skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
What's so bad about downvoting comments you disagree with? IMHO the problem rather is "kharma whoring", which is incited by the possibility of accumulating kharma. IMHO2 those points should be only relevant for sorting articles and comments but there should be now way to hoard "points" on a user level.
US Broadband Stymied By Stimulus Application and Award Process
Very cool but a little bit of information overload, I would reduce and just put up the 2-3 metrics you really care about.

I have a digital photo frame sitting here doing nothing though, might have to give it a shot.
Get a working jet pack for $86,000
Before zynga was "outted" he lauded them as his best investment. After techcrunch wrote what they did about zynga's business model, he said nothing for a very long time, until one day he was like, "Zynga is a great company, they are awesome and what they are doing is fine as long as they are making money."

Well, it's not fine in my opinion and he should have said it wasn't fine and they should have given back all the money they took from customers. Instead, he's excited about making more money by selling zynga to the public or some other member of the startup pyramid scheme.
Here's a much easier way to browse them: http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/preview.php

Be careful, though- these are the most overused set of icons. They're like the Comic Sans or Papyrus of icons. Like another commenter said, if you're looking for some less-used icons, try these two (free) sets:

http://p.yusukekamiyamane.com/
Working as a full time salaryman AND work on BCC AND hack out little side projects like this?

Patrick, you must have ungodly time management skills.
It has a 31.5 mile range and maximum speed of 63 mph.
The Buried Treasure in Your TV Dial
My experience has been that the majority of human communication is about pecking order, saving face, protecting one's ego and other types of "social" motivations. (There is likely data out there which backs up my view, but I wouldn't have a citation off the top of my head.) If that weren't true, I doubt you would see so much discussion and criticism on HN about the voting system, how things get on the front page, etc. So call me cynical if you want, but if your observation is true, than the vast majority of people are simply "unthoughtful" the vast majority of the time. (Which probably is true in some sense, unfortunately.)

(Ironically, I accidentally upvoted your comment and can't undo it. Perhaps bad form to mention it, but it seems funny somehow, given the context of the discussion.)
The answer is "Chuck Norris". Or you can typecast "Chuck Norris" to integer, that is 42.

For real, the quality of my answer equals to the quality of these questions.
I have a friend working on two of them right now, including www.gafanhoto.com.br and www.gengibre.com.br - if you'd like I can put you two in touch.
The book is a classic, its advice looks sensible, but I always found the title dreadfully cynical.

Having a friend is something else than knowing someone you can influence. It seems to me that finding real friends is much harder than applying this sensible, but limited advice.
I think Kurzweil completely missed the very important set up point that the campaign on Avavar was not being conducted by the most modern military forces of that time on Earth. It was being conducted entirely by a corporate entity and it's ex-military hirelings (think Blackwater).

I thought this point was particularly well though out.

No profit-driven model of an corporate military campaign to put down a native uprising would send state-of-the-art anything. They'd send on-hand dated military surplus weapons and equipment and troops to fire full auto machine guns, flamethrowers, napalm, white phosphorus rounds, field artillery, and lots of ammo.

State of the art military vs. peasant uprisings are useless. Watch the movie "Zulu Dawn" sometime.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulu_Dawn

Like the gatling guns on the front of A-10s and A-10s themselves the Air Force kept pulling out of retirement. Some situations just don't require anything more sophisticated than a gatling gun and something well armored and maneuverable to hang a gatling gun on the front of.
I tend to read all of the comments, regardless of their comment score. The score just ends up affecting what order the comments get read in, which is fine with me. I often see downvoted comments still receiving replies, so I'm not sure it's fully accurate to say that they are being ignored. Also, quality and insightfulness are still subjective. You may feel that a post is of high-quality and very insightful, but someone else may feel that the post is junk for their own reasons.
The author also forwarded this to a few mailing lists about how it might be the case that ISPs are cutting back on broadband deployments in part because they hope to get some stimulus money: FiOS buildout is dying, http://fastnetnews.com/dslprime/42-d/2637-fios-buildout-is-d...
ARGF, your new best friend
This might sound silly, but what about just listing those who have upvoted and listing those who have downvoted somewhere. I think there would be alot less downvotes if it wasnt anonymous.
I suppose my definition of "corrected" is different from yours. My definition of corrected means making the people you have wronged whole again. They took money from people and kept it and would have continued taking money from people in the same manner if Techcrunch hadn't have been so vocal about the zynga scam.

There's a video floating around of Mark Pincus telling a group of startups that it's okay to rip off people as long as you're making money.

It's atrocious behavior and I don't believe anything about it is at all acceptable. Until the situation really is corrected, this dude will have no respect from me.
don't forget the yang-mills mass gap and the navier-stokes initial value problem, both clay millennium problems and both rather important. Well the yang-mills one is probably more important, this list is a bit m-theory biased.

I think the m is originally for membrane, not "magic" but apparently its open to interpretation.
I don't really disagree with the point system being unfair but I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say "broken" either.

I think the karma system could work a lot better but it does do what it's intended which is to separate those who are dedicated to the community from those who are just fly-by trolls. I think that was all it was ever intended to do and in that sense it works well enough.

I think it's an important distinction because it reflects on what would happen when it gets "fixed". For example comments by those who just submit stories would be treated no differently than someone who just came on the site today. But I'd argue that someone who has a couple thousand submit points behind them cares quite a bit about the community and if they felt inspired to comment on something after never having commented before I'd consider that comment of the utmost importance.

So while the karma system is flawed it's not broken. It's just the most basic implementation of it's intent which is to reward people who have contributed to the community with status for having done so.
Patches welcome.

Been waiting years to say that.
I use Tomboy. It has some sort of sync function, but I don't use it.
Looks like no Apple iPad camera?
Ordered one for work and will order the 3G version myself (need a couple of weeks to build back up the personal budget). Looking at it, I will probably add the Dock and a wireless keyboard. I am not too keen on their case and will probably just by a third part sleeve to protect it in my bag.

The big question for me is what to do about my "actual" computer. I am no longer sure I am going to buy a portable. I might actually buy and iMac or Power Mac. I am really looking at my traveling habits and if I can get by with the iPad.
I think that's pretty misleading comparing Silk to Comic Sans. A more suitable comparison would be to something like Helvetica or Times New Roman. Ubiquitous and overused but still a dependable choice.
It seems the main site is down, but you can get them directly from GitHub:
http://github.com/yusukekamiyamane/fugue-icons
There's a big difference between exchanging money for a product that customers want (cigarettes) and taking money from people who don't know they are giving you money at all and who also receive nothing in exchange.
At 8:48 AM I placed my order. I want to be able to tell others in the future, that I was one of the first to partake on the shift from laptops to tablets. There's no doubt that this or some other device like it, will replace laptops in the same way that the former replaced desktops.

The vision for computing that originated over 40 years ago may finally have a chance to come to fruition with these types of devices. The iPad will initiate this movement. Only time will tell.
It's always good to distinguish between rules and judgment. Rules should assist in good judgment, not supplant it and push it out. This is essentially the root of much criticism of government and other large bureaucracies: That you often can't do things which make sense because it is against some silly rule. Start-ups have a chance to put good judgment to use without being hampered by entrenched, illogical, outdated or counterproductive rules. Hopefully, they will take that opportunity and run with it and then resist temptation to implement a bunch of bad rules (which is basically the topic of discussion of several recent threads here along the lines of "Don't go punishing all of your customers over the actions of one/a few").
No, have an iPhone and no need/want of an ebook/reader/netbook thing
Homebrew — MacPorts driving you to drink? Try Homebrew
Yeah, let's just have an infinite number of separate karmas to measure every attribute of each comment.

It's not that quantifying all of these things wouldn't be great, just that you very quickly will end up with a system way too complex to be reasonable.
Awesome. If nothing else, I'm going to put one up that has the "# Days Until I Quit My Job" metric. It's technically the days until my current gig ends and I can work full time on my project, but it will work for me.
No. No, we didn't wonder. We knew and they knew.
Looks pretty good to me and it's great that it's a full tutorial.
Yeah, I've tried that and many other things. It's just yet another thing I have to worry about when I am making my app. I don't have to worry about TCP buffers or filesystems or RAM allocation. Similarly, I don't want to worry the backend that runs my app. I just want to use it.
Health Fitness Dynamics
I think that really hits the nail on the head.

I don't know if people will ever stumble upon a set of interaction constraints that will make people civil if they're not already committed to civility. In that regard HN has always been good (but not perfect, as evidenced by some of the episodes mentioned in this comment section).

If someone lashes out and gets a calm response instead of being downvoted to oblivion or without being baited, the whole atmosphere becomes much less toxic (even if the original commenter insists on trolling).
The iPad and iPhone puts the needs of the user over the needs of the developer. I agree that the whole "take down the network" line is ridiculous -- but "take down your phone" is not at all ridiculous. Most of the apps I have bought are from unknown (to me) developers -- I would never download a Mac OSX app from any of them without doing a little research to get some confidence that it wasn't going to be malware. Most of the time, it isn't worth the trouble -- I buy OSX software all of the time, but only from established vendors.

With the app developer program, approval process and store, there is a pretty good chance (better than ever) that your device will keep working and that apps you use can't (won't try to) do anything malicious. It lets single developers get access to a market that is very hard to break into.

Certainly, there are decisions Apple has made with the AppStore and approvals that are ridiculous. But, in the history of all human endeavor, there is no complex operation that doesn't have problems. The vast majority of apps are approved without incident. Apple has solved many more worse problems with app distribution than the ones they created.

My main gripes are lack of transparency of the process (and your progression through it) and no way to revert to a previously approved version (or fast track a bug fix). Also, the lack of any way to offer paid updates is a big issue for funding future versions of apps. The control over the platform doesn't bother me at all (as a user or developer).
Hugely successful depends on where you look. Bu anyway, it doesn't really matter to the discussion, unless you are agreeing with me when I say that to most people the iPhone is just a better phone. Which is what the iPad is not.
Just an unsustainable schedule this week, which is why I am quitting. I think I probably hit 80 hours plus commute. Still, midnight to three, midnight to three, plus Saturday was enough for this.

Note that my budget for BCC is usually five hours a week. I am efficient because I have to be. One tactic is to make email check only Must Be Done task. Now I can get away without actually checking due to frame, for mornings without support email.
"His new strains of crops saved about a billion lives"

Yes, but with the extra 1 billion humans on earth, how many more animal species will be pushed into extinction each decade? How many more acres of rain forest will be destroyed every week? How many more barrels of oil will be pulled from the earth and burned into the air?

I'm personally against mass-scale chopping, burning, and killing, which I know that more people on this planet leads to.

Maybe the meme "the human species must expand at all costs" needs an evil check.
Now imagine that you are a programmer wanting to solve a problem by writing some code. How will you know whether there might be a claim against your work by an entity holding one of these 200,000 patents?

What if you are a mechanical engineer who wants to construct a new invention? How will you know if someone holds a patent claim on it already? What if you are a chemical engineer who wants to invent a new substance and someone has a patent claim on that?

The entire universe is nothing but math. It's all math. Statics and Dynamics is no more or less math than encryption algorithms. Everything that can be patented moves physical objects around the universe, whether they are magnetic poles on a spinning disk or they are levers, motors, and dirt and there are myriad patents on backhoes, cranes, and forklifts.

Math is all there is. Software is no more or less math than a lightbulb. Everything is math, because math is just a language used to describe the physical world around us.

The problems stated here are not unique to software, they exist in all fields where innovation is essential. Either do away with all patents or do away with no patents and reform the entire system.

Software is no more or less important than the planetary gear system in the Toyota Prius. Would the world be better if Ford, GM, and Honda could use the planetary drive system in their Hybrid cars? Maybe not! Maybe we wouldn't have a planetary drive at all! Why would Toyota spend so much money on R&D to build a great hybrid system if they knew Ford was just going to take their hard earned and expensive invention and make a bazillion dollars on it.

Ford can use the planetary drive if they pay to license it. Software developers can use patented algorithms if they pay to license them too -- that's the whole point -- protect the innovators who pour their hearts, minds, and souls into making the world a better place.

Unless there is a profitable mechanism like patents to protect intellectual property, the risk/reward ratio becomes prohibitive and I am not sure innovation won't be hurt.

I'm not saying we shouldn't do away with patents. Let's be pragmatic and see what happens, but what I do say is that software is no different than hardware. Equal opportunity under the law, for software engineers or mechanical engineers.

Why is there a difference? The more I look around the world, the more discrimination I see wrt software engineers. I think a lot of it is due to the abstraction. People can't see software. They can't see the for loops and while loops, but there is no difference between a gear that moves around in a circle and a loop construct in software, so why are people saying they should be treated differently under the law?
There are plenty of reasons why people should or shouldn't grab an iPad. If you have come to rely on MobileMe, which means you probably have a MacBook, iMac, and iPhone. Then an iPad would be great. I for one am more of a Google fanboy. I own a Droid Eris, I don't use Microsoft Office or iWork, I use Google Docs. I use Google Calendar, Reader and everything else Google. Therefore, there isn't any reason to buy an iPad. An Archos internet tablet is probably more suitable for me.
The only thing I am not sure about in this book is the whole "a person's name is the sweetest sound" thing. It is hard to use this piece of advice correctly, and more often than not comes across as " I just read Carnegie's book the other night". When I hear my name being used just for the sake of throwing it in a sentence, I make a mental check of whether I am being manipulated, and this is pretty much the only effect.
The threshold being 200.
Benny Peiser: Climate libel chill
This is a cool idea. I'm just wondering how people without credit cards would be able to join (I know quite a few people who don't have credit cards). Perhaps via a premium SMS (very few people have neither a mobile nor a credit card).
I almost ordered one, and still really want one, but got cold feet when I failed to find evidence of a way to get my own (read: not through Apple's eBook store) eBooks on and off the thing without iTunes - I'm a Linux user.

Unless someone on HN happens to know whether it's possible to use the iPad's WiFi to move data or eBooks in particular?

I thought the iPad's web browser might work, but if Apple decides to restrict its download mechanism or not have the downloaded books show up in the eBook reader, that might be a problem.

I'm probably worrying too much, but I'd hate to end up with a ~$800 device (3G) I can't really use much for the primary purpose for which I wanted it in the first place.
I completely missed that line when I first read the article and I even missed it when I read it again, to figure out what you were talking about. I guess that shows how relevant the point about the flying thing is to the content of the article.
More questions raised on Toyota Prius sudden acceleration cases
It doesn't matter that you know the solution. The correct answer is, "Gee, sorry. I don't know anything about the iPad. Ask the Google."
Someone also tried to expand the set, and hosted it here:
http://code.google.com/p/famfamfam/
At the risk of referring to that other site, you're not the only one that's uncomfortable:

http://www.reddit.com/r/DoesAnybodyElse/comments/b525v/dae_h...
Very interesting video, and I really like the practical demonstration of how the same "dataset" can mean something completely different depending on what you expect from it.

Its a nice way to show that even though you might consider yourself "completely unbiased" and taking the scientific approach, you might get the wrong result anyways.
This is no where near as big a problem these days with navigation systems. Of course, good cab drivers with the 'knowledge' will beat the navigation system ones a lot. At least now the bad cab drivers get you there now. Without having to spend 10 minutes reading a map.
If much of his cuts get passed, there is a real possibility some local munis will actually go bankrupt.

Yes, and I hope that happens. Just like the fed bailout of banks and of GM were wrong, we need to let bad institutions die. How else can society learn what works and what doesn't?

By keeping interest rates across the board obscenely low, we are providing much needed time for them to pay off debts.

Interesting thought, I hadn't considered it that way. The question is whether it's worth the cost.
It will be interesting to see what happens in the US now that all 4 major carriers have TV ads featuring Android phones.
If someone lashes out and gets a calm response instead of being downvoted to oblivion or without being baited, the whole atmosphere becomes much less toxic (even if the original commenter insists on trolling).

The other thing a calm (compassionate, tolerant) response does is it tends to prevent "train wrecks". One of the biggest problems with many online forums is the tendency for everyone to try to jump into the fray to "defend" righteousness and goodness and what not, thus keeping the fighting alive. Many of them are attempting to put a stop to the fighting but they miss the fact that fighting against the fighting is still fighting. Many people seem to just not know how to effectively defuse a negative situation and put a stop to it, which is a very different skill set than "arguing"/fighting. Fighting against it is the typical knee-jerk response of the vast majority of people, even for most very well educated and intelligent people. "Train wrecks" are best diverted by redirecting the flow of conversation in a constructive fashion rather than attacking the person who has said something that sounds asinine (but maybe wasn't really intended to be, they could be having a bad day or it's a pet peeve they aren't wholly rational about, etc).
"Hi mum. Plug your iPad into iTunes and click 'add device to authorized list' under the Advanced menu when dad is logged into his iTunes account."

That one actually isn't too hard to walk people through on the phone. I did it with my mom and dad for their iPod's a few months back. Took all of five minutes; most of which was waiting for the iPod's to finish syncing.
I think users of this forums, the majority of them programmers, can handle a few different karma arrows
Exactly one fellow MSFT employee has ever given me guff for using my iPhone. I told him to shove it, and every other employee I've told the story to was mortified that anyone would act that way.

In a 100,000 person company, you're going to have some douches, but the vast majority of people couldn't care less what kind of phone you use.
Roughly 10% of Microsoft employees said to be iPhone owners
The problem with the link is it's behind a subscriber paywall. In this case, I'm not even going to go through the trouble of using Google News first click to read it. I've gotten the news through many other resources.
Same thing with me. If I hear that someone except from my closest friends utters my name while speaking directly to me, all my alarm bells start ringing. It's stupid, because I know what my name is and people who did that in the past tend to turn out to be malicious.
I'm sure you know this, but be careful not to listen too much. Studies have shown that people abhor losses. In fact, a loss of $1 is 2-3x as significant as a gain of $1 to them.

When a product first starts charging, it triggers that reaction. If you had described Mixergy to them and said "this will cost $5" some people would have probably said "sure I'd pay that". But those same people, when used to getting it for free, now feel a loss of $5 when the price comes in.

The point being, not only will they get over it in time, but your new customers (which you hope to be 100x the size of your current base) will never have felt that loss.
Especially using a (touchscreen) phone.
Anyone know of a frame that works like this that can work without some third-party service for publishing? I'd like to do something like this on information that's under a strict NDA.
The Myth of China’s Manufacturing Prowess
One other article I read indicated that it was only the search engine itself they were looking to shut down, and not other operations. If that is the case, I'd be sorely disappointed in Google.
Kurzweil a smart guy, but I don't think I want to see him start up a movie review blog anytime soon