skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
There was a very good article recently in either LED Journal (yes, there are publications dedicated to LEDs exclusively) or Electronic Design that discussed this. The problem is so many low quality manufacturers are churning out these cheap "incandescent replacements" that do little good that they are making consumers think that LEDs are a scam.

There are very good LED lamps out there, built with high efficiency, high brightness LEDs, but they are expensive.

It really is a pity. I've been experimenting with multiwatt LEDs for some time (individual, unpackaged units) for a little off-grid experiment I have going and they are scary bright! But at the consumer level, there is nothing available at low cost that is useful.
The GE Lighting FAQ (thanks, squidbot):

http://www.gelighting.com/na/home_lighting/ask_us/faq_compac...

says that GE's bulbs contain about 5mg of mercury apiece.

The OSHA guidelines on mercury vapor:

http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/healthguidelines/mercuryvapor/recog...

... states the following:

The current Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) permissible exposure limit (PEL) for mercury vapor is 0.1 milligram per cubic meter (mg/m(3)) of air as a ceiling limit. A worker's exposure to mercury vapor shall at no time exceed this ceiling level.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has established a recommended exposure limit (REL) for mercury vapor of 0.05 mg/m(3) as a TWA for up to a 10-hour workday and a 40-hour workweek.

Now all we need to know is that a 12 foot by 12 foot by 8 foot bedroom is about 4 by 4 by 2.5 meters, which adds up to about 40 cubic meters. Break a mercury bulb in that room, disperse 100% of the mercury in the bulb throughout the room, assume the room is leakproof, and stay in the room breathing deeply for several minutes after the bulb breaks and you'll get exposed to 0.125 mg/m(3). This is about twice as high as the maximum amount that you should be breathing for 10 hours per day, 40 hours per week. But it is barely above the maximum legal exposure limit for workers.

Now consider that your bedroom isn't airtight -- assuming your house is either properly ventilated or improperly insulated. ;) Not only will the mercury distribute itself through the house, but it will then leave the house, within a matter of an hour. Also, not all of the mercury is likely to leak; some of it will condense in the bulb. And all of this will only happen once per bulb failure.

Conclusion: I'd find something more important to worry about. You probably don't have to look very far, because this risk is pretty low. If you just can't stop worrying without taking action, turn on a fan and open the windows for five minutes every time a bulb burns out. You'll still save plenty of energy.

Second-order conclusion: Take a class on solving Fermi problems. ;)
It is not being metaphysical in nature that makes Pascal's Wager nonsense. It is that it demands action without sufficient rational foundation.

The rational reaction to a possible crisis in which one lacks information is not to jump immediately away from what looks like the scariest outcome. That tends to make things worse. The right reaction is to focus on research until a decision absolutely cannot be avoided--and even then, make the minimum decision the evidence warrants.

I view that as the case here. If the evidence is sufficient to convince and act on, okay. Act on it. But if it is not, the stakes being high do not change anything. By all accounts, there's time yet to be more certain, so let's take the time and be more certain.

Incidentally, "a lot of reputable scientists are concerned" is a statement about state of the evidence, and not a very persuasive one to me. I know a thing or two about simulating complex systems; a non-predictive simulation, a theory concerning a single variable input, a loose-but-not-awesome correlation? In a complex system, that really is street preacher kind of evidence. Absolutely it warrants theoretical concern; follow that line of research. But as a call to action? Nah. Call me when you've got a robust enough model that you can use it to win wars or make money, and we'll talk.
I realize that most of you won't actually be able to create an account, so forgive me in advance for that. The service revolves around college students at a few select schools, and if you don't have an alumni or current email address for any of those schools, you're out of luck.

So, my biggest worry is conversions. How do I get people who visit the front page to actually make an account? Are there too many "barriers" to entry (i.e. graduation year, first name, last name, etc)?

Also, I'm concerned that people who visit the site don't actually know what it's about, or what it's used for. How would you recommend I make this a little more clear?
Time to go buy some balloons...
Actually, no it wont. It's probably going to be IO and then CPU.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=970682
I don't think this really is a case of the Streisand effect: The Streisand effect is an Internet phenomenon where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be publicized widely and to a greater extent than would have occurred if no censorship had been attempted.

Yahoo & Verizon aren't sending out lawsuits asking people to pull the information. They are trying to block a FOIA request for information that is not out there already.

As for Cox and Comcast, well, it sucks for them that Yahoo & Verizon decided to fight when they didn't. At least they were honest about selling your data...
Thank you, I doubt anyone here knew that.

You said you used to be a computer scientist. Can I convince you to share why not? I take it, since you are here, that you didn't grow tired of it.
Giving schema back its good name
Soghoian: 8 Million Reasons for Real Surveillance Oversight
So it is a clone of instructables or ehow or ...?
Viva the PCB
I understand that this is off-topic, but is it really necessary to downvote it to invisibility? It's a silly joke. It costs you two seconds of your life to read it, and none for laughing if you don't find it funny. Just move on.

This place can be awfully humorless at times.
The 'hacking' meme is well beyond overplayed - and doubly worse is that it's less of a "har har we're witty internet people" meme and more of a cult.

> I'm just pointing out that simpler is often better in a number of different fields, even for complex problems.

Yes, but that in no way suggests that simpler solutions are better in this field - that neither of us are really qualified professionals in (I'm assuming you're not a policymaker or politician :P)

> lay down the simplest tests and precedents they can

For good reason, but again, this in no way suggests that simple, one-liner policies would be better than, say, a 100-page tome of laws that address specific cases.

> And yes, in technology we often find that a simpler process scheduler works better than a more complex one.

And yet this still has no bearing on whether or not this holds true in politics. The whole concept strikes me as "simple solutions work better in technology, clearly they also work better in politics", which to me is an absurd statement to make.

Think about the tax system. What's the simplest system? Flat tax for all? Is this the optimal solution? Most people would say no - but yet it's the simplest, easiest to calculate, and least burdensome in terms of processing cost (both for the filer and the taxman). We have highly complex tax systems that work considerably better than the lowest-common-denominator easy solution.

Which isn't to say there isn't a simpler solution that would work better, but it certainly breaks the notion that simpler = better.
First-To-Market Products That Lost
You're probably right.

http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-to-be-right-90-...
Do you have data to support the hypothesis that women dislike being asked out by programmers?

If so, it might provide a useful means of distinguishing between the 'Roissy theory' (women are intolerant of low status men) I described downthread and scott_s's alternative theory (women don't want low status for themselves).

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=970454
I've seen prior art for this, so I should expect not
Anyone know why Mixergy is using bit.ly to link back to HN? Seems kinda weird.
So our family business has been taking credit cards for 9 or 10 years - it's a mobile business, so we have always had to use a cell signal. The earlier machines were bulky and monstrously expensive, and so were the analog service plans for them. But now, data transfer is cheap, and card readers are as low as $400.

I think it's also worth noting that, in that time, we've never had a problem with our card reader (the latest, we've had for about 4 years) but my ipod touch, which is a year old and sees far less punishment, has a broken home button.
> The Earth isn't surrounded by lead, but we are still protected from the radiation.

A thick atmosphere accomplishes roughly the same effect as a few feet of lead. A magnetic field could deflect incoming charged particles, but I'm not sure if a "shield" is feasible, due to any side effects that such a magnet might have.
If you try to be creative, you'll end up with nothing but emperor-has-no-clothes modern art (which won't get you very far in computing). But if you do quality work, you may well get creativity thrown in as a bonus.

People try to be creative all the time in startups and games. And it can be quite profitable too.

As for computing in academia, it's not set in stone. CS can be expanded or a new field created to reward creativity.
My first simple 97-loc Sinatra/Freebase/Heroku single-serving app
Neat idea with the reader but I guess it'll be limited to the US market since it can't support chip & pin transactions.
> Shoppers have dealt with counting out money for millenia.

People have also worked 16 hour days to feed their families for millenia; no one's going to do that now. The amount of effort something takes almost always decreases.

> The time spent is a small price to pay for total security against remote theft. At the very least, those of us who are not terminally lazy ought to have the option of paying it.

How does this system provide 'total security' and guard against remote theft? There is no such thing as 'total security,' you're just mitigating risk. From the way it sounded, you punch in the amount at the time of physical swipe. Once you try to buy something online, you're outside the scope of your physical card.

I do agree however that you should be able to opt in for services that require more verification for transferring money. If you want to spend $25 to get an RSA token to provide a code every time you purchase something, I don't see anything wrong with that service being offered to you.

> Ever have your credit or bank card stolen? Thieves typically split their theft into numerous small transactions.

No, I guess I personally did not. As far as the information I read about and had limited contact when I was associated with a security lab, carders distribute cc numbers in the thousands and resell them, and eventually do get charged in small amounts. Again, I don't see how a two-factor system would prevent this. But also admittedly, I've never spent any amount of time thinking about it nor did I personally research into this.
Google Analytics Async Snippet
Selling a Story - The Cocktail Creationist
Source code for http://howmanymoviesisgeorgeclooneyinrightnow.com . Code comments/questions/critiques welcome!
I don't see why got downmodded, you have a valid point.

Affinity groups have their downsides.
general - the other articles (the early ones at the very least) are all incredibly interesting discussions wrt video game design.

Highlights:
"The Reason Mario Wears Overalls" (character design by pixel): "Before you know it, you've used up 8 X 8 pixels. But if you draw a nose then a moustache, you don't really know if it's a mouth or a moustache, and it saves pixels."

"Letting Everyone Know It Was A Good Mushroom": "That's the reason why it's designed so that whatever you do, you'll get the mushroom."
You are correct, and I agree. It is not theft, and Google is really a huge collection of mitochondria... helping the fledgling Internet become something more by combining it with an intellectual powerhouse. I could not have said it any better myself.
Contest: Microsoft .NET Framework - Tell us Your Story
The EPiServer Gadget Contest 2009 has officially ended and we're glad to announce a new contest from Microsoft: Tell us Your Story - Microsoft .NET Framework.
Google Analytics Blog: Google Analytics launches asynchronous tracking
It is kind of an unnecessary step. I forgot why I even used it. I'll try without next time.

By the way, if you're curious, you can see how many people click that link by going here: http://bit.ly/50qA6s+
from http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/01/square-worth-40-million...:

"like PayPal, Square allows anyone to have a virtual merchant account and take payments directly."

yep, the market is huuuuge.
Orkut - Perfil de ×  Bellα,
The startup legal paradox
Why does doesn't suck = as good as excel?
I think the biggest barrier to entry is that the front page doesn't tell you anything about the product. I can't even tell what the product IS. Is it a website? A desktop app? A smartphone app? A Facebook app? What does it do? How does it work? What does it look like? Where are the answers to these questions?
11) Start with a really low base revenue so the percentage looks huge and grabs your attention
I remember it had something to do with people complaining that you were asking users to upvote, but I don't really understand how switching to bit.ly would have fixed that.
> Once you try to buy something online, you're outside the scope of your physical card.

A built-in LCD gives you a single-use credit card number. (Such a product already exists, though a Windows-only PC app.)

> If you want to spend $25 to get an RSA token to provide a code every time you purchase something, I don't see anything wrong with that service being offered to you.

And yet the service is offered by no one, and I don't think anyone has yet tried and failed.

> Again, I don't see how a two-factor system would prevent this

A number is good for one transaction, like a gift card code. In the case of my proposed scheme, it is effectively a PGP message signed with your private key, containing the transaction amount, recipient, and a serial number. The bank shall not process any attempted transaction which is not signed by an account holder's key or contains a duplicate serial number.
Both those sites actually create content. WonderHowTo.com is NOT creating any of its own content. That's one of the amazing things about this business.
Use nginx? That is the sum total of your advice? What a complete waste of time.
If the decor puts one off, I suspect the culture will, too. If we change it to attract some specific group, we should be careful that we are not attracting people who will not be happy here.

"CS is mature field and as such will do better if it projects a professional, neutral image" is a hypothesis, nothing more. Prove it with a successful venture -- but I don't think you will. This is still a place where passion trumps professionalism, and an enforced culturally neutral environment isn't the best incubator for passion.

Personally, I think we'll do best by simply being ourselves. And letting the demographic chips fall where they may.
Ask HN: Quick tips to get more performance out of your server
I'm sure you all have your box of tricks that you've found over the years on what helps to optimize a web server for high volume.

Would you mind sharing ?
Square Worth $40 Million Before Launch
A peregrination on the nature of money
The Bank Job
Really??

Maybe this is a European thing, but here in London every restaurant has a number of portable card readers. (Everyone here also uses chip & pin, though, too.) As a consumer, it's awesome... much faster than the old days, and a hell of a lot easier to split the bill when you want to do that.
Mount your filesystems with noatime.
I think it's meant to be. Much as I love a bit of humour, take a look at reddit. Endless pun-threads and stupid jokes do drag down the quality of conversation - and people are no doubt afraid of the slippery slope.

As things stand, I like HN the way it is, and if I feel like something a bit more laid back then i read proggit.
Thanks for the interest old-gregg. I have a series of blog posts planned that can help answer those sort of questions. I'll try to publish them over the next week or two. The general topics I had in mind were:

-Why Lisp

-Overall architecture

-Deployment Specifics (libraries, source control, control scripts, etc). This stuff is pretty annoying to figure out on your own - I was lucky enough to learn in person from a great Lisp hacker at a previous job.

Is there anything else you'd be interested in?
This is just going to be used for porn.
Hidden Gems in HTTP
My initial thoughts are pretty much lead generation. If we know where you are, and what you're interested in buying right now, it's very easy to provide you with very relevant (and immediately actionable) ads.

In the short term, I just want to get users and work the kinks out of the user side of things though.
It doesnt display on IE8. That pretty much makes it useless as far as I'm concerned.
HeyZap (YC W09) Launches "Xbox Live for Flash Games"
Makes sense. We'll look into changing that (to 'Search Deals', e.g.).

Thanks
The Dark Side of 'Webtribution'
This triumph of the developer over Evil Apple would be a lot more compelling if the app can get past the splash screen without crashing.
Google Gears Is Dead; Long Live HTML 5.0
Worse still: factor in the costs of building, installing, and maintaining the machines, and of renting the space where they stand.

Humans simply aren't worth much as a source of energy.

Something like a public Mechanical Turk console would be better.
You make some great points.

Here's a shot: Gradifi is a web application that recommends courses to students based on courses that they've already taken. In addition, students can share notes with one another and can sell them to people who they don't know. Books that you list are advertised for free alongside course descriptions on the website.

I'm afraid of putting too much text on the front page and perhaps scaring people away. Maybe that's an unfounded fear. Maybe screenshots may be helpful as well?
I actually saw that interview live.(started following Andrew on twitter, so it popped up in my feed.)

I'd say the viewing experience is much different live, as opposed to viewing it afterwards. Since there are only ~25-30 or so people watching at the same time, you know that you can actually get your question answered at the end.

I think there were only like 9 comments and 3 questions during the entire interview.

Just can't wait till the last minute to ask your question. Since it takes a few minutes for twitter feed to get updated, by the time your question shows up, the interview is over.

I'd say Andrew def needs to do a better job promoting the live portion of the interviews. The twitter feed seems to be inadequate, since you get lost in the noise.
Hmm, do you mean saving more than the BDB .log files? Basically, I'm backing those up initially - then running a 'catastrophic recovery' (and some sanity chceks) on the data I've backed up. Once the backup checks out, I delete old .log files.

I wasn't familiar with beanstalkd, but it seems interesting. I already have an asynchronous thread-pool based job queue built on the back end that could work well for something like that ...
Your iPhone leaves a data trail, at the provider, at wifi spots, at bluetooth sensors. Now someone who is technically adept could muddy that trail considerably. But the basic forensic evidence is still there. And remember, for the most part criminals are human, and make human mistakes; they will do a transaction in full view of a security camera, or something equally dumb. It's no better and not much worse than the systems we have now.
To increase the reliablity of a system, improve the weak links in a system, not the strong.

In a computer systems class we had a lecture about security and cryptographics. There were many case studies of fraud, and almost none of them were deciphering codes. There were many other way easier approaches to steal money from bank accounts.
Sorry about that. It no longer does alerts.
It's an oxymoron because ppl who don't comment will not comment and answer the question. If the author wanted votes to count as an answer, he didn't state so. Even if he did, does the current vote count of 7 indicate anything? I would have down voted it if I had the power, instead I see ppl down voting mine and the other 2 sarcastic replies. I am saddened to see ppl value dumb questions that pollutes hn and downvote on comments that points them out (mine and other 2 comments).
This device can be used with any computer or smart phone. I'd be worried about businesses using insecure computers connected to the internet instead of POS machines where people don't click on links to install untrusted software.
That's a great story. Here is an interesting macro data point that might help to explain why we are seeing growth from a number of How To video sites:

http://google.com/trends?q=how+to
summary: Use assert();
Open Source Climate Data
Evidently the source data is still available from NOAA. Would anyone on HN be interested in creating a fully open source set of tools for generating a climate data set?

The project should simply be a script that expects to find the raw NOAA measurement data in a directory and that outputs a single csv file.

The NOAA data availability is mentioned here: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/35233_Did_Climate_Scientists_Destroy_Data_A-_No

Anyone interested in collaborating? I'm pretty handy with awk. Over time this could turn into a great resource for climate change research.
We have a handful of deals in Boston/Chicago/SF - but not really enough to be useful. Unfortunately, NYC is the only city with reasonable coverage right now ...

If I'm going to be showing deals not near you, I'd rather be showing great deals from 200 miles away than poor ones from 50 miles away.

In steady state, we'd definitely do some sort of 'show nearest deal' instead though ...
What Caused the Blogosphere to Grow Up?
Well, let's see.... perhaps the farmed animals taste better, perhaps some people enjoy the connection with the land and Nature by growing/raising their own food, animals aren't just raised for meat: many animals (sheep, goats, etc) are also raised because their wool/hair can be used for clothing, cows provide leather, beef shanks probably aren't going to be grown in a lab, but a slowly braised shank of beef is absolutely divine!

Put a simpler way: you can buy cheap beef at the grocery store, but the bison farm down the road from me that sells grass-fed, pastured bison meat still has a 4-6 month backlog on orders...
Added a few words of introduction to the home page, and in the process of redesigning the about page as we speak. Thanks.
I sort of wasted my night last night reading old archived posts put up around the time Kathy Sierra quit blogging, and try to draw some conclusions on the differences in blogging style from 2007 to 2009.
Use cases are pretty simple - building reports for MIS, corporate systems etc... all of them use Windows servers so asp.net is the standard for development hence Dundas
Hmm, I'll look into that. Perhaps cookies would be better than GET parameters after all ..
He said 3% of all searches are 'how to' searches. Smart niche to focus on.
Is it possible that having to use one's 2% majority share to force a decision is just as bad as a deadlock? (as far as affecting morale, a founder leaving, etc.)

We've had the 51/49 split driven into our heads for so long, I wonder if anyone out there can share the ramifications of actually having to use it.