skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Warning, this is a rant.

I've started a Meteor.js Project 3 Weeks ago and I'm regretting it. It's an architectural nightmare. It uses global variables for everything. One would think the news, that this is a bad idea, would have spread since the 70's. Unit tests are not possible in this style. You can do integration tests with the Laika Framwork though.

The next problem is a severe case of "note invented here" syndrome. Packaging, data access, Templating - Meteor.js has it's own. For example, they have their own version of Handlebars which I did not realize until yesterday. It has some documented and some undocumented differences to the original one. I had lots of fun with some custom Handlebar helpers that I wrote. I tested them against the original Handlebars and they passed all my unit tests. In the project however they did not work at all.

As KaoruAoiShiho said the bindings suck terribly. Well, they don't exist really, you just use jQuery. (Thank god, they don't roll their own version of that.)

The elephant in the room is data access. If you're a MongoDB fan like I am they will lure you in with the fact that you can use MongoDB directly form the client. Don't fall for that, it's a terrible idea. It's such a terrible idea, that they introduced 'server methods' to kind of fix all the problems with it. Server methods are not REST. Server methods are RPC style web APIs. Welcome to 10 years ago. They dislike REST because it's stateless. (at least that's what i've taken form this talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnMqMAYmTuo) As you might have realized by now these guys just LOVE state. State and global variables.

If you're a Haskell programmer and you are not jet curled together into a ball and crying, id's suggest to quickly read a monad tutorial before continuing.

Dependency management is also a big problem. You can't just use nodes good old `require` and `module`. The order in which files are loaded is determined by their name and position in the directory structure. I shit you not.

They have also their own build tool. (who would have thought...) It watches your files and compiles them. Which works great most of the time. You can't have includes in your SASS/LESS/Stylus files tough. I guess the notion of having a proper module system scares it a little. I found this thing to be the best aspect of my whole Meteor experience. Not as good as Grunt though.

Per default, there is no routing. There is an unofficial routing package which works good, but is by far not as feature rich as the Express one. It also introduces some more global variables in true Meteor.js spirit.

In my opinion Meteor is good for prototyping. You can get a small app up in no time. Just don't build anything real with it.
Still have Xobni installed, it's been very useful. Hope it gets better - congrats to these guys.
(Aaaand sometimes I hear people saying the Italian's Juridical System sucks. Just saying)
But you didn't just kill a feature, you also killed data with it!

Gladly I am not affected, I have not recently tried to download an abandoned binary for a project hosted on github and it was deleted without replacement, but I still feel sad about what might now be lost
Post-PhD advice - want to leave the field entirely.
This is what it does:

https://github.com/gotmynick/bin/blob/master/README.md

You always discover new options each time you get new hardware, network needs, or virtual platforms.
But you can't extract the content from CL when you do. If you have your textfile and pictures on your drive, feel free to publish to wherever. But you can't take that data from CL servers and do the same. that is a shortcut and krrb is trying to equate posting with user's computer data with posting from cl server data. they are not the same.
I'd suggest checking out Wikipedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and Encyclopedia Britannica on the term "communitarianism". It's far more relevant than applying the word "socialist" without meaning.
I literally laughed out loud when I read the title. My first thought was it was an app that helps people run naked through college campuses.

EDIT: The about page seems to subtly imply that's what it's for.
1) The same as in a two-user chatroom? To hide the conversation content from everyone outside of the chatroom?
2) I heard people work on that, but I don't know any details. Might take a bunch of pairwise exchanges [tedious, but probably okay for small rooms], or moderators may serve as trust/key exchange hubs.
Why are they doing student recruiting right now? I imagine all sessions would go like this.
According to Wikipedia it was not published under a pseudonym, though there was an original intention to do so.
The Paid Results Invasion: More screen space goes to advertising at Google
Nothing sad about well liked person, who accomplished a lot, dying at age 88. He won. RIP Doug Engelbart.
Some background on the event and recording: http://mobandmultitude.com/2013/07/02/the-nsa-comes-recruiti...

edit: Cached version http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...
Al Jazeera, other TV stations forced off air in Egypt
I believe it was originally a one-time tribute for Robert Morris [1], but it has (partly due to user requests) been used a few subsequent times when people well-known in the hacker community have died.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2712469. Besides being well-known in the hacker community generally, Morris also had a more local connection, as he was the father of Robert T. Morris, one of Y Combinator's cofounders.
It supposedly cost the Clinton administration some $42 million for a 12 day trip to Africa (http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/india-on-200-m...). That same article suggests that today it might cost double or triple the $3.6mm/day for Obama to make a trip. Lets go easy and suggest it's only $5mm per day.

Obama regularly makes trips to various parts of the world for at least a few days. Let's say that for the rest of his presidency he spends ten days less on the road. That's $50mm saved.

Wikipedia says there are around 50 permanently detained persons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp#D...

That leaves around $1mm per detainee to wind down gitmo. I know it's the government so everything is expensive (especially when the military is concerned) but I don't remember commercial flights costing anywhere near $1mm each. Let's say we fly them first class, that's $20k per person, tops. Add in $50k of cash we just hand to them in a bribe to not hate us forever (foolish I know, but what they hell!) a grand for the travel agent, a couple grand for new clothes and such, and that leaves over $900k for lawyering.

Seems fairly doable to me.
"Freer"? The number of citizens in prison has vastly accelerated in the last 20 years [1]. This alone is proof that we are not freer. No need to shoot someone in the head when you can throw them in jail for a joke on facebook [2], and best of all, hand the bill back to taxpayers.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta...

[2] http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/07/03/198129...
Huh, that guy has a pretty fucked up attitude towards libraries.
In my part of the internet ads are everywhere, not just on the services I choose to use
Choosing the Most Suitable Crowdfunding Site For Your Campaign
This essentially confirms that rather than trusting any particular OS, it's better to run things in disposable VMs or on bootable flash drives with write disabled.
GM and Honda team up to produce next-gen fuel cells by 2020
There's nothing stopping you from loaning, say, 1.0 BTC and asking for 1.1 BTC to be paid back later, but Bitcoin does not have any mechanism to help enforce such loans. There's a forum dedicated to it: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=65.0 Many people are skeptical of Bitcoin loans since the expected rate of return of holding BTC exceeds the rate of return of almost all legitimate businesses.
You know its just a peaceful protest to show support for the 4th amendment, right? Its not a call for armed insurrection. I think you need to Chill the fuck out.
I had to stop using my phone's vibrate mode completely because I started to feel the phantom vibrations when I didn't even have my phone in the same room with me.

It's anecdotal but it didn't stop until I decided that my phone would never vibrate again. This is only moderately inconvenient to me as I also refuse unless I'm aware of a real window of availability to turn on a ringer at all.. If I answer my cell phone it's because I saw the display light up.
That's not really a valid argument, because it depends on how they went about it.

And, from the speed and design of CPython, we know that they are not V8-level or JVM-level competent interpreter/VM writers.
If Y! Mail wants to pull a ton of users from Gmail they should offer NSA-free, snooping-free email similar to how DDG does search.
Websockets with Clojure and http-kit
While we are on the subject of G-WAN, does anyone have any insight into the naming of the server.

The only reference to "GWAN" I could find refers to a mysterious NSA system [1].

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Intel_GreenDoor.jpg
You should really dig into this more, regardless of Bluebox's work.

I was approached about buying two different Android 0days related to APK signing about 3 months ago, so definitely some issues to be found. The seller wanted unrealistic terms, so I never got full details.
How to effectively listen to user feedback for startups.
The post about internal and external iteration is fantastic and definitely makes a good argument for a language supporting both (which newer versions of Ruby do, actually), but this part left me scratching my head:

> As far as I can tell, you simply can’t solve [the interleave example problem] using internal iterators unless you’re willing to reach for some heavy weaponry like threads or continuations.

I must be missing something, because it doesn't seem particularly hard:

class Array
def interleave_each(other)
self.zip(other).each do | a, b |
yield a if a
yield b if b
end
end
end

Am I cheating somehow, or have I misunderstood the problem?

Edit: Ah, I see, the problem is that I'm relying on the specific semantics of lists, which works for the example as written, but not for the general case (ie. if I have one file and one list).
Doug Engelbart has been a huge inspiration to me even though I never met him. I'm amazed at how much his group at SRI was able to accomplish. I think his vision - augmenting human intellect to help solve the world's complex problems - is still a vision worth sharing. Doug did help change the world, and I'll remember him for it.
The world's first "me too" comment in a forum
Looks like they're updating their privacy policy: http://www.att.com/gen/privacy-policy?pid=2506.

edit = formatting
Wow hearing him explain the concept of a mouse to a room full of people who may or may not be convinced that computers are the future is really interesting.

One of the most important demos in tech next to the invention of fire and the iPod
I have some sympathy for the recruiters since they really have no say in the high level decision making in the organization. They may not even be involved with domestic spying of citizens.

But on the other hand they continue to stay at the organization so while I do feel some sympathy for their predicament,I guess it's really just up to each person to figure out whether they're really okay with staying there, given all the pros and cons involved.
NSA Recruiting sessions are staffed by NSA recruiters - i.e. sales people. There might be the token engineer on hand to answer in very generic terms about technology etc, but to think that any questions would be met with useful responses is like asking the President's press secretary information on details of classified operations.

You'll get nothing more than spin at best.
>Why are you doing compute intensive work in Python?

Because I'd rather have a unified code base, all higher level, than some BS mix of Python and C or other stuff that I'd have to support.

>Python is not well optimized for doing compute intensive work

That's a rather circular argument, when the topic under discussion is why Python is not well optimised for doing compute intensive work.
antoko, sorry, I can't reply to you.

The answer to that is, of course: that is why you'll fail, that is why they'll ignore you, and that is why this is all a joke.

Thanks for making the point so clear.

Might want to study history, dear, and learn just how hard-core "the people" had to be to gain any kind of Power. The fact you think that Power respects your protest is why you won't ever be a "player".

Have fun on your little protest, I'm sure you know what you're doing. (Which is precisely: nothing). And, here's a tip: you might want to listen when a predator tells you why you're going to fail, they might have some experience you don't. Ask the Egyptians, if you think that was a popular revolt, you need some serious edumacation [hint: IMF / Egyptian Military / Economics, do some research already. The World is not a nice place, and it doesn't respect people who don't know the Rules]

I'm out, trix are for kidz.
Yes, Rust uses Azure as the rendering backend for all content. Azure, in turn, wraps Skia, Core Graphics, Direct3D, and Cairo/Pixman. It allows us to work with the native drawing backend on each platform with one set of rendering code.
It's not easier to change. When you have a schema-less database you don't change the schema, you add a new one for new data. Any data with an old schema continues to have it. So at any time you have up to n schemas simultaneously in your database if you changed it n times.
That very much depends. Are you saying no because the requested feature doesn't match your vision, or because it doesn't match what the user needs?

If it's the latter, great! You're on track to a first-rate product.

But most designers make the mistake of going with the former. That's why most products are second-rate.
Of course, access to source allows running better experiments! Writing the same algorithms from scratch is a clear waste of time! Please stop defending silliness.
You are confusing majority of valid votes with being democratically elected. Right now, any party in Turkey needs to get at least %10 of all of the votes to make it into the parliament. Due to this, many people just vote for one of the 3-4 major parties that they think they are closest, rather than who they would like to vote most. And many of the votes are simply being wasted as they are re-distributed evenly between the parties that make the threshold. Erdogan does NOT enjoy majority support as a hard-line Islamist. There were many factions in his supporters like liberals that were happy with increased control over the military, people that are just OK with having a government that has some stability etc, and he gets many criticism from those old allies.

tl;dr: Turkish elections are broken, AKP is unlikely to fix it since they greatly benefit from it.

I have no idea how Turkish protests are not democratic. There was a court law against the park demolitions, yet the government was ignoring it and having it their way. If you are not allowed to protest that, I believe you are against protesting against NSA surveillance as well? You could just wait for the next elections and vote for Republicans... that will show them.

Your claims are not backed by any sources (at least for Turkish protests, I don't have the necessary knowledge for Egypt to make claims). I am afraid you were misinformed and/or biased.
Are you sure downloads are encrypted? Sure store traffic is served over SSL, but large file downloads are often pushed off to non-SSL hosts.

It is "safe" to not use transport security for the actual file download since the signatures are verified before install.
Ok, the situation is more nuanced than I might have indicated. There is a right to silence in criminal law, and you can remain silent in civil law too. You cannot be prosecuted for remaining silent, or directly legally coerced into giving a statement.

However, specific inferences can be drawn from your silence in some circumstances. For example not mentioning something in you statement to police that you later rely on for your defence in court can be taken into account.

So we don't have an absolute right to remain silent, and doing so under suspicious circumstances can get you in trouble, but you can't be prosecuted just for not making a statement.
Taiwanese animators made this awesome video in support of RestoreTheFourth
Main Engelbart discussion going right now on HN (in case it drops off): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5986307
HN has an odd black bar on top of every page
Maybe it's just me, but now HN has an odd black bar on top of every page. I captured it and put it here for those who don't see it in case it is only me:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6lz99lqplac75tt/hnblackbar.png.

Does anyone else have this? And if so then can anyone tell me why is it there because it certainly doesn't fit the design considering the logo padding has perhaps 2 pixels yet the border seems to be around 4 or 5 pixels. Then again HN never was known for awesome design, rather content, so from that point of view it might be design related. Or not. Either way, any insight?

Update: Gotcha! If an important person has wondered off, then the black bar shows up to show respect or so. Just never seen it before. Thanks guys!
Suez Canal: How Egypt Is Helping To Curb Somali Piracy Threat
Interesting - how can the trend seen in those charts be explained? The clearly falling popularity of Apache the larger the website and clearly rising popularity of Nginx complement each other nicely.
I meant, they were storing then. Who knows what they're doing now. Analyzing, creating graphs/networks, sharing historical records?
>The author appears to not be aware of where the big leagues are. Additionally, as is becoming a recurring theme here, he doesn't know about PyPy nor Twisted. This is continually disappointing.

Do you even know the author? I'm pretty fucking sure he does know about PyPy and Twisted. He is a HN regular, a good tech blogger, and he has TONS of experience with Python for production use.
I have to imagine their recruiting is going to suffer greatly due to the recent revelations. Very few smart people are going to want to join an organization that spies on their fellow citizens. Plus, the NSA is going to have to be even more skeptical of anyone they do recruit.
According to Techcrunch, the price was "somewhere in the $60 million-plus range" (http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/03/source-xobni-was-acquired-f...). That makes it look a little better, considering they raised nearly $42 million over the years.
Speaking of losethos, the guy hasn't posted in twenty days, which is an hard break from his routine. I hope he's OK.
Professor Englebart passed away. Wearing black (clothes/band on arm) is a sign of mourning in many cultures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mourning
love the wit

posting this before someone inevitably rails against your obviously genuine belief that the iPod was the greatest invention ever. X_X
While its true for a lot of Bitcoin users, one of our goals was to make bitcoin more accessible to the public and the average person who is interested in bitcoin but doesn't quite know how to get started.

We are using Facebook as a trust network.
Nope. Concurrent can be interleaved (like you get multitasking in a single CPU). Parallel is actually parallel (same time).
It's like when a flag is flown at half mast. Check the #1 trending story right now on the front page
It doesn't appear that there's been any real speedup on the Ruby on Rails results for the last several rounds, so... why is that? Does nobody in the community care about speed? Is there no way to speed up Rails? Is it not clear where the bottlenecks are? Are the profiling tools not good enough? I'd sincerely like to know if someone has taken on the task and just been frustrated, or if no one has actually tried.
The Turkish deputy PM is blaming Jews and jealousy of Turkey for the unrest.

Bigoted governance predicated on smoke and mirrors is not democracy.
It's because Doug Engelbart died.
Along these lines (and without disagreeing with most of the grandparent post), I think it's good to look outside US borders as well as within them.

For example, a frequent objection to the government of today is its willingness to engage in drone strikes. It's true that these represent a significant change in battle, since US is risking only some flying hardware but no longer a pilot. It's also true that whenever we attack someone elsewhere we risk creating a new enemy who wishes to avenge the first target.

On the other hand, this has to be viewed in the context of diminishing casualties over time. Drone strikes are far more discriminating than cruise missile attacks, which were the preferred means of retaliation 20-30 years ago; and cruise missile strikes are in turn more discriminating than tactics like carpet bombing of 40-50 years ago. It's instructive to compare this with America's first outing on the international stage, the Spanish-American war (1895-98), which was rapidly followed by the Philippine-American war (1899-1902), when the newly-acquired territory of the Philippines promptly rebelled. The latter conflict was truly horrific, with the US engaging in what would be indisputably classed as genocide today. Moral low points of the 'war on terror' have involved US soldiers photographed in mocking poses with prisoners of war or dead bodies. Back then, veterans were proud to pose atop the massed bones of thousands, in scenes as gruesome as anything from WW2. If you can overlook the messy design and are interested in the history, this is about the most comprehensive resource online: http://moviephilippines.blogspot.com/2013/04/documentary-phi... ...but given that these events took place over a century ago, books are still a better resource (which was how I learned about it).

My point here is not to say there's 'nothing to see here,' but to warn against a kind of historical revisionism that paints the past in idealistic terms as some sort of Eden from which we have since fallen, because appeals to the idea of a noble past to which we must turn back can be leveraged to resurrect injustice as easily as ideals.

I strongly recommend looking for the Penguin Classics edition of the Federalist Papers, which contains an outstanding introduction of ~70 pages by historian Isaac Kramnick which delineates the factors and factions that gave birth to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The actual positions of the Federalists and Anti-Federalists still echo through American politics today, and it's worth remembering that the (many) opponents of the Constitution considered it a tyrannical imposition on what had up to then been a confederacy of free States. Whether that change in the form of government made Americans more or less free remains a matter of intense dispute.
Then I hope they get recorded and posted as well, because this made my heart sing with joy.

"I mean, I think the question here is, do you actually think about the ramifications of the work that you do, which is deeply problematic, or do you just dress up in costumes and get drunk?"
>Noone does parallel compute on CPUs these days, not since GPGPUs rocked up almost 5 years ago (and we often use python as the host language, thanks pyCuda!)

You'd be surprised. Furthermore, I call BS.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5986307

On occasion over the years when notable people from our industry pass the black bar goes up.
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