skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ah, the Dunning-Kruger effect at its finest. :-)

Please ask yourself this: even if you do know 20-year-olds who have done impressive things, why would you think that such talented and/or hard-working people will not be able to achieve still more impressive things at 30, when they have roughly an order of magnitude more useful experience? What about at 40, when they have had time to see through several long-term projects?

Or look at it the other way around: do you really think none of the successful older developers today also contributed to volunteer projects during school, worked summer jobs, or tried a start-up straight out of college?

It is true that disruption of routine is sometimes important for the industry to make progress, but it says a lot that you chose the word "dominated". Our industry isn't "dominated" by disruption at all. On the contrary, it is dominated by people who make useful products, using untrendy but tried-and-tested tools and techniques, that get real work done.

Every now and then, something truly original or a genuinely creative application of an old idea comes along, and that can become a great success. But for every one of those, there are a lot of ideas that stink and go nowhere. And guess what? Many of those ideas come from the young people who are convinced they're on a winner, because they are too inexperienced to know better, where more experienced developers might have seen similar ideas fail before and know an idea was doomed before wasting any time on it. Conversely, despite your rather odd assertion that broader experience somehow implies being set in one's ways, IME those who have been around for a while are much better at spotting opportunities to fill useful niches or change the rules in a significant way, and are much better at making practical, pragmatic decisions to take advantage of those opportunities.

YMMV, but I'd bet a substantial chunk of money that in ten years' time, you'll be on my side of the argument. :-)
Disagree.

Such discussion are pointless with a simplistic (undefined) notion of good. When you define what "good" is, then you can have a real discussion about ethics.

Once you define your value system (any inconsistencies? I hope not) then you can compute (probably with immense difficulty) whether something is good or bad within it.

If you are a consequentialist then you would evaluate the effects of "censorship" in both cases. If you are not then you may also wish to evaluate "censorship" itself, or the government's enforcement of copyright (calling this censorship is rhetorical obfuscation, communication designed to confuse the listener.)
Germany has their own versions of the EPA and OSHA and they are much more powerful than the US ones.
I work professionally in Django. Django is nicer starting out, but it's starting to chafe. I'd rails, even if it is a "grass greener" type situation.
Now the reason the internet is such a big deal when it comes to copyright, is that it makes distribution, and hence consumption, much much easier than in the past. In fact, it also makes creating derivative works a whole lot easier. So there is a strong argument to be made that the good gained by weakening copyright laws would outweigh any harm.

Can you elaborate on this? I don't see the logical progression at all.
Using jQuery in the (optional) admin tool doesn't commit the framework to jQuery. The view and template mechanisms remain blissfully JavaScript toolkit agnostic. I happen to use jQuery with Django, but appreciate the neutrality.
That is an interesting contrasting viewpoint. You are absolutely correct that the observed behavior is to act morally (as they should). I had missed this point earlier.
Why Are People Who Pay For Porn Idiots?
Why Are People Who Pay For Music Idiots?
Why Are People Who Don't Sell Drugs To Make Lots Of Money Idiots?

Because some of us have pride and morals.
The Chinese people give the Chinese government that right, and apparently a lot of them give it willingly since they are willing to trade freedom for stability.
While reading this article, I felt there was as strong connection to this one (recently posted on hacker news):

http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?...

...which basically says that entitled people in positions of power tend to hold others to a higher moral standard than themselves.
Thanks for the honest insight.
Weebly Partners with Hosting Provider Endurance International
What I expect From Apple Tomorrow
And that long-term foundation is the core of the international aide plan. If there can ever be said to be a silver lining in a cloud such as this, it is this: almost the entirety of the existing infrastructure was destroyed in the quake, and Haiti gets to do it right this time -- buildings that "meet code", city planning that makes some kind of sense, distribution of services that has some correlation to demographic distribution, and so on, all under the eye of international observers who must be present while Haiti, once again, tries to build a police and law enforcement system from scratch. It will cost a mint in foreign generosity to give Haiti the leg up it needs, but it will, at the same time, reduce the need for continual infusions of aide over the long term. (Haiti has certainly never been off of the aide map in Canada; money, material, medical, police and military contributions have been going there pretty much since Baby Doc bit the big one.)
This article is remarkably oversimplified.

First, the obvious: once you ruin your credit rating by defaulting on your mortgage, it might not be so easy to just waltz right into a lower price rental. Not to mention that you'll be paying more on any other loans you take out for the next <strike>10</strike> 7 years, and probably your car insurance. You might also consider the increasingly common phenomenon of employers running credit checks on applicants.

There are a variety of legitimate factors in a decision like this which aren't purely financial: the time, emotional, and social costs of moving. Do you move your children to another school? Do you take your children away from their neighborhood friends? Perhaps you like your neighbors as well, or the neighborhood businesses you frequent. If you move into a rental, you can no longer make certain changes to your home to suit your needs and desires.

It's naive and insulting to call people "idiots" because they aren't simple money-maximizing machines, particularly if you're going to pretend that monthly housing cost is something that exists in a vacuum.
Haiti is a lost cause. Give up on it.
I'll tell you what's worse: an architect that has no experience in your product field.

I'm currently in an embedded systems company where the chief architect came from a server-design group. So now everything we do looks like a server. It's awful on multiple levels.
Tests show standard UI inputs are understood the best. Just use the checkbox for your website.
Confessions of a Book Pirate
Maybe people like the house they're living in? Everyone seems to be talking about the financial side of things, but isn't it likely that many of the people still paying their mortgage do so because they like where they're living and don't want to be foreclosed on?
Well, it's obviously true that it's not a step function. But the slope is really steep. Someone with just a tiny bit of equity can sell their home and walk away without having to pay anything. Someone with just a tiny bit of unsecured debt who wants to move loses almost nothing (a beaten credit rating for someone with income isn't nearly as serious as you think) by walking away, and saves thousands of dollars in fees (typical real estate fees in the US are 5/6%, and paid by the seller!). That may not be "binary", but it's pretty close.

The real determining factor in your case, I suspect, isn't financial but one of convenience. Finding a new home is a hassle, and you don't want to bother with it. It makes more sense to stay where you are because moving doesn't get you anything but grief. But if you got a great job in a different city, would you really be seriously thinking about trying to sell your underwater house?
> Disney removes all other copies, but allows access to the original.

But they don't have to - they could banish Mickey from the world if they chose to. Copyright allows them to do it. Is that wrong?

I think it's more about who created the information - copyright is about controlling things you yourself create. Censorship is about controlling access to things other people created.
I agree with you almost completely, except that I'm pretty sure that most people in this situation are, in fact, considering the consequences of declaring bankruptcy.
The communist system of law is undergirded by a philosophy that assumes humankind can be reshaped and reorganized to achieve a collective goal for society that ultimately is ushered in by force. That is why freedom is lacking in such societies.

I think this is a bit too broad, you can easily argue that just about any society includes collective goals in its purpose and that the use of force and coercion are the ultimate methods of enforcement in any system of laws.

The difference tends to be in how fairly and universally the laws are applied, rather than some fundamental quality of the legal systems themselves. If you look at the constitutions of most Communist countries, you'll find they proudly guarantee freedoms the great majority of their citizens never actually had.
I used this for

http://pastebin.me/

slightly confusing, but a checkbox didnt quite work either
ah sorry.
General Motors comes to mind. Bankruptcy allows them to abandon their debt and continue to operate with only the best assets as the "New GM." Basically all the same assets, screwed the stockholders and debtors, but a new company.
Has Goldman Sachs ever missed an interest payment or otherwise failed to met a financial obligation?

The ire in Paulson's quote is directed not against speculators generally, but speculators who don't live up to their agreements when things move against them.

That's not really something Goldman is guilty of. ...As much as people would like them and everyone ever associated with them to be guilty of everything.
I think most people would appreciate a reference the tests mentioned (I would at least)
I'm expecting Apple to announce a tablet tomorrow.

Apple has been completely tight-lipped on the matter, and the only thing they've said about tablets is that they don't know how to make a good one.

So why am I, why is everyone, expecting a tablet? What evidence is there that should support that expectation? Apart from the question "what else could it be"?

And given how much effort Apple puts into keeping things under wraps, how did so many people and media outlets get so convinced a tablet is 'due' from Apple?
This seems to be conflating two issues. One is that Facebook has changed their default profile privacy recently, which is a real issue that got a lot of press.

The second is specifically their album privacy settings, which are not a million miles away in complexity from twitalbum's own and include the very useful "except for" feature.

It looks like the author is trying to hitch a ride on popular discomfort with default-publicity to advertise their service, even though it's not substantially different.

I'm not Facebook's biggest fan or anything, but this just looks like a naked grab for publicity.
Here are 5 reasons: http://findinpage.blogspot.com/2010/01/what-makes-this-find-...
Either one is fine. They are both dynamic and flexible languages, mature, have powerful web frameworks, and fairly large library repositories.

The choice is more a matter of preference. Python generally encourages you to do "the right thing". Ruby offers more room for doing things the way you like them.
Journal of Serendipitous and Unexpected Results
On a semi related note, Intype is an example of a great piece of software that should have been released as v1.0 already.

If it were to be released, I personally would pay for it and know many others who would also (in order to feed their development). But in its current (development) state I opt for something with backing assured.
But wait - there isn't a "peace and stability" in China, and never was under the Chinese Communist Party rule. There are under-reported violent unrests happening (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/art...), there is a large network of forced labour camps (http://www.laogai.org/), they are harvesting organs from live prisoners (http://organharvestinvestigation.net/), etc. etc. All those things affect large number of people and their families, and for those people it's impossible to live in peace and harmony.

Living first half of my life in the communists-ruled country, I'd say it's not possible to create harmony in a regime which suppress basic human rights. It's hard to explain to someone who didn't live under such conditions. It's like some kind of invisible pressure 24 hours a day, forcing you to comply with the regime, preventing you to fully express yourself or living in a peace.
As a recently newly minted homeowner who paid appropriate price in a non-bubble market I find the title highly offensive and hyperbolic. "Why are underwater homeowners idiots" is the appropriate title.

Re: article itself.

There's also the small matter of jacking your credit for 7 years. With uncertain future and no savings many people rely on access to credit for emergencies. Not saying that is wise or that they should, but that is a fact.
I don't know exactly what mortgage contracts look like in the US, but the ones I have seen in my country don't say you can walk away. They say you can not walk away. The bank getting the house is just one consequence that happens if you violate the contract and do walk away.
US oil industry hit by cyberattacks: Was China involved?
Copyright obeys to the author's will. Censorship is fundamentally opposed to it.
It's worth reading your specific mortgage, but it's likely that the contract says something along the lines of "you walk away, the bank gets the house, you're liable for the bank's losses".
Write some scripts in both. If you already know a few languages, it's pretty easy to pick up the basics.

After that, pick the one you enjoyed more. They're essentially equivalent at this time.
Can you put a [US] tag in the title. It's not really relevant in other countries.

Also a slightly less inflammatory hyperbolic linkbait title would be good.
Whether you pick Python or Ruby, you should try to avoid diving right into Django or Rails.

Work through Mark Pilgrim's "Dive Into Python" or _why's "Poignant Guide to Ruby".

If you want to write a web app, start with Google AppEngine w/ it's webapp framework, or Heroku w/ Sinatra.
Google Reader notifies changes in sites without feeds
ITunes Might Finally Have a Legit Competitor, doubleTwist
Didn't he short the housing industry? You'd think he'd want people to walk from their mortgages.
I don't know the convention, but the most accurate would be the rate of decay on the installed base.
python for sure. you can use it with app engine, whereas ruby on the app engine jvm is less mature.

take a look at some source code here to help you get started:

http://developeradvocate.appspot.com/id/1005/AppEngineBlog-(...

http://code.google.com/p/appengineblogsoftware/source/browse...
Public: bad for you, good for everyone else.

I was thinking about a service that lets you add notes to books last night. My first thought was that every note had to default to public. Why? So you would contribute to the greater community without having to think about it. If you truly wanted to keep a secret, it would be an option.

BUT, this service is very far off from what Facebook let's you upload and share. Though, the point is the same, they're being selfish at individual user's expense.
> Not to mention that you'll be paying more on any other loans you take out for the next 10 years [...]

I thought that bankruptcy came off your credit score/rating/listing after 7 years.
Oops... IBM's p, i and zSeries legacy customers are more loyal than Sun's were...
Very cool. My question is.. how did he scan the coke-can? http://www.romancortes.com/ficheros/coke-label.jpg
RescueTime Orb: A Traffic Light of Your Past Hour's Productivity on your Desktop
I come from a c# and php background and don't know ruby, for what it's worth.
Steve's Outfit
Clever.
"Visitors should be awake that visiting tc.com rightnow is equivalent to visiting an suspicious, untrustred site"

Surely that's the case every day???

LMFAO
I was bullied so badly in grade school I used to lie awake at night involuntarily replaying it in my head over and over and over again. It would never stop.

I've never seen any of those bullies since but if I DO - THEY'RE going to be the ones with lingering health issues.
Dominos: The Pizza Turnaround
That wasn't really my intention, (why the oops). I was trying to see how massive a a scroll bar I could make (sadly firefox does not scroll images (hmmmm, or maybe it was autoresizing it to fit on available screen). Also, being a programmer and very much into testing I naturally think of pushing bounds.
If you were self-conscious about your geekdom, and wanted to adjust it so you could better interact with the slows, that summary would be pointless, but the article would be useful.
Has Goldman Sachs ever missed an interest payment or otherwise failed to met a financial obligation?

I'd give Goldman a pass. They really are the best at what they do.

But if we expand it further to the rest of the financial industry, what can we see?

Back in November, 33 companies skipped their TARP payments.

Just recently, Blackrock walked away from a Manhattan building as they couldn't refinance the debt.

And that's the problem-- banks and homeowners get into financial, not moral contracts. If the loss off default is smaller than the loss of staying in the contract, you stop paying. Companies do it all the time, and homeowners should view it as an out.
If you are interested in a jQuery style plugin see our tutorial we did a few months back which does the same thing

http://labs.engageinteractive.co.uk/itoggle/

(Should work on your iphone too)
The problem is that they are chumps if they don't play by the same rules. Which is why the people 'at the top' really need to be used as an example of not acting in such as self-interested way. If the people at the bottom are keeping society together by ignoring the example set at the top, then the people at the top are just plowing over everyone else in a bid to further their own selfish goals.
Ignoring bankruptcy for a second, big companies walk away from contracts all the time. Those contracts normally stipulate that one company will pay another company a certain amount of money over a particular time period, which is effectively debt.

The difference between that and a mortgage is that the big companies are usually on a more equal negotiation footing than homeowners are with banks. So rather than signing a boilerplate agreement, they have teams of lawyers to pick things over, write outs, etc. So when they choose to "walk away", they usually have some reasonable way to do it and still comply with the contract.
Different Paulson.
thats okay - but this is like paying for music/porn to be taken away from you. A big part of the equity you got when you signed up and paid for has been taken away but you are still paying the full price!!
UX Case Study: Designing a user-focused web app
Combine it with this http://detexify.kirelabs.org/classify.html and you've got yourself a nifty draw->search tool

Also, if this comment sounds familiar, I left a very similar comment regarding combining the above link with a JS based latex figure output. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=815189
I think the propensity for geeks to prefer IM, Email and Texting has more to do with a lot of them being introverts and preferring to have time to consider their responses, than with a lack of social graces.
And the US markets have some of the best bankruptcy courts in the world, which helps.
It sounds like a small thing, but I'm glad just to see an article which doesn't just assume that people who are underwater were foolish or reckless buying a house in the first place. I bought well within what I could afford in 2001, and routinely paid down extra principal every month. Now that I am married and have a small child, I'd like to move someplace bigger, nicer, and closer to the rest of my family.

Only thing is, according to the real estate agents, if I'm really lucky selling my house will just cover what remains on the mortgage. If I'm not lucky, selling the house could easily cost us $20,000. Crazily, the most likely reason for that to happen wouldn't be that we couldn't find someone to buy the house for what we'd like to sell it for -- it would be that we couldn't find a lender to appraise it for that much.

Personally, I haven't sussed out the moral implications of just giving the bank the house instead of paying back the loan. On the one hand, it's hard to see how the bank could complain: yeah, they might be getting a house valued at $N in lieu of $N + $20,000, but they also got 8.5 years of interest on it, too, which probably amounted to around $45,000. On the other hand is the notion that implicit in our loan contract was the idea that we would pay it off if humanly possible; that allowed the bank to lend us the money for less than would have otherwise been possible. I don't know how to balance those two things.
What I am trying to say is ultimately in response to this:

> You really should have a reason why Disney movies should be censored from the internet, but Chinese dissident materials should not be.

Disney movies should be "censored" from the internet because countries which respect copyright ought to enforce such. Chinese dissident materials should not be "censored" from the internet because Chinese dissidents presumably have a right to free speech. This is the Western perspective, as I understand it.

I am pointing out the difference between the two scenarios and not necessarily endorsing the Western perspective.
It is one of those things were you take about 20 minutes with each language and see which one fits you better.

Python's philosophy is there should only be one obvious way to express something.

Ruby's philosophy is the language should be expressive enough that you can express something in a way that makes sense to you.

The biggest advantage Python has over Ruby is its wealth of scientific libraries, but that may not matter to you much as a web developer.
Exactly.....something that i never understood in all these articles is this: If I have bought a home for living in it, and not for speculation, how does it matter what its market price is? I knew _before_ I bought it what I will be paying the whole way and I don't want to sell it.
It does. After 7 years a bankruptcy should not show up on your credit report.
From the perspective of lenders, who are the people that credit scores are supposed to serve, this would be counter productive. Anyone who fails to pay a debt, for whatever reason, should be penalized. For large lenders, the underwriting decision is now almost entirely statistical, which provides them with lots of operational leverage (but is also one of the reasons that the bubble was allowed to inflate in the first place). If you want someone to make an actual underwriting decision, you need to go to a smaller bank or credit union. You will also find that many of these institutions weren't hit as hard because they made better decisions about what loans to make, and they sold off the poor quality loans that the government forced them make to the secondary market to avoid the hit when they went bad.