skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
>Increasingly, the inequality comes from inherited social connections (social capital, mostly implicitly generational) and, as it increases, the decision-making elite becomes more insular. That's what most elites become (generational social networks, not meritocracies) and that is how societies rot.

Another thing this thread seems to be missing is that these inherited social connections are most definitely divided along racial lines.
Don't worry, it's not going in until version 4, and version 3 isn't even the most common version yet.
Show HN: GetJSON, make ajax requests to anywhere
GetJSON is a quick weekend hack - a proxy service that fetches whatever you specify and returns it wrapped in a JSONP request.

This makes it easy for in-browser JS to fetch data even from services which don't support JSONP or "Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *" header, without running your own proxy service.

Link: http://getjson.net/
But both of those things would be true if you include the upper bound and don't include the lower bound. I.e. if an array with bounds 0 and 4 had items in positions 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Clickable link: http://getjson.net/
Mac vs PC (1984 vs. 2007) (HD) - Booting
I'd like to see more data about this, as I find it interesting.

I don't know. I feel pretty assured, however, that if 40% move every year, that the graph as drawn leaves out some very important details. As you noted, the interesting question (from a political viewpoint) is how much mobility is in and out of the top quintile as opposed to the bottom one.

And, reasoning a bit further, if people only move among the bottom three quintiles, to them it's probably evidence that one day they might be in the top quintile, whether or not that's actually likely. This might give them a much more favorable view of lenient tax rates on the wealthy. Don't know.

And from a purely political standpoint, if people feel that they are moving among the quintiles such that anybody has a chance at being in the top bunch, does it matter what the actual data is? In other words, is there a perception problem or are we trying to create one? Once again, I think you could argue this either way from the data I've seen so far.
Yes, Actually I would.
Sleepinmybed.com -- get paid for staying in someone else's home
Use the Swiss system : when a petition reaches a given threshold of signatures, have a referendum. If the 'yes' wins, it becomes a law.

It is easy to add over our current system, it is democratic, it respects all institutions. I don't understand why this idea doesn't have more followers.
Sounds like merging the phone and tablet branches was tougher than expected. Author claims that many "game-changing" Ice Cream Sandwoch features were pushed back to Jelly Bean.
Men's Reading Glasses - The Before and After Effect
If you're going to attack Gruber for being an Apple apologist to the point of utter irrationality, then you don't want to attack the substance of this post, but rather its use in supporting his thesis: Apple is the best run business in the world. More specifically to this post: Apple sells laptops better than anyone else.

I refute it thus:
http://m.techcrunch.com/2011/07/14/apple-continues-slow-but-...

Apple is a distant third in US laptop market share and they don't even crack the top 5 globally.

Whatever the user experience of their sales channel is, it hasn't stopped their competitors from out selling them.

What Apple diehards like Gruber seem to forget when they discuss the merit of Apple's marketplace strategy is that the product is only 1/4 of the equation. Pricing, sales channel, and hype are the other three portions, and Apple has been consistently beaten by the competition on these grounds for the entire history of personal computing - their portable gadgets excluded.

The fact of the matter is that the average PC buyer doesn't get on a computer at home and shop for a laptop. They either take the one that their workplace gives them, or they go into a store and talk to a salesman about all the nuances of buying a computer that have been covered here. They then purchase the cheapest laptop that meets their needs, and they go home that day with it.
> Quotes API Returns latest quote(s) for a given currency pair.

> Ticker:

> URI: GET https://www.bitcoinica.com/api/quotes/[currency_pair].json

That's RPC over HTTP, not a RESTful API.

edit: well, apparently HN sides with meaningless keyword-babble, great.
Nice. Have you seen https://github.com/izuzak/urlreq ? Same thing, just on steroids and without the pretty Web app :)
What about an organization which regularly flies ordinary[1] individuals to Washington[2] to meet with their elected officials while in session?

I tend to believe that, in the US at least, most congressmen are not overtly corrupt; rather, SIGs and political news organizations exert influence by drowning out other, often more reasonable or correct sources of information. A steady stream of meetings with constituents may serve to re-ground politicians in a way that's faster and arguably more genuine than trying to cut through a wall of special-interest noise by throwing up our own wall of special-interest noise, no matter how much wiser we believe our (individual and collective) positions to be.

It also seems a relatively inexpensive strategy to test.

[1] That is, who spend most of their time in non-political activities.

[2] Or your capitol of choice.
The difference is, you either ask a knowlegable friend for advice so you can make a decision based on your needs - or you rely on a knowlegable Apple marketing / tech department to make the decision for you.

Once again Apple provides simplicity at the cost of freedom of choice.

EDIT: to the downvoters - your inability to acknowledge a simple truth astounds me.
Trouble is, anyone can spec a machine so that their manufacturer of choice comes out smelling of roses.

For example, I'm looking at the Lenovo site now: X220, i5 2.5GHz, 12.5", 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD = £1330

(including a £175 September discount)

And Apple: MacBook Air, i5 1.7GHz, 13", 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD = £1100
Brian Goetz's talk on Virtual Extension Methods at the JVM Language Summit 2011 was pretty interesting in this regard:

http://medianetwork.oracle.com/media/show/16999

He explains why adding lambdas isn't that straightforward, due to backward compatibility, but also because it wouldn't make sense to add lambdas without updating the standard APIs to benefit from these lambdas. Some of these APIs, such as the collections framework, are interface-based. Adding methods to an interface would break backward compatibility, which led them to Virtual Extension Methods.

For example, we could add a forEach method to the Collection interface without breaking backward compatibility:

interface Collection<T> {
// existing methods

void forEach(Block<T> block) default Collections.<T>forEach;

}

When not overriden, this virtual extension method would default to calling a static method, Collections.forEach(Collection<T>, Block<T>), thus preserving backward compatibility.
How to “see” your automated cron jobs
REST trading APIs? Not exactly HFT. :-)
Antigua Holiday Deals
Didn't know about it, you've got some cool features there.

Since you shared the GitHub repo, I first thought you have to install that yourself, but apparently you also host it on AppEngine: http://urlreq.appspot.com/req
Great work! I think I will have a lot of fun hacking away on this (yay, weekend project).

The only downside is that while I have no idea how I would be able to get a small amount of money (?25 Euros?) to the site. Bank transfers don't run on the weekends and while there is a bunch of ways to get money to mtgox, I don't know if any of them can be fueled by paypal/google checkout/amazon payments/... which operate on the weekends
Yes, and that question is covered in the Dijkstra paper.

If you're talking about numbers from 13 onwards, it doesn't really make sense to talk about numbers greater than 12. More specifically, if you start counting from 0 then it feels (to me) more natural to include the lower bound.

If you talk about {5 .. 13} then it feels easier to say

"From 5 up to (but not including) 13,"

rather than saying

"From 5, er, sorry, no, from *6* up to and including 13."

There is a question of taste here, as well as background and experience. Don't expect it to be "objectively proven."

http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html

In the end it is all about convention, and what ends up making code cleaner, less error-prone, and more aesthetically pleasing. As I say, there are questions of taste and experience. Personally I find the Dijkstra/Python method for more consistent and pleasing than the alternatives.
The request is not transmitted in JSON. So it's not JSON-RPC at least.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer...

- The URI is RESTful. (Explicit collection and member actions, with common namespace.)

- Supports both JSON and XML. (Internet media types)

- Bitcoinica API utilizes three of the four RESTful Web Services methods - GET, POST and DELETE. (HTTP methods)

But I'm not sure about the hypertext part, because I don't understand what hypertext means here. Is Bitcoinica's interface considered hypertext-driven?
First of all, the thing you are replying to isn't in reply to OP's article. It's in reply to a particularly stupid comment.

Secondly, the HN crowd doesn't seem to consider that when selling to large corporations the Dell, Lenovo, etc. "overly complex" approach makes sense -- that there might be a reason that apple isn't the #1 computer manufacturer, especially for institutional purchases.

Fourthly, before talking about "mostly waiting on user input" you should consider the research. ("1.0 second is about the limit for the user's flow of thought to stay uninterrupted") start with http://www.useit.com/papers/responsetime.html

Fifthly, you seem unfamiliar with how scientific computing works. Here's the process:

1. Hypothesis (usually but not always done by professor or adviser)

2. Find a dataset, or multiple datasets that should be able to falsify #1

3. Code up an initial test in R or Mathematica (or Matlab if you don't like FP) -- does the correlation even exist? How well do the off-the-shelf methods work?

4. If you think you can do better, write it up in C++/Java, testing as you go

5. If the process requires a lot of CPU time for near perfection (NN / RBM / GA / GP), run task on server for use in your publication (graphs / discrimination percentages)

Only #5 is really effective to put on the server... Working with Mathematica remotely is a PITA with non-university hardware (licences), and remote interfaces have annoyingly high latency IMHO.

Sixthly, I do like fiddling with knobs, but to use your own turn of phrase back at you... just admit it: you didn't think before writing what you wrote. You're not analyzing and trying to understand anything in your post, only stating an opinion backed up with no facts. Like a child wandering in to a university lecture and announcing that there are no negative numbers because your teacher told you so.

That you were not downvoted to oblivion before I saw this is merely symptomatic of HNs irrational love of apple products.
New Success Online -- Made Simple
Rip 60
Absolutely. VBScript, anyone?
Good points. Your annecdote about your brother is captures the truism that interviews and resumes are only a substitue for knowledge of someone's real ability. This is why references from employees (smart engineers know others) is much more effective.
11 Reasons why responsive web design isn't that cool
That's the common downside of all Bitcoin Trading Platforms. Currently it's virtually impossible to have all three criteria of a good online payment system other than Bitcoin:

- Instantly available

- Reliable (maybe law-regulated, bank-operated or systematically-controlled)

- Non-reversible
Wouldn't it be rather trivial to introduce a what-compiler-version-should-i-use annotation? That way, a .java file without it would compile with "traditional" and newer versions of the language could be used without the risk of breaking existing code. As long as the bytecode produced from "classic" Java plays well with bytecode generated from "New" Java, everybody should be happy.

Since minds much larger than mine have been dedicating inordinate amounts of time to solve this problem, I must assume I am wrong. I would, however, appreciate some feedback on why I am wrong.
What would be useful is a site that collects links to CS papers, then for each paper lets users (who presumably actually read that paper) comment on it, and/or rate it. Or does such a beast already exist?
That was my point: you wouldn't on a MBA like computer. You would on a high-performance small formfactor laptop like the x220. See my other replies for more information
Excellent point. I think that more generally, as it relates to what a student might be interested in, it fails to address the fundamental question "why am I learning this?"

I think if I were going to design a book or course in object-oriented programming I would either approach top-down using a dynamic language or bottom-up with C. In the top-down version I would focus on the advantages of OOP as a discipline and why seemingly arbitrary restrictions really are useful (not just some hand-waving about static type checking) Going the other way, I'd have them write method dispatchers and basically implement classes without the features of modern object-oriented languages and then discuss OO languages in terms of the features they provide to simplify that style.
I could see suburban area enacting regulations ("it is illegal to land or take off without a license"), but there is so much space with nothing in it in the US that I hope it doesn't become a nationwide regulation. Who cares if I zoom around Uncle Bob's farm in Kansas? That might take my entire flight time.
How TechCrunch changed startup culture
The statistical error that just keeps on coming
IPhone5 may come by October 15
MongoEngine 0.5 Released
A look at the inner workings of the Great Firewall of China
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How a to-do app got 1,000,000 downloads (video)
Software is like this. Bad software doesn't really start with bad developers. It starts with good, decent people who make decisions that seem right on the day but in aggregate, considered over longer timeframes, are indefensible. This is a great paradox.

Thank you for this. It's a great insight. Programmers have a "95th-percentile complex" where all of them think they're in the top 5%, because there's so much crappy software (more specifically, bad software architecture) out there. Not to say that good programmers aren't substantially more capable than average ones, but the fact is that bad code can very easily come from talented developers.

A few things are missed in that discussion. First, architecture is much harder than it looks. Second, most of the mechanisms people use to judge programmer ability are superficial, and it's not clear even what a "95th-percentile developer" means. Third, most bad things that happen in software were either Done By No One (e.g. that refactoring that everyone needs but no one has the time to do) or Done By Too Many (e.g. legacy code that's been passed over by too many hands for its own good).

I think the "broken windows" effect also applies, and it's important to be aware of this. When code gets ugly, people stop taking the time to read and understand it. It may not be possible. So each modification, even if the developers are individually quite capable, makes it a little worse-- methods get a little longer, latency increases a little bit, architectural integrity gets lost, subtle interactions multiply.
Simple HTML5 Painting App, Created in 60 Minutes - Easy Paint
The Freemium Flaw
Tim McNamara - Extracting names with 6 lines of Python code
Comet/Brown Dwarf ELENIN simulation - 17 OCT 2011
#defining reserved words is not permitted by standard C (or C++), although compilers do allow it in practice. Anyway, it's a totally different thing to abuse a general-purpose feature to do horrible thing X than to have a specific feature, only useful for doing horrible things, built into the language.
Free sheet music every day
Sorry but I can't see where Apple limits your choice... Is that because they don't offer configurations for each component of their computers? Simplicity by definition is something simple. 10 configurations are simpler than 1000.
Sorry, I made a mistake: nonlocal gives you as much power as usual closures. I still stand by my statement that implicit declarations make things very confusing.
May I ask how did you find about that? Sometime I would like to play in ctypes but I'm not sure where to start :-/

Here's a small snippet that let you add methods to built-ins:

def inject(cls, wrapper=lambda x: x, name=None):
def _builtin_hack(name):
import ctypes as c

_get_dict = c.pythonapi._PyObject_GetDictPtr
_get_dict.restype = c.POINTER(c.py_object)
_get_dict.argtypes = [c.py_object]

return _get_dict(name).contents.value

def wrap(method):
name_ = name or method.func_name
method = wrapper(method)

try:
setattr(cls, name_, method)
except:
_builtin_hack(cls)[name_] = method

return wrap

@inject(dict)
def extend(self, new_dict):
return dict(self, **new_dict)

print {'a':2}.extend({'b':3})
Actually, i look at from the Game theory viewpoint. What metrics are the rewards in an academic career based on?? Publications. It's rather simple that the researchers will find ways(shortcuts) to maximize that. Ofcourse, the Impact Factor is a new evolving measure too. But I think it's only harder to hack, as it needs social hacking skills.(That too very subtly via written text).
An attorney at swedish record association (Ifpi) says among other things 'some of the people performing for records in the sixties are old now; they have a hard time and need the money'. No comments necessary. http://www.sydsvenskan.se/kultur-och-nojen/article1542053/rd...
> 6. Tricky Hollywood Accounting

To film _Matrix Reloaded_, they built a fake freeway on the Alameda naval base in San Francisco. I drove on it (as an extra in the movie); it was really really cool. The company originally thought of keeping this set around for a while to use in driving scenes for other film projects, but they ended up destroying it instead. Why? Because the film was likely to be profitable! A film set that's only used for one movie and then destroyed can obviously be deducted (as a necessary expense) from the profits of that movie, whereas a film set that's reused for several films can't. So this "tricky accounting" can have the effect of artificially inflating production costs (as well as distribution costs).
Nice, I didn't know that CoffeeScript has a shorthand for .prototype.

So, to revise my point: with "proper" classes (i.e. Java or C++) this wouldn't be possible, or at least more complicated and not the way to do things. Classes are not the ultimate solution and it's a good thing that Go tries a different approach to OOP.
Note: there was a lot of discussion about security etc last time Bitcoinica came up (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2973301).

patio11: "My semi-amateurish opinion is that as a non-registered securities dealer with all accounts having margin capabilities the (near 100%) likelihood of your Rails app exploitably broken is not the key source of risk to your business." (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2974695)

See also e.g. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2974032 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2973429 plus tptacek's reply to http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2973732.

On the other hand, Bitcoinica may not be less secure than Mt. Gox...
When Excel Is Not Your Friend: Chart Axes
What would be even easier and more evil is to inject some backdoor into every (non ssl) executable download. Then you can just install a keylogger or patch the browser or whatever else you please.
Well, the thing is that it's not necessarily easier to improve an existing language than to create a new one from scratch. There is a big advantage in starting all over - no backward compatibility headaches. Honestly I can't think of any existing language that's worth putting anyone's weight behind. Coffeescript - js has some horrible semantics and Coffeescript can't really hide all of them. Clojure - it's infinitely cool but it will never ever become the mainstream.
Well, OK, granted - I own my own home for exactly these reasons as well. But I bought my foreclosed home - bricks and mortar and 14 rooms and a carriage house - for $8000, in Richmond, Indiana, two years ago. I make my own freaking job online, which anybody here ought to be able to do.

The only reason to complain about the high cost of home ownership is if you think you must, must, must live right next to everybody else. Well, you can't. Not until you've gotten rich. But the rest of the planet is right here waiting for you to make it your own, and anybody who hangs out on this site should be more than capable of doing good deeds without hand-holding by all the cool kids.

In fact, if you want bricks and mortar in your cheap, cheap house, I heartily encourage you to adopt one of our antiques here in Richmond, Indiana. I'll help you pick one out and I'll even teach you how to mix mortar.
You are missing my point.

Yes, simplicity by definition is something simple. But that's not the issue. I'm talking about the way that simplicity is offered at the expense of freedom of choice.

Freedom of choice by definition needs choices.

If you have twenty choices vs. two; by definition, the former offers more freedom of choice.