skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think "personal" was attached to let people know that it was a computer, but not the size of your living room. And not something you'd have to rent out by the hour.

But still, good points. I don't know if I'm ready to shell out 500 bucks to chill and read stuff, but I know there are tons of people who will be.
What's nice about mailing physical media is that the movie studios don't have much control. You can buy a widget and do whatever you want with it, including mailing it around.

You can't do this on the Internet, though, because computers are magical and Someone Could Copy It!1111!!
Even better: Write what you say at your trash can on the offer, stuff that and every other piece of paper the CC company mailed you, and put it back in the business reply envelope. Now you've gotten the CC company to help the USPS twice.
Yes and there are a number of libraries (commons-lang, Spring, etc.) which include Assert classes for things like Assert.notNull(), Assert.notEmpty(Collection<T>), etc.

This seems like recognition that such commonly used library functionality might also be useful to be in the base API.

Though I would think it would make more sense for Objects.nonNull() to throw IllegalArgumentException, not a NPE.
If it needs to be pointed out, then is it all that clever?
Well, we would have, but we made the extraordinarily shortsighted decision to sell off our helium reserve when there was stuff a lot of it around.

If we'd sat on it for a few more decades, we would have been in much better shape (and our scientific industry would have benefited relative to the rest of the world), but the opportunity to do so has probably passed.
Find and replace all instances of "iPad" with "netbook" and the article describes my netbook usage.
I, and I believe many others, have long used and admired Ubuntu for its unrelenting pragmatism. It's long been the distro of getting stuff done. It's had an agressive release cycle, and its had a great focus on usability.

However, this is going to be the release that's going to force everyone showing Ubuntu off to friends/coworkers to say "oh yeah, the buttons are on the left, yeah that's stupid, I agree but I can fix that" clickity command line clack.

What's most disappointing is the utter failure of the UI team to communicate why they've done this, which is insulting. Yes, they've said "we've had meetings and thought about it!", but no reasons other than 'we like it', have been disclosed to my knowledge. Ubuntu's made decisions like this before, but never one so fundamental.

All in all, I've been left with a bitter taste in my mouth from both the stupidness of the decision, and the stupidness of not handling the PR crisis that this is (and this is a PR crisis).

I understand it's Shuttleworth's baby, and he can do what he wants, but if decisions like this keep up I'll be looking for greener pastures.
Could it be as simple as not enough people really engage in the prediction market as they do on Twitter? In particular, the diversity of people engaging in Twitter is probably far greater. The ability to make accurate prediction relies primarily on sufficient diversity, especially when it's something as mass market as a movie. I know, of the people I regularly encounter, probably around 30% tweet, and less than 1% engage in any kind of a prediction market.

I hadn't even heard of the Hollywood Stock Exchange until now.
Minor clarification: The code doesn't literally contain the shareware levels (we don't have the right to do that either) -- there is a script that will download and convert them for you.

And I've confirmed that it works on the full game pak as well (though conversions won't work, as q2 game dlls are native code). Time to dig up that old copy of Q2!
Helium prices are already high outside the US, yet no one has produced a closed-circuit system with acceptable safety. No matter what kind of controls and alarms they build in it's too easy to end up without enough oxygen in the loop. A friend of a friend died here in the northeast Pacific not long ago because he just forgot to turn on the valve, and didn't realize what happened before he passed out.

In the long run I expect we'll end up with more semi-closed systems. They're a little less efficient but inherently safer. Something like this http://www.halcyon.net/?q=node/44 could probably be mass produced at a reasonable price (expensive now due to custom manufacturing).
Maybe if your boss switches genders, you'd better, too.
commercialize them, introduce competition.

Monopolies always have weird issues like "we'd like to, but we can't"
Actually I think it's going to change how we work just as much. Think about it. iPad 3G + HTML 5 business web apps? No more software to install, constant connectivity, dynamic touch driven interfaces,etc. If that's not some Jetsons shit, then I don't know what is.
It's April 2, and still true :)
(Computer) keyboard is my piano
Premailer - prep your HTML email by inlining CSS
Privatize the system and outsource it to UPS/FedEX,etc. (I know easier said than done). If I ever need to send snail mail, I just send it via those guys.
How will US savings rate rise if you don’t penalize consumption?
Morality Question
FYI, article's from 2007.

EDIT: Not that it's obsolete, though. I was just confused when it mentioned a "recent" postage hike I'd heard nothing about.
Helium-3 is also extremely useful when it comes to cryogenics. Since it is 25% lighter than Helium-4, it is easier to boil it off to reach temperatures below 1 degree K. In the systems that use Helium-3 it's usually a closed circuit system and loss of helium is considered to be a big deal since it's expensive.
Don't you think swearing in English could potentially offend anyone who speaks English whether or not they're from the USA?
I didn't either, and I bought stamps last week. 39 cents vs 44 cents doesn't even show up on my radar.
I just tried limiting the max bubble cursor radius in your demo and it seemed to prevent the unwanted gap-clicking problem well enough, while still helping buttons be easier to click. Not sure if it reduces the win in the proposed huge-screen example.
Not really anything exact but sometimes at certain times of the year, yes. We are in the training business so first of month, last of month seem to coincide with "end of quarter" or "start of new training budget" for us.
Every time the US postal service comes up in discussion, someone invariably mentions how life would be so much better if the service was privatized. I think this argument represents a fundamental misunderstanding of public services; the post office is perhaps the canonical example of an extremely important service that only can exist in the public sector. As others have mentioned already (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1236487), delivering a piece of paper from California to Maine for under a dollar is not something the private sector can provide.

As a rule of thumb, if your gut tells you that a particular service is essential to a civilized society the service belongs in the public sector. As a nation we've decided the ability to affordability correspond with others around the country is such a service. Education is another. These two examples are extraordinarily complex problems which the US public sector solves well, all things considered. Yet every time we discuss these services someone always wants to privatize them.

For the most fundamental components of our society, privatization is never the answer.
The US also has a latent supply of rare earth metals. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN28385099
The problem is the mandatory requirements for full service in unprofitable areas. The USPS literally has a plane that goes weekly to the most isolated part of Idaho: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/us/30idaho.html

There's no way a private contractor could/would do that.
So putting my feet up on my own desk, in my own cubicle, is a sign of poor manners? Well I think anyone with that opinion can screw themselves with whichever implement they've lodged up their rectum.

I sit in the same damn posture all day hammering at a keyboard, and one of my small luxuries is _printing out_ some documentation on whatever it is that I have to learn about, adjusting my chair to recline a bit, and kicking my feet up. I may do this for ten minutes or a half hour, and certainly not on a daily basis, and I certainly don't leave them on the desk if I have company.

Live and let live, people. If something doesn't harm you, and isn't deliberately malicious, you have nothing to whine about. Go get some work done.
He was more visionary than people realize.

To me, the S100 bus always represented a parallel universe in personal computing. An elegant alternative to the puzzling layout of the 5150.

There is no doubt in my mind had the S100 prevailed, all developers today would easily recognize the relationship between hardware and software as being a Viennese Waltz as opposed to a freshman dance in the gym.

Dr. Roberts was correct to be upset with Gates and Allen for embracing the IBM PC. They weren't abandoning him or the Altair, they were abandoning the architecture and its abundant possibilities.

My condolences to his family. May he RIP.
Oh, jesus christ. Listen. Just because you can't do any actual work on an iPad doesn't mean I only have a "work computer." It's very rare I use my laptop for work. I use it for my personal tasks and entertainment and thus it is a personal computer. Now can we please stop with ridiculous comparisons like this?
And a good thing to. It stops US companies that rely on government provided infrastructure from shirking their financial obligations.

If that's too much to ask they can move to one of their tax havens that has little infrastructure and install their own electricity, plumbing, roads, and schools. But they won't do that. They'll bitch about this law for a while, pay their taxes and get on with it.

This is little more than complaining about a tax loophole that was suddenly closed. The common man on the street already pays 15-25% in taxes, why corporations think they would stay exempt makes me shake my head.
My mom wants one and that's how I know it's going to do well.

Sidenote: Anyone order 2 and are willing to let the other go? Or are going to pick up in store and could grab another? I'd really like to get it 3 weeks before the international launch :P

My friend tried to order 6 and Apple canceled all 3 of his orders :( If anyone can help me out @yurechko on twitter or m[]mikeyur[]com
It's even better - when they literally have no work for employees they are asked to find work elsewhere but the USPS will pay them any difference in pay/benefits essentially forever.
Video: the Digital Economy Bill may pass on Tuesday in UK. We need to stop it
Shame he doesn't talk much about how they managed to get memcache performing like that. Alas.
Find Sole and Interesting Poetry Essays
Creation of poetry essays is the most difficult task of the English course. If you are assigned to write an essay about poetry, it means that you have to produce your interpretation of a certain poem you are going to analyze.
An irony is, that in the US, _banks_ can share your information with 'business partners'.
Right, so if you want to connect over the network? What happens? Oh, yeah -- it doesn't work. And then you have google and google with no real idea of what keywords to use other than 'postgres connection problem' until you find the arcane configuration that lets you connect.

Real simple. Yeah.
The Future of Science
The World’s Fascination with the Infographic
This is a guest post from Shell Harris from InfographicsShowcase. If you love information communicated in a visually appealing and thought-provoking manner, IS is worth a few minutes of your time. New infographics are posted every week and user submissions are welcomed.
As the article says, two years ago the entire Florida orange industry used virtually zero pesticides, it is currently a major exception that they are using pesticides due to a disease outbreak.

When it is an exception, you wouldn't be having year-on-year problems of colony collapses.

However you are right for most crops. However pesticides are not the problem, it's how they're used which is the problem. No pesticide should be used when the crop is flowering and it requires pollination, this is just flat-out common sense which is being ignored by the farming industry.

The problem is that farmers are opting for a lower maintenance cost at a major increased risk of full-out crop failure. However, with government subsidise to support farms that have catastrophic crop failures there is little incentive for the farmers to change their practices.

Example: It would be like everyone using candles and oil lamps to light their houses and when a fire eventually starts by one and burns down a town house complex, the government steps in and pays everyone to rebuild their houses. No one is going to stop using the candles and oil lamps until their houses stop being rebuilt for them. This is what happens for many farmers globally. Most of the US farm subsidies goes directly to supporting farmers with failed crops, a fair whack likely of which were caused by improper pesticide usage.

Pesticides can be applied directly to the soil to destroy grubs and mites. They can then be applied during the leafing stages of the plant growth to kill off butterflies and such laying eggs that become caterpillars and such. Next it can be pollinated a month to a few days (for a fast acting pesticide) before the crop flowers. Finally you can pesticide again once the pollination is complete.

The biggest problem with pesticides is that certain varieties infect the food (the pesticide grain size is equal to a pollen grain, so it attaches to the bee and works its way into their food supply). These pesticides can be dangerous for months to bees, but more dangerously can prevent new workers and drones from being born and can kill the hive by attrition.

Static hives for a responsible farmer is the ideal. The farmers would then know more about their crops as a whole by knowing more about the pollinators that support them. It really is a common sense approach, a farmer should know the most about their crops than anyone else and the honeybee is an integral part of their crops in the quantities they want to grow.
I did a quick search to see if there was any follow-up to that June 2009 article, but had not much luck.

A couple of comments here: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527440.700-dementia-...

An echo/summary with a brief explanation - "This is important because cerebral blood and fluid flow feed the brain and remove the waste it produces, like the tau and beta-amyloid proteins that form the plaque found in the brains of Alzheimers sufferers." - here http://72.32.68.42/index.php?option=com_content&view=art...
The website isn't the business; the product is the business.

Look - I'm in the same boat; my business is solely run through my website (http://www.learnitfirst.com/).

I like the design of "Lice Ad" well enough - it will make you money. I would accept it and move on to the next problem. I started LearnItFirst with a #%&^*( looking website and I was fine.
The author of this is an HN user. I hope his book on 'The Future of Science' is coming along well.
I don't really follow "startups" outside of HN. Guy K's alltop probably has some links though.
I think the current solution for snail mail spam is the optimal one. Consider the two possibilities: (1) the government raises taxes in order to increase the USPS's ability to handle spam or (2) the USPS offloads the majority of the filtering process to the recipients (the current solution).

On days I receive spam in the mail, I waste approximately one second when I have to pause to throw it away. If the USPS were to implement an effective spam filtering mechanism, I'm willing to bet my taxes would go up by more than the value I loose doing the filtering myself. More broadly, the nation as a whole looses value if the USPS takes on the filtering problem.
Aren't Blue Ray sales pretty much a failure by all accounts? I was under that impression, I could be wrong.
I couldn't agree more. I haven't tried the new button scheme, but even if I like it, the way that it's been implemented in such a heavy handed dictatorial way leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I'm not too concerned about it though. If it keeps up, somebody is going to pull an Ubuntu on Ubuntu and steal the popular mindshare. Mint?
15% price increase (39 to 44 cents) in 4 years is not unnoticed "in volume" and easily outstrips inflation.
I think you're right, those people are graphic designers/designers. Don't expect them to code, they won't know how.

Front-End Developer/Designer better suits the job task.

I started out as a designer and naturally made my foray into to css and html. Now I rarely even do mock ups in Photoshop.. and just start hand coding the css.

But if you're looking for killer UI design, Hire a Designer who does nothing else. You need a specialist for the best work.
This is the best argument I've read for why the iPad simply can't succeed as (and wasn't designed to be) a consumption-only device. Indeed, content that exists only as an update of the "multimedia book" CD-ROM is going to face the same problems now as it did then.

The sustainable successes on the iPad will be apps that enable users to organize, create, record, learn, practice, share, and play.
"dwindling supply of natural gas"?

I work for a company that makes it more efficient and safer to throw away natural gas. It's nowhere near as rare as you think, in fact, in drilling, it's considered a nuisance more than a product of the well. It's like saying we have a dwindling supply of mud.

At one point, oil companies actually gave it away for free.
Why Saturday? They should cut out a day in the middle of the week. This way, you'll have to wait up to two days longer for a given item. It's better to distribute that wait time.
I think you're confusing outsourcing with deregulation. A private contractor would happily do that for enough subsidy.
I thought the reason for them being on the left is that they're reserving the top-right of the screen for notifications, the "social" menu and other things that may overlap with the window buttons.
Can only exist in the public sector?

How do you explain FedEx and UPS?

I can see both sides of this argument.
Based on the prototype (http://www.bonnier.com/en/content/digital-magazines-bonnier-...) which was announced a couple of months ago.
Right. It may be temporary, but how long it's temporary is something that could really hurt them. Hardly anything I want to watch on Netflix is On Demand, and I already hate Sundays.
Because the Postal Service is provided for in the Constitution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Clause

Can't have a Constitutionally-mandated service wrapped in third-party advertising.
I spent about $5 more on my HDMI cables than I would have to get ones with a heavy-duty rubberised outside instead of the cheap and tacky bendy-plastic that breaks easily from over-manipulation.

You are right, people will pay more for better quality but misleading people into believing something is better quality by outright lies actually violates most consumer protection laws. I've seen no $250 monster cables at best buy here in ontario, the most expensive I saw was a $60 10ft cable by monster, however the consumer protection act is very strong and very strict here. Best Buy has screwed me over before and the mention of the CPA to a manager gets the problem resolved quickly. It appears they know they're in the wrong in many cases, but people let them get away with it - this is usually on their extended warranties from my experience.
My experience has been rather the other way around: I've only heard two people so much as mention the iPad irl; one was an engineering student and the other is a techy as a hobby. The former wants one because its made by Apple, and the latter can't see the point. I don't think my mom's ever heard of it.
I learned "corporate" to get a job. It's comes with a huge collection of bizarre operators with baffling precedence rules and a template library that spews out errors to rival C++ STL circa 1999. It also changes, my most recent job introduced me to the "cloud" type which got everyone excited but then we learned it causes segfaults whenever it interacts with the standard "security" classes, and suddenly I'm managing two separate platforms.
Then give Fedex/TNT/DHL/etc the same subsidy/letter to do it that you give the USPS.
"you can't do any actual work on an iPad"

That's a ridiculous claim. (Not that the article was of a much higher level of quality.)
I've seen better instances than this one (like the EFF's DMCA takedown Hitler[1]) ... but ... there's more to this meme than it simply being Hitler.

It's like the Looney Tunes coyote-vs-roadrunner. Honestly, how entertaining is it to watch the same highway through the desert, inhabited only by two non-verbal animals? Very. I think it's the constraints that make it fun. It was probably a lot of fun to write for, too...

The Hitler Downfall meme is fun because of the constraints, so try to appreciate people's remixes in that light.

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzUoWkbNLe8
That's not what the article is saying. The article is saying that the iPad is optimized for personal tasks. A personal computer is (implicitly) optimized for work-related tasks. While you certainly can use your laptop/desktop/netbook to perform the same functions as an iPad, it may not be as natural or as comfortable to do so.

I'm not sure I believe the author's analysis either. But the least we can do is represent it faithfully and not argue to straw men.
I was absolutely convinced that my mom would never so much as send an email in her life. Last time I saw her, she brought up the iPad.
No need to handle the spam, simply stop subsidizing it with a bulk mail discount. If they continue to send then the financial troubles are solved.
The same is true for me and “laptop.”

That doesn't mean either of our use cases are optimal.
The other problem is lack of support for Netflix streaming, but it's getting better. Also, slow Internet speeds make it hard to use.
Sorry, but we probably can't.

Those of us waiting on Saturday orders are a little jumpy right now.
They certainly would. Just not for 44 cents.
I lived/worked in the Tenderloin and in the "bad part" of SoMA for a while, and have personally observed:
* Club kid (homeless? probably not) shitting on the street, sheltered behind my car. 300 lumen flashlight beam and "what the fuck are you doing, get the fuck away from my car" and he ran off. I had to step over a pile of warm shit to enter my vehicle and drive away.
* Multiple incidents of presumably-compensated sexual acts in alleyway, near the door to my apartment.
* A double-homicide approximately 100' from my front door, which I happened to observe because I was looking out of my window onto the street at the time -- one of the victims ran around the entire block, leaving a blood trail, before expiring. Blood trail was not cleaned until mid-day.

I am concerned about which cities you visit if you find SF streets to be some of the cleanest! Baghdad and Kabul are on par (more actual dirt, blood, and random limbs; less shit and used condoms)
The iPad isn't a computer.
It has a cpu, but so does my toaster, it's a portable cableTV box.
The point of a personal computer is that you are in charge, you create content, with an iPad you pay to download and watch other people's content.
It's the difference between writing your own blog and reading the national enquirer
The window's broken either way. With snail mail, at least the one who broke it pays some of the cost of fixing it.
I agree: it's unimaginable to think of them releasing iPad without the App Store; with the iPhone, the lack of 3rd party apps was just a bullet point under "cons".

About the screen size: I saw someone say basically that it's just a bigger iPhone in the same way a swimming pool is just a bigger bathtub.
An unsustainably good deal. Isn't that the point of the post?