good Flash content that is optimized and does run fast. Look at this for example:

http://www.rockonflash.com/demos/pv3d/macworld/demo/as3/inde...
Not a reference, per se, but the intriguing diary of a guy who talked to a new stranger for thirty days in a row.

http://socialskydivingwithjustin.posterous.com
iPad? what a vomit inducing ugly name :/

I seem to be alone in expecting this tablet device to be priced at the wrong side of $1000. My logic goes like this: People will expect it to be similar to a laptop in performance, not similar to an iPhone, therefore I'd expect the internals to be similar to a MacBook Air, it to be marketed as a touch screen mini-Air and the price to be $1200 to $1500. Hope I'm wrong
Thanks. I'll take a look at Clickatell today.
Brightcove tech will help Comcast lock down Internet video
Parole Media Player 0.2.0.2 su Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic
> As a language geek, Clojure does not provide a lot of new things

I found it interesting that matz would say that, given how little ruby innovates in terms of programming concepts.

> I'm a language geek, so I'm not really interested in using it, but I'm pretty interested in studying it

That probably means that if Matz stumbled upon ruby, he wouldn't even have bothered looking at it.

EDIT:

I'll extend on my comment a little. I think both ruby and clojure are language designed to be used by regular programmers, even if clojure probably aims more at 'language geeks' as Matz says. So i'd say, whatever his justifications are, it would have been interesting if Matz looked at both languages in a similar way.

Also i'd say that for such languages, it's more the way that 'features' are assembled, and which restrictions are imposed to the programmer, that makes the language interesting or not, and that if examined under that angle, clojure takes a bolder step in the direction of interesting IMHO.

EDIT2: I'm not flaming, just expressing my point of view, so if you downvote, have at least the courtesy of explaining why you disagree.
Text link ads might be one way to go. Perfectly legal but if google detects it then it's goodbye pagerank. Same for sponsored blog posts.

Even if you do take on paid for links and google doesn't realise I doubt you're going to make very much from it. I would suggest you use your site as a marketing tool, both for yourself and projects you're interested in, and be happy with that.
> It's a proprietary blob that Adobe controls.

Check out a recent hot topic from the Adobe Flex mailing list.

Basically the Adobe Lawyers rewrote the license agreement for Flex (Flex being Flash that uses an integration server) - it now disallows trying to make any server of your own that talks the same language their now very $$$ (no single CPU option) integration server does.

"took a look at the FB4 Beta 2 License Agreement, and here's what I found:

2.4.7 Flash (R) Builder(R) with LiveCycle(R) Data Services(LCDS) Data Management Library. Your rights to this Software are limited. In order to (a) utilize the file called "fds.swc" (the "LCDS Library") to develop associations , (b) utilize the LCDS Library to develop offline capability, (c) use the application modeling plug-in, or (d) utilize the LCDS Library to develop a product that competes with LiveCycle Data Services or BlazeDS, you must obtain additional licensing rights from Adobe."
Sizes and overlaps of communities on sites: pastel graphs
What can I say, I live on the edge.
Speculating about the Universe as a quantum fluid
It's actually a lot more sophisticated than that. Here's a great presentation from Valve about the "AI Director" in Left 4 Dead:

http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2009/ai_systems_of...
This was no automated attack. The page was updated with a series of what could only be hand written messages as TC tried to overwrite what the hacker was uploading. At one point the whole page turned to "o_O".
I get the same message when i'm logged in to my Google Account. It works when i'm not. Here's a Screenshot:

http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/148/linuxkernelcryptoapi....
This is a myth. A myth that's been debunked, over and over. And over. And called a myth by Google. More than once.
Thank you for exploring the bounds of my shared-server memory limits.
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The Path to Rails 3: Approaching the upgrade
I've used clickatell a lot in the past (circa 2005-2007).

I'd recommend them. Be prepared to fax them details to confirm some things.

One minor frustration with them is that they have a division between their API account and their desktop messenger. It sounds like you'll be using the API first. But you cannot then use excess credits for any personal sideline messaging using their client.
By a front end developer, for front end developers. Let me know how I might make it better.

Planned additions include

True file format support (add .jpg and you get a real jpg etc) Right now you can add an extension but it still serves up a gif.

Easier syntax for making squares (/250 would work instead of typing /250x250)

Ability to change the background color
Thanks for the Hackety Hack shoutout...

If I could find a copy of Windows XP, and someone who had a Mac, I'd have installers done. Unfortunately, it's been a little hard to find people, even for just what amounts to a recompile.
What do you do when you have a web app, rather than content, and there's not that much text to drop your keywords around in. I guess have a blog that talks about your subject matter?
Interesting. The summary is that this non profit prints and distributes these things that look like money that they call the "Zero Rupee Note" -- it's like bill with a zero on it. Poor people can give these to corrupt officials to protest the bribes they want.

A priori, I would have thought this was worse than pointless, because giving corrupt officials these notes is sort of biting sarcasm. Wouldn't it be better to just say no?

Well, according to the article, they work. The reason, agains according to the article, is that officials can potentially get in a lot of trouble for taking bribes, so they are likely to cave to someone who doesn't play ball. The difference between refusal to pay and paying with the fake bill is that the people actually /use/ the fake bill since the perception is that they have the backing of this large non profit, versus them fighting back alone.

If the article is accurate, the whole concept is quite interesting.
Nexus One maker sees potential in Windows Mobile 7
It's pretty sad self posts are discounted, since they IMHO are one of the best parts of HN.
Good idea! I'm working on making an option to change the background color. Ideal syntax would be http://dummyimage.com/300x200#ccc for a gray background. Too bad the server is never sent anchor information so I've got to find a better way.
Techcrunch could be delivered as a PDF. I get it on my Kindle.

Just as most new web sites are not startup companies, most existing web sites are not apps.

The distinction and difference is that a software application helps a user perform manipulation or transformation of data as useful work.

Most websites, despite simple interactivity (e.g. search), are still published as "content" for consumption within a content access application, not for manipulating work|play|creative output.
Ask HN: Feedback on my Apps search engine: AppsVu
How online security cards fails (or how security economics trumps engineering)
Try doing that with a print designer over your shoulder debating on two image sizes.
How a Lack of Control Leads to Superstition
I wasn't one who downvoted you, but I think the problem is it felt like you were taking quotes out of context in order to start a flamewar.

It would have been interesting to hear Matz elaborate on what he thought of Clojure, since it sounded like he was looking at it too much from the point of a language geek and not someone who ever wants to use it to make something real.
Upvoted for "Mallory-Chicken Impetus."
Oh yea I'm working on an option to change the background color. I was hoping to use an elegant syntax like http://dummyimage.com/300x250#ccc for a gray background. Too bad you can't capture anything after the hash tag on the server side. Any feedback on a better syntax?
He's not bashing on Clojure, he just states that it does not introduce many new concepts. And I would agree. Clojure does not really introduce anything new -- it bundles a bunch of existing stuff together into a more readily usable, cohesive platform. Clojure is interesting to look at for how it practically implements things, not how it introduces entirely new concepts.

(to be clear, I'm not saying this out of defense of Ruby, which I don't have much experience with personally)
Continuous Learning Lessons from Leaf Blowing
In that case i apologize if what i say has seemed offensive in any way.

I don't mean to flame on ruby, i think it's a good language, that i certainly enjoy using. What i intent to say is that if Matz looked at his own language the same way he looks at clojure, he wouldn't find anything new. There is nothing wrong with that in my opinion. It's also something that is stated very clearly in Matz intents regarding ruby.

So i guess the very point i want to make is that, if Matz is searching ways to improve ruby, and it looks like he is, i think he shouldn't only look at languages who have interesting 'new' features, but also at the way new interesting languages combines 'known' features, because it's often enough to create a totally new workflow for programmers.
Evolutionary Psychology, Sort Of