skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Any obvious resources to learn the dos/donts of logistics?
Hi all,
having recently switched jobs to launch a new venture, I'll soon face the challenge of having products (real ones, injection-molded) getting out of production lines.

I've a zero knowledge in logistics dos/dont's.

All I know at the moment is that each item - purchasing online exclusively - will be individually packaged in a small cardboard box to be sent by UPS or classics postal service.

I expect to ship about 1000 parcels / month.

Having said that, what advice would you give me not to completely blow my ops off in no time ? have you made some mistakes ? which ones should I avoid ?

thanks a lot. A bit frightened at the moment.
WordPress plugin: PHP Floating Point DoS Attack Workaround
NVIDIA chief confirms Windows coming to ARM chips
I would not worry about special restrictions in your first license, you need to close the deal and establish an ongoing and mutually beneficial relationship. You will learn more about what features your product really needs from your first few customers that it will naturally evolve so that you are selling a different product to later customers asking for MFN.

There are many ways to legitimately neutralize/minimize MFN, focus on making your early customers successful.
The Educational Benefit Of Ugly Fonts
The population distribution in Finland is nearly all in the lower 1/3 of the country though. Population distribution in the US is (I'm guessing) more normalized. So really you're talking about the population density of the Helsinki metro area, which is likely pretty high.
I always thought this was a result of developers realising they started too low with the iphone and adjusting accordingly.
Sorry, we’ve already sold out of the Sifteo packs available for Early Access
It's optional. Instead you get this funky water droplet effect when you tap the screen, I guess to let you know that a click registered.
Plutocrats: Richistan
> Erlang is an interesting academic curiosity but it's too alien and its creators are too blinded by their own brilliance to even acknowledge these very simple mistakes, so the world just moved on.

You said some sensible things up until that point, but kind of go off the rails there.

Erlang is most definitely not an academic language, and Joe Armstrong is not a "blinded by his own brilliance" kind of guy at all.

Indeed, one of the real problems is that there is enough Erlang code in production (in critical roles) that they can't just go fiddle with the language, correcting some of the obvious uglies.
Quick link to new logo compared to old:
http://assets.starbucks.com/assets/5a106e41fe954581999566a42...
Apple’s Liquidmetal patent is for fuel cells?
Fun fact: The swiss phone number they use in the example apparently is the phone number of Google's Swiss Office in Zürich.
Short movie by Mike Williams, an animator with Machado-Joseph Disease
A colleague posted this today at work, about an animator friend of his with Machado Joseph Disease.

A truly inspiring and moving movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6drLmcca80
oF = http://openframeworks.cc
Cinder = http://libcinder.org
Processing = http://processing.org / http://processingjs.org
7 ways to get a VC to mentor you
It's still as exponential as ever:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Transistor_Count_and_Moore...

It will come to an end at some point of course.
Indeed, French is a fluid language if I may label it as such. (note of knowledge: the text is a translation from French)
The current Chrome and Firefox betas both have hardware acceleration for the desktop versions.

WebGL is based on OpenGL ES, the version used by devices like the iPhone, rather than on the full "desktop" OpenGL -- this was apparently a deliberate choice made to make sure that it would work on mobile devices. And Apple are part of the standards group, so presumably it will work on the iPhone at some point.

However -- there are no mobile versions easily available right now.

* You can get a version of Fennec (Firefox mobile) for Android that runs it, but I believe you'd have to build it yourself from source with appropriate flags. Here's a video, anyway: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmiOO71yHQ8
* A while back, an over-the-air firmware upgrade for the Nokia N900 (Maemo smartphone) did activate WebGL, but the version in question is now out-of-date and most current demos won't work with it. Video here: http://learningwebgl.com/blog/?p=2340
"If you earn US$100 000 per year, Facebook could very likely get US$20 000 per year out of you with blackmail."

How exactly would that work? People keep their skeletons in their closets, not on Facebook. No one (aside from journalists writing for old people) cares that you have college party photos of you and your favorite beer bong posted on FB.
Replying again as I missed out a vital piece. Bayesian reasoning is an online process so after every decision one has to update the priors. The next time one has to use the reason engine one should work with the most recent prior. An alternative but equivalent way of stating the same is that one should look at the entire past to form the valid prior of that instant.

Lets take the example. There is a one to one correspondence with fictitious counts and priors. One way of encoding a 50:50 prior is to construct a possibly fictitious but representative past of (say) 2000 samples split into 1000 guilty and a 1000 not-guilty. After each prediction and assuming that the truth gets known one has to update the counts appropriately, so that the next time we use a different prior.

Our initial prior may be wrong but it will approach the correct one asymptotically. But how fast it approaches the true prior depends on how wrong our initial prior was.
"I have a five gallon container of NaOH that I intend to make soap with one day"

Don't use it without checking the MSDS to make sure it's pure. You can also buy food grade KOH from specialty food sites, which is much safer to work with. (It's commonly used to make lutefisk.)

Alternatively, you could just use Beano.
> > I used an ARM3-based desktop machine for a while 15 years ago.

> So?

So the idea of there being a "desktop speed" which ARM fails to satisfy is wrong. There has always been an ARM that can be used to perform "desktop"-type tasks.
Indeed, at some point filtering and traffic shaping crosses over into false advertising if the output doesn't go by some other name than "internet service". It would be like paring down a luxury car until it is little different from a golf cart, and trying to sell it as a Lexus.
I was only clarifying the mistaken impression you had that there was no ongoing deception. Clearly to you, the presence of ongoing deception is equivalent to lack of it. Which answers my question to you. Thanks.
I'm sure our definitions differ. For comparison, here is a quote from a translation of Guattari's "Chaosmosis" (1992) which I would say is unclear: "The ontological relativity advocated here is inseparable from an enunciative relativity. Knowledge of a Universe (in an astrophysical or axiological sense) is only possible through the mediation of autopoietic machines. A zone of self-belonging needs to exist somewhere for the coming into cognitive existence of any being or any modality of being."

That is the kind of language which made many European intellectuals in the later half of the 20th century notorious. The problem is not just an unusual vocabulary and elaborate sentence structure, but fundamental incoherence and haphazard use of undefined terms. I don't believe the linked article under discussion is really in the same category.
That depends. Do those jeans make your ass look fat?
See also http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-way-to-soa... and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytic_acid#Food_science
FYI, Lenovo has had Thinkpad tablets with built-in Wacom digitzers for years.
Two of my favourite points about the iPad are the battery life and the instant-on (including connecting to Wifi - OSX on my MBA is crap by comparison).

Arguably hardware features, but ones that won't work without deep software support.

Windows 7 tablets without those two features will still be a poor imitation.
These are generally really excellent points. I'll just quibble with a few:

* Say that you're comfortable with remote work

Uh, excuse me but don't say that unless you know how to make a remote situation work for someone. I would say instead, "be open to someone relocating but make clear whether you'll pay for that or not". Ads saying "local candidate only" are really obnoxious (what, does the person needs a California passport or something?)

Further, a lot of this advice is along the lines of "be an absolutely fabulous employer". And while I like the idea of employers becoming the absolute best, on the way to that ideal they'll still be hiring employees. So really, I want an ad that's going to reflect the real pluses and minuses of a less than perfect employer. For example, don't say 40 hours a week unless you mean it, etc.
Simone Back Announces Suicide On Facebook--And None Of Her Friends Help
Unless you're hiring someone fresh out of school, they've likely had some experience in the job market and base their expectations of salary and conditions on that.

It's not really a sense of entitlement if I can point to similar positions x, y, and z and ask why you're not offering the same, is it?

Expectations, whether or not you find them realistic, are not created in a vacuum. I can't pay my mortgage or feed my kids on a "pre-money equity-only" job. Taking a deep pay cut for a stake in NewCo? Been there before - at the end of the day, 5% of nothing is still nothing.

If you're looking for someone who is willing to take a big risk for very little (immediate) reward, you aren't looking for an employee, you're looking for another co-founder.
Firefox 3.0 is 2.5 years old, bro.

"Mozilla ended support for Firefox 3 on March 30, 2010 with the release of 3.0.19" which is 7 security updates after what you're carrying around.

I'm not the only one who doesn't test it anymore.
Try using Airdisplay on an ipad.

Traditional OSX is awful as a touch interface.
Steve Jobs’ New Year’s resolutions found on Starbucks napkin
Commoditize Your Complements. Cheaper and more abundant Mac software improves the experience for users, which should increase the appeal of the platform. If it works then it should mean more money being spent on Mac software in the long run, even if it's less per unit. If it works out any way similar to iOS the most popular apps will make a ton. The traditional developers just need to make sure that their software is the best, and if they can't beat the new guys then can they really complain?
>Then explain why there's no EU-comparable regional service in areas of the US with far greater density

Because nobody wants regional service? There used to be regional service that was cheaper--I remember my parents signed up for it when they first got cellphones, around 2003--but it lost out in the marketplace, because people would cross a state line and be shocked by the roaming fees.
Interesting that Google seems to be struggling with the same thing with Chrome OS vs Android.
Good point. I'd prefer to not reveal why I said that, so I've edited my comment.
The coolest tech toys of the Consumer Electronics Show’s opening reception
(It should be noted that DH2 is "disagreement hierarchy 2" - responding to tone: http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html)
If you're writing any WebGL code, definitely check out the WebGL Inspector:

http://benvanik.github.com/WebGL-Inspector/
Executive #1: how can we apply our "brand" in ways that penetrate beyond the coffee business?

Management consultant: we advise that you first keep what's iconic and recognizable about your logo, and then remove any reference to coffee

Executive #2: we need to be sure we do not repeat what Gap did.

Management consultant: don't worry about that. Trust us!

Customers: I miss the old logo.
Since we're talking about extraordinary claims, let's examine a claim that is definitely not true, but very interesting. If we run a study with threshold p=0.05, there is a 1 in 20 chance that we will erroneously report the claim to be true.

Now, let's say ten different scientists are interested in this claim, and they're all going to run their own experiments. The chance that all ten will run an experiment with each reporting "false" is under 60%.[0] Over 40% of the time, at least one scientist will falsely conclude the existence of the phenomenon that definitely does not exist. This is an effect of running multiple independently-considered experiments without aggregating the results.

That's the Bayesian problem that people mention. Another problem entirely comes from which results will tend to get published.

Now let's consider the effect of publishing bias. Let's assume that only 20% of the scientists will attempt to publish their results regardless of the outcome, but they will always try to publish if the (false) phenomenon is shown to exist. This effect alone results in 21% of submissions being incorrect,[1] even though an incorrect result only has 5% likelihood.

Let's additionally assume that a journal will publish a false-but-interesting result 50% of the time, and the true-but-ho-hum result only 10% of the time. The final effect is that 50% of published results for this extraordinary-but-false phenomenon incorrectly report the phenomenon to be true.

Tweak the numbers all you want, but the effects of running multiple independently-considered trials, along with biased publishing, means that we are surprisingly likely to publish false conclusions.

Notes:

[0] 0.95^10 = 0.5987

[1] 0.95 * 0.2 = 0.19; 0.05 / (0.19 + 0.05) = 0.21

[2] (0.21 * 0.5) / (0.21 * 0.5 + 0.79 * 0.1) = 0.50
I follow the public list where a subset of the spec-writing stuff is discussed, and it sounds likely that the spec will be done before the end of March, yes. There was quite a heavy hint dropped at the start of December: http://learningwebgl.com/blog/?p=2811

Browser support is also likely soon, perhaps even before then -- Chrome 9 and Firefox 4 are almost certain to have WebGL switched on by default (it's on in the current betas, though I guess there's always the chance of a last-minute disaster). And I've heard rumours of February release dates for both.
I posted a link to an article tracing the history of the logo earlier. Looks like it originally came from a woodcut illustration.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2072333
The Unsung Success of CAN-SPAM
I've always liked the idea of wireless mesh networks. [1]
But it would limit exposure to ideas, code and data by physical distances. Even expanding out Bacon-style along the social graph as people move about, it would be a huge step back for unfiltered communication. [2]

[1] It's a rather romanticized attachment, that originally hinged on people one-day realizing that having all your data primarily on other people's computers probably isn't a great idea.

[2] Though that, too, triggers appealingly romanticized notions of 'place', 'dialect' and 'local culture'. Which is to say: it would all make for great cyberpunk fiction atmosphere; I'm just pretty sure it'd still suck compared to the current state of affairs.
True, we've had to put porting our .NET app to Mono (for Mac/Linux support) on hold because of that -- the grid component we were using had a load of native code under the .NET layer.
There's a link to an ICS feed of just your conferences at the bottom of the right hand column on the homepage once you sign in - we need to make it easier to find.
They're trying to get to the essence of the logo. Good job. Kinda like Apple did.

Check out what Picasso did with a bull:
http://www.artyfactory.com/art_appreciation/animals_in_art/p...

Going to an all-graphics logo will also make less jarring any future entry into markets other than coffee.
A lot of stuff is missing; last time I looked, IronPython (Python for .NET) wouldn't run on the restricted mobile CLR due to missing support for various introspection/code compilation APIs.
To you and necolas, I'd like to better understand how feelings of whelm accompany Boilerplate.

I've heard from Louis (author of this one) that the .htaccess and build scripts are full of mystery and intimidating. I think that's true and needs addressing. Otherwise I'm interested in what things ya'll think shouldn't be in there. :)
The same could be said for non-technical topics:

1. I don't think anything interesting can be accurately explained in the 140 characters provided by Twitter.

2. Simply announcing what I'm working on is self-congratulatory back-patting. No one cares what I'm working on that hour.

3. I have many friends with different interests. I would not alienate them from a conversation by only talking about X all the time.
Ask HN: are there any "must read" product management books?
I'm looking to get some fresh ideas to improve our product lifecycle.

A quick Amazon search turns up a lots of stuff, but I'm not sure which books are for us - in particular, even if the book is very good I am not sure if it is targeted towards say enterprise vs. an small, everyone-wears-multiple-hats agile team.

With software development you've got "must reads" like Code Complete that basically are relevant to any programmer regardless of environment, so I wonder if there's analogous tomes for product?
I think Jonothan Ive and the Apple PR team has a lot to answer for when it comes to the language and techniques used in these videos.
I tried your app and liked it. But there is no way to get in contact with you easily. Try to offer a simple contact form to send in feedback. And - I can't believe I am saying that - make it visibly beta.

Because I would really like to use grapevin but have run into some technical problems. First, if I add a track I do not get any feedback of it's addition when using the latest non-beta Firefox. Secondly, if I click a song from the "Edit Playlist" page it will always play the first one and not the one I clicked. Before you do any extensions test your app extensivly. It will help spread the word when more user are satisfied with the service.

The next step in my opinion would be to include more music sources, of course. There is already a lot that is recognized. You might want to consider displaying a different "Missing cover" grafic when the song is available from Grooveshark, though. For example "Das Racist - You Oughta Know" does not show a cover but has the song. While when putting in an unknown German band it displayed the same icon. One always has to check his live page if a song can be played or not.

In my opinion, if you get the feedback function up and do not have any financial targets, it's best to let it grow on it's own.
>I doubt [LTE compatibility] too due to frequency incompatibility.

Are you sure? AT&T and Verizon both have frequencies in the 700 MHz range; I'm sure they don't have the exact same frequencies, but I'd bet that the same hardware can support them. At least, it's more likely than having one phone that can support, say, 1700 and 1900 MHz.

Last I heard, the lurking problem with LTE compatibility was that nobody had agreed on how to do voice over LTE. We might wind up with a situation where you can roam from AT&T to Verizon (it's all IP), but you can't take an AT&T phone and activate it for Verizon.
My 10-year-old nephew trounced me :( Heh

I don't get what you mean by the Nintendo thing ...
What many of us emacs users understand, but can't convey adequately, is that he seems to be asking the question "I want to learn Common Lisp, without learning Lisp". Or, "Lisp is just a language like Ruby or Python. Editor is irrelevant." Neither of these statements make sense.

Emacs integration with Lisp distinguishes it from other programming languages, in the same way Smalltalk and it's environment does. You could learn Common Lisp without learning emacs, but you wouldn't want to.

Emacs isn't just an editor. It's arguably one of the best examples we have of how to think in, architect, and use Lisp, Common or otherwise.

The way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it, and emacs gives you that opportunity, while other editors do not.
First you would have to define what you are measuring and develop the experiment. Then get enough HN readers to sign up to take the experiment so that you get statistically significant results.

For caned results that you could look at I would think ICFP programming contest or similar would have numbers though a quick look hasn't turned anything up.
1. Error messages are sometimes cryptic and that is indeed a language flaw. Line numbers would be absolutely fantastic to have and it's a shame they're not there. I can agree on that. Other languages, however, do not uniformly do a better job at being clear when crashing. It's not a unique trait of Erlang to have unfriendly error messages.

2. Strings are important, but not the list type of strings all the time. Erlang, as I mention in the article, has 3 types of strings, and atoms. Jlouis' article had the best arguments for the strings not being that necessary (or rather, too depended upon in general circumstances). See PHP for an example of a language that depends on strings too much for everything.

This is also really dependent on the type of application you work with. Telecom software barely needed strings and rather needed ways to handle binary protocols. Some web apps will need them more than others. I might have painted them all with a brush too wide -- working with Erlang brings me to issues where strings are not needed that often and are frequently used as an opaque data type that you just pass on to some other piece of code somewhere else.

3. Yes, you need to create and maintain the chain of supervisors yourself. I am not aware of any AI system good enough to figure out what is alright to have crashing and what isn't, or how to react when problems arise, when to give up on restarting processes, etc.

I have my doubts about 'nothing stops you from having them in other languages'. I know Scheme with Thermite had them. What other languages have supervisors, monitors and links that can even work across nodes?

4. Refactoring is a valid point, and there are very interesting tools for that (see Wrangler: http://www.cs.kent.ac.uk/projects/wrangler/Home.html),
but there is more to refactoring than moving bits of code around: handling dependencies, breaking existing functionalities and regressions, etc. Syntax only makes one of all the problems of refactoring difficult. Referential transparency, success typings and all the other tools make it a lot easier. It's not all or nothing here.

5. It's fine that they might never will. Erlang isn't for everyone. I found it maps to my mental model of organizing things very well -- much better than any OO language out there. I can readily accept that for many people, the opposite is true.

6. Erlang is anything but academic at its roots. It was created in industrial setups by computer scientists and engineers with real problems to solve. It's been battle tested for decades and has received academic interest only afterwards and is now enjoying a presence both in the industry and in academia.
What's more surprising to me: Starbucks has been around for 40 years, 19 of those as a public company.
Way to put as crass a spin as possible on what they did.
Tweaked iPhone 4 parts discovered: an antenna fix, or Verizon’s iPhone
They do indeed, and it's 1300 dollars.
I don't think any of us know that until we see it in action.