skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
A .01% yield on the energy incident on earth would power everything we ever need.

I can never understand why people trot out this sentiment. Humans are a biological species subject to normal ecological principles. One of those principles is that, in the absence of a limiting factor in our environment, we will grow. If energy availability is removed as a limiting factor, we will grow ("gettin' larger in waist and taste") until it is again. Anyone who pretends otherwise has not stepped outside to notice all the millions/billions of people clamouring for food, clean water, jobs, holidays, new computers, clothes, homes, education, etc etc. Imagining that, unlike every time in the past where human societies have chafed against resource limits and hoped that just a little more would fix everything, this time human needs will finally be satisfied, is the oldest fallacy in the book. It's just not how life works.

You live in a valley full of aurochs, horses, and boars, more than any man could eat. Taking just a fraction of these bountiful riches would give us all the food we could ever need.
How to market yourself as a BA when you only have dev experience?
Job hunting time !! How can I value 3 years experience in dev and a general master in IT for BA positions ?
6 Things Successful Business Owners Do That You Don’t
Probably the vertical approach started from a need to have better search and be able to describe a certain type of object/activity. Think about it for a minute: to be able to search you have to be able to describe what you want. To be able to match a description you need to have a structure in place (e.g. the attributes of a car is a structure).

Sites like Craigslist offer a GENERIC way to DESCRIBE MANY objects/activities therefore they offer a GENERIC way to SEARCH for many objects/activities. Sites like AirBnB offer a SPECIALIZED way to DESCRIBE ONE TYPE of object/activity and they have a SPECIALIZED way to SEARCH for that one object/activity.

What if we have a SPECIALIZED way to DESCRIBE MANY activities/objects and a SPECIALIZED way to SEARCH for MANY activities/objects?

That's what I'm trying to do at https://pinad.com.au. Currently I have 81 structured categories and hundreds of attributes and options. All of them allow a specialized description and a specialized search. Would this be a better alternative for a centralized marketplace?
Musk's assertion regarding biofuels was correct, but I think it was made within the context of using them as fuel. He didn't discuss many side-products that are generated during the production of biofuels.
LibreOffice all the way :)
I find it's really helpful to be flexible with your terminology. The power of different phrases is enormous-it can make a difference between taking 5+ minutes to explain a concept to someone so that they superficially understand it, vs. having them instantly get it at a deep level.

For example-I work on Machine Learning, and that's the phrase I'll use with the HN crowd. With the general public, I'll use "Big Data". With Statisticians, I'll use "Predictive Analytics".

One problem with the phrase "programmer" is that it's just too general. It is impossible to get a sense of what value you create when you tell someone you're a "programmer", because the term is so broad. "Web Developer", "Statistics Automation Guru", "Ruby on Rails Consultant", "Data Scientist", "SEO", "Marketing Automation Expert"...all these are really useful terms simply because people instantly grok them. And when people have a clear sense of what you do, it opens up a world of career opportunities.
The count seems to be fluctuating between 895 and 905 every time I refresh. Curious what this is attributed to, simply some different cache hits or do they have a fuzzy calculation or something else.
The Kudo Box
It's mostly just a side effect of just-in-time delivery. Modern businesses don't want to risk having too much inventory, so they instead end up having too little. I'm sure they don't mind the extra publicity gained from a sold-out product, but that's such a common occurrence these days that its bound to start losing its effectiveness.

Also, comparing someone who obsessively checks a website to see if an item is in stock to a person who physically assaults someone in order to save a few bucks is really ridiculous. No, they aren't in any way similar.

Another thing to consider is how quickly Google got the Nexus 10 tablets back in stock. The 16 Gig model was only sold out for about a day. The 32 Gig model was out of stock for several days, but now they are back in. I think that Google is working as hard as they can, its just that the number of people willing to shell out the money for a smartphone is significantly higher than the amount of people who are ready to drop 400-500 on a device that they may not need as badly.
"..coming up with startup ideas is a question of seeing the obvious."

I got a wake-up call from my 5yr old that felt like this. He pointed up and said "look". I asked him "what is it?" ... "tree!". I bit my tongue humbled.

I wish to be able to see the "trees of ideas-in-waiting" like he does and not take the status quo for granted.
Great job!

One of the concerns to use it might be: if the user want's to zoom in, and happens to be double tap on the FastClick enabled button, two separate click events would be triggered instead.

I am wondering if it's possible to use this technique only on UI, but still delay the event handling. A timer can be used to determine whether it's an independent click or a double-tap-to-zoom-in event. In this way, the double-tap is not broken, but UI feels much more responsive.
> If you market or develop ICT products and services and you’re still ignoring accessibility, you’re ignoring the coming reality. One day it will be you, or someone you know and love.

IMHO appeals to emotion auto-lose the accessibility argument.
The article is signed Anonymous Angel. Is the matter that taboo ?
i wonder if userdir-based language package managers like rvm, cabal and opam can profitably rebase themselves atop guix.
> "Soon, Facebook ads could follow you around the web"

Not if I block them.
Surprising that IOS shipped before Android given the higher market penetration of Android in developing countries coupled with Khan Academy's mission.
These questions are worth asking.

However, like you, I'm a bit biased too - except the opposite way. To me, some of the questions you raise (Do they have more crashes? [..] More problems with program compatibility?) are points I would traditionally associate with Windows rather than with Linux.

Is it harder to train people to use Linux? is an interesting question. I think if people are already used to working with MS products staying with these products should provide an advantage it terms of training. However, I would expect a significant portion of the staff to use only a minimal feature set available in their setup, typically writing letters, etc. For them, I wouldn't expect the transition from MS Office to an open source office suite any harder than, say, the transition from traditional MS Office to the ribbon-based interface.

Is Linux as easy to use, or are there inefficiencies? -- The whole "this year is the year of Linux on the desktop" joke will probably never get old, but I think everyone has to admit that Linux has come a long way in the last 15 years. For your average user, I would say there aren't any major differences between a Linux desktop and that of a commercial vendor, once the system has been set up. Of course, that still leaves the question whether Linux systems are set up as efficiently as Windows systems...

I personally think that MS Office at least looks way more polished than any of the open source alternatives, and I would expect it to be a good deal ahead of the latters in application as well. But I can't say for sure because I've used Open-/LibreOffice exclusively for many years now. It's totally fine for whatever I want to do with it, and I would bet that it is absolutely sufficient for 90% of the use cases an average admin person has.

So all in all MS products might still be a (good) notch ahead in terms of product quality, but I think that advantage is somewhat neglectable because Linux alternatives have certainly matured enough for the particular use case of a city administration.
thanks this is amazing !
Both thorium and uranium have commercial uses. Why is it not recovered and sold?
I like Windows 8, but I really just like using it on touchscreen devices. On a touchscreen device, I think it has the potential to dominate everything else, as long as the apps start to show up and the second round of devices isn't plagued by crippling hardware and software defects, like nearly everything that wasn't manufactured by Microsoft.

The best way I can describe using the new interface on a non-touch device is that it feels like the operating system equivalent of a console port.
Prosecution of Anonymous activists highlights war for Internet control
Why would a perfectly ideal biofuel production be just as efficient? Commercial electric cells are close to 20% efficient. From that form to useful work is typically over 90% efficient.

By contrast from what I'm reading on Wikipedia the reaction that drives photosynthesis has a theoretical max of 25%. But you only get that efficiency at 1/4 of normal sunlight levels during the day (the rest of the light has to be wasted). We're already well below solar. And then you've got to give some of the energy to the plant for growing. Then you lose energy in the chemical reactions that make a biofuel. And the biofuel goes into an engine. Every one of these steps has a maximum theoretical efficiency that is fairly low. (For instance a gasoline car engine's maximum efficiency is in the 25-30% range.)

If I remember correctly, Elon claimed that biofuel production had a theoretical max of about 0.5% of incident sunlight energy being converted in the end to useful work. (We're a long ways away from this maximum in practice today.)
Yes actually, the quote about comments could be lifted straight from here: http://s3.amazonaws.com/theoatmeal-img/comics/making_things/...
Pirate cops bust little girl, take her Winnie-the-Pooh laptop
If you are interested in going the route of an entrepreneur/start-up founder, an interesting place to begin would be to explore where these two fields converge.

Ask yourself questions like:

What kind of new technology could improve the world of finance?

What technological tools did you wish you (or your company) had during your career in finance?

Or you could apply your skills in finance to financing technological enterprises. Perhaps look for a job at a VC firm that focuses on tech investments. You could learn more about technological enterprises on the job there, and see where in the tech world you might like to branch out to next.
Sigh. I'm sorry.

Canada is a horribly, horribly conservative place. Best of luck offering innovative services that challenge incumbents.
It does not matter if site already has any Fb services (likes, recommends, sharing)- Facebook callback could be easily added to any site together with advertisment module. It means that Facebook will deliver to ad module that ad that is most likely will be clicked according to site's user fb profile, likes, etc.
I would love to see this kind of back and forth in the opinions of the Supreme Court. You're making some interesting arguments I haven't thought of. Unfortunately with the religious freedom claim, I doubt we'd see this come up.
Or, as it was told in "The Zen of Programming":

-----

Hearing a disturbance, the master programmer went into the novice's cubicle.

"Curse these personal computers!" cried the novice in anger, "To make them do anything I must use three or even four editing programs. Sometimes I get so confused that I erase entire files. This is truly intolerable!"

The master programmer stared at the novice. "And what would you do to remedy this state of affairs?" he asked.

The novice thought for a moment. "I will design a new editing program," he said, "a program that will replace all these others."

Suddenly the master struck the novice on the side of his head. It was not a heavy blow, but the novice was nonetheless surprised. "What did you do that for?" exclaimed the novice.

"I have no wish to learn another editing program," said the master.

And suddenly the novice was enlightened.
Have a look at https://pinad.com.au - it might be the big improvement you speak about. It has structure and specialization for each of 81 categories currently available.

I described a bit more in a reply to the main thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4824233)

Disclaimer: I'm the creator of pinad.com.au
Isn't this obvious? Your brain does an uncountable number of things for you subconsciously. Seems like the interesting result would be to identify a set of problems your brain cant solve subconsciously.
Power Excel users use the keys (rather than the mouse). The new Office button bar forces you to loose all spacial understanding of where obscure menu items lie - fortunately, Microsoft retained key-compatibility with previous versions (even though those keystrokes no longer make any sense w.r.t. the visual interface).

The debate that Microsoft has on cost per seat is dwarfed by retraining costs - which may actually be lower for LibreOffice than the transition onto the ButtonBar in Office 2010. Of course, Windows is going to move to Windows 8, and Linux desktops will be more familiar than ever...

Personally, I've moved over to LibreOffice, writing a Python addin to get Bloomberg compatibility. My users are on LibreOffice for word-processing (practically no-one has noticed), for spreadsheets I'll let them flip back to Microsoft Excel if they have 'power user' problems/mindsets - but often find that they are taken aback by the button strip anyway.
Sure you can. In fact, I preemptively responded to that argument in my post.

>>If you want to trivially argue that the text editor and compiler are prerequisites for the internet, then I would point out that James Maxwell should deserve far more credit than either Steve Jobs or Richard Stallman.

More importantly, I don't think that's what meaty was saying, since that statement is so trivial that it's meaningless. C'mon, give him a little credit!
> I get the feeling more people think the security theater is for real and is stopping actual atacks.

I haven't spoken to a single person who thinks that's the case.
It will obviously be a startup company that solves this problem, and technology will be involved, but it is not fundamentally a technology problem. It's primarily a problem of misunderstood economics.

Instead of trying to monetize recorded music, which has virtually no hope of maintaining the artificial scarcity (and thus salability) it enjoyed during the last century, musicians need to return to their roots and find new ways to monetize live performance and other real-time interactions. Recorded music should become a loss-leader for these kinds of transactions. You may not get a $100 or even a two-drink minimum for "tickets" to a live stream, but you might also fill a few orders of magnitude more "seats".

The ultimate unit of marketable scarcity is immediacy. There is only one "now". Once it's gone, you can never, ever have it again. Barring the mass-availability of time travel, "now" isn't going to be commoditized, so it ought to be a fairly safe thing to base your business on. For example, "we'll post the recording for free next month, but if you want to see it happen right now, you pay (directly or indirectly) for access." Whatever drives the last nail in the coffin of the labels, I'll gladly wager 5 years of my life in a startup that it's going to involve this principle.

Second, there's a problem of social conditioning. Not so much on the demand side, but on the supply side. Musicians are taught to worship blindly at the alter of intellectual property. When Napster first appeared, I was a student at Berklee College of Music. That was pretty much ground zero and I remember it feeling like armageddon. Selling IP was all that is good and holy. To most of my musician friends and acquaintances, it still is.

This bias has to be overcome by helping musicians make more money from non-IP sources than from IP. That is the only thing that will convince them to throw away everything they've ever learned about their own industry, and throw off the yokes of their voluntary servitude.

With a nod to Etienne de la Boetie: "I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces."

As an aside, my startup is out to make the music business a better place for musicians and their fans. We're looking for a UX/graphic designer who's also passionate about the profession of music. We can offer room, board and equity for the right person. Email me if you're interested (address in profile).
My thought would be that blocking the software itself, or the filter lists, probably falls under the First Amendment in the US, as was shown in the Bernstein and Junger cases.

But...making it illegal to present something different than what is sent? Well, that really sucks for the maker of that Flash ad I didn't see because I don't have Flash installed.

And what about the blind guy who uses Lynx to surf? Or the non-blind guy?
I have yet to see any algorithm, outside of a test suite, that gave worse results when precision was increased.
Checking webpages in grayscale with CSS3 filters
"It's not Neuroscience: Under Attack, it's Pop Neuroscience: Under Attack, and it's under attack by scientists."

Neuroscience itself is generally pretty shoddy, so I don't think the distinction between neuroscience and pop neuroscience is necessarily all that important. E.g. this article explaining that over 50% of neuroscience journal articles are completely invalid because they use statistics incorrectly:

http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v14/n9/full/nn.2886.html

And that's only one type of error out of dozens.
ShowHN: A mezcal review site built with Bootstrap
Advertising ruins every communication medium it touches because it knows no limits.

✓ Email (spam). ✓ Telephones (telemarketing). ✓ Social Media Tools (farmville spam). ✓ Craigslist (spammers who collect emails). ✓ Websites (overlays, auto video, intrusive trackers, higher load times) . ✓ Video (30 second ad for 10 second video).

Anytime a page contains the word media player or tool, there are ads all over the place disguised as "Download Now" or "Play" buttons to try to deceive you. This is going too far. Out of fear that my parents might accidentally click an ad disguised as a play/download button (which are all over the place) and installing malware on the family laptop. I just installed ad blockers on every computer.

I had enough.
An Overview of the Cook Islands
This fits with the observation that the structure of production is constantly deepening and specialising.

No matter how niche your field is today, it will eventually break up into smaller, more specialised fields.

And someone will move into that specialty.

This is a good thing.
FreeBSD support is huge. Many thanks to Colin, who's been working on this for quite some time.

Now we need a more agnostic EC2 platform so it can run on all instance types. The Windows fee situation is not cool.
Yes, people still care for microkernels, particularly in research, security, embedded systems. The developments didn't end in 1980 and are still going on now. What's interesting is that some of those kernels from the 1980s were architecturally superior to the commercial OSes used today. It's really a mistake to discount the technical advantages of these kernels due to lack of popularity.

The main problem with them is simply lack of manpower. Research usually means that older solutions are replaced with the new, which leads to a lot of wasted effort where those changes aren't backward compatible. There's also the huge effort to keep kernels up to date with hardware, and to port over the thousands of software packages that people typically uses in day-to-day activities.

That's perhaps the real advantage of the current popular kernels - they have a strong requirement for stability and introducing breaking changes is out of the question. It's a propagating effect too, due to the many layers of dependencies we have - modifying the lowest layer, the kernel, has the biggest overall effect on the entire operating system.

That's why the current VM (or chroot/jail/namespace) solutions are being pushed and researched - because they bring some of the advantages of the microkernel design to modern computers, but don't completely break everything. A graphical application in user space for example, shouldn't care whether it's running in a VM or on the metal, it only cares about it's dependencies.

>The Hurd is, at least from the outside, a 1980s design that failed to catch on in the 1980s and is now a solution looking for a problem.

The Hurd is still a problem, rather than a solution. It's original goal is by part a failure because of design problems in the Mach microkernel. There's attempts to put Hurd on other microkernels, which has pushed Hurd more into a research position, but there's certainly things to learn from the history of the project on how not to create an OS on a microkernel. It's also not the only project still running with a microkernel design (see HelenOS, Genode etc).

And it's not like the research is completely wasted even if these projects don't gain popularity - as some of their features make it into mainstream kernels. A good example is FUSE (Filesystem in userspace) on linux - which allows people to experiment with filesystems without hacking on the kernel or requiring additional privileges.

But whether a microkernel design will ever become mainstream is a different question. The sheer amount of work to port applications over makes it seem unlikely - although good design of open source software will make the effort significantly easier. It's unfortunate that we seem to be heading in the opposite direction though, with key players in the open source world pushing for a monotonous ecosystem around linux/systemd et al, even excluding working kernels like the BSDs.
Simply because the overall time to develop and ship on iOS is quite less than android. KA can learn a lot from shipping and iterating faster. And I am sure the Android version is likely under development and will be out soon.
He also claimed that for most nuclear power plants, if you covered them and their exclusion zones with solar cells, you'd generate more energy than the plant itself generates.

Not at night.
The correlation with institutions is also a very useful to figure out someone's economic situation. For example if all your friends are in Harvard chances are that you are not poor; and that ads about expensive/luxury services will convert better than for most people.
I'm having a quick read through (3 chapters so far) and I think it is beautifully written. (quite a few broken images in the SVG parts of chapter 3 at present)
Edit: just purchased the eBook, and the images are fine in the PDF.
It doesn't need to have 100% of Microsoft's Office's features. A large portion of them are most likely unused by most Government employees. For e-mail clients and whatnot they can find open source alternatives like Mozilla's Thunderbird. LibreOffice doesn't need to have an e-mail client.

And what you're talking about in the beginning may be true if say the alternative is to simply stay with Microsoft right now versus switching to Linux/LibreOffice. Then yes, obviously doing something costs more than doing nothing, although the savings may still be worth it over the long term.

However, if the question is whether to upgrade to Windows 7/8 and Office 2010/2013, then it's very likely the Microsoft option costs more. Plus you get the added "benefit" of being locked in over the long term, and spend a lot more money continuing to invest in Microsoft products, which includes training of new employees with Microsoft products anyway.