skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think this post is indicative of a problem that arises when a project such as firefox becomes too big. Sure, it is an open source project, so it is nice that you can file a bug report if you discover a shortcoming like the disappearing favicon.

But the author of the blog seems to be a programmer himself. Ideally, he would not only file a bug report but - since the bug seems to bother him a lot - perhaps even come up with a patch.

Instead, he writes a work-around -- and can you blame him? Compared to a two-line function, the work required to dig into a huge code base, try to understand it, come up with a patch (that doesn't break anything else), get the maintainers to integrate it, etc... seems enormous. Well, perhaps it actually isn't, who knows, but I can understand that people feel too inhibited to invest time to come up with a patch if the required effort seems so overwhelming from the start.

It appears to me that this is a general problem, and the bigger the code base, the worse it gets. Yet at the same time, the overall benefit of submitting a patch rather than coming up with workarounds grows with an increasing user base, because more people are positively affected. So I wonder if there are any realistic methods to cope with this problem: how can open source projects get people to provide more patches?!
I've tried this in Boston. Mass-holes will not stand for you to screw with their traffic jams.
Twitter is awesome if you're a brand or company doing the shouting into the darkness. It's a great way to advertise or promote for free. You can also identify and engage with your most ardent supporters.

Otherwise, from a personal standpoint, it's pretty useless. I just post to stroke my ego every now and then.
Web 2.0 - Should Businesses Block or Embrace?
The consumerization of IT is affecting all aspects of the way we work. As Web 2.0 technologies continue to gain popularity amongst employees, IT departments are struggling to understand and manage the challenges.

Unfortunately for employers, people still found ways to partake in these activities – unmanaged and unsecured. If companies had initially recognized the potential of these outlets and found ways to embrace them in the first place, they could have saved themselves a lot of trouble in the long run...
I switched to Colemak last year, and I haven't had a problem with Emacs. But then, to call 'forward-char, I think "C-f", not "Control-left hand index finger home row". Having that extra layer of indirection in my head allowed me to make the switch easily.
I have to say that, while Clauswitz is certainly down-to-earth, pragmatic, and has much merit, the book is not for the faint of heart of. I don't think straightforward is a word I'd use with his work that was compiled posthumously from his incomplete manuscripts.
I think he means "the posts on HN are more likely to be _critical_"
I thought websockets have to make a connection to your server from the same domain? How are you getting around this?
Except that people who want to go faster than you will pass you and get in front of you. This leads you to either keep slowing down to maintain the space or start shrinking the space.
A Practical Guide to the GNU GPL
True, but 99% of the time I'd prefer someone just ask me the question and provide the context they think I'll need to answer it. This makes it much easier to come back to my desk after being away for hours and be able to help you out immediately, rather than wait for you to be available, then wait for you to type the question, etc.

If more context is needed then it will have to be asked for - but this is no different than the first situation ("Can I ask you a question?"). Simply asking the question will optimize the response and conversation time in most scenarios, and will not slow it down in any.
Searching for "b" in "ab". Just two comparisons, compared to allocating, zeroing, and initializing a lookup table, and then doing a brute force search anyways. There's a fuzzy point where one becomes better than the other. Implementations written to be fast may brute-force length=1 strings, and implementations written for simplicity may not.
I'm fairly young, so I ask this question to the more experienced in life. Isn't this always the case? The rich stay rich by keeping their money and the poor stay poor by never keeping their money. So what is the tone and point of this document exactly, to fix the rich or fix the poor? Or am I overdoing it by looking for a side in this?
I'm not trying to be a troll or start a flamewar, but when I read these articles all that I can think of is, "so are we going to redistribute the wealth communism style, or teach people to build their OWN wealth?"
Reasons why I can't be a politician or a leader in society, I don't want to be the one that determines whats fair for the people, and define whos the slacker and whos truly in need. Who the hell am I to judge? and who the hell are you to take away my hard earned paper? Thats just what goes through my mind, and I comment here to see if anybody can help me out with my thought process.
> Most Ruby developers will never use C unless they really care about extracting every last drip of performance from something

Except having lots of legacy Ruby libraries written in C ignores the real problem and prevents the Ruby VM from evolving.

For this reason alone Ruby will never have the capabilities of the JVM ... which has it all ... kernel threads (no GIL), async IO and userspace threads (through libraries like Kilim) ... making all kinds of parallelism / concurrency paradigms feasible (in some tests Kilim scales better than Erlang).

For most web apps this doesn't matter because the heavy processing is done by the DB, but have you ever seen a usable DB written in Ruby?

Here's a freakishly scalable one written in Java with no C libs dependencies ... http://neo4j.org/

I wish people would start supporting projects like Rubinius more ... who's main bottleneck is the limited support it provides for C extensions, because for speed improvements it pays better long-term to invest in the VM rather then improving bottlenecks by dropping to C (which IMHO actively hurts the platform).

Dropping to C should only be done for code reuse.
To clarify, the malware was running on the system that the mechanics use to log incidents. The plane had had three recent incidents that would have grounded the plane had they been known, but they weren't. The reason they weren't was a combination of the mechanic's neglect and possibly that the system was crippled by malware.

Here is a better article (Spanish to English translation): http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&h...
The right way to position against competition
Where is Your Startup In the Gartner Hype Cycle?
A complete side-note, but it's hard to figure out where else to put this.

HN should not allow you to delete a post once it has a child comment. I find that people sometimes delete entire stacks of comments that have children (as in this case) when they don't seem to like how the argument is going. (This is not super-common, but it happens often enough that I've noticed it.) It's enormously frustrating for readers - not to mention childish on the part of the deleters.

Now, as for the rest of you kids, get off my lawn.
I just sent this link to several friends and family members who are interested in the economy (most aren't, or prefer not to talk about it). The sad thing is that so many in the middle class believed the hype of living on borrowed money. The long term consumer borrowing binge helped the rich, hurt most of the rest of the population.
In addition to the other comments, I will add that this is only viable in languages that are much slower than C. If you take Haskell, Ocaml, Go, Java, C#, Common Lisp, Factor and so forth, the speed increase is much lower since these languages are fast by themselves. Thus, the barrier of having to rewrite and maintain a C-implementation at the side is as high, and there is no fruit-tree on the other side of the barrier you can reap.

Languages in which CPU-intensive work is fairly expensive are the ones which benefits the most from a C-rewrite. Ruby is notoriously slow in that regard, which makes it a prime candidate for such a rewrite. And before people scold me: Synthetic benchmarks, like the alioth shootout:

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64/which-programming-lang...

is a good indicator of exactly the CPU-intensive power of a given language. Note however, that CPU-usage is not all constraints of a modern program. Which is, as an aside, why Ruby and PHP are viable options for writing code in.
Twitter ipad
Blurrypeople.com - strangers you might actually like
how do you say that my next wall post should be only viewable to list "Family"? Or the album I posted can only be viewed by a certain list?
Fixing the bug may require platform and domain knowledge way beyond the skill set of the person submitting the bug
I have switched to a Dvorak keyboard now for over a year after 20 years as a QWERTY typist.

To answer some of the questions in the comments

1) My peak speed for the Dvorak was at 100wpm compared to around 70wpm in QWERTY (I am intentionally slowing my typing speed now)

2) It took me 4 months to convert and get back to the speed I got using QWERTY. During that period, I switched between QWERTY and DVORAK a lot. The program DVAssist made it easy to switch it using a simple function key

3) For those who have problems using Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V, you can use Ctrl-Ins and Shift-Ins respectively. I find it much easier

4) If you need to use Dvorak on another computer, I have created an on the fly javascript program to do that on http://www.electronizer.com/dvorak.html (Note : It only works on IE)

I personally find the Dvorak keyboard more comfortable to type with. I have an RSI problem which I thought was due to the QWERTY, however, after getting to my peak speed in Dvorak, the problem started coming back, thus I am actually trying to slow my speed (I am contemplating being a 2 finger typist instead).

I reckon the problem with RSI and keyboard is not due to the keyboard layout, but more in the positioning of the keyboard when typing. To elaborate, I noticed people tend to centre their keyboards and align it to their body, this has the problem where the right hand has to over extend to type because of the numeric keypad placed on the right side of the keyboard. Couple this with the fact that the mouse is on the right hand side on most people's keyboard, this makes the right hand move more. An observation I noted was that people tend to move the wrist and not the entire hand.

To combat RSI, I have adopted the following

1) Align the keyboard "G" to align with the centre of my body (or the centreline as Wing Chun practitioner calls it). This enables both hands to extend to the same length.

2) Move the elbow and less of the wrist (whole forearm movement, another of Wing Chun's principle of using the whole arm)

3) Use the mouse with the left hand (easier done for me as I am a left hander) and the number pad with the right hand

My motivation for switching to Dvorak was to combat RSI and to prove that I can change a habit of 20 years.

If you are a 2 finger typist, I don't recommend switching to Dvorak. If you are switching for RSI, my experience is that it doesn't work. If you switch to Dvorak, you might miss out on a cool technology for mobile phones called Swype. Unless of course they have Dvorak support in the future.
Ask HN: Returning lists and totals: best way?
Let's say I have an application, and each user has about 100,000-ish items stored.

They can add tags and properties to those, and I need to be able to return a list of items for any combination of tags/properties.

In sql, that would be select * from tablex where property1=x and property2=y and so on. Or a join. But that tends to be slow-ish?

I also need to be able to return the total amount (count) of items easily for each of these lists.

Using, say, mysql doesn't seem superappropriate/easy/fast/scalable for this scenario, is there a good/easy way (one of the new nosql things perhaps) to do something like this?
I've seen plenty of commercials with: facebook.com/myproduct as their URL. Crazy shit.
Ask HN: Review my Startup: GroupTabs
GroupTabs offers location based group deals. As soon as enough people check-in, the deal unlocks, and everyone gets the deal.

www.GroupTabs.com

We launched last week. Our first two deals have already gone down, and our third deal is set for tomorrow night.

We combine the popularity of discounted group deals with location based services. Our goal is to incentivize the many people with smartphones who have never heard of foursquare/Gowalla/etc (at least until last week's Facebook Places announcement) to try out checking in. We are hooked up to Twitter/4sq API already. Gowalla is next. Facebook Places we will do as soon as they unlock Write access.

We went non-native via gtb.me to hit as many phones as possible on launch. Android/BBerry apps are almost ready for public beta. iPhone works based non-natively, ironically, so it comes last.

...And, to address what is probably the first question, our deals our small, so they are designed to 'tip' rather quickly. And we require that participating merchants have some special going on until our deal unlocks, so you are rewarded just for showing up, even in the event the deal doesn't tip.

Advice that we can offer from our launch: This has been said a lot of times, but it should be said again. Read http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/2008/08/05/startup-marketing-advice-from-balsamiq-studios/ We read it adozen or so times. If you are launching a startup you need to read it. Pledi's advice is invaluable. We were covered by VentureBeat (http://bit.ly/a8s2Ad), Mashable (http://bit.ly/9alqKF) and ReadWriteWeb (http://bit.ly/9UmAjH) among others before we even launched.
Which is excellent if your primary use case is dealing with millions of date operations.
I don't use Visual Studio or any of the .Net languages, but F# strikes me as pretty cool. For those who are using it, how does it compare to the experience of coding in ocaml? I'm guessing that the Visual Studio tooling and libraries add something compelling?
I've read about chatroulette on HN a few times. Most of you point out it needs some form of filtering to become something useful.

So here is our approach to something that will, hopefully, work better:

- it has a feedback system that allows you to indicate why you don't like someone (too old, too male, too boring etc)

- video starts out blurry, and becomes sharper with time (hence the name! ;))

- you can 'like' people, allowing the other to see when you're online and request to connect with you

Could this work? Comments, suggestions?
How to Gain Weight and Influence People
Most of UNIX's utilities were written with high regard for their memory use. When GNU decided to clone them all, they actually outlined that their developers were forbidden to even review UNIX sourcecode. Convention stated that they all try to write the programs with speed in mind, and now we have these discussions.

http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Reading-Non_002d...
Technically moving to Android doesn't mean RIM has to give up much exclusivity. (Almost) No one likes the RIM OS, they like the RIM messaging and e-mail apps (with the related back end services). There is nothing stopping RIM porting those to Android and still keeping them exclusive. This way if you want to use the blackberry apps you still have to buy a blackberry and RIM gets to use a much better OS with a much bigger app ecosystem and free up some OS developers. Looks like a bunch of upsides to me.
The dirty little secret about Google Android
arXiv.org bulk PDF access over Amazon S3 (experimental)
I am/was in a similar situation.

Personally, I stay away from #1, unless I have something to offer the startup besides cash.

Rather, I'd keep my eyes open for interesting early-stage startups, or startup ideas that catch your fancy.

We see projects here all the time looking for a technical co-founder; have any of them appealed to you?
More seriously (even if the emoticon is a real one), I think we both had been looking for the opportunity to meet a co-founder for a long time. Maybe he disagrees, but I think we both had a clear idea of what we wanted and what we wanted NOT.

I registered our current startup URL, 1y1/2ago, I personally had presented a project idea to several handful of hackers before we met each other. It is like when buying a house, you see many, you sharpen your judgment & taste, but when you find the one: you sign very quickly, because you have that deep warm gut-feeling.

It does not mean everything will be rosy all the time. I think we both already know this.
But the one key element for me was a true sense of respect. This guy had sharp comments from day 1. Different ideas of how to go about the implementation (I already had put a prototype together with the help of another engineer (more than hacker)) we threw this away and restarted from scratch, thanks to his input.

He was understanding the idea from day 1 because he is that type of driven person, in sports, hacking, and a demanding human (his NYTimes covered app may shock some). He is international minded, open. He share the same crazy goal on our startup 1st $M.

I learn with him a lot, I discover a lot, it is all exhilarating, and the guy while being good at what he does and in general (to use a litote;), he still has this down to Earth humbleness. Respect.

And this respect emulates me to do my utter best so that our startup kicks a.. and so that on my part I don't screw up that chance. From what I see in what he does, it seems he feels the same. Grateful.

There are few times in your life when you think you are in front of a positive black swan. Maybe we see our startup as something bigger than ourselves, maybe we share that sense of awe.
Oh cool. Yes, I must have misread that compression stat.

We don't have image URLs specified in stylesheets at all, but rather we use JavaScript to build up the DOM and set the src of all img tags (or background-image style properties, or canvas drawing, etc).

That's really interesting. Since that's not explained in the article you had linked to, I'm assuming Cappuccino did this before switching to data URIs?

Thanks for taking the time to explain this approach more in depth.
I actually see this as a strength of Twitter-like microblogging services. If you have no more contributions you fade gracefully into the background while the collective move on uninterrupted.

I think Leoville is misguided for treating microblogs literally as a lite version of blogs. I guess the term is a little misleading but the platform really isn't a place for any random blogger to find a cult following.

Individuality is not that big of a deal. Trends are. I wonder if this is a contributing factor to Twitter's success in Japan, which has a culture favoring the collective over the "me" mentality.
programming Praxis (http://programmingpraxis.com) offers a series of exercises, similar to Project Euler, but with more emphasis on programming and less emphasis on mathematics. There are new exercises every Tuesday and Friday.
+1 for the comment "in a multi-billion dollar company, a $10 Million dollar/year new product line doesn’t even move the needle." I actually saw projects with 7 digit profits canceled because they were not viewed as growth opportunities for the company.

I'd also double the 15% time estimate for "managing up and protecting down." People in entrenched organizations (big and small) simply don't seem open to positive change. You almost have to build it, put it place, get the users going, and then sell it up to management.
It's pretty, but I don't think it's an improvement. The problem with the highly visible login boxes is that they distract from the other actions available - watch a video and download the client - which are exactly what you want the first-time visitors to be doing.

It should be very clear for first-time visitors what to do. Existing users already know what to do, so it is fine for their action (login) to be tucked away in the corner.

Dropbox doesn't want first-time users to decide what (if anything) they should be doing with those login boxes.

But then again, the true test is of the A/B variety!
Skype Etiquette #4(b)
- Wear pants.
I did not use the word desire, hence I do not see why you would?

I think searching is more of a necessity, at times perhaps more than friends. My friends might for example not be able to tell me about 1200 BC, something which a history student might need to know, or to tell me how I can code something, which google might be able to tell me.

Some friends might be able to. They might be able to tell me things which google can not. Facebook however is only a platform where one interact with friends. As I said hanging out places change all the time. Unless however something revolutionary comes forward to make search a different experience, I do not see the number of visits to Google falling for the foreseeable future, while I might be able to in regards to Facebook. Chatroulette for example could have been a great contender had it not been overtaken by penises. People might also decide to physically hang around more once they get bored of the novelty effect of facebook. Unless they want to spend hours in a library however, I do not see people suddenly deciding to stop using the internet for searching.

In conclusion, google, or searching, is a necessity, Facebook is merely a substitute which can not, quite, become a necessity as it can not quite compensate for actual interaction with friends.
> writing this on a box with 12G ram, pretty much maxed out

Serious question: what are you using 12G of RAM on? My workstation is pretty modest (core 2 duo, 4G RAM) and I'm rarely able to utilize more than 1G.
Why didn't you split it?
What a great story!

There is a typo on the homepage of your start-up, painn => pain.
Hi sandipagr, user is not restricted to post to one group at a time only. If you like your photo to be viewable by your Friends, Family and Best Friends groups.. you can do so easily by selecting multiple groups while posting. Its that simple.
A lot of "applied statistics" is now performed under the headings of "machine learning" and "data mining". Both fields are thriving.

Furthermore, Bayesian methods have come back to the fore in the past ~15 years. They are quite likely the future of statistics, especially in academia.
This mercenary, puerile response is why I've given up on HN as a source of interesting tech news.

Or, rather, why I'll give it up as soon as Gabe's site (or something similar) takes off. Even if I have to write it myself.
Ha, this is actually a very awesome idea. I wonder what the pricing would need to be, although I can see people doing it for relatively cheap rates if the tasks were somewhat fun (like a band's gig or something).
Eats 100% CPU. Definitely needs a frame limiter (or whatever else is needed).
IDE, OpenOffice, Browser, email client, shell and window manager. That's it. The big ones are the first three and X windows.
Outdoor Furniture in the Yahoo Directory
Pretty sure transmission type has nothing to do with it -- traffic is stop and go in plenty of places where most cars have manual transmissions.

I'm increasingly convinced that it's due to so many drivers optimizing for local minima, at the expense of not just everyone around them, but of themselves thirty seconds later.
What Is Customer Opinion Good For?
Germany to outlaw employers checking out candidates on Facebook, Googling is OK
Build a pdf reader that can replace background/text colours. It would be incredibly useful for many people (including myself) who find black-text-on-white-background unpleasant to read.

The only reader I know that does this is Acrobat Reader, but it's such a huge program for just this little task.
Ways to Successfully Edit Job Postings
I think it's a great idea, but I'm reluctant to try it mainly because my guess is it's filled with other dudes right now..