skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Desalination of water costs energy. If the energy costs are more than just pumping it out of an aquifer (or other fresh water source), then you're increasing your reliance on energy to get the amount of water that you need. This then increases the amount of reliance that we have on energy sources like oil just to get a basic necessity like water.

> With desalination saving river water, there's a potential to greatly increase our exportation of water-intensive crops without damaging our waterways.

Well, we still need waste treatment to keep those waterways clean. Let's just hope that someone doesn't come with the 'bright' idea that since we no longer rely on the waterways for drinking water, that we don't need to care about waste treatment.
How did you make this poll?
It actually looks pretty good. The landing page really spells out what it's all about. I wouldn't use it personally since I don't think the overlap between "obsessive tweeters" and "girls I want to date" is large, but I'm not your target market.

How do you plan to contact people with this "Like" button though? I thought it was not, in general, possible to contact random twitter users unless they follow you? Also, isn't it slightly evil and spammy to contact users who haven't signed up for your service?
I think Java's pretty popular at startups that focus on things other than the web. For example, pretty much everything at Palantir is in Java.
Well, having been bitten by Drupal in this way repeatedly (before eventually stopping using it altogether), the thing to notice about those million-plus Drupal sites is that nobody's logged into them. The same cannot be said for the NYT.

Drupal doesn't know how to cache anything at all other than for anonymous users. Start logging users in and your problems really get going around the 200-concurrent-users mark, not the 200,000-user mark. At 80-plus queries per page (which for Drupal isn't very many) the database just dies on its arse even at relatively trivial loads when you have multiple concurrent users.
"... My friends did not switch en masse to some other service I was using; they still organise parties on Facebook. ..."

That's the scenario I'm thinking would happen. You are but one leaf on the social tree of your friends.
I'm guessing I'm not the only one who wonders why all the Remove(index) methods are void instead of returning the removed element.
See the FAQ.
Cross-platform development options for smartphone apps
Not feasible. The software used in the mail sorting machines is not open source.
Can someone who lives in the world of C fill in the blanks?
If this was a major typo, I have done things along those lines.
How many more opportunities do Don Knuth, Tim Ferriss, and Richard Stallman need?

Surely everyone who knows to consult Stallman knows how to operate a GNUsignal.
"... The most powerful thing you can do regarding any service or product is to vote with your wallet ..."

It is a big mistake to overlay a monetary system on your friends. This is one aspect users are really getting riled-up with, "monetising friends".
We currently notify unregistered users with an @ message on Twitter when someone likes their profile, or sends them a message or a smile. We only ever send one of these messages, and never again, if they don't join after that. (See http://twitter.com/PlentyOfTwps for examples.)

When the user is registered, we contact them via email.
Fortunately, a lot of oil use is recreational. Look at the USA, which uses 10 times the oil per capita as heavily industrialized China.

When oil does start running short, there will be huge price shocks. Either market driven, or war-style command economies will curtail most shipping; while manufacturers pump out electrical vehicles and wind generators as fast as they can (wind generators can be built in factories and set up fairly quickly; nuclear plants require a long lead time due to site construction, planning, etc). Energy production is a relatively small part of the economy, so cutting back on the rest of the economy can pay for alternative energy supplies.

Planes can run on bio-fuel (which costs a fortune, but nobody needs to fly), cars can run on stationary energy (if you convert them to use electric motors). I don't know what container ships can use, perhaps rail will replace them in many cases (though this will be a big disruption).

It won't be pretty. There may be severe shortages. But at least the technology is being developed now.
Foobar with a few ui plugins :-)

Arguably, there isn't a solid Linux solution (probably because audio dev in Linux is sisyphian.
The idea that IPv4 will be replaced with something that isn't IPv6 is no longer credible. We need a solution in 2012, and nothing else is going to be ready by that time.
Weathering does affect it significantly; oil that's been floating for more than a day or two is known as "weathered oil", and tends to be a heavier, clumpy substance that's more tar-like than crude is. It's a lot less valuable than crude, also, since it's difficult to refine into things like gasoline or jet fuel, and ends up being used mainly for asphalt instead.

Some companies do recover it, though. I believe oiled sands from beaches are typically recovered and used industrially also, but again, for fairly low-value things like asphalt.
Windows users hate iTunes because they think it's crap.

Apple users hate Flash because they think it's crap.

Neither camp thinks their wrong.

Go figure.
My practice is to give my card to anyone who asks for it when I'm in a frame of mind to expect someone to do so (after I finish eating at a restaurant, for instance). Observation suggests basically everyone follows the same policy.
A big selling point for their stuff is the integration with iLife -- it's really easy to publish from one of those apps to the web.
memset sets a block of memory to a given value. It is often used to initialize an uninitialized block of memory to 0. So often, in fact, that this bug where it always initialized the memory to 0 survived so long.
The function was always setting the memory to 0 instead of what was passed in. I think most uses of memset are to initialize memory to 0, but any other use would have had unexpected results.
memset's job is to fill a block of memory with a given byte. The most common fill byte is 0, to initialize or otherwise clear a buffer. It looks like it is so common, in fact, that a programmer accidentally made Android's memset _always_ fill with 0, no matter what byte was passed in, and presumably no one noticed for a while. (I can't figure out when this patch was introduced.)
This is definitely something that any interface author must deal with and is very closely related to the more OO-specific skill of "good interface design". It is important to include in an interface those types and type constraints that effectively and efficiently describe your problem domain.

OCaml (and potentially Haskell, though I haven't used this feature in Haskell) ameliorates this problem by giving the programmer the facility to specify (or generate and edit based on inference) module signatures that are then checked against. With this approach, I would argue that type inference actually makes your large-scale code more robust and easier to modify than without it due to the automatic verification of module signature. If you inadvertently introduce extra type constraints to your module's interface, the type-checker will tell you and save you from releasing a module that is incompatible with previous versions of the same module.

Without type inference, you're either annotating types everywhere (looking at you Java...) or waiting until runtime (or production!) to find out you've made an error (e.g. perl, python, ruby and on and on).

I really don't see how type inference and its associated program analysis and verification is anything but good.
Ah, well that's both technically feasible and non-evil then. Good stuff!
Memset (according to the c++ reference) is supposed to: "Sets the first num bytes of the block of memory pointed by ptr to the specified value (interpreted as an unsigned char)."

So, give it a pointer to some memory, give it a value and the number of bytes you want to set and it'll go wild. In this case, memset was just blindly dropping in zeroes into the memory block
The privacy Machiavellis
The "Up to change" link takes you to the summary. May 13, 2010
An Open API from MasterCard to Develop Applications? Priceless
Not in Python, because you wouldn't globally override it. You would just override the __getattr__ of the appropriate objects and be done with it, and nothing else would be affected. If you want it to be isolated a bit of work with "with" would make it easy.

Though I would go an entirely different direction, personally, something like:

f = self.find
result = maybe_apply((f, ('table', {'class': ...})),
(f, ('td', {'class': 'elem'})),
(f, ('input',)),
(self.get, ('name',)))

Explicit is better than implicit. For bonus points, the "query" is now reusable and programmatically manipulable, which in my experience outweighs the ugly factor.
I love having ajax requests show up in the console too. Chrome used to do it like you said but doesn't seem to show up anymore. You can still see the requests though if you go to the "resources" tab. On the left pane you'll find the url to the request you've made where you can view its headers and response content in the main pane. I guess the url as a "resource" is technically correct, but it's so much easier/nicer having it on the console. HTH
trying to criminalize voluntary exchanges is no good in my opinion

not to be pedantic but these aren't proposed labor laws, they are already definitions used by the Department of Labor.
or Redmine... it's worked great for us so far.
Is it just me or did the word "multitasking" morph in meaning over the last decade? I used to hear it to describe doing many different, unrelated tasks over the course of a day, week, or month.
I'm well aware I'm in the minority, but I consider myself a good programmer and I frequently write Java in my free time. It's flexible, fast, and available on a wide variety of interesting platforms- I'm considering picking up a Kindle to fiddle with the Java-based SDK. It has a rock-solid (if occasionally rather baroque) set of standard libraries that make it suitable for competitive programming ala TopCoder and JoGL provides a delightful way to experiment with OpenGL. Really, if you're the sort of detail-oriented coder who enjoys the sturdy feeling of Java's explicit typing and interface-based modularity idioms, what's not to like?
Definitely. http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/How_To_Actually_Change_Your_M...
The kangaroo thing is an urban legend. Think about it, why would shipping kangaroo all the way from Australia be cheaper than locally sourcing beef? Hell, kangaroo in Australia costs more than Australian beef.
You can use Play! with scala as well, so you get a good framework AND a more interesting language at the same time ;)
Wish there was a cross-link to a bug tracking system where this was initially reported.
MediaTemple experiencing downtime due to DDoS attack
The thing that shocks me about this bug is that it should have been caught when the compiler issued a warning about an unused function parameter. Either the warning was not enabled, or the programmer just ignored it; either of those options indicates a pretty severe lack of professionalism.
It doesn't seem to be any one language:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=php,+ruby,+asp,+python,+perl&...
Google's encrypted search casts shadow on web analytics
Simple Domain registration APIs?
Hi all,

I am currently creating a site where, as part of it, I want a user to be able to choose and register a domain name. So far, the only way I've found to implement this is to sign up for one of various reseller accounts and they all want several hundred dollars of deposit or other payments. They all seemed to be geared towards hosting resellers too.

Does anyone know a really simple service I can use where I sign up and get charged on a pay-as-you-go basis?

Thanks in advance.
You can just search for the change ID:

https://review.source.android.com/#change,14699
or RT (issue Tracking), or my Favorite, Jira... Oh, wait. :-)
Neither is a lot of the software used by the network hardware of the internet's backbone, but that hasn't stopped RMS from using the internet.
Made it onto the BBC News site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10153286.stm
Yes, we understand that, but what you wrote makes no sense.
This reminds me of the project SlowMail

i only could find the cache:
http://bit.ly/c9dWWF
Some libc hacker has fond memories of bzero(3), tsk tsk ;-)
No thanks, Zed. I'll just continue to use PostgreSQL. It'll scale better, it'll be more reliable, it's a real database, and it's released under a truly free licence. Take this NoSQL crap back to Rubyland.
Ironic that this makes the homepage the same day as an article bashing unit tests :)
Java is the new COBOL.
COBOL + lean startups sounds like a good idea ... for a comedian.
Drupal doesn't know how to cache anything at all other than for anonymous users.

True for vanilla Drupal, but hardly true for Drupal + modules. You have to keep in mind that Drupal is not some black magic CMS...it's just a PHP framework. No matter what NYT is built in, they likely are employing the same kinds of caching strategies that you can leverage in Drupal. Even if you have 5 queries per page, you're going to need a caching strategy to handle NYT levels of traffic, and Drupal can most likely integrate the same methods. Simple examples include authcache and cacherouter.
It all comes down to different ways of doing things. Some people like to manage their music more manually, copying over mp3 files to a folder. I am in this category, because I like complete control, and some of the things itunes does seems to be confusing. Also, I don't see the need of having mp3 files on a hdd, then stores on my iphone, then also stored in the itunes music folder. I don't need 3 copies of a music file. This is one part that frustrates me. Another frustration was silence between tracks, which itunes did not used to support.

However, I completely understand why most poeple like itunes, because most people aren't like this, and itunes provides a very simple interface for them to do it.

Saying that, the Windows version of itunes has not been as good as the mac version. And even on the mac, it seems to pause when copying over lots of large mp3 tracks, although this has gotten a lot better in the recent release.
Well, "Cloud Computing" became pretty widely know. After some people tried to actually use it seriously, they found out that it's actually quite shitty, and nothing but marketing blabber. This forced the marketing and hype folks to find something new to drivel on about. Behold, NoSQL.
How I built a Real-time Collaborative Editor with Web Sockets, Node.js & Redis
Per the merchant agreements, they cannot deny you the sale if you don't want to show your ID. Also, the credit card companies no longer require signatures for purchases under $20 (possibly $25?) which is why Starbucks doesn't require you to sign any more.
Interesting. I try to keep a newspaper or periodical handy, something offline and inert. While my project compiles, I read a few hundred words and do not get so engrossed I lose my original train of thought.
I was under the impression that much of googles code base is python.
http://www.icombinator.net/
Exactly. Unfortunately, since Palantir is in the enterprise space, few people on HN immediately know of the how 1) cool and 2) difficult the problems and solutions in the space are. And of course, this post hast immediately degenerated into Java vs. X as to be expected.
Java is dead for front-end heavy web apps, but it's (along with other JVM languages) a good option for other parts of a product.

Much of the site is frequently focused on web development. Keep in mind, however, that the web is just a UI layer. What is the UI _for_? It really irks me to see Ruby mentioned _only_ with Rails next to it, as if it wasn't an a very interesting language even without it (the combination of ideas from Perl and Smalltalk).

Statically typed languages feel awkward for web development (but then again, I haven't done much web development, so perhaps I am missing some of the better options e.g., Lift), but there's all sorts of interesting libraries for Java/JVM when it comes to:

* Middleware/services (Jersey/JAX-RS, Grizzly)

* Socket communications (Netty, Mina, Grizzly)

* Distributed coordination and communication (JGroups, ZooKeeper)

* Search and data processing (several "NoSQL" systems, Hadoop, Lucene and Katta for search)

* Threading and concurrency: actor libraries like Killim and Jetlang, java.util.concurrent and jsr166y/fork-join framework.

It should be noted that you could also use them with Scala. If liked using Java, you'll like Scala even more. Unless, of course, you've already got a predominantly Java project and have a specific reason against mixing/matching Scala (e.g., don't want to have a require having another jar in a servlet container which may be incompatible with the existing Scala jar in that container).

Clojure is yet another example of something very interesting that's happening on the JVM, but to me the big pull of Clojure isn't related to it being on the JVM: I like the fact it's a Lisp-1, its STM approach, first-order data structures - with syntactic sugar - beyond lists. Even if you viscerally hate Java and the JVM, you should give Clojure a try.

Of course there are a couple of JVM specific issues that are annoying and knee-cap all the JVM languages (in comparison to C, C++, Scheme/CLisp, OCaml and Haskell): lack of unsigned types, lack of ability to create user defined "primitive types", erasure with generics (mitigated through work arounds like Scala's implicit) and other artifacts of the JVM imposing a type system on you.

Personally I was dismayed by Java's smell (associated with the enterprise CRUD web development that went on in Java in the late 90s/early 2000s, Java's design by committee, etc...) and didn't even touch it until a few years ago; I squarely believed that all _real_ programming could only be done in C or C++ (while Lisp could be used for prototyping algorithms). I found that despite Java's _many_ annoyances, it's a language that could be practical for many non-trivial programs (rather than the usual "enterprise" apps which crash when you click the wrong button). Subsequently, I also discovered the same about Erlang, OCaml, Scheme, Common Lisp and languages I previously ignored as toys/glue languages (Python, Ruby, Perl).
Great thanks man =)
They are doing that for some of it.
How to get your camera back when you lose it
I wouldn't mind driving an hour to meet up with someone. A huge problem I run into with sites like OkCupid is that NYC is within that radius and I do not want to meet up with people from the city.

Living somewhere with subways is a completely different lifestyle. For instance, not owning a car? Or the idea of the wilderness being central park?

I would love to be able to set a radius and blacklist matches based on city name (e.g. NYC, Manhattan, Brooklyn).
Interestingly, they have the OpenBSD version that does word-size assignments in asm for x86/arm. wonder why it wasn't being used.

http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/bionic.git;a=blob;...
http://android.git.kernel.org/?p=platform/bionic.git;a=blob;...
That sounds a lot like the Angelfire site builder that some people used to create sites way back in 1994.
Not everyone leaves because they "decide you aren't that great to work for anymore." While it is the overwhelmingly most common reason, something like 20% of departures (that statistic is from memory, so don't take it too seriously) are for reasons that have nothing to do with the employer. Changing priorities, physical moves, interesting opportunities elsewhere, and starting one's own business all play a part.
You don't need 'vision' or 'foresight' to listen to your customers.
It sent me to mybookface, which definitely looks shady.
You could just call your iphone, that would have the same effect if it was in your apartment.
I suppose I have to support some of the infrastructure it uses before it becomes profitable. I just don't want the state involved in that sort of activity. It's the same reason I wouldn't like war even if we paid for it with the spoils.
Wow where has this been all my life?
I'm not disputing that Clojure's data structures right now are more performant than Scala's or that your project was worthless. I even apologized in case my original post was badly worded.

What I wanted to confer was that, you _might_ have been wasting a lot of effort because I assumed that you might not have been informed about work of the Scala team that has a high likelihood of obsoleting your project in the near future. Obviously you were informed and my notice was inappropriate. Be assured it won't happen again.

If increasing the performance by about 1/4 for your use cases - compared to the current beta - is valuable for you, great! For me it wouldn't have been worth a few hours. 'A good learning experience' would have. But obviously your values are different.
With this new tablet product, Courier, it might gone red again for a while.
I guess this is the reason why Scala gets a lot of attention:
same speed as Java (on JVM),
fully compatible with Java,
it has static typing,
and it's productive like RoR or Python.

BTW, both the Java (javac) and Scala compilers were written by the same person.
I was surprised to see it there, next to gmail!
Though not configurable, the "Top Links" feature does something like this:

http://news.ycombinator.com/best

It's really useful, but it's somewhat obscure since there's no link to it from the main page. (You can find it under "Lists" at http://news.ycombinator.com/lists)
Here's some things that prevent Apple from having the AppStore compete with web-apps:

- Developer Support: Web apps only need to be coded once for all platforms. Deployment is in only one location (instead of all installed devices). tTe idea of a thin client is VERY appealing to many developers.

- Mobile Safari: If Apple wants their mobile browser to remain competitive with Google's mobile browsers they need to support the very features that will kill the AppStore

- The AppStore policies: I can publish apps that would violate the AppStore's terms as a web-app. It will be cross-platform and can even be things like a code editor or a porn browser.

Go and try 280slides.com. We're very close already as far as UI and feel goes. IMHO it's very hard to deny the coming age of web apps and thin clients (aka the age of Chrome OS).
Mainly by Haskell, Clojure and Erlang.
How To Put On A Nerd Conference
I drew this at TechCrunch Disrupt today....
>But does it matter? Will Chrome matter? Will telling people to install Chrome to install my app be worth it? Will other browsers follow suit?

I don't think the idea is to tell people to install Chrome to install your app. It's just another 'retail' front for your app that can give you more exposure.

Also, I don't think the Chrome App idea is primarily designed for developers. It's designed for users, so that they have a central place to browser the next generation webapps. Clearly it's very good for Chrome users, but it might still not be worth it for developers.
That sounds like a severe lack of perspective.
So often, in fact, that this bug where it always initialized the memory to 0 survived so long.

Given that the bug went undetected for so long, I think you could almost reasonably claim that calling memset with a nonzero parameter is a "corner case" ;)
Chartering a 737, Sending 126 People to Haiti, and Starting a Non-Profit...
In the old mail order days my dad used to write the cc number on the order form, in plain text!
"We were tasked with turning one of the top rated strategy games of all time into one of the world's flagship tests of a new set of economics." The task itself sounds pretty cool -- kinda off topic, but could you describe it a little more? (I've been interested in virtual world economies for a bit.)

Great article (http://www.lzimm.com/nov2009/purpose.html), too!