skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If anybody wants trends in their city, http://happn.in might be what you're looking for.

To add to the discussion, here are some of the things that make Happn.in tick:

* We throw out trends that occur in more than N (currently, N=3) cities. This gets rid of the Michael Jacksons and Swine Flus.

* We've built up a sizable list of stopwords that include things like 'and', 'or', 'but', and also 'google', 'twitter', 'lol', etc.

* We've built a list of users who contribute little content to Twitter, and ignore their tweets. There are some other spam-blocking measures in place.

* We throw out retweets, urls and hashtags. This gets the trends away from memes and blog posts, and helps to highlight real-world stuff.

* We don't include one-word phrases, Arguably, this makes us miss things, but the amount of noise when one-word phrases were included was too high.
"troubleshoot" is an inelegant solution as well, which is one of the reasons I think ubuntu would be better off avoiding it.

the ui should either work, or tell the user why it doesnt work, troubleshoot is a band aid.
Yes, good point. Blogs are more analogous to editorials than news stories, and editorials are usually clear in political bias.

To be honest, I wish I'd spent a little longer on the post; I think I lost the thread slightly.

I certainly think any problem with blogs pretending to be objective (which I would argue is the exception rather than the rule) is nowhere near as big a problem as papers claiming to be objective but in reality having an agenda. As papers are usually much more subtle in the ways they bend the truth and less transparent than blogs, they often get away with appearing objective. And of course, people can normally comment on a blog to correct things.
Looking at the C code, here are a few suggestions:

- __builtin_popcount() and __builtin_popcountll() are great gcc builtins which perform bit population counts, useful for hamming distances (after the XOR operation, of course). [1]

- avoid scanf(), which is costly. My approach was to generate a header file with the char * words[] array, and also a int words_len[] with, you guessed it, the pre-computed lengths. Then go for the memcpy() route and you're in a much better position.

- speaking of memcpy, gcc provides one that should be optimal in most cases, but for really short words, it might be easiest to write your own. I came across a good article on it [2] but this is what I ended up using:

void
c_memcpy (char * dst, char * src, size_t len)
{
__builtin_prefetch(dst, 1, 3);
while (len--) {
*dst++ = *src++;
}
}

[1] http://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-4.1.2/gcc/Other-Builtins.h...

[2] http://www.embedded.com/columns/technicalinsights/19205567
Not all of them have:

(old-ish article, but I think it's still around)

http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/05/at-the-new-york-times-prepa...

but not nearly enough kept them alive, or ever had them in the first place.
Whats with the downvotes? I, for one, largely agree with you.
Where are we, where do we want to be, how do we get there?
Ted Trainer, Democracy & Nature, July 2000
http://www.democracynature.org/vol6/trainer_where.htm

Rich world living standards could not be as high as they are if these enormous inequalities, transfers of wealth and deprivations were not occurring. It is a zero-sum game. If we get the resources necessary to produce throw-away affluent lifestyles, they are not available to provide basic necessities for most of the world’s people. The main beneficiaries are the very few who own or manage the transnational corporations and banks. They are rapidly increasing their ownership and control through their stunning success in promoting the free market ideology. The few biggest and most powerful and predatory actors on the level playing field win, and take almost everything that is worth taking. Capitalism has never been so triumphantly dominant and secure from threat. It's legitimacy and permanence is more or less undoubted at official, political and popular levels.

....

In a market economy there is also a powerful tendency for development to be inappropriate to the needs of most people and of the environment. Investment will flow into those ventures likely to yield the highest returns. These are never the ventures that are most likely to produce what most people need. Thus while most Third World regions urgently need more production of cheap and simple food, tools, appliances, housing and clothing, the development that occurs is of export plantations, mines, Hilton hotels, international airports, etc. Such development draws away from poorer people the productive resources which they once had and were able to use to produce for themselves many of the things they need. Possibly the most disturbing examples of this process are to do with the application of Third World land to export crops while many people are malnourished.
Fan vs Scala: Different Trade-offs
I must say I didn't expect so much hate for this comment hack. Hack? That's right, it absolutely is a hack - and it's definitely not the most elegant solution.

I think a lot of people really missed the point here, and used comments as a way to flaunt their clearly more impressive and infinitely superior geek prowess by using IDEs and emacs.

The point was to present a solution that was fairly platform and language agnostic. If I had included an IDE shortcut in the article, I would have had to go through a long list of all the IDEs out there and all their corresponding shortcuts. I would have then been inevitably flamed for missing some or for not representing a specific programming language.

Oh, and don't forget to bash PHP or point out how much I suck at programming for using PHP. Because everyone knows only cool developers and true geeks don't use PHP.
Why do you think their government is trying so hard to maintain (the appearance of) economic growth?

Their ability to maintain the status quo is essentially tied to double-digit economic growth. If their economy slows down to even modest growth they face serious unrest.
Indeed.

The example of LSD's fall from popularity is correct as far as it goes, but the LSD market was so distorted that it's a poor example. The DEA couldn't get a handle on it when it was hot (I recall reading a policymaker summary complaining that LSD dealers seemed largely unmotivated by money and were thus hard to track by normal means) and a single supplier who produced `90% of global supply isn't exactly normal either.

I do agree with the underlying premise of the article that a well-informed public is likely to produce more users but fewer casualties.
Creating a (not so) Basic Makefile
Do you believe in magic?
I have to say that Ubuntu's forums and documentation aren't worth hardly anything. The forum is overloaded and there are so many new threads that very few of the threads will ever be touched or answered.

The documentation covers the basics, but it rarely helps if there is a problem.

I had a problem with graphics card issues last year and spent a couple weeks of research before finally finding a way to fix the problem myself. The forums and documentation didn't help.

And I found numerous other people asking the same question but not getting any answer. After I found the solution I posted it on their forum threads.
What niches do they currently own?
That is one of the best posts I have ever read.
The Top 21 Socially and Deal Networked VC’s
Is $NOUN more $POSITIVE_ADJECTIVE than TechCrunch? Probably.
IPhone push hack shoves IMs to complete strangers
NSA Using Cloud Model For Intelligence Sharing
Or, for those who aren't stingy with their particles: "hone in on" :-) Some interesting speculation on the origins: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000378.h...
Colleges like Harvard have a large ecosystem and keep a lot of people employed either directly or indirectly, like cooks, cashiers, groundskeepers, IT staff, teaching and research assistants, companies that make technology for them to use, architects and engineers who design, construct, and maintain their buildings, and more.

However hard it is for someone attending Harvard to go without breakfast, it's much harder for the cook supporting a family on $10/hr or whatever to suddenly have 0$/hr and no heath insurance.
Frictionless arbitrage?
And I wonder how many of those that realize are willing to change their lifestyle based on that knowledge? To be honest, I am not doing my part.
Death and Taxes & Taxes
Approximating Pi number using Genetic Programming
Or, "This blog will get 10 posts before halting forever."
I would expect my breakfast to be borne by nymphs.
Not sure if you've seen the movie based on your assessment. It's been a while for me. The movie is not about stealing ideas and several people are killed.

The movie is about a corrupt iconic thought leader who bugs hackers' work and home lives and eventually kills them when they are no longer useful or become a threat.

Obviously a comment in jest, but Tim Robbins' character looks to have been based on Jobs (except for the psychopathic thing) and like many similar movies the "jumped" from 12 stories could be replaced with "thrown" for more drama.

Since when do we have to explain jokes to 3rd graders around here?
This actually sounds like an interesting idea to me. Most of the time, I suspect, my search results don't need data from my social network to improve. But occasionally social data might be highly relevant. And so if my search results are Google quality most of the time, and even better (due to social network hits) a small percentage of the time, Cuil may totally rock.

I also like how this isn't a social network search engine. It's an extension of normal search. I can't imagine myself (at least today) sending a separate query to my social networks. But obviously I query a normal search engine all the time.

I wonder if they will run into Terms of Use issues with Facebook et al. In order to search efficiently, they'll need to store social network data...
"Personally I find the GPL distasteful; because it locks you in. Frustrating (and I cant help feeling causes substantial code duplication for some projects that dont want to use GPL code)"

Were there any licenses prior to the GPL that didn't do that? Surely you couldn't just take a piece of IBM or AT&T's code and put it into your programs with no strings attached. That era was before my time, so please educate me if I'm mistaken.
This is definitely true. Number theory is more interesting than calculus.

The difference is, if you are not good at math, number theory is impossible. But anyone can learn calculus if they try hard enough.
Forget Cuil, check this out: one guy and a bunch of pcs
How To Develop a jQuery Plugin
How do you infer that Dershowitz approved of the salary increases in the fat years?
>> Not a problem. High gasoline prices are good for the environment.

> Only if people change their driving habits accordingly, and I know very few people who have actually altered their lifestyle

That sounds then like gas prices aren't high enough to drive the behavior change to the extent needed. $4 a gallon gas changed some habits. $10 a gallon would drive even further behavior change.
What do you mean spot on? It's not a serious post. It presents no evidence. He's joking around as usual.

edit: i'm seriously being downmodded for saying a post accusing apple execs of conspiracy to commit murder was a joke? and the prevailing view here is we should take that post as an accurate (radical lefty) political statement? and praise it even though it gave no political arguments capable of convincing someone who was unsure?
"That Summers suggested women lacked a natural ability for sciences did not help matters one bit."

That isn't quite accurate. Summers had prefaced his remarks saying "I'm going to provoke you", then pointed out that math and science test scores were higher for high school boys than for high school girls. No one understands why, he continued, but is it possible that genetics plays a part, and it is not strictly a socialization issue?

He was castigated by some faculty members for those politically incorrect remarks. How DARE he even ask the question?

See: http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/01/17/summers...
Plastic Logic to use AT&T network for new e-reader
I frequently go to the factories in Guangzhou and deal with the workers there.

The housing is not substandard. There are employee dorms and employee cafeterias at every factory I've been to. These things are completely self contained. I've toured them, and they're like college dorms. The workers stay there, in the dorms and eat there. They're not prisoners. Everybody goes back home, (often over a thousand miles) every year for Chinese New Year, for example. They also leave the factory grounds in the evening, just like you'd leave a college campus you lived on to hang out downtown.

Now, all that said, the competition for those jobs, I think, is quite intense. I've been repeatedly impressed by the level of dedication in the engineering staffs I've worked with. You say you need a fixture modified to allow a certain PCB component to be tested in a different way, and they're back in 30 minutes with the changed fixture, for example. Those engineers make things happen in minutes, not days. It's quite motivational to be among them. However, I'm sure there's a certain fear component that's driving them. It's a very good job, and they don't want to lose it. I'm not certain how such a thing can be addressed. It's just a function of the supply and demand of factory jobs.

I also sense a bit of colonialism mentality in many of my fellow engineers when we travel over there. We're smart, and they're idiots, is an attitude that is almost constant among western engineers dealing with Chinese factories. It's your typical client/vendor bullying, but multiplied by 5 due to this attitude. When you bully the factory manager, he'll pass that down the line, I'm sure.

Now, I've never worked with Apple, but I'm told it's a bit scary there. Lot's of pressure, even for the American engineers to perform to perfection. I imagine being an Apple vendor is a bit of a nightmare, and a Chinese vendor, of course is bullied by normal companies, so an Apple Chinese vendor, I have to assume, is in hell.

Couple all that together, and I can imagine this kid being pretty stressed out.
Patent Bar, Doctors Face Off in Prometheus v. Mayo
On every team, everyone except one is worse than someone else. On every team, someone is the worst.

People work with those worse than them all the time, as those more experienced share their acquired wisdom with the less experienced ones. (Not to mention that you don't have to be the worst at everything. Ideally the places are switched in other realms of expertise.)

For you personally, it means reaching outside of your comfort zone and doing something you're not sure you can do.
The review is nice as far as it goes, but given the tech bent of the author I'm a little surprised he isn't the least bit leery about turning control of his car over to somebody else.

All your movements can be monitored. Accidentally park near a crime scene last week? They can unilaterally disable your engine until the police have had a chance to interrogate and clear you.

Not scary enough? Envision your own nightmare, perhaps starting with a crook driving behind you and forcing your car to a dead stop, having broken the communications protocol.

I think the potential downside risks well outweigh the known benefits. To paraphrase Inspector Renault, it's the paranoid in me...
Disney Japan to sell movies in tiny memory cards
Cheap in price, but also quality. The crap we buy today feels like garbage compared to 20 years ago. Maybe I'm getting old, but consumer products today seem watered down and made of the weakest thinnest plastic that the masses will put up with.

This applies to consumer electronics, appliances, kid's toys, you name it.
It isn't really, tho'. For product X you could spend $y every year on Chinese-made because it's broken or obsolete, or $10y just once on German qualitat that will last for the rest of your life. We could all own fewer but better things, all made by workers who were decently paid and it would be cheaper. The difficult question is, why do so few people even want that?
I am in Chihuahua Mexico. Two years ago this used to be a very pleasant city but now it has become really violent. The death toll is about 900 people just in the state and just in this year. This very serious situation has made me change my position on drugs. The gun fire is doing more damage than the drugs themselves. If people decide to damage their lives by using drugs it is their choice and it is their problem. But with this war in drugs a lot of people that have nothing to do with them are suffering. I know that Mexico has no choice, we have to fight this war, but I would prefer drugs to be un-penalized (but not legalized) in the U.S. and step up on prevention campaigns.
food that's not really that great.

Understatement of the year, man...
> In short, no matter what the class's level, mathematics definitely needs to be taught from a more problem-solving, integrated perspective.

I'm always looking for examples of how this is done. How did you learn how to solve problems? (Did someone teach you?)
I really can't wait for their reader; seems to be everything I can possibly want in an e-Ink-like device. From the amount of features the demos are showing, I'm afraid it'll be a lot more expensive than the Kindle DX.
Why Yahoo Buying Xoopit is a Smart Move
Neither am I. I wouldn't know where to begin; I don't know even if I've got the strength to go without much of what I use daily.
This exposes the truism that there is always a standard of living continuum in society. In a different era there were Kings and Lords and Peasants. Now we have Europeans and Americans and Chinese and Indians.

If globalization can succeed at improving the standard of living for those at the bottom of the continuum, it will have to be at the expense of those at the top. It's a zero sum game.
"The main aim of an academic is to achieve tenure; getting the same job for life. This is not the mindset one needs to start a business."

Is that true? I'm not sure that's representative of most of my professors. For example, rtm's one of my professors at school, and he's certainly not the only one to be involved in other ventures. Professors are involved in cutting edge research - they need to make risky decisions, based on little information, of what to invest their time in, knowing full well that most of their research won't be overly influential. Sounds a lot like starting a company to me.

Also, I'd argue that dropping out of school is no different than quitting your day job. If you're starting your own company, you certainly don't need to prove your credentials to anyone by having a degree - if you know enough to start the company, more time in school would just be wasted time.
I really hope one day we learn that FSJ = SJ.
FSJ at his best is satirical, not joking. He's funny but he makes good points anyway. His little rant paragraphs 2-4 is spot-on.
I expect mainly because in the world of tech, things only have a life of maybe 2 years before they're considered 'old'/'obsolete'/'stupid looking' etc.

Memory, megapixels, storage, screen, speed etc are all advancing so quickly that it doesn't make any sense to bother making something that'll last beyond a few years.

It would however be cool and responsible to make these devices more environmentally friendly, but that's a hard sell to some.

I'm sort of glad I didn't spend the extra on my first MP3 player - 32mb of wonderment.
It's looks pretty hot. I agree with you on pricing, probably high.

I'd consider a Crunchpad as an alternative. I am using a Fujitsu Stylistic tablet currently.
Unless of course technology can improve things. I doubt the Chinese have the technology we do.
No, you couldn't. You spend $10y on a computer or a cellphone made in Germany, it'll still be completely useless within a decade or two. Tech is different.
Agree, the current situation is not really preventing drug usage, but it is generating a great deal of violence and putting a lot of money (and guns...and power) in the hands of criminals.
Thanks for the tips. gcc builtins are definitely the next level for me.

I'm curious about your scanf point though. I'm using scanf/strdup before the check loop to load the words into memory. Are subsequent memcpy calls on an implicitly loaded *char dict[] array faster on non-malloc'd memory for some reason?
I think many journalists are paid by the word. I'm not sure if this worse or better then programmers being paid based on number of bugs found and fixed.
I can finally make it! Looking forward to meeting you all.
I'm posting two very interesting blog posts about China factories and its "bio-robots" but it's in Russian :(
May be try google translate...
Mices and headphones:
http://sergeydolya.livejournal.com/55293.html
Sony and Panasonic factories:
http://sergeydolya.livejournal.com/55924.html
That sounds like a disaster -- how the hell are they going to lock down GSM?

If they want to go for a business model like Amazon's no-subscription 'Whispernet', wouldn't they get eaten alive by people using/cloning the SIM in other devices?
Hi froo. As a fellow Aussie, please do me a favour and stop such rampant apostrophe abuse. Thank you.
With the iPhone there is one software repository. With Ubuntu (and most major distributions) you can roll your own repository (or someone selling software can).

Centralized software distribution is awesome, the issue with the iPhone model is that you have to be anointed.
Well how fast is bamboo? I could wait a decade or two for for a house, especially if all I had to do was plant a seed.

Also perhaps we could grow it in a CO2 filled tent to speed it up. That's assuming C02 is a limiting factor in plant growth.

Or perhaps it could grow a frame really fast, and then fill in the walls and keep making them thicker over time. So you can start living in your "tree house" with membrane thin walls and they will thicken over time to become wood.
Managing Your Digital Comics Colllection
Just noticed that my article had been posted on HN.

I am not a historian and just did this as a nostalgic reflection on what I experienced being in and around the Valley for the past 40+ years and then projected it back a decade or so to focus on what seemed a key transition year - 1956 - when Shlockley Labs was formed, HP went public, etc., to use it as a symbolic contrast between the new and the old.

It was just a fun diversion for me, the main goal being to capture a mood. Sorry about the lack of pics.
Tech is only different if you play by the game wherein anything that doesn't abuse a computer's stats is not worth toying with.

I'm guilty of playing this game along with everybody else, but at some point we'll realize that we don't need all of what we've got, and we'll start being satisfied with it. Hell, I can see myself sticking with the laptop I've got right now for a decade.
We (the West) get a LOT of stuff from China. On a Chinese-made frying pan, for example, the handle is broken in a year, the non-stick coating comes off in a few washes. My (American-made) cast-iron skillet, on the other hand, cost more but I'll never need another. Heck, my grandkids, if I ever have any, could probably still use it...
Learning NP = P is more likely.
the standard curriculum is not designed for the top students it’s not a question of learning calculus that's easy the question is how to keep up with your potential.

If you understand calculus and diff EQ you can do 95% of the useful math for most walks of life. But getting to that point at 16 is not much more useful than getting there at 20. What’s often harder and more interesting is to get into topology and number theory so you can start to explore higher math.

PS: High level math completions in the US are also focused on a wider range of math skills. With a little effort you can start to step out of the "normal mold" and compete at that level.