skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is encouraging, but I couldn't find the word 'cost' anywhere in the article. Any technology that claims to replace an existing commodity like plastic needs to pass what Vinod Khosla calls the 'Chindia test': if it's not cheap enough to be commercially viable in China and India, it's not going to be successful.
I'd like to hear an answer to this, too. Could it be the magnification? Basically, do these things just work like very low-power reading glasses (say, +0.25)?
Oh man, this brings back memories! I have a physical copy of this book, which I read cover-to-cover, years ago. I even worked at Be for awhile, until they went out of business. Dominic Giampaolo was long gone by then, of course.

The Be file system maintained state that was a lot like database indexes, which could be created by user-level programs. I made specific use of this feature in my first big program for BeOS. When I eventually ported it to MacOSX, I had a lot of additional work to do, because the Mac file system doesn't have anything like that.
My eye doctor also recommended the 20-20-20 rule

Good call! I'd recommend AntiRSI.app (http://tech.inhelsinki.nl/antirsi/) too remind you to do this. It has breaks and micro-breaks. Micro breaks are for your eyes, breaks are for the rest of you as well.
Why would a regular person want to go to a floating utopia? There are no jobs, no agriculture, no manufacturing. Whats the point for a common citizen?

As far as the 10 billion "freedomship"? Whats the point? Why not use that money to hire some mercenaries and go take over some 3rd world country that actually has natural resources you can exploit?

Or better yet buy an election. Lets say it costs you 10 million in funding to win a senate seat. And 2 million to win a seat in the house of representatives. Thats 2 billion for the congress. Which leaves you 8 billion to win the presidency. Even Obama spent less than a billion and his ads were everywhere, surely you could win with 8.

Then for 4-8 years you'll have a carte blanche to change policy to whatever it is you wish.

The problem is that all these "freedom" type ventures, are usually a hobby of the fringe, and they don't have the money to actually do anything they dream about. If the Liberterian party had a 10 billion dollar pocket book, we'd have more than the handful of Liberterians in congress. And these fringers wouldn't have to go looking offshore to try their pipe dreams.

And thats coming from someone who donated money to Ron Paul. Sure I knew he couldn't win...but it doesn't hurt to have an extra point of view in the limelight
It looks similar to what we get from our $$ Erwin modeler but not exactly. Erwin can do quite a bit of reverse-engineering or read a SQL file.
Heh-- people have called RescueTime evil, especially in a work setting. Never hurt our feelings much-- we try to not go tooo far down the evil path, but we've always felt like a manager/biz owner has the right to say, "How are you spending your time?" and get an honest (and CORRECT) answer. A lot of people say, "Well, if I get my work done in 2 hours every day, I have a RIGHT to screw off for the other 6"... While we think that folks deserve some "down-time", I think there's such a thing as under-tasked and under-utilized team members who just need to have more work thrown their way. For a knowledge worker, it's trivially easy to hide when you don't have much work to do.
Google blog's notes on the new favicon: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/googles-new-favicon.h...
Is that URL linked anywhere in the UI?
i really don't take the mean comments too seriously, only the constructive ones where people actually want to help you out. filter everything else out.
Why can I vote for both yes and no?
Wow! That's a surprisingly simple schema for an application of Wikipedia's size and scope.
Why would there be any fewer jobs than in any urban area?
Tickets were made available to the public through their elected representatives, free (though EXTREMELY hard to get).
This is a classic. I have it on my bookshelf from back in the day. :)
Turns out this is another cross-post from reddit. They are discussing how this was made:
http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/7r3mg/ever_wond...
True, but cost depends on scale. And economies of scale can quickly make the expensive cheap.
The day the newspaper died.
I didn't catch how, could you explain?
IT venture investing posts worst Q4 in a decade
Such groups “are like sites that laud Hitler or Nazism,

Always with the Hitler links. I knew there'd be one in the starts and bam my respect for the anti-mafia people are gone.

I don't see how there's any commonality between Hitler and a Mafia leader. Hitler was a psychopath who took over countries and mass exterminated anyone he didn't see as worthy of life. Mafia leaders are criminals and most psychological tests show criminals have a similar brain function as a cop, just different morals on breaking the law. The Mafia are known for being harsh when people double cross them (like JFK), but I've never heard of the mafia committing genocide as I don't think it's a practical means of business.

Oh and this is the ultimate in being hilariously pathetic:
Many say Facebook, which has 150 million members worldwide, is a healthy tool to foster debate. Indeed, others are using Facebook to mobilize resistance against the Mafia. An Italian group called “Mafia Off Facebook” has 166,000 members and held a one-day Facebook blackout on Wednesday, when members did not log on to the site to protest the presence of pro-Mafia groups.
Make way for bio-aesthetics
Here's one: http://deptinfo.unice.fr/~roy/sicp.pdf

This page has links to other formats (e.g., texinfo), the HP videos, and solutions to exercises (including my own, sadly not yet finished (but I'm working on it!)):

http://wiki.drewhess.com/wiki/Category:SICP_solutions
Hmm. But what about bankruptsy? Is it compatible with strong libertarianism? If you outlaw slavery in itself, would effective slavery emerge?
If you want to see mean, try writing essays.
Dude, that's awesome. You made my day.
I did a 'web design' course (it was called 'masters in interactive design' at the time I think, this was 7 years ago). The lecturers tried to compensate for the fast-moving technologies by focusing on intangibles rather than the technical content of the final product (greater emphasis was placed on the thought process that went into the projects than the final result). The theory was pulled rather haphazardly from other disciplines such as semiotics, art, design etc.

I have a rather poor opinion of the course and the extent to which I benefited from it. The most interesting parts were when someone with industry experience came to talk about some projects they were working on, which I probably could have gained outside the course. The theoretical content of the course was weak. There was no-one with any real technical know-how in the faculty. The main advantage is gaining practical experience working on projects (even if they were only course projects), which once again you can do by yourself (although you can learn more quickly when projects are short and focussed as on such a course).

I now generally think that apprenticeships are the best model for studying practical disciplines (in general, not just for web design). Most people like that their disciplines to have university studies, because raising the barriers to entry (e.g. a university degree) raises their own value (or at least their sense of their own value); but I'm not sure of the extent to which it actually furthers the discipline.
SAMSUNG A637 UNLOCKED
Samsung A637 is a basic candybar phone that gets all the necessities right. Granted, there aren’t a lot of technological features incorporated with this phone. There is the standard battery life of 4 hours when used to talk.
US venture fundraising is going to take a rest for a while
How to get your film or music video made using Massify.com
Pretty much everything is below category theory in terms of abstraction.
If it in fact does not use petroleum products, the rising price of petroleum will at some point make it more cost-effective.

Plus it has other properties that are desirable in some situations, such as a wood-like finish.
Although the lower-case "G" is not easily discernible, the bright colors make it stand out more on my bookmarks toolbar, so I prefer it for that reason alone.
Size and scope don't need complexity - Wikipedia's big, not complex.
Whitehouse.gov Has A New Face
In some polls the choices aren't exclusive. It seemed maximally flexible to leave it up to the person answering to decide.
Cost goes down with scale only when scaling is cheap, but the article also does not mention the production technology's ability to scale cheaply.
Thanks, your essays are excellent. I studied philosophy for the same reason you did, I thought it had something to do with finding wisdom. However, it wasn't my bread and butter option, thank heavens, otherwise I would have died of starvation by now. My own feeling is that if words break down after a certain point the next step would be the Eastern Philosophy's idea of insight into reality. Words do not really bring insight, words can only go so far in bringing insight. Words can only point in the right direction perhaps through logic and even poetry. To find the true basis of reality would be a step above words - I don't know exactly what that means - perhaps it is the sound of one hand clapping? To me philosophy is basically a way to determine reality and it forms a building block of our quest to find the true nature of reality. It is a bit sad that in our present time people do not seem interested in the fact that there are ways that reality has been studied and that our lives are often only based on escaping the reality of the moment. Last is not my idea but I read it somewhere probably in some book on Eastern Philosophy. I am convinced that the day we all start living in reality is the day that we find God. Furthermore, the upside to philosohy and the study of it is to make sure you don't make basic logical errors in your thinking for example realising that there are things such as sweeping statements, generalisations, ambiguity, prejudice, bias etc. It is often a mind strain to get through the day surrounded by people who never realise the limit that words have and the limits that untrained minds have. It is heartbreaking to realise the lost potential and the absence of meaning that is in front of peoples eyes without them ever realising it. Quite painful . . .
Not entirely frivolous. I was interested in the results. I may be the only one though.
"started counting page views"

Why would I count page views? Counting profit is much more fun.

I think you'll see an explosion in online webchat this year and next, and IRC will be one of the clear winners.
I don't like the protocol, it's a complete mess to be honest, but that's what'll happen.
For new products, there are two general approaches to developing a demo script.

1: This is an entirely new app/concept that your audience didn't know they needed. Your job is to convince them that they can't live without this thing that they've managed to live without up until now.

2: This is an enhancement or optimization to something they're already doing.

Many times products fall a little bit into both categories, but usually fall predominantly into one or the other. An example of this would be Tivo. It was mostly #1 (A whole new way to manage your TV viewing), but had some of #2 (it was in essence a glorified VCR).

Your App looks like (in my 4 minutes of review) it's mostly #1. iPhone developers have not had this ability to do integrated simple user feedback in their apps, and they've mostly managed to do OK so far. You need to convince them they can no longer live without using your product.

Don't be overly dramatic, cheesy, or inaccurate in your presentation. It's okay to be really excited about your product, in fact you should be, but don't act like you just discovered the cure for cancer either.

I tend to start a lot of my demos from the back, and work forwards. Lead in with showing developers some of the OUTCOME of using your product. Which, I assume is some sort of charts or correlated feedback or something. This way, when you then explain what it costs or what it takes to implement it, the audience knows that the outcome is valuable enough for them to pay attention. If you spend 15 or 20 minutes describing how to add the module into the app and twiddle all the features you risk losing the interest of the people who don't yet realize they should be paying attention.

Be prepared for something to go horribly wrong with your demo. Something won't load or display or work as expected. DON'T apologize when this happens, and don't get thrown off track by it. I can't count the number of demos I've done by speaking to a frozen (or empty) screen or image or whatever. Just kind of move through it with an attitude like it's Murhpy's law in action. It's happened to everyone.

Leave time for questions, learn to spot people who like to play "stump the chump". Haters are everywhere. If you get someone in the audience that is just being a dick (vs. pointing out legitimate things), thank them for their input and move on to someone else.

Practice your presentation, and speak slowly. Remember that your audience probably has never seen or thought of your product, so things that by now are second nature to you are going to be very new (and possibly seem overly complex) to them.

Be sure to point out any high-level negatives up front (this also helps eliminate some of the haters as well). If your product adds 500K to the code base, or chews up some amount of resources, then work that in with a slight spin. (By adding just 500K to your application size, you can get immediate feedback and results, saving you valuable research and coding time in the future).

If you want, you can hit me up via email (profile) and I'd be willing to listen to your pitch/presentation via Webex or something and I'll give you my feedback.
I'm amazed how simple it is. I worked on corporate apps that have much more complex database schema. I think there's something to learn about the one from wikipedia : well designed ideas create well designed databases.
Oh yay, no more oil drilling... set deforestation to 400%!!! /sarcasm

Yes we're not going to belch out more CO2 by harvesting oil. However, we don't grow enough trees to begin with and exponentially increasing the demand for lumber will be a disaster for preventing illegal logging.

I mean global warming will kill off maybe a thousand or so species, where as completely removing the Amazon rainforest will probably kill a million species.

I'm sick of all this pro-green BS that 'saves the planet' whilst killing everything on it. I mean Wind Turbines supposedly reduce carbon emissions, however they're killing thousands of birds and bats which has a drastic effect on the food chain. Bats eat thousands of mosquitoes a day, imagine what'll happen to the rates of malaria and west nile if we expand wind power and extinct all the bats. Not only that but they're killing already endangered animals like the Albatross.

The ecological effect of wind turbines could be far worse than pumping CO2 into our atmosphere ever could be. It's possible for many species to adapt to environmental change, especially birds due to their migratory instincts, however bird's can't adapt to not get hit by rotating blades.

If this turns out to be cheap or not, I think there'll be drastic damage to the world ecology - especially in 3rd world countries.
Being a complete beginner, what resources would you
recommend to help lay the basic foundation?

I tried this about four years ago. I started by playing the ASX simulated game to get a feel for it and confirmed that I was rubbish at picking day by day. Then I picked some long-term patterns I was confident with, mentally wrote off my starting money, and started playing with that. Sometimes I feel pulled towards stress by developments but then remind myself that I acknowledged it was gambling to start with and wrote off the money. Despite the downwards trend of the markets, I've only done somewhat badly and if I liquidated now would have still three quarters of the amount I started with. Experience aside, I would have been far better off keeping the money in cash and investing the time in my career. (On the other hand, the significant part of my position is anticipation of the world seeing significant uncertainty in paper currency and this has acted as a hedge against a career with a finance focus.)

The major thing I've learnt is the value of cash in terms of its flexibility. I now think about cash as being analogous to having a flexible option, whereas if you're locked into a self-imposed rule where you only sell on certain sorts of gain (e.g. purchase price plus 20%) then you lose flexibility that is valuable. Definitely on the bright side - at the time my family and accountant were advising me to buy a house and a get a huge mortgage. I'm in a far strong position than I would have been if I'd done that. I think that it is a poor decision for young, unattached people to buy houses to live in on mortgage because it limits their options to follow career opportunities and locks them into significant debt.
Maybe it wasn't clear, but /more cost effective than plastic/ - which is all that's required.

Regardless, if this material is at all viable, like the other comment says the cost will go down anyway as production is further refined and volume scales up.
Definitely go straight for the debt, that's sure money!

I agree with you, definitely on the same page. I wish I could say more right now, but I gotta run. Anyway, point being, education first.

Yes, go build a software system to help you manage a lifetime of trading. It's a life long job, not something you go do for 5 years. You may get so good at it you want to take that software and sell it and make tons of money so you can make tons of tons of more money when you return to the market in 3 years or 5 years or whenever you want to return focus to it.

Money is a life long game. Not a sort term game. There's a lot more money to be made in other facets of life than there is to be made in stocks over the short term. Right now, I wouldn't even bother with stocks to be honest. I have some random index funds, fairly diversified and some retirement money, but other than that I'm all cash.

And I'm not recommending that for anyone, just saying that's where I am, just to be on the up and up.

But 100% cash isn't right for everyone right now and it may turn out to be the wrong decision, everyone has to decide for him or herself where their money should be to maintain a certain level of happiness and vision toward the future.

A long lived low stress life has a value too.
No its more like you have 300 flavor that have all melted because you couldn't get your wifi and video card to talk.
> If you deny any link between benefits and utilization, then I understand your argument.

I deny it because there isn't any link - "excess" resources don't reduce benefits.

> But I think your argument is wrong because it contradicts the very purpose of buying capital goods.

The purpose of buying capital goods is to receive more benefits than the costs incurred, the metric being benefits-costs/costs. (Note - benefits are not profit.)

Benefits don't depend on utilization. (While the amount of money that 100 people will pay me to fly them from NYC to LA might depend on how full their plane is, it isn't affected by me having 1 vs 1e6 planes parked in AZ.)

Utilization can affect costs, but the connection isn't always strong.

For example, my PC could usually get by with 400MB of ram. However, several times a year, I get significant benefit from having 1GBy. That benefit easily exceeds the cost of 500MBy of ram, even the "utilization" of said extra ram is low. (And no, the cost of renting ram when I need it isn't less.)

Note that the "utilization is key" argument would suggest that I'd be better off with 400MB of RAM than 500MB. That's clearly absurd because 400MB costs more than 500MB.

And then there's the difibrillator example. If I only use it once, is it useless?
The first book on his list, Conceptual Mathematics, is the the way to go. Most intros assume you are a math student and are already familiar with abstract algebra.

It's available on google books: http://books.google.com/books?id=o1tHw4W5MZQC&printsec=f...

It's also written by the guy who was a driving force in the development of category theory. More so than even its creators, who laughed at him when as a student he first told them his idea of it being a foundation for all mathematics.
Well, I think about 75% of mutual funds underperform market index funds that charge fractions of the fees. And those are managed by pros with years and years of training and experience.

It's a tough world for the individual. Yes, the risk is higher, but the reward is also higher.

One of the first things to learn is your own risk tolerance. That's key.
I think this is the wrong question.

Fake praise does a lot more damage than mean-spirited criticism. Because fake praise has nothing but well-meaning behind it, while mean-spirited criticism can actually point out things that need fixing. In addition, fake praise can mask a lot of flaws that should be fixed.

I'm of the mind that the more mean criticism you get the better off you probably are -- people at least took time to rag on you. Apathy is what really sucks.
I like the one about desktops... since its wrong...OS X has spaces which is the same as desktops
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/spaces.html
Poll: Best way to build a web hosted chat system?
XMLSocket or Ajax Polling
XMLSocket - XML messages are sent over a full-duplex TCP/IP stream socket connection, low latency, requires Flash, possibly firewall/proxy issues. Performance limited to chat traffic only.
Ajax Polling - Easy to implement, performance/scalability linearly proportional to chat users; multiple empty requests, firewall and proxy proof.
Paging axod :)
"In the eighteenth century, the death of a newspaper signalled the death of liberty. What it signals now is harder to know, especially because there’s death, and then there’s death. If, one day, ink-and-print is dead and gone, newspapers will endure, wraiths of ether."

There is some good historical perspective on the role of newspapers in this article. Like many New Yorker articles, it is a good read.
Chaos Reigns in the PC Industry
I want to know who did the new design/site work?
Dutch government study: net effect of P2P use is positive
I don't know what to think that the site has a blog.
I knew about polls, but not how to make them. Where (apart from the text of the present poll) is the link to http://news.ycombinator.com/newpoll?
That was the case here :
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=441797

When I started the thread, I didn't want to say that criticism is bad or should be avoided. I just wanted to have fun at what people are saying about startups.
CNN, Facebook win presidential inauguration live-streaming contest (kinda)
If someone else is lazy like me, you can put the following in your ~/.gitconfig

[alias]
magic = rebase -i HEAD~10

Then you can just use 'git magic' instead of writing the full command.
Well, it might be a better investment to hang on to the shares, but it's not tax advantageous when either way results in 15% tax. His charitable activities don't lower his personal tax, they lower his wealth.

Giving most of your money to charity doesn't make economic sense form anyone's point of view, and I don't think Microsoft's dividend was in any way designed to save Bill money. It was done because a company only needs so much cash on hand.
AMD's new "Fusion" reboot: can diversity save Moore's Law?
It's also built using jQuery as tweeted by jResig. I was hoping Obama would begin using twitter immediately after taking the Presidency. We'll see if the twitter account falls into the history books and is not utilized.