skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I know what they are, but I don't think that any such thing justifies the sweeping generalisation the previous commenter made. The police have been employing a range of tactics, and some have worked better (in terms of public opinion too) than others. Kettling, as far as I have seen since the public outcry over its use in the student situation, has not been used against peaceful protesters since.
I assume they bought physical gift cards in store.
Shrinking in a Bad Economy: America's Entrepreneur Class
I took two Prolog classes at University, and it was one of those great experiences for me as a programmer. Highly recommended for everyone, don't get stuck on just functional languages!
Employees of Social Media Giants Are Cashing Out
U.S. Postal Service is considering cutting as many as 120,000 jobs
Great work spif! Congrats!
Echoing this post, and adding "Fountain Pens".

Seriously, a nice fountain pen makes writing so much more enjoyable. Grab yourself a decent (>$30) fountain pen and a quality ink (I like Noodler's). Combined with a journal that has quality paper, your writing experience will be so much more pleasant. Fountain pens encourage better style and your hand doesn't cramp since no pressure is required.

Plus, it's nice not having chicken-scratch that looks like a ten year old's writing (or a CS major)
Can someone explain to me why Microsoft doesn't embrace Mono (or at least its ideal) outright? It seems to me like a stable and well supported multiplatform C# could establish a long lasting .NET hegemony across the industry. Appears to be a no-brainer.
I wouldn't pay 2 cents.
"Most docs don't prescribe the heavy ones for psychiatry anymore. Seizures are a different story."

Benzos have actually made a huge comeback recently, and are quickly catching up to their peak prescription levels in 1975. In 2009, benzos were 3 of the top 20 most-prescribed psychiatric drugs prescribed in the US:

1. Alprazolam (Xanax) 44,029,000

3. Lorazepam (Ativan) 25,868,00

10. Diazepam (Valium) 14,009,000

There were 83 million prescriptions for benzos written in 2007, as compared with 103 million at their peak in 1975. (Granted there are more people today, but still.)

source: http://www.erowid.org/general/newsletter/erowid_newsletter18...

(And also Anatomy of an Epidemic, p. 131)
Google's display ad exchange profits, powered by DoubleClick, have been growing.

Display ads is exactly where Yahoo wants to be strong, and is weak.

http://www.bigmouthmedia.com/live/articles/no-second-thought...
We may want Mario on the iPhone, but Nintendo won't slit own throat
Doubleclick is their adserving platform. Thus, the engine behind Google's profits.

Ever heard of Performics, ConnectCommerce or DART?
Similarities Between Riots and Modern Internet Hacktivism
Imagine you were Paypal - what would you have done differently in these circumstances which wouldn't disproportionately benefit fraudsters ?
Now consider what the average users buy: for every 20 laptops sold at the big retail store where my friend works, only 1 desktop is sold. It's pretty obvious that people prefer portable all-in-one computers. They also hate cables (me too). Intel WiDi (wireless display connection) is what everyone is talking about these days.
I don't see any future for desktops among general public only professional niche groups which need a lot of cheap computational power.
Again gaming makes much more sense on tablets and gaming consoles, IMO.
مشاهدة مباراة الاهلى و مولودية الجزائر بث مباشر
مدونة يلا جول الرياضية تقوم ببث واذاعة مباراة الأهلي المصرى ومولودية الجزائر الجزائرى بث مباشر فى دور ال 8 دور الثمانية ( المجموعات ) من دورى ابطال افريقيا 2011 اليوم الجمعة 12/8/2011 وموعدها الساعة 22:00 بتوقيت القاهرة لو بدك او عايز تتفرج على الماتش ادخل و وشاهد المباراة على النت بدون تقطيع اون لاين
There is one thing Flickr has going for it that can't be replaced on a feature-for-feature basis: Its community has a large number (if not necessarily proportion) of good photographers.

The dashboard is clumsy and ineffective, the whole groups system is backwards and doesn't encourage quality, the Explore algorithm can be quite nice but is too random, the "interestingness" algorithm seems to have crashed somewhere in 2007 and never changes for a given search, and the "contacts" feature has far too much friction for what is essentially a follower system... But as long as I can see new photos from the talented people I follow there, and can share my work with those who enjoy it, I'll keep using Flickr.

Here's my suggestion/plea to Yahoo, however:

The whole user experience really should be rethought with the Twitter-era follower-followee paradigm front and center. Imagine a Flickr where instead of wading through hundreds of redundant, poorly-curated groups to find something captivating, you find photographers whose work you enjoy and easily follow them. Great photos get "re-flicked" throughout the network, prolific members get added to lists that people can follow, and the whole experience becomes much more dynamic, social, and quality-driven.
(I can't edit now but it is Kirsty: sorry)
Hey! Just want to say thanks for the advice last round: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2649787 (http://hubski.com is my site)

I took your words to heart, cut out some functional fluff, simplified terminology, and focused on hubski's UX. It seems to be having a positive effect. We now have what I like to call a decentralized social aggregator: A vote shares a story with your followers. Popular posts propagate across the community, rather than rise up a shared page. It makes sense.

Still work to be done, but your feedback was valuable. It really pushed me to rethink and focus. Thanks!
Personal Computers: A History of the Hardware That Changed the World
My new Macbook Air is fantastic for on-the-go work, but I don't think I'll ever give up my desktop. I've used my Air exclusively over my two week vacation (and I've gotten lots of work done on this little guy), but I still find myself missing my 24" monitor, full keyboard, and mouse.

My ideal setup, which I've only recently implemented, is a powerful desktop workstation with a thin-but-fast mobile laptop. My custom desktop build and the Air fit this perfectly.

This fall, I'm studying abroad in London and I'm only taking my Air with me... very interested to see if I get frustrated with its limitations or not.
Anti-nanotechnology terrorists attack researchers in Mexico
next time when begging for invites, do make sure that people can contact you privately via your profile :p
Having used this extensively for development and testing over the past several hours, this is definitely "beta", but it's nice to see Google making the effort here.

Unfortunately for Chrome, Safari 5.1 has set a new standard for gesture support that will be hard to replicate (if they even care to, I'm not convinced Google actually cares about feeling 100% "native" on any OS).
I'd also love to try it - if anyone has an extra invite, mind sending one to hn@mikehearn.net?
My google-fu also fails me. This is the best I found: http://www.metafilter.com/62173/The-hypnotic-beauty-of-the-a...

I based my initial opinion on a documentary about someone who had tried to find the "typical criminal" face by averaging the mugshots of criminals. But to his shock, the resulting face kept turning out beautiful. But again, my google-fu fails me.
Interesting. Is there any way I can volunteer my DNA for them to have a play with? I was on Ritalin all through school.
Managing Client Expectations Amind Shifting Deadlines
Us as well. We have it installed on a central mac mini, and each client has a copy. It's a lot better than DropBox's current team solution, which forces you to dump your personal dropbox account.
That's also true if you accept payment in soiled panties or puka shells, but the trick is convincing everyone involved - the venue, the speakers, the staff, and the merchants you're relying on to print t-shirts and the like - to accept this as a form of payment.

Praytell, what venue accepts payment in bitcoin?
It's strange - the article talks about it being this 20-year favorite, but I didn't see it show up in US bookstores until the last few years.
Richard P. Gabriel has something to say about this. http://dreamsongs.com/Essays.html

Having said that, I'm not sure how effective it can be. I've read some of Gabriel's essays, and I'm a bit into Patterns of Software, but I don't think anything there would mean much to me if I didn't write code.

Something else you might consider is to not even mention "computers". Dijkstra says use "computing", but screw that, too. For the last few years[1] or so, I've tried to sort of start by mentioning computer science, and then spending a bit of time qualifying the term and trying to dislodge the images that comes into my conversation partners' heads. I don't think I've ever been successful.[2] It's hard getting people to think "computer science" means something besides either technophilia or sysadmining.

1. To be fair, a "few years" ago, it's fair to say I wasn't even in my position to appreciate that I am now.

2. I might've gotten close one time, by pointing to Luis von Ahn's talk on human computation, but I can't be sure, and you don't always have the benefit of an hour to spare. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8246463980976635143
Thought this was already revealed as a viral marketing campaign by starbucks:

http://www.coffeestrategies.com/2011/08/08/starbucks-and-the...

Not sure if that means there's more of a reason to exploit it or not, at least Sam's doing it for good =)
And, of course, high-end gaming. You can build a PC that runs the latest titles for a fraction of the price of a gaming laptop. Its pretty easy to learn at reddit.com/r/buildapc
I'm surprised nobody mentioned IMGUR yet - it is a fantastic img host - but the premium accounts allow a lot of flexibility. Albums, galleries - privacy settings etc.

Plus it has mobile uploaders and is super fast and easy.

At $24/year for unlimited access/features- I have dropped all others for it.
120mg? Damn, that's incredible, I was on 40 a day ish throughout school in the form of Ritalin.

I've had the same issues in 6th form and university, failed my degree. In part due to lazyness and drinking, but also because I simply cannot "absorb" knowledge from sitting in a lecture hall watching someone speak for ages. I learn interactively - I did amazingly well at practicals and projects where I had a constant feedback loop (such as debugging a robot), but lectures and exams I feel are an exceptionally perverse way of learning things.
I tend to think that prolog is better as a language library, such as with Racklog:

http://docs.racket-lang.org/racklog/index.html
I agree with you, and such an embrace seems logical.

So,the lack of an embrace means something. The easiest "meaning" to impugn is that Microsoft really really doesn't think non-Windows can work at all, a sort of raging Not-Invented-Here turned up to 11.

The next easiest meaning to impugn would be control issues. Giant Immoral MegaCorps seem to value control over all else, so perhaps something that's not strictly policed just can't be tolerated.

It goes downhill into conspiracy theory from there, I think.
Bart Weetjens: How I taught rats to sniff out land mines
"So, ironically, because I didn't trust them, they weren't able to ruin my conference."

This is not in the least bit ironic.
I’ve been using Safari as my ‘relaxation browser’ for ages; Chrome never felt “right” to me, even though I use it every day for development and various other reasons.

Interestingly enough, I’ve heard the same thing as you just pointed out, out of a lot of people since Lion. A lot of people who had previously laughed at me for remaining with Safari (as if it’s somehow inherently inferior to Chrome? I’ve never quite understood it.) are now, themselves, switching back … just for gestures, as far as I can tell.

I have to ask: Is it really that much of a life-changing feature for you, in a browser?
Did you read the article? It mentions that.
Strange paring rumour: rim and dropbox
That's awesome news, but I would love to hear some more details of how you orchestrated this. How did you get in touch with them initially? Were they very receptive right from the start?
No source sighted,
Absolutely but that is internal to the database and cannot be cached locally. With copy on write semantics being at the application level it means you can cache your data locally and not have to worry about distributed cache invalidation etc.
But thats exactly, what I expect from rvm. When i'm in in one projecti want too to use that Ruby with that gelder and not the other Ruby and gemset. So rbvm is not want I want to use with tmux.
I can already see the arguments of the future pouring in today.

"Well, you see, Google+ just got lucky, to REALLY understand social you have to talk to people who don't know anything about science and technology or icky subjects like math"

I like how this line of reasoning comes up all the time - "I can't spend 15 minutes of my life understanding a basic procedure for sorting lists of things and subsequently got booted before the phone interview, so that must mean I understand social/seo/ux/insert_other_relatively_bullshit_job_or_industry_title and Google doesn't"
Wow. That is hilarious. Are you involved in that site?
Yeah, it's cool, but also nefarious, charity or not.
hug!

Thanks for your awesome work, Wayne. :)
Yeah - lots of sites off of http://delootlondon.co.uk/ have independent donations, but they don't provide ongoing support for the communities who were hurt by this, or the individuals who had their houses and belongings destroyed.
"Or am I alone in thinking that helping a stranger find their next caffeine fix is not what we should be worried about in today's world?"

sigh This is such a silly, stupid point to make:

Buying an iPad? What about world hunger!? Going to the movies? What about the modern slave trade!? Painting a picture? Women in Sudanese refugee camps can't go to the bathroom at night without fear of rape, and here you painting a picture. The way you take your privilege for granted makes me sick, you selfish bastard!!!!

Yes there are problems in the world. Does this mean no one is allowed to do anything frivolous until they are all solved? In my opinion, no.

Get off your high horse, OP.

EDIT: Neat project tho! Took the originator's project in a new, unexpected direction, which makes it even more interesting. Kudos!
You have quite the resume. Could we tap into your network connections in some way?

Our startup could use some help today with winning an opportunity to present on stage at Dreamforce in San Francisco this month. Our company has built an app for their platform and has made it into the final 8 of the contest. We're a little disadvantaged since the contest is based on votes and some contestants have thousands of employees.

We've setup a link to help spread the word on how to vote for us.
http://iactionable.com/contest

You can imagine what this sort of visibility could do for a small company like us. We'll be presenting in front of 40k people. Thanks for your help!

(Contest details - http://developer.force.com/appquest11 - We're Engage by IActionable.)
Count us in. We only use packaged ruby, be that MRI or JRuby.
The perfect standing hacker desk
I’ve been planning this workstation for a long time, researching all the perfect equipment and options.

There’s more information in the Flickr “set comments.” Also, watch the videos: these Anthro desks adjust electrically. I just press a button!
AeroFS looks like an interesting service, I remember reading the earlier entry about them and their blog (i think it was on posterous at the time).

It reminded me of two projects --

Wuala which allowed seemless syncing between machines, as well as donating storage to gain the benefit of "cloud storage" for your files. They eventually went the route of offering storage space and got bought by Lacie.

The second is much older (mid/earlyish 90s) that had the same p2p based donate space on your drive and fragments of your files will be stored on other connected machines.

The sharing and other similar features will be interesting to see how those are implemented.
There are people who may or may not wear tinfoil hats who have shared circumstantial evidence suggesting this. Jonathan, his friends, and Starbucks have all denied this is the case.

My experience is that when confronted with the evidence, the people behind “viral marketing campaigns" have no trouble ‘fessing up, they usually boast of it and use it to drum up more business for their “social media agencies.”
A company like Starbucks as zero incentive to lie about it and a huge disincentive. If even one employee spills the beans that it was a marketing stunt and that Starbucks is lying, their brand equity takes a huge hit.

It is difficult to “prove” things one way or another to the standards of science or law, but I’m personally satisfied that it was not a marketing stunt.
http://www.tryfsharp.org/Tutorials/QuickLanguageOverview/Sec... <--- this is an MSR site and it mentions Mono and claims that F# is multi-platform.
Root? I don't think I've ever run RVM as root. Why does it need to? Not saying you're wrong, I just don't know what you're referring to.
Using Keyword Research for Optimized Site Architecture
Mobiquity's reply: http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/10/the-vast-starbucks-conspira...

"Mobiquity has no professional affiliation with Starbucks."
My guess would be that someone wrote a script to figure out the pin number. Starbucks pin is just 8 random digits. There is no captcha if you put an incorrect pin. One should be able to figure out the pin pretty quickly like this. Once you have the pin you can transfer the money onto your own account or write a script to automate the process.
I left G+ a week ago, deleting my G+ account and profile. I'll be shopping for a gmail alternative as well.

After trying G+ out for a bit, I decided that I just didn't need it. A lot of my less technical friends & family use FB. I don't care much for it, but I've come to regard it as an inherently privacy-free unsafe/insecure zone and treat it accordingly. I stay logged out of it when I'm not using it and keep it out of my usual online activities.

G+ blurred the line too much between regular browsing, search, gmail, my RSS reader, and all these "circles" of FB/Twitter-like social interaction. It just felt like it would be too easy to make a mistake and say the wrong thing in the wrong context, or find that I was sharing in a way I didn't want to. And that's assuming the service works as intended without flaws, without FB-style policy changes.

I've come to realize that fragmented, disconnected identities on separate websites is a feature. Yes, the dots can be connected by someone with significant resources. But why should I make these connections easy to make, or searchable? Doesn't do anything for me.
Funding Open Source with Kickstarter
Zynga "Appeals to the Same Psychology as Gambling"
Organizing an Intern Hackathon Day at Microsoft
You could always check this incident map of the areas and visit the high street shops -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2011/aug...
[Apply Now] Lighter Capital Is Offering $500k To The Right Type of Startup
Did you read the article? He is donating to a charity focused on world hunger...
I've been involved in small-medium events run in the UK that used Google Checkout. I don't know the details involved though.
Where do you think we are right now?

You mean with respect to the size of the deficit? I think additional spending targeted at direct job creation would be a good thing. Even more so if the jobs created go towards improving the future economic capacity of the country, e.g. by improving schools, making the country more self-sufficient in terms of energy, think solar plants in southern states combined with updates to the electrical grids and storage capabilities, things like that.

Actually, many MMT economists also argue in favor of a Job Guarantee, i.e. a government program that ensures full employment simply by providing such WPA-like jobs at a minimum wage. The theory is that such a program can never be inflationary. At least the kind of inflation that is caused by bidding for higher prices cannot happen since the wages in a Job Guarantee are fixed by legislation.
I've been quite happy with http://www.instantssl.com/
For those interested, here’s the involved equipment:

• Anthro Corp’s “Elevate Adjusta” desk, http://www.anthro.com/computer-furniture.aspx?desk=elevate-a...

• Mac Pro, Apple 27″ LCDs

• a Monitors in Motion “Boa III” fully-adjustable triple-monitor arm, http://www.monitorsinmotion.com/products/boa#boa_iii

• a GelPro Plush standing mat, http://www.gelpro.com/page/gelpro_plush_styles

• an old Drobo for storage (I’ll be replacing this soon)

Since the videos there, it’s been updated with:

• Denon AVR-3310CI receiver

• Martin Logan “Source” freestanding speakers

• Martin Logan “Dynamo 700” mini-sub

• a shitty printer

• a shitty shredder (under the desk)

• a shitty minifridge (also under the desk)

Edits: Fuck Hacker News’s terrible fucking formatting system. JUST GIVE US FUCKING MARKDOWN.
Python GIL removal question
Don't worry about the name--I think it's a sufficiently general pattern that it makes sense to use it in multiple contexts, and I don't think it trademarked or anything (like "For Dummies" is).
Hey Robert

It’s not attempting to give intrigue, I just really haven’t figured the right copy out yet:) Take a look at some more of my blog articles if you like, they explain at least the general idea of what we’re doing. We hope to get everyone on the beta soon.

The problem for me is that it’s actually difficult to describe what it does and is better experienced then you can make your own valuation as to whether it suits you or not. Much like when the Internet started, it was easier to show than explain. So while we're just in the early stages of beta I didn’t want to prejudice people by giving partial information.

So I’ll see if I can get some feedback from early beta testers to find out what words they use to describe it - that may help me get a more unbiased view.

Glad you liked the animation btw., we’re (mostly) a one man band in reality, and I’m a techy at that, so any complement towards design is gratefully accepted.

All the best and thanks for the feedback, it’s really helpful to know what people think, Neil.
Top 5 threat for Android’s future growth
Not really... I don't think that the people who put money on the card have any claim to determine how the money is used. It's like giving a gift, once you give it you don't get to control it anymore, and they are giving a gift to an anonymous recipient. If they want to control how the money is spent... perhaps don't put it on a publicly accessible debit card? ;)
This seems like an unauthorized use of the card and could be criminal theft. If I give you my stored value card to buy coffee and you instead steal all the money, it doesn't matter whether you're donating to charity or disagree with my cause - it's stealing.

Regardless, it's certainly a shitty thing to do.