skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
he pointed out a few good places where the code could be cleaned up.

resig: i hope that you see this post, ignore the flamebait, and notice how the suggestions don't look too bad to fix up. also, thanks for jquery -- it's awesome.
um...rules of thumb are a bit different from identifying logical fallacies.
I imagine that YC apps reflect the startup trends at the moment. An online video company that quite possibly would have been funded in 2006 would be dead in the water today. With six months between applications, and not that much historical data, this could be hard to compensate for.
Oh man, the traffic cameras in Phoenix are horrible!
Interesting. I'm curious to know whether the rooks improved in their abilities to use and craft "tools" as they encountered subsequent experiments, or whether their performance remained roughly constant.

The rook seems very hesitant in the first experiments shown, but in the last two videos, it seemed much more confident. One possible reason for the lack of hesitation in the "metatool" experiment is that the rook seemed to watch closely as the scientist set up the trapdoors, and might have been already formulating a plan ahead of time.

I think that if that's the case, then the rook has a pretty high level of sophistication -- more than if it was just using trial-and-error to figure out the right combination of stones.
Actually, the whole premise that these guidelines would be binding on the White House isn't entirely clear; the White House and Congress are specifically exempted from many federal laws, including those that apply to other parts of the government.
Microsoft’s Bing Logo Leaked By Way Of Favicon?
i clicked through to the site from ujjwalg's profile and my browser crashed immediately. Now I'm getting an endless stream of warning messages from my anti-virus regarding programs trying to access my computer, including a trojan. wow, pretty hectic.

the domain is watermelonexpress.com avoid it like the plague
or any of the varied Amazon payment systems? https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/business
Instead of attacking them with "smug pricks" and "complete ass", read their reasoning.

I don't wanna. Because they're smug pricks. Next?
WindyCitizen.com offers a way forward for local news
The problem I have - and this sounds silly as I say it but it's how I think - is why would I go to the library to get an ebook? That brings to mind the question, "Is it possible to drastically reduced physical library presences in favor of a National Library online that features ebooks only?" Interesting question rife wife possibilities, legalities, and fun!

So to answer your question, "No - not today. I don't have an ebook reader and don't plan on buying one at current prices."
Mazda are fantastic cars. Would recommend.
there is very little doubt that tens of millions of people in industrialised countries drink at least 2-3 l of cola per day

Wow. I was worried that 40oz might be rotting my body, but 2-3 liters is a lot of soda. Overuse of most products will have poor health effects.
Come on. If you put code out there, you're going to have "smug pricks" showing you why it completely sucks. You can either take on board their criticism, or ignore it. I'd say it's worth taking it on board to improve the code. Regardless of how smugly it's put.
Here's the deal. Facebook's ads are more like Google's content network. Google's money maker is keyword search based ads.

Most will tell you that the content network is complete and utter shit. A lot of people lose money there.

The search network is much more targeted due to its nature to target based upon search keywords.

Facebook will always be worth something and probably a very valuable something, but it's not of 10 billion or Google proportions if the basis is upon "advertising".
Some libraries have systems where you can put a book (or any other media that the library has, which they allow to be checked out) on reserve, and you get notified once it's available. However, that doesn't fix the fact that the concept of "returning" an ebook is not very well-defined, because of the ease of copying/cracking digital media.
Are you completely sure about that?

You could quibble about my exact phrasing, but yes, I'm completely sure about that. This is the 'black swan' problem writ small. I don't mean that a high standard deviation should be ignored for real-world distributions, but I do mean that a low standard deviation carries very little weight unless a normal distribution is presumed.

I'm hard pressed to relate this to the cases discussed in the article, as those cases are shy on detail, but the DB2 example seems most applicable. Although he points to standard deviation as the tell-tale flag here, this is sort of misleading. The exact numerical value for the standard deviation across all queries is meaningless here, as not every query has an equal likelihood of being slow. As he states, the real problem was the terrible performance of an single query.

How many similar queries exist? Will a new query added to the system trigger a similar bug? We don't know, and standard statistics isn't going to help us unless we have an understanding of the underlying mechanism. The key here is not to test a statistically significant subset of all possible queries, but to check the performance of the actual queries executed (as he did).
<sjohnson> wow it's like ruby

Isn't it..
He's talking about approximately 5 cans/day (2 liters/day).

Full text of article is here: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121402091/abstrac...

i have no access to the details (would have to pay, not a student with a univ license or anything...), so if someone does have access - it'd be nice to know at which amount in this study one transitions from 'moderate' to 'heavy.' 5 is apparently heavy, but where is 2 cans?
Expecting 100% fairness in all cases is mind-numbingly naive.

So, since unfairness is inevitable, we shouldn't call it out when it appears? That's just retarded.

nothing more than trying to make a private entity do what you want without regard to the freedoms of that entity.

What are you rambling about? I'm not holding a gun to anyone's head. How does voicing my opinion amount to disregarding their freedom? They're free to be dickheads. They're also free to ignore me, and to not receive my dollars in the future.
Would you be willing to provide more information regarding this?
>> "Most will tell you that the content network is complete and utter shit. A lot of people lose money there."

It varies massively depending on sector. For some things it works fantastically, and is far cheaper than the search network. I've made money there :/ I actually found it easier to make money on content than on search for what I was doing. YMMV.
Texting May Be Taking a Toll
I think you're misunderstanding the way that rounds work. This is a Series D – and they're not even getting an executive seat – and this was just 2% of their stock. This was an all money is green round, not "give us advice and your rolodex." If the people that offer you the best deal at that point happen to be Russian, why wouldn't you take it? They're pumping up for an IPO at which point they'll naturally be selling stock to whoever is willing to pay.
I was just thinking of porsche's brilliant financial coup. I'm confused as to how they are now in this position.
Yes, but you would never find a highly sought out book that is available without a waiting list.

With physical books, this is possible since there is so much inconvenience involved in taking them out.

Moreover, in many cases, people don't actually search for books. They just go to the library and take a book that they find by chance.

When you have a situation in which everyone searches for ebooks all the time, it becomes very unlikely that you will find a good ebook that is available without a waiting list.
IMHO, yes!
The value to advertisers is in the ability to target their ads. To be able to prequalify people based on their searches was a major technological advance over the unqualified banners sites display.

Facebook is attempting to mimic the prequalification in its use of your interests, your groups, fans, etc all that can be used for advertisers to filter. At this point it's fairly rudimentary, but imagine in the future when the system can apply some intelligence in determining whether or not I'd like to see ads for some product based on all the information Facebook has about me.

The potential is there, but it is not yet fully matured.
Canonical developers aim to make Android apps run on Ubuntu
I'm using Vimperator, but got a problem: how to escape from embedded Flash once it gets keyboard focus? Because once the focus is in some embedded objects, I can no longer control Vimperator unless click the mouse to move the focus back to the page. Very annoying ...
Back in the 90s, there were a few monitors sold that rotated from portrait to landscape modes. I wonder whether there's a market for that now.
You miss the point: for millions of people words "store" and "apps" are not very familiar. And in their localized phone UI, "store" would look as out of context as any other foreign word.
But isn't the problem exactly that only a sweeping reform - i.e. basic income replacing all the other benefit schemes - will actually lead to the kind of reduction in red tape that makes the system pay for itself?

Obviously, this is a rather intricate matter and very dependent on the particular welfare system you're talking about. I don't know anything about the german one.

But I think, politically, the big issue is the idea of handing over money to people without requiring them to look for work. That's a tough nut to crack, no matter how convincing your anti bureaucracy stance is. I doubt that it's going to happen.
I read Yevgeny Zamyatin's _We_ recently, and recommend. It has a more lighthearted style generally but the ending is still fairly devestating. There's just been a new translation released and it hides most of the cultural problems well and is just honest about the one it couldn't (character using a polite version of a pronoun).
This linked worked for me: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/12238435...

Edit: not quite, that's just the IJCP summary. The actual study is behind a paywall here: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/12238434...
Yes but not quite; they somewhat sidestepped Jingle
standardisation process and extended then-current
standard to suit their use case. They also
primarily use(d) H.264/SVC which
doesn't have readily usable free/open implementations.
(more at my rant & google/xmpp dev comments here: http://senko.net/gmail-videochat-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ug...)

The good news is that since that announcement Google
have been working with 3rd party devs to enable
interoperability.

So (AFAIK) nowadays H.264/AVC should be working and
there are implementations (Telepathy/Farsight that I
know of, possibly others) that have experimental video
interop with GTalk.

EDIT: the original "NIHd Jingle" comment is a bit too
harsh (as the drafts of Jingle spec were changing
very rapidly at the time), edited for clarity.
Seems we got a little poll going here.
How brain damaged do you have to be to drink even a liter of cola per day?
A really good textbook along these lines might really be something.
> i like the author's enthusiasm

Who? There are mails from several authors.
YC tries to choose teams, not ideas, so in an ideal world they would fund the same team in 2006 as in 2009. So, it would seem like the idea parts of the application would already be more about the way the applicant talks about their idea rather than what the idea actually is. Or, perhaps one could simply drop the "idea" fields from the data and only train on the "about the team" fields.

Nonetheless, I'd have to see evidence to believe that applications could successfully be classified automatically with any reliability, just because it's such a complex problem. The reason spam and log data and experimental data is classifiable using tools like this is that it is, by it's very nature, relatively predictable. If every spam were written fresh by a different person, and selling a completely different product, it would be impossible to filter it. Likewise, if every time Apache got a new request or error it made up a little prose on the spot about the topic, it'd be pretty difficult for an automated tool to make any of sort of sense out of it.
It really depends on what do you want to do. If you are going to write stuffs on Windows OS for financial companies, you need to learn C++ to read existing codes.

If you want to build new system with Linux/BSDs. Then learning C is enough for you to do all useful things. Then you learn Java just as your friend says.

C++ is really complicated if you use features beyond basic templates and classes. And in reality, it lacks of standard Application Binary Interface for using binary libraries as C does. And different compilers may interpreter some spec in C++ differently.

C and Java is much simpler and uniform.
Physical books are much more expensive to reproduce than an ebook. I don't think that libraries which stock ebooks will find much success in trying to control how many copies of their books are "out there" at any time.

I think that they'd either allow members to simply get a copy of the ebook, or, as mahmud mentioned below, they would only allow access from within the library, and they'd try and regulate the amount of information you accessed.
The point is that I'd be content if government served the general case of population well. Super-bright kids are a special case there will be less harm to society should they be under-developed.

I know that's horribly utilitarian of me but I'm just being pragmatic.
Aided by Poker Devotees, Lawmaker Pushes to End the Ban on Online Gambling
I thought Irish people were renowned for their musicality. Eg, singing is a common social activity in Ireland (to the point where it's socially unacceptable not to sing), and Ireland has produced far more commercially successful musicians than their population would suggest. What country are you playing in?
Spark Capital: Why We Think Education is Ripe for Innovation
Well, Java has his problems too.
I'd suggest learning C and then switching to a real object language (for instance io - http://www.iolanguage.com/ )

Do you want to learn those languages for your career or just for yourself ?
Really - making valuations on a per user basis? Kind of weird especially considering their growth.

Currently Facebook is projecting $550M in revenues this year, that would put them at about 20x earnings (for 10B valuation). That doesn't consider profit/loss but its a standard measurement. This is a moderate 20x P/E for a growing company and not a horrible valuation.

compare that with twitter's $0 in revenues and you have a better comparison.

Youtube is projecting about $240M in revenues
http://newteevee.com/2009/04/03/analyst-youtube-could-lose-4...
But with a higher burn rate per user so its way further in the hole.

MySpace is projecting $490M in revenues so it's inline with Facebook considering they're very close to the same rate, I have to believe that considering the way facebook is growing compared to MySpace that it would get a better valuation (if comparing the two side by side as standalone businesses)

All revenue numbers from pretty much first google hit
I have to agree with evilneanderthal. Pick the tool that does the job. For most batch processing jobs, Perl is the tool that will get it done the fastest both in run and development time. It's just built to process that kind of data, and the community has built an excellent library to do so.
Does it matter, the color of money is (dollars) is still green. Fb has the users, they should get the highest valuation.
Encoding images in tiny messages; don't align values at bit boundaries
Virus Tamed To Destroy Cancer Cells But Leave Healthy Cells Unharmed
Ebooks today are not much cheaper than physical books. A library that allows many concurrent copies to be made of highly sought out books would probably need to pay a very high price to the publisher.
ya not commenting, on Google C/O efficacy just pointing out that Paypal is very much NOT a monopoly with Google in the game.
I read his sentence as that he's not Irish, but plays Irish music.
Presumably it would require magic to handle

foo + " " + bar
Are we supposed to take interest in this particular pointless flamewar? Or is this just meant as a spark to start our own here?
include ianal.h

Personal credit and cash issues should have no bearing on an LLC, S corp or C corp. His personal debt and poor credit would probably work against him if he plans on having the corporation take out some kind of loan or line of credit that he would have personally guaranteed (if he had decent credit). Many credit card companies and similar lenders often ask that "corporate" cards for small/new businesses be backed by someone personally.

If he does not need to raise any significant funding for this corporation, then his personal finances are of little concern.

Similarly, other creditors should not be able to come after the corporate assets.

Is your focus on credit ratings based on an assumption that this matter, or because he would need to raise some kind of capital after incorporating?
Am I the only one who couldn't get past the author's tone. I'll paraphrase the way I read it: "Hey kids, I've been doing this a long time, and I know what do to, and you are doing it wrong, so listen to me... And by the way your a douchebag." He comes across as elitist -- about Twitter!

Twitter is an open service and you can do with it what you like as long as it is within the terms of service. That is it.
There is yet another problem -- not everyone has internet access. Libraries provide books to many low income people, including the homeless. This would take books away from some of the people who need them the most for their own education.
There are also people who simply enjoy reading from books, and for whom the library is a place of relaxation.

Finally, books are more permanent than e-books, at least today. I can think of dozens of reasons that pervasive internet access might not be sustainable long-term. If even one of them comes to pass, where would we be without a physical source of books?

But to answer your question -- is it workable? Surely, yes, it is.

But... Is it wise? Would it even be popular?

Not a chance.
A profile of computer pioneer Gary Kildall [video]
The other issue is that some people (like ME :D) love real books.

The Library is like a dark, exciting, unexplored jungle of literature that I want to discover. That's not an inconvenience - that is a delight! It is what libraries do best.

E-books are great too obviously - but I can get them online. E-books are easy (as you say) putting them in libraries makes it less easy so there's little point IMO.

Also you talk about limiting E-books by how many "copies" can be taken out. That seems silly IMO because that is the model a library uses due the limitation of physical copies. Why bother with that limitation with E-books. If you cant get it at the library then there are probably 101 other places to download it!

The other major issue you face is what do you "stock" in the library. Only those books with physical copies? and if not what is the criteria for inclusion?

I just dont see how it would work out :P
I think the argument is flawed to begin with... $/user is just a bad comparison. I am no investment banker but I'd think valuations are calculated via a combination of revenue + growth.

If we look at Facebook's estimated 2009 revenue, which is $550M reported by TechCrunch, the valuation is about 20x. It's a bit overvalued at this point but not unreasonable, especially since Facebook's project revenue almost doubled 2008's.
I know tons of people who use vertically oriented monitors. My Dell 24" panel can just rotate 90 degrees.
The best bartender I ever met worked at a dive called Fox's in Miami. She would remember people who had simply dropped in for a drink while on vacation the year before. Remember as in their name, drink, hometown, hotel, vacation activities, etc.
Patients On Hookworm Therapy Swear By Treatment
I'm pretty brain damaged I guess. I must drink at least a 3 liter bottle of diet Coke a day, probably more. I've tried stopping at various times and it's not easy; it's a somewhat more serious addiction than a lot of people might believe, imho. The best luck I've had was with drinking coffee for the caffeine and club soda for the bubbly sensation (not simultaneously), and I managed to get away from it for a month, but I've since lapsed. Will try again upon reading this article.
"Social sciences" is an oxymoron. Everyone with a functioning brain knows that....
The agonistic system used in jurisdictions inheriting from english common law is trial by combat. It's supposed to work that way.

The requirement of a disinterested judge, the structured dialogue of contending opinions; the whole notion of facing the accuser directly and of having a champion to represent your interests fall out of this.

There are other judicial systems where a judge-advocate investigates and is supposed to arrive at the truth (mostly in nations that inherit from the Napoleonic Code); but anglo-saxon justice is explicitly a substitute for the duel.
Per se, anti-debugger traps are an anachronism.

In general, nothing about (say) Bochs obsoletes software protection. Advanced protected code (say) encrypts sensitive blocks, and uses (say) runtime artifacts to decrypt them before executing.

There are software protection schemes that nobody has published breaks for, presumably because they are too much of a pain in the ass to break.
Without knowing how many times the Rook has tried to solve the problems in the videos it's hard to judge.

It would be nice to see the Rooks failing and learning from their mistakes and trying new tactics. Did the rooks just 'know' they could make a hook from wire and lift up the treat? I doubt it.

Interesting none the less. Makes Hitchcock's The Birds seem a little more scary.
Their fastest growing demographic is women in the mid 30s, last I heard.
This is the third or fourth post with the same question in the last month or so.

At the risk of being grumpy, I'd make a longer reply, but I already blogged on this just this morning.

http://www.whattofix.com/blog/archives/2009/05/tired-of-erla...

So go with C++. It doesn't have as many letters as Java.
P/E is price to earnings. Not price to sales.
Not necessarily. I'm sure that an emulator differs in some subtle ways from a real machine.
Paul Polak: Global Poverty Fighter
Just to clarify: earnings are not revenues. Earnings are revenues - costs. Facebook and Twitter's valuations are both infinitely times their earnings since neither has any earnings right now. However, their negative earnings are still important (especially on a per-user basis).

So, Facebook's P/E ratio is non-existent since they have no earnings.
A metric for "cult-like":

Does the group make constructive use of new data and new ideas? Are new scientific discoveries ignored or denied because they conflict with important teachings of the group? Is one free to bring in ideas from the outside world? Is there a claim of infallibility?

A second metric for "cult-like":

Is group membership coercive? Is one free to leave? Can one freely talk or write about their experience in the group? Are such communications censored or censured by the group?

A third metric for "cult-like":

Are all individuals and other groups opposed to the group defined as "evil" or otherwise fundamentally harmful or harmfully misguided? Does the group have the task of somehow saving the world?
Garbage in, garbage out.

Why not just drink water, instead of Brawndo?
related:

Joshua Klein on the intelligence of crows

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/joshua_klein_on_the_intel...

w/

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=470840

Inventor Trains Crows to Find Money

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8787802...

w/

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=409609