skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
--- Thinking out loud ---

There is yet a thing to come of twitter:

I design big systems; HQ campus networks, Hospital networks and systems, RFID/RTLS tracking systems etc...

Back at Lockheed in 2002 we talked about this untapped M2M information layer that was just becoming accessible.

We imagined that there was a ton of data, contextual and revealing about what human actions were, that was happening and going to exponentially happen at a machine to machine level...

this device is here, in this state, with this sensor data and tethered to this owner... etc...

Twitter is kind of this sub-meta layer of information that has emerged - but not about machines -- about the human psyche...

there is a lot to be said for the 140 limit -- think of it as a protocol spec for the machine enabled telepathy that is the internet.

take that paradigm and apply it to the M2M idea previously stated: use twitter as a platform (middle ware, much like Emergin) to deliver short context messages between social systems, in an automated way) and then mine the fuck out of it for intent, interest, trend, etc...

This is like using it to data(sift) mine the information users put into the twitdome to determine such things as stock prices, national satisfaction on [issue], etc...

the beauty is that much can be gleaned DUE to the fact that the inputs are of a known, limited size.

I theorize THIS is exactly why the library of congress has chosen/forced? the archiving of all tweets -- as it is immensely valuable for "opinion mining" a populous due to the fact that all entrants are limited to post in a small, set frame. (better be more informed than the populous you wish to control)

Thus the issues about mining are much more manageable.
I've been wanting to learn python for a long time. I have even bought a big arse book and have been to those sites and have read them. I come from a web application background and the biggest challenge I have with learning python is that I never seem to have a reason to use it.

So what type of application would you recommend python for? What do you normally use python for?
I haven't worked with Flash cookies so I have no feedback about that domain specifically. There are plenty of legitimate uses for them, so there's no need to add a disclaimer!

The Flex references do a pretty good job of documenting what errors are thrown by various library methods. I recommend doing error handling at the first point where an error can be thrown, because AS3's unchecked error system makes it difficult to otherwise ensure that errors don't unintentionally propagate all the way up the stack.

Often, all you will care about is success/failure of a call. That appears to be true in your code. In that case, you might as well Don't Repeat Yourself: just catch(error:Error), and proceed. If you want to record which particular error occurred, you can log error.message or flash.utils.getQualifiedClassName(error). Tangentially, that also futureproofs you against changes to the API like additional Error types that may be thrown.
What would you say is missing?
Remember the "unwinnable" test in the recent Start Trek movie that kirk wins by cheating?
Foodonthetable.com does exactly this.
It depends which version of Firefox you are talking about, but based upon 4.08Pre which I am currently running -

Load times are fast and javascript speed is very similar, if not better than Chrome [1]

Currently, only the mobile version of Firefox will have tab separation in the form of the electrolysis project for the upcoming version. Plugins do currently run independently of the browser process.

Extensions in Firefox are a lot more powerful; they can slow things down and cause memory leaks.

In the latest prerelease, pages and their plugins do not reload when detached.

[1] http://arewefastyet.com

edit: Disabling the javascript features of firebug allows Firefox to use its jit tracing leading to faster javascript speeds.
I use an older Asus Eee PC. It works pretty well, but has resolution issues like others mentioned.

I do a lot of graphical work on it (I created http://productplaceme.com on it) and it actually works really well. I'm even doing digital paintings on it after setting up my tablet.

Resolution is an issue, like others mentioned. On the other hand, it does keep you focused. You definitely have to work on one thing at a time. This might be a bigger issue for people who do a lot of coding-- I can't really comment on that.

It is nice having one machine to bring everywhere. If you're flying, you don't have to transfer everything to your netbook. It's all already there. The portability also makes it so you can comfortably use it anywhere (like on the couch, where I am now). On the other hand, the least comfortable place you can possibly use it is a desk.

If you do get an Eee PC, download and install EasyPeasy. The default Xandros was pretty terrible, and EasyPeasy is pretty great.

EDIT: I also wanted to add that I'm doing digital painting on a 250-dollar machine, with a 45-dollar tablet, using free, open source software. In other words, I'm doing Photoshop-level work on hardware that costs half as much as Photoshop. Not a bad deal.
>"With a direct relationship between teacher quality and student achievement, the fact that our teacher pool is shrinking will surely undermine other attempts, policy-wise or grassroots, to realize positive reform in education. No amount of money or measures of accountability can counter the harmful effects of teaching position vacancies."

Exactly. This happened to me. I was teaching in an inner city school when myself and 491 other teachers were removed from our classrooms and shuffled around because tax revenues were down last year because the economy sucked. I was left out of the shuffle because I didn't have the seniority to get reassigned.

I want to put forth my idea of "teacher quality" to give people an idea about what I think should be discussed:

"Quality" teachers create an environment in which students feel safe and supported in their learning. Experienced teachers who have tried and failed many times learn how to create and maintain this supportive environment. "Teacher quality" isn't about academic achievement or intellectual capacity of teachers, it's about their ability to set up an environment for students to learn and then guide and challenge students to grow.

I'm saying that increasing the average IQ or SAT/ACT scores of teachers won't make schools better unless those new teachers have the strategies and emotional strength it takes to sustain a learning environment for students.

The program I went through did a horrible job of training us how to create a learning environment. The sentiment was "Oh, it's different for everyone, you'll figure it out." That's a wildly ignorant strategy for implementing the most important part of a classroom.
That was a gut reaction, mostly countering stupid signature based "verification" of binaries, a la typical anti-virus software.

In terms of locking down an Android box, well, the least they could is what you suggest, fine-grained control. Flash apps have this, there is a bit in the file that allows the applet to choose between file-system access and network access. I thought that was clever. Another thing is to allow applications to send back only data that they bring in (i.e. for version verification.) along with a generic set of data about device capabilities, location, etc.
How often do you decide exactly what you're going to do to solve a problem for your job in the span of one hour? Oh yeah, and make sure you provide an estimate and a good explanation, within that hour, as to why you've made that decision. Give me a break man, you're looking for people who tell you what you want to hear because then you've found someone who thinks like you--and that, in your mind, is the only correct answer.
The analogy here is that if she's elected and screws up the country, then it's the voters' fault. Which is true, but is also a good reason to not put yourself in that position as a voter.
I'll echo most everyone else - a netbook, for development, is not an ideal choice. However, there are advantages - very portable, ridiculous battery life.

My main choice (and the one I ended up buying) was the Asus 1005PR : http://commercial.asus.com/product/detail/69

Here are the reasons:
1. Ultraportable. 10" screen means it fits anyway, and is light enough to carry around by hand. It's lightweight and comes with the standard EEEpc addons, making the boot-up time, especially to the mini-os, very good. This means quick note-taking and response if you think of something cool on the fly.

2. Absurd battery life - sometimes you don't want to drag around the power cable. Sure, 6 hours is enough for most people, but in honestly most other netbooks I've tried only hit 3-4 hours. I can easily crank out 6-7 in a single Starbucks dev session. This netbook will get you there, and the bus/train ride home.

3. Adequate screen size - Sure, it's 10", but its got a 1366x768 screen. Vertical space is an issue, but horizontal is very good - widescreen makes it pretty sexy for Ubuntu Unity (though I don't really like Unity). I will say that it 100% better than a 1024x600.

4. Fast - a Broadcom chip means you've got 720p on youtube with no hiccups. 2gb of ram with a decent Pinetrail processor. Not ridiculously fast, but with any netbook you're really not going to get more than 2Gb and a decent processor, but this does do the video part at least. Slap on a 64GB solid-state and you're flying.

5. Cheap? Really, all netbooks are cheap. This is towards the upper spectrum.

6. It fits the bill - it fits the specs you posted. It's not underpowered, and it's extremely portable and fast (bootup especially). Good for monitoring uptime/fixing quick bugs/ developing for long periods of time (with proper adjustments to your dev environment).

Hope this helps!
I can see from your other comments today that you might be getting frustrated with this topic and I understand. It's not my intention to draw out some asinine debate over the use of the work hacker and hack.

That said, I can definitely understand why the original poster was assuming you use the word hacker in non-conventional ways. Claiming "one who hacks" is a metaphor for a person who implements innovative and disruptive ideas and then claiming "one who hacks" does not equate to a "hacker" is a bit of a semantic train wreck.

For the record, I've never heard of some one who uses "hacks" in that way to describe anything outside of the traditional "hacker" sense. I personally think it is a clever and interesting way to think of the word, and I also don't understand why anyone would be particular upset about it enough to post a comment.
I'm using ff4b6 right now.

Firefox's page loading speed (especially with ff4b) isn't actually noticeably slower on most sites than Chrome. Until Mr Flash and other plugins come around. That's probably what makes FF feel so horrible right now. Flash video just kills FF performance (just having the video paused in another tab) like nothing else. They seriously need to fix the flash problem. Having flash crash and bringing down my whole browser sucks.

Aside from that, downthemall's problem is the plug in itself. There's definitely something wrong with how the plug in is written, not FF itself. And I believe FF4 tears tabs correctly now.
These days i read "The Guerrilla Guide to interviewing" by joel before attending/conducting an interview. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000073.html . The OP's question doesn't have place there :-)
I think Apple are avoiding shipping a white iPhone so they don't fragment the iPhone market like Android is ;)
This is so lame...
X.org has auto-calculated it for a while, if your monitor reports physical size via DDC. It's up to application-level stuff whether they do anything with the X server's DPI or not, but I believe both KDE and Gnome adjust their font rendering accordingly. Gnome has its own internal DPI, which you can set separately, but since about mid-2007 it defaults to the X server's auto-calculated DPI. Seems to work on my setup--- if I override my monitor's detected DPI via xorg.conf, the font sizes change.
Jacob confronted by the Man in Black
Take time away from college - without quitting - so that you can step back from the experience you've just had and put it in perspective.

The thing that is missing (which I also had trouble with in college) is the particular motivation that will drive your career and coursework in _any_ direction. Some people have the good fortune to know something - even a little - about what they're doing almost from day one. But if you can't find it, or can't declare it out loud, all your decisions get filled with doubts; it becomes easier to drift as long as possible, because you're just waiting for something to happen.

Coming up with a long-term personal project - something really exploratory that uses your skills, tries to make money, or otherwise serves to direct your work life - is probably the best way; take time away to get it started. Then you can return to school and continue with it as studies permit.
I don't think it matters legally, but practically, they'll probably go after whoever owns the domain (or whoever looks like the biggest target).

What's legal doesn't really matter though, as $105 is far cheaper than any lawsuit - even one you'd definitely win. So if you're at all worried, I'd cover your bases.
I used to install CoLo boxen for clients, sometimes dozens in any given data center. Unless you have network KVM or its equivalent, you'll end up hating the idea. And you need to plan for backups too.

With a mini tower, you'll most probably have to get a shelf and pay for at least 3-4U if you lay it on its side, more if standing upright. Since stuff is always rack mounted, cooling can be an issue as well. Rack mount servers are designed for that environment.

Since you are already using EC2, why not dial up a couple of micro instances. If you are running Linux or BSD, then do your numbers. Sometimes it works out cheaper to host multiple processes on a single larger instance.
"... Could you tell us a little about what the startup and hacker cultures are like over there? ..."

Start at http://thehive.org.au/category/melbourne/ (entrepreneurs) then try http://groups.google.com/group/connected-community-hackerspa... (hacker spaces, software/hardware) then try (late night hacking) at http://twitter.com/melnightowls or day time hacking at http://www.inspire9.com.au/ then maybe a weekly morning meeting of (nerds/hackers/media) at SocialMelbourne http://twitter.com/socialmelb Thats just off the top of my head. Also try looking through my melbourne twit list ~ http://twitter.com/#/list/bootload/melbourne There is a cross pollination of hackers/devs/design activity at http://trampolineday.com/

"... How does it compate to what you know of the US / SV and somewhere smaller like NZ. ..."

SV is the startup hub either side of the Tasman. I haven't been to NZ before, but the business culture (stale, crusty & risk adverse) would be similar. Like NZ lots of smart people, starved of YC type Angel investment advice. One difference I'm noticing is the quality and frequency of startups with direct US/YC/SV experience is increasing. Melbourne is pretty busy :)
Easily solved with SSDs. Sort the keys, value is stored right after the key.

On each request do a binary search. It takes 32 seeks in the worst case.

Even current consumer level SSDs can handle 45K IOPS, so you'd get 1400 complete searches/sec from one SSD.

You might need to spread your data over 4 SSDs, but you can search in parallel, so it will even be faster.

If you want more speed, replicate your drives and load balance.

There are better ways (with perfect hash functions), but this is the easiest, and requires no additional storage.
Spot the fake smile
This guy is saying that schools don't want parents to know what goes on in their classrooms?

I have a feeling that every single principal and teacher who is worth a damn in America would disagree with him.

I also feel like the LA Times spending tons of money chasing a story that has what they essentially admitted to being a limited slice of information regarding teacher efficacy wouldn't happen if the LA Times was doing well financially. I assume they're scrambling to stay alive just like all other newspapers. . .
Man, I can't up vote this enough. I would also add that this is also usually symbolically equal to what VCs seem to do in their "interviewing"/wooing process. Well said!
10 apps in 50 days
I would just keep renting VPS/EC2 machines, but I really need high RAM machines. 8-16GB, and I already have the boxes here, and I just want to get them online 24/7.
"... lead me to believe that he might not really be qualified beyond just having a lot of money."

I would LOVE it if I could find an investor like this! Apparently you're looking for a partner to help work in the business and not just an investor. That's fine, but some entrepreneurs do better when the investor ONLY provides working capital -- and stays away from the business otherwise.
I'm a big fan of his "Translation from PR-Speak to English" articles. I wish he'd translate everything Ballmer says so I could understand what Microsoft is actually doing.

http://duckduckgo.com/?q=site:daringfireball.net+translation...
Warren Buffett names successor, hedge fund manager and Columbia MBA Todd Combs
wont that completely negate the value of the indices that lat/lon may/may not sit on and result in a complete tablescan?
No answer so apparently the OP has lost interest or obtained the answer he/she was looking for.
Long Island SEO
Long Island promotional strategies – Though it is densely populated, Long Island is still suburban when compared to New York City to the west of it.
It may be that Sorkin understands the need to create things, but he doesn't seem to have identified that in his subject. Instead he's given him only nasty motivations -- most of them about a surly nerd's revenge against the social system.

Sorkin has said that he's more interested in being faithful to an idea and a story, not to the events as they happened.
Seems kind of ironic, since the movie accuses its "Mark Zuckerberg" of being callous to how reputations can be affected forever by public depictions.
OK, folks, I've had 10 responses to this now. I think that's more than I can effectively help at once, so no more for now, thanks.
Quora is looking to hire an iPhone/iOS developer
How did you teach yourself about how Python classes work, and about the differences between names and objects and scope and stuff like that.

I have some resources that I could re-read to learn more, and I could do experiments myself, but as a sysadmin python user, I'd like to know how you picked it up, for perspective's sake.

Thanks for the offer!
You received overt rejections? So far I've just heard nothing back.
I'm currently doing full-time development work on a netbook. It's not ideal but it is manageable. It's an MSI Wind running Ubuntu 10.10. Admittedly it's hooked up to an external monitor, keyboard, and mouse. And I upgraded it to 2GB of RAM and a 300GB hard drive. At any given time I'll have gvim, chrome, apache, mysql, and memcache running.

I'd like to get a beefier laptop but this will do for the time being. Funds are tight.

EDIT: If you decide to get a netbook, try out a few and see what keyboard layout you like. The hardware inside will be pretty similar, but the keyboards are all crummy in slightly different ways.
Ask HN:  Can you code more than 40 hours/wk?
Greetings HN. I have a problem, at least I think I do. I want to code more because I'm really passionate about creating things. That has meant many different things throughout my life, but it has meant writing software since I discovered my first BBS. I have a full-time day job and, while I enjoy it, I want to create something on the side. I've been working on a side-project since early August but I feel like it's developing extremely slowly.

I can code about 40 hours a week. And I mean really code, not just being at work: heads-down, super-productive hacking. All told, I spend about 32-34 hours a week at work coding so I usually end up spending about 10 hours a week on my side-project. This comes out to around 6-8 hours coding and 2-4 hours designing, researching, etc. Those numbers change quite a bit depending on overtime so I typically get in about 25 hours a month on my side-project. The thing is that I want more, but I simply cannot bring myself to code more.

It's somewhat amorphous, but I know that sometime every week I'll hit a limit. While I can keep pushing on, my productivity takes a dive. If I persist, after a week or two of overdrive, my overall performance starts to dive. I thought something was wrong with me so I took several steps to try to improve through life-hacking: I began going to a gym 3 times a week, dramatically improved my diet, and have almost entirely kicked the smoking habit (down to 2 a day from a sadly higher number). Nothing seems to work. The fatigue from ultra-focused coding just leaves my mind incapable after 40 hours of further deep concentration.

I typically spend the rest of my free time learning new things, playing games, or being with my girlfriend. I definitely enjoy these things and like to have some balance, but I feel like I'm missing that hardcore edge to really hunker down and produce a quality side-project once in a while. I feel like the hacker version of a guy who needs steroids to take it to the next level. Is this normal? Are the 16 hour/day guys the exception? Is it really that naive to try a side-project and keep the day job? Am I demanding an unreasonable amount from myself?

Thanks in advance for any feedback you guys have.
It takes a certain personality type to like a task like that, and that doesn't correlate strongly with being a good engineer.
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Why does my computer run so slowly??
I purchased an acer aspire one series netbook back in may(?), and it was installed with windows 7 starter edition. I decided to install the whole premium version of windows 7. was that a mistake? my computer runs extremely slow. and i have occasionally seen an icon indication "low disk space". What caused this issue and please tell me how or what I should and/or need to do???
I see a lot of the same feelings and issues that I have had. I still haven't found a decent way to deal with a lot of the issues. I sometimes use alcohol to forget my issues. That's bad, but screw it. I also use to go out and try to get laid all the time in hopes of maybe feeling like someone cared or trying to have a feeling of "love". I dropped out of school a few semesters ago because I went from being in an honors society to failing every class.

The things that have helped me are the little things. I find something that I have a passion for and then go at it 200%. One thing that I have noticed is that I am highly competitive. Everything turns into a pissing contest or a game. Have you tried something like that? Apply game mechanics to your life.

You are just depressed right now and you said that working out makes you feel better. Might I suggest writing a program to track your workout sessions? However you need to only allow yourself to work on it in your spare time. If its something that helps you can use it to motivate yourself, ie you aren't allowed to code till after you study/do homework and quiz yourself. Watch out for half a your work.

The final thing I will leave you with is something someone told me when I posted a thread like this, if you live your life in misery the you will only remember that misery and you will miss opportunities. It went something like that. I don't remember it too well. Well good luck and cheer up, you're not the only person that feels the same.