skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
25 is just not fair. Kudos to you for keeping at it.

Condolences, now go and make him proud.
"if...then, yes, you have to specialise,” says Chris Leek, the chairman of British Mensa, a club for people who score well on IQ tests."
Zemanta has done okay, getting funded by USV, at least.
There are several sites like getsatisfaction.com that could help you crowd those pages out of the front page. You can point these sites to your customers and actively encourage them to leave feedback.
"It's only a decision in the sense that each day I "decide" not to go to medical school"

Well, it is a decision in that sense. That's a real sense in which a decision can be made. At each point in time we choose to do one thing from among the infinite possibilities available to us. And in making the decision to do that one thing, we are making the decision not to do any of the other things, even if not consciously.

I don't know where you're coming from with the "inaction is always our default position" thing. What do you mean when do you say "default"? Do you mean that we should (oof, I hate to bring "should" into this) sometimes maintain the status quo even if doing so doesn't have the highest expected outcome for us? Do you mean that we should sometimes maintain the default even if the expected outcome of doing so is dramatically lower than doing something? (I'm gonna go ahead and assume that this isn't what you believe, but if it is, our argument has to end here, because the only response that I've got is, "Well, that's really stupid.")

Because I would argue that that's the situation that we're in with global warming. I actually agree with you that the scientific establishment should be treated with substantial skepticism. But I also think that global warming is probably happening, and through applications of logic I've decided that reacting to a fictional global warming is SO SO much better than not reacting to a real global warming that we'd be insane to choose inaction as long as there's still some non-infinitesimal probability that global warming's happening.

You seem to think that you have an ace in the hole with your argument that our society supports an "innocent until proven guilty" approach. In fact, I am both a believer in the "expected value" approach to choosing a course of action and an ardent defender of innocent-until-proven-guilty. This is because the downside of convicting an innocent person is dramatically larger than the downside of letting a guilty man free -- not only because locking up an innocent guy for 40 years is much worse than letting some embezzler get away with it, but because every time our legal system sends an innocent person to jail the public loses some faith in it, and faith in the legal system is one of the most fundamental elements of a stable and happy society.

Okay, I think I'm done. I'm pretty damn sleep deprived at the moment, though, so if I missed anything please point it out and I'll address it later.

*Not a criticism.
I thought I was a Vim master and I just looked at that and discovered once again how stupid and inefficient I've been this whole time. This sort of thing keeps happening to me with Vim.
There are two scenarios in which this could sustain itself:

a) use common business models (CPM ads, donations, occasional grants) while innovating on the content side to attract an uncommonly large audience

b) innovate on the business side (new products and services) while pumping out fairly traditional content

I know a few of the people involved with this effort and from what I hear, it sounds like they're hoping to leverage some new content sourcing methods (graduate journalism students) to cut costs and stay lean.

I'm not seeing anything particularly novel on the business side, though.

To get to NPR territory, where you have an audience who likes you enough to give you money just to read/listen to you, you've got to provide a truly excellent service (e.g. provide something pleasant to listen to while driving to work). I have yet to see an online newspaper-type site do anything so incredible or novel that it's readers chip in to support it.

Furthermore, why do people keep thinking the NPR model is a good one for a text-based medium? There are tech blogs with audiences much much larger than this site will likely ever be, and yet they don't see asking their readers for money as a viable business model...
AIX comes with vi by default.
this is exactly what happens at YC, I dont think anyone has demanded that they be allowed to sit in the yc interviews and participate in choosing the yc teams.

I think the confusion is over what the last seedcamp day is about, it isnt demo day, it is the interview process, seedcamp have just made the interview process more transparent and open to help others and not just the teams that get funded, which has obviously introduced some confusion.

Seedcamp holds 2 more open demo days along the same lines of YC, one at the middle and one at the end of the cycle
Headed to the beach this weekend, I think. Will snorkle.
For those who prefer alt navigation, you can add to your gvimrc

" tab navigation
map <A-1> 1gt
map <A-2> 2gt
map <A-3> 3gt
map <A-4> 4gt
map <A-5> 5gt
map <A-6> 6gt
map <A-7> 7gt
map <A-8> 8gt
map <A-9> 9gt
map <A-0> 10gt
Ask HN: Where's our Seattle area meetup?
San Fran, Boston, New York, these guys have representation. Where is Seattles?
With all due respect, you haven't answered the question. You've made a factual statement: "global temperature is falling." It should be trivial to back that statement up with evidence. You refuse to do so, and in doing so reframe your original point to the substantially weaker statement "temps have been falling since 1998." That latter assertion is indeed trivial to support: here[1] is a data set that supports that second assertion. You will note the central point that the narrowly-framed question can be true while the broad implication can be false.

If you are going to stand by the statement "global temperature is falling" I would again ask for a citation.

If you cannot or will not back up your assertion with evidence, please do not couch them in the terminology of fact. "JFGI" is not a citation.

[1] http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/02/climate-data-ugl...
The Economist: Buttonwood Gathering
On Smartphones, Gimmicky Apps Only Work for So Long
The Effect of Twitter's SUL on Techcrunch
I never said that code wasn't readable at all. But it's more complicated than the lua code and not as easy to read. I've never used Lua in my life but barely have to think about reading it. The questions I do have are keywords that are easy to search for in documentation. With the perl, I have to double-check and make sure there's nothing funny going on, and that is a VERY simple piece of code. If you look at another function in the same program (which I didn't use because the lua version is recursive which you could do in perl if you wanted), you'll see some non-obfuscated perl code that is a much better example of the pain of reading perl if you are not familiar with its idiosyncrasies. Not only do you have to trace through every step of each loop, you have to figure out what the double-asterisk syntax means and the bracket syntax.

sub bottom_up_tree {
my($depth) = @_;

my @pool;
push @pool, [undef, undef, -$_] foreach 0..2**$depth-1;

foreach my $exponent (reverse(0..($depth-1))) {
push @pool, [reverse(splice(@pool, 0, 2)), $_]
foreach reverse(-(2**$exponent-1) .. 0);
}
return $pool[0];
}
+1 for frisco (hopefully most of us) that understands the basics of a one-way hash!! The more precise answer is they at least were storing password in plaintext.
The whole point is that there are a number of solid VCs with small stakes involved.

If it was operated by large investments by a small number of VC's, the model could provide problematic signals. Specifically, if those VC's get early and in-depth looks at these companies and choose NOT to invest, it would be a negative signal to other investors. By spreading this across a large number of VC's, this potential is diluted.

The investors in Seedcamp are well known and respected investors... they're not "small time" with "very little experience". And many of them are long-time seed investors.
I've found it easy to avoid misusing Ctrl-w because of the fact I use it so much to close tabs in Firefox. You just need to have two different uses for something, both of which you use very regularly, to get used to not accidentally misusing them, I've found.
IANAClimatologist. This[1] chart is not subject to the "missing data" problem; as cited by wikipedia it is composed from freely available data. In addition by including satellite data that is free of an entire class of measurement artifacts it substantially limits the plausible error alleged by the article. The best interpretation of the article is that it is an astonishingly narrow picture of a small slice of an enormous field.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Satellite_Temperatures.png
I'm not defending their actions; I'm saying what they were doing should be legal. Lots of things are legal that I don't agree with, for instance I don't agree lots of ideas that are expressed in music but I by no means think they should be illegal.
How come the guy didn't get thrown off the bench for that ?

Judges are supposed to be beyond doubt, if a judge has done something like that their career should be over.
Ants Versus Worms: Swarm Intelligence Boosts Computer Security
this is exactly what happens at YC, I dont think anyone has demanded that they be allowed to sit in the yc interviews and participate in choosing the yc teams.

so you're saying that there's no selection process before the companies stand up and pitch on this day? so then, in theory, anyone who wants to do a startup could turn up and pitch? unless that's the case, then the comparison to yc doesn't stand up.
check out "the structure and interpretation of classical mechanics" by sussmann et al for a whole raft of things like this done in scheme.

I don't see why would you want to stay away from floats, using rationals isn't going to magically fix the numerical errors from approximating derivatives and such.

I believe they develop an automatic differentiation routine in SICM that will actually allow you to make a pretty good planetary motion simulator, i.e one that won't just go horribly wrong if you run it for a few thousand years.

Of course if you're really interested/mathematically inclined one of the best ways to simulate Hamiltonian systems is via iterated maps, not unlike what was in the article. A good (but quite hard) ref to this is "simulating hamiltonian dynamics" by Leimkuhler and Reich.
+1 for intelligent use of benchmarks game source code
Try to take over the world!
Damned straight. I want World of Vimcraft, yesterday!

. . . or maybe Vim of Warcraft. I guess VoW is a better acronym than WoV.
I used to work straight through, nothing like 2 entire uninterrupted days of pure productivity. Then I got a girlfriend. Now I spend those 2 days being productive in other parts of my life.
Because that would be a clear violation of he principle of carrier neutrality - the point of it is that anyone can connect to anyone at one price.
I have a recommendation for a cool new 3D surround-sound interface that will not require any additional coding. It's called: real life. Try putting down the iphone and laptop and just striking up conversations with people around you. You'll be amazed at how well it works.
Yeah -- giving up my transhuman lifestyle would be difficult.
Yep, and 'g&' is really helpful. It runs the last substitute across the entire file, preserving flags.
You might be interested in my recent post on "How to Copy Y Combinator". I talk about a bunch of the different issues with setting up a new seed accelerator. Link is here: http://blog.jedchristiansen.com/2009/09/21/copying-y-combina...
I don't know. I actually used to go to job interviews in street clothes intentionally to help provide assurance that my bosses wouldn't be tightwads; that's when I was a teenager and I dress up more now, but I still try to live by the same general philosophy when seeking employment. I'm honest in the interview and I don't try to project myself as something that I'm not; it's just a waste of time, imo, because neither of us will be happy if I make a misrepresentation to get my foot in the door, and it will just result in another bad sad story, of which I've had quite enough. I'm tired of roving. I need to find something that I'll be content to stick with for a long time. That's part of why my major focus is my own business right now.

I hope this letter does come up in a job search and that the employer allows me to provide context if he runs across it. I think it represents my personality; I'm not afraid to talk to you, I won't submit to scare tactics or disrespect any longer than absolutely necessary, and I expect respect and influence in my next position. I've never considered myself a "code monkey", that is, an inputless pawn of the higher-ups with no authority or place to influence or change systems, someone on staff only to implement things exactly as specified by his departmental superiors. I didn't get into programming to be a chump, I'm in it because I like solving problems, I like the actual engineering process. It's the difference between your civil engineer and your construction worker; the engineer designs the bridge, the construction worker puts it together. I don't mind wearing both hats, as long as it's established that I'm included, respected, and now I'd probably demand invested with the authority to determine direction in the actual engineering phase.

I understand chain-of-command and can acquiesce appropriately, as long as the circumstances are agreeable. As noted in the letter, I'm not willing to play the chump, I'm not willing to sell my sanity or emotional well-being or that of my family to line your pockets, and I'm sick of being put down by arrogant or dangerously naive patsies. If that's what you're looking for, then I hope you don't hire me.

That said, I don't really intend on getting another job. I've had enough of productions like this one, I'm really quite tired of it. I don't think I'll accept another full-time position unless I can be placed as an IT overlord; not necessarily singly, I don't mind and would probably appreciate a cooperative effort, but I don't want to be subject to a developer with six years less experience than me again, because it's happened a few times before this and it's never been very fun. I've had quite enough of that, I think.
Google Hits Back At AT&T
I'm using it now, as a matter of fact.
In Perl this would be way more complicated

Does it need to be more complicated, or are you perhaps trying to make the code look like Python? While there are good reasons for using references to pass lists to functions, it seems clearer (and more Perl-ish) to do the transformations on a list rather than a reference:

my @xs = (5, 6); # use a list directly
push @xs, 7;
print $xs[2];
push @xs, [];
push @{$xs[3]}, 6; # treat $xs[3] as array
some_func(12, "hello", \@xs, 1);

While one could probably argue that pushing to the inner array is clearer in Python, the rest seems just as clear. And if one was writing for an audience not comfortable with references, one could always use a temp variable for clarity:

my @inner;
push @xs, \@inner;
push @inner, 8;

For that matter, you could do the same for your 'omgwtf' line:

my $inner = $xs->[3];
push @$inner, 9;

While there's nothing wrong with the Python, they strike me as pretty comparable in clarity.
Meh. I just use Mutt.
How long until it's illegal to write an open source application unless it is accessible to blind disabled veterans?

If something is completely free, it should not have to follow as many rules as paid services that are built upon government infrastructure.
yes there is an extra screening stage in the process, but again the final day is not a demo day, it is when seedcamp decides what teams to invest in.

I dont see how any can demand to be a part of seedcamps (or ycs) selection process.
Overall as AT&T states Google maybe breaking the fourth rule, but who cares I want innovation, free SMS, voice transcriptions read via email, ability to regulate who rings my phone vs. who goes to voicemail, web interface and etc, etc, etc...

Maybe it was AT&T all along blocking the iPhone app, as the executives probably have used Google VOice or use it and know it's a killer app. Well for me it is.
if you want to save on RAM you can use a 32-bit OS and/or 1.9 or the MBARI patches--works well for me :)

http://programming-gone-awry.blogspot.com/2009/06/how-to-sav...
It still slows you down if you don't use it all the time. Unless you're someone who has been programming in perl every day for years at a time, then that line is most assuredly not something that takes 2 seconds to learn and you'll remember forever. Seeing something like that while you are reading code means you have to STOP what you were reading, patiently sort it out the syntax and refer to the documentation to be sure you haven't made any mistaken assumptions, and THEN move on. Even if that only takes a couple of minutes, it adds to the frustration level of reading code. And the point is that it is perl-specific. It doesn't happen with most other code that I have to read.
Adapting the Netflix prize model for government innovation
I wish this was integrated into instapaper and the iPhone Kindle.
Now if only you could run emacs on your desktop in your browser on your desktop.
Link is down, but if it's what I think, it's not really that useful. I played with something like that years ago, and more recently tried using it for reading on my phone, and the limitations are:

1) Compared to classic reading, you can't stop or go back easily. For some uses I suppose it's ok, but most times you want to pause during reading to think a bit about what you just read, or simply rest for a coupe of seconds, and this way you can't.

2) For mobile phones it's useful, but simply not as pleasant. I expected to get a headache which didn't materialize, but still didn't enjoy it as much.
An 'unmissable' notification from Google wouldn't be anymore unmissable than the request email sent by the bank. Which is why the bank wanted Google to disclose the identity of the user. If Google deleted a users emails and disclosed their identity to a third party then Google would be in breach of their own privacy policy. They would be exposing themselves to litigation, hence the requirement for a court order.
Reality check: "most" major consumers is going too far
I use hjkl in all my games. That, or asdf. Keeps me from getting wrist cramps.

True story.
I don't read words all the same speed, but this application forces you to. Very. Monotonous. I have a vague sense of uneasiness related to robots reading me literature now...
I find that Vim's learning "curve" is almost vertical at first, but Emacs' gets worse as it goes while Vim's gets better. There's an image here that illustrates the phenomenon pretty well:

http://sob.apotheon.org/?p=981

It's sort of a "ha ha only serious" moment.
Your top photo is an all rights reserved Flickr photo. I take it this is a DMCA play? Not criticizing, just trying to understand the model.
The point of his example was to show why reference syntax is a pain. "# Use a list directly" is not what happens in a lot of code that I have to read.
Ran out of space when I tried it with a Project Gutenberg text. Also, seemed slower than advertised at the upper rates?
>>without even understanding why Perl is hard to read in the first place.

You are talking about Bunce there.. he is smart (and pedagogically talented) enough to know what he is talking about, more than amateurs like us. :-)

>> Which is what life is like when you are surrounded by perl code and are not a perl expert.

Hmmm... you wrote "using perl longer than any other major language except C"? At the end, you wrote that you mostly read code... you're not really a full time programmer, but browse code for different languages?

Again -- you're out of luck with most "real" environments, since you need the libraries.

TCL is really optimized to be trivially easy...

>> You can't use parameter lists in perl. You can't use variables without context.

There are misfeatures in all languages. Without checking, you can find solutions for most every Perl problem on CPAN.

If you go there, check Moose. Also check Enlightened Perl/Modern Perl on the web.

If you are only going to read without writing, then you will probably not start enjoying Perl. If you use it for real, it is fun and has a really good community.

Most of '::', '->' etc exist in other languages. I already discussed that.

For another example, Python's ability to keep {} for one thing really kneecaps the possibility to do one-liners with the same syntax... :-)
America has been asleep at the atomic wheel for 64 years
This was incredibly painful to use. It seems to display both short words like "and" and "to" as long as it does longer words like "availability." I don't need to dwell as long as I do on short words as I do on longer words, and I expect most people would do the same thing. Also, the eye naturally likes to move around and pass over certain phrases and pause at others (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_movement_in_language_readin...). With this setup, you have to keep staring at the same spot. Interesting idea, but doesn't seem all that useful, particularly if you can already read quite quickly.
Beating the Odds - Susquehanna International - Jeff Yass
The reason AT&T was banned from refusing to connect certain calls is because they have a monopoly-like presence in many areas. With no other means for customers to make those calls, AT&T was taking unfair advantage of the fact that customers could not easily switch to another carrier. Google Voice is free, and requires an existing, non-Google phone carrier. Apples to oranges.

I have to give Google the benefit of the doubt in any case, because I like Google's services and use them willingly on a daily basis. On the other hand, companies like Verizon and AT&T have become a necessary evil.
Erlang Actors in Java
I see where you're getting at, but I think it's more of an issue of keeping your digital identity intact rather than fragmented over multiple accounts. I can authenticate at a single place, and that server can vouch for me on other sites ("Yeah, he's good to go. He logged in with me. It's him and not some other user."). With some sites you could get away with no login (see 4chan where everyone is anonymous), but for discussion sites that rely on reputation (stackoverflow, reddit, hackernews, etc.) that's not really ideal.

Security-wise, you have the added advantage of not having to manage multiple passwords. You could use a single password for all your sites, but then your password exposure would be too high, since a breach in any of those N websites could potentially capture that one password of yours. With OpenID, those sites wouldn't even be getting my password.
You are talking about Bunce there.. he is smart (and pedagogically talented) enough to know what he is talking about, more than amateurs like us. :-)

It's not an uncommon problem for really smart people to have mistaken assumptions about what makes things hard.
Singlehop.com has had one like this for a year or so and it is pretty good.
The US needs to revitalize its M&A department, see if the (Western) Canadians and Mexicans would like to swing a deal: take care of energy independence and the immigration debate in one fell swoop.
They still have control over use of the "Google" branding, for whatever that's worth, but you're absolutely correct.
Why does Mozilla need me to create an account with them (complete with my email address -- no mention of what it is used for or opt in / out settings anywhere) to try out their experimental text editor?
CPM is the right approach for a branding campaign. If you're trying to generate sales leads then, obviously, CPL (cost per lead) would make more sense for you.