skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"A few boxes" of anything isn't worth it. Standardization is critical to having any sort of profitability. As soon as you start spinning up a small number of custom boxes, you're adding a lot of work. Enough work that the "premium" you mention would be pretty large (large enough that it would probably wipe out any price advantage in the first place).

If you really need super fast i/o, then why are you using a VPS in the first place? Virtualization adds a non-trivial amount of overhead to i/o, and there's really no way around that (technologies like VT-d and virtio are helping, but virtualization is still virtualization)
sketchpad rules )))
Great advise, but only half of the truth. I am waiting for part 2. The last sentence requires at least the same attention as that what has already been written.
He did say "partially (largely?)", which I interpret as contributing factor. I think you're in agreement.

Simply being physically active goes a long way to solving everyday psychopathologies, like mild anxiety or depression; and is a curative factor in extremely serious mental illness, like the schizophrenia you mention. Exercise is often part of the answer.

Going for a walk does wonders for my state of mind.
Hey, just from what you're saying it sounds like your wrists have gone a little too far. If you have constant pain in your hands from typing, and you can't play guitar, and this fact is consuming your life, then you should do something about it. I don't know if that's surgery, but you should at least talk to a specialist about your pain (not a general practitioner), and see what they say. Also try to take a week or more off and not touch a keyboard or guitar. If that helps then it may just be you need to change how you do things with your hands.
I've never heard of rechargeable batteries with a lifespan of 50 years. Also, the best quality photovoltaic solar cells have a lifespan of 25 years, and their output is down to around 5% of original capacity by the time 20 years rolls around.
The storage density of A-format mass market paperbacks containing dense UTF-8 text is roughly 4Mb/Kg. (A 400 page novel weighs around 250 grams and contains roughly 1Mb. Source: I went and weighed one of my novels, of known word count.) We can up the density somewhat by bzip2-compressing and then uuencoding (or similar); maybe 10Mb/kg is achievable.

Normal A-format paperbacks use acidic wood pulp for paper, but acid-free paper doesn't add a whole lot to the cost. So we get roughly 10Gb/ton, and the whole kaboodle comes in at roughly 500 tons. As the density of wood pulp is close to that of water, this approximates to a 10 x 10 x 5 metre lump. Quite a large time capsule, but not unmanagable :)

However. If we posit the availability of decent optical scanners in 50 years' time, there's no reason not to go denser.

We can print the data as a bitmap at 300dpi and be reasonably sure of retrieving it using a 2400dpi scanner. Let's approximate 300dpi to 254dpi, and call it 10 bits/mm. Printed on reasonable quality acid-free paper, we can get 100mbits/square metre, and that square metre will weigh around 80 grams (it's 80gsm paper -- same as your laser printer runs on). Call it 1.1 mb/gram. At this density, we can print the whole 5Tb (or 40tbits) on just 40 tons of paper, without compression; with compression, call it 20 tons. That's a 2.71 metre cube; just under 9' on an edge.

This assumes a monochrome bitmap. If we go to colour and use archival-quality inks we can probably -- conservatively -- retrieve one bit each of red/blue/green per dot, and it's probably not unreasonable to expect to get a whole byte out in place of each bit in our mono bitmap. So we can probably shrink our archive to roughly 2.5 tons of paper -- a pallet-load.
The German pebble-bed was built in 1983 and shut down in 1989. Pebble bed reactor designers have had 21 years to improve on that design, and they've not been idle. All real nuclear reactors have problems before you've had time to work out the bugs in the design. They're big, complicated machines, and they have to meet some pretty stringent engineering specs.

The German THTR-300 was the first attempt to build a full-scale pebble bed reactor, after they'd run just one smaller research reactor. Problems with the design are to be expected. That's not an indictment of pebble bed reactor designs; that's just how nuclear engineering works. I'm glad that the pebble bed guys are finally picking themselves off the floor and continuing on with the Chinese HTR-PM reactors, which were designed to avoid the problems which plagued the THTR-300.
One of these I remember quite well--Angels and Airwaves "is" a band vs. "are" a band. Wikipedia's summary:

More than 40 reverts in one hour by two editors. The point of contention? Whether "Angels & Airwaves" is a band or "Angels & Airwaves" are a band. (British English requires "are," as the band comprises multiple people, while American English requires "is", as the band is a singular entity.) ALL-CAPS edit summaries laced with profanity and death threats liberally employed by one side. Stopped only after admin intervention, but resumed again two minutes after the 3RR block expired. Both get blocked for seven days, and one of them gets his block extended to eight days after stating he doesn't care as long as the other side gets a block of same length. The other side keeps his seven-day block.

I was the admin in that case. It was my proudest moment in all of Wikipedia adminship.
Java is popular in the broad sense, but it doesn't seem to be very popular with the developers I know that are creating and interested in creating mobile apps.
Try Rakudo and Learn Perl 6 -- all in your browser (Beta)
Pity that's a standalone unit - can't see reference to any kind of data interface.
I just read a cool review of smart phone OS, http://www.tuxradar.com/content/android-vs-iphone-vs-palm-pr...

I liked how the N900 has an XTerm right on it by default, quite awesome!

I would stick with android though, and something that can have froyo on it. I would go with the Legend or Desire, or Motorolla Droid if I wanted a keyboard.

I currently have the LG Eve GW620 and its impressive for how cheap of a phone it is.
I thought that name sounded familiar - Evan Doll used to teach the iPhone class @Stanford (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/education/edlife/18IT-t.ht...). Sounds like the company has some smarts to make it.
One of the main reasons I stopped using FireFox as my daily browser is that it forces me to care about updates.

I open FF to browse the web, and it tells me no, wait while I download and install some updates. Ok, now wait while I show you a screen telling you about those updates. If you want, you can close it and these other 5 tabs I opened, and then you can go browse the web. Total elapsed time: 1-3 minutes, all of which are spent actively hating FireFox.

Compare that to the Chrome experience: click the icon, 3 seconds later it opens up ready to go, every single time. Maybe once in a while something is new, but I never need to care. Perfect.
So roughly half a Library of Congress.
> I'm sure the people of tomorrow have better things to do than OCR millions of sheets of paper just to see grandpa's porn collection.

That's actually a pretty good thought - whatever it is, label it as porn.

People have spent millions of dollars restoring vintage erotica films.
What you say makes perfect sense. For me the decision to use VPS was motivated by cost and simplicity. But when it comes to my database server, IO will bottleneck me long before CPU or bandwidth or other such concerns. That will probably lead me to some sort of single-master, multi-slave setup — but I suppose I just feel like that could be substantially delayed if I were to have my DB on an SSD.
Http://www.earnparttimejobs.com/
I should have been more clearer though. It's a TV hub also, which lines up with my interests. :) Muenchen is more of a film hub, and to an extent Hamburg also.
If you don't want your photos tagged with your phone's S/N# and don't want your text input logged, Android may be the choice for you.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/2553828,CST-NWS-iphone01....
Another fun fact: China and Korea are making large reactors without going through Japan Steel. Waiting in line for the heaviest of heavy forgings isn't necessary to create PWR nuclear reactors, even large ones.
I know nothing about this topic. Would you care to elaborate on this point so the rest of us can learn?
Unless you have specific support for that, as in a special chair/desk setup, that's horrible advice. I'd almost like to see what you're doing since I can't imagine it being comfortable. You got a picture maybe?
I wouldn't get so fired up quite yet: the way HN rates comments is very bizarre.
I was under the impression BeautifulSoup is no longer actively maintained.

(Edit: Which makes me sad, because I loved their documentation writing style)
"This tiny company (19 employees)"

"Flipboard has raised $10.5 million"

"Flipboard hasn’t worked out a business model yet"

From what I saw of Flipboard, it looks very nice. But these numbers seem pretty high for an iPad app.

Inherently, an app/service like this doesn't have any network effect, any "virality" besides literal word-of-mouth (you using it doesn't make me know you're using it, unlike services like Twitpic let's say: when you post a picture, it makes me aware of Twitpic) and can be replaced instantly without me losing anything.

Again, the app looks great and it got a fantastic start. But I'm curious how it will pan out in the coming months.
A nitrogen-filled container would be more practical than a vacuum. Lowering the temperature would definitely help, although too cold could be bad.
Yeah, a lot of eye health seems to be voodoo bullshit. But, you got any links to references on this? It might help people who have the problem.
What pain? I've only used lxml for a project on Windows, but there, it was as simple as installing setuptools and then 'easy-install lxml'.
Actually, it doesn't. Yet.
Thorium in general, or just liquid fluoride thorium reactors? We know that thorium can work as fuel. We've used thorium as fuel in the past. It can run in Canadian CANDU reactors, or be incorporated into the fuel mix in conventional light water reactors to get drastically improved fuel efficiency, or you can run pebble bed reactors entirely on thorium fuel if you're clever in your ball handling. It's just that uranium is so cheap now that there's not much demand for the increased fuel efficiency that thorium would give -- at least, not until someone does the engineering legwork to get thorium fuel working in existing reactors.
John Gruber about Papermaster and "That Damn Antenna"
But, it tastes so good! No! You can't have my coffee! :-)
It isn't my wrists; it is my forearms. From my reading and (ortho) doc visits, Radial Tunnel Syndrome is the closest diagnosis to what I experience. It could just be tendinitis, though. I agree I need a week off, but from my past experience I know a week isn't enough. I'm going to try and take several weeks off later this year.

Maybe my writeup sounded worse than it is. It isn't totally consuming my life, but it has been worsening again lately so the topic has been on my mind. I am not always in pain. I go through periods (days-weeks) of relative normalcy, but other periods where the pain is worse. I haven't played guitar because I try not to stress my arms while I'm home. I try to stay off the computer at home too, but you see how that is working out... I need some mental fortitude/willpower, too.

What do you mean by "change how you do things with your hands"? I've tried a few different chairs, chair/desk heights, keyboards, and mice. My latest is putting my MS Natural 4000 in my lap to type. I think that is an alright position for my hands, but I wish its keys had a little less resistance than they do.
Link to article?
I've been an iPhone fanboy (I admit it) since the first generation. I even waited in line for 13 hours for the iPhone 3g. I've spent over $1000 on iPhones and accessories now (I've probably made most of it back considering I sell the old one when I get a new one). I was completely dedicated to Apple and its magical phone. But one day I got a little curious. A friend of mine got the Droid and was in love with it. I figured that I should at least give the Android platform a shot so as soon as Google announced the Nexus One for AT&T I had it ordered and in my hands the next day. I must admit at first I was incredibly angry with the UI, it felt very clunky. Also the touchscreen keyboard was awful and wasn't even close to the accuracy of the iPhone's keyboard. After the first two days with the phone I was a little depressed that I had really just shelled out $500 for this junk.

I stuck with it though, and the Nexus One eventually grew on me. What I started to realize was that it was a phone that wasn't built to be pretty or cute but rather useful. For example, all alerts that came in I would know about via the trackball lighting up a particular color (I had red=text or missed call, green=email, blue=twitter @reply). The status bar also made it very easy to see what was happening on my phone without ever having to actually unlock it. Finally I didn't constantly have to unlock my phone, go to app X and see what just came in. Because the marketplace is so lenient, I found everything I could ever want in regards to apps. Wifi Hotspot creator, LED Flashlight app, NES emulator, eBook readers, etc. It's all there and the majority are free. I never paid for one app on my Nexus One and it did so much more than any iPhone I ever owned. Sure, the apps are never quite as polished but you get over it and start appreciating the functionality. On top of that, being allowed to put whatever I want on my phone by simply mounting the SD card is amazing. Not having to deal with iTunes BS was so liberating.

Unfortunately, Jobs did an amazing job of hyping the iPhone4 and I switched back over. I've never been more disappointed in my life. I dropped maybe 2 calls the entire time I had the Nexus One. Literally the first call I made on my new iPhone4 was dropped within a minute. The antenna problem was real, and it almost ended my current relationship. My girlfriend stopped talking to me on the phone and resorted to texts only. Thanks Steve! After being spoiled by the usefulness of Android the iPhone feels like such a toy. You can only see one push notification at a time, if another notification comes in the last one is erased, I feel like they force me to be using the phone at all times or else I'm going to miss something. I can't even switch back because I sold my Nexus One to my roommate, who rubs it in every chance he gets.

At least my free bumper came in yesterday. Oh did I mention with the new bumper I can't use any standard 1/8" headphone jack other than Apple's ear buds? So every time I want to listen to music I have to take the bumper off...awesome.
Show HN: Another Spaced Repetition Flashcard App
Heavily inspired by http://kanji.koohii.com/ and Anki, I've spent the past few months putting together a web-based flashcard review app.

It's still very much a work in progress. If there's enough interest and the app provides enough value to warrant it, I would eventually like to make it a subscription-based app. I'm perfectly happy to leave it free if as an example app in my portfolio if it doesn't take off.

Any and all feedback welcome, here's the blogpost with more info:

http://najafali.blogspot.com/2010/08/introducing-cardmonkey.html
I'm trying to set up MythTV now, and am getting near the point of giving up and trying to use Freevo instead.

They don't say how much power it draws. Anything that's on 24-7 needs to at least try to reduce power use.
On the contrary, Ghandi was an advocate of the "varna" system, which was about fewer, even more rigid castes. He strongly believed that one's caste should be determined by birth, and he opposed marriage between members of different castes.

To Western eyes Indians are one race, but what Ghandi stood for was apartheid * 10.

As for what the British did in India, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice)#British_and_oth...
1. RSI: Take a week off, then, switch to Dvorak (maybe get a Kinesis keyboard if that helps you as well).

2. Back: Standing desk w/ nice architects chair.

3. Eyes: Get a Kindle and read PDF's/etc on it instead of computer.

My quick $0.02 on the problems I've helped resolve from your list Zed.

The other problems, I have yet to tackle, but, I probably should sooner than later! Great detailed post.
Clickable URL:

http://www.cardmonkeyhq.com/

Heavily inspired by http://kanji.koohii.com/ and Anki, I've spent the past few months putting together a web-based flashcard review app.

It's still very much a work in progress. If there's enough interest and the app provides enough value to warrant it, I would eventually like to make it a subscription-based app. I'm perfectly happy to leave it free if as an example app in my portfolio if it doesn't take off.

Any and all feedback welcome, here's the blogpost with more info:

http://najafali.blogspot.com/2010/08/introducing-cardmonkey....
I second this, if you think you can get to money within the first year get yourself to London. If you are within the UK and can't get to money within the first year, live within 1 hour commuting distance and plan to move there. This has worked pretty well for me. It is extremely expensive to be able to live here but the ability to casually attend and walk to serendipity tech networking events is a real luxury and I save a lot of money commuting. The lively eco system around the Techhub interested people is exciting and I recommend it.
Is that because they are iPhone users or because Objective-C is a better language for mobile development?
I was in the same situation and went with the Captivate (and Im in a pizza place posting from it right now). Its a really nice device. Its my first smartphone so I cant fully compare but I can say why I chose it.

1. The Galaxy S is going to be a big device on many carriers.
2. Reviews said the battery life is the best around for android.
3. I wanted background apps.

The display isnt quite as sharp as the iPhone for text but it is a joy to use. Im not so thrilled with the apps I cant uninstall but Ill probably root the device to take care of that. Oh and the touch mechanism is really good. Ive never written something as long as this post before and Ive only had 4 mistaps.

I cant compare it to other experiences but Im very happy with it.
All of the heavy lifting that this demo is doing can (and should) be done on the GPU. WebGL should allow that, and the next versions of firefox, chrome, and safari will ship with it (you can play with it in their nightly builds).
Wasn't the N1 discontinued? http://google.com/phone says you have to be a registered developer to get one, and I don't plan on developing for it anytime soon.
Most of the problems mentioned won't even happen in the first place if one takes regular breaks.

I recommend WorkRave for this: http://www.workrave.org/
I agree, it is psychosomatic, although that's usually a term used by bad doctors to wave away real problems with people. I think a better way to explain it is that your body is controlled by your brain, and if you control it wrong you can cause damage. Same way if you punch or kick something wrong you can break your hand, if you spend 8+ hours a day typing with tension, poor technique, bad posture, and ignoring pain signals then you'll hurt your hands.

So yes, learning to control you body and how you use it is generally a good idea. In general I think that's all Sarno's method does. It just makes you focus on how the motions should be done in a more relaxed manner, rather than tense and harmful.

Combine that with the wrist exercises and you'll be even better off.
I don't think anyone has ever said that it is impossible to have a startup outside of a tech hub, just that it is orders of magnitude more difficult outside of them.

And as JangoSteve mentions, that revenue looks much less impressive when you see that they have 80+ employees.

I wish them the best of luck, as I like to see software companies thriving outside of the valley (no offense to any one there, I just happen to like Chicago), but the article reads more like "this is the best we can do outside of the big tech hubs" rather than an inspirational story.
I disagree with his advice on vitamin D, especially for those over 40 who have lost most of their ability to synthesize it from sunlight. See:

http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/getting-vitamin-d-...
Agreed that no one wants a passive fail in these type designs; Three Mile Island Unit 2 was in operation for only three months before the accident took it off-line for all time.

Hmmm, reading those links and the most relevant of the items linked by the last, it sounds like:

The French may have done an inadequate job in the control system design; at the very least multiple other country's regulatory bodies are concerned about the same and very basic thing (module independence) and that sounds bad to me.

The other conclusion is that it was insane to start building 3? of these EPRs without getting all the way through the design process (!!!) let alone getting the first up and running. That's just appalling bad project management, which I think the U.K. regulator implied in its complaint (the "experts" knew of the control system architecture problems but management wasn't listening to them).

France has been technically quite successful in their nuclear power program (ignoring the experimental Superphénix) and was finishing construction of their last operating plant as late as the last month of 1999. I wonder what happened (well, we can guess well enough).
I really wish they would have a better solution then Chrome. Chrome is fine for a single person, but for installing on a couple of hundred machines, the "silent" update is not silent to the network admin or anyone in a distance learning classroom.

I would really like vendors to allow updates from a local web server. That way I download the update myself and have it only eating local network traffic.

Also, educational vendors are notorious about having software break with updates. I really hope I can turn this off in labs where students need to take certification tests.

Like others I am super worried about Adobe updating. Not only from a compatibility problem or network traffic problem, but their installer on the Mac is horrible and I really wonder will my non-admin account students have problems.
Not as much a marketing claim as it is a MTBF analysis procedure. They run their media through advanced heat/cold/light cycles to approximate how long the media will last. There a number of vendors/technology providers out there that are working on this technology - see http://www.millenniata.com/. Electronics vendors do the same thing when creating 20 Year+ Lifetime components - Just heat it up to 85 degrees, then drop it down to -45. Repeat over and over to advance the aging process.

I've heard that the LDS church / Vatican have both been interested in the archival media, and they have a pretty good long perspective, so might be worth checking with technologists in that realm.
No doubt that accounts for some of it, yes. But I'm extremely careful what I put into my variables, especially in larger projects, and especially in this one because everything was extremely highly connected. Chuck something in wrong once, and it could take me hours of hunting to find it; it wasn't worth being tricky.
I say, great solution Mozilla!

Advanced users can toggle it on/off.
Mortal users won't know it's there.

Mortal users are the ones that regularly are better off not knowing. I on the other hand, prefer to see exactly who's updating and what for, and It's good to know that I have a choice.

Giving user choice = good :)
My son tells me that with SpeedChat Plus in Toontown, transmitting friend codes is much easier because only certain words are filtered out. If you want to transmit numbers, you can enclose homonyms in parentheses "(too").