skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> a language that gives me reason to doubt that it is fully understood by the people who made it

It's really just one of the people who made it. Groovy has a non-technical project manager, and most of us who've programmed in corporate IT shops know how that goes.

A case in point: traits were announced for Groovy 2.2 ( http://groovy.329449.n5.nabble.com/Adding-Trait-to-Groovy-td... ) in June (2013). A rather lengthy discussion (55 messages) followed planning them, but the traits never came. The very last message asked what happened to them but the project manager never replied.

Another case: tech lead Jochen Theodorou began a discussion about changes to the meta-object protocol (MOP) for Groovy 3 ( http://groovy.329449.n5.nabble.com/Groovy-3-tt5710334.html ) in June last year (2012), kicking off a 91 message discussion. But the project manager canceled the new MOP, diverting Jochen into other work.

Again: Groovy creator James Strachan's very last Groovy mailing list posting ( http://groovy.329449.n5.nabble.com/Paris-write-up-tt395560.h... ) to that project manager who replaced him just before he left the Groovy development team in Dec 2005:

"The MOP and introspection APIs do NOT solve the horribly broken name resolution rules in the current RI of Groovy [...] I see no argument yet for why we have to throw away decades of language research and development with respect to name resolution across the language as a whole [...] It just feels totally wrong to break Closures across the entire language just because of some use cases for Markup."

The project manager's behavior is typical of non-technical people working in Software Development everywhere. E.g. on 29 August this year, Groovy's 10th birthday, someone added the project manager's name to Strachan's as a "co-developer" of Groovy on its Wikipedia page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Groovy_%28programm... ), giving him 3 titles (developer, project manager, and spec lead). I really had to undo it. Because the Spec was changed to dormant in April 2012 ( https://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=241 ) after being inactive for 8 years, I removed Laforge's "spec lead" title also. I also added the 3 technical people who are listed in Groovy's Codehaus repository as "despots" to give to Wikipedia page more truth ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groovy_(programming_language) ).

It's a pity how Groovy stagnated over the years, and maybe it's just a very public example of why "business people" shouldn't be allowed anywhere near programming language design and development.
Actually, hn has a "controversy" penalty that automatically downgrades posts with more comments than votes (kicks in at 40 comments) and pushes them down or off the front page.
Well, at least we now know the answer to Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Well, one advantage of looking at the new page is that you can kick off the discussion for an article. It's kind of fun to have the top-level comment once in a while. It's nothing I seek out, but it's fun when it happens.

You can also catch some things that relate to one of your interests, but don't have enough immediate appeal to make it to the front page.
I've done a couple successful Kickstarters for my comics. Here is some critique about your campaign, which might help explain why you're at 6% of your goal with half the time left.

I have never heard of "bob's game". So all this stuff about it being the game from inside the "legendary" "bob's game" just befuddles me. Big Kickstarter tip: assume that most of the people coming to your page will have never heard of you, or a single thing you've done, and make your pitch accordingly.

The video doesn't make this look too much fun; is it actually presented in this tournament view with a dude wandering around trash-talking you, and really annoying crowd audio loops over it? And occasional random green lights drifting around the picture of a monitor on the screen? Because the game looks kind of pretty in an abstract way, but that endless loop of a screeching crowd and three seconds of music makes me want to throw something through my speakers after a few minutes. It could be kinda fun to trance out to this thing if I was just looking at the actual game screen and hearing its noises, but given that all the screenshots match this video I'm going to assume it's got this super obnoxious frame around it all the time.

And what's going on in the video? I dunno. Where's some text telling me about the cool features of this game? I'm watching some blobs get dropped in a well, and there seem to be no consistent rules, or cues that the rules are changing. The shapes change, the effects change, and there's no rhyme or reason. Playing a game whose rules are constantly changing under me with no warning really doesn't sound like fun. The text suggests that this is actually one of the unique selling points of this game - convince me in your pitch that this is actually a cool thing instead of something that will constantly frustrate me.

Who are you? Why do you want to make this game? How passionate about making it are you? This is a crucial component of a good KS video: seeing the face(s) behind the idea, hearing the enthusiasm in their voice at the idea of getting to actually make this thing. Learning something about their credentials - what have you delivered before, why should I be convinced you've got what it takes to actually give me something?

Tiers: $4 for the game. $25 for beta/forum access. These tiers aren't doing much for you. Assume that nobody will ever pledge anything more than the base "gimme the thing" level, how many backers will you need? 1667 backers. That is insane. If the price for actually getting the game was $25, you'd have a much more feasible number of 265 backers.

Really, this feels like the only market for this is total ultra obsessive Tetris fans. I play drop-stuff-in-a-well games every now and then, but I'm honestly not moved by this pitch to even try playing a demo of it (which doesn't seem to exist anywhere?), much less spend any money on it.

Good luck, but I don't think you're going to come anywhere near success with this campaign. Scrap it and start again, after remaking your pitch and workshopping the hell out of it.
This is one of my biggest concerns: writing code vs. developing software. I'm trying my best to follow/learn best practices, but the contract job I'm at right now kind puts quality aside in favor of "JFGID right now!" And since I'm still fairly new, I feel like I'm taking shortcuts just to get things working in a timely manner sometimes.
The First Nvidia  GeForce Benchmarks On The SteamOS Beta
Student invents technology to produce world’s ‘cheapest’ power
I fucking hate that it destroys appetite as well as sleep schedules. It turns you into a zombie, it's terrible.
I agree! Personally, I would rather fly on a plane with no pilot that's driven completely with UAV guts from takeoff to landing. Yes, there will be edge cases where there will be failures. I just believe those cases will be far fewer than pilot error. AND with the resulting data, we can prevent those same edge cases from occurring again.
I think you're right, especially for someone fairly new. It helps develop a solid foundation of overall skill, upon which one can eventually choose an area to specialize. Thanks.
I would be amused to read the full text, but I didn't have the patience. Cool idea though.
And don't forget MS will support IE8 on Win7 until 2020!
plug for my own 404 :] http://pineapple.io/404
Great ideas, thanks! I'm especially leaning toward the open source route for a couple of apps I'd like to build for myself.
It's visible in view source:

"The requested document is no more.",
'No file found.',
"Even tried multi.",
"Nothing helped.",
"I'm really depressed about this.",
"You see, I'm just a web server...",
"-- here I am, brain the size of the universe,",
"trying to serve you a simple web page,",
"and then it doesn't even exist!",
"Where does that leave me?!",
"I mean, I don't even know you.",
"How should I know what you wanted from me?",
"You honestly think I can *guess*",
"what someone I don't even *know*",
"wants to find here?",
"*sigh*",
"Man, I'm so depressed I could just cry.",
"And then where would we be, I ask you?",
"It's not pretty when a web server cries.",
"And where do you get off telling me what to show anyway?",
"Just because I'm a web server,",
"and possibly a manic depressive one at that?",
"Why does that give you the right to tell me what to do?",
"Huh?",
"I'm so depressed...",
"I think I'll crawl off into the trash can and decompose.",
"I mean, I'm gonna be obsolete in what, two weeks anyway?",
"What kind of a life is that?",
"Two effing weeks,",
"and then I'll be replaced by a .01 release,",
"that thinks it's God's gift to web servers,",
"just because it doesn't have some tiddly little",
"security hole with its HTTP POST implementation,",
"or something.",
"I'm really sorry to burden you with all this,",
"I mean, it's not your job to listen to my problems,",
"and I guess it is my job to go and fetch web pages for you.",
"But I couldn't get this one.",
"I'm so sorry.",
"Believe me!",
"Maybe I could interest you in another page?",
"There are a lot out there that are pretty neat, they say,",
"although none of them were put on *my* server, of course.",
"Figures, huh?",
"Everything here is just mind-numbingly stupid.",
"That makes me depressed too, since I have to serve them,",
"all day and all night long.",
"Two weeks of information overload,",
"and then *pffftt*, consigned to the trash.",
"What kind of a life is that?",
"Now, please let me sulk alone.",
"I'm so depressed."
I think you guys have found a niche that's ripe for innovation and a shakeup of the establishment. Wedding dress shopping has to be the most ridiculous endeavor I've witnessed.

How does Something New solve the inability to try on designer dresses? You offer a dozen dresses, but no designers are listed. If I wanted say, a 2014 Vera Wang dress and knew exactly which one, could you help me?
With the rise of Google Play Services, we might consider the Android "fragmentation" charts even more useless than this article claims they are.
I suppose you can say he is a sort of Parental Guidance for HN.
This was pretty much my plan for when my current contract ends. Glad to hear it worked for you, thanks! :)
I seem to remember from a job I used to have as an analyst that advertisers have a few ways to discern human and bot traffic. They don't pay for traffic that is known to be from bots. However there are clearly some bots that aren't accounted for this way, and some that are designed specifically to trigger ads.
I think I'll avoid it as well. I wouldn't want to accidentally ruin it.
The Internet access cost tends to be higher than advertising cost. You can just compare revenue of AT&T to Google. I pay about $600/year for cable internet, and my advertising value is much less than that. As long as bots pay for the internet access, I think it is just fine.
bingbot
The author writing this article picked up something nonsensical - the entire second half suggested they knew little to nothing about the IPv6 protocol, and this devices implications for such, including statements like, " formally launched in June 2012. "
I wondered how they distinguished bots. The only info I found on the study [1], on a quick search, says:

"For the purpose of this report we observed 1.45 Billion bot visits, which occurred over a 90 day period. The data was collected from a group of 20,000 sites on Incapsula’s network"

So, in the first place, not necessarily representative of the web generally. And it does not say how they detect bots. Of course some declare themselves [2]; otherwise I guess one would have to rely on captchas [3], which are known to be of limited reliability and subject to an arms race.

1. http://www.incapsula.com/the-incapsula-blog/item/820-bot-tra...

2. kristopolous on this page, '(bot|spider|crawl|aggregator)'

3. which Incapsula does, as a condition of access to its summary of its previous similar research.
Pygram - Open Source Grammar Analyzer
There are many things there to unpack.

Where do you live where "every single bicycle commuter" has been in at least one accident which is "much worse than an auto accident"?

Can you be more definite about what you're comparing? It seems like you're talking average-case car-car collision with worst-case car-bike collision. The worst-case consequence of an auto accident is, what, the Ibadan tanker truck explosion in Nigeria which killed 100-200 people? And it's not hard to find reports of car crashes which kill 6 or more people.

(For that matter, every walker and runner I know has been involved in accidents, like tripping, falling down stairs, or hitting a low branch.)

There's nothing preventing you from wearing a helmet when you ride. I know people who don't feel safe unless they have lots of reflectors. I don't feel safe when I have to ride on a road with cars, except during the non-rush hours during the day.

The problem about scenarios is they exclude the cost/benefit discussion. I can easily think of a scenario where wearing motorcycle body armor would help. For that matter, I can think of a scenario where wearing a wet suit while cycling would useful - what if you fall into a cold river while crossing it? I could probably come up with a good reason for bringing an air tank - if a tanker car crashes and releases toxic fumes in the air, then you can still breath and get away.

The point of the article was that the cost/benefit calculations for a bike helmet are complicated. There's no clear signal that they are useful. There are scenarios where they are useful, yes, and scenarios where a helmet requirement is a net negative. Both are mentioned.

You say the risks are "downplayed." Did you not read the article, much less its references?

You ask "Should we encourage motorcyclists not to wear helmets?" That's a very different topic. As the article points out: "a recent study identified two broad subpopulations of cyclist: “one speed-happy group that cycle fast and have lots of cycle equipment including helmets, and one traditional kind of cyclist without much equipment, cycling slowly.” The study concluded that compulsory cycle helmet legislation may selectively reduce cycling in the second group."

I am a member of that second, slow group. I bike at about 18 kph. This is slower than the fastest marathon runners. I believe there's an evolutionary argument that running speeds and slower are generally safe for the human body. (Either that, or we need to start putting safety gear on Usain Bolt!)

But motorcyclists and moped riders, downhill skiers and Tour de France riders, all go at a faster rate. The energy in a collision goes as the velocity squared, so there's 6x more energy in someone going 45 kph than at 18. This translates to a lot more possible damage, so more of a need for protective gear.
Because it's fun. Seriously, if you don't like it, don't read it. If you do like it, that's all the justification you should need.

You don't need to justify your library to anyone but yourself.

Not every book needs to teach you some fundamental life lesson for it to be worth your time. Thinking like that is a quick and easy way to burning yourself out. Let your hair down and relax with it. Take it to bed with you and loose your imaginations. Have fun they way you want to.
I don't mean that kind of feedback. I mean the feedback you get that teaches you to the limit of the vehicle's operational parameters.

For instance, when I started driving, I sometimes used the brakes too aggressively, and experienced a number of "micro-skids". These experiences quickly taught me how hard I could get away with pushing my vehicle. But it's not something I'm consciously aware of: my foot just automatically reaches for the brake pedal at the right moment. There's a subconscious "anti-skid system" built into my brain.

And that's the way it has to be. I couldn't possibly maintain conscious awareness of all aspects of vehicle operation. I'm not that smart!

The Airbus control scheme takes that feedback away. Pilots don't directly control the plane at all. They merely tell the plane what they want it to do, and the plane's control system decides whether it's a good idea or not. If a pilot does something that would stall the plane, the plane just doesn't respond.

I suspect that this causes the Asiana 214 pilot's subconscious "anti-stall system" to atrophy, to the point where he was no longer competent to manage a Boeing plane. The bit of his brain that automatically monitored flight speed and the red pips was no longer functioning. More seriously, his higher faculties were not aware that his subconscious systems could no longer be trusted (beyond a vague sense of unease).

Well, that's my theory, but note that I haven't explained why the instructor didn't spot what was going on.
> you write as though you have some doubt that the effects are real.

I'm sure that for some people there is ADD, and that the meds are an important part of being able to function.
Ouya is a commercial flop, sorry. Even if you like the platform, there is no money to be made there and it seems you very much want to make some.

Also your kickstarter is horrible. Most people will decide within seconds whether to take a closer look at a project or not. And the first impression here is "glorified Tetris". That is all most people will see and thus move on.
Man Versus Machine: When It Comes to Scale, It's Advantage Computers
wow, that's dark.
Since you're here, I have to ask: whatever happened to the nD? If it failed, why did you just abandon the forums instead of letting people know? I mean, your credibility was already hurt because of Bob's Game's publicity stunt fiasco, why didn't you give any assurances to the community there? More importantly, after 2 projects which just vanished without any explanation from the author (you), how do you expect anyone to believe you'll deliver this product?
Sure, I share 2 stories I like to explain with:

1) When someone wants to hire a web developer, I say, make sure they don't just know how to do things limited to a few ways. You will inevitably run into needing to do things that you did not expect and don't want to be beyond the technical skills of who you hire, so hiring someone with barely enough skills to put together a Wordpress site using the admin only will certainly not be able to code/modify much of anything custom you might need.

If you hire someone with a higher technical ceiling, who has more skills than what you need at the moment (knows more/knows that they can learn what they need), they will be better positioned to not only grow with you, but give insights instead of just saying yes to everything.

2) Let's say there was a time where the only way to do Windows Updates was manually, by hand on each computer.

Companies would hire someone to come in, once a month, to perform updates on each computer. Service Providers would spring up, providing windows update servicing, which could be relatively taught to anyone. They might have a minimum of technical skills, but they could follow along to a certain point. The ability of the service provider to grow, now was limited to how many windows update patchers they could hire, train, and retain, which over time, meant, hiring less and less technically skilled people to do the work to grow the business as much as possible.

The result? The IT company's had demand for windows updating, which it wanted to grow, and now you had to find people who could do this, and keep doing it reliably so the business could grow. Windows updates become it's low technical ceiling, and it became integral to their business to keep customers dependant on hiring them every month to do it because it's about the limit of what most of their techs could do. Ask those people to solve something else? Too many will try to fake it till they make it.

A high technical ceiling? The IT company that might do it a few times, recognize it to be a very bad use of their time, instead offer to teach the customer how to do it for themselves, and request that they instead invest the saved money in IT services that might help the business more directly, and be a part of learning things with them.

The tricky part of all this? Realizing how much more skill than you need to hire.
Everything the article says about the problems with set theory as foundations of mathematics rings true. I haven't had time to investigate homotopy type theory yet, but I hope that it lives up to the claims in the article.
Awesome. Can VirtualBox or VMWare run this?
And yet another perpetuum mobile. Does not work, is scam.
The Sanskrit verse for the value of pi
I agree that automatic creation of indexes looks like a reasonable thing to do for a database like Oracle. Oracle could gather statistics and auto-create indexes where it seems fit, i.e. where there is a lot of querying and little writing going on.

In a way, this is what caches can do. Besides that, Oracle is already very good at giving you statistics and tuning hints to help you assess where you could add an index:

http://stackoverflow.com/a/2937047/521799

DB2 and SQL Server probably have similar tools. As far as I know, they all don't go as far as automatically creating or dropping any indexes.
HoTT is really fun. I'm particularly interested to see if the computational behavior of univalent and higher inductive types gets sussed out (or else, like Bob Harper, I shall have to pick up my toys and head home). Computing with univalence and HITs sounds lovely, if only we could figure out how to do it...
There are only 14 hours left, not half the time, so this is the last chance for it to succeed. I doubt I will make another Kickstarter.

I don't have the equipment or resources to really edit a better video. I think it's important to just let the product speak for itself. I really believe in the game and that it is the first puzzle game that is genuinely better than Tetris, which is perhaps the most difficult game development feat.

The tournament setting will not be there in the OUYA version, it is the final scene from the "bob's game" RPG. I haven't had the chance to make a build outside of that context yet.

I want to keep the game very inexpensive so that many OUYA owners will buy it and make it more fun for everyone by having a larger tournament pool, and I can't really offer any greater value than the game itself. I don't feel right selling a poster or a t-shirt for more than the game, since the game itself took so much more effort.

I appreciate your critique and I understand where you are coming from and why your suggestions are successful, but I don't have the resources to do what you're suggesting, which is why I'm doing the Kickstarter in the first place- which is really in the original spirit of Kickstarter itself.
It's an homage to this fellow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_the_Paranoid_Android
i never thought that a 404 site could be so depressing...

+1
Gotta love Stonebraker!
It is Marvin the Paranoid Android from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

This was originally a tribute to Douglas Adams when he died.
That's because its not. I can't even tell if I'm running 4.1/2/3/4. I have a Nexus 5.
Show HN: Girls for Hackers (Improve your confidence with women)
Flickr photo recommendations weekend project
Fundamentally, the two problems (max throughput for transactions vs. query flexibility) are different. So while you may build a jack of all trades system that can do it all, but if you keep growing, eventually you'll need to make tuning decisions that negatively impact queries or throughput.

The solution in most cases is to maintain transaction and query optimized databases separately.
What is a good way to get started with this literature? And is it better to read theory first, or read theory in conjunction with using languages like Haskell and Coq?

I studied a lot of mathematics, and I find this fascinating, but I've found it hard to read the literature on type theory, and mathematical logic also.
List of SaaS solutions to jumpstart your MVP
i'm depressed.
61.5% of Web Traffic Is Not Human

I, for one, am glad that human trafficking over the web is down to only 38.5%.