skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Document databases are a passing fad, a backlash against the flaws in the currently available open source databases. These flaws have nothing to do with the relational model.

If there was an open source RDBMS that allowed instant/lazy schema migrations, direct map-reduce access to its data, was able to automatically partition and shard, and somehow magically had performant joins you would never see these document database come to be so popular. Document databases have no mathematical grounding analagous to the relational model; the reason is because they are a hackneyed application of the relational model that allows implemention to bleed even further into the model than current RDBMses do. For example, the fact a developer now will have to choose between "embedding" or joining documents together application side has absolutely zero different in terms of the true data model. The data model is unchanged in either scenario, it is just being materialized differently on disk for implementation issues.

Edit: To be clear, the way things should work is you should model your data as a normalized, clean model. Then, you should be able to annotate the data or provide alternative views that "embed" documents and so on to reduce cross-table joins. This is an optimization layer and the actual materialization of these views should be maintained by the database. It should be part of the query optimizer, and your joins should simply speed up once they can access the "embedded versions". The fact that you have to do this all manually and store the data yourself, and basically take on the role of the query optimizer as well, shows that we've traded C for assembly code in the db world with these document databases.

It's truly a sad state of affairs that peoples horrible experiences with whatever particular RDBMS they've used are causing them to react by using one of these document databases. Now, they've got a whole series of new problems. There is no free lunch until someone addresses some of the pain points like schema evolution in a way that doesn't sacrifice everything else.
... on the content, not the title.
Ask HN: Anyone interested in a C# Outlook Add-on Gig?
Hey, the company I'm currently working for is looking for a great C# developer to develop an Outlook Toolbar Plugin that integrates with our CRM software. Telecommuting from anywhere is ok and preferred and they are willing to pay competitive rates. Shoot me and email if you are interested with your CV and samples at sheats@gmail.com.
Scary Stuff.

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/06/oil_in_the_gulf_two...
Official: Computer science graduates ‘most unlikely’ to find work
For what it's worth, I think it's important to start with interesting problems. My first interaction with ML was an implementation of Naive Baye's for classifying spam, borrowing much ideas from PG's A Plan for Spam from scratch (ie no libraries). This is what got me really interested in the field, much more than randomly picking up topics- there are just so many areas to choose from. Another approach would be to read up on standard supervised learning techniques and just observing how the parameters for these algos behave on datasets. something like a Weka really comes in handy if you wish to focus on analyzing behavior of such techniques first. Best of luck!
Randy Komisar, VC on Women Entrepreneurs [video]
It doesn't matter how secure the nonce is. All that matters is that an attacker can't predict what it'll be on each page render (just like a CSRF token), which means they can't craft an input that'll render as Javascript --- and, in particular, they can't ever expect to store such an input and have it render as JS.

I'm not endorsing "script tokens" either --- I think it's a bad idea to change all browsers for a half-measure --- but I think you can execute your core idea far more simply than with crypto.
Reading On Paper Is Faster Than iBooks on the iPad
I'm the author of this, I made the web REPL also.

http://dahlia.ruree.net/try-lisphp/

Well, of course, it uses a sandbox environment.
IT not safe from UK's Budget cuts
HR | Download HR software for free at SourceForge.net
New network design could make Internet 100 times faster
This is a really good idea. There's a service that does this I heard about on mixergy, but not email/haro like.
Again there is no time frame. Its something that is society induces but yes its very hard to see from where you are right now.

Sridhar Vembu who runs Zoho.com (chennai I think) doesnt hire graduate students. He hires people who havent got a degree. Try contacting him if you dont get into an engineering school.

College IS important but its not sooo important that if you dont get into a good one that your life will be ruined. I'm now working with people who went much worse colleges than me. Even one guy who spent 3 years finishing 9 credits :). Ie he never finished college.

Even if you go to a bad college, still go. It will give you a lot of free time and the oppurtunity
to study. It does help. But if you dont get into a college at all, then there are many other avenues open to you from Zoho to starting something on your own to logging onto oDesk.com and start working on small projects.

Yes I'm from India :) but now live in New York city.

How to control negative thoughts:
1. Do something about your situation instead of thinking about your situation. This will take time to learn. In India we learn to analyze, read and think about stuff. But in reality that takes a back seat to actually "doing". Doing is much more important than reading.

When you find yourself thinking about your problems instead of doing something to make it better then you need to mentally force yourself out of it and start doing something. Anything that takes you even an inch towards your goal.

Learn C, C++. Contribute to open source software (really good way to get a great job later on). Get your body into shape (www.stronglifts.com - checkout the forums for other indians). Sign up to teach someone english in your city.

2. You need to help someone else at least once a day. Something unselfish. It can be leading a blind person across a street or calling up a relative you havent talked to in a while and saying hi. Something that will take 10 minutes but will really help someone else's condition. This will also force you to focus on others which will get rid of a lot of negativity.

If you do both of the above then you'll start changing. Change takes 2 years so dont think it will happen overnight. However if you dont start changing today, you'll never change.

Best of luck man. Drop me an email at railsnoob at yahoo dot com, if you have more questions.

Keep fighting.
Monaviechico
juiceforhealthandwealth
Interview With a Robot (Video)
Amazon hit by e-commerce outage
An Open Source Coffee Shop?
So you don't worry about people who download copyrighted music?
Regex Syntax Highlighter
"The subject under discussion is your implication that the request for decrypted BlackBerry data (which is being driven by the Intelligence agencies and the Home ministry) is done so with an intention to facilitate such bribery by intercepting multinational communications."

Really? I must have misspelled something ;)
Submit Questions for Open Social 8th July London Mashup
So, shall we build it? I've got next weekend free. Just need someone who can market it to producers.
Sony warns its laptops risk overheating
Language's are impossible to mangle. Dictionaries only describe, not dictate. If the majority started to say "callage," then "callage" would become the "correct" (i.e standard) form.
Am I the only one that checked to make sure the date on this article wasn't from 1997? Use fiber optics to make the internet faster? I wish I'd thought of that....
If you really are a strong atheist (ie one with a belief that the probability of the existence of any god is zero rather than merely negligibly small) then I apologise for my assertion of your nonexistence.

What I should have said was that most atheists, such as myself or Richard Dawkins, are really agnostics of the negligibly-small-probability variety.
Where aer you in France? You should look into weekend startups
There is lisp and there is lisp. The libraries and the speed do matter. While this is an interesting project it's not comparable to SBCL, Racket or Clojure.
I have a hard time watching his talks. Too much fluff around the substance.
Protovis is an excellent javascript library for making interactive SVG graphs: http://vis.stanford.edu/protovis/
:-) Wow. This is hysterical and wildly inaccurate. Dawkins has numerous academic papers. 'The Selfish Gene' (which was praised by W D Hamilton--one the great biologists of our times) is a great introduction to genetics, a wonderful and proper science.
Destination Hotels card-processing system hacked
Barchart of poll results: http://www.r-chart.com/2010/07/hacker-news-religion-poll.htm...
Ask HN: Need help
I am regular HN addict and learnt a lot from this community. I need suggestion (sorry guys this is my throw away account.).
I am 30 year old, web developer (Microsoft stack and beginner rails) from last 7 years.
From last 6 months (full time) I am trying to run a social media software company with 2 of my friends (both are biz guys and having same years of exp and come from online marketing).
We had couple of developers (PHP) in house. Now we are out of cash and business.
Need help and suggestion, what to do now?
We are based in india.
Hacker News Religion Chart
Isn't that even more reason to check it for correctness? I know when I write in German I do at least two proof readings before I send it out into the wild, preferably after checking with a native speaker.
Facebook prefers data centre to cloud
Design Principles Behind Smalltalk
Oh god, you are me! I haven't been able to identify these troubles I've been having my whole as a problem. At least now I know it's not normal and I should do something about it. Thank you very much posting this.
My favourite Amex customer service story is closely related to this expat edge-case theme.

I was flying back to Hong Kong from a business trip in Japan. I'm a citizen of a third country, but live in HK. The Japan Airlines desk agent, and her manager, refused to issue me a boarding pass, because I didn't have a "re-entry permit" for Hong Kong. Japan and many other major countries have this concept for non-citizens, so I'm guessing whoever wrote the Japan Airlines "avoid Fooland Immigration Department fining us to pay for deporting our Barlandese passenger, for all values of Foo and Bar" checklist explained it badly and made it sound like a universal requirement or something. But in Hong Kong, there's no such thing as a re-entry permit --- they give you one visa, stamp it "Journey completed" when you arrive, and then let you come and go as you please.*

This was in the days before WiFi in airports, so I couldn't just surf to gov.hk and show her the page that says "no re-entry visa required". And it was a Friday night so I couldn't phone the consulate either. At my wit's end, I called Amex --- my employer had paid for the ticket with an Amex card. Their customer service guy commiserated with me for a bit, and said he'd make a phone call. After a bit of a wait, a Cathay Pacific (major Hong Kong airline) manager showed up with a copy of the Hong Kong immigration regulations. Brilliant and creative solution --- and it forcefully demonstrated to me the value of filling customer-facing positions with creative and talented people rather than checklist-wielding drones who you don't screen as carefully as your "core function" staff.

* Years later, the HK gov't changed the wording; now it's a tiny bit clearer that you don't need a re-entry permit:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:n5y5QqS...
IBM choses Firefox as default browser for employees
Sorry by say that, in this way, but you talk and think like a loser. Freedom of choice dont came from nothing for must of us, but we have to work today to build our choices from tomorrow.

If you dont have a way to leave your current job for the next six months to work on your startup, so WHAT do you have to do to have this choice ? Work for one year and safe money to live without a job for six months, for example, but, for God sake, do something to HAVE the freedom of choice.

There´s no problem having no freedom of choice TODAY, but having not tomorrow is UP TO YOU.

Sory by my poor english man.
"future applications include creating a new class of energetic materials or fuels, an energy storage device, super-oxidizing materials for destroying chemical and biological agents, and high-temperature superconductors."

Other applications of the material include curing cancer, solving the problem of world hunger, and getting fat research grants from the NSF.
An important quote, IMO:

> Part of the seal’s appeal, according to Dr. Takanori Shibata, the computer scientist who invented Paro with financing from the Japanese government, stems from a kind of robotic sleight of hand. Scientists have observed that people tend to dislike robots whose behavior does not match their preconceptions. Because the technology was not sophisticated enough to conjure any animal accurately, he chose one that was unfamiliar, but still lovable enough that people could project their imaginations onto it. “People think of Paro,” he said, “as ‘like living.’ ”

Looks like they're landing pretty near the non-living side of the uncanny valley. Enough to talk to / think more about, but not enough to be weird.

There's also quotes from patients with them, and about how a blinking-bear didn't work in the least, and how a number of patients are rather drastically improved by having one / being around one.

Some of which is probably the shiny-new-thing glow, but some of it isn't. Also, many people around those ages are near-hostile to tech, but are accepting of this. Interesting.
WWW: World Wide Wikipedia by Glynn Moody
Original less incendiary title:

"Photographer detained by police, BP employee near refinery"
Perhaps what we really need is an extra two fingers each.
think it just depends on where you are personally. bezos' speech really speaks to me, probably because i sometimes struggle with being kind despite cleverness and i'm often riddled with doubt about my decision to pursue a dream instead of keeping my good, stable job.

apples to pinecones.
Repeat sales to existing customers are the backbone of the economy, this should not be a surprise to anyone.
Steve Jobs fake 'relax' iPhone 4 email serves a lesson about online journalism
Should be an easy function - if you don't want them to have side-effects
There are people doing this already, one example:

http://hellomonday.nl/
The trouble is "Got to see this" is purely the judgement of the submitter

Yes, just like "Second: this is not at all interesting" is your judgment in your comment. I know we all want to keep HN different from reddit, but a little tolerance is good.
If you know yourself, you can find the optimal fudge factor. On projects that I've managed before and currently, I've found 2X is the right multiplier to great developers. The major issue is to a great developer, everything is easy. But its the few tasks that for some reason take up a huge amount of time when they shouldn't. Over time, I've learned to increase my estimated times and decrease my fudge factor because I've done enough estimates. Its always better to under promise and over deliver even if you loose out on a contract now and then. In the long run your reputation will make up for a slightly higher price if people know that you will never go over that price.

The major problem is defining the full requirements. Your estimate could be perfect, but it could be an estimate for what the client said, but not what he wants.
I just finished reading "Javascript the Good Parts" recently. It's probably also the case for PHP that if you pretend that certain parts of the language just don't exist, you end up with a pretty good language. (I have never programmed anything in PHP.)

Building a Lisp on top of PHP strikes me as a vehicle for helping developers to adhere to the "good parts." I'm not sure whether that was the intent here, but it could turn out to be a useful side effect.

A note on the language itself:

It appears that you can choose any set of matching braces that you want anywhere in your program. I think this is the convention Scheme uses. Common Lisp reserves braces other than () for reader macros.

I personally, however, favor Clojure's approach of defining distinct behavior for each brace type. There are only three pairs of matched characters on the keyboard. It seems to me that this makes them too valuable to not leverage them as a core part of the language. Immediately knowing the meaning of a specific brace type makes it much easier to read someone else's code.
Rolling Stone - Hackers Gone Wild”
What features specifically have made the difference? I've tried a few times to buckle down and learn PHP and I never seem to get farther than the mixed value/reference semantics, which I remember highly unfondly from my perl days.
The most obvious route would be:

* Make it more of a reminder service for specific dates
* Make it email/sms/etc you at pre determined times
* Make those communications include handy adverts

For example, "I need to buy a present for a thomas who is 8 by Aug 8th at the latest"... on Aug 1st it emails you saying "Don't forget to buy a present! Here's some cool offers, here's a coupon to buy toys. Here's a great place to buy e-cards, etc etc"

I'd start by analyzing what sort of events/items your userbase are adding on your app, and working out how you can enhance their experience using advertising.

If it turned out that 90% of your userbase are adding the todo item "Find a good deal on car insurance", then obviously it'd pay to find some good car insurance affiliate programs... (Hyperbole example, I know, just to show a point).

But 100 users using a todo webapp aren't really that targeted.

By targeted I'm meaning more like "They have already expressed a desire to buy X" etc
Haptics brings a personal touch to technology
"The libraries and the speed do matter."

Does PHP lack for good libraries? That was the trick Clojure used with Java to get bootstrapped.
I'm curious how fast it actually is for 'real life' examples.
Disinterest is termed "apathetic agnosticism" - although this term is also used for those who choose not to address such issues.

Moreover you'll find that fanatical atheists will count you as an atheist - cf the Wikipedia article on this term.
I definitely got HoL vibes reading the post.
Is there a way to implement cdr more efficiently? (I don't know PHP.)
On the odd occasion I've tried reading a Nook or Kindle I've found myself reading faster and more comfortably than I would on paper -- I think this is just because of the larger print in the eBook.
> (Well, in case of these two, better to check that person has some grasp of static typing :))

http://www.erlang.org/doc/reference_manual/typespec.html

http://web.mit.edu/drscheme_v42/.share.sun4x_510/plt/doc/ts-...

Shouldn't be that hard. It's not because the language is dynamic that it doesn't support static types ;)
The whole thread is worth reading.

http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2010-July/thre...

http://www.haskell.org/pipermail/haskell-cafe/2010-July/thre...
whatthecommit.com - a commit message generator.
git commit -m "$(curl -s http://whatthecommit.com/ | awk '/<p>/ {sub("<p>", ""); print }')"
obligatory Win7 joke: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/10/30/seventh-house/ (my sentiments exactly)

I wonder if the beta launches helped things... my dad tried the beta. Probably the first beta he's ever touched. But I'm not aware of the scope of 7's beta push as compared to Vista / XP / whatever, just that it was pretty shockingly successful from what I've seen.

And I think a lot of customers prefer (their) Windows (-only software), and what's familiar over something more radically new (however minor). Don't discount people's laziness in choosing what to buy. Similarly, Apple is pretty wrapped up in being fashionable now, and I wonder how well they'll do if any real design-competitors arise.
An InDesign for HTML and CSS?
Unfortunately, marketing is my weakest suit. I'm more of a developer role.

Edit: As a matter of fact this all reminds me of a project I started with an aspiring director, which I still think is a good idea. He approached me with the idea to connect script writers with studios. He had some web design skills and supposed connections. I was to build the backend of the site. I was enthusiastic about that project and even started the coding, but he never delivered on the marketing. He lost his motivation after a competitor site upgraded and corrected many of its flaws (inktip.com).
What good does it do you? Well, the atoms that are you are now eating, sleeping, farting and posting comments on HN.

That's pretty interesting, given that it's much more likely that they'd be undergoing nuclear fusion as part of a star, or clumped together as a planet or an asteroid.

Dawkins is pointing out how neat this is as a way to get people interested in science. As Feynman pointed out, it's neat to take the world from another point of view.
Martin Heemeyer and the Killdozer
For one thing: <br> is valid html, and this too:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>I AM YOUR DOCUMENT TITLE REPLACE ME</title>
</head>
<body>
<div>
<br id="<bl>">
</div>
</body>
</html>
CHESS: Find and Reproduce Heisenbugs in Concurrent Programs
Your word games aside, atheists do not believe anything. They only accept as true what they see or can be demonstrated.
"The friendly folk at H&R Block had no idea how to handle my situation."

I was shocked when I went to H&R block, and all they did was type data into the software on the screen in front of them. I realized I could do that myself, and have used TurboTax since, which has worked well for me needs. (I'm sure if I had more complex need, a real tax accountant would be important, but I don't think there is any case where H&R Block is the right choice.)
Average is seldom the right measuring stick. For example, I, having two legs, actually have more than the average number of legs. (I've seen a few humans with only one leg, but never three.)
Where did the page go?
Can't believe it's taken this long to have a prosecution - it must be done all the time! £5,000 is a pretty hefty fine though.
The Peter Principle: Why Most Managers Suck
Good headline but the devil is in the detail as usual. The same survey also noted (not reported in this article) that unemployment rates among male graduates exceed the unemployment rate among female graduates by a substantial margin. Factor that in and with an assumption (could be wrong) that men predominate on Computer Science degrees and the differences start to look like something other than poor quality science courses - although (anecdotally anyway) those do exist.
I went to Brizzly's site, and to me it looks like another FriendFeed.

What am I missing?
I wish the article offered more insight into how these newsletters are worth so much?
An alternative syntax for that is to cast $this as an array:

array_slice((array)$this, 1);

I'm not sure if this will be faster though. Is the source of the slowness getArrayCopy or array_slice itself?
Why would it be irrelevant? Without it being known (or theorized for hypothetical discussion), any discussions as to its future direction or how it came about are aimless. You might as well say that it'd be irrelevant if the main reason were because Chinese like Clippy, or that a bunch of gerbils typed out the article. Both would have massive impacts in the reception of this article, and how other software companies react to it.
PHP has made me more $ than all the other 'good' languages that I've ever worked with combined. And that was before 5.3.

An embedded lisp, even a slow and imperfect one is a nice stepping stone to have though.

It takes away two thirds of the trouble you have to go through when starting with a new language, environment and libraries.
How to Take Webkit Screenshots with Cocoa and Objective-C