Hacker News on 6 December 2009

• EtherPad Back Online Until Open Sourced
• USB wall outlet - new standard for DC plugs?
• Java is pass-by-value, Dammit (and so are Ruby and Python, Dammit)
• Adieu google
• Beautiful plots of roots of polynomials
• The death of if/else cascades, a lightweight alternative
• Rithmomachy
• The looming crisis in human genetics
• Xmonad + bluetile = making tiling windowing accessible to new users
• Chromoscope - the Milky Way at many wavelengths