skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
My first real programming job involved building web apps using OpenACS - http://openacs.org/. OpenACS was all Tcl executing in AOLServer and used postgres or oracle. It was awesome.

I Learned a lot from "Tcl for Web Nerds" and its companion "SQL for web nerds" (all links listed here: http://openacs.org/doc/ ). Back when I started Tcl, I was more like a emacs-lisp script kiddie. Because Tcl was so easy to learn and because OpenACS was such a great MVC style framework, it didn't take long to master the framework itself and dive into the interesting things that were related more with the architecture of a web-app and not just the syntax of a programming language.

The "whereas" poem, as I like to call it, that announced Miguel Sofer's inclusion in the Tcl Core team was real fun to read too - http://code.activestate.com/lists/tcl-core/1983/

Miguel Sofer had described an algorithm for representing hierarchical data in a RDBMS. What he put forward could be thought of as a different kind of a nested set representation. Whereas the nested-set approach involved keeping track of two numeric values (left & right) for each node in our relational records based tree, Miguel Sofer's algorithm would use the ability to lexically sort a base159 encoded string. This way, tree operations could be implemented via sub-string matching and sorting.

His algorithm was implemented in OpenACS because it allowed an efficient implementation of the OpenACS nodes table. Each URI in OpenACS has a node record associated with it and all these nodes are hierarchical records - http://openacs.org/forums/message-view?message_id=16799

The OpenACS nodes system allows the implementation of a fine grained permissions system which enables a child node to auto-magically inherit the permissions of its parent node - this is, if the child node didn't have any specific permissions set on itself - http://openacs.org/doc/permissions-tediously-explained.html

When I was learning ruby I implemented this algorithm using active-record - https://github.com/gautamc/hierarchical_objects The utdt.edu link hosting the pdf that Miguel Sofer created is broken now; I found a copy here: http://www.tetilab.com/roberto/pgsql/postgres-trees.pdf
Not to be snarky, but looking at the authors [1] gallery, some formal introduction to technique would have been great.

[1] http://nateotto.com/section/329118_Canvas.html
"even a poor person can be middle class if they listen to Radio 4."

If I understand the British system correctly, a poor person can even be upper class if he happens to be a Viscount whose family has fallen on hard times. Is that right?
I had this same problem recently. I thought co-working would fix it, but it didn't. Like you, the problem was deeper; I missed shared goals, successes, and even failures.

How did I fix it?
I quit.
I loved my job and my boss and my work hours, compensation, benefits & vacation... but I quit anyway.
In January I start work at a small highly collaborative company, and I feel SO good about it :)
Working alone sucks(if you are extroverted).

I had the opposite problem, I started working in sales with tons of people. I had no time for myself, meditation, solitude or thinking, just meeting people or being interrupted on the phone constantly.

People could not understand that I wanted time for myself(most of the human population is extroverted).

It was great for some people, but not for me. Now I work(at home) in engineering mostly alone with my dogs at my side and I am so happy. I am thinking about problems most of the time without interruptions. I see people when I want. For me this is great.
Could you elaborate on how your workflow is jacked?
I would love to have his "problem". I'm envious of those who get to work from home full-time.
I'm very curious--is there a way for me to play this game? I'd love to get the rules from you and try it out. I loved the mechanics in Magic when I was younger, and I'd love to not have to buy all the cards and worry about building a deck, and just be able to play the game with my fiance without telling her it's Magic.
I don't have the same experience as most people here. I usually just study by reading or trying to recreate the scene/code/history in my read, and works greatly to understand and memorize. When i write it takes time and feels like wasted time.
Just out of curiosity, how many people took their first steps in programming by typing out code from a book or magazine?

- When I started out, including a floppy disk with a book or magazine was a rarity, so BBC Basic, Spectrum and PCW-9512 had to been typed in by hand, with frustrating hours trying to figure out why they didn't work (usually typos)
I live in California.

I just called Feinstein's office and registered my opinion. According to the staffer, Feinstein supports the extension. Her office can be reached at (202) 224-3841.

I called Boxer's office as well. After dialing <3> to speak with a staffer, it rang several times and then hung up. (202) 224-3553.
Cloudflare landing page: "This website is offline - No cached version is available".
Looks like Hacker News took down our server! Damn! Hold on while I re-start
The grid of 2030: all renewable, 90 percent of the time
This is very much in-line with the way the Learn to Code The Hard Way books are written. There's even a call to action at the beginning of each book imploring the reader to avoid copy-paste:

http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/intro.html
>3) I added a start button for faster program access

I'm interested in why you think having a start button provides faster access than the start screen.

With the start screen, you can press the windows key to bring up the start screen, start typing the name of a program you want to start, and press enter to launch it. It seems like a more efficient way to start programs than the start menu.
Just the stapled on start screen GUI, which doesn't make up much of the GUI as a whole.
UI Designs
Looks like HN took us down, we'll be back ASAP
Did any of the people with fake email addresses confirm their registration using the confirmation links sent in the email? Maybe the bounce messages are spoofed.
Can English Majors Be Good Developers?
Singling out individuals/incidents would support the author's epistemic authority but would undermine their moral authority on the topic
The comments.
See: http://rcd.typepad.com/rcd/ACAD2009_RibbonDemo1.gif & http://rcd.typepad.com/rcd/ACAD2009_Menu_Browser.gif
I've seen this a couple of times but not after pull requests, but simple (verified even) bug reports or feature requests.

Let me quote a recent example from IRC:

> XXXXX interesting how the number of new github issues went down since i started ignoring them :)

> XXXXX could be coincidence, but i suspect having a few open tickets discourages the more frivolous requests we usually got there"

Nice attitude there! After reading several such comments and some diatribe on github (following a bug report), I really had difficulties justifying the use of the software developed by this guy, especially after having been warned about this earlier by a co-worker ("the project is fine, XXXXX is the only problem with it") and not taking it seriously because I thought he was exaggerating (I'm not really into personality cult etc.).
Please don't use linkbait titles.
Then it fails at being anti-Amazon too. Either case it's a waste of time.
As someone who runs a bootstrapped sports company (focus on american sports), I would like to add that it's very seasonal and unpredictable (in a bad way).

You never know when a lockout might occur to hurt your business. In fact, there have been 3 lockouts in the past 4 years. NHL is STILL locked out from Oct, with half their season gone and no deal in sight.

There are seasonal changes that impact your business. Fall/Winter are wonderful since the NBA, NFL, and NHL are playing. NFL especially dominates in terms of eyeballs.

You can combine all other sports and it still won't equal NFL's popularity and how it drives user interest.

Once the NFL season ends, so does your revenue and/or traffic. In the summer, you basically just have baseball and limp through wishing September would come quicker.
Introducing SublimeVideo Horizon Framework
> The bar to entry is a part of what make high quality projects high quality.

Maybe the code is of high quality, but they usually end up stale and defunct from lack of contribution.
I carry a stack of calculators around with me, since my gaming preferences lead me toward heavy economic eurogames and titles from the 18XX[1] world. Power Grid isn't bad enough to need a calculator most of the time, but if someone in my group wants to use one no one is going to bat an eye.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/18XX
Benefits and costs of incorporating your business
Taken one step further, the most important part for me was re-writing my notes before the next lecture.
chiming in late...

The app store says it requires iOS 6. Do you have any plans to make it available for iOS5 users or are you using iOS6-specific features?
RMS please save us from Microsoft. Indian Academia
Microsoft signed agreement with All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), the apex body of technical education in India for providing cloud based services to students. Almost all engineering colleges in India comes under AICTE and the circular issued says that the cloud subscription is mandatory for the colleges. This is seen as microsofts ploy to get free access to Indian students
To me, the scariest part of that is how similar it is to the "9/11 was a guvernment conspiracy I tell yah!" folks...

Not saying I agree with them, of course.
please don't try to excuse rude behaviour by ascribing it to a culture that is defined by curiosity and tinkering. being rude has nothing to do with hacking. if you want to be curt and insult people, then you bear the onus for that.
I second this. My dad died over 20 years ago and I still feel the lose some days. I still sometimes think I see him in a crowd.

You never, ever get over it. Just get passed it.
There is literally nothing that you gain from being derisive that you can't also gain from being polite. And the tone you set for your community is vastly different.

Derision of stupidity is probably one of the worst characteristics of hacker culture, because “stupidity” tends to be shorthand for “disagreement with my point of view”.

I have trouble making a cogent argument around the derision of stupidity because derision should be self-evidently bad. It should automatically file under “why would I want to do this to my own personality”. Derision and bullying are indistinguishable from each other, and the thought that a group as oft-socially-maligned as hackers (at least until the last 6 years or so) defaults to derision seems more a sign of imitating things we were subjected to than reasoned thought.

“If you go up to a group of people who are used to doing things according to procedure X and you blithely ignore it, you really should not be surprised when your efforts are met with derision at best and hostility at worst.”

What does blithely ignore mean? Say this is the first open source project I've ever contributed to, so I don't know what the norms are in terms of where to even look for guidelines. Or I contributed 30 minutes of my time because that's all I had, and I devoted them to this. Or I'm learning to program, and I chose to try to help your project.

I will posit that anyone who is trying to contribute to your project is doing you a kindness. They may be doing it in a poor way, and you are within your rights to point that out. But how you point it out is what we're talking about. You an politely point out that the project doesn't accept pull requests. You can politely point out that tickets can't be opened until there's been a discussion on the mailing list. Etc. You can even be curt.

Derision is not curtness. It is not impatience. It is explicit, intentional putting-down of someone because they aren't as good at something as you are or think they should be. And it is a poison. Unfortunately, if you take it frequently enough, it becomes habit. It becomes second nature. And you stop noticing it's poisonous. And so, unfortunately, it is an oft-enjoyed poison in intellectual circles. It doesn't help anything. It doesn't help you understand the world or other people. It doesn't really save you that much time. It simply makes you feel better about yourself.
If a tree falls in a forest...
When is a program too feature-rich?
OK, so:

> This website uses CloudFlare in order to help keep it online when the server is down by serving cached copies of pages when they are unavailable. Unfortunately, a cached copy of the page you requested is not available, but you may be able to reach other cached pages on the site.

I'm probably being significantly thick-headed, but what exactly is Cloudflare even doing if it's not properly caching pages before traffic hits? And why would they want to advertise that fact on the error page?
The title says Svblte instead of Svbtle.
Petition for Death Star by 2016 passes 25,000 names, White House must respond
That's not how the real world works.
This is interesting for a few reasons:

1) I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. There are a few turn-key two-factor auth solutions, and I expect having this added security is a major benefit for their customers.

2) I'm surprised they chose to use Google Authenticator. The favourite in this space seems to be Authy; off the top of my head Cloudflare and DNSimple both use them. Any thoughts on the pros and cons?
My exposure to TCL, or rather dialects were through Autodesk Maya (The MEL Script there seems a bit like TCL, IMHO). The other thing was Metal Gear Solid (PSX). Konami used TCL to set up the level entities - enemies, traps, etc. Internally each command was hooked through a "C" function that took argc, argv, and to my shock (and then grin), there were tons of "C" functions that we working like main() - e.g. parsing arguments. For a moment I thought - this must be slow, then I understood - it did not matter - it served it's job, and allow non "C" programmers (game designers, scripts) to set-up objects easy in the "C" world. The whole thing had to fit in 2MB along with textures.

Later working at our studio, I've stumbled on couple of sound tools written in TCL, and lately had to dabble once in a while in the MacPorts land (also TCL).

But then most of the people I've asked they don't know about it...
That may be an effective way to learn (ie. it works), but I have my doubts that it's a very efficient one (ie. you could learn more in the time you spend retyping that code) or a very entertaining one (ie. other ways of learning to code are more interesting).
Interesting concept. Especially if you consider that better memory for plausible situations is one of the differentiators between experts and beginners. Be it in programming or chess. Because experts have developed mental shorthands for common situations.
I switched cause I found the interface to me much cleaner and easier to work with.
If Shockoe.com is still down, there's another copy here

http://tommy.authpad.com/don-t-copy-and-paste-other-people-s...

We're restarting our server because we weren't quite prepared for #1 on HN server load
Well, okay.

>(1) if you really believe that, then you would have no problem with a group of strangers searching your house, your bank records, safety deposit boxes, all your digital assets, etc.

No, actually I wouldn't, because there's an entire freakin' universe of difference between cops searching your house, destroying things, having your neighbors wonder WTF is going on and having an open profile on a social network (which is what that oft-maligned quote was talking about)

Someone digging through your possessions (and strip searching your family, feckin' seriously?) is kind of not even similar to an email being picked up by an automated computer system.
There's this big useless Window Phone interface on my desktop. (Yes, I have a Windows 7.5 phone and do like the interface... on a phone...)
I did this with some of Zed Shaw's work, at his request in the foreword, and I found it helped a ton with at least learning the syntax.

Understanding the data structures, not so much, but when you're trying to learn a new language the greatest initial friction is the syntax.
The windows 7 start menu already does exactly that. In addition it also searches programs, documents and control panel at the same time, whereas in 8 searching the last two is an extra click.
If any of you wonder whether you use an application everyday that still utilizes Tcl/Tk, you may be surprised (https://github.com/git/git/tree/master/git-gui/lib).
"Not knowing how" and "giving up" seem very un-Google-like to me. Give it time.
There is a mock-up caption under originally posted photo:

"This is mock-up of our "Quantum Stealth" (Light Bending) material with my assistant behind it. No cameras and no projectors are used. These photos are to show the Media the concept, for security issues we can not show the actual technology. With the real material - you would only see about 5% of the shadow on her and the ground as we've determined a 95% reduction of shadow in testing."

http://www.hyperstealth.com/Quantum-Stealth/index.html
Python or Ruby: 6 Months on Hacker News
This link is not correct. It goes directly to the demo server, but without credentials to a demo database.
Use http://sorrysap.com/saas_master/demo?lang=en_US&module=m... to log to a random demo database.
I don't "get" sports, in that I'm incapable of forming the emotional attachment to a team that seems so prevalent. (And as I type that, I wonder, maybe I'm saying more about myself than I am about sports . . )

I don't get it. If you grew up in Queens, you're a Mets fan. If you grew up in Philly, you're a Phillies fan. From my perspective, these people are exactly the same, except they are wearing different colors. Yet they are supposed to hate each other, and spend a large amount of time rationalizing their hate. There are hours upon hours of sports talk (gossip) radio on every day in every major city.

I've tried. There is a special place in my heart for the Baltimore Orioles. As a kid, I liked Cal Ripken because he had consistent stats (talk about nerdy), and later I lived in Baltimore. I'm trying to like the Brooklyn Nets, because their stadium is a few subway stops from me.

But I'm always on the metaphorical sidelines when it comes to fandom. The suspense can be fun, but at the end of the day, it's just a game to me.

One perfect example: A few years ago, the Philadelphia Eagles hired a quarterback who spent time in jail for abusing dogs (Michael Vick). Despite having grown up in Philadelphia, I immediately ceased rooting for that team. It was the easiest decision I ever made. Meanwhile, my Philadelphia friends agonized over this turn of events and eventually rationalized they could still root for the team, so long as Michael Vick made amends via charity/volunteering. The attachment is strong. I just don't get it.

Sports teams are the most powerful brands in the world. Maybe cigarette brands are a close second.
Yeah, we're a little upset it doesn't even have a cached version. Ridiculous.

http://tommy.authpad.com/don-t-copy-and-paste-other-people-s...

If you want to read it elsewhere
Okay. I won't.
Do I have to use a brush? I dislike not to feel when touching the material like you do while painting with a normal pencil, or is the part that you don't feel where you're placing the colors part of painting?
That's also how I learn. As I never met anyone who learns that way I always considered this behaviour weird. Nice to know that I am not the only one :).
Hybrid Cloud is a Game Changer for IT
I think a smarter goal would be to build a spaceship capable of reaching Moon or Mars a lot faster. Also able to transport robots and supplies to build a colony for humans within a decade or two (hopefully). Just a thought...
> Yes it can hurt if your contribution is coldly cast aside, and yes it would be much better if they warmly took you in and taught you in their ways, but if the OSS project leaders don't keep up the constant stream of contributions, improving the project all the time the project will die and all work will have been in vain.

Perhaps I'm being naive, but doesn't fostering relationships with contributors promote more contributions? Or is it considered far too rare that a (somewhat) mentored contributor will continue to contribute?
> With the start screen, you can press the windows key to bring up the start screen, start typing the name of a program you want to start, and press enter to launch it

I got hooked on Win8 once I really embraced that, for both app launching and file searching. I went back to Win7 for a few days and felt like I was 10 years in the past.
The actual (readable) list of new features, from the official google blog post: http://gplusproject.appspot.com/tis-the-season-for-shipping

This is a perfect time for me to complain about the left-navbar on TheNextWeb. It's horribly placed right where I like to hold my mouse when reading articles (to the left of the content) -- and "eats" my scrollwheel. I hate it.
A note on that process might make for a good blog post.
The Power Of Selling Out: Your Customers As Political Capital
Also, the dark side of infographics. Bar charts with just one bar make me giggle. :)
If the site goes down before anyone even hits it, I imagine that CloudFlare can't exactly get a copy. Given that CloudFlare is a free service, I suspect that it doesn't automatically cache every page, either- it might wait until a page gets to a certain level of traffic before doing so. I have no idea, though.
The website in question might not have proper Cache-Control headers, so the page may have never gone into the cache.
BoardGameGeek also has an active secondary market, lowering the risk of new purchases. Unless the game is utterly terrible, you'll be able to recoup some of your money.

The user auctions there fetch high enough prices that I would not hesitate to sell there as opposed to eBay. They also have their own marketplace where users can sell games at fixed prices, but the organic "hey I want to sell these, who wants to give me cash" lists of games[1] are quite successful.

[1] http://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/66420/metalist-for-geeklis...
Agreed, not only that but you will learn techniques from other people to constantly improve as a professional and as a person.

You will also be helping new comers and that will make you feel deep satisfaction.
I love stories like this, because it shows what can be accomplished when you focus on something and just get shit done.

He didn't mess around, he just said "I want to build a website", so he started building a website. When he came across a problem, he searched for a solution until it worked. Sounds simple, but there are so many people who won't/can't do this.

Instead of hemming and hawing, and posting on forums asking "what is the best programming language to start with", or "is WordPress the best blah blah blah", or "what is the best tool for this", and pulling his hair out while people argue over Vim vs. Emacs, Ruby vs. Python, etc. He just picked some tools and got shit done. Brilliant. Keep up the good work!!!

Reminds me of what Sam Soffes said on his blog here:
http://soff.es/how-to-learn
Yeah, I did make some frameworks myself.

I appreciate the suggestions, but for me, half the fun is writing the systems myself. It's also why I went to the trouble of building my own CMS even though there are dozens of perfectly capable ones already available.
US Government Targets Torrent Sites, Cyberlockers and Warez Forum
Aeolus: run virtual machines both on your own equipment + in the cloud
Companies See High-Tech Factories as Fonts of Ideas
With all the discussion about the syntax, some of Tcl greatest features are overlooked.
The article could do with an update. I would like to see the current state of Tcl compared to node.js
Possibly the tcl core beats node.js on many points.
Nice. Good luck!
The Startups That Want to Bring E-Mail Back to the Future