skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That's the point I was trying to make in the post. But you said it much clearer than I did.

steve
Thank you for discovering that for us.
Variable/constant names aren't just used to keep DRY, and to encapsulate functionality. They're also used to express intent. To me, this is one of the most important reasons for using variables, instead of "magic numbers".
30 mile range on an 8 hour charge, 25mph max, no roads posted above 35mph. What a fracking waste of money.

Sorry, but I just cannot see this being useful. It will work for a small number of people, no doubt, but not enough to make this a viable product.

Honestly, how far can you go when you have to avoid all roads posted above 35mph?
Stylesheet variables are a very good idea, but just as a reminder, the validity of the idea isn't really the question here, even if Bos makes some good points (particularly regarding the fact that the extension will break a whole constellation of authorship tools).

The question isn't whether to implement higher-level stylesheets. It's where to implement them.
Probably could have used a heads up on this event occurring today a little bit before...today...
Payne, who did you get your biz health insurance through?
can't forget a single paragraph of the Camel or PBP no matter how hard I try

This is probably the problem. PBP and the Camel are horribly outdated, and most of PBP's advice was crap when it first came out. You are going to hate Perl if you follow its advice to the letter. PBP Perl is the worst of Java mixed with the worst of Perl. Yeah, that's going to suck.

Anyway, as someone who probably writes and maintains as much Perl code as you (just see my 100+ Perl projects on Github), I've found Perl to be significantly simpler to write and maintain than other languages, and I would recommend it over nearly every other language that I have used. (Cases that I wouldn't recommend it for? For apps that need to be faster, I would use CL; and for apps that need to be massively concurrent I would recommend Haskell. But I certainly see no use for Ruby, Python, C#, Java, or Erlang, Perl's "usual" competitors.)
I imagine you'll find it pretty frustrating when people start reprogramming their robotic servants to believe in their preferred god.
It's a collection of professional bike racers on twitter. I guess most technical people could follow them all, but not everyone wants to do that, and not everyone wants to track down new ones, and not everyone is "technical people" either.

It's definitely not aimed at a general audience - if you don't know who Ivan Basso and Cadel Evans are (on the front page right now), it's not for you. But maybe you have some fun ideas just the same:-)
To write a good C++ IDE, you need to deal with macros, C++'s obscene syntax (There are what- four complete C++ parsers?), and you need to parse all sorts of Makefiles, or else no existing projects will work.
Now THIS is a useful electric car. To hell with the Peapod crap from Chrysler.
I don't use emacs, but yes, yes, no idea, yes, yes, it's not a button it's a keystroke. Of course that last one was also tied to lisp.
Could you be a little more precise, please ?
if you can make it work in a medically useful fashion then there's a lot more money to be made selling it as an actual regulated Device.

I can't see why this would be true. Selling it for $500 now (and $50 in five years, as these things go) seems like it would mean an incredibly larger market than selling it for $7-10K, as you suggest.
Have you ever used ed? Try to actually use it for a few and you'll get it.

One good thing about ed is that it's always on even the most minimal system recovery disks (which often lack vi, even). I've been stuck using it a couple times while fixing dying systems. No fun, but better than nothing.
An API would be rad. I've used HTMLDoc (http://www.htmldoc.org/) by sending URLs to the command line for projects before, but they don't render the same and require special instructions inserted into the HTML for some formatting options.

A site with a simple API to send a URL and receive a PDF link back, maybe a handful of options, and a reasonable cost per request would also eliminate the setup of extra tools on customer sites, which sometimes aren't available due to them choosing shared hosts.
The author's postscript was the most interesting part of the article for me. If there were some extra kind of document (defined in JSON, perhaps) that could be attached to an HTML document to supply definitions that would be entered into the DOM, it could be accessed natively from Javascript, and also inserted into the HTML and CSS standards with much less tweaking than a whole separate variable standard just for CSS. For example, it would be possible to simply extend the concept of HTML entities into "DOM entities", which could then be copied wholesale by CSS for a nice symmetry: you'd be able to use &(document.variables.foo); in both mark-up languages and have be replaced with the value of the DOM node document.variables.foo. (Actually, you could extend this even further, and just allow arbitrary inline JS in these DOM entities, which gets parsed as the value after their evaluation: &(document.variables.foo + 1). You could also avoid document.variables altogether, if you wish, and just set use &(1 + 1); or &(document.body.style.background-color); or anything else you like. Let's, therefore, call them JS Entities.)

The only big design decision would be whether to allow writing to document.variables from JS (or, to rephrase, whether to parse the JS entities permanently upon recognition into their textual values before parsing can continue, or to have them continue to exist as a special kind of DOM node—though rendered as their current textual equivalent—that will reflow the document if their dependent values are altered.)

If JS entities aren't parsed away, it would change the way we interact with the DOM entirely—we probably wouldn't bother defining any constants in CSS itself any more; we'd just inject them. It would reverse the data-flow between Javascript and mark-up, even beyond how much AJAX already has: we wouldn't need to set specific things in the DOM, but instead just have those DOM nodes be an observer of our actual, working value. For example, "document.body.styles.background-color = document.createVariableElement(spinner.color);" as a line of Javascript would make the background-color of the page "watch" the current value of the spinner. In fact, if this method were used, you technically wouldn't need a separate variables.json document, because you could just dynamically create all the JS entities in JS (which is probably how it should be.) However, you could create one on top of JS entities, if you wished, using a library.
I would much rather see effort made by google to provide two backends datastores. The existing (primarily) key based bigtable, as well as true relational database. Ideally they could even provide the relational DB service where users would need miniscule knowledge for basic DB administration (replication/backups) and simplified administration for sharding. Ideally if the there was a way for the records to be cross polinated, even better.
Hearing that really made me lose it. I am so f'ing sick of HTML and CSS not working properly from one browser to the next... and the damn thing is pretty simple, and uses a CSS "framework" (blueprint) to boot. It works fine in FF and Konqueror.

Thanks for letting me know, though:-(
Just Successful Enough to Do Ourselves Harm
It seems to me that the whole "skeptical" movement has long run out of useful things to debunk (UFO's, astral projection, homeopathy, etc.) and have taken to just pissing in everyone's cereal.
I doubt that will happen any time soon. Apparently, relational databases don't scale very well.
I think this is a great article. Software development is not purely an engineering task. My famous example is quicksort... it is as mathematical as the Taj.
I think you misunderstand Sampo's proposal. He's suggesting that the allowed domains be embedded in the font file itself.

Incidentally, that's essentially the same thing that EOT does. The difference between Sampo's proposal and EOT is that Sampo suggests using mechanisms provided by OTF/TTF to store the data rather than invent an entirely new container format.

The SSL based scheme strikes me as completely insane. PKI is a ton of work to maintain and this idea doesn't even address the crux of the issue, which is distributing full, proprietary OpenType / TrueType fonts.
You'd have to hack into ATM and change its software instead of just attaching the skimmer.
Not sure this is the best way to unclog the twitter feed. Something like a group in Tweetdeck would work really well to solve that problem.

Though, maybe you can do some neat things with this idea.

First thing that is apparent to me is that there is too much noise. This needs to be reduced in order for me to read this feed. Maybe an up vote system (HN, reddit, etc) to stress important tweets. You could also stress the important tweets with some other metric (number of replies, number of followers, etc).

Second thing that is apparent is that I don't know who half of these cyclists are. I need to know why I am reading x person's tweets. You could expand the bio pages to include more information on the each cyclist (full name, team, rankings, wikipedia link, etc). Also, I want a list of the cyclists that are being tracked.
To Tweet or Not to Tweet
If you read the article you should know they fully support IE6 for their actual product and only block it on the engineering blog.
> but still severely lacking in optimizations and performance for anything besides basic queries.

And yet it runs several of the world's most popular websites.
I'm just extrapolating. Given exponential increases in computational power, it's a pretty small jump, I think, to imagine full brain simulation from what they're doing.
It's hard to do this for business cards due to the combination of low-resolution of the built-in camera and the focal length of the lens.

It's possible using something like Griffin's Clarifi (macro lens), but you can't count on everyone having one.
I wouldn't put all those messages up there with my own copyright notice. Besides that, I only see profile pics next to a few cyclists, so that could use a fix. Seems like this could be useful to someone in that community--maybe try pulling out trends, the way Twitter does across the whole service.
Exactly. I'm optimistic the next major revision of the iPhone hardware will have a better camera so maybe then.
How about ktrace, I think it is slightly better than strace
meh...yeah it's broken (chrome)
18 Seriously Helpful Cheat Sheets for Easier Coding
Google Chrome uses separate processes for each tab / window. So I agree that in some ways it is a gift to Google, but it still encourages use of FF and IE over Chrome. Assuming Google is planning on expanded use of Chrome, this could cause problems for their product roadmap.
I don't think the Canadian educational system is all that draconian. It is amongst the most competitive in the world, though.

Here are some other reasons the US is struggling despite spending more money per student than any other country:

1) Most of US public teachers come from the bottom third of college students
2) Teacher skill is far more important than small class sizes, but the US system values small classes more than good teachers
3) New teachers typically work alone after a very short amount of time
4) Teachers are paid poorly

http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/socialsector/resources...
I guess that would depend on where (or from who) your morals come from.
good start, not displaying correctly in Safari on XP. I do follow cycling though so I do see some value in the site itself once things get worked out.
I personally don't think we'll see a whole lot of Windows Starter edition. I think it will mostly be sold in developing countries and on some of the crappier netbooks. You weren't going to have much fun with Excel, IE, Word, and Powerpoint open on an Atom processor with 1 gig of memory anyway.
See? Basing an argument on actual evidence proves your point better than basing your argument on some political agenda. "It's unlikely that women have higher red-resolution because many herbivores and apex predators are colorblind" is an actual argument. "It's unlikely that women have higher red-resolution because that claim is made by misogynists" is just a politically charged ad hominem. It'll get you brownie points in the Women's Studies department, but it's still a crap argument.
The word entrepreneur and its baggage
I would assume that multiple instances of the same processname would count only once, but who knows.
Lab Breakthrough Brings Instant-On Computers Closer
As the study notes, a lot of the extra staff is there for good reasons, and not just bureaucracy for its own sake (that's not to say there isn't plenty of the latter, of course).

So, can some of the extra staff be trimmed without affecting the academic experience? Absolutely. But in many cases it would affect the social experience (if you cut res life/student activities people), the ability of some students to attend (if you cut financial aid people), and so forth. Some of these things scale pretty linearly with enrollment; some don't. Still others scale linearly, but over 20 years colleges have just been doing more (e.g. college was cheaper, so you needed less of an infrastructure to help students deal with loans).

The phrase "academic experience" is a bit of a misnomer, too - certainly having a good IT help desk can contribute to the academic experience (let's consider the non-HN population that can't build their own routers), but those people aren't counted as "academic staff".

All that said, there are obviously useless positions, and like all large organizations, colleges are susceptible to waste, mis- and over-management. Pointing out the unsustainability of the current rate of growth is fair game; but I'd be wary of a rush to purge non-academic staff as extraneous.
WSGR online venture financing term sheet generator
Moneta: A unified interface for key/value stores
The most memorable computer to me came from NeXT. I have a working colorstation sitting on my desk right now. I keep it around as a reminder that the best technology doesn't always win. Although here I am using MacOS X next to it, so what do I know? :) Its amazing how a computer so old can feel modern. The UI is modern but the lack of apps really shows. For a time I would run an X server and export a browser and other apps from my Linux box to help make up for this. Good times.
I know you're trying to be funny, but actually there is a Windows XP Starter Edition. It's been around for the better half of a decade. Microsoft sells it in India for far less than a Windows license typically costs in the West.
I'm not sure why you phrase it so discouragingly. What's wrong with wanting to know simply for curiosity's sake? I'm interested in buying a kindle. I'd be interested in buying it without knowing individual component costs. But if offered the chance to see the prices, I'd be interested, sure.
I really don't understand it. A good education is a good thing, but it's hardly necessary to succeed in today's workforce. There's also lots of alternatives to getting a college education. As the cost to get an education continues to increase and as the benefits from it continue to decrease there's going to be a point where the tide starts flowing the other way.

It's also increasingly likely that small/smaller businesses will be the companies of the future instead of the giant corporations we have now.

In spite of all of that, colleges continue to do business as usual. It's a really strange dynamic. It appears to me that colleges have lost their goals of teaching people necessary skills and have begun to exist simply for themselves.
Exactly - this screws over Google Chrome, which is a shame because it's a slick browser (though I personally am keeping a closer eye on the Chromium project, especially since I use Linux). I'm not sure this is ultimately to the benefit of Google at all, as the author indicates, and might even be an offensive tactic against them, seeing as Google is really pushing their browser hard.
Ahh, that's an excellent point; for any of my argument to stand, it would definitely require full isolation (akin to what the current Blue Brain has right now).
A Sinclair QL in 1984, for which I bought a Lisp interpreter. The OS was multi-tasking, and the hardware was based on the superb Motorola 68000 processor range.

For the biggest impact, a Video Genie, which was a clone of the Tandy TRS-80. I learnt how to program (Basic and Z80 assembly) on that.
Unit Structures – Google Profile Sounds Familiar
Planet hunters find an Earth-mass planet and a potential water world
According to http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=844, you "can open as many windows as you want from a single program", which I assume means sub-processes are not counted.

Also, IE8 creates separate processes for each tab, just like Chrome. Obviously Microsoft can set whatever double standards they like, but excluding other browsers would pretty much guarantee the Justice Department re-entering the mix.
I hate that we are building more and more robots that kill people.

I get a feeling that we are getting away from he nastiness of war (the risks of losing your own soldiers) and are more likely to be aggressive when all you got on the line are some terminator/robocop type droids to lose.

Implement the 3 laws of robotics now!
I did not say it was about ID vs. Evolution, either, but the original post clearly indicates a world-view that claims a lack of a designer. As I already noted, there would be an obvious logical dilemma between how the results of this experiment were achieved (if it ever came to fruition), and his world-view.

Clearly, building a functioning artificial brain by copying the physical characteristics of a human brain should settle this one.

You state this as if replicating a human brain would be like buying a new Lego set and following the instructions. I think we should first nail down the theory on why we sleep. You are aware that scientists still can't fully explain the most common mental process that takes up 30% of our lifetime?

The human brain will never be perfectly replicated in this lifetime or any lifetime, in the same way that a group of toddlers would never 100% figure out the full technology and complete mechanical blueprints if they were handed a Ferrari.
I'm not singling out Perl for lacking syntactic abstraction, I'm pointing out that a horribly brain-damaged language (sigils dereferencing multiple variable namespaces? don't even get me started) cannot be saved without it. Modern Perl practice seems to always involve CPAN modules that attempt to rewrite the syntax of the language one way or another, frequently with prototypes.

I've commented on HN about this before (admittedly less tactfully than I would have liked to), you can read some of my previous comments at:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=157183
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=157323

For another (slightly more inflammatory but no less valid) view on the subject there's the classic:

http://steve.yegge.googlepages.com/ancient-languages-perl

I'm not trying to invalidate your argument by insinuating that you are the OP, merely pointing out that only a coward hides behind a shell account to carry out an argument founded in trickery and logical fallacy. If you want another reply from me you will have to show up as yourself, I don't think I'll exchange niceties with your puppet any more.
I was under the impression that FF was also going the way of separate processes for each tab.
The research guys, iSuppli, rightly did not include them - they're usually paid by the chip vendor to ARM (or whatever licensor), and included in the chip price. The writer tried to be clever, and missed.

Retail price = 3 x BOM (bill-of-materials) is one rule-of-thumb for volume hardware without special assembly or extraordinary software.
Not necessarily. As Ed Bott of ZDNet showed, you can have multiple IE windows open with multiple tabs within each. Also, you can have multiple Windows Explorer windows open.

Whether this extends to other programs that may spawn multiple processes of the same name or not, that's to be tested. I do think that this "version" of Windows 7 is an extraordinarily bad idea, but then Microsoft wouldn't be Microsoft if it didn't bundle a bad idea with a good one.
Not to mention the U.S. system is still fixated on what worked for the educational system when 95% of Americans worked on farms. Six hour days. Summers off.

Since the majority of the U.S. (51%) live in urban areas, the 21st century education system should make school similar to the workforce: school from 9-5. Or 8-4.

Grades need to be wiped out. Students need to be placed on levels. No a "slow math class" for 8th grade, but one that reflects his/her ability or inability.

And we need national standards on textbooks. No more bullying from large (red) states like Texas on what gets taught in science classes around America. Or what you can say about the south and their attempts to smother/suppress the civil rights movement / black vote.
jrockway, since you're a long time member of HN and I enjoy your comments on other topics i'm more than happy to agree-to-disagree with you about perl. if you "see no use" for any of [ Ruby, Python, C#, Java, Erlang ] then it is unlikely that we have any common ground on which to meet about this, but i'd rather avoid a confrontation on the subject because i'd like for us to get along. :)

cheers,
ben
Capital Factory Invests in Five Startups for 2009 Fund
Microsoft integrates more Web applications into Windows Live
I found five examples to back up my case, so listen to me! As all the YC companies can tell you, for your average case building a business still takes a lot of work.
While you might be right, Aaron's post (or mainly, your characterization of it) is really disingenuous. Taproot spent an estimated $3k of employee time setting up their Causes profile and has received only $30 in donations. Aaron extrapolates this out to the $3m that Causes reported it had raised at the time to estimate the nonprofits spent $300m in employee time to raise that $3m.

There's a number of potential issues with this:

1. Tiny sample size
2. Sounds like they setup the profile and forgot about it
3. Not sure how they spent $3k setting it up
4. Some types of non-profits are better suited for Causes
5. Maybe they just suck at fundraising
As I commented a few days ago, Microsoft hasn't learned much from the Vista fiasco. Just deliver two versions already: a home one and a professional one. The Pro one would cost slightly more and offer more advanced features that the (average) home user won't care about. Limiting the number of applications you can run is an idiotic move. Foolish. There is no other way to put it, netbook with limited resources or not. If they want to create a Windows 7 Netbook Edition, they should focus on reducing the OS footprint, not imposing limits on what their users can do.
I actually didn't pick that up - I was about to comment on his somewhat harsh view of Linux. In 1999? Completely understandable.
So, Choose Your Own Adventure writers?

Also, slightly funny/ironic: the extraneous ' in your post.
Yeah. The fact that examples have to be pointed out, says it more of an exception.