skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
>Python statistical code looks too much like Python. Which, yeah, it does. Python is a general purpose programming language, not a domain specific language for statistical programming.

I have to agree (with your criticism). I spend most of my day in SAS and R, and my Python is limited to tweaking code from my colleagues, but I don't see how either the SAS or Python listed is better or worse than the other.

I actually like the quote in the article reg. DropBox's simplicity, but I don't get the relationship to statistical programming languages.
GIT: How to create a new remote branch
How to check Ati Radeon temperature & change fan speed & check GPU load on Linux
Pretty tempting offer even for the happily employed. Can I refer myself to the job and get both sides?
ريال مدريد وليون بث مباشر
There are GUI statistics apps for people who just want the common case, Dropbox-style: packages like Weka for data mining / predictive statistics, SPSS for descriptive statistics, and a dozen other such things.

The statisticians who choose to use a programming language like R or Python typically do it because they actually do want a programming language. I mean, that's why Bell Labs statisticians invented S (R's predecessor) to begin with.
The Data Viz Challenge: can you make tax data exciting?
Show HN: WaitingRoom
What Dropbox does is eliminate the programmer from the equation. You don't need your IT staff to do any special setup or to follow a special process.

I think the truth is business users don't want to work with you - they just want their data relationships to be discovered in a simple and intuitive way. If your data crawling is sufficiently good, maybe you can do that.

I understand the point the article is making, but I feel rather strongly that "(y)ou’ll want a third thing – to read in and parse data" translates to the person that builds a tool that does that nicely and automatically creates pivot tables, graphs, and other dashboard-y things will probably have to hire a team to shovel the money off so he/she can breathe.

I suppose it's an ok example to talk about this re: statistical programming languages, but my own experience in the three requirements that preface the whole discussion (pivot tables, graphs, data parsing) are a big example of something just screaming for a new solution, not a new prog language . . .
The hard part is speaking XMPP, which openssl does not.
He might have simply meant that he didn't want to set any precedents for future rulings by himself; i.e., start handing out free passes to anyone with a smartphone.
The 6 Snags of Telework
I think people should stop comparing these gadget.
The kindle is a single purpose device, and it was made for reading books.
The Ipad is something very different, and you can read books too. But, they are in so diferent markets, that this "slam" shoudnt be there.
Technically, GPS uses both pseudorange and doppler data as an input. These are usually combined with the previously measured position and speed using a Kalman filter. Speed is generally more accurate than position (to the extent that it makes any sense to compare them) because pseudorange errors tend to change comparatively slowly. Of course how the receiver outputs the speed is up to it, but since it falls out of the position calculation for free it's unlikely many will be storing straight delta position/delta time.

Having said that, it's not especially strong evidence since it's pretty trivial to fake. However, in this case the title is correct: it contributed to him getting off because it gave him the confidence to challenge the ticket.
Setting up your custom Hoptoad Notifier endpoint for free using Errbit on Heroku
The typical employer expects to pay to post a job listing. Yes more traffic is better, but I bet this site will start getting major traffic within a month. Being a specific niche I also predict it will get some major google SEO juice before to long. So that egg better start running or the chicken will catch up!
If 90% of usage boils down to a small number of rigid patterns, then there is a simple solution: a handful of convenience functions. Often these functions are missing, because the demand for convenience functions is obscured by the fact that every experienced user defined them for himself years ago. That forces newbies to suffer through the unnecessary task of understanding the fully generalized API before they can accomplish simple tasks.

Languages that have good support for optional arguments, such as Python and Lisp, also make it possible to create APIs that are elegant and concise for experts but extremely intimidating for beginners. It may be more elegant to have a single function with a slew of optional arguments, and an experienced user may be able to accomplish any task quite concisely by specifying a few arguments, but a beginner would be better served by a handful of specific functions with specific names. API writers should consider providing those functions as simple wrappers to the general API, in order to provide a simpler learning curve for users who might never need more complex functionality. Examining how those wrapper functions are implemented can help intermediate users figure out the general API, too.
Is Joule's Renewable "Liquid Energy" Far More Efficiently Produced Than Biofuel?
I added this to the post in the end - on reflection I think you're right that it's worth mentioning.
At my current job I was tasked with making a new framework and transitioning our code over to it. The reason that we decided to actually work on technical debt is because we are growing very rapidly and the old setup is too slow so the customers are actually affected. It was extremely useful to have every technical stakeholder in the design discussion to figure out what features we really need, where we went wrong with the old design, and how to transition properly without spending 10 months. So far so good, we are transitioning a bunch of our code over to the framework and it seems to be working well. Im sure mistakes will be made along the way, but planning with people who made the original mistakes (and subsequently have manned up to them) should help prevent remaking original mistakes.
imagine building a fantastic social venue - something like a bar or community center. now, years after this venue is established as the go-to place for networking, suddenly mandate that all interactions which lead to a business relationship imply a 30% profit share in perpetuity for the venue.

once i've downloaded an app from the appstore the relationship is between the developer and i. both parties have already paid their entrance fee to apples venue.

artificially requiring that apps make apples subscription api available is just an underhanded way of creating the illusion that apple is still being productive.

rent-seek is a perfectly valid characterization of what apple is doing. i don't care if it passes whatever filters our legal system stipulates. the definition of rent-seeking does not imply that the activity is illegal.
Many of those things only affect a tiny minority of, relatively speaking, incredibly rich people though. They will have knock on effects for the rest of the world, especially in the long term, but I submit that there are other events in human history that affected everyone on the planet at once, or at least very quickly.

An example would be plastic water piping for sanitation, as mentioned in my other comment.

I would also count the start of the Nuclear Age with the bombing of Hiroshima as something that affected almost everyone on earth by completely rebalancing the international political structure.
Stanford and SLAC are a bit more accommodating, and there's the Computer museum. Other than that, you're right.
In my experience, those outages don't tend to be frequent on main roads, where there is usually an unobstructed sight-line to the GPS satellites. Sure, it's possible that this dude floored it, hit 50-60mph for a second or two, slammed on the brakes leaving rubber all over the pavement, slowed to 15mph for a while to make the averages all work out, and proceeded on his merry way at 25mph.

But it doesn't seem that likely.
After seeing breakup notifier on here (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2243650) thought I would share our similar side project we launched for Valentine's day.

This app allows you "wait" on your friends that are in relationships. So they know they have options. It's all anonymous until they are single for 48 hours or so. Then then can see who's been waiting on them.
I think rails tutorial is great even if you aren't interested in Rails. It covers git, heroku, and testing.

http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial-book
Microsoft doesn't license their PlayReady DRM components unless it is hardware secured

So you mean to say that the average Windows XP box is "hardware secured"?

I think you mean, "Microsoft doesn't license their PlayReady DRM components to anyone that isn't big enough to hurt its adoption".
Event driven development is the worst kind of programming because of the extensive use of callbacks and state maintenance/tracking. You never know the control flow by reading the source.

You have to maintain state all the time and keep track of inconsistent/impossible states.

That to me is not cleaner or easier.

I work in one of the big corps, and it never fails, event driven servers tend to be way more buggy.

Python out of the box doesn't have coroutines but you can always use gevent for that.

Python threads are real pthreads, now they are not optimal and should not be used in high load servers, because pthreads are not that light weight when you are running 10k of them. Creating servers based on python threads is as clean as coroutine threads but slower. Hence, coroutines are always favorable over them.
I use notepad as well as dead tree notepads and pen.

Any kind of ball point pen. The notepad must be a reporters notepad or a regular sized notepad. I dislike writing on pieces of paper that are too small.
I've worked on several large GWT projects, and if compiling to javascript is impacting your productivity, then your development process is not set up right.

In particular, compilation to javascript should not be inside of your basic edit->compile->test loop. Instead, you should be developing in DevMode (formerly known as "HostedMode") where the code runs in a JVM. The step of compiling to javascript should only happen once or twice as your code starts going towards a production environment.
Developer salary growth is an inverted hockey stick
Seems to me it won't be long til GPS units simply include a six-axis accelerometer, since acceleration can be directly measured without need of GPS and since such tech is cheap and already in both smartphones and game systems like the PS3 and Wii.

This will allow for far more precise tracking of your speed at any given moment.
What about manual approval until the site has momentum?
Oops misunderstood your use of "country". You meant "rural" -- like me. ;)
We don't have Emirates at the moment. We should have the same prices as everyone else in the US, but we're still growing our international coverage.
Thank you. Your comment makes me realize how US-centric I am. I was expecting an answer comparing West coast vs East coast behavior at various times during the day. It's certainly true to say that (afternoon in CA) != (afternoon in NY).
If quality was your only concern, you'd just charge a one time $5 fee. So I'd say greed is at least somewhat involved.

And yes giving away coupon codes is good and well...but then you run into the quality problem that you use as an excuse to charge from the start.

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with greed...provided it doesn't cause you to kill your business before it gets the chance to get off the ground.
Anecdotal evidence: http://functionaljobs.com.

Similar great idea, but no new posts in almost a month.
If you're bold enough to switch to server-side JavaScript and move your coding inside the browser, there's a step-by-step tutorial for Erbix at http://www.erbix.com/documentation/tutorial/ that describes how to get started. (disclaimer: I'm affiliated with the project)
http://www.builditwith.me/

http://collabfinder.com/

http://www.interhoods.org/ (in limited cities)
Is there way to follow a twitter conversation like a thread on HN with indented replies?
Or maybe a 3rd party site that does that?
I really like this idea, especially if the "bookpaths" converge.. i.e. the ruby path and python path converge to broader topics such as general software development (pragmatic programmer etc.)
Nothing is wrong with being greedy/wanting money for your effort. Just make sure to find an answer for the above mentioned "Chicken-and-egg" problem.
The No Network Fallacy
I agree, this description makes the site sound like Forrst. It doesn't highlight the focus on professionals sharing links to things that they're reading.
Assumption (b) is probably incorrect too, you know. ;)

That section could probably have been omitted entirely, since my point lay more in the following sentence:

> it still seems likely that the 'stale tank re-heat' will use a decently large fraction of (2)'s energy.

In other words, this project tackles the minority energy user (only 25% of all heating), then addresses the minority energy consumer within that (far more energy is used heating fresh cold water), and does so only partially (vs, say, switching to a fully on-demand heater).
Daniel, I really like your site and the curated list.
However, I find the categories in HackerBooks.com much more easier to navigate than questions on the right side bar of hn-books.

Both of the sites still need to address the question, 'how do I present the categories without requiring too much navigation'.
I know it's not sexy any more but how about tag-cloud per major category?
Lanyrd is my favorite startup of the last twelve months (aside from the one I'm working on, natch). It's well built, intelligently designed, incredibly responsive to its users, and has helped me discover a bunch of events I would otherwise have missed. It's what Upcoming should have evolved into.
I love the remote it looks awesome. Just the shape of that box makes it seem like it would awkward to place it anywhere.
Paid. It's linked to my dad's account, which is the main Prime account.
Can't you just issue a 301 redirect from /favicon.ico to /favicon.png?
I am currently considering my first smart-phone, and I want really want to go with Apple because I do like the refinement of iOS and the hardware that runs it, but their App Store policies are giving me pause. It seems to me that Apple's greed is getting the better of them.

I really hope that Apple will realize that even if they aren't getting a cut of in-App purchases, these Apps do add desirability to the iOS platform.
I'm still pretty sure that if you pick your frameworks and tools right, Java can be a competitive development framework. If you go all Java Beans, EJB, etc, you might be in trouble, but it's not so much the language per se.
Yes, and? Aren't we discussing the merits of using GWT?
39 Ways to Generate Revenue
I can't speak for the creators of R, but I have a strong suspicion that it wasn't intended for erehweb or MBAs. It's not Microsoft Excel, its R. It's used by PhD researchers in Mathematics, Statistics, Economics and Political Science.
Amazon’s Prime Instant Video
Emotion winning over the understanding of basic economic principles is not the path to actually solving the problem.

One must understand the reality of the variables involved in order to come up with solutions of value.

Emotional outbursts have rarely solved any important complex problems. See Hacker Code 11.3.7 ;)
The biggest directory of life insurance companies
Looking for life insurance terms, quotes or companies? Then check out this huge website.
I'm not incredibly rich and many of those things have had a huge impact on my life. My brother surviving stage IV cancer, for example. Being able to build a business with nothing more than a domain name and a programming book, etc.

If things keep moving as fast as they are, then my guess is that the trickle down effects will...well...trickle faster.
Musica Gratis
Ofertilandia.com es un portal de ocio es cual se dedica entre otras cosas a la musica, programas, juegos y traductores. Si tienes pensado descargarte musica gratis no debes dejar de ingresa a visitar este portal de ocio.
Android & Windows Phone 7 are Today's Fastest-Growing App Stores
The Best Things in Workplaces Aren't Free
Tienda de Deportes
Tienda deportiva online con toda la indumentaria necesaria para realizar deportes. Si estas buscando ropa de moda para realizar ejercicios aqui encontraras lo que buscas: Ingresa a esta tienda virtual de ropa deportiva
Right. I wasn't saying that there didn't exist such packages, of course there are. I was pointing out that the reason a programming language looks good to a programmer and not a statistician is due domain expertise. And of course the common trap programmers fall into is assuming the domain is programming.

And don't lump R in with Python. And good statistician would have your neck. You mention S, but again S doesn't look anything like Python either.
Thanks for the suggestion.

Actually I got that idea to try out experimental features under a /labs area. So I will give various features a go there. I can try out tags :)
Actually in my experience business users want one thing on that list, and if they have that thing they don't care about whether you provide the other two. They won't ask for what they want because they don't know that they can get it. But they will be happy if they get it.

They want to get at nicely organized data easily from inside of Excel. Excel is a toolbox that they already know from which they can do their own pivot tables and graphs. And they'd prefer to do that because then they can just do it instead of less efficiently having someone else do it for them.

They want it to arrive nicely aggregated and organized, since Excel is not very good at that. But they are more than happy to do the pretty reports themselves. Just get them the data.

See http://bentilly.blogspot.com/2009/12/design-of-reporting-sys... for a more detailed description of one set of experiences that taught me that.
That's an interesting idea. I like the idea of turning things off too. In some cases, that's more useful than explicitly defining a @task. Care to open a ticket on code.fabfile.org with it? Maybe we can work that in as an option in 1.1 (when @task is set to hit).
As a counter anecdote, there is a CS lecturer at my alma mater who actually did get a job directly due to taking code (a physics simulator I believe) from some company's server.

He was careful to end the story by reminding students that things have changed a bit since his youth, and what he did would be multiple felonies now.
that is true for certain procedures, and not true for others.

you don't have time to shop around for services while unconscious in the back of an ambulance.
...it seems like it would be very difficult to layout and design a web front-end from within Java code alone.t seems like it would be very difficult to layout and design a web front-end from within Java code alone.

You don't have to, and you're not necessarily even supposed to. You work with DOM elements and CSS styles just as you would anyway. Every Widget in GWT inherits from the UIObject class. Each instance corresponds to exactly one tag in your DOM, and has methods for getting/setting styles. Your java code would just handle putting the element where you want it in the DOM, and setting the style(s). The layout is in your CSS, just as usual.
Generalizing From One Example
"It's time to stop apologizing for being a venture capitalist."
Story Building vs Storytelling
Can I alpha?
Maybe I'm missing the point too, because I don't understand why he's arguing that Python and R should cater to people that don't want to use a programming language. Isn't that akin to arguing that C is too complicated because it allows you to directly access memory rather than abstracting that away?

MBA- and business types have Excel. As a researcher, I flex both Python and R regulary -- but I want the full power of a programming language, not a couple of macros to generate a pivot table.
Which phones allow this? I'm honestly curious, I thought AT&T had switched that off on all models. Is yours grandfathered in or are they releasing new models with unknown sources enabled?
That looks close to as simple as possible, if you assume Python is to be used. My point about R was that even in a language designed for statistics, I saw dependence on common programming concepts.
That's exactly my point. Since we're discussing the merits of GWT, we should avoid points that have nothing to do with GWT per se.

To put a finer point on it: GWT does not require you to structure your app that way. If you do choose to structure your app that way, then you're making the same tradeoff that you would make if you were to go down that same path in any toolkit.
Having worked in Silicon Valley for 12 years, I have yet to find QA people who could successfully automate testing in a non-fragile way or without using an expensive, proprietary and crappy testing harness. Those who know how to program are invariably better at writing automated tests. One recent CS graduate should be able to put a team of QA out of a job. (Disclosure: I work for Wealthfront)
A labeled y axis or error bars would be nice...just to dispel that vague link-spammy feeling.
The sad case of Ike Antkare
To quote the book (Mindfulness in Plain English) that was earlier recommended in this thread and in the article:

"Meditation is not some mindless formula which gives automatic and predictable results. You can never really predict exactly what will come up in any particular session. It is an investigation and experiment and an adventure every time. In fact, this is so true that when you do reach a feeling of predictability and sameness in your practice, you use that as an indicator. It means that you have gotten off the track somewhere and you are headed for stagnation."

I can't really know if this is the reason why you felt like you had hit a rut - Just had to leave this comment for your consideration :)
I like it, and think it's a great idea. Site looks pretty nice.
One general design comment: The search bar is a bit hard to notice.
You should check out the IRC channel on freenode -- #startups. I think a lot of people go there and would probably love to beta.
That would create a disincentive for people to correctly report referrers.
I believe even the AT&T phones with Unknown Sources disabled allow sideloading with ADB. Not that that's a good option for most users.
Amazon Instant Videos not a threat to Netflix
I understand that point. My point was that a Python library for statistics is not the right tool for them, but that in no way makes that statistic library or Python "bad." Python is a programming language. If you think that the users you have in mind can't handle programming, then don't give them a programming language.
How We Made Github Fast (2009)
Version control. You can observe the benefits even working alone on relatively small projects. And it's one of the pillars to experiment with more reliable ways of deploying software
News: Archive.org is also doing this. Efforts will probably be combined. Yay archivists!
A Newly Fertile Crescent
Ask a close friend to do it and get both 12k minus a bonus for your friend.
I think his point is that the market won't bear it.
Ask HN: Sending out bad news emails- what to put in the subject?
For personal emails- do you put the bad news (or at least a hint of it) into the subject, or have a neutral subject and introduce the issue in the email? What in your opinion is the best practice? I realize that there are many variables depending on the news, your relationship with the recipient, etc. I'm just looking to see what people generally do.