skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Thats not really fair.

It didn't burn until they shot it with tracer/incendiary rounds. Normal bullets don't come anywhere near setting the gas on fire.
Not necessarily. But the BBC are. The current UK government has asked all departments to cut spending by more than ever in history, even more than when the empire nearly went bankrupt after the napoleonic war. The BBC whilst nominally independent are funded through a state tax and are a state-owned chartered corporation. The current tories have always been treated with hostility by the BBC as the tories tend to want to reduce the BBC's funding, and the Lib Dems never really got much of a word in edgeways. Consequently the BBC (with it's massive media power) is pushing this to make it very visible that they're doing something about cutting costs.
It's not extremely common for people to list their location in their profile, but for some reason I was compelled to click on your username.

What a surprise I see "Los Angeles."
I would be surprised if Nokia ever gets mentioned at Apple. Apple has Android in their rear-view mirror -- Nokia is not even on the same lap.
Steve Jobs Health, Forced Sabbaticals, And His Brilliance
I think it is more likely that social network sites will incorporate e-mail clients that come preintegrated with calendars etc.

E-mail would be part of how different social networking sites interoperate.

E-mail is a patchwork of proven standards.

E-mail might vanish into the plumbing of the internet --- as ip addresses have and urls might --- but it will still be there.

If my company got rid of e-mail altogether and used Facebook instead, we'd lose customers.

Catchy titles grab attention, but they obscure meaning. I still don't know what you are predicting.
I wonder if Nokia is in a position to blur the lines between smart phones and feature phones? This could be done with only a moderate increase in the resources in each phone. The hard part would be establishing the software ecosystem and getting the carriers to follow.

As pointed out elsewhere in these comments, Nokia has a huge chunk of market in the rest of the world. If they could blur the lines between smart phone and feature phones, they could easily disrupt the smartphone market in developing markets, before it can even come to being. Think about it, people in Africa are using SMS services the way we use Apps. Even though this is uglier, it works great in their situation, because the vehicle fits the terrain much better.

The time lag between the developed world and the developing world is like having a telescope that can look into the future. If Nokia can't capitalize on their position and this kind of foresight, then it's a damn shame. (My money is that someone in India and/or China will see the same opportunity and disrupt all of Apple/Android/WP7/Blackberry/Nokia in this way.)
Dup: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2208056

Discussed there at great length, and as I write this it's currently 8th on the HN front page.

There's also a "Joel on Software" post:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2209181
Tom Logan from the Institute For Studies says that Think Tanks are an "Invaluable source of impartial opinion that help reflect the thoughts, movements and science that drives the world." Ribena de-Farquhar-Toss from the Policy Research (PR) Think Tank disagrees, suggesting that Think Tanks form "part of the process by which corporations and governments brain wash us into spending money we haven't earned on shit we don't need."
It's not really C# that matters. Most web apps should be database bound, and the main database should be on a separate server, so language just shouldn't matter. SO is fast because Microsoft SQL server is fast. It's fast right out of the box, unlike every other big SQL server which needs tuning, though other servers may be a little bit faster if you tune them correctly, if you can't find a better use for your time. Also, SX splits itself into several separate sites (SO, SF, etc), so scaling the database gets even easier - it's just a different database!

Everyone should keep this in mind when they worry about server architecture - SO runs off 12 servers. As long as an app doesn't do anything crazy, it's going to scale very easily throughout the first few years. 1 server should be enough for almost anyone. 1 database, and a few frontend web app servers will take you to millions of views per day.

Unlike user software, most web apps get faster every year, and the stacks tend to get faster (due to better interpreters) not slower (due to silly 3D effects on the desktop).

pg loves to say that people who pay for server software are crazy. That might still be true for Google these days, but not for most people. You don't need many servers, and Windows is no longer slow.
The price.

Nokia now has to pay for the license to their mobile software as well as the hardware while everybody else only have to pay for the hardware.
That's the thing, I don't think there needs to be a tech angle, but it does need to be interesting. For example, I posted a non-tech article about the world's most liberal prison, a prison island in Norway with a supermarket and cafeteria (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2209884) because I thought it was an interesting and unique read others are unlikely to find.

Of course, upvotes will tell as to whether this is a valid story.
Who Owns the Online Road?
So you are not using it anymore? Too slow is interesting, seeing Google's focus on speed.
Reason for this is that static actually does exactly same thing in both cases: defines global variable without externally accessible name and makes it accessible in enclosing scope. (exact standarteese being "internal linkange with static storage duration")
I've noticed this in a few assistants I've hired. I've had to train them away from CYA thinking and have gone through a few iterations to get them towards goal and value oriented thinking.

Example: When asked to "arrange a meeting" with the web consultant, my assistant left all of the choices up to me and didn't try to get any information exchange out of the way ahead of time by email and using our website. I've had to explain that our meeting had certain goals, and that she should think independently to achieve them. Instead, she just took "Cover My Ass" actions by demonstrating that she was taking actions "trying" to move toward those and left all the decisions up to me. I had to explain that the value they produced for me was in minimizing the communications I was involved in and exercising her intelligence and common sense.

Basically, a company has real success by creating real value. Employees that focus on process are focusing on covering their ass and not on the goal of producing real value.
I use Django and Python for a lot of stuff. I have used rails in the past, but not for a long time. I prefer python to ruby, and that's ultimately what made me switch (as I write non-web stuff in Python).

Perhaps the two biggest differences between Django and Rails are where you save time. With Rails you get scaffolding, so you have CRUD functions for everything more or less straight off the bat.

With Django you get an admin interface which is great if you want a backend, but you still have to write your own frontend pages.

Rails has built in Ajax and Schema migration. Django has external projects for it.

In some respects Django is a bit like Arch Linux and Rails is more like Ubuntu. If you like your frameworks to have everything bundled in and like Ruby then Rails is better for you. If you like things to be the way you want or you prefer python, consider Django and Pylons (and web.py).
Nice one. Obviously there are parallels with Microsoft. Both were big entrenched companies that got their lunch money stolen by Apple, but in both cases I reject the notion that Apple has been 'tearing them limb by limb'.
it didnt take me to an article, it took me to a flash ad for the economist.
$0 is a precise number. "Microsoft bought Nokia for $300 million" doesn't have the same ring to it, but seems to be closer to the truth. Which makes the headline sensationalistic.
>Why would Microsoft favor Nokia over its own interests of selling WP7 to every phone maker out there? The only reason Nokia faces little competition is because nobody wants WP7. If Nokia takes the risk and proves WP7 is viable, other phone makers will use it. If it fails, it's doomed. From Microsoft's point-of-view this is perfect - all the downside is Nokia's and all the upside is theirs.

Because you don't license software from Microsoft without getting an exclusive license (or at the very least a preferable one).

Microsoft versus IBM is the canonical example of why you don't. Nokia couldn't possible have been stupid enough to forget that.
The more I learn, the more the humble gas tank looks like really awesome tech! I mean, you can put a shitload of energy in the thing, and for all that it's surprisingly robust.
Weekly Python News: 02/11/2011
And what do they look identical to? The original iphone.

Kind of a tangent here, but the reason they look identical to the iPhone is partly because the iPhone is so well designed but also because the competition is completely unimaginative.

Is the full-screen + one button the last word in smart phone design? I hope not.
IBM.

They brought an OS from MS and that destroyed their biggest bet ever, reducing them from the hardware maker to just another supplier.
Print me a Stradivariua
Fluent in English.
Tamil is my mother tongue, but alas, I can't say I'm fluent in it.
Nokia is very good in the design of usable mobiles. Since they acquired Qt, they are also very good in software design.
Apple is not a good example. This article makes no sense.
this was posted before, but didn't get much attention:

Robot Orders a Scone in Mountain View, Ca.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mz4FshiMu3U

(yes, anybots...)
I think he's saying that RedHat isn't about choice. For Linux (being the kernel) choice is a central theme. You can take what you want out of it, put what you want in. Don't like the scheduler? Change it. Don't need those drivers? Rip them out. Don't want a particular userland? Fine, choose something else.

That level of choice doesn't extend to everyone, but to deny it exists is to deny a fundamental differentiator of open source against closed source systems. Linux will never be able to force DRM onto you, because you always have the option to remove it. The same goes for everything else.
I'm sure things at Nokia will be getting a lot blurrier.
Agree. Also interesting that an employee protesting on his own time is considered a "political position", while selling equipment used by dictators to oppress their people is not. The article does imply that this is not always the case, but in my experience it seems much more acceptable to engage in the latter than the former.
From the comments there, this is a pretty good article on why neither volatile, nor anything else in C or C++, necessarily does what people want it to in the multithreaded context: http://www.aristeia.com/Papers/DDJ_Jul_Aug_2004_revised.pdf
Why abstraction matters: Can your programming language do this? [2006]
Globule: A Collaborative Content Delivery Network
I'm not so sure that would be good for Nokia.

This decision is an admission from Nokia that they aren't good at software.

If they went with Android they will need to write software to differentiate themselves from the myriad of other Android handsets.

By going with WP7 they are immediately differentiated (there simply isn't a flood of WP7 handsets out there) and Microsoft handles the software side.

EDIT: edited so it reads better.
I know this has been submitted before, but I think there is value in seeing it again.

In particular, badly named abstractions are worse than no abstractions at all. No abstractions means wading through piles and piles of details to see what's happening. Well named abstractions mean seeing the structure at a glance. Too much abstraction means not understanding what's happening.

But badly named abstractions are lie, misleading cons that waste time and effort.

</rant>
An idea I heard floated, but never got as much consideration as I would have liked: Teams get a fixed amount of fuel for the race, how they go about converting that into energy is entirely up to them.
I agree that you should consider creating an S-corp.

I live in Europe and suggest using paypal if you are targeting Europeans. Many Europeans do not have credit cards and need to do bank transfers to pay for things online which is why they use paypal.
http://snapengage.com (real time)
Have a blast with HTC 7 Surround
Stuxnet Hit 5 Gateway Targets on Its Way to Iranian Plant
My dad has an electric bicycle. Using the pedals as a means of throttle feels very natural (I commute on ordinary bicycle) and surprising, as if you have a strong wind in the back, or like if someone pushes you ;-). The eRockit is uncomparably overpowered, of course. This thing is pure adrenaline.
It's important to note that the sleazy stuff comes from HBGary Federal, a wholly owned but independent subsidiary of HBGary Inc. HBGary Federal appear to have been set up to do government work, and were struggling to get it so it appears that Barr and Vera went down a fairly dark path to keep things going.

The big question is how much of this was known to the top brass in the parent company. My guess is not a lot, as having met Penny and Greg I don't think they'd support the idea of going after wikileaks. In fact, even Karen Burke's emails about the anonymous stuff show that the parent company were quite uneasy about the whole anonymous research in general.

It does seem like Aaron Barr is a bit of a fool and quite a nasty piece of work to boot. I noticed his talk was removed from B-Sides SF. He should (for HBGary's sake, if not his own) do the decent thing and fall on his sword.
I'm not so sure that your reading of the standard is correct. From n1256.pdf, the essentially unchanged and freely available draft of the C99 standard:

(5.1.2.3.2): Accessing a volatile object, ..., or calling a function that does any of those operations are all side effects...

(5.1.2.3.3): In the abstract machine, all expressions are evaluated as specified by the semantics. An actual implementation need not evaluate part of an expression if it can deduce that its value is not used and that no needed side effects are produced (including any caused by calling a function or accessing a volatile object).

It does not look like this allows an implementation complete freedom in deciding what constitutes an "access". In fact, I'm pretty certain that 'volatile int i; i;' is required to access i exactly once. (There are plenty of optimizer bugs in this area, but these are bugs.)

(Note that the above has nothing to do with threads and everything with memory-mapped devices. Perhaps you were thinking of threads? These are not part of the C standard, though.)
If you reflect for a moment, you'll find that both the posted gag and my humorless comments are actually getting at the same underlying idea.
Boston: Subsidized Ruby on Rails Training
I heard of this training and thought I'd pass it along as it may interest others in the community.

"Fairhaven Capital is pleased to announce they will be sponsoring and hosting two Ruby on Rails workshops taught by thoughtbot, a leader in Rails development and training. These courses are designed to allow Boston-area developers gain a better working knowledge of Rails.

The first workshop, to be held March 3rd and 4th at the office of Fairhaven Capital, One Hampshire Street in Kendall Square, will provide an introduction to Ruby on Rails for software developers with experience in other technologies such as Java, Python, C#, PHP, HTML, and SQL. The second workshop, to be held March 31st and April 1st again at Fairhaven's office, will provide more advanced Rails training, with a focus on scaling high-traffic Rails applications.

The courses are open to the general developer community, and with Fairhaven’s sponsorship, will be offered at $600 per course – a discount of over 50% off thoughtbot’s normal rate. Each course is open to 25 students – if they are oversubscribed, a preference will be given towards developers from start-up companies.

Applications are now being accepted at http://workshops.thoughtbot.com/fairhaven.

The courses will be provided over two full days, with a networking event held for participants the night of the 3rd and 31st."
It's their right to cultivate a company culture like that, should they wish so. Apparently a lot of young 'rockstar' programmers are attracted to that, being able to work and hang out with all the cool guys from a Web 3.0 company. Pay is probably less important than status (and a good looking entry on your résumè). I wonder whether the rockstar programmers are allowed to bring in their groupies to admire them during work? Like this guy observes: http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7023615/

Edit: typos
David Key Fresno
Connect with David Key Fresno at iKarma.
IRIX was a god of an OS.

It had real time I/O. It had the best user interface at the time, with super fast scalable vector graphics for everything in '94. (Modern desktops have caught up some 13 years later). It had usable 64 bits everything before anyone else - R10000 was generally available in '95.

They were insanely fast compared to the Sun and Digital stations of the time - the only competitor was Digital Alpha, and IRIX beat Ultrix to the ground and mopped the floor with it.

These were the days of multiculture, where my employer insisted on having several Alphas, Suns, SGIs, RS/6000 and more to make sure we're not locked to any specific vendor.
David Key Fresno Know About Me
Read about david key fresno complete bio.
Using SSH? That's what I've used to administer every server I need to for many years.

The last time I had to work on windows servers SSH wasn't really an option though so we used remote desktop. This was on win2k servers though so things may have changed.

I think the question deserves a better reply than the glib "The same way as you administer any cluster." Is the answer really SSH? Or something else?
For those who didn't notice - this series currently has 5 more articles - you need to click "Next post" at the bottom. Wasn't immediately obvious for me.
A tale of abstraction - too much?  Or too little?  [2008]
While I am sympathetic to the anti-censorship goal, I am not so sure about making "internet access" an inalienable right.

I guess I am just not a big fan of positive right.
Ask UK HNers: who got invited to the UK Govt IP review meeting?
See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2192522. I submitted but received a rejection on Thursday night. Has anyone from HN got through?
I'm not sure how much hardware design has to do with a phone's success anymore. After the iPhone came out, every manufacturer now makes phones that are 90% screen. How close are we to hardware design where the bezel around the screen is 1mm and the whole device is only a few millimeters thick? Won't every phone basically look the same with the OS and user experience the only differentiators? Isn't that pretty much happening already?
They don't. I don't think there's a 3rd party company who "makes a living" from selling twitter clients. In this space, money are made selling "social media analytics" to "enterprise" customers. And obviously it's easier to sell that when you have a "name" on the twitter client market. Now you see the connection ?
Carpet cleaning guide | WATER DAMAGE REPAIR
Is food an inalienable right? Housing? Health care?
The iPhone 4 hardware is just pleasurable to hold. It's a slab of magic glass with this Bauhaus designed edge. Just handling it almost makes me smile.

That said, there's more fundamental value in the software, how well that software performs the functionality I want to use, and how well the battery, touch interface, and other hardware support that functionality.

"Shiny and makes me smile" in the end is just a nice adjunct to "does what I need and helps me make money." Apple has both. That's a hard combination to beat in the short term. In the long term, the latter is the foundation.
Not anymore than watches all looked the same and accuracy, features, and water resistance were the only differentiators.
Agreed. Sometimes people forget that this is "news for hackers" and not just news, however wide they are spread.
Microsoft should be able to look at what sucks about the Apple ecosystem and capitalize on those factors by tuning them into their advantages and Apple's weakness.
Nokia was on the verge of non-existence.

Only in the smartphone context. They have strong sales and would have strong sales for quite awhile, even if they just gave up making anything new.
Python doesn't actually "compile" the code on each run. It only "recompiles" when something changes.
Egypt's Warning: Are you listening?
http://book.personalmba.com/absence-blindness/
It happens all the time in manufacturing. Run double shifts to meet a customer's deadline, then lay 60% of the staff off. Same with construction. Not necessarily the best way to build a stable workforce, but in as far as IANAL, completely legal in the US unless it violates an employment contract or industry specific Federal regulations.

On the other hand, forcing people to take time off after an extended push probably has some benefits on productivity. A month of 7 day work weeks will turn rank and file production staff into zombies.
I built this 'HN inspired' site. What do you think?
get all three, and redirect them to getXXX.com
Microsoft will do whatever it needs to increase market penetration of WP7, with no regard whether that pleases Nokia.

I think this dynamic has already been at play with the 1000 employee walkout. It seems the C-level at Nokia's view of what would be best for Nokia is clouded by interaction with former Microsoft colleagues.

Ignoring corporate culture is a mistake. Purposely alienating employees is usually another one. One of these two happened here.
This article's title is incredibly inaccurate - it should be something like 'six projects for preventing internet access from being shut off by a governmental body'.

As the title currently reads, it's just setting us up for the same old tiresome political debate.
Maybe they should be trying to find the internal source instead of blaming everything on "piracy".
It's actually quite remarkable the number of places a single keyword can be used. We have

* Static functions in C
* Static variables in C
* Static members in C++
* Static instance variables in Java
* Static methods in Java

The strange combination of C++'s namespaces and static begets static members, which almost make sense in context. But then Java stole the syntax and not the rest of the language (thank god), leading to its strange, almost contradictory usage.
Apple paid NeXT to take them over, and got their CEO installed in place of Apple's. A guy called Steve Jobs, you might have heard of him. NeXT knew what they were doing (hardware, software)-wise, and Apple at that point in time didn't.

Whereas Microsoft have no idea how to phones (Kin, anyone?); the jury is still out on the phone software but it doesn't look good (iOS and Android are mopping the floor with WP7). And if Ballmer is installed as CEO of Nokia, I'm going to short it.
IBM has a $201 billion market cap. Their problems of 20 years ago were due to changes in the industry, not Microsoft (their contract with Microsoft was not the first one they ever signed).
It's quite a savvy move. Microsoft's strengths are marketing and software. Nokia knows how to engineer hardware.

The employees weren't handled correctly. If I were Apple and Google, I'd now be poaching some Nokia employees.
Baby Monitors Lack Security
I'll Take Jeopardy Trivia for $200, Alex
Could better PR have prevented Groupon's China gaffe?
(6.7.3.6): What constitutes an access to an object that has volatile-qualified type is implementation-defined.

That seems to me like giving 'complete freedom in deciding what constitutes an "access"'. Or almost.

Actually, chapter 4.10 of GCC 4.4 manual documents how is this defined by GCC and explicitly states, that discarding result of read of volatile object does not always cause access to such object.