skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That idea is the first one I have seen that would justify the cost of a tablet to me. Not just a toy or a third or .*th computer, but a device to limit your distraction. I like that a lot.
This is true for some things. For example, UI design can be a long and difficult process for the first mover but easy for competitors who can just lift the design. However, it's not so easy to lift, say, the design of a distributed file system from its public interface.
Endow this technology with the amount of content that a book would have, like Zed Shaw's Learn Python The Hard Way, and you have a killer product. Though Zed would disagree that typing the code out yourself from scratch is the best way to learn.
I'm not defending the story as a masterpiece of journalism or anything, and I'm sure it was pitched to the reporter by an interested party. But you shouldn't blame 'such clunkers as "To generate story 'angles,' explains Mr. Hammond of Narrative Science...." when Mr. Hammond has already been introduced earlier in the story' on PR agencies. They don't actually write the copy that runs in the NY Times. That particular clunker was probably imposed on the writer by the copy editor ("It's been a while since Hammond was referenced; we need to remind the reader who he is"), unless the author has internalized the style himself.

This story was provided, probably almost word for word, by a PR person to the NYT reporter.

Definitely not. The idea for the story was provided to the reporter, probably by a P.R. person. The reporter conducted interviews with representatives of the company, some of whom are quoted in the story and some of whom aren't. The reporter went away and wrote up the story himself. It was edited by at least one line editor and at least one copy editor. The reporter, line editor, and copy editor have all beaten many competitors to obtain jobs at the most prestigious company in their field.

If anyone at the New York Times were found to have submitted a story that was "provided ... almost word for word by a PR person" that person would be fired and the paper would issue a public apology.

Again, I'm not defending the story, and I'm sure the PR person who pitched it was thrilled by it. But, you know, Steve Lohr's byline is on this story, and you've accused him of pretty bad professional misconduct, and I don't think that's warranted.
We would generally be happy to consider sending people to a class. But I don't think we're too different from a lot of companies with HN presences in that we're staffed mostly with people who enjoy figuring things out for themselves. It's hard for me to think of a class that's so clearly valuable to our team that it would make sense sending people to.

One thing we try to do is to run internal classes. We had one on C programming that I need to get back up and running; we have a long-running one with cryptography.

Businesses routinely do the equivalent of paying a grad student to teach machine learning; they just don't call it that. In the real world that's called consulting.
I'm not sure it takes an efficient market for candidates to be able to do a simple math problem. The company that offers 4 weeks vacation a year pays a $90k salaried employee the equivalent of $51.10/hr; the company that offers 6 weeks vacation pays $53.50/hr, or 5% more.

Comp clearly isn't the only reason people pick jobs, but it's a big reason.

There's a "quality of vacation" point you're making, but generally I think the real issue there is that employees are pushovers, and ask permission to use all their vacation time all at once, instead of just informing their employer that they're going to take July off.
Cool, still like Karma-ware tho
The underlying issue is that some agencies can't for some odd reason or another give out their data. There is either some archaic policy in place or for some historical/contractual reason the data isn't actually owned by the agency but instead by some contractor that provides the technology to generate the data. Some smaller agencies might not even have a department that is aware of that issue/possibility because they once again subcontract it all out and the contractor isn't going to suggest to release data for free to get free projects.

The best way to change that is to request it at the local level. If local developers put pressure on their transit agencies then that will help speed up the process.
Amazon Only Does What’s Best For Amazon
Brilliant. Blocking the site makes the brain want to got around it, as others say. Delaying the site attacks the addictiveness directly, slowly weaning you off the feedback loop. Nice.
Maciej, can you share that google doc in a way that would let viewing it without needing to create an account with Google?
Upboat - our "crazy live" drawing voting app
Grabbing users from John Gruber? That’s impossible as his writing and style is impeccable.

I could’ve gone explaining myself for hours, but I like short and to the point writing. It was just an idea to build a Mac centric site, covering more technical things, as Gruber obviously swayed in another direction.

As you may know, thinking of a name and registering a domain is not easy today, so I went with the simplest path, a play on well know brand.
Seth Godin's blog post on point #3: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/03/are-you-maki...
A few of our ($dayjob) RDS instances are currently MIA in us-west.
;_;
Could you share your apache config please! I find this incredible. Just very curious how you managed this and hoping to learn something. The reason I ask is because:

Apache has two stable modes of operation, threaded or one process per child. Both of them require one process or thread per connection busy being served, which requires memory. Apache consumes around 20M per thread or process if PHP or mod_perl are loaded. Roughly 5M if neither are loaded.

If you have keepalive enabled and you're doing 800 req/s and keepalive timeout is say 30 seconds (the default is 300) then you're going to need roughly 800 * 30 seconds apache children to keep up. So that's 24000 apache children or 120 gigs of memory in your server.

A common hack is to disable keepalive which causes clients to disconnect quicker, but they still tend to stay connected for 1 to 2 seconds per request - especially folks geographically far away thanks to latency. So at 800 r/s you're going to need 1600 apache children to keep up, or 8 gigabytes of memory in your server.

Now you could have used an experimental MPM and gotten these results, but I haven't heard of that being used much. So I'm really curious how you managed to get 800 r/s from Apache on a server with 768 Megs of memory.

For the uninitiated: Most people put Nginx or Lighttpd in front of apache which can serve 10,000+ concurrent connections with a single thread. That then talks to apache and connects/disconnects very fast which keeps the threads or processes free and often 10 processes is enough for thousands of concurrent connections with keepalive enabled on the front end.
I've seen this posed as Twitter vs. Hoverboard, without denigrating the Twitter side.

http://www.danshapiro.com/blog/2011/07/a-twitter-a-hoverboar...
Why are people so afraid of competitors ?
For me this article is what make so many projects fail, they try too much. Sometimes, you just need to solve simple things to make people's life a little better.

It isn't about the competitors, it's about who come first with a viable solution.

PS: You not a scientist, you are not NASA, you will never be, you will never have the need to develop anything close to a space rocket in your life. And if you do, don't start a startup for god sake, do something more valuable to the human kind, please use you knowledge for much more important things.
I call this pulling a zuckerberg. I don't think so. I personally believe there is no such thing as an original idea. We are made up of other people thoughts and ideas, that we choose to either accept and make it apart of us or not.
I don't think it would be bad
Maciej is not currently banned from HN (he was, briefly, after an impolitic comment about a post, but Paul Graham unbanned him within moments of me questioning the ban).

Maciej seems pretty annoyed by what happened, and I don't blame him. But there you go. Shit happens!

He's basically one of the friendliest people I've met on the Internet, though, so if you want to help him out you can just ping him on Twitter.
Unemployed Veterans Looking for Help
Fusion has always been and always will be 30 years aways...
since the vast majority of those loans would have never happened without government programs to encourage them.

I'm going to copy-and-paste something I said before on this topic (which was actually a reply to jerf):

I slogged through much of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Report (http://fcic.law.stanford.edu/). One of the conclusions was that while mandating loans didn't help, they weren't numerous enough to be a major cause. Because of the mortgage-backed securities industry, there was incentive for banks to make sub-prime loans and offload the loans (and the risk) elsewhere. Once the MBS engine got churning, there was an enormous demand for more loans to feed it. In other words, the government's requirements did not lead to the glut of sub-prime loans.

Education for the home-buyers would probably not work. I can't remember which author it was who made this point, but on reading about the crisis, someone pointed out that people will take what you give them. That's not really fixable. The fixable problem was that banks were willing to make such loans. And they were willing to make such loans not because they knew the government would bail the loans out, but because the banks would not keep the loans. They'd turn around and sell the loans to investment banks that packaged the loans up into MBSs. The banks making the sub-prime loans weren't the same banks that were on-the-hook for them.
Study Buddhism - you'll stop worrying about it.
Since we seem to be sharing the numbers now, let me add my 2c.
I ran the Hamachi service [1] with 3 mil registered accounts off 4 co-located servers at a cost of about $700/mo in total. The servers were mid-range 1U Dell boxes, each costing around $1K. That was back in '04, so I'm sure prices have gone down quite a bit since then.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamachi_(software)
"and when those companies make boatloads of cash in their own country, guess where they will start pushing out to?"

Nowhere. They're localized copies of services existing elsewhere. Their strength tends to be either localization or central government block on American competitors.
Speak for yourself.

I'm against bad laws.

I'm for good laws.

If a realm of human activity exists in which unregulated behavior trends toward maximum social benefit, reasonable minds will contemplate whether or not appropriate regulation (and enforcement of same) might be beneficial.

Say: putting teeth into DNT, allowing for civil penalties (a border condition in which law and private enforcement both come into play), and civil penalties for egregious flouting of the law.
Did you read the article? They agree that taxes need to be collected, but the way CA went about doing it is making businesses like Savings.com hard to operate in the state.

In effect, it's not their decision to stay or go, it's CA and Amazon's.

They will be required to move all of their employees out of the state to stay in Amazon (and others') good graces -- one interpretation of that statement is what you assumed: that they will try and relocate everyone. Another more plausible interpretation of that is that the jobs will move but the people may or may not not.
Yes. I also have the prime logo instead of the normal ones, and the 2 items in cart that were added a few days ago but not purchased yet.
I think you're completely ignoring the mortgage-backed securities industry which not only bought up many of these loans, but created a market for them. I read that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were actually late to that party.

Also, saying that this regulation had minimal effect does not imply that all regulation will have minimal effect.
Sanctioned: P2P lawyer fined $10,000 for "staggering chutzpah"
I like it. I've been dissatisfied with my personal website ( http://yllus.com/ ) for a number of reasons, and you providing a child theme that would let me quickly switch over it just the push I needed. Thanks!
Student Plans - Rogers
FYI, Maciej is banned from HN - his comments are autodead, so don't expect responses.
I never used to but I tend to for all but the simplest of things these days. I personally use CodeIgniter because I like how it stays out of my way.

Be aware though that CI tends to be looked down upon in a similar way to how PHP itself is. I like it (and it has good docs), but if you use it be prepared to be the lowest of the low :)
Amazon to launch a Netflix-like service for books | Front Side Bus
Is there a tool for using Pomodoro that incorporates music? e.g., assembles 25 minute blocks of music or noise with very subtle signals that you're nearing the end of a block (have found this gets me going faster).
And he laughs it off because he can make ten times that suing his grandmother.
One of the co-authors of that paper has withdrawn some of the strong conclusions once based on it in his subsequent co-authored article in the latest edition of Vogel and Motulsky human genetics textbook (cited in my link to a Wikipedia user page in another comment in this thread). Anyway, what the article shows in relation to this thread is not the point the participant above was relying on. It is occasionally possible, with a sample of genetic information about genes not under strong selection pressure, to make a reasonably accurate rough guess of the "race" categorization of many individuals. (I have read the article, and I see that that is the claim, as in the excerpt you kindly quote, but the article also notes exceptions in the sample it examined who were miscategorized.) But those study authors, and all competent human geneticists, do NOT argue the converse: that if you know an individual's race categorization, you know to a reasonable degree of accuracy what specific genes that person has of interest to human behaviors. In fact, we generally do not know that at all about any individual. There are still few genes significant behavorial effect that have been even tentatively identified in a first sample, and the widely replicated result is that ANY "race" group defined by the varying social definitions around the world will still be highly diverse as to any genetic characteristic of interest.
Show HN: dcmntr.com
I'm not through a ycombinator startup, or through any VC's, but I read this site every day to get inspiration. I created a webapp to help simplify the process of getting exposure for apps that you guys might create, and at the same time have an open bug tracking system for your users to submit their own bugs.

The site is http://www.dcmntr.com/
"More like blind future-proofing."

To me, through my own skewed historical lens, it looks like an admirable level of humility. So, good job.

While that flexibility was mostly used for evil, rather than good (vbscript, for instance), I think it probably helped build a stronger web ecosystem having competitors to the throne even if none ever really got a foothold against JavaScript.
As for "appending infinite lists" I'd like to suggest Control.Monad.Omega: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/control-monad-omega

"A monad for enumerating sets: like the list monad, but impervious to infinite descent.

A depth-first search of a data structure can fail to give a full traversal if it has an infinitely deep path. Likewise, a breadth-first search of a data structure can fall short if it has an infinitely branching node. Omega addresses this problem by using a "diagonal" traversal that gracefully dissolves such data."
Nurture
In the Nurture game you approach someone, friend or stranger, and perform a quick, unique inward action that stimulates oxytocin within yourself (in men as well as women). Temporarily, it creates sympathetic feelings toward the other person. It can be done in person or by video chat on a smartphone.

You do it, then you let them know you did it, in a light-hearted, gentle way. (For instance: "Guess what? I was just 'mothering' you….") You then briefly explain what you are doing, which is, creating caring emotions (versus destructive ones) in order to heal human relationships, and then, in time, heal the planet itself.

If your target likes what you are doing, first you have them join up on the Nurture website, then you "deputize" them to try the process on their own friends. This generates an MLM-like "downline." The desire to win small, humorous badges for successful recruitment, as well as the serious nature of the project, may cause the viral spread to move very fast.

Group activity centers on the Nurture bulletin board. At first, those with common interests will coalesce around their mutual objectives, like saving forests. We expect to prod these threads in the BB toward more ambitious projects like organizing the newly and increasingly disenfranchised middle class and longtime poor, and even perhaps ultimately reorganizing the entire worldwide social system. Given our very positive and nonviolent philosophy, any reorganization would be gentle, gradual, and nonviolent.

All will be driven by the common ethical attitude based on kindness, trust, and empathy. Utopian indeed. Yet there is also a monetary side, needed in any organization: housekeeping money to run the organization and for its projects. Such income could be generated through fund-raisers, membership fees, simple contributions, publications, political organizing, and the like.

NEEDS

I see a need, first of all, for a developer knowledgeable in iPhone programming, particularly video chat. This might include the jailbreaking of any closed, schrooted operating systems. iPhones could be used in ways I don't yet foresee. This would need to be a person conversant with, for instance, Facetime and Tango. Also, the website would need to be elaborated to accommodate new demands on it.

Secondly, I see a need for a marketer and fundraising specialist.
This study was about syllables, not characters vs symbols.

Example:

Japanese for mouth 口 = 1 "character"
English = 5 charachters

The syllables are irrelevant, though above they match; twitter care about characters.

Also note the:

> "Slightly related"
> Would you be able to maintain it in half a year? Would anyone except you at the moment of writing be able to understand it?

A C programmer? Yes and yes.
Install and Configure Compiz Desktop Effects for Ubuntu 9.10
Trollscript in clojure
> Even the presentations of red-black trees in textbooks (e.g. CLRS) usually obscure the connection with 2-3-4 trees, with one exception being Sedgewick's own book. That's too bad.

This continues to make me sad. My original (ugrad) algorithms class was taught from Sedgewick's book, and I always found RB trees to be elegant and conceptually simple (including the insertion and deletion cases); when I got to grad school, where CLR was the textbook of choice (and RB trees were actually taught in an earlier course anyway), man oh man was there a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth over having to memorise the complicated deletion cases. Really? I just rederived them from scratch each time, and I was faster, and I was right.

It's a serious disservice to teach someone the red-black tree algorithms without first teaching 2-3-4 trees and then teaching the isomorphism, and it's a shame that so many textbooks haven't figured this out.
I got one to start doing Android dev properly and I concur. I still have my iPhone 4 but it's looking a little bit older now. It will take quite something from the iPhone 5 to make me consider upgrading again.
Lots of comments, but I didn't notice any questions. It would be ineffective to prescribe a solution based on what is said because there is not much information. All the proposals here seem to be for a problem diagnosed in the commenter.

Where do you work? (industry, firm size, position, geographic location, etc.)

What are your coworkers like? Do you enjoy being around them?

Has the problem come up lately or has this been ongoing? Did it start with a current project? Office organization? For as long as you remember in your life?

What are the consequences going forward? What have they been in the past?

How old are you?
Bob: a Scheme interpreter, compiler, and VM in Python
Simple algorithm for generating pseudorandom numbers in your head
Steve's argument against business development is that it costs money and sells a product without finding out if the product will work. For a startup selling something without a proven market, business development is a bet on luck because the sales engine will try to sell whatever it's given by the engineers without getting feedback from the prospects about how to more closely align the product to an existing demand.

That joke is dumb, though. Blank explains exactly what business development does and acknowledges its place in the customer development cycle! (What does a "customer development" person do, one might also ask.)
Dude. I thank you.
Thorium Reactors
What browser is that running? Also, I thought pinching was patented by Apple?
Database Backed Queuing and When Its Sufficient
I won't violate the NDA, so I will only refer to public information as I attempt to disprove this rumor.

iOS 5 has several new features that are announced and relevant to developers. These were made public at the WWDC keynote. For instance, News Stand and iCloud have developer APIs.

The iPhone 5 will, if history is a guide, be running iOS 5. Generally new hardware requires the latest operating system.

Therefore, in order to have iOS 5 compatible apps, on the day that iOS 5 ships, Apple will have to open up submission for iOS 5 apps to developers some period of time in advance of when iOS 5 actually ships... so that the new apps, and the rush of revised apps, can get thru review.

In the past when that happened, places like macrumors, et. al. announced it.

So, whether the iPhone 5 will ship in 14 days or not depends on whether you think Apple will give developers at least 14 days to submit their iOS 5 compatible applications before shipping... or not, and whether you believe the lack of public reports that Apple has opened submissions for iOS 5 compatible apps is an indication that Apple hasn't yet done so.

Also, I was once accosted in a restaurant by a customer service rep for Verizon, a couple years before the iPhone came to verizon. He saw my iPod touch, assumed it was an iPhone and felt compelled to let me in on his inside information about when the next iPhone was going to ship. I knew he was wrong, I knew that Apple wouldn't announce it until WWDC, but what's the point in arguing with him? He felt like an insider because he worked for Verizon, so let him feel that way. But I think that low level customer facing employees at these carriers may not have the greatest jobs and may feel that they are privy to more special information than they actually are. We've often heard these kinds of rumors in the past....
How is it the lottery of indie games? All the games sold on HIB - that I've played - are good, original, well polished games. Some, I believe, are some of the best games ever made, indie or non indie. It wasn't luck that put them in the HIB shelf.
Bartz resigns from Yahoo’s board of directors
That's exactly why I'm a programmer, and why I've always had trouble with math.

I won't say I only learn by example, but I need something tangible. Something I can pick up, squash, twist and break until I can feel what it's made of. Even if that manipulation occurs only in my head, and even if I've had to synthesise that tangibility from someone else's explanation.

For me, that's the way things really are, and anything else is an intermediate representation.

I never did learn the mathematical definition of bezier curves properly; I just looked at the animations on Wikipedia. This post kinda inspired me, so here's a scrubbing bezier curve: http://samgentle.com/playgrounds/bezier
102 Minutes
A tribute to all who died on and since 9/11