skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Enforced privacy limits reuse but doesn't prevent any particular class of bugs (calling random private methods is no worse than calling random public methods; you should feel equally bad about both).

Prototype OO precludes introspection. You have "an object", and that's as much as you can ever know.
I think you're underestimating the difference in revenue potential between targeted and untargeted advertising. The jury is out on whether Facebook actually has a sustainable advertising revenue anyway, but I'd guess that the potential income probably drops by an order of magnitude if you can't target specific demographics.
Sounds like someone's word of the day was "disrupt" but they didn't bother looking up the definition before deploying it.
Facebook On AIM Is A Hit: 1 Million Users
Killing someone while drunk should be considered premeditated.

Are you suggesting that in 100% of the cases where killing someone (and I assume this includes manslaughter) is premeditated?

Because if you are not, then it should not be considered premeditated. That's dishonest. Simply give the judge some additional window to affect sentencing for a set of crimes committed while intoxicated.

If you want to punish something more strongly because doing so would lead to beneficial behavior from citizens, then by all means do so. But call it what it is, don't hijack other unrelated factors for your own means.
> Well, evolution doesn't always mean improvement.

I think you mean: evolution doesn't always mean _adding things_. Taking away something that causes a net loss is evolution. Much like, say, the tail in certain higher primates. Or the ability to install and run absolutely anything (including malware, trojans, and viruses).

(Whether a thing causes a net gain or loss is its own entire argument, of course.)
I guess I have to give it a shot again. I keep on getting frustrated with VIM. Perhaps this is the proper way to learn it.
Comcast has bats, AT&T doesn't

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/9/20/
Interesting, but I wonder whether Go-style "go routines" and channels would be a better choice to implement.

First, it seems like they would be easier to write in C++. You're mostly creating a new kind of pseudo-container (channel), instead of trying to fake adding new syntax to the language. (Although you do still need to have some mechanism for executing a go routine, somehow ....)

Second, its a more powerful abstraction. With go routines it's not hard to implement something with the functionality of Python-esque generators, but you can also do fancier things that you would have a difficult time doing using only generators.
yup: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1294632
The table takes splits into account incorrectly, so some of the numbers (pre 2000) split show up 4x too high and pre 2005 split show up 2x too high.
This particular brand of 'worldwide censorship' is not unique in this day and age - Scientology practices something very similar, using the threat of copyright to discourage talking about their practices.

In any event, it's only recent globalization has made this approach a possibility. Go back two decades, and the Soviet Union practiced similar censorship within their own territories. Go back a few hundred years, and the catholic church threatened excommunication if you didn't toe the party line.

It's the same idea - just the techniques have gotten more refined.
In terms of "fitting in": many nerds conclude that paying attention to pop culture, sports, and fashion (Brad and Angelina, Eminem, Kobe Bryant) is pointless. We could learn about them if we wanted to "fit in", but we often find them just plain boring. Why would we do something boring just to get the attention of a bunch of kids who like boring stuff? Why not do stuff we find interesting, like math or reading, and be popular with the minority who also find those things interesting?

(Disclaimer: I'm actually quite the sports nut, as well as a huge nerd.)
Recommender Problems for Web Applications (at linkedIn Tonight)
This looks very promising. I believe that the number of people who want to offer affiliate marketing options will boom if you show them that you can do it (with your app). In a sense, you'd be creating a market. Perhaps offer fees that scale down (even minimally) as my revenue goes up, so that our interests are more fully aligned? And it may be worth experimenting with a monthly fee, just to see if that helps keep out the "high-maintenance, low-profit" customers (or not).
I'm really curious what their business model will be. Given the modular look of the device library, my guess is that they'll start adding premium instruments and DSP devices, either as part of a subscription or as a la carte, one-time purchases.

It's too bad there's no way (that I know of, at least) for the Flash runtime to interface with MIDI drivers.
The problem is, not all WebKit browsers on mobile are exactly the same: http://www.quirksmode.org/webkit.html
If you think the laws themselves are faulty, then argue against their merit. But arguments of the form "if we removed laws, less laws would get broken" have always seemed somewhat vacuous to me.

Edit: Given the downvotes, I'd love to have a discussion with someone who disagrees.
The title makes this article full of win.
In the tables and charts below, the aberation of JavaScript appearing as a language used by 55% of respondents in 2008, and only 7% this survey can be put down to confusion in the wording of the question last year. Clearly, many respondents thought the question applied to all languages they use, not just those on the back end. We ensured this mistake was not repeated this year.
DreamIt '10 has 15 companies thanks to Startl
Exactly. Whenever we self-censor because of terrorist threats, we send the message that threats work. Threats will get you want you want.

If we consistently replied with "we don't listen to threats; if you follow up, you'll be punished," then crazies with agendas wouldn't be able to push the whole world around.

Not that I'd find it easy to publish something, just for humor's sake, that could get me or my loved ones killed. But if I thought it was truly an important message, I hope I'd publish it.
You can't get a copper twisted-pair to your house (for DSL or a T1)? There is no 3G or 4G wireless service?

I highly doubt that Comcast is the only option. It is merely the cheapest option with the highest available bandwidth.
Congratulations on the success!
'censoring ourselves' is not 'ignoring them'
Want to Meet Mark Zuckerberg? Here's a List of His Public Events
A citation ought to have been provided, but for most people interested in this topic the disparities in prosecutions and sentencing are so well known that it might not seem necessary.

http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~oliver/RACIAL/RacialDisparities.htm (copious linkage and a good overview)
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~oliver/RACIAL/RacialDisparities.htm (very detailed analysis of sentencing disparities in particular)
Ask HN: Live chat with visitors (For lean startups and customer development)
I wonder if there is a service which allows you to see an overview of website visitors and initiate (pop-up) a javascript chat window with them. By default it should be hidden.

This could be intrusive, but it could also be a great tool for customer development and lean startups in general. How fantastic it would be to talk to your visitors instantly and learn what their pains and cravings are.

If something like this does not exist,
and there is sufficient demand, I will gladly build this with a friend. Curious to hear your thoughts.
I Paid for Microsoft’s Mistake
I've only worked for small companies/teams, and I've experienced everyone of those traits from various managers/team leads. A coralary to "You can write Fortran in any language" could be "You can manage poorly in any environment."
Tolerance Camp.
Repeat: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1282814

Flagged
Death threats aren't enough. You need death threats plus a history of fanatics willing to back them up.
I think it's worth pointing out that on Twitter, there is only one privacy setting, when you set up an account, and you have complete access to who sees your tweets. Unless I missed a major news story about this, I don't think Twitter has yet violated anyone's trust there.

Facebook, on the other hand, by either incompetence or some skewed sense of openness, at some point has made a choice that it wants to put all your information out there while giving you the illusion that you have some control over it.

The point is that privacy isn't impossible. It's simple. You have an element in a database that is flagged as important to someone, so you make sure that before you ever pull that element out and put it on the web, the proper controls are in place. It is just a choice a company makes of how high of a priority to make something, and Facebook has demonstrated that privacy means more to them as a PR issue than a real concern about user data.
Respectful is not the word to use, fearful is much closer...
Wonders Of The Solar System
Probably not correct. You can buy a twisted pair from someone like Covad and then use whatever ISP you want. This is how Speakeasy works.

Yeah, it costs more, but it's nice to not have to deal with AT&T or Comcast, right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptote
> But if I thought it was truly an important message, I hope I'd publish it.

Just for the record; I entirely agree here! If it is important then it needs to be said.

But if you say something for fun (which I think one should be allowed to do!) and because of it a bomb goes off elsewhere in the world - that is hard to justify.

> If we consistently replied with "we don't listen to threats; if you follow up, you'll be punished,"

Yeh, the problem with applying this to extremism is that, for the most part, it doesn't work. On one hand it gives them ammunition to "legitimise" their actions and on the other punishment isn't necessarily a concern for some. They will kill anyway.
PEP 376 is accepted — What it means
I am also from Portugal and I was thinking the same as you... is this the same country I live in? However, I am not from a younger generation. I believe the original post is biased towards his own experience/environment and generalizes a lot and that might explain it...
I guess I'm a crappy programmer since I'm not always yammering on about wanting to test something
Decaying beauty (quark) spied for first time by LHC
The "kj" remapping seems like a nifty trick; I've spent a while getting accustomed to ctrl-[ instead of the <ESC> key (I can't reach the <ESC> key without moving my left hand), but it's still hard for me to do quickly and reliably.
This. is. awesome.

And timely too. I was planning to sit down to add some affiliate stuff into MailFinch but I'd be willing to try this out. Just signed up for the beta.
Surely locking someone in a cage for possessing a non-toxic plant goes against "common sense".
Hard to say. Christian extremists are quite willing to issue death threats against abortion practitioners and such.
No, the critical difference is that as things currently stand none of the people involved in the drug trade have any reason to cooperate with the authorities. And really, once alcohol was legalized look at how quickly the mob violence around it disappeared.
No other wired option, Verizon refused me service (something to do with the wiring in my apartment building). Wireless is an option, but then I either need an extra machine running with the wireless NIC to function as a router for the 2 current machines. I pay enough in power as it is (mainly due to electric heat).
Where I live Comcast offers higher speeds. It's also more expensive. I recently moved and switched to AT&T and I'll explain my current gripe with them.

I have 6Mbit DSL (the fastest they offer). Things worked fine for the first couple months. No real complaints other than the fact that 6Mbit isn't really that fast. Then all of a sudden about a month ago my connection drops to ~1.25Mbit. Netflix is un-streamable (any video really), downloads are slow, all of this regardless of host. Speedtest.net confirms my speeds.

I call and complain, they verify I still have the 6Mbit plan, I play their unplug and replug the modem game (that I had already tried numerous times, as well as a different phone cable and ethernet cable). They run a "line test" and say everything looks fine so they'll send someone out.

The guy never calls or shows up. I call back last weekend to try and get this worked out and get another guy out and they say there is no record of my service call ever. Also, their tools are currently down and without first running a line test they can't schedule a service appointment. They tell me to call back and try again the next day.

As it stands I haven't called back yet because I've been too busy... but I'm planning on it and hoping for the best :/
NASA Hubble Documentary Now Available Online in HD
Hubble: 20 Years of Discovery
I don't know about impressive, but for many people it's overkill due to the distance they sit from the screen. The pixels are indistinguishable at normal TV viewing range.

Apparently at the standard US viewing distance of 9 feet you need a 46" TV to resolve the detail in 720p, to resolve 1080p detail you'd need a 69" TV set.
<--- What, you mean like that?
I like this since I tend to enjoy more in depth treatments of interesting subjects. I would suggest that you place an RSS link in a more prominent location than buried in the FAQ section. Also, it would be nice if you could embed the link to the original story in the RSS feed, even just appended to the description. I'm sure I am in the minority here but I do not own any Apple mobile device so RSS is more important to me than Instapaper.
People are weird. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_the_Plumber
I guess different airlines have different pricing models, but other people have built businesses around predicting when airfare prices will fluctuate. See:

http://www.bing.com/travel/about/howWorks.do

(nee Farecast.com)
Thank you! It's a huge driver of revenue if done right. Our goal is to make it more customer/relevant partner driven, rather than shooting fish in the barrel traditional affiliate marketing. Yup, we'd definitely scale down with volume.
"carrying-out a unified agenda of world-wide censorship through political influence or down-right intimidation when that doesn't work, is quite unique to Islamic countries."

What about the war on drugs? What about the millions of people we killed because they preferred communism?
You didn't say where "here" was, but I'm going to assume it's somewhere where Sikhs are the minority.

I think one aspect of media is that it should be called out when it misrepresents a minority who don't typically get the well rounded coverage that the majority culture gets. For example, Christianity in the US. It's "ok" to make fun of Christians because we are inundated with Christianity; the joke is obvious and there's an abundance of positive portrayals to offset the negative impact of the satire. In the case of a marginal minority, it's a lot more hurtful, and so the response is more dramatic (ie, death threats).
If you like this, you might also like the well-curated Give Me Something to Read at http://givemesomethingtoread.com/
3.5" Floppy disc manufacture to end in March 2011
Make sure you get function completion, etc for your language integrated in. I know that function is one of the one's non-vimmers seem to miss most when coding, and I'd miss it too, if it wasn't one of the first things I setup for every language.

http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1879

http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Omni_completion

C++
http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/C%2B%2B_code_completion

Python
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=1542

Objc
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2674

Most people who use vim don't use it as an exercise in minimalism we're often caricatured as constantly undergoing. I mean, we don't chock it up to Visual Studio/Emacs level of plug-ins, but we definitely use some in our day to day on average.
One Script to Rule Them All – YouTube Downloader For Opera,Fx,Chrome,Safari & IE
Also, a gem that most people don't seem to know about: a standard vim install comes with a program called `vimtutor`. Running it will put you inside vim with an excellent first tutorial, suitable for beginner vimmers.

Good luck! The muscle memory you learn now will pay off in the future! :D
I seem to recall hearing that when alcohol was legalized the number of people drinking roughly doubled and the number of alcoholics went up by around 15% (there seems to be a correlation between substance abuse and willingness to break the law, surprise surprise).
You don't need a full computer to be a wireless router, take a look at: http://3gstore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&prod...

Also, I'm sure that Verizon won't sell you anything (they are just another shitty company that caters to low-end consumers), but higher-end companies will probably make the effort to fix your wiring. Speakeasy is one.
A HackerNews wiki? Sounds interesting. It could become a resource for members of this community to store knowledge about things this community has formed around.
Cops Bust Into Gizmodo Editor's Home And Seize Computers, Documents In Probe
This is exactly why I have Speakeasy.
I'm trusting the individual prostitute who voluntarily chose to sell sex on the belief that it made him/her better off. I trust his/her experience more than yours.

As for this "unless you have personal experience, you can't comment" argument, I call BS. That is nothing but an attempt to keep outside views out of the debate. Thanks to the powers of logic and reason, humans can draw all sorts of correct conclusions without personal experience. I've never experienced quantum mechanics, the inside of a computer chip, or plate tectonics, yet I can draw all sorts of correct conclusions about them. You are trying to tell me that I can't draw correct conclusions about a slightly different human experience?
huge difference from companies' and journalists' point of view - maybe.

no difference whatsoever from consumer point of view.
That is certainly enlightening to the discussion: They're not lucky, they just hold all the cards.
Police Seize Jason Chen's Computers
Google Maps + Google Earth = Earth View = WIN
Probably worth while to mention that depicting Jesus in an inappropriate manner is _greatly_ disrespectful to Muslims as well. Jesus(peace be upon him) is among the most renowned Prophets of God in Islam.
"What is a browser?"

http://www.videosurf.com/video/what-is-a-browser-68613022
Arguably, Apple didn't want the phone, since he tried to return it and they didn't care. So, he eBayed it. (Or the moral equivalent thereof.)
Yes, vi related muscle memory is particularly useful when using non-vi text entry.:wq
You've said you don't want interest, so you're not
Why not invest in yourself? Go on a nice holiday? Buy a house? Get a facelift. Spend the money to make your life better?

Or invest in some 'social capital'. Buy your parents/siblings a house, or a car. If times go bad, you'll be able to call in some favours.
Similar Hacker News Users: Building the Tool
Oh, it's certainly fair and accurate, but ... cooking salmon in your dishwasher???

For it to be a strong argument it needs to be something the audience can identify with, and I doubt there's much overlap between the readers of Publisher's Weekly and Surreal Gourmet.
Ask HN: where have you had success advertising online (besides majors)?
I've tried Google, Yahoo, Bing, StumbleUpon, Facebook, MySpace, Reddit, AdOn.com & some others I can't remember. I've had the most success with reddit: http://ye.gg/reddit

Now I'm thinking of trying 4chan. Has anyone had success there or on other sites? I realize every product is different, and that's fine. I just want to know if you've been successful there.
China's human rights report about the US
I think Olark does this: http://www.olark.com/portal/
I map caps to esc instead of ctrl, and that plus H -> ^ and L -> $ means I hardly move my hands when out of insert mode.
This has pretty much been my experience too. My high school wasn't enormous, but it was ~2000 kids, big enough for subcultures to form and as many (if not more honestly) of the outcast were dumb as the popular kids.

Heck actually in that school most of the really intelligent ones, the AP/Dual enrollment kids and the like, while not necessarily popular, were treated very well by everyone because a smart peer was always a better resource than a teacher if you needed help, regardless of how much of a social outcast they were.
I'm excited to hear how advertising on 4chan goes for you. Keep HN updated.
It's actually like seeing only a small selection of Larry and Sergey's searches - not all of Zuckerberg's content is public. He says so in one of his status updates that is public.
[code folding section deleted, I stand corrected]

Vim's indentation changes still require a mode change three obscure keys and an enter, and vim's discoverability still sucks.
Ask HN: Any entrepreneurs and/or engineers living with ADHD?
Background: I was diagnosed with ADHD in the sixth grade and the diagnosis made sense then, and still does today (I am 27 years old - CS graduate and software developer). I don't want to make this post into a discussion or flamewar on the existence of ADHD, whether it is overdiagnosed, etc.

I am simply curious because I understand that some fairly successful and creative people have been diagnosed with ADHD (the founder of JetBlue comes to mind) and I figure that the same must be true for a community like Hacker News. It would be very interesting to me to hear your stories!

Note: There is no "ADD" in the DSM-IV. The term ADHD is meant to include Type A (Predominantly Inattentive), Type B (Predominantly Hyperactive) and Combined. I just want to point that out so we're all speaking the same language!
Ask HN: Google Adwords is too manual. Is there not a better way?
I'm using Google Adwords, and it's way to manual. I have to put in all my keywords manually. I have to type in all the text ads manually. Is there no better way to do this? I saw references to Google's Adwords Editor, but I'm using Ubuntu Linux and it only works on Windows & OSX.
Microsoft, Mozilla, and Opera team up on Web font standard
I'm just drawing the distinction between threats, which many crazies are known to leave, and actual killing. Had the theatre actually been burned down, actors/directors killed, you might have a better point.
The author recommends remapping "kj" to ESC.

I've remapped caps lock to ESC, which I think is a far better use of that useless button, and a hack i recommend to everybody i know who uses VIM.

I could never understand that VIM choose to put such an important button so far away from the homerow.
On the surface this looks similar to the Five Whys. [1] I wonder how well an outsider can approximate PQA without buying a seminar?

[1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/01/22.html
And I just tossed my last batch of old 3.5" floppies yesterday. Clearly they're going to be worth something now!