skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
No, the actual criterion being used here is what is simplest according to Kolmogorov complexity. In other words, Occam's razor. Nothing to do with human intuitions. If you have Occam's priors, then MWI is far more probable than OWI, and the fact that physicists thought about it later simply doesn't count. (Well, it counts in the social process that is Science, but Science is different from Occam's priors + probability theory).

Anyway, MWI is irrelevant with respect to cut & paste transportation. Just remember that perfect equality in QM is different in kind from almost perfect equality. Meaning that even with imperfect instruments, the result you obtain with perfect equality are wildly different from the results you obtain otherwise. Way past the margin for error of the instruments we have.

Yes, the theory says that there is a way for testing something perfectly, with imperfect instruments. By some miracle, the theory is the Kolmogorov-simplest one we currently know that match the experimental results. By another miracle, the theory is (as far as I know) uncontroversial up to MWI vs OWI.

Another thing the theory says is that the notion of identity should be thrown out the window. That applies to small factors in configuration space (particles) as well as large ones (paintings, human bodies). It doesn't say we should treat small factors differently than large ones. So basically, if you manage to make a copy accurate up to thermal noise, you got yourself a second original. And if the "original" original were destroyed, well, what's left is the "copy" original, which actually is the original, period (because identity doesn't count).

I'd be surprised to learn that this argument is controversial among physicists.
The secure version at https://www.google.com/ has less of the crap that the insecure version has, like the preview stuff. Alternatively, there's always https://ssl.scroogle.org/
http://physics.about.com/od/glossary/g/temperature.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature
"n the classical thermodynamic approach to temperature, temperature of an object varies with the speed of the particles it contains, raised to the second power. Therefore, temperature is tied directly to the mean kinetic energy of particles moving relative to the center of mass coordinates for that object. Temperature is an intensive variable because it is independent of the bulk amount of elementary entities contained inside, be they atoms, molecules, or electrons. In order for the temperature of a system to be defined, the system must be in thermodynamic equilibrium. Temperature may be considered to vary with position only if, for every point, there is a small neighborhood around that point can be treated as a thermodynamic system in equilibrium (i.e. local thermodynamic equilibrium). In the statistical thermodynamic approach, degrees of freedom are used instead of particles."
Uncontrolled acceleration is a real phenomenon, although I don't think it is Toyota-specific. This happened to me half a dozen times when I owned an Opel Corsa. While going uphill in low gear for long periods (usually in mountainous terrain, in the French Alps), the car would suddenly bound forwards for no reason, and keep going on a steep uphill even if I took my foot off the accelerator. I had a couple of near-misses with oncoming cars and rock walls.

I don't know how this works if you have automatic transmission, but the principle must be the same. If you drive at very low speeds for prolonged periods, especially on uphills, the effect would probably be replicated.

Presumably, this effect would hit learners more than experienced drivers, since the former have a tendency to stick to low speeds and/or low gears.

I don't have an explanation, but from the accompanying noise I know it was something taking place within in the combustion engine itself. It was not a problem with the brakes or transmission.
What he wrote is clearly in black and white. They asked for a clone. I said if I wrote a clone, I'd launch it. He can argue with what he wrote all he wants, but it still remains.
I always interleave my responses:

A: Because otherwise it doesn't make sense
Q: Why do questions always come before answers?
There was someone on HN a few days ago who owned a .co website and said that he received a lot of emails from people telling him that his logo was missing an 'm' after '.co'

That's why I think a lot of people would append an 'm' to links to your website, assuming that you made a mistake when typing the link.
Yes Nokia has MeeGo, but for some reason they just haven't been able to get it out of the door. It has been nearly ready for months and months, and it's a real shame because even as 'nearly ready' it's a really nice environment.

I haven't been able to find out just why MeeGo development didn't deliver, but it's apparent that whatever was going on internally, Nokia just wasn't willing to bet the company on it.
people valuate injustices that happen to them much higher than things that happen to other people

That doesn't matter. Sure, people do disagree on things that involve them personally, but they aren't the only ones acting. Very often, people make judgements about matters that may later involve them or people they empathize with, on either side. These future people may or may not have had previous experience with the thing, but all that is required for them to act so as to lower expected injustice is that they empathize with someone on both sides. This act can be both unjust and reduce injustice, as long as the process is ongoing (so that the expected injustices and participants materialize).
Maybe he isn't, but I am. (48, working in the industry since 1979.)

Microsoft needed Nokia at least as much as Nokia needed Microsoft here.
The public clearly saw the same ham-handed manipulation of the press during the whole Valerie Plame debacle. The same sort of thing is made obvious in most of the Daily Show episodes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent:_The_Poli...

You don't have to read the whole thing. Just find the parts where they do empirical comparisons. It becomes very obvious that the western press is a propaganda machine -- just the slick "free market" version.
Unstated: Nokia got a very inexpensive, possibly free license to WP. It's structured via offsetting transfer payments, of course, but still.

Likely Nokia pays no more for WP7 than HTC pays for Android.

Microsoft is going to market the hell out of the relationship and resulting phones.
I think Toyota actually believes in something powerful called value.

There have been times when I've thought some companies and people believe, "It's all bullshit and perception!" There have been times when people have told me that flat-out and have tried to motivate me to follow them under that assumption.

"Whited sepulchre" comes to mind.
Both C and C++ defines volatile as something like "Access to volatile objects are evaluated strictly according to the rules of the abstract machine." (exact wording from some old draft of C++0x I have here) with C explicitly noting that "What constitutes an access to an object that has volatile-qualified type is implementation-defined." (ISO 9899 6.7.3.6). So there is not many to say about what volatile means without knowing exact implementation (and implementation should document what volatile exactly means).

I don't see what Microsoft could do to unilaterally change meaning of something that is almost completely implementation-defined.
That's still missing the point and exactly what _Android_ not did. While MeeGo is quite close to your standard "Linux on the Desktop" (Sorry, was hard to resist), Google suffered from a lot of NIH based design decisions.
On the other hand they probably chose the easier route for themselves (instead of solving their problems in a codebase that's outside of their control) by creating things from scratch although "standard" alternatives were available.

In short: I'd say it probably _is_ hard and I'd even go so far as to say that MeeGo moving into Android would be pointless.

For code and effort sharing maemo/MeeGo was the better stack.
Doing Time on the world's most liberal Island Prison
Do you have any evidence that email use is declining? Email isn't just the end user application, email is a massively distributed and open messaging infrastructure
I don't think Apple is getting rid of Spaces in OS X 10.7
The trouble with volatile
As if "funny" nicknames weren't almost the norm all around the globe. Would you be surprised to learn that Apple employees call Nokia the log makers from Finland or something like that? I wouldn't.
I run a music blog (reviews, news, MP3s, etc.) - http://lostinthesound.com
> Note that the worst case of complexity for this algorithm is much, much worse than the worst case complexity for Boyer Moore.

Can you explain your thought process for why worst case complexity is worse than other? Did you do any measurements? I believe you are incorrect. I am author of this page. I've just did quick test for SS = "aaa ...aaaBaaa...aaa", with SS_size=240. My algorithm is faster than 3 BMs out of 4 tested.

> Do not use this algorithm carelessly. For example, if you use it in a thoughtless way in your web server, you may open yourself to a DoS attack.

Same can be said about all BM, naive and BSD's memmem/strstr. Possibility of DOS for substring search algorithm was known for a long time - but it never materialized. The cure is trivial - limit substring size.

> That immediately made me think he might have devised it for genomics research.

No, it wasn't. It was devised when I was preparing for Google interview (which I failed). And of cause algorithms which pre-index haystack will always be faster. I myself do not consider haystack pre-indexing algorithms a "text search" algorithms (maybe incorrectly).

> gross exaggeration

If you count pre-indexing algorithms and edge cases - then you are correct. For most common case - can you show me something faster (from a student or even yourself)?
FTP in Webhosting
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You remember incorrectly. See e.g. http://www.forum.nokia.com/Devices/ for comparison.
The only real problem is that this bad news becomes "common knowledge"

This is a real pernicious problem. For about a decade, the tech fields as a whole underestimated the performance of JIT VM, overestimated the importance of FLOPS, and failed to consider the cost of I/O. Countless Pointy Haired Bosses made misguided decisions on this basis. Hordes of programmers decided not to seriously consider whole families of languages on this basis as well.

Always suspect the "common knowledge." The level of common knowledge is like the level of defensive driving on the freeways. About 1/2 the people out there are below average.

(If you know about any subject in depth, take stock of how badly misunderstood it is by the general public. Most likely, it's just as bad everywhere else. Information asymmetry! Now go out and profit!)
Ask HN: how's that CR-48 notebook working out for you?
Assuming you are using one for your day to day work.
Heh. Actually, the Mythbusters guys have tried to get gas tanks to explode, with seemingly everything short of strapping rocket engines directly to the thing.

It done burn good, but no 'splode.
Best Free Android Apps For Business | AllTime Best
I think it's better to use getXXX.com than XXX.co
Decided to start moving things with my first "serious" project
Well since my lasts projects were... let's say... not so well; meaning I lost interest, etc. I decided to take this idea and launch it! Is a elegant innovative solution and I think it have legs.
Something slightly interesting might be the Rubik's cube group. By considering the Rubik's cube a group under the rotation operation, then we can essentially completely solve the Rubik's cube puzzle.

If you are familiar with the Quaternions, take a look at the 3D rotation group SO(3). This group apparently has applications in computing where one needs a way to perform rotations in three dimensions. According to the Wikipedia article, https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Quaternions_a..., this method of representation has certain important advantages over other methods, including being numerically stable and avoiding a problem called gimbal lock, where rotation about one of the possible axes is no longer possible.
"Engineer-Driven" corporate culture is just another imbalanced over-reliance on one competence while neglecting other areas. It's like being the highly talented genius musician who doesn't have the social skills to market themselves.

Stephen Elop should've taken a play from Steve Jobs' playbook. Instead of making such a huge announcement, he should've quietly started a project within Nokia with backing from the highest levels, just like Jobs did with the Macintosh. This might've generated smoldering resentment and jealousy, but it would not have generated a 1000 employee walk-out and enough negative publicity to drop the stock price by 15% in under 24 hours.
The Forex Exchange News: Who is Chandra Levy?
If it doesn't solve any challenging or interesting problems, in what sense is it well written then? In other words if it's easy to write, it's easy to write well. (I hope we are talking about something more substantial than consistent braces and spacing style here.) I have a difficult time imagining that OP enjoys doing some of the more difficult things that are part of the programming universe: seems like he is interested in applying just enough script to Make It Go.

You mentioned web development: I'm sorry but the majority of what's called web development is writing WordPress themes or Drupal modules, and most of this work is leveraging some API in tedious and uninteresting ways. Create this content type, do this when you save it, make this form, validate it like that, blah blah. A person who writes a plugin in WordPress to do the Nth most routine thing in the world (say, list posts in a particular order, for example) -- something that I have to do from time to time, just like anyone else who writes web-based software -- is merely connecting tubes. (Something I wrote elsewhere.)

The point is this: to be a programmer means a specific thing, and it means more than stringing together statements in a language.

My mom who can write `SUM(A1:A10)` in Excel is not a programmer, even though she can do some fairly complex things in a high-level language.

And most kinds of contract web dev out there is writing the exact same functionality for the Nth time (or integrating someone else's plugin for the Nth time), by typing out the correct sequence of API calls against a commodity CMS. Or the frontend equivalent: embedding some off-the-shelf Javascript slideshow or a Facebook like button.

If this is programming then we have a linguistic deficiency, because it's not even in the same category as the kind of work that goes on at the most innovative startups.
Do they have rights to the stuff I do in my spare time?
Well said that man! :)

Also, keeping these sites (without actively updating them, monitoring comments etc) would essentially cost the BBC nothing, especially the low-traffic ones. BBC Online is a very lean organisation.

see:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2189564
Well, the idea of using commutators in the Rubik cube is what leads to a nice, elementary method of solving it, but it's not really a theorem or result from group theory that's telling us something we didn't already know. Plus I suspect many people would regard this as just a toy, a form of "play for play's sake" and hence still irrelevant.

The fact that the quaternions form a field (hence two kinds of group, one of which is interesting) where the multiplication doesn't commute, and then that can be used to model rotations is again interesting, and can be asserted to be useful (and it is) but it's still not really what I'm looking for.

But keep the ideas coming. There's got to be a good one out there somewhere - isn't there?
Perhaps he thinks it's better to make sure that everyone is clear of the direction and committed to it rather than (potentially) wasting hundreds of thousands of hours of work on useless platforms.
Isn't Dan Friedman and other PL gods at Indiana? Didn't Dan revamp the PL education and bring about a new perspective in learning about interpreters?

I read his book but I personally would kill to study under him and hang around with the students under him.

>education in general is out dated and overpriced.
You will be in debt if what the college doesn't find you bright enough and worthy of investment. Most of these schools have immense amount of funding, but they are very wise in who they give it to. I was denied funding in my early semester but I proved to them that I was worth their money. I got it. Now that I am working, I feel it is the same. Unless I prove to them that I am worth their investment, not many bother.

>I think if you are a hard worker and you use your mind you can find other ways to do it that are cheaper and possibly more effective than the college route.

No. If you are all that and you can PROVE it, colleges are the cheapest way to get educated in that amount of time. You do have to take time to consideration. You dont want to spend a year doing Analysis if you could take the hardcore route in college.

>I am dropping out is so I can get out there where people are a lot more passionate about technology.

You should have looked for schools that had better programs. You should have tried to get some research experience so that you could work on hard problems in those schools. You should have developed a credential and ability that would make the school of your dream fund you without a blink of an eye.
http://www.anybots.com/

YC shares offices with Anybots.
Java defines it in a very useful way. It's identical to an AtomicReference, but without any test&set semantics. Anything other than that seems pretty dangerous.

Personally I find the issue with volatile is that it's quite subtle unless you're looking at the declaration. I tend to use AtomicReference even if I don't need test&set, unless it's extremely performance critical, but it almost never is. The inner loop variables don't need to be volatile.
I think your point is a very good one. But I think there are some important parallels to consider here.

Even though Windows was less popular with designers, Microsoft still dominated the business computer market in other areas. Sure, until recently their desktop OS didn't compare to what OS X or Linux offers, but there's a ton of people out there who aren't using OS like those.

I use a Macbook and friends are always ribbing me because I sometimes need to jump through hoops to read Word Docs and Excel Spreadsheets.

I'm just saying there's a whole world of people out there...

Come to think of it, Microsofties also ridiculed their competition.
I tried, but was underwhelmed. Too slow. Too many restrictions (CR-48 requires a complete migration to online with no exception, not that I wasn't aware of it at the beginning).
Great example of a how-to-use-this-site screencast... by a band?
This is my favorite active band at the moment.

And they just launched their new site with a very funny video.
Lots of great ideas in this screencast for app tours.

Especially the idea that: there are no rules for screencasts.
Software association paid $57K in 2010 to piracy whistleblowers
Betting And Sports Go Hand In Hand
Where in this rushing world people may find fun and pleasure? The answer is one and that’s Sports. Sports supply a source of enjoyable experience and pleasure along with high competitive spirit within the group.
What are Agile and Scrum development methodology?
Thank you for that link.

It it overwhelmingly scary and makes me feel as though I did not donate enough to the ACLU and EFF. I often wonder if there is any amount which is "enough."
And that is pretty much why I gave up reading news.

You don't have to know what is going on outside your field, and it is so much more peaceful not knowing all the dangers that are going to kill you (but never really happen).
Your views on WP7 apps are a bit off, there is a huge pool of C# devs who are eager to get into a viable app-market. The WP7 tools are free and have been downloaded 2 million times (according to MS). The app store is growing well, and there are about 8000 apps, which is pretty good considering the plaform is v1 and is only about 4 months old. I've found the quality of apps good, and most of the major players have released apps (e.g. facebook, twitter, amazon etc). The Xbox live games are particularly good (although a bit expensive)
The other comment I have is that I heard him say that one person can win, and can make a difference.

However, there are two caveats to that statement: if you can get access to the resources of the ACLU and if your story turns out, in the end, as Nick's did. I don't want to be a wet blanket, but I am painfully aware that for his one story, there are [by his account] 200,000 other stories which did not turn out that way. Maybe they are living happy free lives in Ohio, or maybe they were "disappeared."
Yes encrypted.google.com is really fast, it even has google instant, but I had to turn it off as my default choice in chrome because it won't let you search images. Video and news work but not images.
Crysis (EA game) leak
The tricky part is the "committed." Tell me, have you tried to get someone who feels like they've just been slapped in the face by you to follow you? (Outside of discussions on the Internet, of course. Mea culpa!)

What if they didn't just have to follow you, but had to apply themselves to something difficult, challenging, and creative?

Sometimes a slap in the face is what's needed. Care should be taken to avoid backfire, however. This is why a slap in the face is a method of last resort. (Outside of discussions on the Internet, of course. Must eat own dogfood.)

Considering Nokia still has strong sales over the entire world, I don't think a slap in the face was really warranted. WWMD? (What Would Machiavelli Do? Actually, WWMWAD: What would Machiavelli write about doing?) The CEO should've been a lot smarter by being a lot sneakier.
I worked at Black & Decker when product engineer deservedly took back seat to marketing as the premier discipline.

Makita was cleaning B&D's clock in the marketplace and all engineering could say was, "But ours test better than Makita's"

Joe Galli took a dozen of the best Black & Decker tools; changed the housings from grey to yellow, and changed the labels from B&D to DeWalt. He hired a dozen new college grads to drive around to job sites and sales took off like crazy. The exact same tools labeled and sold differently outsold Makita. In a strategy masterstroke, when Makita dropped their price he sued them for dumping products on the US for below cost.

It was a true marketing breakthrough -- engineering had nothing to do with it.
There are already WP7 phones with keyboards, so I don't see why Nokia won't make some
Their VCs from 2000, 04 and 05 will all be hungry for an exit.
Say it like Forrest Gump!
> After all, brakes always override the throttle

Huh? Is this only in cars with automatic transmission or something? Since with a manual transmission you couldn't get going uphill if this were true.
You could use dbapi's query parametrisation instead of string concatenation, or maybe use sqlalchemy's SQL Expression if you don't want to write SQL.

ORMs are not a panacea. Especially when the database schema gets more complicated they require more setup and tuning, and there's always the problem of how much data the ORM should suck in vs. how lazy it can behave.
That wasn't a software error in the same sense, it was more of a design error.
'static' in C is the worst - it has 2 different meanings within the same language. Does anyone know the reason for this confusing design decision?