skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
From a development standpoint, no. But I used to work for a company that did this because they wanted to make it as easy as possible for their users to recover their passwords... by emailing it to them...
The article seems very loose with its terminology which makes it really confusing. For example:

> Albert Einstein and just about every other physicist insisted that light travels 186,000 miles a second in free space, and that it can't be speeded-up or slowed down. But in 1998, Hau, for the first time in history, slowed light to 38 miles an hour, about the speed of rush-hour traffic.

Hau did not slow down light in free space so this has nothing to do with Einstein's statement.

What I would like to know is, is underlying fundamental mechanism here similar to or the same as what we know as refraction? From all the descriptions it sounds awfully similar, other than the extreme(!) nature of the slowdown.
Thanks for the GV Mobile heads up. Just installed it. It's still not perfect, but it's better than the Safari version.
The TL;DR nutshell: Appropriate sales & marketing FTW.
A year ago I wrote a half-assed map/reduce in PHP. I partitioned a day's worth of logs across hundreds of gzipped CSV files by key hash, so I could run four reducers (the box has four cores) and each could suck a partition into 1/4 of physical memory.

After about six months of pathological random access (and what I assume to be epic fragmentation), the disk failed. I hope to migrate to our shiny new Hadoop cluster while the replacement disk lasts.
Well if we include business influences like they have then PG has been a pretty big influence on plenty I'm sure.

Steve McConnell and the guys behind The Pragmatic Programmer are more influential on a programming mindset than Atwood or Spolsky.

And you couldn't include Atwood before Spolsky at all, Spolsky has clearly been more influential to programmers. Perhaps because these guys are more web focused they have been less influenced by the more programming focus of Spolsky.
hn or google reader, depending on the mood
Good pick and yep I don't think it was proof read either. I couldn't say I know what Dijkstra looks like off hand but I thought the photo was too recent :P
Damnit, most of my best hacks could be considered proprietary, though I seriously doubt any of the companies involved would care. One that I can share:

I architected a game-creation platform so that all the game runtime code was both legal Flash and legal JavaScript, such that the same code could be inserted verbatim in both the JavaScript editor and the Flash compiled version.
Prior to the summer, I've been working part time at the local university bioinformatics lab. It's been incredibly fun and full of learning, and time consuming.

I intend to continue in September.

Other than that, I keep starting personal projects and failing to finish them.
No it isn't. Who do you think all these people buying Iphones are.

Stand your ground.
No, but I bought my freezer for $36 ;-)
So, you're saying that you do not backup your work ?

Making backups is one of the first things you learn about when you start using digital media. When you're 17 and you think you are old and wise enough to bring suit to a large corporation you are also old and wise enough to copy your important data.

It's funny how I get modded into the ground for an obvious observation like that, if something is important to you you make sure that you have a copy in case the original gets lost.

* I do not think amazon should have this right *

But the kindle has this facility and you can vote against it by not buying one.

Amazon has lost every bit of respect they ever earned from me because of what the kindle can do, it's a total travesty of everything an e-book should stand for, what's bought stays bought. An e-book should strive to be a BETTER book, not a worse one. Their DRM and books-on-an-elastic band should get them vilified in every medium. Personally I will never order another book from them - and believe me I've been a good customer of theirs.

But losing your homework because you haven't made a copy of your notes is not a ground for a lawsuit. We call that a learning experience. I'm sure everybody on this forum has lost some digital medium or other in the past and learned the hard way that backing up your data is a must.
I've been surprised by how poorly users in general deal with password resets rather than sending the password in plain text. Our website does password resets, and while it works reliably, and is roughly the same as any other password reset form (give it your username or email address, check email, click link; it's the standard Drupal password reset form, which is used by thousands of sites). Nonetheless, about once a week, I get an email from a user that can't figure it out; usually the reset email got filtered, but sometimes they just won't go through the form to reset their password...they'd rather send off an email to support@.

I don't understand it, but it definitely happens. So, maybe the folks who are choosing to save passwords in plain text are accepting the tradeoff in order to avoid having to answer as many support emails.

We actually save plain text passwords within our management apps for a few circumstances; but not for emailing to users and never on world-facing web applications. We offer the user the ability to use passwords in place of SSH keys for hooking up to managed systems in our cloud computing management product and in our cluster modules (though we generally recommend keys and SSL certificates); we also store MySQL passwords on behalf of users so they can manage their own databases from the control panel (this is akin to having MySQL passwords stored in configuration files for web apps, though it's a bit safer since only root can read them directly from the file system). Our webmail client stores user passwords for authenticating to IMAP/POP3 services (much like Thunderbird or Outlook do, only we do it server-side). So, it isn't "benefits" per se, in our case, it's that there's functionality that users want that can be done no other way. They could be two-way hashed, but if an attacker has obtained root, they would have access to the key needed to decrypt the hashed passwords, anyway, so it seems pretty silly to pretend like something is encrypted if the attacks needed to be able to access the plain text would also grant access to the keys for decrypting.
I find this to be a confusing article. So, I couldn't resist to spend "10 minutes" to point these mistakes:

"10 minutes to come up with something amazing"

It's impossible to think of something amazing in 10 minutes.

"We aren't rich because we have cheap ideas, or can develop easily, we are rich because we have friends and support. "

This is conflicting to the title of the article and in any message attempted to be addressed.

"We will never succeed with selfless promotion, so don't do it!"

Who said a startup is about self promotion? If you are doing a startup for that, you are doing it already for a wrong reason. Of course you can be proud but the difficulties will really keep you rather silent and in need for focus on the real issues.

"Build something fun, not serious at all, that has no tool or function that people can use."

the world would be a big Disneyland if everything built is not serious, fun and had no function whatsoever!

"But if you have something great, make it sound like it's for the masses."

what do you consider great? and since when great things are targeted for the masses. Probably the best "toys" are exclusive to those with more money.

"Otherwise, if you have no crazy educational background, awards, job positions at big companies, nobody takes you seriously."

Again, expecting approval is the wrong way to go. Feedback is good, but if you are in need of approval to go after something, it's probably because you are not ready yet (lack of desire, lack of expertise or belief in your abilities etc).

"Development is pretty easy as well"

since when? If you are not building something new yes it probably is. But then you'll probably wont be a startup.

Also, the article began saying he will not share experience and the article is full of "advice" derived from personal experience, which may not complete yet, therefore there will be wrong conclusions that are not helpful for most.
The only thing I somewhat agree is:

"Don't go out to places like Hackernews, TechCrunch, Mashable, etc hoping to pitch your idea."

Of course you should know your audience and what you are building.

If ideas were cheap and everyone was able to think of something "amazing" the article wouldn't be full of confusion.

"This isn't an article about my experience"

There are many other mistakes. But to conclude I'll just say that the author began saying that it's not about his experience when the whole article is based on them, from which someone can see that these are current/already expired point of views which will change accordingly if more experience is gained.

Yes, ideas are cheap judging from the whole article. Otherwise, the article would be filled with correct ideas.

Continuing flow of ideas and execution is what is hard.
Amazon found out they never had the rights to sublicense that book.

So, instead of paying a fee to the publisher to settle the case they decided to reverse the deal end-to-end.

This should have been impossible.

Suing over just that has my vote, the homework issue doesn't enter in to it at all.
The article says: “any competent developer out there can make basically anything”.

He really should read Software is Hard: http://www.gamearchitect.net/Articles/SoftwareIsHard.html

Also, while ideas are cheap, that does not mean that all ideas are lucrative or practical, and lots of people are not able to come up with product ideas or be able to judge the feasibility of an idea.

Lastly, there are actually a lot of people making a living in this virtual economy based off their ideas.
This post offers some informative insights. I am reminded to at least consider proactively filtering content, etc.

I thank the author for his contributions toward helping other startups.

With that said, this tastes a little sour to me. He is saying "other businesses should be doing what we did". With all do respect, what you did got you to where you are. He is saying his business was honest by not skewing user numbers and engagement. Which is also implying that if they did, they might have secured more investment, or raised their ad rates.

The problem with Sampa is that their target market has fundamentally low market value. Share family photos online?

Aren't there about 44340902342034 services offering something of the sort?

Lastly, I'm surprised to read that Sampa had an advertising based model. I guess that shines some light on why they chose the market that they did. I mistakenly assumed any website creation system would be SAAS. Perhaps if Sampa would have stuck with saas, they would have switched to a new, more lucrative target market.
Like who? :/ Apple??? yeah funny.
I believe Jason Fried isn't even a programmer?
Google Reader than HN
A New Approach to Fusion
I think you are right. There is a celebrity culture around around the Internet at the moment. Just having a blog is enough to get you on the guest list.

What happened to Anders Hejlsberg and Niklaus Wirth for example?

Oh wait the domain webdesigndev.com gives it away. Web design is not programming proper!
Live Decisions in C Programming Language.
It's a sting operation.

Retailers: Need to cut back on staff, but don't know where to start? Let us help...
Well, here's one that, erhm a friend of mine, did.

dating has moved online, and the key to getting laid is basically to get as many contacts going as you can. It's like a funnel: The more you put in at the top the more comes out at the bottom. The problem of course is that all that initial contact and writing back and forth with potential subjects is somewhat timeconsuming.

Enter the magic of webscraping and hacking.

It's not hard to make a program that will send a standard message to a chosen group of profiles on a dating site based on search criteria. It's not hard to make an interface that let's you do the initial round of communication with the people that respond in an interface that's somewhat more optimised for communicating with a lot of users at the same time. Once you get past the first three or four messages it's time to move on to the more personal aspects of communication. It saves a lot of time, and you only spend time on girls that have actually shown some interest.
No, that is not at all like that.

Paper has one expected set of behaviours, and paper manufacturers stealing back the paper is not entering into the equation. Paper is subject to other kinds of 'dataloss', such as but certainly not limited to fading, burning, tearing and so on. So if notes on paper are very important to you you keep them in a safe place and you make sure you do have that copy in case it gets lost.

The kindle is not a piece of paper. It's a digital device that has some absolutely draconian measures built in to its software. You lease the books until amazon decides to yank them back. Maybe you'll get your money back. They can reverse the deal any time they see fit. Your 'bookshelf' on their servers loses books magically after you've reloaded them a couple of times.

It's an absolute piece of shit from a rights perspective, and I really think they ought to be sued in to the ground and boycotted over this.

If you use the kindle to annotate a book and that book gets yanked back to amazon - for whatever reason - you lose your notes. This is purposefully built in to the device and it is a direct consequence of the way amazon manages its publishers rights.

I think that on e-books the right of first sale doctrine should apply just as it should on 'paper books'. But if you annotate a digital book on a digital device that has these 'features' and you have been advised about them in amazons terms of service, quoted:

"Unless specifically indicated otherwise, you may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content"

In other words you never 'bought' an e-book you licensed a limited right to use.

and then:

"The Device Software will provide Amazon with data about your Device and its interaction with the Service (such as available memory, up-time, log files and signal strength) and information related to the content on your Device and your use of it (such as automatic bookmarking of the last page read and content deletions from the Device). Annotations, bookmarks, notes, highlights, or similar markings you make in your Device are backed up through the Service. Information we receive is subject to the Amazon.com Privacy Notice."

Amazon claims they make a backup for you.

So, in short, contact their customer service and ask for a copy of your notes, that's in their terms of service.

And never ever buy an amazon product again.

And never subscribe to a service without reading the terms of use.
Low cost automation in the hands of small biz and individuals is the next industrial revolution.

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/
Schneier responds to that in the comments. It comes down to "key diffusion". Not a crypto guy, but I assume this is basically a matter of statistically distributing the key's properties as evenly and as quickly as possible. In other words, you want the key to die of "heat death" in the cipher text as soon as possible. Because the 256 bit key is longer, it's harder for it to do so. Hence more rounds are needed to further randomize the result.
I used ctypes to change the base class of Python's GeneratorExit from Exception to BaseException because the official patch didn't make it in until 2.6.

import __builtin__, ctypes

class ImvuGeneratorExit(BaseException):
pass

__builtins__['GeneratorExit'] = ImvuGeneratorExit

__builtin__.GeneratorExit = ImvuGeneratorExit

ctypes.c_void_p.in_dll(ctypes.pythonapi, 'PyExc_GeneratorExit').value = id(ImvuGeneratorExit)
Do we really need the constant Apple/iPhone/app store whining on here? It's really overwhelming. And in the end, who cares?
Ebay In Litigation With Skype Founders Over Key Technology
He is not, and if someone from 37 signals should be on a list of influential programmers, surely it should be David Heinemeier Hansson (creator of the Rails framework).

But definitely this list is crap! From my list of “who is missing” is Alexander Stepanov, the creator of the standard template library and an advocate of generic programming.
hey jamie!

Get about 100k-120k/mon uniques with my tracking (http://pstam.com/i/ac2e01d23b0c4e03ba265bb271c03ab0.png), but its a far cry from when my blog was in its prime and would get 300-500k views/month. I've always wondering what I could make if I did that full-time...

as for "How do you monetise your blog? Just through ads? What kind of ads?"

I have a few streams, but I am far from whoring my blog out with ads so my $'s are conservative. Mainly I have an SEM firm that sells ad space on my site, affiliate stuff for my usenet host and affiliate stuff for the theme my blog is based on. Everything is relevant and tech related.. no random adsense.
Mail, Reader and HN, in that order, but before them all I spend the better part of an hour with a newspaper (yeah the one thats printed on newsprint which you gotta pay a subscription for).
DRM and physical properties are not applicable to the same objects. DRM refers to data+software to unlock that data.

A physical device could be the carrier of a DRM'd piece of data but it has nothing to do with the carrier itself.

Data is just streams of bits no matter what carrier they're on. That data could be encumbered with DRM or it could be 'plain'.

You never 'own' a piece of DRM'd data, these are almost exclusively limited use sublicenses. It's not like buying a book or a record (the vinyl kind). It's more like buying a movie ticket.
The annotations still exist, amazon claims they make backups of user annotations on their servers.
It does make you wonder about eBay's M&A team if they buy a company for $2.6Bn but still have to license the key bit of technology from the people they bought it from, AND with a license that the other side didn't have to renew.

Should at least make for an interesting lawsuit and a nice pay day for some lawyers!
True. I'm not interested in the furniture that is hardware either. I'm interested in computing, not in computers.
Yes. It's the same, just on a more extreme level.

Light can NOT be slowed down - at all! What happens with refraction is the light is absorbed by matter, then re-emitted, over and over, which effectively slows it down.

In this case the material that absorbed the light takes a very long time to re-emit it.
I could imagine that a lot of angels wouldn't want to reveal themselves here in fear of being overrun by wannabe entrepreneurs. I'm sure there are quite a few though. If I was an angel this is a place I would definitely watch.
Tour to Pushkar
Heritage tours to Rajasthan
Simply, this list is crap
Another contradiction: there is Linus Torvalds… and not Richard Stallman. It's like pretending the Linux kernel is more important than gcc and the rest of GNU.
If I Were A Rich Man
Beware of MySpace - The Ads Will Infect Your PC
I wholeheartedly agree. Windows 7 is an excellent operating system. People jump to conclusions too quickly.

The challenger of Windows Vista is not MacOS X or Linux, it's Windows XP.
Check out this great docu http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/zero/ witch shows more of the Bose-Einstein condensate.
The reason why everyone's having this problem is because I only released 20 coupons, which were used pretty quickly. I've released 20 more - they should work now!
Every time light reflects of some surface this happens. The light excites the (electrons in the) material which then gives off 'new' light.

We still call it reflected light as though the photons somehow bounce off. They don't. They get adsorbed and are then re-emitted. But they might as well be the same ones because we can not tell the difference.

There are variations on this, specular reflection (think of a mirror) and diffuse reflection (think of a wall), the difference lies in the direction of the outgoing photons.
PostRank debuts Data Services
So when was Microsoft successfully competing in the market of fashionable consumer gadgets?

If you're looking for Microsoft's decline you must look at the sectors they actually dominate. And considering this whole question by way of intense californian navel gazing is not going to predict anything in a world where 100% of growth happens in Asia.

Personally I don't get the kind of collective, almost supremacist, enthusiasm for the quality of Apple products. I've been using some Apple products pretty intensively (MacBook/MacOS X, iPod, Xcode) and I remain largely unconvinced.

I love computing. I love what I can make computers do in terms of analysing and transforming data. But I don't like computers.

So when the first thing Apple tells me on their homepage is that some hardware thingy is now "unibody" they get blank stares from me. I guess people are just very different in that regard.
#1

Using a negative index on an array in order to get around a signed 16 bit limitation. Just stuck another blank array of the same size in front of it in the memory map and kept going.

For all I know that code is still running :)

It was quite hard to convince the compiler that I wanted to keep the never referenced/read array.

Stupid mainframes and their limits...

#2

In the 386 days you could get a separate co-processor, the 387 for float work (or a weitek if you had the money). The clock line between the two of them was shared but I found out that you could disconnect the clock pin of the 387 and connect it to its own oscillator to overclock it. That way even if the rest of the board could not be overclocked at least the float processor was. By carefully interleaving float and co processor opcodes you could then run a lot faster than you would have been able to otherwise.
The Miracle of Smalltalk's become:
Fair point, so perhaps I should wind it down a bit: it's certainly the least ethical website I've seen launched on HN.
Saying "the same" about light (and other subatomic particles) is meaningless. If the have the same state, then are the same, in the sense that they are indistinguishable.

So it was "just like" what was there, but not "the same" photon in the sense the photon did not exist for a while, and was recreated. And at the same time it was also "the same" photon, in the sense that the before and after photons are not distinguishable.

It should be noted that the "no cloning" theorem adds a twist: It says you can not copy a photon. This means that the matter that stored the photon can not be induced to create another one (like a hologram does).

So in that sense it was the "same" photon - because you can only ever create the original, and no additionals.
I assumed Alan Kay was going to be in the list, somewhere in the top 3.

After all, the mac UI concept (and hence Windows) could be traced back to him. He invented OO, and Smalltalk is still in use and his free IDE Squeak has produced one of the most amazing web technologies (Seaside). (One can even argue that Java is an attempt to combine Smalltalk with C++. )

Kay is also one of the principal leads of the Croquet project
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croquet_Project), pushing the concept of networking into a new dimension. Oh, and we could also trace the whole concept of laptops/netbooks to Kay's dynabook.

I think most of the people in that list should be embarrassed that Kay was not listed way above them.
How do you pay so much for a company and end up having to pay more for the technology. I don't even know why they paid so much for skype in the first place. Yes, the technology is cool, but not $2.6Bn cool. Even if they did have to license the engine it should have been perpetual with a buyout option. Then, again eBay must have been drunk off all the monies they are making screwing over users with insane fees.