skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Quite the opposite, if I understand the concept. It's more trying to apply the kinds of optimizations that a human would make when reasoning about how a program actually runs. When we read code, we often think "Oh, I get it - it's just trying to do X." A good supercompiler would just emit the code to do X.

I can see this coming up when you, say, make library calls in certain ways that don't need the full functionality of the algorithms. Maybe one paramater is fixed, or the sequence of the calls is really to achieve something else.

The original paper is freely available off of citeseer, "The Concept of a Supercompiler": http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=B373...

I'm currently reading through it. I find it useful to forget the term "supercompiler," since that implies to me a "meta-compiler," which I don't think is an accurate way of describing the technique. This could be incorporated into a regular compiler, you'd just want this as the first optimization phase. (I think.)
The Envy Labs folks behind it have been highly active in the Rails/screencasting community for a while now, producing a wealth of free content. It doesn't seem in their nature to astroturf.

The site is fresh and unique in its teaching approach. I think this will get plenty of good press all by itself without them helping it along through questionable measures.
> I don't think a lot of nerds get this.

Even more importantly, I do think a lot of nerds don't get this.

I'm not picking at your grammar - the two sentences say different (although related) things. My version is stronger, and I think the stronger version is true.
Zed is for Zombie.
Extra item on tomorrow's meeting agenda:

- The PM methodology - introduction into the workflow.
Sorry - you don't need the console to inject JavaScript into the page. But for the code linked at the top of the page, you will.

See the code above that begins with "javascript:" and you can use that to inject the javascript through the URL bar!
China says Google's accusations about Gmail tampering are 'unacceptable'
> My limited experiences on HN as a junior user have yielded a certain kind of fuzziness as to what is acceptable.

I think that's a good thing. It keeps people on their toes, rather than trotting out the same stupid jokes time and time again. I'll vote for something that's funny in a unique way, but downvote anything smacking of a stupid meme that's been done to death.
People don't generally "grant" or "deny" social experiences to others. That's not how that works.

Being social means being interested in others with different backgrounds from your own, and meeting them halfway. People who work in very technical field are notorious for neglecting to do this, and as a consequence they aren't particularly interesting to people outside those fields.

So yes, this is pretty much their fault, but it's not a death sentence, and it doesn't make them assholes. It just means they need to broaden their horizons a bit to make themselves more accessible and interesting to others.
Is the harsh tone necessary?

I wasn't describing loners or anything like that. They had plenty of social experience. It was just a different culture and the culture wasn't particularly attractive to "outsiders".

As for "denying" them anything, I'm not sure what.

The main point I was trying to get across was that there are all sorts of people in the field. Not everyone is the same, even if your experiences lead you to believe otherwise.
The web beat native on PCs - it would be bizarre if the same thing didn't happen on tablets.

My opinion is that apps dominate right now because user input is clumsy. For the web to work, it needs to be easy to type urls. But tablets (so far) are pretty uncomfortable to type on.
Great app. Africa doesn't seem to be much of a fan of FF4 though. ;p
Great UI design and very easy to use!!
Since Flow launched first, isn't Asana a Flow competitor?
Scrum! It teaches bad teams good habits!

Nothing in scrum stops you talking to anyone at any time. The stand-up makes sure that you have to say a few words to the whole team and other interested parties, daily.

I like to read criticisms of scrum, when they're not straw-man ones.
I heard that he might be presenting at TieCon as well.
Is that accurate?
Marketplace does suggest it's an opportunity for other people to sell their goods. Perhaps it hints at participation from outside experts not a part of Envy Labs that will become more apparent in later courses? The upcoming jQuery one seems to be run by an outsider.

Still, I think we're nitpicking on their copy here.
Judge Rejects Google Books Settlement
Geezeo.com should be on that last, as I wrote their first version in Rails for them ~4yrs. ago.

However I believe they've moved their official headquarters somewhere to the wilds of Connecticut.
Can you really call it an "Asana competitor"? Last I checked, Asana was still vaporware.
As a user of Flow for the past few weeks, I've been blown away by its UI and usefulness. Unfortunately, the pricing seems a bit steep for personal use. I'd also like to see some clarity on how pricing works with groups of people.
Sorry, but the X drawing primitives are mostly ancient and obsolete. All modern apps use toolkits which do almost all their own drawing, making X into a glorified bitmap compositor no better than RDP.

X works fine over Ethernet (and guess what, so does RDP!), but anything higher latency becomes painful quickly. NX patches over some of the deficiencies, but it's buggy and the client software has a UI straight from the 90s. Also, the fact that X requires extra software to do decent network transparency proves the point that it sucks for its intended purpose.
One could argue this is how all systems should be designed anyway.
I think you're putting too much emphasis on social experience (whatever that means). I think that what they read is a far more influential factor in making (at least some) of them decent (or not) toward one another. I was quite the hell-raiser in my youth, and I would have remained so into my twenties had I not found reasons to do otherwise. These reasons could not have come from my peers, because even if they knew them (which was not the case), they were not developed well enough to articulate them.
The course material really doesn't require it.

Try the free rails for zombies module. You can do just a bit of it to get the style.

http://railsforzombies.org/
That's easy. It's the Picasso rule -- follow the rules until you understand how to break them.

It is true that you are given more slack when your name is known. Think of it as a corollary to the Picasso rule -- others have to know that you know the rules before you are given more leeway on how to break them.
Honest question: How is the paywall enforced for users with JavaScript disabled?
Bulk API Queries - Force.com Blog
"...those of us in startup mode don't need the time sink of keeping up with the news..."

And that is why startups are rarely successful.
This just properly hit me in the face. I forgot that I was a programmer for the last 3 years, becoming a process slave.

If you know your shit, you don't need all the process wazz around you - it just happens.

Reminds me of: http://halfarsedagilemanifesto.org/
Great interface, which isn't a surprise from MetaLab. It's great to see such top notch work coming from Canadian companies, especially out of my home town (Victoria BC).
I think you're right. This is a method that produces optimizations from evaluation rewrite rules.
No question about it. Follows PEP08 guidelines, for variable naming conventions.
It's cool that Netflix pulled that off, but it seems like a company (like Dotcloud) that could prevent you from building infrastructure on top of infrastructure would be a boon.
So how much would you pay for personal use? It seems almost impossible to sell any web app for personal use.
Scoble also wrote about convofoy yesterday. Seems like another cool project.
Want to write some code? Get away from your computer - منتديات قروب الساهر
What is that delay costing?
He was great in The Matrix.
Because the point is not to lock the NYT's content inside an impenetrable DRM fortress, it's to get those that consume its content the most to contribute to its production costs. I don't think the paywall has been structured very well but I do think anyone who choses to circumvent it to keep accessing the content for free is going to feel more than a little rueful if it stops being produced at all.
Alexander Graham Bell's Delightfully Weird Sketchbooks
Physicists create heaviest form of antimatter ever seen
This looks extremely similar to Things...
Brad DeLong: Seven Sects of Macroeconomic Error
Engineering vs. Design
Are Happy People Dumb?
If he wants to alienate himself from his peers and colleagues, that's fine. But that's a pretty self-defeating position to take, is it not? What, is programming culture going to change because this guy has a problem with it?

He should be the change he wishes to see, etc. etc. instead of just bitching like an angsty teenager.
>more generally: real extensions

Agree. Compare for example iMacros for Firefox and iMacros for Chrome, and you see the limitations of the Chrome extension API.
I may not have been clear enough in explaining it, but my blog post isn't a direct response to Micah's, though I use his post for context. Mine is a response to the people who think they are hustlers (by Micah's definition), promote themselves as such, and are in actuality the type of people I describe. Unfortunately, they significantly outnumber hustlers who hew to the intended definition.

The post is also tinged with some additional dismay at my discovery that some of the hustlers held up in the valley as prime examples of the form have proven themselves to be sleazy as well. One of those people is who I refer to in the sentences about lies.
Lengthy discussion of the same story from 21 hours ago:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2352023
"Learn Python the Hard Way" is the aberration, not "Programming, Motherfuckers". Zed is awesome, but he pretty far from zen.
I would imagine what you need is someone who is able to comprehend and convey effectively.

A geek with useable social skills and self-confidence.
Let the great WakeMate and F.lux experiment begin
My understanding:

The fee is nominal, calculated mainly to filter the applicant pool for commitment. Since it's a nights-and-weekends program and wasn't as well-known before, it was vulnerable to people approaching it more casually than they would something fulltime like YC.

Their profile is growing though, and I imagine the formula will keep evolving (Foodspotting, Spoondate are two alum projects with buzz right now, more still building steam).

As for how it affected general vibe, no one in our session seemed to treat it as something they had paid for with the fee, but more as something to contribute to and earn by making success happen.
Well, that was remarkably content-free. At this point, I think Zed Shaw could post a picture of his last bowel movement, and it would get 500 upvotes.
I'm confused. Do you really think not keeping up with the news is the primary reason for the failure of startups?

Really?

Or did you just think it was a snappy retort?

If you really do think that the primary reason most startups fail is because they're not keeping up with the news, I'd really, really like to understand your point of view - I have a lot to learn.

Thanks.
Generating these comparisons is hard, and talk of deaths on a small scale seems more offensive than talking about the many more, but more scattered people who die from air pollution and even radioactive consequences of burning coal.

For example, some 5,700 square kilometers of land have been changed because of mountain removal mining, with "serious environmental impacts that mitigation practices cannot successfully address" says an article in _Science_ magazine. Wastes from coal production poison some waterways.

How does one weigh, say, the present day cancers of the Navajo who worked as uranium miners in the 1950s against the more immediate diseases and disasters of the coal mine industries?

I was told that 1/2 of the particulate matter in the air above Hawaii comes from volcanoes, and the rest come from coal burning in Asia. At that sort of global scale and with such loose coupling between cause and effect, it becomes hard to assign meaningful direct numbers.
It's fucking job motafukaz. Scrum scrotum over-manage.
There is one solution for your mental programing motafukaz.
Get a foking pussy. Then iterate. Regularly.
Real programerz like to be functional. GTD. Then get beer. Then code.
Definitely agree. And no doubt this is why Apple hasn't announced UIKit on Mac (yet).
I think what Andrew ended his post with was really the point:

"I'd love to meet one who fits the intended description, but I imagine the real hustlers avoid the label. I certainly would - if only to avoid being associated with the rest."

I think, and I certainly hope, that Andrew wasn't trying to dismiss or detract from the value of hustlers as described by Micah. I think the entire post was about the choice of language.

From my own perspective, while I greatly appreciated the points Micah made in his essay I felt that the word hustler was being forced onto people for the sole purpose of having a convenient label like "hacker" for the business and pr side of things. That's certainly due to my own preconceived notions and experiences with "hustlers" in the negative sense. I don't think of those amazing business people I've worked with over the years as hustlers, and I'm not sure I have a label that would describe them. I do know that hustler isn't the word I'd use and if I was currently looking for someone like that right now that word wouldn't be used in my search.
Audiotool 2.0 is here
Startup Pitches Go 140 Characters TweetDingman
Or you could run node.js on a phone that doesn't need to be rooted

/webos
I understand nuclear power generation on layman level (3 semesters of university physics), but am opposed to it. Allow me to point out flaws in your narrative:

- people could have had bad first-hand experience with nuclear accidents. I lived 200km downwind from Chernobyl and had to run for cover when it rained first few months. My brother-in-law had his thyroid gland treated when he was 9. Sanitary food inspections still include contamination spot checks, 25 years later.

- Oil spills are largely non-argument. Oil is used primarily for gasoline production and has only fringe role in energy production.

- There is a great, clean fossil fuel in form of natural gas. It is indeed widely used, in some countries in Europe it accounts for 95% of energy production. Coal vs. nuclear is false dichotomy and mostly serves as rhetorical device of proponents of nuclear.

- Safety record of fossil fuel would be much, much higher if as much was invested for safety per TWh as for nuclear. That said, natural gas is still on par with nuclear w.r.t. safety.

- With mass adoption of nuclear, which is now mostly concentrated in places with high safety culture, the number and scale of disasters is bound to catch up. Extrapolate the accident trend for growth up to 50% energy share, and it would be more than simply linear.

- Waste management. Enough said.

- Overall attitude to opponents from nuclear advocates is off-putting. Just because someone has a different view on energy policy does not mean he is a simpleton, a fear-monger or illiterate.
The best site that I know of for this is http://www.city-data.com/

It looks terrible, but frankly there is some great information on there, and the forums are pretty useful too.
That reminds me of a (satirical) development process we have here in Brazil. It's called goHorse Process.
The site is entirely in portuguese but with a little translation help you can have fun too.

http://translate.google.com.br/translate?js=n&prev=_t...
You clearly haven't met Asshole Zed yet. :)
3d demo in 140char of javascript couch respect
This implies that "fitness" of a society is correlated positively to fertility rates, which for a species which is not exactly on the endangered list, and which is capable of producing results that can be measured on other scales than just warm bodies, seems to be a dubious idea.

Your argument would imply that the 10 "fittest" countries in the world are: Niger, Guinea-Bissau, Afghanistan, Burundi, Liberia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, East Timor, Mali, Sierra Leone, and Uganda.
This is secret code, right? Like a numbers station.
Applications for "HEY FRUSTRATED MICROSOFT GUYS, PLEASE COME START SOMETHING!" now open.
hackers are hustlers.
I don't think it has much to do with human-readability; but rather with:

- automatically finding and applying optimizations

- with a general approach, rather than a big database of hard-coded optimizations.

I'm not sure how (or how well) it all works, though... but it's the sort of thing I find interesting, so here's hoping for some free time sooner or later. ;)
I'm porting over all my passwords to a formula. The basic gist is that I have a set of rules that dictate what my password should be based on something such as the the name of the website or service I'm using.

so let's say we're talking about hotmail. I don't have a hotmail account, but the formula could be something like.

Take the first, third and fourth letters of "hotmail"

"htm"

now the letters 3 spaces to the left of each of those in capitals (wrap to the right of the keyboard if you run out of space)

"htmDWV"

and sandwich in between the upper and lower case letters the numerical value of the last three numbers

"htm42322DWV"

And so on until I have a formula that I like that generates suitably obscure and difficult passwords.

I plan to build an app or a script that processes "hotmail" according to my formula, copies it to the pasteboard ready to be pasted.

100% secure? No. But it'll do for me.
Perhaps this is exactly what Asana needs. Nothing drives a group like a strong competitor.

An interesting lesson for all entrepreneurs as Asana has had a beta rolling since June of 2010. Plenty of time to get something to market.

Something > Nothing.

Let's hope both end with great products - I love the concept.
Yes. Either as screenshot images, or as full dom with readable text, even if text was js-written. That's the use-case that gets me hot-n-bothered, too.

Now if Google would use such a system for all their crawling, instead of forcing us ajax-app authors to implement their hackish hash-bang "solution." I'm guessing they would if they could, but the cpu cycles are just too expensive still.
The offscreen Mozilla branch I linked to above can. We use it for our private bookmarking/archiving site. Our headless Gecko drives the thumbnails and previews on qumbler.com.

(I originally wrote "delicious/pinboard clone" instead of "bookmarking/archiving site" but I realized we've had it since before del.icio.us launched.)
I think openprotocols.net is doing something along these lines, I remember seeing them mentioned here on HN.

Yep: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2191105
How is that impossible?
It will be interesting to write a second kind of web app that show analytics break down in different manner: continent, timezone, and even cooler will be to see the correlation with the number of tweets about FF4 split on the same geolocation / timezeone when the data is available.
I wonder too if the JSON data available will provide break down by OS platform.
"People would line up to buy our tablet if we only had zero-wait-state memory" :)
Firefox 4 Download Stats in HTML5 and SVG Beauty
I smiled and got motivated to go back to hacking on my stalled project.
حظك اليوم 23-3-2011
I guess for personal use it's a bit expensive. Remember The Milk costs $25/a year vs $100/year for Flow.
The Sith must also have practiced pair programming, because "Always two there are..."
5 STEPS TO HTML5
It's the same for Chrome.
noooooo.. Samsung screwed up a perfectly good OS again. Welcome to the tablet compatibility hell.
Pretty disturbing how eager and willing HN readers are to circumvent the NYT paywall. Who cares how easy it is, if you like what they have to offer and want to see more of it, pay them for it. It costs money to produce quality content like that. It's not like the majority of the money is going to a bunch of crooks like in the music industry. It's like people that listen to public radio every day that don't support their local member stations, even though they have the money to do so...despicable!
I agree with your assessment, and I do consider coal to be more environmentally damaging than nuclear, which is why I am a proponent of nuclear power as I mentioned. However I do not like articles that make artificially low estimates of the impact of Chernobyl in particular just because long-term impact is "hard" to measure. If it is hard to measure, doesn't mean you shouldn't take it into account -- give a rough estimate, say 50-5,000 people or 50-10,000 people, but then of course a rough estimate makes it harder to produce a nice chart to ogle at. Instead what you see is articles using the lowest bound straight as reported by the Soviet headquarters, which is just ridiculous.

Now measuring cancer risk, even a long term one, while painstaking, is not exactly rocket science. There are multiple large-scale medical studies that do just that very effectively, it's just they tended not to focus on Chernobyl area for whatever reason, most likely due to funding.
I'd need to double-check but its my understanding that getting the prompt to subscribe is not Javascript dependent.
In this case, you really still only have one password (the formula that generates your passwords), and saving a script that runs that formula is the same as someone else putting their single password on a Post-It.
Please Stop Making 3D Phones
I would say yes, it is. If you like the website, don't cheat them out of some ad revenue. Don't you want them to be able to keep doing what they do?
Great design, great looking interface. I haven't signed up, but how does photo uploading work? Support for mobile?
So many people have posted comments that suggest they didn't read the whole article. Towards the end of the article the author explains that many of his peers do not participate in the particular form of the culture that he finds so distasteful.
I was wrong; there hasn't yet been a causal relationship established between pre-exercise stretching and increased injury (though some studies do suggest such a relationship).

The studies do agree in general, however, that stretching before exercise does NOT reduce the chance of injury.

Some scientific articles this time:
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=stretching+injuries+stud...
Nothing drives a group like a strong competitor.

Funny I came in to say the "team collaboration" space seems terribly crowded.
The articles mentioned that they knew about AES, PGP, etc but did not trust it because "non-believers" used/developed these protocols.

Instead, they developed their own encoding mechanism in the hopes that it would evade detection or decryption by possible backdoors in existing algorithms.

In many cases, security by obscurity is a viable tactic, especially in combination with other tactics.
What's the reasoning behind 'almost impossible'?
A price point of $40/2-to-4-users, or even $40/year, is much more thinkable for individuals/families than $120/year/person.

From the screenshots, it seems like it should be possible to have a cheaper capped-to-a-small-set-of-collaborators version that a family of 3-6 could use, but still charge business prices for more/arbitrary collaborators and other features.

(I have a friend who's been looking for a good app to coordinate family tasks with his wife; iPhone apps and simplicity/speed/reliability of interface are of paramount importance... but integration with web/email/desktop, following-features, and threads are all of negligible importance. Flow looks nice but overkill in features and price for this need.)