skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think I'll explode if I hear one more ukelele-backed tech promo video this week.
Google summer of code 2012 by numbers
Highcharts without a doubt
It's unfortunate, because from a technical and aesthetic standpoint, these icons are mostly rock solid, and they deserve some praise for that.

But from a human/usability standpoint (what actually matters), I agree that they are indeed a failure. Let's hope they're ready to use that technical prowess to iterate.
I think one of the questions you have to ask yourself is whether your primary responsibility to protect the interests of your real users (the non-patent trolls) or to take a stand against people you don't like.

This would be a much easier decision if we sold a discrete product. A grocery store or Amazon.com can deny someone service and then they can go shop somewhere else. No big deal. Our users store their most important business data with us for years. How can our legitimate users trust us if they think they might wake up one day and be banned?

Thanks for the comment, this is definitely an interesting discussion.

By the way, I can tell you that I personally wouldn't have a problem with someone using the software for something illegal but not necessarily unethical (like selling drugs). The problem is that as soon as they tell you they're doing that, you're effectively assisting them in the illegal activity which makes me a criminal. That's the main reason why we have to take action when someone tells us they're using the CRM to do something illegal (not that it's ever happened).
IPads are so user friendly, that apes are using them to communicate
A High Klout Gets You Into Cathay Pacific’s SFO Lounge
i should also mention, another surprising feature that came out as significant was the flesch reading ease of the resume (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch%E2%80%93Kincaid_readabil...)
When has Amazon or Twitter ever had any trouble raising cash?
They should make an app for that - I think it would have more users.
Robots learn to pick up oddly shaped objects
Node.js is not a fad. It represents the first workable JavaScript-based server with mass appeal. The real story is that JavaScript is here to stay. There have been other server-side JavaScript frameworks in the past, but none of them have taken off like Node.js. If Vert.x wins over the JavaScript crowd, then that's great, because coders will be able to write JavaScript.
The page you point to says:

Read the original story at KARE11.com

That links here: http://www.kare11.com/news/article/975543/396/Man-who-put-re...

Why not point to the actual source as the guidelines say? You've been on HN long enough to know about the guidelines, so I'm curious as to why you've lunk to the one you have.

Further, the original says:

Copyright 2012 KARE. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast,
rewritten or redistributed.
This is why I suggest having the TOS specially list prohibited categories of activities.

And no, I don't recommend any kind of checks at the front gate. Like I said, you'd just have to enforce your policy when something was brought to your attention.
I agree somewhat and I disagree somewhat. At one point, I helped to moderate a religious discussion community, several hundred listed members. The Community Founders had set up a bunch of odd rules which sort of made sense given the history. For example, when you mix religion and Internet, civility becomes an issue. But after some situations where both of the insult-flingers were telling the mods "hey, cut it out, we're having fun here!" they had decided that we would only get involved when someone complained. That worked until people started trolling other members and then tried to complain when they were abused in return, as if they hadn't been trying to pick a fight in the first place. So they had also decreed that we might issue warnings for wasting our time, to get rid of these new trolls. But then people became afraid of complaining, because this process was difficult to make honest and transparent.

The "lower level" mods among us mostly tried to keep the peace without disciplinary actions, then: we would just say, "hey, this discussion is getting too heated: cool down, come back tomorrow, we're all humans here." This wasn't too bad, but some of our mods had these sorts of "itching-for-a-showdown" personalities, and I guess people always were a little worried about the powers we technically held. In the end it was gaining a reputation for being too abrasive, which meant good-hearted religious people didn't come by anymore. It reminded me of nothing so much as Sartre's statement, "we have the war we deserve."

I guess the lesson that I'm trying to articulate is that, especially in Internet communities, transparency is necessary to alleviate fear, but inaction can lead to your community passively falling astray from its goals, discouraging the members who you want.

When community is at stake, as it is in Facebook and Google, there is a higher-order priority. You have to decrease worldsuck and foster awesome[1]. That is a somewhat arbitrary priority, and creating rules and transparency around it can seem like an impossible task.

[1] Cheers, nerdfighters.
Yes.

Just don't complain when all the religious customers go away.
So, a couple reasons:

1. Unless you're doing an absolute ton of spending on your rewards credit card, any fees you pay on your credit card probably wipe out any cash you're getting back. If you're not paying fees yourself, merchants or other institutions may be subsidizing your rewards in ways that aren't sustainable. Many rewards programs have been slashed during the financial crisis of the last several years.

2. Cash-back rewards make your personal accounting more complicated. If you really want to set and meet financial goals, you need to be keeping close tabs on what you spend on what card, how much you're getting back in rewards, what fees you're paying, and where those reward dollars are going so that you're actually accumulating wealth (saving account, brokerage account, etc.). Our model combines an interest-bearing account with the ability to easily track your financial goals. Keeping it all in one place is, in our experience, way easier.

We're not crazy about the idea of rewards programs, but it's also not something we've completely ruled out. If we can find a way to do a rewards program that has clear incentives for our customers, merchants, and our partner institutions, we'll explore that.
Not that I have anything to do with it, but two issues come to mind immediately: it may be easier to get organic search traffic for the idea, and it is a good way of keeping projects nice and separate.
Sorry, I know it's been a long wait. We hope it'll be worth it.
Well technically you did, by opening the JSFiddle.
Are you seriously bashing their icons based on the number of people on the team? How can you pass any kind of judgement without knowing what went in to planning, designing, testing, and deploying the change? If you think you could do something similar with fewer resources, either go do it and show us, or stop raining on someone else's parade.
It would surprise me because there just isn't that much time being spent in JavaScript on this test. Do the math.

If a program spends 2% of its time in V8, 10% of its time in the network stack, and 80-something% of its time reading a file from disk, then how can you even consider that you can make it 10 times more effective by optimizing away the 2%? Even if the JVM was 100 times faster than V8, then you would expect to get faster by a factor of just slightly less than 2%.

Ie, if you were seeing 1000 requests per second before, and you're spending 2% of your time parsing and running actual JavaScript, and you make the VM go to literally zero latency (which is impossible, but the asymptotic goal), then you'd expect each request to take 2% less time. So, they'd go from an avg of 1ms to 0.98ms. Congratulations. You've increased your 1000qps server to 1020.4 qps.

On the other hand, if you take the 80% of time spent reading the file over and over again, and optimize that down to zero (again, impossible, but the asymptote that we approach as it is reduced), then you would expect every request to take 80% less time. So, your 1ms response becomes a 0.2ms response, and your 1000 qps server is now a 50000 qps server.

So, no, if you respond to 10x as many requests, it's almost certainly either a bug in the benchmark, or some apples-to-oranges comparison of the work it's doing. I called out one obvious issue like this, that the author is using a deprecated API that's known to be slow. But even still, it's not THAT slow.

You can't summon speed out of the ether. All you can do is reduce latency, and you can only reduce the latency that exists. Even if your VM is faster, that only matters if your VM is actually a considerable portion of the work being done. The JVM and V8 are both fast enough to be almost negligible.
RPC is an anti-pattern.

I've been beating this drum for years, but it feels awfully lonely...

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2317568

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2972345
Right, hence the reason they do technically have that right, but don't expressly have that right.
Interesting... there have been lots of times I've wanted this kind of functionality in jQuery selectors or XPath...

But I just realized I've never once felt like I needed it in CSS. Can anyone give me a real-world example where this would actually be useful for styling? I almost worry this might make CSS more difficult to understand, rather than easier to write.
How we serve 150 free meals every week for less than $30
Thanks for replying, though I seem to have given the wrong impression. I am a former military wife. One of my children was born in Germany. I have told him it would be a bad idea to just show up in Germany. My understanding is he has dual citizenship and could potentially be drafted. The discussion here made me wonder if there might be more info online regarding potential repercussions of his status. I have no plans at this time to move outside the country, so I was not inquiring about pursuing dual citizenship.

Again, thanks for responding.
Oh, I agree that C++ doesn't make much sense as a first language in 2012. I was just pointing out that a few years ago, the trend was toward teaching Java which is, in my opinion, even worse as a first language because you're forcing people to immediately dive into dealing with classes before they even understand what a class is.

Today, I'd agree that Python -- and possibly Ruby -- is a better first language, but when this was happening they weren't particularly mature. You just didn't have the kind of mature, syntactically-clean, object-oriented languages available that you do now. Even so, I never understood why you'd choose Java with all its excess syntax to teach a beginner.
It's not a dumb question at all.
The technical implementation is interesting, but from a usability perspective, I found these icons to be pretty terrible
A boost for quantum reality
Yeah, Roll popping up and explaining shit was one thing I hated about Megaman Legends. Pretty good game otherwise, though.
Apple decided to not make the battery bay quick swappable to exchange the space and weight cost of a battery bay for more battery. The battery is rechargeable, replacing a battery is a once 2/3 years affair for %90 of users. Replacing an apple laptop battery is pretty easy in practice. The popularity of apple devices also gives us the very well made ifixit guides:

http://www.ifixit.com/Device/Mac

The pentalobe screws are pointing to not wanting to be repaired by non apple techs although.
I'm not following this. Does it mean the GIL is finally gone?
Show HN: An iOS game for kids (and only for kids)
I should have been more clear. What I meant by those example is that the companies were not profitable in their early years, and paying employees may have been difficult without the capital they had raised.
What I like in d3 is that it leaves completely free to do whatever you want, be it simple bar charts or complicated stuff. I don't like integrative libraries that don't allow you to make your graphs evolve.

I used it to build animated line charts but those are a bit more complex (you have to use SVG paths with Bezier curves which are a pain to calculate ...)
Another point worth noting is that many (should be all) papers are readily available (legally) as preprint PDFs (which is usually almost the same as the final version), if the creator bothers to place a preprint online, and most academics would be happy to email you a copy of their work should you ask anyway. So it's not like publishers are forcing someone in a walled garden, it's just that academics still prefer to be in there. So, these attacks on Elsevier are shooting the messenger, but it seems it's the only way to get to the sender here.
C++11 multithreading tutorial - part 3
If Google and Facebook have clear TOS terms forbidding the middle figure and pseudonyms, then I don't see anything wrong with them enforcing those guidelines. (Provided of course they don't ban people who they incorrectly deem to be in violation, which is a whole other can of worms.)

Likewise, if you have clear TOS terms regarding prohibited activities like patent trolling, then patent trolls should just refrain from signing up. I don't see what would cause the "state of fear" provided customers are clear on what the rules are.
What if it's a physical storefront? Would you be ok with, say, an ice cream parlor run by christians that put up a sign saying atheists are not welcome?

Note, this actually happened, and people were outraged. http://freethinker.co.uk/2011/11/23/missouri-ice-cream-shop-...
Man who put resume on billboard gets a job
That's really cute.

I'm a visual thinker and find it easier to grasp things where I can see the pattern unfolding. So I find the typed comments clearer than an audio overlay.

Played the CSS family tree "codecast" knowing very very little CSS. No idea you could do that with just CSS.
You are correct on all points here. Stability and trust are very important in this market. Obviously, we are planning on being around for a long time, but it may take a little while for everyone to gain confidence in us. The best thing we can do is to keep iterating and prove that we are building something that's meant to last.

As far as building trust goes, we plan to automate the process of exporting your data soon, but until then we will provide it upon request at any point.

We also stick to open standards and open source software wherever possible so that your code is not dependent on any proprietary technology from us or anyone else. Our own server code is based completely on widely supported open source projects, ranging from Node to Redis.

Finally, we are open sourcing our own stack as aggressively as we can and already offer limited licenses to firms that are concerned about being dependent on our code.

In short, we're doing everything we can to ensure that you are never "locked in" to our technology or any one else's. Our goal is keep innovating so that you don't want to use another solutions.
Uh... did github just axe blog comments from all non-drinkup posts?
I would pay for Maps for iOS if it had the features of the Android version. It's the only app I miss since switching but I would never consider going back just for Maps.
In the broadest sense, net neutrality's an abrogation of companies' rights to set terms for their products and allow consumers to agree or disagree. It limits the pricing and service dynamic.

Specifically for the net, it's a concession that we need gov't to wield the ultimate authority over detailed aspects of the Internet and step into many disputes between private parties if the specter of non-neutrality is raised (and of course it will be). You might think it's in your immediate favor, but voting for net neutrality isn't really voting for equal packet treatment: it's voting for government control over packet treatment, which will be turned against you in ways you haven't foreseen.

Net neutrality is like saying I can't open a store w/out handicap access, even though handicapped folks have the option of a) passing by my store to another; or b) finding a way to shop at mine because it's closer and has lower prices. "Shop neutrality" would dictate that if I won't treat everyone equally - although it's clear in my terms - I just shouldn't exist. There are those who agree with this analogy, too, of course.

You suppose the government should be the ultimate arbiter of what options should be on offer, rather than the entrepreneur and the market of free people? A dangerous way to look at it, I think.

No, the telecoms aren't by any stretch unregulated as it is. But if that's your complaint, tackle it from that direction, not by badly regulating bad regulations.
Haha! Or insert Pascal in there and try out some FreePascal, the perennial number 5 to 8 on most the alioth shootouts for the past 20 years.
It looks like a regression (it is the first time that I say it with a redesign). From the technical point the might be great, but they are more bold and result in a pages that look less clean.

However I don't care about the icons so much, what I want is:

- better notifications / activity stream

- like button

- improved diff (highlight only the changes inline if a line changed slightly)
So Microsoft provides virtual machines with IE on them? And they're for VirtualPC? That's kind of hilarious, although it'll probably seem less so next time I need to debug something in IE.
Yes, the version of free speech where you need to feel free to say whatever you want without concern for how it might impact others or make your own community hostile to entire swaths of the population.

Because if I want to be a careless, self centered, unsympathetic human being then that's my right and how dare someone point out I might be harming others!

And the author did expect those accusations which is why in his blog comments he links back to month old comment of his on hackernews where he defends his right to be offensive.
Not really... it's not a right that they have. They have the ability to do it, but it's not a right that was ever granted to them, and they're breaking their oath when they do it.

I have the ability to sneak into my neighbor's house and steal his things. It's implicitly built into the system where I live next door to him, and he's not always home. But I sure don't have the right to do that.
Does anyone know any more specific proposals for how the city will be laid out or what laws will be adopted?
Pretty interesting. Before jumping to conclusions let me ask how many variables (time of day, wording of subject, frequency of sent emails, history of relationship with the recipient etc.) can you claim to "have under control"? Did you start CCing Alex for all 70 recpients? I'm asking coz there might be several explanations for the effect (assuming it's statistically significant and methodologically acceptable)
As a result, about 20 customers that had purchased a specific device at sparkfun that had delivery in Georgia had their information given to the police to use in this investigation.

I really want the people running the skim operation caught, but I agree with Nate (the sparkfun guy) that it is a very fine line harassing the others that are (most likely) blameless.

Am I reading this correctly that then these 20 people have their info in the public record after this trial closes? wow... not sure I'd want my name on that list.

At first I thought it was this[1] device, but on closer reading of the article it indicates a sparkfun silkscreen on a board, which I don't think the mag reader would have.

Has anyone figured out which board was in the offending device?

[1] http://www.sparkfun.com/products/8634
Yes (although so far only in this branch of PyPy). It basically uses fine-grained locking instead of a global lock. I can't explain it simply so I'll just point to recent discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3941642 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3464484 and the beginning of this project https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2710235
This is the first of what hopes to be many releases of pypy using STM for multithreaded safety. Up until this release Armin had a special API for creating and running transactions. Now he has wrapped python's threading module to use STM, see http://morepypy.blogspot.com/2012/05/stm-update-back-to-thre... for more information.

Note that this is independent of CPython development.
Tiny Insights. Big Data.
SparkFun is lucky that the subpoena was for one of their products being used in a credit card skimmer and not an improvised cruise missile.

Also, protip for criminals: make your own circuit boards without identifying marks.
Why isn't this SVG? Font icons are only applicable when there is actually an appropriate corresponding Unicode character for the icon, as text is supposed to be selectable/copyable, and display fine (albeit in a different typeface) if I turn off web fonts and have full Unicode coverage. Some of the icons that Github implements are in Unicode, yet they don't even use the characters for those.

For an example of when it's appropriate to use a custom font for an icon, I use a custom font for U+1F50D Left-Pointing Magnifying Glass in the search button on my website. Github uses U+F22E [INVALID] instead for their search icon.
This is seriously cool. Watching live programs in execution appeals more to me than just watching a video for some reason.

I hope there's other language support in the future. Good luck!
Mathematics Departments are going to be the heros in lowering the costs to access scholarly journals, in all disciplines.

It has to start somewhere.

Low cost, online education, which is a popular topic here on HN, is a neat idea. But to really make it worthwhile, the student needs full access to all academic journals.

For that to happen, the paywalls have to come down.
Handwriting.
Simple requires you to have an existing bank or credit card account too, right??
NavDroyd is an offline turn-by-turn navigation app.
If anybody was thinking of dismissing their decision off-hand, consider these:

Pharmacists refusing to sell the morning-after pill
Refusing to sell computer equipment to HFT firms
Banning a child not vaccinated against polio from a swimming pool
Cutting off the water supply to your local homeopathy practitioner

The world is full of petty tyrants. Tyranny of the majority via the law may not be ideal, but it might be the best we can hope for.
couldnt agree more -
Was just checking my comments, and realized I recognized your username. WPI?
I like to symlink to MacVim like so:
/usr/local/bin/vim -> /usr/local/bin/mvim
/usr/local/bin/vimdiff -> /usr/local/bin/mvim

Then put /usr/local/bin higher up in my $PATH. Works like a charm.
Did Disqus just bet the farm on identity?
To be a bit pedantic: the multiprocess module works fine for multiple cores in regular cpython, I actually used it for a little graphics program I wrote. Nice to see the GIL gone for multithreading though :)
>It depends how you measure quality.

Aggregate stats across a number of areas plus opinion is a reasonable measure, albeit imperfect. Again I have provided many stats and figures and nobody has provided anything contrary other than assertions (and in one case cast some doubt over the Internet penetration). One would suspect that if the education is so good in Argentina people would have better researched arguments (ok that's a low blow, but people are downvoting). Feel free to provide another measure though. I don't think the roles will be reversed, though it might come out even under another measure as they are close in this one.

I think we broadly agree on your other point.
Google+: a mobile app with sense and soul
Lather and Nothing Else

http://www.plymouth.k12.wi.us/OldSite/Staff%20Home%20Pages/H...
The Secret Bank Bailout is Neither Secret Nor a Bailout
Correct. We do not yet work well offline. Request buffering, data storage, and synchronization are on our roadmap.