skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I consider myself a "civil libertarian," in the sense of caring about the preservation of liberty -- but I don't have a problem with this.

Well-placed targeted enforcement and surveillance are good things; without them, as people start to feel more and more threatened by crime, you start to get more demands for everpresent surveillance and UK-style CCTV. Using targeted surveillance on a case-by-case basis seems like an excellent way to head that off.

Also, I think it's good that having cameras pointed at your house still carries a strongly negative connotation. When people stop caring that they're being watched all the time, that's when you know you're heading down the road to a surveillance society.
For the attention of a minute
While I don't disagree, I find the opposite idea amusing. Who wants to have their consciousness and conversations disrupted by a loud cell phone user who decided they're more important than everyone else around them?
The problem is that this is designed specifically for when police don't want to do their job. They believe the people are "bad" and engaged in undesirable activity, but they can't be bothered to investigate and gather evidence of criminal activity. Instead, they want to make their lives miserable, on the principle that the threat of surveillance bothers the guilty, but not the innocent. And any sweet old lady can tag someone as a "bad element" who needs to be driven out of town.

If that's what we want, then we don't need police in the first place. We just need close-knit communities where good old boys are eager to enforce the nervous prejudices of the community using violence and intimidation.

Don't get me wrong; I'm a quiet, boring person who detests littering. I wouldn't be a target for this kind of operation. But we already know the hazards of this kind of justice. We've been there, done that, and moved on.
Your rights end where mine begin. As a libertarian I believe that you should be able to do almost anything to yourself. Start monkeying other people's property/body/space and I'm against it.
That one mac supercomputer can finance about 4-5 high end developer beige boxes running ubuntu.
That raises the discussion of what a "hacker" is.

I don't like the word hacker myself. I think it's an unnecessary descriptor that raises more irritating arguments than it's worth. In that regards it's similar to calling somebody an "artist", though in the latter case there's slightly more weight behind the word.

If we're going to use the word "hacker", though, then having a play that features the cast calling up Woody Allen and asking him what to do next is a hack in that it subverts the format of the play.
But you might want to leave open the possibility that designer could be female (and despite what old-school official grammar books might say, in 2009 I don't think it's acceptable to use "he" for a gender-neutral pronoun, and "they" is much less awkward than "he/she")
My college roommate's dad worked with microfinance companies in India. Every month, a representative from the company would go from town to town collecting monthly payments from the borrowers.

Sometimes the borrower would claim that they could not pay. In that case, the collector was instructed to just sit down and wait for them to pay. The shame of having the collector sitting in their village was overwhelming, and payments were usually made within the hour.

A lot of people try to get away with bad stuff because nobody they know is watching. I'm glad that there are no Anonymous Cowards on HN. It's always interesting to see how differently people behave when their peers' focus is turned on them.
To paraphrase, The lights are turning on all over the world. :D
Sneak Peek At Facebook for iPhone 3.0
Still think that a social network for dogs is a dumb idea?
I'd assume that developing nations do not have laws dealing with light pollution or anything of that sort just yet.
linode is also a good option
The 80/20 Rule Of Effective Learning
That addiction - that very, very strong addiction - will never leave you. Ever.

Understand? If you quit entirely, and never smoke for 10 years, if you were to smoke at all, it would be the greatest thing, ever. Good luck not starting again if you ever do. Even reading this thread about someone considering something I know is so utterly stupid flicks the switch in my brain.

If you want new highs, go get some real drugs that you can actually use to hack your brain and/or make yourself a better person. Nicotine has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. It is a POISON. How could deliberately setting out to get yourself addicted to a poison with no positive benefits not be an absolutely idiotic thing to do? Especially when it's without the enjoyment/day punctuating/social aspects of smoking normal cigarettes. I can't imagine many things that look more depraved and pathetic than someone sucking on some electronic cigarette gadget. You want to be /that/ guy? Really?

Whatever "high" you seem to think is there isn't. Maybe about as much of a beneficial "high" as holding your breath and spinning around really fast a few times. Gee, that sounds worth a lifetime of powerful addiction to an expensive poison, doesn't it? Go huff on a whipped cream container or something if you want a head-rush that badly.

There is no possible way you wouldn't regret this.
No one. The rule generalizes to "Don't be an ass with regard to cell phones." It's really that simple.
Screw a book, start making things. If you have access to a shop, start prototyping things.

Practice sketching objects freehand and learn a 3D modeling program like SolidWorks.

Learn manufacturing processes - injection, thermoform, and rotomolded plastic. CNC machined, cast, and extruded metal. Composites. - Because you won't be successful designing things that can't be manufactured.

And you can't go wrong with Deiter Ram's 10 design commandments - http://www.vitsoe.com/en/gb/about/gooddesign

Good luck and btw, what are you trying to design?
This isn't necessarily any better, it just has more syntax support. However, it isn't equivalent to a function ptr, it's more equivalent to a structure with a fptr and associated data. A C++ function object or a C fptr pointing to a trampoline fn has exactly this functionality.

However, the functionality isn't the only thing. There are two notational conveniences that typically come along for the ride:

1) You can declare the function nested within another function. This is a necessary prerequisite to...

2) The associated structure is automatically created by the compiler based on what data the function uses in the surrounding context.

3) Just like the struct/fptr pair you might have created manually on the heap, you can return this function from another function with the data it captured coming along for the ride. That's generally were all the fun stuff happens :-)

To clarify this: See the recent "lambda" proposal for C++0x to see that same feature in the context of a Cish language, with the attendant modifications for manual memory management, stack based capture, etc.
Worst tech company blunders
I think the label suggests that they self-identify about it in an obnoxious way. Kind of like how "card-carrying member of the ACLU" is sometimes used as an insult, even though everyone wants their own civil liberties defended.
I think it has resulted in a great deal of innovation; just in the last couple of decades, there's been the space shuttle - a rather inefficient, expensive system but one which has nevertheless taught us a great deal (and there have been >130 shuttle launches - despite two catastrophes, it's the mark of a successful system that shuttle launches have become commonplace); the Hubble Space telescope, which has operated for far longer than expected; The Earth Observing Missions; we've successfully sent two robots on Mars which have kept functioning for 5 years; we've gathered samples from comets (subject of another HN thread today)...for a list of missions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NASA_missions

For context, here's a brief history of NASA budgets: it's really quite good value in my opinion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Budget

Now, I don't think NASA is beyond criticism...but to say they haven't innovated or done a lot with the resources available is just BS. NASA is the most successful space agency in the world, by a very long way.
Call me crazy, but I like the way things are. Having huge, centralized bodies with easy access to all of my information sounds awful. The government knows enough about me already, why would I trust I private corporation with all of my data? What happens when they're hacked? How about when somebody decides to make millions illegally selling identities?

Facebook can keep my photos and status updates and pokes. Twitter can have all my 140-character sets of vapid bullshit. Those things don't matter. I don't want Globocorp having access to every bit of information about me.
Sorry, for some reason this post touched a nerve, and not even because I disagreed with a lot of what was said. Like ryanwaggoner said, props on putting this out there, its obvious you care a lot about the future of the internet and are genuinely trying to make it better.

My problem is with the attitude that the internet is 'broken' and that we should just redo it. That, and the suggestion that someone should give you money to play around with hypothetical e-utopias.

Anyway, my rebuttals:

1. Hundreds...really? If you regularly use more than 100 accounts, that puts you in the top .1% of internet users. Normal people just let firefox remember their passwords and also probably spend more time outside.

2. API's, facebook connect, openid. If I meet someone at a conference, I spend 30 seconds each adding them to twitter, linkedin and maybe facebook. Do I really need (or want) to automatically see their flickr feed?

3. Again, the multiple modes of content consumption is perfect. I'll friend you on facebook if I care about you socially, I'll add you to my rss if your blog interests me, and I'll follow you on twitter if you're not terribly annoying. We all get to apply filters to everyone else.

4. Totally agree, improved data portability would be great.

5. "We should stop building new social networks, services and adding entropy to the system. We should stop trying to patch a model that has proven multiple times to be broken by design."

Umm, what?

I couldn't be more excited about the future of web apps and services. The internet is one of the only places where the free market is truly at work. Its glorious. Entropy is a problem, which is why we've seen recent efforts directed at reducing it, but at the end of the day the web, like any market, is about value creation and capture. You don't even mention capturing value, which is why pg, or anyone else, is not likely to fund you.
The only good idea that he has is to repeat and rehash in order to sell more books.
It's a nice niche solution for non-violent "nuisance" issues, but it will only scale to the point where the cost of temporary criminal activity shutdown and/or location movement is less than the risk/cost of dirt-cheap anti-materiel sabotage actions against the truck. A very, very low bar to hurtle.

Examples: Thermite + Firecracker Ignition against an axle, Short-range "spray painting" of camera portals w/ heat-set epoxy, Long-range shooting of camera portals with suppressed sub-sonic ammo or high-powered air rifles.

Additionally, the very minute a reasonably well-educated/funded home-owner brings a case against the "nuisance" claim to court, any further use of the truck would be limited to the local municipality's statutory limits on mere infractions (non-crimes)--typically no more than 24 hours.

To enable the truck to loiter any longer, the local prosecutor would have to file formal criminal charges and declare the particular residence a "crime zone".
Suggestion: Facility to merge HN posts
With the growth of HN, there seems to be, understandably, a corresponding growth in duplicate posts. It would be nice if people with enough points could merge posts - along with their comment threads - together, so that the discussion doesn't get repeated and/or split.
I would imagine this working something like this: one post is chosen as the 'winner' and any other duplicate posts URLs get turned into 301 redirects to the winner and - most importantly - all their comment threads get re-based to the winning post, so the discussion is merged.

What do you think?
For business applications take a look at "function points". It is not perfect but it may help you.

Some people use LoC without comments or blank lines.

In general these measures can be useful indicators but have to be taken with a grain of salt.

Also take a look at this Martin Fowler's article http://martinfowler.com/bliki/CannotMeasureProductivity.html
To R or Not to R?
This seems to be a university with a focus on the education of undergraduates. However, that is not the primary (maybe not even secondary) purpose of most universities. Most top universities in the US are research institutions and their professors are hired for their expertise in their field, not their teaching skills. Are there problems with this approach? Undoubtedly. However, I don't think just throwing Gates's money at the problem will solve anything. If you want to hire top professors you also have to have benefits they wouldn't get at other schools. Salary may do it, but I have a feeling that most professors are in it for the research opportunities anyway.
Most the stuff you mention is about performance, not scaling. It's (mostly) good advice but doesn't address the original question at all.
I do have a bit of a problem with it.

Suppose if rather than a truck it were a giant scarecrow with cameras, placed facing the house of people suspected of having committed a crime.

Is the average person allowed to own a vehicle with cameras and park it outside the home of someone they don't like?

It seems like blatant harassment.
Ironically, this would be similar to something I do urgently need to write, which is a utility for taking a post that should have been filed as a feature request and moving it there.
What's coming soon is plain old surface chemistry.

Nanotech, as in Lego like assembly is sadly not coming to you soon.
That's not an introduction, it's a collection of resources.
First Look: Facebook 3.0 for iPhone
I did ASP prior to ASP.NET but nothing but javascript and HTML prior to that so, no. I do use jQuery outside of ASP.NET/.NET if that matters. I've debugged code in other languages but no dev.
Technically speaking, the residence is being accused of an infraction, not a crime. It's akin to a parking ticket.

As I've noted in my earlier comment, the "jig" is up with this procedure the minute the infraction is fought in court and a single precedent is established in case law.
Am I misunderstanding something? I have to sign up, buy credits, and if I lose an auction, I then have to refund the unused credits? What a waste of time and effort. I'd rather bid in an accepted currency, not some web site's funny money. (Sad, too, because I'd really like to bid on the book, but can't be bothered with all the buy/refund hassle.)
I commented below that it is triggered by the age not brand of the browser. My bad.

"Well my Firefox is current so perhaps the conspiracy is not as huge as I thought originally."
I didn't comment on whether or not I approved of the reasoning, I just stated that I wouldn't be surprised if that is part of the reasoning. Whether I want it to be that way or not is immaterial.
For some projects / groups, printing costs are ~30% of the total budget. A good example is sending out ~200,000,000 Social Security statements. At some point within the Social Security Administration it's just a few people running an automated system. This is when Toyota style continuous process improvement can make things lean.

PS: It's true that people who have been around for a long time tend to be promoted, but those who innovate and network tend to get promoted faster.
Who are "civil libertarians"? People who value their civil liberties?

People who value civil liberties are civil libertarians in the same sense that people who value women are feminists.

Whatever they are, you say you're not one.

Correct. I am also not a feminist.
1. I think if music was sold at the rate of 1 cent per album, there would still be piracy. In fact, I think there would still be piracy if music was free behind a sign-in wall, just like I still click off nytimes.com any time it presents me with a sign-in page EVEN THOUGH I HAVE AN ACCOUNT. It simply isn't worth my trouble. Similarly, people who copy whole mp3 players worth of music will continue to do so, because it's a heck of a lot easier than going online to a website (because presumably ads would be the last hope of making money on music if it was free) and picking songs or albums out one by one.

2. Any song that people actually care about downloading will, by defintion, quickly reach 98 cents at Amie St. Sure, you can snag song that 15000 people care about for less, but then again, only 15000 people care. The songs people actually download en masse (such as Michael Jackson lately), will be no different from any other buck-a-song site.
At first I was like , this looks long, better go watch some tv. But before I knew it I had already finished it 'cause it was so interesting.

That was so I intellectually stimulating my mind almost exploded!
This sounds more like match.com for dogs..
Follow-on question: How best for a hobbyist to learn manufacturing processes, machining, etc.?
Assuming that there's more than one story in this book, chances are that those of us who do occasionally buy books are now that much more likely to purchase that book, if we liked this story.

The percentage of us who both a) buy books, and b) enjoy reading books on a computer screen, is so vanishingly small that it is unlikely to cause any financial damage to Mr Allen. In any case, Woody Allen is already filthy rich (deservedly), so I doubt he gives a toss.
I'd certainly be interested in attending one. I missed the last few.
I think just about everyone here will agree that what you describe is more of an ideal web that we want. However, the problem is finding motivation for regular users to sacrifice, and if they wont then you need the big corporations to sacrifice to get there.
How can we find motivation for either part?

I think this will be an extremely long process that is slowly happening on a minor scale, but that we will never see a fully open web - ever - just because of the lack of motivation from its central actors: users and providers.

Things like Wikipedia, OpenID/OAuth, FluidDB, more open API-s (although we don't own the data) are all pointers to the web maybe being more semi-transparent in the future. I mean, things are getting more open, but it will simply never be fully open, no matter how much us developers and geeks want it.
If however someone like google or apple were to find a model were they could still earn their money while being transparent and open, then I would start believing.

The best way to facilitate this process is by doing your part by implementing your site/service in an open and transparent way. If you get successful people will take notice.
Depends on your app, but...

Split static content serving from dynamic. Can start off on same server but requirements for each are so different it pays to have tuned processes serving each.

Build customized, svelt apache or use nginx.

Get separate DB server, get lots mem for DB server, tune DB to use that memory. Few/None are setup up out of box to use 4-8GB+ well.

Get more mem for http box(es), use memcache/similar to take advantage of that memory.
This information should not need to reside on the net and be owned by a private corporation. One of the problems mentioned in the article is that every individual should own his/her data.

I think to adress the issues correctly all this info should be stored locally and/or on your phone.
I think Star Wars-type galactic civilizations are very unlikely. Instead, life forms (humans included, eventually) probably just upload their minds into better hardware and "live" in a virtual Shangri La. After that, why bother exploring?
Isn't this already possible with the iPhone?
it becomes downright unsettling that there is no sign of galaxy spanning civilizations out there

Only if Einstein is wrong about the speed of light. Sci fi novels routinely assume he overlooked something, because they have to as a plot device, but he might not have.
According to Paul Graham (http://www.paulgraham.com/arcchallenge.html):

The most meaningful test of the length of a program is not lines or
characters but the size of the codetree-- the tree you'd need to represent
the source. The Arc example has a codetree of 23 nodes: 15 leaves/tokens
+ 8 interior nodes. How long is it in your favorite language?

So instead of measuring lines of code, you measure the size of the AST. Works well for Lisp, at least; not sure how well it generalizes to other languages.
Because that's worked out so terrifically in our history.
Ask HN: Review IGF, a site to find co-founders and stay motivated
Last year when pg posted his list of 30 ideas, I wrote up full startup ideas for each one on my A Startup A Day blog, one each day for the next 30 days. It was a fun exercise, but thanks in part to some great comments on HN, I learned that for most entrepreneurs ideas are the easy part. The hard parts are meeting the right co-founders and staying motivated to work on something for an extended period of time. Recently I've shifted focus from my blog to building something to help solve those problems, which I call the Italian Graffiti Factory (IGF).

To kick things off, the alpha stage of IGF will be primarily focused on a very specific scenario. I want to bring together potential YC applicants to discuss YC's new RFS proposals (or other ideas) with the goal of finding co-founders, building a prototype, and submitting an application to YC Winter 2010. Along with the site, I'm also planning a series of live online meetups centered around things like co-founder speed-dating, prototype reviews, milestone check-ins, or just open conversations.

Unlike most "Ask HN"-style posts, I'm not necessarily looking for feedback on design and initial first impressions. Instead I would like to hear more generally if you think that these problems are good ones to take on, and if so, what else can be done to help solve those problems more effectively?

Site URL - http://www.igfactory.com
Seriously. Anonymous functions without a sane lexical system is asking for trouble, though marking closure variables will mitigate the problems a little.

I agree that PHP's house is on fire, but PHP has such a big house that I'm not sure it's noticed yet.
Developing nations have no shortage of quirks. For example, they can impose tariffs on the import of the equipment needed for domestic lighting while still having a lot of GDP generated by oil. That does funny things to the analysis.

Then there was the problem of how you uncover the sub-national GDP to ground-truth your data showing sub-national variations in light levels.
I don't understand, aren't there supposed to be entrepreneurs on here? Let's be honest with ourselves:

What do you plan to run your software geek nirvana on, anyway? If noone buys the platform, what happens 3 years from now?

As a meta-question: What do you think would've happened to linux and it's desktop if solaris' or even windows server licensing terms were more reasonable at the outset? If Mr Shuttleworth decided his money was better spent feeding children on his home continent rather than making Debian look nicer? Think about it...