skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
What are the terms of the funding? If an indie game has low cost development already, why need the extra fund to dilute the profit? It would be great if it's a grant.
There are alternatives to making references nullable by default.

For example, functional programming languages often support algebraic data types and pattern matching. Creating the equivalent of a nullable value is one possible application of these features. Typically, the type system would make sure you can't get to the underlying value without first checking that your data is non-null via pattern matching, so the equivalent of derefencing a null pointer simply isn't possible without generating a compile-time error.

Note that this idea is independent of the underlying type, so there's no particular reason you couldn't have a type system that could wrap an OO class type in an algebraic data type. Unfortunately, for now, these ideas seem to live in different worlds: I know of no mainstream OO language that has anything close to the power of algebraic data types and pattern matching that is commonly available in functional programming languages. But this is one way you could have an OO-friendly language with powerful data structures and without relying on the idea of a nullable reference.
You may be missing the point of the article. For example, in the second quote you've included in your comment, the author of the linked article is saying that Singapore's authoritarian government has recognized that it needs to change some aspects of its educational system. Those changes would bring it closer in some ways to the educational systems of liberal democracies. The author is not criticizing (or lauding) the SG govt for this realization -- merely reporting on it.

Also, with regards to your remark on conflating political and educational systems, politics and education are intertwined in every country, from the local right on up to the national level. This is even more true in authoritarian regimes as educational institutions, with the long, unbroken periods of access to the vulnerable minds of children and young adults that they offer, end up being a core venue for indoctrination.
just checked it out. Is it for people with phones who can sms but aren't able to get on the internet?

What are the use cases?
I'm doing the same in the next week :)

Considering a dowry joke with her father... but maybe not since it could really wrong, really fast.
There are some similarities, but frankly, more differences. crowdSPRING projects are, on average, much higher in value. There are typically many more $1000+ projects, for example, and often, $5000+ projects on crowdSPRING.

crowdSPRING offers graphic and web design projects (99designs does too). But crowdSPRING also offers industrial design (products and product packaging) and copywriting projects.

More info about differences here: http://bit.ly/whycS
... or maybe Arrington is always that annoying in the office. ;-)
It's a pretty common pattern, but still seems to be widely unknown.
> I disagree... after all, these same banks (and there are only a handful at the end of the day) precipitated the crisis that led to these homes being so far underwater in the first place.

Actually, no. The housing crisis was US govt created.

Govt agencies sued and restricted other activities of banks that didn't make dumb loans. Govt agencies gave special treatement to banks that used mortage banked securities with govt-approved insurance as their "regulated assets".

And then we had Fannie and Freddie lying about the loans in those securities, which threw off everyone's risk analysis.

And we're still pissing tax money into propping up the housing market via Fannie and Freddie.

FWIW, McCain actually tried to get Fannie and Freddie under control in 2005-6 He got his teeth kicked in. (To be fair, Bush didn't back him up.)

And yes, Fannie and Freddie execs of the relevant time frame were a who's-who of dem party leadership. Some of them are now in the Obama administration while others had prominent roles in his campaign.
It's cleared up for me too. Interesting find - thanks!
Thanks, man. I'd love to investigate it.
Fun fact: Eating large quantities of cilantro is said to remove toxic metals like mercury from the body.
This community seems to frown on consultants and the Big Four a lot. How do we feel about McKinsey research and white papers like this?
Kind of like people commenting on social news sites?
Awesome - keep me posted.
Just buy a theme from a theme shop. There are tons of app and app-related designs.
There is a big difference between regular debt and collateral-backed debt. The whole point of a loan backed by a collateral (in this case, the house) is that the lender gets said collateral upon default. Mortgage lenders are not "screwed" by foreclosures - they would love a foreclosure on a house whose value is up.

Banks do not count on your paying off the house - if they did, they would not explicitly demand your house as a collateral upfront. They are exactly like the pawn shop owner who takes your wedding ring in exchange for some cash. It's not a moral obligation on the part of the owner to buy the ring back if the price of gold goes down to the point where it's cheaper to buy a new ring - so why is it a moral obligation on the part of the home owner to buy the house back from the bank?

Perhaps those rich people are not "ruthless" - perhaps they are rich because they understand things like that.
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I think in this case speed/size benefits would NOT worth additional level of complexity that Diffable would introduce.
The difference is intent. Mines are placed with the intention of killing or maiming. Bears are not placed in zoos with the intent to kill trespassers. If animals were used for that intent it would still run afoul of human rights. You realize that it IS illegal to use deadly booby traps to protect your own personal property, right?
" Programming languages should be designed for people to use"

Exactly. Which means that it must be tool friendly, hence LALR/LL(k). Unless you want to do all your refactoring yourself.
I'm not sure how Reddit does, but how would you deal with spam?
clean uris are orthogonal to REST. They're nice to have, but you could have randomly generated strings of alphanumericals as resource identifiers and still be perfectly RESTful.
Well...South Korea is a narrow peninsula with a huge demilitarized zone between it and North Korea. Israel is also a small country and they have had some PR problems with their militaristic enforcement policies. India and China have a border dispute but are separated by the Himalayas, and also they both have nuclear weapons. India and Pakistan's dispute over Kashmir is the cause of frequent violence.

These are not good models for a ~2000 mile border with a basically friendly neighbor. Economic theory suggests that free trade works best if it includes labor markets.
Being able to inspect state is useful whenever you have state. Have you used a good debugger for Haskell? Does one exist? Do you write complicated software in Haskell? I'll agree that Fibonacci and factorial programs don't need a debugger.

And speaking of Haskell, do you think tools like QuickCheck and Hoogle are signs of language deficiencies?
Portlets vs. servlets for request processing: Why portlets are better
I guess I'm one of them (ruby obfuscation). I'm going to change it now.
Perhaps it's not known due to several reasons:

1. Most people aren't used to web-app development

2. if-else is considered not OO by some purist (or even by some semi-purist). if-else might also be considered hard to test (adding more branches).

3. People are probably ignoring deployment issues (not high priority) or perhaps they just throw it to the Ops team to deal.
I really want to get into Clojure, but everything I've read suggests that I'll have to learn Emacs to do it. Does anyone think giving up Vim for a few months is worth it?
A Local News Website Made in the Pre-historic Days
Why go back to Japan if you are not Japanese salaryman anymore?
How about:

http://bit.ly/crIS4n
Ask HN: iPhone Educational Apps
This was originally submitted as a story, now resubmitted as an Ask.

My daughter started playing with my iPhone when she was about 18 months old and now, a little over a year later, she's very adept at using it to play games and watch videos. The iPhone/iPod Touch platform is very child-friendly and the interface is intuitive and easy to use. I was apprehensive about letting her play with such an expensive device at first, but I always supervised her and, even without a protective case, the iPhone isn't as fragile as some people may believe. In contrast to the toys and games she quickly outgrew, it's reached the point where I have to limit her use of the iPhone. I think the market for toddler educational apps will explode once a killer app is written and parents realize the potential of the mobile platform. Does anyone else share my views and is interested in some sort of collaboration? I am open to any and all ideas.
Sort of - but with a responsibility to be fair and accurate. And on THIS site at least, folks tend to offer links, or have pertinent experiences.
The snarky [Citation required] didn't add anything to your more useful second paragraph.

Yeah. Because it's actually [Citation needed].
> "I simply cannot understand how people can say it's either immoral or unethical to walk away from a house."

It's a social hack, leveraging legacy social behavior.

When loans were primarily between family, friends and neighbors who are not professional businessmen, the social pressure is beneficial to the community. If you took advantage of the lender, the community would be less cooperative in the future.

That no longer being an accurate description of most business deals, individuals are still encouraged to think of legal contracts as being akin to their social/moral 'word' (of honor). This gives an advantage to the businessman who treats it as a legal contract and nothing more.

The individual, once-convinced, will go to great lengths to ensure moral justice, dramatically mitigating the financial risk the businessman agreed to.

e.g. the mark is socially pressured to accept increasingly-onerous terms to try and repay a debt he 'swore' to repay; even though the contract clearly stipulates interest as the price of the businessman's risk in the first place.

Most people just don't realize their tradition is being used against them. The rest are encouraging the stigma because they like being paid interest for one risk level, but actually enjoying a much lower real risk.

See also: credit counseling and debt restructuring as new legal pre-requisites to filing bankruptcy. It dramatically lowered risk of lending, without any commensurate decrease in the cost of borrowing. Yet bankruptcy is still stigmatized as something that only happens to deadbeats and losers. The skyrocketing proportion of bankruptcies due job loss or medical costs are brushed under the rug. The price of interest being the bank's reward for accepting the risk of lending is brushed under the rug.
Isn't it considered creepy to contact people on Facebook without knowing them in real life?
> Also, do those folks on street corners ever get busted?

Here in Phoenix, they do. Google Sherriff Joe Arpaio if you're not familiar with him.
That's all I was thinking reading those slides.
How do I change the main image for the page after I've uploaded other photos?
They will use plain text if it's the only option they have.
Announcing: vim-phpdebug
Here is a direct link to web2.0 Expo's last html email campaign http://recp.mkt41.net/servlet/MailView?m=35580090&r=NTUy... (link is a little long)

It's not spammy but it does include graphics, colors, layouts, etc. Also I could be wrong but I think using an html email gives you a more accurate open rate.

Sure some people can misuse html email's but I don't think they are all bad.
It's frowned upon by those who feel threatened (mostly because the institutions tell them to). but, really, the top-tier designers have no trouble finding work. In fact their body of work brings the client to them, rather than chasing work with spec offerings.

That said, it's a grey area. I hate it sometimes.. but every now and then I find myself on those sites and it blows my mind to see $2k awarded for mediocre work. That motivates me to spend a few hours and compete for a project or two. It's certainty not sustainable to do it for a long period.
Writing a device driver
The greatest thing a physicist (or any scientist) can say is, "Hmm, that's funny...". It's when we find out that we were wrong that a panoply of new discoveries open up before us. Exciting times.
MongoDB (Single-Server) Data Durability Guide
Welcome to the idea of the "null object". It's an object which satisfies all of the use cases of the null value but doesn't cause you to litter nearly every line of your code with defensive null checks to avoid your program randomly barfing. When done right it's a far more elegant solution than "null".
GitHub and Forrst too:

http://blog.forrst.com/post/782356699/how-we-deploy-new-feat...

http://github.com/blog/677-how-we-deploy-new-features
The sample site, a memorial to a relative of one of the founders, is fantastic. Great execution. I don't like the lack of a business model, though. I think it would be better if they charged a reasonable amount up-front, that included the ability to export all of the content in a nice format.

I don't like where TechCrunch went with it. They called Legacy's "cash extraction procedures" cheesy. I don't think that's the right word for it. I think, as described by the article, unethical would be the right word.

I looked at Respectance's pricing. It seems they make it so the person who create the site and who sponsor it can be different people.

I don't see great memorials starting like this: A) someone decides to create a site, but doesn't want to put too much into it B) the community rallies around it C) a generous member of the community forks over the cash. I think more often, great things are created by people who care about it. Like the sample site. The founder put a lot of effort into making his loved one's site great. I'm sure in the face of that, $59 or so wouldn't have stopped him.

As for free trials, I don't really think they're appropriate. I think it's what makes it feel like "cash extraction" rather than paying for a valuable service. I think that the only free trial that's needed is the ability to create a site, and pay a one-time fee to get it published, and to keep it online, accepting contributed content, and with an export tool.
Ask HN: Would Video Games Requiring Real-World Education Work?
I'm brainstorming an idea where someone has created an RPG. The only way to succeed in this RPG is to master real-world knowledge. For example, Medicine or Healing may be an aspect of the game. For someone to achieve expert level in the game, they would have needed to prove to the game (through some mechanism) they have doctor-level knowledge.

Often we hear about applying game-tactics like achievements and leveling-up to real-world activities to keep people working toward their goals. What about putting real world study into an RPG to keep progress toward goals in the game?

Imagine World of Warcraft level obsession with mastering a dozen fields of science.
I think the problem is not with designers (or developers, or producers, sound engineers, etc.) it's that the companies that run the "contests" don't have a real budget, don't understand the work that goes into creating the work and want the "best bang for the buck" by just saying "give me something". Also, because design work is such a creative/customer specific product, most design "contests" are work that can't reasonably be used elsewhere, if the contest even allows you to retain full rights to the work. This is an effective devaluing of the work that's produced by people who are clueless about the real work/time involved. Compare the Netflix contest to any contest on 99designs.
Like all things, I think it depends on the problem that you are trying to solve. Some things lend themselves well to having a nice abstraction layer while other times, this abstraction layer just adds unnecessary complexity.

I don't want this to turn into a C vs C++ debate but I do agree with Linus in that it's nice being able to just grep for something.
You realize that it IS illegal to use deadly booby traps to protect your own personal property, right?

Of course. Setting deadly booby traps is a privilege the goverment reserves for itself. And fair enough too -- the setting of deadly booby traps should be very well regulated to ensure that there's absolutely no way that anyone can wander into the trap without knowing (a) it's there and (b) it's very very deadly.

The purpose of this sort of trap is not to kill or maim anybody, it's to ensure that it never kills or maims anybody by being so obviously deadly that nobody would be stupid enough to ever attempt to cross it. Let's face it, life in Mexico isn't so bad that it's worth facing a 99.9% chance of death in order to escape it.
CNBCs Mark Haines Slams Factless Guest
She's an ingegner actually.
Where is my 6-12 months of free rent?
I think it's a little disingenuous to generalize from two examples (Obama and Kristof) to "liberals." And it seems that, at least in the second referenced editorial, Kristof seems mostly impressed by the relative advances in Chinese education over the past 50 years or so. And though he does advocate that we should "take a page from the Chinese book and respond by boosting education," it's unclear to me that he's advocating directly modelling their system so much as their cultural attitudes towards education.
Notice how that the chart scale doesn't start with zero. In reality they win maybe 10-15% in speed, but they have all the crap overhead to support and manage.
Yeah I guess that is true. I wish I knew a better term for what I'm getting at.
I migrated http://wasitup.com from Tokyo Tyrant to Redis.
The fact that you are not breaking a contract does not make the act moral. Again, is it moral for me not to tip even if the service is good (something I have no contractual obligation to do)?

It's fully moral to have a society where no one tips. Prices would be 15-20% higher, waiters would get a higher hourly wage, and it would be fully moral not to tip. That does not make it moral not to tip (when appropriate) in our society.

It would be fully moral to have a society in which mortgages are treated as call options on a house owned by the bank. Interest rates/prices would be higher, banks would fully expecting strategic default whenever it became reasonable to do so, and strategic default would be fully moral. That does not make it moral to treat mortgages as call options in our society.

Social norms matter, and it is indeed immoral to take advantage of people who reasonably assume you will behave according to established norms.
How do you suggest associating URLs to nodes in a revision control history in a "clean" way? The URL linked in this post doesn’t seem exceptionally unreasonable given the content it points at. It uses a URL query string in a similar way to countless other mainstream web resources.

How does that have anything to do with REST?

Incidentally, if you want, you can shorten your URL quite a bit (from 182 to 107 characters). As in the use of git from the command line, your hashes only have to be long enough to be unique. So this goes to the same place:

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6...

If you want an even shorter URL (73 characters), you can drop the hb and f arguments, though that provides a bit reduced functionality (just the content):

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6...

You’re probably right that it could/should intelligently fill in the path, and not require that as an explicit argument. The a=blob argument seems to be unnecessary so could likely be dropped altogether. But eh.
There's a few scripts to help you out:

http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2501

http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2531
>the companies that run the "contests" don't have a real budget, don't understand the work that goes into creating the work and want the "best bang for the buck" by just saying "give me something"

I hate this market, and as a designer I choose not to work with it. But it's there, and it should be served.

Designers need to stop acting like 99designs takes food out of their mouths. It's just a different market. If you are really being hurt by 99 designs then you aren't a good designer.
Strange article.

It seems to be pro the stated goals of the Chinese and Singapore systems (less rote learning - "teaching to the test
") but against the current system (rote - and test focused).

Then somehow seems to try to tie it to liberals without stating which of the two views liberals seem to be endorsing. (The intended method or the actual).

Actually if you read the linked articles of liberals supporting the chinese and singapore systems. Kristoff believes the Chinese are doing better in school not because of the systems but because of better sociological and environmental pressures. And Obama just mentions that singapore's students outperform ours 3 to 1[1]

No where does the author support his underlying assumption that liberals believe China or Singapore have better educational systems.

1. "And yet, despite resources that are unmatched anywhere in the world, we've let our grades slip, our schools crumble, our teacher quality fall short, and other nations outpace us. Let me give you a few statistics. In 8th grade math, we've fallen to 9th place. Singapore's middle-schoolers outperform ours three to one. "
Visualization of cheating in education
But apparently she had been swimming for decades -- a lot of it in (progressively colder?) ocean water -- and she was studied "over the years." So it seems pretty possible that her physiological adaptations were a result of, not a cause of, all that cold-water swimming.
Http://Like.fm, a social music site I've been working on since being on hiatus from college.
"I simply cannot understand how people can say it's either immoral or unethical to walk away from a house"

You signed a contract. That's what makes it unethical to walk away. You put yourself in the position that you are in. You may think you took a better job offer, but actually if you had considered your circumstances, the job offer was not that great because of the obligation to the mortgage company where you lived for the house that you bought.

You say that you could "barely" afford the mortgage payments which implies that you could afford them. The last paragraph of your response is just a list of excuses to make yourself feel better about the course of action that you have taken. Your part of the problem, not the solution.
It may be true that FP does make concurrency easier, but I don't think this has been demonstrated to be generally true yet

Perhaps not generally true, but I think MapReduce and LINQ are two prominent examples of how a "functional programming-like" model lends itself to easy parallelization and distribution.
Sanding dry wall. Oh so much less.
Guinea-Bissau: The Cocaine Coast
You can modify Emacs to mimic Vim, which might be help you bridge the gap:

http://www.sanityinc.com/articles/vim-vs-emacs