skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
“I told you, didn’t I, about hearing Noam Chomsky speak recently? When the great man was asked about the chaos in public education, he responded quickly, decisively, and to the point: “Public education in this country is under attack.” The words, though chilling, comforted me in a weird way. I’d been feeling, the past few years of my 30-plus-year tenure in public education, that there was something or somebody out there, a power of a sort, that doesn’t really want you kids to be educated. I felt a force that wants you ignorant and pliable, and that needs you able to fill in the boxes and follow instructions. Now I’m sure.”

This speaks to a rather odd state of mind on the part of the teacher. “The great man”?

Believing that the state of education and testing is the result of some powerful villain behind the curtain requires more credulity than simply attributing it to the massive complexity and inertia you describe.
A snob is just a regular person who has incited jealousy or offense. You're bigger than taking offense to someone who has a product with some quality control in place in its pre-launch phase.
I know there's a lot of Java jobs out there, but there's also a whole lot of Java programmers. Would it not be a smarter move to learn something like Scala over Java? I'm trying to gauge where the demand will be in a few years rather than pander to the current job market. I'm also trying to increase my value rather than my general applicability if that makes any sense?
Why Entrepreneurs Should Not Buy Homes
"There's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. ... Because the owners of this country don't want that. ... They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. ... They want obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run their machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept ..." -- George Carlin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GseyaEibb_4
You can criticize the Mac Pro for being exceptionally overpriced, or you can criticize macs in general for being difficult to upgrade, but criticizing the Mac Pro for being overpriced and then throwing in that it's also "difficult to upgrade" is just silly. The main advantage of the Mac Pro over other macs is that it isn't difficult to upgrade.
"A doctor can't write "I am dealing with a fatty with an asshole family and mismanaged diabetes thus now has renal failure and I have to deal with this shit" in a blog."

Total upvote for that one! Yes that is true.

"AMA" patients are quite common and frustrating. I've heard the same or similar. And of course mentally ill patients as well. I'm actually amazed at the stories I hear about families and how they treat doctors (especially woman and minorities as opposed to tall white male physicians).

I can fully understand how frustrations with the job can cause discontent. But I think that viewing the success of others (as has been pointed out by a few others here) definitely magnifies that discontent.

It takes many many years of study to become a doctor. It seems strange to me that (given they run into the "fatty patient" in other phases and should certainly know of that prior to completing training, residency etc. or even going into medicine) you wouldn't think that would be a reason for them to bail. Although yes it is possible.
There's a difference between having a private conversation pass through your server and scanning it for naughty words.
If you have a requirement to use languages intrinsic to the platform, CScript.exe (Windows Script Host) is your friend. VBScript and JScript may be ugly, but it's a hell of a lot better than CMD.exe.
In the end it rarely works acceptably, but that just helps sell support contracts, so it is also good for enterprisey software vendors and consultancies.
I would suggest using an XMPP-based service, and then using a client like Pidgin with an Off The Record (OTR) plugin.
Would you want to be on Svbtle?
The Electric Car, Unplugged
We use Mac mini thingies for iOS development (hooked up to a decent third party monitor) - but agree that otherwise the cost of Apple hardware is pretty difficult to justify.
I would love to have been in that pitch meeting.

"Wetwipes on a stick! We'll make millions!"
I wonder what the political forces behind this are, because I'd like to think that the engineers that implemented it understood that

a) it will do nothing to stop piracy, and
b) it will reduce usage of Live Messenger
Tiny computer or huge Palm III PDA: $25
I remember Anders saying that that was one of his regrets for not implementing this from the beginning. According to him adding this now would break quite a few things, but he hasn't yet given up on the idea.
I just don't understand why we can't have a simple minimize button. And some sort of grid to indicate which comments are responding to what would be nice too.
No, youre right - brainfuck is a good language.
A, the Mac is expensive myth. Including such insights that buying HD, memory etc upgrades from the manufacturer is pricier that getting them off the street. [You don't say].

Well, there have been tons of comparisons of similarly speced machines ON THE TOP END OF THE MARKET and the Macs come as cheap or cheaper. And the competition has had a hard time keeping up with the iPad/iPhone pricing.

For some reason people compare just the cpu model or the memory. Well, you think the machine aluminum body doesn't cost to design, buy and manufacture too? The tight innards design doesn't cost? The lightness doesn't come at a cost? That thunderbolt port? That blinking light when it goes to sleep? That someone though of adding hidden magnets instead of protruding latches to keep the lid closed? That the DVD drive is internal come for free you think? The glass touchpad with the multitouch surface that's not crappy like 90% of touchpads out there? And tons of other seemingly hidden details that their impact you notice all the time.

Compare a MBP to a Sony VAIO, not the cheapest plastic dell or a copycat design with shitty materials and QA.

Plus, here's why you'll do well to buy a Mac from someone I assume has no hidden agenda on the matter:

"Point me to a better laptop [than the Macbook Air]. Trust me, I tried. They don't exist. It's sad. They are all big and clunky." (Someone suggesting Lenovo) "no, Lenovo doesn't. I have the Lenovo X1. It's bigger, plasticky, and has worse battery life."

Linus Torvalds, on his Google+ page.
SQL by far.

I would have said "Visual Basic" but I have not had to use it in a long time. But I cannot avoid using the damn SQL!
Fair enough, i honestly just a little tired of justifying why ruby has never excited me (not so much on here but in real life)

I find other languages, that I'm already a lot more familiar with, that have very well documented functionality, offer everything i need.

My main issues have been installation headaches and deprecated calls in other peoples code (without an easy swap in and out of a new function). That's really just the start of it but its enough for me to have lost interest until I see some significant changes to the language, more significant than this change.
T-Mobile USA Web Guard censorship list
Their laptops are as competitive as they come, for their segment of the market.
Meh, lots of people prefer Macs for whatever reason and if you use your computer a lot, it's worth spending a bit more for something you enjoy using.

That said, my current monitor is a great example of the "Apple Tax". It's a 27" IPS monitor (2560x1440) with the exact same spec as the Apple Cinema Display. Why the same spec? Because the screen in it is exactly the same. It cost me £450, whereas the Cinema Display costs around £900.

Granted, the cinema display has better audio and a nicer case - is it worth £450 extra? I'm sure some would say so however I like to point this out to people when they claim that Apple products are worth the extra money due to the quality of the screen, etc. There is some truth in that, yet the Apple logo on the back definitely adds quite a bit.
Welcome to your brain: How the brain really works
Leaving Solution Land
Facebook does this as well. (Or at least, they did until The Pirate Bay changed it's TLD to `.se`)

You could argue that it's for the user's security. Torrent sites do have a lot of sketchy cruft.
Ruby has been around since 1995. That's over 15 years.

Implementing bitmaps for mark-and-sweep a project well within the skills of a final year undergrad, or first year graduate student of CS.

You can say many things, but I doubt they didn't implement this because they didn't have time, or didn't have the skills to do so. They merely prioritized against it from day-one.
I agree with your comments, but check the part in my comment about the cinema display. There is truth in both arguments, basically.

Edit: also, my £350 lenovo (with upgraded battery) gets about 10-15 hours battery life, depending on use. I'm unaware of any Mac getting that. My friends have said they get around 2-4 hours.
I interned for an advertising aggregate - Evidon - and one of their projects is to monitor TOS for various advertising companies and show a diff. I wish it would catch on for everyone.
Of course you should secure a Facebook vanity URL for your unborn child.
Ruby is almost 20 years old...
You could argue it is to appease advertisers.
I don't know, I think that other than the SSD price a 27" iMac is a solid buy. Add aftermarket RAM, of course.
Messages in OS X Mountain Lion will support end-to-end encryption by default (for messages sent through iMessage)[1].

[1] http://www.apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/features.html#mess...
Location-Based Tools Tying Music to Local Experiences
> You could argue that it's for the user's security

Who would believe that argument?
There are two kinds of programmers at Facebook: The ones who curse PHP every work day, and the ones who don't use it.

"This language really sucks." -- paraphrased, intro to PHP on Facebook's internal Wiki
Yet another ideology-driven misleading post. If it were honest, the analysis would have been done with a MacBook Air or a MacBook Pro.
George Clooney's Satellite
>Unfortunately, all the excuses in the world don't change the fact that these tests hurt education and hurt children.

The rub is that: so do terrible teachers.

It's inevitable in a world where bureaucrats take a top down approach to test taking and measurement that you end up with people who "teach the test". It sucks.

But, when left to their own devices, some teachers don't teach at all. Teachers follow the same distribution of personalities as any other occupation on this planet; some are good, some are bad, most are average. These standardized tests were an attempt at saying, "You MUST teach at least this well", with "well" being defined by factoids. So, on one hand you have a free-for-all, where great teachers influence and inspire, while poor teachers ruin lives. The other side is a middle ground where what is to be taught is quantified, and everyone gets a mediocre (at best) education.

What we need a hybrid system that allows good teachers to do what they want, while bad teachers are held accountable and forced to, at the least, teach the test.
I also think they don't open up applications frequently.

http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/housing-crisis-reaches-full-...
I marked C#, Clojure and Javascript.

I use C# and Javascript at work, and enjoy both. (Not saying I enjoy .NET though, just the language.) I like the way C# is evolving towards functional programming and includes new paradigms while retaining the (ostensible) familiarity of Java and C.

Clojure is a great language and there is a great community around it. Here I am just a beginner, though, and it is not part of my everyday life. Hopefully it might change in the future.
There is a plugin for pidgin that will allow you to send encrypted messages. Though it requires that both parties have installed it.
Informative essay
I admonish you to structure a novel informative essay in-depth with touching tutoring of practiced experts at-large.
The title was changed, and it's wrong. The conditions are bad (what warehouse job isn't?). But, I didn't see anything illegal in this article.

If you don't want a job like the one described, educate yourself (the Internet now gives anyone the ability to learn some sort of skill for free).

The women in the article is certainly mentally and physically capable of learning a new skill and getting a better job. My question is: Why isn't she?
That's a good point. How come we are still using http? I mean, the closest we've come AFAIK to something almost useful is ajax, but that's still not very good considering it's javascript... Maybe I'm unaware of some secret google development.
Linux Keyboard Shortcuts: Safe Way to Exit During System Freezes
Java, PHP, Javascript, and C++ are all in the top 5 disliked. These are my most useful/effective languages. Less php lately, and I use python as often as the rest but the point still stands, these are very useful if imperfect languages.

These languages also score highly on the Favorite languages list.
Women, Tech, And Tone
Other: LSL aka Linden Scriping Language, the scripting language used in Second Life

It would take me too long to detail all the reasons it sucks. I can't count the number of times I've cursed it.
We'll be seeing a lot more of this in the next couple of years. The RIAA and the MPAA will get more and more desperate and will call in more favors with industry buddies as they get closer to the recognition that they are losing the war in spite of winning a couple of battles.

In the Netherlands 'Brein', one of the rights organizations has done more to promote the pirate bay than the pirate bay ever could have hoped to achieve by themselves.

This is the biggest case of disruption that I've witnessed in my life so far and even though the outcome seems all but certain it remains to be seen how much damage the wounded bear will be able to inflict before finally keeling over.

edit:

This prompted me to post a thing I wrote a while ago but didn't publish: http://jacquesmattheij.com/The+death+throes+of+an+industry
Visualizing the History of Everything
If quality control is the reason, then say so politely. Making the people reading about your product feel inadequate is not a good look.

It's obvious the author of this article is friends with the self-proclaimed superhero-dick-villain, as an article about a closed blogging platform is in no way, shape, or form applicable news for a website of TC's magnitude.
> During these periods, the temperature inside the data center can rise above 95 degrees.

:-/ 95 degrees what? They don't use Fahrenheit in Belgium, you know (nor does most of the rest of the world, for that matter).

For anyone wondering, 95F is exactly 35 degrees Celsius.

Also, it would probably have been more relevant to mention the equivalent Belgian and EU institutes instead of the OSHA ... seriously, I don't expect for a second that the regulations would be the same. Roughly, maybe, but it just doesn't make sense to mention the OSHA at all if the servers aren't in the USA!
> How is the task heterogeneous?

Within a single course, the heterogeneity comes from how to actually do things, how to understand what you did, how to understand what other people are doing when they do the same things, how to think about changes to those patterns when the task changes a little, how to write about what you did, how to talk about what you did, how to read/listen to other people talking about what they did, and many other aspects of understanding the material. None of these are actually the same thing; the unifying thread in a given content area is you might have to memorise the same jargon and diagram conventions for each of those different tasks.

A given course may also be somewhat heterogeneous in its content; for instance, a typical AI course might include algorithms and strategies based on discrete probability, others based on highly-architected structural representations of knowledge, and still others based on self-rewriting code. At a lower level (high school), you might consider a biology teacher, who gets to cover cellular biology, taxonomy and cladistics, genetics, anatomy and physiology, and possibly some other things I'm forgetting right now.

Between courses, teaching is heterogeneous because you're teaching a lot of different things. Even if it's all "math", for instance, there's a fair amount of variation between algebra, geometry, logarithms and function analysis, differential calculus, vector calculus, trigonometry, and probability and statistics, and that's just among the courses often taught at the high school level.

And all of that is only talking about the things taught, which speaks directly to the question of evaluation. But on the subject of heterogeneity, classroom dynamics can vary significantly just between semesters at the same school, not to mention between different schools, and within a single classroom you have students with assorted learning disabilities (documented or not) and simply different learning styles—some are more verbal, some need to see it done, some need to do it on their own first, some benefit more from working together, some really need to try it first and crash and then hear the way they were supposed to do it and try again. It's a lot more than just "a few extra geniuses or dunces".

Teaching is pretty damn heterogeneous. The best teachers I know are, and have to be, among the most mentally-agile people I know.
Well... this echoes ZeroVM ideas but so is PiCloud and a few others mentioned here. I think it goes without doubt that current OSes and VMs are not best suited for cloud technologies. How they can be? The were designed to completely different requirements.
Not even close. Most people like mass marketed music (basically whatever they hear on the radio).
If I can find an app I need, then I don't care if there's 10,000 or 100,000 apps in the store. The problem is finding that app I need.

Pretty much I have a few apps in major categories. One of the easier ways not to go into app overload I think is to only download free apps. There's no card linked to my account (only some giftcard credit), so that removes the temptation to download this $0.99 app on an impulse. I have no problem buying an app when the right app comes along, but I don't mind the ads.
The front page of Pinterest looks like a Ladies Home Journal exploded. I'd venture to say that 90% of the content is third party content used without permission. The only saving grace is that most of it is commercial images from ezines and retailers who will benefit from the traffic and so have no incentive to sue. But eventually it seems like there will be repercussions.

On the other hand, when a sizable population of middle-aged women become the pirates, maybe our elected officials will be less inclined to set the dogs on them. Could Pinterest be a watershed moment in the copyright wars?
Meanwhile grooveshark pays nothing, has a wider selection and charges less.

Are the labels trying to get others to kick the legit companies out of business?
You're right that Clojure -> Java is an unfair comparison, but I do think there's significant differences between CoffeeScript as a language and Javascript. If you ignore the fact that the main implementation of CoffeeScript compiles down to Javascript, and look at them instead as two wholly distinct languages, I wouldn't consider them very closely related at all.

CoffeeScript has significantly different syntax from Javascript, different variable scoping rules, list comprehensions, a class system, and a whole lot of other features absent from Javascript. If you showed both languages to a programmer who wasn't aware that CoffeeScript compiled down to JavaScript, I'd guess that they wouldn't see much of a relationship between the languages at all.
Wazzub Latest News
A good list, which can be extended. Just recently, for example, I came across the unpleasant fact that interfaces in C# cannot be nested (in fact, a C# interface is not allowed to define any nested types). Inconvenient, breaks encapsulation, and does not seem to have a good technical reason for it.

And yet, working with C# is joyful.
Interesting article. I like the provocative asshole.. with a nice conclusion at the end specifying that people are just busy and not being direct is just non-respectful to your audience.
Possibly Skype? It does have end to end encryption but this is hard to validate independently.
> Most of the OOP problems go away if you use more flexible programming languages or paradigms.

This is exactly right. Even basic support for first-class functions makes a huge difference. There have been occasional posts around about classic design patterns in JavaScript, and the overwhelming feeling you get when you see most of the implementations is "Yes, but... why?"
Video: Node.JS Is Stupid And If You Use It So Are You
天龙八部小说
I'm not greatly sympathetic to the major labels' policies, but I don't see how the "tax" angle makes sense here, even as a metaphor. You can describe something like the patent system as imposing a "tax" on innovation because it in effect adds across-the-board costs to everyone.

But here the fee is only being imposed in cases where you actually want to license someone's product! Could I really complain about the "publishers' tax" on my audiobook business, because I can't produce audiobooks of Stephen King without paying him (or his publisher) a fee? And of course they vary the fee based on what they think they can get out of each client; that's standard business practice, which is why many enterprise SaaS providers have a "call for prices" sort of thing if they think you're rich enough.
Wow I previously searched for such emulation, for sharing files over sftp/ssh. But I had done using ssh keys. Here is the HN Submission http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3554318
Intel control the whole platform now that they have PCH, which enable them to put the GPU in the CPU. With Ivy Bridge you even have OpenCL support. There is nothing stopping Intel from embedding a proper GPU now that they don't have to fit it in the northbridge. The only reason NVIDIA is still in business is because embedded graphics sucked too much.
Right now you can only specify that a type must have a paramerterless public constructor. He or she wants to be a le to specify (presumably) arbitrary constructors (or at least a copy constructor).
>The unfortunate thing is that many software engineers fail to realize these are just tools and confuse them as being the ends as opposed to being the means.
Sometimes confusion may be good for engineers. If all engineers can clearly realize that they are just tools, it may frustrate someone's interest. With interest, we are happily using tools.
Why I Pirate Media and How to Stop Me
Django-bcrypt should still be installed with those old projects while you upgrade. Be careful with that there are some gotchas
OTR has nothing to do with encryption. All it says is "pretty please don't save my conversation."

The only way for fully encrypted conversations is to use a plugin that encrypts messages themselves, or use an ecrypted P2P IM network.