skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
When I started my thesis there was a graph passed around essentially outlining the difference between Latex and traditional word processing, and it essentially looked like http://bit.ly/ZAtwNi, with word processing packages starting off easier but exponentially getting more difficult to use and Latex being harder to start with, but easier in the long run.

I feel like the same thing applies to Excel. Essentially what gets built with Excel are small programs where all the variables are unnamed, everything passed around is a numerical value and there's almost no capacity to see the entire 'program'.

These always get built because Excel is easier to start with (and you can always pass an Excel spreadsheet around and let other people 'run' it), but it means in the long run with the bigger programs you hit exponential complexity pretty quickly and by then you're invested in Excel, even though R or Pandas would have been more appropriate for the size of the program. Just my two cents (coming from businesses that LOVE excel for completely insane purposes).
I would like to be notified when someone replies to my comments.

A first-level reply notification is what I have in mind, i.e. don't notify me if someone replies to someone who replied to me...
Dang, I guess everything is out in the open now!

I was really hoping that I could personally make the world a better place by engaging in discussion on HN that would ultimately go on to change the world, and ultimately gain some much needed ego points I could cash in for that Tesla™!

Thank you almighty oracle, you have brought me salvation! :D

P.S. Steve is probably better off without you in his life :P
The only thing wrong with this aquarium is that it's metal instead of glass.

So I can't see out.

No big deal, really. I can still swim around.

It does seem to be a little hot though. I mean really, really uncomfortably hot.

Hey, wait...
It's a constant presence, but I never said it occurs--in reality--at a constant level. In fact, if anything it serves Pinker's thesis that people are handwringing and agonizing over how terrible violence is, how even imaginary violence is an unthinkable evil one should refuse to contribute to, when for most of human existence it was an everyday fact of life.

Humans are never going to be so perfect that 0 men out of 1,000,000 dies at the hands of another. Hell, humans are never going to be so perfect that 0 out of 1,000,000 doesn't deserve it, either. And I don't even want to live in a world where people are above enjoying a good boxing match or a bloody movie.
How They Got the Second Suspect
Obviously, Excel isn't exactly at fault -- it's the people using it, as echoed by many comments here.

HOWEVER, spreadsheets are rather unique in the fact that they hide the very formulas used to generate everything, unless you have a specific cell selected.

So, opposite of computer programs, they're almost impossible to "read through" and verify that everything makes sense. If 99 cells have identical formulas, and 1 in the middle has a slight typo, how on earth are you ever going to see that?

I wonder if there are other similar spreadsheet-like tools that one might use, that make a point of showing everything going on in the spreadsheet, rather than trying to hide it?
Carmen Ortiz, arguably the person who drove Aaron Swartz to his death, is the same person who made the decision not to read Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev his Miranda rights. Apparently the rights of the accused aren't a high priority with her.
For the extremely lazy, the exact moment of the quote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...
Couldn't agree more. Businesses calling people "consumers" is sad but understandable. But the government?
We neglected our new, just-a-few-months-old SaaS for a few (3? 4?) months at a time and it was fine until we came back to it. We lost opportunities to grow faster but it kept making money, it still grew (albeit slower), etc.

By any stretch of the imagination, that was a "startup". In the early phase.

It's not about age, or stage, it's about durability of your business / value delivered.
The page which hosts the form was definitely not. Perhaps it got confused on an iPhone 5.
The software should have pattern hints.

If you've got 99 cells with identical formulas, and one without, it's not far fetched for Excel to speculate that there may be a mistake (particularly if they're within X% of being identical). At which point it can provide a simple, non-intrusive hint.

And going further up the wishful thinking tree, into more difficult territory, Excel should be able to grasp what you're attempting to do by understanding, say, the top 10,000 (arbitrary number) tasks commonly performed by people using spreadsheets. That 'understanding' could then tip Excel toward deciding whether there's a problem, and whether it should leave you a nice little illuminated icon at the top right of the program with an exclamation mark.

Microsoft should have insane amounts of data on everything people do with spreadsheets, and they should be able to make it radically more intelligent (without being obnoxious or intrusive - it should be optional and highly passive).
This is pretty cool!

This is yet another piece of the puzzle. At this point, I think the only missing ingredient is the ability to create temporary files without having to specify names (those can be created automatically based on time or whatnot). As long as the text box you're working with is addressable via some file descriptor, you can then start to create connections with something like this incron. And you could replicate the functionality that can be done in the current version of Conception.
I guess credibility is a poor word choice. I meant something more like trustworthiness (which might tend to build credibility with a certain demographic...).
Agreed. Electronics hackery, especially making sense of someone else's circuit, takes a lot of acquired knowledge. Knowing common circuit topologies and being able to identify them when you see them, knowing that if you see a component in a TO220 package there's a 95% chance its either a transistor or a linear reg (usually you can guess more specifically just from its location on the board), having a mental list of components you can use to design a certain circuit (hmm, an audio preamp? I wonder if an NE5532 would be suitable?), knowing that a yellow bipedal surface mount thing is almost certainly a tantalum cap, knowing that a number of connectors near a SoC is probably JTAG etc. All of this just comes from experience and recognising patterns! Although I imagine dealing with code is somewhat similar? Perhaps there are certain things which you come to notice by instinct? Eg maybe you can look at some assembly and, just skimming over it know that it's supposed to be a time delay?
I'm sure that's when the machine would become unplugged and the fax option stricken from the record.
People are denial about fascism in the USA.
Just look at how many pharmaceutical products are approved by the FDA only to be eventually recalled.
Of further concern are the pharmaceuticals advertised as having side effects which "may result in death."

How can the FDA allow these products?
Interactive, easy-to-use charts with data from Apple’s quarterly figures
As I have said before, and will almost certainly say again, words are important, the words we use to say our thoughts are the thoughts that other people will have about them. Thoughts are the intent of the message, but the words are the message.
It does actually save quite a lot of bandwidth in the process. The giles are gzipped as they are uploaded to the Archive Teams server, so your virtual machine will do a lot more download than it does upload.
I may buy a lot of stuff, but should I only be viewed as “a consumer” in the eyes of the government and my democracy?

Notice that the author is attributing words in a blog post on thehill.com to "the government and my democracy".
Right.
Think of prenda law, just on the other side.
It still wouldn't be a good thing, even if we happen to like the targets.
Fair enough criticism here, but this is a high schooler. Instead of coming on strong with HEY WHERE IS THIS AND THAT, understand that he "open-sourced" the project to learn stuff. So since I don't have the proper knowledge to explain the open-source license stuff, maybe you could explain a bit or point to a good read so he/she can continue to learn.
That tells you right there who "actually" wrote the bill and what interest are being "served".
Hi Dmitry.

I'd get rid of the non-commercial requirement, but I guess you have a reason for choosing it. But it causes incompatibilities with GPL'ed software for example, since the GPL requires commercial to be allowed.

I'd recommend one of the licences listed on http://opensource.org/licenses like the GPL.

Creative Commons has a nice license chooser, if you want a proper licence with the restrictions you currently have: http://creativecommons.org/choose/ For example the BY-NC-SA (attribution, non-commercial, share-alike) license is pretty much what you have currently. It is still GPL incompatible, however.

The Free Software Foundation has a list of licences too: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html

Thanks for your patience.
it would be easy to write you off as crazy lunatic (as some here do for sure).

Only the 10 or so Google trolls.

But you amassed crazy Karma in just 2 years and I very much agree with your last two blog posts, so I'll give you the benefit of my doubt. Also this comment about Excel is spot-on.

Thanks. I try.
Yes, Windows treats both "/" and "\" as separators. Just make sure you handle the edge cases.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4845866/java-on-windows-p...
It must be a "written communication", but the same subsection also requires an "electronic mail address" for the designated agent.

You may have a hard time arguing they meant to require an email address, but at the same time, stuff sent there would not be valid.
You want boring?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81JSMr%2BIR6L._SL1500_...

But seriously, there's almost an absurd variety of games out there. No one has to play violent games. One problem is that multiplayer doesn't work well in most other genres.
While I don't agree with CISPA, but what about the Consumer Protection Agency?
I had no idea this existed. This would be nice. I used to like Java's packaging, until I was introduced to better methods of packaging, like Ruby, Python, etc... Glad to see that this is on the table.
Comments can be infringing - see "Scientologists force comment off Slashdot": http://slashdot.org/story/01/03/16/1256226/scientologists-fo...
It's a crazy rant against mediocrity; given the majority of corporations will be average or worse, what's his goal? To tell people to try harder?
Did you try something like X-Mouse Button Control?

It works great on my MX518 so I don't have to use the terrible Logitech software to configure the extra buttons. :)
USB Overdrive works well too. X-Button Mouse Control is probably the best on Windows.
After reading your comment, I did some googling to find something that could convert an existing spreadsheet into code. I found a few commercial solutions that turn Excel into C++ or Java. I think the idea is that Excel becomes the prototyping tool for non-coders. That seems like a better idea than treating Excel as the final product. I feel like there's a new paradigm for both spreadsheets and programming in there somewhere but I need a bigger brain to see it.
> How could you convince anyone to give up their mesiah?

Yeah, you don't. But you let them fail, and then convince the next generation that their elder's messiah is a fraud. Mainly by being very vocal, and using the failures to showcase your point.

In a while, either everybody realise what they're worshiping is just some normal piece of data, or you started another holly war.
I'm considering starting an anti-consulting service focused on corporate culture. It's $40k for one month with a catch: after I do X amount of fieldwork and figure out all the things you're screwing up HR and culture-wise, I'd be contractually precluded from working with you in the next 5 years. Why such a restrictive and seemingly self-destructive structure? That structure means I will do something most people (who are looking to retain a long-term employment relationship) won't, and that's tell the truth. Burned Bridges Consulting, LLC.
A nice follow up would be to explain the pattern of using immediately executing functions in loops to introduce scope, and how the let keyword proposed for ES6 will alleviate the need.
The problem is people being satisfied with a free application for doing mission critical calculations. Yes, you buy an MS Office licence and Excel comes free. That is fine for run of the mill everyday calculations, but it is not OK for mission critical work and it is NOT ok for the CFO or anyone who advises the CFO on his decisions. Those important financial people should use a spreadsheet like this http://www.resolversystems.com/products/resolver-one/ backed up by a team of software developers who write unit tests for the spreadsheets and validate the calculations.

TLDR is that the ResolverONE spreadsheet writes Python code as you manipulate the spreadsheet. A software developer can then organize that Python code, write unit tests for the code and validate that the calculations do what the CFO intended. Once this extra work is done, then the business can have confidence in the results of the calculations. But the user interface, i.e. the spreadsheet that end users see, is the same as it was originally.

This allows mission critical software development discipline to be applied to the development of spreadsheets. I suspect that the existence of a tool like ResolverONE is one of the factors that led the SEC in the USA to require Python source code for new derivatives that are created, so that there is a standard way to express the calculations of the derivative.
Brian Kernighan's Advanced Programming Techniques Class at Princeton
Excel does give hints when formulas are out of pattern. It's called "Inconsistent Formula" and it's displayed with a little triangle on the box.
48-Hour startup challenge
Hi all,

My challenge this weekend is to come up with a startup idea and validate it in 48-hours.

My idea: A hassle-free way to book kayak rentals online. So many kayak rental companies don't have a presence online, and those that do, have a terrible (if anything at all) booking system. I want to make it super-fast and easy for kayak rental companies to add their products and prices to the site. People wanting to go for a kayak can easily see the nearest rental place near them and book online quickly and easily.

I've thrown together a landing page - www.sneakypaddle.com

I'd appreciate any thoughts or suggestions you clever folk have.

Cheers,

Clark
If you've got 99 cells with identical formulas, and one without, it's not far fetched for Excel to speculate that there may be a mistake (particularly if they're within X% of being identical). At which point it can provide a simple, non-intrusive hint.

It already does this, actually. Enter some data in two columns, like:

4	1
2	3
5	6
3	2
4	2
2	1

Then enter a sum formula in the next column like =SUM(A1:B1) and drag it all the way down. Change one in the middle to something else, like =SUM(B3:B3) instead of =SUM(A3:B3) and a little green arrow appears in the corner. Hover above it an it explains there is an "inconsistent formula".
these kinds of comments are the reason I browse HN daily
The reading of Miranda rights doesn't in and of itself confer or trigger any new "rights". It's a reminder of the rights he already has. He could simply choose to not say anything without a lawyer being present and there's nothing law enforcement can do about it. People start talking even after being reminded, because I imagine for the most part, by now, those arrested think it's just a bunch of boilerplate that's part of the booking process - that it's almost a TV trope. Once read their rights, the police don't have to wait around for the arrestee to "lawyer up".
Did you even click the link? This was a 2005 high school project, so the author is 3 years out of college.
that is the reason apple should provide free trial.

If i apologize the cost is not zero any more.
Will you open source it? :) Found you on Github, it's not there.
Node.js OAuth1.0 and OAuth2.0: Twitter API v1.1 Examples
One of my low-priority, when I find sufficient 'tuits projects for a while now has been to find and download the transcripts of Presidential speeches over the last several decades and compare the incidence of the words "citizen" versus "consumer" over time.

I'm pretty sure I won't like what I find.
There is a whole organization with an annual conference for the past 10 years, that is dedicated to analyzing spreadsheet errors. http://www.eusprig.org/index.htm

This is a big deal. In fact, the ResolverONE spreadsheet was created as a way to reduce the risk of the kind of errors that are discussed at the EUSPRIG conferences.
Mediocrity != average. The average MIT CS grad student isn't mediocre, but even above-average corporate cultures (e.g. Google, which is legitimately top-20%) are mediocre.

I feel like mediocrity (as a pejorative) is an artifact of a convex performance function where excellence is 10x as potent as a half-assed performance, as opposed to concave work where it's 1.2x. We don't gripe about cab drivers doing "mediocre" work. We ask them to take us somewhere and if they do it, we're usually happy.

[ETA: I realize I didn't answer your question. The reason corporate mediocrity is evil is that it's an artifact of the wrong people making decisions. If you wish to excel, you'll make a real effort to listen to people and get the right ideas into implementation. But a lot of companies tolerate executive bikeshedding because they don't care about excellence.]
Link is busted: http://mlbase.org
4/20 How it got its name
RapidSSL + Nginx Web Server Setup
Kahlon.com sells replacement parts at a fraction of the cost of manufacturers.
while probably not getting much actual work product done in return.

That was fucking low, man.

I'm actually extremely productive when things work right, but when people persist in fuck-uppery it's like a low-grade chronic earthquake-- not exactly dangerous, but jarring and impossible to ignore and eventually exhausting.

By the way, the danger of startups isn't failure. It's that you end up like me: someone who can't tolerate the mediocrity, idiocy, and resistance to creativity that most people bring to their working lives. In most corporate environments, those are affordable background noise. In startups, they're existential risks. Unfortunately, it's hard to unlearn an allergy to fuck-uppery.
We have canines for a reason: our evolutionary and digestive history includes meat.

I'm sensitive to the moral issues involved, and understand the arguments against eating pigs and cows; however, I think it's reasonably ethical, and biologically optimal, to at least eat fish and eggs. And no matter what, farm animals should be raised humanely (pasture farms, not factory farms).
Why not just come up with a separate installer for the browser plugin. The runtime isn't as bad security-wise. Or is it?
Can't wait for the third rev with (hopefully) higher res display, more ram and battery life, newer ubuntu.
Indeed, while omitting to mention that that paraphrase also included commentary from various privacy groups. This is a common problem with political blogging, it's all tone and no substance.
Wakari (by the continuum folks) seems to be more of a web notebook ontop of python, where you run the python code

the oxdata stuff seems to be more of "interact with a hadoop cluster via a restful api via R" kinda thing.

the 0xdata stuff seems to be less easily extensible because of that strong separation / siloing. (though it looks like they have some really smart interesting folks on board!)

[edit: I'm working on building some scalable extensible numerical / data analysis tools myself, and whenever I see that partitioning between the tools for extending vs the tools for using, it just screams "wrong" to me. That said, the more everyone else focuses on businesses where that partitioning is normal, the more left for me :) ]
As someone personally affected by the lockdown, I find this highly offensive.

We were not cowering, though it would not be illogical to do so... we're talking about people proven willing to not only kill and injure hundreds of innocent people, they were also willing to get into action-movie style shoot outs with heavily armed police, tossing homemade grenades and pipe bombs, and murdering a police officer in cold blood.

So, maybe keeping people inside for 12 hours isn't that much of a price to pay to make sure they stay safe. But it was really more than that.

It was about finding this S.O.B. before he could get away.

We knew he was in the area, but couldn't be sure exactly where. By shutting down public transportation and keeping people and vehicles off the road, we made it nearly impossible for him to escape. ANYONE walking around, driving a car, is then automatically suspect and can be stopped. There is no crowd you can mingle in, no trains or buses you can slip onto, no taxis you can hail. There are no cars you can carjack. You're trapped.

Suddenly, instead of being able to hide among all the people in the city, you're in an urban ghost town where anything that moves can be pounced on. It's a hell of a lot more effective than just hoping someone recognizes him among the other 2 million people running around.

If you mess with Boston we will shut the whole city down to find you. Yes, we will. And you know what, most people will be glad to do it, to get the guy who killed 4 people and injured almost 200 others. It's just one day. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I think most other people here would too.

We weren't scared. We were pissed.
Window manager doesn't necessarily imply menubar. For example, with xmonad, you don't have a menubar unless you install xmobar. This could be an alternative to that, though admittedly that's a really obscure use case.

For me, most of this I don't want, and some I already have (git repo stuff), but some is new and potentially really convenient, especially the stuff for number of sleeping/background jobs.
Marc Andreessen: The World Would Be Better If We Had 50 Silicon Valleys
Thanks marshwah!
Why? Can't India use open-source alternatives like LibreOffice which is equally good.
Marco seems to achieve quite a bit of acclaim from saying very intuitive things in a very verbose way.

This entire piece could be effectively conveyed in a pair of sentences: "Reviews are arbitrary and uncontrollable, and reviewers are irrational and untrustworthy. Reviews should be ignored so long as your app is doing as well as you'd like."
The scientific adivsory council is made up of 3 big guns of the ML (research) community: Boyd, Tibshirani, Hastie; so I guess it's not "just another ML lib"…
In other news, it's U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz who decided not to read our suspected bomber his rights:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5583278

Gee, where have I heard her name before?