skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I didn't say it was cross platform right now, but that they were making a cross-platform push with Silverlight which brings a subset of the .NET CLR to Macs. Linux support is in Moonlight. Again, not all there yet, but it's progress.
"Clearly, an idea that advances the state of the art is unlikely to occur except when attention level peaks."

I'm not at all sure this is true. Tales of apple tress, baths and monkeys (or was it snakes?) chasing tails come to mind. In my own personal experience I've had some of my best ideas in the shower or on the bus going home.
SEC charges Mark Cuban with insider trading: SEC official
Malo means "small" ;)
Simple straightforward dual licensing should cover it. License the code under the GPL and then also offer a commercial license for user who want to add it to commercial products or use the code within a commercial environment - you can offer a paid for support agreement as well to the latter group.
Peace Museum in Dayton
SEC Charges Mark Cuban With Insider Trading
I could be wrong, but I think you might be confusing attentiveness with focus. I don't believe the author is saying that the best ideas are guaranteed to occur when you are at a peak focus on the problem, but rather when your mind is most attentive, in general.

That is simply my interpretation, though.
love that article.

i wonder how much better it works for tall suave sophisticated types vs short stubby fat types.

the diner's appearance is probably more important than the "tip".
To be honest, you didn't look hard enough. There are multiple, mature OSS projects to handle this.

Where should the framework end? People complain all the time about the size of the framework, but then when their pet feature is missing, they cry foul.
'Super' aged brains reveal first secrets of sharp memory in old age
I've come across him quite frequently. We once had quite a long discussion on his "career" (all I can say really).

As far as we know he has given up with his career (and the terms he gave it up were really encouraging!). As someone who spends quite a lot of time attempting to "rescue" kids from the cracking community to bring them into the light of the hacking lot I think it was a wonderful statement that he posted. Very positive.

There are plenty of crackers & facebook crackers about. I was even targetted once. The BEST thing people can do is educate others as to the danger and try to nip these sites in the bud (I think most are run by members of his old gang) as they spring up.

Leave the tracking and case building to the pros :) (edit: or rather the ones with the legal backing to do so).

@trickjarret - crackers please, not hackers :) a lot of people here are hackers (me included) and prefer not to be branded :)
The Inspiration of Ownership
Chip designer ARM bringing Flash 10 to smartphones (i.e. Adobe AIR for the iPhone in Q3 2009)
CSS coding: semantic approach in naming convention
Google, 10 Years Ago
Understanding Debt, Risk and Leverage
The off the shelf natural language parsing algorithms are polynomial time (generally n^3 or so).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_algorithms#Parsing

In that list CYK, Earley, GLR, and Inside-Outside are taught as suitable for parsing natural languages (oversimplifying, the dividing line between parsers for computer languages and human language is that the former are deterministic and the latter spectacularly ambiguous).

So, you want to process a bunch of text, with time to parse each sentence increasing as a polynomial of the length of a sentence...I think you see where I'm going with this. Obviously, lots of people are looking for shortcuts here, but that probably means sacrificing something in accuracy, at which point you need to question whether you really want to be parsing, anyways. Last I checked, state of the art parsing accuracy is low 90s, and that's if all your sentences come from the Penn Treebank corpus.

So, when saying NLP is hard, NLP probably means parsing. You can probably describe applied NLP research as finding clever ways to answer the question you want to answer without actually parsing. Or parsing just a little bit, but not everything, you get the idea.

An interesting side question is just how do people parse natural language in real time so accurately. Or do people really parse at all, in the algorithmic sense?
Indy HN BarMeet: Tues. Nov. 18th, 7PM
If you're in Indy, join me at the Broad Ripple Brew Pub on Tuesday, November 18th, at 7PM. We can chat about startups in Indy, hacking in Indy, opportunities in Indy, and what _we_ can do to improve the quality or quantity of each. Or, we can just meet some like-minded people and enjoy ourselves. I have no planned agenda, but I think it will be better that way.

Broad Ripple Brew Pub on a map: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=broad+ripple+brew+pub+indianapolis

I welcome comments, questions, and suggestions. I look forward to meeting some HN readers.

--
MilesZS
The game has several deliberate, well-designed vertigo and fatigue-based visual effects including blurriness, shakiness, whiteouts, blackouts, etc. The game is brilliant and easily on par with Portal.

FWIW: I think the article is a continuation of this joke:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/11/3/
I've found CSS frameworks to be great if you have a really deep site with a lot of people working on it. YUI is currently my favorite. Otherwise, most people would probably be better off building their own framework. This tends to work great for me:

@reset
@typography
@forms
@layout
@IE-fixes
Think-make-think
Interesting. I wonder if the key question will come down to how he came across the information. From what I understand, it can only be considered insider trading if it's based on non-public information. Perhaps Mark based his decision on something public that just hadn't really hit most people's radar yet?

Or perhaps he's 100% guilty and got caught red-handed.
Doesn't it prove the generalizations false?

Or Google is a counter-example to the logic as well?
So now can we all agree to stop up voting his pseudo economic theories and investing advice?

The first rule of investing - don't get arrested.
His words were like poetry - a great icebrkr
As this link doesn't provide much info and the news will likely be taken down from the reuters homepage at some point it might be better to focus discussion over at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=367013
Nvidia's graphics hardware marketed for more than games
Just saw link at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122693827604333637.html
The text of the complaint states:

"Despite agreeing in June 2004 to keep material, non-public information about an impending stock offering by Mamma.com Inc. confidential, Cuban sold his entire stake in the company - 600,000 shares - prior to the public announcement of the offering."

If that claim is true, he acted on non-public information.
Read some good sources:

http://www.badscience.net/2008/11/you-are-80-less-likely-to-...

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=the+tiger+that+is...

Perhaps take some public health scares and look up the papers behind them (if they exist). Try and work out if the scares are justified or not, based on the evidence.

Perhaps do some meta-analyses of studies to see if you can determine evidence of publication bias: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Publication_bias

Find something that interests you and Do Science To It.
Just because he might be guilty of possibly believing he was above the law, doesn't necessarily mean all of his ideas are untrue. It's possible he's just a hypocrite.
As someone who relied heavily on front-, back-, and side-carriers for toting around his three children, I don't see what J&J has to apologize for. If J&J sells lanolin cream, do they have to avoid mentioning that breastfeeding can give you sore nipples, because God forbid that anyone say anything bad about breastfeeding?
Not necessarily...perhaps someone else failed to keep the information confidential, in which case it would seem that Cuban would be legally free to sell, correct? Once the news breaks, it's no longer non-public information, right?
The latest version of the SDK that isn't under NDA. :-)

Just do a Google search for iPhone SDK PPC. There are a few blog posts about how to get it working -- and it was relatively straightforward.
Sweet - looking forward to attending.
It's also possible that he's innocent.
Cuban is 50? WTF dude looks like he is 35-40 tops.

Also look at how efficient our government is...you break a law and it takes them 4 years to investigate it
I would probably have more sympathy if he wasn't such a blowhard.
So we should stop listening to Soros, too.
I'm a financial trading luddite, so bear with me, but what happens when you do come across some private information that leads you to believe your stock will tumble? Grit your teeth and wait for the knowledge to go public before selling?
Non-native english speaker here .. care to explain what you mean?
haha insider trading is like copying assignment answers in college...its not 5% of potential insiders who are doing it...its 5% potential insiders who AREN'T doing it.

its like driving in the carpool lane by yourself...now and then the cops throw a $500 fine at someone during rush hour to deter others from abusing the rules, but the reality is that the other 22 hours a day you can get away with it, and countless people do
Probably the least surprising news of the year, and I love Mark Cuban.

Techcrunch has some more information:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/17/billionaire-mark-cuban-...
The issue I was thinking of is if you needed multiple "custom instructions" within a loop. Another related issue, if multiple tiles are considered, is the interconnect between the processor core and the tiles. Interconnect is expensive, so there's a trade off to be made. Profiling data showing a curve of unique accelerator functions for the targeted problem domains and their temporal relationship (e.g. there may be ten accelerator functions but they are executed several milliseconds apart or functions A and B tend to appear in an inner loop together) would help make the trade off.
I think most people have a strong inner desire to consume. This desire leads not only to obesity, but to ever-increasing consumer debt as we purchase things to fill our lives. I don't know what drives this desire, but it exists. I struggle with it constantly. I am fat and have a house full of clutter--junk I "needed" to have. Sometimes I win and suppress the desire to consume, but all too often I succumb to it. No easy answer.
Hi cperciva,

I appreciate the sentiment of your comment/flag, but I think you're missing the point. I'm just being cheeky. Is humor dead? ;-)

Cheers!

Eric
What did Mark Cuban due to be accused of Insider Trading by the SEC?
Bookmarked from : http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=366956
He lost 50 lbs participating in Dancing with the Stars.
Humaniqueness and the prefrontal cortex
So now can we all agree to stop up voting his pseudo economic theories and investing advice?

sure, you can toss out warren buffet and george soros and everyone else too...they've all traded on information that was likely privileged, they might not have even known it

before you downvote me, go look up the rules for what constitutes insider information...like all trading rules, totally byzantine
How do I program rule 110 in Python? It shouldn't be too hard, right?
Where does it state they've been actively investigating this since the event occurred?

Do you think the SEC is like Yoda and feels a disturbance in the Force when someone engages in insider trading?
Calculate cost-per-acquisition for startups on freemium, subs, or virtual items
I am a financial advisor, but I am not your financial advisor, and this is not financial advice and should not be construed as such.

The answer to your question is yes.

Longer answer: if you have material, non-public information (either first hand or through hearsay), you may not trade on it.
It's never necessary, but it might be the easiest place to find interesting problems to work on, and the place that is most conducive to study. It's also probably the best lead-in to finding a job in the area.

You don't have to do a PhD. Look up some Master's programs, which typically take two years.

Disclosure: I'm a Computer Science PhD student.
The same sense was there in Alien vs. Predator (1 & 2), only worse. I only played it once. Never again!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122693827604333637.html
Do not mess with Conan the Librarian.

http://blogs.sltrib.com/vault/uploaded_images/ConanTheLibrar...
I can't wait until they reveal their findings about Bear Stearn's insider trading. I heard it was going under one week before it happened; it was the worst kept secret on Wall Street.
Generally if you just "stumble" across confidential, non-public information without warning in advance (the way the CEO of Momma.com apparently told Cuban that he was going to tell him something confidential), someone has probably broken the law or breached a contract or something.
SEC charges Mark Cuban with insider trading
See http://code.activestate.com/recipes/343386/
Brilliant, incredible, I'm amazed :-)

rushes to give it a whirl
A Look Inside the Offices of 'The Onion'
It seems likely that the information wasn't already public knowledge or the stock's price would have dropped in advance of the public statement. We've seen this year how fickle the markets can be to public "knowledge" such as when United declared bankruptcy or when Steve Jobs had a heart attack.
Can't everyone just choose to use it under GPL then?
This crowd should be familar with rule 34: http://xkcd.com/305/
Really? Do you have stats to back this up?

Cause I'll tell you that there's so much more money to be made in legal ways that the benefits of insider trading, coupled with the fact that the SEC loves to make examples of people, that insider trading is very rare nowadays. Everything is logged electronically.

(I'm sorry, but this is the sort of "the rich and powerful get away with murder" crap that makes me want to smack a bitch.)
You just need the right setup.

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/surroundgaming/en/games/zone/...

3x24 inch monitors with monitor bezeling properly set up and it's quite immersive. Better than any console game on my 52" TV downstairs.
This ignores the possibility that GM and Ford management have been perfectly rational in opting not to make major capital investments in their auto lines. The finance guys made A LOT of money at GM with GMAC and several big non-auto deals. It's perhaps a bit naive to spin this tale where GM would be doing very well if only they had been obsessive about engineering.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122669746125629365.html

GM and Ford's apparent neglect of their US car lines makes perfect sense if you come to the conclusion that there's massive global overcapacity in car manufacturing and the unionized US workforce could never compete anyway. It's early yet to say Honda will even be a winner in the next 10 years. Every two bit country in the world is subsidizing a domestic car industry. My wild guess is it will be close to impossible to make decent profits and smart management would exit the business.

DIGITAL was another company known for technical prowess and a focus on engineering. They got eaten for lunch by the wheeler-dealers.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe this depends on what your relationship to the company is. If you overhear the CEO talking to someone then you can sell if the CEO is talking to you then you can't. (Then again if you overhear something then it's more likely for you to get away with it so YMMV.)
Sort of a terrible example by the author (Gladwell, I guess), I think with regards to the wealth creation window being limited to those born between 1831 to 1840.

don’t see why its surprising at all that 14/75 of the richest people in the country came from a given 9 year time period.

Since we don’t know what the distribution looks like, lets grind through this.

If we had no a priori reason to suspect that that particular 9 year period is different from any other, we might think that 75/14*9 ~48 years encompasses all 75 of the richest people 75 people in the country. If we expected that 9 year birth period to show more wealth creation then we should see MORE than 19% representation.

In a time where most people didn’t accumulate their wealth quite as early, lets imagine that people could even imagine to START getting rich at 25 (remember this is a time where instant wealth creation via the internet didn’t exist). Add 48 years to that, and we’re at an age of 73.

Current life expectancy is 78 in the United States and it was lower back then.

So… the claim that 14/75 of the richest people were born within a 9 year period is not inconsistent with the null hypothesis that being born in that 9 year time bracket shows absolutely no proclivity towards wealth creation than any other equivalent 9 year time period.
If you're a hacker you might look for a niche in the R project and do some development.
Maybe we could carpool over there.
From his blog:
"If you are going to trade stocks, you just have to follow one rule and remember one thing. That rule is always have a definite knowledge advantage about the company you are trading, and always remember that every stock transaction has a sucker, and you have to know whether its you or the person on the other side of the trade. No one buys a stock from your, or sells one to you knowing they are leaving money on the table."

Sounds to me like he was taking his own advice. He just didn't mention that Rule #2 of trading stocks is to not get caught with your better-than-average information.
if technocracy was the same as bureaucracy there wouldn't be separate names for it.
They like to make examples of people, but they also settle a lot, don't have adequate resources and are undermanned. It's a constant cat & mouse game except the SEC is the mouse.

Sachin, you live in Chicago - venture over to the CBOT or talk to some of your friends that work there. While the OP's post is certainly an exaggeration, the rich & connected have access to privy information.

This:

http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/02...

Is not a coincidence.
Yes I do, because I own a globe.
No, that's not a "strange map".

This shouldn't surprise you if you're over the age of 12 and you are not named Sarah Palin.
You're wrong. It doesn't matter how you hear it - or what your relationship is. If it's material and non-public, you can't trade on it.

There were people who were hanging out at financial printers to find out material, non-public information, which they would then trade on. There's no relationship whatsoever there, but it's insider trading.
They probably flagged it during the quarter following the transaction. And if they haven't started actively investigating it right away, that seems even worse somehow
I hate your attitude if that's the case... lawlessness is not something i'll tolerate, no one should. Don't get me wrong, i'm all for helping friends out, but unqualified... i'd flatly say no and have.

Having said that, Mark Cuban is someone i've definitely come to respect because of this community. i'd be a little bummed if he wasn't practicing what he was preaching and holding himself to higher noble truths for which he presents.
Do you have a good reference on the design and implementation of these effects? I'm fascinated by this game.
Awesome. I was just going to post something about this!

Unfortunately, I have something tomorrow night and its too short notice to cancel.

If it goes well, we should try to make it a regular thing.
Dan, I agree - but to say that "everyone's doing it" is crazy. It's easier to trade on material, non-public information if you're exposed to it on a regular basis because your patterns aren't readily apparent.

That said, there are a lot of people who will trade on rumors that they consider "inside information" that things don't work out as well as you'd think they would. Look at the volatility in stocks right before earnings announcements. It's hysterical.
DFW Airport is actually billed as "Larger than the island of Manhattan".
I would still use stocks, like you said, for starting out. I don't know if you're unlikely to find new things, but it'll probably be more interesting than sports.
Not at my college it wasn't, and I'm proud of it.
(I can't speak for the whole college, but those I knew did not copy assignment answers)
I wouldn't be surprised to hear a government agency is inefficient, but I hope idle speculation doesn't become a substitute for facts around here.
* do not teach languages that have concurrency models that really support it*

I don't know that I agree with that at all. My first college CS class taught Java, definitely supports concurrency. It's not Erlang-like concurrency, but concurrency nonetheless.

Theres a trend to start teaching Python as a first language, that supports it as well.
Look at some fun stuff like the Monty Hall problem, and Benford's law. These are delightful examples of how counterintuitive probabilities and statistics can be. If either of these things surprise you, you are in the great majority, and unlikely to perform practical statistical work without first doing a great deal of studying. Nothing to be ashamed of, not even Gauss was born knowing this stuff.
Agreed, which is why I said the original OP was almost certainly exaggerating.

You can long or short volatility :).
Cuban confuses me sometimes. 50% of the time, he claims that entrepreneurs should work hard, and he's ethical. The other 50% of the time, he's running around talking about how we should ban network neutrality because anyone who innovates on the Internet owes a fee to the guys who control the cables.

Uhh WTF Cuban? Pick one side of the fence and stay on it. Insider trading? I know you've got more productive things to do than save some money by cutting a few corners. Stop preaching about ethics and hard work if you're going to pull this crap.
Mark Cuban Charged With Insider Trading - November 17, 2008
Why is Hulu more valued by advertisers than YouTube?
> a smart country would put the engineers in charge

This approach has a horrible track record. Failed "five year plans" all 'round.

I think engineers have a pretty bad track record as policy makers and leaders. Engineers see controllable processes and solvable problems. In a complex system like an economy or society these visions are usually mirages.
If you go back about a year in the news.yc archives, this was discussed at great length. Good points were made on both sides, but the conclusion was that pg didn't want titles saying "YC reject" (or "YC applicant who wasn't selected", either).
No, that's just harder to prove, but just as illegal. Given that, if you're in a position to overhear the CEO, you're probably already governed by a stricter set of rules than the guy on the bus.
Bureaucracy is the mechanism. Technocracy is belief in government by the bureaucratic class.
I was in high school with Doug when he wrote this. He is really a brilliant guy who now does work with Facebook. I am not surprised that much of what he said has held up well.
South Africa and Namibia are very close economically and culturally. Same with the two small countries in SA, and I believe Zimbabwe used to have a lot of trade too, before the latest problems.

South Africa is rich, but the West African economic zone is almost as rich.
Historically regulators (such as the SEC and FSA in the UK) have had to look at the data after the fact to search for evidence of insider trading.

They are in the midst of adopting technologies that will allow them to monitor in real time, and potentially even stop the trades (though I'm not sure it would have help in this case). Apama is helping do this in the UK:

http://apama.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/06/the_financial_s.h...
http://www.progress.com/apama/index.ssp

Disclaimer: I used to work for these guys, but back in 2000 when the plan was to become a location-aware social web service (like loopt)
Most spelling mistakes don't mean a thing, but when I read people who write 'of' and 'effect', I assume it's because they don't read a lot. It has nothing to do with intelligence.