skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is an extremely naive diatribe.

There are few OSS projects that have done anything more than steal ideas from commercial software in terms of innovation. Programming languages are the only place I can think of that OSS is cutting edge.

MS pushed the boundaries of software to the extreme. Go look at any of their competitors at the age of their dominance. Man, look at Netscape navigator in its bloated unusable form when IE6 came out. Compare Excel to Lotus 123. Or Outlook to Lotus Notes.

MS didn't win because it was evil. It won because it was very, very, very, very, very good.

Google is winning now, with its even more extremely closed source software known as google search, because it is very, very, very good. It's just pretending to support OSS. Without actually giving away the crown jewels.

And MS still is very good in a lot of fields, OSes being the primary one. Only Apple is a close competitor and it's a lot more expensive.

So get off your soapbox and smell reality. The overall benefit MS software has donated to the world is worth many more trillions of dollars than the licenses cost.
Control Unsecured Network Cameras
As one who has read about 30 novels on my K1/K2 - I can attest that your brain / eyes actually seem to go into a wait state when you change the page, such that you don't ever seem to recall changing pages while reading long fiction.

On the other hand, flipping through technical references is painful to the point of despair, and was one of the key reasons I fell in love with my iPad.
...it's a perfectly cromulent word.
I think this is a nice touch ;-)

Make it an example of what your best code looks like (OO, neat, testable & tested). Send the email to:

Y2hhbGxlbmdlQGRvdHNwb3RzLmNvbQo=
Agreed. I've learned much more about computers and computing using Linux for a relatively short time than from years of Windows. Such a gift.
Thanks for the answer.

I forgot to test one thing before terminating my trial (nice job by the way, the complexity is just a bit overwhelming initially): Is it possible to remove the API key once the initial setup is done as long as the agents are running on the monitored machines?
A Brief Above Average Parenting Moment and the Lack of Women in Tech
> And that's in most cases parents who themselves are educated.

Read my comment again. My mom wasn't educated past 7th grade. She knows simple arithmetic enough to count money and pay bills. She doesn't know what an isosceles triangle is though.

My father was educated well but he had lost his job and didn't have work for years. We didn't have enough food to eat. But what my parents had, was a desire for me to be educated. Not by forcing me to necessarily get good grades but by encouraging my hobbies.

EDIT: removed an unclear sentence

> Are you sure you (and those who upvoted) know what social class is? ... having a university degree would be put your father as middle class in most of them.

What about a homeless person on the streets who has a PhD? What class are they in? I would say they are in the "poor" class. What about not being able to buy food or clothes? What class is that? I would say in the Western society nowadays that would qualify as "poor". Granted there were some who didn't have a place to live and fared a lot worse, but we were not far from it either (at least that's how I felt and remember it). Education and social class don't necessarily go together.

> Just because you have a different experience doesn't mean you're the norm or that the argument is invalid.

Of course. I think that is implied since that statement is followed by my personal story. However I knew some kids my age that went through a similar experience.

It seems in general these type of situations are common in countries that have decent education but ultimately suffer an economic meltdown. So my experience was probably more common for those who grew up in ex-Soviet union and experienced its collapse. We ended up with a lot of educated people who, despite their education, became very poor.
I'm a fan of the tautline hitch because, while not optimal for everything, it adapts decently to a wide variety of situations. It's also easy to remember and modify. Need more grip? Just add more loops. Too tight? Take a loop out and you have two half-hitches.

A good fallback knot.
Yeah, it should be emphasized that it matters what you're reading.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/mobile/07/26/ipad.universit...

>Students at Reed College complained of the slow refresh rate of e-Ink displays, problematic input, inability to load PDFs over the network, and inability to view more than one text at a time as major sticking points. Reed faculty found converting documents to work well on the Kindle to be particularly difficult in most cases.

>Students participating in the test at Darden School of Business, while loving the Kindle for personal reading, overwhelmingly felt the Kindle didn't pass muster in its current state for academic use -- about 4 out of 5 would not recommend a Kindle DX to incoming MBA students.
His anti-business views, if widely adopted, would lead to a massive economic meltdown.
Apply to Google. Google does a lot of machine learning, and the Android folks like audio processing. And yes, Google has an office in NYC. (With, purportedly, really good food.)
When I heard RMS speak a few years ago, he made the distinction between devices like microwaves, and general purpose computing devices. The latter you want to be running Free Software. But for the former it's not really an issue.

Unfortunately, the line between the two is blurry at best. For example, I'm not sure how well this jives with the case of the printer software which provided the catalyst for RMS starting the FS movement in the first place.
I've been around the block quite a few times and have never heard "niggle" used in a racist way.

added to long list of things I can't say because somebody got offended by the way somebody else, who I don't know or would care to know, used a word improperly simply because it happened to sound semi-phonetically like a word we are not actually supposed to use and with an emphasis implying discriminatory undertones and without entering the common tongue to a point that persons up and down the economic scale would have ever heard or could relate to

I'd call it a "black list" of words but I have a feeling that might go over wrong in the context.

I really really really hope the word "the" never gets used in a racist rant by some 2-bit undereducated smeg head looking for a phony birth certificate.

sigh
"A Bit More" is a little too wordy, unless of course there was a "More" button as well, to put it in context.

This would also open the possibility for the "Just a Tiny Eency Weencie Bit More" and "A Heck of a Lot More, Son" buttons.
In my experience, the horror stories are the _norm_ when interviewing for publicly-listed positions. I understand that some people don't perform well under pressure, but even so, that doesn't explain some of the things I've seen.

For example, if you list C as your primary programming language, and you need a copy of K&R to remember that functions use "{}" brackets, you're not getting hired. I mean, please respect me enough to spend 30 minutes cramming before trying to bluff your way into a job.

My rule of thumb: Do not hire programmers without asking them to write code! Shy people who don't work well under pressure can submit github repositories instead.
Do Good Kindergarten Teachers Really Raise their Pupils’ Wages?
In working with anyone, I find it best to plan ahead. Work with them on a casual basis on someone else's project or give them a part of a small project first, to see how they go.

This does require not just planning, but a pattern of behavior change. I love having a plan B, so I give small stuff to someone other than my main "go to" guy. This way, I know someone if problems arise. When I meet people and hear what they do for a living, I first think if I can imagine wanting that skill down the road. If I do, I try getting to know them professionally in some fashion.

The end result is my rolodex is one of my strengths. I know who to call for a wide variety of challenges, or I know someone who knows. I don't like more than two hops. If I wait until I need anything, I'm late.
I tried to get Ephemera, but it crashes on launch any time I try to open it. Unfortunate because it looked pretty useful to me. I realize you (probably) aren't the author, but thought maybe others on here were having problems with it. Gonna send in a crash report, no idea what's causing it.
Boulder, Colorado. Unable to relocate.

I've coded a good deal in Perl, C, and Lua, and have been learning Scheme for quite some time as well. I'm comfortable with Linux (bash included), OS X, and Windows. I'm willing and able to learn new languages/systems.

Currently a senior majoring in Linguistics (human), though most of my jobs through college have been with computers.

Please feel free to email me -- my email address is in my profile.
A Pseudo Random Text Generator with Markov Chains, Node.js, and Redis
Similar things have been done. Here's one:

http://i.seemikecode.com/

I've heard of others but can't recall the names or what to Google for them. They started around the time Jeff Atwood wrote his FizzBuzz rant, iirc:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/02/why-cant-programmer...
Saul Alinsky wrote a number of books about community organizing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals , including Rules for Radicals and Reveille for Radicals. Community organizing is about bringing people in communities together and helping them achieve some kind of goal; in the case of Alinsky, he was envisioning physical communities that needed things like coops, particular kinds of government services, and the like.

One of his major principles is that the community organizer has to help people see why it's in their best interest to organize or make change. According to Alinsky, arguing that people should agitate and work for change because of the common good or because the change is the right thing simply doesn't work.

I believe the OP is saying that Stallman isn't doing a great job of incorporating that aspect of Alinsky's principles and in doing so is setting back the free software movement.

EDIT: I just read a little further down in the thread and saw this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1559283 : "The problem with Free Software is a marketing problem." That's similar to an Alinsky comment, although in different language: if you can't "market" the change you're trying to encourage by making people realize why it benefits them, you're not going to make that change happen.
I'm totally confused about how this works. The blog post and the home page didn't clear it up for me. Integrates with Gmail? What does Broadcast mean in this context? What do you mean, in your blog post, when you say you can now "archive the task".

Confused. Am I the only one?
It isn't on the list, but the discount code still worked for me. http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596517748/
Goldman Sachs Bans Naughty Words in Emails
Where's the risk in that? ;)
Google Confirms: We’re Not Currently Blocked In China
40-60+ hour weeks for a year isn't solid? Even if you weren't brought on full-time, all the Drupal shops in Austin can't fill their demand, so I don't think you'd have a hard time finding a job afterward. We're not just one of the biggest (and certainly the most dynamic) Drupal sites; we're a huge site, period. You'd have a lot of really valuable experience.

The work is ongoing (it's an MMO, after all), and plenty of features are scheduled for post-launch, but legally we can't even dangle a maybe-possible carrot.

That said, I was brought on from a year design contract, and we have four openings we're trying to fill.
Even Confuzatron isn't denying that it's used in this way. His stance is that he doesn't think it's wise to stop using a word because morons are mis-using it. That I understand and I respect considerably more than a position that simply denies that it's happening because someone hasn't seen it happen.

I'm actually coming around to the Confuzatron position. If we let idiots and racists dictate what words mean, our language suffers for it.

But again there are 5 definitions in the link above. Racist people use the word to describe African American babies or as a substitute for another considerably more offensive word. And again, I didn't say that nobody should use it ever, just that the word evokes a troubling reaction in me because of the racist ways in which it is used. I completely understand that many won't have the same reaction, but my take is it's wise to avoid the words precisely so that you avoid these sorts of awkward conversations.
I think you underestimate the false negatives you get with that idea. I can't be the only one who would rather do consulting or hacking at something that might at some point become a startup than doing open source.

And to top it of, I hate github (their functionality should be build into the git client, I shouldn't have to check a web page to see if anybody has ideas to improve my code).
I don't consider myself a hardcore hacker, but I certainly enjoy the GNU (along with Tux) far more than a frikkin Window or an Apple. Changing the name/logo would be a step in the wrong direction.

I wasn't aware that GNU tools had a marketing problem, since they're all over the place, even in business worlds. Leave the marketing to the distros and programmer employees.
The comment was referring to Stallman's statement that if he did not travel and could care for a pet, he would get a parrot. It was not derogatory.
[quote]Wow, I was a top coder on RAC around the same time :) Good times![/quote]

zaidf, you miss the days when you would code for free?

vWorker has like 300k workers now. I wonder if it's easier or harder to be a top coder now, compared to then. The #2 and #3 Top Coders right now are from the U.S.
That would depend widely on what the code is supposed to do, how long it takes to set up the things my software should work with, etc, etc.

In short, writing the code might not take that long, but all the other things you have to do would.
White House Seeks to Clarify F.B.I. Powers vis-à-vis E-Mail
I've heard it as "Perfect is the enemy of done."
Even more about Ed: http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/ed.msg.html
That's a strictly technical way of looking at it.

The thing that speaks to people in this is the human-like uncertainty of the statement "a bit more". It's almost certainly not the case that the machine has a concept of "a bit", or introduces randomness for the interval to be human-like; technically it's simply heating the bread for a fixed amount of time. The trick is in observing the usage patterns of people using toasters (wanting their bread toasted "a bit more" is a common goal), and naming the feature in a way that corresponds to the goal very directly, and creates emotional engagement.
Really, tbgvi? I like it. The control panel is easier to use in the site redesign that came with rebranding. Pay by the hour is new for them, but I don't see them as being more like the competition.

And I figure the re-branding makes sense for them. Everyone here is a coder, but vWorker has lots of users, with those projects for SEO and logos and transcriptions. Changing from "coder" to "worker" probably helps the designers and writers, now that vWorker is marketing to their buyers as well.
Sounds like an amazing idea... strikingly similar to the idea I pitched to YC in an interview in November, 2006 :-/. I guess they didn't like our team or progress. Bummer.
“Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime".
Right now it's only streaming, but the purchase will be recorded and the viewer can stream it as many times as she likes.
It's easy to do the downloading option but less secure in terms of piracy issues.
What's your definition of "best"? The ones you liked the best? Or the ones who did the best research?

It would not surprise me if the professors you liked the best were the same ones that enjoyed teaching. However, tenure and such are much harder to come by for doing good teaching than for doing good research.
>>>the battery on my kindle is dead almost 100% of the time when I want to use it
I am quite perplexed that you seem to have a defective device that doesn't hold charge and still compare it to iPad?
It's not available for chunkhost.com. I'd love to try it out on chunkhost
Groupon is hiring in our new Palo Alto offices.

Some listed below, but if you want to solve big problems (performance, scalability, personalization, etc), we have an abundance of great opportunities.

http://www.groupon.com/jobs
First of all "naughty" words? Is the WSJ nine years old?

Second, a quotation, "Of course we have policies about the use of appropriate language and we are always looking for ways to ensure that they are enforced."

I call Poe's law.
lol

(edit: oh come on, you know it'll end up in there eventually!)
So every single government in the history of mankind, up until the last couple of hundred years, has been illegitimate?

The legitimate sovereign is the one the people permit to exist - if the Chinese government's rule was that of the iron fist against the vast majority who are itching for revolution, then sure, you might have a point.

But this is not how China is right now - there is no pent-up demand for revolution, and the people campaigning against the government are a vanishingly small minority at best.
How do you mean, HeyLaughingBoy? Employers send you private bid requests for technical writing? I think that only happens if you put it in your resume or if you did a technical writing job for someone. I like that they have more than a programming category -- for one thing, makes it easy to hire out the tech writing parts.
I made similar connection, in Dutch the word "grijp" (which sounds a bit like "grep") means "grab". I figured "grep" is to "grab" stuff from a file.
It is not.
from Beijing.
OData and Ruby
It's a "Getting Things Done" thing, I think.

http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/08/getting-started-with-get...

The relevant idea is that you take the stuff coming into your inbox (which represents obligations that you need to take care of, in theory) and then immediately convert it into something like a to-do list.
Evil Software Development
A much more amusing theory than reality. "perl" could fit in that category too...
You also can't use "teapot" or the name for the martial art "Sambo" or refer to various types of chocolaty deserts either -- just FYI.

Oh, and "Buffie the Vampire Slayer" was a thorn in the side of the African American community for years until it went off the air. "Buffie" is off limits.

You also can't refer to the fruit of the palm tree, or certain types of common darkly colored birds, there's a famous actor from the 30s to the 60s (starred in "It Happened one Night") who's last name is a slur, most species of non-human primates, the Bantu word for "person", certain farming tools, a common nickname for CIA agents, the Hindi word for "day laborer".

Interestingly, some of these, either exactly in or slight variants also cannot be used in front of the Irish, and some slurs go between races. Like "smoked Irish" is a slur for a person of African Descent while a phonetic variant of the "n-word" was originally used to refer to the Irish. So watch that as well around both camps.

edit: yes I'm just having a spot of fun. In a multi-cultural, multi-national message board all have to agree to a social contract, nobody is intentionally racist, and nobody is overly offended if somebody accidentally uses something that might perhaps in some circles in some small regional dialect in some particular part of the world, on occasion, be a slur.
Not prohibited != can be done without legal consequence.

New torts are invented, albeit rarely. Every so often there's a new duty of care in negligence. There are, I'm sure, other examples and the point is this: the lack of case law wasn't much help to the first defendant to lose on that point.
> They blame a system that favors research over teaching and vocational training over liberal arts.

Then go to a school that focuses on teaching (mine does).

> And they'd like to see graduates worrying less about their careers, even if it means spending a year behind the cash register at Old Navy.

That's not an issue with the schools, it's an issue with society. People expect a high paying job right out of school, they expect a fancy house and nice things. Sadly, it doesn't happen like that.
Maybe once a minute. How often do you blink?
The "Continue Reading..." link on your "OK, THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS." post sets off malware detection in Firefox & Chrome. I don't know much about WordPress, but judging from their main page, 2.2.1 seems a bit out-of-date.
Eliminating database downtime in the presence of schema changes with ChronicDB
Hello,

We are developing a solution for the problem of database downtime which is often incurred due to schema changes, and we are looking for feedback.

http://chronicdb.com/chronicdb_updates_100_live_database_connections_with_no_downtime

Releasing database changes with minimial downtime has been discussed before, from various viewpoints:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1313895
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1265465
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=411282

And this suggests schema changes are also problematic in the Google App Engine.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=330413

Database schema changes seem to be a big problem. We would love to hear from anyone that has encountered this problem, and in situations where it has lead to downtime resulting in considerable costs. What was the cause of the downtime ? The duration ? The cost ? How often did such downtime occur ?

We also welcome feedback on the system design of the solution and suggestions for future improvements.

http://chronicdb.com/benefits_of_chronicdb

For anyone interested in joining, we are also looking for help.
On Primary Keys
Well, the point is that Steve didn't actually say anything against "private" and "public", he posted a satire article poking fun at certain things. This guy obviously didn't get the joke and is calling Steve names over it.
PNG is lossless compression so you won't get the artifacts you do with JPEG. (e.g the noise around the text at the top of your first screenshot)

EDIT
Better explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Network_Graphics#Compa...
it's not blocked
I don't think you understood or read my original point. I never said folks "can't use" any word. I said the word is "troubling" because racists today are using it to describe African American babies. And that magazines and newspapers have avoided the words at question here for the same reason (check out the wiki link about the controversy).

I was just pointing it out. I'm not really offended by it but I do agree with many that the words "niggardly" and "niggle" would preferably not be used where other words suffice. Otherwise you end up in silly conversations like this one.

And Buffie has nothing to do with anything and isn't really a valid analogy though I appreciate the humor here. If you can show me actual usage of those words in the way you describe, then yeah I'd avoid those too. Again, go ahead and use them if you want.
Well, after carefully planning to "ramp down" over the next week or so, I woke up this morning, thought "screw that", and quit cold.
Involver (www.involver) is hiring RoR Developers. They are based in downtown SF and well funded. There is a pretty fat referral bonus so ping me if you apply and we can split the pot if you get hired.

SingleFeed (singlefeed.com) is also hiring RoR developers, they are based in SF as well.

If any front end designers or developers (CSS, HTML, Jquery) are interested in some contract work we have some projects coming up at Webvanta (www.webvanta.com), ping me if your interested.

Contact details in my profile if you have any questions.