skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
They can have the code for free - Joomla, for instance or Drupal, that's not the issue, it's something deeper than that.

I wouldn't go to an exotic plant center and ask how to grow a sequoia tree and when they ask if I have any gardening experience, say no. Have any tools? No. Have anywhere to grow one? No. Do I want to read a book on them? No. I don't want to go through all this growing a tree bullshit, I just want to grow a sequoia tree! It'll need a lot of space. Don't give me this scaling crap. It'll need a tropical soil makeup. I don't care about soil chemistry you nerd, I just want to grow a big tree!

If I wanted to jump into a big project, why not? I'd research to find out where they normally grow, where seeds for unusual plants can be obtained, how to germinate and care for similar (tree, tropical, whatever) seeds and what kinds of soils and watering they might require, and arrange a big space to grow it in - then I'd contact someone appropriate and describe my plan, make it clear I was determined and ask for their advice.

I'm having trouble putting my finger on what's annoying me, it's not the request for free code - you can have it. It's not the asking for help - I'll help when I can (if I'm interested).

There's something about the questioner being unwilling to help themselves. Not a lack of understanding about a topic, but a lack of understanding about understanding in general. A kind of feeling that some people think things are literally magic, not just a chain of connections that anyone learn about and manipulate.

It's probably because I'm a nerd who likes details (in areas I'm interested in, at least), but it's puzzling.
@batarski,
"you cannot say that there should be no outrage "

That isn't what I said. Anyone can choose to be offended and base their actions on their outrage (including leaving Rails, forking Rails , whatever).. That doesn't mean (a) they are right and the "offender" is wrong (b) even if they are offended, the offender should "apologize sincerely".

"The reaction from DHH is in exact opposition to that of those who felt offended. Let me repeat that, exact opposition. "

Why is that wrong? It is just an opinion he (like all of us) has. If he genuinely feels that he is right it doesn't matter what the degree of opposition is. He should live by his notion of what is right and stick to his view point and suffer any consequences. He has done exactly that.

Of course that forces the rest of the rails "community" to decide what to do.

" Would he have said the same if the presentation contained racially offensive terminology?"

This is a hypothetical situation. When it happens we can deal with it. Till then let us react to what did happen and give everyone the freedom to think how he wants to think .

It is the blanket condemnation of an opinion for being politically incorrect that I oppose.

EDIT : to respond to batarski's edit

"His reaction, at least to me, wasn't one of "I don't care what people think" as much as it was a big "Fuck you and your beliefs" to those who didn't feel how he felt about the slides."

Sure, that s one way to interpret his reaction and probably valid.

My point is that DHH has always been like that. He does what he thinks is right and if a community forms around his code that is great but he couldn't care less if there weren't a community. He has always said that he writes Rails for himself.

In other words DHH is consistent. You may not agree with his opinions (I don't always) but I am surprised at why people find his reaction so surprising? He has never played the political correctness game and has revelled in thinking for himself and acting on his convictions. So? Way are people so surprised and horrified now? I predicted his reaction the moment I saw the original post. And I am not sure it is wrong.

As to what I expect other people to do, I listed those options above. Rails is Open Source code. MIT licensed I believe. you can do whatever you want with it, including forking it.
Bullshit. Gravity is a provable part of science. The social sciences are harder to deal with. Meanwhile, you want proof? I'll offer myself and every single person I know who's willing to be social as proof. I'm friends with guys with weird hair and glasses who use Digg and they were an accepted part of high school because they didn't go out of their way to be exclusive and closed-off. When I decided to stop being a dick to people just to preempt their disliking me, I found out that I was rarely disliked. (In fact, I went to a further extreme, because I'm quick to call people out for saying stupid things and I like colorful insults, and yet people didn't mind so much as I continued to get along with them.)

Show me the person who makes an active attempt to stop being hated - not by being "cool" but by starting to act friendly towards people - and fails after a few weeks' effort and I'll consider your experiment a potential refutation.

Would the multitudes of people coming to refute his points confirm his point that there is a conspiracy to hide the truth?

I said "Nerds are in denial" and a lot of people jumped on board to deny it. I'm not saying that proves it either way, because I don't presume to judge people by their comments online, but it's not exactly evidence of my wrongdoing.
The stated purpose is to expand the audience.

Then again, I'm not sure how many terminal junkies out there don't know about screen or whether a non-terminal junky would care...
If he didn't care, he wouldn't have gone out of his way to make a blog theme that screamed "Obnoxious asshole" and then gone on to rant about things that got him called an obnoxious asshole. I'm not saying that those two things make him an obnoxious asshole, but then, Zed never once assumed the attitude of "I can't believe people are calling me an obnoxious asshole." I'm certain he didn't care that they were, and so in his mind it's totally okay.

If he complained about people not calling him sensitive with that logo of his, then I'd call him out for being a hypocrite. That's what I'm doing with nerds: I think that nerds go out of their way to be disliked and then complain that nobody likes them.
>It's completely natural for human groups to seek gender balance.

Is it? I see evidence of quite a few groups that are all-female and want to stay that way.

http://tripletsdad.blogspot.com/2008/10/at-home-dad-banned-f...
Well, it really should be "The Best Entrepreneurs Know How To Learn From Their Failures"
I've been thinking a lot about this as around senior year of collage, I have felt that I've been wasting my time with every moment spent in class. What I don't understand is why people feel it is acceptable to say "If you don't finish X task, then you are not as good."

The trick was that when I started working in a lab or on startup ideas, I get the same dopamine rush that was spoken of in a previous. Working on classes that I could learn on my own time, destroying my happiness and health, when there is real good I could do in the world doesn't make sense from a utilitarian point of view; yet society functions on a credentialing system (as pg spoke of in one of his essays).

Many people give the same advice: work from within the system, if you pay your dues, more doors will be open. It is insanely frustrating, and pointlessly wasteful. What would make more sense is saying that if you want to work in a given area, you need to have X experience or a certification.

After a certain point, college (undergrad anyway) is just a grind that produces nothing useful. Lip service is paid to learning and then they grade you. Sometimes this makes sense and they are a fair representation of your knowledge, other times they are a random disconnected sampling. In certain classes, grading may make sense, but it reduces learning by encouraging certain kinds of depth first thinking.

What we need to do is break out of this acceptance of how things are done. For instance, if college is a credentialing process, then why are you required to take a class in order to gain a credential? If you get a C in a class, why should you be required to take it again (with all the work that entails) rather than just retesting? Some classes require attendance. Should not all the materials be provided so that you can learn on your own? This is not always the case.

If college is a holistic learning program, we should not be grading students or grade them in a way that does not expose them to hardship later ( e.g. by never revealing them to the outside world ). In my case, I know I would more thoroughly if I wasn't facing constant deadline pressure. Perhaps we could have a situation that is more you either present some results of your research or are given an oral examination that requires quick thinking.

College could be far more fun than it is, and far more educational. As it exists, it is a tedious compromise between an education and a certification. As a society, we need to figure out what we really want, because we are most certainly doing it wrong (whether my solutions are correct or not) at every level (I could recite what I learned about graduate school, but I have gone on long enough).
There are plenty of commercial blogs that have covered Hacker News but I don't think that's enough anymore... has a newspaper or magazine or tv show mentioned hacker news?

I added some links, one of the things I love about Wikipedia is that someone will fix my citations. :D
If you're using Firefox, I might use Tamper Data before I fed a request through a web service somewhere else; if you're using IE, I might use Fiddler.
Conficker Spreading Scareware for Profit | TechJaws: Internet Security and SEO
The problem of cold fingers and ears is solvable for more or less any reasonable climate-- certainly for northern Virgina. There are really excellent bike gloves and hats that can be worn under a bike helmet. Having a good pair of socks is also important. Jackets are less of a problem than you would think because they only really have to break the wind-- the act of cycling keeping you warm-- until the temperatures get well below freezing.

The larger problems with winter bike commuting are dangerous road conditions. Ice and slush on the road are bad enough to contend with if you have four wheels, but they can be quite tricky when you have only two. And to further compound the problem is the fact that the bike lanes and side streets that a cyclist prefers tend to be less frequently salted and cleared.
Apple sued for squelching wiki chat
Love the idea. That's Phase III :)
While I hated these teachers when they were doing this, I've grown to appreciate their advice. I wish more did stuff like this.
I was actually going to mention Drupal, because it's what I've spent a good five years playing around with. I love it.

There's something about the questioner being unwilling to help themselves. Not a lack of understanding about a topic, but a lack of understanding about understanding in general. A kind of feeling that some people think things are literally magic, not just a chain of connections that anyone learn about and manipulate.

That's not the vibe I get from a lot of the more arrogant types. If somebody asks "How do I make a custom forum" and somebody says "Well, you're going to need to know a lot of things, so if you don't know X Y and Z it's going to take you a lot of learning", that makes a lot of sense, agreed. But the attitude that comes off of a lot of programmers is "Yeah, you can't, don't bother," and I feel that hurts a lot of curious-but-ignorant people.
This has got to be the most vacuous argument I've read on the subject. Attempting to equate a hypothetical aversion to the word "bread" with an ongoing discrimination in our society towards woman lacks new insight or intellectually challenging substance.

What it really does is try to move the discussion away from real people with real feelings and real problems in our society and turn it into a game of semantics.

Well, logically, what if you don't like the word "bread?" Well, logically, what if I decide to machine-gun the front row the next time I give a presentation? What right have they to life if I decide to be edgy with my art?

Reductio Ad Absurdum is an absurd line of argument.
We could have a whole lengthy discussion about this, but I still disagree. I think that success is easy enough that somebody who's willing to try and try again will succeed sooner rather than later.
I read the whole thing, but you lost credibility at the first sentence. It's a proven myth that a failing at a start-up is no indicator of success at your next start-up.

The only "predictor" of future success in any world is past success. Give me a successful person with any reasonable background, and I'd prefer them to a failure as the leader of a company.

As Professor Paul Gompers says, “for the average entrepreneur who failed, no learning happened.”
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5941.html
damn! This is what I get for asking a stupid question.:-P
'If someone doesn't like the way Rails framework or "community" is progressing, they can fork it.'

This is getting a bit philosophical, but there will always be differences of opinion, often strong ones, and if people are never willing to compromise for the sake of working together, at some point we'll all be forked down to one-person groups. (This applies to both sides of the debate, not just the one you or I agree with.)

My point is that impulsively splitting the group, without first expressing your discontent and trying to find acceptable common ground, is probably ill advised, though initially satisfying.
Big Bang machine detectors will be 'even more perfect'
If Python is the Basic of the future, then what is the PHP of the future?
Can you remove the <pre> tag on your post, it's breaking the entire page.
Definitely. Coming to Simon's Rock (although I am transferring for the fall semester) was easily the best decision I ever made.
YES.

Don't even worry if your school doesn't offer the class for it. A friend of mine and I did self-study for one AP test, and started about 3-4 weeks before the text. I didn't "ace" it, but I got a high enough score that it got me out of required classes in college.
Matt Aimonetti, the author of the presentation, is not an Apache CouchDB committer. He is a Merb and Rails developer:

- http://merbist.com/about/

This controversy is very much about the Rails community. It's the Rails community leaders who are defending Matt. If this had been an Apache committer you would have seen a clear and swift apology from the ASF and likely a huge mailing list thread about how this behavior isn't helpful.
One could equally say that if I tell you that putting the word "Nigger" in a slide makes me feel uncomfortable, you don't get to bicker about that. It's just one of those things that matter if other people's feelings matter.

I discovered this the hard way when I repeated a joke about Jews to a Jewish friend. As she put it, "Jokes are all in the delivery, and you have to be Jewish to deliver that joke."
Decreasing Your Chances of an Audit
So what does it mean if you don't put emphasis on any of the words? Or more than one? Also, I can't stop reading the comments without putting emphasis on random words now. I can almost make any sentence say what I want it to, or at least distort the intended meaning.
Bugfix release 0.5.1 is out
I'm with you (won't watch videos at work).

I hate video content that could easily be text (screencasts, etc.). It's not readily translatable, uses more bandwidth, and (my chief annoyance) forces me to go at the speaker's pace.

Descends from soap box

That being said, a presentation is fine for video, although it's nice if a transcript is provided.
They have such nice bedrock for it. :-)
PBwiki Drops The Wiki, Becomes PBworks
"If someone doesn't like the way Rails framework or "community" is progressing, they can fork it.'"

That isn't quite what I said.

The complete sentence was,

"If someone doesn't like the way Rails framework or "community" is progressing, they can fork it. Stop submitting patches or features. Don't use it. Write an alternative framework, possibly in another language. Just don't whine for blog post after blog post on what other people should do to conform to your notions of what is right."

You say,

"My point is that impulsively splitting the group, without first expressing your discontent and trying to find acceptable common ground, is probably ill advised, though initially satisfying."

I agree with the "first expressing your discontent and trying to find acceptable common ground" part. That has been done, and by Batarski's comment the "leaders by example" have a taken a stance "directly opposed" to the complainants view point. DHH in particular has clearly expressed his opinion.

I doubt that this kind of philosophical(dare I say "political"? ) question has any "right" or "wrong" answers. Depends too much on what your initial assumptions are.

"if people are never willing to compromise for the sake of working together"

Different people have different notions of what is compromisable and what is not. It seems that to DHH, putting "porn" into slides in a presentation at a Rails conf is not worth discussing or compromising on.

All I am saying is, the opinions are all on the table, and I don't see any movement to compromise. So get on with it. Life is too short.
that sounds painful
That appears to be the case. (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070410145334AA...)
" So my question is: do doctors routinely slip porn into a presentation about a clinical studies trial? Does a lawyer slip porn into his slides for his closing remarks? Does anyone honestly think either of those would go over well?"

The point is not everyone agrees those images are "porn". And if they were, that it is inappropriate to do so.

People have a range of opinions from "utterly disgusting" to "wtf? It is just a presentation at a conference."

That is the "problem".
This is great news, finally word is getting out about one of the most useful utils.

Totally unrelated, but to those who like both emacs and screen, here's a quick tip: make screen use Ctrl-Z instead of Ctrl-A (and use Ctrl-Z Z when you need to send a suspend). Put this in your .screenrc:

escape ^zz
ECast Networks Founder Accused of Stealing from Charity
Perhaps it's that I think the vast majority of programmers are doing meaningless work, and so their use of the term has diluted what the word means for me. But then, I'd pick the term "designer" which some people think is just as meaningless.
what the hell is wrong with the word wrap on this thread?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/05/30/sapienza_girls_boys_...
Discussions of garden path sentences deserve a reference to Emo Philips: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Emo_Philips
Eating Disorder Treatment
Eating disorder treatment FAQs, stories and information.
That has been done

I'll take your word for it; my point was only that forking is probably not a good first move (which was what your comment seemed to be suggesting, if only because I misread it). If the attempt to compromise is made and the agreement can't be reached, then sure, split the group. In this case it sounds like it might be appropriate.
Verizon Said to Be in Talks for the iPhone
I liked the way you challenged him for lacking rationale in this argument by an argument lacking rationale.

Plus his argument was actually better.

You can choose not to be offended, you can't choose not to die when someone kills you.
I don't remember having teachers who focused on that, and I really wish one of my coworkers had.

After a few minutes of talking to him it's very hard to figure out what he's saying because he'll have dropped nouns all together in favor of pronouns. This can get very confusing when talking about technical stuffs.
Do you mean teachers, or people in general?
PigFlu.com - Up to the minute FLU Stats
I liked the way you challenged him for lacking rationale in this argument by an argument lacking rationale.

That was the point. I know it's not cool to be snarky on HN but I can't resist: "WOOOOOSH!"
You can choose not to be offended

I have tried my whole life not to be offended, frightened, disturbed, or made uncomfortable by racism. I have failed for forty-six straight years.
I'm from Chicago. When I didn't ride a bike, I used to think that Chicago had miserable weather 11 months of the year. When I started riding a bike, though, I noticed that the weather is generally great from March-November, 9 months a year. Not riding your bike 3 months out of the year is much better than avoiding it 12 months out of the year. (FWIW, December-February isn't really that bad, it's just not enjoyable. You'd be surprised how non-cold you are once you start moving.)

Also, I am confused as to how riding the bike in the rain is dangerous. Some of my most enjoyable rides are on rainy days. Instead of getting wet and salty from your own sweat, you just get wet.
It's easy to be all cool about it, as long as you are not coughing.

I have a hard time believing that there might be a huge crisis, but that doesn't guarantee it won't happen. I bet the inhabitants of New Orleans never expected to be drowned (just mentioning another example of cases where modern life CAN be turned upside down).

Medicine doesn't seem to be very successful in stopping the normal (average) flu, so I am not sure how effective countermeasures against a really bad flu would even be.

As for politicians, I guess it is a difficult decision if a lot of lives are at stake. What is worse - being called out for wasting a couple of billions on catastrophe prevention for a catastrophe that never manifested, or being called out for letting a catastrophe with millions of victims happen? (Not sure how directly you could translate those billions spent on flu prevention to other deaths that could have been prevented, but you get the idea).
"split the group" isn't the only option. Maybe the complainers can just stop contributing to Rails (submit patches/plugins/whatever) or maybe just stop being part of the "community". Use Django. Cake. Wicket. Whatever.

I am just saying that "I don't see a problem" is not some kind of statement of ultimate evil. It is a valid pov, just as "I think this is a huge problem" is. People who hold one of those opinions don't need to "sincerely apologize" to people holding the other.

So yeah less demonization, more action. Please!
My wife and I are seriously looking into homeschooling right now as we get ready to move to Virginia. Thanks for posting.
ZunePhone launch colours reportedly include powder blue, teal and tye dye!
They're actively working on building cheaper, open source implementations of the common tools of the trade in the ethos of the Homebrew Computer Club.

See, e.g., http://openwetware.org/wiki/DIYbio:Notebook/Open_Gel_Box_2.0
So Much Win at JSConf 2009
How to Build a Lean Startup, step-by-step (Webcast)