skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Any tools you use you should learn how to use first. That goes for a knife as well as a laptop. When I see people use stuff with sharp edges I invariably cringe as they point them at themselves and at others while putting force on them. Even passing the scissors from one hand to another comes with a protocol (sharp end towards the giver).

Laptops are powertools, use them well and they'll do you good, abuse them and they'll eat your research data.

Odds are the researcher messed up and uses the 'theft' as an excuse for something or other, otherwise that reward would have been a bit higher, $1,000, $500 of which is probably the second hand value of the laptop, that can't have been much data.

I agree with your basic premise that we collectively should help to make stuff like this impossible (dropbox is a nice step in the right direction making it easy to have multiple versions of your stuff) I just don't believe this particular case is a good example of what happens when 'we' fail. This user carries the blame and responsibility, not the IT staff there, nor the manufacturer of the gear.

Smart enough to use a laptop? -> Smart enough to burn a DVD once a week or so. Maximum loss is one week of data, and that's assuming you place those DVDs in a different physical location from the laptop.

Of course that's too much of an investment for such valuable data.
I had never heard of the 2 space rule until I moved to the US, so this is one of cultural things. I believe "single space" rule is prevalent is Europe and India.

This anyway points that 2 space rule is not "right way" since significant portion of the world (maybe majority of your customers) will think it is weird and be confused about it. The "1 space rule" is more neutral.
He makes a good point here, but Dvorak's thinking on technology is a crap shoot at best. This is the guy who thought the mouse was bullshit, he also thought the iPad was bullshit. I guess if you swing for the fences a lot you're going to miss, but sometimes it seems like he's contrary for the sake of being so. It's kind of his shtick. I think he's even said in an interview before that he's basically a well paid, well educated troll.
First, even in Java you don't know the return type / invariants ...

int n = func_that_returns_positive_even_number()

What you need is to document the thing:

def func_that_returns_positive_even_number():
"""Returns positive even number."""

This comment will be available when typing "help(func_that_returns_positive_even_number)" in the Python console btw.

Or if you're paranoid and that function can totally break your code:

n = func_that_returns_positive_even_number()
assert isinstance(n, int) and n % 2 == 0 and n >= 0

Or to make extra sure this will hold in the future (i.e. protecting from code-changes done by other people) ...

import unittest

class TestMyFunc(unittest.TestCase):
def test_is_positive_and_even(self):
n = func_that_returns_positive_even_number()
self.assertTrue( n % 2 == 0 and n >= 0 )
The line numbers don't get copied to the clipboard when you copy and paste from the highlighted version.
I happen to own the domains solesearch.com and solesearch.net and used to use the .com as a footwear auction marketplace (bigger niche than most think). Still toying with rejuvenating the idea. I've never received any contact from them about acquiring domain. They can't be happy with sole-search.net right?
Had he hacked Biden's blog, he probably wouldn't have found official business illegally done on a personal email.

How come Palin hasn't been charged with anything? She just resigns and people don't bother to follow up. That's fine and all, but it's a nice backdrop to this kid getting the book thrown at him.
I'm wondering if the reason MLA is usually ignored in America is that there is some truth to what I read about typewriters influencing the illogical style, which modern day editors seem to insist upon.
I was hoping the reason would be something interesting like 'we used forensic analysis of punctuation habits to determine the author of certain documents,' and it seems that it was going that way with the Julian Assange bit.

Then it rapidly devolved into argumentum ad nauseum and appeal to authority; I was very disappointed.
Programmer Builds Unofficial Hacker News API
> Sure, the information may be imprecise or just plain wrong, but we have to remember that this is for absolute beginners. Merely having errors does not make w3schools worthless, and a lack of errors does not make alternatives better.

By letting beginners learn most stuff the wrong way, you're not helping anyone, and you put them behind in knowledge that is actually usable and good practice.

> The material on W3Schools is split into bite-sized chunks, along with numerous examples, references, quizzes, try it yourself areas... None of the alternatives suggested are this well organized.

Well organized misinformation is still a bad resource.
OK, well that might explain the Asian preference. But I'd like to hear from a source that is not explicitly Asian (since I've seen the same choices in many non-Asian groups).
Looks to me like China is exporting their currency, to export their inflation, and stem the rising consumer costs in China. And I'm sure they have dreams of being the next reserve currency of the world.
I've read accounts of tourists going there - it's fine, as long as you follow the guide's directions completely. (e.g., if you put something metal down on the ground, it's not coming back with you.)
You would think $200K/year is a lot of fucking money, but it is really not that much, especially if you live in Manhattan. Here every shitty 1br apartment costs $800K+. Studios are $500K+. So just to buy a crappy small 1br would take you at least a decade of savings. Plus you'd have to pay $1k/month in maintenance for the rest of you life. And don't forget taxes, it's complete ass rape.

I make 170-180K, and I can only afford to rent. I don't spend that pretty much on anything, I don't go out that often, but there's no fucking way I can afford to buy.
10 GB is also small and cheap enough to buy a USB drive for and back it up on. It's what, $10 for a 16 gig thumbdrive or so? Afaik, they also have less concern about bit-rot than DVDs or CDs, not to mention the ease of use.
I think your example proves my point perfectly. A blog post on this guy's website might be more technically correct and complete, but it certainly isn't easier to use, or actually reference when you just want to look up how the string.replace() method works, for instance. I think people are underestimating the utility of the easy organization that w3schools provides. They make it accessible, quickly.
Influential Programming Languages, Part 3: Smalltalk  Message-Sending
From the Chinese goverment point of view this is a small step (everything they do is in small steps) towards converting renminbi in a global reserve currency.

Their deep reason for that is turning Shanghai in the world's leading financial center.
Related issue: employees issued company laptops tend to drop them, forget them in starbucks, leave them in cabs, and generally lose them fairly frequently when the company replaces them. If the company only pays for a replacement every 18-24 months, the employees' memory suddenly and quite drastically improves. Almost like a shot of mega-ginkgo.
Fractals plus quantum mechanics equals chaos
I really hope Facebook doesn't settle this time. I want to see this go to court and watch these guys lose the entire fortune that was dropped in their laps. It would be great if this lawsuit establishes in court, once and for all, that ideas are worth $0 and do not entitle current or former employers to anything. As far as I understand Mark Zuckerberg wasn't even an employee of the Winklevoss' which makes the whole thing a joke.
hmm? Beerby is on Amazon too actually
While the author offers alternative places to learn CSS, Javascript, and HTML, PHP and SQL didn't seem to make the cut. If W3Schools is doing a poor job, what are good PHP ans/or SQL resources?
>"There is no reason for anyone with any chops online to be remotely involved with Facebook, except to peruse it for lost relatives."

Facebook's facilitation of connections between individuals is a pretty big exception. It's sort of like saying, "there's no reason to read Dvorak's blog, except to find out what he has written."
Redbox Is Finally Feeling the Netflix Effect
One appeal of a rewrite is that you can do it properly. I think this is based on the misconception that just because you created something, you understand it.

In fact, we build software (or grow it). Where we end up is more like where an explorer ends up in an unknown region. Very few people prove even one aspect of a small part of their programs, and it takes them a long time. We understand our code no more than we understand our bodies.

There's no need to make an effort to rewrite, because with the next disruptive platform, the same old stuff all gets rewritten/reinvented anyway (current egs: JavaScript (web); objective-c (iPhone)).

BTW: Joel's famous article on mozilla: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html
IPhone to Android: One Month with the Nexus S
Passion and a plan.
Simply not true. Laughably so. Listen to yourself. You're telling people not to invest because they'll only do well out of it rather than doing very well out of it. People were saying the same thing about gold two years ago and one year ago.
I know this won't be popular, but the idea of "backups" has always struck me as a lame attempt by rich people (Retailers) to get more money from poor people. So I roll my eyes whenever a guy who sells hard drives and RAIDs is telling me I need to "backup."
Watson wins the practice round on Jeopardy
I saw the above article on USA today and found it interesting--imagine this as an interface to some particular knowledge base (for example, legal or medical). Does anyone know if it goes beyond just lookup, or if there have been any more technical papers submitted on Watson?
Couple of design tips:

- No More text-align:center with bullets

- Stick to the same variation of a colour. You have multiple variations of blue
The top placement in Google search results for almost anything W3Schools covers is another sign that Google is broken, in my view.

reference.sitepoint.com is a much better reference for anything they cover -- easier navigation, better presentation, and most importantly, more depth and advice on important topics. In a fair fight, it would far outrank W3Schools.
How is "numerous examples, references, quizzes, try it yourself areas" even worth anything if said examples, references, quizzes and so forth are... incorrect?

It's like saying, "Well, at least we have textbooks! Too bad half of them say the world is only 6,000 years old, but hey! No body's written a better text book than this yet!"

And how is it decent as a refresher and function reference, if it's just refreshing fallacies? Try using something that's actually accurate. In fact, MDC has a pretty decent xpath section: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/xpath
Why do you need to enforce rules, other than documenting the classes/methods defined?

What happens if the superclass method isn't called

Shit doesn't work or it breaks, then the person who sub-classed needs to fix it. Sometimes it also means your class is leaking encapsulation.

This also happens with plain aggregation/composition btw. It also happens with data-immutability (which has nothing to do with inheritance, as your object can be immutable and extend a dozen classes).
Out of curiosity, can you link to one of those good resources, and to an equivalent w3schools page?

Setting aside questions of Google rank and discoverability, I suspect the "good resource" will have much more information, will be more correct, but will also be more verbose, may assume more prior knowledge from the reader, and will be less likely to provide instant gratification.

There's a big difference between a good resource for an experienced developer and a good resource for an absolute newbie, and I haven't seen that addressed yet.
W3Schools has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, but it scores over more pedestrian work in two important respects. First, it is slightly easier to use; and secondly it has the best SEO of any major beginners' web tutorial.
I saw the above article on USA today and found it interesting--imagine this as an interface to some particular knowledge base (for example, legal or medical). Does anyone know if it goes beyond just lookup, or if there have been any more technical papers submitted on Watson?
It does affect the crime though and is a big difference.

If the door is closed and locked it is breaking and entering which is a felony that brings prison time.

If the door is open and unlocked it's trespassing which is a misdemeanor and will seldom get jail time.
If you search on youtube for Pripyat, there are many videos available that shows you how's the city now.
First, even in Java you don't know the return type / invariants ...

This is a classic type system straw man. The language doesn't support encoding integer ranges in the type system, ergo, the type system is not ever a significant advantage and all invariants must be documented. You fool!

What you need is to document the thing:

Some invariants require further documentation. The more you can express concisely in code via the type system, the more time you and your API clients save in both development and maintenance.

More succinctly: By expressing them in code you let the compiler automate the work of enforcing them.

Or if you're paranoid and that function can totally break your code:

An assert doesn't "protect" your code from future changes (better phrasing would be: make your code adaptable to change, loosely coupled with its dependencies as to allow iteration of your code and its dependencies independently).

An assert simply causes your code to fail in an obvious way. It's still up to you to track them down (at runtime) and figure out where you went wrong.
TL;DR summary: "because I'm an elitist"
The least stupid course of action is dollar cost averaging against a global market index but since we're talking about fairly stupid bets such as throwing 4k into the Yuan, then here you go.

My bucket:

FXI is a China fund

EEM is an emerging mkts fund

EWS is singapore

or you could just assume that the Chinese will want meat so you buy MOO

or you can spec on the Yuan directly with CYB.
> W3C did not invent the term world wide web, www, or w3 - there is no deception.

W3C was founded by (and remains directed by) Tim Berners-Lee, who did, in fact, invent both the term "world wide web" and the actual world wide web.
Clever idea, using the audio output as a power supply.
"Sure, the information may be imprecise or just plain wrong, but we have to remember that this is for absolute beginners. Merely having errors does not make w3schools worthless, and a lack of errors does not make alternatives better."

This is the biggest problem. When you're an absolute beginner, you don't know what's right and what's wrong, and if wrong things are being presented in the middle of right things, it's impossible to discern the difference. Accuracy should be of the utmost concern for people who are providing information to people who are at the beginning of their learning journey.

"Just think what kind of HTML tutorial could have been created with the time and effort it took to build w3fools.com."

Not a very good one. w3fools came together in about a week of on-and-off collaboration after several months of having an etherpad where people were dumping errors they came across. The effort to create a comprehensive HTML tutorial and then position it in a place where it could counter w3schools is many orders of magnitude larger.
Try http://360voltage.com and run a Voltmeter report. You have to have an account, but it's free. There's a ton of services like this, SEOmoz is probably the best.
Troll ahead. Do not read.
Cool project!

Currently, I am a bit doubtful concerning whether drawing extra power from an already very battery lifetime-constrained smartphone is a good idea.

On the other hand, the batteries shold improve in the future, so with a bit of luck the idea may just as well come to maturity at the right time!
Pro-tip: If you're in China, and a Bank of America customer, you can withrdraw money fee-free at the China Construction Bank. Cash may be less convenient than a Bank of China account, but, just saying.
It looks great, but as stated earlier, the about pages would do well with a signup button/link at the bottom.
Another random thing: the logo for the homepage seems to be wider than the rest of the pages - I'm guessing there's some CSS stretching going on.
China just upped reserve requirements so I have a feeling they're aware of the pressure both politically and economically.
I also don't use Facebook, but I have an account. I rarely log in as there's generally nothing for me to see on Facebook. On occassion I get an email letting me know someone sent me a message or a friend request. I usually let those pile up, and then once every two weeks or so I log on and deal with them all.

I like the picture hosting and the ability to find long lost friends more quickly (although honestly, I don't really have many long lost friends -- and LinkedIn I find better for finding old colleagues), but it's not sticky for me.

I'm probably odd that I'd much rather read about how Logo turtle graphics and JS canvas are isomorphic than read status updates from friends. Not that I don't like knowing what my friends are doing, but its rarely the case that I need up to the minute notification. Once every two weeks is fine. And if there's something big, someone will call or send email.
No. A padlock is clearly to say this area is forbidden, do not enter. A twisty can mean the latch is broken and the twisty is stopping the gate from blowing open in the wind, but not intended to stop anyone from entering. No reasonable person would look at a gate with a twisty and conclude that was intended to stop people from entering. It is obviously a stopgap measure to keep the gate from blowing open, not to stop people from using the gate.

Let's say kids on the street are playing and their frisbee goes into your yard. They come to the gate and there is a chain and padlock. They find some bolt cutters, cut the chain and retrieve the frisbee - that's breaking, entering and vandalism!

OK, stop, rewind. Instead of a chain and padlock the gate is held closed with a twisty. They untwist the twisty, retrieve the frisbee and leave. So the police will arrest and the jury will convict them of the same crime - breaking, entering and vandalism, right? Wrong! Nothing will happen because no crime was committed by opening the twisty gate.
Off-topic: It's one thing to be inspired by Apples web design, but to completely rip it off is in bad taste.
Sorry, it didn't work.

Diversification means I need to give the stock broker more money. That's all it means to me. I understand the risk aversion concept. You don't need to "educate" me.

Telling lay people (as you call them) that they need to do this or bad things will happen is the perfect scam. Create disonance and then offer a solution.

"Repent and ye shall be saved." "Diversify and ye shall be saved." I don't buy either argument. I got out of the market in 2000, never been back. Never will.

Edit... and yes, I owned index funds, but they wanted me to buy more index funds to further diversify my holdings. I learn quickly. That's always been my problem.
Jordan's not questioning a founder's judgement for taking more money at a better valuation, he's questioning a founder's judgement for taking a little money at a high valuation, and by doing so buggering up the rest of his seed round.

If you want to raise $500K-$1MM, and you somehow get a commitment for $50K at $10MM pre, Jordan's arguing that you'd be a fool to take it, because you're simply not going to find enough dumb money to fill out the rest of your round at that price.

I'm surprised no one's tried to do a multiple-unit Vickrey auction (aka a 'closed second-price auction') for this sort of thing.
So you think somebody who broke into an email account should serve more time if the wheels of justice are properly turning?

Would that imply then that other, clearly more serious crimes, that result in similar sentences, should have their sentences increased to be proportional?

I'm not asking to be judgmental, I'm honestly curious. In my mind, breaking into a mailbox isn't that big of a deal in most cases. But I can recognize an alternate argument such as "what if the mailbox in question contained corporate secrets worth billions of dollars".

In the former a year or more sentence seems excessive, in the later case a year would seem insufficient.
It really depends on the IT department and which applications you need to run. If everything you need to access is through a Web interface (perhaps over a VPN) then, policy permitting, there's no technical reason that you can't use pretty much any endpoint device you want that supports the necessary Web standards--and possibly VPN client.

Generally speaking, formal BYOPC programs are more restrictive but in lots of high tech companies, people use a variety of their own gear.
or a good rhyme...
What about all the other John Dvoraks that came before ?
I eat at a no-tables-and-chairs pizza place sometimes: Sal's in Boston. Real popular with the Suffolk U kids. You order your pizza and to eat it, you stand at one of the high counters running alongside the plate-glass windows.
Not claiming to be more intelligent, but my take on your question is:

Just as price is a function of supply and demand, so are exchange rates. The money supply is independent of the price of goods and of the price of currencies (exchange rates).

Seemingly, a larger overall quantity of dollars in existence would seem to predict a decline in the value of the dollar relative to other currencies, but the monetary policy decisions that resulted in increased money supply are intended to achieve relative price stability.

For example, the dollars introduced to the economy and lent to banks had the effect of encouraging banks to make loans, which helped increase demand for products and services, which helped prevent prices from falling.

Also, many of the dollars are being used as reserve capital after the market price of various securities which had been used as reserve capital declined, leaving the entities under-capitalized. All this was done in an attempt to keep interest rates low (in effect a price target) and prevent banks from being forced to stop lending money...

So I think the bottom line is that the behavior of consumers and firms can account for so much variability in supply and demand that the money supply can expand greatly and prices can still say roughly constant... the other side of the coin being that monetary policy was used to keep prices relatively stable, in this case by keeping the credit infrastructure status quo alive.

edit: Of course, if the Fed gets it wrong or lacks the will to raise interest rates when necessary, hyperinflation can result, which would impact exchange rates.
Well it makes sense to tech-savvy people since they know that the other services exist. Ask your mum and your aunt to name 5 other service other than YouTube and Facebook... They probably won't even be able to name 1.
blue and red continue to dominate, with a reasonable amount of green. as usual, no pink.
Really? I thought his point was "because it is a closed system".
That's not true. The Chinese government may want to unpeg their currency (1) to give their citizens more purchasing power, (2) because of trade pressures levied by the United States backed up by the threat of tariffs, or (3) because China doesn't want to export to the United States as much. Betting the yuan will rise relative to the dollar is not even remotely close to betting that the dollar will become worthless.