skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This seems like it could spawn some interesting projects!

WARNING: Rant

One thing that bothers me that has little to do with the event is the page loading efficiency of the site. It takes an average of 15 seconds for the initial HTML document to load on my 10Mb/s connection. That's not including window.onload JavaScript execution. A couple of things.

1. You will want to gzip compress your static js and css files. It will speed things up for you.

2. When you load images in an img tag you will want to define the height and width of those elements so that they load faster (since load times are an issue).

3. I'm getting a lot of JavaScript errors in Chrome 9. (I haven't tested other browsers)

4. Put your script tags at the end of your body so that the page can load before the JavaScript is executed. This will help it feel faster. (Is this a WordPress thing that you can't change?)

5. There are two "Follow Me" tabs floating on the right. Consider removing one (especially since they are overlapping eachother).

6. Try to combine as many JavaScript or CSS files as you can to minimize requests.

7. You have included jQuery 1.4.4 AND 1.4.2. Remove one of them.

8. If you have time, use css sprites. Combine multiple images into a single image and use 'background-position' to get the specific one you want. This would be perfect for something like the Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn buttons at the top.

/rant
MS did the same thing with Live Mesh. Noticed that few people were using more than 2GB, so they cut the limit to 2GB.

Both of these seem like odd decisions. The people using more than your data driven limit are likely power users -- who are also probably your best evangelists.

Furthermore, given that so few are using beyond the limit, unless there is a technical reason to set the data driven limit, you incur virtually no cost to keep the limit high. In fact it argues that increasing it to unheard of numbers, ala gmail back in the day, makes more sense.

Again, there may be some technical reason they did this, which is fine. But if they looked at their data and saw that only 1% of their users had more than 10000 contacts, then they deserve to lose all those customers, plus the full wrath and bitterness they have as a result. They made a calculated decision to explicitly screw you over.
But arguments that it's better than Canada should be accompanied by evidence that it exceeds what is actually an incredibly small amount of friction.

Very true. Since very few people move from one industrialized nation to another for the health care, we should conclude that they all provide very similar services.
I'd go this route. It will help you out the thief, get you some links from any added press, and possibly even help market your company further.

Lawyers are expensive and you could battle someone for a very long time. Is that really what you want to do starting out the gate? You'll get too distracted by this, focus on your company. At the end of the day people type .com in first and if you have the links, your domain will show up first in the search results as well.
It's a by-product of the silly installer they use. The reader installer team probably consists of 1 guy.
Goes to show, Kayak should have this easily accessible from their front page.
My siblings and I take a pill 3x day for life for a genetic condition. The pill(colchicine) cost pennies in its generic form. It isn't a pill that was made in a lab after millions in research. So there were plenty of generic brands available and it'd cost us 5 bucks/mo from Walmart.

That was that.

Last year a company came in and got an exclusive on it on the premise that they spent millions in testing the pill for quality etc. Armed with the exclusive, they killed all generic brands and are selling the same pill for $5/pill.

What cost me $5/mo previously now costs $450/mo.

There is something seriously flawed about some things in our healthcare system.
exactly. and my axe! :)
"If it doesn't rank next to those other reasons for immigration that all exceed the friction, I would suggest that people stop defending the US system by saying it's better than Canada's system. It isn't better enough."

That's fine. I assume the reverse, asserting that the Canadian (and European, and ...) systems are better is also a no-go, given rates of immigration there from the US?

I just don't think anyone's going to move anywhere for health care systems unless they're already sick and they're going for medical tourism purposes. Use of the health care system is a nebulous future possibility, whereas a job or the weather or the cultural environment is an everyday reality. Immigration rates aren't going to tell us much about any health care system.

(edit: specifying the final object)
yeah, i figured out what it did by playing in the repl, but i still can't find it documented anywhere.
Semantic note taking app for Android
This is sweet! Have been looking for something like this for a while
I imagine the colors were chosen so that the US sticks out. It's not a general information chart. It's a god-look-how-terrible-the-US-is chart.
1. basic form
2. form with multi-valued lines
3. form with data set (multi-valued parent/children)
4. form with grid
5. tabbed form
6. form with skins
7. batch (loop thru something)
8. batch update selected records in a table
9. batch dump table records --> .txt or .xml file
10. batch .txt or .xml file --> update table records
11. batch file --> create & populate database table
12. cut an email
13. traverse internal tree function
14. traverse file index(es)
15. build html from parameters
16. build javascript from parameters
17. build .pdf from parameters
18. build hp esc sequences from parameters
19. benchmark a process
20. how does that syntax work?
21. which way is faster?
22. batch string parser
23. batch source code search
24. batch source code changer

I have more, but I don't have time to find them right now. OK, I think I'll add:

25. batch parse source code, identify routine for reuse
Brrrr, Reddit still scares me. And these 'Adobe Flash Updates' when I start a Windows machine don't reassure me either.
I think that's part of the point of the graph. Yes 'we beat Canada' but not by enough that it matters at all.
I have a smart co-worker who also likes Skiena's Algorithm Design Manual. I found that book to fluffy, though. But then I enjoy books like "Combinatorial Optimization - Polyhedra and Efficiency" by Alexander Schrijver.

(Not a beginner's book, but it has anything you ever wanted to know about P and NP.)
A. Stop reading articles on "What Does It Take to Become an Entrepreneur?" — if you really want to do something you're either doing it or not...
jrookie, I hear you. Except for the pain of losing your father -- which I have been lucky enough to avoid, and I am so sorry for your loss -- I have felt all of what you're feeling.

Mostly, I've felt it because I've (been lucky enough to and / or made it a point to) work with really talented programmers, people who were better than me. That is great for learning and very hard on the ego. Look at the people you're working with and ask yourself if they are ALL super geniuses, or if maybe some of them are simply more experienced and / or had the luxury of being able to focus more on their studies while at school instead of having to work and deal with the grief of losing a parent.

As to feeling like you're slow to debug and problem solve and whatever...don't. If you have the brains and the persistence to have made it this far as a programmer, it's very unlikely that you're actually dumb. What you ARE, self-admittedly, is inexperienced and under-educated. It is experience, not brilliance, that makes people fast at debugging: when you've seen similar problems before, when you have an array of exploratory / testing techniques that have worked for you in the past, then you too will be fast and all the younger programmers will look up at you and go "damn, I wish I could be as inventive as that guy."

Here's my best advice for you right now: stop focusing on learning for a while and focus on having fun. If you find that you enjoy programming, everything else will start to come easily. Here are some specifics on how to implement that:

1) Start a notes file where you jot down anything that seems interesting.

2) Follow your instincts; whatever you stumble on that seems interesting, do a bit of googling and read up on it.

3) Reading is good, but coding is God. If you don't write actual working code for something, don't imagine that you have learned it.

4) Don't push. Whenever you get bored or frustrated with something, put it down for a while. Go read about something else in your notes file. Or watch TV. Or take a walk. Or whatever you feel like doing at that moment. Give yourself permission to not be perfect; you'll find it amazingly liberating.

5) Take care of your body. This one sounds silly, but it makes a huge difference. Sleep enough and eat right. Tired programmers are stupid programmers and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. The myths of super-productive 40-hour coding runs powered by Jolt and Cheetos are just that -- myths.

6) Definitely find a project, and do it in a new language. Choose a dynamic language for now; you can go back and learn the C/C++ memory management stuff later. Ruby or Python would be good choices, as they are highly employable languages that are used in both enterprise and startups. node.js would be another good choice, but is not yet as employable. If you want a suggestion for a project: pick a website that you like (ideally one with a public API) and write something that pulls down data from that site and stores it to a database.
I agree with what you said, but there's another dimension as well (as I mention elsewhere in this thread, see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2263931).

We also enforce MDs being the gatekeeper to various medical stuff. Many things we insist must be done by a doctor could be done without that degree. There are certainly a lot of things that someone with the knowledge of a LPN or Army medic could do just fine (say, checking for a broken bone).

And our obsession with (the war on) drugs makes MDs the gatekeeper to pharmaceuticals. Really, there's no reason why most drugs can't be widely available. I understand the logic behind some (like the overuse of antibiotics breeding resistant bacteria like MRSA), but MDs are doing a bad job of preventing that, and in any case, those could be the exception rather than the norm. There's really no reason I shouldn't be able to go to the store and pick up, say, my Asacol on my own initiative.

So the low population of MDs is one aspect, but the overloading of MDs with responsibilities for which their skills aren't needed is another.
Of course Python doesn't automatically ensure good code.
But the Python code in your example is readable -- pretty match as readable as it gets, considering the constraints I mentioned.
Shota Fukumori, the youngest Ruby committer
I bet Google actually has access to its own code for Apps contacts.
Why do you say that? We have about 2-3k and use Google Apps and it's a great fit. Just curious what you think would make it not a good fit if/when we start to approach 10k?
This is quite similar to my experience. I installed Adobe Builder 4.5 beta trial too, which after a bit of fiddling around (and confusion on my part about the differences between 4.0 and 4.5 while following the tutorials) does eventually get you a Build and Run button.

Edit: This page looks new, at least it lists all the downloads in one place: http://us.blackberry.com/developers/tablet/adobe.jsp
Yeah, I mean I can understand the philosophical place that one could come from that would make one skeptical of government-run anything.

But every other industrial nation beats the crap out of us both in results and in results per $$, while spending far less money. This isn't a theoretical argument -- we could just copy one of those systems wholesale and get way better results than we're getting.

At one point does the engineering principle of "if it works, it works" kick in?

If you saw a better technique for doing something at your business, and didn't do it because "i don't like to see problems solved in that fashion, regardless of what the metrics tell me", you'd be an idiot, right?
Thanks man. Much appreciated. And you can still crash at my house, even if I'm in SOMA :)
Forget about IQ. To quote someone I agree with:

"Although high general intelligence is common among hackers, it is not the sine qua non one might expect. Another trait is probably even more important: the ability to mentally absorb, retain, and reference large amounts of ‘meaningless’ detail, trusting to later experience to give it context and meaning. A person of merely average analytical intelligence who has this trait can become an effective hacker, but a creative genius who lacks it will swiftly find himself outdistanced by people who routinely upload the contents of thick reference manuals into their brains." (http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/personality.html)
Behind the curve here: https://github.com/kemayo/colorclock
Well, we can conclude that they are not as important and/or as urgent as other factors, and only for those who are mobile. Between Canada and the US, for example, it is easiest to move if you are young, educated, and employable. So I might draw some conclusions about the lack of difference to those who are young, educated, and employable.

I wouldn't assume that there's no difference for someone who is older, uneducated, or unemployed, because the cross-border friction is WAY higher for them.

And of course, all we are talking about is perceived benefit. If one system costs a lot more than the other, we can make all sorts of statements about that. Is the Canadian system more expensive? Is the American system more expensive? I've seen both arguments given, and it looks an awful lot like you can juggle figures at will to justify either claim.
Thanks so much for all of your help so far!
Seems like your wholly-owned subsidiary that is commercializing your patents is returning its profits to you as a royalty, and therefore its marginal profit on sales should be used as a guide to calculate the "reasonable royalty" that is your acknowledged due.
I guess I should have mentioned I was trying to use the WebWorks SDK, not the AIR SDK. I'll update the post accordingly. Thanks!
So I'm pointing the finger, at least in part, at the regulations here in the USA. By artificially controlling the number of doctors, and/or constraining our access to pharmaceuticals, we're creating the situation where I am unable to get the treatment I need. This has nothing to do with economics or even insurance company policies, really. It's all to do with nanny-state government.

I agree with you! Here's some data about how the supply of doctors is constrained by law:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_otfwl2zc6Qc/S8p3XotZRpI/AAAAAAAANQ...

(from http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/04/medical-school-grads-hav...)

For the last 30 years, 16,000 new doctors are let through each year, and this is very carefully regulated to keep guild members rich. There's nothing wrong with that, but the problem is that the government is used as a tool to maintain this monopoly. (Unfortunately, it's been this way since the Middle Ages.) Does it have to be this way? Not if you decide that people should be free to choose for themselves which expert they should seek medical help from, and what qualifications they require. If you own your own body (and I say you do), this is your right to decide.

On top of that, new drugs cost somewhere around $1 billion to take to market. When only 300 people in the country have a rare condition, the FDA makes it so that nothing can be done for them because there is no way to recoup a billion dollars from any small group of people.
Thanks so much I really appreciate your help, and sorry for my delayed response to your email. Hopefully we can get your API running with our setup.
According to his profile page (http://sorah.cosmio.net/), he’s just 14 years old yet.
It's an wordy ad for a book about open APIs or something.
Thanks for creating this and open-sourcing this great app!

One question: Does aggregates.html work? I can see that metrics are being recorded in mongodb, but it does not load the js properly to display the hourly, daily, and weekly metrics. I can get everything else to work fine (in index.html). Thanks!
In other words, your ads are actually more relevant for them than the search results they found?

Somehow, that just seems wrong.
If they ever get around to the Midwest and esp Minnesota, let me know.
Good suggestions. One addition: You should learn Lisp eventually for the macros. But for your first introduction to functional programming (or computing in general, if you have a mathematical bent) choose something pure like Haskell or Clean. They won't muddy the waters with side-effects, or let you escape into assignments.
No doubt--context of the comment what or how he values it. I'd be framing it on archival paper under low-e glass--if I was that smart :)
This Library E-Book Will Self-Destruct After 26 Check Outs
Totally agree with the author. I too quit porting one of my apps to BB.

This is the reason why shortcuts (not making well integrated system) always fail.
I think there could be a major market for this, given that Oracle is no longer giving away Solaris. With ZFS support, FreeBSD is a very attractive alternative.
Last year a company came in and got an exclusive on it... There is something seriously flawed about some things in our healthcare system.

That doesn't sound like a healthcare problem. That sounds like an IP problem.

Whatever it was that let the new manufacturer take the compound out of the public domain is where you should be directing your ire. Sounds like another indictment of patent law.
Many schools use gmail and have well over 10k students. Northeastern for example uses gmail and has over 15000 undergrads.
That it's general practitioners is the key data point there - it's not talking about physicians in general. We have a far greater ratio of specialty doctors to general practitioners than other countries do.

I don't have the stats handy, but from what I've read I'd be surprised if we didn't have more doctors per 100,000 people than the average country.

edit: Here's the stats - http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_phy_per_1000_peo-physi... - they bear out my statement, but not really my argument. We have more doctors per 1,000 people than Canada; less than Germany.
This comes straight from reddit, and much like on reddit, it's not leading to any meaningful discussion. Flagged.
Yes I know, under that scenario I think it's worth 80% with earn out for tightness.
I really dislike the new colour scheme. It looks cold, neon and somehow repelling. The old one was warm and reminded me of holiday homes with wooden walls.
Since Chrome started including a PDF plugin out-of-the-box I've started opening PDFs with it and haven't looked back since.
Yes, you're correct (it's been a while since I had to use that, should have checked, and I can't edit the comment).

os.popen() is still available in python3, and uses subprocess.Popen() internally.
My favorite to date is:

bps = [map(int, bps.split('/')) if isinstance(bps, str) else bps for bps in bps if bps]

The clause "else bps for bps in bps if bps" made me incredibly incredibly happy.
That first graph is interesting. I would like to see their definition of "wait time when sick". Since the article separately mentions waiting to see specialists, and elective surgery, I'm going to assume wait times in the graph do not include these.

When we talk about wait times in Canada, most people mean the amount of time they have to wait when they walk in to a hospital or clinic, without an appointment. In other words, how long do you have to wait to see a doctor now. Not how long do you have to wait for an appointment with your GP. And that time is typically measured in hours, not days.

Frankly, I'm surprised to see that anyone in any of those countries has to wait 6 days to see a doctor when they are sick.
Having access to the code, and having the willingness to modify it, are different things.
I would have been much happier if they had decided on 8138 or 16276, the latter being better.
I tried a bit in the REPL and couldn't replicate it completely, but I didn't try hard. It seems to only work because of the CPython internals, so it seems to be implementation-specific and undocumented.
I did this with a set of projects (mostly writing / creative) for all of 2010. It was pretty effective at first, but I definitely hit a few stretches of burnout. I was sure to record an entry for each day, but would occasionally fall behind.

At the beginning of this year, I moved away from it because I felt like it was a bit too much: it was forcing me to just output and quality generally suffered. I am still trying to find a good balance for it, but the calendar method is really a great way to motivate you to work and also shows you that you really can just keep moving forward.
> Contact size, is larger than O(N) complexity.

Yes, but the graph is very very sparse.
Yes, but the demographic outlook of the USA is more favourable.
Hot Launch - Startups from the Launch conference I will be using.
Or even better, don't use the same password on every site.
What's funny is that I bookmarked it then, checked it out today, tweeted it a few hours ago, and I know Matt. I could be wrong but I think this might have gone full circle! :)

But yeah, as ever, not enough people monitor /new (or there's not enough incentive to do so).
Semantics. Almost all problems related to healthcare have their root cause at something other than healthcare directly.

For example, defensive medicine can be traced to the way our legal system works.

It's a healthcare and ____ problem(insert IP, legal etc.)
You so famous.
Wow, I live in the UK and when I need to see the doctor I just drop by with no appointment, wait my turn (depending on number of people in the surgery can take 10-60mins. Then the doctor sees me.
Cloud security: Keeping those keys safe
But every other industrial nation beats the crap out of us both in results and in results per $$...

What results? Please be specific. In particular, if you want to compare health outcomes, please make sure you controlling for factors like demographics, lifestyle, pollution, food quality, etc.

Also, how do you propose to pay US doctors the same salaries paid to doctors in poorer countries? Some numbers: the top 5% of income earners in Canada earn 40% less than the top 5% of the US. Are you proposing to knock doctors a few rungs down the income ladder?

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-001-x/2007109/article/409688...
Are you talking about the missing ' or the title in general?
The grid gone, at least for now. Exposé (now a part of Mission Control) returns more or less to its old behavior. Windows are resized proportionally and no more arranged in a grid. Quicklook continues to work and Exposé now stacks the windows of one application together. It is no longer possible to show minimized windows in Exposé. The dock is still displayed but clicking on an icon no longer displays the windows of that app in Exposé, OS X will just switch immediately to that app (the normal dock behavior).

The Dashboard, all spaces and all fullscreen apps are displayed along the top of the Exposé view. It’s now possible to change the background image for each space individually but no longer possible to arrange Spaces in a grid (there is always a row of spaces). Clicking on a space in Exposé displays all its windows in Exposé mode. The bird’s-eye view of only the spaces is gone but you can drag windows in Exposé from one space to another. The arrow key Spaces shortcuts also allow you to switch to the Dashboard or fullscreen apps.
You picked an example where Python took a step backwards in readability. That's fair but surely not typical. I agree it was a loss since I'm a huge fan of language usability-- in Python 2.5 os.popen is really rather simple to read and use.