skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Braces have a very practical level of redundancy, they cost literally next to nothing in terms of effort and reduce a whole class of errors to 'impossible'.

Let me give you a simple example, in two psuedo languages, one with and one without braces:

if a > b
a = a + 5
b = b / 2

if (a > 0) {
a = a + 5
b = b / 2
}

vs

if a > b
a = a + 5
b = b / 2

or

if (a > b) {
a = a + 5
b = b / 2
}

Even though the text is similarly corrupted (for whatever reason) the redundancy in the second example makes it clear that something is amiss, you could even lose the second brace and still at least know that all is not kosher in that segment.

That's not 'ascii art', that's functional.

Redundancy definitely has it's uses.

I'm going to do some digging later on and find a bunch of examples of broken code due to cut & paste problems, some of it on the django site, no less.

That's something that would never happen in C or any other 'overspecified' language.

And regarding 'finding that matching bracket' that is exactly what they're for, if you can't match the bracket chances are that you really do have a problem in the code.
Why we breathe
Any way I can do this in Django? (Or--how hard is this to do by hand?). Seems really promising.
It seems another programming language named Go! already exists:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=935545
Driving a Car with an iPhone
Perhaps not, but you can ship a physical drive to Amazon and they will put it into the cloud for you.
Very interesting development.

This illustrates one risk for companies built on the idea of outsourcing infrastructure to Amazon AWS (Smugmug, Dropbox etc). You better add much more value on top of AWS, otherwise a Google/Microsoft can undercut you big-time on price.

My perception is that they haven't dropped prices enough although hardware has become much better (1 GHz equivalent machine as baseline?, I built a quad-core machine for $600 and got a 1TB drive for less than $100).

Google's move definitely validates my hunch.

I was thinking about getting a Smugmug account, but now I will probably use a Google account.
We are tired of you being loudly tired of Desktop Linux, FAVO you.
Are you not aware that the US Government has officially indemnified (made safe from lawsuits) both all federal lawmakers and the H1N1 vaccine suppliers?

That's just one of the many suspicious circumstances surrounding the untried vaccines & the program to inoculate everyone.

The real question is: Why are we getting vaccines for this flu? It's a lot less deadly than previous seasonal flus. Why the concern?
I really like this idea, and I hadn't heard it before. Unfortunately, it would require significant collaboration between professors in different classes and a curriculum that consistently builds on earlier material in a meaningful way. These are difficult things to achieve, perhaps too difficult to be worth doing for the benefits they would bring.
I will always look forward to the day when we do not need to pay for peace with bloodshed and violence.

Till such time though, I thank the brave few of the world, dedicated in ensuring peace for their countrymen. All of you, I salute.
On the contrary, it is very relevant, as many of the links that rise on HN are similar to management/self-help guru type things.
Take your pick:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:December_observances
Tell HN: Apple paid my iPhone money, with exceptional service
Perhaps you remember my post here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=906168 about Apple not paying out for my iPhone apps and my state of brokeness.

I don't want to leave that accusation in the air without following up on what happened.

A couple of days later, the lady I was speaking to at Apple told me she would take care of the situation. She sent me daily updates on the status of the money, got in communication with all the different sections at the Apple corp and resolved the issue.

Apple actually reprogrammed iTunesConnect to fix my issue (if you upgraded from personal account to business account in the past, you may have noticed the new "Vendor Selection" option). The guy who seemed in charge of this was sending me updates on a saturday as well as a sunday, so it seemed he was at the office at the weekend doing this.

So, I'd like to say that indeed, a lot of it was my fault, and Apple really came through in the end, and the level of personal service was truely extra-ordinary.

Thanks Apple! I'm happy to be selling apps on your store! And thanks HN for discussing the issue so I could see it a bit clearer!
Research shows avatars can negatively affect users
hmm, senior vp saying something like that and not being named... i'll take it with a pinch of salt. Hopefully they will do more android handsets..
They also have almost half their team scattered around the world.
One, this is a dupe. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=935009

two, this is nonsense, it only applies to gmail and picassa, you don't get a 'cloud drive'.

https://www.google.com/accounts/PurchaseStorage

(you have to be logged in for that).
Twitter Hires Hadoop & Large-Scale Distributed Systems Guru from Yahoo
Google creates a programming language
Go mixes C, Python ( the Google´s prefer language ) and others atractives.
Relatedly, the easiest and most effective anti-piracy method: do not write software for people who do not pay money for software.
I wonder what how much noise would generated if Apple (or AT&T) did something similar to iPhones.
My main gripe with Python is that it's impossible for autoindenters to work correctly. Consider this code:

if x == foo:
# do things
if y == bar:
# do something
# do other stuff <-- at what indent level should this line live?
# get on with life

You and I know what that means given its indentation, but an autoindenter can't know what to do with the fifth line. It gets worse when you're moving blocks of code into different indent levels.

Now, it's true that in this simple case, you could rewrite the snippet starting with:

if x == foo and y == bar:
# ...
# get on with life

but when blocks get long, this becomes less practical. And your autoindenter still doesn't know when to stop indenting and get on with life.

As a result, in my Python code, I use otherwise gratuitous pass statements all over the place–ugly, but it does the trick.

if x == foo:
# do things
if y == bar:
# do something
pass
# do other stuff <-- at what indent level should this line live?
pass
# get on with life

My hypothetical ideal language (the one that's not lispy in outward appearance, anyway) would use braces but would also not run if any inconsistencies of indentation are found.

This would be allowed:

if x == foo {
# stuff
# more stuff
}

But this would not:

if x == foo {
# stuff
# more stuff <-- BAM!
}
Well, not really. Most of them do (did) have savings for example. What they don't know how to do is adapt to a new reality.
Glad to hear a positive story about Apples app store for a change .. I'm still a bit cynical; they only got their act together after a bunch of negative press about the issue..
I.e. people under twenty (with notable and profitable exceptions like video games and education software); hackers or crackers who can get around nags and piracy protections, or find a close free substitute; or, God help you, someone who is both.
The default jakefile we will ship just automatically bundles any image resource in the project.

ImageBundle sounds pretty solid. I guess they are inferring the orientation of an image somehow? I'd like to see how that works. If you use an image in multiple orientations, or if you need to stretch in both directions, using a single .png file just isn't possible, unless there's something I'm missing.
This is awesome news, I was asking them about it for some time now.
Its wrong to run pirated games. It's not wrong to modify your equipment in order to allow it to run unauthorized programs.
Wow, the economist link just gave me a 503 error with a 'Guru Meditation' message. Not something I would have expected from that site. It actually made me chuckle.

Error 503 Service Unavailable

Service Unavailable
Guru Meditation:

XID: 1498369715
Now if their was a search or a duplicate submission check you would of known this has been submitted more than once already :P hehe
I just finished updating Phonalyzr to support Android 1.6+ devices, with a few more graphs and options thrown in:

http://mld.dreamhosters.com/phonalyzr.apk

I need to test it a bit more, but hopefully I'll put in on the Market tonight.
Interesting idea. It's worth mentioning that one file in Cappuccino means one file per bundle, plus the index.html file and Objective-J.js.

A typical app has the Cappuccino bundle, and one bundle for the app code, but using an external framework means adding an additional bundle. We're exploring techniques to further concatenate bundles together (we have one in the project, but it has some negative side effects).
It's just too awesome, my work colleagues get like 500M max from the IT department, and they have to request it. I refuse to use work email.
Announcing The Release Of...DiggTV
Ask HN: Are these personal projects worth open-sourcing?
Hello all,

I have a couple of small personal projects I've been working on over the years and I was wondering if they would be of use to anyone:

1. nginx configuration generator

N.new('annotalia.com') { proxy(2666) } >> gen[:machine1]
N.new('.eshao.es') { pppr } >> gen[:machine2]
N.new('research.dsoglobal.org') { doku } >> gen[:machine3]

Ends up as a fully configured proxy to port 2666, a domain that supports perl/python/php/ruby, and a doku configuration respectively. It only generates the nginx configuration, but I've found it really helpful to setup my multiple sites. Currently, it supports most normal use-cases (like subdomains, specifying log locations, etc.) as well as specific applications like Wordpress, Rails, and Mailman. And of course, extensible.

An example configuration file can be found at: <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/146184/config.rb>, just so you can get an idea of how concise it is.

- -

2. Puppet configurations

I use puppet extensively to manage all my machines and have a ton of configurations which are accompanied by documentation on setup and any miscellaneous gotchas. Although FreeBSD-exclusive, I put a lot of thought into each file and code elegance (using macros, etc.) which might be helpful to others.

An example manifest can be found at: <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/146184/mailman.pp>.

- -

3. Blogging platform using Etherpad as a backend

I love writing in Etherpad. So much, I made an entire blogging platform which is controlled from within Etherpad. You edit configuration, tags on posts, and posts themselves (in Markdown) in Etherpad and everything gets cached locally as static HTML on the backend.

An example "Etherblog" can be found at <http://annotalia.com>.

- - - -

My assumption is that (1) would be suitable for github, (2) should go somewhere in the puppet wiki/github, and (3) should be discussed with the Etherpad folks first. But I honestly have no clue where to start and even less of an idea of whether these are valuable enough to bother open-sourcing. I do know that all of this needs to be cleaned up and I am only willing to do the work if someone will benefit.

So HN, please lend me your advice on:

* If you would find any of these projects personally interesting or useful?

* How you would go about open-sourcing the projects? Any good guides out there?

* Most importantly, if any of you would be willing to mentor me through the process, I'd really appreciate it. My email is in my profile. Would be great to have someone comment on my code quality and guide me through brainstorming anyone I need to contact, putting something up on github, and publicizing the projects.

Sorry for the long post and thank you for your time!
- Edwin
You care about Facebook, you just might not know it yet
A Web Based Document Management System
Microsoft, IBM And Yahoo Are Vying To Take Part In India’s Unique ID Project
Is "Just One File" a reference to Ministry?
Indeed the acceleration must occur, but starting at 50k feet substantially reduces the amount of air the rocket has to push out of its way.

This not only makes acceleration easier, it also dramatically reduces the dynamic pressure on the vehicle at max Q, allowing for a reduction in the mass of the vehicle (making acceleration easier still).
Good luck with that JS canvas raytracer that handles surface gradients from iterating arbitrary functions.
Mullenweg: Blogs to make you think
Why are we getting vaccines for this flu? It's a lot less deadly than previous seasonal flus. Why the concern?

Because it is a highly contagious virus that might mutate into something more deadly.
New PC to encourage older users
Using Ubuntu 9.10 and everything works out of the box. Although, I had a problem with WiFi on my other laptop, but doing some /etc configuration solved the problem. Is it that hard to write a few configuration lines only once?
I think you might have misunderstood mrtron, either that or you didn't read the article yourself:

"Karma (Sanskrit: कर्म, kárman- "act, action, performance"[1]; Pali: kamma) in Indian religions is the concept of "action" or "deed", understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect (i.e., the cycle called saṃsāra)."
Once again: if you want to run Linux on a notebook, check for compatibility before you buy the notebook.

Don't know about Apple, but in general hardware support tends to be better if the vendor communicates the necessary specs to the open source community. Somehow I doubt that Apple is very supportive to the "Linux on a MacBook" cause.
Happy Armistice Day.
Very well said. But please remember that today is VETERANS DAY, the day we honor the Veterans. Memorial Day is the day we honor the dead.

I personally know a guy who had half his face blown off in Iraq. He also just spend 10 months looking for a new job. All during that time he maintained his good spirits and generosity. He is a role model to his adopted kids (one of which is in ROTC) and his community.

I thank him and everyone like him for their service, sacrifice and the example they set for others.
Could we please keep politics of the front page?
The blog post only mentions Unladen Swallow in the title!
This is not accurate - the modding in question in the article specifically only allows the playing of "backups" but still requires the game to be signed. It has to be a copy of a legitimate game.

There are ways to modify the console to run "homebrew" which could include modified game executables, but A) it's significantly more difficult and requires an unupdated system, and B) to my knowledge Microsoft would instantly know you were playing an unsigned executable and be able to ban based on that.

In any case, if the 600k number quoted in the article is anywhere near accurate, this is a brilliant business move on Microsoft's part. A very easy way to push up 360 sales numbers for Q3, since the pirates will probably just go out and buy another console.
Intriguing. Mind if I inquire about your thoughts on transistors, another Bell Labs creation?
Do we need one railroad company per town?
So now there would be a video site that is twitter-friendly (in HD), another one that is youtube friendly, another one that is voice-mail friendly... How many different video sites can we have?
Really? The post title as I am seeing it now is the same as posted here, verbatim.
Barring grotesque hacks, Javascript (and the entire standard WWW stack) will neither emit sound nor write to a disk. Not to mention the inescapable "If InternetExplorer Then CrappyWorkaround" abominations which come with web programming.
And the next step after the Minimum Viable Treehouse is Treehouse 2.0. With skylights and a railing, but attached to the original structure made from two pallets. With duct tape.

Of course, in the real world the ugliness would be so overwhelming that such a beast would never be built. Too bad the same does not hold true for software :)
OP is Canadian, where Remembrance Day is observed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remembrance_Day). We honour all those who have sacrificed for their country, including veterans and those killed in service.
Festivus.
Well, if you're looking for features that Python was the first language to have, then I don't think Python has any "Python things". Garbage collection is still Pythonic, nonetheless.
I was at the Dallas airport recently waiting for my flight to board when a large group of soldiers dressed in desert camoflauge debarked from their plane. As the walked by every single person in the terminal stood up and applauded until the last of them had left. It was great to see everyone honor the soldiers in this way.
I'm curious about your concatenation technique. Dynamically creating multiple script objects (with document.createElement) from a data file and injecting them has been reasonably robust for me but I'm not writing a framework so I have far fewer test cases! :-)
The JS library was 2D only. I have no intention of writing a ray-tracer in JS. This project erased the motivations on my original project; it didn't persuade me to play with 3D. I'll leave that to someone whose itch needs more scratching than mine.
For the sake of context, Jason is a KDE developer and if you read through the comments you'll find out that he's not alone in this sentiment.

It's an interesting issue and it's sad to see that desktop Linux has so much trouble providing a stable user experience.
What does "FAVO" mean?
But do you really want to build a startup around a feature that a much larger competitor already almost has, and if that feature ever became important (as in people switching to your service instead of youtube), they couldn't make more visible and user-friendly?

Apparently, youtube can already tweet the videos automatically that you uploaded. What will be the shelf-life of that startup then?

Again, humbly sounds to me like a great example of a feature, not a product.
On a day like today, I prefer to remember men like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Morrison

Downvote me if you must, but as you do consider deeply the message you send when you thank men and women for engaging in war.
Not sure if it will help you much - people will still continue to RT the old way.
A Quick Guide to Mental Fatigue
The Python community is abuzz with the news/allegation that Google is discouraging internal use of Python for new projects. Sorry about the confusion.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=935625
Modern Warfare 2 and whatever beer I receive for Christmas. Holidays aren't meant for working.
for all values of
where's the hidden features? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1716813/hidden-features-o...
Duplicate of http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=933493
I don't see why this should daunt your 2D efforts - it still sounds like something fun to play around with;)
"Windows" and "Visual Studio" are two distinct products from Microsoft.
I have a hard time giving a shit about these people. With so many being fired with no severance and no safety net at all, who were paid such paltry wages that they have little or no savings.

The first guy started with $300,000. Even without finding a new job, he could have paid himself a $50,000 / year salary for 6 years, $100,000 / year for 3 years.

Were do I sign up to get $100,000 / year for the next 3 years without having to work?
Thanks for organizing ccg and moving the date so I could be there (I am leaving early Wed. morning for Mountain View). I apologize for the Lean Startup Circle overlap.

I will be there with my laptop to demo my product and I'll be ready to answer any questions you all think the YC team might ask.
>Is it that hard to write a few configuration lines only once?

Yes. Having to know the magic words is definitely a problem.

Most of these conf options should be available as checkboxes in a UI, if manual config is essential.
I'll upvote you for sincerity, and I have thought about my message for a long time. I encourage everyone else to think about what it really means to go to engage in war and when you should or shouldn't do so.

My situation may be different from yours. Perhaps I am being too selfish: I sincerely believe I would not be here today had the Canadians sat out WWI and WWII. I sincerely believe that almost everything I love about Hacking and Hacker Culture would not exist in Canada and the USA had Fascists dominated Europe. If I make a list of people in this industry that I admire, I keep coming up with ethnicities and gender preferences that would have been oppressed and/or exterminated.

My message is somewhat overwrought and emotional, but I'm very clear on how I am the recipient of the greatest gift of all.
This could have been written 10 years ago - I recall similar 'almost there' experiences with audio and USB on a dell laptop at the time, though I can't blame the Linux community for lack of access to bespoke drivers. Not to belittle the tremendous advances that have taken place in the interim, but something died after development of Enlightenment stalled.
Apple becomes top phone maker by profits (beating Nokia, etc)
I won't down vote you for that, I have no problem with questioning the political reasons why wars are waged. But that doesn't stop me also honouring the men and women who fight in them. To me these things are quite distinct.

So, I might think that Britain's involvement in Iraq was a mistake and should not have happened, but I would shake the hand of any British serviceman who served there and thank them for doing so.
Learn Your Damn Homophones
A friend and I put this site together out of our frustration. Mixing up homophones needs to end—now.
> The real question is: Why are we getting vaccines for this flu? It's a lot less deadly than previous seasonal flus. Why the concern?

Actually, there is no evidence to support the claim that it is less deadly than previous seasonal flus and several bits of research that suggest it might be a bit more deadly than we thought. The first pass of this flu early in the year included some really, really bad reporting out of Mexico that at first made it appear to be the second coming of the 1918 flu and then made it look like a very mild flu strain.

So far, what we know is that it spreads very quickly because the general population has very few antibodies that can defend against it. In its current form it is not significantly more deadly than seasonal flu, but its mortality profile is a little different. It is leading to more pneumonia than most seasonal flus and it is also tending to kill more young people than standard seasonal flu, which usually kills the very young and very old but seldom kills people between those two extremes.

Given the rate at which flu mutates (and the possibility that this flu could pick up a particularly nasty mutation) and the lack of any significant herd immunity in the general population it is prudent to prepare for the worst and also to get as many people vaccinated as possible.
In a week or two it is possible to configure a desktop Linux machine to almost-perfection. Not working on it full time, of course, just fixing broken things as they are discovered. But then there's always one tiny nagging thing that doesn't quite work right.

So, an upgrade. Everything is shinier, and that one bug is finally fixed. Too bad a lot of the programs and libraries are obsolete now, and the software that did survive in the repos is rewritten to use the new interfaces. Along with their bugs. And after a couple weeks setting everything up just so, there is one tiny nagging bug...

I use a Debian machine exclusively. After I upgraded to testing, my video stopped crashing. That's great. But now bluetooth is broken. It's been replaced with a completely new HAL framework, and I still can't figure out how to pair a device.
I've Changed My Mind
I wish I could understand people who describe inanimate objects as sexy. I have no idea how to relate to people who choose a laptop because of its sex appeal, which would be a big disadvantage if I ever need to sell to them. There probably aren't that many of them, but they seem to have a lot of money.