skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
No, you're making the assertion first, that everyone positively asserts that the universe is continuous, and second that computer scientists see algorithmic systems as being simulations of analytical systems.

The first i am agnostic to (although i do like the feynman quote at the top of http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0206089v2 which was linked to above), and the second is most certainly false, as i have indicated above.

The evidence in NKS to support wolfram's assertion that the universe is a simple program is circumstantial at best, and so his windmill tilting quests for the program that is the universe seems quixotic at best, and arrogantly foolhardy at worst.

Analytical modeling, algorithmic modeling, or whatever other model someone wants to use to represent reality are models until you can prove them to actually be fundamentally connected with the manner in which reality functions.
I prefer Red Hat/CentOS in production because it's a standard. Solid certifications exist and it's easy to find employees with experience.

It's also slower moving than say Ubuntu but I prefer longer release cycles and have more confidence in an OS upgrade from Red Hat than I do any other distro.

That's just a preference though. I know of many prod environments running other distributions.

My advice is to stick with just one distro and keep it updated and centrally managed (Puppet, Chef, etc) because consistency is much more important than allegiance to a distro.
I like your phrase "how that language thinks". C# doesn't think like Smalltalk, so it's a mistake to write C# code as if it does. "Uncle" Bob is not a reliable source here.

It's been a while since I've read any of PG's code, so the following may be off-base, but I don't think he has any heritage in the OO-short-method school. In his books, at least, he's usually looking for functions that work like language constructs. The hallmark of such constructs is that they can be composed orthogonally. This is not at all true of the long delegation chains favored by classic OO.

As for brutal simplicity - a thousand times yes! But what we're discussing is how do you get it. More precisely, how do you get it at the only level that counts: the whole-program level. Otherwise you're just shifting complexity around, and probably thereby increasing it.

Edit: Two addenda. (1) I'm surprised to see PG's code come up in the discussion the way it did, because his writings were probably the thing that cured me of OO, or at least convinced me to check myself into detox. (2) I just had the scary thought that someone might read this discussion and think that I'm arguing against short functions in favor of long ones. God no. I'm arguing in favor of short programs against longer programs that have many more function definitions and interactions. Somebody assure me that was clear.
in the LA Times article about the same topic, Steve Wozniak also added his own bits on the land purchased. Scroll down to the Comments section (it's via facebook).

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2011/06/apple-spa...
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You are right. I got the meaning of monopoly horribly wrong in my article.
Of anything said here THIS is the advice to listen to. He speaks the truth.
I was trying to point out the balancing act between profit and quantity in my article. But your point is perfect. I missed it. Thanks.
It would have been nice if you had listed that disclosure first, so I could have skipped over your comment entirely.
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Working for the Khan Academy, I've seen the link to this video a bunch of times. Naturally, I was really curious about the voracity of the claims, so I did some research. It's actually worth reading the thesis as it's pretty interesting stuff. It's here: http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/pdfs/research/super/PhD(Mulle...

The study was, as best I can tell after reading through much of it (a lot not relevant to this discussion), quite limited. The largest number of students considered for any of the experiments: 370. All from one school. Most of the other experiments included far fewer students (fewer than 100).

Chapter 9 (additional experiments in chapter 10), and the section on Participants and Design has most of the relevant information. I was particularly fascinated by the decision to remove students from the final result for "watching more than one multimedia treatment." I mean I understand why it's important to control for this, but part of the point of KA is to provide additional treatments of information.

I am not saying that this in any way invalidates the research, but I also don't think it's fair to say that this is somehow a surefire tested solution that is being handed over. In addition, because the research hasn't been repeated outside of the original setting -- at least I couldn't find it, please correct me here if I'm wrong -- it makes the claim that "because introducing misconceptions was effective in this study means it must be effective in all science videos" a pretty serious stretch.

I'm all for research. We're doing a lot of it right now with our pilot students/classrooms and existing users. But just because something has been research-tested doesn't mean it's automatically the right thing to implement for KA or its students.
My mother is originally from the Indian Subcontinent. She preferred Lipton as well.

I wouldn't say it compared well to some of the more interesting teas I've had in Tokyo (I love Oolong tea as well), but she was probably correct from the price - taste ratio.
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And you did Gazehawk! Pretty cool stuff, I was telling Stephen about that a few weeks ago.

But, let me say, you're right. But I do think its part of their popularity. Also the fact that they're both very entertaining and erudite writers. And sure, there are plenty of valid criticisms, and they make them.

Off to read your thesis..
My theory is they are popular just because rants are more entertaining than reason. People just want to high-five the person who expresses their hate most eloquently.
Your analysis of my article is brilliant. Thanks a lot. I hadn't realized how flawed my analysis was.
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"cat", not a name one would choose if one wished to be found on search engines.
You can also:

[socket, window, file].map(&:close)

That just sends the :close message to each object in the set and returns a set of the results of each object evaluating that message. Yay, Smalltalk.
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Google: Les Pauls 96th birthday
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Well, fair enough, true.

My perspective is biased -- I live in the Dogpatch/Mission Bay neighborhood where there are lots of new buildings, piles of dirt, and construction cranes.
Yup, Twilio + OpenVBX is pretty nice.
Best viewed with sound on.

Also, you can save and share your compositions. I'm not quite proficient with doodle-guitar, but here's a couple seconds of noodling around:

http://goo.gl/doodle/vN4K
If you mean bigger in terms of market cap, that would actually imply that more investment is needed, right? If you mean that the current approximately 6.5million units is not enough however, should point out that the currency is divisible to 10 decimal places, so this is mostly a red herring.

With regards to market cap, yes, that does need to grow in order that there be a stable value. This actually suggests that the price will pretty much have to go up though, as the expansion of the bitcoin supply is known and low while the expansion of the money cap through fiat currency buys is both unknown and unlimited.
I find the link at the end of the article most interesting of all. http://www.thedreyfussinitiative.org/
I think it's shorthand. As an investor I think of caps as "worst-case" valuation -- the highest valuation I might end up seeing.

You realize that the startups write the convertible note right? They are the one offering the terms to the investors.

The issue with uncapped converts is that you are taking risk early but getting priced later. Thus the appearance of caps in the terms.

Of course I'd prefer to have an actual priced round.
The thing that got me into PICs was a generous sample program. You could sign up and get sent a few parts at no cost.
I like the ideas he talks about in NKS. But much like the problem I have with the US software patent system, most/all of what's in it thats good is not novel, and what's novel is not necessarily good. I too, and I'm sure many others, independently had notions about how nature works more like a process of steps, with patterns, rather than a set of static equations, and that therefore computer programs may be better at modeling them. And that organic lifeforms, in particular, may in a sense just be computer programs, except ones running on natural-made parts rather than man-made ones.

Wolfram just has an arrogant position that he somehow brought them down from the mountain top for us mere mortals to consume. He didn't. He isn't. Smart man? Yes. Good ideas? Yes. Novel? No.
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The claim that 1) the universe is a computer, and 2) the subclaim that it is a cellular automaton are NOT the primary claims of the book. 2) is explicitly argued against even.
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I find myself wondering if you actually read the content. Your first paragraph seems like a response to the article, but then your second makes it look like you didn't. Are you encrypting your files via hand-calculations before putting it on Dropbox, or using a second software package you installed as a tool? In which case what exactly is so hard about using one of the transparent file systems, which both boast a decent array of OS support options, that you have some sort of solution for that doesn't involve installing something beyond Dropbox?
> One weakness I do know of is that its .doc converter is not perfect

That means it's DOA for a lot of users.
They bought it from the French: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_aircraft_carrier_S%C3...
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This idea seems to come up every few months. Don't do it! (At least unless you seriously understand the caveats or something substantial has changed with encfs and/or Dropbox.)

Here's my comment from a year and a half ago:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=895660

... and from a few months ago:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2454924
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Your playing is much better than mine is...
There's an app for that...in fact, there's a YC S11 startup for that.

http://www.taskforceapp.com/

Of course, the author's idea that email is isomorphic to a todo list is pretty ludicrous.
How would you defend a carrier from missiles?

For example, this one carrier took years to build. Could it not be sunk simply by swarming it with ICBMs?

How many of those missiles do we have? How quickly could we produce them?

How would you defend a carrier from missiles? Any new ideas?

(I realize the carrier is likely a political statement, not a practical asset. I'm just wondering about the answers to my silly questions. Bored and daydreaming.)
Technofix? It's based on physics. On long time scales, radioactive waste doesn't build up. It decays. It's what it does. It is literally impossible to have a hundred-thousand-year-old pile of nuclear waste.

We are also stipulating that they are still using nuclear power if we are talking about continuing to generate waste for that long. The window where they manage to use nuclear power for five million years, along with maintaining all of the associated infrastructure for mining, extracting, purifying, etc, and all the associated economic activity necessary to support any society that has that ability, but are somehow too stupid to solve the problem after many centuries, is an awfully narrow one.

You're the one expecting civilization to fly through a bizarrely small window, not me.
Re: elderly parents.

My elderly parents (my dad turned 80 this weekend!) moved to one of those semi-suburban retirement villages a few years ago and it changed their lives. They went from being depressed, lonely, TV-obsessed hermits to having a fantastic social life on par with college. The network of neighbors really helps in times of hardship as well, the community really looks out for each other. I feel pretty comfortable knowing that if something bad happened they'd be in good company.

If you want to live guilt-free I can't recommend it enough. If its out of their income bracket, a great goal would be working off your debt and saving up to help them move somewhere where you can feel comfortable spending some time apart..
No. Even with the Internet, stable currencies still have unique advantages.

Stable assets are more useful for writing long-term contracts. People who are trying to avoid risk (rather than pursue it) will want to write contract terms that have future payments in a stable currency rather than in some more volatile asset like gold or stock. For example, if you wrote a contract where one person does the work and the other one pays in gold in five years, how do you know whether it's fair or not? Would you be willing to take either side of the bet? It's all going to depend on where you think gold will be, and if opinions differ on that then it makes contracts that much harder to write.

Of course there is inflation risk with any currency, but usually it's at least possible to estimate it and make allowances for it when setting a future price. It's a matter of degree and Bitcoin isn't even close to being stable. Both upside and downside risk are a problem, for opposite sides of any deal.

There's also little reason to think that broader adoption will make it more stable. Supply is fixed, but demand could go either way, depending on greed and fear. For a stable currency, you need a stable demand that can withstand (at least to some extent) big swings in popular sentiment.
IMO, its main weakness is that it feels like an outdated version of MS Office. It also makes users need to think a little but more. For example, it encourages you to make an informed decisions regarding your file format preference and be aware of their consequences with regards to file sharing, freedoms, etc. Something most users prefer to keep hidden.
Spreadsheets and presentations aren't as pretty and even less pretty when opened in MS which means OO.org is pretty useless to anyone who uses these for work or school.

Basically its software for people who want free software or for people who don't want to pay for software, won't/can't pirate it, and either don't mind tiny inconveniences or have pretty basic needs.

Office is a software package that for many people, represents a big part of their computer literacy. Being a little different can be the same as making them a little dumber.

That said, its perfectly fine. IF MS fell off a bridge tomorrow most people would use it without much issues.
Sounds like you dig it because you're not a serious user of either flash card apps or EverNote.
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Is this made with javascript?
Oh that wasn't it. Some angry dude ranted about OpenDoc versus Java and said to Jobs: you don't know what you're talking about.

Steve was quiet for a bit, mentioned some of the time you can't please some people, then talked about how Apple needed to get back to starting from the product, the user experience, and the customers instead of how do we market this cool tech.
I'm pretty sure you are basically right. An aircraft carrier is more a floating base that allows you to project power in a part of the globe that you would not otherwise have access to. Presumably you are projecting power against a power that does not have the military capability to sink your aircraft carrier at a distance (e.g. Libya, Iraq, Iran). China could, for instance, use the aircraft carrier to help its interests in Africa, just as the US has been doing (in the eyes of some skeptics) in the Middle East.

Another related fact is that military build-ups are very fuzzy these days given the amorphous nature of modern warfare. Sponsorship of private corporate armies in contested countries (a la cold war) is more likely than open conflict, because no one wants to risk destablizing everything (and if one were to go that way, nuclear weapons would suddenly be on the table). If a country and associated military can provide some logistical support without overt action, they can maintain plausible deniability (the sort of thing we are doing in Libya, for example, or our highly successful Bay of Pigs operation).
I'm not sure if we both read the same comment. The second paragraph focuses on the fact that Dropbox is not suitable for sensitive content, and therefor he suggests using another service that offers client-side encryption (Tarsnap, possibly, as I think that it does that). He is not saying that he is putting encrypted files on Dropbox.
In my case, the equivalent of a dry bagel. I guess that's a win.
I think the War Nerd makes a pretty convincing case that air carriers are basically obsolete. In the next major war, they will be WWII equivalent of the battleship. http://exiledonline.com/the-war-nerd-this-is-how-the-carrier...
I don't know exactly where credit is due, but this particular song was posted by @GoogleDoodles on Twitter. But thanks anyway :)
It works on Chrome but not on Firefox. Interesting.
Ah, yes, you're correct.

Also, "(and if one were to go that way, nuclear weapons would suddenly be on the table)." --- Do we have any practical defense against nukes?

I guess the answer is no. I was just reading The War Nerd (link posted further down by Bokonist). In the article, the US Naval Institute says "Ships currently have no defense against a ballistic missile attack." Since ships are essentially floating cities, that implies that cities have no defense against a ballistic missile attack. Therefore, neither side would use nuclear weapons.
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The overloading of "checkout" to mean revert a file as well as "switch to a different branch" is for me one of the most confusing git design choices.
Actually, with an eBook you pay for the words of that specific book to show up on your screen. (I notice you say "the words of the physical book," which implies that you do think the dead trees are the good, not the words printed on them -- I think most people you tried to sell the blank word-conveyor (paper) to would not agree.)

It's been easy to be intellectually lazy up to this point, saying a printed book is a good because it feels nice to hold in our hands. But maybe it's actually always been a good (the words, the story) combined with a service (the paper as a delivery method - and looking at the attention in publishing paid to paper quality, bindings, design, etc seems to bear that out). Now we're just seeing the service part be delivered in an overtly separate way.
Tip: You can play the guitar with your keyboard by clicking the Record button. A,S,D,F,G,H,J,K,L, and ; seem to cover all the notes.
update: the post you are responding dropped to 0, went up to 3 (presumably both upvoted and downvoted along the way), and has dropped again to 1. I find these trends fascinating.
The results you refer to are probably Curry-Howard correspondence, and Curry-Howard-Lambek correspondence.
It works in my copy of FF4 on Win7.
Wow, they've put in so much work just to amuse people! Saving the composition takes this doodle to whole new level. It should be interesting to see if the links to compositions remain valid after the doodle itself is taken down.
also has keyboard commands, across the rows:

do re mi fa so la ti do re mi
q w e r t y u i o p
a s d f g h j k l ;
z x c v b n m , . /

Edit: If anyone cares to figure out the recorded encoding scheme, could probably "record" or program a tune. ex:

http://www.google.com/webhp?tune=<encoded song here>

ex, do-re-mi from Sound of music
http://www.google.com/webhp?tune=IAZxghAmCEEYYYZgQGAMMEMwARh...

ex: chopsticks
http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&tune=wIBgRTAigBHIOEAhg...

seems to be a big hash w/note+duration encoded. Would hack on, but need sleep & moving to SF in a couple days. G'nite HN!
Works on Firefox 4 for me.
Right now, is it more beneficial for you to be solving big problems or little problems?
A conventionally tipped ICBM is indistinguishable from a nuclear tipped ICBM in all stages of flight except perhaps the last, and thus the launch thereof at a CVG could provoke nuclear retaliation. There are many, many better ways to sink a capital ship; swarms of regular antiship missiles, of which the Russians have many fine models, are probably the most popular. This is very difficult to defend against; between the SM-2s/SM-3s fired at the swarm at long range and the rolling airframe missiles fired at medium/short range by the CRUDES screen, you'll likely take out most of the inbound missiles, but not nearly all of them, and the CVN's own CIWS is unlikely to do anything productive if it works at all and is turned on, leaving a bunch of holes in your carrier and about 5000 men drowned along with about a hundred aircraft in the drink.
Dear Optimizely: Your statistics do not tell you that B has a 95% chance of being better than A. Your statistics tell you when the excess of B over A has less than 5% probability, assuming B and A are actually equally effective.

A Bayesian would understand this in terms of prior probabilities and likelihood ratios, but to put it into nontechnical terms, suppose that you tried out 15 different alterations and none of them seem to work. Then on the 16th, your detector goes off and says, "Less than 5% probability of these results arising by chance!" Do you conclude that it's 95% likely that this version is genuinely better? No, because the first 15 failed attempts told you that improving this webpage is actually pretty hard (the prior probability of an effective improvement is low), and now when you see that the 16th attempt has a result with a less than 5% probability of arising from chance, you figure "Eh, it's worth testing further, but probably it is just chance."

Another extremely important point is that the classical statistics you learned to use to decide that something was <5% likely to arise by chance, only apply if you decided in advance to do exactly that many trials and then stop. Your chance of finding, on some trial, that your running total of results is "statistically significant", when A and B are actually identically effective, is considerably greater than 5%. See http://lesswrong.com/lw/1gc/frequentist_statistics_are_frequ... - a trial I ran with 500 fair coinflips had at least one step where the cumulative data "rejected the null hypothesis with p < 0.05" 30% of the time.

You're not really to blame for this mistake, because the horrid non-Bayesian classical statistics taught in college are just about impossible to understand clearly; but it does sound to me like someone at your org needs to study (a) Bayes's Theorem (b) the case for reporting likelihood ratios rather than p-values (likelihood ratios are objective, p-values decidedly not) and (c) the beta distribution conjugate prior (which would make progress toward having priors and likelihood ratios over "These two pages have a single unknown conversion rate" or "These two pages have different unknown conversion rates"). Or in simpler terms, "Someone at your company needs to study Bayesian statistics, stat."