skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I really enjoyed this post, and I have a few reactions to it.

The author is lobbying for online advocacy, which I hate to say, will not be fruitful without some kind of major political shift in our country's political processes and institutions. Our two-party system doesn't allow for a member of congress to suddenly say "I'm going to let my constituents decide how I vote on each bill." I'm sure it angers some when I say this, (I only mean to state a fact,) but the real way to make an impact is through lobbying. SOPA and PIPA were amazing, yes, but time has proven that their impact cannot be replicated. When it comes to internet regulations, the bigger players in Silicon Valley have already started to realize this and opened a lobby shop in DC. http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-valley/technology/250205-i...

My second point is that because our government is so broken already, it makes it even harder for citizens to have an active say in how it operates and the decisions it makes. Even the White House realizes this, but they don't have the power to change this overnight. However, their steps forward have been in the right direction; Obama created the "Chief Technology Officer" position and appointed Todd Park, an extremely accomplished entrepreneur, to the role. http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/03/09/todd-park-named-ne... (Disclosure: I'm a Presidential Innovation Fellow in a program that Todd heads up.) Bringing government technology into the 21st century is something that will benefit every American citizen by allowing government to beter serve him or her.

Finally, I want to stress that the onus to create change is not entirely on Silicon Valley. Tim O'Reilly, in one of his essays, has a great chapter entitled "Government as a Platform". http://ofps.oreilly.com/titles/9780596804350/defining_govern... Until our government moves beyond Open Data and to full read/write APIs, there is a significant limit to how we can interface with it. Most government information systems are only accessible via web portals built in the 90s. Think about it... if your internal business tools were restricted to software built in 1995, how productive would your organization be? And we're not talking about the best software of the era, we're talking about custom-off-the-shelf pieces of crap, built by huge government contractors who make most of their money by launching satellites and building tanks.

So if there's an overarching point to my post, it's that the problem is much more nuanced than just "Silicon Valley doesn't care." Changing that apathy, though, is still a good first step.
The most maddening part of your comment is the unbalanced paren at the end.
I think you're drawing too much from that observation. It says more about the market in the Turkey than the innovation in Turkey.

Geographically-targeted versions of items are custom tailored for desires of local markets. Even if we assumed none of the TP brands in Turkey are multinational corporations, do you really think that the carrying strap idea wouldn't have been nicked by companies that do sell to other markets?

Living in NYC and buying a big pack of toilet paper is an outlier as far as the US is concerned. Anywhere else in the states you would put the pack it in your shopping cart and roll it directly to your car door.

For all we know, those straps could have been designed in the States, and the bean-counters decided adding the straps to the case manufacturing process is only cost-justified in plants serving an average population density of X and above.

I only bring this up because I have, in the past, been working in the States and built better versions of products for sale exclusively in Europe.
It surely is embarrassing that California's two senators were strong supporters of PIPA and that they are still in office. Silicon Valley is sending a strong message - "Mess with us, and we'll be very angry for about 4 days. Then we'll go back to trying to get rich."

If the Tea Party could throw out dozens of fiscal moderate Republicans from the Congressional caucus, surely we - the technically savvy citizens of Silicon Valley - can play the political game and win?
Comments like yours kept me trying.... so, for completeness after a month of trying it's now verifying - so maybe it was a blip, maybe they tried something and thought better of it.
30th Anniversary of Transition to TCP/IP
At the least, she is vocal about FISA.

https://twitter.com/cbracy/status/285064199699300352
The Spirit autonomous tractor[1] becomes available to farmers this spring. I guess driverless vehicles are not exactly radical by now, but the fact that you can actually put your money down on one today is still pretty amazing to my eye. Though I guess it might not be all that interesting through the SV-centric lens.

[1] http://www.autonomoustractor.com/
2012 in Photos
Top Blender Artworks from 2012 – open source 3D renderer
Ask HN: what is a good book or resource for raising money?
As I've commented elsewhere today, I thought I should return and make the note - to be fair all around - that today, finally after trying since early December (so for at least three weeks), it verified. I don't know whether this means Verizon had a problem, or a policy they tried and backed off from... but it will work now :-) ...well, today at least.
Original post from reddit with links to videos.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/ewrr0/writeup_on_th...
Realizing that I would have to use Javascript.
Mostly for animation, but good for stills too.
It caused a spike in Firefox's memory usage of over 1 extra gigabyte.
Show HN: My Last 1 weekend project of 2012. A github projects aggregator.
"Don't just read it; fight it! Ask your own questions, look for your own examples, discover your own proofs. Is the hypothesis necessary? Is the converse true? What happens in the classical special case? What about the degenerate cases? Where does the proof use the hypothesis?"
So close, you can almost touch it
The bursting of a bubble is the BEST time for a blogger and entrepreneur. The red ocean calms, old truisms die, resources reform and a new paradigm is born. We've all perfected execution, optimized our UX, achieved our viral coefficient, developed on every platform, increased DAU and sold to Facebook. 100 Million users is the new 10 Million but in the next shift does that even matter? To be on this cusp is to define it as much as Microsoft/Netscape did in the 90s, Google/Apple did in the early 00s, Facebook/Twitter now.

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." - Mark Twain

So what's next? Disregard the mean and look for the outliers on both sides. Those are the true survivors, the extremophiles. When the mean shifts, they will have already adapted to the new environment, have succeeded, failed, persevered and flourished. So go there, fight and thrive because the future favors its creators, the extremophiles.
The industrial revolution came and went just fine. I think we masses will be okay this time around too.
> You should also not look at RAID as infallible, if the data is important it should be mirrored in multiple locations.

Right. Because it bears repeating still: RAID is not for backup, RAID is for high availability.
The Millionaire Next Door:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising/d...
Southern California has paid off that investment many times over, and Nevada and Arizona probably have as well.
Sure, and the an-caps point to Medieval Iceland.

I don't have a ton of interest in repeating left-anarchist/anarcho-capitalist arguments with you though. It's clear you have the left-anarchist bullet points down.

I chalk up my anarchist period to indiscretions of youth. Nowadays I am more concerned about choice and innovation in government than in abolishing government.
> Sure, but why charge more?

Well twice the resolution in 2 axis is 4 times the pixels, which means higher costs. I think it's reasonable.

> The true answer lies in price discrimination.

Actually its a mix of both, price discrimination and costs. No need to be so negative.
YoungLispers tell how they got into lisp
Geesh, only two major paradigm-shifts emerging in one year. How tedious!
No, the same people that do it today. Only difference is they'll get paid 3% more per hour.
Reader-submitted Objective-C / XCode tips of 2012
Personally, I prefer the book Millionaire Next Door. Helped me develop some effective money saving ideas: http://www.amazon.com/The-Millionaire-Next-Door-Surprising/d...
A Factory on Bicycle Wheels, Carrying Hope
Have you done any presales stuff? Have you talked to customers, drummed up business yet? Have any of them seen your prototypes?

If you haven't, you may be shocked once it comes time to sell.
It's mostly automated, as far as I can tell. I've seen the same book ranked top ten in both fiction and non-fiction.
Easy enough nowadays to just get a picture of the window sticker.
Perhaps the straps were a bad example. Another example (that I already noticed back in 2004) is that the mall parking lots all have lights hooked up to sensors so that you can see when a spot is available without having to drive up-and-down every aisle in the lot.

Again, it's not that any one particular example stands out. For almost every one of these examples I've noticed, I could come up with a way to explain away how it isn't a difference in innovation. I, too, have thought about the how shopping-carts-to-cars does not necessitate the straps. I have thought that the parking lot lights might not have a significant or measurable enough ROI to justify their installation to US mall owners... but isn't that the point?

It's not that any of these things are needed or demanded or even entirely justifiable from a purely economics-driven view point. But since when has an economics-driven view point led to great innovation? Isn't a prerequisite for innovation the willingness to look beyond simple, straight-forward economic arguments? To be creative for creativities sake?

It's in this way that I mean the US has stopped innovating.
"I'll emphasize that my dad, like the negotiator in the story, will not budge. This is harder than it seems..."

I've never understood that. Are most people unwilling or unable to stay firm to something they've decided to stay firm about? I went through this last time I bought a car, and as hard as a Toyota dealer tried to move me on a car he had, I quickly learned that the longer I sat there and just did nothing, the lower the price fell. I ended up not even buying the Toyota - but a car dealer has literally zero power over what I do or where I spend my money.
One Last Morsel of 2012 Claim Chowder
As I recall, SpaceX does their stuff with C++ on Linux with no exceptions. It the rest of their coding standards are anything like NASA's I imagine the subset of C++ that they aee using is closer to C than any normal production C++, so getting a very firm grasp on C is probably the best way to go throughout the industry.
I think you are right, but I'm still going to give you Pulp Fiction as an example.
Hi Ben,

The future success of the company, when they are at an early stage, is truly a non-factor. And whether or not your current project has a shelf life is only a factor if your company in unlikely to not repurpose you and you are staring down the barrel of a future layoff.

Now, what is a factor. Surely, as you are trying to tease out of us, compensation isn't everything. However, you seem to place some value on your 'very comfortable living situation'. I, on the other hand place no value on my living situation...but, my wife and son might disagree : )

You are dancing around something that a lot of other people already know and optimize for, when selecting a job. There is value on your personal interest in the project you are a part of. And there is value in learning new technology. It seems might be bored working on something that is stale and the idea of working on something cutting-edge with a startup is very tempting. That's perfectly fine, I'm that way too. So are many other folks on HN.

Now, there is no ultimate RIGHT and every decision has consequences. You have to look at the benefit / risk of less benefits vs work environment, interesting / cutting-edge work and finding a new living situation. Unfortunately, no one can answer that for you.

Good luck.
AFAIK we don't have them here. Even if we had they won't work online due to government restrictions. I live in India and they had a few problems with how paypal can be used to launder money.
IPhone running Android
I absolutely agree. I love the Silicon Valley mindset. But I despair at how inward-facing it is. When I read about pockets of SV culture popping up in other places I cheer, such as an article the other day about a hacker culture forming in Kenya. Those hackers are applying this wonderful decentralized way of solving problems to high-priority problems in the world. In California, we are so far up Maslow's hierarchy of needs that the "problems" we try to address are mostly comical (e.g. I have too many social networks! I need an app to help me browse them).
It takes more than one person to fix this mess.

For example it takes having not only a working business plan, but a working business plan that makes sense.

For example it takes a quality control, six sigma program to make sure hardware and software costs less to support than the revenue it brings in.

For example it takes VCs not afraid of investing in teams and organizations of people not heard of before, that have good ideas, but need to hire experienced people to guide them.

For example it requires companies to hire more people in the USA instead of offshoring to cheaper labor markets in foreign nations. Make it affordable by doing cross-training of different factory positions like New Balance Shoes does, only do it for hardware.

For example it takes people who actually know how to run a business instead of the inner circle of elite social kliks who either lack degrees or have the wrong ones.

For example it takes giving the public what they want, instead of telling them what they want and changing how your product works just because it has a 'new look' or is 'shiny' but confuses a majority of the users. (Windows 8/RT)

For example it takes reforming the way business is done in SV, end the overpaying of executives (esp when the company turns a loss) and make executive pay based on how profitable the company is, and pay the employees more salary with better benefits by cutting executive salaries.
That's not necessarily inaccurate.

Though something tells me you weren't looking at the Bible.
Ninja, however, most definitely did not wear flags on their backs, as the fellow on the cover is doing.

The purpose of those flags is to signal who and where you are. Neither of those goals aligns very well with what ninja do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sashimono
For the most part, YUP. However, ADHD is not a chemical problem, it's a brain disorder that you're born with (there is tons of scientific research backing this up).

But YES otherwise. Alcohol screws with your body/brain, and Alcoholism, ADHD, Depression and Anxiety are all tightly linked in cause and effect.

> Take a multivitamin, drink more water, sleep more, get outside more. Oh, and always say YES to any social invitation.

and while all of this is good general life/health advice, it has nothing to do with ADHD.
No, I wasn't. I wanted him to win--and am so glad he did--and criticizing him on FISA would have been counterproductive at best. I don't agree with every one of the hundreds of positions he's taken, but I'm not a one-issue voter. Despite his flaws and disagreements I have with him on some issues, he's probably the best President I'll ever see in my lifetime. Helping to get him re-elected is one of the greatest things I'll ever do.
On a similar vein: http://www.scottisheyes.com/walled-gardens

I wish authors would produce for various platforms, rather than targeting just one, even if it is the de facto market leader.

Edit: of course after I posted this, I see that it is available in PDF format from Manning's site: http://www.manning.com/resig/
> How we judge talent is actually one of the biggest problems, and a bias that I've been trying very hard to solve.

Is this a major business problem for you? Are you trying to solve it using actual money and process or just winging it really hard every time? There are known programmers who are really good (USA Computing Olympiad) and some of them will be articulate and you could find someone who's a good fit and hire them as a consultant to help tell the difference... though that's only off the top of my head.

Every time I hear somebody describe a "big problem" they've been "trying very hard to solve" I wonder whether they've focused on it enough to (a) step back and think about possible tools to make the job easier (b) resort to professional specialization (c) make it the job responsibility of a particular person or (d) spend actual money.
Hey guys, just wanted to chime in here as I'm the creator of Social Blade, the source of the data here.

YouTube removing views is nothing new. We see it all the time. YouTube audits previous views & also from time to time redefines what a view is and updates past view counts to reflect that. We've had an item posted about it on our FAQ for years: http://socialblade.com/youtube/help#3

The thing though is this time in Dec YouTube did something different. This time, as billboard states they also removed views from deleted videos. They hadn't really done this in the past. As a result, universal whose channel had pretty much all of its videos removed (they were all private at one point, but they put some back) suffered a huge loss. Personally what I thought most funny though was YouTube's 3rd cofounder (http://socialblade.com/youtube/user/jawed) who uploaded the first video (me at the zoo) to YouTube actually was one of the biggest losers with almost all of his views thrown out.

This whole thing started when I posted to our facebook page about this https://www.facebook.com/social.blade/posts/135335623291035 and its kind of funny how the media spun it how they did. No one actually contacted me to ask about the data and we did correctly state on the site possible reasons for view loss.

Anyway glad to be a reference. Just like any data people are going to interpret it as they will.
First off, to all the downvoters: great to see you piling on like sheep. Ask yourself: is my comment spam? Otherwise offensive? Or is it a reasonably well argued point that you disagree with?

If you downvoted simply because you disagree with it, think about what you've done. Go slap yourself. You deserve it. You should be ashamed of yourself for your gregarious, ostracising behaviour.
I bought the MEAP a long time ago (allows you to read chapters as they are released...before edit), and I've casually read along. At the time, JS was not a strong language for me; I've put in the effort to reverse that. The main approach (which I liked): a) explain a topic in text b) illustrate with code c) test code => QED. If you're novice/intermediate with the language, I think it may help explain some of the trickier things. My main critique was that I did find some of the text overly verbose. My favorite book is still Stoyan Stefanov's http://www.amazon.com/JavaScript-Patterns-Stoyan-Stefanov/dp... and I've read nearly all of them at this point.
Being right doesn’t matter
Neither of those are from 2012.
If you are in your twenties and healthy, please learn from my mistakes. I suffered from wrist pain and lower back pain. I used all sorts of ergonomic keyboards, chairs, even a special back brace. Eventually I was seeing a chiropractor and massage therapist once a week. None of that worked, because I spent all my time sitting in a chair staring at a computer.

I started weight training and yoga, and my wrist and back pain disappeared. I thought I was done and everything was fine.

But I was still sitting in a chair all day every day, and more than a decade like that herniated a disc in my neck. The initial symptoms were a persistent pain in my upper shoulder blade for months. The doctor said this would not have happened if I had just got up once an hour, and he sees tons of desk workers end up the same.

Since then I have seen some improvement by using a program to force me to look away from the screen at intervals, and to get up once an hour.

My posture is still horrible, but now the remaining struggle is simply staying aware enough to avoid bad habits (slouching, letting my head fall forward, etc).
How did you automate your postgres backups? I'm going to be tackling this for a client soon and have a few ideas, but would love to hear how you did it.
Intellectually, I know there's a huge difference between a programmer who has 99th percentile programming skills and one who has 90th percentile programming skills.

Depends what you're building. If you need cutting-edge programming expertise or knowledge of computing's deep magic, then yeah.

If you're building a CRUD database or a local-mobile-social app, you don't need the expertise that much.
You could easily do a real hacker aquarium. Simply switch IPs frequently enough and play it back with a weeks delay.

Kudos for having multiple vaxes(n?)!
How about contributing to Open Source by helping write the documentation for projects? Properly documented projects go a long way in helping developers get recognition and notice.

I, myself, have begun more thoroughly documenting projects, not only for my sake but for everyone else that comes along. I find that this book helped me get up to speed quickly: http://www.amazon.com/The-Elements-Style-4th-Edition/dp/0205...
Debating Microsoft's comments on the Greek Ministry of Education laptops program
FTA: "The study by economist Aaron Yelowitz concludes that earlier studies failed to recognize groups who are losing out on work opportunities because of the higher labor cost — specifically teenagers."

So, it won't be the same people. There will be fewer teenagers in the workforce.
I can confirm that there is very little coverage of these topics -- perhaps a bit about ES5, but I've read the MEAP, and I don't recall reading anything about the rest of them.
For clarification, this is a list of some reader-submitted tricks and tips from the last month, as a way to bring in the New Year.

I'm looking forward to doing more of these in the future, so if anyone has any ideas or suggestions, feel free to tweet them to @NSHipster. Thanks!
RAID-5 (or single parity RAID of any kind) is obsolete, period.

RAID-6 offers different compromises relative to RAID-5 (for one, twice the parity space), so it isn't quite like one is the successor of the other. And once you're talking about multiple disk failures, you're at the existential point where you should probably be talking about whole array failures (e.g. your controller has quietly been writing junk for the last hour), and how to deal with that scenario.
The Guardian publishes stats on the size of their commenting community
> Air hosts/hostesses have none of those attributes - they are merely parrotting rules handed down to them, without putting any thought into them.

Those people cannot - are not allowed to, on pain of dismissal from their job and heavy fines for their company - make allowances for the rules.

Ranting about low wage employees who are forced to apply rules (whether they like it or not) just because you don't see the point of those rules makes you sound like the kind of person who deserves a good solid down vote.

> I don't care one whit for "the rules" except where I have analysed them and deemed them sensible myself.

When's the last time you escaped from a burning aircraft? Why should I trust my life to your "analysis"?