skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
No need to apologize mediaman, I took no offense at your response.

I was neither insulting nor uncivil and I would absolutely say these things to any other parent of a 7 year old.

In my household we use google regularly to find things, like right now she's looking for summer programs in her area, she looks for animals she likes, she looks for cages for her new pet mouse... She has known and used google for years as have most of her friends.

And a child of 7 being concerned about a start-up making money? why would a child ask that? They are either (as I said) copying the oft spoken words of a parent or they are burdened with things that a child of 7 should not be.

"scheming about money" seems a little unusual. Mine likes to play shop, but she's much more interested in the natural world and leaves money to the grown ups.

My child also likes to go play outside, but she also likes to look things up that she has seen or found or heard about, just like me. I don't limit that, I encourage that. Being voraciously curious and knowing how to use a tool that can satisfy that is I think a true gift of living in the modern world and I very much want my child to be part of the modern world.

I'm sure you meant well mediaman, but if you are ever around kids you'll realize that every 7 year old knows about google.
You may want to consider the fact that the child not knowing what Google is allowed his father to introduce it to him. There were several benefits to this result that simply would not have been realized otherwise.
Wow, at $99, this is something I'll have to consider. The options I looked at last year when I bought my MBP were considerably more expensive.
A great list for the hardcore scientist or mathematician, but I'm not sure about the value of (say) Convex Optimization for a wider audience :)

I find the Economist book reviews (or if you're pressed for time, their end-of-year roundup) a great balance of accessibility and intellectual depth.
> So... In this case... Being diabetic is an advantage?

I take it this is a rhetorical question?

Out of interest, have you measured your HbA1c lately? Care to share it?

You aren't Polish, are you? I am interested in making an ancestry-map of diabetes-sufferers.
One should keep in mind though that divorce has about the same impact on a child as a death does, even worse in some cases.

Now, you'd never suggest that a child cannot be "normal" if they've had a parent die, but you'd never suggest it wouldn't affect them in a big way either.

I think as long as the realization is there, a parent can adapt.
You can find a criticism of _The Structure of Scientific Revolutions_ in _The Fabric of Reality_. I think that book is (significantly but not entirely) mistaken. One reason is the book can be seen as offering historical laws like Marx, which certainly aren't laws of physics, and don't follow from the laws of physics, and aren't scientific, and have no good reason that they must always be the case in all cultures. BTW Popper criticizes historical laws in _The Poverty of Historicism_ as well as more briefly in other books including C&R.

This is something of a side note in any case. tSoSR says people are prejudiced and emphasized new generations of people as important to progress. Popper mostly talks about how knowledge is created, not who creates it. So, his focus is different, and less psychological. If only the younger people are creating knowledge, that's perfectly compatible with most of what Popper says about how (anyone) can create knowledge (via fallible, tentative guesses, and criticism and subjecting ideas to severe tests).
s/hypthosesis/hypothesis/
The image isn't screwed up, just the in page scaling: http://www.flickr.com/photos/33766454@N02/3638277193/sizes/l...

It's nice how the 20" width lines up with the 30" height.
I agree with you about several of those books, but The Paradox of Choice - Why More is Less - by Barry Schwartz, was excellent. His work at Swarthmore was far from "junk".

Here's a link to his TED talk on the subject:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_par...
Is Opera Unite safe?
it's like a very smart person (who sadly I dont see much anymore) said to me:

"anything can be hateful if you scream it loudly in someones face"
middle mouse button isn't relevant in the context of a trackpad imho. I also don't see the need for it (except closing FF tabs).
Life in those days was very precarious. One bad drought and everyone would have been dead.

A nuclear war is not likely to kill everyone. Plus a nuclear war is not likely these days anyway.

The chance of a nuclear war today is far far lower than some disease in the middle ages, or a drought in pre-history.

Everyone focuses on nuclear weapons, but reality is they are very very unlikely to ever be used, plus illness is a much more severe danger. And the good thing about today is that we are much better prepared to handle a disease than at any other time in history.

And that's why we are less likely to destroy ourself now than at any other time.
EnterpriseDB Brings Postgres Closer to Oracle
With all due respect, what are 99 percent of people gaining from a book on, say, convex optimization? Yes, these are great choices if you're looking to become an expert on, say, physics. But not everyone is a physicist, nor does everyone need to be.

The point of the books on that list is that they are applicable to _many_ situations. You're not going to get oodles of "hard knowledge" from them, and I think people who go into them with that expectation are setting themselves up for disappointment.

Rather, they present some anecdotes -- some interesting, and some not -- and say "Okay, now think about these, and see if any of them can affect the way you do things." If you read a business book and don't bother to do the thinking/applying afterwards, you are, indeed, wasting your time.

The books on your list are ones that you go through, finish (though honestly, if you're just reading those books cover to cover and enjoying yourself, you're a better person than me... I'd use them as a reference at best) and can say "okay, I've learned something." The books on the original article's list are ones where once you've finished the book, you've only started learning.
I got the gefen, which is slightly cheaper from amazon. All of the converters seem to use the same displaylink technology, so reviews say they work the same, but price varies from about 80-160. There are some crazy ones for the MBP that can drive a 30 inch monitor and have an external gpu, but it was 500 and reportedly quite loud.
You're wrong. SEO will get you the visits, but Google monitors time on your site, clicks to related search results, bounces, and returns to the search results page. They use crafty machine-learning.

If you get a bunch of in-links, but your content doesn't perform (or worse performs in a spammy way), you're visits are going to tank. As I understand it, PageRank nowadays basically controls in what order Google will crawl your pages, and has some effect on your SERPs. But the algorithms are far from dependent on PageRank/popularity.

Content matters.
Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us 'time to deliver' on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND - Sen. Chuck Grassley

Ignore the content for a second and look at the grammar/spelling. I'm not sure if it's more sad or funny that this becoming one of the ways politicians communicate with the public.
MY PROJECT IS NOT A JOKE. ;-)
I agree completely - every single one of his points is something I've experienced personally, causing no end of frustration. I felt like I needed a degree because the rest of the world puts so much emphasis on it, but I personally gained very little from it. I know this topic has been discussed a million and one times on here - but I wish this was a much more public issue than it already is.
FWIW, here is my reading list http://deepak.jois.name/books categorized into different topics.

I am primarily interested in programming and tech, but I have tried to spread my readings into a wide range of topics, which I believe is a good thing.
Thanks again Smokey ;)
I've got one and find it only slightly faster than a close vnc session. A better option for me was to dig up and old computer and use osx2vnc to send just key and mouse to the other screen. This way, you get the power of a whole computer behind your second screen.
Cannot wait for the same thing for JavaScript.
Well, the guy is pretty smart. The books are likely to appeal to certain people and they will hurry and buy them and he'll make some cash. I was surprised it got to the first page.
So did the new feature break the object reflection inside smalltalk image? I like to hear more details about this.
I agree. It is my personal list, and I make no claims that the list is suitable to other people, let alone to a wider audience.

However, I believe that not all of these books are for the hardcore mathematician / scientist. For example, I think everyone would benefit from reading Fudenberg & Tirole's book on Game Theory, which allows one to understand strategic interactions (which are abundant in Economics and Public and Foreign Policy, for instance). Moreover, the Simplex algorithm is used by many people who don't know how the algorithm works or why. A couple of chapters of Convex Optimization would be educational.
I used to do the same thing with an old mac mini and synergy. But I couldn't quite get the synergy auto restart working consistently after the mini slept. Plus I missed not being able to move windows between the screens.
My old version of that page had a blurb about how I've included the ISBN number for every book there, so you can use your local library, bookmooch.com, or any book-lookup service you want.

I took away the blurb because it felt like a lot of "blah blah blah" and giving the ISBN was self-explanatory. But the old blurb is back now.

No need to click the Amazon links. That was definitely not the point of the page.
You misunderstood. I am NOT saying that content does not matter. I am NOT saying to game the system just for hits. Geesh. I love writing, and I write the best content I can.

I am saying that marketing is and has always been 90% and content 10%. That's true for blogging, for programming, for anything where you're trying to have an impact on people.

And it's not you, but I'm really tired of all the hand-waving and magic Google talk. I'm sure they have special powers that lets them see at night too, but they don't have the power to change reality. If you measure something and reward people based on it, people will game the system to increase the measure. No matter how complicated your magic system is.
> The truth is that college is one big party

I believe 100% this is THE most important part of college/university level education. The education part is minor because if you have a subject interest it will come fairly naturally (I do think if you have to force knowledge in there is no point trying).

Partying is socialising, building a circle of friends/associates and generally learning how humanity interacts. Indeed the education is partly just a way to validate the lifestyle to later employees (4 years dossing vs. 4 years "at college", right? :)).

Were I to have gone straight from school into the real world I would have failed and had no support network to catch me.

Now yes I do see what he means about letting people loose on real projects. BUT there just isnt enough incubator work to go around - and at the end of the day you do need some mundane background classes to get you started. The higher education model is broken, I agree, but scrapping it would be bad. Let people develop their social construct and let off steam - then make them useful :)
College is a weird beast. I stopped out to work on Publictivity/move to the Valley and now I'm back in school finishing at night. It still has no value to me in the real world. I'm a CIS major, and even though the "formal education" is nice, it just complicates things. The way students are taught to do database design + code makes me fully understand why most software sucks.

I don't think we could ever just get rid of college, but I think we need alternatives that aren't looked upon as some "rogue option". People like doctors and lawyers need formal schooling. There will always be corporate drones, but hopefully less will emerge over time. I am glad to see more and more are pursuing things outside of what the normal college path might present.

There's also the social issue, which is an important part of college. It forces you to meet other people. That's great for spurring ideas or even starting a company. My first "company" was with a bunch of people I met while in college. Everyone is now off doing their own startup after learning some of the ropes together. So, whatever the alternatives are to college, make sure you find a way to keep yourself social. It could be meetups, super happy dev houses, coworking,etc. Just don't isolate yourself.

//End Rambling
As somebody who attended college off and on, and in my 20s instead of right out of high school, I missed out on this. I think you're on to something there, ErrantX.

I've been a fan of some required national service for some of these same reasons. I think not only you, but society as a whole benefits when young people are put together and form support groups as part of starting off. It should be encouraged more.
Ah, this may be the crux of it.

My kid didn't ask because of Google-the-service or Google-the-website, but because of Google-the-company.

I assume this was because I was yammering about visiting MTV, about meeting up with their folks here in Boston, about people he knew working there and about struggling with the APIs.

BTW, I would be a little judicious about using the term "unusual" to describe anyone's kids but your own. I don't take offense because I think most kids are "unusual". And I'm quite happy with how happily unusual mine is.

But most people would.
Maybe rephrase "College Is a Waste for __fill_in_the_blank__ Majors"

Is college a waste for Doctors & Lawyers? Do you want a doctor to learn his trade on-the-job?

College is a big waste for a lot of majors, but certainly not in general...
MonetDB: designed for super-fast in-memory execution via vector operators; tends to thrash once you go beyond what can fit in memory since the algorithms aren't designed for that. X100 is supposed to address that but no one has seen it yet.

LucidDB: optimized for the case where your data does not fit in memory. Supports a lot of additional ETL-related stuff like upsert, Java row-level transformations, foreign data extraction, warehouse labels, hot backup.

Infobright: don't really know; their community edition is intentionally limited (e.g. doesn't support DML). Slightly smoother transition if you are already a MySQL shop.

Vertica: clustered, optimized for taking advantage of multi-sorted materializations, pricey (OK, the last one is non-technical).

Sybase IQ: don't know.
"The truth is that college is one big party"

you say that like its a negative

hey i was thinking that i would go off and screw gorgeous women in their absolute prime in between getting baked and wasted, but i thought i would rather stay in the basement and get "ramen profitable"

WHAT???
"With all due respect, what are 99 percent of people gaining from a book on, say, convex optimization? Yes, these are great choices if you're looking to become an expert on, say, physics. But not everyone is a physicist, nor does everyone need to be."

Convex Optimization for physicists??? Whaaaat? OK, consider Game Theory, Machine Learning, Operations Research. All have practical value and all require optimization. In fact, Machine Learning is mostly applied optimization theory. The Simplex algorithm is used all the time, in the most various industries. Yet once again, the need to know a bit of optimization theory is made evident.

Physicists don't really require the kind of optimization on Boyd's book. Unless one is an experimental physicist and needs to analyze data sets. Theoretical physicists usually work with infinite-dimensional optimization, i.e., variational analysis. I entirely agree that not everyone is a physicist, nor does everyone need to be... but picking Convex Optimization as an example was a poor choice.

The list is my personal list. It's a personal thing, and as such, it is non-transmissible. I am not trying to preach. I couldn't care less if the masses read junk...
My first boss (who was pretty good in forth hacking) told me not to spend too much time to read Knuth's books. He said those books are great, but people who read them tends to not able to write great programs. He advised me to try to finish some stuffs that works and learn from it.

I thought he was joking. but later I know any one can learn a lot when doing a significant project of his/her own! In reality. Knuth had to learn to program computers by himself then because few was programming computers then, he can only rely on his own mind, logic and experiment to write better programs and later he tried to summarize what he had learned in "textbook" and deliver them to us, and we know most of time, it takes more text to say it clear than do it.

Of course Knuth is not ignorant of fundamental stuffs. But probably the only way to gain knowledge in any unknown territory is to explore them directly. It maybe dangerous but it is the only way.
Iran Activists Get Assist from ‘Anonymous,’ Pirate Bay
I don't think Google's lying when it says that content is the "best" way to get people. Sure, a combination of terrific marketing and some gray to black hat SEO techniques will get plenty of visits quickly, but the solid content will be what keeps visitors coming back and referring a site to others. In that respect, good content isn't the "fastest" way to get people, but I'd suggest that it's still the "best".

Take the pop music example a step further. The most popular singers at any given moment will consist of those that are the most hyped and marketed, but that group will also have genuinely talented individuals who have maintained popularity because they are able to live up to the hype.

All that said, I agree that marketing and promotion is just as important as building a great product. That's basically the same thing as being able to communicate why something's great instead of hoping that people will just figure it out for themselves.
Windows CE on a netbook
downsides:
- No software that can work more than on 800x480, also every program thinks it's on a tiny touch-screen, full-sized, with two control buttons.
- No drivers. Maybe USB storage would work. No serial cables, no webcams, forget all of that. Irony: I doubt there's a Host ActiveSync, so no Windows CE smartphones syncing.
- Operating system sucks, therefore everybody beefs it up with proprietary "shells".
- The only descent browser, costs 30$.

upsides:
- It's Windows, so tehre should be PROFIT!
Wow. I thought this was a joke at first. I'm embarrassed for him.
I think there's a misunderstanding. When Google says "good content," what they mean is "content that is useful to people," not "content with a high level of artistic or technical quality." Useful in this context might mean "entertaining," "intriguing," "instructive," or "answers my question" depending on the type of content.

Content that is useful gets visited, linked, revisited, and relinked to more people; that content climbs the ranks of Google.
>The rest of the information (on how to interpret the data) can then be stored in the first mega/gigabytes of the binary data. Plain text ASCII only, ofcourse. No pictures, audio, or video. You could only include such data once you've told them how to build a computer and all necessary software.

That's OK. At these data density scales, a small room full of 10"x10" tablets would provide space for a LOT.

I'd imagine you'd encode media in some simple lossless RLE format which you would then describe.

Imagine being an architect in the year 27,000 coming across this stuff. I'm sure the value would be immeasurable, especially the video and audio! Can you imagine having HD "documentaries" from Ancient Egypt or Greece? How cool would that be!

As you can see, this stuff fascinates me.
Oh snap, I'm blowing up!

Hi everyone, this is my course (sort of). If you have any questions, leave them below and I'll do my best to answer.

ps. I'm hosting the course at my own domain at http://pentest.cryptocity.net
Something you might learn in college: 'replace' has a 'p' in it.
What I'd really like, is a way to express xml in xml, so I can be super-productive all day long recursively writing a single xml document.
You also get to meet people across a diverse range of subjects. I imagine working on hacker type projects would be great fun - but everyone would likely very samey :) I like that I can ring up a friend for help on some obscure historical reference in pub quizes :P

National Service; I'm totally down with that! Actually (slightly off topic) I've always been a fan of replacing young offenders institutes with something like enforced national service (the training stuff not the gun in hand stuff ;)). There was a great show here in the UK where they threw dossers into a "bad lads" national service camp and it had a real positive effect on them!

I think both examples (NService and college life) are about pushing you out of any comfort zones :)
To further clarify, we included companies that have been funded by Angels and VCs in the analysis, not acquisitions. Summize received funding from VCs before it was purchased by Twitter. Thus, Summize's VC funding was included but its acquisition was excluded. I hope this eliminated confusion.

Stephen http://www.chubbybrain.com
Going to become?
Seriously. I mean, only an idiot wouldn't want to buy "Personal Development for Smart People".
Convex optimization is a standard tool for theoretical physicists doing quantum information and quantum computing. And B & V is the standard reference.

(Don't want to engage in the main debate, but I think this is an interesting tidbit of information. It's an example where a part of mathematics has recently become useful in an unexpected way.)
Boiling it down to one word doesn't do the problem justice. Do you trust your developers with your code? Do you trust them follow code standards? Do you trust them with business secrets? Do you trust them with your house keys? Those are all different levels of trust. How do you implement a process with people who don't trust you or otherwise undermine attempts at change? Knowing what you're up against is more than half the battle.
Wow! I didn't know that! Thanks for the info. I know nothing on QIT / QC, but it's interesting and intriguing to see finite-dimensional optimization being used by physics people.
I'm glad to see that Jeff's posts have gotten a much more original. I was disappointed with his material when he was in the thick of stackoverflow stuff (when 80% of each post was quotes), but his material has gotten a lot better as of late.
I'm a student who is halfway done with a degree in Entrepreneurship. I often ask myself what the hell I'm doing, and the answer is simple--society says I have to. Now, I realize its all one big hoax, but I've stuck with it because of the relationships I have built thus far. With that having been said, I would happily give my $30,000/year in student loans to an incubator program that could actually get me started. Maybe Y Combinator needs to take a more "University" approach and allow students to pay for the education they provide.
whoa, I'd never really thought this one out, but it seems so obvious and yet so full of potential for misuse. How do people see this being (ab)used in the post Opera unite era? I can only imagine the horror...
I should be anti-Anonymous (because of my job). But I have always found them strangely attractive as a group: well, perhaps not the group per se but the ideals. I do like the idea that you can help make a difference as a "faceless million".