skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> I would have thought Oracle would have been a safer choice What's 3 extra engineers to a behemoth like Oracle?

Conversely, at Oracle they are just three developers. At Engine Yard, they may be considered as a valuable, strategic resource.
OK on Boston's North shore
Well, and my point has always been, just imagine if you were in a third world country. Imagine being the kid whose never had a computer before. One day this big truck pulls up and you're told you're getting a PC. Then you find that so-called PC either breaks (like yours did) or works but works like a $99 toy from radioshack. That's downright horrifying to imagine from my perspective.

(As I'm editing this someone has voted this down to 0. I wonder if that person even cares about the kids the OLPC was supposed to help and if they do why are they willing to forgive the rampant reports of flaws?)
MiFi Gets an API: A Wifi Hotspot In Your Pocket, With Apps
Boil 2 cups of water.

Turn heat down to 3.

Add one cub of rice.

Stir once and then cover.

Turn heat down to 1-2 when it starts boiling again.

Wait 10 minutes, maybe turn it down again if you are in the kitchen.

Turn heat off and wait 5 to 10 minutes before opening lid.

Fluff and eat.
Palm webOS: The Other Linux Phone Platform
That's goes along with a point people often miss. Giving a computer to a child isn't going to automatically impart vast amounts of wisdom. A computer much like a book or a pencil is a tool of learning. The child still has to use it in the right way to learn anything.

It's always irked me a bit when people try to pin low achievement in schools on lack of computers.
It's a completely different problem set, a completely foreign codebase, and a completely different platform entirely. In addition, it's not their baby; would you like it if your company decided you're going to work on a competing project to the one you founded, while you're presumably working on your project in your spare time?

They made a perfectly logical decision.
RIM Released Enhanced and New BlackBerry Tools for Web Developers
Orange juice with breakfast. Water, all day long. Usually a soda with lunch or dinner. I used to drink sodas all day, but I'm getting a bit more health conscious (only a bit though).
Are you for real?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Lou_Jepsen

Quoting from there, since it’s easier: “She co-created the first holographic video system in the world at the MIT Media Lab in 1989 [...] At OLPC, notably, Jepsen invented the laptop's sunlight-readable display technology.” You don’t get put in charge of the technology for displays at Intel (her job before OLPC) by being unaccomplished.

Here’s a (non-exhaustive, I think) list of her patents:
http://www.google.com/patents?q=mary+lou+jepsen&btnG=Sea...

Several of those, like the OLPC dual-mode display, are really clever (better than anything else of the kind, feasible to manufacture on existing fabs, no more expensive than existing displays, etc.).

Also, your implication that her involvement with OLPC was “suspiciously” predatory (or for that matter the implication that OLPC on the whole is some kind of exploitative scam) is a cheap insult below the expected level of this forum. Really bright high-level engineer–executives who take out a few years of their careers to work at well below pay grade for non-profit companies trying to change the world should be lauded, in my book.
MVP == Most Valuable Professional
I'd like to point at a plant or animal and know the species.
Monoprice.com already sells Mini DisplayPort adapters of various types.
Uses the Bokeh (japanese for fuzzy) effect that you see with an out of focus camera, for encoding information. The idea being any cell phone camera would be able to read these codes by viewing the tag with focus set to infinity (or for us with autofocus cameras, I guess we just hold it really close to the tag)
Kindle is just a book, pity since Kindle could be much more

This seems to insinuate the last thing I should want from my eReader is for it to be highly focused on the one task I actually use it for. For my money, the opposite is true.
At least SYS-CON is aptly named :-)
Bombshell in Jackson's death
You were a bit sarcastic and cheeky, which doesn't play well, but your point is well taken so I have upvoted you a bit.

Perhaps the submission form could use a "related stories" field if you're submitting a response to a previous story or something?
The Environmental and Economic Pluses of the 4-Day Workweek
Physorg's editorial standards are not very high. I'm not sure what audience they are aming for by combining science articles with tabloid headlines. From this article:

This turned the aluminium nearly invisible to extreme ultraviolet radiation.

From a few years ago:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_oxynitride

And: http://www.scifitv.com.au/Content/Blog/Pictures/Transparent_...
I just fixed the css for this - should look better for you now.
Are we really going to have to be reading through all of this fanboy speculation up until September?
This whole meta-discussion about how it's hacking because it's open source made me realize: Pirating has been around for a lot longer than the internet. How many grandmothers out there shared copyrighted recipes with friends and family on 3x5 cards? It honestly never occurred to me till this minute that that might have been considered copywrite infringement.
Brazil-based Semco, has let his employees set their own hours, wages
Sprint Gobbles Up Virgin Mobile For $483 million
The central concept here -- a transaction triggers when a threshold of participants is met -- is bigger than group coupons. It's a sort of "Group Transactional Economics" by analogy to the atomicity of db or stm transactions. I think it could eliminate a lot of the risk and inefficiency dealt with by independent makers of all stripes.
And once again, Apple is shooting itself in the foot. Do they really think that Google will just lie back and take this? I mean, is it really a good idea to piss off a company that has: way more money, a massive talent pool, a customer base which contains of a very large number of iPhone users, and an OS platform that directly completes with Apple's flagship product?
This is exactly my point. Your argument boils down to the OLPC is great no matter what so anyone who dares question it or her is wrong by default.

For the record, this didn't start out as an attack on Ms. Jepsen who I said probably had good intentions. My point is people like her go around thinking their good intentions mean something without end results. So they end up pushing things like the OLPC which hurt more than they help. Then they laud themselves and their partners for having been such great people and done such a great thing and shade their eyes from all the flaws.

Every reports I've heard has said the OLPCs have major hardware and software problems and my own died pretty shortly after I opened it up. Selling PCs like that to third world countries deprives those kids of actual working PCs which in my book is a bad thing

Also, I didn't mean to malign Ms. Jepsen's technical accomplishments which are impressive. But when I referred to "accomplishments" I was talking in the sense of "making products that make a difference in the word" which is exactly what I think she thinks she accomplished and which I dispute.

(I can't reply to your comment below for some reason but let me just say this. The arguments that have been made in the last few days that suggest the OLPC is flawed are perfectly valid. The only people I've seen deny them are people like you who worked for the project. So assuming those flaws are real (again, I'm living proof since mine broke 2 weeks out) imagine a country who bought 1000 OLPCs for 1000 kids rather than 500 Windows or Linux PCs. Now if those OLPCs are flawed than those kids have been deprived of computers. The fact that you can't see that just goes to show your hero worship of a project that has clearly not met it's goals)
Print version.
http://www.cioinsight.com/index2.php?option=content&task...
Mac users: don't forget ClickToFlash (http://rentzsch.github.com/clicktoflash/)

iPhone users: breath a sigh of relief that there's no Flash on your platform yet.
Windows 7 versus Windows XP on a netbook
I should have said SOME 2br townhouses in 2004 were selling for $120K, as in, the starter homes I wound up buying. The median near MSFT campus was about $180K.
Interesting how even the word 'acquires' is different with IBM. SPSS is in analytics software, but its a 41 year-old company.

Its unlikely its founders 'planned' their exit strategy when they started.
I also don't think I will see Google or even Microsoft 'acquire' a 20+ year old company, let alone a 40+ year old one.
This is like the old Opera argument: Our browser obviates the need for most extensions, so why should we provide an API?

In my example, a CMS for Pete's sake, there is a very real and pervasive need for custom tags that are in no way obviated by Jinja2's architecture. Jinja2 is a great developer template library, but, as a previous poster noted, a very poor Designer library. I code my platform for Designers. So do a whole lot of other CMS programmers. So this line of reasoning, while accurate, is moot.
First mockup of Firefox 4.0
Recipes can't be copyrighted, so this isn't exactly a stunning revelation.

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl122.html
Basecamp, now with more vroom
couldn't one argue that if you see what its doing - it isn't magic? it's quite clear what its doing, and that isn't magical.

if its just a black box and it comes up with the solution - thats magic.
> Why is this news? Why would anybody be expected to care that a blogger deleted a comment?

Oftentimes, when stories do well on one news site (see link below...), people cross post them to others, because hey, why not get more HN karma too?

I agree with you. Not very newsworthy. It even sorted itself out.

http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/954yd/no_offens...
Go Japan!
yes, I meant doctor, medic... guess it was kinda obvious, no?
Several Approaches to Versioning Files in PHP
Storage start-ups fail to set the world on fire
the ingredients list of recipes cannot be copyrighted but "when a recipe or formula is accompanied by substantial literary expression in the form of an explanation or directions... there may be a basis for copyright protection."
Is this the same Jepsen who "took the money and ran"? "The money" in this case being the LCD technology she developed - funded by our donations.
will there be a recipe for pg's "goop on rice"?
Perhaps the submission form could use a "related stories" field if you're submitting a response to a previous story or something?

Thanks for the specific suggestion. Along those lines, on this and other forums I've often wondered how technically feasible it is to mine the database as a submission is received, so that the user submitting a new article obtains a notification like "This submission looks very much like . . . " showing links to previously submitted articles that by titles (or keywords in full text) seem to be about the same subject. That would allow the user to

a) decline to submit the new link altogether,

b) indicate which previous links are related (as you suggest)

c) merge into one or another existing thread,

or

d) perhaps some other action that doesn't immediately come to mind.

But that still requires human thought by the programmer of the forum, at least, and most likely by the submitter as well. Sorry about the snarkiness above, but that's where the snarkiness came from--technical solutions fail if users don't have the commitment to make use of them.
Same here, but long term it's not good for your mental state. Just like sprinting as hard as you can every day would ruin your knees.
Portuguese government commits to a network of 1,300 recharging stations.
A Coder's Musings: Curve fitting with Pyevolve
It would take years to figure out the dynamics of this matrix.
> “This is exactly my point”

Actually, no, you shifted the goal posts twice.

> “Your argument boils down to the OLPC is great no matter what.”

You’re putting words in my mouth. Where did I argue that?

> “hurt more than they help”

Have any evidence (or even reasoning) to back that up?

> “shade their eyes from all the flaws”

Do you have any evidence that Mary Lou has done that? Nicholas has, in public perhaps (though I’d be cautious to say that even).

> “deprives those kids of actual working PCs”

Can you back that up with a plausible explanation? As far as I can tell, not a single person has been “deprived” of a PC because of the OLPC project, and you’re the only one who is suggesting so.

* * *

This is a very narrow discussion, in which you insulted and maligned someone with no cause, and I called you out on it, and then you tried to make it stick rather than apologizing as would be appropriate for a reputable discussion. I haven’t made any claims about everything else being great, or anything of the kind, and I don’t even really see how you’re reading that into any of my statements.

* * *

Edit:

> “ people like her go around thinking their good intentions mean something without end results.”

I also want to push back on this point. First, good intentions + deliberate action really does mean something, even in the unlikely even that they have no result. I personally think there is nothing more important in the world than the combination of good intentions plus the willingness to back those up with action. (An only slightly joking quesion: What have you done for the children of the world recently?) But second, the whole point of Mary Lou’s post is that there has been a result. The “netbook” market is growing by leaps and bounds, and more and more children all over the place are getting their hands on various kinds of laptops, whether made by OLPC or otherwise. This was always Nicholas’s primary publicly stated goal (whether he had different private goals I have no idea), and the success on that front more than justifies the effort.
This is 10 years old! Letsbuyit ran this model in the dot-com hysteria but obviously blew up before they could prove it would make money (no doubt they got someone like Oliver Stone to direct their TV ads or something).
Agile Project Management: Estimating Project Size
Does it mean Apple should just take any bulls* from Google? All these guys protect their share of the pie; Google do the same crap.
And you can go upside down which feels a bit weird.
MySpace Overtakes Evite On The Event Planning Totem Pole
I definitely think I'm a better programmer because of it

I'm also curious to know if that's because of Clojure itself, or because it is the first Lisp you learned.
Case Study: Django + Agile = Sportsgirl redevelopment
Startup to IPO: Growth Strategies of Vistaprint, Rackspace & Salesforce
If auctions is the core of the new economy, then there's plenty of business opportunities left.
JVM Language Summit Call for Participation
Not too impressive though.

Using the energy equivalent to the consumption of a small town they create an area of "transparency" (well to certain high energy frequencies of UV) a fraction the diameter of a human hair for a small fraction of a second.

I can do rather better with a small electric drill - less energy, a larger area and true permanent transparency.

I think it is the way they write the headlines...
At this time I do not have cell phone service. I do have an iPod Touch and was thinking about skipping get cell service and just ues iTouch with this MiFi to communicate(email, SMS, skype, twitter).

I saw this mentioned on Cnet, but I wonder if anyone else has done this and how has the experience been? Are you saving money and is it reliable? Verizon EVDO was always solid throughout the country.
I think that the "threshold" is really a red herring. Having followed the site for a few weeks at this point, I would suspect that pretty much every deal "tips".

The actual effects of having a threshold are twofold:
1) First of all, it encourages people to tell their friends to participate
2) It creates the illusion of a group discount where none exists. A big discount might tarnish a business' reputation, but if there is a "group discount," people understand. When you think about it, there is actually no economy of scale about a business offering several hundred coupons valid for a six-month window.

It's brilliant marketing, though.
Every reports I've heard has said the OLPCs have major hardware and software problems and my own died pretty shortly after I opened it up.

Sorry to hear that. Mine works beautifully.

The OLPC is a quirky little product -- beset by flaws, yes, but also boasting some remarkable innovations. The display is one of them but it's just one. The networking hardware, the ruggedized case, the fact that they built the motherboard and all critical electronics into the display unit, so when you open it up the hot parts are kept off your lap and you can use it as an actual laptop -- all of these little details being built into a machine of such low price make the OLPC a literally game-changing machine. (The entire netbook market owes its existence to OLPC; the EeePC got started when Asus wanted to develop a competitor.)

The flaws are mainly kinks to be worked out, save one: I really wish that they hadn't written Sugar in Python. It's too slow and memory-consuming. Maybe if they precompiled the hotspots into native code...
The central concept is incredible but the way groupon uses it is not, the spa did not book over $4300 in business like Chris says, rumor has it that groupon actually takes 50% of the sales for itself. Sure, Groupon is a good business but its borderline abusive to its partner businesses (something that would not work if applied to independent makers).
I usually don't want to go out and buy all ingredients needed before making the food. I want a website that tells me the list of food I can make with ingredients I already have in kitchen.
If they can figure it out in time, it opens a whole new realm of search for Google. Point and search will be huge. If not, those 2 guys eating the ramen and dreaming big will surely bring it to us post-haste.
At least if they call your GV number you can easily record and publish the call online.
I got three hours from my own experience. I'm thinking of young professors who are in their first few years of teaching. You can't just walk into a class and expect to pull a good lesson out of thin air. Knowing material and being able to teach it well to students are two different things. Teaching is a skill that is independent of the knowledge you're trying to impart. Developing that skill takes time and effort.

Professors frequently have to grade their own homework. TAs are not in infinite supply. I know my adviser commonly has to grade his own assignments.

I said nothing about professors getting money from the IP they created. In fact, what I said was that most professors make every attempt to make their work as freely available as possible. It is in their own best interest to do so. When you do research in academia, your hardest problem is convincing others that your work is good and worthwhile. In the rare circumstance where academic research leads to something that could be sold, the patent is always joint with the university.

You're upset with a person who doesn't exist.
(or for that matter the implication that OLPC on the whole is some kind of exploitative scam)

The whole thing really does sound rather Harold Hill, doesn't it? I admit, if I hadn't seen it for myself, I probably wouldn't have believed it. Back when it was called the "$100 laptop" I wondered, "What's that going to do for kids?"
And she hardly adds any argument or anything, it's just like "don't touch our brave hero Negroponte, because some of his achievements, completely irrelevant to the software stack and its critisism, which is the discussed problem".

(Plus I'm really sick of disgusting pathos of next to the last sentence.)
hear hear, sure the physorg article sucked, but the experiment itself was pretty good. I definitely wouldn't call either the experiment or the conclusions "trivial". This type of experiment and the development of bright tabletop xray sources is well worth the grant money invested. Also I think an important point is that while the pulses used to illuminate the sample have very high power they are only ~40 femtoseconds long so the total energy used is pretty small.

The complaints about scientists and journalists overhyping their work to get funding, remind me of the accusations that tv networks and producers exploit sex and violence to boost ratings. The real problem here is that people like sex and violence and overhyped scientific results

If you approach politicians and funding agencies with an honest balanced view as to the real motivations and likely value of proposed scientific projects, you will get kicked aside for someone who promises "star trek materials".
VistaPrint's actual business model involves selling your contact information. They give you free business cards in exchange for adding your information to lists they sell. The cost to the user is much greater than $5 in shipping.
This seems to be much cheaper than RFID and much better than visual Augmented Reality tags. Many new kind of products can be developed as soon as boko tag readers are available.
Python & MySQLdb - Part 1: The Absolute Basics
A great little introduction to using MySQL in Python. Definitely worth a look for those who are interested to see how well it actually works.
The Case of the Unusable Reusable
Why Do We Make Bad Decisions?
Please don't do things to make titles stand out...
If the original title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids."

The word hacker here is gratuitous. The words 'open source' give a clear enough idea of how the site operates. And the site should stand on its own.

(I am amused that TrevorJ managed to think a plausible tie in.)
Ooh... these are the kinds of things I do miss in the US. I'd love to go to this.
Love the idea, not wild about the design - Anyone else think there were some ads on the page at first glance?
I've been working on something like this... slightly different though
No futurist could have imagined sudoko magic just three years ago. Game changers, like augmented reality, is really great for entrepreneurs.
Misultin is an Erlang library for building fast lightweight HTTP servers.
Infinity Is Not a Number - It's a Free Man
Hi dlevine, thx for your comment. Many businesses also use these kinds of up-selling strategies. I agree that customers probably don't like this shady services but I think we can still learn something from this $1.9B company.
Google is also doing shady things like domain parking without telling general users that they are the ads providers. You are right, we don't have to agree all of their moves. But at the same time, we should learn from these successful companies too.
AVCare is trying to Steal Your Money | TechJaws: Internet Security and SEO
Would someone please fix the music business?
Because our eyes are side-by-side. Have you ever rotated a pair of 24" widescreens vertically? They are taller than your vertical field of view.

Widescreens make sense for all sorts of things, especially video. Just because they don't make sense for reading lots of text doesn't mean the space is wasted. With a tiling window manager (http://awesome.naquadah.org), you just put two windows side-by-side anyway.
IBM rarely has one unified strategy. Hardware, software and services all battle for things to achieve their goals.
Well, Groupon is the least interesting manifestation of the idea. I'm interested in two other takes on the idea: group purchasing collectives on the consumer side, and limited editions on the maker side.
A brilliant hack on Google's part. And it obviously works if the zero bounce is mentioned by others and used as an example of it's speed.