skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it".

That or split the community and spend thousands and thousands of man hours, coding, planning, talking about, arguing on HN over a print statement vs function. I'll take a 2nd function over it any day.

> The best things about python packages is they can be updated independently of the standard library that ships with Python.

That is a separate issue. I was just responding to you saying how adding flask or some web framework or client would break code. And I think we can agree that adding a module won't break existing code if it is not using, wouldn't you agree? Now ok, maybe adding something like that is a bad idea as you said, as it will become ossified and kind of stuck (including bugs and warts). Ok, sorry that was a bad example. I was just trying to think if big enough thing that _would_ have justified switching to a new version.

> You mean Jython? That's a silly comparison.

Sorry Jython. Why is it silly? If the effort put into PyPy combined with effort put into Python 3 transition (including time wasted arguing about it, porting, designing shaming websites "check out these unported Python 2 projects") were put into it removing the GIL it would have probably worked.

> Not to mention PyPy is a very advanced project and it has taken years and years of development by people specialized in writing JIT compilers (remember Psyco for Python 2.5?) to get PyPy to where it is now

Yes, I know I was using Psyco back in the day and every time I was using (and I did measure and it did improve the speed quite a bit) I was think why the heck is this not in the base distro?

Remember, I didn't say this hypothetical "better" Python 3 had to have yet another JIT separate from Psyco, Jython, PyPy, Unladen Swallow (LLVM). It could have been any one of those. And that would have been a worthy enough carrot to get people more excited. The port would have taken less time, with less drama.

> 1. https://wiki.python.org/moin/GlobalInterpreterLock

I know it is hard but I didn't say any of those would be easy. It is in fact kind of hard to beat Python 2 (or rather to offer something a lot more compelling to justify switching to it).

By implication here, not switching to 3 would have been a valid step as far as I see.
What if the rumored Apple Home Automation is the next Apple TV?
(dormant) PyTables developer here, we do have a requirements.txt file but I understand our setup.py needs an update. Please open an issue on github and tell us about your experience and how we can improve it.
This is one of the reason consulting clients are paranoid about IP assignment clauses. I've signed MSAs where the language about the IP assignment was as long as all other contractual terms and the NDA combined.

That was historically one of the points of highest friction at my consultancy during contract negotiation, because every lawyer had a different idea of how to totally derisk the IP assignment for the client, many of which were not compatible with me signing them and then continuing to run a consultancy or software company. (Hypothetical example: If I'm doing A/B testing for you, I am of course amenable to giving you copyright to code/copy/reports delivered to you, but I'm not going to give you exclusive rights over "all procedures and knowhow used in the production of the deliverables.")

Word to the wise: when you have your lawyer draft your standard contract, ask them "Hey can we have IP assignment happen only after SoW's associated invoices have been paid in full?" That's a valuable lever to have to encourage clients operating in good faith to prioritize getting your invoices paid expeditiously.
What if you don't like Angular's over sweetened toppings?
What was going through this guys head when he decided to write these things? To blow it all over some stupid little quip (and not even interesting to boot!).
I don't think a CLA typically assigns copyright. It only provides the project with a license to use the contribution; the contributor still retains the copyright.
7 Life Lessons Learned from Losing 120+ Pounds
I think it should be mentioned that any form of high-capacity flash storage (USB drives, memory cards, SSDs) is not recommended for storing backups that are to be kept for a long time (>1-2 years); magnetic and optical media are preferred.

Making sure that your backups actually can be restored is also extremely important; there's not much worse than thinking that you have backups, but when you need them, find that they've become corrupted and unusable.
And in turn the company should look to copyright assignment.

As a contractor, you shouldn't be signing umbrella work-for-hire clauses either. They're usually part of the shotgun approach of "we own everything you do, always, ever".

Copyright assignment is where the give-and-take should take place (which I'm surprised the author didn't speak about) - "company gets copyright assignment based on XYZ (which could include payment, equity agreement, etc.)"

IANAL - I just hire one with one who protects me from signing stupid stuff and is occasionally the nasty stick when clients act up.
Nothing short of inspiring. Thank you for sharing this!
I've worked in grocery logistics for several years, and can tell you from experience just how political CHEP, PECO, and iGPS pallet distribution can be. Because of the size of my organization's warehouses, CHEP especially requires stringent audits, and if a truck sent out with CHEP when it was not supposed to, the gestapo comes after you.

I will admit, though, that CHEP are the best when it comes to quality (other than iGPS, perhaps). They are far less likely to have splinter, warp, and degrade. They are also much more resilient to the abuse that the supply chain puts on them.

An important point to remember is automation. The logistics industry is becoming more and more automated. Consistent, high quality pallets are becoming a must. The typical hi-lo is becoming less and less common, while in its place are robotic automated guided vehicles, distribution conveyors, and high-bay storage and retrieval machines. I know from experience how much pain and frustration is caused by broken stringers, splinters, and warped whitewood (in our industry, we call them GMA pallets [Grocery Manufacturers Association]]. Literally days of lost time annually, which can equate to millions of dollars.

I have no real opinion about what the best direction is. You either fork out more up front for the good stuff (with all of its politics), or you just deal with the bad quality and inconsistencies of whitewood.

I have to say, this was a very interesting article...a nice change from Python 2.7 vs. 3.X!
The most difficult interview question ever
Speed is low on my list as to why I prefer Go over Python. (In fact, Go isn't necessarily fast. It's just that Python is unnecessarily slow.)

Having a decent type system and decent concurrency primitives are far more attractive.
I built one of these from a kit for my high school, they bought one and needed some one to assemble it for them, I was a sophomore at the time and a computer club formed around it immediately. I wonder what ever happened to it.
EUR-pallet isn't the only alternative.

I'm fascinated that after all these years there isn't a standard pallet size. I have tried to design products that can "ship on a pallet" and end up shooting for a footprint one meter on a side which fits within a lot of format but leaves plenty of wasted space:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallet#Dimensions
One important thing to consider (and I'm not sure that the survey does) is that a lot of this weight may come from cached sources, such as javascript libraries sourced from CDNs. While more libraries = more total content weight, using common libraries may reduce the weight of the content that actually gets loaded, by eliminating the requirement for redundant compatibility boilerplate and providing DOM manipulation tools that allow much of the page content to be created client-side.
If python 3 hadnt chosen to swap all its internals for unicode this miiiight have been plausible; but as it stands the bizaar 'python X' language subset that runs on both is about as good as it gets unfortunately.
While it's a bit dated, this book, Backup & Recovery: Inexpensive Backup Solutions for Open Systems (http://www.amazon.com/Backup-Recovery-Inexpensive-Solutions-...) is highly recommended. And higher level programs like BackupPC and Bacula are still excellent solutions.

It's comprehensive, covers off-line bare metal backups (which aren't exactly changing any time soon), points you at tools like rdiff-backup which you can use to get reasonably close to continuous data protection (I do it every hour), etc. etc. Along with a few good and short war stories. And preps you for the big times, if you're interested.
thanks for the insight! regarding embedding the tags I was imagining a small device around the size of a large coin with perhaps three prongs / nails attached. The prongs would embed into the wood keeping the tag in place, and the force of installation would depress the device into the wood slightly, but the RFID tag itself would remain on the exterior of the wood, so it should still be readable.
> it is ridiculous to write code and then lock it behind a vault door and treat it like liquid gold when other people could benefit from it

This isn't "ridiculous". If other people could benefit from the code in question, it seems like at least some of them might be willing to pay for it. Why throw open your vault doors to the public for free when you can charge admission and there are people who want what's inside badly enough to pay?
Too bad for us, yes, but I very much doubt Maciej gives a hoot :)
We've come a long way in just a couple of decades. The gap between the computer shown in the video, and the ios device I'm watching the video on, is mindblowing.
As with anything legal, whether this applies to you depends on where you are. The article appears to be quoting from laws based on the State of California. If you're not under their jurisdiction, it probably doesn't apply to you.

At the least, you should look up the work-for-hire laws in your jurisdiction. Or, you know, work with a lawyer to learn your rights.

(edit: copy tweaks)
I think because we're addressing a different point. Of course it's good to learn more about how humans work and help students to learn but there has to be a scope in it. Hopefully learning is about being curious, discovering new things, playing with the mind. Metrics won't help bored students, they'll just learn to flip the pages at the right time while watching TV. And now interested students get distracted by the same concerns of being over-watched and not doing the same thing. It's really a terrible solution.

If you want to collect metrics then make them as a personal tool. Make a utility for the student, that only him can access, that helps him learn about his studying patterns, give him hints, ... If they want to share them it's on their own term.
how to describe the set of acceptable clay-like substances.

Given the context, I would have hoped something involving a mass spectrometer or something similar rather than buying something purely on the basis that it is known to have the property of being suitable for cats to urinate into and then hoping that they don't ever change the mixture on any products in the range.
One of the reasons I've come to do most of my early stage prototyping in node is that managing npm packages has thus proven much easier than finagling with pip or gem.

Ruby installs are especially difficult to manage. Despite the numerous tutorials out there, I still don't know what, if there even is one, the canonically best way to install ruby and necessary gems is. RVM? Install through Brew? Add path to ~/.bashrc?

I say this as someone who likes using command line so much that I've written Caskfiles to automate my deployment to fresh OS X Machines.
I feel bad for the people who are forced to work for that company. When the market for software engineers is this good why would you keep working there?
Indeed; as I like to say, no one is really interested in backups, only restores.

E.g. in the bad old days, not to mention to this day, I kept write enable rings on mag tapes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Write_protection) unless and until I had to do a restore, in which case they got removed before putting them in the drive.
I agree. Python 3 fixes a lot of warts (range() defaults to xrange(), input() is the default) and does make the language overall more elegant (arbitrary head and tail unpacking with splat) but unfortunately it's not really worth a full switch. At least not for me.
The Myth of the Climate Change '97%'
That requires two iterations through the list though, which isn't ideal
The Scorched Earth Society – Peter Watts on surveillance [pdf]
The Danger of Easy Skepticism
Saving data to a file in your Android application
Show HN: Get other people to do your online shopping
And if you want an actively-maintained alternative, check out https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit
The analysis is interesting. However I'm not sure it has much practical value due to transpositions. For example, as white I play 1.Nf3 and if black plays d5 I play d4 and we have a d4 opening. If black plays c5 I play c4 and depending on what black does it will transpose into either an English opening (1. c4) or a maroczy sicilian (1. e4) or an indian defence (1. d4).

So basically, my opening move would be classed as 'other' but really it is one of 1.d4, 1.e4, 1.c4 in terms of the classifications of this post.
Ok - I clearly hadn't followed it closely enough.

Maciej - please come back.
Inside Jobs: Why The Best Software Engineers Never Stop Learning
Python 2 versus Python 3 a beginners perspective.
The article is stacking the deck pretty heavily:

After all, collecting these stray pallets takes a lot of labor, a lot of miles, and a lot of trucks.

vs

they receive blue pallets whether they want them or not

So the recyclers' hands are tied because they receive pallets mixed in with white pallets when delivered by the truckload, but then they get to turn around and talk of all the effort collecting them. It's not hard - just educate your customers - "I won't pay for blue pallets, because they're rented equipment. You can ship them to me, but I'll reduce the payout for a truckload by the number of blues". What the article is promoting is that the recyclers get to play the innocent... then directly profit off it.

Don't get me wrong, I think the idea of renting pallets is stupid, but then again, I'm not making $3.5B/year. But the article seems to gloss over the fact that selling something you do not own is not legal, regardless of how much labour you put into it (otherwise burglary and fencing would be legal). These pallets are clearly marked; it's not like they're hard to confuse.
I guess if the asset class is divisible it can rise in value indefinitely. But simple logic says that if anything rises in real value every year, eventually no-one can afford to buy it. Of course, this assumes that the average earnings don't rise alongside it, but that's the definition of inflation.

The London property market has been around for about 2000 years, more or less in its current form. If property prices really doubled every ten years indefinitely, and assuming it cost 1 penny to buy a London townhouse in 0ad, then ridiculousness ensues.

The last thirty years have been atypical of property prices. My theory, bolstered by little other than observation and deduction, is that we're seeing the effect of women entering the workplace. House prices are constrained by affordability (or the availability of money, which is why interest-free loans from Japan enabled Northern Rock to give 100% 100-year mortgages to people who couldn't normally afford houses) and over the last thirty years we've gone from most families having a single income to most families having a double income, so house prices rose consistently over the period and will settle at this new high. It used to be that your house was worth roughly 3x your annual salary, logically it should settle at 3x your combined annual salary. It'll be interesting to see if it does that.
I'm now more hard-line than this on data privacy:

I have come to believe that businesses should not be legally allowed to store any consumer data unless it's obvious to the consumer that it's absolutely required for the primary function of the service, and they should only be allowed to store data for that one function, with an exception if the consumer explicitly and voluntarily opts-in for each additional function.

Large internet companies have been collecting swathes of data with the claim that they are secretly using it to improve people's lives. But it seems to me that A/B testing has failed to improve anyone's life.

Example:
I use search engines to search for something I'm looking for.

I do not benefit from being shown 'targeted' ads, nor from the search engine identifying the most populist answers which it uses to spoon-feed me later rather than serve what I asked for, nor from the search engine identifying which particular arrangement of pixels will leave me personally more addicted.

Businesses are welcome to use my data in ways which are in my interest, but they should not get to decide which of these uses are in my interest.
rapgenius definitely seems to be a hotbed of silicon valley brogrammer culture.
Wait times in normal hospitals in the U.S. only include those people who can afford medical care (including those with insurance). They don't include the millions of people who can't get on the list at all.

In other words, average U.S. wait times are pretty good if you exclude people whose wait times = infinity.
I've never found myself wishing for a better type system, although maybe I've just been steeped in the world of dynamic, strongly typed languages for too long.

But there's no doubt that concurrency is indeed one of Python's weak points, and Go's strong points.
I would be a bigger fan if there were some included phonegap utilities & tutorials.

Famo.us is making the same mistake for some reason. Aggressively targeting mobile, with half of the toolchain missing to actually shipping mobile apps.

Not that I can blame the OP, who is likely not a SF startup with millions in funding.
Fantastic as always. Every time I read one of Maciej's talks or essays I get a little closer to throwing in the towel and pursuing a more meaningful existence. It's going to happen one day and I can't wait to read the post that forces it.
Lost item finder "Tile" ships
I'm not going to deny that there's a ton of geekery involved. But there are several things my non-geek wife loves about our home automation system, including:

* Never coming home to a dark house (minimal lights automatically come on at sunset, and tapping one button immediately inside the entry door turns on several lights in the area you're walking in to).
* Watching a movie in complete darkness, but hitting 'pause' and having the necessary lights to get to the bathroom or kitchen come on (at a dim level so you're not suddenly blinded).
* Having "believable" automated operation of lights and other things when we're on vacation, giving a better appearance of someone being home.
* Being able to adjust the temperature when we're not home (helpful when we've been gone a while and want the house pre-warmed/cooled).

Etc.

This certainly ALL falls into the luxury category, but it's quite nice. I don't think the issue in this market is that people who aren't geeks wouldn't enjoy the benefits. It's a combination of a lack of proper marketing, high cost, and the interfaces for these things not being where they need to be for average users. Maybe Apple can address at least some of those factors.
Misogyny isn't a system and patriarchies don't persist for long without misogyny, for fairly obvious reasons.
Excellent blog topic :). I really enjoyed the trees and day/night simulation in A Valley Without Wind.
We're talking about a website that provides commentary on rap music. You can find things far more misogynistic and tasteless than this idiot's manifesto without even trying. How is talking about a mass murderer off limits while lyrics glorifying violence are the site's bread & butter?
yes, yes. Thanks!
(for just a few hours)

Original research paper io9 cites, rewarming pigs:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16456447

More press:
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/suspended-animatio...

We are ready to try this out with people though, five centers have been given the ok.

"At [University of Pittsburgh Medical Center], they're just waiting for the right patient — one with cardiac arrest due to penetrating wounds and significant blood loss — to be wheeled into the emergency room. All the paper work is done; the team is is trained and ready."
Simplicity of setup/operation is probably all it will take to make home automation products popular. Most of the existing products seem to be geared towards those control freak types who demand lots of options/customization but the real mass market is lazy people who need a one-size-fits-all solution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_path_sentence

(I also misinterpreted it at first glance)
With the advent of computer analysis, the serious chess player needs to have a basic understanding of almost every opening, with that understanding going deeper and deeper as you scale the ranking list.

For example, the King's Gambit hasn't really fallen out of favor despite the lack of long grandmaster games. The Falkbeer Countergambit (1.e4 e5 2.f4 d5) in particular has seen a revival as of late with the Nimzowitsch variation (3.exd5 c6!?). You might not see Carlsen and Anand playing it in tournament (mostly due to the risk-reward factor of having to solve complex positions over the board under time pressure), but they've almost certainly studied it with their team of coaches and researchers.

To comment on the Pirc: statistically, Black fares much worse with the Pirc in relationship to the most successful counter to 1.e4, the Sicilian defense (1...c5). From a gameplay perspective, Black has to commit much earlier with the Pirc than the Sicilian, since the Sicilian has about a billion variations starting as early as the second move.
This is really not that difficult of a question to answer.

If you're coming from a more B2B oriented company and interviewing at a more consumer oriented one, say you're interested in working on consumer oriented products.

Same goes for the reverse.

With a little creativity this is a pretty easy question to answer, just gotta practice your rhetoric before-hand.
Since you can define a function inside a function, why does it matter that it isn't anonymous?
Ask HN: Which paid apps and services do you use?
Can be exclusively paid apps/services or ones with a free tier available. Examples could be Pinboard, Instapaper, Zapier, PostHaven, Lastpass, anything really.
How To Fix High-Frequency Trading
I'd be really interested to hear more about your approach. Maybe you’d write it up?

I did consider simply storing and replaying actions, but realised I'd still want a way to merge them: consider a series of actions like: "add item", "update item", "add item", ...<lots more changes>..., "delete items 1 through 20". If there’s no merge, a lot of redundant actions will end up building up in the offline case.

There are a lot of ways to approach this (I’m reading Brent Simmon’s adventures (http://inessential.com/2014/05/24/vesper_sync_diary_follow-u...) with interest at the moment).