skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's my one vice (and midnight coding streaks), I've tried to get away from it and drink herbal tea but it doesn't seem to do it for me. I've been told long ago that I wouldn't reach 40 without diabetes (if I would get that far at all...), so far so good I guess.

But it definitely is a source of worry.

And what worries me as well is that apparently I'm not able to control this to the extent that I probably should be.
The Flex SDK is free, but Flex Builder (the IDE) is not.
which can be easily destroyed with cheap missle
At least not the cave people that survived.
Thieves in the software outsourcing business
What window manager do you use on what os ?

I've played around with a tiling window manager for a few weeks and I liked it but too many applications didn't like it so now I'm back to kde.
Win what? The blog log-in competition? No-one will ever use it for anything serious.

I can't understand why anyone would use it at all. You do realise you are basically giving them your browsing history, right? Some faceless corporation who will probably then sell that history - with your real name attached - to whoever wants them? And what did you gain, an avatar picture - branded no less?

You'd have to be nuts.
They got a pretty good deal in general too. Speaking from the perspective of a shareholder of M&I bank. They recently diluted their stock by a large percentage to pay back the loans in addition to giving preferred shareholders a dividend (those are the shares the government holds)
Keep Models out of Your Views' Business
I meant something like the Readefine application.
Can you add b2b and b2c as well as options ?

That is also interesting, no need to do another poll for that.
I did so all through my 20's and now have hypertension (high blood pressure). It is better to be less productive now then tired all of the time later because of blood pressure medication.
Ask HN: Extending the morning rush of ideas
I've observed for some time that the majority of my good, creative ideas come within the first minute of my day. From about when I swing my feet out of bed until shortly after I jump in the shower a dozen thoughts rush through my head of a quality that I rarely experience for the rest of the day.

Unfortunately, as soon as I realize that I'm in this state of mind it disappears completely.

I've read that this is fairly common and imagine that many of you experience it as well.

Is there anything you can do to either extend the length of time you're in this creative flow or get back into it at other points throughout the day?
I quit my great developer job in January to be a ski bum in Wyoming. I just got back from West Africa. It will be worth it if I don't end up living out of my car. Timing.
Which python?

Do you think it's time for python, ruby and other scripting languages to be standardised?

Do you remember how well visual basic worked in the browser?
> Oh come on. That's like saying "you should not make your MacOSX app require Finder just because some people just happen to use it as their file manager".

Yeah it is. And indeed you shouldn't.

> Just happen? It's the default, and overwhelmingly dominant, choice! It's freaking bundled in 1.9 core!

So fucking what? (and as others have said, in 1.9 rubygems is required by default so that's a very good reason not to require it yourself ever).

> Rubygems is the official package manager and is used without any issue by 99.9% of Rubyists.

And so the rest should just take it up the ass and live with completely insane and nonsensical decisions such as randomly requiring rubygems just because?

> There is no reason for people to stop using it as the default choice.

That is not what Ryan says. Ryan doesn't care how you handle your own $LOAD_PATH. If you want to use gems, knock yourself out, that's your own business not his. Ryan just asks that you don't force others to use rubygems without any justification.
That's awesome. I might reorganize my work space so that I can take better advantage of wall space.
I am morning person.
I usually design code most important functions,classes in the morning & surely introduce much lesser bugs in them.
Providing jobs as such isn't a benefit to society. Otherwise, we'd all be better off if we stopped using computers and formed up an army of slide rule calculators.

The benefit from additional discoveries is already factored into the cost of conventional solar. The companies building it have business plans that recognize the development work they're doing, and charge prices accordingly. And that's part of why it's cheap (relative to this proposal) and getting cheaper.
I cannot for the life of me understand what this person is talking about. I've read it twice now.

Isn't this less about being 'horizontal' or 'vertical', and more about the fact that we display information on flat areas, and about different disciplines relating to segregation of 'in-progress', 'pending', and 'archived' material?

If I have five pieces of paper relating to a task that needs to be done, but which I'm not working on right at this moment, I'll stack them up simply because that leaves more space for the task I am working on right at this moment. Now, that stack may be 'horizontal' on the desk, or it may be 'vertical' in a filing cabinet. But it's simply a space-saving measure.

His main problem seems to be that when he files pending stuff away, he forgets to look at it again. But this isn't about vertical versus horizontal thinking -- it's just about bad document management. If you just have a monolithic filing cabinet that contains both ancient archived documents, and material relating to pending tasks, then yes, you're going to get confused and forget about things. If, on the other hand, you have one file as an archive, and one file that you know is for pending material (or an in-tray; or just a special pile on your desk), then you'll remember to check it.
HN isn't on there, not sure if that is sad or good. It's funny how HN is still so under the radar. Maybe part of that comes from the fact that it does not have its own domain.
Travelling is anything but passive. I can't really explain why, but travelling along with reading are in my opinion best ways to learn.

I guess it's that you experience new cultures. You talk to people, you learn. You see how and why stuff is done differently, you learn. You also learn from your mistakes, you learn to adopt to current conditions with whatever resources you have for your disposal, you discover new tricks, etc.
Ask HN: Pick My Career
I understand that this isn't news, but I really need some advice. I'm 26 and am returning to college. I initially planned on studying Psychology, but it doesn't interest me as much as it used to. Lately I've been spending my free time teaching myself Algebra (I was a wreck in High School) and SQL, and I'm enjoying it. I would like to do something related to math and/or computers, but with the cost of schooling as high as it is right now, I want to ensure that I am making a wise investment. I'm also looking for something rather recession-proof. I have about $1,000 in credit card debt and $6,000 in student loans. Any ideas?
Has the rate of technological progress slowed in the past 50 years?
Oh god, you guys KNOW the hackers at google have so many cheap google soiveniers at home.
On the corollary, as SaaS becomes more prevalant and popular, these outages and problems will help out and help solve these types of problems so that most of them don't have to happen again in the future.

In other words, this type of outage is pretty unlikely to ever plague Google again.
Horizontal. Though, vertical tends to have better short term results.
His fiscal argument, that we could afford it if we reshuffled our priorities to buy fewer iPods and more plane tickets, is wrong because buying iPods doesn't require us to quit our job.
There's a lot of rather convincing literature out there on the potential of tidal power. The energies are enormous and the technology is straightforward. It's not like photovoltaics where we're waiting on improvements in cost. It's simple turbines.

Tidal power ends up attracting a lot of conspiracy theories. Why are we bombarded with news and policies about wind and solar when on paper huge tidal generation capacity is probably viable right now? There could be something there, I don't know.
Decoding Morse Code seems like a fun exercise in making algorithms. This site definitely opens the door to some critical thinkings.

Good lesson for people that want to learn the beginnings of writing algorithms for a simple process that actually turns out more complex than first thought.
Microsoft doubles charitable contribution for IE upgraders
My caffeine consumption completely depends on how much sleep I'm getting; I have no consistent beverage routine otherwise. On days where I've had enough sleep, I rarely have more than a couple cups of tea. Otherwise I may drink up to six.
There is another implementation of Joy, targeting the Parrot VM: http://wiki.github.com/TiMBuS/fun
It doesn't work for me with HN.
I dunno about that wireless recommendation - I can't STAND wireless for anything heavy-duty. If I need to be transferring files of a reasonable size (which seems to always happen during development - ISOs for virtual machines, packages, art assets), I hate being constrained by wireless speeds. Plus, depending on your building, you can get weird spots that are perfect for desks, but shite for wireless, with the poor schlepp stuck in that office getting just about the same bandwidth as he would with a tin can and string.

It's probably a good idea to start with it (keeps you from having to do all that cable-laying, yeah), but put it on the "to replace asap" list.
Haha! I feel so justified. I've been doing this for years.

I also, as a rampant sketcher and hobbyist graphic designer, got into the habit of making anything I know will be up there for some time somewhat artistic looking. The variety of styles serves as a coding system (using obvious design strategies like big and bold for important deadlines) and make it so that if anyone asks I just say it's a sort of spontaneous work of art.
Do you find that as you increase caffeine consumption from a previous night's sleeplessness that it causes poor sleep the following night? That's been my experience.
I think this optical illusion is much cooler:

http://www.grand-illusions.com/opticalillusions/amazing_dots...
As far as I understand, b2b/b2c is orthogonal to horizontal/vertical. But HN polls seem to allow voting for multiple alternatives, so b2b/b2c could be added without harm.

(Edit: now I see that's exactly what you were suggesting. Sorry.)
TwitWho: Who's Who on Twitter (useful tools review)
List of Inventors Killed By Their Own Inventions
Right now I use Aqua and Spaces on OS X Leopard. There's an application called "Desktop Manager" that looked and worked more like I wanted, but the developer gave up on it after Spaces was integrated into Leopard, and Spaces is not unusably bad, just not as good.

This video shows how it works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7MHup6kXbU

I'm sure there's some VM program that works like this in the X.org world, though.
Advantages of sales shopping online « Shop4deals’s Blog
If I can increase the conversion rate, or even the amount people are willing to spend, by increasing the resolution and that results in greater revenue that targeting 800x600, then I should do it. This is especially important with web apps. 800x600 can actually hurt the usability of some applications that require a lot of fields/controls.
I got an n800 back in 2007 for about $250 on ebay. Of course this was before netbooks really took off. It is great for video chat, web browsing with flash, and accessing my Windows desktop via RDP. And it fits in a pocket (if you wear baggy jeans!)
I agree with your point. Ward asserts that one should invest in refactoring a piece of (clean) code if your understanding of the business model that drives it becomes more refined. This may or may not translate into more sustainable pace, however it avoids talking about the real killer of sustainable pace which is poorly written code.

There certainly is value in refactoring poorly written code and I would love a metaphor that described that. As it is talked about in this blog post or by Ward I'm not sure I care at all about tech debt as a factor in software development - it seems like an interesting idea, but at best a minor productivity boost when compared to removing messy code.

It seems we need to recognize that even with our best efforts we eventually crack and write something poorly. While it is painful to recognize this openly, it seems necessary in order for us to come up with ways to deal with it. We need to know why we end up writing such code, how and when to remove it, and how to sell our customers on the value of removing it without losing their trust and looking unprofessional.
Horizontal!

Holy crap. I never realized it either, but this would explain how I never seem to mesh well with the vertical systems most administrators use.
That site nags for your email address with a modal full-page overlay, so you can receive more of these 'insights'. Avoid.
I think this poll might be a little tough because a "portion" of caffeine is a vague. You should have defined portions to be like 100mg of caffiene or something. I have a large coffee in the morning and then a large americano in the afternoon, should this be 2 portions, should the large coffee be broken down into 8 ounce servings, should the americano be broken down into # of shots? Sorry, but I thought I should explain my difficulties with this poll.
Green tea is good for you! In addition to caffeine, it has theanine, which relaxes you and keeps you from getting all jittery. Also, lots of powerful antioxidants called catechins.

Or maybe it's just that I'm a caffeine junkie, trying to justify my addiction.
Could Chicken Embryos Produce Dinosaurs?
GPL doesn't require you to share the source code or changes with the world.

It only requires you to share the source with those people to whom you give the binaries.

That's a common misunderstanding. You can take GPL code and base your entire proprietary system around it, including making changes to it, and as long as you only run that system (SaaS or in-house) and do not distribute the binaries, you don't have to share the source with anyone.
I have only just started this project. Have some patience, people.
The real cost is the near certainty we'll get an even bigger blow up five to ten years down the road. Thousands of people who should now be looking for a new career are still in finance. Moral hazard's a bitch. The system NEEDED many jaw dropping bankruptcies and liquidations.
Well, you could also target your immediate neighbors. I bet most of the richest and most industrialized eastern china would be right inside the viable target area.

Also, think anti-ballistic missile defences -- no need for adaptive optics and all that jazz when you can swat the missiles with lasers from their most vulnerable position, right at the top of their trajectory.
build it horizontally then sell it vertically.
1. Your college major doesn't determine your career. That's a flat-out myth.

2. WHY are you going back to school? What benefit does it and the debt that'll come with it give?

3. How many more classes do you need to graduate?

4. Have you tried out programming? Gone and seen how hackers work every day? Are you sure you want to follow that path? It's a specific type of person who LOVES this work. Many others find themselves disillusioned quickly.
I'd really like to visit Sillicon Valley, experiencing the culture there might actually be useful to me.

That right there is the way to find useful experiences. It sounds like your thing isn't "Go see the Grand Canyon" or "Go to the Eiffel Tower". Instead, you're the kind of person who would "Go to Chaos Communication Congress" or "Go to Hacking at Random".

Traveling doesn't just mean going to see touristy places. Try contacting a few people in the industry you like, see if you can arrange for them to show you around their business, and just show up there.
Image Showing The Surface Area Required To Power The World With Solar Panels
Great article! I don't buy the 'singularity' idea either.

It makes for fantastic science fiction but in the real world all resources are finite and every technology we've come up with so far has had to deal with the harsh realities of the thermodynamic laws and regular materials science. There is plenty of room at the bottom, indeed, but the bottom is not 'bottomless', and the engineering problems are formidable.

Sure, there is progress, and plenty of it. But to think that that progress is 'easy' or 'accelerating' belies the enormous amount of hard work that goes in to achieving it.

And with every step every next one becomes harder, the laws of diminishing returns.

I think that our illusion of ever accelerating progress has more to do with the fact that ever more people are 'knowledge workers' and 'scientists' than anything else, the greater a fraction of our society that advances our knowledge the faster we will move forward in this respect.

The 'uploaders' are essentially practicing wishful thinking about that great question plenty of people have had to deal with in the past: How to avoid dying.

Unfortunately I don't think any of the people alive today is going to be able to accomplish that feat, statistics is overwhelmingly against it, everybody that ever lived in the past has died before the ripe old age of 150 of one cause or another. And so will everybody living today.

If you want to be immortal your best bet is probably to write a book, compose a piece of music or make a timeless movie.

I'm not sure if blogging counts :)

And as for the singularity, there are several other scenarios, some plausible, some implausible:

- a plateau of knowledge after which any future gains in knowledge will come ever slower, in a world like that new scientific findings would be real headline news instead of the science section on page 24

- a 'wall', beyond which we will not be able to go without knowledge 'behind' the wall (physics may be up against that, or maybe not but if there is something beyond quantum may never become a settled question)
I guess here, it's the definition of need. Do you need to track your users every movement more than you need them to learn about your product?
"Welcome to Jurassic Farm!"
Yeah, the blog is good and he's a great writer. But on something as inexact as "business" it's really hard (for me anyways) to discern between advice that just sounds good, from advice that really is good. There seems to be a whole subculture of software/tech industry bloggers who make a living posting advice (many linked to on here everyday). If I were smart enough to pick out the talkers from the doers I'd probably be smart enough to not need to even be taking their advice. Given that, I tend to look at the guy's accomplishments to determine the amount of credibility I'll give to their advice.

There's no argument Joel's an authority on blogging about software/writing/etc., but I think it's less clear that he's such an expert on the software industry itself (as opposed to all the other guys out there with 20 years tech industry experience who spend more time working than blogging).
Future two-variable surveys like this should definitely consider taking Dave's Hacker Survey data (http://davelyon.net/mldata.html) into perspective. The 21-35 range seems to cover something like 1.5 sd on either side — around 85% of us if we assume normality.

Investing more of these poll choices to age resolution within that range would have been interesting.
erm, like what?

what if you're a doctor, or a lawyer, or a builder - does that some how tool you up more if you startup?
> opertunity cost

The opportunity cost was enormous. The bailouts were a disaster for American capitalism. We now have a huge tattoo that reads "WARNING: Crony Capitalist Country. Proceed with caution".

Don't ignore the very difficult to quantify effects of the bailouts on the credit markets. The whole lesson will surely make the US a less credit worthy market and raise more questions about the dollar.
Ah but the thing would be so big that the space debris problem would have to be dealt with first or it would not be practical. And what better way to deal with space debris than to make the system capable of directing microwave and laser energy weapons (powered initially by RTGs hooked up to supercapacitors) at fast moving objects coming toward it from any angle?
I'll stack them up simply because that leaves more space for the task I am working on right at this moment.

My guess is that the author of this wouldn't do that, unless the five pieces are all related to the same task. Instead, he'd stop working on the previous task, optionally move those papers to a free spot on his desk (but maybe still spread out as though he were working on it), and put the new papers on top of whatever's left in front of him, and work on them there. One organizational system I've seen that works well with this is the "sheet" system, where you periodically spread a sheet over your desk, first saving out anything you expect to need very quickly, and then after you haven't gone under the sheet for anything in some time, archive everything under the sheet. The "sheet" might actually be one of those plastic desk covers you can buy in an office store.

I do this on my computer, leaving dozen of windows and tabs open until I get back to them, rather than closing them and writing notes on what I need to do. It's easier to resume a task that remains in progress than to start up a task that was stopped, so we arrange to have any interrupted task continue to seem "in progress", even if we haven't worked on it for a while.
I'm an English major turned programmer. Just a heads-up, from what I've seen in people I've interviewed for programming jobs, college teaches you very few programming skills (lots of theory, though) that are useful in the real world (of hacking). I'm self-taught (C++, Perl, PHP, Javascript, SQL), and the best hackers I've worked with were too.
Unless they've had other downtime on gmail, their uptime's been (after this fault) 99.99239%. Pretty good.
Caching is Hard (TM). If you take the time to fully understand the HTTP caching system, it will make sense, and it will become clear that problems with stale content are because you are using it wrong, usually because you set an expires time in the future for content that will change. It's really easy to not understand the caching system, or default to using a framework, and that's where the problem usually lies.

A framework will often choose to default to setting some expires time, often because the framework authors don't really get caching either and don't fully understand why that's not really going to work. (It is natural that they end up here. E-Tags is a much safer default, but to make it efficient requires more work from the framework user; why that is is a bit more than I'd like to get into in this message.)

If content is going to change, you should be using E-Tags, not expiration times. This includes content that you may not think is going to change, like Javascript files, but in fact do sometimes. The best solution in this case is actually to keep creating new URLs and set Expires into the far future, so that if the browser needs "something_8ef38b.js" which had its expires set in 2030, it knows it doesn't even have to hit the server, and if you "change" the file, your new web pages will actually reference "something_f32190.js", a new file. The timestamp-on-the-end trick is the same. I wish more frameworks built this idea in better, it's generally useful.

(Drawing parallels with functional programming's idea of "value" is left as an exercise for the reader.)
..or I could work hard, get my startup to exit, and travel as much as I want for the many years in life afterward. Why does travel have to be done when I'm in my 20s/30s/etc.?