skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The Khan Academy has an interesting model, not necessarily for the videos themselves (which as far as I have seen are basically a modern version of videotaping a college lecture, albeit a well-explained lecture by an intelligent teacher) but more for the infrastructure built up to support the videos. I won't go into my views on lectures or flipping the classroom - others have already voiced my concerns on that front.

One item in particular that hasn't been much discussed here is the self-paced exercises. In here, students can try a problem, to see if they understand the content; and they keep trying until they get 10 in a row. The Khan Academy logs data about how many tries and how long it takes, so they have data on what they consider to be "mastery" (this may be an oversimplification...) There is also a certain game-play aspect which I think is kinda cool, and I like the map of linked concepts/exercise sets. As far as I see, they only have math problems up there as of now.

At face value, it looks like plug-and-chug, drill-and-kill methodology that irks any teacher of merit. But: there are opportunities to take this infrastructure and make it so much stronger ("formative" vs "summative").

Diagnoser.com is an example of an online exercise bank that includes aspects of several decades of physics education research (also some chem and life science) but the concept could be generalized for other disciplines as well. Each question includes "distractors" (wrong answers) that appeal to certain common misconceptions (what they call "facets" of understanding). If you get it right, great! you go on to another problem that might pose a similar question with a twist to challenge you. If you get it wrong, it recognizes from your answer what your misconception might be, gives you a quick mini-lesson to challenge your thinking on that, and gives you a related (though not the same) problem to see if you get it (for physics teachers: like an interactive FCI). The data is reported to the teacher, including right/wrong answers, and the "facets" that correspond to certain ideas and misconceptions. The teacher can see where their teaching (or in this case, Khan videos) have been effective, and where they could use more work (perhaps suggesting the student watch or review a particular video). NOTE: this is only one aspect of the Diagnoser Project's larger program, so I have taken it out of context, but it seems appropriate for this discussion.

This formative approach is effective especially for the conceptual problems, not just the plug-and-chug problems that I saw on the KhanAcademy.org site. Yes, this is much more difficult to program than "right/wrong, next!" problems, and requires research to write good facet-based "distractors" (take advantage of years or decades of education research out there!) but it (a) gets more useful data than just "right/wrong" and (b) allows students to act on their wrong answers immediately by challenging them to think about why it was wrong. I think incorporating something like this with Khan's gameplay/scoring/data collection methods would make the exercise feature much stronger.
It doesn't strengthen software patents. It upholds the lower court's decision and says the standard of proof will continue to be applied as it has in the past. Ruling in Microsoft's favor would have loosened the requirements to prove a patent invalid.

Don't get me wrong, it's the least favorable of the two, but it doesn't make things worse; it just doesn't make things better.
How is the bandwidth use, do the clients only get the audio or the video as well? I'd like a single-user version of this that works with keyboard media hotkeys, possible?
Using scaffold code makes me feel uneasy. I'd much rather see things like this extracted into a gem and accompanied with a short tutorial or screencast explaining how to use the gem rather than code that may be overkill, can't be updated easily, and will quickly become stale.
Absolutely agree.. CSAs and farmers markets are great ways to support responsible agriculture. We joined a CSA last year, and I have nothing but great things to say about it.

Anyone interested in eating better should look into it. http://www.localharvest.org is a good site to find a CSA near you.

Note that CSAs usually take applications during the winter months. So you probably can't sign up now, but keep it in mind for next year.
In what practical sense did Apple's original rules ever impact Amazon's Kindle app? Are you just saying Apple was playing chicken with Amazon? Ok. They lost. And?
> I can't recall if it still keeps a small reminder icon on the bottom.

It does this if you don't swipe it away and you interact with some other app. So, if I'm writing an emial and a text message comes in, it will show up with the full notification, but if I touch the email again, it will show the tiny reminder icon.
The rumor is that they won't be doing an incubator class anymore - they want to move up stream and do more fund style investing.
Will iTunes Match Let Apple See Your Pirated Music?
Yes, I think scaffolding is primarily a helpful learning tool... especially for learning how to wire/connect different gems, javascript libraries, etc., together into a working example. Often no single gem will provide everything you need.

But you have to take the time to learn from the example, or I agree you'll get nothing out of it.
Who were the promoters behind the dutch's net neutrality law? 
Politicians, activists, organizations, etc.

Here's an article about the law: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/09/netherlands_1st_european_country_to_adopt_net_neutrality/
Ask HN: Is it wrong to write another Syslogd?
HN Hivemind:

Ive ended up writing a (rather simple) distributed syslogd (I'll be posting the code on GitHub in a week or two, once I've gotten the code REALLY matured) using C# and basic threading. So far, I've outclassed syslog-ng (I can handle 12k/msgs a minute on a 900Mhz P3 and have the load <2, while syslog-ng can only handle 4k/msgs a minute with a load of >6)

So, is it wrong to write /another/ syslogd implementation?
Maybe I am confused. What do you mean by that?
If you enjoyed the security of NAT in IPv4, you're free to continue using it in IPv6.
That's interesting to me. What service do you use that lets you quickly generate new addresses? Or are you running your own server?
but it doesn't make things worse; it just doesn't make things better

Absolutely correct. Man, I wrote a bad comment. :-)

When I said it makes it stronger, I meant against the alternate universe where MS wins the case. Your statement is much clearer.
I think you're describing the Nook Color and/or Nook.
APPtrition - or why app store size does not matter that much
Why would you try to sell Apple's syncing to someone using Windows and Android? It's for people using Macs and iOS, though while before I only asked for Windows client with SSL, I now add the requirement of portable (I don't work on any Windows computers I own or have admin access on).

If something a bit nicer, bit differently integrated, like Cloudapp tried to fill the gap I wonder what it would need.
"leftist" and "anti-intellectual" as used here are just fighting words (just for emotional effect). I wouldn't read too much into them.
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UML, if you're lucky.
"Right after that e-book competitor shut it's doors (It's been like 3 weeks.)"

"This is how apple kills off competitors. They "experiment", competitors close shop, then they come to their senses and undo the damage."

Do you really think Apple went through all this to kill off some tiny company building software for their platform? No. They're relenting to make sure companies like Amazon, Netflix, and major newspaper and magazine publishers stay on iOS.

"I am surprised Apple is not being brought up on monopoly charges."

In what market does Apple enjoy a monopoly?
Graphing the migration patterns of Silicon Valley engineers
Nice. I've used extension methods from time to time but not in this way. Could prevent you from writing if foo != null a lot if you have an extension method by doing: public static bool Exists(this Foo foo) { return foo != null; }

So then you can say if(foo.Exists()) { foo.bar(); }

Or make Exists return an instance of Foo (foo if not null, a new Foo if not) and go with foo.Exists().bar();
If you're looking for meaningful work (and a rollercoaster ride as fast as any startup) Barack Obama's re-election effort is hiring for their digital team:
http://www.barackobama.com/page/jobs
There are a great many things that American society needs that can't be quantified in this way. I think that's what some of this post is getting at. There is value in tech innovation boltering places beyond the places where it is most efficient and profitable.
What can Google do for snail mail?
It's made with a balloon, a vacuum pump and ground coffee: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Oct10/UniversalGripper.h...
>When trying to compete with an established product you gotta offering something more at some price less...

Like the iPhone and it's $600 starting price?
Why is Turntable.fm so addicting?
Wibiya Social Bar is a Friend With Benefits
Well, to be more serious about it, the actual work involved in producing food for a small number of people is not very significant. Once you have your setup built you can have a self-running hydroponic system in place that requires very little work. I grew peppers and tomatoes this way on a 2' by 5' work bench. The only work required during the growing period was occasional water resevoir filling.

I would love to have a large multi-level greenhouse to work with. I suspect that the average backyard could supply enough food for three or four families with about 1hr per week invested in time.
This is still there:

"Apps that link to external mechanisms for purchases or subscriptions to be used in the app, such as a “buy" button that goes to a web site to purchase a digital book, will be rejected"

The Kindle app still doesn't conform to this.
Caving In A Little To BitCoin Mania
bitcoins can apparently disappear, even when you do everything right
Nice. The first one sounds like Officespace, "I'd say in a given day I do about 15 minutes of actual work".
If they wanted to kill them off, why allow them in the App Store at all?
The US has a deep divide in academia between folks who wish the study of philosophy and literature had ended in 1950 or so, and those who embraced what came after (perhaps a little too strongly).

(Alternatively you could maybe draw the line with the end of the Enlightenment, but not quite as starkly...)
WYSIWYG - Wiki Patterns
The word you are looking for is "negative". Negative connotation.

And yes, that is the point of the metaphor.
Yes, and the labels too. Someone said that the labels want to know which songs are most pirated (why? It's not like there are any region restrictions). The article suggests Apple will delete your pirated music (mad, that would suggest Apple is ignorant of other mp3 stores, ripped CDs), and that users will be paying twice for legit music. Yes.. pay 69p for a song, pirate some other music and you'll have to pay $25 a year. Not much really.
Screaming and fighting isn't going to solve their hunger issue. Raiding the fridge will. Fortunately that is exactly what you should want them to do. That's the best place for them to get their food because your fridge should contain nothing but healthy choices.
Right on! Code for America is a prototype project that helps people do just this.

http://codeforamerica.org/
The nose at least seems to have a point. There is no claim that 'the government is weakening algorithms'. The claim is that the government is weakening implementations -- 'applications and protocols' as you put it. He's speculating that proprietary vendors are hiding details about the break-ins because the details would show backdoors for the government. That seems plausible on the face of it. Or am I being too much of a conspiracy theorist?

Half your comment is just ad hominem. He's mentioned no 'sources' in this article, and it's not clear why we should be 'worried'.

It's not a great article, but your response is overblown.
Look like they're going to have to rely on proxies.
Latest release is 1.3.2 which came out in August 2010.
'unvacation' = awesome

I don't want to stop working, however I do want novel visual and situation input.

Brilliant.
It's things like this that would make me want to switch back to an iPhone. In Ireland we are still charged ~€0.11 per SMS though it's possible to buy bundles. My usage doesn't warrant a bundle but charged separately it would still be a considerable chunk of my monthly usage. iMessage would effectively halve my monthly bill and make little dent in my data usage so it's a win win.
10 best remote pc access software’s.
What's old is new again... I'm sure other filesystems reflected this no-visible-filesystem OS mentality, but BFS of BeOS was the earliest one I recall (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Be_File_System) that had metadata, indexing and querying built into the filesystem itself. Apple seems to be making a push to bury the view of the filesystem.

While the quick-search functionality of modern OSs is awesome, being able to arrange things in a hierarchy in the filesystem is also very useful. I guess the OS could go in the direction of tagging, but that seems pretty messy (I'm frightened to think of what would happen to our consulting firm's neatly organized and huge DropBox).
Possibly the most detailed single explanation of this I've ever seen on the internet.
My eyes crossed at "Growing and preparing food is very zen and is a very karmic and devotional practice!"
What about the attacker who compromises your home computer and then is using it remotely while you are not home?

An IP based check won't help you there. This canary would.
Depends on the target and project. (independent IT dude hat on)

- Debian for IPSec
- Arch for Build Servers.
- RedHat/Fedora for "Dumb User Boxes" (That is, things that HAVE TO BE SECURE OR THEY DIE.)

Other than that, its Winserver08/10 because We's A MS Hauze.
I think the government also realized that for the majority of communications, truly strong cryptography is pretty useless. There is always a point where the information is basically worthless to keep secret.

For example, if the president(or other high ranking official) is making a "secret" visit, that information only needs to be kept encrypted for fairly short amount of time(maybe a week or so), which means that a less secure algorithm that takes a few weeks to crack is enough to encrypt the information. That way, even if an enemy gets the information and cracks it, it's useless when they finally read it.

For things that may need to stay secret for longer periods of time, like intelligence reports with the names of informants or long-term defense strategy plans, a stronger encryption method would be needed.
We're building an IMAP-based tool focused on solving #4 - "the power of follow-up" - tracking which you're emails you're waiting on for replies:

http://stacyplease.com

There's other startups that do something similar, usually as a plugin for outlook, gmail, or a particular browser.
"No other language is capable of representing business data as accurately as COBOL,"

What does that mean? How is COBOL better at representing business data than another enterprise platform - say Java, or .NET?
Right. I am quite capable of growing my own fruits and vegetables (and meat for that matter); are they going to buy me the land to do it on? I strongly suspect (since they didn't show their math) that their ROI claims don't include either the cost of the land or opportunity costs.
I don't agree with this, but even if it is, it's still beneficial.
Bloom HN discussion thread:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2421636
Absolutely not wrong: this is the kind of thing that drives progress. You may not get all that many takers, though
Archival Footage: Construction of Oak Ridge during WWII Manhattan Project
In my experience, scaffolding is a crutch for people unfamiliar with Rails. In my connections with experienced Rails devs, I've hardly ever heard of anyone who uses it.

Only time scaffolding comes up in the irc channel, forums, etc, is when beginners ask how they can make scaffolding do X, and the answer is always that you don't, scaffolding is a temporary crutch, just like the name implies. And, experienced Rails devs don't use it, not even temporarily.

So it's probably a completely useless website for experienced Rails devs, while potentially being quite helpful to beginners. An important step towards becoming well versed in Rails is to drop that crutch, though. IMHO, focusing on scaffolding basically keeps you from really immersing yourself in Rails.
I worked at Accenture for 10 years and am on my second yC-funded company after leaving there. While I would never go back to that environment, I praise it for what it is to this day. I strongly believe more than ever you just need to understand yourself and "how you're built" and choose the environment that is most appropriate for you. And that may change over time like it did for me. But some people don't like the risks inherent in startups, or they need more structure to their day and know they don't do good with minimal direction and if that's the case, a place like Accenture is a pretty good place to work.

I wouldn't give back the skills I learned at Accenture and they've been invaluable for working on Inkling, our first B2B business. From day 1 I knew how to deal with large corporate cultures, understood the procurement process, how to manage projects, create a budget, write proposals, deal with various personalities, run a meeting and conduct workshops, conference call etiquette. It may sound simplistic, but I can't tell you the number of deals I've seen blown up simply because people don't really understand the business of business. Those skills are a lot harder to pick up in a startup.
Does anyone here seriously believe that anyone in the Apple department responsible for Wifi Syncing will have ever seen this app and its icon?

Apple will have been working on Wifi syncing far longer ago than last May. I wouldn't be surprised if they had it working when they first launched the iPhone but held it back for other sensible reasons (not everyone had wifi, power usage, speed, reliability, no delta updates etc).

Like Authors are warned by their lawyers not to read or accept fan fiction, Apple's developers will be kept well away from reviewing of apps.

The concept is an obvious one; one that has had much discussion on the internet and on this site in particular.

The icon is the most obvious and clearest solution you can draw. I spend most of my day drawing icons and if you had asked me to create an icon for this I am 100% certain that I would have put a wifi logo into the middle of a sync logo. It is a completely obvious thing to do looking at the respective shapes and line thicknesses.

This is a non story.
I want to work at FeeFighters
Minigroup: Instant private groups. For work or fun.
Ditto, the Apple Newton. Didn't have a file system, just a tagged and indexed object store.

I'm not sure how well it scales.

I do think that simple trees don't work well (and history argues for this: even early versions of Unix had links). A multigraph would be nice, though tough to delete from.
Nice mention for Paul.
Okay, thank you and crux_ for your anwsers.
Except it would still trigger the canary if you click on the email... which is incredibly useful. The big problem isn't necessarily that you've been compromised. Its knowing that you've been compromised.
He was probably referring to the already dying branch of leftist academics who engaged in "post-modernism" and "critical studies." They were not really anti-intellectual, but definitely viewed science and objectivity with a jaundiced eye. The irony is that after hitting its peak in the 80s it became something of a laughingstock within academia and is now usually trotted out as a sly punchline or mechanism for satire/farce within an academic paper (yes, there are still some True Believers clinging to the old ideals and using the joys of tenure to pump out paper after paper, but their numbers and influence are rapidly dwindling to non-existence.)
Why would an intruder use the web interface, anyway? Also, you can tell your web browser not to load any images, so an intruder might do that if they did resort to the web interface.
I have no insight into the NSA's capabilities; I've heard murblings that their practical edge is in knowing classes of implementation flaws that we don't, and in having decades of experience weaponizing those flaws... but for all we know, they have some algebraic structure attack on AES that makes it trivial to break.

However, bear in mind that there's a real dollars-and-cents value to obscurity in cryptography when you're the NSA. When you're the NSA, you know your custom undocumented algorithm isn't trivially breakable (unlike virtually all bespoke commercial ciphers, which end up getting solved by SAT solvers as an exercise). Forcing your adversary to cryptanalyze an entirely new cipher imposes real and severe costs on them.

That alone is a huge motivation to keep their own capabilities secret, and to not use standard algorithms to protect their own secrets --- even if, for all they know, those algorithms are sound.
No, clients are only remotes. There are already (much better) single-user YouTube playlist webapps.
Bandwidth: YouTube Steam + some Ajax and Google Chat running in the background of Client and Server.
This sounds like an implicit disagreement over how "geek" should be defined, which is bound to be a silly argument (on both sides) as it's a slang term that's always meant different things to different subcultures, so there's no "real" definition.

Personally I wouldn't use the word "geek" like he does either, but if you scroll down to "bchjam"'s post on this thread, I think you'll get a good idea of the kind of thing he has in mind =)
My kids make a fuss about eating vegetable in their plate but they really like eating it off from the garden. Peas, carrots, chives, cherry tomatoes and beans rarely make it to the house, they are eaten directly from the garden when the children play outside.
+1 on this. I'm a Ruby contractor and never use scaffolding, and in general I tend to eschew anything that generates a lot of code.

Although, this is probably useful to those with not much Ruby/Rails experience.
I would like to point out to people who say that Apple is being greedy: until they came out with their 30% deal it was normal for Phone companies to ban all software from their phones except for their own. When phone companies did include outside developers software, deals of 90%+ were common (as they still are in the games' industry)
Logging Django Performance Data
This article should be called "4 things you WILL LEARN in a business school."

Communication, networking, adaptation, and follow-up/through have been central tenets of my business education. Having seen both sides of the coin (I have a CS degree and I'm halfway through an MBA), I have to say, this is a very typical and incorrect attitude towards to business education.
The day that everyone joins a CSA is the day that I become a Malthusian. I believe we can easily feed everyone in the world despite record population growth, but it sure isn't going to happen without the technological advances of industrial agriculture.