skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Using absolute paths is still perfectly acceptable. Wikipedia covers the basic benefits/drawbacks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebang_%28Unix%29#Portability
Retrofitting drop shadows into existing Android layouts
The argument that there's nothing to worry about because other aspects of email communication is insecure is like saying that I shouldn't lock the door to my house since a house is fundamentally insecure, having windows that are easy to break.

My point is that, just because certain aspects of email communication is insecure doesn't mean we need to accept even more insecurity from our email provider.

The author also forgets to mention that the authorities have relatively easy access to people's email communications. Read http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/ to understand how troubling the American government's peaking into personal stuff is.
People seem to have been quite active in this area. There are a lot of Clojure Swing examples out there. One on planetary orbitals: http://juliangamble.com/blog/2012/01/23/clojure-gui-demo-of-...
One on 3D graphing of an equation: http://juliangamble.com/blog/2012/01/23/clojure-gui-demo-of-...
ONLINE MOVIES: Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu (2012)
Bookmarked, thank you. May I ask the source?
I'm not familiar with PyUNO so forgive me if this is way out there, but would placing PyUNO behind a ZMQ gateway then using ZMQ for communication with your frontend work?
What did you learn about smart people?
Some thoughts on the iPhone contact list controversy and app security
In thinking about "smart" in the abstract sense or in relation to others, I draw on the logic of Forrest Gump: smart is as smart does. (Forrest said "stupid is as stupid does", but same corollary applies.)
There's something to that. Not every older Roman emperor was successful. But almost all of the emperors that took the throne before 20 were disastrous.

There are exceptions, of course.
I don't learn well from books
Just going with the title... I don't do well with books. Over the years I have tried to learn what I can from various books that I have bought or been given but unless I actually try to use the knowledge it just doesn't stick very well. Take JavaScript for example. I can't tell you how many JavaScript books I have read and yet when I sit down to work on something its like I have no idea what I am doing all over again. Over time my prophecency returns and I am not totally in the dark but the deeper understanding (what I bought the book for in the first place) never arives. I maintain a basic knowledge of various subjects like PHP, MySQL, and Javascript that I have to resurect anytime I try to use them. Its simple, unless I am working on something that involves these skills I don't learn anything. And this is my problem. For the past several years I have read countless articles on Ruby. I even bought a Python book. Two languages that I have a real interest in, but I don't have a clue how to go about actively trying to learn them. I am hesitant to got the book route becuase I just don't think it will be successful. Anyone else have this problem? How have you learned? I think I should just sit down and make of a list of stuff to program and then try do to it in each language. Then again this route may cause me to miss something important. Any suggestions? Any lists of basic apps you created while learning?
Adjusted for inflation that $50,000 is over $1,100,000 ...
What pisses me off is when SaaS offers aren't offering a pricing model that would actually fit for me althoug it wouldn't be a technical difference to them.

I'm currently trying to move away from gmail to something else that also offers me caldav/carddav integration. I could run my own mail server, but I really, really don't want to ...

One perfect solution for me would be atmailcloud(.com). They offer a snappy webinterface and cal-/carddav for 2 USD/user. The problem: the minimum amount of users is 5. I could just change the http post and probably get away with just buying a single user, but I'd rather be able to pay for something I'd love to use without having to fake my way arround it.
He's a pop science writer who does a bit of synthesis. He has interesting ideas -- but they aren't super well substantiated. I've always viewed his works as launching points for further work or ideas to consider, but not really definitive. Most writers who write "accessible" science prose are like this, unless they have written some inaccessible work in papers first and are just trying to explain things to the layman. You take it all with a grain of salt.

With that in mind, I take two concrete appraoches to Gladwell's work. Unless I feel like reading a story, I skip the anecdotes -- this shortens most of his books to about a chapter's worth. :-)

And if I do hit upon an important point I might want to incorporate into my thinking, I look up the references to see how substantiated it really is.
All the information required to build a go package is in the source. why write and maintain Make files when they are unnecessary? The Go project is all about making programming simpler.
In ordinary usage, "ANSI C" is a synonym for strict C89. C99 is not well-supported by many compilers, so code intended to be widely portable is still frequently written to strict C89.
The Truth About Income Inequality in America
The somewhat weird use-case that I'm solving for PyUno is that the OpenOffice service leaks memory like a sieve. With the hooks built into TCPLock, I can periodically kill OpenOffice and hold off an accepting more connections until the service is available on port 8100 again.

I don't know enough about ZMQ to speak to it, but I'm sure I could wire something together to solve this problem using any number of approaches. A proxy in Node.js was tempting because it's simple, lightweight, and does the trick quite nicely :)
You're right that privacy is all about social norms and expectations. That's why I've never understood how people willingly sharing personal information is considered a privacy issue at all. If I show my friend a postcard sent to me by another friend, no one's privacy has been violated. If I trust a roommate (e.g. a significant other) to read my mail, there's no privacy issue there.

This applies to a huge portion of privacy concerns raised by the tech community. Someone sharing their photos, location, or thoughts willingly on Facebook does not constitute a privacy issue. Someone accepting a fairly clear Google privacy policy and thereby letting their algorithm read all their emails does not constitute a privacy issue.

The real privacy issues are ones where companies don't follow their own privacy policies, or companies' databases get compromised, or companies abruptly change default sharing settings to be more public (which, granted, I believe Facebook has done before).
I couldn't help but notice a resemblance between what you are describing and a lot of machine learning algorithms.

It seems like the most successful ML algorithms are self-correcting ones, rather than ones that attempt to calculate the exact correct answer in one go.

Coincidence?
welcome to life
Interesting. I may try my hand at learning some Erlang NIF creation using this. Then I can benchmark it against Bob Ippolito's mochijson2 module.

Could be a fun little exercise.
But sometimes I get stuck in my old ways and search in vain for the "right" opinion/perspective/paradigm/whatever.

Then again, those who are convinced their way is the "right" way are often the ones who have the biggest impact on the world (for better or worse).
That's not what he was implying... he wants to trigger a download from a non-Apple device (say, Chrome on a Linux PC) and have it download (or readily available to download) on his iPad.
Hitchhikers Guide to Code Development with Git
"please don't overlook all that you can learn from people that may not seem so smart."

I love that you said this. One of the things that smart people do is learn something from anyone they can about anything they can.

I met a bellhop once in Florida. He had moved his entire family to Orlando. I think he came from some less desirable place up north. But he had enough smarts to realize that if he was going to cart bags for a living it might as well be in a nice warm place instead of a cold city area.

I learned a few valuable theories that I've used for years of giving estimates from an electrician as a child. (I'm not suggesting that an electrician isn't smart only that they don't usually get picked as "pre-eminent scholars" that the OP is writing about.)
My take on honesty:

I'm not comfortable being incongruent (ie having a mismatch between my inner state and outer communication).

Even a relatively small amount of incongruence (ie minor sucking-up to unworthy bosses, things of that nature) causes me to become cynical and jaded.

I think this is a good thing AND a bad thing. Good thing because people know that I am less likely to be a fake-fuck and just nod along with their bullshit, bad thing because sometimes life requires some machiavellianism and/or smarminess.

Solutions for this dilemma?

PS. Sebastian Marshall is my new favorite blogger these past couple of months. I love his style. I would recommend everyone get his book: http://www.amazon.com/Ikigai-ebook/dp/B006M9T8NI (full disclosure: I want to gain some brownie-points from Mr Marshall).
Don't get caught writing "very unique" at Harvard. Being unique is binary. :)

I don't like words like "smart" - and "stupid" - but I can recognize some of the qualities associated with them. One of the biggest is to know what you don't know, to not be complacent and arrogant. The people I respect the most are humble people, and I think it comes down to this.

I don't know what the definition of "smart" is, but I think you sound like a smart person for knowing that you don't have it all figured out - and want to fill in the gaps, even though it means telling other people.
re: Unfortunately Manfred Von Thun has stopped developing Joy and recommends using Factor - http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/concatenative/message/487...
I think you have to be careful about making blanket statements and whether you are saying that smart people ask questions or are trying to imply that people that ask questions are smart.

It is in the interest of the speaker to claim that audience members who ask questions are in some way smarter. Being asked a question implies that the speaker has knowledge that the audience doesn't. So of course the speaker is going to claim those people are smart.

It is also not a good thing to presume that audience members are not asking questions simply to draw attention to themselves and to impress other audience members. People with awards are more probably than not to be smart, but they needed a lot of visibility to get those awards.

An important question would be to ask, "which non famous person is asking lots of questions, and is that person smart?" Since the author seems to define smart as having won awards and being well known in a field, this question fails immediately.

Personally, unless it is unpublished research, I can get most of my questions answered immediately by surfing along while listening and without disrupting the talk. It's also funny when I pull up wikipedia and it either turns out to have the same content as the talk, or directly contradicts the talk.
Seems like a premature optimization. Don't assume, check the assembly if you care :)
Take an interest you currently have that isn't tech related and start solving it. In my case, sports league websites suck (or at least the volleyball leagues I've played in), and I got fed up enough to do something about it.

There's always some underserved niche to be found, and you don't necessarily have to seek it out. Eventually, if you keep your eyes open, something will annoy you enough to change.
>Google has an incentive to be nice: they only make money and continue to exist if people use their products.

So, the same motivation as big Pharm, Oracle and Monsanto, then? That incentive doesn't appear to work very well.
Interesting. And maybe not even just in the younger years. Having worked in a big corporation, where politics flowed thick, there can be a social perception that one who sticks his head up will likely have it cut off. Asking pointed questions is one way to do that.

However I've also noticed—among engineers where solid understanding is perhaps more critical—the culture can be different. There's still a general reluctance to admit you have no clue what a speaker is talking about, but when 'that guy' finally breaks the silence with the questions that were on everyone's mind, you can almost hear the sense of relief spreading through the group.
I like the post a lot. Looks like Dana tried a lot and learnt a lot from what was not working for him.

I especially like the cultural side of trying, folding gracefully (if need be), learning and re-trying.

Here in Italy, you can't just do that. Even a graceful fold marks you as a lifetime failure, it is a sort of social stigma.

I wonder how this works in other parts of the world, in and outside US.
FiDi does have the best lunch options in the city M-F.
Ask HN: Thoughts on cyclical content refreshing? 
I spend a fair amount of time consuming content from various sources - feeds, HN, twitter, reddit - dedicatedly and in between activities. While obviously a personal commentary, I was interested in why I end up spending so much time - despite understanding full well that I had a ton of other activities I could productively engage in, and what could I do to overcome it.

My theory is that random reinforcement is the culprit, at least in my case. I'll find a few gems once in a while, unpredictably, and I'll be scanning my sources looking for the next gem.

My proposed solution is to create personal cyclical patterns of consumption, so that users are only exposed to new content at regular cycles chosen by them - increasing the predictability of finding great content, and reducing the addiction. This is somewhat similar to the noprocrast option in HN, but I'm imagining a broader user controlled layer between the content creation and content consumption, and possible native integration within a site's features.

I wanted to get some quick thoughts from the community on this? Does this affect you? Do you think such a solution would be helpful? I would be happy to flesh this idea out in more detail and discuss more if there's interest in the community.

Thanks for your thoughts!
You'd be surprised. I've had many coworkers who carried around dayplanners just to note the time and date they were asked to do something.

If you basically do the same job every day, showing up at 9 and leaving at 5, it wouldn't be for you. If you are working on multiple projects, it's a lot more useful. Especially if your employer has an SAP type time tracking system where the charge numbers are so ridiculously complicated. As a contractor for those kinds of companies, I've always struggled with keeping track of how much time I've spent on any given day among the projects I was responsible for.

Then there are other types of professionals, like lawyers, who have to keep track of multiple tasks on any given day for billing purposes.

Point being, there are still plenty of potential customers for time keeping apps. Maybe not enough to get rich, but enough to help make a living.
Ask HN: Any Interest in Bundled Lean Startup Tools?
I'm wondering if anyone on HN, developing a web biz, would be interested in bundled pricing on Lean Startup tools.
I recently started to apply Running Lean techniques to an existing product with tools recommended in the book of the same name. Even with revenue the overall cost adds up quick.

Example tools could be prefinery, kissinsights, kissmetrics, mailchimp, etc etc. & might be mix & matched.

I'm collecting interested folks's email at leanmeanbundlemachine.com, but would like your deeper insights into the idea here. thanks.

[confession: I submitted this very early Sunday morning. Too early to get any looks & need some feedback. Sorry if you were the one person to see it earlier.]
http://www.gandi.net/ offers free IMAP/POP with their domains. Hosted in Europe (as far as I know).
Some of the companies listed working in certain areas has changed. However, the comments on the commute and pricing is still about the same.

I would say he went over the top on describing SOMA. It is still dead.
Another alternative, https://github.com/esnme/ultrajson

"Ultra fast JSON decoder and encoder written in C with Python bindings"

From the people that built the Battlefield 3 web portal.

Medium complex object:

ujson encode : 18757.01101 calls/sec

yajl encode : 6315.14030 calls/sec

simplejson encode : 5542.03928 calls/sec

cjson encode : 4651.59072 calls/sec

---------

ujson decode : 10759.69649 calls/sec

simplejson decode : 8148.35221 calls/sec

cjson decode : 7931.04387 calls/sec

yajl decode : 5887.38201 calls/sec
If you're going to be a smart-ass, then go all out.

function jsChallenge() {
function sum(n) {
var k = Math.floor(1000 / n);
return n * k * (k + 1) / 2;
};
return sum(1) - sum(5) - sum(7) + sum(35);
}
Is there a good "algorithm" for discovering these needs?

Is it mostly CRUD software or are there more exciting opportunities? (Much of the draw of the startup dream for me is the chance to work on sexy non-CRUDdy stuff).
You attribute malice to where there probably is none.

I reckon the more likely truth is that the Path folk genuinely saw nothing wrong with what they were doing. There are a group of people (call them the Facebook crowd, if you want) who think that excessive privacy is unnecessary, extending that thought to sharing people's address books.
I agree that his post smacked of branding - his first sentence read "Going to Harvard means ..." - and he's clearly impressed by branding - "Based on the research and findings of so many of the students and professors here, it’s clear that this trend is no accident."

But your response seems kind of disproportionate. Even if it did take him a while to learn that asking questions at the risk of seeming dumb is a good thing, and even if it took him observing "pre-eminent scholars" doing it to think it was worthwhile, and yeah, his post is ironically devoid of question-asking, why make fun of someone for learning something?

EDIT: edw wasn't being sarcastic, misread that.
Scernment teeth ~ Of Dentistry
The unifying theory underlying physics, topology, logic and computation[pdf]
Downvote this if you're stupid enough

Please, including stuff lke that is pretty much just asking to be downvoted.
The Dubious Science of Online Dating
Yes, exactly: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3583136

I think the optimum thing would be to have utter Certainty in localized settings, whilst retaining a good check on sanity on the global level. While trying to woo a lady, you don't want to have constant thoughts of doubt. In this situation, it is more beneficial to be "irrationally self-confident". But you don't necessarily want this delusion to seep into everyday life, as it would cause you to become a... well, a general douchebag :)
Добро пожаловать » Петербургский трамвай
It's sort of weird to find Yeltsin with Alexander the Great and Ernest Hemingway.
I think this is also why "the best way to learn something is to have to teach it", or at least that's what I've found. When you start imagining what questions you might get asked, you begin uncovering all sorts of holes in your understanding, even if it's something you thought you understood but suddenly realise you couldn't explain.
I think ugly websites do well is because the focus of the site is the content. The quality of the content draws people to return to the website. Craig's list is a great example of this. It doesn't look that great but it gets the job done.
Anatomy of a Tear-Jerker
I don't believe 10000 hours is original to Gladwell, although he did popularize it.
I would like to ban the word smart from common discourse. It looks like it describes something, but actually masks the reality of the how someone can look 'smart' in a situation.
The argument that email is inherently insecure is specious. Most providers offer IMAP over TLS. Hotmail offers POP (which is incredibly crappy), but at least over TLS. Some big ISPs (e.g., Verizon) don't offer encrypted mail, and should be ashamed of themselves for this -- but this is definitely the exception these days. Mail between servers is also generally encrypted via TLS. And SPF and DomainKeys generally provide a nice audit trail if someone's hacking.
So it's just wrong to suggest that email is usually sent in cleartext form or is otherwise insecure -- even if the users involved haven't set up PGP.

I think it's totally legitimate for consumers to be concerned about the companies that host their email. Unlike social networking, email is for "important stuff", and while webmail providers like Google generally have protections in place to prevent random employees from reading your mail, the fact is that the possibility still exists, and incidents have occurred at companies like Google of rogue employees illicitly reading end-users' email. Someone with access to your Facebook account is unlikely to get access to your bank statements, mortgage emails, or travel plans. But if someone can read all your email, they'll likely get all these and much more.

The only genuinely safe long-term solution is for mail hosts to store their users' email encrypted in such a way that only the end users (and not the company) can read the email. This would preclude server-side ad targeting, but users should -- and I believe, will -- ultimately demand it.
Ian Rowland's book is great stuff. I also recall a Malcolm Gladwell article that travelled some of the same territory and used Rowland as a source: http://www.gladwell.com/2007/2007_11_12_a_profile.html

Of course, that dealt with the possible inefficacy of FBI psychological profilers, which is less comfortable to think about than gullible office-workers.
Um, I wrote it. Flattered, though, thanks. :)
IMHO much of asking questions is largely cultural. For instance, at the Passover Seder the youngest child asks (with prior coaching from their parents) the "four questions."

My father is a prof at a "top university" and in my family we were always encourage to ask questions and discuss issues. My friends grew up in similar households. But I don't think these were typical households. My perception is that in some Asian cultures the children are less likely to be encouraged to question than the environment that I grew up in. Also, many women are more shy than men and perhaps less likely to ask a question that was on their mind.

Regarding hiring decisions, the one thing I look for is whether people will argue with me or not. I look for the people that question and argue with passion.
I hold his writing to a non-academic standard and generally enjoy it. I did, however, get very angry watching him give a lecture. He seemed so enamored with weaving a vague but sexy story that I don't think even he believed his own thesis. His style just didn't seem honest!
It's not what your education/degree makes of you, but what you make of your education/degree.

This false belief turns out so many people who feel cheated later in life.

Perpetual self learning is the only required skill for the truly educated, or self-educating. IT especially, what we learn today is worthless in a short time.
I'd want to meet both. Tesla is to electrical engineering, as Einstein is to physics.
Reddit: a necessary change in policy