skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
C is a small, beautiful, elegant language that's fine tuned to systems programming and high-performance programming, with a surprising ability to be used on higher levels with enough skill. As a programmer and computer scientist, C will teach you a good abstract model of how a program is executed on the low level (memory management, stack, heap, and so forth), especially if you learn some assembly along with it, and learn how to make C and assembly work together. It is not the best applications language and there are proportionally fewer opportunities to write and read C code than there once was, but it's necessary if you want to be a great programmer.

C++ is a big, clunky, difficult, ugly language. Understanding C++ is an accomplishment, but not because it involves any fundamental learning beyond the peculiarities of that language. As a programmer and computer scientist, C++ will teach you how to design a clunky mess of a programming language. But it is widely used, for good reasons. It's the right blend of performance and abstraction for many applications. It's a good language--maybe the best--for learning certain data structures, just because it combines pointers (data structures are mostly built out of pointers) with encapsulation (which helps reinforce the mental model that, for instance, rotation subroutines are part of what makes an AVL tree an AVL tree). And as an application language, it's very much usable. So it is worthwhile, but probably not a high a priority as C (or, indeed, other languages that can teach you more than simply how to use that particular language).
The economics of programming projects can sometimes facilitate this. Just go in on the "C" level (CEO, CIO, CFO) and sell your thing. Make sure you're dressed in a suit and that you have enough credibility trappings to cloud the executive mind. Employ the services of a "Sales Guy" who can schmooze with the "C" level folks. Ply them with "steak and strippers." Convince them that it's freaking rocket science, and it's hard -- millions of dollars hard -- but you're just the sharp kind of geniuses to do it. If you do all that right, start a body-shop consulting operation to "customize" the app for your customers. Staff with bozos from the local community-college who only know how to implement doubly-linked lists in C. Charge hourly. At that point, it doesn't matter if all of the projects are failures. Walk away with your bonuses, pensions, and (already exploited) stock options.

Been there. Seen that! Just think of it as a Ponzi scheme that goes overboard on the laundering operation.

Strippers and Steaks:

http://www.zedshaw.com/essays/control_and_responsibility.htm...
What you say is pretty much true, except I think you're a bit harsh on the BMWs - maybe you just saw some bad examples? But societal pressure for visible evidence of success being what it is, it doesn't really matter how good the Mazda 3 is - people will pay for the BMW. And to be fair, BMWs are really good cars. There's a premium but it's not a total rip-off.

Ask a girl sometime whether she'd rather date a man who drives a BMW, or a Mazda 3. That's all the information you need right there.
Outside of absolute necessity, there are other reasons people might want to work below their current capacity. The archtypical "day job." I've been working on a personal project which I hope to evolve into a business. I took some time off to do this in March. My finances are starting to run low and I've been looking for an easy job which will pay my rent and maybe have health insurance, and have had many of the problems described in the article. I was offered a job as a CTO of someone else's startup, but the nearby college won't hire me as a PHP drone.
Agreed -- this is stunning! I've never heard of this lab before, but they apparently place sensors and electronics around cities all over the world to gather and visualize data. Amazing!

http://senseable.mit.edu/
it seems pretty mind boggling that people are that bad at stats ... we have a mandatory stats class for CS ... it doesn't teach some of the stuff mentioned in the article but the stuff mentioned is completely intuitive -- you shouldn't need to take a stats class to understand that.

like if the variance of your result is really high and you're estimating the mean its clear that the number of samples you take is important !?!
collateralized debt obligations
I really don't know that there is a universal answer to your question. It would also likely depend on if you are raising true VC money, or angel money.

In either case, you're talking about people (effectively) giving you money and trusting you to handle it well. Whenever money and emotions/biased decisions are involved, the outcome is not always predictable.

You would likely need to figure out how to sell or position his credit situation to your investors. Did he run up a huge Visa debt by swiping his card at the local strip club, or did he try to bootstrap some small operation (or possibly his life) and end up with his debt too far ahead of his income? Does his credit situation evolve from continued wrong or bad decisions, or is it a one-time event?

Different investors will also generally want varying degrees of control over the business funds. You might be able to find an arrangement where the funds are more like an escrow, where you have to get approval before making any commitments over $x,xxx.

And lastly, the business idea itself probably plays into this. If you told me you had a Facebook app that was untouchable and allowed you to monetize Facebook's user base significantly, I would probably invest in your idea even if you were a drunken gambling addict. If your business idea is a Web2.0 virtual pet rock, well, then your personal credit issues don't really matter because no one is going to invest anyway :)
>I do this: When Google fails me, I try the other search engines. So far, they fail me too.

There's a case you're missing - that Google doesn't outright fail, but its performance is inferior to Yahoo's or Microsoft's. For example, Google may have the page you're looking for at the bottom of the first page of results (in which case you'd probably be satisfied and not try another search engine), but Yahoo or Microsoft might list it as the first result, which would be superior performance.
Barcelona vs Manchester 2009 Final Match On 27-05-2009
Barcelona vfootball. Sign up and you'll get access to all the details you need to watch football live. We offer live football scores as well as all the live football on tv.
Because if foo contains "f" and bar contains "b", then your scheme would have (foo + " " + bar) contain "fb" and not "f b"
female programmers most certainly are though.
Targeted Ads In An Unusual Location: A Bus Stop
"You may not BE cultists, but everyone–not just me–PERCEIVES you as cultists, which is all that matters."

Talk about intellectually dishonest.
Which field?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-415786940752241012&...
'Bing' is actually an OK name -- it works as a verb, and you can easily imagine a positive "bing! you've found it!" ringing sound.

But is it still 'Live.com' search under a different name? Because they're not yet doing simple things that would make it easier for me to switch:

[3 liters in ounces] -- Google shows the answer, Live.com just miscellaneous results without the answer

[ambidesterous] -- Google shows correction, useful results and typo results; Live.com only random typo results

[ambidextrous] -- Google includes a distinguished dictionary 'definition' link at a predictable place in the header; Live.com only provides that mixed with other results and suggestions

[define:ambidextrous] -- Google provides a special list definitions culled from various sources; Live.com just normal results. (I use the 'define:' operator often.)

Why aren't MS and Yahoo at least aping these little easy-to-do things so that a switch is as painless as possible?

Until they do, I have the impression they're not even trying, because no product manager has created a list on a whiteboard of every way Google is better and said: "give us rough parity in every single one of these". (That's no way for a tiny startup to differentiate itself, but while trying to chisel off market share in this mature market, Yahoo and MS have the budget and need to do this.)
25 And Over
Logical Consequences of the Singularity
Exactly. Why not just say that ego tends to prohibit good programmers? Bringing gender into it is hardly necessary, and it actually detracts from the important point about ego.
> I'm probably wrong in my assumptions, but I would think it would be pretty difficult for some targeted ads to work in foreign countries.

How so? Why wouldn't say Spanish advertisers want to show ads to Spanish Facebook users any less than American advertisers would want to show their ads to Americans?
Yes it is, but the article is a little light on content. It mentions innovations in content delivery (open textbooks), social networking for education, and a company that is creating language courses emphasizing audio feedback. What's missing is a real discussion of game changing innovation. So here is $.o2 worth.

I've watched 50 years of educational crises since the Sputnik panic of 1958, nothing has gotten better except maybe math textbooks, probably because it is hard to be political (in the macro sense) about math. There are three givens: the public educational establishment is not going to change on its own, the establishment is necessary for its babysitting function, and most parents are not qualified to do home schooling. That said there is substantial room for innovation and even low budget entrepreneurial innovations.

One is in the area of collaborative multimedia textbook creation. There are already OSS textbook efforts, but why limit it to print. Create a core smallish textbook on a subject and augment it with targeted "pamphlets" and videos, so that a teacher can create a learning experience and students can follow paths of interest. Take a look at some of the Wikipedia animations on math topics, such as the tesseract. They make the topic come alive. Add a Civil War reenactment to a history text.

As the article suggests, create a social media site around the "textbook."

Market to parents at a fee they can afford, free for those that cant. They will be the early adopters and force public school adoption. Give schools free or low cost access.

Encourage moderated contributions from the public. Instead of a stock photo of Brasilia have a 10 minute video from someone who lives there.
Where "nonviolent debate" means one side baselessly reduces arguments he doesn't like to frivolities and does his best to ridicule.

Better discussions: http://lesswrong.com/lw/4d/youre_calling_who_a_cult_leader/ also seen here at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=527064
I believe that's the sole reason why COBOL was invented in the first place: to teach non-engineers to program a computer (I think it targeted the Air Force initially..)
Steven Chu Addresses the National Labs
Wow, that wasn't the intention at all. Are you referring to the HN subset or the whole post? We did both out of personal interest, and thought it would be interesting to you (the community). I'd be happy to change the title.
Half that $40k would also buy an E46 M3, which would be a whole lot more fun that the Lexus or Mazda.

For the whole $40k you may be able to find an early Porsche 997 (like an '05) with little if any noticeable wear.
You're missing my point. The linked article is just a mild flamewar between its two participants ("You're a cult" vs. "You're an asshole for calling us a cult"). There's nothing new or interesting in there.
It was kind of condescending, but I see where he's coming from. Basically, he's saying "a lot of people on Twitter tweet annoyingly. Here are some major offenses that people should avoid."

And the tone probably made it a more effective piece of writing. The putting-off effect of his tone is counteracted by people being more likely to read it because it sounds more extreme/interesting and people's desire to avoid being a "douchebag", which is stronger than their desire not to be "someone who tweets kind of annoyingly."

That said, it was kind of annoying and elitist. But for accomplishing his goal of getting the most people to remedy these poor tweeting habits the most, it was probably more effective than just complaining about annoying ways people tweet.
The article comes pretty close to saying that in the end, when judging the affect of the words.
This is pretty telling, because that means people aren't really looking for results, they are just using random queries to see what the search results layout looks like.
It's not that said clerks were incapable of learning to program; rather the project failed because they weren't be taught to program per se but to apply a rote process that mechanistically turned specifications into applications.

Still I dare say IBM got what they wanted out of it, which was to convince more people to buy more mainframes on the grounds that programmers for them were plentiful...
"Scots said he experienced some itching where the band aid was, which he understood, was the larvae making their way into the blood stream.

What happens next is the hookworms then travel from the blood stream into the lungs, where once there, causes the patient to naturally cough. Patients then cough the microscopic helminthes up into the throat, then swallow them, and this is how hookworms get to the intestines, where they latch on, and they begin to mature."

That was actually kind of cool to read. Parasites hack their way into our bodies.
1-800-GOT-JUNK? PR genius provides tips on generating buzz for your company
We need more quality linkbait like this.
It's difficult to think of a search term that will "stress test" a new search engine. I literally search Google anywhere from 20-100 times a day by using Ctrl+K in my browser. If that could be substituted by search engine X (where X, in this case, is Duck Duck Go) such that the results were much more precise, then that would be a basis for switching. It works, though, and it's built-in, so why switch? I don't feel one can get a promising measure of how good a search engine's results are with random queries, only how BAD they are (e.g. Cuil returning no results for "basic" queries).
My first test searches were all Drupal related, looking to see where my own sites might rank. My conclusion was that the results were very similar to Google's.
Thanks for the post, I found it interesting
Has anyone seen I Am Legend?
Ask HN: Ooyala .. how are they supposed to make money
Anyone have information on Ooyala? Besides tech crunch mentioning that they've raised 8.5 million series B, I can't find much on the company. The video analytics / hosting for business seems kind of interesting, but anyone have deeper insights?

Thanks!
Why was this even posted? It took me a moment to realize it was fiction. I guess I'll start reading the comments first.
When did HN become Zed's Greatest Hits?
I read the post as "what are the important problems? Go solve them!" for some value of important problems. I further read this as the value of important problems is defined by others. I filled in my own blanks there (most likely). Although I think I saw something about "problems of my field" that helped me reach this conclusion. I'm just making sure those who strike out in new directions are represented.
You might not be able to tell from this particular article but this is being seriously studied:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helminthic_therapy

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17123987

http://news-releases.uiowa.edu/2004/may/052104worms.html

I believe they use worms that cannot permanently "infest" hosts.. they have to be reintroduced on a regular schedule.
How brain damaged do you have to be to suggest that brain damage accounts for people doing things they like?
A very uninspiring list.

Some of those things are a matter of mere politeness. Others are more a case of keeping up appearances. Screw appearances. Live life, and let the world adapt to you.
Why [X] is ripe for innovation: [X] sucks! List specific reasons why [X] sucks, with a means for addressing each using the web, networks in general, or computing. Remember to think about monetization. (This can also include getting grants.)
I read the title and thought it meant a nethack/mud style command line interface. That would rule.
The Bailout Bubble - the Bubble to End All Bubbles
Actually there is a Cocoa bridge for Perl: http://camelbones.sourceforge.net/

Its fallen a bit behind on the BridgeSupport API: http://bridgesupport.macosforge.org/

Does PyObjC now fully support BridgeSupport?
A study of the use of porcine whipworm eggs to treat Crohn's resulted in my all-time favorite headline:

"Diet of worms can cure bowel disease"

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4852-diet-of-worms-can...

(for those who don't remember their AP Euro: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_of_Worms )

study link:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15591509
Hadoop Summit (June 10th)
Is Russian ownership of Facebook a threat to National Security?
So if someone really likes crystal meth, is any strong metaphorical perjorative out of bounds, or just "brain damaged"?
No seriously..

My wrists were sore for around 1,5 years because of bad ergonomy.
Data point: I am about Zed's age and majored in math and was one class away from a CS double major and I didn't have to take any stats courses. When I was in school stats was a totally different track than what most math people took. For some reason biology and business majors had to take stats but physics and math majors did not. I feel like the physics/math/CS people assumed stats was easy and you'd pick it up as needed.
Because Brawndo's got what programmers crave; it's got electrolytes!

Hmm . . . maybe I just proved your point. All I've had to drink today is coffee and Red Bull.
> Perl is not 'cool'

If you don't think Perl 6 is cool you must not know anything about it.
Start-Up in Berlin sucht Teammitglieder - Web Developer / Designer
Wir sind eine Startup im Raum Berlin, und sind kurz davor eine erste Version von unserem Konzept online zu stellen.
Daher sind wir auf der Suche nach Team Mitgliedern, die sich gegen einer Beteiligung mitengagieren wollen, um diese erste Version zu verbessern, erweitern, und auf hoch performance zu optimieren.<p>Momentan ist die applikation mit dem Codeigniter framework erstellt, bzw. ein MVC framework, jedoch schliessen wir es nicht aus, auf andere Lösungen umzustellen.
Überzeugt mit Kentnissen über PHP 5, mysql, webservices (in unserem fall facebook), und seit vertraut mit skalierbaren Applikationen (deployment auf amazon ec2). Zusätzliche Erfahrung mit Scrapping ist ein plus.
Unser Ziel, ist es eine Applikation zu entwickeln, die von tausenden Usern täglich benutzt wird.<p>Wir sind in Berlin, Kreuzberg niedergelassen, und suchen im Raum Berlin nach erfahrene und motivierte Freunde, die auch sehr Musikorientiert leben.<p>Seit selbstmotiviert, seit professionel, seit lebenslustig, ehrgeizig und geniesst das Leben, indem ihr Spass habt an eurem kreativen schaffen.<p>Bitte senden Sie einen Lebenslauf mit Lichtbild and kg@zsaqa.com. Priorität: SEHR DRINGEND, sofort soll es losgehen!!<p>Vielen Dank.
If you broaden it a bit to include other elite schools like MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech, etc. the impact is enormous. Their innovations won WWII. Their students and alumni founded HP, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, MySpace, Intel, and on and on. These schools tend to have alumni networks all over the place. There are Harvard Clubs coast to coast.

Take a look at Nobel Prizes; these schools dominate. Take a look at the diploma on your doctor's or lawyer's wall.

"Do they just attract smart people, and smart people tend to have good ideas and execute them well?" Not necessarily that they think better or execute better than everyone else. It's just that in the aggregate there are so many of them that there are bound to be ones around anything significant.

As a counterpoint, I live near Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. It's not a top tier school, but it's surprising the number of successful startups that have come out of it. Jamba Juice come to mind.
I found #25 hi, #28 cuil & #30 India funny - a greeting, a not-so-new search engine & a country.

How many days do you store logs? Why don't you use cookies? How many people searched for "0"?
Reminds me of that "wear sunscreen" meme that was popular in the late 90s.
No, it's time for a career change.
Does it have Perl in the name? Then it may be great, but its not cool. The kids think it sucks. And if you don't care about the kids, then you don't care about the future.
Love the Product, Hate the Company: Cable Monopoly
Not at 2-3%. And if a foreign power wanted to compromise Facebook user privacy (and through it, American security), they'd infiltrate their staff/systems, not buy a minority stake.
oh yea and stop using null blocks just because a language lets you. Show consideration for the programmer who has to maintain your code :)

Sorry, somehow this post stuck me as utterly pointless
How To Build a 'Dynamic' Config Class in PHP
> Why didn't Perl 6 just use the JVM? Why did you decide to build Parrot?

http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=142797
Not necessarily ...

If you're 'over-qualified' for a particular job, then you're either going to be promoted or switch jobs very quickly. In either case, the company still has to spend a lot of time and money training your replacement.
What you say is probably true, but it doesn't negate the claim; rather, it justifies it. The question distribution is still a good predictor of the outcome.
Exactly. The others aren't even trying to expand to outside of the US, as far as any outsider can tell. It's frustrating to no end being a startup outside the US and having to rely on Paypal or a very slim selection of even crummier merchant providers here (Canada). I've had so many problems with the few providers that do offer service here that I grudgingly stick with Paypal now.

Amazon, come on guys, support Canada already! Help us out!
Theirs or ours?

The article presumes that minority ownership or even board membership gives you access private or proprietary personal information. Ain't so, unless Facebook is incredibly stupid. On second thought, given some of their past actions, maybe the concern is legitimate.
In the long run, suppressing people with distraction and pleasure is more profitable than overt fear dispensed by jackbooted thugs. You have to pay the thugs. Addicts of distraction will pay you! What's more, fear, in the form of induced insecurity, can be synergistically added to the mix.
Thanks for the response. I broadened it a bit. What I'm more interested in is what these schools may offer specifically that helps cultivate disruptive technologies.
Not true at all, in fact. Paypal has routinely refused, over several years of trying, to link to my bank account (a small "Internet Bank"). Credit card purchases are my only option, and they work instantly and without trouble. The occasional inbound money flow from an eBay sale or whatnot just becomes a credit on my next purchase.

As a customer, at this point I shop only at merchants where I already have a account memorized (which in practice means "amazon.com") or via Paypal or Google checkout payments, which I can also authenticate from memory. Everything else is just too much of a hassle.

I can see the seller-side complaints against Paypal as valid, I've just never experienced them myself. As a buyer, though, I completely sympathize with the linked blog. Paypal or something similar (Google checkout, Amazon affiliates) really should be more popular than it is.
Fast Followers: What Do The Backstreet Boys And Bratz Dolls Have In Common?
Smart people. Lots of them in a safe, enjoyable, yet competitive environment.
If my teeth aren't rotting (they're not) and I'm not getting fat (I'm not) then why shouldn't I? (I do.) It wasn't exactly obvious to me that it would be depleting my potassium levels. :)