skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Did anyone find a free copy (preferably PDF) of J-STD-025b?
Perpetually impossible.
Careful saying this around computer scientists, or you might get an earful about Turing machines, etc.

Scientists wouldn't say that. You're thinking of people who just learned x86 assembly yesterday, and are amazed that they can say "Hello world" in 10x the lines of any other language. "It's all the same!"
But Go is no improvement over Java. (And you have to work pretty hard to not improve on Java...)
Customizing BlackBerry Applications
Foursquare unveils API to the public
Ask HN: Alternative careers for a developer
I like making things but am considering giving up on being a developer. What other careers are there that use a similar skill set that you would recommend?

I'm considering architecture, industrial design, interaction design, etc

Reasons for giving up on software development:

1) I'm not very good at it.

2) I would prefer to make something physical and substantial I can show people. Screens don't impress any more.

3) I have RSI which means I can go for weeks without being able to use a computer.

Any suggestions?
What's New in openSUSE 11.2
I don't see it as a cryptic remark; it does seem like a bit of an inkblot to some folks, though.
An investigation of silicon sweatshops.
Ahh the year is almost over. Here come the predictions for 2010 posts that are pure linkbait.
I pay Dropbox 5 or 6 bucks a month for 20 gigs. It's been available as an account option for a few months at leas.t
How I am measuring Product/Market Fit
You seem to have entirely paraphrased their own press release without adding any value: http://foursquare.tumblr.com/post/246291833/we-heard-you-lik...

Link to the source, not your own blog.
Same here in CO Springs. AT&T "inflates" their connection information (more bars) on their phones. [citation needed I know] I can sit in my office with 4 or 5 bars of 3G and not bring up Google.com on my IPhone. I live on the top of a hill about a block away from an array of cell towers, but my calls rarely even connect (and drop all the time).
Uh, what? Decentralization greatly increases the reliability of the system. All of the Internet's successful systems are decentralized; the web, email, routing, DNS, etc. While decentralization does protect against lawsuits, it also protects against power outages, network outages, "I don't feel like paying for this domain name anymore", and so on.

I will conclude with a thought experiment: Do you know how to host a small file over HTTP? Do you know how to setup and maintain a Bittorrent tracker?

If you answered yes to the first question but no to the second question, decentralized tracking is for you.
To be technical, I'd think you'd have to say 'seen on NYTimes.com', as I doubt the GigaOM syndication makes it to the print edition.
I can only speculate why my initial comment here was voted up - then down.

The issue here wasn't that he was collecting unemployment while bootstrapping -- its that he simply didn't tell the Texas Workforce Commission.

If you have a start up, and you tell the unemployment office, they may still give you the full compensation
(although I wonder if we would have received the maximum allowed benefit).

When you sign up for unemployment they ask you if you are current self-employed. He had his name on a DBA, had a fully functioning website up describing his business - and withheld this information from TWC.

This is illegal.
Venture Capital Survey - Silicon Valley Third Quarter 2009
It seems that the general shift in the torrenting community has been towards private trackers anyways. The average pirate seems more interested now in finding good quality releases and obscure content. Also, private sites are usually safer to use on the legal side of it. Of course, I may just be projecting my own opinions onto a community in which I may be atypical.
Droid camera fixes itself (for 24.5 days)
The title is somewhat misleading.

While Objective C syntax is mixed into the examples, the looping constructs discussed are entirely native C constructs.

The code also looks to have 32-bit dependencies based on its use of the %u.

The use of %lu or %lx and casting is usually preferred in the NSLog, lest 64-bit operations encounter errors.

eg: NSLog(@"NSUInteger: %lu", ((unsigned long)i));

http://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/cocoa/c...
Noticed on the site:

> * Join Fedora

> * Get Help

Isn't the order mixed around here? Surely people need to be satisfied with an OS before they contribute to it?
The way NYTimes lists it as just GigaOM when it's from any of the sites in the GigaOM Network is confusing. I went through the same thing awhile back when trying to find an original source post, and it was on NewTeeVee.com.
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I guess it's a bit unfair for me to expect you to get at the personal motivations and philosophy of a startup founder, while at the same time grilling them on the ethics behind their business. I have to say I did enjoy the interview at the time, and watched the entire thing, and only afterwards did I question its value.

As for Chipotle, I am living pretty far from where it originated. Maybe the quality control is lower here. I'll give it another try when I'm in California.
Times News to Charge for 24 hour Access
James Harding of The Times plans to charge for 24-hour access to the website of the daily newspaper in combination with a subscription-fee based model.
Except the MPAA hates Netflix and would love to see it die. For an anecdote: http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/a4n1i/so_i_just_...

The RIAA/MPAA really live in another reality where there can be no compromise.
> Trading on information not available to the whole is generally frowned upon and universally looked upon as unethical.

Wrong on both counts.

The vast majority of stock trades occur because both parties think that they know something that the other party doesn't know. Neither party is acting unethically.

In fact, such trades actually disclose information. I don't know everything relevant about Apple, but Apple's stock price, which I can know, tells me a lot about what other people know about Apple.
Fedora 12 Review and Commentary - Linux Critic
The Benefits of a Spa Massage
Educational Overhaul? (Part 1)
It is available on google code: http://code.google.com/p/papert

It is also in some serious need of attention after being plagued by spambots.

If anyone fancies hacking on it I will happily add them to the svn repository/google app engine.
I went through a brief period where I was convinced I wanted to be a carpenter, specifically making furniture. I've also worked as a builders mate and roofer in the past both of which I enjoyed and all of which settle my desire to create something. It seemed better to be building something that actually existed in the real world, not just on the internet.

These days though I'm just trying to make enough money in the next few years that I'll never have to sit at a desk again, and given my current skill set and the general nature of the internet I think being a developer is the best way to do it ;)
With caching I don’t think you can assume any values are sure to never be used again.

Yes, there are some situations where circular references to DOM elements and the like will cause reference count based GC engines to leak memory. But an unbounded cache does not fit that description. It could be poor memory usage but not a memory leak.
Why News Corp. and Murdoch Won't Quit Google
Use your twitter profile as a Chrome (or chromium) theme
It continues to fascinate me how someone who is willing to work hard and follow his passion can use the Internet to do something previously thought impossible.

I love Simmons and his writing. I probably never would have heard of him in the days before he could easily publish on the Web. There are an multitude of voices just like his out there that I look forward to discovering.
Ah, but don't strike the King unless you can kill the King. Google has the tragedy of the commons going for it- each news organization would be better off if all the others blocked Google and they theirselves defected and got the Google traffic.
Do you really believe that there are no US/CA entities simply buying the hosting package in another country to provide this service? I don't have a proof that it's not true, but it just seems really unlikely.

Also - querying (for example) Giganews location I get "Data Foundry, Inc., Austin, TX, US". This really shouldn't be a problem for US lawyers...
I'm trying to figure out the same thing myself. I love my XP install, but seven does have some awesome features. Don't go back to mac unless you just want to do media oriented work.
Case studies: how do top iPhone developers market their apps?
I'm very interested but don't get it. What does it do and how does it work.
I'm frankly surprised that it got linked to at all, actually.
I've never dealt with VCs from 'the inside', so it's certainly possible they're just as slimy. I suspect they aren't, because there's no distribution choke point as there is (was) in music, so they can't effectively enforce shenanigans. (They also don't lobby nearly as much, get weasel-words inserted into legislation on the sly, nor have they been found guilty of horiztonal collusion and anticompetitive practices. several times)

But even if they were, equivocation doesn't validate the correctness of either market. And the existence of contracts certainly don't somehow validate the way things work.
Does anyone have the actual technical details of why this is?
Can you see green on the earth from space from the plant life? If so I wonder if we could actually detect vegetation on these planets?
Vodka is an even worse when it comes to peoples perception of quality. The higher the price, the better it must be! Twice I've had bartenders will up shot glasses with well vodka and Grey Goose, then number the napkins - my friends have got it wrong both times.

I've been to Mt. Hood distillery, they import 180 proof ethyl alcohol by train from the midwest where its distilled from grain, then the use it to make many different popular brands of vodka, gin, liqueurs, and others. The Vodka bought in America is Ethyl alcohol cut with water!
I read somewhere recently that their data usage has spiked several thousand percent since the iPhone came out. They've drastically increased capacity, but haven't caught up yet.

So it's a hard problem. Not that it excuses them - they launched a great web device into a field of devices that were nearly unusable on the web, so the spike is not surprising (at least in hindsight). But I do think they're trying.
For those that aren't aware of it, there's a new newmogul up and running. Same software, and same intentions. (HN, but for business)

http://markenomics.com/
Recruiting Royal Navy Engineers – there’s an app for that
I like my verizon, had them for about 10 years, but I hate them whenever I have to make/receive calls from home. The reception is junk, dropped calls, can only hear every other word.

Outside my house, perfect, inside junk.

Also their phone selection has been pretty crap until recently.
Tool of the Day: Less Accounting: More Accounting and Less Stress
Nine EYRGBHTV thoughts
Why would an autofocus routine use a timestamp? Boggle me confused.
Interesting trend, there's a similar one for the Swedish Army http://forsvar.fileflat.com/english/. I guess they know where their target market is..
Simmons is just expounding, at the highest level, the fascinations, lifestyle and thoughts of a guy who likes sports. So much so that he actually doesn't cover sports as much as he covers being a sports fan.
The real sustainability movement
Shadowserver to take over as Mega-D botnet herder
Rare Headshrinking Footage Confirmed?[video]
nowadays pretty much any white collar job you do, will involve sitting at a computer all day.
Designing Social Interfaces: Overview and Practical Techniques
From what I've seen, architects go to school, really arduous school, for years, after which they continue to work constantly, much more than 40 hours per week. I believe they get paid less than developers, have less job security -- and, yes, sit at a computer all day.

But what do I know? All I can suggest is: Don't apply to design or architecture school until you've talked with at least three working architects or designers. Make sure you talk to at least one cynic.
You should try the format of Magic, where everyone gets a basic deck and two booster decks a few minutes before the game and gets to build a deck with it. (You can `synthesize' booster decks, too.)

For me, Dominion could use some more interaction.
This is a year old, but the deficit has taken off like a rocket in the past year. I was wondering how many Americans here have been thinking they might expat, and where to.
Immigrants don't crowd out native workers
You hardly ever fail because of your CTO
Is there a good way to get a list of these?
My guess is that they're measuring time in milliseconds stored in a 32-bit signed integer and its overflowing to negative after 24.5 days (which is approx 2^31 milliseconds http://www.google.com/search?q=2^31+milliseconds+to+days )
Including the architecture and design jobs he listed.

I guess if he really hates computers he could be a manager and spend his days in meetings.
My guess is that autofocusing is based on input collected over a period of time, not instantaneous input.
> a.) might lend themselves well to cloud and cloud-like environments and b.) are receiving disproportionately more attention relative to their erstwhile competition are Clojure and Go.

This one is easy. Lisp is going absolutely nowhere beyond appealing to curious mathematically-minded undergrads and researchers. Pure functional ideas and Lisp have been supposed to make a big comeback for what, 20-30 years? The generation that learned CS through SICP in their first year of university have utterly rejected Lisp as a practical production language. Now the generation that is learning with Python and Java is going to think it's the great new thing?

Go is "going" nowhere soon, since:

1. The performance isn't nearly good enough yet. It's going to need to be better than languages like Java and C# to even have a plausible niche.

2. No exceptions and generics right now is an absolute show-stopper for essentially all potential users, purely and simply.

3. For the spaces that C currently occupies, C works just fine.
in my primary school classes, we were lucky enough to have one of the logo turtle robots. Special memories..
Perhaps because their price for customers is strictly greater than zero, their user base is limited?
Please Review My Startup (Stage 1): Project Management Methodologies
What's your time-line to 2.0. I was considering buying this app, but now i'm thinking that i'd spend $25 only to have to do it again in a couple of weeks...
Some implementations are (this one appears to be), but not all of them.

For instance, one simplistic way of focusing automatically maximizes the contrast in the area of interest.
Doesn't putting tor underneath suffice?
Finding the laws that govern us
"Citation needed."

http://www.joystiq.com/2009/10/26/developer-claims-80-percen...

http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/the-little-tank-that-cou...

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/iphone-rally-game-sees-95...
I used it before I knew it was a programming language. I got it in a game disk and it came with a "cheatsheet". I learned the combinations in a few minutes and had it drawing things. Pretty soon, 2-3 days, I grabbed a math book to lookup formulas :-)
I'd also know who gave it the score. If a director that I love makes a film that a critic that I respect gives a high score I'd be happy to see that film knowing nothing else.
I don't get it. I really don't. The total power budget for one of these satellites is 6 watts. And it's going to replace a ground-based server that consumes 200-1000 watts.

How can a 6-watt server be an effective replacement for a 200-watt server? And if it is, why not put the 6-watt server in the data center, where it doesn't require a big rocket or suffer radio latency, and it's easy to swap/repair/upgrade?

Now, if these were retargeted as routers, covering the whole world with wireless Internet, it'd be interesting.
View-Master 2009: Make your own virtual reality goggles
It's not a matter of hating computers but of being unable to use them much. I have RSI and can go for periods of weeks/months of being unable to type.
You could try selling software. If you're a developer now, you should be able to understand it and explain it to people. There are other skills involved in sales (it's best to be extroverted and to enjoy talking to people).

But you'd be spending your time traveling and talking to people.
Before you review.

I'm only about a week into this thing and I'm a sole developer, so apologies if the site looks lame.

Goals for stage 1: Create a set of user-generated content to use as test data for later stages, Gain experience in the proposed architecture/platform, get into a release rhythm

Having said that, to me it looks like an interesting idea for a site: an overview of all user-generated technology aggregation sites.

I could continue for another week or two, adding things like tracking whether the scores were increasing or staying the same, user comments, notifications, more technology feeds, etc. Or I could continue on to stage 2, using this as test data.

What say you? Continue to stage 2 or is there enough interesting material here to warrant exploring for another week or two? If you think there's stuff worth exploring, what specifically would be useful to end users and why?
Wow, so why are people interested in Japan extremely shy? It doesn't seem like cosplay is inherently an introverted activity.
I would suggest you start by reading the essay Shop Class as Soulcraft

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as-sou...

... and then read the entire (not very long) book, if you like the article. it might give you a starting point for thinking about fulfilling careers that don't involve sitting at a computer all day
Well, there are many options how to do autofocusing, but one of them involves sending out either ultrasonic or infrared wave and calculating the delay it takes to cover the distance to the subject.

Now lets just hope that someone with more knowledge about the implementation of this system can describe the problem more clearly...
Sales Engineer
Construction site manager
Military officer
Field biologist
Criminal investigator [1]
Doctor, Nurse, PA
Teacher

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_agent
It's a network security tool used for exploiting security holes in Windows systems in order to inject a remote control payload. It does have white-hat utility, but my sense is that it's mostly used for grey and black-hat activities.

Unlike the usual "script kiddie" Linux rootkits, it is largely focused in exploration and control of a single machine, but the building blocks Metasploit provides could easily be used to construct botnets, especially in dense networks like college campuses or medium-sized businesses without a strong IT security focus.
J.P. Morgan donating $5 million through facebook
Architecture has always stood out to me as a potentially good career for the technical/creative type. I have a few friends who are architects and while they usually enjoy the work, they do NOT get paid well considering the amount of schooling they had to go through. Developers do way better.

See this CNN article for reference:

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/15/pf/training_pay/
Why Does Amazon.com Allow Multiple Accounts With The Same Email Address?
I expected them to come up with something amazingly awesome

Why?! C and UNIX are from the worse-is-better camp.
That's probably not a bad rule when thinking about any career - actually speak to people doing it before deciding.
Interesting idea but the URL is hard to communicate to someone in real life. Also it just looks like the top stories are all from Hacker News. Think about why would someone go to your site rather than the source (HN)? What makes you different?
I believe terrestrial albedo is used to do vegetation detection on earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo
Biosensor to find landmines
I was actually thinking about doing a degree in geology just for the fun of it - then I saw what petroleum geologists get paid!
I was an architect student now turned developer. The thought processes are very similar between the two disciplines however I personally find developing more rewarding.

In architecture you are considered a 'young' architect if you are in your fifties. That means you spend your best years designing underground drainage systems (that nobody will see) or garage extensions for pittance and long hours and minimal job security.
Web Type in Context (Do we need web-type rendering standards?)
Not only for Windows systems. It can be used for exploits against any OS.

And it's used in exploit development as well as execution.
+1 on Dali
I think Go is going to find a home with network services that need better parallel processing than is generally managed with C.

Sure, it'll probably still be a science project next year. But I don't think it's as dire as you're suggesting.
There aren't entire chapters. It appears in a quote by a mathematician. Gladwell isn't trying to explain mathematics poorly, he's transcribing poorly.
I think this is the best advice -- work in something where you can create. To me, that's the core of my interest in software dev -- creating, working, making something. Carpentry sounds like it could be very rewarding.
It's a things type of syncing, apple doesn't open up sync services for iphone apps.
Right. It's almost as if F5 forgot that the infrastructure isn't a means to it's own end for application owners.
Ask HN: How about this idea, a 'friends of HN server' ?
I've been kicking this around for a while and I think it is time to ask you all for input on it.

I would like to make available a single, 500G storage, 100MBit connected (flat rate) server that I can get at a local hosting company.

Then I would like to make that server available to the HN community, for people that can't afford the commitment to a long term hosting contract, to see if their ideas have 'legs'.

There would have to be some house rules, and there would have to be a system administrator (I will not be doing anything over and beyond providing the server).

Is this idea viable ?

Would people be interested ?

Is someone prepared to step up as sysadmin of this box ?

How to determine who goes on and who doesn't if the demand is larger than the supply ?

What other conditions should there be made on the 'tenants' ?

Pitfalls, snags that you can foresee ?

Let me know your thoughts please, if there is enough interest and someone with enough competence that wants to commit to babysitting the box then I am willing to go and sign a years lease on this thing.

I figure if all it brings is one successful launch then it's well worth it.
Somebody somewhere is doing your dream job as a bridge to doing their dream job.
His Vegas columns are some of my favorites; my friends and I can relate to them on so many levels. I look forward to his column every Friday (though he has not been updating as often lately, probably due to his book signing schedule). Its one of the few columns/articles that can literally make me LoL...

Purchased his book but have not had a chance to dive into it yet :)
The Economist recently had a article about the scientific basis of the "only white wine with seafood rule": http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displaystory.cfm?.... Apparently, the key factor is the level of iron in the wine -- too much iron in the wine/seafood combination results in a "fishy" taste. It would be interesting to see more research into the chemistry of wine/food pairings.
Great to see you plugging away at this Daniel, keep it up.

The first stage you seem to have licked, but it would be nice to get a bunch more sources in them (and a bit further from the beaten path), maybe a way for people to suggest sources ?