skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
A few stories behind the pictures:

- The programmer is probably playing guitar because he is waiting for his compile. It had to be batched and returned, sometimes hours later. Imagine getting things done with only one compile per day.

- The programmer is giving an obscene gesture to the terminal because he forgot a semicolon (more likely a period in his COBOL program) and will now have to wait another day for a clean compile. Move that deadline back to October.

- The terminal the programmer is giving an obscene gesture to is a state-of-the-art Datawriter, a PAPER-DRIVEN terminal. A moment of silence is needed for all the trees sacrificed for our future.

- The programmer was special because he had access to the Datawriter, which was probably in the computer room. Anyone else, including all users, had to use pencil and special forms (like taking their SATs) to enter data into the IBM Mainframe. Those forms went to the Data Control Unit where teams of mostly women keypunched the data onto 80 column cards which were fed into a hopper. The early keypunch machines put the holes in the cards as you typed, so that if you made a mistake, you had to start over with a new card. Later, these machines had memory, so you could finish the virtual card, and hit a key that did the whole card. Probably saved a lot of paper.

- Notice all the coats hanging in the break room. It may have been winter, but just as likely, they were needed in the computer room. It was cold in there!

- Note that the "Data Terminal" pictures are at the bottom of the page in the mini-computer section. This was a big deal back then. Mini-computers got CRT displays before IBM mainframes. That's how they competed with Big Blue. For programmers, this was as big an advance as we would ever get. Imagine building that web app today, buying cases of cards from Office Depot and getting one compile per day.

- The Demonstration Center was a big deal, too. Several places I worked had the computer room behind glass in the lobby. Companies wanted their customers to physically see how advanced their technology was.

Thanks for the memories. Now burn those pictures.
The instant I saw it was John Dvorak I closed the tab.
Sure, but you can understand some level of apathy for those details in most people. We're all "tech" people and so such details are going to interest us.

But do you wonder in any depth how, for example, that bottle of milk made it to your fridge (the answer is not necessarily all that simple). Even some of the more technically minded programmers I know have zero interest in how a CPU works on a physical level and how they were developed :)

But one of those kids he describes might have a deep interest in how to get eggs from chickens, or how to cut hair, or.... you can never really predict what it is that will arrest them.

(case in point; I was trying to teach my scouts about how GPS worked the other day and they kept getting distracted with how the GPS enclosure was moulded [because of the odd shape]. No interest in the technology :))

I've never had much concern about people's disinterest in how tech works, so long as there are enough of is who do care :)
Should You Rent or Buy a House (Analysis)
Compile Time Function Execution for Go
Today's $60 1TB drive would not have been possible in the '50s for any price. Equal storage capacity? Sure. Equal storage density, power usage, throughput speed, seek times? So much beyond simply impossible that it's not even funny.
I completely agree with you. I guess I just don't expect much more from CNN...
Congrats on the App.

Regarding the BizModel. Forget it and grow as long as the hype works.

If you can't:
Offer the possibility to add an optional reponse email. An ask for a penny if people want to contact the anonymous poster. Cooperate with FB for FB Credits to see this work.

Expansion:
Threewords for all type of content (blog articles, third parties like celebrities, etc)
http://isthisyourpaperonsingleservingsites.com/
Sideproject! Expose yourself to the possibility of serendipity, no matter how remote. :)
Pls Mark, do keep us updated with the Stats
"Congress and regulatory agencies are supposed to represent all the people, not just the ones that vote."

That may be what government is supposed to do, but in reality congressional representatives and senators mostly care about the ones that vote, since that's how they keep (or lose) their jobs. Also, I don't think that's all bad: "How much have you voted in the past? And do you plan to vote again next time?" is a pretty good proxy for "How much do you care about current issues?" Not voting is a way for the less informed/concerned to defer to the more informed/concerned. In an ideal world everyone would be fully informed and concerned, and so everyone would vote, but humans aren't ideal and our system handles that fact pretty well.

Furthermore, while there generally is a diffrence of about 5 points between likely voters and registered voters, and another five points between registered voters and adults, there's no way that a 1:5 ratio is going to swing the opposite way due to the difference between likely voters and the general population. At best it would shift to 1:4 or 1:3, still an overwhelming majority.
Don't let your hatred blind you.
Sleep is vital, and can also beneficial if you time it correctly.

1. Super motivation. When I'm working on a project that has me pumped, then time flies and I can keep going until I physically pass out.

2. Brainwave Entrainment. Google it. I listen to a certain audio recording for 30 minutes, and I'm refreshed for another 2-4 hours. Net gain.

As for the timing of sleep-- your subconscious is a very powerful tool. If, just before going to bed, you ask yourself all the questions and todos that are on your mind (write them down), then as you sleep you brain will work overtime to consolidate your experiences and to derive solutions. When you wake up (google Polyphasic Sleep to put the sleep method on steroids) and take a walk or shower, you may find that you have a lot of new ideas or solutions for the problems you were tackling.
Why Can’t Europe Avoid Another Crisis? Why Can’t the U.S.?
Fail0verflow Demos PS3 Exploit at CCC
Has Gates's influence in primary education been helpful? That is not clear to me.
HZ Program
Also, high-tech industry is in a sad state in the Netherlands. Large IT projects fail at a remarkably high rate. Successful start-ups move out. Foreign tech corporations settle only for localization and catching a tax break. There is not much of an engineering culture. Salaries are generally low, venture capital non-existent. I moved abroad.

Ironically, Dutch engineering education is among the best of the world, but after college, there's nothing that keeps computer engineers like Dijkstra, van Renesse, Vogels, Kaashoek, Moolenaar and van Rossum at home.
Gads, what obnoxious, egotistical drivel.

Is there any way we can get a Sebastian Marshall / Tim Ferris filter on Hacker News?
Does using stateful web servers make sense?
Silicon Canals and Red Light Ruby – Amsterdam as a technology hub
Your comment is an incredibly offensive and judgemental thing to say to someone that you told don't know.

Just because he has different goals than his friends and is honest about the fact that they are helping him achieve doesn't mean he is "self-obsessed and shallow" and lacking in "humility and sincerity".

His friends who know him in person can and will judge him for the person he is.

Did you write this because you have some kind of preconceptions based on people you know?
If there isn't I would be very interested in creating one.
Who's to say what blatant nonsense is though a few hundred years ago it was blatantly obvious the world was flat. I don't see how it is harmful for someone to go see this guy even though it is complete nonsense. It's not like a patient's mental state is totally unimportant.
Good paper.

I've been using hybrid hardware/software load balancers since 2004, and over time I came to different conclusions than the author on load balancing algorithms, SSL offload, layer 3/4 vs. layer 7 load balancing, relative performance of SSL on load balancers, etc.

I also place a high value on proxy-capable load balancers for use as a 'control plain' for all ingress into the data centers. I.E. - All Internet accessible content is served by URL filtering, proxy-type, SSL capable load balancers, even if the availability requirements do not warrant redundant web/app servers. This allows us to control access to the application by URL and host header, to filter content as needed, to view and manage the status of all services at a single location, to manage all SSL certs in a single location, to automatically re-direct users to a fail whale when the app is down, etc.

The argument against 'doing it all' with the load balancers generally boils down to performance. My counter to that is my circa 2004 Netscalers have no problems doing 1800 requests/second, all SSL, all proxied, and all content switched/content filtered.
Look at the dates on those checks: 2005 and 2006!

Note that Google started offering Direct Deposit in 2005. :)
Balderdash. Mr. Rendell should get out for a walk and do some calculus to calm himself down.
People should know they're paying for a placebo, if that's what it is. Otherwise it's fraud.
I've found that it's mostly about being well connected through social media and attending other events/meetups. You'll still miss things, but even sites such as Lanyrd won't list everything.

As somebody who is getting more and more involved in organising local tech events in my area I'm interested in this myself. I'm running a Google calendar and Twitter account to highlight the best local events (mostly non-tech based) but feel I could be doing better.
Top Scientific Breakthroughs of 2010
I think the more common case for a tip-over is going off the road into a ditch.
Using the Canon Hack Development Kit
If, a few hundred years ago somebody came to you and said, "I spoke to God and earth is not flat.", assuming no further evidence was offered, you'd be completely justified in dismissing that claim as nonsense.
I don't care much about Bizspark but I want this guy to write the front-facing text on my startup's web page when the time comes, he's great in summing up the value in few, well-chosen words.
I split from some friends about 20 years ago...

We were a group of 5 top friends at high school. We were popular, entertaining, going on vacation together, you name it.... At college, we carried on meeting, going to parties, but something became odd for me. It was obvious they were willing to carry on with immature/teenager activities and I wasn't...

I just did not enjoy it anymore. It was not in me. I had grown up. I told 3 of them I was not willing to participate to this anymore. The 5th one did not care, we always got along well. In fact, he was participating in those juvenile activities less and less too and developed his own branch of friends.

Two really take it badly, as if it was some kind of betrayal. They adopted a dogma attitude. I knew them since I was 5 years old. They reacted emotionally and would not address the maturity issues. It was a one-sided conversation. They carried on their juveniles games until their early thirties.

I was even replaced by another guy to fill the gap. When #4 got married, my replacement was invited to the full ceremony and I was only invited to the cocktail. He knew my replacement for a couple of years then, I knew him for more than 20. It was a bit of a shock, but not a real surprise.

I knew they were acting juvenile beyond their 20's to cover for their insecurities and lack of will to become mature and responsible. Today, we are connected on Facebook and exchange messages from time to time. I do not regret the split 20 years ago. I got to meet different people and developed new fulfilling relationships.
So what stopped it? Was it unsustainable?
Results may vary.

There are many things I love doing one day a week, but would tire of doing five days a week. It's not much of a stretch to imagine activities that would experience this knee at about four days a week.
If your car had no seat belts in back, then it would have the 4" of foam on the back of the front seats, and you might be OK.
Leaving aside the fact that decompressing a decent-sized JPEG was a very CPU-intensive task as recently as the 486 era, taking seconds.
Project Honeypot HTTP Blocklist Module
> I don't understand why you guys are downvoting him.

Maybe they don't want HN to become Reddit; after all, we've already got one Reddit, we don't need another.
Forced to? No, they chose to.

Hackers respect skill. If they have it, they get respect. If they don't, they don't. Standing in a group of hackers and saying 'You should respect me' will get nothing but sneers and laughter. Starting a group to say the same will have the same result.

Do they have skill? We don't know, because the article focused on them being women and NOT on their skill.

Yes, that's right: The article is exactly the opposite of what they are trying to do. It's perpetuating the myth that women can't be true hackers and can only claim to be.
TV by the numbers
What proportion of people buy it to hack on rather than to play existing games? 0.001%?
The eCLOUD by Dan Goods, Nik Hafermaas, and Aaron Koblin
Ask HN: Is there a way to follow people on HN?
I see very interesting comments and post all the time on hacker news. Sometimes by the same people. I which there was a way to follow some of these people on hacker News. I know I could follow them on twitter but it just doesn't feel the same.
Well, by some definition of legacy, that's always true. If we are learning, using better techniques, and writing better software every day what we wrote yesterday will be "legacy" code... But I don't think that matters, ther will be upgrade paths, support for pylons 1 and tg2, and more cooperation and focus in the development team.
How should we pay for standards development in HealthIT
Snowflakes Under an Electron Microscope
Extremely disappointing to see so many upvotes on such a mean-spirited comment by an anonymous user who has contributed to HN a fraction of what Sebastian has, in terms of time and karma. I understand that some people might disagree with what Sebastian has to say, but there are constructive ways to do so. Sarcastic, anonymous, ad hominem attacks like these are probably fun to write, but they hasten the downfall of a wonderful community. So thanks for that.

PS - I've gotten to know Sebastian over the last few months and he's proven to be a genuinely good person who wants to learn how to be better and help others do the same. It's sad to see people lashing out at him for that.
This is the EU; if they're qualified enough, they might be able to find work here in the Netherlands.
And if you love doing something, you'll certainly love it more if you do it 24/7! The world isn't this black and white.

Some people are sprinters, and some are marathon runners, and even more people are some combination of the two at different points in their lives. Sure, some jobs require people who can sprint for 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, with litte vacation, but many people don't want to live that way...

If you hate your job, you won't love it by reducing the hours, but it might make it more bearable. If you like/love your job, but it's pushing you a bit too hard, you may find it even more rewarding if you reduce your hours.
While you may not begin to like something disgusting just by cutting back the time spent on doing it, you may begin to like something you already liked more if you reduce your workload.
Very nice improvements. If you haven't already gone through these multiple times, I literally soaked in these last night:

http://www.slideshare.net/techdude/how-to-kill-mysql-perform...

http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/Top10SQLPerformanceTips

Good sets of additional tips/things to keep an eye out for.
Sometimes when you have complex queries it can make sense to create a temp table, create indexes on that, and then query off of that. But queries like that should show up in reporting, not in serving live web pages.

That said, if you're selecting more than 5% or so of the rows in a table, you're probably better off not using an index.

Another random tip. There is a world of difference between putting indexes on 2 fields, and putting a composite index on 2 fields. If you have restrictive conditions on 2 fields, MySQL has to work with the entire list of rows that match at least one of those conditions. (I don't know whether MySQL has the trick of joining indexes together before looking at rows, but even if it does it has to work with a list of rows matching the condition.) By contrast with a composite index MySQL can only look at rows that match both conditions. Much more efficient.
>t's actually about respecting the fact that women are great judges of men. They're designed to be super discerning. So if a high-value woman singles out a guy as worth her time, it's a safe bet that he's worth your time, too.

What? Women are terrible judges of men. Probably even worse than men are.
Android Full Application Tutorial article series
The app to end all apps
Deriving authority for this statement form Eric Meyer is misleading. Eric didn't say don't use outline: none, he said make sure you have focus styles.

Browser defaults are ugly and inconsistent. Ordering designers everywhere to not override that is like telling Picasso to paint realistically because some people find his work inaccessible.

Asking designers nicely to make sure they have elegant focus styles is both appealing to their ability and sensibility without insulting their creativity.
I think I have to recuperate on Saturdays now, too.

But yeah, I commute for 3h a day and it sucks. Haven't thought up a good solution yet, since I really don't like the city where I work.
Not Microsoft, it's Microsoft Research. They probably are the best of the best. The cameras and firmware for the Kinect were made there, for example. http://research.microsoft.com/
There is no reason to believe that the work done per time unit remains the same when the length of work day varies.
Well, I think a 36-hour work week is the norm in NL, so it's 4 9-hour days.
An unencumbered high-end handset at around $500 is cheaper than the same device at $199 with a contract. I wonder if someone will notice this and offer conventional financing packages like you can get for fridges and TVs.

T-mobile appears to be doing exactly that. You can get a contract with a subsidy, you can get financing on the phone and cheaper monthly service, or you can buy the phone outright and get cheaper monthly service.
Skype banned from China
It's not that simple. What the article describes is a very common problem with people who get healthy and lose a lot of weight. Their 'friends' often end up hindering their goals though often not on purpose.

When I talked to a friend of mine about her weight loss the hardest part for her was losing all her other overweight friends. They would constantly ask her why she was getting up at 5am or eating healthy or training for a marathon and then would make comments that it's pointless. They didn't drift apart because their interests changed, she had to cut them out because they were holding her back.
"...if we insisted on full-time surgeons we would have a personnel problem: Three in four of our junior doctors are female."

We have had "part time doctors" in the US for a while, not to mention a movement toward "girl specialties" (read: gyno/derm/few others). It's a significant contributor to our rising medical costs.

Supply of medical services = (# of doctors) x (average hours worked). The # of doctors is basically fixed (all medical school slots are filled, and there is no movement to build more), which means part time doctors reduce the supply of medical services. Net result: rising prices (note: not the only cause of this), fewer people being treated.

Hopefully things work out better for the dutch than for us.

I think China has a very forward thinking idea on this: if training slots are limited by government fiat, raise standards for women relative to men (since society will get fewer hours of output from a given woman, she will need a higher productivity to compensate).
I'd like to point out that it cannot "only be used on the Verizon network". It works just fine on any network in the UK, however, they limit which handsets you can download the installer on. There's nothing stopping you getting the APK from someone else and installing it, but I wouldn't bother. The app really is terrible.

Artificially limiting their market aside, here's some of the highlights:

There are no options. Seriously. None. Good luck configuring anything about the behaviour of the app.

It's huge. I don't have it installed right now but I believe it takes up more than 20MB, which is seriously bloated for a glorified IM application.

You can't view just your online contacts, or order by status. I have a LOT of contacts, and at any given time maybe 10 to 20 are online. Finding them is a complete pain.

If you open an IM with someone, it populates the window with your last chats, just like the other clients. However, it loads a very large amount of your history with them, which takes a long time to populate the window, and it does this every time you switch to that IM "window", making the IM completely unusable.
"loose 22-year-old group of women within the club called the Haecksen (a pun on the German word for witch)."

In case you're wondering, the German word for witch is Hexe so the name sounds like witches. It's interesting with all the language PC in the US (e.g. a lot of articles and books on hackers will use the pronoun she although women in this field, by everybody's admission, are rare) Germans are quite OK with the fact that the word for hacker is masculine. Indeed I think a lot of people would be surprised if there was a movement to change it to die Hacker. There's, of course, die Hackerin but a lot of people here would object to that even more, since it's derived from a "male" form of the word.

Similar situation in French, although, as it predicated by their angst over their language, things are not so easy (http://www.nakedtranslations.com/en/2004/hacker).

On a different note, this word for witch is why those weird signs are called "Hex Signs" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hex_sign).
I can understand this reaction, but even a crazy pundit can be right twice a day.
To_api: Simple API transformations
2011 The Year Of Android vs iPhone - who wins?
Teenagers are always looking for services like this one.
He probably saw it on twitter.
مشاهدة مباراة الاهلى والزمالك
مشاهدة مباراة الاهلى والزمالكمشاهدة مباراة الاهلى والزمالك
I want this to be true, but I don't think it is. I really do think a lot of people just kind of drift through life, being reactive rather than proactive, with little in the way of goals or ambition. I don't necessarily know if there's anything wrong with that (topic for another day), but it does seem valid to say that they're not interested in "improving". Maybe that's the wrong word; maybe "optimizing" captures it better. Regardless, some of my best friends are those who I share surprisingly little in terms of common interests. But what we do share is that we don't want a life adrift, and we're working hard to achieve the things we care about. To me, that's what "improving at life" means.
I think overall his post was spot on. There is an old saying that goes along the lines that 'you are the average of the 5 closest people to you.' This means if all your closest friends are losers you'll likely be a loser too. It's not mean or egotistical to recognize that people you spend the most time with do in fact influence you.

It's also a good thing to remove friends that are holding you back. Sports stars probably need to do more of this. They become famous, make a lot of money, but keep hanging out with the friends from 'the hood' and end up all sorts of trouble.

Another good example are people who lose a lot of weight. Whether on purpose or not their friends often hold them back. Losing all her friends was the hardest thing a friend of mine had to deal with when she finally decided to lose weight and get in shape.