skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"While some of these restrictions are valid points and are definitely worth noting, it’s also easy to forget that most people out there will not care in the least bit about them and further, will have absolutely no clue what any of it means. Users want shiny new native applications for their iPhones, and they will get them with the SDK"

While people certainly wouldn't know or care about technical details, they will certainly know and care when they see a very large class of neat applications that are simply impossible for the iPhone right now.

I really despise the closed, control-freak nature of apple, which is exemplified by the iPhone. None of these limitations are technical in nature, but are purely business decisions made so that Apple remains as much in control as possible.

Everyone remember how last year's line was "the web is the only SDK you need"? They had to be dragged kicking and screaming into providing this SDK, and they'll be dragged into opening it up as well.
This instance reminds me of a video I saw a while back, 'Money As Debt'.

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279&...
I have to say that as a way of getting attention for his $3000-a-month internships, Seth Godin's trollish "I know this is controversial, but..." blog post challenging the desirability of every person who's ever written a resume and every employer who's ever read one has really worked.

That Seth Godin fellow must be some kind of marketing genius! He should write a book.
I haven't been following the HTML5 effort

Neither has anyone. The HTML standard has been dormant for seven or eight years. That's nearly a lifetime ago. (Literally -- at Drupalcon we had a lecture on jQuery from a twelve-year-old.) The web standards folks are like the anti-DHH: Their development cycle is "release late and infrequently". We all fell asleep a long time ago, waiting for these guys to actually release something we can use.

Admittedly, the endless delay is not the standardistas' fault. The elephant in the room is that you can't really make progress in Web standards by refining the standards: They're not the bottleneck. The bottleneck is getting MS to conform to the standard, and you could interpret the last eight years as a long struggle to construct a critical mass of standards-compliant browsers and pages, such that MS has no choice but to take notice. It's been an epic battle, akin to Stallman's effort to construct a free operating system from scratch, so it took a while. But the battle seems to be getting won, thank god.

And I'm happy to read the occasional cheerful article, like this one, which assures me that the future is looking good, and that everyone is finally ready to join hands and sing. But then I have to go back to work, every day, and remind myself of how broken the standards are as I struggle to port designs to IE. The optimism wears off quickly. This damned broken browser apparently has an 80% market share, so I have no choice. It's like trying to change tires with your teeth, I have to do it every single week, and it makes me royally pissed.

And that's why I like Joel's article. No, he doesn't see things from the perspective of an optimistic member of the HTML5 team. He sees things from my perspective, from the outside, where the situation sucks and has sucked for nearly a decade and where an honest extrapolation predicts further suckage despite all the sunny promises. I'm not going to credit Microsoft and the HTML5 team with a solution to this problem until the solution has shipped and has significant marketshare, because I'm in pain, and help has been on the way for a very, very long time.
Pi.comet: a javascript class for creating cross browser Comet(Reverse Ajax) applications easily
"enterprise" on the web site is misleading - it's actually meant for smaller-midstage companies who can't afford SharePoint and don't like a shared hard drive.
Finally, a You Tube for audio. I've been waiting for something like this for some time -- sites like http://virb.com/ are nice, but revolve around the album, which isn't usually how an indie artist really writes.

Now I can put things up as I work on them, which'll be cool.

-- http://thefeelgood.com/blinks
dont you think that if apple allows users to install their OS on PC then it will turn the market/industry up-side-down. There has to be something more than that !?!
Yeah, this submission belongs under Wikipedia as an example of "how to damn with faint praise".
Securing Firefox 3
This applies to Firefox 2 as well, it's just harder to disable unneeded plugins. Their locations are listed in about:plugins and have to be renamed or deleted (AFAIK, there's no easy disable).
One PhD CS candidate (a friend of mine) once told me "It's all about controlling your frustration. Each day I come across at least half a dozen things that I don't know. I'm still learning". He later dropped out :)
That said, as others have pointed out, it's all about passion, measuring progress and good execution. It won't happen overnight but some day it will.
Apple releases Safari 3.1
Creating Comet Applications In 3 Minutes
> Is Twitter getting alarmingly stale?

I'd say yes.

I agree especially with this point:

>The ability to have private or semi-private group conversations.

Or just some kind of grouping functionality for the people you follow, like Facebook's ability to create friend groupings that only you see.

Also some kind of batching would be nice, the way Friendfeed does with Twitter posts. No way I'd follow someone high volume like Scoble or Dave Winer (or a zillion other people who can fill up your stream) within the actual Twitter app when I can get these batches on FF.
Can I play a continuous stream of music from just the channels I follow, preferably with forward/back/pause options?
Guido van Rossum: Python 3000 and You
They're so dramatic!
I learned C as my first language, then only much later on moved on to functional languages. Don't get stuck in PHP-think mentality, and definitely make sure to understand the things about Python or Ruby that make them functional ASAP.

Learning to understand macros in Lisp also really helps you think better, that's what people keep repeating. From what I understand, it blurs the line between that interface of the language to the compiler/interpreter, which seems cool.

I'm definitely a newbies still (in all Lisp, Python, Ruby).
I do think that reading stock charts is a bunch of hooey, but I will withhold from flaming. If you could expand this site to allow people an easy web 2.0 method of back-testing alternative trading strategies (or even just portfolios), it would make me happy.
Yes, in your Podcast page. Currently it goes 3 days back, but we are thinking about expanding that or turning it into a river.
And you thought BrainFk was hard to understand...
One of many reasons why the Windows command line will never be taken seriously.
I started with Java Swing (O'Reilly) and Complete Reference (Schildt). It's funny--Java's tough, but I really didn't know the difference because I had no GUI language with which to compare. I had done a lot of (non-GUI) work in Mathematica (which I love), so I found Java cumbersome, but I also was interested by the story of the development of OOP and I figured it was worthwhile to learn.

Now I've found Python, which has a lot of the characteristics of Mathematica, and is very fun. But I have to fix my Java printing issues before I can play with it. (If I can figure out how to deploy it as a GUI desktop app I could better justify spending more time with it).
Software safety by the numbers
Django vs. ASP.NET MVC
The .NET Framework is big. Really, really big.
Interesting question. Perhaps we will witness a renewed proliferation of domesticated animals in this millennium, a sort of "domestication 2.0". Robotics may actually help inspire it, along with our knowledge of so many more kinds of animals. As robot designers study lots of different critters to improve their products, people will start thinking, "Hm, some of these animals have skills." The range of animals we've made use of so far is probably tiny compared to the range that could be useful. And our ability to breed or engineer them in desirable directions has improved a lot. So yes, maybe there will be real mules too, or some other kind animal we haven't thought of yet. (Have you ever seen guide horses? http://www.guidehorse.org )
More on Blogs, The Long Tail and Following vs Leading
I have been really impressed with what webkit has been doing. They seem like they are really striving to be the best browser in the market. Their nightly builds have been extremely quick and bug free recently and i'm glad that apple decided to release a newer version out into the wild.
Taming software complexity
nice, I love last.fm for this exact reason. I use that site the way you guys are promoting this one. Skip a song or say you like it and eventually it learns what to recommend. I will keep my eye on this one
More UI Lessons from the Real World (Second Part)
Nice, easy-to-use website, but what awful music. I'll stick to the classics, thanks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_Tf2lQvDz0
Toolbar free competitor to stumbleupon
Would love to hear thoughts our feedback on this. SpinSnap.com is a discovery engine. Allows users to discover websites, music and people they would not normally disover in their everyday internet travels.
Acid tripping, Disneyland, and Special Relativity
lol, well that's the idea. post the music you like
VC enthusiasm for Web 2.0 startups slowing
Yes, a YouTube for audio. I was waiting for it for ages... why didn't anybody did it before? I think this idea & implementation has magic; in other words, it's a winner.
Blocked by my IT department already...

Ya'll may be on to something. ;)
bah! A required restart to upgrade a web browser?!?! I switched to OS X to avoid handcuffs such as this!

Okay, I'm done venting now. Back to work sans 3.1...
The Week That Shook Wall Street: Inside the Demise of Bear Stearns
Where are EPS and Beta? I'd love to see them added to the app.
Suggestion: On your sign up page, I think you should make it simple by just asking username and password. Since you are just launching, your sign up page should be very simple. See http://anywhere.fm
The Web is Ruined and I Ruined it
I have been programming for almost years and I think I'm close to getting the hang of it. http://norvig.com/21-days.html
The books are big, too. Scott Hanselman's latest ASP.NET book is 1700 pages.
Google Summer of Code Mentor List
I wonder where the tipping point comes in?

Can't we gauge this by the number of viruses targeted at the Mac?
I was shocked too. I didn't need to restart for the last iTunes update, but I did for Safari! What gives?
Ask YC: Best Hacking Music?
I'm always on the lookout for new music/artists. I suppose many in the YC community have similar taste in music. So, what/who does everybody listen to when they hack?

I tend to stick with classical/techno/anything without words as lyrics usually distract me from the task at hand.

How about you? What are you listening to right now?
That is really cool. Keep up the good work, maybe add an API so I can test stock picking programs against your data ;)
The two ugly faces of HTML generation
I started using Safari 2 on XP a few weeks ago and have been thoroughly impressed with it - it is now my default browser mainly because of its speed and look. There is one problem though that makes no sense: it cannot open an image file link within the browser - it has to open another app. This is especially problematic as my webapp is loaded with images I need to quickly open. I just got 3.1, and wow!, it is fast - seriously (on windows xp). The install was fast. But no opening image files within the browser - what are they thinking? (I'm still using it though)
webkit is an underlying framework that the entire OS uses. The nightly webkit rebuilds don't require a restart because they are sandboxing the webkit, but when apple updates safari it has to reboot the machine to initiate the new build of webkit to be used for the entire OS (including dashboard and things like that)

edit: maybe 'entire OS' was a little vague. basically they don't want to run into issues where the webkit gets updated and things that rely on webkit don't get all messed up in the process because they are running too.
Lessons to learn from a do-it-yourself curry house
I think the importance of simplicity is wrongly interpreted, even by the onces who achieve success through it.
The point they are neglecting is actually that the "concentrating" the design to the your important goals and contents is of utmost important and one way to achieve it is by simplicity. Its not the only way to achieve it. Hence, whenever people stress that simplicity should be the ultimate goal of design, I think its somewhat misleading.

The "concentration" to the important parts of design, prioritizing the contents before designing and placing your efforts to drawing the attention of users to these part should be of high priority. And of course many other important consideration follow in addition to this.
I'd love it if I had time to sit down and critique your site's design, but I don't. However, I do think the idea is great.

I'm not quite sure the name might is entirely relative to a powerful learning environment. It's the Z in 'learnz'.

In terms of the design, I think you could greatly benefit by comparing your site to the site http://quizlet.com/ . It's a great site with a similar goal in mind, and I think if you can match wits and be competitive with Quizlet, you have some great potential.
This has been discussed many times before. pg should really include a search bar or link on this site...

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=132026
wooo enough for the leaderboard in a few minutes.

Anyway, create an API and a bot competition! Don't give the link, and use a timer and required open source to discourage cheating (still can't eliminate it, ah well.)

EDIT: Oh man! your score isn't saved if you make an account. I would be in second place.
thanks. I will read that thread.
Disclaimer - I am one of the BrightSide founders :).

"enterprise" is part of the "Enterprise Wiki" - in other words wiki for business. There are other "Enterprise Wiki" products out there - SocialText and Confluence, for instance.
'On the Internet, guard your personal space'
Just watch out. Pack mules kick back.
I totally identify with this; I've been coding for over 10 years and the only thing that has been truly consistent about my experience has been that frustration with my inability to learn everything I want to learn. I have a stack of books to read that would probably be as tall as me, a gaggle of programming languages I want to learn, and 3-4 languages I want to be an expert in.

That doesn't include the math, Bible scriptures, Chinese, Gaelic, and carpentry I want to learn.

Persistence. What else is there, until the Matrix-style skull-jack gets implemented?
Is there a way to tell what the company you are trading is? Or is not knowing the point? I would never trade stock based solely on charts.
Ask YC: Has anyone seen any polls lately?
I was just scanning the front page, and I realized that there is not one poll on it, and if I'm remembering correctly, I haven't seen one in several days (maybe a week?). I just thought it would be worth commenting on after so many of us (not me ;-) were worried about news.yc being overrun with polls.
The fact that someone named "RightClickCheater" is at the top of your leaderboard (and way out in front) raises some concerns.
Hm... they say Apple now captures 25% of all revenue from PC sales, I wonder if that includes corporate sales. Because if it does, it means that Apple currently holds over half of new home/personal PC sales.
I'm currently at the top of your leaderboard after issuing nothing but buy orders for about 5 minutes. I didn't even read the charts.

This confirms my opinion that chart reading is nonsense.
Very cool. It's sort of Hot or Not for stocks. I would suggest showing just a small summary and graph of previous trade below the current total so you can get rid of the New Trade button and have the Buy/Skip/Sell buttons and chart for the next stock imediately available on the result page. That way users can just click Buy/Sell/Skip to move from page to page.
This article is ridiculous. A few examples:

"We hate to pile on to Yahoo". Translation: We specifically want to pile on Yahoo.

"[the error message] suggested Yahoo might not be following the suggested “best practices” of security experts". Another company that "might not be following the suggested best practices of security experts" is the Wall Street Journal for allowing employees to forward all mail to external accounts.

"Invoking certain mainstream media prerogatives, we sent a sternly worded email to Yahoo's PR department". Translation: I'm really arrogant.
Reading stock charts is a bunch of crackpot hooey. I'm nr. 2 on your site with my highly sophisticated "always buy" strategy.

However, it might be an excellent tool to help technical analysts (gamblers) discover their own lack of skill.

I like your execution - it is indeed addictive.
Any captcha is crackable, this one was the most "customer-friendly" and trivial to develop.
Funny
I've thought today about the same.

I've found that I better express my thoughts about project in my terrrrrible English.

I think it's because:
1. It's more natural to write about programming in English
2. My English constrain me. And this good =)
3. I need to write less symbols
but they don't. Lots of his comics don't last on this site
The PDF of his PyCon Powerpoint presentation nicely summarized the switch to Py3k. I have been following it, but it was a nice reminder of just what is changing.
When the IP laWyer drops, the TCP layer resends
It’s hard to figure out how to follow a channel vs. how to favorite a song. I notice that if I favorite a song I start to follow the channel automatically.

Also, I’ve mentioned it before, but I would like affiliate links. I’d like to buy music from some of the new artists I’ve found through the site, but I am too lazy to look them up on Amazon/ iTunes
What are the copyright issues you're dealing with?
Actually, considering that on average, the stack market has grown over the years, this seems like a good strategy. It's why mutual funds and the like exist: individual enterprises come and go, but the economy is constantly growing. If you you invest widely across the economy, you should see fairly consistent growth (with a few spikes and dips which cancel each other out.)
...or we've stumbled on a really good investment strategy:

1. buy a random stock

2. hold for 20 days

3. profit!

currently #2 on leaderboard before I got bored.

I wonder what the capital gains impact would be...

I suppose it's rather like investing in an index fund, with a bit more volatility :)
Right, but the default stock order only lasts 20 days. Surely the small delta up trend of the market doesn't affect a 20 day order in any significant way?
I wrote a long and elaborate post here about why you where wrong, but then realised that in essence the system already works this way. With y combinator as the elite.

So while I'm stubborn enough to maintain that, of course, theoretically you are totally wrong(democracy vs one party systems and all that) in practice you are absolutely right :-)
I like the concept. While short term stock exchange is usually a risky waste of money, this does help illustrate certain principles.

The number of people suggesting that 'always buy' works shows us something: that the economy on average has grown over the past century. Reason being of course that, when one person succeeds, he provides means for another person to succeed. Thus growth begets growth, especially capital growth. Investing broadly in the stock market is almost always sure to bring modest gains over the long term.
Graham,

When will you stop ranting about Viaweb? I understand it was your single achievement, but it was essentially a fluke. There were hundreds of startups trying, one of them got lucky. And where's Viaweb now? It was a long time ago, and you should considering moving on with your life.

Now, as a self-proclaimed nerd, you know of Gary Gygax? Well, if Viaweb was your D&D, YC is your Lejendary Adventures: a heartbreaking attempt of a spent man to recreate his former success.

And just as Gygax died, Arc is your death.

You're dead, Paul. You're as dead as that Lisp of yours which you keep rambling about. Even people who leech your money can't keep up with your delusions of Lisp; Reddit, for example, was redone in Python as soon as the mad old grandpa loosened the sack.

And that's why Arc is depressing and smells of rot.

Rest in peace.
Affiliate links are now live on the comments page. 6 minutes turnaround :)

The philosophy of following vs favorites is that we automatically pick the channels you follow based on which ones you like the most songs from. It will work for the majority of the users. More "likes" = stronger relationship. However, the podcast is only limited to 20 songs per day for the channels with the strongest relationship, so only the minority of power users that have more than 20 songs a day will need to explicitly follow a channel or another to keep it in the podcast. But you are right, we need to communicate this better.
Yes it would. Think mathematically:

Whatsay over a given year the entire stock market grew 10%. Then the average rate of growth for every stock is 10% per year and so for any given stock for any given period over a period of 20 days the average growth would be 10%/18.25, or .0054. So, if you consistently buy, you will on average, profit about that much per trade.
Check out Rachmaninoff's symphonies, and "pink noise" albums: rainforests, ocean, etc.
That'd be right clicking to snatch the chart URL, which contains the stock symbol and date parameters. Peeking into the future would certainly help one's rate of return a bit :)
Efficient Market Hypothesis FTW.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_market_hypothesis
Because maybe, just MAYBE, when we realize our robots are fighting their robots and it's really just an expensive video game, we'll quit fighting and actually sit down and talk.

That is, if the robots don't join forces and turn on us first.

oops..spelling edit.
I think it's just that no one's buying PCs right now while the Mac cult continues to buy Apple products, recession or not.

It's been well-known for a long time that Mac users are much more willing to pay for value than PC users are. They enjoy buying things that make them happy. This is why you can be a Mac ISV and get by with a much smaller userbase to sell to.
11 Ways to Make Money With Robots
Personally I like the stumbleupon toolbar better than having to browse sites through an iFrame that is smaller than my screen. Also, stumbleupon has more of a sticky approach since the toolbar is always in view of the user and can click stumble whenever they choose. On SpinSnap, you have to navigate to their page to do anything.

If I had to choose... Downloading a tool bar isn't always preferred, but I think its the better approach for this style of service.
Camera that Sees Under Clothes
Yep, that's what a lot of people are seeing. Just execute a bunch of buys, and watch your account grow! I'm going to add an APY feature, so whoever has the highest percentage gain per time in the market will be the leader. This will take away the "I bought 500 stocks and now I'm in the lead" account. (And the trade length is in trading days, 20 roughly = 1 month)
No, it doesn't. For most corporations, apple is what the kids use to listen to music.
the browser infrastructure is at the OS level? uh oh, didn't that get MSFT in trouble (it wasn't the only thing, but it was a signficant part of the charges)?