skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I like the idea of simulating. But not all distributions are normal! In particular there's no reason to expect the distribution of hitting times to be normal, and intuitively it seems like the distribution would be very far from normal.

I wrote a program and did ten thousand trials; the 100th largest hitting time was 5578, which is my estimate of the 99th percentile of the distribution, and thus the answer to the version of the original problem where we don't have to fix the number of coin flips ahead of time.

The median hitting time from my simulation is 152; the mean, 506, the standard deviation, 1155. Yes, the standard deviation is larger than the mean! The distribution has a very long right tail.

I'm fairly confident (in an informal sense) that the median of the true distribution is somewhere near 152, but I'm not confident about the mean or standard deviation. A lot of distributions in problems like this have tails which decay only like power laws, which makes estimating the mean and standard deviation from a sample very difficult. (I'm not saying that the distribution is a power law, though; it's hard to identify those just by looking at the data.)
People who have to invest substantial effort into using one or the other care.

The author's point seems to be "invest time in both, and use the one you like." Well, no shit, fucktard.
I am way too tempted to apply computers to whatever manual job I am working on. For example working on cars I find fun, so working at a garage sounds nice, but that will no doubt lead to me hacking on the chips in the car...
I recently returned from a little over a week at a cottage with no phone, let alone internet. It was by no means low-tech - we mastered the art of the the frozen margarita, one guest's mp3 player played a seemingly endless collection of grime and baile funk through the cottage stereo, and we had at least two laptops on hand (no wifi) - but the cottage wasn't connected to any information/communication networks.

It was absolute bliss.

The common assumption about time is that it passes quickly when you're having fun and drags when you're bored or frustrated. In this case, time passed slowly in a happy drift of relaxation.

It was uncanny: we would spend what felt like several hours jamming with available instruments (two guitars and a flute), only to discover that it was still mid-afternoon - with plenty of time for a leisurely swim off the dock - rather than deep into dinner time.

Over a period of a few days, I read a 900 page book and still managed to find time for dog walks, in-depth conversation, a long bike ride into town, a trip to a local farm, and so on.

What happened when I got back for a second week of day trips around our house is interesting: I just couldn't muster up any enthusiasm for my usual online haunts. Why read reddit when I could dig into the next book? Why update my Twitter profile when I would take a stroll down by the waterfront? Why bother catching up on over 300 emails when my son was eager to hear the next chapter of The Hobbit?

It was a few nagging responsibilities that got me back into the online swing, and as I reconnected, time seemed to speed up again to the usual blur of disconnected images and themes to which I was clearly accustomed before going away. I'm back to doing my usual activities, but like Aaron, I find it all feels strangely hollow - even this comment.

If I don't take some kind of tangible lifestyle decision out of this experience and the slow epiphany that ran through it, I fear it will have been for nothing.
It stated Google's claimed reason. Which may be "the" reason for some version of "the." However... Even Techcrunch would go on to say something like "We confirmed this account of events with several contacts within Apple and Google."
Cuba's Craigslist, Revolico.com takes Cuba's black market to the web.
I spent a couple of years doing part time constrution work, and I miss it. No other work has ever given me the same kind of satisfied feeling at the end of the day.
I've always found the best solution is to avoid IE6 hacks altogether, and try to be as concise as possible when writing the CSS file, and give the IE6 a stable feel, and accepting the inherent flaws that make it so difficult to work with.

The casual observer who is still using such a dinosaur is never going to be bothered.
Slowly Dying? Please. I can't remember which blog these numbers came for, but this "MSFT is Dying" meme has been circulating for a while and there's a post out there with a fantastic treatment of the notion..

The gist is that Microsoft, as it's supposedly "dying," has gross revenue growing by BILLIONS each year. Yes, their stock has underperformed their sector. But their revenue hasn't. And a company can fudge profits 7 ways from sunday. But you can't fudge topline numbers without out and out fraud.

The author put it in an interesting way: Microsoft revenues grow the size of 1 Adobe or 1 Yahoo!, each year.

There's not a single American (nay GLOBAL) company that wouldn't love for a "death" like that.

And about Buffett... he's often written that he doesn't invest in a company he doesn't fully and completely understand.
While for the most part I agree, I don't see why being concerned about the well-documented hazards of nuclear fission equates to "wacky", or why being flippant about these risks should equate to "non-wacky" for that matter.
It's all subjective, though. What is intrinsically better about the "real world"? It's full of its share of dumb people (just walk outside). Working a 9-5 job filing paper is an awesome way to turn somebody into a lifeless moron. TV will help kill that annoying attention span.

I have no desire to live completely online, but I think people have a tendency to argue that the "real world" is more important since it has a pretty basic thing in common with us: we're both corporeal. But, imagine if you could truly live in The Internet: you'd have instant access to most of the world's collective knowledge and the ability to interact with millions of people simultaneously. That'd be pretty impressive!
I'm glad to see an answer from this approach. (Maple wasn't cooperating for me.) And notice that it compares well with the 14507 from the normal approximation to the binomial.
Yeah, I mean, if anything, I much prefer those acting on knowledge to those acting simply on just observing moves of others. Decreasing the incentives of the smart money doesn't seem to do anyone any favors.
um... no, not really. There is proprietary (you mean proprietary, not commercial) software without any kind of support provided to the user and there is open source software with _commercial_ support.
I must have missed that one. Yeah, that's me. I coined "asocial" because "introverted" picked up a lot of wrong connotations (I'm not socially awkward, misanthropic, etc.), but that is definitely it.
A very enlightening read to a young developer, Much appreciated.
HOW FUCKING CREATIVE! Look, I can cuss, too! Woooo!

(Don't tell my Mom)

How about somebody with some god damn knowledge and care takes that meaningful domain and actually provides a concise point-by-point difference between Git and Mercurial? Maybe even a feature-comparison table? That might actually be fucking useful.

This isn't clever. By voting it up instead of flagging it you're only proving you are also not clever.
I think an important question is: does it matter to me how many people use my (open source) software or not? And it seems to me usually it does matter. More users means higher likelihood for other people to provide patches. It means higher esteem for me, which should translate into higher consulting rates. Therefore I don't quite get the "fuck you, customer" attitude. If you don't care, why even bother to open source the software? Just keep it private on your hard disk.

(Note: I didn't read the whole rant. Presumably there were some obnoxious customers. Whatever - how likely is it that they read his rant and change their ways? Not very likely imo).
Voice technology firm hits back
Voice-to-text firm Spinvox has reacted to BBC allegations over its technology, finances and privacy standards.
Few comments are plainly "factually wrong." For one, the facts are often a matter of debate. For two, many comments represent judgments, your own being a perfect example: is the statement "thoughtful comments that are factually wrong should be downvoted" itself evaluable as either "factually wrong" or "factually right?" Only if you believe that the "should" in this case exists independently in the world could you answer yes to that. Then it would be a fact to be discovered. Otherwise, (and most people take this position), we can agree on the facts and disagree on the "should."

So it goes with most prescriptive uses of the word "should," actually.
You mean a farrier? I learned alongside the neighbour who used to shoe our horses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farrier
It's a little mysterious how Twitter manages to stay in business now, given that they don't seem to charge anyone for anything.
Git 101
Git 101 (PDF) - OSCON presentation by Scott Chacon of GitHub
World's biggest telescope
Thousands of years ago, the original inhabitants of Spain's Canary Islands are thought to have worshipped the Roque de los Muchachos mountain as having magical powers.
You can't teach an old dog new tricks in parallel
I like the idea of using a Chernoff bound, but 652 is way too low to be the answer!

But I get, as solutions for exp(-2(.01n-5)^2 / n) = .01, n = 10.4 and n = 24015.
My Last Day of Social Skydiving (I made it)
The New NPR.org - Intro video integrating a user feedback session into the demo
Statistics is math.
We've definitely been thinking along those lines as far as the wishlist goes. We want to explore ways to make the site more social.

Thanks for the tip on the SenSEO add-on. I hadn't seen that before. It looks like we're doing pretty well in quite a few areas, but could also still use some tweaking in others (especially keyword relevance).
As an aside... I still need to finish my final project/exam but that's set to take a couple weeks.
Hacker Can Be Sued For Fraud Under Securities Exchange Act, Says 2nd Circuit
Carpenter or work on bikes
Open Source Analytics: Visualization & Predictive Modeling with R
OSCON presentation file (PPT)
A similar site based on Flash 10: http://www.filesovermiles.com/
Oh you're right, that's the solution. Silly me, the moment I go to a computer to solve the final equation I get it wrong!
You're absolutely right, the Acer is not a piece of art.
Flash security vulnerability exploited in PDFs
Dear bloggers who begin rants with the word Dear: Please stop.
Former British Cop Has Bank Details for 40 Million People
Nicely written article, but no deep insights here.

Basically points out that older folks will suffer most from the loss of local newspapers, but that people can find another way to spread information if they need to.
That, honestly, is a great idea. I shall add that in the next few hours or so. Thanks.
Its rather interesting, but while I agree with the first half, about the trip itself, but when it comes down to it, I live to be online. While there are several things I do online that are superfluous, and tend to slip away after each of my breaks (last year, I stopped doing for-money blogging, the year before I dropped quite most of the games I played) and don't come back.

While there are plenty of things that are fine to slip away, the constant flow of information, that fount of knowledge that the internet is, I really depend on that. The break from it is nice, to get my bearings again, but its just that: a break. Its not a way I would want to live my life, and not one I can see myself ever choosing.
I'd love to be a commercial airline pilot. Don't know if that counts though, too many computers in airplanes these days.
Use the up-vote button to agree.
This is a superb explanation. PubSubHubBub is a beautiful piece of technology - I hadn't realised it was supported by FeedBurner. Should really help bootstrap further adoption.
Yep. I'd try to get some actual paying gigs playing piano. Or I'd tune pianos. I tried that once for a while, kinda fun.
They're in business with the money they raised. The fact that putting up a few content pages nets them an NY Times story probably doesn't hurt attracting further investment..
Your Work in Open Source, the Numbers
Chris DiBona states that in open source code world (as in code.google.com) PHP has more Lines-of-code than PERL, TROFF contributes more LOC than Ruby, Fortran over Pascal, C over C++, ADA over Actionscript, Smalltalk over Objective-C.
Your comments?
Chef.
It will still be radioactive even if you burn it.

Instead they are actually designed NOT to burn up, but rather fall to the ground in one piece.
I remember my year-12 math teacher being the first true teacher I had for the subject in a very long time who actually cared, A student who came up with a varied or creative solution to a normal problem was praised with an overwhelmingly happy and teary exclamation.

I tried harder that year than ever before, Not just because of the importance of my results, But because I wanted to understand her euphoria at really giving yourself over to the problem.

Unfortunately Teachers who inspire such enthusiasm are a desperately rare breed.
Consider how much publicity they get.
A more serious problem is the expression of a sentiment I think few of us here share:

"...not what someone on the internet tells you to."

Really? Is it really so bad or so unreliable to read what someone on the "internet" said? In fact, I think you'd find little in print that is up to date focusing specifically on a comparison of gitvsmecurial, and what's out there doesn't have comments replying to the most obvious weak points or updating with new information. A good, up to date, reasoned argument online from a reputable blogger-hacker? Reading someone else's argumentation isn't just about blindly listening to someone else; they may bring up new information or new points that you hadn't thought about.

And why does this sound like something a curmudgeonly old book editor might be saying about blogs and the Internet rather than a hacker working with the latest distributed version control tools?
The last paragraph oddly jumped out at me. Why do so many people confuse arrogance with confidence? Or more precisely, why do so few arrogant people fail to see the benefits of confidence without arrogance?
Stone mason. You carry all of your tools in your back pocket, you get to work on and build beautiful and cool things that people enjoy, and when you're done your work can last for hundreds of years. (Plus you get to be outside and meet lots of interesting folk)

I've also had a hankering for owning my own sub shop at the beach. Walk up in your bare feet, place an order, and minutes later I've created something that makes you happy. I get to wear whatever I want, and the scenery is gorgeous.
I'd probably work in a kitchen or learn woodworking & make cabinets.
He's someone who writes code for homself, then makes it available to people in case they might find it useful.

That actually sounds like an excellent definition for a big fraction of source developers. One of the many benefits of open source is that it captures and aggregates value of even very modest contributions as well as the value of major contributions.
Those don't put out enough energy for this. You'd need an actual reactor.

And I remember reading that we are a little short on the right fuel for those right now, since it has not been manufactured in years.
No, I'm speaking to those who are worried about their commercial software not being able to compete with 'free' alternatives.

That '_commerical_' support you're referring to doesn't scale worth a damn, so it's easy to out-compete those folks as a business and provide a superior product.
The evolution of client-side scripting
It's interesting to me that petroleum engineering and mining engineering have rocketed to the top. For as long as I can remember I don't think they were even in the top 10. Think it's a sustainable trend?
Also, as a Computer Science student, let me say that it's always nice to see the average starting salary for my field go up. Mo' money, mo' ramen, as they say.
Yeah, I didn't really touch on that part, but you're completely right. The only reason the Internet can be less reliable than other sources is because it lowers the barriers which usually keep stupid people from voicing their opinions to large audiences. That's it. We, the Internet, still have lots of smart, knowledgeable folks!

And, yes, given the new and evolving nature of Git and Mercurial, if I'm not going to listen to someone on the Internet, I'm pretty much stuck listening to my Mom. And she still uses AOL email.
You're confusing reporting with commentary. We do both at SAI. Sometimes, commentary and speculation before reporting, as in this case. Sometimes the other way around. But fun rant.
http://foovsbar.com
It's news because most people don't know about it.

And because of that before long it will be news again, and again, and again. Here's hoping the Ad Astra tests go well.
True, it has been around for a while...but it's nice to be reminded about them. :)
I wasn't aware someone on HN made this or I might have been slightly less abrasive (okay, probably not), but I'm glad that you took the constructive (albeit rough) criticism :)
It's a common conceit among engineers to believe that they can be objective in all things and cleanly separate their opinions and their knowledge. We may be a little better at it than the average person, but we are all still human, even the most socially detached savant is still subject to the influence of passion and bias. Realizing this, the original question is a fantasy, it is utterly impossible because there can be no agreement on what is even considered "thoughtful".

My recommendation is to take it easy, let people be people, and stop daydreaming.
FogBugz 1.0 shipped November 2000 (http://www.foundersatwork.com/joel-spolksy.html)

Version history (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FogBugz#Version_History)

Version 2.0 - March, 2001

Version 3.0 - November, 2002

Version 3.1 - February, 2003

Version 4.0 - December, 2004

Version 5.0 - March, 2006

Version 6.0 - August, 2007

Version 7.0 - July, 2009
3D Drawing with Rhonda
Cool, hadn't seen that. Unfortunately, because of a flash limitation, all the files are read into memory - so you can't go transferring huge files.
Professional Photographer
I think its actually more valuable if people do vote their agreement (and disagreement), think of it a s very techie peer review process.
I don't downvote comments I disagree with. I do downvote comments that are off-topic, don't add anything constructive, or predictably rehash the same old arguments that have been used in certain online debates thousands of times over the years.

Which on the surface might look like downvoting comments I disagree with... but there's a difference.

Is it just me, or do the weekends tend to attract more meta threads?
Agreed. I don't think it would be practical or even beneficial for me to turn off. However, I think I need to get better at somehow reducing my exposure to the sheer, full-spectrum flow of stuff - particularly the trivialities - that consumes so much of my time and leaves the rest of my time feeling cramped and rushed.
I think it would really cool to be a winemaker.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winemaking
I wonder what the effect of making quick bid/cancel or increasing the cost of canceling a bid would do to the market. My suspicion is that it would make HFT less useful, but, as all things in game theory, results can be surprising.
well Apple (iPhone) and Google (Android) are competitors.. Its good business sense I believe. The point on the iPhone is moot anyway because without background processing (&) its a useless and pointless app/webpage.
Hierarchy of the Successful Independent Software Developer
Give me a break. One can verify the reason of Apple screwing Google solely on Apple's actions in the past. They have one of the best mobile handsets in history, which could be TEN TIMES better if they wouldn't limit developers. Apple, people are eventually going to get tired of this, and develop for other platforms. They'll soon realize that your ridiculous politics isn't worth all the hassel anymore, especially when there are handsets available which rival the functionality of the iPhone. They will get tired of jumping through endless hoops to get it published, when on other platforms its open, easy, and seamless. If they don't loosen up soon, the iPhone will just be another thing of the past.
Every actual musician who I tell I left the "professional bassoonist" career path for computers looks at me like I'm a total fool. "Do you know how many gigs, grants, and scholarships there are for bassoonists?!"
FastCompany's Real Reason for Bill Gates' Success
Eleven Years of Ambition and Failure At AOL
It's called Venture Capital, and they have a lot of it.
It would not (entirely) surprise me to see a large portion of their business model coming from data-sets. Back at the end of 2008, an individual gathered every single Tweet that had been made to that point, simply by trying every possible Tweet-ID. He released the data-set, and promptly took it down, because the Twitter staff had contacted him. They apparently were in talks, and I never did see the end result. Here is the blog post on it: http://blog.infochimps.org/2008/12/29/massive-scrape-of-twit...

He collected 10 million Tweets, which was a side-effect when trying to gather a graph of user-following, and got permission from Twitter staff to release it, after which they changed their mind. Its rather disapointing, and would have been a great corpus to do work on.

Either way, I think Twitter could develop a significant profit-stream by bringing in some stats staff, and running analysis on their end against the databases. If Twitter really does want to become "the heartbeat of the internet" or whatever they called it, that's the way to monetize it.
Yes, that's what makes me nervous. I remember back in 1999 listening to a startup CFO saying her company was having cash-flow problems and needed more VC funding, and thinking that what they really needed was a revenue stream. (That was when I realized with a clunk that the dot com bubble's days were numbered.)

Twitter has been remarkably successful at attracting a huge community of users and developers for their service, but sooner or later they're going to have to find a way to monetize that - without alienating the huge user base on which any viable monetizing plan must depend.
Restore WWII-era aircraft
Stand-up comic. I wouldn't even have to write anything. I'd just tell enterprise software war stories. That oughta keep 'em laughing for a while.
Yes. People who contribute things they believe to be correct, even if incorrect, gives other people an opportunity to demonstrate the correct behavior and others still a chance to be educated.

Additionally, sometimes the original poster was in fact correct, and the responder correcting him is proven incorrect.
Novelist (I could write long hand or use a typewriter to meet the "job that a computer is not (or almost) used" criterion )
We've actually been deep into R-trees, and I wrote an Rstar-tree recently, but the problem posted above, of coalescing adjacent rectangles that have some sort of affinity (e.g. same color), doesn't appear in the R-tree literature I've read so far. Probably you could do it using neighbor queries and remove/reinsert, but this is probably too slow. If you have any further suggestions along these lines, do please post them.
Forest Preserve Ranger
Ask HN: online business that will thrive in great depression
I've heard that these (brick and mortar) businesses do well in recessions.
- Funeral homes
- Accountants
- Health care
- Pawn shops
- Flea markets
- Debt collection agencies
- Equipment repair
- Grocery stores

What online businesses do people think will survive during the greater depression?
I'd be a farmer. I raise blueberry bushes as my weekend hobby right now and doing it full time I could get some animals.