skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I see your point, but I think that attitude of preserving your own financial freedom is much like an adhesive bandage: If you pull it out slowly, the pain will be bigger. To keep his financial freedom he'd have to: 1) be very careful in which charity to invest (which likely would go like the joke: you are the optimal sort function, always comparing, never evaluating on an external scale), 2) invest just enough to keep it, which means some charity may get underfunded or not be as successful as it could otherwise.

You'd want him to "make things happen that would be simply impossible otherwise [if he didn't had 5 million]". My rebuttal is that he's done exactly that, but he's done so in one take, not allowing his fear of losing independence from later interfering with his ability to change things. That takes knowing oneself, and should be admired.
If I imagine this as the best possible way to develop a curriculum (which it may or may not be), there is still a big problem: learning is driven by curiosity. What is curious to one person is boring to the next so the specific path from
"novice" to "expert" is very personal.
try printing, too. i opened an email on my ipad and looked around for a print button before having a "duh" moment and realizing that there is no print support.

there are some clunky 3rd party apps to print, but most require a utility installed on your mac or pc to proxy the print requests, and since no other app can access your email database, they all have to reimplement an email app inside of them, in which you have to duplicate all of your email settings. ugh indeed.
Clearly her previous iPhone experience was paramount.
List of countries;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_east#Traditional_definit...

Average rate of atheism;

turkey 3%

bahrain N/A assumes 0 maximum possible of 9.8% (other)

kuwait N/A assumes 0 maximum possible rate of 5% (non islamic)

oman N/A assumes 0 less than 5% (non islamic)

qatar N/A assumes 0 max possible 22.5% (other)

saudi arabia atheism expressly illegal

UAE N/A assumes 0 max possible 15 (other)

yemen n/A assumes 0 max possible 1 (other)

Gaza strip 0

iraq N/a assumes 0 max possible 3 (other)

israel 15-37 (split @ 26% :/)

Jordan N/A assumes 0 max possible 2 (other)

Lebanon N/A assumes 0 max possible 5 (other)

Syria 0 (other)

West Bank N/A assumes 0 max possible 8 (other)

Iran N/A assumes 0 max possible 2 (other)

Cyprus 2%

Egypt < 1%

18 countries

total 3 + 26 + 2 + 1 = 32 / 18 = 1.7%

Excuse uberfast formatting, methodology, just check the wikipedia entries then check the atheism rates, combination of the wiki entries on a per country basis + the religion in x articles + demographics of atheism. Compare 1.7% with the figures for a wide variety of western nations referenced at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism#Distrib....

I'm kind of baffled by the idea that this is controversial.
Yes, when Aljazeera first began broadcasting the American press had nothing but praise for them. It was only when they refused to parrot the party line on Iraq and 9/11 that the media turned against Aljazeera.
That's not gonna make him all that happy.

Studies have found that money can make you happy - so long as you spend it on creating great memories that are valuable for you.

If you said he went around a poor part of India and gave all the money away to people that he met there, I would see some merit to that. At least, he'll get the experience of having met all these people and changed their lives. Those memories would stay with him his whole life. Setting up $5m's worth of anonymous micro-loans might make you feel good for a few months, maybe a year or two, but the memory will soon fade. It's too distant.

Even if you decide that your calling in life is to give all your stuff away, there are much more personally fulfilling ways to do it.
I'm finding it really interesting that people are taking my original statement as an attack on Al Jazeera... All I said was it's a media company that exists within the most religious civilisation in the world. If I were to point out that MSNBC is a media company that exists within the most materialistic civilisation in the world, would this be equally considered as an attack?

Curious stuff.
That's kind of what the parent comment was pointing out. There aren't really tech geeks on Digg anymore, and the presumption is that only tech geeks care about not having the DiggBar. So maybe it doesn't make sense to get rid of it, if most of the people on Digg don't care anyway.
Is that really something you experienced? That didn’t ever happen to me. If a salesperson treated me like that I would pretty much immediately lose all respect for them.
I agreed in couple of messages that Bush benefited so it's disheartening to see you claim otherwise repeatedly. Do you find that misrepresenting what other people say is helpful in reaching agreement?

Lots of people benefited, but that doesn't make them as culpable as folks who pushed and defended the GSE's misconduct.

Plus, Bush did make some attempt to try to rein in the GSEs. Yes, he could have done more, but again, that distinguishes him from folks who opposed those efforts.

Surely you're not arguing that "Bush was a disaster on the war" implies "everything bad that happened is completely Bush's fault"?
https://wiki.basho.com/display/RIAK/Riak+compared+to+Cassand...

https://wiki.basho.com/display/RIAK/Riak+Comparisons

http://blog.basho.com/2010/03/22/the-craft-brewers-of-nosql/
I'm becoming a huge fan of gerrit.

I have to say that I still feel that "git commit -a" is trouble. It's OK to ease one in, but the faster you free yourself from thinking of committing as "saving the state of things" and begin to think of committing as "introducing a change" the more sense it all makes for everyone else.

(I say this having had my team spend a week or so cleaning up a tree for public consumption and hearing them say things like "I don't understand what this change does" -- if we don't understand, we can't publish it)
Relevant in the same sense that existance within the structure of a communist country qualifies a person for understanding what is par for the course within a communist country. Or existance within a fascist country qualifies a person for understanding what is par for the course within a fascist country.

I must admit I'm quite baffled at the hair trigger reactions here, I wasn't trying to make anything approaching a controversial statement, saying; these guys ought to know what fanatical adherence to religious principles ought to look like, I don't get why that's debatable.
Both good works. Upvoted for taste. :)
Friends Season 1-10 Complete Collection DVD
I don't meet too many intelligent $ECONOMIC_MODEL proponents on the internet. Yes, I freely include my preferred economic model there.

I have much more respect for people who hold opinions which disagree with mine and have actually thought them out, rather than just coming to the opinions they have because it seems... nice.
This is precisely why I was waiting for this device, or one like it, and why my daughter is getting her own ;)
Point taken, but the fact that the creator of the story made these the talking points says something in itself.
"The Benefit of Cycling to Work."
Could you explain the point you are making a bit? Are her standards too low, too high?
I'm sure she's had a little experience, but the touch interface is really intuitive.

My daughter was less than a year old when we watched her unlock my wife's iPhone and start playing with it. It wasn't taught to her, it was just natural "mommy did this, then this, so I will too and it works".
Unless you can prove the existence of a Jesus who has been resurrected, a Moses who walked on the sea or a Muhamad who rode a flying horse to Heaven, I doubt your proof would satisfy most people.
Because you deign to waste our time with it. Putting effort into your writing shows that you have respect for your readers.
There has to be some kind of creative component to the compilation. And arguably Facebook didn't even compile the data in the first place -- it'd be like a college claiming a compilation copyright on the band fliers, roommate requests, and lost-pet ads pinned to a bulletin board in the student union building.
Alfred, a Quicksilver replacement, launches speedy new 0.5.6 beta
I wrote:

"I found" ... "I think". The first is certainly my personal experience, and the second is a theory that is clearly labeled as my opinion, which I am entitled to.
I have been looking for a Quicksilver replacement for quite some time, and while initial versions of Alfred were too slow for my liking, this new beta is super quick. I suggest everyone give it a try.
Surely turning $1M into $10M is fairly trivial compared to making that first $1M. Maybe turning $1M into $100M :/
It mentions an article written by a Utah-based "consumer psychologist" which is quoted as saying:

"We find several key sustaining myths, including a creation myth, a messianic myth, a satanic myth, and a resurrection myth"

but I question whether you couldn't identify most of these in damn near any fandom.

Sure, there is indeed a difference between fandom and cultishness, but I think Apple fandom remains well and truly on the "fandom" side. I think it's silly, but it's no sillier than being a Firefly fan, or a Red Sox fan, or a Beatles fan.
I don't think any 2.5 y/o would be impressed by the computing power of any device. The point of the video is that somebody with no preconditioning or expectations can pick up an iPad and do some fairly complex tasks. And besides, look at how excited she got at the end!
The best bit of this video is where she hands it to her father and asks him to try. I'm guessing, but that gesture wouldn't have come quite so naturally on a traditional computer.
Ah... this book brings back memories for me.
This is the only programming book that I read till the end three times, not to mention the countless other times I use it for reference.
The only book that can almost match this book is Effective Java Programming.

These are the only two books I bought _after_ reading them from front to back as they are a must have for my library.
somebody with no preconditioning or expectations

My iPhone-savvy 2.5 year-old daughter

I would consider previous iPhone use to provide both preconditioning and expectations.
What do women want from online dating? (helpful myth included)
I would really like a rss feed of my "saved" links and "thread" comments.
False dilemma, take the ThinkPad instead.
It looks like a great event, and wish the best to all attendees. Boston has everything it needs for a strong tech community, but for too long has focused on big-companies/enterprise. See: Wang

I'm a bit confused about the split nature of the event.. If it's Angel investor training camp, why are they demoing companies? Isn't it a bit early for that? I assume most people would want time to think over the ideas before making any investment decisions.
A friend told me his kids now try to use iphone hand motions on other screens they encounter and are surprised when they don't work. Same age group.
That's kind of what I did for my first fulltime job, starting in a few weeks. I'm being paid about half what I would be at BigCo (and what I was, even, during my various internships), but the quality of the work and people make up for it. Oh, and the stock options, too.
"Clearly I’ve got a lot to learn about how Google Adwords works"

The secret to AdWords is the mysterious "Quality Score". The higher the Quality Score, the lower the CPC. The article didn't mention what the exact CPC was, but it did say that in total they got 82 clicks and they had £75 to spend. That would be almost £1 per click! That says to me that the Quality Score must be pretty low, likely 4/10 or lower.

When optimizing an AdWords campaign, pay attention to the keywords in the ad copy (title, body, and display URL), on the landing page (title, metas, body), and in the keyword lists themselves. The same factors that affect SEO and PR can affect AdWords QS. If he tried the experiment again and worked to get a QS of 7/10 or higher, the CPC would drop to a tenth of what it was before. A QS of 10/10 in a niche market can see CPC even lower.
Stray observations:

1. kids are awesome

2. she only got frustrated once, and that was when she couldn't get back to the home screen. With the hint "press the button; the big button" she felt in control (and happy).

3. By this point I'm thinking how I would simulate her investigative behavior in software. It's not systematic, but it's oh so efficient.

4. the confidence with which she dragged the letters to the "learn a word" app. First hesitantly, a moment later she fully expected the scrabble block under her finger to move along. You can spot the difference because she stopped checking whether the letter would follow her finger, she knew it would.

5. Confusion when she put her left hand on the edge of the iPad. This is where the immersion breaks and she needed a hint to get back on track. In fairness, most adults who try an iPhone for the first time make the same mistake, if you can even call it that.

6. The confidence with which the dad goes "Yup", knowing that she can't possibly do any damage to the device.

7. How she immediately goes into "piano mode" when a keyboard app appears on screen.

8 . It surprises me that she makes the same mistakes most adults do when trying a iPhone/iPad for the first time.

So much for my stray observations. Fascinating stuff.
Unless you have got a really safe place to ride, cycling takes too much attention. That's one reason I walk a lot. (Also, you can't take notes while riding - if you don't write it down as soon as you can, you will usually forget it.) Also, walking in the dark helps by cutting down on outside distractions.
And for me!
I've been on Bebo the site design is wonky and confusing. What do you expect?
She has the attention span of a 2.5 ye -- oh.
Those are things that people said that Jesus/Moses/Muhammad did, and consequentially not what I'm claiming proof for.

My claim is only that they existed. Whether we believe what they said, or what other people say about them, is another question entirely.

Going back to the original point:
"At least I can prove, to a reasonable level of satisfaction, the existence of Apple."

No one is arguing Apple's existence, the debate is whether what Apple says and what is said about Apple is true.

The Bible says Jesus was resurrected. Apple says iPad is magical. Pundits say iPad is the future of computing. Is it true? I don't know. But it's all the same kind of mysticism.
Heh... A one "Andrew Wander"? Not to pre-judge, but I'm not sure his opinion is representative of the Islamic world. :)

http://www.reprieve.org.uk/andrewwander
I agree this is a decent summary of amateur v. professional mindsets, but I can't help but think many markets (including games) would be generally worse off if everyone followed the professional mindset. There's tons of off-the-wall, innovative games that turned out to be popular, where the creators later admit they had no idea anyone would actually like it, but had made it just because they thought it was a cool idea. If everyone who thought their idea failed the basic-market-research test dropped it and found a new idea, we'd miss out on a lot of interesting stuff.
I think you missed the part about how "joining the service is "100 percent free," but members are urged to pay $130 for software that makes it easier to enter the license plate numbers and for a package of travel discounts."
Could this become a usability test? Take your app or device and observe the interaction; positive and negative to improve overall UX. Similar to the drunken user test.W ould the results be valid for business functions where the child does not have or understand the need or problem being solved?
Nonfalse, we're talking about recent history (movies this year).
No they are just clueless, Bebo was purchased for cash.
I'd dispute the distinction, witness how quickly just the mention of a civilisation as "most religious" is taken as an attack upon that civilisation.

Once upon a time perhaps the difference between a religion and a cult was that a cult was a religion without the good press, but the reaction to even characterising a thing as a religion being classed as an attack by so many people seemingly subconsciously, it seems that they're both negative labels now.

Can't say it particularly bothers me personally, quite the contrary.
"the most religious civilisation in the world"

You keep saying that, buy you still haven't given any basis for it.
i complained about this to the basho guys (sean) at erlang-factory and they said that they were in the process of making it more useful...
There are a lot of comments about how private APIs is normal, and this is true. The big difference between the iPad and windows though, is that developers could (and did) leverage the private APIs on windows.

This had it's upsides and downsides:

Upside: cool functionality in 3rd party apps

Downside: Either MS had to bend over backwards to support APIs that were never public, or older apps would break on newer versions of windows. MS would be blamed for this breakage, not the developers that used an undocumented API

Obviously Apple is doing this to prevent the downside, but it does mean that 3rd party apps are more worse off then they were in the windows world, where they could at least reverse engineer and release.
Man, I bet Portugal is growing a KILLER party scene right now.
When it first launched it was opt-out. Due to everybody hating it, they changed it to opt-in.
Serves me right for being a hardware guy. Clicked through eagerly expecting something like my vector clock implementation, http://web.jfet.org/vclk/
You can easily run the latest kernel on a Pentium III without issue.
It's not opt-in... At some point, every single outgoing article link you'd click on would come up in a frame with the Digg bar on top.
I agree. He doesn't even seem to have a good idea of what he's going to do next. If he were retiring to a cabin in the Alps or a shack on the beach I could envy him a little, but living in a tiny studio apartment in Innsbruck? With a bed in the living room so he can't even experience the pleasure of having a friend around to dinner?

And I, too, would like to know what his wife has to say about this. Setting up a charity is fine, but moving from a villa to a bedsit? I'm starting to think there may be some divorce-related spite involved here.
"Joining the service is "100 percent free," but members are urged to pay $130 for software that ..."

"But they stand to profit significantly if they convince friends and family to join -- a classic multi-level marketing ploy."

I think that they will try to sell the informaton, but if it is not possible, this can be transformed into an unwanted pyramid scheme.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1245743
Exactly. So many people miss the fundamental UI shift that's happening here. We don't want a desktop in another form factor.
Now try giving that 2.5 year old a violin and see how well that works.

Now try giving that 2.5 year old a graphing calculator and see how well that works.

Now try giving that 2.5 year old a drum kit and see how well that works.

Now try giving that 2.5 year old canvas with a palette of oil paints and see how well that works.
Well that's contradictory, because how would you admire it if you hadn't come to know of it, without his press release :) !
Good question.

1) The demo session is separate and optional. The last thing I want to do is make the angels, particularly the prospective ones, feel captive. But for some, it will whet their appetite.

2) It's an opportunity to get some non-TechStars companies in front of an interesting crowd of investors.

3) It might actually be interesting to some of the angels coming in from out of town who wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to see these companies.

That said, I should make it clearer that the demo session is entirely optional.
Those are great examples. Regular PCs are like giving people drum kits because it satisfies all the "requirements".

The iPad is like giving you maracas, a tambourine, or bongo drums. Same functionality? No. Vastly more fun for beginners? Yes.
http://www.rackspacecloud.com/blog/2009/11/09/nosql-ecosyste...
With Apple things are either easy or nearly impossible.
The only successful shareware developer that I know doesn't do any market research or marketing. (only one datapoint)
Well well, I'll know to dig deeper next time! Thanks very much for the pointer.
It's a curriculum, not a compulsory work load. Also, the curriculum would be updateable. I think it's often the case that somebody wants to go farther into a subject and would like to know what the standard knowledgebase is for that subject.
see also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1245611
Money is not an end. Money is a means.
who would then have to push harder drugs on school children in order to make the same money that they're currently making from the marijuana black market.

What? School children aren't the largest base of recreational drugs. Cartels aren't in the business of dealing on street level, let alone to children.

Thats also not the way drugs work, they aren't substitute goods and marijuana isn't a "gateway drug" as shown by statistics.
ah! thanks...
A good list of things which require skill to use. Is the iPad the closest we've gotten to a computer which does not require skill to use? Other examples?
And it's fast. Everyone complains it doesn't have multitasking, but is there really a better way to switch apps that would be any faster than that even with multitasking?
The problem with that dichotomy is that it never shows that at some point amateur becomes professional. Very few are born with business/marketing/whatever skills.
Simple maps mashup to help on flooding in Rio
Fair points, I hope people stick around for it. If nothing else, it gives them experience in the sort of pitches they might be getting, once they put their name out there.
Quick, get her reading Gogol.
There may be significant changes to this is OS4.0
i can only imagine what kind of technology we'll be dealing with when she's reading HN
Which kind creates value and which kind destroys it?

Creative bundling has always been a part of the history of innovation. What we're talking about here is the possible bundling of last mile and search.

Google thinks this is a nice bundle, as is evidenced by its fiber explorations, Topeka, etc.

There are a lot of innovative ways that bundling could make consumers better off... We don't notice most of them b/c we just take it for granted that they are sensible.

When is the last time you complained about buying a bundle of a beverage + regrigeration? Or about buying a car + tires?

Bundling works in some markets when there are economies of scale to be gained by merging two things.

Consider that comcast would have better demographic data to power its search/advertising engine, and comcast could also merge in tv habits data. As the internet and TV merge this is going to become huge.

What does it mean? Maybe that some of that ad revenue that is paying Google's shareholders could instead be used to subsidize high quality broadband for the masses while enriching Comcast's shareholders.

All in all, firms wouldn't want to do it if it wouldn't result in more profit. Unless you believe that google is a lucky accident (rather than a business that only makes money because it satisfies customers) then you shouldn't worry about net neutrality.
Repopular Repos
Not really, unless page count is your only metric. If you've read any of Steele's other language definition books (I've read all of the first Common Lisp one and some of the Java 3rd edition), you'll see it's clearly in the same style as the others. Also not entirely like the Scheme Revised Reports, which really set the standard for conciseness ^_^.