skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Well the thing is that is one of the conclusions we came too after having built a prototype. I'm not a skinny guy (nor was my partner), we built the thing for personal use and after several months of use we had found that it was simply too much additional effort that a simple meal plan could accomplish on is own. There were several things we didn't account for in our initial design.

1) Battery life on the mobile phone... Keeping your GPS on during waking hours is a big drain in current generation phones

2) People sticking to the plan (ours was designed so that you could go "off plan" if you felt hungry and it would adapt) ... during early testing if you skipped things, it could go out of whack

3) Motivation, we let several people use it, not including ourselves (about 15 all up) and we monitored the use and we found that in almost all cases (except 1) that people just stopped using it after around a month, with it's novelty wearing off after about two weeks. That's when we started to look at how the business models of other Dietary businesses work.

Basically, it had little more than novelty value - a simple meal plan and exercise would have achieved the same result.

(On a personal note, I found it just as easy to ride my exercise bike while watching TV and eating smaller portions to keep losing weight, I just bought smaller plates and glasses to change my perspective of the amount of food I was eating.)
Some enjoy mending everything when some linux dev decides to change to devfs or gcc version etc. I don't. Likewise when updates overwrite config files. It's not fun on a desktop machine.

Been there, done that. Wasn't a productive use of my time.
Yup the Palm Pre looks and sounds awesome. I think it could really compete against the iPhone. Hopefully the build quality etc is up to scratch.

>> "get by just fine"

I don't want to "get by" though, I want to completely optimize the time I spend on my laptop, because it's a lot of time. I want to enjoy that time as well. I don't want to be looking at some cracked black plastic thats been designed simply to hold the thing together and nothing more. It should be comfy, beautiful, have the best keyboard around, solid build etc
Economic value
> how much would remain of an original nature-made human after that.

Humans have long been evolving in response to patterns of human behavior and technology. We're already partly artificial, so why not make it the artificiality we want, rather than the one we got by accident?
Reality, however, contradicts you. C++ is one of the only languages out there PROVEN in the field by being used in thousands of large-scale developments.

Operating Systems, Office applications, Browsers, Search Engines, etc. - aren't these large scale?!
check also http://www.monitis.com which is not free but has very cheap prices for the offered stuff
every geek in school built some kind of forum and cms mix for students. However, few of them really get big and go out of their own school. That is nothing revolutionary, all about execution...
That'll teach you not to use GUID's for primary keys! :)

Use a regular auto incrementing number, starting over at 1 for each story, and you'll have a much easier time transitioning software. (Plus you'll save (a little) on bandwidth.)

They only good reason I have ever heard of for using a GUID for a primary key is if you need to merge two databases, the GUID's will not collide.
It's not really about suppressing beliefs, it's about suppressing instantiations of those beliefs, especially legitimate organizations that people can be part of and enjoy their life without shame or hiding underground. That discourages many people away from them. Why suppress such organizations, groups, discussion meetups, social circles, etc? Because of the danger of violence.
I think it's worth noting how many of the world's top ten (or 20 or 50, etc.) richest people who earned it, rather than inheriting it, got there with software.

Gates, Ballmer, Allen, Brin, Page, Ellison, etc. There are plenty of others, of course, who didn't get there with software. But the numbers certainly make it seem like software is a good way to get fantastically wealthy.
It's not the language that is important, it's the programming style(s) the language supports. With Scheme and Java, you get a functional language (and one in which other paradigms can easily be implemented) and an OO-ish language. Pedagogically, I think that's superior to a sorta-functional-and-sorta-OO language and a OO-ish language.

I had a different experience in 6.034 than you did, I suppose. I think Scheme suited the class well and offered a nice way to express searches, minimizations, and decision systems. I'm sure you can do everything you can do in Scheme in Python but you could also do it in Java. Functional languages are particularly well-suited to these tasks. I wouldn't necessarily pick Scheme, though. Why not use the most appropriate tool for the job? If students have to learn a new language, OK. If you really do think Python is the best tool, OK.
This article was not of the caliber I expect at HN.

Much more useful would be recommendations for cheap, robust home firewall options that surpass the average consumer-grade without being ridiculously expensive.
It really depends which hassle you're referring to. All platforms have their issues. I use Linux on my desk at work because all I need there are terminals and a browser. I bought a MacBook because I need to use Photoshop and Reason on the go whilst still having a posix base (and it was a great deal, too). On my deskat home I have a souped-up PC running Windows 7 and a beefy FreeBSD server, so I can do all of the above. All platforms annoy me regularly, sadly.
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Thanks for banging the drum on this! You're absolutely right. I'm an American who has lived in Germany, Switzerland and now the Czech Republic, and I'm astonished how much better healthcare is over here.

We need to keep banging the drum. America deserves better than this.
6.034, 6.046 (now 6.006), 6.001 (now 6.01), 6.02 all use Python. There are/will be more most likely. These are all new or refurbished classes to support the new curriculum. That's a pretty major shift.

I've helped a number of people with their 6.00 work and read quite a bit of the course material and I have to respectfully disagree. Students in 6.00 don't learn anywhere near what was taught in 6.001.
Start with mercurial.

http://hgbook.red-bean.com/read/
I'm a little confused by how Google plans to go back and add further optimization steps. From what I gathered from the video, they skip any IR step, and compile the javascript source straight to machine code. Lars Bak said a couple of times that the amount of code they generate was enormous.

If they skip building an IR, does that mean they intend to optimize the javascript representation itself to get performance? I'm a novice here, so I'm confused about where would they do things like unrolling loops and inlining methods if not against the IR?
6.001 was required and at least walked you through the construction of a metacircular evaluator. While this isn't building a compiler or interpreter (Scheme cheats), it seems to be more than we have now. :-(
Natural Monoplies being 'harmless' is not standard economic theory.

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

That wikipedia page goes to some lengths to accommodate the libertarian views (which I'm guessing you lean towards) while covering the standard view.

A quick review of Industrial Organisation on Google Books seems to show it reflecting the standard themes on natural monopolies, that nationalization or regulation are the standard remedies and that neither are without problems.

The more-mainstream free market argument is that no regulation of monopolies creates problems, but those problems are less than the problems created by nationalization or regulation. Pretending there is no problem with monopolies is a bit extreme for my tastes, though it seems to get mentioned a lot in the US at least.
Depends on which ghostwriter is hired/fired. I would like you to cite an example of an inspiring speech from steveb, which instils confidence. Assuming you are not referring to the dancing monkey performance. I think he just felt he had to do it, like the frontmen of AAPL and GOOG.
Like this guy? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avicenna
It doesn't, but I think you can do the back-of-the-napkin math yourself. Baby Boomers are the 80 million "pig in the python" and they starting to retire right about now (2007-2009).
I disagree. We are no more not part of the evolutionary cycle than we are not part of planetary climate change. (Pardon the double negative).

Evolution is no more than genetic drift within a population through reproduction and variation shaped by selective pressure.
What you describe as gene therapy could be seen as a selective pressure. But there are many selective pressures on large populations of humans and these selective pressure vary from one set to another.
I do agree that the dynamics of selective pressures has changed for humans thanks to modern medicine. But I contest it still applies.
Hi! I graduated last year ('08). You?
If you're criticising something as vast as the C++ FAQ lite and find issue with every single claim, then you are bigoted and your review probably isn't worth it.
Summarizing the article: I never got into macs because they are so expensive.

Is his blog sponsored by Microsoft?
6.828 uses C. C++ and C are still the same paradigm as Python and Java. I'm glad these courses use the right language for their topic but they don't really expand your horizons.

I want to know where Lisp, ML, Prolog, and Smalltalk are. I'm particularly concerned about Lisp and ML (incl. Haskell and ML derivs). Does MIT just not care about FP any more?

If you're a CS student and you haven't seriously worked with functional languages by the time you graduate, something is wrong. There is nothing to prevent this now. Many students will not seek out these languages on their own but it is decidedly in their best interest to acquire experience with them and MIT, to produce 'well-rounded' computer science graduates, should require/encourage it.
I spent nearly a day messing about with X the other week when I upgraded my Ubuntu install. I really enjoy using Linux, but things like that annoy me.

When I'm at home I prefer to do work stuff on my mac, it feels nice, and it provides me the same abilities I have when I'm sat on my Linux machine, but without the 50/50 chance it's all going to go wrong if I change a setting.

Everyone here must spend hours at their computer every day, a few quid extra on a nice machine is definitely worth it for me to make that experience better.

For me, using both is no more hassle than just using Linux.
It's a bad idea. Reason: the value doesn't come from implementing the FIRST idea, the value comes from iterating on the idea until it really fits the market. So you can not just throw out ideas every month and see which stick, you need to throw out an idea, iterate on it until it sticks, or abandon it and move to the next one.
The unfamiliar syntax can be boiled down to this: a server-side Javascript framework for building web pages.

To decompose this buzzword-compliant sentence: CouchApps is an API of sorts that CouchDB has that allows you to extract data from the database and embed it into a template and send it to the browser as an HTML page. It runs in CouchDB itself and functions as an HTTP server (hence server-side), and it uses a JS framework to do its magic.

The framework allows you to embed CSS files, images and the like, and the directory structure shown in the post hints at what goes where.
I would be interested in the data - but anecdotally - the news feed (see copies from myspace, friendfeed, etc) and photo tagging were both brilliant pieces of product design.. The give you a reason to come back - often.
Hahaha that's just crazy enough to get loads of funding.
Can you send the boss so you can get on with work?
Ian Forrester is a moderately well-known (in English web development circles) fan on all things Linux and open source, and has in the past been extremely critical of Apple (particularly with regards to iTunes). I've found his views to be abrasive and occasionally flat-out trollish, so you'll forgive me for not bothering to read this article.
I like that. But the real idea is then to have some physical thingie for a few $ that can send tweets.
I think xkcd made a comic about your mom.
If you didn't notice that the subject was OCD, not OCPD: Pay more attention before you correct people.

If you did notice: Don't start reiterations/agreements with the words 'no, actually' lest it be thought a correction.
No, I'm sure it's the minority. I was just being polite. :-) "Today's" programming languages are a minority too. Just think of all the ones that came and went in the 60s, 70, and 80s. Most of those were ones that wouldn't let you do "foo" + 12 as the OP said, i.e. you couldn't apply the plus operator to a string and an integer and have the integer coerced to a string automatically. It's clearly the minority that would do that, and a small minority at that.

awk and perl handle "foo" + 12, but they coerce "foo" to an integer, which is 0, and then add 12.

(Note, C lets you do "foo" + 12 but it isn't coercing 12 to a string, instead it's adding 12 to the address of the string "foo", e.g. "0123456789abcdef"[nibble].)

It would be interesting to enumerate those that do treat "foo" + 12 as if it was written "foo" + "12".

Edit: add http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages
Maybe check posts using http://stupidfilter.org/main/
The thing is, if you make the definition too generic, everything turns out to be a compiler. For instance, Photoshop is a compiler that turns commands in the UI (the input language) into PSD files (the output language). It's a lot harder to define terms like "compiler" than it actually seems.
There are many things to dislike about Apple: they are a monopoly, they lie in ads, the OS doesn't run necessary PC software, their hardware is overpriced, their followers are conceited, etc.

Let me make something else clear; Macs are the best desktop computers on the market, period. No competitors build both the hardware and software. Until they do, you will never get a more polished experience. If someone builds something better, I will buy it.

You can buy whatever you want, however. Just don't tell me that "Macs suck" unless you have compelling arguments as to how Windows is more secure than UNIX or of how Linux has better software than OS X, without laughing. Those arguments would be bunk anyhow since Macs can run both.
I am making it clear that Facebook isn't only "failing to act" against Holocaust-Denial groups. Thus the title is overstating the case. If one is looking to be offended, I can assure you that I will find something that will offend you.

Facebook isn't even that bad - all these groups are marginal gatherings of insane people. On the other hand, one of the larger groups on Mixi is dedicated to denying foreign-born Japanese residents the right to vote (even if they pay taxes and what-have-you). It is mainstream - that's a lot more scary than some dead-enders on facebook.

http://mixi.jp/view_community.pl?id=69430
Ambient Audeo System - How Thought-Controlled Wheelchairs Work
Regardless of the fact that the general idea of a social network was nothing new, the article hinges heavily on the fact that there was something called "the facebook" at Exeter. But I'm pretty sure the reason he called it the facebook was because the same thing at Harvard (a directory of students with photos that eventually went online) is called the undergraduate facebook, and he wanted students to immediately realize that his facebook was this, but more.
Hey bro, i am singaporean, and I have a bay area startup. My co-founder has a green card. I started a company,and I am working here on a temp work visa. Not ideal, but works. let me know if you want more details
I think OS X is "hassle-free" for the things that matter most in a desktop computer.

Just today I had to spend 15 minutes searching Google, diving into configuration files, restarting Linux to disable the !@#$ing screensaver that came with this distro. A power user like myself should never have to spend 15 minutes doing something as trivial as that.

I'm not really sure what you mean by "maintaining a second userland". All the standard command line tools live in the usual /bin /usr/bin /usr/local/bin and sbin variants.

"/Applications" contains OS X GUI applications, "/Users/username" is your standard home directory (albeit an unconventional path), "/System" and "/Library" should rarely be touched by anything except the system updater and OS X application installers.

Integration between the OSXish bits and UNIXy bits is excellent. Drag directories to Terminal.app to get the path, type "pbpaste"/"pbcopy" to access the clipboard, type "open" to open files in OS X apps from the command line, and much more: http://osxbook.com/book/bonus/ancient/whatismacosx//tools.ht...
http://uptime.openacs.org/uptime/

[Can't remember where I discovered this, possibly through HN. I've been using it for a while and it works well, although my needs are pretty basic]
Honestly, besides the natural teleological questions this prompts, if I were transported back to the middle ages there's not all that much I'm sure I could invent. For example, I have no idea how a computer is actually built, from the ground-up. Maybe I could have a few acute scientific observations ("try penicillin!"; "use tungsten for your light bulb!", "b-b-boil that milk!") and I could probably derive Calculus. But... that's about it. The vast majority of human knowledge is culturally transmitted; few humans have cumulative "clones" of the current "repository" of human knowledge stored in their memory.
Machines for Life
BlackBerry Social Network
I don`t know how many people have blackberry messenger on your BlackBerry devices but here is a website that you deff should take a look at. PinSwapme.com It`s a social network similar to MySpace how ever for blackberry users only.
I have a project I've been working on for a while, it's in public beta and should fit your requirements as is. http://pingy.moocode.com/
When Offshoring Your Development Team Means Buying a Boat
RCS: http://www.gnu.org/software/rcs/
Measuring the shelf-life of student interest in their subjects, using Google...
I too live in a very dry area, but here we're actively encouraged to install water tanks and harvest our own water, with the understanding that for each litre of rain collected about 10 litres of dam water is saved.

[Edit: this makes no sense. sorry.
What I mean is that if 10% of water makes it to the dams, then for each litre I collect, only about 100mL would have make it into the water supply.]
7 or something. An Atari ST.
What most people forget that the worlds 50 richest people are outliers - after all there are only 50 of them in the world. The interesting thing would be to see how big a percentage of the worlds richest 5 million people made their money by creating and selling software.

I'm not saying that you're wrong, just that the data doesn't support the view.
Right, but 6.00 is also not aimed at Course 6 students. I brought it up to provide an example of what I would've liked to see 6.01 / the intro 6 class be like, if they were going to Pythonize / simplify 6.001 at all.
Why Facebook is still surviving?
There are many social websites available on internet like MySpace, Orkut, Hi5 and most importantly Facebook. So, what is the difference in among them? Why Facebook is still on the top? The answer is that Facebook kept revolving the interests of the people by introducing new functionalities every few months. The big advantage of Facebook on other social networking sites is Facebook has plenty of applications to enjoy, work and play with. Facebook is also helpful in promoting your business in many ways.
* OSX - Desktop PCs
* Linux - Servers
* Windows - For testing things in IE

They all excel at those tasks. Use the right tool for the job and all that ;)
NBC Invests In Video Search Startup EveryZing
Web Sites fail age verification check
> BTW, site shows http 403.

Try proxy server. Any anonymous US proxy works for me. They seem to have crazy IP (spam?) filters that block many legitimate providers, including mine.
Psych 101 on the perception of perception:

There is a scale that goes much like this: common - undiscerning - discerning - snob

You are somewhere on this scale. Those below you aren't as sophisticated as you, and so you're better than them. Those above you are snobs who are valuing form over function, style over substance, and so you're better than them too. How lucky for you: You've ended up at exactly the right place on the scale, everyone else is wrong, and consequently, you have no need to feel insecure.

--

Worthy of a quick snigger was the mention of audiophiles from a guy who seem to discern exactly what he's told to discern by advertising.
I've just finished reading a history of medicine that claims that medicine's impact on prolonging life is miniscule, maybe 2% of the increase in live expectancy.

The biggest impact is childhood (and prenatal) nutrition and basic sanitation. So if you did get sent back to the middle ages, the diseases would be much less likely to kill you as you are generally much more robust as a result of your late 20th century upbringing, and you'd be less likely to get them as you would understand how they spread e.g. avoiding drinking water with human excrement in it. And of you course you didn't die in childbirth or shortly after, by conveniently being in a different century, which will put you above average in life span too.

And the big message from the book: avoid the doctors. They would actively be weakening you via bleeding, laxatives and emetics, right up until about the 1920s.
Profit per employee would be more interesting.

Even more interesting: salary per employee (not only for its meaning to employees but to the local economy.
Yes, everyone is trying. But those money is not probably enough to pay the writer, his editor, his copyeditor, and his bosses. ;-)
There was a CSI Miami episode depicting this when it went wrong.
So that they go beep-beep-beep when they walk? That's cruel.
Hollywood Free Movie Download: Star Trek 2009 TELESYNC AAC (Kingdom-Release)
> A person in the middle ages wouldn't be surrounded by a toxic environment

Are you serious? You don't think living in a tiny room with 10 family members and all kinds of animals (along with all of the lice, fleas, diseases, etc. that go along), with a wood fire filling the whole place with eye-stinging, lung-choking smoke, was a "toxic environment"? You'd be eating mostly grains, with very occasionally some meat, and if it spoiled you'd still figure out some way to eat it, because otherwise you'd be going hungry altogether (and that would happen anyway, in poor harvest years). The water would be whatever you had nearby, probably infected with all kinds of pathogens from the excrement that would inevitably wind up there. You'd maybe have a sweat bath or sponge bath once every week or two if you were lucky, using the same water for the whole family. You certainly wouldn't have more than a few changes of clothes, which you'd wear for days or weeks at a time.

I suggest you spend some time with rural peasants in a developing country before arguing about toxic environments or nutrient-deprived food.
Get your SaaS off my cloud
I live in London... The city tells me that old is gold... tells me to hold on to my ethnic form as there is nothing like a common global community form. The city hinges on ancient culture instead of values. It is too majestic to be assimilative in my opinion. It feels prohibitive.
New York is a different place really. A sexy conurbation... a true melting pot in this world... it tells me that communities do come together on new values and reinforces my belief in human-kind.