skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
A federal law was passed in 2010 that required all student to originate from the DoE, giving them a monopoly on the juicy, high interest, high balance, zero risk loans given out to millions of Americans each year. Because of this, the DoE rakes in billions a year in profits from student loan interest.

So this $7.7 could hit their bottom line and barely move it. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-11/a-144-000-...

It's possible that this was the first step in a plan to gradually unwind the student loan crisis. I'm sure that changing the repayment rules while commercial lenders owned most of the student loan debt would cause a massive backlash.
I get long hangs (5 secs) when saving Ruby code.

I think it just takes a long time to load up all the gems rubocop relies on, then to process the syntax. I put the blame squarely on Ruby, not vim.
I too came from the Borland IDEs (I used to work at Borland).

Emacs is not a 25 year old developer experience, however. It's got an integrated package manager; responsive full-project text search (helm + your chosen grep tool) and path search (helm + projectile); good to excellent support for dynamic languages in particular (there's a nice synergy with e.g. ruby/pry).

It's not as strong with statically typed languages. There's no project-wide full-fat high fidelity symbol database support. There are a variety of projects to try and implement things along those lines (semantic etc.), but Emacs Lisp isn't the right tool to get the necessary level of performance. I'd love to see Emacs on Guile come to fruition; the ability to escape out into a language with less freedom to mutate scope (and thus optimize) would be a Good Thing.

I use Emacs (on Linux) to write JS, CoffeeScript, Ruby and C++; I use Eclipse to work with Java (though I'm considering switching to IntelliJ). Working with Java in Emacs is an exercise in pain, particularly since things like wildcard imports are frowned upon in the Java world. Eclimd is not good or reliable enough when used from Eclipse. Eclipse is deeply unpleasant to use compared to Emacs, which I'm able to easily customize to my preferences.
This article doesn't incorporate yesterday's news that BuzzFeed has missed revenue targets this year, and is forecasted to miss revenue targets next year: http://nymag.com/following/2016/04/buzzfeed-halves-revenue-t...

This is even after a pivot to video-content like all the major players in the industry are doing, which was done because BuzzFeed's current model, the one praised in this post, is not sustainable.

The viral approach is an approach that only works once.
Thanks for the suggestions! How does uBlock avoid checking every filter? It looks like it splits filters into buckets, and only checks one bucket of filters, but I'm not understanding how the filters are split up.
Adding JavaScript modules to the web platform
Omits one of the most interesting facts about BuzzFeed: it was started by a member of MIT's Media Lab [0]. It all made sense once I started viewing it as the result of research into content virality. Internally I think of it more like a "profitable social/cultural experiment" than "media company".

[0] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/06/business/media/at-buzzfeed...
> Those are not discoverable with any GUI.

Are you sure? I can _search_ in my IDE's preferences for available keybindings and all kinds of other stuff.
The problem here is that the author had hardware that was bought with Linux in mind. The experience should have been the same as yours, but wasn't.
Just like with IP proxies - it's easy to originate call from Google talk, or other free calling service to remain totally unidentified.

Best way to filter calls during the meeting - don't pickup the phone and let caller to leave voicemail.
At a first hint of a spammer - just block the number.

Done.
I think it's trying to match the average size of a novel.

I would love a larger one for comics and textbooks.
How the DraftKings-Boston love affair may have saved daily fantasy
About a couple of months back it was possible to search for your own number on their site without an account, but now it's fully blocked and require you to install their app (and thus give all your info by default if you're on Android).

EDIT: It seems that they added Google and Outlook account login now, but they also require all your contacts.
Private tutor app by Vietnamese developer goes viral in US
"I never felt at home here. This is an awful place to be dropped down halfway”
So you can access your list of open tabs from anywhere on the screen? Sounds good.

> Multiple browser windows seems redundant with multiple tabs or the Group Tabs mentioned above.

Surely it's the complete opposite: if you have multiple windows, then why do you need Group Tabs?
If anything, this is a glowing review of the entire ThinkPad line. Most PC hardware turns into shit after a couple of years of heavy use. Not so with ThinkPads. I'm all for reuse-reduce-recycle, but very few electronic thingamajigs are capable of holding water after a certain period of time.

On the other hand, "cheapo refurb" is also indicative of my desire to minimize the expense of purchasing an additional computer.
Why not? What's the exact dollar amount that you have to make before you lose the ability to protest that you're not being treated fairly?

And, quite frankly, from the 3rd world, McDonald's workers look entitled.
The test-to-speech on the old kindles was surprisingly good. I used to walk to work, and listen to my kindle on the way. Also worked pretty good with one of those audio-to-tape adapter rigs in my old car - way better than trying to find non-abridged audiobooks on tape and then deal with switching through a box of a dozen tapes on long drives.
Enforcement of property rights is one of the most basic responsibilities of government. When a government is unable or unwilling to help it's people then you're gonna have a bad time.
Qt company demerges from Digia
I wholeheartedly agree, I think that the decay weighted algorithms are such a neat and useful tool. Not the author, but I found this nice little repo that covers the HN + Reddit algos: https://github.com/clux/decay
VR is a Dud
Also pertinent: Terry Winograd's Thoughts On Military Funding (1984, with a postscript from 2002):

http://cpsr.org/prevsite/publications/newsletters/issues/200...
Probably sucking the money back out of that resellers account to pay for any unexpected costs?
Ok I retract my tests comment!

Design patterns can definitely be abused and pragmatism is important when deciding whether or not to use them. I would say though that implementing SOLID is certainly achievable if writing from scratch but harder when refactoring code that breaks those principles (usually badly with no tests or poor tests).
No, but better is better. The paper-white display (with backlight) is substantially, appreciably better than the old displays. The absence of the extremely rarely used keyboard is also welcome. The Paperwhite model doesn't have page buttons though which is a regression (fixed on later models which still has the paperwhite display).
I use "Tree Style Tabs" and the tab bar on the left side instead of at the top. It groups tabs on how you link-opened them from each other automatically, but you can regroup them depending on your needs. It's one of the reasons I never even considered switching to Chrome etc.
It's still voluntary, though the manufacturers are pressured to accept it; but you can comply with it by having an adapter cable, like Apple does. Chinese companies are already selling them for <$2 a pop.
Microsoft owns Corbis, doesn't it? http://www.corbisimages.com
Made me chuckle:

http://imgur.com/GSpanVe
The challenge is when you're expecting a call but don't know the number it'll originate from (doctor's office, school, sports team parents/member/organizer, plumber, ...).
On the one hand, for a price difference of $2, I would go for the version with the plastic cover.

On the other hand, with an external webcam, I can simply disconnect it. If you have a laptop built into a laptop that is not so easy to do. At least, you have to trust the laptop's manufacturer to do that, while a builtin plastic cover is so simple one does need to "trust" it; at the same time, you can't retrofit it on a laptop... :(
> Or paperwhite is simply good enough?

I would say "yes." I was fine with my ancient little paperwhite, and surprised to see that they were asking $300 for an incremental improvement. It would have made more sense to do the Apple thing, dropping the price of the old model and replacing it with the new one at a similar price point. The paperwhite's touch screen is pretty bad, but fine for reading once you get used to it, and the battery lasts long enough that charging is a non-issue.

Several years ago, Amazon started making devices that almost perfectly replaced paperback novels: easy on the eyes, light enough to read in one hand, and cheap enough to pay for themselves quickly with the production cost difference between electronic and physical books. The Kindle sucks for books and magazines with significant layout, and I agree with others here that there's room for a larger version to handle e.g. textbooks (which are pricey enough that a $300 reader is NBD). But this thing? I just don't get it.
you're being downvoted (edit: not by me!), but there is certainly merit to your comment. usually a board of directors or trustees is driving the direction that an organisation takes -- primarily with financial profit in mind (this is as true of a company as a research university, unfortunately). of course, they would not like us to think that's the case, and so will spin narratives that often misdirect our attention. that said, i think this can happen at the same time that the organisation is indeed taking on 'emergent properties' of its own -- human beings are complex, and build complex systems.
I agree. I went through a period where I seriously held the same insight as the grandparent and thought that it was profound insight into the nature of the universe -- "omfg, corporations are artificial intelligences! reality is an interlocking series of patterns! collective intelligence is the future!"

I cured myself of these beliefs when I looked at how reality actually works (and when I stopped smoking weed). When Louis Gerstner turned around IBM as the company's first outside CEO, that was a result of his decisions and vision, not the emergent decision-making power of IBM. More fundamentally: people can think about companies, companies can't think about people. There are no collective minds, only individual minds working together.

The actual article in interesting. It sounds like Russian/Chinese/non-Western multinationals are growing in power, and with significantly less scruples than their Western counterparts.
I am curious about this, since I assumed that Google would have put in quite a bit of effort to make sure that Hangouts is competitive in terms of bandwidth usage across platforms.

Do you have any performance figures?
And a harder question: any ideas as to why this is the case?
The problem is that the kindle form factor is similar to many books, but the screen size is smaller because of all the plastic at the edges.
"already eligible to have their debt forgiven"

Without checking their documentation through the normal process.
No it didn't. Student loans are a wildly lucrative business. The DoE originates something like $110B in student loans EVERY YEAR and charges between 3-7% interest on it.

The DoE could eat the cost of this without even noticing.
This might be a niche market, but 4.7 oz (Oasis) down from 7.6 oz (Paperwhite) is nothing to scoff at for through hikers. People will gladly spend MUCH more than $170 to shave ounces on other equipment. The additional battery life also removes the need to carry a charging cable reducing weight further.
Unable to work doesn't mean you're disabled in Germany. Of course it takes 2 to 3 appointments at the doctor to get the insurance prescription, but I don't know any case where that was a problem at all.
At that price Amazon are going to sell - oh... - five or ten. At least.

I really can't imagine who's going to buy this. There may be a mythical subset of hyper-rich hyper-readers who are bored with their existing Kindle collection and want something newer and shinier, because.

But the average reader is already happy with their average reader. This offers nothing of value to them.

At half the price there might be serious interest, but £270 is completely unrealistic.
$289 with offers.

Who is going to buy this? Who is it for?
I don't know of any client that settles for "good enough" based on available bandwidth. Even just audio is good enough a lot of the time (apart from one person screen-sharing); anything beyond that should be a bonus!

In general though the solution requires a server somewhere to "un" peer-to-peer everything.
Numenta Researchers Discover How Brain Learns, Key to Intelligent Systems
Correct, my discomfort with government functions being farmed out to private corporations which add cost and no value clearly indicates that I am a red-faced Commie.
Well, "Traduttore, traditore" is a Tuscan proverb -- which has been translated! Oh, the irony.
Ask HN: Does Salesforce really make sales teams more productive?
Stop the Madness and Fix the Swift API Guidelines
I created a quick code generator[1] for async action scaffolding just for this reason.

[1] https://github.com/jmakeig/redux-thunk-scaffolding/blob/mast...
http://www.padlette.com/ is awesome for one handed reading.
Buzzfeed is about 20% of my "Hide from Timeline" list on Facebook
OOP Isn't a Fundamental Particle of Computing
Electronics fail, my map and compass have never failed me.

Fail? Shit, for hiking scenarios they just plain don't work half the time due to terrain and tree cover. Dedicated GPS units seem to have improved a lot, but there's no way I'd rely on a phone for guidance. I, too, grew up on compass and topo map. My primary "good way to get lost" activity is trail running, and I always carry a paper map. It might just be the trail map from the trailhead, but at least it's something that doesn't rely on batteries or an outside entity keeping their systems up.

So, yeah, perhaps "we" are too reliant if it has people wandering off into the woods with nothing but a cell phone. OTOH, those same folks probably would just wandered off with nothing but a hardy "I have a good sense of direction" if they didn't have a GPS.
Google search?

I prefer to not even talk about "AI" at all, the word doesn't really point to anything we can talk about in a grounded or meaningful way (I consider it a word used to get people in suits to write checks).

Machine Learning and Operations Research touch pretty much every aspect of our lives, however. Whether it be supply chain optimization, factory design, materials science, etc. etc. etc.
You're using an "at equilibrium" argument.

The things you described might take 10-20+ years. Between lenders tightening up and college prices coming down, you have a generation of poor people that can't go to college.
"You need to weigh this perspective with the alternative point of view, that the US tech industry wouldn't have developed as quickly or be as world leading as it is if it wasn't for what has been accomplished because of the long hours."

I do not believe that for a second. And even if it were true, how does that justify not paying for those hours?

"but I think we ended up in a good enough spot that it's much more productive to focus on the future than dwell on the past."

Those who refuse to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.

"What gets me is the dichotomy between "big tech" and everyone else employing programmers/designers/UXers doing exactly the same kind of work but for 1/3-1/2 the pay. But hey, when those companies have quarterly EPS above $5, they might start paying better, too."

If the company is doing well, it makes absolutely no sense that the people who did the actual work to make that happen don't share in it.
Is there any forum for discussing this type of thing?

I have some questions wrt issue like this, but you ask on a place like MathOverflow and you often get unintuitive answers, as if for the working mathematician, rather than explanations.

For example, I've always though of dy as intuitively involving some kinf of, higher-function over another;

d[y(x), a] = y(x+a) - y(x)

such that;

if I(x) = x so that d[I(x), a] = d[x, a]

and d[x, a] = a

then d[y(x), a]/d[x, a] = d[y(x), d[x, a]]/d[x, a]

so we drop reference to a (or lim as a->0) and = dy(x)/dx = dy/dx

But look, there's an implicit 'a' or 'dx' in that y(x), plus y(x) is often written just 'y' so that you can always switch around which the free variable is (an equation just describes the relationship, e.g. y = 2x can generate either y(x) = 2 * x or x(y) = y/2)

Also, since the imagined HO function d[f, a] actually takes a function for the first arg, there needs to be a implicit identity function for dx, so really df(x)/dh(x) means "rate of change of f, for change in x, relative to (normalised) rate of change in h, for change in x". Then the identity function becomes the default such that dx is short for dI(x).

Maybe this descibes the same idea:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_operator
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative#The_derivative_as_a...

But its a little undecipherable to me...
Photoshop, probably. These are image montages, not 3D renders.
AirBnB at this stage (Apply HN is prototype-stage) would have fallen into Network Effect and Lifestyle Business (the size of market for sharing airbeds at conferences is small), and not into Unicorn Embryo.
I hid it a couple of years ago and I was actually recently surprised it still exists; I never see their links anywhere.
Worse, it is now more broken than it used to be according to some of us.

For me it is Unity.

For others it is suspend/resume or graphics.
Windows Kernel-Mode Drivers Written in Rust
As you say, such a market today is restricted to certain classes of students and certain majors which are economical.

But without government intervention, why would this suddenly also work for majors which are not economical (but relevant for society) or for students which have a less good probability of success?

My fear is that an exclusively private program could in the end kill those majors and/or keep a lot of people from studying that are still able to do so today.
No, that's not true in the least.
I've had great success with Mageia as a distro that Just Works. They're the Mandrake offshoot from 2011, and on every laptop I've tried them on, everything worked out of the box, without configuration. For many of those laptops, I went through a major version upgrade (3->4, 4->5, etc), also without problem.

It's basically because of Mageia that my linux hand-editing config know-how has atrophied down to nothing.
E-readers have a very noticeable delay when flipping through pages, especially quickly. If I'm trying to construct a scheme for preimage collision resistance in my textbook on cryptography (which is a humble 400 page textbook), I'll go to the index first (last couple pages), then flip to the page on preimage resistance, then flip forward 20 pages to collisions in hashes, and then maybe flip back a couple chapters to hash function constructions. That's about 5-10 different pages referenced in quick succession, and an e-reader gives a very significant barrier. Add onto that typing on a e-reader is a pretty awful experience as opposed to scribbling notes in the margins of the textbook and you have a product that doesn't provide any real incentive.

One could make the argument that textbooks should be written in a way that accommodates the web and e-readers better, but that's a whole other hill you'll need to climb.
People have already given a lot of answers, but there's one thing that annoys me specifically about Visual Studio and Xcode.

Every so often, I come across a cool open-source project that I would like to build and tinker with, only to find that it can only be compiled if the Visual Studio solution file or XCode project file from the repo is used.

Or let's say, it could be compiled probably, but replicating all the logic hidden inside the solution/project is ridiculous.

That's not to say that you can't have the best of both worlds. For example, CMake can generate both Makefiles and VS solutions.
Above the Law bids farewell to comments section
looks soooo nice :) +!
How to Get an Email Intro
Of the programs you listed, only Planet Money is an NPR program. The distinction is very, very important in the context of this article. This American Life, an independent entity which also produces Serial, is decidedly NOT impacted by the shift mentioned in the article, and WNYC (which produces Radiolab and Freakanomics Radio) is producing this on-demand content in part to combat the demographic shifts of their broadcast audience.
The whole thing about the "science of viral content" has always seemed like fluffy nonsense to me to make the stakeholders feel like they are part of something "higher brow" and more complex than just a spammy blog.
Thanks for the correction. Seems the rosy predictions I remembered are not accurate.
Top Indian female biker dies in road accident during country-wide tour
Excellent! Strikes are the only way to punish intransigent, anti-worker management practices. Solidarity forever!
STUN server is not a real solution. It is typically unable to penetrate NAT. Maybe WebRTC will work sometimes, but it is not a reliable solution. It is difficult to come up with alternative to Skype until IPv6 is widely adopted. But when we get IPv6, every computer will have its own address, then yes.
This is a very good Post-Mortem.

As I assumed it was kind of a corner case bug meet corner case bug met corner case bug.

This is also why I am of afraid of a self driving cars and other such life critical software. There are going to be weird edge cases, what prevents you from reaching them?

Making software is hard....
I'm technical and Markdown enrages me almost daily.
Union, association, enterprise agreement ... it doesn't matter to me what it's called, but I think there should be collective bargaining and written agreements. I don't want an adversarial approach that sucks the life out of the company.
To avoid the ads, just leave it in airplane mode unless you're syncing. This has the added advantage of saving battery.
You are going to have to give a better argument than that!
Isn't this what YouTube calls content ID? They alert you that your content is up somewhere, then you have the option of monetizing it, or having it taken down.
You can buy this Sony thing right now: http://www.sony.com/electronics/digital-paper-notepads/dpts1 -- thin A4 display.
This short text from Charles Stross is incredibly relevant: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2010/12/invaders...

> Corporations do not share our priorities. They are hive organisms constructed out of teeming workers who join or leave the collective: those who participate within it subordinate their goals to that of the collective, which pursues the three corporate objectives of growth, profitability, and pain avoidance. (The sources of pain a corporate organism seeks to avoid are lawsuits, prosecution, and a drop in shareholder value.)
No, any website can detect your local IP address, then use ajax to scan a targeted IP subnet range fairly quickly (and completely hidden from the user) to find any shitty CORS-enabled web interface your company has (think some "modern" internal accounting webapp that enables CORS for its "API").

Prior to WebRTC you'd have to scan much larger IP ranges to try and find internal network webapps that are CORS enabled.
Who would be coercing whom if work contracts were eliminated?
Write one, then. I did. It's not hard. Mine's about 7K lines of code and it's the perfect text editor for me.
That's exactly the sort of thinking that leads to this sort of problem. When you consider only first-order effects, many very bad ideas seem like a good idea. When you consider that all policy choices have second-order effects and unintended consequences, you can make more intelligent policy decisions.