skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I do think this is silly; the risk is that it gets upheld and sparks a spate of "arresting normal people".

I dont see the problem with laws like this TBH: getting it questioned in court doesn't get to the root of the copyright issue in any meaningful way...

I thought there existed something of a gentleman's agreement in respect to this area: copying DVD's is that legal grey area that is probably against the law. But the rules aren't enforced for "everyman" and are there to help prosecute the big time bootleggers :) (DVD's out the back of vans).

I cant see how this would help at all - it's a non-issue, right?
If I remember correctly, "removing" these functions mostly just meant dumping them into the functools module rather than including them as a built in function.
Peter Wilson on MS vs. Google Culture
Dumb things to check
Heh, funny you learned from the Winston & Horn book - that was my first too.

The biggest philosophical problem I have with Lisp (and a lot of dynamically typed languages) is the lack of compile time safety-nets (it really bites me when I'm trying to work with a large, distributed team). I miss interfaces/abstract-classes, type checking, etc. I know they aren't necessary - but I'm human and make more than my share of stupid mistakes (and I prefer my mistakes be caught at compile time). Unit testing/etc alleviate the pain to the degree - but it requires a lot of discipline to maintain good coverage.

The real trick is that I'm probably faster in Lisp than anything else, but I've met Python and Haskell hackers who are just as fast as I am - so it must be possible to use those languages well (you might argue that they'd be even better in Lisp ;-)).
A fascinating example. I recently talked with someone about fiat currencies being backed by the taxation power of the issuing state, to get their worth. It seems that once the system is booted this help may be no longer necessary.
Http://iiicorporation.web.officelive.com/aboutus.aspx
I used to write a few articles for it a while back (http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Space_Probe_Crashed_into_Moon); I found the experience mixed. It was ok - but also not really suited for creating a news outlet with consistent and unbiased content.

Is it any better now?
So any bets on when Facebook might buy out Yahoo!?
Then take paper issued either by a foreign government or by a non-government.
it's taking all the wealth away

It's taking the liquidity away. People can no longer trade amongst themselves; they can only "trade" with the government.
I would be interested in this as well - but IMHO the effort involved in putting up something other than plaintext error (like Borders) is so trivial that it's practically a crime to not do it.

I think it's hard to argue that there isn't some gain to be had with a proper error page - and implementation is just so darned simple.
Is there such an application that backs up Facebook data? I hate the thought of losing years of comments, photos, statuses etc.
map, filter and reduce were not removed from python3.x, however. They'll be there for the next decade at least.
You may be referring to this TED talk by Dan Gilbert - http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_gilbert_asks_why_are_w...
Agreed. I'd also argue that the "cuteness" of such an error page actually can have a major impact on how much the visitor will forgive you. Twitter's Fail Whale is the perfect example :)
I don't think the BCD effect goes as far as you say. In a nutshell, the effect is that because artists can make $X working day jobs, you have to pay O($X) for them to perform. But this effect stops working before artists price themselves out of the market, because artists actually like performing and adjust their price to clear the market. This is why you can hire a really good band to play at your party for only several hundred bucks.
Well, FP is mostly about nesting, but it's uniform and people get used to thinking that way. List comprehensions, on the other hand, are more like procedure code (conceptually), and it sucks to nest them. Nesting aside, it's the different level of abstraction that matters for FP-ers.

Plus, you get 5 mentions (3 y's and 2 x's) of some intermediate variables instead of 0 in your code, so both token-wise and char-wise, map/filter alternative is shorter, and less a mental burden (think about the "succinct" idea by PG).
1 idea to reduce healthcare costs and improve quality:

* Institute a national, single-payer health insurance program.
The Twilight Saga: New Moon | Online Media - OnMe
Ask HN: How do you overcome perfectionism?
HN, when working on a project, how do you make yourself stop and release when you have the base product done? I've been trying really hard, but can't seem to get over the stumbling block of launching without adding more features -- thoughts?
Nadya Mason: From Pirouettes to Carbon Nanotubes
NIH authorizes use of first human embryonic stem cells under new policy
We use Gemini (http://www.countersoft.com) with 150 users and like it.
* Few years ago you couldn't just download a random lisp library and expect it to work *

Yeah, that was my painful experience as a noob.

Now dependency libraries get downloaded behind the scenes.

You mean ASDF takes care of dependencies for you?
Just so you know, one of the stated goals of Rails 3 is to make it super-easy to swap in your own ORM layer, DataMapper included.
17x17 followup (still unsolved, still worth $289)
Commentary: Why is there such a lack of importing tools for CMS?
Dear Mikey: Welcome to Real Globalization
The topic is newsworthy but I don't think you should be editorializing it via the title.
This title is rather misleading. The article doesn't even mention Spotify. I would have appreciated a less editorialised title.
If the law is there to help prosecute bootleggers, then why aren't the laws against bootlegging enough? The law against making copies of DVDs is superfluous, by your own reasoning. Why isn't a good idea to challenge laws like this?
Not sure why this is voted down, it's relevant and adds some content.

I find it especially interesting that nmap was used in a porn movie of some sort (at work, so I can't verify/see how graphic it is). I always assume that porn is produced/created by meatheads with no expertise and a lot of money.
Things to Consider when Writing for the Web
There are different implementations, of course. But the the multiple version problem was worked out over a decade ago.
I think he's saying the same thing, but his proposed program is a high-deductable+HSA plan.
They ultimately weren't removed. reduce was removed from the builtins, but it's still just one import away. From itertools import reduce.
Ah, the infamous Hollywood Accounting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

They apparently tried to pull something similar with Peter Jackson and the billions of dollars from LOTR, though Jackson did end up taking them to court.
Python's lambda sucks, but that does not necessarily mean map/filter sucks with it too. Of course there are cases where list comprehensions are more convenient and more powerful (esp. if they are more like their "real" counterparts in Haskell and friends). But in cases when map/filter are more convenient, I like the option of using them.
I have a longer comment here that argues the opposite: list-comprehensions are only a syntactic pun or two away from set-builder notation, which is a higher level-of-abstraction (it declaratively states what it is) than map+filter (which specify a procedure to generate it, albeit at higher level of abstraction than a for-loop).

If you can put together a nontrivial usage of map+filter with at least three source collections that's more concise than the equivalent list comprehension I'll (figuratively) eat my hat.
Rageeda!

Waryaa, shoot me an email as soon as you can, haye dhe? Waxaan u soo guuray ostralia, waxaan ka imid maraykan dhawr bilood kahor.

Barasho wanaagsan, good to see another somali meeshaan. Yarka kale een aqaan oo HN akhriya waa professor of applied mathematics oo dagan yurub, laakiin magaciise halkan waan iloobay.
I've rarely been letting other sites access my Facebook data ... because I don't really trust them (they sell my data to companies who then use it to trick me with phhotos of my friends). When given the choice it seems easiest and safest (least revealing) to use my twitter login.
I have to second this. I switched from CL to Python years ago because of problems with the infrastructure, but now I'm in the process of switching back, largely due to Clozure becoming really ready for prime time, and tremendous improvements in the stability and usability of available libraries. The situation is still not perfect, but it vastly improved and getting better all the time.
Great story. It's also interesting that most popular music is made by people who don't know squat about music theory.
That's a fair point.

For a programmer without Lisp experience, that would be true. But I've written enough Lisp-based webapps that there aren't really that many 'unforseen' problems for me anymore (rule of thumb: use software by Edi Weitz - everything he writes is golden :-D)).

That being said, I still ran into trouble with Elephant, so I probably should have taken these sort of 'unknown unknowns' (which are more prevalent in unusual languages like Lisp) into consideration upfront. To not do so was certainly an oversight.
Ask HN: Review this product / startup
TLDR;

Hey- Been working on a new version of controlc.com for a while and this is it.
Its a win/mac/nix app which sits in the tray/dock and records everything you copy (text, images, files) to a local sqlite database. It has a built in webserver which only listens to local connections, so the interface is actually through the browser. It has full search, is encrypted, themeable and more.
The screenshots will likely do it more justice than me trying to explain it, so here you go:

Main view: http://ioj.com/v/qzbp3 // Alternate Theme, Settings open: http://ioj.com/v/0xret // Individual item view: http://ioj.com/v/yui6v

If you want to try out the windows beta client, You can grab it here: http://harknesslabs.com/setupcontrolc.exe

Other features it has:

* Local RSS Feed

* Starring System

* Blacklist

* Modules to post the entry to twitter or FB ( ala tinypaste )

* Login / Logout system to access encrypted DB

* Ability to sync the contents to controlc.com (not in the beta build)

* Will be free (ad supported)

* Firefox + IE plugins which integrate controlc search into google searches
Hey, his lawyer has the same last name as me (though pre-americanized). Neat.
The problem is it isn't just a grey area. Its a grey area that large corporations are using to push around the "little guys" with.

As for helping, its one guy doing the most he can. Its certainly more than I would be willing to do.
Benefits Of Omega 3
Craigslist isn't a "simplicity wins" situation, it's a lockin-by-failure-of-innovation situation (see: IE6).
To the author: I'm new to NYC and would like a mentor to show me the ropes of the NY startup scene. What do ya say?
Two Storage Trends From SuperComputing 2009
Your recollection is incorrect, at least for as long as I've been aware of the process. In 2007, it was as it is today. We got our call at about 10PM the night of the interview.

I've been told by some (very few) interviewees that they got a "no" immediately, but those were usually folks who had obvious reasons for getting a no. The most obvious was a group that were sophomores at MIT, and their business idea was vague at best (no business model, no idea of what kind of user would use their code, and lacking in obvious desire or plans to start the company without YC backing; it looked like a classic case of "what I did on my summer vacation", to me, and I'm not as good a judge of these things as pg and co.)...pg told them to go back to school, and re-apply later because they were a great team of smart people, but weren't really ready to start a business.

Generally, though, teams do not get an answer until the night of the interview, and that's the way it's always been, as far as I know.
They generally do not give specific reasons; at least not in any form that would be generally useful to anyone other than the applicant.
what's your surname?
You know, words have definitions. If you and the law disagree about what's criminal, the law is correct.
The idea is a good one, but I'm wrestling with the dollar amount that needs to be invested before the founder can get a visa. Specifically, how likely is it that a US venture capitalist will invest $250,000 or more in a startup that's not located in the US (or Silicon Valley for that matter) vs. another startup that is?

Even if the non-US startup will move to the US once they receive funding, the largely intangible advantages bestowed on a startup in the Valley (which I've witnessed in the month that I've lived here) give it a better chance.

To be successful in facilitating the immigration of founders to the US, the founders' Visa should be available to any startup that has received any funding from a "qualified US investor" over $15K, which would include non-US startups accepted into YC.

And to avoid creating a huge immigration loophole (which seems to be the author's rationale for suggesting a "real money" cutoff), perhaps the Visa could have a clause that limits it to two years unless additional capital is secured and the startup is deemed to have "passed muster", at which point a permanent resident visa could be granted.
You have too much hacker and not enough capitalist in your DNA.

No one is going to use or pay for a product they can't access.

Without users/payers, you're going to remain pretty broke for the foreseeable future.

You can toil away to perfectionism (and likely bankruptcy) or can release now and start to build value (and capture user feedback before it's too late to make changes).
Vintage polar bear photo | Vision02
Italian dictionary... $20.

Magnifying glass... $15.

Internet connection... $40.

Using the Internet Anagram Server to help decode an ancient esoteric manuscript?

Priceless.
Gold jewelry's pretty popular in India for about the same reason.
I agree with this sentiment. Remove the emotional content of your title in the future, it makes for less precipitous and more grounded posts.
"a govt. such as we have in the U.S. where the will of the people is (largely, at least) represented"

Really? The majority of the American people believe that the top two economic priorities of our nation are to perpetuate endless war and give all the rest of the money to international bankers? I reject your premise and find it has no merit.
I like almost all of those, but it fails to address issue #1 which is the employer-funded health care system (which itself is an artifact of salary restrictions that were part of WWII rationing). Right now most people get what appears to them to be unlimited health care at a fixed price and thus have no incentive to strive for cost-effectiveness.

Imagine your employer said "We made a deal with Safeway. We'll take $30/mo out of your paycheck, and you can go to Safeway and all of your groceries are free." You'd be eating Filet Mignon washed down with a bottle of '82 Margaux every night.

That's effectively the way our health care system works. It won't become truly efficient until the people consuming the service are paying for it too.
Cloud + proprietary software
HPC Reflections: SC09 in Portland, OR
The Ascent, and Fall, of Dubai
i'm actually going to agree with matt's original point. if you call an app 'stupid', then you are preventing yourself from being able to empathize with its users. if it's successful, then it is fulfilling some sort of need. by putting yourself in opposition to the people whose needs are being met, you are making it impossible to see what they get from it.

of course, the fact that matt refers to users of products he doesn't like with terms far, FAR worse than 'stupid' kind of negates his point.
Futuristic Intel Chip Could Reshape How Computers are Built
Moller Skycar to finally crash and burn?
I'm gripped with the sudden urge to replace all my fonts and icons with pixellated "led marquee" versions.
These 4 would lower costs the most:

----

Tort reform. Cap every state as has been done in California and Texas.

Eliminate doctors’ malpractice costs for patients who demand free care. If the government insists that ED docs see every patient (through EMTALA), they are de facto government employees for those patients and should receive government indemnification.

Give needles to addicts, along with access to treatment.

Strongly consider legalizing and decriminalizing drugs.

----

I would also add:

Make it legal to see anyone for healthcare. If I want to have my veterinarian cousin administer 5 stitches, then I should be allowed to.

Make it legal to OPTIONALLY sign away your right to sue.
The FCC Sees the Future - and It’s VoIP
There are infinite number of ways to fail a startup but in my experience, there is only one way to recover which is similar to getting up after a fall from riding a bike. You must first decide if you want to ride again. In another words, you must first make a binary decision, which is whether or not you want to try again. If you believe that being a successful entrepreneur is in your destiny, then there is no point of crying in the dirt (or even writing a post-mortem). But on the other hand, if you believe that you have had enough and don’t want to be an entrepreneur again, then you can do whatever you want and heck with what other people think. Either way entrepreneurship is a lonely business. Good luck, everyone.
BIG-IP v10.1 Application Security Manager PCI Reporting
Managing BIG-IP Devices With HP and Microsoft Network Management Solutions
The ROI Of Application Delivery Controllers In Virtualized Environments
Facebook kills regional networks in privacy revamp
We Have Been De-googled
A Lunch Meeting with RightScale's Michael Crandell
Christopher Alexander also wrote the introduction to Patterns of Software (http://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Software-Tales-Community/dp/0...).

It's a great book, and I've unfortunately only had the time to read a few of the essays.

It's available online as a PDF from http://www.dreamsongs.org/Files/PatternsOfSoftware.pdf.
Specifically, how likely is it that a US venture capitalist will invest $250,000 or more in a startup that's not located in the US (or Silicon Valley for that matter) vs. another startup that is?

It might be more likely than you think. If the startup and the founders are solid, and if there is a clear (and most importantly, fast) visa path like the one proposed, I don't think most investors would have a problem. If anything, $250,000 is way too low for a VC, so you might have to find an angel investor instead. Some countries would have an advantage over others, of course, but I don't think it's a showstopper - my first startup, based in Canada, received an offer for funding which would've put us over this threshold.

Even if the non-US startup will move to the US once they receive funding, the largely intangible advantages bestowed on a startup in the Valley (which I've witnessed in the month that I've lived here) give it a better chance.

Can you elaborate? What is the difference, once both startups are in the Valley, and assuming there are no language issues? So many startup founders are already originally from other states or even countries.
Bear-Proof Composter
Clickable links:

Main view: http://ioj.com/v/qzbp3

Alternate Theme, Settings open: http://ioj.com/v/0xret

Individual item view: http://ioj.com/v/yui6v
I'm partially defending list comprehensions here and partially challenging you to consider the possibility that there are higher levels of abstraction out there than those employed by functional programming primitives like map and filter.

Level 0: for-loops with an explicit accumulator

Level 1: map + filter (!)

Level 2: ??? arguably an atemporal set-theoretic approach

In practice in python list comprehensions are a superior syntax for computing with multiple source collections.

(!) Really all you need is reduce

map = lambda f,l: reduce(lambda h,t: h + f(t), l, [])
filter = lambda f,l: reduce(lambda h,t: h + t if f(t) else h, l, [])

You'd be silly to implement them that way of course but know your tools.
Home computer of 2010
I have great respect for Alexander's ideas, but when he's mentioned, I can't resist sharing this cheeky presentation from one of his Berkeley hills neighbors about the "patterns" evident from the exterior of Alexander's house:

http://metatime.blogspot.com/2005/04/patterns-good-and-bad.h...

(I don't believe the presentation was prepared with the intent to belittle Alexander's work, and I don't share it in a negative spirit -- but rather as a sort of "only human"/"cobbler's children" observation about the contrasts between a professional oeuvre and personal life.)
How does this comapre to grooveshark?
There's an unforeseen problem with well patterned livable houses--they often don't sell well to conventional real estate buyers. If you need to relocate or access equity quickly, you're stuck with an remarkable property but buyers looking for McMansions. Buyers that do drop by out of curiosity comment with gems such as, "We could never live here, the master bath needs to be as big as the bedroom."

Seems as though the only way to move such a property is to offer it so far below market that people become willing to compromise and consider the more livable home instead of yet another generic "keeping up with the Joneses" colonial:

http://images.google.com/images?q=colonial%20house (exteriors)

It's galling, because such easily substitutable boxes have little intrinsic value beyond market. The cost to build a colonial is quite low compared to the cost of building, for example, "... varying ceiling heights between large and small rooms to create different degrees of intimacy."

One eye-line in my home reveals 8 ceiling heights, correlating to the intimacy of the spaces below them. It's extraordinary, but generic buyers want five bedrooms with full baths so what should be livable spaces end up the size of closets.

What's worse, when buyers today see the prices of McMansions plunging, they expect to see the price of a well patterned home (that may have cost 5x - 8x as much to build) also plunge, despite the more complex home already having a replacement cost higher than its asking price, price of materials and labor having risen.

(PS. Serious inquiries welcome for a well patterned home a commuter train ride from Manhattan.)
Are you Erann? http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.lisp/msg/6f75cfb5a2...
Certainly! Drop me an e-mail at email[at]spencerfry.com.
November 2009 browser stats: IE8 passes IE7
There were Facebook clones of Swirve games that had similarly rich communities around them, but those games don't make as much money as the X Wars or the X Ville games.
Major linode outage?
Menopause Signs
Don’t Pause can help reducing menopause signs and symptoms. It is a natural menopause treatment product and contains green tea and pomegranate. Recent studies show that these two ingredients are beneficial in reducing menopause signs such as depression, mood swings and weight gain in women.
I had an email saying a Zynga user with my email address had withdrawn money from a Mastercard (which wasn't mine - nor do I own a Mastercard). Emailed Zynga to tell them about this odd semi-fraudulent activity, and they couldn't give a toss. Total idiots.

I didn't lose any money, but it was unnerving.
I can't access their main site and my site is down. =(

They also had a major outage last month and that one lasted for several hours..
List comprehensions are not conceptually like procedural code at all. They are completely declarative.

List comprehensions: the set contains this.

Map/filter: apply these functions to the set.

Procedural: follow this recipe for turning one list into another.
Nope, you just have to know his email address, which is kind of common folk knowledge. I sent him a fanboyish email when I was like 13 or 14 or so talking about how much I was looking forward to Mac OS X and he was like, "Thanks for the feedback".
Yahoo Outsources All That Social Nonsense To Facebook