skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I have been in and out of the Apple store in about 2 minutes buying my last laptop.

I said give me that Macbook, and while the guy in front of me took my credit card with his wireless POS device, another guy grabbed me the laptop.

I really find the anti-Apple movement interesting. I am not sure how to explain it - but it is more about passion than substance than the pro-Apple movement.
There are many studies on just this thing. Primarily examine mass communications journals if you're interested in scholarly research. But the two most common:

1) Focus groups. Take a group of people, have them fill out a questionnaire, watch a group of ads, then answer the questionnaire. These have become more effective over time as the result of methodological research on research bias. In the "early days" people were given a set of questions, watched THE AD, and then answered the same set of questions. It turns out, though, that those questions 'primed the pump' and skewed results when compared to a more neutral setting where there are many questions about many products and then many ads.

2) Market research. Take two representative regions, deploy one advert in one location and another at the other, compare and contrast. Again, this has improved over time where it used to be "nothing vs. something", but that really showed the effectiveness of advertising, not the result of a specific campaign.
I'm blushing ;-) Though seriously I was in the center of it all for 2 years so I think my impression is, at the very least, an honest opinion. Which is something that seems exceedingly rare in the Bay Area.
It's not the voting scheme causing the herd mentality. People tend to subscribe to one train of thought until convinced otherwise (which, deep down, is as much a popularity contest as anything else). It's the human herd you're really complaining about.

Such complaints, btw, are (-1, Redundant).
The books you list are great books, but I still wouldn't take SICP or TAOCP off the list.

Generally speaking, I think the real question we need to be asking with lists like this, is "Who is the audience?"
I would recommend SICP http://mitpress.mit.edu/sicp/
I'm suspicious because it sounds like a popular business book.
What are your goals? General success? A flourishing startup? CEO of Google?

Regardless of your end-goals, the steps you take to achieve them depend largely on your personality. Are you a natural born entrepreneur? Do you enjoy networking moreso than coding? Are you prone to take risks? Would you rather improve an existing project or jumpstart a new one?

The only advice I can give you is not to grow too comfortable with the educational arena. If you're interested in pursuing a career in education, it's a different story. But I've met quite a few bright individuals who've grown too accustomed to life at the university to do anything else.
Feedback Appreciated: Sutro Software
Fellow Hackers, I'm looking for feedback on my startup: Sutro Software.

http://sutrosoftware.com

If I may, one request and two disclaimers...

Request: I would appreciate it if you would not register to use my product unless you actually use Vignette Portal. The screenshots and videos should give you a good idea of what the product does if you're interested.

Disclaimer #1: If you use Firefox 3 on the Mac, the Javascript animations will be slow.

Disclaimer #2: My site is not set up to scale well at the moment so if there turns out to be some interest on HN it may fall over.

Thank you very much in advance for any time you spend and any feedback you provide.
Not genetics. Diet, Regular Workouts, and Sleep will lead to similar results for a given age group. There is nothing in genetics that will make you inept, except of course genetic mutations that are sometimes bad and sometimes good. But for normal people, genetics do not matter. One will never reach their genetic "glass ceiling" in fitness. I would also maybe add not having injuries. Because that also stops a person from training as much as they could otherwise.

What you eat and at which points you eat it, what and how regularly you work out, whether you get enough sleep, and whether you currently have injuries are the most important factors. A fifth factor would probably be whether you have a workout partner to motivate you and spot you, so you always have a spotter, and thus can push yourself harder and get the most out of each exercise.
It really depends on what you are doing. If all you are providing is a simple vehicle for people to get files and some basic information, then you could even get by with the most basic web page. Do you have Windows and like free software? Then chances are you use PuTTY:

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/

This site sucks, as in, its not fancy in any kind of way, but it does what it needs to do.

Another case in point is zlib (if you're not familiar with it, you'd be surprised at all the software that uses it):

http://www.zlib.net/

So there is some REALLY useful software behind some sucky websites. Point: you don't ALWAYS need a super cool website to provide your goods or services.
I'd definitely recommend trying some self-study before grad school-- better to find out on your own if the work really interests you enough for the required investment.

As to recommendations, I second the recommendation for SICP, but I'd also suggest the video lectures: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.001/abelson-sussma...

Then, I'd move on to various online courses (with video)-- besides the MIT OCW resources, there are some good CS courses from UC Berkeley. Specifically, for someone getting started, I'd recommend MIT 6.046J (Introduction to Algorithms), and the Berkeley CS 61A/B/C and CS162, but your interest may vary.

Naturally, there are a lot of good video course for mathematics as well-- I enjoyed Gilbert Strang's Linear Algebra from course from MIT as a nice brush-up in Linear Algebra, for example (and as a companion to his textbook).

But the guiding thread has got to be your own interest.
thanks. I was shooting for people who had already read sicp, htdp, design pattern, etc (and who have at least tried their hand at taocp ;-)).

Those are all great books of course, but there are a lot of topics outside their domain. I was hoping to choose books that complement/supplement the classics.
The prospectus for every bond issued by these agencies explicitly states that it is not guaranteed by the United States.

The housing market does not need Fannie and Freddie. What it needs is a stable provider of liquidity (a broker for the secondary mortgage market). Let Fannie and Freddie fail, and simultaneously introduce an explicitly-backstopped liquidity mechanism/agency.
Maybe TicketStumbler should stay in Boston longer than previously anticipated (we're already staying another year); I don't do well with bullshit.
Not an indictment of capitalism, but an indictment of the fraud that has been overlooked for too long.
Website Optimization – SEO For Google
The ratio of hot air to righteous anger in this rant is too high. Concrete points Dziuba makes:

a) Chrome is only out for Windows

b) Web applications can be more resource intensive than desktop apps

Is there anyone reading Hacker News who wasn't aware of these points? With WebKit/V8/etc, Chrome essentially acts as the language runtime, so the software stack he draws doesn't even get any taller (once the browser releases for all OSes).
A debugger's a great way to go through a source base of under/badly/not documented code. Ironically enough, GDB's probably the only way to get a good handle of what GCC does internally.

I love gdb's ability to call an arbitrary routine of your code while in a breakpoint. A good print/validation routine for your own data structures is wonderful there.

But yeah, it can turn into a parasitic, addictive time sucker if you don't stay disciplined about it. If all you're wanting is a stack trace here or there, and it doesn't take too long to relink the app, it's usually faster to put an

if (condition) { printf(interesting state); }

in the code than conditional breakpoints.
Ack! $5,800! I know good software tools are often worth it, but that's gotta be one fantastic set of tools!
MIT OpenCourseWare is a valuable resource for college curriculum type stuff. You can get a cursory overview of the ugrad/grad CS courses, and pick which ones interest you. Some courses have audio/video.

ocw.mit.edu
No, I can't say, because it wasn't necessary. We're all looking at Paulson's right hand waving about conservatorship, but missing his left hand; his left hand is bailing out the foreign central banks who bought agency paper and later threatened to dump treasury paper if their agency paper was not backstopped. So now the shareholders get hosed but the foreign central banks get their bonds paid for by the American taxpayers.
The man asked if people who lifted weights wanted to test his app. Debating the merits of weightlifting had nothing to do with that post. If he had included, "you should lift weights because it's really good for you" then perhaps your argument would have been relevant. As it stands it wasn't and I see no problem with down-voting posts based on irrelevancy.
Capitalism is fundamentally flawed.
At this point I've learned a little bit about exactly this. If you work at a large company, grad degrees are somewhat essential. On the other side, no one can take an education away from you.

Having said that, I know many cs grad students who know little and couldn't bootstrap a startup like self taught autodictacts.
There are some good things you can do to learn on your own (like SICP), but some CS grad courses or even high level undergrad courses will be more effective if you are interested in theory.
Scoble's site still sucks. He's a Dunning-Kruger poster child.
I'm really not sure where you contradict me. The subject was high volume body building style routines, and the merits of intensity over volume. You don't seem to address this. I guarantee you no fighter trains anything at all like a body builder. The focus is on hand speed and explosive force. It is an absolutely proven fact that high volume and emphasis on maximal force training compromises speed and endurance. The low reps and plyometrics you mention have nothing to do with body building routines...

I don't think anyone would suggest 30 minutes twice a week would lead to overtraining. That's a pretty good target, actually. Most people trying to get fit sort of half ass it five days a week, though. I'm not sure over-training is the right word, but they definitely spend way too much time training.

But as far as training 20 hours a week, that's far in excess of any health benefits, which was my point above with regard to not modeling on athletes. Competition level training involves major oxidation and over nitrification stress. Hormone profiles are messed up. Pro and college level athletes are not doing their health any favors.

I will have to disagree with your claim that getting cut is necessarily about aerobic exercise. Aerobics can certainly help, but another way lower fat is via boosted growth hormone. That "oh I'm going to puke" feeling you get from brief intense training is surging growth hormone levels. It makes you nauseous. It also reconfigures your body to be lean.
Well he also makes the good point that the web is pointlessly obfuscating everyday operations while balkanizing the end-user market at the same time. Average users don't care if they can publish their resume online, they just want to do it. If they use a web app, they use a web app. In the end, they just want to get things done.

I think it's a solid article.
Good question :). In Dec '07 we had some soul-searching and radically changed our idea from an API (selling tickets) to a self-contained blogging widget.

We rebuilt the site and have been working with bloggers since the spring in an open beta. The public announcement could have come earlier -- we were mainly getting the pricing, billing & core feature set worked out (along with a rename -- BriteTix didn't make sense anymore).
First impression: elegant looking site. Put the "launch portal spy" link on every page (maybe).

I've never heard of Vignette Portal. I don't understand 95% of the text of your site. For instance:

"Portal Spy will change the way you think about your Vignette Portal platform."

If you want me to read it, should be:

"Portal Spy will change the way you think about your Vignette Portal, the most popular BLAH BLAH, platform."

Disclaimer #1 applies to me (I'm using FF3 on the mac.) The animations are slow. I hope for everyone else they're much, much faster.

In summary, your site looks nice, but i can't (from my lack of knowledge) understand what it does. Skimming this post, i think my comments are of limited utility. nevertheless, i'll post 'em. good luck.
Does rent-control decrease supply/demand?
Your post made me laugh out loud. God this has been fun to watch.

BTW: congrats to you and your brother for quitting your jobs.
I have no idea what Vignette Portal is. Perhaps the wrong audience to evaluate it for you.

The wipe animations have to go though.
Supernatural season 3 opens with a bang now on dvd
There are things that go bump in the night and for Sam and Dean Winchester, it’s all in a days work to track and eliminate the ones doing the bumping. This week Sci-Fi and action fans are in for a special treat with the release of the third season of “Sup
The other important point, hit right up there at the front is: desktop apps aren't going away anytime soon.

It's been a real ride for me coming back into the web world after about 6 years of working on enterprise and desktop apps. Everyone in the web world seems to think we're just on the cusp of everything moving over to the web. Which is pretty much what they were saying when I was working in web programming 7 years ago. To the rest of the universe, desktop apps are still mainstays of day-to-day computing and while there is a shift, it's much more gradual than people in the web business seem to assume.

Amusingly, this phenomenon is not all that different from what folks working in the Linux desktop have been assuming since I got into that some 8 years ago: that this is the year of the Linux desktop. It's about to tip any day now...
Supernatural flashback dead mans blood review
Of course, this being John, he is vague to Dean and Sam about what is going on, although there is really no reason for him to not share information, especially if they’re going to be working this job together.
Pardon me if I offend anyone, but isn't this doing more work for the same functionality? Can someone give me some insight into why this would be desirable?
I think he needs to make one thing clear:

CHROME IS A BROWSER.
http://xkcd.com/198/
Google: We'll Get Own Own Data, Thanks
At this point, I'll be happy when this year's DEMO and TC50 have gone by and I can just watch the videos. No more drama, no more endless provocation.

Seriously, just focus on the more productive topics. This feels like the equivalent of whether Obama wears a lapel pin or not. Who cares?
Every forum I've ever read is even worse than the social news sites. When someone disagrees with you here, they reply with an argument. It may not be a good argument, but at least the reply is related to what they disagree with. On forums, people reply with things like "I bet you wouldn't say that to my face." instead of actually arguing the point. This is completely worthless -- why have a discussion forum if you're not going to disagree?

On the Internet, you can argue unrelentingly for your point and not have it count against you socially. In a casual conversation, someone who does nothing but argue their point would be "annoying", but on the Internet, that's not annoying. It's the entire fucking point. (And before the Internet, people wrote op-eds. Rules for conversation and writing are different. So don't ask me if I would say that to your face, because your face isn't here.)
Agree with the others here about having no idea what Vignette Portal is. Even if your potential customers will, bloggers, journalists and other folks whose attention you might want probably won't, so it'd be good to clear that up on the landing page.

Other honest first reaction: Eww, a Swing GUI.
I second that. I can only hope we have some of the design sense your startup has.

And good luck at DEMO, I look forward to watching your video once it's posted.
It is all about who participates in the voting. On Reddit (and Digg, I guess), the voting is done by retarded 9-year-old fanbois, and as a result, rewards ideas and comments that appeal to that demographic. Highly rated comments there are often some of the worst material I've ever read in my life. It often makes me pray for my own death. Correspondingly, some good ideas and arguments are often downmodded to -10, even though they are fine comments.

Over here, it's not as bad. I think the demographic here is the more thoughtful and secure type. We realize that someone disagreeing doesn't invalidate your own opinion or beliefs; it's just something more to think about. Plus, some especially bad comments are killed outright, which discourages future abuse. (Most of the things that get killed here would be +1000 on Reddit, so you can see why things are different between the sites.)

And BTW, I usually don't get dowmodded here for having the "wrong" opinion here. Sometimes I am shocked, like with this one:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=294691

I swear, anywhere else that would have been downmodded to oblivion. (Even though it is not a troll, I really think that.) Instead, people replied disagreeing with me. Excellent.

The system ain't broken yet.
Not genetics. Diet, Regular Workouts, and Sleep will lead to similar results for a given age group.

Therefore, a group of average males can confidently be predicted to achieve the same fat/muscle ratio as a group of average females -- as long as their diet regimens, workout regimens, sleep regimens, and ages are the same?
He visited our company also, before I worked there. He suggested we get some white boards so we could collaborate with each other.

That suggestion was nixed by the "office manager" (secretary), because white boards didn't go with the office's decor.

I am not making this up. I'm surprised I lasted for half a year at that company.
The EULA doesn't matter, IMO.

You violate the DMCA when you run OSX86. Certain OS X binaries are encrypted.
OS X doesn't defrag because HFS+ is journaled - it doesn't need to be defragged.
Dup.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=296336
My favorite is Sipser's book on theoretical cs: http://www-math.mit.edu/~sipser/book.html
Okay, I agree. That makes three facts everyone knows to go with the three mspaint drawings. I appreciate ted's snark, I just wanted something compelling enough to get riled up in agreement.
Android Photostream Sample Application
I liked the kleinberg/tardos algorithms book better than clrs: www.amazon.com/Algorithm-Design-Jon-Kleinberg/dp/0321295358.

I felt it was more direct.
Why make one key do two things? I always want TAB to indent, no matter what. I always want M-/ to complete, no matter what. Why would I want some heuristic to second-guess my intentions when I can make my intentions 100% clear by simply pressing a key?
TYPES OF DOG BEDS
There are various types of dog beds available in the market and these beds excite the pet owners more than the pets. Though there are many types of dog beds, all of them may not suit our pets. Let us have a quick look at the types of dog beds available in the market so that we can choose the right bed for our pets.
On Internet, You’ve Got (Paper) Mail
The Singularity is Far
Do you get the sense that everyone in the web world knows that desktop apps aren't going anywhere? This seems obvious to me, but I've gotten into a number of arguments with folks on it.

There seems to be a certain fervor and excitement about "web 2.0" that people seem to get carried away in forecasting its implications.

For me this is kind of amusing, since I've been tracking networking stuff through a couple decades of "thin client" fads. "The network is the computer" is hardly a new idea. :-)

Usually when I want to be really productive on my computer, the first thing I do is unplug the DSL router. :-)
I'd recommend grabbing a book on Discrete Mathematics. It's the foundation for much of CS theory and will get you into the terminology there. MIT Press's Introduction to Algorithms should be penetrable if you've had some basic calculus at some point. It's worth its price tag. I'm not sure that I'd recommend the Discreet textbook we used at it's going price of $130 now though...
For Math, I'd really recommend The Road to Reality and Beardon's Algebra and Geometry. TRtR is ostensibly a physics book, but it is one of the best math lessons I've ever read. (I have a bit of a review of those two up at http://arantaday.com/blog/the-new-classics/)
Well... If you would like to go into CS a little with some rigor, a book on compilers would actually be very helpful, if only because compilers have to deal with some of the most complex problems in CS today. I would advise starting with the purple dragon book and then moving on to research paper to get a feel for the current state of the field. The dragon book is a bit outdated imho (I don't think it even covers SSA and advanced value partitioning, etc...)
I agree that the guy is being way harsh, but after looking through some of the sites I wasn't too impressed.

If I were an investor I'd want to see a little something more than what I saw today.
Review: PGP Whole Disk Encryption for Mac OS X
Just to add to my own list: don't forget the Knuth "Computer Musings" video lectures at Stanford!
Sorry, but I'm going to have to disagree with you. Props for putting together a good service but you can't have a bare bones website these days. That doesn't say that you're too busy to make a good looking website it says that you're not thinking about the marketing side of your business.

A potential customer might take a look at the site and think, "what's this? If they can't make a decent looking site why should I believe they can make a decent product?"

Taking the time to make a great website might not be something you're interested in, but find a friend or pay someone to make it for you.
On the topic of reading SICP and other things. I find the exercise of porting programs/concepts from the presentation language to one I use helps me reinforce what the book/paper says. It also helps me honestly contrast my tool choices with what is out there.
hello,

if you are in california, you have a way of measuring your interest in cs before you commit. i would suggest you take a course or two at a community college in your area. i know that there are many in the bay area that act as feeder institutions to berkeley etc.
community college is usually less demanding than a university, so it is an excellent way to find out if you can handle the demands that will be placed upon you if you decide to do cs (undergrad/grad).

best of luck!
I see. But wouldn't most people who have read SICP and HTDP and tried their hand at TAOCP be a bit beyond GEB and the New Turing Omnibus? I mean, I'd heartily recommend those to folks who haven't yet made the leap...
Kinda cool, but also kinda weird. That had to have taken a lot of time. It takes a certain kind of person to go to the effort to put something like that together.
Oh yeah Logic in Computer Science: Modeling and Reasoning about Systems by Huth and Ryan. We used this as a textbook in a formal methods class. The book teaches techniques for developing proofs and for specifying and proving properties about systems. All the way from basic logic, to proofs for structured programs, to using model checking for verifying properties of distributed systems. These techniques will allow you to call your work engineered when you can apply them.

What I appreciate most is the consistent structure for teaching each logic. Each logic is taught by introducing the syntax with the BNF and parse trees. The semantics are then introduced. Then there is a mix of relevant algorithms and toy examples of how to specify systems. This is book you could teach yourself formal methods from.