skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is true, but I have also shot myself in the foot by perhaps making it seem like I'm taking on a bigger task than I actually am. Hopefully soon I can show more in detail what I have planned for AI, it is relatively simple overall. (In shorter words, I am building a very crude AI that just does a bit of deduction combined with score maximization, not something that can comprehend english sentences). :)
Conquering Hadoop with Haskell [pdf]
High Fidelity [1] (Second Life v2) does this already. It's still early beta, but they've got the ability to map a user's face in real time with enough data-density to transmit emotion, and facial characteristics good enough to recognize a person by their avatar.

You are correct, that currently the same camera that does the facial analysis (macbook camera) precludes the VR headset - so you either get to see another in full VR, or you get to transmit your expression in HD. The device to do both is not yet here.

[1] http://highfidelity.io/
Done :)
I've also added a little tweak: It stops when the board is full up until the last 2 open blocks, from there on you have the chance to fix it manually :)
"If you’re out in the woods camping and need help, you could broadcast your needs in the hope someone picks it up."

You could, but it's unlikely to do you any good using a radio whose output is measured in milliwatts. Unless "out in the woods camping" means a KOA.

"Similarly, during a natural disaster, you could help locate loved ones and people in need, even with non-operational cellular towers."

Same deal: no, you probably won't. A cell phone is a radio, and it's a pretty crappy radio that relies very much on existing infrastructure. When that infrastructure goes down, the only people you'll be chatting with will be the ones you can physically see. Even the 5 watt handheld radio that I have (which requires a license to operate) may only be good for a few miles in rough terrain.

It would nice if the article stuck to what is feasible (the music festival example) and disposed with the hyperbole. Remote villages in Bumfukistan will not be getting internet access because of this.
Hi, do you have any plans to support FreeBSD?
Looks like a mod changed the link, which is kind of a bummer.
Don't know about the GP, but I have an iRex DR1000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Reader_1000) which was perfectly sized for reading A4/letter papers. But it is bulky and has no wireless connectivity.
I don’t always code against an API, but when I do I use REST Level 3
Also, there's a full video of the talk here:

http://vimeo.com/90189610
Well this has been the most hilarious sub-thread I've read on HN recently. Thanks nailer and lotsofmangoes.
5 Rules To Finding The Right Size Contract Manufacturer
Awesome! Installed.
This is a nice table of most common packages, but does anyone know where I can check the version of any package on a particular version of Ubuntu?
Except that is's possible that the custom hardware that you speak of will end up costing more money as an end user wanting to buy one of these devices. The hardware that they were using was off the shelf, high volume hardware and thus not as pricey. Just a thought
#ddd -> #ccc

It seems like I can never win the contrast debate :p Try it now.
If this were the case for the majority of investors post demo day, how are so many YC companies raising money even if the start fund / YC fund partners are not investing a second time?

My impression is most investors view the Start Fund / YC Fund instant investments as "free money" for the startups, and they view those investment partners as hedging their bets with YC as a whole.

While I see your point, I don't think it's ever been an issue for anyone (as far as I've heard and personally experienced).

I think the unfair early advantage these third party investors had is the real issue here, and much more in-line with changes YC has made in the past
It's almost like people need to give decisions some time in order to actually see the results instead of jumping to the conclusion that it'll be a failure.
"The reason for this is because a business needs to avoid having emergencies "

Exactly what I wrote in my post, if you'd actually bothered to read the lower half.

"If there is an emergency and an employee does need to stay later, you need to pay that employee overtime"

I didn't write anything about compensation - I would think it entirely obvious that if you work overtime you either get paid or take compensatory time off?
Victorian AIDS Council/Gay Men's Health Centre to boycott Mozilla‏
I considered doing this for a while (although probably sans-twillo), but had a hard time finding reliable information on servos you could read information from. Is the Servo type used in the code in this project built in to the arduino libraries? I've never seen it before.
An overview for Microsoft's Office for iPad (It's free)
ECC1 claims are simply false. His Lenovo x120e can barely handle Eclipse. It's no wonder the experience is worse than his '10K$ Mac setup' ...

I've developed native apps for BB10. The tooling is decent. It's a bit heavy since it's based on Eclipse but I had no problems with it. You can also use QtCreator with BlackBerry 10, but I've never tried it. You will mostly use Qt-based APIs anyway in your app, so there's no issue with support. The documentation for BB10 Cascades APIs is very good. There are also lots of official and community submitted samples on Github. For questions I've always used their developer forums which were active.
Comparing Node.js Asynchronous Alternatives
You might also find the free community edition of LiveCode[1] handy. At a glance, looks very much like HyperCard. There is also Microsoft's Project Sienna[2] if you are on Windows 8.

[1] http://livecode.com/download/
[2] http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/microsoft-projec...
We've actually seen 30% UV growth from Jan to March - some of that growth has been search given, though there are other channels driving it as well. In Jan we merged thedailymuse.com into themuse.com (under http://themuse.com/advice) so all of our products would live in one place
The more I read the more skeptical I became, but at the same time, you acknowledged all of the criticisms I was building up in my head. You have a realistic timeframe (years, but public access this year), and you acknowledge building a game, not an engine.

Your writing is clear and easy to follow, and your intelligence definitely shines through.

I never thought I'd say this, but you may actually have a shot at pulling this off. I mean the next Minecraft, Angry Birds, etc is going to come from somewhere/someone, why not you?

Keep it up! And looking forward to the next update.
I wouldn't mind being able to send apps to my friends and everything without having to pay another amount to Apple for a developer account. But I don't think it's going to happen.
Ask HN: Where are the secret helpful communities of coders hiding?
Hopefully my question isn't too vague. Back when I first started, it would be easy to get a hand on a forum or some sort of message board. Granted, that could take some time. In other cases, IRC was nice too because people would actually help. Now it seems like the times have changed and finding an actually helpful community is hard. Where is everyone hiding? I feel like I get bashed on IRC more than I do to get help because I don't know this or that. All I want to do is learn and meet some like minded coders online, just like in the old days. Is that too much to ask?

Are there any great, active message boards or google groups? Any IRC servers besides freenode that you may know about?
I'm a bit nonplussed. We already have very good tools for precisely making arbitrary changes to existing chromosomes. Creating one from scratch is a cool party trick, but it doesn't actually seem all that useful. Unless you are also proposing to design a chromosome from scratch, which nobody is.

It is extra fun that this was done by massed ranks of undergraduates working in ordinary labs, though. You could call this a sort of crowdsourced sharing economy of genomics. Or a genomic sweatshop, depending on your inclinations.
Google's Big Data Flu Flop
The first ebook reader I bought was a Sony and it was great. I preferred it to the kindle at the time because it let me import any format file into it via USB. So I have no issues with the brand as others do. Sony has a solid presence though on the periphery of the eInk scene. My only concern with this device is input latency. Every eInk screen I've used that takes input has too high of a latency for annotation to feel as natural as pen and paper.
I think it's often easier to start with scripts, automating manual tasks. Jumping into a big, complicated program is difficult. Even just compiling from source might not be easy. Existing code and its requirements are extra things you need to grapple with on top of just getting your own code correct.

There are many computer-related tasks done manually simply because nobody who understands the task also understands how to code. If you know some manual tasks, building scripts to do them automatically is probably much simpler.

It's not glamorous writing VB macros or PowerShell scripts, but there's lots of low-hanging fruit that can be plucked by beginners with simple tools.

That said, with the exception of choice of first project, I think I agree entirely. The important thing is seeing the world around you as something that you can take action to improve. Coding software is one simple (but powerful) tool to do so.
I'm also a self-taught engineer and, when I was starting, the best way I found to learn how to code was to first figure out what I wanted to build.
For instance, at the time I new HTML, but not much about server side programming or databases. I decided I wanted to build a dynamic website with user registration, login and posts on a wall. Then, I split that "project" up in small pieces and tried to figure out how to do each one of them.
When I knew what I wanted and the pieces I had to build it was easier to search for resources to read.
I believe this way it becomes easier to associate what you learn from the programming language with what they are used for.
Credit where credit is due for the Hack language
This just replaced Speed Dial 2 [0] for me. I realised I hardly use the shortcuts anyway. Thanks for sharing!

[0] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/speed-dial-2/jpfpe...
There are "secure" versions of Android. It's the secure messaging solution that is bundled with BB that makes it a compelling solution for the government.

QNX OS is a real-time embedded OS that is popular for embedded applications. They could close their consumer division and just do government and embedded product lines and actually be profitable.
> BRAG UNTIL YOU FAIL

See: http://lifehacker.com/5921478/shhh-keeping-quiet-may-help-yo...

In my opinion, the truth may be somewhere in the middle and is probably context dependent (surprise!).
Python also has weakrefs to avoid creating cycles

http://docs.python.org/3.4/library/weakref.html
What's the known bug?
Implementing Lazy Scroll in jQuery
Wow, this is awesome news!

Michael and John are reunited... I mean, recall in the Graphics Programming Black Book, when Michael starts off in the introduction with, "What was it like working with John Carmack on Quake? Like being strapped onto a rocket during takeoff – in the middle of a hurricane." [1]

Plus, Michael's quote from the announcement, "I now fully expect to spend the rest of my career pushing VR as far ahead as I can." Great things are ahead!

If you've missed Michael's writings on VR, you are in for a real treat:

Why Virtual Reality is Hard (And Where It Might Be Going):

PDF:

http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/MAbrash%20GDC2...

PowerPoint:

http://media.steampowered.com/apps/abrashblog/MAbrash%20GDC2...

Two Possible Paths into the Future of Wearable Computing: Part 1 – VR

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/two-possible-paths-int...

Two Possible Paths into the Future of Wearable Computing: Part 2 – AR

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/two-possible-paths-int...

When it comes to resolution, it's all relative

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/when-it-comes-to-resol...

Latency – the sine qua non of AR and VR

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/latency-the-sine-qua-n...

Raster-Scan Displays: More Than Meets The Eye

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/raster-scan-displays-m...

Game Developers Conference and space-time diagrams

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/game-developers-confer...

Why virtual isn't real to your brain

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-virtual-isnt-real-...

Why virtual isn't real to your brain: judder

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/why-virtual-isnt-real-...

Down the VR rabbit hole: Fixing judder

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/abrash/down-the-vr-rabbit-hol...

[1] http://twimgs.com/ddj/abrashblackbook/gpbbintr.pdf
I once worked in a cafe in my teens, we would be paid up until half an hour after close to do cleaning. Mopping the floor was the last task I did, it would usually end up running 5 or 10 minutes over the time I got paid. Your post makes me imagine dropping the mop half way through finishing the floors and walking backwards out the door while flipping off my boss because that half hour ticked over.

"The moment I step through my work door I set a timer for 7.5 hours." This is a terrible work ethic. You set a timer? I don't agree with doing unpaid overtime either, you certainly won't see me in the office on a Saturday, but sometimes things need to be completed before you leave for the day. But maybe that's just my opinion working in a remote office in a vastly different time zone to head office where my work needs to be delivered.

Although not a metric, I did chuckle that you state your co-workers work twice as long as you (14hrs vs 7.5) yet have three times as many fixes as you and then reference the reason for this is the time they spend at work.
http://packages.ubuntu.com/

You can browse the complete list for every supported release. Or, you can search for a particular package and set the distribution to "any" to see the latest version available in each release.
Ticketmaster sues notorious ticket scraper Higs
5 Great Blogs for DevOps
Thank you! The odds really are stacked against me, but on the other hand I don't like to fight easy battles. :)
I've checked Wikipedia to augment my knowledge of all things Michael Abrash, and came across this quote of Gabe Newell:

been trying to hire Michael Abrash forever. [...] About once a quarter we go for dinner and I say 'are you ready to work here yet?

So between Gabe and John, Michael could probably be dining for free every day of the week ;)
The Business of Building Roller Coasters
I'm pretty sure it's a joke, probably a reference.
Facebook has thousands of pictures of our faces under a variety of lighting conditions. It would be exciting (or scary, depending on your point of view) to see that data, combined with sensors on the headset itself, to generate realistic-looking face models in the virtual space.
Bringing the Oculus Rift to market has been quite the journey. It sounds interesting but considering the ridiculously thin information, I'd file this under vaporware.
Building Distributed Frameworks on Mesos
All the previous fellows are PhDs/post-docs.Well.
I've read it before. It is a great article. Those guys are far more smart and rigorous than what I can hope to be with my own work.
Why would they care what he does in his free time unless they didn't expect it to be His Time? That's the real question here.

And if they're going to have that sort of expectation - that it not be his time - then not being upfront about it is dishonest; an attempt to get someone in and then take advantage of them. No wonder they didn't get a good cultural fit if they were so dishonest that the poor guy's just figuring out how to deal with it now.
"A company that always wants me to work past 17.00 and expects me to come in on a Saturday, gives a very clear signal that they don't give a shit about me, the product or the team. They're hiring me to get paid."
Interesting work and I really liked the LightTable video but I think there's a reason these types of environments haven't taken off.

To understand why programming remains hard it just takes a few minutes of working on a lower-level system, something that does a little I/O or has a couple of concurrent events, maybe an interrupt or two. I cannot envision a live system that would allow me to debug those systems very well, which is not to say current tools couldn't be improved upon.

One thing I've noticed working with embedded ARM systems is that we now have instruction and sometimes data trace debuggers that let us rewind the execution of a buggy program to some extent. The debugger workstations are an order of magnitude more powerful than the observed system so we can do amazing things with our trace probes. However, high-level software would need debugging systems an order of magnitude more powerful than the client they debug as well.
> Let's not forget that "programming" runs the whole gamut from embedded systems programming in assembly all the way to very high level theorem proving in Coq and understanding anything about the nature of that entire spectrum is difficult indeed.

True, but one of the problems which Bret Victor and Chris Granger set out to solve with LightTable (and is mentioned here in §"Programming is Unobservable" and §"Programming is Indirect") is that the tooling for using current programming languages hasn't meaningfully changed since the 70s or 80s.

I agree that generalising over all programming languages is near-impossible, but even the most 'bare-metal' languages only manipulate models of the computer hardware.
a) Would you please tell me where you found how much it costs and where I can buy it please?

b) I really need something like this urgently. $1000 isn't much, if it makes your life measurably easier. It IS expensive, but unlike tablets, smartphones, convertibles and notebooks this is something that directly effects my productivity.

c) I was hoping for foldable Mirasol or Electrowetting (EWD) displays in Q1 2014 since 2009 and it's still not there. These are the most promising display technologies that I know of, which are still hold back for reasons that I simply don't understand. It may have to do with the Display Technology Cartels, bad marketing, or no funding. I just wish to know why Electrowetting isn't mainstream yet. See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf1GjCaYzYg
The MirasolHD 5,1" display prototype with 2.560 x 1.440 Pixel had a pixel depth of incredible 577 ppi and you could use clearly see everything at direct sunlight.
Here's an old video I found: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDoVzKd9H4U

PS: It makes me quite sad and disappointed that we still don't have this technology:

http://imgur.com/a/Pr2Sq
Yes, I have seen people complain about it as well. I never understood the hate.
Showcasing your own story to set the precedent for people to acknowledge mental illness as a real illness is a bold and admirable move. I would note however, that the recovery process for every individual is wildly different and shouldn't be overlooked.

Acknowledgement of the mental illness issue is one part of the problem, which will hopefully lead to better, more integrated treatment lines in the future.
Oh Unicorn... a little GC tuning goes a long way, and isn't that hard... For most apps the time spent in GC, while annoying, is far and away not the bottleneck.

... especially since Ruby 2.0 as the GC is much, much faster.

I'll be honest, I don't think the memory bloat is that problematic if you design the app well (business logic definitely prevents this some time)... but in general you can pass most of that off to a background worker, or pre-cache responses so you aren't bloating your app server instances/threads.
Warp, a fast preprocessor for C and C++
How To Remotely Control An iPhone For Testing
Those are much more subtle than the ones in the wiki article. As a non-font nerd, had I not been looking for them, I wouldn't have seen them. The W looks a tiny bit funny.
They may be the best performing fund of all time. My post from 2-3 years ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2854630

320 YC Companies X $30k/Company = ~$10M Investment
Dropbox Return=~3% Share X $10BN Valuation=$300M

30X return for the entire fund even without accounting for companies such as AirBnB, Heroku etc.

I have heard of 30x/100x returns on specific investments e.g. Skype/Google/Facebook etc...

But for the entire fund itself- wouldn't that be a record?
Knowing that, one should also be able to conclude this Focus crash test is meaningless. How it performs vs. an immovable wall at 120mph really doesn't tell you much about how it will perform at 65mph vs. a fence, or a tree, or a guard rail. If it didn't crumple at 120mph, then you'd have cause to worry though.
Google Says: "Managers Are Important"
Toggl, please eradicate your annoying pop-up messages
I don't want to charge my paper thanks.
I doubt that.

A slow roll out does allow you to catch the inevitable 1.0 bugs before too much damage is done.
Ultra tiny camera has no lens – uses algorithm to develop pictures
Did Microsoft diss Windows 8 when it released Office for the iPad?
It's my understanding that Managed VMs are a type of AppEngine app. They are scaled the same way and have access to the same services like Datastore, memcache, task queues, mail, etc.
How can a JRuby (or Clojure, or Jython...) REST api trigger a vulnerability in the Java reflection?

I was always under the impression that such kind of vulnerabilities were only a problem for Java applets (where the sandbox is actually important)

Has any exploit ever been built for such circumstances? (I admit that I'm ignorant of their existance)
Yea.. With Managed VMs You can run any VM on the App Engine stack which is f'ing cool. The most obvious use for this is Node IMO, since ppl have gone crazy for that shit. Soon the world will no longer need backend developers or dev ops.
Perfect move on multiple levels.

In the same way I thought look to John Carmack for any signs of trouble [0], I can look at Abrash being signed as a sign that everything is fine.

On a related note, I always get a kick out of this Amazon review of Abrash's book by Carmack [1].

0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7469414

1: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2TWZFSQZ4RYLJ
Saying that Oculus is John Carmack's VR company is unfavourable to those who actually brought Oculus about. Carmack was hired fairly late in Oculus' history.

Edit: You edited it now to say 'John Carmack & Co's VR company' which still doesn't make much sense. Carmack joined Oculus as a CTO almost exactly a year after Oculus had its successful Kickstarter campaign.