skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I like it. I think you can find a way to make it viral. "Sexy" is a matter of perception. I see no reason this can't become what the Cool Kids in College all want. You need someone (like me) who is completely neurotic about their grades and feels the need to call their sister and have a nervous breakdown for 30 minutes because, gasp, my first grade on my first paper after returning to college 8 years later was below a 95 (clearly the end of the world). This person also needs to be someone that other people like/look up to/want to emulate for some reason. (This was me at one time in some circles on the internet where I got treated like a "rock star" and compared to one -- though it definitely wasn't me in high school.) In some geeky circles, someone who is smart and grade obsessed can also be someone "cool" that others are enthralled by. Find those folks. If they will use it, others will use it.

Rather than sharing grades, I think I would find a means to share some measure of what value the product brought. One possibility: Show that their grades improve when they use this. Another possibility: Show that they stress less about school now that they are clear where they stand at all times. Another possible angle: Now that they are stressing less, they have more of a life because they are clear what they need to do and can set aside the whole obsessive grade focus on Friday night (or whatever) and have a little fun. This last idea might need some additional support, like some kind of study tracker/support tools in that regard. But that could be seen as a direction to grow in.

Disclaimer: I'm only on here due to insomnia. If someone completely shoots me down, listen to them instead. Its possible I'm incoherent. Thanks.
> Yes. The claim was definitive that nothing bad happened.

And that claim was correct. That study, even if one accepts it as absolute fact, does not support the hypothesis that the TMI accident was a contributing cause of death.

Even so, it would be interesting to compare how the increase in the death rate compared to "safe" things, such as traffic accidents, smoking, and other intentional risks that people take.

But that's the key word, isn't it? "Intentional" risks.
Out of curiosity, what's wrong with Google Reader?
Yeah. We have three engineering folks: My cofounder, who has 8 years experience (and a CS PhD), myself, with 13 years experience, and one more with 16 years experience. We've all built significant projects outside of a job, we've all lead teams and been responsible for products, etc. So I guess that's fairly senior.

More junior would be folks with just a few years experience, or haven't built or led major projects. Even more junior would be right out of school.
I think the original paper is very readable: ftp://ftp.cs.umd.edu/pub/skipLists/skiplists.pdf
This article is blatant scare-mongering.
AT&T to Impose Data Caps on DSL, U-Verse Customers Starting May 2
I saw a figure earlier today (can't recall where sorry) that once the control rods are in and the reactor is shutdown it still produces 6% of the usual amount of heat, which is enough to still require some cooling.
> Another nice thing about skip lists is that they are relatively easy to make into cheap persistent structures (aka functional structures), that is, structures where operations return a new immutable copy of the structure, but share most of the substructure with the previous version.

The simplest purely functional balanced dictionary structures I am aware of are 2-3 trees, which are actually another way of viewing 1-2 skip lists, a deterministic variant of skip lists!

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=107462261140470234...
I've known about this one for years, and it is one of the reasons I don't want to move back to the Pacific Northwest (I grew up in Victoria).

It was only in the last few decades that geologists realized the size of the earthquakes that the area experiences. Building codes have not caught up. And a lot of the population centers in the area, including Seattle, Vancouver and Victoria, have important construction predating any useful building codes.

A few areas have notable risks.

The scariest is Victoria. It is on Vancouver Island, which typically drops 10 feet during a Cascadia earthquake. Most of the city is under 20 feet above sea level. Add a tsunami, and a lot of that could be covered. (I've read the projections for a tsunami from the Cascadia quake are about 30 meters. But I have no idea how big the tsunami would be within the Straits of Juan de Fuca, which is what Victoria would be exposed to.) Normally one would worry about the fact that densely populated areas (like James Bay) are largely built on landfill, which behaves poorly in earthquake. But that's incidental compared to being unexpectedly under the new sea level. I don't know exactly how many people would be under the new sea level, but I think it is about 100,000. (You can see the distribution of people in http://www.victoria.ca/cityhall/pdfs/sustainability-census-p.... All of Oak Bay, most of Victoria, a significant portion of Esquimalt, all of View Royal, some of Saanich, and a small part of Langford would be under water.) Given the unavailability of higher ground and low water temperature, I don't expect a lot of survivors.

Next look at the delta area of Vancouver. It is called the delta because it is the river delta from the Fraser River. Which means dirt with a high water level. Take dirt and water, and shake. What do you get? Mud! The delta area of Vancouver is perfect for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake_liquefaction. There are about 100,000 people living there.

Now consider Mt Rainier. http://www.geotimes.org/apr04/feature_MountRainier.html documents some of the lahar risks that it faces. Odds are that a Cascadia earthquake wouldn't trigger one of those lahars with 150,000 people in its path. That will happen some day regardless. But if it did, and you had a lahar on top of a major earthquake, well, nothing good would happen.

Japan lost perhaps 10,000 people in this earthquake and tsunami. I firmly believe that a Cascadia quake would kill at least an order of magnitude more people in Victoria alone. And, unlike Japan, there is no real disaster preparedness ethic to mitigate the follow-up to the disaster.
> You can apply these nouns and verbs to a lot more than just source code version control.

Do you have any examples of people (other than you) who have actually done this? It would make your argument much more convincing.

Also, the fact that other DVCS's have different, incompatible models underlying them suggests that Git's nouns and verbs are not nearly as universal as Unix pipes. If Git's nouns and verbs were universal, Git could subsume other DVCS's (ie. you could implement other DVCS's semantics on top of Git with performance as good or better than what they have already).
We're not looking for a huge number of people...
I'm going to guess that building a new reactor is a lot cheaper than fixing up a 30 year old reactor that has gone through even partial meltdown, and that no no-one involved in managing the reactor is worried about getting it back online.
Linux: The JACK Audio Connection Kit
Before deciding a framework., Check weather it is active or not http://wiki.python.org/moin/WebFrameworks
They did have protection from tsunamis. This one was too big.
> 1 random generation per element, vs. log(n) or log(u)

The expected height of an element is 2, and the maximum height is 32. So there is at most a constant-factor performance difference, and in practice we should find this constant to be small.

It's not clear whether any small performance gain is worth the loss of clarity in presentation of the algorithm and code.
Wait, is this from Anon or Wikileaks?
Just read though it all. So far, this is unimpressive and not really indicative of any serious criminal activity.

And here's the torrent: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6241472
Leaked footage
Yup, and one of the major concerns in the East Bay are so called "soft story" buildings: homes and apartment buildings with ground floors largely open to create garage and retail space and therefore lacking adequate shear structure to resist earthquake forces.

It's a well documented problem, with huge loss of life and housing stock predicted in the event of a large earthquake on the Hayward fault. Not sure exactly what measures other cities are taking to improve the situation, but you can learn more on the City of Berkeley site:

http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/contentdisplay.aspx?id=622

There's a list where you can look up whether your building is structurally vulnerable or has been retrofit.
I have the most respect for #10. It boggles my mind how you can become a billionaire from eggs (not sold on the internet.)
I don't know how long you've been doing Python and Ruby, but when Why wrote that, the relationship between Rubyists and Pythonistas was pretty chilly.

As I saw it: There was this feeling that, after years of being dismissed as a mere scripting language, it was Python's time to shine — but then Ruby came along and (pushed along by Rails) was about to steal Python's thunder, and they were so similar that people thought there was only room for one such language in the New World Order. So Pythonistas began acting pretty rude toward the upstart Rubyists, and the Rubyists got this idea that Python was an evil, enemy technology.
Anon. Edit: Actually, as I understand it, one guy who claims to be associated with Anonymous.
I only disputed that 颱 was related to the meanings of "stand" or "platform".

As for the meanings of "great" or "big", the OED and etymonline entries actually refer to a different character, 大, from the Cantonese pronunciation of 大風 (IPA: taːifʊŋ).

The Japanese and Chinese etymology of 颱風 is as convoluted as the English one that _delirium mentions above in a previous comment. It may have originated as a Western borrowing, be related to Taiwan as you have suggested, or be related to Cantonese 大風; it may have perhaps even been influenced by multiple sources.
Many of the new "nosql" databases use a lot of similar concepts. But it's a new thing: I'm trying to see into the future here, not tell you what's already happened :)

As for different DVCSs, I think you're exactly backwards. Almost everyone commenting on these things seems to believe that git isn't special, it really does the same thing as every other DVCS, etc. And on a fundamental level this is true: it's very easy to convert from one DVCS to another, because fundamentally the models are so similar. git just exposes the model in a more obvious way. The insides are the same, the outsides are different.
Well I am sorry to rain on this parade. But things are not fine. I have worked in a nuclear plant. The control room is a remote control system, controlling the core. By using sensors, not people they determine what is happening. Its not easy. In other major accidents, Three Mile Island, Detroit Fermi I, Chernobyl, follow up investigations reveal the accident was must worse than they thought. The operators in every case underestimated the damage. Under normal conditions this is a stressful, difficult job. I can only imagine how difficult it is after two disasters. Now we have this report of radiation leaks. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/14/world/asia/14plume.html?_r...
Talk to anyone in eastern Europe and they will tell you the government covered up the long term health problems from Chernobyl.
Additional, there is not just one reactor that is in trouble. There are many.
My browser is giving me a phishing warning for this link?
IANANS, however from what I understand the problem is this:
-> The reactor is a BWR type, hence even though it is scrammed it is still generating some amount of power from fission products.
-> The ECCS failed, meaning that the core can't maintain sufficient cooling.
-> So what water was left in the core is then exposed to very high temperatures and pressures.
-> That apparently then creates conditions sufficient to cause the water to react with the zirconium alloy which is used in the fuel rods, forming zirconium dioxide and hydrogen. (2H2O + Zn -> ZnO2 + 2H2).
-> As reactors generally don't create much gaseous waste (The only waste products that I can think of would be, for example, radon, and that would be in small quantities), and the core isn't expected to be above the autoignition temperature of whatever gas that is being vented. What could be happening is that the gas is being vented but is being concentrated at some point where it comes into contact with something hot enough to ignite it thus causing an explosion. For example, if the gas is being vented out of the core, but into a secondary containment vessel, if the vessel is filled with air and if it contains say a piece of metal hot enough to ignite the hydrogen, it would simply fill with gas until it reaches a point where the mixture is explosive, before then it then explodes.

Disclaimer: I'm not a nuclear scientist, any corrections/additional information would be very welcome.
Essay on Leadership
An essay on leadership is an important essay to learn to write well. There will come many instances when you will have to consider this in other types of essays. Therefore, students assigned this essay, should know how to write one effectively.
Thanks so much for the kind feedback.

I do want to be able to show that students' GPAs improve after they sign up for Achiever (although it could turn out that there is no correlation). As for sharing that there is a possible improvement to Achiever, well, like you said I'd have to think about a way to implement that.
> I realize that some public discussions I had with them seem to have been more politically motivated than I realized at the time

That's something I have also struggled with repeatedly over the years. There are quite a lot of people who appear ignorant, needlessly antagonistic, and generally unlikable - yet they somehow mastered the art of getting a lot of support and sympathy. Often you realize too late that a pointless little discussion was actually a pretty good setup to gather support from the other people on the team. This is usually the moment where you discover that your opponent isn't as stupid as you always thought.

I wish I had something more positive to say, but in my experience it makes little sense to go up against those people, mainly because they're simply better at manipulating everyone, but also because doing so will eat a lot of your time and energy for trying to beat them at their own game. In my experience there is often a reason why this kind of person works at your company: it's either because management failed at hiring decent people, or it's because they hired someone who actually reflects their own morals there. In any case, the company's culture has probably already been subverted. Staying away from these environments is more rewarding than adapting to them.

> So is this a hopeless situation? I'm a bit hesitant to jump ship because my work history in the Valley hasn't been terrific.

You know, it doesn't sound like you are working there for the awesome product and the great team experience to begin with. If that assumption is valid, I would suggest you start looking for another job immediately. What do you mean your work history isn't terrific? I believe you can always look for a startup with a concept that motivates you and simply jump onboard as long as it's a good personality match this time?
There's a reasonable solution out there somewhere for protecting people's intellectual software property, but the patent office - like most government organizations - is severely behind the times.

Although it -is- terribly nice to see the Patent Office at least trying to adopt a more open model through initiatives like these: http://www.uspto.gov/news/pr/2011/11_03.jsp

I myself have been a member (albeit an inactive one) of Peer to Patent for awhile now. Another thing on my list of "cool sh*t i'd like to be involved with when I make the time" o:)
this released steam is irradiated

Just as a pedantic point, irradiated steam would not be hazardous. Steam with radioactive particles mixed in, on the other hand, would be.
GWT's perfect caching is pretty similar to this - Use the MD5 of the file contents as the filename, and send out 'cache forever' headers with the file. Thus, if the file hasn't changed, the browser doesn't even need to make a HTTP request/wait for a 304 response. The MD5 filenames are stored in a 'never cache' bootstrap.

http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/doc/latest/DevGuideCompili...

I'm surprised i don't see this type of thing more often in other libraries.
PS: clickable!: http://www.getachiever.com
He's also been known to appear on a podcast or two, thereby dispelling all doubt.
Without a data importer, there seems to be an initial conditions problem, not just from a user acquisition standpoint, but from an algorithmic standpoint. How can it use network analysis to infer cliques when starting with such a small/sparse/nonexistent network?

Maybe you could add this to Diaspora. It may be burgeoning, but it's open source and does have users. Also, how does this differ from Diaspora's aspects?

That said, yes! There is definitely a need for it.
If you allow meltdown, you're looking at contaminating the entire reactor building. Clean up costs would be astronomical. If the pressure vessel remains intact, the whole thing can be lifted out with little effort, leaving an uncontaminated building behind.
Network Device Discovery with Fing.
The website seems to be already overloaded with traffic.

I get "503 : Service Temporarily Unavailable"
Stop moving and stare them in the eye with a vaguely irritated look.
Wrong character for the first. Going back to the Chinese (which is presumably where Japanese got it, given that it uses Chinese characters), the "tái" (颱 or 台, depending on whether you prefer traditional or simplified script) in "táifēng" is first-tone (ascending); the word that means "big" in Chinese is actually "dài" (大), fourth-tone (falling). Japanese also uses 大 for "big."
View Mapper for Rails 3: ScaffoldHub
Josh - to be a little more useful, I'm a senior at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and I'd be glad to pass along your job opportunity to engin/CS seniors I know here if you have a blurb and contact info I can forward them.
Why? Isn't the "last line of defense" prepared to avoid any contamination at all?
I agree with the end you have in mind, but I don't think that legal requirements should (or could) be used to make it happen. What we're talking about is inevitable if we separate the government from education completely.

In a free education market, parents would be free to ask a private school's administration, "What does your math teacher know about math, and what credentials does he have to prove it?"
Have YOU?

Seeing as it's been, y'know, removed now.
Thank. Fucking. God.

...that you pointed this out. Yes, yes it was.
It looks like Nicholas handed off the open-source version to Patrick to maintain and extend.
Ask HN: How do you implement site Admin?
I have been making a list of things I would, as Administrator of a web-app, want to manage and control from a single secure interface. The list is getting quite long and includes the following:

* Approving comments, users, new content etc

* browsing the phpdoc or javadoc for the app

* view stats (basic awstats)

* "Contact Form" submissions that need responses

* Advertising A/B test results, notes, figures, values etc

* viewing user accounts for billing/overdue

* process payment refunds

* give users a freebie such as 30 days free

* Make text notes about setups, configurations, relevant urls, server IPs etc.

Has anyone here just used a mediawiki install at https://admin.yourdomain.com and put everything in there? Is this secure?

P.S. I am thinking of something much more than simply a performance dashboard.
Not only that, but if you were to write this in (say) Java, which uses a linear congruential random number generator, doing it this way would probably be even faster due to the higher quality random numbers. The least significant bits on a linear congruential generator aren't terribly random.
That's why I hage narcissists. They use any opportunity to showof and promote themselves.
I've spent a lot of time dabbling with digital audio (especially recording) and my limited experience with Linux audio setups were difficult to say the least.

Now, this may be changing with Ubuntu Studio, but unfortunately a majority of commercial hardware is still strictly Windows/Mac (and sometimes spotty at that). Our mostly self-recorded/produced/mixed album (http://glasscannonband.com/albums/the-chill-room) was done in Windows 7 with Sonar with a Firepod 24bit firewire interface. It wasn't perfect, but it worked.

I couldn't imagine walking into a recording session with a Linux setup and running into a bug (I experienced dozens upon dozens while experimenting with Linux) and trying to sort it all out while the band waits.

Again, I think this is just a time vs. money thing. The post even alludes to this ($3000 upgrade vs. $600).

If you wanna do digital recording, save yourself the hassle: go Mac or Windows with the wonderful REAPER software (from the same dudes that developed WinAmp!).
I thought BoA bought up all these domain names. How does anonymous have it?

How can we verify this is legit?

The primary domain is registered to James somebody, email address Nope@gmail.com, which doesn't exactly look like valid info.
Although academic, and with the possible exception of geothermal, astral energy is actually our only source of energy, albeit with differing latencies.

Fossil fuels contain energy from ancient biomass supported by the Sun, and heavy radioactive isotopes (like all heavy elements) are formed in supernovae.
Looks fantastic. Only problem I can see - how portable are these things?
I did just the same thing! I'm using BeautifulSoup for scraping.
The exact same thing with the change also happens in New Zealand and it's quite annoying! Now I wonder what could have brought it about in both countries.
What would happen if Senate votes weren't made public? It would decrease accountability of senators to constituents, sure, but would it also decrease the power of special interest groups?
Do you have an example of this? I've always seen it as the other way round - Rubyists dismissing Python along with PHP and Java as old/irrelevant/less powerful.

But the whole thing is pointless anyway. Everyone should learn at least a little of both languages since they're both fantastic.
Semantic Search Challenge by Yahoo
This is just a disgruntled former employee complaining about the common (legal) business practices of large corporations. Am I missing something?
Owsley Stanley, LSD pioneer, RIP
Just start a new branch and work in it. If it works, great, merge mack to the master branch. If it fails, no big deal, discard this branch and go back to master.

How does that not describe more traditional VCSes like cvs and subversion?
Try refreshing the page. I've gotten the images to load by opening it in multiple tabs. Usually one of those requests will go through.

But it also means overloading an already overloaded server with more requests.
"one guy who claims to be associated with Anonymous."

Which in reality could be snipped to "one guy", and not lose any real meaning.
Slightly OT, how do they do it on TV shops where they put a lot of TVs to form a big screen? How are the images split? Can I do it with any TV?
What really matters is the conditional probability of earthquake given the time since the last earthquake. Based on the numbers that you just gave, about half the time when you make it to 300 years, the next one goes within 50 more years.

But the current best guess, as documented in http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100531/full/news.2010.270.ht..., suggests that the actual risk in the next 50 years is about 37%.
We have 50 years of petroleum left and maybe 100-200 of coal. Compare that to centuries of Uranium, Plutonium and other radioactive minerals. Also, emissions are a big deal, too. Nuclear waste is contained and far less dangerous (when kept properly) than fossile fuel emissions.