skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Thanks, I wish the BBC had added that part (though the article does explain that it takes more energy than it generates).

Here's a simple explanation for non-phycisists: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-farnsworth-fusor.htm
They're really simple, slight variations yield drastically different behaviour, and some setups are Turing-equivalent (given some liberties of interpretation). This is Wolfram's argument on why they would stand with the Riemann-Zeta function as most beloved to Alan Turing, if he'd only known about them.

More fundamentally underlying his advocacy is Wolfram's obsession with the things, which, 30 years on, has not yielded very much. They don't seem to be terribly useful. His wider investigation of the structure of computation is certainly worthwhile, but CAs, at least in the form Wolfram's written his bible about [1], don't seem to be the philosophical revelation he promoted them as.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Kind_of_Science
Seems like a clever piece of Viral Marketing to me!
I completely disagree with the example given in this blog. I don't have time to give a full explaination but I believe the google clean code talks gives a far better arguement than I ever could.

On the general principle I agree that overengineering is to be avoided, but I actually think the example shows a clear disregard for Object Orientated principles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F72VULWFvc
Ask HN: "submit to HN" button Yea or Nay
I say an intersting title in the new section and I clicked through to this article http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2010/06/23/how-my-startup-went-ipo-and-skipped-vc-funding-a-story/

To my shock and dismay sitting right between the share this on Facebook and Stumble This! was a button for submitting to HN?!

This I feel is the beginning of a slippery slope, now I'm not saying that people shouldn't be free to submit content to HN and obviously I understand that this button is merely a link to the "submit to news.ycominator" page, but buttons are the first step towards people gaming HN en-masse.

Am I the only one who feels this way?
Yes, but the principles taught in introductory and intermediate level economic courses argue for a relationship between minimum wage laws and unemployment.

To think that those surveyed have an understanding of economics that supersedes an intermediate level is kinda crazy, huh? I would venture to say that the majority of the population is far below that level.
They're still selling the iPhone 3GS too. It would be interesting to see a comparative review with the equivalent mid-range Android (and/or nokia, blackberry, bada etc.) phones now that it's been updated to iOS 4.

I think the 3G was a worthy contender when it was in this position last year. I'm not so sure how it would turn out now.
Hi, you're talking about my blog. I use a plugin for wordpress, which as far as I know (I'm no expert), has been around for years. This is just one of many plugins that all offer to post your blog post to various sites. The list of sites they support is crazy, maybe reaching a hundred.

It's the job of the blog author to filter to the sites that make sense based on the content they publish. In my case, I cut down the list to 3 sites I like, that's it.
A little off-topic: Each time I have used RpxNow on my website, I got complaints from some users telling me they'd prefer a classic registration form. When I have only a classic form to register, nobody complains.

So my advice would be: make sure you allow to register the "classic" way.
Sweet! There are several in Vienna. I'm soooo going to check one out.

Vienna has a lot of ancient and/or newer-but-micro elevators. Quite often going to the doctor or meeting somebody in their apartment, we end up in an old all-wood elevator with a bench, and no inner door. Typically they have wrought iron or brass external doors, and sometimes carpeting.

Some newer ones from the 70s and 80s even have no inner doors - but some kind of (possibly infrared) sensor so, if you stick your hand in the space, it will grind to a stop.

Crayzee.
Wolfram has - correctly - noted that complexity can arise from simple systems (think Conway's Game of Life, but even simpler - Wolfram is into one-dimensional equivalents). This is, he says, akin to how many biological systems work (e.g. individual cells/neurons are pretty simple, but a human is very complex).

He also - correctly - observes that the explosion in computational power afforded by modern computers make certain scientific investigations possible that were previously infeasible (e.g. the proof of the four-colour theorem relying on exhaustively testing some 1800 possible scenarios, or numerical simulation of some very complex phenomena).

He then combines these two passions of his and asserts that therefore, computation based on simple systems gives insight into the secrets of life, the universe, and everything.
Making a fusor looks like a pretty interesting project:

http://brian-mcdermott.com/what_it_takes.htm
Sports Nutrition Tips For Working Out at a Maximum Level
Yeah so? That still doesn't justify the information presented by this article.

It's sad that BOTH sides (in other words, a majority of the population) are ignorant when it comes to political issues. But ask those same questions about Britney Spears' latest ploy for attention.....
I need to give the EFF some money.
Reports of PC’s Impending Death Greatly Exagerated
Yes, I've looked at this and it would fulfill this need quite nicely.
"Insanity is to do the same thing over and over and expect different results."

The point is not to fail quickly, but to keep changing until you succeed.
One of my lecturers wrote the following at the top of our course notes:

Contrary to popular opinion using OOP does NOT mean "thou shalt make every last thing an object"
I think he meant Zookeeper for discovery & coordination of services using ZeroMQ.
12th Avenue looks like a fun place. With all of the roasting equipment and taste testing going on there it seems like it would be a fun destination. Have you ever been to this one?
The Fusor produces interesting byproducts as well:

" He was absolutely convinced that he had observed the fusion of deuterium into tritium and/or helium 3 in his equipment. "

from: http://itseasyto.com/farnsworth.htm

...it's a good source of neutrons.
Plenty of bigger or high traffic American buildings have this, too. Examples I've seen: Bear Stearns' old building (well, the one they were in when they were no more), the NY Times new building.

In the NYT one, you choose your floor before you get on, it specifies your elevator, and then... there are no buttons inside.

It's kind of horrifying.

The Bear Stearns one still had buttons inside but you were definitely directed to a specific elevator of about 8 available. The building was 43 floors and an uninterrupted elevator ride to the 42nd, where I worked, from the ground floor took about 3 minutes. It was so fast it never failed to make me motion sick, and and my ears popped.
Hashing the output makes the seed harder to infer from the output and also tends to make the output look better on randomness tests.
> ninety hour weeks; in any other industry the company in question would find itself sued out of business

Not really. Resident physicians were only very recently restricted to 80-hour work weeks. And even many of the residents bemoan the lost patient-contact time.

What's the average start-up work-week?
DashApp released as open source
Anyone know if 0MQ (or similar) can have multiple publishers send to the same queue? Some context:

- I currently have an app where users submit content to a single machine, which is then queued (using Python's inbuilt Queue object), and processed and displayed by threads that run on the queue.

- In future, I've been thinking about using a network queue to easily publish from a single source to multiple display servers, with a load balancer in between them. This neatly handles my 'view only' users.

- But what about if I wanted to allow users to submit from any server, ie, spreading the load for contributing users as well?

I'm guess I'm looking for a multiple publisher / multiple subscriber queue. Does anyone know if they exist?
Your evil streak is pathetically mundane, Peter! Aim higher!
Agreed. There are many ways to improve an elevator in objective and perceptual ways... and what the author proposes is definitely not one of them.
Sky+ in the UK. 160Gb. It's not the High Definition box either.
It's managed to survive since 2006 but locks up nearly every day needing a hard reset to restore.
Looking for alternatives.
Quality Interviews with 10 Rubyists
C# Closures Explained
Apple sues HTC over 4 patents in new lawsuit
So what's wrong with using a switch statement if all you have are 3 operations?

Even if more operations had to be added I'd probably let it grow to the point where the method the switch is in was getting a bit unwieldy then look at refactoring it using a pattern if I really thought it would be worth it.
I downmodded your comment because you misspelled misspelled as misspelt.

I didn't actually, but c'mon.
Happy Birthday, Alan Turing
In some sense that's what the second O says, isn't it?

It's not called Object Programming, but Object-Oriented Programming.
Yes, this is commonly called a message bus.

ZeroMQ supports this, you can just use a forwarding device where on one end you can connect the publishers and on the other end the subscribers.
3D Pixel Text Effect in Illustrator
Here is a beautiful and amazing text effect. I made it in Adobe Illustrator. A lot of commands for you to learn while making this. Hopefully you will like it.
Yes, but people respond from the stance of "HE TOLD ME TO DO IT SO YAY!" or "HE TOLD ME TO DO IT SO HE'S A STUPID ASSHOLE, JEEZ."

Even if you wanted to give your opinion when somebody asks for it, there's no need for that level of emotion -- unless you take it as either encouragement or an affront to your choices, and therefore, you yourself.
My biggest gripe with Google Analytics (if I was their product manager), is that it collects lots of data, but doesn't tell you what to do.

Google Analytics made a small step in that direction when they added the trending analysis. But it's such a small step.

Where is the dead-simple analytics recommendation engine? It needs to analyze the data and tell you what works, what doesn't. Ideally, with a big "ON" button to do more of what works, and an "OFF" button to stop doing whatever doesn't. Everything else is beyond the comprehension level of 99% of people.
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/
Final Week for Launchbox Digital Applications
3rd Year of operations, 17 companies, Fall program in RTP, NC. Check us out @ www.launchboxdigital.com
Homes for sales
Sulekha India Real Estate Classifieds Search Real-Estate Ads or Post Advertise your India Real Estate Property for sale services and reach a large audience and Sell, buy and find practically everything.
What you should "Like" about Facebook Integration on TypePad
Saving Time and Stress With Cooking Co-ops
i'm not sure i like your basis for morality.

by your standards, if i like being slapped is it moral for me to slap others?
Villain Telugu Movie Reviews, Wallpapers, Story, Trailers, Photos
Bet his FBI file is fun reading.

BTW the guy who invented television also invented a homemade fusion device 70 years ago, so this is actually not that cutting edge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor#Use_as_a_power_source
How Microsoft is changing the programming world
Margaret Gould Stewart: How YouTube thinks about copyright
"When you can half-ass your way into making a multi-million dollar return on investment while doing it wrong, it can be challenging to find the motivation to do it right."

I thought you were talking about deep-sea offshore oil drilling, but then I realized you only said "multi-million".
How do you propose getting 2 Billion users on the new site? (Or however many users FB has by now)
Oil in the Gulf, two months later
Tell that to Java developers :)
After reading this and the comments here I can't help but think of the extreme opposite case of DNF. It's an extreme example but shows the opposite end of the spectrum. At least EA actually ships games (ducks)
I saw Roy Rodenstein speak at a BarCamp in Boston and chatted with him for a bit. Seems like a very cool guy. No ego, he had come off a successful exit and was just happy to share his wisdom with the audience.

It is an interesting approach, kind of a twist on the old line "If you ask for money, you'll get advice. If you ask for advice, you'll get money."

By not focusing on being a "fund" they will probably find a bunch of smart hackers working on interesting stuff who may not fully understand the commercial value of their projects, build trust and a working relationship, and ultimately find/help build good investment candidates.
How to start over with Google Voice?
I don't think I've ever read a rant about code smells which couldn't be trivially fixed with basic functional programming principles.
Happens to everyone. I’ve got a friend called Marc, but inevitably he gets entered on forms as Mark Withersea. Should have learnt by now not to give his name as Marc-with-a-'c' I guess :)
Going to work overtired is the same as going to work drunk -> http://theweek.com/article/index/202658/going-to-work-sleepy...

EA has grown so large they will "Challenge Everything" in their path that goes against their profit margin.

However I find it hard to believe its hard for small studios to have success. If the studio develops a good product and releases it to the masses on the internet or xbox live arcade, or the number of homebrew scenes, you will get attention. You just have to make a good product.

IMHO, some of the best games lately are free or not the latest and greatest. Corporate big wigs are pushing mainstream games into a corner and beating them a lead pipe for every bit of control over the flow of money and players.
Activision and EA Corporate Big Wigs have fubared Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (tm) and Bad Company 2. Both games will suffer in the long run with lack of an SDK for the modding community. There is also a lack of dedicated server files, which remove the option for hosting your own game servers. The communities have spoken loud, and the developers do here this. Infinity Ward and Dice have already lost employees because they disagree with EA and Activision's control and greed.

In the end I am very loyal to the companies which remain respectful to its fans and work with the people, and not for the money.

Valve, iD, 3dRealms, are just a number of companies that are more concerned with producing a good game, and sharing the success all around. Love to 3rd party developers with SDK's, love to the players for not charging massive amounts of money for DLC, just good old love for developers.

In retrospect, I'm sorry for the abused developers all over. But they have a choice, and they choose to endure that reality. But some will choose to break off and make a startup.
Valve was created by 2 former Microsoft employees, and they started small, and look at them now. They have produced games, software, and contributed to the community with massive amounts of information, and content to award the player, and the developers (both in house and 3rd party).
Same goes for Epic Megagames, which continue to release Unreal Tournement games, with updated fresh engines.
Id Software will continue to produce the next Doom and Quake. (Where it all began.)
3dRealms if I remember correctly has gone under, but I pray to god someone buys the Duke Nukem Forever project and finishes it soon.
To quote Steve Ballmer: "Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers Developers"

Now I need to get back to my job... as a developer.
[I apologize if I was unorganized or off topic]
I can understand that position. If he's correct, it would seem like a small task to search the computational landscape and find automata that predict biological behavior or physics systems better than current models. Is this his approach? I don't see many (any?) papers like this in any of the fields I'm involved in - so has it been successful?
Bollocks. We AOT-compile and then obfuscate closed-source clojure code shipped to commercial customers.
Thanks for the link, didn't know they were downloadable for free! (huge props to Rockstar).

I loved GTA2, never played 3 and beyond because I was always behind the tech curve for the moment (and fairly busy with studies).
Neal Stephenson nails this game of "Don't go too fast; don't go too slow." perfectly in Snow Crash.

The context there is a US gov employee who has a huge tedious memo in her email. (It's an acceptable use policy on toilet paper use and the prohibited sharing of that precious resource.) We get treated to a long Stephenson treatise on how to properly handle such a memo (skim at a rate that suggests reading rather than skimming, go back occasionally at random intervals - as if rereading details, etc.). It's very well done.
I think this one line sums up my views about a lot of trendy software development practices:

> If you're about to take a hundred lines to write what you could in ten, stop and ask yourself this: what the fuck?

TDD advocacy is my pet hate for this today. I read an article the other day that managed to turn Hello, world into about half a dozen source files and dozens of lines of code, all pulled together with a makefile several times longer than the whole effort should have been, and seemed to be claiming some sort of profound revelation from doing this!

The quote is also a succint analysis of why C++ and Java are becoming less useful every year, relative to the field of programming languages as a whole.

And of course, as in the example in the article, it's good for bashing people who think tools like design patterns must be used everywhere, regardless of whether they actually help to keep a design clean and maintainable.
RingoJS vs NodeJS
My disdain for Powerpoint culture makes me ask, while we're cutting, how about we just drop the six slides and show the product?
Technology giants are more trusted than traditional news media
Thanks Nicholas - I'd heard that term before but not known was it was till now. How do people avoid the forwarding device becoming an SPOF?
As a Perl coder: No, we're still using Perl. And Exceptions are pretty common these days, so I wouldn't blame the experience you had on the language, but rather on the people.
TF2 was perfect on release. It was fun, exciting, and offered many hours of enjoyment, and still does because Valve is constantly going back in and tweaking and adding content based on community feedback.

Those 100+ updates are fixes to something broken. They are improvements on perfection. I think only Valve can get away with something like that, though.

If every company modeled it's game production the same way Valve does, I think gaming would be better off, even if we had to wait longer between releases.
Part of the problem is that a language like Java:

1. Is verbose by its very nature
2. Has language characteristics that push the developer in the direction of using design patterns at every opportunity.

So what might be a 1000 line program in Ruby is a 3000 line program in Java (translated as directly as possible), but then the deficiencies of the language turns simple idioms in a powerful language into complex design patterns in Java. See: closures, lack of duck typing/deficient type system, etc.
Getting the most out of GMail
Thanks to danielharan, jsharpe and _sh for helpfully picking nits with the entry. I've updated it to reflect your observations.
Spolier alert, jerk!
I wonder if it makes more sense to treat search as a first class method, i.e. issue an HTTP SEARCH request against a resource.
Usually when people say "take risks when you're young" they're not talking about age as the only factor. As people get older, they (often, not always) take on more responsibilities such as children or a mortgage. When you have kids, you have to be more careful about "risking it all", etc.

I agree that if you don't have other factors like kids or a mortgage, there's no reason you should take less risk, aside from the natural how-many-earning-years-left risk profile that people often follow with investments (ie. Most people shouldn't "risk it all" two years before they retire, etc.)
OT: I saw a thread on Reddit or Slashdot that featured this chain of replies.

>>Grammer tip: 'Effect' is used as a noun. 'Affect' is used as a verb.
>Spelling Tip: Its "Grammar"
Punctuation Tip: It's "It's".
Depends whether it's in a library where extensibility is a feature.
Car number plates will switch to ads when vehicles are stuck in traffic?
Scale Invariant Patterns
What is the name of the plugin you are using?

Update: Found it, Sexy bookmarks?
Wow. Chris could be talking a little bit slower. Still it's a great talk. Some of things are obvious but do not come to your mind but you recognize them only after someone mentions it.
Can't vouch for it but someone already did some work on this.

http://github.com/jmtulloss/zeromq.node
Once upon a time, in Europe, all the important books (scientific and literary) were written in Latin, all educated and upper-class people knew Latin, learning grammar meant learning Latin grammar, and coversations on serious topics were held in Latin. (And if you really wanted to show off, you learned Latin and Greek.) Latin is a dead prestige language now (except perhaps among Catholic priests), but it wasn’t then.

My point (which may still be incorrect) is that formal Arabic now plays a social role similar to the role that Latin played then. Sorry if I did not communicate that clearly.
Couple of "WHYYYY?" comments on here, mostly with good answers, but one more piece that hasn't been mentioned: since the industry is very competitive, having experience on a shipping game is a huge benefit to your resume. I'm sure many of those programmers/artists thought "OK, just make it through this game and then I'll actually have something on my resume."

I mean, could you imagine quitting a startup before they shipped a product?
Ask HN: Friend-sourcing actual work (not just asking advice)
I have some grand and ambitious ideas for a new service on eMusicTheory.com, to really add some fire to the normally tedious process of learning music fundamentals. But to build this thing, I need help from music teachers (among my customers and friends already), people who've studied music pedagogy in depth (among my friends), fiction writers (I'm married to one and have lots more among my friends), and probably some development help (again, excellent resources among my friends and colleagues, and hello hackers).

I can get advice and feedback for free -- that's super. But what I want to do is write up my plans in detail, then invite friends (and friends of friends) to come look at it, give me feedback, and claim chunks they'd like to do in their spare time... for which work I'd overpay them once the minimum viable version is launched and bringing in revenue. ("Overpay" because of the delay, and the smallish risk... worst case it would flop, and I'd pay them very slowly out of the normal site income). Fortunately, the work involved is primarily fun and interesting; I'll do most of the boring coding aspects myself.

So: has anyone tried this? (Is it a good idea?) AND how best to organize it, coordinate the work, and lay out the framework in a way that people can comment on it easily? I'm also torn between making it invite-only (to avoid random not-really-qualified people showing up and wasting my time) or just making it open (and easiest to use!) and figuring obscurity will protect me from the hordes.

[I should also add -- I will ask my accountant about what's involved in paying people, 1099s, etc. but suggestions about handling that simply are also welcome.]
(I don't mean this comment to criticize you in particular kylec)

I can understand that some on HN have an Apple preference but Apple almost gets free advertising by the way some talk over here.

Why vote up a comment because someone says they're going Apple?