skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Please show more love to us laptop users. I have had problems due to poor hardware support. I'm not able to use a lot of accessories that come in standard on my laptop like -

* Bluetooth support - It sometimes works, sometimes won't.
* Soundcards - A pain to make it work properly
* WebCam - Again, works on and off
* Graphics Card - Works perfect on my present laptop, but had to go through a lot of trouble setting one up for my friend.

Though I love the O/S and would continue to use it despite these issues, I think this is one major drawback that prevents a lot of people from switching to Ubuntu. It should work, out of the box with little twitching of buttons.
I agree completely on #2. Before college I has a lot of difficulty putting my thoughts on paper, and my writing style never earned me anything above a "C" in my writing classes.
Because I wrote letters in college often (asking for funds, mostly), it is much easier for me to form thoughts and get them across when speaking to someone.
LinkedIn Unveils Social News Service
Poll: Hacker News User Age
Just randomly curious on the average age of HN users around here.
Under 18
23-26
Fit your product to the right market
Made it half way though and the server went cold. Is there a text transcription of the email screenshots anywhere?
Happy Pi Day: Many more than 3.14... pictures of cool Pi creations
Yeah, it sucks to be European (I am one, too). I wonder how revenue is distributed around the world.

I remember Nintendo Wii's being out of stock in the US but plentiful around here because there was so much more to earn in Europe due to currencies. I wonder why Apple is not caching in on that? A 500€ iPad is worth 700$. This makes every low-spec iPad sold in Europe nearly equivalent to a top-of-the-line iPad sold in the US!
buena, excelente idea
That is…not how most Rubyists view things, and not how most of the Ruby code out there works.

Yes, Rails brought convention-over-configuration to the forefront of Ruby programming, but it wasn't the first library to do so…and it's had a lot of external influences as well. Remember that Rails3 is essentially Merb2, and that's heavily influenced by Rack as the backing mechanisms for networking.

Just in the Web arena, Rails is the big player, but Sinatra matters, as does Padrino. Ruby is still closer to Perl's TMTOWTDI than Python's "preferably one".

[Edited to fix typing errors from the iPad.]
"Upper bound implies worst case."

No it doesn't. You can talk about upper bounds on average case running time. The function under consideration can be any function, best case, worst case, average case, or any other function.

O-notation is used to represent "asymptotic upper bound" on any function. (Omega-notation for lower bounds, Big Theta for simultaneous lower and upper bounds and so on, on any function).

The upper or lower bounds of functions have nothing to do with the "case-iness" (best/worst/average running times etc) of algorithm running times.

The "meaning" of the function (or for that matter the argument "n"), is completely orthogonal to its bounds.
O(n) by itself does not say anything about what the function represents. The function does not have to be about algorithms.

E.g: It could represent the error between an approximation and actual calculated value. You can use O notation to bound such functions, to state the upper bounds on the rate of growth of the error of an approximation. (Gilbert Strang uses O notation thus in his book "Calculus" for example).

As another example, Knuth applies this notation to dozens of non-algorithm-running-time functions in Chapter 9 of Concrete Mathematics.

Even when using such notation to discuss algorithm running times you really have to say O(n log_n) worst case (or best case or average case) running time for e.g, if you want to be clear.

Thus (for example)from Cormen et al's "Introduction to Algorithms" book, emphasis mine (section 3.1 for anyone interested),

"The Big_Theta(n^2) bound on the worst case running time of insertion sort does not imply a Big_Theta(n^2) bound on the running time of the insertion sort on every input.... when the input is already sorted insertion sort runs in Big_Theta(n) time"

Big-Theta is applied to both best case and worst case running time functions in the above paragraph and the author clearly specifies what he is applying the bound to in each case.

iow btilly is right (about how O notation can be used to represent any function, not just worst case running time functions) and you are wrong (when you say "Upper Bound implies worst case" ). As btilly states, this is a common misconception.

Another common abuse of the notation is to use Big-Oh-notation when Big-Theta is intended.
I use Ubuntu on all of my machines (netbook, desktops, servers, EC2). One thing that drives me nuts every time I have to deal with it is the print to file dialog. Why can't it just act like a normal save file dialog? I hate having to (usually) choose "other" as the path and use the normal dialog to choose a directory, then go back and type in the file name in a different text box on the main printing window.

Generally I think Ubuntu has been a great distro that has made a ton of progress.
I disagree: many of my non-hacker friends really liked the dark taskbar of Windows Vista and thought it looked cool.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=126923 : 3 years old

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=517039 : 2 years old

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2175588 : 1 month ago, and 148 comments.

I should think that last one is sufficiently up-to-date, but it will be interesting to compare the profiles from just 38 days ago against now.
1. add search to the panel by default.

2. IMPROVE the search functionality and make it as effective and useful as provided by MAC OS.
In Ubuntu 10.10 Meta-P keybinding used to turn off screen, but, GOD DAMN, I use it in Emacs. I don't know how turn make this binding free.
Keyboard shortcuts are inconsistent in Ubuntu.

On Mac, Cmd-C always means Copy (even in Google Docs), and Ctrl-C does what it should in Terminal. Compare that to Gnome's use of Ctrl-C in all apps except for terminal, where you have to press 3 keys (Ctrl-Shift-C) at once.

Go to line is Ctrl-G, Ctrl-L, and Ctrl-I in different editors.
As an aside, who creates all these great-looking websites? I keep seeing very beautiful websites and yet all mine look like crap... Where are all these people with fantastic design sense hiding?
I wanted to start using Ubuntu when 10.04 was released, however it was close to impossible for a complete Linux beginner to set up my wireless. (i can't remember the network card I had then). The problem remained with 10.10 (RT3090 card). Network worked for a few minutes and then suddenly stopped and later sometimes worked again... Comparing this to the Jolicloud installation that 'just worked' is disappointing. I wish you try to improve wireless support a bit further (I know you have done a lot of great work since now, but its still not perfect).

The other problem I've had is Compiz (ATI mobility radeon HD 4250). When I enabled the proprietary drivers either it worked nice with No visual effect, or if I chose Some visual effects then chrome of the windows didn't show up until I disabled the effects.
I have then installed 10.04a3 just to try if things were better but now there was nothing visual at all. No bar, no unity, basically all what required Compiz didn't work. When I boot I see only the background and the cursor. If I knew some shortcuts I guess i could still open the windows (but chromeless), but its very annoying.

What I wish for Ubuntu 11 is to polish things up with the hardware. Try to increase hardware support as much as you can, so that users don't have to deal with it.

I may be an isolated case with little luck, but its just frustrating. I think increasing hardware compatibility should be a higher priority than UI polish.
Thanks. Couldn't hit a 'define:' search result for 'stanamically' that said it's a portmanteau denoting "a blended static and dynamic enforcement of the balancing constraint".

(so here it is;-)
Is he the only developer around??
Except that Zuckerberg's "opinions" happen to directly correlate with what makes him the most money (through advertising). Big Brother may benefit from his greed though.
ok some quick thoughts, theres probably more but im not currently on ubuntu:

Please fix small annoyances in the GUI:

- make window movement and (more importantly) _resizing_ easier.

- add some sort of window-snapping-feature (like win7 or osx)

- fix colors in context menus (if i open the skype context menu in 10.10 i see black font on black bg, or brown whatever)

- make widgets generally better looking. they are looking ok now, but with small tweaks ubuntu could be gorgeous.

- remove the drum-sound when displaying the login-box after boot (completely unnecessary)

- give us a better default terminal-app (iTerm2 on mac is a good example)

i use ubuntu for coding, websurfing, skype and its just great for that.
id like to use it for photo editing, video editing, gaming.
are there not typically more taxes that might be paid on european sales too?

If a US company sells something in the US for $499 vs selling it in the UK for 499 GBP, do they make more money? I'd guess there's too many variables to be definitive, but I do suspect that there's potentially less profit, even with a weak dollar. That 499 GBP price, for example, has VAT built-in - in the US we add tax on top of the $499 USD.
I'm not sure if this is fixed yet, it seemed to get better then worse over the last few years, but I haven't tried it under the next release:

Getting Ubuntu working behind a proxy seems overcomplicated. At least in the near past you needed to set the proxy in the browser, for the command line, for updates and probably other things individually.

Getting it working for updates is particularly annoying for people not sure what is happening as the errors you receive are, at best, generic "internet not working" errors. Is it possible for a desktop to know if it's behind a proxy? If so then better error messages can be provided. But you should only need to set it once regardless.
1) Ability to dock windows on left half or right half like Windows 7. Make it even better with quarter screen size docking
2) Make terminator default terminal or install it be default
3) Install nautilus-open-terminal by default
4) Transparency controls for windows
Another way to fix this would be to make legalized bribery (the current US lobby system)... illegal.
Python vs java vs c#?
Hi;
Java and python, I and my friend wanted to ask a few questions about C sharp. Our goal is a web-based projects, plug-ins to write programs that use the internet to encode. We want a full programming language as a rule.
Priorities are in order of importance:
1. Speed ​​is
2. Each system can work
3. Be easy, quick to learn
4. Sufficient for visual programming library or program.
5. Have sufficient documentation on the Internet
6. Business opportunity (most recent)

Which is better to choose?

Thanks ...

Sorry for my english.
I'm the author of Learn You Some Erlang, and as pointed out by rvirding in the comments, I've also written a blog entry about the syntax (http://ferd.ca/on-erlang-s-syntax.html). I'll be adding this entry in the book at some point in the future.

Hopefully the entry helps understanding the logic/meaning behind the punctuation in Erlang's syntax. Also, as pointed out in another blog post (http://ferd.ca/an-open-letter-to-the-erlang-beginner-or-onlo...), I would just add that a different syntax helps getting in a different mindset, which is particularly useful when learning new paradigms. It might seem like something really annoying, but you'd be surprised how often we see people trying to shoehorn whatever concept they know from imperative or OO programming (or even some functional idioms) into Erlang. That just doesn't work most of the time. You have to learn the basics and forcing you out of your comfort zone by way of syntax might help with this.

It's not all bad!
Apparently I picked a bad-ish time to submit David Beazley's amazing talk about connecting his family’s 1978 Superboard 2 through a software modem connected to its audio I/O (all I/O was with cassette tapes), and hooking it up to a bunch of modern infrastructure. The talk is both impressive hacking, and also absolutely hilarious. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2321602
Breaking News:Live Facebook Chat with Kim Kiyosaki,Robert Kiyosaki's wife
i dont understand, does this have any impact on gmail account?
"If you're planning to sell a paid SaaS product, this means finding early users, from day one if possible, who will pay."

I nearly fell into the trap of not charging from day 1 with my latest startup. I had set myself a deadline (to launch within November for the startup sprint), and November 30th was fast approaching. When the day came, the product was clearly not ready, but I had worked on it for 7 weeks which was 6 weeks longer than I wanted to work on something without getting feedback from my market. So I launched, and at the last minute I threw in the Paypal HTML code in the payments page. It paid off - I had a paying customer after 4 days.

I see lots of people creating products which are intended to be paid products but have a very long (many months) free beta period. I understand it is to get the product "right", but I think it is a very dangerous strategy, and in the spirit of the lean startup, it could result in a huge amount of waste.
Search for reliable hyip monitors
Python, atleast is practical, unlike lisp which is harped on and on because a certain personality likes it
Launching my new web-based timeline software this week. Sneak preview for HNers
14 Online CRM optimized for Smartphones
I doubt it, I deleted my profile. My Buzz posts went as well, but my Gmail remains fine.
Google patches Pwn2Own WebKit bug in Chrome
World would be a very sad place if everybody were afraid to do anything publicly.
You can use alias, but the friction to do so, and also to eventually change alias, is considerably higher than on most sites.

All in all, you are not supposed to do that on facebook, even if plenty of people do it, and that does make quite a difference.
You should be ok.
It says that 'Deleting your profile won't delete your Google Account.' here: http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=...
It's called "Ubuntu Oneiric Ocelot"?

Yet presumably you want to increase the install base?

Do you not see a problem here?
http://nixos.org/nix/
Hmmm, what else requires one-handed computing?
I've been building this over the past year or so in my spare time. My main job is as a freelance web developer. The aim was to create some timeline software that was easy to use and offered quite a bit of customization.

Here's a couple of timelines that have been created with the software:

http://tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/67/The-Life-of-Mary-Kear...

http://tiki-toki.com/timeline/entry/55/The-Fight-for-Democra...

Tell me what you think:
My old marketing teacher always like to tell two stories to underline the challenges of finding of product/target fit.

First story was about this company he worked for that made these highly sophisticated air analysis instruments. The company had always imagined their target market where engineers.

But when they did some analysis of their clients they where surprised to find quite a lot of chimney cleaners buying it.

It was way beyond what they needed but they found it it made the chimney cleaners feel more sophisticated.

The other story he told was about this industrial soap company he had worked for. They had one series of soap that they where betting on. When sales failed they had lots of soap on stock they couldn't get rid of. But one of the guys in the lab had fooled around with this idea about putting this glimmer stuff into the soap.

My teacher always having a good intuition for opportunities knew a guy in the retail industry found out that young girls had been slowly but surely more aware of buying their own cleaning products in earlier ages than usually.

So what they did was to lower the dryness of the product, make it pink and put in the glimmer. And lo and behold they sold this stuff like candy.

Talk about a pivot.

My own experience in the advertising industry have had it's surprises too. The biggest one was that in Denmark Audi's where not primarily sold to the cool jetset that the advertising depicted but rather to successful plumbers, blackschmiths, restaurant owners. etc.

And this brings up an interesting question.

Do people still buy based on what they aspire to be?

One thing is for sure though.

You have to "run the program" before you can see what will happen.
Sorry for that. But I came to know about tineye.com which can help victims lile you.
As far as I can tell, deleting a profile has nothing to do with Gmail, or the rest of your Google account, besides Buzz. I deleted my profile, and still have access to the rest of my Google stuff, including Gmail.
This claim is incorrect: Aman Gupta did not create RubyPython, nor does he claim to (and Aman's repo linked above even shows that his repo is a fork of my repo).

Aman has provided some comments, discussion, and code back to RubyPython over the last few days. I know this because I've been chatting with him and pulling his modifications back into the main GitHub repo[1] (which happens to be mine) and pushing them back into the canonical repo on Bitbucket[2] (which is the original creator's repo).

RubyPython was created in 2008 by Zach Raines, rewritten to use FFI in late 2010. Steeve Morin forked it as Rupy (apparently with Zach's blessing as Zach pointed me to it when I posted a bug fix to Zach's code) earlier this year. I got involved shortly after Steeve's fork. After some discussion, we (Steeve, Zach, and I) unforked Rupy back into RubyPython and opened the project a bit wider. I'm currently working on a new release (0.5) that should be out later this week that unifies the two repositories and includes some fixes and enhancements by Aman.

We're using Schacon's wonderful hg-git[3] for navigating between git and hg.

[1] https://github.com/halostatue/rubypython
[2] https://bitbucket.org/raineszm/rubypython/
[3] https://hg-git.github.com/
Great article on the subject (also covered in The Four steps to the Epiphany by Steve Gary Blank). Concerning the pricing, he explains how to calculate the “bounding box” estimate.

Ask to your early adopters:

1) Assume it was free, how many would you use? (how much does it cost to deploy your product, even if it's free; is there a real neeed; etc...)

2) Assume it costs $1,000,000 how many would you use? (to get this kind of answer: WTF????!!!! The most we pay for this type of product is $50,000...you're done!)
I used to feel like this way about git. Then I got dropbox and became too lazy to use git for anything personal.
Give some love and attention to the average "developer" using Ubuntu.

What comes to my mind: Pre-bundled "meta-" packages for developers. One .deb that sets up LAMP, logviewer, mysql-gui and so on. Or one deb that sets up source-crontrol, like git, including one of the many GUI frontends.

Ubuntu, or Canonical, should be biased towards certain development tools: Just like KDE has one default set of development tools. That way, development and improvement gest more focus: instead of four mediocre, unfinished git frontends, Canonical can pick one and hope the community will make it The Very Best Ever. Same for editors, IDEs and so on.

I see many developers moving to Mac, because the development tools (editors, frontends, IDEs) there are simply better, prettier, easier and more polished. We should keep these people on board.
Screencast: Boost your productivity with XRefresh
Are you really frustrated to switch from your text editor to your browser to see the changes you’ve applied? In this screencast Aslam shows you how you can boost your productivity by using XRefresh.

Please see the show notes to fix the gotcha addressed in the screencast.
Freud's Narcissism of small differences 1): the phenomenon that it is precisely communities with adjoining territories, and related to each other in other ways as well, who are engaged in constant feuds and ridiculing each other.

This theory applies to some other conflicts such as Hells Angels vs. Bandidos, Emacs vs. Vim, Sunni muslims vs. Shia muslims, Christians vs. Protestants etc.

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences
Japan earthquake shortened days on Earth
What he's going on about is that git is an efficient implementation of a purely functional data structure on disk. He's advocating using it as one if you ever need one. This is tangential to its role as a version control system.
This is really a description of why I'm bored with TechCrunch, not why I'm bored with the Bay Area.

The Valley is a lot more than the startup "scene". I just went to the Tech Museum in San Jose today (well, yesterday now). What struck me - aside from all the "sponsored by" notices - is just how much actual, genuine innovation goes on here.

Think of all the things that we, as humans, can do now that we couldn't even dream of fifteen years ago. We have rovers running around on Mars (well, a rover - RIP Spirit), performing experiments and sending back photos in near real-time that can be viewed by millions of people on the Internet. We can type a few words into our browser and get back information about nearly any topic imaginable. We can visit any place on Earth, in 3D, from both the air and the ground, without leaving our computer screen. We have computers that can fit in your pocket with more processing power than $10K servers from 10 years ago. We can read your entire human genome for a couple hundred bucks, and predict whether you're likely to get one of any number of different diseases. We can even alter the genes of a living human being to treat several conditions that used to be a death sentence.

Now think of how many of those innovations happened in the valley. Where would we be without NASA, Google, Apple, and Genentech?

I believe a lot of the problem is a certain fetishization of startups that's been going on lately, where the important thing is not what you do, but merely that you're a "startup". TechCrunch feeds into that directly, as does SXSW, and I think a lot of the author's problem is that his peer group has essentially bought into the hype cycle.

But if you follow the technology and how it can be applied to help humankind, and only consider the "startup" aspect later, there's a very different picture. Because people in the Bay Area are still doing very, very cool things. The only problem is, they're too busy doing cool things to go publicity hunting. And there're lots of other people who're doing pretty lame things but have plenty of time to pitch it. This is how it's always been - at the exact time that Larry and Sergey were working on Google in the garage, Pets.com was raising hundreds of millions in venture capital, and Kozmo.com was delivering goods to your doorstep for well under cost.
> subsequently forclosed a lot of homes that should not have been forclosed on

I don't understand this bit; what, other than non-payment of mortgage, makes a house a "should have been foreclosed on" as opposed to "should NOT have been foreclosed on"?
> and this released steam is irradiated

I wonder where this steam is going to end up. All those lambasting us about how this is "not another Chernobyl" seem to forget mentioning this, as if all this mess isn't serious enough if it's not on par with Chernobyl.
I have always favored Pidgin over Empathy. I think Pidgin is more feature-rich client than Empathy. Still didn't get a good reason Ubuntu replacing Pidgin for Empathy as default IM client.
States Should Not Set Up Health Insurance Exchanges (as required by ObamaCare)
the entire site is a computational goldmine, it seems.
http://okmij.org/ftp/README.html
How To Integrate ClamAV Into PureFTPd For Virus Scanning On OpenSUSE 11.3
Please, not the windows guidelines..pleaseeeee :X