skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I too chuckle when I hear "not too late...". Even more so when someone is in their 20's.

I began programming at age 36. Shortly after, having been so inspired by how exciting it was, I enrolled in a university. I am now just a few classes short of a Computer & Information Science degree. I will be 40 when I have an actual degree in my hand.

What I can contribute to others from my experience is that you will have greater determination, focus, and perseverance to learn something you really enjoy. This is especially true when you get older.

I don't believe I would have done as well or learned as much if I had pursued programming in my 20's. I wasn't as focused; I had far too many distractions.

My advice on getting started. Start at CS101. Learn the basics to a degree were it becomes second nature. Solve small problems, when you can do that easily solve larger ones. Don't cheat yourself; don't skim over bubble sort because it is boring, everything will teach you something. And most of all, enjoy yourself.
Cool. Want to be our TA? :)

I think the best format to offer help would just be to post comments here. Explanations of subtleties, additional insights, suggestions for further thinking, reminiscences of your own encounters with the material, or mentions of how this stuff comes in handy in other contexts would all be of interest. And it would help the discussion flow more. One lesson from the first thread might be that we were holding back a bit too much.
Personally, I support Ron Paul. While I don't agree with all of his policies, he seems like the sanest guy up there. Still, HN is for discussion of tech, start ups, and cool new things in our world; not politics. Any political discussion will quickly devolve into ad hominem attacks, and provide no interesting commentary. If you want to discuss politics, head over to one of the many forums, subreddits or discussion boards about politics, but this is not the place.
So he shredded and did not reclaim $1500 in expenses because it would took an hour of his time to do so? (assuming it would take as much as it would "Heather")

Am I understanding this correct? He threw away $1500 because he couldn't be bothered to turn in the receipts?

Am I the only one that can't quite bring up a lot of sympathy for such a situation? "The tyranny" ... come on. Not if you're in a position to "make the rational decision" to throw away $1500.
Ask HN: What podcasts do you listen to weekly?
...the effort required for my team to deliver "five nines" would be insane. It's much easier for one guy to take the application server down for 10 minutes (at midnight) once a month.

For the projects I've worked on lately, the ideal of "zero downtime deployments, fully automated, during the daytime, as non-events" isn't at all about getting a particular number of nines, it's about deploying more often than once every month.

When the deployment you've been working on for a whole month goes wrong, which of the many hundreds of changes are problematic?
Looks like something going on with FileVault. Notice that there are two different filesystems.
rick888, I never said anything to the extent that Detroit is perfect, it's far from it (I think you'd agree with most of my original post, in fact- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3120392). But, like any other time that Detroit is mentioned, everyone instantly becomes an expert.

In your case, I'd like to ask, where are you now and how long has it been since you've been to Detroit proper.
What exercises in 1.4 have stood out for you?

Here are some that evoked insight for me (or made me go "doh"): 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 13. I'll do some more tonight.

(#5 was particularly "doh".)
Yes! Triggered alerts would be perfect for my wife so I know what I'm coming home to (and if I need to by flowers)!
I work in a government funded university. I had to travel to London as an adviser to a day of government meetings.
Fair enough the government ultimately pay me.

I did however make the mistake of buying a coffee and a burger at the station on the way back!
My entire expenses claim was denied (train/taxi/etc) because a lunch had been provided and the meeting was only one day and so only one meal could be claimed for.

Eventually after much back and forth the govt dept sent someone to my university to 'explain things to me'.
I can claim for one meal - but it didn't matter how much it cost! I could have claimed for a 12course banquet at the Ritz, but I couldn't claim for two separate slices of pizza - because that was two meals.
Introduction to Zinc language
The fact that science often 'works' in no way makes the assumptions of scientism correct. In terms of modern philosophical frameworks, I think the best answer right now is probably some version of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmodernism
Very cool - hope it does well
You don't need SystemTap to determine which process is using I/O. Just use pidstat from the venerable sysstat package that comes with all Linuxes (http://sebastien.godard.pagesperso-orange.fr/man_pidstat.htm...). Requires Linux 2.6.20 or later to report I/O usage. You can also just look in /proc, which has had I/O counters a few years now.
Optimizing for Screen Sizes on Android
I'm not an emacs guru, but it feels especially sad to see that emacs grammar/syntax aware (emacs does a lot in this department) structures aren't used to provide this kind of operations by default (of course with some elisp-fu it's doable). The combinator orientation of vim commands is just plain cute.
For anyone else who's curious, the actual site is http://mojolicio.us/.

If you're trying to get new blood linking to a site without docs, or any apparent links to get more info is maybe not the best way of doing so.
Because next time there is an internal scandal and they need a victim to show they are tough on corruption or they need to make some redundancies they can go through the files and find someone who made a mistake over claiming for a cup of coffee and fire them - a great saving redundancy payments.

Didn't HP do this to one of their CxOs?
I would say it's quite different: Amex looking at its own data to make its own decisions versus PayPal making such data available via API to third parties.
That is not what real-time means.
Sebastian Marshall? The liar who claimed to jump-kick gangsters?

Hahahahahahahahaahaha
Thanks, hope you signed up!
The iPhone might be considered a rip-off my SE P800 running Symbian from 2002. Touch screen with no physical buttons on front and apps displayed as rows of icons on the main screen.

Oh yeah, and it had apps too. That's 5 years before the iPhone. Apple didn't invent the concept they just made it work.
There's a company doing that. Here's an article:

http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/09/27/an-algorithm-that-can...

“Only about 15% of what we do is traditional forecast meteorology,” says CEO Bill Kirk

I once had a brief conversation with a meteorology student about this. The idea of learning a model from example data seemed foreign to him. It seemed to me that there could be things to improve by applying ML algorithms.
Sometimes you're better off babysitting the deployment for 30 minutes once or twice a month rather than spending valuable development hours updating your deployment scripts to be fully automatic

If your deployment scripts are fully automatic, you can enjoy the (many) benefits of deploying more often than once or twice a month.
X-WR-TIMEZONE considered harmful?
Java Does Not Need Closures. Not at All.
Microsoft goes public with its 'Drawbridge' operating-system research project
We are looking for Feedback in all aspects of the application. Let us know what you think!
(on a side note: would be cool if HN had a SO-style notification system which would tell me when someone replies ...)

I think I have a solid understanding of both models and how to work with each, but as far as syntax goes I'm fairly ambivalent (granted, most of my code is in C/assembly).
This is my favorite:

http://glowingpython.blogspot.com/
Microsoft Media Platform Content Manager in github
Hack your productivity
Computer programming should be offered as an AP similar to how AP Statistics is in high school. I ran out of math to take in High School - the logic of calc-based psychics and advanced calculus trend well with object-oriented programming.
I'll just leave this here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq-e0getf4M
My Perl module WWW::Postmark now supports this API. The new version (0.3) should be up on CPAN within a few short hours, as the CPAN servers sync.
Is America's age of discovery over?
If you really want the list of Ann Arbor startups. It's here:
http://a2geeks.org/display/geek/Companies
Jeff Atwood - Is Writing More Important Than Programming?
Very good video about importance of Blogging and experiences of Jeff Atwood.
Yeah I came across it but it seems to be an iPhone app. Any suggestions for iPad? Doggcatcher was superb on Android side.
I just looked at that and its definitely the way to go...

--thx, going to make that change now
UberMedia's Chime.in Interest Network Says It's Different From Twitter
Agreed. 1-on-1 teaching seems to be very useful to many students especially for math. $20/hr. math tutors fill the tables at my local public library.
The link is right up there at the top of the page. Thanks for reposting the link, though.
> Ideally though, you should make sure that anything not part of your system, doesn't get passed through PHP.

For you to upload a file to your system it has to pass through PHP. That's where the problem is. Once it's on your system, it can be executed by other means ... those means not necessarily being Apache or NGINX. By encoding the upload, you not only reduce the size, but also render it harmless.
Remember, this is Arrington. Either the $1500 was exaggerated or he's being sensationalist. Likely, both.

However, my personal experience with bureaucracies like these has led me to collecting these little red-tape gems and writing a book.
Ah, the proverbial 'Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule': http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
let's say an end user of your app is having a problem getting it to work. would you rather that end user be a developer, or someone that doesn't know anything about development?
100-year old marathon runner completes Toronto race
More often than not, when I read people saying they prefer one over the other, they almost always prefer the one they used first. I think it's a combination of people being naturally averse to change and how different the two feel in use.

Me, I started with iOS because when I was finally ready to jump the Symbian ship nobody I knew had an Android phone so I wasn't able to play with one at any length. They did have iPhones though, and iOS blew me away. After tinkering with my friend's 3GS for an hour or so, I was sold. I later had a chance to play with a 1.5 Android device and I couldn't understand why anyone would ever want to use something so slow, laggy and, to me at least, ugly. I've since played with more recent Android phones and while the performance is exponentially better, the OS still just doesn't "feel" right. Ignoring all the apps, browsers, Google integration and everything else, Android just doesn't have the feel that iOS has.

And I think that might be why a lot of people prefer the first one they use. The 2 look pretty similar, but they feel very different. If you've gotten used to Android, iOS feels wrong, and vice versa. The author spends time comparing intricate details here, but he opens with a comment about how the two feel, which I think is spot on. I'm surprised people here are so offended and so quick to jump all over everything else from the article while completely glossing over what I think is the most important part.
That's why many companies have flat expenses rates for executives.

The day rate is $XXX in Europe, $YYY in USA and $ZZZ in Japan, there are tables of relative cost available.
If you want to stay in a cheaper hotel/with friends/use your airmiles you keep the money, if you want to spend extra and stay in a nicer hotel - eat at fancier restaurants - fine you pay the extra yourself.
To my best knowledge you can't customize iOS the way you can Android, some might say you don't have to, but for me that's still a plus. I have a Nexus S and the best thing about it is that I had the ability to install a keyboard a broswer and a home screen I preferred. The browser part I agree with, I still can't wrap my head around that, it's disappointing seeing how awesome Google Chrome is, and how lame the Android browser is.
Cassandra 1.0: 400% read performance improvement
Okay, but to be completely honest I was blown away by the video demonstration, so it did deliver on the promise ;-)
> ... perhaps not legally ironclad, but could provide evidence of the intent of both parties

Be careful, because "just exchanging a few emails" can be legally binding. For example, in the Stevens v. Publicis SA case [1], the owner of a PR firm sold out to a French company and stayed on as CEO pursuant to an employment agreement. Things didn't go especially well after that. Eventually the French company removed the former owner as CEO, who stood to lose out on a $4MM earn-out. The French company proposed modifying the arrangement to put the former owner in a different role, so that he would still have a shot at getting his earn-out. In the course of an email exchange on that subject, the former owner responded, "... I accept your proposal with total enthusiasm and excitement ...." The former owner later sued (on grounds not made clear in the court's opinion); the court held that the email exchange constituted a binding agreement to modify the original contract.

PS I second Grellas's comments in response to JabavuAdams.

[1] 50 A.D.3d 253, 854 N.Y.S.2d 690 (2008) (affirming judgment on jury verdict in favor of French company), http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6414256789563157...
> You'll note that the rise in income inequality seems correlated with the rise in the power of the federal government (as opposed to the state and local authorities).

Income inequality really took off in the 80s so it is more correlated with the rise of the conservative movement ushered in by Reagan. Reagan started the trend of deficit-financed tax cuts for the wealthy that continues today.

As far as the power of the federal government, it doesn't matter, the federal government is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street at this point. Both Democrats and Republicans go begging hat in hand and do the bidding of their true masters in Wall Street.
It's frustrating how a huge part of the difference between the "feel" of iOS and Android can be attributed to the explicit choice of the platform developers to not render the 2D GUI widgets with hardware acceleration.
Really though, the home button design is really showing its age... Look how much screen real estate it takes up on the iPhone, or how much of the iPad's frame could be utilized if there were soft keys.

Its become the first thing I notice whenever I pick up my iPad. Just a big ol' ugly button.
I believe the correct equation is:

Appsumo + Crate - $25 = 10gb lifetime account!
I was in a medium-sized company where the VP of Engineering started attending design meetings. Talk about a huge waste of time and a huge distraction.

Because he was the VP, and kind of jerk at that, everyone acted differently in the design meetings but everyone felt compelled to answer his questions because he was the VP. He would ask obvious questions that would derail the entire process. It was completely unproductive, but he really felt he could "add value" by attending the meetings, but it was pretty obvious that his expiration date as a technical person was long gone.

There was a funny quote a few weeks ago about how Zuckerberg wanted to go in and fix a few bugs and developers were complaining because he was way slower, etc, and basically just interfered with the process.

I'm glad that the original author is interested in learning how to program, but if it means he's going to stick his nose in and start gumming up the system, then he should stop. Programmers require a certain personality type. You can't take someone in sales and think that by understanding programming that it will somehow help him. Leave the managing to the managers, leave the sales to the sales people, and leave the programming to the programmers.
Show HN: Boardbaba - Share your Markerboards realtime. (html5 canvas)
Rick, I'm in Detroit regularly, and the worst thing that's ever happened is a homeless person asked me for my change.

You are right that a mile, let alone a few blocks out can be sketchy in spots... but if you've got half a brain, you dont go there. In recognition of some awesome clean up efforts, parts of the Cass Corridor, which used to be the nearest thing to No-Man's land is cleaned up, and awesome. In fact, I spent a day down there with friends and family over the summer.

As for doing business in downtown, it's honestly been a joy for me. I look forward to going to Detroit. The city has awesome character and I'd like to be a part of the resurgence. Is it going to happen overnight, NO. Are efforts in place to make it an exemplar city, you bet. I'll close by saying Rome wasn't (re)built in a day.
Bill Gross’s New Social Network Chime.in Will Pay People to Use It
The Value of Diversity
AP Computer Science exists, they provided it at my high school. At the time, it was taught using C++. I believe they use Java now.

Maybe not the ideal choice of languages, but nonetheless, I did feel much better prepared than my peers when I started taking programming courses in college.
And that's where it's intended to be used.
Which claims have not been rejected?
As I see it: If your boss is an enormous idiot you have a problem anyways. I can't imagine someone, a manager no less, to act that stupid. How did he manage to keep his job?
Marco's show is still very young. Making it short or more focused wouldn't allow it to develop as quickly (the man needs more hours not less). I still very much enjoy the show and think Marco is more free than he used to be and more enjoyable as a result. I think Marco's value or not an a good talk radio host is not in the more focused show.

Hypercritical is a more focused and is a great show in its own right.

As Dan would say "Sorry to lose you as a listener".

You may be being down-voted because of hyperbole rather than disagreement...
This wont be the last story about "find my friends"
I really dislike this application and i dont see the benefit except in one case, you have kids and want to see where they are and even here we all grew up without being remote tracked by our parents.

Can anybody share a story where this app added value too their lives?
Foxconn to make iPads in Brazil from December
A Short Talk about Richard Feynman
Inspired by ‘Predator’ Film, Troops Turn Backpack Into Massive Ammo Clip
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/download-map-area-add...
The Seductive Allure of Neuroscience Explanations
Ok, so it is. Problem is it just looks like a tag or something.
Peter Cooper has three of them that are hard to beat:
http://rubyweekly.com, http://javascriptweekly.com, and http://html5weekly.com.

I'll plug mine as well: Hacker Newsletter - http://www.hackernewsletter.com, which is a product of what I said above. :)
I hope he gets to see your comment b/c its not something that would get mentioned by his coders. So do you feel like its a good idea on paper for managers to know the nature of the programmers work that well?
Still, when user saves a webpage to Instapaper he/she probably wants to see it as it was when it was saved, and not magically updating itself afterwards. So I think that 'exactly this article at exactly this point in time' should qualify as 'content that cannot be recreated'.
There is no way I will let some third-party online tool access my inbox. Privacy and security are much more important to me than some fancy gimmick visualisation.

I would love to do this kind of analysis on my mails. Any chance for a local offline tool?
Welcome to Black Hearts Gaming
For some Ruby/Rails stuff I follow:

rubyinside.com

yehudakatz.com

weblog.rubyonrails.org
I think I'll stick with San Fran. If you guys want to be snobby about it, you're more than welcome to.
But can't the free market channels and services work just as well?

Nope. I've also worked for Rupert Murdoch and other private media entities. Free market is what got as the phone hacking scandal to give one example (there are countless).

The US is sorely lacking in high quality reportage through to certain areas of high-brow television programming due to market forces which are concentrating budgets towards maximum ROI media.

The comments on that article go to show there exist conflicting views on the BBC's usefulness, in which case, it is unethical to force the tax on practically everyone who lives there.

Hmm, well lets just look at tax itself (ie the %age you pay on your earnings). There's certainly an array of views on the usefulness/appropriateness of taxing people yet we have to have it for the greater good. When someone says that they never watch any BBC output whatsoever (which is highly unlikely but still) they are still benefiting from the BBC's presence in the media landscape and the emphasis it has on it's competition.

For example, none of the other UK broadcasters had any plans on offering online TV on demand until the BBC launched iPlayer.
From wayyy back in the day (circa ~'99), something my friends and I built along the same lines: http://www.imood.com/ It had a shockingly passionate user-base and is still kicking along with a fair number of users. Originally all in kludgy CGI and perl!
Simple Wishes Pumping Bra
Simple Wishes Pumping Bra
Simple Wishes Hands Free Pumping Bra Joining a Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across an extraterrestrial ship buried in the ice, she discovers an organism
Can someone explain dependent and independent claims to me?
MP3 Audio Mirror --
magnet:?
xt=urn:btih:36c9037c3577ffb4caecebb5d9f008f7a15737b7&dn=649-gogaruco2011-failing-fast-stuff-we-should-have-done-better-at-square.mp3&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80

720p Video Mirror --
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:cad3c387e003fa1cd9d12c453ada1a8efd65a564&dn=649-gogaruco2011-failing-fast-stuff-we-should-have-done-better-at-square-large.mp4&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80
You're saying that coding in PHP, with all the myriad security holes found in PHP's implementation over the years, for which hacks have been added to disable PHP's functionality as "security hardening", is just as secure as an application which when written in a different language doesn't need its functionality removed to be secure?

What planet are you from?
What architecture are you using? Looks like PHP and I'm assuming MySQL - anything else?
I like reading Scott Hanselman:

http://www.hanselman.com/blog

I also like this one with his series (back in 2008) on coding poker bots but he hasn't posted in a while:

http://www.codingthewheel.com/
Is there any way to do fast database schema migrations? This is not a nitpick, I've posted a question on SO about this (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6740856/how-do-big-compan...).

As is suggest above, you could use NOSQL. But NOSQL still has schemas, in a sense - if you decide to restructure anything you may still need to knock the db out for a while (or write really hairy code to work around two different versions of your data, but be unable to restructure stuff because you're too scared to change anything on the db).
I read Alvin Ashcraft's Morning Dew, which is a .NET resource. He posts links to tons of articles every morning on 10 different topics. It's fun to read up on such a variety of different topics.

http://www.alvinashcraft.com

I also read the Daily WTF every day. It's great to have a chance to look at crappy code and try to re-write it in your head on how it should have been done.

http://www.thedailywtf.com