skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
No it's not. Good design in social software is about what best serves the group, not the individual. (read Clay Shirky's seminal work on the issue, if you don't believe me http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html). Now I want you to consider a couple of issues:

1) You give the user the ability to disagree by vote. What you're doing is that you're giving people the ability to click a button instead of writing a counter-argument. How does that add to the discourse? This doesn't benefit a group now, does it?

2) You have two voting metrics. How would the ranking algorithm work? Why is populist agreement important to how the comments are arranged? Does that not make groupthink more prominent, not less? If so, why clutter the interface?

3) Is there anything wrong with a fuzzy definition of how voting is used? Sure, people have been downvoted before because other people disagreed with them, but by and large this is a rare occurrence. Oftentimes comments are downvoted and then upvoted again, when more readers stumble across the comment and think: 'say, this isn't right, this shouldn't be downvoted even though I don't agree with it'. It's happened to me before.

Why does this happen sometimes, and not other times? I have a theory about that: good comments run the risk of being downvoted when a) they disagree with the prevailing groupthink on HN ... AND b) they are badly written. (badly here is defined as: unclear, or disorganized, or just plain bad). You rarely run the risk of being unfairly downvoted if you take the time to write your comment, and write it well. My experience at HN seems to support this, I'm not sure if the theory would hold true all the time, but I suspect that it does work, most of the time.

I think ambiguity about how comments are used is okay, and there really isn't anything terrible or wrong with the current system. At least, nothing to justify the addition of another metric.
What do you think of our model? Applying Open Source to online gaming
The smart person accepts, the idiot insists
The fact that it disables itself sometimes after waking the computer up from sleep drives me crazy though. I wish the jitouch people would fix this.
This reminds me of the concept of "whuffie" in Cory Doctorow's "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom" where he posits an entire future society based on these principles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whuffie
It did not occur to me at the time I read it that this was based on contemporary online media. It is interesting to consider that society might actually be moving in that direction.
How to Avoid Suffering Severe Frustration?
Worries Over a 2-to-1 Ratio: Where the Boys Aren't
This is a brilliant idea. Better, because now people won't mind paying to downvote offensive/lousy/low-quality comments, while thinking twice before downvoting out of disagreement.
how about try this. Also, i remember the logic board clips on some MB's are very fragile, to the point my mac repair guy (doing this for decades) didn't want to take it apart.

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/05/12/dont-panic-liquid-damage-and-...
Why Not To Do a Startup - Dave McClure
I think most of the programming advantages from static typing come from the basics (when done well), rather than the high-end research project type system stuff. A language with inferred (H-M-ish) static types and a good module system will give you reality checks from the compiler, you won't have to write frigging null checks everywhere, and it will avoid the visual clutter and rewriting tedious annotations as code changes. It's probably not as exciting as research, though.

The whole static / dynamic typing thing is its own flamewar waiting to happen, so I'm going to leave it at that.
When the social web came out, I wasn't completely enamored with it as well. It was only later, when I started getting into "network science"[1], and began to view social systems and the internet as large complex systems, that the social web really clicked as something fascinating to get involved with from an engineering perspective.

Since, as you say, you're not a "particularly social person", maybe if you step back from many of the inanities of the social web and take a big picture view of the system, including the similarities between social systems, biological systems, and other systems, you may gain a new perspective on it.

[1] See http://www.amazon.com/Networks-Introduction-Mark-Newman/dp/0... for a good introduction.
Ok, for the sake of argument: there are a ton of people in the world who cannot afford a high end iPhone or even Android system. Are they not a viable market? I'm not sure whether Symbian is the best OS there, either, to be honest, but I do think that market bears consideration.
Ascariasis
Tomato solves all problems (or DD-WRT, if that's your thing).
My buffalo router had the same problem. For about a month, I was restarting it twice a week.

Then I installed Tomato on it. It's been six months and I don't think I've even looked at the router. It's fantastic.
Not very new if it was made in 2003.

The letterforms look nice, but the lack of slashed zeros and restriction to 10pts are a deal-breaker for me.
I read it like an infomercial, wondering the whole time what kind of pricing structure he uses and how he establishes the relationships with the vendors; does he initiate or do they contact him first? I just assumed that part of the story was fabricated and included so it didn't read so much like an infomercial. Maybe I'm too cynical.
I'm not sure your plumber example really works out. Facebook could hypothetically tell you that "Your friends X and Y used plumber's Z services, and liked it!", which is much more persuasive information than a generic ad.
You graduated shortly after 9/11/2001 and you feel old already? You're just a kid! Take some of the great advice here and be glad you got to this point so early in your life.
So what will be their OS of choice for sub $150 phones with a keypad and without a large touchscreen? Or will that category of phone simply disappear?
There is a fluid they use for ultrasonic cleaning of electronics: http://www.google.com/search?q=ultrasonic+cleaning+fluid

I would use that over distilled water because it may be quite hard to get the last of it to evaporate.
Intel's HDMInsult
Definitely helps, though it sucks to be in situations where you don't know anyone but still got to go meet people!

Also, coming with friends can have a downside, where you don't spend any time meeting anyone new. I will often split up from whomever I arrived with to meet new people on my own — sometimes it's better to do it apart.
If you put a hot dog in the collider, will you get little smokies from the spallation process?

I think I just solved world hunger guys...
Did anyone else notice the advertisement "hidden" in the URL hashtag? :-)
RSAnimate: the 21st century enlightenment
Wikileaks spokesperson leaves org
You talk about Google as if it's some community resource you have a right to have; it's not. Google only has the power to destroy your business if you make your business model reliant upon them, that is a choice you make. There's nothing wrong with that choice, but you have to recognize it's your choice and Google owes you nothing at all.
I was born in China and all my first memory is about little me saying "I'm going to join the red army and become a scientist and save the world". The world, which is China.
And then, I've moved to Europe in the early 90s. I've discovered something new: my dad's mac. First, I was only playing Go and dark castle on it but then, I've started asking myself how to make my own games.
My parents are all engineers and they told me a lil' about Dos, FreeBSD but also Linux.
I've received my first PC at 11 and the first thing I did is playing Fallout. The second thing I did is using a hex-editor to crack the save to get the best weapons :p
And I've also received Internet at home! Life changing! I've actually met people "like me". Very smart people indeed. And I've learnt much more on the web than at school and I felt I was apart of another world. IRC was more real than IRL.
And thanks to the Internet, I've read a lot of tutorials and ABCs so I started writing my first lines in C/C+ and ASM at 12 and never stopped... well, I've actually stopped.
One day, at 21, I discovered I wanted to do something else. I mean, I still like technology in general but I've actually stopped reading hackers blogs, cookbooks and I stopped trying every crackme challenge over the web.
I was fed up with all of these things. I felt I was just a rebellious kid trying to prove to himself how smart he was.
So I stopped.
And so I've asked myself exactly this question same question: what now?

Well, "now", after 3-4 years, I'm doing a business degree. I've also met the girl I love. I've also played in a French TV series. Oh, yeah, I've also been all around the world. Actually, I did many things. Much more than expected. I thought, when I stopped living before my PC, that I'd maybe find a new "hobby" and just farm it like I've farmed C/C+. Nop, nothing about farming just "one" thing but doing, sometimes casually, many, many different things.

But guess what? I've started a Web-startup (elive.pro)!
Just like that.
Because I can. And because I still like technology. And because if I was fed up with the hackers' environment 4 years ago, now, it's pretty different for me: I don't know much about the so-called Web 2.0 and I want to learn, to do something. And meet new people. Smart people.

You know what? It's all about love. Technology is for many of us, our first and our real love.
You will rekindle the flame. But sometimes, even if you really love something or someone, you have to let it or her/him alone.

So, let the technology stuffs alone. Try new things and one day, you'll automatically come back to your first love.
Maybe not as a developer but definitely come back somehow.
Yes, GNU Go, the premier open source Go program is implemented exactly like this. Any graphical front ends in use are all written by third parties.
Still a long way from an affordable 3D printer for the masses. Also, the masses will want variable color objects printed on demand.
Build it and They Won't Come
I took a few-year vacation from I.T. quite a while back, and spent the time as a climbing instructor and in outdoor industry retail. It was a lot of fun, I met a lot of great people, and to this day I'm glad I did it.

There are a lot of different opportunities out there that don't require having to deal directly with technology, so go get away from it for a while.
First, let's clear up your thinking. You don't need to worry about the solution being "non-conductive" because the board is powered off.

Second, distilled water isn't going to have much cleaning power. Most PCB cleaners are pretty toxic because they're trying to remove things such as solder flux and resin.

The easiest solution you could do is to run your board through your DISHWASHER. Yes, that's right. Lot's of small board houses will do this and they turn out clean as a whistle.

http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/archive/index.php/t-...

Good luck!
DeviantArt talks about its recent outage
Why are you worried about the conductivity of the water? Presumably, you wont be turning it on while its wet, so removing the battery, any clock batteries, and discharging capacitors (I'll admit, I don't know how to do that or if its possible) should make it fine to submerge in anything.
There are better alternatives out there. Inconsolata, Anonymous Pro, et cetera - take your pick. Nobody was staring at Courier before this font arrived. (Well, I wasn't.)
‘Being There’ Still Matters In Foreign Reporting
Having a remote cache gets rid of one of the few reasons for having a cache at all.
Arduino hardware designs are/used to be available under GPL, so I hope the Italians won't start to "combat the clones".
"Google has patents on the built-in battery design, "but I think we'd be willing to license them to vendors," Hoelzle said."

Can you patent a device you use as part of your business but don't sell? I don't think you could get away with calling it a business practice, and I don't think you could get away with protecting a patent on a device you never try to market.
Yep, the social web is a misnomer, and cellphones are nice and all, but who has the stomach to learn another gui toolkit? How about biology? Study biology, perhaps at a university, build the geneticist's philosopher's stone...
first, where are you?

I have found that moving to the valley can be very inspiring... I know this isn't a social hobby, and I myself am an introvert (though maybe not quite as introverted as many of the better people I know.) living in a place where there are other people excited about this work can change your perspective a lot.

I guess my other piece of advice, from the time when I was burnt out is to try to get a job in another field for a while. I know for me, the low pay and high expectations for things like showing up on time meant that I got over my burnout pretty goddamn quick.
Very interesting picture. I would not have thought that Poland could look more polluted than Mexico and California. Maybe pollution in east Europe is coming from west Europe.
You should not be downvoted! A freelancer's job, between jobs, is to find another job or brush up on their skills (or pick up some new ones) or to take a vacation so that they're good and fresh when that next job comes around.
Yes, but Google's valuation is confirmed by trading volumes.

In the early days of computerized trading it was quite common for even quite liquid stocks to be suspended limit up/down because of programming bugs.

But by Joel's logic, the market has 'spoken' and these companies are now worth 10% more/less than 30 seconds prior, when in fact all that has happened is some faulty code just ripped through the book on minimal volumes.

The point is that 'true' valuations are validated by significant volumes. Hence Google's valuation is real. Depending on your viewpoint, the size of the recent transactions in FB may or may not be material - and I think this is the point that David was making.
Definitely.

I would bet a lot that the cheap (between $50-$150) phones few years from now will be basic medium-size touchscreen phones running something like Android and equipped with a bit older hardware, maybe a generation or two behind.

The cheapest Android phone I can find in my country is Samsung Galaxy 5, for 224€. And that's only two years down the Android lane. Two more years, and we're close.
Spy-suspects-had-interests-in-science-finance-ap/
They claim that advanced users can reprogram the USB-serial adapter to implement different USB device classes. Yummy!
It's a logical next step. However, given the integrated nature of 95% of all JS development (CSS/HTML/...), I'm not quite sure whether it's a particularly good idea as well.
Wikis are better than the roach motel of having everything in Lotus Notes/Outlook. Confluence is better than wikis because non technical users can create their own pages. My point is most employees will use whatever the company standard is - and only in occasional cases can someone effectively change the company standard to something better (e.g. Lotus Notes databases to Confluence)
A Taxonomy of Data Science
"Major drawback: Unlike Facebook’s or other online iterations of the Scrabble game, there is no social dimension. You can’t play with another Kindle user online; the best you can do is set up a two-player game where you pass the Kindle back and forth."

This seems to me a major step-back. Someone knows if is this a choice made by Electronic Arts or is something imposed by Amazon?
I'd focus more on l10n into Japanese, German, French, Spanish and Italian. Not necessarily in that order. Look at places the app isn't as highly ranked as you'd like it to be. Extra attention to markets where you've had a review or two that you had to go to Google Translate to read.
A problem is that the closest language, in terms of abstraction stack, would probably be C, and people who know C wouldn't benefit as much from it, because C users these days tend to be older and more experienced, and because far fewer beginners start out with C. Pascal has always been more beginner friendly. Ironically, the most maligned part of Pascal historically - its type safety - has long since won the day, albeit with polymorphism that Pascal lacked.

In theory, it might be nice to do something along the lines of Ruby, Python or Javascript, but those languages are, I think, too far removed from the CPU opcodes to get the same effect. Meta-circular interpreters, like in Lisp etc., are cute and are good for explaining the fundamental semantics of the language, but there's still an awful lot of magic baked in, in the same way that a C compiler written in C can embed the meaning of '\n' as a '\n' literal constant in the source itself. Of course, that magic may be subverted, most famously in the trusting trust essay:

http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/ken/trust.html
I don't think I've replaced my router in about 5 years.

Could somebody give me a reason why I should?

It runs open-wrt, it does NAT, it does packet switching, it powers on in a few seconds.

What else could your router possibly do for you?

Routers are refrigerators, if they're still keeping things cool, don't touch them.
Forth Edition: http://home.iae.nl/users/mhx/crenshaw/tiny.html

Haskell Edition:
http://alephnullplex.appspot.com/blog/view/2010/01/12/lbach-...

Any other?
"If only they knew me and my loved ones wanted to settle"
The trick I guess is knowing when you are "the idiot across the table", and when you are the posts author. I.e. If the mantra is "always accept", then why did the "idiot across the table" have a chance to blow it? By the posts logic the author would have been willing to accept
Don’t you think that really cheap Android phones will be a possibility in one to two years? That seems plausible to me.
the classic, "Shooting an Elephant":
http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/887/
> There are so many difficult and important problems around but no one wants to solve them just because there is a huge ???

I have thought about this the other day -- "what has happened to P2P technologies?". There used to be a lot of excitement about it, there was flurry of academic research on distributed consistent hashing, lots of P2P networks appearing, and now, it seems, bittorrent is all that is left of it.
I am almost perfectly happy with ProggySmall, works ok at 8pt, I get > 100 lines per page on my w x 1200 screen.

Why would I change?
> Can you patent a device you use as part of your business but don't sell?

Yes; I can't think of any familiar examples offhand, but it happens a lot. As a baby lawyer I wrote a patent application for an automatic pizza-making machine, invented by the owner of a mom-and-pop restaurant, who IIRC never marketed the machine.

> I don't think you could get away with protecting a patent on a device you never try to market.

In the U.S. (and most other industrialized countries AFAIK), the patent laws don't require a patent owner to market, or even try to market, a patented invention. If the patent owner was just trying to keep others out so that no one was using the invention, a court would probably take that into account in determining (i) whether to grant a injunction against further infringement by the defendant and (ii) what a reasonable royalty would be for the defendant's infringement. But that wouldn't affect the validity of the patent itself.
>but the real knowledge and experience seems to be held back because it has to be regarded as a personal asset that might be used to turn a profit somewhere.

You need to move. If you primarily interact in person, you need to physically move. If you primarily interact over the internet, you need to change what forms you use.

This is not how I see the world, especially the open-source world. From my point of view, the open-source tendency to help people for free seems to be bleeding over into the business world. Hell, my direct competitors help me out. And, of course, if you ask questions with the right attitude in the right places, there is a whole lot of free help to be had from the technical community, too.
More nonsense from the people that can't bother with studying the subject even a bit before speaking. You seem to be unaware of the developments with Nokia and Symbian for the past one or two years.

They are making an impressive effort to engage developers and they have made the development much more simpler and straightforward. People that have been developing for Android/iPhone have told me that the Qt SDK is competitive with those other tools when it comes to ease of development and speed of development. See: http://gigaom.com/2010/09/15/whats-it-like-to-develop-apps-f...

As for Nokia switching to Android, see this: http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/24/editorial-nokia-isnt-buil...
To accelerate the drying process you might want to consider putting it on top of a dehumidifier.

My wife's laptop (black macbook) got drenched with water once and we just took the battery out and placed it on the dehumidifier for a few days and it booted backup. Still works fine even now.
FTA: "The magic router formula these days is a combination of commodity hardware and open-source firmware. I'm so enamored of this one-two punch combo, in fact, I might even say it represents the future."

I don't see a need for all the hedging. Commodity hardware + open source already "won" in various applications over the past couple decades. Here's another.

Sent from my iPad (just kidding)
Having spoken to foreign iPhone owners on a number of occasions and asked them about this (generally European countries where English is somewhat widely spoken):

Not having a native language version wouldn't necessarily dissuade them from the purchase of the app, but it's certainly appreciated if it has been translated. If anything, it just makes them feel like the developer cares about them and their market.

They would almost certainly choose a localised version of the same or similar app if it became available, over the English version (so it might be worth doing so for competitive reasons).

Many of the people I've spoken to said that they would generally not recommend an app to their non-English speaking friends if it were not localised, even if it was reasonably simple to learn how to use.

I've only spoken to a couple people, and they were pretty tech-headed, so it might be worth speaking to others.
It's a cache in the data center of Linode
I don't know about your mainboard, but when my soundcard had accumulated years of dust on it, I just ran it under the tap for a few minutes and let it dry. It works perfectly, too.
I found this timely as I am in the same situation, although I did do a brief stint of setting up the x86 option he also mentions. In the end I decided it just wasn't worth the hassle. I'm happy to see this article because I had been wondering what commercial router to get to run dd-wrt. I got burned on this once before when I bought a Netgear on sale at best buy a few years ago: it looked like the same as a model that ran dd-wrt and I even got an assurance from the sales person that it would run it, but when I got it home discovered that Netgear had replaced the inwards with a cheaper, incompatible version of the CPU and half the RAM, without updating the model number. Grrrr. I felt like they were taking advantage of the popularity of the open source mod to pull a bait and switch. I'm happy to see that routers now actually print the open source compatibility on the box. It feels like a rare victory.
I felt the same way at first, but later he finally mentioned a problem: He was having range issues.

He never says that's why he did it, and it appears he just got tired of everything being exactly the same. He even complains that there were no firmware updates. But he did have at least 1 problem that he was confident the new router would solve.