skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I knew Steve Jobs personally, and what I can't understand is why people who write these articles don't mention the obvious -- Steve was a narcissist. Because narcissism has been studied so thoroughly, this insight sheds a lot of light on his behavior. (The Isaacson book explicitly discusses Steve's narcissism.)

People need to realize that narcissists are secretly terribly insecure and very defensive about who they are, what they know, and their worth as people. Steve showed all the classic indicators -- I think he was perpetually insecure about his technical knowledge, especially in the early days when people (including me) would brush past him to get to Steve Wozniak.

More here: http://arachnoid.com/ChildrenOfNarcissus
The problem is costs won't stay where they are, they just keep climbing for no reason. The quality is only marginally better, if that. It is one thing if the states are covering less tuition for their constituents that would make the cost rise make sense, but out-of-state tuition has almost doubled since I started college back in the mid-90s.

Here's the problem. My alma mater is Washington State. They want to be a 'world class' college and it's a nice goal, but that's not the point of the state system. World class costs way too much money for little benefit. I'm not saying aim low, but be realistic. The job of a state institution is to provide an affordable opportunity for those who might not have otherwise. It's not Harvard or Stanford but it's accessible and it allows for upward mobility.
Vim Revisited (2011)
The Cost Of Greatness
You don't have to do it as one day a week.

Personally, the way I've always taken it was "I've got no pressing tasks I need to take care of for my main project or for coworkers? Great, I'll work on my 20% project!" And I've found out that over my nearly 5-year career at Google, this averages out to pretty close to 20%. But there were weeks that I did nothing but 20% work, and there were stretches of 2-3 months where I didn't do 20% work at all.

We're evaluated over a long period of time and nobody really knows what you do day-to-day, so it doesn't actually matter all that much how you take 20% time, the important thing is what comes out of it.
That seeems... silly. `sudo !!` feels vastly superior to "Up, Home, `sudo `"

Mostly because !! is right there and Up+Home are over there.
And who is going to decide what's a "degree in bullshit" and what's a "gussied up diploma mill?" What metrics would they use?

Libertarians tend to like the idea. But short of that, it's difficult to vote for reform that lands between perpetuate-the-problem and screw-an-entire-generation.

We can fix the problem of paying for education, but that solution isn't going to be found anywhere near the student loan debate.
Sure, but they provided me with a useful service, and I like their audacity and stack. I'm pretty happy with the tradeoff, even if I don't use the service that much.
After Two Decades of Programming, I Use Rails
There is no such ToS. Nor is there any "app must be HTML5" requirement.
In fish it's simple enough to start typing the command you want and then hit arrow right to autocomplete. If you have a couple often commands that start the same way just arrow up or down to cycle through them, then arrow right to put them on the command line.
Patch Is Dying—Local News Needs Paywalls
I learnt how compound interest worked long before high school. I don't mean to sound unsympathetic, but the notion that people who have applied to and been accepted to a university wouldn't be capable of making simple cost/benefit decisions or understand the consequences of a loan should be laughable. The fact that so many people are apparently approaching graduating without yet having thought about the consequences is a sign that our education system sucks long before student loans become an issue.

edit: I recently discussed this with a friend who just received an MBA with an emphasis on finance. He was complaining that the interest rates on his loans had gone up every year, even before he started graduate school. It's disgusting that he could be accepted to a graduate school to study finance and didn't see that one coming.
> Loans aren't at the root of the problem

Loans absolutely are at the root of the problem. Not the abstract concept of loaning money, but the current implementation.

The student loans legally allowed today are borderline usary. They provide a convenient way for lenders to sidestep bankruptcy protection. This leaves students with exact same problems society had before bankruptcy: it's far too easy for the unwary to sign their life away to crushing debt. They essentially become an indentured servant for the rest of their life, destined to die in poverty.

These issues are a practically daily occurrence on r/personalfinance [1]. I personally know several people in this situation. Naive kids get too far over their head in debt, and the traditional protections for that situation have been taken away from them.

Maybe it's time to cap total outstanding student debt to some reasonable expectation of when they can be repaid. That's the only way I can imagine tuition levels reverting to a sane level.

1. for a recent example, see http://redd.it/1kavq7
The game is fun, but perhaps a bit misleading regarding what 'mastering vim movement' amounts to. As I am sure many of you know, vim has tons of constructs for efficient navigation: Using b or w for word-wise jumping, special markers like $ and 0, Ctrl-D and Ctrl-U etc. A good overview of movement commands can be found here: http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Moving_around
It doesn't have process redirection either, and that's one I use a fair bit. For example

paste <(hquery -q '//a/@href' x) <(hquery -q '//a' x)

Where hquery is one of my utilities for running xpath queries over loosely parsed HTML. This would produce a tab-delimited list of link urls to link text.
Yes, this is probably one of the few scenarios I would partner up with a business guy (salary and equity), the others being a proven track record, or equity in a profitable co.
I defined the following function to convert my bash aliases to fish functions, which eased my switchover a bit. I saved it as ~/.config/fish/functions/import_bash_aliases.fish

function import_bash_aliases --description 'bash aliases to .fish function files.'
for a in (cat ~/.bashrc | grep "^alias")
set aname (echo $a | grep -Eoe "[a-z0-9]+=" | sed 's/=//')
set command (echo $a | sed 's/^alias .*=//' \
| sed 's/^ *\'//' | sed 's/\' *$//' )
echo "Processing alias $aname as $command"
if test -f ~/.config/fish/functions/$aname.fish
echo Function $aname is already defined. Skipping...
else
alias $aname $command
funcsave $aname
end
end
end
Show HN: Deploy with Python and Grunt.js
So you're saying, "A good solution is to lower the price of education."

I agree. I think we all would. But how? Loans are already very optional - that's a nonsolution.
What distro are you most comfortable with? We run KVM on Debian in a few offices, with the VMs doing mail, web, and DNS. It's been about a year and it's been rock solid.
Happy birthday, indeed! I love the independent spirit of the Debian project, including such extraordinary measures as wrapping their userland around the FreeBSD kernel in addition to Linux[0]. Recently, I've enjoyed using Crunchbang[1], a slick, simple desktop built on top of Debian. To the next 20 years!

[0] http://www.debian.org/ports/kfreebsd-gnu/
[1] http://crunchbang.org/
10 hours on Saturday. ;-)
Ah! It continues
Web Components are the most exciting thing on the Web at the moment. I can not wait until this is fully supported in the browser.

There is a lot of great JS frameworks out there that projects DOM etc., but I always fall back to markup as the best way to build a browser based app
This right here is why I loathe Sprint.

I actually get a pretty decent price from them for running an iPhone 4S [my employer offers a discount for sprint services], but I'd like to move it to T-Mobile as they would offer a much faster network. Sprint's 3G is terrible here in SE Wisconsin.

Of course: Sprint won't unlock my iPhone, even though it's the exact same hardware that Apple/T-Mobile would sell me. Selling my 4S, of course, means losing my ability to jailbreak.

(I don't plan to move to a newer iPhone, as I hate the form-factor of the iPhone 5... but I also don't want to spend another $600+ on an Android or Windows flagship phone.)
Awesome, but too many words.

Deposit x dollars, for x days if you don't finish your task on time you don't get your money back.

I don't even think you need to charge for it, since some people won't collect. Some people could like about finishing their task, but so what that's there problem.
Maybe I'm just not that proficient, but I can't fathom how anyone can use the words "rapid" and "Illustrator" (or "Photoshop") in a sentence about wireframing.

I recently had to wireframe some iOS screens for a project. Dealing with Adobe's UI, the layers, the workflow, exporting images, etc. was just awful. I ended up using Moqups (https://moqups.com) and, while it's not WYSIWYG UI elements, it did the job and was actually rapid.
The internet allows for a fairly "shotgun" approach when it comes to abuse. But, maybe it would be beneficial to spread the abuse out instead of allowing it to focus.

Though, there is still doxxing. You can't rule out that that information is in some way discoverable regardless.
Site's down, mirror: http://www.zeroshare.info/january_1_2012
Today I spent 5 hours staring at, stepping through some callback-heavy code, reading HN, browsing the web and about an hour to write, test and deploy about 20 lines of code fixing a really nasty race condition. And I'm still not completely sure things are really fixed. I might have spent even longer had it not become apparent that we have just the two options:

1. band-aid around the problem

2. complete rewrite of a large portion of the website
One thing I have found with prezto (as well as oh-my-zsh) is that over time, starting up a new terminal window can take a while. On the other hand, when I tried fish, I found certain aspects of it to be sluggish (autocomplete, for example).
The student loan issue is kinda like the Health Insurance issue in America (strictly an opinion). Prices are driven up because colleges can charge whatever they wish and the students pay for it in the form of loans mostly backed by the Government (STAFFORD etc.). Colleges have no incentive to reduce tuition cost because the money flows either way (student or the govt. ). Remove the option of getting subsidized/backed by the Govt, the colleges will either have to reduce the fee or be at the risk of not getting enrollments and ultimately lose money. They don't want that. No one does. Similarly, remove the middleman i.e health insurance companies, doctors/hospitals can directly charge a patient and voila, a visit to get stitches will not be billed at $1000.
As I recall, if you email/reply to someone in GMail they will be added to your contacts list.
What do you like about Debian servers of Ubuntu server? I have always used Ubuntu for all my servers and never bothered looking at debian for that.

The big reason I chose Ubuntu and just ran with it is support and security updates. Ubuntu LTS, I believe still, is supported for much longer than Debian is.
The thing to understand is that the socialist critique of capitalism has always been that it is a system in which, both on the "micro" scale of firms and the "macro" scale of broader institutions, is centrally organized for the benefit of a narrow elite, with a distinct and well-defined (though, in the case of the "macro" scale, less formal than is the case in, e.g., feudalism) social heirarchy.

The heirarchical megacorporation existed before socialists invented the name "capitalism" to refer to and criticize the system which spawned such beasts, so the Soviet Union mirroring the heirarchical structure of such an entity -- with a similar elite vs. worker power relationship -- is exactly the USSR recapitulating features of capitalism central to the socialist critique, and not "the opposite direction".
Not sure anyone would buy into this since we all pretty much get PAID to procrastinate and this is asking us to PAY to procrastinate. Maybe if you gave away your product this would help increase signups? Wait, what!?!
No freaking way this is worth $10/mo, especially when creating your own by embedding your Google Calendar in a web page (or in the case of my example, a Google Site page) and sharing the link is free.

https://sites.google.com/site/elliottally/

I've included a link to that in my email signature for the last couple of years to solve specifically this problem and it works great. It's not particularly beautiful, but it solved the problem. There are a plethora of other apps providing the same service (here's one: http://www.scheduleonce.com/pricing), so you're going to have to differentiate yourself somehow.

You really need a free tier.
The De-evolution of My Laptop Battery
That sucks. Are you guys going to move?

I work in an office in downtown Boulder, CO, and while it looks amazing (heaps of comfy chairs, bean bags) there is construction being done all the time and my desk shakes like we're being hit by an earthquake. Down the road from us are Quickleft's offices, and they have a keg of beer on tap and a Japanese rock garden. Jealous.
No, but it'll help send them to bankruptcy.
That's my problem with him. What do you learn from this article except to be outraged? Surely the folks perpetuating this system aren't all mustache-twirling villains: Somebody out there has a case to make for the current system, but Taibbi isn't at all interested in that case.
Except that it is their political process, one for which they've designed all the rules and systems in place to carry it out. It is prone to the "rigged game" phenomenon.
It wouldn't be if the policy were clear. I was in bandwidth jail through the end of the billing period and could not get an answer about when it would be lifted. At that point, it became impossible to continue with that "service."
I brought common arguments into the discussion because it is, as with so many things, almost as much a debate about perceptions as it is about substantive facts. The number of people who subscribe to wild conspiracy theories, buy fully into the value of the status quo, or maintain more nuanced views, has a big impact on how our societies will develop.

Anyway, it seems to me that we largely agree on the appropriate means to desirable ends - nothing too dramatic.

Thanks for the discussion!
Make the government pay for education.
The overall price of education is the root of the problem, and the price of education has little correlation to the availability of student loans (contrary to popular belief).

> Maybe it's time to cap total outstanding student debt to some reasonable expectation of when they can be repaid.

I think that's a good start. Kind of resembling a loan-forgiveness mechanism (which there are already a few). It falls into the same trap most solutions do, though. What's "a reasonable expectation," and who decides it?
The problem is that the flip-side consequence is dead-end job prospects. It's a greater of two evils - have a disproportionate lack or opportunity or debt. Debt is the easy choice. The only thing kids need to consider is return on investment. A heap-load of debt will rarely get paid off with a humanities or communications degree.
Part of the reason prices have gone up so much is that credit has become so easy.

50 years ago, if you wanted to go to college, you went, and the prices were reasonable because people could not afford a lot of money for it, and no one would lend it to them.

There is almost no downward price pressure on college costs, and there is upward price pressure: since the students don't care about the price, they always want the school with better and more modern facilities, which cost money.
Sounded good, until I heard about the monthly fee.

I don't think this will go very far, as there are probably other companies going after this market without any extra fees.

Also, the battery life needs to be at least a month.
I suppose I should have added "...if they want to continue to succeed."
Elon Musk’s Hyperloop gets its own hilarious Taiwanese animated video
Everyday is Shark Week cartoon
That is a good documentary indeed (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0432232/). For me, it offered a better understanding of modern western civilization — of the interplay between politics, consumerism and spiritualism (without there being need for any conspiracies). Since watching it I regularly, on occasion, ask myself: Are my desires being channeled right now?
The airlines are actually the barrier I see being biggest. Also, there is already a fairly robust supercommuter population in Texas. This would only add to that trend, especially if you hooked Austin into it.
It is not insisting. Vim will happilly let you use the arrow keys. It's just that once you acclimate to "hjkl", it is slightly faster and more comfortable, since you don't need to move right hand anywhere while typing. Or at least that's how it works for me.
How to build a rockstar advisory board
You still need price pressure on the schools. If tuition keeps on going through the roof but no one cares because it's "free" we're still blowing a lot of money that could better be spent elsewhere.
As someone who comes from outside the USA, it is always extremely surprising to me how much just the fact of getting a college degree is lionized here. New graduates are made to think they are accomplishing a great deal just by virtue of having graduated, i.e. having completed the minimum requirements laid out by their program.

I can't count the number of Facebook statuses I have seen that say "So proud I'm graduating!!!!" or something to that effect, without having even a vague concept of what to do after that are cheered on and congratulated by similarly clueless people. Add in a mix of pictures in those $70 graduation caps and gowns effing everywhere, and you have the recipe for something younger students will rush into doing without thinking of the consequences.

I think an immediate lessening of the adulation showered on people who have graduated from college, and an increase in the respect for those who have actually learned a useful trade or done something (note: a summer exchange program in Europe that your parents or the Govt. paid for does not count) would go a long way towards getting people to think carefully before signing up for one of these predatory loans.
Two years ago I was in Colombia and had lunch with 4 late twenties MIT MBA students interning in Medellin. One was ex-Google, one was a consultant at the Big 4.

They'd been there for a week, and told me they hadn't seen any of the city. After work they'd go to the gym or drive their rented car to a restaurant recommended by colleagues. Taxis were a max $3 if you live anywhere in the core, which they did.

On a walk to a restaurant famous for mondongo, we had to cross a 4 lane street. It was 9pm with no traffic and after waiting awhile I noticed the crossing signal didn't go off. I looked both ways with no car in sight and started walking, looking back expecting them to follow. They all stood there awkwardly, with no cars and no other pedestrians, for another 30 seconds, waiting for the walk signal to turn on, while I watched them from the other side. The signal never changed.

They were scared of the city. Anyone who has been to Medellin in the past few years knows there is little to fear.

Not all MBA's are like this, but this group just didn't get it. I realize this is more about travel fears than business smarts, but there is something to be said for people that can adapt and embrace new environments.
But what about the people investing in these companies? Money don't grow on trees and you can't make money without products to sell.
Frankly, I don't think that inconsistant application of rules, and relying on a good Manager is a good thing overall.

I don't want to equate this with working at Google, because I don't have enough information, but here's my anecdote about good managers:

Twice before I've worked with spectacular managers. They treated their employees well, and acted as great shields against the political infighting inside the company. But both times, the managers were forced out, and the employees that depended on them to get interesting work done ended up quitting as well.

If this is indeed, as the TFA posits, a memo from the top being filtered out by a few good managers, in a short amount of time those managers won't matter; they will be forced, or burnt, out. Neither case is good for the company.
I'm too busy to check but I'd bet money that it's a Mersenne prime. The series looks exponential (like 2^n) and it's not hard to imagine that fenceposting (±1) led to each member in the series being (2^n)-1 - which is the form for Mersenne primes.

Edit: Dang, I was wrong. ;)
I guess the better question is why not? Technology has unfortunately become very Bay Area centric. Travel isn't for everyone, but it gives people a chance to live outside they Bay Area for a bit. The locations dont directly affect the products, but getting a new perspective on the world can't hurt. Think of it more like travel abroad programs in college.
Responsive Pain Points
Show HN: a one-line bash screensaver
You can use the arrows in vim by default, no problem with that. For example, all my current co-workers use vim and I'm the only one who navigates using HJKL.
With that said, I really really recommend any vim user to at least give a shot at using it instead of arrow keys. YMMV, but for me, not having to reach for the arrows help me stay in the zone.
It sounds more ego-driven and self centric to me. Is that what MBA programs teach you? To be completely focused on your own solutions that you are dismissing everyone else's?
What? The arrow keys work fine. They're just waaaaay over there. Why do you want to use them?
Slacks are cut, breaks are given.
Students in Chile did: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%9312_Chilean_student...
The Business Habits of Highly Effective Terrorists
Everyone defines for himself what's the point of Bitcoin is.

For some it's anonymity. For others it's cheap way to pay for stuff. Or only possible way (if CC are not working in your country). Or an wealth storage vehicle and protection against inflation. Or vote against USD and wars. Or a tax evasion tool.
Hustling: A guide for entrepreneurs
Personally, I like persons.
Creator here; if you have any questions, feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer!
toilets in europe are not the same as in north america. a north american plumber will say screw europe, I will never work there. What if you need to move to europe?
What really breaks this is that the current education bubble is essentially unpoppable. Until lenders start losing more by allowing people to default on student loans, they have no incentive to turn down anyone. And with all of that money so readily available, colleges can keep increasing tuition, since the loans will always provide enough students to fill their classes.

The problem with fixing this, however, is that any measure that makes loans less available will be seen as a negative, since it will limit who can go to college. In a country where people have declared that everyone should be able to go to college, this will be a very unpopular position. We need social acceptance of some viable alternative, like vocational schools to fill our ever dwindling ranks of skilled workers.

* Note, this comment is focused on the US. I don't know enough about other country's systems to comment on them.
This is a story about Google, which is still led by its technical founders (who are also huge equity holders with a long-term interest) and who don't have MBAs? If 20% is getting killed, it's getting killed because Larry Page wants it dead.