skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Aside from the admitted fail in building their own software, there's some good points in this article.

In the world outside software, avoiding platforms can be equally hard. If you sell lawnmowers, cheap meat, car parts, then you may depend on respectively WalMart, McDonalds, GM, which are all platforms in their own way.

I wonder if there will be 'leakage' from iPhone software towards Mac software as the screws tighten somewhat on the App store.
A lot of people (myself included) prefer to keep speakers off because of work-environment.
I guess I missed where that point is outlined, though I admit to not reading all the backstory.

The title of the project obviously can't be taken literally, but I expect I'm not the only technical person who would expect the point has something to do with code.
Why the question mark? If you live in Illinois, Massachusetts, or Maryland, the title reads "It is illegal to record an on-duty officer."

And not just sort of illegal. Class 1 felony punishable 4-15 years in prison illegal.
Believe it or not, just last night I was wishing I could use COBOL instead of C for a project. For simple read/process/write of fixed size binary records, COBOL is a dream to work with. You'd be surprised, there's still some awesome optimizing compilers being written for COBOL.
I didn't intend to use the a480. These tools work on other Canon cameras.
More is less
Complex computer models can involve thousands of variables. But paradoxically, adding more variables can sometimes make them easier to work with.
Google is a big company, they are subject to a lot of the same dumb-itude (though hopefully less so) as other big companies. They are capable of making poor choices for all the wrong reasons just like anybody else (see also: buzz, wave, knol). Personally, I hope they are making smart security choices behind the scenes.

Nevertheless, my point was a counterargument to the idea that merely switching to windows and being "faster than the other bear bait" was enough for google, as it's not.
Verizon is selling 1.5 and 1.6 devices right now - that's how they're segmenting their product line. AT&T and Apple haven't sold an iPhone 2G in years.
So are the viewers on you tube co conspirators complicit for failing to report a crime?

This is scary and ridiculous at the same time.
Its a 64bit VM.

The interesting part (to me) - is that regardless of the cause of this issue - it is likely that there are other (maybe many other) applications out there that could "benefit" from running on only a single core.

The server favors synchronized blocks to the use of volatiles (i.e. Atomics) at the moment. I tend to play things conservative until time that I find a problem or see an obvious opportunity. And, I hope I can say I'm not "over synchronizing" but I did synchronize as often as I determined it was needed (modulo the normal issues for humans not being very good at that).

Again however, even if the server is written in any silly manner you can imagine. The idea still seems to expose a an issue (and roundabout solution) I've never heard of before.
SwearJarr -- Twitter scraper watches your language
Bait and switch. The unlimited, on/offable 3GS was a big selling point for the iPad. I wonder when the first class-action suit will break out.
I disagree. Tables are still the most reliable way to display content under nearly all circumstances (maybe less so on mobiles, but definitely on the desktop). They've been stable for years and years. I went through the hardcore standards phase where I thought it would be the death of my soul if I ever went back to using tables for layout, but then I read a great article (wish I had the link) that struck a chord with me. It said you don't have to avoid tables for certain small situations where it can save you a ton of time and a few headaches. I would never suggest doing a whole layout in tables, but I think the comments on HN are a good example of something that would have been a pain in the ass to get right across all browsers. Just use tables for layout if it actually makes sense and even then, ever so sparingly.
Check out the .NET and ASP version numbers.
Big hint: need to find a way to convert words into numbers
<div>'s might make sense from a purist's point of view or even from a experienced web dev's point of view. But I think, hn's changes have been based on pragmatism. So tables could be one of that. I remember pg saying he left out search feature saying google does a good job of that.
There is only one code path executing so there can never be another thread contending for the same lock.

Are you sure there is only one code path executing? Don't all the threads get allocated time slices of the single CPU? I believe it's true that there is only one concurrent code path, but a thread can still acquire a lock and then come off the CPU.
Show HN: Songbird's first music visualizer
My advice is to find the bottleneck first. Watch performance counters. How do your cache hit and miss rates vary at the levels at different CPU counts? For example, poorly designed GCs don't scale well on multiple processors. You could very well be paying for a single shared allocator lock or have a young generation shared across multiple packages.

When are your threads idle? Can you produce log events for when your threads block on locks to see how often your threads are live versus sitting around?

Do you have bad thread migration? Even if your GC is careful and you only allocate thread-local data, if the OS keeps moving your threads between packages every timeslice, you'll pay a huge hit.

Analyzing performance data for multi-core program execution is hard, particularly in a virtual machine environment. It's even worse with some of the latest 4 and 6 core processors, where even measuring cache miss rates can have a noticeable impact on performance. (shameless plug: these issues and parallel language features are what our research group works on -- http://manticore.cs.uchicago.edu)
There are some people who work well within platforms and some who work well outside of platforms. A platform, in many ways, levels the playing fields. It gives a bigger chance to us 'normals'.

See, those who do well outside of platforms are those funny, smart people that are always the center of attraction. They somehow have this magical ability to get people to gather around them - they become they center of attention wherever they go.

Those who do well within the platforms are the people who are willing to spend time studying the quirks of the platforms, and optimizing for it. Within a platform, the popular people who are usually the center of attention just by the force of their personality can get overshadowed by the meticulous researcher dude.

So often, you'll find that people who are already popular and famous say to work outside of the platform. Those who know they are not the type of person to draw people to themselves by magic will prefer to work within a platform.
I immediately wondered how the Rodney King case would have been different if it was affected by a law of this kind. Does anyone know if the video footage would have been inadmissable?

On a different note, I have spent a lot of time in developing countries, and some of the most consistent hallmarks are ridiculous bans on photographing anything government-related. Laws like this in the US make me worry about the country sliding backwards into dysfunction.
Deepwater Rig Information Graphic
With Firefox you can undo closed tabs.
If you use xmarks, it saves your open tabs and will let you reopen these tabs on a different machine or browser that has xmarks installed.
I am stuck on this one (14), atm.
I interviewed with these guys back in September of 07 and before they could get back to me, I got an offer I couldn't turn down. These guys were 'operating in stealth mode' back then, but they really had a solid focus and vision.

It is amusing though because over the following two years, whenever a Software Engineering position was available for them, I would get inundated with calls from half a dozen or so headhunters. It got to the point that when the phone rang after the first 'position available' call, i was able to tell the hunter that they were trying to fill a spot for "invite media" and it became a bit of an entertaining sport for me catching them off guard.
To be fair, it's possible to build a fairly good community in a smaller subreddit. The larger ones have those problems, but it seems like most small sized subreddits actually work out pretty well.

Still, I find myself gradually spending more and more time here and less and less time and reddit. I think if I didn't mod a few subreddits there, I'd pretty much have solely switched to HN.
>SomeONE? Maybe you didn't notice but the coast guard is not one person.

One characteristic of hierarchy is that influencing one person ends up influencing many.

>I find it hard to believe they could pay off enough, or high enough, level people for that to be possible.

BP is a very connected company. I doubt very much that influencing high-ups is only possible in non-US countries.
That's just a cost of business. Minute in the grand scheme of things.

Unless you are arguing about freedom to put apps on your own device. That's a different discussion
Nasuni (cloud storage appliance) adds Rackspace support
And how will business apps be viable if you aren't allowed to install your own software?
Caffeine addicts get no real perk from morning cup
> In 2001, when Michael Hyde was arrested for criminally violating the state’s electronic surveillance law — aka recording a police encounter — the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld his conviction 4-2.

This is the worst part of this. Frivolous lawsuits, okay, but seeing this blatant violation of the spirit of the law upheld really sucks.
> However, the impact of appreciating something and having communal pooling of appreciation affirms the intent. I want HN to remain what it is and I did not want to be "just another email" in PG's inbox

This is an incredibly convoluted explanation of what can simply be called grandstanding. I appreciate your intent, but please - we all want HN to remain what it is. If your intent was to thank pg, email him. If your intent was to communicate your want for HN to stay the same - do so when there is some threat to what we hold valuable. Otherwise: post intelligent replies, downvote trolls and submit the occasional illuminating article. Threads like this (and others like it) do no good for any of your stated aims.
My feeling is ATT plans to offer ~5GB at ~$35 later. They probably don't want to announce it now since it will immediately be visible that they are charging more for less data. I foresee a rush of ipad 3G purchases from now to June7.
Converting an iPhone phonegap app to a Palm PhoneGap app in 10 minutes
How to make sure my co-founder doesn't wreck our business?
I'm wondering what clauses and assurances can be put into contracts when incorporating so that the business doesn't completely implode if me and my co-founder break up. We met only recently with the express purpose of forming a start-up, and we don't have any personal history.

Even though we have agreed that I will be CEO, I'm not at all sure how to structure the board and such to make sure I can make the final call on potentially tough decisions. Should we not split the equity 50-50 if I am worried about this? Any other precautionary suggestions?
It's easy to get the thing moving at the same speed as the wind. The key is transforming some of the energy that went into bringing it up to that speed into the propeller. The propeller is driven by the wheels, so once they get moving, the propeller starts producing thrust, and the craft begins moving faster than the wind.
What’s next, Apple kills off birds which live on its campus that wet their nests?

Yeah, that sounds like the logical next step...

...?
Macroeconomists have successfully predicted nine of the last five recessions.
Correct. That's why it's "effective" lock-in. I can't see any technical reason not to support all 3G frequencies, but until these kinds of devices do we'll have this effective lock-in problem.
In addition to OpenGL differences (which given how much the graphics hardware in these devices differs should probably be expected), 2.2 is going to be a really big compatibility break. 2.2 is the first OS version who's JVM (Dalvik) has a JIT compiler. The Android team is down-playing the performance gain, but benchmarks have shown that 2.1 Dalvik's performance is terrible and if the new Dalvik is even remotely competitive with other JIT-ing JVM's now, Android 2.1 and earlier are going to seem CPU-starved compared to Android going forward from 2.2.

That's a good thing, if you can count on most (many?) handsets being upgraded to 2.2. That's unlikely, though.
The puzzle answer is just a clue for the real answer.
>For example, poorly designed GCs don't scale well on multiple processors. You could very well be paying for a single shared allocator lock or have a young generation shared across multiple packages.

Java's GC is anything but poorly designed, and it definitely scales to spades.

>When are your threads idle? Can you produce log events for when your threads block on locks to see how often your threads are live versus sitting around?

A good profiler should be able to show this. I've had a lot of luck with Yourkit, but others may work just as well.
You may be suggesting an answer to this in your posting, but I'm still curious: Do you think that any of these cases will actually be brought forth?

It seems to me that none will be, and to bring one to trial would be a very bad idea. The only way that it would be an easy case is if the defendant did not have wireless, was the leasee of the internet service, and was the only one on the network. Change any one of these variables, or add countless other things (VPN, etc.), and the case becomes progressively harder. Let's say that a case is brought forward: It will have widespread national media attention and everybody will be watching. Attorneys will be lining up to represent the defendant. Most importantly: The whole business model of the firm representing the complainant will hinge on the decision of the case.
Well at least you have the option to publish an app outside of the market, like on it's own website.

Though I know it really doesn't solve the problem the fact that you aren't completely locked out of legitimate phones is nice.
I'm looking forward to when one of these laws gets challenged in court and finally thrown out for good. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy if you're a public employee, on duty, in a public place. It doesn't matter how much you try to torture the words "reasonable", "private", or "public"

If someone really is obstructing police work, then the current statutes against obstructing police work are applicable. Police should be limited to enforcing those and not try to criminalize photography.
I wish there were more service based examples of this type of thinking.
The lesson I took away from Panic's Audion story is that they got gridlocked while trying to play two potential buyers (AOL and Apple), and Apple ended up moving forward with a less encumbered competitor. Please correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like Panic wanted to get eaten by an 800lb. gorilla.
Hey, I've only been to a few industry conferences, but plenty of political conferences. And hands down the best conference I have ever been to is the Big Omaha conference in Omaha. It has received tremendous praise from all the speakers as well. Check out http://www.bigomaha.com/

One of the organizers gave a great interview on Mixery as well. http://mixergy.com/bigomaha-jeff-slobotski-interview/
My understanding of "fail fast" is not that you should pack up and go home if your idea doesn't work, but rather that you should change course toward an idea that works better as soon as you realize you're heading in the wrong direction - rather than chasing your losses by clinging stubbornly to a doomed trajectory.
Is iPad gaming living up to the hype?
Avoid ever referring to it as code. There'll be a few cases where it's valid nomenclature, but most of the time it gets you headed in the wrong direction.

The trick would be a synthesis that preserves line-number metadata, and then a linting place-and-route that just creates idealized graphs and lets you see where your design is exploding or clocked funny or whatever.
"Drew is being prosecuted for illegal recording, a Class I felony punishable by 4 to 15 years in prison."

The sentence length mentioned strikes me as severe, seems the law is being use in a way that differs from the original intent.
Toomah scores funding and perks in slow market... Backstory on TechDrawl
When you're traveling downwind at the wind speed, like the article says, there's no more apparent wind that you can harness to go any faster. That much is uncontroversial.

But any type of "sailing" that isn't directly downwind depends on the speed difference between the air and the surface (land or water). If you have this type of speed differential your vehicle speed is limited only by friction and sail size.

What they've done is applied this principle to direct-downwind sailing. While you can't get any energy from apparent wind in this situation, you can use the speed of the wind (and the vehicle) relative to the ground to extract some energy, which can then be used to increase the speed of the vehicle.

From an energy perspective, it's not unlike a having lever fixed to the ground at one end, with a sail in the middle, and the vehicle at the other end. In this situation the vehicle can clearly travel faster than the sail without assuming any kind of perpetual motion.
Here is what is going on:

He's using Intel Core i7. This architecture is very similar to AMD Hypertransport in that each CPU is directly attached to a bank of memory, and has an on-die memory controller.

This has obvious performance benefits because smart operating system kernels can take advantage of this and locate a processes memory on the bank connected directly to the CPU the process is running on. There is a slight disadvantage though when running highly multithreaded applications: If a thread running on CPU A wants to access memory on CPU B, it takes an extra hop to get there. This increases memory latency.

What is happening is that he has a highly multithreaded application where threads are accessing memory attached to a different CPU. When he restricts the process to a single core, all memory is directly attached to the CPU and there are no extra hops, decreasing memory latency and increasing performance dramatically.

This trick only works on processes that can effectively run on only one CPU and within the memory limit of that CPU's attached RAM.
No, it is the same thing. What is counter-intuitive is that the body of the car is going directly downwind. The thing is, the sails of the car (the propeller) are not going directly downwind, they have an angle of attack relative to the wind because they are angled relative to the car body. Ignore the car body and draw a propeller blade, the actual wind, and the apparent wind WRT the blade.

An iceboat is a better example than a sailboat. They go substantially faster than the wind. They can do this because their sails are very efficient in terms of being able to sail a very low angles of attack and because they have very low friction WRT their motion.

According to this article,
http://www.idniyra.org/articles/IceboatSailingPerformance.ht...
the iceboat in question could sail 8 degrees off the wind and achieve a speed 7 times the wind speed.

Picture the propeller of the vehicle being a sail at a very small degree angle of attack (e.g. 8 degrees) while it is "sailing" in circles. Rather than pushing the vehicle body directly like with an iceboat, the energy is coupled to the wheels to drive the body at an arbitrary (but fixed for the vehicle in question) angle relative to the "sail" angle of attack.
Charlyne Yi
Charlyne Yi is comedian, actress. Painter, musician and a writer, born on January 4th, 1986 in Los Angeles, California, U.S. most suitable she is all round performer or entertainer.

Yi `s entertaining style is a lot different then others. She not always tells joke as stand up comedian do but she uses different modes like music, games, audience participation and magic.
OK 9 is just dumb. Opened the image in vim.
>Or does it need to be delivered and activated before I'm a 'customer'?

This: you'd need to have the iPad in hand and activated with AT&T, and should you ever cancel it there's no going back.
You have a lot of faith in the pro-consumer stance of courts.
What a crappy article. He just nitpicks on the press release to push his atheist agenda. He repeatedly talks about meridians, which aren't even mentioned in the actual paper:

http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.25...

This quote is actually kinda funny:

"What really bugs me about this article, though, is that it's cool science. These guys have found something interesting that may even have a potential clinical application. For instance, local injection of A1 receptor agonists works the same as the "acupuncture.""

Right, because injections are totally better than poking your skin with needles or acupressure or shiatsu or what have you. The problem with that mentality is that it assumes adenosine is the only chemical at work, and that the more of it, the merrier (or worse, that, a standardized dose approved by the FDA is necessarily better than what each person's own body will produce naturally).
It doesn't make sense to work out such a contract without a cancellation clause. They could as well just make a verbal promise without signing something.
Penalties are usually very, very high if one side doesn't fulfill its part of the contract. By high i mean high enough so that Steve still sticks to AT&T ;)
Web-Scale Bayesian Click-Through Rate Prediction
Spolsky has a good essay on that (and how they've lost): http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html

tl;dr version: Windows is a platform nobody wants to develop for. Windows developers have moved to the web (or to other platforms eg: Mac). The rest of the article justifies these two assertions.
When I googled regarding alternative carriers and iPad a couple days ago I had trouble finding clear statements of this.

What I did find was the sale of $60-$100 devices/dongles that would enable you to use your iPad with T-Mobile, Verizon, etc.

Is it not only me that has trouble finding a clear statement about this (esp. on store.apple.com)?
This article clarifies the current state of affairs in Massachusetts:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010...

The key seems to be how evident it is that the person is recording. If it is at all not obvious to the police that a recording is being made, it is illegal. If you put a microphone or camera in their face however it is OK.
Actually, the problem is deeper than just that. It's not just a lack of incentive - it's counter-incentive. The phone companies are using the OS version to segment their market (high-rollers get a 2.1 device like an Incredible, cheapskates get a 1.5 device like an Eris or a Tattoo). The phone companies don't want you to be able to cheat their pricing by upgrading your Eris to 2.1. Given how obsequious and accommodating the handset makers are (they have to be - their sales channel belongs to the phone companies and they effectively have to do all of their marketing to phone company execs rather than us), it's unlikely that they'll do extra work to piss the phone companies off.
I believe it depends on the terms of your employment and your jurisdiction. For instance, California specifically forbids employers from claiming ownership of inventions which are unrelated to the employer's line of business created by employees outside of company time and without using company resources: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=lab...