skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The real reason why C/C++ worked out so much better among the top bots is because it is faster, allowing the C/C++ bots to explore more of the game tree.
Using Sonar for Laptop Power Management
Swords are much longer (unless you really liked Crocodile Dundee) - that means you're more likely to successfully parry or block if you're skilled. But a knife? Avoiding it and getting cut are the only options really.
"Zuck" was a disaster in 2007. Mitch Kapor gave a great speech (one of the best, actually) on why to be a meritocracy, not a "mirrortocracy", in which there's low diversity of thought, age, and gender among influential people.

Zuckerberg came on an hour later and started about how one should only hire young people.
Valley VCs long for 'Netscape moment'
Actually, they are working on a $75 tablet:

http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/22/tablet-computer-negroponte-...
I'm not impressed by Mark, but I don't see a good reason to hate him, especially regarding the second, which is not at all his fault.
$99 is cheap for pre-release access considering it used to be $500.
Nike Blazer Premium SB Kiss Midwest Gold Black
> Health should always be far far far more important than money,

Currently, I've got mild damage in my left elbow, both knees, and one of my teeth is very slightly chipped from a martial arts match. I could afford treatments to all of these, but I choose not to because there's other stuff I value more with my money. I like that I can make that choice for myself.

I also like that no one has any say in what I do with my life - I can eat horrible fried foods, or not, I can drink loaded-with-fructose beverages, or not, I can smoke cigarettes and drink vodka, or not, and so on - and no one else has a say, because I pay for my own medicine and medical treatment. If everyone had to pay for my medicine, then logically they'd want a say in how I lived my life. I don't want to pay for someone who gets a preventable disease because of lifestyle choices, and I don't want someone to pay for mine. I'm happy that I get choice over my own life, and others don't get a say in how I live it, and I don't want a say in how others live their lives.
Chrome Extension to re-enable the blink tag
Apple to offer developers simple tools for monetizing iPhone apps
Are you sure you're not confusing Aikido with the manga Aiki?
Only if a patent on patent trolling was set up up so that it could be used by everyone. I'm guessing its possible somehow to grant a license to use a patent to every person, living or dead, now or in the future for an unlimited period of time.
cool, sent! :)
Blackhat Tactics FTW!!!!
Mac Developer license falls to $99/year, Mac App Store coming?
I just did an experiment: I took a picture of a box of "Nueva Cocina" brand red beans and rice, once with the logo obscured, and once with the logo visible.

Neither image returned a brand name ("Red Beans and Rice" & "Red Beans and Rice Box"), even though most of my other attempts have. Most puzzling though - I took a third picture, a close up of the logo with only the letters "VA CO" visible in the image. The response: "Viva Cocina".

What does this mean? If it was truly an algorithm, it should have been able to associate the logo with "Nueva Cocina" correctly, which it did not. But the fact that the response was remarkably close to correct leads me to think that not only is this crowdsourced, the same person must have gotten two of my images in a row, and just forgot the exact brand name. WTF? A bit creepy.
Oh the joys of predicting media innovations. There are plenty precedents, so anyone with any view can find more than enough examples to support his view. I think we are looking more at a iPad:Book::CD:LP or iPad:Book::MP3:CD than a iPad:Book::Radio:Book scenario (where iPad includes all other current and future similar devices). But that’s just me.

(Note to all fuming LP fans: I know fully well that you can still buy LPs. You will still be able to buy printed books in one hundred years. That’s not the point.)
How many applications that run only (or, at least, better) on non-x86 boxes were developed in the last couple years?

The answer to this question is that a vast number of applications that only run on the iPhone's ARM have been developed in the last few years. Also a large number of web applications that run fine on on both ARM and x86 have been developed.

The dying architecture is actually x86 because Windows is becoming irrelevant for consumers. Not overnight, but it's happening. OS X runs on x86, but I wouldn't be too surprised if Apple some day moves their laptops to ARM, considering they have to do something interesting with their new, homegrown chips.
Is anyone able to provide the names/urls of a few reputable escrow services? We should direct people to known companies rather than setting people the near impossible task of assessing whether or not an escrow service suggested by the other side is legitimate.
Common Lisp's userbase has become one of the most bitter, self-important cesspools of snobbery the programming world has ever seen

There's a lot of truth to this. C.l.l. is horrible and #lisp is often horrible. Sometimes my jaw drops at what assholes they are.

That being said, there are quite a few people using Lisp actively who are nice. The problem is that they (we? I hope) are scattered and relatively isolated. One glimmer of hope to me is that the community around Clozure Common Lisp is sane and functional. If there is to be another renaissance of Common Lisp, I wouldn't be surprised if it grew out of there.
Things like XNA for XBox/Zune cost $99 a year to deploy to a real device. The free versions of visual studio are somewhat limited also but still generally good.
I'd argue that Git greatly changed (maybe more so enhanced then changed) the model of the kernel and it seems that Linus did consider ESR's advice ultimately, and maybe that's what drove him to create git.
UC Berkeley Startup Fair
I thought $500 was if you wanted a Hardware Credit and $99 was prerelease.
I couldn't agree more with this post. Get comfortable with a VC that knows your space. You will know quickly that they aren't interested. Also, he makes a valid point to go out and $%%*^ Show something that is getting traction. VC's are number crunchers, they can't predict the future (i.e they won't invest in something you say is going to be huge, especially in today's funding env.)

Ask yourself something: Would you risk your business idea on your own credit cards? If not, neither will they. Go risk your own cash and make it work. It shouldn't take much to know if it's going to work or totally bellyflop. Saves everyone a bunch of time. There is enough web knowhow these days to push a simple version of your product out for free. Just do it (it applies to everything, $thatswhatshesaid
really, I just think that the necessary pervasiveness of the pattern indicates that the language is not as powerful as it could be

I think you're wrong, but I don't know how to explain it. The pattern is "running a procedure, and then running another one". Let me know when you "work around" that.
I'm responding just because what you are writing about is dangerous, and your unwarranted confidence is irresponsibly influencing impressionable people.

Dan Inosanto used to run (and maybe still does) knife defense courses for, among others, police officers.

The rule of thumb is that in knife-vs-gun situations, if your gun is holstered, the magic number to not die is 15 FEET. If a knife-wielding attacker is within 15 feet of you, trying to race him by drawing your gun to shoot him is more likely to end with you getting stabbed.

> A knife would certainly hurt more but adrenaline can keep you moving.

...And then you bleed to death.

> I guess my training revolved around the idea that the you should never surrender an advantage if you have it.

Being ALIVE is the real advantage. "Winning" a fight doesn't mean anything when you're going into shock on the way to the hospital.

Even if you beat someone up and escape without a scratch, the guy's buddies might kill you in your hotel room two years later.
Yes, I've heard. Kills competitors by the hundreds. And if HE were here, he'd consume the Google with fireballs from his eyes, and bolts of lightning from his arse!
Now if they'd only replace the penny, nickel, dime and quarter with a more practical 50 cent piece...
the same 2 million dollar treatment probably costs 3-5 grand in Mexico or India. Personally I think health tourism is going to be much more popular soon, since the healthcare costs in the states are getting less and less affordable.
$99 was for a student developer. You got one lifetime hardware credit with that membership type.
Isn't 1300 users per box extremely low for a load test?
so, did anyone try this, this evening? i need to go out for a run, and then get some sleep, but i've got an initial result for the "duct" question that's taking 6s on my laptop, but it's quite possible i have some bugs (ie i may be completely wrong). i should have written some tests on the way... :o)

and if anyone is thinking of trying, i'd recommend it - it's not a huge amount of code and requires at least one smart idea (i think - had me bashing my head against a wall for a while...).

[if anyone wants to compare results - just the final number, no spoilers please - then drop me an email]
I don't know, being hit hard by a rock would probably throw me off balance.
I forsee iPhone app developers needing to get separate approval for their apps to port over to the Mac/iPad platform.
Anyone, especially anyone in the legal field, would have to be gullible to believe that Roberts will retire any time in the next 20 years. Longevity on the court is one reason he was put there.
What (exactly) changed between the old and new programs? The link is to the new page. Is there a "list of changes" somewhere?
What is Amazon going to do about a Russian company?
I hope his overconfident demeanor isn't giving you ideas about "winning" knife fights. It's very easy to talk tough. Not getting stabbed is a lot harder.
Death of Esteemed CS Researcher Likely a Result of Health Insurance Malignance
None of his friends wanted to speak about his personal life, but at least one confidant, angry at some callous comments on a tabloid website, aimed to set the record straight: “The financial pressures on this couple were severe: They had already used up all insurance benefit limits, and burnt through their own personal savings with their retirement savings following rapidly,” a source posted on the New York Daily News website.

“We should put the blame for Sam’s death where it belongs. We have the technology to keep little girls like that alive. We have a society that pretty much insists upon doing so. But we put the financial and organizational and emotional burden entirely on the parents.”
if you don't know what it means, then there's not much point in arguing with you.
We've already seen the iPad App Store. Its demoed by Steve Jobs in the iPad unveiling. It is basically the iPhone app store, with a UI that's more suited to the iPad.
Why, When And How To Vote For OurDoings In The PayPal X Developer Challenge
Assuming no anti-aging progress, me being 90 implies that I've got 15 years left of life, tops... and most likely 2-4 given that I've just had a transplant. I'd be willing to give that up in order for someone else to live, as long as I can die a decent death. I believe that there are benefits to doing the right thing, both in the here and the hereafter.

It'd be a harder decision if I was 50 and had children who depended on me, and if the 20-year-old didn't have good odds anyway (or had done something incredibly stupid). Then I might be tempted to do make the "selfish" decision if it were mine to make. But not if I am 90 and decrepit.
Here's the 10,000,000,001st, if anyone's looking for a keepsake: http://twitter.com/SheSz_FUcINgBAD/status/10000000001
Agreed: ARM is in no danger of going the way of the dodo. It's the dominant platform on mobile devices.

Unfortunately, the ARM's dominance can have a negative effect in the diversity of the segment, thus slowing down evolution on mobile platforms. Still, until app availability weights the market down, mobile is more resistant to fragmentation and friendlier to hardware diversity.

I would be delighted to see an ARM-based full-featured notebook, running an open and portable userland, but I fear Apple is not a company that will favour diversity. Given time, we may end up with the same problems we face today.

We need more than one alternative to x86. We need a fragmented market.
if you were planning to use the same private method, then you probably shouldn't have put it in the pipeline in the first place.
What a great post. This is a similar story as mine except it was for a lot smaller (seed) amount to churn out a prototype. For 6 months almost every meeting was at a bar until we closed, and just last month we finally put together a financial model and deck.

We hope to launch this month after working on it for 3, and now starting to look for a bigger round. I fully agree with finding investors that fit and not just taking on money to take it. On top of seeding us, our investor turned over a trademark and preliminary patent to the company. I think it's crucial to find a good match if you want to continue loving your company while working with shareholders.

Good luck Backupify!
John here, Founder of isocket.

Part of the "open" approach we're taking is not forcing publishers to use our ad server if they don't want to. We have one, but some publishers (like TechCrunch) use our plugins with other ad servers like GAM.

So you won't see our tags on TechCrunch's page, but many of those ads were purchased through our system.

Cheers,
Doing More with the Django Admin Site
624MHz Marvell PXA303 processor, 2GB of flash storage and runs Windows CE
Dinosaur extinction link to crater confirmed
And, of course, had to be a student. (You had to send in a copy of your ID, IIRC.)
The hat is bigger than ever, but still no sign of the cattle.
How wings work, two competing explanations
"I've heard stories of approvals for updates within an hour recently."

For whatever this anecdote is worth: Within the past week I encountered this in the wild. I saw that an update for an app was available and immediately installed it. Later the same day, I saw another update was available for the same app.
http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aero/airflylvl3.htm

It's amazing that there still isn't rock solid agreement on how to explain this kind of stuff.

I guess it's a reminder to always question.
I had one lecture in one course that was more or less about this; as I recall, one of the first sentences out of the prof's mouth that day was (paraphrased) "Don't tell anyone it was me who told you this." It was certainly an interesting (if rather depressing) lecture.
3Com Audrey
I don't want to have to choose my platform based on where my readers might be.

That's too bad, because if you don't target your writing style to your medium you're never going to have any readers.

You're going to produce the literary equivalent of a Java desktop application: Generic, out-of-place no matter where it goes, and slightly tone-deaf, like a sentence in a foreign language that's gone through an automated translation system.

Twitter is a social space with its own rules, traditions, and capabilities. Facebook is its own thing. Blogging is its own thing. Email is its own thing. HN comments are their own thing. Get these genres confused and you're gonna pull a Google Buzz. "Oh, I can derive a social network out of people's email address books and suddenly email will work just like Facebook!" Um, no. That's creepy and wrong, because my address book isn't my friends list, and email isn't like a Facebook status update.

These days, my own favorite writing medium appears to be the HN comment. I can't really explain why. But the style is unique: This comment wouldn't work on Twitter, chopped up into a slew of 140-character haiku. It would make a poor blog post -- it's too dependent on HN context, it doesn't stand on its own, and I'm mortally afraid to try and title it. [1] It would scarcely make an article or a book -- that would require actual thought! My Facebook friends don't care about hypothetical issues in social media design. If I wanted to email this to people, what list of recipients would I choose, and how could I be sure that I wasn't just spamming them?

Electronic media haven't diversified because we're somehow unable to figure out a standard. They've diversified because people like them that way. We like a variety of media, perhaps because the audience we find in one medium is never quite like the audience in another, and because the constraints of a particular medium help us to shape our creations.

---

[1] Perhaps my problem with blogging as a medium is that blog posts need both a headline and a body. They say that every additional field in a form halves the response rate.

When I'm in the mood to write a block of text I want to write, not waste time trying to sum up that writing with a pithy title and figuring out which tags to apply to it. The urge to be a writer is different from the urge to be a publisher or a librarian.
Rapportive - making excellent service scale
Those are device developer programs, though. XNA for PC is free, and pretty much all major desktop PC development tracks are free. iPhone/XBox/etc are a different story (and my understanding is that $99 is cheap for such a program).
John here, Founder of isocket.

Sorry guys, but you'll have to blame the strange ads on Google =)

Publishers on isocket can put another ad network's code in as a default setting - so that when their ad space isn't sold directly, it will default to AdSense / whatever.

We do not arbitrage or sell your unused inventory for our benefit.

In terms of our business model - yes, we're actually commission-free. It's a flat monthly fee. Sorry to do this to ya, but we haven't publicly announced what the pricing is yet.

Cheers
Simple one time pad
I've been reading quite a bit about encryption and what not and came across the one time pad. And am wondering if this is an accurate example or have I missed something.

Message:loveyou

key of random characters:spgbwoz

encrypted message = message + key modulo 26
$99 used to be ADC Student, which came with one, nonrenewable hardware discount (one discount, regardless of how many times you renew) and possibly a WWDC student scholarship (you had to apply for it).

$500 was ADC Select, which had one renewable hardware discount plus a couple dev support tickets, prerelease software and 2 compatibility lab visits/month.

There was also ADC Premiere ($1600?) that had even more dev support tickets, multiple hardware discounts, a WWDC ticket and 3 compatibility lab visits/month.

ADC Select and/or Premiere may have also come with WWDC videos from the previous year(s). I know Student didn't.

Now, there's one program with no hardware discount, some (not sure how much) seed access to prerelease software (although, don't know if its simply y++ in 10.x.y or x++) and two (I believe) support tickets.

The programs had different access to videos, I'm not sure what they did/didn't have access to though, don't remember off-hand.

I do wonder whats going on with their Compatibility Labs though, http://developer.apple.com/labs/. Doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere and the page still mentions select/premier.
I had that idea too, and so did thousands of other people. Twitter is the one who executed on that idea.
Cucumber on Windows: BDD Through a Browser
Ha, I saw that one. I thought he came off like an arrogant princeling, and the mood was ugly. In retrospect I think he was just inexperienced.
is this on github? any idea? tks
I'm suggesting a situation where you pay taxes on $50, with revenue of $100, vs. paying taxes on $50 with revenue of $50.
I have noticed one or two Clojure articles that border on "douchewienery", but only on personal blogs. I haven't noticed any bad behavior on the Clojure group.

That said, I haven't noticed that much negativity in the Ruby community either, aside from on Zed Shaw's blog, so perhaps I'm just looking in the wrong places. (Or the right places, depending on one's point of view.)
Seems to me an a guy who couldn't get hired as a physicist had a rather large effect on physics in 1905. The hiring process is a form of 'peer review'.
Actually, the problem with Monads in other languages is that they do disappear behind the statement separator (semi-colon in many languages). In Haskell terms, you're stuck in the IO Monad and can never, ever get out of it.

An analogy: C has the array-dereference operator []. But that pattern is locked into the language, you can't do _anything_ but dereference C arrays in exactly the way the operator does. C++, Python, C#, and a wide variety of other languages unlock the array dereferencer by permitting the operator to be overloaded, and thereby permitting things other than a straight-up C array deference, ranging from dereferencing into something that presents the interface an array does (like some sort of ordered tree) but is not literally laid out as a contiguous block of memory, to things that aren't arrays at all, like keying into hash tables.

Accusing Haskell of being "less advanced" because it actually exposes Monads to you and permits you to use them is very much like accusing C++ of lacking power vs. C because it permits you to overload the square brackets. If you put aside the question of whether it's a good thing to have the power (a separate debate in both cases), it's not a very sensible accusation to level against Haskell.

The Monad pattern appears everywhere in every language whether you know it or not, Haskell merely exposes to the user something that is already there. Calling a monad a "programmable semicolon" is not necessarily the best way to understand them, but it has more truth to it than some of the other metaphors tossed about.
Watch the video, it's awesome, the blog post—meh—not so much.
If you're constantly trying to build the right thing, you have to be constantly willing to reject failed or obsolete ideas to keep moving forward.
What Apple Sells
Found a cool video showing how its made.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTggA4jVPj0
I use rsync -avzP exclusively now over cp ever since I tried copying ~7000 files from a USB drive and found cp choked less than 10% through. rsync is wonderful.
Tough Choice: Xen or KVM
Cancer is not "totally preventable". Non-smokers die of lung cancer (and other cancers) too.
It's of relevance to anyone in the US who is considering working for startups, since anyone who does so runs the (admittedly low-probability) risk of being murdered due to unaffordable or inadequate health coverage.
Nothing mentioned about privacy of my email...otherwise ubercool
I'm not a fan of the current "reform", which is a total mess and won't achieve fundamental change.

I think we should become a First World country, which means universal healthcare.
nginx will be a huge improvement in terms of resource usage. :-)
Contact File
Submitting the same contact information to websites time and time again gets tedious.

What would be the disadvantages of producing a simple, standard file that can be uploaded, in lieu of filling out a standard contact form?

Something like: name, address, preferred contact number, e-mail address, and website.
Probably. I think he was too busy building a company to focus on cultivating an image that doesn't make people dislike him (which is very hard to do for a 22-year-old billionaire introvert).

I find him pretty unimpressive but I don't see him as worthy of hatred. I wish him the best, although I get annoyed by the fellation of him by Lacy et al.
The spiritual organization
Very cool -- I'd just be worried about the companies switching APIs on you. If you're prepared for that then more power to you. Or maybe you're just scraping the sites themselves and blobbing them over to the side? I guess my technical understanding of how it works is a little fuzzy.
Twitter Hits 10 Billion Tweets