skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Intuition/experience is important when there is some aspect of reality that is hard to measure. Insofar as the data tracks your target, intuition is unnecessary. That's why I would want an example in which data was failing.

For instance, a fast food chain might take some data and find that they can decrease the quality of their ingredients without immediately loosing customers because people have habits and don't really notice right away (and because consumers will chalk up a few bad experiences to variance at a place they know well). But, over time, the chain develops a reputation for lower-quality food, and customers slowly leave.

The problem with this example is that the data can easily measure long-term effects, especially the subtle damage to reputation. This is a case where intuition may be needed to override data.

But where's the similar example with Google?
Another facebook/privacy article - from Wharton
Well this isn't a patent troll patenting 1) a business process + known software application or 2) something occurring in nature story

The angry mobs typically focus mostly on software patents.
dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1325944
Facebook: Reading status updates all day long? More privacy concerns.
At this point, they seem to be raising about $50/min through kickstarter. I'd say there is interest in this idea..
The sole purpose of a business is to represent the interest of the owners. That almost exclusively means maximizing profits over the long term. This is a slightly different but important distinction.

I agree with Warren Buffet when he says there is more than enough money to be made ethically and without cutting corners.

Don't worry about the downmod ars, I got him.
This is the only piece of Calacanis' work that I've liked thus far. He is 100% correct.
At what point in the process does this happen to you? You should be able to add Portal to your cart, at which point it'll ask you to create an account. After you've registered you can then checkout. It shouldn't ever force you download steam.

And just so there's no misunderstanding, I didn't mean you can play the game without the steam, I meant you can purchase games without steam.
Straw man. Few people argue that patent litigation never has an outcome that one would consider desirable. The argument is that the net effect is not a gain for society or most inventors.

The fact that it took what appears to have been a massive lawsuit incurring millions of dollars of lawyer fees hardly seems an argument in favor of the current system either; all he had to do to recover his invention was gamble with what is quite likely more than his entire life savings, if he lost. Wow. What a system for protecting the little guy that is.
I'm assuming the parent means that just running the steam client switches over to discrete graphics, which would severely impact battery life for no real performance gain.

Also, some games play fine on the integrated graphics, so switching over to discrete isn't necessarily something you always want.
Scappo dalla città, mi rilasso per un po' su un'isola
"Now these points of data make a beautiful line and we're out of beta we're releasing on time" ... my favorite video game song ever. Full lyrics here: http://www.lyricsera.com/513316-lyric-Valve-Still+Alive+port...
The Key to Spotting Disruption Before it Happens
My favorite cartoon on net worth:

http://www.taylorbrooks.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/homel...
Working on it. But it's the steepest learning curve since I learned to program the first time.

It almost feels as though already being able to program is actually a hindrance.
I think they meant it's triggered by the presence of Steam itself, not a game you might launch from it. Steam takes the liberty of adding itself to your account's Login Items.

Though I'd guess the workings of this auto graphics switching mechanism are really Apple's responsibility.
Biz Linux needs Office license to run MS web apps
Cloud Computing: Public vs Private [Infographic]
Which? Scala, Clojure, Haskell ...?
Ubuntu 10.04 usability study
He's cheating a bit. He created two tables each with 1 million rows, offset by 999,000. (i.e. 1 - 1,000,000 and 999,000 - 1,999,000)

Which of course is the best case scenario for this query.

But this is very unlikely in the real world. In the real world you use sequential IDs, and almost all the IDs exist. So seek is not useful.

If you use random IDs (like using a GUID for a primary key), it's still not useful. If your random number generator is at all good your index numbers are pretty well distributed, without the large gaps this query likes.
Unfortunately it doesn't say this anywhere so lots of UNIX/Linux converts don't know, but case-sensitive boot partitions are a terrible idea. As I'm sure you've found out, there are a great deal of large applications that don't support case-sensitivity (including, I think, Photoshop).

Let this be a warning to anyone who considers it in the future: don't. You can use case-sensitivity on non-boot volumes (e.g. external drives) if you're concerned about case issues (e.g. moving data from another case-sensitive file system).

Also, since the filesystem is case-insensitive (but case-preserving) anyway, you can add this to your ~/.inputrc to have readline completion (e.g. in Bash) ignore case:

set completion-ignore-case on

Makes life much easier.
I run steam under wine to play Half Life II and Counterstrike occasionally. I'm hoping this one works as well.
I've been wondering how much fear over privacy issues the normal Facebook user has.

My guess is that most Facebook users aren't aware of, or perhaps not interested in, the privacy issues that discussed by people like the ones here at HN.

I don't think the average person will care unless there is some widely publicized abuse of private information by Facebook. Until then, everyone probably will just see these issues as hypothetical.
I'm more disappointed that continuations don't appear to have made it. They're available as a patch, but actually compiling an OpenJDK with them is evidently an arcane art I haven't yet mastered.
When I've "become a fan" of things on Facebook it's been because I was interested in those things and wanted regular updates about them. It was not out of some kind of weird desire to flash my tailfeathers at people.
Agreed. I have a "choice" between Comcast and Qwest for Internet access, with the latter only offering 1.5mb/down, which is another way of saying that my "choice" is Comcast, which offers 7mb/down for $60/a month.

The funny thing is that a market research firm called me to ask my impressions of Comcast. I went down the list: 1... 1.... 1.... A few days later, I saw that Comcast had won the "Golden Poo" award, which seems more richly desersved than ever: http://jseliger.com/2010/05/08/may-2010-links-soap-operas-ki... .
Do you know any developers that use non-MS languages on Windows?

Do you think they might be annoyed if MS said "nothing but C# is allowed"?

Would they not still be called "Windows developers"?
As far as Apple is concerned the Mac is effectively a legacy platform. I'm hoping WWDC will prove me wrong, but I'm not optimistic.
SAP to Buy Sybase for $5.25 Billion
How Facebook could open the Open Graph APIs
BoomStartup - Top Companies Have Been Selected
Given the CPU usage of the HTML5 examples shown in the video it seems like Flash is not alone with that problem.

With regards to designing entire sites in flash. Go to thefwa.com check out some of the sites on that portal. Then tell me why you would want an HTML fallback for that? That is kind of like saying that all video should have transcription of what is being said.

Sometimes there is no substitute.

With regards to the open web argument. Since we are in agreement that Flash isn't the be all end all of the web, then what is the problem?

If HTML5 is better then it will eventually outcompete FLASH. Until it is, support both. That is what I don't understand with Apples claims.

HTML5 is right now rather resource intensive as shown in the video. It actually going to be worse for the battery life of an iPad than flash is.

It's a hollow argument.
PeHUB: “Commoners” Keep Overvaluing Facebook, Twitter & Tesla
Obviously there's more involved than just buying the disk. But if you already have a core competency in hosting, cloud is even more profitable than traditional models.
The U.S. had something like that way back in the Great Depression: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration
where's the unlike hyperlink?
It'd also be awesome to see WebDAV support. The application I use to store files on my phone uses WebDAV, and OneWay would be perfect for adding files.
Definitely Motorola has a more formidable patent portfolio but HTC has been selling Android phones way before Motorola.

HTC is behind the G1, MyTouch, Sprint Hero, Droid Eris, Nexus One. Moto has Droid and Cliq, and now backflip but only Droid has much traction.

Regardless symbolically HTC is also more symbolically representative of Android, they both produced the first Android phone and Google's own Nexus One. To me it seems like Apple is taking a jab at Android more so than HTC.
Show me a software patent used to protect a small inventor, and I might think you know what you're talking about.
Read the rest of the article, he's partnering with local telcos and they'll be able to charge customers for upgraded access and faster connection speeds. "I want this to be completely self-sustaining," he says.
"Facebook has come under increasing scrutiny for a number of reasons and many were left with a sour taste in their mouth following a New York Times reader Q&A with Elliot Schrage, the company’s Vice President for Public Policy."

Vice President for Public Policy.

What does "Public" mean? If I hide him from my friends, is he then invisible to my friends but still "public" and accessible by facebook's partners and affiliates?

I'm so confused.
I think it entirely depends on the prison.
Ask HN: How to license a database?
Hi. I run a website that has user generated content. Suddenly someone wants to license this database -- and I don't know how to...

I know copyright laws protect me, but I don't just want to "give" them the whole database. Is there a way I can protect someone from stealing the content and just let them use it?

How do I license a database?
Paxos enlightment
It's actually been suggested (can't seem to find where I read it, though) that the bottle/can deposit fee is partly a way of increasing recycling rates by finding a clever way to pay people way below minimum wage to collect litter and separate recyclables out of trash, which would otherwise cost too much to be feasible. (Some states do have facilities that try to separate recyclables out of the general waste stream, but it's hard to do, and expensive.)
Well it's older than any game released in the past slightly-less-than-2.5-years, sure.
Cool DIY Streamliner Motorcycle Gets 214 MPG
Extemporaneous remarks on entrepreneurship from Jason Calacanis to a CS class
Indeed, but that end does not automatically justify whatever means are employed, a key reason for the lack of well paying ninja jobs. In this case, Home Depot management's short-term greed has resulted in an extra $21 million of liability for the firm's shareholders.

In any case, while maximizing revenue is certainly the primary purpose of business as distinct from charitable work, it's not exclusive of other purposes which the founders may decide to pursue in parallel; it's just the easiest outcome to measure.
a banana.

Sorry. >.<
during the reagan era, many MH institutions were closed in favor of outpatient care, which largely resulted homelessness for many of the mentally ill. inmate incarceration costs are at least 25k/year -- http://www.uscourts.gov/ttb/may04ttb/costs/index.html
It was a badly played joke. Yes, it's not a lamda. It's reminiscent of the "goes to" except it doesn't actually change. In this joke C++ post, I guess it most resembles the "limit" operator/function in calculus.
What Are You Pretending Not To Know, Mr. Zuckerberg? (Updated)
How? He's a pretty skinny guy.

Him being there is him not working on something else. He didn't appoint horse ranchers to FEMA, he appointed experience professionals. They can do their job without him yanking them away to grandstand in front of cameras for politics.
No more so than Smalltalk. Its adherents consider this a feature.

And this is a function of the libraries used with the language, not the language itself.
Poll: Would you sign up for Facebook again?
Suppose that back when you originally created your Facebook account, they had the same privacy policies and open graph initiative that they do today. Would you still decide to sign up for your Facebook account?
Yes, I would still create one despite concerns
Yes, even though I don't have an account today
No, I would not create one knowing the privacy concerns
No, I never wanted an account privacy issues or not
Put a spoiler alert on that link. The lyrics refer to events late in the game.
They're only ambiguous to machines. Humans can read it just fine.
That's the conclusion of an exclusive Popular Mechanics study that examined every commercial jet crash in the United States, since 1971, that had both fatalities and survivors. The raw data from these 20 accidents...

Ha, 20 accidents since 1971... It'd probably be more helpful to the general public for them to study which side of an ostrich it's safer to stand on.
so does this mean that nothing created in germany can be in the public domain in germany / europe?
Jxs.me: powered by Toto
>It was a badly played joke.

Ah, apologies then. I vaguely understood what the humor was there, but I wasn't sure if that's what you were going for. (-:
Apple-Verizon Political Calculus, 2010 Edition
KML, Traffic, and Bicycling layers come to Maps API v3
yes, valve is bringing all their games to the mac
like partnering with the likes of Telkom? that would be awful.
"... many privacy advocates want further changes involved with Facebook’s new social plugins, as many of them function when a user isn’t logged in ..."

Wait, what? What plugins operate when I'm not logged in? What did I miss?
tldr: gowalla changes api too much, should implement api versioning
Could quantum mathematics shake up Google?
It's a problem with most significantly sized incentive systems, really. Large companies, for example, usually want to give employees some degree of job stability and leeway, because micromanaging someone every 5 minutes and firing people left and right really kills morale and productivity. Some people use that to game the system, and post on Slashdot (maybe even HN) all day instead of doing work. But if you swing back to the other direction, the cure might be worse than the disease.

Overall, I'd guess there are probably more salaried freeloaders than homeless freeloaders, and they make a lot more! There are places where you could do pretty much nothing in the bowels of some huge firm for 5 years and nobody would notice. And it's even easier if you do at least some work; I know plenty of people with office jobs who probably average 5 hours a week of genuine work. Of course, you might ask why homeless people don't just go get those cushy office jobs, which is an interesting/complicated question (they aren't really jobs you can apply for directly, are usually only available past a certain level of formal credential, require good bluffing, and require a certain amount of formal reliability, like showing up to work on time [even if you don't do anything there]).
so .. did you go back to engine yard ?
That may be true but Linux still sucks as a gaming platform. That’s just how it is and facing up to that reality might help.
Thanks!

No firm plans on Mac right now. The Windows app ecosystem is so much more screwed up (notably toolbars) and reinstallation is much more frequent.

Not to say Macs have nailed this: http://daringfireball.net/2009/09/how_should_mac_apps_be_dis...

My average-computer-user sister didn't like using Firefox or Skype for a long time because something weird--the .dmg remounting because she dragged the apps right to the dock--happened every time she launched them.
Google's APIs are amazing
World of Goo works! Yeah! This is a seductively simple 2D game that is a lot of fun.
Reminds me of the all-hands meeting Microsoft had a few years ago concerning security flaws.
>> HTTP ERROR: 404 Not Found

>> RequestURI=/jump.aspx

ASP's in it? You're right! Do not want!

Funny, my second click went right to the page, though.
Amen, brother. Stuff in Hawaii is so expensive anyway, if you tack on a Massachusetts-level sales tax they won't even feel it.
Heroku Raises $10M for Its Ruby Platform
At least any browser developer can do something about the HTML5 performance characteristics, including giving their users greater control over activation of certain elements on platforms where that may be especially critical, such as ones where you don't want to be wasting batteries on content you didn't care about seeing in the first place, like ads. Only Adobe can fix Flash's issues, and they've not done a great job so far.

As for that site you linked, you may want to find a better example. All that stuff seems relatively straightforward to implement in CSS/javascript and Canvas, and that would probably be much less painful to actually use, if possibly more effort to create. That site was a terrible experience, and a perfect example of why encouraging this kind of behavior by web developers a bad idea.
It's a saw guard... Personally, I don't think they should really have to pay anything to an 'inventor' of a saw guard.

Link to the patent: http://www.google.co.uk/patents?id=PhR3AAAAEBAJ&printsec...

It's trivial and should never have had a patent granted IMHO.

Comprises of a couple of spring loaded clamps to hold the wood, and a cover which hides the blade and collects the dust.

wow must have taken a whole afternoon to think up.
28 Free Fantastic Retro Styled Fonts
It's actually much flatter than you'd think: http://github.com/languages
In the NYT Q&A linked from the article, VP Elliot Schrage gives a link to his profile and Zuckerberg's.

Zuckerberg's is a good link. Schrage's is not found.

Bad link, or item three for tomorrow's meeting?

Edit: typo.
It'd be more useful to know which is the safest seat in a car, SUV, bus.
GitHub's email correlation for authorship
If someone lists "curling" as an interest, it's ambiguous even to humans. Weightlifting or obscure winter sport?

Even if it were only ambiguous to machines, there are probably useful things that can be done by machines with the data that will now be disambiguated, which sounds like a plus to me.
This was just me verifying what I saw, that if you push commits to GitHub, it correlates the email address of authors introducing commits elsewhere. You can make it look like anyone you want is contributing patches, the avatar shows up, etc. This example commit does NOT show up in dhh's timeline, though.

I am not going to start requiring PGP signing for my projects, they are not big enough to miss something fishy. This was just something I hadn't considered, it is probably an obvious issue to many already.
If your in Paris why not jump on the eurostar and head over to the london one, if you're willing to travel out on the very early / very late trains you can get a ticket pretty cheaply.
Even so; if this is embraced and people are very excited enough over such announcements, Valve could do a Gorbachev and perhaps announce something like this for Linux based on expected receptions.
I think the article is wrong.
Okay, if HN thinks it should be there ... I'll put it there. It's on the list now.
Linkbait? The content (whatever there was) didn't match the headline.
Quantas never crashed.
It's unclear to me what use this information has to anyone, not mention the potential ethical concerns of trying to promote this kind of research under the guise of airline safety awareness.

Sure, I can believe that seats toward the rear of an aircraft tend to fair better in crashes. It's actually rather obvious, hence the decision to place the data recorders in the tail.

However, what use is this research to the vast majority of travelers who have limited choice in where they may sit on a flight? Doesn't this sort of research suggest telling such travelers, "well it sucks to be you, doesn't it?" And what about the airlines' need to fill as many seats as possible meet their bottom lines?
No more so than Smalltalk.

Verbosity doesn't mean long method names. In this case it means header files, primitive types vs objects, poor collection support, and manual memory management. Smalltalk does a better job in all of those areas.
Hope for? That's nothing more than the formation of a rent-seeking cartel. It's decidedly not better for any small newcomer that wants to make a smartphone whos not in the cartel.

Its the exact opposite of competing on the merits of their respective products. Its attempting to never have to do so again.
I replaced my interest with SQL injection statements.
You know that he probably can't provide that info, right?
This has been my experience too. I found CL, Scheme, and Haskell pretty easy. Clojure has taken me more time. I think it's because there aren't many good books yet, and because Lisp-speaking émigrés have to learn a set of new ideas that's mostly separate from the new ideas Ruby/Python/Java users need to learn.

What specifically has been giving you trouble?
> He's cheating a bit. He created two tables each with 1 million rows, offset by 999,000. (i.e. 1 - 1,000,000 and 999,000 - 1,999,000)

Of course this is cheating, but only to demonstrate the point :)

> But this is very unlikely in the real world. In the real world you use sequential IDs, and almost all the IDs exist. So seek is not useful.

Yes, and that's why the HASH JOIN is almost always used instead by the real optimizers :)

However, there are situations when the gaps are expected. Say, the right recordset is small compared to the left one. Usually, a NESTED LOOPS is used in this case with the right recordset leading, but each loop uses a full-fledged seek from the top of the B+Tree which can be inefficient when the right recordset is not so small.

Using a statistics-assisted MERGE JOIN in this case would help to mix the seeks and the scans.

Say, if the statistics say "current right is 500, current left is 300, there are 40000 records from 0 to 1000 in the left recordset", we know that most probably we'll need to skip 8000 records to reach the right pointer and we better seek.

But if on next step it will say "current right is 501, current left is 500, there are 40000 records from 0 to 1000 in the left recordset", we know that there are only 40 records left which are most probably in one page and we can scan instead.

It can be thought of as an improved NESTED LOOPS which caches the current position.
Wow, I had no idea this site existed, but I love the idea. I don't regularly use a Windows machine, but I'd love to see something for Linux users in the future.

Even for us Debian/Ubuntu users, I'd like something like:

[ ] Build LAMP server
[ ] Build LEMP server
[ ] Build RoR server

And it give you the script/apt-get commands to install all of the required packages, similar to how Linode install scripts work.

Regardless, this is awesome. Those download software sites are a relic of the early web that need to die.
I've had the learning curve problem as well. So far the resource which has most helped ease the curve is http://clojure-notes.rubylearning.org/. If you have/find anything better let me know.
That is not my understanding of the GPL. You only need to GPL additions to GPL code if you distribute it.
Macs aren't legacy as much as they're now for content creation for the other Apple platforms.
CDMA is so last decade. If you travel the world GSM is the only way.
Death of Copper Predicted. Film at 11
There's another (outdated) Arc repl at http://jonathan.tang.name/files/arclite/)
Stickybits API - Online to Offline Attribution Tracking
Seriously? Aside from a minority fraction of the techies, do you really think facebook users care about this?
NoNoSQL