skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
While predictive techniques can help, you really want something that is accurate 100% of the time so you don't have to keep an eye on your output. I'd rather memorize two different chords to get 100% correctness on the I or eye problem rather than 99% correctness on it with a predictive engine - the fact that you have to keep track of what you're typing to catch its mistakes really makes predictive techniques not so good for speed.
...apart from jury trials don't have depositions, so you're lying
It's too bad you don't know anyone who works in the field of tech security journalism, because it might make for a good exposé...
We're talking about different things. Yes, I can say without hesitation that people want ("the course of user experience") document sync. Refutations welcome.

You might be trying to argue that people also want privacy or security in their document sync, but that has nothing to do with the matter at hand. iCloud is at least as secure as any other consumer sync service.
Well there's a few reasons like I need money to survive, I need healthcare and things like that.
I've never done any Windows development, so I'm curious as to why C# might be considered superior to Java (especially Java 8).

Is it simply better language features ( typing, generics, etc.?), or does the argument also include .NET and the CLR?

Will Microsoft open up development on unix systems (not mono)? I've interpreted signals from the CEO as an indication this could happen. What about visual studio?
> The only major mis-step was the "UCS-2" mistake, before they realized more bytes really were going to be needed

Unicode 2.0 came out in 1996 increasing the codepoint count from about 65,000 to 2.1 billion, but in 2003 came a bigger misstep: those 2.1 billion were reduced back down to about 1 million. And of those million, only 137,000 are for private use. Neither short-sightedness nor scope-creep are to blame, IMO, but power plays and office politics.
This sounds like a coordination problem [1]. If only one person writes a letter to their representative, it doesn't do anything and that person is the only one who comes out at a loss of x hours of their time. No policies are changed and everyone is stuck in a bad situation.

If a significant portion of the representative's constituency sends letters and the net political effect overcomes the amount of donations the representative gets from intelligence companies, maybe they will actually begin an initiative for policy change. Everyone is better off, but it's hard to convince a critical mass of people that think it will succeed.

[1] http://raikoth.net/libertarian.html#coordination_problems
Have you validated your idea by asking your peers if they would be willing to pay for your service?

This would be my first step before committing several thousands of dollars to an idea.
Picked up Age of Mythology: Extended Edition during the Steam Summer Sale. My friends and I used to play a ton against each other over LAN when we were kids. Now we're all in different states, but multiplayer works really well so that's not a problem!
It doesn't. Sun, and then Oracle sued Google and lost (on syntax, on API it is still bouncing around):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_v._Google

Sun settled with Microsoft before a verdict was reached, so the question of IP and if alternate implementations of a language syntax is allowed wasn't answered then.

In the antitrust suit, all that was answered was that Microsoft used its advantage with its operating system monopoly to push its version of the Java runtime. The effect was that Microsoft were not allowed to bundle their runtime, but had to offer users the choice - they were not found to be violating Sun's IP in implementing a runtime.

Syntax of a programming language not being IP protected is probably a good thing for developers, regardless of what you think of the Microsoft situation. The API being protected is a separate issue, as is the trademark on the name (which applied in the Microsoft case but not in Google's since they didn't use the trademark term in their implementation)
What do you mean by bullying culture? There are times when somebody wants something done, you explain to them that it's not possible or that it can be done but it may take some time due to current queue and they go directly to to the CIO/CTO and complain. I consider that a form of bullying so if that's what you mean then yes it's rampant. Some do it some don't.
Ask HN:"Engineering” a sequence a projects to become a more confident generalist
Is there a particular path that can truly accelerate one's learning to become a true generalist (ability to stitch layers together with confidence). I've been lurking around HN for a while now, and when questions of this vein are asked I've often noticed that people usually say something to the effect of "dude. just build stuff" which frankly is really a good way to get started (definitely beats analysis-paralysis). But I'm trying to understand if there's a particularly clever way to sequence the "building" of said projects in a particular way that leads to incremental insights that in turn converge to a less frustrating and more fulfilling that could give me a big-picture understanding of how things are connected end to end.

I'm looking for something along the lines of:

Step1 => Build a ridiculously simple MVC app like a todo list that lets people add things to an online list (like http://todomvc.com/)

Step2 => Back the app with some RESTful backend service that includes persistence (ex: mySQL/redis)

Step3 => Add simplified monitoring to the app to get a sense of how your app is performing (ex: How many 4xx errors yesterday)

Step4 => Hook your monitoring to some simple analytics processing (ex: How many ppl from SF have added things to the list)

Step5 => Deploy it onto AWS and configure your machines to figure out 2 flavors of the page (A/B testing + DevOps)

Step6 => Make your analytics processing "offline" by queueing events from the RESTful service into an MQ

Step7 => Make your analytics interesting by storing this data (warehousing) by using things like elastic search to answer more interesting questions (ex: What are the 'general' things ppl from SF tend to add)
etc.

The idea here is to tackle things that progress naturally and minimize any new dev frustration by incrementally adding more bells and whistles. Does the HN community have any opinion on such examples that they've found worked for them and things they'd recommend to relatively new developers (1-2 years of experience)?
There are ways around that: http://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/
Beside my desk I have two cardboard boxes and a loose 1/2 width desk table table-top. Maybe 4 times a week I move everything on the edge of my desk and set up the two boxes and the loose desktop to make a standing desk that just happens to be the perfect height.

I've only got a laptop, a single monitor, lamp, wired keyboard, and wireless mouse, so moving all that from the low desk to top desk - and back - only takes about one or two minutes. When I do stand, I'll stay like that for usually about three to four hours.

I set up a permanent standing desk at home for about a month (cinder blocks under my desk table legs) and I really liked how easy it was to just walk up to desk and dive into work... or to step back from my desk if I got distracted or just needed to take a couple minutes because I was stuck on something. Not having to "get settled" at my desk, and not having to pull my up out of my chair made a surprisingly big difference to the experience of working.

While the physical benefits of not siting so much are very good, I was most surprised by that feeling described in the paragraph above. The way it changed my relationship to my desk and what happens there was the most remarkable thing about using a standing desk. I very much look forward to getting an electric adjustable standing desk at work.
I really love this line "I'm sorry, but I'm really not in a position to subsidize your business any further."
Well, Epic is the #1 EHR in the country (and several others), with something like 30-40% of the market. They will absolutely crush anyone that tries to go head to head with them. One of their top competitors did abour $1.2bn in revenue last year and lost over $300m trying to compete with Epic. Their EHR works well enough, but doctors hate it, and it costs a literal fortune to install and maintain. So who know what will happen in 10 years.

However, my personal opinion as a healthcare software developer is that SalesForce has gravely miscalculated if the intend to produce an EHR/EMR system. Product lock in is on the order of a decade.
Yes, that is the point of a motorized sit stand desk. You stand when you feel like it and adjust it down when you want to sit, and so on.
Can you imagine a returning alumni visiting the campus with their family after a decade or so.

"And here kids, is the tree we use to hang out by between classes. It's right next to the building where I, uh... Imagine that, they moved all the buildings."
People have longer memories than you're giving them credit for. Are you ever going to forget this about the NSA? I know I won't.

At some point, a tipping point will be reached. See my comment above about slow change. It's frustrating that things are not happening faster, but that's why we have elections every 2 years. Unless you believe that mechanism is broken too, in which case we have bigger problems to worry about.
Neural Networks 101
My desk at work gives me the option to stand or sit.

Most of the time, it winds up being 60/40 stand/sit.

Feels pretty nice!
Yeah the most restrictive form of DRM in the world means nothing if I can just record a video of it / transcribe it
What he says not only proves that he is absolutely right, but it also proves that he is absolutely wrong.

Kind of reminds me of this:

After his service in the war, Socrates devoted himself to his favorite pastime: the pursuit of truth.

His reputation as a philosopher, literally meaning 'a lover of wisdom', soon spread all over Athens and beyond. When told that the Oracle of Delphi had revealed to one of his friends that Socrates was the wisest man in Athens, he responded not by boasting or celebrating, but by trying to prove the Oracle wrong.

So Socrates decided he would try and find out if anyone knew what was truly worthwhile in life, because anyone who knew that would surely be wiser than him. He set about questioning everyone he could find, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer. Instead they all pretended to know something they clearly did not.

Finally he realized the Oracle might be right after all. He was the wisest man in Athens because he alone was prepared to admit his own ignorance rather than pretend to know something he did not.
This link is just a white screen on my BlackBerry.
The key I think is have a desk that can change (not fixed). I have the GeekDesk (http://www.geekdesk.com) and wouldn't go back to a normal fixed desk. Yes, I don't stand for long periods of time either. But I really enjoy the fact that I can change my desk height throughout the day. For example, I have a large whiteboard right beside my desk at standing height. So I flip the desk to standing position when I want to brainstorm and have access to my computer.
Medallions are largely a red herring.

Agreed. Here in Seattle, the biggest issues have been:

1. It's almost impossible to find a taxi outside of a couple specific areas of town (downtown, and the commercial cores of Capitol Hill and Fremont on weekend nights), which means you're going to have to call a dispatcher.

2. The unbelievable ineptitude and rudeness of the Yellow Cab dispatchers in Seattle.

3. The historical unwillingness of Seattle taxi drivers to accept credit cards, which bears some additional unpacking. Seattle is a very credit card-friendly city. I can go weeks without visiting an ATM and not change a thing about my daily routine. However, taxi drivers used to be very hostile to accepting credit cards. I've had a couple who refused to take plastic, and actually drove me to an ATM (on my dime) to make me get cash to pay them. To their credit, on the few occasions I've had to use a taxi since UberX launched, I've found them more than happy to accept credit cards through Square.

My use of Uber is almost entirely driven by my loathing for Seattle's Yellow Cab.
Windows Update Prank
Jose Valim, a RoR developer, created a language (Elixir) just for your use case. Go have a look!
Good point. I've validated it with two professors who think it's worth pursuing (which also led to a couple lengthy discussions on educational theory).
AI doesn't need the same scale of ability to effectively subjugate many and various human roles.

This is evident in examples such as chess. What is also often forgotten is that a computer doesn't need to be perfect to be able to beat 99.9% of humanity.

However, the idea of an AI being able to effectively replicate a human in all it's complexity is so far off it should be at this point considered effectively 'impossible'.
When I started using a standing desk it definitely involved an adjustment period. When starting out, something that helped me was to stand for thirty minutes then sit for one hour, alternating. Also, I've found that it's best to start the day standing or else I end up sitting most of the day. :) My back and neck (and even my hands) feel a lot better when I alternate between standing and sitting, as opposed to sitting all day. From what I understand, standing all day is also bad, but moving up to one hour of standing per sitting has worked pretty good for me.
Agree with the premise of the article.

As someone who works in a University, it's clear that the arts and the skills they develop are essential for a balanced society.

The Internet, and it's main demographic, would see a Science heavy future as the right future.

The reality is, in order to accommodate everyone, we need embrace a broad intellectual spectrum.
New Jersey e-vote experiment after Sandy declared a disaster
And don't forget:

- They're advertising a provably nonexistent (at the very least flawed) 'Zero Knowledge' environment (third parties such as Plex can be given access to your data, which means that the server has the keys required to access plaintext)

- They're closing down their consumer API[0], breaking third party services like Plex

- They're no longer cost competitive, as hubiC[1] beats them on price (plus it's French)

Overall it looks like they're just no longer interested at all in the consumer market and they're trying to get business customers.

Given the performance issues, unreliability, broken promises (Linux client, API) and fraud (security promises) that's gone on since beta (which was in 2012 by the way, they've been pulling this crap for 2 years now), I'll be requesting the refund they offer and moving elsewhere (probably hubiC).

P.S. is anyone aware of either:

- A decent SpiderOak alternative service

- A good, cross platform, S3 compatible sync client with client side encryption

[0] - http://forums.bitcasa.com/index.php?/topic/2091-dear-develop...
[1] - https://hubic.com/en/
Safe Social Inboxes
Watch out for this. Say ello ello to gecko! Social needs to be more meaningful, easier and archivable. GeckoLife is it. Download the app now
Reef is actually right. There's not much overtime. Now while that to many may seem like a great job where there should be no burn out. I can say that it is still very stressful. The reason being there can just be so many things going on at once. Projects that should take hours to days end up taking weeks to months due to just the sheer number of them and the constant barrage of interruptions. Context switches are expensive. Every time somebody else has nothing better to do they feel like they should bother you.
> the exact same user experience could be achieved without the data leaving the room

But you ignored what I noted about the performance of setting up p2p wifi vs. iCloud. Given that Apple does implement p2p wifi for AirDrop, it lends support to the theory that they had good reason to pass on it for Continuity.
Copyright affects more than just assets, it also includes e.g. creative physics. The idea of an RTS in a medieval time period is not copyrightable, but copying all the specific choices AoE2 made even when those choices weren't made because the setting required them can very well be infringement. Calling yourself a clone will also not help you in a court.

Read up on some judges' verdicts on video game clones at:
http://adlervermillion.com/copyright-illustrated-video-game-...
I'm looking to become a Jr. ROR developer.  Any advice out there?
What are the chances I can become Jr. ROR developer? I am mid-career. I have a CS degree but no programming experience. My first 10 years experience is in IT (sys admin, unix, infosec, consulting) then followed by 10 years as a agency recruiter. I am now learning ruby followed by rails. I am currently learning the primer via Ruby Monk, 'Learn Ruby the Hard Way' and the Ruby course on Code Academy. Then I'll dive into Michael Hartl's ROR tutorial. Then I'll get into some advance ROR coding.
Century Old Notebook Found Frozen in Antarctic
Won't increasing reliance on the blockchain lead to a wasteful computing power arms race?
As an OOP afficionado, I am embarrassed by how mushy our discipline is compared to the crystal clarity of our functional bretheren. How I wish I lived in a world of such well-defined boundaries.

After all, everyone knows that FP was started with Lisp with the insight that the heart of FP is homoiconicty. Except where it isn't, as in ML and others.

Likewise, functional programming introduced a higher level way of expressing our intention without being bound to the low level machine representation of values. Unlike Fortran and Cobol, all functional languages use dynamically typed variables (except for ML and its derivatives) and operate at a level of abstraction above the primitive underlying machine (except for nil punning, car, cdr, etc.).

While OOP languages endlessly fiddle with syntax, functional languages all agree that only way to represent code is with s-exprs. Or not, as in ML. And that function arguments should be lists. Or is it tuples? Or curried?

Either way, syntax is just window dressing. What really matters is semantics, and here functional programming has always stood for a very firmly defined set of behaviors. Functions should be pure, as in Haskell. Except when they are not as in Scheme, Lisp, and ML. Evaluation should be by name. Or by need. Or eager.

There must be macros. Or not. They should not require hygiene since that is an artificial limitation, except that they should require hygiene because unhygienic macros are evil.

Let's not forget one of the key contributions that functional languages have given us: lexical scope. All functional languages use it strictly. Except for Emacs Lisp which does not, and Common Lisp and Clojure which have options to not use it.

OK, fine, I'm side-stepping the most important facet that all functional languages agree on: first class functions. This is the defining feature of FP languages: all functional languages have them, and all other languages do not. Except for Lua, C#, Java, C++, JavaScript, Self, SmallTalk, and others. But, functional languages certainly have first-class functions more thoroughly integrated into the rest of the language than non-FP languages do. Except for Common Lisp, which relegates them to a separate namespace.

In conclusion, I think we can all agree that object-oriented languages could learn a lot from FP about how to keep your terminology precise.
That's a lot of money for IKEA.
Why not fuzz it on the device, before sending to the server?

Now that is a legitimate question. Although, fuzzing it on the server is better than not fuzzing it at all.

Why not just amend your Privacy Policy to state that data is only stored in the United States?

Actually Whisper did the opposite, amend their privacy policy so that data can be stored outside of the US, but their new ToS are not active yet.

I think, what he is saying is basically just: "We have content moderators in the Philippines. The Guardian is acting like we keep that secret, but here are 5 media articles where we talked about that ourselves. It is also not against our ToS. The provision that the Guardian is referencing is about servers.".

I must say, that it really looks like the Guardian article was somewhat sensationalist. Yes whisper is "tracking" it's users by sending location data to the server, but that is obvious since that is an integral part of the app.
The trial I was on had lots of depositions presented to us.

The case was Fleischmann v. DJO, San Diego County Courthouse, late July to August 2013, presided over by Judge Joel M Pressman.

The plaintiff lived in Colorado and the case involved a lot of care-givers from that area as well as "expert" witnesses from as far as Alaska, but the company he was suing was based in San Diego. Given the high number of witnesses unable to attend a trial so far from where they are based, we had to deal with a lot of deposition-based testimony, some of them shown to us in video form and some read aloud in reenactment by lawyers. And even in cases where the depositions aren't directly shown to the jurors they are still highly used by lawyers in an attempt to get present-at-the-trial witnesses to contradict their deposition statements.

You might want to tone down the accusations of lying when you don't really know what you're talking about (or I guess you can just use a nicely green throwaway account to hide behind).
Where are you located?

Are you located anywhere near a Ruby on Rails or just Ruby Meetup group?
Damn.... that sucks.

I try just sending tweets to TC journalists for coverage. It never works, and as such have given up on TechCrunch.

This shit is ridiculous though.
I'm 30 minutes outside of Philadelphia.
Brazil re-elects Dilma Rousseff as president
William Rockefeller, Sr.
> No human alive doesn't want power. That's the basic evolutionary fuel of our entire species. There's no other desire humans even have -- anything else is just a means to that end.

If you're going to be that reductionist, then you're still wrong. The basic evolutionary drive behind our species, and all others, is to reproduce and spread your genes. Everything else stems, however circuitously, from redirected or misdirected reproductive drive.

But either way, you're being silly. For example, I want to make enough money to support myself and afford a few luxuries now and then, and have as much free time as possible to spend with friends, books, and games. It's not technically incorrect to say that I want power (over my life and environment), but to say that my motivations are identical to those of a senator or a billionaire is ridiculous.

> The people who think they do what they do for any other reason are deluding themselves about the game that they're playing. There's only one game.

See, here's your problem, speaking of delusion. You've let the people playing the game of power trick you into thinking that their game is the only one in town.
Yeah, not a big deal to me. The no throttling is awesome.

However, I am seriously considering Crashplan myself when my subscription expires in February because I do not like the 30 day expiration policy. It is definitely a pain with large external drives. But I suppose I might not be profitable so maybe that's not worth fixing :P
Show HN: The Jaunting Club
I don't disagree in principle, but the last time I got excited about an open source RTS clone using a game's original assets, this happened:

http://games.slashdot.org/story/03/06/21/1323249/freecraft-c...

(And yes, it's been 11+ years since I got excited about one.)