skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"C++ is more appropriate for JITing than C"
Agreed.

"However, these days new C/C++ apps seem restricted to domains like embedded systems, real-time, and game development, where memory usage (no virtual memory) and performance consistency is very important. So a JIT doesn't make a lot of sense, as it introduces a lot of variability into the application."

Probably also true, but a JIT can be useful for loading code at runtime and supporting a wide variety of hardware without shipping a fat binary with a bunch of different versions. Graphics drivers contain JITs for OpenGL/shader language code, and Apple uses LLVM JIT to generate optimized code from GLSL shaders that takes advantage of all available hardware capabilities without a sea of #ifdefs ( http://llvm.org/devmtg/2007-05/10-Lattner-OpenGL.pdf ). Your point about memory usage and variability is well-taken though.
We're both speaking in anecdotes, but this hasn't been my experience. I had my search box in Firefox set to Bing for several weeks, until it was just too annoying to re-do so many searches in Google and getting better results. For what it's worth, most of those searches tended to be technical questions, not local searches like you describe, but in my experience those are adequete on Google as well, and if something comes up incorrect my first backup is usually Yelp and not Bing.
I find it so hard to believe that it's truly necessary to create native apps to view rss feeds, blogs, etc. The iPhone has a decent browser. Why has it become necessary to have a native app to access content that's available at your website, usually in an equally accessible format?

The only difference seems that your app appears in the appstore, thus removing the extra hurdle of the initial navigation to save the icon.

It would be nice if apple would allow you to submit your website to the appstore with you agreeing of course that your app would not deviate from the approved "app", without resubmission. This would ensure that you could use the appstore to find your mobile website, or feeds without needing to create or download another native application.
Oh, I often have to bang my head against the wall quite a few times, before I hit on the right abstraction.

Having more powerful abstraction techniques, like they are possible in languages like Haskell or Scheme/Lisp, tends to give less leaky abstractions for me.
This might prove useful as a resource but I suspect it will be highly variable in the quality of advice one can glean from it (just a quick perusal: a good answer on what it means to do a trademark; a very superficial one on what form of entity one should set up for a small business; and no answer to the perennially vexing question, "Why are there so many lawyers?").

I also think that the open-ended format, permitting users to ask questions about any legal subject imaginable, will tend to limit the site's usefulness for specialized areas like startup advice.
Know Before You Go: Tickets May Come at a Higher Price Than You Realize
Incredible, they even thought of that. I guess Haml isn't so bad after all. Time to check it out.
Its amazing how close all of the scripting language run-time are, in terms of design and implementation. I think using LLVM with PHP would be worse, since the PHP interpreter is so badly written.

I expect that LLVM will be mature real soon now.
As an experienced and enthusiastic Haml user, I find that this matches my experience exactly. If you're a Haml-hater, please read this post.
Pro Bono SEO Works for US
Something about the whole Stack Overflow/Exchange-type answer site look is very off-putting.
I would suggest also removing unique fonts from your system.
Getting it? Seriously? Grey text on a dark grey background? Text that can't be resized? SRSLY?
Beware of Vanity Metrics
Writers’ rites: Wacky habits that get the ink flowing
Thanks for the feedback. Can you please post a screenshot of how it looks in your browser?
Thats because for large chunks of engineering, it doesn't matter. Engineers work on tons of things many of which aren't life critical.
Interesting since I got "Ask HN: Does my startup need to steal unicorn picture technology?" followed up with "Review my startup: www.makeunicornpicturetechnology.org". Looks like that unicorn picture technology making guy finally hit the big time.
I don't see the contradiction...
Followbase: I did
That was a thing of beauty.

Impressive cast, too.
Just in case you didn't see the link - this is a vid tracking the comic:

http://xkcd.com/442/

which tracks the original discovery channel ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=at_f98qOGY0
he's saying JITs are very hard to implement
I'm sure this site will get a lot of feedback along the lines of "I don't know how useful this will be," but I could see this being very useful if it gets enough traction. Let's not forget that many programmers consult for hundreds of dollars an hour for over hundreds of different technologies and yet Stack Overflow is very successful. You also don't need to be a lawyer to suggest something, a simple "I had this issue once and this is what I did" anecdote could still be useful for the questioner.
Threading predates Gmail by a couple decades. RFC-822 (1982) specifies the necessary fields, and though I don't have personal experience prior to the early 90s, I'm sure decent MUAs supported threading in the 80s.

I actually find Gmail's threading annoying since it only threads at the level of the "conversation" (aka "subject"), even when the initial thread has split. So Gmail doesn't tell me which branch a particular message lives on, and if the reply does not quote enough context, you really can't find out without inspecting the raw message.

Furthermore, several messages that should be threaded together, such as a patch series, show up as unrelated messages in the UI because they have different subjects.
So Gmail's threading UI does the "wrong" thing because people have a tendency to screw up headers, e.g. trying to start a new thread by replying to an existing one and changing the subject. I'm not sure this is progress.
Well, I understand that completely. People trust brands. That is just a cognitive shortcut. That's why we have marketing.
Javascript quiz.  What's your score?
I think it was just too early (in the morning). :)
Lawyers sell expertise and judgment; this site lets them advertise both. I could imagine a highly specialized lawyer using it--for example, if you're really the go-to guy for dealing with Minnesota labor laws as they relate to commissioned salespeople, this site might be the only way you'd find your customers.

If they want to use this model, they could charge for advanced feed creation / filtering features, so they get an email every time someone asks about their exact niche (and is located in their area).
To say nothing of the fact that laws are radically different in each jurisdiction. A correct answer for Palo Alto would say nothing about a legal situation in Toronto.

While the site's term of use cover the "duty of care" stuff, I see a lot of potential pitfalls for lawyers using this site and not many benefits.
HTML has an advantage because that's what people know, particularly designers.

Some designers I've worked with are ok with haml, others steadfastly refuse because their workflow is so HTML-centric.
I know it's not a valid source but according to her http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professional_Engineer the title PE (and variations, all require accreditation) includes: Japan, Canada, South Korea, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, EU (Ing. Eur).

Sweden requires 7 years experience and peer review in lieu of examination.

But the main argument still holds. Some guy with 2 years of experience can't bestow himself an engineer.
"A fully functional POSIX-compliant 64-bit multitasking operating system in 14 lines of CSS"

That I'd pay to see.
Google Launching Twitter-Killer For Gmail?
I don't agree. The iPhone was at least my 4th or 5th device that had some kind of "mobile web" function. Most folks had smartphones, blackberries, etc before they got an iphone if they had any interest in the net. The problem was, the reality of tying to actually _use_ these devices to access web sites was such a horrible UX that you didn't do it unless there was absolutely no other option. In comparison, lots of us will idly web browse on an iPhone while waiting on line at the store, etc -- something that probably would never have happened on a Blackberry.
What about attachments? AFAIK attachments weren't part of the initial implementation of email.

Today though, emailing attachments to small groups is mainstream. This is what many people use as THE form of controlled document distribution and collaboration.

Will improving this aspect of email be the next evolution?
Yeah, PHP isn't Python or Ruby, which are properly dynamic. I think those languages are too far gone in their particular dynamic direction to be saved. But I'm convinced you can build a language that feels dynamic, but whose meta-programming is largely compile-time. Even the funky Python I see (metaclasses and decorator) could largely be compiled if the language rules were slightly tweaked.

I'm interested: which capabilities don't I appreciate? (BTW, my background is very much being a static-typer, missing the point, and slowly realizing it).
> I was told, "Because you can't trust anyone else's code. It's better to write everything from scratch so you know it's right".

I'm reminded of ESR's paraphrasing of Linus' Law regarding eyeball count and bug depth. Ten haphazard proprietary implementations are not more reliable than one battle-tested open implementation.
Identity theft's such a fun phrase. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9ptA3Ya9E
It's starting to remind me of the guy in Holy Grail that keeps insisting "I'm not dead!"
What I still don't get though is what that made up distinction is.
Thanks for the info. What are your plans to generate revenue from the site?
This guy is sounding more and more foolish, and pretty wacky. he used to be cool. What the heck happened to him I wonder? Maybe he can't get an iPhone where he lives.
I'll add another argument for not releasing scientific code, specially of a matter so polarizing as climate change: programmers aren't scientists. We aren't familiar with neither the field's literature nor the science being used. For example, the famous comment from the CRU code said:

; Plots 24 yearly maps of calibrated (PCR-infilled or not) MXD reconstructions
; of growing season temperatures. Uses “corrected” MXD – but shouldn’t usually
; plot past 1960 because these will be artificially adjusted to look closer to
; the real temperatures.

Do you expect the average programmer to take a 2 year course in climate science to truly understand what MXD means instead of instantly running around screaming "wolf!"? If you did so, be disappointed (a careful reading of Google results for "CRU code" might be enlightening).
That's what I've found too. The value of a css framework comes from showing you a structured way to achieve certain things, eg grid based design, font scaling. Once you know how to do that, you don't need the framework and it's probably just as easy to write the css directly.

I've found the best way to use them is a starting point. By the time your site goes live you've stripped out the rules you don't need and customised the names of the classes etc so you can't see much of the original framework.
They also need to give everyone a default "IANAL" badge, which they lose if they're photographed holding 1) a piece of paper saying "Hi, LawDiscuss.com, I'm $username!" and a legible law school diploma.
The guy that designed the circuit for your TV, or his boss, would have to be accredited. The reason the PE title exists at all is so some idiot with a basic understanding of electricity doesn't design a death trap.

The PE isn't some exam you pay $50 and take. You take it when you're ready. You can be an engineer without the PE, but you can't certify your own work unless you have a PE. Everything you mentioned has either been design, approved, or inspected by someone with the title.
Sounds like the No true Scotsman fallacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
I'm honestly surprised some sort of "Legal Overflow" site wasn't created earlier, so props to these guys for giving it a shot. Based on the responses it looks like they already have a few guys with a legal background prepared to answer questions as best as they can, so maybe that will provide the "seed users" they need to provide value. Whether those guys are experienced legal professionals or just some buddies in law school is up in the air though.
I'm making the point that you don't need a JIT to get good performance out of compiled PHP. A JIT would be useful, but not required.

> If you're a language like PHP where you can't guess if a value is going to be a hash or the number 42 until runtime, JIT techniques are essential to get any reasonable performance.

Not true, according to my research. You can pretty much tell the type of a value at analysis-time in PHP. Its expensive analysis though.

It would be useful to be able to make some assumptions and back them out at run-time though, like assuming that the sum of two integers is an integer.

> It is odd that the article claims that JITs for dynamic languages are never successful; there is V8 and TraceMonkey, and Parrot optimizes Perl 6 pretty well. Java is fast because of its JIT. The author claims that LLVM's JIT compilation doesn't work, but that's untrue;

I'm not sure where any of this is coming from. I never claimed these things.

I've never seen performance statistics for the LLVM JIT. Link? I've also never seen stats where LLVM beats GCC in execution time of compiled code.
Thanks! My only 3D experience is with AutoCad which is a totally different approach. Will give opensimulator a go.
I've written two books (both technical) and kind of know the space. My reasons for writing weren't for fame or fortune but to enhance my resume and become embedded in a community. At no point was I ever convinced that I would make a lot of money (directly from book sales).
Built On Plastic
A lot of categorization can actually be done by search though--identity and mailing list can be done by searching against the to: field.
I am sure if they figure out a way to make the best answers and best advice givers float to the top, similar to the seeking alpha cred system it will become very useful. Information wants to be free and the law is free to access, but difficult to gain access to for the layman.

My concern is the legal profession makes it's bacon by keeping the law mysterious and vexing. Legalese is often needlessly complicated and obfuscates a contracts true intention. As long as lawyers and law students continue writing in Plain English this will be a great tool to cut through all the crap.
that's a double edged sword though. if you don't have enough spare cpu, you won't be able to handle any sort of spike in usage. say from an advertising campaign that works a little too well or if a server goes down.

and once you start maxing out boxes, the load comes even harder since the site loads slower. you very quickly run out of resources and suddenly you're SOL and everybody's mad that the site won't load.

honestly, it's hard to point at any one source of problems when scaling a site. cpu, ram, and i/o are all equally problematic. and if you under plan any one of those it can take your site down into a spiral of doom.

you really must allocate your resources for peak load, not for average or nominal load. and then allow for some failures.
China Closes Hacker Training Site, Arrests Three Members
it is actually quite interesting, and has a strong underhanded 'lets get something done so we don't end up on meet or die'.

But what is with 'Goolah'? That is a fairly ugly mascot, and I don't think he is adding anything to the site.
Maybe he should be eating money and time rather than just staring at me blankly and asking me to enter some info.
Given that this is a discussion about science, I have to point out that this "law" you quote is merely a hypothesis.
Look Ma, no fingers: Tilt-scrolling should be built into the iPhone
Whoa, the same thing happened to me with a guy named Sam, only I was a bit naive, and foolishly gave the debt collection scumbags my information early in the ordeal. Some collection agent actually called my family far far away looking for "Sam". I eventually learned lot about this person, and came to be very sympathetic to him. Be careful! Don't go bust, apparently it really sucks to be poor.
Didn't think it was an attack, was just using my experience as a reference. :)

I agree that lots of affiliate stuff is valuable, I wrote a site a couple years ago that makes it money through affiliate ads and provides value to both the vendor and customers. But reading what he was doing, stuff like re-bill, seems really shady and while it might technically provide value to the vendors it is at the huge cost to the customers who are being tricked.
> Diamonds are the hardest known material

Diamonds are not the hardest known material.

1) Wurtzite boron nitride (w-BN)

2) Lonsdaleite

3) Aggregated carbon nanorods (ACNR)

are all harder.
Python (and probably every other dynamically typed language that does use the tagged pointers trick) has the same issue, even worse on 64-bit. Allocating [sys.maxint-1 for x in xrange (1000 * 1000)] takes up 36 megabytes of memory.

Allocating dict((x, float(sys.maxint-1)) for x in xrange (1000 * 1000)), which is closer to PHP's combined arrays-dictionaries and values which I believe are always floats (unless I'm thinking of Perl or Javascript?), takes up 97 megabytes.

Of course if you really need 1 million floating point values, that are not going to be None and that are contigously indexed 0 to 999999, you could do: array.array('d',(float(sys.maxint-1) for x in xrange(1000 * 1000))) which has no overhead.

But for a random collection of objects with attributes and lists and dictionary, the overhead exists. I've got 15 gigabytes of Python objects on this box across a couple dozens of processes and sometimes I dream of a time where every bit was accounted for, where for every bit I could trace back to where it was set and why and accounted for it.

As for the "tagged pointers" trick -- basically taking advantage of that pointers to objects are going to always have the last bottom bits set to 0 and saying that if they are set to 01 for example, that the top 32 or 62 bits are an immediate integer -- I think someone tried it out in Python a few years ago and the result were that it was no win overall, though it might have decreased memory usage occasionally.
I noticed this today. Seems to be only the main website and not the subsites like TechCrunchEU.

I wish they would explain more why they made this move. For a tech website, I didn't even know what Wordpress VIP was and had to look it up myself.
Geeze, is 3.5 months a typical current or California hiring period???

My rule in the '80s and '90s was that any company that couldn't make up its mind within one month was dropped from consideration; the only time I perhaps regretted this was with Thinking Machines, which started the offer process many weeks after I'd timed out on them and had found another job.

But I later gathered they had the worst Boston area hiring practices pretty much for all time, e.g. it took them three tries to fill the position I applied for and in one notorious case, they contacted an applicant's current employer without clearing it with him....
I know Facebook lets you comment on statuses, but comments aren't threaded, or they weren't last I checked.
Except aren't there rules about lawyers giving advice to people who aren't their clients?
He is missing/ignoring the obvious. Although the iPhone may only be 15% of the smartphone market in terms of units shipped, it represents something on the order of 98% of the market in terms of user dollars spent on applications. This is the only number that matters if you are selling an app. The number of installed platforms is meaningless.
Where does Wordpress host? And what is their support like? And how big do you really have to be to get admitted behind the velvety-php rope?
Can Port-au-Prince Be Saved, or Should Haiti Move the Capital?
Tool support is a good reason to not use haml. I expect tool support will be there some day, but it's not really there yet. RubyMine has very nice haml support tho.
Disqus is looking for Engineers (Python, JavaScript) and a User Experience lead
Motorola Droid's next update to be Android 2.1, includes multitouch browser
it's not really so much a brand name as just getting the concept out there. php developers don't realize that there are option when it comes to the runtime.

i would guess that the majority of them wouldn't even know to look for phpc or any alternative. there just hasn't been any news of something like HPHP before HPHP. if you want to run php, you go to php.net or install it from a package and go from there.

combine the above with very little actual need, very little public information on how to build a large site, and lack of maintainer interest and phpc just won't get major traction.

I would have loved to have found phpc several years ago when i was still working on a large site that had performance problems.
The law isn't quite the same as software development. Seems like the correct answer would often depend on a huge amount of context.
New Heinz Packet for Nugget Lovers Encourages Dippin' 'n' Drivin'
How Colleges Can Better Nurture Startups
There's a big difference between graduating from law school and being a licensed attorney. What they need is a way to verify a user's identity and cross-check that against bar members in that user's state, which is a matter of public record. Having a badge for the state(s) that user is licensed to practice law in would be useful information as well, as many issues of law differ state-to-state.
Ask HN: Review my startup: Cashier Live
Others have been created before. One that I've personally tried is http://www.lawguru.com/ (absolutely no affiliation)
All that time for 9 lines of F#?
Part of what I like about Twitter is that it's not Google. I don't want all my communication to be managed by one company. If Google bought Twitter I'd leave it.
Hey everyone, we just ended our closed beta and launched so I wanted to get your thoughts. We’ve been working on Cashier Live for about 9 months– in beta for the last 4 or so. Even though it’s pretty polished now, it started off as an MVP and we’ve had our first two stores/users involved from the start. We’re pretty happy with it (so are our users) so we thought now is as good a time as any.

Looking forward to hearing your feedback
It's a little-known fact, but lisp-driven unicorn picture technology is going to be the main driver of Web 4.0

Damn, I think I could make an HN comment generator.
What is off-putting about it? Please elaborate as I've found SO very, very helpful. Specifically, these points have made the site so helpful:

- The badge system rewards good answers.

- The most popular questions and answers float to the top.

- The accepted answer gets floated to the top.

- Questions and answers can be edited by other users for clarification

- Community wikis provide invaluable information from users about certain topics that aren't question based

- The site is fast and responsive.

My only complaints are based on reviving topics. Old topics seem to be forgotten. But if you try to repost an old topic for some updated answers, the question is closed because of reposting.

kyro, what have you found to be very off-putting?
Not sure when this started, but you can get the information on Wordpress's VIP services here: http://vip.wordpress.com/
Multitouch-The Human GUI?
Sure, http://i.imgur.com/NQPFK.png. FF 3.6 on OSX.

I think the letter spacing works well when you look at an individual word. It's just that, in the context of the paragraph, the differential between letter spacing and word spacing is small enough that words begin to lose their separation.

Edit: I also tried increasing the word spacing (+1-4px), but I still felt like I was straining to read it. Perhaps it's just a case where the convention makes it difficult to adjust.