skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That's basically right. I'd make it a bit more precise by noting that the anchor in the boat displaces a volume of water whose weight is equal to the anchor's weight (Archimedes' Principle); call this V_1. When in the water, the anchor simply displaces a volume of water equal to its own volume; call this V_2. Since the anchor is denser than water, V_1 > V_2, so the level of the lake goes down when the anchor gets thrown in the water.

Also, you need to replace "it's" with "its" in your solution. (In 2005, I edited the Definitive and Extended Edition of The Feynman Lectures on Physics for physics content and for spelling/grammar. Could you tell? :-)
I agree that DNS is pretty broken, and it's a really important problem to solve. I was hoping you might have insights on what to do ;)
"...the world's remaining stocks of bluefin tuna, 90% of which are in the Mediterranean, could be on the verge of extinction." "...biologists predict that this year [2006] approximately 50,000 tons of tuna will be caught in the Med."

They fish Bluefin Tuna where I live (PEI, Canada) but it's one at a time with a rod sort of like Marlin or Swordfish. The quota here is 100 to 200 tons, I couldn't imagine 50,000 tons!
I worked on OSC for almost a year and a half. Thank goodness for layoffs.
Neat, I didn't know you could do that.

Unalone, have you looked into this?
Key's to a successful public health dashboard
With the little code i've done on objective-c, I have to say that I prefer method 4. It kinda goes with the (unwritten) convension that a method's first parameter is always the longest so that the rest of the parameters align well with the colon character.

And I don't think you can always rely on code-formatters. There are always cases when you need to manually format a piece of code to make it look more sensible.
I've been in this game nearly a decade and I have yet to see a decline in the amount of knowledge still available to gain. Learning one thing seems to have the tendency to present 10 more learning opportunities for my troubles. My philosophy is, if I find myself in a job where there isn't much more I can learn, it's time to find a new job. Or a new career. Or perhaps just a new hobby.

I don't know many web developers who are strictly that. Most web developers have other programming-related passions so in the event that they somehow "master" web development, there are countless other forms of programming to learn. Something tells me I'll be doing this for a long time. That, or I'll become a Monk. I have always enjoyed the quiet and I hear they take vows of silence.
Like pop songs in that study where they divided people into groups and had them rate songs? It seems almost inevitable. That sort of positive feedback can make a system more sensitive, but it can also make it unstable, amplifying noise until it overwhelms small signals. My third connection is that, if your hypothesis is correct (and I'm pretty sure it is) you would tend to expect comment karma to be distributed according to a Zipf distribution.
://URLFAN - Perhaps The Best Influence Index on The Web
Doris Dungey, 47, Financial Blogger Known as Tanta, - Obituary (Obit)
Google Web Accelerator.
One of my favorite bloggers, ever. Sad. She really delved into her topics and helped me understand a great deal about mortgages/finance.

More here:
http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2008/11/sad-news-tanta-pa...
Beginning Factor
hindsight bias
Yeah. Isn't it better for parents to be honest? Let kids know what real life is?

My parents never lied to me. They didn't soften things that didn't have to be softened. As a result, I've never felt a fear of the real world. There's nothing mystical or terrifying about it. It's why I moved to the world of start-ups. And I'd strongly suspect that other people here have had similar experiences.
How did you get your job in Japan?
Don't Be Afraid of Easy
If you liked those graphs, you will probably enjoy the graph of land prices in Japan when they had their housing bubble:

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogoct06/japan-bubble.html
i need to join a hackn group
Social Networks Site Usage in 2008
Thanks for the it's / its pointer, I should have caught that.
Markdown Cheat sheet.
What does that mean for Java if you are right?
Seth's Blog on #3? Argh...
Down for me too

http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/aws.typepad.com/aws/2008/...

Says its down for everyone.
Last year it was bees going missing[1]. Has anyone read any explanations about that phenomenon?

[1] http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22where+have+all+t...
Kinh nghiệm về đường đi từ Bangkok về TP HCM qua Cambodia
That's the theory, but it's not what happens in practice.

In reality, how many older programmers do you know who are still coding professionally? Of the guys I worked with just a decade ago, most have moved into management, or out of the field entirely. If the people in my circle are representative, coding isn't a profession with any longevity.

Of course, it makes sense: it's simply not realistic to expect that you can continually re-invent your professional life on an eight-year cycle. Even if you have the tenacity and mental skill required to do it, the drive eventually goes away, because it's a futile game. You become a modern-day Sisyphus, struggling to push your rock up a hill, only to watch a new generation of people come along and push it back down. And given that our colleagues in other fields -- law, medicine, engineering -- grow more respected with time, it's not unreasonable to want something more.
New wind turbine design from Tech Review
Tell HN: Free access to Safari Books Online
I suspect this isn't new, but it was news to me, so maybe it is to you too.

I really hope I'm not spoiling a well kept secret here, and I have my fingers crossed that this isn't going to affect access...

Membership of the Peninsula Library System (which is free to those resident on the San Francisco peninsula) allows free access to Safari Books Online. It appears to be the entire catalog, and unlimited in quantity, though I can't find any statement online to verify that.

If you use it, but don't abuse it.
hey, the real title is - Top 100 Blogs for Development Managers (Q3 2008). SO this title is misleading.
Also Joel and Coding Horror are so 2006. ;)
Gvke - Free Movies: Watch and Download Movies, TV Shows and Videos
Secret Geek A-Team Hacks Back, Defends Worldwide Web
Extensions ‎- Chromium Developer Documentation‎
Yahoo OpenID limited testing for Simple Registration support
Wouldn't it make a much smaller difference in volume if the anchor was unable to hit bottom? Then it would be applying a force downward on the boat (increasing volume submerged) in addition to the volume of the anchor.
I used OSCommerce for one project. Never again.

Open Source doesn't mean best code. Open Source projects are mostly the fiefdoms of the founders of a project. If you get a good founder you get a good project. Good doesn't have to mean good at code, a good leader can find good coders.

Sometimes, though, Open Source means survival of the fittest. This project is not the easiest to use or maintain. That causes people to go elsewhere. Well the value leaves, so does people's interest. Open Source isn't a corporation, after all, no-one is paying anyone to do dumb stuff all day.
Would you mind sharing what were the corrections to the physics content? Have there been significant changes? Thanks!
Ask YC: Review our new product
What I learned from writing a business plan
i think what you are saying is true.
No one is going to watch your tutorial video if you tell no one what's about your website first.
I think branding campaigns are nice. They establish the feel of the current government, and they standardize things - that's always a relief. Finally, it makes for a nice historical relic after the fact.

It's a nice font. I'm a sucker for thin sans serif.
Now they just need to open source it so the world at large can enjoy this beautiful font.
This is largely a technology demo, but we think it's pretty neat. Curious if anyone here has thoughts about where to take this from here. And yes, using SSN as the example was probably a poor choice - the example is from http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/2007/11/12/manipulating-... .

Tip of the hat to LAPIS/Potluck/MassEdit from CSAIL for getting us thinking in this direction.
Until they return to profitability, it makes some sense to streamline their product line. Although they've narrowed it down to a single workstation, it still comes in different configurations and options.

http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstation/ultra24/index.xml
Ray Ozzie Lies ...
Facebook Extends Reach Across Web
I got my current job by overdelivering on a project for a customer of a previous job. When my previous contract ended, I called up the customer and asked if he knew of anybody who needed work. He offered to hire me on the spot and immediately started contacting his customers to see who could use another body (he runs a consulting shop). One of the customers wanted me on a permanent basis rather than as a contractor -- promises were exchanged, bows happened, and the matter was resolved.

Some time after that I wrote up a resume and had a job interview, but these were formalities which only existed to ratify the decision made previously.

That's pretty much how you get your job anywhere, right? Be good at what you do. Network.

My one Japan-specific tip: you can be successful in America without a set of business cards. You can probably be successful in Japan without them, too, but I'd really fork over $20 for a nice set of bilingual ones. Whenever you meet a Japanese businessman, make sure you get his and he gets yours. This is not hard. (I'd get REALLY good at self-introductions too. Also not hard.)

Then, when that businessman hears one of his salaryman buddies complaining that the project is failing because nobody speaks English, he's going to remember the one American engineer he has ever met who speaks Japanese. And presto, you just got a job offer.

Bonus points if you're one of the folks who worries incessantly about outsourcing: India graduated in excess of 200,000 engineers last year. It also had approximately 500 people pass either level 1 or level 2 of the JLPT, which is pretty much the minimum for successfully working here in a professional capacity. Draw a Venn diagram of those two groups -- the number in the middle is in the dozens, if that. (If you are one of the people in the middle, please, send me an email. I want your business card.)

(Actual quote from my future boss at my job "interview": "I hadn't realized you'd be white. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Its just, when $ADVOCATE was describing you, he said your Japanese was great for an American and I assumed you were probably half-Japanese or something.")
Programmers have the potential to generate a lot of cash in a short period of time, whether through consulting, full-time employment, or through the development of their own software. While you can invest your time in learning new skills, you can also invest your money in assets that are more stable than various programming skills. You can buy property, businesses, stocks, and funds that can support you later on should you tire of learning the most marketable skills of the day. Perhaps this is where many of the web developers will go -- somewhere else less stressful.

I do believe however, that attaining true expertise in one programming field is largely transferable to another field, so perhaps time spent learning programming skills holds it's value relatively well.
Several, actually. About 20% of the programmers I've worked with have been over 50, with the majority of the rest being in their 30s. Two of the over-50s (I think one's close to 60 now) actually made it to VP of Engineering in various companies and then dropped back to a programmer role because that's what they wanted to do.

The ranks do thin out, and I think programming is largely a young-person's game. But the people who are really passionate about it when they're 20 tend to be the ones that stick around for a lifetime.

And at least in Massachusetts, older programmers are respected. Maybe it's different in Silicon Valley; I've heard the culture is much more youth-oriented there (one of the reasons it appeals to me, actually). But here you're expected to pay your dues, and senior software engineers really are senior.
Wow. I never expected to see my university's student radio station on Hacker News... Go Vandals!
Happy Accident Opens Door to Cheaper, Higher-Resolution Cameras
Wordans Custom T-Shirts
Make your own custom t-shirts using your designs or ours and make your own t-shirts online.
Window Replacement Brooklyn Replacement Manhattan
Window Fix-800-337-1620 We Repair-Replace-Install All Types of Windows in and around NY-New York City-NYC-Manhattan-Brooklyn-Queens-Bronx-Staten Island
There isn't a quid pro quo in offering to pay less than you have already agreed to. He isn't promising them future business or renegotiating on a contract boundary, he is trying to stretch out payments because of cash flow issues.

I am completely in favor of negotiating aggressively, but I like my word and my signature on a contract to mean something, if only because that has value in future negotiations.

As to your situation I don't understand why you didn't negotiate a better deal up front if all of these numbers were available to you? Why not break out hardware reimbursement from bandwidth, rack space, and other services and work out a payment schedule that meets your needs and theirs in parallel with negotiations with other vendors? You have far more leverage when negotiating in parallel than when you are refusing to pay.

Why sign a contract and then renege six months in? The impact on your reputation (based on who else they may talk to or get called for a reference) and your next negotiation with this vendor has yet to be felt but I wouldn't rely on it being negligible.
Not sure what this was really getting at. Replace "web developers" with nearly any profession and the issue is the same. They'll deal with it the same way everyone else has and does.
Wow. Not often you see troll bait featured as an actual post.
If only 2 out of 10 programmers are still doing it when they're 50, that's a pretty pathetic retention rate.

(I realize that I'm extrapolating from an anecdote. The numbers are on par with my own experience, however, and are part of what prompted my comment.)
Looks awesome to me. I'll bookmark it and come back if I have need for it. Thanks!
Social Web’s Big Question: Federate or Aggregate?
Just out of curiosity...when was the last time you bought a Sun workstation? If you did, was it SPARC or AMD-based?

Heck, when was the last time you bought any desktop system instead of a laptop for development or science work? Sun's hardware is very cool, but desktop machines that neither dirt-cheap nor monster gaming systems are a hard sell these days.

On the other hand, if you want to develop software that targets the SPARC ISA -- and there are lots of reasons to do so -- you can easily pick up an entry-level config of a 1U SPARC server, and rack it up wherever you like.
Really cool. I've been waiting for an easy to use spreadsheet app that would let me do this for a while without having to figure out formulas or vbscript. This looks useful and I'll definitely use it as needed in the future.

What's your business model for this? Are you just doing advertising or are you also offering a rush fee or maybe charging extra for files over 5MB or something?
I like it.

Suggestion for getting more helpful feedback -- the first post on this thread should have been this:

My name is Avi Bryant and I'm the chief bottle washer at X. We are going to release a product which performs automatic transformations on data, with an easy-to-use interface based on building examples.

For example, let's say you have a data entry team which has painstakingly transcribed 100,000 customer entries over the years. Their phone number field is an absolute mess -- some customers write 4567890, some write 123 456 7890, some write (123) 456-7890, etc. You want this to be consistent. You could either hire a DBA to do some database/regexp wizardry for you, or you could just write a single example of the proper canonical phone number and our software will just work.

For an example, try playing directly with this test data:
http://www.example.com/i-go-to-test-data-not-a-video

We would particularly appreciate feedback about ease of use and ...
I would also add actually having some text to put in the site helps

Do you have Javascript disabled? Apparently in this (24ways) and an increasing number of sites you now need javascript to display the actual content of a page. I find that extremely irritating. Facebook in particular is extremely annoying in using scripts to load remote scripts that in turn load more scripts from a multitude of different sites, and refusing to run any make the whole experience pretty painful. Sigh...

_update:_ An hour later they've fixed this bug and now content does display without javascript. Comments still need it though. Surely they'll fix that one too since it's one of the points made in the article (progressive enhancement).
I think it's a very handy application, and nice presentation.

Just curious though, why does it have to be a web app? Why not just a plugin to my favorite spreadsheet application, or just a small standalone app that I can use on my PC..
Based on the fact that prices are still declining, I would guess those are forced sales. A good sign is when prices stop falling.
This is pretty cool.

The amount of data will nearly always be tiny so you ought to just process and display it interactively unless the dataset is huge. And speaking of interactivity, it really needs an 'undo'.

I'd like to read a blog post about the details of how you did it.
Facebook Connect Readies for Broader Distribution with Digg and Hulu
10 Success Tips from the Master - Michael Jordan
Nokia 1200 1208 Restarting Problem
1200, 1200 restart, 1200 restarting, 1208, 1208 restarting, 1208 restarts, Nokia, nokia 1200, nokia 1208, problem, restart, restarting problem
Ask HN: Should I take the plunge?
I am a wannapreneur and have been working (moonlighting) on a start-up idea for last 9 months or so. I work as Director - Business Development for a mobile internet company in my day job. I've been thinking about quitting my job and doing this full-time but, i am not sure if its such a good idea to take the plunge during current economic times.

I am stating personal and project related data points and a couple of options. Do you think it might be a good idea to take the plunge?

Personal

Education - BS (Computer Science) and MBA from top tier school
Experience - Software Engineer (2yrs), Marketing/Sales/BD (3yrs)

Product

Proven concept applied to a niche segment (I guess 2-3mn and growing)
Using open source - zero product development costs so far.
Demographics - predominently 22 - 30, very affluent male.

Traction
Below is some data on the uptake of service:

Month	UV	Visits	Pageviews

Feb	734	1266	22500

Mar	1964	3596	37314

Apr	3246	5975	158898

May	3948	7949	77877

Jun	4922	10134	98626

Jul	6438	12806	138758

Aug	8536	15407	186394

Sep	9414	18256	180612

Oct	9308	17436	171421

Nov	10188	19239	176359

Registrations: 1500

Financials
I bought a house recently.

Paid - 25%
Savings - 40%
Deficit - 35%

I can stretch the savings to pay the mortgage for next 12-18 months. I would need to work for 12-16 months to save 35%.

Options

Option 1: Work for a year and pay for the house before taking the plunge

Option 2: Take the plunge hoping things will work-out in next 12-18 months (while the savings last)

What do you suggest?
He posted the description as a comment which happens to (currently) be below yours.
This is certainly a good idea to have the government always use the same font. The modern equivalent of official parchments.
An undo button would be neat in case I accidentally type-in rather than cut-paste, then end up losing what I manually deleted. (I didn't read the instructions, as you can tell!)
In reality, how many older programmers do you know who are
still coding professionally?

Strange thing - at my current company there are eight developers and all except me have been with the same team (although in a few companies on paper) for towards ten years each. One of them has been a programmer for almost thirty years. It's not mainframe maintenance or something else that would easily explain it - we use modern languages and frameworks. And our whole business is integration work between different nasty protocols - notoriously messy work. I can't exactly say why it works, but the leadership have the special sauce. I joined in February as a developer although have migrated into support roles following an interesting project.

The recent pg article about artists needing to be able to ship was interesting. We have testing but also get a lot of flexibility in what we can roll out and it's solution oriented rather than perfect-code oriented.
Cool stuff but I wish I had data that:

1) I could easily paste like that (most of my data is large and too big to be pasted)

2) Since the data I have has been collected under a Privacy Policy, I can't upload it to other sites.

But for small jobs of flipping things around, this is a cool app.
You can always copy and paste from the From row, but this probably isn't obvious.
Looks like the post was taken down. Maybe it was posted by mistake.
Instead of an anchor, imagine a lump of very dense material, where the density is 1000 kg/L. This is a 1000 times as dense as water, and a cube of this material with a length/width/height of 10 cm would weigh a tonne.

So the cube is in the boat, pushing the boat down and displacing 1 tonne of water (1 m^3).

You throw the cube off the boat and the boat rises, because it doesn't need to displace so much water. The weight now displaces hardly any water at all (actually 0.001m^3).
How online gamblers unmasked cheaters
Already posted: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=377155
Databases are Rocks, Spreadsheets are Water
Clojure could be to Concurrency-Oriented Programming what Java was to OOP
I don't think its going to be open-source, the typeface is part of the branding and is managed by an design agency.
as nickb stated, you should add a Privacy Policy as soon as possible. People will definitely hesitate do upload their data to an unknown server.
Some random suggestions:

1. the icons that appear under a column when you're editing it should have tooltips so you can see what they mean

2. there should be an undo function

3. it should be able to figure what you mean if you retype as upper-case rather than using the buttons. (Perhaps asking the user "do you want to put it in uppercase"). This is not exactly hard to code, e.g.

if (toUpper(originalField) == editedField) assumeUserWantsUppercase();
Net worth > $10 million
Correct url is http://devcentral.f5.com/weblogs/macvittie/archive/2008/11/2...
> What is the difference between a design pattern and a language idiom?

A design pattern is simply a name given to the obvious solution given to a common problem. By giving it a name it becomes much easier to talk about / understand the code. Once you know that a class is a proxy class, you don't really care what the methods do anymore, you just dive in and see to which classes the real work is delegated. So one word "proxy" tells you exactly what 400 lines of boilerplate does.

A language idiom is different. The purpose of language idioms is to clearly and succinctly express common concepts. The language designers think of a "best" solution, and give it a name.

So, really, when you have a bunch of people writing the same code to solve the same class of problem, you give that code a name and call it a design pattern. Patterns emerge AFTER the language is used. Language idioms try to capture the essence of the problem, such that no patterns are necessary.

At least, that's how I look at it.