skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Out of curiosity: what's the "right direction" you think IE is taking? Stability over incremental updates? Or something else?

Well, yes, I am in favour of a certain level of stability over lightning-fast development. No-one who is actually developing web sites can use all the bleeding edge stuff the day it's released anyway, and releasing functionality changes every few weeks just means yet another round of reading release notes and blog posts to make sure nothing is about to break. I would far rather have a new version released, say, every 1-2 years, with a clearly defined set of new major features, and with every major browser implementing those new features at roughly the same time and in the same way. This is, after all, the point of standards. (Security patches can be released ASAP of course, but shouldn't change any functionality anyway.)

More than that stability, though, I feel that the IE team is focussing on better support for important technologies that are out there right now and experienced by real people and not just geeks and web designers who like the shiny new toys. For example, while Google, Adobe, Apple, and Mozilla are having a big pissing match and actively dropping support for various things, IE will be happily running Flash, H.264 in an HTML5 video tag, etc.

Along similar lines, recent versions of IE have dramatically improved both JS performance and standards compliance, so most arguments about IE being slow or needing things like CSS hacks are out of date anyway. Moreover, Microsoft have much improved their handling of security issues in recent years, and as I mentioned before, IE has long since moved to running tabs independently. I've been shopping on-line for a lot of networking components recently, and while Firefox has been my default browser for a while, I've been getting awfully tired of waiting around because one of the 20+ tabs I opened to compare products/prices was loading slowly and locking up the whole browser.

Apparently I've gone into super-verbose mode today so I'll stop there. Basically, I do think IE's approach to releases is more practically useful and sustainable, but I also think the IE team is focussing their efforts on technologies that are in widespread use today, while some of the other browser teams seem more preoccupied with bragging rights about trendy-but-currently-worthless new ideas and politics, neither of which ever did much to help real users trying to get real stuff done.
I really like the idea of pushing log messages in to a redis list and then flushing them out to disk with another process.

I've often thought it would be useful to have a redis equivalent of MongoDB's capped collections, specifically to make things like recent activity logs easier to implement. At the moment you can simulate it with an rpush followed by an ltrim, but it would be nice if using two commands wasn't necessary.
* there's decent and non-evil reasons

Funny, I just e-mailed some friends about how Apple was starting to get a bit of the stink of Evil about them.

As I read your comment, I was struck by how Apple does everything in a very one-size-fits-all fashion (Mac -> no window menu; iPhone -> home screen is a list of apps; subscriptions -> one revenue model). There's a rich set of monetization schemes out there and Apple might offer a range of monetization models. Apple could use an affiliate fee style model where App maker pays Apple $X for each subscription+. Then Apple could just use the eCPM or expected revenue to rank search results (App gets a lot of subscribers and pays a healthy CPA, they get ranked higher). App makers would then need to figure out how much $$$ to pay Apple for an install. This could also apply to free apps [...but we've seen the harm that causes elsewhere].

Then Apple could add simple hosting/management fees for hosting an app's content.

+ I've been fairly heavily involved in the affiliate/CPA space, so know the kind of unpleasantness the model can bring, but am fairly confident that Apple could work around it.

[ed: formatting]
Just a heads-up: we've got a limited supply of the first batch (as some intelligent commenters below have deduced). If you'd like to get hacking soon, I'd suggest picking one up! The first batch starts shipping tomorrow...
Your marketing speech just creeped me out, FYI.
Sagan Planet Walk in Ithaca, NY: http://www.sciencenter.org/saganpw/map.asp
Related, but different poll is "How often do you visit HN" - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2090191
Just go work at a strip club already, perv.
That's not scary, that's good. It's also inevitable if Ray Kurzweil is right and computers will soon exceed the mental capabilities of humans. It's only scary if you think in today's economic model where automation implies unemployment and where unemployment implies poverty.

But just think of the following arguments:

- If a person a hundred years ago would have predicted today's technology, this person might have thought that this technology will destroy most of the jobs and unemployment will raise. Instead, people moved to new types of jobs and economy continued to grow.

- Even if computers and robots can take over all of the jobs this does not need to be a bad thing. Of course this would not work in today's economic systems, but there could be new systems where computers and robots do the work and humans equally profit from the results.
Fair enough. Surely this would be mostly useless for anything other than static sites though?
And so he should; gives some meaning to the "Do no evil" mantra.
Yeah, I know, which is why I didn't go into more detail to repeat your point. I was just saying, XHTML never really happened.
Mistakes should be encouraged, then when they are made, they should be presented as learning opportunities. As in: "this is incorrect, here are some things you can do instead, lets look at why you thought this, and how we can get you to a different frame of mind".

Please re-read my statement number 2. I said worry is usually rooted in fear of something being taken away. I never said anything regarding the nature of fear, either its causes or effects.

I'll try to put those repercussion fears into words for you: you are afraid that your mistakes will have the company go out of business and your job will be taken, that your friends and colleagues will no longer associate and respect you as a result (taking away those relationships), that future employment will be harder to find (taking away security). Is this on the right track? I have those fears too, I just try not to let them rule my life.

As for the other side of this why worry about inefficiency? Are you afraid you might have your reputation for no-nonsense constant work taken away? Do you fear you won't get enough money? Whats the big deal about learning something that takes a bunch of time but doesn't return as well as you'd hoped? Why worry about it? Sometimes inefficiency in the small leads to gains in the large, and vice-versa.

As for 3rd-hand "thats bad": I have yet to meet anyone who is both good at something and blindly accepts these "truisms". The good ones question it from the get-go, they may end up agreeing to the principle, but they don't just blindly accept and move on, instead they try to understand it. This is different than the dogma and hard rules I was talking about.

edit: When I say mistakes should be encouraged I don't mean saying "yay you made a mistake! Here is a gold star." Or "Johnny you didn't make a mistake, no star for you". Instead I mean students should be told "It's ok to make mistakes, learn from them, it is a natural result as you gain understanding" Because in the end, humans learn by experience, both positive and negative.
Brainstorming a startup name for engineers
I'd like to believe that Coke doesn't mess around with the ratio of sweetener inside the syrup.
Congrats! Diego.
A) This will probably be flagged by rand-fans who are sick of government keeping them down, in between paving the roads they drive on.

B) Taking something that's there for the taking is in no way inconsistent with Ayn Rand's public philosophy. Maybe with some of her books. This is someone who wrote gushingly of an armed robber and kidnapper/murderer: "A wonderful, free, light consciousness" born of the utter absence of any understanding of "the necessity, meaning, or importance of other people."

http://michaelprescott.net/hickman.htm
More on Apple's 30% cut of Kindle book sales, etc.
It's more than a shame Microsoft's not providing IE9 on XP. It's positively criminal. Do you know what it's like to target IE8 with a web app that was built for a modern browser? And XP has 60% of the market!

It has been a good... forever since MS has been a proper team player when it came to working well with websites that run on all other browsers with minimal modification.

This is closer than we've ever ever been in the past to having a remotely sane reality.

So pretty please, with sugar on top, fix the fucking browser.
I agree with the survivorship bias, maybe there are other dropouts who I never heard of.

But on the selection bias, I can't really think off the top of my head many other major founders from top C.S. schools that dropped out and were successful. Is Harvard even a "top" C.S. school?
+1 Thanks man, definetly will. =)
Hi everyone.

In summary, the cipher is Vigenère with 2,3,5 and 7 key lengths. The four keys won't synchronise for 210 letters, so it's only "good" for that much.

It's very flawed. If you know cryptography its easy to spot, but the article isn't for you. It's for people who don't know cryptography, with the long description of Vigenère in the article.

Enjoy.
"in the statement of defence Kik asserted that Ted, the CEO of Kik, did not have access to the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) source code while he worked at RIM's BBM team as a Project Coordinator. Kik also denies that Ted had access to RIM's development plans, market research, and other internal reports related to BBM while working as part of RIM's BBM team, as RIM had alleged in its statement of claim."

Once upon a time, Yours Truly was also a Project Coordinator at RIM and that was definitely not true. I was not on the BBM team, but tons of code was publicly browsable in the SCM and I was privy to all documents (PRDs, MRDs, project schedules, etc) which had anything to do with the team I was on. In short, I call BS.
Ask HN: Do you keep a video journal?
I've seen this in a lot of sci-fi movies recently (eg. Avatar, Sunshine). The characters make daily video journals chronicling their progress on a big project. It got me thinking about maybe starting one to help focus my work and keep me motivated. Perhaps the motive to continue making impressive video journal entries will help. And in the oddball chance I really do end up changing the world perhaps future historians might be interested in it.

I was wondering if others do this and what your experiences are?
Watson needs a few seconds to calculate the answer and will only hit the buzzer when it’s finished calculating. Its opponents can buzz in even if they are not completely sure that they have an answer (or they simply might be faster than Watson). It’s important to note that it is only possible to buzz in after the question has been read out. (Someone behind the stage flips a switch or something like that. Lights indicate that the buzzers are open for the humans, they are locked out for a few hundred milliseconds when they press the buzzer too early, Watson never buzzes in prematurely.)

I would like to know whether it is possible to beat Watson to the buzzer even if you and Watson both already know the answer. Watson has probably better reaction times but humans can anticipate when the host is finished reading. That probably depends highly on the consistency of the person behind the stage flipping the switch and opening the buzzers.

Here are some stats from the first round: Watson was the first to buzz in 16 times (with two wrong answers). It was above its buzzing threshold and didn’t manage to buzz in seven times. (It would have been wrong three times if it had made it to the buzzer first.) It was below its buzzing threshold six times. (The remaining one is the daily double which Watson got correct.)

This needs to be in a table. Numbers in brackets indicate wrong or potentially wrong answers:

Confident & first: 14+(2)
Confident & beaten: 4+(3)
Not confident: 6
Daily Double: 1

Edit: Some think that Watson’s (probably) superior reaction time gives it an unfair edge. I don’t really agree because fast reactions are simply a part of the game but I can sort of see the point that it’s not really about reaction times. We already know that computers can be better than humans when it comes to those.

I propose the following modification: One of the contestants who manages to buzz in in the first 100ms (the human reaction time) is randomly selected, buzzing in after those 100ms works as usual. Contestants are also no longer locked out for buzzing in too early.
I flagged this not because I'm a rand-fan, but because I generally dislike seeing this kind of politics on HN. It does not lead to good discussions, just the same tired arguments.
Not entirely true. I have a card straight from Amex. Fortunately I can't tell you if that makes things better.
Are you brave enough to put your tea-making facilities in the DMZ? That's laying it on the line, man. Personally I think I would reverse proxy my teapot through nginx, I don't trust a TCP/IP stack embedded in a kitchen appliance.

I would like to take this opportunity to direct your attention towards the venerable http://nicecupofteaandasitdown.com which is both splendid and written by a hacker. I think you can tell when you get to the page with the venn diagram of biscuits.
Cool!

Here it is: dl.dropbox.com/u/21104/James Cleveland CV 2011.pdf
Thanks.

What kind of results have you been getting with paid ads?
Cool!

Here it is: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/21104/James%20Cleveland%20CV%202011....
"Let's talk about road rage now. In the presence of signs that clearly state "slower traffic keep right", why would you be angry if someone drives slower on the left? Sure, they are disobeying traffic signs, breaking the law, etc, but why is that your concern? What gives you the authority to "punish" (honking horns, riding a lawbreaker's tail, giving the finger on your way by, swerving angrily around to indicate your opinion, etc)?"

Are you joking? If somebody is driving slowly in the left lane, they are creating an unsafe traffic condition. It isn't wrong simply because there are signs saying not to do it, it's wrong specifically because it negatively effects other drivers on the road.

Furthermore, honking your horn is not "punishment", it's a form of communication.
I don't think any of my clients would accept dropping support for IE.
I think the biggest problem, despite the invite system, was the missing migration path from email.

Technically it was great and had soon my attention.
Ask HN: What steps and preparations should I make before quitting my job?
Hi HN.

I was hoping to turn to the wisdom of HN for advice. I am a software developer and for a while, I've felt unrecognized and pigeon holed on the "unsexy" projects. I've been told I was in line for a raise but was just waiting for approval. That was six months ago, when I asked what was happening I was told 'still waiting'.

Honestly, unsexy workhorse projects are completely fine by me personally I learn enough in my spare time - but they're a dead end with respect to promotion and growth.

From all the previous advice I've seen on Hacker News I know "If you hate your job, quit" is apparently the right answer.

Overcoming the fears though is a bit of a stumbling block. There's a lot of other wisdom that says "it's easier to find a job if you already have one", or "why not make your own job" (believe me, I'm trying!).

I'm getting calls, going on interviews, just not getting to that final stage of offer.

Maybe I'm just being impatient, but I got turned down for one that I really wanted just last Friday and this week has felt almost unbearable.

Seriously, today just as I got into the office, rather than getting straight down to work, I cried. (Thankfully I get in so much earlier than everyone else I had time to do that before anyone saw me).

I'm sitting here with the words catching in my throat. "Guys, I've got to move on" but I keep stopping at the point where that little voice in my head says "have you really thought about this?" (and my wife's voice calmly telling me that I should really have another job first).

I don't know really what to say. I'm just feeling a bit shit really. HN is sure to have that sort of collective wisdom that can help a guy out.
Stolen US military IDs ideal cover for army of online dating scammers
I just tried navigating to crashie8.com on IE9 RC, and while it crashed the tab (and one of the other tabs that shared the same process), nothing happened to the main IE window. The isolation seemed to work alright. Did you try this with the beta or the RC?
I reached the end of this story and thought, "they're following their heart and building something they'll personally use every day." ("We’re really excited about this app because it’s very useful to our daily life.")

Some things are more important than commercial success, and taking the exit door when presented with a base hit or standup double, especially when it's a product your heart's not in, doesn't sound like that bad of a choice to me. I'm in a very similar situation atm.
I really like the taste of red bull, doesn't taste anything like it?
This is insane. Why aren't they hiring more employees?!?
Fentimans is superb. Their Curiosity Cola is amazing, and their tonic water when mixed with Hendricks makes for one hell of a Gin and Tonic!
Yes but thus far Steam has had no real impact on consoles. In fact Valve recently opened pre-orders for Portal 2, but only for the console versions leaving the PC/Steam version out. Until Valve can figure out what to do about consoles, Steam will remain valuable but stuck on the fringes. I have no hard data but I'm willing to bet console games outsell PC games by quite a bit.
Fair nuff.

FWIW, I don't think a lot of people have seen that piece about the psychopath before.
Also a fan, but it is a little on the expensive side.
The number depends on exactly what you mean.

I read every headline that hits the RSS, so that's 25+.
I read the summary of about 11-25. (Maybe 25+, if it's a good day.)
I read the story for probably 6-10, depending on the content of the summaries and comments.

I assumed the last in my vote.
In fairness this really isn't inconsistent. You can not support the Government giving out money to everyone and still be rational enough to realize it's stupid to turn down free money (which you believe the government would only waste anyway).
Ah thanks for pointing that out, didn't read the blog.

I think I'd still rather wear it like you would a security badge with a lanyard or like the old-school mini-pagers in your pocket with a chain.
For the people wanting to know what the badge-printing setup looked like, I think these pictures show it:

http://imhello.posterous.com/
I realized that; I was just hoping that this observation would lead to an attack, but it's not clear to me that there's a particularly easy/reliable extension of the Vigenere attacks...
I think a distinction between your argument and the OP's motivation is that it isn't money he wants - its to work on something he loves doing.

It may have started with a mobile app, and he found some tangential success with printing name badges at conferences. But nowhere in your response addresses that maybe the OP didn't want to print name badges for a living. He sold his company which he wasn't truly passionate about which enabled him to do something he was passionate about. Sounds like a success story to me.

Not everyone's motivations are the same, and when that's the case we end up with criticisms that aren't focused on the essence of what is being told.
Also insane: https://skitch.com/dasil003/rq6tf/hacker-news
> Of course, over time I suspect console makers will move more and more towards digital distribution for all games, but that won't happen overnight or even any time soon.

Yes but they will do that without Steam. Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft already have infrastructure in place for it and already digitally distribute small games. They just need to make it scale to full releases.
Magazines in a supermarket are slotted, so the publisher is paying the supermarket to stock the magazine.
longer thread on this here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2221846
"Forget iOS and bring on the HTML5 mobile apps". Ryan is a wise guy!
But not Mozilla and Opera, and Google have said they're prepared to pull support if the vulnerabilities become more than theoretical. I just don't think it's fair to single out Microsoft for not implementing something that half the browsers out there (including IE's closest rival) intentionally disabled.

I wish we could have WebSockets, but it was not Microsoft's failure to implement that made them unusable in the general case.
Knuth is famous for the remark "Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it", and the implicit statement that a proof-of-correctness is not adequate to ensure that code will operate correctly is one I absolutely agree with

My boss told me a similar story of a computer science professor giving a cross-group talk in which he pitched the concept of formal methods to a group of physicists who, among other things, programmed collectors for particle experiments. (Supposedly this happened at Cornell in the seventies.) The CS professor enthusiastically and animatedly proved the correctness of an algorithm for solving a simple graph-coloring game and then asked whether there were any questions. One of the physicists raised his hand and asked, "How fast does it run?"

"That's the beauty of formal methods! Now that I've proved the algorithm correct, I already know it will produce the right answer. There are far too many possible inputs to verify correctness via testing, so there's actually no point in running it at all."
While Objective-C is backwards-compatible with C, it doesn't tend to be as noticable as much as it is with C++. Objective-C feels like a markedly different language in which you can do inline C if you want to, while C++ feels like more of an extension of C.
For technical sites like Hacker News (and to some extent, reddit), it seems like marketing speech is actually more likely to turn off potential buyers than attract them. See the IE9 AMA debacle on reddit, for example. We're hackers here, and blunt truth tends to be valued more than softer wording.
Well, you pay per stumble. I'm fortunate that the site in question fits perfectly into their "Fantasy Books" category, consequence of which the stumbles tend to spend quite a lot of time on my website and convert to members. I have also found that, since I started paying for a nominal amount of stumbles, that my free stumbles have also increased! Though that my be a coincidence I'm sure.
Triangle JVM Hack Night (Clojure, Scala, Groovy, etc.) Tomorrow Night
This is the best longform copywriting I have ever seen! I'm happy to be advertised to in this way. I especially like the "priority access" part.

The View app does look amazing - seems to basically be local advertising/information signage on your phone, as Philip K Dick predicted/feared, but (hopefully) more useful than typical ads (can you find ways to keep it that way?)

Suggestions: the example messages are great, but show them a little longer, maybe proportional to their length (I couldn't quite read some of them); and maybe somehow make your tag more concrete and specific (maybe 'what you need to know about where you are' - danger signs, like your "tow zone" one sum it up). Maybe something about "signs"?
Depends on how deeply I'm procrastinating. I noticed last night that nearly every link on the top page had been visited - that ain't good.
TL;DR: This person likes diagrams.