skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I know it's stupid to respond seriously to a comedy troll piece, but I can't resist:

Were there people that thought Compiz would make lots of people adopt Linux? That's kinda silly.

I like Compiz. It makes my desktop look nicer than Windows or OSX. But that's not why it's cool.

Compiz has two different kinds of plugins: pure eye-candy toys, and useful stuff. The wobbly windows, rain effect, and fire plugins are toys and are fun for about 5 minutes. You enable them to see what clever people can do to your desktop on modern hardware. Then you disable them.

In the second category are actual useful plugins. Virtual desktops are fantastic, but I've found it hard to explain the concept to non-technical people. Show them the Cube plugin for 10 seconds and it makes complete sense. The Zoom plugin is great for people with bad eyesight. Also, if you come across a flash video you can't fullscreen, just zoom in so it fills the screen. I do this with Pandora when I'm not using the computer so I can read the song and artist information from across the room. The Scale plugin is better than Exposé. The Group and Tab Windows plugin introduces new and useful ideas to window management.

Compiz is cool because the developers can be creative and experimental with new UI ideas. Maybe some of them don't end up working out (e.g. writing on the backs of windows seems like it might be really useful, but I've never found a good use for it), but some of them have changed how I've thought about the desktop interface.
Embed WebKit into Java 7?
I love memcached so much, it's totally saving my butt right now. This was a pretty interesting talk, but I don't think Zuck should have been the one giving it. He needs to give his talent more room to showcase their talent.
I've used these in the past - http://www.ti.com/msp430 - I believe they have lower power requirements than the AVR (at the expense of less memory). Does anyone know if the AVR has a external memory controller?
You're completely correct, my mistake. Thank you for clarifying my point.
I also like the AT&T OEIS:

http://www.research.att.com/

http://www.research.att.com/~njas/sequences/A114574 -- a good one :)
Government subsidies can not be ruled out - that would change the equation completely.

Additionally, this device will probably not be available for general consumption - it sounds like they plan to use it exclusively for education. If not, reselling 2 GB RAM sticks imported from India could become a lucrative business.
Yes, all this is correct. I misspoke. I really should proof read my hacker news comments more. But thank you for correcting me and doing so in a polite manner.
They specifically chose a government that would provide a more security and public service as a result of higher taxes

They might have thought they were choosing that, they may even have been told by the politicians they were choosing that, but what they were actually doing was spending tomorrow's money today. Now it is tomorrow and there's no money there.

Lesson for startups: Be careful that you see things how they are and not how you wish them to be.
makezine.com

codinghorror.com

iwillteachyoutoberich.com

joestump.net

freelanceswitch.com

zenhabits.net
You don't think it's possible to find loads of other people saying the same thing? Go on slashdot, and you'll see his points every time some kind of linux fanboyism pops up. Maybe there is something constructive in mixing it up with gems like "freetard" and random expletives, though.

I also checked a number of his other posts, and they are pretty similar.
In the examples that he gives, the main burden is in creating objects, not in concatenating strings. As long as there are just a small number of += operations, the ratio between object creation and concatenation remains similar and there will be no big difference in the long run.
Job opening on a company's "career site" are a very poor predictor of the number of people that company would hire if could find suitable candidates.

In some cases, the listing is to satisfy an HR rule and the person to be hired has already been selected. In other cases, it's "maybe someone wonderful will wander in".

And then there are the hires that happen without a listing.

I'd guess that the actual uncertainty in the total is more a function of the uncertainty in the numbers than it is in the sampling.
lol, someone else picked up on it and wrote the proper benchmark for it

8678ms for concatenation Vs 19ms for stringbuilding
Mars Rover's Unexpected Behavior Puzzles NASA
OT: This is why I keep wishing that languages would grow up when it came to strings and use better optimized big-O data structures like ropes instead and save everybody a lot of headache.
The A-team theme really changed this from the "Whoa, cool!" category to the rarefied "People need to see this NOW!" class.

Awesome use of an NXT.
I'm pretty tolerant of random expletives. And you find good comments in a lot of places. I'm certain I've seen Reddit comments linked as stories here before. But his blog is pretty consistently worth reading, he's got a very good mind for technical details, and he knows what he's talking about (look at his post about registries, for instance).
This is something I just do not understand:

Mr. Smith had earned about $90,000 at Metrostudy. His wife, Kimberly, earns about the same at a retail marketing firm.

If the money in the checking account wasn't enough to cover it, well, that's what credit cards were for. They accumulated more than $25,000 in credit-card debt.
I have no personal experience with it, but doing .NET on a shared host just sounds like a world of hurt.
Here are a few previous discussions:

Who would you pay to read? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=166607

The Best Blogs You're Not Reading http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=128762
La Tartine Gourmande
http://www.latartinegourmande.com
One of the best food blogs ever with awesome photography. It helps to have non-tech stuff sometimes :)
Some of that made a lot of sense - I didn't know Compiz added zoom, I thought that was built-in, and I agree that the default Linux multiple-desktops system lacks a good visual metaphor.

Out of curiosity: how does Scale work? What does it do that's better than Expose? And what is the Group and Tab Windows plugin? Is there a site that I could read up on all this in one convenient place that includes screenshots?
But that big bucket is sort of like the old axiom about filling a jar with stones. First you have to put in the biggest ones. And here I think they've ranked them pretty well in the list. Exercise and nutrition come first and are easy to forget especially with classical notions of Reason and what our daily demands are.

They did forget sleep however.
Apple doesn't make wobbly windows! For the most part, they don't include effects without actual, right-there performance impact! I don't want to debate this here, because I've debated it far too many times, but the genie effect lets you see where your window's headed, the bouncing icon on the dock shows you what program needs your attention, and the only irrelevant special glitzy feature I've ever seen on my Mac was the ripple that Dashboard shows you when you add an app, and I have Dashboard disabled. Also? When Apple does add a feature, they have a team working on it, so that if somebody were to quit their job it wouldn't fall apart.

Maybe if the compiz effects would actually look good and be useful, they would make people switch to Linux. I don't know, but you yourself admit to having tried Linux just because of compiz. So maybe it matters after all.

No. You should not market an OS based on a pointless feature that adds nothing but strain. You should sell your OS on what it lets you do. For Linux, advertise the application repository, how easy that is. Advertise the multiple desktops. You probably know better than I do what's good in Linux. But don't advertise a feature that adds nothing functional, wastes graphic space, and apparently was dependent on one person anyway. That would be like when Apple released their "web clips" for Dashboard, if they hadn't actually added the clipping feature and had only added the feature that lets you pick what the clip looks like, and then touted that as a big feature.
Whatever the merits of that article, the ridiculous multi-page presentation makes it unreadable.
From the section on coffee: "Try to limit yourself to fewer than 100 cups a day."

Ok, I'll try. 8*D
It would be at least straightforward to upgrade to the latest version. I haven't had any problems with OS X gcc.
That's extremely helpful. I've been looking for something like this, but haven't found any as comprehensive. Half the articles/TODOs I read are written by people that have founded multiple companies and are missing some of the things that aren't immediately obvious for a first-timer.

Thank you!
Inconsistent library versions when compiling programs. Hacks that can break very easily to detect system libraries.
Yes, but they get very ugly when you have a lot of control structures. Jeff prefers to move these into code, see here: http://twitter.com/codinghorror/statuses/1154609179
> Screen $1

We may have to go back to blinkenlights for displays.
I also like the Euro currency, the bigger the denomination the bigger the bill.
The wiki at compiz-fusion.org has good descriptions of many of the plugins.

Check out the Window Title Filter addon to the Scale plugin:

http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Plugins/Scale#head-d1eafdeb140...

Group and Tab Windows plugin:

http://wiki.compiz-fusion.org/Plugins/Group
I think this is the most clear-cut case of people getting excited about a product solely because the brand name is Google.

Online file storage is boring. Dropbox is free and works really, really well.
The problem is that there's a very real and finite limit to the "Moore's price law" as you mentioned. Yes, things get cheaper rapidly after initial R&D, but this slows down dramatically after a few years. Once the initial R&D cost is recouped you will find that there is still a significant production cost that is slow to reduce and doesn't really move much at all.

I recently bought a 200MHz ARM7 board with 128MB of RAM. At bulk rates it still costs ~$70 a pop, and you still have to add peripherals to that to make it a viable personal computer. At these prices we're hitting close to production cost.
Dopplr's Long Wow
RAM is disproportionately expensive on leased/managed servers; afaik it's just the pricing model that hosting companies established in the past (when RAM accounted for more of the total hardware cost compared to now), and the industry has stuck with it.
Fast String Searching With Suffix Trees
Summary: Building a Suffix Tree (in O(n) time and space) allows you to search for substrings in O(m) time (m being size of substring).

Link is to article describing algorithm and giving sample code in C++.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lite-Brite
Everyblock's Dilemma: How Do You Open Source Your Entire Site and Survive?
We hear a lot about the benefits of antioxidants, but I get the sense that people think they're only found in special foods.

Here's an overview of antioxidants, and foods high in them: http://www.ific.org/publications/factsheets/antioxidantfs.cf...

And a well-cited list of the benefits of many common foods: http://www.whfoods.com/foodstoc.php
Google: Our Green Data Centers Got a Lot Greener
What an absolutely lovely blog! Thanks so much for pointing this one out.
Google just needs to acquire Dropbox and scale them out.
Summary: Building a Suffix Tree (in O(n) time and space) allows you to search for substrings in O(m) time (m being size of substring).

Link is to article describing algorithm and giving sample code in C++.
US scientific output begins to slow
The only blog I really read: http://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/ (interesting discussion of game theory that is accessible to non-game-theorests)

I also check http://startupnorth.ca/ from time to time to keep up on what's happening in Canada.
Snipt - Code sharing for twitter
My friend created this over the last couple of nights and I thought I'd pass it along to the HN community.

http://www.snipt.org

Think of it as twitpic for programmers. Feel free to make any suggestions and I'll get them to him.
I wonder if they took into account normal seasonal variation in their data. From the looks of it, they didn't.

It's mighty hard to draw conclusions from one year's worth of data. We see consumer spending spiking again in December. Is it Christmas (.com), or is it a recovery?
There is a post-delay option on our userpages. I don't currently use it, but it's available to let us WYSIWIG-edit our comments before others see them.
Kenlehmann comments on MYOB WEB Indonesia - Halaman Muka
Sound's like someone hasn't been keeping up with the GDrive rumours.

From what is being suggested, is that Google will be giving people the equivalent of dropbox's premium services... for free.

I think dropbox is great, I have a free account and use it all the time, I'd like to get a premium account if my needs ever get to that point - but if Google can provide significantly more space + their brand recognition, it's going to be hard to compete with.
Feel The Source (my personal favorite LH rant)
Can anyone suggest a good resource to read up on meditation? (besides wikipedia). I'm just having a hard time believing that meditation is any different from just sitting idle bored, so I'm naturally curious and excited to prove myself wrong.
I love the video game section: I just love it when people blame the video games for becoming violent and not the kids. I mean the first sign of a serial killer used to be the abuse of small animals, which is usually why the police take some kid shooting a cat with a BB gun seriously because they want the kids DNA and finger prints before he goes pro.

I prefer to play strategy/god games, RPG's and, where I can find them, a good physics applet. You can do cruel things in them, especially ones like Black & White, but I always associate it more with burning ants because I know there's no one real on the other side. I dislike FPS primarily because there is someone on the other side, so when I play them I nearly always play single player or co-op.
I totally wanted to upmod you for posting that picture, because I actually laughed out loud. However this is not Reddit/Digg, nor do I want it to be, so I'll just leave your comment be.
The thing with drinking that much coffee, most people like sugar in theirs. That much sugar is not good for anyone.
Fixed.

I was briefly irritated with whoever was screwing up the rendering. Then I realized it was me. Damn!

Thanks, gcop.
Oh I didn't know that, I just read he had a law degree... I guess I assumed wrong.
It says the price is currently $20 though.

At this stage, the price is working out to be $20 but with mass production it is bound to come down

Still it is quite unbelievable. If it was something built to browse internet alone with little RAM and processing power may be. But their claim and price doesn't match.
> Luckily for babies, breast milk is 50 percent fat.

My memory and Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_milk#Composition) disagree. It about a magnitude lower than that. (In humans that is, of course. Not that breast milk is therefore bad.)

And that is so easy to check. Wonder what other tidbits of facts are wrong? Not that the gist of the article is therefore bad, but I think it better not to mention facts rather then mentioning wrong ones.
>I'd guess that the actual uncertainty
>in the total is more a function of the
>uncertainty in the numbers than it is in
>the sampling.

totally agree. As with any indicator there is quite a bit of uncertainty. And as you suggest "there are the hires that happen without a listing..." Most career counselors would agree that there are actually more hidden jobs than what the boards suggest...

So... your argument might just boost the number if we add some multiplier into the model based on the jobs actually posted.

thanks!
gne1963
The French Laundry at home http://carolcookskeller.blogspot.com/

She finished up in October, but it is still one of my favorite blogs.
www.terrytao.wordpress.com is a blog I like to follow, really nice research level expositional writing on a wide variety of fascinating and nontrivial math. Whats especial impressive (aside from the field's medal) is that the first two years of his blog are being converted into expositional texts to be published by the American Mathematical Society.
I would never have got it was sarcasm without it coming from Phil Plait.
The photography is just amazing, its like food porn. Apparently she's making a cookbook, which should be pretty sweet. I can't wait to make some of the more involved stuff when I get out of my tiny NYC apartment.
"You should not market an OS based on a pointless feature that adds nothing but strain."

You said yourself that you consider the effects of OS X useful. So if that is true (a big IF in my opinion), then it follows that there could also be useful effects for Linux. That the compiz developers focussed on the wrong kind of effects doesn't invalidate effects in general.

I never had the impression that compiz was hailed as the new killer feature of Linux, so I don't understand your enthusiasm for the article.
I made an iPhone application for me cause most exercise apps are for gym rats, overly complicated and I just don't have time for a gym nor interested in looking bulky and lifting weights. I was inspired after using HundredPushups.

I'm blogging the progress of the "Hacker Workout" — speaking of, today I'm suppose to workout!

Week 1 results
http://saltlicklabs.com/pow-3-week-challenge/

Week 2
http://saltlicklabs.com/pow-3-week-challenge-2/
Ask HN:  Is there a list of websites that support OpenSearch anywhere?
OpenSearch seems like a useful tool. I'm building something that could very easily take advantage of websites that are OpenSearch enabled.

Really all it comes down to is parameterizing the search url, eg for Google: "http://google.com/?q={searchTerms}". I'm trying to get as many parameterized searches as possible without having to manually do all the work... importing a list of OpenSearch enabled sites would ease my troubles.

Thanks
Microsoft's Desktop Smartphone Isn't a Stupid Idea, If You Really Think About It
Did he subtract out profit from Apple's many other businesses before calculation profit per iPhone sold? It sure doesn't look like he did. That would make this an apples-to-beef jerky comparison.

Edit: Nope! He didn't.
I have these guys's blogs posted under "Software Development A-list" in my RSS reader:

Steve Yegge, Joel Spolsky,Jeff Atwood (Coding Horror), Martin Fowler, Ted Neward, Andy Hunt, Steve McConnell (10x Software Development), Michael Feathers,Paul Graham
That's 25 quarts (6.25 GALLONS) of coffee in one day (assuming an 8 ounce cup of coffee). I'm not sure if it's even physically possible to drink that much coffee in a day.
I'd say that idle and bored are not the same thing (http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i21/21b00601.htm).

In the same vein meditation is not the same thing either. From my point of view it's about being mindful about one's surrounding without analyzing it, just observing. It's a state that I find actually quite difficult to really achive.
You'll be surprised if you find an actual PC with 486. I have installed XP on a Pentium II machine with 256MB of RAM and it was barely usable even for web surfing. Without bells and whistles: scrolling simple text+picture pages in IE/FF was very slow.

Launching any non-trivial application also took terribly long. Not just the Office, but even Firefox felt more like Photoshop. I couldn't believe how bloated the software had become.

These $100 machines you're talking about can't run normal software, you'll need Microsoft to start selling Win98 or you'd need a stripped-down Linux with XFCE or something. The key to performance IMO is smaller binary sizes: those CPUs had tiny caches and pathetic memory throughput. Pentiums ran on 33-66Mz FSB, compare it to 1066Mz of modern machines.
hey, thanks for the plug of DI...
Capital Factory - Austin-based YC Style Incubator
Methods to unlock hidden potential for your startup through user-behavior analytics
Hi scott!

I thought a little bit more about the SEO part and I think the best thing to do would be to drop the Ajax which loads the similar functions and go with simple GET requests, which will give you a nice url and possibilities to treat it as directories.

For example, submitting PHP's trim in Python should load this url:

http://www.transmoggit.com/php/trim/python/

Loading http://www.transmoggit.com/php/trim/

Would show trim() in every target language.

Loading http://www.transmoggit.com/php/

Would show the list of functions, maybe with the languages that you have the alternative.

Loading http://www.transmoggit.com/trim/python/

Would show the equivalent on "from" languages.

I don't know how much serious you're about this project :) I really think it can make you some money, maybe not enough to make you quit your EA job :) but certainly some to help pay the bills.

I also don't know how much SEO you know, but basically you need to think what content your webpage should have to answer typicals queries on your market. For example:

q: trim python

- Put "trim in python" on http://www.transmoggit.com/trim/python/ on the title, and a H1.

q: python remove whitespace

This is what I've used a couple times, many moons ago, when "python trim" didn't return good results.

You can answer this query, if on your http://www.transmoggit.com/trim/python/ page, you list excerpts of the manual of the "from" languages. Upon loading /trim/python/, you select the from languages, its functions where you know the similarity, and show something like:

<ul>
<li>
<h2>C#</h2>
<p>transmoggit doesn't know how <a href="/c#/trim/python/">C#'s trim in Python</a></p>
</li>
<li>
<h2>PHP</h2>
<p><a href="/php/trim/python/">PHP's trim in Python</a> is <a href="python_manual_for_string.strip</a>.</p>
<p>Here is PHP's manual definition for trim:</p>
<p>This function returns a string with whitespace stripped from the beginning and end of str . Without the second parameter...</p>
</li>
</ul>

I know that's a lot of stuff! But you seem to have experience with software development... then you know software it's always 90% complete :)

Good luck!
Where the Financial Gurus Are Putting Their Own Money
Flash is not as standard as you can get.

The web standards are HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Flash is neither of those. The specification is not controlled by a governing body. It is controlled by one company.

Talking about Firefox plugins is straw man, has nothing to do with this conversation and I don't know any websites that require a Firefox plugin to work correctly. If they exist, I don't use them.
new product to me. My first impression is that many marketing and election campaigns might make use of these tools well. Such campaigns shouldn't be spending lavishly on IT departments and could make use of consulting and other custom usage by the experts that built the tools.

So the answer to "how to make money off open source?" seems to always lead back to "consulting and support". Not bad, its just not 100x returns on licensing, its "just good revenue".

good luck, would like to see tools like this continue to evolve!!
You can measure Meditative states on an EEG (Electroencephalography) so something is happening. Granted, that says nothing about how useful meditation is but it is measurable and reproducible.
While this is nifty, the PUE figure they cite is a ratio of total datacenter energy consumed to total server energy consumed.

It's impressive what they have done to reduce the numerator, but it'd also be nice to see what they have done to reduce the denominator (even if that makes the headline PUE number worse in the short term).

I remember something from long ago about Google deploying it's own hardware to make the servers themselves more efficient. Anyone seen any updates on this? My google-fu must be weak.