skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I wouldn't call amino acids "large complex basic units" at all, they may be bigger than an atom but 10-20 heavy atoms is hardly complex. Plus many amino acids themselves are synthesized in vivo.

Moreover, this misses the point somewhat, namely that the resulting peptide chain folds into a protein with essentially atomically precision. Atoms may not be placed one by one, but an atomically precise structure is created.
The whole issue of whether or not nanotech would end up just looking like enzymes was a big part of the famous Drexler/Smalley debate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drexler%E2%80%93Smalley_debate_...)

I always found Smalley's arguments that nanotech would end up looking like biology convincing. Not that I think it matters much: would designing organisms that take the shape of a part and excrete an "exoskeleton" to realize it any less cool than assembling the same thing atom by atom?
I think you're spot on. We like to believe everyone is motivated to achieve - but the truth is that most aren't.
I don't have any experience with Haskell, for data science or otherwise, but have been using Clojure a bit for such purposes.

The code I write is mainly for machine learning and natural language processing with "big data". Some of the libraries that I've found useful are:

1) clojure.core.reducers
2) core.match
3) incanter (lots of statistics-related stuff. Comparable to R, perhaps.)

Clojure handles XML, JSON, and YAML very nicely as well. Then you have Cascalog to run map reduce jobs without writing mappers and reducers explicitly. There's also Marceline, which is to Storm/Trident as Cascalog is to Hadoop/Cascading.

There are also libraries for serialization like data.fressian, matrix math like core.matrix. Prismatic had also open sourced three really excellent libraries that are useful for data processing.
There is a pretty easy solution to this. Customizable settings that indicate that you need the battery at X capacity at Y and Z times of day.

More concerning is battery wear (in my mind).
>They rewrite things from scratch with the next fancy-tech-du-jour, just to make the exact same mistakes again.

Exactly. That is certainly part of it. There is a tendancy to replace one thing with another, simply because we can.

>However, there is room for a solution in between

Making improvements, abstracting ugly details, etc., can definitely be a good thing and there are certainly projects that do this well. What I have learned to dislike is "solutions" that make the problem worse and that abstract the problem rather than the solution. The data access layer seems to suffer disproportionately here. For instance, with the OP, we now we have ugly database code with added layers. Over-engineering at its worst. Not sure why we don't just ask the simple question: is this really the simplest, most efficient, maintainable, way to do x?

jOOQ: thanks for the pointer. I will have a closer look, but at first blush, it is quite a bit like what I wrote all of those years ago. Perhaps I should have just pushed to standardize it. edandersen would have it on his resume, and we wouldn't be having this discussion. ;)
The piece is about the concerns of shareholders, so this other kind of value destruction is irrelevant in this context.

But even if it were relevant, it's still not value destruction because future cash flows are incorporated into the sale price. I.e. Whoever is selling it thinks they'll get more for it than if they operate it themselves.

In this case consumers simply aren't generating enough demand to support the product - i.e. they aren't valuing it as highly as the acquirer does. So the acquisition creates value.
Except the KGB hasn't existed since 1991. It's the Federal Security Service.
Time zone deviation (legal time minus mean solar time) around the world
This might not be very popular, but I'm going to say I'm in favour of the law being struck down. I'm totally on board with ISPs not throttling / extorting money out of web 2.0 companies, however, I'm not sure that trying to enforce a swiss-cheese law is the right way to do it.

That and I'm kind of biased, because I founded a company which is trying to level the playing field and make net neutrality de facto for internet services instead of de jure. Information is like water. Put a barrier in front of it and it will always try to find a way to flow through it.
To within 20%? Wouldn't care much. I can't envisage needing to drive a few hundreds miles without warning.
"I'm a white male and I am evil to them"

Name one person who has said this.
And this couldn't be in part because women have less free time across the board, about five hours less?[1]

Hard to get to tournament quality if you don't get as much time to practice.

[1]http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/06/10/another-gend...
Many of those bootcamps cost an arm and a leg and are selective in that they target well-off kids that get good grades and basically fit in. They do this intentionally so they can sell their prospects to potential employees and keep their numbers and reputation up which is just common sense on their part. I think the better route for someone that is a little rough around the edges is to do it on their own for a few years and then try to apply to a bootcamp. I did it on my own and then did a 3 month program called thinkful.com. Thinkful served as a refinement mechanism that introduced me to better practices and a bunch of nuances I didn't know about etc.
If I ran a venture firm, I would approach founders like a scout looks for talent for the NBA. People who start basketball in college and try for the NBA are clearly at a disadvantage. If a scout reported this correlation to Sports Center, it would hardly be considered controversial. Why is it that a hacker scout somehow becomes a target of the political correctness mafia? Playing in the NBA is hard, being a tech entrepreneur is hard. Fortunately, there are other ways of making a living than starting the next Facebook or playing in the NBA.
This makes no sense. The companies Apple acquires are not turned into anything. The personnel and technology are absorbed and deployed in the creation of future products, many of which are the most popular in the world. Value is magnified - not destroyed.
I cannot speak to how it differs from a CS curriculum, as I do not have a CS degree, but I vouch for the fact that a bootcamp can teach you way more than you would imagine you could learn in such a short amount of time (usually 10-12 weeks).
I am currently enrolled at TheMakerSquare in Austin TX, and knew virtually no programming when I applied. I didn't even know HTML or CSS and now, just a month and a half later, I'm spending my evenings generating rails apps and fiddling with code. It's a pretty impressive change that I most likely wouldn't have been able to do alone, or even with a good mentor.
I always tell people to find a problem to solve and learn coding on the way, rather than thinking of learning to code as an end goal, to more so think of it as another tool to problem solve, which you can learn how to use on your journey to build something to solve the initial problem.
OMG. awesome.
I don't. Neither, I'd wager, does djur, who you initially replied to. You should read his other posts in this thread.

He and I are both speaking of the practical problems of the mentality that governments shouldn't be involved at all, not arguing that telecom monopolies are a good thing.

You can't have a practical system of utilities of any sort without government involvement. That doesn't mean you have to have government-granted monopolies to nominally private companies. There are other options, like having the core utilities (e.g. fiber) be a public utility to begin with.
Macintosh Programmer's Switch
I believe a happy person would be made poorer (in the ways that matter) by winning the lottery. I'm the only person I know who doesn't want to win the lottery.
I would say read this:
http://www.techendo.co/posts/how-to-learn-to-program-in-10-e...
I agree with this completely, and I'll make a specific claim: eloquentjavascript.net is the best book to use.

---it's an online book that lets you run code right in the book

---it's the language of the REPL that everyone has access to (in the browser)

---js is dynamically typed, which I think is easier for people to grok (I learned Java first, and for months I was puzzled by this "public static void main (String args[])" that I had to start everything with. Public? static? main? void? JS has none of these, and while it's debatable whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, it's an unqualified good thing when first learning to code.)
you can work with it as easily as with the current data. I have at least not seen that in any other database.

At the cost that working with your current data is as hard as working with the historical data. This does not come for free, and the only way to have such a versioned history is at a significant cost to generalized query performance -- sure certain things (like a single scalar lookup) can be fast, but generalized queries will be terrible. I'm sure there will be some map/reduce claimed solution.

For me at least Datomic is the new standard and only if I have a special use case I would go to something else.

This is an incredible and rather ridiculous statement.
Maps launched poorly, but the alternative - not launching it at all, or delaying it, may well have been considerably worse.

That's why Cook let it out of the gate, but fired the engineering manager responsible.
Operational Semantics and Inductive Assertions
Also, Check out http://schools.techendo.co/ for reliable schools. We're also going to start offering a graduate and leadership school for dev school graduates called campendo: http://campendo.co/

If you're a dev school graduate I'd love to meet up with you over coffee and understand how we can improve the experience with Campendo.
I've been interested in the idea of developer bootcamps recently, because it might make a good trade school for developers looking to retool into a new language/stack. But, I have yet to meet anyone, in my circle of friends, who has acquired their coding skills from them. What is the business model around them like?
From Bunnie's page on his "open laptop" project:

"I'm shy on the idea of just selling it to anyone who comes along wanting a laptop. I'm worried about buyers who don't understand that "open" also means a bit of DIY hacking to get things working, and that things are continuously under development. This could either lead to a lot of returns, or spending the next four years mired in basic customer support instead of doing development; neither option appeals to me. So, I'm thinking that the order inquiry form will be a python or javascript program that has to be correctly modified and submitted via github; or maybe I'll just sell the kit of components..."

I hope he chooses the latter option.

If Bunnie is a "hacker's hacker" as someone else suggested in this thread, then I am confused why he believes the proper hoop to make a fellow "hacker" jump through is making sure they know some JavaScript or Python and how to upload to Github.

I thought "hacker's hackers", especially hardware hackers, were not the type to follow the path of least resistance, namely, JavaScript, Python and Github. Whereas, assembly and C (and FORTH, APL, Lisp, etc.) are the languages of the "hacker's hacker".

But that's just me. Maybe I am the only one. If so, pay no mind.
Rotating HUE wheel control for HTML5
The only meaningful measure of skill is the amount of pain experienced acquiring it.
Data Mining on the Side of Angels (CCC'30)
I don't know that book, but I just want to be clear that I did not mean to imply that free == bad. On the contrary, there are superb freely available books like Structure and Interpreation of Computer Programs. However, there are also superb books that cost significant amounts of money ($40+). Learning to program is worth a $50, or even $100 investment in a great book if the free books don't match what you're attempting to learn. They're able to sell for that price because they provide value that free alternative resources do not.

My main point is that in my opinion books, interactive or not, are still the best source for learning to program for many, if not most new programmers.
Nothing these dipshits do should be surprising. They embarrass themselves at their own expense. Look at this:
http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4086/4972735566_3d6ec0e7c4_b.j...
If they are still in school, tell them to take a class. I really got started (other than some BASIC in elementary school) with Java classes in high school. The structure of the class, regular assignments, and the fact that I would get a meaningful grade made me work a lot harder at it than I otherwise would have. Not that I wouldn't have worked hard, but as with any pursuit raw passion only gets you so far and a good instructor will help you apply yourself in the right areas and progress that much faster.

If getting a class isn't an option, there's always something like Learn Python the Hard Way, or if they have issues following just text, Land of Lisp is pretty gentle and friendly, if not as immediately applicable to say, mobile development.
I have a funny story. When I was about 14, I was told I was going to be in a newspaper story about students participating in mathematics competitions (national versions of the IMO). In the end, they cancelled the interview and did the story on two White guys of the same age who had placed much lower in the competitions. I guess its a consolation that nowadays both White and Asian males would make an equally bad story.
Technostalgia: Remembering our first computers
Only morons like the economist would look at the US not being interesting in getting involved in a war in Syria -- where we would have to choose sides between an evil regime and al-qaeda -- and conclude "This betrays both a lack of ambition and an ignorance of history." In fact, it betrays rather a good grasp of recent history -- see both Iraq and Afghanistan. Maybe America has finally learned to beware Republican assholes volunteering your (but not their!) children for war. One can dream, anyhow...
It's true that they cost a great deal. I've had pretty long conversations with the founders about the fact that there is very little likelyhood that someone without significant means could and come up with the tuition. That being said, I was making $35K at my job before I left, and that was the best job I had ever had because I wasn't working outside or serving food. I was accepted on a Thursday, and I quit my job with DeVry University (I was a teacher's assistant) the next day. I financed the tuition on a credit card and essentially moved all my chips to the middle of the table. Yes, it's risky, but if my risk tolerance goes down over time, the riskiest time of my life should be now.

Now that I've attended this school, I can pick up books about code and not feel completely overwhelmed. For this reason, I believe that if it's an option, a bootcamp is the way to go.

I also believe that the only requirement for 'fitting in' to one of these schools is to be easy to get along with, and be able to take the stress without becoming a jerk. This is more difficult than it would seem, as the course is pretty intense.
> What's your business plan?

Thanks, this is is a point I do not see expressed enough. Regulatory capture just one expression of a 'free market'. When you are a non-moral entity, free to do business however you want, you will cheat, you will find ways within any system to lock others out of your market, you will screw the customer for every last cent, you will break the law if you can get away with it - or at least the ones that do will end up ahead of the game.

Liberalists seem to believe that free-marketism is a self-perpetuating algorithm. But when the unit tests fail, they suggest it should be unleashed system wide without thinking through the consequences. If your competitor has locked you out, and you are a non-moral entity, and there is no legal recourse, what do you do? How do you break a cartel? Car-bombs?

The opposite of regulatory capture is not no regulation, it is public education and engagement and power. Consumer power is directly proportional to market freedom.

edit: cool, so what do you call them in the states? there is no such distinction in oz, the current governing party is the liberal party and there is no way in hell they are progressives ;)
I think this sums it up succinctly:
http://norvig.com/21-days.html
Transcription is highly specialized, and still makes lots of errors.
I wouldn't neglect the theory. Bad habits picked up can take years to break.

Find the best book ever written for your language of choice, its Crockford's book for js I imagine - don't know about other languages.

I would NOT learn to write code from random web resources. A good portion of the code on sites is horrible. There's alot of horrific PHP code floating around out there.

Except, find someone on Github who is blowing your mind with their stuff and read through their gists and projects. Succinct and easy to understand code is best. I did this for two hours last night and got more out of it than a month reading weak stuff and the more mediocre books..
An Ubernerd Weighs In
Because telcos are in bed with government. We don't really have a free market, it is virtually illegal to compete with the telcos. Some cities have tried and have been sued over it.

Yes the free market should decide, but we just don't have one. Net neutrality is an imperfect remedy at best, but letting the telcos run wild with artificial privilege isn't the answer either.
"Wanting to be able to draw has nothing to do with being willing to do whatever it takes to be able to draw."

"Gee I wish I could run a marathon" *sits on couch w/ bag of cheetoes"
It's Not Sexy, It's Not Easy, But It Works.
Clean Code by Robert C. Martin. It's not a book to learn how to code but a book that gives good habits on how to write clean code which I think is very useful regardless of languages.
We regulate car safety even though there is some competition among car companies. If competition did not lead to net neutrality, then we should still mandate it.

Also, it's true, as others have noted, that competition among ISPs won't be enough to ensure net neutrality because there can't be enough competition (either through regulatory capture or natural monopoly economics).

However, even if there were competition, competing ISPs have the economic incentive to discriminate. The economic modeling is available in the work of Barbara van Schewick (she wrote an amazing, and dense, book on net neutrality). So competition would not necessarily solve the issue, as it does not solve things like car safety (or safe housing). I'm a huge fan of free markets, but there are market failures requiring some government intervention in the form of contract law, property law and its exemptions, and regulation in specific situations.
You can't get this for free, given how big of a deal it is.

You have to prove it's happening or stop saying it all-together. It's just that big of a deal.
I... thought coding was cool.
The schools usually charge somewhere between $6,000-$20,000, with most falling somewhere around $8K-$12K.
The Maker Square has cohorts of around 40 students, split between two buildings, with multiple instructors in each room who help students as needed.
We start at 9:00am and leave the space around 5-7pm every evening. We don't have class on the weekends, so those usually end up being study days.
Top 5 Stuff You Are Paying For Which You Should Never Pay For
Is it really the web's weakness? Seems like user error to me.
I love the word "blamestorm" when any meeting starts to go that direction. As in "sweet, we're gonna blamestorm?"
... which are corrected.
Reminds me of an HP67 programmable calculator.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP-67/-97
it's from nov.
> A meritocracy based on raw intelligence and skill (measured by standardized testing) is not exactly what people mean today when they discuss "promoting diversity".

Well sure, but largely because the standardized tests are all biased against women and/or minorities. [1] Aside from that, what exactly is a "meritocracy"? What does that mean? You have to define it pretty carefully. HN is full of posts about making social connections to get what you want, so is it a sign of merit if someone has lots of social connections and can therefore get jobs/funding? I mean, is it common for startups to actually administer intelligence/IQ tests to their prospective hires before interviewing them? Be careful when making claims about "merit" because it can be defined in many different ways, and most of them are pretty unappealing once they are spelled out.

[1] https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=standardized%20t...
If the data didn't stir some emotion, it wouldn't have been updated to the front page.
Enzymes can add hydroxyl groups to molecules in specific locations. A hydroxyl group contains only two atoms. Enzymes can also remove a couple of hydrogen atoms and their electrons in particular places of a molecule. By combining these and similar reactions, cells can do extremely specific remodeling of compounds. For example, a single bond in a fatty acid chain can be turned into a double bond by the dehydrogenation reaction mentioned before, and then hydration and subsequent oxidation yields a keto group. The overall change represent the addition of ONE oxygen to the molecule in the same position.

This means that beta oxidation (the metabolic pathway where those reactions take place) of fatty acids involve manipulation of molecules at the atomic level. Drexler describes a path from biochemistry to molecular manufacturing in Engines of Creation. In fact, part of his argument is that biochemistry is similar to a great extent to the molecular machines he envisions.
Much as I appreciate a fat (Linux) client, the challenge is less device cost than administration.

The Android + Cloud model gives you a highly uniform user client which access all the fiddly bits in the Cloud. Until there's an absolutely bulletproof way of providing those services at the individually-provisioned level, that's going to win out for the vast majority of the public.

I'm not saying that the services have to remain as centralized as they are presently -- with Google owning everything (though this provides certain efficiencies). A more federated model in which there are multiple app and/or service providers to choose from _could_ come into being, and the present surveillance environment might help such an environment emerge, but the efficiencies of size and scale (as well as the very thin margins of such services) make this a stretch.

I've been watching a number of projects, most notably FreedomBox, for some time. They're pretty much precisely what you've described: cheap, self-contained, self-provisioning systems based around Linux (usually Debian and its excellent provisioning system), but there's been little noise out of the projects and progress seems slow at best.

If I could run my own servers (on an existing high-speed and highly reliable connection) without much hassle, it really would be quite attractive.
yeah, we're still waiting for the ruling. the only other thing that happened is that the current FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler made a comment that suggested he opposed net neutrality--arguing that Netflix should be allowed to pay carriers for better service. This framing (assuming companies want to pay, not that telcos are angling to get paid) is the framing placed by telcos, etc. Wheeler was once the head lobbyist for the cable industry, then the wireless telco industry, so there's been some concerns, particularly with those comments. some fear he'll do nothing meaningful if/when we lose the court case. See this ars technica article: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/fcc-chair-isps-sh...
To each their own. I just have a contrarian nature and always feel obligated to express it.