skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Yup that's the real issue... big bonuses for big M&A deals... just happened with Kraft buying Cadbury, huge bonus to the CEO for simply doing what they were hired to do.

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2010/04/corporate...

"Brief synopsis: Kraft acquires the 200 year old British confection-maker Cadbury after a heated battle. The chairwoman and CEO Irene Rosenfeld (already not a good sign, best practice is to separate the two roles) was awarded a 41% pay increase, bringing the total to $26 million for 2009 for her “exceptional role” in the Cadbury transaction, as well as her “commitment to fiscal discipline."

...
"The punchline is that Kraft actually screwed up. Part of their plan for Cadbury involved closing off the company’s pension plan but there’s “an obscure clause in Cadbury’s pension trust deed that makes it almost impossible to close the scheme.” As a way ’round this obscure clause, they’ve issued an ultimatum to employees, threatening them with a pay freeze unless they “voluntarily” agree to opt out of the pension plan. Point being that no matter how obscure the clause may or may not have been, this is supposed to be part of your due diligence before you buy a company, to say nothing of “exceptional” performance"
Wait, I thought the point of anti-DRM was to do whatever we want with the music. We can now do that. As far as I can tell this article calls anything that inconveniences rampant theft DRM.
We teach it like that because we learned it like that.

We also teach it like that because states have various standards with pretentious names and acronyms ("Essential Academic Learning Requirements" = EALRs [1]) that require students to have specific bits of knowledge at specific ages. This means that, instead of students exploring various mathematical subjects in parallel, they're stuck going through them in exactly the order presented.

I remember being in a room full of math profs and TAs discussing how to get more students interested in becoming math majors. I suggested a 100-level number theory course, with the rationale that it's simple, accessible, mathematically interesting, and makes it clear that there's more to mathematics than the "progressively-harder calculus-based classes" (up to DiffEq) most hard-science majors end up taking.

[1] 252 page, 8+ meg pdf: http://www.k12.wa.us/Mathematics/Standards/K-12MathematicsSt...
Is the US high school mathematics curriculum really as linear as described here? Do you really work through, say, "geometry" in one go, and never revisit it?

My mathematical education was a bit more like advancing on several fronts at once. A chapter on geometry, then a chapter on basic algebra, then some more advanced geometry, then some more advanced algebra, then some basic trigonometry, which enabled you to understand some more advanced geometry, then...
So the only way to get an internet signal into your house is through the wires owned by Comcast? Do they also own the power lines? The phone lines? The space on your roof for a satellite dish?

Even if there was no other way to get an internet signal into your house, that still wouldn't justify violating Comcast's property rights.
Maybe you won't even see this ;) , but it unfortunately doesn't seem to work on my vanilla Zsh. Perhaps I'll look into OMZ a bit and see if things work out that way. Thanks anyways :)
In the Search for a Hot Job Title, Enter the Ninja
I wonder if there's a simile to make with electric utilities.

A "smart grid" could potentially distinguish between surcharge-able electrons, just as a "smart internet" (one without net neurtrality) could distinguish between good and bad packets. Would you want an electric utility to be able to charge you more because you bought the wrong brand of refrigerator? Or were charging an imported electric car?

Of course utilities will charge more for peak hour usage right now, but at least every electron is charged the same at that time.

What do you think?
A girlfriend in high school had extracurricular choir practice, which took place at a nearby elementary school. I'd usually walk her over and wait for her to finish. At the time, the entire school district had just purchased new computers, one for every classroom (for teacher use), and the first-grade teacher across the hall had a shiny new Pentium Pro 233.

She refused to touch it. She did what she had been explicitly told to do, but nothing else.

One day I was there waiting, and she asked if I knew anything about computers; I told her I did, and at her request helped her out with a few things. In return, she let me play around on the internet (over their shiny new ISDN line) while I was waiting. I'd take the opportunity twice a week to show her neat things, or answer her questions, and so on, and she seemed to be enjoying it.

One day, as the final choir practice was drawing near, she told me that she was having a lot of fun with her computer, and learning quite a lot. She had always been afraid to break it, and to have IT or the principal or whoever yell at her (well, not really, but you know). After playing around, she understood that not only was it not going to just break on its own, but also if it did, she could just ask me and I'd fix it, and no one would know.

By the end of the season, she had become the person everyone else in the school came to for help, not because she was better with computers, but because she was less afraid of them, and understood that it was a simple causal relationship - you do something, the computer responds. She began teaching the other teachers how to do things, giving mini-lessons or fixing their problems.

This is why I feel the iPad is going to be a hit. It lets you do quite a lot of what the typical person does on the internet, but at the same time, you CAN'T damage it, except physically. You can't break the OS, you can't get a virus, and you can't do most of the things I see computer users have problems with. You'll never 'lose' an app because a shortcut disappeared, you'll never lose a document because the 'Save As' dialog opened up somewhere new that one time, you'll never download the 64-bit version of an app on a 32-bit OS, or install a 32-bit OS on 64-bit hardware.

When users aren't intimidated by the computer, they can do great things. That's what I feel the iPad will excel at - being accessible and comprehensible to the average user.
IANAP but I thought that applying relativity to objects that quantum mechanics traditionally studies crates some contradictions. This, as I understand it, is why there is a search for the "Grand Theory of Physics" or whatever the cool name is for it these days. Am I wrong?
Agreed. His style is very David Foster Wallace, if you aren't familiar with any of his work. It can get too precious in large doses but search for 'david foster wallace federer' for the NYT article considered a classic in this 'genre'.
Pixar Studio Stories: The Movie Vanishes
eclipse, mylyn, git, maven, bash. I do java development about 10 hours a day. I feel there is a oneness in the build/scm/dependencies/source world that has to be understood properly. This doesn't mean that the particular configuration matters so much as the fact that the configuration is consistent and understood. Having total confidence in your build and knowing where to find stuff is a big productivity booster.
Whoa, I didn't know there were 500,000 apps in the app store. I would posit that there aren't even that many potentially different apps that are possible, even considering monkeys on typewriters with an infinite amount of time.
I'm not, but I am around SF a few times a year and would love to belay or spot. I'll contact you off line. I'm usually bouncing between crags in the US (mostly east coast) so we should keep in touch if anything.
It's certaintly very linear, but I wouldn't say you don't go back to it.
I found it fun and different. I get sick of searching for the ubiquitous "< 1 2 3 >" in tiny text somewhere at the bottom of the page. The scheme on that site doesn't obfuscate the paginated nature of the article, which I saw as a relief.

YMMV.
I suspect it's because Apple's success story is louder. (ie, bigger, more so, better, etc.)
1. ssh

For those of you who don't know, `man ssh_config` -- you can set per-host and per-network connections in your `~/.ssh/config` file. Perfect when you have different usernames on some hosts, alternate ports, etc.

2. git

'Nuff said here. Never going back to SVN.

3. nkf

Pretty specific, but a really useful tool if you need to deal with Japanese character sets -- converts pretty much any encoding to any other encoding.

4. VMWare Fusion / VMWare Workstation

If you're going to push code out to a server running on a different OS than your workstation, having a local, virtualized copy of that OS is indispensable.

5. pbcopy and pbpaste

Move text between the shell and clipboard on OS X. xcopy under Linux has the same functionality.
I'm almost 30 now and my 25 yr old self went through this, word for word. If I had to go back and give one piece of advice to that boy, it would be - Relax a little and don't be too harsh on yourself, especially with those expectations. There is _no_ rush. You have much time ahead of you.

Quarter-life crisis is more common than you think. While the reasons do not matter much, in my view, high expectations (not bad) and impatience are the culprits. Life is a long journey and learning to navigate the ups and downs is a skill learned only through experience.

In many ways, this is what entering adulthood really is about :) You no longer have the structure of school, and as you said yourself, the highs and novelty of grad school, your first job have started to wear off. It happened to me too. You are lucky to have a girlfriend who has known you for long. Don't let this feeling affect a precious relationship, first and foremost. If you have a right-brained friend, a guy, who has known you for a while, talk to him. Male camaraderie & bonding is something different altogether.

I hate giving you a list of "things-to-try" but this is what I've learned - "changing things up" is one of the most effective ways of pulling yourself out of this. Your mind needs fresh fuel. It needs to see and experience new things. It is a feedback loop. Your mind will automatically give back to you great motivation, new ideas, and happiness if you feed it with something new.
Soon after I turned 26, I backpacked by myself for a bit around Europe. It was one of the most defining and amazing experiences of my life. Take your girlfriend along and go travel a bit if that seems possible. My travel energized me so much that soon after I returned, a new venture idea dawned on me and gave me a strong purpose.

It is difficult to find meaning and purpose in modern life. Expectations are high, and we see media-fueled stories of 20-something millionaires all the time. That's a rarity.

Most importantly, let life unfold. Life is long (no matter what you hear otherwise). It is a journey. Embrace the uncertainty of what is yet to come. If you stay on your feet, let yourself gravitate towards new experiences, and let them permeate you, the flow will be smoother. Remember that there is no rush. There is no deadline to get to a certain place. There should be no I-must or I-have-tos, especially in this phase. You don't absolutely _have to_ find a strong meaning and purpose to everything just yet. It will come. The 20s are some of the most wonderful years of our lives. Take a few risks, have new experiences, form some amazing memories.

You seem like a fairly cheery guy prior to feeling like this. I see what you are feeling as more of a transient phase in the journey of life. It happens to all of us. Everyone. I speak from experience, too. And believe me, when this phase passes, you will have been glad you went through it. It will define the man you become. It will be good =)

Good luck!
Or, you know, the heyday of good journalism.
Yes and no. The short answer would be that the interface between quantum mechanics and special relativity is fairly unproblematic but the interface with general relativity has some huge problems. Since this is a special-relativity effect it's pretty well understood.
A PDF version, for those so inclined: http://www.wagsrevue.com/Download/Issue_5/Litton.pdf
Almost true. I can do anything with it apart from sending it over a not protected network (for example streaming from a shared drive on an open wifi). If anyone captures such file with a sniffer in such situation and publishes over p2p, it's my details that stay in the file.

On the other hand if anyone really cares about such contrived scenarios, they can just recode the file and tag it again - most simple watermarks should be removed that way. And since it's already an mp3, you're not losing that much quality on such operation.
The Mystical Ethics of the New Atheists (Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, etc)
Let me guess: somebody near the top of Microsoft said, "Apple's kicking our butt. Time to copy^H^H^H^Her, I mean, try to catch up again." And somebody else said, "Yes, boss." And the result: Windows 7.

I haven't used it as much as I have Vista and XP, but from the amount I have it feels like that's what the case is again.
Stardust Particle System Tutorials - Getting Started
You have what Sally Hogshead calls "Tourist Indecision": Anxiety resulting
from a sense of being lost or proceeding without clear direction.

Basically indecision causes stress.

Ever taken a Myers-Briggs personality test? I'm a big believer in it.

Check out "What's Your Type of Career?":

http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Your-Type-Career-Personality/dp/...

Reading that book was a real eye opener for me. It was like someone was reading my thoughts. This book will help you determine what kind of environment you thrive in.

Cheers
Less surprising: the bugs were written in COBOL.
Yeah, I almost never use that. But I really like how I can drag a maximized window and it normalizes or drag a normalized window to the top and it maximizes.

I got a mac mini for some iPhone development and I'm constantly perplexed at how their window managment works. It seems everything is always normalized. I like the mini well enough, it just feels weird to me.
Mid 20s extroverts appear to punt these kinds of concerns by drinking and sleeping around shamelessly. I'm still investigating if that really works.
Free, seemingly legal e-books on various EE and CE fields
ssh vim bpython textmate weave firebug

weave is awesome especially if you have more than one computer you use regularly

bpython is fantastic for exploring unknown api's

the rest are... ya know, awesome
I don’t know what happened in Iraq. But something like this happened in Argentina (at least once).

In 2001 one policeman killed 3 unarmed guys in a gas station. Then he took the bodies to the street and put a knife near one body. He claimed that it was an assault, but later he was found guilty and sentence to prison.

Article in spanish: http://www.clarin.com/diario/2002/01/07/o-02001.htm

Google translation: http://translate.google.com.ar/translate?js=y&prev=_t...
Try Ayahuasca. Its legal 100%, you can get components on ebay.com. Motivation guaranteed.

Watch The Blueprint by Real Social Dynamics - how to get girls.

Listen to some good trance music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkITM2UIYoU

Read Tim Ferris book "Four Hour Work Week"
God's laws would define our rights and if you believe that Hell exists then he makes sure things get sorted out in the end just fine.

Without a basis for defining rights you're leaving room for those rights to be trampled on by the next popular tyrant who comes along. That's what I'm concerned about.
Dude that's genius. I never thought of it in that way before.
There are a lot of good suggestions here.

Reading religion and philosophy definitely helps. A good way to get into that is to find a writer you like (can be anyone) then find out who their influences were. I've enjoyed reading Joseph Campbell and Alan Watts.

Exercise is a great thing as well. It's surprising to me how extremely positive a force daily exercise is in my life.

Writing, therapy... all really good things to consider. You have to find what's right for you. That's a hard thing to do when you're in a slump.

You need a challenge or, even better, a challenging journey. Have you traveled seriously or lived in another country? If not, do it. Go with your fiance, spend at least a year in a foreign place.

Good luck.
Diversify or Die
Implications of Recent PDF /Launch Hacks
Plus, it is so hard to use. Sometimes I shake a window and it doesn't work. Like if there was a concept behind it that I couldn't understand.
I pretty much felt lost until my late 20s. I finished college and worked at a few large companies, doing mostly unrewarding work and not really challenging myself. By age 30 I felt I was at an impasse, and needed to either apply myself or drift along from job to job. I think the final tipping point was the arrival of my first son. The combination of wanting to do better and provide for my son was a powerful one. I ended up losing 50 pounds, getting back to my highschool weight, and working on projects that interest me. That was almost 4 years ago, and can say that Im as happy as I have ever been. For me, exercise and enough sleep are crucial, I can get depressed and demoralized without both of them. I dont know that this will help you, but it worked for me.
From the article:
"In order to achieve "eventual consistency", this "retry later" strategy requires that your write operations are idempotent. This is because a retry later strategy can apply operations out-of-order (as, for instance, when newer jobs are applied before older failed jobs are retried)."

What do you do when idempotency is not possible? If you have Relational databases, how do folks tackle this?

I can understand that it would be excellent for storing search indexes and non-relational databases though.
I was offered co-authorship of a book from a somewhat big computer publisher, about a year ago, and the publisher's initial offer to me was 5% of the retail price. Granted, only co-authorship, and I don't have the leverage of a Stephen King.

Still, from all I've heard, getting as high as 45% out of a traditional publisher is pretty rare.

Plus the other benefit you get, in addition to the rather high royalty, is the ability to totally bypass traditional publishing process. It's just 'vanity publishing' but with Amazon behind it. Which is good and bad, of course, but can still be pretty attractive.

Another factor: yes, you could keep 98% if you truly self-published, digital only, rather than only 45%. But you get potentially a larger number of eyeballs, and they're making printed books, not just PDF's. Paper is cheap. Assembling and shipping a book, not so much. They have to charge something to break even, let alone profit.
Can you suggest some good reading? Watts has a ton of stuff out there..
I was running my families DOS computer when I was 6 or 7 and I don't remember having much problems learning how to stick the disk in (ah, the good ol days), type cd B: and then execute the right program. My brother and I would play tons of old school games that way.
That format was driven into our heads in high school. When I was a freshman in College, I was amazed that very few of my peers could write an essay - a skill I had thought to be pretty basic.

At the time, I wondered, "if they didn't learn how to write an essay in high school, what did they learn?" I never really found out.
Python, Django, MySQL. So far we have been able to build and release features pretty quickly because of the ease of development Django offers. Our original stack was PHP and we decided to move off to speed up development.
Assuming you don't take any "advanced" math in college, yes, it is in fact that linear.

It's complicated by the fact that often you spend 2 weeks learning a concept and then have the teacher say "It's going to be on the test but you're not going to use it until halfway through next year so try and remember it!" Most everyone forgets it, so we waste another 2 weeks re-learning it next year.
The Way of Zen is great. The paradoxes of Zen are fun if you're a programmer-type.
If it helps, you're definitely not alone.

I'm 25. By all accounts my life is pretty good. I've got a fairly promising startup going. And yet I feel like I haven't matured at all since midway through college. I don't feel like I imagined I would at 25.
WARNING: According to the Wikipedia article, this concoction contains monoamine oxidase inhibitors. Pretty much every commercial I've seen for an antidepressant says to be talk to your doctor if you're on any MAO inhibitors. Don't mess with this stuff if you're taking an antidepressant without doing further research.
It's time for a favorite quotation about mathematics again:

"What should every aspiring mathematician know? The answer for most of the 20th century has been: calculus. . . . Mathematics today is . . . much more than calculus; and the calculus now taught is, sadly, much less than it used to be. Little by little, calculus has been deprived of the algebra, geometry, and logic it needs to sustain it, until many institutions have had to put it on high-tech life-support systems. A subject struggling to survive is hardly a good introduction to the vigor of real mathematics.

". . . . In the current situation, we need to revive not only calculus, but also algebra, geometry, and the whole idea that mathematics is a rigorous, cumulative discipline in which each mathematician stands on the shoulders of giants.

"The best way to teach real mathematics, I believe, is to start deeper down, with the elementary ideas of number and space. Everyone concedes that these are fundamental, but they have been scandalously neglected, perhaps in the naive belief that anyone learning calculus has outgrown them. In fact, arithmetic, algebra, and geometry can never be outgrown, and the most rewarding path to higher mathematics sustains their development alongside the 'advanced' branches such as calculus. Also, by maintaining ties between these disciplines, it is possible to present a more unified view of mathematics, yet at the same time to include more spice and variety."

Stillwell demonstrates what he means about the interconnectedness and depth of "elementary" topics in the rest of his book, which is a delight to read and full of thought-provoking problems.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0387982892/
"I am going to make an appointment with a psychologist"

Make the appointment tomorrow morning! The people here not advocating seeking professional help, are the same people who have never received help. Trust me, seeing a psychologist is the single best thing you can do. If you had a physical illness, this type of question would not even be asked, mental health problems are just as serious and should be treated that way.

Also if it doesn't work out with the first psychologist, don't get discouraged. Just make another appointment, and find one that fits your style. Dude, lots of people have been in your position, but the ones that are happy today are the ones who treated it as seriously as they treat all other aspects of their health.

Good luck,

Edit: as much as it is good to talk about this with friends and family, they really don't have the tools to help you overcome this. People think you just need to cheer up, or pat you on the back. Happiness is journey, for some its easy and for some it takes time and effort.
Maintain commitments to others that place demands upon you on a regular basis.

One strives to simplify, to avoid conflict and to eliminate dependencies and if successful, we can create a bubble we live in where we don't have to do anything or satisfy anyone but ourselves.

But we are not wired to live that way!

Just as a muscle shrinks and weakens without demands, our brains shrivel up too!