skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Can you give an example (or link to an example) of either real code or pseudo-code where a there is a reference in a sub-block (sub-module) to both a shadowed variable in that sub-block and also a reference made to the same variable in the parent scope by way of name hash-tables? I'm just curious to see how this is done in practice and some real examples of where a module system that permits access to a shadowed variable proves more useful, flexible and generally more robust.

Also, how does Modula-2 (or Standard ML's) module system enforce contracts beyond what a C/C++ header file offers us? Why does C/C++'s primitive system offer us nothing intellectually?

Lastly, if you were to try adding a more robust module system to a language like JavaScript, how would you go about doing it? (assuming such a thing is possible).
Don't forget about their own programming language. :)
An Android phone user walks into a bar ...

Sorry couldn't resist.

Good idea and good luck. Consider making an Android version and for some other smartphone brands later.
Ah yes Dennis Rodman is such a reliable source of information. He has to suck up to low life dictators. He's broke as shit! At this point Rodman is hoping to be anyone's lapdog just for rent money. There are people in prison camps for things their grandfathers did in North Korea. At least the people in the US had a trial by their peers for something they were actually were accused of doing.
Wait, are you saying the military-industrial complex is responsible for the DMCA? Because it's really, really not.

Perhaps you should look up what "lobbying" is, and what industries have lobbies. (hint: ALL OF THEM)
If it wants to, an administration can work through friendly Members of Congress to get a piece of legislation it wants into the hopper. The White House (or some cabinet agency) writes the bill and passes it to a friendly member; the friendly member introduces it under their own name; then they work together to whip up co-sponsors.

What this response indicates is that the Administration agrees with the petitioners on this issue, but not strongly enough to spend any political capital on it. Working the Hill in this fashion requires calling in favors, and a favor called in on cell phone locking is a favor that can't be called in on some other issue.
This same sentence also says:

>The newly developed CMOS sensor features pixels measuring 19 microns square in size

So there is a possibility that the pixels are merged by the image processor after data is read off the sensor.
But there is nothing inherent in offering cell phone service as far as locking phones. That's a totally separate issue. I assure you that you could buy an unlocked phone (at full retail) and use it on a network of your choice with an appropriate SIM card.

You just don't get the telco to pay for 2/3rds of your phone when you do that.
I hope companies of the future will at least offer working space as a perk. I am much less productive at home with my pets around, and I can't imagine what it will be like once I have children.

In my experience, offices are a painful place to watch the clock but a great place to actually get stuff done.
Fantastic post – wish there was more real, actionable "how to make money" stuff on hacker news.

Sometimes I feel like the startup game is separate from the game of making money...
"You don't really own the phone until the contract that got you the phone is terminated."

...then why do you wind up paying sales tax on it?
The only two things I dislike about HN:

-It's a crapshoot or manipulation game to hit the front page

-People downvote logical arguments they simply disagree with
Forbes Finds 210 New Billionaires in 2012
I spent about 15 seconds clicking on a petition, and the guy who started the petition was able to use that to start a dialogue?

If anything, it's remarkable how effective that was. What sort of change did you expect with so little effort?

If you've ever done business development, you'd know that opening that dialog is frequently the hardest step. Meaningful changes are carefully considered, and they don't happen overnight. This is a good first step.
Don't deny them their straw man.
Exactly! That was the problem with GS' argument. He didn't compare per capita.
Well, from what I've seen in people that have not just taken logic classes but passed them, I'd say that there really is an innate difference - not in skill or experience or learning or knowing, but in the mindset; and a significant proportion of people don't/can't/won't "think properly" as you state it.

And it doesn't seem to be changeable at college level - I've no idea if it is innate or learned at an early age, but for adults there is a difference between "logical" people and "intuitive" (for lack of a better word) people.

For the first type it is trivial to teach/learn things such as logic, computing, troubleshooting, etc - even if they have no prior experience and have always been working and studying in unrelated areas such as linguistics or psychology. I've taught them and seen that - if I get an HR girl in an Excel course that 'thinks logically', within a few weeks she'll be able to do more with data than a number of non-logical-thinkng CS grads.

For the second type, I've seen them spend a decade with both college+masters studies and lots on-the-job experience, and they still haven't changed by that - they may remember the concepts of logic and even pass an exam on them, but they don't/can't/won't apply them. They aren't dumb - they may be very intelligent, hard working and effective at they know; but still they won't "reason and argue avoiding fallacies and obviously incorrect positions" even the next day after taking a course about logical fallacies. As you say, they are not "thinking properly", but that's how they are happy and achieving results and they'll stay that way.
The contract issue is mostly orthogonal to unlocking the phone - most contracts that give you a reduced price have a clause allowing you to cancel early, with a penalty cost that loosely approximates the subsidy that went towards your phone. The problem is that even if you wanted to pay this penalty, the DMCA makes it illegal to unlock your phone.
Funny with the quotes around legislature.

The executive branch of gov't cannot make laws. It's that simple. But if they needed to somehow override something without waiting for Congress, there are vehicles like Executive Orders. But they are more like exceptions and statements of policy, and still not substitutes for legislation.

Either way, the ideal solution here IS for congress to draft legislation. That is the only solution that'll be permanent, long term, and clearer to discuss (or dismiss) in courts.

In no way shape or form, is this AT ALL an urgent matter that they have to address by doing an Executive Order. As much as I'd love to have my iPhone unlocked, it ranks near to the bottom of what I'd like the President to focus his energy on, especially when signing Executive Orders that are supposed to actually carry weight.

If we want Obama to sign an executive order, then we must present a case as to why this is so urgent that it can't wait for Congress to draft legislation.

This is the best we could've hoped for, without really wishing that Obama was a dictator that could wave his hands and invent laws overnight.

Edit: I for one fully support what ChuckMcM says - at this point, we should contact our congressmen and tell them this is important to us, and that we want to see legislation drafted sooner rather than later.
We're talking security updates here, by the time you've found time to test, your server may well be hacked.
The Mac is inherently more secure than Windows was back when viruses were endemic.

Funny thing is, so is Windows.
Superficial explanation:

BGP is the border gateway protocol- you can think of large infrastructure providers as being huge networks that are connected through 'border nodes'. BGP is the protocol it uses to negotiate routes into each other's networks, each provider advertises to the other provider what routes it has available. A common way to make a country go dark is by simply removing the BGP routes advertised for that country.
Did they give any rationale why they can't use Wayland?
Javascript finite-state-machine framework
No plans, but that would be nice. Others like Clustrix and NuoDB are more directly targeting the distributed SQL database market. Often we describe FoundationDB's core to people as more of a "storage substrate" than a database. It is possible to build an efficient SQL database as a layer on top of that substrate. For example, SQLite4 is choosing a transactional ordered key-value abstraction for its internal storage engine (which exactly matches FoundationDB's API). Of course, a SQL database is a big project involving a lot more than just a storage engine!
> the person who wins the election becomes the person in power, every time.

That is a joke, isn't it?
I don't see how a camera phone will be as good as a 5D Mark3 anytime soon. I mean, phones don't have focusing! Not to mention a sensor that is maybe a tenth the size?

I love me my iPhone 5 but unless you want a phone the size of a 1980s one, there are physical limitations. Try photographing a soccer play from the sideline or getting a shallow depth of field with a phone, things you pay thousands for a full frame SLR for.

Now, as good as a good point and shoot soon? And better because its Always in your pocket and connected? I'll buy that.
Here's the Brian O'Sullivan presentation:

http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Running-a-Startup-on-Hask...
Wealth Distribution in China
If you're looking for a 20% improvement from 5 MP to 6 MP, you won't find it. It's really more like a 10% improvement. How many MP does a camera have, if it has twice the resolution of a 5 MP camera? It has 20 MP, not 10.

There are also physical limits. The angular resolution depends on the lens aperture size. Smaller cameras have smaller lenses with smaller apertures, which must have lower angular resolution just because of the laws of physics. At the same time, engineering trade-offs mean that smaller lenses usually have larger apertures proportional to their focal length, so this difference is not quite proportional.

But these small cameras do not have unreasonable resolutions. I just looked up the specs for a tiny point-and-shoot, the Nikon Coolpix AW100. From the specs (5-25mm lens, 28-140mm equivalent) we can figure out that the sensor is probably about 6.2mm across (36mm * 5mm / 28mm). The lens is f/3.9, which gives a resolution of about 400 lp/mm in visible light, or about 5000 pixels across 6.2mm. The sensor is 16 MP with about 4600 pixels across it. So the sensor is close to the limits of the optical system.

If you're having trouble noticing improvement above 5 MP, it is probably due to technique rather than equipment.

* You need to use a tripod. (Or a flash. This should be apparent.)

* You must not open the lens fully, this will blur the image from lens imperfections. (Look at the MTF charts of your favorite lens. They're way worse when the lens is fully open.)

* You must not close the lens more than a couple stops, this will blur the image from diffraction of light through the lens aperture. (Rayleigh limit. You can do the math yourself.)

* You need to be very careful with focus. (In my experience, the "hyperfocal distance" is total bunk when you're doing critical work, which makes sense because the hyperfocal formula is based on the assumption that diffraction is irrelevant. When you want maximum sharpness, you'll be shooting near the diffraction limit so it will be relevant, and therefore the hyperfocal formula is wrong. If I remember right, the adjusted formula is based on lens travel distance from farthest to closest subject point, but I've been using the same lens for so long I use intuition.)
> its up to you guys to make it happen so please do so. I can only imagine how hard it will be to be re-elected if you were to not support such legislation when it came up in favor of one of your big donors (AT&T).

It isn't in favor of AT&T. At all. Having platform lock in means after they sell you a device they can price gouge you indefinitely and since you probably bought the device outright since you aren't on a 2 year contract and thus have the option to change carriers, you probably don't want to just ditch it immediately.

Platform lock in is good for device manufacturers, carriers, and business, but bad for consumer freedom, choice, and market competitiveness. And there is no multi-billion dollar lobby for the the latter.
What Would You Like To Do If Money Were No Object?
Phablet = Phone + Tablet.
Mirror, anyone? I can't get to it on Comcast.
It doesn't sound like a good idea. What's wrong with Wayland?
Show HN: Discover new startups through video
RubyMotion: Dreams do come true
This is a very information post. There is so much noise out there...this blog and post is a refreshing change.
Why should there be any barriers while you are on contract? What if someone wants to use their phone one two different networks for some reason, swapping SIM cards occasionally (OK, I cannot come up with a reason why, but that does not mean no such reason exists)? If you are paying for your service, what's the problem?
Should websites be required to publicly disclose password storage strategies?
Seems like the only thing left to do is getting patches into cat and diff. Seriously, adding support for inline signatures would solve the problem in a general way. Why not do this?

val map : f:('a -> 'b) -> list:'a list -> 'b list
let map f list = (*...*)
"Unity fiasco"
Wait, what?
Exactly this. My chosen distro is Linux Mint. Based on Ubuntu but going its own direction.
This will be disappointing to some of the more confused HNers.
Besides of being too slow to run on current phones, and not natively supporting 3D acceleration, these are the reasons mentioned in the article:

"With respect to shell development (Unity), three major shortcomings of the X stack prevent us from delivering the user experience (f’n’f) we have in mind:

* X shares a lot of system state across process boundaries. This is obviously not a problem in itself but a system-level UI that is meant to provide a beautiful and consistent user experience is likely to require tight control over the overall system state.

* X's input model is complex and allows applications to spoof on input events they do not own. On the one hand, this raises serious security concerns, especially regarding mobile platforms. On the other hand, adjusting and extending X's input model is difficult and supporting features like input event batching and compression, motion event prediction together with associated power-saving strategies or flexible synchronization schemes for aligning input event delivery and rendering operations is (too) complex.

* The compositor hierarchy ends on the session level, and no tight integration into the system from boot time onward is available. For that reason, there is a visible glitch when transitioning the system from a VT-level to the graphical shell level."
Off-topic, but how come they answer so quickly to this one, and not yet to the Aaron Swartz one ?
Actually, while I am not a Constitutional scholar, I believe that the literal definition of "petition" is precisely what is meant by that section of the First Amendment. The Founders knew what petitions were and how they intended them to function when sent to the government. The proof of that is that back in 1774 the Continental Congress sent a petition [1] to King George III (well, theoretically to him, but in practice to the two Houses of Parliament) requesting that a set of laws they disliked be repealed. This was about 15 years before the Bill of Rights was approved by Congress [2], so one can assume that people were still aware of it.

The analogy isn't perfect since the US doesn't have the same system of government and so petitions to the US government can't go to quite the same party or parties, but it's bizarre to claim without evidence that the plain sense of the word as used then and now isn't what's meant. The fact that the President is making it easier to gather signatures for a petition doesn't change the fact that they're requests to the government initiated by citizens, for the redress of grievances.

(Now if you are a Constitutional scholar, as say the current President is, I'd love to hear an argument as to why the straightforward meaning is wrong. Any such response would likely cite various Supreme Court decisions from the last 200+ years.)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petition_to_the_King
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights
I'm in the process of automating the configuration of my VPS using Ansible. This tutorial is an excellent introduction http://lextoumbourou.com/blog/posts/getting-started-with-ans...
Everybody who has ever seen any C code has

#define i index

programmed deeply in his brain's CPP.

Using i for loop counter never causes confusion and using index makes the for statement 12 characters longer for no reason.
Well, almost every time. Shit does happen. But no, I would seem to be the shockingly uncommon American who has some measure of faith in the process of self-governance that has seen us through the last two hundred thirty years.
Tangential : every time I read this title, I ask myself what a "one day office" is.
This makes some good point, except for (at least) one:

> 3. Simplify your UI.
> […] Taking away features can be so much harder than adding features,
> but subtracting often creates the most value for your users.

Really? By this reasoning, Gnome 3 must be far better than anything before, and Nautilus 3.6 must have greatly improved over previous versions. Heck, based on such a general statement, ‘mail’ is probably also better than any GUI email client and ‘cat’ must be the best text editor ever.

‘If you create a system that any idiot can use, then only idiots will find it useful.’ still holds, even though dumbed-down versions of everything become somewhat more popular from time to time.
Getting Started With Ansible
There is a weapon in the dungeon! Just have to find it.
Let tools define JavaScript style
Besides for executing minors/mentally handicapped, the US does all those things. Torture (waterboarding), hold prisoners without trial/charge (Guantanamo Bay), allow their leaders to execute citizens summarily (drone strikes), incarcerate people at a high rate for benefit of state sponsored corporations (drug war - privatized jails). I'm not arguing politics - I don't think HN is the place for it, but you should evaluate your perspective and how it might be changing how you view the world.
Except that you might want to unlock your phone even without canceling your contract. Maybe you want service from two cell providers simultaneously for some reason. Why should the DMCA stop you from doing that?
Why do you say that? Their SLR line already has video cameras in its lineup. It's actually becoming a pretty big thing to use an SLR for a video camera instead of a regular video camera. If that lens was put inside their next EOS 1D or 5D, you'd better believe there'd be a considerable line of people wanting this camera, especially if you could shoot in 1080p or higher, as well as 45MP (or even mid-30's).

Cannibalizing? Not even close. Just the next generation of cameras! They did the same thing between the ... I think it was EOS 50D and EOS 60D
Getting your app into China
Absolutely fantastic! Though it is fairly easy to manually map the javascript source line to coffeescript code, I am hoping this feature can somehow be embedded into editors to make it much easier to write large coffeescript modules (live coding).
Each Korea pretends it's the only legit Korea. They don't call themselves as North or South. So, it would be politically incorrect to say "We are hosted by North Korea". If they said that, it would be a good sign that they are kidding us.
That remark seems a bit unfair. That document is two years old, from long before version 1.0. RavenDB is now at version 2.0. It was also built with transaction support from the start. The default setting for TransactionMode is Safe (http://ravendb.net/docs/server/administration/configuration) so most users will use that, if there were any issues with it that would certainly be known by now.
> Sometimes there isn't enough wind power in an entire continent to provide power, and this could potentially last for days, even weeks.

Do you have a reference you could link me to?

Also, any reason to think this can't be solved by pumped-storage hydroelectricity?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity

The world uses ~2,000 GW and has ~100 GW of PSH capacity. Scaling up by a factor of 20 would be expensive because the low hanging fruit has been taken, but it really doesn't seem that bad if it means our base generators are half (or less) as expensive. See, for example, this take in Scientific American:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=here-is-the...

Hell, even storing it in batteries isn't that expensive:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-23/duke-completes-bigg...

($44 million for 36 MW, which is added to the typical costs of wind turbines of ~$2 million per MW.)
I found the dynamic lighting effects quite impressive, and I like the use of proportional text for the story rather than more monospace.

Habits from other roguelikes make me keep looking for an inventory and the ability to move diagonally, but neither one actually seems necessary, just unexpectedly missing for a roguelike.

Edit: "Achievements: 0 gold found 1 secret gold stashes found". So, I found one secret gold stash but it had no gold in it?
If you have some information from the phone call that wasn't in the official response, then it's probably worth sharing it here. Otherwise, the official statement seems to absolutely confirm the doubts of the original skeptical responses.
Huh. I'm a Linux-using, liberal-arts CS major and I had no idea that this was even a thing.

I suspect that a large part of this trend is pragmatism vs idealism. From what I hear of days gone by, using *nix wasn't ever really a pragmatic decision. It may suck to be boxed into a GUI, but an engineer might be more inclined to make the compromise and get the job done than a liberal arts major.
Announcing SF Hack & Tell 
We're excited to announce the inaugural SF Hack & Tell meetup where geeks present their projects to other geeks.
We're looking for 5 minute demos of something you've built or are working on and think is awesome
Interesting idea. Thanks for that :)
If you don't understand an issue, how do you make a good decision that represent YOUR interest? Or worse, you are mis-informed through media manipulation to vote against your own interest?

Requiring at least x% of people to understand an issue before the vote is legit would be a logical choice.
There are very few standards in the GNU/Linux world. GNU and Linux has, by themselves, become standards through ubiquity. POSIX is one, yes, but it's woefully inadequate when you've gotten used to all the bells and whistles any modern GNU/Linux distro puts on top of it by default.

And what about the BSDs? They certainly doesn't play well with Linux, or vice versa, but that's hardly an argument for calling either an agent for closedness.
Can one post a video here? What is the signup for?
There is sometimes another weapon in the dungeon. Hence, the rougelike nature.
I'm with you that you could by a non-subsidized phone. However, one of the points of the petition is that unlocking is currently illegal _even after the original contract has expired_. Why should that be allowed? The original contract is over, after all. No party should have any rights beyond the contract they've agree upon.
Twitter Reaction to Events Often at Odds with Overall Public Opinion
Well, I'd notice if I'm getting any invoices worthwhile to haggle about? If I'm paying $200 per month then would Akamai even bother to give me a quote?
And if I'm paying $20.000/yr for anything, then sure, it's good business sense for a medium business to reconsider suppliers at least yearly even if you're very happy with the current one - just to shop around and verify prices.