skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The problem right now is that the bureaucracy in place is a result of the CBAs of teachers unions preventing the firing of bad teachers or the introduction of regulations strictly for the sake of the student.

In almost every instance of a public service, the right-but-left or left-but-right mentality of Americans creates a bureaucratic Mexican standoff: "We'll stop regulating you when you stop being shits." "We'll stop being shits when you stop regulating us."

It's very easy to side with teachers as individuals, but teachers unions serve the good teachers and the bad teachers, and I would argue (without statistics, mind you) that teachers unions are just as much to blame for the current educational fiasco as incompetent bureaucracies, politics, ham-fisted regulations, and bad parenting.
> They'll never learn.

I'm with Microsoft. There must be something wrong with the implants: I've been here for years and still don't understand the culture. I don't understand why people use "ask" as a noun instead of "request"; I don't understand why almost every here uses "Microsoft Tag" instead of universal, ubiquitous-in-the-outside-world QR codes; and I don't understand why we still create websites using Silverlight instead of moving to Flash or HTML5.

Don't people realize how transparently sycophantic they look when they use a technology that's dead to the outside world? Depending on the day, I feel like either 1) some people are so insulated from the outside world that they believe Silverlight yet lives, 2) they know Silverlight is dead and are terrified of the wrath of LCA coming down upon from for installing non-Microsoft software on their work computers, or 3) they're savvy, but trying to use as much jargon and proprietary stuff as possible in order to project a false image of group cohesion and loyalty come review time.
I'm eagerly awaiting posts of this nature from Marco, Gruber, and Siegler.
USGS Hurricane Sandy storm tide mapper
why not make available on Amazon as kindle version? I always think twice before share my card info on random websites.
Would be very cool to have s3 snapshots available for ephemeral instances, but I am guessing that is not very practical.
The Resumator Raises $2.1M Series B Round (AlphaLab)
Google Now: behind the predictive future of search
I should add that is hasn't officially been benchmarked by TOP500, but it is certainly the fastest now.

PC World gives more details: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2013228/titan-supercomputer-h...
Going to be hard to say you didn't want him and so offered him a severance package but then complain on where he landed. $325K is not very much money for someone agreeing not to go to a competitor for 18 months? Weird stuff.
As a Linux user I am more worried about malicious elfs and dwarfs than malicious exes.

Seriously, though; while Linux seems to typically be less of a target, and thus a malicious executable is less likely, the level of security that things like running as a non-root user buy me aren't that huge on a desktop machine. Most of the interesting things are things that my non-root user can read and write, by necessity and design. With a proper SELinux setup, this might change a bit, but that's not "simply" a matter of running Linux.
That's fair, and I'd expect for you to do so. Upvoted for following convention.
I do not feel it is within the rights of those users to demand (or at least, to get a result from the demands) that a platform change its policies to suit their ideals.

Sure it is. The only reason for a company to exist is to provide positive social effects (and capitalism is predicated on the idea that positive social effects correlate with revenue and, less so, with profit). When you want to create an all-encompassing social network, except for people X, Y, and Z, you're not providing positive social effects. You're being a dick. And Google, through their much-trumpeted "don't be evil" policy, has put upon themselves the responsibility of being even less of a dick. They have decided to assert that they're "better," so it is completely reasonable to expect that they should be and to demand it publicly.

"Well, users don't have to use it" is a pretty shitty escape hatch that ignores that social networks only have value through the network effect--and presupposes that people who will leave the social network because of attacks upon others in their social group. This is a sucker's bet because, frankly, of people like you, who acknowledge that they would feel differently if their own ox were gored but do not care because it is not.
Great idea. It capitalizes on the attributes of the mouse pointer and web browsers. If I were Apple, I'd acquire.
Maybe eliminating some of the layers between conception and deployment? I've worked at a megacorp before and I can say with confidence that big bloated teams are all to often where great and innovative ideas go to die.
Is that how he teaches his students to write as well?

If those students can write something this straightforward, impassioned, and moving, they'll be better writers than most high school graduates.
There's a huge conversation to be had about the quality of public K-12 education in this country, but I'm not sure this letter contributes much of anything to that conversation. The whole thing is so personal and subjective that it could have come from any school district in the country. Maybe the author is just a really bad teacher, and we're better off if he quits. Maybe this rant actually represents a data point about how NC squeezes out bad teachers. There's no way to know from what is written.
The author of the blog itself, Diane Ravitch, wrote a very interesting book called "The Death and Life of the Great American School System" on the topic of education reform. I'd encourage HNers to pick it up if this piqued their curiosity.
Exactly--I didn't quite say it explicitly, but part of the problem was my naiveté about working for a large company after a career of mostly startups.

(And my summary of the project may have been overly short. It was a week of full-time work, with a plan of making it an ongoing 20% project.)
Windows Phone 8 SDK to be available for download tomorrow
Survey results: What Startups Get from Accelerators?
Is this a serious question? Can you generally not tell the difference between a comment that pushes an opinion you disagree with and a comment that exists simply to push buttons? If a "troll" comment is so good that it appears to just be a legitimate comment that you disagree with, then you should probably assume that it's just a legitimate comment that you disagree with.
Linking is the foundation of the Web. The fact that you can no longer build a website without subverting even the most basic of browser functions via custom code is a sign that something somewhere is broken.

The sad part is that a lot of web developers cannot even imagine a different architecture that wouldn't have these problems. The discussions are mostly about more of the same. More permissions. More low-level APIs.
If math is best served by standardized tests, and a well-regarded and skilled math teacher is quitting because they're drowning his class in tests and test preparation rather than giving him the time to actually educate...

What does that say for non-math areas like English or Art or History?
Here's a video by the verge which provides a lot more detail, hands on demonstrations, and interviews with the Android team.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/29/3570034/inside-android-bu...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6...
Probably a typo, the iPad is 2048 x 1536 (4:3 = 16:12), the Nexus 10 is 16:10.
I think (hope?) that the write would be counted as an "access". If not, this would break the "what if this was an IO port" analogue. If for some reason it wasn't, you could use a static variable to hold the result. I fear the real problem with "volatile" is that just about everything about it is implementation dependent rather than clearly defined by standard.
TL;DR send your kids to a private school.
Very nice demonstration of something I wouldn't have assumed possible with just CSS.
This got me thinking (thank you for that): Are we not engineers since our solution space is bounded by the architecture we run on (hardware and software), which in turns has been constructed by engineers who were limited by scientific discovery?

By the way, I totally agree with you, but by your definition the above seems like a logical conclusion to me.
RISC OS version 5.17

RC5 is actually a released version, so the link above contains the most recent code. More links can be found on he forum: http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=55&t=2...
Thanks for pointing that out, have filed an issue for this and will fix soon.
It is for the home bar, yeah.
There is a defence.

An engaged, informed, active, body of parents who will take action to ensure their children receive best schooling and care available.

Take 100 irate parents to the next North Carolina State Board meeting and have them raise individually one after the other motions of no-confidence in each member. Then try to elect this woman to the Board.

Will that help.

Yes if you keep up the pressure for the 14 - 18 years it takes your child to go through the system.

There is a website / startup in there...
What kind of app do you find yourself wishing for? The apps I use the most are the default apps, i.e. Calendar, Mail, Chrome, Reader (google version) and Google+/Facebook/Twitter.
Those meaningless low level problems are the basis for higher level skills. Studies have shown that students who are more capable of doing arithmetic without a calculator do better in college level math classes.*

This is not the first time I've read complaints about standardized testing being unfair, nor people rolling their eyes at defenses of testing as people who just don't "get it". What I haven't seen much of is a thorough explanations of which tests are unfair and what specifically is bad about them. I just looked at the math section of the EXPLORE test. I would be very concerned if my child was unable to answer those questions and I would want my teacher to prioritize those basic skills before his so-called "deep-thinking" classes.

Which tests are too long? It seems if tests are too long, we should shorten them. As an observer, it seems the standardized testing critics reach for any and all weaknesses of tests as a reason to shun them entirely, and it does raise suspicions they just hate the accountability.

Standardized testing predicts college math performance.
http://faculty.etsu.edu/stephen/diss-stephens.pdf

Less calculator usage in grade school correlates to better college math performance.
http://www.math.jhu.edu/~wsw/ED/pubver.pdf
benatkin means that speech is no longer free if you can't express things that you're afraid to put your name to. (You clarified this even more when you said in another thread (paraphrased) that people could say anything they "should" say.)

Free speech means you can say anything. If you want to argue the contrary, that you would prefer some limits on speech, then that's fine, but it's disingenuous – well, it's Newspeak – to refer to your position as "free speech".
No LTE is a deal-breaker for me on the Nexus 4. I would pre-order one right now if it was included. I think I'll wait for the next great Android phone that has LTE. The Nexus S is a pretty good phone, so without an upgrade in internet speed I don't see any reason to upgrade.

As for the Nexus 10, I hope that it gets enough sales to start pushing developers to make tablet apps for Android, and for Google to make the split between phone/tablet sized apps better in the Play Store.
Presentation Zen: Tips on how to be more creative by John Cleese
It's fine to grumble about testing, but the debate is not about the tests.

Teachers performance in the US has been terrible for many years. Partly this is because of bad management, partly because of low pay, and partly because of teacher unions preventing any action against the worst teachers and insistance on tenure tracks.

The reason testing is good isn't because it is somehow super accurate. It is good because it keeps teachers honest. Without testing, how do you measure teacher performance at all? How can you tell if someone who is capable of teaching well isn't just being lazy or getting distracted?

So, if you aren't a fan of testing as a way to measure and improve teacher effectiveness, please find an alternative that works better. Just not having any metric at all is far worse than the imperfect tests we have.

It's easy to point out problems. It's useful and important that people find flaws and fault. In this case, however, just pointing out the deficiencies in standardized testing doesn't help anyone unless it either leads to a more effective alternative, or improvements in standardized testing. Standardized tests might be very imperfect at measuring teacher performance, but it's far better to use the tool we have than to just throw up our arms and assume that all teachers are equally competent.
I love this classic advice. And now that I have to wear bi-focals, I need this advice.
Because it was popular in the past, and nothing is more out of fashion now than what was in fashion last year.
Except that you still do end up paying a monthly fee for each device you add to the shared pool.
That just changed, then. Thanks for the update! I checked those very same pages an hour ago and all three models (16, 32, 32 with HSPA+) were listed as “coming soon”.
looks like they just pushed the update.
I really like this. Could also be a great time-saver for professions that have to screen large volumes of photos, like busy newsroom photo editors.
Thought experiment: This analysis is based off a premise that schools are for the purpose of <teaching>. This is no longer true. Schools are institutionalized means of baby-sitting and controlling large portions of the countries otherwise-unoccupied poplulation. Thus, they are run more like prisions than universities. This seems to explain the empirical data in a way which shows the system as 'functional' rather than 'disfunctional'. Although whether they are 'fit for purpose' is a political question, of an entirely different stripe. =/
Be on the lookout for more stealth Zynga layoffs.
I'd usually agree with a comment like this but in this case, it has so many (useful) color diagrams that while it wouldn't be impossible to put on the Kindle, I don't think you'd get an amazing experience. Could be wrong though!
Google Announces Nexus 10
>"Nothing happened after over 300 applications and 2 interviews.*

Is a 2/3 of one percent application-to-interview rate normal for this field?
Underneath it all is transistors, and there are languages that add abstraction on top of that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verilog

The tension between simplicity, abstraction, and just throwing it all away is fascinating and ever present.

"If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is." - John von Neumann

“Any darn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple." - Albert Einstein.
The code for MRI is.. idiomatic, but actually pretty easy to read. I last did C full time in the 90s and so am mostly just a 'reader' now but it's not hard to follow, although some of the reasoning behind doing things a certain way in MRI is unfathomable.. ;-)
I'd agree with that. I switched from an iPhone 4 and an iPad 2 to a Galaxy Nexus and a Nexus 7, in part because of a new job as an Android developer and in part because I just couldn't put up with the OS anymore. I absolutely hate Objective-C and Xcode, but even I have to admit that the Android SDK is kind of crap. Even in Eclipse its integration isn't very good (though I use IntelliJ as my IDE, which is finally catching up) and the documentation is just awful, badly-written stuff that desperately needs the attention of a good technical writer or twelve. I can totally buy that app quality is negatively impacted because very little makes sense and there's not a lot of documentation to straighten you out.
Official scrabble app.

Scrabble on iPad is awesome. Also, please dont mention Words With Friends.
You might find the parallel structure listing grievances familiar, since it was used in the Declaration of Independence (and many, many times since).
Heh, s'ok. Smiles on HN get downvoted doublequicktime.
Ubuntu Developer Summit - Mark Shuttleworth Keynote
"Just not having any metric at all is far worse than the imperfect tests we have."

Are you sure about that? How do you know that a bad metric is better than no metric? It sounds a lot more like "We should be doing something. This is something. Therefore we should do it."
I'm getting tired of Mr. Ballmer opening his mouth and being so laughably wrong. He's a smart guy, I can only assume that he's preaching to the choir, namely Microsoft employees that must be exhausted and demoralized by the success of the tablets that are threatening to disrupt another huge chunk of the Microsoft Windows Tax.

I remember him laughing at the MacBook Air: "Where's the DVD dive?" he asked. As if anyone except MPAA executives want to carry DVDs anywhere.
I signed up and will be eager to try. However, you have a lot of competition, so I'll really be looking for some big differentiators. Good luck!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtROtg3duDfzdFp...
Enjoy this one: http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/birthstones/pages/ruby.html
That was actually a joke. I don't personally have student loans, and no one can predict airfares 4 decades out.

Most of what I say that seems negative is actually morose humor. I know (and you probably know) that I'm a fair deal smarter (and many HN readers, including you quite likely, are as well) than the people trusted to run the world. I used to find it disgusting that world was run by such stupid people (with an occasional morally-bankrupt smart person in the mix). Now I find it hilarious. In a perverse way, I take enjoyment in watching powerful people fail at their jobs, with detailed insight into everything that I could do better. You can become envious when you see empty-headed smooth-talkers making millions of dollars for doing absolutely nothing, or you can see it objectively as an imbecilic but utterly comical incineration of resources. There's actually an upshot in that. If we ever tire (as a collective) of those sideshows and reallocate the resources, we can do some great things with them.

I'm positive in the sense that I see potential for humanity to be a lot better than it is. It doesn't even take that much, because things are so stupid (especially at the top of society) that small dabs of smartness can deliver immense improvements. Just being rational and decent to one another would take humanity light-years past where it is. The disturbing thing is that societies invariably form elites that are invested in keeping everything broken, and as people become more distractible, those elites become more entrenched.

For example, while the recent crop of "social media" startups has produced some interesting software, they've done nothing to unseat the existing corporate elite. Real "disruption" means that health insurance CEOs become unemployed, and probably go to jail on manslaughter charges. Now that I could get excited about. VC-istan is just a distracting side show to make liberal upper-middle-class kids thing they've got a shot at the big game, but it's a fun one to watch (and heckle).
Is there some reasonable way to clone SIM cards? I would be all for that if the providers are going to be buttheads.
Show HN: A Visualization of Platforms Affected by Exploits from the Exploit DB
>Nexus 4 comes with wireless charging capability built right in. Just place your Nexus 4 on a compatible wireless charging mat to charge -- and retire the wire for good.

One's not included in the box though. I wonder how much they plan to charge for that accessory.
That included applications to places like Toys-R-Us.
I think it's pretty obvious what I'm talking about. The comment I was replying to suggested that people would be imprisoned for thoughtcrime. The original comment was disagreeing (slightly) with someone that has a very left-wing view of "social justice" or whatever. People like the person above clearly haven't learned their lessons about censorship, because there is a fair chance that even those with the "correct" politics like the author will disagree with the censors at some point, which could lead to imprisonment or death. Furthermore, you illustrate my point about people viewing their political opposition as evil perfectly, because instead of responding to me in a serious fashion, you call me mentally unstable.
The evolution of the five World of Warcraft endgames
This blog imitates Svbtle's style way too closely. When visiting it, I believed he was part of the blog network. Imitation is flattery, but IMO this is a little too much flattery.
Hyphenated Names and Job Security
Sometimes a change in Y gets a dessert name, sometimes it doesn't.
Hackathons for Week of October 29th, 2012
Since kindle fire, the books can be posted in colors :)
They are demoing the phone operating system on an HTC device.

Yay for Nokia locking themselves into this OS and not even getting that small token of appreciation.
Big boy betting against Valve in a bout of cheap indignation.
Do psychopaths make good CEOs?
What do you suppose you've contributed to the conversation with this remark?
Apple acquires scripts now?
No, of course not, but it wasn't only grunts who were subjected to PRC.
Great letter exposing the toxic level of administratium in the air in NC public schools, but I think it would have been better to have left out the financial paragraph. The author presumably knew what the pay scale was before he accepted the opportunity and moved his family across the country to live there. Complaining about it afterward makes him look foolish, and this teacher is clearly no fool.
You have only a couple elements to drag on your landing page (killer landing page demo BTW) -- but how many more elements will you have? Transitions/new pages/ maps? etc...

The check-list demo is really cool, but I would suggest adding another app type.

What is the business model? I would love to see womething where I can create a native app through your platform - but if I want to extend it with more complex features and functions I can work with your team and get those quoted and pay you to add thingsthat would require more coding.

This will allow many people to incrementally pay to get the app they are trying to build.

Let me in!
In my view the ability for anyone to hack on their own device is valuable, too. I learned to program because GORILLAS.BAS came with the source code (and I think required you to view it in order to run it!)

I use closed devices with some mixed feelings about it, the thing I'm most sad to support is the move toward devices with bigger barriers toward tinkering than what I had as a kid. I'm probably more accepting of it when it's a device I never had as a kid, but when barriers are constructed for once-open platforms it starts to irk me.
@Hammock, I would argue that the second half of that document was intended to be Parallelism as a Rhetorical Device. In terms of grammar, that may be how he teaches (at least for a class or two).
I like the wireless charging feature. It's the kind of thing that, viewed pragmatically, isn't really all that important, but it has a slick futuristic ScFi vibe to it that makes me want to have it.
Those look like some very nice devices at very compelling prices.

I'm still a bit disappointed though. I've been waiting/hoping for a Nexus hybrid (ala the ASUS Transformer). I'm really sold on that form factor and hope they do something with it on a "Nexus" device. The continued lack of this makes me wonder if they just haven't gotten around to it yet or if they are avoiding it due to Chrome OS related strategy tax.