skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Part of the problem is that the distinction here is between "religious" and "atheist", not taking into account the many different forms "religion" takes, and the different degrees to which it can be applied. There are many religions out there that believe decidedly un-nice things (such as your serial killer).

If someone decided to believe something completely wacko (like scientology) and then called it a religion; does that reflect meaningfully on the other religions? If someone called themselves a "Christian" or "Buddhist", but then did something obviously un-Christian, un-Buddhist, and un-nice, does it mean that Christianity or Buddhism are necessarily evil or un-nice? The same can be said for atheism. Hitler was not nice; if he had applied Christianity or Scientology, would he have turned out better? No way to tell.

I would say that you have to evaluate each person individually, and how they apply their religion, and then see whether it made a positive or negative difference in that one case. Whether supposedly "religious" people either do or do not behave better or worse than their neighbors doesn't have much significance beyond their specific case. Even then, it is hard to know how they would have turned out otherwise.

No one ever hears about the religious people who didn't become serial killers because of their religion, precisely because they didn't, and there is no way to know that they would have.

Every generalization is wrong.

The label "religion" poisons (or at least confuses) everything.
Also, I was big into Parallax, Inc's BASIC Stamps, and a magazine called "Nuts and Volts".. not sure if it's still around. There was also a great, great electronics store near me called Electronics Parts Outlet (Houston) that had ridiculous electronics stuff. I suggest searching to see if there are any niche electronics stores in your area. I ended up learning from the wise old EEs that worked there and they let me thinker with peltiers, oscilliscopes and the like. I ended up doing a _ton_ of soldering kits. I think companies were by the name of Ramsey electronics and Velleman to name a few.
I found one of books: "Left Back: A Century of Battles Over School Reform". You can read a full review here: http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/000948.html
Ask YC: Anyone still need housing for YC interviews this weekend?
We are offering a 50% discount on any reservation you book on our site, AirBed & Breakfast. Just write YC in the "purpose of trip" field when booking. Go here to find a place: http://www.airbedandbreakfast.com/search?location=San%20Francisco
Hacker News? How does a slate.com article like this get on the front page? I've read freshman philosophy papers that were more intellectually engaging than this.
1 of every 50 people on earth belong to Facebook
i generally don't come out and tell people about my beliefs or lack thereof. if asked i usually say i'm "seeking".

overall it's gotten me better responses and attitude than if i tell people i don't believe in gods at all.

people who believe in gods RARELY think as deeply about atheism as people who don't believe in gods think about religion. there's a large imbalance in the amount of time one has taken to understand "the other side".

i suggest baby steps when dealing with religious people, if you want to maintain relationships with them.
I've always found "want" to be an interesting word in English.

You can really want to be the kind of person who gets up and goes to the gym regularly. And you can also simultaneously want to sit motionless on your sofa and passively watch dumb TV programs, even though those things are totally incompatible.

I suspect it may be similar with figuring out whether teenagers really "want" to be mature, responsible, and productive individuals.
Kevin Kelly: The Origins of Progress
IBM Blocks Mark Papermaster from Working for Apple
Whatever's native to the platform. On Windows, that usually means C#/.NET. On Linux, C/Gnome or C++/Qt. On the Mac, Objective-C/Cocoa. On the web, JavaScript.
Reminds me of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six...
If you have a small, well-scoped application, like your RSS daemon, C++ is going to be best of breed in most cases. Similarly, if performance is your absolute primary concern, there's nothing out there that can compete.

For most desktop software, though, neither of these things are true. The design and scope of the application are constantly changing, and mostly it just sits there. I write desktop software for a living, including a lot of CPU-intensive graphics stuff, and I'm infinitely grateful that I work in C# rather than C++. It makes me many times more productive, makes my work conceptually cleaner, and makes me a happier person all round. There's a memory cost, to be sure, but it's acceptable, and 90% of the clock cycles are spent in C libraries no matter what, so I don't see much of a downside.

My background's in 3D graphics and computational geometry. I've always enjoyed working in C++ on computationally intensive problems, and reducing a problem to its cleanest, fastest implementation. But I think that in the real world, 99% of the time, what really matters are the features, and that the widespread fascination with efficiency is mostly just techno-fetishism.
What Apple app does that? That is definitely against their own design convention.
> people who believe in gods RARELY think as deeply about atheism as people who don't believe in gods think about religion.

Where do you draw this downright ignorant conclusion? Have you heard of William Lane Craig, Alvin Plantinga, or Richard Swinburne? If you really are seeking truth, don't settle in your beliefs merely because of the mediocrity around you.
While it is easy to poke holes in something like this, it is a brilliant structuring of the canonical types of blogging. Would have been neat to see how traffic is impacted by following or breaking these rules, or at least a case study, but a very enjoyable presentation.
Ask HN: How to aggregate product info from other websites
Any input on the best way to aggregate product information from various websites would be much appreciated. Most of the websites I would like to aggregate lack any APIs that I could use to track prices and things of that nature.

I have zero experience web scraping of any kind so any direction would be helpful. Before I start digging I figured HNers may have some invaluable advice.
The members of Hacker News are very smart (on average) and probably enjoy reading and thinking about things beyond programming.

Intellectual stimulation comes from things other than programming.
The same was said about assembly when C was first being used professionally for microcomputer development. C was too slow, it didn't give the programmer enough control, how can you possibly get stuff done without having full access to the computer's registers, what if you wanted to use processor-specific instructions, etc?

People got over it. Many of the complaints are actually true - there are some domains where you still need to use assembly. But people figure they'll just use C for the main program and toss the assembly stuff in special subroutines in the arch/ subdirectory, and forget about it for the 99% of the time it doesn't matter.
Asymmetric Information Impactions on Business
"Once you do that it becomes your responsibility to care for and raise that person"

Until when?

I'm not sure if I disagree with you or not, but the post you are responding to isn't saying parents have no responsibilities to their children, only that a 13 year old could take on a whole lot more responsibility than is typical in our society.

So, maybe "get a job and take care of yourself" is too harsh, but is there some middle position?
Is it just me, or his response to criticism on the Wikipedia page is not reassuring at all, to say the least ?
Another thing to think about:

If a particular religion were seriously applied to its fullest, should it make a person better or not? This method helps separate individual variability from the actual effects of religion.

Note that many religions include evangelism or actual belief as part of application, which many may not consider "nice". If you believe your religion, it often means that you don't believe another person's, and that could be construed as intolerant, and thus un-nice.

Therefore, you may consider it to be impossible for religion to make a person "nice", since it often comes with these nasty side effects. In that case, you are probably also being intolerant and un-nice yourself.

From what I can tell, there are several religions (such as Christianity) that require you to be a "better" person if you actually apply it. In that sense, then yes, religion can make you a better person. Does that mean that you can't be a "good" person without religion? Of course not.

At the same time, Christianity states that it is impossible to apply Christianity without divine intervention, which brings into question whether "religion" itself makes you better, or God. Again, that doesn't mean that you can't be nice without God, only that it is (purportedly) impossible to reach the standards required by Christianity without His help.

There are also religions that arguably neither improve nor hurt someone's "goodness." Atheism is probably one of these. Nothing about atheism says that you need to be nicer than you are, but it doesn't make you more evil either.

And finally, there are some "religions" that have (according to everyone else, of course) entirely bad or evil effects when applied. The human sacrificial tendencies of the Aztecs were arguably in this category.

So, "religion" in general neither makes one nice or bad. Only specific religions, applied in a specific way have that result. And even then, who defines "good" or "bad"?

None of this belongs on HN though; religion is too close to the base of one's entire thought structure and world view, and thus debates concerning it are almost entirely inflammatory and unlikely to positively change either side's opinions.
Yeah. My thought wasn't so much "go for what's hot without thinking" as it was, "if you have no clue what to do, it might be worth your checking out big topics, just in case something jumps out at you." It's not something that people who've already got a vision do, but I see it the way I'd see writing prompts: sometimes, trying to write in a particular style gives you ideas that you'd never have otherwise.
I don't think this is true.

Too lazy to look up references right now, but pretty sure I read some studies suggesting that kids are primed to accept supernatural explanations for things.
How is rejecting the mythology of religion any harder than rejecting, say, the mythology of America (big A) or the mythology of the school system or the mythology of the military? Everyone does it, at least everyone who has grown into a thinking human being. Yeah, it can be depressing to read Plato when you're trapped in a cave, but cut your losses, fix your schemas, and grow the fuck up.
"... All good points, but I don't see the genre-specific connection to the sort of things we usually discuss and find interesting around here :) ..."

Be good ~ http://paulgraham.com/good.html

Be skeptical ~ http://paulgraham.com/lies.html
No. He very obviously means what he says.

The problem is that overpopulation is indeed harming a lot of things. And the only easy feasible solution is "send them to space," only we don't have any planets we could possibly colonize.
Most atheist would probably use the same phrase that Dawkins uses when questioned:

I'm an atheist about god in the same way that I'm an atheist about the tooth fairy (paraphrasing).

Technically, you can't prove a negative. But in practice...
This demonstrates how any atheism vs. religion debate has a short fused, built-in self-destruct mechanism.

"All the serial killers are religious!" "All the genocidal Communists were atheists!" Etc.

I've pretty much come to the conclusion that all atheism/religion discussions on the Internet (even Hacker News) are guaranteed to get real stupid, real fast.
Notes and Stocks.
I use python to write scripts of this nature (one script so far:)).

Python has SGML SAX parser and since HTML is SGML it can be used. Better than regexps any day.

Python's http client library also supports cookies so that you can pretend to have a "session" with your target website.

EDIT: the libraries are urllib2, sgmllib, cookielib
No, but his authorship gives this article a fascinating context.
The Arduino may help getting you up and running with a microcontroller, but that is programming, so trial and error works well.

When dealing with analog circuits or digital signal timing issues, the trial and error method breaks down pretty quickly.

And you're dealing with physical components that can easily be destroyed when hooked up improperly. I've destroyed my fair share of components, and worse, equipment. It's also very easy to do things the "wrong way", while still appearing to work correctly. A simple example: overpowering an LED might not burn it out instantly, but it will shorten the life.

These types of situations can lead to crazy "bugs" which can be far more difficult to debug than their software counterparts, especially if you don't understand the underlying principles, and without the right equipment.

You definitely need a solid understanding of the basics if you want to get very far. Then you can experiment.
atheism will become a religion when an empty plate is considerred a meal. mmmm, yummy!
Educated people make for a better society. If that weren't the case, there'd be no point in giving out scholarships either.
That's very good advice. I've talked to one or two people about projects I'm working on, and it becomes very awkward when two people aren't certain of whether or not to trust the other person.

Then there are awful stories with people like Jason Fortuny, that show just how dreadful violation of trust can be.
So, the conclusion of the article is that, in the US, religion causes athiests to be immoral. That's one of the more ludicrous statements I've heard: all those poor athiests unable to take responsibility for their own actions.
Surprisingly, article matches it's title. They actually did put camera and recorded how different users used iphone given specific tasks. This looks like good data to me, i'll go finish the slide deck.
Or even the habit/tradition of getting married full stop.
This is also a tradition that has it's roots in religious heritage.

Many institutions including Universities, States & many others have their roots in a religious foundation. If you asked 200 years ago, they may have been considered completely inalienable from each other.

What happens if you take a Church & surrounds & remove God? You keep the building where a community of mixed age demographics but roughly stable across the long term meet weekly and talk about ways of living ethically or just hang out? People are welcome to join. Community activities are run there. There are a few people responsible for keeping the community together, caring for members in temporary or permanent need, spiritual well being of the members (can mean psychological well being if you're more comfortable with that). They do this full time & are committed to it. This religiony thing has ceremonies & traditions attached to it. Particularly those that are 'public' like weddings & funerals.

What has belief in God got to do with any of that?
It goes a lot deeper than a few mismanaged lives. The disregard for personal responsibility and the subsequent politics that result will get much worse as generation x then y come of age.
maturity has little to do with age and everything to do with responsibility. I remember of hearing about a couple who adopted an orphan from Russia. the kid made people uncomfortable because he acted like an adult. Why? he was the oldest kid at his orphanage and had been looking out for younger kids for years.
You wouldn't filter people based on how good they are at school? I'd definitely weigh that when interviewing a candidate. I agree about the puzzles though. If they're relevant to the job, then sure, it makes sense to ask them. Otherwise, drop them.
Wired.com Readers' Most Excellent Telescope Photos
The trend it's moving in is also important.

If stackoverflow debuted 10 years ago, where would C++ be on that list? What does that imply for how much C++ will be used in the future?
Again, these things are the kinds of definitions that are fuzzy.

People identify themselves (& others) as Jews regardless of their beliefs. In areas where religion has become the current tribal banner such as N. Ireland, India, Iraq, etc., people do something similar.

Often they mean association with a group. Sometimes they mean ancestry/heritage. 'Identify as a Christian' tends to mean different things in different places.
sending them into space is not actually feasible unless space travel becomes as ubiquitous as dinghies. Think about how fast you could off-planet people. Even a million at a time is peanuts.

edit: I went and looked at the numbers: to maintain a static population would require blasting 75 million people into space annually.
Bitebot Tastes the Chemistry of Flavor
To be clear, these are not the puzzles Microsoft uses in their actual hiring interviews. The submitted title is terribly misleading.
In that case, maybe you should post links to them; they'd probably provide an interesting, welcome alternative to articles this.
A Speech on Science, Knowledge, Human History & Religion (Douglas Adams, 1998)
It's the most easily reached stable equilibrium since no actual evidence pro or contra can be produced that would be acceptable to both parties to the debate.
For the hardcore Feynman fans, there's the Feynman Lectures on Computation: http://books.theinfo.org/go/0738202967
The issue of atheism vs religion is not about what produces a better moral compass, but what view of the universe is correct.
I'll 2nd on Art of electronics.. But knowing the basics before touching it would be better
The Boys' First Book of Radio and Electronics. Author: Morgan, Alfred Powell, Publisher: New York, Scribner Date: [1954]
The Boys' Second Book of Radio and Electronics. Author: Morgan, Alfred Powell, Publisher: New York, Scribner Date: [1957]
The Boy's Third Book of Radio and Electronics. Author: Morgan, Alfred Powell, Publisher: New York, Scribner Date: [1962]
The Boys' Fourth Book of Radio and Electronics; an introduction to solid state physics, semiconductors, and transistors, Author: Morgan, Alfred Powell. Publisher: New York, Scribner Date: [1969]

For me, nothing else comes close :-)
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Hold on just a minute guys. Are you trying to tell me that human beliefs are not logically consistent?!
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Pigerne giver bedre respons på en profil , der er humoristisk eller lyder spændende. Så husk det, når du er på nettet og dater på datingsites som E-kontakt.
Totally disagree but respect your position. Trying to learn the analog side of electronics can take a very long time and requires vast amounts of information.

If you go the digital route, most (software) hackers can be creating fairly elaborate systems in an afternoon. They do the bulk of the work in the software, rather than futzing with resistors and capacitors.

Imagine the difference between creating a LED array to mimic the KITT car's LED light scanner in analog and in digital. Analog would be a nightmare, digital would be a great afternoon of fun on very limited hardware.

Yes, eventually the person will run into the limitations of not understanding the analog well enough, but since they weren't bogged down in details, they may be excited enough to keep with the hobby.
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I don't think its meant to be...

Somehow some guy thought creating this site was worth the price of the domain, the hosting, and his time...but there are easily worse sites with even stupider functionality out there.
There is a better way. Wear jeans. Read books. Talk normally on the phone. Make stuff that people want to buy. The end.

I... I think I've just discovered a new mantra!
For what its worth, most claims seem to be that Forrest Mims has taken his words out of context.

Pianka has stated that Mims took his statements out of context and that Pianka was stating what would happen from biological principles alone if present human population trends continue, and that he was not in any way advocating that it happen.

Pianka is an AAAS fellow, Senior fulbright scholar, and overall respected ecologist.

Mims is associated with the discovery institute, believes in intelligent design, and doesn't believe in global warming.

I know where I'd place my bets.
Yep. Almost exactly the same situation was described in the book. I'd bet Pianka has read "Rainbow Six".

Clancy's "Debt of Honor" had a former Japanese WWII pilot hijack a 747 and fly it into the Capitol during the President's State of the Union address, destroying 2 of the 3 branches of the U.S. government.

It spooks me that the bad guys probably read Clancy's (and others such as Pianka) works for ideas.

Pianka claims that his words were misconstrued: that he merely stated that, due to wayward policies, we were headed for a pandemic and consequent population collapse and that an airborne form of Ebola could be a possible cause of such events. See the links provided by other posts.
If software engineering jobs want a skill set, then why are technical schools regarded as useless while highly theoretical schools are regarded as top tier?
Thanks for the input. I am currently learning rails so also wondering if there are any libraries that will make this significantly easier
Easy and feasible meaning "It's easily understood and sounds good." Space travel doesn't work for a variety of reasons, first and foremost being expense.
Haha, this is great Sunday night reading. Of course, he's preaching to the choir for those of us in IT, especially non-GSA IT.
I'm not even sure what we're debating. The entire article is just anecdotal evidence that completely fails to make a point.

I mean, I'll throw my hat in. I'm an atheist and a pretty big jackass. I'd sooner burn a church down with everyone inside than donate to it; I'm pretty much as amoral as they come and don't regret any of the morally "bad" things I've done in my life.

I guess the article is accurate. Debate over!
I'll believe all Americans are equal when an atheist is elected President.
reddit.com/r/atheism
I thought this might be relevant to today's links on religion/atheism related topics.

The society of Bali is such that religion permeates every single aspect of it and everybody in that culture is very, very carefully defined in terms of who they are, what their status is and what their role in life is. It’s all defined by the church; they have very peculiar calendars and a very peculiar set of customs and rituals, which are precisely defined and, oddly enough, they are fantastically good at being very, very productive with their rice harvest. In the 70s, people came in and noticed that the rice harvest was determined by the temple calendar. It seemed to be totally nonsensical, so they said, ‘Get rid of all this, we can help you make your rice harvest much, much more productive than even you’re, very successfully, doing at the moment. Use these pesticides, use this calendar, do this, that and the other’. So they started and for two or three years the rice production went up enormously, but the whole predator/prey/pest balance went completely out of kilter. Very shortly, the rice harvest plummeted again and the Balinese said, ‘Screw it, we’re going back to the temple calendar!’ and they reinstated what was there before and it all worked again absolutely perfectly. It’s all very well to say that basing the rice harvest on something as irrational and meaningless as a religion is stupid—they should be able to work it out more logically than that, but they might just as well say to us, ‘Your culture and society works on the basis of money and that’s a fiction, so why don’t you get rid of it and just co-operate with each other’—we know it’s not going to work!