skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Calling it game-changing is (to me) a little hyperbolic. It looks to be convenient and time-saving, but my search problems extend primarily to Gmail, which already has great search. To each their own, but I very infrequently use FB/Twitter search. I actually sort of distrust FB/Twitter search (e.g., search is not finding something I'm positive is in there), and adding an abstraction layer doesn't alleviate any of that distrust.

To be completely honest, if Greplin were acquired by Google or MS, I'd be more willing to try their service out. I understand that they're using authentication mechanisms that don't require credential caching, but my content is on there somewhere. This is more of a touchy-feely paranoia thing, and not exactly backed up by any technical facts (i.e., for all I know, the smartphone in my hand has malware on it that is broadcasting my every keystroke to some teenager in Russia, so worrying about greplin may not make a lot of sense. But I can choose to use/not use greplin, whereas I'm sort of stuck with my phone).

Again, this is the value-proposition to me. I don't generate/consume enough content that I need cross-site search at my fingertips. I would imagine that others who are more involved with social sites would appreciate a tool like greplin.
There's a lot of reasons why Palm didn't make it as an independent company, and as much as hipster-geeks enjoy the web standards love and other hackery, WebOS is one of those reasons.

I'm a geek, but when it comes to mobile stuff I'm fundamentally a consumer, and I feel very burned having used a Pre for the past 14 months or so: poor performance, bone-headed development priorities (#1 being the iTunes "integration" snafu), no meaningful updates, long-standing unresolved bugs, and an impoverished marketplace.

I'm sure the platform will do good for HP, but I can't imagine ever bothering with it again. Yup, I'm biased, sorry, but only by my experience. I'm enjoying my iPad, and will enjoy an Android device in the next couple of months.
A large group of top-tier universities and colleges were caught colluding on financial aid packages. Their thesis was they didn't want the cost to the student and his family to bias the decision of which to accept, but one can also surmise that eliminating financial competition had additional motives.
The question is why they don't patch the security holes??
> poor performance, bone-headed development priorities (#1 being the iTunes "integration" snafu), no meaningful updates, long-standing unresolved bugs, and an impoverished marketplace.

And all of that is heartbreaking considering the potential in webOS and the things it thinks (if not does) right.
Chromatic Research, GPUs and the Wheel of Reincarnation
I agree. Android as well. Android is doing pretty well, but I have a lot of friends (in high school/college) that really want Android devices, but can't/won't pay the $30/month for data. Many of them have iTouches instead, and would love a an Android iTouch-like-device as their next mp3 player.
If you want in-depth analysis of why this is a completely mad bubble (hopefully with an imminent prick coming from the legislature or government rolling back the lobby-led liberalisation of the Bush years) you could do far worse than a fantastic hedge fund analyst's view; here's the summary
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-27/eisman-of-big-sh...
and here's the SUPERB presentation (on scribd) about the reasoning behind shorting certain for-profit ed stocks:
http://www.marketfolly.com/2010/06/response-to-steve-eismans...
they had to change the rules for photo id here.

Where's here?
There is absolutely a bubble.

You can't even get (or keep) a job teaching grade school without a Master's degree these days.

I graduated from a highly regarded journalism & filmmaking program and I have to say that as far as getting a career, it was actually a net negative. People who had gone straight from high school to internships or volunteer work were light-years ahead of people who had been wasting their time in classes. (I was one of the few who did both, so I wasn't as badly off.)

And yet they graduate several hundred people a year from this program, most of whom will never get a paying job in their field.
yeah, blackberry grows so easily that it's a noxious weed in this part of the world.
Chicken have no soul, so it's OK.
"Mastering Node" an open source NodeJS eBook
Palm brings improved multitasking and Node.js to webOS 2.0
A political statement would explain the one sided view of all that is abysmal in this country. I strongly believe that problems that are as important and need immediate attention can be found in any country. It just seems extremely pointless for someone to just list out such problems and say I dont want to live there anymore.

Rather than trying to point out the areas of hope, I would not have really bothered to take part in the discussion.
Try stinging nettle. Makes a very nice tea with a flavour that reminds slightly of broth.

Drying the plant before you brew the tea, give a better taste.
What Booze Looks Like Under a Microscope
TIL: plum crossed with apricot is a pluot (or aprium).

>People who want their food grown all naturally really just wind up feeding the bugs and other pests.

I think that's part of the point. Wiping out bugs with pesticides has far reaching effects and not just on the bugs directly.
Because so many people in the market for iTouches don't own a cell phone?

I agree that the cost is the reason, but saying that it's $3k cheaper is seriously misrepresenting things. The marginal cost of getting an Android phone over a normal one is $30/month for the data plan, so $720 in America and I guess $1080 if you're in Canada (that sucks, btw). And then you can probably subtract $50 or $100 or so because you'd probbly pay a bit more for an unsubsidized iTouch-oid than for the subsidized phone.
TestFlight — iOS beta testing on the fly
Beg the question
I remember reading a number of years ago about how much it costs CalTech to educate one of its graduates, and it was something on the order of $300k/year. Granted, engineering and particularly of the intensity and small scale of CalTech makes for expensive students, but it's not true that tuition fees at many of these schools are wildly disproportionate to the amount they spend offering what they offer. Sure, many/most universities are heavy on luxury and have spending priorities that are not well-aligned to pure education, but the fact is they do offer something that cannot be had for less money - they rely on many many funding sources besides tuition in order to break even.

Here's an article about Florida universities - the costs are much more reasonable, at about $40k per graduate (all four years), but it's using 2005-ish figures, and that's an average, with degrees ranging from ~$21k to $250k+.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/05/19/degree

Of course, we're talking about a lot of 'intangibles' of the experience that are not directly related to the 'education', but for many/most applicants, the experience is a huge part of the decision about which school to go to, and so I feel it's reasonable to factor that in as a cost/expense that is not going away any time soon.

I fully agree that the free market and particularly alternatives to university will be a great influence over the next few decades - it will be a great advance once more people realize that a university education is not the best life decision.
Where are there receipt checkers? I've never had that happen to me.
I consider a COMPLEX problem solver is a hacker. A person who makes profound contribution to his field of interest is a hacker. A person who looks at a tree and wonders why the branches and the leaves grow the way they should is a hacker. TO SUM IT UP A PERSON WHO'S NOT WORRIED BUT CURIOUS TO KNOW HOW THINGS WORK IS A HACKER. HACKER NEWS IS A PLACE FOR THESE MEN,WOMEN AND CHILDREN TO MEET UP. (for the time being i don't fall into any of the above category as i'am yet to become a hacker!!!!!!!!)
Python Slithers into Systems
Sorry for posting an hour long video on a subject that looks like it is a libertarian rant. It is not.

Here is a td;lr version.

This is a Google Tech Talk by the executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Neill Franklin. It makes a clear case that the war on drugs is a very expensive failure. After decades of enforcement we have an unprecedented fraction of our population behind bars (no other country is close, and drug arrests are the vast majority of our prisons), have spent enough to cover health care (1 trillion dollars), have failed to reduce the availability of drugs (judging from price and purity, availability has never been better), have made the drug cartels rich (500 billion/year is likely an underestimate), have killed large numbers of people (tens of thousands per year), have created a tremendous amount of violent crime, and have failed to change the fraction of the population that is addicted. (It is 1.3% today. It was 1.3% 40 years ago. And it was 1.3% in 1914 back when heroin was sold in pharmacies.)

Amusing data point. Before he presented any facts he asked the audience of ~150 people working for Google how many thought that the war on drugs is working. Not one did. The fact that the war is a complete failure is not news. What I found interesting was the presentation of statistics that thoroughly demonstrate this.
Inspiring and Quirky feats of Engineering
http://mrgan.tumblr.com/post/1037353749/testflight

Who knew that iOS can install signed ad-hoc binaries through the browser?
> You can write a parser in any language; nothing magical about Lisp there.

Your statement is correct; it is just misleading. First, it is irrelevant in that we are talking about parsing the syntax of your language and producing code; not "any language" can do that. You would also have to write an eval for the many languages that do not have an eval. See SICP for an introduction to eval-apply logic.

Second, it disregards ease of parsing. It is easier to write a parser in Lisp to translate Lisp-like syntax into Lisp code than to write a parser in another language to translate that language's syntax into that language's code (and exceptions to this are because the language was based on Lisp). This has to do with basic Lisp syntax being a syntax tree and is aided by the CL standard providing many tools for parsing.

So yes, you can complicate things a bit by mashing your symbols together, but that's just one extra parsing pass (insert spaces around operators). One READ-FROM-STRING later, and you have a symbol tree. In another language, it might be a series of complicated lexx statements and functions where the language relearns how to do simple addition.
I've thought long and hard about open source and business for a while, and I think you're probably right. I think the best thing going right now for OS is a "pyramid", where all the infrastructure and supporting bits and pieces are open source, and the tip of the pyramid is the differentiator that makes the money. It may rankle some not to get access to that, but by being closed, you can make a lot of money to funnel back into the open source projects you use and support.
>Say a person couldn't find that promised job after they got their degree,

I attended a state school. I just checked the website and found no promises of a job. In fact the only pages that include the word "career" are the career services which is a free service to help students and recent graduates find work. I checked a few other area schools and they make no such promises either. Hardly a comprehensive poll but,

Where did you get the idea that colleges ever promised jobs after earning a degree?
What I really liked: "Start with what you already know". I think this is very smart
So... how long until somebody who doesn't have insurance to work as a commercial driver gets into an accident while doing this, and loses everything?

How long until somebody is injured by such a driver and there's no insurance to cover their injuries?
For me, it's relevant because I'd like to learn how to build apps for WebOS and Windows Phone 7, but I make my living developing iPhone apps, and I'm not about to sign a 2 year contract with another cell phone provider for the privilege of building for a platform that may never amount to anything.
Well, your argument is tiptoeing down a very narrow path based on the definition of "necessary". Here's what Eric Lippert has to say about which features were necessary for LINQ: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2009/10/05/why-n...
While the title doesn't reflect the whole article, I don't think it's entirely wrong in the sense that the article does show that the police have gotten false confessions from numerous people.

The central park "wilding" case: "Five kids are picked up in the park that night, they're all interrogated, the interrogations are not recorded but the ultimate confessions are. Later the kids say the confessions were coerced and that they're innocent, but they get convicted."

Police Officers do "follow their intuition" and thus use tricks to get confessions from people they are sure are guilty.
"Work for FREE? Are you nuts?" - No, mom.
Has any one heard anything about the Kindle Development Kit?
Looks like they are still in private beta.

I wonder if there will be Kindle apps (and app store??) coming any time soon.
Gmail’s Permanent Failure: Only Humans Can Build Software For Humans
You literally have no idea how much respect I lost for you with this post. It shows a level of ignorant thoughtlessness that is uncharacteristic of your posts.

I guess you've reached a point where you mistake being somewhat competent at one thing for being perfect at all things.

Sad.
CRTC Orders Consumer Rebates and Rural Broadband Deployment
I think if digg changed their entire concept around into one that takes all of the news and combines stories into threads, ala techmeme, they'd be a king again. I'd love to have the stories from TC, read write web, and all the other blogs on a particular topic consolidated into one story with links to the externals, an intelligent description created from all the posts combined, and maybe even a little meter to weigh the particular blogs/sites involved.

Right now Digg is just adding to the information overload. I think we're all pretty exhausted with information. I'll see something pop up on twitter, I'll see it here as well, or on my RSS reader from another site. We're all talking about similar things. We need a global sort of decentralized "permalink" concept. Digg has the resources to do this. They can "digg" the web, instead of me digging stories. They'll find out what's hot via continuing user submissions, observing the twittersphere, popular blogs, etc... and then report to me a summary of everything regarding, for example, OpenSolaris being canned.

Yet another chaotic "stream of conciousness" comment from me... but I'm just getting the discussion going.

EDIT: this could work for everything... I obviously care mostly about tech and shy away from politics, but it would be cool to have all topics of a particular issue, with their weight on the political spectrum. Just another example.
I would argue that piling shit on top of shit would qualify as part of the job description for half of the corporate world, programmers and non.
> It is not an economic injustice that the ebook Cryptonomicon costs more than the softcover.

No, but perhaps it is a sign of a screwy market. Or simply a new market that hasn't really stabilized yet.
HP and Hynix - Bringing the Memristor to Market in Next-Generation Memory
Spelling, the bane of my existence. Thanks for pointing that out.
Debugging is the lion's share of programming. Any tools which can make the process easier, like gdb or valgrind, will increase productivity. In the olden days I was that printf debugger, but things have improved quite a bit since.
" It isn't in Germany and if employees hold you against your will they better be damn sure that you actually stole something or they are in serious trouble (as in: possibly going to jail trouble)."

The USA (or least New York state) has laws against false imprisonment, false arrest, and unlawful detainment.
Yeah, the trademark was mainly for comedic value, but I can see how it is out of place.
Anyone have insight into the timing of this? I understand they have been looking for someone for a while and this timing may simply be a result of an ongoing process coming to a close... but at the same time I'm sure there has been a lot going on internally at Digg since the launch of v4. Either way, the recent Digg events have been very public and very interesting. I think there is a decent amount to be learned from all this, or at least that is how I am rationalizing closely watching this all unfold.
> Where did you get the idea that colleges ever promised jobs after earning a degree?

Every single guidance councilor and parent across the country.
So, based on http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/d7e24/my_job_was_to_ga... this is spam, right?
If I go to digg.com, I get a message about digg having a broken axle (i.e. it does not work). Is that just me?
This is an easy bubble to pop. Cut every professor's salary in half across the board and hand pink slips to half the people working in administration. Also, rent out half the classrooms as office space and do half the classes via web video. Bingo! College costs are cut in half or more.

After the implementation of these great ideas becomes an acknowledged and wonderful success I'll be back with some more. Should be able to eventually get the cost of College down to less than 10% of what it is today and the students will actually be learning a lot more because the quality will be a lot higher.
> It is easier to write a parser in Lisp to translate Lisp-like syntax into Lisp code than to write a parser in another language to translate that language's syntax into that language's code

Yeah, that's a neat thing about lisp, but it wasn't what the OP really said - he was talking about parsing a random string.

Incidentally, I would be curious to get a design guy - one who really knows little about code - to look at blocks of code in different languages and give us his opinion. I have suspicions about what he might say, but it'd be a fun experiment.
There's no magic wiring there - humans don't speak computer out of the womb. Some people start programming at a younger age than others. Some move on, some stick, some take it more seriously, some go on to become great.

It's like any other thing really. Football, Soccer, Jiujitsu, Ping-Pong, etc.
Sorry that your form didn't work out, I will poke around the logs to figure out what happened.

One of the most difficult tasks in call flows is properly handling errors, and it's obvious I have a few more edge cases to work out.

Thanks for the feedback.
We'll see the real value of this service I believe when more and more desktop applications move online. Can you imagine how useful this sort of service would be in the enterprise?

Looking forward to Greplin launching more indexes and developing further.
True. I think it's common for the owner of a medallion to let someone else drive the car illegally.
It's not just you. I tried it from various IPs and get the same broken axel page.
RCA Studio II Teardown
I completely agree about developing more integration points. Right now, this project is more of a tech demo. Not sure if I am going to invest the time to monetize.
I think he started out well, pointing out that SQL is a DSL for database queries. But the mapping between Cascalog and SQL wasn't clear, without further explanation it seems to be different for the sake of being different.

I would have appreciated a DSL which could obviously be used as a way to query an SQL database more than the examples in the article.
I am making the below post assuming you are Indian citizen. Lets look at the truth then.

> when I walk by a child slaving in a teashop.

You know quite well that child labor is illegal in India and we have a huge enforcement problem. When you walk by such a child, why don't you report this to the cops? Why don't you pass on this information to CRY or some such NGO. Have you tried speaking to the guy who employs the kid and tried to get the child enrolled in some school?

My point precisely is that as a dispassionate observer, you are not doing anything to solve the problem. I will state why I believe there is reason for hope.

When I had gone to get my driver's license in Hyderabad, I was turned down on the pretext of not knowing some archaic clauses because I did not come through an agent and hence had not bribed the person incharge. However, next time round, there was a redhat system on which I had to give my test (no more answering questions to some guy). Now there is a very clean smooth system with very little scope of corruption.

A billion plus population and a poor one at that will lead to chaos.
To jump from that to a country disintegrating calls for quite a leap of faith. I highly doubt that there has been a study of failed states to definitively conclude that your figures lead directly to a disintegrating state.
Yes, with the user's permission.
Can you share what it is? I can atleast intro you to some of my investors if the business/product is compelling and you would at all be interested in taking some investment and continue working on it? Or you can email me (see my profile).
Uses of implicit differentiation
Hello HN,

I have now gained an intuition of solving a simple equation involving implicit differentiation.example x^2y = 5 where y is considered to be a function of x even though it's not quite obvious.(it's not explicitly stated like y = f(x).)in this case we proceed taking the derivative using the power and the chain rule.my question is what is this implicit differentiation all about?i tried doing a google search on this but couldn't find a convincing article.wikipedia too starts off with the definition of it which i couldn't understand.neither of the two talks about the practicle uses of it.
i'll be really happy if someone could explain this concept in detail.so far i've been blindly solving problems involving this technic

Thank You
Companies Google Has Acquired
Mastering Node: Open Source Node.js eBook
Amazon Working on Subscription TV, Movie Service
It's true of nationalism everywhere, but the nationalist sentiment in India seems unusually strong relative to Europe and the Americas. No one is going to call you out as a traitor for saying "A lot of things suck about the US," unless you're a politician. Even right-wing talking points are full of negativity about the US.
I agree this is a bubble, and is likely headed for a crash. It's hard not to be worried about what may happen then. In the best case, higher ed. would largely be replaced by something cheaper, but maybe just as effective. In the worst case it would herald the end of the middle class, as a generation gave up on the idea of maintaining the lifestyle their parents had. Only the rich (and a lucky few talented or favored poorer students) would be able to afford college.

Depending on the prevailing political situation, there might be government intervention to shore up the availability of higher ed., or not. Depends whether the Dems or Repubs are in charge when it blows.
Say It Ain't So, Woz: Steve Wozniak Says Patent Trolls Are Okay
A Better Programming Language
In the article itself, the officers in question did care deeply about guilt and innocence. They were simply wrong about it.
It's odd that there isn't a C one, really. I've done very little with Java and the JVM, but hopefully those will prove helpful to someone else.

I don't have a time frame for a C-embedded Prolog (I've already got several other projects I'm trying to finish), but it's high on my list.
in the i's and !'s the periods tend to run together. at 10pt

everything else looks great
Pure speculation: they'd been looking semi-casually for a while, interviewing prospects, etc. The VCs were probably hoping Kevin would pull a Steve Jobs comeback. Then the Digg v4 fiasco happened. The VCs pulled the trigger and fast tracked their most promising candidate.