skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Book Review: The Architecture of Open Source Applications
Whatfontis: An Excellent Assistant For Finding Fonts | Dzinepress
Cursive, foiled again
I disagree with the article in general because I think the secret sauce for these online classes is involving students with non-graded questions during the lectures, graded tests, and homework.

I think the comprehensive grading of programs submitted for homework is good, but even if it is not perfect, in the 5 classes I have taken, the assignments helped me dig into the material.

I also like the model of letting students take graded quizzes more than once. I find that the time spent between the first and second time taking a quiz is very productive for improving my understanding of the material.

These classes are fundamentally superior to just reading through a good text book.
Steve Jobs's yacht makes its first appearance
Are you saying this is a bad thing? Continuity of culture is a good thing.
By the way, I'm assuming a taxi-like shared car fleet here, where you just get in some car that is available, it takes you where you want to go, and then goes to pick somebody else up afterwards. Without that, you would not have the reduction in number of cars on the road and need for parking.
Every generation has a thing that defines itself -- something that changes everything.

Seems like we've been a while since the last one, which was the internet. To me the next two look like driverless cars and advanced 3-D printing. Affordable fusion might be one, but I'm not holding my breath.

There are a lot of other cool things out there, of course: Elon Musk and his rocket program, trans-humanism, progress towards strong AI. But assuming we all actually stay individual people and don't become something like a hive mind (which is a big assumption), being able to go places without effort and make our own goods at home will empower people in ways never seen before. 50 years after these technologies mature, it'll be a completely different world.
IMHO steveb is the type of manager that can milk existing customers/markets, but not effectively lead MS in a full scale war vs Google, Apple and Amazon. The only way I can see MS not becoming IBM 2.0 is billg return.
When is a cyberattack an act of war?
they want to fill the microsoft store.. so they wanted to get the rt version first.. and frankly no one will pay attention if any of the OEMs release an RT tablet/laptop.. simply, they wanted a successful RT tablet.. they decided to do it themselves..
Unless they are in the middle of a power slot, taking up another plug no matter which way they turn. The alternative is unplugging everyone's gear from the strip so the Mac user can get an end-plug.

And god forbid if there are two Macs plugged into the same strip...
> Are you saying this is a bad thing?

No, I'm saying it's a new thing. This kind of continuity hasn't been anywhere near this accessible before.
This is nothing, compared to the "peer review" of the humanities lectures.

I know that there is no easy answer for doing MOOC (massive open online course) in humanities, but, according to the web, Coursera's solution is not working very well and, what is more striking to me, Coursera doesn't seem to respond.

But again, I have no easy solution for grading essays in MOOC.

More information here:

http://courserafantasy.blogspot.cz/2012/09/done-more-or-less...

http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/hack-higher-education/pr...

http://gregorulm.com/a-critical-view-on-courseras-peer-revie...
More choice means fewer monolithic megahits. It's like television. In the days when there were only three networks, a hit show might have a Nielsen rating of 60, meaning that 60 percent of all the people watching television in the United States were watching the show. Millions of viewers. Millions. Nowadays, the top-rated show might have a rating of 12.

The future of music is very likely to be more one-hit wonders, with a few artists who attain long-lasting (but modest) success. There's just too much choice. This is largely a good thing, IMO, especially for the artists as a group (obviously it's not as good for the few who would have been anointed as the kings and queens).
If you happen to run a content-oriented website (e.g. a blog or blog network) then in my biased opinion, you should use Parse.ly Dash, which is built specifically for online content publishers. I'm the founder & CTO: http://parse.ly

No matter what site you run, though, you should use Graphite.

It's open source: http://graphite.wikidot.com/

It has a slew of client libraries so that you can instrument everything. See Etsy's tech post on this, "Measure Anything, Measure Everything": http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2011/02/15/measure-anything-meas...

Here's a concrete example of how we use it at Parse.ly: we instrument all of our API endpoints for each publisher (customer) that is using our API. We can put this instrumentation right in our code and thanks to pystatsd and UDP, it doesn't slow anything down.

This way, we can track which endpoints are being used and be alerted about spikes and go-lives from big sites. See this graph I generated from Graphite after toying around with the data to discover some of our top API users:

http://ubuntuone.com/0CRL8EsDuQjirYczUQCitg

And here is the Graphite expression I used to generate it:

sortByMaxima(averageAbove(stats.api.prod.*.*, 0.01))
They have to start somewhere. Why are you so negative about this?
One problem with this is that it trains the user to ignore a security warning which might not be crying wolf next time.
What Colors Reveal About Your Brand?  | Best Design Tutorials
Indeed. When a large company has a problem, there are an awful lot of people in that company who aren't empowered to fix it.
Right, but young and educated people only like New York, Boston, and Seattle because other young and educated people live there. There are multiple equilibria. Major investment could break that cycle.

There's actually one very easy exploit: young, educated people hate forking over a third or half of their earnings in rent. The problem is that there's no location (that I know of) where: (a) it's easy to start a product-focused business, which requires funding, and (b) rents are reasonable. You have to choose (a) or (b). Most young people are willing to bleed on the altar of real estate because they believe it will help their career in the long run (and that's probably true).

New York is going to be the world's capital for, at least, the next 50 years. Boston has some of the top universities. So these will always be important locations. There's no reason, though, that another one couldn't be created. It would just take a lot of concerted investment. If I were going to pick a place, I'd probably choose Minneapolis: it has a lot of smart people and undervalued talent (engineer salaries are about 60% of what they are in NYC) but the cost of living is low and the only negative is the winter cold, which is not nearly as bad as it's made out to be. (If the 3 worst things about a place are December, January, and February, that's a good location.)

If there was an easy way to get funding in Albuquerque or Minneapolis, you'd see a lot of sharp, young people moving there. If you make a decent salary, aren't getting robbed on rent, and have a reasonable (4+ weeks) vacation allotment, you're pretty much location-agnostic as long as the place has smart people and decent hangouts. With 4 weeks vacation and money for hotels and flights, you can make more use of New York's amenities than most New Yorkers do, and more cheaply than it costs to pay the city's exorbitant rent.
I developed Task Science (https://taskscience.com) to manage, categorize, and collaborate on ideas and tasks. The goals were to remain quick and responsive so you can add the idea and get back to work.
In 2012, Fortune ranked IBM the #2 largest U.S. firm in terms of number of employees (433,362), the #4 largest in terms of market capitalization, the #9 most profitable and the #19 largest firm in terms of revenue. Globally, the company was ranked the #31 largest in terms of revenue by Forbes for 2011. Other rankings for 2011/2012 include #1 company for leaders (Fortune), #1 green company worldwide (Newsweek), #2 best global brand (Interbrand), #2 most respected company (Barron's), #5 most admired company (Fortune), and #18 most innovative company (Fast Company).

IBM SUCKS!!!
Yeah, but I've been 'using' Linux since 1997. Doesn't meant that someone who picked it up six months ago hasn't completely outstripped me in knowledge (easily done).
That said, I've signed up to help the initiative. As a gamer, I'd really like to see Linux as a 1st class citizen of the gaming world.
MS is not a startup, that can go by with a promising product. It needs massive amounts of sales and with the current strategy Surface is not going to get them. IMHO MS should allocate an enormous amount of money, like $20T, just to get market share. Sell Surface way under component value, stop the stupid non-business use licensing of Office, take the risk to secure long-term high volume contracts with component vendors.

One of MS problems is there are no high DPI tablet panels on the market now. Apple has prepaid for all non-Samsung production and Samsung is keeping theirs for their own tablets.
That was a fun read, but I don't agree with some of it. For the first time in a decade I am considering becoming a Microsoft customer and buy the pro version if the Surface, depending on how reviews are.

I do agree that the desktop computer market will collapse. I have suggested to most of my non-tech friends that the transition to using a good Android tablet or an iPad unless they do video editing of a lot of writing in which case a small laptop works better.
No. It implies that's what a significant number of people want. I don't even know how you can argue against the simple logic of it. Millions of people walk into the store looking for a Galaxy S, they get a Galaxy S. Some other millions walk in looking for an iphone and can't buy one but can buy any of 10 other phones. Some of them will end up waiting, some will end up not buying anything, some will end up buying those other phones. Ergo sales spike.

Help me, what part of that doesn't follow?
I think Tesla will solve this problem for just about anyone within 10 years. They already did with the Tesla Supercharger network (free charging), but the pricing of the cars is not accessible for everyone right now. In 10 years it will be. Pretty sure there will be an under $20,000 model within 10 years. From what I've noticed Tesla looks to cut the price in half every 3 years for their new models.
How about "this doesn't belong to the front page" flag for the stories?

Anything belongs to the front page by virtue of getting to it. You can argue that the community is broken because it upvotes stuff you don't want to see, but that's a battle you just can't win.

Basically, you're suggesting that in addition to there being a button for "I find this interesting!", there should be another button for "No, you fools! No!".
As a part of the build system at my work, we run various passes over the code aside from just "does this compile". I'm sure these MOOCs could find software to:

1. Check style of a language

2. Run a comprehensive suite of unit tests

3. Static analysis of the code

These tools together can catch most problems of bad formatting, fragile code (cannot handle edge cases, errors, etc.), and structural errors. Additionally you could take into account some kind of performance of the code - does this solve this problem in a reasonable amount of time?

By using standard industry tools, one could do a good grading system that is entirely automated.
Yes, it does, from my point of view. It's just another boring, suits-driven consultancy avoided by the really smart people.
I know it's quite low but Analisis made me chuckle, sleep deprivation at it's best.
It is interesting for me when reading the opinion of others about Iran. As a person who had lived inside and outside Iran long enough, I feel very sceptical about the content of the article. The author's statements are very similar to those of the government authorities where only certain facts are described regardless of the issues. I'm not an expert about space industry but since I am pretty sure that the article is exaggerating heavily about the advancements and they heavily rely on China and Russia. Also the author claims "the sanctions have, like many other local industries, pushed Iran to meet its needs locally and therefore advance quicker than possible if Iran had the easy option of importing everything it needed". Apparently he tries to portray that nothing had happened because of the sanctions but it is apparent that the sanctions has crippled the economy currently and the currency value has reduced by five time. The prices has tripled since 4 month ago and middle class society are getting poorer just because of the nuclear ambitions of the leaders.

I should also state that I don't believe Iran is making nuclear weapon nor can I deny it. I think western countries would've had the same policy even if no nuclear activity was there and some other excuse will be used in order to protect Israel. Western media have prepared people so well in case they need to take any action against Iran. Well, I hope that does not happen.
"Parent assumes however that everyone walking into the store looking for a phone wants or deserves the iPhone"

Absolutely false. I merely point out that many people were looking for an iphone.

"Tangentially is Apple losing their acclaimed grip on the supply chain if they can't make enough iPhones"

No. New iPhones have always been supply constrained because of huge demand. Sprint may have some stock because Sprint's network is shit in many areas.
Steve Job's Yacht photos
Ooh! There's been a MAME port too, right?
"Fly" was a brilliant episode, but I didn't take it to be about things that "should never" happen (assertion failure) so much as about Walter's mental decay. The reality is that 100.00% purity is physically impossible to achieve and there are always "contaminants" and people have to balance impurity and risk against the upside of what they're doing (if you're making meth, a fly is not a big deal). In part, I think he was driven by his memory of previous work and a bit of nostalgia. Since he remembers a pristine working environment when he was an esteemed chemist, he's trying to get back to that. In reality, there were imperfections, but he doesn't see them.

In part, it was like Lady MacBeth's "out, damn spot" monologue: a guilty conscience leading to obsessive mysophobia. But it also was the first sign that, even though Walter was at a point where he could just follow orders, coast, and make a lot of money, he wouldn't. Something would piss him off and stop work or worse. His guilty conscience, at first, was about the fly but, later, it was projected onto Jesse, explaining why he took extreme measures (endangering his own life) to protect him.
I don't know, but Stuxnet comes pretty damn close to that. Imagine if US did that to China disabling their nuclear facilities and putting a large portion of their population in danger. Would they consider Stuxnet an act of war? Yes, it seems very like they would.

Iran doesn't want to start a war over it simply because they know they would lose. But this also means US has the power to do it to pretty much anyone who isn't China or Russia, or isn't in NATO.
To me, the user experience issues are the biggest failures of all:

- A mail app that opens to a completely blank screen with no cues on how
to continue.
- An infinite login dialog that doesn't allow you to cancel and back out.

Wanting software that offers a pleasant and intuitive user experience doesn't mean that you want software that's dumbed down for grandma, and I'm sad that people are portraying it that way.

I've read my share of man pages and hand written my Xorg.confs many times in previous lives, I'm no stranger to complex and arcane software setup procedures.

But in 2012, in the world of smartphones and tablets, this is stuff that should just work. The answer to "the mail app is completely blank on launch" shouldn't be "sorry, you failed to read the manual". Ever.

And while I greatly respect Microsoft's attempt at entering this market, someone on their team, at some point, had to look at these issues[1] and say, "okay, this software is ready to ship anyway". That does not bode well.

[1] The alternative, I suppose, is that no one noticed. Which is even worse.
And one shouldn't underestimate Valve's own offering of games. Those are among the best games ever made.

With Left4Dead, Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike, you have plenty of fun, and at least for Team Fortress 2 they regularly update the game with weekend specials, new items and new maps.

Right now it's Halloween special, with new game modes where the two teams should cooperate to kill the Horseless Headless Horseman with trips to the Underworld. It's really a laugh to play.
Turn Your Customers Into Players
The child process approach is viable, but in fairness you should note that shared address space provides efficiencies that the RPC approach does not. This approach is IMO quite interesting in context multi-core and certain problem domains, but as a general mechanism it is a 'hack'.

And then:

- A full featured runtime reflection mechanism that does not drop "static info" on the floor: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10210188/instance-new-typ... (Yes, there is a workaround but it is in 'hack' category of system engineering.)

- Class.forName(cname).

- @MetaInfo() ... Arguably not easy on the eye but necessary and enabling.

- Bytecode injest (beyond dynamic linking) -- the JVM is your oyster.

- and related Instrumentation and AgentS (pi) : http://docs.oracle.com/javase/6/docs/api/java/lang/instrumen...) -- this is a very powerful feature.

It is borderline fanaticism to insist on comparing Go to Java, and unfair to Go. Effective advocacy of Go should focus on its strengths (syntax) and not attempt to gloss over its inherent limitations. It is a capable and viable language within well defined limits. Java and JVM are in another league. Accept it and move on.

If a new 'headius' feels up to it, Go on JVM would be a very interesting new language for the JVM ...
It's a chicken and egg problem. At least we'll soon have the chicken.

More seriously, game developpers will be much more encouraged to develop for Linux if they have a delivery system, especially given how Unity is becoming more and more popular.
In my experience, very quick and dirty code becomes correct faster with a rewrite than with incremental fixes.
Right now, you can go to settings (https://duckduckgo.com/settings.html) & select UK from the region settings.
Nice, I've gotten close to building this exact data flow from scratch and it was not fun.

You're just missing step 6 ("-> Present"). I'd build some really simple jquery datatables template that will present the output of a hive query, if only to have some screenshots for non-technical people involved in the decision.
This article is outrageous and, IMHO, wrong. It is hard to see how it could be published as a serious study in 2012.
So you're not happy with the current level of self-censorship in the name of political/social correctness, then? I find it far more than sufficient.

As for the issue you're talking about, this guy here is obviously a flaming Microsoft-fanboy: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4706624 .. I wanted to call him one, but refrained from doing so, mostly because I thought it would be met with a negative reaction.

But you know, talking to fanboys is really frustrating. Their posts are full of such obvious, annoying bullshit/misdirection that it's just really difficult to ignore, but on the other hand, going through the effort of shutting them up is pointless too.

That's why it's tempting to just call a fanboy a fanboy, instead of wasting a lot of time and effort in a civil discussion with them.
The Engineers Lost Aboard Titanic
Driverless cars are just another segway. No one will buy one, because they do not solve a problem most people have.
Original author here. The website was drupal (which I championed originally), then pyramid when I redid it, now drupal again.

This is a voluntary association where I served two terms and then let somebody else handle it. The person in charge after me told me he was not familiar with Python, but used PHP a lot and after a few months changed the site back to drupal.
In my personal experience, @ComcastBill, a fellow named Bill Gerth in Ohio(?), has been a responsive and helpful face inside Comcast. On two occasions short, specific queries his way resulted in receiving direct, actionable contact from inside Comcast.

I sent him a tweet about this specific issue, and hopefully he can make this little embarrassment disappear:
https://twitter.com/Roadstead/status/262544429490003968
And here I was hoping for a google codesearch replacement.
Even under $20k isn't low enough for many people. If you live in a city and are happy with your public transit options, then it's only around $100 a month. Which is way way less than car payment + insurance + maintenance. Even without paying for fuel.
A cab in SF costs $2.25 per mile (plus a flag fee, plus a fee for waiting in traffic, plus an airport surcharge)

The IRS mileage rate is 14 cents per mile driven in service of charitable organizations and 51 cents per mile driven for business.

Taxis haven't replaced private cars because they're radically more expensive.
While driverless cars do provide advantages over normal cars, there are two counterpoints I would like to make.

First, there are people who simply will not trust the driverless cars. I was talking to a friend yesterday who said that he wouldn't ride in a driverless car, and he wouldn't want to drive on the same road as one. Uptake is not going to be as fast as people seem to expect once the cars are practical for market.

And second, in the words of Jarrett Walker [1]: "Technology never changes facts of geometry." No matter how small you can make the engines, airbags, and frame, as long as you have each passenger in a separate, self-propelled, hopefully crash-proof shell, they are always going to take up far more space than a bus or a train, and require far more resources to construct.

[1] http://www.humantransit.org/2012/08/bus-stigma-and-driverles...
I fired up conan, figured out the key mappings, then my stored neurons kicked in, found the hidden life then immediately got to the third level without dying. God help anyone trying to figure this game out for the first time. I want to use basic, but my keyboard mapping is fubar'ed, I figured out ctrl maps to " but I haven't figured out which key generates "," which is needed for a program I wanna write.
Most of the CS courses I've taken from Coursera already do all those things. The Algorithms course from Prof. Sedgewick in particular had an excellent test suite for its programming assignments.

You were graded on complying to an interface, code style, correctness, performance and memory usage, with strict requirements on the latter two. You couldn't get away with, say, implementing a brute force solution and calling it a day, you had to solve the problem optimally.
That means, the act is depends upon the country in reference and can be changed as per the circumstances.
You're either young or live in a SV bubble that thinks that "really smart people" only want to work for Google, Apple or some hip startup.
I think you can currently do this by using google latitude, all these trucks will need is a device capable of checking into google latitude. A raspberry pie with WIFI should do, and for protocol to send back data they can use MQTT. Also read about the idea of internet of things, might interest you.
You're measuring the wrong thing. itemgetter() is supposed to be called just once and it's the returned function that is used in the loop/map. It should be:

python -m timeit 'import string;from operator import itemgetter; getter=itemgetter('slice'); [getter(x) for x in string.letters]'