skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It’s funny, because you’re not inclined to have a practical discussion rather than a philosophical one — my entire point is that by declaring that people are speaking the language ‘wrong’, you are yourself introducing the entire philosophical question of what ‘wrong’ means. You can’t say people are speaking the language wrong unless you’re ready to define what ‘wrong’ means. And I think you’ve realized that there’s no good way to answer that question.

Can you give me another example of where we use the word board in English to mean food? If not, I could ask you never use the phrase room and board again. But that would be silly. It does not matter whether could care less is a one-off instance — it is an idiom and that is the entire point. It does not matter whether you argue that the phrase adds unnecessary complexity to the language: it is already in the language despite your objections, because people use it. There’s nothing you can do to change that. Language is what people say; if they say it, it’s language.

It does not impede understanding because the idiomatic usage is pronounced differently. There is no confusion and no ambiguity. What you are saying simply isn’t the case.

Finally, it’s not the case that we ‘may or may not’ be going through a period of transition in the language. Language change is always happening.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_change
it is not true that the "reward [is] entirely given to the private sector." the royal mail is owned by the government, so the profits extracted from selling the postcode database could be viewed as subsidising other services. (post in rural areas, for example)
Showcase Your Latest Social Activities with BloggyBits Widget | Tech Bucket
No risk of a loop, the file is guaranteed to exist when it's done, the redirect happens just after the fclose on the 'write' (and only if the file is written successfully).

That way the browser will see the exact same headers it would on a request where the file did exist.
I see a flaw in your challenge...
We included a simple list of permitted sizes to protect against that. The velocity controls will block out a bot in a heartbeat anyway, but it seemed like a good thing to have.
> Yeah, but that's not very interesting, so I don't include it :)

Stuff like PHP indicates that plenty of people are quite happy to do quick one off's. Or Tcl/Tk for Unix, or VB for Windows. Scripting is a very sensible idea, and phones are quite capable of handling it these days.

I think it's extremely interesting creating something that opens up development to more people.
Javascript not functional?!?
He is, you're right. And I'm sure that it's individuals making incremental improvements in life quality that moves a place forward. But ... (and I'm trying to say this right) ... some part of me feels really depressed that a Malawi kid building a scrapyard generator is hailed as being so inspirational.

Is our view of Africa so pessimistic, then, so jaded, that what appears to be routine on Scrapheap Challenge is an inspirational act, just because it happened in Africa? Does it mean we normally operate on the underlying assumption that it is preposterous for the average African kid to work to improve his life, but perfectly normal for a kid in Texas or Utrecht to do so?

Does it mean we view the normal functioning of the good human spirit, of generosity and inventiveness, as somehow nonexistent in typical African children and therefore worthy of immense celebration in this one child? Do these views permeate our governments? Do we send aid not as the favor a good-natured neighbor would perform in times of duress, but rather as we might offer a beer to a man we have beggared, knowing his condition to be permanent but wishing nonetheless to lend him a moment's joy in a world of suffering?

Maybe our celebration of this kid (and it's true, what he did is awesome and helps his village and family out tremendously) is just about being genuinely warmed by the overcoming of a supremely difficult environment. Or maybe celebrating a minor victory assuages our guilt, pervasive hopelessness, and ultimate indifference regarding Africa.

I'm honestly not certain - but every time I see one of these stories, this same feeling of uneasiness comes up, and I'm not sure which way is the truth. Probably, like everything in the world, it's some of each.
I think it was webmynd
Could you elaborate? Are you saying that apps are CPU bound or that web apps have not been dealing with concurrency even before multi-core? Perhaps you mean that web app authors care about CPU usage too little, which may be true, but I still don't think that multi-core marks a huge change for them.
is someone slapping your wrists when you touch a keyboard? you are not being "held back", if college is easy then all the more time for you to be working on your own projects.

and you seem to have completely missed the point of this article, it is not 20k to work on a project so you dont have to deal with professors / employers.
"'Chicks'? You're such a man."
It may seem to you like it’s changing for no reason whatsoever, but that’s only because — sitting there in your armchair — you’re unable to come up with a good reason off the top of your head.

That's basically "you cannot prove there isn't a good reason". That's the case by definition. The burden for justifying the change lies with those supporting the change.

Saying that it takes you longer to parse the sentence is anecdotal nonsense

There is nothing anecdotal about my experience. If I have to blink and think twice about what someone is saying, then he is using nonstandard idiom.

it shows that forms can fossilize

That stuff can fossilize, doesn't mean we should let it fossilize. You're rehearsing the fallacy I was pointing out: 'could care less' is not fossilized and there is no bloody reason to allow it to fossilize. Moreover, you're comparing something that used to be standard idiom and has fossilized in that state with something that is changing and may fossilize in that new, changed state. The argument for the first rests entirely it's history and age, both of which the second lacks.
Prolog is a logic programming language and as far as I know logic programming is a subset of declarative programming.
HN is a great place to learn, there are tons and tons of people here that are a lot smarter than me and some debate helps to enlighten my sometimes dark and isolated viewpoints.

I'm living in a fairly out of the way location as far as the IT world is concerned, HN is pretty much the only contact I have with fellow hackers working on a myriad of interesting stuff.

There hasn't been an ask HN post that I put out that didn't come back with several insightful options, the sum of which was larger than the experience of any one live person that I know.

It's a fantastic resource, and a place where you can make friends that are hackers too.

That it's a factor in getting your YC application judged can safely be ignored, the very few edge cases where that's applicable do not make it worth the effort for those that might be inclined to try to game the system by flooding hn with 'insightful' comments.

In fact it's probably statistically pretty easy to puncture that balloon.
The ends and the means are not necessarily the same thing!

I would rather teach a new programmer Scheme, Python, Ruby etc than PHP, VB, etc.
Hm. I don't know if that will help at all. I figure the best way to make those videos is to do what you yourself would do, and to be as natural as possible.

If you don't do that then all that will happen is that YC will receive a bunch of cookie-cutter videos, and that's exactly what you do not want.

You want your video to present you in a way that matches you, not to present you in a way that matched someone else.
Finally, it’s not the case that we ‘may or may not’ be going through a period of transition in the language. Language change is always happening.

I mean with respect to this specific observation. If in five years time nobody ever says "I could care less" then I don't believe people's current use of "I could care less" constitutes a transition in the language, I believe it constitutes incorrectness.

My point is that transition in language is only observable after the fact. If I start calling apples "coconuts", and it doesn't catch on, then that's just mean speaking incorrectly. If it does catch on then it's the start of a transition. But which of the two it is is impossible to say until much later.
Did this guy's URL (apprentice.kfitz.me) make anybody else think he might have the Talent? (Robin Hobb...)
Your votes are being aggregated, that's what the karma counter is all about.

But 'high karma' as such shouldn't be a factor, it can mean many things. Average karma per comment would be a much better way of judging peoples contributions.
J. K. Rowling's 'witchcraft' offended Bush White House
I'd like to see some functional perl code.
It’s funny, because you’re not inclined to have a practical discussion rather than a philosophical one — my entire point is that by declaring that people are speaking the language ‘wrong’, you are yourself introducing the entire philosophical question of what ‘wrong’ means.

By declaring anything I'm introducing the entire philosophical question of what any word I use means.

We generally omit details of relative unimportance. In this case I suppose you think that the definition of "wrong" is very important to the discussion, whilst I think that the people I generally want to communicate with have a shared understanding of that concept.

We don't really have enough agreement over basic principles to continue the discussion.
Financial Services 
Brian Ofsie has 13 years experience and offers the best financial services. Best rate with the lowest fee and close your loan faster than any other broker.
An eventful month in a few words
Function Evolution
Free Computer Science Courses
It does not impede understanding because the idiomatic usage is pronounced differently. There is no confusion and no ambiguity.

I've never heard it pronounced because we don't use that phrase in Britain. It's always "I couldn't care less". It does lead to confusion when it's seen written.

Could you describe the difference in pronunciation of "I could care less" used under the two different meanings?
There's been a rash of stories recently about Microsoft's data centres which all seem to present their technology as cutting edge.

Sun has been selling such containers for years, I'm fairly certain Google and IBM had the lead on chillerless datacentres and using outside air for cooling.

Having a PR campaign that boasts about "cool" technology that others introduced and publicized before you did seems an awfully strange strategy.
Larry Ellison Still Hates "Cloud Computing Nonsense" (Video)
Apple buy map service to compete with Google?
I'm of two minds about the amount and percentage.

On the one hand it's seed stage, the very large majority of seed investments turns out to be wasted money, so there is a premium to be expected.

On the other hand $20K means that the startup will be looking for money again in the very near future, and getting follow up investments is a very time consuming job.

Then there is the fact that YC makes a bunch of very invasive requirements of the 'founders', they have to basically give up their life and family for this chance to be a player. That's a decision everybody makes for themselves of course, but you have to balance what YC can give you (a one time shot at the jackpot) to what you've already got.

I think this is why YC skews to younger people, the price to pay for a chance like this is a lot smaller when you're younger.

Also, older people tend to be unimpressed by $20K, especially if it is for multiple founders.
Excuse Me But Is That a Gazebo On Your Web Site?
CouchDB: Relaxing Offline Javascript
The REALLY depressing part is it's NOT a "tiny minority." In 2005, Gallup has had as many as 53% of American surveyed claim they are creationists.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/21811/american-beliefs-evolution-...
Does it mean we normally operate on the underlying assumption that it is preposterous for the average African kid to work to improve his life, but perfectly normal for a kid in Texas or Utrecht to do so?

Don't over think it.

American culture is littered with celebrations of child academic/scientific achievements; spelling bees, science competitions, mathematics Olympiads, appearances in late-night shows, "Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader", etc. Science and Mathematics magazines are full of the achievements of the youth, and the greatest of them all, SAT scores and college-admission epeens! Graduate students of every field live under the shadow of some little cockblock child prodigy or another; how many times have you been told "Gauss did this when he was 9", etc.

Every once in a while, we're allowed to have one such story .. from Africa. Fair enough?
Sync Google Search History With Your Mobile
Can you give me another example of where we use the word board in English to mean food?

This is not a sufficient counterexample. The two cases are too different to be compared.

1. Notice that in the "care less" example, it is the phrase that has changed, whilst the surrounding language has remained the same, whilst in the "board" example the phrase has remained the same, whilst the surrounding language has changed.

2. "Room and board" is not in popular usage whilst "I could care less" is (as far as I understand). Thus the potential for confusion is greater.

3. "Room and board" has a long established use. The use of "could care less" is much more recent.

You might have a point, but you'll have to find a closer example to convince me.

I could ask you never use the phrase room and board again.

If you found the phrase confused you, I'd comply. I'm not asking an authority to change the general usage of "I could care less". I'm suggesting that it's worth noticing that a change has occurred, that the change conflicts with literal interpretation, and that the people I communicate with could, for clarity, use the original version.
Can a single post make you smarter? This was an awesome description of why log file systems match with SSD (as long as TRIM is part of the picture). It also covers how flash based memories work in practice (small reads, but block writes).

Very fascinating stuff for a guy that only does simulations software, but was once super curious about electronics in junior lab physics (nand gates, opamps, feedback circuits).

Great SSD video (the 24 raid 0 setup)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs&feature=playe...
Er... such a script already exists. It's called TinyURL decoder, and despite it's name it unshortens links from a lot of services.
Twins also shares a common pre-birth environment, with the same environmental influences. I've read the argument that probably helps a lot to make them similar.
Coming Soon: Internet Apps that Heal Themselves
Ask HN: Stockholm Startups?
I recently moved to Stockholm for my wife's job. I'd like to work at a startup, and I've heard that there's supposed to be a decent community for that here (not like the valley, but better than most places). However, I'm starting from zero, with no network of people to talk to. I'm learning how easy it is to feel lost in a new country.

So, does anybody know of any good startups here? Or any communities I should try to get involved with?
It's not my political opinion that I tried to express. I just tried making an analogy, and most analogies are bad if taken literally.

I'll try to give you some context. The other day I read a comment on Miguel's blog, signed A.J. Venter (Founder, Kongoni GNU/Linux) ...

> I don't think Richard has any interest in improving the pool of open-source software, nor of free software. His interest is simple: protecting the users, and that means zero tolerance for non-free software

It's this attitude I was referring to, and can also be seen in Groklaw's article.

And regardless of what Richard truly wants, many people have taken upon themselves the responsibility of fighting a war against companies that release proprietary software.

Not only many of those people haven't contributed anything like what people like Miguel or RMS did (with meritocracy going out the window), but those same people are using the same tactics of companies we despise ... like FUD and harassment, in the name of saving the world from proprietary software.

The end justifies the means after all, but maybe the world doesn't want to be saved and that's something to consider whenever you insult someone for their choices (and this goes on both sides of the barricade).
The jury seems to still be out on Burt. Hamilton as a defender is not bad...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_Burt#.22The_Burt_Affair.2...
From the other story:

"For a start I was 15kg heavier than my brother."

but...

"Of the thousands of twins enrolled in the research program only 10 were more different in weight than us."

So it seems that in general twins weigh roughly the same.
Team WhiteBoarding with Twiddla
Scroll wheel works too
Not completeley related to the article, but the recent surge of people giving away their e-mail addresses everywhere on the internet hoping that someone with a spare Google Wave invite might give it to them made me wonder: how far would a fake-invite fraud could go? How many credit card details could be harvested? I'm surprized noone tried to do that.
The Anatomy of a Python Project
Mass Customization: So far away and yet so close
How To Respond Effectively To Design Criticism
Why (individual) Blogging Is Dead - Objective Measurement
But, but.... isn't this what journalists are SUPPOSED to do in the first place? Hearing both sides of the story, I mean?
I'd love to find to startup or developer communities here too. Do you speak Swedish ? I'd feel a bit awkward going to some meeting and being one of the few people who don't speak Swedish. I moved to Stockholm a couple of years ago but haven't had a chance to do any searching yet, busy with babies.
Great idea - now to just resubmit it as its own topic so it hits critical mass.
I think we're officially past the point where we can say the quality of our posts are any more hackery than they are on Reddit, which is where I first saw this three years ago.

I'm not completely against that, but if things like this are hitting the front page, I don't know if we're still entirely Hacker News and think we should be aware of that.
When there's free publicity in giving old tech a new label, then of course companies are going to take advantage of that. Suppose you're a CEO and some interviewer asks you if you will move your software to the cloud, or interface with the cloud you pretty much have to advocate you have big plans for the cloud (even when it's nothing substantial) or you'll be put on the defensive. Since you can't persuade interviewers or the general public that cloud computing is meaningless for your business (if you already do SaS), it's a no win situation.

That said, I do think that cloud computing is innovation, in the sense that you can no longer point to an individual server and say "my software runs on that machine". We're now in an environment where -nobody- knows where your software is, and yet it still works.

Cloud computing is way overhyped and suitable for relatively few situations, but there is some innovation here.
Not a startup recommendation, but if you're not aware of http://www.thelocal.se/, you probably should be. :)

It's a news site in English, and has what seems to be a quite lively forum section, which might be a good place to ask, too.
Great ressource
More social networking impressions of the HTC Hero [review]
Livestream Livepack: a 'satellite television truck in a backpack'
What are your skills? What type of business areas are you interested in?
That's a really annoying headline because it's not a question, so why's there a question mark?
I was astonished to see Vanilla on the list. Vanilla's kind of been a secret name among big forum people since it launched; it's got some astoundingly innovative features. I love it, but haven't been able to use it in a project before to give it support.

Considering I've always had this mindset of TechStars churning out inferior YC products, it surprised me not that Mark would apply but that TechStars would accept something like that. Color me pleasantly surprised.
One big thing that's happening soon is 24 hour business camp in late October. The event is already full (120 participants) but there will probably be an after-party the weekend after the event where you can build your network. edit: link for that is http://www.24hbc.com/

Mattias Swenson of Bloglovin maintains a Ning network at http://swedishstartups.ning.com/ - it's not extremely active but if you sign up for a membership you'll get emails when new stuff happens, mostly in Stockholm but also in the rest of Sweden.

I'm in Stockholm, feel free to drop me an email (contact info in profile) if you'd like to chat or have any questions. Welcome and gear up for the coming winter ;)
The Erlang community has historically spawned a lot of interesting startups in Stockholm (Bluetail, Synapse, Kreditor, tail-f, Mobile Arts, ...). There are pub nights.
The burden for justifying the change lies with those supporting the change.

You’re the one categorically claiming that the way people talk is somehow ‘wrong’. If you want to make that claim, you need to support it. Without going into highly technical details, I explained some ways why the usage could make sense. Your response was simply to say, as if declaring it somehow makes it true, that there is no reason for the usage.

There is nothing anecdotal about my experience. If I have to blink and think twice about what someone is saying, then he is using nonstandard idiom.

By definition your experience is anecdotal. I doubt you have to think twice when someone says it, but we’d have to subject you to an experiment to be sure. But simply put, there are so many cognitive biases that may potentially be at work that you really can’t reliably judge yourself whether it takes you longer to process. Sentence processing happens on the order of tens of milliseconds.

That stuff can fossilize, doesn't mean we should let it fossilize.

You’re assuming that you have some control over whether the use develops in the language. I’m saying that’s a flawed assumption and that you don’t.

If you’re so sure the usage is wrong, it may be interesting to note how many hits there are for each phrase in Google’s index:

2,220,000 for "could care less"
1,410,000 for "couldn't care less"

I readily admit that this, too, is anecdotal evidence. But it’s quite telling, no?
Don't worry, my comment was intended to be fun. Apologies if that didn't come across.