skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
About packrat parsing...

At my office I implemented Warth, Douglas and Millstein's left-recursion algorithm, and ran into two things. First, the algorithm described in the paper is kind of a mess, as the authors admit. Second, it doesn't actually work as advertised, as the OP discovered. What become a simple implementation taking a few days turned into many weeks of trial and error, because with each change I naively thought I was almost there. Now I know better than to go around trusting strangers with algorithmic candy.

The idea is to introduce a notion of what left-recursions are allowed and which ones aren't. Say we have a rule R which matched input M. Call M the "match". Say M has a sub-match, M' which also depends on rule R. Then M is allowed if and only if the submatch M' is in a certain sense smaller than M--either it is smaller in size, or M' and M depend on the same choice rule, except M-prime's choice is ordered after M's. In implementation, we take a "growing the seed" approach described in Warth et al, but with the ability to track multiple left-recursion points, and the left-recursion seed parses that every match is dependent on. For a pathological grammar this may end up exponentially slow.

I'm willing to bet this curtailment process is essentially the same as the process described in Frost, Hafiz and Callaghan's paper on left-recursive parser combinators[1], but I haven't looked too closely at it. I discovered Frost et al's paper only after I was done.

I may have done a bad job of explaining this, but our unit tests have some pretty arbitrary grammars like

S ::= <A>/<B>

A ::= <A> ‘a’ / <B> / ‘a’

B ::= <B> ‘b’ / <A> / ‘b’

and our parser handles these admirably and with excellent greed.

I've been wondering what to do with this information; I drafted an e-mail to Warth/Douglass/Millstein but haven't sent it.

[1] http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&v...
Get thee to Heroku, get thee to GitHub. I'm biased towards the Ruby community, but there are a great bunch of people there who publish a lot of code and related information that you can take a lot of advantage of. Also, the Node.js community is on fire right now and there are a lot of enthusiastic people constantly contributing. Joyent has free shit as well https://no.de/

As far as scheduling your time goes, I would try and use little increments. Get yourself a calendar and think about small projects with limited feature sets, setting a max limit of one or two hours of development a day and cross off each day that you code in red marker. After a couple of weeks you'll notice a lot of progress. It may help you to focus on specific parts of a functionality in order to familiarize yourself with larger concepts and gain expertise, like authentication, messaging, client vs. server javascript, etc.

Most importantly, become a member of a community of developers. That will expose you to a lot more than just dogmatic handouts from the few people who actually get involved in online education and aside from making friends and contacts, may lead to paid work so that you'll be able to line the walls of home with fancy, outdated programming books like the rest of us.
It's easy to see this as tragic or humiliating, but I think if you look deeper the current situation is actually quite exciting. It's true that the US has stopped building spaceships and has stopped going to space on its own, but this is very very temporary. The private companies (specifically SpaceX) are picking up the slack fast and should be able to do full ISS resupply missions within a few years.

And I'd definitely bet that the NASA will be the first organization to build the epically huge rockets, the heavy lifters to take people to asteroids and eventually to Mars. They'll take longer than any of us want to wait, but they'll do it properly and safely and it'll be magical.

Here's to hoping the Russians or Chinese decide they can beat us to Mars. That'd do the trick nicely, get the competition going and the excitement in the air.
So....let's try it...here's the glass..in goes the phone..[20 seconds later]...dang...doesn't work...oh wait, wasn't there waterrrr.....sh##, double sh##... :P
If his webserver goes down he doesn't need to evacuate everyone in a 30km radius.

Apples and oranges.
You're missing an option:

I'm a [person] who wants to create thoughtful moments for my [Significant Other].

Not hard to add, and there are lots of good reasons to include non-gendered options.
After three decades of nuclear power went by without incident you'd have presumably have felt confident making the call that there was no threat whatsoever from nuclear power accidents. But the number of deaths attributable to nuclear power in the its fourth decade were more than the first three decades put together. Would it be fair to say that the first three decades weren't a sufficient sample size?

Evaluating the safety record of something which due to extreme safety measures fails only very occasionally, but renders cities unsafe for human habitation and livestock on the other side of Europe unfit for human consumption decades later, clearly requires a different approach to evaluating risk than something which kills people only in regular small industrial accidents during manufacturing and on-site erections.

The known safety record of nuclear power thus far is pretty good, which is mainly because of huge investment in safety driven by paranoia. But even looking purely at the catastrophic failure scenario as the only nuclear-related cause of death, if you design nuclear power stations to be able to withstand natural disasters that only occur once every hundred years then you might have to wait sixty years for the first breach and another sixty for the first bad unavoidable breach. Making a call about the long term safety of something which can potentially cut short the life of millions of people just because it hasn't happened yet[1] could be a little premature, although with any luck we'll have something sufficiently better and safer than U235 fission to render most of today's power generation technology obsolete in a couple of decades time anyway.

[1]If you take the most extravagant claimed death figures published by scientists ["Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and the Environment" - Yablokov; V & A Nesterenko], Chernobyl could have been responsible for the premature deaths of as many as a million.
It all depends on who your 80% target market is (not who your power user market is).

I assume its not people who read Hacker News (as most of them are just as likely to build forms from scratch).

If your market is marginally techy - but not programmers - then I think you are probably spot on in the current iteration. It is very customizable, and you can build exactly what you need.

If your market is non-techy types that only know how to copy/paste an embed tag, then you may need to test with some simplifications to the workflow. (See Wufoo, they are pretty good at this).

Sorry if my feedback comes off as harsh. This exact idea has been on my "idea list" for a long time, and am really excited to see someone executing it in a nice way.
This is a welcome improvement! Much more detailed than the spreadsheet I've been keeping of downloads over time.

I did notice that the data they're providing is only going back until December. Are other people noticing this too?
This is also my perception of Chile (and my prejudice extends it to most Latin America); rather than racism there's a lot of classism and looking at external appearances (dressing well, kids going to private or public school etc). If someone's black they'll be classified more according to being a 'professional foreigner' or a 'poor immigrant'.
The Junkyard Jumbotron project
What would you have done differently with the iPad 2? Thinner, faster, better seems to be what they do frequently.
In Soviet Russia, cell phone call you!
How the iPad 2's gray market works
مسجات عيد الام 2011 - رسائل عيد الام 2011
مسجات عيد الام 2011 - رسائل عيد الام 2011
مسجات عيد الام 2011 - رسائل عيد الام 2011
مسجات عيد الام 2011 - رسائل عيد الام 2011
مسجات عيد الام 2011 - رسائل عيد الام 2011
http://hasryat.com/forums/showthread.php?p=76803
http://hasryat.com/forums/showthread.php?p=76803
http://hasryat.com/forums/showthread.php?p=76803
I suspect this is more about isolating the phone from the radio energy sinks of the human body (surface moisture on the skin & saline blood plasma) than anything to do with the glass itself.

Any suitably insulating (capacitive) enclosure (such as a "napkin swan", teacup, etc.) which preserves a largely vertical orientation (perpendicular to the local ground plane) should work just as well. We're still comfortably within the far-field http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-field performance envelope for transmission, but well within transmission-line power transfer regimes at these frequencies with a cell-phone-sized antenna.

If the glass were lead crystal (extremely unlikely in the bog-standard bar tumbler pictured), there's more potential for interference and a spatial locus of signal above the noise floor is possible. Typical window and utensil glassware is essentially transparent to these frequencies.
Im a social entrepreneur involved with several non profits doing programming projects. Ive actually be brainstorming an organization that uses these projects to help people like yourself learn about the industry and the tools. As such if youd like to help out and thus learn about programming wed be open to having you involved. So you can learn from the projects and from myself as well as other people on the projects.

Please let me know if interested. Thanks.
What are they replacing nuclear power with? From what I understand, Germany is one of the few countries ramping up manufacturing, which is a huge consumer of power. It's interesting that they are essentially cutting supply as demand increases.
Functional programming is a good conceptual fit for data binding in UIs, while functional reactive programming is its application to event streams. I've found the former more practical than the latter, so far.
The problem would be that of matching frequency and phase with the mainland grid. The Kantou, Touhoku, and Hokkaidou area grids run at 50hz, unlike the North American standard of 60hz - so if the ship is using 60hz they'd have to convert to DC and back to AC; this conversion equipment may not be easily available immediately. Even if the frequency matches, you'd need to match phase with the grid as a whole (or intentionally isolate the segment of the grid you're powering). It's safe to say the reactors in an aircraft carrier aren't designed with phase adjustment in mind.

You'd also need some very heavy duty cables to link to the ship's internal grid. And there's no guarantee that the ship would have enough sheer power to do something like that. Moreover, if the local grid itself is devastated, you have nothing to plug into in the first place...
The author directly compared the radiation cloud of Cherynobl over Europe with the size of the US, not to give the Cherynobl accident a sense of scale, but following the discussion of the CA reactors to imply the same could happen.
The thing is, what if Steve Jobs couldn't return to Apple at all? So market was pricing that possibility into the price of Apple stock.

There is a legitimate concern, that without Jobs to supervise things, in a year or two, the "magic" of getting the right product out at Apple would be gone.

Sure, Apple would still be making money, because Tim Cook is a great COO, but the "vision" would slowly fade.

Think, Microsoft over the last 10 years(stock basically has stayed put). Microsoft still makes money, but it has a lot of misses to show for its hits. Meanwhile, Apple has been hitting them out of the ballpark.

Remember, when you are buying Apple stock you are paying a premium on the expected growth.
ASIHttpRequest (hated handling network requests before), RegexKitLite (still superior to the recent NSRegEx) and Flurry (why doesn't apple give you this level of detail) are fantastic. Flurry's size is a bit of a downer, but implementation is easy.
I thought that they weren't allowed to because Russia is an axis of evil / evil empire / not in the coalition of the willing/ eats peas with their knife - or whatever the term of the day is.
> And for years strawberries, mushrooms and deer were off limits on the food table.

There are still areas in Germany were wild pigs have to be tested for radioactivity, as some of them are too fond of radioactive mushrooms.

(lang=de: http://www.zeit.de/2010/46/U-Strahlende-Wildschweine?page=al... )
No, the real tragedy is the now estimated >10,000 people dead from the tsunami and earthquake itself.

That said, I don't get your point. It's not like they could run the reactors if they wanted to. Those people you are talking about are dying because a natural disaster took out the entire infrastructure. That's totally independent of what's going on at the nuclear plants.

Besides, by what knowledge are you claiming that it's "almost certain" noone will die?
The Strange Case of Josef Oehmen [who is not worried about Japan's reactors]
> [...] disarmingly arrogant, condescending in subtle ways [...]

Nice guy equivalent: playful teasing and flirting. Someone eavesdropping might even take it out of context and interpret it as arrogant or condescending but it's just a little game -- not in some "pick up artist" sense; it's ideally very natural. Works for me.

While we can argue all day long about what makes for the most desirable man, I still contend that you can have more (desirable) women want you than you could possibly ever get around to and be a nice guy.
I think that lightweight dynamic OO languages with first-class functions (JavaScript, Lua) are an interesting middle point. They avoid some rigid features of structural programming inherent to most other OO languages, such as encapsulation and class definitions. Instead, objects serve the role of generic data structures, that can also carry code (behaviour) with them.

I feel that a language that would allow both styles to mix even further (immutable objects, pattern matching, tags (for ADTs), multimethods, concurrency) would be really cool to use.
I think you'll find that's a hoax:

http://articles.latimes.com/2004/jul/06/world/fg-chernobyl6

Mentioned here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=888589
Here's my question: Is being a bad boss a necessary requirement for being a visionary?

I am betting the answer is no. In my experience you can drive people to work really hard without being an asshole as long as you are willing to share the load.

Caveat: My experience is with < 10 people unlike Jobs and Blank.

Thoughts?
Node.js and computational efficiency
People who need cash will sell at a depressed price. People who have cash will buy from them. The overall optimism for Japan's recovery is likely to be based on at least some hard facts: Japan is a leading national economy on the world stage, historically a huge producer/innovator, and proved after WWII that they can recover fast and big. Not a bad bet, barring another catastrophe such as earthquake further South, pan-Asian war, etc.
AT&T, VZW and Sprint implementing free calls to Japan
I deeply agree with that. At the same time, I believe it's time to forcefully put other energy sources to use, make them work and more generally give them their chance. I'd go as far as saying this would draw a lot of economical activity world-wide and get us out of the economical crisis for good.

In a way, I see this event as an opportunity. It's just been demonstrated that Nuclear Energy is safe enough (at least, that's how I see things) but I still believe we deserve greener energies.
The real lesson here is that you've got to evaluate options on the basis of what happens when the system fails.

Because the system WILL fail.

This is one of the hardest lessons for engineers to learn. That you simply cannot prevent failure. You can make it less common. You can take all reasonable steps to prepare against it. But failure will happen.

So what are the consequences when it does?

The answer in the case of nuclear power is that the cost comes at a level and in a form that many societies are not willing to pay. You can argue the irrationality of that, but you'll lose the argument. Societies don't make decisions on a rational basis. And they're never going to.

This incident is in fact a failure of engineering. There was radioactive material released into the atmosphere in an uncontrolled manner. It doesn't matter if it gets worse or better, that's the thing that absolutely was not supposed to happen. It did. The system failed.
I think we nerdy types know this in the back of our minds about smartphones, but it's good to be reminded of it again from time to time.
Could nuclear US Navy ships provide emergency backup power to Japan?
Pricelock Raises $12 Million To Protect Companies From Increasing Fuel Prices
Any production of electricity is going to result in deaths. It is simply the nature of the immense scale modern society operates on. Coal power plants release pollutants that shorten the lives of tens of thousands of people a year. Coal mining kills thousands and devastates environments. Have you seen the picture of mountains that were leveled for coal in West Virginia?

Most of the mercury in fish originates from coal-burning power plants. [1]

Do you fly? A single airliner accident can kill hundreds at a time, but cars kill many more people a year. Somehow it's more acceptable for people to die one or two at a time in great numbers.

[1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Mercury_in_fi...
Risk of death isn't the only issue. In a car accident you don't have to worry about cesium-137 rendering the area near the accident unusable by humans for 100 years or more.
Then if the controlled experiment shows you're capable, it could provide a perspective that Zuckerberg may be an imposter.
While the pictures are interesting, the story is apparently fake. Supposedly, she did go to Chernobyl, but not on a motorcycle and definitely not alone (with her husband, a friend and a tourist guide). http://www.uer.ca/forum_showthread_archive.asp?threadid=8951 for more info, or google "Elena motorcycle chernobyl fake" or something similar.
yep, that's the one.
This is a great idea, but it needs a better friend/contact discovery method
This sounds good in theory, but I doubt there's even a functioning grid to plug into. If the grid was ok, they surely would have been able to bring in at least some amount of power from unharmed areas.
You have the full right to disagree with me; I voiced my post as my personal opinion. But you're very rude to say my mind is clouded. I simply don't like large downside risks.
Using Dropbox to Compile Programs While on the Go
I disagree as it happens, I think it is actually not all that hard to make a major impact without getting serious govt. funding (which sadly is like squeezing blood from a stone). All it requires is for those people with enough funds to go out and buy solar panels for their roofs.

Even my parents, who are not exactly the most well off people, can afford (and have bought) solar panels. It doesn't make them self sufficient - but if everyone in the town (that could) did it that is a massive impact!

We had a survey here recently - in the town of about 15,000 people only 48 had solar panels. The statistics from ONS for the area suggest that at least 20% of the residents could afford solar panels.

Just saying :P
Apple iTunes takes just 4% of US digital video market as Netflix dominates
I wish someone would design a firewall that is just an RJ-45 jack with a few dip switches to open/close commonly needed ports, the rest closed by default.
I made a lot of movies in High School and had similar problems (lack of time/resources). My solution? Boot strapping.

I used my Dads cheap video camera and some terrible movie editing software to make a Dvd of the Spring Dance recital, then got the dance department to take orders for DVDs from eager parents. By making everyone pay upfront, I was never at risk. With a $5 markup ($2 for me, $3 for the Dance Department), I suddenly was a lot closer to being able to buy better equipment.

Get OK at making really simple websites using free tools - there are tons of people who will gladly pay you if you can set up a good looking blog for their knitting group or fundraiser. Suddenly you'll have some money. Invest it in yourself to learn more complex and advanced things (through materials or just money to pay for your projects). Those new projects will lead to new jobs. New jobs means more money. You get the idea.

As for time? Its always a struggle. I got most of my work done during school vacations (spring break, summer vacation) and weekends. It helps if your friends are also your 'business' partners.

Good luck!
2Tor Raises $32.5 Million Series C To Make Online Education Great
I'm assuming a huge percentage of the people who were holding these securities live in Japan, and need cash right now to fix their broken lives.
First it WAS a big deal. What happened is nothing to sniff at.

Sorry, but I think you're contradicting yourself here. First you say 4050 people affected and totaling "only" 90 deaths is not a big deal (which I would agree with) - and now you say the opposite?

If it was commonly agreed that the number of casualties was that low then I really don't get why even the pro-nuclear parties refer to it as the dramatic event that is to be avoided at all costs. Your average earthquake affects and kills more people than that...

Second, the problem is that the anti-nuclear movement [...] in an attempt to use irrational fear to bolster resistance against nuclear

I keep hearing that, but I'm really wondering what are the motivations here?

Yes, there are some environmental nut-jobs who will argue for the sake of it, but those are usually easy to spot. However, on top of that there is also a non-negligible number of more or less credible scientists and first-hand witnesses (doctors, nurses) who question the figure of ~4000 affected. When I see an interview with a nurse on TV who reports about entire villages in the area dying out because they can't make children without birth-defects, then I can't help but ask: Why should she make this up? Who is paying her to tell us lies?

And then, on the other side of the spectrum, we have a multi-billion dollar industry and entire countries depending on the perception that nuke plants are "safe enough".

I'm not claiming to have the definite answer. I just don't understand where people like you are taking their confidence from.
Skype Launches Qik Video Connect iPhone App
Yeah, it's no small task, but definitely possible. Japan's electrical grid actually operates at both 50hz some places and 60hz in other places, so it's likely that they have the equipment somewhere that could be flown in by helicopter to make it happen.

The electrical engineer in me is fascinated by this stuff, so I submitted a new topic. Maybe people more knowledgeable will comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2327908
I agree. I'm guessing that the author doesn't even know what his database tables look like. Starting top-down doesn't make sense. As an OO programmer, it's not best practice to start a project using concrete classes. We should always code with scalability and flexibility in mind.
By now they should have renamed it "The (Repeatedly) Found City of Atlantis".
Whoa!! I had the same experience and I too felt that "what if some one is registering the domain we are searching for availability?" They are doing something like patent Trolling.
when I wanted to register one with ".me" all names I was looking for are blocked for auction.why the hell they have to do auction, it should be FCFS.
I'd appreciate seeing this report confirmed here.
Yes, textile please!
since you may have investigated this: how does this compare with eg: repackaging the tarsnap deduplication code sans the encryption work?