skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If I read it correctly, the article is implying that recent scientific study of the strength of the bird's pelvis has shown that the bird was likely to have been strong enough to make killer blows and crush prey (backing up the Maori legend) rather than just scavenge like a vulture.
> the perfect way of representing the syntax trees

Humans don't think in syntax trees.
Indian Govt. may block all Internet telephony services
The issue is with subclass style applications. If you use multiple sublcass apps mounted at different URLs via Rack you incur the full overhead of the framework for each subclass instance. It's not a bug, it's just the way it's designed.
I'm not sure about these reasons.

decent, free development tools

Well, you can have these for any mature platform. Be it QT, Flex or even Java. I'm not sure what's more decent about the HTML toolchain. The often cited FireBug is, to me, merely an emergency bandaid that makes development at least possible but still far from enjoyable.

the ability to interpose proxies and application middleware between the client and server transparently

There's nothing stopping any fat-client to speak HTTP. You don't need to a browser for that.

and a very, very large install base for the client runtime.

I'd say installation base is a red herring when talking about cross-platform apps but I'll give you that "instant-on" is an argument. For that I'd point to Air, which can run hybrid in and outside the browser.

I'm not arguing that HTML doesn't have it's place, mind you. But the extent to which it is abused nowadays is absurd.
i will go back to your original comment and again state that i think the article is attempting to imply that not only are they recognizing differences of skin color but the article presents additional info in relation to 'the t-shirt test'. that the 'judge' isn't out of line with what the article implies. what i take away as the message the article wants to convey:

young children notice differences between things.
even when no value is assigned to those differences by others, like me is seen as better. judgements are made.
children as young as 6 months show this quality of noticing the differences in skin color.

the implication is clear. to say that the sub headline isnt in line with the article is in my mind, specious.
The Kindle problem
Quote: you have to ask yourself on which points is the product better, and which ones are the ones that really matter, because any business trying to make something that isn't better, in terms of the critical points of differentiation, is really just a charity.
Splitting people around you into groups and labeling them as 'us' and 'them' lies in biology. It can't be totally suppressed. What schools could actually do is to give those two colored T-Shirts randomly to the kids to create artificial division that would allow them to get past the tribal labeling period without forming persistent bias based on some real unchangeable (although insignificant) quality such as skin color.
Thanks for the comments! The video was made by iStrategyLabs in Washington, DC - they are an awesome design team!
@apsurd - thanks for the mention. You are spot-on about the white labeling - we do offer the ability for a company to host the referral page describing the offer on their own site with their own branding (rather than RefMob's.)

Also, with respect to Facebook and Twitter - all we are trying to do is make it easy for people to refer their favorite business to their friends (not anonymous people) and share the referral bonus with them. They don't have to use FB or Twitter - for example they could just share the link to the referral page on their blog, or on a card, however they like.
-Don
It isn't like the punishment is something horrible. We don't put illegal emigrants in Leavenworth. We give them a free plane ride home. Where they are fully able to try to come into the country again legally or illegally.

Believe what you like. Personally I am happy with the fact that murder is illegal for everyone not just people over the age of 35. Personally I am happy that theft is illegal to everyone not just people over the age of 40. Personally I like the fact that courts are allowed to deal with assaults committed by minors and even have special rules regarding their care. I believe you have to have rules that apply to everybody, you can't decide that this isn't a crime today but wake up tomorrow and you get death row for it.
Eomaia wasn't a dinosaur.
I'm on Safari (4.0.3) and I'm getting "Failed to open page". Had to manually add the "www.".
Um, here's the Killacycle hitting 155 MPH 2 years ago:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDHJNG2PngQ

And on thier website they claim a best speed of 172.19 MPH:
http://www.killacycle.com/
Oh I wrote that backwards by accident. But I'm sure you are right. That shouldn't be the browser's responsibility (although it is nice that FF does it for you). I thought it was a dead link.
Take the degree that provides you with material you wouldn't otherwise learn. In your case, this would be electronics, because I strongly suspect you will pick up on the CS stuff on your own. My experience is similar to yours. I was enrolled in the CS program at a pretty big engineering school. I became somewhat disenchanted by it, as there were all sorts of interesting classes out there, but I only had free slots in my degree for 2. In most of the CS courses I enjoyed the stuff, but frequently had already learned it on my own. So I switched majors to Geography. (Such a degree is nice, because it allows many random courses, so I could learn stuff I would have otherwise not learned). I minored in CS and continued it as a hobby. This has had no noticeable impact on my career, and I now work as a researcher at a university, writing and evaluating software.

HTH
The National Electric Drag Racing Association (NEDRA) also has the killacycle at 168MPH.

http://www.nedra.com/record_holders.html
I'm surprised there is no graph with that article. I know it's a very short article, but I just wanted a quick glimpse at the trend!
That is really an excellent idea.
Jon Stewart definitely would have been a better choice, but the off-beat humor fit Seinfeld well I think.

Washed up after Bee Movie? My kids loved it hah, but yes, I thought he was washed up as well, until I read he netted more total cash I think it was 2008-2009 than any other comedian.
With the power of CouchApp and _attachments, the javascript and HTML files needed to serve the application are served directly out of the database.

That statement kind of troubles me. It shows that you're really just offloading all of the work from a normal app server to the data storage layer. From a "Mom look what I can do!" perspective this is cool, but, again, you're not eliminating your app server. Couchdb allows this because it uses HTTP as it's communication protocol, but one could do the same with MySQL, via an HTTP communication frontend, which sounds a lot like what Rails, Django, etc effectively are with some optimizations to make other non-data-storage operations faster.
Take the intro CS courses, math, statistics. The GUI and Java and whatnot seem to be more about learning to program than about learning CS.

I did ECE (Electrical and Computer Engineering; there's no separate EE degree) and this stuff was actually required.

Can you post links to curricula?
"The paradox is that the better the automation, the more humans rely on the machine."

But how is that a paradox?

It may be somewhat ironic, but there's no inherent contradiction or impossibilty.
I drag the favicon of my current project to the home button (to set it as my home page). Everytime I open a new browser window I am reminded of what I should really be doing.

When that task is finished, I change the home page to the next task.
I that's the case the headline should mention that, or they should be clearer in the article about what this means for our understanding of the bird. The article seemed to suggest that the Haast's eagle was a recent discovery.
Apps.gov is an online storefront for federal agencies.
Save hundreds of dollars in electricity costs - TonidoPlug ROI
Both the guide and the strip are inaccurate. Parameterized SQL statements are also vulnerable to injection: you can't parameterize identifiers, only values. So any dynamic column references, dynamic sort orders, or dynamic limit statements remain injectable.

To see why this matters, consider every data table view ever implemented in any web app: table columns are selectable with checkboxes, you can click the columns to change sort order, and the data is paginated.

You should obviously be using parameterized queries. They are clearly more secure than concatenated SQL queries. But they aren't a magic totem against injection, and we have much better resources for developers than XKCD. Start with (yes really) Microsoft:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms161953.aspx
"[T]he national AMA top speed record", ie. the fastest a motorcycle in its class has gone in an AMA timed event -- not necessarily the fastest any electric motorcycle has ever gone.
So why can't I use mysql_real_escape_string? Let's assume that I have to use PHP and there's no way in hell this app is ever going to need to be ported to a different db. (Or wrap it in a "quote" method.)

Edit: Instead of a downmod, how about an answer?
Cleversafe announces dsNet Object Store for massive storage of digital content
More information: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Streaming-at-100-In-the-Cloud...
Over the years that I've been working towards the passage of the DREAM Act legislation this has been the most effective rhetoric used by our opposition.

"Until the laws change illegal is illegal. We need to enforce the law not change it, illegal is illegal. ILLEGAL"

Did you know that there is butter that isn't butter?

If only our valedectorians got as deep a look as butter did. A man can dream.
While You Were Sleeping - Looking Back at Last Couple Years on the Internet
Is that really good enough, though? For example, suppose that I write a blogging platform, and I want to ensure that a user can only query their own blog entries. How would I do that if the query is coming from the client (which always has to be untrusted) directly to the database? What prevents someone from rewriting the js client side so that it queries blog posts from other users? Or to prevent it from just sucking back all the blog posts in the DB and essentially DOSing the whole server?

Doing per-user security directly in the DB with simple CRUD permissions per table would be enough of a headache, but most applications eventually require finer-grained security than that, and for performance reasons you also don't want a client to be able to execute just any arbitrary query.

It seems like this is pretty close to same trap a lot of people fall into of only enforcing data validation client-side, or only enforcing things like view permissions client-side (by not rendering links), which leaves all sorts of holes open.
This is another cool one, the MotoCzysz Ep1c:
http://www.autoblog.com/2009/06/08/motoczysz-releases-pics-o...

They entered in the Isle of Mann TT this year, and probably had the fastest bike in the zero-emission class, but ended early due to mechanical problems.
You know what? That is an excellent point.
I use Haml and Sass. I had to "roll my own" partials --- which is to say, I wrote a 1 line convenience function to set "layout => false" on the call to haml().

By default, Sinatra will read views out of the views/ directory, but I try to keep things in the files, so each area of functionality in the app is self contained.
Thanks! You can find us here: http://www.istrategylabs.com
Was just wondering - what did you use to profile the page? Anything besides just firebug? I'm interested because we use AddThis as well, and I've noticed our site seems slow lately...
Tesla Puts Another $82.5 Million In The Tank
I agree, jsm386.

It's often simpler, though not necessarily easier, to code a design with progressive enhancement in mind rather than graceful degradation. Designing a structure that functions properly in IE6 is not difficult.

(Not that I like IE6, I just have to support it.)
Another thing I love about Sinatra is that instead of controller/model/view files, I can do users/posts/comments, with one file for each functional area.
Probably because the whole thread smells a bit too much like reddit with all the puns that don't add anything besides humor to the conversation.

It's a fine line.
Why did they not include PHP?
Don't get stuck in a Cloud
be careful with ActiveRecord

What alternative ORM would you recommend that is mature enough?
I'd need to see that in writing.

Bee Movie after something as monumental as the Seinfeld show? That's a wash-out. Reminds me of the scene in Extras where Ricky Gervais goes to work for Doctor Who.
Since it's not immediately clear from the link, just wanted to point out that FanGamb is a DreamIt Ventures startup from Philadelphia -- for more details, check out: http://technicallyphilly.com/2009/09/15/fangamb-fantasy-spor...
Do people really use variables based on raw userdata to select table/columns? Seems like an incredibly rare case, and bad design. I've never seen/used it.

Parameterized queries are a magic totem against injection, unless you mix them with concatenation of unclean userdata. Which would be silly.
"I am more comfortable doing it with labels and goto statements than with while loops, but some day I may learn my lesson." (http://sunburn.stanford.edu/~knuth/programs/sham.w)
Has anyone explored using user agent sniffing to serve up completely different pages for IE6? Create a set of simple vanilla pages (much like you might for mobile) that are independent so that you don't mess up modern browsers with the hackery.
Did Apple explicitly claim that they were encrypting the stored files?
Nope. In all honesty, it was one of the worst-targeted talks that I've ever given. I had given a similar talk at OSCON (highly technical crowd, audience) and was asked to give it again at Web 2.0 Expo. If you're not familiar with that conference it's highly not technical - lots of social media experts and managers. I was given a room that could've housed 300+ and there was maybe 20-30 attending - and that number rapidly decreased as I worked to explain the complicated aspects of JavaScript. In the audience were people who had, obviously, never coded JavaScript before (based upon the questions they were asking - this talk is not designed for that). By the end there was maybe a dozen people left and they came up and told me how much they enjoyed my talk and how informative it was - so at least it wasn't for naught. I know that the content is good and that I'm able to deliver it effectively but I won't be giving it again until I know that I'll have an audience that appreciates the content.
How did you come to this conclusion? IE4 and IE5 were swiftly phased out by the "new, improved, IE6!" if I remember rightly, and I think ActiveX was seriously improved and overhauled with IE6 which many companies use(d) in their intranet.

I don't mind Vista any longer, and this was written on Vista, but I don't like it. If you want to talk about refusing to upgrade... I still like Windows 98 better than all "improvements" upon it, because it never crashed on me.

:-)
Of course they do. Sort columns send "ASC" and "DESC", pagination limits and offsets are sent in offset= parameters, etc. How else do you think people do it, other than the most obvious way?

Don't make the problem even worse than it is by trying to downplay it just because you know what you're doing.
Hmm? ;)
Where was this guy when Apple used Gandhi, MLK etc?

And he uses the most tired argument of all: "think of the children!".

Sorry, I am not persuaded.
It really depends on your needs. My comment was in regards to the memory footprint. There was an Engineyard blog post about that recently. Basically if you do some non-obvious things, you can just explode out the size of ram, and because of how ruby works, it'll never get given back to the OS.

Edit: http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2009/thats-not-a-memory-leak-...
First, I am done, d o n e, debating the legality of my existence. Normally you debate to reach a compromise. In this case, "debating" these laws, and people like me along with them, out of existence is the strategy of our opposition. They are not interested in compromise. While we debate, the time is ticking, and then, before you know it the Congressional session is over. Lather, rinse, repeat.

They even came up with a name for it, "enforcement through attrition." Make our life so horrible that we opt for voluntary departure. How fucked up is that? How full of bigotry do you have to be to come up with something like that?

To people who truly want to help, stop debating, stop listening. Start pressuring your legislators to action!

Second, I didn't immigrate here for "technology" or anything else. I grew up here. I went to school with brilliant engineers who now do brilliant things. I think YC itself is a testament to the talent that exists in this country. So, good luck with that thinking.
I would LOVE to get a Kindle. I enjoy the user experience and the convenience of having all your books on a single small device would be amazing. That said, I am never going to pay even $100 for a device that locks me into buying books that I cannot loan to a friend or pass on to my kids. Not to mention that roughly 75% of the books I read I'll never read again. This usage pattern perfectly matches the free (excluding taxes) library system but is absolutely terrible for a device like the Kindle.

Until the Kindle adds the ability to get a temporary copy of book from a library (or other free service) and make it easy to transfer ownership of books (either for free or for payment) I won't even consider buying one.
Deliver apps instantly on the web
No, you're not the only one. Often when writing code in other languages I think in Lisp, and then translate.
I wish it would work with Snow Leopard. Crashes on startup for me (even the special Snow Leopard version they posted).
OS agnostic would mean he'd accept to touch non-OSX unices as well.
Regardless of the opinions on the Microsoft advertising campaigns. It is clear that Windows 7 addresses many of the problems with Vista and most large companies (with large contracts with Dell and other PC vendors), will likely be upgrading this time around resulting in large adoption of Windows 7 in the enterprise. Most people are pretty tired of using Windows XP at this point.
The Width of Men’s Ties and Waste in IT
Even so, it's pretty egregious that something so simple would be so heavy. Works fine in safari for me, too, but according to statcounter about 15% of people are still using FF 3.0.
Just firebug. Activity monitor is what tipped me off. At least addthis doesn't load 100kb of 3rd party frameworks like sharethis does, though :)
The re-layout of nodes is annoying and makes it hard to see what are the effective changes. The result is mostly eye candy and I don't find it provides any new insights.

Maybe if the layout was done with the final structure and that layout was kept all along, it would be easier to grasp what is going on.
From your own web site, http://30dayflight.com/ ...

It is impossible for me to achieve the minimum level of awesomeness that I require of articles before I publish them within just a few hours in a single day, so I'm going to switch to a 3- or 5-day publishing timespan. This will hopefully keep me from going totally insane.

For someone who so goes "insane" and finds things "impossible" so easily, perhaps you should open your mind to the success strategies of others before you criticize them so hastily. Looks like you need to be doing something differently if your 30 day website is already 4 days behind on Day 7.
"Then they ran an ad that took Apple's claims of being a better computer and implicitly acknowledged it by focusing on how cheap Microsoft was, which—oops—backfired because in a recession, though people want cheaper computers they're more likely to make fewer quality purchases than many cheap ones."

That's just plain wrong. I can't speak to the harm to MS from running the ads, but Apple LOST overall market share/sales this last quarter to other PC manufacturers because of the recession and people's love of cheap netbooks.

ref: http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/07/15/idc.prelim.q2....

http://www.electronista.com/articles/09/04/15/idc.pc.share.q...
Thanks for posting this. For years I used to check Armadillo every Monday morning for updates, but I haven't recently because JC's gotten more sporadic with updates. I would have missed this one for weeks!

Good to know what they're up to.
last week i booted an old box with ie6 as the only browser around, windows update was pushing ie8 as a critical update. i didn't apply it, because a real install of ie6 (not the stand alone collection) is what that system is used for...but it is nice to know that msft is pushing users to upgrade with a bit more emphasis than in the past (an optional upgrade, though critical upgrades are optional)
It sounds like the iPhone was telling the Exchange servers on the protocol level that it supported encryption. That's what I'm getting from this article anyway.
This is exactly what I would love to use, sadly won't work with Vista :(
Perhaps he feels screwed by the computers...but seriously, I agree.
Thank you for the link.

I have to admit, I splurted coffee out of my nose when "The Final Countdown" started playing behind the slideshow.
100% Yes you can and should use ad-hoc testers. I think the real problem isn't in finding bugs, but in changing direction/adding value which isn't always surfaced in QA.

The hard part is that if we assume the "live fast/die young" model it becomes increasingly difficult to change/grow the further we get from launch since we are falling further below the more recent apps, below more recent items on blog, social bookmarking, and pr sites, and our buzz is wearing off. Unless we can re-invigorate the buzz the work put in to updating the app might be better spent creating version 2 (w/ it's own buzz and launch) six months down the road.
Don't need to. You can include completely different stylesheets and javascript files simply with IE conditional comments (IE parses what's in them based on simple rules like, version >= 7; all other browsers ignore them as comments): http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/cc2.shtml

If you code to standards and follow unobtrusive / degradable javascript patterns, your site should work without stylesheets and javascript anyway :)
I've heard good things about sequel, but have never used it personally: http://sequel.rubyforge.org/
I don't think the opening premise is entirely accurate. Isn't one reason for the iPhone's popularity (and most of Apple's devices/computers) that they provide both a great experience and they're convenient (iTunes/App store, reliability, "it just works" etc.)?

Later the author states that he believes price to be a factor of convenience (which I would agree with), but that needs to be stated in the intro because I was put off before even getting to the meat of the story.