skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
See, I was going to mention SF. It seems to be becoming less and less popular these days. Why is that? Do you think it's become too big for its boots?
In the FAQ, Bostrom says he personally assigns about 20% probability to the idea we are living in a simulation, and that he views (2), that the posthumans are unlikely to run ancestor simulations, a bit more likely than the others.

Colloquially, it would be fair to say he 'believes' (2) -- as in the most likely of exclusive options, if he had to make one choice, if he had to bet, etc. And he definitely believes Union(2+3) more than (1).
Who says atheism == nihilism?

I consider my life rich with meaning and spiritual satisfaction. I relish my place in this species, my instincts and my awareness of them. My scant century-or-so of life is a limited quantity, and that motivates me to use it to live and love and push for everything I can achieve.
I honestly can't see what's in it for Sun here. They have an excellent, free kernel of their own in OpenSolaris. Dtrace is one of Solaris crown jewels. What possible advantage could it be to them to invest in two different free Unixes?
I would assume your false account rates are much higher then. It certainly cheapens the value of your database when you can't address them by name. It's the idea of getting an email that says,

Hi kgu39573! We have a new, important announcement that we really want you to listen to.

or

Hi, John. We have a new, important announcement that we really want you to listen to.

Studies have shown people respond better when using their name. Period. People that don't use this may have better signup rates but do they have a better/quality database?
It's pretty dry here in no-faith-land.

What a very sad way to look at life.
CompTIA - A malicious site?
I recently got my A+ certification so that I can nab a job to hold me over until I can get a programming gig (no one wants to hire a CS major for tech work). I headed to CompTIA's website to download my certificate and was presented with a Firefox's "Reported Attack Site" warning. According to Google's Safe Browsing Diagnostic report, there are 2 pages being hosted at CompTIA that result in the installation of Malicious content without users consent... Maybe the CompTIA organization needs to brush up on their security information...

http://blog.eznet.frih.net/?p=88
I recently got my A+ certification so that I can nab a job to hold me over until I can get a programming gig (no one wants to hire a CS major for tech work and no one wants a programmer with 'no' experience). I headed to CompTIA's website to download my certificate and was presented with a Firefox's "Reported Attack Site" warning. According to Google's Safe Browsing Diagnostic report, there are 2 pages being hosted at CompTIA that result in the installation of Malicious content without users consent... Maybe the CompTIA organization needs to brush up on their security information...

http://blog.eznet.frih.net/?p=88
Thanks. Very good marketing point. I didn't necessarily think of that. We'd need to get the names at some point in the process anyway.
My impression is that it's painfully slow and the UI is horrid. Six clicks to download a package and it's not very clear even then.
I don't think this observation--kids from immigrant parents tend to focus more on education--is limited to any particular race, but is a byproduct of the immigrants themselves. In order to leave their home countries, they had to have the personality characteristics which granted them escape. When coming from areas that are not easy to emigrate from, this is commonly through scholastic achievement. It certainly was the case with my father leaving Iran, and seems to be the case with the author of this piece. As such, the best students of a nation--whether they are from Nigeria, Iran, or China--come to America and instill the same values in their children, the values that got them to this country. Interestingly enough, these values seem almost universal. I've gotten the "don't chase women, let them chase you" speech so many times I can recite it, yet the more I hear it from children of other immigrants, the more I regard it as truth than just my father's pontifications.

An interesting question would be to look at the children a few generations removed, to see if they continue the emphasis on education, or if they are swamped by American culture.
Lyrics? I can't make out all of them :S
Thanks for the tips, was looking at github.
This isn't really related to CompTIA, but in regards to nobody wanting to hire a programmer with "no" experience.

If you're having a hard time getting an entry-level gig somewhere, I would suggest building a code portfolio. It should contain code samples (in multiple languages, if you can) as well as some working program code.

Web development is going to be the easiest place to get your foot in the door, so maybe you should build a web page with some forms, some javascript, etc etc etc.

There are entry level jobs out there, you just have to put yourself ahead of everyone else trying for them.
Sitting for long periods in anything has an impact on your health.
It can be said, but I disagree that the statement has the same significance either way. Of course you can hypnotize yourself about startup environments too - I was just commenting on this (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=237891). But nearly all the enormous pressure of social conformity is on the other side, so the hypnotic pull of the corporate mainstream has no counterpart here. Many people believe they have no choice but to work at a corporate job. Far fewer believe they have no choice but to work at a startup.

Also, we're not talking about having a startup job. We're talking about founding a startup around something you yourself find creatively fulfilling, something that is worth eating ramen for. That's a big difference. Eating ramen to fulfill somebody else's dream (and I've done that) doesn't feel very good. We're talking about being free to do work of one's own - and to own one's work.
I tend to go either way when building a site, depending on the market and how people are going to interact with the site and with others. On sites with kids, using real names is a BIG turn off and if it isn't clear how the name will be used, people will pass.

It's anecdotal, but I use my real name in many places (not ycombinator, ironically), but my wife never will. If she can't choose some sort of display name, she will pass or use fake info.

Also, you might want to check out Smashing Magazine's recent survey of signup web forms. They touch on this a little bit. They don't give much other than statistics, but it might lead to some good discussion. http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/07/04/web-form-design-p...
Thanks for the pointers... Yea, I have recently acquired a rough understanding of Python and am picking up Django at the moment to hopefully increase my marketability and show my ability to pick new skills...
That's absolutely a great idea. The YC Primer. Someone should seriously do this, now. Or, ask PG to set it up and promote it.
Saul Kripke is an example of this. Terrified of publishing in case he doesn't live up to his immense talent.
Thanks I'll check it out. Appreciate it.
I suspect that this, more than anything else, is why traditional journals are doomed to become archives. With the net, you can just post what you've done, and good stuff will filter to the top. Just like everything else.
McCain hates the bloggers
This gets much more general: successful people almost always believe that their way to success is the best (or at least one of the best) ways to have gotten there. In fact, that's mostly what this site is about. ;-)
A couple of UX points:

It took me a fews seconds to find the video link, even though I was specifically looking for it -- both it's visual appearance and sidebar placement had me thinking it was an ad. And once I did see it, it wasn't obvious from the wording "Catch the Nixty Vision," that this was a link to a video.

I would style the video button just like the "join the beta" button and move it into the header space. I would also change the wording to "watch our introductory video" with the small text below saying "learn about the nixty vision" or something similar.

Now your header section looks like this:
LOGO + tagline | Watch intro vid | Join beta
Just checked it out. Here are the take home points:
* the registration link is titled “sign up” (40%) and placed in the right upper corner,
* sign-up forms have a simplified layout to avoid distractions for users (61%),
* sign-up forms are one-page-forms (93%),
* sign up forms attract visitors by explaining the benefits of registration (41%),
* titles of the input fields are highlighted bold (62%)
* no trend in the label alignment can be identified,
* designers tend to use few mandatory fields,
* designers tend to use few optional fields,
* vertically arranged fields are preferred to horizontally arranged fields (86%).

So, it seems, from this data, that 3-5 fields are OK, including full name and username.
Perhaps our universe's resolution bottoms out at the quantum level, where a hack saves processing at the lowest level by using probabilities and a lazy evaluation scheme instead of deterministic calculations.
"kids from immigrant parents tend to focus more on education"

Or, more accurately, kids from voluntary immigrant parents tend to focus more on education. C.f. Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities: A Cultural-Ecological Theory of School Performance with Some Implications for Education. Ogbu himself is actually a Nigerian.
For a site like that I would gather the first/last name and then suggest a generated username based on that combo, something like jsmith22.

Generate it in a text box, so that the user can edit it, if they don't like it. Or if you want the site to be more professional, don't give them the option to edit.

I figure these people are usually used to using format like that for usernames from their jobs/schools
You can "not use" the government by moving to another country. Also, Facebook does get money from you through their advertising directed at you. If they want to stay alive, they definitely should care what you think.
Thanks! I appreciate the specific feedback. I can see your point. We actually struggled with what to say on the copy. It does seem that the header is the main place for these types of things.
Make it four. It's really frustrating to have to read two words at a time in places. To shorten the video and keep people reading combine slides. There were two that were "...global community and..." "...diversity..." that could have easily been one. The point is to get your message across, not show me as many pretty pictures as you can.
The repetition kills you

You feel lonesome don't you
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
The light that you seek just aint in you today
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

So bang your head against the wall
But no one wants to see you fall down
The repetition kills you, the repetition kills you, the repetition kills you

Put your hands over your eyes
And stumble your way through the night
The repetition kills you, the repetition kills you, the repetition kills you

You feel lonesome don't you
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
The light that you seek just aint in you today
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

So shout until your hear no more
But don't you ever ask yourself why
The repetition kills you, the repetition kills you, the repetition kills you

Dig yourself a bottomless hole
But don't you ever lose that light
The repetition kills you, the repetition kills you, the repetition kills you

This is a repetition of words, dancing needs a
repetiton to work

You feel lonesome don't you
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
The light that you seek just aint in you today
Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh

So bring it up, bring it up, bring it up yeah
The repetition kills you
So bring it up, bring it up, bring it up yeah
The repetition kills you
So bring it up, bring it up, bring it up yeah
The repetition kills you
So bring it up, bring it up, bring it up yeah
The repetition kills you
> Alternatively you could reject the Simulation Argument that says the three propositions are mutually incompatible - but if so, how?

Suppose the universe started normally a few billion years ago (explosion) and humans appeared several million years ago and we're not in any simulation right now. But at some point in the future there will be such simulations and "people" will "live" in them. Unlikely? Sure. Impossible? Nope.
Thanks for the feedback. Yeah, part of the point with the pictures was to try to get a certain kind of feeling/mood across. Text is pretty bad at doing that. However, if it is too long and things need to be combined, then I think we can still get the general feel across with combined words and slides.
Steve Urkel.
Wumi, color does not have much to do with popularity.

Popularity depends on what you do better than the average guy and where you do it.

In America (where Hollywood and Sports are kings) if you play football better than 98% of your schoolmates you are likely to be popular. The same does not hold truth for a top programmer within is high school.

In some parts of your continent, yo could be the best soccer player in the neighborhood, it would not matter. The kid who gets the girl is the kid who scores As in school, although that kid is not much worried about girls.
Thanks. It does fit in a weird sort of way :p
The disruptive potential of GPS on the iPhone 3G
a hedge?
Ask HN: Is there a free download of countries and their major cities available?
I've got an app that needs to list countries and major cities in a couple of drop down boxes. I found one but it costs $1049.95 - http://www.download32.com/geodatasource-world-cities-database--gold-edition--i24139.html. Anyone know of anything a little cheaper, like free?
The author of this missive is either young enough to not understand back pain (say, under 25), or lucky enough to have avoided any back problems in his life (maybe no manual labor in his history, but enough leisure activity to give him a reasonably strong core). I used cheap chairs for years...and would frequently experience crippling back pain.

I injured my back a few times as a kid (skateboards and BMX freestyle bikes, mostly), and so I just thought it's the way things were. Then I started having severe pain in my elbows and throughout my hands, making it difficult to work. So, I switched to a minimal-mouse environment, and started spending more time away from the keyboard, which helped with both problems to some degree. But in the end the only thing that eventually resolved all of those issues was getting a better chair. I bought an Aeron at the Arthur Anderson liquidation auction for about $450 (I was going to bid on a shredder, but my dad reminded me that they would already be worn out), and I'm still sitting in it several years later. I rarely experience back pain anymore, and my elbow, wrist and hand problems are long gone and have never returned, despite my going back to a more mouse-heavy environment.

Chairs are not a "princess and the pea" type of situation, and the notion that a good work environment doesn't help productivity is just retarded. I don't believe in useless excess, either, and I still use the same modest oak desk I've had for over fifteen years. I used a 21" HP UNIX workstation CRT that I'd bought for $25 bucks for about seven years. But I'm not going to live with back pain to save a few bucks on a chair, and I would never work for someone that expected me to sit in a crappy chair. And, I think most places intuitively understand this...even if they don't have Aerons or other trendy chairs, most businesses have reasonably nice Keilhauer or Steelcase chairs or something along those lines.
Are there many people living today whose parents were involuntary immigrants?
I saw Banjamin Nugent, author of "American Nerd: The Story of My People", on a talk show a few weeks ago. He mentioned that nerdiness can be a kind of 'hyperwhiteness', a refusal to adopt the black-influenced lingo and styles of cool kids.

He talks about that theory -- credited to a UC Santa Barbara linguist, Mary Bucholtz -- a bit in this recent interview with the LA Times:

http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-ca-nerd15-2008jun15...
Trac (at least the way most projects have it set up) is pretty new user unfriendly.

This is ok if your project is targetted at users who are developers, but if you want fresh blood and the less (initially) motivated to get drawn in a priority should be:

* A concise explanation of what the project is.

* A nice forum. Maybe even with no registration until you get established.

* Easy bug reporting. (Maybe not a bug tracker - a forum for bugs can be really effective provided the dev's or some support people read it.)
Love this article. About 7 years ago, I found a friend who was completely focused on becoming a better leader and we both tried to improve together.

It has made a huge difference.
I sometimes like to stand when coding, especially when I'm running back and forth between the whiteboard. I think everyone should give it a try if they can - it's not as tiring as you'd think and it does wonders for posture.
Twitter, tweitter, twitter. Is there nothing else?
I don't know about another dimension, but a pretty cool display nonetheless
It makes me laugh too. Here in the UK has cost more than $100 to fill up a Ford Focus for at least a year. God known how much a full fill up of a Hummer would cost.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries ?

And then about eight hours' work to look up and type in the names of all the major cities in each country?
I'm not American. So I don't really have anything bad to say about McCain, though I am aware he is not very popular on the net ;) However, I think he should learn how to use computer first before attacking the bloggers:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/11/mccain-admits-he-do...

In my country also, many politicians do not like bloggers. Some of them don't even really know what 'blogger' is. I know one politician in my country said, "Blogger is internet."
The short answer: It's not better. It's basically a clone of MS Office pre-2007, which is what everyone is using anyway. When the time comes to change, it'll be to the next version of Office, which will, by that time, be the standard, and OO.o will still not be /better/.
absolutely, wandering around randomly every hour or two is also key for doing good problem solving or research. I honestly don't think I'd be able to function sitting in one location for a few hours unless its something of the magnitude of a finishing touches on a thesis project or the like. Kinda rules out a whole bunch of jobs I don't want anyways!
There are two things my Grandpa (A Joiner) used to say that stuck with me. A good tradesman never blames his tools, and money spent on cheap tools is money wasted.

I think Jeff has a point, I spend long periods at my desk and after having a few bouts of bad back problems I'm very selective about where I park my butt.

Jeff mentioned that he has used his chair for ten years. My grandfathers tools are still being used in our family 30-40 years after they were bought.

I think that people in the IT industry need to give there workspace as much consideration as what OS/programming language/Framework they use. You can always change your OS/language/framework but your stuck with your back and wrists for a lifetime!
Interestingly, groups can use Ning for all of this, can't they. It comes built in with all the stuff talked about?
And again... I'm putting a few finishing touches on a port of Distel to PLT Scheme that I plan to release this week. I mention it now only because I would hate to see this article inspire anyone to go off and invest in too much duplication of effort. Lisp and Erlang do go together very nicely.

But to answer the question posed by the article, FFI binding to the C erl_interface quickly gets very nasty, with lots of manual memory management. (It was the first thing I tried, since PLT has such great FFI support.) It's actually much easier to just speak the wire protocol, esp. with the Distel source to build on.
Gmail’s Mysterious Grey Box
At Polar Rose we simply started to put projects on Google Code. Some are well documented, others are mostly code dumps and need more attention. We use subversion internally and Maven for working with well defined (Java) components/libraries. So there is not much difference between working on code hosted in the public or private repositories.

The most difficult thing was actually not a technical thing but a mindset issue: To teach people in the teams how they can identify components that can be released as open source. And to actually do it.
The Growth Mindset
Hi philh!

Bug report of your thought:

The second option you mentioned - about disposing off usernames and using email addresses as unique identifiers - is not feasible in glen's case, because he intends to use the unique identifer as a part of the url.

@glen: collect the first name and last name only if u need them. If you just want to address your users then, you can just do "Hi [username], what's up? Bla... Bla... [some-username] has sent you a message..."
Slow. Advertisements. Lame mailing list archives. Lame issue tracker. Lame forums. Lame/oldskool SVN browser. Advertisements. Lot's of downtime.
Who voted up this crap??
As a user of SF, I hate it. It's very unfriendly requiring more links than reasonable to get to the actual download. Also the ads are just horrible.
'The most popular destination for asylum seekers of all nationalities in 2007 was the US, with an estimated 49,200 new asylum claims'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7301985.stm
Actually, Steve Urkel was very popular (IRL).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Urkel#The_Ratings