skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
my point is that these people who think their are intelligent, in fact are missing lots of facets from what we call 'intelligence'. From my point of view Google's employees are understanding a lot about technology and little about its social impact. It would help if they would not present them as super smart and act so clueless in so many ways.
Do you have to endure Outlook to use Exchange Online? Willingly?
I don't have much experience reading Lisp, but I think that some structures do stand out. The difference is that you look at the shape of code chunks rather than special characters on a line. For example, LET blocks with lots of assignments stand out to me because of the chunk of pairs at the top. DO blocks look similar but the increment functions separate them. LOOP stands out for having a lot of symbols and not many parentheses.

Aside from that, some lisps have tendencies (although not requirements) that symbols with common uses have special characters to stand out more. For example, foo for dynamic variables, +foo+ for globals, foo! for destructive operations (in scheme), foo? for predicates (scheme + clojure), and = for assignment (in arc). The choice of what to emphasize is different, but it was a conscious choice on the part of the language creators.
wow, that was long rambling and almost borderline incoherent. Latch on and enjoy the ride. There are some gems tucked away in there:

"You can’t cheat others without cheating yourself."
I'm not a regular reader of xkcd but every now and then one of my friends shares one and I get a smile.

What can I say? It's art. They don't teach systems-design in comic-book school and I doubt they teach graphic arts to EE majors. Art imitates life but it is not life. That's why we have artistic license.

I found this commentary to be pedantic at best. For somebody who claims to care so much about the correct terminology and representation of the world, the author has a seriously tenuous grasp on the intricacies of making a daily comic strip work.
I get a simple graph on my bill too. But this is real-time and instantaneous measurement. There's a bit of a difference.
... it's more likely he'll buy a Mac instead?

Well, it's not quite right. Think it this way: Compatibility broken from XP to 7, not enough features to change (so I agree with you here), ... But, a I've been told that Mac ...

A friend who works at a financial institution, and they switched from earlier (2003 server, XP) versions of Windows, to Mac.
.aspx, .NET, C# . . . what would you expect otherwise?
Ouch. Looking at the copyright date range, 3 years is long enough to get an SSL cert.
Because he wants to solve problems, and doesn't care about making money. You say that like it's a bad thing!
I agree, even that is an impressive accomplishment. But after nearly 10 years, it would be nice to see them actually profit on the endeavor.
Yeah - I play in fantast football league - it was a way of helping family keep in touch when my grandparents passed away. My dad, brothers, uncles and cousins are pretty in to football. I didn't really know much at all (probably couldn't really name more than 2-3 current players at the time), but the stats and numbers and everything keep me pretty interested. I get interested in the math behind things and trying to predict future performance (which is very difficult but fun to analyze nonetheless).

I won the league last year and was destroying people this year until the playoffs when my cousin had 3 players put out some of their best numbers of the season (combined they scored more than most teams of 8 usually do) and stop me in the playoffs. I am in the top 3 highest scoring teams every year. I find it alot of fun actually.
Tell me about it, we don't even have a movement. We're 50 years behind homosexuals in terms of rights and social acceptance. At least we're not killed for it.
I got an offer from MSR a while back. I remember asking, "so... how do you guys ship?" and they actually thought this was funny, laughing and laughing. "That's so cute!"

Because for them, it was an impossibility.
I had the same thought, but...

I would say that $50/hour is a fine wage for your first gig, no matter where you are. However, that's not a reasonable long-term salary. Even if you bill out 2000 hours a year, you walk away with 100K. Then, you still need to pay taxes, insurance, and save for retirement. It's like making less than 50K at a job with benefits, except you work twice as much.

A $50/hour wage is not bad to start, but a long-term contractor needs to command above $100/hour, more like $200 in NYC.

I think my first contracting gig paid something like $8/hour. I did a website for someone for a flat fee, and it took me longer than I hoped :)
Apple was at a point in the late 1990s where they HAD to innovate, or die. Their series of fiascos with clueless CEOs and never-materializing products (Copeland) had pushed them to the brink of collapse. Microsoft has not yet had to face such a challenge, perhaps they will and emerge a reinvented, reinvigorated company like Apple, or they will continue to stagnate and eventually be another Wang in the history books.

EDIT: typos
Minus at least 30%, probably more in NYC, for taxes. It will probably be more towards $25/hr.
The "trapped in a body" thing has a name and is well-researched: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locked-in_syndrome

You should consider a living will if you are serious about avoiding this.
For me it was a Sinclair clone (Prologica's CP-200) and an Apple II clone (CCE's Exato Pro).

After using an Apple II, a PC is an inelegant kludge.
Brain-damaged people can be bored. You do not need to have total facilitates in order to avoid boredom.
So the conclusion was that based on the analysis he's not a liability...for the Vikings. But as a pretty serious fantasy football owner, I wonder if — given the fact that Peterson was the consensus #1 overall pick last season — he was a liability to his fantasy owners. You pretty much have to play your number 1 pick (and a homerun hitter like Peterson) every week, but were there less glamorous, middle-tier running back choices that ended up giving their owners a better chance of winning each week (assuming negative points for fumbles lost in the scoring system)?

Yes, I do want to be the Billy Beane of fantasy football.
It's just the opposite actually, and worse. If he's aware of his surroundings, he's been trapped for 6 years without any output instead. Able to observe and think, but unable to move, unable to speak, unable to interact with or affect his environment except as a comatose patient.

Being Locked-in is one of the worst things I can imagine and yet is very real.
Why Have So Many Internet People Lost Touch With Reality?
I got the same graph on my bill. It was helpful. But when I turn on a light, the graph updates in a few seconds. It's brilliant (but then, well, I have a crush on it, according to energycircle.com)
Based on their latest presentation at CES, they have even lost that tiny sense of direction. Now the strategy has become "Many screens and a cloud" to encompass netbooks, tablets, etc. that weren't easily anticipated a year or two ago.

Maybe I'm cynical, but I feel like a long-term mission statement shouldn't be changing every 12 months.
I appreciate the effort, but when you're up against http://xkcdexplained.com/ and http://xkcdsucks.blogspot.com/, you need to either raise your game past boring blog rants or leave it to the pros.
Indeed. If art could not contain factual inaccuracies, the world would be a very boring place.
Oh, that's interesting --it never occurred to me to do so (although I am sufficiently often bitten by the old `mv a A` pseudo-bug that I think I'll consider it). It's also an interesting reason to do so.

I understand why code might assume a case-sensitive FS, but am puzzled how it might make use of case-insensitivity. Do you know what happens with the Photoshop installer? Is it doing something silly like `touch a; cp A b`?
It is insulting to this company's employees that Schwartz still doesn't get it. This tweet is characteristic of his failure to view the world as it really is, and to sell something that customers will pay for.

Oracle, IBM, HP, Apple, etc are not going out of business in this economy.

Investing billions to give software away (Java, MySQL, NetBeans, etc) in some far-fetched hope that it would cause customers to buy extremely expensive systems hardware didn't work, and everyone seems to know this but Schwartz.
> The truth is an absolute defense.

In the US. Not in the UK. I don't know about other countries.
True, but to the outside Google looks like a heard of cats. The biggest example is Chrome OS and Android. This split is going to be an issue in the future. The thing about Google is watching for their second source of real income (if it ever happens / if they need it).
This post was great.

Equally as valid and interested as the Mixergy review was the dynamic described at play on Hacker News I never picked up on before:
How even worthwhile, quality sites that we generally like will experience a backlash here if we feel, even subconsciously, that they are over-exposed on HN.

It may be that we come here specifically for special news or unique insights we don't get on other sites, and we feel disappointed when HN merely reflects "normal" content?

I've never written a backlash or cranky comment, but I do admit I've groaned when I've seen links from certain sites posted, when i've felt they were predictable. I'm trying to figure out why this response gets evoked. Especially when the main reason I come here is for your awesome meta-commentary, not the post itself.

In any case, this post has made commit to being more patient when I see familiar content here.
I believe Psalm 14 is considered a "song" while Psalm 53 is thought to be an "instructional" sermon. So they very well could be the same message/theme, just modified for singing vs. teaching.
A better title might be "Roger's Hilarious Nerd Rage". I know it's not nice to make fun of those afflicted with Asperger Syndrome, but complaining that there is not processor that officially carries the designation "x64" is giggle-worthy. (Not laughing with him, but at him.)
rogerclark = garbage. There, that was easy. Now, let me invent some reasons I dislike rogerclark to justify my poorly written blogpost.

Why, my dear reader, may I ask, did I really write such tripe?

Well, this morning I wanted Cheerios, but my milk was rotten, so I ate them dry. I arrived late for work after not being able to find my car keys, only to find a nasty email from my boss. My girlfriend then broke up with me via text message.

So, given my mood, I thought it was only proper to sully my reputation a little bit by bashing one of the most beloved nerd webcomics on earth.

Also, I have many Apple products and I just wanted to throw in a little defense of my purchases in my meaningless rant.
You can't expect people to be reasonable when it comes to language
flamewar. Personally, I think weak advocacy is worse than no advocacy
at all.

So why not create syntax that catches 99% of the cases for which you
intend the language to be used and abolish the ability to create
further syntax?

Although it's possible to create new syntax in Common Lisp via reader
macros -- I don't think lispers recommend to extend the syntax. But
when you miss a language feature, instead of fighting against the
language, you could implement it. I don't remember exactly who said
it in one the SICP video lecture, Harold Abelson or Gerald Sussman,
but he said something like

Lisp is not good at solving a particular problem. What Lisp is good
at is extending the language to solve a class of problems.

The problem with syntax is that it's difficult to use correctly with
macros. It's no wonder that most introduction books to C warns
against the pitfalls of using macros. Even the simple ones could bite
you if you're not careful. Consider:

#define DOUBLE(x)	(2*x)	/* should be (2*(x)) */
#define MAX(a, b)	((a) < (b) ? (b): (a))

Even the last one is not immune against multiple evaluation problems
if you try to evaluate MAX(a++, b). In Lisp you could avoid this by
using gensym and local bindings. That being said, C macros and Lisp macros are
completely different beasts. And I recommend reading ``On Lisp'' for
advanced use of Lisp macros.
Any humor can be made to sound stupid by explaining it sarcastically. It still has value.
Ask HN: Bugs vs. Mistakes
As a developer do you think there is any difference between Bugs and Mistakes?

Also, how do you justify being paid to create code that has bugs in it... and then being paid to fix them?

A client has asked me this and I'm interested to hear your response. All answers welcome!
Authorized users would communicate through encrypted virtual private networks in order to maintain the security of the data.

Buzzword security right there.

Kardasz's survey, based on questionnaires completed by 100 police investigators, says that 61 percent of them had their investigations harmed "because data was not retained"

39% of police investigators' investigations would be unsolvable even if they knew everything about them?

the "legal compliance secure Web portal

Why the need to add 'secure' to the name anyway?
You had to hold back a little sniffle because you thought a robot might be sad?
Apple Wants Android Mention Deleted from App Store Entry
Thanks for the link. I took a look and it's a pretty cool plugin. I'd make the animation faster. When I want help, even that .5s delay is frustrating.

For your reminders, maybe you could partner up with a reminder service? Could save you a ton of development time. Maybe get in touch with http://task.fm or http://www.rememberthemilk.com/
The author says xkcd epitomizes everything bad about "nerd culture", but honestly, I think I could say the same about this blog post. Who really cares how accurate Randall's description of OS X's system architecture is? It gets across the point of abstraction. Pedantry and misdirected anger (at a webcomic!) are a lot worse than a technical inaccuracy, in my opinion.

And if the fans of the comic are annoying, that isn't xkcd's fault. Every popular thing on the web has hangers-on.
Look closer. It's a link to a chart that compares the share prices of Apple and Microsoft over the past five years. Apple, driven by innovation, has increased by 400%. Microsoft, with its consistent profits, has remained almost perfectly flat.

This makes the previous poster's claim that investors have responded positively to Microsoft's approach look pretty weak.
He's an interesting guy, he used to teach econ over at UMass Amherst when I was studying it there.

One of his colleagues/research partners has a good evolutionary game theory book available for free on his website for anyone interested:

http://people.umass.edu/gintis/

It's called "Game Theory Evolving"
What's "buzzword security" about virtual private networks? I'd be appalled if this wasn't running over a VPN. Just be thankful they aren't asking for $3Bn to run a new leased line network in 2010.
> graph of your consumption for the last 12 months

Monthly graphs would be somewhat helpful. For example, you could decipher that the AC uses a lot of power if the graph spikes in summer.

Daily graphs would be way more helpful. For example, you can see how much you saved on a day where you were out and used no power.

Hourly graphs would be still more helpful. If you knew you watched TV from 8-9, you could see the cost of an hour of TV.

Real time graphs are the ultimate. Not only do you get all the benefits of the above graphs, but you can go around your house flipping switches and see exactly how much each appliance costs to run. You can spend an hour messing around and reduce your power bill significantly--a savings which you'll realize every month.
Are you trying to build your own index or do you just want to make a limited number of calls to someone else's index?
I'm very disappointed with the comments I see on this thread.

I think the problem many people have with Citizens United v. FEC is that it opens the door to political activity that seems counter to our long held principal of one man, one vote.

I don't think anyone has a problem with a group of people pooling their resources with the intent to run campaign ads on a given topic or candidate. That's basic democratic activity.

The problem occurs when resources are highly concentrated in an individual such that he can drown out the voice of others.

The natural tradeoff in capitalism is between efficiency and equality: resources are deployed efficiently but the gains are distributed unequally. Capital owners necessarily benefit the most from capitalism. Businesses generally own the most capital in our system; there are a few billionaire individuals, but the vast majority of billionaires are corporations.

So in a campaign system where money buys voter attention, the loudest and most attention-getting speakers will tend to be corporations. These speakers who have disproportionate influence have the ability to control political discourse based more on the size of their megaphone than on the quality of their ideas. This should be troubling to anyone who values enlightenment-era principles like the best ideas winning on their own merits via rational discourse.

In practice, greater influence imbues additional voting power in these speakers, both through direct leverage with Congressional representatives as well as through the power to dominate the airwaves at election time. Large corporations don't have just a few times more influence, they have 3-6 orders of magnitude more influence than the average individual. They meet directly with Senators. When was the last time you had a personal meeting with your Senator?

This is what people mean when they complain that companies can "buy elections" or "buy legislation." I think everyone would agree that this is already occurring. Witness the Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension Act, brought to you by the Disney Corporation. Very few legal scholars would argue that this legislation was in the public interest.

Citizens United opens the door to even greater corporate influence in our political discourse. Many people believe it will only worsen this situation of vastly unequal participation in our democracy.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1096238
He's 22.
A: "Did you read today's xkcd?"

B: "Indeed I did. Let us revel in our common knowledge of the topics discussed."

C: "Hah! Look at those self-righteous fools. I am truly elite, for I am aware of those portions of xkcd which apply to my job, but do not believe this marks me as special!"

D: "I too judge both A and B harshly! I will now play my guitar and write a small web app to demonstrate my superiority! Neither A nor B could accomplish that."

E: "Heh, you see that? They're judging a subculture composed of people slightly younger than they are. Man, my lack of judgment and superior skills marks me as a more worthy entity than C and D."

ad infinitum, I suppose, although I haven't seen anyone judge HN this way (some Redditors decry HN's capitalistic tendencies, but that's it).
That was an incredibly obnoxious rant, but he does get to the heart of why XKCD is popular amongst geeks -- it references topics that make us feel clever and part of an exclusive club -- and why it often rubs me the wrong way -- it uses those references as a cheap substitute for comedy.
Entertainment and Devices made $375 million last quarter:
http://blog.seattlepi.com/microsoft/archives/192686.asp
I switched to DDG to try it out - and have been using it very often since.

Too bad you don't see the text you are typing in if you're using a dark gnome theme (the background of the input box is black, and the text is set to dark grey). On google it's ok (white text).

The same thing happens here on HN comments, btw. :)
I think it's important that the graphs don't perfectly fit and that the equations look simple (though some aren't really). It might be taking her work too far, but if you think of art as a way of communicating, it's nice to think of messages about how math can guide the real world, but rarely does the real world fully fit.
Why would you expect a research lab to ship a product? Seems like you were interviewing with the wrong group.
Recruiters are the worst. You'd think it's their job to get you the highest paying job out there, but it's quite the opposite. Their goal is to sell you as fast as possible, regardless of the rate.

That's why you should never listen to recruiters telling you that you want too much. It's bullshit.
Use Linux to fix a dead computer
This story gave me goosebumps--imagine the depth of joy he felt when he was finally able to get through to someone. Blows my mind.
Talk about missing the fracking point. Randall Munroe is like Bill Nye or Mr. Wizard, but for math and hacking in addition to science. Fine-grained accuracy is less important than getting young people excited about the possibilities.

Also, it's a comic. Humor happens high up on the abstraction stack.
I think within a few months you would descend into a self-hallucinatory dreamworld -- you'd be insane, but I don't think it would be the worst hell imaginable. Not even close.
Something like http://www.currentcost.com is much cheaper, has a one time cost, includes a display, and can send statistics to several user contributed apps as well.

A new version is due soon which will _probably_ introduce wireless transfer to the pc and compatibility with google powermeter..
Perhaps this approach works in an area saturated both with capital for would-be employers to spend, and with the contractors themselves, so that competition allows such negotiation. Indeed, NYC is undoubtedly such an area.

In other parts of the country, especially during these times, an area can truly have enough of a cumulative lack of available capital, that being hired at all is considered an accomplishment.

I can do freelance work that in other cities that fetches $100/hr handily, but my Midwest city shelters few people who can pay that, regardless of my poise or professionalism.
the only real cost from his time is the opportunity cost for what else he could have been doing

Exactly--and since you're bringing economics into picture, the opportunity cost should exactly equal the wages expended on developing this. OP makes a valid point.

OTOH if the marginal cost of production is really 1/20th of the next-best solution, then his employer should easily be able to recoup that by rolling out a bunch of these.
I don't know about user-end software, but all of that image processing would be fairly simple to do in either Matlab or SciPy. It requires image segmentation (which should be fairly easy in pictures like these with strong edges) and then just running a FFT.
Technologically, a lot has been done under the hood since 1995 just to allow modern hardware to work. USB devices, wireless NICs, and multicore CPUs didn't even exist when Windows95 was released. Much of the "innovation" is unseen.

While I also wish they had innovated the UI more over the past decade, we are probably in the (admittedly growing) minority. You shouldn't switch the gas and break pedals in a car just to be "innovative", and I think for Microsoft the risk of alienating old users outweighs the risk of losing new users.

Apple of course has been more free to make sweeping changes to their OS over the past decade because, frankly, they haven't had much to lose. It will be interesting to see how dramatically they change OSX now that they have found something that sells.
Think City Electric Car Charges Up to 80% in Just 15 Minutes