skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think this is one of those good and bad ideas.

On the one hand, the point of having a steam-powered computer is to have a steam-powered computer. What fun is a virtual steam-powered computer? You can't scald anyone with that!

On the other hand, yes, in the year 2010 you really should master the art of building the virtual Analytical Engine before you go for the real thing. One reason, I believe, is that the current draft of the design of the Analytical Engine is more akin to the world's largest collection of back-of-the-envelope sketches than to a finished blueprint. There was never one canonical design for the Engine, because so little of it was ever actually realized in hardware. Babbage had a lot of fun swapping parts in and out in his imagination.

So there needs to be a bit of each approach. Build the virtual version first, in an environment where building 1024 identical custom-machined ratchets and pawls is just a matter of ten copy-and-pastes. Then a nail down a plan for what you intend to realize in hardware. And then build it. If you can find the money.

There will also have to be some back-and-forth. One of the central lessons of engineering is that it's more than just CAD. It isn't until you try to build a thing that you fully understand its design, if only because it is difficult to imagine the constraints that reality imposes on your design -- and, more embarrassingly, that the earlier parts of your construction impose on the later parts -- until you've actually gotten into the middle of the job. This is one reason why these projects are so expensive: They are, in part, research projects. I believe that the folks who assembled the Difference Engine weren't entirely sure, going in, that the darned thing was actually going to work as well as it does. And they made some crucial tweaks during the assembly process.
For an example of a perfect fit for a distributed worker, see my blog post:

http://blog.historio.us/asynchronous-processing-using-celery
Is this a twitter-only problem with the way the URLs are formed? Or is this a common way of injecting JS into links on other sites as well?
Does the law professor have a right to complain? (Marginal Revolution):

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09...
Tumblr CTO Steps Down To Focus On Instapaper, "Independent Career"
Rate my startup: nsyght.com - archival search/searchable lists for Twitter
I'd love to get some feedback from the HN community about my startup. We are a mostly bootstrapped crew of ex-Apache guys, who wanted to solve a problem with search in the "real time/social" era.

http://www.nsyght.com

The goal was to give people the ability to perform real time and archival searches across their social graph. This includes the ability to perform faceted searches, searching only your friends, and most recently Twitter lists as well. Our list support is pretty cool (I think) because it combines elements of lists (people), and saved searches (phrases or tags). So, next time you go to SXSW, you can have a searchable list containing a few of your favorite bloggers/friends, but filtered by the term SXSW.

We have a lot of cool stuff coming up - but as we are a small (but dedicated crew), would love to hear what everyone thinks.

Thanks all! Geoffrey
If I'm not mistaken, they're usually switching to vim specifically from textmate. The Mac + Ruby community seems to be disproportionately well-represented in blogs, probably due to a high concentration of web developers.

Some high-profile Ruby people (e.g. Yehuda Katz) wrote about switching to vim about two months ago (http://yehudakatz.com/2010/07/29/everyone-who-tried-to-convi...), and it probably set off a chain reaction.
Unfortunately "as good or better" performance is not realized yet, at least not at theThe Computer Language
Benchmarks Game[1]. More code, more time, more memory required by Clojure than Scala, to solve the same problems.

However the Clojure implementations on the site are still quite young, so some improvement may be possible.

[1] http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/benchmark.php?test=all...
My personal belief, that has been reinforced by my experiences, is that one should take the path that leads to a revenue the fastest without damaging the brand. But it does take a lot to damage a software brand. A lot of people talk about PG's MVP I have never read or heard the exact conversation about it by PG but from peripheral conversation that I have seen about it, I looks to be a similar concept. Point is, don't target the largest market, target the market you can get to first and build the minimum feature set that will capture it. It buys you time, even if you have to scrap and rewrite the whole thing for 2.0 you should build it as rapidly as possible with the minimum feature set required.
Modules and AJAX Updates Every X Seconds
Post showing how you can easy achieve AJAX asynchronous updates with jQuery. Typical scenarios where such functionality is handy are all sorts of modules which you would like to update without reloading entire page like: the latest tweeter updates, the latest comments or currently logged in users...
Worms loose on Twitter.com
5 but I make it up on the weekend...
no, actually it does matter. Browser caching is not reliable and only covers around 20% to 25% of requests (according to GoogleMaps JS caching behavior stats). So it matters quite a bit.
From what I've read, there was a huge amount of politics involved in the F-22. Plus, we're not in WWII, so there's less demand on pumping out high volumes of good-enough planes and more focus on building something that really pushes the limits of technology, which the F-22 does.
There are Countless Classification Essay Topics to Select from
Writing a classification essay will be an easy task if you select the right type of classification essay topics. There are numerous ways in which you will be able to classify various items. If you decide which category you wish to classify, selecting an interesting topic will be easy.
Including Gentoo is wrong. Gentoo uses a slotted ebuild for python. You can have many concurrent versions running. Not only that, but the latest portage works fine on the latest 2.6 release of python. If you don't want to learn how to use your OS, pick a different one. I hear that Macs "Just Work".
How to tell whether you need ACID-compliant transaction integrity | DBMS 2
I can't open the "Coming Home to Vim" link, from the app. It just crashes. I have it setup to open the comments.
Hypothesis: the performance gap between good teachers and great teachers is as hard to quantify and as elusive to define as the performance gap between good programmers and great programmers.

We all know that some programmers are 10x more effective than other programmers. What we don't know is why. I suspect the same is true of teachers.

Otherwise, ++ for your comment about teachers having to follow scripts. The best programs aren't scripted, and the modern "money" solution (not necessarily supported by teachers or teachers' unions, by the by) is to tightly tie down the curriculum so that teachers have minimal impact on the delivery.

Teacher friends who have taught in England have said that it's to the point of "it's November 4th, so we must be doing Triangles"; every student is supposed to be learning exactly the same thing on the same day. Nice in theory, but it doesn't work.
Things are finally changing but slowly:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/16/nyregion/16rubber.html

"Under the agreement, teachers the city is trying to fire will no longer be sent to the rubber rooms, known as reassignment centers, where the teachers show up every school day, sometimes for years, doing no work and drawing full salaries. Instead, these teachers will be assigned to administrative work or nonclassroom duties in their schools while their cases are pending."
Being Poor by John Scalzi
Will the session token work just like that? Each session might be tied to a specific IP address or something.
When I used Visual Studio 2003, Resharper was necessary to get anything done. When I used Visual Studio 2005, Resharper added a bunch of nice features that made it more pleasant. Now, when I'm using Visual Studio 2008, I no longer use ReSharper, since most of the functionality is native. There are a few features I miss, but to me they didn't motivate the longer startup times and general sluggishness that Resharper unfortunately adds.
Science And Spirituality
Principals started as the Principal Teacher. In some cases, this is still true. In others, it's not. In yet others, principals are so far removed from being teachers that they don't always remember what it's like to be in front of the classroom.
There's a lot of equivalent old warts in Perl that haven't been fixed

This is the crux of the issue. Serious language users (especially the ones writing the new libraries that add significant value to your platform) want the warts fixed to make the environment pleasant to work in. Meanwhile, most casual users are desperate for backward compatibility because it makes distribution easier. I actually prefer Python's choice, but pain is inevitable either way.
Twitter Hit By Security Flaw: Avoid Twitter.com
I think it is more likely some reclusive luddite or kids, rather than random hunters. Hunters take their occupation seriously. Nobody wants to be hit by a stray bullet when hunting.
Exactly my point :) I've seen stuff almost as nonsensical, but text field + button / image-link = search field.

edit: actually, I'll go one further: my main requirement is that I can hit 'enter' after typing to perform my search. I don't even look for a button.
I left my car unlocked and accidentally left the garage door up. I lost the stereo from the car, and suffered a lot of console damage as well. I had two surfboards, some tools and a set of CD's stolen. It was all completely my fault for bumping the garage door remote (I now leave it in the car, always).

The insurance company paid up, both for the household items taken, and the car insurance for the stolen stereo and damaged interior. In fact, with the new-for-old policy, I got replacements on some old stuff with nice new items.

The takeaway is : check your policy. You want to insure against loss and stupidity.
Hate to say it, but this is a really awful analogy. When you "rent a hotel room", you are doing just that--RENTING a hotel room. When you walk into Best Buy or use an online store somewhere to "buy software X", you are justifiably upset when later told that you were actually RENTING software X. You never call your local Marriott and ask how much it would cost to BUY a room for a night in town. You know you are renting. But software, like books, music, movies, houses, and cars is SOLD.

Come to think of it, houses and cars are much better for analogy. Nobody ever confuses renting a home with purchasing a home. Completely different expectations and end results. Same goes for cars. Now, you are within your rights to be both dumbfounded and irate if you are told years later by the builder of the house (or car manufacturer) that you cannot sell your home or your car to another party because they have not given express permission for you to transfer ownership.
particularly schools with strong enough test results that they can get away with it

And no one in administration thinks that possibly the reason they're getting strong test results because they're not following the district-mandated lesson plans?
What makes the US health care system so expensive – Inpatient Care
So here's a question for your dad:

Search, or Go?
Copyright and "licensing" are out of control. If I'm only renting software, then charge me the price of renting it and stop saying I purchased it. And, like other rentals, take on the responsibility of fixing problems I have with using the software, much the way a landlord or Enterprise Rent-a-Car takes on responsibility for your rental.

Companies of all sizes rushed into the digital space because it was where the future, customers, and money were. But offering software, music, books, movies, and anything else as a digital download to a person who actually purchased it is and should be no different than when the customer bought a pack of floppy disks for install, a vinyl record or CD, a hardback or paperback, or a VHS or DVD. I posses as much right to re-sell or give away anything I purchased in digital form as I do to re-sell or give away my CDs, cars, home, motorcycle, or whatever else.
The Perfect Django Settings File
From the original article, which you may not have actually read:

"My wife has school loans of nearly $250,000 and I do too"

They made the investment in their education and future with borrowed funds, just as I (and many others) have. It's not like he broke $500K off some trust fund he was born with...
Your long term vision is a good one and one that I have often thought about. Traditional schooling fails many of the practical and soft skills that are so crucial for today. Parents should be teaching these (that's where I learned them), but it doesn't seem to be happening as often as it should. Outside mentors can also help, groups like Big Brothers/Big Sisters as well as coaches, etc... would fall into this category.
Qt 4.7.0 Released
When it comes to TOS dealing with writing and publishing, yes, I do indeed read the entire TOS. When you go get a job, do you inquire into the terms and conditions?
Moses' Red Sea parting explained by computer model
FYI - Fedora 13 shipped with Python 2.6, Fedora 14 is going to ship with Python 2.7 and 3.1 in parallel. Not every distribution ships ancient versions.

I also recommend using virtualenv and pip, these tools make it much easier to create an easily reproducable Python environment.
Just from my personal experience:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.1 ships with Python 2.4.3.

Solaris 10/4 does not ship with python at all. OpenCSW provides Python 2.6.5 but virtualenv doesn't seem to work with it.
Some flavour of Debian would be my preference.

Generally with Python WSGI applications I tend to keep things sandboxed using virtualenv and pip in any case.
Most families cannot afford to pay...education is income redistribution.
You'd need clarification from pg himself, but I always took that more metaphorically and in a business/startup sense. I think there is a certain amount of personal strength to be gained from going vigilante on a small time crook and turning them over to the cops. We feel best when we feel the most control over our personal circumstances.
I.B.M.'s Hybrid Strategy in Business Intelligence
It sounds like the correct solution to this problem is a package maintainer for the Mongrel2 package on different OSs. The package maintainers job is to make sure a package builds and runs on a given OS. The reason we have them at all is that it is often a difficult job. Mongrol2 systems like a system application, no?
Why Facebook is blue -- six facts about Mark Zuckerberg
I'd say that is precisely the problem.

An end-user of an application doesn't want to fiddle around with library management tools.

It's a shame he felt he had to tear out Python. I understand the pain of relying on distro-supported Python. You basically have to target 2.3 at minimum if you want to distribute an application. If you have windows users, it can be even more painful.

Theoretically, couldn't you have configure check your setup for Python 2.x? Setup your make process to download and install the proper python in a local build environment? I'm just running off random ideas, not sure if it would be feasible.

Too late for Mongrel2 of course, but C isn't so bad either.
Good point, but I was responding to this quote: "You wouldn't watch that show unless it had a lot of humans in it, preferably attractive ones, showing their faces." Not sure why I deserved a downvote.
This is why HTML templating engines should HTML-escape all variables by default.

Probably developer writing Twitter's template forgot to add escape call or thought that URL is a harmless ASCII thing and doesn't need escaping.
I definitely would have used Lua in this situation. The Lua runtime is tiny and lightweight. You can write pretty nice config files in Lua which look pretty similar to Zed's too.

http://windrealm.com/tutorials/reading-a-lua-configuration-f...
Angel investor looks for 'coachable' firms
I would suspect the poster has already weighed the cost vs. benefit of writing efficient code. Many domains do require careful attention to performance.
The emacs client seems safe. ;-)
We can have all the morals we can afford
Diaspora Inc. Contributor Agreement
You have a point, but it is more accurate to say that government is established by people to enforce their concept of ownership amongst themselves. Government isn't source of the concept of ownership, it is the enforcer of that society's concept of ownership.

Having said that, I advocate that there is a overarching source of ownership rights, whether they are called moral rights or natural rights or whatever. For example, I think a person owns his own body and regardless of what the law says, the government can't visit your house and take one of your kidneys because someone else wants yours. Other people think that they should be able to, for the "good" of society.
They are tweeting this from the official "@safety" account:

We've identified and are patching a XSS attack; as always, please message @safety if you have info regarding such an exploit.

http://mobile.twitter.com/safety/status/25118959058
MoMA kind of does that - http://www.mono-project.com/MoMA
Strange doubletalk: too many kids are attending college; not enough graduates for industrial jobs. ???
I made an InDinero account to kick the tires a bit, and made a few comments when closing the account. I received several emails from Jessica within 24 hours and an offer to discuss things on the phone.

Maybe she has increased her attentiveness since you canceled. Maybe she is only attentive to people who are closing accounts. However it came about, I was impressed with her responsiveness to my comments.
Oh so now it's a big deal? These have been around forever people, c'mon!
Man I just got exploited by this, shutting down use of twitter.com till it is fixed.
Correct, it is not an operating system. Just as the Java Virtual Machine is not an operating system. But when you start using principles and common designs from operating systems, you are approaching the design of an operating system.
Why on earth would a recession be geographic, in the information age? Could it be that the information age is a myth?
It is made a little harder since you cannot use # or @ in the tweet, and your exploit code is limited to ~130 characters, but if you use $.getScript(), oh boy...
No, you would type xxg, where xx is the line number, then move with w if the word was a short distance away, or use the mouse if it was somewhere like the middle of the line, then cw. This works out favorably even a Thinkpad where I don't need to take my hands away from the home row for, and it works better when working with very large screens.
With the right payload, you won't know you've been affected via Twitter.
As far as XSS vulnerabilities goes, this one is the size of the Gulf of Mexico. How exactly did they manage to let this one through? (Even more puzzling, it looks like this is special link-parsing functionality that someone had to actually write explicitly to make it work)
Buried in the article: "Whoever created Stuxnet developed four previously unknown zero-day attacks and a peer-to-peer communications system, compromised digital certificates belonging to Realtek Semiconductor and JMicron Technology, and displayed extensive knowledge of industrial systems."

Sounds like Siemens has some work to do, although I wouldn't be too hard on them if the CIA or another state is really launching these attacks.
and you know this how?

and its not just about savings. its about better teaching, teaching what parents want and less of what the unionized want you to believe. And less using kids to promote your politics, such as dragging grade school kids to political protests as has been done here in California

this whole system stifles independent thought. We need more independent thought and more questioning of the educational cliches incessantly repeated throughout schooling and in the media.

If government and unions were in charge of our technology, we'd still be waiting for DOS 2.0.
Oh yeah, I screwed the update function up good, shall fix tonight.
Actually I remember why I do this now. It's to make Pathogen work.

From Pathogen's docs:

Note that you need to invoke the pathogen functions before
invoking "filetype plugin indent on" if you want it to load
ftdetect files. On Debian (and probably other distros), the
system vimrc does this early on, so you actually need to
"filetype off" before "filetype plugin indent on" to force
reloading.

So yeah, it's not voodoo, it's not redundant, it has a purpose that I just couldn't remember off the top of my head. I'm not sure how the calls to Pathogen got moved out from between those line -- probably when I was rearranging my vimrc at some point.
There is an emulator here: http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/contents.html
Ask HN: How do you write the best specifications for a developer?
Im a non-programmer founder and I always find it somewhat tricky to write out specs for products/features/updates/etc for developers. I want to properly explain the product vision in the best manner for a developer.

Any tips, links, advice or suggestions to help folks like myself out?
Zepto.js: jQuery-esque JavaScript library for mobile WebKit from Thomas Fuchs
I am surprised! I understand what you are saying with respect to keeping the web pages describing your software on your own site, but did not realize that keeping the source code itself on your own site made a significant difference.
Kickstarter requires a US bank account, is in $ and won't accept charities. I think it's a non-starter for this as I don't imagine it being commercial.
Well they don't seem to be doing a good job since discipline seems to be the most lacking quality in todays youth.
I'm pretty sure I could load an external JS file in 140 chars, so there's effectively no limit.
How Mike Lapchick Turned A 12 Year Old Problem Into A Successful Business
Okay, then, to the machine shop! ;)
I am complete newbie when it comes to running a server but have a bit of experience using Ubuntu in my local box. Is ubuntu a good choice? Since most use a flavor of Red Hat like CentOS I am a bit hesitant to use Ubuntu in production.
Chrome also incorporates libjingle, Google's library for ICE-like RTP handling, used in Google Talk / Google Video, which also uses Speex for voice part.
It's not that crazy. Python is designed for embedding. The interpreter is small. Commercial software that depends on Python (almost) always embeds it.
"Education? Schooling."

Actually research shows that teaching degrees don't predict whether a person will be a good teacher. It wouldn't surprise me if the others you mention don't require schooling either, although I'm less familiar with the research in those areas.
I'm not saying their UI design is any good, simply that it's adequate. Filling out a form that is completely self descriptive and transparent incorrectly, and then blaming is absurd. This is what I see when I create an event: http://www.benjoffe.com/temp/fbevent.png

[] Anyone can view and RSVP to this event (public event)

They say twice in that sentence what the implications of that field are.

Call me old fashioned but I take responsibility for my actions.
“Instead of going to Amazon, I’m going to the local bookstore.”

Of course when there, she pays cash, doesn't use a rewards card and makes sure she doesn't appear on any security cameras.
It is completely possible, easy and reasonable to have a multiple versions of python installed. Many OSes do this, and the convention is to have them named like python2.4 python2.5 and so on.

Any system scripts that require 2.4 can then change their shebang to say /usr/bin/python2.4. At the very same time, packages for newer pythons can be made available for ease-of-use for the rest of the world. This breaks nothing.