skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I agree with your advice to "Descend the rabbit holes!" but feel it needs a little more context. The real question here is not 'should I descend rabbit holes?' but rather how often or when.

If you are building something, you inevitably spend some part of your time writing code that is familiar and boring (let's call this WORK), and part of your time exploring unfamiliar code and concepts (RABBIT HOLES).

Going down rabbit holes is not work, it is a form of learning - in fact, in the world of software development it is the best form of learning because you have a highly relevant problem and supreme motivation to solve it.

At the end of the day, however, going down a rabbit hole is no different than reading a book, or articles on HN. It is not actually work, and fooling yourself otherwise leads to the blurring of what is work and what is learning.

You should always be learning, as much as you can. But you must be honest with yourself, there is probably more work to be done, and you can't possibly get on with it until you pull yourself out of the rabbit hole.
Git Tips from the Pros
I've only played around with Haskell and NLP (using this guide, actually), but functional languages are a very nice fit for natural language processing, which often involves pipelining text (in the form of arrays or lists of characters) from function to function (tokenization->tagging->chunking->extraction). This fits the functional paradigm very well. I really like using NLTK (Python) but if I were more comfortable in Haskell and if Haskell had better NLP libraries, I'd probably switch to Haskell because it's a natural fit for NLP. But I have to agree with your assessment of monads...I've been learning Haskell on and off for over a year and I'm still shaky on monads. I'm still hoping I will eventually experience that same moment of epiphany with monads that I did with recursions when I first started programming.
Don’t Use Facebook to Threaten a Cop
I tend to agree. When Latin translation was first introduced by Google in 2010, the first words of "lorem ipsum" then translated to "Hello World!"

I thought it was an Easter egg at the time, as that seems more specific to programming languages - something a developer might deliberately place in there.
This Latest Google Now Ad Has Me Hating Siri
Largely content-free, the actual article by Kwak was submitted and discussed extensively here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5198187
>I am not interested in spending weeks and weeks learning how to do quality web design

Personally, I think it takes years.
I don't believe carriers are in any way required to do that. They could stop doing it at any point.
While I'm of the opinion that tinkering away with a Raspberry Pi is inherently a great thing, developing for a minimalistic piece of nearly open source hardware running an open source OS using software as bloated and proprietary as Visual Studio really rubs me the wrong way.
Under the bus - IT comic
America's embarrassingly redundant and entangled cyber security complex
Free startup idea: Like segmentation
There's no space in your world for small talk and chatter then?

You're missing out.

Not that you're missing out by not watching tv, that's pretty irrelevant, but your attitude there is pretty judgemental.
The most amazing video gaming room I've ever seen...
Yep, I've heard that they made dozens of games before Angry Birds took off. I would like to think that this shows the sort of long-term view the government R&D grants can give you.

Which VC would let you continue after, say, ten failed products?

note: I have no info on whether this is the case for Rovio, but I know the government has been trying to support / set up the Finnish game industry cluster for around ten years, and now with Rovio and Supercell that is finally starting to pay off.
Obama CTO Harper Reed on Keeping Sane in a High-Pressure Environment
Show HN: I'm 14 and this is my Meteor App: Songs About Me
It's all about who you know if you have no talent, or are decidedly average. If you are better than that, then who you know, while it still matters, doesn't matter as much.
Google’s Feed Reading Service Unusable Since Sunday
Thank you! When you get around the checking it out please let me know what you think, I'd love any feedback.
I can tell you from experience that small businesses, and to some extent medium businesses, have nowhere near the same problems as what I would traditionally consider enterprises. Being in an office of 200 people versus 1500 people leads to different problems. I'd probably take a second look at what your target really is.
In fact, that purely depends on your goals. If you're just tinkering around, the text editor or something simple like CodeBlocks or KDevelop is probably fine.
If you are doing a bigger project where productivity becomes a must and spending time on doing the same routine things over and over becomes annoying - an IDE as powerful as Visual Studio can be a really good investment...
Definitely need a clarification.

By comparison, Supercell which has the #1 top grossing app (Clash of Clans) and #4 top grossing app (Hay Day) was reported to have $15M in gross monthly revenue, which is far less than Vesterbacka's statement about Rovio, but closer in line with Rovio's Finnish filing.

Angry Birds Star Wars is currently #46.

Maybe the merchandise and licensing is where the money is at?
Finally an honest "I built this in X time." Gratz. What does it do? I waited a bit for it to finish loading on my phone then gave up. Unless you hit me with an immediate "this is the problem solved" I generally don't spend much time on pages.
I've thought about this a lot myself.

The language issue ultimately leads you to conclude that we need a browser with a built-in VM, rather than a built-in scripting language. It makes so much more sense, as a clean and elegant solution.

"I know! I'll make my own new browser with an embedded VM and newer cleaner APIs, and revolutionize the web! It'll be amazing, allowing native-like performance from the browser. WebGL will finally achieve performance feasible for high quality games, the need for full native apps would be tremendously diminished, etc. etc."

JVM is a well known example of a cross-platform VM, which tried to enter the browser via Applets. I think Java Applets failed because they were slow, ugly, clunky, and usually looked horrible and disturbed the web experience. Kind of like flash ads, but worse.

Microsoft Silverlight is kind of similar, but using the CLI rather than the JVM. As a plugin, it still wasn't seamless. And it had cross platform compatibility issues (not a fault of the CLI though).

The GUI issue (bloated DOM, hacky HTML/CSS) leads me to conclude that we need a new API stack for rendering GUIs that satisfies both web and application use cases without massively sacrificing memory and performance like the DOM seems to excel at.

But here's the thing:

Creating a new browser with a new VM and new GUI stack, all from scratch, is almost an insane undertaking. Sure, it's one I could almost see myself trying (being a perfectionist ADHD OCD coder) as a hobby, but I know better than that if I want to actually ship anything.

Ideally, I'd like to see some day a kind of "Mono Browser" - a browser that basically runs CLI code "scripts" in an otherwise traditional HTML/CSS stack for backwards compatibility. But the primary feature would be a new GUI stack completely disjoint from HTML/CSS for people who want to create blazingly fast and native-like snappy UIs.

It's fairly critical though to expose this new GUI stack, because otherwise it's just CLI-scripting-in-the-browser. CLI in a regular browser would be great IMO, but not a significant enough change for end-users to upgrade to the browser. Moreover, such a API stack would be extremely useful for cross-platform developers even of native apps. It would essentially compete with web-based cross platform frameworks like PhoneGap, and native ones like QT (though QT IMO is ugly and old fashioned vs web rendering).

So a great deal of work lies ahead in creating this GUI stack. This is something I'm kind of intermittently working on in my spare time. Unfortunately I'm usually kept quite busy on research work towards a PHD, but now and then I make a little progress. But if you know of others working on something similar, feel free to point me in that direction to collaborate.
You could easily have checked this yourself: https://github.com/textmate/textmate

One click. Fork. Done.

As has been adequately demonstrated: TextMate 2, as it stands today, is and shall remain open source. Anyone can compile it or fork it at any time. Furthermore, as it's licensed under GPL3, MacroMates is legally bound to leave the current code open source, and allow anyone to compile and distribute it freely.

Now, if MacroMates decides to create value-added services on top of the GPL3 distribution, and charge for it, it does not in any way make it less an open source project.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/burnette/gplv3-myth2-you-cant-mix-...
> “Half-decent”. Is this what you want to output? To be known for? I can’t understand why, if you have an ounce of pride, you’d not want everything you release to be the best you could do?

Sometimes the software is a means to an end. I've made small utility web apps for clients before, and throwing Bootstrap in improves the experience of the site without taking more than a few minutes of time (which the client pays for). Spending time customizing Bootstrap or designing from scratch gets in to diminishing returns almost immediately, while that first quick step from 1994-style to Bootstrap pays off big.

Pride is one thing, but when it's somebody else's money you have to consider hubris too.
I think API versioning is important for this very reason. It's also important for developers to update their code to run on newer versions of the API so companies can drop support for the old API eventually.
Running Android apps on the Ubuntu Phone?
Pope Benedict quits, first time this has happened since 1415...
I just scrolled through the comments and they are almost universally positive.

Are any of you running it on 64 bit linux and if so - have you found a way to fix the way fonts look?
Ask HN: How do you introduce Agile?
I'm going to be moving to an organization that more or less practices waterfall style development. I'd like to introduce agile project management to the project managers there. Any reccomendations for good books to help introduce agile project management and development?
Show HN: Peer-Powered Motivation
Another way people can fight this is to not buy locked phones with such restrictions placed on them.
Building a Blocks-Based Object System in ⁠(⁠Objective⁠-⁠)⁠C
That's so cool! I wonder if anything like this will ever be standard. I imagine people would be creeped out if their webcam was always on, but its a really cool concept.
I got to sit 3 seats from Marat Safins coach and in the front row once during a professional tennis match that Marat was playing in. He lost the match, so the bitching back and forth was great. But I noticed the free seats in the box and just pointed to the seat when the usher approached me and I pretended I didn't speak english. "There, there, I sit."

Best part was the people in the box realized right away I was out of place. They were really cool though. They gave me their tickets for me and my friends which gave us access to free buffets. It was delightful.

It was also really cool to shout "Zerodina Marat" right in his face. I swear the second time I yelled it he looked at me coldly. Very intimidating Russian.
I think you mean http://hackerwebapp.com/ ? ;)
Plus one for foundation. Bootstrap is a restrictive nightmare. I could see using bootstrap for a backend cms or something, but for front end development... Have fun
>Why don't you read more than just his Wikipedia page?

Because reading it is enough to know that he doesn't fit the bill of a libertarian?

>Do you really like actual libertarianism?

Yes?

>judging people in categorized groups instead of as individuals isn't very libertarian of you.

Haha, what is your point? Make one instead of just trying to find something to argue about. Find me a Tea Party candidate that fits the actual definition of a libertarian and then we can talk.
A Casual Stroll Through Discourse's Source Code
This isn't the first time we've had this debate. In the 20th century, automakers tried to make it illegal for people to service their own cars (or hire third party mechanics to do it). The "right to repair" movement had to fight to have that right of ownership enshrined in law.

This time around, citizens/consumers are losing the computing device edition of the right to repair campaign.
Here's the Whos's Hiring page for February 2013. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5150834

And here's for January 2013. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4992617

Who's Hiring is posted automatically monthly. :)
50 Minutes with Mailbox App
Seems like https://gemnasium.com but for node and python. Looks nice though.
These are cool! Thank you!
> "The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them."
The post would benefit from some links to the documentation itself. For example:

QScreen: https://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5.0/qtgui/qscreen.html
QGuiApplication: https://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5.0/qtgui/qguiapplication.html
QWindow: https://qt-project.org/doc/qt-5.0/qtgui/qwindow.html
If you're wondering how to write thorough doc for an engineering audience, I highly recommend looking at IBM's doc for z/OS. The first thing you'll notice is: there's a lot of it.
Mostly the law. Selling products compared to renting out products has a very different form of liability and risks. I am not a lawyer, and all that but...

If you buy a car, the seller of said car only has a very limited liability in case of faults. If the car breaks down, its up to the owner to fix it. However, if you rented a car, safety and repairs are on the company that rents the car out. This is how things worked until the 21th century

Selling or renting a product was supposed to be a trade off between liability and ownership. Companies made a choice, depending on risks/reward and if they wanted to effectively become a service company. With DRM however, liability is gone because the company do not claim property ownership, thus any product can now become a effectively rented product and never leave the control of the company.

I have no problem with a company that rents out products. I do however have a problem with companies that is exempted from liability while effectively renting out products under the pretense of selling products.
Cool, another potential tool against poorly readable sites.
I just created http://cantheysee.it/ for web developers to (roughly) simulate and test for users with poor eyesight.
Open Systems – Actors and Cloud by Erik Meijer [video]
Seriously, find a single Tea Party candidate that ACTUALLY has that view on marriage. That IS the view I have on marriage, it is the libertarian view, and there isn't a single Tea Party candidate that supports that view.
Juju at Canonical: 109k lines of Go code
>Depending on the language used Emacs and Vim provide these features as well and not just as dozens of brittle extensions.

People saying this have never really spend much time with a modern IDE.

It's like having Vim newbies saying it's too difficult and they prefer Pico, only in this case it's the IDE that's the more advanced.
Building our bubbly holiday poster
very neat. Perspective bug: nodding your head down or up or turning it to the side makes your face appear smaller to the camera which will increase the text size.
I am involved in some FOIA at the moment. It seems to me thus far that, at least at times, the EU Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) has been well meaning but have been actively sidelined by other, pro-American-outcome parts of the European beast. For example, see: http://www.asktheeu.org/en/body/edps
Microsoft once tried to patent the double click. (good that this one failed).
Seriously...Erin Catto would be a millionare with even the most minimal of pricing structures for using Box2D, assuming another open source engine didn't come to take its place.
Its not who you know... its whom you know :)
Yandex Overtakes Bing as World’s Fourth Search Engine
Surely you aren't suggesting that the government should fund game developer R&D.

Forcing the general public to fund bringing your ideas to fruition is a completely unsustainable economic model.

Governments all over the world are flat broke from this type of thinking.
Do I understand correctly that StackMob lets your iOS client send push notifications directly to other users?

How does this API prevent spammers from hijacking your app credentials to send pushes to all your users?
...a crime that’s punishable by up to 5 years in prison and half a million dollars in fines per incident.

It's time for some common sense sentencing caps if this is a possibility for merely tampering with an inanimate object. If it can't be proven that you actually harmed someone (and physical harm should carry far more weight than financial harm), the threat of any jail time at all should be easy to laugh off. Laws with such harsh potential sentences indicate an abuse of power by a privileged class.
Actually most of the EU democracy processes are easy to understand. I'd like to see a European comment on the efficacy of their process. Most follow a proportional system, some follow a mix of proportional and single member single district (winner take all), and Great Britain is winner take all.

They also have much more party discipline. Somebody voting for a party knows the type of policies that party will enforce, and if people are not crazy for the policies being passed, the vote in a different party in the next election.

Also, I would argue that lobbying is more prevalent in the US. Low party discipline + the much greater "need" for money = more money influence.
Essentially ...

"Now that is embarrassing. You would think with all of the money, might and power of Microsoft, they’d be higher in total search volume. So either Yandex is kicking some serious butt or Bing is slowing down."
http://www.esquire.com/print-this/man-who-shot-osama-bin-lad...

Since esquire wants you to click through 9 pages and I like to add it to Instapaper.
Obama To Hold Google+ Hangout After State Of The Union
Whatever that font is (Source Pro Sans), it's fairly unreadable to me (Chrome on Ubuntu).

My eyesight is not great, but having a font that is too thin doesn't help either.

I wish body text just stayed in either serif or sans-serif at 1em. Use custom fonts for headers, but let my browser preferences determine the body text.
The 'go get' sub-command is the only part of Go that interprets the import path as the location of a version control system repository. The use of the 'go get' sub-command is optional.

You can use version control commands directly to get code from your own repository mirror or to get specific versions from a repository. As long as you clone the repository to the directory in the workspace corresponding to the import path, all of the other go tools will work with the code.
Interview with Jon Cooper, 19-year-old SEO Consultant
This is what worries, me. Facebook is buying up exploits? I know there's a steady supply, but without knowing what software they're referring to or what the exact nature of the exploit was, it's hard to know what to think. Privilege escalation, arbritary code execution or what? Was it in the OS or some application they themselves developed? If it's the OS, then that would be really disturbing.

P.S. I have a mustache. Enjoy! :)
Using Environment Friendly Fence Parts
A question because I find this amusing. You are a "Commons Lisp" programmer? Working where? On hobby projects?

I understand that there ARE Common Lisp jobs, but those are few and far between compared to more established languages.

So, what exactly do you do with Common Lisp?
The 'manhunt' is of an innocent man, which status he maintains until found guilty in a court of law by a jury of his peers.

ITT: cops aren't allowed to use deadly force against anyone who refuses to be brought to trial because they haven't been found guilty at trial
An editor that might no be too well known in the web world, Unity3D's editor, has an awesome way to edit code on the fly. Public variables are represented as generalized form controls like sliders and dropdowns. Very nice for the later phases of development. Tweaking the timing and speed of an animation or the effects of some physics float can be a pain without being able to change on the fly. I wish the web tools had a similar setup.

http://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/ScriptReference/Editor...
Yes - thanks Shay, these lessons are really awesome!
ZestJS, client and server rendering for static and dynamic HTML widgets
Why is everything an App these days?

I know an App as a small, simplified, specialized application, usually on a mobile device, that serves a single purpose.

The Raspberry PI is basically a full computer so you can build and run everything and whatnot on it.
I hope I'm wrong about you and your endevours. I wish you the best of luck with getting your product out there.
So, these days distributing malicious software is considered okay?
I'm pretty surprised that neither Apple nor StackMob had an upper limit for the number of notifications your account could send or a user's device could receive within a set time.

I wonder how many users have now uninstalled your app?
Menthol cigarettes cause less cancer
Fixed, you're absolutely right - that font should only be used for headers.
Have any examples of a single online petition of any kind producing any useful result of any kind? You know, in the history of online petitions?
> Most of the people in the supposed raid died right afterwards

>> Officials said none of the slain SEALs had participated in the May bin Laden raid carried out by their Team 6 comrades.

From your article.
Project Holodeck Hands-on Demo and Interview with Director Nathan Burba
Plus side: I had no idea about "go run foo.go" and it has changed my life.

Downside: couldn't read past "And what’s up with all the languages that claim all you need are linked lists? I’m sorry, this is not 1958, and you are not John McCarthy".

Did I miss anything amazing in the rest of the article? Thanks in advance.
The Age of the Main Street Quant Is Upon Us
It is the usual quality of translation that is produced by google.
Let’s say I want to declare a pointer to a variable length
array (what Python calls a list and Go calls a slice) of
pointers to FooType objects:

var foo *[]*FooType

It reads very simply ...

What???? Not that it's better in other languages but this makes the article feel like satire. It reads like "The Ugly" and "The Bad".

Aside: What's with the completely defective comment syntax on HN? Can anyone give some hints on how to quote and how to escape the star character?

edit: formatting, thanks spacemanaki
Thank you, most kind
So one the one side we have a bunch of people willing to... click a button on a web site. On the other we have companies willing to spend millions of dollars. Hard to decide who we should be listening to.
I'm disappointed. I wish there was a way of knowing you were going to try to charge me before I signed up. I also wish there was a way to delete my account but I don't see a way.

I like the concept though.
I like his notion of "controversial with idiots".