skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Lets take your tar example. The -z and -x options are flags, they specify binary on/off options. You can specify all the flags separately on the command invocation like so:

$ tar -x -z -f foo.tar.gz

However typing -flag -flag2 -flag3 is too many keystrokes so an a convenience you can combine all the flags in one call -xzf. The -f isn't a flag though it takes an argument which in this case is the filename foo.tar.gz. The argument is required and comes directly after the flag. Which is why the f has to come last because that argument has to come right after. Order doesn't matter for the x and z because they don't take arguments they are just flags. It makes sense if you add in another flag like -C which also takes an option you would end up with:

$ tar -xzfC foo.tar.gz directory_to_change_to

Which argument goes to which flag? Maybe the first flag gets the first argument? Then your argument order changes if you type in the flags backwards.

I don't know about your z flag, GNU tar doesn't need it. The x flag is needed because tar can do things other than extract like list the contents of the archive with the -t flag, or create a new archive with -c.

Finally why is the f command required? My first assumption was that maybe because you need to specify the output file when you are creating an archive. I took a look in the manpage and the reason is a lot more interesting.

Use archive file or device ARCHIVE. If this option is not given, tar will
first examine the environment variable `TAPE'. If it is set, its value will
be used as the archive name. Otherwise, tar will assume the compiled-in
default.

I knew that tar's name comes from the phrase tape archive but I hadn't put two and two together. Of course you need to specify if you are writing the archive to a file because tar was created to back up data to tape! If you think about it tar is actually doing the "right thing". Considering why it was written tar has a sane default, write the data to the tape drive.

Maybe you already understand all this and I'm reading too much into your simple example. It feels to me though that when people have issues with something like the unix command line its because they just wanted to get something done and memorized an incantation to do it. There isn't anything wrong with that of course but a tool like tar is SO much more powerful than just decompressing files. Once you start to dig into it though there is an internal consistency and logic to it though.
Wait, what? Every navigation system I ever used showed the speed limit and was capable of giving a warning if you go to fast. And it is pretty accurate, usually maybe plus or minus a second of passing the sign. Road works or just recently altered speed limits will of course yield no or false displays but fourtunatly road works are obvious and they don't change speed limits every other day.
The first parameter to memcpy is the destination.
Brunch Is for Jerks
There is a difference between a product with market power and a standard. A product's lifecycle is always limited and its market share after going up can only go down. Witness Flash, witness IExplorer and ActiveX, witness Symbian.

A standard on the other hand can potentially live forever. And all implementations must follow it. And for example, a browser with DRM in it can no longer be fully open-source, which should be reason enough for W3C to not standardize DRM. Plus let's be honest, DRM is fundamentally flawed, its main purpose for which it actually works being the lock-in of honest users, purpose that is incompatible with the concept of a browser. If Netflix wants to serve DRM-ed content, they apparently have no problem in implementing their own thing, so I fail to see what the W3C is trying to solve. And yes, next we'll talk about the Linux kernel, because DRM is only "secure" if the whole chain is "secure".

And also if users want Netflix, that's fine, I'm actually happy that it works on Linux now, but I don't want DRM and users may not want DRM forever, as could be seen with MP3s and pushing for standardization is shoving it on people's throats.
There's the problem. He doesn't understand what the proper bounds of relevance are. He can't see how a given task is relevant, so it's bullshit. That's more a comment on the limits of his thought processes than anything else.

He wants to do novel things. This means going places where not everything is preconfigured for his pleasure. It also means he needs to know how to use his tools, because when he runs off the edge of what point-and-drool does for him he will need them.

He asks for a world where point-and-drool covers everything. All I can say is that what he asks is impossible for what he wants.
So it's not out of compassion that you'd want to talk anyone out of suicide, but because they owe you/society something?

Also consider the chances that someone who wants to kill himself isn't too pleased with what "society" did for/to him.
ZFS on Linux requires more memory than most other FSes, due to the Solaris compatibility layer. The cache is a bit less responsive to low memory conditions.

I run it on a NAS with 4G of memory, and I've had to limit usage and flush caches occasionally, otherwise I get to the point that I can't run new programs.
Yeah, VB.net is mostly there so that people can upgrade legacy VB6 programs.

Of which there are a lot. Or were, I hope that's changed a little now.

It scares me just how much of the finance sector is still running on some hacked together VB script tied to an excel spreadsheet...

But for anything new, you might as well use C#.
I think the point is that for many people building free software for fun, "works for me" is all that matters. Testing use cases that you know you will never encounter is not interesting or challenging (at least in this case), but it takes time, and you're not making a product, nobody is relying on you. Why bother?

The author of this plugin isn't trying to make a spreadsheet competitor, they just released it publicly because other people might find it useful or interesting.
I'm a bit of a pixel bender, so chucking a Johnny Cash up there knowing others will skew it :-)
My initial investor was from Switzerland. As I mentioned in another comment, we found eachother on reddit. He is just a regular guy, gamer, and programmer - not by any means wealthy but he had enough in savings to get me some seed funding. By coincidence, I went to Germany right after we started making a deal (I was visiting my wife's family, who is from Germany). I made a pitstop in Switzerland to meet my investor, and bought the mug there in Zurich. :)

Procedural approach does make it much easier to generate content. I've already got everything in place to generate entire seamless maps with logical road, street, city, and house placement among other things, and it is pretty easy to extend for things like caves and dungeons.
IIRC the Drive API does not support those conversion options. The way forward would be for an xlsx parsing JS library to convert it into CSV or a stream of Javascript objects. I didn't find any GPL-compatible library last time I checked.

See https://developers.google.com/drive/web/manage-downloads for a list of export format possibilities. For spreadsheets, the only options are xlsx, odt and pdf.
If you have Ghostery (or anything similar) you need to enable DoubleClick for it to work.
the human species delays its own uplift by failing to recognize and treat accordingly the other sentient species. As the representative of higher civilization clearly said to humans long time ago - treat others like you want to be treated yourself - very simple benchmark by meeting which humans will show that they are ready to move to the next step on the ladder.
Improvisation: Automating Music Composition and Melody Generation
I guess I see your point.
Maybe I am missing something but I still can't understand why Nelson Mandela won the peace prize when he founded Umkhonto we Sizwe.
This is an interesting analysis of available data for runners and record-breakers, outlining what will have to happen to break the two-hour mark for marathon times. Dennis Kimetto set the marathon record this year at 2:02:57.

Cue complaints about scrolling behavior of this site, but the content itself is worth reading.
What is even more remarkable is how often the winners (including the current ones) have nothing to do with the original intent of the Prize.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Peace_Prize

"According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who in the preceding year "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.""

What you listed is just bureaucratic procedures and maneuvering. For tat, the Nobel Committee deserves a Nobel Prize in Bureacracy.
Watch the Self-driving Tesla Drive
Nobel Peace Prize laureates are usually taking a stand on controversial topics

More accurately, they are usually taking the politically fashionable stand on controversial topics. If you can imagine a Nobel Peace Prize being granted to a vocal defender of apartheid or a staunch opponent of abortion, you imagine a world very different from the one we live in.

If you think, "and thank God for that", it simply means that your political beliefs are fashionable, too. Being on the "right side of history" just means that your side won. Louis XVI was on the wrong side of history, but that doesn't mean we should all become Jacobins—although, in many ways, we have. (I'd guess the Nobel Peace Prize committee would have little problem endorsing liberté, égalité, fraternité.)
If I would have said, "Kanto people don't usually eat Okonomiyaki" would you also have replied in a similar way?
Watch 10,000 League of Legends Games in 30 Seconds
At the time he said it, and about the time of the decision he was making, what you say about the TCL ecosystem was not necessarily true. I was using TCL/TK in '95, and it was clunky then. I have the same misgivings about LUA now, but it seems a better choice for embedding than TCL at the moment.

I keep returning to the "I'd like an embedded scripting language in my C environment" year after year, and there is nothing that has made me pull the trigger yet. TCL is a non-starter for me; LUA is dubious; GUILE is a non-starter with GPL licenseing. Java is clunky and heavyweight, but maybe plausible, though it's more common to JNI C into your Java main. I think it'd be nice to have an embeddable Javascript like v8 that can attach to C underpinnings, but don't know if there is one. Maybe duktape?
CARDIAC
Is this a startup or a feature/app? What problem are you solving and how will you eventually make money from it? What is to stop someone else from programming a clone in a weekend?
Not sure why you mentioned seek time. In large scale, distributed sorting, I/O is mostly sequential.
> I'd imagine Google et. al. are collecting that data [...]

They are. All phones who have Google Maps installed, and have enabled reporting (anonymous) position data (might be default on some phones) are helping Google both see if there's a traffic jam somewhere, and see what the actual driving speeds on the roads are (by sampling at a certain interval and seeing distance traveled over time).

I happily contribute to this, I think it's a great idea to crowd-source traffic data. I do hope Google makes the data publicly available though.
I'm not disputing the video. I haven't been able to watch it yet.

I'm saying we shouldn't be supporting the likes of Upworthy under any circumstances.
Stand by for Weather Map
Previous discussion here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8233328
I think F2FS is.
24 job search websites you should be using
Mandela? Sorry, what?

Read his autobiography. He makes no apologies for the fact that he embraced guerrilla warfare, and actively waged war against the state. Initially, yes, he and the ANC adopted peaceful means, but when the South African state shutdown and outlawed all the peaceful means at their disposal (e.g. strikes, demonstrations, etc.), he supported, encouraged and actively participated in fighting against the State. Hell, he co-founded Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the ANC, after the Sharpville massacre. Even after his release from prison, he refused to disarm the ANC since the same apartheid state apparatus that he fought against still existed.

Mandela is undoubtedly a great man of peace, and he did manage to bring about an incredible transformation in South Africa, but to say he did it through peaceful means is just incorrect.
"Cash equivalents" include "marketable securities":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cash_and_cash_equivalents

which include "equities" which include common stocks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_(finance)

So, it may very well and likely is invested in stocks. It is hardly sitting idle.
Cheap battery-operated spin-whisk frothers work fairly well.
I think that sentence was a poor addition, but my impression of Y Combinator from the author's entire post was that the author most highly valued the social experience ("It reminded me of my first night at Columbia. My new friends and I sat on the hall in our dorm and talked. As we shared our first night exchanging childhood stories..."), which seemed to take on metaphysical properties ("we were somewhere truly special").

For all of the exuberance about the experience, however, I found a stark contrast in the final sentence of the post:

> We aren’t sure where things will go from here. Shout may or may not succeed. But I know Henri and I feel fortunate to be a part of YC.

Obviously, new business ventures always face a level of uncertainty, and the risk of failure should be acknowledged. But it's kind of strange that the author seems so detached from the success or failure of the business and so resigned to going wherever the world takes his business. In short, it reads like the author was a lot more determined to get into YC than he is to take the bull by the horns and try to make his app a success now that school's out.
Attempting to copy photos out of Facebook albums into GDrive gives me "Exception: SecurityError: The operation is insecure." I'm not running psty locally.

This is super cool, though. There's an undocumented template engine built in it seems? (see /bin/mostliked) which is neat.
I don't think I am your target audience, but I will respond just so you have at least one data-point.

I don't use gestures. Ever. For anything (except unlocking my phone, which I am stuck with).

Opera 'introduced' mouse-gestures a long time ago, and like all other attempts I have tried; I cannot understand the point. I don't think that waving my hand/mouse/fingers around like a spell-caster writing runes in the air is ever efficient. There is far too many chances at misinterpretation, and it obscures the target action. Give me buttons. on/off-yes/no simple binary choices that give exact feedback.
Need something more analog (i.e. volume slider) let me input a number.
'Citizenfour' Trailer
I ride a GSXR 600 and it has the same 3.2 sec 0-60. It still rattles me every time I push it that fast. I'm having trouble wrapping my mind around how they can replicate that experience inside of an _electric_ car. Can't wait to test drive it :)
Mark Cuban on How to Fix the U.S. Economy
They did a good job with the lighting effects. Especially in the tunnel it seems a lot faster than it actually is I think.
"If Mark Cuban is running the economy, I'd go and say, 'Sallie Mae, the maximum amount that you’re allowed to guarantee for any student in a year is $10,000, period, end of story,'" he said.
Oops, I read this backwards.

The car should use the minimum speed limit from its set of stored speed limit signs, rules about local roads, and what it sees. If the car sees a speed limit sign that's "too high," it should call back to the mothership for a proper investigation (by the autodrive maker or the local police or both).

OLD POST (where I got your situation reversed):

It _should_ drop to 25 mph, because maybe someone in authority put a real 25 mph sign there. Then they should investigate who did that.

The countermeasure would be to take over the wheel.

The eventual countermeasure would be to have the speed limit sign broadcast its number over radiowaves, which is of course still something people can mess with, but requires a higher bar than a can of glue.
On with the batteries!
I would say that deployable is a lot better only if it is on master, and I tend stick with continuously deploy. I think this can only happen for situations like web based issues or etc, but I think using the same principals helps a lot. I think if its master then it should be definitely deployable.
The game is largely based off of CCG mechanics, but not the way a traditional CCG plays so much. Items, skills, classes, and monsters each add their own unique mini-rules to the game, based off a larger set of common rules like Hearthstone. Superficially, it plays a bit more like Dwarf Fortress.

Funny comment about the permadeath - Rogue Legacy was exactly what made me realize I did not like unlocking. Nonetheless I'm aware of the drawbacks of permadeath, and I will do what I can to address the communities wishes (there may be various game modes for people who hate permadeath and want a progressive, traditional RPG). Spelunky is, and has been, my goto design influence for years (not the sidescrolling and platformer mechanics, but just the pacing of the game, how it handles various design choices, etc), I still consider it one of the best designed games of all time.
Hackers Gather for Cyberwar in an Intense 48-Hour Sim
Yesterdays Drugs Are Tomorrow's Medicines
I think I have some facts twisted up. I thought Microsoft closed it's R&D lab?

http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-to-close-microsoft-research-l...

Do they have others?
Contributing to open source: a quick getting started guide
> Very few people in Quebec actually get married.

I'm interested in this line. I take it there is a cultural reason for this?
Someone should try making a sign that says

() { :; }; /usr/bin/media_play 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ'
First of all, a Linux box from 10 years ago is no less or more secure than Linux box from 2 days ago. I'm positive I could put a Linux 2.2 box on the Internet today and it'd never get hacked.

Second, your hypothetical mass attack would be easy to fix. Reinstall Windows on your malwared-up desktop, buy a new router, plug them both in, and update the router using approved vendor sites. There's no WAN hacks and the client machine wouldn't have any malware on it, so it could update safely.

The router manufacturers just need to disable all remote administration features and require a USB or CAT5 "admin port" to access setup functionality. Honestly, a bare-bones firewall with no features other than DHCP and NAT is all 99% of people use anyway.
Subuser – Securing the Linux desktop with Docker
New Theranostic Nanoparticle Diagnoses and Treats Cancer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Encryption_Standard

It shouldn't be too hard to find a JS implementation. For instance: https://github.com/mdp/gibberish-aes
Perfect timing, I just started to look at voxels yesterday.

Which resources can you recommend if I want to learn more about voxels?
It's not a real time editor. It's animated publishing platform.

??

To most people reading, that is a distinction without a difference.

You really want to focus on what problem you're solving here. Can you say in a sentence why this is a better publishing platform for writers than any other?
Well, my list wouldn't include a language I "forgot" or "knew it barely kind of", I guess :)

I mean, I've probably used 15-20 actual languages professionally (CSS and HTML and the like don't count), and some of those I still list on my resume because I could retrain my brain very quickly. But stuff I used once in a class, or took a MOOC on two years ago, or whatever, those aren't "known" in any meaningful way. Recognizance isn't knowing, at least to me.
Alright, I'm going to use an analogy that's a bit thin, but just stick with me on it.

Imagine some private organizations decided it would be safer if everyone that came to their establishment had a fully loaded gun with their specified ammunition requirements (I know this is a ridiculous presumption, but just suspend disbelief for a second). So say a bunch of businesses like gas stations and restaurants implement this policy.

If you are anti-gun or a pacifist, you can just avoid those establishments. But what if the practice became wide spread enough that a state or the federal government decided to mandate that everyone had to own a gun. They didn't need to buy ammunition or ever use it, but they had to have the gun.

Obviously that would piss off a lot of ideologues who are vehemently opposed to guns and violence. You can pragmatically say, "Well if you're against it, then just don't use it. I mean the majority of people will use it or won't care." But forcing even the outline of something onto people who are ideologically opposed to it is obviously going to be met with resistance.

So I know that analogy isn't all that great, but I think the principle is mostly the same. This standard is forcing the outline of DRM to be enabled on everyone's browser (since pretty much every major or usable browser is going to implement it). Yea, you can never go to a web site or download a specific DRM component. But you're still forced to have the "unloaded gun" of DRM.

I'm not personally that much of an ideologue, so I don't think it's that big of a deal. But there's a pretty strong contingent that is ideologically opposed to all forms of DRM. It's not that hard to see why they are upset about the standard if you try to look at it from that point of view.
I really hope you get this done and get stupid rich. This is amazing.
Congrats on getting this far!
Interesting. I'm trying to really go out all the API for my project and was thinking about something like a Mathemathica-like notebook for the local API. E.g. say you want to execute an API call which normally does GET /api/v1/x/y/z; in the "API shell" you type x/y/z and the JSON collection is summarized as a small datatable (not showing all of the 500 rows / 40 columns that might have, but an interesting summary) that you can later interact with.

I'm thinking that such an approach can give the user their own way to explore/modify the data ,especially if you combine this with some kind of pipe lines that let you analyze/mutate/visualize the data without having to write some Python code to access the API (even though with a REST API plus e.g. requests it's simple).

I like the psty idea to integrate with the local system. Sounds like it could also be used to start e.g. emacs on a remote page. Say you have a site with an API that lets you read/write files, you mount it and then can fire up emacs on it via pigshell.
The phone performs poorly, and the excuse is to blame the "impatience" of Americans?

This comment reads like a sarcastic "It's not a bug, it's a feature." If the phone is terrible compared to the competition, people aren't going to be patient and adaptable--they're going to buy the competition.
Which personal organization app should you be using?
I was there and it was interesting to see the crowd react to his comment. The dynamic shifted shortly after he made the comment, then the crowd cheered when he was presented with the correct response. I just think the backlash is crazy and there are certainly a group of people that are focused on making noise and not progress
Great feedback. We are too light on details. I'm adding a more detailed description shortly.

The original idea with the video was to show the types of functionality that FormBig exposes (eg: integrated logins, JS-based logic, rich text editing, etc) rather than the details of how one achieves them. However, I think since we went that path it is important to get more details in the body of the page.

Thanks for the pointer to MS Lightswitch I'm learning more about it now.
Yes, there are MSR campuses around the world! Only the Silicon Valley satellite campus was closed. See http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/labs/ for the full list.