skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"How could you keep a people supporting your government if you were killing people running it?" - er, because government is the monopoly on the use of force as stated in the social contract? And no, there is no trade-off involved. What, switching words around amuses you?

"A government is just type of corporation that is allowed to kill/incarcerate people." -- what, are you from the school for slow Marxists? I don't even know where begin with you. Do some reading on the rise of the merchant classes during the crusades. Perhaps learn a bit from John Locke about Natural Law. Check out some Hobbes and learn some about the social contract. Government is a completely different entity than a corporation. It's like you're comparing earthworms and 747s. Here's a hint for you: can't have a corporation without a government. But you can have a government without a corporation. That's just for starters.

If you'd like to make an extended metaphor, you're going to have to do much better than just saying "X is the same as Y. Now I want to draw some conclusions." You have to be able to differentiate the history, structure, purpose, evolution, issues, risks, and possible future states of each item. then you show how they are the same. Or conversely, you could go to theoretical underpinnings and come up with a list of common attributes that you could claim are all that matter in regards to your statements. The best I could do offhand is note that both governments and corporations consists of "shareholders" and have an executive section. But even then, "shareholder" is not anywhere near how a person relates to their government.

I'm not your teacher. Go find one. Or find the one you used before and ask for your money back. This is dreck.
Guy Kawasaki: Five most important lessons I've learned as an entrepreneur.
"There are no minimum requirements."

Anyone sitting down to write an article on what a programmer needs to know should take that sentence as their mantra.

C is definitely one of, if not the most important languages a well-rounded programmer should know. But realistically, there are millions of programmers who get along perfectly well without knowing it. In unusual cases like those described in this article, they'll get around their ignorance of C by leaning on a forum, guru, or a third-party library. In fact, the number of programmers who do know C is (vastly) smaller the number who don't.

Lest anyone think I'm celebrating ignorance, that's not the point. I come at programming from an engineering perspective, and C rates highly in my pantheon. The point is that for any requirement someone can come up with for a 'good' programmer, a pretty good chunk of the community has gotten along just fine without knowing it.

Ultimately this debate is less a question of what someone _needs_ to know, and more about how circumscribed a professional life they're comfortable with.
It's been a while since I wrote any Python but... here's a shot in Lua.

Lua:

function dict.item (var1, var2)
local fn_var = 1
do_some_magic(fn_var, var1, var2)
end

-- note that:
function dict.item (arg) return arg end
-- is syntax sugar for:
dict.item = function (arg) return arg end

-- for an implicit "self" parameter use a : in your declaration and invocations:
function dict:item (arg) return self(arg) end
-- is sugar for
dict.item = function (self, arg) return self(arg) end

You can in fact call functions with the implicit (via :) self parameter with any desired "self" by using the "." rather than ":" invocation syntax and providing an explicit self. ":" is purely sugar which is optional in all cases.

function table:swap()
local swapped = {}
for k, v in pairs(self) do
swapped[v] = k
end
return swapped
end

-- assume "Table()" returns a table which routes "method_missing" calls
-- (which is actually the __index metamethod in Lua)
-- to `table`
t = Table { a = "foo", b = "bar" }
a = t:swap()
b = table.swap(t)

-- a and b are both equal to:
-- { foo = "a", "bar" = b }

One neat thing about Lua is that the user can define basically arbitrary semantics for inheritance, mixins, and all sorts of meta stuff very simply. And you can define them on a per-object basis. It's very powerful. The drawback is that you have to implement these things yourself (unless you use a 3rd-party lib which provides some common patterns like you'd see in Python or Ruby).
25. Non-Linear Systems Kaypro II

My first computer

Knocked off 2 birds with one stone. You had your own PC and, if you carried it anywhere, you didn't need to join a gym.
vague accusations of wrongdoing and murky allegations are less than helpful.

Be specific, and use the right forum. HN is not the right forum if you want action on patches from the django core team.
Why is there always this sensitivity when it comes to Django? As soon as anyone says anything mildly critical or wonders at some stuff, someone will popup and violently attack the person. It makes me wonder...
In this instance, we all happen to be people who spend a lot of time thinking about startups and websites. So it's like someone posting something on global warming to a climate modeling forum - I would expect people to judge on merits not authority.
Got a Rails App Accepting XML Input? You've Got A Fix To Do - Now.
Keys to Vacationing as a Freelance Writer - Associated Content
Perl6 is not dead. I think the basic idea behind perl6 was good, but they had to release a few years ago to be relevant. Now they will have hard time competing against ruby or python. We will see, thought.
GOOD magazine: The Education Issue
Abolish Syntax
> I'm waiting for the language that is consistent all the way down.

Lua is close.
Much needed DataStore update. App Engine is slowly but surely becoming an option for serious production apps.
I think all this needs is overflow:auto and a max-width. I've been solving this problem with a Greasemonkey script.
Agreed. The FSF and the GPL no longer stand for the truly free software that we all know and love.
He is more defending his view of the requirement of knowing C, which he mentioned in his previous blog post, than C per se. I found that out after clicking on the link. If I didn't though, I'd be perplexed as well.
Avoiding GPL code is a great way to make your startup less likely to succeed as you spend more than you need to reinventing the wheel or buying some in.

Even if you are planning to distribute end user software (or you want to use AGPL software) the trade offs are more complex than you state.

- GPLed products can be a selling point, as your customers can feel secure even if in reality they come to you for support.

- They can earn you valuable community relation points.

- Dual license business models may be viable. Non-free plugins to free products is how Aptana makes money for example.

- You can still charge for GPL software as you only have to give it to your customers, although this is mainly true if your customers are unlikely to pass it on to anyone. (Custom business logic embedded in a GPL application server wouldn't be cheerfully handed out by customers for example.)
Tech Pros: The Next Dinosaurs?
Because I have a soft spot in my heart for independent bookstores.
You mean your way of becoming rich means exploiting the 3rd world, and recent immigrants?

Might there be more ethical ways?
That was exactly, word-for-word, my first thougth too... Having read the article, whacked_new's comment is spot on though.
You can do the same exact thing, but with software. I just decided to use a real world example to demonstrate how one can do it when one has little to no skill. Using software it's WAY easier, but it's the EXACT same principle.
I agree. His understanding of how you might apply these patterns in C++ seems substandard, at best. Doesn't he know about std::<container_type>::iterator? He didn't even seem to know about templates at all.

But that's just the technical stuff that he rapidly dismissed in his update/addendum. Fine. I still think he doesn't get it. I think he's right that patterns are largely about vocabulary, but he's wrong to say that the GoF book (or patterns in general) turn people into macro processor systems. I have yet to read the GoF book, but my basic understanding of patterns is that it indeed creates vocabulary - which gives you abstractions with which to glue your thoughts together so you can have new thoughts. That's what vocabulary does. That's exactly how I think of design patterns in software.
They missed the mac IIfx, my favorite mac of all time.

I had one of these on my desk, and an Elonex 286 clone with Windows 3.0.

There was just no comparison between the systems. Sadly the IIfx was just too expensive.
In "The Scientists" by John Gribbin, Newton is painted as a 1st-class a-hole: taking credit for another's work; sitting on results until an opponent passed away; and others. (It's a good read; I recommend it.)
Amazon Confirms Student Version Of Kindle
ASK YC: DIY C Corporation
Hey all,

I've read that it's good to become a Deleware C Corporation to have the company as a separate entity; I've already read that online Deleware C corporation forms for $200.00 sucks. I'm currently a student in California. What's the optimal way for me to become a Deleware C Corporation?

Thanks.
Yet a predictable system doesn't always lead to expected output.

I once heard a story about a student, probably graduate, who wrote a very complex genetic algorithm, complete with a physics engine, to build (out of blocks representing legs, arms, etc) a creature that could best walk to a finish line.

But what it actually did, after months of work and weeks of running, is stack all the blocks on top of each other and have the creature fall over the finish line, because it only measured how fast the creature reached the finish line, not whether the entire creature crossed it.

And don't tell me that isn't a creative (albeit rules-lawyering) solution to the problem.
Michael Franz, the PI for the work at UCI, has been working on this stuff for almost 20 years. See his 1994 PHD thesis: Code-Generation On-the-Fly ftp://ftp.inf.ethz.ch/pub/publications/diss/th10497.ps [postscript]. Reading it was one of my "Holy Shit!" moments.
It's not a requirement. But they strongly suggest the typical 4 year vesting with 1 year cliff. (Actually, "strongly" might be an understatement.)
nothing. rails is crap. python rules.
I'm not against open sourcing code, or giving away helpful small things, but at the moment anyone can copy every bit of useful functionality of a JS application and just create their own back-end. That is a very ridiculous concept, and there isn't much that can be done about it if that person isn't within the same country.
Audiovox SMT5800 Verizon CDMA
Audiovox SMT5800 is part compact phone and part messaging device, featuring a standard numeric keypad and navigation as well as a hidden QWERTY keyboard revealed when slid out. Windows Mobile 6 Standard gives users access to the Internet.
I don't think it's bad to read self-help books at all. It's just bad to take blanket generalizations as gospel.

His advice, in particular, that you should never give up equity seems the sort that he succeeded in spite of.
Sorry, I didn't really mean you specifically, was just generalizing. Wireless power seems like it might be the next world-changing invention.
So my current understanding of magnetic fields is pretty much limited to high school, but would it be possible to align this magnetic field with the Earth's magnetic field?

I'm just throwing it out there for consideration.
What phone do you have that has a TV out?
There was another genetic solution to the problem. They put energy using dampers on all the joints of a walking figure, except one, the neck. After running the simulation, they found the figure, diving head first into the ground, balancing on it's head, tipping, and then repeating, in this bizarre sort of half cartwheel.
I'm sure his skills, pedigree, connections, and past performance had nothing to do with his initial reception.

Ideas are cheap.
LOL.

The optimal way for you to become a corporation is to change your status from natural person to legal person (and that leads to a possible immortality, isn't that cool?)
Momentum is strong in any major corporation. Google still has Exchange running for their people who refuse to use GMail (and for BlackBerry users). It's not just presentations...even at Google, a lot of people are afraid of new technology and continue to use whatever it is that they're accustomed to. And that makes sense, in many cases...if it takes a day to understand a new product well enough to use it to the same level you used the old product, you've just lost a day of productivity. Everybody does the math on the additional value that product provides them differently. Maybe for some, data portability is not a big enough benefit to overcome the lack of flashy slideshows, existing PPT templates they may have been refining for years, and the time it takes to figure things out.
haha; okay I meant, how do I form a Deleware C Corporation :-)
We don't actually require it, but we encourage it, so that there's a predefined way to handle cofounders leaving.
One comparison was posted in the comments of the blog post:
http://www.masonchang.com/2008/08/tracemonkey-vs-squirrelfis...
Seriously, if you want to save like, $100 and waste a lot of time — then go to http://www.corp.delaware.gov/howtoform.shtml and read all you can find.

Though beware that you will anyway need registered agent services, which range from $50 to $300 annually.

Also forming corporation does not end with incorporation, it only starts with it. You will have to meet all the regulations, like having some paperwork done; accounting and annual reports + franchise tax, etc.

But first — ask yourself — why do you need to incorporate right now, what advantages are looking for? Are you ready for some disadvantages?
In short:

all the major operating systems, all the high-level language runtimes, all the databases, and all major productivity applications are written in C

Live in high-level language land for your entire career?

but sooner or later a crack is going to open up and the abstraction is going to leak.

And on that day, boy will you wish you knew C.

</quote>
Microsoft vs. Google
Brightcove CEO Discusses The Future And Failures Of Online Video
I also hear that chain-smoking generally goes along with the job, that doesn't help their overall health...
"I used to believe in the big-bang theory of marketing: a fantastic launch that created such inertia that you flew to 'infinity and beyond.'"

Inertia? I think he was looking for a word more along the lines of momentum. Still a decent insight.
I would say that in isolation, they do not. The reason is that polls should adjust for a myriad of factors, as the later part of the article makes clear.
Trade is exploitation?
Does HN ever ban sites? I know some other site would do that, if the same domain got flagged too many times all submissions to it would just get banned
Great idea: only requires a few advertisers to dedicate some fraction of their ad dollars to sites they like.

Does Google AdSense allow you to pick sites you want your ad to appear on?
Usually the blame falls to the OP rather than the article. People tend to summarize titles, and by summarize I mean remove critical words that completely change the meaning
Number 7. Commodore Amiga 1000 (1985)

That particular model wasn't my first PC, but it lead right up to it. Long live Amiga :)
My thoughts:

Django has, for a long time, operated as a small-ish community. When you're a small community, people generally know what's going on just because they hear things and there's a lot of trust in each other. As projects get larger, you often need a more formal structure.

For example, Django has been slow to release and has even recommended that you run off SVN. That's great when you're an involved person who knows what's going on, but less fun for a casual user of the framework. Django is getting more casual users.

That's great too, but sometimes it requires organizational change. Django hasn't been (and probably will never be) the boisterously-led community that Rails is. It isn't the personality of its leaders. That said, I think we're going to see a lot more communication happening. For some people, Django has dropped the ball here, but the 1.0 plan definitely cleared a lot of things up and I hope we similarly create a 1.1 plan over the coming months to provide a neat roadmap for developers).

In terms of the framework moving forward, I think the 1.0 release will fix a lot of complaints that people have had. One of the problems with the "run-off-svn" mentality is that you're very cautious about putting in big changes. However, with the run-up to 1.0, we've seen qsrf, newforms-admin, geodjango, etc. all merged. I think the 1.0 stable release will give us the opportunity to get through a lot of the other patches on SVN as people use 1.0 in production.

Every community stumbles, we can always do better, and Django is moving forward and post-1.0 is a great time to start changes. As a developer with a post-1.0 item in queue, I'm excited. Yes, it's frustrating when you've contributed a patch just to see it wait in queue. Hopefully version stability will change that.
I agree with your assessment. Having a brand-name degree does open doors - particularly if you're a graduating CS student in competition with thousands of other candidates for the small pool of 'interesting' software jobs. Right or wrong, landing that first job at Google (say) rather than Blubcorp has a significant influence on what positions are available to you down the road. It may not mean you'll make more money, but the work will be more intellectually rewarding.
People sue each other for the silliest reasons these days. I'm creating a MMORPG for the iPhone. Suppose one person says something mean to another person (MySpace Fiasco) or someone gets too addicted to the game (EverQuest / WOW), I don't want to get personally sued (and in this current time, people sue each other for trivial reasons) -- so it's about protection.
After programming for a while in Haskell I can only say I feel a bit crippled when using other languages (sure on the other hand sometimes I feel crippled when using Haskell).

* The typesystem is the best of both worlds, statically typed but with optional declarations and an interpreter that can tell you the types if you ask it.

* Very expressive, short easy to read programs that are very composable and easy to refactor.

* Faster than other interpreted languages except for some or most LISPs.
political polls are pretty useless, they are just there for the media to talk about them. Most of them end up being WAY off.
I used to use Read it later, but it was really buggy; it had a habit of overwriting saved pages so the page would have one title but a different URL. The developers were aware of the problem but seemed to be having problems fixing it. I highly recommend Taboo however, it's a similar plugin I found later that also has an excellent mechanism for showing all the pages in your queue: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5756
Students Don’t Need Amazon Kindles
This just sounds like individual employees/managers bypassing IT and just going straight for the nearest SaaS for the solution to their problems. I personally don't mind that at all ;)

The whole SaaS model followed by many startups now aims completely at putting this power into the hands of non-technical but savvy users.
Not my first either, but an awesome box for the time.

I'll never forget running Lotus 1-2-3 on the emulator, or dialing into BBSs. I sprung and bought a full 1200 baud Hayes Modem, with blinking lights and everything. I think the modem ran about a thousand bucks.

Good times!
How many of lines of code for infix-to-prefix?
in physics inertia means both "not willing to move" and "not willing to stop"
Malware on the rise | TechJaws
Jerry Seinfeld and Microsoft Perfect | TechJaws
Jaiku shut down for the weekend
Girls?
HP 100LX.

Totally wanted one when I was in middle school so bad I could taste it. Think I saw one in PCMag or something, or maybe Computer Trader. Seem to remember there being quite a few "palmtops" back then. I got irrational about it, even. It's funny that back then I couldn't conceive anything better would come out.

I think my 10 year old self would have been happy with my Zaurus that I got some years later. :) Of course, it is poised to get even more strange!
N95 8GB. All I need to carry is a cable and my iGo Stowaway.
Isn't curses something like a framework?

(Not meant seriously. Go ahead coding!)
Usability and the Penny Gap (App Store)
And yet there are at least
"15 instances where genetic programming has created an entity that either infringes or duplicates the functionality of a previously patented 20th-century invention, 6 instances where genetic programming has done the same with respect to a 21st-centry invention, and 2 instances where genetic programming has created a patentable new invention."

See http://www.genetic-programming.org/
Another interesting note about the MITS Altair.

Albuquerque is my hometown and as I got older and got involved with the local computer industry I met a couple of people who worked with MITS or MS back then. One even met Bill Gates when he was 19 or 20. Said he was a whiny brat and no one liked him. That probably meant he didn't like them.

Anyways, in '96, I met a guy who had several brand-new never un-boxed Altair kits sitting in his garage. I offered him a few hundred dollars for a couple and he didn't budge. Wanted to save them.

I also found one in the Goodwill electronics section but didn't know what it was at the time. I was too young.
> Two words: "French Engineering".

Mmm hmm. How's that American SST coming on? I'm English and your comment even annoyed me.
> maybe i'm an incredible genius or something, [...] which cold turky sink or swimly requires that you know the language at least decently

If you're such a language whiz you might want to master basic English.
You could run FORTRAN on a virtual machine on Python.
I'm hoping for Japan or South Korea.
What to do in Seattle?
I'm visiting Seattle today and tomorrow, what sorts of interesting hackery stuff is there to do in this town?
For functional programming what Python really misses is not a decent lambda. You can get by without.

But properly optimized tail recursion.
What's wrong with this site? Seems to have a couple valuable bits on SEO, which is the bread and butter for a lot of companies. Getting inbound links is a huge deal for smaller websites, and viral distribution is a great way to get that.
you need to have google account to view slides. which world are they living in. google is so 2006.
German can be very precise.