skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There seems to be a few people who work with ATM software here at the moment, so perhaps one of you could answer a usability question that bugs me about ATMs:

- On entering my PIN and selecting the option to withdraw cash, I'm presented with a number of choices (e.g., €20, €50, €90, €200 etc.).

- I select €90 and wait the ~10-20 seconds for the ATM do do whatever it needs to do.

- I'm presented with a message telling me that the machine can only dispense multiples of €50, obviously because it's run out of smaller denominations.

- I'm returned to the 'amount-selection' screen and presented with the same set of choices, including the invalid ones.

I've now wasted almost a minute. Why doesn't the ATM just limit the list to what it's capable of dispensing? Is there some weird security consideration I'm missing?
Still not quite sure why you got this. Couldn't replicate. I'll be checking error logs, etc to ensure whatever it was doesn't happen again. Only receive 3 404's for something like 2k visitors yesterday.
I can't seem to see any biography about you on your HN profile or this post.

Are you planning on doing this anonymously?
redshift segfaults actually.
Show HN: Gem Badge - the way to identify RubyGems on Github
If it's running fine as a free product, why does it have to be end-of-lifed? Does it cost you anything?
US resident only / Europe / rest of the world ?
Payment terms ? (upfront / milestones / finished)
Future company as a delaware C/S-corp ?
Hi guys, I'm Brad and I run Code Fellows. I'm here to answer questions. Ask here or write me at...my first name at codefellows.org.
The C11 standard added concurrency primitives to the language.
$60k as a developer in Seattle is pretty crappy, but I guess if you need a class like this to break into the profession...you gotta start somewhere. You would need to double that salary to enter the range where you could afford to buy a house in the city limits. Between the $60k salary and the 6 months to land a job they have a pretty good hedge.

It is a great teaser and certainly is the most initially intriguing thing about this program, so from a marketing perspective it is brilliant!
CSS Counters for Rendering Line Numbers
Here's the thing: "high-level", when applied to a programming language, has a historical context. It means something specific (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-level_programming_language), and what it means and has always meant is that the language in question abstracts away registers and allows structured programming (as in, through the use of if, while, switch, for, as opposed to using labels and branching).

It's fine if you want to call "high-level" relative. But it should be acknowledged that "high-level" is not simply a strict comparison between the features of one language and another. And it SHOULD be acknowledged that C is, by convention, a high-level language. Python is definitely a higher-level language, but C is still a high-level language.
Photoshop's code from Copy CSS sucks, here's why:
I think what constitutes a "high level language" changes with every few iterations of moores law, as it becomes permittible to add layers and abstractions and virtual machines on top of the old "high level".
Yup. I know a lot of people with physics, maths and engineering degrees hired as programmers.
There is the relationship between the owner and the employee. From the question it sounds like the owner doesn't want to dissolve this relationship (at least in part) due to the negative impact on his company.
> I know tons of unemployed programmers

I think you need to clarify this rather questionable statement. I do not know a single unwilfully unemployed programmer.
I can't imagine it would be that difficult (relatively speaking) for the colony to synthesize B12 from bacteria or fermentation.
> In Lisp, you don't just write your program down toward the language, you also build the language up toward your program. As you're writing a program you may think "I wish Lisp had such-and-such an operator." So you go and write it. Afterward you realize that using the new operator would simplify the design of another part of the program, and so on.

That's close, but not quite the wording I remember, so I must have seen it somewhere else as well. That's a pretty good description of what I was referring to, though.
These two paragraphs hold a secret :

"Our main problem with WebRechnung is that it doesn’t fit our standards any more – software, as everything, degrades over time. The interwebs is moving fastly forward, everything is evolving. Adapt or die. We don’t want to see this old piece of software (base core is 3 years old now) out there into the wild much longer.

We would love to publish it on GitHub. Unfortunately this software is not really a modern ninja style stand alone application. It is tightly integrated into our monolithic MISH system – mostly written in Perl and impossible to understand for an outsider anyways. And it’s really old: dependencies are outdated, large parts of the code are in need of major re-factoring. We would rather rewrite everything before touching this code again."

One of the challenges of building software on open source
frameworks is building durable software. I have been playing with thttpd recently on the Rpi and amazed at how durable this software is. It hasn't been changed a whole lot in years and years, and it just works. And it does that because everything it depends on is also not changing and just works.

The challenge for this new generation of programmers is to create a durable environment where folks could write invoicing software once and have it just work.
modern FORTRAN is absolutely horrific, to the extent that F77 is far more popular than more recent flavors (like F90 or F95). It suffers from the same types of problems that the author identifies in C++ and Java.

As for standard library, I learned from K&R and have never been surprised by the library (insofar as I can reasonably predict what will happen, given the guidelines). I cannot say that about the C++ standard library (don't get me started on STL) or Java

And as for debugging, it took me years to become adept at parsing STL error messages (wading through cruft like basic_string to get to the essence of the error).

however I do agree that Borland and turbo pascal are exemplary.
‘Apple is done’ and Surface tablet is cool, according to teens
There's also amateur pro - usually people using it for a hobby. And of course people on Linux that don't want to switch for various reasons.
What is the focus of the blog? Unless you are only making a technical blog, why limit its content to the technical aspects of your life?

If it is supposed to be a representation of your online self it would seem the only limit you would place on its content would be content you don't want other people seeing.
That's being deliberately obtuse. How many languages are lower level than C, besides assembly? If your ranking has every language in the "high level" camp, then your ranking is poorly calibrated.
Somehow I find this hard to believe. Surface for teens? Huh?
I don't get all the fuss around it but I'm reassured to read such a blog. I was really scared at first that directors would drop the >24fps because of the reception of The Hobbit.

In my mind The Hobbit was a persistant slap in the face, like everyone else I had to adapt, I felt like it was going fastforward the first minutes of the movie. But once I got used to it, it was like I was in the movie. I usually have a problem with action movies because of the lag that I can see. I've noticed I can see it really well due to me twitching my fps when playing FPS competitively. The Hobbit was different, I don't think I can go back to 24fps movies. Maybe for normal movies but not for CGI or action movies that requires a high FPS so it displays in a smooth way.

And now the bad thing I'm thinking about is that I'll have to buy a new TV so I can watch that kind of movie again. I thought that full HD and 3D were just some small evolutions, but HFR is a revolution.
Can you elaborate on your first point a bit? How, specifically, does C's machine model not fit current architectures well, aside from multiple cores. How is Fortran's model better?
Given that labor on Mars will be scarce, Mars colonists are likely to make high 6-figure incomes. Also, given the opportunities to establish new businesses on a new world, many are likely to become multi-billionaires.
My company also uses Smarty, but we're planning to move away from it. (Currently evaluating Mustache.php)

Smarty's parser/lexer is horribly slow. The 3.1.x branch has caused problems for us, such as corrupted compiles and broken nested blocks [1]. As evidenced by the article, the developers don't seem to know what they're doing. You should see the workaround for people with custom error handlers -- registering another error handler on top that checks the source of the error against registered template and cache directory paths!

[1] The bug was introduced in this particular commit (lines 237-241 of r4505): https://code.google.com/p/smarty-php/source/diff?spec=svn450...
and later "fixed" here: https://code.google.com/p/smarty-php/source/diff?spec=svn456...
Never seen these problems with Australian notes either, if anything they seem much more durable than paper notes. And you can take them to the beach.
In other words, meat will become an ultra-luxury food stuff -- with people paying some delta for illegal raised local meat vs. frozen meat flown in from Earth.

Local cultural fads would probably determine if stringy local small mammal meat or freezer burned brisket would go for more.
On the first point - I may be being dense here. Do you mean a) segmenting traffic, and running A vs B on one segment, and A vs C on another, b) A/B testing, say, headline and CTA on the same page at the same time, or c) testing different parts of the funnel at the same time?

On the second point - this may be an industry difference, but I've never really had any problem coming up with things to A/B test on a landing page, for example. Just off the top of my head, you could test:

- Headlines - at least 5 of them.

- Headline and subhead vs no subhead.

- Font face.

- Color scheme (overall)

- Images - probably want to test 6-10 of them.

- Call To Action (CTA) text.

- Call To Action button vs link

- CTA placement

- Multiple vs single CTAs.

- Long copy vs short.

- Layout. Image on left, right or top? More than one image? Etc. On the average LP I could come up with 10 possible layouts before pausing for breath.

- Testimonials. PLacement, which ones, how long, picture vs audio vs video vs text.

- Video vs image-and-text.

- Ugly vs good-looking.

- Text highlighting, bolding etc - yellow highlighter style vs bold and italic vs nothing.

- Other social proofing elements - which media icons to use, where to place them, etc.

That's at least 50 A/B tests right there, on a single LP. And all of those elements have been shown in one test or another to affect conversion rates.
What does that have to do with all the other x86 devices from the other OEM's? Are you saying most PC customers were waiting for a $1,000 device from Microsoft?

No matter how you look at it, Windows 8 should've given a boost to PC sales, even if only for a short while after the launch. But it didn't. I think that implies it's Windows 8's fault, as PC sales were already falling, and Windows 8 did nothing to improve that situation. In fact it may have accelerated the decline.
Drive Thru Invisible Driver Prank [video]
The question is if "not Android" would have worked out better
You don't have to walk on eggshells when talking about issues like homosexuality or anything else. Just say what you think, and actually listen if someone brings up a valid criticism. The bigger problem here is feeling like you should never be criticized, which leads to unnecessary self-censoring and resentment over it.
Go-spew: A Journey into Dumping Go Data Structures
I have f.lux on my [jailbroken] iPhone 4S and my desktop.

On the desktop I like it simply because it helps automatically "dim" my display in the evening. I don't use much artificial light in my room [it's basically a mancave after 5:00] so a bright display with the standard color temperature is just an exercise in eye-strain.

I can't be bothered to adjust my brightness, contrast, and temperature manually every evening to avoid eyestrain. Since my monitor doesn't have programmable presets, f.lux definitely provides a great [automatic] solution.

On my iPhone it's actually more of an issue, I find myself disabling it frequently. I think this is mostly because I use my phone in a wide range of "lighting contexts." I might walk from the man-cave to a fluorescent-lit kitchen, and then I'll go out into an incandescent living room.

In my car, I find the low color temperature kind of difficult to read, so I'll usually disable it for road journeys. (It probably doesn't help that I have a dark OS theme and my navigation application has a dark blue "night time" mode that is also time activated.)
Nokia is up by double digits so investors are liking this. With confidence, they might even raise the money they need.

Whether it's as good for Microsoft it's another story
It's crazy to me that a company like that is worth even $1 million.
One view point: it's a waste of space and fuel to launch livestock with humans to a colony in the early days. Seeds and enough reserves to keep going would take up much less space.

Another view point: livestock isn't just useful for food, cultures and civilisations have been turning livestock into food, clothing, tools and other resources for centuries. It could be useful.

I know some people find it abhorrent we exploit animals as resources (not me personally), but Musk seems like a pragmatist. If it makes sense to send a bunch of meat loving carnivores to Mars with a ship hold full of livestock then that'll be the option.

On the upside, if they're using a liquid oxygen/methane rich mixture for the fuel they'd have a natural source of methane by having livestock.
it's funny how they messed up the reflection on the back side of the 5€ bill (try adjusting the slider).
> Getting calories from meat is inefficient

You're taking the model of an industrialized first-world nation with 300 million+ people and applying it to a tiny space colony. Calling that apples vs. oranges would be an understatement.

If you disagree, tell me this: How many 30,000 lb. John Deere combines do you think will be sent with the first settlers?
Such children will likely become the elite of a new world. (Which is why one should build a radiation shielded underground house there.)

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5037804
I saw that. I guess the problem is that for authentication I hope that the PBKDF2 hash is further hashed before sticking it in the DB to protect against DB compromises.
This sucks. The Yoga, a touch screen laptop you can bend backwards, is exactly what I want, if only it worked.
I completely disagree with you.

> Humans like flaws

Humans like perfection, humans like beauty.

> People like the hiss and compression of records and tapes.

People were used to the hiss and compression of records and tapes

> This is also the same reason why people like Instagram filters

Instagram doesn't downgrade the quality of a picture, it adds effect, plays with the colors, like professionals do with photoshop (but not at the same level). I don't think you understand what Instagram does to a picture.

> Also, look at v1 of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other popular sites - they were far from pretty.

Look at the videos on youtube, before they brought HD. Could you go back to that?
> The vast majority of Americans do not live in Glenn Beck level paranoia but Europe is not immune to the same stress producers that exist in the U.S.

Are you speaking from your own experience, or just guessing?

I just spent a week in America, and I was dumbfounded by the amount of fear the media generates, daily.
Does anyone else notice the slight display lag that f.lux exhibits? On my mac it's just the slightest bit annoying, and I had to get rid of it.

Otherwise I'd love to use it. Maybe I'll try redshift.
> I think you need to clarify this rather questionable statement.

I speak to other humans who have a BSc in CS who are currently unemployed and have been unemployed an extended period.

If you need further clarification I am happy to try and provide it. But if you could tell me exactly what you want to know that would be helpful.
Show HN: New HTML5 document viewer based on PDF.js for DOC, ODT, PDF
My guess: Casual users who don't think the interface is too hard and people liking free software. I seem to fall into both groups.

But more generally - a lot of people I know which are starting out with game programming work with The Gimp. Also pretty much anyone who wants to learn serious image manipulation, but not willing to either make illegal copies or spend hundreds of dollars on such an application (don't know, maybe that's not much money for you, but for most people it is a lot). And certainly people on Linux where PS simply isn't available.
They aren't, which is what most if not all of the critiques are missing: it's just an upsell for their existing customers, of which there are enough to make building this tool worth it.
Let's have an internet-wide real name policy
Whoa, I didn't read past the first page because of the NSFW banner ads, but what ended up happening?
Cool proposition but because of your onerous terms you are self selecting for bottom barrel. In startups (where there is a power law distribution of outcomes) it would be much preferable to offer more generous terms and simply be more picky selecting for founder competence. Also- need to figure out statute of limitations: who decides when one MVP stops and another begins? What if a freelancer takes your money hacks up a bunch of MVPs and learns enough to do the full swing by themselves?
First fire him. Then kick his arse.
I hate it when sites don't say where the product is, too.

South Lake Union is one of the startup hubs of Seattle--Amazon has most of its buildings here, TechStars Seattle is here, and a bunch of great small and medium startups.

We're not accredited--you can't get student loans for the program. You need to bring a laptop to the bootcamp (we should mention that on the site...shoot).
I dont understand how this is any kind of therapy. If anything all the rejections should make you more adverse to going up and talking to strangers
The only on-page things I ever used were Olark which is the little blue thing and LivePerson who have been around for as long as I can recall.

The use case is the same, it's for people I want to talk to now not eventually aka email.
> I also suspect the diversity of plants required for a healthy vegetarian diet may be just as difficult to maintain on mars as livestock

It's actually more reliable and easier to raise a diversity of plants for many indigenous horticulturalists on Earth. Monocropping makes you vulnerable to pests, and there's a nonzero chance of those being introduced by colonists.
Once the Martian economy is this advanced, recruiters from Martian ventures will be offering relocation packages to Mars. You're presupposing the economy has bootstrapped to this level.
Lonely guitars
The normal well-tempered mind [video]
This is great, but how did Amazon manage to pull this off? Are we effectively buying three products when we buy an AutoRip CD? (1) The physical CD, (2) The streaming rights for Amazon cloud player, (3) The MP3s which you can download from the cloud player. Is this a legal way to purchase a CD and gift it to a friend or resell it and still maintain the streaming/MP3 rights? Or does the RIAA have a problem with that?

Shrink-wrapped CDs I have gifted friends and family years ago are now showing up in my cloud player. I have to admit that feels a little weird. How is that different than if I opened the CD and burned it before gifting it?
What? I wasn't saying anything about Go. (swdunlop is the one who injected the term "high level" into the discussion.)

But if you claim that language X is good at Y, implicitly you're comparing it with all languages, not a subset. AFAIK most emulators are written in C or assembly or the like -- so it's especially odd to compare Go to everything but them in this context.
This highlights something that many start ups fail to properly understand - a good product is a tiny part of the challenge of succeeding with a business. Without some way of getting the word out there people won't find your product. It doesn't matter how good it is. And if people don't find you, you're dead.

Every start up needs a good understanding of tech to build something saleable, and a good understanding of marketing to bring people to the product. You can't survive without both (caveat: you can buy marketing).
Trolling a high-frequency trading headhunter
Still need to iron out the details but...

World.

Upfront will be small (possibly nil) to prevent time-wasters. We can agree milestones based on nature of project. Once code is flowing onto a shared repository for a couple days, I'll feel comfortable starting the money drip.

C/S corp in Delaware sounds reasonable. A yet to be drafted, founder's agreement to be signed at project start also to protect both parties.
Hah I can relate to that! I will clarify something though, the effect is really cool and I actually like it. What annoyed me is that I had initially opened it and moved it to another pane (dwm here) and then when I moved it the main panel I was using a smaller window than usual and when I scrolled I couldn't hit any links, animation looked weird, and then I couldn't scroll past the header.

I browsed it again in a floating window in a different tab (or space if you wanna call it that way) where I keep a maximized chromium and I was no longer annoyed :) Good job on being on the cutting edge though, that is something I completely can appreciate.
The relnote is subtly wrong. The functionality has been landed behind a pref, but it's not on by default yet because there are a few UI issues to sort out.
> Iron, Calcium and Zinc are easy to obtain

When you're trying to grow plants in artificial environments on an inhospitable planet 40 million miles from earth? Oh, okay...
Lisp is very under documented compared to other languages. This makes learning LISP extremely difficult.

Let's take a look at HyperSpec, I follow your link and I'm greeted with a mostly blank (and very ugly) page. Ok there is something called starting points, I guess I'll start there. That page just lists all the indexes. Ok let's try chapters, that sounds like a place to start. Oh yay, another page with nothing but links. Ok, let's try introduction. Again, just a mostly empty page with links. Most people would have given up by now. But lets keep going. Let's try 1.1, which takes us to ANOTHER page of links. I'm feel like I'm getting the run around here. Lets click 1.1.1 and see what happens. Finally I get a page that isn't all links, and it's a single paragraph. What a waste of time.

Let's try another language, how about JavaScript? Google gives me this link: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/JavaScript
Some helpful information on the first page! Do I want a reference? Do I want a guide? Do I want a re-introduction? Maybe some sites with courses on JavaScript! Wow, that's really useful. Lets just start with the guide because it's "Our primary guide about how to program with JavaScript" and that sounds about right. It takes me to a list of links, Yuck, let's try the fist one called "JavaScript Guide" (Isn't that what I clicked on to get here?). Yup, that link just refreshes the page. That sucks, let's try the second link "About this Guide". A page that describes what I should already know, how to find my way around the guide, and tips for diving into JavaScript.

This is the problem with LISP documentation. At best, if I know exactly what I am looking for I find a giant index. At worst I have no idea what I'm looking for and I get snooty comments from LISPers.

The point is you shouldn't make people look really hard to find information. Good documentation should be easy to find and navigate.