skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I got one of these:

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/ubuntu?c=us...

And have had ok luck with it. The hard drive died after a few months, but on the other hand, 24 hours after calling their service department, I had a guy show up at my house in Innsbruck, Austria with a new drive - and I bought it in the US.

It's not all that light, though... it's sort of clunky looking, to tell the truth, but it was relatively cheap. Be sure to look for the discount codes if you buy a Dell.
I'm addicted to this, but I've also considered using it as a source of content for some interview problems.
thanks davidw thats actually a cool bundle, I use ubuntu myself
MBP was also on top of my list, but whats wrong with putting own linux on it???
also I have never had apple before so I might even switch!
my friend has one of these too..it is actually a cool one, but the screen is too small, I think they only come in 12"...
but that wireless antenna is interesting and funny at the same time
good point man, that was getting me confused too
I think this is great PR... he is getting other people engaged and interested ... but at the same time, if you were a competitor or were coming up with something very close to his product, then you could get ideas (but I would say if you are ahead of him or have already launched something you have great advantage otherwise it wont make too much difference)

it might even be to his advantage, by discouraging those that are just starting to do something similar by showing how much ahead he is!!
Researchers discover why flu is more common in winter (virus thrives in cold, dry air)
MIT launches web site for high school students
His description of "Algorithm Thinking" sounds so similar to a class at MIT I took nicknamed 6.xxx that it's spooky. It did, however, count towards my CS degree...
Someone in comments linked to Secunia security bulletins. That's not a perfect metric but it's a pretty good one.
A fumble after a fumble... they really need to hire a competent CEO.
It had to many functions
Zuckerberg Saves Face, Apologies For Beacon
actually direct response and branding are about 50/50 these days online because search has been kicking so much ass. You cab find these numbers on the iab.net site
Fortune: RIP Facebook? "...watching it now is like watching an unattended child play with a pack of matches in a wooden house."
Doing this gives him another advantage over competitors: he's getting feedback from users that his competitors aren't. This lets him plan the next step better than someone who's just copying his existing idea.
how about facebook offering an opt-in instead of an opt-out????

I doubt most people (nontechies) even know about this feature and what it does, or they wont find it important enough go and opt-out

this is not good enough they need to do more...
Do you actually agree with his formal methods approach?
This is great for a laugh ;)
If I were you, MBP.

However, I would seriously consider a macbook. It is smaller, lighter, and I extremely happy with it (had it for about 1.5 years. You may have more of a need for a good graphics card and such.

Upgrade the ram and harddrive yourself, it is trivial, and will take ~ 5 mins.

I wouldnt put linux on it, again unless you have a specific reason to do so. I dev in OSX, deploy on linux.
On the other hand, on Linux I use a terminal called tilda. The newer window managers have focus stealing prevention. It prevents tilda from stealing the focus like it should. Focus stealing prevention has interrupted me far more often than focus stealing ever had.

"Apps should never steal focus" is a pretty broad generalization that's not always right. Then again, most Linux apps do not randomly pop up dialogs trying to alert you of something.
How does facebook get that data? My understanding that web stores upload the data to facebook? Which ones? I bought a few items at Amazon, bookpool and BHPhotoVideo just recently and haven't seen any references to FaceBook. Who's participating?

The feature really IS dumb. While I generally don't care for my friends seeing what I buy online, I absolutely don't want my wife to get a notification about the gift I got for her for Christmas.
Microsoft Live Labs : Volta
There's another website similar to this one: Sphere Online Judge (SPOJ) - http://www.spoj.pl/. The problems are much more varied, though.

I can definitely see the utility in working on these type of problems: a list of exercises to work through when learning a new language, or most of all, improving your problem solving skills.

Sometimes I wonder though, why do some people enjoy working on (solved) challenging problems -- rather than tackling something novel?
Nothing is wrong per se, but I think you have better hardware options from other vendors if you're not going to use OS X.

To me, the beauty of Apple is not the hardware, or the software, but the (mostly) fluid integration of the two. If you're going to not use the software, the hardware is really not all that special (IMO).

In fact, while I was very happy with my MBP, the screen locking thing turned out to be pretty fragile. It ended up breaking on me after a few months, so my screen wouldn't stay shut unless I squeezed it a bit where the little "hooks" drop down and sort of shook it a bit. It was constantly popping open, and the spring-loaded hinge was always popping up. Big pain in the ass.
It can be very interesting to see what other coders did and compare it with your own solution, in the messageboard (when you solve a problem you get access to the corresponding thread).

You can compare the actual algorithms and ways to approach the problem, of course, and they can be very varied, so you end up learning a thing or two. And the languages themselves, you can see their strengths and weaknesses in particular areas. It stimulates curiosity and opening your mind to new ways of doing things. I think that's important and valuable because when you think about it, there aren't that many opportunities to do so.

Also, when you're tackling something novel, it seems to me you're going to restrict yourself pretty early to tools you already know, and you're not going to try radically new things once you're into it because the penalty would be too high (I may be wrong though).
This issue should be fixed now (I was able to reproduce the bug after installing the debugging libraries that come with flex.)
The View from (Outside) Your Office
An Exceptionally Technical Discussion of AESToE (E8 & surfer stuff)
>MIT was founded to be a utopia of meritocracy where no one cared where you were from or who your father is, all anyone wanted to know is "can you do the work?"

At $34k a year? The key word is 'founded' I guess.
It says it won't "store" those actions sent by the partners. Its not clear if they will "use" that information in any other way.
I liked the little anecdote of the professor who hated grades. He's not the only one. I know many professors who tear their hair out about student obsession with grades.
Loic Le Meur's Ten Rules For Startup Success
The problem is more complicated than it seems. Apps have to be allowed to take focus otherwise a newly-launched app wouldn't have keyboard focus. You'd click on a link in your email and the web browser would come up but then you'd have to move the keyboard focus to the browser yourself.

Usually these bugs are caused by someone fixing another bug. It seems even wronger when a dialog box or some other new window comes up, and the focus is not on it. This gets reported, and the programmer fixes the problem by taking focus.
Competitive brain training website
Memory, Cognitive Abilities and Executive Functions
The problem with Facebook is that their valuation was too high. Now in order to justify their hundreds of millions of dollars they've taken they are going to have to keep upping the ante in terms of selling personal data and implementing crazy marketing schemes. This will ultimately be their undoing. It wouldn't surprise me if Zuck's new investors won't let him cash out until he hits certain numbers, so now he's pretty much stuck going for broke.
Tips to Deal with Information Overload
"... is there anything else I should care about? ..."

Usage. Is this to be a min dev machine? ("99%") if so look into 3 things

- port replicator: some way to plug in ergonomic keyboard, mouse + external screen

- power & recharge (at a power point? or are you mobile all the time?)

- Operating system availability: (are you happy with using Windows, OSX or do you want to install inux/nix?)

- Warranty (can you extend it?)

For me the sweet spot is a ThinkPad T61. Reliable, durable, has necessary accessories and you can get Linux pre-installed (by third parties)
At least they're good at saying "sorry, we fucked up". That's more than you can say for most companies.
news feed was defended based on the increase in usage (hits, etc.) of facebook. I'm guessing usage dropped during this whole experiment - it would certainly have been mentioned otherwise.

As for revolutionary, a lot of apps were trying to do related things - most notably the books apps - you could buy a book that a friend was reading and the app maker would get a cut from amazon. To me, it seems a very small step up from there.
Eh, their problem is that they keep making things that are technically cool, without really considering how socially awkward they might be.

I'm sure the news feed stuff was fun as hell to implement for them as coders, and it definitely gave Facebook a defining feature, but they didn't consider the social consequences of automated-stalking.

Reading this makes me wonder if Mark just adapted his apology from the news feed debacle to this instance. I should go find that and do a comparison.

Easy thing to do is just not have a Facebook account. Privacy issue solved!
Wait... I thought 22 year olds are perfectly capable of being CEOs?
NEC Develops World's Fastest MRAM
Wow, Acxiom's intro video is downright creepy:

http://www.acxiom.com/fla/18/main_animation04d.swf
Tax the Beautiful to Feed the Ugly?
I personally have seen many people who got many advantages due to look...
GEB is not a scientific paper ... if you don't realize this, then there is no point in continuing with this answer
Interestingly, this is also the guy who came up with the name "Google":

http://graphics.stanford.edu/~dk/google_name_origin.html
Some more SF/Fantasy yarns:

- Hyperion by Dan Simmons
- 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear and all the other Zamonien books (only know german version)
- Pollen by Jeff Noon
- Otherland by Tad Williams
- Ubik by PK Dick
If you need Linux on your MBP then you can do as I do... Leopard is the main OS and I run Win2K and Ubuntu using VMWare.
I could not recommend my laptop enough - Samsung Q35.

There's now a Q35 Pro (http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3512&re...)

And there's a newer model, the Samsung Q45 (http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3869).

I get 3-4 hours battery out of it, I really like the display, the spec is good, and it's really light and robust.
Microsoft kills Vista's anti-piracy kill switch
Nice idea, but somehow I have the impression that all the problems can be solved in the same way (same brute force algorithm).
Adobe Flash/Flex. Plague of the Web.
The biggest issue of todays notebooks is the fan noise. I personally would avoid buying a notebook with a fan, because they all seem to suck. I returned several fan-books untill I happily found the Dell Latitude X1 which is fanless. It's modernised brothers are available from Samsung.

Another thing to look out for might be a DVI connector.
Right off the bat, I agree with the author that this is ridiculous... Everyone has a talent that they should develop and exploit, and blaming the good looking guy/girl in the next cubicle for your failures is unforgivable...

I read someone that those who are lookers at an early age tend to do better in life, and that's not because they are good looking, but because their good looks give them the confidence to do more... they make better salespeople, better salespeople of themselves and their skills...
Actually, I thought the last part was the most interesting.

Yeah, I know most people on 'Hacker News' are either, a) the true academic "hacker" who are offended about Joel Spolsky's sacrilegious comments about Haskell and Prolog (he insulted automatic program proofs), b) the web 2.0 "hackers" who scoff at Joel's mundane bug-tracker software (he doesn't make social network software).

But what I have taken away from Joel's whole article and the classes and companies he had worked at is this: true CS people are misunderstood by the authorities of the world. On one hand, the authorities in the ivory tower expect us to prove that our programs work, but don't actually care how the program look or run in the real world. On the other hand, the authorities in the corporate board-room expect us to use standard toools and off-the-shelf solutions (always about the bottom-line), but don't actually care about how the program look or run in the real world.

So what is a hacker to do, but to do what every single true artist have done, to trailblaze his/her own path; and this is what Joel Spolsky/Steve Jobs/Brin&Page & Company exactly did.
Well, there could be both a 'launch app and give focus' and 'launch app in background' so the caller chooses - in most cases the window manager, so for example items on startup don't clog everything up.

You could probably take away the ability for an app to grab focus for itself (but an app with focus could assign focus) with no real loss - just mandate that the notification area be used instead. Of course, that's ignoring legacy apps, so it can't really be done (smoothly), but there probably is a clean, correct in hindsight solution to this problem.

Then again, if they're going to break stuff just because in Vista... might as well add something useful!

-------

Why can't I get Help from this program?

The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which was used in previous versions of Windows and it is not supported in Windows Vista.

For more information, see Windows Help program (WinHlp32.exe) is no longer included with Windows on the Microsoft support website.
I have a Lenovo X60 and love it. As far as hardware is concerned, it's the Lexus of laptops. The attention to detail is impressive, and the build quality unparalleled.

It's light as a feather, even with the extended battery (which is a necessity) and has enough juice to last me the entire San Francisco to Cleveland flight (~5 hrs). The keyboard is pretty awesome for a laptop too, though my one gripe is that they put the Fn key bottom left and pushed CTRL to the right. That's more annoying than you may think.

If you need a bit bigger screen, the T series is still fairly lightweight, and is pretty comparable. I used to travel a lot though, so the extra 1.5 lbs of weight made a big difference.

Say what you want about OSX vs. Windows and I probably wouldn't argue, but Mac hardware has always been overpriced and underwhelming. If you're slapping on Linux you'd be nuts to go with a Macbook.
I know it's not a paper, but I'm not sure it's a science divulgation book either. Sometimes I read it and I found it fun (as a sophisticated book-game of science), but most of the times it makes me nervous, for the reasons I pointed above, and because I feel it's taken as a book a lot more serious than what at least I feel it is.

Maybe it's a mistake in my appreciation of the book, but I can't help it. What do you think about it?
In cases where the new window isn't a surprise to the user, it can be given the focus.

Generally speaking, I agree there are a lot of complicated race conditions in GUIs. Parts of solutions: more global undos and event logs, disabling controls for the minimum human reaction time, less invasive dialogs and event notifications, faster feedback...
Bad Math Among eBook Enthusiasts
Major physics breakthrough in understanding supersolidity (new state of matter)
Plotting in jQuery
Apple's rising popularity lures hackers
MPAA head asks ISPs to save the movie industry
I'm using Debian Sarge at my macbook and all is fine :-)
MPAA head: Content filtering is in ISPs' best interests
The underlying platform in question is partially at fault here. Why do you need to restart immediately? Certainly if there were an imminent security fix to stop the spread of a worm, you could justify the notification to restart immediately.

The real solution is to have a coherent security policy in the OS. Then things won't get urgent for automatic updates. Beyond updates, there shouldn't be much need to ever have an app take focus after already running. A visual notification like those little hopping icons in OS X works very well.

Your point about an app taking focus makes sense. It's really a question of etiquette. A reasonable underlying system would allow apps to take focus, but it would less often be urgent and most likely in response to user input, not not interrupting.
The problem is recognizing user intentions and the appropriate time for a context switch. If I launch an app or click a link in an email, I clearly signal to the machine that I'm ready to start a new context. However, the machine itself initiates something like a software update dialog, so my own intentions never come into play. Making a context switch against the user's expectations is asking for trouble.
Putting Linux on it really isn't as big of a deal as it was at one point. I've only tried with Ubuntu though, for what thats worth.

7.04 was somewhat of a nightmare. Off the top of my head... you couldn't use the normal installation media, graphics drivers had to be installed manually, likewise with sound drivers, likewise with wireless drivers.

7.10 on the otherhand was simple and straightforward. Everything except for the wireless card worked right out of the box. I'm quite happy with it and use it most of the time on my MBP.
Sorry guys MBP = fail. On price.

Get this instead (windows, but you can install linux on it if you have the chops). Its ~$700 cheaper.

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/SYCTOProc...
Nearly all competitive chess engines, including Bob Hyatt's Crafty, the strongest open source chess engine I know of, have lots of bit twiddling in them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitboard
MTV Israel, cool interface
Latitude D830, 15.4 inch Wide Screen WUXGA LCD Panel, 128MB NVIDIAX Quadro NVS 135MX

I use Linux exclusively and that's what I just ordered for my new laptop. ~$1300 the way I configured it (with Dell "Instant Savings"). I insist on NVIDIA so high speed drivers are ensured under Linux. Apple doesn't even make a 15" laptop that runs at 1920x1200 and the others that do charge a premium. Dell is a great option if you (like me) expect to replace your laptop every 2 years and don't care that it's not a Mac.
Ridiculous. Beauty is subjective, it would be completely unfair to tax people based on such subjective qualities.
My girlfriend wanted me to teach her enough programming to let her program some interesting Boolean Networks stuff she's very intrigued about.

Color me jealous.
I'm mostly happy with my Thinkpad Z61m. It's a 15" widescreen machine that's fairly heavy. Its replacement, the much lighter T61 widescreen should be appropriate. It's much more configurable than the MBP; base configurations are much less expensive, and comparable configurations are a bit less.

I think Thinkpad quality peaked around the 600-series of the late '90s (mmm... carbon fiber) and has been dropping ever since. The Lenovo takeover hasn't helped, but IBM was so far ahead of everybody but Apple that I don't think anybody has caught up yet.
I would recommend a larger than 15" screen, and definitely get another 21"+ monitor for when you're using it at your desk. Drastically increases productivity.
It's an old sales adage: Never stop selling, kid. Never stop selling.

And, he does it because it works. We all know what Fog Creek Software does, don't we? I betcha a number of people here have tried his bug tracking software, too.
Ask YC News: Issue Tracking?
The situation: one support / customer service email address and 2-3 people keeping track of incoming email / responses / etc.

Is there something well designed that we can set up (or subscribe to) to allow us to share info on who responded to whom, see what those conversations were to maintain consistency, keep notes on contacts/situations, etc? Something like a Basecamp for issue tracking / support request tracking? Thanks =)
No complaints here about the Lenovo quality on a T60P. When I say 'here' I mean in my first hand experience with it.

Here's someone who agrees with me: http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2864&Re...
Microsoft shuts down Santa for talking dirty
Disagree! Symmetry/attractiveness indicates genetic traits which predispose individuals for success / survival / more options in selective mating. This could, if taken to an extreme, result in the dilution of the gene pool and the elevation of Hot or Not to some kind of Big Brother.
I'd rate this about a 6/10 on the "sorry, we fucked up" scale. I agree that in a climate where Sony's response to the rootkit thing is normal, any humility goes a long way. This post is mostly sincere and mostly apologetic, but Zuckerberg needs a better editor. It could be streamlined a lot. He'd lost my attention by the second use of the word 'lightweight,' and I knew exactly what he meant.
Describe yourself as a programming object
I was looking at craigslist posting for a job and it asked me to program myself as a php class. I thought this was cool and wanted to see if any YCer's wanted to give it a try. Here is me:

<?php

class Auston {

function Auston(){
//basic stats
$age = 21;
$experience = 2.5;
$knowsajax = true;
$knowssemantichtml = true;
$knowscss = true;
$phone = '944-870-6259';
$email = 'auston.bsen@gal.cm';
}

function beCreative($input){
//Does defining myself as an object constitute creativity?
$output = $input.rand($ideas, $thoughts);
return $output;
}

function learn($skill, $language){
//I love learning new things
if(isset($skill)){
$relatedinfo = $query->google($skill);
$query->storeIntoDB($relatedinfo);
}
elseif(isset($language)){
$relatedinfo = $query->google($skill);
$query->storeIntoDB($relatedinfo);
$readbook = $buybook->fromborderson($relatedinfo);
$query->storeIntoDB($readbook);
}
else{
return false;
}
}

function multitask($arrayofupto5tasks){
//I can easily manage 3-5 small tasks
$i = 0;
foreach ($arrayofupto5tasks as $value){
$query->storeIntoDB($value);
$execute->task($arrayofupto5tasks[$i]);
$i++
}
}

function deliverProjectIn($time){
$deliverytime = $time/3;
$execute->projectIn($deliverytime);
//that was a joke
}

function beAtWorkBy($time){
$wakeup = $time+3600;
$drivetowork = $wakeup+1800;
$gettowork = $drivetowork+1800;
//that was a joke
}

function showDemo(){
$arrayofsites = array('http://www.nextmoveinc.com/ycomb/heom_demo.html ', 'http://www.investorscrystalball.com', 'http://www.expeditedtravel.com/call-center/index.html' );
$site = rand(0,2);
header('Location :'.$site.');
}

}

?>
I can't believe that he got press in the Financial Times after just 45 days.

He's developing buzz. It'll be interesting to see if he can carry that through to developing software that people want to use.
Even the best-written code can't reveal why it's doing what it's doing
Not so much because it is too difficult or a big deal, or anything like that.

I have found OSX to be more than an adequate operating system for efficiency while coding. Unless you have a fairly good reason to go with Linux (Ubuntu in your case), I don't see the motivation to do it. However, if I was getting a Dell, I would instantly go Linux for obvious reasons - I need to be running my dev stack on my local machine, remotely connecting won't cut it.
> It ended up breaking on me after a few months, so my screen wouldn't stay shut unless I squeezed it a bit where the little "hooks" drop down and sort of shook it a bit.

My friend had that and they fixed it for him in about an hour at the local apple store. Take it in since it is just a few months old, it will be covered for sure.