skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> "picked the wrong guy to mess with" and "weren't ready for my $massive_gun" is commonplace. It's so common that it's a well established meme: http://i.imgur.com/TJUNFCg.jpg

That's a fantasy of violence not a fantasy of self-defense.

> As for your dismissal of a scientific article just based on worlds you don't like the look of and findings you don't agree with, well I think that speaks for itself.

I'm assuming you meant words not worlds (I'm not picking on your spelling just making sure I'm haven't misunderstood what you've written). The article is behind a paywall. The citation is pretty damning and doesn't look impartial at all. These aren't words I don't; like these are words that indicate a bias and I think I made it clear that I cannot disagree with the findings because I have not read the article. I'm assuming that you have read the article because you're calling it science.

The fact that you don't see these words as a warning sign and that you've made this personal tell me something as well.

Look, I've attended a CHL course. The course was a sham, there were people that had never used a firearm before and I did not have a high regard for the intelligence of the people attending. On the other hand I know plenty of people, who do have a CHL, who are responsible, who do not look forward to having to use a firearm and who carry a firearm solely because they see it as a tool, that one day, might help in the defense of themselves or others.

Edit:
> It's so common that it's a well established meme: http://i.imgur.com/TJUNFCg.jpg

The image you linked to doesn't, as far as I can tell, depict a self-defense fantasy (again what is that). You'll notice the comic is far from, "the civilian with a handgun in a chaotic shootout." Instead it's riffing on the fact that active-shooter situations are hard and the misconception that the act of self-defense will not result in injury to bystandards. Call it a fantasy of self-defense if you'd like; not a self-defense fantasy.
You should open up issues for those: https://github.com/mozilla/rust/issues

There's no reason for an internal compiler error, especially in a language with safety as its focus.
RT doesn't meet the criteria of "easy to use and setup", unfortunately. Great product, but installation isn't anywhere as simple as signing up for these SaaS products.
Rocket engines can produce gigawatts as jet power. Kerosene and liquid oxygen is a very dense energy source. A jet engine is slightly bigger as it needs to pump air which is not very dense, but it's still much less complex than a power plant that has to generate electricity.
> within the academic discipline in question.

This is a nit pick, but all the examples you gave are of people who actually changed the world, not just some sliver of academia.

That said, changing your sliver of academia is likely to imply changing the world if you're in certain areas of math or science or engineering.

The only time when you can change your sliver of academia but not change the real world, is when your sliver of academia does not contribute to the real world, which is (unfortunately) common, particularly in the humanities. (Which is sad, because we actually really need good humanities study/education in order to build a good world.)
Method cascades do not guarantee that the object gets properly initialized. Let's say you do

var calendar = new Calendar()
..year = 2013
..date = 6;

Neither the year setter nor the day setter can throw, as they cannot know that there is no month setter in your code.

So, what month is the date set to after that code? Builder.build(), on the other hand, can throw when called on a partly initialized builder. A builder also can (I don't know whether Java's builder do this) accept variants such as:

Builder.setYear(2012).setDay(60); // February 29

Builder.setYear(2000).setDay(MONDAY).setWeek(14);
// Monday of week 14 of week 2000

So, builders have their advantages.
Amazon certainly makes a lot of things easier. For example, you still have to manually back up your database and files, but the storage of those files are simplified (S3, which is arguably one of the safest places to store files in terms of durability).

Things like dealing with software failures, updating stack versions, configuring DB, are pretty much the same with EC2 as they are with dedicated hosting. There are Amazon products that help (Cloud Monitoring service) but mostly you will be doing it yourself the same way you would on your own hardware. Being a cloud VM hosts, some of these things are more convenient to handle than if you were on your own hardware. For example, everything can be done from the EC2 API, so you can programmically spin up/down instances (machines) as things go down to keep everything working. But of course you need to set up this failover/auto-scaling system yourself (the API just lets you control the infrastructure).

This is the case with IaaS services like EC2 and Rackspace (you only get bare VMs with some extras), but if you move to a more hand-holding PaaS service such as Heroku, where you get the entire deployment system and failure handling system, then your software stack management and failovers are mostly handled by the service provider. Of course these services cost a lot more for equivalent amount of compute power than IaaS services.
cognitively it probably makes more sense. ie Im on the same wage but i can brag Im getting $300k extra. If they offered them market rate and an extra $100k it wouldnt sound so great and wouldnt make as much blog traffic ;)
> If we're pointing to market share as a barometer of
> browser quality, then I guess Internet Explorer is the
> best browser in the world.

You should check your numbers. And yes, when IE initially achieved pick market share it was the best browser.
Ask HN: $20 per month dedicated server? 
Almost all the startups start with a VPS hosting.

The problem (haven't verified) is that when you are measuring performance metrics, they can be hell lot misleading because of the extra s/w sitting between your app and h/w.

I think there is a need for a dedicated server hosting for startups which is priced around $30 per month (2-4 core CPU ~3Ghz, 1-2 GB Ram, 500G hdd, 1TB bandwidth). What do you think about this idea?

I haven't done the cost calculation but would like inputs from someone experienced.
As a startup, will hosting on a dedicated server for 30$ per month be a exciting option? Would you take it?

Edit:
-----
Since $39 option is already there, then let me drop the price further $20. Obviously I can drop because its still an idea but I really want to know the price point at which startups will be more inclined to rent a dedicated server instead of a VPS because obviously dedicated is better. let me know if I am missing something here.
Actually it gives you more to worry about. When something blows below the layer upon layers of abstraction you will be helpless. Ask anyone that tried to find workaround about a bug in a core closed sourced framework. You are suddenly playing code permutations.

I have seen the same with some of my admin friends when they throw config after config in a case where something is not working while the documentation says it works and reality says it don't.

So it will hit the fan less often, but when it hits - there will be more than enough for everybody.
Thanks for posting this too-- I'm trying to learn Go and it's always good to see "full" examples rather than just snippets of code.
The downside of Child Labor laws.
uh yikes! http://fossil-scm.org/index.html/dir?ci=601c15421a4a5ca5&...

although good point, I see they're doing distributed. will take a look at how they approach that.
What is yourself tax avoidance hook? Irish entity?
Can you explain why this is a real vulnerability? The user himself must put that JS in the search box.
I don't see how this is anything more than jealousy-infused complaining.
Talent Buddy - An easy way to get instant feedback on your skills
In a startup you may not have the luxury of affording both devs and ops. Most of the time you end up having a devops guy who does a lot of both. Compilers are the same regardless of who's using them, but ops needs to be tailored for specific use-cases, which is very different.
I've never understood the whole idea of everyone must be equal because. Politically speaking, the US (and most other countries) isn't socialism/communism (and most people become hysterical at the first mention of either), but capitalist system.

The system we're in today doesn't mandate that everyone is the same, and it doesn't mandate that everyone has a right to the same. I'm not commenting on whether the system is a good one or not, just that our current system doesn't support, or even want to support the idea that everyone must be equal in all measures.

What gets me even more is the people who complain that things aren't equal, and that they should be, but who decry the idea of socialism and communism.
I'm rating $33USD/hr for a open-ended contract out of the US, working on e-commerce and warehouse systems (PHP/RabbitMQ and LAMP stack).

Where would I find an agent, or does anyone have any agent recommendations, since I see a few comments mentioning them.
>The only problem with the Google bus is that it doesn't solve any problems - it's just a kludgey work-around for some Google employees.

Hmmm, what am I reading?

Of course it's a solution for a problem– the problem is that employees need to get to work every morning. The solution offered by Google (and others) is much better than what large companies in areas other than SV do, which is to not worry about how employees get to work.
What those tech companies do is a significantly better solution because a) it's better for than environment (less cars on the road), b) it's better for the employees (driving is stressful), c) it's better for the company (people get work done on the bus).

What would be your solution to the problem?

"Public transportation" is not a valid option, because first of all in the US it is a travesty; and even if it were amazing, that wouldn't solve the problem.
In countries with great public transportation, people who work for companies who don't have offices in deeply urban areas still have to get to work by their own means.

Google (and others) need to bring their employees to work on their massive privately owned campus; it's not the city's preoccupation to get them there. Driving is stressful, therefore Google decides to offer a shuttle service. It doesn't seem like a "kludgey work around" to me, rather like a normal consequence of a free market.

The only other thing I see is to have every employee live within a 5 mile radius of the company so they can walk/bike there. Some companies do that (Foxconn), but surprisingly it goes against the modern era notion of "personal freedom".
Now that is what i would call a "success story". How many distros can claim to be used in the space? :)

I'm glad to see Debian being recognized for it's rock solid stability.
I would say yes, but unfortunately most of those that took that gamble have been shut out. If Twitter were really smart about the whole thing, given the amount of money they have, they should let others develop off of their platforms and acquire them as they start to gain traction.
Nice! makes me wish I had a back yard :)
Civil War Ballooning During the Seven Days Campaign
> Ignoring the fact that bad people many times use e-currency for repulsive things like child slavery

[citation needed]
That's just testing, not playtesting, in my opinion.
Timbuktu Libraries in Exile
Why would we want to "advance" sideways? What have happened to "the best tool for the job"? Where does this moronic "web for everything" attitude comes from?
As for the last sentence: I wonder in what state would Mozilla foundation be if not for Google's money.
Not quite. The one percent and the greedy corporations are subverting the democracy and putting themselves outside of any regulation.
The size issues of the SQLAlchemy repository come from the way Mercurial handles copies and renames.

I prefer Mercurial because is much easier to use but this file rename issue always make me feel uncomfortable when reorganizing code.

These days I'm giving Fossil a try, which still is easier to use than Git and the repository size sits between Git and Mercurial.
I like your answer but I think you went too far.

My main point is how to bet against the unknowns. In this context having a degree increments your chances.

The future? Imagine a future where you cannot compete with robots... or worst... where you cannot compete against the humans competing with robots. Because you talk about preparing yourself against the unknowns... that's really difficult in our field because... they are unknowns and we have an overconfidence bias. May be not you, but the average people do.

I am not saying that a degree is a solution. Just that is positive to add it in the equation. And yes... if you are the next Zuckerberg don't follow my recommendation!
An interesting concept.

However, as the number of reviewers grows, how do you maintain quality?

In the limit, the system becomes one in which anyone can sign up. So how do you maintain quality once the floodgates eventually open?

(Saying: "That won't happen" is not a good answer. There has to be some notion of a reputation system.)

edit: With respect to the argument that the floodgates will not open, how will that occur? What is the model for keeping things a closed community? Nearly every "invite-only" community tends to get blown out after a while.
Instead, Twitter stays frozen in time. There haven't been any new features for users in years. Lots of features for advertisers.
Oh wow...

"Transport for a breed apart. For a community that is separate but not equal," said Diamond Dave Whitaker, a self-professed beat poet and rabble-rouser.

Not only are we comparing this with racial discrimination, we're actually painting it in a worse light. Yes, "rabble-rouser" is a great word for this person, but what the heck is the point of rousing rabble against this? My goodness, a company providing transportation for its employees?! The injustice, the humanity!
Could someone explain what he means when he writes "...the payout breakdown was 30, 50, 20, meaning that Microsoft will probably get a 20% discount on your bonus if you were planning on leaving"?
[T]he bonus was a life raft against personal
debts racked up while living in San Francisco
at a below market salary

Never accept a below market salary unless you have serious skin in the game (i.e. founder-level equity). I probably sound like a broken record about this, but you have to assume that your equity in the company will never be worth anything, and—even if you are part of a 'successful' acquisition—you are liable to get an amount that brings you up to parity with the market...if you're willing to accept the golden handcuffs.

Think of your options (or RSUs, or whatever) in a company as being a lottery ticket. Odds are, it won't pay out. If it does, it's likely to be a trivial amount. For the rare cases where things really work out well (early employee at Facebook/Google), please try to remember that you were really lucky.
We are tackling some of these issues in our product (we're a small VC-funded team). Interested in a quick chat?
Not $30/month, but 50 euros is in the same ballpark I guess -- http://www.hetzner.de/en/hosting/produkte_rootserver/ex4
What's the third option?
-Dswing.aatext=true

-Dawt.useSystemAAFontSettings=lcd

-Dsun.java2d.xrender=true
I could set up a redirect to POST data to that search form and steal his cookies/replace the page with a login form/all the fun you get running arbitrary javascript.
Lol... Whatever makes you sleep better at night, you old farts.
Have done. Here are the ones I found in 300 loc.

https://github.com/mozilla/rust/issues/6699
https://github.com/mozilla/rust/issues/6698

Don't get me wrong. I'm super excited to learn rust once it stabilizes. But right now I don't spend enough time on fun programming to deal with a language that has this many errors.
Just add internet and everything's different!
He may have meant, if you quit after first year, you get 30% of the bonus, quit after second year, you get 30%+50% = 80%. If you are going to quit, you will probably quit after second year. So for most people who are quitting, MS would not have to hand out the last 20%.
Ask HN: Any idea what this could be?
I found this while sniffing Tor exit node traffic: http://vps6.vpnzz.com/farmer/

Any idea what it could be? Looks dodgy.
Comments like this make me proud to work there. :'-)
I wonder if there was some kind of accounting reason behind it as well.
I see, sounds mostly similar to just renting a VPS from one of a variety of providers then in that it doesn't dispense with ops stuff.

I did evaluate S3 for backups for one project , but concluded that an rsync script would be simpler and more portable.

In the case of things like heroku, how are software updates handled?
Do you contact them and say "I want to update to rails version x.x , do it and run these automated tests" or do they just do everything on a schedule?

In other words, if you want an extra feature that is only present in a newer version is this possible? Also what I would worry about it them doing a random upgrade at an inconvenient time (like during a launch of something) and it breaking something subtle.
You are describing different parts of the elephant. The fact that these buses create a feeling of segregation is indisputable. Those companies do have a choice between providing their own private buses or working within the respective communities to create a better overall public transit system.

It seems to me like this should be in the interest of the employees as well. After all, what if I want to take a bus somewhere else on the weekend, or want to go somewhere with friends?

Maybe these aspects (community integration, public transit in general) are not part of your personal objective function, but that does not make the uproar ridiculous. It just explains why you personally do not care about it.
The list diff is really a set diff, if I understand it right, in that it disregards order and multiple instances? That should only happen if the dict member is a set. Members which are lists should be treated using a Levenshtein-distance style patch. For free you then get patching of string members.

I'm getting ambitious now, but what about tree-edit distance (with patch script) for members which are nested lists?

There is Python code out there for these:

https://github.com/timtadh/zhang-shasha

https://code.google.com/p/py-editdist

EDIT I have only used the above libraries for distances, not for patchable diffs. But the Levenshtein and tree-edit distance algorithms are amenable to outputting the patch scripts.
No, rolling out code, and seeing it run in production makes developers more responsible. Having developers write their own code doesn't do the same thing.
Does any of your design clients say these dumb things?
Great! Thank you. I've been mostly sticking to documentation myself, but you can't fix what you don't know...
> Mozilla's value and goal is pushing for open web. Not
> creating the best browser.

Then they have very stupid goal. Whatever that "open web is" (seriously, how do you close the web? by hanging lock on http and html?) but the main point is that the web is what browser vendors make of it. Some features of HTML 4 only lived in the spec, because no browser cared enough to implement them. HTML versions are if fact meaningless, because only features supported by browsers matter. Hence if you make a philosophically pure browser which nobody uses you will have zero influence on the web.
Yes. See also: www.myzeo.com
People here seem to be missing the point of the complaints. It's not about buses - it's about making the city unaffordable for the residents. If google puts a bus stop near your house or apartment, good luck making rent next year.

[FWIW, I'm pro-google-bus, I just can see the other side, which I think are misdirected]
With Mercurial it's the opposite where fetch is the "automated" command.
Pull just pulls the latest version from the server while fetch also tries to update, merge and commit.
As an example, an attacker can craft a script that would run within the paypal.com domain name. The script can therefore potentially grab the user paypal session (if the user is already logged in). Otherwise, it can show any information the attacker wants, and to the user this looks like a real trustworthy paypal page. It is running on the paypal.com domain, and the browser shows it's secured and trusted. So for example, it can display the login page and asking to confirm the password, or keylog anything the user presses etc.

This link can be embedded on a different site, or sent via email, and because the link itself points to paypal.com - it is much more likely to be trusted by unsuspecting users.
I think you can customize most parts of the Web UI:

http://www.fossil-scm.org/fossil/wiki?name=Cookbook#css
Sweet!

But make it go-gettable, dammit. :-) [1]

Also, is there anything I could read that would explain how I'd hook up my RPi to my sprinkler system? Thanks!

[1] - https://github.com/pothibo/irrigation/issues/1
I hope you are not implying that bitcoin is better. Bitcoin creates a super-elite of early adopters who control (in percentage terms) an amount of currency unheard of in history.

The curve of releasing bitcoins was done backwards - it should have released very few bitcoins at first (while there weren't a lot of people using it), and more (i.e. faster) later on as it got more popular. As is, fewer and fewer bitcoins are being released as time goes on (i.e as more people use it), and that's an utter disaster for a currency.

I hope bitcoin never becomes a real currency since it would create a monetary inequality such as the world has never seen.
Ask HN: How do you focus?
I am trying to work on a side project that I have huge motivations to get started on. The problem is, I can't seem to control my focus. I'm trying to read the official Django tutorial right now and my mind wanders and gets off track before I can fully complete one step. I'm doing everything I can to do well at this - I am eating healthy, getting plenty of sleep, eliminating distractions, yet I can't complete just a few minutes of complete focus! Also, I am genuinely interested in it, in fact, I love doing it. I am studying CS in school, and I love building things - I just wish I could build a better control over my inattentiveness.

How do you all do it? Are there any tricks that help you focus for longer periods of time?
Negotiate. It's always an option in my experience. (For example, I've negotiated the text of offer letter and IP/confidentiality agreements at most of my employers).
Have you ever given someone a gift of food or beverage as a way of saying thank you for a financially meaningful favor? Have you ever given a gift card or stored value card produced by a non-bank institution? Been on the receiving end of a transaction of that nature? Congratulations, you may (at the discretion of the prosecutor) have already committed the crime of money laundering.

Money laundering is an interesting crime in that a series of otherwise legal transactions may be considered laundering if the source of the funds was tainted in the eyes of prosecutor in any of several ways. Most usually by being the result of an enterprise that is criminal in nature; such as attempting to avoid taxes...

So as with many financial crimes these days; the criminality is entirely dependent on the political power of the accused. An Apple or Google is not committing money laundering by structuring their transactions to avoid having their revenue streams being tainted with taxability. But if you or I were to try such a thing...