skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You mean, automatically block all-uppercase posts. Let the people figure it out for themselves, don't let them think that "computers just do that" so that they start sending e-mails that way.
I intended to say pretty much the same thing, and ask whether someone could offer a buzz word to English translator.

I haven't seen the likes of this since the Dot-bomb era.
No matter how the site is re-designed, people will hate it. This is simply because people hate change.

The NYT team (for example) could test their deign and produce empirical evidence that their design (with tweaks from testing, of course) is better, faster, and generally more usable in every task for every kind of user---and long-term Craigslist users will still hate it, claim it's unusable, unintuitive, and is confusing.
Thanks for the suggestion. I tried your below link on using cookie_daemon.py and it does indeed speed it up, especially on sites like YouTube (which I'm guessing is creating a lot of cookies on many of its pages) but unfortunately it's still not too speedy.

To be honest though I love the way you use it. A minimal browser with navigation mostly tied to the keyboard is awesome.
So, you didn't want the C64 emulator to emulate C64 games, but rather to just do what Apple doesn't want you to do? If you want to run arbitrary applications, just jailbreak.
Very fascinating! I read about this "rule of seven" in "The Tipping Point". Apparently the concept that most people can only remember a max of seven items is the principal behind using seven digits in a telephone number.
No it's politics. That's why it's called a consensus :-)
Are you sure "awesome" is the word you're looking for? I'd hate to have to run an anti-virus program on my phone.
Might just be a personal preference but using the address bar to search is so much more intuitive.
OK, so we're at cross purposes. It looks to me like (1) I misunderstood something you said but (2) it still (2a) doesn't make sense and (2b) is distinctly more than "I just said they don't care enough for security".

Specifically: you said "This is the way they advertise for their wordpress.com version obviously. Stick with us or you get compromised." So, my mistake: I interpreted "their wordpress.com version" as "the latest version" rather than "hosting your blog on wordpress.com". That was dumb of me; sorry.

On the other hand, even after fixing my brain in that respect, I still can't see any way to read that as just saying that "they don't care enough for security".

If in fact it's true that wordpress.com consistently gets updated immediately when a new version comes out that fixes a security problem, and that people hosting their own WordPress blogs tend to be sluggish about upgrading, then I don't see why one of the things they say when a compromise happens is "you'd be in much less danger on wordpress.com". Because, y'know, it's true. What would be improper would be if (1) they are deliberately putting out insecure code to make their hosted version more appealing, or (2) the only thing they say when a security problem comes up is "come and use our hosted version". #1 is what it still looks to me like you were saying, but seems immensely improbable, not least because I find it very hard to believe that their net gain in paying customers from an incident like this one is positive. #2 would be bad. indeed; is it true?
Typography has a long history and tradition. Rules that might seem pedantic to the outsider. But those rules and traditions give anything touched by someone who know’s what she is doing that special polish. “So what?” you might ask, but sometimes it’s nice to see that someone cares about small things. Like correct quotation marks.

Truth is, there is nothing wrong with Comic Sans as a font. It is perfectly alright to use it for your children’s birthday invitations. Or if you are a peditrician for your door sign. There are nicer fonts for such jobs but if you don’t want to spend any money, using Comic Sans is perfectly alright.

But you cannot just use any font for any job. Well, you can, and Comic Sans may be every bit as legible as Verdana. But there is always a aesthetic side to the question, which font you should use. It’s not just about legibility. It’s about using the right tool for the right job. Comic Sans was never intended to be used in menus of classy restaurants. You just don’t do that. And in that respect, Comic Sans has just become overused. Comic Sans may be the most visible sign that it’s no longer professionals who are in charge of picking fonts. I (not being a professional myself) don’t think that is such a huge problem. But it would be really nice if the general public knew a little bit more about typography so that everything’s not lost.
...and until anyone can use any wireless network they want (AT&T is why I'm not buying it).
I know, but that doesn't mean that they are equivalent. It just means some of their markers are equivalent.
> 1. Automatic spelling correction from posting-lingo in Standard English.

> 2. Automatic stemming of arbitrary description of location into zipcode.

One hallmark of Craigslist is that they do not care one shred about what you post, as long as it doesn't violate the liberal terms of service. Drop by your local RnR if you think that all-caps is anywhere near the most egregious abuses of content freedom on the site.

> 3. Avoid scams by something like reputation points.

I'm confident that the majority of content on Craigslist is submitted by anonymous users.
Mine shows git branch and changed file status:
http://code.extension.ws/post/181469611/git-prompt-rb

It's a Ruby script so not the fastest in theory, but I haven't noticed any delay using Ruby 1.9
Of course!

PHP only gains new issues, no warts are ever really removed.
Is this a new trend in NYT writing? This is the second article I have seen that ended abruptly after a few paragraphs without ever delivering what the headline appeared to promise. We're in a downturn, so one expects the article to talk about it -- and yet, it only talks about the results of the 2001 downturn, and in vague terms. This is why there is potential for good new players to supplant the MSM.
GREAT followup link, thanks!
> letter-spacing: -1px;

Please don't do this for copy.
True, however the scripts aren't compulsory - you can have uzbl call anything in response to actions, so you could call scripts in python, bash, whatever - or other native compiled apps, or tool your own stuff in assembler if you like - it's agnostic about the external apps it uses.
The only thing silly here is this article.

First off, the random generator in PHP is simply a 2^32 period random number generator, nothing special or wrong about that. Yes, there are better ones but it's good enough for its intended purpose.

About the image in the article:

The image is generated by using the 'scale' function of the PHP PRNG to sample the 'lowest' bit.

You do not do a scale when you should be doing a one bit and.

It pays off to study an issue for a while, once you raise a stink it's hard to undo the damage you've done.

By replacing the line in the code that plots the pixel with:

imagesetpixel($im,$x,$y, rand() & 1);

this image appears:

http://ww.com/random.php

Problem gone, no fuss.

That's on a linux box running php 4.4.2, the results look pretty random to me, it isn't perfect but the aliasing that was displayed in the original test image is clearly gone using the 'regular' (so not mt_rand) random number generator.

To make the result reproducible I've seeded the PRNG with '0' using srand(0); at the beginning of the program.

If you want to use the 'scale' function in PHP for something that you should be doing by a one bit and then you will reap the results of that, you are effectively sampling the lowest bit after a bunch of float operations, which is clearly sub-optimal.

PHP can't correct for incorrect use.

As for the rest of the code, the $x=0; line can be dropped, there is no need to 'reset' your loop variable at the end of a loop, last I checked.

I'm no PHP fan but before you criticize a project make sure you understand the material.
The linked page doesn't really explain the purpose or methodology for arriving at the list. Put simply, "top economists" were asked where the world would get maximum bang for its buck, and this is the list they arrived at.

Yes, there are some source issues that might solve a number of the problems (as asdlfj2sd33 noted earlier). But sometimes it's quicker to deal with symptoms first, and when millions of lives are on the line I'm happy with that kind of shortcut.

That Global Warming ranks so low warrants attention. What sacrifices are we in the developed world causing by focusing on Global Warming and overlooking the other issues?
The study mentioned seems to say "iPhone isn't making the profit you might think" even though the thing is spun in the story as "iPhone making a loss for carriers."

But bearing that exaggeration in mind, Strand Consult is three guys in Denmark, and they're not going to make a name for themselves saying "iPhone is great." What I wonder is, if it's not worth having, why O2 and Vodaphone and others are so keen to extend their iPhone operation into other countries?

iPhone is the beginning of a trend that's very negative for mobile carriers - heavy data use (for limited returns and big burden on networks) taking over from heavy call and SMS use (which have enormous profit margins.) There's nothing the carriers can do to prevent this, but it's not going to be good for their mobile spectrum cash cow. So don't blame iPhone, it was too good to last indefinitely anyway.
If you give something a name, yet still only use it once, what's the point? It is just semantic clutter to do that (unless, of course, you can't use multiline lambdas...).
Investors unhappy as Yahoo boss Bartz earns $2m from share sales
This article confirms a number of things to me, all of which I already believed:
1. pure designers are not good at useful web apps (Studio8), 2. the NYTimes people couldn't design their way out of a paper bag
3. the BarackObama.com guy is a freaking genius of usability

Some people here love the NYTimes version but I really think it devotes a ton of space to features nobody really uses in an effort to force people to use them more -- something the NYTimes itself does. Of course, I hate the design of NYTimes.com itself, so maybe I'm biased.

SimpleScott's design simply reinforces existing usage patterns, and for that reason I like it best.
That doesn't say anything about a difference in the case fatality rate between the two strains of flu until you tell me how many cases there are of typical seasonal flu in Germany each year.
Couldn't you do that in Firefox with Ctrl-C, Ctrl-L, Ctrl-V? Or instead of Ctrl-L, use Ctrl-K to get to the search bar?
Not only that, they invoke a bunch of float code that then has to balance on getting the rounding of the lowest bit right after a whole bunch of float scaling operations.

That's simply not the way to do it when you are only interested in one bit of data to check the random number generator.

That's only handy if you want to limit the range of your random numbers between two numbers with a bit more space between them than just the lower order bit.

Say 500 and 10000 or 0 and 500 or something like that.
Boo hoo. I laughed out loud at seeing Behringer's copies of the KRK speakers that sit on either side of my monitor...and good luck to them. Behringer gear is not that great * but it is affordable, and they're a friend to the broke musician. Also, Uli Behringer is a really nice guy.

* With the exception of the Composer compressor, which is a little masterpiece.
The regular rand can do that just as well. see elsewhere in this thread.
Spotify Now Available for the iPhone and Android.
I'd argue that this isn't really a prompt problem, though.

For example, when using typical Unix terminals, I refuse to mouse copy/paste when logged in as root (whether or not the prompt is nearby), because it's too easy to make a mistake and the consequences are severe. Similarly, I refuse to rely on any cute shell tricks like "!" to pull history items when logged in as root. Sacrifice convenience to guarantee safety.

I also prefer to use my Mac terminal (MacTelnet), which will trap multi-line pastes and offer options to paste as-is, paste as one line, or cancel the operation. This has saved me more than once.
Remote Technologies which can be attuned to brainwaves will pose serious disadvantages to adults and real advantages to children. What I mean when I say this, is that brains do effectively model their external environment, but the degree to which this is possible is limited by aging. Children growing up with these technologies will develop nuero-networks which are more intricate than what could be possible for the adult brain to build. This is the reason language-acquisition can only occur from the ages of 2-10.
True. Here's the original:

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/17-09/ff_...
disclaimer: I've built a solar & wind powered home.

The 'last mile' is literally the problem if you want to stay grid connected and have solar on the side you have to jump through all kinds of regulatory hoops depending on your local situation.

The biggest critical component of a solar installation that is grid connected is the inverter and the disconnect setup, you will be spending a good bit of money on that.

A typical inverter will set you back about $1/W.

So you have to calculate that in as well, solar panels alone do not make it work, there is a large amount of money in mounting, inverters, cabling and installation involved.

This is one of the factors that slow down adoption.
I, for one, adore the "avoid success at all costs" attitude

The trappings of success for programming languages are pain and suffering, having your community inundated with incurious idiots, losing the ability to do anything new and cool because you have to maintain stability for the horde.

Witness Alan Kay's experience with Smalltalk -- he was forced to fork himself and start over every time he succeeded in getting users.
I love 3-d printing - it makes me giddily excited in the same way that 256-color graphics did back in the 1980s. I just wish the discussions would catch up with the advances! Please put up some info about your startup when the time is right, or some linkage to where you think the cutting-edge stuff is, either technically or economically.
Focusing the address bar (Command-L on Mac, Alt-D on Windows) and then tab usually brings you to the search field on any modern browser.
Tension and Compression Through Architecture
> Wash your hands. Sneeze or cough into your elbow instead of your hands. If you're sick, for the love of health, please stay home and isolate yourself instead of sharing your germs with your coworkers.

Why? If this thing is a contagious as it seems to be, there is no point in doing this. Pretty much everyone is going to get it from one source or another.

Let's fight useful battles, instead of making everyone think they are doing some good, when they are doing nothing effective.
Because thanks to a generation of marketing abuse, change can now only be understood in terms of revolutions and paradigm shifts. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to overthrow my oppressive hunger regime and bring about a new age of sandwhich eating.
I use a Greasemonkey script: select & hit Alt-A, searches Amazon in background tab. Alt-G, google. Alt-Y, youtube. etc.
You're thinking about the problem wrong.

You want the best language/framework for the job. If you think this idea is going to be "big", then you need to think about what tools are going to support this "big" idea best, not what is going to make you more comfortable. Satisfying your laziness(comfort) is not necessarily going to satisfy getting the problem solved in the quickest and most scalable way possible (scalable in terms of cost outlay as well as potential performance).

The fact that you think ASP.NET is beautiful is worrisome, I have to say. That you think it is MVC in some way is troublesome as well.
More on global warming ranking low: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_...
If you like the syntax of C# and you're familiar with the .NET framework, you should try out ASP.NET MVC. The MVC variant is a separate project from traditional ASP.NET "webforms" and doesn't come with the latter's baggage.

http://www.asp.net/mvc/
Monumental Project to Give Bridge a Seismic Update
Oh look, it's Spotify for mobile.
Things Removed in Snow Leopard
I see nothing on the current NYT page that winks or blinks. I do, however, see a site that draws the eye to the following elements, in order:

* Top stories.
* Sections.
* More top stories, but less breaking news.
* A list of stories, arranged by section.

That's sane. Google News just spits them out according to an algorithm designed to handle multiple news sources.
* Stories arranged by section.
For Firefox: highlight text, ctrl+c, ctrl+e (to give the search box focus), ctrl-v, enter
The "beautiful" part of ASP.NET is the C# and the .NET framework itself... what I meant to say is I love the language and abhor the webforms :)

I don't think it's lazy to look for the hammer that fits best in your hand.... after all, if the hammer is too big for you to carry or too small for you to handle, it doesn't matter how well-fit for the job it is because to the holder it's quite useless :)
In the early years of Haskell there were a number of implementations experimenting with different things, and eventually the surviving ones converged on a standard -- Haskell 98.

Since then (especially in the last 5 years), the GHC community has been regularly releasing all sorts of shiny new toys -- obviously introducing features unsupported by other implementations, but also frequently breaking compatibility with their own previous implementations. OS portability has not been much of an issue.

Haskell Prime is an effort underway by the GHC guys to not only define a new set of standard libraries, but to make Python3000-style purposefully incompatible changes to the core language. This is hoped to become a new standard, Haskell 2010.
The phone book isn't pretty either, but that's not what it is made for. The current site is functional and straightforward.
Reason I use chrome: Keeps surfing the web simple.
The problem with craigslist isn't the graphic design. It's functional and clear.

The problem is that useful data isn't required and available. For instance, partment listings should require at least cross streets, so that it's possible to search geographically. Computer parts should be split into component (laptop, monitor, cpu, keyboard, etc).

Craigslist is based around location, so every listing should have at least some rough neighborhood geolocation.

A little customization by category would render the site much more usable, while changing nothing that would be confusing to users.
Dog Grooming Products Keep Your Pet Clean And Well Groomed
What is wrong with the ripoff? It's not an exact copy, and it's still in a slightly different market than Apple is. If someone took a deceptively similar coke can and converted it into a speaker, would that infringe on Coca-Cola's look & feel?

Microsoft ripped off Apple's windowing look & feel, and Apple ripped it off from Xerox's Alto.
It's Scheme not CL, but the PLT Scheme/Dr Scheme download and install was easy enough for many in my introductory programming class to get through without help (this was years ago already).
Binom Bijection - Storing k-Subsets Efficiently
ChemDoodle
> That Global Warming ranks so low warrants attention. What sacrifices are we in the developed world causing by focusing on Global Warming and overlooking the other issues?

If you look at the numbers, global warming are not nearly one of the biggest challenges.
I make my living in the Java based web world and I would not recommend it because it is not nearly so programmer productive as other frameworks like Django. I would expect the same would also be true of C#. You really want something that you can use to get a site out quickly and revise just as quickly.

If you go at it from a desktop C# point of view, you are probably going to make a number of fatal mistakes. I did some job hunting recently in CA and I came away with the feeling that the companies developing in that environment are really not doing anything interesting. think there is a mindset in that world that will hold you back.

My best advice is to pick Django or Pylons or Rails and do a 2 week code sprint to implement a prototype of your idea. I think that will answer a lot of your questions.
It's just data - all the way up and all the way down (??)
For non-subscribers:
http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/0...
For non-subscribers:

Page 1 - http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/0...

Page 2 - http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/0...
They do reference the Wired article. I really don't see anything wrong with it. It's a design blog, so it's understandable. If I were interested in design, that part of the article would be the most relevant to my interests, and so there'd be no need to go through the 3+ pages on Wired to get to it if someone has done the work for me (which seems to be appropriately cited).
I'm a huge fan of Dijkstra, for obvious reasons, and I won't trot out the usual argument that "he's living in an ivory tower" or that "formal analysis is impossible in large applications", but his attitude towards "Software Engineering" does become grating after reading many of his articles. One of the primary reasons that formal analysis is not widely used in software development today (besides the fact that it is often very difficult) is not due to the stupidity or laziness of "software engineers". It is due to the radical failing of computer scientists to both effectively teach the concept, and to develop tools to make it practical. On top of that, the widely used languages in the industry today are just now beginning to allow for the type of high-level formal analysis that Dijkstra promotes. Functional languages are finally starting to make inroads into the industry in the form of Haskell, F#, Erlang; and even imperative languages such as C# are adopting functional attributes. But we are still a long way from the regular use of formal analysis (if it ever actually occurs) because the universities are not providing much, if any, guidance in this area to the industry.

Formal analysis is a very hard -- maybe impossible -- problem for anything but toy applications. And I think it is an worthy goal to attempt to achieve, but it will not be well-served by denigrating the work of the many dedicated and intelligent "Software Engineers".