skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
An odd thing about Larry Sanger in this regard is that he is actually a pretty good positive (in some ways) example of what he claims to decry! Here is what his bio on that page says:

I call myself an "Internet Knowledge Organizer." I started Wikipedia.org, Citizendium.org, and WatchKnow.org, among others. Now I am lucky enough to be able to work full-time on creating free materials for early education, which I am using with my two little boys and sharing with you.

Now, that all sounds pretty interesting. But does it sound like traditional academia? What are his formal credentials in Internet Knowledge Organization? What are his formal credentials in early childhood education? What does he publish in peer-reviewed journals in those areas? It sounds almost as if, despite no formal training in sociology, new media, online communities, pedagogy, etc. (all of which do have established academic fields, which he could've studied if he wished), he just brazenly went out there and started some projects. As far as I can tell, he didn't even read what had been written about those areas. That's cool, but why is he then all negative on the idea in general? If we wanted to apply some strict standard of expertise, Larry Sanger should be publishing in philosophy journals (an area he has formal training in), and staying out of online communities, education, and other areas in which he lacks academic expertise.

In any case, I'm a computer science academic, and in our field I don't see it as a new sentiment: the idea that you can be a brilliant garage hacker with no degree is decades old. I don't think it's overall that negative a relationship, either. It's not necessarily idyllic, but plenty of non-academics are interested in the work of academic research (algorithms, PLs, operating systems, AI). Even in industry, researchy stuff, like what comes out of Google Research and MSR, gets a lot of interest. It might help that some respect is given in the opposite direction as well-- plenty of academics' heroes include non-degree-holding garage hackers.
The Wilderness Downtown - HTML5 Chrome Experiment (with Google's Help)
http://apps.ft.com/ftwebapp/ is slow as a dog, sure flash blob isn't helping.

but http://m.ft.com is clean, nice and fast. personally i often find the mobile version of sites nicer (in a similar way to the print view is often the best way to read a page)

edit: ugh you need to spoof your browser to access http://m.ft.com on the desktop.
For 1011, the next step is 1110 - 0111 = 999, and then... apparently you're supposed to handle that as 9990 - 0999, rather than 999 - 999. Huh. I see.

But I'm inclined to consider that a bug in the definition, rather than in the code. :-} The four-digit-ness came from applying the operation to four-digit numbers, and saying "oh yeah and we'll zero-extend the results to four digits" introduces an ugly element of redundancy.

However, we can make it not ugly anymore by making "zero-extend everything to make it be 4 digits" the primary condition. Instead of applying it to 4-digit numbers, we'll make every number have 4 digits and then apply the Kaprekar procedure. So we'll now be working with the numbers 0000-9999, rather than 1000-9999. (There's no way to zero-extend numbers bigger than 9999 to be 4 digits, so that's all.) Here are the results for 0000-9999:

http://pastebin.com/TQ3cMshV

I think the frequencies of the number of steps to equilibrium are somewhat nicer, as well, when you count 0000-0999. As a simple metric, they have more factors of small primes, especially 2.

1000-9999:
0 steps: 1 = 1
1 steps: 365 = 5 * 73
2 steps: 519 = 3 * 173
3 steps: 2124 = 2^2 * 3^2 * 59
4 steps: 1124 = 2^2 * 281
5 steps: 1379 = 7 * 197
6 steps: 1508 = 2^2 * 13 * 29
7 steps: 1980 = 2^2 * 3^2 * 5 * 11

0000-9999:
0 steps: 2 = 2
1 steps: 392 = 2^3 * 7^2
2 steps: 576 = 2^6 * 3^2
3 steps: 2400 = 2^5 * 3 * 5^2
4 steps: 1272 = 2^3 * 3 * 53
5 steps: 1518 = 2 * 3 * 11 * 23
6 steps: 1656 = 2^3 * 3^2 * 23
7 steps: 2184 = 2^3 * 3 * 7 * 13
"Nobody learning about physics reads the original Newton[1] because there are better ways to phrase the same insights that are easier for students to digest."

I would take issue with that. The way kids are taught calculus in high school ignores everything Newton did because it's not the most efficient way to teach kids how to solve AP problems. But without going back and learning about the questions that Newton was trying to answer, you don't actually understand how calculus works even if you can do it by rote. So at best kids learn it for the test and then forget it because they don't actually understand how it works, and more likely they never really gain any ability to begin with.

Sanger's essay is in praise of school and formal education, but in fact what's taught in school is more often than not just a showy pretense of false economy. It's only when you leave the classroom and have time to really engage with the classics and other substantive works on your own that you can actually start to understand how the world actually works. Don't get me wrong, some form of formal education would be the best way to learn if it actually delivered what people said it did, but it doesn't. This whole essay is intellectually dishonest because high schools and colleges don't even deliver anything remotely close to what Sanger is pretending, at least not for the vast majority of people who go through them. But then again, Sanger has been pretty much full of shit for the better part of the decade. If you actually go through and read his original writing on this topic, it's clear that what he really wants isn't a more intellectual culture, but rather a free pass on being able to make up facts without citing any sources because he has a Ph.D.: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25
"Politics" seems to be an excuse for giving up these days. I think baby boomer parenting techniques have left a generation with very little resolve in the face of adversity.
Definitely agree. I am actually wearing my Startup Weekend jacket right now (I help with NYC) and I got started volunteering. There is a limit on this, but if there is room, I would highly recommend getting involved with this organization.
I doubt I'm your target market, so feel free to ignore me, but do you have a page that explains what you're really offering minus all the marketing hand waving? It sounds like it might be interesting but it's difficult to wade through the 10,000 ft view stuff.

For example, I just picked this mouseover that interested me:

The threat challenge page stops known threats and alerts infected humans that they need to take action.

Is there anything that elaborates on that? From a security perspective, I'm drawing a blank as to what a reverse proxy filter is achieving there. You're rewriting html destined for ddos zombies?
And today's smartphones (which have this technology) are tomorrow's relics. That's the OP's point. Right now it's just on the high end, but today's high end will be the low end in the not-too-distant future. My friends used to wish we could have those cool high-end camera phones — and now my mom's crappy relic has one, with a better camera to boot.

You say, "Not everyone has a smartphone and not everyone has a data plan." But that's not the point. What people have isn't relevant — it's what they will have in 10–15 years.
Newton is not a classical author. "Classics" basically refers to philosophy, theology, literature and history from 600BC to 600AD. Humanities in Greece and Rome.
Ver Triunfo Del Amor Capitulo 162 | Ver Triunfo Del Amor Online
Twitter Now Automatically Shortens Links
You could also try to move to a place that offers more than a binary choice. (Winner-takes-all voting sucks in this regard.)
aeohu
Yep, and when you find ways to volunteer, you help increase the value of the ecosystem for everyone
If the general behavior of multiplex isn't clear to the api-user from the example:

multiplex('Tom', 4) == 'TomTomTomTom'

I'd argue that's a failure of the api designer that no amount of documentation is going to make up for.

Examples are good, testing is good, executable, testable documentation is doubly good, and predictable, intuitive api interfaces are invaluable; everything else is a liability that is going to go stale.
SayClip Brings Free, Private Video Messaging To The Web And Mobile
But that is a good point you make :) Is it maybe not the documentation that matters so much but the semantics communicated through the code itself?

Documentation is important, its just how its done today that bothers me. I have been reading the book "Computational Semantics with Functional Programming" and it has been quite intriguing. I would highly recommend it.
Evolution selects for genes that manage to leave lots of descendants.

Actually, it selects for different things in different environments.

r-strategists, that leave as much offspring as possible starting as early in life as possible survive well in unstable environments. Heaps of offspring is being produce, but only a small percentage survive to reproduce.

In stable, predictable environments, however, K-strategists thrive. They leave less offspring, but care for them long enough and good enough so that most of the offspring survive. Think species like humans, whales, elephants etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory
And the tank is not always full, nor the hopper.

Requiring 100% replacement/utility is not a useful position. If we want to reduce (notice I didn't say eliminate) use of fossil fuels, then we have to pursue a mix (including fossil fuels).

Edit: You didn't actually require 100%, but this edit is an easier correction than a correction.
Re: Safari, yes, you can have MobileMe sync your keychain, which contains your saved login info, etc.
But here is the question.

Do people buy the iPad because of the magazines or the magazines because of the iPad?

In other words. Does it really make a difference if they leave? Is that really anything to worry about? Will that really mean the end of native apps?

Again apple is not depending on the subscription apps to make money. It's the other way around.
You right. But you can't think of the html5 app as a device app. That's comparing apples to oranges. It's a web page, designed specify for IOS (Safari/Webkit).

BUT for companies who don't have the resources (or don't want them) is a nice way to get into the ios market. Of course, if you serious you better roll out xcode.

But there are plenty of applications where the html5 wep app makes sense. Like a company hosting it on their intranet (we do.. marketing data mostly). FT (print media) is another. Actually, I bet FT they had an easier time writing the web app then they did their ios app (which sucked.. I had it). And I wonder why the NYT, WSJ (etc, etc) haven't dropped their ambitions and move to an html5 web app.

As a side note.. most of the print media company apps suck. I mean they are just terrible. I can think of only a few that are ok: USA Today, the Economist. I mean just look at the reviews of the NYT app. It's a joke. Want a bigger joke, go look at the Ars Technica app. My god.. a tech journal can't even get it right.
Is Twitter Now Going After Third-Party URL Shorteners, Too?
Steve Jobs rests his head against his wife [Photo]
I didn't think he was all that engaging. Then again, public presentations are only a sliver of what a CEO has to do, for better or worse. I don't see a clear successor.
Contacting 25 people before finding the right one seems like a lot, but you did have very restrictive criteria.

I guess my point is that Dribbble is the best starting point, not because it makes the search easy (it doesn't), but just because it has the best designers. It's a bit like mining for diamonds instead of copper: diamonds are harder to find, but also more valuable.
I agree with everything fugoki said, but here are some more observations:

* Can't middle-click results to open in new tab (Chrome / Windows XP...if I remember I'll check it out on my laptop (Linux) when I can).

* Dropdown for "Show 10/20.../All Entries" should look the same as the dropdown for make and model.

* The only clue that it was UK-only was the use of PS, not USD. I could imagine people not noticing that, and being confused about the results (it took my American postal code with no problem...)

* The dude in the logo has too much...jowls, or something. Maybe I'm crazy.

* I predict problems with owning carspy.co and not carspy.com.

* That's a slick slider you have to select the price/age/distance. Nice.
I think this essay's definition of anti-intellectualism is incoherent -- must I disrespect knowledge itself, disrespect all education beyond grade school, disrespect War and Peace, or merely disrespect Nicholas Carr, in order to be labeled an anti-intellectual? -- so it's hard to make a definitive response.

But here's a partial response, focused strictly on the phenomenon of college education:

It would be easier to embrace academia if the inflation-adjusted cost of going to school were stable or decreasing, rather than growing at 6.8% per year between 1987 and 2009:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/144835-college-tuition-expla...

With a few exceptions -- gods bless MIT Open Courseware and the Khan Academy -- the academy does not scale, nor does it even try very hard. The Internet gets more inclusive every year. The academy does not. As economies grow around the world and the web gets built out, we add more and more people to our public discourse, and the percentage of those people who've gone to Harvard just gets smaller and smaller.

It would be easier to embrace academia if a young academic had more than a snowball's chance in hell of finding an academic job. Nostalgic baby boomers can look back at a time when new colleges were going up at a great rate and they were all hiring staff. Not so much anymore. I know lots and lots of people who would love to do laboratory research, for example... in a world where it didn't involve an enormous pay cut, enormous career risk, incredible devotion, high stress, difficult politics, and potentially the sacrifice of one's family life.

It would be easier to embrace academia if academic research, much of which is paid for with public funds, was published in open journals that all taxpayers could read for free, instead of in expensive private journals that only other academics can access for "free" via their university libraries.

And a lot more people would be touting the virtues of college degrees if the unemployment rate for college graduates weren't at its highest point since 1970:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2010-12-06-...

It may not be entirely the intellectuals' fault that college education costs more than before and can take longer than ever to pay off [1], but you can't expect people not to complain about it.

---

[1] AFAIK college education does pay off, handsomely, even now. Although if tuition keeps growing and wages do not, shouldn't we feel free to wonder, out loud, how much longer this can remain true? Isn't that what a numerate intellectual might wonder?
Sounds like they didn't have enough in the supply chain in the short run and picked and choosed. ouch.
> Oh, so these features are comparable in effort and scale to an entire web browser and HTML5-compliant rendering engine then?

Strawman, I never said the Chrome team deserved all the credit, or that KHTML did for that matter. All I meant was that the WebKit team didn't deserve all the credit as it's clearly a shared effort between the three of them, not to mention Nokia and others. Also my initial comment was answering a post mentioning HTML5 features.
YouTube - Stanley Cup Game 3 Bruins vs Canucks Fight 2011
No, that's what Apple says, to placate users demanding Flash support.
I think Sanger has conflated multiple streams of argument here.

The first is marxist and postmodernist critiques of the classics. "Dead White Men" and all that jazz.

The second is the demoticism (not the democratisation) of the internet.

These are unrelated, in my view. The PoMx/PoMo criticism is more political, in my view, than what it purports to critique. The change in demoticism is itself not a fundamental change but a rhyming riff on what has happened in the past.

Today the classics have never been more accessible. But just as when Penguin Classics was introduced, most people want penny dreadfuls, potboilers, comic books and a generous helping of porn.
They're called Derp-sters.
It's a false dichotomy. Engineers are people that do engineering work. Managers are people that manage projects and people. Even if you're from an engineering background (like a lot of the senior managers at Google) once you start managing people, you're a manager. It's not a matter of giving power to "the management," it's that by definition managers are the people that have power.
Of course a product would evolve in 9 years, that doesn't mean that the credit for the full browser goes to Apple. If so, then why did they have to fork KHTML in the first place? Of course, KHTML benefited too, because of the LGPL/GPL licensing, but that doesn't change facts now.

Instructive link, Apple praising KHTML and reasoning why they used it http://lists.kde.org/?l=kfm-devel&m=104197092318639&...

So, saying that Google took Apple's full browser is not really true, Chrome mostly took Webcore, they have their own JS engine and their own UI chrome(!), and WebCore has a lot of roots in KHTML
I don't like Agile. Does that make me a dinosaur?
There is a new geek pragmatism, but that is not the same thing as anti-intellectualism.
there would be no trial. USA PATRIOT ACT was passed a loooong time ago
I had written a really long response here, drawing on my experience as a software tester.

I've deleted my post and have decided to argue my point in another fashion. Please enlighten me to the meaning foo(), here is the documentation:

tests = [
#Format: [InputA, InputB, InputC, InputD, Output1, Output2]
[1, 2, 3, 4, 12, -7 ],
[2, 3, 4, 5, 27, -14],
[3, 4, 5, 6, 48, -23],
[4, 5, 6, 7, 75, -34],
[5, 6, 7, 8, 108, -47],
[6, 7, 8, 9, 147, -62],
]

for a, b, c, d, o1, o2 in tests:
failUnlessEqual((o1, o2), foo(a, b, c, d))

Can you tell me what foo() does please? Its a ridiculously simple function. I work with tests like this quite often. It doesn't confuse me though, I like to put comments in my code and even the test code, but you don't need those.
"We used to sanction treating people as property. We don't now.
We used to sanction discrimination. We don't now."

You aren't much of a 'student of history' if you think either of these was achieved by people following the rules. Countless people broke laws and were killed and jailed for those rights.

"We used to draft people into the military. We don't now."

The draft is still legal, so not sure what your point is here. Should we be celebrating that our benevolent leaders haven't deemed it necessary to use us as cannon fodder in the last few decades, though they reserve the right to?

"At least in the US, the government's "power" springs very directly from the people, its not up to the Government to 'give it up' or not."

If power 'sprang up from the people' in America, we would not have the patriot act or wars in several countries or foreign aid to despotic regimes or Wall Street bailouts or the war on drugs or TSA gate rape at airports or any number of extremely unpopular policies. America is an oligarchy, not a democracy. Power only springs up from the people to the extent that the people are willing to fight and die and go to jail for their rights, just like the subjects of any other corrupt regime.
Sad to see people downvoting valid arguments without replying why.
I guess there's a kind of double meaning of "responsible" at work here. I didn't mean to suggest MS was wrongful in their actions - what they did they did for their own purely business oriented reasons and it worked well for them. It just happened that it resulted in a perception that there is an invisible line between an OS and its apps that an OS vendor won't cross and that if you establish a business on one side of the line you can trust that the OS vendor won't squash you. That line was never real, it just happened that Microsoft couldn't cross it for business & regulatory reasons, so they didn't. But now we come to MacOS and iOS and Apple has no qualms about crossing the line but developers still seem to expect them not to. I attribute that partly to this historical perception that came from the MS era.
I think your hatred of MS is misplaced. The world is almost certainly a better place because of them. Maybe not as better a place as possible, but certainly better. The "MS is evil" meme always struck me as an immature response to MS's imperfections, few companies have done as much to put computing power into the hands of people, and that has had an amazing impact on the world.

As far as google, they'll lose more and more of the fire from their early days as they get bigger and older, but they still have a fairly strong ethical core for any company their size and I think that will help as they age.
محركات بحث Search Engines
محركات بحث Search Engines
You would've thought they could've pirated a better voice synth.

TBH their video editing and their propagandizing are both weak when compared to the awesomeness of the Telecomix Crypto Munitions Bureau: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UNe6U9iFXI

In that video they specifically call out Iran, China and France. "States will fall, undermined by cipherspace... the laws of mathematics always prevail... the oppressive laws will be destroyed..." etc etc. Jokers. This one is fun too, and a bit more specific: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1e_FYy1qMc

And they're nice people as well, who actually know what they're doing. Go and hit up their IRC.

http://telecomix.org/ http://werebuild.eu/
I'm a bit different. I have approximately 10 important passwords that are only in my dead and are between 20-40 characters long. They are completely nonsense phrases with numbers. I noticed that if I make them nonsense I tend to memorize them better. For the rest of non-important stuff I use a password manager.

Funny note*
Once I decided to change my passwords for 2 encrypted drives and a couple of days later I forgot them, so I lost all the information. I recovered some of it cause I also stored it on some non-encrypted drives but still, I learned my lesson. The brain has its shortcoming too. :)
Everything you need to get started in electronics
> look at security centre, movie maker and so on

Even still, anti-virus and movie maker are not default installs (and not even delivered on the install media) which is at least partly attributable to MS still being hesitant to cross that line.
These kinds of discussions remind me of the people who said 20 years ago that calculators were going to make everyone math-illiterate.
It took Nintendo to redefine gaming. Again.
Do you have a breakdown of your own costs? Even in percentiles that would be interesting.
"An odd thing about Larry Sanger in this regard is that he is actually a pretty good positive (in some ways) example of what he claims to decry!"

His premise isn't that making knowledge more accessible is bad. It is that the growing attitude that is comprised of (among other things) "If it's on wikipedia, I don't actually need to know it"
Because their platform is superior to everything else out there.

This seems like opinion presented as fact. I've used iOS and currently own an Android phone, and there's no doubt in my mind that the Android UX is miles ahead of the iOS UX. Of course, I include things like a browser with sync to desktop (Firefox) in my definition of UX, since things like that affect the experience I have while using the product quite a bit.
There is a bunch of other contentEditable implementations you may want to look at, many of them under a permissive open source license:

https://github.com/alohaeditor/Aloha-Editor/issues/121

BTW, the Aloha devs are willing to give exceptions to AGPL at least to open source projects.
Grand theorizing isn't unique to design. I can name probably 20 variants of "x driven development".