jkeisling/hacker-news-corpus-2007-2022 huggingface dataset:
Microsoft's five biggest weaknesses
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/090111-microsoft-weaknesses-250165.html?hpg1=bn
Microsoft is still a giant no matter how you measure it, but its position as the world's dominant provider of software to consumers is at risk. The primary factors (cough, Apple and Google, cough) can be debated, but this article argues that Microsoft's five biggest weaknesses are in search, Web browsers, Web servers, mobile devices, and Windows itself. Microsoft was provided the list in advance of publication, but for the most part declined to provide specific responses.
Show HN: our November Startup Month submission, collabacode
http://www.collabacode.com
Long time lurker, first time poster.

We want to make writing software for the Web easier. collabacode represents our proof of concept.

I find it highly doubtful that collabacode would be where it is without Hacker News. As a show of thanks I'd like you to be the first ones to see it.

Thanks HN!
Ruby Racism
http://forgivingworm.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/ruby-racism/
Are Ruby communities akin to be being "racist" in their expectations of other dev communities to be more like them?
Memory Analysis of the Dalvik (Android) Virtual Machine [pdf]
http://idelit.com/index.php?page=95
http://idelit.com/
Ask HN: How do I deal with my incompetent accountant?
(Throw away account.) I was recommended an accountant from a friend when I was setting up my startup's NY S-Corp. Up front, we were very clear that we wanted, in writing, an exact summary of the cost his services would be, and that he should do no work before we approved that price. He said filing would cost $250, so we said to go ahead.

We were flying a mile-a-minute during tax season, so we had him file extensions for us. Later on in the year, we worked with him to file our taxes. During the process, he sent a note (that I thought nothing of), saying - in summary - ah yes, we have to file both personal and S-Corp returns for you.

In the end, he sent me two bills: one for $200 (why not $250), and another for $400 (assumably for the heretofore forgotten S-Corp return).

THEN I just got a letter from the IRS saying I owed $712 (to the S-Corp) for failing to file taxes on time.

How on earth do I deal with this situation? The whole point of using an accountant was to outsource the work so I could focus on my business; there's nothing so complex about it that I actually needed his expertise. So now I find myself considering spending considerable time rectifying the screw up.

Outside of legal recourse, how do I deal with him? And assuming good faith negotiation doesn't work, what is my possible legal recourse?

I assume I can refuse to pay his fee above what he quoted me, and it is HIS obligation to sue me for outstanding payment, but now I'll have to pay the IRS for his screwup in filing, so I assume getting compensated by him for that in court would be something I'd have to tackle.

Argh!
A simple video meeting webapp, whiteboard, chat and screen sharing
Website: https://room.cafe/
Source code: https://github.com/aonesuite/room.cafe
Rubik’s for cryptographers
http://seclist.wordpress.com/2011/11/27/rubiks-for-cryptographers/
Hard mathematical problems are at the core of security arguments in cryptography. In this paper, study mathematical generalizations of the famous Rubik’s cube puzzle, namely the factorization, representation and balance problems in non-Abelian groups
Ask HN: Average pay hike when switching jobs?
I am looking at a hike of 33% hike for my next role. I was wondering what a decent bump would be?
Ask HN: Do online adverts have any effect on you?
Most things that are shared on here are paid for by advertisements. But do you think that these adverts actually deliver a return?

I've got a theory that heavy internet users are ad-blind. My mum can't tell the difference between content, menus and Adsense units. Hence she clicks on them all the time.
Emacs tidbits for Ruby developers
http://blog.senny.ch/blog/2012/10/06/emacs-tidbits-for-ruby-developers/
I've compiled a short list of Emacs configuration snippets that make me more productive when working with Ruby.
Wine tasting is not bullshit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBi9PfZve84
Saying wine tasting is bullshit is like saying medicine is bullshit. Pre-20th century medicine was mostly charlatans. Even today the unregulated pseudo-medical market is full of fakes and placebos. But it's a logical fallacy to conclude that ALL medicine is bullshit. The key is staying grounded in a scientific methodology.

This show demonstrates, in a charming affable way, that there is in fact an ability for humans to taste things with specificity.

Via daringfireball.net
MIT Student's Recollection of the Plane Crash (Imaginary)
http://tech.mit.edu/V128/N64/squidvswhale.html
Obviously fictional. A real MIT student would have posted on news.yc not reddit. ;)
Keynude is a naked theme for Apple Keynote. 
http://www.keynude.com
Grey shapes, flat charts, no yucky fills.
Is Software Too Soft?
http://blog.jonudell.net/2007/11/30/is-software-too-soft/
Do interfaces offer too many degrees of freedom?
Show HN: Watch LIVE Twitter photos related to #Sandy hurricane in real time.
http://livesandypics.com
An app we made quickly using Node.JS, Express, Jade & Socket.IO to show photos uploaded to Twitter related to Sandy hurricane.
Gizmodo Really Likes Patent Trolls
http://gizmodo.com/5621899/why-we-need-more-inventions-lots-more-inventions
Really not understanding why the author is giving so much free publicity to a well known patent troll. See here: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100217/1853298215.shtml
Good Eggs Goes Mobile
http://bites.goodeggs.com/posts/good-eggs-goes-mobile/
A series of posts describing how the fullstack JS, mobile site for goodeggs.com was built.
Nice HTML5-based Online Modeling Tool
http://www.anchormodeling.com/modeler/
I was reading up on database design esp. 6NF and came across this website on Anchor Modeling. It has a HTML5-based Online Modeling Tool that looks nice and fun to play with.
Poll: HOw much should startups in incubator stage pay interns?
HOw much should startups in incubator stage pay interns?
Self-Powered Hotel Energy Savers
http://www.userdriven.org/blog/self-powered-hotel-energy-savers.html
When you arrive in the room, you put your key card in the reader and all of the systems work as expected. When you leave, you take your key card with you and everything is powered off. This makes it easy and painless to be environmentally responsible without ever worrying about leaving the lights on or adjusting the thermostat.
Show HN: Arrested Development Quote Finder
http://www.memorybuilding.com/interactivity/AD/AD.html
If you can't remember what episode your favorite Arrested Development quote is in, type it in to the searchbox. It will filter as you type, and when you press "go" it will highlight the quote in the script.

try:
"no touching"
"always leave a note"
"there's always money in the banana stand"
"tony wonder"
"gene parmesan"

I am learning C# and this is one of my first silverlight projects. Let me know what you think!

Thanks.
The Algorithm: Idiom of Modern Science
http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~chazelle/iPod
This one is a long read, with somewhat "boring" subject. This article did not generate much interest on programming@reddit and I found it to be an unfortunate fact.

For all younger hackers I strongly suggest to at least bookmark it if you don't have time to read it, this text is a very nice collection of short "popular introductions" into various exciting fields of CS.
Ask HN: found a (tiny) HN bug, where do I report it?
Hey all,

I think I've (a tiny) bug in HN. Looking around, I don't see a bugtracker or specific email to report it to.

I am also emailing it to pg, but wanted to make sure I didn't miss something obvious.

--

In my reply, <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2493330>, I pasted a URL with <>'s on either side. HN appears to be filtering these to HTML entities, but there is a spurious ';' showing up after the trailing '>'. Screenshot at <http://i.imgur.com/8fKEm.png>.

Thanks!

Jason
Show HN: Core Count, a tool to visualize your software’s physical footprint
https://richardartoul.github.io/core-count/?numCores=25000
I wanted to make it easier for my coworkers and I to visualize the physical footprint of the software we operate!
Ask HN: Why is Array.from so slow?
I made this benchmark here: https://jsperf.com/ways-to-get-a-random-string

And I lack the formal knowledge to understand why the Array.from version is about 25% as fast as the while loop version, being that they intuitively should do something similar.

Can you please help me understand?
Moscow HighLoad++ is looking for speakers till 31.08
http://highload.co/
HighLoad, being a professional conference of developers of high-loaded systems, is held for the eighth time this year. It aims at the exchange of knowledge about the technologies enabling to serve many thousands and millions of users simultaneously. It covers different aspects such as web development, architectures of big projects, databases and storage systems, system administration, load testing, maintenance of big projects and other topics related to high-loaded systems. At this event you can share your experience, pitfalls and name factors that can help IT professionals cope with piles of packages and requests, and petabytes of data.
Ask HN: Let's crowdsource a startup idea
I like to break problems into their components. What happens when you do that to the problem of, "How do you create a successful startup?"?

The way I see it, you need to have an idea for something that people genuinely want(1) and you have to be able to build it(2). Traditionally, the idea part grows organically, or comes from thought and research from one person or a small group of people. But what about having a large group of people brainstorm startup ideas? Could that produce better results? Let's try it!

1 - And that could be provided with sufficient profit margins, and that is defensible etc.

2- This could be broken down much more. Ex. get a team together, raise money, do research, acquire relevant skills...
Show HN: Go to random locations, parks and restaurants
https://randomlocation.xyz/?
You can change your radius and there are some modes that you can use which are listed at https://randomlocation.xyz/help.txt

It's a non-commercial fun thing I created for my own use. Give it a try
Africa GitHub Users Map
http://codeafrica.org/github-africa/
0.12% of GitHub Users are in Africa.
Twitter Now Available in Right-to-Left Languages
http://www.qataronlinedirectory.com/blog/55/twitter-now-available-in-right-to-left-languages
What do you think of the addition of these languages? Do you think more people from the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia will start tweeting?
Show HN: Dstack – a command-line utility to provision infra for ML workflows
https://github.com/dstackai/dstack
Hi. :) I’m Andrey, the creator of dstack. I started this project while I was working at JetBrains where I helped the PyCharm team to improve support for Jupyter notebooks.
As I was in close contact with many ML devs (who used PyCharm) I was able to see their struggle with running ML workflows.

Unlike traditional dev workflows, ML workflows are difficult to run on a local machine (due to the lack of memory, more CPUs/GPUs, etc). This is why people often have to use remote machines (e.g. via SSH), or adopt one of the end-to-end MLOps platforms.

Using remote machines is not difficult but it is tedious and requires a lot of manual actions. Using MLOps platforms on the other hand automates the manual work but requires the use of an opinionated interface, which often kills developer productivity.

Imagine, if you could run your ML workflows the very same way as you do it locally, but they would actually run in the cloud. And you wouldn’t need to worry about provisioning infrastructure, setting up the environment, etc.

I’m excited to show you dstack, an open-source tool that does exactly that.

It’s a command-line utility that allows you to run any workflows while it provisions infrastructure, setup the environment, and copies code/data for you. No need to install or configure anything in your environment or cloud. Simply install the CLI and run it.

The launch blog post: https://mlopsfluff.dstack.ai/p/simplifying-the-mlops-stack

We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas. I’ll be here to answer any questions you might have.
Clojure 1.4 vs Node 0.8.x performance
http://roboticartichoke.blogspot.com/2012/10/clojure-14-vs-node-08x-performance.html
I ran some benchmarks today. I would like some input from the HN community to potentially fix any issues with the clojure code, try the tests out on a proper server and maybe even setup more realistic test cases.
Strong quarterly results at Intel
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8460398.stm
Chip maker Intel has seen fourth quarter profit soar as the personal computer market started shrugging off the effects of the recession.
Empowering Users With the Entire AV Industry
http://www.carbonblack.com/carbon-black-empowers-users-with-entire-av-industry/
Verizon's 2012 data breach report indicated that organizations are having a very difficult time detecting their own malware-based intrusions. The team at Carbon Black saw a way to fix this problem and built a sensor that collects and retains a record of execution, filesystem modifications, registry modifications, new outbound network connections and unique binaries. This week, they enhanced the sensor and built in a VirusTotal plugin, allowing users to leverage the signatures of the entire AV industry and analyze every single binary that has ever been executed on a network. Using VirusTotal, the team showed that the signatures of 43 AV products detected all 75 uploaded malware samples on day one of the test — something no single AV solution could do even after 30 days.
Finally a geo-group I've been looking for...
http://geobacon.com/invite/253d5ed4-e48e-42bd-a63f-843c73db5920
I just added support for groups in geobacon.com and thought others may have interest in this particular one.
Ask HN: Do I need a hardware firewall for my first dedicated server?
I'm getting ready to deploy the first phase of my app on a dedicated machine. Phase I is not public, meaning it has no web site, other than the one I use to administrate the app, and it takes no connections other than SSH. I will be running the latest Ubuntu Server, and using UFW for the firewall.

Question is, should I spend the $50 that Softlayer asks for a 10Mbps hardware firewall? Is Ubuntu's firewall enough?
Need a Ride? Check Your iPhone
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/business/21novelties.html?partner=rss&emc=rss#
EXCERPT: “You put the iPhone on the dashboard, and it records the entire trip and sends the route to our network,” he said. The system stores the route, adding it to its menu of paths and pick-up points and offering them automaticallyto interested riders.

Drivers must have an iPhone in order to use the service, but if passengers don’t, they will be able to look for a ride on the Avego Web site or call or send a text message, Mr. O’Sullivan said. Drivers and riders can identify one another by photographs displayed on their iPhones, as well as by PINs that verify identities and authorize the transaction.

Avego will charge 30 cents a mile, he said, with 85 percent going to the driver to recover some of the commuting costs and 15 percent to the company. All payments will be handled by automated online accounting.
Ask PG: Why don't you hide the points in stories?
if hiding the comments' scores will increase the quality of the discussions, hiding the points in submitted stories will do the same thing (at least increasing the quality of stories).

if you don't agree, then I think we can put back the comments scores?
Ask HN: What can one do to protect against hosting failures?
Right now AWS is having issues and I keep seeing arguments like "And that's why you don't put all your eggs in one basket." Day before yesterday MediaTemple's name-servers went down and many of my sites became unreachable. So what am I as a developer really supposed to do?

It's trivial to disable add-ons/APIs that add features to your site like Disqus but is there anything you can do if your host goes down or has networking issues? Is there a proper way to deploy data-driven sites to EC2, Rackspace, and MediaTemple so that it never goes down? I have yet to see an affordable host with 100% uptime.

I can understanding Microsoft, Apple, or Facebook having multiple data-centers for fail-over but what should small-shops do?
Diigo: public annotations on the web
http://www.diigo.com/
anyone using it?
Weekend proj: Job aggregator/filter for Big 4
http://big4work.com
I've been looking for job opportunities w/ the big 4 and was having trouble sifting through all the big 4 job listing sites (whats with enterprise job listing platforms, they're so clunky??)

Anyhow - the other weekend I whipped up an aggregator/filter that lets you easily and quickly search over all the big 4's job listings (the job list is updated 3x a day). I find it pretty handy keeping a tab on new job ops and wanted to share with all yall.

If anyone has any suggestions on how to make it better, leave a comment.
Ask HN: Does this exist; verify bank transactions via SMS?
Last night I noticed someone fraudulently withdrew a ton of money from my bank account. Now Im left feeling very insecure and am looking for a bank that offers a SMS service that sends me text messages to approve transaction over a certain amount via "press 1," to authorize or call X number to report fraud.

I called many large US bank institutions but none offer this service. THough maybe I missed one and if not this needs to be made!
Anonymous intercepts confidential conference call between FBI and Scotland Yard
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203711104577200872061278502.html
YouTube link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl3spwzUZfQ&feature=youtu.be
Designers and product managers are a bane
This post is inspired by another comment that I made but startups generally should try and avoid hiring designers and product managers for as long as possible.

These days is seems like it's a given that you need these two groups to hack on a project and that in my opinion is mistaken.

When it comes to a lot of tech products, the original hackers often found an interesting angle which makes the product unique. PMs and designers often don't understand that so there is a chance of them moving away from it.

Designers have a habit of following trends and often don't have the courage to do anything which is unique and goes against trends. Especially the ones that you can afford at an early stage startup. If you want to make your product look as generic as the next one, bring in a designer.

PMs have a habit of adding feature after feature because that is their major means of contributing. Even if a product doesn't need those features, PMs often have nothing to do so they keep adding them. A pure hacker team on the other hand can often spend down cycles polishing the app and fixing bugs.

Of course at the end of the day if there are some really awesome PMs and designers you know, include them in your project but please don't do that as a default.
[Bay Area] Loopt is hiring great people who love location (funded by YC, Sequoia, and NEA)
https://loopt.com/loopt/jobs.aspx
Come work at a world-changing company--the context of location lets us do really exciting things. The company is at a stage where every individual still sets the strategy, but is far enough along everything you do has real impact.
Note To Criminals -- Don't Call Tech Support 
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071023-would-be-identity-thief-finds-himself-stumped-without-printer-drivers.html
There are a few things in this world that thieves need to keep in mind in order to run a successful criminal operation. For example, don't take the cash you just stole from one bank to another bank down the street to have it deposited into your account. Don't steal someone's MacBook and take it to the Apple Store Genius Bar the next day to get help with OS X. And finally, don't steal a drivers' license printer from the DMV, only to call up the manufacturer the next day looking for drivers.
Story about an Android contest winner
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2008/08/31/news/state/51-msu.txt
This guy built an app that takes in a picture of a bar code and then looks up information online about the product. Very neat.
Show HN: Factor.fyi – use SQL to visualize financial, crypto and econ datasets
https://factor.fyi
Hey HN,

I'm Steve, co-founder of Factor.fyi, a new data platform for querying and visualizing financial datasets using SQL. During the pandemic, I took much more of an active role in managing my portfolio. I wanted to be able to make informed decisions about the investments I was making, and explore financial data in new ways. Market and Econ data are some of the most talked-about and widely-available datasets out there, but I was frustrated by the lack of options to answer questions I had, like, "What would have happened if I had started dollar-cost averaging VTI back in 2013?"[1] Or, "How many days did BTC and ETH move in the same direction as the S&P500?"[2]. We built Factor to answer these questions. You can use Factor to query disparate datasets in ways that are impossible on any other platform. We currently have 20 datasets [3] that you can use to answer questions you have about the markets and create beautiful visualizations around them. Factor is community-powered and free forever; you can browse our community-built charts here [4].

We'd love to get feedback from the HN community, hear your thoughts on what datasets we can add, and get advice on how we can make the querying experience even easier for those new to SQL.

[1]: https://factor.fyi/questions/dollar-cost-averaging-the-marke...
[2]: https://factor.fyi/questions/s-p-btc-dia-correlation-factor-...
[3]: https://factor.fyi/docs/dataset-reference
[4]: https://factor.fyi/browse
Ask HN: what could a startup decipher from a public companies balance sheet
i'm thinking of picking up on how to read a balance sheet to get an understanding of how large ad-networks, and predominantly hi-tech/online companies work, margins, where they invest, where they burn, etc

are there any such balance sheets that have been insightful to your startup ?

~B
Bundle Hunt reveals a treasure trove of spectacular design goodies 
http://bundlehunt.com/
Bundle Hunt is a premium resource pack aimed at empowering the creative community, offering more than $1,400 worth of outstanding apps, templates, icons, eBooks, hosting plans and premium memberships, all for less than $50. The design bundle will only be available for 14 days, from Aug. 2-16 and includes some of the most prestigious brands in the business.
Ask HN: social news site for business/investing?
I kept hoping NewMogul would return, but it never did. Is there anything similar out there? I noticed Markenomics sprung up a bit later, but it's not very active (no posts in the last 30 days).
Ask HN: Where to get ideas?
Hi everyone,

I am confident that I have no problems to execute any idea. I have a team that is very engineering oriented and very responsive, and I'm engineer-made-to-product guy myself. I have a good enough networking to take of. However, I feel I lack ideas to work on right away. I should acknowledge that I'm picky about ideas. I'm looking for B2C with millions of users. (I'm not sure if this means picky or not, though. :)

I heard that ideas worths nothing or very little, however, I tend to believe that idea is at least 30% of success.

Any thoughts? Thanks.