skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
This is the argument of the ages, no?

I would say moral codes are about trying to use your agency to do good, not bad; there's no obvious reason why "doing good" would always and everywhere equate with "easy to cope with".

You claim you're not doing a #s game but I think I can prove that you are, even if you're not yet aware of it.

Consider this alternative scenario: the trolley is hurtling towards the 5 men as before and you've got the option of throwing a switch; what's new is that this time the switch moves the train into an empty railyard, saving the five lives at no one's expense.

The #s game is removed and it's just a case of: do you think yourself morally obligated to throw the switch and save the lives, or not?

Careful here.
I am not sure why this has gotten so much attention lately? I don't see anything out of extraordinary to drop to low level to accomplish something that is unusually complex or requires high performance...

Also I am not sure what is with this new tendency to call everything unicorns and ponies? It's intellectually degrading, and depressing to read such articles.
He is the archetypal borderline autistic, non-conformist, free-thinking technologist.

This is incorrect.

Like most programmers, Ted's reach often exceeded his grasp.

He can program, but he's not a programmer.

The above text is excerpted from the definitive 1995 Wired article on Project Xanadu, which is still as electrifying to read today as it was then. The hubris and sheer scale of the Xanadu dream are at turns both inspiring and desperately, hopelessly out of touch.

Desperately and hopelessly out of touch perhaps for you. The reason it's inspiring is the same reason that working at a great company or in a great computer lab or on great software is inspiring. You're working on something where your philosophy is embodied by the software.

The hubris and the sheer scale are called planning ahead. Instead of solving problem X, Nelson wanted to solve problems X, Y and Z all at once. Some problems need to be tackled all at once and Nelson was right about this. How many implementations of payments and micropayments have we seen that have failed on the Web? They fail because they aren't integrated with the Web.

But even that alone was enough to build a functional and useful internet for the world

The Internet was already useful without the Web.

Consider the reality of what's actually possible, what people can understand, and what us all too human programmers can practically implement. It might not be the Xanadu you dreamed of -- heck, it might even suck -- but it'll at least have a fighting chance of existing in reality rather than fantasy.

If all we do is build good-enough software, we'll end up just applying patch after hacky patch to it to make it do the 100% thing. Again, sometimes you have to design with the whole of the problem in mind. Turn the corner cases into normal cases, in other words.

Off-topic...
I'm sick and tired of having to defend the history of computing. I had to defend Smalltalk yesterday, and I've had to defend Lisp and Scheme against people as well. I had to defend friggin' Java against C...I shouldn't have to do that.
Problem is, it must be 200th pop science writeup on my memory about some inconsistency found with GR, and am not all that old. We still have no better theory yet.
10 finger multi-touch UI designed to replace the mouse
When you choose "Quit" from the Program Manager in Windows 3.1, you're back in DOS. Couldn't you run Lemmings that way?
A C++ Challenge
fogbugz... Being able to guess how long it will take, and then meet your own deadline is strangely fun in itself.

If you have trouble getting started on your work, just make a few subcases, and estimate them as well.

As quizbiz said, crossing the todo's off your list makes it feel like you're accomplishing something :)
It's always disappointing when you get articles about your company into major news outlets, but they link to your competitors and not your own site.
Okay - let's get the obvious out of the way: are you ADD/ADHD and, if so, have you been taking any recent meds? If not, let's talk about your diet: tons of carbs but lack of protein? How about sleep - getting enough of it? Lastly, when was your last vacation?

These are all major factors in feeling a sense of restlessness or being lackadaisical towards critical, yet mundane tasks. Sometimes burnout is the term for this whereas other times it is simple procrastination. So which is it?
Which symbolic maths package to start?
I am a CS student with a strong background in engineering and numerical mathematics. But now I want to play around a little bit with symbolic maths packages a little bit. Which one should I learn? Cost is a factor. I can work on either Linux or Windows. Might be playing a little bit with calculus and number theory to start.
see http://xkcd.com/356/
I love this. The guy is like the Steve Irwin of electronic engineering.
Good or bad, I'd say Apple are pretty much stuck with ObjC. Cocoa and all the other frameworks OS X uses are written like they are because of the language's syntax. This is demonstrated by how crappy the PyObjC code looks (compared to "regular" Python):

notificationCenter.addObserver_selector_name_object_(
notificationHandler,
"handleMountNotification:",
NSWorkspaceDidMountNotification,
None)

To make it work with some other language (say, C#/C++/Ruby/Brainfuck/Python or whatever) would basically be a complete redesign of the framework, which in turn would basically be a complete redesign of OS X.. And why? Objective C is a perfectly decent language.. I'm not sure anyone would be using it where it not for Carbon/Cocoa, but it's not a bad language at all
Hard to read...he's saying there are two categories within "unpleasant work": necessary, unnecessary. School is in the latter.
Look for ways to make the assignment relevant to your interests. Sometimes it's as simple as choosing a topic you like for an English essay. If you're not interested in your math homework, try poking around those topics on Wikipedia. Being able to click through to subjects that seem interesting might peek your interest in the original subject. Sometimes, seeking out more work can make the assignment "easier" because you're more interested in it.

If you're referring to really mindless work, then I solve that by listening to something I like when I do it. (Such as music or a podcast.) For example, I'm a researcher, and sometimes I just have to do some mindless data entry. It's my data and no one else is going to do it for me. I get through it by listening to things I like while doing it.
I'm pretty sure they do, using reflectivity ... but having looked I can't find them as products even though some toasters are listed on Amazon at > $400 USD for a 2-slice popup toaster they still just have a timer and handle to popup the toast. $400!
Do you use Yahoo Pipes? If not, you should.
I've long heard it argued that the current model of billing insurance for primary care caused more problems than it solved. It's good to see entrepreneurs test this hypothesis.
I wanted to share an article I wrote on Yahoo Pipes because of the value it provides.

If you read Hacker News, I am willing to bet you read at least 10 other publications.

Yahoo Pipes will allow you to mashup RSS feeds with the ability to filter the noise.

Yahoo Pipes was probably the single greatest tool I have found for filtering content in the last 6 months.
Randall once explained in a talk at Google how he got obsessed with this puzzle to a degree that he saw these patterns of infinite grids on toilet tiles. ;)
I watched nearly all the vids. He's amazingly enthusiastic.
I'm not sure what's more egregious, Pepsi's app, or PCMag's ads.
Keeping Score: Stravinsky's Rite of Spring
Shared folders and multiple file upload in Google Docs
Without god there can be no morals?
(I also live in Miami)

Just start enforcing a new stereotype (which you already are)!

I need to as well...
How We Used Data to Win the Presidential Election
In 1918 Pandemic, Another Possible Killer: Aspirin
Have you thought about getting your GED? Maybe the reason why you're unmotivated by schoolwork is that it is useless to you.

What types of activities do you find difficult to do? Cleaning toilets, doing math problems, writing reports?

One technique that I use is stolen from PJE (http://dirtsimple.org/2006/01/smelling-fear-feeling-future.h...), The "Mmmmm" test.

Generally you're doing these things to get something else that you find worthwhile. If you can visualize this goal deeply enough to change your emotional state, like Homer Simpson fantasizing about donuts, then you can associate it with the thought of doing the drudgery as well. It takes time and effort to retrain yourself to do this, though.
TV dancer, 73, to repay benefits
[Google Wave,] The Eternal Conference Call
Sell your product with fake screenshots
My friends used to come over my place. We used to sit together, discuss what/how to do it, have drinks and complete it. So we essentially converted "Boring task completion time" into "Socializing and fun time".
On the other hand, unless you're on the International Space Station, you probably have enough space to rotate the screen relative to gravity and lock it.
1) Do the easiest/most fun part of whatever boring task there is to do first. Most things are not as boring or as excruciating as they seem to be, once you're actually doing them. Objects in motion...

2) Only do the bare minimum work necessary to get passing grades in high school, unless you plan to attend college. No one cares what grades you got in HS. Anything you're genuinely interested in you can learn much more deeply on your own.

3) Learning self-discipline is extremely valuable, even if you rarely invoke it. This boring work could be a blessing, if you can use it to teach yourself discipline.
I've heard very good things from people whose opinions I trust about Sage via Python. I would be interested in seeing a variety of opinions from others.
I can personally vouch for Indochino. I'm a very slim guy and had always struggled to find a suit that fit just right. I have ordered two suits from them; I sent my measurements and I received a perfectly-fitted suit in less than a week. They even sent a voucher for tailoring (which I never had to use).

I'm of the opinion that you get what you pay for with clothing, and I don't think Bonobos is very expensive for nicely-made pants (you can easily spend much, much more). Indochino happens to be a nice exception. My suits fit as well as (or better than) my friends' $1000+ Italian suits.

Edit: Regarding the "outsourced" comment, Indochino is a team of 6 in Canada that employs 50 tailors in Shanghai.
ADD can be an advantage if you learn how to concentrate and control your impulses (read Richard Branson's biography). Plus the OP is in high school. How many people here can say they had motivation and concentration problems in high school? An individual's brain isn't fully developed until his or her late 20s.
If the work that has to be done has a deadline, and you find yourself procrastinating right up until the deadline, whereby you work frantically on the boring work for far too little time but still manage to get it done - I wouldn't worry so much yet. In fact, if you can gauge your ability to get things done at the last minute, and you've sussed that you only work well under extreme pressure, you can enjoy your procrastinating and schedule in the real work for the last minute. I don't advocate this for a life strategy but it sure got me through undergraduate maths supervisions.
This new protocol uses packet latency based throttling instead of the packet loss based throttling of TCP.

I don't think the article documents any details. Maybe I missed a link.
Typically, the guy who found the flaw and fixed it will submit it to the upstream developers which hopefully will be able to tell if the patch can be trusted or not, apply it to the development repository, eventually release a patched version, and warn vendors(mostly, Linux distributions) to upgrade. The user only has to keep up to date.
Ask HN: Living/working in Cupertino?
There exists a possibility that we'll (wife and I) be relocating to the Cupertino area from the Boston suburbs in the next 6 months.

Knowing very little about the area, I was hoping that somebody could offer some insights or recommendations on the local housing scene.

Would like to keep the commute <40 minutes (let's just use 1 Infinite Loop as a theoretical destination).

We have 2 properties currently that are valued at about $750K together, so would like to stay in that price range +/- maybe $100K. Less dense/populated is better, but flexible on that.

Any suggestions or thoughts?
But that is a failure with the Cloud storage/computing pitch, no?

All along critics have been saying that you'd be nuts to trust someone else to back up and secure your important data.
Which ones? The one for Welch's grape juice or the HP add where the printer mysteriously grows a hand and reaches into a man's pocket?
"... The Journal of the American Medical Association suggested a dose of 1,000 milligrams every three hours, the equivalent of almost 25 standard 325-milligram aspirin tablets in 24 hours. This is about twice the daily dosage generally considered safe today. ... The pharmacology of aspirin is complex and was not fully understood until the 1960s, but dosage is crucial. Doubling the dose given at six-hour intervals can cause a 400 percent increase in the amount of the medicine that remains in the body. Even quite low daily doses — six to nine standard aspirin pills a day for several days — can lead to dangerously high blood levels of the drug in some people."

Very interesting. Shows just how desperate doctors had become. But the dosage (cost) makes me think this explanation was confined to military not the general population.
High School is not hard. I just did enough to pass and get into my school of choice (standardized tests usually matter more here). I basically made a game of how little I could do and still get by...this is somewhat stupid and is really only advised if you are naturally smart...whatever that means.

There will always be people that say you HAVE to this or that. In my experience this is hardly ever the case...as long as you're willing to work as hard as you possibly can when you really really actually need to.
Agreed. Sidekick users aren't blaming SANs because, well, they don't care about SANs. After all, isn't the whole point of this system that you're paying someone else to figure out how to store and back up your data?
What sort of ads did you get? I just saw computer hardware, software, and accessories.
"are you ADD/ADHD and, if so, have you been taking any recent meds?"

Don't think so. I'm not on any medication.

"If not, let's talk about your diet: tons of carbs but lack of protein? "

I guess so, but I don't feel that my diet is particularly unhealthy. So far today I had: an apple, oatmeal, avocado, carrots, some (whole-wheat) toast, a hard-boiled egg, a sweet potato, and a bag of steamed mixed vegetables w/ corn, asparagus, green beans etc, and just water to drink.

"How about sleep - getting enough of it?"

I usually get 6 – 8 hours (except at the beginning of the week when I'm typically feeling apathetic about school and stay up late working on a project or something), so yes, I think so.

"Sometimes burnout is the term for this whereas other times it is simple procrastination. So which is it?"

A combination of both, I think.
I came here to make the same comment. I've seen their billboards everywhere. My wife (who is a lawyer) thinks it pushes ethical boundaries, but that there is technically/legally nothing wrong with what they are doing (based on just skimming their info).
Hope you guys like my talk. I'd be glad to answer any questions from the HN community!
It's obviously a joke. If she thinks men would actually use that, well I'll just say maybe the aspartame in that Diet Coke has gotten to her brain.
My doc tried to roll out a flat-rate care plan a few years ago -- $4500/year inc. phone calls and visits. I couldn't go with it, and not just because of the price -- the referals system with my insurance company was entangled in a lawsuit, and I couldn't get a guarantee from the company managing the doctor that I wouldn't be charged some out-of-network rate for care.

I had to give up my doctor and find someone else.
Can anyone explain the legal status of unauthorized translations like these?
I think the author makes an extremely far-fetched parallel between prominent people throughout history being excellent poker players. Could it be the other way round: being an extraordinary personality would make one good at activities that require careful reasoning/observation etc. ?
2 and 3 are at odds. Do the bare minimum, but learn self-discipline? Self discipline is a muscle. Don't exercise it and it atrophies.
Co-founder or employee?
I am the sole founder of a year old software start-up that is modestly profitable. At this stage I need another technical person to help me develop the product further. I want to hire a top notch engineer, and am willing and able to pay a market salary. I recently pitched my start-up to a grad school classmate who is currently working at major tech company in the Seattle area, and he seemed very interested. This guy is one of the best engineers I know, and if he joined it would be a huge help to me, both from the point of view of sharing the technical work, and just the emotional burdens of start-up life. I have been looking for a kick-ass 2nd employee for a while, and this is the first one I have found who is interested in my start-up. The problem is that he wants to join as a co-founder instead of as an employee.

However, I feel that I am the one who took all the real risk in taking the start-up from scratch to where it is today. I don't want to give up half of my start-up to another person!! I am willing to pay him more than what he currently earns, plus 5-10% equity in the start-up. But I have a feeling this won't be acceptable to him.

If I am not able to hire my friend, I don't know when I will find another equally talented guy. So I am in a bit of a dilemma. I would like to get some advice on this from fellow hackers. If someone else has been in this situation from either side of the equation, and he can share his own experience that would be very helpful in making up my mind. Thanks.
"... He estimated it would take tens of millions of dollars for someone to come into Outlook and do what Xobni has done. ..."

Anything on the MS platform could be replicated by Microsoft and I've seen them do this for strategic reasons. Cost is not the issue, understanding the problem & mindset is.
Some asshole that I have never heard of writes "Raymond is not read much any more"! With the general suckiness of the articles, I don't see any reason to bother reading much more of Bruce Byfield. I just wish Raymond would actually write more.
I stopped reading when I saw "Bill O'Reilly vs. Richard Dawkins" -- how could Bill O'Reilly ever possibly be a legitimate and intelligent counterpoint to Dawkins?
Poker taught me how to kill my risk-aversion. Or I suppose it taught me that I'm naturally not very risk-averse. You start to see your decisions in life as choosing a probability distribution over a set of outcomes. And then if you can reasonably assess the value of those outcomes (using whatever metric you choose, e.g. money in poker, or perhaps some more general "utility" in life) you can try to maximize your expected value.

Now don't get me wrong, you can be risk-averse and still analyze decisions this way. But poker helps you start to understand how you feel about things like investments and probable payoffs, and it helps you deal with loss. It helps you set up a framework for decision-making. After that you will relatively quickly discover how risk-averse you are.
More like a weekend project...
It sounds to me like you need a good hack. If you're truly the type "c" procrastinator PG talks about then let's visualize this. This means your intellect is running on a higher level than the mundane circumstances around you. Would Einstein flunk out of high school because his mind was in neutron land while sitting through a lecture on some obscure part of history? He might, but that would be bad form. I strongly believe you should at least get a high school diploma (or GED equivalent), because it's too simple.

If you're on this board then you are likely entrepreneurial. You need to be able to analyze and solve problems. At the end of the day your teachers (now they are customers) need you to produce either a certain test score, or paper. Find a way to give them what they want, even if you have to hack it so that you're not doing all the tedious work yourself and/or simply test out of subjects.
Bruce Schneier linked to this article, the comments are here http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/10/using_wi-fi_to... .

This is pretty obviously an outgrowth of the old body capacitance sensors used in monitoring secure areas. It would be pretty easy to spoof since it would also detect moving pieces of any conductors or electronic devices. For SAR they would only detect a person (or electronic device) that was moving; if you are pinned down, tough luck.
Yes, it's called the Golden Rule.
I'm not sure he meant to imply that all these prominent people were excellent players. Just that the game provided a kind of training ground for decision-making and its analysis and an excuse for extended conversations with interesting people.
It's actually a funny video to watch; Dawkins schools him, pretty much.
Is it really legal/possible to have a company with secret ownership?

You can't even own a house without the owner being public record - how can you do that with a company (corporation)?
Visualization: Physical Storage VS Digital Storage
Pretty cool. I could see my productivity increase from something like that.
Ask HN: Custom CD Store Middleman (like Cafepress)
I'm looking for a company that will let me create a bunch of CDs and have them manage the burning and sales for a percentage of the profits, kind of like Cafepress only with data CDs instead of T-Shirts and mugs....

Does anyone know if such a company exists?

Thanks!
Without a god, there is still law, there is still government, and there is still intelligence. Intelligent people understand what is best for civilization, and what is not (like rape and murder). People of even higher intelligence know this without any delusional commandments or overseer.
I can't say I've been following this case closely nor am I a lawyer but... it sounds like the Pirate Bay guys are saying "we don't own the [possibly] criminal enterprise; we just run it." If the organization's activities are deemed illegal wouldn't anyone facilitating these activities be liable? Why does it matter whether they "own" it? How are, say, mafia bookies or web designers in the employ of illegal gambling operations websites treated under the law?
Multitouch innovators should take heed. A lot of the NUIGroup community is centered around hardware innovations, which is cool and all, but we need more and more software!
Listen "THIS IS IT" song from Michael Jackson
Find something you actually want. There is almost a 100% chance you will need a high school degree to get it, but knowing specifically what it is will help greatly.
The article doesn't mention details but in the comments, Simon links to the IETF working group on this: http://www.ietf.org/dyn/wg/charter/ledbat-charter.html