skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
First, congratulations for being admitted to both. That said...

1. I was an undergraduate student at Stanford and the Ph.D program (experience) is vastly different than that of an undergrad so with that, take this bit with a grain of salt.

2. I've never been a Berkeley student so obviously my opinion is also skewed because of this so take this into account as well. If it helps, I'm a total geek, not into sports, and could care less for the school rivalries so at least that is not factored into my opinion here.

With those things said, I strongly believe both schools have a very strong CS and entrepreneurship presence and being admitted to both is a great accomplishment. However, having said that, I believe that Stanford has more going on. I might be a bit bias simply because I never got to be a Berkeley student (and I never applied either) but historically, Stanford is known to produce an amazing number of founders for some of Silicon Valley's largest companies (that isn't to say Berkeley doesn't have its wins). But at the same time, you have all the VCs here, it's at the heart of Silicon Valley, in a much better location (in my personal opinion), and ultimately many of the advisors/professors and people here (including guests) are VCs, CEOs, or other prominent figures.

I don't think you can really go wrong with either but if I had to do it over again, I'd still choose Stanford. For the record, while I didn't apply to Berkeley, it was in the back of my mind prior to applying to Stanford. After talking to friends, researching, etc... I chose Stanford and couldn't be happier.
I've never found an ehow article of any value whatsoever.
What gets me about this case is that there was little interest in looking at new evidence as it became available, even active attempts from the prosecution to stop the new evidence from being used.

It wouldn’t even be hard for politicians to frame the question of whether DNA evidence should be tested as often as possible in harsh law and order terms: For every innocent person in prison, the real perpetrator is running around free. We want to be damn sure that we locked up the right people!
Not my experience. I despise maintenance programming. I dread the thought that I may have to inherit some maintenance programming as part of a gig.

The only thing I ever learned from maintenance programming was what not to do.

Over the years, I have maintained the work of hundreds, maybe even thousands of programmers on everything from clearly rushed fixes to large scale commercial software packages. And almost everything I ever encountered sucked. I bet I've seen the work of less the a dozen really good programmers.

Maybe it's selction bias...perhaps the work of the best programmers needs less maintenance, so it's much less likely that I'll ever get to see it. But thanks to the bell curve and the infancy of our industry, 99% of all programmers I've ever followed have significant shortcomings in the work...

I hate not instantly knowing what a variable stands for.

I hate 4 different variables for the same thing.

I hate program variables that don't match the file variable.

I hate the same line of code twice.

I hate 100 lines of code when 5 lines would have sufficed if the programmer only had a clue.

I hate steady violations of pre-agreed upon standards (whatever they are).

I hate spaghetti code. Especially where touching one little thing breaks everything because no previous programmer anticipated any of the 42 likely things that would happen in the life of this program.

I know that the rewrite debate comes up often, but once I reach a certain subjective tolerance threshold, a rewrite is a certainty. I like to think that:

a. This horrible shit will be banished forever.

b. This will finally work the way I think was originally intended.

c. This will finally look like it should have in the first place.

d. I'll be the last one who ever suffered maintaining this module.

Don't believe me? Just hit "View Source" on any random web page to reveal the mountain of shit that's about to fall out upon you.

Joy? I'd rather chew razor blades.
You’re missing the point. If an open-source project treated a programmer with the same lack of respect, I wouldn’t expect any different a response. There’s no “contract” that says I have to volunteer my time to someone who won’t even appreciate the donation.

On the other hand, I’m not sure it’s fair to indict all open-source projects based on one side of a single story. I’d be interested to hear more of the details in this case; sometimes people walk away angry about simple misunderstandings and mixups.
So, for the problem, we are given some positive integer n and, for i = 1, 2, ..., n, numbers a(i).

So, we seek x(i) to solve

min ( x(1) a(1) + x(2) a(2) + ... + x(n) a(n) )^2

x(1) + x(2) + ... + x(n) >= 0

subject to x(i) = 0, 1

So this is a 0-1 integer quadratic program with one linear constraint.

So for a reasonably practical solution, omit the 0-1 constraint and attack the problem as just a quadratic program.

Then for the 0-1 constraint, do standard branch and bound.
But people with lots of money find it to be an issue. Or, they at least pretend to. And they will pay for the right to pretend to. :) And once the rich do so, we have a long tradition in our society of imitating the consumption habits of the rich.
Eventually you have to trust the electric company will guard (or discard) your data - they need to get the data in some form anyway. While it might be nice to scrub the data before giving it to them, that may not be practical, as this service passes data both ways (the grid can signal appliances to not run when under heavy load, for example).

In terms of trust, this isn't any different from having to trust that your web service provider will protect your data. Granted, there is a substantial difference in choice - you likely only have one option for electrical service to a home, but a plethora of web hosting choices. Thus, this is fundamentally a regulatory issue (ie. call the Corporation Commission).

The alternative is to do it yourself (run your own server, make your own electricity with solar/wind/etc.), which, if you're really concerned about this, you might feel it's worth doing.
Calling this a clone is a understatement to say the least. At 16-core, 2 GHz, and 512 gigaflops these are some pretty serious numbers. China is getting scary.
UI changes on Google.com
marketing is understanding and communicating with your market - customers and potential customers.

advertising is one method of communication used in marketing. there are many others.

well that's what I have been told by my friends who work as marketers.
Because developers greatly benefit from participating in open source projects, designers usually don't. That said, developers also make more money than designers do and in a tech centric world, there are more needs for devs than designers. That's why.
Ah, ok, that’s understandable. I would, however, be much happier about lossless music that doesn’t needlessly waste storage space. Mobile storage space is still limited, especially after everyone switched to flash memory.

(I’m personally happily buying 256 kbps AAC files. I did a blind test before I started investing money and couldn’t hear the difference. Buying and storing lossless files would be kind of pointless for me personally.)
It's definitely easier for developers to contribute to open source projects, they can just dig into the code and easily contribute patches.

Designing for a project requires a lead to a greater extent to keep the design consistent, whereas programming is more defined and concrete work: "This is wrong, fix it." If the issue no longer occurs after the patch is applied, work is done. Design work is more abstract in that sense.

The designer's benefit would defiantly be in having the project in their portfolio. Additionally I don't think too many projects need an entire design team, for most projects one would be sufficient increasing the portfolio value you are talking about. Most people contribute to projects they use, adding functionality they would like to have themselves. I'm sure that is something that would motivate designers too.
Digital audio has had the capability to reach the limits of human hearing, this capability has been rarely used. The main problem is, as the article pointed out, that consumers prefer convenience over quality. Making records sound "louder" makes them more suitable for playback in non-ideal environments.

While 24-bit audio won't directly help with bad mastering practices, it might indirectly encourage producing of records with higher dynamic range. And, 24-bits should also be enough to reach limits of human hearing in dynamic range, although I personally don't feel the need of reaching the threshold of pain.
"The speakers built into a portable computer are most likely a bit hopeless – and it may well be that HPs are better than most – but that is easily overcome by plugging in powered speakers, or using an external digital to analog converter (DAC)"

I bought a low end recording audio interface( E-MU Tracker Pre) whitch features a pretty decent DAC and boy oh boy does it make the music pop!

Comparing a 192kbps MP3 featuring a big dynamic range with headphones connected directly to the on board audio on my laptop vs headphones connected to my Tracker Pre there is a night and day difference. On the external sound card the MP3 still sounds a little flat, but it does it with class as opposed to boring on the onboard DAC.

So before you get into the whole "OH LAWL, MUST ONLY LISTEN TO FLAC" thing start by updating your sound card, its well worth the money!
24bit, 96khz, 2 channels, 4 minutes * 0.40 (60% compression) = 55Mb per track.
At $1 per track that's, $579 on a 32GB iPhone/iPod Touch assuming no apps, games, videos, iOS or formatting etc. (i.e. it's actually lower)
I’m not a fan of audio files that needlessly waste space just to encourage stubborn producers.
Actually, most kernel hackers (and I'll extrapolate wildly and say most open source programmers!) are paid to hack. PDF, relevant bits are in Tables 6, 9, 10, and 12. http://www.linuxfoundation.org/sites/main/files/publications...
> GeoIP

No. No no no. Please don't do that. I know everybody does, but it's such a terrible idea. If you rely on geographical location to set language, you're ignoring travelers, expats, regions with multiple languages, etc.

Look at my browser's Accept-Language header. Go with that. It's almost certainly what I want. If you have a really good reason to serve me content based on my location, use GeoIP to determine that. Never ever use it for language. And make it really easy to change both.
Ugh, I totally spaced on the FLAC bit, I was still thinking in MP3.
Venture Capital for Startups & High Growth Technology Companies | SBA.gov
What an awful title.

"Lifelong debunker": Persi Diaconis, an interesting chap who used to be a professional magician but turned to mathematics and is now a professor at Stanford. (His best-known work is on the statistics of riffle-shuffles: how many such shuffles do you need to do to make your pack of cards "random enough"?)

"Arbiter of neutral choices": a coin-toss.

What the title actually means: Diaconis is doing some work on the behaviour of coin-tosses; he has a simplified model of coin-tossing that suggests that there should be a small bias in favour of having the coin land the same way up as it started; he's doing (or, rather, getting some other people to do) some experimental work aimed at tuning the model on the basis of high-speed video footage of real coin tosses.

And, er, the story ends there: he isn't finished yet. But supposedly it's looking as if there might be a 51:49 bias. That would be large enough to be of some practical interest -- though maybe not very much since, as the article mentions, a skilled coin tosser can make them come up quite reliably whichever way s/he chooses.
That's a bit TOO radical!

The 3Rs are okay: They are easy enough to learn and useful quite generally.
That HyperCard hasn't been resurrected is a crime against humanity. Absolutely brilliant piece of software.
Unless the dynamic range of the environment you're in is greater than the difference of the dynamic range between 16 and 24-bit, and unless the audio content also possesses that dynamic range, you will never hear the difference.

It's still useful to record at 24-bit, though, to give yourself the extra headroom and avoid digital clipping. Recording at 24-bit is basically a no-brainer.

Don't even get me started on recording using sampling rates higher than 44.1 kHz. This has been discussed ad-nausem on various audio forums.

Mix Magazine (I think) ran a double-blind test to see if people from all walks of life, including experts in the audio industry, could hear the difference between CDs and super-audio CDs. They could not. I believe we have indeed reached the limits of human hearing.
[Disclaimer: aerospace industry veteran]

When a plane crashes, it is standard procedure to determine exactly what went wrong, what weaknesses in the "system" enabled what went wrong to go wrong, what prescription is needed to fix that system, and for the system to be fixed.

This was a plane crash.

I know this article was about one man, but there's no mention of anything about fixing what must have been broken in the first place. Sadly, I fear, because it doesn't exist.
but wait, it says the developer 'botched the output' -- shouldn't i be able to presume as a designer (who knows how to create proper output) that my contribution will not be botched by someone who may be a really fine coder, but lacks a good understanding of how to optimize images and deliver good output for the screen?
Of course, someone could watch my house now and see when I turn on my lights. Better yet, they could see me stumble in when the bars close at 2 am. The issue isn't that private information is being made public, it's that the cost of gathering and aggregating public information is being drastically reduced.

Without smart meters, it might cost someone hundreds or thousands of dollars to hire a private detective to discover my drinking habits. My estranged spouse might be willing to spend that money in a custody case, but my life insurer wouldn't find it to be cost-effective. With new sources of low-cost data like that from smart meters, the calculation might be different.

(edit: corrected a couple of typos)
> Don't -ever- expect anyone to contribute for free. When they do, treat them special instead of taking them for granted.

Right, but apply the same measure to developers too.

We often get into the habit of taking some contributor's work for granted, be we shouldn't. Every patch should be treated with the same respect and gratitude. If it's somebody's seven-hundredth patch, you don't have to say "thank you" for every patch, but you should still keep that humble attitude.
If you're talking about os products that are supported by a company, there are a great deal of paid designers, eg mozilla, webkit, android, etc.

Just in this context of getting people to 'contribute', we're explicitly referring to projects where the developers do not get paid.
The Salem Witch trials are another great example of this phenomena.
What's this sudden big deal against "test scores" from the K-12 teachers' organizations? Looks like an excuse to get paid the big bucks without any measurable results. Some good results are difficult to measure, but the basic results are easy enough to measure and should be measured. A serious practical problem is that K-12 is not doing well even on those basic results.

For "engaging", that's mostly nonsense.

You sound like a hired propaganda spammer paid for by the AFT or the NEA.

Test scores are important: SAT, CEEB, GRE, LSAT, MCAT. Board Certification in medicine. Qualifying exams for a Ph.D. Just what is it about test scores you and our K-12 teachers do not understand?
This is a copy of the article linked at the end:

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/lost-at-sea-...
Stanford!!!!

- Much better/more expansive campus, stronger academics, and STEVE JOBS went there!
Robovie PC robot wins marathon in Osaka, Japan
I think the abortion/murder thing happened because someone briefly redirected the Wikipedia entry on Abortion to the Wikipedia entry on Murder.
It also makes teachers more or less interchangeable and easily replaceable cogs in the education machine.

I wonder why most educators oppose it?
You're right, and I'd like to delete this and submit the original. But not sure that's reasonable, so I've submitted that original from the Independent, and please, people, go there, not to this one.

Unless it's too late ...
Looks good. I use http://tomatoi.st myself, but I do like the looks of your tomato timer. Definitely like the customized time periods you have.
Lost at sea: On the trail of Moby-Duck
I've been doing what amounts to maintenance programming for eleven years now, mostly in C and FORTRAN.

Over that time, my attitude has changed greatly. In the early days, all code looked like crap to me. I thought I could do so much better, and in some cases I could. But when I finally got to building my own systems, I ran into lots of compromises and loose ends - sometimes unavoidably. And under the pressure of deadlines, I can't say that I always documented clearly from whence came my spaghetti.

I've gained a certain respect for a system that _works_, no matter how ugly. Only time can shake most of the bugs out, and once they're gone, you try not to put any back in. Sometimes you have no choice but to rewrite; but the tendency to napalm everything must be resisted.

Disclaimer: nobody knows what testing means in this industry.
Ideally, you wouldn't have to trust them, you would be able to contract with them. Or rather, if you owned the data, they would have to contract with you to use it.

I agree that given the current environment, it would require regulatory changes to implement the data ownership concept. And given the degree of regulatory capture in such markets, good luck getting such a change implemented.
Considerations for Mobile Design: Speed
Currently, the service works best for Gecko and Webkit. IE does not work. Any and all input is welcome, as well as any questions you may have.
But hey if your running a not so well known blog and are trying to get traffic, why not write an article saying you were unfairly targeted by Google. Overall this is a current hot topic, might as well try turn this current zeitgeist into a win for your blog or website(gain more traffic & readers).
This is the original of the item submitted here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2267906
Eight years ago, I was a Ph.D. student in history at Stanford, and had a good friend who was a Ph.D. student in history at Berkeley.

Obviously, the situation may be different now, and different for computer science.

That said, for me and my situation the financial package at Stanford was far superior to the financial package at Berkeley -- more stipend for more years with less TA requirements.

If the same is true for you today, I'd be pretty biased towards Stanford.
Push Browser brings Google’s ‘Chrome To Phone’ to iOS
Good Specs? apple.com
MacBook Pro (2011 w/ Thunderbolt (I/O)).
- 128GB SSD (will buy external 500GB HDD)
- intel core i7 (2.7 Ghz)
- 27in LED display (external desktop attachment)

Thanks
Here is my Perl code for the diet puzzle, as well as sorting it splits the set into positive and negative subsets: https://gist.github.com/805894
Previous conversations:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1895354
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1901274
Burning Chrome
Adding on others (lack of recognition/respect, very difficult to submit changes if you're not a dev, etc).

One reason designers usually don't contribute to open source, is because they're paid to improve UX/UI on their commercial competitors. If GIMP/Inkscape had the same UX/UI as the Creative Suite, there wouldn't be market for the latter (this is what designers are paid for, unlike developers).

This allows more startup opportunities or companies like Canonical (parent company of Ubuntu) to provide a free and open source product (Canonical actually has dedicated designers).
Hehe yes, and I feel kinda bad for that. I think it's some permanent damage that I picked up from pair programming using unit tests and my desire to troll my pair partner into doing all the actual typing.
Many white men have also been falsely accused, imprisoned for over a decade and then released on DNA evidence. If there's anyone that's somewhat protected from overzealous law enforcement officers, DAs and judges, it probably wouldn't be a racial group. It would be women.
The original paper:

http://www.nature.com/nmeth/journal/v8/n3/full/nmeth.1566.ht...

... under subscription, but at least figures and the abstract are visible.
They need control over the portion of the project they're working on, and these portions should be larger rather then smaller. There shouldn't be a committee trying to design something.
Working on things alone is, well, lonely, and it is easy to let the critic inside tear you apart before you get anywhere near the finish line. Sometimes before you even reach the starting line. Probably this is some manifestation of our subconscious fears of failure, success, being embarrassed, etc.

Kudos to you for working through the low point and I wish you success and, maybe more importantly, that you persevere and finish your project. Even if it fails, you'll feel better about it, and it will give you confidence in your abilities so you can go out and do it again.
Wow powerful story, glad to see DNA testing making a difference in a system that will always be hit by bias and other problems.

I recommend Truth Machine (book) too, basically a Sci Fi look at if someone invented a machine that can tell if a person is lieing and how it affects society...

http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Machine-James-Halperin/dp/034541...
The gap becomes insignificant (524 vs 530 on PISA) once you correct for demographics.

http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou...

http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2011/01/how-well-do-above-...
Promotion is only a part of marketing.

The first thing you learn when studying marketing is the "four P's" of the marketing mix: product, price, place, promotion. Advertising is a subset of promotion. How applicable advertising is to your company's marketing strategy depends on your company.

I don't see much value in any broad-stroke commentary, but it's at least good to understand what marketing is and what it's composed of. Creating a product is as much about marketing as buying an ad.
This is potentially great news because it reverses the recent trend that legislature is used to revoke freedom where possible.

That the iPhone 4G is hampered by this is just a pill apple has to swallow. As if there weren't more bands that could be used to serve non-free phones.