skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: What to do with a spare laptop?
I'm sure this has been asked a million times but I can only scroll back so far : )

I have a 2 or 3 year old IBM Thinkpad with Windows on it that I don't really use because I have both a desktop and a work-issued laptop, both with Windows. I was thinking of installing Linux on it, but don't have a ton of time to waste down the rabbit hole of drivers, etc. Any suggestions for what I should do with it? Install Linux? If so, which distro? Do something else with it? Your suggestions are greatly appreciated.
I was above average intelligence in a school with a slightly below average age group. As a result I stood intellectually taller than my peers and breezed through.

I was brought up with my parents doting on me telling me I was brilliant and destined to great things.

As a result I was a little shit at 18.

It was university that brought me crashing down, gave me social skills, got me laid and focused my education. But that was only by luck (I changed course at the last minute - my original choice would have been easy as school).

However it never found me a purpose or passion (beyond an enjoyment of "hacking" and programming). I left university a much nicer person but just as lost.

Now it's only 18 months later but I have a real serious career and a passion and am doing pretty good. Again that was total luck.

Sounds like this guy is just getting to the "lost" section; don't worry it will figure itself out. It might take a couple of years (I know a guy who it took till about 31 to really sort out what he wanted). But the fact he is asking means he is on the right path.

Best advice I believe you can give people like that is dont think too far ahead - I still want to be a millionaire playboy at 30 with 10's of businesses behind me. But thankfully now I know that is just a dream to help drive me to whatever success I do end up with. It might well be as good as that - probably not. But hell, ill bumble along ok regardless :)

Or in summary: this shit generally works itself out so long as you work hard on the moment in hand.

EDIT: I see a few people trashing the armed forces option. I couldn't disagree more. If you make the decision in the right way and understand what your signing up too it could be a great experience. No need to worry about your ling term future for the moment :)
Plurchase (YC S09): Meet you at the virtual mall
Cant google just add their spam filters for all the group messages too?
That is good to hear. From what I read in the docs it appears that only InnoDB tables were supported.
You seriously think that reasonable arguments like this are going to get the TSA to stop supporting policies that cost them nothing but mitigate massive possible career risks for themselves? Because I think it would be irrational for this administration to step back even an inch from where security is now. They'd simply get blamed for anything that happened within the next 10 years.
I've been finding myself saying the phrase "I wish they'd move this project away from google code and onto github" quite frequently lately.

Funny, I usually find myself saying "I wish they'd move this project away from github, provide a proper API-stable versioned release, properly document the project and APIs, and otherwise behave like a well-maintained open source project" a lot lately. =)

If they did all that, then I wouldn't need to fork the project, maintain any local patches/modifications, etc.
xkcdsucks is hateful trollery?

(Oh. Sorry. Didn't notice your nick. ;)
Yes, I think that with this web 1.0 officially ends.

There is a great disturbance in the force somewhere, millions of 'under construction' gifs cried out simultaneously.

I really wonder how this will affect the google pagerank of lots of pages that have been around for a long time.

The 'average pr' of geocities pages was probably quite low, but collective it must have been enormous, especially the ones from before the spam era.
Does anyone know if 2.0 will be rolled out to T-Mobile G1 users in the USA? I have heard different opinions about whether the G1 hardware would/could run Android 2.0.
Google should split USENET from Google Groups. The first is useful, the second is questionable. The first is suffering terribly from it's conjunction (by Google) with the second.
Do both, work hard on the right things.

http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html

You need to define what you mean by "the right thing."
I'm sorry. What? The fact that there's a potential digital image of my strip search defuses the embarassment aspect of it? The reason there's no righteous indignation over them is that normal people don't actually know what the devices are doing.
We may all be thanking Randall in the near future for being unable to use laptops while flying.
And, indeed, that's just what I said to the security goon before he dragged me into this interview room officer. I really don't understand the problem!
The link not only isn't working it looks very strange it's a link to an .exe file (!) on cdmhost.com . Is it some sort of malware/phishing attempt using a passthrough feature?? That's just what it looks like, don't use scribd, so could be standard for all I know.
Cyber Crooks Trick Gawker Into Serving Ad Laced With Malware
I cant help but agree - I have to admit whenever I click through the support tabs on a projects site and see it go to a Google group my heart sinks.
I wonder if Google would replace management of Google Groups team...
I'm thrilled to hear it. Especially the part about you both having t-shirts. In all these years I still haven't met any stranger randomly in public (at a non-reddit event) wearing a reddit shirt - yet we've sold thousands...

One day... (and I know I'm going to act like such a freak when I accost them).
I don't know about that. Sure, there's lots of 4chanism, but I'm also constantly impressed by the community helping each other out and providing interesting perspectives on a huge variety of topics (see the IAmA SubReddit in particular).
If you already have a workable computer, give it to a relative who needs one, or sell it. No need to stock up on hardware other people can find useful.

You can also keep it as a spare, but that's wasteful. Computers are a commodity.
Our only hope is that someone uses the TSA to blow up an aeroplane - the resulting paradox should cause them all to vanish in a puff of logic :-)
I hate to say this, but I think you should first call your old boss and see if you can get your job back.

Apple owes you that money, but it could be a long time before you get it.

Also, and this is of course something you already realize but it needs to be said: The money isn't in the bank until it is in the bank, never ever make a decision based on money that you haven't got yet.
Go public with it. Right now you are just some random anonymous guy claiming something. This story will probably hit pretty good on miscellanous news sites; Apple gets bad press, resolves your issue, and you get, well, press. Yay!
War driving and wireless sniffing - even decrypt some networks (with permission). And more..

A security distro like Backtrack will give you hours of random fun playing with all the tools.

Something a bit different anyway.
The Single Best Way to Defeat the 9-5 Grind
Or they decide he's too much of a pain, refund the people that bought his app their $ and yank it.
Yeah, there is something of a distinction between a communication channel for something that's already "made it", and a project that still needs a low barrier to entry. You can impose higher hurdles for people to jump over to participate without really losing much if your project is already 'famous'.

However, if you're trying to gain traction, having something that's easy to get started with is important, and Google Groups fits that bill pretty well: 1) people with Google accounts can sign up easily. 2) You can treat it as either a web-based forum, or a mailing list, which allows people to interact in the way that's best for them.

Indeed, I just switched Hecl over to using Google Groups, from a SourceForge mailing list, and so far I'm reasonably happy, despite a few spam problems.
Hence the asshole comment. You can always find a way to smuggle a bomb onto a plane. Limiting case: swallow a condom full of plastic explosives and shit it out in the restroom, the same way drug mules carry cocaine or heroin. There's no real way to stop this short of X-raying every traveler.

The questions the TSA should be asking are:

1.) What is the likelihood that a potential terrorist will use this means of smuggling weapons on board?

2.) How effectively can our screening procedures catch weapons, given that they exist?

3.) How much inconvenience does this cost passengers?

People had little problem with metal detectors and X-rays, because 1.) your clothes and carry on luggage are the natural hiding places for a bomb 2.) the machines will catch most of these instances and 3.) they're not a huge hassle for travelers. But by the time you get down to chucking water bottles because there might be a liquid explosive in them and it might be denser than water and it might be non-polar - really, what are the chances that a terrorist will use that means of smuggling? Compared to, say, overvolting a laptop battery?

For that matter, I think metal detectors may also be obsolete, now that it's fairly easy to make plastic/composite knives and guns.
That seems plausible, sure.
I'm 32. I still want to make videogames but I don't want to work for Shit-A. I want to hole up in a log cabin somewhere and code till my eyes ache. Like Jeff Minter. (I seem to recall a comment from John Carmack along similar lines when he wanted to try a rendering technique: something like "I did what I normally do. I locked myself in a hotel room for three days and coded it up.")

Oh well. Until I have that log cabin in the woods my day job involves robot submarines, which is as awesome as it sounds.
Having gone through a similar phase recently, I can relate a lot to this guy. In my case, I was just plain lazy and irresponsible. For me, sitting about and wondering about 'the purpose' was a way of justifying not working in my grad courses.
How many people really do manage to find their purpose in life? I would take SamAtt's insurmountable odds and extend them to every second of life. In all the moments that you have till death, you can do so many things, sitting and moping should just feel wrong. (I wish I followed my own advice.)
I don't know the guy, but I feel such thoughts arise from an easy-going and leisurely life. People growing up with uncertain futures and/or troubled circumstances/times (in the so-called Third World) seem to be much clearer about what to do. Making meaning of your life is much easier when you have a hungry family to feed back home. You can't be bothered about your 'true calling' then.
I don't know which case is better for an individual's peace of mind. Being more aware of one's mortality can help, perhaps.
This brings a tiny tear to my eye...
So the spammers just start reporting a bunch of good emails as spam in order to confuse the moderation system.
"They'd simply get blamed for anything that happened within the next 10 years."

The administration would get blamed anyway by virtue of being in charge. They've been willing to announce stopping the use of torture (with many in their opposition howling that this will cost American lives), so it's clearly not impossible for them to change policy just because security is the claimed justification for it.

Nobody cares about what the TSA itself supports. The TSA does what it's told to do. The idea is to get enough people annoyed about what the FAA has the TSA do to encourage change in policy. This may or may not be doable, but that's politics for you.

EDIT: emphasis added for the benefit of some poor readers.
I felt like I hadn't done anything entrepreneurial in my youth, but in retrospect selling "spider removal services" as a 7 year old, and selling membership to my BBS as a 15 year old (amongst other things) fit in the same genre of what many entrepreneurs talk of doing themselves.
Theorems?

"I do not think that word means what you think it means."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D58LpHBnvsI

To him they are self-evident truths. There are axioms, not theorems.

If they are theorems, show me your axioms and your proofs.
I wish Google Groups worked out better for moderators, because as a user it's the only message system I enjoy using (versus my 300th phpBB or vBulletin registration/confirmation/login cycle).

I know some groups have promoted frequent posters to moderator status and this helps with the workload (though it sounds like the jQuery group already does this and it's still too much).
I second Jacques. Your biggest (and probably only real) mistake was quitting the job before payments definitely appeared!

You might have earned that 2500 that made you quit your job but it wasnt in your pocket ;)

Also it will be worth getting it back; because Im guessing that instead of writing new apps and improving your current ones you've been sorting this out. And so the next risk is you get this sorted and then the money starts to tail off..
Do Opera Mini Stats Tell the Whole Mobile Web Story?
Read it. Response: the same sample of people would support repealing the 4th Amendment, because "people who have nothing to hide have nothing to be afraid of" (logic used by the people the author talked to). Meanwhile, their mothers are being imaged naked when they fly out to see their grandkids. No, I don't think everyone is OK with this. I think people don't yet fully comprehend what the machines do.
In fact, it has nothing to do with our departure. We've been preparing for this for the last 6 months or so.
It's a great book, but the Pirenne thesis has since been pretty thoroughly debunked.
Paul Erdős never married or had kids; that biological fact alone is thought to account for his prolific mathematical output (and why we have an Erdős number).
I/O Performance Challenges at Leadership Scale
why does a gps recorder have "frequent/intense mature/suggestive themes" and require that i "must be at least 17 years old to download this application"?
Same thing happened to me; I had the Swiss Army knife in my backpack between a whole bunch of CDs. I wonder if the edges of the CDs somehow concealed the knife, or if the security person simply wasn't paying attention.

By the way, what's the likelihood of TWO people bringing a knife/bomb on board the same plane? Pretty small, huh? Hence, you should always bring your own bomb to fly safely! ;-)
They've been willing to announce stopping the use of torture

Good grief.

3 people were waterboarded. The former administration refused to rule in or out any sort of interrogation technique.

They hardly "stopped the use of torture". Made a political statement, sure. Announced what the limits were, sure. But they didn't stop anything of the sort.
The last small app I wrote in Rails, http://glunote.com, I switched from the standard Prototype/Scriptaculous libraries to JQuery, just to give it a spin. Took about 5 minutes to install the JQuery plugin (JRails) and tweek a few things to get it up and running. Man, was I impressed. Not that glunote does anything super tricky AJAX wise, but I still found JQuery so much easier to use than prototype.

It's got a really shallow learning curve, it integrates well with existing Rails RJS and helper functions (thanks to jRails), has a ton of plugins and is pretty lightweight for a JS library.
I'll be using it for all future projects.
I didn't believe it until I saw it here...

"MotionEvent can now report simultaneous-touch information for devices that support it. Up to three pointers can be tracked simultaneously."

Talk about good news. Maybe Google is taking off the kid gloves now after Google Voice got rejected?
While I can't say for sure because I don't have a mac with a video card that poor, I can say that I don't see any such limitation spelled out in the beta copy docs or options.
Randall's comment is simultaneously correct and misleading on a particular point. A laptop battery may have quite a bit of energy density, but that's not entirely relevant, as he points out in the next sentence. The speed at which the energy is released is far, far more important.

I provided that remark just so I could repeat this awesome factoid: a stick of butter has more energy than a stick of dynamite.
Thanks! I'm going to try and get my http://breadpig.posterous.com going, but there's always http://alexisohanian.com if you'd like the scoop on what we're working on next...

reddit is going to be hard to top, or even match, so please keep your expectations measured :)

It's funny how much weight we put in past success as an indicator of future success, no matter how much we may repeat the mantra that it's not. Going from spec-ing out features for reddit with Steve in an apartment to acquisition 16months later is the kind of thing that can only happen with a tremendous amount of chance.
Yahoo groups is definitely worse.

I'd kinda like to see either the Groups team fix the problems or some startup come up and really own that space.
I ran into the same problem just today: need to generate some urls within a library component and for that I need to give it the controller (which has url_for and the other helpers). The funny thing is, I am new to rails and was thinking how to do this more cleanly and how the good guys do this (anyone?), now this guy basically says go screw yourself, purists, I'll have it global. I'll stay with my hacky solution too I think.
His asks if the TSA ever tests if confiscated liquids are actually explosives. This is a brilliant question! If there is no cost to trying to sneak in liquid explosives (unlike, say, a gun), terrorists can easily try again and again until they succeed, and the ban really is very pointless.
No. Not going to educate myself about the facts of the case. Why? Because that would be retarded. There are millions of ways for terrorists to bring down a plane, and arguing about this specific one way is exactly what people like the TSA want you to do.

But I'm glad you've convinced yourself that they're wrong about this one way. I'm a convicted TSA skeptic, and you haven't even convinced me, but I'm sure it's fun to be right.
Same reasons the Turing test hasn't been passed.
I haven't had much trouble with it. I just moderate the first post by a user and let the rest through. This has prevented any spam from getting through to my 1200+ member group.
I've been using duckduckgo; very nice. One UI comment: when I click on "More Links" I'd like some kind of cue -- say, a horizontal line -- so I know where to start looking when the results come back. I frequently click for "More" then while that's loading I go look at another tab. When I return to Ducky it's sometimes difficult to separate the new results from ones I've looked at (but not clicked on) before.

You might try to track page age; some of the results I get are from 5 years ago and as noted by others, aren't always useful today. But that's a harder problem for another time.
Amazon says replication is "coming soon":

"High Availability Offering — For developers and business who want additional resilience beyond the automated backups provided by Amazon RDS at no additional charge. With the high availability offer, developers and business can easily and cost-effectively provision synchronously replicated DB Instances in multiple availability zones (AZ’s), to protect against failure within a single location."
It works great for me. My system specs:

Model Name:	MacBook Pro
Model Identifier:	MacBookPro5,1
Processor Name:	Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed:	2.66 GHz
Number Of Processors:	1
Total Number Of Cores:	2
L2 Cache:	6 MB
Memory:	4 GB
Bus Speed:	1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version:	MBP51.007E.B00

I can confirm that if I turn on the GT video card that I can actually play DoTA (Warcraft 3) in Vista at 1024x768 with no skipping. Obviously it doesn't balk at anything less complex (like Linux development and testing, which is what I usually use it for).

Edit: The support for multiple monitors is also greatly improved. I tend to like to connect my MBP to a second monitor, throw the VM on it, then fullscreen it. Works great.
Google Groups needs to switch to a Stack Exchange paradigm. I'm hard pressed to see what the disadvantage would be.
I think the EU has treaty obligations that supersede random people's [not jrockway] opinions about whether someone accused of a white-collar crime is going to be treated unfairly.
Python is "the real stuff", and I'm always annoyed by the snobbishness that leads some people to dismiss it. Python is an excellent language, with a large user base, and some compilers in the works.

Just because C is hardcore and Lisp is amazing and Haskell is mind-exploding doesn't mean that Python isn't a great language.
These are studies that barefoot runners (including me) frequently cite. There was a thread indirectly related a few weeks back. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=863018
The Potential of StatusNet Properly Explained [Federated Microblogging]
So your take is, I should run two whole seperate databases so I can store my property tables in a k-v store instead of in a trivial table?
Think of it the other way around.

Fred is an employee of your company that builds an iPhone app. Fred is responsible for registering it but decides to use his personal account details. If Apple paid the money into Fred's account you would be reasonably aggrieved

So there is nothing wrong here - well after your rather odd decision to register as one legal entity (a UK Limited Company) but provide the bank account details of another legal entity (yourself).

I suspect that the money is effectively lost to you.
and that you should withdraw the app (if you can) and re-register honestly and clearly as yourself.
If they are willing to bomb the plane they are ridding then I don't think they are going to care about long term damage from drinking it. So worst case you eat something to slow the poison and then blow up to plain in an hour or so. Which brings up a separate but important point, you could probably smuggle a lot of explosive the way they move heroin. The blast would be muffled by the human body but... nm.
It's an interesting A/B test. A is a big insurance company, owned by the taxpayers; B is a small insurance company, owned by one super-ambitious, super-greedy guy. I'm willing to bet that B will be paying more in income taxes (corporate and individual) than A pays in interest on its government debt.
I love my Kindle DX and share the author's sentiment, except I do use mine for reading PDFs and, while not perfect, does the job exceptionally.
You hit on a really good point. Will newer versions of Android be backward compatible to older hardware, or will they keep up the pace with the latest and greatest?
They do that? That'd suck.
What "Tweet" Needs to Become: To Share a Moment
I heard the G1 had too little storage to hold newer builds, but that was before Donut, and Donut works great on my phone.
"Not going to educate myself about the facts of the case. Why? Because that would be retarded."

Then don't bleat about what I do and do not know or ramble on about "credibility".

"I'm a convicted TSA skeptic, and you haven't even convinced me"

Yes, you've shown your deep skepticism here, but what made you think I was trying to convince you of anything? I merely pointed out something perfectly true, and you appointed yourself my terribly lazy fact-checker and rhetoric editor.

I'm not going to try to "convince" someone who makes false statements or implications any more than I'm going to have a meeting of the minds with the guy quoting Republican talking points on torture.
I've found the small team in charge of the app store/itunes connect customer support to be very helpful. You mention that you emailed them. What did they say when you called?
But what if I want to marry/have kids, and don't give a hoot about my mathematical output?

Whatever makes people happy eh? Not everyone needs to be an Einstein.