skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You missed the bit where I said having a standard way of calling a script would be an improvement.

(and The bits where I asked how you would deal with keeping them in sync)

(and I missed the bit where you said m2sh was the default format, because I can't find that anywhere but in your comment here).
I never said a lack of money was not a disadvantage. I pointed out Humby as an example of someone with what might be considered a totally insumountable disadvantage (one friggin' arm, the guy's a hero).

Lots of poor people stay poor and are likely to continue; my point is that, of all places on earth, the poor have a pretty good shot here, and that the attitude that we're somehow unfair to them in this country is totally unfounded and, in fact, damaging to people who don't need the added disadvantage of being discouraged.

Life's playing field has never been level, but it doesn't do anyone any good to make these assertions that one disadvantage or another is too much.

As far as your question about personal drive, it came from an intense desire to not eat another bowl of instant ramen, ever.

And on the topic of luck, it's a common saying that the harder you work, the luckier you get.
Our bodies are going online – but where will it lead us?
Get listed right for profit
Going by the title of the post, I initially assumed the author was making a case for learning in a school/university-based environment, as opposed to autodidacticism ("self-learning"). This turned out to be wrong; rather, he is basically saying that any amount of studying (theory) does not make up for experience (practice).
Right. A certain degree of self-learning is necessary in order to reach the point where you are firmly ensconced in that professional engineering enterprise gig. Not to mention the fact that as that enterprise shifts to future, non-faddish frameworks, you are going to have to spend a certain amount of self-motivated time learning on your own to keep your skillset up to date, even if your current gig sends you to conferences and otherwise invests in you.
Goo.gl's shorten API
It's not the 90s anymore, people know about other browsers, still use w/e they want.

- Safari was "accidentally" installed on every iTunes users' PC plus of course there'd be genuinely sparked interest in it I'm sure from all the iPhones/iPads/etc

- Firefox users spent years trolling forums everywhere as soon as a user muttered the magic summoning words "I use [not firefox]" for any reason

- Opera's had years of success on mobile/etc devices

- Chrome's advertised on YouTube and other Google properties... probably the only other site with better chances of reaching the masses is Facebook.

Meanwhile browsers have all become better, faster, and the specific one you use matters less and less - ultimately they're all just a 100px of stuff above the actual internet.
Except upgrading incrementally if you can is easier. Less things to change all at once.
I've never run out of battery on my droid x in the same day which I unplugged it from the charger. I wish that I could say the battery life problem was going away but 4g, dual core android phones will be here soon and battery life will get worse. http://androidandme.com/2010/09/news/t-mobile-mytouch-hd-fir...
Tab Candy for Google Chrome – TooManyTabs
Twilight, anyone?
Well, known issues with installation do belong on the page targeted at users, I think. At least as a link.
So, I take it Hacker.com is one of those sites for the initiated where those "in-the-know" can sit around and disparage the uninitiated--where the experts can gather and imbibe that tasty brew of in-crowd mockery and self-satisfied contempt for their non-expert lessers?

Perhaps, then, jv22222, since you have made me the public target of your scorn, you'll add substance to your ridicule and teach me where went I wrong with my post seeking an app writer on craigslist (different Craig).

I should tell you, first of all, that this was not my first time placing an ad for coders on craigslist, nor will it be my first time hiring someone who answers an ad. They would tell you that I pay well for good work, that I pay on time (half up front and the remaining half immediately upon completion), and that I am flexible, responsive, and accessible. I also have at least a passing familiarity with coding (there isn't a lick of javascript on this page I wrote, for example, http://craignelsen.com/).

I thought the craigslist ad was good, but you obviously disagree. You don't say exactly what it is you find so objectionable, but, if I read between the lines, my description of the job was flawed, comprising merely "hints". Perhaps you can teach me how I could have described the job so that I met your standards without actually posting my idea on the Internet (it is not, btw, a real-time dating app).

If your beef was with the fact that my ad directs to a web page with a form to fill out, then I should tell you that, as someone who hires coders, I find the form eliminates a lot of the off-shore spam responses from companies that mass-reply to ads on craigslist. If you are not an off-shore company, I should think you would be appreciative of my approach, rather than disparaging.

Also, btw, a little public criticism of your post on grounds more in line with my field of expertise:

Your doctor analogy is untenable.

Craig Nelsen
Washington, DC
How do you charge them?
> the infrastructure for which is now solidly entrenched

This is one of the reasons you have for making choices and having mandated standards for interoperability. Building infrastructure is expensive and if you do it right it lasts for a long time.

From an infrastructure standpoint electric cars have some serious advantages over hydrogen, since we already have extensive experience building electrical infrastructure. And it should be possible to improve batteries without replacing entire vehicles. And electric vehicles create an opening for small entreprneurial companies to try out new devices in ways that hydrogen with it's high barriers to entry and need for a massive infrastructure upgrade do not.
Does this really work? I wonder if it works with equal accuracy for people of different color or skin types.
I generally like screencasts because they're small tidbits and I usually remember the gist of how something is done.

As an aside, you can use -O with curl to save the file as the filename, instead of having to redirect the output and rewrite the filename

So instead of this:
curl http://nodejs.org/dist/node-v0.2.3.tar.gz > node-v0.2.3.tar.gz

You can just write this:
curl -O http://nodejs.org/dist/node-v0.2.3.tar.gz

for the same effect.
>Your job becomes preying on people with gambling problems

Or perhaps you have a gambling problem, but are successful enough to deny it.

FTA:
> "Looking back, what I've figured out," he says, "is that no matter the amount of money poker players win, they still want more. You're never happy."
Yeah... Apparently this turns out to be a link bait.

The author seems to confuse self-learning with learning only the theory.

The real title should be: "Theory without practice is overrated".

And when you word it this way, it's hardly anything surprising.
Without knowing what your self-learning experience is, this is meaningless. You don't mention it once. Have you been hacking personal Haskell projects for 10 years in your sparetime (let's say 25% of your professional experience?), or just read a book or two, or nothing at all?

Personally I think it's pretty easy to make the opposite argument. If you work on open source software in your spare time you have a chance to work with a wider pool of more talented engineers in a more collaborative environment and wider ecosystem of software than exists in any single company. Many programming jobs by comparison involve either menial CRUD-style work, or working for years on end on some specific component that does not convey much general-purpose knowledge.

Now, if you aren't the kind of guy that is motivated to work on your own then certainly a business environment will be invaluable, however I reject the idea that corporate programming somehow inherently teaches you more than you can learn on your own.
curl http://nodejs.org/dist/node-v0.2.3.tar.gz | tar xzvf -
Considering the foreign policy externalities that our oil consumption generates (even leaving aside the environmental ones for now), I wish the feds and the states would subsidize electric cars more and fight wars in the Middle East less.
I'm curious about xtranormal as a business. They don't seem particularly successful to date, and really don't invest much in either supporting breakout hits, or making their product viral. However, the idea of text-generated videos is pretty awesome. Is this just a Canadian thing?

My favorite is by far http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/6752641/ -- anaesthesia vs. orthopaedics.
Ask HN: Any Hosting with tiny dedicated machines instead of VPS?
The SheevaPlug post yesterday reminded me of what I really want from a hosting provider, and since we've been thru the age of the blade, and VPS is all the rage right now, I wonder if some innovative host has come up with it:

A tiny dedicated machine. EG: A blade or a rack system with a bunch of independent very small machines. Say and ARM CPU, and 512-1GB of RAM and an onboard, dedicated SSD of 10-40G. Since this is an all silicon solution it should be smaller than anything using hard drives.

I'm picturing something like the gumstix. (Maybe someones done this with gumstixes in fact.) You could probably fit hundreds of them in a 4U Rack enclosure. Power supply would be separate, off the shelf, and stick a network switch in there as well and provide a separate NAS for bulk hard drive storage.

This would be pretty ideal for a lot of hosting situations. Fast local storage (the downside of the shivaplug is the USB hard drive interface) and dedicated resources at low power and low capital costs.

I know VPS is more efficient in theory because most people are idle most of the time. But there are thousands of VPS providers and this would be an interesting differentiation.

Anyone doing anything like this?
I've paid by debit card at my local Aldi (ham FYI).
I wouldn't be so sure. I'd venture to guess there are plenty of startups who only break even (or worse) when you add their operating costs + customer acquisition costs.
You can really use the code because it is badly formatted: http://i.imgur.com/qOVK6.png. Embarrassing.
I also have a webapp to keep track of this: http://somebodybuildthis.com

As others have said, Good luck! :-D
During the Tokugawa shogunates, Japan aimed at maintaining a static society, and did a pretty fair job of it: contacts with the European world confined to Nagasaki, firearms excluded, etc. During about the same years, the Americans went from colonists mostly east of the Atlantic fall line to an independent nation that controlled most of the territory where the contiguous 48 states are.

I say this not to imply some American superiority, but to point out that training, in those circumstances, was often irrelevant.
I actually know a blind guy who walk around NYC based on sound. These quiet cars are going to produce noise soon or else interest groups will force them to by pushing for legislative action. http://money.cnn.com/2010/05/19/autos/electric_car_noise/ind...
Meizu M8 ceases production amid pressure from Apple
<rant silly="probably">

There is no secret that the whole present-day credit card system is conceptually screwed up. You have to trust way too many parties, starting from your bank (that's okay) and ending with the passing-by stranger behind your back (who can glance and memorize your card name and number, and that's not okay) and store's security guard, watching the camera above your head.

The systems where a customer can use small and secure device to generate one-time token for a specified amount of money and specified merchant are already invented. They would almost completely stop the card fraud. But that not gonna happen anytime soon, because most customers are too illiterate (since when they gonna teach the very basics of cryptography at schools?) and business is too lazy (this is why 3-D Secure failed - almost nobody cared to support it because "everything works" the old completely insecure way).

</rant>
No additional detail in the article really, I have the same questions I had after reading the headline. Not committed how? Jumped the gun on what?

I can see not wanting to spend time in WM7 when you have Samsung announcing 5,000,000 Galaxy S sold and all of your games don't run on Android yet but why not just come out and say it?
Maybe this perception exists because there is less for NASA to do. There's not a lot for astronauts to do in space until we have some kind of breakthrough in propulsion. It's too slow and expensive to get around the solar system until then.

So for now we put up satellites and telescopes, send out probes, help with the ISS, and... study the sky. These jobs get done with what we have now. What great mission would even require the kind of NASA that existed in the 60s? Please don't say Mars.
True, but that kind of change would need massive support from voters, so it is unlikely to happen in any real-world democracy.
Twisted web POST example w/ JSON
definitely a cool project. Cool to experiment with UX on top of http. I guess the thing that rubbed me the wrong way initially is I really like seeing request / response. As a developer I learn alot from watching those; and anytime I have bugs in my http it's typically a header problem, so I like seeing those front and center.
I would like to see a full carbon cost for some of these "green" cars. I bet that between manufacturing 5 to 6,000 batteries per car and production of the additional electronics they are creating a lot more waste than people realize.
What Startups Can Learn From Watching 'The Social Network'
A few things here:

1. How much more money do westerners travelling to Turkey make yearly, vs. native Turks? You might get overcharged, but it's not like you can't afford it.

2. You might get overcharged, but it's still cheaper than it would be in richer countries.

3. Most importantly, countries like Turkey tend (in my limited experience) to have a less fixed price structure. Bartering (at least in the markets) is completely beyond my ability, since this isn't something I grew up with in North America, but I have an Israeli friend who will back-and-forth with a vendor until he offers to sell for one tenth of his original price (and he's still making a killing).

The first two points make me out to be an apologist, but it's not like he's charging you $10 more for the tea vs. locals he's using his massive margins to throw in a $0.50 set of tea spoons for free so you'll tell your friends.
A few things here:

1. How much more money do westerners travelling to Turkey make yearly, vs. native Turks? You might get overcharged, but it's not like you can't afford it.

2. You might get overcharged, but it's still cheaper than it would be in richer countries.

3. Most importantly, countries like Turkey tend (in my limited experience) to have a less fixed price structure. Bartering (at least in the markets) is completely beyond my ability, since this isn't something I grew up with in North America, but I have an Israeli friend who will back-and-forth with a vendor until he offers to sell for one tenth of his original price (and he's still making a killing).

The first two points make me out to be an apologist, but it's not like he's charging you $10 more for the tea vs. locals and using his massive margins to throw in a $0.50 set of tea spoons for free so you'll tell your friends.
clickable http://adwizzy.com
I would go to Elance and look through the things people are paying for. If you can find something that lots of people are buying but can be commoditized you've found a winner. Since you are experienced in PHP, make some PHP component that people want but the current solutions are crap. Web Developers will easily pay $100 for something of quality that will save time. I think it is easier to sell a digital product than SaaS if you want to do this part time. It's nice to get your money and have no further obligation to your customer. As far as marketing, you can submit a PAD of your software product. That will give you a surprising amount of free traffic. Also, you can giveaway licenses of your product via bloggers. To accept payments I use FastSpring. It looks professional and there are no setup or monthly costs (so no risk). Good luck!
To clarify, I wasn't proposing to eliminate any of this.

I was only proposing a command line option allowing the user to pretend this doesn't exist, if you want to make their mongrel2 configuration "ninja proof" (to borrow Zed's language).
Djb did try and get users to replace init and the fhs in order to use his mail app. It's not a buzzword, it's a genuine issue that made people not want to use qmail.
I agree with the other posters who said science fiction creates a 'universe' for the imagination to dwell upon, whereas other entertainments might just create some characters to remember. Also in creating a universe the author can leave many details out, creating the opportunity for debate amongst the fans. People still debate character motivations in normal entertainment etc. but they don't involve the same interconnectednesss and logicality usually (those things are apparent in Shakespeare though, which of course is endlessly discussed).

Anyway what's eveyone's favourite universe? Mine's probably Frank Herbert's Dune novels. I've been looking at them again recently and realised how much of he writing, especially the epigraphs before each chapter, went over my head. He's writing about the deepest trends in human history and behaviour. I thought it was just a bunch of cool scifi ideas. I also love the Marathon universe for its AI characterization though.
On the other hand, when MS has done some advertising for you like that, why not take advantage of it.

I agree that the article is really short on details.
Any idea how much these cost, or how much it would cost to get this service without the card?

Will they order and buy stuff for you (e.g. from Amazon), or just tell you where it is?
The New Journalist is the man in the arena
when you do it wrong it lasts for a long time too. especially when government builds in things that hide the true costs.

electric and hydrogen are only 2 options. We should wait for one that can actually beat the gasoline engine.

all we need do is make sure that the total costs of using gasoline are paid by those choosing to use it. That means taxing emissions too.

if another technology can beat gasoline when all costs of both are considered, it should replace gasoline. And if nothing succeeds at doing that, then no big change makes ense
Microsoft put a shot up of it's store with an Angry Birds icon. The developer(s?) of Angry Birds never said they were making a version for Windows Phone 7.

The developers weren't committed to making the game, Microsoft jumped the gun by implicitly saying they were with that icon.
This appears to be an interview problem, possibly to determine how candidates think. It reminds me of stories like this:

http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/hack/recovery.html
Mongrel2 Cannot Defeat Ninjas
Apple Buys $6k North Carolina home for $1.7million, building massive data center
Yes. My hour just finished, and I get "Your instance has been terminated. Thank you for taking part in this offering."
This is really cool. For example, Canada's primary source of power is hydroelectricity (over 60%). Electric cars in large parts of Canada would be literally running on water!
Right, in reality, government regulation is the cheapest way to make he public pay for the costs while keeping the profits.

However, those who propose government regulation seem to not perceive government as anything other than an objective benevolent force, and when they are presented with evidence of government being corrupt, they blame the corporations for corrupting them.
Why we hate Lisp
you'd have to be priced really aggressively since those machines are super low power. add an SSD as an additional differentiator - i can't think of a VPS service doing that, and it would really boost performance.
The article seems to focus on Flash. Adobe has more products than that, and has a quasi monopol around graphism tools. Acquiring Adobe could help MS with design, something MS is really bad at. Since XP I don't really think that windows looks particularly good. More design focus is something that could benefit MS especially since Apple is so much into it. Or may be they could hire a really good designer (or trust one they have ), that would be cheaper...
It's $13k per person (giver and receiver) per year. Additionally, there's a $1 million lifetime exemption (for the giver) which is only cut into once you pass the $13k/year limit.
If I were a betting man, I wouldn't spend a spare second porting my app to wm7. The wisest move is just to wait at this point. But, doesn't seem likely that Angry Birds would appear on wm7.
Another, good useful response modded down to being below zero because it isn't politically correct.
Different learning methods make sense for different things and different people. I think for many things collaboration works best in programming. Its certainly more fun to work on solving a problem with someone and helping someone reach an understanding of something as you reach an understanding of it makes you understand it more completely. Just stating things in a way someone else can understand increases comprehension.
If they do, hopefully they are including the C02 to build the gasoline car, as well as all emissions in all stages of procuring the fuel for both drivetrains.

Doing a dust-to-road analysis of impact is very hard.
Not sure I agree. I could give long and detailed answers to all those questions, despite having only written one "industrial" Haskell application as a team of 1. I've learned everything I know about programming on my own -- reading other people's code, and trying their techniques for myself. While I have written some nice code for money, the bulk of my time in front of a keyboard programming has been on my own.

And I work at an investment bank. So I am not sure that this article has any basis in reality. When I interview people, the candidates that are self-taught seem to have the most experience and interest in the job. This almost always makes them an instant "yes".

But I don't really see people like this for very long; 90% of the people I interview are just "lifers" that move from job to job in the financial sector every 6 months. Their recruiters make them lie on their resume, and it comes out in the interviews and makes them look like horrible people. Instead of being self-taught, they simply don't know anything about programming. ("Your resume said you designed your own processor to process network traffic faster. What was your role on this project?" "Oh, uh, well, I uh, got some coffee for the dev team.")

To the contrary, banks are dealing with the established business models and are rarely tolerating even short-term decreases in the added value that every person brings to the company. They hire people to earn money for the bank, not to experiment, and they pay those people accordingly.

So untrue. I work at the biggest investment bank in the country, and this is just not true. Did I mention that this is not true? Not true. Oh so untrue.

Do banks want to decrease their added value? Nope. Do they have a desire to hire 300,000 employees? Yup. And guess what, there aren't that many good programmers in the world. Problem.

Prop shops might be more careful, but banks hire pretty much anyone and everyone and give them a lot of money. It's a big company thing. Do you have buzzwords on your resume? Congratulations, you're in. And you should see the code that this process produces! (My department doesn't do this, but it's clear that most of the other ones do.)
You should read about the project before whining that way. It's not just a web server, it's more like a server of servers. ;)