skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I was asked this question at a Google interview in 2006. At that time I worked it out mathematically as the author has here. Only afterwards did I realize that it is a simple Dynamic Programming problem.

Let f(y) be the number of drops required with y floors remaining. At a drop from floor x, either the egg breaks and you must test all floors from 1 to x-1, or else the egg does not break and you have reduced to a smaller sub-problem with y-x floors. So the number of drops required is 1 (for the current drop) plus the max of either x-1 or f(y-x). We simply minimize this value over all potential floors x from 1 to y.

Here is a solution in C++:
https://gist.github.com/3156157
Ask HN: Best framework for photo heavy web application?
What are the pros and cons of Python/RoR for image based application? I am aware that Pinterest and Instagram use python and lesser known (stipple, mulu.me) image based companies went rails.
Clone Me Maybe
An issue with this puzzle is that the objective is not clearly stated upfront. The author should make it clear from the outset that the goal is to minimize the number of drops in the worst case, rather than to minimize the average case, especially since optimizing the average case is (in my experience) more common in optimization problems. He asks in parentheses what the worst case is, but that just sounds like a side question:

> The question is: What strategy should you adopt to minimize the number egg drops it takes to find the solution? (And what is the worst case for the number of drops it will take?)

Then in the solution he says:

> Problems where the solution lays lower down the building are taking less drops than when the solution lays higher up. We need to come up with a strategy that makes things more uniform.

It is not explained why it has to be more uniform.

A more minor issue with this puzzle is that for the sake of thoroughness, the author should say is that the number of floors required to break the egg follows a uniform distribution (i.e., every floor is an equally likely candidate).
Smartphone app reports potholes in Boston
Many good ideas have to be tried a few times before someone gets them right. Witness Sun's "network computer" ideas in the '90s. As far as I can tell Flattr is doing well and gradually growing.
Paul responded on my blog. I feel cool.
Does anybody know where to report prior art. The US announced they were going to use CAC(common access cards) for security in 2000. CACs are smart cards you have to use to log in to military websites among other things.
Sparrow's foundation is imap/smtp...
There is more than enough will to write. If newspapers are providing anything more valuable than amateur bloggers, people will start paying for it. If not, then I guess their time has come.
Good point. I hope this doesn't become yet another forensic pseudoscience tool were procedures that are very much prone to error, are treated as infallible simple because they are use technology which the common man doesn't understands.
Bug killing startup: A gun that shoots salts and kills flies
Day and night within a single photo
Why Elected Officials Should Endorse the Declaration of Internet Freedom
yes, but pretty much any lib would be easier than manipulating elements with the standard browser APIs.

I would say that $.ajax has very nice callbacks, error handling and cross-browser support, and I still think its simplicity is great compared to other ajax libs out there. But I still don't know if the "sky is the limit" for jQuery even in combination with Backbone. I mean you "can" probably build anything with this combo, but then again you can also build a 2000 page website in pure html - doesn't mean you should or its maintainable, testable, secure, etc.
From MIT to Stanford, college classes where a startup is the final exam
It's easy to blame the app store and focus on Apple here, because Sparrow runs on Apple products, but it's not Apple's fault. Developers have given away software products for less than $0.99 since long before Apple conceived of an app store.

Open source software is free. Firefox is free. Thunderbird is free. That anyone would pay for an email client at all is exceptional.

It's not Apple who is at fault here -- it's us.
Yes but this isn't a programming problem. It's a math thought experiment.

The real thing I'm wondering is why are you making a big deal about this? You obviously have the mental capacity to come up with the concept that it's a special material, why can't you just pretend that's what it is and not make a big pedantic joke about it? What is added to this discussion by pointing out something we all know - that eggs break when you drop them from shoulder height.
I mostly hate ads. But I go out of my way to look at my amazon recommendations, which are basically ads, and work the way you describe (wishlist). I can see a future where they or something like them (I guess pinterest is kind of similar?) displace most advertising - as long as people who want your product (whether they know it or not) can find it, you don't need ads.
It's a nexus 7. The Galaxy Nexus is a phone.
Many users actually think everything should be free.

And they even claim they are 'ripped off' because the free version of software does not do 'X'. And they post bad reviews and send hate emails. (First hand experience).

Somehow, thanks for Facebook and Google, people feel entitled to free software and service.
Wouldn't another tax on fuel just hurt low-income consumers?

I'm not rich - I drive because I want/need to, not because it's cheap. Sometimes I drive for fun, to get out of town for a bit, and I don't have the most fuel efficient vehicle, so that could be considered wasteful. If gas cost $5,$6,$10/gallon where I live (Chicago) I would still drive. Someone working minimum wage, students, kids, and retirees, increased fuel cost could prevent them from driving altogether.
I was asked this question in a google interview earlier this year. Neither I nor the interviewer got past the "every 10 floors" approach (though I did make it through that round of interviews!). Interesting to see there was more meat on that bone.
It probably won't. However, with the numbers of cameras that are are being deployed everywhere, soon you'll only have to "tag" them once, and then you'll be able to track them as they move around the world.
True, but I expect you use access github through the standard "git commit" , "git pull" type commands. So switching git providers can be done relatively transparently without changing the "UI".

Although I guess you would lose whatever extra features github provides, which is partly why I build my git workflow around "standard" git.
I was asked that question, with glass bulbs instead of eggs, at an interview last year. I don't think I found the optimal solution of 14, IIRC I got to the point (just talking aloud to the interviewer, no paper) of saying something like "so if we started at, say, floor ten, we'd have nine floors below, and something close to that sets of floors above if we needed to move up..." and he said something like "ok, cool, that's good, let's move on."

I could've asked for paper, I suppose, but something about the word "puzzle" makes me want to puzzle it out in my head.

So my question for any interviewer types who ask puzzle questions is: do you prefer a candidate to go all the way to working out an optimal solution on paper, or is it really more about "the approach"?
Why? People pay for quality and the OSS email apps tend to be unlovable. Sparrow proved there's a market willing to pay for better clients but Apple doesn't want their money and nobody else seems interested in trying for it.
That's not quite the same as a brain "healing over damage to its worldview" though. That's a side effect of the brain incorporating multiple input sources to overcome unreliable and noisy data. It's not the brain "lying to itself", but the brain recognizing (and I'm stretching the word "recognize" here because this is not a conscious effect at all) that auditory input is less reliable than visual input for differentiating certain consonants, and letting the visual interpretation dominate.

This is really a very different concept from self-deception, because it has evolved specifically because in practice it tends to provide a more accurate view of the world.

On the other hand, self-deception measures, by definition, function to decrease the accuracy of our worldview in order to help us in some other way. For example, realizing that the waterfall at the top of the mountain is not inhabited by a fertility spirit will make your worldview more accurate, but it may also get you executed by the rest of your village, and since lying convincingly is harder than professing a legitimately false belief, we have evolved to cultivate false beliefs when it is politically expedient.
Clean blog platform with mobile view (Svbtle, Obtvse, Bitrot don't do mobile) 
I've been searching high and low for a clean and minimal blogging platform to replace wordpress. I love the look/feel of Svbtle, Obtvse, and Bitrot but none of these platforms work within a mobile device. Does anyone have any suggestions for a clean platform that renders beautifully within a mobile device?
Aside from how obviously cool Hard AR would be (for us SF nerds particularly), and some interesting gaming/entertainment(/adult) applications, is there any real need for Hard AR? It seems like it would be used primarily to turn reality into fantasy, which I suppose has its merits, but is that enough of an impetus for the countless man-years of experimentation and development to get us there?
Ha! Districts outside of New York and LA mostly don't grant Rosh ha'Shanah off even if they do have a substantial Jewish population. Employers do similar: Jewish holidays come out of your vacation time because they're not "company holidays" like Christmas.

Just noting, but Massachusetts never really stopped being Puritan. Oy gevalt.
Somehow I think that if the ordinary employees weren't told they'd be fired for doing what they think is right instead of what their bosses order them to do, they could run things just fine themselves. Only the rulers think you need rulers.
I don't understand this argument at all. None of it. It's odd and quite frankly silly. It doesn't matter if the app was $10. Enterprise software companies, that sell for 5, 6 and 7 figures get acquired all the time. Their offerings then get EOL'ed many times. Free doesn't help you. $30 doesn't help you. $1 million doesn't help you. If a larger company believes that acquiring smaller company is attractive and writes a big check then that's what happens. The only determinant I can see is if you want a lifestyle business where you're always the master of your own domain. That seems to be the only reasons folks won't sell (Marco won't move a family to the Valley - at least not unless he gets a LOT of money)

When did we all start pining for everything to be the same forever?
That point is already adressed in the article, he says:

"Hard AR is tremendously compelling, and will someday be the end state and apex of AR.

But it’s not going to happen any time soon."

Then later:

"Of course, there could be a technological breakthrough that solves this problem [...] In fact, I actually expect that to happen at some point[...] But so far nothing of the sort has surfaced in the AR industry or literature[...]"
I know these guys personally and they are everything you would want them to be, simply great guys.
Real runners run for their lives
Unfortunately it seems that the Apple product users seems the loudest/harshest about it.
First it was Microsoft and the ilk of x86 compatible when the powerPC was "clearly" superior, then Google with android.
While I admit that we have a different generation here, the pattern seems to repeat. While I admit I am certainly jealous of Apple designed products, I prefer the customization that product from other sources provide.
I'm pretty sure /r/gonewild is one of the top 25 subreddits.
It never, ever does.
if the company is not run pathologically, exist solely to pursue the goals of the CEO.

Only the CEOs and their hangers-on actually believe that.
"But Nagaraj found was that the availability of public domain material dramatically improved the article's images. Before the digitization, players from between '44 and '64 had an average of .183 pictures on their articles. The '64 to '84 group had about .158 pictures. But after digitization, those numbers dramatically changed: there were 1.15 pictures on each of the older group's articles -- but only .667 in the new group. More recent players, covered by privately-owned parts of Baseball Digest, had half as many images on their pages as did old-timers."

Should that be 0.0667?
I always thought, or at least hoped, that the economy of scale will allow $0.99 software to be profitable. That software would be so cheap, that you don't think even twice. But because millions do the same, the developers can still become rich.

Right now, there might be a few dozen million clients on the app store. What if someday there will be a few billions?
Targeting ads based on activity is a dangerous game. I was once shopping online for underwear. For the next couple of days ads would show up from this site showing pictures of men in underwear, trying to make me go back and buy the garments in question. That is very annoying, and creepy. Surely the more profitable the product, the more creepy it will seem.
What should we do with the people that were born on the wrong date and because of this they can never be hard working? Just work hard, pay taxes so they can get social help? And if meritocracy is bullshit what is cool? communism?
Getting non-programmers to understand the development process
Users will take control
One thing that has helped me is journaling about the problem. I don't maintain a separate journal a al "Dear diary, today I got stumped... "

Instead I jot down my struggles along with the normal notes that I maintain about the projects I'm working on. This has often lead me to realize incorrect assumptions or discover avenues that were previously missing. It also makes my notes more interesting to read.
Do you have any evidence for this statement?
Do you know of any companies with foreign workers on H-3 visas?
I know there are a lot of issues surrounding H1s so I've heard this is a good alternative. Only available for temporary placements / training mind you.
Anything above a 5% jump in Yahoo!'s stock price during Mayer's tenure would equate to $1billion increase in Yahoo!'s market cap.

But that's not actually value generated. It's value captured from the grand casino of the stock markets. Yahoo! itself is not holding 1 billion more dollars at the end; Yahoo! shareholders are collectively, all tens of thousands of them, holding 1 billion in potential gains should they all sell their stock in some way that won't crash the stock price from the sudden sell-off.
He mentions some of the even harder problems to solve that are specific to video pass through mainly, the problem of having to focus exclusively on a screen closed to your eyes all the time which gets tiring fast.
Sorry, I made a mistake in my summary: the patent was granted in '05 but filed in 2001.
I'm also sad that Sparrow won't be developed any more (I use both Mac and iPhone apps).

But if the Sparrow team will have a chance to improve Gmail, then we will all benefit from it. Hopefully, this is the case. Otherwise, it's just annoying.
Facebook should look at doing financial services. Price credit based on who your friends are. If you don't keep up with repayments you get a permanent blot in your profile. It is a sector in need of disruption, and Facebook have the worlds best dataset for assessing risk. You could start out with small transfers between individuals. Then move on to group based credit card rates.
I've often had the same thought. I suspect that the pre-internet big-city age will end up being a blip on the historical "ease of acquiring real privacy/anonymity people had" graph.

There's too much pressure from both sides. Companies, governments, etc, all want to know, and lots of people want to share.

I think the future will be one of (social, at least) privacy through getting lost in the huge sea of people instead of privacy through actual anonymity.
Nook For Web: The Gotcha
What does "stabilizing in the 500-700 rank" mean?
I know that an unprotected egg will smash when dropped from one story, guaranteed.

I've heard this problem specified as involving fossilized dinosaur eggs in order to get around this problem.
Interesting

They could skip the ftp part, because git saves bandwidth

Still, this is a good way to do the work
The Earliest Known iPad Prototype Was Thick, White, and Perched on Paper Cups
Jerks Of The Bible Series | Entry #1
Ha, the more you know. Thanks for the info!
I actually think we have Piracy to thank for this and perhaps to a lesser extent Open Source.

There seems to exist a group of people who feel that piracy isn't just something that you do because you can't afford product X and feel marginally guilty about doing but something that is somehow a fundamental human right in a "people who pay for software are mugs" sort of way.
There's a Top 1000 Grossing Apps list for iPhone that is track-able. They are in that list in the 500-700 range. Here's a screenshot of their graph so you don't have to create an appannie account: https://skitch.com/webwright/eenji/sparrow-rank-history-app-...
I'd put $1 on the following proposition: 30 years from now, the advertising industry (i.e. in which sellers of products pay directly for advertising - advertising which is not content and does not attempt to confuse the receiver about this) will have less than 1/10th the revenue it does today, as a proportion of the total revenue of all industries put together (I'd say "GDP" but I think that may be defined in terms of profit rather than revenue - and I expect margins to shrink everywhere).

(I think we'll see a big rise in viral marketing, shill and semi-shill reviewing (Klout, amazon's programme where they send products to highly rated reviewers), product placement and sponsored content (the my little pony cartoons; mad men with jack daniels; akb0048), which will blur the line between advertising and content creation. But I think outright ads will collapse)
I use all 12 of them on a regular basis, except for F2. I just noticed F2 is free, so I bound it to 'revert-buffer, which I use all the time.

A single button works great for a gun. A computer does more things than a gun so it needs more buttons.
That was the reason (and the fact that an antiphoton IS its own photon, and, well, complicated stuff), don't worry. ;)
OK, I tried to suppress it but I'm letting it out.

I got tired of all the articles on doing something in a specific way. It's far too personal and everyone of us has the mental capacity to overcome serious problems with a solution of his own. A solution which, IMHO, can't be documented since it's just how our (individual) brain works and solves real problems.

The "Do Something in this way and you should benefit" is far too overrated, since it's one person's perspective and in no way should be taken too seriously, other than a short "advice" or a story to read before going to bed.

Therefore, I see no real value in posts like this, other than the editor's need to "let it out".
Sending this to Mojang wouldn't hurt.
photos seem fake to me..
Just had a browse through and although these particular patent examiners are obviously smart, software is not their area.

If you are looking for answers as to how some of the ridiculous patents manage to get through the patent office (including patents for software concepts that engineers are likely to consider "obvious" or for which there is likely "prior art"), you are unlikely to find the answers here.
Show HN: Sentry: it's like mod_rewrite for DNS 
Sentry is a DNS proxy that allows you to inspect, block, rewrite, redirect and resolve queries in-flight. My weekend hack that turned out to be surprisingly useful.
Wordpress social login plugin
Writer must be new; Apple seldom sells out, and when they do, it's for a day or two at the most.
I think you should try since there is no downside. If it doesnt work, no harm done.
Oh I agree, but the future world we're facing is that everyone will have a little dirt on everyone else due to the proliferation of material---the example in the comment I responded to was your friends and family being fed a feed of your tripping on the street because a stranger tagged it as 'lol funny'.
> Surely, to stop people using the image or whatever is the very purpose of copyright in the first place?

I thought the purpose was to financially compensate the original creators of the image or whatever
The online inventory seems to be fine, or was last week. I ordered mine on the evening of the 15th and had it on my doorstep on the 19th. I'm always suspicious of retail "sell out" news. Even the linked article points out that it's subject to PR abuse.
I agree, fewer buttons does not necessarily make a device simpler. There's a happy medium that I think Android hit with the four-button menu/home/back/search keys. Whenever I use an iPhone anymore I always cache-miss and try to find the hardware back button.
A question I'd have is when is reputation more sticky? When you have small pieces of information about another person and don't really know them outside of that 1 dimension? Or when you have a holistic image of them yet for one reason or another its tilted towards like or dislike?

For example, I think in small towns the pariahs and those dubbed 'weird' have a harder time getting rid of their reputation and there was always far more pressure to conform than there is today.
That's exactly it. Though to be fair, I pulled the $50 number out of you-know-where. The point is more that the caramel-latte-priced software model only works for items with huge volume.
At least for Facebook, I think it is possible to check if they have enough photos tagged of you that they feel confident that they can identify you in photos.

Facebook → Privacy Settings → Timeline and Tagging Edit Settings → Who sees tag suggestions when photos that look like you are uploaded? (this is not yet available to you)

Needless to say there are very few pictures of me on Facebook and none of them are taken or uploaded by me.
I guess they are meaning "free as in freedom" which is something that comes up time and time again thanks to the FSFs insistence on using poor wording.

I don't think that developers don't "value" software.
It would be a push to suggest that people who use Linux,Apache or Emacs don't see any "value" to them.

I'm sure if they though about it they could probably assign a high dollar amount that would reflect the utility they receive from these programs.

Personally I don't have a problem either paying for a commercial software or using an open source alternative.

It's when an application is either free (as in $0 or outrageously cheap) and closed source and I can't "get" the developer's business model that I would be very hesitant to rely on it.
U.S.A government site hacked by GxS hacker the indian hacker.
Need beta users for TrustRecs
Hi - I just launched a beta version of a new social recommendation service and looking for some beta users. It would be great if you could try the site and give me your feedback about the core functionality. In addition, please let me know whether you would prefer TrustRecs over Yelp or Angie's list if you are looking for a service provider. Here is the URL for TrustRecs: http://www.trustrecs.com
Race, IQ and Wealth
Michael Marantz's Selects Picks
Why Are Some Olympic Women’s Teams Flying Coach While the Men Fly Business?
That would certainly be a good payday. Were there no investors?
It depends how many people are going to use your software which is some function of your marketing, how good it is and how many people would find any use in it at all.

I'm not going to download an app that is useless to me, even if it costs nothing.

Obviously there are only so many people who use email and only so many of those are interested in using an alternative client.