skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There is actually only one thing to do: Code! Get a couple of books in an easy language, maybe Ruby on Rails, or take online classes. Dedicate yourself to spend at least 200 hours (the more the better!) to learn and practice the language. If you enjoy it, CS might be for you. If you find it tedious and horrible, it's probably not for you.
I agree.

Principal Skinner: Here's a whole box of unsealed envelopes for the PTA!

Bart: You're making me lick envelopes?

P.S.: Oh, licking envelopes can be fun! All you have to do is make a game of it.

Bart: What kind of game?

P.S.: Well, for example, you could see how many you could lick in an hour, then try to break that record.

Bart: Sounds like a pretty crappy game to me.

P.S.: Yes, well... Get started.

What works for one child/person may not for any other. Whilst we've seen game-ification take off for many activities, it doesn't mean it's the only way to learn things. If the core activity isn't enjoyable, building a game around it may only encourage someone temporarily.
Haha, the reason I love HN is because of vicious responses like this.
Obsessive micro-optimization obscuring the function of code is always a mess.

You are correct that the mess is language agnostic. For example, if he'd attempted to discard the low order bit of his prime numbers in C, it would result in the same awful maintenance.

Some optimizations waste too much programmer time to be worth tackling. Distorting the meaning of code for some tiny performance gains never constitutes "well-structured" code.
How to properly use UTF-8 in Perl
If the conversation points are correct, then there's nothing wrong with making them.

As something like Bitcoin becomes more popular, people will naturally have questions and concerns. Should they search for the answer before asking? Maybe, but it doesn't really matter if they don't. People are free to downvote them for asking. But they don't, and the resulting conversation becomes interesting for those who haven't seen its variants, such as me.

You've been a member of HN almost as long as I have. Haven't you noticed the destructive effects meta-discussion has on articles? If so, why are you perpetuating it?
there are changes in dealing with "paper". for instance, if a lawyer has to sign a doc then pdf it and send it, the law firm is going to bill the time that the paralegal took to print, scan, and email that document. this stuff takes longer than you might expect.

that said, the cost of the paralegal isn't the big one among lawyers' fees. fred is just talking generally about a "paperless" process -- a frictionless one that will necessarily have to happen digitally.
The first version of the iPhone (3G) is very slow and clunky. I was just on my sister's last weekend (and I own a iP4) and couldn't believe how long it took some screens to change (in seconds, not milliseconds).

3 year old technology tends to act slow and clunky next to the new hotness. If you want to see slow and clunky, you should have tried it with the original OS. For the 3G 3.1 was the pinnacle of speed for that platform.

Antennagate was overblown due to both the medias action and Apples nonreaction.

This is an ATT problem. Traffic is high in densely packed areas. Of course the solution is to install more antennas, which isn't happening due to NIMBY proponents. And Verizon has carte blanche to NYC.

Maybe most people aren't having these problems you are having.
While the article is old, I think it's a decent howto for installing plan9. Now I just need a use for it...
Plank, a discussion board designed for Dropbox
Noob question: what the hell are you needing identity for?
Here's hoping they don't go as far as Biggest-Loser-style 'in-show' commercial placements.
You don't get shit you don't ask for
Why not just use the one-click-installer? http://www.enterprisedb.com/products-services-training/pgdow... it neatly creates a system user if needed, modifies sysctl.conf (for shmmax) and installs a few items in the Application folder for quickly starting and stopping the server.
In my elementary school, we had math superstars. These were math teaser problems.

One week, one of the problems actually required the use of a calculator (it was specified in the problem).

I remember my father taking me to RadioShack, where he purchased a calculator for me, only to solve this one particular problem.

This was in 1986. This one is from 1976...

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Radio-Shack-EC-490-Scientific-Ca...

Math Superstars link:
http://it.pinellas.k12.fl.us/schools/curlew-es/studentconnec...
Option 3 is pretty much exactly what the most recent rumors suggested: "Armed with licenses from the music labels and publishers, Apple will be able to scan customers' digital music libraries in iTunes and quickly mirror their collections on its own servers, say three people briefed on the talks. If the sound quality of a particular song on a user's hard drive isn't good enough, Apple will be able to replace it with a higher-quality version. Users of the service will then be able to stream, whenever they want, their songs and albums directly to PCs, iPhones, iPads, and perhaps one day even cars." [1]

[1] http://www.macrumors.com/2011/05/26/some-icloud-music-servic...
Reminds me a lot of when Groupon was looking to raise $1bil and everyone squawked. Aggressively hiring sales teams alone is an absolutely massive undertaking. Google doesn't (didn't?) understand that because they are under the notion that good technology can alleviate massive sales team. Thus why I feel they haven't been able to compete with Groupon's offering and rapid expansion. Even though Airbnb is not a 1-1 comparison to Groupon I think it still holds some relevance.

The overall point is that business is still conducted by people. Even in today's e-commerce era, people still want to be treated like a human beings by human beings - and us Americans are bloody expensive human beings.
RIM troubles: Co-CEOs shown door?
"Display advertising on the web has surely been around for longer than Flash?"

True, but pretty much only as static displays.
I do agree, though, HTML5 isn't a game changer, just another means to deliver moving content (only open, and not proprietary to one company)
Run Android applications on iOS
you know, there's no need what so ever to convert your existing JavaScript or any third-party libraries to coffee script when you are moving to rails 3.1.

You can just keep your existing JS code, or, if you want to port that, call directly into JS libraries from your new coffescript code.
News release: Heroku Now Includes Full Node.js Support
Or, um, Gmail/Hotmail/Yahoo! Mail.
learn python / php. Do some small projects. A calculator, something that pulls data from a database and displays a table. Whatever, but start small, then get bigger.

if you still like it, go ahead, and try to make small website with django for python, or codeigniter for php.

Personally, I think programming isnt hard to learn, but it needs some basic skills, and passion, which you will get if you like it. You know you really like it, if you sit at work, and think "oh, I could implement feature X into my site" or "Im an idiot, thats a much better way" :D
"real value" is not very clear a concept.

Gold does not have much intrinsic value (not actually correct anymore, in our modern world gold is used quite a bit in industrial contexts): apart from being shiny, before the 19th century there wasn't much it could be used for. The vast majority of its value was extrinsic and pretty much arbitrary, in its use as part of monetary exchange systems.

The same can be said of diamond, by the way.
It's a nice side project, but I can't see the functional usage of coffeescript in the long term. The whole concept of "compiling" to get valid javascript seems odd. It's not as if JS is a hard language or a particularly verbose language.
“This University has invested profitably in real estate for the last thousand years!”

“Yes, but the last thousand years may have been atypical.”
So does anyone know who runs the HAckerNewsTips twitter?
you dont need 200 hours to see whether you like it, or not. You just need the basics, you dont have to be a master of the language in the end.
There's two scenarios but both have their problems

1) only works with music purchased from iTunes. Not much use

2) works with all music. how does Apple verify that you actually own the music (and if they've got a licensing deal with the record labels they'll need to keep them happy)

The way to solve both problems is to offer a subscription service like Microsoft's Zune Pass. Pay a monthly fee and stream any music you like.
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The article mentions the Postgres installer, but mostly assumes the reader uses Homebrew (MacPorts is mentioned at the bottom as well). I have no way to get real numbers, but given Homebrew's overall popularity on Github, I suspect that assumption is a good bet for a very large number of Rails developers on OSX.

Once you choose a package manager, it tends to be easier to always use that, rather than use one-off binary installers. (In fact, the one-off binary installers can lead to known permissions problems when it comes to Homebrew specifically.)
SecurID: No Need for the Seed
It's quite often the case that the dark side of things is where a lot of innovation comes from, whether it's criminals, porn kings, pirates etc.
Why JMIFX (Business Opportunities)
"Competing companies do the same things, duplicating effort, mostly to make a profit. (e.g. Do we really need so many social gaming companies?)"

In theory, we don't "need" more than one of anything: one telecom provider, one computer maker, etc. And they could be more efficient if they didn't have to spend money on advertising, etc.

But the history of monopoly companies seems to show that without the need to compete, companies do not improve their product or its cost-efficiency. So it appears that the loss of efficiency created by having many companies reinvent the process to make a widget is outweighed by the efficiency gains each company makes in an effort to out-compete others. Hence, better, cheaper widgets for less money.

As to the value of social gaming companies, I think it's nearly nil, but apparently millions of other people disagree.
Still, you'd have to write a similar Chrome extension if you meet your trolls again in a random blog's comment section.

Also, if everybody knows that everybody's news client has a killfile, then there is a stronger incentive not to troll than when all you know is that some clever developer could theoretically write a site-specific script to hide HTML comments.
I think the problem with Economics in this case (I'm an undergraduate) is that it has become overly mathematical, often for its own sake.

A great article to read is here: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30042661 - much of UG level Economics can be taught and explained with the use of diagrams and graphs.

Overall, I think the generation gap argument is fairly sound - we aren't taught in the same way that our parents and their parents were, and for better or worse, this is how it is.
Very interesting. If Apple is able to pull this off I'll be very impressed, but I can't see how the record labels will go for this.
Fedora 15 Review
How does he get his monitors to go vertical like that? Is there some rotation software (for Linux)?
What do you mean not mature? This has been on the market in cars since the sixties. Audi has had it in their top models for over a decade. It's just expensive
Intel: Ultrabooks Will Dominate
Something I recently discovered: the secret to deliberate practice is to consciously enjoy it by entering more deeply into the experience. This approach is the opposite of enforced drill. Thus, when you are bored and enjoyment starts to flag, you stop immediately (nothing is lost by this).

Enjoyment both motivates further practice and makes what you are trying to learn more memorable. For example, if you are memorising a phrase in a foreign language, you revel in the fruity sounds you are making and in the delicate dance your lips and teeth and tongue are performing; you marvel at the pattern of connections between the meaning of the phrase and other ideas you have learnt.

It goes against the grain because one of the legacies of schooling is the assumption that learning is difficult and painful. (Paradoxically, by continuing to believe this one makes it so.)
Apple Confirms the Approach of the iCloud
Some background, what exactly happened here? I mean other than the various Linux mascots in a picture.
There is a solution to this problem. If someone releases a new Bitcoin client (and miners) that run on only 1% of the available processing power...

It's fairly easy to throttle a bitcoin client.

But if they mean run slower but do the same amount of work that's not possible unless someone makes a dedicated chip to do the needed calculation.
"It's not just the way we are, it's the way we are under capitalism."

What line of reasoning makes you think that humans are naturally unselfish and are made so only by an external economic system (which is itself created by humans)?

Judeo-Christian thought says that humans are naturally sinful and selfish. Evolution says that the fittest survive at the expense of others (though this may involve cooperation with related creatures). Who says we're all basically nice?

"But I agree that the wastefulness of Bitcoin is nothing compared to the waste caused by capitalism as a whole."

What system would you have instead of capitalism? If socialism or the like, can you give an example of when that has ever worked well? There are many counter-examples in history, you know. Workers sitting down doing nothing because the government quota said to only make 250 pairs of shoes today, etc.
Arab numerals, negative numbers, basic statistics, understanding interest rates and compounding (for mortgages), basic accounting. These are skills common people can no longer do without.
I know that everyone wants over-the-air syncing and all that, but I would much rather have a better notification system and lock screen in iOS 5.

I can imagine a lot of creative/useful 'Lock Screen Apps' being released if Apple would just release an API to access it.

Like what pg said about giving an inch to a hacker and they'll take you a mile.
It looks like a great overview. One thought: you might mention Lunchy (https://github.com/mperham/lunchy) as a nice Ruby-friendly way to manage the not-so-nice, not-so-friendly launchctl business.
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The thousands of users comments amounted to a power struggle between those appalling that managed to get a ticket and those who have only a proverbial wing and a prayer.
xrandr (use "xrandr --output <output> --rotate (normal|right|left|inverted)", e.g. "xrandr --output DVI1 --rotate right")

Ubuntu also has a graphical tool for this, probably also other distributions.
Web Bolshevism: Google's rel canonical nofollow patchy mess
I don't understand why they have to go from zero breaks to four per hour. Why not just one or two? A break every hour is not too bothersome and sometimes convenient or even welcome. A break every half-hour is sometimes disruptive but not too bad, and certainly understandable if the programs are only an hour to begin with. But an interruption every 15 minutes and the fragmentation starts to become irritating, even if the promotional content is not as offensive as typical television advertising.
To differentiate objects one from another.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_%28object-oriented_pro...

"identity is the basis for polymorphism in object-oriented programming."

In a purely functional object-oriented programming you don't need identity. But then that practice is almost indistinguishable from usual pure functional programming we have for at least 20 years with Haskell.
Good point. I have an Aussie bill somewhere in my drawer at home. That's a cool banknote.
Depends. You might not be convicted, but the judicial system is not known for being very technologicaly adept. You might be arrested while they sort it out, that can damage your reputation.
https://github.com/pornel/rgba-hq2x + http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/de/Doom_ingame_1.... = http://i.imgur.com/q8dwj.png

It doesn't look good, as there's not enough high-contrast edges for hqx to work.
You need to adjust the segment length to reflect your current success/failure. Either that, or you need to slow down. I'm viewing this from a musician's perspective, but those are the two basic tools in my practice toolbox:

1) slow down until comfortable
2) isolate the thing that is giving you the actual trouble, and fix that before attempting the bigger challenge

The thing to avoid is practicing mistakes. These two basic principles attempt to minimize that.
The irony is that most students had to be taught to abhor such failure in the first place.
By excluding pirated music, they'd also be excluding people who bought music legally on CD or via another music service like Amazon, or music that is released under a free to trade license, like the stuff on archive.org and etree.org.

Amazon, archive and etree are very marginal groups, but I can't imagine they'd lock out everyone's old CD purchases.
I fixed my t42 motherboard by soldering a tiny wire over a blown fuse.

I was in the process of replacing the failed fan on the CPU heatsink. (Had to transplant the fan from a smaller heatsink that came from a lesser t42 with a smaller heatsink that didn't fit... Long story.) Prior to the procedure, I wanted to carefully see if there was even voltage on the FAN pins. I wasn't careful enough and thought I shorted the pins. Indeed, when I connected the working fan, it didn't work. So I figured that a fuse blew somewhere. Did some searching on the web, found a partial schematic for the board, found the 1mm x 2mm FAN_FUSE (or something) and soldered a wire on top of it. To my surprise it worked. Still using that t42 when on the go.

This t42 is my Oliver, basically.
I'm not at all convinced there will be a limit, at least not such a small limit as 10GB.

I read somewhere that Apple are going to replace music files you have with higher quality files. I suppose this means they are not really storing every single file separately.
Productivity tip: buy a caravan. Gotta admit, that's the first time I've seen that one.
When I was freelancing, I used Highrise (http://highrisehq.com/) for my CRM. They have a free account that's pretty good for a bunch of contacts.

Worth a mention.
I agree with tons of the other posts, just dream up something very basic you want to accomplish with some code and just blindly do it. Emulating a web browser with Python's urlopen is a lot of fun. Also, the graphics language Processing is incredibly instantly rewarding at least in a geez-wow kind of simple programming way for beginners.
It is a difficult issue. I do a mathematics and computer science degree hence there's obviously no real lack of mental arithmetic maths skills for this degree (well, at least the basics are consistent across the maths students).

Anywhoo, this is - IMO - something that the author's college should look at collectively. If there are some students and professors with massively different ideas of the required level of mental maths skills, perhaps the college should look at introducing a mandatory first year 'mental maths' crash course/module?

This would help to make things a little more consistent. If there's genuine confusion/disagreement between the students and Professors, this should - IMO - be addresses by a course-wide decision being made.

Regarding programmable calculators - they can be reset in about 2 seconds total (it's usually Menu -> Settings -> Memory -> Reset All).

In our University, the exam invigilators ensure that all programmable calculators are reset (with them watching them being reset, of course) before the start of the exam.

So I'm not sure why this (to me) fairly obvious idea seems to be overlooked in the article? As I say, it takes 2 seconds total.

An interesting article though; even though I think the author/prof is approaching things in a slightly muddled (for want of a better - non insulting- term!) way. The college should (IMO) decide on how they want to approach things, and then be consistent across all modules and all Professors.
Why Crime Keeps Falling
Seems to me there was an article a few months back on how the use of GPS in cars was handicapping drivers -- damaging their ability to form and manipulate abstract mental maps.

I'm of the opinion that you should always learn the thing at about two levels down in automation from where you normally use it. So, for programming, I'm all for assembler, compiler, and C programming skills, even though those might never be used in the real world. By the same principle, if you're learning navigation in an airplane, you should learn dead reckoning and a wet compass. If you're learning to driver and shoot a tank you should have pretty good concepts of how rifle combat works, etc.

In math and economics, however, I'm not sure what "2 levels down" means. Is math the rote memorization and repetition of stuff? Most definitely not. But does it depend on it? Maybe. Is it the application of pre-existing patterns in any fashion -- such as punching numbers into a calculator? I don't think so. I think it's much more about the ability to teach yourself to find and exploit patterns through trial and error. That's one of the reasons I've always thought so highly of High School Geometry classes -- when done well, they begin to teach how to think, not just what to think.

Food for thought.
Interesting article. I think Google is the most innovative company out there and their success clearly reflects that. But the way they've been handling the web lately does not please me. They shouldn't guide the web, the web should guide them. Web bolsheviksm is an interesting term, i think it'll catch on for this sort of initiative.
Is that relevant to the analysis of the level of human development and well being? Kashmir probably lags behind because of the conflict, but the numbers for India as a whole are probably in the same direction as shown in the UN report.
I think we should aim for "quantitative intuition" by teaching how to do rough calculations instead of spending time teaching precise calculations.

This is like saying we should teach children how to swim by letting them splash around in the wading pool.

In real life there is often so many uncertainties in the source numbers that a 'precise' answer is not meaningful anyway.

Math is precise. That's the whole point of it. I don't want my banker, accountant, civil engineer, pilot, cartographer, or architect working on "good enough". I want them to be precise. Consistently.
I knew I felt some unease with Scala's abbreviated lambda syntax, but couldn't pin down what it was that bothered me. Seeing these examples clarified it:

def apply() = l map (_())

println (users filter (_.age < 18))

def addOneToAll(a: Int, b: Int) = (a + 1, b + 1)

The first two uses of () are anonymous functions, the last is a tuple. The only way to tell them apart, best I can tell, is the use of _ turns the scope of the surrounding parens into a lambda.

Clojure uses the reader macro #() to indicate an anonymous function.

#(< (.age %) 18)

For me, at least, having a visual clue to distinguish between abbreviated lambda syntax and other kinds of expressions (tuples in the case of Scala) greatly improves code readability.
Apple drops secrecy, confirms iOS 5, iCloud on tap at WWDC 2011
I read years ago that taking notes about everything diminished our capacity to memorize things. Now I can't remember where I left my notepad ;) (But seriously, exercizing our natural gift of thought is essential for good brain shape.)