skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There is absolutely no way that is true unless you're smoking inside of a 3'x 3' closet. Most of the cannabinoids and other intoxicating agents have been consumed by the first inhalation.

Can you cite any evidence for the claim you've made?

Will exposure to passive marijuana second hand smoke result in a positive marijuana test?
The most common excuse for a positive marijuana test is, "I was around some people who were smoking pot." Research has shownthat casual exposure to marijuana smoke will not produce a positive test. A person really has to work at being exposed to "passive" smoke to create a positive test. Very close confinement, without ventilation, with several smokers, for a period of over an hour, may result in a low, but measurable amount of marijuana in urine and blood. This demonstrates that even though the person may not have directly inhaled the smoke from a marijuana cigarette, they inhaled enough second hand smoke to get high. In our opinion, if a person tests positive for marijuana, the issue of whether they smoked the marijuana directly, or whether from intense and prolonged exposure to second hand marijuana smoke is irrelevant. The reasonable choice should be clear!

From: http://www.drug-testing-kits.com/drug-test-faq.html which is probably not a good source but it's the best I could find through Google at the moment.
Symantecs write up
http://www.symantec.com/connect/blogs/new-ie-0-day-used-targ...
Megamind's Giant Brain: Born in Silicon Valley
Here's a challenge: Design a zipper that works for cyclic graphs. There will be 10 GBP for the winner's charity of choice. (jacquesm may give another 10 Euro in addition.)

(Hint: "Purely Functional Datastructures" solves this problem for graphs shaped like a sigle ring. Perhaps this solution can be generalized?)
Red and Green are colors with an inherent value (at least, in the US), suggesting good and bad. Unless there's a reason that they're the colors they are, you should use a color (I'd suggest a dark gray) that doesn't have a specific value.

I normally rail against pie charts, but in this case, you're comparing a part (calories in the serving size) to the whole (recommended calories per day), so I'm okay with it.

But the bigger thing I'd want to comment on: If you're redesigning the label, REALLY redesign it. Show the volume of the serving suggestion with a photo on a standardized plate / bowl. Or bring in some other piece of data that helps people make decisions. Do something wholly different with it. (Basically, what DanielStraight said.)
The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
If you rename this 'If Sheldon Cooper applied for a job at Microsoft' this works beautifully :)
I just read Watchmen.
Is the first year of a degree a waste of time?
I dunno. Bartend? Sign up for one of those teach-English-in-Japan things?

Get away from the fucking computer for a while. In your off hours you'll come screaming back to it with an itch to code.
By what measure is Acer, Asus, HP, Toshiba, Sony or Lenovo more "open" than Apple?
I was using HN as an example. I have noticed that many sites do this (non tech sites as well).

On something like a Macbook, or other one button mouse computers most consumers aren't as quick with their understanding of "right click menus" and other options.

Does anyone have a strong feeling when building a site about this?

In my experience when I am on a site with many things I want to interact with, if I am pushed out of the site to interact I am less likely to come back.
> Also, bookstands. Has a truly good one ever been made?

The best I've ever used was actually mini-drafting table. It was the perfect size for a hardcover book and, depending on the type of binding, it either sat on the lower wooden ledge or the hardback could actually be forced behind the rule (with the lie-flat books).

It's ironic that a thing made to hold books completely sucks at the task, but a thing made to hold only a few pieces of paper (at most) is ideal.

I also have to agree, that a good 95% of non-fiction books are on the horrible glossy paper. I remember detesting them in college as florescent lights were the worst as instead of a glare you'd see an aura from the entire tube.
Beloved by Toni Morrison.

Lisp in Small Pieces by C. Queinnec
install is painful - enthought python distribution does make it pretty painless, but its not free for non-academics

agreed on documentation

actually I think python's visualization capabilities are more powerful, have you looked at mlab? the 3d capabilities there are insane

I use python because I can do rapid prototyping, and turn it into a full application with the same code base.

did you ultimately go back to matlab?
I never thought about the fact that the rejections would hurt more as you get more socially aware. I do thing the rejection therapy challenge creates perverse incentives to ask for things outside of what you really want to get to make sure you get rejected, rather than asking for things right at the edge of your comfort zone. Thanks
Sawzall Language spec: http://szl.googlecode.com/svn/doc/sawzall-spec.html

You might also want to take a look at Cascalog. It offers a much nicer API — just list the various predicates and it'll take care of the rest for you, e.g. to find all the guys following Emily:

(follows "emily" ?person) (gender ?person "m")

http://nathanmarz.com/blog/introducing-cascalog-a-clojure-ba...
Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid — Douglas Hofstadter
Logic for Mathematicians – A. G. Hamilton
The Black Prism — Brent Weeks

I like to be reading 2-3 books at a time, but one gets my full attention, and the others switch up the pace for me otherwise. I like "serious" books (GEB, Logic) interspersed with "easier" books; a classic, sci-fi/fantasy, etc.

Read when you'd instead be surfing HN or Reddit and when you're done coding/working on homework. Reading takes the place of procrastination very nicely—the same relaxation, but less guilt and more benefit.
Just started The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell.
These were mighty popular around the pioneering years of home computers. During my childhood I owned several of them, of which I still have two, related to the various systems I grew up with (VIC-20, C-64, MSX and so on).
Front-End Developer, AppNexus, New York, NY

AppNexus is looking for a Front-End Developer to help build a next-generation transactional system on top of our existing RESTful API services. We need an efficient and agile engineer who is motivated by solving interesting technical challenges: building new front-end applications that allow for efficient buying and selling of online advertising inventory.

Our mission is to develop web applications that are easy for our clients to use. If you know how to write javascript that is blazing fast and reusable, if you obsess over both page generation and page rendering times, and if you are the best at what you do and interested in working with one of the smartest engineering teams in the city, you should already be working here.

The position requires a problem solving mindset as much as it requires web development skills. The ideal candidate is hands-on when designing applications and is comfortable coding off of a problem statement instead of a formal spec. We release new code at least once a week (as continuous deployment actually increases reliability), so you must be both fast and accurate with your code and confident in your work. You'll immediately see the results of your work and creativity as will the rest of our team, our clients, and the world at large.

Requirements:

* Experience writing production-level HTML, CSS & JS on the client-side and using a scripting language on the server-side.
* Mastery of at least one JS framework - we use jQuery
* Familiarity with at least one MVC framework - we use Zend Framework for PHP
* Proven experience writing fast, scalable code
* Experience consuming APIs
* Experience with writing unit tests within a testing framework
* Comfortable working in a fast-paced, 24-7 environment

Why AppNexus?

If they always called you "nerd" as a kid and you answered "awesome!" then you will love working here. We are dynamic and diverse (we have several entrepreneurs who have started multiple companies, creative writers, artists, and a fashion designer), and we focus our talents on working together to build a massively robust, intricate, and usable ad platform. Even after growing rapidly and being validated by our many customers and industry praise, we've stayed a lean, agile, and efficient organization: the MacGyver of advertising.

That still not exciting enough? How about the $50 million dollars in funding we just received? http://appnexus.com/news/press-releases.php
I'd like HN to stay experienced only. I'm not sure how that can happen. Maybe new members votes count less, like wise or experienced peoples' advice counts for more.

The alternative is to do what reddit does: subreddits. Or do what reddit doesn't do: automatic filtering (essentially per-user subreddits based on past voting).
All candidates who pledged to support net neutrality lost yesterday
I don't think this really has any ground. It's not like you were forced to upgrade to iOS 4.
Olympos by Dan Simmons
The Players of Null-A by A.E. van Vogt
From what I've seen in the last 6 months, a lame submission just gets quickly overlooked and lost in the new ones that are coming. Now there might be good ones which roll of the page due to the flood of submissions, but many HN users RSS and read them anyways. Hence it seems to be working.

But I agree, more fluff coming in.
I don't hate you, I'm just surprised that beginner level stuff is getting this number of votes. I think it's important to say when something isn't working. Even better would be for me to suggest a solution.
> In the US, the converse is true, where the Senate is more powerful than the House and Senators are considered to be more important in pretty much every way.

especially by themselves
My wife and I are reading Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins.

I am also reading The Brothers Karamazov on my Kindle. I kept seeing so many references to it in other things I was reading and I took that as a sign.

Also just started reading Being Geek by Michael Lopp (of the "Rands in Repose" blog). O'Reilly had the ebook on sale the other day and I couldn't pass it up!
I dismiss this as propaganda from the enemy.
Ask every site on the web to implement an account option

vs.

Let the browser handle it
Qt roadmap unveiled: QML, 3D graphics, and Project Lighthouse
Whoa. I'm surprised by John's rather dickish reply to this in the comments.

He totally could have (should have) taken the high road and recognized the lacking of good typography controls. And pointed out that this was just a tech demo and Adobe's excited to do all it can to improve type on the web.
As long as it doesn't lead down the path of auto-buried comments, then I'm all for it.

I hated Reddit and Digg for burying unpopular comments, especially when they're the start of a discussion. I remember getting 8 buried comments in a string and the discussion still going, it made the whole thing asinine. Unpopular comments still deserve being readable without extra action otherwise we lose huge swathes of what makes HN great - like insightful and thoroughly thought responses.
I think most people don't know Linux now. I'm basing this on the nose-diving quality of replies to technical Linux questions and problems over the past couple of years.

Normally it goes something like this:

A: I have problem X with Y.

B: Oh I don't know anything at all about Y, but if you migrate to Z I bet you won't have the problem any more.

A: Okay I'll do that. Thanks!

or:

A: I have a problem X with Y.

B: Oh did you try (completely unrelated irrelevant thing)

A: No, but I will. Thanks!

Seriously.
I'm not a huge fan of Qt simply because I can't get it to feel natural on Gnome, my desktop of choice. I've looked into Gtk+, but I'm not so sure I want to commit to it yet.

Are there plans to make Qt feel more natural on Gnome and OS X?
There is no reason it could not use a database, but not that I know of. The email messages end up in a directory in plain text. So for instance if you are running MS Server 2003 with the MS email server setup, the system admin (with the proper permissions) can go in and read your emails with notepad. Same goes for Linux email servers. Maybe Gmail (or another huge service provider) uses a database on the backend, but as far as I know email is just directories and text files.
The follow up "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" is also a great read and incredibly heartbreaking.
Dont look for a co-founder. Find a Right Hand Man
The Machine of Death - Anthology
To Mock a Mockingbird - Raymond Smullyan
Scott Pilgrim - Bryan Lee O'Malley
Zero History - William Gibson

I've kept my reading history from mid-2003 on my web page; it's fun to have around: http://technomancy.us/books
I turned 20 a couple of months ago and have been working full time for around a year and a half. Now, recently, I started doing contract work and I'm going to travel a bit over the next year. If you do contract work, you can charge a higher rate and thus work less as well -- at least for a while. :)

Also, I'd say go to college if you want to, but don't feel pressured.
Why wouldn't you simply forward the email to the people you want to share it with?
That Feynman is not very Feynman-like.
The first year of a degree teaches students what 6th forms used to in the old days. Fix the dumbing down in state schools first. A-levels have been devalued by politically driven grade inflation, so let's take it out of the hands of the politicians altogether and switch to the IB.
I think the single-sign-on for other apps on iPhone/Android announcement they also made today was more interesting. Also that Zuck said they don't consider iPad to be "mobile" (so don't expect an iPad app any time soon).
Notice that those that are leaving are mostly developers and not MBA-types. It may be a great place to work for MBAs with all the perks, but that's not what drives developers.

Developers like to build things. Developers like control. Developers like autonomy. Why do you think a tool like emacs exists?

In a lot of departments are Google, they can do just that. However, I imagine for those that have been around a long time now feel that they can't get as much done as they did before.

In fact a lot of those perks were even added to allow developers to save time and get more done. Free car washes, car pools, 24 hour food, onsite daycare, etc. Those may have a monetary value, but it's their time-saving value that matters. It's possible time that all those perks have saved is now being eroded away by the sheer size of the company and the policies and bureaucracies that come with that size.

This makes it a perception issue. Google might still be a lot better than everywhere else, but it may be perceived as worse than it once was. That's the kicker. Once you've been in a stellar place for getting things done, it can be demotivating to see that environment ossify.

Startups are the logical place to go for those that want to get things done. On the other hand, others may just want to work on the next big thing, which is generally considered to be social stuff like at Facebook. Facebook with more than half a billion users is better positioned to change the World than anybody else right now.

Who cares if Google loses its MBAs, it's the loss of developers which is worrying.

my 2 cents. I don't work at Google so I don't know for sure, but that's my guess as to what's happening.
Use middle-click. Many users don't like things opening in new windows.
Facebook deals is a Big Deal (video)
The Bild Zeitung by Springer
Of course TRWTF is that he's applying for a job at Microsoft.
The most important bit about this, to me, is that Marty, the webmaster/brother, is apparently falling down on the job.

It's quite likely that Marty is unpaid in these duties, to which I can only say that you get what you pay for. If he IS paid, then I think it's time to replace him, and reflect deeply on the negative stereotypes associated with nepotism.

My first inclination was to just email the guy and see if I could help, but reading on, he apparently maintains a staff for other purposes he considers important, and recognizes that the relative insecurity of his site impacts their livelihoods, but doesn't see security as something worth paying for.

A donation of my time in this regard would, however noble the intent, demean the profession and relative value of security analysts and companies all over the world.
The quality of UK university courses varies tremendously. I studied engineering as did lots of my friends. The standard course length for an MEng is 4 years, I think that might even be a requirement to get the course accredited.

But what happens in those four years can be very different - if you are at a less good university, you will probably be working less than 20 hours a week on your engineering degree. If you are at a top university, you will work at least full time if not more.

So if this proposal was followed through you could end up with a slightly odd situation (or maybe a good situation?) where the less good universities offered shorter courses than the good ones. So the brightest students would be in uni for longer.
I find it interesting that those proclaiming that students bypass education (including Tony Hsieh) are products of the top universities.
Feynman or not, it's entertaining to anyone who has waded through several hours of contrived interview questions that supposedly relate to programming ability, and that always have a "right" answer.
I wonder if its too late.. It might have driven away a lot of good people. I see digg going down in popularity -

http://www.google.com/trends?q=digg&ctab=0&geo=all&#...
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman

Practical Palm Pre WebOS Projects by Frank Zammetti
Is there something similar to Simulink available for Python yet? That's pretty much the only killer feature of Matlab for me these days. Any other number crunching I do in Python.
If I was in California, I wouldn't have voted for it. Prop 19 made it difficult for businesses to fire people that smoke pot under "discrimination" laws. I, as a business owner should be able to fire someone if I know they are a regular pot smoker. Discrimination should have nothing to do with choices you make, but only for things that you can't control (race, sex, etc).

Smokers sure want to be able to do what they want with their body, but they don't want to suffer any consequences as a result.

If we ever have government run health care, I also shouldn't have to pay for your choices.

When these issues are resolved, I would consider voting for it.
I don't understand what you mean. I'm using the original vccv TeX algorithm in my Sweet Justice library and it works decently. There is also Hyphenator which uses Liang's algo and supports dozens of languages. The web case is very similar to the desktop publishing case.
there is increased withholding on bonus pay, some of which you get back with your tax return.
If you are on a Mac there is no substitute for Omnigraffle. in the PC world a lot of UX designers use Visio I am not a big fan of it, but it does get the job done. There are a good deal of online tools as well.
Ask HN: Why doesn't Apple build iTunes into Safari?
Apple released iTunes at the start of 2001, and this wouldn't have been possible back then. But I think now you could build most of the key iTunes functionality into Safari, perhaps with something like plugins. Maybe you couldn't have it do everything iTunes does right now, but getting the core functionality into the browser instead of the clunky iTunes interface would be a win. Thoughts?
'cat christmas_list.txt | sort > christmas_list.txt'

the above is wrong. that will clobber the file.
Thanks for the clarification. I'm somewhat surprised though that people use the down vote when they disagree with something quite subjective. I usually down vote comments when they are factually wrong or out of place.
Thanks for picking this up. I have been bugging pg quite a few times to integrate it, but so far he hasn't had time (or interest in doing so). I hope the recurring posts on Hacker News will up this in his list of priorities :)

Just one remark about the external script: My server is configured to serve the JS file with far future expires header. Once your browser has that file, it won't even ask my server for it, so that shouldn't be a performance hit (actually your script also loads an external script, jQuery, but from a location that does not set the far future expires headers, you should use the ajax.googleapis.com server)
Non-scary signup forms for curlers
I wish I could upvote this several times. This is so true.

Every manager should have a negative karma score of how many employees they drove away. A lot more companies would get rid of managers like that if they only kept count.
Why everyone should learn programming
Most people had assumed that the LaLa acquisition would bring some sort of web-based ITMS about, but it hasn't yet materialized.

Maybe with Apple's continued interest in SproutCore, plus the fact that iTunes is one of the last Carbon apps...
No, a site that sells drug testing kits is not a good source, and there's probably a good reason it is the best quote you could find. In any case, a car certainly qualifies as a space that's confined enough to get high from second hand pot smoke. But it doesn't even matter if it's enough to get high, it's the smoke that's objectionable, which is obvious from the trend to prohibit smoking indoors in public places. This fight can't be won with facts, it requires a change of behavior. People simply don't want to inhale other people's smoke anymore.

Personally, I'm not against legalizing pot, just smoking it. It's the end of the day, and I'm about to have a drink. I'd much rather have a hash brownie, but I won't go near an illicit drug as long as I have a family to support.
Thanks for posting this! I have a physical copy at home. This is from a time that was similar to now, when hackers were building things and showing them off. I'd say I miss those days, but right now is a pretty good time to be a hacker.

Pet project of mine: several times I have built BASIC interpreters that are compatible with the MS-BASIC used in these books (BASIC Computer Games, More BASIC Computer Games). I keep thinking about doing one in Ruby.
I had a copy with a green cover. It's kind of torn up now, but still readable.
I'm enjoying The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. It's been hyped a little bit, but even so it's surprisingly good.
blech. html with content-type: text/plain == :(
I've been wanting to sit down with Let My People Go Surfing for a while now. How is it?
Broadly speaking, its hard to get a job at a VC straight out of school. This applies to PE/HF as well. If you look at the resume of the associates (the lowest position) at such firms, you would see that they would have had a few years of experience at either an investment bank or a consultancy firm.
So, to answer your question, stopping short of doing something remarkable, apply for a position in an bank and look to move after 2-3 years.
Why would you do something so trivially traceable to you?

Mostly because I didn't think it was a big deal. I mean, I changed the default homepage, I wasn't trying to format the drive or actually do anything that could be considered harmful. I didn't feel like I had to hide what I was doing.

It's not like when I took "keyboarding" (it's like typing! but on computers!) and had to type some long paragraph 20 times. Typing it once and then copy-pasting 19 times was more "wrong" in my book.
Sorry, how does that work?

Two ways: facility and habit.

There are still a lot of people out there who don't know how to use bittorrent nor how to convert pirate ebooks to display on a Kindle. Given enough incentive, they'll learn.

Second is habit. Nobody exhaustively checks alternatives every time. Once you've learned that ebook prices are usually too expensive, you don't even bother checking the price before you head to your favorite torrent site.