skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Well said - I guess I was using "evil" as a personal shorthand for my own beliefs about certain political regimes. Certainly using a label of "evil" as a shortcut to avoid any further analysis is something to be avoided.
Thanks :) Can't believe somebody on HN played Rubicon. Made my afternoon.
Okay, after reading through this thread, there seems to be an interesting trend. Almost everyone has beefy processors and lots of memory .... but it is all hooked up to a 19" monitor. Sure, there are people with the 27" iMacs and 30" monitors, but they sure seem a lot less than I would have guessed.

For those of you still using laptop screens, 19" monitors or even 22" monitors, have you tried something bigger? The difference in my productivity between a 30" or 2x24" monitors and the screen on my laptop is palatable. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that given all the cloud computing these days, I'd take a slow system without much memory as my local box if I could get a bigger monitor for it.
Now that you mention it, yes, it does resemble SCRATCH, and I would also suggest Lego Mindstorms programming environment.

I am showing my age, when I admit that my initial reaction was to note the similarity with Novel's AppWare circa 1995. ( http://support.novell.com/techcenter/articles/dnd19940502.ht... ) Appware, like Scratch, took a modular approach of assembling software building blocks and connecting the output of one to the input of the other, dealing with triggers, events, etc. As a programmer coding to native APIs (WinAP and MacOS, in C++) I found AppWare to be an adequate and fun prototyping tool, useful for quickly testing an idea or stringing together a quick & easy widget to solve a basic problem. Even moreso, considering it was a cross-platform (MacOS & Windows 3.0) system, which was novel for that time period. However, when it came time to build a full-featured application to deliver to others, in my experience Appware fell short. I suspect I'd feel the same way about this tool for Android but I'm willing to give it a shot.

I suspect that much of the HN readership feels the same, but we are quite the minority, and this tool is designed to address the needs of what my non-programmer wife charmingly refers to as "normal people" -- non-hacker people who don't really care how things work, but instead use the device as a tool in order to get on with their lives rather than a means unto itself.
I thought so, but after having heard the podcasts from Hardcore history, it is quite clear that the Nazis aren't nearly as evil as many of the previous regimes, they just have far, far more advanced tech and an industrial society capable of mass production.
The pricing is still an experiment. I am not sure about having a free option for everyone, but I might make it free for students.
The CPU isn't that fast, and the screen is resistive. User experience is going to suck so, so hard on this thing, even if you ignore the fact that it isn't a "real" Android tablet until, y'know, the installed OS is hacked upon.
http://appinventor.googlelabs.com/about/images/ScreenShotAbo...

That does not look like no programming knowledge to me.

Has anyone ever actually demonstrated that a "visual" programming language is easier for non-programmers to learn programming than a language with a relatively simple syntax, like Python? How is that picture significantly easier to understand than

when Button1.click:
Screen1.BackgroundColor = Blue
You should get a strop: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_strop

You aren't actually sharpening the blades, just honing them. This is essentially the same process you perform on a honing steel for your kitchen knives. The leather is used instead of a steel due to how thin the blades of your razor are. If you don't have a strop you could also use an old pair of jeans. Either way I wouldn't use your arm as if something did go wrong with the cartridge you could end up with severe cuts. I've had plenty of those cheap cartridges gillette mounts their blades in break and expose their innards.

By using a strop I typically get a cartridge to last for a couple of months before I toss it. They could probably last longer, but that's enough for me. I buy blades maybe once every couple of years due to a combination of stropping and growing a full beard each winter.

I've also tried moving to a safety razor but I dislike shaving enough that I'm not willing to spend that much time on the process each morning so stropping the modern blades is a happy middle ground of savings and convenience.
17" MBP (8GB RAM, 256 Corsair SSD) running OS X 1.6, laptop stand, 30" Apple display, keyboard, mouse, speakers, Phillips color LED for bias lighting.
It's not about ehtics being relative, it's about "evil" being a label that's used to condemn (often falsely) and discourage discussion.

Seeing WWII completely in terms of how valiant US soldiers defeated the evil Nazis is a great way to avoid noticing tendencies in the US that the Nazis would feel right at home with.
Nuke’em ‘Till They Glow – Quitting My First Job
Why did Quora choose Python (over PHP and others) for its development?
Merkur is a great blade, but then I came across the Feathers and I think the japanese have a leg up. It's one of the sharpest blades I've used. Definitely recommend you sample a pack.

http://www.classicshaving.com/catalog/item/522941/906451.htm
Try downloading Windows Fix-It - http://support.microsoft.com/gp/slow_windows_performance
They send letters to everyone who hasn't had their name crossed off the voting list.
Okay there is no way to say this that is nice, but:

It is Africa, and as much as it sucks for the people there, it has always been so and will properly be so long after we are gone.
Hey jorangreef, thanks for your comments. I especially liked your conversation with yourself :D

Having just the application itself on the homepage was in fact my very first ugly version. A couple of people have mentioned it now, and I'm wondering if thats what I should do again.
I've had an HTC Incredible for a couple of weeks now. The Sense UI has felt better-implemented than the Moto Droid UI, to me at least.

I've also had (and still have) an iPhone 3G/S for a couple of years. While I still think the iPhone is overall a better UI and better app store, the HTC phone is the first Droid-based phone I've owned or played with that didn't come across like an unfinished experiment in cellphone design.

I'm vaguely aware there are other options to the Sense UI, but I do not dislike it enough overall to warrant an investigation into any of the other options.
"The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense." - Tom Clancy

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Tom_Clancy
What kind of asshole draws historical conclusions based on /numbers/ dead? Reducing the dead to numbers and comparing a lost life to another an atrocity in itself.
I tried at least 6-8 different blades when I first started w/ a DE razor, and Feathers blew all the others out of the water. Every face is different, but Feathers are definitely worth a trial at least.
This. + Magic Mouse and Lacie firewire speakers. May get the cinema display sometime soon.
Thanks Jamie. I will start updating the site with some good data sets.
Ah, of course. I misunderstood the grandparent. Thanks.
Surely somebody would give you a good price for it! How much are you asking?
Let me put this a different way. How would iOS need to be changed if it were on the Droid? How would the optimal "software matching the hardware" differ in appearance between the iPhone 4, Droid and Nexus One? Which "lines" have to change?
Not recently, that is.

Remember when they advertised how powerful the PowerPC was? I think there was a tank in the ad, implying the chip was so powerful it was weapons grade.
What a shiny toy! I always loved Basic, Logo, Apple's old Cocoa programming language (the visual app creator, not the framework), and Lego Mindstorms. Some of these environments were better for actual hacking than others, but they were all amusing.

It saddens me to see such a cool toy presented in terms of platform politics, and to see people arguing that allowing more people to write dodgy programs is _bad_. My goodness, I personally wrote a lot of dodgy programs back in school.
I'm the other way, 24 and 22inch monitors with a relatively average machine these days.
Be Inspired (By Everything) 04
In this the fourth edition of Be Inspired I’ve tried to inject a bit more variety into the work I select.
When I was 15 I coded a basic WYSIWYG editor for WAP pages (early days mobile internet pages) as a freeware, and I got contacted by a company willing to acquire all the assets and hire me to work full time on a branded version of my editor.
They bailed out once they realized how young I was (and still in school).
Pig projectiles?

What about nukes kept warm by live chickens:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peacock
fair enough, I would conceed this sort of thing belongs on reddit/slashdot/etc..
these systems are designed for people who don't have the option of using regular written programming languages. they are not intended to be training wheels either. they are for making programming more accessible.
In anything other than tech many of these can be considered a competitive advantage. That's where the lines get blurred. I wonder how many applicants were recent grads without fully understanding the industry.
Some more ideas: when in doubt, go for consumers, the every day Joe who needs a graph in their presentation but forgot how to use Excel charts or couldn't figure out how to get the Google Chart Api to return a result. Don't worry about building the next WolframAlpha for charts. Don't worry about a developer API. Make sure you have a great interface for adding a few data points and getting a graph back. Even better, make it real-time, as you add a data-point the graph adjusts or bends or morphs. Keep it simple. Focus on eliminating things.
They're probably running 1+ Mongod process/node per core - not exactly ideal though.
Can you speak to the additional time commitment? I have been considering ditching the Fusion for a Merkur, but I'm worried about adding more time to my AM routine. Are we talking double the amount of time? Triple? The thought of getting up at 5:30 AM just to get a better shave has been the primary reason I haven't pulled the trigger.
Your Google social circle and content
I've been using a straight edge with disposable blades for the past few months. Shaving has suddenly become a whole lot more enjoyable.
What web frameworks are passing the REST litmus test?
After reading the excellent REST Litmus Test for Web Frameworks[1] I was wondering what web frameworks are really passing it. I'd say it would be pretty helpful to have such a list, so if you know of any passing please share it with us. Including links to the documentation/code for each of the points in the post will definitely be even more helpful.<p>[1] http://www.innoq.com/blog/st/2010/07/rest_litmus_test_for_web_frame.html
The downvote probably came because you seemingly registered just to post a comment listing your politics. The fact that you think the downvote came because of a YC-related conflict of interest suggests that you suffer from some form of paranoia or a persecution complex.

Reddit appeals primarily (but not exclusively) to young males in their 20's and 30's. As a subgroup, they tend to lean libertarian, which is why they are more accepting of recreational drug use.

Reddit has a bright future, but maybe not with CN. They don't know how to monetize it properly, and they seem to be tethered to the glossy world of magazines. Considering the success Tina Brown has had in moving away from that via The Daily Beast, it looks like IAC would be a better fit for Reddit than CN.
I think you officially win the thread....
How We Are Being Tracked, Traced, and Databased
Personal:

Stock Dell Mini 9 (originally planned to go Hackintosh route, but never got around to it. UNR 9.04, use VIm for most everything)

Older freecycled Dell Inspiron desktop (~2.0 GHz P4, 512 MB RAM, Ubuntu)

Work:

Lenovo Thinkpad (Core Duo, 2 GB RAM, WinXP)

2x Dell Optiplex desktops (ditto, one has a 17" display, other is dual 17s)
True, true. I design/code UI (Ruby/HAML/SASS) and also design/code my own apps (http://mockaroo.com, a prototyping app and http://findmycofounder.com, cofounder dating).
I guess I'm not making myself popular with saying this, but why is it that when somebody offers something for free you still find yourself compelled to subvert the one thing they ask from you? They give you something you (supposedly) value yet you still try to screw these people out of something that costs you very little. I guess you're going to whine about spam now, but come on, do you really think these people are trawling email addresses for viagra spam by giving away jquery ebooks? And if (I don't know if they will, just if) they ever send you an email, you click the unsubscribe link and off you go. I'd say that this is a small price to pay for (again) something that has at least some value to you.

(This has become a pet peeve of mine since we started offering a free tool that is valuable to many people and for which the commercial alternatives cost thousands of dollars. We ask name and affiliation to get a feel for our user base, people who usually just download and are never heard from again. Most people just fill it in, but every now and then there's some smartass who feels it's necessary to fill in "asdfasdf". I don't do email address validation either, I know it's impossible to check anyway. Show a little respect for what others are GIVING you for FREE).
i7-920 (overclocked to 3.8Ghz), 12GB RAM, 160 GB Intel SSD boot + 2TB Hitachi for storage, 2 x 24" Samsung monitors, Windows 7 Ultimate 64.
4TB HP windows home server for storage and backup.
Dell XPS M1330 laptop for the road. (Time for an upgrade)
This was already available, but then blocked: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spotify#Despotify
Breaking up & divorce is catching too?
Indiana Jones: Breaker of the Sound Barrier
How long does it take you now?

Depending on things it would take me between 20-25 minutes to shave (using a Merkur, forget which one it was exactly) but I wasn't good at it at all, so you could properly cut it down to 15-20 minutes.

And there is nothing as good as getting out of bed at 5:30 to start a productive day.
Primary: Thinkpad W500. Core2 Duo T9600 (2.8 GHz, 6M cache), 4GB memory, 15" 1680x1050, Ubuntu 10.04. I only have a couple complaints about this machine. The big one is that the screen can't compare to the 1600x1200 IPS panel of my old T60p. Yes, I did prefer the 4:3 aspect ratio. The audio ports being located on the front is also annoying.

Secondary: Mac Pro (borrowed). Two dual-core Xeon 5150s, 5GB memory, headless most of the time. I use this machine to do the heavy lifting for my text classification work. My experimental data set fits in memory on my laptop, but leaves uncomfortably little free space. It also makes my lap warm. The Mac being about 50% faster in practice than my laptop is a nice perk.
Free the data: force ISPs to open up on crucial information
I don't see how this is going to "shake up everything" if you have to install the OS yourself. It'll be a cheap faux iPad for hackers, though.
Homebrew i7/24" LCD running Ubuntu 10.04

Dell XPS1530 Running Ubuntu 10.04
Hackers - 25th Anniversary Edition
How would you verify that those who sign up as students are in fact students? It may be simpler to go with the other suggestion of x number of free graphs per month.
The problem with going for consumers is that I don't see them paying for something like this. I agree about keeping it simple though.
I have a light beard and only shave every few days, so I've been using disposables so far. I kind of feel bad about throwing them away like that, but I also feel bad about paying tons of cash for a "fancy" razor.

Maybe I should take the plunge just for the environmental aspect. But I just hate feeling like I'm over-paying...
ZaReason Strata Pro 13" w/Core 2 & SSD.

Just fast enough for my needs, a ULV processor so I can feel good about not sucking too much energy (the SSD makes up for the lack of CPU power, it still feels 'fast'), and Ubuntu FTW.

Eminently portable (3.5lbs), decent resolution on the screen and a nice keyboard (on par if not a little better than my old MacBook Pro's keyboard).

I love it as it has just enough of everything I need and not too much.
Noisy HP laptop, Core 2 Duo T5550, 3 GB RAM, dual Win 7/Ubuntu.

Speaking of computer setups, if anyone is interested in helping my friend obtain one (her old laptop broke), you can read more at http://www.philipfund.com
I now try to only follow the news for 3 or 4 days a week - no news down time is nice.

When I do follow the news, if a story interests me I try to find articles from 2 or 3 different countries to get a spread of bias - not saying that averaging always helps though.

I live in the USA, and I generally feel that our news is of very low quality. The corporate control of our news media and government is a done-deal, and that strongly effects accuracy and impartiality.
I'm curious to see how his view of things fits in with the 37 signals "just do less" view. What is their unfair competitive advantage? Or do they think you don't need one?
If I was doing anything on my ADP1 when I got an incoming call, the phone would become completely unresponsive and quite warm to the touch while it tried to page out other activities in order to allow me to answer the phone.

Only about one time out of five did it actually finish whatever it was trying to do in time for me to answer the call.
seemingly warner are dragging their heels

http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/06/03/spotify-already-has-3000...
The book that helped me decide what I wanted to be when I grew up.
The Futur, choice of Bill Adama! (Though most people think it looks like the Vision, I can't tell)

Anyway, you can probably get started on the cheap if you have any living male relatives born before 1950. They probably have some old vintage Gillette razor that works just as well now as it did when they got it. Or, if you live near an antique or consignment store, you can find razors there cheap, probably between $5 - $10. They're easy to clean, too.
Which is also available for Android :)
Sorry, I thought it would be interesting; I've never seen anything like it and was hoping someone might be able to offer insight on how something like this is done. It's mystifying to me.

(Although if votes on my past submissions are any indication of belonging, I would have to observe that SMB seems more appropriate to this forum than an essay by V.I. Arnold on teaching math, or an article linking databases to category theory. This is also mystifying.)
That is actually why Hitler had an incursion in the USSR while waging war in North Africa and the Atlantic, creating an anti-Hitler coalition and thus having no chance of an outcome that isn't a catastrophe for Germany. Surely an unwise decision.

The Soviets knew in advance of the invasion of the USSR but Stalin could not believe that the Germany could do such thing. Not because he trusted Hitler, but because such a decision would be stupid - Hitler himself claimed that war on two fronts was unwinnable for Germany since WWI and because he didn't see an adequate preparation for an invasion - sure you have troops near the border, but they were in no way prepared for Russian roads, Russian winter or the Russian distances. There was no way Germany could defeat the USSR before winter sets in with no planning.

Stalin planned an invasion of Nazi-controlled Europe, before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. But the Germans had their invasion a few weeks before the planned. But since the troops and materiel were prepared for an offensive war they could react adequately in the beginning. The Russians had only bombers and a million trained paratroops - this is definitely a preparation for an offensive war.

The Germans couldn't achieve any major objective in the USSR anyway:

* they didn't destroy the Russian industrial capability: Moscow and Leningrad weren't taken and behind them you have the Volga and Ural areas, which produced materiel and provided manpower which let the USSR win the war and conquer for itself half of Europe. Plus even much of the plants that were in Ukraine and Belarus were evacuated of their skilled workers and expensive machinery and new ones quickly were formed deep behind the lines of combat and the ranges of Wehrmacht air power.

* no major resource was lacking in the USSR - certainly not oil, which was one of the critical ones. Germany barely had enough from Romania for its own needs. France, the Balkans, Northern Europe, North Africa were invaded with Soviet provided oil, thanks to the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact.

* they didn't isolate Russia politically - they couldn't convince the Japanese to attack them in the back while Soviets had instant allies - Britain and United States which generously provided even more materials and technology.

And this was exactly because the war was started by a logical, sane author.

Stalin overestimated Hitler, thinking he wouldn't do such a thing. Germany had no realistic way of winning a war against the USSR with those conditions. I am not saying that USSR was unbeatable. Just that the Germans didn't have a feasible plan to do it and it was obvious to Stalin.
Ask HN: Does the Ruby Packaging Standard have much traction?
After reading a handful of articles about good practice for Ruby gems, I came across a draft Ruby Packaging Standard, and I'm wondering how well-known it is. Maybe a blunter way to put it is that from what I see, it has nearly no traction at all. The gems I've poked around in still standardly require rubygems, track all hell-and-gone over $LOAD_PATH and rely on files outside of 'lib' or 'bin'. I'm not looking to point fingers, but I am wondering whether there's a developing consensus on good practices for gems/libraries.

Here's what I was reading, and the draft of the RPS, for people who don't know it.

Gem packaging: best practices - http://weblog.rubyonrails.org/2009/9/1/gem-packaging-best-practices

Why "require 'rubygems'" is Wrong - http://tomayko.com/writings/require-rubygems-antipattern

Rubygems Good Practice - http://yehudakatz.com/2009/07/24/rubygems-good-practice/

RPS draft - http://chneukirchen.github.com/rps/
I had a magnet implanted in my right ring finger a little over two years ago and I can answer any questions if any of you are interested.

The basics though are: it doesn't affect hard drives, credits cards or (surprisingly) CRTs. I can feel AC-DC converters and motors though I can't feel current. The implant has a small degree of mobility so it will flip over when exposed to a magnet (which is unfortunate, it means I can determine the polarity by feel).
"We have a gigantic amount of funding"

and

"We have a gigantic amount of domain knowledge"

are two "true" competitive advantages.

one allows you to out-market the competition, the other allows you to out-think them.