skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm not a blanket opponent of GM, but beyond the silly "Frankenstein food" rhetoric there's a real argument about the limitations in our knowledge of the potential side effects; particularly where unlike cross-bred bananas, plants are being "enhanced" with genes purposefully to make them toxic to certain species. We're not really in a position where we can confidently state that a gene will always behave in the same way when introduced to an alien species and left over a few generations, or that a particular "harmless to humans" protein will continue to be harmless to humans when consumed in higher volumes as part of a staple foodstuff. Testing ameliorates that risk but doesn't remove it altogether.

Obviously similar arguments apply to our lack of real knowledge of the side-effects of pharmaceuticals and vaccination programs even after substantial testing, but there's an argument that the rewards for developing cures for disease are worth risking the side effects in a way that increased crop yields aren't. Moreover drugs tend to directly affect the individuals taking them, whereas 'enhanced' crops and their non-sterile wind-blown pollen affect an entire ecosystem.

Then again the alternatives seem to be less-than-risk-free pesticides anyway...
If you start learning to develop today it won't take you 10 years to do it yourself. I'm teaching myself Rails to build an app and it's not taking nearly as long as I thought it would.

This is not to say the whole thing has to be done by yourself, but it's best that you try it alone first. This way you'll know what to look for when you're bringing someone else on.

I really like Ruby and the Rails framework so that's all I can recommend based off of experience.

There are a ton of free resources to check out and the premium resources are definitely worth it too.

www.railsforzombies.org
www.tryruby.org
www.railscasts.com
www.railstutorials.org
www.css-tricks.com (CSS and HTML)
www.pragprog.com (premium)
On currencies, virtual or otherwise
The OnLive Viewer iPad/Android App Shows Future For Mobile Computing
Google Chrome Special Announcements - Live Feed 10:30am Pacific
Threading isn't optional and it isn't an easy project. It will take a long while for Ocaml to catch up, if it ever does.

The other big problem is the underlying OS. Java lives on the JVM, Ocaml lives on Unix. Unix isn't a substitute for the JVM and vice versa.

However, F# might be an ML based competitor to java. I don't know enough about the MS stack to say.
If you're not looking to do something super complicated maybe you can look into Sinatra (ruby). I'm not sure if python has something similar if that's your language of choice.

http://www.sinatrarb.com/
Game Dynamics vs Game Mechanics
It might not be your intent but your comment does sound a tad dismissive. Alibaba, Baidu and DangDang are, amongst others, considerably successful businesses. Perhaps their similarities to Western contemporaries are partly due to the fact that we are all human in the end and happen to have similar needs. However, they are remarkably innovative in their own contexts.
US Air Force + 1,760 PlayStation 3's + Condor = supercomputer
Many of these threads are dead.
One thing we should keep in mind when evaluating these scores is that there is a different cost/benefit calculation in different countries, especially for math scores.

For instance, take a look at the "best jobs sorted by high pay" (from cnn)

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bestjobs/2010/highpa...

There are some techy jobs on there that do require substantial amounts of math[1] (software engineering director, actuary, computer and information scientist). However, the extremely well paid health fields listed generally require only a single year of an easier track of college calculus, and lawyers don't have to take any math at all. In China, most top government officials are engineers or scientists, whereas in the US, they're more typically poly sci majors who wen to law school.

I think that top US students have rationally concluded that you need to get pretty good at math to have access to the top jobs and positions, but that after a certain point, there's a diminishing return and an opportunity cost (ie., time is better spent on other subjects, playing sports, developing leadership skills, and so forth). Of course, this is true of all nations, but I think that the rewards for going farther with math are higher in China (and perhaps France) than they are in the US.

[1] by "substantial math", I mean educational paths that require you take the full two years of math/hard science/engineering track calculus, rather than the slower paced, one year track often offered to premed or economics students.
s/haunting/hunting
Maybe it's too expensive for a cash strapped startup, but SalesForce is Enterprise with a capital E.

This product is very powerful and is going to be extremely lucrative, but won't ever be interesting to most of us hackers.
Spreedly Integration Testing with Cucumber
That's simply not true. Maybe if you live in a really tight technology bubble (but even that that's not true). Silicon Valley hardly has a lock on energetic entrepreneurs.

More than that you'll find a similar level in a ton of other verticals. Go hang out on wall street sometime and tell me that your not seeing a lot of mental energy expended.

I'd hesitate to call this a U.S. thing. The one thing our culture does do, however, is bubble these people to the top.
Edmodo (education startup) funded by USV
Any prior belief is valid. That's the point of this: you separate the mathematical reasoning from the subjective assumptions (beliefs). For example it might be the case that Tom has demonstrated several of those special coins before, and in that case your opinion would probably be that there is a good chance that this one is special too. The nice thing about the math is that we can encapsulate these assumptions in the prior probability distribution P(p).

BTW I used that distribution in the plots because it was easiest to come up with, and somewhat realistic, and it shows the skewing well. Feel free to plug in your own beliefs.
Celebrities Eating
Even if you are a celebrity you should have table manners, but many stars don’t have them.
I liked Joshua Bloch's point that during development there should be at least two-three different apps that excercise the api preferably developed by different developers.
I was referring to nothing more recreational than hiking and guitar playing, trust me.
Watching it live ...

Chrome Browser:

1. Google Instant baked into the Chrome omnibox -- type one character, favorite page loads

2. Very fast PDF reader baked into the browser -- can load 1,990 page PDF in less than a second

3. Hardware (GPU) graphics accelaration in the browser

4. Chrome beta was V8 engine had 16x better Javascript performance ... today adding 'Crankshaft' to V8, will be 100x faster than IE from 2 years ago (http://blog.chromium.org/2010/12/new-crankshaft-for-v8.html)

5. Sync bookmarks, themes, extensions across machines

6. Security sandboxing pioneered by Chrome is extended to plugins like Flash and PDF

Chrome Web Store

1. Helps users find apps, allows developers to get paid; rich interactive apps from NPR, Sports Illustrated, New York Times HTML5 app

2. Games from EA in Javascript + HTML5 instead of Flash

3. 120 million regular Chrome users will make this the biggest app store in the world

Chrome OS

1. "Nothing but the web" -- browser running as close to the hardware as possible

2. Fast boot, suspend with instant resume, reconnects to network subsecond

3. "Friends let friends log in" -- share your notebook with other people and preserve everyone's privacy

4. Offline Google Docs, games, apps -- resync automatically ​when reconnected

5. Cloud print (http://code.google.com/apis/cloudprint/docs/overview.html)

6. Partnered with Verizon for pay-as-you-go mobile data

7. All data on the disk is encrypted by default

8. Partnered with Citrix for 'Remoting' -- demoed running Excel, SAP, CAD/CAM hosted in the datacenter right in the browser

9. Notebook pilot program! Jailbreaking built-in!
You've overlooked an option: use Drupal as a development framework. You get core security updates and huge chunks of functionality basically for free, freeing up you or your hired gun developer to crank on the guts of your application. Wheel reinvention is minimized.
The last paragraphs of the article directly refute your point:

“While that’s important, for me the real significance of these results is that they refute the commonly held hypothesis that China just produces rote learning.”

“Large fractions of these students demonstrate their ability to extrapolate from what they know and apply their knowledge very creatively in novel situations,” he said.

The Chinese generation that will create their Google, Facebook or whatever is just growing up, it seems.
Don't use Wordpress for things that are not blog-related. Use tools that are meant for the job. It doesn't matter what language you use, they're all the same. PHP 5 has good OOP support and isn't a "small boy" language.
> No. Breaking your work up into several small, "logical" commits is exactly the right thing to do.

The author is not arguing against making small, logical commits. He's arguing against making a ton of changes in your working directory, then running `git add file1, file2... ; git commit` a bunch of times in a row to record a series of commits.

The problem with this is exactly the one he mentioned: almost no one ever goes back and makes sure each commit actually builds and passes tests.

After they finish making a series of, say, three commits they just go ahead and push. It's only weeks or months later when someone bisects that they find out the first commit was broken without the contents of the third.

Mercurial users use MQ for this process, and to me it seems like it's a better and safer method with an uglier UI.

With MQ, once you were ready to create your three commits you would say:

`hg qnew file1 file2 ... --message 'Fix the foo bug'`

`hg qnew file2 file3 ... --message 'Add feature bar'`

`hg qnew file4 file5 ... --message 'Add feature baz'`

Now you've got three patches that appear (mostly) as normal changesets in your repo.

You can `hg qpop` back to the beginning of the set, run your tests, fix anything that's broken and add it into the patch. Then you would `hg qpush` the next patch and do the same thing.

Once you know that all three patches represent a working state you can `hg qfinish --all` to turn them into vanilla commits.

Yes, it's more work, but you've got three "logical" commits that actually work, instead of three "logical" commits that might hopefully work.

MQ is also great for the open source workflow you mention, where you send your patches to a mailing list (for example), get feedback, and rework them.

If someone tells you changeset X has problem Y, you can just `hg qpop` back to the patch, fix Y, refresh the patch with that change, and retest/resend.

If you want even more crazy power, you can make the directory containing your patches a Mercurial repository, which lets you track the evolution of your patches over time. It's very weird and meta, but extremely powerful.
Did it look familiar?

http://bradwallen.com/2010/12/06/google-nexus-s/
Awesome, ty, never noticed that
True, but it's an indication of how low a poverty threshold of a PPP-adjusted dollar a day is when its below the level of a mostly-peasant population that didn't have access to adequate sanitation, any form of energy other than wood-burned heat, or anything invented after the 1300s
I did something similar and was able to roll the whole thing on Wordpress in an hour or two. For something as simple as this I would say you just stick with a framework that handles mostly everything for you.
I have tremendous respect for the abilities of the climbers, they are obviously among the best in the world in several categories of physical prowess, but it still seems that mountain climbing is one of very few disciplines where you can do everything right and still, with a reasonable probability, get killed due to some random circumstance.
When WikiLeaks published the docs, I thought it would be great as it would expose Westerners to how most of the world lives & operates. Clearly it didn't. Which nation would the commenters here recommend as host of WPFD, in place of the US? (Not counting nations too remote/small to have any security concerns at all)
Come on guys, the United States didn't do jack to Julian Assange. It's the Swedish who are pursuing the case against him, and quite possibly the matter is one of internal politics. You might say that the US put pressure on Sweden to have this happen, but here in the civilized world we say innocent until proven guilty right?

On the other hand many many Americans celebrate Wikileaks and what it represents, the government has done extremely little / nothing against wikileaks, and all the antagonists wield only rhetoric. The relative inaction so far is reason for celebration! Obviously there are always going to be people who say sensational stuff, but they don't represent the entire country.
Nice walkthrough of bayesian probability, then bayesian epistemology. All that's missing is a link to http://yudkowsky.net/rational/technical for those who'd like furhter readings on the subject.
I love how the lede makes it sound like UNESCO is the only real press-freedom organization in the world. Never mind folks like Reporter without Borders http://www.rsf.org who have condemned US actions. Or, http://www.cpj.org, or http://freedomhouse.org, or http://amnesty.org, or http://www.hrw.org/
Live From Google’s Chrome Event: Chrome OS, Web Store, And More
> I would dispute that, in every case where there is exists a native app with equal functionality, the app is used every time.

Not true at all.

And, misses the point: so-called "fake" apps are the most popular over their "real" counter parts. Not in all areas, sure. But in many. It depends on the domain.

To assume that native is always better is dismissing the massive value provided by web-based.
It's important to note that you can protect against Slowloris itself not only by the various apache modules available specifically for Slowloris and specifically for this kind of HTTP attack, but also through Apache's native configuration settings that (among others) govern the number of simultaneous connections any single IP is allowed to have. Slowloris itself is not much different in terms of the effect it has on the HTTPd than a script pulling data from the server using curl or wget.
Do you have any links or just perhaps some Google terms to search for? This is pretty interesting.
This post is missing: citations.
How does Sony feel about subsidizing the cost of these things?
I would, but that would mean rewriting public history! So, I'm kinda stuck on that one. :-(
This won't be the popular answer, but Wordpress is actually pretty good for prototyping things like this. The plugin hooks system makes it easy to try things out quickly. There is already a plugin for just about everything, so adding Facebook Connect, etc. can be done in a couple minutes.

I actually gave a talk at a local WordCamp about this. I built a couple prototypes that had APIs via simple plugins and leveraged WP users and posts (with custom post types) for content. And nearly everything can be abstracted out to the point that users won't know it's running on Wordpress.

As far as what YOU should use, the correct answer will always be "whatever you're comfortable with."
web.py is small, nice and simple (if that's what you mean in terms of "similar" to Sinatra).
The idea that science itself can provide a further answer to "how do we feed starving children" is false in and of itself.

There's no shortage of food or food-bearing land in the world today. The remaining problems are purely political problems of distribution and corruption and economic problems of perverted incentives (food aid crowding out regional and local farming).
Disregard the 'whichever one is best for you' answers - those aren't helpful. The only hard and fast rule is to use a framework. WordPress, Drupal, Rails, Django are all frameworks.

I personally use Django and I think it has the most power per unit of work - this is mostly because the documentation is so good.

Rails is a totally valid option also.

I don't know anybody working on a PHP framework right now who is happy about it, whereas I meet plenty of happy Rails and Django people. There are a bunch of cool looking frameworks like Lift, web2py, etc... but stick with Django or Rails if you're not sure what to do.

Also, nobody ever wants to put their neck out and say it, but MySQL is easier than Postgres to use and manage IMHO.
The angle of attack as related to the surface of the Earth. E.g. a perpendicular angle of attack means the weapon approaches detonation range from directly above.

Sorry for the confusion.
Wordpress is a no. It would not be easily maintained in the long run. If you want to use a CMS type deal then check out Drupal. I'm not an expert on Drupal and have only been playing with it for a very short time, but you could create your own module to do this and then take advantage of the other features.

If you want to make sure something is more custom I would look at using symfony PHP framework, Ruby on Rails, or Django.

My personal favorite is symfony. You can also add the Zend Library to that framework. Most of my framework experience has been with symfony.

Keep in mind there will be pros/cons to any framework you use.
I'm have competing technology that does this. First, you have to set permissions carefully, of course. Then, if you don't mind users knowing elements of your schema, you can simply make direct calls from Javascript. If you do mind, you could create stored procedures. Or in the case of our technology, you can also place server-side Javascript on the database and call that.
Drupal is a great framework, one I have contributed to for a while and fully support, but it is structured. For a project that requires a quick (hours/day(s)) deployment, I think Wordpress works well because you get the benefit of using a framework with nothing stopping you from completely ignoring all aspects of the framework.

Drupal on the other hand forces you to follow some guidance in how you deploy custom modules or make modifications. Sure, you could use complete custom code in Drupal, but it is not as easy to interface with. Wordpress will provide me a window into my custom code and let me hack at every aspect. In its rawest form I end up getting something to manage my blogging, pages, posts, comments, users, etc. all while consuming my hack custom code without issue.
Yeah that seems like a good option for the PHP route... Anyone second that? Is it reasonably to think that a good PHP dev could work well with Drupal?
Build and test your web idea without programming
A friend of mine who is a biochemist recommended against Vinpocetine in his experience with vinca-alkaloids. He said they drop blood sugar hard and fast. A little research on T-Nation.com said that these low grade hypoglycemic attacks happen when starting to use Vinpocetine. I tried Vinpocetine and found the mental benefits to be good, however the physical effects left me rather sluggish.
Salesforce targets enterprises, not startups. The users of this service will almost certainly be their existing customer base, for whom it is an add-on to existing services... not a new major platform and expense.
Apropos Gallipoli: And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda. The best anti-war song ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZqN1glz4JY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_The_Band_Played_Waltzing_Ma...
This is the first app I have heard about where I have Android envy -- maybe it is time to switch from the iPhone
More than I ever wanted to know about Nootropics, and yet somehow also less.

"Rivastigmine - common positives: memory"

That's it? ... OK, I guess that's all I need to know. Hook me up with some of that.
300 ms response time doesn't seem so good.
I've found this talk by Joshua Bloch about "How To Design A Good API and Why it Matters" very inspiring and and helpful: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/effective-api-design
Ask HN: low-key launch?
Any ideas on how to soft-launch a website? I built something (with the help of a developer) that is a fun little personal project. Not a business -- I want to build an interesting little community. Unfortunately, given attention on my other projects, I really don't want to get the two conflated.

So, any ideas how to do a soft launch? I was thinking about announcing it on HN and then just locking down logins if it grew too fast.
Case Study: How A New Blog Achieved 100% growth in 2 Months
NodeConf May 5th 2011 Portland, OR
And thankfully our laws and the freedom of speech allow them to say all that sensational stuff. As someone once said of Voltaire's attitude: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Oracle seems to hold that position too.
> But I'd love a native client for Gmail even more.
Email clients have been out for a long time.

> Imagine Flickr on a tablet. Swiping, pinching, tapping.
All of which can be accomplished without going native. These are accessible by normal web pages using JavaScript.

> Try spending 30 minutes going through newsfeeds and photo albums without having the javascript go unresponsive.
Facebook has native apps already, and they aren't any better. You can't find new messages, notifications not appearing properly are some of the problems I face. And you don't have to wait 30 minutes to have these problems. They appear before opening the app!
The One-Paragraph Start-Up Plan
Thanks, I'm comfortable with LAMP and LEMP so MySQL would definitely be my choice for db. I think I'd have the most drive to work with Django, personally, I find it pretty exciting from what I hear - and the little code I've done in Python for server scripting was actually fun...
Homeland Security Messages Coming to Wal Mart, etc.
http://outsideonline.com/outside/features/200508/dave-shaw-1...

A wonderful article about the attempted recovery of a body in a deep cave
Congrats, Albert!
From the article: "A survey of 1,200 Xserve customers conducted by the Enterprise Desktop Alliance found that 70% of Xserve customers say Apple's announcement will have no impact on their organization's decision to buy new Macs."

I think a more interesting look is that 30% of XServe customers say Apple's announcement will impact their organization's decision to buy new Macs (or didn't respond).
One of the great triumphs of _Founders at Work_ is its obvious emphasis on multiple perspectives to any single given problem. This book seems to emulate that approach to similar success, if your enthusiasm is to be taken as any indicator!

I can't wait to read it.
I wouldn't discredit wordpress right away. I will agree that it gets tough to maintain (one of my current sites is tangled in the Wordpress framework), but if you look at blogs he is trying to replicate then you can see their all Wordpress based.

Check out these:
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/
http://www.beachcreeps.com/
http://latenightmistakes.com/
http://whitetrashrepairs.com/

The list goes on. The area he is stepping into is ran by non-techies who churn and burn. I have spoke and pitched ideas with them. Their usually later 30 year olds who have latched on to a cookie cutter framework template (Wordpress) and pump out ideas with little or no care if they fail.

Investing a lot of time in this strictly from a goal of making money is not worth it. If the goal is to learn, maybe make money then I say you choose something that you are really interested in and could see yourself using later.
Why isn't Cleantech Using Social Media?
I'm wondering who the CTO is at these companies that allowed IT to go with Apple servers. I'm not hating on Apple, I'm just saying that when you think "corporate IT" do you think "Apple"? The last type of company that you want to work with in IT is one that has a nasty habit of surprising its customers every 6 months. You want a big, dependable, boring company.