skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
So you wonder why they didn't flat out ban or confiscate the book and then you say that paying for it was an abuse of power?

That's a curious position...
This is like an assembly language or machine code program that does two different things depending on the alignment with which you jump into it.
Hot Swap java code: unlimited class redefinition at runtime.
Great article.

Also take a look at the article specifically about the speech : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If-by-whiskey . The op's link is to the speech's author.
SV innovation was once about creating the technological infrastructure that we all take for granted. Now, it's about using that technology in new, interesting ways to see what might happen.

I have met and spent time with Dan, before he became such a cynic. He was excited about the idea of being near startups and wanted to come up with an idea for his own. What I see when I read his pieces is sadness, disappointment. While I can't blame him, we should understand his point of view in context: he could-a been a contender.
Best way to get a close-to-fair coin toss from identical biased coins?
It's interesting that Foursquare sees Scala and Lift as a critical technical advantage but Gowalla seems to be competing just fine with their Rails stack.
Does this process really work? Are standards written and then products are built to those standards, or are products built and then the standards are created from those working products?

I've been considering a web app in Python 3, but with ZeroMQ bindings and Mongrel2, WSGI isn't even on my radar any more.
The Complete History of Lemmings
It would also avoid having to send a "sorry guys, we've had some delays, it'll take an extra six weeks" message.
Superficial? We've seen with the stuff leaked by Wikileaks that much of what was classified contained information that would cause the public to question the war effort and perhaps become quite upset/involved in stopping the war.
Chicago Style Paper and Its Characteristics Attributes
The citation style in any paper should be according to the style of paper written. It should be adhered precisely and accurately. There are different types of citation and formatting styles. Chicago style paper is the least common. However, understanding its features will make the writing easier.
Are you sure that he's not going to be facing charges? Do you know what info was in the book and what impact it would have or not have on national security issues? It sounds like what happened was that he put information in the book that could be considered classified or at least sensitive, the Army Reserve Command approved it, but then after publication, other branches of the government saw things they would not have approved. My guess is that pressing charges would be difficult, since he got approval prior to publication, but that doesn't mean that no classified info slipped through.

Again, my point is not at all that this situation was handled well, just that the point that withholding the truth from the public isn't necessarily the terrible injustice that it sounds like.
Why there are no girls in San Francisco
While this is true, and I respect your decision to go to medical school, consider this:

In Japan, which has the best life expectancy of any nation, doctors are trained for three years after high school. That's it.

I believe a case can be made that the entire pre-medical curriculum is a scam, one that wastes years of life from some of our most promising young people and rakes in billions of education expenses that drive up the cost of health care.
Yup, the new format (idea) would have a drop down right next to the search button where you would be able to select maps or images (just not in that prototype). You could still of course also precede or end your search with !m or !i for maps or images. What do you think?
You might want to consider getting involved with the Open Beer Database (for the beer listings themselves) rather than become yet another island of beer information on the web.

"The goal of the Open Beer Database is to centralize basic beer and brewery information. We respect and enjoy all of the beer related communities that have sprung up across the internet, however, our main concern is the non-open nature of these community's databases. The continual duplication of this data will eventually lead to incomplete and/or out-of-date sources for basic beer and brewery data."

http://openbeerdb.com/

I'm a BeerAdvocate.com user but I do think that there is room for a more social rating/sharing site that is more focused on questions like: What are my friends drinking/recommending? What do I like? What is available near me?

edit - I'd recommend looking the "BeerAdvocate Talk & Site Help " board on BeerAdvocate and picking out the suggestions that are related to social sharing of information and ratings. The site is very much focused on long-form reviews and these types of suggestions are often shot down, but the ideas and opinions should be valuable to you.
I always read the permissions requested by each app before installing. Some of the things I've seen are just obnoxious. My favorite are games that want full access to my contacts.

Also, there is a way to completely disable net access temporarily: APNdroid kills the wireless data over 3G/EDGE/GPRS and then disable wifi. This kills in-game ads but who knows what data the app stores up for future transfer.
Sportsmanship, perhaps?
Any more examples of terrible survival behavior?
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/how-large...
I've heard Chris speak and he's a fascinating guy. I haven't bought my copy yet but I imagine the book is a great read based on his engaging speaking style.
There seems to be a recurrent theme of social marginalization when reporting on software and especially open source. Specifically, opening this article with the fact that the guy "lives with his parents" immediately sets him up as an eccentric, dysfunctional person in the eyes of the typical Western reader.

Is this just a reflection of the culture and bias that NYTimes journalists have, or (more sinisterly) are there official guidelines for spin on these types of stories?
Yes, that's the perfect description of what I'm looking for, maybe I should put up a new post? I've read that startups have a much better chance of succeeding if everyone is friends from the get-go, but I'm not giving up the search...
Hate to be a nitpick, but doing nothing is slightly different than not doing something (a specific thing). That aside, it's a great testament to why authority should be questioned and decisions should always be filtered through the mind.
Keys to Success with Freemium
Methane can be captured and used as fuel for power generation, as many modern landfills do.
Maybe you're just reading into too much what these people wrote.
Obligatory paywall-bypassing Google search link: http://www.google.com/search?q=Meet+the+Defenders+of+Open-So...
Entrepreneur Traits
Heres what I did: I started out learning HTML/CSS, which I think is crucial. It'll take a few weeks to learn. I think it's pretty necessary to know if you're getting into the web; it's also simple enough.

Then you can figure out how to get a basic site up. This will keep you learning, if you want to be taken seriously, you need to understand how to do all this stuff. Use your new found skills to build up something basic, but something that can make you a bit of money. I built www.iPadCaseFinder.com, it got quite a bit of press, and made $3k~ in 3 months, and I sold it for the same amount. Use this money to hire a designer, get the mockups done, use your HTML/CSS skills to code them, and apply any necessary jQuery, etc. Then use that to find a programmer :-) (Or rinse and repeat, use the new money to hire a programmer).

I'm assuming your skills are business and marketing, so use those skills well.

Also, network.
We shall see the censored text pretty soon on Wikileak - c'mon Pentagon, it's the age of internet!
No problem here with OS X and Chrome.

Have you tried the top of the blog link?: http://alephnullplex.appspot.com/blog
And it still doesn't support sessions.
A powerfully retarded article, if I may say so
How to Get Funding for a New Business
> Me: Sort of. I build online tools that people use.

> Them: Like what – Google?

> Me: No. For example, one tool I built sends people reminders.

What specific distinction is the author making with "No"? http://www.googletutor.com/screencast-how-to-setup-sms-alert...

They don't work for Google? That their web-app isn't a search engine? So the post doesn't apply to epi0Bauqu (DDG)? That a search engine isn't a web-app?

I'd go with "Yes, but..."
Reminds me of HuaQiangBei in Shenzhen, China. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RafPma9_t8Q&feature=fvw
This article lacks a summary of the capital and maintenance costs per resident. With the government as landlord it will be an elite enclave as long as the right people in the government are interested. When interest is lost, watch out for deterioration in the "custom" infrastructure (e.g. the personal electric vehicle infrastructure).
> law schools love engineers because they already know how to think analytically and don't have to be taught that

I went to engineering school as an undergraduate. In my opinion, the biggest value of a traditional engineering education is that you learn how to solve problems. This works very well in the software industry where X is supposed to do Y but does Z.

First year: Traditional coresciences. Physics, Chemistry. Very structured problem sets (well defined problems, well defined answers)

Second year: Core engineering classes. Statics, Dynamics, Materials. More specialized problem sets, less definition.

Third year: The hardest year. Labs, beginning of long-term group projects. Problems are now more general. Doing a homework problem now is much more difficult because if you get off track early - you don't get the textbook correct answer. Lots of engineering labs where you have to collect a lot of raw data and use a cookbook of formulas to write the analysis.

Routine now on tests to not solve many problems in time allotted. It's really a test of your problem solving process now. The point is you could probably solve all of the problems given enough time but in the real world you have time constraints so the faculty is helping you adjust your analytical skills to be quicker.

Fourth year: This is the year where you work on a Capstone project. Very big problem with some constraints. All the design is up to you. It's your problem to solve.
Previous articles said that the book contained names of intelligence operatives whose lives would be in danger if their names were revealed.

Also, he submitted it to his unit, which may not have known the actual names of intelligence operatives or had previous experience dealing with highly classified information.
You know what I would want. A jailbroken iPhone and WiFi connection. Fire up ssh, and do some programming. It would be the most gimmicky startup ever. Hopefully by the time I get out, I would be Y-funded.

This situation is terrible, and god bless those people and their families, but that's exactly what I would demand if I was down there. (given that the government actually gave a shit about me at that point)
Scary Face Flip Tees
I'm getting one, I know some buddies who are easy to scare lol
It's fun to read, but it makes an implicit assumption that all women are dumb and cannot appreciate what you do. That's certainly not true, I can prove it.

I have a friend, she's an MD. She once asked me to teach her programming and I said sure. Instead of starting to explain things to her I just wrote a relatively simple piece of code and asked her to tell me what it meant. I was truly surprised when the next day she did that almost perfectly. Of course she googled some basic things, yeah, but I was impressed by how a girl who had no prior training in programming figured it all out.
I wasn't aware that people go to one school for their engineering classes, then haul ass across the country to a liberal arts college for their history electives. That notion seems absurd. :)

If you want to major in History (and enjoy the really bad pay-scale that comes with that), you'll probably get the best education at a liberal arts school, but the cost-benefit analysis is even worse.
If it were based on real science, it wouldn't be research, it would be simple engineering.
Promote JS
While I think there is some truth in the article, and the lack of innovation in SV, one should probably remind the author that some of the more interesting pure technology startups are still SV based. To pick two close to my interests

Complete Genomics: http://www.completegenomics.com/
Pacific Biosciences: http://www.pacificbiosciences.com/
Tilera: http://tilera.com (started out of MIT but now in San Jose)

There is a lot more "noise" out there just because it's easier. I suspect it would have been the same in the past if the capital required was lower. That said we should be asking ourselves if what we are doing has a purpose? I meet too many people with a good "idea" but no purpose, and in the long term that might become a problem.
It's kind of amusing to watch the ad-hominem arguments take flight.

While it's true Daniel Lyons is Fake Steve Jobs and that Nathan Myhrvold runs a company focused on thinking up ideas that could lead to products after some research and patent them before spending a dime making any real progress beyond writing them down, while at the same time extorting those who do, the argument against companies like Facebook or Zynga stand: what are they doing to improve the human condition? Are they doing more or less than companies like HP, Intel, Cisco, Apple and Google?
Or the waste could simply be burned, without an intermediate "rotting-in-the-ground" phase.
I believe there's definitely a role for "curated" [to tie it back to another ongoing discussion] nature/environmental programs, but I really like your idea of an HD watering hole feed. Does anybody know of anything like it? Something that could just be left to run on your TV and maybe you might happen to catch something amazing if you looked up at just the right time?
Another thing I read was that the company that operated the mine has declared bankruptcy and can't pay anyone. That must be a downer.

Fortunately, various companies have made around 1000 job offers for these people when they get out. A nice way to keep the motivated about the future.
I must agree with this method. There is no substitute for researching companies. I'd filter a bunch of 10k's and look for abnormalities etc.. You can start with the typical top down approach - decide what your view is on the economy, pick an industry you think is poised to do well or badly in those circumstances, start filtering firms that fit in with your assumptions. Look for the drivers of revenues and costs for these firms and see if you can find anything that is 'abnormal' and make a play based on those...
Alcohol does nothing at all if you 'look' at it--- to achieve excess or moderation (shudder) you have to 'drink' it...
What we really don't know is whether the Soviets actually would have followed that policy or whether they just said that to save face.
They are living better than kings of old through that three inch hole.
A city, by traditional definition, doesn't contain empty spaces. The outside of a city is where the empty space lies.

Empty spaces degrade the city because it takes time to walk through an empty space just to get somewhere. And a city is meant to be walked around.

A traditional piazza or a square is fine because they occupy one city block, blocks are traditionally small, and they're surrounded by dense array of buildings: shops and apartments.
That's really not an essay.
I'm just surprised that any engineer can be so lacking in foundational english. Are there any programming languages that have a vocabulary that is not english?
Wrong Story. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1728884
This is how autocad works. (at least it used to - I haven't used it in several versions). An interactive command line complimented by a graphical ui is a beautiful thing.
Both are still pretty small (I haven't even heard of Gowalla), so it seems too early to make any judgments yet. The critical technical advantage, if it exists, will probably make itself really known once they grow a couple of orders of magnitude.
10 movies that are better than Wall Street 2
Wall Street 2 sucked. watch some of the documentary movies listed here instead, bonus: better acting!
Look, actually it's quite simple:

1. Finish your undergraduate, because in most societieis there's a big stigma associated with not having a college degree.

2. While doing that, assess yourself. If you think you've got the entrepreneurial balls, don't get a degree. It's a sure way to (slightly) higher salary but wastes time at a crucial stage in your life, i.e. the pre-wife, pre-kids time.

3. Problem is, you can assess yourself theoretically only up to a certain point. You've got to try. So, set a time limit, e.g. 1 year, start a company and give it a shot. Then, go back to (2) and reassess. Steps (2)-(3) may be repeated a couple of times till you converge.

I traveled the path of least resistance since (i) there was no one around to give me the above advice and (ii) I was in a another country where doing a start-up was rare at an early (or late) stage.
Fuck, man, learn basic grammar.

I could have, not I could of.

My parents would cry if they saw me write like that.

The rest of the article is also littered with omitted words and little mistakes. It makes it really hard for me to even begin to consider forwarding that to my parents, no matter how good or bad the points may be. Get the final line right at least:

I know Parents, that doesn’t really help. Just people I’m a web designer.

-> I know, Parents, that doesn't really help. Just tell people I'm a web designer.
Marketplace for group discounts getting crowded
> If the USA is not investing enough resources in "alternative energy, better batteries, and nanotechnology"

It's not the government's primary job to fund innovation. What we are seeing is that innovation is unable to sustain itself without government money.

There is a marketplace for alternative energy, better batteries and nanotechnology. This reminds me of AI. AI is all around us, yet, we don't call it AI anymore except for marketing purposes. So will AE, batteries and nanotech.
This article is pointless. Here are 250: http://www.imdb.com/chart/top
Life expectancies != a countries medical care performance.

For example, no amount of medical care can overcome the US obesity problem.
And by announcing the destruction of the current print of books, now those that care can diff the new and old to see who the operatives are.

If they had said nothing, it would have just been a "3rd printing" with no fanfare.

And the book is still in the LoC.
I make no judgements. I'm a big fan of Scala, in fact. It's just not clear to me to what extent Foursquare is a validation of Lift.

These slides go into a little more detail on Foursquare's switch to Lift:
https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=0ATHAG0M-0vxXZGNicHo...
It's up to the particular business.

Some people believe in the hyperlean "Four Hour Workweek" theory where you ought to be as scarce as possible.

Some businesses are about building a community. Particularly if you're looking for customer one, two or three, that's going to be a high touch proposition.

Personally, Zappos drives me nuts. I can't see how their "high touch" approach to selling clothes online can be profitable at the prices they sell things for. Perhaps it isn't, and Amazon is a sugar daddy that's going to let them make a name for themselves as people get used to the idea of buying clothes online -- Amazon can fund them for the five years or a decade that it will take for the boutiques to go out of business.
Ending software patents is not a solution to Bilski
Glad to see they are now supporting Scala 2.8 but...

what happened to their website? I seem to recall a vastly different appearance before. If the look of the Lift website is an indicator to first time visitors of the quality of the framework, I wonder how many visitors don't get beyond the initial landing page.

Here's what I noticed immediately in about a minute:
-Not a lot of contrast for colors to help material stand out
-Lack of contrast leads to difficult reading on tired eyes and I'm only 30 something
-Page balance - Small main content area compared to long running side panel
-The quote box just looks ... meh
-No favicon
-The icons of the groups/companies using the framekwork appear to have a lot of artifacts in them

I really like Scala but this site redesign is probably not helping win new users to the framework.
Even the soviets probably don't know that for sure.
Dark Secrets of the Games Industry (pdf)
If you get a login wall from the above link, try going through Google and clicking the first result: http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHMG_enUS291US301&so...
Does anyone have a non-paywall link?
I didn't know about http://squeryl.org/
before seeing it in the new feature list.

Seems like it could be valuable competition for http://scalaquery.org/
"If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." --Reagon
Japan is played out. China is where it's at - http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=147

Japanese culture seems to have become dominated by consumption, whereas China still has a big thing for production.
> Just [tell] people I’m a web designer.

Just a thought. Maybe you could show your parents how to demonstrate what task.fm does and how people use it. Could be as simple as giving them a canned 1 min video to play for people who ask.
No matter what is it you do, your girlfriend will tell people you’re ‘really really good with computers’. This is a universal truth. There is no way your girlfriend will be able to fully comprehend what you do.

How misogynistic! My girlfriend is an entrepreneur. She understands what I do perfectly well.

Learn to be mean. It’s not in our nature to be mean. We want to help everyone. But it’s exactly what you need when you don’t want to be pushed around. If you’re mean every once in a while, girls will stop seeing you as a usable object (see #7) and more as a potential partner that can equal them. This is the reason people tell you to learn to say no. Tip: playfully call them names every now and then.

Wtf? Why not slap her around while you're at it, I hear it teaches them females to pay proper respects and all. At least those of the author's species.
Probably neither. They're just painting a picture of a stark contrast between him and "the world’s most powerful consumer electronics and technology companies."
JVM / hotSpot monitoring tools
I've worked in job shops that do web sites for smaller businesses and I'll tell ya that it's a rough business.

If you're lucky you'll get to mess with a lot of new technology, and even meet some really cool clients, but sooner or later you're going to meet your nightmare client who burns up the profit you made on five good clients. If you're not careful, bad clients can drive out good clients and before you know it...

The industry is particularly impacted by people, who, as you're planning to do, will do work free or cheap. This puts the larger operations that are more responsible (offer health insurance, have a variety of experienced people with various specialties, always have somebody around even when some individual takes vacations, etc.) under a lot of pressure.

You're better off working on one or two big things than working on a bunch of small things that will distract you all over the place. I wouldn't go back to making web sites for small businesses even if it meant I'd starve to death or have to make my living selling aluminum siding or something.
I don't know about Akihabara personally, but other markets in Asia (and elsewhere) allow you to haggle a bit. One easy tactic, "well the stall over around the corner said they'd sell this for $20, I'll buy it from you if you can go to $19").