skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Every time one of the red countries does business with the grey countries, there's conversion deadweight.
Were you upgrading from 9.0 or 8.x?
>not too hard on people but a lot of signage needs to change. Feasible.

Very expensive though. Signs normally have a 20 years expected lifetime. Now you need to replace them all at once. Plus a lot of the sign locations need to be changed, unless you want all those "Exit 29 1 mile" signs to now say "Exit 29 1.6 km".
And conversely, penalize trips to extremely popular stations. It ought to be doable purely through economics, although perhaps not without pissing off customers excessively.
Ask the Czechs and the Poles how they like their hook-up with Germany.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-25/windmills-overload-...
Thanks for the info. Sounds like if one has a big sell off of assets in a year, better get as low an income as possible, preferable with delayed income into the following year.
Amusing visual evidence that speaking English sucks:
http://cnrsociety.org/images/English-Official_Map-s.png
Show HN: binb, an open source guess-the-song game
I'm pretty bullish on the "speed layer" coming to dominate. I've done a fair bit of work with streaming algorithms [1] and they have advantages beyond just latency, reduced memory usage being the primary one. If you believe data is growing faster than computing power it seems that streaming algorithms must be the way forward.

Note that you can do a lot with streaming algorithms (it's not just counting). Also the reduced memory usage (orders of magnitude) makes the complexity of random writes not such a problem as you have less need to go outside a single machine.

[1] Slides on streaming algorithms: http://noelwelsh.com/streaming-algorithms/2012/11/22/streami...
Fabrice Bellard: Portrait of a Superproductive Programmer [2011]
Terrific concept. What tools (if any) exist to do this kind of thing on Linux VM? Do they work equally well for non Ruby environments (I'm thinking specifically Python/Django)?

I've spent the last week mucking around with VMware/bitnami to try to get a nice clean Python/Django/Pycharm VM for myself (with a template Django project that gracefully does both development and deployment). I'm almost done but what a long hard slog it's been.
Yes, the system is familiar, but wiping the slate clean and starting anew is not a feature of stable democracies.

What about those that already went through the metric conversion?
I'm doing this too, and it's funny because one of the things I originally liked about OS X was that the UNIX roots allowed me to run my dev environment locally.

Still, Vagrant makes this all pretty easy.
(This sounds ranty, but...)

I'm one of the odd developers that doesn't obsess over tools. I worked with four different editors, last year - vico, vim, sublime, and eclipse - and I can't say that I'm attached to any of them. I don't complain when I can't use my favorite vim or sublime shortcuts (I don't even know a lot), and it doesn't phase me when I have to hack some code on my 13" MBP instead of my 24" monitor at work. Contrary to what most think, a developer that obsesses over their tools doesn't necessarily make them a good developer.

"Show up and get to work."
I think GP meant you wrote "step" but you are talking about "foot". Namely, you can count 90m putting your feet in front of each other 30 times.

If instead of putting your feet in front of each othr you actually take a step you should get closer to 1m.

(most people I met measure distances with 1m = 1step when playing european football, for example and you have to be at X meters from the ball por something)
Is there a large contingency of people in the science and engineering world not using metric?

Like a previous commenter said, all my science labs in high school and college used metric. I imagine legitimate research and engineering labs in America are also using metric.
That was a recent change, and undoubtedly one driven by a Growth team that wants to keep a certain graph going upward so another graph will as well.
How To Become An Expert
I'm interested in your db setup, specifically how do you replicate and locate them (regionally) to handle requests from the application instances, So that a request from Spain goes to the right server instead of trying to hit a db server all the way in Texas ... for example.
This is actually an argument, for some people in the U.S., to keep using imperial units. The use of imperial units acts as sort of an "artificial trade barrier" to foreign competition - it's like a tariff that international trade agreements can't touch.
How many people buy laptops through Amazon? I always found the selection impossible to sort through, let alone figuring out if I'm getting this year's model or last year's model.
We should all have one currency too, then?
Something seems wrong about this. I can't seem to find any other references to Sheri Goldberg. Plus it's the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, not "international studies."
1. Elaborate more on this, as this doesn't agree with my understanding of it. Glibc Malloc allocates differently depending on the size of the allocation -- glibc uses dynamic mmap thresholds, which as I previously stated starts at 128kb, but when blocks larger than the current threshold are freed, the threshold is adjusted to the size of the freed block, unless once again, you've set any of the slew of paremeters that disable the threshold in which case you'll go back to either "old school" brk() memory management by storing current and previous results of sbrk(0) or you will have arenas for small allocations managed through mmap().

2. If only this were true, I regularly pine for the days of EIP -> 0xc0c0c0c0. It is true that some compilers generate entirely RWE memory pages, but usually for much different reasons (Executable stacks for GCC trampolines, for example)
How about 5ft7 vs 170cm. The later seems easier to express to me. If only rough accuracy is required then you only really need to take note of the first two digits. Incidentally converting between the two is quite messy; first you must learn that 1ft = 12 inches, then multiply the 5 by 12 then add 7 then multiply by 2.54. Where as to convert a metric figure to imperial, it does not matter so much whether you are starting out in metres or centimetres.
The email field will take any string. Only enter your email if you want access to alerts, updates, and recovery tools -- otherwise you can just use some random handle.
One argument some people make against switching away from imperial units - it acts as sort of an artificial trade barrier for foreign competition. It costs non-domestic manufacturers more to package their products for distribution in the United States, making it sort of a "tariff" for foreign goods that international trade agreements can't touch.
I vehemently disagree. You could say the same of HN, Reddit or any other site. The value is in the users and the content. Where else on the internet can you ask any sort of question and expect high quality responses?

Yahoo Answers has terrible answers. Reddit is full of trolls. HN is technology only and requires a lot of effort to get attention, most submissions die at one or two points. StackExchange's model is great for technical and highly specific questions, but its approach doesn't work well for the sort of questions Quora does.

Where else on the internet can you ask and get great responses to these questions?

- How can I explain SQL injection to my grandmother? http://www.quora.com/SQL-Injection/How-can-I-explain-SQL-inj...

- How can Delhi be made safe for women? http://www.quora.com/New-Delhi-India/How-can-Delhi-be-made-s...

- What should I do to get over my fear of public failure? http://www.quora.com/What-should-I-do-to-get-over-my-fear-of...

- Is there a physical, theoretical limit to how accurately one can measure the speed of light? http://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-physical-theoretical-limit-t...
LISP is a fundamental programming abstraction. To say languages are based on it is disingenious. Lets put the clock back further - programming is based on math, which is 10,000 years old.
The Internet Deserves Its Own Holiday | Wired Opinion | Wired.com
Too much energy - funny problem :-)

I don't think this is much of an issue, though.
TV's in inches? Maybe but at best you are half right.
http://www.buytvsonline.com.au/products/?filter=25
Furthermore, they seem to have spent 15 years killing each other while nobody attempted to build or rebuild any non-electric infrastructure: They mentioned not being able to produce bullets, there seems to be only one train that is restored, and so on.
The industrial revolution happened before we had electricity, so you'd think they'd find a way to restore some kind of industry.
I don't think any end users will want them, and I don't think they're going to convert very well. But I don't think it would feel obtrusive if properly separated (eg. as an email footer or header).

This should be easy to test: create a new landing page, add a link to your emails ("10% off our pro package this month only!"), and track clickthroughs/referrals. If it does well, great. If not, you only spent a couple of hours on it.
Yes, TV screens are measured in cms, no reason why computer screens couldn't be too.
You learn it, but you don't use it practically outside the classroom. So the units don't get ingrained in your thinking. You really need to use the units for cooking, for personal measurements like height and weight, for driving, for weather, to really get used to them.
The gain would be psychological. If people use metric units in day-to-day things, the rest will fall out naturally.
but pretty much a bullshit ad
"the nautical mile is absolutely superior to the kilometer for use in navigation (at sea or in the air)."

Why is that?
Bird Buggy, A Parrot-Controlled Robotic Vehicle
While we are at it, why not standardize:

* date and time formats

* language

* time zones

* currency

Seems about as easy and has the same kind of benefits.
Just realised how bad the spelling was on my comment, sheesh, the joys of typing from my smart phone!

I'm currently working in Canada, having come over from the UK where we are much more used to cheap unlimited broadband plans, both at home and cellular. So the caps and prices here have been quite a shock! A friend told me that NetFlix (or similar) in Canada stream at a much lower rate and don't offer HD in Canada because of the fact that. My current broadband plan costs me $60 (+15% tax) for 130GB a month.

One thing it has taught me is you really need to consider the differences of the local markets!
One nautical mile is very nearly the length of one minute of arc at the earth's surface.
So what if the old units are easily divisible? If you have 1024 g of something, you can divide that by 2 ten times.
Timing Analysis of Keystrokes and Timing Attacks on SSH
Not really a script, but if you use goodreads to track your read books, you can see the number of pages.

Like this: http://www.goodreads.com/review/stats/6314428-eduardo-rocha#...
Nautical miles are used in aviation as well. In both cases, the use actually has a very good, albeit obsolete, reason: one nautical mile is equal to one arc minute of latitude on the Earth, to within reasonable accuracy. Very handy for navigation, at least when you didn't have a magic black box to do it for you.

I previously had a flight computer with two displays, each of which showed the distance to the next waypoint. One showed the distance in nautical miles, the other in statute. I could never remember which was which, and always had to look at both and see which number was bigger.

Silly measuring systems. We should measure everything in planck units.

Personally, I think the cost argument goes in the other direction. It's true that there would be costs to switching, even potentially lives lost. But there are constant, ongoing costs to having mixed units, potentially including lives lost (and certainly very expensive space probes lost). To me, that says that we should switch as quickly as possible to stop that ongoing cost. It may cost more up-front, but the cost of switching eventually ends, while the cost of staying as we are never stops.
Divers Could Become Real-Life Aquamen if This Pentagon Project Works
> Sure, but that's 3 digits versus 1

It isn't, really. If asked about my approximate height, I'd say 'eins-achtzig' ie 1.8m (notice me omitting the unit), which in practice also has only a single significant digit (or 2 if you account for tall people) and to me isn't any more unwieldy than '6 foot'.
google trends geographics of search queries for bitcoin.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A_nHZ-VCYAAzZN-.png:large
Why not start a bit of a geek pro metric movement to raise awareness on the issue. I could imagine some funny Tee's and stickers if nothing else.
I hate "Mobile"
This is actually the sort of project that will/can never be open-source. NOt because of the patents. Because its hard, requires 1000s of hours of thankless data collection. There's no shortcut to something cool - and open source loves cool demos that are easy to build.
The dreadful stock photo at the top ruined it for me.
I was born in Russia and used the metric system until i moved to the US. Imperial system is so archaic it's amusing to see a developed nation use it. A few centuries ago Russians used to measure weight in "handfuls" and short distances in "elbows." (scratch that, it's "cubits") When only a fraction of the population had any sort of education, it was easier for everyone to understand an anatomical measurement. Eh, some things never go away. I don't anticipate US dropping this... ever.
"President Andrew Jackson in the main foyer of his White House had a big block of cheese. The block of cheese was huge — over two tons — and it was there for any and all who might be hungry. Jackson wanted the White House to belong to the people, so from time to time, he opened his doors to those who wished an audience.

It is in the spirit of Andrew Jackson that I, from time to time, ask senior staff to have face-to-face meetings with those people representing organizations who have a difficult time getting our attention. I know the more jaded among you see this as something rather beneath you. But I assure you that listening to the voices of passionate Americans is beneath no one, and surely not the people's servants."
MongoDB Logging to Remote Syslog Server
hi - just wanted to say i loved your blog post, I am taking a look at setting up a prototype of pigstream just to get a feel for Ruby and Heroku. It is going well though I got stuck at installing the dependencies for the project. (bundle install...erm wat)Ill figure it out soon. All good fun though!
I hope they tier the pricing. I like having a nice car when I am driving somewhere for fun (or the distance is long).

If I just need a car for a couple of hours, budget crappy domestic car is fine.
The first one was also asked on security.stackexchange.com (http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/25684/how-can-i-...). The last one would probably be on-topic on Physics.SE.
Deliver Better Blog
there are a ways to create a list:

'(1 2 3)

or

((lambda x x) 1 2 3)

or

(defun list1 (&rest args) args)

This works because lisp expressions are lists, and the reader function uses list as an underling representation of lisp expressions.

`(1 ,a)

This is a syntactic sugar to make construction of lists at read-time easily to express.

Read-time construction of lists is a feature of the language which gives us macros. Not the other way around.

Defining a macro for implementing a limited functionality a language can do, which consists of just a cond is a sign of inability to grasp what features are available and how to use them in appropriate way.

We don't need some macro for doing list comprehension, we have list comprehension to write macros.

This construct list-comp - is just ugly, because it is artificial and meaningless.

The habit of piling up crap without understanding, along with over-verbosity are a signs of a typical Java dev.

btw, using such kind of language against a Russian is a shortest way to a ProblemFactory)
so it doesn't work in Lion or Mountain Lion? what would it take to get it working in those OSs?
"What is DISADVANTAGE about Rack Awareness at this point is the manual work required to define it the first time, continually update it, and keep the information accurate. If the rack switch could auto-magically provide the Name Node with the list of Data Nodes it has, that would be great."

This is where LLDP comes in handy. Run an LLDP agent on each node and enable LLDP on the switch access ports. Then it's just a matter of the NameNode fetching LLDP neighbor information from the switch (usually by using SNMP) and updating it's Rack Awareness.

(Disclaimer: I know nothing about Hadoop...)
THe 'sets of tools' argument is kind of spurious. I already have a box full of wrenches; I'd need some more in the box. Nobody argues 'lets get rid of 5/32 bolts, so I can get rid of that wrench'.

Its the mental effort to rationalize them that is the real cost. Lets see, slightly larger than 1/4 - is it 7mm? or 8? or 9/32?
My foot is not one foot long, so your customary measure and mine don't match. One of us will need to convert, and we'll need a conversion table for each person.

Unless all of the people you deal with have nearly the same foot size, it's easier to deal with a single reference measure. But hey, if you and your mates want to say that the tractor is 30 feet, 20 cubits, 10 yards, 5 fathoms, or 1.8 rods away, then more power to you.
I think the other thing that will help -- and I can't imagine that there is much want from the Clojure community -- is a massive framework a'la RoR / Django

Have you heard of Luminus (http://www.luminusweb.net/)? What do you think about it? Mind you, it's still in early stages of development, so there are probably going to be some changes.
It's not right to call text-based programming one-dimensional. It would be if we wrote the code on a single line. It's actually 2D. We have indentation to communicate nesting and scope, taking advantage of the visual/spatial sense.
I guess that varies. Around here in New Haven, CT, Zipcar just has typical rental car makes and models. Ford Focus, Honda Civic, Nissan Sentra, Mazda 3, and a couple of hybrids.
On linux it is even more easy, since most of the packages are in apt etc. Several recipes have a switch for use on our own servers and vm's: https://github.com/pivotal/pivotal_workstation/blob/master/r...

And there is nothing in the result that has anything to do with ruby, just chef and the recipes are in ruby. We use it for setting up our dev environments and servers for PHP websites. Although we use Capistrano for the actual site deployment and not Chef.
Ha ha. I've been in that meeting -- the one where you have to explain that the requested feature would violate the laws of physics. I've found that it's best to keep asking some variant of "What do you really want?" in order to find out the underlying goal. This usually requires a couple of follow-up meetings though, because the guys doing the requesting don't always know what the real goal is.
I wonder if the Gimli glider incident had anything to do with imperial units being the preferred unit in the US. In any case I think the aviation industry would be well across this issue by now, given they would have to deal with conversion all the time on international flights between the US and metric countries. There is the benefit of hindsight with the Gimli incident, so the same mistakes need not be repeated.
It's a nice post/example. Obviously useful, not that trivial, or at least something you might not have thought of doing if you're just beginning to grok macros, but simple enough so that you can do a pretty detailed explanation of it without going on forever.

Mentioning that there is a `for` form might be nice, just so it's clear that you don't have to do (something like) this in order to do list comprehension in Clojure. Kind of disagree with aredington's 2nd and 3rd points though. Those might be fine things to write some stuff about, but I don't know that that post really needs them.

Like, I don't think every post on macro stuff must deal with "macros and evaluation". It's an interesting topic and all, but as it is I like that the post is more like, here's a macro and look how we can use it to turn code like this into code like that. Without getting into every topic that that touches on.
Society should optimize for happiness. It's not measurable, but you can estimate it (for example you can estimate that average German is happier than average citizen of North Korea). My vague definition happiness is this: Let's say you must choose between 2 states of mind and you'll spend the next hour in the selected one. Before your choice, you can try each of them by clicking some button. The one that you choose has higher "happiness quotient".
The headline and the contents strongly led me to believe that there would be a paragraph at the end cheerfully informing me that I, too, could make $7000 a month online with no work at all, just enter your credit card number here!
Hiring and hirable in 2013: Agile developers
It feels like you're overstating the rebalancing that is done. Commuters themselves do skew the bikes one way in the morning, but on average take them back in the evening. People who don't live in London should not be given the impression that there is a massive effort to reshuffle the bikes, because there is not. It happens, but it doesn't seem overly common, much less part of the fundamental workings of the system.

I agree with others here: desolate stations could be refilled via economic incentives for riders.
Wouldn't that make the arc-minute the practical unit?
Astack a apt-get for Atlassian applications.
How awesome! I didn't know that :)
Why does it matter if people are using "one nautical mile" or "1852 metres"?

(http://metricviews.org.uk/2010/01/why-do-nautical-miles-ling...)
> Click "search inside." Everything is in grams.

There's loads of references in that book to knobs of butter and tablespoon/teaspoon measurements.
this smells a bit fishy, the istock photo and the lame part about liking men who "don't spare the rod" is suspicious
Clj-minecraft: write minecraft plugins in clojure
Nice find. However, go ahead and actually compare the two answers. There is no way my grandma would ever be able to follow the explanation on StackExchange, especially compared to the answer on Quora.
Why can't the existing code be modified by simply replacing old units with metric ones denoting the same quantity? If necessary, use a high level of precision in the expressions, and over time, have an initiative to slowly and gradually normalize those quantities to simpler numbers.
She's got a concept of addition and subtraction.

I typed in the number and prefixed it with I am putting a funny symbol before, and said they were before zero and that normal numbers had a plus in front but it's hidden normally, then I asked which way do you think this will go and she pointed left.
If the ads were for the paid version of your application, as the end user I wouldn't be bothered in the least bit. In fact as a developer and business owner I would actually expect them there.

Ads for non-related products would only seem to me to be detracting from your future business for a small payout now. My guess is it is a poor long term plan.
Mega: Inside the mansion and the mind of Kim Dotcom
The devil is in the details.

In the US, all speed limits are in 5 mph increments.

So, let's say you convert your 60mph limit to 100kph (Really 96.5). 70mph is 112.65kph. Do you round down to 110, or up to 115 or 120?

If you round down, congratulations, you just cut the speed difference between a rural highway and interstate essentially in half, as a "true" 17kph difference is only 10.
I find that the Quora email digest is the only newsletter I'm looking forward to reading EVERY time it's in my inbox. I can't come up with anything that is as insightful, interesting, and fun on the internet. It takes the enlightenment of a TED talk and removed the bullshit. That alone makes for Quora to be a survivor.