skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
For good, up-to-date information you really have to go to the source materials, or learn directly from other people. Everything else is probably going to be out of date.

For a basic description of the architecture, and detailed descriptions of the opcodes, read the Intel architecture manuals themselves. They're big because there's a lot to know. You don't have to read it all at the same time.
http://www.intel.com/products/processor/manuals/

For very detailed information on the memory hierarchy, read Ulrich Drepper's "What every programmer should know about memory" series on LWN. Though even this is probably going to fall out of date soon, as it was written in 2007. http://lwn.net/Articles/250967/

For a model of how fast the instructions are, the best I know of is Agner Fog's instruction tables:
http://www.agner.org/optimize/

I'm not an expert, but in my experience architecture experts seem to learn through experience and by absorbing knowledge from the people around them. You have to be willing to conduct your own experiments, but you also have to be cautious in the conclusions you draw because there are so many interrelated factors.

There is a lot of tribal knowledge floating around about how to optimize assembly. The Intel manuals capture a lot of it in the optimization reference manual in particular. By reading that you'll learn the details of branch prediction, things to avoid like partial register stalls, etc.

At Google (where I work) there are guys who are optimizing at the assembly level. Some guy will post a specific routine he's trying to optimize to a mailing list, and it will go back and forth between a handfull of expert-level people throwing in ideas. There was recently a thread about the performance difference between movdqa and movdqu, wondering what the performance difference is. It seems to vary based on the architecture (Core2 vs Atom, etc.) and whether the read is crossing a cache line etc. etc.

There's just a lot to know, and I doubt anybody knows it all.
(Disclaimer: I work at Salesforce)

We at SFDC hear a lot about offers to businesses of "your own private cloud", which is essentially marketing jargon for something very un-cloud-like: running software locally, on your own servers, while you're completely responsible for the entire operation. It's a grossly disingenuous hijacking of the "cloud" terminology that I've found promotes confusion.

Most of the other responses here would match my own definition of the cloud: software, offered as a service, where all the underpinnings (data center management, software updates, redundancies, reliability) are abstracted away from you. The key is that you only need two things to access a cloud resource:

A web browser, preferably != IE6
An internet connection

When I explain the cloud to people who don't read HN, I usually make a comparison to Gmail and MS Office. You access Gmail through your web browser, and there's no local software to download. When Google releases a new feature or a bugfix or a security patch, there's no action required on your end. You're simply up to date the next time you connect.

Contrast that with MS Office, which comes on a CD/DVD, requires a local install process, and needs to be constantly patched for features and security. All of the work to maintain that software falls to you, the end user.
The iWatch Is Real: It's the New iPod Nano [PIC]
How to pick up and carry your iMac G5
-e robots=off

However aren't they copyrighted?!
Wow! Looks like some great info. Thanks.
There's an interesting supply issue in your example, as well. I mean, those were MIT courses after all, produced mostly by tenured faculty paid to teach students enrolled at MIT, not DIY courses produced by freelance instructors on the internet. Now the ratio of how many students can be taught by one instructor does go up greatly with something like OCW, but it seems we still need some sort of system where the people producing and updating that material have jobs that let them do so.

(If we massively shrink higher education, we'll also need some alternate way of paying people to do scientific research, since currently universities are the source of a lot of that as well. But that could at least in principle be decoupled from the education angle, at least for undergrad education.)
Do you really use SFDC as shorthand for SalesForce.com or was that a riff?
If it can block, there's probably a lock.

It's also multiple-producer multiple-consumer, I'm not sure there are lockless implementations even for non-blocking versions of that.
Ed Catmull on Why do successful companies fail and how to avoid it
What part of childhood is he missing?
Whenever I'm making a purchase, I try to think about whether or not I'll still want to use that item in a few years. The way many of us buy new gadgets and throw them in the trash the second the next generation comes out scares me. Food and biodegradables will disappear over time, but the cell phones and laptops we toss in the trash for that next version of Android or iOS will sit in landfills forever, or until someone in a third world country melts it down in a home-made crucible. Even recycling electronics is a gamble--when I went to visit an HP recycling center 5 years ago, they admitted that much of what they reclaim stays in storage or goes otherwise unused because it's not cost-effective. (Maybe things have changed since then).

A history professor of mine once said that the legacy the Greeks and Romans left behind is bronze and marble; the legacy we leave behind will be all plastic.
Yeah and I am very jealous. Fortunately I got into a grad class on symbolic logic which is where I'm getting all of my theory right now.
Graduate is the new undergrad
There is so much wrong with this article, I don't know where to begin... At the beginning he writes:

"My American Enterprise Institute colleague Charles Murray has called for the abolition of college for almost all students. Save it for genuine scholars, he says, and let others qualify for jobs by standardized national tests, as accountants already do."

Then, a little later, he writes:

"The American Council of Alumni and Trustees concluded, after a survey of 714 colleges and universities, 'by and large, higher education has abandoned a coherent content-rich general education curriculum.'"

One of the biggest problems with education in this country, and not just in colleges, is that people only learn what they need to learn for the test (New York State's Regents Exams are a massive testament to this). So, if we need to return to a "content-rich general education curriculum", how does that jive with just studying to pass a standardized national test?

I would argue in favor of the more "content-rich general education curriculum" approach, but what he fails to mention is why curricula have changed so dramatically: Big businesses want people who can "hit the ground running." It is why so many CS departments have abandoned teaching fundamentals, over teaching students how to use version control, for instance. Businesses do not want to spend time teaching people things they "should have learned in college," like version control. Ok, learning version control, which was not part of most CS curricula 20 years ago, should now be part of a CS degree today? So this new class should replace what...? And if not replace a CS class, maybe replace...an English class...? The beginning of a slippery slope.
How can a system of qualification not be elitist? Some pass, some fail, that will never change. Strip the "elitism" out of degrees and all that will happen that another qualification will take its place as the gold standard.
The redis python client already uses an API that maps 1:1 with Redis which makes it simple to read the redis docs and get going.

Store a dictionary:

import redis
r = redis.Redis()
r.hmset('key', dict(foo='bar', n=42))

Store a single value in a dictionary/hash:

r.hset('key', 'foo', 'buz')
Their Macintosh products tend to be really great. I really loved IE5 for Mac and was sorry when they discontinued it. MS Word on the Macintosh always seemed well designed too. I assumed this was because their Macintosh division was long established and very good at what they did, or designing for a platform they did not control brought Microsoft's true design talents.
Both links are wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_Elses_Problem
I don't see any economic forces that would trigger a burst. In fact, I see most entry-level jobs demanding more education now than ever before.

People aren't getting jobs because they didn't get enough education, not because they got too much.
Maybe they should end it in High Schools first. Also, a lot of colleges use the athletic program to pay for things. They are basically pro-sports with an attached school.
And thanks to Flash being rammed into it without any choice on my part it's the fastest browser to go from 'my favorite' to 'ugg that sucks'.
not bad but went on for a bit too long
I Need to Stop Feeling Good About Myself
Quantum key distribution in superposition of "insecure" and "unneeded"
Who should pay for college?
Perhaps some of the disconnect is that it's not easily explainable to non techie types without going in to more detail. The Gmail/Office example you gave holds true for any web app, regardless of it is hosted on Force.com, a $9/mo hosting plan, or a server I run out of my apartment. Computational power as a commodity resource is a little more in depth than most people probably care to go, but it leaves many with the impression that the internet is the cloud.
Outsourced data center on a pay-per-use basis.
It's one thing to be wrong with guesses, but this guy is factually wrong on parts of the technology. Apple did improve the touchscreen keyboard by adding a bit of prediction to it, all buttons aren't always the same size, which makes it easier to hit the "right" key all the time, which in turn improves the experience by removing the common frustrations.

He was also wrong about the volume controls as comments above show.
We use SFDC very widely internally, and I've also seen it occasionally on Twitter/FB.
Using a non-standard port for ssh eliminates the need for this altogether. This is almost a no-brainer, and it's the first thing I do when standing up a server.
1. modifying the default configuration is fine: you do this for your web server (right?) so why not sshd? in fact, sshd is simpler to configure and i cannot think of one backward incompatibility in many years. disable what you don't need, this includes bits of sshd. what's the point of a configuration file if you can't change it?

2. your point about "using distribution standard ssh, a secure root password and public keys" is a little moot in light of the debian ssh keygen bug? in this case you would have been better off with building ssh yourself (and keeping it up to date).

3. in any case, you are at most risk from your users. if they are compromised, you are also (public key or not).
For me, and many I know it was speed. Scroll speed, zoom speed, search speed. Even today GMaps wins in that category.

I barely ever use satellite view for anything but casual amusement.
Creating Your Own Accessible HTML5 Media Player
I started JournalFire so journal clubs could post what they were reading online. You can follow clubs or individuals, and the articles they're reading or discussing will show up in your feed. Let me know what you think http://journalfire.com
Good point, and an important distinction to make for more technical audiences. Scalable, elastic pay-as-you-go architecture is a key attribute of cloud computing as well.
Javascript vi clone for Google Docs
Completely OT, but I love the icons in Figure 2. I'm getting a serious case of early '90s nostalgia just looking at them.
Really? Is the author too young to remember that Google maps was the first company to not do maps horribly?

Before google maps, online maps were an insult to the user. You would get a 200px by 200px image of a crappy map surrounded by 10 ads that flashed at you. If you wanted to scroll to the right you had to click an arrow. It would then take about 30 seconds for the map and adds to reload.

Google did maps right, and eventually yahoo and map quest followed, but by the time they did it was too late everyone was using google maps and had no reason to switch.
What are good debugging and development tools for a novice to use to get experience with Linux on a device with JTAG, such as one of those popular old Linksys routers? (perhaps using openwrt source as a starting point)

I'd like to use one that has hidden USB ports (like the T-mobile version of the wrt-54g) to make the printer logging output of another device accessible through the router web server cheaply and with minimal space/power requirements. The printer is fed serial data, as found with gas pump printers.
IMO, cloud service is any service that a) scalable on demand, b)has ~100% uptime, c) require no maintenance from customer. It doesn't matter whether it is one server or 10000 servers - if it fits this model of consumption - it's cloud.
that's what these try to do:

http://www.fail2ban.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

http://denyhosts.sourceforge.net/

denyhosts has the difference that it synchronises this data amongst many hosts.
Wow! I am speechless at the moment!

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions.

Go on guys!

I am checking the websites and products mentioned.

At least now we know for sure that everybody is having this problem AND there is no popular solution to this.

By the way, I am in Brain research.

http://www.yourxiv.com at least explains the problem and promises a solution but it only covers Physicists.

http://www.academia.edu/ seems to cover everyone (I am giving it a try right now) but they are overdoing the social part. (too much facebook!)

http://pubget.com/ is not addressing this problem (as far as I understand)

http://techlens.cs.umn.edu/ TechLens also addresses this problem but it seems not to cover every body (all research areas).

Many other things mentioned are not related or are addressing different problems.

Still reading your comments,
Ali
> I hate the slideshow format they used.

Disable JavaScript and you'll see the slides layed out one after the other, vertically. It was pretty easy to read and skim that way.

(I've been using NoScript and NotScripts for the last month or two and wouldn't go back. Not only is it safe but the web is far less annoying in general. e.g. not hunting around for links to disable IntelliTxt and every other similar "service".)
Um. Mind-numbingly boring and unnecessary animation; annoying and flat synth voices; nonsensical strawman argument. This video really has it all.

Seriously. I dislike fanboys as much as the next guy, and NoSQL is probably overhyped, but this was just terrible. And it definitely is not hilarious.
Yeah, at least as far as my logs go, just disabling password login seems to cover a superset of the attacks that changing ports would cover, so I don't see much reason to avoid the default port. Every automated attack I've found in my logs is: 1) on the default port; and 2) a password attempt. It seems the recommendation here is to change #1, but to me just changing #2 is easier, and has some other benefits as well. The main place I could see an argument for #1 is if you run a large multiuser server, where it's quite possibly easier to explain to your users how to use a nonstandard ssh port, versus trying to explain to them how to use ssh keys.
My first job was at a McDonald's. My parents made me start working when I was 14, and that was the only place that would hire me. That was almost 10 years ago, and I had a similar experience to what you described, but it appears to me that the quality of most of the chains has gotten better (at least in my area). I still don't eat there, though.

Embarrassing story: Since I was only 14, I was pretty shy when working the counter. One of my managers encouraged me to make small talk with the customers while they waited for their food, provided we weren't busy. I was helping a large woman, and mistakenly thought she was pregnant. I asked her "how long until you have your baby?" and she said "Excuse me!?!?" Turns out she was just fat. Needless to say, I don't ask women about their pregnancies anymore, unless they bring it up first. Sounds like a cliche story, but it really happened :(
Based on the first paragraph, it seems the author already realizes this, but he needs to claim less and show more. His argument:

1. The most popular mapping site also has the most consistent satellite/street maps.
2. The inverse is true with the least popular mapping sites.
3. Because there's correlation, there's causation.
Startup Shape
> I'm a noob here but I'm more of a reader / lurker than a spammer.

The fact that you write this more or less already proves your point. Spammers would not engage in conversation (at least, not normally).
For me, it is the idea of outsourcing infrastructure and treating computers as a utility.
Why I thought this wasn't a good thing to post:

~Anybody could Google this, the article was nothing special, nothing new or groundbreaking, or even an `oldy but goody`

Why an article like http://asm.sourceforge.net/intro/hello.html (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1663858) is great to post:

~Thoroughly explains how things work, even an experienced programmer would be interested (See `good hackers` below)

~Contains material of discussion worth.

"Hacker News Guidelines

What to Submit

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. "

EDIT: Yes I figured this would get me a downvote.
I recommend heroku for starting out and and getting your apps some traction or whatever, then if/when you make more money hire a sys admin and migrate to something else if you want.

I really love heroku though, especially after setting up my own servers on media temple for rails apps (which sucks using passenger).
If people were spending their own or their family's money for all of the bloat, better decisions and better education would be the eventual result.

Right now things are driven by pressure groups and ideas that are incessantly repeated, but that have no basis in fact, both of which can shape policies freely when costs are simply shifted to the taxpayer.

We are told that if we don't overspend on education, we'll have much worse crime. But spending on simply maintaining order, according to Malcolm Gladwell's book Tipping Point seems more immediate and effective.

And people without the benefit of sitting in a classroom do not run out and commit crimes necessarily. But people who are more impulsive by nature, more likely to commit crimes are more resistant to schooling, the exact opposite of what is constantly repeated as proof that we must turn the minds of our children over to the government.
Hey Ali and others who are interested,

I've been working towards launching a startup called Bibdex (http://www.bibdex.com) for a little while now. I want to help all research-oriented fields to sift through the large number of publications.

It's amazing how many articles and manuscripts are published every day, not to mention blog posts and social commentary. Unlike the average person's surfing habits online, professionals in these fields are required to be on top of the available research, but most of the available research is not very good. That seems like a problem worth solving, and a potentially profitable one if industrial and institutional researchers are willing to pay to save their time and publish higher quality research.

I'm curious. Have you seen http://www.mendeley.com yet? If you have, why doesn't that solve the problem for you?

-- Sunir, Founder & Developer, Bibdex

P.S. I'm interested in having other people join as co-founders.
yeah.. never used satellite view except for "shit, i can se e my house on google maps!" type of amusement.

Also before Google and Google Earth, online maps for many countries were not very good. Those with the data was not very interested in creating online maps.

Speed and ease of use is what made maps a killer product for me
Ask HN: First employee salary?
I've been working on a fully bootstrapped (github style) startup for almost eight months now. We're profitable enough to consider hiring our first employee, although really need some advice about their salary and been struggling to find any.

We're based far outside of developer communities, and therefore have a rather small pool of talent to search in. We have a move on the cards, but for now its way too expensive (and we like it here). The amounts listed are roughly the minimum I believe they will accept.

Option 1. Two years experience out of college (Masters). I know him personally and top quality coder but lacking experience. +/- $2500/month

Option 2. Six years experience dealing with similar areas to our startup. Seems good but I honestly don't know for sure. +/- $5000/month

Option 3. International employee willing to move to us. Haven't met him so quite nervous of this idea, visa going to be quite a problem but not as much as for US companies. Skills seem roughly equivalent to option 2. +/- $2500/month

Option 4. Look for someone internationally that will telecommute. To be honest I'm not against telecommuting but don't like the idea for a first employee. Really need them on the ground with me to discuss the system in depth, so have not looked yet.

At the moment we're leaning strongly on the experienced guy, but at that salary its going to be a major hit for our company. I'm also very worried about raises/etc if they're starting with a high salary already ($5000 is far above market average here). I'd love to hear some advice from your experiences, or maybe suggestions of where to find that advice (searchyc.com didn't get me many results).
Now why didn't I think of that?

I have scrape marks on mine from dragging it to my GF's!

;)
Remember he is not saying consistency is the only feature that make GoogleMaps #1
Been waiting a while for something like this, could anyone identify either this track or the set it's from? I know it's from Cor Fijneman's Outstanding Radio mix...

http://lorinhalpert.com/puredj-Cor_Fijneman-Outstanding Radio.mp3
> Is the author too young to remember that Google maps was the first company to not do maps horribly?

I don't know... but it was actually an acquisition:

http://androidelectronics.com/tag/where-2-tech/
True, but, if the following is true:

- Many basic expressions might be different, but they're learn-able without any formal education; simply watching TV in the other language constantly for some time allows you to pick up most of these differences

- If you speak slightly slowly, and stick to standard vocabulary, you can communicate with native speakers of the other language without much trouble.

If these above two points are true, then they're about as different as the various Arabic dialects.

Whether you identify these languages as separate languages or regional dialects is largely a political/cultural issue.
I was sure until the end of this essay that the author was going to argue for governments to pay for or heavily subsidise a post-secondary education (as in fact they do in much of the developed world); all the arguments about an "educated population" seem to point in that direction.

So I was surprised that the conclusion was instead that employers should pay for the college education that they are benefitting from. Surprise: they already are. They pay your salary, from which you pay your college loans. It does mean that your take-home (post-loan-payment) pay is lower, but that's because you're still just a journeyman. Any arrangement where the employer pays more than a base salary means that inexperienced fresh-outs will be more expensive and thus even less desirable than now.