skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You seem to be engaging more with the headline writer than with Penrose. They're both, perhaps, wrong, but Penrose is wrong in a far more interesting way.

Penrose doesn't just think quantum mechanics is wrong in the sense that it can't quite be lined up with general relativity, he thinks that quantum mechanics and consciousness are the same problem and that we can't understand one without the other. Now, to me this smacks a bit of the old argument:

1. I don't understand baseball

2. I don't understand women

3. Therefore, women and baseball must be related somehow

but he has slightly better reasons than that for believing what he does.

Consciousness and quantum mechanics are both fascinating problems to understand; personally I don't think they're the same problem but I don't mind if some smart folks want to think carefully about the possibility that they are.

If consciousness is a property of quantum mechanics then this ought to be at least partially measurable. All you have to do is to construct an intelligent non-quantum computer and ask it "Hey, are you conscious?" Of course this doesn't really help you, because what if the computer just thinks it's conscious but doesn't have real consciousness the way we do? What would this even mean? What is it like to be an intelligent but non-conscious mind? In my own opinion the question is meaningless which is why I think consciousness is some kind of inevitable emergent property of intelligent systems; but of course there's thousands of philosophers out there tackling this very question so I won't pretend to have any original thoughts on it.
>If so, do you ever find yourself missing the knowledge about low-level computer science? Let's say, how operating systems and filesystems are built under the covers, the internals of database systems, various algorithms that help solve problems quicker, etc.

You seem to be assuming that someone who hasn't gotten a college degree doesn't have this knowledge. I've spent a fair bit of time over the past 4 years reading hacker news. I'd say the demographic of the hacker news commentator is generally a few years out of college. At that age, I knew more about how operating systems and filesystems worked, the internals of databases, and had a bigger collection of algorithms to draw on than the average hacker news commentator does.

I'm sure there are a lot of people who get CS degrees who never programmed a computer before college, and so, for them it is like a profession that they chose, and all their knowledge comes from college. For them, it probably seems baffling that someone right out of high school might get a CS job because they wouldn't know anything, right?

This isn't the case for hackers. Hackers started hacking as soon as they were told what software (or hardware) was and that there was some mechanism that made it work.

Designers don't learn about UX in school (I don't think, maybe I'm wrong).

Part of the reason college doesn't do so well is its serving some imagined "noble" ideal of what people should learn, rather than teaching practical knowledge.
Where I've worked, invoicing gets sent to another system that does retain data (I think forever).
Japan's Last Reactor Shuts Down This Weekend
Node is more like a library than a runtime. Its runtime is V8. The node libs could be ported to another JavaScript engine such as jsc, narwhal, or ringo.

> Node.js consists of Google's V8 JavaScript engine plus several built-in libraries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nodejs
If you think the cost of a conference is too expensive, then don't go.

If enough people think the same, the conference won't make money and will either lower their prices or lose money. Eventually the prices will come down.

However, apparently, enough people put value into these conferences to justify conference organizers charging higher prices.
This gets into the nitty gritty of running trials (A/B, split testing). If things like this get baked into libraries it has the chance of pushing the state of the art forwards.

Very worthy of an HN post.

EDIT: Actually, check out their entire blog. It's worth your time.
An interesting role and a location that is of intrest, but I wonder if you'd consider folks applying from outside the US or not?
> In summary, the issue with DRM for books is the implementation.

Absolutely friggin' not. The issue is with the very concept. It's trying to bolt artificial limitations on something that naturally has none. It's trying to reproduce an existing business model based upon scarcity where there isn't any scarcity nor any reason to want any, on the contrary.

DRM is bad, bad, bad, should be destroyed forever and as soon as possible. Boycott must be complete. We already won this battle in music where it's perfectly possible to buy about any music without DRM, and it must be the same (dare I say even more, because books are so much more important to knowledge than music) for ebooks.
Thanks for the great list!
How To Make A Scrum/Kanban/Whatever Magnet Out Of A Champagne Bottle
No, Spirit started charging for carry-on bags because their business model is to sell you a ticket for as low as possible and charge a ton of fees to make up the difference.
Yes, the class certifies you, so you can get your license.

You have to be licensed to volunteer as an EMT, as I said.
More impractical than dumb, I think.

The machinery to get the seats in/out will be heavy, mechanically complex. This eats into revenue. Might not even work with existing airplanes.

You'd need to have machinery in the boarding lounge - at every airport the plane visits.

You don't really need this everywhere - people can just get on/off in the legacy mode - but when you visit an airport that lacks the gear you're just hauling dead weight around.

Okay, so we design a plane from scratch, and retrofit the terminals in the US ... but then you've got a plane that can only be used in the US. And one that can't be resold to Elbonia Airways when Northwestern is done using it.
Would the same simulations run on a wide-body 2-aisle plane (such as A380/777) have substantially different outcome? It feels like they board in the same amount of time as a single aisle.

Banning carry-on luggage that doesn't fit under the seat would be a great place to start.
Drop-in open source library for crazy UITableView animations
I was stubborn and tried to like autocorrect for a long time. My partner laughed when I gave in because she turned it off within 20 minutes of getting her new phone.

I found that autocorrect was intrusive and would interrupt my flow of words. The final straw was a few emails where I fought with it to get the word I wanted. I could have hit the X to cancel a change, but this required attention and it seemed hard to click in the right spot. It's easier to look for red underlines before I send an email.
Understand
This has never been the case in my experience. Maybe this is the case for entry level jobs. Resumes go to recruiters who don't bother to look for the degree and are much more interested in the work experience, who forward you to a hiring manager.
How would you distinguish an academic acquaintance with curiosity, passion, and depth from one who lacked those qualities?
It has not been my experience that autocorrect has become better: it has simply become more lax. As an example, I would actually find it really useful if the iPhone's autocorrect was smart enough to realize that my fingers were slightly off position as I typed (due to the lack of physical feedback) and could figure out what word I meant to type. However, it seems to just be running a spell check; it doesn't even realize that if I mash at the screen four times I intend to have four letters and it should not autocorrect what I typed to a word with five letters because it seems to be spelled similarly. The result is that a slight offset on the keyboard doesn't get corrected: it gets mutated into something hilariously unrelated to what you intended to type. Meanwhile, it also doesn't bother trying to come up with any kind of confidence rating for words I type that it doesn't understand. As an example: if I sit there and type a word with one finger, carefully moving my hand slowly to each key and carefully lining up each press, when I hit space bar the iPhone should realize "there is no way in hell I should be correcting this right now: this was a careful and deliberate action on behalf of this user", and yet even when you do that it will take a word and butcher it into one of the words in its dictionary; which, in the case of the iPhone, includes such words as "it's" and excludes such words as "its"... it doesn't even have the common decency to run a grammar check, something Word has had a reasonable-if-not-perfect implementation of for well over a decade now. Honestly: the iPhone has a /lot/ to learn from Word.
In addition to PsyTrance, foreign language songs where I don't understand the language work for me. I've been liking the darker Megurine Luka stuff, recently.
http://beta.mindcast.com/ui/rokglvdz88hh (The Japanese songs are on the left...)
Internal coding sprints at startups
"It might be trivial, but it's trivially true." It's trivial to the point of not being relevant. If the justice system were to punish every manufacturer that had a monopoly over their own product then nothing would get made. Cogent isn't perhaps the right word. As statements go "$megaCorp has a monopoly over their own products" is meaningless, yet it is constantly cited in these discussions as reason to pursue damages.
A small example of refactoring running code is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kuoS796vNw

And a more lengthy example of writing tests first, letting the code fail, and fixing things in the debugger: http://vimeo.com/19591202

This is kind of like writing code that doesn't exist or doesn't work, and letting the type checker guide you through the things you need to fill in. The difference is that Smalltalk is actually executing your code, so you can see actual values rather than just type errors, and it will keep trying to execute your code while you change things.

It might be possible to do something like that with static typing, but I think the real issue is that most advocates of static typing wouldn't really _want_ to mess around with programs in inconsistent states in the first place.
Is it just me, or are all the videos listed as "temporarily unavailable" when I try to watch them?

I even tried downloading the torrent, but I see no seeders either. This could be a good resource, but I honestly can't evaluate the effectiveness of it as of now.
Kanye West – ‘Lost In The World’
Having followed Tomi, and judged by myself, Elop's memo was a killing coup on Nokia, rather than a saving hand. S Elop could not manage properly a transition to a new platform/s and his main decision to switch to Microsoft's again and again unproven/failed platform can be judged ridiculous by a 10 years old child, even, namely Ms platform was sunk already multiple times (here speaks a Windows developer, aka me), HTC/LG/Samsung were already producing the phones, MS's stragegic misalignment with Nokia etc etc etc.
I was referring to "ban the guy from being the CEO for 10 years", not prison sentence.

As for prison effectiveness - that's a huge question that I'm just not qualified enough to discuss. I think US is a bit too zealous in this regard, but I'm really not ready to advise here.
E-Commerce in India and its Social Media Presence
Raising a seed round? Get some armor.
They are not talking about teachers standing up in front of you and saying literally, "I have all the answers. Shut and become good factory workers." They are talking about the fact that you have a few teachers telling you to question authority... while you are sitting in seats in front of them, not making noise, taking tests when told on what told, coming in and leaving on a schedule... and probably even the teachers telling you to question authority won't, say, actually let you walk out of the classroom and play basketball, no matter how much they feebly protest that you should question authority. (And if they did, they wouldn't be teaching for long. The system would not permit it.)

Yeah. You had a couple of people mouth some words about nonconformity, while spending hours every day inextricably enmeshed so deeply in a system built around conformity that you apparently can't even see the conformity, if you think that a few people mouthing words without actions was enough to counteract it. The teachers said some words while you were embodied in a contrary system.

Mind you, all that conformity isn't necessarily a bad thing. I like civilization. But I think it is still important to see it, and choose it when you want it, and be aware of what is going on so others can't use it against you, attacking you on a level you can't even perceive.

Also, this article is tripe. I shouldn't have had to elaborate on it in this manner when it should have said it. And those are clearly something more like 5 points than 9; numbered lists strike again.
Molecular biologist tells story of greatest Rube Goldberg machine ever built
in 2008 nokia was a far superior phone. in europe anyway. they really seem to have had no impact in the usa. my nokias back then had nice useable keyboards, decent cameras that shot video, cameras with flashes. been able to write code on the os in python, and incredible battery life. a good selection of apps.

but phones they made in 2008 suggested problems to me (only supporting 8gb memory, bad design decisions for connectors) and by early-mid 2009 they had caused enough people to ditch nokia for android that the writing was on the wall.

i bought a iphone 3g on prepay and it was meh till ios 3 came along. the people who asked about the iphone i could show them the device and even loan it to them. after using it for a few days none of them wanted it at 1/3 of it's price. battery life was appalling after using nokias till that point. many hated the touchscreen for typing sms as it was slower and less accurate. accidently tapping the weather or any other internet app caused the device to suck data costing money on the prepay device.

so when the 3gs came out and apple blocked googles voip app i bought an android device. have been on android since. but i still have an ancient nokia e61 as emergency backup. last used a few weeks ago when in hospital and got seperated from my chargers. used the e61 which had last been charged last year and had been switched off since then for 3 days no problem.
finagle-http (https://github.com/twitter/finagle/tree/master/finagle-http) provides pretty much everything you need to build an HTTP web service.
I am beginning to wonder if this is a sign of things where a startup/product dev has to start thinking of the following:

- Go to a p2p model where the app/service is distributed without a need to depend on a domain?

- Really start looking at countries/places to partner with someone to register to get away from a cancer that FBI is becoming?

Seriously, this kind of thing is what puts a muddy cloud on USA as a viable option. I know asian countries aren't a walk in the park (I am an India btw, so know the bureaucracy in India), but maybe a country in Europe can become a shinning beacon for internet liberties?? I almost feel the intelligentsia of USA want a place established with modern principles :)
Startup Speed Dating: VeloCity Style
List of 60 Android game engines
I, and quite a few colleagues, find it really good for ideation, and not too shabby for finished work. David Hockney's recent exhibition at the Royal Academy featured iPads heavily. Anecdotal, perhaps. My point was that to say that iPads are just for consumption is wrong.
If they got Masters or MBAs then they are even further behind and have even more to unlearn before they can be productive.

Those people are earning less and are 4-6 years behind you on the advancement curve.

The slope of that curve depends on your ability and dedication, not a piece of paper.
While I grant you that those promoting DRM may in fact start from the premise you state, the end result is that we all wind up being treated as potential thieves. Perhaps it is an overly cynical attitude... but that is how I view it.
REPL/Interactive shell

RubyMotion doesn’t currently have a debugger, but it does have something Objective-C developers don’t have, a REPL working with the simulator. ... You can click on a visual element in the simulator and start modifying the objects in real time in a terminal window and see the modifications in the simulator. It reminds me of the first time I used firebug to edit the html/css of a web page and saw the changes in real time.

This might be the real strength of RubyMotion. Maybe someone should take Squeak/Pharo Smalltalk and create a utility that can be used as a REPL working with the iOS simulator. Smalltalk is basically Objective-C minus the C parts, types, and the glue to attach the C parts, so it would be the perfect REPL for the simulator. All you're left with is keywords and variables. Developers can insert this into projects for prototyping and debugging, but take it out when they deliver apps.
Personal injury lawyer
John Sterbick is one of the leading Personal Injury Attorneys serving the Seattle, Tacoma and Washington State area. He has been helping people with personal injurties for more than 22 years.
http://sterbick.com/
> Moving on, even though I didn’t pay for my ticket since I was a speaker

I've attended PyCon a few times and found the experience to be great value. I believe their speakers have to pay their own way just like other attendees. Other events that I've attended such as TechEd appear to be a bit of a "jolly" for speakers (MVPs) who are carted around to other events throughout the year.
The concept of opportunity cost has nothing to do with the "average individual" it is the cost of the "next best alternative usually forgone". I did not go to college, during most of my "college years" (18-22) I worked a total of 50-80 hours at as many 3 different jobs. That was my next best alternative. I still work 50-70 hours, between different jobs and businesses and transitioned from working class to upper middle class. In retrospect, I can see, for me, the opportunity cost of attending college would have been very high...
Yea, the whole point is that Nokia excelled at hardware, could not catch the software side of smartphone wave and jumpled from a burning platform to a sunk ship.
For me, the human voice doesn't distract me, as long as I don't understand the language.
How many tech companies use the Bayesian Approach rather than the traditional (confidence-testing) Approach?
> There's no reason that DRM could allow the easy transfer of a book from one person or platform to another.

Unfortunately, that is exactly what they do and what publishers use them for!

> The publisher could easily offer the same book in multiple formats.

Yes. I know exactly one publisher that does it: Bragelonne. They sell DRMed ebooks on Kindle and Apple store and DRM-free books on all other libraries, and freely give the DRM-free to any buyers of locked books.

> DRM does add complexity, but as most people read via an application rather than a text file, this can be abstracted for almost all readers.

There exists no application to read DRMed books on my computer on my tablet and on my smartphone. I can only read Adobe DRM on my e-reader. However, I can read DRM free books on all those devices.

> this is a problem with the implementation.

Yes, but since there will never be any implementation for my devices, this is a purely rhetorical argument.

> Authors not getting paid so that they can eat also stifles innovation.

Authors published by no DRM publishers also get paid. Authors published with DRM also get pirated.

> In summary, the issue with DRM for books is the implementation. Many of the problems listed are real but could be almost completely negated by the publishers doing things that cost them almost nothing, even following the assumption that everyone wants to read their books for free.

DRM costs a lot to publishers. publie.net chose to be DRM free also as it was not able to pay adobe for using DRM.
Not every programmer can write any program with equal ease, can we? It depends on your knowledge of available primitives: programming languages, libraries. One who knows OpenGL will have an easier time spinning a 3D model than another who parses log files for a living. Similarly, a graph theorist like yourself will find it easier to prove theorems of form 3. than the rest of us. (At least half of th. 2 seems easier though. Suppose N divides (N-1)!+1; none of 2...(N-1) divides (N-1)!+1; so none of 2...(N-1) divides N.)

I guess the main confusing part about the Howard-Curry isomorphism is that the code / comment conventions are commonly reversed between proofs and programs. Programs show a sequence of actions, and may show machine state in the comments, e.g.

...

x = x * f; //x now contains factorial(n)

...

Proofs show state instead (i.e. the proposition that was proven so far), and may contain the operation in the comments:

...

(x + y) ^ 2 = (x + y) * (x + y)

Using the distributivity of addition:

(x + y) ^ 2 = (x + y) * x + (x + y) * y

...

In either case, you:

- start with an initial state

- choose a sequence of operations from an existing set

- end up with a desired state

If either your program or proof has bugs, there are certain initial states that will break some step in the operation sequence and cause an undesired final state.
github: https://github.com/lynaghk/c2

video intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...
How so? Criminals are fined or arrested, not prompted to enter authentication information or sync devices via this approved route.

Do you think locking your front door treats everyone else in the entire world as a criminal?
The math for calculating the mouse pointer position seems off, even in full screen mode.
Is mark zuckerberg a risk factor for Facebook IPO?
Excellent answer on Quora from Adam Trachtenberg about conference ticket price: http://www.quora.com/Tech-Events/Why-are-tech-conferences-so...
Code aging:Can a computer program age?
That is what aidenn0 seems to be talking about, but that's not what Penrose is talking about. Penrose is very clear that the predictions of QM are extremely accurate. His contention is that the implications of QM cannot be true (that there must be parallel worlds or "it doesn't matter what's really happening in a superposition of states, just that the predictions are accurate"), therefore QM as it is today cannot be a part of any single unified theory.
It's all about the vps services now. I have a decent one, in a country with almost no threat of being taken down :)
Ask HN: Best place to find short-term Python/Erlang gigs/contracts?
I'm aware of the big ones like odesk, rentacoder, elance, &c... but I was wondering if anyone knew of lesser-known and specific sites for Python or Erlang programming?

I'm building my own startup but I'm finding myself in a position where I need some extra cash and doing a short term gig is the only thing I can really think of.
Here is a different perspective from another attendee: http://mynokiablog.com/2012/05/04/mnb-reader-generated-fact-...

I must say I am a little disappointed that rants like these are now on HN front page.
On top of this, when Apple releases new frameworks, the Obj-C users get to use them immediately. People using weird bridges are giving their competition a huge time boost by voluntarily delaying their own access to the new stuff.

I worked for a company doing Mac apps in REALbasic for several years, and this was a constant hassle. Additionally, RB chose the wrong backend for their compiler (Carbon instead of Cocoa) and there were multiple years of setbacks due to Apple hemming and hawing about whether they were going to deprecate Carbon altogether and RB porting their entire framework to Cocoa. During that process, everybody who emigrated to Objective-C got their stuff to market sooner, and with access to newer libraries to boot.