skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
So you agree with the diagram is stating: that JavaScript fixes Java's syntax by using the same C-like syntax?

No, the given reason for Java -> JavaScript is completely wrong. I'd understand if the reason was "Java browser applets suck", but syntax?
Let's not forget that, in the US, the US government gives enormous amounts of funding to private universities. So the behavior of universities is not exactly the result of a free market with no government intervention... the government has a huge influence on the way universities work.
Living under a blocky shadow: the world of Minecraft clones
I remember his real name, but not his screen name. Because I don't want to reveal identities, I decided not to use his real name. Sorry for the confusion.
You're right, but I think girls have an even less incentive. Based on my experience as a father of a girl.
the "problem" isn't student tracks or free markets. it's teacher tracks. teacher unions (or monopolies) retard innovation-- and accommodate failures-- as evidenced by the quote.
Biggest hack ever: mint two trillion dollar coins to bypass the debt ceiling
How NFS behavior changes in a virtualized environment
Oracle buys call-center software maker InQuira
"For example, wouldn't all access points send the signals at exactly the same time? How can they insure that? How can they insure the interferences won't have changed between the test signals and when the real signals are sent?"

I think the key is to see the DIDO access points as part of a larger system and not as traditional access points. "So, you can think of the DIDO APs as a vast random array of antennas extending out from the DIDO Data Center for miles" as the whitepaper says. I assume that all the access points will be stationary and will talk to the DIDO centre very regularly. This would be required, at least in my mind, to ensure that their environment characterisation is accurate and up to date and to syncronise transmissions.
The bulk of this data isn't publicly available though. So you really have no idea what your profile looks like to them.
Awesome, so java finally has closures & lambdas?
Well you're have to find a group of students who are willing to spend long hours studying so they can excel academically and that's much easier to do at universities.

I think the intellectual background of many "Black" and "Hispanic" students are different. Their is a strong emphasis on being so called "street smart" instead of excelling academically. So they desire to excel at being a hustler. That problem is compounded with the entertainment industry where many of the successful rappers have a criminal history and they glorify hustling and the thug life. This is frustrating because there are "Blacks" and "Hispanics" that are academics and intellectuals, but their accomplishments is mostly ignored in the noise of pop culture. Many kids get a perverted view of what they should strive for and how they should act. Meaning all of sudden being black becomes synonymous with hustling on the streets, the hard knock life while studying and being clean cut makes you far worst than a nerd, it makes you an uncle tom, a sell out.
Article about this from Wired last month: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/06/perlman-holy-grail-wi...
We thought about doing it this way and opted for the other since it was quick and easy. Great to see your implementation though, may end up just using it :)
To be fair, most Americans consume way too many corn-derived calories already.
from processing import LEFT, mouse_x, mouse_y, mouse_button

Now you don't have to prefix things with `processing` just like you don't in your Ruby version.
Totally. It glosses over the issue that I wanted to understand.

"The full explanation for why this happens is very long and involves immensely complex mathematics, carefully designed software and hardware, and new data communications and modulation techniques. Simply put, DIDO is a cloud wireless system."
So, developers need and want Overview Documentation, and Overview Documentation is not the same thing as Reference Documentation (which is what tools like JavaDoc produce.)

Does anyone find this surprising?

Regarding code examples vs test cases: they're different in the same way Overview docs are different from Reference docs. The code examples are part of the overview, and show the typical / most common ways of using the code. The test cases are like reference docs, and show every nuance and feature of the code, including all variations on argument and response types and error paths.
Biofuel researcher here: The nice thing about switchgrass is that it's a much hardier plant, meaning that you can get it to grow on marginal lands, which means land that wouldn't otherwise be used for crops.

Getting people to grow anything for biofuels is a bit of a double-edged sword, as you want the feedstock to be as cheap as possible, but you also want it to be profitable for the farmers to actually produce so that you can get enough of the biomass. If you improve the yield of viable biomass from the plants that'll go part of the way to solving this.
I would imagine that their builds have something to do with it when it comes to certain sports, however, they excel tremendously in others. Baseball comes to mind with Japan being regarded as the #1 competitor each year in the world cup and Korea also being known as strong top 4 candidate. These could be outliers, but they present a case for Asian countries being able to compete on equal footing in team events.
That is a good point. However, the thing that's attractive to me about Pump is how exceedingly simple it is. A lot of things (like Django) try to do a LOT. The complexity of frameworks like WebOb seem to be growing, and that's a turnoff.

I did take a look at Werkzeug and it's one that is definitely awesome. But I think there's a false expectation that choice is bad. There's nothing wrong with Pump. It's another choice, and the response from the community was "WE ALREADY HAVE THIS" instead of "good job".

There's nothing wrong with Pump (at first glance). And instead of giving it a chance, the reaction is "no thanks". And that's sad.
> Either way, it seems like we all benefit from devices that make doctors more effective.

The problem with your statement and approval is in no way justifies the magic $44K number. Why not a $2 billion incentive for each doctor that switches?
"When someone first told me about AirBnB I immediately dismissed it - just like Fred Wilson did. It fell in the group of ideas which I just find puzzling because the concept is totally alien to something I would want to do/buy/participate in."

I felt the same way about Ebay. How would you guarantee you didn't get junk shipped to you by some individual who changes his ID every day? How would you make sure that the top bidders actually go through on their agreement? The whole things seemed shaky. But it seems to have worked out for them.
Ask HN: Why doesn't Facebook allow you to invite your friends to like a page?
I run the facebook page for a website I work for (http://thewashingtonfancy.com/) and have always been under the impression that anyone could invite their friends to like our page. I only recently discovered that administrators were the only people allowed to invite friends. Any explanations on why this is?
That's quite incorrect, Java is very good about allocating memory, it's often too much, too early.
Why Have Hackers Hit Russia's Most Popular Blogging Service?
Rasmus Lerfdorf (designer of PHP) did an interview where he explained PHP's origins http://www.twit.tv/floss12.

It's been a long time since I listened to the interview, but I think he created PHP to create simple websites. Wikipedia even says the original acronym was "Personal Home Page".
Interesting. In my university collaboration was greatly encouraged. However, I'd say the subjects which I learned best were those in which I worked on the problem sets by myself. The problem sets were hard, so if I could do them on my own, it meant I really had a good grasp on the subject.

I'm not saying collaboration is bad. It's great. But individual work can be just as valuable.
> So why would anybody "accept the Oracle Binary Code License Agreement for Java SE"?

Anybody who wants Oracle commercial support:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/community/open...

Oracle's Commercial Distribution of the JDK

People who want the benefits of commercial support and predictability can choose to use Oracle's commercial distribution of the Java SE JDK or JRE. Oracle's commercial JDK releases will be built from the open-source code, for the most part. Since there's some encumbered code in the JDK, Oracle will continue to use that code in commercial releases until it is replaced by fully-functional open-source alternatives. To learn more about development and deployment support options, visit the Java Support site.
Legal difference between bitcoin and MS Points?
What is the regulatory/legal difference between Bitcoin and Microsoft Points?
Actually, I just wish people would recognize the reality. The important thing is that people don't fool themselves about the need to protect themselves and to be watchful of government power. Most people chant "separation of powers" like a mantra without realizing how much more the "separate powers" have in common.
I also don't understand the need for charging stations to generate their own electricity. I do, however, think the way which electric cars are filled/charged will be fundamentally different than how our current automobiles are filled with gasoline. I think every time an electric car is parked, it will be plugged in, either to charge or to send power back to the grid. Perhaps the net metering part is what they meant by the ability of stations to generate their own power. I think "stations" will be ubiquitous, with outlets in most major parking lots. This scenario still doesn't help people who want to take long road trips on their electric vehicle but it does cover most use cases.
Watch out for the Commercial Features as defined in table 1.1 of this document http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/documentation/...

Commercial Features appears to be jRockit technology.
That is a good point. Not to say that there isn't teamwork involved, but I would argue that baseball is slightly different in that there is a higher emphasis on individual skill than on teamwork. The better counter-argument would perhaps be the Chinese women's volleyball team that won Gold Medal in the Olympics (can't remember which Olympics, but they won it)
In 90% of the geography (50% of the population?) of the united states, there is effectively only enough population to support a limited set of teachers & facility. It is nice that we can have magnet schools in urban areas. What about deeply surban or rural areas?

Perhaps the whole idea of competition between schools is incorrect -- should we instead focus on creating a competitive learning platform (under neutral brick & mortar facility) where competition is between classrooms?
NNTP?
Does anybody else think that the kitchen table analogy totally stands? I have things in my house that contain a significant number of other people's personal information in them. I don't lock them in an extra protected safe in my house because I consider my house to be (relatively) secure by both convention and practice. If somebody were to forcibly enter my house and steal that information and publish it on the internet it would be breaking and entering, regardless of any overarching political point that person was trying to make.

It would also be a huge invasion of my personal privacy which to me seems like something only a jerk would do.

I'm not trying to analogize these things to Anonymous or LulzSec, but I am saying I don't think these arguments for their motives pass any kind of logical test.
on newer macs at least, the efi bios will not boot to certain usb hard drives, but will boot to a usb cd/dvd drive.
Totally Tech Thursday #2
Totally Tech Thursday is a weekly series providing a one-stop-shop for the latest news in designer related technology. Google is still conquering the headlines with GooglePlus, and Facebook gets an iPad app.
Essential everyday tools for web developers
Sure, but by a similar logic going from 0.1 to 0.2% represents 100% growth.

But yes, I agree that Apple are very aware of the competition and the pitfalls of potentially losing marketshare. It would be silly for them to be otherwise. I just don't thing they're running scared yet in the way the original article infers they are.
Ford will have an all-electric Focus available soon. I think automakers are gearing up for significant hybrid/electric vehicle demand.

http://green.autoblog.com/2011/01/10/ford-vp-electric-drive-...
I was home schooled, and I wish there was a Khan Academy when I was growing up. We did use something similar with DVDs and an electronic blackboard.

All in all, it worked out well for me, and I would encourage you to stick with home schooling. If you can, find a private school that allows home study. That way, you can get group field trips and sports activities while staying in control of your child's educational growth.
... I get the impression that the writer doesn't really understand the DIDO stuff. For that matter, neither do I, but I think I have a rough idea: if you have control over all the DIDO transceivers in the area and know precisely where each one is, you can control how the EM spectrum looks at/near each transceiver.

In effect, DIDO relies heavily on interference. We should not think of the transceivers as independent devices; instead, they are all part of the system, which is under centralized control. (for the uninitiated: interference is any combination of waves, regardless of whether it is actually detrimental or beneficial to the user)

This is harder to achieve than one might think, harder than if all transceivers were stationary. Consider the mobile devices -- those are part of the equation too, and they are variable (not to mention any intervening objects that might contribute unaccounted interference). They also need to communicate with the DIDO datacenter somehow, and this is where my reasoning breaks down...
Good, about time. If they only get those features slated for Java 8, they'll be at the same level C# was six years ago. :-)
From your very link: "This web server is designed for developmental purposes only, and should not be used in production."
I think the principle is that you give direct traffic to the important link rather than the content aggregator.
MSDN Windows Phone "How Do I" Video Series for Mango from MSDev
How to write a "GPUs are Awesome" paper
Seeing that it's a Cato Institute article, I anticipate a lot of noise here. I'd like to note, though, that in a standardized, rule-from-the-top system, outliers create immense problems, whether the outliers are really smart kids or kids who need additional attention.

In a distributed, self-optimizing system, this is not the case. Outliers can be handled in various ways.

This observation isn't political. You can observe the same thing in stuff all over the place, like network traffic. If you had universal rules for everything, the internet would tank. Instead we have a (somewhat) distributed and adaptive system using common protocols. Best of both worlds.

Perhaps the argument begins at how to create such adaptive distributed systems. If so, that's cool, but that should be the starting place, not a discussion of free markets or social concern, at least in my opinion. (I was very discouraged to hear Bill Gates blow right through this concept when talking about helping education systems. He's trying to quantify and create the universally-optimized teacher. Good luck with that pipe-dream, Bill.)
Using Cloud Computing to Tackle the Proton Spin Puzzle
"The complete answer to this question is very long, involving immensely complex mathematics, very carefully designed software and hardware, and new data communications and modulation techniques."

None of which is discussed in the white paper. If I had to guess... It seems like a MIMO (Multi-Input, Multi-Output) technique that somehow uses the environment's impulse response (via the pilot signal) to achieve phased array-like spatial independence of signals. Without the "immensely complex mathematics," this white paper doesn't really deliver any insight -- no better than marketing speak IMO.
I don't see why that needs to be extremely clear for this discussion. But regardless:

Where the octane number is raised by blending in ethanol, energy content per volume is reduced. Gasoline has an energy density of almost 10,000 Wh/l and pure Ethanol only 6,000.

Ethanol is inferior compared to basically any combination of gasoline + non-ethanol octane booster.
I think you might be experiencing the Dunning-Kruger effect. The CATO Institute has 10 Nobel Laureates in Economics associated with it.

http://www.cato.org/people/nobel-index.html
Handbags for summer 2011
Why are you "unable to use Unity in any significant way"?
40% of Android phones are returned? ‘Absolutely ridiculous’
This is working.

I think in your first comment you merged the idea contract and property into a single idea - and were calling that thing property.

To put my position another way, while you can have a contract to exchange property, not all things exchanged through contract are property.

A single buyer could violate the contract and
then the whole world would have access.

OK. So the scenario you describe is party A has produced a book. Parties X, Y and Z sign a contract with A to get access to the book with. The contract restricts them - it says that may not redistribute. In this case, if X redistributes, then perhaps A could sue for damages.

The only way third parties could be prevented from
getting it is if the law recognized this as property
being stolen.

I see. And in a sense you're right. However, it's important to remember that creating that legal structure impedes other forms of innovation. For example, lots of music derives from other music. There are remixes, that are often illegal. A lot Handel's work is arrangements of existing music he had lying around. Handel rearranged it in a way that has survived the test of time better than the originals.

The only way third parties could be prevented from
getting it is if the law recognized this as property
being stolen.

There are other mechanisms. Consider the Steam games network. That's a mechanism of protecting ideas that doesn't leverage copyright law. Another one was the way the 911 report was distributed. They sold right-of-first-access to that in an auction (for a large amount), and later released it free.

A lot of IP is created in a way that is incidental: music for movie soundtracks, code to make businesses work better, books so that teachers can teach their students.

The existence of copyright empowers people who are connected to the legal system. Musicians don't make good money off their music, the parasitic recording industry does. Authors don't make good money from textbooks, the parasitic textbook industry does. Copyright interests are particularly well-connected to lobbyists. The incentives argument doesn't hold up. People wade through rivers of shit to have creative expression, often in contradiction to their commercial interest, and are often frustrated in that goal by copyright-backed cartels that want to keep channels locked up.
I don't think it's a binary choice. I think capitalism is great for most things, and bad at some things. Education happens to be one of those things.

If I buy a $30 bottle of pills that are supposed to make me lose weight, well I lost $30 and I learned my lesson. If I send my kid to a fucked up school it might take years for me to realize it was fucked up, and the stakes are much higher.

A bit of back story. I'm the only person in my immediate family to finish high school, and I was raised by my grandmother who is not educated at all. She would have been completely unequipped to make a good decision about such things. Yet here I am, a successful software engineer, due in large part to a good public education. I can't see how I would have been better served by a private system.
Oh, I'll be quite clear: I'm criticizing the way the US reacted to 9/11. And although I don't think it should matter, I'm an American citizen, and didn't move overseas until 2006.

So yes, having been in both the US and Norway during their respective disasters, I have absolutely no problem in stating that, so far at least, Norway has handled this act of terrorism - on all levels - political and otherwise - much better, and with much more solidarity, than the US did after 9/11.
"I would expect the most affordable schools to be those that cater to a large proportion of the population in a cost-effective and fairly standardized way, and that those would be by far the most popular schools."

I would actually bet it would be the mid-priced schools that would be the most appealing to the masses, because nobody wants to be (or be seen as) the parent sending their kid to "the cheap school" unless they absolutely can't afford better.
A culture shift away from daily transportation of individuals would be much more significant than going electric. I'm all for a reasonable all electric alternative (I'm thinking motorcycle) but the reality is that until we stop having so many people traveling back and forth every day we aren't going to get away from the energy demand that such transportation requires.
Ask HN:  Will I find glory in the arena?
I do not yet bear the mark of Technical Co-Founder yet my fight rises to wage battle in the arena. I am a gladiator. My mind not empty of thoughts yet coin still fails to fill my purse. Allow me to strip thoughts from mind and tongue as I seek to gain advantage in my quest for honor, glory and freedom.

http://fishtaank.com
Topiary: did police arrest the wrong man in LulzSec investigation?
One aspect of getting government certification is that all vendors are required to support government approved standards like HL7/CCR/CCD for the exchange of health information.

So forcing all vendors in the space to get certified has forced all of us healthcare IT vendors to cooperate and adopt a fixed set of standards for exchange of data. Without the government stepping in and forcing vendors to adopt these standards, the disparate vendors would never have agreed on any standards and followed them.
I am really curious if an event like this will eventually promote change in the software patent laws.

We've been watching events like Lodsys running around kicking everyone in the knees and international developers pulling their apps out of the app store out of fear of litigation[1] while Apple seems unable[3] to actively step in and protect its developers.

Then you have other patent trolls sitting around, biding their time and waiting for targets to become profitable enough to make it worth their while to sue[2]

For something that was created with the sole purpose of protecting innovation, it has really become a perversion. Hindsight is always 20/20, but I think the original laws were put in place out of good intentions (path to hell and all that...)

If software patents are done away with, I think we just throw the pendulum in the opposite direction and now everyone with money and strong development teams steamroll the competition.

For example, I am sure Skype developed and patented some seriously impressive tech for VoIP and video that Google, Microsoft and Apple would have simply ripped off if given the chance... as opposed to licensing it or buying the parent company.

There has got to be a middle ground where the original intent of the patent system is maintained, but we do away with these selfish/unprincipled folks that buy up portfolios just to molest the system.

[1] http://www.iphoneanswers.net/2499/will-international-app-dev...

[2] http://mashable.com/2011/07/25/angry-birds-lawsuit/

[3] http://www.edibleapple.com/lodsys-argues-against-apples-moti...
Redesigning the Netflix API: No Versions, Many Endpoints
This is a symfony 1.4 plugin. A nice Symfony2 equivalent is FOSUserBundle (https://github.com/FriendsOfSymfony/FOSUserBundle).