skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Isn't Poisson rate-based, ie events over a fixed time period? I'm having trouble seeing where you got the rate from (children per lifetime? but that's hardly a "fixed time period") - all we have is a single number "children/household" with no time dimension.

And most other distributions, ie other than the uniform I'm assuming and the Poisson you're using, require >1 parameters. Since we only have one piece of data (the mean) we would have to make assumptions with these distributions that make no more sense than simply assuming a uniform distribution to begin with.

You'll have to excuse me for any incredibly stupid intuitive leaps; I haven't had a chance to wake up fully yet.
"Often if you get a decent suite of unit tests you are only a few requirements changes or change requests away from half of them breaking. Unit tests are software. That may sound trite but it’s worth remembering. The larger and more complex your unit tests, the more code you’ve written to implement a particular feature (the tests count in that metric) and that’s more code you have to change."

This is a huge objection I share, on projects I've worked on that have lots of unit tests, a lot of time ends up being spent on debugging the unit tests. That time is valuable and could be spent on making the application better.

The author doesn't really address this concern either, even though it was clearly a problem for him in the past.
Books do advertise, though in a much more tasteful manner: What would you call the one-page blurbs that contain a listing of other books by the author, and maybe even teaser chapters of other books that trade paperbacks contain?
Speaking for myself, it's very difficult to take you seriously when you use hyperbole to this extreme. Let's be completely honest here: you wrote it this way because you knew it would get more of a reaction and people wouldn't just ignore it, like they would have if you had written "It mildly annoys me." In other words, you changed your messaging to fit the market and get the results you wanted from people through emotional manipulation. Sound familiar?
>Your backup might fail if your computer's name contains apostrophes (which is default in Mac OS X).

How hard could it be to fix this ? It looks like a sloppy script, not sure one should rely their backups on this.
It's only great for the women who aren't murdered at birth. I'm not sure there's a clear winner in this gender war interpretation of yours.

EDIT: Did the math and concluded that for a normal sex ratio of ~103 to turn into one of 120, you'd have you be losing 14 of every 100 females through either prenatal abortion or unreported killing at birth.
1. Good point. I was definitely forced to use it. Nowadays it's probably more like a first taste language for most new developers though.
> I think a language which manages to hide the complexity of monads without removing them

Hm, I'm not sure this is possible: a great part of the "complexity" of monads is because it's a similar (and fairly simple!) structure that applies to a great many apparently unrelated concepts: function sequencing, backtracking, and what have you.
Ask HN: Mario AI, Google AI like contests ?
I get know about contests like http://julian.togelius.com/mariocompetition2009/ and http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/contest/ only after the winners are announced.

Can anyone point me to an upcoming contest of a similar kind ?
Double irony bonus: it's an ad for a glorified ad network.
Links ..
http://julian.togelius.com/mariocompetition2009/
http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/contest/
i love the deck...
ShopSense is an ad network, but surely you see the difference between those ads and ads for acai berries, teeth whiteners, and the University of Phoenix online?

The author doesn't hate ad networks per se -- he hates ad networks as they exist today. So his company went and built a better one, which not only looks better but performs better.
Honestly, why would anyone take offence at this and downvote? Most of human history has been dominated by men and it has been war after war after war. Throw in the several male prophets whose followers have created several religions and the subsequent strife and women win by at least 1000 points. At this point it shouldn't even be an issue which is the better gender.
even the relatively intelligent and contrarian crowd on HN doesn't like hearing this. there's no way we're not screwed in the long term.
Dot-com bust ripples still felt 10 years later
Yes. You seem to have a problem with that?
I think twitterrific is a great example of (relatively) unobtrusive advertising. They've pulled it off well.
Exactly. Standard IE is no longer the throw-anything-at-it (and pretty fast as well) browser, unfortunately.
Damnit! I keep getting that mixed up. And frowned at.
The parent post was modded down to -1, but had no replies. That is NOT appropriate on this site.

You only downmod for spam and stupid comments. If they are wrong they go to 0. If you disagree then reply, but you don't downmod just because you disagree.
I think the author is trying to say ask if people should treat the cat-and-mouse game between businesses and consumers with the same respect as exchanges between individuals. I agree it's morally questionable to "get, get, get, and not be willing to give", however, how many companies do you expect to think that way when dealing with consumers?
MixergyNotes on Gurbaksh Chahal, founder of gWallet and self-made millionaire.
Perhaps they could redirect first offenders to a summary of this article with a link to the article at the bottom and see how that goes.

Split test it first of course if you are reading this Ken!
Urban Dictionary is essentially Hot or Not for words and phrases. Take that for what you will.
We'll all be rooned! said Hanrahan.

http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/obrienj/poetry/hanraha...
The lesson here is if you want to protect your reputation you need a name that is not likely to be a pornstar name.
Not really. Those guys at MathOverflow are ruthless. Try posting a question and see what happens.
What's so awesome about your comment is that you just proved the authors point ;)
I just took a look at the startup they mention, flowtown.

By all appearances they're just scraping data from all the social networks, canonicalizing it based on email, and aggregating it.

Is there any possible way to do this without violating the services TOS's?
If you set up a Google Account with your domain email address wouldn't that explain this?
I showed nearly that same picture to a class just two weeks ago. (I didn't draw the whole circle or the line segment representing the interval above it -- I just drew a line and a semicircle and said "this (pointing at the semicircle) is the unit interval bent into a semicircle.)" It's a very powerful demonstration, IMO.
I agree completely. I think some ad networks are precisely the reason people end up installing ad blockers. Others filter and target very effectively (The Deck, among others). I think there is a great space in the market right now for non-sleazy, well-targeted and well-designed post-ad-network ad networks, and I think the author's fits the bill nicely.

It just seems a little silly to promote your forward-thinking foray into the ad network space under the blanket statement of "I Hate Ad Networks". :)

From the site: "We already have strong business relationships with all the top retailers and ShopStyle gets paid for driving them traffic. Why not distribute ShopStyle around our sites?"

They act as if this is a brand new idea, when in fact this was the driving force behind the creation of ad networks in the first place. Theirs just happens to be a particularly well-implemented one.
I don't think this is completely true. There may not be tons of "proofs without words" in it, but the book Proofs from the Book is a great example of a nice collection of elegant proofs of elementary propositions that convince at a level that's much more effective than a pure, logical demonstration. Sure, you won't find these things in math journals -- you have to look in things like Mathematics Magazine, College Mathematics Journal, and various recreational mathematics and mathematics education journals. The fact that it's out there in print shows that somebody values this stuff.
A Very Brief History of the Pocket
THE BILLIONAIRE BOYS' CLUB (1996)
The funny thing is that at least people back then dreamed big, even if it turned out to be stupid after the fact.

Now people just chase after social graph and all try to make money off it in some way or another. Can anyone point me to a startup doing something cool that has he potential to change the world?
Legalizing armed robbery = Jobs
It's always annoying when the article doesn't define exactly what qualifies as "idle chit chat" and what qualifies as "deep discussion". How about gossip? Is it in a category of it's own or does it fall in "idle chit chat" because I know plenty of happy people that just gossip.
Even if true, it's a very polarizing thing to say. It drags the conversation towards an unhealthy, flamey place.
As others have pointed out, we were screwed in the long term anyway. We (1) ran deficits through the previous decade, (2) we left the interest rates too low for too long and (3) we went on a spending binge in all levels of society (consumers bought too much, banks lent too much).

The time for making the correct choices has long passed. Now there are only bad choices and worse choices. If we hadn't done (1) and (3), then running deficits right now would be a good option. After a certain point, increases in debt begin to dampen growth in GDP, which means that the gov't won't be able to stimulus away the problem anymore.

In that light, the current administration is merely doing what makes sense. Spend whatever amount of stimulus makes sense during their tenure because the economy will need it whether it's now or later. Not spending it will mean that whoever is the challenger in 2012 may well win, and whoever the challenger is will probably dish out stimulus money in some form or another anyway.
Correct by posting these comments I have been promoting the idea of middle men such as ourselves to create ad markets for direct participation by buyers and sellers (individuals and firms). I meant that the flavor, i.e. whether modelled after matchmaking services, auction sites, or the stock market doesn't matter there are plenty of options for ideas that could work.
Although cryptic, I'd say that gcc's error messages are manageable. I'd hold other factors, such as performance of compiled code - across platforms - to be more important. Alternatively, they could improve on the C++ template error reporting (when they get around to taking C++ support beyond alpha) and that may be enough to sell me.

a quick search yields http://clang.llvm.org/performance.html
(favourable, but somewhat skewed results). http://forums.cocoaforge.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=21016 indicates improved compile times, but it's purely anecdotal.

That said, does anyone else have any experience moving a performance-centric or cross platform project to clang?
If somebody disagrees I would like to know their stance on it and their argument against my view. Being downvoted certainly says people don't approve of the comment but I don't see how it's polarizing or why it's wrong to make polarizing comments if there is a modicum of truth in it. I'll chalk it up to my Asperger's syndrome.
FreeBSD kernel stack overflow exploit development
The Top Ways To Beat Bloat
I just sent a 40 pound box clear across the country UPS ground for less than $30. Say what you want about the bailouts or makeworks but our interstate roads are a freakin' national treasure.

I'm sure its possible to spend too much on roads but I don't think we've ever come even close. (I also think that while people are a bit more relaxed about owning that bit of "investment property" that they may one day build a house on and retire, it might be a fantastic time to greatly expand our railway lines.)
This makes me think of a more general principle: usually the people with patents have more resources the the people without, so they have a bigger say in how long patents are valid. Which means all else being equal patent terms will always be longer then optimum.

Probably the best way to go around this is to have/create the political will to deliberately level the playing field for newcomers instead of incumbents.
The world still has a lot of wealth and is continually generating more wealth. The financial system is imaginary enough that our best macroeconomists can probably sort out the collapse of US government debt. It won't be pretty, but it won't be the end of the world or even the end of the USA.
Social graphs have been around since the time there have been social animals. It's just now there is a technology to make it more explicit and exploit it for profit.
You don't have to convince me — you have to convene me.

I'm excited about clang but it's not that important: gcc is good enough. I'll just wait until I can install it from Ubuntu repositories, and then I'll happily try out and hopefully switch over to clang.
Microsoft's open source authenticated anonymity and pseudonymity SDK (U-Prove)
IPhone lessons from Google's Nexus One | Phones | iPhone Central | Macworld
When everybody's fully employed, breaking windows to "create work" simply diverts income from one place to another at the current moment - people spend to replace windows that they would have productively used elsewhere.

But if the government spends money hiring unemployed and underemployed people to do jobs, even so crude a job as dig holes and refill them (though of course that's not particularly efficient, as it doesn't build capital), it can either take that money out of the system at a later date (i.e. deficit spending) or inflate it away via seigniorage. The point being that the shift in spending is temporal. And that's precisely what you want in a recession.
Cool video, but it seems like all the "magic" is taking place in the custom software, and the details aren't revealed. Anyone have more insight about this?
I do it with sites like nytimes.

If there's an article on here from nytimes, I just don't bother with it any more. They have a paywall/subscription thingy and I just can't be bothered to google for login details.

But it's fairly simple to just block sites that annoy you - firewall/hosts/etc
PPP says essentially to "divide by the cost of a BigMac." A BigMac might cost more in Europe, but they don't eat them. It's silly.

The result of PPP is that it makes the poorest states in the US appear to be richer than places like Switzerland. Go visit Switzerland, then Louisiana, and come back here and we'll talk.
I think the standard requires that.
> Can anyone point me to a startup doing something cool that has he potential to change the world?

As cliche as it is to say it -- Facebook. Actually, they have already changed the world. How so?

I graduated high school in 1995. At the time, a few people had email, but we didn't really use it to stay in touch. When we graduated and went to different colleges, we pretty much lost touch. We might see these people during break, but I stopped going home at break.

I've reconnected with a whole bunch of high school friends thanks to Facebook.

And you know what? When you talk to kids that are graduating now, they don't identify loosing touch with their friends as a problem. Even if they go to different schools, they just check out Facebook, and they are all caught up. When they go home for break, they just pick up where they left off on Facebook the day before.
If your browser lacks a certain capability for reasons other than avoiding paying content providers for their content you consume, it's their responsibility to work around that weakness, or else forbid you from using the site. If they do neither, then it's a tacit agreement that in your special case they are willing to provide the content for free.
If you'll read carefully, the analogy was on the argument, not the person nor the action.
Saying something so obviously controversial and polarizing demands more backup than the mere statement itself. You know your opinion is going to be unpopular, so the onus is upon you to expand upon that idea in your original post, otherwise it looks like you're just trolling.

In response to your later justification, though, most western societies have been patriarchal, so the fact that we've been very successful at fighting and killing each other is not an indication that women somehow would not if given the chance.

Your argument breaks down to this: since men are so bad at keeping the peace, women must therefore be better at it.
high degrees of corruption"?

The US is #19 on the list:
http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/...

"low degree of political freedom"?
#20 in Freedom of the Press
http://www.rsf.org/en-classement1003-2009.html
roody, rufus, reek, flay, flog, probably more. Sadly, in the current state of the ruby community it's even hard to find a library that will run with ruby's own warnings enabled.
Presumably you can make the content on your site dependent on Javascript to the extent that browsing without it will be pointless.
People 55 and Older Start Own Businesses in Growing Numbers
Clementine-player - the real amarok
No, I wrote it this way because I do feel strongly about it. I used the word "devastated" as a play on the title of the other article. I'm not "devastated", but I do feel strongly enough about this issue to alter my lifestyle, for example (e.g. avoiding TV and radio, which I very much wish I was able to enjoy).

I expect some people will agree and some disagree with what I wrote. I enjoy the discussion, but I don't get anything else out of it. I didn't have any notion that I'd convince anyone of anything. It was not an attempt to manipulate anyone. Not a conscious attempt anyways. Certainly not an attempt to manipulate people into giving me money, so I think the analogy doesn't hold.

However I may be wrong about this, it may be that my language is overboard in the way you say. Thanks for some food for thought.
I think the issue with webapp fart apps is they'll be dependent entirely on ads. What fueled the novelty apps for iPhone was the fact that you got paid first through the app store.
Thanks, I really appreciate you sharing your experience. That bit in your blog about "getting legal before legal gets you" had had me a little concerned. I had been thinking that somehow there was a requirement to make a real company in order to do software sales above some modest $ amount.

If you still haven't made an LLC, that assumption was clearly wrong, and the barrier I'd had to getting started is illusory. It's time to get to work!

Last question for you-- did you have to register your sole proprietorship with anyone or can you pretty much just make a website and start selling your software?
I wouldn't go so far as to say people like ads. They tolerate them and are influenced by them, yes, but like? That's taking it to a bit of an extreme.

For my case, even though I'm defending these advertisements, I think they are poison. When possible, I pay to get service that lacks ads. If I could pay Google $100 per year to not show me any Adsense or Adwords ads, for example, I probably would.
In response to your later justification, though, most western societies have been patriarchal, so the fact that we've been very successful at fighting and killing each other is not an indication that women somehow would not if given the chance.

But that's just it. The entire time men have been behaving badly women haven't even shown the slightest interest in participating so that's already evidence enough for me to make some conclusions about which is the more docile and empathetic gender.
Mate, take a tip from iamelgringo. Call it out upfront and state clearly what the organization is. From what I see Bootstrappers Breakfast is a lead generation opportunity for your business.

Many events in the valley are run by current founders for current founders or run by angels as leadgen. The assumption is that you're either an investor or a founder that wants to give back. If you're doing it for contract leadgen (e.g. the startups you engage with are paying for your services in cash or stock) and you're not calling that out upfront you're treading on assumptive good will.

In short: If you're going to use news YC as a venue to self-promote, then be upfront.
Long ago I complained to Google about my name being associated with pornographic ads. They fixed it very fast.
"Uhm, what?!"

That's exactly what I was thinking. Happened to me with Avatar in a big cinema.
Not so sure about that. Online contact is way different from face to face contact and I don't know about you but when you have 200+ people on your friends list it turns into a different kind of social game than when you are hanging out with 3 of your best friends at the local pub.
I just started a new article series on my blog about "Visual Proofs". I also explain why they work:

http://www.catonmat.net/blog/visual-math-friday/
RIAA Claims File Sharers Are 'Undermining Humanitarian Efforts In Haiti'
I was surprised that Ars is payed by impressions, I thought it is all pay per click these days.
^_^ Just Do It

I learn to make money online and adsense same as blogs

http://bydholding.blogspot.com
http://makemoney-mrrath.blogspot.com
change the world?

For definitions of "change the world" which include "Will solve boring problems for entire industries" I'm thinking Twilio. Every time I hear folks rhapsodic about the possibilities of the mobile Internet I think "Eh, it is going to be a decade or two until that hits folks who are not Valley types" and then Twilio was like "Hey guys, every phone capable of receiving voice calls now speaks HTTP. Go remake a billion dollar industry."
Sure, but what I wanted to express is that blocking ads does not feel like stealing to me. Circumventing their site block would feel like stealing.
Ask HN: Are there any tests I can run on a network to simulate 100 heavy users?
I will be hosting a Ruby on Rails workshop at a small hotel in the near future, and while they have 'Wifi' everywhere on the property, and the property normally hosts 150 - 300 people, I am not 100% confident that they have hosted 150 tech people that tend to have heavy web surfing habits/needs.

Their tech department is also 1 or 2 guys.

Are there any automated tests I can download and run from my laptop, on the network, that would simulate 100 'heavy users' on the network at the same time?

Their broadband pipe is a 15mbps cable connection. Would that suffice for the general surfing needs of 100 - 150 techies? I know all it takes is 1 or 2 bit torrenters to kill the entire network, but assuming we can at the very least block those ports or encourage the attendees not to file share on the network, would that speed suffice for general surfing needs?

What are good resources online that would allow me to quickly get up to speed on the IT related issues, so that I can ask their sysadmins the right questions?

Edit: Note that I am fairly technical, so assume I can get up to speed quickly even with technical manuals, etc.
So what's the point of going green
Beware of the downsides: e.g. if you accrue many days of "illegal" status, then let's say your mom is sick back in the UK, you go home to see her, and now when you want to re-enter, immigration's going to say, "yeah - sorry, we remember you." Who knows if that ban will ever be lifted, but would that be worth it ?

Plus, there are other things to consider that would be difficult if you got here illegally, e.g. driver's license, or renewing your passport at your own embassy here in the US (they'll ask you for documentation)

That said, I'm sure it's worked out for some, but .. there are certainly risks involved here that you need to be aware of.
gcc with the dehydra plugin is doing better and deeper static analysis than clang.