skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
While all the Apple hardware announcements look great, I think this is possibly an even more significant announcement. C/Objective-C/C++ gets lambdas and closures! It looks like Apple has a very interesting single machine concurrency story here.

Right now I'm really enjoying Clojure- it's lockless approach to single machine concurrency is plenty, plenty fun. Unfortunately the downside of learning Clojure is that many other popular languages look downright archaic to me in this regard now. Now reading over this document, whodathunk, concurrency programming might be as fun in C as it is in Clojure!
I have a hunch that if you use data to separate the excellent designers from the mediocre designers, then the designers who use data turn out to be the excellent ones. If you use intuition to separate the excellent designers from the mediocre designers, then perhaps the intuitive designers fare better.
This belongs on Slashdot. They'd have a lot of fun talking about this over there.
What do American girls like? (crowdsourcing stereotypes)
It's amazing to think that PG first published his thoughts on startups in recessions way back in the .COM 1.0 crash days.

And here we are today a few short years later in another epic downturn.
The word is 'technophile'.
Train can be worse for climate than plane
Do you know if you'd lose access to the apps you'd purchased if you did that?
This is exactly right. Nothing clears up any blues I might get working these days like remembering any other job I've ever had.
It seems that the author feels like since the employees don't use it how he uses it, his needs will not be met when they decide to meet changes. It's a decent point (see the fury resulting from the @ reply changes), but overblown in this article.
It's more of a social hack than an engineering one.
And I was just testing YC bookmarklet.

Feel free to vote it down...
>> As libertarian I prefer an airline which will charge me premium for flying more expensive but safer routes.

How would you even know? Saying "I'd pay more for a safer routing" is rather reminiscent of Steve Yegge's Shit's Easy Syndrome - you say you want a safer routing, but what does that mean?

You'd pay an extra ten percent on your ticket to fly ten percent lower? What about other factors - would you demand more reinforcements on the wings of the planes you fly on? How about longer flight times due to having to stop for fuel? What about how this would impact global route scheduling?

I could keep going with that, but the bottom line is that you don't understand what makes a plane safe. I don't understand what makes a plane safe. Few people - unless they're Airbus or Boeing design engineers - on this site know what makes a plane safer, and how much that would cost.

Airlines have a huge interest in making their flights safe - think off all the shitty PR that Air France (one of the world's most respected airlines) and Airbus (one of two real manufacturers of jumbo jets) are getting, and how much it will directly and indirectly cost them. The last people died on an American airline was in February. Before that, it was in August 2006. The last time an American jumbo jet crashed and killed people was in 2001. Flying is an incredibly safe way to get from point A to point B - but like everything, there are some times when nature throws us a curveball, and we get hit by it.

>> So I'd settle for a government mandate of how high commercial airlines can fly.

I wouldn't trust Congress to determine how high an airline can fly. If I want to know how high an Airbus can safely fly, I'd ask Airbus - they know the planes better than anyone, and have a huge vested in interest in keeping them safe.
Guy captures firing on the Mino HD in his pocket
Scotty had a hilarious video series until his boss found out about it.
TechCrunch Now Number Two Tech Blog As Mashable Surges
The idea of storing sensible stuff client side is indeed powerful and very simple. The problem is the client could change this state, and in most applications this is not a cool idea, so it's just a matter of signing it.

Assuming we want to store "foobar" client side, and make sure the client can't change this, all we need is to have a server-side-secret, that is, a random string that can't be guessed from outside. Get it with this:

dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1 count=512 | md5sum

Well now just we can set the cookie as

"foobar|"+sha1_hmac("foobar","ServerSideSecret").

There is no way the user can alter the cookie, otherwise the signature will no longer match. But often there are other kind of attacks: for example the user can get the cookie from another user, and in the context of the wrong user id the cookie content can be dangerous.

Another common condition is that this information should only be valid for a given amount of time.

To fix both this problems just add to the string to sign the current unix time and the user id, so the final cookie will be (assuming 100 is the user id):

"foobar|1244498681|100|"+sha1_hmac("foobar|1244498681|100","ServerSideSecret")

When you check the cookie back, make sure to compare the server unix time with the timestamp in the cookie. If it's older than N seconds just ignore it.

Another common trick is to add the user IP address to the string in order to avoid that the cookie can be reused in the context of a different IP.

This stuff are very cool to save CPU time in your servers but make sure to think about all the kind of attacks like playback attacks or sending the cookie in other contexts, users, IP, time, applications (if you share secrets), and so on.
I have a strong distaste for businesses that tout their amazing technology but then don't put even ball park figure costs on their products website. exceptionally annoying.
First of all, this is awesome.

I am missing some details though. Are these true closures? What are the scoping rules? Can you read data declared outside of your block? Can you alter it? Is the only way to keep alterations safe to use a private queue? I guess time (or a closer reading) will tell.
Apple also introduced a handy new feature called "Find My iPhone," designed to help iPhone owners who have misplaced their device. Lose the device under the sofa, and users will now be able to send the phone a message ordering it to make a sound.

What? Is this a parody?
Neither; only trying to increase awareness and mindfulness that comments similar to his have very unflattering (and often unintended) connotations.
Reliance on _any_ single service for life-critical things is just as you say.
Looks like it's the cost of sending an email: http://www.pittpatt.com/products/ft_sdk/sdk_users_guide.html...
The author wrote about not being emotionally attached to your code as being one of the top two qualities but doesn't mention it again.

Can someone clarify what he meant by this?
a) that's assuming the a/c you're stealing isn't in class B airspace

b) atc will probably notice when your 1200 blip is doing 250kts and climbing at 2000'/min.

c) this also assumes you can figure out how to turn off xponder mode S (transmitting your 24-bit ICAO address) back to mode C or mode A
Miles is a pilot and aviation enthusiast, and I've admired his work in the past.

I hope this bit of writing is more public-serving than self-serving. After all, we still know very, very little about what happened, aside from the data transmissions. Even speculating on structural disintegration is problematic because the obvious next question was: why wasn't the plane configured for heavy turbulence?

So you're left with this article that goes over some cool new facts (for those of you outside the aviation community) but really doesn't shed much light on the incident at all. It's not a news piece, it's not an opinion piece. It's kind of a science piece hanging off a news story -- one that puts the author in the role of expert without facts and one in which hundreds of people get killed.

Not my cup of tea.
what are some VC firms with "young" VCs?
Maybe he meant you should always be willing to replace your code, either with your new code or someone else's.
Basically, you should be able to take constructive criticism and not defend your work based on anything other than objective correctness. You shouldn't get upset with someone who says "your code sucks," you should ask them "why?"
There may be more to the methodology than presented, but from what I read, it stinks. They merely looked at height, weight, and location without controlling for income.

Wealthier people are in better shape and weigh less (for the first time in history we live in a society in which poor people still earn enough money to become obese!).

More walkable areas may be more desirable, and may therefore have higher prices, and may therefore only be available to wealthier (and thinner) people.

The article doesn't establish causality at all.
Aren't the processor speeds different now?
"Does anyone know if there are actually new models planned"

Aren't we talking about Apple? :)
This, after 6 years of waiting since I started disregarding any laptop that cannot accommodate an internal SD slot, finally gives me a reason to look at the 13"! What took them so long?
I'm talking about satellite imagery like it is shown in the article, which is the only kind that would provide reliable and usable info for storm evasion. You need a view from above to see a storm size and not just a surface look at it from the sides (with a radar). Weather radar only provides limited information, like the article says.

"interpreting its display is a bit of a black art." -
"It is akin to a blind man with a cane;" -
"For instance, the radar mostly detects rain and hail – and if that first layer of storm cells was particularly heavy, it might have acted like a curtain – hiding the reinforcements from radar beams."

You can't know what's inside a walled garden or know how big it is just by looking at one side of the outside walls, you need something that allows a top view.
> to reinforce the seriousness of her misconduct, they took away her mobile phone. Immediately the girl became physically sick. Faint, nauseous, and so ill she couldn't get out of bed. It was if her parents had amputated a limb. And in a way they had.

Oh, the drama!

Taking away a cell phone is the same as taking away a limb?

PLEASE.

When I was 14 or so I was grounded and had my AD&D books taken away. It sucked. I sulked.

It's only now, 23 years later, that I realize that I should have complained of amputation!

Sheesh.
At least with the new ones, compared to the beta, you can change the ordering around again.
Should others be trying to "hire a boss"
Map-based disambiguation. Groovy?
Bearer bonds?

More seriously, I remember reading this paper: http://dsns.csie.nctu.edu.tw/research/crypto/HTML/PDF/C88/31... a few years back. That only guarantees the buyer's anonymity (the seller still has to deposit money in his bank which is, of course, traceable).

And I always liked the idea of 'assasination markets.' It isn't anonymous, but still pretty neat ... If I wanted a copy of TMobile's data, I could set up a prediction market where people could bet what hour TMobile's data would show up in my mailbox. Bets would cost, say $100 (to prevent random guessing), but would pay off $1,000,000 if you 'guessed' right. When TMobile's data shows up in my mailbox, I can pay the person who 'guessed' the right time.
It has always enraged and perplexed me that instead of a better deal, returning customers get the worst possible deal when it comes to wireless service. I get it: you sell the phone cheaper to get people roped into contracts that they have to cancel for more than the adjusted cost. But why screw over existing customers? That doesn't really seem like a sane way to keep one's business.
This has nothing to do with code, really - in any profession, people get emotionally attached to their work, and are unable to have a discussion without making it personal. What he means is that you should be able to discuss your technical decisions (code and otherwise) without feeling personally criticized/defensive.
This seems like a good trait to have, no matter what job you're doing. Whether you're a manager, a construction worker, or a software developer, criticism should be seen as a chance for learning and improving, not a personal affront to your pride. But, I can definitely see that this quality may be especially important in software development because code reviews and design reviews are so commonplace and frequent.
The part I would most have liked to have seen earlier in my career is this:

"Early on, decide if you want to focus on application development or software engineering."

I've heard this in many other ways, but this makes it simple enough for me to understand. Other times, it's been three or more categories or with less clear terms. I think this is about as simple as it can get while still being a useful distinction.
Yes, so I guess this is all they meant, not a major revision or addition.
I can't believe tech affine bloggers can be this clueless.

Hint: there is no such thing as a free lunch.
This encourages a very different style of multicore programming than is common on desktops today, closer to that of grid systems. Very interesting to see how this develops.
I am terrible with names. Notification and normalization are the key words I came up with, but those are descriptive, not names.
Obama: "Los asentamientos deben cesar"
He may also be bringing in crews that have checked-out in the equipment. The article kind of implies that as part of one of the stories.

Risk analysis covers a lot of ground. John Denver lost his life because of a fuel valve that was in an awkward spot. People have flown perfectly good jet airplanes into the sides of mountains on bright, sunny, clear days while screwing around with the flight computer. More people than you can shake a stick at have gotten killed by simply running out of gas.

Not a lot of guys want to go to jail over an airplane, but people dent up airframes every day. Aviation is a great sport, hobby, and profession, but it is also very unforgiving. If I had to pick one, I'd take the angry guys over unfamiliar complex systems, especially in hard weather.

You could argue the point either way, but since he's still alive he's obviously played the odds well. I wonder, however, if all super-repo men are of the same caliber.
I don't know about US. But, here in Europe, this is so true to not being a notice. If you live in "Suburbia" you walk less, if you live nearer to the center you walk more. Who walks more is healthier... As an added bonus, in the center of european city there are no (or very few) cars... believe me or not, this also help to be healthier...
The notice, for me, is that that earns a NYT article and a front page in HN...
It is a tie-in to Apple's $99/yr. MobileMe service. You can locate the phone on a map and remotely display a message or play a sound.

http://www.apple.com/mobileme/whats-new/
I don't like the way he trotted out the old "C++ will always beat Java/C# in speed" line. It ain't necessarily so.

Besides that, this article is full of great advice.
Be careful, if you don't turn in your homework, they might send you an angry letter warning you that you'll be getting another angry letter for not turning in your homework.
Interesting business model. It may work for very small newspapers because they have a lock on the niche, but I don't see this model working for larger newspapers. I'm pretty media company agnostic when it comes to news (except for the economist).
8 gb of RAM! 8!
Nobody else has even once reviewed my code. So I just assume it all sucks.
> However, as a realist I realize that the barrier to entry for airlines is very high and competition is sub-optimal.

Is the barrier actually high? (I see new airlines every so often.)

What are the actual barriers? If they're govt, why isn't reducing the barriers the right response?

> So I'd settle for a government mandate of how high commercial airlines can fly.

And govt would get it right because that's what they do.

Didn't we just have a nice discussion of regulatory capture? (My favorite comment was by someone who thought that regulatory capture was the act of promotiing govt power grabs.)
They already are, but most of them call it "looking for a job".

If you mean trying in the same way this person is, it probably wouldn't matter much if a lot of people start doing it.
Want home delivery of the print paper? That’s $145 a year. Want home delivery and online access? That’s $245. And if you want just online access — to an electronic edition that duplicates the appearance of the print product — it’s a whopping $345.

So it costs me $100 more p/a to not get the dead trees delivered to my door 6 times a week? I read the article three times to make sure I wasn't the one smoking crack.
"So are there any real qualifications for this job? I’ve thought about it quite a bit over the last few weeks. And the only clear almost un-negotiable one I could come up with is that you have to be a guy. A guy who’s been in a serious and stable relationship for a significant period of time. That’s it. Every boss I’ve worked with well has met that criterion. Weird, huh?"

This sparked some reactions, as you'd expect.
You merely read a blog post about the study. The study itself is linked in the second paragraph. Here:http://www.ajpm-online.net/webfiles/images/journals/amepre/A...
Well, people who use a dedicated graphics card are a good start. For audio editing I used the express card slot for an external audio processing card.
It has been the same in east Asia (everywhere) for most of my lifetime. People walk more and stay slimmer and more healthy. Today in Taiwan there is much use of motor scooters or motorcycles (which are ubiquitous) and considerable use of cars, even for short trips, so many young people now are flabby and obese.

The neighborhood I live in in a United States outer-ring suburb has a city trail system. We use the trail to walk to the library (about a 2.6 mile round trip), shopping (similar distance in a slightly different direction), and to soccer practices (a bit farther). We don't like to burn gasoline, and use a handcart to move groceries on foot.
Seems weird to get upset at AT&T about this. It's Apple that's being dishonest about the prices. The super low iPhone prices are subsidized. If AT&T already subsidized a phone for you, isn't it hard to argue that they owe you another one?
Data plans are $30/mo for unmetered use, limited only by how much network AT&T deploys. It varies from mind bogglingly fast to completely unusable for even trivial functions.

I don't know if you can opt out of the data plan, but I expect there are things that will break if you do, like visual voice mail.
No, Joe Shmoe is "paying" more than $299 for the phone; he's just paying over the long haul, with a new contract commitment to AT&T. AT&T already has your contract commitment. You have nothing to offer them but cash.
Poor people become obese because cost of food does not depend on calories, or rather is inversely related to calories. The cheapest foods tend to be the most processed, less nutricious, but very calorie laden.

So it's not exactly that they "still earn enough money" to become obese, it's that somehow the food supply has been inverted so everyone can afford calories but not so many can afford healthy food.

Besides that, as a counter argument to your hypothesis, wouldn't inner city neighborhoods be old and walkable? In that case, your argument that they are more healthy because they are inhabited by richer people doesn't seem to fly.
I don't understand. The phone costs what it costs. Would you rather AT&T didn't subsidize? I'm happy that they did for me.

The party that seems to actually be dishonest here is Apple, since the true price of their phone is nothing like what they put in the Keynote slide.
Ah, alright; that makes more sense. Journalism fail.
It's not the kid being dramatic, it's the author. And since he's trying to write literature, he has the right. (Whether he's abused the right is another question...)
I wonder what Peter Norvig (who doesn't sell Web consulting services, being employed by Google full time) would say about Jakob Nielsen's general approach? It happens that Nielsen has consulted with Google before, and Google is acclaimed for its usability, so I think many of Nielsen's ideas make sense. I'd hate to have experts stay silent to avoid accusations of having commercial interests, when they could do what Nielsen does and share a lot of good advice for free.
"He calculates the tower could be extended up to low Earth orbit at 200 kilometres."

200 Km standing on top of an inflatable toy is not low Earth orbit! Who writes this stuff?
> I've always thought it was common knowledge that the US government spends trillions more then any other nation in the Military

The link presented above, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_federatio...
says that the US spends a bit over $650B (650E9) on its military. That link also says that the world total is under $1.5T (1.5E12) and that the NATO total (including the US) is a bit over $1T.

So, if it's "common knowledge that the US government spends trillions more then any other nation in the Military", said common knowledge appears to be significantly wrong.

Note that most US military spending is not R&D.
There are lots of good examples of AT&T screwing iPhone customers. This is a bad example. Apple sets the price on the device. If AT&T has already subsidized an Apple device for you in exchange for a contract, and you haven't completed the contract, how do you argue that AT&T owes you another phone?
How to make a RPN calculator using the regexp rules:

http://daniel.carrera.bz/2009/06/rpn-calculator-in-perl-6/
Seems like a rather suicidal market strategy. So you invite people to pay 2x to fly with FlySafe (perhaps an existing airline with n outstanding safety record that rebrands itself), milk the resulting controversy to sell tickets for a while, only to later have every untoward incident, no matter how trivial, spun into a damning indictment of your business philosophy? No thanks.

Furthermore, the first time such a company did have a fatal or obviously dangerous incident, they'd go insolvent immediately. I see the point you're trying to make but it's simply impractical in a mass market like commodity air travel. Uber-expensive executive flying, perhaps.
AD&D books are not in the same category as the cellphone.
I wonder how this will affect the legacy methods of concurrency in OS X -- specifically POSIX threads. I know I wrote a number of C apps using POSIX threads that worked well in OS X and in Linux. While this is nice and interesting for Mac only programs, I hope that I don't have to rewrite my cross platform apps to take advantage of the API.
"A series of towers that could suspend a magnetic accelerator about 300 miles long above the bulk of the atmosphere would be almost equivalent to a Space Elevator."

The problem is that during acceleration you would push the tower back with a force greater than the weight of the craft being accelerated. I am not sure how much load those inflatables would bear, but I would guess that it's in the "not much" range.
Techcrunch spreading FUD?

Color me surprised...

Why not focus on the good stuff?

Why it always have to be downplaying everything cool about what they don't like, or get paid to do so?

Tethering not good enough?

The much asked for Copy/Paste ok with them?

Fuck, iPhone is sooooo expensive you better get a zune phone, whenever that piece of crap is available.