skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Anna Karenina is a really beautiful story. I read it a long time ago and it is, at the very least, a great achievement, so sweeping, so intricately detailed, so many rich characters, so much insight into human hopes and struggles. I don't know much about its context but I imagine if you read up on Tolstoy's life and Russian social conditions at the time it would make reading the book enormously stimulating - a panoramic story covering the intersection of a flowering cosmopolitan aristocratic society and a more ancient world of feudal landlords, at a turning point in history shortly before that world vanished forever.

Mostly I would read Tolstoy for the same reason I would read Nietzsche - to break through our regrettable tendency to take the past and its people for granted. It's one thing to read about the ideas Nietzsche developed on a Wikipedia article, it's wholly another to read him in his own words and suddenly find yourself thrust into contact with a whole mind, a living, breathing bundle of thoughts and anxieties and dream, a human being palpably aching to find meaning, caught in the middle of one of the greatest social upheavals of human history. To get a sense, just for a moment, of the sheer enormity of the fact that whole generations of people lived and died without knowing anything of the world we lived in.

19th century literature is special. There is so much heat, passion, confusion, pain and soul-searching in it - it feels so close, yet so far, from the world we live in. For me at least it is humbling and amazing that people like Tolstoy laboured on and left behind such vivid traces of their souls for us to discover and enrich ourselves with.

Edit: I suppose this is a long-winded way of saying that the value of literature is that it helps you develop reverence and respect for the enormous reality and weight of history. Arrogance and shocking stupidity are the natural consequences of not realising your tiny place in history. The best literature breeds deep humility.
What we learnt writing our first business plan
Long before Wikileaks, Assange worked on a project called "Rubberhose".
(A hidden encrypted filesystem designed to offer protection against cryptanalysis by torture.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubberhose_(file_system)

Wired in 2008: "Among other achievements, he [Assange] co-invented Rubberhose deniable encryption,
which would let a dissident being tortured reveal one key to unlock a hard drive,
while not giving away that there was a second or third password-locked folder of information."

http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2008/07/wiki...
I thought UK had a richer talent pool, for development positions and such. I really wonder if they chose Ireland to evade tax.
Sure, that's assembly. The fabrication is done at Foxconn still...
Show HN: Chat Roulette for Twitter
Groundbreaking Oculus Rift Virtual-Reality Glasses Delayed
Kweet
Kweet is a social media and social netwoking site that allows users to augment their Facebook activity in new and different ways.

Check it out and let us know what you think

Thanks!
This post is so poorly argued and sloppy it is unbelievable. Intellectual trash.
Judging by your essay, they prefer feeling cheated to having a shortage -- it's other people's shortage they don't care much about. They buy the price-"gouged" products, then they support arresting the guy who sold them. They are free to go home empty-handed with their confused ethics intact.

This is a failure of political economics (not market failure). They didn't see the market choice. They thought the choice was political: don't buy, or get the police to make the guy lower his prices. They walk away with nothing.
Read TechCrunch. Daily.
We've spent around 2 weeks or so developing this and we'd love any feedback you may have...thanks in advance.
Quick guide of Sorting Objects in Java
A code of conduct for social media?
This was a garbage article and I am surprised to see that on HN.
Although your hypothesis may even be right, it makes sense to deploy their first office in Europe in Ireland due to the low taxes there (in that sense, it makes sense to choose the least tax-loaded country to step in, I gather).

Not exactly the same as Starbucks/Google: they are starting right now to provide a service, they need to leverage everything.
See also: TrueCrypt hidden volumes.
Be your own bitch
Still, you cannot know everything they do with that data. They show us the advertises, but what else are they doing? What guarantees do we have that they do not sell or give out information?

I'd stay both sides are bad. We may see them as completely different things, but you have to agree, in both sides, what we see is just the tip of the iceberg.
Ask HN: Can I encrypt my life?
For some time now we have been aware of how pretty much everything we use on the internet is being in one way or another, watched. We know the powers of encryption, but it seems to me, they are just a set of tools separated from each other, and I don't really see how can we use them to truly encrypt our lives.

So basically my question is: In today's world, is it possible to live an encrypted life? Is it possible to be absolutely sure that whoever is watching, can't know what he's seeing?
doh!

Please keep comments that do not add any meaningful contributions to the discussion off of HN.
There seems to be much speculation going on. I would say the headline is misleading. All the post does state is, that they haven't been able to contact McAfee and they had an anonymous phone call mentioning an arrest.

Judging by McAfee's level of crazyness, any hasty conclusions from such a situation seem highly speculative.
He's been giving so many contradicting & misleading stories about his whereabouts, I would take these latest "news" with a mountain of (bath) salt.
How to create an RSS Reader for Windows 8 with HTML5
It is only potentially possible if you don't plan on communicating with others.

The same reason why DRM is always defeated is the same reason why you can't. There will always be leaks.
There is some truth in what he is saying.

When it comes to pedigree (which is not the same thing as capability) very few startups are offering enough to get the people who have a lot of options.

Don't get me wrong: there are smart people taking low-level positions in startups, but they generally do so because they can't get into the hedge funds or quant roles. You are not going to see a Harvard CS grad taking 0.2% equity in a post-A startup with a $50,000/year salary. You might find an equally intelligent and capable state-school drop-out in such a position, but only because he has fewer options.

One of the reasons "data science" has come to the fore is that it's a job description that has become, in some companies, code word for "software engineering, but mostly the fun stuff". It's something startups are pumping because it gets them a sort of person they'd otherwise never be able to get for a non-executive engineering role.
Are we causing antibiotic resistance by trying to prevent it?
Laws are not set in stone (and when they were, in Hammurapi’s time, it didn’t help much), and some laws are clearly stupid and vicious. For example, in imperial China, it was once illegal for an ordinary person to keep astronomical tools at home (if I remember corectly, there was a death penalty for this). I believe copyright laws are just like this.
Don't get me wrong, I am stoked for the founders. All power to them for getting this far. What bleaks me out though, is that everything cool is being bought by companies that have questionable philosophies. I use WhatsApp largely because of their value system, and selling to FB goes against that.
There's a risk/reward continuum. Big company gives me a very secure job and zero equity. Post-series-A you have a fair bit of salary security and a small but nontrivial slice of equity. Pre-series-A you have a larger piece of equity but they could fail to make payroll at any point. For some people post-series-A is the best point on the curve.
I can't seem to get more than 50GB per month with that (according to logs I shift 10x that).

Problem is that people will just go with whichever ISP is most popular and their friends are using or the cheapest. People won't generally sit and research all of their options.
I agree with most of what you're saying, but not this:

Scala is just a buzzword.

Disagree. There's a strong case for static typing. I am not saying that it is "right" or "wrong", but this static/dynamic trade-off is not simple and has no all-purpose answer.

Also, you will never convince most engineering managers to let you write a production system in Common Lisp. They may be wrong in their prejudice, but they're focused on risk-reduction and would prefer all production software to be written in Java. Scala has a fighting chance of getting into the "for production" language space. In 15 years, most of the good Java engineers are going to have moved to Scala and prefer it.

Out of curiosity, have you tried Clojure? It's pretty neat. I actually like it better than I like Common Lisp.
Nice idea and execution but I didn't find anything interesting... I don't need to make a list if I want to buy someone iPad or Kindle fire... but that's my taste, maybe other people find new ideas from there.
templayed.js - The Fastest & Smallest Mustache Compliant Templating Library
Or you can use bitcoins to accomplish the same and you don't even need banks.

The longer this fiction persists, the less chance a fundamentally decentralized crypto currency will take hold. Trusted 3rd parties will always be necessary, and that's not a de facto bad thing.
Measuring outcomes is hard, especially in comparison to outputs which are easier to quantify but are different than outcomes. True measures of outcomes usually can only be tracked over a long period of time, whereas outputs will give instant feedback.

Look at what has been happening in the schools with standardize testing. Proponents think they are measuring outcomes (effectiveness in preparing children to be skilled & productive members of society) with standardized tests. They are actually measuring outputs (test scores) as a proxy for the outcomes.

The result is the system being measured will adapt. Schools "teach to the test" which improves the outputs but we don't know the effect on the desired outcomes. It may result in children being less prepared.

This is a well known effect in companies that measure individual performance in terms of outputs (widgets manufactured, # of upsells, etc). The employees will deliver the required metrics but it often comes at a cost to quality and customer satisfaction which is a negative outcome to the company.

Which is the main lesson in quantifying outcomes: Measuring the wrong thing can be worse than not measuring at all.
Yeah but,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubberhose_(file_system)
BENCHMARK RESULTS can be found here: https://github.com/archan937/templayed.js/

BENCHMARK TESTS can be run here: http://jsperf.com/mustache-compliant-libraries/7

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DataFrames are in-memory. It sounds like you're describing what we're calling DataStreams, which are still a work in progress, but do already exist. And we're also building SGD descent for doing things like OLS incrementally.
You might want to make the GiftMark more prominent, like a popup as part of the initial welcome. I just focused on the main area and thought it was only possible to add what was displayed on the page. The only reason I went clicking was to help evaluate the app, and I tink under normal circumstances I never would have clicked a menu item for "Add gifts from around the web"

Cool idea all around. Good luck!
"Doh!" is a minimalist emotional response that allows its poster to succinctly express his impression and thoughts on the subject posted. It just happens that this impression is conveniently described in just 4 letter glyphs.

On the other hand your comment doesn't add any meaningful contribution to the discussion, nor does it bring any new meta-discussion subject to the table. So please keep such comments off HN, especially when they are directed at someone with 500+ karma.
It's not an article. It's a call to action, and also an advertisement.
The compelling story of data visualization
Hi thanks for the feedback. The big feature of this site, which may not of been obvious, is the 'giftmark' bookmarklet - this means that you can add any items you want when you browse the web rather than just being limited to our default items. If you drag that bookmarklet up to the toolbar and then when you see an item on the web you like, you click the 'giftmark' button and it adds that item to your list (with a picture).
Same on Windows + Chrome, scrolling is pain.

I think you should never hijack the default scrollbars of a browser... But a lot of Google products are doing it also so I guess it's a trend now...
Yeh we completely agree - looking at stats and how many people are installing 'giftmark' we knew we had a problem. We'll look to address it - thanks for the feedback, it's much appreciated. Would you make the giftmark part of the site as part of the sign up?
Cycling Science: 7 Fascinating Facts About Bikes
Min Viable
The idea's great, but I think the look of the site could do with a rework. It feels a little dark and cramped.
Jobs took outside funding. Gates did not. Both acted like jerks in the 80's. But nobody could fire Gates because nobody had the shares to bring in an outside CEO to Microsoft.

Jobs got the best kind of getting fired possible, though. He walked away with half a billion dollars, which let him do whatever the fuck he wanted with the rest of his life. I've never had a job where I wouldn't resign on the spot a $500 million (or, fuck, even $5 million) severance check. I can't imagine that it being "my" company would change that. Once a company is large enough, it doesn't really belong to one person anymore.

The reality of business is that, as the thing grows, the Iron Law of Oligarchy kicks in and it becomes less "yours". That happens regardless of capitalization structure. Complex entitles are just not, under normal circumstances, controllable by one person.

The bad deal is when you take money for the business (i.e. not personally) and lose control.
You could attach ActiveX controls to CSS properties?!? Gott in Himmel, what manner of madness was this?
Looks good from a visual standpoint, but I can't tell if it's trying to be a Craigslist or an Etsy type site from the home page? The copy seems to suggest it's more along the lines of Craigslist, but the items on the front page have an Etsy taste.

Also, you've misspelled "strengths" on the About page :)
I get the feeling that this is a really extreme piece of advice, perhaps made so to make a punchy Hacker News headline (or simply out of being fed up!).

I believe that everyone regardless should read widely and as widely as possible, but for entrepreneurs and technologists I believe it is part of the job description, too.

Extremes are almost never the right thing. If you're fat, is it best to cut out all fats from your diet? No. If you're info-overloaded, is it best to cut yourself off from the Internet? No. If you're interested in startups, should you read TechCrunch and forget everything else? No!

If you're feeling a bit too tied up with keeping-up anxiety from following slightly glorified versions of other startups' progress, is it best to cut yourself from what can be a useful and valuable source of content?

I say no - just moderate and keep it broad and wide, like everything else in life.
Save password on chrome? Think again chrome://chrome/settings/passwords
This is a great explanation.

The only thing that I still can't get my head around or visualize is how it is that we know that the set of all cos and sin functions is sufficient to span this set of "non-pathological" functions.

So assuming some vector v is reachable by a linear combination of vectors u1,u2,u3... we know that each component should be v.u1, v.u2 etc. But how do you know that v is in fact "reachable" by some combination of vectors in the basis u?

That is, suppose I describe some (infinite) set of a functions. How do I determine the set of functions that it spans? Is there an intuitive way to picture why the set of sin and cos functions forms a suitable basis?
No one cares about your programming language
Wrong. It's because MDMA was successfully used in the 70s for psychotherapy before it was scheduled. Between uncontrolled clinical reports, the self-reports of users, and modern controlled studied there is a wealth of evidence that MDMA can be used for psychotherapy with excellent results.
ISPs can be forced to disallow all encrypted traffic, but ISPs can't be forced to disallow all steganographic traffic, e.g. sending pictures of cats via Facebook.
This to me is the reason not to read TechCrunch (or at least to read it with a healthy dose of scepticism - even more than usual on the internet).

I'd expect any aspiring entrepreneur to understand the benefits and trade-offs of the different models for raising funding in the way I'd expect anyone looking for thousands of dollars for anything to understand the strings that are attached to it.

The real problem with TechCrunch is that it operates in an unclear space between journalism and PR (even more than usual) which makes everything on there questionable.
I don't see how establishing your company in a country with a lower tax rate as opposed to some other country can be considered as tax "evasion".
Pi approximator using a Python Monte Carlo Simulation & 1 million Virtual Darts
Various Coursera courses have a self study option, which lets you go through the videos & assignments, but there's no certificate at the end.

I believe that all Udacity courses are now self-paced. You can go through the lectures/quizzes/assignments whenever you want to.
That would be impossible. How do you define and detect encrypted traffic? Sure it's possible to block a known encryption protocol such as https. But we would get creative if that happened.
What applies to the OP doesn't apply to everybody. The benefits of reading techcrunch depends on what your interrests are.

The reason raising money is such a dominant info is because it is considered as an indirect proof of business soundness. What other objectivable info could be you use for that ?

Regarding a problem of focussing and keeping delivering, TechCrunch can't be blamed for that.
I tried to do the memory bandwidth math but ended up
even more puzzled:

Anandtech Nexus 7 review says it has 5.3 GB/s of
memory bandwidth. At 60 fps that would leave 88 MB per frame.

The 1280x800 screen has 3 megabytes worth of pixels at 24 bpp.
That's 1/29 of the 88MB-per-frame. So how come the overdraw related slowdowns started appearing with just 4x overdraw?
Almost unusably slow here also, this is a bad example of a website, because the web/html works better the more one designs for the least common denominator, not pushing it to its limits. Fundamental misunderstanding, mismatch.
Argh!

emotional response || 500+ karma || succulent expression of thoughts and impressions != meaningful contribution.
Tim Bray said it better:

Why It Matters: [...] This blog isn’t terribly controversial. But if only the “controversial” stuff is private, then privacy is itself suspicious. Thus, privacy should be on by default.

https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2012/12/02/HTTPS

EDIT: Ironically, I accidentally linked to the non-HTTPS version. Fixed.
Wow, that's ground-breaking research. Doing something that maintains your brain more active for a longer time before sleeping makes your sleep worse. Nobel prize level at least.

I thought that the study would look at long-term effects of video games, at least.
Don't read Techcrunch, but still want to keep up with tech news? Try http://skimfeed.com.

You'll get a broad overview of the days tech news, without the fluff or bias of an individual news site.
One of those dimensions may be service availability to low income neighborhoods. Cabs are supposed to take fares anywhere.

Go try and find a cab in Manhattan above 125th st. Drivers already don't go to lower income neighborhoods.

(Disclaimer: I haven't lived above 125th st in a few years. Maybe enough yuppies have moved in for cabbies to go up that far.)
Luckily we have Mr Carrico to address those (warning: he is very rude)
http://amormundi.blogspot.nl/2009/01/condensed-critique-of-t...
Techno-utopianism and futurism does have quite a few critics.

Anyway, I've read two of Taleb's books (Fooled by Randomness and Black Swan). Taleb seems to be filled with nostalgia at times. He dreams of a simple, slow life. He regards the news and up-to-dateness of modern mediums mostly as 'noise', and even takes a stab at people that read the newspaper in transit every day.

What is also interesting is that he rails against people that try to predict the future because of black swans, the unknown unknowns. Still, this is the second article by him about the future that I read. And it's just as boring as the last one.

Technophiles have the tendency to exaggerate what change the future will bring, but conservatives like him fill the predictions with good-old-timesness. It's wishful thinking just as much.
Idiots at work here. Subjective questionairres are always a total waste of time. They should have given participants a performance test of some kind. I will wager the gamers would perform as good or better than the non-gamers.
Just out of curiosity: What is its replacement? If I remember correctly it began its life as the char type for multi-byte character sets and later found use for UTF-(16|32) code units.

Should Unicode strings forcibly be UTF-8 in all programs and use char again (thus suffering from the same problem that Python 2 had where bytestrings and Unicode strings weren't sufficiently distinguished, often leading to programmers using the former for text)?

Or should you use short/int arrays instead and have no support from the stdlib at all for handling them (not that the stdlib is particularly good at handling text)?
It was an experiment – not exactly a classic design – but still an experiment. In that context 17 participants are not ideal, but workable and typical. As you can imagine, getting people to sleep in a lab for two nights is hard and costs money that often isn’t there.

I wanted to read the actual paper to give some more detailed insight, but the website of the right database is currently down for maintenance. From their abstract I can see that from the outset they excluded everyone with existing sleeping difficulties. That implies that during recruitment and before the experiment started they already asked questions about sleeping patterns (to exclude outliers from the experiment).

I’m willing to bet that they also controlled for other variables, just like you mentioned, for example other media exposure or the previous nights’ sleep. That’s what you usually do.

(While searching for the paper I actually found some other papers about video gaming before sleeping. It seems like quite some found broadly similar results to this one, so in that context the result doesn’t seem super surprising. But note: This was just me browsing around and glancing at a few abstracts, by no means a thorough or even somewhat acceptable literature review.)
Was wondering why this read wrong: succinctly.
If you're using UTF-8, use either uint8_t* (preferred) or char. If you're using UTF-32, use uint32_t. If you're using UTF-16, don't.

As far as library support goes, there are a few good Unicode libraries for C, most notably ICU4C.