skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That essay is amazing, but I think it only covers part of the spectrum.

Knowing who your parents are is less important today than a couple hundred years ago. It doesn't cripple you socially as it once did. Knowing what material your water pipes are made of has become much more important, now that we're aware of the crippling effects of lead. The present world is greatly influenced by the manipulation of amounts of mass and energy too small to see. We've come to accept this situation without surprise, and we tend to think about emergent information content and not mechanics or chemistry.

To a typical Victorian all of that wouldn't be heresy so much as fantastic nonsense.
Martin Luther Thesis Simplified
Writing a Martin Luther thesis for theological studies can be an interesting but tough task. There are plethoras of information on Martin Luther which will make writing easier. However, knowing how to write the thesis will ensure a good grade for the students.
Does anyone seriously believe that your chances of getting into YC go up linearly with your karma? If I had to guess, past a certain threshold, your chances of acceptance probably drop.
The comments on this page seem surprisingly negative. I for one just had a great experience using that service. I've been looking on and off for months for a course on Abstract Algebra (with lectures).

So, I type in "abstract algebra" into the search and here's what I get: http://code.google.com/edu/curriculumsearch/results.html?cx=... Perfect.

So this search engine passed my initial test with flying colors.
WordPress goes berserk
Some background: This was written by a defected Soviet military intelligence officer Victor Suvorov: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Suvorov .

Suvorov wrote a lot of books exploring WWII and demonstrating large amounts of evidence for his "Icebreaker" theory, claiming that Stalin intentionally led Hitler to power, planning to occupy Europe after Nazis and the Western countries were both weary and weakened. The theory has a lot of vocal opponents, but Suvorov never misses a chance to point out that most of them are (paid by) Soviet political/military figures, who are obviously biased and would never admit such a plan. It's a shame that these books are not all translated to English.

He also wrote two memoir books, (Tales of a) "Liberator", describing his service in the Soviet regular forces, and "Aquarium", covering the period after he got noticed by and accepted into the intelligence forces. The first one contains some rather fascinating stories of everyday Soviet life and dogma, well worth a read if you can find it. The second one is also good, even though it lacks those everyday stories.

Summa summarum, the book OP linked to is an interesting view into the old Soviet thinking. Might be an eye opener for those who believe the Soviets were anywhere near as humane as the Western countries.
After a quick read of the page it sounds like it only works for browsers authenticated to a specific Verizon FIOS router.
Of course. Any press (good, bad or otherwise) is good press. Even if Zuckerberg and FB "officially" denounce this movie, I guarantee that they're dancing with glee behind closed doors, thankful for all of the extra media attention.
A quick google search yielded this list of open source projects written in Python: http://pythonsource.com/

I have no idea what size any of them are, and whether or not they are looking for contributors.

More important than either of those considerations is whether or not you - to quote another recent discussion here - "give a damn" about them. Are you interested in this project? Would you use the final product? Can you think of ways to improve the final product?

If the answer to any of those questions is no, then you probably shouldn't be working on that project. Look for a different one.

If you're really set on Python, then go down that list and check out each project. Check out the program, app, whatever and see if it excites you. Is it something you would use early and often? Do new feature ideas start spilling out of you brain as soon as you open it up? That's the project for you to work on.
The bar is a lot higher for forking Java. It's not enough for a few guys to establish a track record of consistent high-quality releases. IBM and Red Hat will only give their support to an organization comparable to the one that controls Java now, which requires a lot of coordination and planning, which in turn requires some high-level decisions made inside organizations that have the personnel, money, and interest to make it happen. A single blog post doesn't accomplish much, but this is the kind of pitch that needs to be made in more detail to the right people inside IBM et al.
Why fork? Just go with Scala! http://www.scala-lang.org/
Apple Challenges $625.5 Million Mirror Worlds Patent Verdict
>> why don't they go find something else?

- Because the opportunity hasn't presented itself.

- Because s/he can't afford to quit a job when her/his spouse has just been laid-off.

- Because the car/house/dental treatment hasn't been paid-off.

- Because those students loans can not be deferred

- Because this company actually pays for the a good part of tuition, and requires that the employee stays for at least a couple of years after graduating.

- Because the person has already left four or five different jobs previously, so it's getting harder and harder to justify to an interviewer why the company should hire someone that can't stay at the same place for more than 18 months
this one is pretty awesome http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~dyb/pubs/3imp.pdf

also, the principals of ai programming lisp book walks through implementing a scheme interpreter as well as a compiler in lisp. (it's tougher than it appears, for one thing lisp doesn't require tail call optimization, so you need to manage the stack explicitly.)

check out sicp chapter 5, online! http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-30.html...

scheme is fun.

edit I've heard great things about lisp in small pieces, but i haven't read it myself.
A bit odd that it doesn't even work on their page: http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/9783/oddity.jpg
Dynamic landing pages
An approachable book on algorithms
Jared Diamond works with a similar theme in his book "Collapse" though he goes further and explores issues that might literally bring about an end to our societies.

The take-away from both pieces: we should regularly question our beliefs and values in a larger context - what may seem like a perfectly normal, decent and harmless thing to us may be doing our society irreparable harm in the long run.
Stanford students looking for some easy $? The Scholar App is hiring
And the winner for best quote from support.Microsoft is...
"A better way to work with the people you work with every day."

Is it me, or does that scan really badly. Is it even grammatically valid?
He's trying to make our industry a little bit better one programmer at a time. Why throw stones at him? He believes in TDD. He's passionate about it and he shares his knowledge. If he makes money from this (which probably not his end-goal when he decided to learn and share his knowledge) then more power to him.

Not everybody should make money from being a "hardcore (but cowboy) coder".
Google's sub-site on optimizing websites for Google TV is interesting: http://code.google.com/tv/web/docs/optimization_guide.html

One particular quote surprised me: "Google TV currently supports only the Droid Sans and Droid Serif font families, but you can use font embedding techniques to create a more customized appearance. However, keep in mind that font embedding, which relies on Flash, will be slower than other methods."

If Google TV runs Chrome, shouldn't it support @font-face embedding natively?
Linearly? Where does it say that?

PG has said quite a few times that if your HN contributions are 'thoughtful' (which is a fairly arbitrary criterion) that that helps. Of course there is no linear relationship, and anybody that believes that is not likely to make it in to YC anyway.

edit: I've added a bit of text there in case someone might interpret it this way, but I think the risk of that happening was fairly low.
As someone who is rather attached to the idea of entitlement programs, I fear you're right. However the amount of good that could be done by more open borders is likely to be much greater than the good done social programs, so this looks like a place I'll have to just grin and bear it.
Working on this exact problem myself: https://droplettr.com - the encryption uses Firefox Sync crypto module in an extension, so the crypto is done by the browser outside the scope of content JS. The rest of the app is pure JS and HTML, with a Python/Django REST-style server.
Current "Internet connected" Samsung TVs aren't cheap either; the difference to comparable basic models is in hundreds of Euros. I'm sure Sammy could get back the price of Intel CE4x00 SoC quite easily.
> when your culture treats your elderly relatives - your own family! - so horrifically, shipping them off to be ignored in a home for the rest of their lives?"

Have they considered that perhaps it's the American individualism manifested by the elderly, and not by the young, which causes this? My grandmother just moved out of my dad's house because she wasn't ready to give up her freedom. My wife's grandparents still live by themselves in their mid-to-late 80s and fire every caretaker my wife's family hires for them. My own mother and my wife's parents have assured us that they will never be moving in with us (or into a home, for that matter).
Full disclosure: I am the cofounder of earnmojo.com

There are (at least) two ways to address the engagement/loyalty problem with a third party awards solution: 1) provide a simple, drop-in JS (ala Google Analytics) or 2) provide deeper, API-level integration.

We've started with the first approach, which won't work for everyone, but it has worked for a lot of non-technical people, many of whom have set Mojo up on their sites in < 30 minutes.

For our friends on HN (and other developers), we have a private API. We've used it internally a few times, including rolling out achievements on the conference web site for JavaOne and Oracle Develop. We intend to publish it soon, but if you want early access, just let us know.

chris@earnmojo.com, @bucchere on Twitter or 415-516-3941
Does their integration strategy with non-Dish boxes still boil down to using an IR blaster?
Agreed. Makes it look scammy.
I don't understand but it sounds interesting. Could you explain?
You think it's innate?
Why do so many sites squeeze their content into one skinny column?
Usually there is nothing but empty space to the sides, and the font size is too small for comfort. Is that supposed look professional? Do any designers out there hate this as much as me? I always end up hitting CMD+ to increase the size until my whole screen is used.
I don't think the argument is that they are not faultless. It's that they see the Western faults (treating their elderly relatives so poorly) as so much worse than their faults in a related area (treating animals poorly). It's a valid observation - that our complaining of the poor treatment of sentient animals is rather undermined by our poor treatment of a much more closer to home sentient animal.
I hope that I'm long dead before the time comes when society is wondering why it was once acceptable to tolerate free association between employees and to not let people starve who aren't working. I at least hope I have enough kids to support me once society has horribly failed in that way.
I can't agree with this enough.

Granted the comparison of countries with drug houses is a little simplistic. :)
Google Analytics Rank Tracker Review
"Lying" is way too harsh a word to use. It is a shame that everyone can't be completely open and know they will never be misinterpreted or taken out of context. But here is an example of when you are too open about your thoughts on record:

http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/06/zynga-scamville-mark-pinkus...
Interesting.

The first 4 results on the standard SERP for "trie" are Wikipedia, a pretty decent BU article on Tries with Sedgewick-style source code, an intro-to-tries article, and an article about using Tries for spellchecking.

The first 4 results on the CS SERP are a Princeton CS PPT on tries, Java source code for a trie, a paper on inductive logic programming using tries, and a tech report on "Nye's Trie" which looks like an interesting distributed systems solution modeled on tries.

The results for the two searches for "red-black tree" are approximately the same; all tutorial material.

The results for "bloom filter" are like those for "trie": the standard SERP is all tutorial material, and the CS SERP is mostly research.

CS search looks like an interesting middle ground between Scholar (which I use all the time) and standard Google. Thanks!
About 50. Nations have chosen to delegate some parts of their running certainly - more so than the US states in some areas, less so in most others.

Any answer to the first point? This debate is immaterial since in countries that people actually want to leave: a. their own government won't let them leave and b. our governments won't let them come.

The question I suppose is, can we find a way to reduce our borders without creating a world government, since that is clearly a bad thing? I believe we can, will and should.
When I look at my screen, only a part of it is in focus. The computer doesn't need to know where I'm looking; my eyes are blurring those other bits for me.
A world with no borders is a world with one government.

Or a world with no government. Saying many governments is better than one government is like saying more slave masters is better than one, since some of them might be more lenient.
Not murdering people is another plus!

Research suggests that pedestrians struck at 30 mph have about a 1 in 5 chance of being killed. At 20 mph the chance of a pedestrian dying is 1 in 40. In order to improve safety on the streets where we live, we will amend our guidance on speed limits, recommending that highway authorities, over time, introduce 20 mph zones or limits into streets that are primarily residential in nature and which are not part of any major through route. Similarly, we will encourage local authorities to consider introducing 20 mph limits or zones in town or city streets, such as around schools, shops, markets, playgrounds and other areas where pedestrian and cyclist movements are high.

-- http://www.howwedrive.com/2009/04/24/a-safer-way/
I agree. We are. That's why when the company that I work for hired some guys that were better than me, I was very excited.

See, when I first applied, I was looking for a junior position where I could learn from others. It turned out I was the only developer.

I did well enough to keep things going, and I learned on my own as I went along, but I kept wanting that mentor.

I did learn quite a lot from those guys before they quit, but I definitely could have learned more.

It just so happens that one of those guys also runs a coding dojo here in town. It's just a Meetup group where coders get together and take turns programming, 1 at the helm and 1 as co-pilot, with everyone else watching. After a few minutes, co-pilot become pilot and someone from the rest comes up to be co-pilot.

You get to watch the pilot code, and give suggestions as the co-pilot. Everyone learns and improves.

More junior programmers need to realize these things exist and take advantage of them.

And BTW, carpenters learn the same way we do. Either practicing on their own, or on-the-job. A teacher can tell you how to use the tools, and even grade you on projects made with them, but they can't teach you nearly as well as actually doing it over and over.
Finger Trees
I'd hope that some automated cut-out mechanism would cause the beam to be dumped. If not you're about to meet with a fairly drastic interruption to the flow of your day.
I like to think that we will do away with the tragedy of the commons and actually find the solutions that are best for all of us and not just some of us. (And when I say 'us', I mean that to the widest extent).
I don't know too much about Glassdoor, but what I have seen from some of the other sites they tend to quote rates under the prevailing wages. When I was a exec, I had a hiring manager that reported to me, but all compensation was via HR oversight. They lived and died by one of the salary sites. For a particular position the site said that the market average was 75k. Everyone that came through the door wanted no less than 110k. The guys that had strong resumes where in the $150k range (this was a very specialized role). Because of those site under representing the market, My manager was unable to fill the roll so I asked for an increased budget and kept paying $300hr for a specialized consultant. Anyway, the point is I am leery of the salary sites after that experience.
You're not really following me. I'm not suggesting that you thought you could karma-whore your way into YC; I'm suggesting that you and I might have a harder time getting into YC since our karma scores reflect something else besides simply thoughtful comments.

I'd imagine Patrick would have no problems, but that may be in spite of the karma score, not because of it.
I'd suggest http://openhatch.org/. Choose Python as a language and start with "bitesized" issues.
> It must be a trip to have an entire field of view in focus all at the same time.

I'm not sure that this is possible. Even if the lens system allows it, your retina isn't.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fovea
New website looks like Scammy Ebook 2.0, you know those yellowish scam/drity/spam marketing ebook sale websites, somehow that's what it reminded me.
Mostly, I hack away at a personal project (fixing that shelf, or repotting that plant, or finally building that damn calendaring app for me and my girlfriend) or watch a bad TV show (I mean _really_ bad; guilty pleasure kind of stuff).

Fairly often I'll go to a park and just ask someone what they hate about their computer. Then I'll sit there in the park and build it, for fun.
If you start with existing GPL code from Oracle, then you have an implicit patent license. But your code has to be under the GPL.

If you meet the "Technology Compatibility Kit", then you're an official Java and have a license. Unfortunately Sun was not in the habit of giving access to the TCK to people who were doing things they did not like with Java, and there is no reason to believe that Oracle will be more generous.

Google's problem was that they didn't want GPLed code (wouldn't work for the vendors who want to customize Android), and Sun wouldn't give them access to the TCK.

So anyone can create a GPLed fork, or someone who already has access to the TCK (eg IBM) can fork as long as they maintain complete compatibility with the TCK.
Continuous Backwards Compatibility
typo: "otherwise you nobody can see it"

Where did you get the (one boat cruise|two boat race) saying?
The encryption should really take place in a scope that content JS cannot access. I also think a system like this should be built completely parallel to email systems. Email is crap and needs to be re-invented as a web app with pseudo-anonymity and Public Key Encryption on by default. Users should not even know they are using encryption.
The people who believe with test-everything is probably the same people who believe with 100% code-coverage.

I think most people, by now, have learned that 100% code-coverage and test-everything are superfluous so there's no point of discussing these two or making a big deal of these two as a problem of subscribing to TDD.

The idea of TDD is to test the very minimum such that the code is proven to work as per requirement. When there is a bug found, write the test first before you fix the bug. This way, at one point of the life of the software, you'll eventually have enough tests to cover. I think most people put too much focus on the development story rather than the maintenance story thus most people only explain how to do TDD on new code, not how to do TDD on existing code (or rather, the next phase).

I've been in projects where because the people behind them were not putting too much effort for testing, they start automation effort from behind. Eventually you'll hit a chicken-n-egg situation: we'd like to refactor this buggy part but the architecture makes it hard to write automation test.

All professional projects will have automation tests at some point of their life. People by now should already know that software grows and hiring more QAs, re-test everything (regression, smoke, full-blown, etc), or even telling devs to test the code they just wrote manually don't scale.

Keep in mind that sometime, quality is defined by the client (or by the requirements). The client might not ask superb quality (as long as there is no data corruption) thus one probably does not have to write extensive automation-tests.
This isn't really an answer to your question, but I'd pick one of those large codebases and read through it until you understand everything that's going on in it. Not only will your coding skills increase to the point that you're more confident and not completely intimidated by the other contributors, but multiple places to contribute will become clear.
I'm surprised that IcedTea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icedtea ) has not been mentioned yet.

From the link:

"On June 2008, it was announced that IcedTea6 (as the packaged version of OpenJDK on Fedora 9) has passed the Technology Compatibility Kit tests and can claim to be a fully compatible Java 6 implementation."

I'm not a Java developer -- is there something about the project that makes it less appealing than a fork from scratch?
I can agree in part. We must hold people accountable for their beliefs, actions, and attitudes across time and place. On the other hand, I do not think that we should underestimate the degree to which serendipity influences the scientific endeavor.
Looks like is the way it says "I have no clue of where are you". Santa Monica Boulevard is like... 10.000 kilometers from here.
That's one of my pet peeves. Here's an example: http://www.creativecircle.com/Candidates.aspx
With respect, the point of my comment was that your opinion is irrelevant, so anyone agreeing with the thrust of my argument could well have down-voted you (I did not.)

The point is not whether you or I think Mutt or gmail is better. The point is, what do people use? Which platforms or programs are they using? Are the alternatives realistic? Mutt is not a realistic alternative to gmail for the following reasons I just thought up: You need a mail server, you have to use the console, you have to install unix (or perl and cygwin.)
I believe, good sir, that this is a pun. The 37signals team is known for being very anal about their copywriting.
Thanks, not sure why I couldn't find it on the day I posted.
Very insightful! I have long been trying to integrate the "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." way of thinking (this is the Gretzky quote, btw :)), but I never fully reasoned it out all the way: Not only am I passing up the chance, but I am receiving the same result as if the chance resulted in failure. In this way I now realize avoiding rejection is the same as being rejected. Powerful stuff.

Edit: Another anecdote that pops into my mind is Edison needing 10,000 tries to make the light-bulb. This means he failed 99,999 times. But we remember him for the success he had. (Queue pedants correcting the details of this anecdote ;))
It's about the only thing that can be relied on. Anything else is proprietary or obscure.
How to become a data scientist: the Venn diagram
Alcohol does not kill brain cells