skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Perl isn't dying it's just becoming less relevant. In, say, 5 years Perl won't have the luster it once did, it'll be lumped in the same bucket as vbscript, batch files, and maybe even COBOL. It'll be considered less well and less interesting than PHP.

I like Perl, I think it's a solid language, but it's become stagnant amidst a huge degree of innovation. It's an even more stagnant language than Java at this point, and that's a serious cause for concern. All of the serious problems with Perl programming remain, and are becoming ever more relevant as innovation in other languages sharpens the contrast.

Perl has always had a very fundamental problem with naturally facilitating high code quality, average developers with average skills find it easy to create unreadable, unmaintainable, sluggish code in Perl. But so long as there were good hackers out there in the Perl ecosystem there's been enough good Perl code out there to counter-balance that. It takes a lot of experience and discipline to write good Perl code, but there's been no shortage of people with those qualities and an interest in Perl in the past. But now, there are greener pastures for talented hackers. As the best Perl hackers evaporate away off to concentrate on newer languages and technologies only the dregs will remain. Without exceptional hackers innovating within the language the lack of innovation of the language will become more apparent. Increasingly the bulk of Perl code being written will be mundane and uninspiring, written by talentless hacks who fall into every trap the Perl language has made for them (and there are many). A language is ultimately judged by the work in it, and increasingly that work will push the perception of Perl farther down the ladder.

In many ways death might be preferable.
And I can't help feeling that is the kind of industry we should avoid encouraging. I mean; heavy pot smokers are pretty non-functioning and it seems a shame to risk more lively minds to that drudgery.

This has always been a really difficult choice for me; because on one side I strongly feel that everyone should have their own choices and do what they want. But then on the other side I've seen first hand how easy it is to lose yourself to pot... and can't help feeling that exposing more people to that isn't a great thing.
Physically packing your troubles away actually works study finds
This really seems to fall into the "if this were really true, why haven't I heard of it until now?" category. There's an awful lot of people who could make an awful lot of money if they could prove that non-American cigarettes don't give you cancer.
I have to disagree with the author's premise. Just because the majority of Wikipedia editor's are male, this doesn't inherently mean the system will be biased.

The writer points out that many editors are not university educated like this means that their edits are of less worth than those with a degree. That's laughable.

To summarize: more FUD aimed at Wikipedia.
I believe your logic is backwards.

To be sure, the fact that we are talking about percent changes something, which is what I spent several paragraphs exploring.

To say that subtraction of percentages is against the rules, (while perfectly valid and often used in other units) but percentages of percentages is not against the rules, requires a bit more than "It is simply wrong", don't you think?

Sure, you're "right", when you say it increased by 28%. The point is, perhaps you shouldn't be "right", and what is "right", anyway, if nobody knows what the hell you're really saying?

We see this when talking about tax changes. If somebody wants to minimize the sticker shock of a tax increase, they use the delta. So, if the rate rises from 3% to 4.5%, they say they increased the rate 1.5%. If you want to maximize the sticker shock, you say that the tax rate was increased 50%. Either side can say they are doing the math "right".

Those who care about actually conveying the information, rather than produce sticker shock of either sort, always have to spell it out carefully, by actually saying, "the tax rose from a rate of 3% to a rate of 4.5%" This is a bit longer, but it's necessary, given this weird unit.
Are there any startups working on a dialog or debate system using FluidDB?
I just bought these the other day, highly recommended. The bass is punchy and full, the highs are crystal clear the only complaint I have is that the mids aren't as good as they could be. However, for the price and the quality of construction they are a great deal :)
I doubt many people followed through and deleted their accounts entirely.

Marks says at http://www.businessinsider.com/live-facebook-rolls-out-new-p... :

On quitting the site: "We've seen no meaningful change on the stats on any of that stuff."
Apple is Officially Worth More than Microsoft
From what I understand, if you log back in to your account within 14 days* then the delete request is cancelled and everything goes back to normal.

It makes me wonder if Facebook had a bad couple of days of people deleting their accounts and Mark Zuckerberg thought "Right, we've got 7 days to fix this and get them logging in again, let's get to it!"

* I could have the precise timeframe wrong
Yes of course. You can send it to me via the contact form linked in my profile :)
In this article "Prices are now much less than $2,000 a pound."

A lot of pro legalisation campaigners take the "imagine how much you could collect in taxes" approach and calculate based roughly on the current size of the industry.

I think marijuana is easy enough to produce and responsive enough to modern agricultural tricks to be a pretty small industry. Perhaps orders of magnitudes smaller then alcohol.

As others have mentioned, there will probably be a premium market, but even there it is hard to imagine a prices anywhere near $2k per pound
I suppose this might put an end to the Diaspora dream.
pascal_cuoq said: "There are good reasons why even_0 and even_S need to have names, but I sure hope that we will one day look back on Coq as the assembly of computer-assisted proofs."

For predicates that can be computed in coq, we can do away with the names:

Fixpoint even n :=
match n with
| 0 => True
| 1 => False
| S (S m) => even m
end.

Note that "True" and "False" are propositions (have sort "Prop") with trivial and no proofs, respectively, and are not "true" and "false", which are the constructors of the inductive type "bool". If the return type were changed to bool, "even n = true" (rather than just "even n") would be a predicate meaning "n is an even natural number".

Additionally, your wish is already coming true! For certain types of problems, coq can be hooked up to external solvers (for SAT, for instance) which generate proof terms that are then checked by coq. See http://www.lri.fr/~melquion/doc/09-calculemus-article.pdf for an example.
Email is centralized yes but its also somewhat open. You can send an email to any provider and receive from any provider. You cannot send a message from say facebook to twitter and get a response back.
Microsoft Risks becoming mobile market also ran.
US Military Drowning in Drone Data
I'm more wondering when I'll be able to buy a 42" Sony OLED HDTV...
MasterCard to release open API
In case the formula was not clear, i replaced the stars with x instead (HN use stars for italization and i can't edit my previous post):

total = 100$

GST = (total x 0.05)

QST = (total+GST) x 0.075

Grand Total = total+GST+QST

More infos : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_Canada
The first information was that your partner did not perform to your expectation. At the same time I read that half year passed your have not been out at the customer front to see if your business model is viable. Just because comparing to a competitor does not mean your business is in the same situation. The low margins, poor brand is both of your responsibility and can have many reasons.

As a startup founder you are the face of the company and there is no excuse to not talk to customers and close deals. Your are small team and there is no CEO or VP or Sales. It is you and him to close the deals. If you want your company to survive a simple phrase will do, do whatever it takes.

And if you think this is not what you signed up for than follow the advice of many, stop it now and fast.
Remember multimedia CD magazines? I wonder if over-the-air distribution will make the business model work this time.
I could have skimmed the article myself in the time it took the webnotes to load... and that was in Chrome
There are actions they can take other than suing the violator themselves. They can contact license violators to try to reach diplomatic solutions, and they can offer resources such as legal counseling for other rights-holders. They don't have to force every violator to cough up the code or face putative damages, they just have to generally make it known that violating the license is more inconvenient than following it.
This is unfortunately a common misperception. If you deactivate your account you can bring it back. If you delete it the data is deleted.
ETA: Real Soon Now.
BP Starts 'Top Kill' Operations
Here's a script to send it, replace wendroid@ycombinator.com and
mail.anybots.com with your desired target and superman@krypton.pl as your nasty hackar

echo 'helo ycombinator.com
MAIL FROM: <superman@krypton.pl>
RCPT TO: <wendroid@ycombinator.com>
DATA
Subject: virus trigger
To: wendroid@ycombinator.com
From: superman@krypton.pl
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=----------yeODUdrHXSboO0pEkHkAqW
MIME-Version: 1.0
Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 17:42:00 +0100

------------yeODUdrHXSboO0pEkHkAqW
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; delsp=yes; charset=iso-8859-15
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

have a virus matey

------------yeODUdrHXSboO0pEkHkAqW
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=eicar_com.zip
Content-Type: application/zip; name=eicar_com.zip
Content-Transfer-Encoding: Base64

UEsDBAoAAAAAAOCYuCg8z1FoRAAAAEQAAAAJAAAAZWljYXIuY29tWDVPIVAlQEFQ
WzRcUFpYNTQoUF4pN0NDKTd9JEVJQ0FSLVNUQU5EQVJELUFOVElWSVJVUy1URVNU
LUZJTEUhJEgrSCpQSwECFAAKAAAAAADgmLgoPM9RaEQAAABEAAAACQAAAAAAAAAB
ACAA/4EAAAAAZWljYXIuY29tUEsFBgAAAAABAAEANwAAAGsAAAAAAA==

------------yeODUdrHXSboO0pEkHkAqW--
.' | nc mail.anybots.com 25 # ycombinator.com's mx

and while we're here, let's send some certified SPAM

echo 'MAIL FROM: <superman@krypton.pl>
RCPT TO: <wendroid@ycombinator.com>
DATA
Subject: spam trigger
To: wendroid@ycombinator.com
From: superman@krypton.pl
Date: Wed, 26 May 2010 17:42:00 +0100

some spam

XJS*C4JDBQADN1.NSBN3*2IDNEN*GTUBE-STANDARD-ANTI-UBE-TEST-EMAIL*C.34X

.' | nc mail.anybots.com 25 # ycombinator.com's mx
"Mr Zuckerberg said that developers had "worked weekends, camped out in the conference centre" in order to overhaul its privacy settings."

Just like they did back in september 2006 when Zuckerberg said:

"I wanted to make sure we did something about it, and quickly. So we have been coding nonstop for two days to get you better privacy controls."
http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=2208562130

Maybe they should reiterate first, listen to feedback and suggestions (like youropenbook.org), draw out, a/b test privacy settings pages, offer more transparency in the process and -then- start finalize coding their 'best' way to control these.
From Software to Energy Efficiency
You can be a Republican in a district represented by a Democrat.
I sure hope not - decentralised social networking (whoever makes it) is the only logical way forward. Imagine email was controlled by one company.
I don't understand why people are jumping back in the band-wagon. Facebook has shown its intention, clearly. Reverting back is only a temporary solution.
This is a problem in all GC environments, but the amount of effort required to avoid that (exceptional) situation is an order of magnitude less. There is still a big win for GC.
You're saying the fact that smoking causes cancer is unrelated to the fact that chewing tobacco also causes cancer?
There's a 14 day delay between the delete request and the profile actually being deleted. I'd wager that many folks can reclaim their profiles with sufficient ease.
Right, because no salesman ever managed to improve his sales skills.

I've seen guys go from barely able to say hello without getting their tongue tied up to being able to pull in 6 figure deals without breaking a sweat (contract work, web development), I really don't know this guy at all but he's already selling, all he needs to do is to improve what he's already doing.

Going from 'not being a salesguy' to 'being a sales guy' is a lot harder than going from 'being a not so good sales guy' to 'being a salesguy that is a bit better'.

Even an experienced salesperson would have a hard time selling a product he has no experience with, and that has only just been 'baked', they should have overlapped much better with the development but this product seems to be 'all or nothing' so that may have been harder than what we know from the info given. Building up a sales pipeline takes time, and as you sell a couple of times you usually get better at it.
The free software foundation takes the lead in GPL whether they hold the copyright or not - for example, the Linksys enforcement.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/43996.html

(article written from a 'how much can you get away violating the GPL' - not my feelings but it make, the FSF is who comes after you).
First tap into your network and see if you know anyone in your target location or 2nd degree connections.

If you don't have that option look at job postings (craigslist or whatever) and mention that you are considering moving to the location.

I would take some time and calculate the cost of the move - this may impact the type of deal you look for (relocation package yes/no...etc)
Hidden video shows Ohio cows beaten - Canton, OH - CantonRep.com
Looking at that would be a great way to create some really perverse incentives.

"Let's spend more money on the armed forces and post office, to make the portion that comes under Clause 3 appear smaller."

A lawyer I spoke to told me that there's a question regarding federal law on the bar exam every single year, asking "From where is the power to create X law derived in the Constitution?" It's a different law every year, but the answer is always the same: "The commerce clause."
I can't either! Does this mean they took apart the software and remolded it to their own purposes (proprietary & doubtful besides), or ar they really using a GIS to show upvotes?
It's really easy once you get the hang of it.

You are 100% with memory management? The problem is not the 99.99% of the time when you do it right. It's the other time when you do it wrong, and debugging that.

Have you actually tracked the time/effort? Can you quantify what memory leaks are costing your project?
Also covered here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1379909

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1379834

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1380325
How We're Fixing Facebook Privacy
pretty neat. i wish the bezel wasn't so thick, but hey it's $130.
To most non-technical people, email is tied to one company; their ISP or one of the free Hotmail/Gmail/Yahoo-style providers. Changing a personal email address can be a huge hassle.

Now, I can see ISPs setting up social network nodes for their users, I just wonder if there won't be some similar pain if/when one changes provider.
Microsoft to invest $150 million in Apple (1997)
Heavy drinkers can be pretty non-functioning as well, and result in arguably more collateral damage. Most anything can be abused.
I have yet to hear a cogent argument against legalization.

I have a couple of pretty simple one (it's worth considering).

The long term affects of pot abuse are pretty easy to develop - I've seen medium-heavy users become fairly "brain dead" after several years of use. This is entirely from observation but it seems to occur faster than the same effect due to alcohol abuse. As a result we could see quite a few problems from more long term users.

It is also harder to determine if someone is under the influence. This would mean some industries would have to begin mandatory drug testing prior to performing sensitive work - random examples: doctors, pilots. That's costly, time consuming etc. And if the long term affects of the drug are as pronounced as I suspect you could see heavy abusers in those fields actually pass drug tests and still fail to concentrate at a critical moment.

It's certainly an area that needs a lot more research before legalization occurs.
Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty Inc.
Is Conservapedia a giant troll wiki or is it legit? I'm almost convinced it has to be satire.

Bookmarked sections in this (http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism) article include:

"Commonly Cited Arguments Against Atheism and For Theism", "Atheism and Mass Murder", "Atheism and Immoral Views"

The abortion article even cites Hitler as being a proponent of abortion. It's even funnier than the atheism one.
http://www.conservapedia.com/Abortion
Charlie Munger Speech at USC - May 2007
Well, then we should avoid encouraging fast food, liquor, and a lot of other things.

Plus there may be some selection bias going on. How do you know that some of your high-functioning coworkers aren't heavy pot smokers when they get home?
I'm not usually squeamish about animal husbandry-but this goes way way over the border into just ridiculous cruelty. I couldn't watch more than 30 seconds of the video-when he ties down the cow's head and starts beating it I had to stop.
8 Button StarCraft
Absolutely. So, from a rational perspective, why add one more problem to the melting pot? (which is my main point I think)
Ask HN: Easily adding social networking features to an iPhone app?
I was just looking at an app which integrates social features really well, and thinking "man, I wish I could add these features to my app without a lot of work".

Stuff like:

- read and add comments for each piece of content

- like/dislike/add favorites

- friends list

- profile with a wall

Basically very simple Facebook-like features - as light-weight as possible, because if they're more heavy-weight they're harder to integrate well.

Does something like this already exist? I guess a combination of a library + hosted service would make the most sense.

If not, is this something developers would consider using in their apps? How much would you be willing to pay? :)
The main asset for many if not most companies WRT their "IT" is the people who know how to make the code do its thing. If they, or too many of the crucial ones leave, dead code on unmaintained systems isn't going to get you very far.
If anyone doubts it would be different if the Dems made such a site:

"We must not stop until the American people win the war on Health-Care [...] Our leaders today are nothing short of Angels. “Gods Elect” put in power by God for his people and his world."

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/dalecourtney?p...
I think "common carrier" is the term for ISP's and similar entities that are clearly not responsible for the content that passes through them. I believe this status is defined in the DMCA and other laws. IANAL but this is pretty basic stuff you can research.
I quite enjoyed _On_Intelligence_ from Jeff Hawkins, interested to find out how the two books will relate.
I doubt it, as they've already moved to stop raids on medical marijuana dispensaries: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/us/19holder.html
On the other hand, the Bible also says we should stone homosexuals, people who work on the sabbath and girls who aren't virgins when they get married.

The Bible says a lot of things. Come to think of it, all the death-by-stoning punishments make a lot more sense than the "never judge anyone for anything" idea.
Ok, I'm confused. I've just taken a look at the WikiHow page, and that says there's a delay of 14 days before the account's actually deleted:

http://www.wikihow.com/Permanently-Delete-a-Facebook-Account

Who's right?
Why is that notable? Here's IBM and Google's market cap difference over time-

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=ibm+market+cap+-+goog+m...

Compare that to Apple and Microsoft, where Apple fell $600 billion dollar behind at the turn of the century, and has pounced up (while Microsoft fell back) since.

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=aapl+market+cap+-+msft+...
IPad maker Foxconn makes employees sign non-suicide pacts
And ... indeed, that's what they do, as described by ... the article and all their other literature...
This is way out of my area of expert ease, but as I understand it alcohol tests are focused on the presence of alcohol because they are trying to see if someone is currently impaired. Pot tests are focused on metabolic waste products from Pot because the goal is to discover if someone has smoked in the past not if they are impaired. This is why at least one type of Pot test can get false positives from taking an over the counter pain killer as they both produce the same metabolic waste.

Anyway, as a non smoker I assumed Pot like most drugs had a fairly short term effect, if you are impaired for 3-7 days then that's a separate issue I was not aware of.
lol...I'm trying to imagine an "alpha-male chestbeating nerd" an failing utterly. Serious karma points for anyone who posts a picture.
Here are some notes on the speech I found after a bit of searching: http://www.gurufocus.com/news.php?id=8539
Show HN: I made this search engine for Reddit using Bing+Reddit API.
Cannot agree more, some of the biggest problems at all stages of start-up life arise from "title-ing" i.e. co-founders giving themselves C-level or VP-Level titles and then trying to act as such.I once was introduced to a three-founder start-up whole all wanted to run the show. They ended up calling themselves Chairman, CEO and Chief Visionary Officer.
I have a feeling the thought process behind this site was something like this:

1. Have an idea for one of those newfangled web 2.0 things.
2. Hire someone to write it.
3. ???
4. Profit!

As it turns out, there's more to it to create a successful social media site...
I think you misunderstood me. I abhor all politicians and all forms of fixed political ideology, whether its the liberal, the conservative the libertarians or what not. Any ideology that encourages you to blindly follow a self-imposed moral, with disregard to rationality and reason, or the needs of the present day, is not my cup of tea.

But even those ideologies have extremsist, and if you were to actually listen to everyday republican's around you, they sound exactly like most of the comments on that website. This has nothing to do with me not liking republicans but everything to do with what they have actually become.

These extreme views might not be the majority (I think they are, but hard to know for sure), but they are definitely the loudest and the ones dictating the platform for the republican party.

IMO YMMV
Some would argue that they were always worth more. :-)

It's interesting that this happened without breaking Microsoft's 90% desktop monopoly. Apple got bigger but it wasn't to the detriment of Microsoft. They just grew into new markets.
Email is also pretty featureless. An open standard will always innovate slower than a proprietary site.
I'm not saying that it's easy, or that it doesn't take any time or effort. But if garbage collection makes your app scroll like crap, then the effort is probably worth it, don't you think?