instruction stringlengths 4 105 | output stringlengths 8 56.7k |
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feedback on The Great Movie Experiment - an alternative to IMDB star ratings. | ananthrk: * I wanted to see more movies in the list (in Up&Coming page) and set it to 100. Now, when I hover over the links towards the bottom of the list, the visuals (such as the movie poster) are no longer in my view.* Some description/tagline/plot of the movie along with the poster would be good |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | gtt: Stydy math while you are young. Just in case. After 30 math is hard to grasp. |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | binarycheese: Discrete math helps you think logically - i.e. how to solve problems |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | known: Yes, if aspire to be a great programmer. |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | JoelMcCracken: I dont think this should dissuade you. Most of my undergraduate class are really awful at math (having had to take university level calc 1 and 2 several times each), however they are effective programmers.There are certain things you won't be good at, though. Like math. It will be hard to use programming... |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | Hexstream: Programming itself doesn't require math besides the very basics, however the problem domain of your programs might require more advanced math.And it's never too young to learn programming. I know some people would consider 14 years old a late start. |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | GeneralMaximus: Short answer: no.Long answer: I started programming when I was 13. I used to barely pass my maths exams. In 11th grade, we got to some basic Combinatorics, Complex Numbers, Coordinate Geometry and Advanced Algebra. Strangely enough, I got better at maths because I found these topics were relevant to pro... |
Fuzzy Logic SQL select framework | leonidtineo: At Universidad Simón Bolívar, Venezuela, we have developed three general purpose fuzzy querying systems: SQLfi, SQLf-pl and PostgreSQLf. We have several in proceedings communications about them. If you are interested in using or contribute to the development: For PostgreSQLf contact professor José Tomas Ca... |
Recommendations for website monitoring tools | arien: You could try something like Nagios: http://www.nagios.org/. It's not a remote service, you have to install and configure it, but it's wonderful. |
Ask HN:SMTP Relay EC2 | cwitr329: I have been through this recently, and with alot of pain. Aristus is right, the EC2 IP block is blacklisted... So setting up a relay on ec2 is a bad idea. We have our EC2 Mail server instance on EC2, then have relays setup on slicehost which works great. |
How much money would it take to get into hardware? | brk: A lot of it depends on the hardware you're going to use. Assembling a bunch of off-the-shelf components into a new idea (ref: Chumby) is going to be much cheaper than developing your own custom asic's (ref: SiCortex).My experience over the course of a couple of hardware startups doing more off-the-shelf approach ... |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | tokenadult: I'm not that much good in maths, I know only school-level maths.You are fourteen years old. You probably haven't had much good math instruction yet. One of my favorite authors on school mathematics wrote, "The proper thing for a parent to say is, 'I did badly at mathematics, but I had a very bad teacher. I ... |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | cconstantine: This has been said already, but I"ll say it again; the maths you need are concepts like symbol manipulation, logic. Beyond that the only math you need to know is related to the problem you're trying to solve with a program.I'm currently trying to learn a new-to-me language (clojure) and I'm finding worki... |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | jimrandomh: The younger you are when you first start programming, the better a programmer you'll end up being. Don't let anyone tell you you're too young.You'll have to learn math /eventually/, but you don't need it yet. You can afford to focus on pure programming, and wait five years on the math. |
How much money would it take to get into hardware? | jwilliams: Hardware as a rule isn't necessarily expensive. If you had a specialised peripheral you might be able to get going on a million -- maybe even a lot less if you can push functionality to software (eg a simple setup where the fpga or microcontroller does all the heavy lifting).The problem is when you want to c... |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | mjgoins: In high school (at least here in the USA) teachers focus on math that will help students with the natural sciences, namely calculus and a bit of statistics.For programming, what you need to read about are Logic and Discrete Mathematics. And yes, they absolutely will help you be a good programmer. |
feedback on The Great Movie Experiment - an alternative to IMDB star ratings. | unalone: IMDb has a group of ultradedicated movie fans and it has an excellent rankings formula. The only reason their ratings are any good is that they have more movie buffs than any other place, so the reviews and ratings actually indicate a lot of very good movies. |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | kaens: Because everybody is already used to telling time in a certain way, and doesn't want to take the time to learn a new one, put in the effort to learn a new one, or deal with the initial wave of missed meetings and general confusion that would result as larger portions of the population moved to a different way of... |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | parenthesis: What problem does it solve that UTC doesn't?Its time unit (1 beat := 1000th of a (mean solar) day) doesn't have any nice relation to the units of time with which people are already very familiar (seconds, minutes, hours). |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | mooism2: Most people only have to worry about time zones when they go on holiday, even in the internet age, so they gain nothing.It forces people to give up familiar concepts of hours, minutes, and seconds, for no good reason.It forces people in some locations to get used to the date changing during daylight hours (big... |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | coolestuk: I'm really appalling at maths, and yet I love programming, and have been doing it full-time for over 10 years now. I came to programming very late in life, and almost had to claw my way into the industry. I was almost 30 before I even touched a PC.There are the very odd time when I suddenly realize I need ... |
Cloud computing cheaper or more expensive than other solutions? | ErrantX: Having built a couple of scalable systems of my own (personal project one running on 5 machines currently and 2 works ones running on 50 machines and 17,000+(client)/15(server) machines respectively - though note those last 2 are not websites) I can say safely that the easiest option is to go with a cloud pro... |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | biohacker42: Programming is one of the most difficult branches of applied mathematics; - DijkstraWhile I fully agree with the above, and I am a good programmer, good at proving theorems, I am terrible at algebra, I can barely do my taxes. |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | ryanwaggoner: A better question might be: why would anyone think this would work? |
feedback on The Great Movie Experiment - an alternative to IMDB star ratings. | ccarpenterg: Putting a button to discard both movies at the same time would be better in terms of user experience IMHO. |
Cloud computing cheaper or more expensive than other solutions? | satyajit: I am in the same position you are.
I considered DreamHost, SliceHost, and few others and went in for a barebone Linux Xen virtualization hoting at vpsfarm.com. Good enough for me to boot up.
Why I didn't go for Amazon - though I think EC2 provides way more value for what I am trying to do. BUT - their pricing... |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | aristus: Is this a serious question? Internet Time was a marketing gimmick by a watch company. It's like asking why "Bat Time" didn't work.Me, I'm still holding out for this:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Republican_Calendar |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | trickjarrett: Two reasons:
1. There's no GOOD reason for this change to happen. It's change for change's sake. Sure it's more logical, but standards of time or measurement aren't changed for just that reason, they get changed when they're shown to be BROKEN and while our current time system is less than optimal, it's f... |
Cloud computing cheaper or more expensive than other solutions? | iamelgringo: My situtation is a bit unique, because I'm using EC2's for Windows server hosting.I tried using something like Web Faction or Slice host for a while. And, while they were fine, my *nix admin fu < Windows admin fu. So, it was taking me five times longer to set up a Unix server on slicehost that did what I... |
Anyone within traditional corporate env. think that Office docs are going away? | noodle: no, or at least, not nearly as fast as techcrunch is reporting. perhaps they're dying, but they're going to "die" like cobol is dying, most likely. |
Anyone within traditional corporate env. think that Office docs are going away? | bkbagel: Personally, I think TechCrunch's sense of importance here is a bit inflated. I think Office still has a long time left in its domination. Most companies are not early adopters. And I think Google Docs, etc. still require "early adopter" status in the corporate world. |
Anyone within traditional corporate env. think that Office docs are going away? | Allocator2008: Yes. In fact I think we will soon go back to having a room of "computers" instead of using an excel document. In other words, take your calculations up to a roomful of gals who will do the calculations, double check them, and then hand you the answer some time later. Since clearly spreadsheet software ha... |
Startup Share Distribution for New Comers | brk: http://www.paulgraham.com/equity.html |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | lutorm: Why is the US still not using metric? That's a compelling change, which would align it with the rest of the world. And it's still not happening. The chances of the entire world adopting a new time scheme just for the heck of it are zero. |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | axod: Because powers of 10 are less useful than other more useful numbers like 60. That's why IMHO metric isn't generally as useful for day to day uses. eg you get a dozen rolls from the baker so you can divide them between 2,3,4 or 6 people. Getting 10 would be silly. |
Consider Banning Infoworld | andrewljohnson: I suggest we lose nothing by not banning them.It's not like the articles ever trickle to the top. That's the beauty of the site. And if someday, they actually submit a good article, then I want to see it. We don't need some heavy-handed witch hunt. |
Consider Banning Infoworld | noodle: ah yes, the weekly "why don't we ban (insert site here)" thread. i liked what came of last week's:http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=510309 |
Why don't I get some indication of a response to my comments? | apgwoz: You're not the first to ask for this. I have asked before, and there is a feature request submitted on the feature requests thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363 |
Why did this idea of Internet Time not work? | showerst: I think time zones are actually pretty useful. If I have to call Frankfurt or Tokyo, it makes a big difference whether it's 4pm their time or 6pm.If things were the same worldwide then I'd have no idea if it's the middle of the night in the place I'm trying to call unless I've already memorized it. With time ... |
feedback on The Great Movie Experiment - an alternative to IMDB star ratings. | foompy_katt: It would be great if an one's own ranked list could be exported straight from your website. Maybe you'd want to keep track of individual users' lists anyway, to prevent people from gaming the results?Great idea :). |
feedback on The Great Movie Experiment - an alternative to IMDB star ratings. | k0n2ad: Cool idea - I would change both movies each time, though, if you haven't seen at least one of them (instead of flipping one at a time and keeping the other one up). Also, as people have already mentioned, keep them in similar genres or at least offer an option of "Can't make the comparison," or something simila... |
Anyone within traditional corporate env. think that Office docs are going away? | JimmyL: No - and I'd also challenge the assertion that Dropbox and Slideshare are mainstream anywhere outside of the tech/early adopter community.These (and online docs) are products that people who like technology and new things use as a way to get their work done. The vast majority of people - and this is especially ... |
I'm about to buy a domain from someone, what escrow service to use? | noodle: sedo seems to be the industry standard. looks like they charge $50 or 3%, whichever is more, for an escrow of an outside deal.http://www.sedo.com/services/s_escrow.php |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | mahmud: You will need math unless you want to spend the rest of your life as a second-class programmer. You don't have to wait for your teachers to "teach" you good math, you can start today by reading a good book. I recommend Peter Eccles' "Mathematical Reasoning"[1]; it will teach you how to think logically like a ma... |
I'm about to buy a domain from someone, what escrow service to use? | mitchm: I've used escrow.com with great success. You can split the fee to escrow between the two parties or have 1 side agree to pay it. I think the seller decides what the split is, so make sure you agree on it before they set it up.At first i was cautious since escrow.com looks like it straight out of 1996 but it's l... |
Help me become a great hacker | frisco: Don't forget that great hackers didn't become great by wanting to be so. They started working on a problem -- just like any other entrepreneur -- but their abilities to make machines do what they wanted was what set them apart. Technology is leverage.Start small. Make a website or write a tool for some idea ... |
Anyone within traditional corporate env. think that Office docs are going away? | CWuestefeld: The author is completely dismissive of security concerns, but is incorrect in this attitude. These problems are not primarily technological (we know how to keep secrets, if only we could get users to follow the rules), so the barriers can't just be broken down by smart people.The problem is regulatory. HIP... |
Help me become a great hacker | mixmax: Offtopic, but maybe not: You're a great writer. |
Help me become a great hacker | tjr: You might find The New Hacker's Dictionary to be useful for establishing some background history and terminology.For programming material, maybe take a look at Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, and see if it looks like a good fit for you. The Little Schemer would also be a good read.Most importan... |
Help me become a great hacker | mechanical_fish: We should really develop a ceremony. A sort of Hack Mitzvah. We could have an eminent member of the open source community dress up in a big ceremonial robe covered in surplus electronic parts, and people could approach one by one to be handed a tiny gold-plated lambda and have the ceremonial blessing p... |
Help me become a great hacker | triplefox: A good start would be: try not to waste what you've learned. A starting point would be to imagine ways to improve medicine via computing. There are always ways that our information systems can be improved. It doesn't have to be an impressive field or anything, even a small problem will work. Design what you ... |
Help me become a great hacker | edcdave: For basic motivation and direction, try Don Lancaster's site and books.Reading programs is just as important to the budding (and expert) hacker as writing them. As goofy as it sounds, I found lots of inspiration trying to convert BASIC game programs (as in Ahl's 101 Computer Games) to Python. First time throug... |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | dkarl: You don't need any specific mathematical knowledge, but it is vital to practice and understand mathematical thinking. Your goal should be to finish a couple of proof-heavy undergraduate theory courses, such as 400-level analysis and algebra.Along the way you will learn lots of useful math, but that isn't the po... |
Why don't I get some indication of a response to my comments? | mooism2: Not saying you shouldn't be able to be notified when you get a response, but when I used Reddit I hated that little red icon, and would have loved it if there was a setting to disable it. |
Is it necessary to learn maths to enter into programming? | alan-crowe: The big overlap between mathematics and programming is proof
by mathematical induction. The standard example in
mathematics is proving that1+2+...+n = n(n+1)/2The proof has two parts, first is it true for small values
of n, and second does truth for a large value follow from
truth for all small values.Well,... |
Help me become a great hacker | mannicken: How do you know that programming is your true passion if you've never built a program? Try it and see if you really like [rogramming. |
Help me become a great hacker | jimmyjim: "And here I am, about to graduate university, and I am fairly certain that a medically oriented career is not for me. After years of lurking HN, reading TC"Sorry, what's TC? |
Help me become a great hacker | grahamg: Go Away. It's people like you that are starting to turn this site into another Reddit or _gasp_ Digg.By the way, reading books might help. Tell your parents to fuck off as well. They sound like douchebags. |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | nreece: The local ISP's website, and Altavista I guess. |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | kyro: It was nickelodeon.com on a commercial at the age of 10 or so. And it was pretty damn amazing, strange, and breathtaking even, the first time I booted up AOL dial-up and loaded the page. |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | paraschopra: Yahoo.com at a computer being displayed at a tradeshow. I was mesmerised at that point... |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | babyshake: I don't really recall the first URL, but I have a very clear memory of the first time I saw broadband access. My dad's friend gave us a demo of how you could load yahoo.com in "only seconds" with his cable connection. Within a week, we had our subscription. |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | Shooter: symbolics.com |
How much money would it take to get into hardware? | graemeklass: The major costs would be the assorted tooling charges:
- plastic moulds: for a tablet size probably $50-70k. I would recommend you get an experienced industrial designer to guide you through this process. Make sure if you get quotes from China that you don't give the 3D model for the quote - give 2D techni... |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | gne1963: www.cnn.com |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | nostrademons: gopher:some.obscure.university.address.edu. It was late 1993. |
Poll function | frisco: Feature. Many polls aren't binary choices, and this allows for that. |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | triplefox: I vaguely remember using some university's gopher system at a demonstration Internet setup circa 1992-93. That would make me seven or eight years old.The first url I actually remember would probably be liii.com:8000 as that was the host of a Merc MUD I played on(Barren Realms). I have some recollection of pl... |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | thwarted: It wasn't the first, but one I remember shown in the trailer for the movie The Craft (I have no idea what movie I actually went to the theater to see). It is memorable because someone yelled out in the theater "HOLD ON WHILE I GET A PEN TO WRITE THAT DOWN", and the theater broke out in laughter. Little did ... |
What was the first URL you saw in the wild? | lionheart: http://www.yahooligans.com I used to love that site when I was a kid. |
Webcam streaming solutions? | Steve0: If you already have a vpn setup I would recommend a simple IP webcam. For example: http://tinyurl.com/d33j7d or http://tinyurl.com/d2hebyThose have an integrated webserver, which means there's no need to have a computer running as host. |
Has iPhone 3.0 Spotlight changed the way you use your phone? | gstar: Not yet! Crikey, give it a day or two.Although, I have used it quite a bit to look up contacts, and to search for an email. I found the email search a bit wanting though.Overall a huge improvement, I just wish i could press cmd-space to activate it. |
Webcam streaming solutions? | ktharavaad: I saw this over at the demo.com website and it seems like a pretty easy and cool solution for video streaming.http://www.vuezone.com/I'm not affiliated with them in any way. |
Review my site MusterBlog (www.musterblog.com) | freddy: ok yeah I agree it is not pretty quite yet just wondering if those features would be meaningful. They are there, but only are visible after login etc. Do you see value in those features I guess is what I am getting at? |
Switching from MediaTemple to Slicehost | rickharrison: Yea it definitely will. Just follow the tutorials on slicehost's website and you will be fine. Start off with ubuntu 8.04 imo |
Switching from MediaTemple to Slicehost | lethain: I've been running my sites (Django-powered) on Slicehost for about two years and have been very pleased overall.A few observations:1. Running Apache with both mod_php and mod_passenger (assuming that would be your deployment method for Rails app) on a 256 meg slice may be tight if your traffic levels pick up. ... |
Feedback on Thymer - a GTD/project management app for teams | jbm: I love this app already.Guys, if you want to do a Japanese cell phones version, give me a holler. I might be able to help. |
Is GRE useful outside graduate school? | noodle: there's a lot of criticism of the GRE. people basically point out that its only good at determining who is good at taking standardized tests, since it isn't a very good predictor of graduate school success.its just one of those things, though. not all programs weigh it heavily. |
What's Your Vote Worth? | stonemetal: I guess it depends on what you are talking about paying for. $100 for the front page seems cheap, $100 for my one up vote seems to high. So far as I can tell, me voting a story up or down in no way effects my reputation( I can't tell who voted an article up or down and I don't get points for it.) It is my... |
Is GRE useful outside graduate school? | stonemetal: No, and it isn't worth much inside graduate school either. Some schools especially towards the high end have stopped using the gre and sat as qualifiers. |
Please explain what happens in this execl() problem. | alecco: buffers?BTW, don't think this is "Hacker News" ;) |
Please explain what happens in this execl() problem. | parenthesis: > I get two warnings for execl() & exit() when compile man execl
man 3 exit
will tell you which headers you need to #include. |
Please explain what happens in this execl() problem. | cperciva: This had better not be a homework problem.The lines "Line number 2 before execl" and "Line number 1 before execl" will not be printed on most systems because most systems default to line-buffering (when writing to a terminal) or fully buffering (otherwise) output.The lines "... after execl" will not be printe... |
Why if visitors return, site does not grow | stonemetal: mathematically possible? Easy you have reached the X people interested in the subject and no one new comes to read the blog. Probably you don't have enough juice to get good ranking for search terms so not much search traffic is going your way. |
Why if visitors return, site does not grow | spoiledtechie: Keep writing. Thats all I found I could do with my blog. I just have to keep writing and the more I write, the more posts I create the more search traffic I get.Keep working on it.How long have you been writing? |
Are there any technology/geek radio stations online? | ideamonk: no idea about radio stations... checkout some podcasts by people behind stackoverflow.
Revision3.com -- checkout some shows related to hacking. |
Why if visitors return, site does not grow | coglethorpe: Guest post on similar blogs with more traffic. If done right, they get free content, you get a link or two back to your site.Use blog carnivals. blogcarnival.comMake sure you point users to the subscription option clearly. That helped my numbers rise... |
How useful is Pair Programming? | nshah: There's both sides of pair programming... recently I attended a presentation where the presenter basically said that pair programming should be mandatory... on the other hand, I've done pair (and even triplet) programming... Here's my thoughts:* Advantages
- Works great in initiating a new team member in to a la... |
How useful is Pair Programming? | gcheong: The fact is that very few studies have actually been done so most of what you get are anecdotal accounts.
I think pair programming has it's uses, for example, when a developer is stuck on a problem and can't move forward it's often helpful to have another set of eyeballs, but I have yet to see it effectively ... |
How useful is Pair Programming? | Edinburger: I've led agile teams for the past three years where there has always been some pairing and some solo work. I'm sorry I can't offer statistical data, only my anecdotal observations:* Pairing is particularly useful when breaking new ground.* Pairing is good for knowledge sharing.* Pairing is good for quality.... |
How useful is Pair Programming? | DanielBMarkham: From what I've seen, this is something with a lot of hype. I've seen a lot of smoke, but little fire.Anecdotally, I've heard and seen that it helps, and that it hurts. I've seen people praise it as the answer to all productivity problems (along with TDD and ATDD, of course) and I've seen people curse it... |
Best site for Photoshop tutorials? | catone: I'm late to answer this, but there are a few major tutorial aggregation sites: http://www.good-tutorials.com - http://www.pixel2life.com - http://www.tutorialized.com/ |
How useful is Pair Programming? | intellectronica: _very_ useful, but not exclusively. pairing is great for gaining momentum, learning a new technique or domain, focusing on solving a particularly hard problem and mentally syncing with your co-prorammer. it is draining and ineffective if done for more than a week or two. |
How useful is Pair Programming? | mpk: Pair-programming as a dogmatic part of the development process is, IMNSHO, very overrated.Coding standards, simple interfaces, commit policies, etc are far more important.Pair programming is useful for,* Building small but critical pieces of code which everyone interfaces with on some level inside a group (a core ... |
How useful is Pair Programming? | blasdel: Almost all of the methodology promoted as "Pair Programming" is at best neutral, but there is a kernel of awesomeness in the idea:Get two developers working in close proximity, criticizing with each other constantly as they work. The more yelling the better. |
How useful is Pair Programming? | andrewljohnson: I've read that pair programming is good for mediocre or novice programmers. |
How useful is Pair Programming? | menloparkbum: Pair programming is useful when the project is so heinous and boring that nobody would work on it unless there's another person sitting next to them keeping them on task. |
How useful is Pair Programming? | akeefer: Microsoft did an internal study you might find interesting:http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/abegel/papers/...I also know that they sponsored research by the Stanford CS department where they gave pairs and individuals the same programming task (completable in an afternoon), but I have no idea what... |
How useful is Pair Programming? | dkarl: In my experience, pair programming is to programming what eating less and exercising is to obesity: most people simply can't bring themselves to do it, even after trying it and experiencing success. My advice is to just forget about it, like doctors these days who prescribe drugs for cholesterol and high blood... |
Web 2.0 and The Four Steps to the Epiphany | andhapp: I was going to buy this book...but I read this review...http://eightpence.com/the-four-steps-to-the-epiphany-review/ |
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