skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Are you saying that the widespread anti-immigration sentiment in the USA shows that people don't care about minorities? If so, I find that difficult to believe. I see little evidence that many people object to those racial minorities that already live and work with us here in America. The objection appears to me to be more related to (a) economic ignorance and the belief that immigrants steal jobs, etc.; (b) the opportunity for abuse of the welfare system; and (c) the incorrect belief that immigrants, not having achieved stability, are more likely to commit crimes.

Let me put that into perspective for you:

Are you saying that the widespread anti-Jewish sentiment in Germany shows that people don't care about minorities? If so, I find that difficult to believe. I see little evidence that many people object to those French and Slavic minorities that already live and work with us here in Germany. The objection appears to me to be more related to (a) economic ignorance and the belief that Jews steal jobs, etc.; (b) the opportunity for abuse of the banking system; and (c) the incorrect belief that Jews, not having achieved stability, are more likely to commit crimes.

> I'm having trouble reading this in the same context as your comments about immigration and minorities, since I don't see that Obama has done very much with the status quo in those areas.

No, but a lot of freedom-loving concerned citizens still want their country black, errm, back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkmxTIUq4L0 Cheers to them for standing up to oppression.

> But I'm interested in more specifics, about where the lines between abstract values and material values get drawn.

Again, let's put things into perspective with a personal example. Why are you not at #OccupyWhatever right now? (check one or more):

* the current system works ok

* I'm too busy

* all the #Occupy people are stupid hippies

* it's not going to change anything

* don't want to get maced/arrested

* I have a job to go to/kids to feed
Kinect Fusion and Lightspace from Microsoft labs
The current version of the "extended filesystem" is 4, not 3.
I don't have much to add that hasn't been said in the other comments here, but a currency with a "market capitalization" of $30 million can never be stable. A single wealthy person could easily move the market a significant percentage.
Cool. An undo funtion would be nice. Like if you accidentally delete an item.
Not sure why you're getting downvoted for this, especially since this is the main idea of the article.

So what's to keep a loose network of independent merchants from popping up around the globe to undercut Western Union?
Hubspot does this, they acquired Performable which was doing this before and its now integrated into the Hubspot product offering. Other companies do this stuff too but not so much selling to startups and more to the enterprise (e.g. Marketo)
Oh, no. The governments which will borrow more in bitcoin than will be able to pay back, will just default. When Argentina/Russia defaulted on their debts denominated in dollars, how bad was that for the dollar?

So... Bad for them (governments), bad for their foolish creditors but a matter of trifling importance for bitcoin as protocol and store of value.
If Bitcoin were nothing but the pyramid scheme its detractors say it is, it should not have recovered. Collapsed pyramids don't reassemble themselves.
Hacking on Wikipedia's Link Graph
The road to launching an Irish start up
The Cloud for Entrepreneurs
Sorting on the back end is generally not cheap unless your dataset is very small (or unless it's indexed, but with arbitrary sorting it wouldn't be).
Layer by Layer
It didn't publish stats directly to my website. (http://www.bingocardcreator.com/stats/)

At some point I'll do the sane thing and just use Quickbooks like everyone... but I always put it off.
> I don't see how a believer in nullification can get on a jury without lying.

If you're going into a case knowing you'll say "guilty" or "not guilty" without actually hearing the facts of the case, you should get kicked off the jury, independent of your belief in jury nullification. If you plan to decide based on both the law and the facts of the case, you should listen very carefully to the questions asked, to ensure that your boolean answers remain truthful.

Question: "Do you have a problem with the law in question?"
Unspoken answer: "Depends on the facts of the case."
Boolean answer: "No."

Question: "Would you be able to return a guilty verdict?"
Unspoken answer: "Yes, I have the ability to do so, and in general a belief in jury nullification means I want to decide based on the facts of the case as well as the law, which the constitution of my state specifically gives juries the power to do."
Boolean answer: "Yes."
I think it'd be more apt to choose something like Racket. It has all the desirable characteristics the author finds attractive in Javascript. It is an integrated environment and includes libraries and extensions for teaching basic programming. Unlike Javascript it isn't married to the browser (and by extension, the DOM) and doesn't suffer from a variety of syntactical discrepancies. It even comes with a free book for teaching the fundamentals of computer programming and computation.

http://docs.racket-lang.org/quick/

Update: All of the desire-able characteristics except for being a resume-search keyword with a high hit frequency. IMO, learning how to program and getting a job are orthogonal.
Liquid metal capsules used to make self-healing electronics
We're talking across each other now.

My discussions of the extreme have always revolved around the pointlessness of arguing that way.
The OP MAY have been serious in taking the extreme, but it's far more likely that he was using a what-if line of thought to guide his thinking in a less perfect world. However, that what-if scenario lacks reality guards in that it requires that everyone think the same way, which does not happen.

My responses have been designed to push away from the extreme and inject some reality into the discussion. The reality is that some people DO take advantage of kindness. Some people really ARE lazy. Some people ARE con men. So the absolute is disproven by default, which means all that is left is to assume the other person really meant "what if if a lot more people thought this way...". Otherwise the conversation is over already.

"but you need to drop the notion that anything resembling a significant fraction of beggars are doing so by choice. Said notion is disgusting, offensive, and untrue."

No such notion was intended. As I said before, many different factors come into play when deciding whether to beg or not. My point is that making begging more lucrative will make the decision easier for more people. If the returns for begging were to surpass low wage jobs, for example, we'd see a critical tipping point emerge. The end result of more giving to beggars (on a larger scale) is more beggars. The current equilibrium exists as a result of the diversity of the population (both on the potential beggar side and the potential giver side).

My personal belief is that a significant increase in giving to beggars is likely to cause more harm than good. The current equilibrium seems adequate for taking care of most of the truly hopeless who aren't wards of the state.
This is a good book - I bought a copy 2 years ago. If you use tools like Mahout this book gives a good background on K-means, etc.

I think perhaps the word "Introduction" in the title is a little misleading because the book has good coverage and depth - recommended. Nice that they have it free online.
"Predictable Irrationality" - This is a pretty good book

"Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" - Similar to Predictable Irrationality, they overlap somewhat but they're different enough

"How to Master the Art of Selling" - Not as useful as the others, but I'm not selling anything right now. It has influenced how I perceive people trying to sell me things, however.

"How to Win Friends and Influence People" - I can definitely see why it's a classic.

I just started reading "Immunity to Change," and should have that done by the time I get back from holiday. I'm not far enough along to give an opinion but from the person who recommended it to me made it sound interesting.
Very sophisticated. Almost like magic :)
Mobile Grader
The details that made it even more absurd are:

1. She put a fresh, hot cup of coffee between her legs.
2. She put this cup right up near her genitals.
3. She messed around with the lid of the cup while it was in this position.

Coffee is supposed to be hot. In fact, customers typically demand coffee to be extremely hot, and complain when it isn't. Whether it is 80deg, 90deg, or 100deg is of little significance when considering blame for the action. The fact is she made the decision to put hot liquid in a flimsy cup near her genitals and begin messing around with the lid.

To me it's like asking for boiling water (for tea, perhaps) then taking the water and dumping it deliberately onto my lap and then trying to sue McDonalds. Her behaviour was so irresponsible and foolish, it might as well have been deliberate.

Extra sympathy for the extend of the pain and suffering. But sympathy should not redirect blame.
A brief history of Microsoft Vegas keynotes, now that they're going away.
I once considered teaching JavaScript as a first language, but the absence of synchronous user input made me reconsider.

For example, there is no way to do this in JavaScript,

> var line = read_line();

Of course you could use the prompt() function, but that only works in the browser, and it's an ugly hack.
Facebook Explains Ad Model To Users....Mostly
There are various groups of Bitcoin detractors and to lump all of them into one is a pretty clear straw man.
I don't think it's a question of complexity, but of where you want to invest your free time. If I wanted to create bingo cards, would I design them myself? Absolutely not - I have better things to do with my time. If I can instead pay $30 and be done with it, that's an awesome timesaver for me.
Why wouldn't terrorists hijack private planes now? Some of them are quite large.

If we want to see the TSA go away, start hassling the billionaires.

But airports are so passe anyway, TSA has moved onto buses, trains and now car searches, journalists are way behind.
The people with the knowledge are the bombmakers etc; the people carrying the bombs need very little knowledge apart from "push the button at the right time".
Serious question, here. How difficult would it be for anti-SOPA corporations and supporters to block congressional IP addresses?

Assumption (possibly incorrect) on my part that it would be fairly easy to identify blocks and ranges of congressional IP addresses, and that it would be legal to block them in the first place.
http://eightbit.me should be on there.
And the knowledge that the goals and demands of actual users (in this case, teachers) are vastly different from the demands of techno-geeks like us.

It's pretty difficult to see the world through your users' eyes instead of your own, but Patrick seems to do this on a regular basis, which I find quite inspiring.
Where exactly do you think data 'in the cloud' is actually stored?

Given, this may well require fewer hard drives (due to better capacity utilization), but still requires hard drives.
This doesn't seem to be working for me, when I visit some of Scribd's varied completely legitimate content.

Like this 288 page book, found in seconds on Google (does Kernighan still work there?) , which I guess must be in public domain, right? http://www.scribd.com/doc/59247191/PRENTICE-HALL-The-C-Progr...

Just how much of Scribd's value comes from books like this?
Ask HN: Should me and my girlfriend apply for YC?
We've been together for 5 years now. She's an architectural engineer and I'm currently studying for a bachelor of computer science. I'm the one who comes up with the business ideas and she comments on them. She's actually my advisor. She doesn't know any programming, but is great at math. I know a few programming languages, but haven't really build anything (except for my website). The reason I ask this is that there's so much focus on having a good team. Are lovers also being considered as good teams? We're both from Belgium by the way.
Yahoo to Consider Sale of Asian Assets
I have been in a few companies that have shared financial information to their employees, my take on it is as follows.

In the first company this was seen by staff as a tactic to enforce an understanding as to why salaries were perhaps below average, and justify some of the recent company decisions/purchases or lack of, the directors assumed it would motivate their staff to try harder now they have a better understanding of the company.

In reality staff become concerned about the company financials instead of concentrating on doing a good job, they also might start looking for more secure alternative employment. It really didn't seem to help anything, also this information can get out into the public, which is never good for marketing.

The second company was more affluent in their business, however again this had it's problems. Probably the best example was the union backed anual pay negotiation. The company announced a £4million increase in profit and the union argued that staff should therefore be entitled to a 3% increase in base pay in light of the success.

However the company then went onto explain how this actually was only a 1% increase in profit and therefore pay should match the percentage. Needless to say there were many months of arguing before a settlement was made, for interest the final solution was a 3% increase.

In this example if the company made clear they only made 1% increase in profit it would have been much easier just negotiate the pay, however the details they provided made many people feel the company was "greedy".

Unfortunately many staff are not business minded and financial information will be viewed differently by many people, I would share a minimum with all your staff, any probably stick to percentages or similar figures which still leave out key information.
Haven't link regexs existed for over a decade with clickable email addresses and URLs? What's so distict about phone #s?
a) Warned about what exactly? That people are going to be reckless and possibly injure themselves? What action is McDonalds supposed to take to prevent idiocy? It's not a children's toy. It's for adult consumption.

b) Why would I expect that it would be similar to what I do at home? It's McDonalds. They serve their coffee very hot. People like to drive to work, and still have it hot when they arrive. Also, I have no expectations of those cups other than that they are flimsy. The temperature issue is not relevant anyway because if she wasn't negligent in her use of the cup the contents would have been kept safely contained. A knife in a restaurant can cause significant damage as well if you decide to be an idiot and try to remove an eye lash from someone's eye with it. Would you say that the knife was too sharp? That it is sharper than the knives you use at home?
Great post and I couldn't agree more on how important retention is for web businesses. Our product, Nurture (http://www.nurturehq.com), addresses this need in a flexible fashion and is being used for exactly this requirement (User Lifecycle Marketing for improving engagement) by a few customers.
I believe the argument is that having all your information in one service (Google, Facebook,..) is like having all your eggs in one basket.

Then, if the company decides to sell your information, lose it, etc., it's too easy, and you're left empty-handed.

However, I think that if that 1 service makes it possible for you to backup all your information and allows you to remove all the information from their service if you want to, then it shouldn't be a problem... but I might be underplaying their argument...
I find it in poor taste to use Steve Jobs' name as a promotional tool. I see this done more and more and I don't think it's right.

They could have said "the startup that Apple wanted to buy", but that wouldn't have caught everyone's attention, right?
Oracle Falls Most Since 2002 After Missing Profit Estimates
Ex-Google Man Sells Search Genius to Rest of World
Computer Scientists Create Algorithm That Measures Human Pecking Order
Thanks for your reply. In answer to some of your questions - no, this letter is not from a lawyer, it's from the company's chairman. Their trademark was registered in 2010 and I can not confirm if they have the resources for an infringement suit, although I do know that they have not actually launched their product as yet.

I appreciate that the information is a bit limited but my intention is not to publicly name and shame so I have tried not to divulge too many specific details. I can say though, that what we share in common is the word 'owl' in our names, we are both building apps for audio content (in their case audiobooks) and in our case radio programmes / podcasts. Our owl logos also look very distinctly different.

The company who is pursuing us, from their letter, seem to feel that we should rebrand and I am wondering if they really have any grounds or are just being a bit pushy. As you mentioned there are several trademarks for 'AMD' in the US and I've found there are also several trademarks that include the word 'owl'. Of course if we had unknowingly named and branded our company exactly the same name as another registered trademark then we would be seriously considering a change. I am not convinced if it is warranted in this case though.
The hopeful part of me loves this because I truly believe the web stack is a truly democratizing technology, and has tremendous accessibility.

The cynical side of me also loves this because I like watching PL bikeshedders rage.
really don't think this is an example of a task that requires some inordinate amount of computing skill

You live in a reality which is far removed from the one inhabited by most of my customers.

I am aware that there exists a dish called risotto. I don't actually know what risotto is. Supposing I one day wanted to eat risotto, I know that with absolute certainty going to an Italian restaurant and saying "I'll have the risotto" means I get good risotto. If I had to cook it, that would be problematic for me, because a) I am not a good cook, b) I lack the ingredients, and c) I don't know what risotto actually is.

Unlike most of my customers, I am capable of rectifying my lack of knowledge on how to prepare risotto, because while I am not a good cook I am not totally unaware of cooking primitives like "cookbook", "punchfork.com", "boil water", "slice it fine with a knife", etc. This is where the analogy breaks down. Imagine if I were trying to cook risotto without being first aware that either water, fire, or cutting implements existed, and also unaware of the steps by which, given that I have been told there exists a substance called "water", I could discover how to manipulate water in such a way that it turns into risotto.

That is approximately where my customers are at.
Congratulations on your engagement!

One small thing to keep in mind with that, if I may proffer some advice not asked for, and without knowing beans about your family situation, is that marriage far away from home is fine, not such a big deal. It's a continuation of your life far away. Kids, on the other hand, are much more of a watershed moment. All of a sudden someone's parents are very, very far away from their grandkids, who will take several years to develop an interest in sitting still and talking on Skype, which is a poor substitute in any event for reading a story together on the couch or things like that.

Not that I'd do things differently, it's just something to plan for; hopefully you'll have enough money that you can fly around for long visits.

Also, while I hope appointment reminders continues to grow for you, the fact that it's not raking in millions makes your story all the more human, which I feel is what made so many people take an interest in the first place. Here's a guy who's not doing some huge, VC backed, high octane race for the stars but... bingo cards!
I suspect Mr. Resig is familiar with the potential gotchas, and maybe even has his reasons for still believing it's still worthwhile.

For my own part, as someone who regularly taught high school seniors (and other non-programmers) various programming languages (Pascal, Perl, Prolog, JavaScript, and Java) over a good chunk of the 1990s, I have to say that JavaScript worked out pretty well, possibly even the best of the bunch depending on what your goals were.

Prolog had some real strengths. The combination of accessibility for some simple applications with the power and conceptual depth of the logic paradigm tended to put more or less smart people with no previous experience on the same footing with those with some experience.

But JavaScript seemed to be the best of the bunch in terms of balancing accessibility, speed from which students could get to doing something with everyday practical use, and available depth.

And despite the fact that those of us who were teaching were just learning and coming to grips with some of the "bad parts" ourselves (because how many people really knew JavaScript in the 1990s, right?), everybody got stuff done anyway.
Obviously applying can't hurt. I've met several husband/wife teams in the past that worked very well together and clearly would be good candidates.

On the other hand, in California, everyone is going to have the recent Los Angeles Dodgers fiasco in mind (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/922673-frank-mccourt-sell...).

I could see someone asking you to at least think about what would happen to the startup if you break up, but I can't see it being any more than a very small red flag.
This gives me a better insight as to why my CS degree is a piece of shit and why I learn not much more than I already knew or that I use on a regular basis.

I'm Canadian not British, but I do relate to everything that was said in this article. I completed my degree in 2004.

Great read.
I would blame Flash for this.
Given their criminal mismanagement and greed vis-a-vis their acquisition of Sun, I'm glad to see that their bottom line is at least affected.
Ability to create something you can share (or that you can other wise readily "put to use") is important. If you lose your audience because they don't get satisfaction early enough, well, they are gone. While programmers certainly want to weigh in on the issue (obviously), the experience of teachers and psychologists would suggest that keeping the carrot close is immensely valuable to getting someone to learn something.