skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I don't think it's being suggested that a pay-for-review scheme was what caused it to be a hit.

The game was available on the store for seven months without getting much traction. The developer probably thought he would try some kind of pay-per-review/promotion service to get a few more downloads.

This got the game into the charts, but it only really began to take off because unlike many of its peers using pay-per-review the game actually had a hook that got people playing. In this case the pay-per-review was a tiny catalyst for vast growth.

Of course, this assumes the developer used some sort of paid promotion service.
I would say, given what money can do for you in this world -- how much easier it can make your life, the doors it can open -- that it is at the very least surprising that anyone would turn down this kind of success. In fact, I'll bet you'd have trouble finding one person out of a hundred who would not be willing to suffer pretty significant pain for two weeks if it meant they'd make $50,000 a day. Given that people are willing to do this, they're shocked that this dev wouldn't just turn off his twitter, shut down his phone, book a trip to the beach and just ride it out there.

There may be a small handful of people in the world for whom taking the app down is the long-term rational decision. But I'd wager they are a fairly rare breed.
Nope. It's not a view with claims that I've seen expressed before. To me it is an original viewpoint.
Nice, complete misunderstanding of feminism and what most people argue for. Nice attacking of straw men. Nice rant for the status quo.

I’m sad now.
I find the endless accusations of a bot network quite tiring. Maybe he did and maybe he didn't. Either way there is zero evidence to support such a claim. My favorite part of this whole saga is from the polygon article.

Nguyen via Twitter: "Press people are overrating the success of my games. It is something I never want. Please give me peace."
Polygon: "We've reached out to Nguyen for comment and will
update accordingly."

Good job everyone. Good job.
I really love this article I came across a few years ago -- this is the kind of environment we should try to achieve again... sadly there aren't any technical hurdles to cross any more -- it's all hurdles we've created for ourselves (and our children...):

http://www.atariarchives.org/bcc1/showpage.php?page=61

[The Best of Creative Computing Volume 1 (published 1976):
Learning About Smalltalk, Marian Goldeen]

"My name is Marian Goldeen. I'm an eighth grade student at Jordan Junior High
School in Palo Alto, California, and I would like to tell you about how I got
started working with computers at Xerox and the class I taught.

It all started in December, 1973 when I was in the seventh grade (...)"
North Korea’s Red Star OS Looks Like OS X
Have you looked around lately ? Worldwide, I'd say at least 50% of the population does not make economic sense. That number is going up, fast.

What do you intend to do about them ?
That might actually be because your LocationHistory has no locations in them (Due to you having location services turned off). I will add a check so that it will tell the user a nice error when this is the case.
I recognise that tech has its politics and is rooted in it to an extent (Cypherpunks etc). I'm not particularly against that or blind to it.

What I dislike is the braiding of tech with identity politics issues by people who are unaccommodating, and hostile in their language and behaviour, if not their motives. Here, I feel that SJW is an apt description for people whose interests are primarily identity politics. It's not a term that I apply universally.

Sons made her point in a thoughtful way. She was not hostile (explicitly or implicitly). If there are issues regarding identity politics and tech, I'd rather hear about it from people like her. The pity is (in an awkwardly expressed way), because of her position, she doesn't necessarily want a platform from which to say things on these matters because she doesn't frame her experience in terms of gender (and that seems to carry through into the comments).
I don't see the ambiguity. Braces in expression position -> dict constructor. JavaScript is a fine example of how this is not a problem.
Why do some people feel like meaningful indentation is a deal-breaker with Python? It makes for readable code even in curly brace languages like JS, Java, and C. In fact, I found the first curly brace example with the odd indentation jarring. Being able to quickly scan a block of code and get a sense for what belongs to which block is incredibly valuable.
It would have been cheaper to build another Hubble and launch the replacement on a disposable rocket.
A lot of the dynamics you're describing here on Hacker News also apply to Hacker News. It's the same problem: Surface quality content and don't allow the items on the front page to choke out new submissions just because they're on the front page attracting all the votes.
> it makes me think: this might be a problem. Is it harder to be a hacker if you
> also have an interest in social media and graphic design and popularity and
> friendships? Are we defining "hacker" to include only people with bad social
> skills and no interest outside of technology? I hope not.

I never said any such thing. I didn't say "you are pretty, what are you doing
here?". I said:

>> you're not a programmer, what are you doing here?!

I am a highly social hacker, and a polymath to boot. I have a vibrant love
life, good friends from all walks of life, and plenty of non-coding interests:
writing, reading, psychology, music, crafts (I do leatherwork, weave rugs, sew,
do native american loomed seed beadwork, etc), backpacking, martial arts, and
more.

What I don't do is walk into a room and tell a woman who's good at something I'm
not -- a dancer, for example -- that she's being graded not on her ability to
dance, but on whether she looks like my idea of what a dancer should be. I
don't demand that her math skills (something just as orthogonal to dance as
fashion is to coding) be evaluated instead of her dancing.

In my not-so-humble opinion, if you can't code, you don't get a vote on how it
is or isn't okay to be a female (or any other) coder, period. Wave that
"feminist" flag all you want, I'm not buying it. Women in generations before me
didn't burn their bras so I could be judged on my fashion sense instead of my
work.
Yes we didn't hear about Duolingo yet, here on Hacker News.

Kudos for all the work that went into drawing those words. Great job.

This is obviously not a tool to learn a new language, but it's a lot of fun, and you can learn some new words. (But it could use some algorithm for repeating words.)
It depends. There is no strict requirement onto starting at the early age. Yes, there is a correlation, but no strict requirement.

You'll be excluded by 22 if you haven't started early. Excluded by whom? By nature. It was no accident that Zuck developed Facebook only after years of being a hacker, and that he also developed it while he was relatively young. By 22 you start to take on responsibilities which hinder your ability to learn as efficiently as possible. It's perhaps an unpopular opinion, but nevertheless it seems true from the evidence.
This is pointless. Of course memory safety is necessary, I never said that it isn't. I was assuming that any sane person would understand that. And guess what? Most of the mainstream languages are safe in that regard. So you cannot claim, that Rust is particularly safe, it isn't. It's safer than C and C++, but that's about it. And that's ok, no need to be offended.
I don't understand, this is already available with

>>> from __future__ import braces
The majority of C++ warts are caused by its C compatibility.
Specialization is almost entirely responsible for all the gains in our standard of living since the stone age. This includes almost every technological advance.

Heinlein is wrong on this and a specialist himself: a writer who requires other specialists to meet his every basic need (water, food, shelter...).

Don't dismiss specialization as it is the key to both past and future success.
Indeed my first programming was done in CECIL which is a simple teaching Assembler training language - just add sb and varios jump's

We had to send in our code on paper to be run on a time sharing system at a local college - BTW this was the CSE middle stream.
Then it shouldn't exist. If you can't get the rights to reuse someone else's music as your own (whether because you can't afford it, can't get into contact with the artist, etc.) then you shouldn't do it, ethically or legally.

I mean, if you are going to make a mix and play it for some friends or as a DJ at a local club or even release something online for free, then fine, it's still probably technically illegal but I'm not going to get all rustled up about that. But if you start making any legitimate money off it, you better have gotten those rights secured or else you deserve whatever legal consequences you have coming to you -- in both a moral and a legal sense.
I don't know. Given what I know about how cgroups and systemd works, I don't think there's any particular issue with having a thin shim and starting systemd as PID 2, and so getting some of the reliability gains this article talks about. But I don't have all that much knowledge of the details and there may be good technical reasons why that is a bad idea (the man page notes that it is possible via a command line flag, but that it is not supported and only intended for testing). There are some issues surrounding cgroups moving to a single-userspace-arbitrator model, but I don't know what requires this to be PID 1.
Isn't this a bit early? It's not even March yet.
The problem was that NASA administrators would lose their jobs if they admitted the shuttle project was in such trouble in 1980.
But your example says that it doesnt?
He is quoted saying that right on the linked page. But here is the exact quote, in case you haven't perused the original submission:

"We had two AOL-ers that had distressed babies that were born that we paid a million dollars each to make sure those babies were OK in general. And those are the things that add up into our benefits cost. So when we had the final decision about what benefits to cut because of the increased healthcare costs, we made the decision, and I made the decision, to basically change the 401(k) plan."
Ahh, but it wasn't magic...as you go on to say, the seeds were planted when you were young. "messing with radios and old VHS players" is a precursor to becoming a good technologist. It's not about what you played with, it's about early experiences of problem solving, of making and/or fixing and/or tinkering in any context.
How to report on information security
Let's first forget that this is a crazy idea:

This is doable since dictionaries and blocks show up in different contexts. A block never follows =,:, ;, or (, so with a context sensitive grammar this can be accomplished. I guess it depends how they intend to support anonymous functions (def{}?)
The first observation you made is a little tautological: the reason you'd study the effects of zero gravity on humans is so that you can more safely and effectively send them into space.

The second example is an extraordinary claim presented without evidence, since the cost of sending humans to space appears to dominate the costs of the space program.
Average monthly salary for a software developer in Vietnam is, what, $600/mo? Nguyen was making around seven years' salary per day for two weeks. A lot of the doors that could be opened with money were already opened at that point.
When Random Isn't Random Enough: Lessons from an Online Poker Exploit
I have college textbooks that aren't available as ebooks yet that I need to carry around for school .
Well if that's the point, I definitely disagree with it.

Some voting systems genuinely are more democratic or better than others in an objective sense. For example, a voting system where one person determined by their status in society has their vote count and everyone elses is discarded is objectively less democractic than a voting system where a ballot is selected at random from all voters and is taken to determine the result.

Neither of these systems is as democratic as a system where everyone votes for their favourite and the one with the most votes wins, and that in turn is not as democratic as a condorcet-loser system, where it's not possible for a candidate that the majority rank last to win.

Just because all of the options have problems, it doesn't mean that there aren't options that are completely dominated by others.
One of the best things about Python is that there's comparatively little "culture", at least compared to Perl, Ruby or JavaScript.

The culture/community that does exist is more oriented toward helping people achieve what they want to or need to get done, rather than smugly regurgitating alleged "best practices" (Ruby and JavaScript) or absurdity (Perl).

Yes, there are the PEPs, but they're more about providing useful guidelines that can likely offer some benefit if followed, rather than dictating the "best" way of doing something. Avoiding the typical Python approaches may raise some eyebrows or cause some confusion, but basically never the visceral lashing that one would be likely to receive within the Ruby community, for example.
> what makes many boys persist in their uncool, embarrassing, low-ish status activity?

I've wondered this myself! Perhaps archetypes of nerdy boys that grow up to be successful and respected adults are/were more readily available? I still think of a stereotypical "nerdy girl" as being really into literature or history, as opposed to building computers.
Agreed. After trying Rosetta Stone, then LiveMocha (basically a web clone of Rosetta Stone, in terms of course style), I think that style is one of the least effective and most boring/fast to lose interest of all such learning tools. And this new tool seems to largely imitate Rosetta Stone.

I found Duolingo has a much more efficient way of teaching you the new language (words get stuck a lot faster in your mind).
In schools they use tests to quantify knowledge of grammar. Forget about grades, collect eggs, wooden sticks or whatever, and there you have your gamification.
yes. every self insured company I've known re-insures. When you get to the size of Wal-Mart, perhaps you don't bother. For smaller employers, reinsurance (also called stop loss) is a major cost
Ask HN: Is a CS Master's Degree worth it?
I'm a junior CS major at an average 4-yr university. I'm trying to decide whether the advantages of a master's degree outweigh the costs (time & money). Right now, Georgia Tech would top my list b/c its a top-tier CS school & is a few hrs away from where I live. I have 3 options after I graduate:

1. Currently, I run an EdTech company that I co-founded 3 yrs ago. My partner & I work ~25 hours/wk on the company & have a few employees. Our profits are growing & we’re working on new products that should provide additional growth. As it stands, the company wouldn't be able to support us full-time but we are hoping it’ll be able to when we graduate. With this option, I would work full-time for my company.

2. Given the company isn’t at a place where it can support us, I'd find a job in industry (ideally at a startup).

3. Attend grad school to get my MS in CS. This can be broken down into 2 types of schools:

a. My current school has an accelerated master’s program where in an extra yr (for little cost) I’d come out w/ my ME in CS. The school's program is average (just inside Top100).

b. Attend a high-caliber school like GTech (Top10). This program would take 2 yrs & cost ~$45k (if no scholarships or aid). However, it has a larger range of classes including ones focused on Web/Mobile Dev, EdTech, data viz & UI design (all interests of mine). I could also seek stronger internships in Atlanta than where I currently live.

After grad school, I’d work for my company or search for a job. Ultimately, my goal is to run my own business whether it's my current one or one I start after gaining experience thru school/work.

Would knowledge gained from a grad program be advantageous for building a startup and/or working in industry? Is it worth the extra money/time to go to a high-caliber school instead of an average one?

What are your thoughts/experiences with this?
Ask HN: Tail call optimization for Java JDK 8 or 9? - Scala, Clojure
With the growing popularity of Scala and Clojure does anyone know if people are working on Tail call optimization for Java JDK 8 or 9? Seems like with the growing support with JVM based languages this is a necessary next step to support functional languages.

We now have JSR 335 (Lambda Expressions for the JavaTM Programming Language)

2010 Discussion
http://mail.openjdk.java.net/pipermail/mlvm-dev/2010-October/002016.html

References:
http://openjdk.java.net/projects/lambda/
https://www.jcp.org/en/jsr/detail?id=335
First to popularize "A Players" theory – André Weil's Law of Academic Hiring
I would argue C is a difficult first language. It's even a difficult 2nd or 3rd language.

I would start people off programming at a higher level of abstraction and once they can do that dive into how things work. You could start the other way but it may be too theoretical and discouraging.

Pascal used to be the language of choice and IMO can still work well. Things got more complicated when we got all those competing paradigms and now you have a matrix of language/paradigm. Should you teach OO? Functional? Procedural?

I also think it's important to lay our some theoretical foundations as you're teaching the first language. You don't want to overdo it but you need to start building some basic ideas, notations, concepts. As long as it doesn't get in people's way in their ability to actually build something...

If you want to understand how computers work there's no substitute for programming in assembler, preferably, under different hardware architectures.

This debate about how to teach programming/CS/software engineering is endless. Different people and different schools have different goals and different capabilities. A well rounded software engineer definitely needs to have a good mix of theory and practice. A CS researcher needs a different perhaps mix.
> the majority of immigration within Switzerland are Europeans (because this law is for quotas about EU immigrants), the majority of which are French and Germans with a good level of qualifications

Citation needed?
Please, no :(
I really doubt anyone really got 9999. Not being cynical but what is the odd of so many ppl getting that thigh score?
I think the same way. Nowadays I jump between JVM and .NET ecosystems.

For me C was just one year transition between Turbo Pascal and C++, back in the mid-90's. Only used it for university assigments and on my first job. Otherwise when the option is reduced to C vs C++, I always pick C++.

For me, C was too litle when comparing with what Turbo Pascal offered me. Luckly I discovered C++ shortly after learning C.
It's actually an intensely 'skills' focussed genre. Hiphop heads spend far more time arguing about the technique of rappers than fans in most other genres.

That said, it facilitates the expression of certain attitudes and moods that you tend not to hear in other music. Listen it classical to feel serene. Listen to rap music to feel like a badass.
I can't. Mind making a brief summary?
Bitcoin’s Political Problem
You're linking to the BLS's CPI data, but you really don't want to deflate currency figures for the Space Shuttle using the CPI. Use something like the percentage of GDP: http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/

"Putting a man on the moon: [...] How much would that be today? If we used the CPI, it would be $160 billion, but this would not be a very good measure since the CPI does not reflect the cost of rockets and launch pads. ... [as] a way to consider the "opportunity cost" to society, the best measure might be the cost as a percent of GDP, and that number would be $453 billion. "
I'm not out to score debate points.

I'm out to say this oft-repeated sentiment is trivially incorrect.

While there are a range of activities which can be performed better by machines than humans, there is still a very wide range of actions that can't be performed better by machines. One would expect technologists to understand this better than anyone.

But the crucial thing here is that a given human is capable of a much wider range of actions than a given machine. True, this can be made up for to an extent by using a wide variety of machines. Though at some point the weight of said machines will outweigh the human and their required support systems. And even then, those machines will be limited to a small subset of actions that the human can take.

So what do humans have that machines don't? Versatility.

PS- If I wanted to score points, I'd say he said "absolutely nothing", which overstates his case and makes your response invalid.
I literally shuddered when I read this.

Significant whitespace to me is one of the fundamental parts of Python that if messed with, makes it not Python.

Perhaps this will make it slightly easier for people coming from PHP, Javascript or one of the many languages that do use curly braces, but significant whitespace is a selling point, not a hinderance IMO.
In my experience the people that complain about it most are those who just like to slop things together and not bother with even the most cursory attention to detail. For people with that attitude having to worry about details like white space no matter how trivial "gets in their way".
Your analysis omits the concept of "transformativeness." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformativeness .

This is why a search engine company can produce a thumbnail of a page without running afoul of copyright law. (See Kelly v. Arriba Soft Corporation )

It's also how commercial parody can (though not necessarily) be done without a license from the original author. (See Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.)

It's also why a judge recently decided that Google's book scanning system, which does not have copyright permission from the owners, is sufficiently transformative without reducing the primary market that it is legal under fair use. (See http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/11/google-books/ , which has a link to the judgement.)

As you say, it is not legal to copy just the sample. But sample-based music can more transformative than a simple copy, and the combination of factors may make it fair use.

Unfortunately, there's no laws covering these details and the courts haven't worked out the details. The highest decision, from the 6th Court, says that de minimis doesn't apply even for a 3 note sample, but fair use might. (See Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films .) Many people are against this interpretation, including perhaps other courts. Other districts have not decided on this sort of case, so it's still ambiguous.

Not everything which is valuable has government-granted monopoly rights. The US does not accept "sweat-of-the-brow" as a basis for copyright, which is why databases cannot be copyright, even if the database itself is valuable. So your argument "it's difficult .. therefore valuable ... and their owners deserve to have rights over them" is, currently, un-Constitutional. (See Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co., for the decision which decided that the Constitutional definition of copyright is based on originality, not difficulty.)
(I did not downvote you)

Such jingoism adds nothing to the discourse. Someone can as easily find something in Java 1.5 that C# still doesn't have. So what does that prove? Nothing.
Stream<T>, IntStream, LongStream, DoubleStream?

You can't make this stuff up.

EDIT: what I'm trying to say is: why his remark is inflammatory and unnecessary, it's also wrong. This API is perhaps the single worse example of why java makes API's look worse than C#, and there is nothing to be done about it until the JVM stops erasing types.