skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It does seem sensible to over react but it can be very harmful. If a government overreacts it can cause populations to panic and more people get hurt taking needless risks to avoid whatever is being overreacted to (for example driving too fast, travelling through forests to escape during bitter winter nights etc).

In the long term overreaction can drive fear of what is, statistically, a very safe way to generate energy. This can cause populations to opt for less safe, more harmful ways to generate power resulting in a greater death toll in the long run.

So while you have every right to overreact in the long run you may be part of a larger overreaction harming more people and I'm sure no one wants that.
That's a fairly inflamatory headline, and the reviewer's definition of "modern" is never explicitly given. I'd argue that the Chromium and WebKit nightlies I downloaded this morning are more "modern" than IE9.

Edit: Still, kudos to Microsoft on what appears to be a solid, modern web browser. I'm just taking issue with the review's angle.
Props to Microsoft for

1. Breaking compatibility with WinXP for performance gains.
2. Not supporting non-finalized web standards.
What's new on Internet Explorer 9?
And why should these symbols be useful for/on Facebook?
According to Wikipedia, the 2004 incident involved people being killed by a broken steam pipe. That's an emergency that happens to have been at a nuclear plant, not a nuclear emergency, and the regional effects were zero.
Response to headline: If cults are so bad for people, then why do so many people join them?
Cool. I've started fretless bass, and reading about accommodations you make for playing with e.g. vocalists who run flat more often than sharp, or upper register of piano that are sharp.
Does it need a Tsunami to have the cooling system of a nuclear power station to fail?

How about: an accident with an aircraft (Germany has lots of air traffic), an earth quake (yes, Germany has earth quakes), sabotage , operator errors (happens sometimes, see Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, ...), terrorist attacks (Germany is a terror target due to its participation in the Afghan war), military attacks, random technical failures, ...

The nuclear power station next to me in Krümmel is shutdown because of technical failures and general total incompetency.
Does cpp is dead?
really , all i see is java / python / c# projects / web scripts projects going on in the startup scene and and the open source community (yeah i know there are some C open source's )
even when i searching for a job 80% is not cpp
hi .. whats going on here .. did you forgot the power of cpp ?
isn't the mongrel/thin/unicorn http parser library built using ragel (i.e. an existing parse library)?
Could you expand on why you think it's not possible to handle http with existing tools?
I can't remember off hand if it dealt with nullable terms or hidden left recursion properly either.

don't get me wrong: I like the earley parser :-) I just think the original paper has some omissions and the treatment of earley parsing in 'parsing techniques 2nd ed' is thorough and includes substantial references and explanations of further work.
It's dishonest to act like you have no idea what someone is talking about when, in fact, you "can conjecture what you think people mean". It's dishonest to pretend that you're entertaining the possibility that they have a citation when you know they don't. It seemed like you were trying to mock them by asking for a citation.

You could have just as easily written:

I think the trade-off between convenience and privacy is a false dichotomy.

And waited for a response or a correction. Or if you wanted to check first:

When you say privacy/convenience continuum, do you mean the trade-off between convenience and privacy?

Or if you didn't want to hazard a guess:

What do you mean when you say privacy/convenience continuum?

Any of which would have been far more gracious than what you actually said.
'had the wrong types of plugs on them'

I have seen this as one of the biggest failures so far.
They also died extremely young, so they didn't have to worry about a lot of the diseases that come with not being in shape.
Unpaid internships gain popularity among the jobless
Looking up in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale the Richter Scale "is a base-10 logarithmic scale obtained by calculating the logarithm of the combined horizontal amplitude (shaking amplitude) ...". This means that a Richter magnitude of 9 has a 10 time bigger shaking amplitude than Richter magnitude 8. I do not know for which earthquake magnitude the power plants in Japan were planned but apparently the risk assessment was not good enough.

This said, I am opposed to nuclear power - I think that apart the natural catastrophe risks, as you said there is human error that cannot be calculated, there is no "clean" solution for the nuclear waste and again we are relying on radioactive materials that are limited so anyway mankind will have to look for other solutions. I think it is high time to make an effort and look for other solutions.
Delphi IDE - Themes for the Editor
Nice Themes for Delphi IDE Editor
I really don't know how this is on HN - this is barely much more than a PR plant espousing how fantastic IE9 is. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad IE9 is more standards compliant than past IE versions, but this is basically a promo piece. This made me chuckle though, in the tradition of "it's not a bug, it's a feature":

"In contrast to the other browser developers, Microsoft's approach to standards support has been conservative. The company doesn't want to ever have to remove or fundamentally modify a feature that it has implemented due to changes in specifications. As such, it has taken a policy of only implementing those specifications that are unlikely to undergo any further changes. As a result, Internet Explorer 9 will compare unfavorably on sites like HTML5 Test, but Microsoft views this as far preferable to making developers have to alter their real-world applications just because a specification has changed. "
Even on platforms where making an http request is still only a few lines of standard library code (ruby, nodejs, python) -- there is still a vast selection of libraries that make it easier for you. (httparty, request, etc)
Google Apps joins The Small Business Web
You can be hugely successful without YC investment (or any investor). No one seriously thinks YC is necessary - nor do I understand why you'd think Martin thinks that.

However, the question is whether YC can help or not. Could the Google founders have benefited from YC? Could Zuckerberg? In retrospect it was unnecessary, but that couldn't have been known at the time. And I think the answer to that question is certainly yes. All the benefits Martin enumerates in his essay apply equally to people who become very successful.
Since when was Germany in a major seismic zone? Political grandstanding I fear.
Both Google and Facebook were funded by some pretty influential investors. Andy Bechtolsheim was one of Google's first investors and had co-founded Sun Microsystems over 10 years earlier. Peter Thiel founded PayPal and went on to fund Facebook. I'd venture to say that those companies had opportunities that might not have been present without those investors.

I'm not sure who Microsoft's first investors were, but consider this.
"No startup can be the next Microsoft unless some other company is prepared to bend over at just the right moment and be the next IBM." - http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html
"Not that this isn't amazing, but is it really toughness and bravery to do what's necessary to save your own life?"

Yes.
Investors didn't help Microsoft (because Microsoft didn't have any) but from what I've heard they did help Google and Facebook.
It's funny, I so frequently forget that Y Combinator is not just news.ycombinator.com. Even how I word that makes me chuckle as I realize how contrary to reality it is. For me YC is simply a content aggregator that with a remarkable accuracy and consistency delivers content that I'm interested in, that I find relevant. Oh, it also is some kind of investment firm on the side I guess, or something--whatever.

Ironically, it seems the core of YC--the essence that make it so valuable is the same from either Kleppmann's [an entrepreneur emphasis on YC] or my own[emphasis on news.yc] perspective. It comes down to the community of smart and intelligent people. More specifically to the openness and sharing of knowledge and idea's between those people. It seems like it could be all to easy to want to horde the secrets of one's experiences and success. To keep to themselves those secrets of wisdom to avoid competition and rivalry. Instead, we see sharing of the information--fine detailed analysis of mistakes and success to encourage and help others to achieve or avoid success and pitfalls. It's like there is a general good will intention for furthering and advancing the industry as a whole. I really like that.
>Implying convenience is an objectively measurable quality that is the same for everyone.

This is obviously wrong. Convenience is completely tied to someone's particular uses. I don't see the point of using a phone for anything but phonecalls, I don't need the internet with me all the time, and I dislike small screens and small keyboards.
Therefore, I have no use for smartphones.

I'm not going to do the same demonstration for privacy, but let's just say that there is no such continuum.
True, but lack of XP support combined with XP's 40-50% market share in early 2011 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows#Usage_share) means that this great new browser might take a long time to gain traction.
ragel is for writing state machines and automata in.

many parsers are written as automata, but that does mean it is in the same category as parsing tools such as LR, LL, GLR, PEG or CFG based approaches.
The reviewer gives a hint at their definition of "modern" as "most recently released" when they state "It's arguably the most modern browser on the market—for a few weeks, at any rate."
Quick question, is this designed for people sending traffic blind i.e. from a blog or more for IT consultancies and system integrators?
> Though Windows XP's market share is declining on the back of strong corporate uptake of Windows 7, it's still the most common version of Windows. And it can't be used with Internet Explorer 9.

> The performance improvements made by the use of DirectWrite and Direct2D allow a new class of Web application to be developed.

Sorry it does not allow anything, IE9 won't make IE8,IE7 and IE6 magically go away. Overall this whole article is pointless, it's just an IE9 praise completely out of touch with reality.
No-one cares if the browser is modern right now. In 2 years, when Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, et.al. have moved on and are even more awesome, we will be stuck with the exact same IE 9 that was released today (sans security fixes).

Microsoft has taught me to dread Internet Explorer, and I see no reason not to feel the same way with this one.
Killing Email: How and Why I Ditched My Inbox
Alternate title: "How can I get my programmers to work more hours - for free?"

I worked for a (great) startup 10 years ago that almost never had us work any overtime (a few days a year max). We had a fixed 50hr work week - but they also paid 25% more.

How would you (as an employer) answer if the question posed by your programmers was "How can I inspire my company to work us less hours for the same pay?"

But seriously, the sooner you can pose your original question to your employees the sooner your smart employees can find another place to work leaving you with the programmers/serfs that might better fit your management style.
Fossil fuels and energy imports (short term) and renewable energy (long term).

In 2010, 16 percent of all electric power in Germany came from renewable sources (6.4 percent wind, 4.2 percent bio mass, 3.2 percent water, 1 percent photovoltaics, 0.8 percent waste). Coal is at 43 percent, nuclear energy is at 23 percent, oil and natural gas are at 15 percent. (Source: http://www.bmwi.de/BMWi/Navigation/Energie/Statistik-und-Pro...)

The current government thinks that ramping up renewable energy to replace nuclear energy until 2030 is realistic.
I would love to read more about that system and its implementation. I think it would make an excellent blog post - although I know you may not be allowed to talk more about it.
"Okay, let's look at the donations that he has to disclose by law: "while Jobs gave $254,000. (His wife Laurene Powell Jobs, however, donated more than $502,915 federally" (Source: http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2011/01/bill_gate...)."

That is useful information, if one wanted to determine whether Jobs donates to anything. Again, I'm not suggesting he is obligated to do so. If he wants to be the one who dies with the most toys, and it appears that he does based on the amount of his charitable contributions compared to some of his peers, that's absolutely fine with me. (I think he's a dick based on the way he behaved toward Woz and early Apple employees with regard to money, and not so much based on lack of charitable giving.)

I was just pointing out that saying, "Some people donate anonymously" is not a meaningful contribution to the discussion. Which people? Is Jobs among them? How do we know that? It's a no-op statement in the context in which it was used, and I find that annoying.
IE9 runs on exactly 0 mobile devices. I don't think it's fair to call a browser "modern" when it's the only browser that doesn't run on at least one mobile device. Safari, Opera, Chrome [1], and Firefox all run on a variety of platforms including many mobile devices.

And given that most people see "mobile" as a defining element of modern tech, it's pretty awkward to call a Windows Vista/7-only web browser "modern". Microsoft even has their own, Windows-based mobile platform but it runs IE7/8. If IE9 is modern, why can't I hold it in my hand like every other web browser?

[1] While I suppose Chrome isn't branded as such on Android, the Android 3.0 browser is so close in both appearance and capability (and likely, code) that it seems silly to keep them apart.
Son publicadas en Internet supuestas fotos de Vanessa Hudgens sin ropa
All in a Good Date - A unique perspective on dinner and a movie.
I would call this article "Songwriting for Beginners" as there is very little discussion of music theory in it.
During the discussions I saw several times the argument on how well the nuclear power plants stood up considering the magnitude of the desaster. I just can't share this opinion as the crises is still unfolding and it is not clear what the outcome will be.

To me the nuclear energy debate should be made with a real long term view beyond this event and the next decades. There is nuclear waste, aging reactors all these things need to be carefully considered to be sure if this is really the choice we want on how we create energy.

I am personally against nuclear power plants, but even if that technology continues to be used the demand should be made that it will be build and operated as safe as possible.
It actually sounds more like cancellation parsing than frost's approach

(which iirc was more that left recursion is bounded by input length)
I hadn't see that site before - I'll have a look into it. Thanks!
Mozilla started off with a compelling product and provided very clearly-defined ways for the community at large to contribute to the design and implementation.

Does design by committee (or, worse, design by community) ever work? You are likely more qualified to answer this question than I am, but in my experience it seems like the only time that it can work is when the project has very strong guiding principles and a shepherd (or small number of shepherds) willing to say "your feature/idea is cool, but it doesn't fit right now".

Everybody has a different idea of what a Skype replacement should do. I want something which will run on Linux or Android and use my Google Voice for calling in. Maybe others want something which will allow them to have conversations of a religious or seditious nature in countries which don't allow that without worrying about getting caught. Others use it for phone interviews with video because the user experience is better than standard telephony. Still others just want to talk to relatives in other countries without paying a fortune.

Which ones should the project focus on first? Obviously I'm going to be passionate about my preferred use cases, but if I'm in the minority then from a traction and market share standpoint it makes sense to work on other use cases first. But I don't even see a lot of thought around this, just a wish list of high-level features.

In five years, maybe I'll be using GNU telephony all the time. Or maybe it will have failed to gain traction or the developers will have gotten bogged down trying to implement everything at once or chasing rabbits down community rabbit holes. Show me a product and I'll be excited. Show me a press release and I'll be cynical.

</unnecessarily long rant>
I've had it crash repeatedly, but it remains the best editor I've ever called WYSIWYG, whether or not that's accurate.
Wrong.

1) Innovation is the wrong word: Facebook, Google, and Microsoft weren't "innovative" ideas. Social networks, search, and software were all things that people were already doing. They were successful due to a multitude of factors including talent, ability to execute, and timing.

2) Those three examples aren't YC companies, but the two more recent ones, Facebook and Google, both had to raise VC, which means convincing people that their idea is worth investing in. At no point was it obvious.
This problem is a bug in the Android kernel on Galaxy S phones, not a bug in Skype. Firefox is broken on Galaxy S for the same reason. Same with most native apps. GNU Telephony won't fare any better.
It probably sounds wishy-washy and hard to quantify, but I really think the "goodness" of the people in YC -- both the partners and the vast majority of the founders they fund -- is a hugely undervalued advantage of the program.
I don't think lung cancer based on that is that common as it used to be. The filters in the new coal power plants can be as effective as 99,5%.

Second where I live in North Germany the wind mills already flood the network on windy day with more electricity than consumers can take.
Yeah, and it seems especially appropriate with the Media Lab.
Some cool uses of Git-like hashes in Ruby
I don't think anyone (sensible) is advocating that the entire program must be free of side effects, just that side effects have a cost in terms of clarity and maintainability and so should be avoided when possible.

> programming a GUI or other heavily event-driven environment

Nitrogen is a nice event-based GUI library written in erlang. Have a look at the demos here: http://nitrogenproject.com/demos
If you're really interested in this, I highly recommend checking out the book How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) by Ross Duffin.
I fail to see _any_ evidence of "overreaction" except for the usual chatter on the blogosphere.

Is the author of the article saying that the area around the reactor should not have been evacuated? Who is he accusing of "overreaction" except for some anonymous (and inconsequential) internet map-maker?
Yes, of course race and gender play a role. I think it's great that you want to help people feel less bitter. I think your approach of saying these situations are unimportant and should be ignored may help some women feel less bitter, but I know for many women that viewpoint just makes them feel more alienated.

Your race doesn't make your opinion invalid. I'm sorry if I implied that. What I was trying to say is that your race may or may not give you the right to derail a conversation about someone else's oppression.

I'd love to have a separate conversation with you about masculinity and the ways the patriarchy hurts men (including by encouraging violence, and through the prison system). But I don't think it has anything to do with the discussion of women's oppression in VC pitches.

You seem to be saying "Well I deal with oppression sometimes, and I deal with it this way, so women should deal with it that way too in this situation" and I'm challenging that equation. I don't think those situations (male/male violence and VC pitch harassement) are equatable.
> But I've noticed, over the years, that Stallman's most paranoid fears tend to come partially true.

I've noticed the same about Nostradamus' predictions. Oh, and Jules Verne's fiction. ;) Irony aside, counting how many vaguely described predictions came partially true, is hardly a good way to judge whether someone's opinion is right.

To judge whether a principle should be called moral or ethical, I try to ask myself whether it can be thought of a universal. Otherwise, it's just a matter of personal preferences.

Accordingly, Stallman's principles are just personal preferences although he tries to sell them as universal.

Surely, he's entitled to try but that doesn't make his principles right.
The Pros and Cons Of Tumblr For Small Business
Video Tutorial: Android Internals - Building a Custom ROM, Pt. 2 of 2
RMS is aware of the continuum and chooses to take an extreme position.

Many websites have a white background. Are the designers aware that there are other colors besides the default?
And another 50 or so: http://cocoacontrols.com/platforms/ios/controls
What If There Weren’t So Many White People?
I would like to propose this crazy concept to you: appropriate reaction.

Over-reaction is as damaging as under-reaction. Much like the cries of "standing idly by" that are thrust on under-reactors, over-reactors become "wolf criers", and when the situation actually warrants extreme action, people won't take it because they assume it is mere over-reaction.

I don't know why you would champion a crappy course of action, but I guess I know where not to get advice in the future.
One difference: if you're killed falling off a roof it's probably because you failed to take appropriate safety precautions; if you're killed by one of those other things it's probably because it was out of your control. People are, understandably, happier to take risks where they feel in control of the outcome - which is why so many of them fall off roofs.
Actually I disagree with point #2 because their definition of "finalized" is stuff that other browsers have done for 2 years.

Are we really going to have to wait another 2 years for cache.manifest, geolocation, web fonts, web sockets, web workers, drag and drop (and many other things that I can't think of off the top of my head)?
Or maybe yet another case of Apple doing it because "they can"?

I noticed that people have tweeted this to Gruber but he hasn't mentioned it in his blog yet.
You obviously stopped reading after the first page.

The second page of this article points out a lot of features that Microsoft FINALLY got around to implementing and some of the short-comings that are still lingering. If I remember correct, the last couple paragraphs claim that Firefox 4 or Chrome will pass up IE on features in the near near future. Not exactly a PR plant at that point.
But Chrome, Firefox and now Opera are getting the same if not better performance gains without breaking XP compatibility.
ddar seems more similar to bup. A comparison between those two would
be awesome. I see that ddar supports removing old archives which bup
doesn't yet. bup on the other hand already has a fuse filesystem which
is on the todo list for ddar.
Fred Wilson's thoughts on the new Startup Visa Bill
Yes, though this one's especially bad for not even bothering to use different URLs.
Which is untrue. I just purchased a Genesi Smartbook, which uses u-Boot and wasn't designed in a fascist country with a penchant for electronic espionage.
[YC partners are] outspoken, honest, straight-to-the-point and totally bullshit-free.

You can...get encouragement from them in hard times.

I'm wondering if the first ever interferes with the second? E.g., if you worked hard on something and they tell you it's not good.