skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I can understand this to a degree.

I switched about 6 months ago from a windows machine to a Mac and dumped my (broken) Lumia for a second hand iPhone 4S. I went from exchange to dovecot IMAP for email with no calendar or contact implementation all hosted by me on a Linux box on Linode. I used Mail, iCalendar and address book.

About 2 weeks after setting that up I got pissed off with it as managing contacts and calendars was messy to say the least so I did some research and for a CalDAV and CardDAV server together. This never worked properly and was a bastard to integrate and manage.

So I said screw all this shit, moved it all to Google Apps laboriously and bought a Moto G phone. Now someone sends me an ICS file, I can't add it to my calendar as nothing opens ICS files on the device, I keep losing contacts and everything wants my contact list. Not only that, every attachment I was sent means I had to upload the thing to Google docs and convert it before I could open it in sheets/docs.

So here I sit this evening with my broken Lumia 820 and a Torx T4 replacing the screen and a fresh Office 365 account.

That was the last thing that works properly for me. I imagine they'v gone through the same hell.

Whilst I understand that not all workflows are like that and this is an anecdote, I appreciate what compatibity does for people and why ecosystems are persistent.
Most of the comments on that article are really depressing, ill considered mumblings from armchair programmers.
Imagine the stir this article would create with an honest headline: "866 years from now, there's a 1 in 4,000 chance that an asteroid will hit earth."
not for me, I use rc
Arguably a dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8182002.
True, and also front-end doesn't have to be based on legacy tech (HTML/JS/CSS). In this mobile-first world, native is a good option. Xamarin Forms is worth looking at.
Yeah, agreed. I was speaking in the general sense. Definitely better to teach Javascript via a framework (whether it's Angular, React, Polymer, whatever) than manipulating the DOM directly.
"Linux will succeed as a desktop environment only when (and if) its various factions agree on a single model and a single goal."

Many Linux users probably don't want to see a single model. They like the choice of being able to choose from different distributions and their own desktop model.

Ubuntu is probably the closest to being a consistent desktop environment and look how much grief they get from some Linux users over their UX choices. The open source model works for software, but it can't work for UX or design (at least I'm not convinced it can) because you can't design by commitee - any yet everyone wants a say in the UX.

Would it have been better for Munich to have specified open document or data formats rather than the choice of software? This is what the UK government has recently done [1]. The choice of software is up to the individual departments as long as the software can read or create the open formats etc. At least this gives you the choice of switching to dfferent software without being tied to a single vendor's closed-sorce document format.

[1] http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2014/07/hug...
This sounds suspiciously like "When people start making their own Linux distributions".
I think if you had titled the post differently you would have ended up with a lot less argumentation about how what you propose isn't a good idea for python.

As it is, the title at least primes the reader to think you are asking for what you go on to describe.
I used to improvise a technique to shake off the sleepies and also alleviate the morning boredom on the tube/subway. Just spot a word on a nearby poster or sign, then look away...and spell the word to yourself backwards. The longer the better. I found it helped to rouse into an alert state, as you have to think about breaking the word into chunks. I also found it helped focusing the "minds eye" to visualise segments that could be picked off in reverse. After fiddling with it for a while, it's the same drill for "drill" and "antidisestablishmentarianism" :-)
Please change "Translation" to "Speculation".
Who cares if they can't do x, y, and z in the same program? That's just an arbitrary, unimportant feature they happen to be used to. Personally, I like having separate apps for separate tasks.

It sounds like they're just making up variations of "we don't like doing things except the exact way we learned it".
Not even close (I'd wish, I used to be a zealot and STILL run Linux, working for a Microsoft based shop).

That's only talking client and even there it falls short.

Ignoring that users are happy with one thing for everything mail/contacts/calendar/tasks: What's the editor like in TB (I know, playing devil's advocate)? Auto correction? Can you easily embed weird content and expect it to work on the other side (drag stuff from Excel..)? It sucks, but that's what happens day in and day out.

And you ignore the server side. AD is really not that bad. Better than most 'virtual users on postfix' setups, if you go beyond a family or tiny team. Now you need the other server features. Calendar (w/ sharing, rights management -> AD?). Decent sync and push (IMAP IDLE is the closest you might get, I guess) for mobile clients. Delegation (i.e. 'You can write in my name') and out of office replies that don't require Joe User to write sieve scripts.

I run my own setup and I am NO fan of Outlook/Exchange, but trying to replace what they do with a random selection of OSS tools will probably fail (and hence they couldn't do it in Munich).
Hacker News is an English-language site. This is not to disparage content in other languages; it's just what HN is. Posts not in English typically get demoted.
Inspired by http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=63809 (vimeo: http://vimeo.com/101814775)
Right, gotcha.

I wouldn't throw a framework like Angular, Ember, or Backbone into the mix right away though. They have a lot of moving parts.

The thing I like about React is that it's just a view layer, and can be a very simple one at that. A beginner could start putting things on the screen very quickly, then pick up a framework or larger app architecture later on. Not only is it a way to get started quickly, but the core concepts of a view layer learned through React would be applicable in larger frameworks.
Yes, and not just via email -- through an invitation mechanism in the calendar app a scheduled event can be linked to another Google user. I haven't used the calendar app much, but this feature appears to work.
Sort of. You can invite others to a calendar event. However it doesn't inter-operate well with the MS Exchange monoculture, largely because Microsoft, like with filesystems, hasn't yet met a competing standard that they would be willing to support natively. (Example, just look at the horrid IMAP support in practically every version of Outlook. I /think/ Outlook 2010 is the closest so far and it's still got tiny hiccups.)
... Being sold (and stolen by) a largely unregulated industry consisting mostly of ex-felons and thugs who do their deals in parking lots on a no-questions asked basis.

We're talking about very sensitive info like SSN's, DOB's, home address, work history and so on.

There's nothing shocking about that at all? Honestly, did you read the article?
As with most surveillance, there hasn't been much misuse of the data yet.

The things I worry about for the future:

1. Evidence of everybody breaking the law. (In this case, speeding). If everybody is in violation of the law, the government can choose who to prosecute.

2. Extortion. You might not care about privacy from big brother, but what if your friends and family were to know everything you had ever SMS'd? One day, boom, that might happen to everybody with a low credit score. Everybody else would need to pony up if they want their data kept secret.

3. Data leaks. With these huge vaults of private information, some is bound to leak before too long. Once the data is leaked, there is no putting it back. Eventually, all recorded data from this time period will enter the public record.
Try PRL-8-53 for a couple of weeks 5mg/day.
Presumably they know their username, so a look up of that nature isn't needed unless they forgot that as well.
So the lesson is if you see somebody bleeding in the street the right thing to do is to walk away?
I absolutely support this and hope it spreads. It reduces bad behavior from all parties and removes the he-said she-said afterwards.

BUT I really hope that there is an expiration date on those tapes. If someone doesn't insist on that provision when these laws get written, all that street footage will be the government's to peruse at will forever, that's almost as scary as mass collection and storage of our emails.
Your preferences aren't relevant. These people are not working in IT (for the most part). They would prefer

- something they know

- something that works with the world

And while we can talk about the benefits of the Linux environment/free software and being independent all day, that is absolutely irrelevant for the administrative workers in they day to day jobs. Derision isn't helping here, they're just wanting an easy way to do their job - and arguably Outlook/Exchange is one of the weaker spots if you're thinking of OSS replacements (vs. LibreOffice for Office stuff, for example, which is different but comparable. A comparable mail solution is missing in my opinion).
Just send some Apple evangelists to Seattle to interact with the devs. No need to make an office.
> Linux will succeed as a desktop environment only when (and if) its various factions agree on a single model and a single goal.

It's going to be pretty hard. I think something great about Linux is the freedom you get to choose the software that fits your needs the best, and that might be one of its weaknesses at the same time. I'm more than happy with how Linux is right now (but I agree that for someone with little or no experience it can be hard to get up and running, or using it). Oh, well, nothing can't be perfect.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=microsoft+bribery
Anyone with half a brain can figure out a modern Linux UI.

In fact, I'd venture to say that if you put someone with zero computer experience in front of a Linux box and a windows box, they'd figure out the relatively straightforward and intuitive Linux UI before figuring out the dozens-of-inconsistent-layers-deep windows UI.
If you follow the project, I'm currently writing up the src in literate style :).
Raymond address that in his reply to the first comment on TFA.

"That would have been even more work, because there was at the time no infrastructure in Setup for having 32-bit-only components. (And then automatically uninstalling it when WOW64 was disabled.) ..."
If your comment is not a whoosh, gp is not using "translation" as "language X to language Y" but in the sense of "said vs unsaid". This usage of "translation" is a rhetorical device often to express satire or cynicism.

Example: "The department will thoroughly investigate the police officers' fatal shooting of the unarmed teenager to ensure justice is upheld."

TRANSLATION: "The police officers will get paid leave, possibly a vacation to Hawaii to escape the media spotlight, and then get a promotion in rank."

That said, whether gp's "translation" adds any insight is questionable.
Agreed. I'm surprised they even built an Austin office. Austin is not a major tech hub (nor will it be). Most of the large tech companies don't have engineering offices in Austin either.
The NYT changed their title, as they often do. In such cases we follow suit.
>Your preferences aren't relevant.

Thank you, I'm aware. The point is that neither are the preferences of whichever random government person they're quoting. There is no issue with Linux here; the issue is that the people complaining about Linux are too inflexible to deal with a slight change in process.
For a long time, the hardest was front end because you had to remember all the bugs and incompatibilities of various browsers. I think it's getting better.
Popular server setups for web sites/applications
Ask HN: What is the most influential not-technology book(s) you have ever read?
Hi, guys!! I am looking for great books to read, I'm sure people in this community can recommend something very interesting.
I'm learning Python and I must say it is a wonderful language. Being able to concatenate strings by simply saying "a + b" is a great productivity boost (coming from C++). Python libraries are powerful. I can read an Excel spreadsheet with one line of code. I can create plots in PDF format with a half-dozen lines. Amazing!

However, I am disappointed with the difficulty of turning a program into a Windows EXE. I wrote a small program (couple of thousand lines), tried Py2exe which failed to handle the Numpy (or Matplotlib, I forget which) imbroglio.

PyInstaller works, except that the EXE is 85MB, and takes one minute to start up. Not practical for customer distribution. I can't expect my customers to install the Python runtime. In contrast, my 500KLOC C++ program, with all its third-party libraries, is 19MB. Yes, I know, Python needs everything including the kitchen sink. Still, 85MB is not practical.

Too bad. Not all programs run on a server.
Reminds me of this article on the price of Rolex watches and how they have increased as Rolex watches have evolved from a professional tool to a luxury item.
http://www.ablogtowatch.com/rolex-prices-past-60-years-revea...
> Many Linux users probably don't want to see a single model. They like the choice of being able to choose from different distributions and their own desktop model.

Yes, true, but it would be nice to see more consensus for a single default desktop for new users. I guess that's Gnome as things stand, but Gnome has some serious usability issues and would seem very strange to someone coming over from Windows. On that topic, Windows 8 seems strange from someone coming over from Windows too. :)

> Ubuntu is probably the closest to being a consistent desktop environment ...

Well, sort of, by their advocacy of Gnome, but I was thinking of KDE versus Gnome and a handful of other desktop environment choices.

> Would it have been better for Munich to have specified open document or data formats rather than the choice of software?

That might have been a smarter course to take. It leaves the implementation up to individual departments and makes the Linux versus Windows issue less important than the end result, which is portable documents.

Naturally, once the open document format issue heated up, Microsoft tried to create their own "open" document, but one that was actually proprietary, in a time-tested Microsoft strategy.
Is this meant for projects that aren't using Github?
I love this idea! I've wanted to get into MacVIM but I am just too addicted to the file browser sidebar that Sublime and Atom have. I'll have to give this a shot.
I've followed Mozilla efforts to slim down and perf up Firefox, and they did miraculous things considering the resources they have (in comparison to Chrome, IE, etc). Like many I still wish for process isolation (wip). But beside that, as a recovering nerd, I'd like to be able to hook into it like conkeror. 50% of my links are sent to printfriendly.com, many time I don't wanna use the basic ergonomics of the web and write js/jq snippets to change things. Sure one can always write a firefox extension but it feels like a burden to me. Emacs might have spoiled me for good.
Alternatively, the front end can be run on hundreds of different devices and differing environments, while the back end's environment is completely and utterly locked down.

YMMV
both thunderbird and lightning are clients, we're talking more of server here I think.
Why I think having passion as a developer matters
The was more than 1 game with the name "Hover".

However, this one had really fun physics-driven gameplay that made it unlike any other game.
The Freaking Article.
Yep -- we might call it the paradox of innovation:

http://xkcd.com/927/
I think this depends on the personal criterion of each user. At less in my personal use I find that Linux is much more user friendly than Windows. On the long term I am sure they will be better of using Linux even if the transition didn't work out as well as they thought. I don't think the use of Linux in the public sector should be encouraged only to save money. Widespread use of Linux will also help encourage the development of a local tech scene.
Love the concept! I will be using this for sure.
> it makes sense to give consumers some say over what happens to it

The only way to give individuals this choice is by enabling non-techies to encrypt and anonymize their data, freely, easily and in a way that respects the UX. It isn't up to a politician or Comcast.

Increasingly, people are going to make a binary choice with every new technology decision: do I opt _out_ of suspicionless blanket surveillance of entire populations, or do I use something else that gives me no choice in the matter?

Ceteris paribus, apps enabling you to opt out of it all, are just plain more valuable.
Python-ftfy: Given Unicode text, make its representation possibly less broken
Am I wrong in thinking this is using Option as a functor, and not a monad?

Edit: looks like rust's and_then() is similar to bind, so it's reasonable to call this monadic.
Now people will optimize for whatever this meassure, at the cost of driving safely. Don't take the route that has slow driving traffic, take the one with fast moving traffic even though you are going to cause far more damage. Don't stop for a red light, it will cost breaking points.

You are an insurance company your job is to pay when people cause accidents - if people don't cause accidents there is no reason to have it.
http://www.zentyal.org/ anyone tried this? I haven't and not sure if it provides a server that does the usual business groupware well(email,calendar,etc), it's a package trying to do everything else in the same time and seems a bit too much to me(firewall,IDS,etc)
Checkout nerdtree. File browser/sidebar for Vim.

https://github.com/scrooloose/nerdtree
It remind me of this statement: X -> Y iff. ~(X & ~Y)

http://tellerprimer.ucdavis.edu/pdf/1ch4.pdf
If this is representative of Google's general approach to dealing with partners, then it should be fully exposed and prosecuted. Google has enough power and money not to need to act in bad faith like this.
Optimizing AMD Opteron Memory Bandwidth, Part 1: single-thread, read-only (2010)
It looks like it has a similar goal to Wikileaks - publish classified documents.
> I think something great about Linux is the freedom you get to choose the software that fits your needs the best, and that might be one of its weaknesses at the same time.

Good point. I know a number of Windows end users, and they don't want so many choices, they just want things to work and be stable and reliable. To these end users, the idea of choosing between email clients or word processors seems to be just asking for trouble, in particular when they realize the file formats are incompatible.
Insurance companies usually want to have accurate models and accurately predict the future. Hence, I presume they'll figure out the "LA freeway braking" issue.
Right, it's like instead of a camera I could actually use and has things I need, like a viewfinder, all that was traded for a useless camera strap pin and an app that doesn't even work on the platform of smartphone I'm using.
i realize you're not saying this, but in my view the writing, and the site in general, has an aesthetic which could only be described as 'digital hipster' aka insufferable elitism disguised by / given a pass by being young and pretty.

i counted at least 3 times the author was trying to rationalize deficiencies in the product, which is considerably more expensive than a macbook air. the author clearly holds apple as the bar, and this product doesn't even get near that bar.

i have a ton of audio/video/computer electronics and the only single piece of gear i've ever spent $2k on is a mac pro i bought in 2009 for work that i still use today and will probably use for 10 years. my huge plasma tv wasn't even that expensive. a pro-sumer camera (not a professional, working unit) will deliver nowhere NEAR that level of utility, even if it lasts 10 years.

cameras are also giant targets for theft, that's something to keep in mind as well.

having said all that, it sure does look awesome. that's probably good enough for a lot of people to buy it.
Very nice.

1. Does the regular license allow this scenario: Use in a single end-product that by itself is not sold, but the product is used by playing customers (who login to the website using the end-product)?

2. How customizable is the UI? Can it be embedded within another web page? (Sorry if this is already answered somewhere else.)

3. I was reading FAQs in your website and note that it the scroll position keeps jumping by itself as I read. Please fix.
.map() is the functor interface and .and_then() is the monad one.
Missed Approach: FAA Says Flytenow Go-around (YC S14)
Frontend, without any doubts. A lot of compatibility and legacy issues, most of tools are in "beta", main language was made to "move a monkey".
Cryptome was the first major leaks / "open secrets" website. Their mission is simple: Publish documents that governments try and keep secret.
It isn't an application, it is only a web page for an idea he had. The definition of vaporware.
I'd suggest that /you/ start him off with neither - your best bet is to turn him on to something like teamtreehouse.com's html/css/javascript course if he's already computer literate. Otherwise computer literacy is first priority and linda.com has some pretty good videos.

You should then after the 30 day trial be able to judge his passion by how far he gets. If he doesn't even complete the first chapter, then you would have wasted your time trying to teach him something he has no interest in.

I believe the way to introduce someone to web development is by teaching them something that has a tangible reward - e.g. design a static web page you can host, or have the ability to edit the HTML/CSS in a CMS or e-mail template.

My opinion is that anything is hard if you have no idea what you're doing. The biggest factor I've seen that determines if someone can become a competent programmer is passion.
> GC'd languages haven't proven themselves useful for things like OSs,

What about Lisp Machines?
Thanks, I didn't read the comments. The technical point is probably not the whole truth: Vista 64-bit shipped with a 32-bit Internet Explorer for plugin compatibility. So there must have been some kind of setup infrastructure.

The "besides" point is what I was expecting: there was some kind of rule not to ship 32-bit-only components to claim "full 64-bit support". A rule that was mindlessly applied even to a little game that has nothing to do with the core OS. As I said, politics.

(Not that I personally care, but I've observed that people love those builtin games.)
Bezos-Owned Washington Post Embeds Amazon Buy-It-Now Buttons Mid-sentence
EDIT: This is wrong

I initially thought the same thing, due to the use of `map` as something of an equivalent of the Haskell `bind` (>>=) operator. It reminded me of just using `fmap`.

But no, they are using it as a full monad. Consider the type of fmap:

Functor f => (a -> b) -> f a -> f b

and the type of (>>=)

Monad m => m a -> (a -> m b) -> m b

The key difference is the function argument. In a Functor, the argument is (a -> b), but in a Monad, it's (a -> m b). The distinction is that when you `fmap` a function over a `Just` value (`Some` in Rust), you always get back a `Just` value, but when you bind a `Maybe` value into a function, you might get back a `Nothing`.

So don't let Rust's use of `map` deceive you -- it seems to be the same as (>>=).

That being said, I'd be interested to see Rust introduce something akin to do-notation syntactic sugar.

=======

EDIT: I am wrong, the `map` function is basically equivalent to `fmap` and it seems the `and_then` function is similar to (>>=). See user tel and user wyager's responses.