skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If 99 out of a 100 people are white and 1 is black, which percentage of white people will have a black best friend, assuming random assignment of friends? 1%!

The term "best friend" is ambiguous in the article, but I suspect they mean something like "the child's top 3 best friends." The 8% figure would actually be shockingly high to me if it referred to the number of white kids who would name a kid of another race as their very best friend, given the fact that people of the same race tend to be clustered geographically.

The statistic was given earlier by the NurtureShock authors in this Newsweek blog post, but the use of the phrase "best friend" is equally ambiguous there, and they don't cite a source, instead moving on to talk about a different study:

http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/nurtureshock/archive/2009/09/...
In briefly checking out the profiles of the accounts I'd say that at least 2/3rds of the "i cant login this sux" comments were legit. Most of the accounts commenting like that were middle aged women with many friends and a profile picture.
"I don't know the answer to this central problem -- the problem of maintaining the real value of religion, as a source of strength and of courage to most men, while, at the same time, not requiring an absolute faith in the metaphysical aspects."

I feel that's the core of the conflict. Whatever aspects religion has, they are thoroughly dependent on an unquestioning acceptance of some metaphysical model, whether a minimalist one such as in Deism or one as expansive and involved as in Animism. This is the aspect that is antithetical to science, not just in science's conclusions (it's hard to falsify a deistic model, unlikely that will occur any time soon) but fundamentally in its approach.
Tumblr has a very informal attitude regarding staff blogs. Meaghan was a blogger before she ever worked for Tumblr. When she blogs about things, it's not an official response. It's merely her personal reaction. The staff blog is at http://staff.tumblr.com.

Tumblr employees wouldn't be using the service effectively if they were all stodgy officials. The fact that they're allowed to be themselves, flaws and all, is a feature.
I am just so happy every time I read something along the lines of 'your customers don't care about your solution, they care about their problems.' If you always remember that, it goes a long way.
I actually found Ebert's online reviews more compelling than the TV show ever was. He could take his time in them and explore little facets of the films, relate them to obscure references and dote a bit on things he just plain liked.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?categor...
There's more to Q&A than just the consumer internet. There's the things people find on Yahoo Answers today, and then there's everything people want answers for, whether Yahoo Answers has a category for it or not. The second is an order of magnitude larger than any site out there right now.

You're absolutely right to focus on whether the user gets the right answer or not. They don't care about technology. My point is that there is a huge untapped market that can't be served by YA or SO, for technology reasons.
I'm a US citizen but currently live in the UK. I'm more interrogated going back to the US than I am any other country. (And that list includes everything from Ireland to the Ukraine.)

Personally I don't think citizens should be made to feel that way by their own border police!
My understanding about Japan is that an inordinate number of people access online resources only through their phones. So, lower broadband penetration there may be a red herring.
And is extremely immature
I certainly think that's spot on. I knew adii's revs had to be great, but this is really awesome. Showing the revs are important because it gives a good actualization of the rest of the process they describe.
My point is: presentation matters. One side of a flashcard is a label. Holding the 'bomb' label against one's laptop, and the 'terrorist' label against one's chest like a nametag is a different presentation -- one designed to provoke thought or even alarm -- as opposed to just having the cards among others inside a carry-on.

Similarly, what if he ostentatiously dropped just the terror-related cards while in the security line?

If the truth is close to those scenarios, then Nicholas George wanted attention, and he got it. It's harder for me to get worked up about TSA if that's the case.
The opening line of the article: Paul Krugman, a columnist for the New York Times and winner of a prestigious banking prize (usually mistakenly called a “Nobel”)...

What the hell? He absolutely did win a Nobel Prize (technically, the "Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences").

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/laureates/2008/
If you've posted five times in a year, and the last one sounds like you've decided your blog is obsolete, then it's not an instance of somebody abandoning a longrunning thing. It looks like somebody gave the service a few tries and gave up.
I've had the same experiences (although I live in the US also). At some point, I have to wonder what happens if I say "no further questions" and just walk through the customs area. Are they going to deport me ... back to where I am?
Tumblr lets you change subdomains easily. If Pitchfork chooses to relinquish the subdomain, the original owner could take it back immediately, regardless of how Tumblr Support acts.
That was a good read, thanks. It supports that WordPress themes are likely not derivative works, though -- dynamic linking, use only minimal non-complex interface code, are primarily unique code that could run on any platform (HTML/CSS/etc) with only a small amount of WordPress "compatibility code" as the paper calls it.
Yes, I would admit I can't make it, and I am a reasonable competent developer (admittedly I'm a DBA first and a developer second and I tend to do different types of apps when I do development, but...).

Remember there is a difference between making synching software, which is relatively easy, and making synching software that is absolutely reliable (so far as I've seen) and easy to use for anyone. These things are relatively hard.

Now, to do that and produce a client for every major OS out there as well as a web interface... Yes, I am impressed.

I just wish they had one smaller tier out there though. It would be alot easier to justify say $60 a year on my tight budget than it is $10 a month (smallest paid tier last I checked...)
From lights to look at ... to lights to see with
As a sidebar to this speech, over the past few years I've been listening to various lectures about the existence of God, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of religion. What can I say? I find it interesting.

One of the interesting points that one of the professors made is that faith is not knowing for certain. So, in this guy's view, even religious people never "know", because if you really knew, really knew without a doubt, then there would be no faith involved. On the other hand, some scientists "know" what the results of their inquiries are going to bring. (I won't name names, but I hope we can agree on this simple point). So religious people can be very uncertain and scientists can be very certain.

This leads me to believe that there isn't necessarily a great gulf between religion and science. Some folks just have to know for sure, and some are comfortable with sliding scales of certainty. This seems to be true in both science and religion, although it may be that there are more of one type in each.

At the end of the day, instead of science and religion, the much more interesting questions might be about the practice of science and religion. Referring to these things as some sort of Platonic ideals that either mesh or compete with each other probably does a great disservice to the actual practices by individuals.

So as much as I hate to critique Feynman, I believe he was off-base a bit in this case.
I agree with you about the Q&A wars shaping up, but I think you should include Fluther, which falls smack dab in the middle of this fray.

It's also worth noting there are a number of other large incumbents like WikiAnswers (which is now bigger than Yahoo Answers by some accounts), Answerbag, and Yedda, to name a few.

I agree that there is a movement of next-gen Q&A companies going for something special (because I'm one of them), and I know it's a complex field of companies to navigate. But I'd be careful not to oversimplify the pool "major players" to just the few companies playing silicon valley publicity game. The actual Q&A space is much more vast.

Disclaimer: I'm the CEO of Fluther.
Ok, but that sounds too general, though.

For example, when I first had unit tests, I felt that my code quality improved greatly.
Or after I walked around with an iPhone at university, and got people to participate in a 5mins usability test for a mobile webapp, I also felt that the end result was on another level.

I'm thinking of techniques that will eliminate errors, or make coding faster, or result in a better user experience, etc.
It always annoys me when people misquote the Simpsons, because the popular quotes are popular enough to be googled even if you only have the gist. ("The Googles do nothing!", but the opposite.)

Someday I am going to write a "Quoting the Simpsons HOWTO", but I fear it will be too little too late.
The hell that is a restaurant website
Better link: http://venomousporridge.com/post/389785000/a-conversation-i-have-every-month-or-so
Ha! This is fun.

ROUND I

Pitchfork: Within 10 minutes, a tumblr representative responded: “Hi, Megan. Those URLs are now free. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with. Thanks for using Tumblr!”

VS

Tumblr: "After you failed to respond for 72 hours, we released the domain."

VS

Tumbledore: "Tumblr stole my subdomain"

ROUND II

Tumblr: "There were not “several posts,” on that account, there were zero."

VS

Pitchfork: "...the last post that had been made was on November 18, 2009, and said, “This filter is obsolete.” [ includes screenshots of posts]

VS

Tumbledore: "I had several posts up and I followed 28 people with the account."

Someone is wrong on the internet!!!
1. The above implementation was clearly intended to include a getter, since a class with only a private field and no way to access it doesn't make sense...

2. Using getters for properties is "idiomatic" Java, or at least it was last I used Java a few years ago...

3. More importantly, here we're comparing equivalent code in different languages and the lisp code specified a reader so I think it's only fair that the Java version should have the equivalent getter.
I bet Jobs still owns that Eames chair, though.
(Std disclaimer: I don't approve biggotry, but...)

I might be repeating someone here, but the problem is that once you start enforcing laws against things like this you also give the other party the opportunity to slap employers with false claims of sexism/racism. Which in turn might actually lead to even rational non-biggoted employers favouring (other factors being equal) groups that are less likely to make such claims if the employee is fired. Biggots are not going to hire you in the first place, so who's winning here? Ok ok, in many cases the person who hires you is not the person who fires you, so (surprise surprise) it's not that black and white.

Maybe being a heterosexual white male I'm not feeling the problem first hand and that affects my judgement, but usually when thinking these things I come to the conclusion that laws written with good intentions to abolish all sorts of nasty things end up doing more harm than good (and no I'm not a ultra-libertarian either).
Call of duty is also Awesome. However, it took a much larger team to create.
Opera has done that for a while. Safari and Chrome have it. It's available as an extension for Firefox. It looks like there's even an IE addon with similar functionality.
The problem is that a lot of people are irrationally scared of anything with the word "nuclear" in it.
Forgot or doesn't really know who the players are in this space other than who has shown up on TechCrunch? I felt like he left a lot of Q&A sites out.
Pitchfork's response implies that they will give back the subdomain if the guy asks. That should be the end of this. Except I'm almost certain this guy is going to continue complaining in order to keep attention on himself.
My recent favorite, Ebert's discussion of what it's like never to eat nor drink:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/01/nil_by_mouth.html
The original owner of pitchfork.tumblr.com has his own response with a screenshot of an email from Tumblr stating that they didn't ask him before reassigning it:

http://tumbledore.tumblr.com/post/393276231/this-is-in-respo...
Oh if this isn't true. Due to valentine's day I ran into this about a dozen times before just going to the local "nice restaurant".
Parrot 2.1.0 Released
So religious people can be very uncertain and scientists can be very certain.

Except this is not the case, at all. It's a false sense of certainty drawn from the solid roots of empirical science, especially for the existential (or unempirical) topics of disagreement between science and religion.

I am a huge advocate and fan of empirical science and all that has brought us, but when people go clobbering religious believers with the science bat as if they're somehow "more certain" about that which cannot be empirically experienced, nor empirically reproduced, then that's when I call BS.

On existential issues (the only legitimate grounds of disagreement between science and religion), Science and Religion are equal. They are equally uncertain, although many people can't understand that. Both have a mountain of faith-based assumptions about things we cannot EVER determine empirically.

Faith, after all, is being certain of what one cannot see.

I love robg around here not only because he finds great articles, but because he's a damn smart neuroscientist and backs me up entirely on this:

The problem of course is that naturalism has it's own limit or else it too becomes dogmaticism. There's stuff we just can't know from empirical observation. Indeed, I'd argue the question "why" has a genesis just beyond rational thought. Empiricism might help to explain away those urges but I don't see how it will ever address their origin.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=396215

To sum up, both Science and Religion will never answer the question "Why?" with ANY logical degree of certainty greater than the other. It's not empirical and never will be, period. In that case, I choose to embrace only solid, logically grounded empirical science yet address the intuitive questions with a faith in God that never fails me.
I just wish Apple will let to save the files you create on the iPad your Dropbox account. Sadly they will probably do that with Mobile Me (I have an account already), but it doesn't work as smoothly as Dropbox, especially for sharing with other users,IMO.
Perhaps a feature for the individuals who work there, but certainly not a feature for the company itself. This looks bad for Tumblr no matter where it gets posted. This was a response to a matter affecting the company, not Meghan personally, so it would seem to be a reflection of the company's thoughts no matter where it appears.
Clueless clients and muddled designers, so true.
I think you might have a detailed mental model at the low level we are talking for this scenario in some other areas, but I have a hard time believing you do in some of the fields you mentioned (just to pick one where models seem to be rather tough: economy).

I think expecting everyone who drives to be as knowledgeable as a NASCAR driver is foolish, just as I believe expecting everyone who has learned a behavior to adapt every time something subtle changes is too far.

usable by experts or prosumers is really not the goal.
Isn't there already an iPhone / iPod touch app? I would imagine access to the new file area might not be a huge adaption.
You are correct... but super-geeky users = founders.
Because terrorists would NEVER use children in their attacks: http://www.literaturejunction.com/showthread.php?8100-Iraq-i... (sorry about message board link, the linked yahoo story is down). As you allow one group to bypass security, you have two problems. First, you open yourself to discrimination charges by people you don't let bypass security. Second, you run the risk that terrorists will recruit someone in the protected group to carry out an attack.
Darwinian evolution provides the basis upon which all modern biology is constructed -- It is a positive theory, it enables research and conclusions. Whereas AGW is a conclusion.
Jesus I knew these guys were doing good, but not THIS good. 2 mil a year on WordPress themes is absolutely insane!
I feel that conducting yourself in an ethical manner if you are not religious has more value than similar behavior by believers, due to the fact that the decision is made without the coercion of a punishment by God. That said some of the best people I know are quite religious. I personally see religion as a deferment of curiosity, but I don't look down on people that use computers but don't want to know how they work.
I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this, and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

Interesting that he says making yourself unhappy is where crime starts. I agree and I've often thought that the root of anxiety if selfishness.
Artificial Flight and Other Myths
In an effort to find the YouTube videos (that were taken down) mentioned in the article I stumbled across this video [1] that seems to sum up Siskel and Ebert's great relationship. Just to warn you there is some foul language.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUMZjy8rXE4

Edited to add this is great too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkwVz_jK3gA
This article strongly reminded me of a certain essay[0]. Some people in the environmental movement are now saying "you shouldn't say our theory is false - to do so is heresy/treason/a crime against humanity" instead of "our theory is true".

[0] http://paulgraham.com/say.html
I think the problem that you are running into is that while the concept is simple and essentially what they have done is make it simple to upload/download files and easily share across computers with yourself and others, this is a nontrivial problem. On top of that, the implementation works seamlessly across different operating systems. The reaction you are running into is probably akin to people who love the iPod. A device which does one thing and does it well.

As you have seen others mention, by creating a solution to a nontrivial problem (and if you have ever had to deal with file synchronization you know this is not simple) it has enabled usage scenarios that were previously too difficult to accomplish or at least not worth the hassle. So I can understand people's reactions to your comments.
I also greatly appreciate your interviews. Your mix of different business covered and the view points they bring is very educational.
Building Real-time web apps with Rails3
Randomly selected favorites (restaurants, not websites) from my hometown:

http://www.tablany.com/

http://shakeshack.com/ (Nope, I'm completely off-base here. Shake Shack has a lovely, flash-free, pdf-free mobile version. Apologies to Danny Meyer and company.)

http://barstuzzichini.com/index.asp

I should send them a snapshot of what their websites look like with ClickToFlash installed.
I also appreciate your hard work. There are always assholes out there that are jealous of someone else, who have to share some sort of negativity even when deep down inside they really admire what you're doing. Keep up the good work man and don't let the less intelligent people in our world get to you.
Seems like a more general case of "Premature optimization is the root of all evil". Rather than just being speed optimizations, it's functionality optimization, but the same principle of don't fix something until you know it needs fixing applies.
I don't think people are as scared of nuclear as they were in, say, the 80s. It might be time to try again.
True, but thinking of it as a "broken law" can be helpful in some situations. Relativity and Newtonian physics contradict each other at relativistic speeds, but it can be useful to think of these speeds as situations which "break" Newtonian laws and require the use of alternate laws rather than throwing out Newtonian laws entirely. F=MA is still considered "Newton's Second Law" regardless of the fact that it does not hold true in all situations.

Granted, this is a subtlety that scientists grasp easily, and laymen do not, so this article probably gave the wrong idea to many people who read it.
A business is private property and I can hire whoever I want there, discriminating on factors such as suitability for the job, education and other associated factors.

A couple decades ago, businesses in the US would have argued the same thing, claiming that Black and Hispanics are naturally lazier.

Think about a company like Walmart, Ikea (or any company you frequent that has a near monopoly). How would you like it if they suddenly don't like your race and decided to stop selling to you or allowing you into their "private" stores that everyone else can shop at?

Seeing how you come from a predominately white country, I can understand how you cannot conceive this to be a problem.
Personally, I'm all for ridding the internet of name-squatters, though Tumblr really should have deleted all of the old data first. I think Pitchfork Media's response is fair and more than I would have expected.
Amen. This is why we're building BuenaCarta.com - example page: http://www.buenacarta.com/restaurantes/buenos-aires/palermo-... (very early alpha)... We're starting with South America but we're planning on releasing a white label version of the product for other markets (and not just restaurants). Our focus is right now on getting reviews 'right', before we start building content, because we still believe there's not a truly good restaurant/bar/store review site whose reviews aren't ranked using hidden magic, astroturfed, or just really, really bland.

We've spent a lot of time on the "Open Hours" feature - we want people to view a page and see "Open NOW", "Open Later Today", "Closed Today", etc. so that they're sure it's really open, or it will be when they take a cab across town, or so its really clear they're closed mondays and you don't go all the way there only to find that out.

However, we also want to be able to search the data ourselves, and we want it to be localized into two or three languages. So we can't just store the open hours as a string, we need to render the open hours as text but it needs to be stored as data. Generating the English/Spanish/Portuguese from the data is a lot of fun.
Building a Web API
Upvoted only to say that this article is apppalling - FUD all over. (feels strange to "defend" the government, but this dude is way off line).
yelp app.
Very very bad things happen.
Nearly All Binary Searches and Mergesorts are Broken (2006)
Ask HN: Why City( or town) should get Google's gigabit Fiber and why?
Ask HN: Why City( or town) should get Google's Gigabit Fiber and why?

Don't answer saying XYZ town should get it because you live there and want to dl torrents all day.
It's a CNN video that autoplays an ad.