skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
A thoughtless sentiment. I can't imagine anyone reading (or writing) a post like this and being inspired for longer than 10 minutes. There are many such sentiments on the web and in books, of course.

Imagine, if you will, this sentiment applied to the art of computer programming. "Fuck 'em" you say one day. "I don't need to listen to the hoary old bastards of CS - I can do things my way." This lasts exactly as long as it takes you to run into the exact same issues as the "hoary old bastards of CS" - and what do you know, you find yourself unable to even begin coming up with novel solutions.

This is not to say that it isn't useful to revisit the origins of the art - it is. And it's not to say that some people do precisely this, to some extent, and come back with something useful. Rich Hickey and Clojure are one example, and Bret Victor and his (sadly proprietary) prototypes another. There are more, of course, and they tend to be the stars of the industry.

There are not that many successful rebels. Many more attempt to buck the trend, and simply fail to produce anything that even works, and if they do, then it's usually just not that useful to people. A failed rebel, you come back to the traditional ways, tail between your legs, and build software like anyone else, contenting yourself with flourishes and, perhaps, being an early adopter (because if you can't design something novel and useful, you might as well be an early advocate for something novel and useful.)

The tradeoffs, risks, and odds are basically the same for life. You can indeed say "Fuck 'em" but chances are you'll end up a failed rebel. There is a non-zero chance you'll succeed wildly, and find a life that is novel and successful. But you'll be the exception, not the rule.
Me too. Some people report that exercise makes them feel smarter; after I work out I can sometimes barely form sentences (and I'm not doing anything extreme, either). There's a minute chance that it helps my overall mental health at other times, but I don't really have a way to measure that.
Do you have chrome://flags -> "GPU compositing on all pages" set to enabled?
The economics behind today’s new micro-restaurants
From what I can tell, requestAnimationFrame in Chrome runs at a slower frame rate. I've had a similar experience with a plugin i'm writing. Maybe I was doing something wrong but requestAnimationFrame was firing once for every ~10 actual frames in Chrome.
I have the following in my ssh config file.

Host *
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_ecdsa
IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
HashKnownHosts yes
VisualHostKey yes
I was curious about how they defined "social media" and it actually seems quite broad (http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billHistoryClient.xh...):

"As used in this chapter, “social media” means an electronic service or account, or electronic content, including, but not limited to, videos, still photographs, blogs, video blogs, podcasts, instant and text messages, email, online services or accounts, or Internet Web site profiles or locations."
Oh come on.

IFTTT does the same exact thing for some of their "connectors" services. Maybe you should go after them to.

Where IFTTT fails is that they have not IMO adequately explained just how they store these passwords.

http://www.quora.com/How-does-ifttt-securely-store-passwords...

Don't just read some web article talking about "always hash passwords" and repeat it as mantra. This is good practice for 90% of the time but there are definite use cases where having reversible encryption of passwords is necessary.
Not directly related but there is the story of George Dantzig, a graduate student at Berkeley.

Arriving late to a class he quickly jotted down two equations left on the board, thinking they were homework. Several days later he hands the solutions to his professor. When his professor finally marks the problems he realises that George just proved two statistical theorems which had been unsolved up to that point.

http://www.snopes.com/college/homework/unsolvable.asp#zZx2h5...
"Do you really need to use a whole giant framework for some simple site with a few CRUD operations? Probably not."

I'd rephrase this as "should you really spend any more time than necessary on a simple site with a few CRUD operations?" The answer is still "probably not" but now implies something completely different.

I also think that the fact that "just in it for the money" programmers can continue to exist shows that there's more demand for programming work than could be done by only the best and brightest programmers. So if there's work to be done, and work that doesn't need the best and brightest, why dwell on it? I agree with this part of the conclusion: "we should have some appreciation for what we have these days, because whether we want to admit it or not development is pretty easy" but disagree with much of the tone of most of the article leading up to that. And I disagree that we can turn the trend around (or that we'd even want to).
In the past few weeks, I don't know why, but I took a prominent note of how easy application development has become. The fact is that someone probably could learn how to write a web application in Ruby on Rails in three months without much hinderance. Production quality, probably not, but a REST API persisting to a database and implementing some business logic, absolutely.

It scares me a little (a really little) in that this trend is ostensibly a precursor, or leading indicator if you will, to the increasing commoditization of our profession. But here is the thing. There are steps that we can actively take to mitigate the complacency that recent technology has afforded to us. This is likely where I agree with the author the most. If your skill set is narrower than you wish it to be, engage problems in a different domain, and acquire the knowledge to do so beforehand. Meanwhile, if you're one of the people, like me, who feel beyond fortunate to wake up everyday doing something that you love, then continue to do that, stay hungry to learn new things all the time, and hope that that will be enough. That's pretty much all you can do.
> Today it means multi-million lines of code browsers running thousands to hundreds of thousands of lines of front-end code with just as much or more in the backend.

And people using all of that to call everything beyond email 'bloated' because...

Actually, I don't know why. One wonders if they also call a Ferrari bloated because of the Model-T.
> Meh to 'risk'.

I bet this one has a spot in top 10 most popular last thoughts.
As a CompE in his final semester of undergrad, I resent this characterization. I've seen what the tests and MPs from ten years ago looked like, and they're a joke compared to what we see nowadays. Even when you consider the number of cheaters and copy-pasta-ers (which was much more difficult to catch a few years ago), I think the standards for LEGITIMATE programmers are constantly improving.

There will always people that skirt by on the bare minimum level of work, and due to the increasing number of people in this industry, the number of slackers is increasing as well.

Or perhaps I'm overly optimistic about our current generation.
The most successful game developer I know was half way through a masters degree in English when he dropped out to dedicate himself to being a game addict. But he went on to co-found a couple of game companies and now works at Blizzard. Another testimonial for studying English!
Steven Wolfram's "A New Kind of Science" online
No, it was "Default".

I enabled it and... much to my surprise, the frame rate dropped significantly. It's now like 3 (three) frames per second (it's so slow I am able to actually count the frames!)

The "hover" animation (rainbow thing) is fine, 100% smooth. But the exploding animation is just ridiculously slow.

Then I set it to be disabled and the frame rate improved a little.

Default: 20 fps
GPU composition DISABLED: 10 fps
GPU composition ENABLED: 3 fps

The machine I'm testing with is not particularly powerful, maybe that's the problem. 2 or 3 GBs of RAM, nVidia 9400 (or something like that).
This I think is a good rule for Yahoo! You need to have a real product in the market to get users. Pre announcements don't drive engagement, usage, revenue, or advertising sales. Eyeballs do. Users do.

Also, the it needs to be a product that could reach 100 million users or $100 million dollars is a great filter. It provides focus.

Unfortunately, based on the last 10 years of Yahoo's corporate history, there are probably a lot of bad habits and corporate culture shenanigans that will need to be dealt with before Yahoo's actions match their CEO's marching orders.

At least Yahoo is trying to do something hopefully more interesting than being another internet media company held over from the AOL era of the internet. Perhaps soon someone at Yahoo! will be able to clearly explain what Yahoo! is and does.
DISCLAIMER: I use Windows 8 as my main operating system.

The notion that normal desktop applications will not run on Windows 8 is incredible. I could download Minecraft right now, and it would run without a hitch. People need to use Windows 8 and realize that it is an iteration of Windows 7. It feels like Windows 7 with an interesting tablet overlay that I never use.

P.S. Every single game I own on Steam works
> We should all be insecure and depressed from time to time. It jars that thing in us that helps us grow.

Well said!!
I do. I'm not aware of anyone I know actually buying anything, we were always searching for the free ones when it was birthday or flirting time. But then again, university students have a lot of time to invest into free.

For some reason I've had 4 Facebook credits on my account since that era even though I never bought any.
WordPress Config Setup on Multiple Environments
Sentience is relative.
"Who knows why someone would divulge their password. I bet there are reasons other than being completely devoid of common sense."

You need a job and are given to believe that you won't get the one you're interviewing for if you don't hand over your password.

People regularly do all kinds of demeaning things because employers ask/demand them to.
You can even write your Javascript in Javascript, it should still work.
Sorry, didn't see your reply right away.

They both exist. The Java screencast has 201 episodes online at http://jamesshore.com/Blog/Lets-Play/ . The Javascript screencast has 35 episodes up at http://www.letscodejavascript.com . The Javascript series is subscription-only and won't be available to the general public for another month or two, but it's real, and you can sign up to be notified when it opens up.
Human-excrement-filled-escalators must be a metaphor for something...
It's not necessary to keep a log to focus on increasing the difficulty of workout. Over a period of time your body gets used to a certain weight and at that time you'll feel that it's too easy to lift that certain weight. You then increase the weight.
Last time I checked, people need a place to sleep and food to eat.

You need a job to pay for those things.
http://dribbble.com

The best graphic designers are on there.
When I first saw this, my comment is wow... this looks cool. Its almost like a validation that the product ($99 development board) is a secondary function of Kickstarter.

My biggest concern is Step 2. Will the Epiphany chips be easily obtained in small quantities? I've been following the A13-OLinuXino development, an improvement (LQFP processor, open board design etc.) and a geat idea, but the Allwinner A13 chip isn't available through normal distributor channels.
I'd been wanting to build Windows apps and had been working on one for the past 6 months. I happened to be invited to a MS event for Windows 8 and as excited as I was to be there, I was disappointed to learning that "Metro-style" apps can't be published elsewhere, it has to be from the Windows Store(sic), and with MS handling sales, updates, etc.

What then, is the benefit of an entirely new OS, with a new feature - Metro(the AppBar, charms, dashboard, etc), if you're going to force developers to use your own AppStore? I wouldn't mind giving a cut of my profits to MS, but I wouldn't want to be on their mercy for updates, sales, etc. And if anyone didn't notice, this is the desktop PC we're talking about. I'm not interested in Tablets or other stuff for which my application is clearly not aimed at(neither designed for).

I think Microsoft is aiming to get more applications for its Tablet devices, and in doing so it'll destroy the only remaining MS product that has a huge market share - the desktop PC.

Nokia was once at the same enviable position where MS was, and we all know how that ended.

Viva la Linux!
Ha very funny. My first thought was 'this sounds awfully a lot like a QR code'.

Also, as an iPhone user I feel NFC is not used nearly enough. Maybe Android users feel differently but until NFC is brought to the iphone I just dont see this being that useful.

I think NFC is great for things like payment. I actually used it for the first time in a new AMEX credit card that I got by just being able to tap the card on the register. It would be even cooler if someone would make it widely adopted on phones now. I'm sure it's just a matter of time.
Globe with CSS shaders and Google Maps
Windows RT tablet users will be unable to run the game
simply because they're ARM machines

I'd be extremely surprised if Java doesn't get ported to WinRT. Especially because they've already done the work to get it running on ARM linux.
YES. I'm not sure how codesonic compares w/ Skritter (a spectacular Chinese/Japanese language spaced repetition learning system), but if it's is anywhere close in quality, it could easily become the fastest and most efficient method for learning programming. Best of luck to your team.
App developers in LA
Looking for a great independent iOS App Developer who is local to Los Angeles. Willing to entertain cash / equity or a combination. Can someone point me in the right direction or contact me if you're a candidate
> If the USA does not have the level of human rights abuses of say china, does that give them a free pass?

No, but it means that if your goal is to fix human rights, you're going to get a lot more "bang for the buck" going after China than going after the USA.
UMS was still successful 9 years ago, when the original DotA (not Allstars) first appeared. And it wasn't until 2005-6 that Allstars really took off, so that's only 6-7 years ago that there was still a vibrant UMS scene for WC3.

SC2 could've had a successful modding scene as well; Blizzard just doesn't understand what modders want or how to build tools for them. SC2's editor and the Galaxy scripting language were both underwhelming in their own right and significantly less powerful than the community-developed tools available for WC3. As a result, the competent WC3 modders abandoned Blizzard en masse.

Blizzard Allstars is also a fantastic idea and exactly the right move from a strategic standpoint. Unfortunately, Blizzard has absolutely bungled the execution. They should have had it ready to release with SC2, long before LoL had really caught on or DotA 2 was a thing. Instead it's been more than two years, and there's still no release date for it or HotS.
At least we're agreed it's not part of an "ugly urban cycle."
I would like to point out that it isn't actually the latter. If your app is a "Metro-Style Windows 8 app", then you can't sell it on your own, you have to put it up on the Windows Store or make a desktop application if you want to sell it on your own.

Metro apps will not be available from elsewhere.
Jewish people are another example of a discriminated against minority which values education and has become successful. If you can get a group to actually acquire the skills that are needed, they succeed.

But the problem lies in getting them to do so. And if they do so, getting the rest of the country to realize that they have done so.

When I asked what should be done about it, I was being deliberately unfair. It is obvious to me that many well-meaning efforts to resolve the problems are backfiring. But I have no clue how to actually solve the problem.

For instance if you give kids credentials without requiring achievement, then people rationally will discount those credentials. But sufficient resources to allow kids to legitimately achieve to the same level are hard to come by. Particularly considering the fact that parents of affluent ethnic groups are generally willing to devote a lot of effort making sure that their children have all of the resources that they need.

However the one thing that I am sure does not work is to try to pretend that the problem does not exist, and to try to make it anathema for anyone to fail to step in line. And, unfortunately, that seems to be the most popular "solution" that we have.
I like this piece because I agree with a lot of what was said, but I don't necessarily think that this is a bad thing. There's always going to be people who are hardcore computer scientists, the ones who started programming in their bedroom at a very young age. But I'm glad that there's room in this industry for those who have lives outside of computer science as well.

As the world progressively becomes more automated (which I undoubtedly believe will happen)and personal computers become even more integrated into our lives (Smartphones are perfect examples) we'll need more average programmers to do the "gruntwork" so to speak, as you all well know computers are only good at following instructions line by line, computers will always need those instructions to be written whether that takes a master CS guru who's been doing it for 20+ years or someone who's fresh out of college and kind of drifted through. There will always be room for innovation for those of us whom are dedicated to our craft, and i'm glad to see that there will be room for those who aren't as dedicated.
I don't really want to argue with you over the word, "open" since that seems like where this discussion is heading.

Who cares about that point? Fine, OHA is a bad name. That still doesn't absolve Acer of joining and agreeing to abide by the consortium's rules.

Android is open, Google apps are not. None of Google's apps are necessary to run Android.
Would you be extremely surprised if Java doesn't get ported to iOS?
I have it on dual boot. Normal desktop applications will work on Windows 8, but if I want to make a Metro version of that app, it has to go through the MS certification and can only be sold on the Windows store.

Metro is where major Win 8 innovations are (AppBar, Charms, App Dashboard, App Lifecycle, etc.)
I am going to characterize the situation a little differently.

20 years ago you had to be fluent in the deep arcana of low-level details to be a good programmer. You also could not lean on deep, rich libraries to get the job done because such libraries were far and few between. There was nothing good about this per se, it was a fact of reality. It also made it difficult and slow to get work done.

Today, development environments are rich in both tools and libraries beyond the wildest dreams of programmers two decades ago. You can implement incredibly complex applications without touching any of the low-level supporting code and expect reasonable results. That is the banner of progress.

However, this characterization of current software development is only true at the median. At the high-end, you still require a deep understanding of low-level systems, have to build your own libraries, and be able to wrangle esoteric computer science to be a good programmer. Many years ago, there were a great many programmers with these skills because you needed them to get the most rudimentary jobs done. Today, I see many more software engineers that completely lack these skills because they never needed to learn them to become a good, marketable programmer.

That is an important distinction. It is not to say that earlier generations of programmers had more intrinsic ability, but they did have skills that are relevant today to designing software on the very high-end that are much less frequently learned now. To a significant extent it was a product of environment. Ironically, many of the primitive skills that were relevant many years ago have become cornerstones of writing high-performance and scalable software systems today.
I agree with the title of this article, but a month is not a sufficient amount of time to understand an industry.
Also, you can watch "Perfect Workflow in Sublime Text 2" premium tutorial. It's free.

https://tutsplus.com/course/improve-workflow-in-sublime-text...
I tried it in FF Nightly and FF release. Using the latest Flash as far as I know.
Presumably you live in a place where they haven't completely mucked everything up...
I think you're gonna have to include more info than that :/
Android allows for third-party sources when installing software.

There are developers out there that distribute their software through other channels than Google Play. E.g. one of the Humble Indie Bundle that I bought had 4 Android games in it and distribution was through download links sent by email. And when publishing on Google Play, at least for now, there is no approval process.

And no, Windows and OS X cannot do this today, as long as installation of software from third-parties is still possible and your OS is not remotely controlled by them. Microsoft can't do anything today to ban an app on Windows. But it's increasingly clear that they want this capability.

For those of us familiar with the gaming industry since the nineties, we've experienced this same fight between PCs and gaming consoles and even though the PC wasn't a common household appliance until the mid nineties at least and even though the likes of Sega, Nintendo and later Sony looked poised to take over the world, most games were built for PCs first, because that's were the innovation was and because nobody could pull the rug from under your feet. Even the arguments were exactly the same as today - for consumers it was ease of use, no viruses/mallware and a better return on investment, while for developers it was the lack of piracy, promotion and a piece of a large pie where the competition was controlled.

And it's a pretty sad fact that this is precisely what Apple and now Microsoft are trying - the consolification of the PC. Well I for one do not think that consumers will buy into it. And I predict that Windows 8 will only have moderate success, while Windows 9 will be a total failure, just like Win Me and Windows Vista before it.
Well. My internet is definitely not the same than your.

"I don't want thieves, please remove the door and windows of my house."

sigh
> For better or worse, the US puts itself in that position by acting as the world police.

To an extent, yes, this is a valid point. But I'm not sure "world police" is the right term. The United Nations is supposed to be playing the role of enforcing standards of civilized behavior on all nations, but it has failed miserably. The US is more like one of the more civilized citizens who is getting fed up with the stuff the less civilized citizens get away with without being called on it by either the "authorities" (the UN) or the other supposedly more civilized citizens. Which is not to say that the US always does the "right" thing when it gets fed up like this; but in many situations I'm not sure there is a "right" thing to do. The sad fact is that there are a lot of nations and a lot of people in the world who simply do not care about upholding standards of civilized behavior.

> Also, Wikileaks posts leaks from countries other than the US.

Yes, this is true, and I didn't mean to imply that the US was the only country being "targeted". As far as I can tell, Wikileaks is an equal opportunity organization: they're willing to piss off anyone. ;)
Let's ship flow
http://blog.joshdzielak.com/blog/2012/09/27/lets-ship-flow/
I don't have a strong position on this but wasn't Steve Jobs kicked out of Apple for roughly the same reasons? They thought he was too radical and mercurial to handle a larger company?
Anyone know what's up with that? Why'd they release a 10.0.7 if they are on a fast dev cycle?