skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Be transparent. Share your work constantly. Solicit feedback. Appreciate critiques. Let other people point out your mistakes.

I agree with this fundamental thought expressed in the post.

But sometimes making the decision of 'when' to open source your code, does also have to take in to account the 'community acceptance' factor. If the code is of not that great a quality, it can put off potential key contributors, and actually wrongly tag that product with a hard to get rid of 'below average' kind of label.

Of course, once its out, or if someone is contributing to an existing open source project, throwing 'code-bombs' isn't a great idea at all.
I love you, nirmal.
PodiPodi: Enso / Quicksilver for the Web
Working brilliantly on OpenSUSE 10.3 here. Define "doesn't work"?
I once posted allot of code from my misc directory and it was just generally useless code, some of it was just unfinished, and some of it wasn't supposed to do anything so it couldn't be finished and some of the code worked, though most of it was just some stuff i wrote as fast as i could type and not even run it later to see if it works. Like some form of instant poetic inspiration witch you might write down or record in a dictaphone on the street but not publish it in a book or even read it to your friends. I have a lot of those and i am not afraid to share them just for the fun of it. I also share my not useless code(witch isn't much). I also wrote one of my school exams in python and showed it to some friends(i think it was a biology exam or something) :D
>People who think they can mimic consciousness on computers have more in common with magical thinking then with science because they have absolutely no deep understanding of consciousness.

You had me until that line.
I hadn't thought of programming this way but it rings true. Call it the "genius complex" or "hacker complex": wanting to create something great alone and in a short timeframe then "unveil" it and bask in praise from peers. Unfortunately for self-approved geniuses and hackers, great things are built incrementally.

"The Myths of Innovation" by Scott Berkun has something to say along these lines but in general terms rather than in terms of programming. Check it out:

http://www.amazon.com/Myths-Innovation-Scott-Berkun/dp/05965...
"The Fabric of Reality" is horrible; there's way too much hand-waving going on in that book.
On Opera, it says "Unsupported browser". Why not?
"I applaud MSFT and Ballmer for not giving into Wall St. and foolishly trying to boost the stock price at all costs. I think MSFT is extremely well positioned to be an industry leader."

Hello Mr. Investor? We want your money. What's that? No, you don't get any returns, we're going to become an Industry Leader.

Seriously, if they don't want to actually make money for their investors, they ought to go private. They need to buy all of the stock back from the public markets and then they can do whatever they want.

If they want to sink billions into XBox just so they can thump their chest about having a successful platform, as a private company they can do that.

If they want to release products like Zune just so they can thump their chest about being the hub of the digital media lifestyle, as a private company they can do that.
I was also interested in Woz's watch i.e. what was on the display/facia. Can't get a clear view of it in the video though
...apart from the time, that is :)
MeMobile, You Kaput: Apple's plan to take over the world
Citibank Student Loan
Discover important information you need to know before applying for a Citibank Student Loan
> Someone once told me that if you, as a contractor, don't get a response of "fuck you!" in response to your estimates about half the time, you aren't charging enough.

The variation of that story that I once heard was this: when the interviewer asks your hourly rate, tell them, then punch them in the face. If they're more shocked by being punched in the face, you aren't asking enough.
I get this too sometimes but have never been able to figure out the problem.

It can happen after I have started and closed the interpeter and then start it again.
I don't think he wants to be doing freelancing at that age, or even building simple web sites for small businesses. Learning is what he ought to aim for, and that means something like an internship at a small, cool company.
Two programmers walk into a bar..
BuzzMachine » FU AP
Dell E and E Slim revealed, taking on Eee and Air in one fell swoop
Unwritten Google Webmaster Guideline: Don't End URLs in .0
>for what it's worth, a toy example is just a classical computer simulating everything in our universe we've yet seen.

I think the state of the classical computer qualifies as a nonlocal hidden variable.

To use the language of formal logic, the classical computer is a model for quantum theory, i.e. (classical computer) |- QM. Within the QM theory, the computer qualifies as a non-local hidden variable, even though within the classical theory the computer is embedded in, it is local.

Another toy example is Bohmian mechanics on configuration space: the theory is just a local PDE + local particle. But that's non-local in physical space.

>We don't even have a consistent definition of entanglement for three or more particles. We don't know, we haven't been able to calculate, but I have reason to suspect, that measurement consistent with Born probabilities could be entirely explained by the deterministic axioms already part of Quantum Mechanics.

Decoherence makes sense on the macroscale (1000+ particles), although it's true that 40 particles is iffy. Different classical states (i.e., experimental apparatus has light on vs light off) are separated by a distance sqrt(number of particles) in configuration space, and don't interact.

As for explaining measurement with Born probabilities, that's reasonable. My co-conspirators and I currently have a physical, macroscale model where we show this to be true (no citation yet, but I'd be happy to explain more via email). But you still need some ontology.

All deterministic QM can show is that the probabilities work out correctly; i.e., the born probability of (measurement 1 says spin up, measurement 2 says spin down) = 0.

You still need a way to actually pick a configuration based on that probability distribution. The universe as we (you, me, even pg) know it is a point in configuration space, not a wavefunction. I'm happy with both MW and Bohm for that purpose.
Why Do I Seek Professional Support From Email Marketing Company?
Everyday we are typing hundreds of emails and shooting to our corporate peers and personal associates , then how come is it necessary to resort to an email marketing company for branding or selling products online? Why and how do those email marketing solution providers make an email look different than an email composed by us? Many a times, I have come across on the net or by manually spread out fliers or pamphlets that email marketing companies are offering email marketing templates or wizards, content management services targeted to create compelling email contents, adding alluring graphical appearance. Along with this, these email marketing agencies offer list of mailers to be sent, selection of promotional offers to be declared through emails, tracking software for calculating recipients' responses etc., and that too at low cost budget. Before I jump to conclusions, I need opinion on their effectiveness or whether is it really feasible to seek so called 'professional' assistance in building or maintaining customer relations from an email marketing company?
TorrentRelay - yes you can download torrents with your browser
On the other hand, most artists like to keep their work secret untill it has reached a certain level of readiness, or am I mistaken? Unfinished paintings, books, poems...
I think in MW, there are continuously many (macroscopically identical) lefty universes and continuously many righty universes.

So one macroscopic state (righty) corresponds to a set of finite volume; the set of all configurations who's macroscopic state (i.e., ignore quantum details humans can't see) looks like righty.

So all one can reasonably ask is "what is the probability my universe lives in that volume?" The obvious answer is the integral of |\psi|^2 over that volume, but that is a postulate, not something you can derive from the schrodinger equation.
Is Apple hoarding information like the Soviet-era Kremlin?
I'd bet it's a line or two of code that, at one point, seemed like a downright brilliant hack/idea to the engineer writing it - and, like so many other "inspired moments," it's come back to haunt...

Definitely weird, though!
LPTS, do you think Kurzweil and gang are hurtful, or just wrong?
Yeah - here's a talk from 2007 where he slams Kurzweil (a bit unfairly imo).

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8832143373632003914

Particularly, where he says that there is no 'knee' of an exponential curve - well duh, where the slope hits 1. I get the impression that he's a bit lost to life since his wife died.
Yahoo.com promoting Firefox
You can now see "Download the Firefox browser now!" link right next to "Make Y! your home page"
at the top.

Good job Yahoo!, this will make MS little sad.
I understand about not wanting to share code in progress. Even though there are 427 coding methodologies, each of us still wants to work in our own style. Chances are likely the someone won't understand what we're doing even if we do. If I want feedback, I'll ask when I'm ready.

Finished code. OTOH, is a totally different animal. Not wanting your code to be peer reviewed is indeed insecure, stupid, and in many commercial shops, a violation of protocol. Only a fool expects no feedback.

Junior Programmer: "I'm not sure it's right."

Mediocre Programmer: "It's not right until I say so."

Good Programmer: "It's not right until you say so."
The answer direct from the Woz...

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/wozmodo/woz-explains-his-sporting...
I'm imagining the interaction to be a little like a bayesian spam filter-- a training period, followed by occasional corrections.

The UX is key, as you indicated-- imagine a nice tight grid of matches for one person (each cropped to just the face area), and you can click each picture to toggle yes/no, with perhaps some more advanced interaction possible for algorithm-specific training (indicating angle, or eye position, or a sunglasses yes/no toggle).
I was just gonna post a reply but then I read this. My thoughts exactly.
MySql Lite Administrator
Was Google trying to prevent UNIX log files from indexing? Maybe man pages? In any case this looks just weird.
So I went to add this splitview thing to my Greasemonkey script for Hacker News, only I did the same thing without hitting your site for the frameset (completely clientside js). It works quite nicely, but for some reason I had to resort to something I consider quite ugly.

Can someone please look at the code below (and read my comments in it) and tell me why the three addEventListeners that I have commented out won't work? I'd really really like to know why I am being retarded and how to fix it, as the solution I ended up with seems unnecessarily ugly.

View code here: http://userscripts.org/scripts/review/25039

Or if you don't care about it being ugly and just want to use it: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/25039

But I'd really appreciate help with figuring out the issue with the addEventListeners.
Is the MTA (NYC subways) trying to make the trains go on time like in Fascist-era Italy?
So to spoil the ending...you know it. Is this a fiction story? If so, making up a story to make a point does not make sense.
Show off your JS-Fu, make me feel dumb(er).
When your point is not true (as in this case) making up a story is the only option.

When projects go that poorly they take out the people who are stuck and put in someone with a reputation for getting things done.

Doing a project well and fast only whets their appetite for more.
Why the lucky stiff Wikipedia entry page to be deleted
Agreed. I volunteered to build a simple web site for a biology professor. That was in 2005, and I've worked in the department every year since building bioinformatics and biological database applications. I'm currently working on a project to build a database cataloging short motifs in proteins and their functions. It's honestly been the best experience I could have ever hoped for.
I was able to install it just fine. I'm on OS X with FF2.
I just wrapped your code in a closure so it would run immediately. This makes GreaseKit or Greasemonkey prompt you to install. This way you don't have to go and install it manually.

Thanks for turning me back on to userscripts!
The multiple personalities of Twitter
Pivot: Swing++ as New Java-based RIA Platform?
MySpace plans to launch a global redesign next week
After looking at the slides, I really want to see page 16 and the elusive important information!
What a ladies man! My iphone hacking skills never go down well with the ladies :(
Fake Steve Jobs gets a real new job: Leaving Forbes for Newsweek
Taking away that 1/3 share of his partner Saverin (who seeded facebook) by transfering verything to another company was kinda lame. But I guess, if you want to be a good business man, you have to be greedy after all.
The Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) is exactly what is seems to be: a single python interpreter only allows one thread to run a one time regardless of the number of CPUs or cores available.

This lock is per instance of the python interpreter. Multiple instances will have a corresponding number of locks.

There are a couple of ways to have python use multiple cores or CPUs.

The first is to run multiple python instances and have them communicate between themselves using IPC mechanisms (e.g. sockets, pipes, shared memory, etc.). The non-standard "processing" module implements this very cleanly using a similar interface to the standard "threading" module.

The second is to extend Python using C and explicitly release the GIL inside the C extension. This allows both the C extension code and the Python interpreter to run simultaneously. However, the GIL will need to be reacquired before the C extension can resume any interaction with the Python interpreter.
He looks a bit like Jack Black, does he not?

His achievements are certainly impressive. I would be content to draw half as well and be half as imaginative. Great product and tool creator and has a band? Come on, do not crush us.

Thanks and keep up the good work!
I had modified the bookmarklet to allow opera but it doesn't like the code on my splitting page. I'm not sure why though. It's pretty tame JS. Opera also doesn't show me any errors in the Error Console.
It's a natural reaction for any creative to keep their work under wraps until it's ready, but ready is relative to the medium (and the creator).

Having worked professionally as an illustrator before becoming a programmer, I can confidently argue most illustrations don't look close to complete until you've laid down 95% of the paint. If you've worked all week on an illustration, and it doesn't meet your expectations, more often than not you need to begin with a clean canvas.

Code, on the other hand, can be functional in as little as one line. Functionality can be built upon that, and you can refactor code more often than not without destroying the functionality that relies upon it. Code is an infinitely more flexible medium.

The impulse to shelter your work from critical eyes is powerful, but "unsightly" work can be altered at the drop of a hat. Perhaps programmers need to be a little more open.
I think in our domain (software), there may be some additional rational to keeping things secret. An unpolished early revision of code may be a much better way to judge a job applicant than a resume. No one would consider publishing the rough draft of their resume.

The appropriate counter argument (IMHO), is that "unpolished" is different than "poorly written", and you generally don't want to work with managers that can't comprehend and appreciate the difference.
Geek Girls: Revenge of the Nerdettes
Aww, he just went to jailbreakme.com and hit the button. I was hoping for some 1337 haxxor action.
Commitment?? Who needs commitment? Start reading GEB. If you enjoy it, read on. If not, stop.
Love the headline.
I really like myspace, it's all the people I can't stand. What? Social network? Oh..hurm.
Electoral Programming by Russ Cox
There are so many things that suck about Google Checkout that it's just pointless to rant. Chris could spend the next two months, I bet, writing "Google Checkout: How Not to..." posts.
Import Blogger Posts to Tumblr
> a dentist's son worth an estimated $1.5 billion

If they can't monetize Facebook, is he really worth anything?
"Cryonics is the second-stupidest thing I ever heard of. Being eaten by worms is the first-stupidest." --Timothy Leary. He gave up cryonics before he died, though, and was cremated.
This is something I can relate to very well - I work for a large company that out sources lots of work to India - some of the developers are good, some terrible (as they are everywhere) - but without fail they refuse to show you anything until its all done. There are at least two problems with this:

* Often they make poor implementation decisions that as the 'designer' (I hate branding myself with that term) I don't like and know it could be done a different way, but now that X weeks of development work have been done, its too late to change it.

* Reviewing a big blob of code like that is a nightmare - easier if I get drip fed it feature by feature. Also, often when reviewing code I have noticed a junior developer will use the same anti-pattern over and over again - so they have to refactor all through the code - if such an error was noticed early, it would have resulted in much less work overall.
There is a reason that athlete's foot is called athlete's foot...
Ubuntu 8.04 x86_64 fully updated - everything working fine here.
I'm hoping to get a job. Can't think of a better gift for my dad ;-)
Well made points.

Just keep this in mind: you can voice your opinion at anytime as well as be proactive. You just need to make sure you thought about what and how you're going to say it well in advance. Acting on pure emotions and not some form of strategy can get you in trouble.
Google is Mayking Us Smartr, Not Stoopider. Or, Why Nicholas Carr is Wrong About the Internet
Ask YC: Contributing to Mathematics Journal?
While working on a (coding) project I had need of a particular numerical method/algorithm which is pretty popular and used in many places. While working with it, I noticed that with a small change to the fundamental idea of the method would result in a pretty decent improvement in terms of efficiency and accuracy, and rewrote it. A friend recommended that I try to publish the revised algorithm in an academic journal as it would be good for my career, etc.

What's the general opinion about coders contributing to scientific journals in the community? Keeping in mind that I've never even read a mathematics journal (though I have read many individual articles here and there), what would be a good journal to approach and how does one go about submitting an article for peer review with them (process, steps, requirements, etc.)?
That's a shame. Academia exists to challenge traditional thinking.
UPDATES:
For greasemonkey/kit users. Clicking Split View links in the right frame will now not cause internal splitting.

UPDATES:
I can't edit the main post anymore so I thought I would try and summarize the updates here.

Oompa posted a Greasemonkey script here: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/28371

I modified to work on multiple pages under hacker news, you can find it here: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/28372

The bookmarklet still works and is located at the URL in the post.

The bookmarklet will not continue adding SPLIT VIEW links after it has been used once.
Parts of it are stunningly beautiful, but they've been wasted:

Square corners? Check.
Windows 95 shade of gray? Check.
Fail? Unfortunately.
"Dynamic programming is an odd name for what is essentially cached recursion, minus the recursion."

"It's easy to see the SSA advocates saying that CPS is just SSA with a bunch of extra lambdas floating around for no good reason!"

But the interesting part is the code of course.
Google Speeds Up Mobile Search
Apple stock hit again on concerns about Steve Jobs' health
> Who wants to work for bozos anyways.

The article is about Yahoo!, not Amaz... Oh, I thought you said "Bezos." Nevermind.
From User Experience Design to Modular Innovation (weekend reading)
I find his blog (http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/) often very funny.

Insight with wit. Better than just insight or just wit. imho.
FWIW: I've also recently ported to Tumblr. The Python code I cooked up for the import grew into:

http://code.google.com/p/python-tumblr/
The process varies from journal to journal, but often you can just submit a paper online (see http://ams.org/mcom/mcomsubmit.html for example).

That said, if you're not familiar with the journal your odds of getting a paper accepted on your own are rather slim. A better approach would be to find someone with publication experience in the field and get them to look over your work before you submit it -- if you don't have anyone else, I'd be happy to help with this.

As for which journal to approach -- it depends on the material, of course. A good place to start is with whichever journal is most frequently named in your list of references. :-)
This is what I was going to recommend, so +1

I got my first "programming" job as an intern at Cessna (in 1996). The job sucked (Fortran on a mainframe), but it was awesome resume fodder for the next few years.

Plus I can say that I worked in Fortran ;)
If you've done stuff with logic and theory of computation before, the opening of GEB is not terribly difficult, and it will pull you through to the next parts. If you haven't, you might consider it a fun introduction to the subjects that you would have to read more slowly.

The upside is definitely worth a few reading struggles. It's one of those once-in-a-lifetime books (by which I mean that you don't come across books this great often; I don't mean you should read it once and throw it on the fire).

I encourage you to give it a shot.
Quality Health Care at Affordable Prices
It is really bad to recruit teens into IT industry. Let them enjoy their life till 21 or 22.
No it's not.

Anybody in the world can add an AfD tag to an article and put it up for deletion. Go ahead, try it: you can get DHH or Paul Graham listed right now. But without a clear consensus to delete, the article isn't going anywhere. Moreover, once the article survives an AfD, it is harder to delete in the future.

This article is running 2-1 keep. I've never seen an AfD succeed with half that opposition. All you can do at this point is piss the WP hobbyists off, have the delete discussion devolve into an argument about "voting versus debating", and make the discussion that much harder for the deleting admin to assess.

Sorry, I know it's a slow news day, but this doesn't count.
"Often they make poor implementation decisions"

Are they coding to a spec? If you're outsourcing you better be or you're just asking for trouble.

"Reviewing a big blob of code like that is a nightmare"

Right. That's why "big blobs of code" are never acceptable. Use whatever strategy you want: structured code, object orientation, reuseable components, etc., but use something.

The problem isn't outsourcing. And it isn't lack of incremental reviews. The problem is in standards, methodologies, and project management. You'd think a "large company" would know better.
Cool. Yours looks more like something with long-term developer value. Mine was just a quick tool designed to be used once by people who don't want to code.
Thanks. I have a pretty good relationship with some university professors who I could ask for a hand - but I've heard scary stories about professors taking all the credit?
log files was my first thought :).
Russia's president calls for Cyrillic Internet domain (TLD)