skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
See:

http://rjlipton.wordpress.com

http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org

Also check out the STOC, FOCS, and SODA conferences.
I think the issue that until a budding mathematician reaches upper-level undergraduate classes, foundation must be built, and built quickly, in order to catch him up with the current rigor of mathematics.

It's the same with computer science – eventually you can learn the nitty gritty, but you don't start out learning the x86 ISA. You start out with some sort of high-level language, be it C or Python. Eventually, you can learn the details.
Perfect timing... Posted this right when Google took App Engine down for maintenance. Apologies..
Secure & correct programs don't always have a nice code.

For example qmail is probably the most secure smtp server around. But the code is not easy to read.

Pretty much all the stuff Dan Bernstein writes is secure and correct. But his coding style is just too weird for me and many others.
Yes, we hire someone to write HTML specifically. We're a large company, and we have a lot of interface to get written in a combination of CSS, JS and HTML. Lots of big companies do it this way.

I think markup generated programmatically is going lack readability and flexibility. I think for anything other than trivially simple interfaces, programmatically generating markup is going to be a bottleneck versus just marking it up and substituting variables. However, these are just opinions. That's why I'm not going to use this framework, it doesn't mean it's not right for other people.
a brief description on hn about what your "web app" is would be nice. I could care less about this one.
Sure it does, if you've read his articles. Obviously most of the people who complain about him in comment threads have not met him in person. The reason they dislike him is that he uses the same un-ingratiating style in his articles.

I don't care if he appears to be a nice or a mean guy. I don't judge people by that criteria. My experience working in the academic research community has taught me that intelligent and busy people sometimes come across as mean, but it's nothing personal. I'm totally used to un-ingratiating people and I work with them every day; it doesn't affect me at all.

When he reports something he's heard, he just reports it, without the usual boilerplate disclaimers that it's just a rumor, or pro forma protestations about how he hopes it's not true, or most dishonest of all, waiting for someone else to cover it, and then covering that coverage. This sort of sanctimoniousness is so universal in established media that it seems shocking when someone just skips it.

I'm going to call bullshit on this one. How about you being reprimanded for asking "mean" questions at TechCrunch 50? Apparently Arrington wanted the boilerplate. I suppose it probably has something to do with the fact that it was TechCrunch's reputation on the line, not a company he was writing about.

Speaking of intellectual honesty, it seems hypocritical to me that you're willing to accuse TechCrunch of "outright fabrication" and "baseless speculation" and the best evidence you can produce is a 2 year old guest post by a Stanford student.

That's a fair point, but I don't really feel like wasting an hour of my evening digging through TechCrunch archives. I'll pull a TechCrunch and say that an anonymous source close to the TechCrunch editorial board told me. My original comment is about as well sourced as their average article. ;) Also, it's not hypocritical since I'm not earning advertising dollars from my words. I don't claim that journalism is my profession. If I was making money off of the words I posted to HN, I would keep track of my sources. As it stands right now, I'm simply offering an opinion.

EDIT: dfranke has some examples though: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=838197

EDIT2:

If you have any examples of "outright fabrication," let's see them.

Those words were chosen in haste and I wont defend them. You're right to call me out on them. I don't actually believe that TechCrunch is in the business of outright fabrication. If I wrote a popular and influential tech blog I would have deleted those words during the editing phase. :)
It also appears that people with down syndrome have lower rates of cancer:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-05/chb-wdp051809...
I did recognize the irony: users who've installed browsers have needed to install plugins, users who haven't installed browsers haven't needed to install plugins.

The extremely wide spread of IE toolbars and other ActiveX plugins shows that Google will garner installs. They'll probably also have the OEMs they're paying to bundle Chrome install Chrome Frame too.

Hell, they might even stuff it into the Google Toolbar for IE -- which has tens of millions of mostly paid-for installs.
It'd be embarrassing if people knew you'd rated "You Got Mail" as 5 stars...
I was remiss in not posting my experiences with Linode:

* I got an unintuitive error using the Control Panel to do a simple operation (resizing a disk) so I emailed support and got a quick response.

* Linode rolled out a security update for their control panel whereby one had to whitelist the IP's you could login from. This is a good thing except that I don't have a static IP at the best of times and when they rolled this out without notice I was cruising around the North Coast of NSW (Australia) with my sole connectivity being spotty GSM/3G.

* I emailed support to try and gain access to the Control Panel again. They said I could either call them as they needed to verify my identity or they could reset my account and email me new credentials. I did the later for above mentioned connectivity reasons. Apparently my response got lost in the support-rep's inbox (reps words, not mine) as it took a while to get a response. I can't remember how long but I think it was about 24 hours. I'd have been well frustrated if it was urgent.

* Guides/IRC are from my perspective not relevant to picking a host. What is, is the service itself — the VPS has been rock-solid and I like knowing that I can provision another VPS in ~15 minutes. I know prgmr can't do the later but hopefully they can do the former.

* Price is the real reason I'm going to move away from Linode (at least in the short term). I'm topping out with my Linode 360 at the moment. I'd like to move up to a 720 so I have some head-room. I'd also like to have a redundant setup in place when I start charging users. That's ~$860 a year with Linode versus (with 1024 mb instances) $384 with prgmr.

tl;dr: Linode are good but not exemplarily. You might be better off elsewhere depending on your needs.
How much less could you care?
Discovering how to enable NHL took too long. Probably a flow/method of display issue?
Definition of Hackerpreneur
> You shouldn't care if a single hit on an AppEngine app takes 2 or 4 times as long as a single hit on your dedicated sever

Actually, you should. Latency matters. Google knows this. http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/06/bing-and-google-agree-slow-...
You're leaving out the fundamental detail -- Myspace was forcing upgrades to Flash 9, and the impetus was active Myspace worms that were exploiting security holes in Flash.
It's my view that certification is an attempt by non-programmers to find some substitute metric that allows them to measure a programmer's worth instead of using the only metric that should matter, the quality of their actual work. I'm not convinced that this is necessary or even possible.

Could someone please explain to me why a market-based meritocracy for programmers isn't good enough? The good programmers either establish a reputation and references by doing quality work for other companies, or they can provide examples of code they wrote independently.

I think that the lack of mandatory certification is one thing that has allowed software to become such a vibrant field. It's as much an artistic or creative profession as an engineering profession. For the jobs that require engineering precision, a developer's work (or an artist-for-hire's portfolio) should be sufficient qualification.
What's the pay like for day-care as opposed to programming?
I don't understand why this is downmodded, a pull-based chat is a pretty good test for load handling capabilities. Seems like this is sending a request every ~2 seconds for every user logged in.

How are you finding GAE so far? BTW are you hitting the daily request # limit?
We already have a method to allocate scarce resources - charge more for them. What the thought experiment hasn't suggested is why that isn't good enough.

We currently let rich people have better medical care, why would this be different?
Angry? No, because anger isn't the appropriate emotional response to such a person.

But that doesn't mean that people would react positively, either. The response would simply be altered: people would likely try to work with him, try to correct his behavior as they saw fit, or dismiss him altogether.

> When people dislike something intensely, the reason is not always what they claim, or even believe themselves.

This is stunningly arrogant, and I'm speaking as someone that's constantly accused of arrogance. If you're going to tell people that you understand their motivations or behaviors better than they do, you should trot out some better evidence than mere conjecture.
Seth Godin: You don't be creative, you ship [video]
Yours may be "good writing" but you completely changed the meaning of the statement. In my opinion, it's important to mention WW2 -- it's easy to make the statement not offensive to The Greatest Generation by completely removing the reference.
The Best Sounds for Getting Work Done
the only solution is not to play.
come to Cambridge, UK. Nice city, people and startups.
In my experience working in IT, the cost of MSIE6 is implicit and invisible and there's even some fear about security and legal problems related to free software. These companies are still targeting MSIE6 first and sometimes only in completely new applications; it's support for other browsers that is explicitly considered as an optional expense.
OK, some what I can feel Google CF is extremely insecure.

cf:http://tinyurl.com/google-bart won't display new 301/302 URL correctly on address bar and this is good for phising.

not found where source code for npchrome_tab.dll is, but RegisterNPAPIPlugin(), and UnregisterNPAPIPlugin() looks vulnerable since mixing two plugin mechanism into one is catastrophic.

Here's typelib for npchrome_tab.dll

http://initiative.yo2.cn/archives/642723#typelib
Integrating Prototyping Into Your Design Process - Using appropriate fidelity
So western tastes prefer trolling?
What sort of evidence do you think would be appropriate?
People love numbered lists of vaguely related items on some topic
12 facts about ...
7 things you should never do ...

This things attract attention and easily spread virally.

10 commandments
7 sins

There must be something in the human brain to favor such lists since successful religions use this as viral vector to spread, and to attract and link followers.

Neural network memory is associative and tends to be volatile. How to memorize complete set of information?

It's a good strategy to generate sequence and associate useful informations to elements of that sequence. At later time you can regenerate sequence and pull the memorized information by association. It makes easy to notice that some piece of information is missing.

Easiest most natural sequence consists of natural numbers. Surly there must have been some evolutionary tuning to ease up using memory this way. This adaptation in hardware is used by people creating n-lists to please consumers of their content.

Do you know any research regarding this effect? Do animals also favor n-lists? Can they do this association between natural numbers sequence and pieces of information?
"Mind you, I'm just pulling this out of my ass myself, so it's entirely possible I'm wrong. Haven't run across any studies about this sort of thing in my casual perusals of the net, though."

Still, this is common enough reasoning put forth to have "diversity" in programmer squads and gatherings.

I recall looking at a picture of the Clinton White House staff (I think, or cabinet maybe), where the intent was to show the range of sexes and skin colors. Look, diversity!

Yet, as a read the names, I was thinking "lawyer, lawyer, lawyer, not sure, lawyer, lawyer, ..." and wondered where, exactly, was the diversity?

What is the argument that a geek with black skin will have different geek ideas to offer than a geek with white or yellow skin? Or that genitalia confers a unique technical point of view?

I prefer to be among a technical group where there's a diversity of informed opinion, but I'm skeptical that such diversity has a correlation with sex and race.

I'd prefer to hang with a mixed crowd of Lispers, Smalltalkers, PHPers, and embedded system developers, than a Rainbow Collation of nothing-but-Java developers.
Keeping simple with Django
If you think that was the extent of the article's point, you didn't read it.
O'Reilly Radar - Rebooting the Book (One Apple iPad Tablet at a Time)
Your package includes "Google Email - Gmail"; try to rephrase that so clients don't think you're charging them for a @gmail.com signup. Don't even mention google, just call it "your own me@mywebsite.com email".
I don't think the idea is to bring more women into the field. The idea is to make the field less known as an all-male bastion. Do we really want our field to be known as bigoted and closed? Or do we want the best and the brightest to consider it a golden opportunity for those who have the chops for it?

I don't mind the field being mostly male. I do mind it being known as a ghetto of chauvinists.
Cool Ambient Sounds UI at Zendesk
If you're expecting heavy traffic, there are a number of cache plugins that allow you to serve static files.

A properly set-up blog will hold up to a front page Digging/Reddit-ing even on a cheap host.
You don't have to make money from what you say to be a hypocrite.

What Michael told me at TCC50 wasn't dishonest. If it had been, I'd have been upset. At an event like that, you're not going to ask exactly the same things you'd ask if a startup were actually pitching you. It's inevitably going to be somewhere between that and mere encouragement. Where between the two is simply a matter of convention. I had no idea what the convention was; I didn't mind being told.
BTW, if you're far enough along with your ideas, see if you can attend Startup2Startup or STIRR's FoundersTable. Both are great ways to meet quality entrepreneurs.
Nice...I guess some of us are stuck being hackerployees for the moment!
I agree that knowing your limit it part of medical school training, but it's also about practicing how to work effectively and safely when you pass that limit. Many doctors will eventually have to perform very long surgeries often over 12 hours of intense concentration with no breaks. Overworking medical students for long shift helps to prepare them for the occasions when they have to perform and have no one to pass the patient off to and no one to closely monitor their work.
In short, it's like Flash.
Thanks to Pixelpipe, Every Mobile Status Update Can Now Be Geotagged
The kind that requires more than a day to put together.

At the very least, let's see some studies of controversial figures, the traits those figures have in common, and the most common reactions to them. Let's see if there's a correlation between mere abruptness in an individual, and widespread long-term dislike of that person.

Or do some social experiments, with actual control and experiment groups.

The point though was less about coming up with the right kind of experiments -- although that could be kind of fun -- and more that it's extremely arrogant to tell people that you understand them better than they do, especially when it's completely unjustified, as it is here.

Whether you consider that kind of arrogance to be a negative trait or not is up to you.
I have an honest question, I hope this doesn't get taken the wrong way. Is it possible that women just aren't as interested in writing software as men are? I don't think that there's some kind of artificial barrier preventing them from getting in to it; I think if anything, most male programmers would love having some women around.

I mean, there are women doctors, lawyers, politicians, executives, accountants, etc etc etc; don't you think it's possible that there aren't many women in this industry just because they're not all that interested in it?

I personally think it's a little intellectually dishonest to insist that both genders have the exact same preferences, wants and needs. We understand the differences in gender in every species in the animal kingdom (including the times when there aren't differences), but we refuse to apply a modicum of critical thought to ourselves.
I know a couple of developers that have gotten their apps published without any major hiccups. I'm working on my own (a Hacker News reader) and I'm being careful to get everything right. It increasingly seems that it's a vocal minority of developers that are raising most of the fuss about Apple's approval process. I didn't see anything vague or arbitrary in the emails the reviewers sent. They were rather specific about why the version was rejected and what to do to correct it.
Perhaps, but Netflix is already biasing the data. The movies that a user sees depends on their current recommendation algorithm, and that depends on data that is suggested to the user. (When you go to rate a movie, Netflix suggests a rating on top of the widget you use to make your rating. How many users decide to agree with the suggestion instead of making their own decision?)
Nice place and people but awful weather IMHO. I'm rather partial to the warmer climes.

I've heard the traffic is a hassle there? Can you comment?
I think he was annoyed because this excuse is often used against developed longevity science ("but only the rich will get access to it!").

Maybe that's not what the original article meant (I don't know), but the point still stands in general.
I Came, I Saw, I Commented: Was It Worth It?
The self managed RoR one. For the GAE one you sought out someone to host and manage your servers for you and contracted Google to do so.
I have legitimate access to the SSN of every person in the Army over the last several years. And plenty of other data of a similar sensitive nature linked to those SSN's. On of our more interesting problems is how to aggregate that data so a user can't extrapolate excessive information about any one person. Once you really start looking at things any information you release could be useful to an attacker. But, few people are going to take the time unless you start giving out access to a lot of detailed information.
Whoa! I was a "Mac Specialist" at the University Village apple store in Seattle, WA for about a year. The management was not abusive _at all_. It had a great vibe to it, it was a friendly environment, and it was relaxed for the most part (other than black friday... and Christmas...).

The only thing in this entire article I read that was true (for my experiences) was the pay. I worked there for a year and did not get a pay raise once (but to be fair I didn't ask for one, I was young), but new hires were coming in getting paid a few dollars more per hour than I was, which frustrated me. But it didn't frustrate me enough...

Anyways, if everything that is said in this article is true, then good for Lynnwood Apple Store Staff to stand up! Great for them! But if its not true, and "fastcompany.com" didn't check their facts right, then what a terrible thing to post...
Or just track down their phone numbers, call them up, and ask them for help.

"Hi, this is dfranke. Netflix gave me your details ... kinda ... and I'd like to know what you thought of Napoleon Dynamite?"

You could even split the million bucks, and buy them all lattes or something.
Not quite. See http://arxiv.org/pdf/0909.0237 Page 9 Table 4.

The closest I've ever seen to the "ideal" curve is the IMDB curve right next to it.
i like to imagine that in this magical app rejection/approval department at apple, the employees have a whiteboard on the wall and are competing against each other to get the most app rejection tally marks, and one gets special bonus points for each weblog posting found that is made complaining about the rejection.
You don't have to make money from what you say to be a hypocrite.

Why? I'm criticizing him because he's a public figure and his words affect the daily lives and well-being of many people. My arguments in my original comment do not apply to the words of individuals in casual conversation, like the one we are having here. In fact, if we held ourselves to the same standards I'm demanding of Arrington, we'd hardly be able to have a conversation. I like to assume good faith for interactions among individuals. I'm not demanding proof about your interactions with Arrington am I?

However, I did edit my previous post with a link to proof mentioned by other posters.

What Michael told me at TCC50 wasn't dishonest. If it had been, I'd have been upset. At an event like that, you're not going to ask exactly the same things you'd ask if a startup were actually pitching you. It's inevitably going to be somewhere between that and mere encouragement. Where between the two is simply a matter of convention. I had no idea what the convention was; I didn't mind being told.

Ah, so we've established that the standards one should hold oneself to in discourse is a matter of context. I argue that Arrington holds himself to the standards of a blogger when the context he operates in demands that he hold himself to the standards of a journalist. TechCrunch likes to fire shots quickly and in large quantities and it doesn't really matter if a good number don't hit their mark. I know it makes the most business sense, but I don't deal out my respect based on business savvy.
Hey if you sold your startup for $45 million, I don't think you count as a small fry at all.
Having spent some time near the center of the whole web 2.0 thing I mostly agree. But I actually did find Arrington to be somewhat better that the norm. Not that that is saying much.
Paying too much for WiFi, 3G? You have options
I always wondered what makes ppl keep reinventing wheel in a weird manner like this NSTask. What was wrong with POSIX, i.e. execv() and friends ?
A trillion congruent numbers calculated
I'm just saying that I feel 99% of the SEO 'experts' out there are 'witch doctors.' There are probably people out there that do a good job, but I feel like there are probably greater numbers of people that are doing the digital equivalent of voodoo or improving the 'Feng Sui' of your site.
Yes. Imagine:

Article 1: "Microsoft today announced the release of a suite of web-based applications designed to compete with Google's popular apps, including Gmail and GoogleDocs. We're not sure yet what will motivate Google users to migrate, though."

Article 2: "It looks like Microsoft is going to release an update which will cause all IE users to be prompted to use Microsoft's new suite of web-based applications instead of Google's..."

I loathe IE 6 as much as the next person, and I appreciate the cleverness that went into Google's solution to this, but it would be dishonest of me not to call it sneaky, shrewd, and anti-competitive.
Google Searches Point to Economic Recovery
The video demonstration had a very Apple feel to it and was devoid of the word "Microsoft" I think they are learning.
Startup Hire: Free Job Board for Venture Back Startups
Same, wrote one for an assignment in a couple of hours, wasnt remotely a good idea to use it in the real world thou
I think being a "booklet" is the only way Microsoft and Apple are going to protect a tablet device from in-use damage such as scratches and being dropped. But then again, look at the iPhone.
It seems like there's a lot of different applications, finger commands, pen commands, etc. If Microsoft can come with some kind of consistency across the different use cases, this could actually be a worthy piece of hardware...