skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
A bit offtopic, but their UI for realtime search really irks me. To see what this article was talking about, I did that search for "Jonas Brothers". I'm greeted with News results, music results that I can start playing, 3 web results, this moving real-time search results box, then image results, then video results, then music video results, then more web results! [1]

I appreciate the fact that all these are viewable on one page, and I know that I can turn some of these on or off. It's still terribly busy for a search results page. As surprising as this is to me, I actually like Bing's results page[2] for this better (and it also includes real-time results).

[1] http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&tbo=1...
[2] http://www.bing.com/search?q=jonas+brothers&go=&form...
There's a better article here, with background on the issue of VMWare employees talking about their work on planet.gnome.org and RMS objecting to that:

http://www.itwire.com/content/view/29995/1090/1/2/
It makes excellent sense to the prefecture: they have the property whether someone is living in it or not.

Is it common/standard for rural housing to be owned by the state in Japan? In the United Kingdom, at least, such property would be trading at sky high prices thanks to prospectors and overcrowding.. :-)
I completely and fully believe the story. I've crossed the Canadian - US border many times by car and I've personally witnessed more than one occasion of absolutely unwarranted aggression on the part of the border guards.

Seriously, you have to make the trip a couple of times per month for a year or two to get any idea of how many rotten apples there are in that basket.

American and Canadian visitors are always completely surprised when we tour the region here, and we go from the Netherlands to France, Belgium and Germany without ever seeing a borderguard in person, let alone having to interact with one.

It's really just costumed theater, you could easily do without it and it would not somehow threaten the American way of life.

American borders being what they are I stopped going there completely after one especially nasty incident in Miami that caused me to miss a connecting flight.

Until sanity returns to the American borders I'm sure they can do without my business.
Clearly it can happen. I'd be interested in data on whether it happens more or less often, by volume of traffic.
The suggestion by someone for a split-from-GNU vote is a response to Stallman's email. In his email, Stallman says: (excerpt)

But GNOME is part of the GNU Project, and it ought to support the free software movement. The most minimal support for the free software movement is to refrain from going directly against it; that is, to avoid presenting proprietary software as legitimate.

To which Philip Van Hoof replied: (excerpt)

You, as one of the key FSF people, appear to be keen on enforcing a strict policy on how GNU's member-projects should behave. So ...

I propose to have a vote on GNOME's membership to the GNU project.
Yeti : an ML-derived language for the JVM
I would think it's to be expected from the the dwellers of a technology-startup oriented community to have a higher immunity to Arrington's charm than the average netizen.
Too lazy to subscribe. Is the gist "People can't write kanji anymore because computer-assisted input requires only passive knowledge"? If so, that was old news 20 years ago. Electrical typewriters were a huge thing in Japan, because mechanical ones could never produce the ~3000 characters they use.
At one place I worked thy shrunk everyone from 8x8 to 8x6. I never really understood why especially after seeing it could only save around $400. It took on average a few days to pack up a cube because it was also used as a declutter time (IT goes a few hundred unused computers out of it) The company paid someone else to move our boxes to the wall, convert all our cubes to 8x6 and then move us back. The company had to buy all of the 6x5 foot cube parts (as we had all 8x5). And and in another lost day for unpacking. Moral was low because 1) you got a much smaller spot 2) the promised common areas never came, 3) there were now huge open areas where they didn't put in new cubes reminding us that we have less space. And the kicker? When we started there were already free cubes from layoffs...

Edit: The company owned the whole building so shrinking the space we used didn't reduce our rent.
If you find this interesting, you will love his book "Designing Virtual Worlds". The first chapter covers the types of players in much greater detail. Its a fantastic book and I enjoyed reading it. Richard Bartle does a great job of explaining his points and backing everything up with references, so even if you don't agree with some of his observations, you can see why he thinks so and perhaps learn from it. Definitely a must read if you're developing a MUD or MMO game, but a good read even if you're not. </advertisement>
Aren't all schools like this, in terms of the leadership structure? Benevolent autocracy seems to be the only real way it can work at that size.

Mostly it's good, occasionally they make some profoundly foolish decision, such as this one—or my school's ridiculous UAE campus. (see: http://www.uae.uwaterloo.ca/)
These seem to be up on archive.org through 2008. The rest are available through Google Reader.
The subset of C# used in Tomboy and F-Spot is considered "safe" by Mono developers and the FSF alike. Most arguments about "minefields" concern Microsoft-specific libraries, such as WinForms and ASP.NET, which GNOME won't touch with a 10-foot pole.
I used to travel internationally quite a bit, so I've crossed the border many times too. What can I say? It's usually not a pleasant experience no matter which border you are crossing. And it seems to just be getting worse, especially in the U.S.

It's also obvious that people who know Peter think of him as having a docile character. So if I had to guess I'd guess that Peter was indeed wronged.

But I don't have to guess. There should be plenty of evidence for reasonable people to make up their minds. I'll just wait until I hear more information.

Or put another way -- is this a story because of what exactly happened? Or is it a story because it feeds into larger narratives that we already agree on and it comes from somebody well-known on the web? Joe Schmoe gets tasered, perhaps unfairly, and nobody cares. Person-of-note X gets tasered, perhaps fairly, and everybody is up in arms. Why? Because it's easy for us to be. It's a familiar theme with lots of characters doing things we would expect them to do.

That type of story -- one that fits so well into established narratives and stereotype and one that is presented without context -- just makes me feel like I'm being manipulated, even if everything happened just the way it was told and a true injustice was done.

I just don't know. But I do know that if there was serious misconduct on the part of the border agents then heads deserve to roll on this -- just like any other case involving anybody else.
SaaS selling lessons from a novice
bpython seems to be much better than ipython ... switching now ~
It has popped up on reddit, etc. I haven't seen the video, but it was very popular for some reason a while back.
Millennium plot in Seattle was stopped by a border agent.
I am sorry. Digging further in showed this is not about Mono but an apparently much smaller problem - the way some proprietary technologies are presented.

As for Mono not being dangerous, I am still unconvinced. Microsoft has a lot of patents, some, undoubtedly, covering .NET-related technologies that have Mono counterparts. Microsoft also has threatened before to enter lawsuits against those who use them. Empty threats or not, I would go as far as to try to stay as far from it as possible.
I'd say it takes just a year of solid effort to get good at cranking out quality code on a platform. What takes years is learning how to quickly diagnose and attack bugs, develop instincts for what tools will be appropriate or suck, smell when a subsystem should just be scrapped and rewritten, etc.
"Most arguments about "minefields" concern Microsoft-specific libraries, such as WinForms and ASP.NET, which GNOME won't touch with a 10-foot pole."

I am glad to hear that. The risk of Microsoft throwing a wrench on all this effort because some people can't resist being MS-compatible is too high. It's been a long time, if ever, since Microsoft was known for playing fair.

And if some parts won't be touched with a 10-foot pole, why are they there anyway?
Acting like a child and expecting the adults in the room to protect you only encourages those who believe you shouldn't live freely (whether it is your local politician or a religious radical).
Richard Bartle writes some interesting MMO/MUD commentary (among other interesting things) on his blog: http://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/
A well justified fear of buying based on a demo.

http://www.carl-tracy.com/stories/44-computer-science/61--bi...
The original assumption that 20 minutes at ~260 degrees could cause worldwide forest fires is a far jump to begin with. Cut a section out a tree and place it in an oven set at ~260 for 20 minutes and you'll have nothing more than a mildly warm piece of wood, you'll definitely be a long haul from spontaneous ignition.

I've had plenty of camp fires in my time, and fresh wood certainly takes its time before combustion. I have serious doubts that a living tree would be capable of spontaneous ignition within 20 minutes of exposure to heat.

It may have ignighted forest fires in some dry or drought areas, but you're unlikely to spread forest fires in the boreal forests, where wildfires would have had the greatest effect. Forest fires in these regions happen only every 20-200 years, it's unlikely the raise of temperature in these regions would have caused a wildfire in the height of summer if it wasn't reaching one of these periods anyway. If the impact occurred during the winter months you'd have no chance to cause wildfires in these regions, even if the planetary temperature jumped by 260 degrees, the boreal regions would likely still be 20-30 degrees below the ignition point of wood. Considering these places can be 10+ feet deep in snow and ice (which incidentally insulate from heat) there likely wouldn't have been a noticeable effect.

Considering winter in the boreal lasts 5-6 months, there was a 50/50 chance that the impact would only have a negligible effect. Then consider the fact that the boreal has a high density of bogs and lakes means the wood is frequently waterlogged, so the chance of boreal wildfires being ignited gradually become slim-to-none, especially if it was a cold period in the climatic cycles.
No matter how you look at it, Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta and similar drugs are amphetamines or amphetamine analogues. You can take them (at a threshold dose that is unique to your body), and you will feel more focused, concentrated and on top of things. Take too much of it (this includes people with "ADHD") and you will have manic symptoms.

Do the medications help people with problems concentrating, impulsiveness and attention (collectively known as ADD)? Yes. Are there healthier ways to change your brain? Most definitely. I'd like to see a kid who is on ADHD get prescribed an exercise/meditation/therapy routine and compare the results to someone treated with medication. I'm sure the results would surprise a lot of people. Our body is a feedback-oriented system. "Chemical Imbalances" in the brain are often remedied with lifestyle changes. This includes "diseases" such as depression, anxiety and adhd. The corporations that research these conditions are quick to jump to conclusions based on limited scientific information if it means they have a good chance of success. It's been scientifically proven that exercise and diet play an enormous role in helping you concentrate and pay attention. But you know what? Advertising exercise won't make Shire Pharmaceuticals any richer. It's way easier for parents to resort to a medication as well. Who has time to monitor their kids anymore? Advertisements would have you believe that it's your only choice. AND they make everything sound all scientific, when in reality they are picking and choosing data. It's really a sad situation, but I hope there are enough people out there who know about the alternatives. It sucks being so dependent on these stimulants that you can't focus without them - you are bound to used them for the rest of your life. And who even knows what the long term effects are? The results are just starting to come in...
How hard was it to organise a visa?

My brother has been living in China on short term tourist visas for close to 5 years. In the mean time he has built and sold one (non-technology) business and claims not to feel worried about the possibility that one day they will stop letting him back in despite substantial real assets in the country.

I'd been considering it, but in my case everything I own is easy to transport across borders :-)
What are the Pinboard archives?
Splitting with GNU and becoming un-Free are two totally different events. The reason for GNOME's formation has nothing to do with the current situation.
My wife is from Japan, and she returns every year or so to visit her mother and father (she missed last year because we went on vacation to London instead). Every time she returns to Japan she suddenly becomes Japanese. Her voice changes, her style of clothing changes, etc. It is remarkable. She is, like many Japanese, a dyed in the wool city girl. She loves the city, the energy it has, the newness and changes, and most of all, the masses of people scurrying around at all hours. Her parents own a small piece of land out in the sticks, and her father intended to build a house on the property when she was a baby. But when her mother saw how far it was to the train station (too far to walk or take bicycle), she refused, and to this day they have rented a small house within 12 minutes walk to the train station that takes them into the heart of Osaka in just 10 minutes.
If someone pepper sprayed me i'd punch them in the..... well whatever I could hit given the lack of sight. Even if it was the Queen.
It would be a signal.

In the long run, it would affect what sort of contributors and users GNOME would have -- people from the Open Source camp who think proprietary software is a nuisance but not "immoral" or "evil" as Mr. Stallman suggests. Or people from the Free Software camp who think all proprietary software is "immoral" and "evil" and should thus be forbidden by law.

Of course, it would also be a blow for the Free Software community if a major project decides to stop supporting/promoting its political goals.

In the short run, of course, only a few words on the GNOME homepage would have to be changed.
Also, because expect(1) defeats the entire "remote shell" aspect of SSH, which lets me do this from my workstation:

ssh server tar zc /srv/http > http-backup.tar.gz

Yes, that's a remote command whose output is piped to a local file. With imagination, ssh, and shell-fu, one can get very far with backup automation and testing.
He wrote a blog post (maybe more than one) about how he was hosting his images from Amazon S3. Did he not follow through, or did he switch away from that?
I don't see why this is Machine Learning -derived.
Or maybe ML stands for something else here...

Edit: Thanks for clarifying. It is good to remember that there is other viewpoints :)
Climate E-mails: Science Not Faked, but Not Pretty
It would be nice to see a section on "How is Yeti different from Scala?".
Look up the ML language :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ML_%28programming_language%29
Seems unlikely. Kudos to AOL for managing the transition from closed network to dial-up internet service; after that they went off the rails.

The transition from dial-up to broadband rendered them irrelevant, except as an also-ran Yahoo style portal. If AOL came to you today with their pitch, what would it be? Would you go for it?
I love the wording "acquiring some weapon and applying it enthusiastically to the persona of another player in the game world."
It will be interesting to see how long this page (http://thepiratebay.org/legal) remains accurate.
I started with programming when I was 27. I've been a power user of computers for a long time, but it was first when I took some university courses in programming and found Perl that I finally found a programming langueage that fit me. What drove me to programming was that I was making all these .html documents and it was a PITA to update them all.
It is derived from the ML programming language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ML_%28programming_language%29). Other languages in this family are SML, OCaml, Scala, F#, and (more-or-less) Haskell.
Yeah I found that strange about the kg. too. But as an FYI:

joojoo : 1.1kg, 2.43lb.

Kindle DX: 0.54kg, 1.2lb.

MacBook Air: 1.36kg, 3.0lb.
The "heavy hitters" in the room at "demo days" seem to be firm associates. Associates are mostly irrelevant to you. If you try just a little bit, you should be able to get meetings with firm partners. You probably don't have any traction with a firm until you've taken a 1-on-1 with a partner.

Maybe my VC knowledge is stale (it's from 2005) but a room full of VC associates seems pretty unattractive.
People make the same argument with technology and English too, but that's not going to stop language evolution.
Not really. You generally want to use a mooring instead of an anchor. A mooring is a permanently installed anchor with a chain attached to it and a buoy on the surface. You drive your boat up and tie to the buoy. The mooring is generally rented by a marina or yacht club. The anchor is just not secure enough to leave your boat unattended on. I leave my boat on a mooring through hurricanes.

You also need to be able to get on and off your boat, so having a dock to tie up a little dinghy or having a launch (kind of like a water taxi) is key, and marinas/yacht clubs will have those facilities.

I pay around $800 a year for my mooring rental and having the gear pulled off it and inspected annually, and launch service is included. It is far cheaper than a dock.

Some other practical limitations, if you aren't at a dock you need a generator running for power. If you aren't at a dock I really have no idea how you get internet.

But, having lived on a boat in the past I would absolutely love to do it for work in the future.
I am usually pretty bored by "x lessons from my y experience" posts, but this one hit the nail on the head. Very poignant observations.
I don't think a pattern of questionable decisions made mostly in the nineteenth century is good evidence for it being "the only real way it can work at that size."
LIFO: It's not a tautology. Tautology is a restating of the same thing a slightly different way.

Regarding that statement, I read a great book called "I'm with the brand" (Euro title) or "Buying In" (American title). I don't have it with me, so I can't cite pages, but in it, the author described various studies that suggest that the more a person believes himself to be "immune" to advertising messages, the greater their impact.

It dovetails nicely with the post-hoc justification studies that show that you can trick people into doing things, and later they will come up with reasons why that are completely unrelated to the real reasons. (E.g., reading stories with lots of priming words like "elderly" and "infirm" and "creaky," people walk more slowly, then they make up reasons why when asked).

And, as for the attitude on HN, it's more subtle. Like I said before, my geek's "internal thoughts" in the article were hugely caricaturized for effect.

What you see here, instead, is a mixture of the two:

1. People talking about how if you just build something great, you don't need to promote it, and

2. People who focus on local maxima with things like split-testing copy text changes, and Adwords tweaking, etc., rather than promotion strategies

To me, those are both signs of "marketing anxiety" of one stripe or another.

#1 - It's true that having a great product helps a lot, but it doesn't do all the work for you.

#2 - People avoid uncomfortable things. People on HN are stereotypically comfortable with numbers and quantifiable, provable things. So they take something uncomfortable to them ("marketing") and turn it into something comfortable ("split-testing").

But there is a big difference between advertising and marketing, and optimization and marketing. There is a big difference also between conversion tactics and marketing.

Marketing is the big picture under which all those things fall -- and a lot more, too, which goes silent here on HN.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone talk about a long-term promotional strategy that wasn't almost entirely about ads and conversion strategy.

How's that?
I use DTN's NxCore for US Level I real-time data (last sale + bid/ask updates). The feed is excellent, but costs $500 per month. Here is the link: http://www.dtnmarketaccess.com/
Do you See What I See?: Visibility of Practices through Social Media
danah boyd's crib sheet for her speeches this week at Le Web and Supernova.
I think you, like Aristotle, wildly overestimate conscious awareness.

I'm not talking about doing wrong and believing it to be right, or even doing something without realizing it was wrong. I'm talking about just doing something without consciously knowing why you did it at all. The primary role of the conscious mind is not to make choices, but to rationalize after the fact the actions undertaken at the (largely amoral) subconscious's command. Expecting someone to always know why they made a decision is an impossibly high standard.

The general inability to correctly interpret one's own motivations is discussed here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introspection_illusion Note that this is not a cognitive defect, but the standard state of affairs. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confabulation and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anosognosia for when it goes more wrong than normal. A few examples:

Implicit Association Tests may be more accurate than conscious introspection in identifying prejudice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_Association_Test

Grandmothers are hard-wired to be biased against some grandchildren vs. others. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=941739

More directly relevant to this article, skim some of the posts on social signalling at http://www.overcomingbias.com/tag/signaling and realize that, while the author uses intentional language of decisions and preferences, most of what he's talking about are the sort of choices heavily subject to conscious delusion.

To summarize, accurate knowledge of one's own decision-making process is the exception, not the rule, and if questioned people are more likely to provide an ad-hoc rationalization based on inaccurate self-perception than anything resembling the actual reasons, and believe whole-heartedly that the rationalization is correct. To summarize the summary, nobody's generally aware of why they're doing whatever it is they're doing. To summarize the summary of the summary, being a person is a problem. [0]

[0] With apologies to D. Adams.
I did wonder if the meant Hobson's choice.
Here is another way to run an ML-like language on the JVM:

http://ocamljava.x9c.fr/

It supports all of OCaml, but it seems complicated to get running along Java with the same sophistication as Yeti. For instance, it seems that one must use the "Nickel" tool to generate Java bindings, rather than simply using "#" for Java calls as in Yeti:

http://nickel.x9c.fr/index.html

http://linux.ee/~mzz/yeti/intro.html#using-java-classes-from...