skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Suggest HN: an off-topic list to filter out popular but off-topic submissions
A set of newsgroups (borland.public.delphi) I have long frequented implemented a mechanism to deal with off-topic conversation a long time ago: there's a separate off-topic newsgroup, and threads that go off-topic are migrated to it by moderators.

I think this idea could help reduce the chaff here in HN. If an article has enough upvotes not to be killed automatically by flags, perhaps it could be automatically migrated to an off-topic / contentious list instead, if it acquires a certain number / proportion of flags?
no problem. this isn't the kind of thing that people are going to search for on google to find and use. you're going to have to get people using it and it'll spread like that. make it easy for high schoolers to use it. perhaps (i don't know if you're doing it already or not) widgetize it for blogs.
You may be interested in the Metronome project, which aims to provide a GC suitable for realtime use: http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_projects.nsf/pa...

An academic paper about the project, Design and Implemention of a Comprehensive Real-Time Java Virtual Machine: http://domino.research.ibm.com/comm/research_people.nsf/page...
7 Questions That Will Define Mobile's Future - Part 2
If anyone is interested in getting involved in this sort of thing, http://www.azimuthproject.org/azimuth/show/Open+projects is one place to start.
Oops .. Apress Book not PacktPub.
Improving a [web] design, step by step
Trivia HN: Kyle Bragger (now of Forrst fame) did a Show HN about a service he developed using this technique several months ago - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1665467
"the IT security industry is now in mortal danger of losing its soul."
A very interesting read. :-)

At one point, the article seemed to conflate the running of AlterNIC with the hijacking of InterNIC (although it later clarified that the hijacking was done via a vulnerability in BIND). In case anyone else is interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlterNIC#Hijacking_of_InterNIC....

The hijacking was made possible using a DNS cache poisoning attack, exploiting a security vulnerability in versions of BIND earlier than 4.9.6.
http://www.realtor.ca/map.aspx?&vs=VEResidential&bed...

Interestingly, it looks like prices in my old neighbourhood are roughly the same, to 50k higher.

However, in the new neighbourhood things are up 150k+

http://www.realtor.ca/map.aspx?&vs=VEResidential&bed...
I've found most of the comments on just about anything from the RubyGems guys to be off-putting, degrading, and/or insulting. Not to mention just about every new release breaks my apps on me and it's always made out to be my fault (or someone else's, but never the fault of RubyGems). It is probably my least favorite aspect of using Ruby and being part of the "community."
Free app idea: Relationship Predictor, a Breakup Notifier spin-off
Everything we know about procrastination
I'd just like to second what huxley said about not getting down on yourself for forgetting unix commands. If unix hacking isn't mission critical to your job you tend to not get the reps in these commands to make them automatic. Make google your best friend and if you have to look through a chmod or crontab tutorial every few months, it's not the worst thing in the world.
It does seem like a strange design choice, as it would if you used anything other than jQuery.

jQuery is the standard in terms of javascript frameworks. Knowing this, why build something in a non-typical framework?
Gerontocracy.
People are not born with the ability of a Djikstra or whomever you idolize. It takes decades of diligent practice to get to that point.

Do not feel down about feeling stupid or inadequate, just keep working in a reasoned manner towards your goal.

You will get there.
Thanks for your answer.

I would really like to learn more about machine learning and
NLP, after reading a bit about them I found them to be incredibly interesting subjects, however my Math/Algorithms skills are a barrier into understanding most of the concepts, that is why I plan on eventually getting a CS degree.

And yes I agree, it might seem like I'm trying to learn too much at the same time, I'm just incredibly overwhelmed about all of the stuff I've been blatantly ignorant about whilst calling myself a "programmer".
Bootstrapped, Profitable, & Proud: FlightAware
PHPTracker - all in one Bittorrent creator, tracker server and seed server
Bachelor Thesis on First Request for a Degree Thesis
Students who are hoping for a Bachelor degree will have to write the Bachelor thesis. Writing a bachelor thesis will not be so tough if students understood the requirements. In addition, they also need to plan their work which will enable them to complete the thesis on time.
Read more carefully - the solution isn't exactly of all of the original problem. The exponent isn't tight, but Graham (and others) agreed it was worth a partial award.
I find it a little bit scary that Fred Wilson might not be able to differentiate Marketing from Promotion.

He must be having an off day.

Every business needs to have vision for how its products and/or services relate to its customers and the wider marketplace. Marketing is fundamental to business.

However, I do agree that for many startups, costly promotional efforts probably wont offer enough return to justify the expense.
On the flip side, if robotics are taking care of mass production with very little human input, 3d printing and other emergent home technologies will create an explosion in artisan production.

We're about to see a shift in the material world similar to the way the open source world changed software.
What's this? If you wanna play HN-cop go and flag the countless simple-minded articles that grace the front page, rise up against the mundane minutia and mediocrity that pass for tech reporting or "hacker culture".

Seriously.
Thanks for your words of encouragement.
Redis Presharding
Try this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1665467
Thanks, I just signed up. Loved your "inch by inch" tagline; I use a similar one on my site.

I'll be using iDoneThis to keep me motivated to write everyday ... hopefully it'll really keep me at it :) Is there any way to change the time zone so it'll email me at the end of my day? I'm in Thailand; GMT+7.
Tenacious C alpha available for downlowd
If you have the ability and the desire, install Cygwin on your work computer, and do as much work through that as you can. It may help.
"…encourage your users to enter stronger passwords."
Recently (unsold) on flippa: https://flippa.com/auctions/118288/Streak-ly---motivation-we...
Thanks, it was killing me that I couldn't come up with the term.
I don't imagine he'll mind getting $250 less. I'm sure the recognition is what counts - in the same way no one cashes Knuth's $2.56 checks for bugs in TAOCP, they frame them.
Can I use this stack with Socket.IO in the browser for real-time communication on port 80 to PHP?

In other words, can I implement a simple real-time chat demo using websockets with this stack?
I can't speak for Europe as a whole but in the UK a "salary" refers to the amount of money earned pre-tax by the employee (and not including any taxes paid by the employer). All job ads are written that way and salaries are discussed and negotiated in this way. Perhaps continental Europe is different in this regard, as you suggest, however.
Ah yes, blame the user. That's always the best policy.
I've gotten some flak for saying this other places, but the most helpful thing that I've ever done to learn linux was installing gentoo. Especially doing it without the official install CD (by using something like knoppix).

Start here: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=...

The thing that is different about installing gentoo vs centos or ubuntu is that instead of something that looks like this:

Would you like to format the disk (click yes or no)?

You get a walkthrough of what fdisk is, then how to use it, then you use it to partition your disks. Instead of selecting a filesystem from a dropdown, you make one with mke2fs.

I don't recall if Ubuntu even tells you what lilo or grub is.

The reason I like this is that it forces you to understand what is going on. What is the /boot partition? Why is that important?

Installing gentoo is going to force you to use tar, and wget. It's going to force you to get comfortable on the command line.

It's also going to force you to understand what a kernel module is. It's going to force you to understand things like: what chipset does my wireless card use?

It's hard. And it takes forever. And it probably won't work the first time.

To me, it's kindof a rite of passage, like telling a carpenter that he has to build his workbench before he is allowed to start working on anything else. The workbench he makes might suck...hopefully this causes him to want to keep building new workbenches until he has one that is perfect.
Ask HN: Review my webapp for expiring domains
http://www.scoratic.com

It's a semi-curated list of domains that expire every day. I'd like other people's opinions on how useful is it compared to other similar services. Does the curation make things easier?

A brief explanation of the pretty basic rating system: It likes words, near words and wordlike words. It also prefers short over long, .com over everything else and it hates hyphens and numbers.

I have used it to snag a handful of dictionary names with it.
Yeah I think Airbnb would be a great alternate to expensive luxury hotels. From what I have seen, even some hotels seem to post listing at comparable prices here. Ultimately its really up to you what kind of honeymoon you like. Do you want one where you get room service, and other hotel luxuries at your beck and call, or do you want to be left alone and handle everything yourself. In my view, the best of both worlds would be one of these beach front villas, with a private beach, and hiring a butler for the stay so you don't have to worry about having service.
This is the best way to do it. I've been trying out several other apps, such as idonethis and "Epic Win!" but they all fail the visibility aspect of a wall calendar: not using an app hides away the shame of not using it. I know that idonethis uses a daily reminder email, but they generally get trashed: a wall calendar has physical presence.
I don't have any advice for you, just questions:

Are they interested in you?

Your technology/product? Your customer base?

Do they compete/provide services in "your space"?

Companies do acquisitions for a variety of reasons but they boil down to:

- eliminate a competitor
- block a competitor
- acquire technology/product/service/customers for less than it would cost them to develop in house
- acquire experience (personnel)

Do you have an idea or a actual live project/business with customers and responsibilities and a code base?

Is it dear to you? If they bought it and then ran it into the ground, ignored it, killed it off (think: Yahoo!'s acquisition history with mybloglog, delicious, etc) - would you care? Would you be able to take the $ and move on to the next project or would it gnaw at you?

What's in it for you if you go forward with a partnership or acquisition? Does the company provide other opportunities for you to pursue? More capital to invest in this or other projects of yours? Do they have a good history with acquisitions?

Do you have other ideas, goals, dreams, whatever which you could potentially have to shelve while you're tied up with the company? Are you ok with that?

Do you have a solid sense yourself of what your goals are, ignoring whatever opportunity this other company offers?

My one bit of advice: get a lawyer familiar with commercial contracts & acquisitions who can sit in with you in the meeting. I can't guarantee that you won't get screwed over even WITH a lawyer, but you're more likely to protect yourself.
It's in favour of the potential but the fact that the relevant networks were shut down by the governments in power shows that ultimately they can be relatively easily counteracted.

That of course will change as the cost (to business and vital infrastructure) of disabling the internet and cellular networks increases.

For instance in the UK police use the regular cellular networks for mobile data, shutting them down would impact both police and protesters.

China's a special case - they're simply too powerful for the west to control and have been for some time. Libya is run by a madman who isn't open to reason. So yes you're right but the interest in and importance of the country to the west is a factor, even if it's not the only one.
The vast majority of gemrcs on github disagree with you:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=101...

Personally, I can switch to a browser window, google for a gem, find its docs, and read them online in less time than it takes for ri to return its usually incomplete result or ask for brain-dead disambiguation. Ruby would have a better reputation if ri simply didn't exist.
Politicians taking on jobs in industries they regulated: amakudari, "descent from heaven".
TIME: Best Blogs of 2010
"Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years"

http://norvig.com/21-days.html

"Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs"

http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/full-text/book/book.html
If you want to learn fundamentals, you need to master C. The language itself is very simple and readable, but what it will teach you is how memory works.

Every algorithm & data structure worth implementing has been implemented in C and is probably available in an open source project. You can download Redis, which is fantastic code and covers all the basics. Take one of these projects and start trying to mold it to your will.

Write specialized string parsers in C for doing simple things you'd normally do with a script. If you do it right, it'll be several orders of magnitude faster.

Learn to use the GNU debugger.

Take blocks of algorithmic code you've written, learn pthreads, make them concurrent, and actually able to achieve linear increases in speed as you add cores.

Your greatest ally will be well-written open source code.
Put your personality in your product
Peek Inside Spam Inc. Reveals SEO Secrets, Slick Interface, Charitable Giving
You might find "The Elements of Computing Systems: Building a Modern Computer from First Principles" interesting. It is broad, it covers pretty much everything you mention wishing to know, but somewhat shallow (It is only 350 pages after all.) So far it has hit on the somewhat less rigorous side, so it would probably be a good fit for someone who thinks they lack mathematical maturity.

I just don't want to be a cargo cult programmer anymore
Then don't be. The main thing to do is Practice (note: work isn't practice.) Basically build something, but at every step of the way try different approaches and measure the results of what happened. Every step of the way look for ways to improve what you do.
Not like a union at all. Unions do not form businesses. Maybe they should, then they may come to realize how difficult running a successful business can be.
I appreciate that. What is annoying is the sales pitch that you don't want to hear and have a hard time escaping from. If somebody has a good product that you have interest in, an in-person demo and opportunity to ask questions is great! Or a business that you're interested in working with -
Startup Quote: Reid Hoffman, founder, LinkedIn
The problem is, if you "try to think outside of the box", of if you "try to remember things", you will not be able to... And if you stop and think about when you tried to do those things, well you will probably notice that you passed almost all the time worrying, or doing something else as useless as that.

The point is that you shouldn't try to do something, you should do it, i.e., you "span" a desire in your soul and you go along the feeling, the "thinking" is just for control, not substance... at first you will litteraly be bugged by thoughts like "i'm not good enogh for this" etc... aknowledge the existence of those thoughts, and then throw them away.

Yours is a post about bad self-fulfilling prophecies.

It's not really a matter of intelligence for the most part, it's only a matter of experience.

PS.: oh, and AFTER you got rid of the bad self-fulfilling prophecies, you could try to create some good ones :)

Good luck, you are going to need it
A couple of thoughts. One, there's a ton of work that doesn't need databases, or operating system knowledge. It helps, but its not essential. Android developers are hot hot hot right now, and its not a huge system to learn (I'm a mobile dev manager).

As mentioned before me, you can learn a lot on the job. One of the best dev's I know never finished college either.

I am always looking up the proper syntax of commands (find -exec anyone?) It just takes repetition and the constant thought that "maybe there's a command that does this better".

Finally, put down the math books. Put down the compiler books. Data structures and algorithms, sure, but those others. Bah! Now, if you want a supplementary book that helps a ton, pick up a patterns book, preferably the "Gang of Four" book (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_Patterns). It helped me to look at problems in a bit more of a formal sense, and it allows me to say "Oh this is such and such a pattern" and other devs get it immediately.

Don't get discouraged. You may just need a new job where you are mentored if you feel like your skills and experience is meaningless. Your desire to learn and your passion for your chosen career make you a fertile ground for training.

Good Luck!
That's not entirely fair; he's been consistently critical of Scala, but seems to like Fantom.

While he may have added that note at the bottom of this article, I swear I've read that opinion of his more than once.
Good ideas need good strategy to realize their potential.

- Reid Hoffman (@quixotic)

http://startupquote.com/post/3504489915
"Programmer" I think is a little like "scientist". It used to be possible to be an expert in all things, but it's not really any more. So don't be so hard on yourself. You're like a biologist retraining as a chemist.

But since you've found something that fascinates you, go for it!
Yes, in 30 lines of code: http://tinyurl.com/chat-server-photon

As Photon is an application server, this means you can do what you do easily with Django/RoR or a Java application server. This breaks the traditional one request, one reply, we forget everything approach of PHP. This is now possible rather nicely as PHP has improved a lot with respect to memory management in the last releases.

Disclaimer, I am the author of Photon and I am locked out of HackerNews with my normal account because of the great anti procrastination mode :-D
Is first to market really a good strategy?
OTOH I have given thought about if programming is really for me, I have found that I'm really, really bad at problem solving and "thinking outside of the box" I have come to accept that I'm really not smart. I'm slow, forgetfull, concepts never seem to stick, I have to force myself to not take things for granted, it seems no matter how hard i try I can't look at problems from different perspectives and understand the implications of a particular solution, I'm starting to think I may have a learning dissability, or that is because I lack the basic toolkit for problem solving, but I really think I'm just not very smart.

I doubt this is true. Rather, I think your currently ad-hoc way of trying to learn things is not effective. In other words, it has been your method, not you. One of the benefits of a formal education is knowing what is out there, even if you don't know it yet. (Knowing what you don't know.) That means you can go and learn it as you need to.

I suspect your difficulty with "thinking out of the box" is that you just haven't been exposed to alternate ways of doing things.

My point: you're not stupid. Learning all of this stuff even when someone says "this is what you should learn" is hard. Learning it when you have to figure out what to learn is even harder. Many people here will disagree with me, but I think a formal education is valuable for the reasons I stated. But, you said that's not an option for you now. So I recommend doing basically what you're doing: use existing textbooks to find out what you should learn, and learn it. Treat going through those books like a course. Many university courses also have the course syllabus online - looking through those for topics you should research yourself is also valuable. And, of course, MIT's Open Course Ware (http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm) was designed with students like you in mind.
Http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=20110225075112254
I agree...Zen Habits promotes the idea of "refactoring your life" like its some program you can optimize. In my experience, you're better off worrying about as little about your life as possible.

You're also spot on about how the site is stress-inducing. Ironic for a site that's all about "simplifying life" and "living minimally."
I'd wondered whether they would eventually make that change. I haven't tried it yet but I'm sure interested to. It seems like it may make sense with the iOSification of content/scroll views in Lion — they've added smooth pinch-to-zoom and rubber-band scrolling (where it lets you scroll past the bounds of an item with increasing tension until it snaps back when you let go), so maybe it "feels right" in use. I don't know.
Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
A review of Metaprogramming Ruby
I'm aware of that one. I suspect the parents who can barely afford materials for voluntary fee public schools may disagree however ;)

(Of course I suppose the conservative counter to that is to get a better job, and that they'd have enough money if taxes weren't contributing to education dollars :)
'Consumer' Group Wants Netflix To Tax Customers To Give To Telcos?
Where Drupal Doesn't Work, Part 1
Games, robotics? Linear algebra is perhaps more important, but mostly as a way to get the computers to do the calculus.
"Write specialized string parsers in C for doing simple things you'd normally do with a script. If you do it right, it'll be several orders of magnitude faster."

Note that this ONLY makes sense in the context of a learning exercise. If it's simple and you'd normally do it with a script, the performance you'd gain from a C rewrite isn't worthwhile. The knowledge you'll gain from making C do something it doesn't make easy, though, is.
I think that there is conceptually no superior way of scrolling. One is as good as the other. Traditionally you dragged the scroll bar, in Lion you drag the page, one makes about as much sense as the other.

What is a problem is that everyone is used to dragging the scroll bar, not the page but I’m not sure whether that’s going to be a big problem. I tried it and my brain already flipped for vertical scrolling after an hour or so. (I still get horizontal scrolling wrong.)
How To Eliminate Currency And Thrive Without A 9 to 5
On the Front Lines, In the Trenches
A deep truth, though literally "daily" doesn't work for everything e.g. weight-training.