skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
GA solve hard optimization problem, with serious resource constrains, to facilitate breakthrough technology to market:

In January 2004 I was contacted by Philips New Display Technologies who were creating the electronics for the first ever commercial e-ink book reader, the Sony Librie, that had only been released in Japan, years before Amazon Kindle and the others hit the market in US an Europe. The Philips engineers had a major problem. Few month before the product was supposed to hit the market, they were still getting ghosting on the screen when changing pages. The problem was the 200 drivers that were creating the electrostatic field. Each of these drivers had a certain voltage that had to be set between zero and 1000 mV or something like this. But if you changed one of them, it would change everything. So optimizing each driver's voltage individually was out of the question. The number of possible combination of values was in billions,and it took about 1 minute for a special camera to evaluate a single combination. The engineers had tried many standard optimization techniques, but nothing would come close. The head engineer contacted me (I was in US at the time, they were in Holland) because I had previously released a Genetic Programming library to the open-source community. He asked if GP/GA's would help and if I can get involved. I did, and for about a month we worked together, me writing and tuning the GA library, on synthetic data, and him integrating it into their system. Then, one weekend they let it run live on the real thing. Next Monday I got these glowing emails from him and their hardware designer, about how nobody could believe the amazing results the GA found. This was it. Later that year the product hit the market. I didn't get payed one cent for it, but I got 'bragging' rights. They said from the begining they were already over budget, so I knew what the deal was before I started working on it. And it's a great story for applications of GAs.
Starting in industry after a PhD doesn't put you any higher on the ladder than a fresh BSc graduate.

Where you enter the industrial career ladder depends mostly on the kind of experience you would get in industry, but you can get that kind of experience in a PhD program, too, possibly much faster. If you work on a large software project, collaborate with other people on software projects, plan and execute programming tasks, make presentations, and teach undergrads, you'll be hired well above the level a good fresh graduate would. Your initial position will reflect some conservative doubt about the quality of your experience and how well you will adapt to the "real world," as we rather unfairly like to put it ;-) but it will still be a significantly higher and better-paid position than a fresh grad would get, and you'll be prepared to move up quickly to a senior position. Of course, the depth of knowledge you obtained in your specialty will mean nothing, and your research skills will mean nothing to the people who hire you, but your ability to organize yourself, think methodically, and execute long-term projects will separate you from your competition and make you an obvious candidate for quick promotion.

On the other hand, if all you learn about in grad school is your research topic, and you manage to get by without developing any of the skills I mentioned above, you will indeed be starting from square one, in the same position as a 22-year-old except with less energy and less time before you die.
What people don't understand about OAuth
For all the downsides to iOS development, this is one area where an iOS developer is better off than with Android. Harder to have your code pirated or forked. (Not impossible, just harder.)
Agreed, people underestimate the power of being polite. It can be the difference between 'yes' or 'no' in many situations
I actually have this book. I don't think it covers the Parathyroid though. If the Hyperparathyroidism doesn't pan out for me, I plan on asking the doctor to treat my Hypothyroidism more aggressively, to try and get my levels closer to perfect.
Looks like it. Now can they check the French out because I have a hard time believing a high cholesterol diet and smoking doesn't have a negative effect on longevity.
In my experience, windows doesn't apply dvorak universally when I try to set it to. It's much more productive on my end to just bring my own computer.
Not if, but when.
This reminds me of another interesting aspect of Japan that may be related to this issue. Of all the high-tech big-GDP countries, Japan is one of the most homogenous racially/ethnically. Not perfectly so (looks at patio11), but much more so than say the US, Canada, UK, France, etc.
good lord, I need my tinfoil hat.

"You say “business” (because you were at a conference) but the stamps in your passport indicate that you’re returning from a tourist destination like Bali. Now the officer can argue that you have made a false statement, have engaged in an attempt to claim improper business deductions under the Internal Revenue Code and have broken any other federal criminal law -- there are more than 10,000 -- which he can mold around the circumstances.

You and your travelling companion say “pleasure” but you’re returning from Antwerp, a city known for its diamond trade not its nightlife. Liars and smugglers! And, with two people involved, the feds can levy conspiracy and aiding and abetting charges"
The work location and the technical skills you are looking for might help in your search.
Ask HN: Internet banking in flash
Hey guys,

What do you think about a internet banking (IB) created in Flash (Flex)?

One Slovak's bank (Tatra Banka) announced, that they're planing change their actual (html4 + js + css2) IB interface to flash IB interface.
All the world is a DOM. The rise of Identity Based Programming.
great idea!

could be useful resource for folks studying history of a certain year or period
Choosing a new feed reader
www.psychotactics.com

A lot of Sean D'Souza's stuff is paid, but his free newsletter is very useful, and he'll send you amazing tips often. I highly recommend taking a look.
i can't see the site yet (hanging, overloaded?) but I'm sure a similar idea could be done in Python, Ruby, etc. Heck with web.py alone it only takes a few lines of code to get a simple web app running and handling requests on a port of choice.
HN doesn't support HTML formatting in posts: http://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc
In the EU, airport authorities will refuse to stamp your EU passport, even if you ask them to (travel geek, I wanted the stamp). As an EU citizen you may not be denied entry to any EU country and stamping your passport would imply that they had the right to either allow or deny entry.
This reminded me of some work Al MacDonald did a while back with Firefox Downloads...
http://bocoup.com/misc/stats.moz/
bonus points when you have parts left over...means you improved the design.
The (Power Law) Mathematics of War
"Instant" instant search
Check it out!

It searches for what you're looking for, before you even knew that's what you wanted.
There's no way that drive-train could be attached that loosely and have it go over so much as a pothole.
I did some brainstorming on this idea a couple months ago: http://mohrslaws.blogspot.com/2010/02/reality-as-genre.html

The subsequent discussions led me towards imagining a game that was a sort of cartography sim. You explore the real world, and as you go along, you reveal (/create) an alternate world. The key to keeping it from being another annoying mindless social game, I believe, is to emphasize checkins at more physically varied places, instead of many checkins at existing locations. In short, make it more like geocaching and less like foursquare.

On that note, the people that are likely to do this kind of adventuring aren't generally the type who want to sit and grind or be over-involved in a game world. So make it easy to check-in, take care of some things, and get on with your life. The satisfaction will come with seeing what comes of your activity as you get deeper into the game.
Awesome, but the "Watch Next Video" button doesn't seem to be working for me (starting in 1860).

All in all, the video does make me realize just how far we've come in 100 years. I'm so happy to be during the turn of this century versus the turn of the last century.
"GMail searches must search a genuinely real-time index of your e-mails. An e-mail must be searchable the instant it's created."
That's not a significant difference in terms of searching. The index segmentation is not likely to have a significant impact for most queries, and the segments are likely combined often enough for it not to be a problem.

It is real difference is that the infrastructure to support searching your one little inbox index just isn't there. It's probably not constantly loaded into RAM. It does cache queries though, try, "red" then "green" then "red".

Another difference is that is shows well more than 10 results.
thanks for your feedback! this sort of stuff makes me smile to myself, and even though I probably look like a loser while doing so, I'm very thankful :)
Until Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows require using an App Store with only approved software available for "licensing" (the new term for "install") then most of the computer market will continue with business as usual.
Good points, thanks. Without more tech detail, it does look like the Big table type datastore is being updated while being used for search. In Lucene/Nutch/etc. apps, I think it s common to build one index offline, then swap for the live index (don't need to do so, but it makes sense to sometimes do this). Google is likely getting rid of the swapping index part of the process by having a large persistent datastore that is continually indexed.
50 million bits is enough to specify a human-level intelligence, but only if one has the appropriate machine. In terms of constructing an AI, the human genome is doing little more than taking clever advantage of ways to cause things in the physical world to self-organize (as per the book, Notes on the Synthesis of Form). Physical reality itself is the execution machine, is responsible for much of the end product, and has way more than 50 million bits of complexity.

If we are thinking of running our first AI on something resembling current computer hardware, then we are going to run it in a extremely impoverished environment, as compared with actual physical reality. This means that the AI-specifying algorithm will have less environmental complexity to work with than the human-intelligence algorithm does, and this in turn means that the AI-specification will need to be longer and more complex.

So from a practical standpoint, while one could in theory specify an AI in 50 million bits, in practice the first AI will need a much larger specification, and/or will need to run on some very powerful computer hardware.

Just how powerful can probably be estimated, but it has little to do with the fact that the human genome contains 50 million bits of information. In terms of determining when AI will happen, the 50 million bit argument is a red herring.
The Edge of Physics
Police are supposed to investigate crimes. Not arbitrary people.
I have twice gotten out of a ticket by promptly and honestly admitting that I was breaking the law and had no excuse.

Cops are human lie detectors, playing dumb with them never works. OTOH acknowledging this fact straight away seems to make them happy.
A note for those reading me above: I'm wrong. It turns out that merchants are stiffed in cases of CC fraud.
sadly, the google suggestion "api" (lol, it's not really an API, hah) will not work with any obscene terms. There's no way to enable it at all :(

sorry if that's a disappointment. let me just say, "null" is the most common page accessed, and well, that's typically what is displayed for xxx-related terms :)
There was a good thread here yesterday (and no doubt on several prior occasions) about the gap between what people should be worried about and what they are worried about. People tend to worry too much about certain incredibly remote possibilities while being under-concerned about much more likely events.

The probability that you're going to wind up in jail for a crime you didn't commit based on an innocent and truthful answer to a prosaic-sounding question strikes me as one of those incredibly-unlikely events that some folks (like this dude) spend entirely too much time worrying about.
Interesting. I was actually living in Tokyo at the time and never heard about the police notifying Americans of the attack. (I am an American citizen.)

I first heard of the attack when a friend called my roommate and told us to turn on the TV. It was right after the first plane had just hit and they were still trying to figure out if it was some kind of accident. Shortly after, the 2nd plane hit and it became very apparent that it was no accident...
Becoming an exploit developer/security researcher help?
Hello everyone. I want to become one of those guys like Spender (grsecurity.net) that can easily find bugs in code, and show people like Linus Torvalds how insecure their things are. To be able to do this, I realize that i have to learn C and assembly, (not really sure about shell scripting or python/perl) but could someone recommend a _way_ to do this, books i need, just steps required in order for me to get to where i am going??<p>I know a lot of people will probably mock me but thats ok, i can take being made fun of if i will get a few good answers<p>btw i am on osx 10.5 (leopard) and most of the work i want to learn will be on that but i can install a vm if need be.<p>osx is a unix so it might be nicer to do since linux has apparently (via google) been explored so much osx is a nice new area that might be good enough for me i think<p>thanks everyone
Always have to keep an open mind on the Internet; and I always try to read things from a positive perspective. :)

Anyway, thanks for asking :D
I don't see any reasons why you wouldn't be able to do this.

I'd go with Appcelerator's Titanium, which can build for Android, iPhone, Windows, Mac and Linux (and they will probably add Blackberry in the future).

I've used Titanium very little, however my understanding is that while you can re-use plenty of code, you will still have to do some customization for each platform.
I don't know if they A/B tested their games but I do know that while I was playing the parts of the game I thought were terrible slowly disappeared and what I found appealing increased. One game mechanic I thought was terrible was the situation where you had to go back to earlier 'levels' of the game to complete your sets of items. They introduced trading. They also completely divorced the PvP aspect from the collecting game so you could practically ignore anyone setting a hit on you.

Also, I would totally play the big red orgasm button game and much like someone addicted to a TASP, die from it.
Yes I would definitely recommend something other than mystical/medieval.
Steve Huffman, Co-Founder of Reddit & Hipmunk, on This Week in Startups 
great guest.
To Generate Jobs, Nurture Start-Ups (Big or Small)
You shouldn’t play dumb.

The simple reason why you always want to know what the police accuses you of before you admit to doing anything is that they might know less than you think. (That’s exactly why they ask you!) You should never lie to the police, you should just politely ask them why they stopped you. What’s wrong with that?
Node.js is one of the most promising sounding projects I've seen in the last year in terms of something I may actually use in production code. JavaScript's agile syntax combined with ubiquity thanks to web browsers make it one of the few languages that would make switching to it bearable for, say, a Pythonista like me. And Node.js may be the final straw that unleashes it on the server-side.
What's more, he doesn't see any value to being polite, since he thinks these people should be treated as if they're authoritarian drones instead of fellow human beings.

He then has the balls to complain when people call him a 'douchebag'. While the word 'douchebag' is the chiched insult of the last decade or so, it does seem appropriate to this dude's particular combination of self-righteousness and self-involvement.
8-bit Farm: All Your Farm Are Belong To Us
Have you guys played FarmVille? Here's my Saturday afternoon project for nerdy fun.
So it's not just small business that creates most jobs, it's the start-up phase of the small business that does most of the job generation. That's an interesting statistic.
I know what the author means when he describes the flaws on the various readers. Been there too.

Nowadays I just follow my news sources on twitter (if they have accounts) or bookmark their RSS feeds on Firefox.

This is probably not very practical if you follow a lot of blogs. I try to curate my sources as much as possible, so it works for me.
I doubt they abandoned Map/Reduce, just changed where/how it's being used in their architecture. It's way too powerful of a technique, especially at their scale, to abandon it entirely.

Also, I didn't find this article to have a lot of substance. If anyone knows of any more detailed description of the under-the-hood changes, please point it out for us.
Yeah, the process seems to roughly be:

1. Mount special pen to RepRap
2. Plot traces on PCB multiple times
3. Correct errors by hand with pen and scalpel
4. Immerse in chemical solution that dissolves copper around traces
5. Remove pen ink with acetone
6. Drill holes with drill press
7. Apply solder on top of all traces
8. Solder in components

Step 2 is the only automated part. Considering all the CAD work you also have to do, it seems like it would be easier to just draw the traces by hand in the first place.

I helped a friend build a Mendel and I can tell you that it is a TON of work, inevitably requiring much ingenuity and overhead expense. I'm still very excited about the potential of the whole thing though.
What a terrific article! I found a video on how to play the flute, split an atom, how to construct a box girder bridge, and how to irrigate the Sahara desert and create vast areas of viable farmland, and finally how to cure all known diseases.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNfGyIW7aHM
Counter-experience: I walked through customs with just a backpack after being in Europe for 2.5 weeks. Guy looks at me and says "you didn't check any bags?" and I responded "I travel light," with a bit of a grin on my face. He says "welcome home." It was a touching moment.
Curious though, if you are a Pythonista, why not use something like gevent or tornado?
"You" is pretty rude in America (or at least the North East).

To add a little more context, I work in emergency services (fire/EMS), so if I'm addressing someone, it's typically to give them instruction to keep them safe ("Sir, I need you to ______"). I also use 'sir' before I know someone's name ("Excuse me sir, could I get your name?").

The word can certainly have different connotations depending on the relationship. A service employee would generally refer to a customer/employer as "sir," and I suppose there's an air of subservience there.

On reflection, I suppose you could call a firefighter a "service employee," and civilians on an emergency scene are in many ways "customers," so my use of the term might just be an extension of that relationship...
There's lots of Ruby/Java/etc work in the Twin Cities. Drop me a line - we'll get you connected.
http://ompldr.org/vNWloOQ
I like how typing "Paris" went to Paris, France and then adding ", Texas" takes you to the location expected as well. I like to see tricky cases like that handled the least surprising way.
Attention musicians, MuckWork will do your uncreative dirty work
As an engineer I'm blown away that they can pull this off at all. As a user one thing that's pissing me off about Instant is that it doesn't honor the 'Number of Results' search setting, it always returns 10 results.

I feel like the Louis CK airplane internet guy, "pfff this is bullshit" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOtEQB-9tvk
I'd be inclined to say that when there's a theoretical legal attack, it should be handled as though it were a practical one.

The real flaw in this argument is that as soon as you mark yourself out as "that guy who's being a dick" you attract a lot of attention, and you're more likely to wind up in court on some other charge.

For instance, there's a very high probability once you've started being a dick that they'll decide to thoroughly search your suitcase. Have you accurately reported the value of all goods acquired overseas on your customs declaration form? If you haven't (or even if you have but they feel like quibbling over the value of some of those goods, or if they suspect that some of the goods acquired in the US were acquired overseas) then you could potentially wind up getting charged over that.
Now try that on a sportscar...
Here in Costa Rica it varies a lot between working for government or private companies, but a good salary for software development .NET, Java etc with experience is around USD $2500 per month, entry level or recently graduated around 1500-2000$ per month.
Reminds me of the teamwork and efficiency of formula 1 pit crews and the modular design of the cars.
Care to cite your sources on that one?
> With regards to "barbaric" medical practice, you seem to be conflating pre-scientific medicine with scientific medicine.

Firstly, no I'm not. Secondly, you seem to believe scientific medicine is effectively infallible. Nearly every day a new study indicates studies performed just a year or two or ten ago are inaccurate. Indeed, that is the very nature of science.

What we're discussing here is logic. It is not logical to accept the opinion of a medical expert, particularly without trials. This is precisely why most people will undertake the logical next step and seek a second opinion. Ultimately, certainty is impossible but blind acceptance is rarely ever wise and always illogical.
The formatting is hell to read and Googling for a better one goes back to that copy. But it's worth it!
the bullshit part is that people think the japanese actually do those things that make you live longer. maybe everyone in japan ate an okinawan diet... in okinawa, 200 years ago. japan today is one of the worlds largest beer consuming countries. They are hardcore smokers, junk food fiends, hanbaagaa setto aficionados, subject themselves to
2 hour train rides, oppressive family lives, bipolar attitudes towards sex (lots of porn; little actual sex), insane work hours or unemployed shut-ins, and so on and so forth. If anything the longevity of the japanese is a counterexample to what most people think makes people live longer...
tornado solves one very specific problem that friendfeed had. It's being used for other problems, but it solves them less well than, say, twisted.

twisted solves networking problems of all types really well, but (as Paul mentions in his post), most libraries for python are written assuming they have the entire interpreter to themselves for as long as they want (which in the naïve case, turns it into tornado, but it at least has facilities for running async tasks in other threads or processes).

node.js does as well, but it's developing a very rich library very fast. Certain things are harder to deal with (personally, I think twisted got async error handling right and most everyone else hasn't got there yet), but people think they understand javascript better than they think they can understand twisted.
I feel the same way and now that Bloglines is shutting down, I have to switch. I spent this morning looking at available options and posted my notes here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1682514
I'm really curious about the survey methodology. If I ask a parent "Hey, are you worried about the fact that right this moment somebody might be shooting your child with a sniper rifle for no good reason?" I'd probably get the response "Well, yeah, now I am..."