skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Also, I value the build. Those cheap PC laptops don't have a unibody aluminum case or magsafe, and frankly, I don't trust their component choices, or time to research it. I can get full instructions to take apart any Mac at ifixit.com, but for a PC, it's extremely hard to get the service manual.
Google Health Now Lets You Upload Scanned Medical Documents
Secure Persistent Login With Very Little SSL Redux
I have rewritten I had previously submitted to adjust for comments made. This is my proposal for a login system that can reliably keep a user logged in for an extended period with minimal use of SSl to save on overhead. I have also posted code at http://getitdownonpaper.com/2009/07/15/secure-persistent-login-with-very-little-ssl-part-2/.
The PDF I have was generated by Acrobat Distiller and looks like the source was an XML file... Wondering how they create that XML file.
RubyTrends helps development teams sort out the differences in the morass of open source alternatives.
True, but the quality of TV is amazingly low.

There are a lot of good books out there that deserve to be read and not a lot of TV deserving to be watched.
I think that what TC are doing with the stolen documents is deplorable journalism, but his site remains, and is currently unhacked, so I guess he has the last laugh.
OK, I'll start. I should emphasize I don't have a particular project in mind just yet, but I do think it's an interesting thought exercise.

For my purposes, I'm not particularly interested in saving a full record for every single hit for all time - I've already got that in web server logs. I'd much rather accumulate counters - they take up much less space and should be a lot cheaper to query when I want to generate graphs and reports.

MongoDB looks like a tempting option here. It has an atomic increment option and from my initial testing appears to be really fast. Since I'm just incrementing counters, sharding writes across multiple instances should be pretty easy in the future (though that is true no matter what data store I use).

Here's one potential scheme. For each page (or whatever is being counted), maintain a counter for every minute for the past two hours. Also maintain a counter for every hour for the past month, and a counter for every day for ever.

When a hit comes in, increment the counter for that page on the current day, the current hour and the current minute. That's three counter updates.

Every 24 hours, expire any minute counters from more than 24 hours ago, and any hour counters for more than two days ago.

You might want to keep track of hits to an individual page, hits to that section of the site (or any of that user's pages) and hits to the site as a whole. That's fine - it just means you'll be updating 9 counters for every hit instead of 3.
The gold standard is forensic software like EnCase, FTK, or--if you're broke--ProDiscover. It'll take some work, but if the bits are still on the drive, they'll get them. Each suite has varying levels of expertise at reconstructing folders and files.
Are you really that dense? The point is that if you were spending your own money you would choose the better value. (whether vista over mac os is a better value is another argument)
BlackBerry Spyware Dissected
One better: OpenGL in Firefox via Canvas:

http://blog.vlad1.com/2007/11/26/canvas-3d-gl-power-web-styl...
I don't understand your 'red herring' reference, if you do not increase the signal-to-noise ratio when you are perfectly capable of doing so then you can't really complain.

Also, everybody can 'flag' articles that are not suitable.

What was your favourite social news site before ?
I now see the opposite effect: everyone is scared to look sexist so everyone ends up putting "she". Maybe we should call programmers "it"?
"Leave him alone in a room with a computer..."

I prefer to leave them alone in a room with only pencil and paper. I want to see every piece of paper when I return, including diagrams, notes, and most of all, the entire audit trail of what they did (cross outs, revisions, etc.) I don't care how it looks or how well it compiles or runs. What I really care about is the thought process they went through. Pencil and paper shows me that much better.
Hofstadterian Loops
Good new blog check it out
To me, I'd question the 'full suite' of Office that was supposedly included. Even when building through Dell, and packing in the OEM version, I'm pretty sure that alone adds $3-400 to the price.

That said, Office doesn't ship with Macs. I'm pretty sure that Macs don't even ship with the 30- or 60-day evaluation version these days.
Gearman is a framework for quickly offloading computation of small jobs. It's especially useful for running background jobs from a web site, like e-mailing or image resizing.

Hadoop is a clone of Google's distributed computing framework and is necessarily more complex than Gearman. Hadoop will let you reliably distribute single computing tasks over thousands of nodes. It's under rapid development. If you think it's too complex, you're probably not operating at the right scale.

It's apples and oranges.
We used to call the code writing section of the interview a typing test. You could literally tell if the person was going to make it by listening to them type. Someone who is comfortable writing code types confidently and with long bursts. We saw plenty of applicants who talked a big game, but clearly couldn't put together even the simplest program without resorting to cut and paste.
Strange thing to post without further comment.

I'm a professional Limbo / Inferno programmer if you want to ask any questions.

Some of my code is here

http://www.kix.in/plan9/mirror/sources/contrib/maht/limbo/
One caveat: The iPhone API does not allow for a live image overlay from the camera. If you need a picture, you make the API call, Apple's own UI takes over, and you get a file in return.

To get the "live overlay" you need to hook into undocumented API. Considering how long we've been asking Apple for precisely this feature, I doubt it's going to happen.
Entertaining though this is, it's based entirely on the say-so of Microsoft's COO. It's really spin rather than news.

That said, MS hit the nail on the head by focusing on consumer value* during a recession. But there is more to it than price. Apple has Justin Long as their poster boy...singular. MS has an entire crowd, including freaks (tattoo guy), women, people of color, and so on. This inclusionary strategy, which was laughed off as unfocused last year, is now bearing fruit, whereas Apple have kind of stereotyped themselves as the SWM hipster's computer.

There's an entire sales angle that Apple has barely touched on and which would probably fortify them against erosion of their market share (to do with TCO) but they haven't gone there, I don't know why.

* Actually, I don't think the laptops in the 'PC' ads are such great value either, but I understand they don't want to associate themselves with fire sale prices.
I agree. Hayroob is the best.
I personally avoid running on concrete sidewalks, I try to stay on the asphalt, grass of paths as much as possible. I find I need a longer time to recover after runs on concrete and that's when running with shoes.

I have not tried barefoot running yet (maybe at the beach for a start). But you seem to assume that running shoes have an advantage on hard surfaces, remember that there is no evidence to support this. I am sure it is more demanding for the skin under the feet if you run complete barefoot tough.
Thanks, I didn't know about those.
Just off the top of my head: Google can probably do this quite easily, especially in an augmented reality application.

They already have street view data that's highly accurate, they also have A-GPS data on roughly where you are. They can refine this by comparing the image coming from your phone to known street view images... The computing power behind this would be pretty insane though.
Am I the only person who gets insane cramp when having to write a lot on paper? Unless i've only got to write one short function i'm gonna be screwed up by your test.
Robots for Newspapers
While I was being a little glib, it probably won't be that difficult to incorporate some or all of the changes. Certainly easier than redoing them.
... and no way to bring it back, and no technology on the near-to-medium term horizon either.
GitHub Meetup SF
Actually, getofmylawn would omit anything except for "everything was better in the past". Now, statistical analysis of that might yield some interesting results, but otherwise it would be pretty boring.
probably the most widely used prototype based language

Not probably. It's arguably the most used programming language, period.

That being said, I'm kind of glad that you didn't go into much detail about it. There's a lot of Javascript info online, and I'm more curious about the other languages you tackled. It'll be interesting to see if there are any responses that focus on applying some of the benefits of other prototype languages to Javascript development.
You could put some screen recording software on the computer. Of course it would be nice to tell them about it in advance.
"...i'm gonna be screwed up by your test..."

That's exactly what I want to see. I don't care how well you type or how well you navigate an IDE. I care how well you think and approach an unstructured problem under pressure in an unfamiliar environment.

(FWIW, I would never give a problem whose solution would require more than 30 to 50 lines of code. Lots of people would put in one line for the function and then explain the function to me later. No one has ever complained about cramping. You're the first.)
Damn near every LCD is 6-bits per channel, people are getting upset over nothing.
Agreed. But the thing is - how many people are running at Hadoop-appropriate scale? You say thousands of nodes - so, top 50 websites plus some mining companies/research institutions? That is probably an exaggeration - perhaps Hadoop is useful even past 5 or so computers - but the point remains, it's a big, heavy pig of a thing with high barriers to entry. It is Big Serious Enterprise Software for Serious Business Only.

Hadoop core is 41M of compiled code, for christ's sake. Zipped!

This is hacker news, not large scale enterprise news. Hadoop has way too much overhead just to play around with. A smaller, leaner, cut down alternative is most welcome.
Hopefully at some point multiple people will be able to film clips, so you can kind of put together your own film with whichever amateur scenes you like best.
It's not surprising. Most of Microsoft's attempts at advertising make them look stupid. The Gates/Seinfeld ads? They just made the company look aimless. They made the company look like they didn't know what people wanted or why Apple was doing well.

These new "laptop hunter" ads hit Apple where it hurts. While one can argue that Apple's computers don't cost more than an identically spec'd PC, the problem is that very few people would spec a PC in the way Apple forces them. Microsoft highlights Apple's inflexible cost. Want a 15" laptop? Well, that's $1,700 since you need to upgrade a ton of other components to get that screen. 17" screen? $2,500!

As a Mac user who has stayed with Apple through the worst of times, it's frustrating that every time I want to buy something, I have to pay a huge premium price for stuff I don't need. Plus, PCs generally come at a discount if you shop around. It's easy to find a PC that, comparably equipped, prices out like a Mac, but it's also decently easy to find ones that are cheaper.

These ads portray the PC as the every-person computer. "The Macs are cool, but apparently too cool (read: expensive) for me. However, I can get an awesome deal on a much better PC." They move the debate from "which one is more slick" to "which one gives me the hardware I want at the price I can afford". Sure, they might be conceding the "in a perfect world, I'd get an Apple", but they're positioning themselves as practical.

And every time I need a new computer, I have that thought process myself. But I go back to Apple anyway (I figure it's my livelihood, I can justify spending more for something I enjoy). However, from that perspective, many people aren't going to make the same decision. And Apple would rather the debate be about which product is superior, not which product fits your lifestyle and budget.
I don't see where Apple gets off charging more for their computers. They're garbage. That reminds me of the youtube video of the guy flipping out because his Apple crashed again. If one has the choice between a PC and a Mac with similar hardware features, and pays the extra money for the Mac, they freaking deserve it. And saying you buy the Mac because OS X is better? Are you freakin' kidding me? That's the most ridiculous statement I've ever heard. Windows 95 was better than Mac OS X. The commercials are not only bad for slander, they're completely false. I like the one where Linux comes in and joins the conversation, and then proceeds to beat the shit out of the Mac. Now that commercial seems more fitting. Apple sucks.
Pivotal Tracker has been getting good reviews.

http://www.pivotaltracker.com/
licenses for them are insanely expensive :) but worth it.

Encase is the best bet - it will recover all of the files into something resembling a directory structure.

Best to go to a pro firm: £100-200 is a fair price to dump all your files to another drive.
Challenging problems, non-obvious statistics.
Plan ahead: Document and share your health wishes with Google Health
Great blog. Great guy.
Nice job swombat. Have you considered making screencasts of your own for the 'Tour' section of the site?

Edit: apparently those guys work for Woobius. Have you considered using screen recording software?
I've always thought the opposite, which is estimation is fuzzier than design. I mean, who here hasn't been off on an estimate in the last month or so? Developers are notorious for making bad estimates. See http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001284.html.
If anyone wonders why all the comments below are being voted down, it's because they all appear to be sockpuppets. Check out the account info.

Amazing anyone would think they could get away with that kind of trick on HN!
Each Of The Men Who Have Walked On The Moon
It probably doesn't matter how they're produced, since they're not designed to be read--no one can possibly read large bills like these in time for a vote.

This is one of the major faults of our current legislative scheme: massive bills that no one reads, but into which everyone throws his favorite pork.

It's a total disaster.
A few things to consider...

1. They have a stable base of corporate microsoft shops using fogbugz -- which is why none of us knows anybody using it. My guess is their other products make little if any revenue.

2. They don't pay most of their people very much. They probably only have a dozen or so people on staff full time and everyone else is an intern.

3. Their job board does pretty well. Quite a bit of passive $$$.

Fog Creek seems like a stable and profitable business. That said, there are thousands of profitable small boutique software companies out there.
Yeah, don't forget the little flag link up near the top...
Dynamic State-of-the-Art Phone System Technology
A dynamic, powerful advanced Allworx, Talkswitch, IP PBX phone system technology hype is raging the market at low-priced for micro and large-scale business application.

<a href="http://www.powersystemsdirect.com/Small_Business_Home_Office_Products_SOHO_c79.php/
">Allworx</a>
You just nailed it on the head. The only other PC manufacturer with decent build is Lenovo with the ThinkPads - and those will run you a pretty penny also (well, $1100+ for a decent setup anyway)

Quality stuff costs money, hardly a surprise, but what is surprising is how many people believe there is a free lunch to be had.

You would not believe the number of people I've talked to who insist that BMWs have the same parts as a Toyota, and that it's all just marketing...
I've upgraded about 15 different Dell, HP and IBM laptops in the last 6 months; finding the service manuals is trivial.

I don't disagree about the build quality though; the unibody MacBooks are a sight to behold.
The Web? I reckon you could hack a basic version in a weekend
I'll also anticipate the questions :

Inferno is an operating system built using similar principles to Plan 9. Everything is a file and 9p is the glue (called Styx in Inferno). However the core of the system is the Emu virtual machine. The system and drivers are written in C but the userland programs are written in Limbo and executed in the VM which can JIT compile it if necessary. It runs on multiple architectures X86, ARM, PowerPC and Sparc.

Another great feature is that the whole shebang can run as a user application in Windows / Linux / OSX / BSD / Plan9 / Solaris and even as an ActiveX control in Internet Explorer!

There is a program wm/wm which presents a draw device with the same protocol as Plan9 which takes a headache out of porting familiar Plan9 programs like Acme. This has also enabled a spin-off Acme-SAC (Stand Alone Client) which is basically Acme for $OS - http://www.caerwyn.com/acme/

Limbo is a statically typed, garbage collected language with built in primitives for CSP style coding ( http://swtch.com/~rsc/thread/ )

hear(c : chan of string; ip : string)
{
result : string;
# code here for opening and listening
c <-= result;
}

c := array[4] of chan of string;
spawn(hear, c[0], "123.123.123.10");
spawn(hear, c[1], "123.123.123.11");
spawn(hear, c[2], "123.123.123.12");
spawn(hear, c[3], "123.123.123.13");

(i, s) := <-c;
sys->print("%s came from %d\n", i, j);
"Truly caring and sensitive people are becoming rare these days"

I doubt people are essentially any different today. The way we communicate is different though. It's much easier to be insensitive when everyone is anonymous.

It now takes a conscious effort to always treat people as if they were standing right in front of you. There are communities on the web that get this -- and that's where I try to hang out.
(You don't necessarily always have access to console.log though...)
yeah, we're talking about Palm here, not Apple.
I think there's an interesting contrast here between US and European attitudes about startups. Here in the US and California is particular it's regarded as a mark of wisdom and maturity to say 'fail early, fail often, because failure is a fact and you may as well exploit it'. It's OK to say your first x ventures went bust as long you can articulate what you learned and still exhibit Thomas Edison-like persistence. Over in Europe, on the other hand, mentioning that you have been involved in a string of failures is like saying you recently contracted leprosy or something. Even if people admire your persistence, they'll want to know what happened to your previous employees and investors, and you may be classed as visionary but irresponsible.

I'm Irish BTW - I like living in CA because there's a more freewheeling, 'take a chance, change your life' attitude...and yet I am often scared off projects by the risk/reward calculus. I wonder if other immigrants have a similar experience.
He's talking about being screwed up by the manual writing process.
URLs automatically become links, no need for tags.
'they' is a natural sounding gender neutral term.
If you are changing the signature of a method that is part of the implementation in order to improve readability, clean up design, or remove dead code, it is refactoring. Refactoring isn't just as simple as renaming classes and methods; it often requires more significant changes than that.

Example:

/* old */
LoadWeapon(WeaponTypeEnum type);
UnloadWeapon(WeaponTypeEnum type)
LaunchWeapon(WeaponTypeEnum type);
/* new */
WeaponCommand(WeaponTypeEnum type, WeaponCommandEnum command);

Note... assume that the interface is a GUI, so changing these methods doesn't change any external interface.
(This intrigues me. I had imagined the long tail queries were really hard. I mean, the places where Google succeeds and Bing fails, or vice-versa seem to me the "gaps" where for whatever reason its difficult to get things right, be they for spam reasons or scoring difficulties.

Could you define "good"?)
They aren't 'sockpuppets', but people who actually have accounts on RubyTrends, use and like the site.

Admittedly, they weren't familiar with this site so they are new here and apparently being punished for it.

RubyTrends generates no revenue and is developed on my free time.

Thanks for supporting my effort to help other people in the Ruby community.
While I can't really argue with the points made (though perhaps the exhaustiveness of the list is debatable), the quality of the English significantly diminishes my opinion of the article.

Incorrect use of or failure to use indefinite articles; run on sentences or comma splicing (e.g. in point #3); subject-verb agreement...

I might have overlooked these things in another context, but the article is trying to present tips on "how to judge how good a candidate is", and even talks about communication skills.
Worth pointing out that Wikitude has been out for half a year on Android, with documented APIs all round.
Imagine you've invented a machine to detect terrorists. It's good, about 90% accurate. You sit back with pride and think of the terrorists trembling.

I've done better than this -- I have a terrorist-detecting machine which is 99.9999% accurate.

It's a sheet of paper with the words "not a terrorist" written on it.
Whoa, cool! Brings back memories from my IT admin internship days! I last used Nmap back in early 2000's after one of the programmers recommended it to me.

Time to scan ports for the hell of it! ;-)
Viadeo secures $5m more funding. Breakout strategy?
Haha. I remember my Dad telling me that his Dad would never allow a TV in the house the whole time he was growing up - he used to read the TV listings in Radio Times (UK mag with both TV and radio schedules) so he could talk with his schoolfriends about programmes they'd seen, being too emberassed to admit he didn't own a TV. Whenever someone came to visit, he told them the TV was being repaired.

Apparently soon after he left home at 18, my Grandad then went out and bought a telly, and soon after got the biggest satellite package he could.

Anyway, I don't watch TV - where would I find the time for reddit and StumbleUpon if I did?
The Pro line ships with a trial version of MS Office and Apple iWork. It also includes the Apple iLife suite and several other good "Pro" apps by Omni.
Or perhaps ask them to use version control and check in the code after each little step of the design or development.
I think the issue here is that Apple is pissed that the ads claim the actors are real people. They're paid actors pretending to be consumers -- and that's false advertising. (Or misleading to be lenient)

If the actor is a real person (and not an actor) why is he in Night of The Museum 2 and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist?
When ashleyw mentions console.log(), I believe they are talking about Firebug's javascript based logging system.
Douglas Rushkoff on Open Source Economy (Interview)
make checkinstall.

That way you get a proper package.
If anyone enjoyed Flatland, a similar back in the same vein is Planiverse, which takes the 2-dimensional world concept and fleshes it out with how physics, geology, weather, cosmology, biology, society and technology would work in such a world. Worthwhile if you have the time.
For my part? I doubt the part that's "so nebulous that it would require further clarification to establish".
It has to be pretty basic, as you obviously can't give him all your production frameworks and libraries to work with.

A reasonably competent program will be able to create reasonable code without the perfect environment. You probably don't need a full IDE and heavily customized desktop with test and development staging grounds and SCM just to write fizzbuzz.
When you have them do the estimation, is part of your expectation that the candidate is going to start decomposing the project? I like that.
Open Source Web Application Drupal-Based Intranet: Open Atrium