skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I never understood that preference, actually. In the early/mid 90s the connections were sporadic, and I always preferred to get the entire page when I (finally) got a working connection. If I found a page that I had to follow links to keep reading, the experience was often read->click->wait............read->click->wait..........
I personally preferred downloading an enormous page, even going away from the computer for a few minutes, but then having it all available.
I perform music on two Monome 64s and a Trigger Finger. That sums up to 144 buttons, of which 64 are used at all times. But there are only about 8 functional distinctions between those, so 18 mouse buttons is probably an overkill.

However, If this is about the complexity of the Open Office user interface, I don't see this joke contribute in any way, not even by vaguely pointing out the flaws.

The developer mailing list is probably the best place to start a discussion. The same amount of time that went into the OOMouse would have resulted in some fine UI concepts.
As a side-note, it is sad that "the industry" is always complaining that university graduates aren't better prepared for actual work, and is always pushing for CS programmes to be more vocational, more focused on whatever language is popular right now, because it's the good programmers with broad knowledge that push the industry forward, not the rote programmers that learned Java 15 years ago, have been doing it ever since, and can't possibly be moved from their comfort zone.
C130 Not Charging Problem
I've re-written many perl things in C to speed up processing time - for me, it's better than buying more/newer hardware. Also, for smallish scripts that I invoke millions of times or a small perl script that does regexps, I can rewrite those in C to boost speed as well. I don't do any ASM code anymore, but C is a really good optimization step for me and my projects.
I´m a CS graduate too (fifth year) and i know how you are feeling.

Before entering the course i was skeptical , and until the thirty year i fell like i was wasting time. The point is, when you are at the academic world, it´s not about how get real things done, it´s more about to learn general concepts to build a solid base (in terms of knowledge). With this base, you will be able to learn how to get REAL thinks done much more fast, in a very professional way(read, trustable for the "market").

Therefore, you are not going to CS (or Math, another good option) to get things done, you are going to build a very good "BASE" to get (a lot of) things done.

In a simple way, goes like this:
Learning lisp, python, c++ and java, you are investing on "content" for your professional life.
Going to CS you are investing in "context".
A guy who learns lisp in a garage is very different from a guy who made CS and learn lisp by himself. The second one have much more "base" and a better context to solve problems, although both have the same "content" (the lisp knowledge).

Don´t give up on CS and try to be close from as much people as you can, specially the good guys ... in this way you will be building a very good "context".

Oh, about the programming language ... i think you are starting from the wrong point. First, you should pick up an idea or project to implement (something that you really want to do) and then you go for the language. And yes, the best way to get "content" is working on real projects. Ruby is good for scripting, as python and php are, so if you are going to build something for the web, you should not think about C, C++ and Lisp, just pick a language more close to the web related stuff. But if your idea, or project is about mathematics, desktop and hard calculations, forget about ruby and php and go for C or Lisp. Therefore you start choosing a project (or idea) and then the programming language to learn, not the language and then the idea.

Well, i´m a very noob just like you, and my words are probably full of lies, but that´s my experience in the last five years. Hope you can get something useful from this big (sorry by that) post.

And sorry by my poor english.
I'd forgotten Django. That sounds interesting. I did enjoy Python when I used in in Highschool, and I wouldn't mind learning more.

About your other point, with sticking to C/C++ until the language disappears, I think I'm just afraid I'll get stuck in that paradigm, and if I don't broaden my horizons now, I'll have a hard time later on. You may have a point though. I'll think about it.

Thanks for the advice.
It looks good, but its not a life-changer. The reason I am saying this is that the earlier open moko project could make a significant impact in the phone market if it were to be successful. I guess they didn't get enough interest from users as they anticipated, or perhaps they couldn't make any deals like the commercial manufacturers.
I guess I hadn't thought of it that way, with content and context. I did enjoy working with other students, and I think hacking code with them was very valuable for learning.

Thanks for the advice, and your English is just fine. Obviously not perfect, but more than good enough.
Building something and learning from your mistakes is indeed the best way to learn, but doing something ambitious in a language you don't really know means that you're going spend a lot of time on doing and re-doing the structure of it, and that requires a lot of patience since you'll get so little feedback.

I'm a very impatient person, all the side-projects I've made have had very tight feedback loops, where you quickly get results and can change them and see your project grow. My first language on the side was PERL, which is a very unstructured get-stuff-done-fast kind of language which suited me perfectly at that time and was fun to learn, for me.

Horses for courses, etc.
" but doing something ambitious in a language you don't really know "

I never really implied "language you don't know". My advice was "use a language you know and build something ambitious" (vs trying to find the ultimate "cool" language). I'll edit.

"Building something and learning from your mistakes is indeed the best way to learn,"

This is what I was trying to say, (with "something" != tiny programs). I know many people who "know" many languages(and try to know more) but haven't built anything substantial with any of them.
Learning languages in different families teaches you to abstract away the abstract algorithmic concepts from the language family specific concepts. If I were designing a CS program, I'd probably include:

- C (imperative)
- Python (object oriented)
- Scheme (functional)

Interesting with that selection is that none of those are my weapons of choice in their niches for actual projects (I prefer C++, Ruby and Scala), but those above are a bit cleaner since they cling more purely to their respective models.
Books by Paul Hawken, like "Growing a Business"

http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Business-Paul-Hawken/dp/067167...
Bummer. I was hoping this was meatier.
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From my own observations, unemployment amongst software engineers seems to be high.
I agree with you, but it is spelled "Lisp" these days :)
If there is a technical means to cooperate without just handing it over, I would shoot for that. If not, then at least try to get a strong contract spelling out the specific limitations on its use -- ie that it's for this one client...etc.
What's the point?

It's nice that he decided to try a couple of new languages that he'd never written any code in before, but what significance does his experience of writing a trivial tool in each really have for other people? The blog post strikes me as a bit like a youtube video of somebody trying out a couple of musical instruments they haven't played before... irrelevant to people who don't know the submitter.

flagged
When this happens to me, and it has several times, I just get real honest with the person and ask them to try and be a little more organized with their questions. Most people become real apologetic when they feel like they're abusing you... especially when you've built up a track record with them.
Yes, it is a worthless comparison. This specific application would look almost exactly the same in assembly language, so there is really not much to learn here.

It is interesting to see that "I am switching from Perl to Ruby or Python" was something people blogged about in 2002, however.
Good article, but also guard against excessive egotism. People who think they're big shots because they started an open source project, have a blog have some followers on Twitter are not always that great.
There's a good chance that Zed is saying that to get his site posted to all the "nerd sites".
Correlation is not causation...

I would guess that the important factor is instead your real-life social network. Most of those young, white, uneducated men are found in rural areas where there is a strong sense of community and people help out and get jobs for each other.

Whereas the young, black, uneducated men are more likely to live in urban areas where they have a weak social network that can't help them get jobs, so the best thing they can do is to become friends with people who have jobs, and if you flunked out of high-school, that's very, very difficult.
Thanks. I'm an entrepreneur myself so the reason I do Startup Riot is to give back and help other entrepreneurs with an event that didn't exist when I was doing my last company. Venue announcement this next week as well as details about the prizes that will be awarded to audience voted winners. It's not just stuff/services but also cash money. Woo hoo!

And thanks for helping spread the word.
Adding a ‘SixthSense’ to Your Cellphone
That's exactly correct. I had a nice chat about this with my gf recently... her mom is the traditional "southern woman" aka "socially acceptable racist." (her words, not mine. 'I'm just a 'southern girl' i can't help it)

So I shared an insight with her that I'm not certain of but that makes sense to me:

Since Nixon, income growth in inflation-adjusted dollars for the average American has actually fallen. From something like $46k median income in 1970 compared to $44k today.

Anybody who grew up in the less affluent suburbs knows this just in their families and neighbors.

The real prosperty that actually created the middle class in this country--the real upward mobility--that happened between 1945 and 1965.

And it just so happens that while that was happening, most white Americans still treated blacks like 2nd class humans (at worst) and 2nd class citizens (at best).

They missed out on the last big push of economic mobility.

Lets hope that we all get a 2nd one in our lifetimes.
Hanging the bike by the seat post or better yet, any part of the frame would be great. The front wheel could be secured using a Velcro strap. With bicycle floating, maybe a better oppurtunity for higher density.
Looks like in 1 year time (when I'm 25) I'll double my chances of getting a job.
Ask HN: Overcoming coder's block?
I was wondering if anyone has any good tips for overcoming coder's block.
Product of Mozilla labs,Compelling Messaging Experiences
For me it's writing blog posts: http://matthewcford.com/coders-block
Racism is a sketchy explanation. As of a year ago, native-born black americans had 50% more unemployment than foreign-born blacks.

These racists make very fine distinctions: "I don't like African Americans. Nigerians and Jamaicans are ok, though. So I'll interview black people, but if they don't have a foreign accent..." [makes a 'get out of here' motion]

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/forbrn.t01.htm
Sounds like a good reason for even a non-racist to avoid hiring minorities and other protected classes.
Is this digg type of service where people can rate the articles? Sorry it is not very apparent from the first page. If it does have ratings then two articles I have read recently just to ensure that your rating algorithm is correct are: http://zedshaw.com/blog/2009-11-6.html by Zed Shaw and http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/10/alternate-sorting-orde... by Jeff Atwood.
I normally change the technology I am working in and move to something else or just pick a random topic and read about it as much as I can and then as matthew said do a blog post on it. For example: State machines and Ragel state machine compiler.
There are many cities where rent is significantly cheaper than 1K per month. In those cities where it isn't even the most menial of jobs usually pays slightly more than minimum wage. I agree with the other poster it wouldn't be fun to live on 16K a year but it is certainly workable.
My favorite client was losing their only full time developer and made me an offer that was basically impossible to refuse to come work for them full time.
Using Blended Browser Threats involving Chrome to steal files
Idea, Execution...And Gumption
Moscow Chess Tournament: Two Days, 10 Players, and Still No Wins
Very classy-looking! I'm surprised this is 'art' and not 'industrial design'.
Probably, with virtual goods you're basically paying for someone's time (and perhaps skill at that aspect of the game). Not very different from most monetary exchanges in real life.
Theoretically you could add unique ids to every tag and common sense classes, but from my experience the guy who will work on that html won't like it. I don't know if he could work with it or not, but I'm pretty sure he'll protest. It will break too many assumptions for him.
I have not read any of the other advice yet, but I think that's too ambitious for somebody who has just completed two fundamental, but introductory courses. I totally agree upon building stuff for teaching the ropes--but this is probably a bit too early in for doing something meaningful (the raytracer example is probably too tough, since it requires at least some amount of linear algebra, analysis, etc. which probably lacks, too.)

So good advice in principle, but probably too early IMHO. I have recently completed SICP (after having 15y of experience and knowing multiple PLs) and it is still one of the best introductory textbooks I can think of, if only for the breadth they cover using their examples. In addition to learning functional programming concepts, how an interpreter works and last but not least building a compiler is more than anybody can expect to learn in 10 months time, too.

PS: One does not need to be a beginner to appreciate SICP. Actually, having a lot of programming experience enables you to work through SICP in a breeze...

EDIT: After reading through the comments, probably it would be a good idea to skim through "Simply Scheme" by Brian Harvey and Matthew Wright. Many people think its the "predecessor" of SICP and probably would be a good complement for you:

http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~bh/ss-toc2.html

If you are choosing SICP, be sure to check the video lectures from MIT!
The Danger of Working with Machines Nonstop
Actually, people of all races in that age group tend to have very high unemployment rates.

The ability to live with your mom is (from an economic perspective) provides the same disincentives to work as welfare.
What I have seen is that there are a lot of white people doing well without college education. But this doesn't mean that they do not receive any education.

A lot of white people (in my part of the world) learn their parent's occupation. A good example is farming - a farmer will learn his sons how to farm. Or estate agents.

So they have an aweful lot of skills transferred to them (just through a university that doesn't grant degrees ;) )
I'm amused by the two strong themes in the comments, which I've seen before when geeks are confronted with new devices:

"If I'm not in the target demographic, then the people who designed it are idiots"

"It doesn't make sense to pay more for a device that does a small number of things well, when you can buy something else for less that will do a large number of things poorly."

Quite a good review, I'm intrigued by the hackability and
I'm quite pleased to see people from the free software community (as in the recent litl webbook announcement) delivering actual products based on those tools and, in this case, free content too.
I know why you're both getting modded down. It's because your comments, although not offensive, are just noise compared to the insightful posts we often find here.
Welfare is available to people without families, in various guises.

TANF is for families. GA (General Assistance) is available to people ineligible for TANF. SNAP also does not require you to have children.

http://www.dhs.state.il.us/page.aspx?item=30368

http://www.dhs.state.il.us/page.aspx?item=30357
"We come to expect ourselves and others to behave robotically"

Very well put.
In all honesty I myself do exactly that from time to time.
"Players Remain Deadlocked at Moscow Tournament"

Deadlocked?
In my experience those things never resolve!!
But then again I often times expect people to behave robotically...
Get Free USA, UK And Canada VPN Service
This was posted a while back; isn't the whole point of the UK design to be able to embed fuses in the plug itself? I assume that that would mean this design is dangerous in early post-WW2 houses where the integrated fuse design was meant to save on wiring (which I only know thanks to a previous HN post about the history of electric plugs...)
Ask HN: Does deleting a profile from Facebook ensures that all data is deleted?
IF I delete my profile from Facebook or Orkut does that mean the respective companies will also delete all my data from their databases?

At least do they ensure that such data will not be used for any purpose?
Are you sure? In my country people live of wellfare even though they do not directly get it.

It is usually a parent with old age pension / disability pension that supports 3 or four people. So even though a person doesn't get welfare he still lives of it.

There are also people who routinely work for short periods of time and then claim unemployment benefits.
Broader Measure of U.S. Unemployment Stands at 17.5%
No and no.
My guess is that it's done using a flag in their db.

user_active = 0

or perhaps more efficiantly

user_deactivated = [date]
I would recommend learning JavaScript. Java, VB, PHP, etc. are pretty much all the same in comparison to JavaScript. I’m not talking about syntax or patterns but about general purpose. In my opinion, JavaScript is the most important complementary technology to the - what I call them - backend languages.

Today, web-enabling almost always is a requirement. People usually want access to their applications with their iphone and in the worst case (the battery just exploded, notebook lost, etc.) from a cybercafé.

Sure, you can web-enable most (business) applications with pure HTML/CSS. But if you take advantage of the power of AJAX (XMLHttpRequest), you can build GUIs with such high performance that it feels (almost) like a regular desktop application and therefore people often don’t even care about installing the available client-application on their office computers. People love it if they don’t have to install anything at all.

I would start with something like that:
Imagine you’re abroad and your notebook just fell down the stairs - it’s broken. What would you like to have access to in that situation from a cybercafé. Maybe an address book? Now imagine, that the cybercafé you are into has an awfully slow connection and they charge you a fortune for every single byte that travels their connection. So, your address book should be fast as lightning, means: nothing similar should go over the wire more than once (search box, headers of your address list, pagination elements, etc.). There's nothing that can beat JavaScript in solving this problem.
Learn Unix on a real OS; like BSD or Slackware.

High level programming languages are froth; once you understand the basic concepts, it's best to work with C and system calls til you're absolutely sure what you are doing. Learn how to use a debugger, disassembler, packet sniffer and every utility you can find for creating mischief.

A few books on actual hacking, you know, the "blackhat" kind, might come handy. Hacking tutorials from the underground scene are masterpieces of juvenile bravado but they're written by people with heart. No one in academia or industry has the same passion for computing, or for that matter skill, as those "vandals".

Get a screw driver and take your machines apart (yes, get more than one machine.) Network them. Break them. Boot obscure OSes on them. Get as many computers with different architectures and instruction sets as you can get.

You don't deserve to be coding in a fancy functional distributed language with rad tools. You need to pay your dues first and get your hands dirty.

Your university probably sucks; your professor, your TA and the A-student in your classes are probably all lousy programmers. Your library there is under-stocked. Any industry representative who comes to give a speech about computing is probably a fraud. And once you graduate, or drop out, and make computing a profession; if you ever have to assemble a team of top-notch programmers to work with, the first names to standout will be strangers who you know by their nicknames from underground computing subculture. The guys you see doing interviews and recording lectures in polo shirts and khakis are laughably incompetent, big enterprise or "startup".

Join the demo scene, the amiga scene, the root-kit scene, the virus scene, the calculator hackers, etc. to see what good programmers look like. Real, honest to goodness hacking without blogging, self-promotion or careerist pan-handling. They do it for the love it, them honest thieves.
If Ruby on Rails causes nothing but headaches for those who insist on silly frilly things like data integrity, I will theorize that perhaps the problem lies with RoR, not foreign keys.

You probably don't actually need a database at all , given that the integrity of data stored is not paramount. You don't get any points for "We have this data. We have no way of assuring it's correct or is what we want it to be - but we have it!"

On the other hand, given that most start-ups don't bother with things like a business plan (at least one which doesn't end with "Step 3. ????? Step 4. Get bought by Google"), perhaps it's only appropriate that such start-ups do away with other fundamentals of reality, such as data integrity.
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Hmm, well I don't understand what you're getting at. You said:

"There is actually a demographic in the US for whom there is little incentive for education with respect to financial success."

This seems to me to be false, since college educated blacks have a higher employment rate than blacks who didn't finish highschool.

But maybe I'm missing the point. Anyway, it doesn't matter.
YouTube Is Falling Apart Again
this is the artist's page about the idea:
http://www.minkyu.co.uk/Site/Product/Entries/2009/4/20_Foldi...

if you scroll down enough, you'll see an image of the fuse popping out of the little handle.
Actually, there is a difference between deactivating and deleting your Facebook profile.

However, I still don't think Facebook removes all user data once an account is deleted. Might have to dig into the TOS to find out.
Rejection massively reduces IQ