skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If you want a community learning center with computers then why are you asking for a library?

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/library

Words matter. People skim, people read headlines. If I read "libraries are in trouble" or "more support for libraries" needed I think "no, anyone with a free smart phone can access the entire internet". They can get a netbook for under $300 or probably a used one for under $50.

Yea, I read the entire post and I understand the guy is poor. I'm just saying that the word "library" is negatively framing the issue.

If we need places for disadvantaged people to be able to use computers and the internet for free and get instruction great! I'm all for that. But that's not a "library"
So, there's a significant (14% - 1 in 7 of your dataset) percentage of people without cable tv, playstation, big screen tv. Do they get the help?
Hell yes Kraftwerk!
Who will regress the regressors?
To this day these guys have put a huge amount of effort into making our handsets awesome.
They deserve even our most humble help.
Really agree with this point. I've worked out of coffee shops for a long time (many of them Starbucks, which has an even worse chance of some sort of co-working energy) and definitely feel like they are very polarizing (either really good and productive or bad and distracting.) I find a similar effect when working near a university in Chicago. There's undeniably a connected, more euphoric feeling to being surrounded by others who are being productive.

I think this lends itself particularly well to the success in co-working spaces. As more and more people seek to become entrepreneurs, seems co-working spaces provide a perfect in between (as well as much less risk) from working in your home/coffeeshops to signing a lease. WeWork in NYC as well as the handful of others in SF are great solutions to this, providing freelancers and small teams the ability to work amongst others and share that connectedness you talked about while at Stanford. Hopefully Chicago will get some more co-working options as well.

Interesting question is how can a coffeeshop embrace this mentality. In the city, people certainly use Starbucks as an office-like environment. While the mix of people is usually pretty good, seems that it's very isolated, with little to no interaction. I wonder if there's a better way to mix the coffeeshop and co-working biz model, perhaps sort of like how I/O ventures does it with Summit.
One of the saddest parts of filling in these government forms online is that some of them time out after 15 or 20 minutes.

I helped someone fill out few of these once because they were having trouble. Even when I had all the information in front of me and the person next to me to organize the information it still timed out. I managed to do one of them on the third try.

There is no way that someone with limited computer experience could fill out a lot of these online forms. Phoning gets you nowhere, and visiting the office for help is a waste of a day.

If only government entities could spend some time into making these online forms and applications usable. Fortunately libraries still exist but I fear for how much longer.
I'm struggling to understand what conclusions you can draw from that. For one thing, what of that 14%? Do those people not exist? Are they not statistically significant for you to care about them? For another, are the 47% who own a computer somehow automatically well off?

Do you understand the economic situation a family can be in? They own a computer whose net worth is about $50. At some point they bought a television. Cable--100$ a month for the fancy kind. The worth of all these things put together is far below the monthly cost of their housing, which they struggle to pay each month. They could sell or stop paying for all of those above "assets" and be in danger of not being able to afford housing and food.

There are places where housing is cheaper. Those places are inevitably situated the furthest distance from locations of economic opportunity. So car and gas and commute, the monthly costs of which dwarf the assets you mentioned.

And let's get back to your claimed 14% who have none of these things. Imagine that--I go to the local thrift store and there's old PCs there that are almost given away (I've donated plenty throughout my years as a contractor--they're barely worth the poundage cost). In American culture, not being connected to pop culture is anathema. Just as cell phone usage has exploded in the poorest countries, in America the first thing parents will provide for their children is television.

It is clear your definition of "barely surviving" is different from the author's (and mine). There's always people chiming in on discussions like this with the "starving children in Africa" argument. E.g. we shouldn't feel sorry for the people mentioned in the article because if you lift their shirt you won't see their ribcage standing out (you'll probably see a bunch of fat from their subsistence on cheap processed food). Are we really a society where that is the measure of how well we take care of our citizens? To me not feeding people is barbaric. Not providing health care to everyone is just short of barbaric. Not carving out societal resources (like public libraries) for shared use, targeted at people who slip through the cracks, is terrible.

Enjoy your data set.
Technical response: soundproof != optically opaque

Cynical political response: "turning tricks" == good first approximation of dealing with a modern government

Entrepreneurial response: "turning tricks" + video cameras + fast uplink == revenue model
"Certainly we could’ve tried to raise money; but if VCs are already giving money to an established entrepreneur to do the same thing, why take a chance on a guy doing his coding in his house in a bathrobe? Again, the celebrity entrepreneur has huge advantages."

No question the celebrity has a halo around them which helps with getting funded.

But I know of many many cases where VC's are trying to find the next Zuck and they know that person exists somewhere in a coffee shop. And even if that wasn't the case stop with the doubting attitude it won't get you anywhere. (Same with girls btw.)

Some other tips - your blog http://www.remarkedly.com doesn't even have a bio on you or what you've done etc. That would be helpful to someone who might want to approach you after seeing what you have done. Or even reading this on hackernews (HN profile has no contact info either.)

And skychalk.com is also missing any "about" info regarding the founders as well. And while whois for skychalk.com has some contact info (is that you or your partner?) whois for remarkedly is private. It shouldn't be. You need as much exposure as you can.
2012 Wall Calendar
2012 Wall Calendar
2012 Wall Calendar This Best Selling Sandy Clough 2012 Wall Calendar Tends to SELL
Prior to 1901, healthcare was not very advanced. I'm guessing the rise of technology, doctor credentialing, and the development of most modern drugs may have something to do with the price increase.
I think you read the wrong thing. This post is about the metafilter comment that is a story about a poor person using a library.
Whoops, you're right, they're both false positives, but one is number of false positives as a percentage of messages marked as spam, and the other is number of false positives as a percentage of messages that aren't spam. The ratios would be completely different.
Clickbank. Seriously, i made a few bucks using it. Unfortunately, i could not redeem the money as i was 17 and now I forgot my account username.
Also, you can buy domains names which are somewhat related to the current web phenomenon and then sell them at a much greater price. (eg. the domain fb.com was bought by Facebook for $8.5 million)
> So, please do not lose heart, not just yet.

If I weren't excited about it, I wouldnt even be commenting on it. ;)
A programmer create algorithms and structures but without using a specific language. Maybe using things like pseudo code or "Jackson Structured Programming" or etc.

A coder will take the work of a programmer and turn it into usable, compilable, code written in a language.

They are often the same person. Often the "programming" is done at the same time as the "coding".
Cling : C++ REPL using Clang and LLVM
The crux of libertarian thought is that public services like the police can be entirely replaced by voluntary organizations--that the neighborhood watch or private detectives should assume the powers of, say, arresting people and putting them in jail.
You're overestimating the influence of Hacker News, and underestimating the historical concern that people have had about their personal information being used to power commercial business.

http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/priva...

Hacker News, 1890?
It's not yet another language that we need. It's more high level functions.

C or fortran can be as fast as they want, but in mathematica I can do MorphologicalComponents[] and get the components. having these functions available to me speeds up my time to discovery by 1000x or more.
OK, I guess I wouldn't mind having dropped on my head a 4.4 pound drone traveling, hmm, approximately:

sqrt(2gdistance) = Sqrt(232.3(400 feet)) = 160 f.p.s.

with about 160 fps * 4.4lbs = 700 ft-lb of energy

!!! Well, maybe not!
Actually non-Stanford faculty courses like Natural Language Processing are just as delayed as the others. None of the Coursera classes have started and there is no public news as to why or when they might start of if any of them will run at all.
I'm in this position right now though I have yet to get any offers. Flew to Seattle last week for Amazon but was turned down and that's just one in a long line.

Do I feel like these have been unfair? No. In each case I can perfectly well understand why I was passed over: I screwed something up, whether an algorithm on the whiteboard or incorrectly describing a certain data structure. While it's a bit depressing to read stories like this about SV firms competing to hire college students, I've come to realize that I'm just not good enough to get those positions.

Right now my plan is to stay where I am for a year (I do have an offer from a local firm, it's just not that exciting) and build up a portfolio of work. I've got products shipped out there in the wild but nothing I'm that proud of. However, a year of weekend projects will give me a portfolio of working products and (hopefully) make me more attractive to companies in Silicon Valley.

I'll be releasing my senior thesis project into the wild soon and the corresponding paper has already been accepted for publication. I've started submitting pull requests for open source projects on Github with bug fixes.

Right now I'm not good enough. A year from now, I will be.
I thought it was about how people need libraries and the funds are being cut.
It goes way back before SJ.
Time to eliminate CAs altogether. I don't see why my trust in them should be assumed:

http://convergence.io/details.html
It's a point that really does need refinement, though. Even if only for the first-world young adult with the luxury of misinterpreting it and wasting years of first attempts.

"Taking time to find out what we really enjoy" by default sounds like taking the time to try lots of different things, assuming that when you try "the right one" you'll know instantly that you've found it.

That's a first-world problem to be sure -- think of kids in their early 20's (still kids...) trying out entry-level job after entry-level job and finding them all tedious and boring (well, yeah, you're not going to get a really interesting job in any industry until you're capable of it). Or traveling the world on Daddy's dime to "find themselves", but still not really finding much besides how to ask for a beer in 7 languages.

Too much choice is a bad thing psychologically, on the whole. Too little sucks more, to be sure, but the sweet spot is not "always higher".

"What you really enjoy" (like "your true love") isn't some fated truth that needs to be found, and you'll know it instantly on sight. There are tons of things that could be "what you really enjoy", and tons of people who might be "your true love", but either way it's going to take prolonged effort to make that come true.
That's kind of the whole message of capitalism - capital is king. But small companies can compete by operating in niches and local markets. Craigslist dominates today because they dominated the SF market so completely. Everyone else had to use loads of money to try and grab other markets, but CL had SF as proof, and sensible people posted in the proven platform rather than the competition.
I noticed this two years ago, and eventually had to stop using Chrome (and Chromium browsers) as it would result in my ISP blocking all DNS requests from my IP (for a seemingly random amount of time). Even requests to public DNS would fail. It took awhile to identify Chrome as the culprit, and I wasn't convinced after seing the bogus DNS requests in TCP traps. So I started a cycle of using/not using Chrome, and it became obvious.

The easy solution was to stop using Chrome. The hard solution was to move. I've done both, but have yet to start using Chrome again.
Same here. I also find the "Use the native fullscreen mode on OS X Lion" option terribly slow.
Glad to help inform!

It's generally accurate to say that basic cable isn't _switched_ digital, which isn't the same as saying it's analog.

It's not accurate to say that basic cable is analog - that is, a single channel can fit into a 6 MHz space. Some providers may put their whole basic lineup in analog, but this is decidedly not a technical requirement.

There's a difference between the little Comcast DTA (for receiving clear QAM digital signals that aren't switched) and a tuning adapter (for receiving digital signals that are switched).

For my company, some markets have no analog channels at all - basic cable services are delivered as clear QAM, and customers use a QAM TV, a DTA, or set-top box to receive them.

Other markets have some analog channels and some digital channels as part of basic cable - if you have an analog TV, you can only see the analog ones, unless you have a DTA.
You have been downvoted because many people on HN base their votes on whether they like the message of a comment. People who like Apple products and can identify with the values of the company will feel you're defending Apple with your comment and will upvote you for doing so. Other people who like X11 or XQuartz a lot or simply dislike Apple will feel that you're trying to defend an evil act and will downvote your comment in retribution. I'm not sure how helpful this voting pattern is for the quality of HN discussions but it's basic human nature and there's not much that can be done about it.
I think the biggest difference between a first time coffeeshop entrepreneur and a seasoned entrepreneur comes down to the stamina to withstand multiple pivots both psychologically & financially.
> Just as one example, what if libraries had some ads somewhere? Then they could be provided for free to poor people but also gain some revenue.

Perhaps when people borrow a book they are only given the first four chapters; they have to promote the library to get access to the next three chapters; and they have to pay to get access to the last four chapters?

I doubt freemium models will translate well to libraries.
This was another one of those blog posts that started with <insert inflammatory title about X being bad/dangerous/perilous>, followed by <poorly constructed straw man about X being done wrong in a way that rarely happens> followed by <largely obvious but still unsupported conclusion that X is actually really good but only when done right>.

The empty argument sandwich.

Polyglot programming is not about using 10 languages in every (or any) software project. It isn't even necessarily using 3. The one statement made that was true was this:

> 2. Knowing multiple programming paradigm expands your mind and makes you better at programming in every language.

Which he then argued against with

> Well, maybe the second I'll argue with a little: I think you can get most of the benefits by using different paradigms within the same multi-paradigm language

Ironically, "#2" actually supports the counter-argument. Learning multiple languages would be extremely useful when then applying those paradigms within a multi-paradigm language (as an example playing with Erlang and F# has made me better with languages that support first-class functions like C#, Ruby and Javascript).

In the end, the article seems to disagree with it's own title. There is no peril to being a polyglot programmer. There is perhaps a peril in overuse and over mixing of tools, which we should all know and has nothing to do with being a polyglot programmer. Perhaps a better title would have been the perils of indecisiveness, or having a lack of focus, or doing too much at once. I dunno.
If you're a programmer and you're taking time off to learn and build things, then I can't see how it could hurt you with future employers.

"Why did you take the time off?"
"I was building this thing that has since been forked 200 times on Github and is running in at least a dozen shipped projects"
"Ok then"
I've been surprised by the lack of technical ability in my college classes, especially from students that are my age or younger. This semester, a student told me she couldn't find a program to write a short assignment. I sent her a link to OpenOffice and was baffled by how excited she was about it. She informed me that she was writing papers nonstop, just because she was happy to finally have a tool that let her do it. And this wasn't a dumb person either. Last week she was half a point away from a perfect score on an exam that would have ruined my semester back when I was in college.
If there's demand, there will emerge scriveners of the new era, helping computer illiterate people.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrivener :

Scriveners remain a common sight in countries where literacy rates remain low; they read letters for illiterate customers, as well as write letters or fill out forms for a fee. Many now use portable typewriters to prepare letters for their clients.
One one side you have people like the author who crave the power of code-as-data more than they care about nice syntax and therefore love Lisp.

I crave both the power of code-as-data and nice syntax, which is why I love Lisp.
It's about a lot of things at once. But libraries are the frame for the rest of the piece.

As far as I can tell topics covered are:

0) The digital divide.

1) Cutting of Public benefits

2) Cutting of library funds specifically

3) How libraries help gap the digital divide but even with funding are just helping people tread water.

4) That the will, money, and effort to change this situation might not be there.
Will this be how Metro works?
HR 1981 could lead to Internet surveillance
Do you have any information about the cable TV subscription rates of the poor, or are you just trotting out bullshit theories of poverty as lack of impulse control and proper priority setting that were already dusty when Reagan took office?

edit: That is definitely information. Appreciate the references (that were given as a reply to the other comment.) Will look at them later to see if they answer the question that came to mind as I was reading your numbers; what's the churn? How many people were in that 14% during any particular period?

For example, if I did a survey during a famine to find out how many people had a meal that day, and found out 2/3s had, it would be incorrect to say that only 1/3 of people had been effected.
I think it's pretty obvious why you're being down-modded. It's what happens when you set up your own strawman and then demolish it.
I have recently become quite fond of Arvo Pärt and other classical minimalist composers, largely because I like the texture of piano and strings with the simplicity of minimalism while I'm working, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vdgZAJVnes
Silently start background processes - Linux/Bash
Re: Did You Hear We Got Osama?
can anyone comment on tech scene? I might be moving there in a few years
Both really. The client has a Django project that already had a REST interface for a handful of AJAX calls, and I have python expertise, so they hired me.

The project is using a Django extension called Piston:
https://bitbucket.org/jespern/django-piston/wiki/Home

Which is really quite nice for building REST APIs with Django.
BTW, the site is ok. If it could be leased to another site for a small price, and the data could be embedded onto pages via widgets it could work.

There are thousands of newsletters and small papers that are online, or going online, and they usually have classifieds that haven't been taken over by craigslist. CL hacks away at the mainstream classifieds, but niche classifieds are still selling.
And I still can't use the multimedia keys on my keyboard to control it while minimized.
1. I think the on-boarding process to an app is probably more crucial the app itself. This is purely anecdotal, but as an early adopter whenever I go through the trouble of downloading an app which greets me with “Create An Account”, I'm almost always immediately turned off. In some cases I've just excited the app and hit un-install. The last thing I need is another account, with a service I may not use for more than 15mins.

I think the best process is to give users a feel for your product without an account being necessary. Maybe it's just in READ mode with the ability to WRITE enabled upon signup. Or just simply ask for an email address which is then used as a unique identifier for your account. Oink did this awhile back.

2. I think the Facebook hate is miss-placed. Do you really hate Facebook (provider of a tool) or those who spam you via Facebook (users of the tool)? If you're so worried about Facebook tracking you offsite, why have an account at all? They're in the business of collecting, optimizing, and monetizing the social graph. If their platform has more 'cons' than 'pros' I think you should ditch it and keep your tin foil hat on. I myself use it, with my tin foil hat on, but don't go through the hoops to block it as some of you are doing.
?

So you don't think a good hacker would find a bug in Apple's developer account registration system that'll inadvertently pull your apps from the App Store - with additional background information that points to a likely cause - interesting?

I sure do. I'm curious on what the response is, and what the ramifications are for his applications. And given Apple's push to make the Mac App Store their prominent means of pushing apps to OS X users, knowing about these sorts of glitches is really darn useful.
It requires a subscription, unfortunately.
Looks very nice - I'd love to do something like this for Lua. I went looking for more details, but it looks like your blog is down, alas .. anyway, if there is already something out there on the subject of using Ubigraph, tutorial/howto-wise, I'll go looking for it. It'd be great to have something like that when debugging a large Lua project.
Yeah I saw that too. It was on the front page then just poofed.

I start reading HN by visiting each link quickly found it was WAY to much information to handle. I'm much more selective now.
If resources matter, then you need to get resources. Writing software is not 100% of building a business.
So I guess its fashionable nowadays to say that IQ has no bearing on one's ability to perform jobs with high mental loads? Too bad it's just not true.