skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You know, there's an awful lot of psychology in interface design. Its not taught in very many places either. It might be worth investigating if you could start learning this kind of stuff on a distance basis so that you could future-proof yourselves to a certain degree.
Spending a few years in college is the easiest, shortest route to some pretty profound insights, and you say, "nah".

I strongly disagree that this is a universal truth. As just one example, I'm finding the Stanford and Udacity courses I'm taking more rewarding than any of the courses I took in college, for a fraction of the time investment.

But making such a decision, or any decision for that matter, based on false assumptions - actually, criminally negligent and outrageously stupid assumptions - is just... dumb.

Really. So college apparently doesn't always effectively teach civility in discourse.
I don't take it lightly. I don't just say "nah", college is a joke. I respect college, and college is filled with brilliant people. Colleges that have decent programs also cost a decent amount. I don't want to graduate with mounds of debt. I know it's possible to work it off while in school, and financial aid, etc. but the fact of the matter is a lot of people have a lot of college debt. WHO KNOWS, I could participate in a new collegey startup in a couple years, I might decide to go in a couple years, but I wanted to make the point that not going to college doesn't mean automatic couch potato with no opportunity.
Tom Sachs' 10 Bullets - "Creativity is the enemy"
Or you can use Stripe.
I've always considered this practice of putting "code" in your weblog title to be profoundly annoying. It's almost as bad as using the words "random", "rant", or "rambling". Or listing your interests separated by periods, with the one "wacky" option at the end: "Ruby. Startups. Math. And lots of cat pictures."
Completely agree... I don't understand changing an existing CLI... why not suggest improvements to the actual project?

The only way this could be justified is as a concept build to pass back to the community.
The thing is, barring the intervention of marketing departments, compilers don't get more dumb over time. If this is possible now, it ought to be easy soon (for some value of "soon").

Haskell's main benefit, to my mind, is its type safety. That's what saves programmer time in the long run. If that can be fused (hah!) with decent performance - even if it's not quite up to C without contortions - it's a net win.
> Real-world applications are rarely solely limited by small chunks of code that are simple enough to be optimized independently of the rest of the program.

Two reactions to this:

1. If they aren't, maybe they should be. Not sure the large applications of the past are a good guide to the future. Perhaps a large pile of functional code is a clear software engineering win for some value of "large," and we're still discovering this.

2. In my experience, large applications are often performance-limited by small chunks of code. The results of actually profiling never cease to amaze me -- my guesses are so often wrong. Of course, once you fix the bottleneck in one spot, the bottleneck moves to another, but hey that's the game of optimization in any language.
That's fine - a questioning attitude is great. When someone says "This research shows us X, Y and Z" it's a useful skill to look at the research and spot any flaws in the methods or the stats or the write up.

Anti-intellectualism is not that. Anti-intellectuals will say things like "I don't need to read the research, that scientist gets money from $CORPORATION and thus nothing they say can be trusted. That's why climate change is bogus." or they say "So what if that research has proven a link between $FOODSTUFF and $DISEASE? So called studies come out all the time saying this or that are dangerous. That's why cigarettes are not as bad as everyone makes them out to be."

People know very little about the scientific method ("Yeah, but that's just like a "theory"" they say, scornfully.) and scientific research is often mangled by journalists or politicians. (Also, unfortunately, by scientists needing a bit more funding.) But, worse, many people don't want to know anything about science, preferring to regard it all as too complicated or for boffins or dangerous. ("I don't want chemicals in my food!")

Anti-intellectualism appeals to fringe "science", to quack "medicine", to wishy-washy pseudo-religious idiocy, and to religious fundamentalism.

And it's not new, either. People have been railing against it for years. See, for example, "The Underground Grammarian" and this essay "Hunger in America". (scroll down a bit.)

(http://www.sourcetext.com/grammarian/newslettersv08/8.5.htm)
But doing other things, you can have even more exposure if you try hard enough. Traveling, talking, networking, and not being confined to one college campus the majority of the time is a benefit. I wanted to go to Boston this week, so I bought a ticket and am going. There are exchanges you make on this path. But each path has it's own shortcomings.
You're going to have to stay somewhere a lot longer than a semester to find students/teachers to really connect with. CivE, CS, painting, doesn't matter. I completely understand the disappointment at going to school and finding out that hey, not everyone is motivated by the same thing as you, not everyone has the same goals, etc... but it's just something you have to accept. It happened to me at my "dream school", and if you're an architecture student then that pretty much makes you SOL. If you want to go to college, then do. Don't get too caught up in analyzing it, ESPECIALLY if you want to major in art. If you can keep your ideological goals and your practical goals separate, college as it is will make a whole lot more sense.

Edit: In summary, don't let your expectations get in the way of your goals. If school is an effective way of getting from A to B, then let it be just that.
Something rubs me the wrong way about this being sensationalized like this. Okay so one disgruntled insider thinks their latest design is shit and Jobs wouldn't have let it through. Fine. He's entitled to his opinion.

But the media is just chomping at the bit for any kind of Apple-is-slipping story so they can pin it on Jobs' death. But the reality is that most of the people who made Apple's recent products great are still there, and so is Steve's vision to a great extent. Also, it's not as if Jobs was infallible in his design sense. He let abominations like the hockey puck mouse out the door, and who knows what sides he fell on in all the internal design debates over the years. The mythologizing of Jobs is clouding people's judgement about Apple's performance and it's only gonna get worse.
A Turing Machine In The Classic Style
I can't imagine trying to learn art and literature without formal higher education. Programming... maybe, but literature? no. But yeah, just because it's mandatory for literature doesn't mean it's mandatory for programming. However there's a distinction between programming and CS.
When given any set of requirements you can implement it in said language. You may not know every particular library but you know enough of the concepts to read the API and implement it, without hacking together a maintenance monster.
I can't really address your country's collegiate experience.

But I can address the people concerns. You will likely find that most students don't jibe with you. You have to find your own way. Along the way, you will find people you will be friends with, but they likely won't be entry-level students, and taking the gap years will have separated you fairly irrevocably from those who haven't.

If you want to go to college, go to college. Take from it all you can, even if you can get by with less. Do well and don't depend on the approval of others.
The Real Crime On Wall Street Can Never Be Prosecuted
The social interaction and relationships formed in college sometimes outweigh the content being studied.
What Entrepreneurs can learn from March Madness & Psychology
> You need to look at who is funding the study/research/scientist to really give you an idea if you can really believe it without further research.

No. The beauty of science is that it doesn't matter who funds it. So long as they're releasing all the papers[1] and the data[2] you can check the results yourself.

[1] unethical scientists will do many studies and only release the ones that confirm the results they want to find.

[2] often data is hidden somewhere and not available.
It's worth mentioning here that exceptions are notoriously unsafe even in C++ programs, where automated ctors and dtors should mitigate these concerns (but inevitably don't because of pointers).
Hey guys, I'm in Chicago this week as well. I would be down to hang out. I'm from NYC but have been living in Atlanta for the past few months, so I'm really happy to be in a 'real' city again.
Getting languages to run as fast as (or faster than) C for things like tight floating point or int calculations isn't that difficult - at the end of the day, any decent compiler JIT or pre-compiled is going to produce roughly the same asm.

What's difficult is getting the whole application as fast, as opposed to just a few functions. The hot points of an application are rarely due to CPU throughput or lack of asm instruction optimisation - they're normally due to memory allocation inefficiencies or cache thrashing, or bad thread concurrency, and this is where using C/C++/(ADA in embedded world) shine, as you have complete control over pretty much everything, from struct bit packing, allocation size, allocation location (stack/heap), when to deallocate memory (if ever in real-time's case), optimising for memory access patterns, etc, etc.
That's silly. As developers we constantly try to make better interfaces for our users. When it comes to our own tools we supposed to put up with difficult interfaces because that's the way it is?

Engineers seem to treat mastering the command line and complex tools as a badge of honour, and as a way of differentiating themselves from the noobs. If there is really an easier way then is that really a bad thing?
Differences in Brain Function for Children With Math Anxiety
0. Stay polite.

1. Avoid common metaphors.

2. Write fewer, shorter, simpler words.

4. Choose the active voice.

[edited, see reply]. I enjoy the "say it in fewer words" game, but quite a lot has been lost between the original essay and this sort of summary. As a reminder, it might work, presented to a fresh reader, I doubt if it would.
Only steal from the best (as opposed to Great Artists Steal)
I like the tone of the post but I think it's a bit lacking in explanation on why college is important.

College makes you develop as a person. You interact with other students, you learn new stuff, you do your homework and the end result is - you've grown. It's about the process, not the end result like so many anti-college posts seem to focus on.
It's the experience of college that makes it important. The way I look at hiring college grads for instance, it's not about their grades, it's about knowing they can stick it and do it on their own. Finishing college is a merit.

I believe processes like college force you to develop as a person. Speaking from my experience, it was one of the most influential experiences I have had, and I studied Comp Sci, nothing fancy. The other would be my 5 years in the army, which similarly most people would dismiss as a waste of time, but I don't think I'd be the same person without it.

The way I think of it, it's about the process, and like it or not, going to college takes you through that process. Sure it's not for everyone, but come on people, stop hating :)
Generally agree with your comment, but a couple of small quibbles with the numbers. The ratios and stats typically published by those in the RE industry (the Trulia post included) only take into account the mortgage payment itself. That is, principal and interest. Those are not generally even close to the monthly payment that a homeowner sends to the bank, which must cover insurance, taxes, etc. The difference is frequently substantial. And of course, a homeowner still has the obligation of maintenance.
How to Demolish the Barriers to Puerto Rico Startups
IPOs will continue to remain the preferred liquidity event until there is a better vehicle for fast-growing companies, particularly those who are growing fast but are not throwing off cash.

The spirit of going public has always been better liquidity, more transparency, and access to cheaper capital. That spirit hasn't changed so much as been polluted a bit by SarBox and short-sighted board members and investors. The solution isn't to stop going public; it's to fix SarBox and choose your board more wisely.
Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. 2, 10178 Berlin
Because of...
Most of the anti-college rhetoric originates from the US, I think, because of the high cost. In Canada, where undergraduate tuition at some of our best universities is below $10k/year (usually much lower), "going to college" is far easier to rationalize.
The next iteration of immersive virtual reality used to pet chickens
Thank you for this post. I recently got into MIT and have been torn and confused over whether or not it is worth going. All these anti-college posts on HN were not helping but this post shared some good perspective.
>It's not that I don't learn every single day now, because I do and I love that. But I can't focus single-mindedly on learning stuff because it's either cool or a stepping stone to learning cool stuff. That's what I miss.

Again, this is the "Information Age", dedicated knowledge acquisition no longer requires college. For many, traditional academia is not the most efficient means of learning anyway.

Compare and contrast RIAA/MPAA & Music/Movies with College/University & intellectualism and learning. When the former criticizes the anti-SOPA movement, we laugh and shake our heads at their absurd cries. When the later criticizes "anti-intellectualism" (which really means anti-academia), many respond as desired, by shaking their heads at the image of ignorant peasants at the gates of intellectualism with pitch forks and torches. In both cases we have old, established, and powerful institutions trying to maintain their power. While one is starting to succumb (or perhaps adapt) to a changing and innovating market, the other continues to further entrench itself while raising its prices ever skyward.

It is an interesting comparison to consider. I'll end with a pertinent quote.

"Never let formal education get in the way of your learning." -Mark Twain
> That's silly. As developers we constantly try to make better interfaces for our users. When it comes to our own tools we supposed to put up with difficult interfaces because that's the way it is?

We're not talking about a different interface here but a new terminology.

It's a bit like saying that you think English is too hard so you'll be communicating in Spanish from now on. This is not a realistic decision in a world where you need to work with a lot of people who all communicate in English.
What, going to university costs money?!?

</scandinavian>

EDIT: I didn't mean to be all smug about it. The cost of going to university is different in different countries, and if it's too expensive where you're at, maybe going as an exchange student is a viable alternative? That's the only big regret I have, never having done that.
'porcelain' is completely new to me in this context. Could you explain what it means? (and who uses it?)
Don't get me started on that one. That rumor is quoted from The Epoch Times, a U.S.-based “newspaper” with a very clear political agenda. This isn't a trustworthy source to quote from if you know even a tiny bit about this agency's motivation and track record of faking stuff.

BTW the quoted picture [1] is a freaking tank, not any ordinary armed police/military vehicles from the previous rumor. Any one with a common political sense would immediately understand the implication of the appearance of a tank in the center of Beijing at times other than the National Day Parade. The Epoch Times, as usual, went to far on making this crap up.

The author had clearly checked the photos and verified they were indeed from two years ago for the preparation of the 60th National Day, what is the point of bringing this up? And since when does quoting disproved rumors from untrustworthy sources make good journalism?

[1]: http://asianconservatives.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Cou...
What I mean is that while the proof for the Halting Problem is completely valid, I find it rather "weak" as it uses self-reference. That doesn't tell you anything about how it would work for other programs. The only thing you know is that the problem is undecidable for all input. What would happen if we were to restrict the input to a program to everything that doesn't include the entire program source code?

It's quite similar to Cantor's diagonal argument. Both proofs are completely correct and use a very similar reasoning. The difference is that I'm not interested in almost denumerating the real numbers (I can do that with the rational numbers anyway), but I would be interested in almost solving the Halting Problem.
> The same argument could be used with assembly language vs. Ruby/Python, but that doesn't stop people from using higher-level abstractions to get things done easily.

That's not the right analogy.

The situation here is more: you join a project that uses assembly language, which you find too hard to learn, so you decide you'll be using Ruby instead.
Google's email system, Gmail, for years forced consumers to use a "conversations" format that geeks raved about but that confused normal people who liked good old email.

Is this really a common complaint? Everybody I've talked to loves it, and Apple added it in Lion.
Well, the command line basically means you have the power of a full programmming language at your fingertips for administrating your system, your projects, your build system, etc.

Also, the homogeneity of the unix interface (pipes and utilities that uses them) means that you also have very powerful primitives to work with.

Proving the utility of the command line could benefit from a few full featured examples, but this would need a longer post that i'm in the mood of writing right now :)

With that said, you have a powerful administration programming language on windows called powershell. It's much better than bash by a lot of metrics. The way it's integrated into the system is not very good though. For example, the terminal client sucks, and the security system is way too complicated for casual use.
CSS Optimization, digging into CSS Engine
This is still server-side; it just streams instead of downloading and then pushing.
Probably when you've found that you don't have to read the documentation for the base language in a while. Everyone constantly reads docs on infrequently used libraries and for gotcha parts of a language, but that's far different from having to look up how to create/destroy objects, perform all conditionals, use the data types, etc.

Equivalently: when you wouldn't be embarrassed in an interview to write something on the board in that language.
The Idea Factory was also a book where a guy journed his struggles through MIT grad school (mech engineering I think). Was interesting though gloomy: http://www.amazon.com/The-Idea-Factory-Learning-Think/dp/026...
Gridlocked Out
Observations on the growth of Linux use
The thing to realize is that the Javascript isn't Javascript. It just looks like it. Writing good Unityscript/Javascript is going to be only syntactically different from writing C# anyway. Unityscript/Javascript is well made, but there's a few edge cases that you'll only encounter once you've already written most of the project. And mixing the two languages is messy and limited.

For C# dev, it depends how hardcore you're going to be getting. Ultimately, you normally going to be scripting, not programming. getting familiar with the Unity3D API is of more use than learning high level features of C#. For instance, while C# is object oriented, >90% of the things you write will inherit from MonoBehaviour, and most of the rest are just fancy structs.

And I code on an iMac -- I use Unity natively, and the version of MonoDevelop it ships with. It works nicely!
Possibly but it's generally not encouraged. In my 3rd year I got to take 2 optional modules we were pushed in the direction of taking specific project management courses in the business school.

I did take one module in English which was fun but nothing I couldn't have got from a creative writing class.
Friends. The best friends of my life were all in my all male dorm at an engineering school. We would geek out in the computer lab on friday nights, having the time of our lives. The bonding that can happen in an environment where you can just relax and let your mind wander is hard to duplicate.
Start a company with someone and at best your lucky to be amicable, because there is no way you can both always be in agreement with such large stakes. Staying up all night to finish a school project? True bonding.

The person with the most friends at the end truly is the winner. And now is the time to find them, so that when your 60 you'll have 40 years of awesome memories to share together. It's far to easy to start a company and slide away from being with or making friends.. that's time you'll never get back.

High school friends are a completely different category. In highschool you meet people because they happen to live near you, but then you go home for dinner and to sleep.
In college you are smushed together with a couple hundred 18 year olds with no parental supervision who all chose the same school as you. And your together 24/7, so you find stupid and highly memorable ways to entertain each other, creating epic lifelong memories, so that even if you don't see each other for 5-10 years you pick up right where you left off. That's bonding.

You can always drop out if it's really not for you. Either way, make sure you have really good friends around you at all times.
He did not hack the education system, he opted out of it. Hacking something is using it for a purpose the the providers of the system/item did not intend it to be used for.
In the US first year students are called Freshman, so in order to "bond"; You need stick in there for a couple of years; That will happen in Highschool, College, Work, Community, the In-Laws and anything else that matters in life.
You have more opportunities to travel when you are in college and don't have a full time job. You can go abroad, participate in traveling teams or groups of kids going to competitions. A lot of what you are doing can be done in college.

The thing is, college isn't hard, it's easy. That's why for someone like you, it would be a great experience.

Your real reason for not going came out in the comments---it's expensive and you don't want debt. With these experiences you've written about, you'll be able to get into a great school and most likely with a scholarship. Your blog post would make a kick-ass admissions essay to Harvard.

It seems like you already know there are ways to minimize the cost of college via scholarship, financial aid, and working hard during college. Many people do this.

You are really arguing that college isn't worth the effort, yet at the same time you are no stranger to hard work. So, there's really no reason for you not to go to college. Working hard, which you are all about apparently, is all you need to do to ensure it's a net positive decision.
Skype55 deobfuscated version released
I woke up today to friends posting on facebook about getting out of Apple stock "at the top" because of these SJ UI rejection posts. Even if the ui is a mistake (and I'm not sure it is, I haven't played with it yet), Apple has made other missteps in the past 5 years without meaningfully impacting the growth in their share price.
Huh. I am glad I am not the only one who found the new Apple TV GUI terribly ugly.