skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
how does one master any software tool?

read more about it, on web and books

use what you read

rinse, repeat
maybe just copying ticketmaster and trying to stop scalpers from being able to buy up all the tickets using automated scripts?
"'You made a mistake, you trusted us,' said 3Com founder Bob Metcalfe, quoting an unnamed Microsoft executive." (http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2002/pulpit_20020620_0007...)
SPUR is built on the earlier Bartok compiler, built for the Singularity project, which provides a lot of the awesome optimizations, e.g. guard implication/strengthening. MSR has been working on some really cool projects; would be nice to see them rolled into the main product line.
I don't mind things having their own packaging solutions, because it does get over a hurdle of trying to use things that have broken or non-existent package management systems (I'm looking at you Windows and OSX). What I do mind is when there's not an obvious way to work with the language's provided packaging system to make rpms or debs. Or the language's packaging system actively works against other packaging systems because it's, uh, "unpythonic" or it's just not way it's done in our environment because we're special. The whole idea of a "this is a pythonic packaging system" seems to say "all other previous packaging systems python has used have been unpythonic", which wasn't the case when the previous packaging systems were released -- everyone claims theirs is the best. It's good to have the ability to install things without the system packager (say, in another directory for testing or development purposes), but when it comes time to productionize something, the language's library management needs to work with the system packager.

I think ruby is especially bad in this regard. There's some mindset that seems to say everything should be manageable as if it was a gem, even if it wasn't installed via gem. gem seems to be used to manage dependencies within the library itself, which breaks if the library itself isn't managed with gem. So you sometimes need to fake it (admittedly, I have not installed ruby libs in a while, but I had to make http://github.com/thwarted/gem2deb to make this mildly more manageable, but that's still only a 90% solution and that last 10% is particularly annoying).

perl is an example of one that gets it close. In most cases, you can do the build and stop before the install. Then the contents of the blib directory are the entire contents that needs to be installed, so you can just package that up -- this makes it compatible with all popular system packaging systems. And even then, we have cpan2rpm that does the heavy lifting of scripting finding the package on CPAN.

Package management is pretty much a solved problem, and it's solved for the general case of putting files in place and asserting (and resolving) dependencies -- assuming all the dependencies are packagable/available in packages (which is easy to achieve if things can be easily packaged). If you think you need more than that, it might be time to revisit how your libraries are written and how your language uses libraries. If it's anything more than "are the files in a place where the language can find them", it may be time to revisit it.
This essay angers me with its presumption. It reads off like a fortune teller reaching for whatever level of generalized sympathy will get you nodding along. Maybe I'm just not sensitive enough to see the boiling resentment and stress in watching families sing Sweet Caroline along with the crowd at the local baseball game, or maybe I'm just far too aware of the postmodern tradition of misery the essayist is targeting to, ah, buy it.

We try to stick each perception, every mental change in this endless flow into one of three mental pigeon holes. It is good, or it is bad, or it is neutral.

Does anyone actually live just like that or is it a strawman that wrings another drop of ethos from the audience?

I don't want to make a statement against meditation, actually. I have some mental antiviral habits that make me think Vipassana as its practiced in the US is half truth and half marketing delusion, but at the end of the day stress is a huge problem and anything that can get people to honestly, psychically relax has its value. My own experience is that meditation can take many forms and truly is a perspective inversion with a great personal ROI. I go backpacking, and I'll recommend it heartily too.

I want to go one step further. I've known and spoken to a few people who practice meditation both here and in China and will say the essay isn't wrong in its spiritual recommendation either. I am thoroughly convinced through testimony and personal practice that you can learn a lot from sitting still. There was even a link on HN a few days ago that suggested rational, tested support.

But even if meditation were the honest cure for all existential angst in the human condition, even if it cured AIDS and fixed Greece's financial woes, I'd still prefer someone talk to me with respect instead of trying to wheedle their way into my heart with meandering, gypsy-like proselytizing.

It only sounds bleak when you view it from the level of ordinary mental perspective

You too can be extraordinary! How many payments is Vipassana? (Well $125)

There is only one way you will ever know if meditation is worth the effort. Learn to do it right, and do it. See for yourself.

The only valuable 3 sentences in this whole business.
>it was something about half the PhD students where up to.

If you don't mind my asking, how long ago were you in university? I could be mistaken, but I don't think there's been much work on NNs for a while now.
Google has goo.gl. The New York Times has nyti.ms. They're not trying to be cool. There are serious practical advantages to controlling your own URL shortener. People are going to shorten your URLs whether or not you have one, and having your own lets you collect data about how people are using it.
But then you couldn't charge $0.99 a pop.
FaceTime and Why Apple’s Massive Integration Advantage is Just Beginning
According to the graph there are more males than females (percentage wise) with an IQ lower than 95. Males are "overrepresented" in the <95 IQ range.
Both sides come to the discussion with fixed ideas, and you have what amounts to a contest between different types of fundamentalism

Sorry, I can't let that go without correction. Fundamentalism is interpretation of every word in sacred texts as literal truth. There is no sacred text for atheists by definition. Atheist beliefs can change, and indeed would change, if verifiable proof of a diety was forthcoming. Fundamentalist beliefs can't change -- big difference.
>allow a wider variety of payment methods

But I bet it'd see far far fewer purchases. Unless/until there's a widespread essentially one-click purchase capability for ~$0.99 content on the web, web text/image content will have to remain ad-supported.
Chrome Dev Tools.
I was/am in a similar situation, and I keep the vim graphical cheat sheets (http://www.viemu.com/a_vi_vim_graphical_cheat_sheet_tutorial...) open in a browser tab. Whenever I'm doing something "indirectly" that feels funny (e.g. moving to end of line, then pressing <- to move the cursor back to an open paren) I look it up and find the better way (e.g. "$F("). After a while some things start to sink in
Ok, interesting... So where are the links to these online communities of thinkerers? We heard about this many times over the last few years but I'd be curious to see what exactly is done.
You didn't specify the platform, but Visual Studio with Visual Assist X surprisingly makes for a really good JS editor. I've found it a lot faster and easier on my system than the larger Java-based JS editors (JSEclipse, Komodo etc).

It doesn't have integrated debugging, it costs a lot, and people won't believe you when you tell them about it, however.
I agree with ggruschow: read the help. I printed the manual (it's about 275 pages) and the FAQ (about 130 pages) and put them in binders. I read them periodically to learn new features and concepts. They're available at:

http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/

Damian Conway has a series of five excellent articles on Vim, starting with:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-vim-script...

At the end of the last article he says that there's at least one more on the way.

Watch "7 Habits For Effective Text Editing 2.0," by Vim creator Bram Moolenar:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2538831956647446078

He doesn't just tell you things about Vim, but suggests how to become more effective with Vim.
I've sat for 30min a day since Jan, & I get a similar 'regulation' effect. YMMV
Vim has been the program I have spent the most or second most (the other being a web browser) time using over the last 2-3 years. Still, I don't consider myself a "master" at all.

I have not used a formal method for learning, but the general approach has been to check out one of the many vim help pages about once a week. At that time, I look for new tricks based on what currently annoys me the most.

Every 2-3 weeks I end up picking up something that sticks. The most recent trick I picked up is using the '%' key (SHIFT-5). The trick before that was buffers (:e, :bn, :bp).

I initially started using vim because it was more productive for me than the 'fancy' graphical IDEs, even after I just learned the very basics. Since then, I have steadily gotten more and more productive with it.
Why Bloggers were annoyed at the Virgin Launch - The BuildUp
Last time I used firebugs you couldn't really edit files in it, it was also missing many goodies for easily browsing code or code completion.
Thanks for the feedback and hope you get some good architecture ideas from the source. Copywriting re: "account" must be improved (an account could be a company/organization/project). Contact lists will come when I figure out how to do them right. For now, there's the search bar in top right. This is probably the easiest way to switch contacts or see all contacts in a company etc. Re: interface, the idea is to keep it "text as interface", and keep the color simple so your data can speak for itself. The goal is to keep cutting down on "app chrome". There is "max-width" on some elements. Re: feedback link, good point. The formatting of your name is a bug in a titleCase function (fix coming soon). Please check back on Monday/Tuesday for some new features.
Your problem is real. Vim can do so much that you might not even know that there is a better way. The first step is to realize it will be a slow process. Its doubtful that you'll be able to take time to practice vim for the sole purpose of getting better at vim. More than likely, you will have to pick it up along the way while working on real work.

My approach to this problem is to occasionally go to vim.org or http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Best_Vim_Tips and hit the random button until I find something useful. Try out the new technique a few times, then commit it to memory. If its a common enough task, it will eventually become automatic. For me, I can only incorporate 1 or 2 techniques in a month. YMMV. Good luck!
http://www.derekwyatt.org/vim/vim-tutorial-videos/vim-novice... and http://vimeo.com/user1690209
The 2nd song you played was by Joanna Newsom. Sold.
Yea those have some fancy live JS editing capability, where you can edit the JS, it runs the code with the changes but without restarting the whole program.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH7sJbyXHuk
These are great links, thanks! I hadn't heard of either of these.

Maybe I should spend my 4th of July weekend with vimtutor :)
Echoing jasoncwarner, this is not good.

When your two non-technical (apparently) co-founders turn out to be alleged crooks, besides all the trust issues, the source of the money that went into the startup is very much open to question. And what will happen upon conviction (innocent or not, the Feds almost always get convictions, I think it's much higher than 90%), where they will no doubt be required to cough up assets.
I have run into problems in the past caused by forgetting to remove console.log() lines from my scripts. If the console wasn't open, then the scripts didn't work.

This isn't a huge problem or reason not to use Firebug (which I would be totally lost without), just something to be wary of.
I'm all in favor of our version of "hacker", but is the word "cracker" really used? Does anyone self-identify as a "cracker"? (I don't move in those circles.) Or is it just an artificial concoction, presumably trying to wrest the word "hacker" away from that meaning?

(Also, the earliest recorded use of "hacker", unfortunately for our cause, did refer to breaking into a system, so this ambiguity is not just a big misunderstanding.)
Totally agree, best money spent in a long while
get emacs
Where do you see "consumer" used with "citizen" would do better?

Besides the Consumer Protection Agency (where it is completely appropriate), I can't remember hearing it used by the government.

I only hear "What does this mean for consumers?" when it is in reference to prices, or purchasing, etc. "What does this mean for citizens?" only makes sense when discussing civic issues.

Could you provide a concrete example of the mis-use you claim is rife?
I think you're failing to distinguish between an argument about objective reality and an argument about emotion and belief.

The Pope and Al Qaeda want to persuade you that their belief system is the best. Galileo wanted to prove to you that the earth revolved around the sun. Two different types of arguments.
What Big Eyes You Have, Dear, but Are Those Lenses Risky?
> Atheist beliefs can change, and indeed would change, if verifiable proof of a diety was forthcoming.

How do you know this, when many simpler things in life have “proof”, yet many still are in denial about them? (Read: the moon landings and the Holocaust.) Stubborness is stubborness, regardless of origin of belief. Whether or not a text is considered “sacred” or not is irrelevant if people dogmatically follow what is written anyways.

For the record, I consider myself agnostic. I tried being athiest in the past, and found their writings, Internet fourms, and discussion culture just as poisoned and tedious as the “born again” types I spent much of my life around. A plague on both your houses!
Solutions aboundhttp://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?device=iphone&#...
tangent startup idea: a web service for transferring or aggregating karma across sites, much like banks or Mint.com are to money
The dead simplicity and versatility. Pandora is nowhere near this lightweight. Most music services are way more complex than this. The way it uses HTML5 is pretty sweet and well-thought-out.
Tip for you guys: You should link every artist to an Amazon (or eMusic) page for the artist using a referral code. Instant revenue stream.
I was actually looking into that over the last few days and haven't found anything satisfying yet.

I have tried Aptana, WebStorm (from Jet brains), textmate, bbedit, jseclipse, visual studio, vim. But still haven"t found what I am hoping to find.

I find the eclipse based solutions (Aptana and jseclipse) are too slow for my taste and while they do provide things like completion, it is fairly limited to the obvious things. Aptana probably does what you are looking for, it has a debugger that integrate with your browser.

I tought webstorm seemed better but it is also a bit slow and brings a bit too much with it. Give it a try it may be what you are looking it also has debugger integration.

I couldn't find any special editing facilities other than text highlighting and indentation in bbedit and eventually gave up. TextMate does it ok but since I am not that familiar with javascript and the libraries I am using, I was hoping for something that would let me edit and introspect things at the same time. its really comparable to what you could achieve with vim or emacs.
Even then there was no such thing in peer reviewed works:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-gl...
You can also use something like my js-comint mode (see http://js-comint-el.sourceforge.net/) to run code that isn't dom-ish in a js repl like spidermonkey or rhino from emacs. It's pretty sweet to be able to run an expression with C-x C-e and see how it works.
Mammoth, saber-tooth cat extinctions linked to human predators
My advice is to configure it. Change the appearance and add your own functions, for example I've mapped f3 to convert all tabs into spaces and to remove all trailing spaces. If you do this you'll get more involved, interested and even more fun to use vim.

Of course you should use and read as much as you possibly can, but I found that it went down quicker after I've spent some time with configuring it.
Facebook Tells You What You Like the Minute You Sign Up
You can solve(?) this by creating a dummy console.log object when one isn't already present, then throwing away all of the output.
Next time I see one I'll try to remember to come back and post it here. In the meantime, any suggestions for how we can measure this? One crude measure: Google comes up with 88M hits for "citizen" and 270M for "consumer".
Ask HN: Does my company with $140,000 annual revenue have any value?
I am a 21-year-old web developer who operates a company (incorporated) with a couple unique web apps relating to website management and ecommerce. The software is downloaded and hosted by customers (not SaaS) but uses licensing and encoding technology so that sharing the code has not been a problem.

Licenses for the software bring in around $35,000 per year, while related custom development by myself brings in around $110,000 a year at a $150-$250 per hour rate. I work part-time, take vacations, etc. Bottom line: It's a great job with great clients and I couldn't ask for much more at 21-years-old.

However, I have just graduated with a degree in a field of research that I want to pursue with grad school. My plan is to sell the business in a year and move on to graduate school.

But is there any value in this business? Will other web development companies see value in acquiring my clients, products, and websites? There's little money to be made without work: I would predict $25,000 per year could be made without answering any emails or doing anything. However, if a company or person kept up with sales/support and doing custom development, they could easily make $200,000 in a year.

What do you think? Am I just trying to sell a full-time job or is there value in this business?
I halfway agree with you - they probably wouldn't try to write something like Halo, because they wouldn't know where to start. Simple, fun games still exist though. Just look at all the Flash ones.
I'm guessing this is on the heals of the Kickstarter Bio-Incubator post from before. It's an interesting concept. You might want to check out: DIYbio.org for information on the capital efficient biotech movement.
if (window.console) console.log(...);
Ex-bio engineer here. I do not think the DIY bio community exists or will ever gain traction. For one, I don't understand how someone could do labwork in their garage. Two I don't understand how people could afford mandatory tools like PCR machines. Three, the results from your labor don't seem tangible or exciting. At least with the computer hacking movement in the 60s and 70s you could hold a computer in your hand, you could see improvements in speed and performance as you tinkered. When programming, the output of your code would be realized relatively quickly. Bio is too complicated, too tedious, and too expensive to ever be fun or support a hacker community.
Don't pick stocks if you are not a trader.

Some rules I love-

1. Buy a house that you want to live in and after that stop speculating on houses.

2. If you need to pick stocks, pick ones with trustable management and with low p/e ratios.

3. Also buy some gold as a hedge occasionally. (not more than 10 pct of your net worth)

4. Don't get obsessed about your savings. Invest in yourself, invest on your skill sets so that you can earn more later.

Good luck
Guy, you lost this fight before most HNers were born.
Whether or not you are correct, your post would be greatly improved if it gave reasons why many of the comments are ignorant, or at least provided a specific critique of one of the more representative ones.
if(!console)console={log:function(){}};

You're welcome.
The value in your business is you, with the exception of the license fees. So any buyer will want you as a part of the deal, expect to have to stay on for 2 to 5 years depending on how specialized your knowledge is.

Also, if you are selling a business that small consider building it our yourself first and train your replacement while you're at it. That way an exit becomes both more likely and much more profitable.
By "looping", I'm assuming you mean "recurrent"? If so, you might be interested these:

http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/rnn.html

http://www.lsm.tugraz.at/learning/framework.html

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.31.6...
Gaga beats Obama ,Michael Jackson and Justin Bieber. - Top Entertainment
Use JsTestDriver to write and run your tests.

One of my pet projects is open source and tested with JsTestDriver [1], that should be a good starting point for learning more about how to test JavaScript in webapps.

I also like to use Sinon [2] for stubbing and mocking. The author of Sinon is also putting the finishing touches on a book about TDD-ing JavaScript.

EDIT: calendar-logic.js [4] an example of how you can extract and test logic in separate libraries. It's being used on figureoutwhen.com.

[1] http://github.com/augustl/figureoutwhen.com
[2] http://cjohansen.no/sinon/
[3] http://www.amazon.com/Test-Driven-JavaScript-Development-Dev...
[4] http://ditrw.com/calendar-logic-dot-js/
My solution to this issue was to write a console2.log helper function and call that instead of the original console.log:

var console2 = {
log: function(msg){
if(typeof console != 'undefined'){
console.log(msg);
}
}
}
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_gulf_oil_spill/print
Based on most of the people I know who meditate, they don't seem to be any different from a random sample. Are there studies that show that meditate is good for X? Perhaps the causation is actually that people with X tend to be good at meditating? Just wondering...
I hope that won't happen. I'll think about alternate domain names in case it does. Thanks for the advice.
Put your cash in the bank, leave it there

That guarantees a negative real return. If you can accept short term fluctuations, you'll be much better off with an index fund.
Dilbert's Scott Adams on How to Invest
That article is a fantastic example of why it should not be legal. There are real arguments why it should be legal but sour grapes over not being able to sell your typo-squatted domains to the owners of 'the real thing' is not one of those.
My concern about desktop apps was that it could get issues with Google (eg: getting banned based on IP etc). Did anyone meet such an issue ?

Thanks otherwise for the comments on this product, I will give it a go!
I would predict $25,000 per year could be made without answering any emails or doing anything

Then it might be a better value for you to keep the business (while putting little to no effort into it) and consider the $25k/yr an annuity of sorts. In four years you've got a hundred grand, which should offset the grad school expenses nicely.
Here is a nice essay by S.N. Goenka titled "The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation" http://www.dhamma.org/en/art.shtml