skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I haven't had these kind of upgrade problems since updgrading from 7 to 8. Did you really have trouble upgrading to, e.g. 10.04?

It seems to me that there's some problem with your HW configuration (WiFi etc. - never had problems). Did you consider staying on some LTS. I've found 10.04 to be extremely smooth. If you don't want to have the trouble, just stay on LTS :).
I think they're trying to go for that "difficult to stomach wisdom" thing that annoys us all so much.
Ethical Hacking Tutorials
Something to bear in mind, when neither wired nor wifi internet is available, plugging an Android phone in via USB does the job. Can be handy, and is still gee-whizz impressive to me, though I'm sure the novelty will wear off soon.
What if they are both right?

Well, Zuckerberg's position seems to be everyone should have one online identity that is visibly anchored offline, and is used in all online communication. It doesn't allow a lot of room for Poole's model.
I would kill for an OpenSolaris-like time slider for BtrFS volumes. And having ZFS-like block deduplication too wouldn't hurt.

http://openindiana.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/oi-b148-gu...
I actually wonder what would happen to a google account without a public profile linked to a gmail address. IIRC deleting such account is impossible without deleting a corresponding gmail account. Loosing all your emails one day just because you are not into google buzz and other fancy social stuff would be horrible.
Basically, it's Flipboard combined with recommendation and filter technology that we've been working on for several years.

We released a few days ago and the demand completely took down our servers at one point. We ended up quadrupling the server count by the end of the first night. If people are interested, I'll write up how we survived.
Party buses are awesome. SXSW Day 3.
You kidding? Clojure is nice precisely because it's an un-Java as it can possibly be.
> of course the downside with any probabilistic data structure is that you're counting on the amortized bounds

No. With typical probabilistic data structures you're counting on the average bounds. If you have good amortized bounds and that's what you care about, you don't need to bother with the randomization. Per-operation versus amortized and worst-case versus average-case are orthogonal distinctions.
I keep switching between Ubuntu and Archlinux (on my development laptop) every few months. I'm currently on 11.04 and tried Unity for a few days. It kept crashing on me (I do realise that I'm using something that's still beta) but could not bring myself to like it as it's too much effort for me to deal with disappearing window borders, menus when you are busy working.

One thing that's struck me as odd is that though the boot up to login screen has improved drastically over the past few releases, login to desktop takes a really long time. I am talking about stock installs (nothing extra in startup applications). (There are some forum posts that indicate that compiz might be the root cause for this and I still havent' had enough time to track these down)

I haven't had too much trouble with drivers and configuration (Lenovo T61p..) but the lack of current versions of packages that I rely on for daily work (e.g. eclipse, etc) in the repositories or the ppa drive me to switch to archlinux temporarily.
Business networking startup Hashable a top SXSW prospect
A dark theme is for "hackers", not for the general public.
Patches are probably welcome.
Happy Hackers Love Whiteboard Wallpaper
hmm, yeah those iterators are nice and simple.

it's been a few years since i've worked with skiplists and i remember some kind of complexity/hangup with them, but darned if i can find what that could have been looking at those clean python implementations.

TODO: go back and take a look at skiplists again.

PS: skiplists in haskell http://j.mp/ge5Voi
I have to agree the Ruby community always seemed to be very... emotional.
Couldn't get two screens on the same computer to calibrate properly. One of them always showed up with the big broken sign. I had to use two different browsers for it to even create two patterns so maybe there's a bug in the calibration when the two screens are on the same computer.
We use this stuff everywhere at youDevise and we love it. Magnetic too!

Someone else asked about it (http://news.ycombinator.net/item?id=2296267) so I dug up the manufacturer.
The syntax is more cumbersome than actually needed. It probably should use mandatory indentation as well. We lovers of curly brackets may not like that, but it makes things easier for beginners.[1] In this case, the first listing would have looked like that:

hello = ^name -> "Hello " + name
repeat {times: 3}
print hello {name: "John"}

Or, without the keyword arguments:

hello = ^name -> "Hello " + name
repeat 3
print hello "John"

(the last line is meant to be a function. Indentation is used instead of ^{}) Note that for a syntax that use juxtaposition for function application, I was very surprised to see that

print hello "John"

== print (hello "John")
!= (print hello) "John"

It looks like a misfeature (doesn't work well with currying), but maybe there's some justification?

(Edit: the language does look very simple, and I like that. Very good for "I'll show you programming in 10 minutes". For that purpose, fixing the syntax would make it even better.)

[1]: http://okasaki.blogspot.com/2008/02/in-praise-of-mandatory-i...
At the risk of being horribly down-voted, I'm going to say that I'd like it to "not look like crap". Unfair with no information, so here's some (of opinion form).

If I look at the screenshots for 10.10 (let's take a tiny example, I could pick on many - http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/sshot23....), the general quality of finish on UI chrome and layout is shocking. The inconsistencies, poor spacing, bad grid, etc. make this jarring and painful. I'm sure people will say this is irrelevant. It isn't. If you're staring at something for many hours a day, this stuff is your subconscious indicator as to quality. It doesn't feel "right". Most Linux user interfaces (and this isn't Ubuntu specific, but you guys are probably most likely to have a go at fixing it) feel "uncanny". They're just a bit wrong. Things don't line up, they're odd sizes, they draw the eye in the wrong way.

In short, they're inelegant and clunky. They feel like non-native Java app interfaces (used) to do (and still do, to greater or lesser degrees). This isn't about visual style or theme, it's a quality case not a taste one.

If I had a little more time (or if anyone thinks this is unfair and actually wants it) I could annotate a screenshot and point these things out directly.

(Please note - if you feel that this is all fixed in 11.x then I apologise, but I will be very surprised)

// Edit: If anyone from Ubuntu would like to chat ever, I'd be more than happy. Contact info is in my profile.
yes, sorry. that's what i meant. long day.
wait, it's still not over.
I have recently installed 10.10 on a dual-boot Win7 and Mint 10.10 laptop. The main problem I faced was that whereas in previous versions I could delete partitions and then install into the free space, 10.10 does not have this option.

In order to get it to install, I had to quit the installer, resize the windows partition using gparted and then select 'Install next to other OS' (I can't remember the exact wording).

It was a bit frustrating to see the really helpful option 'Install into free space' get removed.

Otherwise, a brilliant OS. I use it on the desktop at home and on my work laptop.
At least Google is deleting the accounts rather than outright exposing the info.

As far as I can tell, they are deleting profiles, not accounts.

"Deleting your public profile won't delete your Google Account."
http://www.google.com/support/profiles/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#...
Concerning applications: I absolutely miss Grip and would be very happy if you could add it to the packages again. I really liked it because it is very unobstrusive but configurable to the max.

So far I have not found a nice replacement for Grip. At the moment I'm using XCFA, but I'm not very happy, because I have to do a lot of things manually, like replacing _ with spaces in directory names (in filenames there are spaces, very strange). What tool do you use for cd ripping (mp3)?
The Top Mobile Applications of 2012
Just a little not so readers don't get the wrong impression:

- imap returns an iterator, any is used to "force" the iterator run through all elements.

- the loop runs on C because of any. Instead of a for loop where jump and body are repeatedly evaluated by the interpreter, any consumes the iterator through a loop implemented in C.
Fix the 'Preferences'/'Administration' split in the gnome menu options. Most of the apps I find in there could be described as "Administrative Preferences", so I have no idea where to look for anything.

Examples:
Samba is in Administration, but Network Connections is in Preferences.

Login screen is under Administration, and Startup Applications are under Preferences.

The split between Administration and Preferences is really artificial, and not helpful for dividing settings.
If the allegations that BOA destroyed this guys life and made him a "terrorist" are true, then that is sad. However, I dont know that I can trust the motives of someone who would still be working there if they hadnt personally attacked him.

Maybe there is a link- I couldnt see all of the screenshots to be sure. But the emails I saw were a bit paranoid sounding for me.
خلفيات مسن ملونه
I'm very pleased with the overall looks of Ubuntu :). I guess spacing etc. is actually a very hard problem, because it has to work in so many languages.

Moreover, most of the software is not developed by Canonical. It's just packaged by them. I doubt they can influence the looks of individual programs that much (there are just so many and everyone uses different ones).
When I boot up, I always get a message saying

Disk Drive UUID=blablablablablablablabla-blabl-blabla-bla could not be found.

Wait for mounting, or continue?

This message is scary and gives me no actionable information (what's the uuid of my cards? I don't know!)
This sounds like an interesting idea, but I'd have to hear a good recording of them before buying them. Also the needless attachment to iPod/iPhone? Surely they are compatible with any headphones...
I'm a long way from an opponent of nuclear power, but when you say

Nuclear waste is contained and far less dangerous (when kept properly) than fossile fuel emissions.

I think you might be making the opposite point to what you intend.

You compare the worst case of safety & long term consequences for oil/coal (ie, the current situation), with the best case ("when kept properly") for nuclear power.

A better comparison would be to compare the safety coal/oil power after spending the money required to keep nuclear waste safe on cleaning coal/oil emissions and improving mining safety, or else to compare the worst case in each scenario.

The worst case for coal/oil is a few thousand dead (from mining) a year, and bad climate damage. The worst case for nuclear is a few million dead and regional environmental catastrophe. It's fair to have a discussion about the probability any disaster happening, but to preclude the possibility undermines your argument.

To me, nuclear proponents making the case the nuclear is safe if everything goes well sound a lot like the NASA administrators who Feynman criticized in the challenger disaster report for not understanding risk.
As a dev, it'd be great if vim, git, and ruby were included with an install, like how OS X does.
I have been using Ubuntu for 3-4 years now and have been using it for everything from day-to-day stuffs to development. I am quite happy to see how Ubuntu has matured during this time frame.

But, I wish some improvement is done on improving hibernate. It takes ages to hibernate and system sometimes freezes. Moreover, my experience with battery life on Ubuntu vs Windows suggests Ubuntu manages power poorly.

I haven't used Unity yet but look forward to trying soon.
How about increasing the width at the edge of a window where it allows you to resize it to something other than a single pixel? That's one of my biggest usability gripes, at least for something that seems so obvious and easy to fix.

It's possible it's already been fixed (I use Lucid), in which case disregard. But I would upgrade for that alone.
As apu points out, this is really well understood now -- has been for over 10 years, in fact. I think the fact that projectors are still fairly expensive (though much cheaper than years ago) and most researchers aren't big participants in the open source community is why we don't have anything widespread.

At the University of Kentucky lab where I worked in 2002 (The Metaverse Lab), we had a 24-projector geometrically/photometrically-corrected only-casually-aligned system projecting on 2 walls and the floor with all 3 planes meeting at a corner. Additionally, the system was cordlessly head-tracked (Intersense) and the world view would dynamically change so that you could look around objects, look under tables, etc. It was amazingly cool.

I'm pretty sure I could write the code for the geometric calibration of a 4-6 projector (whatever a single, stationary camera could see most of) single-plane system in a day and then use the homographies (plane-to-plane mappings) to warp and display large images geometrically seamlessly on the multi-projector display. There would still be extremely apparent photometric seams where the projectors overlap, though. You can use some simple models to get rid of some of this, but REALLY making it look good in practice is hard, and requires some engineering.

As with most things, making it look 80% good is easy. It's that last 20% that requires years of engineering and a dedicated company like Mersive to make it happen. Their stuff looks good.
My (re)published Android App
That's a fair point, I will concede that it's difficult. But a lot of the core things like the file manager (and certainly Unity) is within their control, and could be a lot better. I think that much more could also be done from a technical and cultural leadership perspective in this area. I would dearly love to chat with anyone from Ubuntu about this if they wanted to listen. I'm not a designer (not anymore) I'm a software developer (generally), but I still think that there's an opportunity for huge improvement even with the challenges you (correctly) point out.
Can anyone explain this business model to me? I find it very confusing, both in terms of how it works and why people sign up to this. This is not a criticism, as obviously it's brilliant and profitable, but rather an indication of my own limited knowledge 8)

Does it work like this?

1. Devs pay to feature their apps in this app
2. Users install the app and can like & install apps for points
3. After a certain amount of points (which seems huge) a user gets a free itunes gift voucher
I think it looks sexy :)

Why won't you mention your 200 hours? Conversation killer with the chicks?
I really appreciate keeping the default install limited to the essentials. Some might want git, others mercurial. Some prefer vim, others emacs. If you want to cater for all of these people, you end up with bloatware. Installing vim, git and ruby is a matter of a few seconds, isn't it?

sudo apt-get install vim git ruby
Ask HN: If you are a postdoc, please read this.
Hi HNers. In the past few weeks the web promoted a bunch of very interesting discussions about academic career paths and academic job market. Some of them were discussed further on these pages too.

I realized there is no data about what postdocs really want of their life and how prepare they feel they are and this make the discussions a bit less savvy. So I made a survey and I am inviting all of you who are postdocs, to fill it (it will take no more than 2 minutes).

You'll find it at http://thepostdoctrap.gilest.ro

Please share the form as much as you can if you have friends or colleagues who may be interested in the matter. Thanks a bunch!
I used Linux for six years as my primary OS, on OS X for a while now.

On OS X, the biggest annoyance for me, coming from Linux, is the lack of a consistent packaging system.

I don't like the MacPorts style of compiling everything on my own system, but being a Ruby programmer, I'm kind of stuck with it as well due to that being the way any Gem native extensions like to work too.

But really, that's about it.

It's a UNIX. It works. I never have to muck around with my config files, and pray that the next drop of the OS doesn't break my wireless / sleep / wake / sound card.
Clickable link: http://thepostdoctrap.gilest.ro
I disagree about installer options for caps lock. It's very simple to find the option once you've installed it, and there's no need to slow down all the other people during the installation stage who will never remap anything.

It's really important to have short installation times - if you want people to convert to your operating system, make it easy for them.
Yeah, that would be a really nice improvement. I never know where to look first to find what I want to do. I'm glad that I'm not the only person that is too stupid to understand the difference.
Hey guys.
A couple of months ago I published my first app to the market, a note editor with Dropbox sync.
But since I'm an idiot, I messed with the publishing process and I could no longer update it. So, I had to republish it as a brand new application, adding some new features (users of the old version will have to reinstall it anew).
What do you think?

Also:
I'm thinking of adding ads and have a paid version to remove them. What are the experience of android devs on this?
Just like the gold and silver bugs say, "if you don't hold it, you don't own it" ...
Ark Music Factory does the math - selling the music biz dream to teens
Internships (for students, obviously)? Joel is a big fan. Do note that this takes a while...
Drop the ugly GTK, build a beautiful UI toolkit. Pwn the OS X UI.

Here's your indicator:

OS X is beautiful, (I heard it is used internally in the heavens and rumors say God built a hackintosh for himself)

The more OS X switchers to Ubuntu you get, the more you can be sure you are in the right path. The less you get, the farthest from beauty you are.

Now you can argue with that, as you were expecting a more generic indicator, but sorry, this is one of nature's mysteries
Paris in 2,000 Images
http://okmij.org/ftp/Haskell/types.html#stanamic-AVL
Netflix declines studios' requests for 'buy' button
That's what leaders from the Web's top video-rental service have told some of Hollywood's largest film companies, industry insiders told CNET over the past week. In licensing talks with Netflix, execs from the film studios have offered better terms if the video service agreed to add "buy" buttons.
anyone tried podio.com? That is pretty well done already with it's own appstore etc
Well noticed! I wasn't able to look at the images earlier (at work), but at least this image http://bankofamericasuck.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/boa1... is interesting - the email is timed March 11, but it's in the January folder. Wordpress doesn't let you upload new versions of the same image, so it can't be that...
Which makes it look like a pre-scheduled hoax?
I'm wondering too. On https://www.google.com/accounts/ManageAccount , it says:

> You don't yet have a public profile. Learn more
Create a profile or edit your personal info without creating a public profile.

I have no idea if I'm meant to create a public profile to save my email, or if I already have a private profile, or if I have no profile at all and this doesn't affect me. Hoping the last one.
Top 16 Most Useful iPad Apps For IT Professionals
Apple’s iPad has become one of the most important and most functional business tools in recent
years. Bigger than your phone, yet smaller than a full sized laptop; it can go anywhere with you. Here are some excellent iPad apps for IT professionals.
I completely agree. I regularly use Ubuntu for programming. I used to use it as my sole OS. There was a time when I actually thought it looked kind of pretty--compared to Windows XP. Even today, the general theme is not too bad and there actually are some pretty nice applications out there. But the vast majority of applications, widgets etc. is unbearably ugly. List views not fitting in windows. Controls crammed together way to tightly. Controls spaced differently in every application. No consistency in spacing or layout across applications.

Hence, my use of Ubuntu is pretty much limited to Vim and a terminal window. And I love Ubuntu for that. But I would use it for more than that if it wasn't for its ugliness.

How about reading the UI guidelines of Windows and OSX and coming up with one of your own? I know this exists for Gnome somewhere, but I can't see many developers adhering to them…
Jack Dorsey Tweets A Fascinating Twitter History
Mostly? I would say entirely. It's funny when someone keeps doing something people hate over and over for money and then eventually develop a "vision" that allows them to keep doing the same thing.
"There is one thing I wish you would work in and it's speed: Waking from sleep and turning on the wifi takes ages in Ubuntu. If there is something you can do here, that would make me happy!"

Here here!
Has anyone experience with this setup: install your software in a git repository. That way you can say something like "version=1.23" on top of the control file (such as a sourcecode file for a scripting language) and the software system checks out that particular version which is on your hard drive. There are obvious drawbacks of the system as where to install the intermediate working directory, but there might be solutions for these problems.

That way updates may be much less hassle. If you have for example a python script on your server running doing important things, an update to python might break the script and could cause some trouble. But if you could say for example "uses python=x.y" and the system silently falls back to that version even if a newer version of pyhton is installed, the script is more likely to keep running even on upgrades.
I did. (9.10 to 10.04) I lost my graphics driver during the update and when I fixed it my sound card went for a toss. But a clean install of 10.04 solved the problems, so I don't understand why the upgrade can't work without problems.
PHP In a Mobile Ecosystem
What Designers Should Know About Visual Perception and Memory
>Facebook model is phenomenally successful, clearly Zuckerberg must be right.

That's quite a jump. Couldn't it also be that Zuckerberg is very good at marketing and taking advantage of being out front? Why would you assume his privacy model is the reason Facebook got big? It's my impression that Facebook got big inspite of it which tells me he isn't right at all. He's just not wrong enough to overcome the perceived value of using his site.
I have moved to Mint after 10.10 debacle.
I found the general user experience more pleasant and Alfred easier to configure for my needs. QS did (and probably still does) a good job, but I wouldn't switch back anymore.
This is really a problem. I have taught a lot of beginners in a university environment and many of them already have problems with the different C-style brackets: ( [ { } ]). Some of them asked me "Where do I find the curly ones?"
AFAIK they are not even printed on many Mac keyboards.

Just imagine the hell you get into when you're using a caret/circonflexe - a character a lot of people never use at all. Imagine them finally finding the key, hitting it just to find out that in most environments they'll have to hit the space key to make it appear. A teacher's nightmare!