Olifante

"This may be the laziest question yet on HN. Opening the main page of the Apple Store (http://store.apple.com/us) immediately tells you what is the cheapest mac: Mac Mini at $599 -- and from your question, it seems you already knew the Mac Mini existed. Is that so hard to figure out by yourself?" - Olifante

"I used an older edition of O'Reilly's Learning Python and found it to be very accessible and well written -- I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned before: http://oreilly.com/catalog/978... O'Reilly's Programming Python is not bad, but it's not a great book, either for beginners or journeymen. Python in a Nutshell is more suitable as reference book, although I suppose you could use it to learn Python. For a Python reference book, I found David Beazley's Python Essential Reference to be more informative and better organized: http://www.amazon.com/Python-E...... As other people have mentioned, Guido's online tutorial is pretty good, and you don't really much else to start programming in Python:http://docs.python.org/tutoria... I'm always puzzled by people recommending Mark Pilgrim's Dive into Python. I don't find it a good choice for Python beginners." - Olifante

"Probably the best non-fiction book I read in the last 10 years. It puts forward many reasoned arguments for the Eurasian historical supremacy (the Guns, Germs and Steel of the title), but as you say, the crux of it is that Eurasia is the continent with the largest contiguous area of similar climate. In other words, Eurasia is wide, while North America is narrow, and South America and Africa are both tall and narrow, resulting in very large climatic diversity, and smaller ecosystems adapted to each of those climates." - Olifante

"C" - Olifante

"beautiful article! Best introduction to continued fractions and their properties that I've ever read." - Olifante

"This discussion prompted me to post my latest piece on my blog. Here's "Fidec", a simple piano piece with a slightly unusual chord progression: http://olifante.blogs.com/covi... -- also available here: http://www.myspace.com/olifant..." - Olifante

"If you want to skip the humorous intro, the juicy stuff starts after 20 minutes or so." - Olifante

"iPhones protected by a password aren't actually protected at all, as just by pressing a few keys a miscreant can access all the phone's functions without needing the password at all. The trick, reported by MacRumours, is simply a press of the "Emergency Call" key from the passcode entry screen, followed by a double-tap on the home button. That takes the miscreant into favourites, from which they can access the address book, from which they can get into the e-mail client (by tapping a contact's e-mail address) or the browser (by tapping a URL)." - ☂Marcos Marado via Bookmarklet

The problem with only asking lawyers your legal questions is that you then have to find a qualified lawyer. Not being a lawyer yourself, it's hard (almost impossible) to know which ones aren't just morons practicing law. - Gabe

"The European Union wants to add 45 years to the current 50-year copyright on musical recordings, arguing that aging performers can't afford to be cut off from sources of income just when they need them the most. In defense of this plan, Commissioner Charlie McCreevy's proposal said that no external expertise on the matter was required and, furthermore, that the (music-industry-provided) data he already had said the plan was a good one. Now, a prominent European academic is furious that his work—which the European Commission requested and paid for—has been totally ignored by the very Commission that signed off on the piece and published it." - ☂Marcos Marado via Bookmarklet

We’re planning to throw an evening networking event for European startups during Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin this October. - Zee. via Bookmarklet

Who's going to the Web 2.0 Expo in Berlin & who can make it to this particular event? - Zee.

Not this year. Being there last year wasn't that great either, considering it was so poorly organized (talks were great, tho). - ☂Marcos Marado via fftogo

Just installed it yesterday. Was amazed by it. Huge potential. - Guillaume

The real impact won't be noticed until it comes bundled in the browser. Ordinarry people are still afraid to install these shiniy-flashy-geek-objects - Armando Alves

"Voting Machines We Can Trust Why We Need "Free Software" Voting Machines" - ☂Marcos Marado via Bookmarklet

"Only five developers? THREE testers?" - Olifante

"I'll call this technique the Gmail Launch, since it's based on what Gmail did. Gmail is probably one of the biggest Web 2.0 success stories, so there's an argument in its favor right there. Here's how it works:" - Kevin Fox via Bookmarklet

Another example of why 37Signals approach is bad: Cuil. Despite what they may do later on, they're likely to be the search engine with a ton of buzz that didn't work in everyone's mind. - Alex Power

I'm waiting for the 901... black if possible... - Paulo Gomes

But those repositories are "full and complete"? Or are they like the ones for 701? 'cause the ones for 701 are quite useless, you can only use them to upgrade what you want, but not really for installing new stuff... - ☂Marcos Marado via fftogo

yah... still playing. I looks that I will need to "attach" to the "extra" repos ;-) - Carlos Canau

"Basic math—which the child has blissfully yet to learn—clearly demonstrates that the number of years before he will be released from the horrifying prison of formal schooling, is more than twice the length of time he has yet existed. According to a conservative estimate of six hours of school five days a week for nine months of the year, Bolduc faces an estimated 14,400 hours trapped in an endless succession of nearly identical, suffocating classrooms. This nightmarish but undeniably real scenario does not take into account additional time spent on homework, extracurricular responsibilities, or college, sources said. "I can't wait until school is over," said the 3-foot-tall tragic figure, who would not have been able, if asked, to contemplate the amount of time between now and summer, let alone the years and years of tedium to follow." - bob via Bookmarklet

"while ( expr && set.length ) {" in Sizzle.filter looks suspicious because set doesn't seem to change inside the loop. Should that be curLoop.length instead? - Gabe