skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Actually, I found vundle (https://github.com/gmarik/vundle) to be slightly easier to use.
Anyone else notice that even the clearest, most obvious bugs logged at the platform bug tracker tend to be closed out of hat, then moved to WISHLIST after you reopen them?

This feels a lot like police departments distorting crime statistics by recategorizing reports. I suspect the actual bug statistics for the Facebook platform are far higher than the ones they announce each week. And the ones they announce are terrible as it is.
Not too cool how Nivi compares Boston to Estonia (I mean, really, isn't that a bit childish?) but appreciated the article overall.
Abercrombie danmark
> I don't see how a random blogger is more plausible than pg and Airbnb?

Yeah, that's status thinking and antithetical to rational discourse. You evaluate a story or its plausibility on _its_ merits, not on the status of who tells it (unless you have _real_ information about the author's credibility, which in this case neither of us, correct me if I'm wrong, have.)

> this seems to corroborate pg's statement, they offered her financial support

No, it doesn't. There's a difference between "offering" support and giving it. What EJ said in her follow-up post is that although she was initially offered full support, none of it has actually materialized in the weeks after.

> But I'm still inclined to believe pg would not spread disinformation; why should he? I think the man is much smarter than you're giving him credit for...

Maybe you should get your nose out of pg's behind and realize that pg too puts his shoes on one at a time and shits like you and me. Having psychological, reputational, and financial stakes in one party of a dispute can induce biases. What I mean is, even good and smart people can fuck up, even with the best intentions. AFAIC, his story gets weighed on the same scale as everyone else's.
Couchbase Releases Developer Preview for CouchDB/Membase Combination
I think roomorama.com's idea to increase vetting is a good start (along with black-list sharing, as nasty as that sounds to me)... but it's only a start.

It doesn't, for example, deal with stolen identity. A recently stolen card+ID would bypass all of those protections, and easily lead to a quick buck for meth-lab operations (which is what EJ's situation sounds like it was).
heh. that happens here too. i had someone come round trying to sell me some off-shore banking services here in chile. the "salesman" was the son of an english diplomat. i am from "normal" english stock. it was a socially uncomfortable meeting.
No, it's quite different. Vacation properties are set up for that purpose, with insurance, limited on-site personal property, etc.

There have been online vacation property rental sites for years.

AirBNB, however, sells itself as a mechanism for making some extra cash on your own actual day-to-day residence.
It's the roomorama service requesting proof not the users.
Sure, in your case, the tenant's move was particulary bold. Owing two months rent to the landlord is grounds for immediate termination of the contract and eviction in Germany btw.
Just for comparison's sake, here's the version in everyone's favorite bastard child of Smalltalk and C, Objective-C:

valid = [self baseBottomBetween:[self ligatureBottom]+[self height] and:[self base]];
Community rules? The only rule quoted on reddit is rule 34 and it should be hardly a problem quoting it.
Speaking as somehow who's rather naive, it would seem logical to me that given the significant U.S. interest in Chinese monitary policy and China's significant interest in our debt policy, some reciprocity would be in order.
I found this useful: http://blog.prashanthellina.com/2007/11/14/generating-call-g...
I wish HN had a Save button, so I could remember to come back to this later, and experiment with the parts I didn't already know.
I'm not sure exactly how this would be implemented, but the repl action would be to send your browser clojurescript to a server, which then compiles it, which then replies to you, which you then append to the dom in a script() (or, eval it).

This seems tricky, though, because it seems as though you'd need a to evaluate it within the context of the previously compiled environment, and ideally you would want to return /only/ the newly required code + libs. You wouldnt want to return code that re-initializes the dom, for example.

https://github.com/ibdknox/brepl has that repl implementation.
When The Internet was compared to the 'CB RADIO' boom
I think we're over-estimating how big and widespread this story is, because it's all over the HN front page. Sure, plenty of people are going to hear about it and it's gonna be damaging for airbnb. But a whole lot of people aren't going to hear about it because they don't read HN or the Financial Times.

It's bad for airbnb, but shouldn't be a killer. From my point of view, my only surprise is that it didn't happen sooner.
it's pronounced uncle
Everyone has mentioned programming, but that's the not only kind of experience that helps.

If you aren't familiar with Linux, start getting comfortable with it. I got my first internship with my only real qualification being that I knew my way around a shell. My tasks were mainly just running scripts on a regular basis, but it lead to getting experience in a lot of other areas.
Flying drone cracks WiFis eavesdrops on GSM phones
I was wondering when this might come to fruition. Enthusiasts are often willing to put up with a tremendous amount of inconvienience. I remind folks of this that the Altair 8800 (and IMSAI) were, in their base models, something you toggled in your machine code into directly. PDP-8's and PDP-11's had core but if you had corrupted memory you had to toggle in the boot loader to get them restarted.

On a whim I wrote a quick 'virtual machine' (which is to say an emulator) for the PDP-11 on an Arduino 328. It runs faster than a 'real' PDP-11/40 (on which it was modelled).

My thought was that you could pull a copy of 2.9BSD or V6 UNIX from the PUPS archive and build an equivalent of the same system Dennis and Ken developed C on pretty easily. Add a terminal and you're good to go. However, I recognize that if you're going to the trouble to do it you should really take advantage of modern gear.

I'm glad to see that these guys are taking that approach, Linux might be a bit heavyweight (you could do a much simpler and cheaper DOS like OS) but it does have the advantage of lots of available software.
I'm now a user of both MongoDB and SQL-based ORMs, and I find that using a No-SQL type syntax makes it much easier to work with data programatically, ie, turn a UI query into a db query.

But as a human, say when I'm using the Mongo client, I miss using the much readable SQL. Typing JSON queries can be quite painful. And driving it thru a map-reduce javascript function just to summarize a column is horrendous.
"If people invested as much in learning to tune MySQL or Postgres as they did in working around MongoDB flaws they wouldn't need MongoDB." ~Benjamin Black
I started this job before "data scientist" was in common usage. My title was scientist. Then we hired more scientists, so I got a promotion. :)

We build systems on top of the bitly data. This involves things like algorithms for identifying spam and malware, real-time content recommendations (which you can see in http://news.me), categorical analysis, etc.

We also do a few pure research studies, like this one: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/does_your_device_change...
Who is the real Google Guru?
There are also many people who "feel" that vaccines cause autism, or that such-and-such an artificial sweetener causes cancer, despite a lack of any real scientific evidence. Once I see a few real studies about the long-term health effects of pasteurized vs. unpasteurized milk (besides the lower incidence of food-borne illness in pasteurized drinkers), I'll be willing to consider it--but not on the "gut feeling" of "moms", those heroes of anti-intellectual anti-science BS everywhere.
I like PhoneGap, but I like Appcelerator better simply because it creates native apps vs most other cross-platform frameworks that do most of the UI rendering inside a browser component/container. They do this by compiling the framework code (i.e JavaScript) to Objective-C. And the apps created in Appcelerator can be as visually impressive as the ones written in native platform, this is because the framework gives you the ability to create native UI components. Checkout wunderlist, they have used the framework to build their iOS apps and Android app and its a really beautiful app.

They only support iOS and Android right now, that might not be a problem for some, but honestly iOS and Android are the only relevant platforms for now.

But for folks who think cross-platform does not work and creates low quality app should checkout Appcelerator. I think CNBC's latest app is also built using this framework.
More specifically the check if it's an imgur.com link

As they are images, always available, quickly loaded, imgur links kind of optimise the thrill/time factor
How do they track where the users are looking?
I built an iPhone/android app with phonegap 0.9.x. My target market can't tell that it isn't a native app. Only other developers can tell and I could give a damn about them bc they aren't my market. So there.
Oh man! If this was "Step Up 3d" the entire room would have erupted into cheering and shouted stuff like "You got served yo!" and "Damnnnn"

Jeff Schnitzer was just completely awesome!

I loved that. :)
Personally, I think that Cake was popular because it was one of the first frameworks out there. It's been surpassed by all sorts of folks (Symfony2 now chief among them).

I think that, next time someone asks me why Cake sucks, I'm just going to say "BananaPeer" over and over again.

Because bananas don't have peers.
I've actually discovered that only prompting for zip code and not city/state can be somewhat confusing for users.

We have a system that only requires 3 pieces of info to normalize your address, including city/state: Your street address, your apartment/unit/suite number if applicable, and your zip code. That gets submitted into a third party system that, among other things, normalizes the address to the USPS standard.

(For the record, this is for an application that only deals with US customers, so internationalized addresses aren't an issue here.)

We've typically only prompted on our localization pages for those three pieces of data, and it's surprisingly confusing to customers. It's not too unusual when we review the error logs to discover that people attempted to enter "19000 Euclid Ave, Cleveland, OH" into the street address field and "44112" into the zip code field. Unfortunately, the third party system we use doesn't like this, and will generally not return useful results in that case.

It's getting to the point I'm considering either adding city/state fields to the form or just a message saying "city/state not required." I'm actually not sure which is the better approach.
How Email Can Change the Way Professors Teach
Aha, I see. Thanks.
Tin foil hat time, but: The W. Bush administration basically made it illegal for cattle producers to test for mad cow desease (small organic beef producers wanted to be able to test, and the Big Food Corps had their lacky, also known as the President, have his administration ban reliable and cheap tests).

Anyway, is it a stretch to think that some mad cow cases are being mis-diagnosed as Alzheimer's desease? It seems like it is at least a possibility.

BTW, I don't think that the Obama administration has lifted the ban on testing. One lacky president is as good as another.
Of course home invasions happen every day. That's not the point. The point is that AirBnB directly put the criminal in her home, though of course they didn't realize that.

I'll leave out the "is EJ lying or is AirBnB" question for now, but AirBnB made it much more likely that her home would be ransacked.
The reddiquette: http://www.reddit.com/help/reddiquette

Old timers tend to know it better than the new folks, mainly since it's hardly ever referenced anymore, but it's the guidelines for how to interact on the site.
Yup, EXIF + geoloc data is a good reason. Combined to my previous reply on the statement that it's Apple's "fault".
Weak human + machine + good process beats strong human + machine + poor process
http://readitlaterlist.com/add
A lot of people think "source code" is a desirable feature.
I’m sorry what? To make the phone work right I have to possibly void the warranty or brick the phone and load a customized operating system?

To be fair, that's pretty much what you need to do with an iPhone, too.
Barack Obama is spamming the hell out of Twitter
I really can not relate to that. I hat to "configure" a few PCs/laptops (mostly Acer and HP) during the last year. The amount of crapware was shocking and I'm not even talking about the horrible custom OSDs that some manufactures defile computers with.
if I take $1000 from my account and give it to my
friend who puts it into his account?

I am not really familiar with the U.S. but here's what happens in Europe, regardless of the legality of that transfer (in my country you cannot give 1000 USD as a gift and not pay taxes, unless you're using some kind of offshore account or other means of tax-evasion):

As soon as your friend spends it, in my country 240 USD will go to VAT. Out of the remaining sum, the company receiving the payment may have to pay salaries. Not even Google can get away with not paying taxes on salaries and taxes on salaries are somewhere north of 40%.

So lets say something like 450 USD (out of that 1000 USD) will end up in the pocket of some employee. Then that employee spends it on something -- another 100 USD will go to VAT, and ~ 340 USD going to the company receiving the payment. Some part of that 340 USD will go to salaries, which are taxed and then employees are buying stuff, so they get taxed again.

Companies also pay taxes on investments or sunken costs, not only salaries. So if Apple brings home some of those billions, but acquires some U.S. company, than a lot of money will still go as taxes.

It really goes round and round.

Also, here's an anecdote -- I live in Romania. We are not like Greece, we are not currently in danger of defaulting. Do you know the main reason for that? It's not because we pay our taxes -- in fact, I think we do more tax evasion than Greece is.

The reason has to do with money getting in. We've got more than 4 million people with foreign jobs and residences that are sending money home to their families. Those money are not getting taxed, but it has been enough for our economy to not completely go downhill, and I know this little fact from good sources.
I'd like to see some sort of tagging mechanism, perhaps, so that I could ignore this all-too-common front page:

* Why you should quit college and launch a startup

* Why college is super important

* How I did great without attending college

* Ask HN: Please tell me I'm smart for dropping out of my freshman year

If I could say, "I'm not interested in seeing any more college articles today", I could avoid these waves of "X Considered Harmful", "Considering X Harmful Considered Harmful", etc. posts, which seem to go away after a day or two.
Why? Why can't iPhone developers make web apps instead?

Fully leveraging the platform to create great apps requires using the APIs the platform provides, such as:

* Using GameCenter for peer-to-peer head-to-head game matchup over bluetooth and local wifi.

* Using Airdrop for immediate no-configuration, no-network entirely local file sharing.

* Using GCD to take advantage of the iPad2's multiple cores, and implement high-performance I/O (see iOS 5).

* etc, etc.

Non-native platform shims (such as webapps) will always be behind native applications when it comes to taking advantage of the vendor's OS platform enhancements and differentiative features.
They should be covered by some type of insurance so that they can compensate the owner or vice-versa. Things like this will happen and continue to happen.
To clarify, I meant over the long term. If you're not making profits or at least breaking even over the long term (spending <= revenues), you're out of business.

The problem with the US is that they aren't just borrowing in a low season, they're borrowing every season.
you couldn't find a show like this on commercial radio if you tried.
Dup: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2823009
If this is really such big problem, wouldn't it be easy enough to simply check the link that someone is attempting to submit against all previously submitted links?

This wouldn't necessarily stop all repeat stories, but it seems much more feasible than hoping everyone does a search, and would at least stop people from uploading identical links.

You might also consider a time bar of some sort? Say, if the same link was submitted more than xxx days ago, it can be resubmitted, since there is a good chance there is something new to add to its discussion.
Dup: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822365
My target market can't tell that it isn't a native app. Only other developers can tell and I could give a damn about them bc they aren't my market. So there.

I imagine non-developers can tell that your UI is poor and non-standard, but couldn't tell you why.
What do you mean by propaganda graphics? That article seems pretty factual to me. If we can't have articles like that then it seems like you are arguing for a public informed solely by talking-head soundbites.

Also, the president has some influence on policy debates and can veto any spending bill congress passes. I don't think it's accurate to say the legislature is solely responsible for spending.
I'm much more inclined to believe EJ than Airbnb's spin. The week after EJ's story appeared one of my writers (I'm an editor at a travel website) approached EJ for a story we were doing about safety and vacation rentals. She helped out on the story, but didn't want any more attention drawn to her case at that point. She's been thrust back into the spotlight b/c of Airbnb's spin, not because she's out to get them. If her story was fake, Airbnb wouldn't be doing the serious damage control they're engaged in now.

I think they're seriously worried that the attention to the case will highlight two big weaknesses of their product: 1. In many markets, it's illegal to do short-term rentals, 2. Homeowners/renters insurance doesn't cover damages in these situations. Many markets won't crack down on these rentals (see the NYT story about SF rentals last weekend), but if they in the name of safety or code violations, Airbnb's got a problem. And if people start getting spooked about insurance issues, they're screwed from the other end.
Airbnb's Burglary Disaster and How To Fix It
Ironically this is shaking the trust of users in a sound platform and not in their network provider is not able to _not_ break something when modifying it.
Also would be cool if everything magically supported the 1-Bucket-Theta algorithm. :) http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/mirek/papers/2011-SIGMOD-Paralle...
Standard modern distros are fairly heavy, agreed. But a custom distro can be super-lightweight and still include most features you'd expect from a desktop OS. In 2003 I was running desktop redhat on an old IBM thinkpad with just 32MB of RAM. So 128 should be plenty!

And here's a list of out-of-the-box light-weight distros: http://www.tuxradar.com/content/whats-best-lightweight-linux...
Airbnb should probably read their 6th golden rules of thumb

http://www.airbnb.com/home/goldenrules

"If something goes wrong unexpectedly, be accessible to help remedy the situation. Be a hero to your guest!"
Do I read it right? Some people are so dumb that you need to explain to them that renting to total strangers is risky? Wow!
http://www.google.com/hotelfinder/
I personally find this a more effective use of his twitter account than general meaningless PR. He's trying to initiate social action, I get that it can be annoying if you don't care. But if you don't care, you probably shouldn't be following Barack Obama.
I'm just tired of people telling me they value it, then seeing that I get down-voted each time.

I find them useful, but I only upvote them if I see that they are below the level of the worthless comments or if I can tell that they have a negative score.

If everyone acts like me, you're more likely to lose points on a cross-referencing comment than to gain them.

You've done a lot of complaining about the HN community. You seem not to trust them to do what is in the best interest of HN. Why let them determine what you post?
Why Don't You Love Your Startup?
To implement a usable if, you need to tie it to some form of logical branching. Haskell can tie it to pattern matches. C compiles them to conditional jumps in asm. The asm jump instructions are implemented in hardware. The meat of the if definition lies in how you tie it to whatever form of conditional behavior your language has. This is missing from the article.

Smalltalk (presumably) has a form of logical branching in it somewhere. To finish the if, just pick one.

For a satisfying conclusion, you want to use one that doesn't already look like an if statement.
Not exactly.

FF4 thinks your page is iso-8859-1 rather than utf-8 (your personal homepage too, in fact.)

I would guess IE9 has a similar issue.

You could also fix it with &mdash;
Using a rainbow spectrum for heatmaps is bad design. Blocks of color become visual categories rather than quantities.

The only good use for them I can think of is if the graph is on a log-scale and the changes in color represent orders of magnitude difference. For a simple heatmap though it'd be much better to just have a smooth gradient between two colors.

Sorry to nit, the article was interesting. That's just a peeve of mine.
md5 doesn't have anything to with it. sha256 maybe takes 10% longer to compute the hash.
As a veteran redditor (6 years now), I wouldn't even be looking at that frontpage without logging into my account where I'm unsubscribed from all the default subreddits.
It's a little weird (to me at least), but upvoting stories in HN is considered 'saving' them. You can view all your saved stories from your profile page under the link 'saved stories'.

You can also just go to: http://news.ycombinator.com/saved?id=jholman
As far as I know the progression of Alzheimer's is far slower than v/CJD. It would become fairly obvious fairly rapidly that you were dealing with something else.
This isn't spam.
If the odds are "about 10 million to one," then yes, indeed, Airbnb can afford to buy a new house for everyone whose home gets vandalized.

Either the numbers work, or they don't. Which is it?
Oh I know it is in that service but I don't think that's what the poster I was replying to was suggesting. He's suggesting as a host that you do that (although perhaps I misunderstood).
Do Clean URLs Still Matter?
Indeed. I don't think there is a way to get back the scrolling list of who is online at present - but like I say I never IM people on FB.
Why wouldn't they? I don't agree with it from a personal stance, but from a business perspective of course they tried to reduce the visibility of this.
no ahem no..they are not compiling js to objective-C..they are exposing their objective-C via a javascript api..big difference! How big? Try debugging an app..
Veteran redditors barely paid any attention to the “welcome to reddit” header, whereas the new users stared at it for a long time

I'm really not impressed with this conclusion.
Three generations from now, when our great-grandchildren are sitting barefoot in their shanties and wondering how in the hell America turned from the high-point of civilization to a third-world banana republic, they will shake their fists and mutter one name: George Effin' Bush.

Holy fucking hyperbole.
I agree, it sounds like they have vineyards that overlook the southern pacific ocean.

Now if that was in the US, something called "Vina del Mar" would be McMansion tract housing built on salt flats in Nevada next to a nuclear waste disposal site.