skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think this is the first time in my life that I've been happy about and excited by news of government action concerning the Internet.
I'm 37 and my first programming job after college was doing support & custom integrations for a larger product (which I wasn't allowed to change). I'd already been programming since 8 and knew BASIC, Pascal, C, C++, sh, Perl, Java, etc., but I had only taken a few CS classes and majored in English. It was a great chance to learn new things, e.g. SQL, and there was a ton of variety, autonomy, responsibility, and client interaction. Even the bad parts (Excel files, CORBA over firewalls, backwards intransigent IT departments) were great learning experiences. After maybe a year, having proven myself, I switched over to the web development wing of the company.
> testing, maintainability, long-term implications, unforeseen complexity, programmer acceptance, performance constraints… the list goes on.

No, it's actually just "programmer acceptance" and secondary reasons like amount of money poured into marketing or language being tied to an OS. I'm not very pleased with this. In this talk: https://thestrangeloop.com/sessions/the-sociology-of-program... it's said that probability of language being used is "potential gains/pain of adoption" ratio. That's true. Language designers, at least the ones who want their languages to succeed, constrain themselves to make it as painless as possible for "normal programmers" to pick up. Nobody seems to notice that there's another option of making denominator smaller: all you need is to become better at adopting new technologies. But this somehow doesn't work, because... Probably because of long-term implications or performance constraints, right.
Are you referring to the reduction fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_single_cause)? I looked around for a "reductionist fallacy" but couldn't find anything. Or are you instead saying that the reductionist view is wrong, and you like to call things you disagree with fallacies.
You can logically reason about any language. It's just a matter of ease and the amount of code you have to see to be able to get a full picture. I mean, ultimately I could follow the logic of the program through the compiler/interpreter all the way down to the machine level and reason about the specific instructions executed on the processor. And when you have hard performance requirements you sometimes have to get that low. So by that definition of reasonableness all languages are reasonable. But of course he is making a pun and implying the more typical meaning of (un)reasonable, using it as a slight to languages that don't meet his criteria.

I don't actually disagree with most of his guidelines, but I really don't like his use of that term. There are many situations where his preferences are actually unreasonable and the the opposite of what he has concluded is appropriate, mutable state being an easy example. It should not be a "I'm right and you're unreasonable" type of discussion.
No, they really aren't. Most entry level jobs cannot be done "over the wire".

"If we raise wages, more jobs will be automated sooner."

So, lets artificially force automation to put more people out of work quicker. That doesn't sound like a good idea.

"If we do not raise wages we have a subset of people that do not make enough to live, or live off government subsidies."

Once again, this is the broken logic that I cannot understand. Teenagers aren't making a living from the job, they are gaining experience and getting some pocket money. The desire to have people remain in entry-level jobs to make a living is some of the poorest use of people and most foolish ideas. If people spent the effort on providing paths to actual careers that they put into advocating for higher minimum wages, we probably could get somewhere. This is just building a platform right above the water, and not building the paths up.

"Oh look at the poor buggy whip manufactures, they should be protected".

Nope, never even thought something like that. If technology kills the job, then that's how it goes, but governments doing it is another thing.
Mesh-enabled WiFi router runs Linux, enhances coverage
I like the article and think it makes some good points, but I can't help but think the author is cheating a bit. If you really want to show the extent to which a language can be inherently reasoned about, it seems like a slight-of-hand to provide hints in the names.

Take a look at this snippet from example 6:

// create a repository
var repo = new CustomerRepository();

// find a customer by id
var customer = repo.GetById(42);

The fault is "I can't tell by looking at this code whether a null is returned or not."

The improvement is this (in a language without nulls or exceptions):

// create a repository
var repo = new CustomerRepository();

// find a customer by id and
// return a CustomerOrError result
var customerOrError = repo.GetById(42);

Aside from the comments and a change to the variable name, isn't this code identical? The fact that subsequent code must process the result specially if the input (42) is garbage is true of any language, whether or not null is allowed. I still can't tell "by looking at it" what is happening.

In fact, I would reason differently about this code if the comments were removed and the names changed:

var a = new B();
var c = d.E(42);

In this context, it seems the real error is that an invalid parameter value is passed, so I'd see if I could fix that first, possibly eliminating the need for any error handling code. That approach might be common for a functional mindset, but not exclusively so.
Because it's slow.
What am I looking at? There is zero information at that link. There's the contextless, meaningless text "all data in one place," a incomprehensible screenshot of a Google page with all text marked out, text asking me to sign up despite no sign-up link being present, and finally an offsite link to a Chrome plugin.

The plugin page finally seems to have some actual information. Why didn't you link to that instead?
Rules engines are awesome and are super powerful, but add a layer of complexity that is not inconsequential. I have implemented a lot of rules engines, and removed a fair number of them too since the late 90's. I generally removed them because they created a dependency nightmare, added crazy complexity and required significant extra test conditions that the application just didn't need to have. This can slow your development down considerably for smaller applications and cause great frustration. Which is not what a rules engine should do.

My basic starting thoughts is that if the rules are well known, change infrequently, have minimal nested chaining and number < 50 or so then I'd opt for having a good design pattern or simple if/else within the code. If you violate any of these tenants, then I'd look at decision tables/trees first, then after that move to a rules engine. Of course, if users are required to write their own then that would also have to factor in to this decision. BTW -- Don't dismiss a good design pattern or even a plug-in pattern as sometimes that is more than enough to solve moderately complex rules without adding additional dependencies or significant development complexity.

If this is an application that will be deployed to third party sites, then again, I generally opt for a balance between the number of dependencies and the application maintenance. If it is deployed behind a website or application where your company controls the environment, then I focus more on flexibility and application maintenance than dependencies.

Also, in a few less common scenario's, I have written very basic purpose built rules engines that solved some of the key issues without creating needless complexity, maintenance or dependency nightmares. Not that I advocate writing libraries/code that already exists, but many times you just don't need a Drools, or ilog rules etc. Also, this is where something like embedded JavaScript is a handy tool as pjungwir also mentioned.
That lets the smog in.
Anyone concerned they will pull gCal support to drive customers towards MSFT products?
It's not the app itself as much as the users of said app.
A calendar skin.
Pi-Forall: How to use and implement a dependently-typed language
I am part way through your trajectory. I was a designer first, fell in love with html/css, eventually gave in and learned js, started to really enjoy that and have now been edging my way to the back end for a while. Now I'm job hunting at the same time and definitely feeling that desert of despair. Was glad to see your post, gives me some hope!
> Does this mean that (e.g.) specific cities can petition ISPs to block (e.g.) Uber in their area because it's not "lawful?"

It means that actually blocking, throttling, (or, for that matter, paid prioritization, though that will fall afoul of other laws) of unlawful content is not a violation of this particular set of FCC rules.

It has no effect (positive or negative) on the pre-existing ability of ISPs, with or without a third-party request, to block unlawful content. Of course, because it is a federal rule, any local request seeking to block unlawful content that would also (or actually) block lawful content would be preempted by the federal rule prohibiting blocking lawful content, so it would constrain the kinds of actions that could be taken in pursuit of blocking unlawful content. But, in any case, any ability cities would have under this rule to request blocking Uber, etc., would be no more ability than they have without the rule.
GCal support is the who point of the product, no?
That was quick. Awesome! Do you have a sample pull with the new setup?
very exciting! Give to your kids, EFF, Freedom of the Press Foundation, and yourself!
Might try that once with "git checkout new-trick"
Alan Greenspan once championed the gold standard, that obviously didn't last forever.

>It's ignorant to seize on one line of a political appointee's 40-year resume

People are often defined by their most recent accomplishment(s) (unless a worse one can be dredged up from the past).

I try to keep myself informed of current events, but I'm not always as successful as I would like, and I've not got unlimited time to go digging through the Internet Archive to find and read Wheeler's old blog posts (of which I was unaware). If they were so central to Wheeler's philosophy why did they not receive more recent attention?

>it's clear the blind Wheeler hate was completely unfounded.

If to you, "blind Wheeler hate" == skepticism, then it's not clear at all, but I am starting to warm up to the guy. Thanks for the blog links.

PS, I also doubt that we'd be better off today without the enormous furore over FCC internet regulation.
See Future of Artificial Intelligence in Mind Clone Robot
This is true, it has been revolutionary.

There is a bit of a dark side to it that's not often mentioned, mobile banking isn't exactly a white knight. For example interest rates on mobile banking/microlending platforms are quite astronomical at over 80% annually (usually ~8% per month [MPESA/MSHWARI]) which is a bit predatory - I think its to account for the default rate. Secondly, some countries seize deposits after 2 years of inactivity to an unclaimed financial assets fund (2 years isn't alot considering the quite-manual processes involved in developing countries to get your assets back.

On the other hand you get a decent amount of interest on amounts which could be less than $0.50 worth (so long as you're active) and this is better than holding cash/any argument against holding cash. It's also easy to transfer money between people by far.

Competition can probably help with the predatory lending rates.
The concept is you can make rectangles over any website to generate a Bootstrap 12 col grid. No more class="row" or class="md-col-*" by hand [1][2]

You can even nest rectangles inside each other to create nested rows and cols.

The source code is here: https://github.com/minutephp/bootstrapgridgenerator/

Sorry it asks permissions to run on all websites but it runs as event pages not background pages (so nothing happens until you click the "draw" button).

I wish there was a less intrusive to get the same working with less permissions but I couldn't find it yet.

Your comments and suggestions are welcome as always.

Hope the designers will find it useful.. Happy hacking! :)

[1] http://getbootstrap.com/css/#grid

[2] Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFEeVQsB9j8
>In a free market

Internet access isn't a Free Market anywhere in the US, that much should be clear. There is no consumer choice going on here.
I understand this if this is brand new material and you need people to develop teaching methodologies for this new materials and problems to solve. But precalculus is a very old subject and people have been generating problems and guides for it for generations.
That's much more reasonable, landing on a stationary truck is obviously going to be straightforward and safe. It's still probably best to do it away from major roads though.

The fuel was never an issue, sure there's a net increase in fuel consumed but not a net increase in energy as the drone is less efficient than the truck at transporting the same load.

A "last mile" drone is a pretty good idea, not just because it increases range, but because it avoids the need for the for the drone to return to the depot after each delivery. On the other hand, if the deliveries are tightly clustered it might sill be more efficient to just deliver them using the truck, as drones waste a lot of energy working against gravity.
Bitcoin continues to evolve into a worse version of the current system
Dupe. Flagged
> Don't see how this is different from ajax conceptually.

This is essentially a more user-friendly version of the common spinning .gif people use when they're making something load via AJAX.
Given what they did with Accompli, not at all
Congrats Pierre, Jeremy and team!
Best calendar app for android.
Also I'm pretty sure there are magnetic tape drives that have higher density (but of course extremely high latency)
> I know that, and you know that. I'm not so sure about Comcat or Commissioner Wheeler.

Since FCC action against Comcast for blocking Bittorrent -- including the idea that Bittorrent, whatever unlawful content might be distributed by that means, was itself not unlawful and that Bittorrent traffic included lawful content -- was one of the starting points of net neutrality regulation at the FCC, I'm pretty sure that Wheeler, the FCC in general, and Comcast are all aware of that.
Isn't Google trying to do that when they kill CalDav support?
crossrail for bikes apparently means segregated bike lanes

I wish sf would do this; for all they claim to be bike friendly riding in sf is still incredibly dangerous and drivers can kill bikers and often not even get ticketed.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/tfl-green-lights-cr...
I agree with that distinction. Also, making food for many people is much more rewarding than making food for just yourself. (When I do the latter, it's lots of work for 5-10 minutes of payoff, and I often find myself wishing I'd ordered instead.)

Many baked goods are easy to toss in a box and bring to the office or to friends' places. You're not going to bring a tureen of polenta to work and tell your colleagues to dig in for a midday snack.
> i.e. more than one way to skin a cat.

While this is true, I've always found applying mathematical analyses such as algebraic reasoning to computation admits a single, minimal, canonical solution in the end.
Last mile unbundling destroys any incentive to invest in network deployment.

Worse, the way title II is written, the FCC can only unbundle the local telephone company. So the cable network that provide broadcand service to most Americans can't be unbundled at all.

Last mile unbundling only works when you have a very strictly regulated monopoly providing the network.
So the solution should be to take away the regulations that made it so, not add on more as a patch.

"Here, there's a problem because regulation has made the market not free enough."

"I know, let's fix it with more regulation!"

Also, freeness isn't binary, it can be more or less free. It's free enough that Google Fiber can exist. As long as it's possible to open something given enough money, there will be an upper limit on how much companies can screw their customers, which doesn't seem too high to me.
Even with years of experience in a given language under your belt, heading into a new job and facing a new set of frameworks can lead to issues. It isn't quite like starting from zero again, but you have re-learn how to do the most trivial of things, as it may not even remotely resemble how you were used to doing it.
You can create a username and password for "devices" under Account > Edit Profile, which works the same way an email/password login would.

Spotify will create a numbered user ID and send you an email with a verification link to create a password.
I actually learned HTML, CSS and JS way back when I was in 6th grade. This was pre dot-com time and there were only a handful of resources. You could understand HTML and CSS in a day because there were so few HTML tags and requirements. 'Frameworks' was something that didn't even exist.

I somehow stopped my learning process before I hit 8th grade (around the same time I discovered that the opposite sex exists). When I picked it up again recently, the sheer number and complexity of frameworks and languages itself was daunting.

I can't imagine how hard it must be for someone who hasn't had a lick of coding experience. I could at least build a good looking website in HTML, CSS and simple JS before I started learning how to code.

It's damn tough and it has given me newfound respect for top coders. I work in marketing in my day job, and honestly, you could teach someone to replace me within a few weeks
I would say it is probably both. calendaring tech is actually much harder than most people believe. both for usable design and efficient implementation. I say that having worked on the outlook.com/hotmail team a few years ago.

and interestingly this is the second calendaring acquisition microsoft has done, having bought jump.com back in 1999.
users, plus relationships with the various services they had integrated into the app (eventbrite, foursquare, evernote, song kick, asana, todoist.....). 100 million is a lot, but sunrise was a well thought out, well executed product
Also got this error after the first track finished downloading.
Does anyone know what's different/interesting about their calendar? The company home page and app store pages don't bother with a product overview.
LTE works well by the standards of its predecessors, when constrained by draconian data caps and overage charges. It is completely unsuitable as a replacement for wired connections like VDSL and DOCSIS.
TWC's financial disclosures: http://ir.timewarnercable.com/files/2014%20Earnings/4Q14/Q4-....

Cost of programming content is $5.2 billion, but video programming generates $10 billion in revenues. Operating income is $4.6 billion. Obviously there's marketing, sales, and operational costs that also go away if you don't have video service. But there's also $1.1 billion in advertising revenue that probably goes away too. And really, the numbers are totally incomplete without looking at capex and depreciation too.

Analysis is similar for Charter, except they're running a net loss straight-up.
Yes but that's not really what OP was suggesting. A truck on the freeway might be in another state before it stops.
Chris Sacca seems like a good person and straight-shooter, but I am having a hard time reading any more reasoning out of this than "I think he's hard working and he's really good at Wii Tennis". It could have been any game, and it's not like he's secretly best-in-the-world at all games. He got lucky (when it comes to the game chosen by his opponent) in a casual encounter playing video games at a cabin. Surely we are approaching the horizon where completely random statistical noise is being swapped out for insight?
Yes. Asynchronous image loading and rendering is already built into the browser, and the rest of the content shouldn't take long to load to begin with. Fancy dynamic Javascript frameworks that break up what should have been a single response into 20 different responses, asynchronously firing dozens of superfluous repaints as the data trickles in, cause far worse performance, latency, and usability problems than rendering a single chunk of HTML ever did.
“I have a confession to make, Mr. Sacca. I’ve played a fair amount of Wii Tennis before.” While talking, he used his controller to navigate through the settings pages on the Wii to a list of high scores. “In fact,” he continued, “on the Wii Tennis global leaderboard, I am currently tied for 2nd in the world.”

[...]

So, if Travis decides he wants to provide a cleaner, safer, easier experience than the current taxi system, he will make that work. If he sets his sights on reforming pervasive, anti-consumer regulatory corruption, watch those laws soon fall while exposing the shady backroom deals that created them. If he wants to eviscerate the racism that keeps people of color from having consistent access to rides in taxis, that will be the result. If he wants to take drunk drivers off the street, you will see the fatality rates fall wherever he operates his business.

To understand how someone can reasonably jump from the Wii Tennis leaderboard to an unequivocal valorization of Uber and the process of building Uber, it helps to know that Chris Sacca is one of Uber's earliest investors.

The article was more interesting before the "anti-corruption" "shady backroom deals" stuff. Horserace coverage of markets is interesting and Sacca has an unique vantage point. I don't know why he bothered trying to sneak the moral justification in.
> If quantum mechanics makes Newtonian mechanics (NM) "obsolete", then what does that imply for Special relativity (SR)?

Ah. That's unsatisfying :)

It would be super satisfying to have one coherent theory of everything. [1] Why hasn't anybody thought of that before? ;)

[1]: And then, again, it is of course useful to have efficient ways to work within subsets of the grand theory, such as NM.
Victory for Net Neutrality – Let’s Take It Across the Finish Line
What would be great is each time you copy that data, it mutated a bit... and if the mutation was positive, you could copy it again.
Redundant array of inexpensive di?ks =)
For some reason plenty of people in London have ambitious cycling infrastructure projects, check out SkyCycle: http://www.architecture.io/talks/sam-martin-a-divergent-city...
Integration with various services like Trello, Todoist, Evernote, Asana etc. in one calendar.

I hope this acquisition means we'll finally see Exchange support on the web.
There's also the amount of context required. To write a basic program, you don't need to know how computers actually work. Sure, it helps, but it isn't a prerequisite.

Designing a nuclear submarine, however, requires a lot of interconnected disciplines that rely on an understanding of each other.

To a lesser degree, it's similar to setting up your own ESXi cluster at home. You need to know more than just VMware--you need to understand networking, storage, flashing and configuring the host BIOS... AWS is quite a bit easier than managing your own physical environment.

Which may relate to why we see more younger people getting into coding than infrastructure/operations (regardless of the money).