skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You're all a little young I suspect to know about the infamous "Limits To Growth reports" conducted by MIT CS grads in the late sixties commissioned by the Club of Rome.

They constructed computer models of population growth expectations against energy resources, waste, production etc. They concluded that unless society changed its ways DRAMATICALLY then a collapse would occur which would be unavoidable and would wipe out a large percentage of the worlds population.

The reports were widely dismissed at the time by the main stream media and other 'experts' however, many of their predictions are manifesting before our eyes as we speak, if not a little latter than originally expected.

Those that decry that technology will save us (and it may well do but we do have to create it first) the main unavoidable problem is capitalism = exploitation = waste / population which is increasing because of the high level of fossil fuel energy available / ( which is rapidly diminishing).

If any bright sparks here have a solution to this mathematical problem then I will be impressed. The reason I personally got into programming was to try and make some impact on this problem. Yet all I see here (which I don't blame you for) is naive youngsters who are deluded and indoctranated into believing that success is starting a startup and exiting with 1M+ cash in the bank. To me this = FAIL.

Those that were really smart would have an understanding of the unavoidable mathematical problems really facing us (which are not written about in our favorite math books) and would have a broader knowledge than that spouted by your ivy league universities.

Those bright sparks would be able to demonstrate 1) an understanding of the problem, 2) a deep understanding of the math involved, 3) an interest in solving the problem, 4) the capacity to think outside of the box and not follow the herd, 5) ultimately a working theoretical alternative which would be more robust than the current math which is the algorithm behind current capitalism (or what ever you want to call it, democracy etc.).

For those that think capitalism and democracy is the best system we have, do not bother replying! Your comments will be as limited as your 'intellectual' capacity and you would be better served spending your time on your fab new startup!
Uhhh...call me crazy but as someone who has been programming since the age of 8 and am prone to such excursions...I've never once had a bad chair.

Even before I had a job I would fight tooth-and-nail to get one of the better seats in the house which I would then enhance with pillows and blankets.

These days I just sit in a nice chair that is nicely padded and older than I am. No roids.
pg, if you're out there, please don't do this.

If you could post clickable URLs inside a self-post, then it upsets the balance of HN as a link-and-comments site. Then, suddenly, it's link-and-main-comment-and-other-comments site.

In fact, imo, even the "Ask HN" feature is a bit of overkill. If you want to post paragraphs with links in them, use Wordpress or Tumblr or Blogger or whatever, and submit a link to it.

It would turn this site into a delicious honeypot for spammers, and the yc crew would spend all their time fighting spam.

Furthermore, feature requests belong in the feature request thread, not on the main HN page.
Oh dear god, see what you've done pg? Now he's going to blow a trumpet and the hordes will be coming over the hills any minute now.

We better take this vanguard out before the larger group notices. Move quickly.
Are any of you guys practicing mutual upvoting with friends here, on Hacker News?

I suppose it happens naturally to some extent. These voting patterns and the amount to which they happen naturally should be statistically visible for pg if he is actively looking for them.
pg actually explains why he disabled it in FAQ:

How do I make a link in a question?

You can't. (This is to prevent people from using this method as a way of submitting a link, but with their comments in a privileged position at the top of the page. If you want to submit a link with comments, just submit it, then add a regular comment.)
Reasons Behind Yahoo's Four-Year Slump
Consider implementing it only for the iPhone browser.
GF is addicted and she has hardly any visitors, i stopped looking after the traffic went v high and it was all just boring then.
If it's that egregious, the guidelines say you should flag it rather than cry "Reddit" in the comments.
Something happened to Michael Arrington recently. His opinion articles like this one are quite good and I am enjoying them.
Another potentially life threatening problem is blood clots in the legs. You need to get up at least every hour and walk around.
Americans prefer news from Web to newspapers
Online shopping and the Harry Potter effect
wouldn't adding a nofollow tag to all links nullify the spam gain?
Which is different from posting a news story only in feeling. How many of the feature request news items have you seen actually get implemented?
Everyone in our (tiny) co watches them throughout the day. If the info is valuable enough it can give you very useful insight into the "life" of your startup organism.

If it's wasting your time there's something wrong with your system or way your presenting the data -- it takes me about 5 secs to pull up and understand a solid snapshot of all our stats.
ahahah took me a while but i got it. :-)

might be better worded as 25 Dec == 31 Oct
'nofollow' has murky meaning and many visitors and crawlers are going to visit the link anyway. So no, it only mitigates the spam gain slightly, given certain assumptions about how Google might treat the link.
Pg @ nhk
Have you looked at the front page? I'm finding there's precious little I can use. The V8 is nice & certainly the python articles are decent, but there's really nothing else. I can get better from the programming/linux/python subreddit.
for those scratching their heads, it's a seinfeld reference. and the official date is IIRC Dec 23rd
Darn, thought this would be a fun post where we said what we wanted for Christmas. But instead, got whining.
In fact, imo, even the "Ask HN" feature is a bit of overkill. If you want to post paragraphs with links in them, use Wordpress or Tumblr or Blogger or whatever, and submit a link to it.

Ah -- no. I've submitted several posts without writing a blog post about them. It feels natural to do so, like I'm conversing with you rather than sending you a letter. It sucks that self posts are automatically weighted "heavier" than normal submissions, so it's harder for them to gain traction and they fall off the page sooner. It feels rather unfair. I'd hate for the feature to go away completely.
Preparing the Photos for Canvas Prints
Let’s say you have spent a lot of thought on deciding which is going to be the perfect picture that you are going to use for your mothers birthday present. Say she has been living in another city for the past few years now and you haven’t seen her since she left. You will probably agree that most mothers would miss there children by being away from them for so long. So it is probably safe to say that if you can provide them with a lasting memory that they can look at every day, it will be bring comfort knowing that they are still in your heart. Sending them a sentimental gift like that, would really do that statement justice.
Building The Perfect HTPC (Media PC), Capable Of Playing 1080P H264
No need to appeal to a higher power like Santa or PG. You can do this yourself:

Use a bookmarklet, such as the 'linkify' bookmarklet on this page: http://www.7is7.com/software/bookmarklets/

(You can transfer complicated bookmarklets like that one by adding to desktop Safari, and using the bookmarklets sync option under the 'Info' tab in the ITunes>Devices>iPhone area. Beware, the first sync may clobber previous iPhone bookmarks with those from the desktop.)
Ideology makes good dreams but bad practice. In a sense, 'true democracy' is a lot like 'true communism' - both sound good on the outside but have issues when implemented. Like the Digg article, it seems that 'equality of vote' is one of the ideals that isn't enforced in real life (due to social engineering, money, politics, etc)
I've used Word on both, and while I like the UI better on the Mac, it lacks VBScript, which completely rules it out for many users, and is much slower than its Windows counterpart.

Pages has a great UI, but doesn't do enough. There are an insane number of features that Word has, that even a high school student would need, that are entirely absent from Pages (a robust referencing system, for example).

What I would pay big money for is something that has the functionality of MS Word Mac, without the bloat, and as speedy as Pages.
I'm sure there's a greasemonkey plugin that linkifies urls...
Well, it's Christmas. Maybe he was visited by three ghosts?
How old are you now? When I was 14 there were no certs -- I got a job in a local PC shop as a stock boy. I am convinced I worked for Korean gangsters now; However back then I thought it was a kick ass job (Since nobody I knew was working.) I still own one fried 8088 mobo (black to black wha?) and the three surfboards I managed to buy whilst working. In reality it was one of the worst jobs I have ever had, as I had to work in an attic sorting PC parts and fetching orders in 100+ attic heat with a 4ft ceiling (I kid not) and had to get to work Sundays @ 5am to unload "orders" from Mexico from the meanest people I have ever met. I learned more about life in that year then I have in the last 20.
Don't buy gold and silver. I don't know where this "buy gold" superstitious BS came from. I think it's out of some mistaken idea that gold has intrinsic value where paper money does not. This is false.

The value of gold is not intrinsic - it is assigned by people, just like fiat currency (which is also why gold-backed currency, or the lack thereof, is not our problem). In fact, gold's value also fluctuates with the economy, just like everything else - when the economy tanks, gold prices rise, etc etc. It's almost expected for people to run screaming back to gold every time the economy hiccups, and this has made it an unsafe commodity to hold.

Not to mention when you buy gold - you are not buying any actual, physical gold, you are buying gold production, which will never ever reach your hands. If you really want to hoard precious metals, at least go out and physically have it. Your gold is just as imaginary as fiat money until you have it in your hands.
Your riposte would be witty were you to use words not merely for their syllable count, but that actually convey some semblance of coherent meaning. As it is, your attempt at language play is one that brings to mind a concentrated effort to put round pegs into square holes.
I'm not sure his observations are so self-evident, which may be why he's emphasizing the fact that he has been to these "exotic" places. I don't like the folksey tone either, but it sells papers and gets attention.

Believe it or not, there are many Americans who still believe that they are the top of the world, that in Asia people are still wallowing in shantytowns and mud-brick houses. When my mother first came to Canada, someone actually asked her if we had running water and electricity.

The "USA No. 1" mentality that many people still seem to have is the main reason why the US cannot proceed to fixing itself - most people have never traveled outside of the USA, least of all to Asia, and the media doesn't cover this nearly enough - Asia is advancing rapidly, its wealth and quality of life is rapidly approaching that of the US, and unless you act now your supremacy in the world will be lost forever.

Until more people realize how advanced Asia has become, I think Thomas Friedman's message is entirely appropriate and welcome.
You have different definitions of middle class.
Did you read my comment? They would have to be incredibly stupid to make fake accounts of hot women. Enough men/ugly women would do that for them.
As hard to manage as a country of 1.3 billion people? Or an industry leading nation of 130 million people? Hong Kong is not the only example of a hyper-advanced Asian city. Shanghai, Taipei, Tokyo, Beijing... you name it, and we're not even approaching India and further west.

The success of China, Japan, South Korea, and the myriad of other east Asian powers is not an isolated case of blind luck. Incredible dedication has been shown here to grow a nation's infrastructure, and the US would be wise to take heed and follow suit if they want to maintain their lead.

Take a look at the bureaucracy needed to manage a country of 1.3 billion people, including a wealth gap far wider than that of the US, and yet continually building out massive infrastructure projects both urban and rural. This is something America is not doing, and I'd hate to see a repressive dictatorship out-do the West in anything.
There is lot's of drama in it. But actually - those IRC quotes (if they are authentic) are really not nice. I think it is time that Open Source learned about culture - because the Wild West version does not really work for something that has cooperation at it's core.
Have you heard about the economist Mancur Olson and his theory of institutional sclerosis? His thesis is that bureaucracy tends to build on itself, becoming less rational and more wasteful as a society ages. Occasionally, there is a catastrophic event that overturns the established order, wiping out the cruft and allowing society to start fresh. However, over time the waste grows again.

He uses this theory to explain why the American South did so well after reconstruction and after the Civil Rights movement. He would likely also argue that this explains why Japan and China have done so well, since both underwent massive disruptions in the last century. Our own society, however, has been very stable for many centuries and has had plenty of time to accumulate bureaucratic lard.
I'd like to find out a more effective way of online marketing so that I can reach more people like the ones already paying me, and use the revenue to hire people to reduce my own workload and push the business is new directions.
If you use firefox you can always just install the linkification addon. I haven't had any qualms since I have been using it. It even linkifies to IRC.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/190
Letter From The Boss - Happy Holidays (pack your things)
Merry Christmas everyone :D
And Maddox is often funny. The same cannot be said of Zed.
I looked at the new Mac Pro the other day, and it seems to me that things are coming full circle. The advantage Mac gets by controlling the hardware as well as the software is really putting them ahead of Microsoft in terms of what they can do and I would expect it to continue.

To be more clear, if you build for a maximum of 3 possible configurations you can make a much better experience than someone who has to deal with a virtually infinite amount. So, takes less resources to do and makes a better experience in the end. Sounds like a win-win to me.
Get ready for a lost decade
Chile's definitely more capitalist. I'd say the thing it has going for it is that it's got better broadband too.

That said, it's also incredibly socially conservative. Much more so than Argentina and Uruguay. Chile just legalized divorce! Where as Argentina and Uruguay have gay civil unions and are on their way to towards full gay marriage. Divorce has been legal in Argentina and Uruguay for close to a century.

On the other hand, the geography around Buenos Aires and Montevideo is really boring, flat farm land. Chile, outside of Santiago is quite pretty.

If anybody wants help, i just am now going through incorporating a software company in Uruguay, and can explain he process. It's pretty straight forward if way underdocumented. Apparently it's much easier to do in Uruguay vs Argentina. Also there's a %100 exemption to all taxes (aside from payroll, and a fixed assets tax (%1 of value of buildings and cars)) if the company you have does offshore software / IT work.
I am guessing junk food played the largest part in bringing forth the problem.
Overly broad generalisation. The vast majority of sites should not have auto-playing video or sound, however on sites where the user explicitly expects it to happen then I'd deem it as being okay. Examples are YouTube or clicking on a "Watch demo video" link - I'd regard in both cases "play video" as being implicit.
Alan Cox moving to Intel from Red Hat
all i want is for this text to stop breaking the page formatting.
Firefox addon: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/190
Luckily now there is Ubuntu Linux to the rescue.
Introducing twittastic, a twitter client for windows
Why is Japanese TV so funny?
There isn't really an "Ask HN" feature. Is there? I just assumed it was a popular prefix for threads.
Oh, that's what keeps doing it. It really annoys me when every tenth page is 14% wider than my window.
I hate when this happens %)
I use google analytics and awstats.

The point is variance in data tends to decrease with frequency. Weekly or Monthly data tends to make lot more sense than hourly or daily stats. But its difficult to resist the temptation to watch is hourly/daily
Isn't calling Microsoft an underdog in the mobile space a bit of a euphemism? Rather like describing GM as an underdog in the automobile space.
Well... I can tell I wouldn't pay more for one.

Even if I used something Microsoft ;-)
I regret my purchase of many iPhone apps. I've spent at least $150 on apps and currently use $3-10 worth of them.

The other problem is that I won't delete them now either, it makes me feel guilty/stupid for buying them so I just keep them installed.
Then again, the major problem at the moment seems to be finances, not nuclear physics, so maybe it makes sense if the smartest people turn towards that problem?
hah, Jeph should totally make this in to a shirt :D
Drink plenty of water, eat plenty of healthy foods, exercise a lot. And don't wait to make it a new years resolution.
becoming better at dealing with people.

1. patience

2. patience

3. patience

ohh.. i guess i forgot to mention "Patience" :D
They had a big product placement in The Day the Earth Stood Still. Looks like MS is trying to get the "cool" buzz going again with Surface.

Everything that I've read about it looks really cool.
I had something far worse a few years ago as a result of a bad diet. A bout of gastrointestinal bleeding which combined with mild hemophilia almost did me in - seriously. I went running 5 miles every evening, so lack of exercise wasn't the problem.

I've switched to fruits and unprocessed grains since then but it took me another few years to realize the other serious dietary problem I had - not chewing food enough.

Now it's a lot, lot better and I can focus on work instead of my stupid digestion.
The Sin in Doing Good Deeds
Merry Christmas Everyone! Hope everyone's having a great holiday.
1. Cilk++ has nested parallelism that works and provides guaranteed speed-up. OpenMP has nested parallelism, but it is a memory hog and not reliable.

2. Cilk++ guarantees space bounds. On P processors, Cilk++ uses no more than P times the stack space of a serial execution. In OpenMP, not so.

3. Cilk++ has a race detector for debugging and software release. With OpenMP, you are on your own.

4. Cilk++ has serial semantics. With OpenMP, you do not have this benefit – only a subset of OpenMP supports serial semantics.

5. Cilk++ has a solution for global variables (a construct called "hyperobjects"). OpenMP does not.
I don't celebrate ancient pagan festival of saturnalia
Things We Didn't Know This Time Last Year
Collected Algorithms of the ACM
The 12 Weird Old Electronics Commercials of Christmas
If your software needs a how to guide like this... (4 pages)
KPSS TERCiHLERi Nasil Yapilir
C-h and a bit of a pause gives you:

C-h (Type ? for further options)

Type ? and you get a list.

From the tut:

To use the Help features, type the C-h character, and then a
character saying what kind of help you want. If you are REALLY lost,
type C-h ? and Emacs will tell you what kinds of help it can give.
If you have typed C-h and decide you do not want any help, just
type C-g to cancel it.
Ideas for a Great Garage Makeover
As much as I dislike Microsoft, I respect Bill Gates. This interview reinforces that respect. Some of his answers to questions about Microsoft were lame, but the rest of it was pretty good.

But I don't understand this statement: "you get that death rate down, the population growth goes down because less kids are dying"
Promising...
The major problem is not finances, it's that moving money around does not create REAL value. Real value is created only in manufacturing, industry and agriculture. Service, finance and so on are add-ons to those fields.
Roku Netflix Player gets HD | TechJaws
YC admins, please compare IP addresses to find out who this is. J/K.

Get an exercise ball to sit on, I can't recommend it enough. Had lots of problems with my back, which vanished soon after using such a ball.
6300 Camera Operation Failed Problem
5200 camera operation failed, 6300, 6300 camera failed, 6300 camera please wait, 6300 camera problem, 6300 camera ways, Nokia, nokia 6300
Yes.

As much as I hate to agree with Gates on anything, I too think it is a shame that neither the governments nor the markets have found it worthwhile to eliminate preventable causes of suffering such as Malaria. As much as I hate the Windows tax, it is a little consoling to think that some of it is being put to good use.
I've given up on waiting for the MacPaint source code.
Joyeux Noël!
Is this site being smart about GeoIP and timezones?
Interesting, Thanks!
RareShare: A Community For People With Rare Medical Problems
I understand your concern, but there's a key difference between reddit and HN: one is general news the other--hacker news. So you should really be comparing reddit to CNN or other mainstream news organizations. In that sense, I think reddit is still a better source, even if it is very biased.

My initial point was: we shouldn't call a particular story redditlike as a catch-all Bad Thing(tm).
- on Xmas...

This wasn't supposed to come off sarcastic or anything. If you knew me you would know I'm pretty religious, but whatever maybe that's why it got downvoted.
Best (or worst) Geek Christmas Ever
Ok, I think you are really on to something with the "it's impossible to calculate things" (the economic calculation problem postulated by some Austrian economists in the 30ies and 40ies), but where I split from the libertarians is that I don't think that means we should throw up our hands in the air and do nothing at all "gosh, it's too complicated!", but do the most direct, least invasive things to solve those problems that do need to be solved collectively. For instance, I think schools ought to be available to everyone, so that no matter who you are born, you have the means to become who you want. And that doesn't mean "just let the free market do it". I think introducing some market mechanisms might make sense - lessening the power of the teachers' unions and giving more money to good teachers - but I very strongly believe that even though most of our economy ought to be decided by a free market, not all of it should. I think that lack of simplicity grates on a lot of nerd/geek types who want a clean, simple, beautiful rule that will make everything work. However, people are messy, complex, contradictory creatures that don't function in a world of black and white.

If I'm not mistaken, this is similar to the Warren Buffet view of the economy: yeah, get the government out of the market where it makes sense, let the market do its work, but then whoever wins needs to share some of that with the poorest in our society.
When I read the title I thought it was meant "the hacker news community wants to buy you a christmas present for being awesome," not "ok its christmas spend it coding a new feature for us". That wasn't a good switch you pulled there :(
I wanted to do that too but ended up just getting a new macbook pro unibody. My time is worth more than messing with a nonstandard install.