skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Torvalds makes the same mistake that many other people make when evaluating politicians - he takes them at face value. If being reasonable and open-minded were qualities that were highly valued by voters, then politicians would hire coaches to help them practice seeming reasonable and open-minded.

In fact, this is one of the things that concerns me most about Obama. I too like the fact that he sounds like a reasonable man in interviews and he seems to value his opponents' aguments. But his voting record shows none of that. By his words, he is a deeply thoughtful man. By his actions, he is a hyper-partisan.

George Bush has taught me to evaluate politicians by their actions, not their words. Ironically, if being open-minded were your highest priority for a politician, then John McCain's actions (though not his words) would place him among the best of any living politician.
IAQ on C Programming
Two things stuck me reading this list.

1) Wow, there are some really talented people working on cracking Blue Ray discs. I surely wish we could channel some of that talent toward something more productive than making a copy of "Die Hard 4".

2) The futility of the effort of those trying to copy protect the media is even more striking than I had imaged. They just have no chance at all of ever winning.
How available it is today I don't know but I suppose the old LISP-machines had OSes written in LISP.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisp_machine
investors were unwilling to fund entrepreneurial activity for nearly twenty years of risk-aversion following the depression. vcs think this will be just a four-year hiccup. in ten years most of them will be gone, along with everyone else who thinks that the beginning of a secular bear market is the right time to take risk.
I second that. "On Intelligence" is a great book, and although I like physics and CS more than biology, it has seriously caused me to think of pursuing a career in neuroscience, simply because it shows how little we truly know about ourselves.
japan has simply been in a secular bear market. we are now in one too.

the distinguishing difference will be why their bear has been more mild than ours will be...because they started theirs as the world's largest creditor...we have started ours as history's greatest debtor
I find a lot of these sort of articles a bit of an echo chamber. There's limited value in advice that claims to be in response to the times, but is exactly the same as it was before.
50 websites you'll wonder how you lived without
The 15% was for Social Security and Medicare only. That's all I want back.

I didn't include the other 20 to 30% for federal and state income taxes, 7% sales tax, not to mention property taxes, excise taxes, etc., etc., etc. We all know that money is gone.
These are the same people that want to have a VCR integrated with their television.

No thanks.
It depends on the product.

Fleaflicker's sole source of promotion the first two seasons was Google AdWords. Fantasy football search terms are always popular; one user would invite a dozen of their friends to play after they discovered the site.

I tried other methods but that provided by far the best return.

I spent a lot of time E-mailing bloggers and journalists. The reply rate is very low but if one person actually reads your message writes about the site, the payoff is huge. Obviously don't spam when you do this. Research the journalist you're pitching to and make your E-mail memorable. It's kind of like a cover letter when applying for a job.
Hard to take market timing predictions seriously from someone who makes predictions based on things like "6 months from Republican convention".
I think "Digg's HTML" would actually be wrong. HTML is a language, and the secret isn't hidden at the language but at a markup written in such language. Say the language is called X. Then we'd say: Digg's X markup. Why would it be different with X=HTML?

What I aggre though, is that "HTML markup" is redundant in a sense: something written in HTML is a markup, as HTML is a language for markups. So we'd rather say something more general like "HTML code" or "HTML text", as we don't need to specify markup again. But it isn't very important anyway.
I'm just unconvinced. Dvorak might speed up my typing a bit, but I doubt that raw typing speed is a bottleneck for my work, and I doubt that the time saved will justify the sheer amount of time and trouble required to learn and practice the Dvorak layout. Meanwhile, I'm suspicious of the claims of a big ergonomic advantage. I'm not saying that the people who claim to feel better when using Dvorak are wrong -- but I'm not convinced that their results are generally applicable, nor that they necessarily rise above the level of the placebo effect.

I suspect that any time I would spend learning Dvorak would be better spent in figuring out how to get through life by doing less typing in the first place.

In theory, I could argue against the Kinesis in the same terms, but the investment required to come up to speed on the Kinesis is smaller (just a couple of days in my case). And many of its ergonomic advantages -- hands further apart, wrists at better angles, better use of the thumbs, less stretch for the pinkies because their keys are physically closer to them -- are unachievable with any other keyboard, no matter which keymap you use. I would certainly recommend trying a Kinesis before learning Dvorak -- if you're dead set on becoming the smoothest keyboarder in the world, there's no reason not to use both.
gzipping saves bandwidth at the cost of cpu cycles. So it may or may not be a good idea, depending on what you are trying to save.
He basically says Obama is to him what McCain is to Stallman.

I'm very thankful to Mr. Torvald's work on which I am writing this message, but I rather pass on his intransigent self-centered views on world and politics. That post is very dissonant.
If you have children in the Iraq war, you might feel differently.

Also, I'm glad we have so many people in this country who understand that the economy is driven by the working people, not the wealthy.

I don't agree with all of Obama's ideas, but I think under his presidency I will have the most freedom to be who I am without fear that my country will turn into the setting of the novel 1984.

But most of all, like Linus, I'm worried about black/white thinkers. I am happy knowing that Obama as a future president, at least shows _evidence_ that he understands multiple perspectives on a problem and can think through contradicting positions to come to a rational conclusion. Too often, difficult decisions seem to have been made, these past 8 years, based on religious views.
And, according to his update, he could've found the answer and saved up some of the hot air in his colon by Googling.
ok, you had me until the last paragraph at which point you stuffed in your love for McCain ("place him among the best of any living politician") without providing anything to back that up. Precisely what "actions" over the last 8 years would you point to that prove McCain so "open-minded"? And yes, I do mean over the last 8 years. I am a "what have you done for me lately" kind of guy.

Torvolds' blog post is well written. Most none of us gets to meet the people we vote for in person. We have to settle for what we feel and perceive. It is not black and white.
I appreciate your comment and your reasoning.

Here is one argument for local taxes paying for local schools: it gives the influence over education to the locals.

It's conceivable that when schools accept federal funding, they are also obliged (somehow) to accept federal instruction.

If I disagree with current instruction, it is more difficult for me to change it when it comes from some larger far-away entity than when it comes from a board paid directly on my dime.

So I see two sides to this problem, but not (yet) a resolution.
I know one written in elisp... :)
Any prediction (and especially a prediction involving financial markets) with this time scale should be completely ignored. Please read The Black Swan for more information.
You got me.

Lack of choices is simultaneously their biggest weakness and strength.
Good point. It's probably the kids that are broken because they never study for their classes, party all the time, e.t.c.
Torvolds will not go down in history as an eloquent writer. I do not agree however, that he was comparing McCain to Stallman. In fact, Torvolds doesn't refer to McCain anywhere in the post.

Torvolds brings up his issue with Stallman/FSF/GPL3 to point out that he, Torvolds, bases his positions on situation; "it depends" which is why he titled the post "Black and white".
I don't know about The Deerslayer, but The Last of the Mohicans (about which you could say the same) sold millions of copies, so it would not surprise me.
I have no love for McCain; I'm certainly not voting for him. However, he is famous for supporting causes on both sides of the partisan divide (ex. supporting global warming measures, opposing the Bush tax cuts, supporting the Iraq War, supporting open immigration, etc). It would be hard to detect a coherent ideology in his voting patterns. That is why his selection in the primary process gave self-described "conservatives" fits.
I picked Rudin's book because it is infamously terse. It's an analysis/advanced calculus books with NO pictures at all.
>I don't agree with all of Obama's ideas, but I think under his presidency I will have the most freedom to be who I am without fear that my country will turn into the setting of the novel 1984.

From a civil liberties perspective, I am not comforted by Obama's capitulations on FISA and the PATRIOT Act, and neither am I comforted by his choice of one of the fiercest enemies of privacy in Congress as his running mate. Biden bragged that he "wrote the PATRIOT Act", and he was the originator of the office of the Drug Czar.

You may think Obama is better than McCain, and that is your right, but lets have an honest view of his actions in mind when we make that choice.
This report indicates solar prices of $0.15-0.10/kWh by 2010: http://www.photonconsulting.com/the_true_cost_of_solar_power...
I have tried using whiteboard. But i kept on erasing stuff and had no permanent records. My life was a mess when i used it (for about a week). so i went back to pencil and paper ;)

your 8 megapixel camera solves my problem. But i don't have one.
I think there are sufficient people on this thread who are in/around Indy to have a HN meet.
Count me in if this is happening.

BTW, I live in Carmel and telecommute to San-Fran.
Only two days left... thanks science! Finally, the internets will be free of American elections.
also I would like to point out that I love paper. I love notebooks with my daily notes in them. I love print-outs. I love storing paper. I love seeing my (ugly)handwriting in my notes. It makes me remember things and makes me understand faster than looking at the fonts in my monitor.
1. Look at problem

2. Think really hard

3. Write down solution

(Worked for Feynman!)
Ask and ye shall receive.

http://common-lisp.net/project/movitz/
I have a strong predilection for systems with incentives to make a good product. This is especially true when the product is as important as education. Maybe you are right and our time would be best spent on developing ways to educate people by working around the public school system rather than trying to change it. For example, you could pay a tutor in the marketplace to provide the service you mentioned in your last paragraph instead of convincing all the voters in your school district that it is a good idea.

I do think the benefit of these optional activities will be limited as long as the 30-40 prime hours spent in school each week are of such low value. And in general I am opposed to such waste.

Politics does require a lot of work to make any useful changes. However, I don't think ending the public monopoly would be impossible. Voters managed to do it in Sweden and the Netherlands.

My purpose was more to point out a relevant fact about our current educational system than to encourage everyone to drop their startups and start lobbying their state Congress.
I think it's a result of life. Diet, parenting, exercise, natural interests, drugs etc (things outside the education system) play as big a role. Current trend seems to be to blame the public education system for failings in other areas. There are an awful lot of kids who succeed the current education system, and an awful lot of life-paths that don't require higher education.

Could be better: absolutely. Completely broken: absolutely not.
Friday Night Lights Episodes
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My point is that many advances can be had without getting rid of public education, those advances are not of only marginal utility and they do not compete with changing public education. You frame everything in terms of libertarianism unnecessarily and dismissing positives because they don't advance your ideology seems unwise.
Does it bother you that children are limited by the arbitrary socioeconomic status of their families? Again, luck is determining what any child is able to become.
vladimir, contact me please. My email is in my profile. thanks!
In Ohio (where I grew up) it isn't luck which school you go to like it is in, say, San Francisco (where I live now). It's your parents' choice on where to live. They can choose a better school district if it's that important to them. While it isn't perfect it's a heck of a lot better than randomly shuffling kids if you are a parent who places a high priority on schools.
That's true on some parts (though supporting Iraq was never crossing party lines) but I think you have to judge by both words and actions. His actions told one story, but then as soon as it came time to run for the big office his words reversed. He went from preaching against the agents of intolerance to nominating one as his VP.

You have to assume that if he is elected, he will do most of what he says he will and live up to his words of late. He will keep or further the Bush tax cuts (or try to anyway) despite having been previously opposed to them because to do otherwise would greatly lessen his chances of reelection. Even 2nd term Presidents, who have that pressure removed, still try to stay close to their promises for the next guy from their party.

If anything, their words are probably a better predictor of future actions, since they'll be held accountable. Every time they do something opposite of what they promised, the Daily Show will roll the video they archived.
If I could choose a world where success were not determined by luck, then I would. Unfortunately that is not compatible with the stuff we are made of, right down to our DNA.

Helping the very unlucky is a valuable goal, and a realistic one. "Equality" is not.
>If anything, their words are probably a better predictor of future actions, since they'll be held accountable. Every time they do something opposite of what they promised, the Daily Show will roll the video they archived.

This certainly doesn't seem to have bothered Bush.
This is really important. The patent process is about come to grips with a fundamental property of software that is going to surprise them greatly. We're not even sure what software really is.

They used to just assume the computer was a machine and software was the gears inside. This lead to all sorts of nonsense.

As they struggle with what data is, what it represents, and how its manipulated, they are approaching in the courts from the back side what software engineers approach from the front side when designing software. And wouldn't you know it, its not about 1 click to buy after all. This stuff is hard.
You basically just mentioned two areas where both candidates somewhat agree. If you widen your scope at all, you see there's a clear difference. Obama's pro gay civil unions and pro choice. He's against torture (which McCain claims to be against, but then voted to essentially give the administration a pass on). He's for habeas corpus for detainees.

On the overall topic of civil liberties, it's not even a contest. McCain's views are much closer to those of the people who once held him prisoner than they are anyone who gives a shit about civil liberties.

Oh, and Obama is pro net neutrality, McCain isn't. If you can present one instance of McCain supporting a single civil liberty that Obama does not, I'd love to hear it, because I can present scores of the opposite.

Is that an honest enough view?
I think we both have valid points. If the internet were as developed when I was in school as it is today, I would have still been bored in school but I would have learned a lot more after I got home from school. On net, I probably would have been better educated.

We CAN still improve education while the 30-40 hours spent at school each week are a complete write-off.

I still think we would have a better world if that were not the case.
He's mostly done what he said he would. He said he'd cut taxes for the wealthy, he did.

TV shows a bunch of clips of him being a moron, but for the most part he's lived up to his campaign promises.
There is undeniably racism involved in border crossings and with the authorities in general. There are "checkpoints" in the south of US border states where many are discriminated against. I believe what you say.

My point, however, is on the immigration policy rather than enforcement. I do not believe American immigration policies are racist. They're protectionist and potentially xenophobic but otherwise equal black and white citizens of the same country have the same chance to migrate to the US.
I agree, especially since I support voucher systems.

In truth though, I think technological and other improvements in education will lead to the education freedom we both want, rather than the other way round. Innovations in learning could render the whole public education system outdated, whereas at the moment alternatives don't impress me.
I understand that was common terminology back then. Usually doing rote plug-n-chug calculations.
Obama's campaign was caught changing their stance on Net neutrality after Biden was nominated.

http://versionista.com/diff/JAS9LMr5qU7q8BSroV8KzQ/
I don't see this happening yet, at least to YC alumni. The rate at which they're closing series A rounds seems unchanged.
Fleaflicker,

What type of Adwords bidding strategy did you use? Since fantasy football search terms are so popular, I imagine that your adwords campaigns could get expensive.
I apologize, I've edited my comments on this thread substantially because I misread your comments the first time around. Also, I have a tendancy to post a "first-draft" comment and then edit it to be better over time, which is annoying to others because every draft is public.
I just posted this recently:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=351586
Obama; oatmeal; none.
Jason Kolb - Getting in Front of Deflation to Save Money
Nah...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slmr024JYaA
Skateboards, Wine, and Stuffed Animals: 10 Things Print On Demand can do now.
I don't think the article is really about what the title is. Odd.
Don't mean to nitpick or distract from your main point, but you spelled it wrong 4 times over 2 posts - unless I'm missing some subtlety of Finnish names, it should be "Torvalds".
No worries, I get that, I think the thread still makes sense. Always in this sort of thread I'm left wondering whether the initial conflict (when I generalize about your opinions) is a necessary sort of dramatic tension to draw out further discussion. I guess any opinion has unstated qualifiers, but starting with them seems to unsatisfying.
He removed much of the verbiage but he still supports net neutrality (as evidenced in your link).
Tech: Interesting Viral Political Video
Anybody know of any other sites that are using 3-D effects and overlays on videos?

I'm probably behind the times, but looks like there might be a lot of potential with this technology. Sort of like video mad-libs.

For those of you watching political entries -- nothing to see here, please move along.
Emacs is a good editor, but you can't seriously consider it an OS -- it doesn't even have threading.
uh thanks...I shouldn't write posts before my morning coffee fully kicks in ;)
This puts words and an explanation to the sinking feeling that I had earlier this year, as I compared the reviews of the release version of Spore to the Wil Wright demos and lectures of previous years. It turns out that the lectures were by the "science team", but the final game is more influenced by the "cute team".

Too bad.
Agreed ... though I say the title of your email is most important, rather then it's contents. Be short, sweet & descriptive in your title and in the email. Press and bloggers get a lot of mail each day.

Don't forget the little guy bloggers (they may be the big guy soon) as you never know who the big guys read or feed they subscribe to.
No aftershave? Damn. I don't know if I'm cut out to start web sites now.

Paul Graham, you just killed my youthful dreams with your recommendations.
On the other hand, think of how much time a really good game could have sucked out of your life.
"I prefer books that are much the opposite, like Priciples of Mathematical Analysis"

Can you recommend a similar book for Linear Algebra? (terse comprehensive rigorous).

Thanks in advance,
Anyone here uses appjet? Is it any good? How does it compare to google app engine? Thanks in advance.
How robust are communities?
I really like AppJet. That is, I like its potential. Now that I can download and host my own, maybe the AppJet devs can open up the ability to extend AppJet. I could see quickly building appjet js libraries for RDB integration, payment gateways, HTML templates, full text search, etc... But to do it without reinventing the wheel, it would be nice to leverage existing Java code. Does anyone know if that is the direction things are likely to go?
Interesting.

They might not be.

The magnetic interaction between Jupiter and the Sun is stronger than between earth and the sun, so one might go looking for flux transfer events between Jupiter and the sun with a period of 43.2 minutes (the time it takes for light from the sun to reach Jupiter).
Why did you move to Indy?

On a separate note, I think hackers who make it big should try to go back to their small towns or non-silicon valley places, especially if it has a good university and try to sow the seeds so that that these other places become hacker friendly. I really admire that Italian guy behind Balsalmiq for going back to Italy and doing his thing. He is not that big yet, but hackers there have a reason to stick around and try to make it.
Has anyone worked with Jeremy Liew before? He single-handedly writes one of the most insightful blogs on advertising, commercially focused communities, and "main street" web businesses, but doesn't seem to have the same high profile as other big VC bloggers. Just curious why that might be.
It took me all of an hour to go through the entire online reference. It is clear and easy to understand. But its pretty barebones at the moment. What it lacks in extended features though, it seems to make up for in simplicity. so if a developer community can produce well written wrappers for existing Java libs there may be a future for it.
If every 8 minutes a wide (?) beam of high energy particles shoots through the entire planet, rolling from the equator through to the poles, then wouldn't you expect to notice some effects on the ground in populated areas? Compasses getting wacky, I dunno, but not nothing?
I graduated from Duke in '07 and lived in Cambridge for a year. Moved to SanFran in September. I'm learning at an order of magnitude faster rate, earning an order of magnitude more, building an order of magnitude more professional relationships...should I go on?

I also love the quality of life out here and live frugally, much cheaper than in Boston.

I would not walk, RUN, here from Indy. If you do, there's also a very solid group of Duke Tech entrepreneurs out here that meet regularly.