skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ha-rumph. Allow me to call them out on their "three points":

1. The networks are running at capacity. Well, maybe they are, I don't have inside information as to the big ISP's networks. What I do know, however, is that other countries have networks with 5x the bandwidth that the fastest internet connections available here have.While it may be prohibitively expensive to roll that out all across the country, there is no real reason not to have it available in major cities, except to create an artificial scarcity of bandwidth.

In addition to that, traffic shaping doesn't help the problem, it makes it worse. There are two ways an end user sees the speed of their connection: latency and throughput. Traffic shaping works by lowering the throughput of bandwidth-intensive applications, so that there is more bandwidth left over for the rest of the users. However, if all of the bandwidth intensive applications are being shaping, and slowed down, then the overall throughput the user sees will decline sharply. In addition, latency, or the overhead time it takes for any request to be processed goes up when traffic is being shaped, making it take longer for individual pages to load too, and make the service seem slower in a non-quantifiable way.

2. We can't enforce it. This is simply not true. Its relatively simple to check to see if your traffic is being shaped and/or impeded, and several applications have been released to do so. Sure, it would be difficult for the government to do so, but if the average user can quickly and easily check, that is not nearly the problem the article makes it out to be.

3. Ok, you have a point there. Having regulations does add bureaucracy into the situation, which is rarely a beneficial thing. Now the FCC is proposing taking a free market that works Except that it doesn't work. The ISPs are already threatening to close down their networks, and make things much more closed off. We already regularly have ISP peering problems, there is little to stop them from just cutting off portions of the internet at their whim. Blind faith in "Free Market" is not infallible, it requires the public to be well educated, both in how the service/product works, and in the alternatives to it. At this point, neither of those are true. Your average user understands how an ISP works to about the point of: "It gets me my Youtube and MySpace". On top of that, there largely aren't alternatives. Want high speed? You have one, maybe two options, depending on where you are. Live out in the country, and you're lucky to have one.Sure, you could have some kind of satellite setup, but that is slow and expensive, and generally harder to set up/keep maintained.

I am generally against government regulations, but with something like the internet, I think Net Neutrality is a necessary thing, and that the government needs to step in and make sure ISPs don't start abusing their networks.
When you tell me how to have an emotional shared concert experience on the Internet, then we can talk about sharing the music.
I do but they're all from engineering disciplines. Maybe that's the problem.
Hey I'm not picking one over the other. I dig my TV - and I'm not paying a premium for these services. They're going in most of the high end TVs.

Box/TV either way its cool.

Note they're also building these widgets and services into other boxes like game consoles and DVD players as well so you can use an existing box.
In 2004, I spent a summer in Rwanda working for Terracom, the ISP that laid down the fiber mentioned in the end of this video. My friend Sean and I carried the fiber splicer used for the initial rollout as a carry-on.

From my biased and limited perspective, the challenges in bringing internet access to Rwanda are hardly technological, but overwhelmingly political.

I'd rather not go into the details of the political problems here. But here are some things I'm pretty sure are true and partial causes to The Problem of Bringing Internet to Rwanda:

- Rwanda has a very unreliable power infrastructure. I remember standing on the roof of building that Terracom was in, watching a blackout roll across the city.

- Last time I checked, there was no IX in Rwanda.

- Terracom deployed a very extensive fiber network. But, much like the fiber network owned by the City of San Francisco, this network is hardly used. Most of the schools have unplugged equipment racked in a closet.

- The cell phone network in Rwanda is amazing, I was very upset when I returned to the pathetic offerings in the United States. Shortly after I left, Terracom and MTN both offered high speed links over their cell networks, but ...

- Because it is a land locked country. Getting high bandwidth, low latency connectivity is capital 'H' Hard. Satellite links are expensive, and have a minimum of 1000 ms latency. Running fiber to the coast and tapping in to a undersea cable is out of the question. See also: o3bnetworks.com
Link to sources:

http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=1267157011

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=iro...
Link for the curious http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/27/us/27verizon.html
http://diydrones.com/ has a fairly large community of people working on autonomous flying vehicles of all sorts.
Echoing wmf, there's a bit of pro-GPL bias here.

"I'd rather my software was used in a hundred proprietary projects than by a dozen people who are truly free to use it." -- Then you are interested in popularity, not freedom.

It's all about whose freedom you want to preserve, not popularity contests. Copyleft licenses ensure the freedom of software recipients. Permissive licenses ensure the freedom of software developers.
Everything in this article is extremely common knowledge:

Don't use pixels as absolute measurements and don't scale up raster graphics.
By demonstrable I mean we can point to 100-200 companies in a ten year period that took VC and had respectable exits. There are probably more than that, but there is a good sample size.

I agree that it is improbable, but still better than the lottery. My point was that there are lots of well known examples from the VC route, but fewer success stories in the 37 Signals mold. It also might just be that they are lesser known, but instead of berating the VC industry maybe they could turn their spotlight on exemplars in their model? 37S, Craigslist, Plenty of Fish, are there a couple hundred bootstraped web startups that they could point to?
Since I'm in this industry, I'd like to point out that bandwidth is not artificially scarce. It is just scarce, necessarily limited by the capital available to buy equipment and lease facilities, fiber, and copper. Before talking about the artificial scarcity of bandwidth, I'd encourage you to check the prices on some Cisco or Juniper gear. No one buys this stuff to intentionally underutilized its capacity. And correspondingly, no one avoids buying this gear to create scarcity; they avoid buying it because it is expensive.

Carriers are bound by the same forces as other businesses. People buy expensive equipment if and only if they expect to see a return on their investment.
These guys do some pretty cool things, here is a video of procedural animation in Overgrowth (the same game this blog post is about):

http://vimeo.com/2360652

I'd like to see a writeup for the WebKit / Awesomium integration.
Angel Advice from 1998 Still Applies Today
I note there's a co-credit on the graphic for the Shuttleworth Foundation. Anyone know their involvement?
Be sure to play with your study in OsiriX: http://www.osirix-viewer.com/

It will build a 3d Model where you can peel back all the way to the bone.
any chance this is going to be recorded? (I'm not in the US)
If you're in Boston (or somewhere close) and want to get your brain scanned as part of a study, look for announcements here:

http://mollylab-1.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/bcs-subjects

You'll get a CD with your images, and you'll get paid ($30 per hour, two hours on average).
Good point on the authenticity aziari. I agree, it makes all the difference. Anything I can say beyond that is just repeating part of "How To Win Friends And Influence People" (An excellent and timeless book, despite the title, which didn't stand the test of time)
I thought the same thing as movix- that footer is definitely the weak point of the page.

I get it- they are supposed to convey travel/adventure/situations where your app would be useful- but the images mostly communicate "hastily edited clip art" to me. (Maybe try the same gradient as the header?)

Otherwise, nicely done.
Here's .8 for academic success: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi...

I'm sorry about the number for income -- everyone has it at a correlation of .3 to .6. I believe that I was thinking of Lynn's numbers for national incomes, which is correlated at .7 or so to average IQ.
Dow Jones to close Far Eastern Economic Review
Amazon also has also created a number of "private label" brands for furniture, tools and other items, such as Pizon, Strathwood, and Denali.

http://www.amazonstrategies.com/2009/06/holy-private-labels-...

According to that article, these 4 brands offer about 1200 items. Smart move -- like Kirkland at Costco. Keeps them highly price-competitive.
FF 3.5 is extremely slow on Linux on comparison to Chrome, so I switched there. It's faster on Windows, but that may be because I use it less so the cache is smaller. The lookup times for the awesomebar are too slow.
It was apparent from day one that the economics of this device just didn't jive. Large high resolution touch screen display assemblies are expensive. There's no way around that. Even if this device was powered by a wad of used chewing gum it would be hard to hit a $300, $400 or $500 price point. Let's assume it's not powered by used chewing gum and speculate you need a CPU capable of handling modern web technologies. I believe Flash support was promised? Double, or triple your baseline CPU specs. Flash isn't getting any skinnier as the years go on. So you have this wonderful device with a huge touchscreen and a fast CPU that magically costs only $300, er $400. Great.

How's the battery life? Turns out good small form factor battery technology isn't cheap. Unfortunately that big LCD touchscreen and fast CPU need lots of power. Let's assume you want the battery to last at least 2 hours (which would be on the low side of acceptable for a modern laptop) but you don't want the device to be 2 inches thick. Maybe with a really good battery and some serious power management tweaking you can get your 2-3 hours. (just don't watch a flash video with your backlight turned above 50% or cut that figure down to 45-60m)

Don't forget industrial design. No one wants a 2" thick tablet so figure almost everything in the device has to be carefully designed to fit into you enclosure. Make sure it doesn't overheat. Make sure it gets good radio reception. Make sure there isn't a design flaw that causes the battery cover latch to break and fall off due to repetitive stress. Make sure you built it out of durable plastic. It's probably going to be bumping around in people's backpacks a lot. You might also want to include some boring stuff like BlueTooth, 802.11 wifi, at least leave some space for a GSM/CDMA chip and antennas. Probably wouldn't hurt to include some storage so you can run an OS. Oh you need one of those too. Linux is a great starting point but there's probably no off the shelf solution that is going to perfectly fit your hardware. Expect to have at least a small team of developers working on it for you.

So yeah, $300. Where's the pre-order link?
"We also believe that those little plastic discs that the RIAA peddles aren't dead in the water...Its simply a matter of creating value for those customers through creativity"

I agree wholeheartedly! CDs don't have to be the default means of distribution, but they are certainly something fans are interested in, especially if there is some aspect that makes them collectible -- interesting artwork, extras etc.

"We have arranged the capability to offer on-demand pro CD creation--the band doesn't have to invest a dime in that production."

What is it about the CDs that makes them worth having rather than a digital download? Is the fact that it's a physical artifact enough or is there something else people are looking for. Personally, I don't want a CD if it's just a plastic case with some art stuffed in it, but if it's put together more artfully, I'm more interested. For example, Raster Noton (https://shop.raster-noton.net/) make CDs worth owning by virtue of the care and thought they put into their aesthetics.
Not Crafty.
Don't forget the next statement: Now the FCC is proposing taking a free market that works, and adding another layer of innovation-stifling regulations on top of that?

Of course, the problem is that we don't really know whether a free market would work or not without the looming specter of net neutrality legislation, since the current market (which may be free, but is certainly not competitive, at least where I live) has the internet providers arguing strongly against such legislation based on the following argument: "Hey guys, we haven't been so bad so far, just trust us, okay?"

Call me a cynic, but I'm not convinced that this good behavior is based on the fact that they think it's ultimately good business to feed the customer through an unblocked tube; I tend to think it's a lot more likely that they would love to start squeezing websites for "delivery fees" and the like, but correctly realize that with all the current net neutrality fuss they can't try anything now, for fear of proving how necessary said regulation is. Better to cross their fingers and hope the issue dies down...

Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know. Personally, even if I'd pay more than I do now, I'd rather actually pay for the bandwidth that I use and have a more transparent service agreement than find that it's impossible to find a provider that will give me unfettered access to any site, service, or data that I want, regardless of its origin or content. IMO the general public should be somewhat more directly exposed to the true costs of bandwidth than they are now, that might actually lead to some downwards pressure there.
The data is per-household.
I seriously think the three contradicting people commenting on each others are right (P, GP, GGP). :-)

I think people differs a lot in these kind of priorities. (Well, maybe not so much on HN.)
More companies than you probably realize lay fiber and copper. You can check the permits issued by your local municipality to see what I mean.

If you wanted to lay a few miles of fiber yourself, you'd find that it is fairly straightforward in most areas. You cross a bit of red tape, fill out all the forms, and pay the impact costs. If you don't want to do it yourself, companies like Comcast actually do a good bit of work laying fiber on contract for smaller carriers.

As far as cable monopolies, those are fortunately on their way out anyway, at least in Tier 2 cities and their near suburbs. Increasingly, Brighthouse is competing in Comcast territory, and vice-versa. That's the direction. But of course, networks take time to build, with or without a bunch of government mandates.
The problem with this is that you don't know before you accept them what the top n startups will be. Thus, it's a significant decision when choosing how many startups to accept. More startups means a better chance at a big payoff, but with less time devoted to each.

What's important from the point of view of a seed accelerator program founder (versus a startup founder), is what they will know before they accept companies into the program. The "top n" won't be immediately obvious.
> Clojure is going to get better webapp support, Ruby isn't going to get better at number crunching

Is Clojure good at that? Or do you use Java for actual heavy lifting?

Why not Python with its many numerical libraries (numpy, scipy, etc.) ?
3+3=6, 30/5=6. Sorry for the snark, but what's your proposed interpretation? That it's all socioeconomic?
Where I work I suggested we name (and we did) our printers after trees. (Oak, Pine, Fir, etc)

It was mildly uncomfortable (and very amusing) to hear people ask where to find "Rubber". :)
The irony is that Netflix sees its top near-term competitor as RedBox, not the cable companies. Netflix has effectively eliminated (or at least hamstrung) Blockbuster and all of the other rental stores as predicted, and now they're going head to head with a kiosk company going after the value-conscious segment of the market. I find that fascinating. Slay the giant, and a little micro version of it pops up to nip at your heels.
I doubt current generation TVs will last 10 years.

And that's a bad thing that we shouldn't encourage IMO. I intentionally bought a "dumb" 1080p TV so that it would last. Since an "obsolescence inside" warning label for smart TVs isn't likely to catch on, maybe the cheaper/dumber TVs should be marketed as "future-proof" or "built to last".
People already pay extra for HBO and Showtime. I really don't see any barrier to having people pay to stream HBO and Showtime rather than add it to their cable bill.
RaphaëlJS — A JavaScript library for drawing, using SVG and VML
What's your point, again? Is it that the article was written in HuffPo, therefore it's wrong? Or is it that anyone who writes an article on gender imbalance must not really believe in it, because otherwise they'd be exploiting the problem, instead of wasting their time writing?

I'm just trying to figure out which logical fallacy you're advancing.
If you think the Cable companies can't design a good UI wait until you see their attempts at an SDK. Big telecom couldn't do what Apple does in their wildest dreams.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Computer_Chess_Championsh...

It looks like rybka is the current World Computer Chess Champion.

http://www.rybkachess.com/
Cookies are more addictive than fruit for most people. They probably disappeared so quickly because more people were willing to take more than 1 or 2 cookies.

While people that took a fruit or two were willing to pay (or over-pay) for what they took, people that took multiple cookies were probably only willing to pay for the first cookie or two (if at all).

Also, I'm of the view that most people that would be willing to 'steal' in such a situation are people that are less attracted to 'eating healthy' (i.e. less attracted to the fruit and more attracted to the cookies).
Canada has an entrepreneur and investor visa classes, where you basically start/buy a business for $x for y amount of time, or invest x amount of dollars (a house purchase, whatever) and get a permanent residency after a few years, which then leads to a citizenship. You don't really see problems from that.
A very cool experiment, and I hope it goes well. But don't you get funded to do a Ph.D? Isn't this more expensive (i.e. no stipend) than actually going to a school?

I suppose it may be hard to interest a university in some research on open education...
Meh, most of the research will fail. The true learning happens in the surroundings. Most of what you learn will come from the stories and shared experiences of your peers, post-docs, and professors. This is why academies have existed for so long through history.

This is also why I love this approach! The Ph.D. will only be successful if it's possible to replace the surroundings and people of academy with the internet. If she's successful, the success will be self evident. Unfortunately, I still have my doubts about the chances of success.
this closes off potential business models for upstart bandwidth and content providers.

That is a good thing. We want innovation on top of the network platform, and getting there is easier when we make the network a commodity.
Some Ph.D.'s get funded, but even then the amount is laughable (try living off $20,000/yr in NYC).
And?

I still fail to see how his very clearly labelled examination of how the average entrepreneur is very different from the average Valley start-up is causing so much confusion.
I made no judgment call on whether it's a good thing. I don't think it is, but what I think is good isn't generally what the market does (otherwise everyone would be vegetarian, never wear baseball caps except when playing baseball or driving an 18-wheeler, and "Hummer" would not refer to a vehicle).

I just think technology in televisions have evolved to be more like televisions, and the cost/capability curve is shaping up somewhat similarly (I guess more similarly to computer monitors, but those still evolve much faster than TVs and are upgraded far more frequently; I replace my monitor about every 36 months, which is slightly less often than I buy a PC and about the same frequency as I replace my laptop).
If you use bit-torrent & RSS you can get #2.
#1 tends to be covered by "Youtube live broadcasts", ESPN360 ( http://espn.go.com/broadband/espn360/index ) and other special streaming services.

It would literally just be a matter of signing contract to achieve it. It's already here in a way.
Funny, I do a lot of stuff with Monte-Carlo* as well and I have reached the opposite conclusion. It's soooo much easier (and more pleasurable) to prototype in Python versus chasing down null pointer violations all afternoon. At least for my simulations I have always found that 90+% of the execution time is spent in one or two routines which can then be factored out into C (or FORTRAN, which is faster.) Also, it's much easier to inspect and graph your data in Python; when I develop in C I tend to skip these things because they're such a PITA. I can't help but wonder what I'm missing.

Although, at a 100x productivity increase, I might have to give it another look; I'd be out of grad school by Halloween.

*For the uninitiated, Monte Carlo is a fancy way of saying "for loops."
$20,000/yr is less than I get from the CSE program at Michigan. Surely you're exaggerating?
From the article: Ph.D.’s in Educational Technology.

The vast majority of PhD's in education are not based on research. They may require a thesis to maintain appearances, but they are basically just putting in time/money to get a certification and an automatic pay raise.
OK, different attempt then: are there ANY other choices than C/C++ and Java for high performance computing? (No Fortran please, I suppose).

I think there is a fundamental reason why languages with dynamic types will usually be slower than languages with static types, but some statically typed languages should be able to compete in terms of speed?

I suppose that puts Scala and Haskell on the map. I am not a 100% sure about LISP - I think there are variants where static types are optional?

Nitpicking aside, let's assume "pleasant to use" means "deemed cool by the HN crowd". Just give me some suggestions, then I can still decide if I agree or not.

Edit: in the flawed language shootout, Haskell seems to kick ass: http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=all...

I guess learning Haskell just moved up several steps on my TODO heap.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/6dydh0fawxuuhg1r/

The African American adolescents had a lower birth weight, a lower verbal IQ, and a higher number of sexual partners than did White adolescents. For each characteristic, the mixed race mean fell between the means of the two parental populations.
I think you misinterpreted what I said. I prototyped formerly in Python, and now with Ruby. I also do not chase down null pointer violations most of the time (except when debugging any CUDA exported functions that need speed).
A time machine. The time to start a telecom company for data was 20 years ago. The telecom industry is the most insular, regulated, and has the highest barriers to entry of any tech industry I can think of. The established players are masters at playing the regulatory game in Washington, and have made it nearly impossible to play on a level field with them.