skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
A possible model for copying would be saudi charities' setup for feeding penniless pilgrims on haj. Rice and lentils (sometimes cooked by billionaires) served to thousands.
There's even space left, i.e. not all exercises have solutions published on that site. That's ... inspiring, heh.
> Of course but getting too cold weakens your body and makes you susceptible to cold, etc.

I seem to recall a big discussion on this somewhere on the internet a few years ago. From what I recall, there was very little science at all to back up the theory that you catch the common cold from getting a chill. At least to me, there doesn't seem to be a logical connection between the two.

The best reason I can think of is, when it is cold, everyone tends to spend more time indoors with the doors closed, giving a virus much more opportunity to spread amongst people. Another theory had something to do with nasal linings drying up (?) in the winter, making one more susceptible to infection.

If the chill --> catching cold theory was correct, wouldn't it seem likely that when you get really cold, as in shivering your ass off uncontrollably, wouldn't you be extremely likely to catch a cold? And I know anecdotally that that simply isn't true.

Is there even a reasonably logical physiological theory to backup the chill --> catch a cold theory, or is it simply an old wives tale?
I would dare say that most people in the US who don't vote do not have good reasons for not doing so.
Option (b) would mean that voting for party A can instead reinforce the power of party B.
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I'm not saying that's definitively the case

It is definitely the case. In the rare instance when the vote is decided by one, rest assured a judge, and not the one, will settle the actual result. Voting is an absolutely pointless pyschological approval of two candidates, neither of whom was chosen democratically.

If anyone is actually interested in influencing policy, which is the whole point, get out your checkbook. Or, if you have a lot of time, get involved in the machinery of politics.
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> Calling a function like "chr", which is looked up dynamically

Shouldn't that be just one or two pointer-dereferences? Or is Python putting globals in hash-table and looking them up each and every time?
David Foster Wallace said better than I: "If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible psychological reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don't bullshit yourself that you're not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote."
I vote and believe in voting, but this thread makes me think that most people haven't really thought through the philosophy behind voting. Those who feel that voting is an irrational sham are not going to care about your "obligation," and you come off looking like a laughably naive jerk in condemning them for failing to do their civic duty. Mandatory voting is disagreeable for the same reason mandatory anything is: it uses force to make people do what they don't want to do, which reeks of tyranny. And arguably, society would be better off if only the intelligent and informed voted, so encouraging voting amongst the masses is downright malicious.

If you're being practical and are just trying to get a certain politician elected or ballot measure passed, then requesting that people vote within a demographic that is likely to vote in a predictable way (Democratic on HN, I'm sure) is duplicitous. You pretend you don't care what party people vote for, but anyone can tell that a "Rock the Vote" campaign on MTV is intended to get youth Democrat votes, or that bussing in impoverished people is intended to get Democrat votes. Never is the idea why people should vote actually explained, but that doesn't stop them from shaming those who don't. Republicans tend to be a little more frank as to who you should vote for and why.

Which is why I say, vote Meg Whitman, because the State of California is broke and she is more likely to contain the spending. Vote to legalize marijuana because it's high time people stopped being sent to jail for smoking pot. And if you're thinking of voting otherwise, I encourage you to stay home. Because a vote is not a moral obligation. It's a serious political act that changes the structure of society, and I would rather my preferred changes happen than that they be as democratic as possible.
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Because it's an old article. Admittedly, there's no easy way to know this, because it has no date, but believe me, it's been around for ages. At the very least, it predates the silly str.join method (and new-style classes and string methods altogether).

However, before that, there was the string module, which had the join() function. This article probably relates to it in some way; I think that either it predates string.join (I'm not sure when that was added to Python, but it's been around since at least 1.4), or it clarifies how it was implemented.

The author is Guido van Rossum, by the way (another thing that isn't mentioned in the article).
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I'm writing "Everwake"

It's about a future where our preoccupation with productivity led us to genetically engineer away our need/ability to sleep. In this future sleep becomes the drug of choice and the domain of the counter culture.

I have a framework I wrote last month and a good friend of mine is a sci-fi editor. She agreed to give me notes, mainly so I would leave her alone.

Not really going to set a word a day goal. With me, I find that sometimes only a few hundred words eek out. While other days 3000-4000 come out freely.
I'm not convinced most bloggers start blogging with the assumption they'll do it for nothing :)

They think fame and riches! Or at least having the intellectual satisfaction of bestowing upon the world their opinion... but without revenue they cannot reach out to an audience, they cannot fund deep investigations, they cannot travel, and nor can they inspire confidence in whatever readership happens to stumble across them.

(The last one probably is solvable with a recommendation/aggregation service for new/independent journalists).

It is of course phenomenally hard to get people to pay for anything on the Web, especially news and opinions. But this is where it's worth drawing a comparison with Diaspora's funding: that $200,000 in donations is remarkable yet understandable, because a certain group of people want to support "big ideas" and freedoms... especially those with a political edge (and nothing is so overtly political as the freedom of the press, in Jefferson's words: "Our liberty cannot be guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited without danger of losing it.").
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Don't vote
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I would imagine there are adverts as well. These readers are very valuable to advertisers. 150K well-to-do readers trumps a couple million freeloaders any day.
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It would be a chicken and egg situation if Android had neither tablets nor tablet optimised software and required one to get the other. But since they already have both they've completely dodged that problem somehow.

(Admittedly the first big tablet launch was only this week, and the tablet software is only announced, not launched, but they'd still escape the chicken-or-egg as long as they only have one, which they do.)

I also find it strange that, despite all the hype about "apps", Marco feels that only first-parties can make or break the tablet experience. I would have thought 3rd-party iPad apps would have been a slam dunk argument for the iPad, though I personally get more use out of the web.
I like Python, but I don't see what problem it solves that Perl doesn't

I guess Python tries to be Perl with a cleaner, neater syntax.
I don't know what's more surprising, that one small change is worth millions or that A/B testing is still news to some companies.
Because we need enough time to travel to town overnight via horse. We vote in November because the harvest is over. I believe this is correct, I've heard it several places, but here is one citation:
http://www.whytuesday.org/answer/
This is very good, I'm glad the team have done such a good job - but I don't think the IE team will manager to 'win back' developers unless IE9 can replace IE6/7 and 8.

Ideally IE9 needs to fix the problems that the older legacy browsers created. Because it can't be run on Windows XP, IE9 can only complement the mistakes that were previously made.
His figures may not be right though. I've seen other articles quote much lower figures than the £40m - closer to £25m (http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-is-financial-times-the-...). For comparison that article also quotes that at the time the Times was pulling in £15m - £18m from on-line ad revenue.

Part of the reason for the difference is that The Guardian on-line audience is larger and generally more engaged than that of The Times. Part of this is because The Guardian have been very forward thinking by newspaper standards in their use of the web, but it's also because they have a younger more technology aware audience than The Times which tends to be older. There are ways of addressing this (for instance The Daily Mail on-line is a very different beast to it's paper version with a very different audience - one all pictures of pretty ladies in short skirts, the other righteous indignation at such moral outrages as pretty ladies in short skirts) but it's core following was always going to be harder to convert.

Also remember that subscription doesn't mean zero ad revenue. The Financial Times gets just under £30m a year from advertising on-line despite being a subscription only service. Part of that is down to the fact that they appeal to a very specific, target-able demographic but that would also be true of The Times to a lesser degree.

All of this doesn't make what The Times has done right or wrong, I'm just saying it's not as cut and dried as Rory Cellan-Jones implies. It's early days for The Times and I wouldn't write it off quite yet.

P.S. The iPad app is still a subscription as are the Kindle downloads. They're all revenue for the electronic content so I think it's fair to count it.
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The latter; otherwise it wouldn't be dynamic. :-)

I don't know the details, but I assume that some of the Python compiler projects do make assumptions like this, i.e. they can compile to faster code if you don't shadow or outright overwrite builtins, etc.
I won't be voting. I am a libertarian so my vote doesn't matter anyway. Plus I feel that not voting sends a stronger signal about how I feel about our system of government. If more people don't vote it will be harder for them to pretend they have a mandate to raise taxes, give money to the banks, and start wars. The government is long beyond saving.

If you vote you take some responsibility for the next war, the next bombing, the next threat to Iran, etc. I want no part in putting more blood on my hands.

I realize most of you think it matters but think about this: when does your one vote ever matter? Has your vote ever decided anything? Have you ever been proud of all the actions of who you voted for?

Instead of voting you are better off creating value in society by doing what many of you do already: create something that improves someone's life.
Yes, as a matter of fact, according to Steve Jobs,we do expect that. They webcast his talk at the Back To The Mac announcement, anyone could have watched it. What you're saying directly contradicts what he said.
Your vote rarely matter from an individual perspective, but there are still reasons for voting.

1. You vote out of solidarity to the people in a similar situation as you are and to represent that perspective on issues. If you feel strongly about something you would want others with the same perspective to also take part.

2. You vote as a role model for your friends and family and to give them a fair chance to cast their vote. If you don't set a good example for others, e.g. your kids, they're not going to have a fair chance to choose if they want to vote or not.

3. You vote to show support for a system where people have the right to vote, even if it's flawed. It's also out of respect to those who fought and those who continue to fight for the right to vote.

4. You vote to consistently show that you cannot be manipulated to not express your opinion. For instance moving election dates, changing locations of polling stations, saying that you shouldn't vote if you not informed etc.

5. You vote to question your own motives not to vote. If you have the conviction not to vote, then there shouldn't be a reason not to go through the voting process and casting either a blank/invalid vote or choosing not to vote at the absolute last moment. If you can't do this it's more likely that you are abstaining from voting out of convenience, not conviction.

What I find strange is that people generally don't seem to have a problem with offering their opinion outside of elections, not least on the Internet. I guess it has to do with having higher expectations when it comes to elections.

Democracy is based on people stepping up, coming together and making their voice heard. Voting was never meant to reflect the opinions of an individual, but rather the opinions of a movement.
In Estonia you can vote from almost anywhere if you have ID-card and working internet connection.

By any chance, is your most recently elected president called "moot"? Is there or has there ever been a legal motion to rename the country to "4chanistan"?

I think I might know what caused your recent problems, and it's not Russia or the EU.
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Now, if only they fix all the other issues on their site. I tried twice at the weekend to make a booking and the whole convoluted process simply did not work (saying there is errors on the form even if there was not etc...).
Is there anything particularly worth voting for in this election?

I tend to not bother voting for issues that don't concern me. And frankly, the vast majority of issues that people get all excited about don't bother me one way or another.

I'm happy to pay a little more or a little less tax on various things, see schools built in one area and prisons not built in another. Go nuts with it all, and if it really effects your happiness I'm fine with letting you make little changes to the world around me.

Until you come up with something I find important, I'd prefer not to concern myself with it.
According to this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/opinion/05ackerman.html, it may be better to give you body nothing to fight it with. The colds don't do much harm to your body, they just trigger an immune response. A weaker immune response results in a more pleasant cold.
I'm excited to hear that but also surprised.

When I checked on Chrome OS project page only a few weeks ago, it looked like the project had done very little of public mention since a year ago. And the video on the linked page with the demo is a year old.

And, I'm confused about what Google is doing with Chrome OS and Android. Google TV runs an old version of Chrome, stamped as a newer version, but is supposed to later run newer Chrome and Android apps. I know that Android isn't really mean for netbooks (even though it has been run on some), and I like the idea of Google providing an operating system that can run seemlessly like the rest of the web in a browser. But, it almost feels like these two efforts (Chrome OS and Android) should be managed by two different companies. I just don't see how the company can effectively focus on one or the other in marketing and not cause problems for the other: If I create an ad for Chrome OS that implies running in a web browser OS is smarter, that would be a slight against Android, even if it is unrealistic to run Chrome OS on a mobile device; similarly, if I create an ad for Android saying that people should buy Android because there are 50 million apps (not yet, but just an example) then that might be a slight against Chrome OS which may have many fewer apps available in the Chrome OS Web Store ( https://chrome.google.com/webstore ).
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For what it's worth, I understand the point you are trying to make. I understand that you are not looking for a job. I understand that you do not hope to work for the company that requires a DOC/PDF/etc. document submission.

I agree that requiring a PDF/DOC/etc. is annoying and horrible UI and probably drives off some brilliant prospective employees.

And I have also had the experience you're having now, where it seems like everyone has agreed to ignore the point and belabour ad nauseum some other, tangentially related issue.
In marketing materials (like Apple's HTML5 showcase) "HTML5" is a buzzword that means any technology that makes cool things in a browser.

However, W3C does not follow buzzwords. When W3C says "HTML5" it means http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/

CSS is developed by W3C, but it's a separate working group, and CSS is orthogonal to HTML5 (i.e. you can have 100% HTML5-conformant browser that does not support any CSS at all!)
Do you think this could work electronically? I would love to volunteer in this way, but I don't think any school in New Orleans has a program like this. Actually, I don't think any school in New Orleans (high school or college) even teaches programming any more.
I compare it to "the calm before the storm". It is also the time when I stock up on nighttime cold meds.
Did you actually have a specific written agreement with the WSJ not to publish until Monday?

Because they (admirably, IMHO) have a policy of disregarding these ridiculous one-sided embargo agreements. If you want them to hold back on a story, you have to ask them FIRST. You can't just spam them a press release that says pretty please don't publish this yet on the top.

Typically the only exception is if you're giving them an exclusive (and, again, you need to get that in writing before you send them your top secret press release)
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The competition here isn't Linux, it's Google's cloud docs offering. Google does offer support and it's much cheaper than Microsoft.
In their behavior with respect to browser (and other standards), yes. Despite the supposed one company one vote model, generally every other company can be moving forward and if Microsoft signals thumbs down, it will come to a grinding halt.

If Microsoft stops browser development, the w3c takes that as a sure sign that browsers are no longer important to anyone, which is fine, as long as w3 doesn't value the other memberships.

whatwg was taken over by w3c as a desperate move on Microsoft's behalf and immediately put under a Microsoft chair despite their long history, and slowed down by years.
1. You vote out of solidarity to the group of people who share your situation, faith, occupation etc. If you felt strongly about something you would want others who agreed to also take part.

Please don't do that. If you're going to vote, do it about things you care about after having considered all sides, and without first checking whether it's the way everybody around you is voting.
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> How will voting change the system if no candidate is willing to change it?

You make the assumption enough people want to change it. They don't. At least, not yet. Candidates aren't some otherworldly beast, they are citizens. If people really wanted to enact change, they could.

You can't make a change alone. If enough people want to make the change, they can vote to make it happen. It's a really simple concept.
Don't vote, it only encourages them.
But then to say people who don't vote don't get to complain, someone has to decide what constitutes a good reason.
I still don't see why the variable names can't be interned somehow by the parser. This would mean that a global variable would be just a pointer in to the table, and "lookup" would be just dereferencing that pointer. AFAICT, this is how symbols and packages work in Common Lisp.
Are people surprised by this? I mean I'm wondering why this is news. iOS is locked to first-party hardware, rather than the Android route, so I'm curious as to what's so surprising about this. Perhaps I'm missing something (would not be the first time on HN).
The two are intimately related. With open source, you can always get support even after the company has ditched the product.
I'm not making that assumption. I think most people are fine with the system. The only thing we're lacking in is voter education (both fundamentally and on issues). Fix that, and the system works perfectly.

The populace is so poorly educated that researching candidates and issues is an enormous strain on them, and most people can't make themselves do it. Asking someone who got a poor education to read through a bill or look through a voting record is asking a lot.
Right....a proper assessment and response to the risk.

The question is, is our response to the supposed threat of terrorism proper? Your response to your threat is essentially cost free (except for the alarm I guess). The cost of the west's response to one terrorist attack is anything but free, it is measured in the Billions or Trillions, depending on how you look at it, not to mention the decrease in quality of life, lost productivity, etc.

And you are correct in where I am leaning....the timing of "attacks" often seems a bit too convenient, ie: the recent debate in Europe over the level and manner of US airport security measures.

To me, the theory that there are non-insignificant amounts of terrorists intent on attacking us, but these attacks have all (since we have had no successful attacks in the last ~ 10 years) been prevented by the security measures and organizations, is comical. So where does Occam's Razor lead you? :)