skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"only positive results" is simply not true, and a dangerous assertion if you want legalization in the US to not just happen, but to stick.

In the Netherlands, we're still struggling with tons of unforeseen side-effects of partial legalization (like a excessive alcohol abuse amongst teenagers, since drugs are no longer particularly "cool", and alcohol is much cheaper and more available). The net result has been positive, but it's not without its problems.

As a results, there is still a lot of pressure from conservatives to take more repressive measures, and the road to full legalization is blocked by the relations with other countries (not just immediate neighbors, but the entire EU with its wide-open borders and the US that meddles in everyone's business) that take a much less liberal view.

Bottom line is: legalization will create new problems, some of them may be hard to predict. It does not magically solve the problem. It just allows you to focus efforts and resources on the real problems, instead of the side-effects of prohibition.
* if things don't improve soon there's going to be an opening for a mobile browser that specializes in filtering and caching web pages to speed up navigation*

Opera Mini already does this I think.
The unusually high number of comments and upvotes on this post might suggest that a lot of HN readers want to know it's okay if they don't get rich.
Familiar designs that people don't have to learn all over again means that people will focus on the only thing that is different between the sites, which, to me, is great with start-ups who are still struggling with explaining their product.

Experimental designs are for start-ups with traction.
Which is complicated if your product is open source e.g. Firefox and H.264. No matter how low the licence fee, even zero might not be enough depending on the licence terms, open source and royalty payments don't mix.

On the other hand Google, despite already paying H.264 licence fees for itself, has just spent about 200 million dollars on trying to create an open video standard usable by anyone in the form of WebM, so maybe Oracle thinks they can and should pay similar amounts to guarantee an open mobile java.
On an unrelated note, "Belongie" is a fantastic name.

Yes, I know it's French :(
World Population Graphed By Latitude And Longitude
To be fair about the broken link, it does say at the bottom: "Updated June, 2002"
It's too late to switch, I think (and the worst case outcome WRT to that is likely to be as the thread started by lukesandberg notes).

C++ is also an awful choice: unsafe, unmanaged (manual memory management) and rather confused compared to Java (a good example of the Worse is Better vs. Right Thing approaches; Java is a remarkable example of a wildly successful language done using the latter philosophy).

C++ has its places (e.g. VLSI design and simulation) but I don't think most of what most people want to do on a smartphone outside of games is in that domain.
Hey, I meant to be sarcastic, but actually you are right! The smartphones and tablets are already here, lots of them running Android, and Microsoft really is an underdog.
Why not? There appears to be both a mapper and a reducer, so...
> Apple is a monopoly in the sense that I can't drag and drop mp3 files into my iphone.

Having a hard time with this one. Can you please explain how this makes Apple a monopoly?
They may not be an underdog, but my image of them is Sideshow Bob walking around surrounded by rakes. Some of their products have launched with a reverberating thud, and their marketing campaigns make me cringe.

They are screwing up a lot, and they don't come across as great innovators (nor as people adapting to the world they're in) rather than a company who is still relying on the same core platforms they did a handful of years, if not a decade, ago. Granted, their corporate structure is different than, say, Apple's, and I don't want another Apple, but they feel gridlocked.

I don't know which term is the most apt for this, but it's not a gratuitous one.

I'm a Windows user myself, but I can't help but feel that I am putting my eggs in the wrong basket sometimes.
Generators actually allow you to decouple code in more ways than normal functions and classes let you. See the "Why functional programming matters" paper, or the more practical presentation here:

http://www.dabeaz.com/generators/Generators.pdf
You haven't printed any of the other numbers. Read the spec more carefully. You still need to print 1, 2, 4, etc.
Getting very tired of the "Apple is a monopoly" meme. Just because people keep repeating it doesn't make it even remotely true. Being a control freak in your own home doesn't make you a dictator for the rest of the world.
World's First 3-D Porno: Coming Soon to a Theater Near You
Relevance? Are you the same guy telling people "I went to high school with that chick" when looking at porn with comment features?
Some of the other talks at the Creativity World Forum look interesting too. Steve Wozniak's talk, for example.

The Cleese video is down, but many of the other videos, such as Wozniak's, are still up.

EDIT: It appears all the videos on the site are abridged. The Cleese talk on Youtube is probably the same as appeared here before the video was removed.
Very cool, something I'll try utilitize internally for processing large files.
I've been trying to convince people to design and code for mobile devices first for a while now. I'm always amazed at the corporate resistance against this. I'm so forwarding this, swearing included. Good thing is that in my startup I do whatever i want.
Does it highlight the current message?
The one thing I don't see anyone mentioning, if there's anyone that can afford to defend themselves, it's Google.

Oracle kinda picked on the wrong company if Google decides they want to fight.
Chen qiao en-official website  what would you like to see?
http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/gpw/index.jsp

I posted this as a comment on that page, but it's worth showing here too. It's an interactive map of population on earth as a heatmap - basically both of those graphs mashed together, at very high resolution.
15 Ultimate Features of Chrome 6
I used to restrict to 4hr/day max and stick to it.
Non blackberry phones with blackberry email client
I completely agree, Windows 7 is amazing. After being forced to use OSX for the last two months, I can't wait to get back. The windowing system is better in Windows 7, multi-monitor is easier (Windows have their own menus), task bar works better, battery life is better, look and feel is better.

I will throw in Zune as the best portable media player as well. After having an iphone and using itunes. Zune is far better then the lastest generation ipods. Super slick and easy ui, better integrated store, also the zune desktop app is better. Subscription service is definitely the way to go. I pay my $13 a month music tax and can have any song I want, I haven't listened to this much music ever.
A lot of people will hit The Back Button if you don't use a sans serif font? Come on.
who knows! You should add your contact info to your profile, btw.
These companies are really unlikely to ever get acquired, how, other than with a loan, are the investors meant to get liquidity on their investment?
As a minor footnote, sans serif DOES NOT improve readability. That's a myth. A nice serif typeface such as Baskerville is just as readable as Helvetica & friends.
The book "The High Cost of Free Parking" has been out for a few years now. Here's a good review from around when it was published: http://www.raisethehammer.org/article/072
There is no such thing as form. There is only function. Function follows function. Function informs function. So that what we see is a fractal of function, a function of function.
Brain's wiring: More like the Internet than a pyramid?
One good thing about this - its nice to see that this generation can put down their tweeters and actually try to make something happen!
There are some things I don't want to see coming flying towards me across a darkened theater.
This may be true but I'm not sure it really excuses 'incomprehensible front page'. As you say "loopt on the other hand has been around for a while and has 4 different products (loopt, star, pulse, mix). each one has a different purpose". What on earth do these things mean, what are their purposes, etc, etc. There's no telling from their (wonderfully minimalist) front page.

it's an interesting problem when people who aren't aware of your various apps fail to understand fundamentally what your company does.

I tend to think this is 'they failed to explain what they are'. If you're blaming the victim it's not an interesting problem, it's just a problem.
Love this! (man here) and I think it's a great idea. However, a word of caution: French dating site AdopteUnMec started that way, but then became a "normal" dating site, I think.
Instead we could live in a p2p wonderland, where each node would be responsible for it's own data.

What does this mean? How would I, for instance, retrieve a Wikipedia page?
This entire article is predicated on the premises that 1) Cars are bad, and 2) social engineering (as distinct from punishing crime) is a legitimate function of government.

I deny both and have two other premises: 1) Cars = freedom. 2) The more governments intervene with regulation and taxation, the more they impose upon our freedoms.

Let the market determine how much parking there is. Holding up New York as a virtuous example because parking there is expensive ignores the fact that New York has the highest cost of living of any city in the US, and is also the most heavily taxed and regulated.
Yes, when the attacker has control of the router, the user is a helpless victim. The next step will probably be a man in the middle attack for online banking.

Maybe, even if the user changed the default password, he probably stored the new credentials in the browser.
Ask HN: Startups using Python happy without Rails?
Which web app (or other) startups are using Python (+django/pylons/etc) and don't feel a desire to use ruby+rails, or any slight regret that they didn't go down the path of Rails?
A Neighborhood of Infinity: Constraining Types with Regular Expressions
How was this allowed on HN?
http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI
What is with the non-stop vulgarity? Trying to be "hip" somehow?

Your message is lost when one can't respect how you are saying it.
Amusing, but only until you really think about it.

Java was always a restricted platform. Sun's lawsuit with Microsoft established that.

Google is hypocritical, but they haven't even come close to the "evil" of Microsoft in the glory days of "The Evil Empire." Microsoft used to have secret monopoly agreements with people. Google are openly disclosing their agreements and taking the flak.

Apple isn't a monopoly unless your definition of monopoly is "Controlling their own platform." Do they monopolize the Internet? No. Do they monopolize the market for phones? No. For phones that can access the Internet? No. Apple doesn't hold a monopoly and definitely hasn't done anything to abuse their so-called monopoly.

For example, MSFT shipped IE for free and killed Netscape. Apple shipped iTunes for free on the Mac and killed... Who exactly? Not even the celebrated Panic was killed as a company, just one product for a niche computer. Now Apple won't allow Flash on the iPad. Let me know when Adobe closes its doors.

Finally, the word "underdog" is not synonymous with the phrase "also-ran." Does anyone really think the bully that has gotten fat and can no longer beat up the new kid in the neighbourhood is now an underdog?
On paper, serifs can be printed with enough resolution to aid in readability. On screens however, serifs are rendered too coarse and distract. That's why with current screen resolutions, sans serif works better for screen type.
This is like saying that Kim Il Jong is a monopoly on the World Stage. If you want hyperbole, Apple is a Dictator ruling mercilessly over its subjects. But not a monopoly.
The internet: is it changing the way we think?
World's Most Advanced Spin Cycle Class - Real Life Game
Ask HN: Where is the line b/w wired and wireless in net neutrality?
A few questions. What gets classified as Wired and wireless? Suppose I use fiber to my wifi router is the wording twisted enough to count it as wireless? If that can be treated as wired, then don't you think even 10 years down the line most of our data will flow through fiber? Coz at Office, Home, Hotels, Airports etc. we would be using fiber till the wifi router...
Is the rate of growth of wireless bandwidth so much higher than the rate of growth of fiber bandwidth that we will switch to a very wireless centric internet?? Or will we use fiber till the wifi router in the future?
emacs isn't suitable for almost all computer users.

Try to imagine telling a non-hacker manager that all their spreadsheet work needs to be done in a command-line text editor/kitchen sink emulator.

It's always easy to forget just how much of a minority hackers actually are - there's far far more computer users out there who aren't hackers than are. Orders of magnitude more.
Everyone has a smartphone

Fuck. That. Shit.

You know who always says this? People with smart phones. It's amazing how having a smart phone convinces you that everyone has one. You also are convinced that they have your exact model of smart phone. Buy an iPhone? Guess what, suddenly everyone has one and you should be writing iPhone apps. Android? No way, nobody has one of those.

Mobile is definitely an interesting area to look at, but always trying to be on the cusp of the next big thing just means you'll spin your wheels a lot chasing stuff that doesn't pan out. Just ask everyone who touted Wave as "The thing you need to f-ing know right now!!!1!11!"

Don't be scared of getting passed over by the next hotness. Just look at all the plenty of companies making money on stuff that's old and tired. Wanna make money? Look at email! Groupon, Mailchimp, and a whole host of other companies are making money hand over fist. Try tell them about how email is dead.
Apple actually annexed the open podcasting community with the podcast section of its iTunes store. They also managed to become a near-monopoly in the MP3 player market.
As the article points out, local governments already engage in social engineering, in the form of requiring public businesses to provide parking spaces. In fact, the article didn't advocate any government action at all, other than perhaps deregulating how private businesses are allowed to use their real estate. I don't think you understand Tyler Cowen's background, much less the article itself, if you think he takes social engineering by the government as a premise.

Also, I dare say your premises themselves are contradictory. Cars are only useful, and only provide freedom, where there are copious paved streets and freeways; there are only copious paved streets and freeways where governments in the 20th century redesigned the landscape around the automobile, all but requiring its use for most Americans whether they want it or not. The amount of regulation and taxation required to keep the infrastructure functional for motorists and all but useless for everyone else gets in the way of our freedom and safety, to say nothing of the other negative externalities.

Your right to operate a vehicle ends at your property line. Past that, it's a privilege--and in my opinion, one which has been abused.
Apple could only have a monopoly in the mobile market if I couldn't walk into a shop and buy a competing product.

In fact, if I walk into a mobile phone shop, I've overwhelmed with competing products and can hardly see the iPhone.
could be as simple as a group then. maybe a fan page/community
It doesn't appear to be available, but there are some other interesting Cleese talks and excerpts on the topic of creativity:

http://www.cornell.edu/video/?videoID=475
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuzIu62xswg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yyUhlaSJ28
To be forward looking regarding OS marketshare, you need to look at what college students are running. When I went to college in the 90s, it was overwhelmingly Microsoft. We ran DOS, then Windows 3.11, then Windows 95. Microsoft got us hooked with mostly free (pirated) software and by the time we got to the workforce, a Microsoft monopoly was a foregone conclusion.

Apple is overwhelmingly capturing college marketshare. At some universities they are more than 50% of the market now. The workers of tomorrow will be comfortable in a Mac environment, not a PC one. By 2020 I fully expect Mac dominance of the corporate market as well. The retraining costs would be too high otherwise.
Stephen Hawking's Three Big Ideas
Dupe: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1553937
Scientists identify DNA that may contribute to each person's uniqueness
Resented Apple Fanboy, nothing to read here.
Antoine Dodson: From local news item to Internet sensation
Are you kidding me? The single biggest fault with the Windows UI is that any event can pop up and take focus from the current task. Do you know how many times I've accidentally rebooted a computer during a critical task because Windows popped up and told me updates were installed and Windows needed to restart just as I hit enter?

This is just horrible, horrible UI design. A system notification or request to reboot should NEVER, EVER take focus. This is one of the many way that Windows punishes users every day.
because you can write off anything you pay workers as a business expense

That makes no sense - you still need to pay, and the money comes from the payroll budget.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/budget/7847...
Best way to learn Chinese ( Mandarin )
Can anyone suggest the cheapest and the quickest way to start learning conversational Chinese online?
I would like to see possibility to open the link not just comments.
Ask HN: Could Android offer an API identical to the iOS?
Would it be legal for Google to "reverse engineer" the iOS API so that iPhone apps can be ported to Android seamlessly? That way, iPhone apps could run on Android and vice versa. Would it be a good thing? I'm asking because it seems that Oracle's lawsuit might force Android to drop Java.
[In reply to illumini8] Doesn't the iPhone push a non-modal (or maybe it's modal) dialog EVERY time you get a text message? Or is this an option most users have enabled? Not only that, but there is no notion of "focus" on iPhone, so it's even worse. Maybe that's just me being kooky though.
The Case agains Rate Limiting and traffic throttling
We carry quality products
With extremely competitive prices, we sell only quality products. Many products we sell are manufactured by true OEM factories and other famous name brands to bring you the best quality products in the market today.
Living in Cambridge, MA and having read the zoning by-laws here, I believe the intent is two-fold:

1. To control density of housing to preserve the character of the various neighborhoods. We have very high-density housing areas (small triple-deckers with minimal yards) as well as other neighborhoods with large single family detached housing and large (for a city) yards. The former has much lower off-street parking requirements than the latter, and I think for good reason. A city should ideally have housing stock suitable for a range of income and wealth levels, and putting the onus of providing off-street parking onto the inexpensive housing drives up the cost. Let that stock optimize for less convenient but more affordable and "force" the more expensive housing stock to provide some or all of its own parking demand on-site.

Absent this regulation, you might find less expensive housing projects without on-site parking being proposed next to expensive SFH sites and you'd start to lose the appeal [and value] of the old neighborhoods with their single-family homes. (Think of a restaurant with every other table as the smoking section.)

2. Indirectly, this regulation slows the growth rate of demand for on-street parking, which can be tremendous in some of our neighborhoods. Suppose that you were a long-time resident of an established neighborhood with moderately tight parking. Would you prefer that the new condo high-rise a block away be required to provide on-site/off-street parking, or would you happily back the project knowing that an extra 100 cars would be coming to your neighborhood once completed?

The regulations are largely a codification of the above, as the voters are the incumbent residential property owners and not the land developers.

(As a libertarian, I will also observe that there doesn't need to be a market failure to create regulation, but in this case even I have to admit that some good comes from the regulation, even though I now have to waste time reading the by-laws to determine what type of garage structure I'm permitted to build on my own property.)
I find serif's easier to read if they're large enough (Readability does it right I think, fairly large serif text).
http://education.ti.com/educationportal/sites/US/productCate...
While I agree with the "free work" thing, Oracle doesn't necessarily have all the great hackers - lots of those have already left.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MM

mm, symbol for millimetre, a unit of length equal to one thousandth of a metre

$MM, symbol for million dollars
Yes but Microsoft's motto was always "a computer on every desktop". Nothing in there about "don't be evil".

For example, MSFT shipped IE for free and killed Netscape

I was working in the industry at the time, and I know exactly what killed Netscape. My then employer spent substantial amount of money, on behalf of itself and its clients, on Netscape server products. It sounds unthinkable now, but there really was a time when people would spend 6 or 7 figures on web, or mail, or directory server software. Version 2 of Enterprise Server to this day I still say was one of the best webservers ever written. Version 3 was a dog, and we, along with everyone else, went elsewhere.

Remember that Netscape Navigator was always free for most users...
I'd really like this to succeed, but Oracle and NetApp´s legal wrangling is a serious problem (if Oracle is willing to assert patents against Google, why not against OpenSolaris? And NetApp is already fighting over ZFS...)
I stand by my assertion that this is a myth. Maybe for small font sizes it matters, but on modern displays, on medium font sizes, in the age of sub-pixel rendering, it shouldn't.
There are a few good points but this guy goes into lala land with his extreme Apple fanboyism. This guy drank some serious kool aid.
I'm willing to bet that the average person can't even tell the difference between Serif and Sans Serif typefaces. Not that this will have an effect on their self-conscious, but it's definitely worth something.
Cross posting but relevant I believe:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1604820 (techniques to prioritize between projects and inside a project)
I have a friend who works for a running publication (and is a long distance runner), and she noted that Vibram got kinda lucky with this design. Born to Run was published after they introduced their shoes. While Vibram's marketing department certainly did their part, without the book (and associated media), one wonders if they would be so popular.

As an aside, both my friend and her husband (who sometimes runs barefoot) said they didn't like the shoes. Since the glove-like fit actually forces the toes a bit further apart, they prefer lightweight "natural" trainers like these: http://tinyurl.com/yagubt5
Rebel Alliance - protecting Java from Oracle?
Converting JavaScript to CoffeeScript (Screencast)
I got an iPhone, and decided never to buy any iThing ever again.

So, I assume that you'll be buying competing devices from other vendors for your future computing, mobile phone and portable media consumption needs?

If you answered yes, THAT is what makes Apple a non-monopoly.
The Many Data Hats a Company can Wear
Top Secret America: A Washington Post Investigation
Ease of Doing Business Ranking
Vehicle Control with Neural Networks