skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Yeah, I was one of the Func authors. That minion/overlord terminology, globbing, delegation, minion-to-minion, etc, are ideas clearly from there. I think mCollective was the first to take our Func-on-AMQP ideas and implement them, actually, though Salt was probably the first to try to stick a CM layer on the top of a Func-based-system, like I was planning but hadn't got around to ("Remote Rocket Surgery" was the placeholder codename for that on top of Func).

As far as Func->Ansible goes, Seth Vidal (another one of the original authors) also does a lot of commits and wrote our yum module -- and is now using it for Fedora Infrastructure.

I wouldn't really recommend anyone look at Func anymore -- it's fading just a little bit (taken over by Steve Salesvan, also ex Red Hat), but it's still in use at places like Tumblr, which is a pretty large setup. Still, it was fun to do. We sort of did multiprocessing before multiprocessing.py :)

Adoption is going pretty well at the moment and it has been fun to watch. Several setups in the couple thousand of node ranges, lots around Big Data applications.
Not necessarily true. As http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=carbon-nano... explains, the impact that asbestos has on our lungs is a mechanical process, and will be caused by any kind of hard object about the same size.

A lot of nanomaterials have the potential for creating dust in this size, including ones made of pure carbon.
I'm wondering along the same lines, at what speed does the car decide to deploy airbags, and at what speed to automatically brake? And how hard is the braking? I'd imagine it would be pretty hard braking to prevent the car from hitting something.

But one would hope the car wouldn't be going fast enough to lose control.
Nope, because then you couldn't park facing a wall in the first place.
Haha, we called it the House method too, we ended up making a cardboard humanoid for when nobody was available.
Ask HN: Free Disposable Team Web Chat?
Most of the times when I'm working on a university project, I find myself wanting to chat with the team members to share relevant links, resources and ideas.

Is there some easy to use chat web app where I can just make a chat room, share the url with friends have a chat and then dispose of it as soon as I'm done?

I do remember seeing something on HN long time back but I cant find it right now. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Some time ago I wrote about my own weight loss "program" which was fairly simple: http://blog.jgc.org/2010/01/johns-amazing-diet-secrets-revea...

Largely I cut down on carbohydrates (because I was stuffing myself with crap like Coke, sweets, etc.) and ate less in general.

Late last year I realized that I had put on weight again because of the same bad habits so I cut them out again and redid my "program". I now weigh 71kg which is very healthy for my height.

To be honest, a small investment in knowing the calorie and nutrient content of foods, cutting out processed and useless foods, and most importantly "listening to my stomach and not my mouth" made weight loss pretty easy for me.

The other important motivator was realizing the asymmetry between the effort required to insert calories in my mouth (100s of calories per minute are easy) and burn calories once in me (100s of calories per hour).
Ask HN: Quitting my corporate job to help my dads failing small business
My father owns a small tile (floor tile) store that has been hurting every since this whole housing mess. He's finally decided to close the doors and find himself another project to work on.

I've personally decided to quit my corporate job at a pretty sweet airline and go home to help him out...but I honestly have no clue what I'm going to do to help.

Would love some feedback on two main things:

#1 did I just make a big mistake quitting?...(though I will admit I've been losing interest in the job)

#2 How could I use the little web design/dev experience that I have to help him out?

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated!

UPDATE
To clarify, I've already put in my notice of resignation and my father's business is still open.

As for me draining my fathers income, I've got a part time job lined up that I was doing in college. It's remote tech support for hosting services so it'll cover my bills...though I will admit my parents fridge may take a few blows with me back.

Really appreciate all the feedback!!!
I'm seeing that too.
As someone who's successfully lost a lot of weight on a low carb / no grain diet, this chart irks me. That a handful of almonds has the same calories as a certain amount of Captain Crunch is irrelevant. The latter will quickly convert to glucose in your body, however, (unlike almonds) and that will make a huge difference in your satiety levels, insulin response (Hello, Metabolic Syndrome!), etc... [1]

Some good resources:
http://whole9life.com/start/
http://thepaleodiet.com/

[1] Standard disclaimers. I'm not a nutritionist. This works for me. YMMV.
Wow, this seems incredible, signed up immediately. My mind is already spinning with all of the cool apps I could make with this. How hard would it be to allow this functionality offline for paid users? You could have some sort of packaged library which phones home to count requests used, but does the processing offline to take network latency out of the equation. Not sure if that's feasible, but it would be great.
It does not show me the links that I've already visited. Thats the best thing I like about HN site.
Big Data is a Small Market Compared to Suburban Data
That explains the feature set, but it doesn't quite explain why it doesn't use TLS; TLS also starts with public key cryptosystems and then generates signing and symmetric encryption keys, oftentimes using precisely the same base algorithms (AES-256 and HMAC-SHA256).

(Also, msgpack seems completely orthogonal to this issue.)
Yeah, I spotted that too, it's interesting that this service puts the focus on coordination + orchestration with additional app servers versus leveraging existing AWS services.

I believe the general intent of this is to enable users using non-AWS services (yes, I know that's redundant) to more efficiently work with outside apps on Amazon - the example in their Layers guide is specific to Redis for example. (http://docs.aws.amazon.com/opsworks/latest/userguide/working...).

So this service basically says - "Just because we don't have a Redis Amazon Service for you to snap into doesn't mean you should not use AWS or look to other PaaS, instead, easily integrate other apps with OpsWorks."
It would appear so: https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=248766257130
You seem to be assuming that the term rifle always implies something complicated like an AR-15 or AK.

The most likely reason someone would go about creating a rifle in their garage due to an oppressive government is because most likely all guns have been banned and confiscated. In that situation, the ability to create a simple bolt-action rifle would be of immense value to anyone fighting the oppressive government. For that matter, a good shotgun that doesn't require rifling is better than nothing. Another option is to make smooth-bore musket types, in the past they were accurate up to 100 yards or so.

Considering that in the past rifles were created by hand with simple tools, as compared to today's technology, I don't find it hard to believe that a small group of dedicated people can figure out how to make somewhat quality firearms in their garage with modern tools.

This talk of people making something like an AR-15 from a printer anytime soon is just someone that's looking for something political out of it, a scare the populace tactic.
I dunno. I find it more distressing that everyone that starts with ELB tends to move off of it at some point (most recently -- filepicker.io).

Does anyone have anything positive to say about it?
"Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils." - General John Stark on July 31, 1809
I chuckle at the thought of a Prius becoming catapult ammo. Ingeniously bad and funny idea.
Great article, but horrible headline. The headline should be: 'How Techcrunch, tech media, and investors contribute to startup depression.'
I believe turbines have efficiency problems as you scale them down.

Ah yes, graph here… http://www.dg.history.vt.edu/images/image5_2.gif which is from http://www.dg.history.vt.edu/ch5/turbines.html

And then notice that the smallest turbine on the plot is about two orders of magnitude larger than you need in a small car.
It's not that you should read and implement it verbatim. It's a great read in terms of getting you into different mindset.
Just use a a challenge/response question.

What is the hottest season?
What is the coldest season?
Capital city of the UK?
What are the last three letters of the capital city of the UK?

.. and so on.

Better still to select a question specific to your usergroup.

Regards
Melt
That's funny -- I work in genealogy software, and loops ("being your own grandpa") happen all the time, due to data entry errors. To avoid infinite recursion, we always keep track of what records we've processed already, check whether "I've been there before", and bail out if the answer is affirmative.
Ultimately, the issue you have is that Apple doesn't care about Linux support. So they're not going to guarantee that their hardware works well with Ubuntu or anything else. That may not be an issue for you - but if you care about Linux working well on the hardware you need to _tell_ the vendor that - the best signal is by buying hardware that comes with Linux preloaded.
The best comment:
"Thank you compiler, but perhaps if you weren't commenting on StackOverflow, you could get me a drink and play some nice music while you're working?"
Yes, there will be those at a particular time of need that would buy a single apple for 100 dollars because of extreme scarcity.

In this case however, there is already an abundance of superior quality ripe fruit in the orchard waiting to be plucked. And it's free.
I used to be a mechanic, so maybe I can shed some insight. My work experience was very varied, but I mostly focused on luxury(Porsche, BMW) cars towards the last years or so.

Being a mechanic gives you a different perspective on software. You don't see code ad code, but as an engine. If the engine is not tuned properly, the engine will not be as efficient as possible. If there is too much cruft in the code, the engine will perform poorly. Troubleshooting is also easier, I think. Due to the fact that all that mechanics due is troubleshoot. I once spent a week chasing an electrical bug on a Porsche. For those curious, it was the car's computer going bad (a circuit connection somehow broke under stress and it shorted). It also makes design a bit easier, because I have seen many different design patterns IRL. When you can touch and feel a design, working with them is much easier. For example, the camshaft is a function that makes valves open and close. The camshaft lobes are the parameters being passed as data to the camshaft function. The parameters tell the camshaft function how far should valves open, and for how much time.

It also removes any fear from working with any system. I've seen and fixed it all. There is no way any codebase will turn out to be harder to fix than changing the spark plugs on a 1996 Porsche 911 Turbo. No way.
Strictly speaking, it's not "prisoner's dilemma" if the students can talk to each other and agree on a plan. In a real prisoner's dilemma, the participants have to guess at the motivations and actions of other participants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_dilemma
Www.ntim.es is for sale
Ask HN: Startup Health and Dental Insurance?
What are people doing for health and dental insurance? I'm turning 26 and won't be able to leverage my parents' insurances soon ...
"It is everyone's dream to wake up fresh, happy, and ready for action on a daily basis. Sadly, in the modern world, only a small minority lives that dream. Yet the dream is within reach for most healthy people given a bit of knowledge, and
a readiness to make some lifestyle sacrifice."

If I click print is says 203 pages. That is not "a bit of knowledge" - not that I mind to spend time on what looks to be a very interesting an well-researched read.. Luckily he gives a TL;DR summary himself:

"In the presented algorithm, you try to stick to your optimum bedtime and waking time every day. You establish a protected zone in the evening to favor phase advance (minimum light, computers, stress, excitement, etc.). You wake up to bright sunlight and use morning exercise to advance the phase in the morning. You ingest caffeine only in the morning. You avoid alcohol in the evening. If you nap, you nap early. If your phase keeps shifting, you add more light and exercise in the morning. You also extend your protected zone in the evening. In emergency, when you fear falling out of synch, you could occasionally use melatonin in the evening, or delicate sounds in the morning as the minimum effective departure from the free running sleep principle."
Appears to be in the same vein as this: http://www.healthassist.net/food/300kcal/300.shtml

which offers more items, better size comparisons, and a rough price
I agree that many people are not self-starters, and that this is a problem (in general, not just in college). I don't think it's because of an inherent defect in the people in question - much more likely it's because they spent too many years being herded like sheep - but it is still a problem.

I put it to you, however, that the solution is not to spend even more years herding people like sheep.
LearnGitBranching
Star Trek TNG Ambient Engine Noise 24 hours loop
The State of Venture Capital in Canada: An Entrepreneur’s Perspective
Newbie's thoughts on HTML5 Game Development
This is just like stanford parser.
http://nlp.stanford.edu:8080/parser/

Why use TextRazor and pay for it ?
A free article that is about a service that helps to improve conversion rates by making it easier to provide free articles. Which finishes with a call to action to convert the reader to the service = mind blown/Startup Inception.

I personally think seeing the iterations and tweaks was fantastic. Seeing both the process in both text and visuals was where the gold was for me.

The only thing I was thinking when I saw the final/current design was that it would sense to me for the reader to scroll (slightly) to be able read "Your funnel has a hole in it". You've created suspense/tension with the headline and a more effective resolution might be with a physical action by the user, rather than just by reading. It might help to get them commit to the rest of the page.

Thanks for putting this out there Nathan, much appreciated.
What about branding/marketing? Volvos are known for their safety features. This certainly is an extension of that. It could be seen as a competitive advantage, regardless of its utility/impact on insurance premiums. If it is a competitive advantage, certainly other brands would want to catch up.
#1 No. But you wouldn't have made a mistake by staying either. Who you are is what choices you make, and what commitments you keep. Whatever choice you made would have been the right choice for the person you would have become.

#2. Just remember cash paramount. You can go years with little profit, or even no profit. You cannot last one day without cash. Your first consideration is bringing new streams of cash in.
It's also worth pointing out you can already buy all of the components necessary to assemble your own firearm, all without a serial number

Not exactly true. Every legal gun has one part with a serial number that defines the gun legally. Usually (always?) it's the receiver. There are some grey areas where you can get an almost finished receiver free of regulation.
so this is somewhere between aweber and hubspot?
Whats the unique selling prop about this project?
I agree- I scan this thing and it confuses the hell out of me
Exactly right. Computers used to be hard to build by hand years ago, you had to solder your own boards for gosh sakes. These days you buy the components off the shelf and stick them together correctly.

What is hard today will most likely be easy tomorrow.
hmm, I was going to jump in with "Capacitors are never more than 50% efficient, because physics" but it seems only if you charge from nothing at a constant current:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/79500452/ANALOG-SEEKrets-DC-to-Day...

(filed under "today I learned")
That doesn't make me angry. I fully accept there are aspects of the stack that allow me to type this message that I will never understand.

Can you e.g. explain how a transistor works, from basic quantum mechanical principles? If not, then there's something in the stack you may never understand, because you're simply not interested in spending the time necessary to understand that at the level a physicist does.
The idea that eating healthily can be simplified to the reduction in a single number (a calorific value) really annoys me.

Always remember that a calorie is a proxy metric, and a very poor one at that; it's the energy output of burning the food, which has very little correlation with what goes on in your body during consumption/digestion.
I'm a software engineer.
He's just saying the answer makes compilers sound intimidating.
The discount pricing isnt clear enough
Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan 6 GB: GK110 On A Gaming Card
How do you know the goods you purchase are safe for consumption? Is it based on reputation of the vendor? Do you have home testing kits?
Cosmos may be 'inherently unstable'
Show HN: Get notified when your app gets a review in the AppStore
Streets and Routes: Generalized Global OpenStreetMap Data
Show HN: PanesLayout, easily build multi-pane apps for Android tablets
Why does it spark when I push a plug in the electrical socket?
This is already on the front page: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5243271
Robert Scoble Is Switching To Android
North Korea threatens South with final destruction
I would be more excited if it supported micro instances, but as it stands, I'm still very tempted.
Firefox 19 officially released
Keep in mind that it's an answer to the question "Why don't we program in assembly?"

Computer Science majors should be familiar with how compilers work and the theory behind them. But the answer to the question is that for 99% of cases, using a higher-level language and leaving the optimization to a compiler written by subject matter experts makes sense. (ie. Don't re-invent the wheel.)
You can read a bit more about our implementation here: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/168145/sockets-used-...
I find this alias really useful for accomplishing similar goals:

alias gqc="git commit -m 'quick commit'"

The command is usually preceded by "git add ." (or alias "ga."). Making a commit ends up being more reliable for me than stash. Also, the commit stays with the branch, making it easy to switch to master branch, make or check an important change, then go back to what I was working on in the develop branch. Additionally, it makes rebasing a work in progress easier. Just gqc && git pull --rebase.

When it comes time to push, I can just check the log for all the "quick commit" commits. If there's just one, then I make an amend commit. If there's more than one, I rebase interactively.

I suppose I could add a hook to make sure I never accidentally push a quick commit, but it hasn't been an issue yet (over the past year or so I've only made the mistake once).
Good point! Fixed! Thanks for your feedback!
THREAT STREAM Inc is hiring Senior Developers
Senior Developer - Django, Frontend/Backend, Javascript, Python Rockstar

Job Description

Funded startup in US Cyber Security transforming the landscape of cyber warfare. Are you an unbelievable python developer who can rapid prototype great products over night or enjoy refactoring code to high performance asynchronous design? Want to develop the weapons and defenses of the future all in code?

* Must be based in the US and able to quickly relocate without VISA requirement to Washington DC, Austin TX, NYC or San Francisco (preferred)
* Able to work 30+ hours per week - if you need to start out at 15-20 and ramp up to full time, that is fine
* Detail oriented. Together we will plan a project and create a road map and you should then follow the plan completely and precisely.
* Able to provide valuable feedback to the team about architecture decisions.
* Work fast and efficiently
* Keen eye for design and usability
* Want to defend your nation from evil hackers and nation states

The skills you will need are:

* Django / Python
* Javascript / jQuery
* HTML and CSS (design is not needed)
* A little bit of Java and/or C/Objective C
* Database
* Testing (Unit tests or similar)
* Basic Linux (esp Ubuntu Server)
* Git
* RESTful APIs

These are nice bonuses:
* Backbone.js (or similar client side mvc)
* Mobile or responsive dev
* Tasty-Pie
* D3.js / visualization / charting skills
* UI/UX design
* Hadoop, Pig, Hive
* NoSQL

Skills Required
django python javascript jquery html css design linux ubuntu git mvc mobile
Nginx now supports Websockets
I don't get this. Skimming over it, I see it tells me something in yellow, centered and bolded text, and then goes on to refute why it's not true. I can't see a hint that it's a common myth or anything, it's presented as the truth at first. So either it's a horrible article (guide?) to look through without reading entirely, or I don't get it. TLDR anyone?
The on-page device width emulator is cool.
They aren't magic. They have a relatively high self-discharge (or leakage depending on how you measure it) compared to say Li-ion/NiMh cells which means basically they piss capacity away slowly.

Don't expect your wonderful supercap car to actually be charged if you leave it sitting there for a few hours.
I think you might have misinterpreted the context of "optimizing a single line of yours using hundreds of different optimization techniques based on a vast amount of academic research that you would spend years getting at" was lost.

He isn't saying compilers are based on a "millions of hours of intense academic research that you won't understand". He's saying the specific optimizations implemented by these compilers are based on "millions of hours of intense academic research that you won't understand".

While the general theory behind compilers isn't particularly complex (and is totally worth learning! Your message about people learning about compilers is spot on), production compilers do employ a significant number of complex optimizations. You won't be able to match these unless you spend a very significant amount of effort learning about these specific optimization techniques.

While learning the theories behind compilers is quite useful, I'd argue that learning N tricks to more efficiently translate C into ASM isn't practical unless you want to turn your compiler into a production one.
I would pay $500 extra if I could charge my phone in 1 minute. I would pay $2000 extra if my laptop could do the same.
I haven't thought about it at all as to how Google would fix their problem. Still, they've introduced a component into the Internet ecosystem that has been found to be abusable and they are accountable to install the forcing functions to prevent that abuse. To depend upon user education is simply irresponsible.

The idea of forcing functions is well known in organizational/system theory.

Another way to think about this is the recent notices that Java (and at other times Adobe Flash) has recently introduced a security flaw where people using their computer can have it hacked into (Apple suggests removing Java unless you really need it).

Just as we would expect Java/Oracle and Adobe/Flash to fix their security flaws so should Google fix theirs.