skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If you are on Windows, new "C" fonts (bundled with Office 2007 or Vista) are nice and fresh (compared to older classics that are everywhere).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambria_(typeface)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calibri

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candara

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantia_(typeface)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corbel_(typeface)
If it prompts you to log in, use this link:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e4093646-eca6-11dd-a534-0000779fd2...
Asking "should we trust the cloud" is like asking "should we trust horseless carriages"
Getting a Computer Science Ph.D. does not railroad you into academia. Unlike, say, English, there are industry research opportunities.
Thanks for the great feeds HN
As a reader, I don't submit or comment but I have to offer kudos to those that do. I suspect there are a lot out there that might agree. This is a great place to find interesting sites on a wide variety of subjects. Thanks for the hard work and of course, for sharing.
HFCS exists ONLY because of US government policy. The US sugar program drives up the price of sugar by limiting domestic supplies and imports. As as result it is profitable to mill corn into sweetener, and U.S. food makers use it as a substitute everywhere possible (mostly liquids) as it is slightly cheaper than sugar.

Soda outside the US,for example, still uses traditional sugar.

As a result, the corn growers are a vociferous lobby in support of the sugar program.
Not supporting SDHC cards (the 4gb limit) in 2009 is pretty bizzare, and makes the device look quite suspect to me.
If you like these, might I also suggest some other fascinating visualizations of the commit history of Python, Eclipse, Apache, and PostgreSQL: http://vis.cs.ucdavis.edu/~ogawa/codeswarm/

Link takes you to the homepage of the original author of code_swarm.
Everyone does that? Then I'm having some kind of Russell's paradox situation with your comment :-)
A resume you plan to print or one you intend to be read on a screen?

I really do prefer a good serif font for printing and sans-serif for things intended to be read online.
Virtual memory is part of the fields of computer architecture and operating systems; popular textbooks are Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach and Modern Operating Systems.

http://books.google.com/books?id=pqYl3SWkA64C
http://books.google.com/books?id=tqtZGQAACAAJ
You can do that as well. I am just writing about what I have learned. I have had 100 people email me and say that they find it useful.
Cool FireFox Plugins to Enhance Google Analytics
> responsible for something as successful as the gaming industry

Eh? Lua isn't responsible for the gaming industry. Sure, it's widely used in the gaming industry, but it was a huge industry well before then.
I come from a LAMP background (learning Ruby now). What I have seen - in my experience (25 year old, military making the transition to a NSA contractor) is:

LAMP and open-source is where it's at for the true innovators on the web. Your startups and companies that go out and try new things, will use some form of open source stack.

A Microsoft Stack is prevalent when working within "the establishment," for the man, or in Enterprise level development. These are commonly workcenters in which they rely on the support and testing made available by Microsoft - it is a key factor in their decision to follow that stack.

It's not always set in stone that way - my new job is a complete Microsft Stack (IIS, MS SQL) with the exception of the language (PHP). Every now and then, even the man, gets a little spunky and tries something new.
Given their grievances:

1. An "invisible pixel" style webbug/tracker on every page on the site, hosted by WebTrends.com.
2. The entire WhiteHouse.gov domain appears to utilize edge-caching technology provided by Akamai, Inc.
3. Access to direct-download MP4s of video content appears to be hosted by Amazon S3.

I have a few more to suggest:

4. Avoid all javascript because a XSS attack could result in data going to a third party
5. Avoid unsecured http because cache servers between my computer and whitehouse.gov could intercept traffic and change the pages
6. Don't register the SSL certificate with a CA because they could issue a different certificate and redirect the user
7. Don't link off site -- the other page could examine the referrer and know you visited whitehouse.gov
8. Don't allow the traffic to be routed on networks owned by Comcast or AT&T, since all traffic is monitored there.

I trust the Obama whitehouse will implement these reasonable steps to safeguard our privacy.
It should at least be mentioned that an out of work wal-mart greeter is not equal to an out of work surgeon. This never seems to be brought in in the "lost x jobs" debate.
Look at soft drinks. High fructose corn syrup is usually number 1 or number 2.
I happen to prefer 1, combined with an attitude of ruthlessly throwing away things (e.g. the prototype) that have been proven not to work.
He called Rails' code base small and easy to grok. I think I just stopped giggling.

Edit: Smart ass-remarks aside, this does look like a decent Java ActionController/Sinatra. I didn't see anything about view helpers. Anyone know how they'd assemble a lightweight full stack on this?
Google open-sourcing their servlet engine (sort of)
Except the Kindle's entry price is still quite high (at least for me).
In my experience, wikis are all doomed to becoming out of date and not a trusted information source, because the really important information ends up being in peoples' heads, or in code, or something like that. The wiki can only give you A) a 10,000-foot view of a system, or B) the details of that system as it existed.... two or three years ago.

Honestly, this doesn't really have anything to do with the original post, because it's happened in techie-only or techie-dominated companies I've been in. Anyone else had this experience?
Having the Right Politics Doesn't Make You a Better Person
Yes when I travel to the US I notice the taste immediately in soft drinks (and consequently stop drinking them all together, which is probably not a bad thing for me !). HFCS seems to have all the "sweet" hit without any flavour for it, quite horrible once you have had the alternative.
General rule of thumb is, recession is the best time for academics. But since you already have job offers, I guess it would not apply to you. But if you are in doubt, always refer to the first rule -- you do not talk about...
All my food-conscious friends in northern California are going to love this study. I live in Sonoma county and it seems like everyone I meet chooses not to consume some food product. The most common denominator is high fructose corn syrup.

I avoid high fructose corn syrup myself for two reasons. Partly, it's because I'd rather pay for the sugar tariff than send more money to the corn lobby. The other part is that after stopping my consumption of soft drinks for other reasons, I find that foods and drinks that contain high fructose corn syrup are too sweet.
No Ph.D. railroads you into academia. English Ph.Ds get software jobs too. They just do it later in life.

Yes, there are industry research opportunities. They're a lot of work to get, because you have to get a Ph.D., and then you have to compete with all the other folks who want them. And the thing about careers is that there's no guarantee that the one which takes more work to get will be more enjoyable for you, or more renumerative for anyone, than the one which you could have gotten with just a college degree (or, as folks sometimes argue, a high school diploma -- I think that takes the argument a bit too far myself, but it worked for Jobs and Gates). The only way to know which career is right for you is to sample them. And while I'm not sure of the optimal order in which to sample them, trying the difficult, poorly paid, emotionally exhausting route first is probably not the optimal order.
Yahoo CEO Bartz: I Did Not Come To Yahoo To Sell The Company
Time lapse of a baby playing with his toys (YouTube video)
Every situation is different, but:

Doing a PhD worked for me as a way to find out what I really enjoyed, by investigating all sorts of avenues (unrelated to my actual topic, which I soon hated), after aimlessly doing as I was told in undergrad and not really knowing what I wanted to do.

You don't sound like you're in the same boat at all. Maybe you have an incredible project that will fascinate you for 3-4 years, surrounded by equally passionate people; I can't tell. Equally likely you will grind it out for the last year or two, regretting not doing that start-up or something else.
It's certainly a difference if you decide to use Ruby on Rails, or Django. I would take the second route then.

But when you need to get something done in one of the framworks, the first route probably is better. The second one is very dangerous as you can spend so much time discussing things that you end up spending hours not having done anything productive.
What do you mean by SaaS? Banks have to upload transaction records to your servers? Do they want to do that?
Ah, I see.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_hydroxide#Manufacture

Wikipedia claims "the membrane cell process is economically the most viable", which does not use mercury.

Also, as shown in my previous links, chloralkali plants (which make caustic soda) pollute a significant amount of mercury (needlessly, in my opinion).
I really thought this topic was going to bring the haters...and yet the majority of the commentary has been uniformly positive. What is MSFT doing wrong, then, that more people aren't building web apps on their stack?

For the record, Visual Studio is amazing. My buddies use VI. Whatever works, but I love VS.
I feel that #1 usually happens not necessarily because a developer is trying to show off but because #2 and #3 aren't working well. If the process for coming to design decisions is too cumbersome and slowing down development too much, developers will simply circumvent that process entirely.
Oracle's Plan To Beat Salesforce: Give Customers Their Own Server
Quoting from the article, this sums it up:

"For folks outside of Google, there's really no compelling argument to drop Apache Tomcat/Jetty, etc. in favor of OpenGSE's reference servlet engine, but anyone interested in servlet engine and servlet spec compliance would have a fantastic learning resource available to them"
You raise an interesting point - is the love affair with non-MSFT stuff because it is perceived as being "harder" and thus jacking up geek cred?

I was joking with someone that vbscript blew the opportunity to become what PHP is now. Any reaction to that?
The US allowable limit for mercury in bottled water (and tap water) is 2000 parts per trillion. The report documents a maximum of 350 parts per trillion in Quaker Oatmeal to Go.

Omitting that data which provides context probably tells you a lot about the people who wrote the report.
Don't jet companies deserve 'stimulus' too?
It is far more offensive that Citi is still using tax dollars to pay its shareholder dividend.
>Gender apartheid is just as cruel and ugly as race apartheid.

That nicely sums up my thoughts on it - thankyou !
If we could the quality of teachers with the precision that we measure baseball players, then yes, the best teachers could make millions teaching the children of the super-rich. Additionally, colleges would pay a premium to have the top teachers if they were measured by a universally acknowledged standard. You have to remember that there would only be a few hundred of them.

I also expect that if you could educate a child with the best teachers, you would reliably get very effective adults.

History is littered with geniuses whose students went on to make groundbreaking discoveries as well.
I found this the strangest and most out-of-place statement in the whole article.
I often feel the same way when I here these sorts of arguments. But I think you're off the mark.

Extolling the virtues of full body cover for women is quite like saying that working cotton fields is really good for blacks, what with all that fresh air and exercise.

You didn't get the majority of blacks to stand up & say that they feel cotton fields are liberating & dignified. That is a major difference. In fact, women in places where hijab is discouraged actively defend it. You can't respond with the cliché brainwash argument either. Culture is always brainwash.

I think it's important to step back & draw the distinction between religious conservatives demanding that the sun orbits the earth and some other completely arbitrary cultural things.

Think about dress codes (especially for women) wherever you happen to be: Dress in at least this much fabric. Cover up at least these areas. You can do this. But it's inappropriate at the office, if you want to be taken seriously. Some rules are relaxed in some places, like the minimum fabric requirement at the beach. Some, like 'cover these areas are enforced by law.

I'm not saying that I agree with Saudi conventions or law. I am saying we need to be careful of what we are criticising. A lot of cultural norms are always arbitrary.
>Well, what if there are no openings come this May--literally none. No job postings. No on campus interviews. No job fairs. This isn't a fantasy. It's happening right now.

Been there when I was in school in the late 70's and early 80's. it sucks but it didn't last forever (that time anyway).
Ah, okay. Thanks for clearing that up.
Not to mention Lodwick payed Justin O, the developer of Muxtape, $95,000 to work on Muxtape, and Lodwick and Francis of Francis and the Lights used to be roommates.

The NY startup scene is fascinating.
According to wikipedia average american eats 70 pounds of HFCS syrup a year, so that's significantly more risk.
Well every now and then you get a random question about food, about movies, and other interesting subjects that are necessarily related to most topics discussed on HN. So I think a few random posts about your extra stuff would not hurt.

EDIT: This giveaway could not work anywhere else unless there is a trust system built into the community that was not based on sharing "stuff".
I was worried about that over 6 months ago, and in that time it hasn't got worse then it was then, so heres hoping it stays that way ! (just a single data point, but its something !).

Do you think it is "sliding" over time? Or are you just (rightly so) being vigilant ?
Language Oriented Programming: The Next Programming Paradigm
Though the artistry of live presentation is part of the best TED talks, I still wish they had transcripts.
Can you please provide some documentation for that? I'd be really interested in learning more!
Mark Papermaster Case Settled, Begins Work at Apple on April 24th
i did not creat 40,000 jobs. i was at venture firms that financed roughly 200 companies over the past 22 years that created that many jobs. it's a big difference and i want to make sure people understand that
Time to update the project README?

http://code.google.com/p/opengse/source/browse/trunk/README....

...
(This is currently a hidden project with members-only access; a Google
Account is required in order to become a member and access it.)...

Edit: They just fixed it. The power of open-source.
I went straight to graduate school, heeding advice that it would be difficult to give up the comfort of a real salary for a grad student stipend if I went and worked first. I observed in grad school that the students who had done that knew why they were there and what they wanted far better than I did.

Fundamentally, you will only know in retrospect whether or not you made the right decision. On the other hand, the stakes are not as large as they seem: 5 years is 125% of your time as an undergraduate, but only 12.5% of your career. (In other words, you have time to switch courses later, though it may appear now that you don't.)

Finally, the advice I always repeat to people facing difficult decisions. (Anyone who knows where this came from is welcome to tell me. I would attribute it if I knew the source.) .... When you have a difficult and important decision to make, flip a coin. Not because flipping a coin is a good way to make important decisions, but because in the moments while it is spinning in the air you will know which way you want it to land.

Trust yourself, good luck, and congratulations on earning such a plethora of attractive options.
The Future of the Internet - and how to Stop it
OK - update. We have used the 3Ware card, and we have had RAID failures.

I really don;t know what we're doing wrong. I guess you guys don't have enough information to help me work out what's wrong, and I can't give you that information.

Frustrating.
that's doubtful. it's sensational and that's not ideal. but sensational headlines are used all the time and many are at least equally inaccurate
Here's an article from 2003 that I think is still very relevant inspiration for what's to come. I think we're "getting there" and I plan to be part of this revolution ;)

I especially liked page 3. It's hitting nail after nail right on the head.

edit: On second thought I'm not sure we're getting there because I'm not aware of any IDE that comes close to approaching what I have in mind (which is pretty close to what the article is describing). I guess I just have those concepts in mind so much that I think everyone else sees what I'm seeing. Anyway.
Japanese studies have shown that chlorella is helpful for removing heavy metals, including mercury. I know people who don't eat sushi without a handful of it as well.
Yes, I mean it's not unusual to take the shortcuts described in the article to produce working code. Even the very best programmers who turn in immaculately maintainable software do not just sit down at their desk and type perfect code into their editor.

First you write a really bad version that mostly works. Then you go back and fix that abomination before anybody else sees it. You don't want everybody else to think you suck at programming, right? :)
There is no better time to take a risk on a startup then right off completing your bachelors degree! You can accept more risk, have more time to fail, recover and be successful in the future.
Do the PhD and work out your AML software company idea while you are doing the PhD. You can drop out when you're ready to run with your startup. I personally know about 8 people who have become software millionaires this way. It's also how places like Google and Yahoo! got started.

The "Real World" is totally overrated. Entry level software jobs generally suck donkey balls, even if they sound like they won't.

However, it is very particular to your situation. If your job offer is to work on Photosynth at Microsoft Research, turn down the full ride to Toledo State U. However, if you're funded at Stanford or MIT, turn down the entry level code monkey job at Amazon or Yahoo!
While they're at it, make them fly economy class.
I'm not much of a Coke connoisseur, but some of my friends also think that imported Coke (from Mexico... Mexicoke!) tastes better.
I jumped into a startup at the end of my college career, but didn't have the burn capital to do it boostrapping. You may be better off acccumulating a bit of capital before throwing yourself into the start-up (the most rewarding, for most of us).

Remember, you can always change your mind and any software company you join does NOT have to be a career - you can quit and start your own start-up at any time if you have the courage.
Sure, the rules from five year ago might be bad and the rules from fifty years might be worth a look. But the rules from five hundred years - "take only gold, take a pound of flesh from those who don't pay" certainly don't.

We've got choice now. No reference to "the value of tradition" can remove it.
Yep, if you want to see it in full 1280x720 glory, you can grab the AVI files directly:

Rails ~180mb: http://vimeo.com/download/video:87550087?e=1233100930&h=...

Dr Nic ~30mb: http://vimeo.com/download/video:87550019?e=1233100802&h=...
Cool.

If you really want to torture yourself, pick up a couple of good ASP.NET internals books and make yourself read them. After that, the other problems turn out to be fairly easy.

Glad to help if you need any. Just drop me an email.
Sadly they don't have OS X on any of the machines. It seems that maybe this has to do with HP and Microsoft being sponsors and OS X not being allowed to run on non-Mac hardware. Maybe someone can contact Apple and see if they can give an X-Serve or two.
What's better?

A one time referral fee OR customers that continue to pay for your service month after month, year after year.

He doesn't want to be an affiliate, he wants control of it all.
I would use Helvetica Neue but I am not sure whether this font is available on Windows.
Ask HN: c++ or iPhone?
I am trying to make a decision on whether to pursue c++ or iPhone programming. I have been a contractor for 12 years working mostly in corporate microsoft shops doing 3-tier programming. In today's environment, I want to gain a more competitive edge so I'm trying to figure out how best to improve my skill set. I like c++ because it is in high demand and it is the language that separates the men from the boys. I like iPhone because cell phone programming is going to be a large part of the wave of the future. As far as "following my passion," both are equally exciting to me, but I need to fully commit to one or the other at this point in time. What are your thoughts on this?
What languages do you currently know?
Orbit is more like Camping or web.py than Rails, though. But I tried to make its deployment (along with the rest of Kepler) as easy as PHP's as possible. :-) Having a Lua embedded on Apache by default should make fast deployment very easy, too (the easiest way to deploy on Apache right now is CGI, with FastCGI being a little more work).
The Great Internet Video Lie
He dismisses the ability to put two open documents side by side on the screen as not very useful but if you write code on your computer this is the most important thing in the world.
I work well on all 3 tiers, so c#, sql, javascript. I am also a sun certified java 2 programmer and have done 2 years of J2ME programming on cell phones. I am also proficient in a number of other languages but the ones above are my "paying languages."
While the theory of your comment makes complete sense to me, I do have a problem with French (and no offense to the French people here) companies getting my tax dollars. Last I checked (and I could be wrong) Aerospatiale-Dassault was a French company. If U.S. companies are going to be buying corporate jets with my tax dollars I would much rather they buy them from U.S. companies.
Ask HN: Apple.com down(unsupported form of compression)?
www.apple.com Any ideas?

With FF clicking Try again works.

Content Encoding Error

The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because it uses an invalid or unsupported form of compression.

* Please contact the website owners to inform them of this problem.
I'm not seeing how a referral deal would be a "one time fee" at all. In my mind, it would be recurring based on the number of click throughs or sign-ups or whatever.

He doesn't want to be an affiliate, he wants control of it all.

And my point is that this is where greed can sometimes bite you in the ass.
Agreed. Leap - and the net will appear.