skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I have to thank Bill Gates for changing my life.

I was in contact with computers quite early, as at 7 or 8, playing games on green and black monitors, doing some report printing on OS 7 Macintosh, programming some small stuff at school for belts and robotic arms on TO-8 dinosaurs reading K7 tapes.
But I never really cared, it was just some tool sitting on the desk. You used it, got done and just forget it. I preferred to play outside.

It was relentless nights trying to create full reports on win 95 in Word and Excel(what a wonderful name) that taught me that a modern computer was not just a tool that did what it had to, and you could forget about it afterwards.
Even doing mundane things like formatting properly white space in a report, removing programs that annoys you, installing the right drivers for you modem and just have it work, having the OS stay up more than 8 hours straight needed quite a lot knowledge, dedication, and problem solving skills.

I thought for the first time that all this was not something that just works by itself, but needs a lot of talent, and the world must have been really short of that talent for a long time.

I just thought, you could actually dedicate a life making computers actually do what you want them to do.

And I became a programmer.
Thanks Bill.
Great ... I can't register for a developer account because I'm from Slovenia. Guess it's time to move to Somalia so I'll be able to register :\
Yes, but are we really worried that government employees will no longer be super-productive? ;) I think there's a bit of a presumption in your post!
Become employed doing low-wage non-unionized government work, same as the private sector unemployed. The government can produce more for less money.

Of course, this assumes that producing services is the government's actual goal. If funneling money to cronies (politically connected corporations, government unions, etc) is the goal, then this method won't accomplish that one so easily.
UK property agent introduces smart sales boards with latest digital technology
Highlights from SenSys 2011
Oh right, guys in other fields don't like women.
So basically it's guard(1) and livereload(2) with a cocoa gui. I somehow don't feel that mertis the title.

I suppose thats all well and good for $10. Kudos as always for shipping something useful.

(1) https://github.com/guard/guard https://github.com/guard/guard/wiki/List-of-available-Guards

(2) http://livereload.com/
> The net loss to society from this is far greater than the value of whatever money Bill Gates is trying to throw around after the fact.

You present little data and much hand-waving to back that claim up.
"To view a video you will have to login with your CMU Andrew username and password, ..."

Also, requires Silverlight (which I don't fancy installing)

Edit: This is the Tom Mitchell that Andrew Ng refers to early on in the Stanford ML lectures (when defining Machine Learning)
What are these "CD"s you speak of?
Nokia Lumia 800 is available in Amazon - Germany website
Selling Our Wireless Future
Innovative technologies 2012
Why Microsoft killed Courier
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun#Summary
Blackberry gave away Playbooks to anyone who developed an app for it, which resulted in a lot of "developers" who produced low-quality, minimally useful apps.

Is there some quality control that will limit who counts as a developer for the TouchPad? If not, I expect this will have a similar result. And really, even if they get real mobile developers, it may result in some half-hearted ports unless it becomes clear at some point that the platform has some kind of future.
According to Palm Developer relations, because there's money to be made on an uncrowded platform. There are plenty of existing TouchPad owners thanks to the firesale, and those that use their devices are willing to pay to improve their experience (since the experience won't likely be improved by HP themselves long-term). And you might have more success short-term by selling smaller apps on the Palm Marketplace than you would fighting for space in Android's.
Maybe some things that were true in the 1940s aren't true now. The world is a qualitatively different place now than it was then, because:

1. computers replace people's minds, not their muscles

2. the machinery discussed in the article was physical machinery, which takes time and effort to manufacture and trnasport around the world. But software isn't a physical object, and it costs nothing to replicate a useful program a billion times and put it on every computer; therefore the extent to which software can concentrate wealth is a lot greater than machinery could.
A T400 Thinkpad laptop (closed) running XP (!) and a couple of decent 24" monitors and a decent chair.

My person dev setup is a 17" macbookpro and a nice 24" monitor.

I'm also a huge fan of the Logitech cordless mice with the tiny USB "nub" transmitter and scroll wheels that spin freely.
Then just subtract terminations. It's not complicated - net jobs, period.
Most people don't really care about most of the things you mentioned. Office was and is still stable, useful and easy enough for most people and businesses.
It really is, Craig!
You don't have to login to watch videos.

He is the author of one of the must used texts on machine learning: "Machine Learning, Tom Mitchell, McGraw Hill, 1997."
As Tom Mitchell says on the first video, this course is recommended for Phd students.
Wikileaks sadly lost a lot of respect from me and many people I know when some of their comments and many of their followers weren't about Assange's innocence, but instead in defense of rape, both directly and through criticism of conditional consent.

Even if only some zealous defenders had done so rather than wikileaks (most likely) accidentally doing so, it would still taste quite bitter.

While I wholeheartedly agree it's not been handled well at all by the Swedish prosecutors and government, and that there are irregularities and that Wikileaks and Assange should* criticize and question this, seeing people defend rape to defend them is bizarre. Although I am well aware this happens whenever rape is discussed.

Conditional consent IS a legal concept in Sweden, and one I personally agree with.

This saddens me, as I'm a rather big fan of Wikileaks and since I am also a fan of Assange I hope he's innocent.

*Conditional Consent:

While you might argue that there may be a need for different words for varying degrees and types of sexual crimes.
Rape, at least for now, is defined solely by the presence of consent, as far as I understand.

If my consent hinges on a condition, and this was explained, my consent is nullified if the person willfully lies about this condition to be able to have sexual contact with me.

Ex: A woman lies about being on birth-control or a man lies about condom or being sterile.
Sick Beard - like Tivo, but sources from Usenet Tags
Of course in this case Amazon is in the middle, right? Suppose publishers demand to be paid by usage. Amazon can still charge their customers a flat fee--it just moves the risk of mis-setting the flat fee onto Amazon rather than the publishers.

Also, consider the incentives that a flat fee system sets up for publishers and writers: if you get paid per title rather than per reader, you're motivated to flood the market with books not to try to write a few really good books that lots of folks want to read.
Joe Biden: Thoughts About His Hair Transplants
People Who Work With Computers Seem To Have A Lot Of Spare Time [Funny Pic]
There are at least 4 million devices....

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ApB67S7ETz4WdHd...
I understand your point, but the documentary video said that most of the 30 people were volunteers.
Philanthropy demonstrates good will as well as indulgences demonstrated sanctity.

There's nothing more materialist than associating virtue with the scale of one's donations.
5 Tips To Help You Repair Slow Computer Speed-General Knowledge-Wrongservice -
You only 'go to the video' when you feel you've not progressed as far as you'd projected during the particular sprint (taking into account the contractor's skill set & hours worked).

It's no different than a boss checking up on an in-house employee to see why their output is not optimal.

I do agree with your sentiments to a point though. I don't want a contractor that appears busy. I want one that is busy.
Amigos | elforolatino.com
Literally millions of Chinese workers at Foxconn and other companies are supplying the world with iPhones. It's not just Apple with its thousands of employees making and selling these phones.
Care to explain why drive-throughs are a surprise?
I'm afraid you're confused about the kind of rape-crime that he's allegedly been part of, and I'm not sure the 'typical' rape-responses can be considered when it's not a typical rape, but a matter of conditional consent.

Even though I agree there are many questonable aspects: Unless I'm mistaken, in Sweden prosecutors are duty bound to attempt to investigate and possibly prosecute if a crime has been reported to them, sort of.
I like to think that I don't try to solve hard problems, instead I like to rephrase them as easy ones.
Just to elaborate after looking for you on Google; I'm assuming this is you: http://ropeadopeandwink.com/

The comments below are pretty accurate, this is kind've a terrible (mostly design) site. If you're not a retarded strong developer(read: compiler tweaking or core lib contributions, etc.), this kind of lapse in design and usability really stands out. Do you know enough about CSS to remove the underlined text decoration property from an anchor wrapped in H1? Why didn't you? Lets take a look at a pretty strong vanity domain for a developer (who needs to update their shit, but that I follow on Tumblr) not seeking employment: http://matthewmachuga.com/

Did you notice some instant difference? Did you notice his site design is a template from Tumblr? Was it easy to read and scan for information? Check out http://www.tumblr.com/spotlight/developers for some more examples of easy, but strong, blog examples. Detest the idea of using a service for this kind of thing? How about http://zachholman.com/about -- pretty strong site, compared to yours, don't you think? This kind of stuff is /just/ intended to get you in the door, to show that you're serious and that you're not coding only for a job, you're coding because you have a passion for the web/mobile/whatever-device-your-potential-employer-is-producing. Don't over think it, but don't produce design like http://ropeadopeandwink.com/steven-ciraolo/ or http://courseslate.com/ -- it's hideous, hard to scan, and people will have an extraordinarily hard time getting over those facts to try and give you a chance(especially if they need their developers to wear UX/UI or design hats from time to time). If you need to use things like Twitter-Bootstrap, do it, but don't be a capable coder who does not understand shit about design or user experience; like I said above -- stand out.
Grand Plans - a Collection of Lean Bootstrap Anecdotes [1999]
That still only takes care of the cost of hosting. It does not deal with the labor cost for reviewing the documents.
Cyborg Beetle: Implanting bio-interfaces on insects to control their flight
Parents coordinate trading of chicken pox-laced goods via Facebook
I already got my touchpad (running android now) during the fire sale but this is awesome for anyone who missed it.

Anyone know much it costs to sign up as a developer though to get this deal? It says you need paypal so I'm guessing there is a cost but it doesn't actually list how much it is until you sign up.
I'm skeptical of that argument. Historically when technology has advanced, it has created new roles for people whose jobs were obsoleted. Why is now the time when the majority of the population becomes too dumb to cut it in the "new economy?" Especially when technology acts as a multiplying effect for what someone without specialized education can do? Generally, depressed wages (i.e.: decreased price of labor) should drive up demand. If that doesn't happen, that means there is a bottleneck somewhere else.

I think a key observation missing in all of these analyses is the most obvious one: that bottleneck is energy. What's different between 1995 and today? Well a barrel of oil cost about $25 2010 dollars back then, and costs almost $100 dollars now. We have an economy that is entirely driven by oil. When the cost of that goes up, because we've run out of the easy-to-reach stuff and have moved to expensive and difficult methods, then it's no surprise that the economic equilibrium shifts to a point with lower activity.
I think this is a lot of what people are missing. Microsoft did things differently, and because of that, were successful. Whether or not you agree with their business tactics, their contribution was undeniable.
I think all the options there ignore the _very_ _very_ obvious fact that popcorn is _not_ a competitive market, because most of the consumers in the market don't know the prices! If you disagree, try to recite for me how much popcorn costs at your nearest three major theaters right now. Do you check before you decide where to go for a movie?

This is well in line with my own pet theory of the free market, which says that people's brains can handle optimizing on one or _maybe_ two things when making a product decision, and anything else is overwhelming. For a theater, that's what movie you want to see, and what price you have to pay. Anything beyond that and you have to start making spreadsheets, and it's not worth it to anybody. So beyond the price and the main desirable quality of the product, producers aren't really forced to compete, because nobody will call them on it.
Paramount: Transformers 4 In Talks
Most of the manufacturing jobs are already gone -- even as manufacturing production rises -- and yet just a few years ago in the developed world nearly everyone who wanted to work could find a job.

In fact, developed nations in Europe and the Americas are importing vast numbers of low wage workers to do low value per hour jobs where humans are still better than machines. It continues in the face of a prolonged severe recession.

So the emerging problem of no available work to do does not seem to be materializing. In fact, it's hard to imagine. Does every public park and private garden in your city look as clean, inviting, and pretty as it could possibly be? Is every street paved smooth without cracks and potholes? Does a bumper crop of fruit never go bad for lack of harvesters?
Is every home clean and freshly scrubbed all the time and is a freshly cooked meal always waiting? Does every corner have a crossing guard during school hours?

There's a lot of intellectually undemanding work to be done in a utopia if we want to pay for it.

Right now, we import foreign workers to do cheap labor but we could take unemployed citizens and subsidize their wages to have our own do those jobs instead. The unemployed citizens are living on private or public welfare and social insurance today but they could be working. We could kick in public money to make it possible to pay a legal wage with benefits for the jobs undocumented workers do and the employers would prefer to stay legal by hiring citizens. We could even document the undocumented and add enough subsidies to employ them too.

Economic change driving social change is disruptive. But let's remember that technological productivity is a positive change that makes us wealthier.

Unemployment that follows from energy shortages or global climate change, if those ever get serious, would be a much bigger worry.
It gives me pain every time I see an interesting, yet irrelevant article on HN, especially one that is 5 years old.
Your second point is key: the fixed fee plans compensate poor writers as much as excellent ones. With that argument, I think publishers could sell a variable fee.

Maybe there's a slightly more middle ground--pay based on the number of peak _simultaneous_ borrows in a period. Just as a library would have to pay for each physical copy lent, is it too Luddite to suggest Amazon do something similar? Not pay for each borrow, but based on the peak simultaneous borrows?
Just for clarification, this isn't trolling. It's true. In the last few years we've blamed the free market for these problems. I don't consider the federal reserve (a monopolist on money) to be a free-market institution. I don't consider government-guaranteed mortgages to be a free market program. I don't think forcing banks to give loans to people unworthy of credit is how a market should operate.

But with all that meddling causing the current crisis, we look for yet more government involvement to solve the problem. I look at history and theory and see that the injection of government involvement throughout the economy doesn't work. Ask the people who tried to hop over the Berlin wall!
Free at the moment, they say they have waved their fees for the time being, which is unsurprising given the state of WebOS
They seem to be sold out in UK and US online stores at the moment though.
> I use it regularly and have zero issues.

People said that of IE6. Then came Firefox and despite it running circles around IE it took years before we could feel any displacement. The problem is there's simply no contender to AD anymore, and that's not by virtue of its quality.
Or just install npm manually. Clone it, edit one line to bypass a check, `make install`. Remember, if it's 0.5.x compatible, it's probably 0.6.0 compatible.
Why do you need to give a company name in order to register as a developer? Does anyone know if the deal is available to people who have just signed up?
> Why is now the time when the majority of the population becomes too dumb to cut it in the "new economy?"

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/philg/2010/08/08/unemployed-21s...
This is actually not a bad plan on Palm's part. Probably the only last-ditch plan I've seen that has a shot of working.
'Lost' 70-minute interview with Steve Jobs coming to select theaters in November
> Owners joke about being in the candy business. If you didn’t have concessions at a movie theater, there would be no movie theater. We have movies just to get people in to buy popcorn and candy, where we make our money.

http://www.google.com/search?q=movie+theaters+make+money

Someone really dropped the ball giving out those answers. That thread is pure intellectual masturbation.

It's widley known that ticket prices barley cover the expenses and fees associated with getting and showing those movies...

In general, movie theaters don't make money on movies. They make money when someone comes in and buys the very expensive popcorn, drinks, and candy. Which then maybe nets you a profit that keeps the doors open.

Also, gas stations are about the same... They don't make money on gas. They make 70-90% of their profit when someone comes in and buys the cigarettes, lotto tickets, and products.
Wait, what?

https://twitter.com/#!/anonops/status/132412466226397184
Yeah I'm interested to know how this works too. Because according to the link, HP give you a discount coupon, but where do we use the coupon?
CalEnder
Attractive Fresh Short Haircut Idea
Yep, in a rails app you could replicate the functionality with guard within a couple of minutes.

Maybe its targeted at web designers?
This kind of makes me angry as well. Partly because I was about to write almost identical blog whilst deciding whether to buy a MacBook Air or a Lenovo IdeaPad. MacBook won, but only because Apple insists on me owning Apple in order to publish to their bookstore. A move I deem despicable and rude.

Until recently, Apple was also the biggest polluter in their sector and their philanthropic side is non-existent.

That and, does nobody remember that Jobs ripped off Xerox?

"Every OS wastes your time, from the desktop to the lap. Everything since abacus, just a bunch of crap. From Mackintosh to Microsoft to Lin, Line, Lin, Line-ux. Every computer crashes, cause every OS sucks!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUFZgD9mwxA
Economics is a social science, not an empirical one. This is why people who perform those experiments fail; they fail to see the difference between the success of empirical approaches to the natural sciences, and the failure of it to the social sciences. Social sciences are advanced through dialect and reason. But this still doesn't mean that we shouldn't approach these studies with humility and be careful about the things we postulate.

I'm long past the point where someone was ignorant of something and it upset me. I've come to realize that I, myself, am ignorant of many things. I no longer see it as a crime. What I see as a crime is people acting and opining on things they haven't given plenty of thought to. We all need to be careful to not spout-out answers and opinions that we always carry at the tip of our tongue. It's worth it to be humble and skeptical all at once, but it's tough.
Another online poker cheating scandal
Don't be too disappointed, but the page only mentions developers from North America and Europe can get a coupon.

That means Somalia would be out, too.

Now why can't Australian developers have coupons, too?

US, UK, Canada, but not Australia?
The difference between free and $150 might be enough to prevent a good chunk of those apps.
Premises liability, Martin County, Stuart, Florida
Generating Leads For Network Marketing
Am I the only person to think that this is a patently ridiculous line of thinking?
No good with large collections.

All I want is it to load meta-data for 85,000 FLAC files, and allow me to search in a split-second, and then play an album. Oh, and it has to support 24bit FLAC too.

I don't use playlists, I don't care about UI so much.

At home I use a Squeezebox Transporter. Works brilliantly. But in a desktop player WinAmp is the only thing I've found that can scan and handle the collection, and than search it fast. So I run that in a VM.

I realise I'm an edge case, but WinAmp for Mac looks like it fits my need.
Maybe I'm dumb. Well, I'm definitely dumb. But where the heck to I go to buy this thing? Can't find where on the HP site to do so.
The physics of an economic crisis
Terms and conditions: "Coupon codes are not valid anywhere but the HP online store, and may not be used for any products intended for resale or OEM activity as defined by HP, on employee purchase programs, retroactively on previously purchased items, or for cash redemption."
(http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3199712)
I was hoping he was pointing out the painful thing about it from the user side --- you have to use the Kindle itself to borrow a title, which (at least on their e-ink readers) requires a level of patience I don't possess. Browsing through hundreds of pages of titles with a second of refresh between each brings back unpleasant memories of 9600 baud modems and scrolling through BBS file listings.

I really hope they add the Borrow button to the website.
Useful R links (State of the R)
The price of oil is not determined by the cost of extracting oil. Prices are going up because of speculation.
I would assume the "coupon" is actually a private link to the HP store with a promo code associated with it. The promo code decays after it is used for a single purchase.
The problem is education, they still teach java like it is programmed 10 years ago.
I have no issue with people hating Gates, but I hate how people mindlessly hate Gates whilst worshipping Jobs. I think there's in an argument that Apple holding back manufacturers through no-competes has a larger negative effect than anything Microsoft did, albeit in different markets.
Silverlight? Are these people serious? Whether you are an educational institution or a for-profit media company, you are trying to get to the largest number of people and cause them the fewest problems. Silverlight fails spectacularly at both those objectives.

Edit: I know there seems to be a flash player component as well, but it's failing for me and can't get to the .mp4. Which doesn't speak well of the joker who cobbled the site together either.