skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Buses like the S100 have a problem: plug-and-play is next to impossible with them. When you plug a memory board, you have to set the switches to its address and the same happens with I/O and storage - everything must be configured more or less by hand. The S-100 is, more or less, the naked processor bus.

The ISA bus is a lot like S-100 - it was possible to buy a PC on a card and plug it into a PC backplane along your other cards.

But I agree. The 5150 was an abomination.
View counters would be nice.

Larger views would also be nice.

And most important, color correction has to be fixed. It's been improved, but whatever they're doing on the backend for compression is muting and killing all color in my photos when I upload them :/
Another mystery from the same region is how they managed to melt thousands of tons of rocks to make forts with vitrified walls:

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

The Tap o' Noth in particular is rather impressive.
My partner and I just had a ten year anniversary in Thailand, and we're in the process of sharing our entire groups' photos via Divvyshot. If you had a less wedding-oriented skin/store-front on that website, we'd love to use your service..
This is absolutely not true. Such a statement is ridiculous, and ignores the historical development of Linux and Windows. Windows was built as a single-user, administrator-by-default system that will run any EXE file without question. Linux was built modelled on UNIX standards: run as unprivileged user, multi-user environments, etc.

Sure, MS is better about Windows Security now. And guess what? That's why there aren't nearly as many virus problems as there used to be (think 7's early days vs XP's early days).

Linux has a strong security model. It already has ~50% market share on servers (maybe more)! Don't ever suggest that my last dollar would be spent poorly if I bet on Linux's security.

Also, the plural of "virus" is "viruses", not "virii".
> They're selling plenty of iPads to the other 99% of the world.

So 99% of the world can afford an iPad, wants an iPad, and has bought/is going to buy an iPad? I feel that a larger portion of the world than you care to admit puts more thought towards getting food on the table than computing devices.

Please don't try to win an argument through a passive-aggressive statement of "you're in the minority, so deal with it."

> My grandfather used to complain that "cars these days" can't be repaired without taking them to the shop because of the "damned computers." He was wrong, too.

So 'cars these days' can be repaired without taking them to the shop?

> If you don't like it because you can't (easily) open it up and change the battery, you don't have to buy it.

The point is to protect against a world where the choice isn't "an iPad or another device that is more open" but "a closed device or no device at all." The point isn't to eliminate all closed-devices, but to make sure that they don't eliminate all open-devices.
Mark Liberman at Language Log has doubts: [http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2227]
Thanks! For those of you who don't know what he's referring to wrt to traction: http://tractionbook.com/
Simple method for optimizing a marriage, as it works from both ends:

Love does not merely happen, and merely continue. It takes work. Put effort into loving more and being more lovable (ie, self improvement), and your relationship will improve.

I see too many long-married couples who are mostly together out of convenience / habit / apathy, and it really shows in their relationship and their lives in general. The ones I've found who are really happy have wonderful married lives because they both worked at it, and continue to do so, and this sample set includes a couple dozen 10-year-somethings through 50-year-somethings and a couple older yet.

I've only been married for a few months, though we've been living together and effectively married for over two years, so go ahead and chock it up to n00b idealism. But why does that have to end? I've found plenty of cases where it never did, and every one of them has said it's because they worked to keep it going, and they're all vibrant, happy people.
What pointless drivel.

The author starts off by being blatantly offensive to the point where I wondered if he was trolling.

Then, as if to excuse himself with a "ahhh! got you all!" he drops this gem halfway down the article:

> "A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses."

Thanks, if we're going to go around redefining the accepted and colloquial definition of "stupid", it would seem relevant to put this near the top of your treatise.

This would also seem to contradict the author's previous assertion that stupidity is genetic and largely unrelated to nurture - unless the author seriously believes that personality traits (i.e., the tendency to go for lose-lose arrangements) are genetic.

Plausible claim, but pointless without real research, or at the very very least some semblance of qualification for the author to make such a wild assertion.

I couldn't really make it too far beyond that without being profoundly disturbed by the author's self-important vigorous mental masturbation.
I honestly didn't know whether it was a made up example or not. Thx for the real example though.
Ask HN: The unaddressed iPad ebooks question
The iPad will have several bookstores. iBooks, Kindle, maybe Google, Sony, B&N and others. They all have different DRM schemes and different book-reading interfaces.

If I already have several books from Kindle with hilighting, annotations, bookmarks, etc. but I want to use the iBooks interface because of (say) more useful features or to consolidate my library, will I be able to transfer my books over from the Kindle store? What about all my markups from each book? What if some books are only available in one store but not another?

How does this make any sense? What if you had to use a different music player for music you purchased from Amazon?

Or is Steve Jobs going to wait a few years and then write an open letter shaming the industry into shedding DRM while charging all of us an "upgrade" fee for all the books we've already bought to be free from the DRM constraints? And then each bookstore would have to do the same... which seems unlikely. Book DRM is looking even crappier than music/video DRM.

I want to love this whole iPad book thing but this situation sucks.
These days? Steele's "The Java Programming Language" is where I learned Java first, and I don't think I have read another book, spec, or library documentation for java after that. Java as "C with OOP, Unicode, Exception handling and Threads" is really an excellent language.

I write one small java app every 4 years and that subset of it served me well.
I don't think it is ad hominem, I think it is widely accepted that he is an Apple fanboy.

The truth or falsehood of a claim is logically separate from whether it is an ad-hominem attack.
Weird bug. Your LinkedIn should be first now.
key takeaways:

1) judge split test (or new features?) strictly by top 5 metrics of customer behavior: "macro metrics"

2) have engineers only work on the top feature in the queue, and not put it down til it's done; managers may rearrange queue as often as they desire

3) 5 why's: invest improvement time proportional to size of problem, at each of 5 points of "failure"

4) product feedback is about your CUSTOMER, not about you.

Question: Why does the behavior of current customers necessarily predict the behavior of future customers? I understand why it would in the case of IMVU (people aren't paying monthly/one-time fees; they pay based on consumption).. and some other business.. but not, say, for the quintessential web2.0 web app. Can someone please clarify? Don't get me wrong, I think these are killer insights :)
My point is if you are an investor or large corp where are you going to put your money? In the country that won't allow you to control your "IP" or the one that will?
The reason I don't do this is that it would remove the pressure to make the content of the site be good.

One reason public transport is bad in most US cities is that rich people rarely use it.
I'll be there, hope you don't mind meeting somebody new :)
its funny! relax!
I started using SimpleGeo when it was in Beta and I was pretty amazed to see the plans... way too expensive for a startup. I'll go back to GeoApi in a few. Sad..
Would love to see a good blog on B2B sales.
Clever extension of head-tracking... and ya gotta love the cows!

I'm a huge head-tracking fan for any single-user interaction. It's amazing just how strong the "sense" of 3D is when it's really fast / smooth.
Another PDF redaction failure. So many people to learn a lesson, so little time.
hmm, I've never found it to be an issue, and I'm not sure facebook's dominant demographic cares either.
If that was supposed to be satire, it went right over my head :S
Bureau of Labor & Statistics live online Q&A transcript
An idea to solve the problem with super-large selection bubbles that can capture multiple options with small changes:

Make the bubble max out at 1/2 (or some other fraction) of the distance to the second closest object. That way you have the same enhanced-selection, but you also avoid any contention points, and require that the cursor is still conceivably "close" to the target.
NYT source: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/l-o-l-s-from-th...
Post: Are you hacking with a purpose? Join us to transform education forever
Correctly describing electromagnetics involves invoking vector calculus, which is a tall order for 10 year old children even in education systems more rigorous than America's.
Where are the open-systems advocates who want to make something even better than the iPad instead of complain about it?
> The minority isn't small because people don't know what he's saying -- it's small because they don't care.

People don't care because when they hear nay-sayers predicting dystopian futures, they think things like 'that could never happen here' or 'that could never happen to me.' The reality is that I doubt very much that if you had polled Germans in the 1920's about whether they thought that the atrocities of WW2 could ever happen to them or in their country, they would say the same thing, 'not here' or "people wouldn't stand for it."

People that predict doom and gloom are often called crazy, but not always because they really are. Most of the time people don't want to think that the worst could happen even when reality paints a different picture. If I had published a paper in 2005 predicting that Wall Street would crumble due to highly-inflated real-estate and that the government would spend $700+ billion propping up banks that were 'too big to fail' I would have been called crazy and people would have ignored me stating that my concerns were 'unfounded.'

Please don't use "people don't care" as some sort of argument against someone's beliefs. I mean, if his blog post is getting up-voted enough on HN to reach the front page obviously enough people here care about it to discuss it, but for some reason you're trying to tell those people that they really don't share Doctorow's opinion and that they need to wake up to that fact.
New York to End Program to Give Cash to the Poor
He confuses his own internal mental model with the actual nature of electricity.

Mostly this is just arguments about semantics.
To those that down-voted:

The parent poster goes on for length operating under the assumption that no one on HN that is participating in this discussion or up-voted the news item shares the same views that Doctorow does. How one can draw that assumption escapes me, because it would stand to reason that a number of people (most?) would up-vote the blog post because they either: 1) share Doctorow's opinion or 2) want to participate in a discussion of Doctorow's views. The parent poster acts as if HN readers/participants are just like rats dancing to the Pied Piper's tune, that need to be woken up.
Android has a terrible UX.

To the extent that's true, it's not because Android is open. The Android Market does have many shortcomings (my favorite WTF is the 325 character description limit), but fixing them in no way requires adopting a closed model.

There is no perfect platform that satisfies all needs.

Agreed. I have no problem with the existence of a walled-garden platform that has armed guards facing both in and out. I do have a problem with that being the only model for mobile computing, which is exactly what Apple is aiming for with their lawsuits asserting that Android is illegal.
He was not bullshitting. It's scary how much power Facebook is starting to have in recruiting and acquisitions because of their large and highly engaged user base. Hackers want an audience.

They have a very concentrated form of koolaid over there. I've been surprised by the effect it's had on some of the most skeptical people I know.
It's a credit to Apple's importance to the industry (and future hackerdom, apparently) that noone is having the same debate over the JooJoo tablet.
Agreed,

I should have made it clear I was referring to 97/2000/xp file explorer.
Putting technology in schools (particularly elementary schools), at best, costs a lot of money for little gain. At worst, it can hurt education because it takes time away from learning the basics (reading, writing, and arithmetic).
Bullshit. Historically Apache has always had a greater market share than IIS yet far more virueses target IIS.
Historically most servers have run UNIX OSes yet most of the malware that targets servers goes for Windows.
Some architectures are objectively more secure. Being closed, in fact, closely correlates with being insecure.
You have to click the little guy with the 3D glasses. I almost missed that detail. Now I just need some 3D glasses...
I disagree with "pretentious," but you are correct that not everyone sees Google data collection as potential trouble.

I do see it as potential trouble, not because they're Google but because they're in the data collection and correlation business and they're the elephant in the room. Many other people feel the same, although probably not the majority of people. For me and people like me, data minimization features are welcome.

Employers and government are inappropriately nosing into social network data. Insurance companies are denying medical coverage solely on the basis of statements made online, i.e. without benefit of actual medical examination; that's the equivalent of "I heard ...," and it's being used in life/death relevant cases, merely to find a way to deny cost and coverage, regardless of medical issues.

My approach to online data is:

- Data transferred to anyone, online or off, is potentially misued and should be minimized. If I don't need you to have it, I see no reason to give it to you, and so I'll make it hard for you to get.

- Online data is easier to misuse, on purpose or by mistake.

- The more of your data that's online, the harder it is to keep track of.

- The more of your data that's online, the easier it is to correlate with itself and other data. You're already part of a huge gmail correlation network, even if you don't use gmail. Connecting that to your search makes it much more valuable to google, and unfortunately much more potentially dangerous to you.

- Data correlation can create new data which can itself be misused.

- The privacy policy of today is null and void once a company is acquired, goes bankrupt or just decides to change the policy. Be sure to watch that privacy policy page! Every day!

There are many ways to think about your data online. Some of us are cautious about it. For people like that, any easy way to reduce your footprint is welcome. Duck Duck Go, besides being a welcome footprint shrinker, is overall just awesomely well done.
I'm wondering the same exact thing. Luckily I haven't purchased many ebooks (only one from Amazon actually, REWORK) so I'm starting from scratch and figuring out which one is the best to use. I'm excited to see the various apps though.
To my understanding Google supports Flash because we believe the browser should be an open platform. So we'll support all applicable standards where possible and let the market decide which ones matter.

I believe that Apple doesn't support Flash because Steve Jobs was not in charge of Apple when Flash was invented, and so had no way to try to invent Flash himself. He has a severe case of NIH syndrome, and Flash is but one example.
So by that argument, why do any software companies exist?

I didn't say anything about software companies, but if you insist: just replace "patented technology" with "copyrighted software" and you'll explain most software companies. I can't claim to know every business model, however.

Last time I checked, I'm getting paid to write software.

Good for you. What prevents your competitors from taking your work and selling it for cheaper? How would you feel if I proposed to take that away?

You're just trying to spread FUD. Nice try.

Sure, and you're just being an asshole. Please leave.
Will you two please stop?
Lasagna - Should you pay for it if you didn’t order it?
There were many smart people that did smart things in the USSR too, but it doesn't mean it was better. In many ways, this is more like transitioning computing away from a Democracy (or an Anarchy depending on how you look at it) to rule by a Benevolent Leader. Maybe the Benevolent Leader does some great things that benefit a lot of people, but sometimes this is at the cost of the people the cross the Benevolent Leader's path. And then there is the question of "what happens when the Benevolent Leader dies?" Who will take over the reins?
i tend to use camelCasing in most of my code (php|js). Both class names, methods and properties. I prefix private and protected with _ though
Well the hashcode effectively signs the full repository state, so that you know that if a repo has the same hash code it has the same contents, however that's not the main problem with svn.

The main problem is that svn has no notion of a project to attach it's merges or comparisons against. A directory in a repo may be a subdir of the project or it may be a branch. This leads to an explosion of edge cases and legal commands that make no logical sense. As long as everyone follows certain practices (such as not committing changes to two branches at the same time) then a heuristic approach sort of works, but that's hardly the way to design a robust (and ostensibly simple!) system.

If you can merge subdirectories in a project, and if you can merge branches which are just an ancestor directory of that, and if a given merge only affects certain subdirectories in a repository, how can anyone expect subversion merge tracking to be viable? Even if they somehow munge it to work in 99.9% of real world cases, think of the complexity and mental overhead of maintaining this solution compared to what a DVCS with clear-thinking primitives can achieve. It's time for the successor to svn in centralized version control systems to be built from scratch. svn itself is hopelessly hamstrung.
The problem is that a lot of humans either have trouble grasping the long-term big picture, or just don't want to.
If you are in business and in Canada it is. Until February 2011 all new computer purchases for business can be written off 100% in the year in which they were purchased.

Include in Class 52 with a CCA rate of 100% (with no half year rule) general purpose electronic data processing equipment (commonly called computer hardware) and systems software for that equipment, including ancillary data processing equipment if acquired after January 27, 2009, and before February 2011. To qualify for this rate the asset must also:

* be situated in Canada;
* not have been used, or acquired for use, for any purpose before it is acquired by the taxpayer;
* be acquired by the taxpayer:
- for use in a business carried on by the taxpayer in Canada or for the purposes of earning income from property situated in Canada; or
- for lease by the taxpayer to a lessee for use by the lessee in a business carried on by the lessee in Canada or for the purpose of earning income from property situated in Canada.
Yep, I think bloggers have a good internal barometer of what blog posts / resources should be highlighted by the search engine. Duck Duck Go does a pretty good job.
It was tongue-in-cheek. Like most humor, parts are more or less true.
cash or stock?
A key idea behind Chrome is improving Web security. Long term this means replacing Flash. Short-term this means making sure it's up to date.

Mozilla also Recently added code that warns you if Flash (and other plugins) need updated.
An ACH is basically an electronic check. Like a check it has to be routed through a Fed bank on its path to clearing, and it can also be stopped like a real check.

A wire is more instant (usually less than 24 hours), more direct, and more expensive. A wire cannot be recalled by the sender without agreement by the recipient.
The Javascript group is organised here: http://javascript.meetup.com/3/

There are a bunch of ideas here: http://javascript.meetup.com/3/ideas/

There are meant to be monthly meetups, but I don't think anyone has time to organise them. There hasn't been one since January. It'd be great if these started happening more regularly.
Or at the very least Apple shouldn't spend so much time making it impossible to crack the device. If I've already proven that I'm willing to jump through the pain to get a cracked device, maybe that's a sign that I don't necessarily want "exactly" what Apple wants for me. It's already a barrier to entry, so why not just leave it so. It's not like the majority of users will just 'stumble' into a cracked device.
"Fork" is a poor choice of verb for what I think he is describing/dvcs/github allows. More like experimental branch this dudes gonna do his thing on and if it's good we'll absorb it into the "main" project. Which, btw, has been going on forever, git[hub] just makes it easier.

A Fork means there's irreconcilable differences and the dev base is splitting into 2-3 camps, old mainline, new forkers, people who leave in disgust over lack of coop.
Cloud Computing and its Contribution to Climate Change
I agree - but we are not targeting elementary schools :) So far more than 300 schools in fields like biotech, dating & a lot of niche topics have been created.
I used it (on home puter) for a long time, many months. But I found myself too often doing google searches after ddg one's to find what I wanted. I gave up using it.
YubNub: a (social) command line for the web
it's a bit like Duck Duck Go's ! notation, only it's social and much more flexible
They have photos of the 3G and WiFi version, which is pretty awesome.
Party supply centers, man. Start hoarding balloons.
But is it produced in large enough quantities to make this viable?
My first reflex when I saw this was to think that it's meant as a tongue-in-cheek sidekick on the recent microframework-craze. Still not sure about the intention, but as others have pointed out, yes it's an April's fools.
DEC did well with the Q-22 bus on their PDP's, MicroVax I and II products. Motorola did well with the VME bus as well.

Address collisions on the backplane were part of the process.

But you're right. It's not cool anymore to ask grandma to set switches right out of the box.
The only interesting comment on the iPad I've read so far.
No MBA? Try Warcraft Instead
This is really neat. I imagine there would be uses for this to do object visualization, such as for CAD programs. I wonder how useful that would be to mechanical engineers.

Then I got to thinking, could it be used to fit-test parts? It might be too small for that, but I think the emergence of 3D televisions might provide an opportunity for these types of applications.
You cant listen to your radio while using your GPS though, that is not allowed.