skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Everyone I know with a tablet has a PC and uses it heavily. The tablets are but a small diversion.

My extended is full of uncles and aunts who use their tablet and iPhone significantly more than their PC. I myself spend much more time surfing and writing emails from my iPhone than my PC.

Just another data point.
State of Tech #82
Why startups are hard
They always put up the worst HTML
I met a genius that worked in the shipping department of the first software company I worked for. (Back when people shipped software.)

But working in the shipping department was only what he did in order to persue his passion, which was bird watching and photography. That is where he expressed his genius, although he couldn't make a living from it, it made him happy.

Reminds me of http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Bentley who first photographed snowflakes. His genius never gained him fortune.
I'm in this weird position of being excellent at the meta-reasoning required to ace a test and just smart enough to back it up, but not being very creative or powerful intellectually.

I was able to ace the National Latin Exam, my drivers' tests, and my handgun license test all without studying. Just from picking what seemed the most rational/logical in the context of a test.

I'd rather be an over-thinker. I'm terrible at a lot of things that demand pure intellectual horsepower. I'm primarily useful for just producing code, not really at higher-order thinking.
Just published. The Fractalist: Memoirs of a Scientific Maverick. http://www.amazon.com/The-Fractalist-Memoir-Scientific-Maver...
First of all, you can't use a Cintiq without a computer.

Secondly, when people say "great for consumption, bad for creation" they are referring to the design of tablet operating systems like iOS. Artists who use a Cintiq typically have multiple monitors and are multitasking with many different applications (Photoshop, Illustrator, ZBrush etc). This sort of workflow is just not possible on an iOS, WinRT or Android device.
To me what Myhrvold is vaguely describing as the "IHC" in this memo seems more like a set-top box or game console than a phone or tablet. I think this may have influenced Microsoft's decision to pour resources into the Xbox starting in 2001. They got it right that there would be an "IHC" but misjudged what sort of thing it would be.
Wait so is this a "guess" or fact?
For many activities you don't need to replace PC ergonomics. Take store clerks for example: the work they do (looking up products, inventory, processing payments) can be done just as well or better using a touchscreen device with a specialized interface.
Costs are coming down. This is what a retail price of 999 yuan ($160) gets you:

"ZTE U950 smartphone packs a 1.3GHz Tegra 3 chip, 1GB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage and a 2,000mAh battery beneath the 4.3-inch display."

http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/29/ztes-u950-tegra-3-phone/
PySQLi - Python SQL injection framework
sorry, but that is simply not true. CTS does only test for API compability.

If you decide that you want to license Google's Apps for Android for your device, then Google will try to use all its power to prevent you from using a competing technology like NFC. That is how software licensing works, and who comes out on top is usually the one with the most powerful decision.

But this has nothing to do with Android or the Compability test suite. It also does not interfere with any plan to use a unique look&feel. You don't have to license Android.
There's a great deal of the population who spend their lives working in shops and so forth doing relatively menial work. Why they're doing it is not about intelligence at all, it's all about drive.

A driven person who's terrified of Maths and Sciences is unlikely to become a leading Physicist, but they might well power through enough basic sums to successfully establish businesses.

An intelligent person who's not driven might never achieve anything like fame, at least in their lifetime, but they still probably enjoy their free time and passions.
The length of the article was not responsive, however. Way too long for users of small mobile screens.
The Racket Blog: Generics
This is slightly off-topic but I always wondered: why are commits in the CPython repo have their username changed from the author of the change to the person who committed it?
I have an Octopress site that I generate locally and sync up to S3, this blog outlines how to get it setup. Once you've created the Rake task it's as simple as "rake deploy" and everything is uploaded to S3.

http://blog.jacobelder.com/2012/03/deploying-octopress-to-am...
Previous submission:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4567065

(by me, no comments--it feels seriously weird to tell ColinWright about a previous submission)
|Cow, hen, pig, sheep

The standard answer is supposed to be hen, as it is the only bird.

I believe the standard answer is a "hen" because it's the only one that is gender-specific. In fact, it is distinctly the odd-one out because it doesn't even refer to a specific genus (or even family) of animal.

I'm all for creativity (I have the same complaint often) but there needs to be some sort of standardization in communication and society. A genius who can't communicate any of his/her ideas might as well be no genius at all.
My best friend in HS happened to be a genius on paper. Got straight A's freshman and sophomore year, ended up doing less well junior and senior year, and, when he got to college, failed out. He now parks cars in a garage. I don't really care for IQ levels, I think they're mostly meaningless.
I'll add that being able to work well with others is usually what determines whether you can manifest your intelligence in a useful way.

Working well with others takes many forms: being able to inspire and lead are obvious ones; but also the ability to take constructive criticism from others and learn from their perspectives -- which can be hard to do when you perceive the other person to be less intelligent (and perceiving others to be less intelligent is a problem by itself).
That was pretty much my experience with the Mensa test too. The straight mathematics section was quite easy. All the pattern-matching ones were maddening because you could construct good chains of reasoning for all the options.
Has legalization shown to increase consumption? Here in Canada, the rate of marijuana usage is roughly equal to the rate of tobacco usage even though only one is a legal substance. It indicates to me that someone interested in using a drug is going to regardless of the legalities.
Show HN: Weekend hack - Twitter Bootstrap + Jplayer + Youtube API
What is the median point of a polygon?
Still hard to say.

In the network stack, I think the DragonFly approach is definitely better (than fine-grained data structure locking). In DF, connections are routed to per-CPU network service threads based on a consistent hash; as a connection will always route to the same CPU, locking requirements are simpler. There are some places where the 'lower-half' network code does unfortunately take locks (when delivering data to socket buffers), but on the whole it's a good design. Solaris chose the same model, called it FireEngine; they have more writeups, if you're interested.

The changes in the 3.2 release that improved PostGres/pgbench performance were just good-old-fashioned lock breaking (spreading UNIX domain socket locking out), bypassing inefficient paths when possible (ex: bypass instantiating a buffercache buffer when data can be read directly from the page cache), and the new scheduler work. One other change was a neat trick, a form of page-table sharing; many of those changes would make sense on FreeBSD or similar systems.

The page-table sharing work addressed a problem seen years ago in Linux -- the cost of pv_entry manipulations. Linux moved from rmap to objrmap (http://lwn.net/Articles/75198/); FreeBSD reduced the cost of pv_entries by reducing their size and packing them densely. DFly's page-table sharing reduced the number of pv_entries (basically de-duped them) in particular situations (correct alignment/size of matched mapping; SHM segments, like in X or PostGres benefit most).
Startups are all going on about innovation yet none deliver.

Can you get all of your data out of Google's systems before they shut down your account randomly one day? That's a better question to ask?

I agree Office is bloated which is why I still use Excel 97 for a lot of things.

Regarding the 3210 point, if you look at most "Smartphones", the 3210 is a better phone. Better voice quality, longer battery life, more durable etc.

(Note: I have a spare 3310 I have lying around for emergencies which looks more tempting every day...)
It sounds like maybe what you really want to learn is the basics of Linux system administration. If you start with that, it will become much clearer how you can use EC2 to host your applications.
Not doing anything wrong legally perhaps, but it definitely goes against common social norms. Notice most people don't actually yell at him, but just ask him what he's doing and ask him (politely) to leave. It's only when he doesn't, that people get upset.

I guess he's just "exercising his liberties", but that doesn't make it elaborate. Unless pointing out that people don't like awkwardness is all of sudden an elaborate statement.
> I believe the standard answer is a "hen" because it's the only one that is gender-specific.

What about cow?
Wait for it, js has to kick in
Keep learning Rails and node. Let AWS set the servers up for you! That's sort of the point after all.

AWS can build your stack (DNS, servers, DB, LB, etc) for you using "Cloud Formation":

http://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/aws-cloudformation-temp...

Look at "Application Framework Examples" and the templates for "A simple Ruby on Rails "Hello World" application" to start. You can build your whole stack with a single click.

Later on, if you decide you want to be devops instead of dev, you can learn about how these templates were written. Go here to roll your own:

http://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/aws-cloudformation-arti...
FDR went to extreme lengths to hide his polio, including having the support of every newspaper in the nation. He would have no chance today, in the era of "release the medical records!"
That these benchmarks were done with 9.3-devel was important; part of what triggered this work was PostGres moving to a different way of mapping it's shared memory segment (mmap vs shm), the benchmarks were initially done to see how much that hurt.
Agreed. People have drawn the connection between web defacement and graffiti before, but I've always thought the web defacers should collaborate with underground artists and put some original graffiti art on sites.
Still there, check the source. Takes a minute to appear (javascript possibly).
Yes!

This person I mentioned - when she doesn't understand something she'll ask a question. And then she'll ask another question. And then she'll ask another question. And she'll keep going until she gets it. And because she's asking questions, and really thinking about it, she gets a deep understanding.

Me? I ask a question. Someone gives me an answer. I think to myself "ok, so I kind of get it" and then I drop it. So I have a broad but very shallow knowledge.

I have learnt to ask more questions, and to ask better questions. (Also, importantly, to use available online stuff to try to answer the questions I ask before I find IRL people.)
Huh - bizarre.
Isn't that the point of the article? Everyone could pick one of those and reationalize why it should be the "standard" answer, but it doesn't mean it's the only right one. Good test would require candidate to pick an answer and then explain why, but that would make scoring such test too subjective.
Show HN: After HackerNode, I built a free reddit client for iPhone/iPad
The page probably hasn't finished loading am I right? It appears to be loading some javascript from diskusjon.fiskehelse.org but due to the amount of traffic diskusjon.fiskehelse.org is probably getting, well, a tad overwhelmed.
AWS can build your stack (DNS, servers, DB, LB, etc) for you using "Cloud Formation":

http://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/aws-cloudformation-temp...

Look at "Application Framework Examples" and the templates for "A simple Ruby on Rails "Hello World" application" to start. You can build your whole stack with a single click.

Later on, if you decide you want to be devops instead of dev, you can learn about how these templates were written. Go here to roll your own:

http://aws.amazon.com/cloudformation/aws-cloudformation-arti...

In the meantime, keep learning Rails and node, and let AWS Cloud Formation set the servers up for you. That's sort of the point of the cloud.
Hey Jacques,

I just saw the threat right now. I'm based out of Delhi. I'm glad you have found a lawyer. But I know two good ones in Delhi, and will generally be _very_ willing to help. I'm reachable at +91-98682-21372 and paras1987@gmail.com

Please feel free to pass my details to your friends. I'd love to help anyway I can.

-Paras
> > Cow, hen, pig, sheep.
> The standard answer is supposed to be hen, as it is the only bird.

I thought "It's the only one that goes around on two legs." And then: "It's the only one that reproduces via eggs." Maybe not the right answer for the "right" reason, but works...

But then, as I have gotten older, my IQ is probably half what it was when I was tested as a teen (not a candidate for Mensa, sorry) Probably because I'm more certain now that I don't know all the answers. :)
I had similar problem and I gave google voice number, which is local
~~Sheep / ram?~~

Cow / bull?

~~Sow / uh, pig ? (I don't know about pig)~~

Hen / cock?

(Pseudo strikethrough! See child comment from pbiggar.)
You know what is a huge factor in turnout? Likelihood of victory being close to 50%.
When HFG defaced the New York Times Web site in 1998, the group posted a long, apparently heartfelt screed that cited Voltaire, Tennyson, and Emerson, and tried to put the hacking in the context of big battles that mattered:

"Just because we type in all caps and use 'elite' speak doesn't mean we are kids, or we don't own your dumb ass. For everyone who calls us immature kids, it shows one more person has underestimated us. And worse, what does that say about their security? That 'immature kids' were able to bypass their 25,000 dollar firewalls, bypass the security put there by admins with XX years of experience or a
XXX degree from some college. Nyah Nyah. [...] The injustice Markoff has committed is criminal. He belongs in a jail rotting instead of Kevin Mitnick. Kevin is no dark side hacker. He is not malicious. He is not a demon. He did not abuse credit cards, distribute the software he found, or deny service to a single machine. Is that so hard to comprehend?" (http://everything2.com/title/Hidden+Message+behind+the+New+Y...)

In 2012 when PYK defaces the Saturday Night Live site, they post "Greetz to oday, BRUT4L & S4VAGE
Fuck the Feds, 419 is just a game~~ USER INFO - EXPOSED PASSWORDS - DUMPED".

Is this now the worst they can imagine? Grabbing my Saturday Night Live password?

Bring back the heartfelt screeds and the poets! At least HFG thought what they did was important.

Sheesh, kids these days.
No, if the government pulls the Dropbox servers (my original stated scenario), your client will not be able to communicate with Dropbox servers, ergo your files will stay intact.

If you mean to say that the government will maliciously delete all files WHILE keeping Dropbox servers online. that is a possible scenario, but extremely unlikely as to not even be worth pondering (i.e. there is no benefit to the government to do that).

Though I must also add: Dropbox is a synchronization service, not a backup service. And even if Dropbox was a backup service, you should have multiple redundant copies of critical files. Don't put all your eggs in one basket and all that.
'pig' can be written in a way such that it has a symmetry about a vertical line, so I'd go with it.
That's interesting. I'm an LSAT instructor. My first reaction to reading the instructor's comment was, 'Ha, only 165, he's no genius'.

But, MENSA accepts 163 as a cutoff LSAT score for entry. So if MENSA == genius, then he is a genius.

Among people who take the LSAT though, he's only 92nd percentile. He doesn't have much business teaching the test. Anyone who's at an Ivy League law school has a better score than him.

I completely agree that intelligence, on it's own, is near useless. It needs to be combined with the other elements that make someone effective. THEN, and only then, do you have the ingredients for something powerful.

Our society lionizes intelligence to the point that many people with little but intelligence smugly rest on their laurels, and accomplish less than their potential due to defects in social skills, initiative, etc.
Hey, I implemented it in C using just posix threads.
It's my first time using posix threads, but I think it's not wrong. I tried to copy go's channels.
https://gist.github.com/4012855
It's a well-informed classificaton, and he openly called is his "guess". Declaring something "the most privacy breaching software" is inherently subjective and arbitrary, so I don't think anyone here is stupid enough to think that's being passed off as fact. This is obviously just his opinion and you're entitled to disagree, but we've all seen Skype in similar headlines before - do you have a more interesting counterargument?
Yes, the dynamic he's creating is different from what we experience with security cameras for at least two reasons: He's getting into people's personal space, and he's clearly focusing on individual people.

But what if he did neither of these things? What if he instead sat on a bench, set up a tripod, put on a wide lens, and recorded everything happening in a crowded public space? My guess is that people wouldn't react as strongly. But I wonder how they would feel. What do you think?
It might not be that she's overthinking--it could just be that the test-writers don't have as much education/intelligence. I use ad-hominems sparingly, so let me offer a specific example for the beginner's license test in Halifax, NS, Canada:

In cold conditions, which of the following freeze before the others?

1. Bridges

2. Overpasses

3. Shaded Areas

4. All of the above

I wasn't entirely sure what a "shaded area" was, but I figured eventually that it must be some area under shade from the sun. Next, "all of the above" didn't make sense, because how can "all of the above" freeze before all of the above? I figured that water has a higher specific heat capacity than ground, and thus in cold conditions, the heat from the water would keep bridges warmer for slightly longer. I answered Overpasses.

Apparently the answer was "all of the above". The funny thing is, when I ask this question to people, I find a pretty consistent correlation between responses: for my non-university educated friends, they typically answer D. On the other hand, my university educated friends (whose majors vary significantly) tend to answer A, B, C, or "D doesn't make sense".
Strangely, the first reaction I had was that a pig is the only thing that you need to kill to get something from. You can get milk, eggs, and wool from the other animals without killing them.

Not sure why I went in that direction, but I could imagine a lot of farmers and ranchers might think along similar lines.
This is generally true. I think I learned a lot in the Scala course, but it would be nice to have a human look at the code at some point. And the assignments were more or less fill-in-the-blank.

OTOH, this language course http://spanishmooc.com/ looks potentially as good or better than traditional ones. It seems like language courses over the Internet with native speakers could be higher quality and competitively priced with software solutions.
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> It sometimes amazes me that despite all the debates about any "decline in quality" and despite the continuously expanding community, when the chips are down we can still band together.

Fortunately we haven't "declined" so much that we're no longer able to see the difference between endless complaining about something relatively inconsequential and a genuine call for help :)
Beyond any notion of it being a protest against the concept of a surveillance society, it's actually quite an interesting social experiment.

The responses are fascinating. A lot of people quick to anger. Many more people who have some — I'm assuming, although I'm no expert on the law in the particular area — false impression that they cannot be filmed without their permission. An alarming number of people who are prepared to call 911 over such a trivial matter.

I've never seen anything quite like this before.
meh, forget the haters. congrats on your bugfix, I'd be pretty excited about contributing to CPython, too!
I'd be inclined to answer sheep. It is the only term that can be used in a plural context.

As DanWaterworth noted, cow is gender specific and does not even refer to a specific genus either (see: Whales).
"If need be we can always desalinate with nuclear energy."

While I have no doubt that renewable energy, nuclear, and desalination technology will all continue to improve, it's hard to believe that desalinating enough water to grow food for 10 billion people will ever be possible. I have no doubt that civilization will be possible at some level, but the claim of the original article is that things will continue to get better for the 5 billion people who are going to be at the bottom of the pyramid, which seems dubious.

Also, while soil can be renewed, it isn't currently happening. And while it could happen at some point in the future, when we get hit by the triple threat of no more cheap water and oil-based fertilizer it's hard to believe that we're going to be able to fix all three problems at once without first going through a period of mass starvation and/or another world war. It's certainly possible that we'll rise to the challenge through a combination of new technology and competent leadership, but based on the way things are going currently it seems like an outside chance.
>The drug trade has built massive criminal enterprises which have built themselves infrastructure and organization and connections that can be used toward ends other than just shipping drugs. It keeps pouring money into these enterprises, and making things worse, but if we turn off (or down) that spigot we still have to deal with these organizations.

Actually, after the U.S. ended alcohol prohibition virtually all of the organizations devoted to booze either went legit or drastically shrank in size and scope. We would've been better off without alcohol prohibition in the first place, but ending it was certainly a net win.

If you're interested in the history and parallels of alcohol prohibition to today's drug prohibition, Daniel Okrent's Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition is pretty good: http://www.amazon.com/Last-Call-Rise-Fall-Prohibition/dp/074... .