skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The latest ep of HD Nation over at Revision3 shows off the new transfer of The Wizard of Oz to Blu-Ray. It's amazing how much visual data is captured on film that can be recovered years later. http://revision3.com/hdnation/wizardofhd
I read that as, "which feature is easiest to port from the existing mysql solution?" Which is a reasonable question to ask, given how different the two databases are.
Alastair Reynolds' next book almost ready
Google Appears To Be Testing The Mother Of All Updates: A Larger Search Box
For anyone who is curious why the theorem is true, here is a quick sketch of a possible proof.

First prove that both sides of the equation are (mod 2) invariant if you swap the labeling of (i, i+1). (That is if we keep the permutation alone and swap the two labels, we don't change either side.) This allows us to rewrite any permutation so that it takes a canonical form where each cycle takes the form i -> i+1 -> ... -> i+j -> i. Then prove the theorem for permutations of that form.
I don't get articles like this, maybe it's cause I'm still learning a lot, but I don't see the value of posting some inference a module or library already explicitly states in the manual or documentation.

Because people don't RTFM
I was just about to come in here and say, "fire the title guy".
I bet it weighs more too :)
Linux consortium OIN buys Microsoft's old patents
My process would be this.

1. Decide that mysql (or other RDB) is problematic.

2. Decide which features cause the most pain (List them with the most painful on top)

3. Discover which alternative db solutions would do the best in alleviating the top issues.
The guy that invented the normal forms also went on to invent analytical forms, which are the exact opposite. For example, the Entity Attribute Value (EAV) model, used by many including the W3C Semantic Web.
Yep, overall some nice improvements but I was hoping they would have carried the Top Earners across to categories too.
If you are passing around data from Python, to Javascript to even Flash, JSON is the best. Minimized parsing, smaller subset of YAML and KISS methodology. It doesn't have the verboseness problems that xml has but isn't as compact as binary data. But JSON converts to javascript, actionscript and python objects with almost no effort. It is actually not bad as a socket messaging format over xml or binary as well.
God, I know. I lost faith in Apple's taste a little bit when I downloaded that. I love the new mini-scrollers, I love the playback bar that looks like Quicktime X, but the gloss is obnoxious.
> What's not addressed is that this may not be an advance over Relational databases

It's not. The relational model is much better, for many applications.

BUT.

The missing context is, the relational model cannot be sanely scaled out across multiple machines. Replication mostly works with some pain, but scaling writes is just a nightmare -- and what you have to do to partition your data across multiple rdbms nodes means giving up all that relational goodness. So what you end up with is neither of {easily scaled, relational}.

So if you can't have a scalable rdbms, the next best thing is a scalable key/columnfamily dbms. Something like Cassandra. Which, as a bonus, gives you significantly better per-node performance on modern hardware.
But is the Nano at all close to the Flip's quality? I'm doubting it shoots in HD.
I'd just like to point out that at one time, the Roman Catholic church sold "get into heaven bonds".
totally agree. And it should be relatively easy to add. I think they are going to have it with 9.1 or something within a month.
I pay the same amount, $5/month for LWN.net and the same content is available for free when it's a week old. So, I could see it working, though personally I won't be signing up for Ars's one.
Is this kind of post typical on his blog? I'm not trolling, it's just that I've never read his blog, despite his fame, so I'm trying to figure out if it's worth reading or not.
Most linuxes are pretty good these days about security, there was a time when it seemed like every redhat version came out of the box with a remotely exploitable hole.

But Ubuntu is locked down by default now. And their security responsiveness seems pretty good.
The trouble with cross-compiling from Linux to Windows is that you don't get access to any of the features in new Windows versions, especially Vista and above. This may be fine for a CLI program, but your only option to produce a first-class Windows GUI program is to compile on Windows using Visual C++ and the latest SDK.
Cassandra is a scalable key/columnfamily database designed for supporting low-latency applications with vast amounts of data partitioned across many machines. (Facebook has 40TB on a 150-machine Cassandra cluster.)

CouchDB is a document database that supports two-way replication so you can re-sync after taking part of the data offline, but it's still designed around the concept of a single master that holds all the data.

Completely different animals, in other words.
If by web2.0 you mean they saw it fit to harshen gradients and add a gradient to the search box, you're right. This is exactly why I disliked the web2.0 aesthetic.
How about news sites charging say $12 bucks a yr. for iPhone centric versions of their site?

Reading Hacker News & other news sites on the iPhone is not the greatest experience! A lot of sites could charge for this and in turn offer a better UX for a nominal charge & in turn have another revenue model, that's easy to create & advertise!
Announcing Tonido Screenshare- Share your PC’s screen via a browser
4. Start implementing, starting with the most-improvement-for-least-effort.

I'm saying the two lists are not mutually exclusive. :)
I don't know whether I'd like to think this was done with Jobs' approval or not. Jobs' approval means that the guy made a major oopsie. Without Jobs' approval would imply that the guy really is the one holding Apple together.
Excellent list for those of us who have grown up taking this stuff for granted. One minor nitpick: it's very difficult fore to agree that "refactoring" belongs in the same list as relational algebra and Boolean logic.
Comparing Microsoft and Apple Websites’ Usability
gruseom was using "zany" as an adjective, rather than as a noun. If I am the person in definition #3, then I am acting like a buffoon and I am very "zany".
Privacy Plug-In Fakes out Facebook
Terminal Man Takes to the Air
They hid the categories beside the App Store disclosure triangle at the top of the screen.
I suspect GCC version 4, probably compared to GCC version 3, which only recently was superseded in "enterprise" Linux distros.
Newspapers tend to cover a lot of the same stuff that is available in 50 different places - you can't charge for that. E.g. you couldn't charge for information about the lastest iPods.

I think you can only charge for the unique content, which is what Ars's is doing.
Agree with Micah. It's great that you are thinking business model already, but I don't think you can indiscriminately charge everyone, especially the folks that will create the community / value that will bring the advertisers. I paid to download the app, and then I paid to add my content to the mix. For what?

You might want to consider making the app free for most users, but you have to pay to drop a link.
Dry scalp
Yes it can be extremely annoying and embarrassing having a scalp condition like dandruff, eczema, scalp infections or a nasty itchy red rash on your scalp. If you are suffering from: is your scalp flaky itchy or do you have dry scalp with…
I was not talking about the looks at all. I specifically mentioned web2.0 "interface".
The Dangers of Testing with Real Data
thanks for posting. I wonder if I should just resubmit it.
IBM looks to DNA to sustain Moore's Law
> [...] first filtering out all the...
> I'll use the word "typical" entries.
> He identified patterns for these and
> lets a script strip these out. As he continues
> to identify those types of entries, he adds
> patterns for them to the script.
> He then focuses on what remains.

That's exactly what logcheck does. http://logcheck.org
Hah, check out that malloc page for OpenBSD for how you configure malloc globally (to e.g. enable debugging): you create a /etc/malloc.conf which is a symbolic link to a non-existant file the name of which determines options, e.g. "G<" to enable extra malloc debugging and half the cache size!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y_Combinator
I think the sound it emits makes it vibrate in the "right" direction.
Looks like an ugly version of Ferrari's F430 and 458 models. Not sure about those exhausts either.
Last time I exchanged messages with him he certainly looked like 13.

The other day we were talking about the need for social skills in large projects mostly because of CK's message exchange on LKML about BFS. Theo is a very clever guy and does some truly outstanding work, but I would not like to work with him on anything important. I love what I do and I have no need to get burned.
You could knock out an entire room of girls in a matter of seconds with the first photo on this guys page: http://www.kenrockwell.com/katie/2008.htm
Sure.

but NoSQL kinda gives you memcache like awesomeness with some level of persistence. Think of cassandra as a more feature-rich, persistent memcache. :)
also note that WD (?) have managed to make a terabyte 2.5" disk. Expect high-end laptops to ship with that soon enough. :)
Note that they're using cassandra for _computed_ data- the original components still exist elsewhere.
Anyone from digg here? I'd love to know how long it took to build that dataset the first time. In other words: what's the recovery window like to reset that size dataset?
I am somewhat offended by that. I run Ubuntu on my really serious computers and I hardly feel it was haphazardly bolted together.
That's super-lame.
Create in real-time Java Part 1: Exploit real-time performance features
The news is only as good as it's source. I am sceptical about the claim. Would love to see this news in science magazines like New Scientist or Scientific America, before buying it.
It's great to see this post on Hacker News by the way.

I think the OpenBSD project encompasses a lot of the values that a majority of the users on this site would agree with.
Work flows for data analysis
I am looking for best practice ideas for analyzing data on a project by project basis. Often I get an assignment like "write a statistical portrait of the foreign born in the state of Idaho". I generally use R, with liberal applications of SQLITE and unix text manipulation tools.

The iterative process is: download data (~10000 rows or more), clean it, come up with intermediate variables ("recoding"), tabulate these variables, graph them, write a draft that explains the results, see where I went wrong, rinse, repeat.

I generally start a directory per project. Within that, I create a subdirectory into which I download raw data and where I do various munging operations with unix tools on it. I also start a file into which I paste the commands and small scripts I use (either at the command line or in the R environment). Then I just go crazy, doing analysis, generating intermediate files with weird naming conventions, saving stuff, and everyone once in a while cleaning my work space of intermediate files by "mv -b ./JUNK".

At some point I decide I am done and put my tables into an Excel spreadsheet (don't hate me!) and my graphics (usually pdfs) into their own subdirectory. This is the last stop before I open Word or In Design and start writing the report importing tables/ graphs as I create a story around this data. I save multiple versions of this, like "myreport-01.doc", "myreport-02.doc" etc, until I am finished. The final product is usually a printed / pdf'ed document, meant to be read as such.

I would REALLY, REALLY like a more systematic approach.

(If I were writing queries against a regular business database and storing them and running regularly, my problem might be a little easier, but the reports are completely ad hoc.)

I have wondered about using version control aggressively, working more with central data stores (I already use the workspace feature of R), and focusing more on writing code to do everything from beginning to end. But I am a little bit at wits end.

So ... everyone please weigh in and tell me how to streamline my process!
Create in real-time Java Part 2: Reduce variability in Java applications
FWIW, the linked Wikipedia article also debunks this.
This debugging method seems like an ugly hack. Why not use a plain text file that could be read when the program (or the computer) starts with options written in human-readable form?

Assuming it is a short file, it would require only one block read (the block pointed to by the directory entry). The broken symlink method may be faster (one less disk read, a lot less parsing overhead) but is much less human-friendly. And the added speed would only be meaningful if the file got checked more often than at program start.
It's Time For Google To Take A Stand On Paid Links
Yeah. There were some bad days with default linux installs circa 1998 or so (Red Hat 6.0 was a disaster, IIRC), but everyone learned their lesson and in fact linux distros have been extraordinarily proactive about security since. Witness Red Hat with SELinux, FORTIFY_SOURCE, ExecShield, etc...

One of the ironies is that the "only two remote holes in the default install" bit, while impressive compared to, say, Microsoft, is still two more than Red Hat and Ubuntu have shipped over the same period. (Disclosure: that's from memory. I'd have to look up dates on remote exploits to be sure.)
How is this different from the old "analog is better than digital because it has infinite resolution" argument?

Any recording medium has limitations, and whether it's digital or analog is neither here nor there.

If you rescan your 35mm slides at high resolution in 10 years, you'll get a really nice picture of the individual grains in the emulsion, not a better picture.
The intro for this app needs a re-do-- its too self-referential. You are fighting the back button on this one -- you need to prove that you're interesting and useful to someone in 5 seconds flat.

The text on this page is too much about Squeelr origins and not enough about what problem it solves.
I use a really similar wm called Awesome (written in C and Lua), but I might switch once I grok haskell more.
I know many. Dustin Curtis is one. Its more common than you think.

The idea that you can hire your way into good design / good user experience is pretty tough to implement though. If your founding team doesn't have a great visual and user experience designer to begin with, how are you going to evaluate the new hire? It's like a nontechnical founder hiring a software engineer. Can be done, but fraught with danger.
> if you're a startup who can only hire 5-6 people
> you don't have that luxury.

You could (a) hire a guy to do design + usability, or (b) hire a designer and leave usability to a founder until you can afford a second hire.

Startups, any feedback on what has worked for you?
The Core Rules of Netiquette
is this a joke?

not to be too snippy but after spending 2-3 minutes reading copy im not 100% sure if its not sarcastic
The Radio seems to have come out of nowhere- So far as I know, the iPhone/touch don't have them.

Actually, they might. The iPod Touch 2G, at least, contains a chip that has the potential to handle both Bluetooth and FM radio reception. At the time the 2G Touch was released, the chip's Bluetooth and FM capabilities weren't enabled. But according to the following article, the 3.0 software upgrade started using the chip for Bluetooth: http://www.tomsguide.com/us/iPod-Touch-Bluetooth,news-3642.h...

It's possible that the chip's FM capabilities will be enabled on a future software update.
These are all valid points, but it's not like film is without flaws either. Film may not have pixels, but it has grains. The flipside of "always being able to pull something out" of film is that it's outrageously nonlinear. And film is not particularly light sensitive.

Astronomers used to use huge glass plates to capture telescope images, but when CCDs became available there was a revolution in data quality. It's true that astronomers probably don't care about the same things photographers do wrt capture medium, but in astronomy, CCDs wiped film off the map.

The final killer for film: You can't back it up. Your slide may last forever, but if you lose it, or your house burns, game over.
Zany just means wacky. It's an older word (deriving, I just learned, from commedia dell'arte). I was looking (jokingly) for a euphemism to approximate your implicit category of this-person-is-either-crazy-or-smoking-something.
The interface is almost exactly the same.
Now S-U-P-E-R-sized
hackeado xmafia
Thanks for the compliment. That presentation was a lot of work.
The examples given are cases where people fail to understand the implications of posting data to a public forum. A browser plugin is not going to magically make people start thinking about the implications of their blabber-mouthing on Facebook.

Another problem is lack of understanding of the privacy policy. Over the weekend I was talking with a family member who mentioned that she messaged something private on Facebook to a friend without realizing that it would be publicly visible. A plugin wouldn't have helped her one bit, she mistakenly assumed her conversation was being kept private by Facebook. She learned her lesson and now doesn't use that medium for that kind of information.

Twitter's policy is that all of your posts are public (unless they are all private that is) which I think is less surprising to people.
"Film images last forever, versus memory cards and hard drives which we rarely are able to read after more than 10 years."

Film stock does not last forever either, it degrades with time. New film stock, according to Wikipedia, can last "hundreds of years" however.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_stock#Deterioration

Interesting article, but more interesting is his usage of the trademark symbol. 28 times within 175 words. Calm down buddy.
Cloudkick (YC W09) Seeks Frontend Web Developer
Cloudkick is an early stage start-up based in San Francisco. We are actively looking for individuals to help us build the next generation of IT products.

We offer competitive salary, full benefits, and the opportunity to make a big impact.

To apply please send an email to careers@cloudkick.com with a short introduction about yourself and your resume.

--

Frontend web developer

Cloudkick is offering a position to someone who is extremely talented and excited about frontend web development.

Responsibilities

* All things javascript

* Create elegant and secure ways for the frontend to work with backend services

* Develop new features using django

Requirements

* Very experienced with javascript

* Knowledge of jquery

* 1+ yr working with django

* Creative and forward thinker
I've been procrastinating on my first OpenBSD install, and this pushed me over the edge. I just bought the CD set, and I'll have a go at it this weekend (or maybe next weekend).
is still two more than Red Hat and Ubuntu have shipped over the same period.

it's 2 remote holes in 11 years. ubuntu wasn't even around 5 years ago.
Why would I open the Squeelr app?
Looking for early adopters for a new online trip planning tool
It takes around 27 hours. 3 to load the MySQL data into Hadoop, then 24 to compute and insert into Cassandra.
Not only that, but to last a long time, film has to have been processed absolutely correctly (developed, fixed, and fix-washed) and stored absolutely correctly. Any mistakes, and you are a long way away from an archival copy. This takes experience, skill and some more experience. Correctly operating a digital camera for a hobbyist is much easier.

Also, while individual digital recording devices have short lifespans, it is trivial to make completely lossless identical copies of digital information. However making a good copy of an analog recording is notoriously difficult.
I'm not sure I understand. As far as I can tell (and yes, I read the entire front page), it's Twitter, except I have to pay to tweet, anonymously. I just don't see an audience for this app.
Any man's religion is superstition.
Adaptec MaxiQ SSD caches RAID arrays 
The best of both worlds?
I had an idea for in iPhone app just like this. In my head, I called it "WriteHere". I didn't make it because it seemed like a classic chicken-and-egg problem: the app won't be compelling until it has a lot of quality user generated content and it won't have a lot of quality user generated content until it is compelling.

So I'm baffled about your business model of charging users for the exact thing that adds value to your product. It seems self-defeating. Why not at least give an intro period to get some users on your platform?

If you're going to keep going with this idea here a couple suggestions:
- Re-work the pitch. Make it have 30% of the words it currently does. Make it clear what's cool about the idea.
- Add a voting system so that users can vote up quality Sqeels.
- Make a contest where the first user to find a specific Squeel posted in a specific hidden location wins... something. Not sure what is allowed by Apple's restrictions though.

Hope this help, good luck.
Thanks for the feedback. I agree, I linked to the wrong page. Is this one better? http://www.squeelr.com/about.html

?
The tendency of a digital medium to go bad after 10 years more than makes up for that with ease of backups. I've got virtually none of the photos I took as a kid on film, I have 100% of all digital photos I've ever taken and then didn't purposely discard.

Film has some great qualities, but durability is not one of them.
How can exams be conducted online, if we want to prevent cheating?
2002 and 2007, according to Wikipedia. I'm skeptical about OpenBSD being more secure overall, in the real world (who has time to apply patches manually?!) But, to be fair, I'm pretty sure Debian and Ubuntu had a big OpenSSL-related fiasco just recently.
It's not a joke, but it is an experiment. It's unclear if this is an idea that has any standing power, but it is interesting enough to me to give it a try.

I don't know about your twitter experience, but mine has been loaded with Spammers of late. What if we used money as a way to get a better signal-to-noise ratio? What does that interaction look like?

Second, what if we eliminated user accounts, making it more like the Citizens Band Radio, and less like Email. Squeelr is a common place to write stuff.

It's true, we already have many other places to write and give our opinions, but Squeelr is a funny mix of existing technologies. It's an iPhone application first, and so integrates with the camera and geolocation abilities of that target. It's a microblogging type service. But it's also completely controlled by the users, like a wiki--if you don't like something, delete it.
Giant rats, tiny parrots found in 'lost world'
Christ what an asshole!

He refers to exposed film as if it hadn't been fucked with -- you can't go back and reprocess it differently (like you can with RAW).

He describes RAW files as being a fixed array of pixels with lossy compression -- that's anything but RAW -- the good formats are the un-demosaiced elements straight from the sensor, and that means that you can do things like rotate the image at subpixel resolution (especially for non-Bayer-filter sensors like the Foveon).
Many graphic designers I've met think CSS is a once-yearly conference in Vegas. I consider a "web designer" to be a superset of a graphic designer. They can do everything a traditional GD can, plus break it down into html/css (the cleaner the better).

I value them more highly than the user experience designer, because it's considerably easier to improve the user experience. Focus groups and a/b testing are fairly easy to implement and allow you to make great strides in a short period of time (the latter is obviously not true if you have little traffic though).

I can run an a/b test in far less time than I can make a great looking site.