skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Best way to attract private beta users?
Does anyone have any tips on how to attract people to sign up for a private beta?

I've read that it makes sense to try and get at least five hundred signups if you want to get enough feedback for a private beta to be useful.

Ideally I'd like to send invites out in a staggered fashion after each iteration during the beta. I'm expecting to have perhaps four to six releases during beta. Ideally I'd like to have around one hundred bits of feedback for each of these releases. That would equate to needing as many as three thousand people to sign up. That's a lot of sign ups!

Any tips you an share would be great as I've only got just over twenty sign-ups at the moment and really want to hit at least five hundred before I press the button and send invites out.
Since you didn't specify the reason of your switch, I am going to guess ;)
I think you switched because your university doesn't support Linux :)
On a serious note, at my workplace few people are still using XP when they are free and encouraged to upgrade to Win7, then I guess some people out there are just not willing to change.
So, you're telling us that a couple of Slim Jims is no worse for a person than a serving of steak?

I think the poster you replied to was making the point that industrial mangling of our food likely has some detriment to our health. Sure, cheese and kraut are processed (we make both at home, btw), but they're more natural processes than, say, turning corn into corn syrup. In fact, the end products of these natural processes are often argued to be healthier (or at least offer more bioavailble/digestible nutrition) than the original material.

Look at the ingredients list of your average loaf of store-bought wheat bread. All of the continuant ingredients have been refined, had preservatives added, then re-mixed to make "bread". The list is typically a mile long! Take my wife's home-made bread, as a counter example: whole wheat flour (ground minutes before making, from home-grown wheat), salt, maybe a dash of sugar or honey, water, and our sourdough starter.
Eh, I agree somewhat, but I think it depends on the idea. Don't forget about the multi-year monopoly patents give you, and that business methods patents are still around (http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/app-security/sh...). Someone else could potentially patent your 'million dollar idea' if they take it from idea to patentable item before you, possibly only because they are able execute the idea more quickly than you are able to. Execution doesn't necessarily need to be too good in order to get patent protection.
"..his friend Ashton Kutcher, who spent a week with Dorsey on a State Department-sponsored trip to Russia."

I wonder how this 'foreign policy' trip was set-up & why exactly...
Ah, I knew somebody else would RTFB ;)

That seems to imply that if unpatented prior art by author A is discovered after author B applies for a patent, and the patent is invalidated, then author A cannot apply for patent. Interesting.

Or, perhaps first-to-file only applies when the reduction to practice is the act of filing a patent, rather than the act of publishing. In other words, it only applies in the special case that two people apply for patents on work that neither of them have published.

That would seem to imply that rather than applying for a patent, one should just publish.

I started to poke through the bill and the patent code to figure this out, but it's beyond me. Maybe I need more than 2 hours of sleep.
Poor people eat carbs.

Poor people eat fast food. Good food is cheaper than McDonald's, but you have to be able to cook.
This.

My personal experience (which includes a lovely meniscus blowout during squats) is that even given perfect form, once you get up to heavy weights (2x-3x bodyweight for deads and squats) you are starting to push the limits of your body and need to realize that occasional injury is part of the total picture.

That said, I still stay away from machines. I feel even if you're working with light weights, the balance factor of free weights adds so much more to the workout.
This CAPTCHA is actually designed to ensure that the only entity that can decipher it is Satan himself.

Wow.
Programming bloggers have strip-mined it for material over the years, so you've probably already read much of it by osmosis.

I prefer _The Practice of Programming_ by Kernighan and Pike, personally.
Rice and wheat are subsidized in India too. And unlike US poor, the poor in India can't afford to supplement it with a Big Mac, Fried Chicken or a Premium Southwest Salad.

They are skinny because they eat less. They cannot afford 2500 calories, so they consume 2000 calories (mostly rice or wheat, depending on region) and suffer adverse health as a result. They also get exercise working physical jobs rather than sitting at home and watching TV.

Of course, even if corn subsidies were unique, poverty still don't explain why the US poor waste money on 500-1000 extra calories. If they were optimizing for cost, they would eat only 2500 calories of cheap corn.
You can buy cars today that can almost drive by itself. Adaptive cruise control. Automated parking. Lane assist. Automatic braking to avoid accidents. BMW has demonstrated a driverless racing lap on Top Gear before can be seen in the link I posted in another comment.

I was downvoted for asking what this Google car did that other companies haven't already demonstrated. No answer though.
I've been wondering the converse: if having an open internet will be an indicator that true reform has taken place.

Whatever the case, we live in interesting times.
What kind of high-level mathematics is provably impossible for computers, but merely difficult for suitably-trained humans?

If you're thinking of either of Gödel's incompleteness theorems, you may be slightly mistaken about what they say. In general, a human operating by rigorous standards of proof is no more able to prove the completeness and consistency of certain formal systems—using the tools provided by those formal systems—than a machine can.

If, as a human, you somehow prove the consistency of these particular formal systems, you run smack into Gödel's second theorem: For any formal effectively generated theory T including basic arithmetical truths and also certain truths about formal provability, T includes a statement of its own consistency if and only if T is inconsistent. Thus, any proof of consistency is self-defeating, whether it's made by neurons or silicon.

Really, math doesn't care what parts of the periodic table you use to prove things. :-)
I think it might be too much for Microsoft to say "you have to get rid of this browser" and then "but you have to upgrade your operating system". For the same reason they're not going to promote FF or Chrome, since those run on XP just fine.
My keyboard is "Made in Japan". It did cost more than $5, but it's also better.
Google: Too Big To Fail?
The Types of iPhone Cases You Should Know
You could just change the start of the HTML snippet from <!--[if lt IE 7]> to <!--[if lt IE 8]>

Then IE7 users will also get the banner ("You are using an outdated browser...")
A lot of the chapters are just a "word soup" with a bunch of motivational words and vague admonitions. For such a non-technical and imprecise book, I'm surprised how widely lauded it is among software engineers.
I never judge the source of good advice.
GUIs prevent truly proficient programming

I /hate/ this line of thinking. Do we really think that the perfect way to interact with a computer was somehow stumbled upon in the 1970s and can never be improved upon? The computer does not think in ASCII, WE do not think in ASCII - it's no less of an abstraction than any other form of GUI.

Like the colour syntax highlighting in your vim setup? Fond of autocompletion? Enjoy having multiple pages of code, side-by-side? YOU ARE USING A GUI.

I apologise if this sounds vitriolic, but it's important. Programming is the expression of intent. We're never going to progress to more pure forms of that expression if the people designing our tools believe that we've already reached nirvana.

Nice review, though; I'll check out the book.
Yes - sorry about being vague. Specifically keyword position in Google.
My position is that one injustice does not excuse another. You seem to disagree.
I wondered the same thing. Maybe os specific ? OSX + chrome 9 here.
Can you find an example of a pre-PowerBook laptop that has a form factor with these traits?

* Clamshell with hinge at the back of the case, not in the middle.
* Keyboard at the back of the case.
* Blank area in front of the keyboard to rest your wrists.
* Pointing device centered in this blank area, with mouse buttons below pointer.

There were earlier laptops with some of those elements, but I'm pretty sure the PowerBook was the first to bring them all together.
Additionally, all sorts of phones use tantalum capacitors, which are mostly made from coltan, mined in the Congo.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coltan#Use_and_demand
TED and Burning Man Are More Similar Than You Think
Does this exist somewhere that isn't behind a paywall? Or better yet...is there a good description anywhere of the methods used for the relative layman?

Edit: Ok I've been snooping around for articles on this and so far I've found these:

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/03/the-memory-virus...

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-enzyme-erases-long-term-...

http://www.nih.gov/news/health/mar2011/nimh-03.htm

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/70519/title/Enzym...
Nobody seems to have asked this yet: where is the data coming from? I find it hard to believe U.S. is at 2.9% IE6 usage, for instance.
To prove your point, I will offer my own belief. Actually, I am not posting it here because it supports your observation but vice-versa, because your observation supports my point.

You're right: there are always people crawling out of the woodwork suggesting one approach or the other. Whenever someone gets evangelical about something, it proves that it's working for them, for the moment at least. How else could they think that their mundane and unoriginal approach is "the" solution that will change lives? There are evangelists for everything from walking an hour a day on a treadmill to rock climbing. Ergo, almost anything works for some people sometimes. However, no new or old exercise idea has had widespread acceptance and staying power. Therefore, every idea fails for most people, either immediately or eventually.

Conclusion: Certainly educate yourself about all the options and their benefits, but right now, do whatever you find compelling right now. Don't worry about whether it will for someone else, or whether it will work for you next week. Just do what works for you right now.

For example, I thought I was bored with kettlebells (lately I've been trying to learn Olympic lifting) but one night last week for some reason I didn't want to leave my apartment, so I did a kettlebell workout. That worked for me on that particular night. For some people, that wouldn't work at all, because they like to have every workout scientifically planned out: exercises, reps, weights, etc. Sticking to the plan is what motivates them, so they would have dealt with the situation differently.

Some people really get off on the idea of having a "treat" occasionally. For them, maybe they can motivate themselves by signing up for a triathlon in some exotic location. Or they might take a day off and visit a national park, or treat themselves to a beautiful evening wandering around with a friend, splurging on a show and a nice dinner downtown. (Two or three hours of walking may not be challenging, but health-wise, it beats the hell out of sitting at home.) Or maybe they would sign up for an expensive activity such as riding lessons.

It all depends on your situation. Do you have outdoor recreation nearby? Do you live in a walkable or bikeable city? Can you afford Crossfit or an expensive gym? Do you have a garage where you can put a few hundred dollars worth of weight equipment? Do you have enough money to become an equestrian? Do you get off on consistency, or is boredom your bane? Does measurement of your progress motivate you or demotivate you? Do you like to geek out over your fitness, or relax and let your mind wander? Do you like it if your workout activities express your trendiness or your wealth and status, or would you prefer a "no bullshit" workout at a grimy gym surrounded by tattooed guys in sweat pants?

There's no answer that fits everyone all the time. Different people will thrive with different choices, and next month you may be a different person than you are now. Just do whatever works for you right now. (If that means forcing yourself to do something you don't want to do, well, that is a paradox. Best to just do it and not think about it.)
Text editor, break into lines, numeric sort, find the line where the count goes out of sync with the line number.
Try http://www.kitchendaily.com/
Application Adventure: A Dad’s College Essay
Why not? He has had them on the show before. There would have to be a reason for it to be on again though. The driverless lap has already been done. The Google Prius would just be slower.
You should include (weighted) pullups too, as something supplemental. This will develop the antagonistic (opposite) muscles as the bench press, and help prevent the hunched-shoulders-overdeveloped-pecs problem a lot of people get.
> The point is that it is in fact a part of the history.

No, it isn't. Native Americans didn't pick the land that they were sent.

In your terms, that land was reserved for them. It was NOT reserved by them.
Cheese, butter, sauerkraut and pickles are all products of fermentation. Fermentation is how people preserved and enhanced the nutritional composition and digestibility of many foods. Process's like canning, freezing, refrigeration, dehydration, bleaching(flour,sugar,salt) and pasteurization, to name a few, are all examples of modern food process's that typically alter the food in some way that favors shelf life, cost or convienence over nutrient density.
His governance was very paternalistic; far more so than the pluralist democracy the British would have preferred to leave behind. As much as I'd love our fine educational institutions to take the credit for Lee Kuan Yew, I figure that we'd also then have to take the blame for Saif al-Islam Gadaffi, amongst many post-colonial Prime Ministers, Presidents, Ministers and faction leaders who had the privilege but not the vision.

Singapore might have had one of the higher GDPs in Asia at the time of independence, but most of the population lived in absolute poverty - the government-financed apartment blocks, vast industrial estates on reclaimed land and most of the financial centre came afterwards, as did the country's appearance in top ten GDP per capita lists. I don't find it particularly easy to believe that the same >7% average annual growth rate would have been achieved if we were in charge.

I think Hong Kong and Singapore are pretty exceptional as former colonial powers go (with a shared characteristic more obvious than British rule being the high proportion of culturally Chinese people) and I am British.
C#:
data.GroupBy(i => i).Where(g => g.Count() > 1)
.Select(g => g.Key)
.ToList().ForEach(x => Console.WriteLine(x));
P.S. This relates to my new app/startup Mighty CV. So if you'd like to refactor your résumé you might be interested in signing up at:

http://www.mightycv.com/
At first I didn't realize I was editing the image real time, nice trick there with the base64 encoding. Very interesting.
True, but pirated Windows does not allows you to update automatically, and does not updates IE for you. Now, one can always download newer IE from Microsoft's website and manually install it, but chances of that happening are low.
So far, North Korea hasn't fallen. All governments eventually fall; what timeline were you thinking of?
Are VCs with Entrepreneurial Backgrounds Better?
Tell HN: I bootstrapped a mobile lead gen network
So I stumbled into having the number one free Mortgage Calculator on the AppStore last summer (search for mortgage calculator on the app store and it's the first free one).

It took me all of 3 hours to build, but after a couple of months was making me $1000/month in iAd revenue. Which was nice, but I figured that if CPC on Google is so high ($5/click) for mortgage calculator, there's got to be a better way to make revenue than selling Nissan Leaf and Dove commercials.

So I looked around, figuring I'd find an easy to use, drag and drop library that would provide real time quotes from named lenders (kinda like Google Comparison Ads, but for Mobile).

When I couldn't find one I decided to build it in between doing consulting work, and the result is PinchLeads: http://pinchleads.com

Right now I've not yet turned on the cash flow (i.e. I'm not charging my lenders yet), but that can be done whenever - and I'm looking for both general feedback and to talk to developers of mobile apps in the Financial space who would be brave enough to be beta testers. Email me at einar@pinchleads.com if you're interested.
From the page:
"As of February 2011, 12% of the world was using
Internet Explorer 6, which was 9%
lower than the previous year"

They're using NetApps stats. IE6's share was 21 percent in February of 2010, according to those numbers. That means IE6 share has gone down 43 percent in the past year. I'm guessing the author doesn't know the difference between percentages and percentage points.
The iij Top Twenty Upcoming Social Media Books ~ Innovation Investment Journal
<semi-sarcastic-rant />This is what [one of many things] is wrong with the educational system! Sure it's amazing that public schools have collectively taught people basic algebra (in theory), but we should set the new bar to Calculus and just keep pushing it up every so often. (I think Bayesian stats are more difficult than straight-up calculus though I'd like to see a public familiarity with both...)

Calculus has been around for a pretty long time, there's plenty of good material out there to learn it and people who understand it to teach it, there's no real reason it shouldn't be required curriculum these days.
Although its true that a 3-Axis can do a lot more than people expect with some creative thought, there is a reason 5 (and higher) axis machines exist. For some tasks they can be essential.
10-Meter Touchscreen [video]
Given the amount of money Microsoft has to throw around, I don't think the amount of research is in any way remarkable. Though there are definitely some amazing products coming out of MS research.
When in doubt: whois ie6countdown.com (edit: I originally misread your comment as saying, "i don't believe it's Microsoft cause the small logo is unconvincing" -- sorry)

Registrant:
Microsoft Corporation
Domain Administrator
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
US
Email: domains@microsoft.com

Registrar Name....: CORPORATE DOMAINS, INC.
Registrar Whois...: whois.corporatedomains.com
Registrar Homepage: www.cscprotectsbrands.com

Domain Name: ie6countdown.com

Created on..............: Fri, Aug 07, 2009
Expires on..............: Tue, Aug 07, 2012
Record last updated on..: Thu, Mar 03, 2011

Administrative Contact:
Microsoft Corporation
Domain Administrator
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
US
Phone: +1.4258828080
Email: domains@microsoft.com

Technical Contact:
Microsoft Corporation
MSN Hostmaster
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
US
Phone: +1.4258828080
Email: msnhst@microsoft.com

DNS Servers:

ns1.msft.net
ns4.msft.net
ns5.msft.net
ns2.msft.net
ns3.msft.net
Where it's status now?
Can't they offer IE8 or the rest?
"It also matches with recent discoveries in quantum physics where they proved that reality is shaped by observer."

That's not what QM says, nor is it "recent". QM says the observer must affect the system, but it need not be in any particular manner and it certainly doesn't mean that the observer has a "special power" over the observed. What it means is (to a first approximation without getting mathematical) simply that if you want to detect a particle, you must interact with it in order to detect it; no interaction, no detection. It is not a special power of interaction that you are exercising or a mystical connection to the target system, it's just interaction.

All of the other apparent cases where observing the system in some manner has some effect on it are actually the effect of not interacting with the system until "later", again, not a "mystic" connection to the power of observation.
it doesn't 'almost drive by itself'. it drives by itself.
The trade-off question is whether these temporary monopolies encourage innovation and therefore improve overall utility. I think the balance right now is on "no," since the trade-off is predicated on the monopolist teaching in the patent how to implement the invention, and in it being novel and non-obvious. At this point, patents seem written explicitly to avoid teaching and to maximize footprint, and are very frequently not novel and/or obvious, yet the default judgment of the patent office is to be optimistic about applications. We basically need the courts to invalidate a ton of patents which are vague and obscure (don't teach the method in a useful way), and a ton more which are obvious (describe ways to use general-purpose tools in one of their intended uses, for example, like one-click) or not novel. That'd put a damper on it. Unless all east Texas courthouses are nuked from orbit, though, this probably won't happen. :-/
Can someone who understands this space well tell me where something like RepRap (http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page) compares to this, conceptually?
Burma shut down Internet access during its 2007 protests and so far its government is still in place.
How to defend against gorilla-sized competitor
The Japanese monarchy has supposedly been around since 660 BC.
node.js + underscore.js

var numbers = [];

require("./underscore-min.js");
var dupe = _.reject(numbers, function(number) { return _.lastIndexOf(numbers, number) == _.indexOf(numbers, number); });
console.log(dupe);
But if they were licencing, then their patents were actually being 'practiced,' just not by them, so the net effect is the same. Can you support on one hand the patenting of ideas companies develop while working on a product, but on the other hand complain when those patents are traded to someone else? Further, what about when a company does some difficult research, solves a problem, gets a patent - is that really 'Non-Practicing' ? Some trolls have got no intention of licencing anything, or researching anything, they just launch surprise lawsuits and ignore licencing requests.
"Prior art" means the state of the art at the time the patent was filed. If the patent is really an advencement on the state of the art, and it's not obvious, then first-to-file makes sense. The trouble with not having first-to-file is, that someone could keep their invention secret until a competitor files before revealing their advancements. The point of the patent system in the US is to get people to publish their inventions, so it would be counter-productive to encourage secrecy. By denying protection to un-filed inventions, the patent system encourages openness.
XP was selling new licenses at least through last summer

In fact you can still purchase Windows licenses with the right to downgrade to XP, and will be able to for the life of Windows 7.

I'm a sysadmin and I'm perfectly happy with XP for at least the next year or two. There's no great benefit from Windows 7 that would justify the major effort of reviewing all of our software for compatibility.
Search for Facebook
The only suggestion I have is the "undo" button or an eraser (please). Otherwise, it's perfect.
The ways everyone solves the puzzle are much more interesting than the puzzle itself. I made a mysql table with one column set as the primary key and did an insert.

This reminds me of this awesome thread on Sitepoint (5 pages of different ways to output the numbers 0-9):
http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/php-34/write-loop-php-prints...