skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I'm an intentionalist about meaning, but I'm not sure that's the right question. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean or what you're asking.

Horace's personal character is hard to know. The character of the speaker in his Odes, however, is that of an older, world-weary man, somewhat cynical about love, philosophy and politics. But this same persona acknowledges frequently that he owes his life of leisure to Maecenas and Augustus, and he makes his living (the character and the real man in this case) as a court poet.

As a younger man, Horace fought on the (so-called) Republican side with the army of Brutus and Cassius. Like many of the young men who were in that army and lived, he returned to Rome and was not penalized or pursued by Octavian (later Augustus). Octavian as a young man could be brutal to his enemies, but in this case he wasn't.

The Odes are filled with many sub-types of poems, but two basic types: lyric poems, praising the life of leisure and ease that the speaker enjoys (explicitly because of the gifts of Maecenas and Augustus) and poems explicitly praising Maecenas, Augustus and various political allies and generals under Augustus. The books are explicitly dedicated to Maecenas, who has been described as Octavian/Augustus's minister of propaganda. They are formally examples of poetry of praise: praise of Augustus, his reign and Rome.

So, the words dulce et decorum are arguably not in character in the sense that the speaker (an older man, far past the point of joining any army) can't live up to them, but they are entirely in character with the tone, spirit and content of the first three books of Odes. (If anything the 4th book of Odes, written much later, is even more fawningly propagandistic.)

By the way, it sounds like you are going on what you've heard/read from others, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I would urge you to read that whole poem and even better Odes III, 1-6, to get a sense of their tone. There's simply nothing in III, 2 to suggest irony or satire.
Excellent.

Do you have any particular topics you would like covered ?

I think the next tutorial will cover different kinds of joins and perhaps aggregate functions and inserts. But I will cover what people ask for.

Thanks for the feedback.
How about making upvoting power (e.g. votes per day (or hour, or whatever) accrue with tenure and/or karma? New users start with a low number of upvotes per period. At the start of each period, their count is reset to this maximum. (Unused votes do not roll over.)

The user's upvote count scales up per some formula, and beyond a certain point, it becomes uncapped.

I wouldn't grandfather anyone, either. KISS, and so that it also addresses the problem with the current population.

Potentional problems with this:

+ In line with the general policy of transparency that is practiced here, you may want to show users how many upvotes they have. But you may not want the load of additional profile page hits that might occur as people check their counts. Perhaps it would be a lower load to show that count in a fashion similar to how karma is shown in the banner next to the user name. However, I don't have a suggestion for a design that wouldn't make the banner look too busy.

+ A scarcity of upvotes might promote more low-value commenting. Perhaps a user's minimum time between comments needs to be defined and similarly throttled. (Simply cutting off comments when the count hits zero will merely result in people turning to comments before their count hits zero.

To take the glass half full view, perhaps such throttling would not eliminate participation, but would help people observe and become accustomed to the community's values before handing them the keys to the kingdom. And if they don't respect those values, it's going to hinder them from progressing to greater influence.

Including karma in the formula allows for high value contributors to progress more quickly. Tenure keeps a one hit wonder or clique of friends from gaining undue influence.
the thing is that if you don't ask for a press embargo and they cover you, you just screwed yourself out of most coverage on other blogs. All of the "what we cover" posts by bloggers, always stress that they don't want to cover something that's already old news.
Rambling but insightful. If there's one quality that unites successful entrepreneurs in my experience they are all proactive problem solvers. They think in terms of what they can do rather than what they can't. Eg. If you can't get a team together then start thinking about what you can do by yourself.
The Crunchies Are Coming, The Crunchies Are Coming
The graphics are (mostly) Python+nodebox. This guy has a monstrous talent.
(I was going to include this as an edit to my previous post, but it really needs its own comment post.) I created a site with a Karma based system. The Karma was actually transferred from person to person, though. Everyone started with 0 Karma, and only the administrator could feed Karma into the system. The users could transfer to each other, but as they gave Karma they would lose Karma. A potential benefit is that the administrator can feed Karma into the system by rewarding people that contribute based on particular topics as chosen by the administrator. I am not sure if this would be a good idea for this site, but I am simply stating it to get the ideas flowing for other solutions. I really like the way the site operates even if there are potentials for abuse or inaccuracies.

Also, not related to the topic so much, I find it funny that I often see people say "I do not care about points." but are also the most likely people to make suggestions about new ways to implement the points system.
love the service, hate the name. means nothing to me. and is long. and you sound retarded saying it.
Initially there were only one version of iPod. Now check how many versions are there in the market.
FoxPop turns watching movies into a Social Media experience
Does someone know the backstory on Groklaw? From the domain name, I presume I'm supposed to trust them about legal issues; that, for instance, they might have some legal training.

If they do, it's not in evidence here. "Dude. It's sudo. With a GUI. For dummies." Presumably, the author knows that it's valid to take an existing idea and patent an improvement on it.

The author also wisecracks about the likelihood that Microsoft wants to collect a "toll" on everyone else's use of sudo. Leaving aside the fact that Microsoft isn't patenting sudo, surely the author realizes that if Microsoft wanted to patent troll the rest of the industry, they have a huge arsenal of far better patents to do it with?
Well, so you are having HAL issues. It is not surprising that switching to HAL may make some devices not work, because HAL takes over all the driving of all devices from Linux, and HAL although a great idea does not seem to be nearly finished.

What is bewildering is why you decide to blame Linux for all of that. You decided to use some cutting edge not really finished utility that is not nearly necessary and you have some issues. Linux is not to blame for that, Linux has perfectly good hardware drivers, you do not need to use HAL.

I mean you may have a point if MS and/or OSX had something like HAL but to the best of my knowledge they don't.

And that's just the nature of Linux -- it gives you freedom. It provides a completely easy and safe route if you choose to take it, but it also allows you to live dangerously, to change everything and to use all kinds of unstable experimental software as part of the OS stack if you choose that. It is your choice and if you choose to live dangerously you should not blame linux but yourself.

I have been running linux for about 5 years now. When i furst started I was all gung ho and compiled my own programs dove headlong into obscure config files, etc. I quickly realized that is not for me and now I only install things with the pachage manager and have not touched a config file in two years. And I am completly happy with my computer.
Apocalypse Then: a two-part series on the lessons of Y2K (Part 1)
or half-sister, or that-kidnapped-girl-i-live-with
+1. I launched several (3) products with people I have never met (1 had a tiny tiny bit of success with 18k users).
All trumped by "what is the situation" vs. "what is the deal", I think. Too easy?

On the other hand, "how to make" is relatively erudite compared to "how to cause."
Yeah, I know. Why doesn't everybody run around and fix my fuckups quicker? I don't understand why they keep blaming me, when I do something wrong.
Announcing E-mail Herald (a.k.a. Stop Spamming Yourself Framework)
The switching costs for facebook are much higher than the switching costs for looksmart or excite. (I had/have an excite email - switching sucked)

Also - all your list of sites really shows is that some sites were able to grow and adapt with their audience (see Yahoo) while some didn't.
Going on past performance - facebook is in that category.
Ohai launches City of Eternals, bringing MMOGs to Facebook
ccache
http://ccache.samba.org/

It's really awesome. Before you switch to Go, you should consider it. People understand how it works right? The preprocessor for each file is run (i.e., gcc -E), and it's inserted into a hashtable (key: the checksum of the preprocessor output and the .cpp or .c file, value: the .o file). If the preprocessor output and the .c or .cpp haven't changed (checksums match), instead of recompiling the .o file, the stored .o file (usually in ~/.ccache) is just copied.

It's actually really hard to make a compiler that's faster than that (amortized cost of nothing). And it's not the same as precompiled headers. In fact, it's about as similar to precompiled headers as Windows is to Linux. I.e., one is based on small parts of the pipeline that are precise and always work if you know what you're doing, but are poorly documented -- '5 to 10 times as fast' as mentioned on the website is just incorrect).

Anyway, Go looks awesome. But I wouldn't use it only because of compilation time.
They are not prejudiced.
Wrong.

Do not quit your day job until you have BEEN PAID $3000 in the bank. Until you can go to the ATM and take out some of that $3000.

Have you not learned anything from this experience?
I'll take your sibling co-founder and raise you one. I have a twin co-founder
Relevance Blog : Hacker-in-Residence
Meeting my co-founder was love at first sight - we were the only freshman in our discrete math class at Berkeley, so the GSI paired us up to be homework buddies. It was our first week in college.

What started as doing problem sets together ultimately turned into building a company together. As they say, "you'll find the one when you're least expecting to."
Clara & I met socially in college, partnered up for a compilers course (CS143), then did a fellowship together during our masters. Went our separate ways for 4 years after college (me to Seattle, she stayed in SF) but stayed close friends & traveled together, both for work & play.

We both quit our jobs this year to start something together...we've been talking about it for long enough it was about time. :)
IPhone Apps Take Root as Cottage Industry
Good Lord, I should hope software does replace sports "journalism". Pick up a major city's paper. Read the first section. Then read the sports section. The quality of reporting is so low as to be laughable, but the sports section IS EVEN WORSE.

Don't even get me started about tee vee sportscasters. What a pack of toadying, cliche-spouting ex-fratboys. Feh. The closest these empty suits get to reporting is when they state the scores. After that, they depart Reality Station.
We met through craigslist but didnt work together initially. As time went on we were then connected to every social site out there. I hit him up on facebook to do lunch about an idea I was had and the rest is history.
Groklaw came to fame during the SCO crisis and offered great insight into the workings of the trial. PJ is|was not a lawyer but a para-legal who tracked the proceedings and converted all the legalese to human-speak.
Buffett: Wealth, Estate Taxes, and the Ovarian Lottery
Similar: Perhaps make downvoting power -- as opposed to upvoting power -- proportional to age/karma? That would empower experienced (indoctrinated?) members to discourage the undesired content, without too heavily influencing the discussion.
Yes I saw that (and took their word for it). It is interesting that they seem to deeply care about compile time speed (I guess given Go is a fresh start in so many ways, people thought it would be nice to have super fast compiles for quick turn around and testing).
This confirms my belief that nothing compares to real-life usability testing.

Not enough people do it, and those that do are always surprised at the results. You can't second-guess users, they are unpredictable. Well not entirely, but the factors to consider are too numerous and complex to predict reliably.

I now rarely accept arguments for change on the basis of "usability" unless it has actually been visibly demonstrated by real users, rather than hypothetical textbook ones. Kudos to Skritter.
When I stated "I am not interested in really learning another programming language", I should have worded it more clearly. "I am not interested in learning this particular programming language because it does not seem to be a step above existing languages. It seems outdated before it has even been released. Simply because something has big names behind it does not mean the product is automatically superior to others. I intend to learn other languages, of course, but I do not intend to waste my time.
It's good. I would have found this helpful a few years ago.

How about putting the tables into normal form? ie where you currently have the company name as a string in the Person table, instead have an ID which references the Company table. It's not necessary for understanding the example shown, but it can't hurt to start off with good practice.
Lost Landscapes of San Francisco (Video)
Unit testing means quick debugging
Tell HN: Facebook Developer Garage in Berkeley - Nov 19, 6:30 PM
My employer (http://apps.facebook.com/causes) is hosting a Facebook developer garage at our office on Nov 19, 6:30 PM.

We're going to try to make an app to help win the DARPA Network challenge, so I want as many interested and awesome hackers to come as possible.

(We're also going to try to make our garage much more developer-focused than they seem to be typically...)

Check it out at http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=188188911808 and hope to see you there.

Ryan (ryan@causes.com)
I don't see a byline on this post. Did PJ write it?
Well, I certainly won't be doing it in the future. ;)
someone needs to bring the choose your own adventure genre back.
I got a permission denied error, don't know if its temporary.
Oh, sorry. Please check again. It is in the About section. You need to convert it from hex to ascii to see it.
My cofounder Steve tried to hire me for a videogame startup. I ended up hiring him for my compressed air energy storage startup. He brought on Ed, a partner he worked with more than two decades ago; they created a startup, Cubicomp, that produced the first ever 3D graphics software running on a PC. It ran on an IBM XT. We've all switched back to physics/engineering from more of a software focus through our careers.
This is only the summary of the first one of three customer support related stories described in the article. There are two more.
College buddies - now working on Optask (http://www.optask.com)
I love how casually detailed this article is. Touches like the subtly blinking blink tag -- and the subject matter itself -- lead me to believe there are gems here waiting to be discovered on subsequent reads.

"13 months and 11k lines of code later, i’ve finished up the choose your own adventure project"

From: http://etc.samizdat.cc/2009/11/the-rules-of-the-game

Yes, this is an impressive effort.
Thanks for the feedback.

I considered introducing surrogate keys but thought it was probably not a good idea in the first tutorial. I will have a think about adding them in or covering them in the next tutorial.
"There is nowhere we are more honest than the search box. We don't lie to Google."
...and I asked them for [an] explanation of their views

Yeah, that's the request I was referring to.

Python and similar languages would execute the code consistently with how it looks. This is good.

It's good and bad. You win something, you give up something. This is the nature of a tradeoff. It's not like Python lives in an alternate universe where tradeoffs don't exist. But I'm beginning to think its advocates live in one where tradeoffs are invisible in broad daylight.
You are right. I am not sure whether the claims as listed are novel and non-obvious, but they are definately not patenting sudo.

In fact the interface they present is quite more complex than sudo. It looks like it shows you a bunch of other accounts and asks you whether you would like to log in as any of them.
Good article that raises interesting points. I would also be interested in knowing what happens to experienced programmers using Rails - do they simply become used to the poor error messages (so this is just a ramp-up problem) or are you always stuck with making sure everything is without typos etc?
A price comparison of Windows virtual ISPs
McCabe's response, from the Issue 9 thread:

"I am very grateful for the support I have received on this thread. It seems to have hit a nerve.

I want to make one particular point, some people have suggested that "I should be grateful" for the extra
advertising. My response to that is that I was not actively looking for this advertising. It was not me who
picked a clashing name.

I fully understand that it is possible that insufficient search was done before hand. However, when I picked
the name Go! I did try to find out if anyone else was using it. In fact, I was kind of surprised that no one
was!; since it was clearly a great name.

For those interested, Go! is a bi-lingual pun. My previous work focused on a language called April. In
Japanese, the literal back-translation of April is "4th Month". Go is Japanese for 5."
Without conceding that these are poor error messages --- most of them are pretty direct, and the one that confused him the most actually gave him a step-by-step for diagnosing the problem --- I do think that addressing this post point-by-point would be another opportunity for Rails to charm web developers.

Note that very, very few software development frameworks "gracefully" handle the typo problem.
Yeah kinda, but designed to actually be read :P

I was thinking it would contain the offending comment, a little message about it being flagged for not meeting community standards, then briefly list the community standards.
A little word of encouragement and a button to show they've actually got the message- and off they go. I don't think it would need to be confrontational or make them actually agree to anything (since they might have good reason to disagree). But a gentle reminder about acceptable behavior could help new people get acclimated.
Note, however, that the SimpleDB 'select' syntax is SQL-like and not actually SQL.

The danger here is a proliferation of syntactically similar but semantically different query languages, and mass confusion as developers attempt to switch between data storage providers.
This made me cringe. The article may be revealing a simple truth, but it makes me profoundly uncomfortable to think that this is what modern marketing is based on. I would hope effective marketing communicates the value that a product has - if not, you're making a sale, but do you have a real customer?
Alright you have listed the symptoms ... do you have any ideas as to the cure?
The first feature Google Wave should add is message forwarding
Historically, It was the site to go to for day to day coverage of SCO V. Novell.

Personally, I go for the very well researched, though strongly biased, articles on issues pertaining to FOSS and licensing.

Particularly telling is the link on the left hand side of the site labeled "About Groklaw" where it states "It is Pamela Jones personal Creation" and "The information on Groklaw has been prepared as a service to the FOSS community in particular and the general public. It is not intended to constitute legal advice. PJ is a paralegal, not a lawyer."
I would skip inserts - more than likely your users will insert the data the way they're used to, by adding a row to the Excel table they're using.

If I understand what your niche is (power users who are comfortable with Excel), I would focus on things like aggregates and grouping functions - as of now, you've told people how to join a table, but not why they'd want to (or how it's better than what they're currently doing). I'd also integrate how to do this using your specific program.

In short, don't focus on teaching SQL in the abstract. Focus on teaching the SQL you need to use your program, and why it would be useful to do so.
He's also created a digital version of a book that is browsable and shows your jump history here: http://samizdat.cc/cyoa/#/zork
I did not say that we should do away with the archaic and convoluted systems the tax system currently implements for the benefit of saving federal tax dollars by the elimination of the IRS or Justice Department. Any suggestion to do away with the Justice Department is not clear thinking anyway. I said that we should eliminate unnecessary complications within the tax system. The Fair Tax would result in an increase in tax collection methods without the necessity of complications, it would tax illegal immigrants, and it would result in less of a burden for people that want to be fair to the system but have little knowledge of the tax laws.
I didn't see that, nor did I see the blog. This guy is like the gift that keeps giving.
Rick Bayless is based in Chicago with Frontera Grill and is considered an expert in authentic Mexican food. He has won multiple James Beard awards including national chef of the year.
The CB radio bubble(s)
Deadly Poke: LiPo battery can explode by POKING
An Amazing video by ITRI Taiwan showing how a cloned iphone (HiPhone) explodes when it is simply pierced through with a metal nail.
Most important part of this article: pg is now talking about how the site has quality problems.

(For the noobs, I don't think this has happened before)
In the World’s Safest Battery video, we built a cage in which we place a moter-powered metal nail to pierce through into the battery underneath. The horror is recorded in the video. We put a variety of batteries including a cloned iPhone (HiPhone). As soon as the nail broke the membrane, white smoke went out. Flame and sparks were observed and the temperature inside the lab immediately rose to 578 degrees Celsius. We certainly do not want this to happen to a phone in our pocket. Unfortunately, this type of explosion can happen to an innocent battery when nothing is attached.
It doesn't so much sound like sudo as:

1) User attempts non-permitted action.
2) Computer informs user about the policy problem.
3) Computer displays list of accounts that are permitted to perform the action.
4) User enters a password for one of the permitted accounts.
5) Computer proceeds.

Trivial and obvious to ones skilled in the art, but not exactly sudo.
Thanks for the feedback JimmyL, food for thought.
We were sitting next to each other during our Intro CS lab when groups were being assigned; I asked if he wanted to be my partner. We've been partners for pretty much everything ever since.
Online Advertising Stops Falling, Thanks To Search
That just seems really fragile to me. Yank one space off the front of any article and the entire thing is jacked. I'm just not convinced that it's all that terrible to parse the markup on the way out if you need it transformed, while enforcing strict rules on what (valid) markup can go in.
Good suggestion. Updated with this and a few others.
I spent a lot of time in a previous life making huge queries in SQL and then dumping the un-normalized data into Excel to use its amazing Pivot functionality. I like the idea of this plugin, wish it worked the other way around!