skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Weird. Barnes and Noble announces another reader before the Nook has even had a chance to ship? Seems like they could have timed this a little better and maybe announced them under the same brand.
Most people (Youtube) use flash as a wrapper around h.264; the other codecs supported are pretty terrible.
You know, if I was going to have a single unifying principle to me improving my conditions at work over the years, it would be "be presumptuous" :-)
or if your goal is to get more people to get their content from the iTunes Store.
Yes. the 6 months of 10k computers churning required to factor is certainly instructive.
If you like this essay and/or curse having to deal with EINTR and haven't heard about "Worse is Better" and the PCLSR ("PC loser") issue, you might want to check out section 2.1, The Rise of Worse is Better, http://www.dreamsongs.com/WIB.html, Wikipedia for a brief overview of PCLSR: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCLSRing and Alan Bawden's great paper PCLSRing: Keeping Process State Modular: http://www.hack.org/mc/texts/pclsr.txt
The reason flash wasn't included on the cell phone was battery life:
http://adobegripes.tumblr.com/post/231806385/adobe-gets-bitc...

Non-windows versions of flash have turned out to be incredibly inefficient: relatively simple flash banner ads make my otherwise near idle mac go wild. From what I've seen, it's even less efficient on Linux. Battery life is still going to be a huge concern for the apple tablet. If adobe gets its sh*t together, it may yet come to the tablet/iPhone OS. Until that time, it would be ridiculous for apple to allow that poorly designed of a virtual machine onto its otherwise energy efficient hardware.
Yes, but if you had been releasign quickly, by now you know your consumers, you have a mailing list, you know what they want, and you can add your snazzy graphics for an existent userbase. Work for months AFTER you have tested your concept and people like what they see.

Because if you spend months and release to the great app store silence, it will break you faster than a 5 ton pin would break a camels back.
Depending on the culture, this could work really well, or really badly. I guess the type of person who would use this technique wouldn't want to work at the type of company who wouldn't want him to, so maybe it's a good filter.
> "Why would I want another iPhone, just with a bigger screen?"

Maybe you wouldn't.

But I would. Because when I need mobile computing, I generally don't have a desk, or even a chair. Sometimes I'm actively walking around. And I don't need to use it for sessions of length or complexity that justify the overhead of the desktop computing model. And I don't need arbitrary pre-existing desktop apps.

I just need awesome core apps that I can get at in a couple seconds, use (literally) on the go and be able to get through a day without recharging or hassle (lock-ups). It doesn't have to replace my laptop. Just my dead-tree notebooks.

The iPhone has come far, far closer to working for me than conventional laptops, netbooks, or windows tablets. It just doesn't have quite enough screen real-estate for some tasks and the ergonomics aren't right for others.
My first guess would be that the software somehow recognized "2010" as "1910". Not sure exactly what dating structure would lead to this though.
Nobody in their right mind uses Flash for anything important.

iPhone has, but I'd wager the vast majority of YouTube users watch videos in their browsers.

the majority of online display advertising
Advertisers are the revenue source for innumerable online sites; they like Flash so it is important.

Re: uploaders... A native application...does the same thing.
Sure, but again, I'd wager that most people use the on-site bulk uploaders.

The point is that Flash is useful and easily accomplishes things (with nearly 100% market penetration) that would be much more difficult without Flash (building a native app, trying to animate ads across browsers).
The Cortex-A9 executes more instructions per clock because it can decode more than one instruction at a time (2 to 4, usually 4) and execute them out of order to get more instruction-level parallelism. Atom can decode a maximum of two instructions at a time, and executes them in order.

The Atom also uses precious pipeline stages on decoding the x86 instruction set -- all of it. There are a lot of instructions there, and all but the most common require the processor to read sequences of several micro-instructions from a ROM.

Now, the Atom tries to compensate for this with Hyperthreading: they share the decode unit among two threads (hypothetically) and have those threads share the execution units on the chip. This gives Atom a boost in performance per watt if you can find two processes that need to run at the same time. For single-threaded workloads, Cortex-A9 looks like it will continue to trounce Atom pretty severely, and for multi-threaded workloads, it's not expensive to put down some more A9 cores. It's not like they have to decode x86 instructions or anything, so they can be pretty darn small.
Is there such a thing as too much precision?
IT != programming

Programmers are in a very different boat, job-wise, especially programmers with some experience. Recessions don't hit us as hard.
I'd look into jQuery 1.4 (currently in alpha), which is broken into modules so that you can use less of it. This isn't yet released, but it's possible to build and use it from the source tree. See the comments in build.xml for instructions on building a smaller jQuery.

There's also http://xuijs.com/ which is very minimal and targeted specifically at mobile browsers. It may not support older desktop browsers, though.
I've gotten good IBM contacts, thanks all!

Anyone from Sun here?
Ah, Cortex ...

Cortex is the branding for the ARM implementations of the ARM v7 Architecture. A brand was chosen for the first time because historically, even numbered ARM cores don't sell well (ARM8, anyone? ARM10?), so the next core after the ARM11 would have had to skip to ARM13. But 13 is unlucky. So that's ARM15 then... In addition, it would be very easy for the ARM v7 architecture to be confusd with the ARM7TDMI implementation of the ARM v4 architecture.

The grand plan was to bring out new cores in V7 targetting three distinct market segments - Applications, Realtime and Microcontrollers (see what they did there?!), with very different performance points and feature sets. Thus, the Cortex M3 has a die size of 0.86mm2 on a 180nm process, but that's a weedy core. The A8 has a die size of a bit under 4mm2 on a 65nm (albeit speed optimised) process, without the ETM included.

So, I'm not quite sure what core you are talking about - but it is also the case that the Atom die does contain a significant number of perhiperals and busses.

A 64-bit ARM won't have a problem beating an x64 processor in terms of MIPS/Watt, I'm fairly sure.

Edit - I should have explained that the number following the A/R/M is meant to indicate performance and not be a version number. The A5 and A9 both came out after the A8, for example - the ARM market isn't about increasing performance with every design, but ensuring a good fit for a design envelope.
Ask HN: Hacker News Los Angeles Meetup?
I moved to LA a few months ago and have seen a few tech/startup meetups, but am wondering if there was a large enough HN contingency to warrant an LA meetup.

Any interest?
I can only imagine how difficult it is to pitch a product to someone who isn't there to listen to a pitch while being filmed by two separate crews. It would be really hard not to look like a dildo.

Which, to some people, would indicate that this might not be an appropriate time to pitch.

Sometimes, pitching has negative value. Looking like a dorky salesman on video is anti-marketing for a rock and roll related project, and cannot be good for the project. It makes it look like just another "big business cashing in on little guys" swindle, with the older bands now being on the side of big business.

There is a right time to be a salesman. This wasn't it.
I also think my day job does make the world a better place, but that is very different from volunteering specifically to make it better without cost to anyone else.
I agree that Perl 5 has some of the wrong defaults. It's a sore point for some people.

For what it's worth, Perl 6 has much, much better default behavior.
My 2 cents.

Stop or continue really depends on two things (a) Who is your competitor ? (b) What market are you in ?

From your description your competitor albeit well funded is not established and therefore has exactly the same problem as you - getting customers, this is good. However, if your competitor is someone with deep "links" with Google or Apple or MS or one of the other companies with cash, quit now. Check the background of the founders of the competitor. What sort of track record do they have ? Are they ex-senior members of google, yahoo et all ?

What market you are in matters a lot, is it a market that provides opportunities for specialisation - Continue, are you already in a niche-area of a large market - Stop. Can the market be expanded ? Is there an already existing market with clear pain points or are you building a new one ?

Summary: Weigh your options carefully based on the competitor and the market. All the best.
I am interested in this, but I don't understand the reason for the video format. Is there a transcript available?
You are toast against a machine with funding and a 20-person team, unless that team is lead by incompetents or staffed with incompetents.

Sorry. But that's one of the main reasons why getting venture is a good idea: part-timers or self-funders can't possibly bring the same resources.
>It's duplicitous

For sure

>and wrong.

Eh, it wasn't something he intended at the time. It's the fact the database is being sold to its competitor is the issue. If say, McCaffee or Apple bought SUN, I doubt he'd be pulling this stunt.

>He sold the product, and now he is actively undermining the product that he sold with the potential of costing Sun/Oracle considerable sums of money to defend against his clearly self-serving claims.

I'd say, I'd be really hesitant to buy something from the dude again. But then again, I've always thought MySQL AB was a bit of a scam and counseled against linking against MySQL it (and therefore having to buy it). The claims could serve Monty, for sure, but they also serve all the rest of us as well.

>Even if Monty does not succeed, he has the ability to do significant damage to Oracle, Sun, and even industry perceptions of not only the GPL, but of open source in general.

I honestly think that's a fine cost. You see, the reason we're seeing issues is here is one of the most restrictive commonly used licenses (GPL) was used without linking exceptions. That's a retarded thing to do for a library you want to be used. Then as a band-aid, MySQL AB repeatedly allowed de facto linking exceptions, but they are not clearly allowed by the license, more as notices, comments, etc.

The GPL, used in libraries, without linking exceptions, is a HORRIBLE thing for consumers of the library, especially mixed with this wink wink nod nod stuff that MySQL engaged in to allow people to use the free version.

If they wanted exceptions, they should have put them in the license. As it is, they DIDN'T, so they've left a huge swath of products build on this wink wink nod nod understanding in legal limbo.

But yes, the GPL, without exceptions, is a horrible license for infrastructure that you integrate against, like DB servers. I think industry SHOULD be hesitant to use it.

What you need to do is point out WHY the GPL is bad in this case, so industry understands the finer point there, and pushes back to have more libraries add exceptions.
The size of its display is less impressive when you see how big the border is. That thing's got to be huge.
I read it as Flirtbox. Jive Software makes "enterprise" blogs and wikis; I wondered if they were getting into the business of dating sites for the enterprise?
He's urging public bodies to block the merger. I doubt they can have an effective agreement that involves anything more than firing him. And he doesn't work there anymore.
Try to do that with a big technology company and you will get nowhere. E.g., at Google nobody knows where you will be working before you really start.

This may work well for small/medium sized companies, where they really care about who is being hired. Most big companies don't care, they just attract people to work under their predetermined conditions.
Google launches utility company: Google Energy
Albert Camus, 50 years on: Prince of the absurd
Web Laureate Classic: Facebook, "Wall2Wall2day"
Just for clarification, the Que is not Barnes and Noble's ebook reader. It will, however, be sold in their store next to the nook.

http://gizmodo.com/5390858/plastic-logic-que-is-going-to-nuz...
And where do you see it going in some years? Do you see it becoming more important? Or is it a demonstrable fact that devices without Flash support have been highly successful in the market?

Apple sold 7 million iPhones last quarter, and a few million more iPod Touches. One of the primary features of these, for which they are often praised, is web browsing. None of them, not even jailbroken ones, support Flash. Many other devices in the market offer web browsing with Flash. They do not generally sell well, at least by comparison.

One conclusion you can draw from this is that there are 7 million more poor deluded fools out there who stupidly think it's possible to slink by on the web without the vital component of Flash. There will be much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments as these dreamers agonize over their diminished experience of the web, until that proud day in some distant future when they are finally blessed by their provider of their crippled devices with the privilege of Punching the Monkey any time they like. There will be load screens and gradients and tweening galore.

Another possible conclusion, which is the one I have drawn, is that these people are by and large satisfied with their purchases and consider the lack of Flash support a mild disappointment, if they consider it at all, on the occasion that they are blocked from some task (watching a video, playing a game, viewing an ad) because the author has chosen to limit its accessibility to Flash-supporting clients. And that this is a sign, perhaps, that Flash is really not so very vital to the experience of the web as is often supposed, being not so much a technical necessity as an inertial holdover from an earlier time--from back when you could honestly say that 99% of Web users had Flash. And further, that the popularity of devices that omit Flash support is not going to wane on that basis; more likely the opposite: that Flash itself is likely to slide into irrelevance as more people browse the web without it.

Hence: Flash is a legacy feature of dwindling relevance.

As it happens, I don't own an iPhone. I have only even used one for maybe 30 minutes, total. You may want to paint me as "hyper progressive" or swayed by owning the device, but my argument is based on what I see going on around me, right now, here on planet Earth.
Europe's merger approval body is already concerned, I think there is a real chance the merger may at least block for awhile unless they address something along this angle.

The issue with MySQL is there is a lot of stuff built on it MySQL AB said is "okay" that isn't specifically allowed in the license. That damages hundreds if not thousands of other projects that are in that gray area. Oracle has a huge incentive to enforce the actual license on these companies....so now you see the issue.
I'd like to see a demo video at least. This would give more information about responsiveness of screen, speed of eink and relative size to human hands.

EDIT: Some video is available on the site but I can't find any "hands on" video. I do love the schedule at a glance feature. It's something I've been trying to get work between iCal and my KindleDX
come help the Sunlight Foundation. Please!

http://sunlightlabs.com
dupe of http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1037287
I agree that they are failing at all of the above.

I disagree that they are attempting to solve any of those problems.

There are websites aimed at helping you with #3-- but that's a pretty narrow type of "social network".

For questions like #1, there are sites such as this one, and relevant blogs, where you can discuss business ideas and find like-minded folks.

For questions like #2, you're probably better off walking away from the screen, and mingling in the flesh.

It seems to me that "social networks" are aiming at a different kettle of fish altogether, which is to reduce the friction in maintaining certain types of casual relationships.
Palm's Opening Their Developer Program to the Public Today
Great! I'll try JQuery 1.4 custom build. It seems that's exactly what I need. P.S. Does anybody know, why I can't up-vote comments and can up-vote news?
"So, I'm not quite sure what core you are talking about"

http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARM_Cortex-R4F.html

Whatever that is. I am no ARM expert.

Edit: I think this one would be better. The R is for real-time applications

http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARMCortex-A9_MPCore.html

This other one (http://www.arm.com/products/CPUs/ARM_Cortex-A8.html) is about 4 mm2.
Google Hires Chris Messina
Congrats to Ari and Tom!
Is the display E-Ink?
here's the link to the post itself: http://www.danceproof.com/2010/01/06/10-nonfictional-books-t...
The problem isn't the iPhone's specs, it's the distribution network.
Or for during your phone screen
Huh! I wonder why they just don't call the Que something like "Nook XL". Seriously, why the two brands?
URL actually links to Figure 1 at the bottom of the page. Take off the "#F1" from the URL to direct to the top.
as a workaround one can put a strip of tape over the chip, that way the magnetic strip on the other side gets used.
Let your mortgage go?
They're targeted towards two different markets (personal e-book readers vs. business), made by two companies utilizing two different display technologies. (I think the Que has something designed specifically by PlasticLogic, not the usual eInk displays the readers get)
Good point. I guess I still default to comparing iPhone apps with web apps, on which you can iterate as fast as you want as long as the changes aren't disruptive to existing user work flows.
This is a pretty good overview of some key deficiencies. I wish he would have left the "not backwards compatible" complaints out -- backwards compatibility is a well-known non-goal, and it's a non-issue how difficult (or subtle) porting code to Py3 from Py2 is.

The super() stuff is unfortunate. It seems that Py3 manages to clean up so very many other uglinesses of the language... to see a new, obviously ugly thing introduced...
Load, Stress and Performance Testing from a Developers Perspective
The title should perhaps say "... sent in 1994". (I don't think any of it is any less applicable now than it was then, though.)
Engadget has coverage: http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/07/plastic-logic-que-proread...

The screen response is around 1 second.
I have to wonder - does the high profile guy like Chris go though the same rigorous Google interview process that they are so famous for or is it a "simply hired" scenario?
It really does seem to me that Steve Blank has worked in a lot of the more interesting and fast paced places that have occurred over the last few decades. Always a good read as well...

This offering is a little shorter than his usual posts though.
I am in a position to interview applicants for development positions. I still chuckle when I think of an interview I had last year...

I knew within the first few minutes of this interview that this guy was not for us. He was coming out of a DOS development background (if my memory serves me correctly it was Clipper or FoxPro). The guy had no recent development skills and was telling us he would ramp up quickly for our .NET / SQL needs. The interview lasted about 20 minutes when I asked the question "Do you have any questions for us?"

He said "as a matter of fact I do". He opened a folder and pulled out a sheet of questions. It was obviously printed from a website. It was questions like "Why would I want to work for here?". "Please describe to me what job I am applying for?", etc. I thought to myself, "fair enough, I will take the time to answer these questions honestly even though most of them were covered in the previous 20 minutes."

When he got to the end of list, he flipped the page to another full page of questions. My head jerked, my eyes opened wide and I shook my head a little. He informed me don’t worry, I don’t plan to ask all of these, which he then proceeded to ask all of them. It was questions like, what do you use for source code control? What do you use to track bugs? Do you practice Agile development? My long winded sheet-1 answers quickly became one and two word answers for sheet two.

It was when he flipped the page to page three I lost it. My elbows hit the table, I let out a big SIGH and asked "there are more questions?" I couldn’t believe he had the nerve to ask more questions after the sigh I let out, but he did.

I don’t recall exactly how I wrapped it up, and I tried to stay somewhat professional, but more less informed him he was not the right guy for the job.

For our business, development skills are important, but do not account for everything. I would say client interaction and people skills rank right up there.
Yes and no, it uses an E-Ink front pannel on Plastic Logics own plastic back pannel. E-Ink make theirs on a glass pannel which is why people keep breaking their Kindles. Plastic Logic have spent something like $300 million developing their plastic back pannel.
What I have to wonder is whether we really need more open web zealots at this company. It seems like that contingent is already firmly represented.
Not quite. The Que is printed on plastic (or polymer transistors, i guess. I'm no chemist), as opposed to traditional silicon. It uses the same e-ink display as every other reader, the Que also has no glass.
There is a certain amount of disparity in response times due to how good the firmware is on the respective e-reader.

Plastic is cheaper, more rugged and easier to produce than silicon.
In place operations have been implemented as a standalone utility: sponge from moreutils.

sed 's/blah/foo/' file | sponge file
Facebook is Building a New Payment Operations Team
Thanks to one of the comments on that post I found http://www.betterexplained.com! This is a great resource that I plan on sharing with anyone who asks the "but WHY?" question (whichis a good thing).
Convites para NOVO ORKUT 2009 / 2010 - Feliz 2010
Androids, Tablets and Skylights, Oh My: The Q&A
I'm thinking... reasonably difficult to crack
8 percent of human genetic material comes from a virus
Texas vs Alabama BCS National Championship Game Live Stream
Schneier on Security: Post-Underwear-Bomber Airport Security
Perhaps they thought they would improve on the 2 digit method of representing years, and used a single digit method instead?

ie: 2009(9) -> 2010(0)

I would be pretty sad if it was a bug as obvious as this though. No idea what the real bug is likely to be...
Google real-time search: 6 min. to spot quake
The problem with flash (and the upside) is that it lets designers tackle the whole problem of site design, fonts, look and feel, etc in their domain. I would love to see flash replaced by html5 and css, but I think momentum is not on my side.
"Error establishing a database connection"
Buy and sell electricity. Gooron!
Sounds like the biggest problem with this guy was the not-smooth way in which he asked you all of these questions.

A better candidate would have found ways to work them into the conversation to appear natural.
Bay Area Investors Try to Open Door to Foreign Entrepreneurs
A Mad Scheme To Kill A Scientist