skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Some articles tell you to dream big. Some articles like this one tell you to dream smaller and learn how to execute on your ideas.

The real problem is in understanding how to match the ambitiousness of your ideas to the level at which you are able to execute. Everyone is different and most people are better at one vs the other.

Difficulty in finding that sweet spot seems to be the real source of difficulty that motivates blogs like the one being discussed in this thread.
I really wonder if it's not true today anymore, that college isn't for the liberal arts and is merely a career training endeavor.

In fact I'd argue the opposite: that college bound students and their parents have the wrong expectation that going to college is merely a job preparation strategy.

This may be culturally specific to English-based colleges, but often for a US-based 4-year degree, you spend half your time literally learning the same stuff as all other students, regardless of which degree everyone is trying to get. And then, even when you are in your final year and taking more specialized classes, they are still integrated with all sorts of knowledge from across the board.

Some of my favorite memories from college were things like that Anime appreciation film class, a stage acting class, and a couple singing classes. And in the end I got a degree unrelated to my current profession.

Let's stop trying to turn the liberal arts into something it's not, a trade school.
It's also the only place that made me take my shoes off before the metal detector, which I found quite humiliating

This appears to have been one of the calculations of the terrorist group that put up the shoe bomber

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_shoe_bomb_plot

to trying his failed attempt to blow up an airplane with a bomb hidden in his shoe. Some of the co-religionists of some of those terrorists consider it extremely degrading to be bare-footed in certain situations deemed to be "holy" situations (I know this from having been warned about how I oriented my feet in flip-flop sandals once when I was overseas in 1984), and thus they have probably been glad to humiliate Americans as Americans have reacted to the failed shoe bomb plot. My proposal is that United States airport security give up on requesting passengers to remove shoes. Yeah, maybe have chemical sensing devices with air intakes at floor level to screen for bombs on shoes, but let us all wear our shoes onto airplanes and throughout the insides of airports. The screening procedures at present appear to be an overreaction to the actual risk of a shoe bomb destroying a passenger airplane, especially in view of other countries not having the same screening procedure for airline passengers.
I've used this system in Minneapolis, which is almost identical to the costs and station density here. It's OK for certain people I suppose. If you are a local, it's better to bring your own bike. If you are visiting, the fees are very high since you have to start paying extras for a few minutes overage. Overages are easy to get because the stations are usually no where near where you are going unless you are doing short tourist jaunts. So you end up walking for 30 minutes to a bike, riding the bike for 15 minutes to a station roughly in the direction you are going, parking to avoid the fee, transferring to a new bike to continue, now you have to go further, then you get to closest destination station, park, walk 30 minutes to actual destination, and reverse to go home. Spend too long stuck at a red light and now you pay a fee for late. Want to ride somewhere, drop something off, then come back? To save on fees you have to factor in a bunch of stations and swaps, so a 40 minutes bike ride round trip if you had your OWN bike is now 90 minutes including all the walking to stations and swapping.

So just pay the fees. Or take the bus, which is cheaper and faster. Or rent a car and be done with all this.

The idea such inefficient systems are being taxpayer funded in some cities is offensive.

I agree with the other comment that it is quite difficult to navigate Boston traffic with a bike since the city is not built to accomodate it for the most part. Police are also highly aggressive, belligerant, uneducated, ignorant and thuggish and risk of being arrested and harassed for not being in the correct lane or whatever are significant.
I would consider any gun in the hands of another man 'big scary'. It doesn't really matter how big it is. He could be holding a small pistol - it can still kill me.
If you mean SQL specific resources, Joe Celko (who's book "SQL for Smarties" was mentioned in the article) has written a good deal. He generally expresses himself using ANSI Standard SQL (and served on the standards committees). But I think that the various NoSql solutions are far more popular for large scale implementations like LinkedIn/Facebook.
I fly into the US via YVR Vancouver approximately 18 times per year, and it's almost always a terrible experience. ICE officers are surly, impatient and unpleasant, even when there's no lineup and no urgency. There are exceptions, there is one officer who knows me on sight and always asks how my previous visits were. The majority can't even be bothered to make eye contact or do anything beyond order me through the fingerprint scans and photographs. Once, one accused me of hating America for living in Canada but doing business in the USA.

By car, however, the experience has almost always been excellent. One border agent told me an extended anecdote about why Andrew Jackson was called 'Old Hickory' when I paid my VISA fees with a $10 bill. Another greeted me with 'you know weezy? good times?'. They seem relaxed, friendly and happy in general.

There definitely seems to be a difference in culture between the airport personnel and the land border personnel.
Every single element of the media is drowned in the desperation of the economic crisis, the cost of living is exorbitant and the weather is truly depressing.

I see your "media desperation" and raise you 11 years of war and government stoked fears of terrorism.

I'm part of the Irish Diaspora, two generations removed. The Emerald Isle has been calling to me lately.
I'm in that exact boat, I can't believe it took me this long to find this. I live in New Jersey. I moved up here in my early 20s for a gig that I no longer have, but in late 2006 I bought a house. This house has decreased in value by probably at least $50k (I'm out in the country, and honestly it's probably more like $75k). In the meantime, my new gig is as a freelance programmer. I don't have a single client that's even in the same timezone. I'd love to move back down to North Carolina, but the thought of losing this much money on the house has me stuck here, paying New Jersey cost of living and losing the same money slowly.

There are probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions of households across America in the exact same position. It makes me pretty bitter at the policies of Fannie and Freddie 10 years ago in that "everyone should own a home" now appears to have been a disastrously bad idea for so many reasons.
You're right about not doing subpixel anti-aliasing. It would need to change the direction of the subpixel anti-aliasing on a switch from landscape to portrait, which would presumably lead to strange visual effects.
This is wonderful article written by a Harvard Law professor. Normally I don't agree with lawyers, but in this case Lawrence Lessig just tells it like it is without manipulating the facts in a well-respected journal.
I studied history with no plan for what to do in the real world. Now I run my own consulting business and am planning on bootstrapping it into a software business.

Look: You can get a job by making choices that HR departments like or you can go and carve out an economic niche for yourself. Your degree isn't important in the latter so much as your ability to think critically. Perhaps humanities degrees (including a philosophy degree) really shine there.
Neutrinos clocked at light-speed in new Icarus test
OK, we always called them Baader-Meinhof - it sounded much more scarily Teutonic!
Celine bags
It's nice style :)
There are jobs. There are growth areas. MOVE THERE. Sure, South Dakota may not seem desirable, but survival comes first and even McDonalds there is paying hiring bonuses.

Too much of society believes the prolific promises happiness and comfort without effort (and vote accordingly). Reality doesn't work that way; figure it out fast or a world of hurt will arrive.
Inspirational & Spiritual Quotes From (365) Days of Tumblr
Huh? Rifles in a closed indoor environment are pretty scary to me. They are inappropriate and intimidating to anyone who isn't a gun geek.
Using Git with Dropbox
The Programmer Lifestyle
One of my favorite computer scientists, Donald Knuth, suggests avoiding C++ altogether, as it is too complex. I suggest that he has a proper CS background.
In which arena, exactly? Systems that cost millions of dollars? Help build 'em, seen the disaster from the inside, I know all about the massive bullshit involved with selling to Fortune 100s, and I know that you and most other companies involved are doing it exactly wrong. I also know that the Fortune 100s know it, and it absolutely destroys any relationship of trust with their vendors.

And yet, we're so far off topic it's not funny. Millions of dollars? This started with a small business owner trying to find pricing for a payroll system. Maybe you'd like to back up and tell me why your ego got hurt when apparently you're such a big man in what you apparently consider a completely separate universe?
Innovation in technology comes from using technology in ways it wasn't intended, not necessarily what is the most efficient.
Yeah, thats what I thought that NoSql solutions like mongoDB etc. would be better suited for this purpose. However, I haven't come across a resource from NoSql side that goes in depth of explaining how to really implement: How you are connected with a certain person. etc.
"it rains"

Not that much - according to Wikipedia Dublin gets about 695mm of rain a year, from a Scottish perspective that's practically a desert ;-)
As someone who spent a long time biking, driving, and taking public transit in Boston this is sort of laughable.

A bike sharing program is a neat idea, but actually riding bikes in Boston is a terrible experience. The roads are in bad shape, there are no bike lanes, and the drivers are homicidal.

Public transit in Boston certainly isn't bad, it's better than most cities I've lived in and it may very well be better than the valley. But the subway is generally only helpful if you're going to and from downtown. If you say live in Somerville and work in Allston, you're pretty much out of luck, unless you're willing to transfer between the bus and the subway a few times.

In general I found having a car was a pretty key part of living in Boston.
A good advice to "20 years old" who can't move – learn JavaScript. You will be able to move to just about any place. Esp. if you are an american citizen. Within the US, to Canada or Europe, or Thailand, or any other place.
Hugh's been a favorite of mine too. One of the only newsletter's I've subscribed to. You might dig this blog post of mine that was up on HN awhile ago that mentioned Hugh and Jobs and the effort of going against the grain.

http://blog.inklingmarkets.com/2010/01/ignore-everbody.html
Customer Testimonials: Turn Your Biggest Fans into Salespeople
Since you asked for it... the 'bro' style makes the thing unreadable. Not to mention the 'lol!'s that felt like they finished every sentence.

After seeing that you were here asking what's wrong with it, I decided to go back and actually read it. You make a good point, but it's lost in the froth of meaningless words.

I realize you might be cultivating a persona or trying to use rhetoric to support your argument, but in my view those actions weaken it. You have a good idea: 'Don't waste anymore time thinking, get out there and do it.' But, I think you'd be much more effective if you consolidated your argument and did away with the attitude.
Ambitious Army project takes Arlington National Cemetery high-tech
Play framework 2.0 vs 1.x
XBMC on MacOS X and Ubuntu. Works pretty well.
I met and married my wife overseas. When we moved back to the States, I went with her while she was cleared through immigration in Newark Airport, NJ. We waited in an area with other people going through the same process.

The immigration officer walked in with this disgusted look, sighed heavily, and proceeded to process everyone. It was appalling how he treated people, yelling at them to place their hand properly for fingerprinting, telling people not to talk unless asked to, etc. He proceeded to treat my wife like crap as well, until he looked over her paperwork and noticed she was travelling with me, and asked her where her husband was. She pointed at me and his demeanor changed immediately. He obviously wasn't used to being observed by a fellow American in his day to day work.

I wish I had had the balls to say something to him, but as far as we were concerned, he was holding the keys to the kingdom.
It's not tearing, it's just a slightly slanted picture, because the lines on the left (or right, depending on how you hold the iPad) redraw a tiny bit earlier than the ones on the other side of the screen.
I'm sure Ireland is a great place for start-ups, but doesn't seem likely to be the best place on earth.

Start-up incubators - Every major city in the US has them, most of them are terrible. The things that I believe make an incubator good are mainly the talented people willing to spend their time with entrepreneurs and the connections which help close future rounds. Simply having incubators isn't a reason to call Ireland a great place to start a startup.

Talented labour available for work - Every major city in the US has labor available. Not paying for an education does not make someone more qualified. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/22/countries-with-the-...

According to this article, only 32.2% of Irish citizens are college educated, compared with over 40% in the US and 44% of SF residents http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco

Access to successful entrepreneurs - Ireland may be small, but so is the Valley and so is Boston, and so is DC etc. As long as you start meeting the right people and are smart and have a good idea, doors open. It may be true that the Irish community helps you, but I don't think this makes this "the best place in the world to start a start-up"

State run organizations dedicated to helping your business - In almost every case state run organizations do not help your business.

Community of likeminded individuals - These communities exist in every city in the US. Start-up communities are full of likeminded individuals.

EDIT: The guy that wrote the post seems to have a good idea for a start-up. There is definitely demand from mid size business in that are.
Right! Good point.
Mortgages are seductive. Get a nice place, up to or beyond social norms, but be tied to it for decades. Outright ownership, while humbling, gives far more flexibility.
It is never as simple as throwing it over the wall. It's one thing to make code available for review, and another to release a package that recreates a functional product.

Companies may have elaborate infrastructures and sets of dependencies, and it may take a lot of time to come up with something that even builds correctly in isolation.

Open-source basically has to be planned early on: use freely-available tools, use common platforms, etc. and then open-sourcing it later may not be too difficult.
Well, one quibble: in that photo of Steve Jobs, if you look carefully behind him you can see a tremendously big pair of stereo speakers.
Great article. It's inspired me to get back to work.
Am I wrong, or does pushing to the dropboxed git repo at the same time from two different computers will corrupt the repo ?
3x would cause antialiasing artifacts for apps with images optimized for 2x retina displays. Apple decided to wait for pixels to be 4x smaller before jumping to a higher resolution, so they must think these artifacts are unacceptable. Therefore, the logical next step is 4x displays with 528ppi :)
Buried source as a mediafire link? Author needs to learn about github.

Code itself is pretty difficult to read and quickly pasted together, but otherwise a decent example on how to tie the technologies involved together.
I can't believe I wasted my time reading this.
user reviews of IT project management applications. users should add reviews or suggest applications this listing is missing.
Awesome demo. This would be even better with the new mouse lock API http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/pointerlock/raw-file/default/index.htm...
If you have multiple users use different branches, I think this page was written from the perspective of a single coder that needs to keep track of his own code in a safe way.
C'mon, I tried crashing into the earth and didn't burn up in the atmosphere. This is a terrible simulation! </sarcasm>

(Super cool! But I wanted to ask how you were rendering the background. The earth, when you get up close to it, has this really interesting noise pattern. What is causing that in the rendering? I'm using Chrome on OS X.)
Windows 8 first impressions: It's a game changer
I think your "many devices" point is probably too much of a corner case to matter

Wait.. what? Mobile devices aren't important?
Javascript: More powerful than you might think
The Consumerization of IT: The Biggest Trend in Your Career and Business
The Science of Marrow and Organ Donor Matching Improves
Hope to not be wrong, but if you push different commits you should be safe.
Where to buy ipad 3
where to buy ipad 3
I remember once going through the non-EU queue in Manchester, when the (black, probably Nigerian) guy in front of me got a bit of a going over about his visa status, until he broke down, then the agent discovered that he was a UK permanent resident as she was flicking through his passport and she realised he'd been turned away in Amsterdam (seems on a family visit). Anyway, the mood changed in an instant, he got a hug and advice about how to make sure the trip would work next time.

It was nice to see a human response in such a situation.
I had so many problems due to bytecode enhancement throwing raging ClassCastExceptions that I'll not even try version 2.

From now, my new projects are in JEE6.
Let's look at the numbers:

Let's say investor puts $1M with x2 liquidation preferences into company valued $3M pre-money (25% equity post money). Company then gets acquired for $20M. Investor gets $2M+$4.5M=$6.5M, rest get $13.5 (of which a much larger part usually goes to founders, and a small part to employees - e.g. $12M to 2 founders, $1.5M to 15 employees)

If they put $5M with x2 into company valued $5M pre-money, and company gets aquired for $20M, investor gets $15M, rest get $5M. Employees will often get a nice signing bonus from it, but the only one who can have a potentially life changing event is the founder.
And this is why O'Reilly is leaps & bounds ahead of everyone else in technical & scientific publishing -- particularly regarding the respect it has gained from people in said fields!
With an engineering background, I loved music, and decided to try to live by music, so I became a sound engineer. I had to stop.

I can imagine. I designed my own book. Now every time I pick up a book I habitually look at the design before I read it. It is annoying as all get out. But at least I didn't become a font designer :-P
Not since my undergraduate years.
yes, Scotland is definitely wetter though the rainfall in most of Ireland is much more like 750-1250mm [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Ireland#Rainfall]

And in general terms, Ireland has less extreme weather than the England: it's typically warmer and with less ice/snow in the winter but not as hot in the summer.
Why can't American labels have that attitude

It's time for a compulsory licence for streaming movies.
I suspect it depends on what you're used to. Seeing normal police officers in the US with firearms is, to me, just as scary as the officers that carry large rifles in airports. At least airports feel like an exception.

But most Americans I've talked to comment on the large rifles, but never on the handguns carried by normal police officers. It's normal for cops to have handguns, so it's nothing for them to be afraid of.
I have a degree in Computer Science and Philosophy[1] (graduated in 2010) and I think the second part of that degree has helped me more in interviews and in life than the first part by a wide margin.

It put me in a very interesting position when applying and interviewing because (apparently) nobody ever sees that degree or combination and they always ask about it. I was able to wax eloquent about how I love writing, debating and clear communication. How I have a firmer grasp of logic because of my (more technical) philosophy courses and how it has allowed me to relate better and communicate more effectively.

Good communication and writing writing skills, as well as a willingness to write are I think (and many have seemed to agree) in short supply in the computing fields and I think that almost any humanities degree would add an enormous amount of value to a person, provided they can do the computing parts of their job as well!

[1] This means that I completed all of the requirements to get either degree, but didn't have the sheer credit hours to literally get two pieces of paper. My diploma could just as easily read "Philosophy and Computer Science" instead.
What is Cooper's Law, and how is it related to this article?
I have a Google TV box (Logitech Revue). Works really well for me.
GLBenchMark does run at the screen resolution unless you run the offscreen test.
The issue I think is that the perception in the past was that studying a "liberal arts" type degree would make you part of the educated elite which on it's own had value in terms of job seeking.

Also I think people who did these kind of courses were more likely to come from richer backgrounds and therefor have better connections for gaining employment.

There is a big difference between the UK and the US in that when you do a degree in the UK it is all focused on one area. You usually get very few options to study anything outside that area and if you do it will be a couple of modules in your final year.

I for one would actually prefer a more US style system although arguably we have the variety for 16-18 year old and call it A levels.
If the rows of pixels weren't far apart, visible pixels wouldn't be square.
He could be holding a small pistol - it can still kill me.

A gun is just a thing, a tool, it can't do anything.

What matters is the operator, his intent.

A Marine with his bare hands is dangerous. A cheerleader with a bazooka is not.
It's a myth that Off-peak network usage is somehow a burden on landline ISPs. The only time they would be contributing to congestion and slowdown is at peak. But then again everyone is, and they're not some extra burden.
I find this so impossible to believe. I have a 1280x800 tablet and even from a short distance I am unable to perceive individual pixels.

I can see some element of jagged rendering on fonts and icons, but it is barely noticable even from up close.

Could you please describe to us exactly what you perceive? I doubt very much that the rows between pixels are visible even with pixel bloom.
The same people who built and used the site in the first place: the tax payers.
coming into lax international from australia, a army looking guard with a semi auto was pacing up and down the rows of desks.
I may be too cynical, but I bet that the authors of those books didn't get paid. They were probably marked as "destroyed" in O'Reilly's accounting system.
I'm not sure whether you typo'd or were displaying some black humour.

Your company's rules for visiting the US today are really stricter than the rules for visiting Eastern Europe in the 80s/90s?