skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Caloric restriction is the only non-genetic intervention proven to increase maximal lifespan in mammals. However it may well be that the magnitude of this effect in humans is considerably smaller than in lower mammals because the mechanisms that repair the damage that accumulates as a consequence of normal metabolism are already more optimal. I think the really interesting area is caloric restriction mimetics. These are alluded to in the article and are a class of small molecule compounds that aim to induce the life-extending effect of CR without the need for reducing calories. GSK recently made a 0.75 billion dollar investment in Sirtris pharmaceuticals http://www.sirtrispharma.com/pipeline-candidates.html who are developing a reversatrol derivative so this is far from science fiction.
Good call, I highly doubt Best Buy is getting free copies from Ubuntu. If they are pressed by Ubuntu they must be paying something for them, and it is perfectly reasonable to sell at a profit because as someone else said they are selling the convenience.

But I don't understand why Ubuntu gives away officially pressed copies for free, even to individuals. I think there should be a price to cover the manufacturing costs and to support Ubuntu. The OS itself of course should be free (in the gratis sense, but obviously also the libre sense).

I think the same is true for music, which I normally download for free, but will pay for some nice artwork and officially printed CD (or vinyl record), especially if I want to support the artist.
Well, NeXTSTep had DBKit which had an Oracle adaptor, there's no reason Apple couldn't have great native Oracle support very quickly if they needed it.

There's JDBC thin and Instant Client too. There's even a version of the Oracle server itself, but it's a few revs behind and not supported for Production use. If you wanted to write an Oracle app on OSX today, there's nothing stopping you.
man i couldn't get past "amateur" misspelled as "ametuer" three times in four sentences
The definition of murder as "the unlawfully killing of a human with malice aforethought" is a good one that applies well to Hans Reiser and shows the importance of motivation in determining whether or not someone is a criminal.

When soldiers are learning to kill an enemy that may not even exist, they have very different motivations when compared to someone that is planning to kill a personal enemy.

I believe that both individuals and nations have the right of self-defense, so I don't hold contempt for anyone that is learning to kill in order to defend himself or the people he has a responsibility to defend.
I do similar stuff - PHP & ColdFusion coding, and search engine promotion. I get freelance work from the following sources, in order of the amount of work:
1 - Previous clients
2 - Partnerships & referrals through friends (many of them met through 3)
3 - Networking
4 - People finding my website
5 - Forums

I run a local networking group for freelancers ( http://www.brightonfarm.com ) so get a lot of work through that. If you can find some local freelancers, it's well worth teaming up with them as you'll either have complimentary skills or can refer work direct to each other when you're too busy.

I'm lucky because I live in an area with a lot of small tech companies, which is close to London which has a heck of a lot of work opportunities.

If you're trying to attract work when you don't know anyone locally, and you can't find any business networking groups, then mailing lists and forums can provide work. A simple way of getting is to post that you need some work (good for a short term boost.) More subtle is to put "I'm a freelance _____ programmer" in your signature on forums/e-mail with contact details and links to your website. I've had work from doing the latter, although I get better quality work from the other sources listed above.

You might find the sites http://www.freelanceswitch.com and http://www.freelanceadvisor.co.uk useful, they've both got podcasts as well.

[edit - getting links to work]
OWASP Webgoat: Unvalidated Parameters
A very simple question for 'Water Car' True Believers
I am in the same situation.

And 3 years? To the their crappy prices? I'll stick to wifi for now...
This is really good news and from what I've been read the tech media response is largely positive. I don't use Ubuntu or any linux distro for that matter, but if the option is there I would recommend Ubuntu over Vista, XP, most anything else (except OS X) because of the value of that deal. The funniest part of this story is one of the customer reviews on the BB website from a person in "Moronville, KY"
My first copy of Linux, SuSE 6.2, was bought at Best Buy. It came on 6 CDs. There was no way I was going to download that over a 33.6 modem.

So long as Best Buy abides by the terms of distribution I say more power to them.
My understanding of the GPL is that you can sell the software for any price you wish. However, if you do not include the source code with the product, you must distribute that source code at a reasonable price to all askers.
I agree with the criticism of the scrolling odometer widget; that part sounds like it would be better handled with the keyboard.

I'm willing to cut them a little slack on the "lack of user testing" angle; it's not like there are many App Store enabled iPhones available for real-world usability testing. That will limit a potential test pool to people the developer knows well... because I doubt he'd be comfortable handing his iPhone to someone less than a trusted friend to provide feedback.
On the other hand it might be going too far to suggest a corollary of Greenspun's 10th Rule for Perl, tempting as it may be.
SMART exists; the SSD makers just need to use it.
All those people running yacc parsers under valgrind memcheck or Purify probably just thought "Oh, it's yacc, how could yacc still have bugs after 30 years? I'll just add a suppression rule..." :)
Reiser Case Proves Geeks No Different from Others
Prices are dropping rapidly; I have a hunch that this Samsung drive is the same as the 128GB OCZ SSD that is selling for under $600.
Well, that's true. In this case, however, testing with novice users isn't exactly critical. The target audience here are repeat users, after all, so learnability is probably a lower priority than raw performance for a regular user. That means that the devs themselves could have tested, and I sincerely doubt that they would find the scrolling odometer faster OR more accurate than keyboard entry.
Econometric hacks: Cluster analysis for demand model selection
I read that halfway, and feel more apathetic now than I did when I started...
Most of the builtins have a corresponding __magic_attribute__ for objects that support it: bool -> foo.__bool__, len -> foo.__len__, iter -> foo.__iter__. This is usually because some syntactic sugar or other built-in function/method relies on it being there. Example: "for x in foo" relies on foo having __iter__ (or an equivalent, maybe).
Isn't the price point also an ROI issue, though? The journalists and insiders already know what's coming, so paying huge amounts for a booth to preach to the choir doesn't show much of a return. If the point is to talk to gamers and consumers, that might be more of a worthwhile investment.
with all the furor, it seems like its only a matter of time until someone actually redoes this guy's interface for him.
Ask YC: What size display do you use?
Currently, I am trying to switch from a 19 inch to a widscreen 24 inch. What I like about the 19 is that you simply maximize all windows and use alt-tab, and then you never have to move or resize. Also, on the 24 inch my eyes are distracted by the non active window (editing in emacs, but can still see a terminal window).

I'm sure I'll eventually adjust to the larger screen, but nonetheless I'm curious what people use.
The main problem with the article is that it is not journalism, even though it's in the News section of Salon. The guy even tells Reiser, "I'm not really a journalist." This is why the article is peppered with "I"s, "me"s, opinions, speculations, breaches of ethics, and an awkward window onto the author's BDSM experiences.
I can't wait to see what the market will look like when the appstore will open.

I have been developing a similar analytic framework for internal purpose and I am anxious to see some numbers. Should be like facebook applications when they released the platform.
You have clearly never played poker.

Suppose the PC has 2 aces. It knows it has the best hand (worst cast: tie against the last two aces), so it wants to put all the money in. However, the human will just fold because the computer is so predictable. Result: the PC essentially wastes his big hands because of the predictable behavior.

So the computer has to start bluffing, and semibluffing, just like humans. However, with every bluff you make you're wasting money (as bluffs are by definition sub-optimal play). So you have to estimate how much you gain in the future by making that bluff. But if the PC uses simple heuristics then the human can once again get the upper hand. E.g. the human can make outrageous bluffs, knowing that the PC knows the bluffs are unprofitable and therefore unlikely. That way the PC will lose once again.

Poker is not trivial - and people without any number crunching skills can win from the best number crunchers if they're predictable.
Not with a normal window, you can only modify the views inside the window but I guess you could create a new class but it's an overkill.
FCMS: flash editing and submission for authorized users
My impression is that they’re operating entirely without user testing...

So are lots of developers, I assume. At this point only certain selected individuals are allowed to transfer their iPhone app to an actual phone, right?

(Unless they're using unlocked phones and the open development kits... which might have been a good idea. But let's assume they don't have the time or inclination to build an entirely separate app with a separate toolchain just to get an early start on user testing.)

So for all I know that wacky scrolling widget will be quite usable. We should strive to suspend judgement.

It was bound to invite ridicule, though, when viewed in a mockup. The odometer widget is such an obvious "duck" (to borrow a Tufte term [1]) that it's hard to avoid the suspicion that it was designed primarily for its looks, with usability as a distant second.

It's also huge. It's hard to believe that's an efficient use of screen space.

[1] "duck": a huge piece of distracting, nonfunctional decoration that's been applied to your graphics, generally for crass marketing purposes. Named in honor of a photo in Tufte's book depicting a roadside stand in the shape of an enormous bird.
Why not make the yearbook an online publication? It will just get scanned in (at poorer quality) down the road anyway.
I think 5 card draw is the easiest game (for humans and computers alike).
Game theory dude.
Sometimes when people "pay" for something, they value it more or perceive it to be better. If this aids *nix uptake, I'm all for it.
Yes, you're right:

Does the GPL allow me to sell copies of the program for money?

Yes, the GPL allows everyone to do this. The right to sell copies is part
of the definition of free software. Except in one special situation, there
is no limit on what price you can charge. (The one exception is the
required written offer to provide source code that must accompany
binary-only release.)

Does the GPL allow me to charge a fee for downloading the program from my
site?

Yes. You can charge any fee you wish for distributing a copy of the
program. If you distribute binaries by download, you must provide
"equivalent access" to download the source -- therefore, the fee to download
source may not be greater than the fee to download the binary.

(Source: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#DoesTheGPLAllowMone...)
Oh c'mon. Good poker players know all the odds of all hands with an error of at most 2%. Especially in heads-up.

If it's just about number crunching then the first computer AI would be in Omaha Hi-Lo or 7 card stud - because these poker variants have much more complex odds.
I used to use a 20-inch Dell that rotated vertically -- it was great because I could see a lot of code at once, but I noted that I didn't usually view more than one window at a time because I'd just keep one maximized.

Then I switched to a Mac, and found that no matter what size screen I use, I've grown comfortable with multiple windows on the screen.

I saved my money for a LONG time to buy an HP 30" monitor, and I love it. I can keep several open side-by-side at the same time, which I've found extremely useful. It seems to have helped my productivity a lot.

That said, you don't need a 30" screen to see the benefits of a (relatively) larger monitor. A 24" monitor would be great as well IMHO -- that is, if you can get used to the side-by-side window effect.

If you prefer only seeing one window at once, perhaps consider two smaller monitors instead, and then you can have one window maximized on each.

YMMV, of course. It really depends on your workflow and how you like to focus on things.
Yes, you can have views that scroll inside a window. It makes perfect sense for long list of repetitive items (such as the list of videos in the youtube app).
It would be counterintuitive to have controls that are hidden, and you have to scroll down to see them. Many users might not notice them.

BUT, I still think that ui is poorly designed. The iPhone SDK, has a plethora of ready views and controls, or you can even make your own customized view, if you think what the iPhone SDK is providing is not good enough.

So, I think the author of the app didn't want to go the extra mile, to create something that is both useful and appealing.
That would actually be a decent startup idea, if anyone wants to apply to YC with it.
It's a loss leader for them. The idea is that if they can get enough people using Ubuntu, then their actual business (Ubuntu support) will grow, because they will have a larger consumer base to support.
Define "complex memory". Do you mean episodic memory?

fMRI only shows correlation, not causation; any neuroscientist knows this. To prove a causative relationship, you need to use other methods (lesions or TCMS, for example). Show me an example of what you're talking about.
They also found a nearly-25-year-old bug in SAMBA a few months back.
http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=2008050819325...
Quality and Efficiency
I use dual 24" monitors
Dude, if that gets more points than my econometrics tutorial, I'll, uh, do nothing.
They Are Scribd
Hey, I hear Mussolini made the trains run on time.

Hans Reiser is merely a wife-beater, liar, sociopath, and murderer. He's completely worthy of the writer's utter contempt and scorn.
Some bugs are so ornery that they remain hidden for a very long time.
To be more precise, these seem more like feature ideas than product/project ideas. He's totally silent on how this stuff would be presented, consumed, or experienced, and how it would fit into the rest of a product.
Into thin air — Why Silicon Valley Wi-Fi fizzled
The odometer widget combines an entry mechanism with a display mechanism. That saves space. If it responds well enough to touch it might be nice to use.
I live in Brooklyn myself, but Williamsburg isn't terrible convenient. It's equally inconvenient for people coming from UES/UWS and NJ. It would be best if we picked something equally accessible to everyone - in my experience Union Square West Village are usually good middle grounds.

That said, I'm definitely interested. Don't think I'd be able to do it on 7/20, but we should make it a regular thing (and even rotate location). Can we make a Google Group for this or something?
Moon water discovered: Dampens Moon-formation theory
Not necessarily. Basically, the only deception available is overplaying or underplaying a hand. There are also other factors that determine whether it's worthwhile to bet. I'm no expert, but I think the size of the ante or current bet relative to the pot is going to make a bigger impact. A human can manipulate some of these factors to affect the way a machine plays, but this is at a great risk and various human mistakes are inevitable. The machine may be tricked into betting or folding when it shouldn't, but it can be counted on to get the arithmetic right every time. I'm not sure the risk is worth the potential reward in this situation. I'm thinking a human is going to make far more mistakes than the machine.
Not to highjack the question, but have you (or anybody on Unix) tried using any tiling window managers? They seem to be particularly good when one maximized window becomes too much.

* dwm - http://www.suckless.org/wiki/dwm
* XMonad - http://xmonad.org/
* wmii - http://www.suckless.org/wiki/wmii

I prefer dwm, but they each have advantages -- dwm is very minimal and written in clean C, XMonad is written in Haskell, and wmii is turned inside-out, so to speak: it has an internal filesystem and hook-based architecture (like plan9), so you can script it in any language. For example, here's _why talking about extending it in Ruby: http://redhanded.hobix.com/inspect/aFewWmii3Hacks.html
One of the things I learned while playing Warcraft was the importance of scalable interfaces.

When I first started, I was lucky to get my character to move across the screen in a straight line. I didn't know what a mod was, I just wanted to kill squirrels.

By the time I joined a guild and we were raiding high-level instances, I had to have a screen full of mods that tracked every nuance of my characters (and raids) performance. Without them, I would have felt naked and nearly unable to play.

As developers, I think we often forget that folks go through a very rough period of learning how to use an app to being able to quickly navigate it. Once they hit the latter period, there would be no harm in offering them additional power.
That particular story actually went much further than a single letter writer:

http://www.snopes.com/humor/iftrue/potter.asp

And it's not the only such incident:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Onion#The_Onion_taken_serio...
Nov. 2001: "Moshe Yanai, VP of engineering at EMC and the inventor of its Symmetrix flagship storage array, has received a cut of Symmetrix sales for over a decade. And they maintain that the arrangement has thwarted EMC’s ability to create new hardware for a tougher market. ... EMC denies rumors that Yanai is set to leave the company."
http://www.byteandswitch.com/document.asp?doc_id=9644

Dec. 2001: "the chief engineer would no longer oversee the company's hardware division and, instead, would become an adviser to CEO Joseph Tucci. ... Yanai was pushed aside and really sidelined."
http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2001/12/24/newscol...

2002: "XIV is led by Moshe Yanai, one of the key architects of data storage systems and instrumental in the development of EMC's Symmetrix and DMX product lines throughout the 1990s." http://www.xivstorage.com/company/company_background.asp

2008: XIV bought by IBM to compete against EMC.
Leaked MacBook Pro Casing Confirmed?
Assuming 40 hours a week, an extra $0.88 an hour works out at $152.53 a month.
I'm not so sure if SDB is implemented in Erlang.

Check out http://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2007/10/amazons_dynamo.h...

It says:

"In Dynamo, each storage node has three main software components: request coordination, membership and failure detection, and a local persistence engine. All these components are implemented in Java."

"Engines that are in use are Berkeley Database (BDB) Transactional Data Store, BDB Java Edition, MySQL, and an in-memory buffer with persistent backing store."

"All communications are implemented using Java NIO channels. "

I doubt they wrote Dynamo in Java and then converted the whole thing to Erlang.

Also, Erlang does not fit in the 'eventual consistency' and 'failure is an option' model that Amazon like to promote.
Why Analytical Applications Fail
Not really, as your organs would still have to work to process the extra calories. The fewer calories you process the less wear and tear in your organs.

And if you eat a sandwich after running for an hour you're breaking even calorie-wise, so exercise isn't even so efficient.
This sort of leads me to an epiphany -- a large part of what makes new startups interesting (and possibly palatable for acquisition) is how they choose to sort data. I think a good recipe for a startup (in the current climate on the 'net, anyway) is:

Offer a service that happens to build a collection of data.

Find ways to organize that data for your users that are useful, but haven't occurred to anyone before.
Your stomach shrinks when you eat less. You can live comfortably and energetically from 1800-2000 kcal per day. Less if you sit on a chair all day.

Bonus: you save money.
Maybe. The scrolling widget has some advantages over a keypad. It has strong association with the physical odometer in the car (not all cars have odometers like this, mine does not, but it is a very strong association). The user doesn't have to find the label 'enter mileage here' -- it's obvious how to enter mileage, and if it spins (I don't know, but I hope so) it would be intuitive. The user doesn't go through a context switch away from the main screen to use a number pad.

On the other hand, a power user is going to eventually associate screen locations with actions and never read the labels again. That form of association may be the reason for the brightly-colored buttons.
Keep lots of notes and design info, which you can revise quickly, and program from that. Never the other way around or you'll end of with the dreaded programmers apathy.
Ask YC: Is VMWare a good buy?
VMW (http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:VMW) has dropped approximately 25% since the CEO left or was ousted. On top of that it is down from it's high of 125.25. Is it a good buy at approximately $39 a share? I've used VMWare Fusion and have been really pleased. I think they currently hold an advantage because they support so many different operating systems. In the coming years Virtualization is going to happen, will VMW end up being a good investment? Will Xen and Parellels end up taking market share from Microsoft and VMWare? I think it's an interesting topic which may end up being hard to predict. What does Hacker News think?
This article would have been a lot more interesting if it had said something specific to support its claim.

Hans Reiser got convicted, therefore geeks are crowd-followers no less than non-geeks? Hans Reiser committed murder, therefore geeks are crowd-followers no less than non-geeks? The author thought Hans Reiser was probably innocent until he saw the evidence, therefore geeks are crowd-followers no less than non-geeks?
i ordered a few kubuntu CDs a while ago and use them to convert my less technical friends to kubuntu. People just like pretty packaged CD's. I would.t buy them though, but its a good idea, from canonicals side to shipped these free CDs. Its like a free demo, if you like it, you buy support. It seems to be working, they are still not out of business, i don't know how profitable they are though.
Ah, you're giving people too much credit. Collective bitching is easy and fun, constructive work is hard.
Misleading headline. We're no closer to room temperature superconductivity than we were in the 1980s.

edit: Correction: the 1990s.
Same here, for the same reason.
A lot of these would require a lot of money or are impossible because they tap into proprietary software or data services. More things need an API...
scribd seems to be as annoying as NYT, why do I need to sign in to download?
"Going up 400% in half a year versus 300% in two years is pretty volatile."

But for all we know the latter item could have gone up 1,000,000% in the interim and then settled down to 300% at the end of two years.
The Camera is Watching You: VideoIQ Puts Smarts into Surveillance