skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's fun to chuckle at the mis-punditry on display here but the author had no idea how strong Apple's product line would become. Jobs had a clearer picture. A balanced article would have talked more about the drivers and risks, but that's no fun to read.

Even today the question still remains, did the stores drive the product success or the other way around? But nobody even bothers to ask. The success bias ("All's well that ends well.") buries all mistakes. That's why business people learn more from failure than success.
A tool I've found handy is the multi-lingual Text to Speech program at
http://text-to-speech.imtranslator.net/speech.asp

It's got pretty good voices and it can speak your text at 6 different speeds in 10 languages in a male or female voice.
Hence the split. It's still likely to beat the crap out of sorting and it might not be needed, depending on the data. I do wonder what the dataset is that makes for such tiny, short lines.
Sounds like it's going to be expensive (then again, a lot of bike accessories are). I'm very happy with my CycleMeter app ($4.99 in the App Store) and putting my phone in a secure pocket while I cycle.

If I was "serious" about cycling (I cycle daily to get to and from the office, so I'm a frequent cycler but that's the extent of it), then this thing looks pretty neat.
In Nemerle (another ML dialect for .NET), you can use _ to that end. Syntax for local functions/lambdas, all equivalent (but suited for different situations, syntactically speaking):

def foo(x) { x + 5 }
fun(x) { x + 5}
(x) => x + 5
lambda x -> x + 5
_ + 5

I find I miss the _ syntax more than most syntactical sugar. I don't know how often I have to write things like lambda x: x.foo in Python, where _.foo would serve the same purpose.
I have to say that the BBC news has more spelling and grammar errors per thousand words than most blogs I read.

... now let me try desperately to bring this back on topic by saying that I think the thread above blaming Britain for grammatical prescriptivism is way off. Strunk and White popularized some prescriptions unknown in the UK (such as not using "which" in the role of "that") and in my thoroughly anecdotal experience Americans spell [by the conventions of the country they're in] significantly better than Brits do.
I hate to make a meta comment and I'm not trying to slander the author at all, but dang dude, we got it all here: newsletter signup on site entry, press relations button, request for speaking, ebooks. I almost expected a free chance to win an iPod somewhere while I was reading.

I found the material lacking in quality, but it had its moments. My biggest impression was just being overwhelmed with the way the blog was integrated. Hats off.
The article was written based on a series of interviews. Smart people don't fool themselves by ignoring the problem or acting as if the problem does not exist. Most people know that the problem exists but they also know all the other things around those problems ( constraints ) and it can get overwhelming to them. For instance, they will come up with a solution and at the same instant also see all the problems associated with that solution - the loop continues.
Suppose someone is good at solving a category of problems.

He will solve all his own problems in that category, and fewer outside it.

So of course, after he's spent a long time trying to solve his own problems, the remainder will be ones he's bad at.

But for other people, lots of their problems will be the kinds he's good at.
I wouldn't point this out in a discussion on any other topic (honest), but you mean "forgoing" (going without), not "foregoing" (previous).
Pundits are mostly a bunch of self-proclaimed experts acting as if they had a crystal ball.

Nontheless, punditry is important. We have to trust certain people, trust they're smarter and informed than the average.
I think all this talk about CDs, software, etc. is missing the point. If you want to learn a language, surround yourself with people who are speaking it. By far your best bet is to go to a country where it's spoken. Second best -- but it's a distant second best -- is to hang out in communities that speak it.

Lessons are useful but not remotely sufficient for learning a language. North Americans, frankly, don't get this at all; we think that knowing a second language means we took it in college. The fact is that people who've studied a language only through coursework (and associated tools) almost never reach the point of being able to understand conversations between native speakers or hold their own in ordinary conversation. It's really a sort of pathetic joke how badly that system works. Europeans, on the other hand, pick up languages in their drinking water; damn you, Europeans!

If you're at all able to set aside a few months to devote yourself to learning Arabic and go to an Arabic speaking country, your learning will be greatly accelerated. Failing that, here's a trick I've been planning to use for years: find a senior citizens' centre devoted to the community that speaks the language. Old people in nursing homes are often starved for attention, and they're hardwired to help younger people learn.

Finally, you have one major advantage: you're trying to learn the language of a reviled minority. (I'm assuming you're in the US, though it's true to a lesser extent in some other places.) That's a huge act of respect toward people who are used to being disrespected. If you're halfway sincere, it should be easy to meet people who would be happy to help you learn. If I were you I'd find out if there are any Iraqi ex-pats in your area. They'd likely be well educated. Not only could you learn a lot, I bet you'd make some friends for life.
Lots of useful shell scripting tips or Useless Use of Cat Award
Point noted. None of the items you mentioned ( newsletter sign up, eBooks ) are required to access the content on the blog. In fact, none of the eBooks require you to enter an email address.

I am sad to see that you focused on these things rather than 1500 other articles on the blog.

C'est la vie :)
TL;DR: Arabic is a bitch to pick up on your own. Take a class and then build on that.

Okay, so you've picked one of the five most difficult languages in the world for English learners to pick up ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_difficult_language_to_lear... ) -- I have a lot of friends who speak Arabic to various levels, and every single one of them did it through a combination of university classes and immersion classes in the area.

For some knowledge that you probably know, Arabic is more a collection of languages than a language itself. Regardless of the dialect you eventually want to learn, however, you're best off learning Modern Standard Arabic first. The tricky part, however, is that it's more difficult than many of the dialects, which have dropped off many of the classical forms. However, no matter the dialect, you're going to want to watch TV and read the newspaper, so off to the hardest bit comes first. :)

With Modern Standard Arabic, your best bet is unfortunately to get in a class or get a tutor. I personally have never heard of much luck with self-study, because there are so many traps you can fall into when trying to creatively use the language. If your interest is read-only, you might be okay, but listening, speaking, and writing may be too much for self-study.

If self-study is the only option, one route you may want to consider is starting with a simpler related language, Farsi. You'll get the alphabet down, some of the same words, and some of the tricks. It may be easier to start reading Farsi then translate the knowledge to Arabic for a self-studier.

I learned Spanish (lapsed intermediate) and am learning Turkish. After three years of on and off self-study, I took a month-long class in Istanbul, and did more there than the previous three years, even living with a native speaker. With that base, I'm able to progress in my self-study.
Entrenched in what? What's the compelling reason not to just walk away from your Facebook account? The scrabble game you're right in the middle of? Photo metadata? Messages about important parties?

Try just quitting Facebook cold-turkey. You'd be surprised how easy it is, and you just might like it.
Or in IronPython:

currentNetTypes = sorted(
sum(
list(asm.getExportedTypes())
for asm in System.AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies()
if 'Version=4.0.0.0' in asm.FullName),
lambda a, b: cmp(len(a.Name), len(b.Name))
)

Clean, but I love how the |> operator in F# serves to flatten code like this.
Use Pimsleur's language-learning program.

I learned Spanish to a moderate degree with Pimsleur's programs, and I also learned some French. Planning on taking on Russian and Chinese some time soon.

I highly recommend the Pimsleur method. I don't have much experience, but I did try the Michel Thomas tapes before it. The difference is that Michel Thomas teaches the rules of the language (verb conjugation, etc.). Pimsleur doesn't ever, ever go there. The whole Pimsleur course is built on speaking in the language and you saying sentences in the language, over and over again. It never tries to analyze why things are said a certain way, it trusts you to just learn by rote repetition the important words, and slowly begin to develop an ear for how the language works. This is how languages are learned naturally when growing up, and I found that it works brilliantly for me.

One thing though: with Spanish, I have several people I can regularly converse in Spanish with, which is very helpful. If you don't, you'll probably have to do other things (like read newspapers in the language, read books, etc.) to make up for it.
> As was pointed out with me, the right planes don't loose value/much value and so once you own a plane your running costs are low.

Unless you're flying more than 100 hours a year, renting is almost always cheaper than owning. Consider a simple single engine Cessna 172. The per hour operating costs are:
- Gas, $42.5 (8.5 gallon/hour, $5.00/gallon)
- Oil, $5 ($250 oil change every 50 hours)
- Engine replacement, $7.50 ($15000 overhaul every 2000 hours)
Total = $55/hour

The fixed costs per year are:
- Annual inspection, $1000
- Insurance, $1000
- Tie-down/hanger, $1200-2400 ($100-200 month)
Total = $3200-4400/year

Assuming 100 hours per year the cost is $87-99/hour. This is an over simplified conservative estimate, it doesn't include other routine maintenance such as tires, breaks, transponder check, pitot-static check, ELT check as well as unforeseen items (radios, starters, vacuum pump, etc).

Renting a Cessna 172 is about $90-120/hour.

By the way, 100 hours per year is a lot. Most recreational pilots are lucky to fly half that per year.
Watch Liverpool FC Vs Arsenal live premier league on 15 August
Liverpool FC Vs Arsenal live premier league on 15 August 2010 .Barclays English Premier League (EPL) Liverpool FC Vs Arsenal on 15-08-2010Arsenal Vs Liverpool FC from 15:00 until 17:00 (GMT)Arsenal Vs Liverpool FC match will be broadcast on channels such as BBC and ABC.
Banning Oracle from Windows won't happen with the EU sueing MS to oblivion. And I think Google banning oracle "from the internet aka its search engine" would do a lot more harm. Anyway I think the reasons of Oracle are still unknown so we just have to see what happens.
There is something I don't get yet (my ignorance): how this mess will affect the other languages that runs on the JVM (like clojure, scala, etc)?
I think what they were looking for was a trojan horse product, something you buy and then end up buying more products as a result. Think about the iPod, iTunes on Windows is meh...you end up getting an Airport, but eventually a lot of those people ended up buying Macs.
If you only want the size of the object itself -- not the things it references -- then you don't actually need to instantiate them to know this. You can reflect on the fields of the type and calculate its memory footprint that way.
Good read. While I still like the idea and performance of Xen, the integration and up-to-date versioning you get with KVM on modern distributions is hard to beat.
Then that's not being very smart is it? If your awareness is what causes distress then you are definitely doing it wrong and should switch up your mental model of what is an acceptable solution to some problem. Plus, I don't think I have ever heard of awareness among smart people leading to mental paralysis.
I disagree with the advice about an institute. Learning in a group is often preferable than learning on your own. Yes, you go at a set pace, but that pace is often faster than you could go on your own. You have built in access to a native speaker who can help you avoid falling into traps you don't even know exist.
a bloom filter may give you false negatives (i.e., you think you've seen it before, but you didn't).
Or do you mean, use a bloom filter (~2-3MB, so that it fits in the L3 cache) and look in the mmapped hash table only if the bloom filter indicates that you may have seen the line already?

That sounds at least halfway feasible to me - you assume 1/3 duplicates, and 20 bytes per line, you'd get ~8GB worth of hashtable entries (i.e., if you want the hashtable 70% filled to limit the amount of collisions, you'd need 12GB of virtual memory to back the hashtable, but only rarely access it since you're using the Bloom filter).

(To the person who downvoted it: can you say why you don't like the idea?)
I don't think the other players on the Java "ecosystem" will be much affected by the lawsuit. Pretty much every other Java implementation passed the JCP TCK, and so is indemnified against patent lawsuits. There might be some impact in developers mindshare, but I doubt it will be significant (most devs in the enterprise world - the only market Oracle cares about - won't even know about the lawsuit).
Consoul (Lasse Gjertsen 2009)
Exact numbers seems to not be in reviews, strangely enough... Which probably means they are bad.

This has some values that supports around a second. (Browsing a book, PDFs are probably slower).

http://kindle2buy.com/?p=137

Frustrating for me; E Ink is probably more readable than Pixel Qi. But I want to browse code and generated PDFs from documentation etc.
Apple manager arrested in million dollar kickback scheme
0) Get your data into Amazon's cloud, and rent a server on EC2 with 68GB of memory. Spot instances are a buck an hour.

1) Do sort -u --buffer-size=60GB FILE. You'll sort it all in memory, and that'll be a great speedup.

It's easier to scale up than scale out if you have the money, and your dataset fits in memory, so don't bother with Hadoop for something as simple as that. What do you want to do after you get the uniques?
I don't think nearly enough credit is being given to the advances they made with the Mac following Jobs' return. The original iMacs were a big deal, and they've been nailing the all-in-one desktop ever since. Likewise with their laptops. Switching to Intel and supporting dual boot, also a huge deal.

iPods were definitely a huge growth driver for the Mac, but Apple without the iPod or the benefit of Vista would still be far from dead.
The marketing-stuff-that-you-think-is-lame aside, I'd be interested to hear which parts of the article were lacking in quality. Do you disagree with some of the content? If so based on your previous HN comments I'd love to hear your thoughts so we can start a discussion. Or did you not like the writing style, and are simply pointing at that and saying, "You suck" but using bigger words?
This is a bunch of BS (just ask Ted Stevens and his fishing buddies). We might have fewer small plane accidents if people realized that flying a plane isn't as simple as it seems. Just knowing how to operate the controls isn't enough. It's also a matter of experience and the sound judgment that results from experience.
Another factor is that people literally aren't aware of their personal problems, only of some of distant consequences. If anything, smartness acts to cover up the evidence via rationalization.

Friends know about some of them, but they tend to discuss these only in one's absence ("the problem with X is that he is always [blank]", etc.)
Installing ad-blockers could be a nice sideline business for those computer stores that offer "Virus and spyware removal - only $30" --- they could extend it to "Virus, spyware, and ad removal - only $40"
I've pretty much always felt that there should be no central authority. I don't know much about the actual protocols in use, but it's my understanding that they're single-signer.

What I would prefer is a multiple-signer system. Each resource can have a list of signatures indicating entities that trust the resource. Each entity can have a list of other entities they trust. Then to verify a resource, you search the web of trust until you hit max_separation while looking for a path from you (source) to the resource (sink).

So to sign my payment processor, I'd self-sign and have visa sign. I'd get a personal signature from the .com authority. You trust visa if you're interested in payment, and you trust the .com authority if you're interested in identity. There would be no difference between authentication and authorization by default, but that would be easy to patch in via specialized authorities.

If some entity turns out to be overly trusting, it would be trivial to replace, since all trust is directed. Just add a new, trustworthy, intermediary. The downside is that much more computation would be required to find the links, but I'm confident that would remain manageable because of the human element; we wouldn't include more trustworthy entities than bureaucracy allows.

There are holes in this scheme, sure. It might even be a subset of the current technology. But I'm fairly certain it'd be a superset of the current practise.
The End Of Stuff
Here's the official GNU C book: http://www.htu.tugraz.at/~past/ctut/ctut.pdf
Your latter point is a tautology. You win arguments by making really good ones and gaining an advantage over those you don't. By the measure of "able to win arguments" the former viewpoint is better than the latter. If you're using other measures to evaluate viewpoints, you shouldn't do so in the framework of arguments.

Regarding this particular argument and how difficult it is to value ones that sound valid: at the time, this argument was quite cogent and I would have agreed with it. The author made a well-researched, well-formulated, convincing argument. He (along with many others, I'm sure) was later proven wrong, but at the time of the argument, he had a convincing case. Nothing wrong with that, in my opinion.

Often old articles with predictions that turned out to be horribly wrong come up on here. I think that whether the person turned out to be right or wrong is not very relevant. When you make an argument you are stating your opinion at that time, and so the quality of the argument should be measured in that context. That isn't to say that you can just make wild predictions without risk of losing credibility; again, your prediction can and should be measured at the time you make it, and I think that baseless ones should be critiqued appropriately.
TLDR: attack learning a language from as many angles and media as possible, multitask language learning with other goals (walking/exercise, travel, movies to see etc).
--
I've studied over 10 languages, and have known 5 fluently at one point or another. I wrote a post about my 30,000ft tips here: http://cosmicrays.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/language-learning...

As for closer to the ground tips WRT study resources, I like the Before You Know It flash card system for getting the basic building blocks: http://www.byki.com/. They have an iPhone app, which is key; I manage to learn a few words in obscure nooks and crannies of times. I also find as many language learning podcasts as possible, put them on my iPod and listen to them when I take extended walks. I usually take a course or two, not necessarily for the coursework or diploma but to keep my study goals on track. After I get some basics, I engineer a situation where I need to speak the language, whether it's an extended vacation, working abroad, a dedicated language partner, or something more creative (I once volunteered at a kindergarten!). I've tried immersion without getting a few basics beforehand, and while it may get some to their goals more quickly, I found the frustration too great and found investing a few weeks or months of prep before trying immersion more fruitful. Additional supplemental material: movies/tv (with in-language subtitles), children's books, switching your electronics to the language, romantic partner, news articles....

Arabic is especially hard IMHO, I've taken a handful of Arabic (MSA) courses, studied by immersion, and even worked professionally with Arabic text (machine translation research). When I started to learn German from scratch as a native English speaker I still knew more German than Arabic simply due to cognates and ease of reading. Doh! Good luck!
The whole premise of the article is false dilemma. It's asking why "smart people" haven't solved "their own problems" when by definition "their own problems" are whatever problems they haven't solved.
Why Does College Cost So Much?
Facebook succeeded because it's timing was perfect. It was released right about the time when internet officially went mainstream. Drops in high speed internet prices combined with a crop of Web 2.0 applications promising a more dynamic web caused people to digitize a lot of their lives.

Facebook was able to ride this wave by marketing itself as an exclusive club. It was you and your friends home away from home. It beat out MySpace because of its focus on "networks", allowing entire schools of students to quickly have contact with each other.

I think a Facebook killer is unlikely, unless there is another wave of increased internet activity (which I don't see happening any time soon). However, niche social websites are on the grow and are gaining with popularity. Perhaps if enough of these are created, it'll engulf Facebook in popularity. But then Facebook could simply revert back to its "school" niche that it used to focus on three years ago.
Gapminder: Unveiling the beauty of statistics for a fact based world view.
Likely the best comment you've ever posted... Did you take it or someone else?
It's an odd format - the results of author pontification presented as "mini-research".

I found little to no hard data, little to no justification for the conclusions reached, and as a bonus, this was one of those rare cases when you can correctly say that the author was begging the question.
From the article:

"And was he [RMS] not right about the Java Trap? How many times must he be right before developers listen?"

He who has ears...
I'm gonna hack your face to pieces! (jk, don't call the police)
Also, dilemma is not what author thinks it means.
Software patents are a spur to innovation by being an antispur to greed-touching systems.

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.

The best thing that happened to Linux was the BSD fight.

It's not exactly clear that we're overall better off than we would be if everyone used BSD instead.

The best thing that happened to the web was the Microsoft antitrust fight.

Because it undid part of the damage that Microsoft had spent the last 15 years causing.
That's quite true.

Also true is that some craftspeople have an awareness of which details matter, and which don't.

Others do not.

In the end, though, it's a matter of what problems you're trying to solve, what value you are looking to create, and for whom.

One person's craftsmanship is another's premature optimization, and vice versa.
OK the term "mini-research" refers to research done in less than six weeks and the method used was a series of interviews. I am not selling the research data only presenting the conclusions from the research.

You are welcome to make your own conclusions of course :)