skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'd advise against Python. There are too many caveats in it for a language that's supposed not to surprise me.

My biggest gripe: it's easy to shoot yourself in the foot using Unicode. The system is cumbersome and the lack of typing makes it easy to slip a regular ASCII string somewhere, which will jump at your face when you expect it the least morphed into a stack trace.

The data structures' API is the worst and most inconsistent API I've ever seen. Why is 'dict' not 'Dict' ?

A comma ending a line actually makes a tuple, that's asking for trouble. I've witnessed more than one bug caused by this.

It is slow and resource hungry. Django is too[1]. GlobalInterpreterLock[2].

The package system is horrible, and pip won't save your day either. I love Clojure and Node.js just because of Leiningen/NPM. I couldn't use PyOpenGL in Windows from some unknown reason. I gave up!

Discourages functional programming, while encouraging ugly inline list comprehensions. The solution to the half-assed closures in Python2.7[3] was to introduce 'nonloncal'. Lists are mutable. Object Orientation feels clunky to me and using super is awkward.

"Batteries included" but core libraries won't take you too far. Unfortunately they're still bloating the language.

Concurrency is hard. Twisted solves it a bit but... meh...

What I like:

- Proper nested comprehensions (CoffeeScript completely blew this one...)

- I like the minimal syntax, it helps me visualize the program better.

- PyLint/PyFlakes highlights lines that don't conform to PEP8.

- Generators.

[1] http://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/#section=data-r5

[2] http://ynniv.com/blog/2007/08/closures-in-python.html (section Caveats)

[3] http://wiki.python.org/moin/GlobalInterpreterLock
New Windows 8 PCs use touchscreens, hybrid designs and Haswell
And the allmighty raspberry pi is surviving traffic like a baws :)
I believe that's not correct. First a nitpick, I think it's only software that can be open or closed source. Protocol specification might be kept secret, though.

Regarding specifically BitTorrent protocol specification[0], it's free to use. Anyone can build their open or closed source BitTorrent client without reverse engineering.

[0] http://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0003.html
The Myth of the Connected Classroom
That's gay, like the rest of Israelis
It is a role of the state to prevent creating fortunes by stealing. Guarantying fair rules of making business, prevent cheating and stealing is a prerequisite for capitalist market to even exist. That's a government role to provide such conditions by creating and enforcing the law. That's also the only thing that money from taxes should be used for.

Capitalist markets are good because they allow people to have a vote in everything that concerns them. But instead of putting their vote in a ballot box they vote with their money, which has much more power.
This is the problem with the media today. Edward Snowden is not the story!

The story is that the governments are illegally bugging people. They are not stopping the terrorists (Woolwich/Boston). They are harassing legitimate activists. They are not serving the people they are meant to represent.

EDIT: And of course we, the general public, are not free of responsibility either for the media choosing to cover the personal interest story rather than getting their teeth into the politicians who might improve things.
Joe Turner - The State Of Twitter's Discovery Tab
It is big for that reason in the US. The rest of the world is shocked by the, now undeniable, extend of the spying.

Everybody will think thrice before storing their data in the US. Especially since Obama has made it more than clear that the rule of law does not apply to foreigners.
Background: Australians are the biggest recreational drug users in the world. https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/WDR-2012.ht...
I don't know I don't have problems making changes in my life for someone who matters to me. I don't look at life as a single event. Better split it into 5 - 10 year periods, a lot of things change in that time.

Also if you like having dogs you'll have another one with similar needs in 10-15 years.
They never had a job, but, still, they need to make ends meet. They live under the pressure to make some money. Removing that pressure may allow them to find more interesting things to do.
I could access the original page. The cached content is a true copy.
As existing jobs get automated, why would be stop seeing new roles which the automation cannot service?
The guardian just posted a relevant update, 'How do we know Snowden was ever in Russia?', which essentially would be better titled 'Why we thought he was ever in Russia'.

Sounds like it is quite possible that the whole Russia thing was an intentional diversion planted by Snowden / Wikileaks, to divert media and US official attention from the true destination..
And your opinion is "it should be done the way it has always been done"?

> other people do like it and keep doing it

Well, a lot of people seems to not like it, but keeps doing it not to be seen as an asshole.

> I must force them to behave as I want by applying the force of government coercion

That was how slavery was abolished... Is that really your best argument?

Imho, the arguments were very well motivated. Can you offer any counter argument to the actual points in the actual article?
Show HN: Building an HTML5 Desktop environment with a minimal server component
Exactly. With Go and GLFW I could write 3D GL apps running the same under Linux, Windows and Mac OSX. No need to mess with OS-specifics if you don't want to. SDL could do the same but since I didn't need Audio and all kinds of "media layers" and what not, GLFW seemed a lot leaner and immediately worked "out of box", too.
WoW!!! if you click the Tank is gone!!! probably Isreal govt asked to revoke it. if you zoom further you can see Photoshopping of the tank!!
As far as I can tell, ghostwriting doesn't really impact the quality of music people are listening to. Sure, frontperson du jour may have no discernible talent, but someone had to have enough to get it played, right?
I was just playing around with option+menu bar items and discovered that notifications can be disabled by option-clicking the notification center icon on the far right in Mountain Lion.

Then if you click to open notification center there is text which says that notifications will turn back on tomorrow and a toggle to turn them back on now
It's also better to have them being given some income instead of having to steal for it which generally costs way more than if the money was just given to them directly in the first place.
Sure, no alcohol on some planes ... but I'm sure they'll get at least one night of debauched journo-drinking before having to fly back to their stations!
I think that was just a poorly worded statement. See the comment by aaron695.
No, apart from alcohol I've never taken anything.
Without being too confident, I think he is in Moscow, given all the evidence save for the fact that no third source has actually seen him there.

It makes great sense he did not take the flight to Cuba he was expected to go on; I think he will take a flight suddenly and unexpected and to a country we did not consider. To avoid any presence of other nationals[0] and journalists on the flight.

This will his plan all the way to his final destination. He might even at times move through means we did not consider (e.g. by train or car; under diplomatic protection, of course).

[0] In particularly American officials.
If he hasn't released anything of use, why is he being charged with espionage?
The 3G clearly had a much stronger screen. The 4 and up screens scratch as soon as you look at them the wrong way. Had a 3G for years and 0 scratches, had a 4S for a week and got 2.
When I worked for an MMO game company I constantly got dinged for OSX's ancient OpenGL support which limited what we could do (being cross platform). Now that I don't need it anymore they go way forward. Still it's great support. And add in the Borg Trash Can's dual video cards for lots of fun!
More likely it's just because there was a delay between the times the images were taken, hence now you see it now you don't. This is extremely common on Google Maps.

Edit: For example, click the arrow to go down the No Entry road: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=WF17+9LN&hl=en&ll=53.731781,-...
3D-printing miniaturized medical implants, compact electronics, tiny robots...
Maybe if you use the latest kernel, get the latest driver for the manufacture, recompile X, Mesa, and a bunch of other modules you can get OpenGL 4.2 on Linux (with a ton of bugs)

Yes, I'm sticking to Mac OS X
The parasites at the top will not want the parasites at the bottom, because without the parasites at the bottom, they get a bigger slice of the pie!

Basic income, whether its a good idea (for society in general or not), will not come to be. Those who have something to lose with BI will certainly oppose it, and they are the people who have real voting power (or should i say lobby/political power).

Unless, the west turns on its head and adopt communism...but i highly doubt that.
Most likely it's the kind of bot you've mentioned. It makes the most sense, more than "stick-up-the-butt" users combing my comments in the past and as they happen in order to downvote them.
>There's plenty of historical precedent where the US democracy worked.

And at least as many where it didn't.

>Recently SOPA and PIPA were close to passing. A lot of people in the tech community raised hell, and the bills went down in flames.

Haha, no. A lot of big companies put their lobby dollars behind a position and that position got adopted. No one in the US government cares about a bunch of blog posts, email or online surveys.

> etc. can have big effects, but in the end the voters know a lot about lying, duplicity, manipulation, etc. I believe that the Internet will be helping

No they don't! And even if they did, I'm not sure they can stop it (in the same way that knowing you're taking a placebo won't alter its effectiveness). It's getting more and more documented about just how effective marketing can be.

Some have gone so far as to ban certain kinds of advertising [1].

>it seems to have helped a lot with SOPA and PIPA and to have gotten the Snowden efforts front and center.

What? Outside of sites like HN, pretty much no one cares about Snowden. The mainstream press was already over him the next day.

>Once a politician gives a speech, then due to YouTube the politician can't assume that the voters will easily forget.

Except they do forget, and sites like political compass help them forget by trying to look official but producing padded stats. You can probably find every one of Obama's speeches on youtube yet there are still people who claim he hasn't broken any big promises.

[1] http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/ban-on-adverti...
No, those photos were just taken at different times of day. You'll also notice that if you move forward the truck down the road is gone and the shadow from the tall tree is pointing in another direction.
And that's fine, and nobody says REST should be the way. But then call it for what it is: An HTTP API.

But this post isn't so much about REST (albeit sparked, once again from it), but about how people use the term pragmatism to get away from truly understanding something.
To me, this announcement tells us one thing. The Australian government is taking Bitcoin more and more seriously. This is great news for Bitcoin users around the world as it is the first step towards countries officially recognising it as a new type of asset (or currency... or whatever you want to call it).
That's no way to fix a problem
If you look at other details, such as the truck on the other side on the road or the person next to it that are gone as well, you will notice that the pictures were taken at different times.

This might be due to a takedown request (unlikely since they then would have removed the other pictures as well) or just a coincidence.
Device Shipments Up 6% To 2.4B In 2013, Driven By Android Smartphones, Tablets
> They have been predicting automation will destroy jobs for centuries, and it hasn't happened.

We have replaced jobs by consuming more. This concept growth is infinite is not practical(Or mathematically possible), and it's probably not linear either, when it hits and growth stops being able to replace lost jobs it could be sudden.

Bespoke is interesting, but I'll probably only visit 1000 different houses in my lifetime etc 'Bespoke-esque' products will be able to be mass produced and appear unique, currently they are limited by space time, small markets overseas trips will have little meaning to goods in the future.

Once 3D printers/scanners work well I can copy anything that an artist creates why would I buy it off them personally, especially since I'll probably be unemployed myself.

Sure I'll go to a fancy humans serve me restaurant every now and again, probably when I'm young and hip, but normally I'll do what everyone else will do, get a excellent, cheap hassle free meal made to order served by automatons.

Building and driving are dangerous jobs, it won't take many lawsuits before they get shut down for humans.

More of a dystopian fan myself.
What's with "my-sql". Shouldn't it be "MySQL"?
Season 2, Episode 12, "The Royale." This was subsequently tangentially referenced in an episode of "Deep Space Nine," which means "explanations" about Wiles never being born in the timelines are wrong.

Quoting from Wikipedia:

In "The Royale", an episode (first aired 27 March 1989)
of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Captain Picard states
that the theorem had gone unsolved for 800 years. At the
end of the episode Captain Picard says,

"Like Fermat's theorem, it is a puzzle we
may never solve."

Wiles' proof was released five years after the particular
episode aired. This was subsequently mentioned in a Star
Trek: Deep Space Nine episode called "Facets" during June
1995 in which Jadzia Dax comments that one of her previous
hosts, Tobin Dax, had

"the most original approach to the proof
since Wiles over 300 years ago."

This reference was generally understood by fans to be a
retroactive continuity for "The Royale".
You are blessed. So many guys I know stick on the gorram web-interfaces, and I don't think they mind about privacy.
Fair enough, sorry if over-harsh. I think we've all seen too many half-started projects.
This rumor has a credibility problem:

* The Oslo flight left only 20 minutes after the Hong Kong arrival

* That route would involve four flights to reach Iceland (stopping in Moscow, Stockholm, and Oslo). The trip can be done in two: you don't need the Moscow or Oslo stops.
Ada Web Server vs. Node.js Benchmarks
Here is the book[1] that goes with that documentary. It is a really good read and not too technical at all.

[1] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fermats-Last-Theorem-confounded-grea...

Edit: Just seen nicholassmith posted exactly the same link. Apologies for duplication
I was curious to see if I could get my hands on the documentary but the order page says "US Only". Is there a way for us Europeans to get a hold of a copy?
> It is a role of the state to prevent creating fortunes by stealing.

If you can point to even one single state that has successfully done so, it would be of immense help to this discussion.

> But instead of putting their vote in a ballot box they vote with their money, which has much more power.

This way you reintroduce http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffrage#Census_suffrage.
Volunteer to redesign http://www.wikileaksparty.org.au/ .. they need help!
>No, but it's not about helping myself, it's about having a system which I consider ethical.

It's not about helping yourself. It's about consistent voting. If everyone votes for the rich person, the entire system will be skewed hopeless in their favor.

You think taxes are unethical? Then how does the government pay for itself? Would you rather they just printed the money they need? That would also be a tax; a flat tax.

And if you don't believe the government should exist then that's anarchist, not libertarian. Though if you want anarchism then you can't have a barter system.

>I'm from Sweden. I understand very well why the Libertarian Party exists. We do have (very small) parties in Sweden which correspond quite well to the libertarian party.

By "very small" you mean "fringe". Like the BNP in the UK no doubt. If you truly have "US Libertarian" parties in Sweden, then how about instead of ruining your country you just move the US so you can enjoy what a Libertarian paradise is actually like.
Nice shortcut! Thanks.
While i understand your argument (and i wish the world really worked that way too), the problem with determining "vote" by money is that not everyone started off with equal vote in the beginning. Some people got rich thru schemes that was only available to them, and thru either luck, force of coercion, or trickery/deceit. Thus, the honest poor will remain poor, and any influence their vote has will be crowded out by the ill gotten gains by the dishonest ones. Which is what we have today, ala lobby money, political campaign money, transnational corporations which pay way less tax than they "should" be, yet enjoy the same rights as a tax paying citizen (e.g., property rights protection).
Well, I know a number of economically liberal Pirates and Pirate voters who gave up simply because of the basic income and other leftist policies.

While this clearly is just anecdotal, it might explain the bigger pattern why the Party had more success 3 years ago while it was clearly economically liberal, and while it is stagnating today where it is clearly turning more and more to the left. Younger Germans, who initially grew the Pirates, neither wished nor need yet another leftist utopia lying to voters about things they cant finance.
The Guardian has been releasing the information Snowden has given them and been reporting on it daily for weeks. There are several news companies that have been doing the same.

The problem is that most people are more interested in Snowden (people are always drawn to the human aspect of a story) and that's why he is now getting so much attention.
I'd 2nd that. I've read two other of his books, The Code Book and Big Bang, in which he gives cryptography and physics similar treatment.
I'm not talking about paying everyone the same, I'm talking about the difference between non-market-work and non-work.

The article states that Basic Income allows for the recognition of the value of non-market-work. I can't see how.

In order to "recognize the value" of non-market-work, such workers must be treated differently to non-workers (unless the value is recognized to be zero). Any difference in the treatment of non-market-workers and non-workers is equally possible without a Basic Income system.

If those who do non-market work (e.g caring for their disabled partner) get paid the same as people who do no work at all, then it is valued identically to non-work. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but it can hardly be said to be "recognition of the value" of non-market-work.

This means that a parent who takes time away from market-work to raise children; a person who provides full-time care for their disabled spouse; and a person who divides their time between playing CoD and watching Jersey Shore; are all paid the same.
Could it be possible that he requested asylum in Ecuador after in arriving in Moscow because he is trying to get them to transport him from Russia to Ecuador privately?
Well, why exactly would you think that a simple to state problem should have a simple solution? It is of course false, as demonstrated for example by the insolvability of equations of degree higher than 5 [1] and by countless other examples, but I don't see a reason why it would even be a reasonable heuristic. If you spent just a few hours trying to think of a proof of the Fermats theorem you would very quickly see a lot of good reasons why it is difficult and why an elementary solution most likely does not exist.

E=mc^2 is just a statement of a relationship, it isn't a proof or a solution to a problem. Mathematical work in modern physics is in fact just as complicated and messy.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abel%E2%80%93Ruffini_theorem
Question "why should my robot do heavy lifting for you?" is pointless, because it literally costs you nothing to let your robot do the job. The only reason we now have to pay for anything is because there's always someone (human) who spent his time and effort to make it. Once everything is made by robots it can cost nothing
ShowHN: Tandemio(24h hack), chatroulette for language learning. Comments,ideas?
Why has Edward Snowden turned to Ecuador for asylum?
> This whole NSA thing should be enough to push things like named data networking/content centric networking, WebRTC and meshnets (http://www.reddit.com/r/darknetplan) into the mainstream.

Mozilla is looking at making a foray into this with its "Firecloud" initiative[1]. While Firecloud itself appears to be a relatively innocuous endeavour, it would lay the infrastructure for P2P RTC-based meshnets, which are something I've been hoping to see for a while now.

1: http://literaci.es/firecloud
AOL launches Reader, an alternative to Google Reader
Snowden’s whereabouts unknown
Timings of basic python expressions
We're in week 3 of Snowden and the NSA. Even USA Today has it as the top front page story. After a certain point, it's ok to not expound the details every single time and focus the story on just what's new.

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/hr.asp?fpVname=USAT&...
See my answer elsewhere explaining why this is not true.

Here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5932237
<50MW globally, apparently (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-12/virtual-bitcoin-min...). $147,000/day.

Well, this is certainly more than nothing, but still isn't actually a great deal. For example, something else that cost $147,000 would be 12 seconds'-worth of US petrol consumption (http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=23&t=10) at wholesale prices (http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pri_refmg_dcu_nus_m.htm).
I don't know, I find the fact that my government has singled out an individual to harass and torment unfairly an interesting story.

edit:

Also most of the spying program is secret. I think I have heard reports detailing most of what he has released. I have heard several reports on the secret court. There just isn't that much information available as it is all classified.
I think every introductory programming language must make it easy to play musical notes with a command as simple as:

PLAY "T180 DF#A L2 A L4 O4 AA P4 F#F# P4 O3 D"

and draw simple shapes with a statement like:

LINE (0,0)-(100,175),2,BF

Code in BASIC might have not been the most well-written. But it was certainly fun to program in!
What would you use instead of Python? It should be roughly comparable in terms of having a wide array of well-used libraries, and of course a good REPL.

I've been using Python for a couple years and it's mostly joyful. It is unfortunate that not even the various containers within "collections" use a uniform naming convention, I'll give you that. And some of the scoping stuff is weird (nonlocal which nobody really uses? and seemingly-but-not constant default function arguments). But Twisted is a pretty good evented programming system, and NumPy plus multiprocessing let you process a lot of data efficiently, GIL or no. I cannot agree that "the core libraries won't take you too far"--they've taken me farther than the comparable bits in any other language.
Great book, no matter your level of math knowledge or interest.

I'm an all round science nerd with a MSc in maths, my wife is an architect with a background in art history and graphic design and a aversion to all things mathematical, yet we both really liked book.
How is a person trying to avoid being captured by US not a story?
And you move even further forward and turn around, it's back again: https://www.google.com/maps?ll=30.613617,34.803708&spn=0.001...