skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I used WebCrawler in the mid 1990's because it was based on search terms.

Then it steadily declined in quality and I started using Google, not because Google got better so much as because WebCrawler got worse.
Why you shouldn’t believe the theory behind Groupon’s business model
I would recommend to read this story about Ada which is the preferred language for highest quality software:

http://www.adacore.com/home/ada_answers/business_benefits
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Perfect Pricing Part Deux – More money from fewer sales
It's a sad state of affairs when this sort of apology is a surprise and so wonderful. I've been a customer of companies that openly blamed issues on customers and would fake announcements saying that maintenance was planned weeks in advance to save face. Really great to see someone take responsibility for the problems they caused and explain how it's going to be improved for the future.
Their lawyer is going to be looking for an excuse to bill more time on this issue, so if you don't reply, you will definitely hear more from them. So eventually you'll have to do something anyway. The sooner you respond, the sooner it's going to go away.
Disruption versus competition
While it is good to look at these sorts of mathematically rigorous algorithms, I think I would be frustrated if it was used everywhere. Or, well, maybe not me perhaps, but a non technical user.

The beauty of the second algorithm for rating products is that it is straightforward. Having never seen it before I can deduce that 5 stars come before 4 stars and more reviews come before fewer. If I want to skip ahead to the 4 stars I know what to do. I can internalize the sorting algorithm easily. And as a user, understanding the order items are presented to me is important.

If Amazon were to use the last algorithm and present items in that order (assuming we accounted for the 5 star vs positive/negative issue), it would like a random order to most users and would be frustrating.

So I guess what I am saying is that this algorithm is very clever, but in some cases, it may be too clever. Sometimes you just want to keep it Simple Stupid.
Why Apps Fail
While that is true, taking an initial look at the rust tutorial it seems to me that the number of syntactic rules in the language for Rust are much more than in Go, which is always a negative sign.
I can't think of "forcing everyone to use the same conventions for indentation" as a purely good thing, any more than "forcing everyone to write comments in 18th-century English" would be.

Sure, you make it easier for the random onlooker to be prepared to always immediately understand what is going on, but at the same time, the programmer who writes for his own perusal or that of a small team of known others will find themselves restricted by a totalitarian scheme telling them what they can express and what they can't. The assumption that most code is written for most people to read is simply not true, and code that is intended for the masses has always been able to deal with the problem by imposing style guidelines.
A lot more work. Like a lot of people, I don't read some kind of static text to an audience; even with the same slides I give a different talk every time. The only way to put together a page like this one would be to simply transcribe the talk. If somebody has the time to do that, that's cool; I sure don't.
Google acquires TxVia in an effort to expand Google Wallet
> For programmers, the most useful branch of discrete math is probability theory. ... What's probability theory, you ask? Why, it's counting. ...

That paragraph made my left eye twitch a little. Not a big mistake, perhaps, but what he calls probability theory is actually combinatorics. Probability theory is decidedly non-discrete (integration of density functions?) and involves only two integers: 0 and 1. (A joke).

Many people are introduced to combinatorics in the context of probability theory. It (combinatorics) can be used to compute various probabilities, but still. You wouldn't call trigonometry calculus just because a course in calculus might involve the derivative of sine and cosine, so don't confuse probability theory and combinatorics.
They actually believe in a certain size of government. For example for some developing countries they often suggest increasing tax revenues to build a bigger state.
Thanks, that makes sense of the contradictory info.
Your examples demonstrate underspecified text protocols. Surely it leads to problems, but if they were underspecified binary protocols then debugging/reverse-engineering would be much harder.

So your comment proves the opposite of what you've intended.
Googling "Wilson score confidence interval php" returns an implementation as the top result.
"if you don't have a statistics package handy or if performance is an issue you can always hard-code a value here for z. (Use 1.96 for a confidence level of 0.95.)"
The example you XML you included is from a property list [0]. While there is more than one implementation, there is essentially a defacto implementation. XML is only one format, and data is relatively strongly typed. All of the types provide documentation regarding exactly how they are serialized, deserialized.

In this case, the string value in the dictionary is specific to OmniGraffle. It's format is proprietary, but the only producer is also the consumer. Omni may or may not have a formal spec indicating the format of this value. You'd have to work there to find out.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_list
Null is evil because any pointer could be null, and the semantics of dereferencing a null pointer are either NullPointerException or just plain undefined.
Aren't there libraries for PHP like for other languages?
lots of physicists commenting on the article, getting annoyed that the author doesn't dig calculus.

As a physicist (turned programmer turned physicist again) I'd just like to say that I quite like the idea of a liberal arts mathematics course - I would be much better at it if I had an overview of the field, and thus knew where to look for my solutions (like I do when debugging a program under X environment or framework).
Since JSON is (a subset of) YAML, and YAML was actually designed to be human-readable, I'd say it's the better choice.

http://yaml.org/
Do you recall what kind of questions the game would ask? Most games typically asked something out of the user manual.
Smashing! Using it now, works quite well.

One comment: the triangle gets a bit confused with the upvote/downvote buttons. Maybe it'd be clearer if it was something like [-] / [+]... it would also enlarge the clickable area a bit, probably.
Null is evil because it forces programmers to constantly check for null when compilers can do that much better. There can be situations when null is handy, but it shouldn't be the default. C++ reference can be used for similar purpose.

Global GC is definitely a language issue. It affects language semantics.

Avoiding shared mutable state does not mean making copies. If you can statically check there is no other reference you can avoid copying. Think advanced move semantics.
You could try YAML as a superset of JSON with comments.
Hardly anything wrong with them as far as I can tell, provided you don't have neighbours. I would suspect that all the wood people burn in North America as fuel is greatly offset by all the forest fires people in North America put out. Large-scale adoption of course is not a bright idea, but that's not what this guy is doing.

(And it is carbon neutral, so if you're going to burn something, better wood than fossil fuels from that standpoint.)
I have real experience with ADA (also C, C++ and many others), and I have discovered that ADA is brilliant, a way underestimated language. But ADA requires a lot of discipline which is a possible reason why many developers don't like it.

I also like Rust. I haven't tested it yet (will try it) but the first impressions are good. But I think Rust will not be on par with ADA 2012 until it supports range values (like x : Integer Range 1..100) and contracts at least.

Asserts are good for the beginning but a language for really big software should have verification mechanisms which are implemented in SPARK (a subset of ADA).
One of the main goals of the Redis protocol was to try to find a point in the middle between text and binary, so the protocol is completely text based, but designed to also handle binary payloads without problems. So far we never saw the protocol as a bottleneck in Redis performances.
LSL was never the most politically correct game out there, granted.

On the other hand IIRC the game was basically about some loser who thought he was a stud but was outwitted at every turn by smarter women.

I played some of the games when I was probably a little too young but if anything they showed me that sex was something that could be laughed about and that things in the sexual marketplace were not always what they seem.

In any case it's content was pretty tame, far far more hardcore stuff is only a google search away.
CloudStack to Become Cloud Platform of the Apache Foundation
This sounds like a real black-and-white question to describe a very nuanced problem. One shortcoming is that if you use that 1-10 scale to describe your skills in a given area, 1 or 10 are not the building blocks to the most ideal outcomes in all life situations. You may want a certain skill to be a 5 to achieve an optimal outcome.

Take your ability to let your inhibitions go and be the life of the party. If you're a 1, people think you can't hang or be trusted with things, and if you're a 10, it's hard for them to take you seriously (or they feel threatened or upstaged by you).

I'd say someone with a 3 in Java programming and a 8 in networking skills will more often than not financially outperform someone with the scores reversed, even with the job title "Java programmer".

Since we can't always know "a 7 in that skill would've made them offer me a job", nor if that's a one-time disappointment or going to be a recurring one, figuring out where to try to strengthen my skills is more an art than a skill, though I'd like to reach a 10 in that someday.
Here, here.

My app, http://sharedcount.com, serves ~100 million API calls a month off of AppEngine, for ~$40/month (or the equivalent of a mid-size MediaTemple virtual server).
Startup & school? UWaterloo's entrepreneurs show us it can be done
Null: Null is not evil, but programmers often fail to take it into account. If you see type `string`, it might not be immediately obvious that you can get either a `string` object, or `null`. It could be useful (for preventing bugs and for speed) to have different annotations for nullable and non-nullable variables/parameters (e.g. `string?`, or `string | null`, or `union(string, null)`).

Global GC: It's hard to do GC without stopping the world. If different threads have different heaps, only a single thread needs to be stopped at any given time for the GC to be performed (on this thread's heap). AFAIK, Rust also supports manually managed references.

Shared mutable state: I believe that is more of a language restriction, not VM (i.e. sending messages could be implemented without copying). Simplifies debugging and makes some abstractions much easier (distributed computing in particular).
I can't understand how forcing coding convention can result in "being restricted by a totalitarian scheme". We are writing in a formal language instead of English. Style is the last place you want creativity. Use you creativity to express algorithms, not brace styles.
I'm using IE9.
Text files are great, especially if one's the Unix shell skills to quickly manipulate and query them without having to write a program. But XML is often overkill compared to a simpler text format.
> it's also possible to "see" the blocks just by indentation.

As long as there are not too many newlines within blocks...
I would like to share the relevant part of my comment here as well.

I want to caution that it is still better to update on Tuesday morning in case the update fails. Updating before or on the weekend can lead to your releases spiraling out of control with no staff monitoring or just a skeleton crew.

It is better to have your whole team available and awake. I also worry that you might forment resentment by making everyone work every release weekend. Releases will likely become more infrequent, and lead to bigger changes and bigger failures.

Please consider that Balsamiq did recover. May be harder to do so on Saturday.
... Wait, why aren't we talking about PGP?

PGP (and it's mathematical foundations to some degree) were invented to solve the secure email problem. Back then the proponents of PGP essentially predicted the situation we're in now. Up until now there's been plausible deniability for any of us normal people to care, so consumer adoption of PGP remains close to nil. Even corporate use I've seen only comes into play when dealing with another company who forces it be used.

That's changing fast. Their original use case (secure messaging in a monitored society) is no longer only a tinfoil hat situation.

The solution is for all of us HNers to adopt PGP 100%. Everyone who wants to talk to use would have to adopt PGP. The friction to start is rather huge but that is how something like this would get adopted.

As for "but it doesn't jive with my gmail nicely".. maybe it's time we give up gmail too. It's value proposition is based on reading your email to be better build a profile on you to sell to advertisers. That's why google plus wanted your real name, so they have a face to put all that mined data to.

Switch To PGP Day?

edit: relevant links

"simple pgp chrome plugin for gmail" - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2918255
Design for Purpose
I think the point being made is that as a business it has collapsed. Just having mind- or browser-share isn't the only metric of whether or not a business is thriving (or collapsing)
They've already done it. Windows Vista and 7 provide an API for text rendering called DirectWrite (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DirectWrite) that gives much cleaner results. XP and prior use an older API called GDI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Device_Interface), which hasn't kept up with advances in modern displays.

The reason why this switch hasn't resulted in a simple "boom, instantly beautiful" improvement is a chicken-and-egg problem. The choice of which rendering API to use is made by application developers; they naturally want to target the one that's most widely adopted. But Vista/7 haven't driven XP out of the marketplace yet. So cautious browser developers stick with GDI.

You can see the result in the examples you cited. IE9 is a special case because it's only available for Vista and 7 anyway, so Microsoft was free to move it to DirectWrite. Firefox defaults to GDI, but as of FF4 has optional DirectWrite support (how to turn it on: http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=1775755). Chrome is GDI-only.
My guess is because they're primarily trying to appeal to C++ programmers seeking a safer systems language rather than Python programmers seeking a more accessible low-level language.

Incidentally, I'm the latter, and I'm very interested in Rust.
I think what always annoys me about articles like this is that the author spends the entire article telling us how everything is changing and the future is completely different but the answer is to tax the rich a bit more. The answer to everything for certain people has always been "just tax the rich a bit more" apparently in this world of ours which is changing beyond recognition, that part never changes.
Will Digital Natives Take Our Throne?
Building a Product: One month later, $119.50 in the bank
Boston Entrepreneur, Norman Priebatsch, Goes Missing Hiking, Rescue Halted
Here's my version that we use on MyBankTracker.com. We hardcode the z variable using a power of 0.05.

https://gist.github.com/2292254
In our B2B environment we pretty much have to do weekends. Our clients have little system usage during this time and I am more secure knowing we have more time to recover.

I will tell you, though, that weekend updates are planned ahead of time and schedules adjusted to ensure no one is caught off guard.
Drag and Drop and Automatically Send to the Server
"Because it’s Ken, I buy the stock although will buy more after this article is out and readers read this." - Ok, yes he bought already before and said he would buy more after the article. Well, anyways it is amazing how the stock prize changed since January and since the article.
Putting money into startups isn't going to sway me given the other changes brought in.

Sure, this government has done many things I can take advantage of. For instance, if I set up a holding company on the Isle of Man for any work I do in the UK, I now only have to pay around 2% tax on UK profits as an independent contractor.

And this is not tax avoidance, it is the official recommendation from the government.

However while this is individually wonderful for my pocket, it does absolutely nothing for the society of which I am a part.

You could argue that it will due to the trickle down effects of me having more cash, but given how I spend my cash in this global economy, any trickle down is likely to go towards large corporations that produce computer technology, so is really more of a trickle up instead.
Why is this getting downvoted? Not snarky, or sarcastic.
I love it and I hate it.

Why I love it: It's precise. It's elegant. It's rigorous. It's based upon solid, proven science & theory. It's a perfect application for a computer. And most of all, it does what's intended: it works.

Why I hate it: What human can understand it?

I used to implement the first manufacturing and distribution systems that used thinking like this. They figured, "We finally have the horsepower to apply complex logic to everyday problems." Things like safety stock, economic order quantities, reorder points, make/buy decisions, etc.

But the designers of these systems overlooked one critical issue: these systems included humans. And as soon as humans saw that decision making formulas were too complex to understand, they relieved themselves of responsibility for those decisions. "Why didn't we place an order?" "Because the computer decided not to and I have no idea why."

I suppose the optimal solution is somewhere in between: a formula sophisticated enough to solve 95% of the problem but simple enough for any human's reptile brain to "get it". This isn't it.
Chasing the AWS model is a bad idea. It's all well and good to provide AWS API compatibility, but do that as a layer of abstraction on top of a better system with more flexibility underneath.

Shooting for AWS as your gold standard, to me, seems to be aiming too low. AWS is a far from perfect system.
37vegetables - The 37signals CSA benefit in action
Qt 5 Alpha
In IE9, Microsoft greatly improved Javascript performance. However, better HTML5 compatibility comes with IE10:

http://html5test.com/results/desktop.html
Herb Sutter. Reader Q&A: When will better JITs save managed code?
I think what the HN comments are missing is the tech blogs only care about what people have done for us lately. IE people say Yahoo is collapsing because it seems like their potential for innovation is gone, and instead they're moving into patent trolling. Microsoft was the same way in 2007, but with Metro, now bloggers are giving them a shot again.

Google isn't over, but it's unclear if the company's innovative spirit remains.
Thank you for those great interviews Jason...Naval is such a cool guy in his responses. Great listen!
It's not that clear cut, but indeed the UK does not have a software patent problem half as bad as the US seems to.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents#United_Kingdom
Yes, I'm aware it's known as the "oldest profession".

Please stop saying I'm shocked. I'm not shocked, and I have never said I was shocked. The original post said I was disturbed by the comment in the screenshot, and it was mostly because of the way it described the prostitute.
This is the stack I have been using for a few years.
This is a stable, reliable stack with tools of tools, IDE support and a solid community around it.

Framework: Spring MVC, Spring Security, JAX-RS, JSP+Tiles, JQuery, Maven
Language: Java
Web Server: Apache Tomcat 6., Jetty
Data Layer: Hibernate
Database: MySQL 5
OS: Linux, Mac OS X

I am trying the following stack, which may be more flexible.

Framework: Backbone MVC+JQuery+Bootstrap, Spring Core, Spring Security, JAX-RS, Maven
Language: Java
Web Server: Apache Tomcat 6., Jetty
Database: MongoDB
OS: Linux, Mac OS X
How to use light to control the brain
I hate it exclusively. It's clearly better than (1) and (2), but...

I talk about this with some of my med school friends that are interested in/want to create/hate/fear automated diagnosis. At one level, having appropriate statistics to make use of a wealth of prior experience, worldwide prevalence, epidemiological data, &c is basically a requirement for the future of proper healthcare.

It's also an obvious terrible mistake to ever convince people that these statistics are anything besides a decision making tool.

I think the right usage of statistics is to enlighten and confuse simultaneously, not to "answer". They should provide analytical depth to a decision, never an escape route.

For this reason, I think proper statistical application is an intersection between mathematics, computer science, and UI design.
You could probably do a lot worse to prepare for a talk than writing such a text+slides version of it, then distilling key words as notes from the prose and then practicing and giving the talk based on those.
Hawaiian Shirt Commando Tests Knives Against Frozen Pig Skull [video]
Well no. I hardly ever visit Google homepage these days. Only time I do so is when my friends tell me there is an interesting Google doodle.

All my Google use is done with Firefox search bar.
Wow, that was an unreadable rambling mess. I can't believe that guy makes his living as a writer.
Saying Apple "steals from" Braun is too strong. (Xerox has a much stronger claim to having been ripped off by Steve Jobs than Braun does.) But it's undeniable that the Jobs/Ive design aesthetic was strongly influenced by the work of Dieter Rams. That's not unusual, though; anyone who works in a creative field (including programming) will know the work of another can inspire you to new directions in your own work.
I agree. I want to talk about PGP. But I'm talking to end users who have real trouble setting up a VPN. PGP's big problem back then was that it should be invisible and just work, it was neither. That's what I mean by needing to revisit secure email.
First Ubuntu Algorithm Classes
Because the game is not going to be casualized, that was clearly stated - they will not dumb it down. If it's a problem then I guess you don't have to chip in. Lets just vote with wallets.
There needs to be more information/reasons for me to trust you.
I have indeed played this game when I was much younger. I think I was disturbed by this part of the game even back then.

The reason I'm disturbed isn't superficial, and has nothing really to do with Larry losing his virginity. It is the terms they use to describe the prostitute.