skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is the inevitable response that I get when I dare suggest that those of us with the gift of being able to program computers in such a interesting time choose wisely where we place our efforts.

I'm not saying it's immoral, unrewarding, or not plain fun to play and build video games. I'm saying that in life you get to choose how you spend your time, and in my view building the next killing simulator when you have the talent and means to do so much more is probably something worthy of self-reflection.
Looking for usability link that I found on HN
Sometime within the last few months, I found (and sadly later lost) a great link in an HN article or comment that had random usability tests.

In the top left corner, there was a button to “show me the next test” and once clicked, a submission would appear with a question at the top for the submitted screen snap (eg, “Where would you click to find new videos?”). Once you clicked on the image, I think I remember two links – “see the results” and “take another test”.

It was fun to take the tests, check out projects that folks are working on and (hopefully) help out the designers/programmers – and eventually I’d want to submit my own site designs/redesigns, if I could $%&# find it again.

Searches on HN pull hundreds of testing sites, but I still haven’t found the right one. I also don’t know whether it was a paid service or free, but it seemed to be free.

Thanks very much in advance!
The thing is though that the case never hinged on the effectiveness of the treatment, but basically one whether Mr Singh called the chiropractors who performed the treatment naive and delusional (which would be fine) or cynical con men (which would be slander).
Why do you say that? If properly implemented strong crypto is strong, regardless of the language.
Too bad you haven't! Please come back when you do, it will be a strong step towards improving our society.
Maybe something like a ycombinator/reddit/jig/listry clone? What are the options? I like the design of www.jig.com a lot.
Rather than get into a catalog of tests, I take the approach that "There is only one test." I wrote more about it here: http://allendowney.blogspot.com/2011/05/there-is-only-one-te...
Tons of things in our society came from a religious background and were liberated from it. Galileo studied the stars and argued against the Pope to become closer to God, that doesn't mean astronomy is mysticism.

For people who sit at a desk all day, like most people here I would imagine, doing even just one hour of yoga a week can have a huge influence on their physical well-being (not to mention posture). Doesn't need to be more than that.
I'm really sorry everyone. I'll be over here punishing myself in a salt mine for 1000 days and nights.
Gavin DeGraw out of hospital
Location Awareness Programming Guide [iOS]
The OP said they should license it (the spam filtering portion specifically). They do. If you don't want to pay you can also use it for free. Simply put, I don't see his point.
You got an URL for that?
I worked at Riot Games (makers of League of Legends) for a while. In some ways, it was much better: good, iterative practices, tracking technical debt, etc. In other ways, it was no different: long hours, little regard for anything but the release, etc.

Now that they've been released for a while, it would be interesting to see how things have changed.
How to not write Virtual Machines for Dynamic Languages
Did you have preexisting contacts who were able to send affiliate offers and sponsorships in your direction, or did you have to build up your reputation from scratch when you started blogging?

If the latter, how did you do this? What mediums did you primarmily rely on (email, Facebook, Twitter) and how long did it take for you to hit pay dirt? I can imagine it's not easy getting the attention of good sponsors.

Was it one of those things were you were holding for a lucky break, or did you have a gradual buildup to success?
why would you want to compete with ibooks?
I think the problem is you appear to be judging others by the stick you are measuring yourself with. Everybody gets to decide what they feel is important, but HN'ers don't like others telling them what should be important to them.
Very interesting. I certainly agree with the idea from the first article, on the importance of data, and from the second article, on the usefulness of simulation.
It looks like it also is all about making more money over there.
Great point. Interesting.
Where your IP 'lives' matters entirely!

If a Swedish company owns the IP and the IP is on servers there, US courts can't touch it.

How can a US court have any jurisdiction on a corporation or a data center in another country? I think it would pretty difficult for a US court to exercise authority over another country's legal system.

The only option the plaintiff would have is to take legal action in whatever country the IP was located in (i.e. they'd have to sue in Sweden).

If you pick a country that doesn't respect US trademarks or patents, then the plaintiff wouldn't have a case.

Even if they might have a case, picking a small, remote country would substantially increase their legal costs, which would deter them from pursuing legal action.

With all the patent BS going on now, this seems to me like it's a viable option to reduce risk.

I just want to hear from somebody who understands this ownership/operational structure and has (or has not) decided to implement it.
The mistake of this article is to divorce intent from execution.

Most workplaces aren't looking to change the world. As such the employees aren't willing to put up with the same exacting standards. So acting like Steve Jobs in such a company wouldn't work.

But the reason Apple works is because the employees believe in a higher cause. They believe in making the computing experience better and are willing to take abuse to achieve that. Because they realize the abuse has a purpose. Look at the MobileMe example given in the article. Jobs didn't say "I hate you" or "you're fired" he said "YOU should hate each other for having let each other down"

So the question of "Should you act like Steve Jobs?" is answered like this. If your employees share a common purpose they feel passionately about then the Jobs model is the right one.
This looks good. But, in general, we've seen competing with Apple on their own platform (ibooks, which have read-aloud capability now) as perilous. Your price points are great, however, and in that way, you are certainly cheaper than ebooks, or buying multiple book apps over time. Can you make money in the long run? What do you think your advantages are vs ibooks?
Recursive Image Mashup Using Python and PIL
> just hire a good accountant
> find a good travel agent

What, no more Web 2.0? Back to the old one-on-one consultations?
This whole thread is amazing and i'm definitely taking notes. The only thing I'd add is that ultimately there is no absolute matrix or enlightened perspective. There are relative layers of perception, eg. a corporate cog realizing that their own vision can be built from just an idea. But then there is also the opposite scenario is just as valid, an independent entrepreneur realizing that working from within the system is often the path of least resistance to bringing about a vision.
There is always something we can unplug from.
because i can?
Fear of packages is a terrible thing. But, I see what you're saying.

FWIW, there's a Flask-kitchensink project that lets you run it out of a single file, if you're so inclined.
Apple changed everything? Yeah, right.
> They are /just good enough to ship/ and often no better.

From one point of view, this is viciously optimized. I'm reminded of a quote along the lines of "the ideal racing car would cross the finish line intact and immediately disintegrate." The point being, find the minimum weight necessary to accomplish your goal, and spend as close to that minimum as possible. In games, the "weight" you're minimizing is the effort and focus spent on production quality, in order to be able to spend more on game design and performance, and ship faster.
Sure, scraping works for operations that don't require login. But we're seeing more and more "apps for HN," and it would be nice if they could authenticate and do nifty things without me giving up my HN password.
> As parents around the country send their children to campuses for the start of another academic year, what are we to make of the fact that lessons of equality, respect and self-worth have been heard when it comes to the classroom, but lost somewhere on the way to the clubs?

Drivel. The feminist movement was about the liberty to live a life, any life, that a woman wants. If a woman wants to dress like a slutty nurse on Halloween, it certainly doesn't concern some snooty reporter.
God, this is ridiculous. I can't advance slides, when I do, it skips multiple slides at a time and I have to register to download a copy that I might actually be able to view.
asymmetry != inequity
I'm not sure, but somebody might be in denial.

10 i = i + 1

15 IF i > 99999 THEN i = 0

20 IF LEN(INKEY$) = 0 THEN PRINT ".";: GOTO 10

30 PRINT "King James Bible, Line:", i

house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of
Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of
incense went up. 8:12 Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the
ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the
chambers of his imagery? for they say, the LORD seeth us not; the LORD
hath forsaken the earth. 8:13 He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see
greater abominations that they do. 8:14 Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD's house
which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for
Tammuz.
In europe we're doing AirBnB. It makes more sense when there's more than one of you, since hostels charge by the person, AirBnB ends up being cheaper. But the backpacker scene is not hard to find... you find it in every airport, train station, and of course hostels. Landing in Schipol, I felt like I'd stepped into the movie The Beach.

If you're planning to spend several months in europe, and you're in a good financial position, likely you can find a local romantic interest who is up for a once in a lifetime trip like that... a lot of concerns can be covered by covering the return ticket if things aren't working out. Someone taking you around europe is attractive to anyone, and the person who is capable of making such an offer is going to be more attractive themselves....

Then again, there's the fact that, at least for me, its a lot easier to meet women in other countries than in the USA. You start off more exotic and less threatening by nature of the fact that you're a traveller.

PS-- I didn't actually do the "hostel thing". Where I said "when I did this.." I was actually talking about traveling with the backpacker crowd, but when I was single I wasn't going to europe and hostels weren't so prevalent and I was doing it via camping, renting RVs and in the states I had a little pickup camper.

PPS-- Where in the states you wouldn't just talk to random strangers, say, go up to them and say "are you heading to houston?" or whatever... when in europe it isn't uncommon to do this with other americans. It is almost as if, by virtue of being americans (or even travelers, actually) you just have an immediate rapport. It is kinda hard to describe. But people are always sharing information about places and everyone wants to know where you've been, and tell you about where they've been... so people can find interesting places to go.
That presumes the aircraft and/or its various monitoring and control systems have an awareness of what information is or isn't known.

Unfortunately, in a failure scenario, your most obvious sign of trouble is usually not a clear an unambiguous warning, but a perplexing disagreement between various data.

Your problem is 1) identifying this state 2) identifying a corrective / maintenance action and 3) executing on this. Hopefully before you run into a failure-to-maintain-sufficient-altitude or failure-to-maintain-core-integrity, or other appropriate sustainable operational mode.

Complex situation is complex.
I had a female student a few years ago who was complaining about the sexism of the themed parties at one fraternity (e.g. "red light", where the girls were supposed to dress as hookers, "pimps n hos", same story, ...). Knowing that she was in a sorority, I asked whether her sorority sisters shared her opinion---"more or less", she said.

Now, there were only a few sororities at this small school, and they collectively included close to 20% of the female student body (and a higher proportion of the party-going female students). So I suggested getting with the other sororities and boycotting any party with a sexist theme. Those parties would shut down SO FAST.

Her response was, "we've thought about that, but if we don't go to their parties, what else would we do?" There's a lot packed into that question. I didn't have an immediate answer then, and that whole conversation has stuck in my mind and comes to the fore whenever I read an article like this.

This isn't a problem that can be solved from above.
Teaching, Research, and ME
right.. I'm sure people will be flocking to your platform to read Dr. Seuss and Pat The Bunny....
>Her response was, "we've thought about that, but if we don't go to their parties, what else would we do?" There's a lot packed into that question. I didn't have an immediate answer then, and that whole conversation has stuck in my mind and comes to the fore whenever I read an article like this.

Throw your own parties.
Hah funny same here, trying to beef up stats and linear algebra. Quite excited about the ML Class.
You aren't giving up your password - the session does not leave your computer.
Scraping works for operations that require login as well. You just have to start with the login process and hold onto the cookie it gives you after you post to the login form. As long as you continue to send your cookie along with each request you'll be able to access any information you want, as well as automate things like voting (not recommended). I haven't seen anything that asks for my HN password yet. Usually they just ask you to create a separate account with them and will scrape your profile looking for an authentication string to verify your HN account. What apps are you referring to?

Edit: Nevermind, you're referring to scraping only working in scenarios where you're the one doing the scraping -- not some external service. In that case, an API would be useful. I'm not sure about the usefulness of the apps though...
Well now I feel guilty for communicating in abrasive shortcuts myself.

"Reductionist" is probably fair. Alex can be a bit of a bombthrower, and not always in a helpful way. For me the line is drawn somewhere between http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2932298 (unhelpful because indiscriminate and judgmental - and yes, reductionist. Nobody is a moron.) and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2932421 (provocative but informed). I'm guessing the line draws itself a little differently for you.

Sadly, the interesting question (what if anything is the religious significance of yoga in the modern West?) probably falls in the large category of stuff that is impossible to discuss online. It always appears possible, but immediately degenerates into binary twiddling where everyone takes their own pre-existing bitmask, ANDs it with what they perceive the competing bitmasks to be, and emits signals of "yes/like" and "no/dislike" that vary only in intensity. The informational content of this process is low. It's like addictive food that lacks nutrition.

I have a theory as to why this is. High-value discourse -- in which people experience their overlapping divergences as something other than a binary opposition and come away from the encounter slightly transformed, which is a deeply human and satisfying experience -- requires rapport, and rapport is a somatic phenomenon. It mostly occurs when people are both personally acquainted and physically nearby. Online discussions, which have neither, are therefore inhospitable. We end up with a lot of verbiage that is cognitively sophisticated but emotionally/limbically primitive. I wonder if auxiliary in-person meetups of online communities will continue to grow as a way to mitigate this. In any case we should look for a way to increase the likelihood of rapport. I don't mean to try to bring it about (that would be awful) but to ask what conditions increase the probability of it occurring spontaneously.

(Normally I'd edit this down but I'm late for brunch at my sister's house, so you get the overwrought version!)
The Mentor Manifesto
Speaking of self-reflection: a quick look at your profile revealed that you're working at an e-commence company and previously worked at an advertising solutions company. Do you consider those things less superficial than video games? Honest question.
It was the one given away at Google I/O, but without any OS updates applied since then.
I would say that you should probably not try to emulate any leadership style too much*. I don't think Steve Jobs did. Successful leadership styles seem to me to come from your own personality, as well as things you have observed to work. That's not to say "Don't learn from others", but it is more "Don't copy other people's style", Steve Jobs or otherwise.
So it can share space with other buttons without sticking out as an odd button.
While a lot of people inevitably dislike these kinds of high-and-mighty accusations of superficiality, as an aspiring video game programmer whose sole goal in life is to have the maximum positive impact on humanity possible, I have given this much thought. I have a rather interesting combination of analytic and artistic talents that can only be fully taken advantage of in the context of a game and its engine. I have looked at other industries, but in all of them they only utilize a subset of my abilities. In my attempt to optimize my impact to the absolute maximum, I have come to the conclusion that making games is what I am best at doing, and I must use this to push forward society in any way possible, even if it is only to give people a spark of hope when the world seems to be eating itself alive.

Sometimes, games are the most useful thing one could ever work on.
You don't need to know much mathematics, but a solid practical understanding of 3D geometry is a bread-and-butter skill in game programming, no matter your speciality.
That is true for a small subset of the stuff quants do. For a lot of other stuff an hour this way or that makes hardly any difference at all. A normal day for one of my quant friends basically looks like, get into the office and spend the morning putting together some calculations, run them and got to lunch, get back from lunch and discuss the results with some colleagues, if you decided to trade based on the numbers, call a broker. Seconds and minutes are totally irrelevant to her.
Article summary: All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
It is news.ycombinator.com
I graduated from Duke last year. I had moved all the way from Australia to attend the school (a great honor, I thought) and was pretty unprepared for the level of idiocy I encountered in the (largely frat dominated) social scene. Girls really are just objects of carnal fascination to many of these guys.

But humans today have changed very little physiologically in the last 50, 000 years. As a species I don't think we're 'wired' for inter-gender equality. It's a great ideal - but stepping out of the male-female inequality simply makes many girls uncomfortable. In these cases, why pursue it?
Memory? Really? At ~$7 per Gigabyte of RAM I doubt that.
Send Zach and email, as I did, and he can loop us all in on email and we can talk about it there....
And what is the "so much more" that these talented programmers could (and, in your opinion, should) be doing instead? I'm genuinely curious, since most programming jobs that I can think of aren't exactly world-changing.

Yes, a programmer in the video game industry might spend their days debugging the mammary physics of "the next killing simulator". But they might also create the next Braid or Minecraft, helping a lot of people connect and have fun in the process. Similarly, a programmer outside the games industry is much more likely to be tweaking some bespoke piece of accounting software than they are making the next Facebook.
This is what I get - http://i55.tinypic.com/zk5nc2.png.

Note the lovely domain names sprinkled all over the popup, none related to yc.com. The iframe indeed points at news.ycombinator.com, and I have a HN cookie, so I have no idea why it shows the login form.
Where did the default WinXP wallpaper come from?
See the link I posted elsewhere on the thread.
I imagined something like http://dl.dropbox.com/u/408087/hn/button.png
I'd like to explore that thought with you in some detail, but it is hard to do it in this format. I don't think all perspectives are equally valid, as that would seem to be a form of moral relativism... but if you're saying you can always increase your awareness to a higher level, then I agree completely. There's always more to learn, and there's always a perspective that gives you a more complete and fuller awareness of reality.
Sorry, but my eyes glazed over as I read this. It's utter pabulum, the kind of sexual politics you'd expect from any second-tier college Gender Studies department. I flagged it because I don't think it's really all that interesting, nor do I believe it belongs on HN.

It's 2011. Women have earned the right to be who they want to be. The piece also ignores the fact that women easily outnumber men on the average college campus in the US. Women earn more doctorates and master's degrees than men today. But what this woman cannot get her head around is that men have the upper hand in the game of sexual brinkmanship. Sex is cheap, as has been discussed previously here on HN and elsewhere. Cheap sex means the value of it has been debased, and the power women could once wield over the sexual transaction is diminished:

http://www.slate.com/id/2286240/pagenum/all/#p2

Now, do I think it's insulting to ask women to dress up as hookers? Sure it is. I wasn't raised to treat women badly or with anything less than total respect. But these ladies have got to start taking some responsibility for their lot in life. For God's sake, go read some Camille Paglia! Women do everything that men do today, so revel in it. Stop complaining about how betrayed you are by the feminist movement.
Not sure why it isn't working for you. Mine works and I never had to enter my password in the popup. I do have chrome automatically redirect http://news.ycombinator.com to https://news.ycombinator.com so that might be doing it.
And every time you bank, you use COBOL. You rely on millions of lines of C just to start your computer. You're currently in a web browser written in more C++ than any single site has of JS. (Although I'm sure this last point has a counterexample somewhere, which saddens me.)
Ask HN: Rate my project/startup (location based chat)
I started a side project that I would like to have some feedback on? ATM it is just myself developing it but would love to get more help.

The site is chatnearme.com and there is also a mobile web application at the same url for iPhone, Android and tablet use.

You can reach me by email: sam@chatnearme.com
All the studios that consistently turn out brilliant games: Naughty Dog, Valve, Epic, Blizzard and many many others are really well run. Working there might often be brutal because of how hard the job is and pressure, but they know the process of making great games and the quality of employees is very very high.

It's less so at the big corporate studios where marketing and big company policy has heavily infiltrated the system.