skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
By almost all analysis and objective metrics, the 2007 troop surge worked. Violence went down, insurgency went down, attacks went down, crime went down afterwards.

The surge was enacted with a particular goal: create breathing space to foster political solutions to Iraq conflicts. It has failed. The political solutions never came about.

Beyond that, claims that the surge caused a decrease in violence require evidence. Correlation is not causation. And there are many other reasons that explain a decrease in violence in the same time frame.
>Bribing your way into some place shouldn't be the protocol for getting a seat.

Why not? Doesn't microeconomics 101 say "if you have more demand than supply, your prices are too low"? Clarendon Ballroom fills to capacity every weekend, so I have to pay a $5 cover if I go this Saturday (and even at that price, they still have a line at 11pm, which is why I'll get there early). When I drive out to see friends tonight, I'll pay $5 to drive on the Dulles Toll Road rather than sit in more traffic on Route 7 during rush hour. I mean, ideally the system should be formalized so that it's not off-the-books, but I don't see what's socially wrong with for-pay seating at exclusive restaurants.
It's pretty early in the game to be declaring it "empty".
Of course there's no one there yet, it was announced yesterday. The interesting thing about tying it into likes (stars) and reviews is that these are actions a lot of people make already on iTunes store products. It seems to me that people will be able to review and rate downloaded music too. I think that very soon there will be a lot of information added to ping from normal everyday actions that itunes users make. I tried it out this morning, and the only disappointment was finding out facebook/gmail integration was not up yet.
>NoScript is a symptom, not a cure. I haven't yet figured out a good name for the disease though.

Web3.0?
Refactor: remove God references, rename entity-that-created-law-of-Physics to God.
LGPL Qt for Python PySide - Windows version released
So far the only thing that I don't like about it is that I can't find the "edge" of the damn board to place a tile. I'd recommend adding a button that takes you to a spot with some available space on the edge of the board.
Same way as in the bathtub. Zip-loc bag (or competitor).
As the previous poster said, a $1 per drink is good if you're going back and fourth to the bar.

However, if you're sitting there awhile at the bar with the same bartender and running a tab, it is acceptable to tip less when you settle up.

Example: If I had 6 drinks at $5 a pint, thats $30. For that I would give a $5 instead of a $6.

Since the amount in question is so minor, its better to stick with $1 a drink. Easier.

However, I would point out that if you get a buy-back then you should tip more. A basic guide is if the bartender 'buys' you a $5 drink then you should be giving $2 towards the final tip.

Thats just a simple guide for a simple use-case. Use your discretions. I don't tip if the bartender is rude or gives me a sloppily poured drink (I say that as a former bartender/bar-back/bar-manager).
Me and a friend have been trying to write a small app that only manages and plays music. Sadly, CoreAudio is proving to be a pain in the butt :(
CVOnline: a Compendium of Computer Vision
Tempus Fugit
I can do this for you. $20,000 USD. Western Union it to me. Looking forward to working with you.
such comments were "upvoted furiously" because people agreed with it despite its caustic wording

I'm well aware that people upvoted it because they agreed with the sentiment. I was trying to say that this is not a good thing, and that the name-calling (not just "caustic wording" mind you, name-calling is a different beast) should have stopped any upvoting in spite of any agreement. I'm sure many on HN would disagree, since people mostly voted those comments up.
Top 20 Apps for September
I'm kind of a crazy person when it comes to eating healthily, but I wasn't always. It's clear to me now, sitting on the other side of the chasm, that your notion of what "tastes good" is completely fabricated by marketing and a lifetime of consuming foods that soak your brain in feel-good chemicals.

I literally can't stand the taste of junk food now, on the rare occasions I'll try a bit just for contrast.

It'll take a year or two for your body to reacclimate to what real food tastes and feels like, but once it does, you'll realize what a terrible fog you've been in all this time. That's exactly what happened to me, and I'd bet money that would happen to you if you gave it a shot.
Derek Sivers: Keep your goals to yourself (video)
He mentions at the bottom they'll do this after the judging ends on Friday.
It's always amusing to see physicists, no matter how bright, step into metaphysics without the slightest idea of what they're doing, or even that they're doing it.

The universe does not necessarily exist. Something or someone had to create it from nothing at some point (which we can call the beginning of time).

Even the concept of time is a function of a changing material universe (time is a measure of change).

Aristotle figured all this out about 3000 years ago. Even though his physics was crude, I wonder why people ignore his metaphysics? I suppose simply through ignorance and neglect, and lack of modern attention to the topic.

My brother has started an Institute for the Study of Nature (http://isnature.org) to address exactly these issues, and has found some very encouraging support among modern scientists, fairly thinly scattered about various fields.

http://isnature.org/about.htm is a good summary of this new exploration.

(He also started it after becoming disillusioned with the intelligent design movement, which has become both a-scientific and anti-philosophical. Or, at least, that's my weak understanding of what he's told me.)
I'm sure you are familiar with the idea that family members often don't know your schedule, so they can't/don't, say, decide not to call just to shoot the breeze in the middle of your presentation.

Do you handle this by letting every call from family interrupt whatever you're doing, however important? It's mostly impossible to determine the importance of a call before answering it in my experience.
I think this is worthy of a blog post. That way its indexed by Google and Co and is more searchable. Otherwise this gem will be buried deep down in the comments.
I run just such a space in Brighton, UK: http://theSkiff.org.

About 60% of us are directly working in tech the rest are in all sorts of other diverse industries.
Unicorn is based on the mongrel source
If Apple's Ping is Social, Then Where's My Facebook Friends?
This article is essentially complaining that Ping is one sided in that Bands can post pretty much whatever and all users can do is buy music.

I don't see what's wrong with that, it's the defacto way Twitter works. Fact is that beyond a small group of influencers nobody gives a crap what anyone is saying on Twitter. On Ping those people that are the influencers are going to be the bands. There was an article on here a few days ago where a guy came to the conclusion that no one was paying attention to his Twittering and it was a waste of his efforts.
And automatic scrolling.
This is officially sanctioned at the coffee shop I frequent. I used to often get free coffee because I am good friends with a lot of the employees, and when wasn't free it was usually someone new I didn't know or $1 (from 1.65).

The owners a couple years ago put a lock down on all the free coffee going out of the place but encouraged the employees to give discounts to their friends.

It actually works out quite well, as the place can't afford to really pay any type of decent wage. The owners recognized that many people (myself included) would simply stop going to said shop everyday if coffee went from free to 1.65 or 1 to 1.65. I would still go sometimes, but it's not like they are going to see an immediate 65% increase on that revenue if people stop giving away the coffee.

At the same time, it allows the workers to get a couple extra bucks an hour and allows them to retain a number of really good employees while paying a wage <$10 an hour.
Try raising $1M.
So, "It happened because it happened"?

Seems a bit circular to me, but then again, that's the science news cycle... (see here: http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1174)
It won't be painless, but you could sell registration keys through your website and have the user enter them in the app.

Either way I'm really looking forward to this, please keep us posted! If you could partner with a high-quality recipe website, this could be a killer app (there are thousands of recipe websites but most of them just have 1-paragraph braindumps, very hard to follow. It's going to be a major challenge to find a way to let users input the 'steps' of a recipe, including which tasks are parallel etc. There certainly won't be a way to do this automatically in software, each recipe will have to be 'converted' manually).

I'm willing to contribute recipe instructions, even if it means I have to hand-edit xml or yaml or whatever :)
Basically a short talk on this - http://sivers.org/zipit
He unfortunately forgot New Work City (http://nwc.co) which just expanded into a big beautiful space on Broadway in New York City and opened up yesterday. Having started work there, I can say it's a phenomenal bunch of mostly tech related people.

Tony Bacigalupo, who founded the space, is an amazing an integral part of the New York startup scene. He also wrote a book about coworking: http://amzn.to/25y8UQ

As for coding, there are a lot of people there who do it and there are areas set aside for breakout rooms, conference rooms, and places to make phone calls where you won't interrupt anyone else's flow.

I'm a part-time member which gets me 12 weekdays a month. Since I average at least a week of travel a month, that basically works out to 4 days a week while I'm in town.

If you're interested and in New York, or are just looking for a place to work with other people when you're in town, drop in. We're a very friendly bunch. :-)

Edit: Fred added New Work City in. Thanks! Stop on by when you get a chance.
This is exactly why I like the iPad (although done right it could extend to any other tablet). With minimal browser chrome in the UI and minimal physical framing around the screen, you can just hand someone a web page as though you were passing over a newspaper.

It's way more natural than trying to pass over a 15" laptop.
EXPLAIN MORE ABOUT DIS HACKING STUFF
First of all, there's a fuss because it's written by zedshaw. Secondly, zedshaw also authored mongrel, a well-known web server that many people have taken the ragel-based parser from to build their own stuff. Third, everyone's been talking about this whole 'sqlite as configuration' thing, which could be awesome or horrible, the jury's still out. Finally, it's always interesting to see new projects in 'solved' areas. How long has Apache been around? How well is it tested? It obviously works, but could it be better? Zed's trying out new ideas, has a crazy amount of test coverage, and is starting out fresh.

I haven't tried it yet. But it's certainly interesting.
I think the mistake Dave Winer makes is to consider this a replacement / direct competitor for Facebook. Apple just used the term "social network" because it's considered hot by the press.

Ping should be considered a replacement for the old paper-based music magazines: a channel from the music companies to the interested music lovers. An improvement over the old channel, as it makes it much easier for the consumers to buy new music, and much easier for the bands to provide small snippets of news, pictures etc.

Apple is in the business of selling stuff.
Another example of lying with statistics. The author takes the number of apps / revenue to paint an unrealistic average. What's really going on is a few apps are making millions, and the rest almost nothing.

Per
I'm getting the following error:

Sorry! There was an error: There is no folder or object database named "stories.root" in the folder "C:\Program Files\OPML\Guest Databases\www\".

The error was detected by OPML Editor v0.73 in mainResponder.respond. Webmaster: . Time: Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:14:45 GMT.
Those things aren't bacteria; they're huge. Even a coffee filter would get most of them.
Right. Who on earth would seriously consider using an OS on which errors can occur? That's just ridiculous now that errors are a thing of the past on Unix!
Yeah, sorry. If we had tried to do that ourselves, we never would have been able to release anything. PusherApp was incredible to work with though. Why reinvent the wheel?
Please tell us if it worked :)
True, I'm not sure why I even bother reading TechCrunch, but I guess I have a habit.
They're using it for back end stuff, the front is still Ruby. To my understanding.
You'd still see [the effects of] a 2mm something swimming in your glass of water if it was 100% transparent. Reflection, refraction, wake ...
5 hours ago (3 hours before jacquesm), I submitted the same story with a slightly different title (and with a clean URL)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1655658

An example of A/B testing on hacker news submission titles! Or perhaps just having a more recognized username?
Our Walmart contact in their technology center wouldn't accept a cup of coffee during a site visit, without putting a quarter on the table. They Strictly enforce a ban on gifts and favors, calling it all bribery and grounds for getting fired.
I think this is the fourth or fifth time I've followed a link on HN to his site and it wouldn't load. I've commented before about this and not trying to dogpile again, but this is frustrating because he usually does have something interesting to say..
We have a similar experience with our self-service advertising system: http://www.adperium.com/start

What we did to increase the conversion rate:

1. Use one long form instead of a "wizard" containing multiple steps. Advanced options are hidden by default to keep the form manageable

2. Show the checkout buttons on the same page, so users see the available payment options right away

3. Remove the sign-up step. We simply send the users a secure URL to the email address they provide in the checkout process

4. Use an informative landing page (http://www.adperium.com/advertise) including a demo link, instead of linking directly to the campaign creation page
Many comments speak of 'establishing a relationship' and 'getting an inside man'. Would it also not work the other way, in certain cases? Person A moves into a locality. Couple of days later visits a nearby restaurant. He is asked to wait; and he witnesses Person B flashing some greens (or blues, if on the other side of the planet ;) and getting in jumping the wait-list. Person C follows suit and does the same. Person A finds it insulting, and leaves. The establishment just lost a potential regular considering that he resides nearby.

Also, would service providers prefer a person who tips modestly (but consistently) over someone who tips generously once?

Sebastian's comment above mentions an experience in Vietnam. From what I have seen, in certain establishments/places in regions where stronger currencies (e.g. $/£) trump the local currencies (e.g. INR), it is not uncommon to find the local populace being treated with mild neglect in spite of them being(equally if not more) friendly and respectful; while a great deal of preference would be given to those who stand out in the crowd and can afford to tip more. (I know; many can sense a hint of racism being dragged in. But as unfortunately sad it is, it indeed happens at times. I hope visits to Mysore/Goa/Hampi can relate to this)

And about dressing, it reminded me of http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/hodja.html#eatcoat

tl:dr; Money speaks; nay, screams. We just have to get over this fact.
How Google attacks changed the security game
I had this idea ages ago, but never did anything about it. Your implementation looks gorgeous. I'll check it out.
It's really interesting to see what went into this before the competition. I'm on one of the other teams that'd doing pretty well in the voting (we built Drawbridge: http://team-hyphen.no.de/), so it's especially interesting for me to see what other teams did.

Much as I'd love to win, Drawbridge isn't near the level of polish that Scrabb.ly and a few of the other top apps are, and I think a lack of preparation is the main culprit. We had a general idea of what we were going to build and how it was going to be designed, but we had to scramble several times to redesign and rearchitect essential components. (We did our server-side API design without accounting for the fact that we were going to be using websockets, completely overlooked the fact that we'd have to come up with an API for our DAO or anything on the client side, had to completely redo how variations and their UI worked, and had to come up with a homepage design all within the span of the competition.)

Still, it's been an incredibly fun ride. In the absolute worst case I built a tool I've been wanting for a long time but haven't been able to find the time to build. In the best case, other people find it useful too--having other people liking and using things I've built is one of my biggest motivators.

I've also learned a ton about making a successful app for one of these competitions. If I could do it again there are a lot of things I'd do differently. (Luckily, Rails Rumble is coming up, so I can!) I've been meaning to write up summary of what went right and what went wrong for us, and how we could improve. Would anyone else be interested if I turned it into a blog post?
The bliss of an 18-month, paid, Swedish paternity leave.
Ebert's ode to Steak 'n' Shake is here: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/01/car_table_counter_or...

His discourse on the rice cooker is here:http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2008/11/the_pot_and_how_to_u...

It's a shame the article doesn't provide the links to the blog entries it discusses.
Summary of the article:

The Universe could have been created without God therefore the Universe was created without God.

Not sure how much of the bad argument is the BBC's fault.
Not quite on topic, but if I may, I'd recommend doing a summer internship abroad instead of studying abroad. I did this twice while in school (London and Singapore) and felt that I had a much better sense of the culture than friends who had chosen to study abroad. What tends to happen is that students who go abroad to study end up hanging out with others who are abroad to study. In that way you don't really get a sense of the community that you initially intended to experience. When you're working, it's very different: you go out to the pub after work, they invite you to events with friends, and you learn about their views, habits, and customs by just coming into work.
I found some other singer founder friends online. We all had different startups and were not in competition with each other. This allowed us to share openly with each other and discuss ideas, issues, problems, etc. The group went slowly dissolved, but I still keep in contact with on of they guys. This was a big help early on.

I also got a lot of help from business communities online. Listening and learning from others that have been successful.

The single biggest factor was getting paying customers. This validates your product/service, and gives you a huge boost of energy and confidence. This is one reason to cut back requirements and get your MVP out the door as soon as possible. Also if you are stuck (or in a rut technically) pick something on the fringe of your project that is small and that you can quickly do. Making progress helps ease the frustration.
Your spouse is (should be) your anchor, your foundation, your one trusted person in the world. You get to have a special relationship with that person. You get to give it priority over everything else, unconditionally.

Other people, if they're wise, know this and make accomodation for it.
IBM's Cloud Grab
That doesn't give it any ethical high ground though...
Care to share the names of some of these games? Always looking for well-produced indie games. Also, how do you find them? Serendipity or scrolling endlessly?

I really only find games by word of mouth, the top listings, or keyword searching.
Samsung ra máy quay mỏng như điện thoại
I'm missing the boat on how it's more language agnostic than other web servers (I'm most familiar with Apache)?

EDIT: I see now that it's "language agnostic" based on using ZeroMQ to shuttle request/responses between Mongrel2 and a language with a ZeroMQ library. Sounds cool, but also makes me wonder exactly how that's different from someone writing, say, mod_zeromq for Apache, and attaching handlers to ZeroMQ in the same way Mongrel2 does? Am I missing something?
Back to the future: two years of Google Chrome
20k for throwing just a WP instance and slightly modifying it? Meh!
There are Profits that can be acquired through Incessant 
Writing process and procedure essays will prove an easy task if process and procedure essay examples are used. These essays provide readers with an understanding of the process of something. Therefore, it needs to be accurate. The examples will provide you with the knowledge needed to write the essay better.
I've been in the US for almost 10 years, and its been only the last 6 years that I have had health insurance.

If I were still in Ireland I would pay about 1600 Euros a year to give full coverage to me and my family (wife + 2 kids).

In The US I pay just under $400 on every paycheck (my employer also pays a hefty amount), so thats aprox $4900 a year. That does not include dental, or vision.

I would also add that while my plan isn't bad, its not as good as the Irish equivalent - hard to compare though.

Side Note: You should prefix the title of this with "Ask HN:"
Google Unleashes Real-time Search Results
These kinds of events are insanely fun. We had a student-run 24 hour game programming competition at my school for the past three years. This year my grad school friends are finally making it a bit more legit, with a website and support from the school: http://osgcc.org/

We're primarily coders, so the design suffers a bit, but the line about "By the end of the third day, I was barely coherent enough to spell the swear words" made me smile.

If you've never been to an event like this, you should.
There are people for whom aliens fill the same "unknowable higher power" role that deities typically fill. But these people usually also believe that aliens have played some active role in life on Earth.

Hawking, on the other hand, believes that intelligent life could exist somewhere else -- that terrestrial life isn't that special. That's not quite the same thing as "believing in" aliens. It's like the difference between "believing God exists" and "believing God could exist".
It's interesting in that it's not so much a social network as "your order history online, for everyone in the world to see."

It's off-putting that bands can create content but regular users? Not so much.

It's odd that I can tell people I'm going to a Cold Play concert (somehow) but I can't post pictures from that event afterwards.

But then .. I don't expect Ping to remain in this same place for very long.

Apple has a habit of releasing simple, feature complete products at 1.0 and then only adding additional stuff later when they can guarantee a first-rate user experience (eg, the App Store, cut and paste on the iPhone, printing on the iPad, etc).

So their one-point-ohs have the pundits and tech journalists writing big "Huh? But it doesn't have ____!" articles, but then in six months or a year later ... it's a wholly different kind of experience.

One prediction nobody is talking about much: Since this is based, presumably, on Lala, I expect it to have some kind of streaming service soon.
Technology Review: Nano Switches that Store More Data Head to Market