skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
What about negative versions? Grayscale? Transparent vs solid backgrounds? Logotypes usually have a different version for each of these situations.

It's too weird to have a meta tag that is only useful for websites with a white background. The narrow use case for this was solved years ago with the hcard micro format. We should be pushing microdata, not creating new niche standards.
Let's all move to a resource based economy
Thanks for explaining and for the examples. I would like to clarify that by 'practical advantage' I do not mean 'how does this help us write a web app' (although that would be nice), I mean 'how does this help us better understand programming'. In my experience, if you find that a problem admits a mathematical structure, but the structure is very simple, then often the structure does not lead to interesting insights -- it is just a form of taxonomy.

This happens for example in my field (theoretical physics), where some objects can be described in fancy ways using category theory. These descriptions do not lead to any practical results, like discovering new mathematical properties of the objects involved. Personally I do not find these descriptions gratifying because, again, they are just taxonomy.

There usually needs to be some minimal amount of mathematical structure (like group structure, manifold structure, etc.) in order to be able to say something new and non-trivial about the problem at hand.
You can daisy-chain two Thunderbolt monitors together (depending on what the host machine can support).
I've been very affected by this myself.

It happened the most while attempting to study research papers.

A lot of times I would be unable to finish reading what I had planned, because I had stumbled upon an interestingly-looking concept and then proceeded opening up another paper on that subject and so on.

And then, of course, having returned back to the original paper, I would have to re-start reading from beginning to freshen up my memory.

Terribly exhausting process, so I can perfectly understand your frustration.

The only solution I found was to un-clutter my computer 'work-space' as much as possible: close any non-essential apps, unplug internet cable and each time I have the urge to stop reading and go research a newly discovered subject, I remind myself that I am only allowed to do it after finishing what I'm currently reading.

Another helpful thing for me is to remind myself what I'm trying to accomplish with whatever I'm doing at that particular time and what my long-term goals are.

For instance, if I'm working on a project for a client, the goal is to get the work done as soon as possible and obviously get paid. I am not working on said project to primarily enrich my knowledge, but to make money.

I can use the time after the project is delivered to draw conclusions from the experience or do further research.

This may sound trivial, but it really does help to constantly remind yourself of what your goals are, it keeps you in check.

For extra effect, every time you have the urge to let your mind wander too much, try imagining the possible consequences of not completing your task (on time).

This can be particularly effective if you're doing client work. Imagine how embarrassing/unprofessional would have to explain to your client/employer that you won't be able to deliver on time because of something that you could've prevented.

Side-note: you have not provided enough info, but you may have obsessive-compulsive disorder, which is nothing to be ashamed of, but you can only 'solve' this with medication, so you would need to see a doctor.
I worked for many years in blue collar service industries. The sort shifts have more to do with ensuring that the workers don't get full health benefits, thereby driving the cost of each worker down for the company.
From the perspective of the American government, yes, he does. The only duty of the American government is to Americans. Indians have a country and a government to protect their interests. God knows nobody in India wakes up in the morning and asks: "what would be good for Americans?"

I'm not opposed to H1-B immigration as a principle (my father was an H1-B), but the only consideration should be how that immigration serves American interests.
My thought exactly. Quicksort for example has an average case of n log n, just like mergesort.

Also, Big-O notation can primarily be used to see how algorithms scale with larger datasets. Not to see which algorithm is faster. (Although in a lot of cases, the better O-notation algorithm is also the faster one.)
I can see various applications where third-party sites could enjoy the opportunity to reliably "pull" official logos that never get old, without having to duplicate/rehost/modify them and/or incur in trademark diatribes.

For example, a stock-trading website could have official logos near (or even replacing) stock tickers. "Log in with *" buttons could be dropped altogether, mandating websites to pull the official logo. And so on.

However, like every "machine-oriented" standard that promotes embedding, I can't help but feel there are security implications, something which might not be obvious now but will end up biting our ass 5 years down the line, when spammers and gangsters start exploiting some hole in the mechanism. Embedding untrusted images is already unsafe as it is, adding support for SVG looks even more unsafe.

EDIT: and as someone else mentioned, it makes phishing easier.
Does it help if I tell you that types form a semiring[0]?

Note that the natural numbers also form a semiring (with 0 as the additive identity and 1 as the multiplicative identity). The natural numbers can be embedded in the semiring of types, but they are a strict subset - there are types that don't correspond to natural numbers (which addressed the point on the great-grandparent post).

There's a great paper by Fiore and Leinster[1] called "Objects of Categories as Complex Numbers" which shows how you can treat elements of some semirings as complex numbers for the purposes of proving arithmetic statements about them, and then convert the proofs that use complex numbers into valid proofs in the semiring.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiring

[1] http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0212377
They don't send it all home, because otherwise they wouldn't be able to live here. besides, what is sent home often creates demands for American exports.

We have already paid anything there we had to, so they're sunk costs for non-immigrants.

...apart from the interest on the debt accrued in doing so.

Economics in one of those subject matters where vast swaths of it are only taken as real by some people in the field.

OK...and it's a lump of labor fallacy, not a lump of labor policy, and it is about as settled as anything gets in economics, having been called out as a fallacy in 1891 by DF Schloss. I defy you to find me any economic theoretician who believes int he notion of a 'lump of labor'. Even labor unions, traditionally the holdouts on this issue, have abandoned this position in recent years and accepted the importance of consumption as a factor of demand.
"I have several orders of magnitude fewer problems with Windows than most anyone I know."

Same experience here, on both my home and work machines that currently run Windows 7. I've found Windows 7 to be remarkably stable, but I've also had good experiences with all the other NT-based operating systems I've used: NT 3.51 and 4.0, Windows 2000 and XP (never used Vista). But I usually don't restart Windows except to install Windows updates every couple of weeks. My work machine runs continuously (with lots of third-party services like Tomcat, Apache HTTP and VNC) and my home machine gets hibernated when I'm not using it.
validation.pem is only used for the first self-registration of a node. It doesn't play any role later on.
Yes, and you will note I said "slightly faster CPU and GPU". The point is that the whole device is much more resource constrained, as what needs to be done with the CPU and GPU on the original iPad is more than on the iPhone 3GS, but the CPU and GPU are not faster enough to create the same effective performance.

Yes, raw performance may be better on the original iPad. But raw performance is irrelevant if you can't get the same effective performance for the user.
I'm curious what times you get with an iterative version, or at least using a LUT. As-is, this mostly benchmarks the stack (admittedly that is an interesting datapoint.)
> Everyone does this - it's not unique to Apple.

Definitely. Just look at the Android OEMs (HTC, Samsung, etc). They're always at an impasse to whether they should continue to update their devices to the latest Android version (and avoid angering customers) or stop updating to boost more new phone sales. On average though, it seems the assumption they can sell more devices seems to win out for Android OEMs than updating.

Most Android users have no idea what Android version they run (and what the latest version is) and I think the lack of being informed allows the Android OEMs to get away more often with not pushing updates. Android users figure out they need a new device when they realize they can't run a certain app or the apps they use no longer perform as well. Some probably also figure it out by comparing with friends' devices.

Only exception to the above really are Nexus devices since Google has no great vested interest really in selling more of them and benefits more from everyone having the latest Android version. Unfortunately, Google seems too worried if they pressure OEMs to push more updates in an assertive manner, they will suffer backlash from them.

edit: typos
Seconded. I've never experienced any of these issues. When I thought someone was wrong or off with my MBP, it turned out to be another piece of hardware or software.
I was never an Apple fan, and I've always tweaked even Windows. Likewise, I have tweaked my MBP here and there from a software standpoint, using tools build for it mostly though sometimes command line hacks.
I run brew, replaced native BSD tools like ls and grep with GNU versions, no issues.
It's a development machine as well, so it gets pretty punished.
Again, no issues, especially none OP was talking about.
I meant .5 N average thrust in the direction opposite the velocity vector. Energy would slowly be lost and the craft would remain in something very simar to circular orbit, ie. it would hit the surface at a near zero angle.
When I switched to Macs, I abandoned the concept of toggling maximization state altogether. Each window gets a workspace, and four fingers in a direction takes me back and forth, or shows me all windows. No toggling, no alt-tabbing, etc. I find this excessively more convenient, but as usual, YMMV.

P.S. I do agree the + button has absolutely inane behavior. I just like the workspace method more than I ever liked toggling maximization state, moving windows, and alt-tabbing.
The one thing I can think of that has effectively EOL-ed older iPhones is dropping support for ARM v6 codegen from recent versions of Xcode. It is not possible to build against the iOS 6 SDK (which is needed to access newer APIs) and support the 3G & below.

I'm no expert on compilers, but I find it hard to see how that isn't deliberate, or what other benefits it provides.
Now I know why Ferrari cars are overpriced!
What about something like sublime text 2? You can't really use it via a shell, so would you end up running in a full Ubuntu install anyways?
The sad thing is, this example, while ludicrous, is perfectly justifiable, at certain scales. If that town is, say a big one on the East coast, your two hours (or even half a day, or whole day!) are little loss compared to the savings that will occur from the analysis. Hell, your hypothetical "curious person" would be well worth the investment of a six figure salary for the city!

That being said, I guess it depends on what results these random maunderings produce, and it's probably a crapshoot as to whether they are more often than not to result in favorable outcomes. Also, I like your example (obviously :)
I myself am rarely in Finder (or Spotlight, for that matter). Alfred (https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/alfred/id405843582?mt=12) has been an absolute dream. I find every program, file, and everything else through Alfred, with just a few keystrokes and fuzzy search. My OS wouldn't be the same without it.
It's not only sort. Any loop with function calls inside can be a source of runaway complexity.
Now we just need a way to connect sublime text 2 or 3 directly to the chrome-console, so that when you edit files in sublime, they are magically used instantly without page refresh - now that would be bliss....
You can also do cmd-tab and hold alt before letting go of the cmd. Let go of alt last and the minimised window comes back.
Actually when Apple dropped the 1.4mb floppy the Zip Drive was becoming popular which was before the USB thumb drive was popular. And now people rarely use thumb drives and instead use Dropbox, Box.net, Skydrive or Google Drive. Maybe it was partly due to aesthetics, but it was also looking at how the average file for many documents (photos, videos, etc) are generally bigger than 1.4mb. It was a good choice. I use to own the early iMacs. I worked on them quite a bit actually. They were great.
Addiction to stress is kind of a real thing. It takes a complete stripping away of the mentality that most people have to see it for what it is. The managerial class is also put through the paces in Corporate America. I've seen this first hand. Unless you are a C-level executive, there is always someone using the veiled threat of job loss to keep you in line.

The tech world has some problems, but compared to the work environments that the rest of the country is experiencing, it's Shangri-La.

I wish that all of the country (world, really) would be able to exercise control over their destinies as easily as we can. The mindset and the skills together are a great gift. Never cease to be grateful.
From the cursory glance at landing page, I cannot really tell how does it work or what it is from user's PoV. Is it an RSS feed? An email digest? RSS-to-social-media feed converter?

It could really use a more specific description, and maybe a diagram too.
I barely made it out of HS and have no further degree

and yet, with a CISCO certification I had no trouble getting plenty of job offers

I decided to change job tracks and focused on front end engineering and got hired at Yahoo! (after 7 rounds of grueling interviews including a coding interview).

I really think you are over stating the importance of a degree
"Perfect is the enemy of good" perhaps could (should?) be rephrased as "Perfect is the enemy of done."
I agree that HN is important to YC's branding - I just don't think it is the primary reason for HN's existence.
I'm extremely confused by one detail. I'd like to know, what would be the point of describing oneself as a "Juror" or "former Juror"? Is there a particular court case involved with this story that I've missed a reference to? Is it some kind of slang in intelligence circles?
They can't be serious if they don't provide a cheat sheet - a page worth of notations for common algorithms demonstrating how to use the thing and how it's superior.

Here in the real world we don't have time to read a 800+ pages book on a subject promising to bring marginal productivity benefits. Me, I'd better read some fiction instead. It's so much better for your soul than any CS topic.
I don't really understand the purpose of this. How is it different from the subscribe bookmarklet provided by Google Reader?
An Oracle NULL/Blank gotcha when coming from SQL Server
Measuring programmer productivity, as in long-term impact, is much harder than measuring how many hours Programmer X sits at their desk or how many lines of code they can spit out in a day. Those are metrics that other programmers notice after maintaining code that previous programmers leave behind. It's always going to be a delayed reaction.
The 256shadesofgray.com website is currently work in progress. There will be more details and stuff there soon.

Video of the 256 Shades of Gray machine in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOXzD_7pL4M&list=PLA329EE...
It's a button. Maybe you could have clicked on it :)
see also:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5037694

and later:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5039241
What if one does not use Google Reader?
Now there's a use for some of the cash hoard: finance Tesla's expansion to millions of cars/year.
Very nice. Btw, you should use capital letters to separate the words in the name.

Like this: SubToMe

Otherwise I read it as "sub-tome".
You're right, Jiggy. For a lot of jobs, it's about coverage and service, being able to fill the hole and be familiar with the situation. Training new people to be effective is more difficult than it seems in any job; four or five hours makes it even more difficult.
> This means if you have a program capable of tunneling into the iOS file-system through USB, you can once again have a working version of MAME on a non-jailbroken device

What kind of program would I have that is capable of tunneling into the iOS file-system through USB?
Right, but how big is the market for low spec laptop with good design? As you have pointed out, it may have trouble running Windows which excludes the vast majority of users right here and there. It might work well in conjunction with Ubuntu et al., but that would require some non-trivial marketing effort from Canonical to create some demand for "premium netbook" niche.

However, given the success of Chrome OS, it might not be that difficult, actually.
Good idea. We are also looking for a logo that could work well. Any idea?
"Read some product reviews on Amazon and you'll notice most of them are written within days of purchasing the product."

And it's really depressing to see just how many of these reviews say that the product stopped working within days of being purchased!
You should apply for the upcoming YC batch with this project...that would be so meta.
Okay I was unclear, let me try this again. pilif made an argument about times changing that you have not countered. You need something like that but modern. Stuxnet is too different of a beast to support you.
The only reason to have 9 to 5 environments in our field is simply to have everyone communicating at the same time. An office can be anywhere for us, not just a leased office. This is a luxury that most workers will never know.
http://www.macroplant.com/iexplorer/ or http://i-funbox.com, for example.
So nice for building phishing website :)
I believe iTools is the one that is recommended:

http://www.itools.ru/
iFunbox is a free one.
The font size weirdness is really only an issue on some sites, most notably Reddit. They are treating it as a "known issue", not a "feature". You can go vote (or whatever) for its resolution here: http://support.google.com/chrome/bin/static.py?hl=en&pag...
I tried to ditch the Mac for Ubuntu last year sometime, and that second half turned out to be a total deal-killer for me.
Ask HN: Principle of Least Privilege in Rails?
Hello, I'm still flushing out a migration from php to rails and was wondering about security practice of "principle of least privilege"

In php we ran apache under apache:www, we had a deploy user called deploy. All files/folders would be deploy:deploy for ownership. Whenever an application required write access to a file or folder (like logs, user uploads, caches, etc) we would `chmod g+w some_file_or_dir` and `chgrp www some_file_or_dir` The idea being you strictly control what is written should someone exploit apache/your web app.

I was able to set this up with Passenger by specifying `PassengerDefaultUser apache` and `PassengerDefaultGroup www` after disabling user switching. Again we are not hosting other agency's, all apps are owned by us hence our single deploy user. I also set /var/www/.passenger folder to be owned by www. Finally for all the rails apps I had to set the group to www for the logs folder. If there were some file uploads I set www to that folder as well.

I'm a developer first and foremost and don't claim to be a system admin, this was just a practice they beat into me over the years of php dev.

Does anyone do a setup similar to this? Would this have limited the recent YAML exploit?

Is this a valid practice or being overly concerned, thoughts?

I have not looked into this for unicorn based deployments like rbenv/37signals suggests and I believe github/twitter also use unicorn. I started with passenger since that was a similar setup to php/apache vs nginx/unicorn
Kickstarter's terms of use explicitly say you can't Kickstart a Kickstarter competitor on Kickstarter. I wonder if YC would accelerate another accelerator?
Exactly this devotion makes us Germans think people become a better politician when getting an academic title, having the devotion to make this world a better place by science might include devotion to make a better society by good politics.
The one flaw is lack of a persistent, multiple-line JS editor in the Console. I will boot FireBug just to use that.
They could just buy them outright. Even if they pay cash, it will take a percentage point or two out of their reserves.
Actually, continually providing upgrades to older iPhones is a wonderful way to push new hardware sales: the upgrades significantly degrade the user experience because the hardware isn't as capable.
> With Chef you have to maintain additional services like CouchDB and RabbitMQ.

And care about a lot of dependencies. Installing chef-server on a fresh ubuntu quantal:

0 upgraded, 444 newly installed, 0 to remove and 58 not upgraded.
Need to get 280 MB of archives.
After this operation, 775 MB of additional disk space will be used.

Of course a lot of that is due to how ubuntu packages java, but still... that's quite a lot of software to care about.
The excellent iOS support matrix makes the decision more obvious: http://www.flickr.com/photos/89549358@N02/8454676411/sizes/l... As you can see, the geekbench score for the iPad is indeed higher than the 3GS but the 256MB system memory coupled with the display size likely meant performance wasn't acceptable. Since there's no paging on iOS, Apps are killed when they consume too much memory. Since the iPad already has less system memory available (because more is being used for graphics) it would lead to instability in existing Apps, and be harder to support.
Shameless plug, my toy project is integrating the WebKit debugger with Emacs: https://github.com/jscheid/kite

Live editing (or "hot swapping" as it's called in the article) is my main, long-term objective. I can only devote so much time to it, and it's not as far along as I would like it to be. But, getting there... do take a look at the other branch if you're curious.
Agree with most of what you said except "Apple's eschewed this option approximately forever".

Siri for only iPhone 4S when iPhone 4 hardware could support it was one chink in their impecable reputation for supporting older hardware as long as possible.
Have an upvote. I will take that as agreement with my basic point that homeschooling is not some perfect, idyllic solution and all the world would be a better place if we ensured that parents had near total control of what their kids learned by doing away with all other options, like public school and private school.
Mars Panorama - Curiosity Rover's Self Portrait
Dropping support is usually deliberate but not malicious. In this case, I suspect it was one less toolchain to maintain and run QA on for each release.
Sure, but my point is an H1B is better than nothing.
> (That said, I can see another problem in cases such as this: what if some of the "volunteering lawyers" are set by the government?).

My IANAL guess is that they would still be bound by client/attorney privilege, and they'd be committing a crime if they violated that.
The real way to free Wi-Fi
It be great to query the api/a directory site to find out alternate versions or perhaps usage guidelines for the logo. Then each provider/company can have a canonical method for people to use their brand.

… its a cool idea, but somewhat floored when put into actual use.