skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
respectfully, i feel that this is a bit heavy handed. i take issue with the use of 'mean'. it is mean to say someone's breath smells of poo, but that does not make it inaccurate or unnecessary. maybe i am assuming too much from your statement about your intent. i come from a crowd where there was a fair amount of hazing, razzing, and general meanness applied to the newer members. this served to discourage folks who did not want to take the time to learn the way of things.

TBC, i only take issue with you flagging a mean comment. i believe the downvote is the best option if you are opposed to mean comments.

...please dont flag me bro
This discourages people from dissenting, moves their opinions to the end of the thread (or deletes them), and suggests to commentators they're not welcome in the discussion. PG is not the pope; I don't think we're bound by his stance.
There seems to be a lot of hype around this device, but I personally just could not get it to work very well, nor could the 3 or 4 people I showed it to. I understand that the gesture recognition is based on statistical data and there will be people with issues, so perhaps I am just one of the outliers. That being said, I have not tried their new firmware (I will in the next couple days), so maybe that will help.
I upvote articles on which I would like to see more discussion. I upvote insightful comments and rarely downvote as it discourages participation. I think downvoting should be only used for extremely rude or misleading comments. If I disagree with a comment I reply with my point of view.
With the present level of trust in the U.S. government, especially with respect to "cyber" behaviors, it seems ill-advised to publicly announce an intention to retaliate based on "trust us, we have proof it's them but we won't tell you what it is". It's right up there with "we have proof Iraq's got WMD's but we wont tell you what it is". Whether it's true or not, the point is they don't have the brownie points right now to be able to say that and be believed.
I upvote articles that seem particularly interesting and/or that I want to read later. Since recently receiving some harsh downvotes simply for expressing an opinion, I've changed my strategy to upvote comments that I feel have been similarly mistreated. I rarely downvote anymore.
Problem is currency is one of the highest value possible uses of decentralized information authentication. Blockchain storage is at a premium, and money is one of the smallest size, highest info dense, highest utility uses of that scarce storage space. Everyone likes to wax poetic about other uses of Bitcoin, but it's not clear any of it is a good idea given the storage costs. Currency is likely the killer app.

http://hashingit.com/analysis/33-7-transactions-per-second

http://hashingit.com/analysis/35-the-future-of-bitcoin-trans...
Schwab password policies and two factor authentication
How I Got the First Paying Customers for My Startup
FWIW, since it's just part of her identity, not her defining characteristic, many people consider it impolite to use "transgender" as a noun. The preferred usage might be something like "transgender person" or just a "trans person" for short.

Consider "a 10 year old autistic" as an analogously impolite usage.
Since we are currently working with VR technology (Unity Engine 3D world+Rift+XBox controller) it's pretty interesting how rather trivial issues can be quite challenging.

One example: When doing usability testing it's pretty common that people get dizzy or can't use the glasses for 5 minutes+ (which in my book means...pretty unusable). Even fiddling with some of the recommended settings doesn't help all that much. So our next step there is to figure out a good prescreen ("carousel sickness" seems to correlate)

It's also interesting that after some preliminary/very quick research, VR is often either not compared to other options at all or compared to non-tech solutions (typically for training applications) whereas the comparison that I expected intuitively (Rift vs. 3D engine with just a controller) is rare.

It's fun fiddling around with this stuff and I'm looking forward to learning more about it in 2015 but my initial reaction is...sceptical. I may have access to a CAVE next year though :D
Ask HN: XMPP/Jabber self hosting
I'd like to host my own XMPP server for OTR communications. I've previously used OTR on top of Google Chat/Hangouts, but I would like to try managing the server myself.

Does anyone have experience with a modern XMPP server? I found a list of server software at http://xmpp.org/xmpp-software/servers/, however I'd like to hear some experiences before selecting one.
The Exit Interview
It's not the local Scientology Society, it's the USG, the most powerful and lethal organization on Earth. They might usually be "innocently wrong", but sometimes they're wrong and thousands of people die. I'm aiming at those occasions. Same reason I oppose death penalty, you never know if the person is really guilty, so you shouldn't kill them, just to be safe.
I assume you mean PPP ratio.
AFAIK tpb.cr is a third party clone of TPB, and not affiliated with the original.
I spent the last couple of weeks rewriting MegaHAL, and it's finally online again after a brief absence.

You can talk with MegaHAL here: http://megahal.kranzky.com/

All source is freely available on GitHub, unencumbered by a license.

The main MegaHAL repository is https://github.com/jasonhutchens/megahal/ It includes a console application and eight built-in personalities, including Sherlock Holmes. And it's easy to hook into its API if you want to build something else with it.

MegaHAL uses Sooth, which is a simple stochastic predictor, written in C but wrapped in a Ruby gem. It's available at https://github.com/jasonhutchens/sooth/ MegaHAL uses five separate Sooth predictors to do its thing. You could build other things with it.

Finally, the code for the server itself is available at https://github.com/jasonhutchens/megahal-server/ It's a Rails 4.2 app with a crappy Bootstrap theme. A basic REST api hooks things up, and a daemonized version of MegaHAL processes the queue of jobs coming in from the world.

Have fun, I'm looking forward to seeing how warped the online personality becomes, and how big the brain file grows.

Share and Enjoy!
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8748658
Sorry but as a man in a similar position, that science ain't gonna help us. I think the real problem is in the way we present the fart; apparently a proud grin and a nod to my son isn't 'polite'.
Ask HN: Suggestions for yearend projects
Its the end of the year. Can we share our biggest problems/ideas which can become seed for some of the side projects. As they get built I am pretty sure we will see them in ShowHN.
WiFi hack
Can a wifi connection be hacked .
if only this existed back in Van Halen's heyday

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Halen#Contract_riders
It is even more than that, the FBI PR quote that this is based on is the following:

"For example, the FBI discovered that several Internet protocol (IP) addresses associated with known North Korean infrastructure communicated with IP addresses that were hardcoded into the data deletion malware used in this attack."

Firstly, this isn't a statement of evidence, it is an generalized example of the type of evidence the FBI apparently has. Given the lack of any further clarifications on this statement, I don't see how you can make and presumptions as to what the actual evidence is. there just is not enough data here.

Secondly, the statement is carefully worded to say that the C&C IP's have communicated with known NK infrastructure. This is massively different than saying that the C&C IP's are associated with NK infrastructure. What the FBI is saying is that they have been able to apparently collect evidence that shows NK was communicating with the C&C IP's, presumably while the attacks were going on. With what we know about the state of internet surveillance, is it really that unrealistic to think that US SIGINT is collecting every single packet that transits known KN networks? Seems right in their wheelhouse.

Point is, the FBI aint telling us squat about what evidence they may or may not really have. Maybe this is because they are making the whole thing up, or maybe it is because they just don't want to tell us how much evidence they got, and how they got it.
And do you know what happens if you do not fart?

The air goes somewhere. In fact, it is dissolved back through your large intestines and is dissolved back to your blood.
>Instead of feigning shock or getting upset

It's not shock, it's disappointment. You put up with this shit[1] because it's shiny?

[1]: http://openbenchmarking.org/prospect/1304096-FO-RARINGOSX81/...
Came in here to see if someone would mention it. Glad to see I was not let down ;)
I downvote poorly thought comments, although given some of the abusive uses of downvoting here, I would rather that it not exist.

I upvote articles I find to be interesting reads, articles worth significant discussion on subject matter (tech or non-tech related - does not even have to be math/science/engineering related), or comments to counter bad downvoting. I also will upvote comments I like due to thoroughness, even if I disagree with the argument(s) made.
The problem is that the software uses a post's score to determine how it is displayed. Therefore, upvote-to-agree philosophy can have the effect of promoting the most popular opinions rather than the most well-argued ones.

To make a real-world comparison: If this were an in-person forum, an up/downvote would be the equivalent of raising/lowering the volume of the speaker's microphone. As much as it is in our nature to do so, we don't want to simply raise the volume of the speakers whose views align with our own. In fact, we should be trying to do the opposite so that we can seek to learn—we have a lot more to learn from our detractors than from our adherents.

If the score was simply displayed as a metric of who has expressed [dis]approval, then I'd agree with you. A system of specifying a reason for up/downvotes could accomplish this (i.e. maintain separate scores for the displayed count vs. the metric used to alter the comment's presentation), but the UI could get fairly convoluted.
I didn't notice this, because I sometimes use my flatus for crass humor or for social retaliation. Most of the time, I hold it in before the flight, and squeeze out as much as I can right at the screening checkpoint, as the penalty for inconveniencing me with security theater. As a result, I wouldn't have all that much left for the plane, unless it was a long flight.

It's such a petty and rude form of protest that I wonder why I do it at all. Perhaps it's because, despite my age in the double digits, I still think farts are funny.
Wow really? Well I hope you thought it through and didn't just rely on a "stranger's comment" for this decision. In any case, I wish you the best and trust you'll have the skills to find something you really love - everyone should aspire to do what they love.
Very cool. I just picked up a couple Mindstorms kits and have been debating my first build challenge. This looks perfect (though it won't be as quick I'm sure)

Edit: Just playing with the math regarding the speed of this machine considering the M&Ms are in free fall. Nicely done!
Argentine goverment blocked the domain at ISP level
We can access thru a mirror [1] and I'm not seeing the video you talk.

[1] http://chupalacapif.com

translate "suck this capif" -- that's the argentine org which worked internally to get the domain blocked
I'm a Ukrainian/Jewish American (though I do, admittedly, live and work in SV).

It's not that I'm in favor of only having one cluster, I've just accepted it as a fact of life. To some degree this has always been the case -- art in Florence, music in Vienna, etc. etc. etc. There are tons of examples.

I'd love for other major clusters to emerge, but sociological laws are as real as the laws of physics. It's no use to lament the inconvenience of gravity, and it's no use to lament the inconvenience of network effects. They simply exist.
Lots of people work very hard and never make it rich. Working long hours is not a trait unique to very successful people. Therefore, what is unique? Luck.

As far as "living on very little as a grad student", grad students may live on a tight budget but they don't know what poverty means.

I didn't say there was no hard work involved, but the article is not really about the work. It's about these big things that Martine was only able to do because she got very wealthy and very lucky early on.

If you're not already super rich, no amount of hard work is going to let you start a drug company to save your child.

Please don't confuse my dislike for this fawning profile with dislike of Martine. My whole point is that this article nothing but sycophantic fluff, and as a result I don't know Martine at all really. The most insightful thing in this whole article is that she started a weird cult.
Does anybody have any experience with TopTal? Somebody (I guess a recruiter had just sent me an email inviting me there?)
You Can 3D Print Official Hoover Vacuum Accessories Now
The US appointed a puppet dictator (Syngman Rhee) who authorised the torture and extermination of people for the crime of being a communist. They also destroyed every single building in the North (not hyperbole, literally every single building). Add to that the continued war games along the border and off the north Korean coast and constant slander.

And I hate to resort to whataboutery, but let's not forget Guantanamo Bay and the recently released reports about the US's torturing of prisoners.

As I said, believe what you want about NK, but their current situation did not develop in a vacuum.
I run ejabberd on my personal domain. It was easy to set up and has run without really needing any active management for a few years now.
So it puts all M&Ms in one pot and Skittles in the other? Or so that it can deal with all the different colours between the two?
The first would be tricky!
You read my mind!

Ok, you read my github ;-) But yes! Lua has multiple returns, we can perform 'register allocation' and spill over onto locals. Stack? Hah.
We accept payments via both Stripe and PayPal, and I have to say, trying to find a baremetrics-esque solution for us has been insanely frustrating. We're still calculating LTV, churn, etc. by hand since surprisingly none of these services actually support both, and by looking at the metrics from only one payment source we're missing out on the bigger picture.

So glad to see someone finally made one for PayPal, but without support for other payment systems, I don't see it being able to compete with what's out there. This would only be useful for a company accepting payments from JUST PayPal, which as others have pointed out is probably a rare case these days.

ChartMogul claims to be working on PayPal support, so hopefully that will come through. In the meantime, I still think there's a huge hole in this market for supporting PayPal + other services.
I disagree with this. The most successful applications that I am aware of are in realms where reality is being reproduced and not escaped. The key advantage is that variables in those worlds can be changed and/or stuff isn't as dangerous while still being realistic.

While escapist and fantasy worlds are fun and very much thinkable (and the line is pretty blurry if you think of the use of VR in therapy for example) reproducing reality is very much "a thing".

Domains that come to mind are: medical training specifically surgery and training for miners.
NewtonScript is very much a Turing-complete language.
I don't know who carried it out but I'm 99% sure I know who is behind it.

And how confident are you that this isn't the Dunning–Kruger effect in action?
If anything, I think it just means that there is a market for the Arcade again. People realize that their home and personal budget are going to limit the full experience. That has always been the case. But it also doesn't make it an unworthy field to pursue.
> At least we used to just call it the Department of War.

> It was much more honest.

The Department of War was only really analogous to the modern Department of Defense for about a decade from 1789 until 1798 when the Department of the Navy was pulled out to its own department. From 1798 to 1947, the "Department of War" was at least as misleading as the modern Department of Defense, since a whole lot of war was conducted under the auspices of another department (the Department of the Navy.)
I don't think anyone starting out is scarring their reputation. Being new and an asshole will scar your reputation, but being new, humble and learning won't. You see if all the time on Stackoverflow and even here. If you ask a question and need some help, if you are humble and accept feedback to learn you are rarely every criticized. But if you are a douche you'll be called out quickly and rightfully.

I agree that the memory is basically never ending now, but you also have to realize most people will generally only judge you on your recent abilities, not something that transpired years ago, unless it is just so egregious that it can't be ignored. And everyone had to start somewhere, which I think almost everyone gets.

Lastly, don't let fear cripple you into not doing jumping in. Do it, and when you are wrong, just admit it and move on. The tech community while sometimes judgmental and even cruel in their comments is also probably the one place that really does value contributions over mistakes. And at least in my opinion if your contributions and attitude outweigh the mistakes people are really accepting.
Synopsys: Presentation on developing voice interfaces for children.

Oren Jacob shared clips of children talking to the ToyTalk apps and anecdotes of his research with children to demonstrate the challenges of designing voice applications for kids. He also touched on the regulatory issues surrounding recording children and how ToyTalk approaches these challenges.
Was going to say exactly this.

I've stayed at jobs with an under market salary because I believed in the company/boss, but eventually can't ignore the onslaught of recruiters on LinkedIn with better paying gigs.

It seems to me this mindset comes from not being comfortable with the employees having the leverage over the employers.
Whilst no-one wants off-topic discussion, sticking rigidly to the original point with no flexibility whatsoever is a bit claustrophobic for good discussion to ensue. So I'm upvoting the original comment, but not downvoting yours :-)
It's not an apples to apples comparison. As a Flatiron grad myself I can tell you that most my classmates already had college degrees. They do have a program that serves as a substitute for college, but it's not clear that the main program has been filtered from the data.

That said, I thought Flatiron was an exceptional investment, much higher ROI on my salary than college, but also served a fundamentally different purpose and role in my education than college.
>VR is a pretty high-friction way to interact with a computer.

>I think it remains to be seen if the experience is worth all the expense and fuss.

I would turn your comment around and argue that 10 million years of evolution weren't focused on producing a homo sapiens sapiens example that could best drive a mouse and keyboard across a 2D interface.

The fact that we've acquired some facility with doing so is a testament to our generality rather than the suitableness of the interface.

Why is VR important?

Because it's a gateway to immersive interface patterns than allows our brains to more fully flex their innate resources. I'll make you a $2 bet we both chuckle that this question was even asked in 25 - 50 years. Historical reference: initial reaction to the "mouse".
> Especially font rendering which is something that Linux does subpar compared to Windows or OSX.

Not any more: http://www.infinality.net/blog/infinality-freetype-patches/
Show HN: Leaf.fm Music Collection Store
Maybe I misunderstood the topic as the poll itself isn't linked on the blog, but I got the idea that this is a poll on "what topics would you most like to learn more about?" and I would guess that most Haskell programmers are very comfortable with Functor, Foldable and Monad already.
The exact wording was, "What <features> do you feel are under represented or often misunderstood?"

I agree that Functor and Monad are hardly candidates to dominate that survey, the burrito notwithstanding.
7 Google Ventures Poised to Revolutionize Healthcare
How much time of a traditional 4 year college is spent on skills that a grad would actually need or use? A lot of it is just archaic legacy.

I thought it was moe that universities are meant to promote general enlightenment as much as (or, primarily rather than) useful trade skills. With a fair bit of confusion coming in where some skills (engineering, S/W development) depend heavily on (parts of) said enlightenment (math, how people think).
>> "But then Magic Leap seems to have developed something even better."

Do you have some sort of inside information, i.e. having experienced the Magic Leap? Because I don't think any of the publicly available information can be used to make such a statement.
One really interesting thing I've found is that people are more forgiving of something like Google Cardboard. They are also sometimes more excited by the fact they could see themselves buying and using a cardboard set + mobile device tomorrow vs the Oculus.

One architect who I showed some VR demos to told me the Oculus looks so cool and intense that it's sort of a let down when you try it on and feel nauseated. The cardboard on the other hand looks so cheap that when you try it on it surpasses your expectations. So if you feel sick you're more forgiving since it is after all just a piece of cardboard.
A customer service rotation for everyone in the company is more important.
For folks looking to learn more about GHC's extensions, Ollie Charles is currently doing a great "24 Days of GHC Extensions" series. https://ocharles.org.uk/blog/pages/2014-12-01-24-days-of-ghc...
Sounds like a question for Dan Savage.
Neither of these were "killer apps".

As has been noted for radio, 55% of American homes had TVs in 1954 (rising to 83% by 1958). This was an increase from 0.4% in 1948. During this time of rapid adoption, the most popular shows were primarily variety shows and eventually sitcoms (I Love Lucy).

Soap operas have been a staple of daytime television since the early 1950's, but have never even been close to the most popular. Therefore, it would be hard to call them a "killer app".
"I just picked up a couple Mindstorms kits"

"I just bought a couple of Mindstorm kits"
The Ten Layers of Absolute Freedom
What was it like? It was horrible. My experience was very lucky, but it was horrendous to see all of one's friends losing their jobs and scrambling. People who did get new jobs frequently took shitty jobs that set their careers back a few years. If you did manage to get something new in 2001 you were frequently locked in for some years.

I have been continuously employed or have had substantial contracting since 1999 (almost all regular employment, except for no more than a total of 12 months of various freelance).

I can only guess why, but it is probably some combination of:

1. When the layoffs came, I was in the non-laid-off remnant, probably because I always situated myself to know how everything worked, soup-to-nuts: code, databases, servers, etc.

2. Constant re-education, and willingness to use languages and tools I considered to have technical deficits (e.g., ColdFusion).

3. Constant teaching. Was always teaching Java or, later, Ruby in the evenings. Stayed sharp.

4. Constant networking. Very important -> I networked both at the tech level and at the business level. Keeping in touch with VPs of marketing and business development meant that when their cohort was looking for devs, the business-side VPs would think of me. Techie-to-techie referrals were nil.

5. Maturity. Was recruited into an executive position in 2002 perhaps because of attitude + tech skills.