skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I am doing something slightly weird. (I can talk about this on HN, but I am keeping it quiet otherwise).

I read an article on Slashdot about John Carmack where he said, (emphasis mine)

" After I took the job at Softdisk, I was happy. I was programming, or reading about programming, or talking about programming, almost every waking hour. It turned out that a $27k salary was enough that I could buy all the books and pizza that I wanted, and I had nice enough computers at work that I didn't feel the need to own more myself (4mb 386-20!).

I could still clearly remember my state of mind when I viewed other people as being ignorant about various things, but after basically doubling my programming skills in the space of six months, I realized how relative it all was. That has been reinforced several additional times over the seven years since then. "

The phrase "doubling my programming knowledge in 6 months" caught my eye and I thought I'd take a crack at it. I've set aside 6 months to do this. Given my smaller "quantum" of knowledge as a compared to Carmack it should be easier :-P.

So anyway, I've set a fairly ambitious(for me) agenda

(1)work completely through Algorithms by Cormen et al and Randomized Algorithms by Prabhakar and Raghavan, doing every exercise in each book,

(2)become really good at lisp and Forth - write about 10,000 "lines of code" in each language, versions of the HRL library (see below)

(3) release an Open Source java library of Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning algorithms (something extracted from a consulting project I recently completed.).

I've taken a 6 month sabbatical from my consulting work. It was kind of weird explaining to my clients that I am completely unavailable for the next 6 months, but I think it is worth a try. The bank account looks healthy enough (touch wood). I've been working on this for the last 10 days, averaging 12 hours a day and loving it. .
Are these documents invalid of the RFID chip is destroyed?
Seeing if Hex-Rays' decompiler plugin (http://www.hex-rays.com/decompiler.shtml) for IDA Pro (http://www.hex-rays.com/idapro) can be reimplemented in Python with little work for much benefit, following the Pareto Principle. Not really cloning their work; rather, noting that IDA does not expose even trivial data-flow analysis.

I suspect that most of the fancy stuff is locked up for decompiler users only, which would make sense since the decompiler is much more expensive than IDA itself. So far, I have du and ud chains implemented in a nice, readable fashion and will be releasing the codebase this week, after my advisor and I discuss licensing issues. Going to write well-engineered code for automated analyses that are often done in an ad-hoc fashion by the RCE community.

EDIT: after reading another comment about how short news.yc is, just shortened an idiom that was repeated 5 or 6 times. It would be sort of nice if this was done at compile time to avoid the overhead of function calls and nested generators, but it's still quite elegant IMO to clean up common loops with generators.
What anybody thinks about it in a post is irrelevant.

Upvote it (or not) if you think it belongs, flag it if you think it doesn't.
Wait, what? Pointing out that there exist institutions that aren't the government that regard gambling as evil somehow means I think people don't gamble, or that I think those beliefs are valid? That makes no sense.
I'm working for Microsoft this summer on the team developing some of the Office web apps...specifically, I'm working on the Word Viewer.

I'm also working on a startup that hopes to launch this fall.
In Recession, Japanese Lay Off Robots
World Economic Development 1800 - present [interactive graphic - press 'play']
this must be an ad for buysellads, considering the content...and no i hadn't heard of them until today, and no, there are no rocks above me...well maybe some between the ceiling and the roof, perhaps.

funniest part of this ad is how they ask you to try and think of why they are such a great company. mcdonalds sales agent: mcdonalds is great because people eat fatty food that comes quick; what do you think? why is it that we rock so much? we'd love to hear from you...
Looks like you were wrong, people do seem to care. There must be plenty of band kids out there that would find this useful.

Popular by Nada Surf is down, have you heard of grooveshark.com? http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Popular/21866669
Sounds very cool, I found the link in your profile and thought others might be interested to read more also: http://www.gleamviz.org/

As an Indy resident, cool to see this is happening at IU.
Except for the publisher and advertiser number (2000 and 200 respectively) there is absolutely no other fact/useful info in the article
Working on my first startup after spending 11 years designing web sites. My startup is a time tracking application called Minuteglass. It's been an adventure. I can't wait to do one of those posts on HN where I ask people to review it.

http://www.minuteglass.com/
Just joined an open source project, a p2p client for eDonkey, and eventually bit torrent and others. It is an older project that went proprietary/closed-source and failed, and we're breathing new life into it starting with the old open source code base. We're about done cleaning it all up, and will start on new features soon. Completely in C#, and runs on .NET and Mono. Great project, great people, already members from all over the world. Check us out on sourceforge: https://sourceforge.net/projects/hathi/ Come see some real C# power in action, and join us in the fun! :-)
This is an essay from an AEI fellow about gender politics. The fact that it centers on academia does give it a foothold on HN, but it's misleading to suggest that this editorial is more than a borderline Hacker News submission.

I wouldn't flag it, but I wouldn't protest if it had gotten flagged off. There are hundreds and hundreds of similar articles, all epsilon from "Hacker-Newsworthy", that thankfully don't make it onto HN.
just tired it, it worked! thanks! bookmarked! wow, this experience rocks, especially considering i've wanted exactly this for quite some time --- thanks so much. once again, you rock.
I'm in the bay area, and also batting around some ideas. We should chat.
Just resigned from my 9-5 to focus full time on my baby GMTV, a sketch comedy series on YouTube, and other fun projects. Currently, Building a sound stage in my loft for filming.

project 2 - a music aggregator that delivers new hip-hop tracks being discussed on twitter, the goal is to rank based on conversational patterns. m.grownmantv.com

for fun, I help students make sense of financial aid through video, twitter, and the good ol telephone. stuffa.org
That's not an argument against the definition, that's an argument about whether certain actions meet it. I think it's clear that Swoopo does, and actually, yeah, I do think that a lot of other companies are or approach evil in the way they do business. Just because it's widely done doesn't mean it's good.
In what parts of the US are broker fees for rentals common?
Slightly off the beaten track - I'm currently in a small developing country in Southeast Asia working on renewable energy projects for rural villages. I've been here for 4 months and am absolutely loving it... it's actually a satisfying use of an electrical engineering degree!
Rendering Textures in Clojure
She did, but only after mentioning it in public, she says.
Trying to make MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) suck less.

Also working on a tool to make scientific collaboration easier.
Why America is flunking science
I tried a test patch of that once: gloss white rustoleum. It actually worked for short term writing, but would absorb marker left on for more than a few hours.
Have you ever thought of open-sourcing it (or even parts of it)?
Microsoft Has Turned The Corner
wow! thanks a lot.. never thought of it... :D
ASUS Eee computer built into the keyboard
I think I read somewhere that intentionally destroying the chip is a no-no, but if you 'accidentally' hit it with a blunt object and it stops working the document is still valid. Don't quote me though.
I would think so if they were using the chip to authenticate the document.
Long time overdue.

I also want to mention that the Polish contribution to the effort is much less known. Poland started it earlier (the Bomba project) and made a few substantial steps, was overrun by the Nazis very quickly and managed to pass it over to the British. (See http://www.avoca.ndirect.co.uk/enigma/enigma4.htm etc.)
The latest update: http://www.tinaja.com/glib/morenrgf.pdf
The four essential laws of software updates
Wonder if they can't they be disabled by a strong EM field? That's basically how the RFID tags on merchandise are disabled at the retail checkout counter.
Good job. This would also work well as a Greasemonkey script.
Disclaimer: I'm a newbie blogger and member of HN (though I've been reading it for a while, I just joined a week ago). But any comments, criticism, or advice you might have are all definitely welcome. Thanks!
I guess I don't understand the point of your post. Are you trying to say gambling is evil or not?
Do you mind if I pass your info to someone working on a similar, but more general framework? He is a fellow Lisper of mine and published a book on the subject as well. NYC based.

Cheers!
Any thoughts yet on what other types of applications you'll be working on?
I'll take a crack at it :)

http://mobilehackernews.appspot.com/

EDIT: added links to discussion here.
Every rental broker charges a fee for their services, the difference is whether the renter or landlord pays for it. It's a matter of local custom and market conditions, and New York City has traditionally been very heavily skewed towards renters paying.
I would expect nothing less fun from you Zak :-P
There isn't really a hyperlink in that article, so here's the link to the actual website.

http://wechoosethemoon.org/

It doesn't have much of an intro, so I thought people here would appreciate the backstory provided in the Herald article.
The significance of Claude Shannon's work
Why do you want to go to college? Speaking as someone who did, I'm not sure you'll learn much that you haven't already.
Neither. I was pointing out that plenty of other people think it is, in response to GP's statement that "gambling's existence is something that few outside government seem to have a problem with".
Please do. I'm always happy to exchange ideas (although I'm by no means a Lisper).
such problems are not limited to this field

I agree - it seems to be particularly common in fields that touch, no matter how obliquely, onto issues of public policy. On more than one occasion I have tried to find a definitive reference for a claim and found nothing.

Now that evidence-based medicine has done so much for us, one can only wish for evidence-based sociology. Admittedly, it is a bit harder...
Thanks for the updated link. The site gets about 200 new visits and 200 returning visits a day. While this is good it's a low turnout compared to how much I've linked it everywhere possible.

On the other hand my retarded anime episode crawler at crawlanime.com gets several thousands hits for a half ass'ed effort with curl. my roleplay site at Eliteskills.com/rp is crawling with people making god damn twilight roleplays at a depressing rate. I'm rewarded more often for making stupid shit than for making well designed sophisticated apps for improving actual skills.

That's where my frustrated statement comes from.
That is much better writing! Unfortunately still fractional sentences.
For now. It's a wonderful service and I hope it continues for a long time, but you shouldn't depend on it to save any particular thing, and it's much harder to find things in archive.org than on the open web. I'm still grieving over the loss of "Networked PostScript Printer Installation as Illustrated Through Interpretive Dance".
This is just a subset of "capital investment goes down in economic downturns, and up in boom times". The local robot manufacturers are doing poorly because the local automobile industry (which is the largest driver of every industry in central Japan) is doing poorly.

After the economy recovers and A Certain Automobile Manufacturer starts selling its Ridiculously Popular Hybrid to Americans by the container ship again, the factories around here will get spun back up again. Until then everybody is just waiting it out, with a lot of belts being tightened and budgets being squeezed. The companies who are in a position to concentrate on things other than survival are doing R&D to have something to attract the inevitable tidal wave of cash that will accompany a recovery.
Django Forgot Password
No, you may not understand materialism. Sure, as I already said, if you subscribe to some weird coincidentalist view maybe not but for those not grasping at straws this removes a lot from a dualist conception and it even further shows it as an unneccessary hypothesis.
Maybe. A lot of lab supplies are much more expensive than do-it-yourself versions because:

* they aren't mass-produced,

* the people who are employed to make them are highly paid,

* the supply of grad student labor to substitute for them is limited,

* the required quality is high,

* and the costs of defective goods are high.

So high prices don't necessarily mean that Edmund Scientific is colluding with, I don't know, Siemens, to fix prices at above-market rates. It more likely means that it's damned hard to make a profit selling cheap electron microscopes.
I had an idea for a non-evil gambling site a while back - basically runs at a profit with a small bias against the house. Not a scam, but it has a 'compelling mechanic' component in common with Swoopo (albeit a different mechanic).

On one hand I think it could make some cash while not being as dodgy as a regular gambling site, but on the other hand I don't want to encourage gambling addicts with the positive feedback.

I'm just glad it's not my only money-spinning idea :)
Swiss Post Moves Some Mail Online
The use of the patented device/method/whatever, whether or not it is sold, is the infringement. Unwitting infringers are not subject to very harsh penalties, if any (unlike ignorance of the law, ignorance of a patent is a mitigating factor, b/c people are not required to research the patent archives for everything they do or make). Knowing infringers can be hit with the hammer of holy justice.

Example: patents on custom protein structures.

Note that pure research, i.e., at universities, is usually considered a defense b/c it is in the public interest to encourage actual research, but it is a defense that must be proven in court. However, research with any sort of commercial motive will usually not avoid infringement liability.

The reason that the "hundreds" of companies can get away with it is b/c it isn't worth the cost to the patent holder to pursue them in court -- damages would be minimal, and the chance that a defendant could find something that would overturn the patent (i.e., prior art) is too high a risk if there are at least some companies willing to pay for a license.
College social experience, connections, academics, and excuse to be in NYC (that is, if I get into my top choice NYU)
Insanely well done! Love the clean look, context-based learning, and web-based IME. The IME is especially cool - I've never seen it done anywhere else. Great job.
Continuing on with my console editor ( http://purepistos.net/diakonos/ ). Aiming to get it to live up to being billed "A Linux editor for the masses". A recent version formalized an extension system (even though it has been extensible with Ruby for a long while now). Upcoming roadmap items: modes; window splitting; further development of the git extension; ...
CS and programming are actually /not/ often the focus of gender issues by feminists.

The discussion on the gender-balance in said fields is brought up internally, most of the time, if not always. The 'feminist' crowd (gender theorists, women's studies academics, etc.) is honestly not that interested, or aware, of our problems.
-- on the article itself, ++ for being daring. (I neither up- nor down-voted, BTW.)
Quite simple: a plaintiff is not required to have complete proof of the defendant's wrongful acts prior to suing them in court. The burden would be too high, and most aggrieved plaintiffs would be unable to recover the harm caused them by the defendant.

Plaintiffs have the right to get "discovery" to prove their claims because the defendant is usually the only person/company with evidence of the defendant's wrongful acts.

A fishing expedition is where the plaintiff cannot articulate any particular type of evidence sought, or how such evidence would be useful/necessary to its case, or how such evidence would result in evidence it could actually use.

Example: P sues D for patent infringement, demands in discovery D's head researcher's notes. Not fishing.
Example 2: Same, except that P demands the CEO's call logs. Fishing, b/c not reasonably related to the patent infringement claim.
Example 3: Same as Ex 2, except that P alleges that the CEO knew about the patent b/c he spoke with a former employee of P before launching D's infringing product. NOT fishing, b/c now it's shown to be relevant.

How to tell the difference: If you can't articulate something relevant to your claims that the discovery could reveal, it's a fishing expedition.
Ah, twilight could get anyone down.

Well, your intro video is very good, a good script. And, you jargon disclaimer is hilarious. Most good intros need a good disclaimer to remind new users that the ideas behind the jargon are simple and the real goal. The ideas are the forest, the jargon are the trees.
"Crichton had little patience for scientists' complaints about ridiculous sci-fi plots and wild scientist stereotyping. In a 1999 lecture before the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, he countered such gripes with his own perspective on why scientists will probably never be very happy with the products of Hollywood. As Crichton advised, there are at least four important rules of movies that just don't mesh with the real process of research: '(i) Movie characters must be compelled to act. (ii) Movies need villains. (iii) Movie searches are dull. (iv) Movies must move.' Crichton argued that real science, with its long, drawn-out intellectual processes and frequent dead ends, simply can't be reconciled with such exigencies. 'The problems lie with the limitations of film as a visual storytelling medium,' he concluded. 'You aren't going to beat it.'"

The other important message of this article is that being smart doesn't prevent people from having mistaken ideas about science. Smart people can fall for plausible but scientifically incorrect statements about topics debated about in politics, because not all people, and not even all smart people, devote much time to examining evidence and making sure that conclusions are supported by evidence.
Yes Stan Schroeder, Facebook users are getting older, but much older?
Plants absorb water, and the water may have chemical contamination.

It's exactly the same way that it works in animals.

Different plants are affected to different degrees.
It would be awesome if this were integrated into a LaTeX editor, so I could (e.g.) click a "draw" button in the toolbar. Then I'd get a little drop-down canvas, and when I get the suggestions back from the server, I could click on the right macro, and it would be automatically inserted into my diagram.
I totally agree, but having a college degree is still a great plan-B, and it gives you a lot more credibility in certain circles which makes dealing with business folk easier in certain contexts.

Can't wait to see the fruits of your labors with Avecora Mark...best of luck!
I remember in my first year statics class, we decided a backwards lambda is called "Rhonda".
An OK article. But if you have seen most good usability and UI design texts, they cite actual applications. You have your own, prototype, "hopefully not your application" dialog boxes as examples. If you can't find real-world examples of the problems you're fixing, maybe they're not that big of a deal? (which they ARE, you just haven't been researching this long enough, I am guessing.)

I clicked on the link hoping to find technical information on automatic software updating, like:

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~pes20/update-popl-2005.pdf

http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/old/hicks01dynamic.html
Trying to brand myself and build up my consulting business (basic web consulting with a niche-market twist).
Most western countries are "flunking" science because it's hard work, lacks prestige, pays poorly, and you're unlikely to discover anything new even if you put in the necessary hours.

As we discover more and more about the world the more dedication it will take to make progress in a field. So it makes sense that you want fewer and more dedicated people.

Does Hollywood caricature scientists? Of course. But Hollywood isn't exactly know for its nuance. Business men are always evil (unless the business is failing, in which case the owner is the sympathetic underdog). Politicians are corrupt or incompetent. Is Hollywood to blame for the general indifference to science, I doubt that.

To summarize:

1. fewer people devote their life to science. I don't think this is a bad thing.

2. (young) people are indifferent about politics, the world, science, and most "stuff that matters". This probably is bad, but it certainly does not have a simple identifiable cause.
Learning ruby to start a few more projects, and excycle.com, as well as working part time
http://hackerol.ds :(
Maybe we should have a separate category for comments about the categorization of an article.

1. Δ Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship (chronicle.com)
35 points by kylec 2 hours ago | 11 comments | 28 relevance flames
The section regarding pure functions doesn't inspire me much about using Scala in a "functional way".
I'm not sure you can say Microsoft has turned any corner. I do agree that Bing is a fair piece of software (even if it is long, long over due). However, Bing is too little, too late. IE 8 is a solid browser compared to IE 7 and I'm glad MS is taking steps to produce a browser that can compete with the features of the other 'name brand' browsers. Those ads MS is running though? I thought the Apple ads were smug-they have nothing on the price-comparing ads MS is running.
DTD != DOCTYPE.

More clearly, you are conflating two things: a Document Type Definition, which HTML5 does not have (since it is not an SGML application) and a Document Type Declaration, which HTML5 does have.

The former is (glossing over a lot here) an SGML document outlining the grammar and vocabulary of a particular markup language. The latter is a statement that a document uses a particular markup language. And such a statement does not require or imply the existence of a corresponding formal SGML definition of the language.
As long as keepon keeps on keeping on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPdP1jBfxzo
I've mentioned this in another comment here before, but I'm working on a social book summary website. Users can search for or submit up to 500-word summaries, vote on their favorites, and leave comments on them as well. It emerged from my frustration in trying to refresh my memory for books I've already read.

I would love to hear other people's opinions on it...
> The discussion...is brought up internally, most of the time, if not always.

You may be right, but I suspect the reason for the above has something to do with the influence of feminists.
I use aluminized Mylar potato chip or ramen bags for this. I've verified that they work with a FasTrak transponder, but I haven't done measurements to see how much the bag really attenuates the signal.
It's really like science fiction
I think the only things that need to be written about minimalism are examples of it in action.
If you're having trouble loading the all-Flash site, as I was, the actual Twitter feeds are:

ap11_capcom
ap11_spacecraft
ap11_eagle