skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Since I use PHP at work, I've been waiting eagerly for closures since I first heard they'd be in 5.3.

Hopefully this stable release will have fewer issues than 5.1, and we can all upgrade quickly. I'm getting a little tired of cursing PHP's lack of lexical closures everyday (and I'm sure my co-workers are tired of listening to me complain).
There's only so much science can tell us about human morality.
I said "physical" to exclude the misunderstanding.
Some days, all I wish is that PHP had a shortcut assignment operator:

$var = $tom || 'ed';
EvServer, Introduction: The tale of a forgotten feature
Debunked: Apple Doesn’t Ban Facebook In Stores As A Policy (Yet)
So the human brain has about 10^11 neurons and about 10^4 synapses per neuron. Naively representing the state of each synapse with one byte requires 10^15 bytes that's about 500,000 PCs.

But neurons aren't necessarily the optimal substrate for "neural" computation. They have a cycle time of about 100 Hz. Electronics are potentially a factor of 10^8 faster. Neurons also have a lot of noise which surely reduces their information transmission capacity. Also there are major constraints on the neural tissue involving power consumption and stability against siezures. Also there are vast sections of the brain e.g. the cerebellum which are apparently devoted to problems like stabilizing posture and making smooth movements which can be solved much easier with electronic controls.

It's very plausible that we could achieve a factor of 100 or even 1000 over the brain. The bottleneck is human imagination; we don't have a clue how the thing works.
Intelligence can't be measured in huge numbers, and every single human brain is infinitely more intelligent than any possible computer.

It's not me saying this, but science.
a pdf version, for those who prefer such things: http://robinhanson.typepad.com/files/three-worlds-collide.pd...
We would never have noticed what? I mean, 1234567890 only looks special because of a few cultural biases we share (like using the decimal system). Consider that if we were used to, say, a ternary system this quantity would be unrecognizable while other ones would be.

And I don't see what incidence noticing this has on anything, besides a few posts about it on the internet and a feeling in a lot of people that this is "special". My first reaction was thinking that this is cool, but after careful consideration I realize how pointless this is. Let's get excited over actual events. News.

Oh, was I overanalysing again?
at this risk of being corny, amen to that :)
$1,143 to London to help a Facebook friend supposedly robbed at gunpoint -- Wait a second...
I know everything is moving to SaaS for very good reasons (both for the developers and for the customers), but one thing the old packaged software business had going for it was that costs were totally decoupled from pricing: your largest cost tended to be development, which meant that you could (in theory) just sell the same thing to 10x the number of people without substatially increasing your costs.

Ironically, at least in the enterprise space our experience is that companies will pay much more for installed software than for SaaS, which seems totally counter-intuitive. When you're selling them installed software, they look at it as an investment, evaluate ROI, compare against the amount required to do an internal build, etc. When you're selling them SaaS, they look at it as a cost center to be minimized, and their interest is primarily in driving your costs through the floor.

To put it another way, with installed software they realize they're paying your development costs, and that even if 100 other people are as well they know that it's still cheaper to buy from you than to build themselves. With SaaS, they act like they're paying you for hosting and support and totally ignore the development cost aspect of things, so their acceptable price is much lower. Irrational? Sure. But when my company investigated doing a hosting offering of our enterprise insurance products, we basically saw that it would probably end up just lowering our margins significantly, as well as probably lowering a potential future market valuation. Any sales we lose from not having an official hosted offering (we have partners that will host our software for them, but they're still paying us the full license fee) are ones we're willing to live with.

My understanding is that public markets have tended to value companies with that exponential profit growth ability at higher valuations than companies with more linear, fixed margins. There aren't all that many SaaS business public at this point, so it'll be interesting to see how the market values them once they are; my impression is that equivalent installed-software and SaaS businesses (same revenue stream and profit, say) will have wildly different valuations, fair or not, due to the theory that the installed-software vendor can much more easily turn the crank to increase revenue without increasing costs.
I'm quite sure that 32 bit software will be in use for a long time to come and still be in use by 2038 primarily because the ever increasing use of machine virtualization allows one to defer updating software to run on new systems. The budget conscious may ask: Why update when you have perfectly working software on a VM which can just be moved from hardware to hardware?
I was just watching and saw that. I think 'explain' is the wrong word. Something causes teacher quality. It usually doesn't change over time. Knowing it doesn't change over time lets you make predictions. But that isn't explaining what the cause really is.
ESPN360 has been around for years, and I'm honestly surprised it's still running. ESPN is _the_ leader in sports, and I honestly don't know why they don't switch over to a Hulu-type thing, with free content + advertising (I'm sure they can get all their TV advertisers to switch over). I'd love to understand why because, aside from the fact that they themselves don't own sports teams, I don't get it. The day I can watch live sports online is the day I get rid of cable.

Also, Verizon paying for this really makes me excited for FiOS to hit my neighborhood.
I personally use a wraper around php's create_function to predefine upto 6 parameters and also return the last statement.

function lambda( $code )
{
if( !preg_match( '/return/', $code ) )
{
$code = preg_replace('/^(.*;(?!\s*$))?/s', "$1 return ", $code);
}

$code .= ';';
$response = create_function('$_=null,$_1=null,$_2=null,$_3=null,$_4=null,$_5=null', $code);

if( !$response )
{
error_log("lambda($code) failed");
}
return $response;
}

This converts:

$func = create_function('$v','return htmlenties($v,ENT_QUOTES);');
array_map($func, $data);

Into:

array_map(lambda('htmlenties($_, ENT_QUOTES)'), $data);
Ask HN: Finding a contractor to set up our server
I'm working on a software as a service app, and my co-founder and I are confident in the app itself, but not so much in our sysadmin abilities. In order to feel comfortable taking people's money, we want to be confident that our server is set up correctly to handle the expected load and is secure.

This isn't something we want to trust to what we can pick up from reading books, articles, and tutorials on server administration -- we'd rather hire someone to do the initial server set up, and ideally find someone who could be around on a once-in-a-while contract basis to fix any issues that may crop up.

So the question is, how do we locate and evaluate such a person? Has anyone had experience in hiring a sysadmin on a contract basis to do some one-time set up work?
The article describes this as "impersonation" -- but is it?

To me, impersonation on Facebook implies putting up an entire profile pretending to be someone else.

The article also says "a hacker appeared to steal Rutberg's identity" -- surely his 'identity' wasn't stolen, just his Facebook credentials, and even then, they weren't stolen so much as borrowed temporarily and misappropriated.
Seems like there's room for more startups in this area - paypal/google checkout/etc.

I don't want to re-implement a billing system, I just want to tell some API "This person should be paying X per month, let us know via some callback if they don't."

With all this sudden hyping of charging for web based software, you'd think there would be more choice out there.
Yegge, Clojure, and Arc
I'm taking care of this by memoizing them, at least when using Fn::lambda() to create a function with create_function. However, the whole return function() {}; should be garbage collected, since internally it's creating an object of type Closure with a magic method __invoke(). It's really quite the hack from what I've seen.
FWIW, it's not obvious that the one-thread one-connection blocking I/O design is terrible.

Any time you're using a 'thread' idiom, even if they are green, something has to be maintaining their individual execution state (stack frames, thread-local address space, etc.). I like to think of it as being analagous to unoptimized tail-recursion, with a purely event-driven callback model being like tail-call optimization.

Thanks for explaining Windows' overlapped I/O, it's way better than I thought it was from reading the documentation. I didn't realize that it does all the thread-pooling stuff all by itself -- I guess it makes the most sense not to fight it, and just accept the free utilization (even if it does give a slight latency hit).
Microsoft: Layoffs for Some, Visas for Others
Thanks for the excellent article. This parallels nicely with Nassim Taleb's work on black swans, how statistical knowledge fails us when unpredictable extreme events are present.

I recently attended a talk by an economist who advised Greenspan during the housing run-up, and I was disappointed that he didn't cover the limits of knowledge: he stated things got worse due to declining housing prices, which is a symptomatic treatment of the problem. Hopefully this kind of deeper analysis will gain traction.
Are We Bringing Our Germs to Mars?
Amazon anecdote: I bought a very expensive Canon 70-200mm lens for my camera on a Thursday afternoon. I had the lens shipped overnight so that I could use it for a weightlifting meet to be held that Sunday. Unfortunately, amazon.com informed me, the item did not ship until Friday, which meant I would not get my product until Monday - This, for obvious reasons, was unacceptable.

So I emailed amazon. Twenty minutes later I got a CALL from Executive Customer Relations and they spoke in great detail about how they would ASSURE me I would get my product with Saturday delivery. They canceled the existing order mid-shipment and sent out another one with Saturday delivery AND killed the exuberant shipping charge. I got my product in time to use that Sunday and I was a happy camper.

That, my friends, is how you kick ass at business.
I use my belt holes! AT 5'9, 195lbs my BMI is borderline obese but I'm in great shape.
The reason why I cannot assign probabilities in this case is that the underlying concepts are too vague (particularly if you don't accept any one religion's terms) and there can be no empirical observations either. I guess doubting the feasibility of assigning probabilities here is exactly what makes me an agnosticist. Your argument is definately interesting though.
Good point, I guess there's stuff you can learn from the past and the rest is really dependent on your particular scenario where iterative development is the best way to find a version that "works".
PayPal's PayFlowPro can do basically that. No callbacks, you have to poll them.
Invention turns cell phone into mobile medical lab
Hi Schwa23, the design of balsamiq.com is mine - I have the Illustrator files to prove it :) - but I did design it at the height of my 37Signals "fanboy" phase, so I'm not surprised of the resemblance. I am not 100% happy with the site and I'm working with a designer on a new look...give me a couple of months.
Harvard's endowment managers lose 22% of endowment, will cut staff by 25%
That's not the point.

The human brain is quite "infinitely" interconnected, and this is something which not only would be really, really hard to solve with a physical machine: it's simply impossible.

I understand the fascination of a real super computer, but it's simply nothing compared to a single human brain...
can i just proxy through a university system?
Fake real-life parking ticket leads to malware download
Here's an interesting issue with Quines; if you release a Quine under an open source license, but only distribute the binary, does that still satisfy the rules of open source?
Agreed, but the article was talking about how the platform can be compromised and through rogue software it can transmit location and audio.
I find religion absolutely fascinating, but also one of the most difficult topics to deal with in an open forum (as opposed to a personal conversation, where you can get into an in-the-moment flow and show respect while also bringing up challenging ideas). So while I'd certainly enjoy more intelligent conversations about religion, I'd worry that adding it here would not be worth the risk.
I upvoted you before reading the article, however, after reading it I don't see the author claiming anything of the sort. Instead they just gloss over the IP allocation and focus on how translation occurs from a 'public' IP to a 'private' IP.
Seth Godin Explains Why You Need a Tribe and Why he is Not on Twitter
Rails documentation for Mac OS X Dictionary.app
"The younger folk helped out the old when they got sick, and the older folk helped the people with little children when they needed a sitter. This kind of social cohesion doesn't exist in secular society"
Religious people do not have a monopoly on kindness. If you compare social programs in religious vs non secular societies(e.g europe vs USA) you will find the exact opposite of what you say.
Maybe we need another poll to see how many of the nubs are actually hackers...
The best way to attack this from the point of view of capitalism is to boycott their sponsors. That is remarkably effective. It can take famous personalities off the air, and much more.

Whining doesn't work. Hurting their pocketbook does.
You should have some bullet point summary or how to
Hospitals with better IT have fewer deaths, study shows
Great article! All the points are right on the mark - but open to interpretation as I can see from the comments so far. We meet a lot of founders and I see them pointing out to Outliers all the time. Getting Real book and stuff like that. If one could write a book to build a successful startup or emulate Outliers, we'd all be running billion dollar companies. There's a lot more to success than a single recipe.

Most importantly, I think you can learn from Outliers and apply but think of your OWN WAY TO BUCK CONVENTIONAL WISDOM and do it in a way that you believe it and are passionate about making it happen.
My favorite quote is from John McCarthy:
"By the way, I count myself as an atheist rather than an agnostic. My criterion for being an atheist is believing that the evidence on the god question is in a similar state to the evidence on the werewolf question. "
Obama appoints John Doerr to economic advisory board
Legally, ISPs are not subject to common carrier regulation today, so they are not worried about losing a status that they don't have.
Great reference of the number of ships they would send to save a child:65536.

((2^2)^2)^2
Exactly. There are a lot of circumstantial aspects that leads to success which cannot be captured in advice at all. Those cannot be recreated, of course. 37Signals' advice is solid, but many times when they imply that its the best way to do something, I tend to disagree.
Ask HN: Please help me price my new app
Hello Friends,

I'm about to release a new application and I think I need some help thinking through the pricing.

The app is an add-on to a very popular application used by independent contractors and small businesses. I've essentially created new modules for other users of this application.

Anyway, the application I'm extending is a Freemium product, where a lot of people are using the app for free. The people who need my extensions do pay, and it's anywhere from $14/month to $300/month. I'm betting the mean is $25.

Any ideas here? Should I be Freemium? And if so, how do I price in relation to the mother ship? Any out of the box ideas besides "just price lower than the main application" (which is the best I've come up with)?

Thanks, Matt
I'd suggest that you also try and learn from this person - it might cost a bit more initially, but basic admin skills are something that everyone technical should have. Sure, know your limits too - you may never be the guy that runs the 100 system data center, but you should be able to manage a few computers competently.
Google tells how it conducts eye-tracking studies
Things that would be helpful for us to know:

* The language / frameworks you're using
* The amount of traffic you need to handle
* One server or many
* Your budget
* The expected load your application will create on the server
ESPN has always offered ESPN360 to a limited number of ISPs. For instance, I can't get it while at work because our ISP doesn't subscribe. Pretty frustrating since I'm a Verizon customer and can get it at home. Would be great if they allowed me to log in with an ISP account rather than do IP-detection.
He doesn't mention a merchant service provider. Does this mean he deals only with the bank?
Businesses thrive like Amazon by being efficient and well polished. Amazon is able to handle exceptions well because they do such a polished job of the majority of orders. When exceptions are such a minority, it's easy to give them the time and attention that they deserve. When exceptions are always popping up, you can't afford the labor to deal with them in a way that makes customers happy. When exceptions aren't usual, their added cost doesn't make that much of a difference to your bottom line.

Amazon automates their system well and runs a tight ship where most orders go through with no hassle, no interference, etc. That makes it easy for them to spend a little more on certain cases to make customers happy.

Part of it is just that other retailers aren't so efficient. If you're hiring store staff, most of the day people are in work and they have little to do. Even during busy times, they won't be able to move merchandise like Amazon where it can be made more assembly-line oriented.

So, Amazon is able to give people the experience that they want because all the easy things take no time for them.
Peldi, I think your product rocks which is what counts. I am not sure how partly taking a homepage design from another site is a big deal and not relevant to this conversation.
I turned the feature on, then realized I need more than a handful of personal emails (not newsletters) to actually justify its use.
Overall, a poor story. I continually tried to place myself in the minds of people living through this encounter and failed. Only the Confessor seemed to offer any insite into this culture. People simply would not jump to such conclusions so immediately. Yes, people might be horrified about conscious children being eaten but they would not immediately jump to conclusions of Lets Invade!

The story seemed lime an ad-hoc mix of the ideas of Charles Stross, Ray Bradbury, and edited by the rambling and incoherent Steve Gilmore
I deactivated on first turning it on, then next day turned it back on and spent some time.

Right now I have three panes, stacked vertically. One is the inbox, one is unread messages with a particular label (which i really had been treating as a second inbox), and third is starred.

In a morning of using it this way It has been very useful, and I find myself actually using the starring function much better.

Stacking vertically made a big difference for me, as I skim subjects and the horizontal layout didn't leave enough subject.
Its "Gandhi" and not "Ghandi".
I am amazed "tax free" isn't anywhere in that article. Being tax free and having what is certainly a more affluent shopping base absolutely can't hurt in tight economic times.

I will say Prime is simply amazing. Amazon with it and Amazon without it are entirely different experience. With "super saver shipping" my entire order would need to group and be ready, which literally took months on some occasions. With Prime everything ships as soon as it is available and usually within the same day.
Ageism exists and it gets worse as you get older. I think geebee did the right thing, but came to the wrong conclusion. If you are experienced and good, you are probably expensive. You can probably be replaced by 2 new grads, H1B's, or a whole offshore team. I was. Read the comments on stackoverflow and you will see such stupid comments as the one who said he didnt like older programmers because they talked about their kids, yeah must be old 30 somethings. Or the usual inane remarks that imply older programmers never made it beyond Cobol.

Experience does matter. LOC per year dont matter; it's writing the right lines, or choosing the right architecture that does matter.

geebee hit the interview nail right on the head. Most interviews are structured to weed out incompetent new grads, hence the programming tasks and the language lawyer questions. When I'm in an interview, I really dont want to waste my time describing when I would use an abstract class over an interface. Why waste time with programming problems with someone who has been doning it for 20-30 years. The successful interviews discuss how I would tackle the real problems that the company faces.
I'm a panentheist. I'm not sure in which category that falls (deism sounds the closest).

As far a flaming goes, this subject is all about beliefs, as we don't truly know how the universe ticks. No point trying to "win".

re: comments about whether HN is mature to handle religion topics - I think curiosity and humility are key. I feel that the ability to throw away pre-defined beliefs is fundamental in order to learn about other perspectives and ultimately allow an intelligent discussion about religion to take place.
you might find this helpful:

http://github.com/davisp/hypercouch/tree/master

here's the background:

http://www.davispj.com/posts/12
BTW:

I really love the "0 karma" feature from sites like this one: It helps very, very much not to waste too much time here, given that I never learned anything substantial on places like this one. May I cite some better teachers:

- books
- real persons
- live discussions
- pubs
- restaurants
- (last not least) my family(!!)

or simply: anything that escapes virtuality...
Yeah ditto this. I think you'll actually find that's it a fun part of startups too.

That said, I bet if you provide some more details on what you have and what you need that you'll find a couple guys here.
I think this is awesome. To me this represents the first step in the content providers saying "f-you, we're not paying to deliver, you're the one with the money connection to the viewers".

The ISPs that are going down the anti-NN rathole are pitting themselves against both their customers and the content providers. In macro they might make some revenue from this stuff but I can't see how it could end well.
One thing I find comical is the idea that young people have an easier time keeping their skills "up to date."

One of the truisms of computer science and computer industry is that the practice in industry reflects things that were current in computer science one or two decades ago. If a SmallTalk or Lisp developer fell into a coma 10 or 20 years ago, they are not going to be shocked by how much progress has been made while they were out of commission. They are going to be amazed that the median developer still does not have as productive environment as they did when they were last conscious.

Give them a couple days to get up to speed on the general idea behind HTML and web browsers, and a couple more days to get the specific details of whatever C derived syntax is being used, and they will be ready to be productive. If you are a new developer, everything you are learning is new. For an old developer, it's just a matter of learning the diffs.