skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Useful resource, but as often happens with lists of best practices, I do not agree with some things Twitter is giving advice on.

For example - https://twitter.github.io/effectivescala/#Control structures-Returns

They are saying that "return" can be used for "reducing nesting". First of all, that's a lie - if a return exists in that code, doesn't mean that the branch no longer exists, it only means that it isn't explicit and far more effective for reducing nesting would be to break those functions in smaller ones. I happen to believe that usage of "return" in Scala is never appropriate and it was a design mistake; at the very least they abstained from adding "break" or "continue". Scala is an expression oriented language and really, if you're going to write Scala as if you'd write Java, then just pick Java because Scala, contrary to other people's opinions, is not a better Java in the sense that it actively works against you if you're doing things like that.

I tried outlining the rationale in this rule, which I consider to be non-optional (hence the usage of MUST, instead of SHOULD :)) - https://github.com/alexandru/scala-best-practices/blob/maste...
Hi. Interesting article. Please check out a quick hack from me on finding relatedness of terms across websites.

http://www.nfactorialanalytics.com/navigate.html
Funny how this is kinda Halloween-ish.

Great share, thank you!
I really hope Apple will come up with a modern alternative to Core Data; it's neat and all, but it just doesn't feel like it's a good match for most situations.

In my own anecdote, we had to show a list of autocompletion items - simple enough. Read XML, write a few hundred entries to a Core Data storage - and this list was relatively static, updated only once a week.

A week after release, we got crash reports - the XML read and store in CoreData was still running while people were already accessing the autocomplete list. It took (IIRC) 10 - 15 seconds to run (on an old iPhone 3GS), which was far too long from any standpoint.

So we just tossed CoreData, stored the list as a simple in-memory list, and made the autocomplete match search a very naive iteration-based search. Ten times faster, if not more.

TL;DR I would avoid CoreData, unless it's relatively static and non-time-critical data. And even then I'd look for alternatives first.
This is bad practice, at best it shows a lack of confidence in what you've written. At worse it shows you don't understand what's going on.

Version control shows the evolution of design, if you are leaving in dead code you need to take a step back and think about the real solution.
Why Venture Capital in Germany Is Failing
This is a talk given at this year's OEIS conference.

Part 2 is here: http://vimeo.com/109142264

The paper in the talk is available here:

http://bulkmail.unt.edu/bulkdocs/1413399522_ConwayJohnH_2013...

More of the conference talks are available at:

http://vimeo.com/album/3082332/page:1/sort:preset/format:det...
Then why do we tax consumption and capital as well? I agree with you but feel it's more a balancing of policy to manage the complex mix of our intentions as a society.
>People don't generally voluntarily use a service unless it is beneficial to them in some way.

People are not always the best to judge what benefits them. Case in point: everything from Bush, to heroin addicts, to fast food, to Justin Bieber.
"Supporting discriminatory laws is not even on the same plane as being "offensively" open-minded."

That's an obviously unfair polemic. It could be flipped around thusly (and would be just as invalid):

"Seeking to destroy the institution of marriage that has been consistently defined for centuries is not even on the same plane as being 'offensively' traditional."
mega-lol!
I feel like Slack is what Campfire should've been. Or what IRC with a fast, searchable history and a decent GUI is.
The lack of using rotating bits confounds me. I've wanted that since watching Big O years ago. It's such an obvious input method for selection, especially after the iPod popularized it. Truly bizarre blind spot.
Yeah, that is not at all how taxation works, or how the reserve works, or how really anything works at all...
I used "opinionated" instead "wrong" intentionally. There's nothing wrong with being opinionated (I'm opinionated, too!), and it's pretty much unavoidable when it comes to coding style; I'd only quibble with calling the document "Best Practices", which seems to indicate an absolute rule. And yes, I also mean that I'm ignoring some of the "MUST" and "MUST NOT" rules (for a very simple example, using "return" at the end of a function in spite of 2.1 as a visual indicator; similarly, 2.9 or 2.14 are sometimes not an option – pun intended – because Scala's abstractions often come with a measurable performance hit; note the inherent conflict between 2.9/2.14 and 3.4 in particular, where often you have to break one or the other rule).

With respect to your points:

> I'm not against destructive updates, but I'm against doing destructive updates without knowing what you're doing.

With all due respect, the document doesn't make this clear. See, e.g.: "a public API exposing a mutable data-structure is an abomination of nature". That's a pretty absolute statement.

> I'm also against usage of shared state without proper encapsulation and synchronization.

There are really two parts to this. First of all, in principle I agree with the above, but that's not what your document says. For example, section 4.1 goes much farther than that; it may be exaggerated overstatement for effect, but it's really not backed up by anything.

Admittedly, part of the problem is that Scala has never fixed Java's broken [1] concurrency model (and may not be able to do so due to interoperability issues), but even so, this is a statement that's difficult to support in the general case.

There are also sections that don't really make sense, to be honest. For example, 4.7: Not only isn't there really a formal definition of "thread-safe", any attempt to define it (such as using non-interference per Owicki/Gries) makes it essentially a global property of the program, not the local property of a module (let alone its API). There are software design and implementation techniques that allow you to have composable module specifications in the face of concurrency, but that's something different.

In a way, yes, avoiding concurrency is not unreasonable advice in the face of the limited tools you have available and you can say that I'm lamenting more the (lack of) actual support for concurrency in modern programming languages rather than criticizing your statement; at the same time, even given the circumstances, section 4 strikes me as overall too limiting. There ARE other techniques to handle concurrency cleanly, after all.

[1] I use the word "broken" advisedly. See http://brinch-hansen.net/papers/1999b.pdf
When do 2015 Ig Nobel nominations open up?
Having used Slack I found it ammusing the way they describe it:

Slack, the enterprise collaboration platform

It actually is true and a great way to market.

1.2B valuation seems high, but I guess this is a lesson that you can do the same thing everyone else has done, but do it better ( or at least differently) and actually be successful. Sometimes hard to believe that.
The Old Testament tells the story from the point of view of Jewish tribes, and they don't complain that other people are anti-Semitic, and it's appropriate as the most fighting happens between different Semitic people (and they know it since they actually tell so in their genealogies, you know that "boring" "who begat whom" parts). The main difference to Jewish writers is if these other people (or frequently even the Jewish tribes) believe in Him who must not be named (you know, the arch-enemy of that Harry Potter guy (1)) or not. Read it. When Jewish tribes win in the Old Testament, they joyfully perform different acts of genocide (2), which was OK since Ya... um, the Lord wanted exactly that.

Not so surprising that that Muhammed guy (peace be upon him! (0)) got inspired for his wars. Apparently he was illiterate, but it seems that somebody read him big parts of OT. Muslims believe it was an angel named Gabriel (3), not to be confused with Moroni (4) that appeared in the US. And when we're there, Americans should understand Muhammedans and vice versa, as the US president was directly instructed by God too (5) so much for the Separation of church and state (6).

-----

(0) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad

(1) http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Names_of_G-d/Adonai/adonai....

(2) http://www.bricktestament.com/judges/

(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad%27s_first_revelation

(4) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_Moroni

(5) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa

(6) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state
Wow, this happened already? I only remember an ad recently that turned on people's Xbox Ones. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27827545
BMW and wireless electricity transfer. A revolution or a radical evolution?
From what I can tell, the NES controller was the first gamepad to be used on a major console[1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamepad#Third_Generation
How so? He wants it to stop existing so he stops being compelled to use it. Seems pretty straightforward to me.
With my company, it's about 50/50, credit card vs paypal balance. All transactions are processed by paypal either way. My clients are Internet marketers currently, many of which promote things and get paid by paypal. I would love to switch away from paypal as it's a pain in so many ways, and painfully slow. Stripe would be awesome, but not sure how many clients I would lose in the process.
Show HN: The Famous reply all button now is gone
In this funding round, $2m of the $3.5m will be put aside for the two of us
Interview with Lytro's Ariel Braunstein
Nice feature set. But why do I have to learn a new query language again?
I think the notion that "no one ever thought being white was something to be ashamed of [for reason other than guilt]" does not stem from observaton or experience as much as it is an ideological construct - ie. it is needed to fit nicely into a preassumed political theory
Show HN: Haffy – collaborative diptych video messenger
$1.12B kind of blows my mind, but me and my team really do love the service.
There are some nice form factor cases out there now-a-days, and I would like to explore using those to make a firewall I could offer to friends and family to protect them too, but I'm just using an old desktop right now.
Don't know anything about Arc, but is there is anything terser than APL?
very useful! So I saw that you said it's uncomfortable? That's a major concern for me. I spend the entire day typing. I wonder if my strangely-shaped wrists will alleviate that though.
7 Tried and Tested Ways Web-Based Businesses Can Improve Conversion
Do you believe Electric Wireless transfer is the future of Electric cars?
How to do SEO keyword research
Short Tail vs Long Tail Keywords – Which Are Better To Focus On?
Japan is boosting its economy with a simple idea
I also noticed that there is a new model of the Ricoh Theta camera available since yesterday and it finally also does 360° video.
The Z3 is considered the best of breed among camera and battery performance even against the iPhone (Phonearena benchmarks).

But really, really bad marketing and sales strategy. Even in India, Sony phones are not really marketed. It is LG and Samsung all the way.
A basic web app like other posters are describing is just some html+css (admittedly are awful) then javascript and local storage.

What that kind of a stack enables is potential. So you're happy with your app. Take what you already know, learn about a server and a client and make a scoreboard. Now you understand client/server you can make it collaborative. etc.
Apple watch is, from what people say, also only water resistant.

It seems likely that it is a pretty straightforward case of making trade offs. It's got a touchscreen and a whole bunch of other stuff packed in there, even if you can do the work to keep the weight the same it's going to push your ship date.

There are GPS sport watches that are very waterproof at about the same weight (roughly 60 grams), but they have pretty different feature profiles (generally no touchscreen, no microphone, no bluetooth) and are 4th and 5th generation devices.
The "they were a product of their times" argument is garbage.

I know my use of technology built in unethical conditions will be judged poorly, so I get the most out of tech and try to be pick the best companies to buy from when replacing it.

I know my difficulty moving past the gender binary will be judged poorly, so I learn about non-binary genders and people who exist outside gender entirely.

I know my past homophobia--even the internalized variety--will be judged poorly.

The list could go on for a long time, but the important thing is that I see where I fail and try to fix it. Supporters of discrimination are just as capable as I am of seeing past their failings. They choose not to.
>The market would produce privacy TVs if people would not buy spy TVs.

Bear in mind the vast majority of consumers never even glance at a privacy policy, and would only interpret a "privacy TV" as "a TV with fewer features"

A manufacturer only needs to provide an opt-out on these smart tvs for the few people who care about their illusory privacy anyway, and that 'privacy tv' market dies before it's even born.

You can already buy non-smart tvs anyway. I have one. It cost ~$100.00 and was made by some company I've never heard of. The only selling point for such things is their cheapness.
FT Interview with Google Co-founder and CEO Larry Page
What? I don't understand, what is the alternative?
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I can appreciate the difficulties of hypothesizing, and I hadn't thought about it (at least directly) from a moral standpoint. It's still difficult for me to believe that in a totally free market the majority of employees, especially those who have a harder time finding jobs to begin with, and spend their whole careers accepting unfavorable terms just to stay employed, would find themselves with better options for family planning, but maybe it'd be so.
Tax the things that have an associated social cost, like fast/low nutrition food.
Everyone praises Slack here but I find e-mail + IM completely sufficient and I work in a very large company.. Something urgent? Use IM. Something can wait? Use e-mail. It's that simple.
The Ricoh Theta is nice for streetview. It uses the GPS built into the smartphone controlling it.

Since the last update, it also supports taking pictures at regular intervals.
NERVA was fine if you didn't start it up until you were in LEO and took care to avoid any trajectories that might involve Earth reentry. But even for manned flight outside the atmosphere, shielding was an issue and servicing it was pretty much a suicide mission. Not insurmountable problems, but more than we needed for our modest goals at the time which didn't involve going beyond the Moon.

http://www.wired.com/2012/09/nuclear-flight-system-definitio...
Solar sails, bussard ramjets, space elevators.
Polipo can already store full text of every visited web page efficiently. For searches, we'd need a way to grep its compressed cache. Web UI optional. (Cache versioning would be a nice, separate feature.)
Fish gobble furry animals with four feet
Reversing D-Link’s WPS Pin Algorithm
The Moto X has a "Google Now" functionality where the continuously listens for you commands. Whatever is ships your sound off the Google server is another question.
We tax consumption because it's easy to collect, and also sometimes to discourage some types of consumption, like alcohol, tobacco or gas.

Capital is taxed in small number of countries (which is in my opinion unfortunate). However, most countries tax capital income, and if one agrees that taxing regular personal income makes sense, one should also tax capital income.
"This type of plain-language programming makes sense, particularly in an application that was designed specifically for non-programmers."

Sweet merciful crap, no. I loved Hypercard as a kid but I could never get my head around the English-but-not-quite programming style of the script. Any time I've tried to do anything with Applescript over the years, I just end up giving up and doing it some other way.

A DSL would be better than this approach, or a language that has a decently smooth learning curve.
Everyone Knows™ that putting stuff into space is expensive. Then Everyone Assumes™ that it's because of all the fuel. But no, fuel is cheap, hardware is what's expensive. If you look at the costs involved in putting something into orbit, the cost of fuel is a trivial detail, on the order of 1% of the total costs. Compare that to an airliner, where fuel is around 1/3rd of the total costs, or a car, where fuel can easily be over 50% of the total costs.

I happened to be reading up on rocket efficiency and I was surprised to learn that rockets are fairly efficient for launching stuff into orbit. Wikipedia uses the example of the Space Shuttle, where 16% of the energy in the propellants ends up in the kinetic and potential energy of the orbiter. That's pretty good!

The problem is that you use a rocket once and then throw it away. Imagine if your car was one-time-use. How often would you drive somewhere? How often would anyone drive anywhere? It wouldn't matter how efficient they are and it wouldn't matter if they didn't even require fuel at all.

Now, the rocket equation still comes into play here, because it means you need a lot of rocket for a little bit of payload. But the main problem is the one-time-use thing. A nuclear disposable rocket wouldn't improve things much. A reusable nuclear rocket would be great, but then so would a reusable chemical rocket.

This is the genius of SpaceX. For decades, rocket designers have looked at the rocket equation and tried their hardest to save fuel. SpaceX looked at the economics of rocketry and realized that fuel costs more or less don't matter, and instead concentrated on building their machines cheaply, and on making them reusable. We'll see how it works out, but if they succeed in making reusable rockets then they'll cut the cost of launches by an order of magnitude or more.
For those who are not going to vote, would you mind commenting as to why not? I'm genuinely curious.
Yeah, but the cool thing about Scala is that you get to pick the kind of polymorphism you want, depending on whether the list of Nouns will evolve versus the list of Verbs.

Like, those case classes are also classes that can have polymorphic methods on them. So for example, you can do this: https://gist.github.com/alexandru/2604948978c497adc8e2 - instead of doing this: https://gist.github.com/alexandru/41acda9bdd694bec38b2

Which variant is better, it depends, but both versions have tradeoffs, depending on direction. Also, Scala's OOP blend with FP is best in breed. In Ocaml for example is like having 2 type-systems in the same language, whereas in Scala it's more like a turtles all the way down kind of thing which I like.
There were joysticks with buttons way before the NES. Do you consider putting a piece of plastic instead of a joystick a major invention?
I read the claims, and this patent really is as stupid as described - filming a yoga class from the back. The only thing of interest in the claims is having a "corridor" without students so they don't block the view of the teacher. Prior art is basically anyone who ever said "Can you guys move out of the way?"

Edit: The patent has a flowchart, which looks like a satire of patent flowcharts. It's a two-page flowchart of how to film a yoga class with silly steps like "Students arrive and set up their yoga mats", "Loaded into video editing software". It doesn't even make sense as a sequence of steps.

This is a much worse patent than the Amazon "white background" patent which at least describes a few things that aren't totally obvious to me, such as the positions and brightness of the lights and the choice of lens. (These things may be obvious to a skilled practitioner, though.)

Yoga patent: https://www.google.com/patents/US8605152

White background patent: https://www.google.com/patents/US8676045
Even your iPhone when you ask Siri questions sends your data to be processed in the cloud.

People are buying a TV because they want a TV, not a mini computer. Why would TV manufacturers want to jack up the price of their product with non-essential TV components to have onboard voice recognition?
Acrosync: native rsync client for Windows with Dropbox-like sync and more
sorry about that, I was extrapoling first (because I found it insane :) )

instead of looking for the meaning of this new word (for me[which I discover is spelled the same in english {and few other european languages}])
Design and construction of an organic, brain-like computer
I'm beginning to feel like they should put privacy policies in clear text on the box, like cigarette warnings.
The integrations, history and ambient awareness it creates are what makes it unique.
As I understand it, they are now making it easier for someone(i.e. hacker) to login to your account using Tor.

The attacker will not raise any flags anymore (since it could be you).
Who cares about controllers at the time - it's not like having a rumble pack changed drastically how you played games. I'm talking about game hardware. Nintendo has almost always just copies what other consoles did with slightly more recent chips. And in recent history, they focused more on the controllers instead of the actual hardware.
> That is not true - first of all, log(n) in our industry means log2(n)

Which, for a 1000x1000 matrix, means a factor of about 20, not to mention the significant constant overhead from not using a contiguous memory layout.

> It's not algorithmic complexity that bites you, algorithmic complexity is totally fine.

I didn't say anything about algorithmic complexity. Note that I was writing log(n), not O(log(n)) in particular and pointing at the constant factor, too. A computation that takes two days instead of half an hour does make a very real difference to me.

> I did work on a web service that [...]

That's why I was careful to point out how different application domains matter. Web services are not numerical computations are not computer algebra are not big data.
TLS over Tor
I typically have Gmail open with Chat and Slack. My team also has Gmail Chat but we find it easier to organize conversations, files, etc with Slack. It let's us have a channel for each project, a scrum channel for what everyone's working on, direct messaging when you need it, etc. Uploading files from Dropbox and other integrations like Github are also useful.
Are you just focusing on controllers? Like nothing else matters?
Thanks for noting this. I'm hoping that a highly parameterized patent is also struck down for the same reasons, especially if it's a subset of their previous patent.

It's funny how, knowing little about yoga, you can develop their scheme.

1. It's a yoga class! Mats are often used, to provide traction and personal space. Arrange the mats in the room.

2. Camcorder on the floor... Who does that? So you put it on a tripod, a few feet off the ground. Too high makes it unfamiliar for the viewer, like you're looking down on everyone.

3. Focus on the instructor! But... the instructor walks off to help a student... Maybe try and capture more of the class by zooming out.

4. Students stand up during poses and block your view of the instructor. Move their mats out of the line of sight!

Simply tightening the parameters doesn't make this less obvious, and their "look and feel" claim is nonsense.
It seems in the US, it's used as punishment for making money.

How is it so?

When high income taxes in US were being introduced around Great Depression era, it was indeed argued by politicians that some fortunes are estates are so large to be immoral. However, after Reagan cuts, taxes in the US have been pretty low, and it is hard for me to grasp how one could see them as a punishment.