skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Was there a case made against F# in the cited text?

Sounded more like a rant.

I read it twice. I'm unable to discern what reasons the author puts forward against F#. Seems like most of his criticism is against that certain book.
I made one small demo app in Merb about a month ago -- so, slightly pre-1.0. Overall, it was a good experience and I intend to continue exploring Merb.

A few points:

* Not as much documentation... sometimes it takes a while to find the Merb equivalent of some Railsism. The interfaces for Merb are very similar to Rails, though, so usually just trying the equivalent is enough. The differences I encountered were usually improvements over the Rails approach, IMHO.

* Smaller community. So, fewer plugins, fewer examples, fewer HOWTOs, etc. Hopefully this will change. But if you're uncomfortable developing something without a ton of resources to leverage...

* More flexible. I used Datamapper instead of ActiveRecord, and was very happy to have a choice. I was also very happy with Datamapper itself. I'm not sure Datamapper is mature enough, yet, for large scale projects, but the future is bright.

Overall, I think Merb benefits strongly from the "hindsight is 20/20" adage. It takes the best of Rails and rethinks its shortcomings. Where Rails was more revolutionarly, Merb is evolutionary. I think the improvements are worth the trouble of learning another web framework. I intend to use Merb for any new projects I start.

My demo app is http://ifrotz.org -- not that it's at all enlightening in a Merb vs Rails debate.
Probably a 20/80 mix, 80 being the latter =)

CompUSA is my evil after several really bad experiences with their customer service.

I just feel like it was inevitable.
Ancient, and abandonware.. but AWESOME -- http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/987/Mario+Teaches+Typing.h...
If it's not something you'd try, what would you try?
One other piece of advice: Get access to an oscilloscope - they can be expensive, so you may want to enroll in a course at a community college.
You'll probably be interested then in Nokia's haptic feedback system which allows them to create a phone with a fully-touchscreen interface that mimics the physical response of a keypress:

http://www.intomobile.com/2008/07/09/new-nokia-patent-applic...

http://www.slashgear.com/nokia-demonstrate-haptikos-haptic-t...

I've followed this tech since late '07 and looks like they just got a patent in the middle of this year. I'm guessing we'll see these phones in 1st Half 2010.
It looks like a response to a known troll in comp.lang.lisp to me. I don't think that the linked group message is really a good argument against F# as much as it is an acknowledgment that people really dislike Jon Harrop.
How nine of the world’s largest tech companies got started
I thought it might be useful for Hacker News readers.
What exactly happened to circuit city anyway? Were they over leveraged? Holding auction rate securities as cash equivalents? Or have they just not been selling much for a long time?
This should solve your problem (works for me):
http://code.google.com/p/firefox-mac-pdf/
I asked my friend if he could solve this, he had no idea. Guess where he works.
Well, non-news blogs posts seem to be more the rule than the exception these days :)

I've never been a MySpace user, was it really truly built as a place to market to young people? It always felt to me that it was built as the Geocities of the 2000's, and the whole marketing thing happened only after they realized:

a) they had a critical mass of users

b) they had no idea how to generate revenue.
Exploring emergence - interesting article related to cellular automata.
still files as in "we're looking at something else"?
I think this is quite mistaken. There were big differences in how the campaigns (and presumably the candidates) thought about and used technology. These differences were visible at every level, from policies right down to the format of URLs. (Edit: the article itself makes this clear - who was courting Silicon Valley thought leaders at the start of his campaign, long before the money rolled in?)

As for the idea that one campaign didn't have overwhelmingly broader support among youth, just more money... that sort of denial leads straight to the political wilderness.
LLVM 2.4 Released
On Android
Ray Tracing News, Volume 21, Number 1
the video looks interesting, but it's quite boringly executed :-(

Well, it is intended to help you fall asleep...
This would be a killer feature from Chrome. It's not earth shattering but with Google you have little fear of downtime or the inability to reach your precious bookmarks.

The question of course becomes privacy and security. Ideally there would be an option to bookmark for machine specific bookmarks. I don't need my work bookmarks at home usually, and some home bookmarks may not be suitable to be at work with me.

Chrome has a lot of potential to really be the first /cloud/ browser, but it's yet to be seen if it can make a significant land grab for anything more than initial wow factor.

Flock tried to do a lot of the cloud integration and social networking pieces, but it never succeeded in differentiating itself from Firefox due to the Fox's easy ability to do anything via plugins, and herein lies the problem for Chrome.

Does Google even want to really enter the browser war? Or is it content to keep working on its own and let Firefox / Safari / IE really fight it out? We'll see.
That's quite funny coming from a CA paper. Like we don't already have warnings of blackouts... ;-)

But yeah, the grid obviously has to be improved. I thought this was an interesting idea: Electrify the freight rail lines (much more efficient that diesel-electric), and since the rail lines will need power across the country, build a modern grid along their rights of way. http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4301
Autotest Notifications in Ubuntu with Mumbles « dambalah
Windows Cross Compiler
This is interesting, if it's truly practical (Kamen's brilliant, but sometimes has an unorthodox view of "practical"). Stirling engines have traditionally been more efficient, but also more expensive(1) and much heavier(2) than competing technologies. The second factor, especially, impacts automotive applications.

(1) http://www.gulfcoastchp.org/WhatIsCHP/Technologies/Power/Sti... (double the $/kw of ICE)

(2) http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=n... (even NASA only hopes to develop a 77lb, ~7hp Stirling, not the greatest power to weight ratio).
Element Traversal API
No, his site maintained an updated assessment of the current probability. I'm not really sure what the article means when it says he 'called it' in March. He was probably just showing Obama with a greater chance of winning.
You're lucky: I also do desktop software but we can't afford to ignore the growing number of Mac users. While they still represent only about 8% of all computer purchases, they account for nearly half of "customers who pay for software" and C# isn't an option for us although we keep monitoring Mono's progress.

Also, allow me to disagree with you on something:

"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."

Perhaps it's our difference in backgrounds, but most desktop software is more like that: small pieces that need small downloads, small memory footprints and instantaneous startup times. Just count the number of executable files on your hard drive and see what percentage of them eats more than 3MB of RAM (measured in 'private bytes'). Or you can look at the list of running processes: you'll see perhaps 1-3 behemoths like Firefox or Photoshop there, and one can only wonder how FireFox memory consumption would look like under JVM or .NET VM.
If you do decide to give it to someone, you can use a dead man switch (http://www.deadmansswitch.net/ is a good example, or write your own) that would email all your account information to someone you trust completely. You could give them instructions (destroy the account, give certain information to next of kin, etc.).
Being First on the Block: Assessing Risks When Implementing New Software
Your Web Content Management System is not a Washing Machine
Ha, nice.
Apple COO Tim Cook could be in line to replace Steve Jobs
Anyone think Google will be around in 100 years?
Sometimes being that skinny is a sign of health. My parents as they approached their 60's starting eating very healthy and two already thin people got even thinner. The condition of their hearts and overall health however improved.
"Johnson cut his price target on the stock to $1 from $4."

Equity value is also known as "Diluted Earnings Per Share" and is not the same as the share price.
The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers
Very similar to the Innovator's Dilemma argument.
Wow you might want to research the author before making such claims. He founded a SEO company which he sold off a few years ago. He now is VP of Business Development at Lijit and helping them market and brand Lijit.

Anyways, he is directly involved in marketing websites for a living. Also, knows SEO pretty well as he built a company based on it.

http://www.lijit.com/who_we_are
Huh? Having grown up in Siberia, I assure you Eskimos are very real.
Employee: Why are my stock options now worthless?
Bossman: It's the economy, we're taking a big hit, out of our control ...sorry.
Employee: Sure it is.
Doh. Yes that would make more sense. The article was probably referencing his day-before predictions. Thank you for the correction.
Is "SEO" really any different than just basic "best practices" these days? I worked for a company in the SEO business, and I have to say that 99% of it just seemed patently obvious once you took some time to really think about the problem.

Don't over-abuse keywords

Keep your content fresh/relevant

Make sure the link text to your content reinforces the key terms you're trying to rank on (to the extent you have control of this).

Use sites like digg and stumbleupon to expose users to your content.

And so on. SEO is "dead" in the sense that basic HTML is "dead". It is no longer the mysterious domain of specially trained tech individuals. SEO is just something else that you have to know and do if you want to have any hope of your website and company being noticed in todays consumer world.

SEO is dead, but thousands of SEO consultants who are still trying to make money by making SEO out to be more than it really is are viciously fighting this fact.
They've been teetering on the brink for several reasons - primarily their inability to compete with Best Buy. Their locations, architecture, and advertising couldn't match the sophistication and forethought given to Best Buy's. The last two are especially obvious in the case of older Circuit City stores.

I don't much care for either of them, I've had bad experience all around. I generally only buy things here and there online. But it's still quite apparent that Circuit City has been playing catch up for quite some time.
This is pure and utter crap. While I agree that SEO has radically changed (from a pure markup game to a link-building game), it's not going away. For a very very very long time.

The real estate on SERPS (results pages) are incredibly valuable... The first page especially so. Given that there are only 10 slots on the first page (and only one top slot), people will leverage time, money, and expertise to get placed there.

The rules may change, but the game isn't going anywhere.
Interview with Elon Musk about Tesla Motors and SolarCity
LLC, though you won't take outside funding without switching to a C corp.
One Big Reason For Apple's Market Share Gains.
I think it's primarily that Best Buy came in and took all of their business. For all of its faults (and there are plenty), BB runs a pretty good ship.
The Papermaster chronicles: An Apple vs. IBM timeline
The iPhone Rocket: The Story (and Data) Of How An iPhone Hit 1300ft
Campaign Agenda Disappears from Transition Web Site
Fishworks: Now it can be told
Django’s URL template tag sucks
I haven't heard of xpdf or evince before and have been using foxit, how does this compare?
Not all employers are assholes about schedules. Find one that isn't.

You sound like you are pretty good. If you are pretty good, you should be able to find a company that is willing to work around whatever weirdness you have.

I don't have a sleep disorder (or at least, haven't been diagnosed) but I am a lazy fuck and have a hard time getting up at the same time every day. everywhere I've worked they've put up with me showing up at noon pretty often. (my favorite quote "I know I said we had a flexible schedule here, but I'm going to have to put my foot down and ask you to show up by noon") I mean, I can't show up at noon every day, but if I get there by 10:00 for most of the week, they usually forgive me showing up at 13:00 one day. I've never been fired for being late.

Oh, yeah, the trick to this? most of those places really did want me to show up on time. However, they wanted my work done even more. I can force myself awake at the same time every day (It's easy enough, I just keep a bowl of no-doz by the alarm, and eat one every time I hit the snooze) but I'm a zombie. So yeah, when they start giving me shit about showing up on time, I put in effort for a week or two, but at that point my performance starts falling, so I start showing up late again, and they are usually glad enough to see results that they are OK with my tardiness for a while.

Many employers (myself included) will let you work from home, when you want to. (Of course, many of us do this because we find that people are willing to give you better work for less money, if you are willing to let them work when and where they want to. When you give people a choice, they usually sell you their most productive hours, which is awesome for the employer.)
I posted this because I have one technology/sociology question: now that campaigns are heavily using social media and the web, will previous versions of policy be used against them?

It used to be politics was mostly verbal -- the guy on the television made some promises and then later "refined" them. Now that we're moving into more of a written format, does versioning matter?

I take this a little like FaceBook or MySpace -- what seems the best thing to do at one moment might not look the same later. But the problem is: once you post it, it's there forever, blocking future job applications, etc.

So do politicians get the same deal as the rest of us? Could/should these things enter into the public discourse?

(Here's hoping that I've cut most of the politics out)
They fell behind 20 years ago and have been trying to catch up ever since. With no success. The only thing a government bailout now ensures is that there will be another bailout in a few years time.

Let them die.
How terrible. :(

It's hard to imagine a foreign competitor having this same problem: running into a rough patch for a couple of years and then all of a sudden looks at bankruptcy.

I just want my volt.
At the bottom I'd scratch out the story of how I helped reverse engineer a major enterprise software suite made by MS. Would that help?
those online sites where you bid for work? e-lance and guru.com? they are about the worst place I can think of to look for contract work. Craigslist. Seriously. http://sfbay.craigslist.org/cpg I don't care if you are in the bay area or not. you get plenty of 'work from home' gigs there (and most of 'em are posted in the san francisco craigslist even if the client is in New York.)

Oh, and another thing; if you do get an on-site contracting gig (this is how I pay for my business) remember that most on-site contractors are basically people who were not skilled enough to get the job full-time. If you are shockingly better than the other contractors on the team, they often put up with a less-reliable schedule. Oh, and developing a reputation for honesty on your timesheets is also recommended. The body shop is going to want you to just put all eights, but if you are good, and the client notices that you are good (and that you are honest on your timesheets) they will go to bat for you. You may technically work for the body shop, but the only people you really need to like you is the client.

(If you can contract without a body shop and still get a good rate, shoot me an e-mail and explain how that works.)
I don't know if this is an accurate representation of Microsoft hiring practices or not. If it is, then it's very telling since the "question" doesn't make any sense.

To paraphrase: Look at this word jumble and reorganize it arbitrarily until you can make words out of it somehow.

If there were suitable anagrams that made another phrase, would that be accepted by MSFT? It really seems like a bunch of "bible code (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible_code)" sort of nonsense to me.
The resolution of the screen cast was not high enough for me to read the text he was typing.

As for usefulness, "my favorite language -> Javascript" compilers are cute, but I am skeptical of adding another leaky abstraction layer. Javascript is a pretty feature-ful, modern language with closures, first class function, collection literals, and some pretty good APIs. Not sure if bridging to other languages will give much of a productivity boost over just learning Javascript well, and you will probably need to learn Javascript well, anyways, whenever the translation from your favorite language to Javascript inevitably leaks.
The advantage to going as far as an LLC is that LLCs can be invoiced and can cut PO's. It's also the bare minimum you need if you have cofounders.

Buried in this table is the major difference between LLC, S, and C:

* Any team member who has equity in an LLC is a member, a.k.a. partner, and members can't take W2 wages, only distributions.

* Conversely, employees of LLCs can't technically hold equity.

* Any external investor in an LLC (probably) must be an SEC "accredited investor", meaning that they have $1MM in the bank or several years of income over $200k.

* The major difference between S and C seems to be that C corps can have preferred (ie, VC) stock.

The long and the short of it is that equity is a mess until you're a C corp, and then everything else becomes a mess.
The iPhone Is Now the Best Selling Phone In the U.S.
CSS3 Template Layout
Moving to Flash, Part 4: Anonymous Classes and the Adapter Pattern
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=358505
7 Electric Motorcycles You Must See (including 1 that does 0-60 MPH in 0.97 seconds)
I'm sure it'll change if I actually use it, but for now, this type of syntax seems to be pointlessly obfuscating what's otherwise a simple markup scheme for creating layouts.
pure claptrap. if newt was less career-minded like he is proposing, he could have taken a history class and looked at mortality rates in the eighteenth century to realize why benjamin franklin was working at 13.

oh and aren't these alvin-tofler-acolytes the ones telling us we will change careers three times? that flexibility requires intellectual flexibility...you aren't going to have that if you mainline people into one job at 13. so what is it newt?

and his "stats" on rising teen pregnancy, drug use, stds??? not only bogus but 100% wrong.

newt is just a gruff dick who never smoked a bowl in college, never got a drunk grope from a gorgeous girl way out of his league, never woke up on the front lawn of the dorm still half wasted...and he wants to make sure you never have fun too! college was the time of my life! i got a degree and learned a lot...but also had more FUN with booze and women than i did before or since? WHY IS THIS TO BE AVOIDED????
Design Patterns - The Cult to Blame ?
>"It’s clear there has been a dramatic shift," said Andrew Rasiej, the founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, an annual conference about the intersection of politics and technology. "Any politician who fails to recognize that we are in a post-party era with a new political ecology in which connecting like minds and forming a movement is so much easier will not be around long."

Somehow I doubt any third party candidate will make a realistic bid for a long time.
"I used to be content programming an esoteric Scheme system in Emacs. Now, I am convinced by the killer combination of (1) a fun functional language (2) a widely-used platform with a rich library (3) a professional IDE with a good debugger. With (1) ML-like, (2) CLR, (3) Visual Studio, you get F#. With (1) Lisp, (2) JVM, (3) Eclipse, I guess you get Clojure."

The irony is that, for Clojure, Emacs remains a pretty good IDE, while still allowing for the widely used platform and rich library. Will be hard for Eclipse to catch up given all the years spent making Emacs a good environment for Lisp style development, and the fact a Lisp is the Emacs extension language.
What, no bailout plan for the retail electronics industry?

Seriously, didn't they just announce closing 150+ stores a week ago? Why not file then? They had to know it was coming.
too difficult
yeah nice example...and how long did he stay in college?
Is Circuit City's bankruptcy the beginning of the end?
you are a fucking idiot
Yep! In fact, I'd like to apply for the job of writing their recruitment puzzles. Maybe I could help them by writing some that actually make some sense.
they take away a quarter of my life (av age of death 75) holding me back and forcing me to learn for tests things that i dont want to know.

then drop the fuck out! go work at ford. see you in twenty years.
Sun Microsystems to Lay Off 350
not the ability to quote Chomsky.

if you had a real education you would know that chomsky's initial ground-breaking work was in language structure, and his work is used widely in compsci texts on automaton theory

so you basically just got fucked by your own defense of ignorance
Why not use the same mechanism you use to scroll the main document window?
Right, but when Jane Doe finally builds a website for her offline business she wants to figure out why she doesn't show up on search engines.
yeah as soon as you let all your employees join unions and negotiate, they get to lock you in a negotiated price or shut you down. The better alternative is to probably give an environment where the employees feel they don't need a union.
If high STD and drug use rates tell us anything

it tells newt nothing, because stats actually run contrary to his assumption. drug use and teen pregnancy are not rising, they are falling
I predict next quarters numbers will have the RAZR back on top due to the fact it's mostly 'free'
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it perfectly possible for General Motors go go bankrupt but continue to operate?

I'd sure miss GM (particularly Cadillac, Opel, Holden and even parts of Chevrolet) if it ceased to exist, but if the company can go bankrupt, discharge some of its liabilities, and have its valuable assets bought up by other car companies (Chevy goes to Tata, Cadillac goes to VW, Buick probably winds up Chinese and Pontiac vanishes altogether) then that'd be okay too.

A government bailout at this point would be a favour only for the unions, not for the shareholders. (Which is why it will probably happen.)
Best Buy was eating their lunch, breakfast, and dinner. So in response, they laid off their highest paid sales staff and replaced them with cheaper alternatives. Even the reduction in payroll expenses couldn't save them (might have been too little too late). Not only were the competing with BestBuy, but also with more efficient competitors such as Amazon and NewEgg.