skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
China depending on cloud seeding technology to keep Olympic Games dry
The Neurological Roots of Genius
I'm not qualified (or willing to try and process all the information right now) to say if the claims in the press release are valid, but keep in mind it was written by an HR person, not a scientist or an engineer.

Unfortunately, there's no mention of a publication for this discovery, but you can read about their pior work on their webpage: http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/dgn/www/
Officially approved tethering in the US would sell me an iPhone, but until it shows up, I'm quite satisfied with my Motorola Q. Anyone know what the holdup is?
Firefox market share exceeds 20%, Internet Explorer dips below 70%
This is a very, very long article/story, and I wish I had time to read it right now. But it could definitely be written more briskly.
On a wing and a prayer
After reading this article, I am concluding that there are small percentage of trolls who are literally terrorists - impacting other people's lives in a dangerous way. No remorse, too.
Wow - what a great article- I never thought characters like Weev actually existed. Definitely makes the sound of cars passing by more interesting.
The desire to store generated energy for use at a different time isn't limited to solar cells or other day-only sources. A similar problem is posed by the fact that conventional power stations have a fixed maximum throughput, but demand is much higher during the day.

To balance the load and maximize revenue, a number of power producers employ a decidedly low-tech way to store energy: every night, they pump a lake of water up a mountain, and during the day they drain it through hydroelectric generators.

Really! I shit you not:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity
The assumption that your choice is a binary one is silly. Its never either/or. Its always both.

The first product you build are in a client driven business structure where they are telling you what and how to build it. Then if you do that well enough, you can transform yourself into a product business.
It's a sad reflection on humanity that prisons are rehabilitation free zones. They are just holding cells until the prisoner earns a short release followed by an inevitable return :(
Eureka Phoenix Lander Finds Water on Mars | TechJaws
I find it clarifies things to filter statements like "My personal private life is very separate from my Internet life" and "a normal person who does insane things on the Internet" through the rule: "Judge talent at its best and character at its worst."
AT&T loves money too much to be sensible about getting it?
Contingency Design: Maximizing Online Profitability By Helping People When Things Go Wrong
True. Maybe it's some survival instinct. When everyone is running from the tiger maybe you should start running too.
People often overestimate the importance of intellectual ability. Practice and perseverance contribute more to accomplishment than being smart does.
I just came back from /b/ with a decapitated man's head laying alongside his genitally-dismembered body now seared into my mind. Sounds like a daily hangout for some.

I just posted this to my Friendfeed:

"A good idea is to have a cross-site commenting system such as Disqus that enables both identity-verified and anonymous commenting and comment viewing. This separates commenters into two groups, those who want to be anonymous and those that do not. The system would not be fault-free, but it would promote responsibilty, encourage better commenting and improve user experience without necessitating modding - one's named identity is the moderating factor. It may not be as fun, but would filter out spam, trolls and junk."

Plastic.com has the feature to post a comment as anonymous even whilst logged-in. Trolls would absolutely love this. Also, anonymous comments can be set to hidden.
Anyone notice after a couple years of reading digg, reddit, hacker news, even CNN, that these breakthroughs we are continually excited about don't seem to go anywhere? I know things take time time, but I keep waiting for just one of these breakthroughs to make it to the real world, and I can't think of any so far where I read about it, and now it is here.
Well, one interesting thing about it is that it points out that such people have always been around, and in turn implies that we could learn how to deal with them online by using techniques we've developed for dealing with them offline.
I didn't know prison was now a typical hacker experience.
I think that's the point. (Of course, you can always highlight them).
That is the idea...
And whilst I agree a merely competent employee is unlikely to create great software, I hope you're not saying only abrasive, obsessive perfectionists can create great software.

As for the example,

def f(x,y):
return x > y

no more captures the intended behaviour of

lambda x,y: x > y

than "go for nosh" does "go for a nosh." Nuance.

But all this dances around the actual point - that Giles managed to transform himself from wronged to wrongdoer with a single expletive laden harangue, and that this is good for no one, least of all Giles.
The step of deciding whether the "chunks" relate to one another and grouping them accordingly is a brilliant idea, and probably the key to really clean interface design.
India unveils 3G policy; plans global auctions
Stack Overflow Private Beta Begins
Can you just "request solitary confinement" and get it? Seems tantamount to requesting a private room. I mean...yeah, I'd like to be separated from the rapists and murderers. Thanks.
How Do You Study the Internet?
7 things to consider before outsourcing software development
Hi - Thos from Gazelle here.
Just wanted to chime in with a response to a couple of these.
@sysop073 and @thorax - the Netflix connection is right now is more about how easy we want to make it for folks. We try to take free shipping one step further by sending pre-paid packaging to our customers to send their stuff back to us.
Looking at it longer term, by providing a model where people can sell end of use items to us with no hassle at a fair price, owning a cell phone could start to be more like renting a movie.
@mynameishere - You are right - there are a lot of super shady dealers out there. However we're not selling to them. We've invested a lot in the technology and process behind the scenes to develop optimized channels to move the items through. We're trying to encourage reuse as much as possible - the majority of what we buy isn't junk at all, and in fact has at least one round in the consumer cycle left in it. We sell some of it directly to consumers ourselves ( http://stores.ebay.com/SecondRotation for example) and have carefully selected wholesale and recycling partners that will take whatever we have. We're absolutely committed to behaving in an unimpeachably ethical manner.
Yeah, I think photosynthesis doesn't come into play anywhere in the process. They're probably misusing the word to describe the generation of oxygen from water using the sunlight. I think this article gives a better summary: http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?article...
Is your argument that conditions in China are comparable to those in Stalinist Russia, and, if so, can you support that argument with evidence?
The Chinese equivalent to the Soviet-era gulag is the laogai ("reform through labor") camp:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laogai
Simple question for the new delicious:

How can I sort my bookmarks by # of people who have also bookmarked them? I want to see which of my bookmarks are most popular or least popular.
Industry Insights from Angelsoft
aka: Information Design 101
No it doesn't, sunlight has nothing to do with it (using light to lyse (photolyse?) water would be cool, but they aren't). But thank you for the link, it makes more sense then the other one.

In short: as far as I can tell this invention is a new catalyst for increasing the efficiency of electrolysis.

But the catalyst is not better than current ones, it's just less toxic (and therefor cheaper). Which, while helpful, is far from groundbreaking.

The electricity can come from anywhere. Saying solar is just a buzzword to get people to click.
Try Canto! It's a curses based reader that is fast and easy to use.

http://codezen.org/canto/
The Soviet regime ran a large system of forced labor camps. China currently runs a large system of forced labor camps. Horrible human rights violations occurred under the Soviet system and are currently occurring in China.

Here's a recent, quite representative, example of the sort of thing that can happen to someone in China:

"Chinese teacher sent to labour camp for earthquake photos"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/30/chinaearthquake....

Excerpt:

A Chinese teacher has been sent to a labour camp over his
internet photographs of schools that collapsed in the
Sichuan earthquake, a rights group said today.

Liu Shaokun was ordered to serve a year of "re-education
through labour", according to Human Rights in China. The
system does not require a formal charge or criminal trial
and there is no appeal.
Ask PG: Does YC review single founder applications?
PG,

As part of the YC application, I noticed a question asking if I'm the only founder. The answer to that is,unfortunately, yes.

My question is - in that scenario, should I even submit the YC application ? Will it be reviewed ? The rest of the questions that are grouped with this one give me an impression that (a) its unlikely to be reviewed or (b)rejected from get go.

thanks.

PS: I have read your essay about the whys of having a co-founder. And I agree. Its just that I havent found a worthy co-founder yet.
Actually, feigning mental illness sounds like a good idea. I don't plan on going to prison, but if I do, I will try that one out.
From passionate users to saving the music industry via Modular Innovation
Yes, the conditions are comparable for those citizens, who were labeled as enemies of the regime. I don't know what you will accept as an evidence, but here are a few links:

http://laogai.org - research of the laogai, so called "Chinese gulags". China has more than 1,000 of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong_and_live_organ_harve... - Organ harvesting from living people

There are also other reports by United Nations or Amnesty international about that.
I guess if this is a site about starting your own business, "accounting irregularities" could potentially cause the readership trouble. I doubt you go to the same prison as murderers for that, though.

Plus, sometimes people write some really bad code and you just have to murder them.
exactly -- imdb has an internet and populist skew. As long as you take this into account, their ratings are fine and predictable. Gaming rankings is practically an official internet pastime, so it's not unexpected that this event is taking place, although I'm surprised it built up enough steam without (presumedly) official co-ordination to drop the Godfather a few places -- that is notable. I'm sure politicians are taking notes as we speak.
If you are good, but play in the wrong types of playgrounds, it can be...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2473691/Computer-hack...

...life without parole, even!
It may be possible to create great software without being abrasive. It is certainly the case that you can be abrasive without creating great software. I'm not so sure that you can dispense with an obsession for your vision of "perfection."
Well worth the read, but I don't know why you linked to a comment...

There'd also be people that engage in outsourcing arbitrage: present as an outsourcer to a client and then outsource directly to others with the requirements.
Besides being angry, Zed is posting some very useful information. "The mutt of feed readers" isn't something I'm looking for right now, but for the handful of people who want it, it's a great thing to find.
Qantas has been doing more that its share of trial and error of late - but the 60+ year lucky streak still holds. I wonder if outsourcing maintenance to Asia might not be one of Dixon's smarter schemes.
Ahem: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27860
Spreading the gospel of entrepreneurship in the developing world
Yes, they do, and accept some of them too, according to comments PG has made here.

What are you working on?
Who are the candidates to be Apple's next leader?
e.g. FF is already #1 in .hu

Firefox	48.9%
Internet Explorer	46.8%

http://www.adverticum.com/article/1063/
Agreed. I'm also quite firm that you can maintain an obsession for your vision of "perfection" without being a prick about it.
Why "firef.ly"?
To be honest I don't think $500000 is that much money, especially if you are depressed and worried about the future. It is good to have safety net, and $500000 is at most the minimum required amount (depending on where you live).
Yes, the parents of Mitchell Henderson are indeed pussies. It's unbelievable that they could be so thin skinned about a few harmless prank calls... come on, it's only the suicide of their child we're talking about!

Being outraged by a problem is not synonymous with wanting the government to fix it. Bringing attention to a problem is
not synonymous with begging for new laws.
CERN Rap
It is fantastic to see a programming community venture between Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood take off.

I am so looking forward to this and my expectation is already very high which is amazing considering there is no hype (yet).
โชคอนันต์ พลาสติก บจก Chockanan Plastic
วสันต์พลาสติก บจก Wasanplastic
I guess "One Day in the Life of John Smith" didn't sound as interesting.
"Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu"

Ah, see, that's what I meant by being a means, a sport is and end and something fun in itself where the getting in shape is a side effect. When I say working out, I'm specifically talking about pumping iron in a gym. Yes I'm a programmer, so my definition isn't so much narrow as it is precise, what can I say; that's how we are. Playing a sport isn't working out, it's playing a sport; that it happens to work you out is not the main point merely a nice benefit. Where I live, it's 115 degrees outside, working up a sweat is the last thing I want to do, I spend much of my time trying to stop sweating!

"Last week, I wondered if I could do five reps of five set of Clean & Press at 185 pounds."

Yes, but can you wonder that a few times a week on a regular basis and continue to get any thrill or sense of accomplishment out of it. Performance are only motivating when you're trying to improve your performance, but that can't go on forever, at some point you just want to maintain and it's the maintaining, at a gym, that's boring as fuck.

I agree you have to find something fun to do that works you out as a side effect, like "Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu", which is my whole point. Pumping iron in the gym, in the long term, is boring as fuck, no matter how you slice it.

I haven't found my "something fun" yet, maybe I will someday, but good for you that you have.
Cuil Early Stats from Hitwise
Location-based mobile social networking: a $3.3 billion market in 5 years?
Designgeist goes beta and needs your feedback  (Win Prizes from Moo)
I remember kids like that from junior high, they push the line until someone punches them in the face, then they have borders. The internet removes that whole punch in the face part, it's a shame.
a web app for recruitment space
What qualifies her to be CEO of any company? It's like executives have a career ratchet, they can only go up, and once they are CEO of one company, they sortof just refuse to do anything they are actually qualified for. This woman is an idiot, and running companies into the ground is not a qualification to get another shot at doing it.
> As we walked through Fullerton’s downtown, Weev told me about his day — he’d lost $10,000 on the commodities market, he claimed — and summarized his philosophy of “global ruin.” “We are headed for a Malthusian crisis,” he said, with professorial confidence. “Plankton levels are dropping. Bees are dying. There are tortilla riots in Mexico, the highest wheat prices in 30-odd years.” He paused. “The question we have to answer is: How do we kill four of the world’s six billion people in the most just way possible?” He seemed excited to have said this aloud.

Wait, is this article about reddit users?
Now right away we see the OP's point. If I rewrote your sentence, the implications of using the words "firm" and "prick" in close proximity would be lost ;-)
Want To Run A Chinese YouTube? Better Hire Your Own Censors
I wonder...how many wall street journal and (now) new york times readers will, for the first time in their sheltered lives, head on over to the darkest [1] corner of the internet and see its inevitable bounty of child pron and mutilation pron and cartoonishly extreme racism?

[1] Maybe. There's probably worse... Keep your wsj subscription up, I guess.
Weev is mad that they didn't include his entire philosophy:

http://weev.livejournal.com/305600.html
Facebook Developers: Much-Dreaded Redesign Not So Terrible, After All
No hype? They are on episode 16 of their weekly podcast.
NVIDIA (NVDA) To Exit Motherboard Chipset Business? AmTech Says No Way
Yes. (http://ycombinator.com/faq.html)
Is Your SOA really SEA?
Last.fm Blog: Quality Control
I didn't either, until after 5 visits I noticed it was still high, so I read the article. Actually kind of interesting.
I doubt it's a anti-ticket-theft measure.

Fair enough, but it has to be for some "business reason" and not a technical reason. AA.com can find my reservations fine without me telling it where I'm going, but the kiosks seem to need help. Annoying, but not as annoying as them not being able to read my passport number off my passport.

BTW, aren't the kiosks all running software made by ITA? I know Southwest has their own system, but I think everyone else uses the same system.
Interesting (as well as recurrent) property of the developing world, notably different from the developed world:

“If Endeavor had been an investor, rather than an independent, objective, non-profit enabler, it would not have been trusted by the business elite, or the entrepreneurs,” she insists. “Trust is everything.”
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/wp-content/uploads/stackoverfl...
Actually, I lifted regularly - and enjoyed it - before I got into BJJ. The key is I'm always trying to improve my performance when lifting. Every time I go into the gym, I have a different goal.

An important point here is that I know a variety of lifts, so I know a variety of ways I can challenge myself. Eventually I come back to similar challenges, but then I always try to improve. So, yes, doing 5x5 C&P with 185 pounds again would be boring. So I'll do 190 pounds, because I know it will be hard, and I'm not sure if I can do it.

I agree, if you look at it as maintenance, it is boring, and you will stop doing it. So focus on improving performance, even if what you try to improve changes.

And I can't help but notice you keep saying "pumping iron." Are you thinking of bodybuilder style workouts? I focus on movements, not muscles.
I mean more in terms of external hype.
You don't change your hunger point.

You change your behavior, taking into account that your hunger point is lying to you.

You stop eating before you feel full.

You look up how many calories you should be eating and how much you want to lose. (3500 calories = 1 pound of fat; if you maintain a 500 calorie deficit every day, you'll lose a pound a week).

You weigh yourself every day, using signal processing techniques to remove random variations in your weight caused by water and reveal the trendline of where your weight is headed.

You then adjust your consumption based on where your weight is headed. Trendline sloping upwards? Eat fewer calories.

If you do this for a long time, your hunger point may change. It may not. But you don't care about your hunger point, you care about eating the right amount of food. The key insight is to realize that your hunger point may be lying to you, so you need to get an accurate hunger point. Walker describes how to do this in his book, combining signal processing with dieting.
Psychological Proofs and Reverse CAPTCHAs
I understood it to mean you press the buttons to add the tip, but there's no requirement to press any of those buttons.
Ah, I carefully avoided writing "useless". I said "useless by themselves". You've gotten some use out of them, but hammering further on the publicity front may yield diminishing returns.

On the other hand, if you built a couple of desirable new features that test well with samples of your target market and then prod the publicity machine with your new and improved version 2.0, it might work better.

Of course, here we recognize why the app universe is filled with colossal apps full of trendy social features: adding one feature after another is the simplest way to get a series of marketing hooks. If you're pledged to minimalism life is more difficult. Try subtle changes in the defaults or the styling. Try building two versions: the elegant and the feature-gaudy. Try to add just one new feature, but make it so awesome that everyone wants to try it at least once. Build a second, slightly related app that helps drive traffic to the first.
Is it over for RSS readers?
Damn didn't sign up for the beta....looks good though, cant wait for it to go live!
Is it just me, or does this look like a cleaner version of DZone, if DZone were .net focused?
Yelp, Yahoo Local and LinkedIn SearchMonkey Apps Now Default-On
Want to run a Chinese YouTube? Better hire your own censors
This quote doesn't capture the main reason for his jailing. When looking at superficial reasons, it seems unrelated (taking a photo, reading a book, eating ice cream, joining a religion, etc), but the root reason is "causing social unrest". He was taking pictures to expose possible government corruption in the building of the school. This would have caused people to protest and blame the local government for the students' deaths.

Likewise with Falun Gong. Suppressing religion isn't the end goal. It's the fear of someone having influence over a large number of people, and thereby possibly causing social unrest.

Don't read this as a defense of the Chinese government. I'm just trying to clarify the quote to prevent the "how can they jail someone for THAT?" response.
Fortunately most of us have already seen The Matrix, so we didn't need the refresher.
Correct. Furthermore, they don't even necessarily claim it's more efficient -- or at least, they don't give any numbers. It may be more efficient than electrolysis of water (that's not saying much) but is it more efficient than charging and decharging a battery?

If not more efficient, is it at least a cheaper form of energy storage? (Platinum in the catalyst suggests no, although a very thin layer might be good enough.)
Can my startup kill reddit?
Jeff Atwood has said that stackoverflow.com is partially a response to the massive suck factor of sites like Experts Exchange. One of the most annoying things about researching programming topics is trying to find something on google and accidentally clicking an Experts Exchange link. I really wish that site would just go away.
It was to illustrate the point that the argument is deeply flawed. Exploiting a weakness in a violent or destructive manner simply to draw attention to it is never acceptable.

If you did believe it to be so, then you would have to carry it out to its logical conclusion and walk around with body armor on.

Perhaps I should have chosen something besides firearms as an example, as they tend to cause a fairly visceral reaction. It wasn't meant to be a "First kill all of the lawyers" post, it was meant to be a "if you believe that nonsense, then you actually do believe in "kill all of the lawyers" justice" post.
if you weren't joking, just read their blog.I looked for a category to filter all posts about design, didn't find it so here is a google site search with 'web design' as the key

http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.37sig...
Turn Here, Trust Me - Dash's amazing new GPS gizmo guides you around traffic.