skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
yeah perhaps I drew him into this one, but "innate quality of human organic compounds" seemed like a bit of human elitism to me. To which I say "hey buddy, just because we are (apparently) the most dominant species on the planet (which I also am not too certain I agree with), doesn't mean we are the end all be all, or worse, somehow different than all the animalia we happen to try to place ourselves "above" or something. Trust me, when humans wear out their welcome here (which seems to be coming with great alacrity with regard to cosmic timescales), the insects will be more than happy to eat our corpses and continue on happily without us. We are adaptable, but not THE MOST adaptable organism on the planet. And regarding the philosophical position business, I also call bollocks, as there was not one rational argument presented to back his premise regarding the "innate quality of organic human compounds". Is the human neuron somehow magically different than a chimp's neuron? Methinks not, i.e. it is particularly unsound to somehow make our molecules different than any other organisms molecules simply because we are human.

No, human intelligence is an emergent quality, and I fathom that even our massive representations of humanity's information (akin to what Google is compiling) will soon begin to exhibit interesting qualities of its own once it becomes complex enough to exhibit perhaps interesting, unanticipated emergent qualities (in fact, if it didn't I would be absolutely shocked). Many strange and unpredictable (or at the very least unanticipated) things arise from even the simplest of "complex systems" (Conway's game of life and some of Wolfram's automata), much less the wonderful systems detailed by our individual neural mappings and our individual genomes. (q.v. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_behavior)

People always think that some human will "write" an AI like HAL or the like, but it is much more likely that nature will roll its own AI once we have made a comfy enough nest for it to germinate. After all, isn't that how we got here? (from an evolutionary biologists standpoint anyhow...)

And again, sorry for being contentious. I just despise the "religious" argument (even if there is no "named religion" being expounded... Let's keep Ockham's Razor at the ready here....)
I posted another article on these solar panels several hours earlier: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=812551

The bottom of the article includes a link to a research paper:

http://precedings.nature.com/documents/1312/version/1/files/...
I think we are arguing at cross purposes here. I'm not arguing what we call evolution doesn't lead to machines very different from the ones that we might chose to engineer ourselves. Rather, I am arguing that, as far as I can tell, I could, given enough time, money and energy, construct a living being using methods very different from natural selection and get the same result. In other words, I don't see why there is anything special about the path taken (some paths may require less energy though. ;-) )

Therefore, I don't consider designing vs evolving as a good way to separate machines capable of consciousness from machines not capable of consciousness.
Type in the name of the album? Or even the artist. If you're in Grid view (top right, next to search), you get pretty album art, you can simply drag & drop the album into your playlist.
But gravity-free chambers are dependent on fast downward drops and so are limited by time. A magnetic one you could float around in for as long as you were prepared to keep paying for the electricity.

Another voice here for the startup idea...to be frank, you could probably make the money back just from people who wanted to have zero-g sex.
Wow, that's a very nice app.
TigerDirect, surprisingly, has some decent directional antennas. I've had decent luck with http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-deta..., but http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-deta... looks pretty decent as well.

As for setting it up, I used it a pretty low-tech routine: set the antenna, walk around with a power meter, adjust antenna, and repeat. If you really want to get into it, put some thought into how the walls and other large objects are laid out, and take that into account when setting up your antenna.
mshafrir Thanks for mentioning our project. We have a huge inflow of visitors from HN (even more than from Gov 2.0 Expo/Summit attendees).

We are going to open source the entire code tomorrow (it is build on GAE, so it is easy to run for your own city/town).

p.s. We just got over free bandwith quota : )
Mens Cricket Bats
Woodworm Cricket - The Official Website - Bats, Pads, Balls, Gloves, Bags, Helmets, Shoes and other Equipment at direct factory outlet price.
Pirate Bay buyer 'misled' investors, booted off exchange
ICFP '09: "Get rid of cons!" Guy Steele on parallel algorithms & data structures
That is why we trying to use a lot of open source tools or free stuff like GAE for our projects. This way we can easily share our projects with other municipalities.

BTW: App Store code will be released tomorrow, it is Python/GAE so can be easily deployed for other cities.
According to the original paper, they needed a 17 Tesla magnet to lift a 10 g mouse. I'm not exactly sure how to extrapolate that, but if it's linear it seems like you would need on the order of 100 kiloTelsa to lift a 150 lb person.
It's a rental and I'd rather have the equipment. I've lived in places where running a wire isn't really an option. I've done it myself before too, but that isn't even tenable. Also, I'd have to be pretty damn sure that I'm getting what I want for that money.
Seconding the request for pictures of fanged frog.
The contest winners are just awesome, their right guesses achieved as high as 56.91%. See http://contest.github.com/leaderboard
Most of the software I run on my Mac is not from Apple. While I consider myself as a techie/nerd/geek, most of my friends who are on Macs are not. And yet, most of them are running non-Apple software on their Macs.

Sorry to hear that you're stuck on Apple usability, but we've moved on.
Even if it is possible, I'd suggest reconsidering whether going to grad school in AI is a good way to accomplish your goals. Like mILK says, look into the history of AI in academia and its current state.
The photos of his "solar panel" look incredibly suspicious:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/09/08/article-0-06546E62...

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/09/08/article-0-06546F9D...

Single strands of hair strung randomly around a grid? This cannot possibly be an effective approach. But there's an even easier way to prove it's a hoax -- human hair is not an electrical conductor, and doesn't produce electricity under sunlight. (This takes about fifteen seconds to test for yourself with a multimeter.)
Rockbox is an awesome open source firmware for mp3 players. I run it on my 1st gen Nano.

http://www.rockbox.org/
Google's Javascript PDF Viewer is Embeddable
There is something very special about the path taken (although this phrase is a little misleading) in evolution - not from a design perspective, but from a result perspective - evolution by natural selection is neither a random process, nor a goal-directed design.

Organisms (and by extension, or by reason) are alive because their ancestors have been lucky enough to survive long enough to have offspring.

Note, I'm not arguing that machines cannot be capable of consciousness.

But I am saying that constructed machines are necessarily distinguishable from organisms primarily because they're designed with a goal in mind (unlike organisms - these aren't designed but are the result of the co-operation of genes into higher levels of complexity, team work that has happened to be useful to the survival of the replicating matter - DNA, RNA, or possibly other such material elsewhere in the universe).

I would posit that because of the evolved nature of organisms, there may be flaws in their consciousness (e.g. through chemical imbalance, irrational deduction etc.). It is more likely that machines that are designed for intelligence & consciousness would be gifted (or cursed, depending on your convictions) with perfection, rationality, normalcy, as attributes, or at least their designers would attempt that.

So the the nature of their consciousness would be qualitatively different from that of organisms.
ITunes + CSS3
Let's just clarify...

So your argument is:

"Apple did all the research and has been successful in design before,
so you must be wrong if you dislike it."

And your suggestions are:

1. people should just live without the 88MB
even if they don't use it.

2. visually ignore pieces of the ui
if you don't use them.

3. configure your view to be simpler (as
opposed to starting simple and configuring
your view to be complex)

I think if I stick your response in the un-jerk-ificatilator, the tranlation is:

"I like those extra features and I bet
you could configure your view to be more simple.
Maybe Apple could add an easier way than the
checkboxes Winamp had. Have a good day."

Ah, much better.
Well, last I heard from her (which was earlier today), she's still looking for a job, but she's more looking for a sysadmin position than a booth babe gig.
It's a good thing that part of Microsoft's shtick is giving their employees doors instead of cubicles. I feel awkward when my job calls for testing flash games at work, I don't want to imagine how testing out this feature would feel with coworkers walking by . . .
How do you deal with international partners
We think we have an interesting idea and we would like to execute it. But, we are all in different countries. Canada, The Netherlands, Poland.

Borders Schmorders.

Working together from different countries and timezones is not the problem.

But I am confused about how to setup the legal structure. Who has been in the same situation? What do you do?

Or should we simply start with a simple agreement between the partners and worry about legal structures later on?
You need to look at it from the genetic point of view, not the individual organism point of view.

Catching prey / avoiding being caught, is a matter of life and death for the gene pools on both sides.

Hence the "crazy" arms races amongst prey & hunter.
I can't believe people are acting like the facebook/Twitter integration is such a big deal. It constructs a URL to the iTunes store and opens a browser window to a form. The implementation can't be more than a dozen new functions, can it?
I'm amazed someone hasn't made a 2 router + 2 directional antennae package for people like me. Thanks
Why not use WDS on cheapo firmware-hacked routers, using dd-wrt/openWRT/freeWRT (I use Tomato)? If you really want speed, you may be able to find standard 802.11n routers that can do WDS, although if I really wanted speed I would (and do) use cable. These firmwares usually also allow wireless strength mods, although it may not be practial.

For info on WDS:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Distribution_System
or:
http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php?title=WDS_Linked_router...
Tell HN: Bing's best feature: Cashback
I'm sure this is well known but I'd like to spread The word for people who haven't used this: Bing's cashback program is at times too good to be true. During august. All items from eBay were 25% off. Sometimes 30. I'm going to vote that we on HN post when there are discounts as good as these. After all, when isn't it good to save an extra couple of hundred bucks? Particularly for startups that can find basic supplies for even cheaper.
The advantage of a folder structure is that I know where my files are all the time. If I use another OS or copy files to another device, I can just browse through my files just like I'm on my own desktop. Rockbox also allows you to browse by ID3 tags, but I rarely use this. I have my own classification scheme that doesn't exactly fit with iTunes' artist/genre/album scheme. For example, in my spoken audio tree, I have two folders, one called "en", another called "ch". These are for English and Chinese respectively. Sometime, I have an file with Chinese audio, but an English filename. What could be easier than to have a folder for Chinese audio? There's only one thing that I can think of that could improve it, and that would be tagging. Sometimes I have a file that falls under more than one classification. If I could tag it with both that would be great. But this doesn't bother me enough to start using iTunes, which has too many annoyances.
6 years until hoverboards are mainstream.. I'd say we're right on target.
Personally, I'd be happy with an iTunes that worked well, was more intuitive, and more responsive.

I like my iPhone. I think the MacBook I use for work is swell. However, iTunes remains one of the most horrible applications that I've ever been forced to use.
Actually, the primary documentation for glibc is available in the info format (preferred by the gnu project.) You can check it out by typing "info libc" on Linux (or by googling [info libc]), and I really encourage you to do it, because you may learn new and interesting things (I know I had when I first discovered it.) Most man pages on Linux have a note saying that the documentation in man format is obsolete and the info format should be used instead.

This is not to say anything bad about OpenBSD which I have no doubt is a great system, just that the comparison is somewhat unfair.
And 100 kilotesla is much greater than the largest magnet ever created -- the cost of building a magnet of increasing strength increases exponentially. The most powerful continuous magnetic field is 45T and the lab has 300 employees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(magnetic_f...
http://blog.tlb.org/superpowers-0
0. BTW, you can tell iTunes NOT to copy your music into their folder structure. Check it out in Prefs.

1. Just use iTunes on both OS's. ;-)

2. In iTunes you can right click on an album, track, etc. and copy it elsewhere.

3. You can tag songs/albums/etc. multiple ways in iTunes.

I understand where you're coming from, that used to be me; but if you give up your compulsion to control every little (unnecessary) mechanical aspect of managing your media and just let iTunes does what it thinks is right, you'll see that it frees up your time.
McDonald's loses 8-year-old battle with McCurry
I am a Merkur razor user and I love it. It really permits a close shave while still offering maximum protection from razor burn. I also use a badger shaving brush. It feels great to pamper myself.
Check out what my merkur razor looks like:
http://www.fendrihan.com/merkur-barber-pole-opencomb-classic...
My point isn't so much picking something off the shelf, its more develop something for yourself. If "web scale" means that the ROI is greater then development effort plus hardware acquisitions compared to your current system then do it.
Are you kidding? Apple promotes indie artists excessively.
That's just a preference.

Check out Preferences / Advanced:
- Keep iTunes Media folder organized; AND
- Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library
http://files.willnorris.com/misc/iTunes9/response.html

The page rendered in Webkit-compatible HTML. Pretty damn impressive on Apple's part.
That is because all these devices center around media.

Note, iMovie, iPhoto, Garage Band, Final Cut, are separate, because they would not make sense as part of iTunes (but they do integrate beautifully with iTunes).
I was expecting some more of the same bullshit platitudes however the article surprised me by going into the causes of several types of behavior.

Worth a read.
It also works as its own page: http://docs.google.com/gview?url=

Does anyone know if firefox extensions can register as handlers for MIME types, or if they're restricted to diddling with chrome / pre-existing pages? It'd be really easy to write a WebKit plugin to do it, but not very useful since Safari ships with a flawless PDFKit-based viewer.

I want to get this working in Firefox, but NPAPI plugins are really gross. It looks doable that way, as it appears that a naked nsplugin still gets a DOM and everything, so I could just immediately set window.location.href and be done with it.
I never use the Help menu item / feature in any app. But I don't demand that it be removed because of the tyranny of the creator's design decisions which they deem correct for their overall audience.
I know virtually nothing about CS, which may be an advantage in seeing the sense in your thinking in abstract.

If we assume that humans are conscious & material, without bothering to define either, we at least know it is possible to have consciousness embodied in something material. At least in theory we could figure out how human consciousness works and replicate it. There may be easier ways, but this is at least one theoretical possibility.

You could in the same way have inferred that humans could figure out a way of creating flight from the fact that it exists in nature.
Just let it go; enjoy your music, podcasts, videos, iPhone apps.
The code will reveal nothing useful. Facebook doesn't use many algorithms that are important. Its friend recommendations are standard, and that's the only algorithm off the top of my head.

What makes Facebook so effective is its existing userbase, its cutting-edge design, and its constant push for usability. I still haven't seen a company that would stand a chance against Facebook in those categories, and Facebook's tricks there are open for all to see.
In other news, mice discover new reason to be terrified.
So if you didn't add new music, over time you'd have nothing left?
>> What does Ken Rockwell have to fear from digital photography?

The terrifying possibility that a potential client will pass over Ken Rockwell's RealRAW EX PRO™ and opt for a less expensive photographer who uses a digital (gasp!) camera.
I do. I'm an outspoken supporter of Apple. It's just that such a significant UI downgrade feels a little like a betrayal.
Agree about Danny's comments. He sums it up quite succinctly, in stating that nothing in this article is new. Its clear the author has little knowledge of the subject matter.

In his words, "Plenty of people get this stuff already. It's been out there again, for years."
I read it as referring to a templating engine such as Smarty (for PHP).

I've never really understood the need to abstract things in this way even for novice front-end developers since it's the concept that is important not the syntax.

e.g. I don't see any real difference in using
a) <?php foreach($key as $val): ?>
or
b) {foreach from=$myArray item=foo}

To me the Smarty abstraction is pointless.
> And if you're not the NY Times or Amazon

I'm surprised you put those in the same sentence. I've always found the Amazon UI to be terrible. Very inconsistent and poorly laid out.
Yeah, but it's a lot easier to be the "I know it when I see it" type with UI than software. I'm certainly not a graphic designer, but I like to think I know enough about UI to recognize a good one.
Surely. But when moving from one city to another, it is distressing when it becomes something that you have to worry about.
The first living creature to be levitated was a frog, in 1997: http://www.hfml.ru.nl/froglev.html. This link is completely devoid of news.
The more I think and learn about evolution as something abstract (IE something that can exist in principle only, happens to be embodied in biology and could be embodied elsewhere), the more I think that evolution is creation. At the very least it is so similar to "creativity" that any discussion on the topic would probably quickly degrade to boring semantic argument.

From this I think there are two potentially interesting products:

- Evolution by natural selection may be usable as an engine of machine consciousness. Some variant of evolution may be at the core of our own consciousness.

- Evolution by natural selection is a mechanical process that we can "take apart" and understand relatively easily. It also happens to be the engine of the process that created species. Happens to be. Even if the evolution of species had never happened, evolution would still exist in abstract. This put it in very good position to be discovered. Perhaps there are equally powerful concepts waiting to be discovered. Perhaps one of them is at the core of our own creativity. Perhaps one of them can be at the core of machine consciousness.
Ask HN: Review our elevator pitch (Stormpulse)
This is based on the Marc Andreessen pitch dissected here: http://venturehacks.com/articles/elevator-pitch

----

Briefly, Stormpulse is intuitive weather display. We tame complex weather data and visualize it in context. Other weather sites begin with maps and add weather data. We craft weather-centered presentations that foster understanding. And we're piloting the world's first human-consensus forecasting system. Check us out at: http://stormpulse.com.

We're building Stormpulse to reduce the costs of severe weather, which effects millions worldwide.

Our weather maps have regularly appeared on CNN and are displayed on 750+ websites, from media sites such as USA Today and ThomsonReuters to intranets at places like Boeing and the Mayo Clinic. Since August 2008, our site has been visited over 18 million times, with over 60% of those visits coming direct. Hundreds of thousands of those visits are from decision-makers at Fortune 100 companies in the energy, defense, and transportation industries.

Before Stormpulse, Brad and I wrote software that automated the presentation of rich catalog content for a distributor of over 400,000 products.

We're making money and are ready to fuel the growth of Stormpulse with funding from smart, qualified, passionate investors. We're starting to contact interested parties, and would love to show your group what we're building.
awake(p): not in a state of sleep; completely conscious; "lay awake thinking about his new job"; "still not fully awake"

And now we're in an infinite loop.
Australian Federal Police has dropped the ball on "Anonymous" hack attacks
It is not a matter of learning AI. It is a matter of understanding consciousness. Double major in AI and Philosophy if you must. But all I mean by that is take some drugs, keep a journal, and learn how to become an incredible programmer.
You must have a simple answer for what consciousness is. What awareness is. What intelligence is. These questions are the most important part of the whole problem. That's why it is much more important to understand them then try to learn something that doesn't exist. I wouldn't expect much in terms of trying to work on this problem with a team unless you were at a certain college that was serious about it.
These used to be $50: http://meraki.com/ (This company grew out of the MIT Roofnet auto-configuring mesh technology)

Expensive, but these are what my dad's WISP uses:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Canopy
They are not not mesh, and they involve config. You can buy them on licensed spectrum as well. Bulletproof, amazing range and bandwidth.
They wrote a program that would output Japanese-sounding words with a free .com domain. Seriously.
Then what's the point? Why would we want to make a machine modeled after humans, which are not particularly well adapted for doing any of the things that we want done in the modern world, when a machine designed to perform practical tasks (like a computer) would be much better?

We shouldn't assume that we humans are the best at everything. We shouldn't assume that we humans are the best at anything, really.