skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Wow. I'm in the UK, and the main reaction I'm getting from reading all these comments is "Wow, is US education really that bad?"

Seriously, High School is 1300 hours of 'busy work'? Or just memorising lists of facts?

The equivalent period of my education in the UK could in no way be described in this way.

It's not really this bad, is it? It's just people dissing studying things they don't want to study, right?
You make a good point, but I don't think it's true for me. I just spent the last two weeks only using my MBP in the lounge, leaving my Mac Pro and 30" ACD gathering dust upstairs :) I'm now back upstairs, however.. it's all about the variety in my case.
I thought getting a column required that you know nothing ;p well on the internets anyway
I read it like that as well, ryan[...]. The story is still interesting though. It is actually a pretty cool hack since most first year students will likely see no reason not to join these groups upon receiving an invitation. I can't think of another type of group that would have such widespread appeal and can be used (seemingly) reliably to attract 1 million+ users and push ads or whatever else.

...and if you employ the method described in the article using legit accounts it is not against fb's T&C. There are rules against creating an ACCOUNT that does not accurately represent you but you can create a GROUP that you don't belong in...so I would say it is a pretty cool hack.
> Word to the wise: Start-ups and hacking aren't the solution to everything.

You're right in a general sense: x and y aren't the solution to everything, for any value of x or y.

However, you're wrong in this particular sense: if you would've read the article, you'd have seen that groups are combating slavery by offering microloans to former slaves to start businesses. So, entrepreneurship can be a solution, in part, to slavery.
I picked up Beginning J2ME (http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-J2ME-Novice-Professional-Thi...) earlier this year when working on a mobile application for BB and it was pretty handy. You should know that RIM provides additional apis on top of J2ME that let you create more native-feeling BB applications (and it's worth learning imo) - for this I used tutorials online and RIM's api documentation.

The developer of BBSmart, Neil Sainsbury, used to have a really helpful blog at http://devberry.com, but I believe he took it down after his frustrations with RIM (it's like "shouting at a brick wall").
his anonymous blocks ( 1 + ) look straight from false, http://wouter.fov120.com/false/ with different syntax, but the same idea: 2 [ 1 + ] ! leaves 3 as top of stack.
SVG Is The Future Of Application Development
hmmm...plane off runway, down embankment, loses an engine, cracked fuselage, large fire engulfs entire right side of fuselage partially melting over head bins, making some exits on the right side unusable...yeah I think this qualifies. I'm not sure if miraculous is the right word, but I am amazed how many "news" stations are passing this off as nothing.
Implementing this option (as an official HN feature) could be done entirely in Javascript (meaning no need to worry about building more shit into the server) and completed in under an hour.

It would be cool if there were an "HN Labs" that suggested feature submissions and allowed users to add them to their accounts as profile extensions.

Setting up HN links with _blank is also a trivial solution to implement on your own though.
Social Media Online Branding & Establishing Presence With An Online Identity
I would say agile is neither pure snake oil nor pure panacea. The fundamental idea of agile is to empower each programmer to start doing something without having to be held back by the complex dependencies of "big up front design".

Test Drive Development and typeless languages are at the heart of this. They let each programmer "start in the middle" so that the team is no longer working according to the situation where most of the team is hemmed in by the one guy working on the "critical path" and you no longer have to construct a whole, working system to see if your code works.

Now, the assumption of agile is that writing tests, refactoring and working at a constant, unhurried speed, a team is enough to allow the team to avoid "technical debt" - being hobbled by a design which the application has outgrown.

My experience, however, is that if Water Fall over-estimates the upfront design an application, agile underestimates it. It is quite possible to have serious design flaws in applications which have been developed via TDD. Architecture is a many-layered thing. For example, typeless languages are great for doing duck-type-based tests but they defining and reimplementing a documented interface hard. Typed languages are the opposite. Also, it is easy to write tests which assume a given architecture so that refactoring an architecture can thus suddenly becomes something everyone avoids - just the old situation where no one fixed structural bugs but instead worked around them.

Overall, there is no easy solution.
I hope you're kidding. Reports from the field about bugs in every operating system come in for years. I've heard nothing about systemic graphics card driver problems.

I don't think it's fair to take a report from someone with a clear anti-drm agenda and assume from it that Vista is what's causing some else's ATI Catalyst driver to malfunction.
It's the Twitter Effect, again. They're probably upset that citizens are scooping them on "their" news story.
According to my affiliate marketer friends, Myspace is one of the only reliable sources of relatively cheap traffic. Google and Facebook are getting tougher to buy it cheap from.
Ship It Often vs. TDD
That some people was just me!
" But it's not always possible to avoid the grunt work ... even running your own business, someone still has to take out the trash (metaphorically), and the buck stops with you."

An enviable skill is to be able to see past the grunt work to the value down the road.
Internal Data Transfer Objects
> "3. Interface is pretty but not intuitive, "

Agreed, but there's one feature that more than overcomes that -- you can just open up the Start menu and actually type the name of the program/utility/file you want. So just type "Network" and it'll autocomplete. Personally, I almost never do any clicking in the Start Menu.
On a completely unrelated note: I thought Perl was a girl, haha.

(I actually build a AIM bot in Perl when I was in High School, so don't judge me -- I can be nerdy too)
> ... some kind of sexual predator was using social media tools to research victims or something. Or am I the only one who read it like that?

I read it that way too. Maybe the company should change their name to something less threatening, like, uh, Serial Killer.
"That's what I am talking about. We could use a similar dynamic in bioengineering, energy technology, and other important new technologies."

How about developing some simple hacking video courses for kids？ Children can learn the knowledge ,more importantly how to use the knowledge in this way. However, many teachers and parents don't have such skills. Maybe hackers here can work together for kids.
Yeah, it's neat the way the process worked, but I guess I'm unable to see the value in coming up with a novel process to produce more slasher-film garbage. Hollywood regurgitates this crap 10 times a year, except (judging from the trailer) with more polish. They don't need crowdsourcing to add to it.

There's an entire independent film system out there. Lots of plucky people from a gas station in Whereversville end up getting their movie produced that way (or even through the major studios occasionally) every year. Not every movie is written by a John August or a Josh Friedman.

Hollywood is still much more meritocratic than most of the rest of America, and if 4 actors are years away from such a role, there's a good reason for that. The system is flawed and imperfect, and ripe for change, but it still functions at a level where if anyone is so good that they can't be ignored, they'll end up on top. By removing the process entirely, you remove what little quality control remains.

I'm just not sure that making a movie with PHP is a good idea if more of the same crap that's been destroying the industry that some of us still love for 20 years is the result. Perhaps I'm just a curmudgeon clinging to some silly notion of the movie as America's greatest art form, but this looks like something we'd be better off without.
I do love the pac man theme.
I don't use it much, but today I needed it. And it crashed twice on me. Once when I was away from my desk--I came back and was rebooted into fedora (my default). wtf??
http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm
I think the Toyota Way of thinking makes a lot of sense in software development.

It's definitely not just about process control in manufacturing. For example, there is a concept called "standard work" that describes how to do a particular job. I can imagine that being misused in software development. I tend to interpret it as suggesting that all work must be inspected, tested, and under version control (for example) rather than than suggesting that we are on some kind of virtual assembly line and all have to use the same text editor.
I'm not questioning that these are slaves. I'm wondering if the total slave population of previous generations would be higher if we counted all their slaves the same way, not just people who were explicitly labeled "slaves". Just wondering.
I read it as "a person who is a prowler was caught thanks to the miracle of social media". I guess I was skimming.
What if time was multidimensional?
Bravo to the investigation team.

I started doing international business in 2003 when I was 20, and this article says it like it is. I'm really happy to see that people are working hard for institutional change, and the media is noticing. Articles like this put cracks in my cynical shell.

Just like prostitution is a line item in business in Bangkok (In 2005 I was the single white male in a group of asian businessmen recruiting Thai workers for a foreign labour contract, and before almost every dinner the host would bring a dozen girls out and ask us to pick one to be our 'companion' for the evening -- totally standard practice which I've since seen all over Asia), and mispricing on invoices is standard practice almost everywhere too (my first-ever international transaction was from Guatemala, and the shipment came with a commercial invoice of 10% of the real purchase price, to evade taxes, and I didn't even ask for this or know they were going to do it), money-under-the-table-to-government has dramatic, massive consequences for people everywhere, especially in the developing world. But it mostly goes unseen and unmentioned, for obvious reasons.

For those so inclined, Raymond Baker wrote a really good tome on this called "Capitalism's Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free-Market System".
What are the best programming articles?
Sorry, the original URL is http://stackoverflow.com/questions/316461/what-are-the-best-programming-articles
Yeah, don't drop out. I'm you (in terms if your passion) three years ahead. I'm 21 and nearly finished with University, and I was similar to you in High School in the fact that I was writing software, having fun with small-scale start-ups and projects, and had businesses begging me to drop out so I could work for them full-time.

What's different? Not too much. I now have corporations begging me to drop out and work full time, and some really cool jobs lined up for when I'm done. The biggest tip I can give you is this: don't fuck up. You will at some point think that you are awesome and you can drop out of college - don't. Also, if you focus too much on work, business and software without an equal amount of partying and social activity with it, you will feel empty and eventually burn out - a lot of self-management is required here, because if this happens you either persevere in a depressed state, or take a break for a few weeks as you should.

While I'm certainly not "old" yet I've been told myself thousands of times by trusted people both in my family and in the world of work that I'm way too young to take things too seriously. When I'd take this at face value I would think they just didn't understand my passion, my craving to do this fun, exhilarating work. It wasn't until the Christmas party of one of the companies I worked that I understood, as me as my boss spoke for ages in a completely plastered state. There are things out there that are fun, exciting and new that you simply haven't experienced yet, and you couldn't understand how enjoyable they are without at least giving them a shot. This is akin to deciding which programming language is best after only trying one.

Luckily for me, I have been maintaining a balance - or rather, been threatened by my girlfriend of 3 years to maintain a balance "or else", however I can see how easy it would be to grow up too young and miss out on so much. There is no other time in our lives where we have the opportunity to learn, travel or try new things with such little holding us back in terms of responsibility or finances, so we must do these things too!

Don't quit HS/College early, and keep your passion; but the number one rule is maintain balance. Anyone who will hire you now based on your knowledge, work ethic and passion will absolutely hire you 3 years down the track, full-time. Any smart employer would. You will get tempting offers over the period in which you study, but you need to put yourself first, and have not only the degree you get from college, but the experience.

Also, protip: People will complement you over the next few years, over and over again. You will feel on top of the world, and then you will begin to feel superior. Don't. Most of the time this is a test, and you need to stay modest.
SpaceShipTwo Carrier Craft Makes Successful First Flight
It's great as an embedded language. The implementation is so tiny you can effortlessly change the language to change whatever it is you don't like about it.

The C++ bindings aren't so great, last time I checked. The documentation is not of a consistently high quality, but it doesn't matter much because, once again, the language isn't very complex.

I prefer lua to any other embeddable language, including Python.
Ask HN: slicehost-like providers outside the US?
We're running into a bunch of issues at Justin.TV that would be much easier to test with IPs outside of the US. I've tried looking for free web proxies, but those seem to be hard to find, and not very reliable.

I'm thinking of getting us a few accounts with slicehost-like providers outside of the US, which we could use to run any kind of proxies we want. Can anyone recommend some good providers?
For those who haven't seen them:

http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/

http://marmadukeexplained.blogspot.com/

Great arguments for transformative fair use if you ever need them.
It used to be funny when the things it said weren't applicable or related to the real world? Huh.
You're missing the point. Were not talking about the suitability of computers to a specific task. Were talking about literacy rates.
It's hard to tell without being in both. I think it's both busywork and just whining combined.
I can't believe they actually used the slides. I kinda figured those were mostly for show.
http://xkcd.com/482/

http://xkcd.com/485/

I agree it's gone a bit downhill lately though.
Forget about life goals, instead break them down into 1, 5, 10 and 15 year goals, and then maybe tag "life goals" right at the end.

That way people can see something infinitely more important: you have a detailed map of what you want to do and where you want to go within certain timeframes. Though, it's important to know that they aren't stone-set, and should be revised at least twice a year.
yeah, you can add RSS if you want. it's cool.
and I'd love to hear any advice you have.
I'm jackowayed on twitter and gmail
The pretty cool hack of posting straight-up advertisements for an immigration law firm on Usenet (remember those days?) did a lot to ruin Usenet. In self-defense, I suppose Facebook has to figure out a way to reduce the frequency of this kind of hack. If it fails, then Facebook fails long-term, methinks.
I like Vista for the proper 64-bit support, the user-level driver model, and the improved file dialogs. But I agree with all your points.

Server 2008 has SuperFetch off by default, but then again it's not Microsoft's desktop offering.
s/advise/advice
s/ran/run/g
(Or, better yet, switch to the active voice; e.g., "I run TwitPic.")

Cool story nonetheless.
Launchy can do this on XP or Vista, and it's a few magnitudes faster.
Have you looked at Microsoft's BizSpark program? Free enrollment for startups and all the licenses you can eat for 3 years.
I found (and still find) Typing useful, actually.
they seem to focus on the design of the shell, i.e., marketing and lifestyle.

it would be more interesting to look at manufacturing of durable parts.. like in the Volvo 240's which were engineered to last unlike today's plastic shell cars.

a durable car would benefit consumers, the environment, and local manufacturing.

the shell is all psychology, fashion, and fetish. it's boring. what would be radical is to make a car that lasts 20 years.
First, what you really wanna do is learn the basics of Java itself - primitive types, flow structures, conditionals, classes, inheritance, basic data types (vectors, maps) etc. You'll find the syntax has much in common with php and perl, so it won't be alien, although you'll have to adjust to the static typing.

Second, you'll have to learn the specific mobile environment you want to develop for - J2ME, Blackberry or Android. What they all have in common is that they implement the basic java language (which I mentioned above) along with a set of packages/classes that allow your app to run the device.

J2ME is very basic and is meant to run on a very wide range of cellphones (mostly featurephones) and its also quite hard to get access to the nicer APIs (contact info, internet access etc). It is specified by Sun working with phone manufacturers.

Blackberry has its own set of APIs which allow you to access BB specific functions (email, gps, phone etc) and UI elements. This one is defined and implemented by RIM and does not have anything in common with J2ME.

Android, like the BB also has its own set of APIs that allow you to use its UI elements, access its data, etc etc and is driven by Google.

Since you're interested in BB development, most of you apps should be developed (and in many cases will have to be) using the BB API. The BB has the ability to run J2ME apps, but I think that's mostly for compatibility reasons.

Anyway, good luck.
Worth reading. DTOs are an example of class myopia that is all too present in the Java world. really, you don't need to invent a class for a bunch of data. The DTO doesn't do anything except pass a bunch from one component to another. It doesn't have any inherent functionality. Worse yet, it is a tight coupling between the the components in an MVC pattern. If you change the model, you are forced to change the DTO. If uou delete a field from the DTO, you have probably broken the view. It is much better to use a HashMap or JSON as a data transfer. It's much less fragile.
Windows 7 full running on a Netbook
I don't find those two especially funny, just memorable. I read tptacek's comment as a general criticism of xkcd, without the implication that it must be funny to be good.
The best thing about stack-based languages are that the parsers are usually dead simple. I did one in Haskell, never released, and the parser consisted of one standard-library function call: words.
Local consumption is a big growth market in China. Accelerating, I believe. Exports are obviously still important, but more is produced for local production every year.
The "All I want for Christmas is..." Thread
Ok, I'm new here at HN so I've been debating on whether to make this post or not. Now I have.

It's the season so for anyone who celebrates, what would your ideal Christmas gift be?

Come now, even hackers want cool stuff too.
The principles of lean could also be describes as "eliminating poor quality beforehand is far cheaper than scanning for poor quality afterwards" - ("Do not depend on (quality) inspection - build quality into the product and process" EF Deming). Seen this way, lean is even more necessary in software development than in manufacturing.

The problem is that, as you say, determining the exact source of poor quality in software development is more difficult than in manufacturing.
Try minikanren for all your logic programming needs: http://kanren.sourceforge.net/ . :)
I thought the same, but then I realized I did the exact same thing when I was his age. At that age, you're just starting to get your name out there and want to be noticed, so it's not a bad thing. Besides, that website just looks like a resume.

$10bn is an admirable aspiration, but it's not quite a goal (or even a stretch goal). Usually I see the aspiration as the end of the race, and the goals as the individual, clearly-defined steps taken to reach the finish line. In the case of gaining a $10bn net worth, chances are there's going to be a ton of goals along the way =) The whole SMART acronym for goals really is useful here:

http://www.ehow.com/how_2313828_write-smart-goals.html

Most importantly though, don't ever confuse net worth with self worth.
More customers.
Another rant. :-) I think the pattern is sufficiently broken that it is an anti-pattern. Look at the Sun definition http://java.sun.com/blueprints/patterns/MVC-detailed.html. It tries to encompass J2EE and swing. What happens is the pattern gives no good guidance to a programmer. The pet store example is even worse because it gets tangled up in EJBs. My personal pattern is to write the model as a POJO (Plain Old Java Object, no framework cruft) so I can write simple unit tests and to package the result as a HashMap. The view part is also very simple, variables, loops, and ifs, no calculations, no Struts goodies. Life is so much simpler.
http://frro.net/ from singapore
Well, to cheer you up let's talk about Godwin. I read Caleb Williams years ago. It was great - like an 18th century anarchist version of Enemy of the State!
It's very interesting how there seems to be a point now that people are waiting to see if the US is going to maintain it's economic/political/military umph.

This was something being discussed over the past 5 years or so. But since this credit business, it seems like outside of the US, this is what it boils down to.
Amazon EC2 is available in Europe now, so that might suit.

An EC2 pay-as-you-go model (opposed to a Slicehost one) might be a more economical option for testing as well.
Stack-based languages can be fun to play around with.

Way back when, I used Quartus Forth (http://www.quartus.net/products/forth/) to write a few small games for my Palm. Quartus is (was? looks dead...) an onboard Forth compiler -- Forth is a very compact language which is handy when you're writing code with a stylus.

The thing I remember most about it was that the actual coding was probably more fun than that playing the games I wrote. There's a kind of puzzle solving element to learning a stack-based language. I already knew how I'd write such-and-such function in a C-like language, it was all about arranging words in the most succinct, efficient manner possible to create the equivalent function.

I don't think I'd go back to Forth or another stack-based language for a project these days, but I'm glad for the time I spent playing with it.
How else would you get down without stairs?

They deploy automatically when you open the doors unless you specifically disarm them.
Being able to hover the mouse over a citation and get a hyperlink to the referenced paper, abstract, and homepage would be a huge time saver when doing research. PDF can only give the title of the paper and (if you're lucky) where to find it.
The IHSDF Theorem: A Proposed Theorem for the Trade-offs in Horizontally Scalable Systems