skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm not so sure, I think it more a case of lots of these APIs and open data projects exist as "side projects" and do not receive the full backing and resources of the department/organisation.

I followed up the story of TFL and it turns out that the API stopped working because of a security patch that was applied, rather than more sinister reasons.
Dear throw999. I had a bad time at college as well. I hated it and at one point simply stopped turning up. I lost a year because of that. But I was spending all that time learning how to code and getting better at Quake 3. I had made a decent bit of income by working on part time projects before I graduated. But I understand what you are going through. Firstly, I would strongly suggest professional help.

Losing a year or two is not a big deal. What is important that this moment completely belongs to you. It is in your control. Dont worry about the past or the people who bother you about the past. Do not worry about the future as well. You shape your own future to a large extent by your actions in this current moment. Friends are important but not the kind that they show in the movies. What is more important than friends are your well wishers. Well wishers come in all shapes and forms and some may not fit your definition of friends.

Start building something. Python is not that hard. Start with Google App Engine and python. That way you can build something quick and show it to the world. Remember this need not be perfect. Shipping something is more important than perfecting it. Start blogging your learnings. They help immensely serving as a reinforcement of concepts. Don't bother about getting friends. Participate in your local techmeets or geeknights or whatever they call it in your area. Find people with similar interests and start hacking on a project. It could be as simple as a todo list or a birthday reminder. Think of all the cool features that you could add to it. Make it and show it proudly. You will find that friends will come searching for you.

Do not try to become extroverted. You cannot do that. Instead, start writing and reading. You have already taken the first step of opening up to the forum. I congratulate you on that. Now all you have to do is to keep writing. Once you gain your confidence back, you will naturally become extroverted.

Good luck and keep hacking. You know we all are.
A clear idea on 2012 ascension and harvest
Do you have details posted somewhere? I would love to see them.
Taking Modafinil will not make you smarter, but it will heavily diminish the negative effects of sleep deprivation. Remember, the primary indications for this medication are narcolepsy, sleep apnea, and excessive daytime sleepiness.

It also increases dopamine and norepinephrine activity in certain areas of the brain, similar to Adderall and Ritalin, so it will boost your concentration. It actually showed a positive effect on concentration in ADHD treatment trials, but the FDA declined to approve it for that purpose due to some concerns over a rare skin-rash disorder. Many people are under the misconception that it is not a stimulant, but it most certainly is.

As for controlled, double-blind trials, the results are not promising in non-sleep-deprived individuals. Controlled tests tend to show self-reported increases in restlessness, aggression, and anxiety, but the standardized cognitive and memory tests show very little, if any, improvement in the Modafinil groups. (See http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12672167 and http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15738750 for more).

Finally, don't try to import Modafinil (Provigil) into the US without a prescription. It is a Schedule IV controlled substance and the legal ramifications for importing a controlled substance can be serious. If you're still eager to try it outside of a doctor's supervision, which I definitely do not recommend, then know that Adrafinil is metabolized (partly) to Modafinil within the body but is not a controlled substance. Importing it is a still a gray area, though.

Bottom line: Getting a healthy amount of sleep should be your #1 goal for cognitive improvement. If that isn't actually possible, then Modafinil could be helpful for reversing the effects of sleep deprivation. If concentration is your problem, Modafinil may help you, but you'd probably be better off pursuing proper ADHD treatment with a medication approved for ADHD.
Life is hard, let's go shopping. Oh wait.

Seriously, you're just exactly like the average 21 year old introvert without a girlfriend. Most of us have been there, and we didn't post about it on internet forums. Geesh.

I vote against all the advice to "go see a psychotherapist". The only psychotherapy you need is to stop making excuses and get the fuck out of your room. Go meet people. Do risky stuff. Look for the bright side of life. Let the bright side of life find you.

You're only 21, for christ's sake. "Look back on my shitty past?" Dude, you don't even have a past yet. Go do stuff and enough with wallowing in your self-pity. You don't know how utterly ridiculous it sounds for a 21-year old studying python at university to be complaining that he's failed at life.

Edit: Another point, about your "shitty past". No one other than you gives a damn about you or it (especially at 21). Realise that and stop using it as some kind of lame excuse to not talk to people.
"You must be a heck of an outlier."

Haha, the beauty of NOT smoking pot and fucking up your life.
> All of this doesn't include the effects of making drug companies more careful about which drugs they try out, which really might go either way in its effect.

Let's not underestimate the magnitude of this effect... the FDA is the way it is for a reason. As incredibly and hair-pullingly frustrating as the approval process can be, it's necessary. I'd rather have an FDA that errs on the side of caution than one that relies on the good will and stringent standards of the pharma industry.

Not to disparage the drug companies too heavily- most of the people who work in the industry developing and testing drugs have their heads on straight, and would be in favor of doing things the right way even without the FDA looking over their shoulders... but companies are companies, and ensuring drug safety is not something that should be left up to profit-maximizing entities. The story about the scorpion and the frog comes to mind...
For me giving a presentation is easier than making smalltalk about nothing...
1997: Chuck Moore on ColorForth
Alas it's only open to non-profits.
I agree 100% Stop being such a wuss and man up already. You are beginning your life and feel depressed? Get a grip. You're young, intelligent (or at least not stupid), fairly healthy and even went to college. You've got advantages that some people would literally kill for. And you're whining like a spoiled 10 yr old brat. Grow up.
The Singularity Institute's Scary Idea (and Why I Don't Buy It)
"This is not what is meant by legalization. There would not be a black market because doctors would not prescribe these drugs, you would be able to buy them at your local, licensed convenience store (with proof of ID)."

The community kind of screwed themselves on this one. They got "medical marijuana" semi-legal. Now you are trying to tell me that it's not really good as a medical device and that we should sell it like alcohol? Why not just tell us the truth to begin with: It has very little medical benefit and the only reason you want it legal is to get high.

I also can't stand behind a community that puts out propaganda making it seem like marijuana has no adverse health effects.
Take The Initiative and Create Your Own Projects
That's also all I got. Maybe you weren't as clear as you believe and your sarcasm is misplaced.
And the Less Wrong discussion of it - currently at 66 comments and growing - http://lesswrong.com/lw/2zg/ben_goertzel_the_singularity_ins...
[i]datain->do something->data out[/i]

Isn't that what computing is all about?
As a hacker, and a Dad, I can't say I wasn't choked up at the end of that article and had plenty of tears in my eyes as I sat there looking at my perfect, healthy daughter.

This is just another example: We in the technology sector spend a lot of time arguing and debating about total bullshit. We deride iPads as underpowered, or over controlled while I think we miss the fact that something well designed, simple and accessible can do the thing none of our editors, frameworks or other baloney can do:

Change People's Lives.

Maybe I've just grown cynical at the cyclical nature of technology debate and discussions, at the fact that we seem hellbent on painting bike sheds more frequently then making something amazing and at the constant retreading in a lot of startups of the same old technology. Of course, things like this should inspire all of us, as entrepreneurs and developers to consider something more.

It's a challenge to us to overcome and create something amazing.
As a big fan of FreeBSD, I've been following this development with great interest. I just compiled a few select ports with clang, and I look forward to rebuilding all my ports to see what compiles and see how the system feels speed-wise.

However, as a server admin, I've become fond of the extra layer of protection ProPolice (gcc's "-fstack-protector" option) provides. I know it's a small thing, but does anyone know if clang has a similar feature?

Also, are there any non-default optizations I can try out? With the stock gcc in FreeBSD, I've been able to get away with using "-O3" on everything with no build failures or instability.
Don't take classes which have marks for attendance. I didn't -- the closest I came was finding out on the first day of class that a course would have an attendance mark, at which point I dropped the course.

If you have aspirations of going on to graduate school at someplace actually respectable, you can kiss them goodbye if you have B's on your transcript.

Do you consider Oxford University to be respectable?
I think it's really weird that people point to cancelling the Courier project as an example of a bad decision - all we ever saw from it were some leaked concept videos! Without knowing the actual state the project was in - it might've been a huge mess, as the Kin was - surely it's impossible to have any insight into the wisdom of continuing it.
Hi omh. That looks like an awesome point of contact. I can't find a letters page on their website, is his letter online anywhere?
Comment example (which formatted poorly on ACM site) I gave:
(in Tcl)

#!/usr/pkg/bin/tclsh8.6

proc გამარჯობა {} {

# Georgian "hello", via Emacs (C-h h).

puts "Oh hi!"

}

;# call above proc

გამარჯობა

;# I can eat glass, Georgian, via http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/utf8.html

set მ "მინას ვჭამ და არა მტკივა."

puts ${მ}
the only way to meet friends is to be outgoing, being an introvert makes this very hard

Argh. An introvert is not defined as somebody who cannot make friends, it's somebody who doesn't feel the need to make many friends.

If you want friends and can't make them, your problem is not introversion (which is not a problem, it is a natural personality state) - it's shyness, or something worse.

To the OP I would say this: it's never too late to turn your life around. Seek help if you can (I do think the level of anxiety you report sounds worse than the average cage of college-itis) but don't think that your past needs to determine your future. Set yourself small achievable goals, and do them. Getting things done is easier for some than others, but it is a habit that anyone healthy can learn.
You underestimate Google's own ability to take advantage of new web standards and technologies, and Google's inhouse skills of running huge data centers efficiently. In the pure search tasks, Google is likely going to be really good in the future too.

At one point, the serious future threat for Google was Facebook, because Facebook was a big walled garden, that Google couldn't crawl. If Facebook is the number one web page for a few hundred million people, businesses start to operate inside Facebook more on more, which would make Facebook a good starting point for your searches too, making Google the second choice.

Although other aspects of this scenario have happened, the search part hasn't, and it seems that Facebook has changed the strategy from walled garden to more open place, and try to become a critical infrastructure piece of the whole web with like buttons and instant personalization.
I think you're not understanding rainbow tables correctly: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_table

You need to process all the passwords (once) but only 1/N of them (for some large N) are stored on the disk.
Congressman, n.
A man who is a member of the U.S. Congress, especially of the House of Representatives.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/congressman
What modern operating system doesn’t have one?
I'm not saying there are no potential solutions to the problem. I'm saying it's not "just as easy". With some of those types of smugglers mentioned, you have to keep them quiet (but more or less unharmed, I would expect) as well as alive, for at least days, and maybe months if there's a snafu. Or accept that some containers aren't going to make it.

It's not clear to me what the challenges are with smuggling radioactive material, or how good detection protocols are. That doesn't mean I can't think of any, or solutions to same, but it means that I expect there are at least some consequences I'm not thinking of, and it's certainly not as easy as some sealed, inert cargo.
You are being insensitive and unhelpful. Clinical depression is not caused by bad events or circumstances; it's a serious illness. He's not whining, and he's not a brat; he is having a real problem that requires real treatment.
"Crash-Only" is a great approach. So, why do Android phones take a long time to power down?
I thoroughly disagree with this advice. He doesn't need to get professional help to get over the kind of hump that every shy and introverted 21 year old has to get over (and does). I see no evidence in this post of anything more than the typical emo-angst and self-pity stuff that affects pretty much any intelligent introvert at some point during university.

He just needs a good kick in the arse. If anyone knows who this is (hard with an anonymous account, I know), drag him out to some kind of social event and force him to meet some people. That's all the therapy he needs.
I know some clinically depressed people. This post shows no signs of it.
But assuming Adobe makes money from the tools, doesn't this just open up the field for them. AND it relieves them of the cost of having to maintain and update the runtime. Now they can really just focus on the tooling. MS, Apple, Mozilla, and Google focus on the runtime (browser).

If seems like if Adobe plays their cards right, they end up making a lot more money, although they become a lot less prominent brand.
The tv went completely this year. The only time it's missed is for sports' events. But if it's a must-watch, there's always somewhere showing it, and that often turns into a fun social event.

Here in the UK, we do have the wonderful BBC, which has the fabulous iPlayer service for free. (A licence fee must be paid to watch programs live, though.) It's an innovative service -- more than just tv on the web -- and it's interesting that a licence funded organisation is the one doing the innovating, and not its commercial brethren.
But can you quickly and easily distinguish between Ͱ and ͱ, or even Ω and Ω? The last two really are different Unicode characters, the first is Greek capital Omega, the second is the Ohm symbol...
But can you distinguish between a capital Beta and a Shluse?
Fortress strikes a mostly practical middle ground. It uses an ASCII representation that can be translated into glyphs:

http://projectfortress.sun.com/Projects/Community/wiki/MathS...
http://projectfortress.sun.com/Projects/Community/wiki/Fortr...
I would suggest trying a mindfulness-based cognitive therapy approach such as ACT. A couple good places to start:

http://thehappinesstrap.com/

http://contextualpsychology.org/act_for_the_public
I know some clinically depressed people. This is not it.

I have doubts about your attitude and about your ability to diagnose illness.
Go and work in farm lands in a nearby village for 3 months. Helps in reinventing yourself.
It can be quite hard without a social circle. When you quit being so macho about this, why not think there are people in circumstances different to your own and try empathising with them?
finally a way to make Perl easier to read
Tell me about yourself

My answer: I'm not good at dealing with people. When I'm talking about mathematics or computer science, I'll argue with people without giving a moment's thought to who I might antagonize, because at that point I'm dealing with the subject and not with the people. In social contexts, by contrast, I can't avoid the human factor, and I back away from anything which could potentially result in a confrontation. I think holding my ground when I know I'm right is a good thing; but I'm working on being less of a wimp in social situations.

It really doesn't matter what you say here, as long as you say something coherent. The point of the question isn't to find out your opinions of yourself; rather, it's to determine your level of self-awareness. Saying "I have problems X, Y, and Z" shows far more self-awareness and will win you more points than reciting a list of your accomplishments.
apparently, this application one of Apple's iOS devices only works with "Windows 7, Vista, or XP operating system..."

other than that, it looks good. if only i had a PC laying around here somewhere...
That's your reply? Your keyboard is too limited? Your made in China, costs about 1/1000th of an annual programmer salary, trivially replacable hunk of plastic KEYBOARD is your rationale for waving goodbye to the potential productivity benefits of new glyphs? Amazing.

Yes, if only developers could devise some way of remapping keyboard keys, affixing new labels or even creating entirely new alternative layouts and devices. But that sort of rocket science is at least, what, three decades out?
Yes it did. The changes in pricing took effect at the moment they got acquired.
I know some clinically depressed people. This post shows no signs of it.

All forms of metal illness and disfunction look the same?

C'mon people, this is the kind of post where if you don't have something positive to say, it is best to move on to the next submission. Even if you believe that "tough love" is called for, I doubt it works coming from strangers.
Ask HN: Hacking Music 
What music do you'll listen to while in the zone ?
I have been through the same phase. Let me give you some tips -

* Immerse yourself in programming. You have no idea how much satisfaction you can get out of it.

* Read. Read. Read. Start reading things. Read your CS books, non-fiction, etc. Read as much as you can.

* Get active in some sort of Free/Open Source Software community. Pick a project you like and start contributing. Always good to have a goal (I will fix/file/triage x bugs in x months).

* Get into IRC. ##linux-india on Freenode is a great channel full of people who hack stuff (and some other non-hackers too).

* Some people have suggested getting a girlfriend or a social life. Knowing the place you come from, that won't help. Stay away from those people. They will only make you feel worse.

* Set a goal to get into Google Summer of Code next year once you have figured out programming and working on FOSS projects.

* Study just before the exams and make sure you get out of your college as fast as possible (ie, don't drop out). If you have good knowledge of Linux systems, taking over the college labs will help you a lot. Build some sort of a hacker reputation so that people discount your bad grades.

That's pretty much what I did when I was in one of those crappy Indian colleges. Once you have gained enough confidence, things will get better for you.

If you need more help, email me - b.ghose at infinitelybeta.com

[update]
And oh, don't worry about jobs; if you can hack, I have a job for you.
He wants to track how many clicks it gets.

Take a look at http://goo.gl/ and note the stats on urls you've previously shortened.
Happiness is a choice, virtually all programmers have been there, depressed that at some point in their life.

"Shitty past" pffft. Some people starve and die before they're 10. I had what is a comparatively "rough" start to life compared to most in my country, but I don't think it actually matters or should have any impact on my present happiness.

tl;dr Grow up, get out of your room, choose to be happy.
Google will be replaced but not by search engine like better Google.

There will something completely new, like visible now in mass personal computing shift from desktop (Windows) to mobile (it looks like the Android is next main OS).

The great question is what will push Google into oblivion.
No, it's a custom implementation of a simple compiler. It's nothing complicated. It converts Python to C++ and compiles that with nvcc. It also supports numpy arrays. It doesn't do any complex optimization steps like a full compiler. It's more like Cython, actually (with type annotations via an @gpu decorator). This allowed me to take my Python image processing code almost literally and annotate it with @gpu. The code isn't released, yet.

I originally wanted use Copperhead and got in contact with the developer a year ago, but it was too early even for "private" beta testing, so I never got access to their code. Also, my compiler is specialized on image processing, so probably Copperhead wouldn't have worked, anyway. I'm only jealous of Copperhead's type inferencer. :) But then again, I have to get finished with my thesis and a type inferencer wouldn't help with that goal. ;)
Submitter: Bookmark this answer and read it when you're applying for a job.

What elliottcarlson says is great advice for job interviews, but not for college admissions. An employer wants to know if you'll be able to do good work for them; a college wants to know if they can mold you into a better person.
Well yeah, maybe syntax isn't the most important thing, but for the question of which character set is better for syntax, syntax is important. That's like saying that we shouldn't be discussing programming languages at all because preventing nuclear war/ecological catastrophe/whatever is more important. I would also argue that syntax is important for the clarity and usability of those semantic and runtime/performance characteristics (as programming languages may somehow help in alleviating, or exacerbating, those bigger problems ...)
Pros: it's killer for jet lag -- I fly between the US and HK fairly regularly, and suffer extraordinarily from jet lag. Modafinil helps a lot in reseting my internal clock. I also see the deep concentration effect, particularly on a project that I'm avoiding due to the inherent dullitude -- when high, I can power through stuff that I would deflect and ignore.

On the down side, if I forget and drink a beer after taking Modafinil, the hangover is epic. Too, it makes my pee smell really weird. And I have a tendency towards chatterboxery, which is exacerbated beyond all reason.

Anecdotes/evidence/&c.
In the modern business world, you often have to jump organizations to get more money or the position suited to you. That's how an efficient market works.

People are jumping back and forth between Google and Facebook because they are so similar, but may offer differences in the exact position and compensation offered.
> That doesn't mean that what they're saying isn't correct.

But it can mean they are only seeing one small area of what is possibly correct. There could be many other correct things out there, that might be even better, but their view is constrained.
Zeplin!
That's another very interesting difficulty: the symbol for ohm is supposed to be the Greek capital omega. Resolving such ambiguities (where applicable, of course) would probably add a lot of complicated code, and I'm not 100% sure it's trivial for all similar cases.