skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Before I say anything, let me first mention that I'm not trying to defend my right to post comments like this. I shouldn't have said anything.

That said, if you're struggling to find differences between Obama's administration and Bush's, you're looking in the wrong places.

I assume when you mention "the right to assassinate American citizens," you're referring to the case of the Yemeni boy who was killed by the drone? If that's the case, trust me when I say I don't disagree with you here: it's a horrible thing. BUT, just because it's horrible doesn't mean it wasn't avoidable. The boy knew that his father was on the "kill list" as a known extremist. In choosing to go and visit him in Yemen anyway, he would have accepted the possibility that he would be put in harms way by association. It was an avoidable risk that he knowingly chose to take. I don't find that nearly as offensive as say, Guantanamo bay, which I might add was created by the Bush administration.

But international politics is a messy area, and I think it's safe to say that no matter who is president, horrible things are bound to happen as a result of global economic climate, and independent of who's in office. What REALLY offends me, though, are the things that happen here at home.

When I hear conservatives say things like "We don't need more trees! We need more jobs!" I'm immediately offended that someone so short-sighted could even consider running for office. When important officials are making claims about women's bodies rejecting fetuses that are the result of rape, and others are refusing to teach the theory of evolution, I'm offended. These ideas are not healthy: they're toxic. They hinder the advancement of society.

So frankly, if I had to pick one thing about the Obama Administration that I do "care to discuss," it's gotta be the fact that never have I ever heard him suggest any such toxic ideas. I can't say so much for the other team.
That line of offence more applicable to jokes than to art. Not all art is meant to be consumed easily and without context. In fact, I'd argue that if a piece of art CAN be consumed easily by anyone of any background without any context, then that piece will usually be rather obvious and just not very interesting, insightful, or valuable.

Of course, take that with a grain of salt. There's a rather large area between 'obvious' and 'unintelligible', and plenty of authors have tried (and failed) to elevate the artistic value of their pieces by turning them into useless mazes of obscure data.
I grew up in a pacifist family, and still attend a Mennonite church.

But I also have what I think is a realistic view of history and geopolitics. I recognize the Enterprise, and more generally the U.S. carrier fleet, played a significant role in the relative peace we've had in the world since WWII.

Sure, there have been wars since then. But the total loss of lives, and total destruction from those wars, has been relatively minor in comparison to wars of the past. Nations only go to war, and only continue fighting, as long as they think they can gain from it somehow -- land, resources, safety, ideological spread, whatever. Having a carrier group parked off your coast ready to unleash fury tends to cut into those possible gains, and therefore deters nations from entering into hostilities. The value proposition of "negotiating" becomes higher than that of "fighting" in a lot of marginal cases. Strategic weapons (like carriers and nukes) in essence win wars by causing them not to be fought.

From where I stand, that's a win -- not just for "my side", but for humanity as a whole.
This is an article about competition. How long has it been since Microsoft defeated a competitor?

Here is an explanation from a journalist on why Microsoft isn't included in this article: http://pandodaily.com/2012/11/30/the-squid-and-the-jellyfish...

And here is one from about five years ago from Paul Graham on seeing Microsoft as no longer relevant: http://www.paulgraham.com/microsoft.html

It is fascinating to see how much Microsoft used to be feared: "'Can you name anybody that's happy about being in the same industry with Microsoft?' Mitchell Kapor asks." -- http://www.around.com/microsoft.html
Breaking Through Cloud Addiction
You're right. Apologies...
The key concept here is 'context switching' and how fast you can do it. Multitasking is considered bad because people switch contexts and lose bits of information in the process. Some people can retain their context longer, or have a workflow in which they can easily rebuild their context based on hints (notes, to-do lists, mental mind-map).

In my case, whenever I'm working on some complicated bit of code and someone interrupts me to ask a question, or to go to their desk, I have no problem doing it because I am already immersed in the task and don't need to offload it anywhere. If I realize that the talk is going to take longer than I though, or if it is about something completely different from what I'm working on, then I might scribble myself a quick note to get my mind back in the state that I need to be in.

Or another example: assisting two different people with two different programming problems via chat, while myself working on a third one, but all in the same codebase. There's not a lot of context switching required because we're all sharing the same code and are all in the same mindset. My productivity in terms of my own code does decrease using this method, but it's still more productive than taking the time to go and sit with each individual person to go through their problems one by one.

tl;dr: multitasking is impractical in some situations, but there are situations where you can benefit from it. I think it's a useful skill to be able to create those kind of situations for yourself (and your team).
For Adobe Software it's easier than it has been in years. No need to install a patch. You just have to edit your host file to block all the domains CS uses to phone home.
I've been looking for a static site generator that used jinga for a while! :)
Thanks. That was perfect. I actually feel really good about the campaigns I ran now. :-)
SEEKING WORK - New York / NY, Remote OK

I'm a software developer and business consultant focusing exclusively on HTML5 applications. If you're an SMB or enterprise and looking for a new development partner, please contact me if you have end-to-end agency type project needs.

If you're a software company or agency looking for a contractor, I focus on modern Javascript / HTML5 single page applications and have limited availability in Q1 of next year. I'm looking for the following:

- Rich-client Javascript projects using Backbone or ExtJS
- HTML5 mobile projects using Sencha Touch or jQuery Mobile

Please email me at barry AT barrypeerless DOT com.

I am also looking for new collaborators to partner up with on projects as I am working near capacity. If you are a contractor that codes in any of the above libraries and / or codes Rails back-end please feel free to reach out.

Cheers,
Barry
A very good point, and something I hadn't really considered. Much appreciated!
Especially appropriate considering the language used by the FTPd scripts to announce releases on the sites -- upping a new release was known as "starting a race."
How Valuable is a Social Media Audience, Really?
Syria is reconnected to the Internet, for better or worse
Need to remember
Stop Making Excuses, Start Split Testing
I don't understand either of the polar sides of the 'are video games art?'

'Art' is just a description, no more. No promise of quality, no conferred legitimacy. There is plenty of really crap art out there, that no-one will claim is not art. Every argument I've seen for the 'is not art' camp does some pretty torturous semantic weaving. And articles like this for the other camp that say 'art is shit, who wants that' are equally unenlightening.

I would say that creating video games in general is more of a craft than an art, but there is definitely art involved in getting to the final product.

edit: ugh, I didn't pick that the article was satire. shame on me.
You seem to be reading condescension into where it is/was non-existent or trying to throw it around where it is not warranted.
If everyone did this though many online products and services would cease to exist. I would like to think there is a nice middle ground where you could pay a small amount on services like Facebook and Twitter for them to provide a completely ad free experience.

It seems companies are reluctant to do this though, I guess they think that having advertising available across all demographics is more important than some subscription revenue.
No standard library, nor even a standard class/object model. Lua is more of a language engine than a complete language. In that capacity, it is quite a success.
White House softens cybersecurity draft with exemption for commercial products
Until recently, Apple RAM was so overpriced that I'd place simultaneous orders for a minimum-RAM machine and Crucial RAM at the same time. I wouldn't really upgrade an old mac.
If you're interested in gSchool, you should take a look at the following:

http://catalystclass.com/

http://devbootcamp.com/ (mentioned elsewhere in this thread)

http://appacademy.io/

http://hackbrightacademy.com/

http://flatironschool.com/

All are based in SF, except Flatiron, which is in NYC.

(I'm a cofounder at Catalyst. Ask me anything!)
Staples Announces In-Store 3-D Printing Service
> I'm not sure if there was anybody living in extreme poverty in 1800.

There was no extreme poverty during the second half of the industrial revolution?

The Irish Great Famine never happened?

In the late 1800's, 16million people /didn't/ immigrate to America, because the jobs they had were better and paid more than the shit factory jobs we had?
Interesting reading: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warez_scene
And a fairly sweet deal for the instructors involved. 24 spots at $20,000 a pop = $480,000 split 3 ways for 6 months work, an annualized income of over $300,000.
"This week I worked 15 hour days... I believe everyone has something that will motivate them to this level"

Working crazy hours is not a synonym of motivation. You can be crazily motivated and still have a life...
RAM is something you definitely want to buy enough of, but hard drive space isn't a big issue on a desktop. Unlike a portable machine, there is no problem with buying an external drive and just leaving it attached all the time. There is also the option of some kind of network attached storage.

The 27" model is supposed to have a little RAM bay so it can be upgraded by the user. I have last year's 27" iMac on my desk at work and it's a great machine. The display is fantastic.
> * Written in Python

Isn't punch a nodejs app?
'I will be using silverware, a Mesopotamian technology, which qualifies as a “killer application” given what it allows me to do to the leg of lamb, such as tear it apart while sparing my fingers from burns.'

Lost me there. Doesn't even make sense. At a time when people were still hungrily eating meat fresh from the coals, silverware was the least of their worries.
It sure has. I was born during WWII and grew up in the 50's and 60's in rural Maine. We did not have indoor plumbing or central heating. Our TV was black and white. Our phone was 8 party non-dial and I think transcontinental phone calls were something like $2 per minute. The first car I drove got 8 miles to the gallon. Our life was a little better than that of my great-grandparents.

I am in good health in spite of diabetes and 3 minor heart attacks, because of advances in medical technology. I use insulin that was made available the year after my grandfather died from diabetes. I monitor my blood sugar with an instrument that wasn available a couple of decades ago. I have a pacemaker that wasnt available 50 years ago.

I'm alive which is significantly beater than dead.
It looks useful but it doesn't seem to be compatible with my phone. Is there a mobile app? Can you share with us how you implemented this?
It's a 50/50 split. In an article, 5/95 would suffice? Must a retort require so much more?
Ebert pretty much lost this debate from the outset with "I contend that X is not Y, and I will not discuss this any further". Even though he relented and did followups, it's pretty clear that you're arguing from prejudice rather than merit when you refuse to enter into debate.
If a thief steals a car that sells for $10,000, is the dealership out the cost of the car, or are they out the cost of the car plus $10k because the thief might have purchased the car at some point?
I've been seeing quite a few of those recently. I could only speculate why, but the trend is concerning.
Consider that this course probably bumps its students' earning potential by ~$30k/year, and that there aren't many cheaper substitutes. (Imho, learning on your own isn't a substitute for this program -- your odds of getting a dev job 6 months in are pretty low, and the odds of your getting distracted/frustrated and never achieving your goal are pretty high.)

Disclaimer -- I'm a cofounder at a similar program.
Confused about Map/Reduce?
Woops, thank you! Edited and corrected.
A similar work in progress project for Python: https://github.com/noplay/python-mysql-replication

It's fun to see we are working on similar project in the same time.
SQL vs. NoSQL in the Cloud: Database Considerations
The Cedexis numbers seem very suspicious. Their own 'Multi CDN Optimized' service wins every comparison by a lot, and if their methodology is somehow failing for CloudFlare (which I've used with minimal problems — certainly not a 22%+ error rate! — it's not clear they'd be motivated to fix it.
I visited MoMA in NY and in different parts of the museum, and by different artists, I saw a plain sheet of white paper, a plain sheet of red, and a plain sheet of black. Someone had considered these to be 'art' enough to hang on a wall. I found the rest of the exhibits to be interesting in some way, but these three pieces represent the lowest I've seen the bar set.
This was actually little more than an advertisement for his book. I agree it is well written, which is not entirely surprising as the author has been on the NYT best selling list before. With that being said, the NYT might be the aggregator you're looking for - that is, if you're looking for high quality literature.
+*******************************************************+
| TenderTree |
| San Francisco - Front-End/Back-End/Mobile Engineers |
+*******************************************************+

TenderTree is on its way to becoming the next AirBnB. We allow families to find trusted caregivers near them at half the cost of a traditional agency. It's a HUGE $80B market that's massively screwed up.

We’re growing crazy fast - we’ve done over $100,000 in care in under 4 months in our private beta. And everyone’s taking notice; we’ve been featured by top media outlets such as NBC, Wired magazine, Forbes, TechCrunch, VentureBeat and others.

We are profitable and have been generating revenue from day one (how many startups can say that out here?) We recently closed a round of seed financing of $1.3M to ramp up our growth. We're backed by 500 Startups.

We're hiring web and mobile developers. Here are the requirements:

* Ability to code FAST and pick up new stuff quickly

* Raw intelligence - kinda self explanatory

* Hunger - this isn’t a 9 to 5 job; we’re disrupting a $100B industry

* Determination - you will walk through walls to make shit happen

* Hacker mentality - are you good at hacking or reverse engineering systems?

Nice to Have

* RoR, git, heroku background

* JS background

Not Required

* Any specific number of years of experience - you could be straight out of college or have 10 years of experience. We're open to both.

* Any specific language or platform knowledge

To apply, send an email to andy@tendertree.com with a short description of why you're interested in TenderTree.
From my experience technology is a big factor, but not ultimate. Ultimate factor is community around particular project. I truly believe Drupal community at this point is just right mix of following standrds and being focused on innovating in the same time. Whenever you custom code - you loose this huge leverage otherwise you could have by re-using existing UI/code/architecture (where architecture might be first and most important in the list.)

Anyway, I truly wish you luck with you project, but I would advise not to drop any particular technology just for sake of dropping it.

(I am not PHP fan, I am Drupal and Drupal community fan)
If you already have a github account: http://gist.github.com

Share it via http://gist.io
SEEKING WORK - San Francisco Bay Area or Remote

I build single-page web apps and SaaS platforms. I understand both biz speak and tech speak and enjoy connecting the two worlds together.

Front-end: Ember.js, Angular.js, Backbone.js

Back-end: Go, Python, Node.js or Ruby.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/dangogh

http://resume.dan.me/
It is easier to pirate, and pirated versions of software generally restrict calling home so IMO some pirated software is better than the non-pirated version.
I realize mine is a pretty unpopular opinion on Hacker News, but I probably would not hire anyone who thinks pirating software is morally acceptable. The way I see it, any argument for piracy is simply rationalization.

The point is that someone has invested a lot of time and money into creating something and they are offering the usage of that software for a price. If you use it without paying that price, then you are disrespecting the person that created it because you are ignoring their wishes for the thing that they have invested a lot of time into. It just feels very wrong to me.
If the homeless person was taking food from the infinite food replicator, then yes it would be fine.
Tryptophan Had No Impact on 2012 Holiday Shopping
I probably mis-worded my thoughts. I did not meant "it's true for x therefore it's true for the whole set". It's definetly not something we can generalize. At least, we can say that he's not completely wrong.

Nevertheless, I still believe that if such study was conducted, it would tend in that direction. The actual difference between a multi-tasker and a uni-tasker might not be very large, there might even not be any difference in some cases. Considering how the memory supposedly works, I find it hard to believe that one would retain the equivalent amount of information while multi-tasking than while uni-tasking.

This is a study from 2007 that goes in the same direction. It focuses on the impacts of social networking sites on high-schooler grades.
[pdf]http://www.iiisci.org/journal/CV$/sci/pdfs/E214BL.pdf
Maybe SOME people involved in doing it was for a genuine desire to share.

Let me tell you, though, there are a lot of rewards from being "first". Either the first person to get your hands on a pre-release item, or the first one to rip it, or the first group to release it, or the first racer to move it the fastest to the top.

It is beautiful in its simplicity - but there are many incentives to get people to be 'the first'.

Just like the price mechanism in modern day capitalist economies is beautiful in its simplicity to get people to move into a market were demand is high.

So I think the vast majority of the people involved in "the scene" are doing it for the incentives/rewards that come with being first. If everybody tries to be first and is racing against everyone else, the entire system gets efficient at moving pre-release stuff very quickly.

It's impossible to fight - which is why it still thrives today.
where to mail?
I've read some of JWZ's blog posts about trying to get permits for the expansion of his club in San Francisco. I wouldn't hold my breath for this type of expansion to happen.
Dear ITU, please don't bill Internet use like phone calls
And yet it's primarily ideas from literature (from the "niche and isolated genre of science fiction") which Taleb rails against. But since he apparently doesn't like sci fi, I guess it doesn't count. I don't think Shakespeare helped put a rover on Mars though.

It's unfortunate that Taleb had to resort to name-calling and condescension. I like literature too, but that doesn't mean anyone who doesn't is an autistic neomaniac.
Nintendo Power's final issue pays homage to its humble beginnings
The First Venice Sign Holiday Lighting & Windward Crawl
Startups, please write better emails
>e-piracy is not a victimless crime, as long as you have at least one data point of a person who would have paid for the game/movie/software but didn't do so because he/she had easy access to a torrent.

By that definition a criminal who steals a a physical product from a store is guilty of both stealing the product and depriving the store of his hypothetical future patronage.

What about producing better substitute product. Am I guilty because I create a product that stops people from buying your product?

If it's not the act of piracy that makes it immoral, but the result, then anything else that has the same result should be equally immoral.
Mathematicians have given this some thought. The relevant keyword seems to be "Truchet tilings", though there's a curved variation that's more widely known. Here's a very accessible overview with some lovely generalizations of this pattern: http://mypages.iit.edu/~krawczyk/rjkisama11.pdf
With all due respect this is pretty ignorant.

If someone goes to the lengths required to pirate & use your creation you should be flattered.

The very nature of the action of them trying to get your creation - even though they don't have money - is testament to the value they think you have created.

If they keep pirating your stuff every time you release a new version - you really should re-consider your pricing options or your distribution strategy. It means you are likely leaving money on the table.
I agree that the site holding up to traffic is nothing special. However, the server operates on less than a 5 watts, costs under $50, runs on a flash disk (still faster/bigger than disks back then), and can fit in your palm - that is what really is impressive.
I'm not sure if there was anybody living in extreme poverty in 1800.

You have got to be kidding. What we call "extreme poverty" today would have seemed like luxury to almost every human being who has ever lived. The difference today is not that there are a billion people who live in extreme poverty; it's that there are a billion who are living at a first world standard of living. That is a far higher fraction of humanity than ever before; I would be surprised if even a small fraction of a percent of all of humanity in 1800 lived at what would then have been considered a "first world" standard of living. (Not to mention that what qualifies as a first world standard of living today has, in many respects, never existed before--what qualified as "first world" in 1800 would, in many respects, be considered "extreme poverty" today.)
Right, but finding a good Product Key is very difficult still.
Great insights. Need more of that!
Having used CloudFlare for multiple sites I can say it's not for everyone. In my experience it's great for sites running on shared servers and can really pick up the speed of these sites. But on some of our larger sites it had the effect of reducing the speed of our service. I think it's worth trying and using for a few weeks at the very least as your experience may very.
"It means you are likely leaving money on the table."

Wow, and for the past X (10? 20?) years, we've all been told "pirates wouldn't have bought anyway, so the 'lost revenue' is only $0'.
It probably depends on the business, but I know several developers of music production software that can correlate huge drops in sales with the release of new cracks of their software to the exact day.

I think we are a little too quick to assume that a pirated copy is not a lost sale.