skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Thanks for this series Tom, you guys are trying to succeed in a really challenging technical sector (Travel) and I, for one, really appreciate your honesty. I think that some of the confusion & criticisms I see in other comments are that after reading your pieces we all rush off to try adioso and some observations predominate:

# The ui is quirky on different screen sizes
# The calls to Expedia are SLOW
# The natural language search is perhaps only one search interface and not necessarily the best
# The core bit you guys have worked on 'wingtip' is sort of lost in this version of Adioso because of trying to increase coverage
# You could have utilised existing api's like ITA's QPX, Everbread's Haystack, Amadeus, even Skyscanner's api and increased coverage whilst being much faster.
# The example link at the end that presumably is the answer to the question "For the first time, we’re seeing signs that the flight data we need is becoming available, in the right format" is totally misleading. Vayant are an ITA competitor not a raw data provider. They have managed to achieve in their price cacheing tech what you have only achieved for lots of low cost carriers.
# And this last point is my biggest confusion about Adioso and what I think is your internal confusion. Are you a tech platform for flight data or a consumer facing flight website. Because Kayak, Hipmunk (and previously Orbitz erc) are B2C consumer sites that get data from ITA, Amadeus etc. Vayant, ITA etc are B2B data platforms - tech companies. Only skyscanner truly is both I think. They are a B2C site that last year enabled the selling of over £2 Billion worth of tickets but which is powered by its own 'Graphite' Graph and price cacheing databases.

The embarrassment I feel for you is when you say that you are making a travel site 'even when it's impossible'. I cringe for you! You haven't built a site even as good as Skyscanner's and you're saying pretentious statements like that? I know startups are hard and this is for a book so poetic license is to be expected.

I say ditch the BS and get back to reality. You could attach your natural language interface to someone else's api (like Vayant's) and have a better B2C product or keep improving 'wingtip' but this all seems like a confused desperate fudge.

Incidentally, when are you going to talk in detail about 'Wingtip' it's the bit that most interests me. It IS Adioso. I really do wish you guys every success though. What you are doing is needed but ditch the slow ass Expedia api.
agreed, you can set up fancy jails for people scanning other services too, someone who probes SMTP/POP/IMAP doesn't need to hit SIP and SSH. Depending on the scenario you could choose to say block an entire netblock from hitting ssh after a single offensive IP probes a few services. Even a 10min jail time will cause most attackers to give up and move along to their next victim (unless you're being targeted.)
There's always that risk with unenforced laws - there's hardly ever (ever?) a stated policy of non-enforcement, since the executive is also technically obliged to enforce everything congress has told it to.

I would generally be interested to know if it ever has actually been enforced so far.
I laughed out loud :)
p.s. for anyone looking for a great Rogue like game for mobile checkout "Legends of Yore". I have wastedH^H^H^H^H^H whiled away a lot of time with this gem.

http://www.legendsofyore.com/
Many thanks David. We spoke to Jeremy very early on in proceedings (early '09), and it QPX didn't seem to be a fit (or at least, a cost-effective one) at that point.

But I'd like to think things have changed since then.

I'll ping you on LinkedIn.
We already have two or three powerful entities working on WebKit, pulling it in whatever directions suit their needs. If they ever pull hard enough or far enough in different directions, it could tear (fork) and the cycle begins again. And anyone is free to learn from WebKit and create something better (as Apple learned from Gecko before adopting KHTML).

"Monoculture" is a loaded word. The differing priorities that might manifest in completely separate web rendering engines still have plenty of room to manifest when multiple big players are working on WebKit, with nothing stopping any of them from forking if the differences get too large.

(And anyway, Gecko does still exist, after all…)
Have the Debian defaults (by some definition) had an opportunity to update since upstart was packaged for Debian?
Ask HN: Is anyone still using Amazon SimpleDB?
StartupBus and SxSW (with images, tweets) · azat_co · Storify
On the majority of cases, not true. The stink of a bootstrap is still there even if it's mostly over-designed. But that's not the point, the point is there's so many sites out there with just bootstrap - nothing else - and that is bloody horrible. Developers should stop inventing ways to be more lazy and just do what they do.

SASS, LESS, Bootstraps, insert_whatever_thing are just tools that ideally help to be more productive, but a few years in and you rarely see any raw code or from-scratch work. And they won't care either, because "it's more productive" is a perfect argument.
As an individual who was actually diagnosed with ADHD, I have an axe to grind with a medical industry that sold me amphetamines at 15. The results were ~nugatory~ at best.
Didn't Apple buy CUPS specifically so that they could keep parts of it proprietary?

They're definitely only funneling money into LLVM so they can drop their dependencies on GCC, which will probably have a net harmful effect on the free software culture.
Synata - search all your clouds
I may not be quite who you're looking for, but I think I'm in the ballpark.

I've been taking methylphenidate (ritalin) since I was about 10 years old, though I've recently switched to Vyvanse. This is what I can say about my experience.

I took methylphenidate in two forms, a short acting tablet that lasted for a ~4 hours and a proprietary time release capsule called Concerta that lasted for ~9 hours.
As a kid, for the first few years taking it there was a massive difference between me under it's effects and me without it. I totally remember feeling like I could focus on anything I wanted and completely block out everything else. Also, I remember my appetite being hugely affected, where I could ignore eating for quite a while and not really feel affected.

However, as time passed, I noticed two things:

1. The medication didn't affect me as much as it used to.

2. When off the medication, I wasn't as distracted.

In fact, by the time senior year rolled around, I could tell when I was under the effects of the medication, but not by a huge amount.

This August, after a recommendation from my doctor, I switched to Vyvanse instead of Concerta as my long-acting medication. For me, this has actually been very good. It's a much "gentler" effect than what I remember Concerta being like, in that I don't feel like the guy in "Limitless". I feel much more like my "normal" self but with my mind just slightly more organized. I feel like it's the right balance for me.

On the downsides: for me, it's totally impossible to sleep under the effect of any of the medications I've mentioned above. I can't sleep a wink. The author's description of "mind and heart racing" seems pretty accurate, though that only seems to be the case when I actually try to go to sleep. Also, now that I've switched to Vyvanse I am back to having less of an appetite than I used to. Not quite like when I first started on Concerta, but also not "normal."
> But it does not solve a need, from what I can tell, that Kayak or other meta-searches solve.

I'll give you my last flight search (and ticket purchase) as a direct counter-example.

I want to go to Europe for two to three months. I'll fly wherever is cheapest and I'm willing to go for any period between March and July.

This is theoretically one search on Adioso. It is impossible on Kayak or any other website I've seen to date. And when I say impossible, I don't mean impossible in a single search, I mean I would have to do several thousand searches to cover the full matrix of options which would actually be impossible.

Not to mention, the carriers listed by Kayak actually was quite limited (not sure about others).
I like flat design, it's basically an extension/re-branding of minimalist design and that's not going anywhere so I don't really see this as a fad.
I am routinely amazed that big hardware companies like Samsung or LG put out reasonable TVs with such mediocre software and interface design. They seem like an afterthought.
This is the first White House petition I've ever seen that actually got a response that wasn't just some vapid equivocation.

I'm impressed.
Is it really? I always though the main financial difference between going for (1) a good school district or a (2) private school is the residual value of the investment. At the end of the 15 or so period, you have built equity in a property for the latter, but not the former. Now if the private school is cheap enough you might end up with the equity in your pocket. There are other considerations of course, such has the safety of your neighborhood, neighbor's kids, etc.
These kinds of articles are often used to delegitimize ADHD as a genuine condition: it actually can be. People can take Adderall for genuine conditions and see improvement.

When it comes to the actual diagnosis of ADHD...that's where it gets interesting. Is everyone on an attention spectrum, and ADHD individuals are simply at one extreme? Or is there something completely different about these individuals that can be a single defining marker?
What kind of things do you on adderal?
If I were a consumer and I had to choose between my company spending manhours implementing a design that's going to probably look derivative anyway (because let's be honest, its not designers using these things, its developers) or spending manhours implementing a new feature that delivers me value, I'd choose the latter.

I don't think anyone is advocating that you should use Bootstrap three years into a product lifestyle, but it helps deliver an MVP.
I never took any amphetamines but I find myself much more focused on weeks I spend at least 10m meditating.
The US refuses to admit that the real drug problem are prescriptions. The effects of prolonged adderall usage have not been studied and I can't imagine how it interacts with other medications.

It's a schedule II narcotic with a high similar to cocaine. Keep your kids off of it.
I see. I wasn't a long-term user and was always extremely conservative with my dosage, so I didn't encounter any of those brain-related issues.

Even with the fact that they are in the same family of drugs, comparisons to long-term meth abusers doesn't seem quite right.
>Again, Twitter is a totally different use case. I might not want to unfriend my Aunt, who loves me very much, but I sure as hell don't want to see her every little post. I don't interact with her messages, so Facebook stops showing them to me. That problem seems solved to me...

People whose FB posts annoy me, I can easily remove from my newsfeed without unfriending them or waiting for the algorithm to kick in.
It's not broken, it's working exactly how it's told to work. It's just not how you'd personally prefer it.

I'm personally happy to put up with advertisements and whatever they think they need to do to optimise their earnings on this so long as they don't screw up so badly that there's no longer any value for me in using the site. That said I'd happily get a paid membership for a couple of bucks a month, to browse it free of ads (and sponsored stories etc) and perhaps get to beta test changes. I don't believe any such thing exists but I think that would be cool :)
http://adioso.com/us/oakland-california-to-maui-hawaii-in-au...

Gives me fares of $772, $841, and $940 (expedia is not responding)

Checking Google Flights, I see if I leave later in August, I can fly for as low as $443.

https://www.google.com/flights/#search;f=OAK;t=OGG;d=2013-08...

The search style you have is nice, but it is most important to me to get an accurate low fare! And speed really matters too...
Flat trend? Flat design has been around for decades, i.e. Josef Muller Brockmann
Agreed. I can easily see this interface + NLP capabilities working perfectly with an API from Skyscanner.
University Reputation Ranking
why do people want to make the web look the same? - to leverage the good work of others making things look nice. To allow users to easily know how things work, because they are familiar with them.
[if Canonical were] gaining users the hard way, by being better, then nobody would blink an eye.

Maybe they are "being better".

I have no doubt that technically Wayland is better than Mir, but for me (as a user who lost interest in configuring Linux back when FVWM95 was considered interesting) I don't care.

I use Ubuntu (including Unity!) because it works. I never, ever want to deal with weird configurations to work around some bug, and for the most part Ubuntu lets me avoid that.

For me, "better" means "it just works". No other distro does that as well as Ubuntu.

(BTW, Unity isn't that bad once you've used it for a while)
This Lebbeus Woods has some great artwork. I'd never heard of him before but I found these two pieces by him:

http://historyofourworld.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/lw-iii....

http://www.krobarch.com/images/winners/2012/entry3353.jpg
Unfortunately I have to agree.

While Adioso looks good and started off with promise, it appears to have fallen into the trap trying to be and stay cool.

Adioso has a lack of useful data. So working on whatever dreamy idea of natural language processing and making life easier for people isn't going anywhere fast.

I like ugly websites, they are useful and have lots of data so I can make useful decisions.

Adioso is not ugly. It makes decisions for me and then I go to Kayak to check the options. I want everything in front of me at once and Adioso moves away from that.

I only hope that Tom Howard has the sense to check the criticisms rather than just voting them down and pretending they don't exist.

Maybe it's time Tom showed off some of the criticisms about Adioso on his posts instead if all the roses. If people aren't complaining about Adioso then people aren't using it.
Ugh, I have hated Methylphenidate, it was really close to ruining my life. It made me feel angry and depressed. I hated the world and every single moment after taking it for some time. Even off of it I felt it semi-permanently affected my brain.

I gave Adderral a shot, but again it is quite an unstable drug. Mostly because of it's a Dopamine Uptake Inhibitor. And that usually causes unstable Dopamine levels, meaning less stable mood and thinking.

I fortunately found a Doctor that prescribed new age of ADHD medication. Although it is not for the weary. Atomoxetine(Strattera) is much more stable, and much more powerful drug. It doesn't have tolerance issues like typical drugs. It is a norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor, meaning it enhances the neurotransmitter that's a precursor to all other neurotransmitters including Dopamine. This means all your neurotransmitters become enhanced.

Now I say it's a drug not for weary minded, because it's actually very hard to adjust to it. For the first month you have to take 20mg increments every week to get your body to adjust to it. At first it makes your incredibly sleepy(can't even stay awake at any time), but that quickly fades and your realize that sleep is much easier to schedule when you can get the brain to feel sleepy(Needed for someone with ADHD).

It also is tough on your liver, unless you eat a decent sized meal you will most definitely vomit bile from your Liver(I know I have seen it enough). It gives your incredible nausea and will eliminate your appetite to the point where it hurts to eat.

I have found that combining it with Marijuanna to be advantageous. Both drugs complement each other(one to counteract nausea and trigger hunger, the other to enhance the high you get.

It's one of those drugs that doesn't make your ADHD disappear, but let you take control of it. But it really is miles ahead of anything, and has changed my life completely. I have been using it for a year, and the flood gates are off. Unfortunately I still struggle with a lot of things, but now I have the ability to correct those learning weakness because I can concentrate.
Internship - Free Housing. Free Food. Ship Often
Cube (YC W12) is looking for 2 interns. If you're an iOS or Web engineer who wants to ship code in the first week, then we'll cover the annoying things (food and rent) so you can focus on stuff you love. You'll be joining our small engineering team: only 4 engineers who do all the development, design, and maintenance of our backend, mobile, and web app.

If you're the right person, then you can get started right away.

About Us:
Cube is a platform for retailers to provide the Apple Store experience to their customers. Learn more about us here:
https://www.getcube.com

iOS:

- Strong C programming skills

- Have built non-trivial iOS apps

Web:

- Strong programming skills

- Good taste in design; you don't have to be a designer, but you should take pride in your craft

- Experience with Ruby on Rails and Backbone.js

Benefits!

- Free housing with the rest of our team

- Daily lunch and any other meal you need

- Five-minute walk from San Antonio Caltrain station

- Learn to tap out your future co-workers (we have two former NCAA D1 wrestlers)

If you're interested, please email jobs@getcube.com. We're located in Mountain View, CA.
I drink coffee every day. Does that give me an advantage over those who don't drink coffee? If there is an advantage, is that advantage unfair?
With a very optimistic outlook like yours, there is nothing to worry about: Everything will work out, these are just cycles in the industry. What could go wrong?

But we already see problems today from WebKit's dominance on mobile. Non-WebKit browsers have trouble rendering the mobile web which was designed with only WebKit in mind. It got so bad that Opera just gave up and adopted Chromium (not even just WebKit).

The remaining non-WebKit browsers, IE and Firefox, are left with an even bigger problem and it is even harder for them to disrupt the WebKit mobile web. And it would be even harder for a completely new engine.

So general arguments about cycles and all that might sound good, but we already see the damaging effects of WebKit monoculture (you argue it's a loaded word, but it fits).
> Great engineers don’t solve problems - they redefine them. In other words, great engineers deftly navigate false premises. This is an invaluable asset and is far more rare than a productive engineer. It changes the playing field entirely. If you’re not constrained by the problem, the solution can be far more valuable.

This is actually true of great leaders in general; great engineers just happen to be a specific sort of leader.
An Amsterdam Hacker Meetup for those that like code, startups and good weed...
Show HN: Collaborative Homework Planner for iPhone
EL6 uses upstart[1], the SysV init scripts are using the rc compatibility.

[1]: https://access.redhat.com/knowledge/docs/en-US/Red_Hat_Enter...
It could help make the software market more competitive.
We can already see that Apple and MS want a lot of power over their platforms to the point of being able to decide what software will run.
A more neutral platform in wide use could make the playing field more level thus leading to better software in the long run.
> If the cheaper lenses on DLSRs aren't able to really give enough quality to fully take advantage of higher MP, I'm not quite sure why you'd think that the ones on a compact would be.

You might be surprised at the quality of some of the P&S lenses. There have been excellent lenses on cheap fixed-lens P&S cameras for decades: a modern example is the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100, an older example is the Yahsica Electro series from the 1960s. From resolution tests you can find modern P&S cameras with soft lenses and you can also find ones with real, honest 10+ MP resolutions. You don't need to trust my math, you can go check out test shots online.

> As you say yourself "You must not open the lens fully", in which case the f/3.9 is irrelevant.

I also wasn't really explaining things fully with the maxim. Opening the lens reduces diffraction and increases aberrations. A few good lenses will open all the way to, say, f/2 and still get sharper as you open them up. Some terrible lenses aren't sharp at f/8. However, the trade-off is different at different system sizes. For a P&S, wide open might be the best way to go. For MF and LF, you'll probably want f/11 or f/22 to start with, as ridiculous as that sounds. Of course, this assumes you want maximum resolution.
You seem to miss the point that many of those sites wouldn't have been launched in the first place if a way to make it look half-decent, fast, wasn't widely available. Making a website, especially a web app, takes some breaking inertia, if you've ever tried you'll know, and anything that helps you in getting it out is one step further from not launching at all. Given popularity, the design can be amended. A non-launch has nothing to amend, and is, if nothing else, a tiny loss for the web.
There are many reports here of people who've taken Adderal without significant issues, suggesting the key is "active medical supervision" (ie, much more than the passive doc just handing Kate Miller pills).

In fact, once we have monitoring in place, you might even argue "intelligence doping" could provide such benefits to society that we should even encourage it (though only for those who face minimal side effects):

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2008/03/intelligence-dopin...
Hi Kate,

If you're reading this (and I'd like to think so because Hacker News is no longer a stepchild), 2 things:

1. It sounds like you've turned the corner on this thing. If so, congratulations and best wishes.

Oddly, I just posted my feelings regarding drugs and work earlier today.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5318320

2. You write very well! I look forward to more. Let us know how to follow you. And keep 'em coming (naturally, of course).
What is the supposed rationale for Japanese internment being a good idea? Was it the supposed danger to the Japanese themselves from retribution? Why didn't that happen elsewhere, where they were not interned, if so? Was it the risk that Axis sympathizers would sabotage the war effort? If so, why did this never happen in Hawaii, which was so full of Japanese-descended Americans that internment simply could not be done?
To offer at least one answer to my own question: "The White House only supports unlocking when consumers have fulfilled their contractual obligations. It’s silent on whether it supports a consumer’s decision to unlock their phone in the middle of their contract."

http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/obama-s-stance-on-unlock...
If there will ever come a day when I can ditch the Chrome's HN+ plugin to make HN look good, it will probably be with that. So I'm all for it. Great idea.
Good luck getting that published.
While very pretty, these controls make me feel like an old person who is learning how to use a computer for the first time. I have no idea how anything will respond if I click on it. It's a bit unnerving, but helps me empathize with first-time computer users.
You can look at the 3.0.0-wip branch on Github. You'll have to download the source yourself and compile it to use it, though.

Technically the CSS is already compiled inside of the docs directory for the documentation, if you wanted to use that.
Hold on, exactly what are you saying is the connection between e.g. socialized medicine and the Japanese internment? You seem to be saying there is one, but hell if I can figure out what it's supposed to be.
Using typed arrays with web workers to parse a 27 MB text file
Great! I plan on using Adioso all the time once I get past grad school and have some money. The "Anywhere" destination is exactly how I would love to travel, but no other site allows that.