skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
So, in mobile handsets there are three types of GPS. Standalone, mobile based, and mobile assisted.

Standalone is the type of GPS you are referring to where the phone uses only the onboard GPS receiver. This type of fix is slow and generally does not work indoors. It also uses a lot of power. When you get a fix, it's usually pretty accurate, but you don't often get one. Generally only iDen (Nextel phones) support this.

Mobile assisted fixes are where the phone gathers all the data it can (GPS satellite signals it can see, current cell tower and signal strength, etc) and sends it to a computer run by the carrier that does the actual math. This type of fix is really fast, usually works indoors with good accuracy and uses the least battery. It is however more expensive for the carrier computationally.

Mobile based fixes are when the phone uses almanac data from the carrier (which GPS satelites should be visible, the location of the current cell tower, etc) to calculate the phone's position. It only asks the carrier for new information every few hours. This type of fix is reasonably fast, frequently works indoors, and is fairly accurate.

Finally there is cell tower information which works instantly and is almost never acceptably accurate. It is not related to GPS at all.

Loopt uses whatever is available in order of accuracy. We prefer mobile based and assisted fixes (available on almost all CDMA devices released in the past 2-3 years), and fall back to standalone GPS and cell tower only when necesssary.

Users who mainly get cell tower fixes are usually not satisfied with the accuracy. We do our best to do better than cell tower, and so far have not released on any devices that only support cell tower.

I hope that clarifies things a little.
amen to that. one might say they've prematurely optimized on what is interesting about computation, before we had enough practical experience to really know.
Nearly all CDMA phones sold in the US today support Mobile based and assisted fixes from applications.
Well if the guy would use Reddit he'd have all the LOLCATs he needs.
JavaScript shortcut notations
What If They Gave a Browser War and Microsoft Never Came?
I think he can take our dislike looking at his bank account..
If I understand his last statement correctly, he says don't look for anything in particular, just keep searching.
11 Tips on Hiring a Rails Developer
Okay, apparently I didn't quite think this one through. I wasn't claiming that GHC memoizes values, but it does memoize thunks. I thought this algorithm would be getting some benefit from that, but having inserted some trace statements, I was apparently wrong.

Here's a version that really is memoized:

import Control.Parallel
import Control.Monad
import Text.Printf

cutoff = 35
fibs = [ fib n | n <- [0..] ]

fib' :: Int -> Integer
fib' 0 = 0
fib' 1 = 1
fib' n = fibs !! (n-1) + fibs !! (n-2)

fib :: Int -> Integer
fib n | n < cutoff = fib' n
| otherwise = r `par` (l `seq` l + r)
where
l = fibs !! (n-1)
r = fibs !! (n-2)

main = forM_ [0..45] $ \i ->
printf "n=%d => %d\n" i (fib i)
I doubt that "with consciousness, we have experiences". I think consciousness is only an illusion.

OK, try to name at least something you consider an aspect of consciousness? I already don't have a clue again what we are even talking about. What is "consciousness" supposed to mean?
This post is misleading. Facebook doesn't claim to own materials you post. They have a non-exclusive license to do anything they want with it that expires immediately when you remove the content from the site.
Facebook has changed so much since then.
This comment reminds me of the time there were two defence related stories in The Daily Telegraph.

Story #1: in approx 10 years time the Royal Navy will have no aircraft carriers, due to procurement failures, and for the first time since WW2 the UK will be unable to project air power around the globe.

Story #2: British Army soldiers have been issued special underpants for war zones.

They ran in the same week. Which do you think was put at the front of the newspaper with a large billing, and which was slipped in as a note on page 25? You get one guess.
"But the rock doesn't exert itself as a result of all this "thinking.""

What, and we do?

"How could the ineffable experience of tasting a strawberry ever arise from the equations of physics?"

Physics, as applied here, is not subject to intuition.

Confused arguments for and against, but I find myself considering the idea more than I had before.
Thanks for this. I am always wondering how far away I am from being a "real" Rails developer -- programming is a longtime hobby for me, and I love Rails and maybe would like to one day build stuff in it for a living. Number 6 on the list is especially encouraging, and numbers 4 and 5 give me some nice to-do's.
Why Twitter is Inane
A classic UW grad - suggests that a university degree is not required, but drops in that he just happened to graduate from "Canada's highly-regarded Math/CS program at Waterloo". I suppose it is now only appropriate I say I also am graduate.

I have to agree with him that a university degree is not required - but I would still interview a UW grad above a few other candidates. My reasoning? I know much of the basic algorithm, design and other fundamentals will have a higher chance of being there than someone who is entirely self taught. University forces you to learn things that don't necessarily meet your exact interests - but that graph algorithm you didn't really enjoy but learned could come in handy next time you are writing a google maps mashup hack.

Edit: I also forgot to mention a huge indicator among my peers is pet projects. The good developers are always working on something (a lot of android apps lately), and the bad developers aren't.
Panpsychism may be easier to parody than to refute.

Much like Santa.

The possibility of mind-bits floating around does not explain why the nervous system (which, at its earliest, has a well-understood and insensate habit of food-gathering) would have more than its fair share of mind-bits.

We do understand how silicon, germanium, copper, etc, turn into a machine having something similar to thought processes, and these processes are 100 percent detached from the originating materials.
"A personal rails blog is required."

Not only would you be excluding 99% of the population, you'd be self selecting those who have the time to blog. If you want the best, you have to understand that they're already working. And quite possibly, too busy to blog.
Most likely, this'll sit in Google Labs for all eternity, just like all of the other random and only semi-useful trinkets.
Firefox of media players with CoverFlow via Flex or Java (video)
Yes .. its worth 40$ a month. I'm a student. But i'll ignore them.
#5 might counters #8

"but several of the best Rails developers I know didn't study computer science at all"

That's because Rails developers were previously PHP developers were previously "Web Designer" or "Graduate from school but interested in Web Development due to DotCom"

"First, Rails developers need their MacBook Pros and fat external screens, obviously"

I thought Ruby = type less more magics? Why would you need a fat external screens (like those 30" Mac Monitor).
On the employee side, is it worth learning RoR just to get a job? I haven't had much luck finding a Python job.
Even if they back down, my opinion of Facebook is much reduced because they implemented this. How could anyone have thought this was a good idea for users?
I love Twitter (mattc58) regardless of what it says about my apparent ego and anti-privacy fetishes.
The second screen is to have the api docs (and a PDF of AWDWR) open, since you won't have code-completion to remind you of the appropriate magic to type.

Not that I mind this arrangement, personally.
Ah, now I see where I've seen stuff like this! It's similar to iminlikewithyou! ;)
WebDAV and SVN Autoversioning
Consciousness is not an experience of something. It's the experience itself. So it doesn't have qualities--it IS qualities. It's not red, it's what it's like to see red. It's the immediate (no intermediary) subjective happenings of your conscious mind. I can't point you to it because my pointing is a view presented to you in consciousness.

It's not mystical or anything. In fact, it requires less faith than anything else -- it's all you've ever known directly. You could be living in the real world or in the Matrix, it doesn't matter. Either way, consciousness doesn't change, just the contents of consciousness.
Facebook's Beacon spoils Christmas present surprises
Komodo, Eclipse and NetBeans have the ability to code-complete don't they?

I remember when I used PyDev (Eclipse plugin for Python) and it works pretty well.
> One solution proposed for this lack of vision is that of renaming the subject to "informatics."

Renaming doesn't create visions but it should be noted that this is the usual term in French, German, Italian, Norwegian etc.
How could the processes be detached from the materials, if their 'unfolding' is determined[1] by their physical properties? And how would those processes manifest without materials? Can there be consciousness without physical manifestation?

[1] I'm ignoring open questions about determinism in physics since computers as we know them don't depend on that stuff.
I think consciousness is only an illusion.

How do you call the ability to have illusions, then?
OSGi on Google Android using Apache Felix
This goes hand in hand with this:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=78739 (Bipolar Lisp Programmers, or "Brilliant Failures")

I found this article two weeks ago:

http://nymag.com/news/features/27840/

It references the SciAm article, and was written to be more accessible.

Thanks for posting the Scientific American one. I had been keeping my eyes open for that one.
Short-term job: maybe

Long-term job: I doubt it (small chances)

If you want to have a web-dev job, PHP should be good enough seeing that most web-consulting companies will pick either Wordpress, Wikimedia, Joomla/Mambo, and Drupal to get the job done.
Well, why do you think nobody has defined consciousness properly so far, then?
Rules in general are the epitome of arbitrary barriers.
Either Crick or Watson said, "if you want intelligent children, marry an intelligent woman."
Thrudb: Document Oriented Database Services (built on top of Facebook's Thrift platform)
Found a bug when dieing at the end of the 2nd bonus stage right when time ran out.

The screen kept scrolling to the left without starting the next life.

I think the flow was die and have time run out while you are dead but before you restarted.
This is a pretty narrow list of things to look for in a Rails developer. Isn't it more prudent to find a smart developer who has a wide range of interests? Smart developers such as that would surely be able to do the job well.
Good area to work/live in?
http://www.walkscore.com

A nice way to quickly see what is around a new job or place to live.

My office rating: 82/100
I agree except in the "too busy too blog".
I'd say blogging helps you be concetrated on what you are working on. While writting about it you rethink your choices etc.

It's also not that time consuming, if you are not doing it every single second that is...
Information processing.
Because there is no point, it is not a meaningful concept.
Mygetgo.com - fully customisable home or start pages where YOU decide on the content, and the look
"It's the immediate (no intermediary) subjective happenings of your conscious mind."

Circular definition, doesn't work.

So it is neurons firing, fine. I just don't know why we need entire research departments and conferences for that.

Or do you mean it is creating a model of the perceived world? Computers can do that without a problem (quality of the model is a different matter).

Does it puzzle people in the same way how computer chips can process information? Why not? (I am not talking about algorithms or electronics - those are interesting)
Isn't this Unicode support? Something that has been somewhat lacking in Ruby but present in Python.

Technically it shouldn't be a problem, it's just a matter of getting translators :)
Part of it depends on the language and framework that you're using. Not to start a flame war, just pointing out a simple fact: RoR doesn't handled i10n and l8n nearly as well as Python/Django does, for instance. If your language doesn't support Unicode strings well, you're kinda screwed when it comes to setting up your site in Russian.

I agree, though. We in American startups tend to be rather myopic when it comes to different languages and cultures.
So make the subdomain cn.octopart.com, and tell them to suck it! ;-)
Common Lisp at ITA
"Be wary of holes in proficiency. Rails developers should be fearless. Its reasonable to expect them to have a command of everything from database indices to cross-platform JavaScript. (Bonus points if they are handy in Photoshop and Illustrator.)"

-- This is pretty retarded. While most decent developers have toyed around with lots of technologies, it takes a lot of work and time to know one in depth. Anybody that claimes that knows everything:

1. Usually are jack of all trades but master of none. Basically they have mocked around with everything, but they are pretty mediocre and never had the chance to involve in a technology in great depths.

2.Are the "heroic" types, the especially young ones that have played or mocked around with certain technologies, and the "claim" they know them. This is more a naive interpratation of being familiar with a technology is the same as knowing it, and this guys are about a rude-awekening when they actually have to do something serious on their technologies they "know".

Yes, I mocked around with photoshop/firwork, but I am not a good designer, I have done some PHP work, but I am not good at it, I have designed some databases, but I am not that knowlageble person to know everything at least I admit it.

Be wary of people that don't admit they weakness, but appear to "know everything"
3G iPhone Expected in 2008; Corporate E-Mail Client to Soon Follow?
AT&T's CEO has announced that the company will offer a 3G iPhone next year, bring the device one step closer to becoming a viable business device. This article ask whether or not a corporate e-mail client for the iPhone is on the horizon.
> previously PHP developers

A lot of people fled from Java and its verbosity, as well. Rails is really a sweet spot in the sense of using a language that doesn't feel like such a drag, yet also being fairly structured, well ordered, and with a culture that places some value on writing good code.
RoR is the new Java so it may be useful to at least know it.
> By keeping mum, you also lose the scare effect, though OTOH that might keep the "I'll just create a bunch of accounts" folks down.

Exactly: if someone is making consistently bad flaggings on one account, you don't want to tip them off and have them flee to a new account.

> A third risk is that legitimate marks no longer get made because the potential marker doesn't want to risk the ban. However, if the ban is ONLY on the use of the mark as inappropriate button and not for anything else, then I doubt it would actively scare users.

You'll note that my proposal does not include a ban of anything, not even the "mark as inappropriate" button. I just suggest letting the bad users keep putting in their bad ratings, and using that information in the opposite manner as they intended.

You could even have some sort of Bayesian (naive or Markovian, depending on your computing resources and scaling needs) classifier set up to see what words or phrases in a post make any given user more likely to mis-rate. Then you could separate out a user's probably-bad ratings from their probably-good ones.
Lisp in a box - start quickly
http://gigamonkeys.com/lispbox/

Interested in learning lisp, or need to get started quickly? Check it out, quite a few people have said it helped them out.
We use twitter for actual work. :-)

A cron script monitors site availability. If the site is down, it uses twitter to IM or SMS us. :-)
Cool 1550 Crystal Drive Arlington VA 22202 = 85 ;) Not bad for the east cost IMO.

Granted, I walk to work and my home address is only 77 so it's a little off. Hmm, it looks like it's missing a lot of stores and a mall so it's not that bad.
Ever tried exercising 1Hr+ per day during the working week? Every day?

Yes, and I drove 35 minutes each way to do it. It was great, but it consumed most of my free time. The time I didn't spend working out was spent eating and cleaning. I didn't any weight to lose really (lost maybe 5-10 lbs), but turned a lot of fat into muscle. Coupled with Yoga, stretching, and a balanced diet problems I'd had in the past with aches, fidgeting, and circulation went away. (it was an ~80% cardio routine, burning 800-900 calories per workout).

Incidentally, based on what I'm reading from the article, the Yoga probably counteracts the sitting problems somewhat. Holding yourself erect and breathing regularly even while seated probably is more like standing.

Also, I notice an enormous difference in my ability to sleep based on how active I was during the day. If I spent 90% of the day sitting down, I have all kinds of trouble, even if that 10% was a decent workout. The workout helps, but spending all day walking around the city makes it really easy to fall asleep.
Bicycles with sick soundsystems
If your goal is only to reduce weight, reducing calorie intake works. Losing weight is a giant red herring anyway, though. A lot of people that say that want to lose weight really just want to be more healthy and fit. They don't want to be lugging around a sack of fat all day long.

In any case, I've found it far easier to manage my calorie intake when I have an extra 1000 calories/day to work with. For people who just eat because they have to, that might work. But I love food, and I think most people do as well.
Another thing to bear in mind, and it's so difficult because of parental pride, is that precocity is not a virtue. In fact, those who feel like they're "prodigies" or "gifted" more often fall into the trap described here. I know I did.

Parents are made to feel like there's a scorecard -- that your child should walk, talk and read by so many months. That can be useful to identify learning disabilities, but it otherwise is not helpful. There's no causal influence between someone being a late talker, early reader or whatever and being better at anything at age 12 or 16. There is a correlation, as you'd expect, but it's not like kids are losing something if they're "late" to develop skills. Growing up is a marathon, not a sprint to an age of three (or five, or nine) when everything sets like Jell-O.

Malcolm Gladwell has a great lecture about how our exaggerated interest in prodigies leads to erroneous assumptions about achievement. Here's a summary:

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?...
That's the second wave :). The first wave was pretty much PHP and web designers.

I agree Ruby is a cool language with all the features you mentioned.

While it may be true that the culture in Ruby world is to "write good code", I kind of doubt that statement in the real world. Probably only a handful of Rails developers that actually stay true to that culture. The rest just want their share of web 2.0 fame.

Sorry if I'm being skeptical. Maybe cause I saw a lot of Rails blogs that don't reflect the Ruby/Rails culture.
The walk score for my home was only 30, and I walk everywhere. I don't even own a car. So, the score is not meaningful.
This is a SciAm article about praising kids for intelligence vs. praising for hard work:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=84655

Net result: kids praised for their intelligence tend to look for things that are easy or to appear smart. Challenges and mistakes often de-motiviate these kids. "Smart"-oriented kids tend to have an attitude where intelligence is a fixed, natural attribute and being able to accomplish something easily is a sign of natural intelligence. "Growth"-oriented kids tend to have an attitude that intelligence can grow and that challenges and mistakes are opportunities to learn. These kids tend to relish challenges, often getting even more excited over difficult problems.

I think that sums up LISP and C with regards to the brilliantly unaccomplished.

Being able to trivially do something in LISP that is difficult in C is good ... yet for someone who relishes a challenge, what does that mean to find a really hard problem in LISP that is nearly impossible in C?
I completely understand why you'd interview a UW grad above other candidates. You have to make an intial cut somewhere, right?

As a high school dropout, I hate having to compete against those with diplomas. But I guess that's what I get for dropping out.
Lived in Clarendon for years... In general, Arlington is a great city/county for walking (Driving on the other hand...)
Timeline of a startup bought by Mickey Mouse
And how do we find a good rails freelancer?
Is it just me or are we about to see a new 5 cent an hour job crop up with 100,000 idian workers propping sites up. SEO 2.0 ..... Well if it ever comes to be that is.
Unless you work where I work...

2120 Washington Blvd, Arlington, VA = 54
The biggest problem in the field is still that most universities don't offer separate Computer Science and Software Engineering majors. While there is substantial overlap, those are two distinct fields. It's much like the relationship between Physics and Mechanical Engineering. The IEEE is doing some good work to establish a standard curriculum for Software Engineering and get it implemented at more schools. That would provide a more attractive option to students who want to create software but don't enjoy the theoretical and mathematical side as much.
Hmm... The area I live in Columbus, OH has a 80/100! Though some of the information is outdated, I saw two stores - one pharmacy and one hardware store that closed down some time ago that might have thrown the score off...
"users get 217 free texts and 43 voice-call minutes"

Would you limit yourself to this?
Why is this supposed to be funny?
I don't think thats skeptical. Probably realistic. Rails is the new VB (maybe).
I hope not. The mathematical aspects are about to get a whole lot more important to us.
Do these guys really help? (helping to raise capital)
Here at Pikluk (http://pikluk.com) We are in the process of finalizing our business plan and trying to get funded.

I was wondering if any of you guys had any experience dealing with sites like http://www.fundingpost.com and http://www.gobignetwork.com

They all want you to pay to submit a "company profile", not much - hundreds (at least not thousands) of dollars.

But I am wondering - are they for real? I have never heard of any company that got funded this way.
Search for images by Colors
A fiendishly clever tool for searching though databases of phones, and sorting by the right color combinations
Cool idea, but I agree that the implementation needs work. The score for my office is 68, but it is really not walkable at all. Whereas the score for my home is only a 62, but I never need to use a car at home.
http://datejs.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/src/
there are 2 versions of each file. The one named file-debug.js contains the non-minified version
My current job (until 12/21): 3 out of 100
And, my new job (on 1/7): 91 out of 100

That about sums up my oppinion of both places too...
Walk Score: 98 out of 100

49th st, New York, NY 10019
I run a django shop, and my technique for hiring is finding people who preferably have had freelancer experience (know how to get something out the door), know a little (preferably a ton) of bash, actively learn new things, are up on the latest stuff (i should be able to have a conversation about js kits with them), and when i explain the advantages of django to them they show an understanding of Why it is so cool. Python or django is not 'required'.. i can ramp them up on that with lots of little tasks at first.

A big plus is being a unix nerd.
Cool idea, but boy you don't want to depend on Twitter being alive.