skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Having just finished reading 1984, I couldn't help but think of the children as part of the "spies". It's an interesting experiment, but I'm not sure if we want to start positively reinforcing the behavior in children to rat out adults on a regular basis. All it takes to ruin your life is one child, looking for some attention, to create a story with you as the villain.
Is this in jest, or should we take it seriously? I mean the generalized version of this, of course: are there any astronomical phenomena we currently see as natural that could in fact plausibly artifacts of artificial processes?
The Hunt for Gollum - a unofficial home movie by Tolkien enthusiasts
Steve Ballmer calls Apple's Mac growth a "rounding error"
I think the title is misleading. at the end of the article I think this sums it up well:

"let’s start right now and focus on the application as the central entity to our architectures, not the physical server"
Space isn't that big at all, actually. In a couple of thousand years we would be able to expand at a rate of almost the speed of light: go to a neighbouring star, build a colony in about a century, go to the next star. You'd spread out over a significant portion of the galaxy in only a few aeons.

It's not the gulfs of space that are huge, it's the gulfs of time that separate us. Stars' ages differ in billions of years. Maybe the total lifetime of the galaxy will harbour millions of civilizations all at some point, but rarely any at the same point in time?
All language is invented, every time somebody coins a new word they're inventing language. What doesn't work is to raise the barrier so high that people will have to learn a lot of new words at the same time.

Learning language is an incremental thing, and the pressure to learn it is dependent on the installed base.

An artificial language will be hard to spread because there is the chicken-and-the-egg problem, if enough people spoke it then there might be a reason to cross that huge barrier to entry.
Fiddling with a website and trying to arrange a transaction with one of these insiders is expensive for someone who earns $80 an hour. They're time poor generally, and they don't want to waste what little they've got.
This article is about spoken languages, but much of its spirit can be extended to invented [1] programming languages; that is, the likelihood, no, the inevitability of their being stillborn.

[1]: they are all invented of course
Back in 2000 or so I ran an AOL hacking website called AOL-Files.com. One day, BMB, my confounder, successfully tricked a high level AOL employee into divulging his SecurID pin, which was required in addition to the user's password in order to sign on to their AOL accounts. SecurIDs, FYI, are a keychain-like device that you carry around that displays a six digit number which changes every 60 seconds seconds. AOL used it as an extra layer of security for important accounts.

Anyway, BMB gets this information and signs on to the account. Usually by this time the employee has figured out that you stole his information and is in the process of reporting it, so you don't have much time. BMB immediately attempts to go to the AOL Keyword Manager, which lets certain employees manage where specific AOL keywords take you. As it so happens, this employee had that access (it was very rare).

BMB redirected keyword "Welcome", which normally takes you to the AOL welcome screen, to our site, AOL-Files.com. Every person that signs on AOL, you see, gets automatically sent to keyword "Welcome" when they sign on.

For 20 minutes, every person that signed on AOL got sent to our site. We got 75,000 hits before AOL finally fixed it.

For anyone interested, I've got an archive of AOL-Files up on my site, which has a security breaches section that lists a lot of exploits like this one, including one where we stole every three character AIM name: http://www.mattmazur.com/archive/aol-files/index.html

I no longer support stealing people's stuff, but I still think the keyword Welcome exploit was badass.
I wonder if he's ever had an audience that hit the chord properly when he spread his legs out on 1-3, and then what he would have done with that!
I apologize for the last sentence in my comment there. It's unnecessarily inflammatory.

The problem with your 'bad product' argument is that Windows is Microsoft's bread and butter. As Gruber pointed out, "Windows is at the core of everything Microsoft does that makes money."

The same isn't true for Apple TV or Google Knol. Neither of these are core products. Its why the article doesn't trot out the Zune as the reason for Microsoft's decline. Also, neither of those products are considered bad, there just isn't a large market for them.

The same can't be said for Windows, the market is huge for operating systems.

This article is something other than propaganda or blatant fanboyism. DF points out a serious problem for Microsoft, that "People who love computers overwhelmingly prefer to use a Mac today. Microsoft’s core problem is that they have lost the hearts of computer enthusiasts."

Yes, it's a blog about Apple. Yes, it's an article about the decline of Microsoft. But he identifies serious weaknesses in Microsoft's business, and he's not spreading misinformation. I don't think anyone who takes the software industry seriously would say Microsoft is down for the count, but they certainly have to start making better software (fortunately for them, Windows 7 looks just that).
Well, as a reformed biologist and current informatician, I certainly think that biologists should study CS. However, even more important than studying CS, they absolutely NEED to learn how to program. I've seen lab scientists use extremely convoluted and error-prone workflows to conduct their analyses and experiments- workflows that, if they knew just a little bit of Python, would have been much simpler. I'm actually teaching a class in the fall on "utility scripting" to a mix of molecular biology PhD students and informatics master's students for just this reason.

Regarding the age-old question of "should biologists learn CS or should CS people learn biology", I'm firmly in the camp of biologists learning to do their own CS, or at least learning enough CS to productively work with CS people. A little bit of CS really goes a long way towards improving a biologist's workflow. A little bit of biology, however, is almost completely useless for a CS person who wants to get involved in lab science. It really takes a surprising amount of domain knowledge to be productive in a laboratory, or even to understand the nitty-gritty details of an experiment at a deep enough level to write or modify an existing bioinformatics tool.
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>> "a phone that drops calls"

This whole "The iPhone drops calls" thing it like blaming Ferarri because your car keeps skidding on the dirt track roads in your country. If you want a telephone system that works, don't live in the US.
«Que l'on me donne six lignes écrite de la main de l'homme le plus honnête, et je trouverai de quoi le faire pendre !»

("Give me six lines from the hand of the most honest man, and I will find in them a reason to hang him!")

-- Cardinal de Richelieu, Mirame
UPDATE!

I hope no one was misled by the above false alarm; It seems like I have perfected a problem-solving technique known as "debugging through public embarassment". I just seem to catch agonizing problems the moment I write about them online or tell someone about them.

CLSQL:UPDATE-RECORDS-FROM-INSTANCE should NOT be fucked with; I am not sure how it's supposed to operate, but under MySQL, it will update all the records in a table and set them to the same slot-values as the instance. I.e. all identical records!

The feature I needed is cleanly implemented using WITH-TRANSACTIONS. Again, embarassed and sorry for the confusion.
This is a nice convergence of technology, and very cool and all, but am I the only one who is really bugged by them calling this "your own cloud system"?

"The Cloud" != "a webserver". This is a Javascript desktop with a PHP backend. It could run on a virtual server in a cloud, but that's not even the way they sell it. It's not even sold as an app service ala Google Apps.

Also, check out CorneliOS: http://www.cornelios.org/. Similar deal, but built in Perl.
Java is painful after experiencing .NET. I'm not sure this is really news though.
Excellent writeup, and he nails the fact that C# vs. Java is not the same as CLR vs. JVM.
Most of those sites also include a pet peeve of mine, tiny fonts and low contrast. Does anyone but web designers think they are a good idea? It's funny how designers talk about Web 2.0 design in terms of gloss and shades, and forget the most important element, the 16 to 20-point paragraphs explaining what the site is about.
Agreed. Languages and Frameworks are grown over time, not invented. That is why I have much higher hopes for Jython or Jruby than Groovy or Scala. Similarly all successful frameworks (Django, Rails and PHP) were extracted out of existing software, not invented.
Since this vulnerability is exploiting a bug in the sms delivery mechanism it could easily be stopped at the carrier by looking for sms messages that match the template for the exploit. My guess is this will be a shortlived panic.

The phone system isn't peer-to-peer (yet), centralization has its advantages sometimes.
I also found this article confusing. The title seemed to hold some promise but the arguments are random and not well thought. The author seems to say that those who make it and do get rich do so because they have the right pedigree--right school, right connections etc. Nothing could be further from the truth than this. If you make something people find useful, they don't care what college you went to. Conversely if you have the right pedigree--Harvard CS, Stanford MBA, previously successful startup and make something no one wants, they won't use it because of your background. There are examples aplenty!
Way back when I remember getting my hands on the earliest version of Green Eggs and Spam. After that I wrote my own spamming apps that signed onto AOL and had an instant messaging frenzy. Some nights I was making 500 bucks in my sleep.
The contention is between his claim that he's a bumbling computer nerd who accessed open unsecured computers and did no damage, and the military claim that he perpetrated the biggest military computer hack ever, rendered 300 computers unusable after 9/11 (?!), deleted weapons logs and caused $700,000 damages.

Which consequences are you ranting that he should deal with, exactly?
One aspect of the article that I haven't seen much discussion of is the second part- about representing biological processes using an algebraic notation. While this might be really helpful for computational biology, it strikes me as a lousy idea for general work, because it presents an overly reductionist view of what's going on. Biomolecular pathways are almost never as simple as they seem at first, and they always interact in weird and complex ways. Presenting them as a big, gnarly, nasty diagram communicates this to readers... explaining them using nice neat equations makes the whole thing seem both simpler and better-understood than it probably really is.
No, you misunderstand. This is for programmers On The Go! This isn't for your lame-duck programmers who sit at a desktop computer all day programming. No. This is for programmers on mountain bikes and skateboard ramps, programmers who need their manuals on a 480 x 320 pixel screen IMMEDIATELY.

If you don't get it then you're just not "cool" as the kids say.
Is it really about market share? The cool one is the one who innovates, the one who changes market landscapes. Apple does that. Microsoft doesn't. Microsoft shouldn't worry about gaining the rest 10% of the OS share. They should worry about why they aren't innovative.
I'm not ranting. FYI, "bumbling" is not a legal defense.
If someone was really interested in turning this into performance art, I strongly suspect that it wouldn't have taken more than another 10 seconds to tell half the audience to follow one leg and half the other.
I am not sure if I feel it is better, but I do like them both quite a bit.

Sometimes I just feel like C# is just a little bit more pliable in a lot of ways compared to Java, just a little easier to make it do what you want it to do.
That Macbook can be used for many other things besides iphone development. In fact many developers I know already have a mac so for them it is $0. And unlike the random BestBuy laptop that you can get if you don't like the macbook you can actually sell it and get a good chunk of money back.
You may consider it part personal computer, but the people owning the network it needs to function don't. They made this pretty clear when you bought it, and the cell phone industry in America has behaved this way since it's inception. It really shouldn't be a surprise.

I agree it would be desirable to have a hybrid personal computer / phone that would give me as much freedom of software as my desktop, but the iPhone isn't that, nor did it claim to be.

I also can't install whatever software I want on the cable box I got from Comcast. Nobody's ranting about that though.
Probably. It actually had the opposite effect on me. I try to keep my code cleaner and more understandable now. I'll stick in better, more expansive comments in difficult spots.

I'll schedule a code review with peers. If I can explain/justify an ugly hack maybe it's not so bad. But sometimes the fundamental "wrongness" of some piece of code just drives me to try and find a better fix. One of those classic trade-offs, elegance vs expediency.
Twitter URL Service Bit.ly Says No to Ads, Yes to Data-Mining News
Emacs.app already does mappings correctly. In fact the last time I checked it also uses the native clipboard better than Aquamacs does, kill and copy work the same, as with yank/paste work.
The power of hindsight makes all things obvious with time. Uncertainty of an idea or skill in a market will always be there.

So it's always pretty accurate to say "now", because "later" is rarely a good time to start.
This would be a lot more persuasive if it wasn't written like an infomercial.
Agreed. My thoughts were more or less along the lines of developer mind-share. Though MS has some interesting things, the vast majority of developers producing the cool things are leaving MS in their past. OS X and Linux, on the other hand, _are_ gaining traction -- if not accelerating -- with respect to developer mind-share.
Casual programming can be learned incidentally, but there is a degree of skill that can not. If you want to build large programs that actually stand a chance of being correct, or performant, you really can't just "incidentally" pick up that skill. That's in the "10 years to mastery" class (and 12 years in I'm still learning, honestly).

That said, does biology really need that? Maybe the incidental skill is enough for most biologists. There is definitely a core set of tasks that biologists would need computer scientists for, though. (And for once, probably actual computer scientists and not just "good programmers".)
I could tell the tipping point when I did a recent search for jobs. Even NYC which is still heavily Java is shifting to C#/WPF for client front ends.
Pretty harmless? I'll admit that I don't know much about this case, but this bit seems to indicate otherwise:

"Mr McKinnon admits that he hacked into 97 US computers from his bedroom in north London between 2001 and 2002 and left a message on one machine saying: "I will continue to disrupt at the highest levels.""

Two years, almost 100 computer systems, taunting and threats.. that doesn't sound so harmless to me.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/5...
Open data is the future of web discovery
Double Down but only on the Right Hand
It's fashionable to say that Java is painful to use, and there is truth to the statement. However, when I started with it I had come off of a few years of C++ and loved that it reduced my pain exponentially. Like the new lover's quirky laugh, the 'nuances' of Java became annoying. It almost seemed as if with Java there is a threshold of productivity that the language itself imposes. I have since moved on to Scala/Clojure and again feel renewed. Maybe that is the natural progression of programming languages?
Experts find iPhone text-message security flaw
Combine this with apps for your domain and a google site (running on that domain), and you've got a drop dead simple e-commerce solution, all for the cost of a domain and the time it takes to execute a good design. Have Amazon do fulfillment, and you've got a nearly autonomous store.
I've always preferred Java to several languages (could be JVM influenced). I would still rather hack up an idea using Java vs C# or many other languages.
I think it is easy to think this way if you don't operate in many circles. Around MS and with Ballmer's associates, I am sure that there are very few Apple products around. But go into any Starbucks in NYC and you'll probably see more Mac's than PC's.
That is not really context. It's a prejudiced rant.

I went through an Esperanto phase some years ago and read this article back then.

He's basically criticizing the language for not being as simple as it could be.

He completely overlooks the point many people will find Esperanto easy to learn. If you speak an Indo-European language and have never studied another language before, I dare even say that learning a bit of Esperanto will help you learn another Indo-European language.

It's been ages since I've used Esperanto but I definitely don't regret having learnt it (especially since I didn't have to put in much time).
This wasn't a smart thing to say. Apple's growth is real. While it may not be a threat to Microsoft's profits, calling it a rounding error just seems out of touch with reality.

If anything, Microsoft should play up two things. First, that they believe their products offer a superior value, choice, and flexibility when compared with Apple's as their "laptop hunters" commercials portray. That counts for a lot. Second, that Apple's health shows that competition is alive and well in the computing market which will drive all parties to produce the best products they can.

Saying that Apple's growth isn't real simply comes off as out of touch with reality. It makes it seem like you don't know the market well enough to see the obvious and, if that's true, how can you steer your company to success? Similarly, if Apple were to simply dismiss Microsoft's "laptop hunter" commercials as not connecting with people, they'd similarly be out of touch.

Both offerings have strengths and weaknesses. Pretending that isn't true might win you points with fanboys, but makes you seem out of touch to the 90% who aren't die-hards on either side and try to buy what's best for them.

The key is getting across the point that your product has continued value, not that someone else's product doesn't have value. Windows is powering more computers than ever today as the market expands. Windows provides a low-cost (compared to Apple) operating system that maintains a high level of compatibility that businesses demand. Similarly Apple should stress that they offer an elegant, integrated experience with greater interoperability than ever.

Fanning flame wars as an executive just seems immature.
What do you mean, now ?

annotations (though C# calls them "attributes")

he means "Java added attributes, which C# had from day 1, but called them "annotations""

C# has many of the same features as Java ... generics

Again, C# had this first, and still does it better since the bytecode is aware of them.
He's just now realizing that Java is painful to use? Even PHP had me dreading the tiny bits of Java work I had to do when I last touched it in 2005.
Similar experience here. When I look at code I wrote 20 years ago I always get the impression I was a better programmer then than I am today simply because it takes me a lot of time to understand what I was trying to achieve.

My 'new' code looks so simple and direct in comparision. No more trickery with setjmp and longjmp and no more abuse of side effects.

Then I realize that the simplicity is actually better, not the hacks of old.

What is surprising though is that it seems almost as if every generation of programmers has to learn these lessons all over again.
That’s the US market, but the parent wrote “domestic” which, as far as I understand it, means internal, non-exported, in this case the Japanese market.
That is the case, but languages grow by adding features from experimental languages.
There does need to be a base line of respect, and Arrington doesn't give it. He knows he doesn't as well -- according to his last Twitter post, he's "ripshit mad" (http://twitter.com/arrington/status/2949113649) that people are talking about "unauthorised" crunchpad info -- yet he's happy enough to do precisely the same thing to other firms.

(As for your NY Times analogy, it doesn't hold up. It's more like saying "I think the Sulzbergers are dreadful people who are destroying something that should be good, so I refuse to read their paper".)

It's so frustrating that more people don't demand better tech journalism than that provided by TC. Tech was one of the first areas where online news swept away traditional media, but the service we get now is much, much worse.

Having given it a few years now, I rather think I'd take a copy of Byte every 30 days than 30 up-to-the-minute days of coverage from TechCrunch. We deserve better.
flagged, spam.
The SLW in me thinks: "Don't choose a language for its features, choose a language for its feature building capabilities".

It reminds me of people who buy stackable shelves and drawers to store their crap and make some room. Sometime later, they buy vacuum-sealable bags to store things that they bought after they made some space. As time passes, they start digging for a new basement and add another floor as an attic to store more things.

Java vs C# programming sounds a lot like two hoarders of the kind described above, except one has enough room behind his La-Z Boy to recline to 120 degrees, while the other only gets to 100.
I thought you were going to say it was timely because George Russell, inventor of the Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization died this week.
Except it drops calls significantly more than other phones on the network. This isn't an issue confined to AT&T. They have released some firmware updates to help which is further evidence that it's not just the network.
In some contexts it may be easier to find a hard drive with the electronic original text of the document that was subsequently printed, filed for a while, and then shredded.
Company Receives Patent for Podcasting
Unfortunately Google Checkout is still USA & UK only.

Edited: exactly those countries with more offers in this area.
I'm not sure exactly how the tech works, but if GV works over the data network, similar to skype, I'm concerned the quality, connection time, and amount of dropped calls would be worse than a regular call. The iPhone drops enough calls as it is, I imagine it could get much worse if the phone had to open an app, third-party or not, and place calls over the data network.

And what about SMS? For me to use GV full time, I need the ability to send SMS's from my GV number. MMS as well. I hope this functionality will be built into the app, if one ever makes it to the device.