skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Seriously? I've been figuring that fictitious gold is the next bubble to pop. Physical gold is hard money; obligations to deliver gold are not.
"Abusive" naked shorting is already prohibited by the SEC, the enforcement, however, is a little suspect.
I think developers are shocked because for many it is their first time dealing with the consumer masses out there in an online world. Any small business owner who is on Yelp knows that people can be really, really mean. Often without reason or cause. The same goes for App Store reviews. Some make completely no sense, or to a logical person, are unsupported by facts. It has to be really frustrating to see some of this stuff out there.
I think Apple needs to revamp their review system. Maybe they should talk to Amazon about reviews. I find those reviews more useful.
Anyone have experience with android's accessability UI?

A blind friend showed it to me, and it seemed fairly impressive but with the major failing that the web browser was not accessible.

Of course, the benefit of using android would be getting a phone with a physical keyboard, and a d-pad.
The problem I had was that Clinton's principal associate is Ira Magaziner, the same "intellectual" who was the schemer-in-chief behind "Hillary care" in 1993.

The problem I have is that Tom Peters is the same "intellectual" who continues to say less with more words that any other "business guru" on the lecture circuit.

Funny how often over the years he has been wrong with his McKinsey-like advice while the world changed under his feet.

Funnier is that the guy who skims the surface of everything, never digging down below one level is telling us hackers to act without realizing that this is one audience you can't bullshit.

Examples of Peters' charlatanism are everywhere. Just a few:

http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/53/peters.html

http://www.sathnam.com/Features/31/tom-peters

http://www.amazon.com/Witch-Doctors-Making-Sense-Management/...
> it's my favorite SQL server

Agreed. It Excels in what it does and hast fastest Access times.

[edit: didn't mean to start a pun thread.]
These two new features sound particularly interesting to me:

Streaming Replication: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/warm-standby.html#...

Hot Standby: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/hot-standby.html
Asking for reviews on deleting an app is also maybe not the best way of getting balanced feedback. Though I hear rumours that recent updates have stopped this.
It's similar to practicing scales or intervals on the piano. You'll rarely have to play those sequence of notes just like that, but the practice still prepares you for other actions.
I'm now reading Karl May to my son, and the novels are so awful that they are downright entertaining again.
By the way, send me an email to info@tnsmagic.com, I will reply with the info you asked. :)
In his latest comedy show, Jerry Seinfeld has a segment on consumer entitlement. Specifically, he talks about how when someone goes into a Starbucks and buys a venti latte and walks down the street - the sense of superiority you can sense from someone merely holding out this branded styrofoam cup. And, how when these coffee holders are crossing the street at a red light, how they may pause just the briefest moment and pass judgement on you, sitting in your car. I feel App Store buyers (even if it is a free app) share the same sense of consumer entitlement - to pass judgment on your app. Remember, the major difference between someone technical and non-technical is that the non-technical person does not care or does not appreciate or does not know how hard it is to actually create an app (recent App Store policy changes notwithstanding). Among certain groups of iPhone users, they only care if app helps in making them look cool or entertains them from daily monotones.
I didn't want to laugh at these last 2 comments... but it slipped out anyway. Nicely done.
Structural risk in etfs will always be there as they are not pure holdings of the underlying. For example, USO is a heavily followed (and traded) oil fund. However, it deals mostly in near term derivatives contracts, and it will continually underperform over time if the futures further out in time are priced higher then the near term futures. Other etfs with this problem are UNG and VXX and a host of others.

Structural risk in sector etfs are most likely not as high as what this article states. Any market inefficiencies would most likely be fixed by arbitrage, and arb firms may explain the large amount of shorts in XRT for example.

One of the major risks I see down the road is if gold actually does become a bubble. The major etf everyone watches is GLD, which does deal in physical gold. If a bubble hits its peak and redemptions come in, they will have to sell off some of that gold, which would accelerate the selling, providing a positive feedback loop-- which is what we normally see when a bubble crashes.

Of course, all the risks I just mentioned, as well as the risks shown in the article, are spelled out in each etf's prospectus, so this is nothing new.
I think that thread now has an "Exhibit A" supporting evidence ;-)
Here's a question: how come the top paid apps on average have higher ratings than top free apps? (http://moby.to/dwvgvr)

I asked a marketing professor that I work for and he told me that his hypothesis was the level of thinking users did before they paid for something versus when they bought it for free was different. You probably want to make sure an app is worthwhile before you purchase it, by carefully considering its functionality, reading the reviews and so on. A free app doesn't elicit this kind of care before purchase. My professor said it was the same with student ratings: required courses tend to have poorer reviews than electives, partially due to the level of choice the student had in picking the course.

I agree to an extent, but there should be a counteracting force: feeling ripped off. Why should users feel so upset about a free app they downloaded that they would take the time to write a negative review, a review they probably didn't read before downloading themselves? Wouldn't users of paid apps feel more compelled to leave a negative review if they felt it wasn't worth the money? Thus, paid app users would probably be more incentivized to leave a negative review, even if they are less likely to feel negatively about the app.

Nonetheless, the empirical observation is that for the most downloaded apps, free apps are more poorly reviewed than paid apps. Might a third (decisive) factor be that app store shoppers are divided (generally) into extremely price sensitive and not price sensitive (meaning, free app buyers and paid app buyers)? This hypothesis might be supported by the fact that the free app reviews tend to have a different quality of language from paid app reviews (as you can read in the reddit article linked here). I personally feel that paid apps in general are of higher quality than free apps, so I think paying a small amount for apps, almost always (with the exception of Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, etc...), is worth the reduction in noise from sifting through free apps. My experience with these apps tends to be good, and I use the apps longer and download them less frequently then I might if I were a serial free app downloader (I think). The fact that free apps are more poorly reviewed doesn't help either.

The reason that it's important to understand these differences is that the decision to make it free or not might also be a marketing decision. Your goal with an app might be looking to make an in-app sale down the road to the user, to promote another product, or develop your brand as a developer. It could turn out that users in your target demographic don't "trust" free apps (in general) and thus don't download them, and you might harm your brand by offering them for free. You might also get a user base that doesn't understand your app before downloading, then leaves harsh negative reviews, thus also hurting your brand. Lastly, these users might be more likely to delete your app after a few days, and then move onto another free app, hurting your prospects of making a down-the-road sale or earning advertising revenues. Thoughts?
Influence from piers, eh? That's new to me.

Seriously, does anyone else find it difficult to take articles like this seriously when they contain spelling mistakes like that?
That's a school exercise, but I can't resist adding a haskell version -

perfects = [n | n <- [1..], n == sum (divisors n)]
where
divisors n = [k | k <- [1..(n `div` 2)], n `mod` k == 0]
hi i find it kind of slow...
I really shouldn't indulge in this on HN, but One might Note that it has a good Outlook.

EDIT: Downvotes feel good, in a way. Too much focus on karma, recently, amongst a subset of the current HN population.

Figured I'd been around long enough to appreciate a rare moment of humor from another old-timer, and dip my oar in -- even if in a slightly ill-advised fashion.

The caffeine made me do it! Now, on to work...
Useful Tools for Web App Development
You don't make a copy, you have a copy. The DMCA applies to such works as well, at least as far as the law is concerned. This is part of why the DMCA is so offensive, the "anticircumvention" clause grotesquely expanded copyright law well beyond the act of mere copying. The act of circumvention becomes illegal, regardless of whether it even involves you "making a copy" in the eyes of the law. The act of playing a DVD on Linux by hacking past the encryption is illegal, even though that is not usually considered "making a copy" in the eyes of the law. (That's also something that has been fought over but I'm not convinced has been settled.)
Setting Up An NFS Server And Client On OpenSUSE 11.3
Oh, but it can. Imagination can stretch pretty damn far. All I'm saying is that I can "stretch" far enough to get you into court without getting your case thrown out immediately, and that's enough to chill anybody considering trying this gambit.
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It's like dyslexics, you can always tell the real ones because they're quietly getting on with it, not making a huge attention-getting fuss.

I think a good deal of individuals that draw attention to it do so because they are generally embarrassed by some of the manifestations of this particular problem. You can have an otherwise intelligent person, who's writing can give the indication that there thoughts are somehow less valid, because there intelligence should be questioned due to gramatical errors.

I think stating it, is a way of an individual saying "hey don't discount my thoughts due to the vessel they come it"

I know for me personally, it is a source of major embarrassment and this damned iPhone keyboard only makes it dreadfully worse.
Most people cannot tell the difference between arrogance and confidence. If you're confident you can't avoid people grumbling about how arrogant you are. And if you are arrogant you can't avoid women sleeping with you because you exude confidence. Although your pastor, guidance counselor and boy scout manuals will suggest the opposite, I've found it's better to err on the side of being slightly arrogant than humble. Just make sure you can back it up.
And it takes planning to ensure that you have all the different types of warm clothing that may be required to face as many of the possible conditions on that mountain as possible.

Of course, there are limits on how much you can take, and planning can help determine those limits (so that you don't end preparing for the tail ends of a distribution of possible scenarios and end up carrying a heavy burden).

There is always a give and take relationship in preparing for possible scenarios and the resources one can afford to spend for those possibilities.
There's a lot of ways programmers can be arrogant:

* Black-and-white feedback. Software is very black and white. Your dietitian can tell you to "reduce your sugar intake" instead of telling you you're fat because you drink so much cola. There's no way to sugar coat "you pressed the wrong button, and now you have to start over", unless you want to point out that the programmer who make the stupid program must have been an idiot. Either way, you look arrogant.

* We read a lot. Hackers usually know about the Milgram experiment, how Easter Island's economy collapsed when they cut down all the trees (peak wood), and why wikipedia may or may not be accurate. People who know it all come across as arrogant.

* We speak another language. No, not C. Programmers often speak a dialect that's a bit like English, but evolved into something a little different over IRC and BBs. That language isn't always rude, but it's different, and different can often come across as rude.

* We need to be intellectually assertive. We will find out why the core got dumped, and fix it. It's our brains against the compiler. If we don't win, our programs won't work.

* Arrogant programmers are still employable. There are plenty of arrogant HR officers, secretaries, school teachers, and shop assistants; but none of them act that way on the job. Sales guys are said to be unbelievably arrogant, but you can bet they will be very polite to potential customers.

* Heck, if we get too passive aggressive when we tell the PHB he's wrong, it can end in disaster. "Getting the team onto a version control system is universally agreed to be an essential best practice. It aids communication, reduces bugs, and keeps the source code safe" just isn't strong enough. He's already heard a similar pitch from a guy selling UML code generators, and look how that turned out. A bit more drama might be needed: "We aren't using a VCS. ANYBODY knows that this is as stupid as [your analogy] to control STDs."
This seems like an exaggeration. What does the person who creates the cover illustration get to work off of? Surely there's at least a short treatment or something.
Depends whether by "consumers" you mean people who buy a computer as a unit, or people who just buy the CPU.
But I think it's fair to say that you are not the norm.
everything you use, you get to use as the result of someone's effort

While it seems most of HN would agree with our opinion, you also need to keep in mind most of it came from a combination of work, and the enslaving of another people. Should you not feel guilty for the people your ancestors screwed over to get you into the position you are in today?
filevault & crashplan.com
Seriously a bad spelling mistake. Corrected now. Thanks.
As a professional engineer who took a programming career (I did some engineering between programming jobs), I have to second yummyfajitas' comment.

Being a good programmer seems every bit as demanding as being a good mathematician, physicist or surgeon.

Or engineer, although I won't consider myself a good one. A "good enough" at best.
HN is soooooo 2009
Why shouldn't it be the norm though, this reminds me of my favorite Robert Heinlein quote: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly".

Real world skills are important, even for mathematicians, physicists and computer programmers.

And having some real world skills only gives you more respect, not less for the people that practice those things every day.

Nothing will teach you respect for a farmer more than trying to grow your own food, and the same goes for any other variation on that theme.
Prevention is the best medicine...
Checkout my recent blog post on portable security:
http://fpux.com/2010/03/23/portable-security/

As previously mentioned, prey project is great. If you combine it with encryption, guest account, and firmware password -- you've created a helpful environment to get your machine back.
Addthis have an ajaxy JS snippet you can use. Might help a bit. Similarly, check for similar versions of any other widgets you have. Other than that maybe cut down the number of posts on the home page.

You could always self-host the blog on a fast server and store as many scripts locally as possible.
"Tried to watch GI Joe and Transformers a couple years back and could barely last an episode."

On the other hand, the Chuck Jones and Tex Avery cartoons have held up quite well, probably because the creators were doing them for themselves as well as younger kids.
Android phones with HTC Sense UI do this. It's pretty cool, it pulls a bunch of data (E-Mail address, birthday, last status message) and integrates them into your contacts. They also pull the profile image from Facebook and it's displayed when you get called.
I have never read a Hardy Boys novel, although I've always meant to, just out of curiosity. What I did read was the entire Danny Dunne series, about a young teenager whose widowed mother was the live-in housekeeper for a science professor. Danny always got involved in a complicated situation involving the professor's latest invention. I'm sort of afraid to go back and read them now.
I dont think if users out there consider fb friend list as their contact list (users add bunch of people they dont even know or they hardly know them). I dont see it as a real smartphone, may be another social networking gadget.
That's web 2.0, right?
I'm sure this is the yin/yang of Jobs personality. He has helped Apple to achieve a huge amount through his determination, but at the same time he can be direct (or more than direct) which naturally people take offence at. Previously I have read stories of how he can deal with employees, but now he's answering customers we are seeing some 'interesting' responses!
In other words:

Exploration > Planning

This makes sense in any area where one is blazing new territory.
1. If they make a mistake, don't correct them. Answer them shortly after using the correct form.

2. If you're right and they are wrong. Shut up and listen.

3. If they make you feel uncomfortable, be bold.

4. If they get emotional or unprofessional, steer the conversation into cold-blooded, calculated facts.

5. When dealing with regular Joe, don't waste time. Extract needed information and get it over with.

6. If it is a group conversation or meeting, only speak to make a point. Keep it short.

Perhaps this only applies to programmers dealing with other programmers and on occasion managers.
One thing for sure, in my line of work, dealing with people is about extracting/exchanging information. Having a personality, being emotional is pointless.
The goal is to get shit done. Leave your pride at the door.

However, in my personal life, I try not to be like a human vending machine of information.
Man this is even an arrogant way of writing a comment! And with a hero complex thrown in, too.
In addition to what others have mentioned I have one piece of advice:

Perhaps this person is a visitor of HN and may now be aware of your future course of action. Even if they are completely unfamiliar with HN you have to consider that they have had access to whatever was left of your internet browsing history. Just because they claim to be deleting everything does not mean that they have done it yet. They were able to find your email address, which is easy, but you need to consider the possible extent of their snooping. You need to think about how much of your personal information could be compromised. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
Same thing happened to me. I have yet to receive an email that actually contains feedback.
The answer in part is that is affordable to push a mediocre app to the top of the free charts via advertising and make money, but it is not possible to push a mediocre app to the top of the paid charts and make money. Note that the actual quality of the top paid apps is much higher than that of the top free apps for this reason.
My "Google experience" Droid 1 does it too.
You make sense, but the attraction at staying in a coffee shop for me (and often paying the inflated prices) is in treating it like a library. In any business if a salesperson comes past more than once asking if I've found what I want yet I'm pretty tempted to leave. That's probably the desired result here but I'd pretty quickly find an alternate coffee shop that didn't bug me at all.
Also notice how Chet was never 'fat', but 'plump','chubby','stout', etc? I learned more synonyms for fat from Hardy Boys books than should have been allowed.
I feel someone should point out that "set" in this usage is a csh thing. The slides and the referenced comment use Bourne-type shells, where "set" is a builtin mostly used to set shell options: http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_...

In csh, where using "set" like this would work, you can actually put spaces around the = (go figure).

I'm not aware of () being used for quoting words in any variant of sh or csh.
-There are at least a houndred thousand people in every single country in Africa, who needs your retirement money more than you do. In fact they properly need it just to survive.

That would be true. We aren't directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of "not our national birth" unless you have the capacity to do something about it. However he is responsible for his actions. And in his situation, he has the capability to do the compassionate thing, even if he is walked over.

As the recent top article says, it is all about perspective. Do the loving thing.
The Academic Bubble
Because context switching from an interesting problem with hundreds of variables is incredible annoying..
About the easter island, I have read an opposing theory that blames it's downfall on rats who ate the trees. Presumably the rats were imported somehow.

Would love to know what the current theory is. (The article was in some Geo or National Geographic magazine, a while after "Collapse" came out).
It occurs to me after reading this, that I am just as much a part of the problem as all of the overly negative reviewers. I have dozens of apps that I think are quite usable, and I don't think I've submitted a good review for any of them because... well they work! I think I'm going to make it a goal this week to write some good reviews for apps I use all the time.
Really? You capitalize excel and access in every day use?
I agree in that there will be on one looking out for anyone - employers included.

Everyone will have to train and market themselves, fight for their raises/rates, and choose the most profitable jobs.

In the end, I wouldn't frame it as "the future is freelance," as much as "the future depends solely on you" which is not a bad thing if you are in the social darwinist camp.
> I can't really remember encountering any in all the time I've been working with other programmers

While I don't recall any such encounter with any programmer, I have observed many icon-dragging, button-clicking arrogant pricks that called themselves programmers because lave learned that clicking the third button from the second group in the toolbar turns whatever they mashed together into an executable file.

To the average user, such a beast is absolutely indistinguishable from a real programmer and, so, the confusion is understandable.

;-)
Drawn II Dark Flight Collectors Edition
During the California gold rush, it was those who sold tools and supplies to the miners that saw the most success.
I did the same for "Darts." What I experienced is that an A.I. logic bug got reported about 5000 times.
"All we know for sure is that Hewitt and Papakipos are working on something very stealthy together. And we have a source that tells us that stealthy thing is a Facebook phone."

The rest is all Arrington's speculation.
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