skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"Pending request latency arises when all of your application's available instances are too busy to serve new requests. When this happens, incoming requests go to a pending request queue." https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/adminconsole/pe...

Pending latency is exposed as a metric on the App Engine Dashboard.
Because you're only removing the directory entry. The file contents are still on disk, it's just there's no easy way to know where on disk.
> "And then a miracle happens."

One of the favorite quotes of my graduate advisor, thanks for the chuckle :)

For those who are unfamiliar with the reference:

http://star.psy.ohio-state.edu/coglab/Miracle.html
(mirror image: http://i.imgur.com/k7gm70t.jpg)
Pains me to agree, but spot on.
17-year-old Rutvik Oza Solves an Unsolved Problem in Maths
An Indian teen has recently proposed a solution to an unsolved problem in mathematics. The 17-year-old young achiever, Rutvik Oza, a student of The H. B. Kapadia New High School, from Ahmedabad, Gujarat has now put a full stop to another open problem in the field of maths by providing a closed formula for the problem called Reve's Puzzle (also popularly known as the 4-peg Tower of Hanoi Problem).<p>When asked about how was he feeling, "Thrilled! I really didn't realize at first that the problem that I had solved was an open problem in mathematics. It was only later that I reckoned after doing some resourcing on the web, that it was an open problem," said Oza. Dedicating his achievement to his father, Mahesh Oza, "It's all due to my father. He sowed the seeds of mathematics in me from my childhood. I dedicate this to him." he says. "It almost took me a week's time to get to the formula. It involved data analysis and pattern recognition," said Rutvik Oza.<p>When asked about his favorite maths giant, he said, "Newton, Ramanujan, Gauss and a long list of others to follow. There are many. It gives me goosebumps when I think about those greats. On the other hand, my father himself... not less than a mathematician (laughs)." "Actually it's a royal heritage that I am a part of. My entire family, my grandfather, my uncle, my father himself... all closely linked to such fields. It is a privilege to be a part of it. And as Newton said, "If I've looked farther, it's only because I have standing on the shoulders of giants,"" he stated quoting Newton.
Yeah, I get it. And that's a useful thing to do, I guess. It just seems a little... unpythonic.
Well, they definitely had to have it checked by someone senior at Google. Usually they are very careful about disclosing what they do and employees have strict NDAs.
If you enjoy these kind of articles check out http://AfriTech.org (this is where I found it and submitted here, but someone else beat me!)
See about page: http://AfriTech.org/blog/about
Boing Boing generally is ridiculous because Cory Doctorow ;)
> Example, I would always advise against a "single member" LLC because an LLC is considered a Partnership, thus Courts will not enforce Partnership protection where there are no Partners (ie, single member) and the LLC can be liable for Founder's personal debts

This is not true. A single-member LLC gets the benefit of the personal liability shield.

However, as with any limited liability form, you can get the liability shield pierced if you don't properly organize and operate the LLC.

Because a single-member LLC has only one member, it might more likely to get the liability shield pierced since there isn't more than one party watching the documents and "formalities." (I put formalities in quotes because LLCs have very few formalities).

Source: Advising Small Business by Steven Alberty, Section 7:17.
True, but only in the REPL.

For example try to run the following script (not from the REPL):

_ = 12
print _
42 * 42
print _
Yes, a message reading "Error establishing a database connection" will indeed keep users, tech support requests - and customers - away.
Probably it's true that it will run as fast as 95% of native speed. However, you still have a host OS running in parallel... so it won't be the same as running either as full native I guess.
> If we're going to transition to a plug-in free web then we need HTML5 video to support these extensions.

So, a plugin-free web that requires plugins?
Yea, always-on content capture will definitely record more of these humorous moments, but wouldn't people eventually feel uncomfortable anywhere out in public if they know as soon as they leave their doors, they will be put on the spotlight and potentially have all their actions shown to everyone on the web?

Definitely an interesting future preview.
Zmodem (rz/sz) works if your terminal supports it. Though putty doesn't support it (wish it did.)
You say starting off as an LLC means delay at fundraising. Unless you're advocating running entirely unincorporated, I think this is backwards: it is harder to convert your C corp to the form the investors will want than it is to convert an LLC. This was my understanding before last week, when YC's finance person confirmed it (at least as far as YC is concerned) on HN.
To me it read as "we didn't know, we're not going to fix it right away (if ever), we'll just document it better"
Why would I want to spend something that is bound to increase in value? We spend cash because we're inflating it every year and it's a bad decision to hoard it. With no inflation (at least eventually) it makes no sense. I think Bitcoin will have some utility as an investment or to convert currencies but beyond that nothing.
My wife had an advanced mathematics course (University of Washington) where leaving an answer blank was worth 30% of the possible points. Any attempted answer was scored starting at 0.

This was meant to discourage hard-to-grade, crappy attempts at scoring a few points. Students would skip problems they didn't think they could answer well and focus their attention on problems where they thought they could put together a fairly solid answer.
The conversation has spread beyond the UK. I would even hazard a guess that a majority of HNers are in the US, where there is no such fee and most content producers are on their own.
Ideas account for 1% of any new startup
You will not stay LLC or S after taking a round of funding. But you won't keep your C corp either, because there are lots of details you will get wrong in forming it. It is very straightforward to convert a sane LLC to the C corp that investors want. It is not as straightforward to convert your C corp to theirs.
As long as it's not tax deductible, I'm fine with that.
> for 95% of the use cases, you are better off sticking with jQuery or ...

This is terrible advice. If you can't tell the difference between a procedural app full of jQuery callbacks and a an app modularized with Backbone objects, then I don't think you have had real experience writing apps with either of these libraries.
Java IDX Sample Files from Java Spearphishing Attack from SANS FOR508
> NASA tracks at least 21,000 items above 10 cm diameter.

How many items does NASA track which are 10 cm - 10m diameter and not orbiting the earth ?
There are some problems with the whitespace in Python.

I wrote some code with lots of nameless functions as input parameters (think JavaScript style or Ruby blocks), which of course was an ugly pain to port to Python with no multi-line lambdas.

List comprehensions is another example -- a kludge coming from that the lack of multi instruction lambdas stop real map functions. (The fun part is that this necessity is touted as something good, instead of admitting that it is unnecessary complexity to learn.)
Understanding How Money Works
> If you want to convince me, show me where in history you have examples of content being created without copyrights, of the same quantity/quality.

That is going to be difficult given that copyright has been granted automatically on new works for a long time. However, I will say that my most favourite shows to watch on TV are available via video podcasts for free (legally). They are not exactly free of copyright, but for all intents and purposes, I'm not sure the lack of copyright would really affect these programs. Any money they do make comes via me watching the show, not by their method of distribution.
Welfare Implications of US Workers’ Diverging Location Choices by Skill
According to your logic Chicken Scheme is the language of the future. They have a small, but great community.

I like it, but I have given up hopes that one day it will become mainstream.
What Really Happens When You Fail in Startupland
Third parties, namely Flash and Silverlight, already plug in their own DRM systems via NSAPI. How is this worse?
I love the Automattic documents, but they are focused on traditional websites. The Docracy privacy policies are specifically targeted towards mobile applications. If a smartphone developer was to customize the Automattic documents, they would need do significant modifications in order to cover mobile-specific use cases.

It would be nice if the Docracy policies clearly stated what license that they are covered on.
I'd rather just ship a Qemu image. Or have OSes handle sandboxing properly, and make it possible to run native apps off the web directly.
Very Sad...God bless !!
A Scientific Accident: Tiny, fast, biodegradable "batteries"?
> If we're going to transition to a plug-in free web then we need HTML5 video to support these extensions.

The first part does not imply the second. I know there are legal/licensing reasons for encryption but technology that is going to run the world of tomorrow should not be encumbered because of contractual obligations of today. I fail to see the technical reason why encryption is necessary for Netflix. HTML5 is a technical spec. It does not need to be riddled with extensions to fulfill business needs.

I can't view a stream if I'm not a paying member logged in to the website or XBox/Roku/AppleTV device. Once I am able to view the stream, encryption or not, I can record it through a number of hardware/software mechanisms if I am technically savvy. If I'm not technically savvy, I can't record it regardless of encryption. If I can somehow access the stream without logging in, say the files are stored on CDN and available to everyone over HTTP(S), then you should work on preventing that.

W3C/HTML5 are designing specs for the long haul. I am pretty sure I will be writing web apps in a decade too, like I did a decade ago. iTunes no longer has DRM'ed audio. Who knows, in a decade, Hollywood will give up DRM too, with pressure from Netflix, Apple, Amazon, and Google. But if engineers at these very companies that should be pushing for open-web, insist on burdening the spec to cope with DRM, I doubt we'll ever see that future.
Is there something missing in your post? You write that throwing money doesn't work... and later mention that doctors still don't wash their hands. It seems like there was something in between where you gave an abstract of that problem?
If you lose in court, you pay all the expenses yourself. Both sides'.
Attack articles will not change the views of those working in the BBC's policy department. If you/we believe there are societal/economic benefits to the open web, they must be argued persuasively and clearly.

Too many digital commentators and bloggers do not engage with these issues in any productive way.

Attack articles do not reform political procedures, substantive policy suggestions do.

The BBC quite obviously, and validly, worries that open use of its content will put it at a competitive disadvantage. They can foresee International producers withdrawing content from its platforms if its distribution channels are not duly protected. That does not seem like an unfair concern.

There might be space to argue that the BBC is being short-sighted. That is to say, that while we understand its concerns on this issue, the introduction of DRM will negatively affects its longer term success. That is to say, the success of the BBC has been prefaced on the wide distribution of its original content around the world. In fact, it wouldn't be too strong to say the BBC's reputation rests on the free, worldwide distribution of its news programming -- today this has been inherited by its news website.

We might press the concern that locking all of its content behind DRM technology will harm the wide distribution of its content, hurting awareness of its international brand.

We ask the BBC to consider the following example: fears of recording radio programming have existed since the early 20th Century. If the BBC, cracked down on its distribution in response to those issues in the 50s-, we believe the BBC wouldn't be the worldwide powerhouse it is now.

Locking up its content is not in the long term interests of the BBC brand, esp. as the developing world -- China, Brazil, Russia -- start looking online for reliable programming.

Therefore, we call on the BBC to initiate a review into the implications of its policy decision, and its effect on international brand awareness.

This isn't my argument, but at least it understands, appreciates, and responds to their economic concerns.
>We live in a world of government-granted monopolies given to companies like HBO.

I don't even know how to respond to this... last I checked cable and Satellite companies don't force HBO on you. And while cable companies held a semi-monopoly before Satellites, that market got disrupted like 30 years ago. Let it go.

>You are claiming, with no justification, that in the absence of copyright there would be no profit available for people who make entertainment.

Not completely. I'm claiming there wouldn't be enough profit to support the current proliferation or high budget entertainment options. I highly doubt shows like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Downtown Abbey, etc. would have gotten the funding they needed through crowdsourcing. You typically need a large studio with deep pockets to take on a project of that size. And most of them rely on ad revenue during broadcast, something that would likely diminish if there was no copyright and any TV studio was allowed to rebroadcast with different ads/no ads. Or if people were allowed to video tape it, copy it w/ no ads, and resell it.

Let's take a look at that simple example of yours. So who pays for the pilot episode to be produced? The T.V. studio? And after they air it then what? Hope enough people liked it to both pay for the production costs and a decent profit as well as fund the next episode? And you think that's a sustainable model??

If systems like you mention would be profitable why aren't there non-copyrighted entertainment options raking in the money right now? The internet has been around for awhile. There's nothing stopping people from releasing high quality non-copyrighted content and making money from it. What's the hold up? Government Monopolies??
Tail recursion. ;) Bioinformatics.

I am currently looking for a couple software developers (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5203736) for positions where Perl is the dominantly used language.
Thanks for pointing that out - I should have been more careful with my words. What I meant to say is that most startups will be better off starting as a C-corp, provided that they use market-standard paperwork (i.e. the forms that the major Silicon Valley law firms use, which many of them provide for free) and don't mess anything up (which is consistent with what Kirsty was saying). Of course, I suppose the "not messing anything up" part is harder done than said (which is why YC companies are lucky to have Kirsty) :)
Pterodactyl comic easter egg in TheOatmeal page source
View the page source of www.theoatmeal.com and see a wonderful ASCII art pterodactyl screaming a URL that redirects to a pterodactyl comic!
This happens when you create private law for yourself. You forget that other people might think that it exists for their benefit.
> to the 8-hour work week

You're a couple deacdes early with that
Initial Thoughts on Posthaven
>Seriously, if you need some crazy draconian law to make sure people aren't littering everywhere, then something is very wrong with your people's culture and level of civilization.

And how you change people culture and "level of civilization", by magic?

>In Japan there aren't any laws like that, yet it's safe to say that it is the most civilized country on the planet

Beter to compare to Malaysia (which is way closer to Singapore). Just cross the border and you see the difference.
Editing hosts files works wonders.
>It doesn't force unwilling content providers to use it

This is like claiming there is nothing wrong with Microsoft's traditional efforts to promote developer tools that can't produce software for non-Microsoft operating systems because "it doesn't force unwilling software developers to use it." The problem isn't for Microsoft or those who develop for Microsoft platforms, it's for those who want to use or develop non-Microsoft platforms.

It's not about Hollywood, it's about everyone else. If you put DRM in HTML then I as a user can't use it from an open source web browser on an open source operating system. If you put DRM in HTML then I as a software developer can't write a competitive web browser or operating system without permission from Hollywood.

It's not about "protecting content" -- all the content is already on The Pirate Bay and Hollywood is doing fine -- what it's about is creating gatekeepers. It's about leveraging the dominant position the studios have over the market for video production into a gatekeeper position in content distribution, so that they can use it to make sure smaller content producers can't get access to customers without using their approved devices with their approved software, which ultimately allows them to collect a toll even for things they didn't create, and choose what message gets seen by the people and use that to frame the public debate as they've traditionally been able to do.

Even if you don't think that's what it's about or that's what their goals are, that's still what it enables and why it needs to be stopped.
I think perl 5.10 and beyond kind of preempted perl 6.

Alas, perl 6 in some ways isn't even perl. Perl 6 is cool, but Larry should have made a new name for his next hobby :-)
PEP 427 – The Wheel Binary Package Format 1.0
Writing a file means that all the data has to pass trhough the file system, the io driver, the disk controller interface onto the disk with a certain maximum write speed. If the file is large then it will take a long time. The 'bookkeeping' to administer where the file goes is a very small portion compared to the data of the file in such cases.

When you delete the data you only update the bookkeeping, so that's much quicker.

If you were to erase the file then it would take just as long as writing it in the first place.
Waiting for 1.X. I can't accept it in current state (ember-data is buggy and undocumented). Also it's missing essential pagination feature).
If you are dyslexic or just not awake yet, you may have noticed that the final score (if inversed) is the closest whole number fractional approximation of π.

Edit: Maths
this is a simple one.
http://ruby.awsblog.com/post/Tx2AK2MFX0QHRIO/Deploying-Ruby-...
Content decryption modules are plugins by another name. The spec gives no guarantee that a given CDM can be interoperable with all browsers (being a binary it can possible arbitrarily reject to operate with a given browser), Operating system (because it's a binary) or that all browser functions and accessibility features will work with them (CDMs could completely bypass the browser's rendering pipeline and overlay the content using protected paths).

The proposal is a step back for the openness and interoperability of the Web. Substituting plugins with binary CDMs is not progress and I doubt any kind of popular content which rights are held by the big copyright giants will be compatible with clearkey.

I foresee that GNU/Linux users will be shafted and will not be able to access DRM'ed content and the proposal is toxic towards the Web.
You don't need them but they make it more convenient. There's one for ember too https://github.com/LuisSala/emberjs-jqm
Your example assumes people will vote for their second choice when it counts against their first choice. Most people won't, so approval often wont' work. Runoffs or instant runoffs are better.
Digg was built on Elance - http://www.centernetworks.com/future-of-web-apps-kevin-rose/
Overcoming Introversion Through Writing
I agree that would be a problem, but I understand there would be a way to implement the current proposal without requiring a browser to be closed source.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5232033

https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-med...

It's not a perfect method, it would require some additional potentially closed-source OS-level software to be installed for the browser to interact with. But people who don't want it don't have to get it, and the browser can implement the standard without becoming closed-source.
and because of that, it often runs much faster, as well. Having an interim choice between "full GC" and "malloc/free" is a nice option, in some cases. Particularly for small programs/scripts that churn through a lot of data (so long as you don't build a cyclic graph data structure while scanning)
Imagine a tax system for IP modeled on real estate property taxes. To retain a patent, you would pay a tax based on assessed value. You could sell the patent, or enter it into the public domain. Failure to pay would result in forfeiture of the patent (ie. sold at auction, or entering into the public domain).

This could create a self-funding process for patent regulation and monitoring, and a check against unhealthy patent proliferation. It would discourage patent trolls from sitting on patents, large companies from accumulating a "war chest" of patents, and encourage FRAND licensing.
> There are some problems with the whitespace in Python.

> I wrote some code with lots of nameless functions as input parameters (think JavaScript style or Ruby blocks), which of course was an ugly pain to port to Python with no multi-line lambdas.

As nnq points out elsewhere in this thread, this doesn't have anything to do with significant whitespace. Python only allows you to have a single expression in the body of a lambda, and from what I've read the reason it stays this way is to discourage using a lambda as an argument to map, fold, filter & friends. The usual suggestion from Python programmers is to just use a locally defined, named function, which to be honest is often what I do anyway in languages like ML, because it's clearer.

And anyway, just because it was hard to port some code from language A to language B due to something different about B doesn't really seem like a valid knock against B.
Thank you very much. It's a really kind gesture. Much appreciated by all I think.
Dutch MP fined for "hacking" into medical file system
It is quite possible to know that the mesh is not exactly as documented without having realized that the difference has a severe performance impact.
I'd love to see a (either ported or native) Unix in javascript that can run all these ported programms. I know emscripten already does have a filesystem and stuff. But I mean something bigger, something with filesystem backends for webdav and local storage, a shell, process management and all the usual stuff. I'd be a victory over the walled garden, because today everything speaks javascript.
> The first part does not imply the second. I know there are legal/licensing reasons for encryption but technology that is going to run the world of tomorrow should not be encumbered because of contractual obligations of today.

And when we live in your Star Trek-style technoutopia, then we won't have to worry about business concerns in specs. Specs have had business concerns in them since... ever.