skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think everyone acknowledges things have gotten better, but the effects of institutional racism are pretty long-term.

Just an example, but up until maybe a generation ago, it was nigh-impossible to get a mortgage on your house if you were black or decided to live in a neighborhood that was less than 95% white. Even when going through federal aid programs.

Meaning people end up having to go through what are basically loan sharks to get housing for their family, and if anything at all happened, the house is lost instantly. Makes it pretty hard for the grandparents to retire in their tiny house when nobody actually owns the property.

I think the crime level stats are usually confounding with poverty rates. Pretty sure the color of one's skin doesn't make it more likely to kill someone, but there's an argument for poor environments (for example, the worst apartment possible because literally no one else will rent to you, in an area with poor social services) helping spawn crime.
I agree with you on SICP. Reading it was the single biggest improvement in my career as a programmer.
Distributed systems Slack channel
Very cool!

I love that you can generate these patterns from images, the gradients are a killer feature!

I've made a tool that also generates Delaunay Triangulation patterns but lacks importing of an image. Check it out as well: http://msurguy.github.io/triangles/
I'm happy to see The Variational Principles of Mechanics (by the great Lanczos) on that list. It really is deep, and I think it does a fantastic job of explaining classical mechanics. I've read the vast majority of the book multiple times.

Since we're on the topic of Sussman, has anyone here read through SICM? I've heard that the code is difficult to get to work, but does anyone have an opinion on the rest? I haven't had a chance to read it yet.

Anyone read both Lanczos and SICM?
Basically, the question you have to answer is whether you want to allow others (notably commercial corporations), to use your code to integrate into their own products without contributing back either to your code, or in general.

If you want that, then you can use licenses like MIT or BSD. (Notice how MIT and BSD are universities, where the people who worked on those software, initially, had alreay been paid, by the american tax payer, thru university salaries or DARPA grants; in this setting, it makes perfectly sense that the american tax payer be able to use the code he already paid for, and possibly to integrate it into proprietary commercial products).

On the other hand, if you want to ensure that people who use you code to make and distribute derived works provide their own contribution and share their own software too, then you will want to use a GPL license. (An intermediate license is the LGPL, better reserved for libraries that should compete with other libraries already under MIT or BSD). Notably, nowadays a lot of people build services accessible thru the network without distributing any software, but having it just run on their own servers. For this situation, the AGPL3 licence is indicated: if they use your code to make such a remote service, they will still have to distribute their modifications and sources, which will then allow users to verify that your code and their code is not used for nefarious purposes (like, forwarding private data to the NSA), notably allowing those users to run the server code on their own servers. (Cf. eg. opencloud vs. dropbox).

So my advice is to use the AGPL3 license by default, and only upon very special circumstances, release your code under another license.

For example, if such a commercial corporation wants pay you for a MIT license so they can use your code, as the right owner, you still can provide them with such; if they don't then they can always hire you, unless most probably they just expected free work from you?

You will hear complains about the GPL and the AGPL, but only from selfish people or corporations.
Congrats to Adam Zyglis of the Buffalo News who won for his editorial cartooning—I was disappointed when Tom Toles left for The Washington Post.
This is ridiculous. The C standard was apparently written in order to allow compilers to introduce subtle security holes into previously-working code, all in the name of a fraction of a percent of performance increase. It’s totally irrational, especially in an epoch where C is no longer the language you’d use to get maximum bit-twiddling performance anyway — because it won’t run on your GPU!

See http://blog.regehr.org/archives/761 for a sarcastic take on the problem, http://blog.regehr.org/archives/880 for a more serious description of the problem, and http://blog.regehr.org/archives/1180 for the "Proposal for a Friendly Dialect of C" that proposes to actually solve it.
I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that if the cure for death was for sale that people would be lined up around the block. You have to remember to view this in light of a world in which such a thing is not available, and there's no good to be had in sitting in a corner constantly pining for it.
> Absence of applicatives or monads mean that you have to explicitly pattern match on Just/Nothing everytime.

It seems to me that most real uses can probably be solved by map, and withDefault if you really need to get out of the Maybe monad for some reason (though map should make it so that you don't have to for most things.)

> There is a proposal to add `?` as an operator to obtain the head of the list without the Maybe and provide a default value if it is Nothing.

Since elm supports user-defined operators, can't you just do that yourself. Something like:

list ? default = withDefault default (head list)
Choose the next Bay Area innovator to be immortalized in wax - Madame Tussaud
That's pretty cool. Userify[1] is offering server-side configuration in the next release (finally) and .ssh/config Jumpbox support for the servers you have direct access to is planned as well, but the idea of using a pure template is interesting.

1. https://userify.com
There's already withDefault to make that concise, so you can do things like this:

withDefault 0 (head listOfNumbers)

No need to pattern match every time. :)

Docs for withDefault: http://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm-lang/core/1.0.0/May...
Sure, i'll stick to bugs invisible with the library, and visible without it:

If you've inserted compiler barriers it can't move code across, the compiler will no longer perform the same optimizations with and without your debug library.

Those optimizations often make bugs visible, because variables no longer have the value you expect them to at the time you expect it, etc.

Add in threads, and the problem gets worse:

http://preshing.com/20120515/memory-reordering-caught-in-the...

Look at the behavior this has with and without the barrier.
It's buggy without it. With it, it's fine.

This is exactly equivalent to:

Without the debugging library, the code is clearly buggy and doesn't work in user-visible ways.

With the debugging library, if i insert a breakpoint where the current asm barrier is, it now behaves correctly 100% of the time, even though it's broken.
You seem to be confusing compression bit rate with audio frequency. Even if my ears can't hear frequencies above, say 15 kHz, that doesn't mean I can't hear compression artifacts in music compressed at any particular bit rate.
I guess when further people adopt HTTP2, where each user will have only one tcp connection to transfer your files, you have to figure out load balancing to stick to your connection.
Yep! The proposal is to add that to the core libraries, and is basically just waiting to see how much people actually want to use withDefault that way in practice.
Well, lots of white people perpetuate the same stereotypes, so obviously if you do that, stop it. And you can call other people on their bullshit if you ever hear it.

Assuming you never encounter this particular type of racism, it's still all connected. Addressing any type of discrimination and racism helps solve the general problem, which this "acting white" stereotype is just a symptom of. I think it's a little disingenuous to look at these individual symptoms and say "nothing I can do". "Nothing I can do about prison populations, those people made their own choices." "Nothing I can do about poverty, I already support them through taxes, they can improve themselves if they want to." "Nothing I can do about education inequalities, they can apply to college just like I did." etc.

Not saying you share these opinions, but you hear them a lot. And it's not like black people have no responsibility here, but there's plenty to be done by everyone.
...and unpopular people will get private nastygrams.

Thankfully, the setting is disabled by default.
porns
Intuit Survey Recommends Aussie Small Businesses to Get an Advisor
> So there's basically room for everyone, the algorithmists, the language hipsters, and everyone else. ;)

Oh, absolutely. But I'd keep language hipsters away from important software (although any language built on a solid foundation like BEAM or the JVM is a much safer bet than one that isn't). :)

> I seem to be able to pick the winners of the next horse race in technology... Ruby

Wait, you consider Ruby a winning horse? I hear it's a fun language -- probably a great one -- but it's already beginning to fade after hardly having left a mark on anything but web apps (a very small portion of the software industry, and the least technological). If we coldly consider results I think it hardly qualifies as more than a relatively extended fad. It's not even nearly as popular as Delphi was in its heyday, let alone top-ten languages like Java, C, C++, C#, PHP, VB and JavaScript. In fact, I think that of all languages that could be considered Ruby competitors, Ruby has done the worst (it never threatened PHP's dominance in its field and was easily overtaken by Python -- which has been used in many more domains).

Fads are often self-fulfilling prophecies, often gaining brief popularity on sheer novelty alone; but important codebases last for decades. And don't mistake the tiny Silicon Valley software startup scene for a representative of the software industry. Most software developers in the world have never even heard of HN.
Should you write marketing copy for your home page?
That suggestion is pretty vague; the only way a compiler could violate it is by not documenting its behavior. The behavior itself can still be completely arbitrary.
Architecture metaphor is relevant because architecture is a mix of art and science. The same happens with software.

Very few houses become or have the pretension to be monuments. Most of them only have a mundane function: they are shelters. The same happens with software.

Very few architects are visionary enough to project an house in a different way and point a new direction. Most of them just follow the existent trends. The same happens with software.

Most houses become monuments because of historical reasons, not because they are the best ones. The same happens with software.
by now, i don't think there's a single person on the entire internet who doesn't know about the water needed by almonds.
In some cases, especially new projects (like a new OS), I think the pain of using an immature-and-powerful language is less than using a mature-and-weak one.
> It's probably due to the reckless behaviour of early users that LSD got such a bad rap and banned so hard. Not that they should have had to been responsible -- they shouldn't be blamed for stupid government actions -- it's just an unfortunate thing. And early proponents weren't very rigorous and came up with fantastical claims, greatly exaggerating LSD's capabilities.

This had very little to do with reckless behaviour of early users. I think it's generally well known at this point - that the "war-on-drugs" had primarily political purposes, especially suppressing the counter-culture.

More generally it's a war of ideas; the idea that there was a reality or conception of the world outside of say contemporary Christianity and material consumer society - were highly threatening at the time (to the nation's well-being if you will); and they remain so today (and this has much less to do with LSD and psychedelics and much more with preserving a power-structure).

And I don't think a few studies of scientific merit would have helped. Just look at how it went down with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nutt.
Thanks for the concrete example. The transformed source code that would get compiled for this example looks like:

scope.Declare("x", &x)
godebug.Line(ctx, scope, 3)
x = 1
godebug.Line(ctx, scope, 4)
x = 2
godebug.Line(ctx, scope, 5)
bar()

The value of x is visible to all of the godebug.Line calls, so the compiler should know that it can't move x = 2 to after the call to bar.
Helping users find mobile-friendly pages
Why not just image Alpine Linux[1] for an awesome minimal Linux, or RancherOS[2] for a minimal Docker host (or CoreOS) and be done with it?

Kinda reminds me of Unbreakable Linux.. just because you can doesn't mean you should.

1. http://www.alpinelinux.org/

2. http://rancher.com/rancher-os/
There's a widely used python library called fabric. Now Apple-owned Crashlytics is calling themselves Fabric. Now we have Service Fabric from Microsoft. Strange.
Icons on his desktop.
Going Mobile
I'm curious about how many other people have gone totally mobile. In May of 2008 I was relieved of my beloved MacBook Pro, which I was probably way too attached to. Rather than being angry or very sad, as I expected to be, I found myself /relieved/. I suddenly had lots of free time to do many other things I never seemed to manage to do before. Since it wasn't yet possible to get insurance for a stolen computer I was unable to afford a new one and eventually replaced it with a really crappy used computer. I was even more relieved when /that computer/ just stopped working. Since then I've been using an iPod Touch (not updated or changed much since 2010--That'd require a computer :P). I've also gotten some used smartphones from people no longer using them, and bought an unlocked Android phone about seven months ago. The online world hasn't yet fully adapted to this mobile technology, but I know it will. Have you?
Raytheon buying cybersecurity company Websense for $1.9B
> To program any more was pointless. My programs would never live as long as [Kafka’s] The Trial.

If you wrote Cobol it might live just as long.

On more serious note your code might live in billion devices and do useful stuff. Don't dismiss stuff that doesn't run on meatware. People might get obsolete faster than some of your code.
Tell that to any Cable channel of the past 30 years.
The error codes nor the transport are important here.

You can make an arbitrary number of requests that can respond with various responses (or fail) in arbitrary order. Who do you listen to? Which response is 'correct'? Sure you can build a service on the client to track the requests, the order they are issued in, what responses supersede other responses, how long to wait for all responses, etc, etc. But why build such a complicated solution to such a simple problem?
I'm all for decriminalizing drugs, no argument from me on that.

However Portugal homicide rate went up by 40% after they did it (https://fullfact.org/factchecks/Portugal_decriminalisation_d...). So not sure it's the silver bullet people expet.
The product is on-demand streaming of movies and tv.
Great list. I had misplaced my copy of the Connection Machine. So glad to have access to the PDF. Thanks!
separation doesn't work for what?
About 2-3 years ago, I said NF couldn't do what it is doing forever, as there is nothing preventing e.g. Disney or Time Warner from selling their content direct to consumers.

Obviously the netflix executives were ahead of me on this one.
For the Middle East it can be much simpler than that. I read something like Middle East experiences a population boom with like 50% of population being younger than 25. (exact number may differ) With so many young men there is not enough land from parents for them to inherit. With no decent education to increase productivity and a rigid political structure there is a huge pressure in the society building up.
If your scheme becomes prevalent, someone will create a service that for $10k will brutforce $1k worth of hashed IP addresses. $10k and 4 days is comparable to a legal bill, so you're not deterring anyone, but the most casual snooper.
A company should be allowed the freedom to do what they want when it comes to selling their own product. Why would we want more laws restricting business?

What if the truth was, a one time payment to watch a show like House of Cards cost $100-$200? By offering a subscription they make it more accessible to more people (They let you cancel your Netflix subscription at any time)
> "they/them/their" used singularily is one of those things that is on the edge of being accepted.

On the edge of being accepted? It's been part of standard English for over 500 years!
This is what's kept me from using it, I'm often jumping in and out of photoshop.
Don't forget Darcs Hub (http://hub.darcs.net).
Lilly Pulitzer for Target: A shining success or an unbelievable failure?
GoDaddy Acquires WordPress Marketplace Startup Elto
When you say 'good, efficient software' i wonder if you are talking about Xilinx ISE/Vivado, or any of the tools from their competitors. I can not imagine you are.
Yep, that's the story. Never saw this, thanks!
It doesn't solve the problems of racial inequalities, and it generally makes them a lot worse.
CostCo is a literal example of your analogy. You need to buy a membership to be able to purchase anything.
My little Kubes:

http://i.imgur.com/upxc3A3.png

http://i.imgur.com/1iLB1WI.png
Nokia Plots 2016 Return to Phone Market
Open Letter to Spotify Re. Accessibility
The LA `pLAn` mentions steps to reduce the urban heat island effect. One way to reduce heat in cities is to increase tree canopy cover.

Here is recent lesson from the city of Melbourne, Australia, regarding drought and tree cover:

* the city experienced a drought from 1999 - 2007 [1]
* as a short-term measure to conserve water, a decision was made to stop watering the city's trees [2]
* consequently, ~40% of the city's trees are dead, or are in decline. The council now expects that 27% of the trees will die in the next 10 years, and 44% of the trees will die in the next 20 years.

Melbourne city now is aiming to improve tree canopy cover from 22% to 40% by 2040 [3], as a means to reduce the city's temperature by 4 degrees C. There is also work to capture storm water run-off from the city to use for irrigation.

Note that this is only talking about Melbourne's city centre (0.12m residential population of 4.2m total) [4].

As an aside, outside of cities, there is a recent Nature Geoscience paper that links lethal tree water stress thresholds to long-term climate models, and forecasts tree deaths due to drought in the southwestern United States by ~2050, assuming the world follows a high-emissions business-as-usual scenario (RCP 8.5, i.e. uncontrolled emissions, which tracks reality to date) [5].

[1] https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/Sustainability/AdaptingClim...
[2] http://citiscope.org/story/2015/can-melbourne-lower-its-temp...
[3] https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/Sustainability/UrbanForest/...
[4] https://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/AboutMelbourne/Statistics/P...
[5] http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo24...
Just off the top of my head, C++, .NET (via a JIT), Rust, D, MLton, and (I think) Swift all do it.
If you ever needed a reminder on institutionalized Jim Crow let these fit the bill for a good long while:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_Freedom_Died:_The_Colfa...

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

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

https://books.google.com/books?id=ISoAAQAAQBAJ&lpg=PT62&ots=...
If you search "north dakota gender imbalance", you'll get a lot of narratives of it, but I can't point to statistical evidence.

https://www.google.com/#q=north%20dakota%20gender%20imbalanc...
A “WTF is that sound” widget
Journalist suggests mass death of a particular demographic appears to be the politically easiest path, and conveniently also a teleological imperative.
Testing for Web vulnerabilities on any port
> These are repeated activities which occasionally – and unpredictably – give a pleasant surprise.

That's interesting observation. But I feel not only distractions work that way. Programming is to repetitive activity that occasionally, unpredictably gives you pleasant surprise that makes you keep coming back to it. Learning too.
> Why would we want more laws restricting business?

Presumably because those laws would serve the public purpose.
Seems like they're following in the footsteps of HBO, going from a distribution channel rebroadcasting others' content to being known primarily for their high quality original content.

I like where this is headed. The competition will be a boon for content consumers.
The rest of the nation's attitude to California's water problem is very short sighted. I don't think most people realize how much food is produced in California. If California agriculture goes down, the result will be high food price increases everywhere. Many just have a cavalier attitude of "the market will adjust". There are big issues with just assuming "the market will adjust"

1) There is a big lag time for some crops to grow. Something like corn is no problem. But apples or anything else grown from a tree? Or any other crop that requires years of growing before it's productive? It will be many years until the California output could be matched.

2) Other places like the Midwest have potential water issues too. For example, look at the history of the Ogallala Aquifer. If a greater strain is put on the aquifer, it's possible they will also have the same water shortages that California has now.

The California water crisis is a national issue, but the rest of the nation would rather just laugh at us. The western states should be discussing serious proposals to build more aqueducts or pipelines to divert water from water-rich states to California. Maybe the Federal government could help with financing desalination plants. But this kind of cooperation isn't happening. I'm worried that what will happen is everyone will continue to just laugh at us until they go to the grocery store one day. Then they will care, but by then it will be much too late.
Maybe "microtransgression"? As pointed out upthread, "aggression" suggests intention, whereas "transgression" suggests a violated boundary, but does not assume intent.
My base salary is a little over $150k.
When Netflix first started, they were able to buy the streaming rights to old movies and TV shows for cheap, because executives thought they weren't worth anything. Now those contracts are expiring, and the studios want to jack up the rates or start their own service.

Netflix is also getting squeezed by ISPs like Comcast, who want to charge them for the right to deliver video to Comcast's customers who already paid for their bandwidth.

So Netflix' only way to survive is to develop its own content. If it's dependent on other people to provide content, they'll jack up their prices to take Netflix' profit margins.

So now you have 5-10 competing services, and if you aren't paying attention, you don't know what shows are available on what service. Meanwhile, if you go to a file-sharing website, you can get every single show and movie. So Netflix (and its competitors) have less compelling of a value proposition, if you have to pay $10/month to several different services to get all the shows you might want to watch.
>April 1, 2015
No, they make you work way too hard.