skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
As a member of the younger generation, I rarely think in imperial and I think the same is true for most of my social group at least.

For example:

- I struggle to visualise feet or inches, we always used metric units at school so metres and cms are what I understand
- kilograms for weight is much more natural to me than stones or ounces (really, I have no idea how much an ounce is, although I kind of know a pound is a small bag of sugar-ish)
- miles are probably the only imperial unit I'd use, but even still, I find km much easier to reason about, perhaps because I have lived in Europe in the past.
- oh, and the trusty pint of course!
There's a constant offset between F and C, so it's not linear in the actual engineering/math (or whatever) sense.
No one sees an irony?)
democracy is not having a referendum for each random decision or new law. It's electing (thus giving your consent) someone to unilaterally make changes for everybody else during a short time. This person has the responsibility to take the hard decisions that individually would not come around.
ex, when death penalty was abolished in France, it was in opposition to the majority of french people. A few decades latter virtually everybody now agrees that's the best way of things and that it was a great decision. At the time it was a politically courageous enforcement.
There are a couple of GCD algorithms that have better asymptotic performance than Euclid's (an old one is due to Knuth):
http://www.ams.org/journals/mcom/2008-77-261/S0025-5718-07-0...

I'm surprised the author didn't implement the binary gcd, however, although it has the same big-O as Euclid:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_GCD_algorithm
English is not a superior language. The metric system is superior.
Yeah, on second thought, it probably sounds over-dramatic and all, but it would probably impose some valuable discipline for people who want to hack at the Linux kernel. (I've been programming for quite some time, but have never thought I am ready for going beyond userspace. Maybe I have it a little wrong, after all.)
I think you misunderstood the Euclidean algorithm. The basic iteration is of the form

gcd(a, b) = gcd(b, a mod b),

and there is no need to compute mod with anything other than %.
Dads Who Do Dishes Raise Ambitious Daughters
Alpha->Omega then
There are still quite a few out there, mostly in states that share borders with Canada and Mexico. See http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/signs/
For me I'm distracted by the design - which is nice enough - but the key information doesn't jump out at me like with the originals.

Also, the use of green on green (or is it Teal?) isn't agreeing with my ageing eyesight.
EmojiScript: emotion literals, emotional algebra, and more for JavaScript
Of course, this is exactly what I would say if I had been NSL'd.
Hearing Fahrenheit in Toronto does surprise me on the few occasions that it happens (usually either retirement-age seniors or American visitors).

Recently I noticed the medical profession has come on board with cm/kilos for measurement which is pretty surprising since hearing inches/pounds is still fairly common.

Having grown up in the 70s and 80s I still find I float between the two fairly easily but I sure did find Scotland confusing last time I visited - as a metric country they sure do a lot of things non-metricy.
PVC + Watsi – Plugins for People
I agree. But I think kernel contributors should do their absolute best to ensure the code is as bug-free as possible. There are irresponsible sysadmins who'd use a Linux kernel where there is no place for a Linux kernel to be, and just because of that alone it would be a good idea to be paranoid when pushing to Linux mainline.
I was confused by this comment, because the last time I heard Android was on a 1.5 equivalent. But sure enough as of ADT 22.6.0 (March 2014) some Java 1.7 features were added: http://developer.android.com/tools/sdk/eclipse-adt.html
I've found that with a stack based around middleware (Express) , that it's now very easy to add open source modules to handle these features for you.

What interests me a lot at the moment are HTTP proxies that provide features like these. I like the encapsulation and scalability that true REST makes easy.

I would say writing the "expose DB as REST-API" can be easy for small projects, but a lot of work can go into making something that is RESTful, scalable, and a joy to build with.
If you like doing this sort of thing, there are a million little CS problems like this codewars.com

One cool feature of the site is that you can vote on solutions; this lets you see a lot of neat solutions to problems, and learn a lot about how to write clean code.
USB display adapters do exist, people have been using USB 2 adapters with 1080 displays, and USB 3 with 4K will have more bandwidth per pixel available.
You can be cruel without being sexist, and you can be sexist without being cruel. Every time sexism comes up, comments like this get trotted out. These people are bottom-feeders. They have no ability to affect anything in their own life, so they make hurtful comments on the internet to try and affect others, just so they can feel like they're in control of something.

Stamping out sexism isn't going to stop them from doing that. They're not reading these articles or these comments. If they are, they're just happy that someone is paying attention to them.

I think there are far bigger fish to fry when it comes to fighting sexism than going after some basement-dwelling mouth-breathers who don't actually matter. You could actually focus on normal, good-intentioned people who have just been brought up in a culture of sexism and would happily change if it were pointed out to them how they're hurting others.

edit: I shouldn't say they "don't matter" as I've never been on the receiving end of it, and it probably matters a great deal when you are. I just meant that the ability of these people to affect someone's life beyond making hurtful comments on the Internet is minimal.
>> Casual script fonts like Comic Sans are probably best left for fun and animated companies such as toy companies.

Except Comic Sans _itself_, which isn't appropriate for anything.
Vote No Borders and Astroturfing: The Evidence (Scottish Independence Referendum)
And just about as likely to happen...
It's dishonest to your users to display a paid link and and not tell them. Google feels the same way about displaying paid links that they look at. What does that have to do with ads, which you can display from anyone on your site?

Also, Google only keeps 32% of the ad revenue not 60%:
https://support.google.com/adsense/answer/180195?hl=en
I love the general concept and agree that iOS is sorely in need of more customisation, and that Windows Phone probably has the right balance already.

"But, if you want more information about an app, you can simply pinch the app icon bigger and it will now become an iOS Block."

I physically tried this and it just feels awkward. The 'pinch to zoom out gesture' on iOS (e.g. maps, photos) generally has your fingertips about 1-2cm apart in my experience. To pinch an app icon seems quite clumsy and difficult for my medium size fingers... if I had big beefy sausage fingers I can imagine it would be quite a challenge!
Keeping the complex stuff out of the kernel is good advice. (and not just during development)
>is looking

I didnt say we were way worse than China I said we are looking way worse (this is in regards to spying not human rights, pollution or other issues). Its one thing to claim China is conducting corporate espionage abroad. But its also pretty bad to say we are indiscriminately spying on people in entire countries. Literally the entire country.
Show HN: No one reads your blog? Share here (Blogshare)
So many times, you write a blog, want world to read it. Want to get readers. But you can't just get visitors. Maximum you can do is share them on reddit, HN and social networks.

Here is blogshare, same as HN, but only for blogs.

Follow us at twitter @blogshar (http://twitter.com/blogshar)
GitHub owned https://www.easel.io/ is the best alternative for me now. Your service looks promising, but has strange pricing policy. Do you plan limited free plan?
Of course it's better than @Nullable. @Nullable-annotated code still compiles your NullPointerException-throwing code, using Optional won't.
Squirrel eats fries at SeaWorld
Overall, I think it is more dangerous for democracy, if everyone is indexed in a database with their political opinions, religious affiliation, favorite ice-cream flavor, than missing out a few bad apples.

I agree it will cause issues, and create complex cases, but I think it is worth trying. And if it does not work out, it will be canceled or obsolete in 10 or 20 years. It is not such a big deal.

More on UE Data laws : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Protection_Directive
Additive Analytics Launches New Tools To Help Patients Compare Surgery Costs
Interesting. Some comments:

1) It doesn't mention what file types it accepts. Since it says "presentations" I'm tempted to think .PPT, but some tools for presentations (like SpeakerDeck.com) take .PDF.

2) Why presentations? Why not documents (e.g. word processing files)? I haven't used Google Docs, but if it doesn't have feedback capability it seems like documents might be a more fruitful niche than presentations.

3) Perhaps related to (2), would it make more sense to highlight the text you want to comment on rather than drawing a box around it (which doesn't work so well if the text wraps to the next line)?
I can't wait to do code reviews where people are sprinkling parallelSort() all over the place, not understanding the consequences.

Serious question: isn't this something the JVM could abstract away?
Esperanto then?
People's ability to move after being in space differs. Shannon Lucid walked right off after months aboard the Mir, possibly because of her strict adherence to exercise routines.
Java's analogy of Python's "py3k dual-compatibility" disaster.

Only not as severe or fundamental.
Import tax + VAT.
Ireland moved from miles to kilometers for all road signs recently, no big deal; changed currency, no big deal. People adapt.
What ever happened to software that didn't cost me a monthly fee?

I thought web apps were cheaper to build and easier to maintain, but the savings don't seem to be passed onto the consumer.
The Truecrypt licenses also say that it cannot be sold, which makes it non-free and non open source. The OSI even said, "it is not at all appropriate for [TrueCrypt] to describe itself as 'open source.'"

http://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/truecrypt-or...
There's an interview with George Bell on TV that's just fascinating from a historical perspective.[1]

It's pretty amazing that the show host had installed an ad blocker plugin for his browser and was asking about the potential impact on revenues. I usually have low expectations when it comes to technology journalists. Here in Australia a one Marc Fennell, who is 28 years old and hosts technology and gaming programming on TV, called Heartbleed a "virus".

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd7VwynZOZI
Big-O Analysis For Recreational Programmers
In the European Union we changed currency, which is arguably a riskier change of measure, and much more abrupt a change.

We did fine! Even my grandma got accustomed quickly. Of course one could argue that is precisely because of the importance of a currency that we adapted so quickly...
The strange thing about articles like this is that they seem to assume that converting between units is something that happens all the time, such that doing so is a huge drain on the economy and engineering time. I don't know if my experience is the common one - but with a few exceptions (inches/feet, oz/pounds) such conversions seem kind of rare. Instead, you pick an appropriately sized unit to begin with, and stick with it.

It's interesting to note that all of the examples the article gives are caused by metrication - which forces conversions - rather than by problems using the customary units.

I don't see the point of a half-assed metrication, where everything remains the same size but is measured in centimeters. (Such that lumber is sold in lengths of 243.82 cm rather than 8 feet.) The US is already half-assed metric in a lot of places, with both customary and metric units printed on packaging when appropriate.

I guess the question is - what are the benefits of metrication that justify the massive expense required to convert?
Remembering when gadgets weren't wireless
Not bad. I like the way he streamlined the text.

Dark background... yes, that would be better for a conference room projection. But I prefer the white for my laptop view.
So long as the author wasn't aware of this, what difference does it make"?
I don't understand how you can design something without even talking to any of the stakeholders. Does the new deck accomplish the goals better than the original? How would you know?

I'm not a fan of unsolicited redesigns. Design is easy when you have none of the constraints of a real project.
>>> More public funding needs to be directed towards schools and youth programs in poor areas. More money needs to be focused on easing poverty. Give these kids back their parents, reduce the desperation of extreme poverty their families experience, and give them quality education. Do all this, and we won't still be talking about race-based hiring practices a generation from now.

There is an enormous amount of public funding going to these very things right now and it doesn't seem to have changed anything. The stereotypical black family (missing father, poor single mother) is not the result of a lack of action on the part of government. The government did not cause parents to abandon their children. It is the result of the changing message of mass media, celebrity icons, and social trends-from one that rewards integrity, and hard work to one that glorifies violence, 'thug' culture, and insubordination.
I keep an ear to the ground on these things.
Why take a minimum wage job when you can probably contract yourself out doing a number of different things? I worked part-time one summer for $6/hr ( ~ 0.75 higher than minimum wage ) in between sophomore/junior year in high school. Towards the end of the summer, I started mowing some lawns for some people I knew and was making ~$20 per lawn ( which took about an hour each ).

Next summer, I figured if I only mowed one lawn a day, I'd make the same $$$. Ended up mowing 10+ lawns a week at $25-40 a piece ( I averaged ~$20 - $25/hr depending on the week ). My favorite move was to go to my customer's neighbors and say "Hi! I'm cutting Sam's lawn for $x. If you let me cut your lawn for $x - $5, I'll knock $5 off Sam's lawn as well. Get your lawn cut and save your neighbor some cash." That worked pretty well and kept my transit time down.

Even if you take a min wage job for stability, try contracting yourself out a bit on the side and bank that cash. You'll get where you're going quicker.
Makes me think of... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_poll
> it will crash the whole system

As anyone who's programmed in "completely open" environments like C64, ZX, DOS, etc. will be accustomed to, reaching for the reset button becomes almost second-nature after the first few times you mess up, and then you start developing a more thoughtful approach than just "compile and run, see if it works" when you realise that waiting for the reboot takes a significant amount of time. Maybe this is some sort of counterargument to the trend towards "early and often" testing cycles...

But I really think everyone should have attempted writing code for an environment with no memory protection and where bugs mean a reboot. It probably makes you a better programmer overall.
Yet another poseur "designer" who clearly hasn't read Edward Tufte's books, and has made crucial mistakes such as making the graphs less accurate than they were before and adding additional extraneous clutter (such as those extra icons) on top of the original information. Real design is supposed to make information more legible, not less, and it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how slick or "pretty" the end result appears to be.
Metric measurements just make sense. I never understood why the US does not adapt and use this system. I was glad my engineering education used it, so that once again, I felt back at home using the metric system. Ask any US born engineer and they will likely tell you that if they had been using the metric system all their lives, they wouldn't have had to waste all that time trying to learn it in college for physics, etc..
Why not just have a scroll-over function?
This is so great!

Writing toy kernel modules on your own is a super fun way to get into kernel programming. There's no danger of anything going wrong, especially if you develop inside a VM.

My partner wrote a kernel module for a talk I gave that rickrolls your file system -- it overrides the 'open' system call so that any time you open a '.mp3' file, it plays Rick Astley instead. (this requires you to have Rick Astley already on your computer =))

The source code for that (and a few other toy kernel modules) is at https://github.com/jvns/kernel-module-fun

The rickroll module (by Kamal Marhubi) is the most well commented and fun: https://github.com/jvns/kernel-module-fun/blob/master/rickro...

I wrote a blog post with more about this kernel-programming-for-fun philosophy: http://jvns.ca/blog/2014/01/04/4-paths-to-being-a-kernel-hac...

Of course, writing code for the mainline kernel is a responsible task, but writing kernel code on your own machine that nobody will ever run in production is a great way to learn, and I think it's made me a better programmer.

A few concrete ways I think it's made me a better programmer:

- I now understand the interface between kernel space and userspace much better (I use strace all the time to debug my regular userspace code!)

- realizing that the Linux kernel is just written in C and it's something I can read (and understand! and change!) was a big deal for me

- understanding the basics of the underlying operating system helps me reason about my programs better

- I now feel like if I ran into an actual kernel bug or performance problem, it's something I could conceivably attempt to fix and understand, instead of hiding under the bed and saying OH NO THE KERNEL IT IS TOO HARD
It is a pity that Qt is not mentioned in that article. AFAIK, It is the only widely-used C++ library that implements null objects consequently. Ever wondered why the Qt framework doesn't use any exceptions or C-style error codes? It is solely because of proper use of Null objects.
And who's saying China isn't capable (and more likely doing) of the exact same thing? There are some absolutely brilliant hackers and tech workers who are born into PRC propaganda.
Just to start this discussion off, PVC is a new project that is a great opportunity for people to ease into writing OSS .NET code.

I believe in the .NET OSS community. Its small but growing and we need to bring more people in. I believe in watsi. We're hoping that helping others is a good motivator to get someone to take that first step. For me, that was all that was needed and I've been contributing to open source for 5 years now!
To be honest, it's exactly the same as Windows Phone tiles, if you haven't tried it already.
You wouldn't need to touch the icons directly. I imagine it would pick up the icon in the middle of a spread or pinch gesture as long as the touches started within like N pixels (based on the size of the app/icon) of each other.

I really think it's a really great idea.
I don't think it's anywhere near that bad. It's a gradual transition and it's working (imho).

In my mind, miles for roads is really the only standout left. I don't think of pint as a measure, but the name of a particular type of glass.

Outside of that I've just never found a practical use for the imperial system. It's bad enough trying to translate things to american and back, let alone trying to keep track of a US gallon being 4/5ths of an imperial gallon ..
Technology’s Loser Problem
They printed the engines! That has to be up there on the coolest stuff printed so far.
Zuckerberg, Wife Give $120M to Bay Area Schools
You're right. This is the subtraction-based implementation, the division-based is the original and better one :)

https://github.com/felipernb/algorithms.js/commit/e5a04f9ad0...
Looking good! A mobile app would make it sing :)
I think it's about time Merrill Chapman penned a new and updated edition of "In Search of Stupidity" geared towards internet tech firm calamities and stuff like this.
Researches that trespass a digital network aren't the only ones who are affected, though.
Let's say, a quote from the OP article:

"Lanier said that after finding severe vulnerabilities in an unnamed “embedded device marketed towards children” and reporting them to the manufacturer, he received calls from lawyers threatening him with action.
[...]
As is often the case with CFAA things when they go to court, the lawyers and even sometimes the technical people or business people don't understand what it is you actually did. There were claims that we were 'hacking into their systems'.

The threat of a CFAA prosecution forced Lanier and his team to walk away from the research."
I know you meant well, but to give such a stern warning and then admit that you haven't done any kernel-related work at all is frustrating. I've just been getting involved in kernel development for the past month, and it's pretty clear that the go-to taskss for novices is primarily writing device drivers or fixing bugs. I'm not sure what fraction of kernel developers get to work on the kernel core (CPU scheduling, boot/initialization, file systems, memory management), but I'm going to guess it's relatively small, or at least isolated compared to those working on drivers and other modules.

Further, if the maintainers were so cautious as to want to limit contributions to the kernel, you wouldn't see initiatives like the aforementioned (and awesome) Eudyptula Challenge, or Greg KH's "Linux Kernel In a Nutshell", which he chose to give away for free in order to garner more interest in kernel dev. The state of the project right now is clearly weighted towards getting new involvement as opposed to discouraging contribution because of extremely rare and unlikely cases like the one you mentioned.
Why not try to implement the iterative O(ln(n)) Fibonacci from SICP (Ex 1.19), rather than the old O(n) one? Or the Matrix exponentiation solution (he'd probably want to implement iterative matrix exponentiation too... doesn't look like he knows clearly how to do this)?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number#Matrix_form
I've been doing this sporadically and in my free time, just for fun, so there are a lot of fundamental things that haven't been covered there. :)
The big cost driver in making animated movies isn't in the software or tools anymore and hasn't been for some time now; the big cost driver is now in authoring all of the assets and content that you actually need. It takes a ton of really talented people to create all of the photorealistic detailed models and animation and whatnot that you need to make a CG movie look convincing. Artists are way more expensive than computers.
Esperanto isn't in use by the vast majority of the rest of the world. What's with the false equivalences?
CoreOS now available on Google Compute Engine
Hidden containers perhaps won't be enough to protect you from being locked up, but that is not always their purpose. One purpose of hidden containers is to make the presence of information hidden from the attacker. They may lock you up, but they will never really know if you had encrypted information or not. That means you win something.
Maybe replacing the pinch with a swipe down or a pull down on the icon will make it easier for users with sausage fingers. The icon could then fold out from both sides like a card instead of just growing with the stretch out.