skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The going rate for similarly spec'ed smartphone on Alibaba/Aliexpress is well below $200 now in quantities of 1 and have been for a while.

For the most expensive phones, you pay a large premium for the newest models, and you pay a large premium for brand names, and a bit extra for better build quality in some cases (but not always - a lot of the reasonably unknown Chinese brands deliver very solid phones), and it adds up quickly.
Yeah, you're right. Thanks for pointing that out.
Note that newer versions of the Nexus 4 have small nubs on the back that provide some additional traction, and also give enough of a gap to stop the speaker from being completely muffled on flat surfaces.

http://www.gsmarena.com/updated_nexus_4_design_adds_nubs_aro...
Having tried standing, I can tell you that I found it to be rather uncomfortable and unsettling. Standing upright is, in my opinion, a transition state. That is, you normally only stand upright in between walking and/or sitting. So, when I'm standing at a desk, I desperately want to be moving to the next state.

Physically, this works out okay for mousing tasks, since those are one handed and offer a large degree of freedom. However, it just doesn't work for two handed tasks, like programming or writing, which anchor both of your arms, because your arms are critical for balance and, thus, movement.

I also found that this desperation to move around while standing affected me mentally. That is, when standing, I was fine doing short, low-attention tasks like responding to email or IM, since I coud move a little between each task. However, for longer tasks (again, like programming or writing) I found this to be maddening. I felt as if I was constantly being tugged and distracted by this urge to move.
Here in Sao Paulo there is a moving sidewalk connecting two major metro stations, it is really cool for most part, but sometimes shit happens, like when one asshole decide to stop at its exit, or when someone fall, or when it breaks.
oh neat. thanks for the link -- had never run across it before.
Control key is the wrong place.
My impression of Julia is it's what happens when Lisp people decide Python got some things right, and vice versa.
I play competitively, but I'm not top 100 caliber or anything, though I was pretty close as a teenager. I normally sit around Master Guardian II, which means I'm really good, but there are still quite a few people that are much better.
Agreed. Mine broke without even dropping it within 20 minutes of taking it out of the box. They replaced it, but it took quite some arguing on my part.
Thanks for the detailed reply! My use case is a stream of distinct, ordered events identified by a UUID, where the first event makes up about 95% of the volume; that is, we don't often receive subsequent events with the same UUID.

The initial event and any subsequent ones tend to arrive close together in time, so the challenge is to find something that can handle a high insertion rate, a relatively low update rate, while providing fast aggregations suitable for charting in a web-frontend. In Riak, Couchbase or HyperDex we'd use a secondary index and do our own math, but Elasticsearch is attractive because it appears to support the kind of queries we're interested in out of the box, in addition to having a good reported write-rate.

Persistence is less of an issue, because after a short period of time (a couple of hours) we would summarise the events into our analytics DB (Infobright) and so we could set a TTL on the data stored in Elasticsearch.

Again, thanks for the response and I'll check out the mailing-list and IRC channel.

Edit: Grammar
There was recently an exhibit in NYC showing off the underground 'light-forced garden' concept, although it was a park rather than a produce garden:

http://thelowline.org/
I built myself one of these, and they are awesome. Mechanical switches and firmware that you can tweak and compile yourself:

https://github.com/benblazak/ergodox-firmware
There's plenty of smaller Android phones available too. But users clearly seem to like the bigger sizes, and frankly women seem to be a large driver. At least around here, most women I see have their phones - regardless of size - in their purse, and so they also seem to be very quick to adopt the large form factor phones. It's fairly common to see people with 6" phones here now.

But check out Aliexpress.com, and you will find lots of small form factors, if you're ok with ordering direct from China.
It's not clear that commodity money or coinage existed before paper notes. Certainly the story of civilizations moving from barter to money to more complex instruments is false, but also: coins were not used any more than they are today. You might get some change back from a street vendor, but most transactions are cashless. In Anglo-Saxon England, the kings periodically recalled all coins and had them reminted. The coin of the realm wasn't necessarily anything more than a unit of account, something for prices to be denominated in. Various ancient law codes tend to be very specific about how many shekels a goat is worth (depending on sex, age, and condition), so that you can trade it directly.

The origins of modern bank notes probably have more to do with the Knights Templar than goldsmiths.

The point you were trying to make is accurate enough, but the source you're quoting is both lengthy and simplistic past the point of being correct.
Society isn't a one-shot system; it's iterative with feedback. When you apply a slight bias in interest rates to different parts of the population in one iteration, then feed those results into the next generation, those segments of the population paying slightly higher interest rates now have slightly less cash and slightly fewer opportunities. Repeat this for a few generations, and you have inescapable poverty on one hand and nearly unassailable wealth on the other.
Also DONT BUY THE WIRELESS CHARGER.

It is a joke, the phone might stick to it the first time you use it, if you're lucky. The only thing keeping the above mentioned slippery phone on the un-necessarily slanted charger is some slick rubber material. The rubber holds dust like a pro, but alas cannot grip the phone.

If you don't believe me read Amazon reviews: http://www.amazon.com/Google-Nexus-4-Wireless-Charger/dp/B00...
It's good that they did this for sure. I remember reading that people were also having problems with the rear glass shattering from the thermal shock of being placed on cold counter tops. I'd still probably get a case for it, though. If you have generally pretty dry hands like mine, a case can reduce the strain of holding on to a generally slippery phone. I also don't know if this would be changed by the little nubs but I had issues with it regularly sliding out of my pocket while on couches.
The phones ability to slide across the flattest of surfaces, combined with the super effective "silent mode" (aka putting your phone on any flat surface, blocking the speaker completely), has dumbfounded me since I got the phone at launch.

How do these things get missed in testing? Did no one throughout the entire testing process receive a call while their phone was on their desk? Did they not notice the phone running away from them every time they put it on a shiny surface?
Pdiffy - Library for Automated UI Verification testing with Perceptual Diffs
Hi, I've recently had some fun writing a little JS library in order to automate some UI verification against a known baseline using perceptual diffs. Thought I'd share so that hopefully someone else can benefit from this too.
https://github.com/kennychua/pdiffy
Credit to resemble.js for a majority of the code
There's an easy fix for the "staggered" layout problem: type "Z" with ring finger, "X" with middle finger, "C" with index, etc.

It's beyond me why the "Z with little finger" technique is so widespread. It's universally taught, yet you're obviously bending your fingers in an uncomfortable and unnatural direction when you go to press the bottom row.

No one's complaining about the staggered layout of the right-hand keys, because it matches how your fingers bend. Staggering is great when it matches the natural angle of your fingers on the keyboard.
"...there will be increasing emphasis on transportation that makes the least possible contact with the surface. There will be aircraft, of course, but even ground travel will increasingly take to the air*a foot or two off the ground. Visitors to the 1964 fair can travel there in an "aquafoil," which lifts itself on four stilts and skims over the water with a minimum of friction. This is surely a stop-gap. By 2014 the four stilts will have been replaced by four jets of compressed air so that the vehicle will make no contact with either liquid or solid surfaces."

Sounds a little bit like the hyperloop, no?
I have just started learning Julia this past week. I do scientific research (molecular dynamics) and this language is exactly the sort of thing I've been looking for.

So far I have been using C++ for high-performance, time-critical code and Coffeescript for quick prototyping or for code where performance isn't a bottleneck (out of all the languages I know, I never got around to learning Python for some reason...).

Programming languages are a little bit of a hobby of mine, so I've messed around in Haskell, Lisp, and Clojure. I really like the design of Clojure, particularly all of the concurrency features, but I don't think it has the speed or the libraries for scientific work.

Julia is the first "scientific" language I've seen that actually seems well-designed instead of ad-hoc (i.e., someone with graduate work in CS was actually involved in its creation). The fact that the authors know what a legit type system is already becomes an upgrade to anything Fortran or C++ could offer. I never thought the OO paradigm (subtype polymorphism) in Java or C++ worked well at all for scientific work. Maybe some people found it useful, but I always thought it was forced.

Aspects of Julia I really like:

* Libraries - The ones that are in Julia so far are fast (and use well-known numerical libraries like FFTW and BLAS) and easy to use. They're geared toward scientific work, so this is perfect for my research.

* Syntax - I like the brevity. I don't necessarily like that blocks must be terminated with "end" but that's just a personal thing.

* Speed - Wow. I'm still amazed this is as fast as it is since it feels so much like an interpreted language. All that work with the LLVM is paying off. I almost wonder if in the long run this could be faster than C since you can provide information about the program to itself while its running for on-the-fly optimizations.

* Homoiconicity - I can't say that I've actually had a legit use for this yet, but I'm glad that it's there for some reason. I wouldn't say the language is 100% homoiconic (to the extent of Lisp), but it's pretty close.

My main concerns with Julia at the moment are:

* Will it continue development? I'd hate to write a whole suite of software in a new language that no one else will use because the language goes obsolete.

* What's with this weird confusion with tuples and arrays? It seems like there's some situations where these things have overlapping purposes.

* Documentation can be slightly confusing. Sometimes it's hard to tell exactly what a function does or what its arguments are supposed to be (without going into the REPL and using "methods"). Example function calls would go a very long way toward helping here.
If I seriously believed I was under actual threat of invasion from the US, I am not sure I would piss away my resources getting monkeys to deface a brochure.
This comment is pretty hilarious (though not for the reason you apparently intend).
Can you explain more what you mean? I think you're getting at something I agree with, but you're also saying some things I don't think are quite right...

Firstly I don't know what you mean by the Friis equation "assumes an isotropic antenna". It explicitly accounts for the gain of each antenna, in the direction of the link, relative to an isotropic radiator. The fact that it's relative to an isotropic radiator is just how all gains are measured. In fact, the antenna pattern doesn't matter at all to the link, only the gain in the direction of the link (Friis assumes no multipath). Whether the receive and transmit antenna are "the same" or "different" really doesn't make a difference.

This is the distinction I think you're trying to make, and which I agree with:

If gain is held constant, link margin improves as frequency decreases because of reduced path loss at lower frequencies. If instead antenna aperture is held constant as frequency is lowered, antenna gain will decrease at the same rate as path loss improves and there is no net effect to the link.

Both answers are technically correct, in a fixed gain scenario where your antenna can grow as large as necessary to hold gain constant, (or the scenario doesn't allow for high gain, narrow beamwidth antennas) lower frequencies will make longer links. In systems where aperture is constant (which is the case for many practical systems) antenna gain will improve as quickly as path loss degrades when you go to higher frequencies, and there is no net advantage at any frequency.
The Model M uses buckling springs. Rubber domes are the cheap keyboards you get for $10.
^^ truth. one thing that fixes this, though, is having a diztronic tpu case. with the case on the phone no longer slips off the orb and is protected to boot (an absolute must for this phone -- and i hate cases)
I'll grant trading FX is for crazy people.

As someone who's experience is way more on the commodities futures side of the house, I'm shocked that blatant front running is an expected cost of business in equities trading. Even in the highly monopolized CME world front running is considered beyond the pale.

I will say (in my experience in the commodities markets), 9 times out of 10 folks who claim that they are being front run are actually just unaware of how sophisticated their competition is when it comes to micro-book structure optimization.
This. Your feet have been designed by millions of years of evolution to support the weight of your body. The technology in your flesh and blood is at least several decades and probably several centuries ahead of anything human technology can achieve. Exploit this difference. Be barefoot as often as possible. http://edge.org/conversation/brains-plus-brawn
Wasn't too much of a pain for me. I hate the new Gmail (and the direction Google has gone since G+)... have switched to Fastmail (with my own domain) and haven't regretted it for a second.

Told all the people I could think of that my email address has changed, then diverted my Gmail to my new email to catch any stragglers for a while, which I tell when I notice a diverted mail.
Deserted doctor's mansion in Germany
I asked for directions from a fellow who was restocking in a local market. He deferred, explaining that he worked for Goya, not for the store. He was responsible for all the Goya products in the store (and other stores) and that the aisle we were in was dedicated solely to Goya products.

I worked for a supermarket when in high school and only store employees handled goods inside the building. Here the store allowed control of an entire aisle to Goya. And believe me, shelf space is at the very core of retail sales.
Haven't read it - but I bought it, thanks.
It's nice that the final code looks clean and very readable. I would suggest you to give Nimrod (http://nimrod-code.org/) a try too.
Mandatory reading when it comes to keyboarding: http://oreilly.com/news/zenclavier_1299.html

So far, I've used many keyboards. Nothing comes close to the IBM Model M, or their modern incarnations. Here in India, you get a TVS Gold keyboard which is the basically IBM Model M of India. The difference between that and my office HP standard keyboard is so enormous, I can nearly write a short book detailing it.

Firstly the build, Model M's ones are built like a tank. They will last decades. Secondly the spring feedback and clicky auditory feed back you get. Thirdly, and the most important feature of the keyboard is the impedance match when your fingers hit the keyboard and the resistance/friction those keys offer. The Model M some does this so well, you will almost feel you are becoming one with the keyboard, combined with this the clicky auditory feed back and the rugged build is what makes the IBM Model M the king of all keyboards.

Now every time I use the Model M at home and then come and use the keyboards at office, I see two straight issues. One I see is either the keyboard is offering too much friction/resistance which in case my fingers hit the keys faster but the keys don't mechanically respond as faster, or in cases of keyboard like the Apple's flat aluminum keyboard the resistance is too less and fingers tend to slower compared to the keys. And yes the feed back thing isn't in any way remotely comparable to the Model M.

Lastly you can argue that, this should even matter to you as a coder. As good coding is above typing skills. Though I agree with you, I would suggest you read the article I posed at the top of this comment.

Beyond all, once you've some really awesome. Even the very normal all begins to feel like bad.

Long story, short- a good geek/nerd keyboard needs to:

1. Provide auditory feed back while typing.
2. The impedance match between the key response and
your finger's hit force need to match perfectly.
3. Keyboard must be rugged.
4. Important code related keys should be big.
Yahoo is bigger than Google, but Google is bigger than Yahoo
Language can reveal the invisible, study shows
Couldn't wait for 2014 to post this, huh? :P
Nimrod (http://nimrod-code.org/) also uses elif
If you can hack together some rent money, you can stay 2 blocks from Noisebridge at 20mission. A lot of my roommates are "hacking" life at Burning Man, but I might see if we can coordinate a Noisebridge group.

20mission.com
Deducing the Origin
> actually not at all, we have less TX power than most wifi devices.

Another post in this thread says 16 mw, compared to about 50 mw for an 802.11 class device, so that's rather low and I'm somewhat surprised by the range claims. I suspect the chosen antennas play an important part.

> The data rate is inversely proportional to range, as is the frequency.

Unless I have misunderstood the above sentence, it implies that the range increase as the frequency drops. In a word, no, because among other things, thermal noise increases as frequency drops. A low data rate will buy you more range, but range doesn't increase as frequency drops.

> This gets us range without blasting people with radio or having trouble with the FCC.

Maybe. It turns out that 915 MHz is a pretty busy area of the spectrum in many places -- successful communication might be harder in practice than the ideal case.
Darwinian natural selection doesn't select for absolute/universal fitness, because there is no such thing. It selects for fitness into a specific, local niche. Humans may be more fit than chimpanzees in some areas, for example, but less fit in others.

It is a fallacy to assume that evolution is linear, and that it progresses toward some sort of universal optimum. There is no universal optimum. There are only specific, local optima.

A good example is the megalodon. From all we know, the megalodon was basically a massive, faster, more badass, more ferocious version of the great white shark. Why did the megalodon die out, and the lines that led to the great white survive? Surely big-badassedness is a desirable quality in an apex predator like a shark, right? Well, not really, because circumstances changed. Ocean temperatures changed, prey got scarcer and smaller, and eventually, size became a detriment. Megalodon was too big not to fail. What fit one day no longer fit the next.

The same thing may happen to humans someday, and some other animal may step up to take our places. It seems unlikely, but nature is the one doing the "selecting" in natural selection -- not us. Environments and circumstances change, and as they change, so do the criteria that "fit" the new context. In the Darwinian sense, "fit" refers to suitability to a habitat; it does not refer to "fitness" in the modern sense of the word. Think "product/market fit," not "physically fit."
I'm still waiting to buy a mechanical keyboard with a TrackPoint. Until then, the ThinkPad external USB keyboard [1] is perfect. Its big delete key is great, too.

[1] http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/itemdetails/55Y9003/460/60AC6A0...
This is the exact model I'm typing on now, and have a Das Keyboard for Mac at home (because I couldn't find anything less pretentious-sounding with Mac keys). The thing I prefer with this keyboard over the Mac standard, and similar low-profile keyboards, is the lack of 'mushiness' when you hit a key. Did I hit that key with the right amount of pressure? Did it really register, or just kinda mush into place?

This is literally never an issue with mechanical keyboards, because no guesswork is required. Once you're used to the activation points and tactile feedback, you should find that you're using less pressure and getting greater accuracy with your typing.

At least, that's how it worked for me.
Real END-TO-END LATENCY shots published for Sky Drone FPV project, showing 170ms and 184ms end-to-end latency with the prototype setup. We will make sure to end up at <150ms at launch!

Please take a look at the update yourself here: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/sky-drone-fpv/x/3767302?c=...

We've also included how we tested it, so you can reproduce this very same test with your own FPV system and compare.
This is neat, but personally I don't find keyboards that exciting. Nor do I anticipate ever owning a desktop machine again. Maybe if this sort of thing could be done on a laptop, I'd be pumped.

My fave keyboard is still the IBM 101 clickity from my PS/2 days in school.
The plasticky bit is so off base it makes me wonder if fourstar is inventing ownership to have an opinion. The bit about lag as well -- what? Maybe they're thinking of the 2012 Nexus 7?
My wife uses one of these, and it has completely eliminated her RSI. Great product.
That's right, you do not want your hands and screen to be so close together. Think about it: how often do you keep your hands in your line of site for extended periods of time?

You do it momentarily to look at what your manipulating, but its not very comfortable for extended periods, since it requires that you're either craning your neck to look at your lap or keeping your arms extended out in front of your body.
They cancel perfectly when the antennas are the same. There's a scale factor when they're different, but the frequency dependence still goes away.

So I'm adding about 10dB for noise, and getting a path loss that's about 15 dB higher, giving me an expected range closer to 100 m. What are you using for the antenna's effective area?
I guess everyone's mileage varies, but I've had a nexus 4 almost since launch, without a cover, and have only had one small 'accident' that didn't result in any damage.
It is irritating to hear claims that something can be done which has never been done. As evidenced by every project I've ever worked on, people have a very poor idea of how much work it takes to accomplish a task. There are very likely hurdles to building moon colonies that you have not considered.
AppFog was built originally around another PaaS, Cloud Foundry. Wonder how this offering will compare with that. I can understand that there would be more control because of the IaaS nature of the offering. Anything stopping them from doing the same with Cloud Foundry ?
Your point about change history and its poor support in SQL is spot-on; at my employer we've gone through (1) and (2) and are trying to figure out (3) at the moment.

From what I understand of Datomic temporal support is baked in, but it's about the only database I can think of that does that, and I haven't heard stories about it being used in production for large volumes of data.
and this is a top news on HN because?
So is this totally vaporware with a signup button to judge interest levels?