skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
One of my fears as I hit 35 is just a general fear that suddenly I'll blink and I won't be able to use the essential interfaces that you need to get stuff done as effectively as most of the people around you.

As the OP describes - we all remember our grandparents struggling to use computers with any degree of effectiveness at all. Is that just because they grew up in a time where tech just wasn't evolving that fast? And so weren't used to having to constantly update their stack? Or is it just that their brains no longer could cope.

Even if it is the former - might the rate of change in 20 years time itself dwarf the rate of change that we grew up with such that we'll end up like our grandparents anyway.

This fear sometimes leads me to do stupid things. I bought a nexus 7 tablet - before I knew what the hell I really needed it for. I still don't know where it fits in my life - except for more pleasant web browsing in bed. I've enabled just about every google location, search history this n that - just to see what on earth all this shit does for me. And as far as I can see - I still don't use it as anything other than a web browser.

Is this THAT object that defines my bewildered obsolescence? Are people using these things in ways I can't even imagine that gives them an edge over others in their everyday lives?

I assume I'm not going to be able to tell until some ten year old looks over my shoulder and tells me I'm doing it wrong.
Unfortunatly one's options are not always clear.
It's not about Ubuntu in particular. Ubuntu just used to combine the concepts and tools in user-friendly way without the need to "tinker".

Where do you turn to for a modern Desktop if everything is going the same (=OSX) direction? The whole point is that staying with Gnome 2.x will put you into an entrenched situation, whereas everyone else is moving on, but in a way which just doesn't fit your way of working, and without perspective that it'll ever fit?
The main reason I don't buy what you're saying is that no other widely-liked open source software project suffers from this sort of silence from "satisfied" users.

I often hear and see people advocating the use of KDE and Xfce, for example, even in discussion that isn't directly related to them. It isn't isolated to desktop environments, either. People who are happy with Linux Mint, for instance, are very willing to express their like in public.

In general, highly satisfied users will openly say good things about the application, project, distribution or system that they enjoy using.

But we don't see that spontaneous expression of enjoyment when it comes to GNOME 3. In fact, the only time I ever see people claim to like it is when somebody says or posts something about how GNOME 3 is generally disliked by most. There are always two or three people who'll say that they like it. However, their number always pales in comparison to the far greater number of people in the same discussion who express dislike or outright disgust for GNOME 3.

I think the fact is that GNOME 3 is widely hated. That doesn't mean that there aren't a few token users who do enjoy it. But given the significant backlash toward it, the high degree of negativity whenever it's discussed, and the lack of traction it has gained so far, I think it's pretty safe to say that it isn't seen in a good light.
If nothing else, this seems like a mean time to be disparaging about someone over such little things. :(

Look, I'm sad that this guy is dying because that sucks.

If you want to have a thread commiserating with Crispin and his family and friends over how awful it is to die at 56, that's fine. It is awful. But if you want to have a thread lamenting how awesome a protocol designer we're losing, then you need to accept the fact that some people think Crispin is a bad protocol designer.

I haven't spent a lot of time working with IMAP implementations but I have friends who have and they describe pretty serious problems. Perhaps not all of those problems are obvious if you've only implemented a protocol parser and haven't built a working product that's successfully interoperated with popular clients and servers.
Personally I like the Mac OS X interface, and my only complaint about it is that I would like to see more applications making better use of large screens, especially if this "full screen app" is going to become the next style wave to sweep interfaces.

For example making Chrome full screen stretches one tab across the entire width of my iMac screen, which is a stupid waste of space on most websites, and looks horrible on some websites which try to fluidly expand to the entire width of this huge screen. A better user of the horizontal space in Chrome would be to show multiple tabs side by side or even history, with the most recent page in a pane the far right, and the page that you came from in a pane to the left of that, the page before that in another pane to the left, etc.
There are two subtle aspect of the game. Both based on simplicity. First the actual rules of the game. Just like angry birds almost anyone can pick it up and start playing from the word go. The other is about the platform (read iOS) that helps you treat a simple action like flicking a tile such a joy.

I was so intrigued by the first part that I actually cloned the app so I could use it on non iOS platform. But the beauty of the app just could not be reecreated. It was just a hack and made in two days with not much thought into the ui. FYI, the clone is at http://letter-press.herokuapp.com
> Who knows; if he'd had a better math teacher in junior high school who'd gotten him interested in programming early, he might have wound up working at a startup in Silicon Valley.

Yeah, but then we'd be reading what his blog post instead of this more fabulous article, and it'd be yet another piece about Raspberry Pi.
> It's still objectification of women if you try to turn into one and then objectify yourself.

I don't buy in to the equivalence of building a better vibrator and objectifying women.

Whether she is trans* or not has nothing to do with this writeup. Why belittle her accomplishments? This is an innovative idea, and it will get people thinking about different ways to please themselves or their lovers.
I think you're on the right track, this new stuff is very different than what I'm used too, and part of it is not just the interfaces, but how people are living differently. I don't get certain new social things, because I don't have the social structure that makes them work. So I don't think it is just age, but in how this connectivity has just been a part of life since the K-12 years. If I were still in that kind of social structure I think it would click faster, but the workplace doesn't count yet.
In the Valley of the Shadow
Yes, let's not state facts because of the way they make us feel.
The IR acts as an intermediary between the compiler's front-end (parsing and semantic analysis) and the back-end (machine-code optimizations and generation). The independent IR makes it possible to reuse, say, a C-language front-end regardless of the targeted object code. Similarly, an x86 back-end can be reused with any programming language.

Another nicety of a "high-level" IR vs machine code is that a lot of details become easier. LLVM has an infinite number of registers, and abstracts-out much of the calling convention.
Good reference, maybe I'll incorporate some of that. :)
This is one of the more biased articles I read in the last few years.
As an Israeli I think most of it is just rubbish.
Take the part where they say Israel treats Africans like "animals". Let's ignore for a moment the side the writer takes and the part of inclusion they do on all Israeli. Israel is flooded with immigrants from all over Africa who cross the border between Israel and Egypt to find better lives and jobs. Now, while it's arguable if this kind of immigration should be accepted or not, the treatment to those who already came to our country is much different than what's described in the article.
The gov for example, gives the immigrants working permits by the source of the country they cam from. Immigrants who declare (it's just a declaration which cannot be confirmed whatsoever) that they come from war-zones, are given work-permits and temporary visa to stay in the country. Those who are just coming to improve their lives and forget to lie to the immigration police on their birth country, are nicely expelled, as nice as this process can be. This is the practice most western countries take these days.

Moreover, in the last summer there was one time a small mob protested against Africans in a demand that the gov will take control of them, while the crime rates between them is very high. To take this exceptional event and throw it as the writer describes "Israeli protesters had begun attacking them in the streets with rocks and sticks" is just a try to give bad name to all Israeli. If you care enough for the facts, go and try to find the number of times such behavior was done, and don't blame the media for lack of sources since the media in Israel is pro-immigrants most of it.

There, I can continue on and on defending Israel against such shitty blames, although I lost hope in the recent years that my voice will be ever heard among all the reddit-israeli-hating mob.
This is a pretty good talk on how to make such a simple UI be fun. Letterpress does a lot of it...

http://indiegames.com/2012/10/video_is_your_game_juicy_enoug...

Also, multitouch! Even most jigsaw puzzle games on iOS are inexplicably limited to a single finger. This attention to detail is amazing.
chrisaycock's answer is complete, but here's the relevant lines in the article:

The code generator is one of the most complex parts of LLVM. Its task is to "lower" the relatively high-level, target-independent LLVM IR into low-level, target-dependent "machine instructions" (MachineInstr).
> It makes little more sense than cutting teddy bears lengthwise to make carpet slippers.

You. Kickstarter. Go!
Ok thanks, so Google wants us to use their browser, their OS (Chromebook) their systems language Go, their web language Dart, I'm not sure where this is headed. An old expression about putting all ones eggs in one basket comes to mind.
RT is still useful when you want to add a comment. For example...

There are exceptions to this, but generally agree RT @natesm Don't use "RT". Use proper retweeting.
Who Owns Elvis? Watch this trailer
An important thing to keep in mind is that GNOME 2 and earlier were developed first and foremost by programmers, from top to bottom. While there was some input from self-proclaimed "UI designers" and "usability experts", we generally saw experienced C programmers with a strong UNIX and X11 background calling the shots.

That changed with GNOME 3. The involvement of so-called "designers" was much more significant. They've been calling many of the shots. Changes aren't being made for pragmatic reasons, by the very same users who use GNOME to get serious work done. Rather, the changes are made purely for aesthetic or speculative reasons. In many cases, they appear to be direct rip-offs of OS X's approach.
Building an automation system with Node.js
IANAL:

In the U.S. Copyright typically remains with the author unless, the author is an employee or explicitly assigns their rights to another party.

I recommend consulting an attorney familiar with these matters.
Exactly... I would love to just experiment with google latitude. The idea would just to have an open social experience - such that if I'm at a cafe somewhere - and I have latitude enabled then people can just feel free to join me.

But I don't bother enabling it - because none of my friends want to (even though quite a few now have android phones). They'll say it's too creepy. And maybe it is.

But you can easily imagine a culture where it's not. Currently - people probably think it's creepy because they are very protective of their social networks - and don't like the idea of them blending. Largely this is because they don't want to be judged by the standards of one group when in the company of another. So they split their social realities.

A culture that found services like latitude not creepy is one where standards are more liberal or more homogenised - such that mixing social groups is less likely to cause negative consequences.

Ironically - if people mixed their worlds a little more then society would almost certainly become more homogenised and liberal. So it's a bit of a chicken egg problem that probably won't be solved until there is substantive generational change.
The story here is how could the person responsible for delivering war news/propaganda over social media actually paint their face black and not realize many people would find it racially offensive.
Most people don't pick the option of stealing massive amounts of personal data in a manner that is obviously unethical and almost certainly illegal.

Blaming society for his choice sounds like crazy talk to me. What happened to personal responsibility?
Possibly overthinking but... Bank calls my phone, someone other than me answers, bank says "plugh", that someone else can then at a later date call me and I will believe they are my bank.
> I'm looking forward to at least one ero-toy applicant in the next round of YC apps.

I nearly applied with one this year. I came up with a technique to "3d print" custom sex toys a while back and have been iterating on the idea slowly, but it's not far enough along to throw my weight behind it as a real business.
Yes, but it is a problem that is true to different extents depending on the word. The origins of Ries's philosophy may justify his use of "lean", but if that was not the case, I think it would have been better and possible to find a word with a higher meaning to confusion ratio.
I do the same thing. Whether or not it works depends on the time of day. If it is just a 4:00 in the afternoon lull in attention span a short walk (or if I have a deadline an espresso at the desk) will usually get me back on track. If it is late in the evening though I can only delay the inevitable need for sleep so much.

I think that inevitable tired point where you aren't going to get anything more out of yourself effectively, no matter what you do, is what this article is about.
> I was praying that one was sarcasm...

It's part of a culture, one men perpetrate just as much as women if not more, that says "women are the only victims of sexism." If that statement doesn't seem immediately idiotic to you, the best I can offer right now is this:

http://www.alternet.org/story/156194/what_about_the_men_why_...
- http://linuxmint.com/

- http://mate-desktop.org/
We own Elvis!
Yeah, she's impressive. You might enjoy some of the other posts on her blog too, my favorite is the duct tape RFID post, but mostly because she made that one for me.

(But also it's a neat hack, she powers the microcontroller via the I/O pins and just attaches the vcc and ground pins to a capacitor.)
Yeah, that link doesn't work.
Believe me or not, they actually have an Alliance Française branch in Granada, Nicaragua, with native French speakers that can teach you the language. Cheap nice place.

EDIT: It's not so nice actually. Go to San Juan Del Sur instead.
I don't know if I'd use "Words with Friends" as an example of a non-scammy ad-based app. Because since Zynga bought them they turned evil as hell. I moved to Wordfeud, bought myself an ad-free experience, and have been happy ever since.
An IR (intermediate representation) is "retargetable": meaning new processors can be supported with a new backend addon, not a full rewrite.

Compilation, specially of the type of language LLVM is most used for (impure, procedural, object oriented, with optional collection) lend themselves to very similar optimization techniques. Optimization happens in phases, one after the other, sometimes a phase might need to be repeated after the code undergoes further "simplification". Since the phases pretty much operate on the same data format, and since they're mostly portable across processor architectures in wide use today, it makes sense to delay actual object code generation until last.

The final assembly instructions generated are as good as "machine code". In fact, the whole reason it's called "assembly", as opposed to "compilation", or even "translation" is because there is a 1:1 correspondence between assembly instruction and machine instructions. Many assemblers use instruction hash-table to look up code by template :-)

Even when assembled, the program is not in runnable state as a lot of its external symbols and dependencies are not resolved. A file is its own compilation unit, and so functions referenced in other files in the project, or dependency libraries, or standard system libraries and system calls in use have to be either resolved, or registered somewhere handy for quick resolution later. Static linking does the first, dynamic linking does later. If the object file exports symbols for use by others it might need to get made into a shared-library.

As you can imagine, all this work is both very platform specific, and also tedious. Whence why one might want to avoid the final "weaving" of the binary, and leave it to someone who is intimately familiar with the target environment. Someone like the vendor assembler and linker, better yet, the high-quality binary tools from the good folks at GNU :-)
The actual news release from WHO sticks to the facts, and doesn't have all the FUD of the Forbes article:

http://www.who.int/csr/don/2012_11_23/en/index.html
HI there, I'm the creator of ReCode Project. We had some works that would not run in the browser and wanted to treat all works as equally as possible. Also, we are trying to reach beginners as much as experts and as of now Processing.js is not being taught in most educational programs. I thought regular Processing would provide full functionality and better accessibility. I suppose accepting .js translations wouldn't be a big deal, I'd just have to do some more work on the site. It's a valid question and one I think needs revisiting. Thanks for bringing it up.
You might have a better experience of a country if you aren't a meth-head trying to bribe the local authorities to cover for your drug trafficking. He wouldn't fare well in the USA, either: in fact, he fared so poorly there that he had to flee the country.
As the OP describes - we all remember our grandparents struggling to use computers with any degree of effectiveness at all. Is that just because they grew up in a time where tech just wasn't evolving that fast? And so weren't used to having to constantly update their stack? Or is it just that their brains no longer could cope.

I've turned 40 and I already see where my demise will be. It won't be in what I consider tech (gadgets, languages, frameworks, HW, etc...), but rather how to use social networks. I already am like my grandparents when it comes to Twitter (does this message go to everyone or not?). And with Facebook I'm always unclear about who can see what (private, friends, Facebook users, everyone?). And I have virtually no understanding why instagram and pinterest are "must have" apps.

I've seen where I'll be like my granddad and it will be in social networks.
Desktops are outgrowing me, and I’m worried
Governments changing regulations should in no way hinder accurate reporting. It should merely create more material to report. How do you think that reporting works?

>Meanwhile, discussion about safety limits were framed around 'natural' and 'background' radiation, without informing people that caesium-137 and strontium-90 are man-made by-products of nuclear fission (which some would argue the acceptable limit is zero).

This just makes me suspect that you really are not qualified to have this conversation. What, pray tell, is the difference in danger between an alpha particle that comes from a man-made isotope, and one that comes from a natural isotope? That you use scare quotes ('natural' and 'background' radiation) gives me additional pause. You do realize that radiation is radiation, no matter how the source of it was made, right? Naturally occurring radiation is no less real than radiation that emanates from substances which we create.

Comparing radiation exposures to the baseline background levels is the only rational thing to do. It is impossible to have a rational discussion about radiation if you don't do that.

> I don't think it's scaremongering to err on the side of caution

Certainly. Tell people what is known, the limits of what is known, the consequences of possible realities, and what they should do to protect themselves. That is reasonable reporting.

However, simply mentioning that "radioactive things are being eaten", is scare mongering. It sounds scary, but the statement is true of from natural organic fruit from two-thousand years ago before industrialized society to a slightly charred poundcake from Hiroshima after August 6th 1945. Without specifying the parameters, it means nothing but induces fear nevertheless. It is textbook scare mongering, and besides being absolute shit journalism, it is actively harmful for the reasons I have previously laid out.
Sure, I'll expand on my reasoning, but only since you ask. :) I don't and won't debate IP here, but I'll try to give more details behind that short post.

Intellectual property rights, themselves, are more important than the monetary gain. The right to own the product of your work is incredibly important to the creator's life. If you make something, whether it be a wood carving, a sandwich, or even a computer program or piece of music, that thing is yours. To take that something from someone without consent is theft.

When it comes to intellectual property, the only way to control the thing is to control its distribution. If the creator has no ability to set the terms by which the book, song, software program, etc. can be used, then there's no such thing as ownership of the created work.

I think that's a worse loss than any temporary financial gain that could be had by the loss of IP rights, as those IP rights are everything to the creator. If a creator doesn't own what he creates, and he can't trade his creation on his own terms, how can he succeed in life? Where's that pride of knowing that what you made is YOURS and you can control it?

Imagine a situation where an accomplished, proud artist spends years painting what he considers his life's masterpiece. Then the next evening, a thief runs off with painting, but leaves a stack of $100 million in cash with a note that says "SOLD!". Was the artist justly compensated? Would there be articles written about how art theft could leave artists with more money than on the market?
A reachable version of the post is here: http://www.sipwise.com/news/doutgrowing-desktops/
Why, did you read the entire post? It doesn't require any tinkering to work, and the interface is totally natural.
The people who value the out of the box experience would likely be drawn to ubuntu because of its USP - its out of the box experience. If youre in the "I will set up my desktop to be exactly the way I want" then why not start with debian / fedora?
In UK, Twitter, Facebook rants land some in jail
As for writing (scientific papers), I find it best to use my most productive hours for editing and the stupid hours for writing new material, under the assumption that I would have to edit new material anyways.

Programming is much the same way. Use your best hours to refine/polish work that is furthest down the line, use your worst hours to write crap that gets you started thinking about what the real solution will look like. Even in your best hours, you probably aren't going to come up with the right solution immediately (unless the problem is easy).
Thank you for the feedback. I suppose my question was operating under the assumption that once I decide how I want the contract structured, I would have a lawyer write it up sufficiently. Its more a question about do I want to share ownership of the source with the client, fully assign, etc. What is considered reasonable in the freelance development contracting space.