skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is a novel concept for blocking ads but not a practical one for blocking "parasites". It's not clear to me what they are referring to when they say "parasites". Regardless, the intrepid hooligans go through domains and subdomains like nobody's business. Hosts files are no match.
The Origin of Income-Tax Withholding
I agree, also wish there was more info on a technical roadmap. It is something I'll be looking to cover more in depth over the coming months.
Merry Secular Christmas!
who is voting this up and why?
Prius used as an emergency generator
He's comparing two over-extended empires. It is very far from absurd to class the United States as an unsustainable empire.
An editor is more like a "toy" than a "game" (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=407816), because it lacks goals.

This “toy” should be the core mechanic of the game minus any goals or decisions. There is no win or lose state, just a fun thing to play with.

I liked ken's comment about Mirror's Edge not unlocking abilities, but you can't use them til you encounter the appropriate geometry in the environment (or I think, maybe you could use them before, but you didn't need to, as there were simpler more obvious ways to complete the task using abilities that you already knew about).

For example: movement in an editor. The cursor keys will allow you to do anything; but the word-movement keys can often do what you need more efficiently. Then, in vim (using it as an example because I know it), you can search to the right using "f<somechar>", and there's also F, t, T, ; and ,.

Interestingly, I've only really started to use the latter ones after years, because I'm having a touch of RSI, and I have a need for fewer keystrokes.

One could convert vim (for example) from a toy into a game by adding goals. These goals would have progressively greater difficulty such that they need the more sophisticated controls to accomplish them.

Having a need for something gives you a motivation for learning it; but it also makes it cognitively easier to learn. When you have a gap or lack in your mind crying out for a solution, acquiring the solution that fits that gap makes you feel "ah, that's better!". This makes it more memorable; and creates a strong link from the problem to the solution, making the solution accessible to you the next time you need it - making it useful to you, in practice.
I assume you meant to reply to my comment above instead of to Eliezer. The article leaves out one important fact (I saw the same news on Engadget but it linked to a more detailed article.) Apparently, the girl broke a record when she was 3 years old by reciting a certain humungous 1300-verse, 1900-year old text written in an ancient version of Tamil. Recently there have been a number of kids doing it at younger and younger ages and getting on TV. That's what prompted my "dog show" comment and I stand by it.
Most Europeans have never set foot in a modern American or Asian city. Most Asians have never set foot in a modern American or European city.

Your point still holds, but too many people use that factoid as some sort of slight against Americans when it's really not.
I learned about it in 2005, when I read it on http://pragdave.pragprog.com/pragdave/2005/11/symbolto_proc.... and it's such a good idea that they've folded it into 1.9 http://www.infoq.com/news/2008/02/to_proc-currying-ruby19
Ah, that makes sense. I'm not sure why I thought EBS was stored on S3. Thanks for the detail.
Twas the night before Christmas and all through the stack

Not a pointer was dangling, the place was a hack

The coders were all zonkered and crashed out on couches

With their screens all dimmed out and hands on their mouses

And I in my Code Monkey Shirt, and Maw in her cap

Had just settled down for a long winter's nap

When out on the quad there arose such a clatter

I sprang to the window to see what's the matter

When what to my wondering eyes did appear

But PG riding a sleigh, and giving out free gear!

That's all I got folks -- it's late and time to do the dad duties before sacking out. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
Character is how you deal with people who aren't nice.

It's amazing to me how many people have still not come to terms with that truth. It's written in the oldest books in the world. I think it's particularly apt for the Internet age when conversations with strangers happen regularly.
There's a stick sex scene in the last panel, knowing xkcd.
Why do people see strength where there is only reactionary weakness? What is it about returning hate for hate that is so refreshing and liberating? There is nothing but waste on both sides.

Look... there will always be people spewing hatred at you. If you spew back, you have accomplished nothing other than to inspire more hatred. Maybe we think that's cool? Maybe if someone does it with style it makes it cool? Why is it that any other reaction that doesn't involve spewing hatred back get labeled as hypocritical counterfeit? Why must "saying what's really on your mind" involve some form of malevolence? Is that the only response that humans can have when insulted? Is it because it's funny?

If we are to keep HN a decent community, this kind of reactionary behavior should not be encouraged.
A Silicon Valley Christmas Tale
How mighty of you. You can buy silly mechanical fart machines, cds of farts, whoopee cushions, etc - all of which are many times more expensive (and less fancy) than iFart. So all those people that are looking for a tech bargain and think loud stinking gas emitted from a human anus is hilarious are in luck.

Outside of your self-righteous indignation, of course.
Currently I only localize things, if I have a friend that I trust very well that knows the language. Basically no matter what service I use, I am going to want to check it myself.

If you establish trust I will be very interested in this type of service.
Remembering how rare, and how emblematic of family wealth, foreign travel was when I was growing up, I'm amazed these days at how many Americans I know who have been to both Asia and Europe. The people I know would claim to be only "middle class," not at all rich, but they are well traveled.

The United States has been issuing passports by the millions for quite some time.

http://travel.state.gov/passport/services/stats/stats_890.ht...

Note that unlike some other countries, there is essentially no domestic use for a United States passport. United States citizens get passports if they are traveling overseas, and until recently travel to Canada and Mexico without passports was quite routine. So there are evidently plenty of Americans who have had a chance to go look around and learn from other countries. I would be quite happy to hear of more: in many respects, I think four years spent doing almost ANYTHING overseas and living in the local economy of a country with another language is more educational than four years spent pursuing a college degree, but meanwhile plenty of Americans, for business or for pleasure, do plenty of foreign travel.
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Anyone notice the "BETA" on the Bill & Melinda Gates site?

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/
" Professional parents are always looking for things to help their children. My son was very intelligent but had ADD, so it was very difficult to keep him engaged with standard materials."

"The problem comes when parents use direct methods: when they are able to use their own wealth or power as a substitute for their children's qualities.

Parents will tend to do this when they can. Parents will die for their kids, so it's not surprising to find they'll also push their scruples to the limits for them. Especially if other parents are doing it." - PG, After Credentials

This is why the Princeton Review, Kaplan, etc. make fortunes. Test prep is probably the easiest to make, most profitable type of education software.
What time does walmart close on christmas eve?
Although I wouldn't go so far, I think you have a point. If we are to believe the arguments in The Selfish Gene about evolutionary principles applying to ideas and culture, then it is likely that without Bill Gates in the world, someone like him would have appeared and played a similar role to promote the personal computer in business.
Things I Hate: Video That Auto-plays
Merry Christmas. May you have tons of startups next year! (so that one of them gets successful by pure chance) :)
Toy vs Game, an interesting distinction in this context.
You need to throw baby Jesus in there somewhere

Maybe before the part where you're in your underwear
Bah, humbug! :)
Nice paper. Choice quote:

"Unless I'm badly mistaken, in most processes today—and sadly in most important areas of technology research—the administrators seem to prefer to be completely in control of mediocre processes to being "out of control" with superproductive processes. They are trying to "avoid failure" rather than trying to "capture the heavens"."
Happy Christmahannikwanzikah!
I agree with you.

My point is just that there _is_ a drastic difference between Zed-in-person and Zed-online.
Haha it wasn't a counter argument (as I tend to agree with you), it was commentary about what happens over and over again: two opposite sides arguing with no one changing their minds.

Your apology is accepted anyway - Merry Christmas :).
That's a very nice song.
Problems with opening CHM Help files from Network or Internet
The difference between you and her is that she did it and you dismissed her accomplishment no matter how little.
> Excel, for example, is one of the single best pieces of software I've ever used.

Let's consider Excel. It's a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets were invented by Dan Bricklin, and since VisiCalc, many have been written. It's therefore clear that without Bill Gates, spreadsheets would still exist -- no doubt you'd be describing another one as the best software you're ever used.

> What I don't like is the knee-jerk reaction that anything he or Microsoft does is evil, and anything that Apple/Google/etc. does is good.

Well don't complain about it to me, I'm not asserting either of these!

> We can still learn from him as a businessman

Indeed so. The way he pulled the wool over IBM's eyes and stole control of the desktop from under their noses was masterpiece of business strategy.
the phrase predatory lending makes no sense to me. are people no longer adults responsible for their own decisions?

guess that died in 1933.
>The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.

No, not really. Babies need to learn to latch properly or it hurts the mother.
Best why?
Does anybody else here think the phrase should be changed to "Happy Christmas?"
Outsourcing, it just plain rocks
Their brand clearly inspires a lot of cultlike devotion. Charismatic leader, followers who overlook their own flaws and magnify those of everyone else, feelings of persecution (fading since Microsoft's antitrust suit ended).

OSX users often look down on Windows users, as if they just don't know better. They say things like "OSX is inherently better than Windows" without specifying what it's better at or pausing to consider that there are many reasons to choose an OS, and by a very large number of metrics (compatible programs, compatible hardware, price, variety, ease of finding someone who can help you with problems, etc.) Windows crushes OSX. In fact, by almost any easily quantifiable measure, Windows is better.

Apple's been the hip underdog, ironically largely because of spending billions of marketing bucks to style themselves that way, and I think Steve Jobs's tyranny over the tech-related media.

I'm not saying any of that about you personally, but things like Digg turning into an extension of Apple's PR don't happen to any other brands at all, not even ones like Toyota or Lenovo that consistently make top quality products. The fervor indicates there's a lot more to the fanboyism than just "Apple makes good products." They've struck a chord. Their marketing over the past 5 years may be the best in the entire history of capitalism.

The problem is that Apple users includes everyone who owns an iPod or iPhone, most of whom don't use any other Apple products. You can't keep the underdog luster on the company as a whole when you achieve ubiquity, but they still do with their computers.
With all these fragmentary, unsourced anecdotes about Donald Knuth, one would think he hadn't given numerous interviews and written several actual books.
Feynman - The inconcievable nature of nature
The last time I saw Zed in person was a bit tense, because he had threatened to hunt down my friend Kevin Clark and start a physical fight with him.

He came into a lightning-talk session at railsconf, cut in line to talk about his next project (Utu), and then left without listening to any other talks.
Our unconscious brain makes the best decisions possible
It's a festivus for the rest of us.
The Chinese middle class have it worse than the poor in America.
As an adjective it means relevant. As a preposition (apropos of) it means concerning or related to.

In this case you're asking about things related to the search terms. It mirrors the Unix command that performs searches on man pages.
unsourced ? It's right here: http://www.pbs.org/cringely/nerdtv/transcripts/001.html and linked from the post as well. And it's Andy Hertzfeld one of the original Mac developers who related this incident. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Hertzfeld)

What's wrong per se with anecdotes ? It's a great part of the craftsman tradition.
Five who are changing the face of the Internet
I just cringe every time he says "magically" in reference to software.
were y'all only thinking about the USA?

Yes. Thank you for broadening my perspective.
http://isitchristmas.com/
arrgh! such stuff happens?!
Thank god it was me and my brother who kept annoying our parents to buy us a computer and not the parents pushing me to anything.
I'm not sure about hyper-competitiveness but 2-3 of my college friends from that part of India still get beaten up by their parents.

Why just a microsoft certification ? there can be so much more the girl can do with her abilities!! things that are more fruitful, knowledge that is more universal than a microsoft certy!
The Meaning Of Friendship
whose favorite program is ms paint ?
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I find it hard to believe that they actually advocated using hybrids to give power back to a smart grid. The idea behind "giving back power" is to use renewable sources installed around the home, not to burn gas in a place that is not a power station.
I think that this is a failing of modern science. It leads to fragmentation between fields. Of course most chemists can read a chemistry article, but a brilliant physicists will stumble on the same article without the common language shared among chemists. This makes interdisciplinary collaboration difficult if not impossible. Each field develops their own version of major concepts. I've taken quantum mechanics courses from both the chemistry and physics departments at the same university. They might as well have been speaking different languages the notations and presentation of concepts were that different.This also makes life tough for those entering a field such as grad students and scientists who switch fields.

Magazines such as Scientific American used to help by featuring article geared towards scientist outside their specialty, but now SciAm seams more geared toward the lay reader.

I think many researchers have a deep-seated insecurity that they aren't smart enough. They hide behind jargon and incomplete explanations to make their research appear more complicated than it really is. Most concepts in science and especially computer science are pretty easy when explained well and next to impossible when obfuscated with unfamiliar jargon.

</rant by grad student sick of reading journal articles>
http://www.subbrilliant.com/blog/?p=168
Ask HN: How often do you look at stats? 
I spend a lot of time every day looking at daily visitors/pageviews numbers grow from morning to end of day.

Its exciting but doesn't seem to be the best approach. This leads to -
1. Wastage of time
2. Anxiety leading to sub-optimal decision making, in shorter term

What is the best frequency to monitor and review user metrics? Hourly/Daily/Weekly/Monthly?
All about Replica Handbags
There would be hardly any one who does not know about replica handbags. Handbags such as Louis Vuitton replica handbags, Gucci replica handbags or Chanel replica handbags are designed based on the design of these famous brands. Not everyone can make out the difference between a replica handbag and original designer handbags easily. Replica handbags are designed with such great care so that they have a very close resemblance to the original Louis Vuitton or Gucci handbags in terms of their shape, color and style.
Embarrassing Story. Moral: Take Care of Your Health
For obvious reasons I created a new account for this post.

I just had a miserable 8 days where I suffered from an embarrassing and painful ailment called hemorrhoids which were the byproduct of a two day hack-a-thon. As embarrassing as this is to write, I wanted to provide a word of warning to hopefully prevent someone from having to endure the same annoyance.

Because I have a full-time job and only have weekends to work on our startup, last Saturday-Sunday we coded for 12 hours, slept 5, then coded for another 12. During that time, I sat at my desk for virtually every minute. I was certainly uncomfortable at times, but was getting so much done that I kept telling myself to grin and bear it. This was a catastrophic mistake! You should move around and shift positions a lot. Also, get a good chair. My wood chair with a cushion is not built for long term comfort.

My second error was diet. My diet constituted chips, cookies, soda, and candy. As peculiar as that sounds, I have always found a diet rich in junk food to be advantageous for coding. Turns out, it may help you accomplish more in a few hours, but it could cost you days of lost productivity if your system doesn't handle it well.

Finally on Monday I developed the problem which stemmed from the weekend. Twas a grind of a week and had to miss work nearly all of last week.

Until last week, I thought Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, poor eyesight, and bad posture were the only occupational hazards of hacking. Not so!

I hope by sharing this someone will avoid a repeat situation.

Please list any other warnings or health tips for hackers. And Merry Christmas!
I found Wilder to be significantly creepier than Depp
With that kind of covert channel an active warden system would easily find you modifying traffic or distributing strange packets into the network. Don't forget that a lot of new stateful security has great heuristics abilities.
Actually, Dec 25 == Oct 31, so Happy Hackers Halloween :-).
Qualities of a Good Escort Agency
When you want to hire an escort for the evening, you must make sure that you find a reputed escort agency to book your escort. Here are few qualities or characteristics you should look for in an escort agency.First of all, they should be easily accessible. It is customary to book escorts through phone and when you call them you should not constantly get the busy tone. They should have enough telephone lines to handle their customer calls.
Ask pg: All I want for Christmas is...
...the option for clickable URLs inside self posts.

While waiting on the Mrs. to finish up some last-minute shopping this evening, I was browsing on my iPhone and it was a real drag not being able to get to a URL. This isn't the first time this has happened, as I frequently browse from my phone on my way to work and during breaks.

I understand there's good reason for keeping URLs non-clickable (though at the moment I can't remember why -- way too late for my brain), but what about making it a user option?

Please, pg...

http://www.google.com

...can you make that clickable?
Porn in MS Seadragon
Personally I'm not sure, overall, Mongrel was a good thing. The Ruby web community should have focused on working well with existing web servers (mainly Apache) instead of building their own. Phusion Passenger is, in my opinion, the best thing that ever happened to Ruby in the web space, since Merb & Rails.

I don't know if the Merb/Rails merger would have happened if the ego-inflating hype around Rails was still on. In that sense, maybe Mongrel's main benefit (IMHO) was that it gave Zed credibility which made his "Rail Ghetto" rant significant.

I agree everyone is replaceable, and yet - surprisingly small number of people out of those who have the skills to build such projects actually bother to do it. It's easy to know how to build something, hard to actually do it, from start to finish.
Do they? They live in apartments, drive cars, take the bus, eat many of the same foods from the same chains that we do here. What's so different?

Yeah, ok, they can't march into the street in protest of their government, but are they really that much worse off in the material sense?

Before you break out the numbers - keep in mind that while they make far less than Americans, their cost of living is similarly lower. I find the Chinese urban middle class lifestyle to be comparable to the American middle class lifestyle, sans a few things like a huge backyard.
your pusillanimous attitude towards expletives is copulatively ridiculous.
what ever happened to Nerd tv. Shut down after 1 series? crazy...
I've been wondering, are there Java libs as good as numpy/scipy? Sure, in general Java has more libraries but is that true when it comes to math?

Oh, and great call on Clojure. I've been having fun with it too.
Bah, innovation in search. Who could have thought. Microsoft looks like a looser. So pathetic.
The irony of that is that NeXT served as the basis for Mac OS X.
You have as much chance making the front page of Digg (or a popular subreddit) as you do getting your preferred policies enacted by the government - essentially zero.

The entire article was a description of how to go about consistently getting articles on the front page. It takes months of work and effort into ensuring that you are noticed as a "power user". It's not easy, but there's nothing stopping people from putting in the effort if they really wanted to.

As to preferred policies in the government... I have no idea. I'm assuming that if you put in years of work starting a special interest group and doing fund raising for politicians, you might be able to get a rider attached to a bill.
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All I want for christmas is an official git repo of arc.
_I may have been a little mean in my other comment - but you're on the right track to having a real startup. I've had probably 5 serious projects that eventually got abandoned because a) no business model, b) no users, and c) stupid idea. But the knowledge I gained by creating these projects? Priceless._

No worries Dave. I don't take stuff like that personally. I have appreciated the experience of getting all the feedback. Creating this crappy project makes me super-excited for the next one, and I agree about the learning. I've learned a great deal from this.

_It's better to fail & learn on crappy projects so when you find a great idea you can just knock it out of the park._

Totally agree.
Here's the feature request thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363
Simple OSS Edutainment Game
This is just a simple open source edutainment game I threw together this afternoon. I'd like to see what people think of it and if anyone has anything to add to it.

The idea, right now, is to add numbers together to hit the target number, and gain points to change the target value.
I have this hosts file on my router. Greatly reduces bandwidth and increases speed.
Posting to that thread feels like tossing an idea into a black hole.