skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Even Netflix ... doesn't do a particularly good job of [discovery].

I see this message repeated by a lot of tech people, but I feel like I get fairly good recommendations. Am I alone?

What is it about the recommendations that seem bad? Is it because you know there is better content there but the metadata has somehow not categorized it properly for cross-referencing, or does it seem more like it's guessing from a shallow pool and trying to bubble up whatever content it can find, even if it's not a great match?

Is there any kind of open source recommendation framework or standard? Couldn't Netflix publish the details of its algorithm, including which metrics it has, to help the community think up more ways to analyze? The value in Netflix right now is in the content, not in the recommendation engine.

Looks like the competition Netflix used to host was ended in 2009... would be great if they started it again: http://www.netflixprize.com
This vote was only about restricting immigration from the EU, though, not immigration from outside the EU. The two biggest immigrant groups in Switzerland that will be hit by this measure are Italian nationals, and German nationals (the two biggest sources of Swiss immigrants). There is apparently some tension between Italian-speaking Swiss and Italian immigrants; and between German-speaking Swiss and German immigrants, despite those groups not being from wildly different ethnic or cultural backgrounds. It's not like there is some Italian ghetto inside Italian-speaking Switzerland that is failing to integrate into the majority culture...
systemd is like a second kernel in user-space.
> Someone can as easily find something in Java 1.5 that C# still doesn't have.

Like what?
The approach of the Michel Thomas Method is the closest thing I've seen to teaching grammar in a way that directly exercises our grammar-learning ability. In their audio, there is a teacher and two students. The phrases and words you are taught are not anchored in practical usage the way Pimsleur does, but are more random. However, the exercise portions require you to construct completely novel arrangements.

That is, let's say they taught you how to say "I want a cookie" and "She hates cats" you would be asked to say "She hates cookies".
I think this is insufficiently talked about in discussions of voting systems. For some situations it's better to have a divisive winner with passionate support and in other situations it's better to have a compromise winner that nobody hates too much.

Different voting systems can give you different angles on picking the option with the most direct support versus avoiding picking options that stir up a lot of dislike in the voting body.
while i concur, there is one shining example where this is a problem: fixing someone else's code where a bug has been introduced due to mistaken indentation.

last week i fixed a bug where a mistake in indentation (maybe a cut and paste in a refactor?) caused something to be done once but not the correct number of times (once for every iteration). took a few minutes to figure out where to look, but it took a few minutes more to figure out what was intended and what the bug ultimately was (the disconnect between what you meant and what you did). while this is a small 2 line example, for larger code blocks this is a serious problem.

i'm not advocating for braces, but they have a helping hand in spotting these sorts of bugs.

that said i often dislike it when people dismiss python just on the whitespace complaint alone.
Yes. Member states can't just pick and choose. They're in or they're out, with few exceptions.
No hard feelings. The article is important - especially being from one of the mothers affected by the statement, her words carry more weight than others for sure.

However, i do also think her bias in the matter let the article drift from the costs of cost-cutting in health care (losing faith in a business), and slide into fearmongering. A harsh word, yes, but she has a platform, she has our attention, and she has experience where it counts, but instead of showing what we can learn from it, she decided to pull our heart strings at every turn.
Actually the addictive factor reminds me of a Joust on rails. Take away the left/right controls, and idea is similar to the 1982 arcade game. If you've never played it before, check it out on MAME.
> The point of bringing up Arrow's theorem is to debunk people who claim that certain voting systems are "more democratic" or "better" in some objective sense.

That's actually an invalid use of it; while the concept of "better" is inherently subjective ("democratic" has multiple definitions, but many of them are objective) Arrow's theorem has nothing to do with that one way or the other.

Arrow's theorem says that a certain set of binary criteria that applies to voting systems that map from a set of ranked preferences to a single preference ranking cannot be met simultaneously, but it does not say anything one way or the other about the ability to differentiate objectively among voting systems on continuous-valued axes, including various operationalisations of "democratic".
"I can guarantee you that there are another 1000+ games out there just as simple and playable as flappy bird out there."

I don't know that this is true. Or maybe it's true for "simple and playable", but maybe they're missing the "fun and addictive" qualities that made Flappy Bird work.

There's a lot of subtle things that made Flappy Bird a game people enjoyed- the exact responses of the control, the timing and spacing of the obstacles, the quickness of the games, the ease of restarting, and so on. If any of that had been slightly off, it might not have made it.

I'm not at all sure he got all that right intentionally, it might well be he just got the balances right through accident.

But I do think the precise qualities of the game did matter, and I don't think there's a huge number of games out there that could have done just as well.
I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but this is an example of toxic feedback - that's a comment of worse-than-neutral value for both the person who made something and the quality of the thread.

There are lots of reasons to make a piece of software. Necessity is only a part of it, but even arguing from the position of an effort being unnecessary is short-sighted at best and belligerent at worst. People will make software even though similar offerings exist in the same space, and for the most part that's a good thing.
I like to quote "True Detective" here:

Because we know what we want, and aren't afraid to be alone.
I'd been gradually warming up to the idea of getting over my distaste for Python's surface-level quirks and digging in and finally adding it to my repertoire, but this comment has made me reconsider.
C++ has many followers but it's a multi-headed beast and some of it can be much harder to grasp. I think it's easier to argue that it's better than C; all you need to do is to look at C code that tries to implement some patterns that are more naturally expressed in C++. Go isn't really a substitute for C++ but one might argue D is.

Sounds like C++ and you didn't quite work out. I'd still encourage trying to figure out how some pieces of C++ can improve your C code and use those. You're welcome to stick to C in the rest of your code. A lot of "real programmers" do use C++ successfully and a lot of software you use has C++ in it's DNA...

EDIT: (That said I would only expose new students to C++ after they've seen C and some higher level language so they can appreciate the niche that it fills)
Don't you think this is an overreaction ? I mean, it's far reaching to see anything more than a cute retro reference in the win screen.

On the other hand if you're a branding company then your clients will probably demand aseptic and overly neutral work anyway so you might as well start by your own branding I guess
I prefer not to be forced to use correct indentation. I do so as a matter of course. And on the odd occasion I have some reason to use odd indentation, I want to be able to do that too. I like to write my code according to my own judgement. I don't feel that indentation ought to be part of a language, just part of the code.

That said, I do sometimes write in Python and I have nothing against the language. This isn't meant to be an attack on Python.

Edit: also, the indentation in the first example is obviously just a means of illustrating that whitespace is non-significant with this project. I don't think they're suggesting code ought to be written without correct indentation.
Well, mastering engineers rarely heavily clip audio (ok, Death Magnetic, but that's an exception rather than the rule). What they do is apply heavy dynamic range compression. Even in cases the signal clips lightly, it probably won't do much damage (if at all) since the peaks are transient.

On the other hand, a movie with lots of low frequency content (explosions and stuff) whose audio is clipping will damage the small full range speakers since most of the audio energy is concentrated at the very low frequencies (where the signal has a lot of power) and the peaks are long.
> The statement I made is absolutely factually true. If everyone has one or less children, the population does not grow exponentially.

You need to learn mathematics (as well as grammar). Also learn "negative growth rate" while you're about it:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_it_possible_to_have_a_negative_...

And, everything else aside, all the described rates are exponential.

> We're not talking about how to model population growth ...

WHAT?? Here is what you said: "If everyone has one or less children, the population does not grow exponentially." How exactly is that NOT talking about how to model population growth?

Also, it's "one or fewer children," not "one or less children."

> An exponential result != exponential growth

False in a discussion about population and exponential growth rates, terms you chose.
Good stuff. However, I don't think that "learning to code," ins being used in the same sense that Terence Eden meant. I think what Quinn Rohlf is trying to say is, "Learn how computers work." And what Eden is trying to say is, "Learn how to be logical." And for a hat trick of HNs submissions, what Andrew Wulf is trying to say over at thecodist.com is that in general you should just, "Learn how to keep learning."

Taken as a sum of collective knowledge, I think everyone is right in this case. I think the general idea people are trying to get at is this:
1. To work in technology, you must love learning. (Don't get steamrolled).
2. To work in technology, you should know how computers really work. (Learn about C.)
3. Working in technology is not about learning where to but the curly brackets. It's about learning how to think logically. (Learn Computer Science.)

In this sense, I think a great way to get started is by working on a project that you love and in a medium you love. Then as you start hitting limits, descend to C and learn algorithms.
Isn't that what the loan pattern does and is easily accomplished with lambdas? Doesn't seem like a special case that needs to be supported by changing the language.
> it's amazing how polite and well-behaved people are when they are all rich and sharing the same ancestors

I guess the big question is: Should they try to maintain their happy albeit somewhat isolated way of life? Or should they import diversity with all the social problems that come along with it?
Well that's a FAT error then, not Chrome's fault.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-f...
I suspect if you were presented with a piece of code where the indentation and the braces disagreed, you would believe the indentation. Yes, it's easy to parse at a glance if it is correct, and the indentation agrees with it. If it doesn't, good luck seeing the error.

This is one of the good things about significant indentation: the human and the computer are reading the same signals.
You know, when I first started programming and got attached to Python, I longed for significant whitespace in other languages, such as Javascript (which drove me to Coffeescript) and C (which just drove me nuts). I avoided languages like Java and C# because they had so much syntactic "noise"., because they were statically typed, and because they were clearly inferior languages.

And Lisp...well, I shuddered at the thought of learning Lisp because of all those parentheses.

Now, however, I don't give a damn about braces. I use Java if the job calls for it, and I've developed quite an appreciation for C#. I enjoy playing around with Lisp and recognize that it shares a lot of fundamental features with Python. I have a strong appreciation for C's power and control (but use it only under very certain circumstances and with great trepidation).

Python is still my go-to language because of its incredible ecosystem, but I no longer insist on using it for everything. I use the right tool for the job. I dropped Coffeescript in favor of pure Javascript, which I've come to appreciate as not a bad language, as long as you're aware of the traps.

For larger jobs, I usually seriously consider using a statically-typed language, because I know I'll either have to religiously write unit tests, or suffer a world of pain (and even then odd bugs will happen that otherwise would not have).

Point is, I suspect that very often, those people that insist on bringing the syntax from one language to another are either early in their career, or they're focused on the wrong thing. If the presence or absence of braces is the feature of a language that bothers you most, then you want want to reevaluate your priorities.

(that said, if this project was just a fun way to explore Python's internals and lexers/parsers, please carry on!).
GAME Aion 4.5 New Class Aethertech video. Best games
I was thinking of some API to crush image files. Or something.
Actually, it is. It is very easy to confuse an object literal and a block in Javascript. In fact, in the book I am writing[0], I dedicate an entire chapter to using this ambiguity to write arsehole code. Here's another example[1]

[0] https://leanpub.com/underhandedjavascript or its alternate title: https://leanpub.com/jsinterviewquestions
[1] Slide 21 (1-index): https://speakerdeck.com/chewxy/underhanded-javascript-how-to...

EDIT:

For those of you who do not want to click through my self promotional links, try this in your browser:

{}[0] == true // false

{}[1] == true // true

!{}[0] == true // true

!{}[1] == true // true
If all conversations were limited to dinner-party politeness, we'd remain trapped in a state of childlike obliviousness about the real disagreements and difficulties of the world.

(My dinner party would welcome both paul and
thaumasiotes, as people able to speak about a difficult topic calmly, with strong and contrasting perspectives based on real experience. In contrast, yscale would be asked to apologize or leave for content-free name-calling.)
Wow, now I really don't want to learn Python. (Psst, you have the most popular programming language. You can take off your persecution complex.)
I should maybe add his response, "I knoooow, WTF. It's annoying. Why doesn't he just make that button, the "Play Again button?"
It's curious how little is written about the X-37B that seems to be a successful reusable space vehicle.

It's unmanned, very much smaller than the Shuttle but seems to be of use for the US Air Force for something. It also stays in orbit for over a year at a time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-37
I almost did a spit-take when I read this. I actually do very little work in Python so I have no personal opinion on the subject, but I have a few close friends that are hard-core python programmers. I imagine the nerd rage that braces would incite. I'm gonna send this link to them now, sit back and watch chaos ensue. Bwa ha ha (rubs hands together)!
I've committed plenty of indentation bugs in Python.

But I've also committed bugs due to putting something on the wrong side of a closing brace.
Have you ever seen a big European intersections? Planning one with the well-being of pedestrians in mind causes zero problems for vehicles, see [1].

[1] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stra%C3%9Fenkreuzung_...
Java has come a long way. Why not just merge with Scala?
On OS/X I tried

sudo port install wine

and it works! Of course I already have Macports installed, but this could be interesting to runs Windows apps alongside Mac apps.
I've also thought heck, design the empty rocket to be attachable as part of the space station.
Anyone knows where can I get music like that?
confused, but according to the chart it was only for a bit and then dipped back down.

Though I am definitely interested in golang and would love to find a good reason to write some production code for work in it.
The main count on which Bluetouff was found guilty is that of "maintien frauduleux dans un système de traitement automatisé de données (STAD)", namely, remaining "in" a computing system (STAD) without being allowed. The key point is that Bluetouff made an important admission, apparently during his 30 hours of "garde à vue", meaning, being under arrest at the police station, where he seemingly neglected to apply his right to remain silent: he recognized that, when going up the folder hierarchy, he landed on a username-password login page. From this, according to the court, he should have inferred that the documents were private and that he had nothing to do there. Instead, he spent several hours siphoning the documents afterwards, which established his intent to remain in the system despite having found out that he wasn't supposed to.

One can then discuss whether this law is fair or not, whether things would have been different had Bluetouff not made this key admission, whether it is reasonable to consider that the login page was sufficient to indicate that the documents weren't intended to be public, and whether the 3000 EUR fine is balanced or not.

Meanwhile, Bluetouff has appealed the ruling to the Cour de cassation, France's last-resort court for civil and criminal cases, whose role is to break rulings where the law was not correctly applied (without discussing the findings, only the application of the law and the adequate forms). I do not think we know yet how Bluetouff will phrase his appeal, but Eolas estimates that there would be a possible way to attack the ruling based on the court's finding that Bluetouff's retrieving the documents constitutes "vol" (theft) though it does not fall within the scope of the formal definition of theft (because the ANSES was not deprived of the files).
Given the millions of flights, I'm sure there are many flying empty. But I doubt it's a lot, relatively speaking.
In my time as a CS student, I've never needed to use C nor understand its syntax to get through my classes. I think you're confusing the necessity of learning C with understanding how a computer works, and the two are not the same.

I think the most useful class I took that explained this (in my sophomore year) was a class on digital logic and micro-architecture. Just about every school I know teaches some class like this early on in your education (at least teaching the basics -- gates, latches, flip-flops, adders, etc.) In mine, it even carried up through some basic assembly code. This class gave me enough to know how computers are working at a fundamental level to be able to use that to my advantage when implementing projects.

Lastly -- you're getting a CS degree, not a programming degree from a vocational school. Does everyone who researches... quantum computing, or natural language processing, or graph theory have to know and communicate in C? I think there are other pursuits beyond programming that you get from a CS degree, and to say it's necessary to learn C pivots your school closer to a vocational school. Not that that's bad -- it's just different than what you signed up for.
Many good points in this article, but I think it falls short in analysing what's changed (or what's wrong).

> Most of all, I'm disappointed. I had a haven, a place where no one cared what I looked like, what my body was like or about any ephemera—they cared about what I could do—and this culture shift has robbed me of my haven. At least I had that haven. The girls who follow me missed out on it.

Well, yes. Computing and programming has become (more) mainstream -- it's no longer a tiny sub-culture free of mainstream bias. I'm sure there are disappointed skaters, surfers and punks out there too.

I don't think the best way forward is to throw out years of feminist research, or think that "if we could all just get along like before, the problem would go away". It's not that it wouldn't go away, it's just that we need to make an effort to get there. One way to do that is to have sex-segregated introduction classes. They shouldn't all be segregated, nor is it the only thing that we should be doing -- but that is one way of creating a safe and rewarding environment. If we have tutors managing to get mixed classes going, in a way that works well, then that's great too (see VonGuard's comment for example). Generally if you can grab kids before they've been hammered into groupthink about toys, fun and gender roles (which is harder and harder to do with increasing tv commercials, product placement etc) -- then kids don't need to be "de-programmed" -- they can just be allowed to be kids. And they'll play and learn by themselves. But the later you start, the more likely you'll need to have a plan of attack if you want everyone to get a fair shake, and similar participation.

I do think she's right in calling out a lot of the crap that people do in the name of "political correctness" -- without much thought about how or why, though. Being righteous isn't enough; if you're not right, you're probably just making things worse.

[edit: I don't usually comment down-votes -- but I'd like to see a comment. The general idea is to down vote submissions that don't contribute to the discussion -- while I certainly expect many to dis-agree I certainly hope this post isn't perceived as vapid?]
The title suggests 3D printing of trees, but the article makes it
clear that the 3D printing is a means to a more interesting end -
to create arrays of cells that then create the desired material.

This will be amazing - imagine not a 3D printer making chips, but a
3D printer making the biological equivalent of a chip fab.
Uhm... what? what NES racing game featured a girl wearing nothing more than a ribbon/snake? How does referencing that help to sell your marketing skills? How is it anything other than tasteless ugly bro culture?

I enjoy naughty pictures as much as the next dude, but I can recognise that there's a difference between a professional context, and a "locker room" context. I don't think that's overreacting. It's just noting that these guys don't seem to know what they're doing, and are likely to ruin my brand by tweeting something awful under my banner.
What? NO! That's not what I meant. The immigrants are a benefit.

The price you have to pay is that you get the Euro, you pay into the EU budget, you have your banking and industry regulated by the EU and you get the (admittedly questionable) supervision of the national budget.

There is a bigger question about cherry-picking the EU treaties here. Too many nationalists wanting to opt out of too many things.

EDIT: I must admit that my original comment can be read the way you did, but it was definitely not meant that way. I can assure you that I personally have made extensive use of the freedom to roam, work and study wherever I please within the EU.
No. Assuming no changes in preferences among the members of the Schwartz set, re-running an election among the Schwarz set won't change anything.
That's stupid, the reason you should not use `for... in` isn't because it's slow, it's because it's reflective.

It's using reflection over object keys to iterate an array. This just happens to work because JavaScript arrays are also objects.

`myArr.forEach(function(el){
// do things here
});`

Is perfectly fine.
static imports ?