skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I work as a full time web developer and am required to use PHP for everything server side. It's one of the worst languages I have ever used but I live in a LAMP world and everyone requires me to use it.

I have used Clojure and RoR in the past and really like them but unfortunately I can't use them in reality. I wrote about it in this post on my blog.

http://www.codeinnovator.com/uncategorized/lisp-vs-php/

You can certainly develop professionally with it. It's just not a whole lot of fun.
Based on the price of this one, I think we'll see the small Kindle go down in price soon. Because right now it doesn't make any sense to buy the small one.

I have a story that supports this. My Mom just bought the Kindle 2 last night for my Dad's birthday. I called her this morning and told her about this new one and she immediately canceled and ordered this one. The main reason - with a bigger screen he can boost the font size a little bit more and maybe not have to wear his reading glasses. This may not be a big deal for our generation, but it is for our parent's generation.
I have multiple boxes with slicehost. Couldnt be more happy. The customer service is fantastic. Usually get an email response within 2 - 3 hours. Admin interface is easy to use. Theres also a huge repository of tutorials and howtos for setting up your system.
I haven't seen the big Kindle, but I own the Kindle 2. Page turns are faster on a Kindle than they are with a paper book, although it's not as convenient for flipping ahead a few pages when you're quickly scanning for specific information. You notice page turns no more than you would with a paper book when reading novels, but it could be irritating for reference materials or text books.
Well, it's not just hosting though. Typical hosting you cannot just boot down and then boot up a server with 8x the ram or disk space. That's just one thing.
Thanks for this link. There seem to be quite a few useful articles there.
bit.ly has one drawback: a proliferation of bit.ly URLs pointing to the same URL, because every user can get an individual abbreviation.

That makes reverse lookups infeasible (get tinyurl for url, search twitter for tinyurl - see who links to you). At least with tinyurl most abbreviations were the same.
Have you had any OS related problems? I've been considering a hackintosh netbook (I already have an EeePC that I love) and was hoping that this article would provide relevant information.
I think PHP compares well to the saying "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." Most of the time security issues are in the hands of the programers. Although, PHP sure makes it easy sometimes to create those issues.
I think w3schools is the best starting point as well.
However, if you are pretty new at this stuff I'd suggest you also take the time out (if you have not done this already) to get your basic computer knowledge with something like : http://www.academicearth.org/courses/introduction-to-compute...
This is ridiculous:

> they are forced to emigrate, as in the case of Somali-born politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who violated the Dutch norms of “consensus” by insisting on publicly discussing female genital mutilation; honor violence; honor killings; and forced marriages.

She was forced to emigrate because she lied about her past. If she hadn't she wouldn't have been allowed in in the first place.
1 year college.

15 years kicking ass (built my first website when Mosaic ruled the roost).
Capitalism 2.0: Speculator vs. Creator
source? I'd like to see news on such tech,
Ezra Klein points out that even though the author of "Going Dutch" describes "a cultural tendency not to stand out or excel...the very antithesis of the American ideal of upward mobility", if you compare actual statistics, the US has less economic mobility (as measured by the relationship between parents' and childrens' income) than many other industrialized nations.

http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?month=0...
I much prefer this critique to the previous one. :)
I was referring to this quote from the article.

"If you tell a Dutch person you’re going to raise his taxes by 500 euros and that it will go to help the poor, he’ll say O.K., he said. But if you say he’s going to get a 500-euro tax cut, with the idea that he will give it to the poor, he won’t do it. The Dutch don’t do such things on their own. They believe they should be handled by the system. To an American, that’s a lack of individual initiative."
There were two sites that were compromised. The first did not use OpenID; it stored an unsalted hash, which lead to the compromised password. The second compromised site -- StackOverflow -- uses OpenID. It was compromised because Jeff used the same password on both sites.

Patio11's point is that this is common user behavior, so OpenID doesn't offer any better security than its weakest point, which becomes sites not using OpenID but storing the same password as OpenID. I have to disagree, though: The alternative to OpenID is many more login/password pairs, which has exactly the same problem to a worse degree: too many passwords to remember, so the users reuse them.
I'll note that there are many religions in the world, and at most one of them can be correct. Some of these faiths require you to believe things which are much less likely than Maurice Jarre saying what Fitzgerald had him saying.

My point is that it's not very impressive to make lots of people believe things that aren't true.
No, you shouldn't complain, but you could do one of either two things:

1. Offer constructive criticism. In some cases that won't work ("Hey, try not to lose my emails next time, OK?") but in others it works a treat ("Hey, can you offer me a way to download my email?").

2. Vote with your feet as most likely there are competitors that offer the same service also for free. Good luck moving your data, but you already knew you were committing your data to a service that is not guaranteed to exist tomorrow, right?
So which one is best to have around if you happen to get hit by a bus?
Individualistic spirit my butt. Americans aren't a special and unique snowflake. Every country's system is largely an accident of history.
But notebooks can already read PDFs -- and they let students take notes. Why get a second $500 device that can only do one of these functions?
You could do that pretty easily by rolling some custom templates, yes.
You can downmod after you've reached a certain karma threshold.
This is how it is in small New England towns also. I used to live in a lively tourist trap seaside city where everything closed after 9:30pm.
How about an Ask HN poll on language preference... anyone?
Search Engine Marketing: Why is it so crucial?
I don't mind it in the very least, matter of fact, thank you.

If I become too emotional about this point with Wikipedia, it is because the geek/nerd/techie/propellerhead/[INSERT TERM FOR US] in me is just OUTRAGED at what I witnessed firsthand at wikipedia.

Note to self: avoid wikipedia related discussions, and try to stick to Slashdot from now on.
PG made similar arguments in his 2004 essay "The Python Paradox" - http://www.paulgraham.com/pypar.html

I'm inclined to agree. If you know how to advertise within a language community then using a lesser-known language will make it easier to find good programmers. This is probably even true for the short-term contract gigs often posted to freelance sites since there won't be hundreds of low-quality responses to sort through.
We use Flexiscale because of the low cost per core. CPU power is our bottleneck. Flexiscale has also been cheaper for us owing to the weak pound.
Historically passwords have often been truncated at 8 bytes, so that if the first 8 characters are equal the password is equivalent. This might bite you if you always add on to the end of a long base password like this. Perhaps a variable prefix instead of a suffix?
Interesting choice of TLD. I can only assume this means they'll be sure to conform to all relevant Libyan law, since it only takes one court order to pull their domain registration. (Cf. http://nic.ly/regulations.php)
> But there are hardly any social norms, you may be openly gay, atheist or deeply religious and wear whatever you want.

From what I see on the TV and read in newspapers this is changing.
I'm usually deleting 2 lines for every line I write in the Java world.
Suits pg, Suits . . . a source of nonstop surprises and entertainment.
It's not that a CS program has no useful content, but that the content is available to anyone interested in finding it. Knuth is accessible to a mathematically-inclined person with a tenth grade (equivalent) knowledge of mathematics (and three hundred bucks in his pocket), SICP is eerily transparent, the Dragon Book is certainly not beyond the ken of mere mortals, and so it goes. Admittedly, it takes more work to move beyond naivete without a formal education, but those who care about the craft will eventually get there. Those who do not care will still bubble sort despite their degree.
I think this comment sums it up nicely: http://blog.ianbicking.org/php-ghetto-comment-11.html

It basically argues that in PHP there's often an easy, insecure way to do something and a verbose, secure way to do it. With regards to SQL injection, Java is the same way; prepared statements are much more verbose and annoying than string concatenation.
The saviour of newspapers has arrived
According to Mashable, the new Kindle just might save newspapers.

It - might - save the New York Times, but I don't think this is a game changer for smaller-market papers (i.e. most of them).
Please, don't make comments like that. This is hacker news: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I don't quite understand what he meant, as "working on a doctorate" isn't an answer to "why aren't the big boys already doing it?"

However, Larry Page got enormous benefits from his PhD: he met Sergey; he had connection with Andy Bechtolsheim; great people around him; and Stanford supported his patent (they own it). Actually, these are mainly contacts acquired through Stanford (similar to "location"), not of a PhD program itself. I don't recall Larry learning anything from doing a PhD itself, as opposed to doing the work independently.

BTW: I had a very critical advisor like that, and it was really unpleasant. Not everything he said was helpful or relevant - but some were. And at the end, I was rightfully grateful - and also rightfully annoyed. I think seeing criticism as impersonal, specific and temporary is helpful; as well as responding only to the factual denotations, not connotations (including attitude and tone); and responding without connotations myself.
I wonder if part of the problem with spore is that it tried to do too many things at once. I've gotten the impression that while it is a fun game, none of the stages have a lot of depth.

It seemed like Sid wanted to focus on the experience of building a civilization from the ground up. But because of the fact that the game got watered down technically, early stages did not drastically alter future gameplay.
As a grade-schooler I was always taught to find 2 sources that could not be an encyclopedia, and this was before Wikipedia.

I understand the need to get information out when it's breaking news, but it seems editors are getting the same itchy trigger fingers we have associated with the bloggers & tweeters. They should be embarrassed at best, and probably reprimanded.
Yeah, and Twitter is just a database of content items with a 140 character max, right?

My point is, user experience does matter...and as Matt's post indicates, they've actually solved (or attempted to solve) some pretty big UI obstacles with this theme.

Combine that with the fact that I could probably have this up and running in 5 minutes or so and I think they've definitely accomplished something pretty cool here.
It doesn't seem like this has been 'proved' wrong -- just that it's been proved uncertain.
How often do you browse your source code without the intent to edit it? Just curious if you have an interesting code review or development process because I don't think I've done that before.
Richard Stallman apparently has the same reputation
http://eink.com/kits/amepd.html
The NoScript Controversy | TechJaws: Internet Security and SEO
EC2 for windows server hosting
I agree with you in the general case, but when some of those people are journalists who work for respected newspapers, then it becomes...maybe not impressive, exactly, but certainly significant.

Journalists have a responsibility to make sure they're printing the truth. It's really distressing to know that there are some out there who are so lazy. This particular example isn't that big of a deal, but it's easy to imagine something similar happening with something more important.
Less Accounting Paid Users Growth Curve
It's not about lines of code it's about the number and type of problems solved. I have spent days looking for a solution when all I needed to do was change a single constant. I have also written hundred of lines of code whole hog, been surprized that it compiled without errors, and shocked that it was bug free. Yet, I have no idea what was more usefull.

Spending a few months working on hard problems without a functional debugger can compleatly change how you aproach programming. But, so does finaly understanding how to use a debugger. Spending a few weeks reading other peoples code to document a working system was also an incredably valuable experence.

PS: The closest thing to a single nuber I can think of is "how many diffrent months of experence do you have?"
Step-by-Step Guide to Autoconf and Automake
Biometrics Turns Your Ear Into Your Password
Because the difference in readability between an e-ink screen and an LCD is absurd. Yes, technically you can read PDFs on a netbook/laptop, but once you pass 20 minutes of reading, you start wishing you had a paper copy.
I mean, couldn't you argue that your notebook could already play MP3's, why get an iPod?

It's the e-ink, the portability, the battery life, the weight of the device.

Everyone I know that has a Kindle loves it.
Roughly (at 4 hours in):

bachelor's: in the top 75%
master's: in the top 33%
doctorate: in the top 10%

(I'm assuming that a higher degree is "better", though some would differ. I've heard evidence that startup success inversely correlates with education. Some high-profile anecdotes: Bill Gates doesn't have a bachelors, Woz didn't have one at the time he designed the Apple, and I think the only degrees that Larry and Sergey got were their bachelors).
That's fine if you're starting a project or a business from scratch. Choose whatever tools make you happy. But if you work for someone else, chances are you will be stuck using the language they use. And if you are professional, you do it. And you still try to do a good job. Like Tiger Woods switching to Nike clubs.
I think your analogy is great. While I agree that "most" tools will accomplish the same goal or job (Walmart knife vs Shun). I don't agree that the tool determines passion or commitment. I'm a PHP developer (just started learning python!). I work full time for a big website that is coded in PHP. I have a startup that is written in PHP. If you had a conversation about PHP with me, I'm super passionate about what I have accomplished and will accomplish in the future. I think the real problem is that the passion pool gets diluted... Let me explain...

PHP has an extremely low barrier to entry. Its a loose language (lets not argue about this right now) that someone can get their feet wet relatively quick. These developers never really learn the true power of PHP, they aren't passionate about their projects and they dont contribute back to the community. They dilute the pool of truly passionate PHP developers.

Owning a Shun knife just lets everyone around you know that you are "serious" cook. But hell, I like to cook too.
I think we need to rethink what we mean by "overqualified". An MD isn't necessarily overqualified for a job as an RN - in fact, such a person might be underqualified. Just because you have "higher" credentials doesn't necessarily mean your credentials are a superset of what is needed.
For reading PDFs, the key differentiator is battery life. Also, the aspect ratio of the display on the Kindle is better for reading a document. If the laptop is always plugged in, then the battery life argument goes away. But, reading a document formatted for 8.5 x 11 on a wide screen display is not the ideal experience.

I would also dispute the effectiveness of taking notes on a laptop. As soon as you want to write anything other than text (e.g. diagram or equation), you'll slow to a crawl. (At least, I would slow to a crawl.)

I agree that $500 is a steep up front investment given the similarity in price point to a low end laptop.
Am I the only one who is a bit suspicious that this is Microsoft related? Are you really going to get the best objective data in this book?
It's not just the experience. Languages like Ruby and Lisp tend to be a lot more concise and have more functionality than PHP, so it's more like comparing a blunt knife to a razor sharp one. You can still cut with a blunt knife, but it takes longer and is harder work.
It depends. If you're mostly unhurt but your teeth are knocked out, a D.D.S. would be rather convenient. If you're badly hurt but can still survive, then the M.D. would be best. If you're mostly unhurt and the bus rolls over your foot, it looks like the D.P.M. would be a safe bet. However, if you're hurt too badly to recover, then the D.Div. or D.M. may be appropriate, depending upon your religious beliefs.

Thanks to the popularity of physical injury or wrongful death lawsuits, the J.D. will be with you soon regardless of who else is around when the bus hits you.
Oh geez what was it, the "my butt"?

I was too lazy to find more a classy way to call BS on a sweeping generalization that makes it sound like Americans have some special individuality gene, while the Dutch are all genetically predisposed to socialism.

Pardon my French, but if you don't like it vote me down.
I think an O'Reilly Safari ebook reader could work. Or maybe a Google ebook reader could take advantage of the book rights registry.
Could it be that he's hated because he steals material?
the thing with spore is, based on my understanding, is that the game that was initially designed and created got scrapped around alpha/beta. it was originally going to be much more in-depth science-like game, and worked like this in earlier versions.

then, some other people came in to help get the game produced and completed, there was an internal power struggle, and instead it got hijacked, re-done, cartoonified and scaled back in the name of making it marketable and to finish it on time.

iirc, that is.
It turns out if you actually attend graduation, you don't really get your diploma then, either. It's too soon for them to know whether you passed your finals or not. So they end up mailing the diploma even if you went.

You do, however, manage to get out of spending an afternoon wearing robes and a squareish hat.
I'm going to be using this to read technical books, a lot of which can cost between $50 to $100. Compared to the cost of my library, I think $500 is easily worth it for being able to take most of these books with me anywhere I go.
Not often at all. I carry hard copy and multi-colored pens everywhere.

I just figured that if I'm spending $500 on a full page sized device, it sure would be nice to load all of my recent source code on it. I travel alot without a laptop and I'm always thinking about my work. I often follow the trail to a hard copy or an older module that I'm not carrying with me.
StackOverflow wasn't compromised, Atwood's password was. The actual site that password is entered into is irrelevant. If this is a compromise of SO, then banks are compromised every time somebody steals a credit card.
Every time I hear something about URL shortners, a part of me dies inside.

My Thoughts: Twitter is the main reason for the increase in URL Shortners. Instead of depending on outside services, Twitter should (must) implement their own shortning service. Something like !02u389 or ^02u389 that maps to a real URL. (like their #hastags and @replies)
Hibernate Wars: The Query Cache Strikes Back
Please help support MIT OpenCourseWare 
I received an email this morning from Cecilia d'Oliveira - Executive Director of MIT OpenCourseWare asking for a donation to help support this program.

I'm sure that many HN readers are familiar with OCW and may have received the same message, but just in case you haven't, I'd like to encourage you to take a look at their site and follow up with a donation if you can.

http://ocw.mit.edu/donate
Well, as an example. You could be creating lots of exploitative sweat-shop type jobs, and generating wealth that that all goes to you, instead of the people who work for you and who created that wealth in the first place.

And if you did that, you would in fact be a parasite, you are parasiting off the wealth that is created by the people tricked/forced into working for you. Furthermore you are parasiting off society, because you have stolen the hopes and ambitions of those people you are exploiting. One of the basic tenets of capitalism is the idea that the harder you work, the more reward you get. When this is not upheld, people become disillusioned, and why wouldn't they be? Why would I work hard and come up with new ideas and inventions, if the benefit of my work is stolen by someone else?

I totally think it is possible to have a non-exploitative employer relationship. I also totally think it is possible to have an exploitative employer relationship. Surely you admit the possibility of the existence of both types of relationships?
professional and passionate are not necessarily (and, for most people, not usually) the same things. you can use a php framework professionally and be passionate about rails.
I like to code in other languages more than PHP but for the startup, that's what we use.

We use PHP because at the end of the day startups are a job, and you've got to be creating value. I find that PHP gets the (web development) job done better than anything else.

Is programming in Ruby or Python more fun? Way more fun! But in the end, all that really matters is what happens when someone points their web browser to a URL. PHP was built for this use case and the whole LAMP stack solves this problem extremely well without needing any additional frameworks on top.

Also, as ugly and awkward as the C {}; syntax is, and as much as I hate not having certain features in PHP (i.e. chaining), I think there could be something special about that syntax that has understated benefits as evidenced by the sheer fact that the most widely used languages (C++,C,Java,PHP) all use it. Maybe it's just because that's what everybody knows and not because it's better. I'm not sure.
I dropped out of high school, got a GED, and am now going to college. Marking "elementary school" does not seem quite accurate. ^.^
I completely agree with you.

That is kind of why it always annoys me when somebody intentionally puts an error into Wikipedia. The message that usually comes out in the media is that Wikipedia isn't that should be used for finding primary sources, but that Wikipedia can be blatantly wrong and can't be trusted.

It seems like the message most educators get and send is that Wikipedia has little academic value, when it really is great as a starting point.
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I wish Wacom had more competition and that touchscreen laptops were cheaper. I believe a lot could be done with them if they could be brought down to the general consumer's price level.

I would rather spend $350-$400 more on a touchscreen for a new laptop.
I'd like to see a comparison between this and scp with compression.