skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Javascript's functional powers are equivalent to or worse than every other popular dynamic language in existence. Speaking of functions, I prefer not to do argument arity checking on every single function I write(I'm looking at you too, perl!), or accidentally assigning global variables through a simple misspelling. I also really hate it if I accidentally invoke a function on a primitive and it silenty fails by returning null. Use 'use strict', you say? How's the implementation of that feature coming these days? I know firefox still doesn't have it. Does v8 yet?

From what I've read, other Prototype-based languages treat Javascript as their ugly step cousin, and I would overall consider it a much inferior OO system to that found in Python, Ruby, CLOS, Perl's Moose, and PLT-Scheme, to name a few.

You can easily get rapid redeployment in any dynamic language. You can even get it on the JVM with Java, as the Play framework is showing us. See http://www.playframework.org/.

If Javascript is your first dynamic language after developing in Java for X years you might think it is neat, but it is really far behind just about every other language out there it directly competes with on the server-side level. It was never designed to be a scalable general purpose programming language and the latest incarnation is still far from reaching that lofty goal.
Imagination goes a long way towards realizing the kind of future you want to have, not just solving the immediate problems you've been presented with.

If you can imagine the outcome of your decisions you can avoid the suffering/regret of unfulfilled dreams, failed relationships, and misspent youth.
Not just imagination - but curiosity as well.
The definition of Comparator-interface includes only two methods, .compare and .equals. The documentations says that it is always safe to not override .equals, so we're left with just .compare. This effectively means that each comparator is effectively a function of two arguments that returns a boolean. Had functions been in Java in the first place, the whole Comparator interface would have been superfluous.
I wouldn't go so far as to say it sucks. It's rough, or spartan, but in a good (fastmail.fm) way. And fast. Lastpass on Chrome is the only password manager I've been able to live with, and I've tried a few.
> Is there anything to suggest that they'll let the current development hell continue?

History, inertia, lack of any demonstrated interest or unified direction, key Java players running away, a change in planned features every month, no clear incentive, almost no interest from Java programmers? (What interest there is seems to be mainly from the fringe community involved in Scala and Clojure, who want invokeDynamic.)
Neil Harbisson - the World's first cyborg
Hence why I say, literally, "Though I love what you're doing in Excel". And it goes beyond just network effect: some of the data manipulation and collaborative editing changes are encouraging. We'll see where things go.

But it's by no means the only option if they fall behind.
There is no real point to the list, that's my point.

You're exactly right. It's a partial list of some of the ways that people sometimes under certain conditions use the word disease. That would be merely boring except that he compares the list to the far more carefully specified definitions 'rube' and 'blegg' and subsequently uses the list as criteria in the next 3 paragraphs. He treats the list as if it's an actual list of semantic features, when in fact it's not.

Ultimately he gives up on the question entirely:

So, is obesity really a disease? Well, is Pluto really a planet? Once we state that obesity satisfies some of the criteria but not others, it is meaningless to talk about an additional fact of whether it "really deserves to be a disease" or not.

What a waste of time.
Have you seen this? It's an attack on vote splitting, suggesting to you which candidate has the best chance of beating the conservatives. A much more elaborate version was available for the last election.

http://www.voteforclimate.ca/en/map.php
Rate my startup: Genome analysis and presentation
It would efnitely be useful IMO to highlight engineering type skills alongside the cs ones on a cv.

In our particular case we would check out the degrees people had done (just Reading the websites) to get an idea of what they had learned - I only really do that for new graduates though, it's less relevant to more experienced people.
This is nitpicking, but it always bothers me: "mb/s" is an abbreviation for "millibits-per-second". You meant "MB/s", although this wasn't obvious; if you hadn't mentioned maxing out a GigE connection, it could have been interpreted as "Mb/s", which is short for "megabits-per-second".

</pedantry>
There's always a rev N+1. Holding off buying hardware at the start of a cycle because of what could come next year is a recipe for never buying anything.
Hyperbole like "May spell the end of ..." immediately makes me dismiss that which is being discussed, same as 'x killer'.

That said, I like this idea. I have speculated on using a Surface for the same purpose and I think - especially when I'm sitting at a table waiting for my bill or realize I just got my food but forgot to ask for whatever-it-was - that it would be extremely useful. But who is going to bring me my whatever-it-was? The chefs?
Google I/O 2010 session videos will be released tomorrow
Java isn't very "symboly" in practice. Any idea why they made such an unusual choice? I'm not against it (I prefer symbols to long words generally, even if they have a slightly longer learning curve), but it seems unlike the rest of the Java spec.
I only skimmed this article, NS is not one of my favorite publications, and publishing an article about "denialism" on a site ostensibly devoted to science journalism does not raise its stature with me. I did find this little gem about halfway into the article "... denial finds its most fertile ground in areas where the science must be taken on trust".

I have enough education to follow most scientific arguments at some level. I don't have enough higher math to follow string theory, for instance, but I can understand pandemics, one of the prime examples in the article. When science relies on trust, is it still science? I'm also bothered that this article seems to lump anyone on the "wrong" side of a scientific debate as a "denialist".
Am I supposed to take article with that title seriously when it starts with:

> PC vs. Mac

Under what reasonable definition is a Macintosh not a personal computer?
You don't have to be single, you just have to care about value. I haven't seen anything to convince me that it'll give me $750+ of value (a non-base model with a case, after taxes).
_Checks Watch_

Is it 1989 again?

We've had these horribly boring CISC versus RISC arguments since back in the late 80s/early 90s.

Your arguments for why x86 keeps winning are ridiculous.

As to RISC versus CISC, in some ways the former is like "native code" and the latter is like "VM byte code" (ala Java byte code, .NET byte code). The former is heavily optimized, but can't adapt well to different hardware/environments, while the latter isn't as fast out of the gate, but it can be heavily optimized.

Which is exactly what every modern processor does. X86 to a Xeon is just like Java byte-code, and gets interpreted into something very different in the magical internals of the processor.
Because the URL is different in a way that looks substantial unless you happen to know how the BBC organizes its stories. Which, as it happens, hasn't been built into the HN software.

(It's news.bbc.co.uk/1/... versus news.bbc.co.uk/2/... which I think -- but my recollection is hazy and my google-fu currently insufficient to check -- they use to distinguish between "UK" and "world" versions of their site. Whether there's any actual difference any more, I don't know. In this instance the page content is the same each way apart from 2 characters in the URL of some web-analytics tracking thing.)
I'm surprised it didn't set your computer on fire in IE. Thanks for the heads up - will get it prepped for mass consumption sometime.
I disagree with the work ethic point, but I do think it's interesting and instead of both of us speculating would love to see some actual data.

There are a ton of dumbass people out there chugging away at grinding jobs to stay alive, and a ton of brilliant people sitting at their desks reading hacker news (not to imply that I'm brilliant; it's the rest of you I mean).
I'm on the fence on this one. I think it is very very dangerous to blindly trust Perfect Science as we've seen with ClimateGate. Scientists are of course humans, and all humans are prone to competitiveness, greed, and deception. Science is fallible. On the flip, though, I become very nervous when I think about what happens when public perception of scientific truth begins to erode..
Well, I'm just one of those sysadmins (but the clusters on
which I work are much more smaller than the 'monsters' in
the top500). I don't know if someone could envy me but there are surely other things apart the noise of HVAC
systems (by the way we are using remote console when
possible :-)).
How about working with a lot of different computer nodes combining them with a fast network (Infiniband) and
exporting the storage space through the cluster with a
parallel file system?
How about optimizing every aspect of the software
installation (OS, compilers, scientific libraries)
to give your users the best resources to run their simulations (biophysicist, electrical engineers, etc.)?
To not to mention follow the aspects regarding the structure of the data center: cooling systems, UPS,
raised floors, etc.? It doesn't sound too bad to me :-)
This argument could eternally be applied to computers. Why buy now? In just 18 short months, there will be one that is twice as fast. Are the 18 short months up? If you waited just 18 more, you'd get doubly as fast again!
I think actually it is good for families as it is more suited to the living room and is therefore more social.
It's unreasonable for Lifeblob to say anything remotely negative about Facebook copying their feature, when it's obvious from Lifeblob's UI that most of their ideas have come from your typical social networking site. They even use Facebook Connect!
The app doesn't do anything for you, except give you a bit of scaffolding so you can make your own decisions.

If you look at startup case studies, the worrying constant is how obvious most of their failures are. We lose track of our basic business assumptions and end up charging down dead-ends or building products nobody wants.

By explicitly stating our assumptions in an easily consumable way, it keeps you aware of what you're trying to prove and helps you avoid those "obvious" mistakes.
It is ridiculous.

Java often completely ignores the design guideline of making the easy things easy and the hard things possible, preferring just to make the hard things possible. Anonymous inner classes with many methods are far less commonly needed than anonymous functions, and it's rare that the program is better served having them inline rather than defined elsewhere anyways.

Five lines and dozens of characters of boilerplate for every anonymous function does come at a cost and is ridiculous.
I would agree that the name Venture Pimp lacks a certain something.
> tail-calls and coroutines

Wanna bet those are never going to make it in Java7?

Oh wait ... probably some half-baked form of those will ... after all, they are calling anonymous method blocks that DON'T capture the whole current context "closures".

Not to mention that they could've inferred the type of the requested function ... an instance where those half-baked generics could've actually been somewhat useful, instead of just a way to avoid explicit type-casts.

The whole language is fucked-up. They should've just froze it at version 1.4 and be done with it.
And the year after that, there will be an even better iPad, with more bells, doodads and whistles, and thingamajigs, too.

With that approach, you end up waiting forever.
So that's three years then.
It is, as stated in the credits at the bottom of the page. 4 of the blocks are the same as the original biz model generation canvas, and the other 5 are tailored to early stage startups. I also changed the layout from being cash-driven to value-driven and embedded some stripped down worksheets into each of the blocks, which leads to a slightly different use-case (communication & documentation instead of discovery & discussion)
Where Have All the Great Men Gone?
"Wilson's appreciation of the iPad's usability contradicts with usability expert Jakob Nielsen's assessment :"

Not really, though, as Wilson also says he prefers web apps to native apps on the iPad.
Good idea. I'll post some pdfs or doc templates on the page for offline work before everything's secured up.
I think the economic crisis can't be all that bad.
The constructor might be partially executed before the exception is thrown (for example, allocated memory or locked resources), in which case those things don't get cleaned up.

I'm not arguing it isn't correct behavior, it's just that things don't always seem as easy and straightforward as they look on first sight.
More of an "app" than a "start-up", but thanks ;)
Privilege Guilt?

Probably. Another factor could be that successful high-IQ people want to claim that their success is mainly due to "chosen" traits like perseverance, rather than lucky genes and/or environmental factors.
if you have created something that people will go out of their way to pirate, congratulations. Piracy should be the least of your concerns. Focus on getting as many users as possible.
A VC: The Cohort Analysis
Distutils2 vs Pip
Not a problem for two reasons: 1. Oil won't burn without oxygen. It might break up into simpler hydrocarbons (carbon dioxide, methane, etc.), but it won't cause a firestorm. 2. Burning the oil is much less bad than letting it leak all over the coastline, poisoning animals and preventing oxygen from getting mixed into the water. There are already several operations intentionally burning the oil on the surface.
Which neighborhoods are considered poor has changed drastically over time in most American cities that I'm aware of.
Well that is good to know, thanks.
Well, I mean sites that publish their own feeds. I'd wish they'd include more than just the title in th feed. NY Times is notorious for just giving you a link after one sentence of text.
Yes, but have you noticed how many awesome imprisoned heroes we have? It's no wonder we keep relying on them. Would you have us do otherwise?
The killer feature of Rhino for me is the fact that it runs on the JVM, and customers are OK with me using JavaScript, whereas they're not OK with Clojure or so. Too bad the Java integration in Rhino isn't exactly great. (example: you can only use the 0-argument constructor when deriving from a class)
Canadapost.ca does a credit check when you signup for a change of address and asks the user to verify two items on their credit report. Ouch.
We use something custom - we deliver contact emails via Google AppEngine, via a private webservice.

It was really simple to set up, virtually free (0.0001c per email), and Google's got pretty much the gold standard for delivering mail.

One drawback is your from: user has to be verified and set up in the AppEngine dashboard (not difficult), and on the free AppEngine account you can only send 2k emails per day. Once you're on billing, the quota sky high.

Let me know if you'd like to see some code.
If it is good it will be pirated regardless of how you sell it. Anyone with a jailbroken Android phone can access and distribute the unprotected package after downloading it from the Android Marketplace.

Lots of people still pay for software though. It's more convenient.

Might be a good idea to offer a free crippled version through the Android market place if possible and then advertise your paid version from that one.
I say "When the CPU is 10x faster and it costs less than $150, then I buy". Not putting it off forever, just skipping a couple of early generations.
"Large scale epidemiological studies may have problems but they are enough to tip the burden of proof towards those who would disagree with them."

No! Other things are often highly correlated with diet, and has massive effects on cardiovascular health (exercise in particular). Only randomized controlled dietary trials can be trusted for predictive power.
Looks awesome. First and obvious question: any particular reason why you didn't make this a web app? In the screenshots it actually looks like a web app, but then there's that download link?

Improvements to the homepage: explain better what this is. Is it something where I can see my own genome? What does it actually do? Add more screenshots. And get rid of "the possibilities are enless", that's just cheesy ;)
"It's like finding a lover," she says. "At first everything they do is exciting, but over time a good lover becomes more of a real person. Some of the initial fascination is gone, but it becomes a super important part of your life. And like a good lover, in time it becomes difficult to imagine going to bed without it each night."

I have tried very hard to ignore all of the Apple hype.

Somebody please make it stop.

If the iPad were a 1/100th of everything people make it out to be, the world would be transformed. Instead, it's just Apple doing a bang-up job on taking the slate to the next level. Let's leave it at that and move on with our lives. Geesh. Enough already.

We are more than the electronic trinkets we carry around. And if we're not, that's not something to be bragging about.
http://sam.bluwiki.com/blog/2007/04/y-combinators-portfolio....

Their most successful sale is still Reddit, yes? Assuming moderate dilution, I imagine payout per founder in the $1mm-$2mm range. Assuming the average ycombinator is capable of securing a 6-figure job, their greatest success only accounts for 2 years living wages of 10 failures.

Forget the multi-million dollar company valuations: almost everyone on this board would have a multi-million dollar valuation if they were willing (or legally able) to sell ownership over all their future cash flows.
Bering Strait crossing (hypothetical Alaska-Russia bridge/tunnel)
Do you have a link for this? These sites suggests otherwise

Yes I do.

Outside of U.S./Canada
704,266 Members
Total Reported
2,103,033 Members

In other words, 33% of all AA membership is not within North America. This is from their own material, the 2007 survey. http://www.aa.org/en_pdfs/m-24_aafactfile.pdf

33%? That's still a lot, right?

Occurrence of AA membership in North America: 1 in 265

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(population+of+united+s...

Occurrence of AA membership the world, excluding North America: 1 in 9207

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=(population+of+world+-+...

It makes sense that their international presence is played up heavily on their sites and other material, so as to make it seem as if they are expounding some universal truth, rather than a localized phenomenon.

The idea is that some people keep chasing the idea that they can drink just a little then stop, yet fail again and again. If you can get them to just give up on that idea they'll be better off.

Yes, that is one of AA's core ideas, and not backed up by scientific research or studies. Just because a lot of people (where you live) say it very loudly and frequently does not make it true. This is exactly what I just talked about in my previous post -- people accept these statements as if they are inherently true, without examining them critically.
I think part of this issue will be resolved as technology advances - eventually, it will become common practice to release all experimental data publicly, which will reduce the trust requirement. After all, the heart of science is independently confirming experimental results.
My understanding was the explosive was going to be put down the well or buried in a second well close to the leaking well. Nuclear bombs are more compact, for equivalent yield, than chemical explosives which is why I assumed they were being proposed.

As for your final point a fire needs heat, fuel and oxidiser. The oxidiser should be absent so no fire.
A "properly sized" conventional explosive would be impractically enormous: nukes are measured in kiloton or megaton yields. There is no way to effectively detonate (say) twenty million pounds of conventional explosives all at once, never mind the non-trivial challenge of emplacing that amount. As I understand it, you'd place it below the sea floor, into the well, so the surrounding water would be shielded by all the rock above the blast site. For the same reason, there would be no fallout plumes, because all that solid mass would prevent the newly-created radioactive material from going anywhere. And it can't ignite the reservoir, because there's no oxygen to burn down there.

All that said, it's still probably not a good idea. Hopefully it doesn't become the only idea.
Mobile phone number verification, ie. prove that you're a human in countryX by entering your mobile phone nr. in the US and we send you an SMS code or something. Google does (did?) that if I remember correctly.
No, there are no frames.
Design, design, design. Oh, yeah, and marketing, too.
So, the price of progress in a free society is the suffering of misguided human beings?

If one has been born as a laboratory rat, it's a really good idea to find oneself in the control group. Likewise, while it might be dandy to be the misunderstood genius, the odds are that one is instead the deluded fool. Don't be the deluded fool.

Education tends to mitigate this.
The Upcoming Generation of Lossless Data Compression, Part 1
I admit I've been curious about exactly it would look like and what would happen if the entire underground oil field were to somehow spill into the ocean at once.
I haven't - this is something I'll have to do considering they are in the Mission too! Thanks
It seems to be an issue with the iPhone and iPad. Hopefully Apple will fix it, as I'm sure there are other sites with scrollable areas within a page.

If not, I'll probably find a workaround eventually.
Phone verification, using twilio.You can at least verify that the user controls a mobile phone number.

My bank offers this as an option to send a verification code when I use a new computer or browser.

The drawback for you is that unlike my bank you are probably not verifying an existing account and are taking the phone number from the same person you're validating.
They think (correctly) that what's popular among consumers will eventually infiltrate the enterprise ("the consumerization of IT") and vice versa.
Impressive... but does not really affect our life.
The delay between some new trendy type of restaurant appearing in New York and its first appearance in Cincinnati was about two years. I suspect that such gaps are exploited in markets, which will result in the gaps shrinking over time.