skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
One use: read top HN posts as a stream (more in http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1960762)

It's great for getting news from people you find interesting (let it be Paul Graham, Tim O'Reilly, a creator of language you like). Also, many projects announce new releases on twitter (ruby's twitter gem for instance http://twitter.com/#!/gem). Best of all: you know all these updates are short.

Besides you can favorite/RT items you think are interesting for later retrieval (using delicious to save twits is an alternative, but a cumbersome one).

On the sending side, it is good if you are one of such interesting people, and whish to keep people updated. Setting up forums/google groups just to give notice of a new release is too much of a overhead when you have twitter.

These are the information retrieval and useful aspects of Twitter, and are useful even if you have no friends/colleagues.

There is also the social one, which you people make of it as they want, like a sms broacast for setting up dinners with friends. If you have enough followers, you can use it effectively to ask for information. You can use it to ask people short questions, and engage in quick conversations with people that would not otherwise answer an email.

There are many other uses. In a nutshell: twitter is what you make of it.
If you search google for Alex Tapanaris you quickly see that his name is already being targeted by this so-called anonymous.

http://pastebin.com/F2VcJXkK

They've decided that they want his name to be associated with 'liking cock' in google.

I think this is most likely another attempt to harass and bully him.
Do any of the mobile app stores have an API?

Developers could come up with better app stores that drive more sales. Bonus points if they get a small percentage of every sale that flows through their app-store app. “Let a thousand flowers bloom and we'll see what flourishes.”
Finding security issues in a website (or: How to get paid by Google)
I think I'm not alone when saying that the first thing I write in a new language I learn is some sort of project that requires a good understanding of the language's function-call model, of its object model, of a few specifics (strings, regices, data structures, arithmetic [depending on what I find interesting]), and that requires me to use some part of the standard library not readily available or to decompose my code into multiple files (or both). This helps me understand better what I'm doing, what I like about the language and what I don't. Examples of such projects include IRC bots, Lisp Interpreters, twitter clients, etc. (The one exception is Haskell, where I haven't gotten far enough to understand Monads well so I just wrote a completely functional RPN calculator).
I suspected as much, but indeed it confused the hell out of me, I've never written a line of pascal so my buffer overflow detector false triggered :)
I know how you feel.

When I went to university I went to a different city, I was completely lonely. Back then, I decided to focus only on the course and tried to learn as much as I could. As a result I've got several friends. Good times :)
It would be dead in the water if forked from the "standard". Java plays in the enterprise space and they are pretty particular about that sort of thing.
My guess is that it's a way for Google to get developers making apps for Chrome before their new OS comes out (officially). Any kinks will be worked out in the app store, so there should be a good range of apps available before the OS launches.
The author had apparently just earned his/her 5th age bit. When you're sixteen you don't necessarily have many things about which you can speak with authority, if you wish to do that. Your peers probably come closest.

(The fifth bit is the one that turns black and white into shades of grey. The sixth bit will bring colors. I don't know about the seventh bit yet.)
Ok, granted, this is cool. And I see a lot of utility for space launch and other applications, so I support the research.

My question: does it actually have practical utility as a weapon of war for the modern US Navy? This seems like fighting the last war -- this is about building a weapon that goes on giant ships, when the new war is all about information and special forces strikes.
I think the biggest difference is in how non-technical users perceive the safety and quality of the apps. The internet is a scary place with viruses and scams and loads of crappy stuff. An official app directory by Google or Apple is safer, and seems even more safe, as users perceive the content as curated and approved.

Developers, on the other hand, can charge money for the premium of having gone through the curation process. Users are more willing to pay a few bucks on an app store than for the same website when they entered the URL into the browser themselves.
Also covered here: http://aarhus.startupweekend.org/2010/06/09/memolane-from-co...
If you found something to do with the letters "Pa Rat I" that fits then I know what the rest of them were for...
caca, even more childish would be caquita.
Coping with loneliness is a temporary fix(speaking from experience here), you have to get rid of it.

Im not sure exactly how, but during the last 6-7 years(im 21) I've slowly transformed from the typical socially awkward super shy nerd kid, to a somewhat social friendly nerd. It didn't happen in a day, i just slowly opened up to people, I slowly learned the social rules, practiced them, and now i speak social as a second language, even though i still have a strong nerd accent. Even though i still prefer to be alone in my room on my PC, with my slime repl, i still get drunk with my friends at least once every two weeks, or go out to play pool, or hang out in coffe shops, or go to lan parties.
One of the stated benefits is that they don't need to carry explosives on board. A gas gun would not have this advantage.
Functional Programming in Qi
Absolutely agree with this. And I'll add to it also, if I may (it might seem slightly off-topic at first, but there is a point)

I used to be very shy (I still am in some specific ways) and one of the consequences I didn't realise at the time is that I had no idea where my true boundaries were.

So I challenged myself to discover them with initially small tasks; stuff as basic as "keeping eye contact when handing over change to a clerk" that sort of thing. I'd then progress to starting conversations with people in queues, going to bars on my own and trying to make friends and so on and so forth.

I'm very aware that at all points to an outsider I was probably acting a little weird (in the same way that someone learning to rollerskate looks a bit silly), but progressively these tests pushed my boundaries further and further. I even turned it into a bit of a game, trying to find more and more elaborate ways to make myself uncomfortable... I soon discovered that no matter how nerve-wracking and scary these encounters were, I never ended up harmed.

The net result is a compound benefit a/ the confidence to be able to the social things I want b/ a million amusing anecdotes to tell new people I meet when I do those things. Now it's pretty hard to be lonely, because it's easy to strike up a great conversation with almost anyone and find some amusing/interesting common ground.

Hope that helps a little.
It probably isn't that difficult but why learn yet another language (vimscript) when you already know Ruby,Python,Perl,Tcl and Scheme? All of which can be used.
Taking Other People’s Money Changes Your Life
Not only is it making two-passes for filtering, it also has to do another pass to append "lesser" onto [p] and "greater". And that is for a single recursion so these multiple passes are happening per-recursive call.

Here's a page with some actual haskell quicksorts:

http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Introduction/Direct_Trans...
When About Us is More Than About You
I think you've hit on something very important, essential, in the problem with OO-as-taught. This is something that is known in many quarters of skillful practictioners, but missed by most schools or beginners. I think the first part of this article is misleading, in that it waxes philosophical about the drawbacks of defining things in an ontology. But then it then proceeds to figure out a better way to model things as an ontology! The issue isn't with ontologies -- yes, slapping a hierarchy or meronymy on something isn't perfect, but it's pretty useful when organizing concepts.

The fundamental problem with OO inheritance, is that it is not ontological or mathematical inheritance! OO inheritance has almost no relationship to thousands of years of what "is-a" means -- i.e. subset. It's backwards - subclasses are extensions, or supersets of their parents.

The way to implement inheritance correctly is "specialization by constraint", i.e. you define a subclass by the constraints it has on its superclass. This is what's happening in the latter part of the article, with design-by-contract and test cases for your various classes.
This is also, by the way, how ontology languages like OWL work, and in part why they're so hard to learn/use -- their notion of inheritance and "subclassing" is the mathematical notion (i.e. more like subset), and the opposite of OO programming languages, so we have 25+ years of history to unlearn.

I suspect the reason OO inheritance took the path it did was for simple expediency on the part of compiler writers & language designers. Specialization by constraint ain't easy to implement declaratively.
The TCK puts restrictions on mobile and I believe server run-times. So basically, it can only be used for desktop development or JVM lite if you will. Given that Java desktop was DOA you can see the usefulness of accepting those restrictions. Oracle as made no secret of their intent to monetize the JVM, there are a good deal of developers that believe that you don't pay to play for technology as low level as a language and run-time. So they are naturally concerned about the manner in which it will be monetized. Looking at the field of use restriction it can serve as an indicator as to where that plan to monetize it. Further with their suite against Google in relation to Android, I bleive that it paints a pretty big bulls eye on where they plan to monetize it. That being said, I have used Java since it was first placed on the net for download, I have seen it fall behind other languages and never once though it was going to die. It had too an extensive of an entrenchment and library available. I personally do believe that this was the death shot and when (I like to think) level headed guys like me, who have always said well it is good enough, sure it not shinny but good enough, start to think that it was the death shot, then it may very well be so.

For me personally, if I where asked to throw my lot in with Apache or Oracle, it would be Apache, I use their technology every day, I do a project with Oracle technology (excluding the JVM now) maybe once a year. I think Oracle thinks the entrenchment is to great to overcome, for our sake I hope they are wrong.

Fortunately for myself, I was an assembly developer before I was a C developer before I was a Java developer. So my exit, should it become untenable is easy enough given that I am a freelancer. I don't have a significant technology infrastructure investment like product people have. I truly feel for you guys that do, I would be really worried if I where in your shoes.
yeah html 5 posts typically refer to an html4/jquery site (with one <video
> tag or something. Lots of hype so far...

And this is a flash video. I bet these positive comments soon turn negative...
I agree, the java community is generally extremely risk averse. This does however create a positive pressure towards such a fork. It seems very hypothetical at the moment but given that a fork were to receive backing from google I'm sure the enterprise community would be comfortable using it.
> The only think I see now is the transition to separate and a completely independent technology.

GCJ would be what you're looking for here, I think. The critical question would be how badly, if at all, GCJ would be affected by an Oracle militantly pursuing perceived patent violators.

> languages have progressed beyond Java now

It's not about the language. It's about the collosal amount of libraries in the ecosystem.
There are competing app stores:

https://developer.vodafone.com/

http://www.orangepartner.com/site/enuk/orange_partner_connec...
These ones are also very good:

Very video (direct link): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7X7sZzSXYs&feature=playe...

http://www.salon.com/life/coupling/index.html?story=/mwt/bro...

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1596974
This is the real "sort" used by GHC 7: http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/base/4.3.0.0/doc...

It's pretty elegant, too, if less than the inefficient pseudo-qsort shown by the OP.
I see where you're running with that, and with a slight adjustment we get 'Anal Rape Taxis'.

OMG, someone call Jack Bauer, this goes all the way to the top.
كيف اسوي ايميل
I've always wondered if airport security in general is ultimately a detriment. After all, it involves getting tons of people together at one spot. What's stopping a terrorist from blowing themselves up in the line for security?
2 seconds is too long?
Heroine is not smuggled out of Afghanistan through rectums, no, it goes out in caravan trucks with security detail.
Not only is it true, as you wrote, that most iPhone apps could be websites, but it even happens that some things are available as both and the website is better: Facebook (the app is actually slightly slower and doesn't let you like comments on wall posts, for example) and YouTube come to mind. Note that in both cases the app came out before the highly capable Mobile WebKit-specific version of the site (i.e., the app was the best way to use those services on an iPhone before).
I think and I could be totally wrong on this one, but I think that Oracle could construe the GCJ as appropriating their ideas and infringing on their patents. Moving to something like the LLVM would at least help distance Apache from that.

My point as far as languages go was not that the libraries are not worth it but if you have to go so far as moving all of them over too a wholly separate run-time, is it even worth it to continue Java the language or would it be better to just adopt Scala or some other language that incorporates modern features and make it compatible with the ported library set. I was really pondering if you go all that way, is it worth it to just go that last 1/10 of a mile, instead of trying to bring Java the language into the modern age.
Restated, the author's argument is as follows:

-- Twitter is a subset of Facebook for the purpose of communicating with real life friends. Facebook does the job better, too.

-- For other purposes, Twitter gains in value, but not a lot.
After registering through my facebook account and picking my photos, I kind of got lost. Instead of leaving the user off at the photo edit page (http://tastebuds.fm/users/current/edit#load_images) maybe direct them to artists or profile tab>
Brian Blessed voice now available for TomTom devices
My crazy boss sold everything, bought a boat, and is sailing for an entire year
Any feedback at all on it? I would really appreciate any comments you might have.
Looks like they've been down for about 14.5 hours currently:
http://reports.panopta.com/cloudharmony/server/57551

MaxCDN and HDDN are offering discounts to existing customers looking to migrate.
http://admin.simplecdn.com
Thanks for getting me to see another point of view. Your argument makes sense !
I wonder how difficult it would be to port the language and classes over to the LLVM, if their would even be legal ramifications in doing that and in the end if it is worth it, given that languages have progressed beyond Java now.

Isn't that basically what Google did with Android/Dalvik and are now being sued by Oracle for?
Tastebuds totally does not connote music dating to me, it connotes a foodie site. I really had a moment of mental dissonance there.

It's a nice short name, easy to remember and spell, but I'm not feeling the connotations.

/my 0.02 cents.
How to start a business
First Steps to Starting Your Own Small Business

Sometimes youve been dreaming about what it would be like to start your own small business. It has been on your mind since you were in school, and there are times, especially on the morning, that you daydream about it how to start a business. But, youre not really sure what it would look like. You dont have the first clue starting a business, and of course, youre afraid that you would put your heart and soul into it, only to fail and look like a fool. You barely even talk about it out loud, because you dont want your family and friends to laugh at you. But, anything is possible! The only limitations we have are the ones we put on ourselves! With planning and learning the steps, and doing your homework, if this is something you really want to do, you can do it, AND succeed greatly at it, too!

Okay, so now youre ready to take the next step! First, in order to help you focus, start working on your business plan. It helped you determine exactly what you want, what you offered, why you offered, whose your ideal client is, whose your target market is, whose your competition is, where you would offer your services, how you would offer them, and so on.

There are resources specific to most specific fields, too, including other professionals who help others get started. Do your research to see who you can contact for support and to ask questions of as you progress. Once you have your business plan in place, its not time to celebrate, yet! How are you going to accomplish the goals you have come up with in that plan? You next need a marketing plan. Now, although the marketing plan is also part of a business plan, its really just the intro! The marketing plan will become your template, your schedule, and will spell out the actions you will take to make those goals reality. If you use it seriously, it will be your day-to-day guide to making your dreams come true!

sources:
www.facelooknow.com
www.xtraincomeonline.blogspot.com
www.iloveustranger.blogspot.com
Web/app stores = one stop curated collection with some potential plan for monetization.

You'll hear the word "curated" a lot in 2011.
I wonder what http://www.appbrain.com/ uses to access Android Market data? It must have some sort of API to get the new apps on there, they update very quickly. Older apps less so, it takes a day or so to sync up.

There's also http://code.google.com/p/android-market-api/ (OT: just me, or is the new Google Code look much more confusing/cluttered?), but that is not official in any way.
Google now has:

Chromium OS

Chrome

GoogleTV

Youtube

Paid rentals on YouTube

AppStore

...and a lot of other things. It wouldn't surprise me if a set top box was in the works. Chromium OS is also going to have a lot to do with the AppStore, as it is browser based/centered.
To be honest I don't know the details, but I though I remember hearing that it was more a case of doing the same thing as Microsoft, releasing a wholly incompatible product with Java at large, even the standard libraries where rendered incompatible. I don't know but I would imaging that you are completely within your right to make Java source code you write, compatible or incompatible with what you see fit.

I am not 100% sure of the case, but it seems like that was what the articles where saying when the Google suit was hot in the news. I will go back and see if I can find info on it.

EDIT: http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2010/Aug-13.html

This would explain why Google went through the trouble of making the Dalvik virtual machine explicitly incompatible with the existing Java virtual machine instructions.

yes it seems that the VM that Google used is as Microsoft's was incompatible with vanilla JVM instructions.
Very truly there should be a reality TV show about this.
Social media amber alert: how the Internet has changed missing person searches
Peregrine Falcons Inspire New Thermal Soaring Strategy for UAVs
If you haven't done so already, I would develop some spheres of influence around the things that you already enjoy. The ability to bounce ideas and receive healthy criticisms from trusted friends greatly increases your chances of discovering something you are passionate about. You should have one "CPU cycle" dedicated to exploring the options of this world, with the flexibility to become deeper involved into them if desired.

Asian & Middle Eastern immigrants coming to America have not had "it" as good as you have. They come here and are amazed and bewildered by the concept of developing a stable and comfortable lifestyle on any area they choose to focus in on. Possibilities are almost endless. There is some psychology available that reinforces since you have not had anything different than the status quo, you may have lost some of this bewilderment by fulfilling the typical young adult lifestyle.

I reinitiated some of this by traveling India and China for a couple months, at a time in my "career" as a web developer, where I felt commoditized beyond recognition. The trek identified some faults in how I had been wasting my time, wasting my talents and wasting the capabilities possible available. The experiences, the sights were beyond anything I could have imagined on any other ordinary "vacation".
Heh, that's a Greek mobile phone number (Cosmote). Maybe I should interview him :p
Startup Bullshit Bingo - December 2010 Edition
Interview with Julian Assange by Hans Lysglimt
http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-constantly-mention...
Thanks but I did read it and did not find an explanation inside the post except "So you are probably wondering why am am doing this and want an explanation besides ‘because I though having an excuse to drink beer all weekend was rad’. Its a good question and one I will expand upon in time, but for right now I will say it has to do with how many ridiculous and dangerous dieting fads are out there today." -- which does not explain it at all. That is why I did ask.

My guess is you're bored and want some traffic from HN, and are going to post three follow-ups here the coming days...
A different restatement: If you're standing there at work and you are forced to ask the web what you could do that would make a meaningful difference -- either to your boss, or more importantly to yourself -- go stand someplace else.
Just while we're thinking this sort of thing, people might be interested to see http://www.meccano.us/. I believe Tim helped Andrew on his Lego difference engine, and he's now working on the Analytical Engine.
I agree. Implementing some sort of "most commented" or "most interacted with" sorting algorithm would really emphasize the most important items and cut through the "junk".
Chris Shiflett wrote a good HTTP handbook, I recommend his blog too. (typing from phone, pasting url not easy)
very interesting story. I know a couple of programmers who did the same.
Android Market app getting a facelift and much more
App Store = today's AOL keyword
You have a point. Sure, embedded problems can be very tricky and difficult -- much more so than web stuff. But most embedded folks don't solve problems of THAT complexity in their day jobs, just as most web programmers aren't implementing Machine Learning code during their day jobs. The embedded problems you're discussing are usually tackled by the elite, or by highly specialized Linux kernel types -- and no, I'm not elite. Many employed embedded people, believe it or not, have never worked with DMA.
A short summary that made sense to me:
http://www.somebits.com/weblog/tech/chrome-app-store.html
"We're sorry, but Topics on Search is not yet available for your language or country. Please check back later – we're working hard both to finish the feature and get it properly supported for all languages and locations." with English language and Worldwide as location.