skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I find these "key ideas and phrases" summarized in "key takeaways" or "TL;DR" snippets to be quite handy.

If you've been through the entire piece of work already, it helps you wrap it up. If not, they're good to help you decide whether to dive in or not. Just like when you'd read a long paper's abstract + conclusion sections before committing your time to it.

Summarizing a long text into "key ideas and phrases" can also help the author see the structures and the patterns of his output, which is important for his own development, and critical if you want to generalize, go meta, and bring it onto other areas :)
Ask HN: Can you sell this?
My company set up an Amazon instance that serves Florida satellite imagery. We have a bunch of mapping apps for iPhone and Android that we will resell this imagery within.

Does anyone else on HN have a website or app in which you can sell this imagery? The server is quite expensive to run, and I would like to get other people using it to justify the cost.

If this works out, we'll add California next.

Here is the server: http://ec2-184-73-107-168.compute-1.amazonaws.com/fl_imagery.html
Not to continue the off-topic, but I've noticed this problem and started a mailing list just focusing on review requests (http://minvp.com). Of course, that too dropped off the new page with no comments :)
I didn't read the part about validations. That's silly.

Even if you have to do it in the application layer, why would you need more than one SELECT? Just get the installed apps from the DB in a single query and do a set difference operation to only get the apps not already installed.

But I agree that putting the constraint in the DB layer is the correct solution. With MySQL you can just do INSERT IGNORE to only add apps not yet marked as being installed.
I agree some of the comments in FT are very interesting.

I'm not saying that productivity is going up, it's in fact going down, as the article says -3.1 variation GDP 2008-2009. But the ratio of unemployment/varGDP is very different to other countries because of the additional unemployment from construction industry, which is the suspicious indicator used by the author.

In any case I personally agree with some of the comments in the FT article saying that Spanish government may artificially modify some figures.
Not when they're in the process of typing.
You're right, of course. I should have said JVM instead of Java.

That said, in reality, JVM bytecode is tied pretty closely with Java. The bulk of a program: method calls, types, loops, etc all map pretty much 1:1 with what Java emits - there's not a whole lot of room for improvement. And if there were, it would probably be through MORE static typing and compile-time analysis, not less.

I expect that for any arbitrary Clojure program you give me, I can write a Java program that will execute as fast or faster. Of course, it might take me ten times as long to write and have ten times the amount of source code.
Reading is good, but you shouldn't read a lot. You need to control yourself. Reading is addictive, but not-Reading is addictive too. I have been working with JavaScript lately and I found that as my code grows in size, I needed better patterns and methods. I read a book (OOP JavaScript). It was amazing. I liked it, read it again. I found out two other books and carried on reading.

After a while, I found myself addicted to reading. I always find myself telling "There should be a better approach, let's sharpen more our skills". But sharpening doesn't seem to have an end, actually it doesn't.

Bottom of the line, balance between reading and work. But never stop learning.
IPv6 always reminds me of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y36fG2Oba0
>So instead of giving you “better search results”, you’re getting less search results.

Are certainly not mutually exclusive. And when searching for a specific thing/site (rather than going for broad exposure on a given topic) less results, preferably 1 (the correct one) is best.
Semantics aside, whether or not FB users are "customers," FB obviously needs them in order to be in business. Without them, it gets 0 dollars.

So the original point, "you have no right to complain because you don't pay to use it," is silly. Whether or not users have a RIGHT to complain, FB should prefer responding to their complaints over losing them as users.

As it happens, it seems that most FB users aren't phased by anything FB does in terms of privacy or heavy-handed policies. So unless those complaints get loud enough to signal that users are about to start leaving en masse, FB doesn't need to care.
You have an interesting app. I think many of us, at least myself, may not really get it. I'm not that familiar with phone banks for political campaigns. But 16 days is a pretty good turnaround. :)
Are Your Facebook Postings Private? It Depends Upon Where You Live.
FWIW, I've been a problem free laptop user of Ubuntu for two years running now. I have an older Dell laptop with the Intel Centrino chipset, Intel wifi, Intel graphics, etc, and everything on it has just worked out of the box since 8.04. It's also the only Linux machine in my house that uses KMS [1], so I get a nice, fast, high resolution display/splash/vte from the moment grub initializes the kernel. All of my desktops have Nvidia cards which also work out of the box with KMS, but enabling the official binary drivers for 3D performance breaks KMS.

[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/X/KernelModeSetting
Switching to GMail like a pro
Game theory at its best. Red light cameras are a lose-lose scenario, if you're in the wrong and fight it, you lose money and time, if you're in the right and fight it, you lose time, if you just don't fight it, you just lose money. There's no way to be involved with red light cameras and not be penalized.
When I let Google translate auto-detect the language it chose Norwegian. After manually switching to latin it translated 'sine laude'.
Autodesk brings drafting designs to the cloud with iPhone, iPad access
> P2P is a nightmare because every application is expected to provide its own connection fabric

Well someone has to write the connection fabric, even in a content-addressed overlay. Writing a DHT that performs NAT traversal is just as difficult as for any other P2P application. See http://www.slideshare.net/vschiavoni/dht-and-nat for some examples.

CDNs have it easy because they control the network the servers are on. Writing p2p applications for the internet at large is much harder than it should be because of NAT.
Luck plays a factor in this.
The link is broken, use this: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/super-loud-t...
And Ireland, and Portugal... Spot the pattern?
Could this be why incorrect facts may be recollected as true after proved false? Pathway for "false" not "rewritten / erased" but "pre-empted" by possibly "less robust" "true," to say this colloquially?
Well, the link you're giving says (at the bottom)

"Gliese 581 g may be tidally locked to its parent star Gliese 581"

So it's not known for certain.
The first thing a potential employer should ask is 'Why didn't you finish college?' And you had better have a good reason. Even if they don't ask it out loud, they are thinking it.
You overestimate people's ability to time lights. I have absolutely seen people accelerate to "catch a yellow", and then fall into the red by a substantial period of time. Where the only safety from an accident is that the crossing traffic was aware of them.

http://www.iihs.org/research/qanda/rlr.html

In addition to reducing red light violations, cameras have been shown to reduce intersection crashes. In Oxnard, California, significant citywide crash reductions followed the introduction of red light cameras, and injury crashes at intersections with traffic signals were reduced by 29 percent.9 Front-into-side collisions — the crash type most closely associated with red light running — were reduced by 32 percent overall, and front-into-side crashes involving injuries were reduced by 68 percent. An Institute review of international red light camera studies concluded that cameras reduce red light violations by 40-50 percent and reduce injury crashes by 25-30 percent.10

Some studies have reported that while red light cameras reduce front-into-side collisions and overall injury crashes, they can increase rear-end crashes. Because the types of crashes prevented by red light cameras tend to be more severe than rear-end crashes, research has shown there is a positive aggregate benefit.

Exactly what I said, though I got the requisite downvote from the came-from-Reddit "red light cameras are just money grabs!" ignorant crowd. Though I suppose the IIHS -- the foremost authority on traffic safety -- has less sway than various anecdotes.
I asked a similar question on HN, and got some interesting replies, here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=664383
The general principle in this article is a good one, but the specific scenario he described does not have to happen.

Be granular in how you check in your changes, and backing things out (especially loosely coupled code like debug logging and senseless exception handling) carries low to no risk.

I became good at this when emacs vc-mode made it easy.
Social gaming: Bad for your credit score?
That's not true.

I have a one year old Dell Inspiron 1525 with Ubuntu.

Not the best laptop ever but at least since Ubuntu 9.10 ... 3D graphics worked out of the box (open-source, Intel), Wifi worked out of the box (not so on OpenSuse or Debian), the built-in webcam worked out of the box, practically everything is up and running as soon as you install Ubuntu, no extra configuration required.

Not only that, but I also got an external 3G modem from Vodafone, that also worked out of the box.

As I've said before ... there are plenty of configurations that are running just fine with Ubuntu, but if you're going to shop at random of course you're going to have problems. Heck ... my external 3G modem wasn't compatible with Vista out of the box, you had to search for an updated driver on the Internet.
Yes, its basically twilio in India. But the big problem in India is that VOIP is not accepted and we need to do everything over physical telephone lines. Its just lucky that we build our own PRI cards and build our software.
And tejaswiy, you should try coming back. I did :) .
I think for most people, reading newspapers and articles in general falls into the glancing/skimming type of reading. It's not surprising to not remember something in that case.
If you need a "gadget", odds are you want to hack on it a bit, or develop for it?

If so, choose Android if you don't have a (recent) mac and are low on funds, or like Java better than Objective-C (and messing w/memory leaks, even though it is not terrible to debug them, I hear). If you have a mac, you get to decide between Android and iPhone (and probably lean to the latter, if an Apple geek).

Obviously, you could do either, if you don't want to develop for it.

There are many other options as well, but those are the two mainstream ones. I thought about a linux-based device for a long time, but never found one I saw that was cheap and useful enough. For the actual device, check reviews, etc. That stuff changes from month to month.
I often can't even remember the names from the previous chapter.
Must be like the social workers I met who went into that profession to fix themselves. Social work is a poor career to chose on that basis.
Instant's goal is to change user search behavior away from potentially long tail queries towards the head.

If they can short circuit your potentially 4-6 word specific search that has fewer and lower paying advertisers associated for a shorter, higher interest/CPC search, they stand to make a lot more money and please larger brand advertisers.

That they can wrap it up to users as "decreasing search time" and "better search results" is brilliant.
The feat is impressive, but there is such a self-deprecating sense to this article that makes me sick.

Let me see if I get this straight:
"While on vacation, I spent a significant amount of my time with a node in our production cluster attempting to understand this problem"

"Eventually, I discovered a race condition that allowed an SO_WRITE interest to be set on a socket but never cleared."

"Upon returning to the office and offering up one heck of a mea culpa"

---

Took his own time to hunt down an extremely difficult to find bug and then fixed it. Yea, mea culpa all around. This is the kind of ridiculous attitude that has people working themselves to death.

I agree with the rest of the article, I think you should never be afraid to change and refactor your own code. This particular part of the article struck a nerve for me.
Looks interesting...Can you give insight in how you plan to make money on this?
By the way, compiling a data structure to a lookup function is a very clever trick, and fortunately something Clojure makes easy. It reminds me of how old-school assembly programmers would blur the lines between code and data for better performance. Only this is more structured and easier to manage.

There are a couple of drawbacks, though:

1. It really only works for read-only data. Generating a new lookup-fn is a pretty expensive operation. I don't think I could use this for data that changed at all.

2. Compiled code uses permgen space and isn't garbage collected as easily. If you make extensive use of this technique, especially with large maps, it'd be really easy to blow your permgen space.
You're correct - I did mean the number of potential customers rather than the total amount of money.

I haven't heard that distinction, but I'll consider using your suggested alternatives in the future.

At the same time, I wonder if using a longer phrase like the "number of potential customers" would actually make the article less readable. I imagine most people knew what I meant by the term "market size" based on the context.
I'm 100% wrong here - misread the parent AND misremembered Residential Wiring classes.

I am taking this as a signal that I should not do any AC wiring on my own any time soon.
Also, I can't seem to make this an edit, only a reply :(
You know, lately I've been thinking about the languages I learned this past few years. As of now, I'm nowhere nearly good in any environment thanks to my stupid brain following the "language love boat" preaches.

Couple days ago I decided to shut my eyes off articles that compares programming languages and decided to stick with Java and Ruby. I don't plan to learn 10 different programming languages for the rest of my life unless I happen to get an offer in a company where they would want to train me in their technology. I have no plan to be a software developer for the rest of my life because that is a bottom-line job. It's useless really. Especially when there are too many effing opinions in our industry such as:

- We prefer young people (remember, y'all going to get old at some point, you'll be out of the game soon)

- We prefer TDD, Scrum, and Agile (those of you who dislike TDD will be crossed out from this list)

- We only do games (those web developers are out)

- We only do web-development (don't know HTML/CSS/JS? get out)

- We only do internal IT (you're a software product guy, you won't last long here)

- We do "Digital Social Media Marketing Branding SEO" (you're just a PHP developer, go make something)

- We do SAP, PeopleSoft, and Oracle Financial (you're not qualified even though you know .NET)

- We do embedded (web developer and enterprise developer, the door is right there)

- We only use Apple (not an Apple fanboy? doesn't worship Jobs? out please)

I'd rather spend my time learning the business domain, leadership, management, networking and how to live a life and achieve happiness than learning LISP, C, C++, HTML, CSS, Python (I know a few things about Python but by no means I can be qualified to work in a startup that uses Django).

I don't want to be 50 years old hacker unemployed (due to age) and have no social skill to convince people that I'm still worth. Besides, I want to have a retirement that doesn't bother my kids's financial situation.

Do you have any idea how long it takes to learn and master a programming language and the ecosystem (libraries, tools, the community, etc)?

It's a life choice that I decided and I don't think you should look down at other people choices.
This is really about a clash of culture. As an author he's probably quite accustomed to promoting his books to the widest possible readership by whatever means are available, but it also appears that he has little familiarity with the ways of the internet.

Did I carefully read the Facebook ten commandments before joining? No, I didn't. To a large extent my behaviour on Facebook is a product of my previous experiences of internet etiquette. If you have no previous knowledge of these semi-explicit rules it would be quite easy to commit a faux pas.
Having eschewed higher education for "real world experience", I have to admit I regret that decision.

As valuable as working under small business owners has been, years later I wish I'd learned more about technical aspects such as managing finances or accounting. This could have been learned directly and efficiently in school, freeing energy to focus on actual business method.

On the other hand, I am only now mature enough to learn seriously and apply myself towards goals. If only I'd gotten there before my study skills have atrophied. Self teaching myself programming has been both rewarding and frustrating.

The bright side is I'm debt free, and can choose any outlet for creative energy. The darker outlook is perpetual catch-up with peers, and somewhat narrow skill sets.
Most if not all of the things you counter nerd-rage about here are available in vim and emacs if you want them.
Creating bots like this requires a service account, which we will begin charging for in the near future. http://notifo.com/pricing for more.
Facebook app on iPhone will sync your profile pic to your address book which is used as the profile pic for IM. The address book contacts may also be syncing to Gmail and setting it there.

I've been noticing people's IM and email having accompanying profile pics that appear to pick up FB latest pic without the person knowing. I've speculated it's iPhone FB app as a common denominator seems to be owning an iPhone.

Pure speculation.
How much effort do you put in to reading Hacker News? If it feels easy, then you likely aren't doing much to change your brain.

Unless maybe you put in a bit of effort for years on end...there may be hope for some of us.
You're exaggerating. Web users spend 80% of their time looking at information above the page fold. The part of what you're saying that's true is that people scroll at all. This is new. See http://www.useit.com/alertbox/scrolling-attention.html
Well the string DSL is easier to read. Doesn't seem like there would be a lot of useful autocompletion with objects/classes either.
I'm inclined to agree actually. I think it's the length of the sentence that's forced it to be illegibly small.

We need to work on that. Thanks for the feedback though.
I would look at this article as being about opportunity cost though, not necessarily that each of the bullet points must be extant in a program in order for you to enroll or stay in college. Ask yourself: would I be _more_ likely to meet smart people on my own without college? Would I be _more_ likely to study and engage subjects that are new and challenging? Not that I'm not implying an ultimatum between college and sitting around at home; it's all dependent upon your own motivation and circumstances (e.g. move to a city, if you think that would increase the likelihood of those things). However, anyone who's successful and hasn't gone to college _or_ made sure to attend to those aspects has likely just gotten lucky.
Hrm. I really really don't understand all this advice to go to school. Just in general, but for entrepreneurs, especially.

It's all roses and candy corn, 'meet smart people' (okay, assuming you got into a top 10% school), 'start projects not businesses' (okay if you have a scholarship or family-backing), 'show that you can finish something.'

What about the fact that it is 4 years of your life? What about the fact that you are going to come out of it with a degree, the main thing you're aiming for, that is nearly worthless if you are an entrepreneur? What about the fact that you are likely going to come out of it with 60k+ in debt?

This doesn't even consider the opportunity cost. That is four years you could spend traveling the world (meeting smart people), building companies not projects (and finishing them), potentially having some savings rather than a house-worth of debt. Not to mention the swagger that comes with pwning the world in your own way.

You want to be a teacher? Yeah, go to college, you gotta. Doctor, lawyer, same thing. But you want to make a million bucks before you're thirty shipping products? Four years of dicking off between the work you have to do for classes, 75% of which bore you is just a stretch to me as a good idea.

If you want to be top in your field while pushing the cutting edge of what's possible and what's not, go on and get your PHD and paid-access to brilliant professors, then yeah, go to school. But you are like .01% then.. not the typical 'go to school or don't' thing.

The question being answered in this article is "are there benefits to going to school?" And obviously, there are.

But the real question should be, "for an entrepeneur, is it better to spend 4 years struggling and working and building a business, learning as you go, or spend 4 years going to college and paying 60k for the privilege?"

When you frame the question that way, I think it's quite obvious that the vast majority of the time, going to school is a negative equity move.
Perfect Quality Products - Labels And Magazines 
Both labels and magazines are truly called as perfect quality products. That is why online printing company offers you cheap labels and magazines printing solutions globally.
I could be mistaken, but didn't they use scrolls and wax tablets for most things?
When I was using MapReduce for "real work" it was mostly to count n-grams. I don't think I was the only one...
the book "How to Read a Book" describes the technique in his conclusion in excellent detail. It is essentially about owning the information you are consuming.

Personally I think this applies to non-fiction works only. At least in my personal reading. My brain doesn't need to store the details of fictional works. It seems like it actively discards "entertainment" items in favor of knowledge I need to pay the mortgage and feed the kids. I am much more deliberate with that information.
What's the pattern?
I don't see moving to get away from taxes screwing the state. If anything it allows market forces to work with competition between states.

If people are screwing the state by doing this, then the New York Yankees are screwing New York by training in Florida.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_M._Steinbrenner_Field
Sorry for the late reply. I have not configured my Notifo correctly.

I respectfully disagree. Lots of us here cut back on our working hours, or quit our job to go start companies. That is because we feel we have a fall back plan which is the experience and knowledge we have acquired on the job.
Context: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1353307

"Max Klein" sent me an e-mail essentially inviting me to 'take it outside', I am amused.
It seems to me that economies, like information, want to be free. Or that like the internet, they route around damage.
The Other Social Network - why Campus Network lost out to Facebook