skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I pushed aside the psychological torture of opening program after program and never closing one, despite knowing I would never come back to it.

Does this mean Windows 8 doesn't let you close programs? Have they abstracted away a layer of resource management from the user to the OS?
I don't find the post misleading at all: it points to a meaningful shift in OS adoption. See Mark's response here: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/archives/1072#comment-394295
>Rationality doesn't necessarily exclude "morals, culture, or feelings". That would imply that having a rational discussion about culture, e.g. anthropology, is impossible.

No I am not implying that the process of making rational decisions has anything to do with the process for holding rational discussions about stuff (the stuff may be rational or not).
I thought this was an interesting twist in the history of Linux and Minix:

Other important differences:
* The MINIX project now uses `git` as its version-control system
Ruby Fiddle
World's tallest man finally stops growing at 8 feet 3 inches
Given the tendancy of Indian rail lines to be overloaded (and for beggars and hobos to hang on the outside of trains or on the roof/undercarriage), is it possible both are true? That he was seperated from his brother, but both somehow got on the same train and his brother 'fell off' somewhere along the way?

Pure speculation, but it might put your OCD at ease.
The way this has come about with relation to web and internet software is that the actual applications being built are closed source but a lot of the libraries and commodity pieces of software are being open sourced with permissive licenses.

for eg. Twitter, Google, Facebook etc. produces and consumer a lot of open source software but their core products are still close source. You can segment out portions of your software stack and release them for free while still retaining a competitive advantage with your core application. This isn't an all-or-nothing decision and this hybrid approach is the most common.

I think Twitter is a good example. They both built and scaled up using open source and also contributed their own open source software, which has been improved upon by others and in-turn benefited Twitter. It didn't require a license where contribution was essential and nor did it require giving up any competitive advantage (i'd argue it solidified their position).
Happy Half Tau Day  (The π is a lie…)
You should use the "old desktop" on a PC.
Also, you can divide screen between metro apps or between metro and desktop, and it's not that bad.
It's a 2to3 mod that makes codebases compatible with both versions, instead of doing a Python 2 -> Python 3 conversion. I'm fine with 2to3's integration in distribute, which also allows supporting both from the same package, but some people, like mistuhiko, prefer not involving 2to3 as part of the build.
Search must be reinvented for mobile.
> I could easily imagine everything going the other way if Linus or DHH had picked Mercurial instead of Git.

Just picking a nit, but Linus didn't just choose it, he wrote it. Also, Mercurial wasn't an option for him because it didn't yet exist.
focused on internet and webapp software and the trend there, which is overwhelmingly tilted towards the permissive licenses. much more than the 50/50 split suggested in the OP.

so the Q is why is the GPL getting so little adoption amongst web developers.
Ask HN: What data set does this address translator use?
http://gis.nyc.gov/dcp/at/f1.jsp?submit=true&house_nbr=15&street_name=west+37th+&boro=1

I know there has been a big NYC Open Data initiative so I'd like to think that the data set that powers that address translator is open and available somewhere, but I just can't seem to find it no matter how much I look. Does anyone have any idea of where it could be?
Also, see MIT announcing admissions decisions on Pi Day at Tau Time.
http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/i-have-smashing-news
I've seen the inside of a typical Tokyo apartment, I gotta ask, honestly, where do they keep all this stuff?
Yet Another Attempt to Simplify Sending Emails in Perl
> Have you guys read Liars Poker

Funny side note: Michael Lewis said that he wrote that as more of a warning. He was astounded (and a little horrified) to find out it was being used as a how-to.
Yeah, that sentence stuck out to me too. The way it's worded and positioned seems to make it very random and cold, when compared to the rest of the article.
Lots of message board legal opinions on this thread. Few if any references to the actual ruling, which is here:

http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgment...

Things you'd want to know before forming an opinion of what happened here:

* The guy is alleged to have made over $230,000 (a sum that the US says has been tracked), and himself admits to making 15,000GBP per month(!) from the site.

* After having his domain (TVShack.net) seized in 2010, before the extradition request, he registered "TVShack.cc" and set the site back up (with a cute "Fuck the Police" banner). It's hard to know whether he'd have been extradited if he'd have just shut the thing down.

* Criminal copyright infringement does in fact exist in the UK, as does contributory infringement; the key element that establishes criminal infringement is "intent to profit", which has been clearly established. The guy made a lucrative business brokering pirated movies.

* The UK has a "common carrier" statute (there termed "mere conduit", which, more poetic, innit?) which the defendant lost claim to by (a) exercising control over who could post what videos to his site and (b) idiotically posting copy on his website about how people were "saving money" by watching movies through his site instead of at the theater.

It's easy to believe that lots of people have gotten innocently tangled up in legal nonsense because of the chaos and (perhaps) overreach in copyright enforcement. This doesn't look like one of those people.
Business once, pleasure for all.
I'm not trying it justify it, but neither to I think inaccurate bashing is helpful.

They are being sued too (and were sued first by Nokia) in this dirty patent war. I think it's naive to expect them to simply ignore all that.

It is possible for them to both try to build the best products for the consumer, and simultaneously act like a business operating in a tough environment.
Ask HN: How do you protect your idea(s) from being stolen by your partners
I ask this because I have just had a light come on in my head. I know its a brilliant idea and will work if implemented properly. I have some of the skills required and I can find people to help with the things I cannot do. However in-explaining to them what the idea is, they can go behind me and get it done faster. Heck, they can get it done without my help. The way I see it I have two options:
1. Keep it to myself and take the time I need to build up the skills I lack, then go it alone or
2. Tell them and hope that they turn out to be more decent human beings than I have ever met? What's your advice?
I think this is very telling of how fragile and insecure the institutions of the US economy and government are that they could be so threatened by nothing more than flickering lights on a computer screen.
They were saying "it's not realistic". It's a story. It doesn't have to be realistic, just artsy or entertaining.
This article reminds me of the girlfriend that puts up with all sorts of issues in a relationship but never addresses them. Then one day she snaps and leaves without warning, when all along the relationship may have been saved with some effort. I'm not saying he didn't try (his mentoring certainly suggests he did), but it's a shame such a (previously?) reputable firm has fallen so low. I'm not familiar with Goldman's hierarchy, but my impression would be that Greg is in a very senior position within the company. Greg sounds like he was in a direct position to influence the culture of the company and maybe turn it back into what he remembered from his past. As an executive director, I think that he almost has a duty to do just that. I'd be interested in Warren Buffet's take on Goldman's Culture, or was he one of the ones that got bilked (although it seems like his investment is doing well)?
Unplugged: What Happened to the Smart Grid?
13 hours later and it's about to hit $600,000.

Yes, I'd say this is starting to look like an actual phenomena rather than a fluke.
The monolithic kernel vs microkernel debate has always come down to performance vs simplicity & reliability.

Simplicity I'll grant, but the reliability argument doesn't really strike me as relevant. Having overseen many thousands of server years worth of uptime, it's almost never the kernel's fault when something breaks. Linux is pretty solid. Most of us are far more limited by the reliability of our applications.

There are niches where higher-assurance kernels are worth it, and maybe that's where microkernels can shine.
Because it offers superior typography than epub/mobi.

Because you can use it on your desktop/laptop/tablet AND phone (even on your Kindle I hear).

Because it's also an open standard.

Why not?
If Evergreen is already fairly silicon efficient and doesn't have any labor costs associated with ingots and wafers, it seems hard to draw much information about the implications of this technology from them.

The PVinsights link suggests that wafers are a big chunk of the cost of cells. Depending on how much of current costs are ingot production and how good the relative efficiency of this cutting method is, the wafer could become a small part of the costs of cells. That doesn't justify claims of a 50% cost reduction, but it supports the notion of significant cost reductions.
No idea? No problem.  Y Combinator wants you.
Like another commenter noted, the FSF (wow what a bad logo) recently did a survey of Debian packages that rebuts the 90-95% claim.

But there's no way to apples-apples this anyways. Communities like Rails produce starbursts of itsy bitsy little packages like form-building gems, and have MIT licensing norms. You'd need to normalize somehow for value or code base size.

What I'd say is that "GPL use is plummeting" is an extraordinary claim, that extraordinary evidence has not been marshaled to support it, and that a more likely phenomenon is that the GPL is roughly as strong as it's ever been in its original domain (the licensing of large, complex, expensive- to- produce software packages) and probably not as prevalent in some of the newer more... uh... casual... software development domains.
What about the fumes and such from the ablation of the toner? Seems like it could be a serious health hazard.
Same here, but I still can't get away with NOT using Firefox but only due to Firebug. I just can't get to grips with chrome's dev tools, but it may be a habit thing. And Firebug for Chrome is just "Lite" really.
Awesome idea, but this one is better: http://dribbble.com/shots/424152-Markdown
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with MIT licensing code, but again: MIT licensing concedes more from the author to the public, and is an irrevocable grant, so from a purely pragmatic standpoint, "if you have to ask, GPL; at least that way you can change your mind later".

Also, hopefully it goes without saying: what's good for a ridiculously fast-growing startup surfing on a tsunami of VC money is not necessarily good for a solo practitioner.
> If "porting code is relatively straightforward" it would be a good idea to get that port done and let people decide for themselves when to use the new version.

In fact, that's exactly what we're doing. Django's going to support Python 2 for quite some time yet; this move will simply let those who want to switch to 3 do so.

> I don't understand what makes phraseology like this useful to anyone but a corporate lawyer: "the Django project is and will remain committed to achieving Python 3 compatibility"

Because we weren't clear that Python 3 support was in the pipeline some folks in our community started to wonder if we planned to move the Python 3 at all. That's pretty much the point of the post: to clarify that we do indeed plan to port to Python 3 (and when). How would you have worded it differently?

> Yes, I know, I'm not supposed to talk like this about work being done by volunteers free of charge.

That's not true at all: if you have substantive critiques to make, then you should make them. We try incredibly hard to listen to our critics and take away what we can. However, your criticism here is pretty thin and rather personal -- seriously, accusing a bunch of volunteers of being like Oracle or SAP? Low blow, man, low blow. It's hard for me to figure out exactly why you felt compelled to post this criticism, so it's hard to figure out what the action you'd like us to take.

> My anger is more about the Python 3 migration going off the rails in a way that poses an existential threat to my favorite programming language. Django isn't helping at all to say the least.

OK, so here we go -- there is something you'd like to see us doing differently. But what?
"Why I am leaving the Empire," by Darth Vader: http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&#...
Let's call it "The History Channel Effect".
An Introduction to 6 Machine Learning Models
I don't think a concise symbol is needed. A Markdown area, when activated, should have some sort of sidebar hint to give basic examples of the syntax, and that takes enough space that Markdown can be used as a word. Recognition might be speedier for the spelled-out word, too. Before the user decides to input something, advertising Markdown support isn't very important.
On the other hand, the Debian ecosystem (of which Ubuntu is primary beneficiary, even though not the primary contributor) is probably about the same size.
It would be necessary, why search for files on a second computer if you don't want access to those files? Unless the search is restricted to one folder then the whole hard drive is open to Google. I remember Google Desktop being similar to what he wants other than secondary computer access.
Is this caused by zero-g or by the low pressure (0.3 bar) environment of the ISS/Shuttle?
So everyone wants something like this:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1104350651/tiktok-lunati...
They took a ipod nano and turned it into a watch.
And that is relevant because?

Generics aren't a unique trait of Java --quite the opposite: the language existed for a decade without them, and even now doesn't have a nice implementation of them.
How to unlock A4 devices on iOS 5.1 useing Ultrasn0w fixer
The most 'beautiful PENTHOUSE PHOTOS OF HOT
We would love to sell and use Ubuntu based systems to the military and some enterprise but unfortunately there is a slew of certificates that RHEL systems have that Ubuntu don't. Like FIPS 140-2 etc.

http://www.redhat.com/solutions/industry/government/certific...

Ubuntu is just not on many of those lists. It costs quite a bit of money and effort to get some of them.
As far as I know CentOS is identical to RHEL. Only branding is removed and repositories changed.
An old family friend of mine has studied a fair few things in this area and his opinion (I'm not sure if this was based on his studies or if it's just a related area) is that people cannot remember anything from that age.

The logic here is that if you are reminded of things your brain can think you remember them. This doesn't just mean that someone can say "when you were 2 x happened" and you suddenly think "I remember x!", it means that, if for example you heard the story when you were 5, a decade later that story might now feel like a memory of the incident itself.

I can't remember exactly what age he said the cut-off was, I think it was 3ish - and I don't honestly know if this is a well-educated opinion or a proven fact, but it's definitely an opinion I'm inclined to believe, both for it sounding reasonable and for the credibility of the person who explained it to me.

edit:

Just looked up his current job, as it's been a few years since I've spoken to him. He's currently a tenured (that bit I remembered!) Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney, and his bio page says his specialist areas include:

- Emotional Development and Social Cognition in Infancy and Early Childhood
- Individual Differences in Children's Socio-Cognitive Development
- The Inter-Generational Transmission of Social Fears
- Attachment and the 'Internal Working Model' Construct
- Children's Theory of Mind and Folk-Psychological Understanding

By directly referencing him I hope I haven't mis-represented him too much, I'm sure there are inaccuracies in my memory of the conversations we had about it, but I'm confident the gist is correct.
I like how you quote the word designers, it helped me to discount everything you said.

However, for what it's worth, of the many stupid (or is it evil?) things you wrote the best was 'how should a screen reader deal with letter-spacing'. Letter spacing is an aid for the visual user it makes text easier to read in certain cases. A screen reader doesn't 'read' in the human sense.
I'd say there is little value in keeping any idea to yourself. Ideas are incredibly cheap[1]. First mover advantage has also been shown not to be very important - just look at Facebook vs earlier social networks as an extreme example. Its all about execution - anyone can come up with good ideas (hell, YC is now even experimenting with accepting teams without ideas). Besides, lots of people have ideas all the time and very few people go through with them. The going through with them is the valuable part, not the having ideas part.

[1] I was at Startup Weekend recently and our team (5 of us who had never met before the Friday night) turned a vague and impossible concept into a workable product prototype including business plan, market validation and pitch to investors in ~40 hours. We started out because we felt it would be a fun project to build crazy multiplayer game AI and ended up with an analytics solution that real game developers told us they would happily pay for to being approached by an investor asking us to continue working on it - all in the space of a weekend of focused brainstorming. If a focused weekend is all it takes to come up with a refined idea, basic prototype, business plan, market validation and pitch to investors, then I don't think its worth worrying about if someone will steal your idea. Most startups fail anyway and I bet very very few, if any at all, failures are because the company didn't keep quiet about their idea.

PS: the one time when it may make sense to keep your ideas secret is if you are told to, eg, by an investor who's about to give you a lot of money (but be careful! don't want the investor to back out after you've told everyone else that you can't talk about your business...). Outside of that special case, I think you need to give your idea away at some stage, eg, at a minimum for market validation or to tell investors about it (they won't sign NDA's).
Debian and ubuntu are clearly two substantially different distributions with different packages, policies and goals. As are RHEL and Fedora. The only difference between Centos and RHEL is some branding and whether you paid a license fee.
In my experience, on projects with often-run automated unit test suites with good coverage, development goes faster. Part of this might be because for code to be highly testable, it usually also has to be well-designed and architecturally sound.
For some reason this sounded to me quite a much like James Whittaker's blog on why he left Google.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/jw_on_tech/archive/2012/03/13/why-i-...
What's the point of having memory if the OS isn't going to use it?
Do startups really create all the net jobs?
Oooh, probably! Guess it depends on how the ink is bonded to the paper. Toner is fused with heat, but ink obviously isn't.

There are other things for removing ink from paper, right? Counterfeiters do it, to forge cheques, I think.
For some of us, I'm sure, it's not that we have no ideas, it's that we are perhaps too dismissive of the good ideas we have. The pursuit of perfection can leave you not only without perfection, but without a product at all, sometimes.
Here's how the stats were created: http://w3techs.com/technologies

Although interesting, not really covering much of an "enterprise computing".
IMHO Google is going to lose in the email space soon as well, times are mature to beat it in simple ways, only protection they have in this space is that there is a big "optimization" part in email that is anti-spam and they are good at it.

The only thing that, for me, would cause Google to "lose in the email space soon" would be the exact thing you say they are good at: anti-spam. I've started getting more spam on gmail recently but it's now only 5 or so emails a week out of thousands. Think about how good that is and then ask the question, "If it was 0, would that inspire people to go through all of the hassle to switch emails?" I'd guess that the answer for most folks would be, "Meh - 5 spam messages a week for a free email service is fine. I'd rather not change."
4G LTE-equipped iPhone to launch this year according to Verizon exec
Corporate lawyers are generally on retainer