skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Regular Releases are important because they force you develop stable intermediate forms; which hearkens back to Simon's Parable of the Two Watchmakers:

There once were two watchmakers, named Hora and Tempus, who made very fine watches. The phones in their workshops rang frequently and new customers were constantly calling them. However, Hora prospered while Tempus became poorer and poorer. In the end, Tempus lost his shop. What was the reason behind this?

The watches consisted of about 1000 parts each. The watches that Tempus made were designed such that, when he had to put down a partly assembled watch, it immediately fell into pieces and had to be reassembled from the basic elements. Hora had designed his watches so that he could put together sub-assemblies of about ten components each, and each sub-assembly could be put down without falling apart. Ten of these subassemblies could be put together to make a larger sub-assembly, and ten of the larger sub-assemblies constituted the whole watch
Hypertable's Microsoft, thanks to the Powerset deal.
To us it is; to the Japanese it isn't. They're still not recognizing how counterproductive their entire culture is. They had their heyday and it's been downhill from there. Deflation, shrinking of the economy, suicides.
You can monkey-patch your interactive interpreter BTW:

>>> type(exit).__repr__ = lambda self: exit()

It will exit then the way you want :)

Nobody do it for the sake of overall consistency. Yet you are free to change it with the one line of code.
It's not a threat to openness, it's a threat to portability. It's not quite the same thing. You can be open without being portable and vice versa.
>BitTorrent will usually always work for downloads no matter what.

Not quite, some fairly popular home routers have issues where they don't have enough ram and crash rather than loose NAT data. Which really isn't a problem until you run a (stupidly) high connection protocol like bit torrent.

So yeah it works if they reboot their router and restart the download but that isn't what you want to do in a youtube like app.
Guido is my problem
Micrsoft's entire model is predicated on fast following & iterating, and pouring money into projects till the other company slips or gives up or runs out of money -- Xbox is a good example.
I don't see any threats. Just don't use services that don't let you port your data. And encourage the use of those who abide by standards and fair play.

Demand portability!
Agreed. I generally don't use Twitter, but at PyCon it was great for finding out, say, that everyone else wasn't appreciating the same talk you were attending and that there was something much better happening in room 3.
Table tools - useful for sorting and filtering tables inline
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2637
"slowly"?!
Excellent, next time in NYC I'm going try and check that out. Listening to a story now.

Thanks,
How to Insall Linux Mint 7 (Gloria)
People still go to Freshmeat?
I really can't see why he can't publish his "fixes" for everyone to use. There really is no need to bundle them in the Python distribution.

So, Zed, again, where are your patches?
The extension must precede that functionality. I remember stealing some code from it years ago & it was more complex.
Pakistani Television Actors
A blog about biographies of pakistani television actors.Read about their personal life and career.
Speed? Not sure if this is actually what the OP was thinking of, but pass-by-value usually implies copying, while pass by reference just involves handing around a pointer.

ie, if you had an enormous immutable value (in Python, a tuple with lots of entries), then in a hypothetical Python implementation which did call-by-value, it might be significantly slower than call-by-reference, on account of having to copy the entire tuple.

But this falls squarely into 'implementation detail' - if you're so inclined, you could implement either CBV or CBR in hundreds of other ways. Certainly from the perspective of time-independent program behaviour you shouldn't be able to tell the difference.
I used Mouse Gestures Redox for a long while then I switched to firegestures. I can't remember why exactly, I think something to do with speed & a larger library of gestures.
I know this isn't any help to you personally, but if anybody reading is in the UK then the Business Link website (http://www.businesslink.gov.uk) seems to be a great resource.
He has no patches. I see nothing on python-dev, bugs.python.org, etc. All I see is someone saying "I have code which is the balls, awesome". That's it.
I've got the strong impression Guido has no sense of humour.
Evolutionary Theology
Maybe leveraging pattern matching could improve.

Actually - we can be able to implement our own methods get(), post(), etc. via pattern matching... So inspiring - on my way to fork it. ;)
How to market to home based businesses?
How is Haskell not robust? (or lazy eval, parser combinators/generators)
Sure it can: ask someone with a key to help.
What do you mean by "penultimate"?
I think an "Affero LGPL" would be good to get companies to contribute back library enhancements without "infecting" and thus having to give up their whole IP.

Regarding data portability, I've become a fan of json - it's easy to understand and process, and it forces interfaces to be simple (compared to xml, e.g.).
Next time when they silently install, say, an MP3 blocker in your Firefox

Protip: If you want to be taken seriously, omit bullshit like this the next time you make a comment.

Just in case if it's not clear - what makes it a rogue extension is the fact that it was installed silently.

So basically just like any Adobe product ever. Gotcha.
463 [decoding #spymaster]
Come on. It would be pretty unlucky if you had to rely on a server 8000 miles away.
Hey, do the math. :-) Where else are projects announced? Do they have comparable numbers? I guess there's hosting at sourceforge, google code and github - but are they easy to browse? (I've never browsed them... I just had a go at github, it's mindbogglingly slow to serve every page, also few java projects). I'm asking these three (3) questions out of curiosity.
How to "write" programs (1983)
Unfortunate? Perhaps. Unlucky? No.
Xbox is a good example.

While I may or may not agree on your point at large, the complete Xbox package (the Xbox 360 software, Xbox live etc) is clearly superior to anything Sony can produce. I don't care about the PS3 having provenly more capable hardware, when everything I care about is better on the Xbox 360.

If you are going to flag an example, try an example which doesn't prove your point wrong next time.

Edit: To do my best to avoid a console war, let me make it clear that I own both an Xbox 360 and a PS3. I realize my opinion is clearly not 100% objective, but sales-figures alone should to some extent back my point.
I just read through the group selection wikipedia article. It does not seem to be abandoned as a theory, it seems to be a topic with proponents on both sides, and there are strong arguments for both sides. The selfish gene argument is an old one, and it's just mainstream, that's all.
Is it worth breaking backwards compatibility to have fancy libraries distributed in the Python core?

Zed is employing a false contradiction: he can make his patches available and people can use them regardless of them being or not included in the core Python.

In fact, my modules that are now core started this way.

Zed is full of hot air.
You are mis-interpreting my point: it is not officers being responsible for contractual obligations in general, it is (or at least was) an exception carved out for wages owed employees.

There seems to be a lot of debate over when/if an officer can become an "employer" as defined in the law.

Here are some URLs that cover what I am talking about:

WA: http://www.turnaround.org/Publications/Articles.aspx?objectI...

PDF with more discussion of the issue, includes discussion of the Federal FLSA and the case of CA: http://web.omm.com/files/upload/D&O%20Liability-WARN%20A...

NY (10 largest shareholders of non-public company held liable): http://www.eminutesonline.com/why-in-the-world-would-anyone-...

Federal law (FLSA): http://www.klehr.com/?t=11&la=690&format=xml

Since the company that is not paying is often headed for bankruptcy, these situations often spill over to bankruptcy court, where the judge has a great amount of leeway to determine who gets paid and when.
Zed's is also classic:

"I will provide my fucking awesome fix on the condition you include and recognize my fucking awesomeness. If you don't promise that, I will submit nothing"

Thus avoiding a clear review of Zed's shortcomings.

Zed is in denial. He can't grasp the fact that he is not that fucking awesome. And that, perhaps, he never really was awesome.
Can a one-liner be considered a flame?

You know the drill: "show me the code or STFU".
davidw runs a site that does much more comprehensive stats:

http://langpop.com/
"Zed's the enemy of crap. Whether it's inconsistency in languages, poorly created enterprise software development practices (The ACL is dead), or egotism <b>coming from others (Zed's so fucking awesome)</b> and leeching from others work without acknowledgement (Rails is a Ghetto)."

There. Fixed that for you.

Zed is has a really, amazingly, big hat. Too bad there is next to no cowboy under it.
Of course it is management's job to keep staff productive but that is second to keeping them happy.

Uh, no. Keeping them happy is just a likely way to keep them productive, not a higher goal. Sending them home with pay would keep them happier on average. :)
I'd say the biggest difference between Google and Microsoft would be in the arena in which they play.

Google has everything on the web. They can change whatever they want whenever they want and since it is web-based, you will have no option but adopt to whatever changes they have decided they want to go trough with. If they decide to obsolete a product, you no longer have access to it. You're pretty much on your own when it comes to replacing whatever you just lost.

With Microsoft it's all on your server. If they decide to change, alter or obsolete anything, it's up to you to keep up with them. If you don't approve of changes, you can remain on the platform you are currently running, if that makes you happy. While not free of risk, it at least lets you remain in control of what you are running.

In short, depending on either of them involves risks, and what you consider to be least acceptable is entirely up to you, your business and your priorities.
Yeah, the article includes SaaS as cloud computing. The SaaS portability problem has been around for years.

Cloud computing as I think of it-- AWS, Mosso, etc-- is generally built on familiar and open technologies. If anything it is easier than ever to redeploy an application with a different cloud provider...and vendors like CloudKick and RightScale make switching trivial.
Clearly not. I was just using an example, and I did say it was a superficial one. My point was that signaling credibility through shows of raw math talent can be effective.
The End of Our Love Affair with Cars
If you have a lawyer, why are you asking for legal advice from a bunch of amateurs?

Discuss your concerns with your lawyer, and pay him to draft a TOS document. Ask him to use the reader-friendliest language that protects your interests.
Just ordered it off Amazon -- looks like a great book. Thanks.
You know how I motivate myself? I would subscribe to an oversized slice @ slicehost to remind myself everyday, I'd better get this thing out as soon as possible, otherwise I would end up paying those un-utilized resources as everyday passed by. It works magic, I ended up releasing my beta version within 4 months instead of the planned 8-12 months.
The beams have crossed since

http://rmitz.org/carmack.on.operating.systems.html

http://ninetimes.cat-v.org/news/2009/03/04/0-9doom/
How are they measuring people's walking speed?
I remember time when City of London bankers and brokers used to have two hour lunch with a few pints of beer. Then their banks were bought up by soulless Americans and the enslavement began.

In a few years everybody was forced to eat their lunch at their desk.

That's why I don't see this Japanese example as excessively cruel.
Very cool. I notice that you're using sbt to build. I'm using maven to build a scala project. I'd be very interested to know how sbt compares to maven if you have experience with both build systems.
Fortunately, pay was hardly the rest of it. As I said above, the environment at many contractors is not at all what you'd expect, the overhead much less than usual, and the people are all extremely sharp, good at what they do.

No, as to convincing you of that with the little info that's public -- that's a tougher challenge.
MIT OpenCourseWare: Godel, Escher, Bach: A Mental Space Odyssey
I haven't used maven (the first version of this thing used ant+ivy), but it was pretty messy compared to what I have going now. I'd say if you have the luxury of working with a Scala-only project, sbt is definitely the way to go.
Pretty much devoid of anything useful. Factually incorrect to boot.
And yet their cellphones are at least 10 years ahead of North America :(
Does it really work better than tab mix plus' multi row? I've used both & I'm not entirely convinced to switch.
3.1 mph is not slow. Look at people walking in the streets, most walk slower than that. Have you been on a treadmill lately? 4 mph is about as fast as I can walk without starting to jog.

People have to walk faster than 3.1 to avoid the alarm, which means that the intent is to have them rushing down the hallways. If true, this is one of the most ridiculous and counterproductive corporate rules I've heard of.
It's down for me. Cached version?
Amen to that. Does it not fall under 21st century Freedom of the Press of the future? ...if one concurs that, “Freedom of the press belongs to those who have one”
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:http://fiber-space.de/w...
Problem is, then you would have to have a union guy on the supreme court. Then a tech guy. Then a media guy. Then, of course, a manufacturing guy. What about the teachers? Then naturally, someone from education administration since you want to be fair. What about the most important industry of all, agriculture? Your empire won't last very long without food! Let's not forget the Doctors. Again, to be fair, we will need to give a place at the table to insurers as well. Ooops! I forgot the handicapped. Now to balance things out there we will need an Olympic medalist in track and field, or swimming. Etc. Etc. Ad Infinitum.

I hope everyone can see where that line of thinking takes us. Mandating diversity of background is even more asinine than mandating diversity on the basis of race or sex.
I worked for a public library for several years, and we spent quite a bit of time helping people suddenly required to use the internet for their basic economic/social arrangements.

While the article mentions using message boards, Flickr, etc., those are probably of secondary importance. Surprisingly many low-end jobs, particularly retail, only accept applications online. While this is probably a cost-cutting measure, it's also extremely effective de-facto discrimination against people without internet access at home. (Some of the applications seemed designed to make completing them in a public library's typical 30-60 minute limit difficult.) Similarly, many unemployment offices in Michigan have closed to cut costs, and AFAIK people can only file for unemployment online now. It's much easier to do taxes online, etc.

Many organizations, both public and private, have moved their primary resources online, since publishing and updating are significantly cheaper. The permeation of internet connectivity in the US hasn't quite caught up, though. Sweden, for example, decided to lay optical fiber while they were already digging to update other national utility infrastructures, and has much better connectivity as a result. In the US, we have more landmass and far more uneven population density. While there are some metropolitan wireless network initiatives, people in e.g. Nebraska are probably stuck with dialup or (if lucky) a telecom monopoly.
Business opportunities around Google Wave
I'm sure he's a nice guy -- he actually seems like the kind of person I'd be friends with -- I just think it's appropriate to sort of call him out on the grandiose blog posts :)

I'm all for it to the extent that Zed is building his personal brand and (in essence) being a self-promoter. If he really feels self-righteous about it, then that's a bit worrisome.

Zed vs Guido is exactly the sort of David vs Goliath story that makes for entertaining reading...
Fractal Imaging, Revisited
Isn't that an exercise left to the reader?
New Banner Ads For MSN Ad Center
Excellent bulletin board material! A picture really can say a thousand words.

Also pretty eye opening. I've been spending 80% of my time in one box. I'll have to rethink my perspective. Thanks, Jude.
Ask Richard Stallman about "Easier said than done".
Second-to-longest, I think... or second-to-last...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penultimate
Amazing conciseness.
Don't forget to check out lift web framework http://liftweb.net/. It's written in Scala too and uses similar techniques.
Real Time Scanning Versus On Demand Scanning | TechJaws
No. The management's 'job' is to maximize return on capital. Corporations keep staff happy only insofar as an employee's competitive worth dictates. If a survey were taken, what percentage do you think would agree their boss's job is to keep them happy?
Business error leads owner in new direction and success
You're a very ready candidate for GTD. Get the book it'll change your life.
I love it! Petty bickering is going to ultimately hurt everyone using python...

a) Either you won't get good quality code because Zed may be right.

or

b) You will get Zed's python branch because he/others got pissed off enough and the python community will be split into two.

I say B is a good solution. Eventually python-fusion will come out. :)

Edit: Let the war begin!
Good point... From Wikipedia:

Doubt as a path towards (deeper) religious faith lies at the heart of the story of Saint Thomas the Apostle. Note in this respect the theological views of Georg Hermes:

... the starting-point and chief principle of every science, and hence of theology also, is not only methodical doubt, but positive doubt. One can believe only what one has perceived to be true from reasonable grounds, and consequently one must have the courage to continue doubting until one has found reliable grounds to satisfy the reason.[3]
Yeah, I was just being facetious. This piece is just cliche drivel.
loop until done

For a genius, done = "aha!"

For a scientist, done = "hypothesis == true" or "hypothesis == false"

For an amateur, done = lunch time
How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research?
Does MS make any money on search?

I ask because I wonder if they are trying to kill/replace/be the next Google at all. Obviously Steve Ballmer would love for MS to knock off Google at the head of search, but it would be nice for their search offering to be profitable first, wouldn't it? Or maybe I just don't understand business.
Thanks for posting this - but the title should say "Google Wave" :-)
Guido is pretty harmless as far as BDFLs go.
A related, interesting read is Michael Chabon's intro to the 2005 Best American Short Stories, reprinted in his essay collection _Maps and Legends_.

http://www.amazon.com/Best-American-Short-Stories-2005/dp/06...

http://www.amazon.com/Maps-Legends-Reading-Writing-Borderlan...

His argument is, basically, that Modernism (here meaning the Joycean/Chekhovian "epiphany" story) has damaged the short story, or at least that it has played itself out, and that the old-timey plotted, adventure story looks fresh again.

But really, as others have mentioned, commercial short story markets have been in decline for 60+ years. Science fiction magazines are one of the last holdouts of the pulp era, and they're not all that healthy (commercially). This is making (has made?) general short fiction more like poetry. That ain't all bad. One upside may be that as commercial short fiction declines, writers and readers may be less inclined to think plotted short fiction == bad fiction.

Anyway, there is still a lot of quality contemporary-ish short fiction out there. If you like short fiction, you will certainly like some of it: Denis Johnson, Lorrie Moore, Alice Munro, Matthew Klam, Arthur Bradford, George Saunders, T.C. Boyle, and on and on and on.
I think the economist has done more harm than good with this article.
Shows and compares graphs plotting performance vs. code size, based on the programming language benchmarks at http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/. Note that 'dependability' here means 'the consistency of the performance or code size'.

Few solid conclusions can be drawn: small performance benchmarks are hardly indicative for both the code size and the performance of most actual projects in a language.
Goodbye hard disks.  Hello flash memory.
Merlin's Talk, "Toward Patterns for Creativity" [video]
Prepare For The Facebook Vanity URL Landrush
Woman with the Longest Tongue
So this President of Canon is using employees that he has some sort of supervision over to help prove a personal point of his that will net him a personal monetary gain?

That doesn't sound like conflict of interest at all...
Fuzzing in Javascript (using monadic functions)
I hardly think so. Walking at a normal pace ought to be forbidden in military bases, at least here in Turkish military bases. Thinking of Japan's militaristic culture I can't say I'm suprised much.

Also, it might be that the current president of Canon is an ex-soldier. To my experience, ex-soldiers at top positions like this are inclined to invent such weird rules and impose on others without hesitation.
The "something real" that was created in the article is a mind mapping web app. Clearly there is a need for a really good mind mapping and idea tracking software, since so many people are taking a stab at the problem (myself included).
For sure. Talk about "clouding" the subject. The cloud this article is talking about is not the "cloud" of today, it is the "cloud" of yesterday, i.e., this has been a problem since the first web app went online for commercial use well over a decade ago. Today's cloud, to me, is about software and service providers using cloud resources, and so far those are the same resources that were used in-house (Linux, MySQL, etc., etc.). There is little danger in getting data out of one MySQL DB and importing it into another at another cloud provider.
The AGPL won't help. As someone said earlier, the problem is data portability, not source code availability.
These guys can get paid from the state of Oregon which will in turn pursue the company.

http://www.boli.state.or.us/BOLI/WHD/W_Whhowinf.shtml
Deeper or wider
That has potential. They should push it as a way to attack google's proprietary bits.
Well either way they'll come under fire from that crowd. (And i'd agree it sort of is a trap.)
Finding New Employees, via Social Networks
It looks like there is no separation between view and controller. Mixing HTML into your controller methods seems like a step backwards.
I think that might have been intentional, since no real data got leaked (you have no clue what x is, so its useless).
The references to Ruby aren't entirely what they seem in here. They seem to be relating to Ruby on the older shootouts, rather than the recent ones. That is, the uber-slow Ruby 1.8, rather than the Perl-beating and PHP-matching Ruby 1.9 which is more closely related to "yarv" on this list.
Anarchists are in a difficult situation because with their views, there is no justification for any federal level.

As for end the drug war, you'll find people all across the spectrum. I stand on the side that the only drugs that need to be controlled are those whose use weakens its effect -- for instance certain antibiotics need to be controlled so that super bugs don't develop. Everything else can be legal.
Scientists demonstrate all-fiber quantum logic