skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I am a mono-linguist: Common Lisp for everything, from the hand-optimized webserver (hunchentoot), to the parser scripts that feed the database, to the data-entry software that lets my affiliates/contractors feed the database, and the daemon that runs routinely analyzing the database tables and building in-memory caches of frequently used objects and doing scheduling for the queue, and the other daemon that does backup and reporting. Even the twilio voice menu for the phone is generated by a CL-WHO app :-P

Sometimes I go for so long not touching anything but Lisp, I end up writing weird stuff like "defstruct foo { int bar, char name};" whenever I need to wrap a C library to call out to :-P

[If any Lispers are reading this: I have this weird problem where I have a slime session running on screen for weeks, during which I write something in a temporary file, or inside another file, evaluate and edit it until it works .. but I forget it there! over time, the running application has little resemblance to the textual representations I have spread over several files, and it gets worse when I delete entire useless regions and refactor them. At least other languages have the decency to bondage-and-discipline me into naming my files and organizing the project hierarchy :-]
I have a ctr500 from Cradlepoint. (http://www.cradlepoint.com/products/ctr500-mobile-broadband-...) + a sprint express slot EVDO card for about $68/month. It works really well and is very small. The cool thing about this is it has a NIC built in so you can light up a network if you really need to. Of course the hardware subsidy from the phone companies is pretty attractive. The cradlepoint was about 200 bucks and the card was probably 300 when I got it about a year ago.
The Spreedly Kickstart (no monthly fee, 1% rate for life)
It really isn't very good for a permanent internet connection. High latency is the biggest problem. It just makes everything feel sluggish.
Personal stuff tends to be in Clojure or Haskell lately. One project is currently using a little bit of Python to tie some things together, but that will probably go away. There's also some occasional Lua.

Various paid projects over the past year have used Ruby, Common Lisp, Javascript and PHP.

Emacs Lisp sees use for both on occasion, for a total of 9.
Rails references
I'm have a few web applications I'm trying to develop and I have been told Ruby on Rails is the tool to use. What references (free would be nice) would ya'll recommend? My programming experience has been limited to scientific analysis and simulation.
StackOverflow on WISC - 16M page views/month, 2 servers
I know it was said in jest, and I know this ain't exactly Boston, but geeks do need to be mindful of this sort of thing. A bearded man in a minivan full of unrecognizable boxes and wires, the three largest of which have ominous red counting displays is going to trip the hero circuit on any passing nominally educated "authority".

Worse still, using the word "atomic" anywhere in your explanation is practically a ticket to a very long and unpleasant trip through the system where you will get a new and terrible understanding of the concepts of ignorance and fear.

I'm glad this worked out for him. The hotel employees (especially the one who actually went into his running car full of this stuff to get the keys and bring them to the front desk) must have been some kind of mellow.

I would not be brave enough to try this stunt in todays climate.
One thing that could help is to put everything like that in one place - say, a file called scratch.lisp in the root of the source tree. While it's not an ideal place to store any code long-term, it lets you know what still needs to be filed.
It's been a while since I researched it, so don't remember fully.

One problem was figuring out which version of singapore math to get (for example the new one in singapore is not considered as good).

A bigger problem was that it doesn't meet state standards (I was researching for a school) and MCP does - while still being very good. (BTW they ended up using Addison Wesley grrr.)

Also an issue that some raised was the cultural differences that might show up. (Not a big issue, but why add obstacles?)

I think there was some issues raised that singapore math is not as flexible in dealing with students that have have varying learning styles, while MCP did a better job of that.

To a homeschooler this might not matter though.

But MCP really is very good and has none of those drawbacks. (I also looked at Saxon math, but it had WAY too much drill.)

Also, this is more of a "soft" reason, but a lot of reviews seemed to like it because it was from a different country. "They do well in school, so it must be the book." But I think cultural emphasis has a larger role than the book. There seems to be a lot of self-hate by homeschoolers - they don't like the schools, so they don't like anything american, therefor anything imported must be good.

I know none of this really gives a good answer for you. I had to pick something and MCP just seemed better.
Are you a cop or a judge?
Official google.org Blog: New resources for non-profit and humanitarian mapping
I agree - that is a fantastic tutorial for a fantastic bit of kit.

I got an Arduino board for Christmas last year, and I have to say that the little blighter has to be one of the friendliest ways for software people to take their tinkering in to the physical world... although, that said, I just can't shake the nagging feeling that one day, for whatever reason, I'll just have to implement Forth on it. Oh, I am so very, very weak.
How to give a lecture
I believe the grievance is from juveniles that think it is cool to break the rules just for the sake of breaking the rules. Iconoclasts who all think alike.

Something tells me the "artists" aren't nearly as offending by indie music bands putting their stickers all over every available surface. It's not about principle, it's about hating "the man". Fashion.
Try Ruby in Your Browser - http://tryruby.hobix.com/

Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby - http://poignantguide.net/ruby/

Offical Ruby on Rails Guides - http://guides.rubyonrails.org/
I have a misc.lisp file that I religiously copy stuff to. But usually, things go to misc first but later migrate to component level "package-misc" type locations, usually at the top of the component's file (I add stuff to the bottom and prefer to have a screenful of my working code, with less relevant code a PgUp or two away -- so stuff at the top is defpackage, in-package, defvars, conditional compilation stuff then the misc tools.)
Here for example are the postmortems of games that can be considered classic:

Baldur's Gate II (2001) http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3084/baldurs_gate_ii_t...

Diablo II (2000) http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3084/baldurs_gate_ii_t...

The above games can be reckoned classic. Here is a thorough review of the game Pathologic (2005), a brave experiment of the underground kind, just fortunate enough to be finished, published (in Russia), but not much more, (i.e. no decent English translation, original team seems to be no more):

Part 1 http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/04/10/butchering-pathol...

Part 2 http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/04/11/butchering-pathol...

Part 3 http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2008/04/12/butchering-pathol...
Agile Web Development with Rails, 3rd Edition
In my project I use Java for the server with a jQuery front end and at work it's Java on the server again with an AS3 front end, so 3 serious languages unless you count RDF, OWL, Jena Rules, SWRL rules in which case it's more like 7, if you want to push the envelope and add XML 8, so taking those not-really-languages appropriately, I'd say about 5.5 (:
It’s 3.0 Or Die For New iPhone Apps
Not true. Some competitions (like Facebook's last fbfund competition) just give you money.
I feel like for the past 8 years I've been regularly hearing about some new surgery or drug that substantially cures or halts Alzheimer... But is anything coming of it?
8 Things I Wish I Knew When Starting My First Business
http://www.joikuspot.com/aboutJoikuSpot.php

And a very handy piece of software it is too! Murders the battery life on my N96, though, as if it wasn't pitiful enough. Still, a couple of spare batteries beat the MiFi hands down for price.
It would have a big impact on my family, too. I hope it stands.
The video was an ad, sure, but the quistionaire was not to teach anyone about "the effect of advertising" but it's Diesel's very own astroturfing poll on people's responses to the ad.

Clever.
I can not decide where I lay on this issue.

On one hand I love the ability to interact with facebook through apps such as Tweekdeck (which I can only assume uses this API?).

However, this API can be abused by sites to publish 'closed' information. If I create a strictly private profile so that all my status updates are displayed only to my confidants, I have an expectation of privacy. Say Bob is friends with me, however uses this API to publish all my assumedly private status updates to the world on his website www.watch-woodsiers-status-updates.com, without my knowing. Is that right?
I've only read a bit of this book so far but it seems pretty neat -

Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time

http://www.armchairarcade.com/neo/node/2214

It's not exactly interviews of founders; they don't really focus on the people who made the games per se. But it talks about how the various games were created, and it's pretty interesting.
As someone who just built a monochrome Arduinome, I wish you the best of luck.

Arduinos are great for rapid development, no doubt about it. There is also pySerial which is great to use in conjunction with it.
The Hacker's Utility Belt: SSH
Conversely, it's be my experience that the most of C++'s most ardent adherents haven't "seriously used" other environments. Specifically, they tend to have a very poor grasp of both dynamically typed languages and functional programming. While they might "know" tools like Python, they don't think in these languages well and tend to write very clumsy code.

For myself, once I got to a point where I could "think well" using syntax at both a high level of abstraction and write solid C code at the system call level I found that the space of "appropriate" problems for C++ had shrunk to almost nothing. By itself, if it's the only language you're ever going to learn, C++ is not a bad choice. But in the modern world of polyglot development on CPUs too fast to measure, it's almost never the best one.
Promotional Buttons and Badges 
Promotional items like promotional buttons and badges are a great way to build yourself a loyal client base.
You are either (a) making multimillion-dollar blockbusters and bound by capitalists and IP holders, or (b) try to do whatever you want with your friends with nearly zero chance to be noticed by the industry or consumers.

The gaming industry is changing though. A lot of iPhone games have been successful on a smaller scale. There are also several promising social gaming startups like Zynga and Playfish. And there have been a lot of game startups out of China getting funding based on virtual-goods business models. All this stuff is pretty interesting and offers the potential to make a hit game without working for EA.
It did. Today. I imagine this is why this article was linked here today.
In Bb 2.0: A Collaborative Music and Spoken Word Project
Poll: NHL or NBA Playoffs?
Poll: NHL or NBA Playoffs?
It would be helpful to mention what your startup is doing.
Court Sets Rules For RIAA Hard Drive Inspection
Another brain boosting drug ?
Are this kind of drugs the next large use additive ?

http://npp.neuroscience.wisc.edu/PDF/TowardsResponsibleUseOF...
"We're a YC team of 2 looking for a Django/Rails whiz to build our web app."

Are the two of developers as well or are you business guys?
Perl, Python, PHP, JavaScript

Movable Type, with Perl.
Some Django, and non-Django stuff with Python.
Hacking on Active Collab, written in PHP.
Rely heavily on jQuery for JavaScript these days.
Chicken Scheme for some random exploration now and again.

I've become pretty good at context switching between them all. I make mistakes sure, but I don't spend more than 5 seconds writing JavaScript in a .py file.
Проснись
Microfunding of Early Stage Scientific Research
When I read a Lord Byron biography, and after seeing his prose in correspondences he struck me as a script kiddie, until I heard on NPR recently that they used contraptions to save on expensive ink and fit more words into the precious page.
Wordpress Hardening - Using obscurity properly
Off topic, but wouldn't your spouse's in-laws be directly related to you? That would make your wife's brother-in-law your brother. Am I missing something?
I never go anywhere without my iPod and my Mindfold http://www.mindfold.com/, one to shut out sound and one to shut out light.
Amazing.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to make an experiment on a similarly low budget to measure the time dilation due to velocity, instead of altitude?
Good. This could alleviate a lot of human suffering if it's real.

Now is the time to start the discussion: what if these drugs are also capable of increasing neuroplasticity above baseline in otherwise healthy adults?
Nice to know. Would you please name the startups from China or point me to articles about them?

Also, electronic distribution (i.e. Steam) may free indie developers from the shackles of publishers.
Why do we even need url shorteners?
So plug the iPhone into the wall when you're sharing internet over wifi. Anyway, the article claims that the device gets only four hours of continuous use. I imagine this is better than an iPhone using wifi constantly, but is it really that much better?
Very useful information for UK startups in this & linked articles - lots of options I wasn't aware of, thanks.
Umm, Verity Snob is the funniest writer on Technology going. Its supposed to be geek jokes.
You need to make the call to action "try now" and "more info" links into BUTTONS: highly contrasted big fat buttons with onhover visual feedback.
Economic calculation and resource allocation is a very complicated problem. How complicated? We're talking billion and trillion of calculations made everyday by humans.

When you talk about government solutions, inevitabley, you talk about command economy insitutions that have to determine calculations that affect every single area of the economy. Even if it can gather the informations it needed to do the calculation, it must understand all the consequences that will happen when they decide whether to grant a patent.

How long the copyright term should last? What is the unintended consequences? What kind of artistic work will emerge? What resource will need to be allocated to this sector of the economy? Will it really satisfy the consumers? Is there enough supply for the demand in the right time?

This is not a mere "complex problem", my friend. It is an espitemology problem.

When I said the solution is to remove copyright, I don't say this as a mere naive solution.

It is reached by my conclusion that the regulatory agencies cannot calculate, therefore it cannot calculate how long copyright should exists or it should at all. What they relies on is called statistics but it is inferior to the profit and loss check and balance that exists in the market. Without those profit and loss, they do not know if a particular solution or implementation is profitable to society at all. They are not accountable to the market at large because it is largely immaterial to their nature as a political machinery.

There's more to what I have to said(including emperical evidence as well my reasoning behind this), but I think it will turn into some half-ass super long eassy if I keep on talking.
Another cool feature of SSH: Escape Characters

(The following is an excerpt from the manpage for ssh(1) with the same title)

~. Disconnect.
~? Display a list of escape characters.

The ~. escape character is useful for getting back to your prompt when your SSH session has hung or died.
Catchy title. Wake me up when the first clinical trials show some positive results. Myriads of wonderdrugs for mice have sadly been found to be ineffective in humans.

That said, if it works for us, I'll be among the first to try it, as soon as it's availlable.
I'm guessing by their ability to navigate a maze and how quickly they can do it on subsequent tries.
Thanks for the suggestions... I will try to fix those.

Regarding the app itself, did you get a chance to try? Any comments?
Piano Artist Benches and Piano Artist Stools at Perfectly Grand
Perfectly Grand offers over 30 piano artist benches and piano artist stools in over 4 finishes.
FYI: title translates to "wake up"
That's because OpenSocial was a disaster.
Thanks! How apt.
A good outline of the process:

http://yarchive.net/med/5-htp.html
He means his wife's sister's husband?
Today and yesterday: PHP/CI, Flex, Javascript, Python/Django, C++, C#/XAML, bash scripting.

Fun!
Just a note for the Spreedly folks if you ever read this thread.

I just looked through your website, and even went to the FAQs page and it took me waaayy too long to figure out what you do.

It was very clear that you want my money; but it was not at all clear what I would get for my money (other than a sweet deal).
So what's the problem? Sounds just like how enterprise software is written.
Wow. When you see that list of accomplishments all in one place, you realize just how freaking cool of a mission it is to "organize all of the worlds information and make it universally accessible".

Love 'em or hate 'em, Google has played a significant role in reinventing the way we view the world. And that alone is reason enough for me to love 'em. I can't wait to compare this to the founders letter from 2019...
The thing is, Bob doesn't need the API to publish all your private status to the whole world... he could already do it in plenty other ways. Same thing with email... many of them (eg. gmail) come with RSS feeds.
Not to be overly critical but - why - is this in the TOP3 of HN? It's a totally^Wrather incomplete^Wnice `intro` to SSH, ok. Aside from this......

~/.ssh/config:

# This is maybe useful if you get dropped all the time

# due to stricter SSHd rules.

ServerAliveInterval 60

# Instead of tunneling always with the CLI directly why not

# make a entry in your ssh config to make it easy, e.g.

HostName your.companies.host

User username

LocalForward 9999 clients.oracle.server.name:1521

# You can also use "Port" if the SSHd is on a non 22 port

On the CLI:

# Does all the tunneling automatically

ssh your.companies.host
I'm with Facebook on this one, users to some degree trust that their Facebook information isn't freely available on the web. Thats an integral part of their business model that the communication is only with friends. As most people find communication with friends to be more important than communication with others on the web i believe that facebooks business model is far superior to twitters and so there is no reason to change it.
http://www.ljplus.ru/img4/a/_/a_bdpyr/chaini-t.jpg

I just noticed
If you're teapot is leaking,
It extinguishes gas
But if you're electric teapot is leaking,
It extinguishes light

(roughly)

http://www.ljplus.ru/img4/a/_/a_bdpyr/metrocookies.jpg

Ah, If single-use tickets were cookies
Bought - Passed - Ate

(this image and the one below it look like printed metro/bus tickets)

http://www.ljplus.ru/img4/a/_/a_bdpyr/kits.jpg

Whenever he thought of whales,
They swam out of his head
.. And never returned

http://www.ljplus.ru/img4/a/_/a_bdpyr/paintmounti.jpg

If you draw mountains on your palms,
And cover your eyes with them
..Then you can see full snow-capped peaks
..Up close.
"Wake me up" is unfortunately the right expression. Not only do some drugs react differently in humans but until it really will reach the patient many years will pass I suppose.
Make something people will pay for.
Probably just a graying population.
Excellent taste in tinkering, but ... ahem ... aren't those a tad on the infrastructure side ? ("Is this the right room for an argument ?", or are you setting a subtle trap ? ;-)

I don't doubt that most of the (non-idle, non-phone/TV/etc.) CPU cycles in the world are probably being burned by executing code written in C/C++. But the stuff in my shopping bag probably also did better than 90% of its movement by truck/train/ship.

P.S. Mark Dufour's ShedSkin may have you covered for 100x of that 200x speed hit you mentioned in another thread: http://www.hxa.name/minilight/#comparison is instructive (one small case, restricted, etc. Void where prohibited by law).
Facebook's new feed system has more features (privacy) than RSS, and therefor cannot be ported. It's really simple, but people still get all wound up about it. Twitter basically _is_ RSS, so it works great.

EDIT: You could have an authenticated feed, I suppose, but that's not what this app did.
I'm also really interested in improving the state of education (I blog at http://betterexplained.com). I'm dropping you both a line [Gustavo, I think our paths have crossed before :)], but anyone can ping me at kalid@instacalc.com.
At that age I think it's more about teaching them to identify themselves as scientists. I'm sure they didn't understand a lot of what was going on but they were aware they were participating in something cool with wires and digital readouts. They'll tell their friends at school about it and at that age other kids will start to identify them as science geeks. That will give them something to live up to and as they get older they will always have the story of that adventure to think about and talk about. It's very nice for the whole family.
> I'd go one step further, "Make Something People are Asking For"

How about "Make something people want to pay for".
NBA.
> You then start 'filling out' the code to do what you 'designed' via the comments.

Another approach is to just drop the comment markers entirely, massage the pseudocode until it's valid syntax, and then write a DSL that does the right thing upon its execution. That way, all you ever really have is comments.
Just because copying is easy compared to development does not neccesary lend to the credence that copyright must exists.(Originally I stated that development alway cost more than copying. Apperantly that is false by a few counterexample such as Soviet's reverse engineering of the b-29 bomber)

For example, a programmer may spend weeks writing a particular feature. These day, it only take a git clone for somebody to make a few new features and called it a competing software project to the original. With clever marketing, he might be able to overtake the original project. Obviously that often does not happen in reality, as the original project keep some of the momentum and the knowledgebase that come with working on the project for years.

Even though there's no money spent, time is spent. These time represent lost economic opportunity.

However, it does not follows that there is no enormous economic gain for the first-mover in the free market in the absence of limitation on copying. Indeed, there are everyday examples like techdirt.com(often copied, with no attribution), Wikipedia, RedHat, and more that continues to defy your assertions everyday.

The idea that people who have spent enormous amount of capitals and time will be gauranteed to lose out if there is no monopoly mechanism to protect their work does not simply folllow.

There are many factors to consider such as how enlightened the big guys are, how fast they can move, how big is the first-mover advantage, how improtant reputation is to consumers. Some of these aspects cannot be easily copied.
1 reason: SPAM.
Ask HN: Fast Action-oriented Launch or Slow Planned Out Launch
37 Signals' book points out that it's best to create some white-board mock-ups and get the site going.

On the otherhand, other programmers/designers (particularly web-design firms) take an extremely long time to (i) mockup up the site, (ii) UML Use Cases, (iii) document the site, (iv) design, etc.

In your experience, what's worked best for you?