skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> 1. Take off all the stickers

When I was young, I annoyed my alpha sister by creating an unsolvable Rubik's cube (by swapping some stickers around). It was by accident, though, I was simply trying to get one side of the cube to be solid. I still have that cube somewhere.
What "literally" does is turn off the automatic evaluation of (stale) metaphors, thereby drawing attention to the metaphor itself.

And although it has been overused tremendously, this is a very useful feature to have in a language (just like being able to say "hopefully she'll come" is a useful feature to have).

Another way of explaining it is that "literally" should not be understood as "what follows is not a metaphor" but instead as "what follows is not a stale metaphor".
Check out dougstats.com My girlfriend's dad has run it for ~15 years, and it has a TON of raw data.
This makes so much sense, why am I not doing this already? Now I know how doctors feel...
Is Working College?
No thanks, I want my skillset to be rare, not commoditized.
Surprising and encouraging to see this kind of critical questioning coming from Harvard, even if it just a blog.
Really? Or, more, make room for more no-jobs.
So over the holidays people were tossing around the idea that the awful retail sales would translate into a boom for Amazon, as shoppers tried to save money by buying online instead. Has anyone seen a comparison of the total retail shortfall relative to Amazon's bumper quarter? Are they even the same order of magnitude?
GPGMail finally works under Mac OS X 10.5
... but seriously, I heard they use(d) Segways; that was their level of automation for a while (maybe still).
Ok, I stand corrected, then. I didn't realize banks can make money whenever they want. Thus, money is really a form of speculation.

EDIT

I reverse my position. Sure, banks have the prerogative create money, but their ability to do so is based on people using the banks. Once banks no longer provide value for people, they lose their money creation ability. So, even banks are limited in their printing of money.
The story of Chestnut Lisp translator
I don't disagree that this (the recent availability of online lectures) is not a mirror replacement for uni. It's also not entirely new. The possibility of getting a uni equivalent education without enrolling has always existed (at least partially). Books, uni Libraries. Many places will let you sit in on virtually all classes without enrolling. But it has always remained in the sidelines.

But... Pointing to any developed of this kind and saying 'this isn't uni' as if it means something really substantial is short sighted. The improvement & accessibility of free online learning materials is going to have a profound effect, most probably.

If Universities' value is kept only in the fringe: 'interacting with others,' 'the personal & social experience' & the rest of the things that cannot be replaced by online study, well... Universities have an educational (skills & knowledge, if you prefer) role and a gate-keeping role. If they loose their edge on those, they loose their edge.
Isn't Steven Chu, Obama's new Secretary of Energy, pro-nuclear?

From: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=reactivating-nuclear-rea...

"Nuclear power, as I said before, is going to be an important part of our energy mix," said physicist Steven Chu, Obama's secretary of energy during his confirmation hearing on January 14. "It's 20 percent of our electricity generation today, but it is 70 percent of the carbon-free portion of electricity today. And it is baseload. So I think it is very important that we push ahead." He added: "There is certainly a changing mood in the country because nuclear is carbon-free, that we should look at it with new eyes."
Ask HN: What is the best version control software for lone web developers?
Even using the Hulu design.
You have clearly never had a maid to do all your laundry, ironing, etc ;)

Seriously though as someone who went to a high-school where a shirt, suit and tie was mandatory the theory is it inspires a certain kind of behavior. If you are in formal-ware then it's a sign you are working. You change when you get home.

Personally I don't buy it though and now I work in the internet industry so I don't have to, awesome.
Wikipedia list of algorithms
Would you want to read/watch anything created by Beth or whatever her name was, in the video?
Don Norman's 'In Defense of PowerPoint'
This is a pretty incredible compilation of lectures. I also really like the fact that they post Sample Exams, so you can test your learning.

My question... whats the licensing of these materials. What would stop me from setting up my own mini college, with a big screen TV, and use these courses instead of hiring professors. The value prop would be to combine these lectures with a classroom setting and a program that would encourage students to read along with the courses (textbook) and graded exams for feedback.
Agreed. Was just thinking most about different possible outcomes and what they would have worked out like.
I don't know, but I think this is really just another iteration of the debate over how much college should be vocational training and how much it should be devoted towards building minds. My greatest regret towards the way I approached some of my college course selections was to worry too much about how useful it would be to my career/how it would affect my GPA, since I needed to make sure my resume was competitive enough to get a job. I should have taken more classes that were just challenging and interesting for their own sake.

Then again, I got, and at least for now, am still holding a job, so, hindsight 20/20, neh?
What they install are require for applications to run. If they don't need it then they don't put it on it's as simple as that.
Looks like MIT's stuff is licensed under creative commons, which means noncommercial. Wonder how hard it would be to get commercial authorization.
Professor Arms at Cornell once said during lecture that he was most impressed by the quality of the math articles on Wikipedia, and I think the same holds true for the computer science articles (and, really, when you get to the point of talking mostly about algorithms without code, that's what it really is anyway).
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey

Seriously. The timeline in those movies is an awesome puzzle. Not quite Primer, but the same vein.
With all due respect to Amazon they don't even come close. The Dept. of Commerce initially reported retail sales were down by 9.8% from December 2007 which accounts for about $37.2 billion less in sales (http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/business/us-retail-sales...). Amazon's total sales were only $6.7 billion and it was only up $1.03 billion.

Still great for Amazon but no where close to compensating for the total loss.
Well I guess if anything it's time to stop viewing college as an inevitably great investment. If you feel that an English major college degree would be an enriching experience, then treat it as such, not as an investment.

From this vantage point it's comparable to taking a year off to travel (except 4X longer) or taking a couple of years off to volunteer. The question then becomes, can I afford it?

An interesting excercise is thinking about creative alternatives with similar costs. Say a parent was willing to give their 17-18 yr old child 100k in capital (maybe also help getting financed) + a 4 year stipend to start a business. Every cent must be reinvested. I'm not saying go start Microsoft. Maybe buy an ice cream franchise, mobile dog wash or double up & spring for an existing small business. Would they emerge 'more likely to succeed' at 22 then they would have otherwise?
Git has a very nice and very simple installer on OS X: http://code.google.com/p/git-osx-installer/

You don't need to muck with macports or anything.
I'll go out on a limb and guess that you haven't had an SO for the majority of your post-15 year-old life.

Correct. I bloomed late. I'm a pwncat now, but I'm also mature enough to use my "power" in constructive and appropriate ways.

You have deep friendships with women who tell you how wonderful you are but they have someone else or do without.

Sounds like my high school experience. You're not terribly far off-- 8 years or so.

* In some cases, they even say things like "why can't my boyfriend be more like you".*

I've only heard that one once, from a girl I probably could have "turned" because her boyfriend cheated and was generally mean to her (and she was smarter and much more attractive than he was). I had a girlfriend at the time.

Here's today's clue. When women say "it's not you, it's me", they're lying.

Indeed.

LJBF.

Ah, the acronyms. Do you fancy yourself a PUA or an AFC?
For reference, the other iterations, in other sectors of the business news:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=275258 (Wall Street Journal)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=115158 (Financial Times)
Yea, that's life on the internet for ya.
it does seem a little backhanded to have rewritten the app in ruby and then passively alter opinion to use ruby. maybe that's better than aggressively trying to alter opinion?

one of the first django teams i was on after college had a guy who frustratedly rewrote our work in ruby. the rest of us were new to python, django and web apps in general, while he was more experienced, so he kind of missed the whole point about learning, mentoring and team work versus getting frustrated and wasting time.

this was a different situation, and is also just an anecdote. nonetheless, i couldn't help but cringe when i heard he'd rewritten the app in ruby without first consulting the team, even if just to say--look, i'm going to do this in my spare time as a learning experiment. i'll check in before it gets out. i appreciate ya'll's support.
Don't you mean "allegedly humourous"?
So did you link it because of the interesting subject matter or the fact that there is actually a serious discussion happening on reddit?
Huge pet peeve. I think less of a person when the perfectly legitimate use of 'literally' is a pet peeve of theirs.

If you read the article you would understand how there's nothing improper about the usage. If you knew anything about human language you'd know that there's no such thing as an improper usage. Sheidlower is a highly respected lexicographer and his entire article subtly acknowledges this fact. The speech community uses the word in a certain way, and all who hear it understand what is being said, without even consciously realizing it. There is nothing improper or wrong about how it is being used. The amazing richness of language is due in part exactly to the kind of mechanisms that cause drift such as seen with 'literally', and it's a testament to the endless versatility of the language mechanism. On the surface at which the average person contemplates it, sitting around in their armchair, language is not a rigid, logical artifice that makes the sort of naive sense they want it to.

Read Pinker's 'The Language Instinct' for a good discussion of the topic of language mavens. My pet peeve is people like you, who have pet peeves that are grounded in your own ignorance.
Ask HN: Transmoggit (aka "HTF is trim in Python?"); What next? 
Hey all,

After inerte's post a few days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=446507, I thought I'd use it as an excuse to fiddle with GAE and jQuery.

With props to Bill Watterson [1], I banged up "transmoggit": http://www.transmoggit.com/

(try something like "trim" from PHP -> Python, as an example chosen not-at-all-at-random)

It does the obvious mapping thing, and lets you add your own. That's all fine, I guess, but it's not super-useful, until the 2.0 bit kicks in and "people" start adding clever translations. Of course, no one will bother to amend translations until there's some reason to visit first.

So, my question for the wise crowd: any suggestions on how to automate getting sensible mappings for, say, the easy 50-80%?

(any other suggestions are quite welcome too :)

thanks,
scott

1. http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/9876/transmog.html
And linkage for the lazy:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=446507

http://www.transmoggit.com/

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/9876/transmog.htm...
Government Blocks Release of Documents on Secret IP Enforcement Treaty
There's less people writing ruby code. Both in the interpreter itself, and for open source projects using ruby. You can see on that page a graph showing less people are writing ruby code too.
Learning Science Facts Doesn't Boost Science Reasoning
Mike, If you ever read this, may be it's time to shutdown TC!. As you mentioned, you've got a template for farewell letter from T-Shirt Hell ;)

No, don't. Just kidding. Be careful out there.
Wow great. Thanks for that.
> And women only recently started working

Nope. The 4-70s US stay-at-home Mom was an abberation. She didn't exist before the Great Depression. (Farmer's wives worked.)
Good Bank, Bad Bank by Dr. Seuss
Poetic Brief
Anyone know what Flash video player these guys are using? Is it available for use? It's pretty awesome
Well, it's been a while since I left the java world. Back then it was all about "inverse of control", Spring and the ilk, and maven was starting out. People were basically competing about who can move the most code from java files to xml descriptors and who had the smartest pom.xml...

Maybe things have bettered since then but from what I see at least the maven disease seems to still be all over the place. I'm not saying that all these things are necessarily bad. I just grew really tired of juggling monstrous xml blobs
around while still being forced to write (or generate) metric tons of boilerplate code.
Some aspects, like saying women aren't feminists and don't respect themselves if they are against sleeping around, are very bad.

That's not an aspect of feminism. It's a justification that slutty women use for behavior they know is self-destructive. "I'm not a whore, I'm liberated." Bull-fucking-shit. There's nothing liberating about having some meathead alpha-male ram a flashlight into you while his drunken fraternity brothers cheer him on. Male sluts (they exist), players, and cads don't have that excuse and therefore, at least, have to admit that what they're doing is fucked up and embarrassing.

The only feminist argument for casual sex is that women should be socially permitted to have casual sex as much as men are. Fine. I'll go that far. I think the social stigmas should be equal rather than hypocritically lopsided as they are now.

I mostly go the other way on how to equalize these attitudes. I think that casual hookup sex is contemptible and destructive behavior, but that the man should be condemned as strongly as the woman. After all, he's as much at fault as she is.
Agreed. Just nitpicking over the definition of education as gaining knowledge and skills, thus uni not conferring any benefit.
I have to say I have no idea how people decide to major in English. At my school they have it made and they just fuck it up so badly! They're this close to moving up in wealth and they decide to study literature...ouch.
> The most obvious difference between Haskell and F# is somewhat easy to infer from this graph: object oriented constructs. That is to say, OCaml pioneered the use of object oriented data structures in functional programming and F# is it’s direct descendant.

Uninsightful. OO in F# is unrelated to OO in OCaml.
> Ah, the acronyms. Do you fancy yourself a PUA or an AFC?

NOTA.

> I'm also mature enough to use my "power" in constructive and appropriate ways.

> I've only heard that one once, from a girl I probably could have "turned" because her boyfriend cheated and was generally mean to her

ROTFL.
TripIt API Released
Startup success case studies. From Xfire to Userplane....
And for less serious satire with nuggets of truth:

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/penn-and-teller-bullshit-c...
If I had thought of such an idea, I would have rejected it on the grounds of practicality: who needs Rubik solvers? Isn't the point of it to solve it yourself? And how popular are Rubik Cubes these days anyhow?

Would I have been wrong? Does this app appear to be headed for commercial success?
Things to know once you have the Twitter Account
The argument for the currency is "The concern was the flight of capital from the U.S. and an option discussed was a two-tiered currency, one for U.S citizens and one for foreigners."

What US govt is going to give better money to foreigners?

On a different note, where in CA or MX are US dollars not accepted?
All of these things seem to focus on skills. For better or worse, college is one of the rites of passage to being part of the economic elite – doubly so at institutions like Harvard – membership in which tends to be a better predictor of weath than practical skills. That's why it's really seen as an investment; for most degrees awarded it's been poor vocational training for a long time.
Is This The Pinnacle of Good Life for Men?
Git + large media files
So, I think this is one of those lessons learned from the school or hard knocks, for me. Sometimes it is just as important to be clear with yourself and the rest of your company about what customers you aren't trying to serve as being clear about what customers you are trying to serve.

You cannot satisfy everyone, but early on, when you have very few customers, you may tell yourself, "This customer would be worth doing something very different for." It is tempting to do anything you can do make a sale.

Sometimes, this is just a sign that you aren't targeting the right people yet, and it's time to evolve and grow. But, if you aren't careful it just leads to you trying to be all things to all people. I had this problem with my previous company...the questions would come, "Can you do X, Y, and Z?" And my thought process would be, "Yes on X and Y, and I could totally make Z happen, if I just spend two weeks developing it, making this a losing sale, but I'll amortize across future sales of Z." And I'd respond, "Yes." I'd make Z possible, and then I would never sell to another customer that needed Z. To be fair to this thought process, Virtualmin wouldn't exist had I been successful about saying "No, that's not something we do." But, counting up the successes vs. the things that merely distracted me from my real goals, that's batting about .025. And, I had wanted to make something like Virtualmin for years (and I'd even taken a stab at it three or four years previous and written 10kLoC, or so, and had some basic functionality and a half dozen users)...this customer just gave me an excuse to spend enough time/money on it to make it a reality.

Because I (almost) never have to spend an hour on the phone with anyone, either to make a sale or to support the product, I can spend that hour helping a dozen people solve their problems. Thus, sales are cheaper for us...so we can charge less. Support is cheaper for us, so we can do more of it, without having to charge extra as our competitors do.

If I ever said, "Yes", to the question, "Can I call you?" all of our math about how we make a profit on software that is as large as ours, while being as cheap as it is (and being 90% available in an Open Source form), would completely go out the window, and our prices would have to become too high to be competitive, or we would just start losing money on every sale, as I did in my previous business. I'm not saying answering a phone now and then would put us out of business...but I am saying that I don't want to be a telephone IT support business ever again (you're spot on in your assessment that you become every customers IT department, because you're the only company that answers the phone and has smart people on the end of the line--I can't even count the number of times I've fixed peoples routers because they couldn't afford a Cisco support contract). Before offering to answer phones, think about whether your business can support pricing that high (if you're unfamiliar with Cisco support pricing...do a little digging...be prepared to gasp), or if it will price you right out of the market.
Yes -- it is a common rookie mistake to confuse the specification with the claims. The claims define the invention and the scope of the patent; the specification helps interpret the claims.

Saying this, I have no opinion on whether Palm might be infringing this patent or not. From Palm's public statements--that they are just practicing the prior art, and multitouch has been around for decades--they are probably going to argue Apple's patent claims are invalid.
If you grow your own food you must pay prperty tax on land. If you trade with others for food you must pay sales tax.

The only way to not pay taxes is to live on donations from others (who paid tax on that which they gave you).
So, you're saying the government won't do anything to stop banks printing off reams and reams of money indiscriminately? Sure, like all things, power can be abused. But no power is absolute. It is all dependent, at least to some degree.
Because literature's fascinating? I gave up an English major for something more tech-related, because I read and analyze on my own - I don't need college for that - but still, if I had a choice between a billion dollars and acute understanding of every line of Finnegans Wake, I'd take the latter.
Thanks, I think I get it. But, what keeps you and your friends from developing your own groupthink, which you mock in others? In my experience, "be yourself" rarely, if ever, means be yourself.
Obama calls the $18B in Wall Street Bonuses ‘SHAMEFUL’
President Barack Obama issued a withering critique Thursday of Wall Street corporate behavior, calling it “the height of irresponsibility” for employees to be paid more than $18 billion in bonuses last year while their crumbling financial sector received a bailout from US taxpayers.
I know more than a few former Symantec employees who would describe his management style as anything but successful.

Basically somewhere around 2003 Symantec stopped actively developing it's core product line, they cut the number of developers and they made it impossible for the Platinum Support teams to access engineers directly. That and the moves they pulled as far as the consumer division support (800 people were told that they could apply for their current job at less than half the salary through Stream).

I realize that this is what Wall Street rewards, but it is not a good or sustainable way to run a company or a country.
What's with the tennis ball?