skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm not really sure that's true; he seems to have gone to a fair amount of trouble to make sure that the expanded form is readable, at which point debugging it should be no trickier than debugging any other macro expansion - just keep expanding step by step until you find the thing that went wrong.

If anything I'd expect this to be easier to deal with than multiple layers of plain C macros given it's going to be a lot easier to introspect - at least for the same level of complexity of expanded result.

Of course, if you do substantially more complex things with it then, yes, it's going to be more complex to debug. But that's always the price paid for using complex abstractions - complexity can be corralled, compartmentalised and contained but rarely eliminated entirely.
"uninformed" in the sense of failure to understand the role of media. Not uninformed in the sense of failure to read easily digestible pieces of the market.

All media (that I know of) have engaged in a mix of news, speculation, and opinion for my entire life -- and probably centuries before I was born.

This article seemed to me so much like restating the obvious that I was very underwhelmed.
I think that programming communities as they stand fit in the same psychological and spiritual "space" as religion and religious practice. Do you really think anyone would sincerely take up a deity you just invented?

Presumably, in programming terms, computers are your creator - except they create logical streams rather than being responsible for creation of those you are proposing to be the worshippers (from what I can tell) who in fact are the creators of the machines that would form the focus of worship.

I don't think you can form a deistic religion on this basis. Perhaps if we have computers that can write their own code, replicators running on vacuum energy, and ability of computers to generate their own parts and have control over biological systems that can affect the permutations of DNA which precipitate? Such machines could mould mankind and be perpetually self generating. Perhaps then it would make some sense to have religion focussing on the programming.

This does lead on to how broad a definition you'd accept. Recall the t-shirts with "God said ..." and the Maxwells equations ( http://www.zenker.se/Surprise/quantum.shtml#Links ) "... and there was light". This is effectively claiming the universe as an actualisation of a program made by God. DNA too is a program for replicating with alterations DNA.

So, on a loose enough definition one could argue that Christianity could fit. One of the Matrix Neo as Christ metaphors weighs heavily in this direction; a Christ figure that enters the program in order to fix a bug and release those held captive in the algorithms. Or something.

Ooh, that was long, who's round is it?
The Third & The Seventh [video]
Much discussion here:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1070732
I would like Liebowitz and Margolis work more if they'd actually done any research. If you bother to go find the original Journal of Law and Economics paper, you will see that the paper consists only of hand-waving criticism, and has no original research. I suppose a paper of this form has a place, but you'd think that in the intervening 20 years, someone, someonwhere would try to confirm or deny.

But that hasn't happened, as far as I know.
I only said it because I'd ride the bus twice a day (and use it for leisure, the kids love going on the bus) if it were cheaper.

n=1, yeah, yeah.
Even better, goto nissan.com.

Despite their best efforts, Nissan (the car company) has never been able to get it from its rightful owner. Sounds like the system is working to me.
Infrastructure/logistics. HVAC, power, water, communications, construction, etc. Pretty much everything that's not science.

Here are the current job openings:

http://www.rayjobs.com/index.cfm?NavID=119&ANTARCTICA_JO...
For a serious treatment of this concept read The General series by David Drake and S.M. Sterling. It's set on a post-fall of interstellar civilization planet where high technology is literally worshiped, but no longer really understood (and all flavored by it being set in thinly disguised Byzantium times, e.g. pay attention to the comments on "vandals" in the second book). "... save us from the hard rads..." (radiation), something about their souls being saved into ROM (or at least the good parts) ... it's rather interesting.

I have a friend who posited a "Church of the Cyber Revelation", based on the idea that that final book of the canonical Bible can be construed to say most anything.
They're not supporting H.264 because they don't want to promote Windows 7 (or Mac OS X) over Linux. They could easily implement H.264 support for all operating systems that license H.264, and then let websites dynamically choose what to send based on what the operating system supports. However, that means Firefox would work better on Windows 7 and Mac OS X than it would on 100% legit Linux distros.
The difference is that Mozilla could make installing a H.264 decoder plug-in from some third party source on the first occasion the browser meets a H.264 video ridiculously easy if they chosen to. They did it with Flash, for example. But they've chosen not to.
Hm.. seems like this is a void that could be filled if anyone is interested.
OMG if Slava Pestov was on Ocaml..
The new module organization avoids collisions with existing libraries like
Extlib while allowing you to link Batteries' modules selectively, thus decreasing
the size of the generated executables.

For convenience, all the modules are also available under the Batteries
namespace. In this case, however, all of Batteries' code will be included in
the executable --- that's how OCaml's linker works at the moment.

For instance, if you only use BatList in your code (or do module List =
BatList to refer to it with that name), only that module will be included in
the binary; if you do

open Batteries

and then refer to the module simply as List, all the other modules in the
Batteries hierarchy will also be included in the binary.
The Geometry for Perfect Parking
You can still download those torrents freely as Pirate Bay launches Ipredator
That's a gross mischaracterization. Charles Johnson wasn't really a Liberman style anti-jihadist democrat. He really was part of the strong defense/small gonvernment style conservative base. His problem has been (for a very long time) the hateful religious right who he feels has too much influence with the GOP leaders.

Just because he's pro-science doesn't mean he's liberal per se.
Since apple have a 'review process', and the app store isn't a 'stuff gets put up, until it's taken down' deal, but a situation where apps have to be approved by apple's reviewers. Apple may well be legally liable for any infringing work that is sold on the app store, so taking a 'get a court order and take it up with the developer' MAY leave apple open to some liability of damages, whereas just yanking the app at the first sign of trouble will probably mitigate some of that.
I think this is an incredibly silly decision. Basically it boils down to "operating systems A and B support feature X while C doesn't, but we don't want operating system C to be at disadvantage so we will just disable access to feature X on A and B too."
> Johnson’s response, in thousands of cases, was to block their accounts and ban some of them from viewing the blog. "Get off my Web site" was a common farewell. (Johnson insists that this is not true - that no one has ever been banned from L.G.F. merely for disagreeing with him - but the anecdotal evidence to the contrary is voluminous, and the fact that the offending comments were instantly and permanently deleted makes it impossible to check others’ records against his.)

> Even longtime commenters have been disappeared for one wrong remark, or one too many, and when it comes to wondering where they went or why, a kind of fearful self-censorship obtains. He has banned readers because he has seen them commenting on other sites of which he does not approve.

His banning of anyone who disagrees with him is why LGF is also commonly nicknamed "the little green echo chamber" because only those who echo his sentiments are permitted to stay.
It's not about the 5 bucks. It's about not being up front with your (future) customers. By paying the 5 bucks we commit to WakeMate, as silly as that may be. We no longer have the choice to get a fitbit because we already promised to buy a WakeMate.
PS3 finally properly hacked?
The battle between universal software and proprietary apps is also, in other words, a battle between two models for the future of personal computing. While both models will almost certainly survive, only one will be the dominant model.

Why does one have to be "dominant"? What does that really mean? Are mainstream movies and books "dominant" and why should I care? Actually the answer is, "yes they are dominant." But the following "why" is the interesting part.

So long as there's a choice, the forces of openness are winning.
>But, as the original article pointed out, learning a second language helps develop your mind. It can also give you better perspective on another culture.

I never did Latin at school (my wife did, but I think I know more Latin vocab now than her!) but this can be a good argument for Latin or Greek - except instead of learning about a modern culture you're learning about a relatively ancient one; but crucially (at least in Europe) one that is still having a big impact (particularly Roman/Latin).
It's a simple question. He's looking for a community that is more directly suited to his interests, not passing judgement on yours.
Sufficiently provocative for an upvote. I'm interested in what other HN'ers have to say.

I'm a lukewarm fan of Tipler and a believer in some form of The Singularity. I'll go further out on the wacko limb and say that the reason we haven't been contacted by ET is that true intelligence is machine-based. Mankind is just an evolutionary bump in the road on the way to a true machine lifeforms.

Having said all that far-out stuff, I can't imagine a religion based on programming. Programming is just one way machines interact. It'd be like having a religion based on lymph nodes.
Is there japanese esthetics that applies in programming?
Don't forget they have a lot of preferred (?) stock which means their voting power is a lot more than common stock.
I am also a 27 year old computer programmer, and I resemble that remark (sans the $100 Iphone). I am super cheap, and I can't imagine trying to sell something to myself. I deffinitely appreciated your comments.
It's times like these that make me thankful for IMAP.
Case Study of a Business Model With Built In Exponential Growth Factor
Ask HN: offline billboard ads for online sites?
Results?
I read a news paper every because it gets me a wide range of news. Online, I tend to focus on my interests and I don't really get a general vibe about what's going on.
Define 'Correct'. Conways 'life' and the central clock
Paint-Net 3.0.63-9 su Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic
What you say is true, but you're omitting the fact that judges routinely order the accusing party in nuisance lawsuits to pay the defendant's costs. $50k is nothing to facebook in the long run, especially since they are quite likely to get it back, and may in fact be worth it to establish a clear precedent in such cases - if such a precedent does not exist already.

By caving they are in effect setting their own precedent that trademark holders can demand and will receive arbitrary URLs on their private web site. You would think that this outcome would be so bad for them that they'd gladly pay practically any amount to avoid it.

So no - I don't think there is any credible legal reasoning behind FB's decision on this one. I would expect it is an internal policy, probably combined in this case with money and/or advertising commits changing hands.
I have, during the F1 on water we had a huge float:

http://ww.com/float.jpg

The effect was pretty strange, we got a lot of press inquiries out of it, but hardly any users.

So it was good for something I guess.

Regular roadside billboards I've never had, but yesterday I saw an enormous one advertising Google Chrome.
The slipped schedule and monthly charge for additional features were not the main source of the uproar. The announcement implied that the online reporting advertised as included with the purchase price was now only available at additional cost.

The letter was interpreted as, "Hey, we're running late, sorry. Oh yeah, we're also charging for the sleep report separately now; so, we'll make up for the delay by throwing in some free months that you already were planning on getting and then charging you for the latter months you also thought would be free. You're welcome!"

People felt duped, it's not about the dollar amount it's about trust. WakeMate have since clarified that basic reporting will remain free.
A simple question is:

"Do you know of other sites geared towards web application developers?"

Adding:

"an online community geared towards conversations pertaining to entrepreneurial ventures for web developers it is not"

Definitely gives me a feeling of judgment being passed.
To comply with RFC2142 you must have an abuse@domain.tld email address which goes to an appropriate recipient(!) - http://www.rfc-ignorant.org/policy-abuse.php .

But you're not required to care.
"Another interesting note, we DID have ragdoll physics. But what happened was when you killed a Vietcong their body would shrink down to the size of a child and seizure on the ground flailing and screaming."

Hilarious. Despite the overwhelming complexity and pressure of the game industry, I can imagine getting to create something like this with a small team of friends would be absolute bliss.
Agreed. I had a problem with an eBook I purchased from B&N being unusable on my nook. After many attempts to explain why I should get a refund to the dense customer service, I finally threatened a chargeback via email, and was promptly refunded my money.

And for what it's worth, having used both a Kindle and a nook, I really want to like the nook more, but I just can't. The poor user interface and the bad taste from B&N customer support make me not want to use the thing.
"- But I could just download gst-plugins-ugly and I'd be OK. - That's a selfish attitude. Everyone should be able to browse the Web with a free software stack without having to jump through arcane hoops to download and install software (whose use is legally questionable)."

I'll tell you what's selfish: going out of your way to cripple the experience of your users just so your extremist ideological views can prevail (and they won't anyway).

I don't think the deliberate weakening of the #1 open-source browser over such trivial matters is a win either, ideological or otherwise.

I love Firefox and I hope this sorry state of affairs will be quickly resolved sensibly before irrecoverable damage has been done.

</opiniated>
Here's a documentation on how the process works: http://guides.webbynode.com/articles/readystacks/rapid-apps....
... and two screencasts:

http://blog.webbynode.com/rapid
I haven't had any problems. Keep in mind I haven't tried any of the other VoIP clients for Android -- Skype, Nimbuzz, etc. Only sipdroid. But I've used it over plain EDGE/GPRS on my Android dev phone (G1) and had no quality issues to speak of, other than the occasional dropped call, which can happen on normal GSM anyway.

As far as I know, the 'official' Skype client for Android is still 'Skype Lite' or something, which costs you minutes on your cell phone plan to use, and might connect over GSM as well (I'm not sure). It wouldn't surprise me if this craptacular idea tarnishes people's perception of VoIP on Android.
National security usurps the companies right to otherwise sell stuff that doesn't provably work. If only we could get UK forces to use homeopathy.

In other news the director of the company has been arrested for fraud so they are doing something.
Git Magic [pdf]
Newspapers occupy an awkward middle point between the breaking news you can find on a myriad of websites and the rich, analytical pieces that can be found in good magazines (like The New Yorker and The Atlantic). Generally, there are more efficient ways of getting your news. For instance, Slate.com has a good daily summary of the best newspaper stories. Having said that, reading a physical newspaper can be a relaxing activity; I read the Sunday New York Times in print.

Here's a good lambasting of the prevalent style of newspaper writing:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201001/short-writing

Also, for the record, you can subscribe to a daily Calvin & Hobbes strip by RSS through GoComics. The feed URL is:

http://feeds2.feedburner.com/uclick/calvinandhobbes?format=x...
Poison and Progress
Why would a 3 days old site gets indexed and then de indexed by google
Purchased this domain (http://qfs.mobi) this week and it went live couple of days ago. After 2 reviews from sites

http://wapreview.com/blog/?p=6156&cpage=1
http://www.mobilitynigeria.com/tag/qfs-mobi/

google indexed it instantly but it was de-indexed/punished yesterday.

If you check the site i have nothing against their guide lines. You can check it as google bot from http://web-sniffer.net

What would be the reason be?
When it's found the first time Google will index everything in an attempt to stay on top of 'developments'.

After that there is a two to three week period in which you are no longer in the 'live' search results but are scheduled for regular ranking and crawling.

If everything goes the way it should I would expect the site to show up in the regular results two to four weeks down the line.
* Throughout decades if not centuries of experience in the law's dealings with entities, it has always been clear that the legal rights given to entities must be appropriate to the form of entity involved*
I think the point of the article is to argue this has just been tossed out.
thanks for the feed :)
Thanks, Google webmaster tools says "Site not indexed." with "Why not?" link pointing guidelines and i worried that it was banned
"accidentally touching the mouse-pad and moving the pointer, which would be a nuisance"

He should just use a trackball.
I'll have to discuss this with my teachers at drving school, maybe they'll train us in geometry too afterwards.
I see just one problem: Does this approach incorporate tolerances too? Having to touch the car behind you may not be appreciated.
The linked page is just a short summary with some metaphors prefacing it. The real "case study" (a 5 minute YouTube video and short Q&A article) is at http://mixergy.com/iwearyourshirt/
While I agree with your overall sentiment, I think the issue with this particular situation is that Wakemate was not being totally candid about their pricing intentions. Even after the recent announcement, nowhere on their site do they inform the user of the possibility of premium monthly subscriptions. If I were to have just visited their site for the first time, it would be sensible for me to assume that I am getting the entire product/software package for $50. Go see for yourself. I imagine people who did go for the pre-order did so under that now false pretense; so it's perfectly expected to see this sort of reaction. You are promised "the WakeMate, the cell phone accessory wristband that lets you sleep less and feel better!" with a barebones feature tour and that's it. Had they been more direct initially, I doubt we'd see this negative response.

I'd like to also add that there is absolutely no way for me to reach their recent announcement from the Wakemate website. Pricing is a serious issue and yet announcements pertaining to such are being made on a Heyzap founder's posterous page? Put that on the front page of your site else this problem will persist and customers will purchase your product not fully knowing what they're getting into.
Build a blog in Common Lisp, 3 part Tutorial
Link to HTML version of book: http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~blynn/gitmagic/book.htm...
Why Hyper Threading is almost Irrelevant now
No, I'm pretty sure that is an attempt to remain mostly-distraction free and not waste time on the internet. There are (several) entirely open source/free browsers he would use if that was the issue.
I do not think science has anything to do with it. My impression of Charles is he is liberal in the classical sense of the word, not the modern American sense (loosely related to the left side of the political spectrum). So I am not surprised he is picking fights with the Right as well as the Left.

(Disclaimer: I never read the comment threads on LGF, only his postings. The threads I saw were dreadful to me.)
> judges routinely order the accusing party in nuisance lawsuits to pay the defendant's costs.

That's not so 'routinely' as you think, and these costs are not equal to the actual costs billed by the defendants lawyers.

I wished it was, then I could recover a 100K or so from various idiots that sued us over the years.

> especially since they are quite likely to get it back,

They really likely would not. The judge might even rule against them for a variety of technical reasons.

Going to court is much like going to the casino, only for much higher stakes.

> By caving they are in effect setting their own precedent that trademark holders can demand and will receive arbitrary URLs on their private web site. You would think that this outcome would be so bad for them that they'd gladly pay practically any amount to avoid it.

Yes, that's what you would think. But the fact that they don't should make you wonder if you aren't missing something.

They're evil, but they're definitely not stupid. I really do not think that this case behind the scenes is as simple as what it looks like on the outside.

Trademark law is tricky and the outcome of such a case is by no means certain. I'm fairly sure that facebook made that provision in their terms of service exactly for cases like this, because standing up for the 'rights' of their users over what is essentially a string of bits on a server is not in the interest of their bottom line.

Only a very small fraction of their users will ever run in to this problem, and only a very small fraction of those will have sympathy on their side.

> I would expect it is an internal policy,

Agreed, in fact it is a published policy.

> probably combined in this case with money and/or advertising commits changing hands.

If there ever is any proof of that then I think the sentiment will change drastically, for now - and I stress that that could change any moment - it does not look as though 'harman' has been assigned to any other party.
1. Invade
2. Destroy infrastructure
3. Create chaos
4. Let bombs blow people
5. Now sell arms to other opponent as well
6. Now sell them faulty machinery for defense
7. Wait!!! we got some our people there too
8. So stop selling there.... but because we care about money so let these be sold to other idiots. We Rock! We peace lovers! We humans, the most civilized in history!!!
what I'm not telling you is that Dr. Fuhrman's system involves eating a lot of beans, and beans make you fart; and that eating at restaurants, I don't even bother trying any more, too much oil/salt/etc. also technically that can't cost me money, it can only cost me opportunity. it's nearly impossible to lose money self-publishing a blog.