skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Their current setup appears to be very low yield, whatever they are doing. Of course what they've built barely qualifies as proof-of-concept (assuming they are really seeing fusion). An energy production system proof-of-concept would probably be significantly different.

Going from neutron kinetic energy to usable energy (eg. for electricity production) involves many intermediate steps. You will not be able to "harvest" all of the kinetic energy. Unfortunately, I don't know the technical details to calculate those types of yields. But they are not seeing much with their detector.
No surprise. Someone using Firefox is not going to switch back to IE, just like someone who has a favorite text editor is not going to switch to the next version of Microsoft Notepad.
The Opiates of the Middle Classes [NNT]
Engage Expo Presentations Now Online
You can say more in a sentence than you can in a cloud

Yes, I agree. But the tag cloud will be more accurate. I can think of a number of blogs that have pretty ambiguous or off-target taglines.

and it's not ugly

Yeah there are some hideous tag clouds out there. Ugh.
Did you guys read the article? I thought there were quite a few things hacker-ish about the subject and his views.
Answer: http://code.google.com/p/antlr-javascript/
Masked Developer Demos iPhone 3.0 beta
Maybe at the beekeeper's store? (I don't know, just guessing).
I wanted to know what gold-pressed latinum was, having heard about it on Deep Space 9. I looked it up 2 weeks ago. It's basically a currency which can't be beamed or replicated, thus preserving its value as a currency.

Interesting, and according to Wikipedia, first devised in the short story series: Venus Equilateral.
“the world would have been no different if I had not been here the past six months”

As long as this isn't what you're saying to yourself, you're well on the way to some sort of success.

Source: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1437-put-a-dent-in-the-un...
AT&T Source Spills Details on New iPhone
Ask HN: Feedback on Age Directory based on Yahoo BOSS
... and here I thought a health related topic got to #2 on Hacker News based on the merit of maintaning a healthy lifestyle in addition to being a successful worker.

FWIW, if anyone has yet to discover the joy of swimming (and the potential impact it will have on your abs), I recommend you try it.
Google's former CIO barely lasts a year at EMI
>You also need to explain that clicking "next n" shows you children of the current parent comment.

Good point. I'll change it to "Next n replies"

>Honestly, yet another 'web2.0' pointless app that will die due to lack of funds or users. Sorry to come accross as being harsh, but I'm trying to be honest. You should use your python skills for something that actually provides 'real' value. Sorry to come accross as being harsh, but I'm trying to be honest. You should use your python skills for something that actually provides 'real' value.

No worries. I enjoy working on this project, and it's been fun seeing it slowly morph into something I find useful.
There is one mantra about college / university that is pretty true: "learning to learn things fast"

but that does not exclude people without a degree, and does not include everyone that vent to college
Yes, so usually you're (generally speaking) talking to a friend about some particular service or you're using some app that everyone else uses and think, 'it's missing this' or 'I could do that better'. The problem with this is that everyone rides the popularity wave, talking about and using the new thing on the block, thinking to themselves, oh, look at me, check out my latest iPhone/twitter/facebook/git/django/rails based app, while other important fields get ignored. It's like a mad gold rush. Everyone sees these things exploding and they all want a piece of the pie, while ignoring other areas which have a massive potential for innovation. The thing is, I'm not going to be hypocritical. I myself am also guilty of falling into this pattern, because it's the path of least resistance, but I try to force myself to think outside the box.
Did you read the title? It sounded like politics!
I can finally rest well at night.
Google Image Search imgcolor= Parameter Allows Results Filtering by Color
This is why I love cockeyed.com. Not only did he draw attention to the scam [1], he was actually offered money to take down that page - and printed Cash4Gold's contact with him in full [2].

But my favourite (related) article was when turned the scam around on Gold Kit (similar deal) and sent them junk he had spray painted gold. [3] Fun.

[1] http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/goldkit/cheat.shtml
[2] http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/goldkit/reputation.shtml
[3] http://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/goldkit/gold_kit02.shtml
BASE: An Acid Alternative
Merging Mind and Machine
This just in -- TV infomercials routinely exaggerate the benefits of their products and services.

I hate to sound flip, but -- so what? This (in my book) does not count as interesting or new.
Having had a lab partner who in Senior year EE couldn't do even the most basic things, I sympathize with you. But you need to consider what that person knows "as a whole." I've found that if you take the time to talk to graduates who were poor students that they do have a basic understanding of the subject matter, but there are gaps. The gaps tend to be most noticeable when they're really simple things, which I think is the point you're making.

Contrast that with someone who has say, a History degree who happens to be a good programmer. That person's expertise tends to be in one narrowly defined area and when taken outside that range he does badly. I'd rather hire someone who had promise to be reasonably good at anything I threw at him than amazing in one aspect and weak at most everything else.

I don't know where you work, but the people who make it through both our HR screen and the technical phone screen and end up in front of me are generally pretty bright. We normally weed people out for teamwork/communication skills rather than technical ability.
Odds are it's not one of your favorite sites if the site owner isn't even committed enough to have made a favicon.

Before you smack the reply button to pop up with "But here's an example of my favorite site without a favicon!": I said odds are.

I doubt the number of favorite sites without a favicon is low enough at this point that Mozilla shouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about it.
Just want to clarify, I am not in any way related to shoemoney. I just read his blog everyday and thought these are some good info to share.
A VC's Biggest Flaw: Arrogance
A Distributed Transaction Layer for Google App Engine
What's the real cost of free music?
I'm not sorry for them. I realize this is probably going to be an unpopular view, but: the 419 (and similar) scams take advantage not just of technical illiteracy, general illiteracy, ignorance, and desperation, but greed also. Anybody that falls for one of these scams has had numerous opportunities in their life to protect themselves from it, either by getting an education or by not letting their greed overtake their common sense.
Problems in Computer Science
I've been here doing startup type work for ages. Wouldn't mind spending some time down under.
Map them out. Grab a black sharpie, a stack of yellow postits, and find a big ass blank wall. Next jot down everything about the idea in bit statements on postits. Dont try to organize them in advance, just get out of your head.

Use the voices in your head to dissect the idea, why this idea, why not others, how does it work, whats the value, benefit, experience, competition, barriers to make, barriers to sell, who is the customer, what makes it rock, who would buy it right now, why did they buy it, how do they use it, aspirationally connect it to other like ideas- its like x brand but with y, or what not. Just generate a crap load of notes about the idea.

Start grouping them on the wall and eventually into buckets and themes.

Lastly project yourself to the end game. Use a different color post its if you can. Think as if you've done the idea, its out, done, map that experience. Everything from how someone finds out about it, getting it, experiencing it, note the rewards of it, and does it end, how does it self sustain? Think ideal, but with a tint of reality based on what ya know.

Now step back, odds are you have a heck of alot more ideas up there than one you just started.

If you're hungry for more, get yet another color of post its and pick out the themes you see around the notes. There's probably 3-4 themes at work around your idea, bounce these themes off other people you know, if they resonate that alone could tell you you're in the running for making something that could work. Ideas always need constant validation, don't go at it alone, simply them and bounce them off people, friends, family, anyone. And dont get stuck on what they say, just record it, and save them for another wall session.
Development experience on a relevant platform will pretty much always trump a degree in my hiring experience

That being said, I don't have a CS degree but have made my bones for the last 10-15 years in some sort of developer role. The thing I can justify that a bit because when I started building websites they we're usually some sort of static site, Java was in its infancy and database driven websites were a few years off. A large bulk of what modern day programming (particularly on the web) consists of was still being developed and I could learn these skills as they rose to prominence. I could pace the growth of the technology, grow with it without too much trouble. There's a whole generation of developers in their mid to late 30's who are in this boat. I'd hire a bunch of these guys in heartbeat and I'll pay them pretty well.

Now in my current role I'm hiring junior developers fairly regularly. In this role where I'm looking for guys who are younger, smart and capable but who I don't want to pay a ton of money for. If I'm looking for a guy in their early 20s for a junior role I look for 2 things, a CS (or sometimes EE or CE) degree AND experience building something on their own. I've gotten a few guys through who started coding on their own in late high school but a lot of times they don't make the cut. In this case you don't need to have a CS degree, but just to leap the recruiters hurdles you better have one.
This blog post has a very arrogant tone. If you've made something your user doesn't understand, perhaps the problem is in explaining it.

Assuming that the person isn't stupid, they can theoretically understand the answer, but they haven't found the answer before emailing you.

NearlyFreeSpeech charges people under a penny a month, most of the time, for hosting, and gladly answers any question posed. But they have a prominent notice that it's not free to answer a question, and would people please help themselves by searching the fora first.

Perhaps you could helpfully say, "If you've got a specific error message, chances are lots of other people have had that error message too, and blogged about it: google any sufficiently long error message, and you might find the answer there. People don't usually answer here within the hour, but ask away if you can't find it."

Why would you waste your time getting angry at random clueless people on the internet?
New (?) security flaw in Facebook networks access
Did you ever play a "free" mp3? It's exactly the same kind of bullshit. From a wiring standpoint, at least. In his culture the "clients" are about as abstract and rich as RIAA is for you and me.
Apologies for the self-submission (I know it niggles some people) but I thought this was interesting.

The MOST interesting thing is FB seem uninterested. I dropped them an short email 24hrs ago with no response. Oh well :)

I published on advice from some other people: it's not exactly the worst or most gaping flaw in the world (as the access can be obtained through other means) but it is a bit of a noob error!
It's traditional to hype the Nobel prizes of Economists you agree with, and mention that it's not a "real Nobel" when it's given to someone you don't like.
I've always wanted to have a beer with mechanical_fish ever since I got on to HN.

Now this is my kind of upvote! ;)
Scammer Shuffles Apple out of 9000 Ipods
Interesting.

Thanks for the article (and self post). Don't ever worry about promoting your own work. That's what you're supposed to be doing.
The correct name is Nobel Memorial Prize.

It is not a "bogus" prize - I can assure you that you have to be pretty smart to earn one.
Don't Get A Computer Science Degree
There is a large variance in reporting on the importance of honeybees. I've seen estimates as extreme as "without the bees most crops will fail," and "its not a big deal, other insects pollinate everything bees do," and everything in between.

Is this the result of sensationalist reporting or disagreement in the field?
He is the kind of guy who might have USED facebook, but he would never be CONSTRAINED by it. He's demonstrated through his actions that he doesn't care about the social consequences of his actions. Although he does appear to have tried to protect his family from legal problems, and it appears to be working: it is unclear to me why there haven't been RICO charges against everyone tangentially involved, which seemed like an obvious next step to me the day after case broke four months ago.
Not really. This is a myth that marketing schysters try to peddle. A lot of naive people like this view though. These people would have you believe that nothing survives without marketing. When's the last time you saw a commercial for heroin or cocaine? It seems sales are pretty good for those products.

And yet, again, all the marketing in the world couldn't build one bridge. It just inherently cannot. Sorry.
thanks - the worrying thing is given this and other work weve seen appear this last week simple, trivial exploits like this are all over new Facebook. Individually not a massive headache: all together maybe more so? ;)
As long as you're having fun then that's great, and if it's something you find useful then that's even better. It's refreshing to see someone making something for the love rather making any old crap in an attempt to go 'viral'.

:)
The x-y of the tags is pretty much irrelevant -- I don't know if anybody's actually trying to use that to convey anything.

The tag sizes are pretty unambiguous though, which is where the clouds do better than ordered lists. Ordered lists are inconsistent: sometimes they're ordered alphabetically, sometimes they're ordered by importance, sometimes by popularity, sometimes they're not ordered at all, which is visually identical to an ordered list.

A tag cloud on the other hand always relates the tag size to the number of items with that particular tag. That's the visual distinction that makes them more useful than a simple list.
Fast and the Furious Twitter Hilarity
I did two years ago here and set off an enormous flame war; while entertaining, it is completely unnecessary. I'd be happy to discuss details via email.
To hell with being polite, how about being professional?
The more I think about this the more I think the comparison is not relevant. Ants are all going from point A (the colony) to point B (the food). Additional ants are not joining the line midway, nor are any splitting off to some other destination, nor do different streams of ants cross one another's paths.

If you had a one-way one-lane road with no cross streets, merges, or exits, MAYBE the situation would be comparable; in the real world, I don't see a whole lot of relevance.
Looks great! One suggestion though: it'd be nicer if the plugin used module mixins rather than class inheritance to decorate the User model with your TwitterAuth functionality.
Well, but minified or "obfuscripted," if you like, Javascript is not really in keeping with the views of FSF. A programmer sufficiently dedicated can work out and deal with assembly code of a given executable. The point is that, according to FSF, it should be utterly free.

As far as dampen innovation, eh, I doubt it. I don't think enough people will take Stallman's view seriously for there to be any real danger here. I certainly don't. But I understand your reservations.
I doubt anybody shoveling money into the fire of their life-sized toy steam engine train will feel bad about making all that loot on their proprietary software startup. I think they will manage somehow. :)
My comment on his site:

"This is the nature of the beast. Developers build software. The good ones support it, and the bad ones make it someone else's problem. The good ones write documentation, and the bad ones tell you to read the code.

I can sympathize with your situation. I go through something similar nearly every day at work, but I am not the kind of person who will tell someone to %!@# off because they don't know how to search for errors in Google.

Searching for errors with google is strange at first for everyone I think. The best thing to do is to both answer the question directly and refer them to a google search that would give them the same answer (with the keywords you used, and perhaps WHY you chose those keywords). I know it sucks, but I remember being a greenhorn and not knowing how to search for some syntax-laden error, which parts of that error would help me in Google, and so on. Some of it was brute force, and some of it was learning by example.

In short, don't be so quick to assume someone is lazy for asking a question. Don't be so quick to assume someone is stupid because they haven't been Googling compiler errors for 10 years. Google has a simple design, but that doesn't mean the construction of queries is equal in its ease. I think most people need a refresher on Boolean logic and how it works in their queries. Google has pretty much put that in their black box, IMHO, to the detriment of a lot of newbs to the net. Perhaps google should consider putting up a little mini guide on how one might search for things they find in particular contexts. Errors should certainly be in that list. I consider myself a pretty good Googler (although I think this mentality is the same as everyone believing they're good at driving or thinking they themselves have a good sense of humor), but I would happily read an official Google writeup on tips for extracting good search terms from example contexts.
"
Yep. Why not?

Or someone will go into business as a door-to-door gamma irradiation service: The truck with the lead-lined box arrives at the appointed time, you hand them the frames along with $x per frame, they irradiate them for you and hand them back.

If it's more efficient to truck the frames to the source... well, that works too. A lot of these industrial beekeepers routinely truck entire flatbeds full of hundreds and hundreds of beehives to farms around the country. Occasional stops at the cities where the hive irradiators are available might not be such a big deal.
Tiny Global Illumination renderer in C++, AS3, Ruby, Python, Lua, Scala and OCAML
I agree, ad hominem -> bad form.
Hands-on Teaching, Designing, and Learning
Nice. :) Clearly, I am a fan!
It’s easy to make something incredible.
Mathematics, perhaps?
Oh look! Another binary discussion on learning from failure vs success!

One word: Balance.

One is not better than the other. These concepts do not exist without eachother. Failure would be nothing without success, and vice versa. Learning that is the first step to not wasting your time reading anymore of this fluff.
New Firmware for S302 and W302
ah the good old days....
Obama's "pro-copyright industry" DOJ sides with RIAA's $150,000-per-song penalty
The real difference is that stopping distance for an ant is a fraction of an ant length, but for a car it's several car lengths. So for cars, most of the space is following distance For ants, most of the space is ants. Car density decreases as the square of speed, while ant density is constant. That's not because they have better algorithms but because they're in a different realm of physics.
Do you really believe that he would "make things better"? He probably greased a lot of palms to ensure that he is not extradited to the US.

He will continue greasing palms (with stolen money) and start again with his corruption. There are numerous examples of this being the case.

A good example is Jurgen Harksen. He was on the run from German authorities and decided to hid in South Africa. He quickly started on the corruption bandwagon again and formed close "relationships" with various politicians.

A leopard does not magically change its spots.
it's very easy to think of counter examples.

/.
stumble upon
livejournal
etc
etc

Fame makes it a lot easier, but you aren't doomed to failure if you aren't famous. If you have the dollars to do good marketing then I think it would be easy to make it work.
On a somewhat similar topic: http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com/2009/03/programmers-designe...
His blog is mostly a waste of time. Most of his posts are essentially talking points of the NHibernate Mafia. Although, I do like to listen to him get schooled by Ted Neward on those .NET Rocks! podcasts. :)

In fairness, he has had a couple mildly interesting posts on depedency injection.
Should You Go to Grad School? (Luis von Ahn)
Stay in the valley to startup but stuck on h1b 
My lawyers are making pessimistic noises about my chances to move smoothly through the pipeline to permanent residence givent he current climate. 4 more years has taken on an even more depressing tone. Given that I have the money to startup, say $250k of my own cash, and would free up a job in an established company, you'd think there'd be a straightforward way to do this.

Has anyone found the right path through the immigration services for this situation? Thus far, my options are either find an awful lot more money (I'd need $1m apparently) or else way it out for some indeterminate number of years.

I have a family here and would prefer not to uproot things.. so although I realize there are many nice places around the world which are an option, I'm really hoping to stay in California.

Any hints?
Rethinking rent: Maybe we should stop trying to be a nation of homeowners
This was back in the summer of 2004; I don't remember historical cache sizes, but I do remember Wheeler saying something about cache misses (because the BWT sorts things by blockwise context -- all the "_he quick brown fox" strings get arranged by position -- it tends to jump around a bit more), but he never addressed multicore capacity, in which bzip2 shines, because each block can go onto a different core, and you're just limited by memory bandwidth. Most chips only had 1 core in those days.

IIRC, the blocksorting algorithm requires more than 1MB; the figure 12n for the suffix sort sticks in my head, but I don't recall the specifics.
That's nice. It was Merton and Scholes --- two Nobel economists --- who convinced LTCM and its customers that it was safe to place 15-30:1 leveraged bets on market volatility; that time, we only lost single-digit billions.
This looks like an awesome idea. I haven't been able to try it out yet because I'm running FF 3.07 (simply because Ubuntu repos haven't brought it up to 3.1 yet, and I don't really want to bother that much atm), but it reminds me of the controls built into some FPS's and even old Lucasarts Adventure games like Full Throttle or Grim Fandango. Except the default actions in this case are all favorite websites. Nice to see Mozilla labs pushing the envelope yet again.
They could use bleach. It's just research showing that sterilizing the frame helps, you don't have to use actual gamma rays.
Gold doesn't corrode, easily divisible, is portable are just many reasons why gold has been the money of choice.

In the desert, salt is worth more than gold.

Other part of the world, they use cows.

Like you say, it all depend on the circumstances, how much gold there is. However, gold has continued to be the money of choice for civilizations for thousand of years. It withstood the test of time and to this day continued to be regarded as a valuable commodity.

Ultimately, the value of gold is a subjective one.