skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
The Google Buzz episode is an example of the risk of putting any data anywhere, regardless of how non-evil and trustworthy the data collector may be. I'm not saying you should pull all your data and buy a tarp and a shovel. But consider a few things.

Google didn't set out to be evil or clumsy in this case. They created the product with the best of intentions: to improve your connections with your network, and as a result make that network (that they host) more valuable to them. I'm sure "win-win" was probably said in more than one conference room.

But they made a number of mistakes, in implementation and in rollout. Most of the mistakes were minor, but amplified by "the millions that have signed up with Buzz!" A few mistakes were serious and possibly dangerous to a smaller number of people. Personal and child security were mentioned by more than one commenter.

One of the lessons learned from this, and any other misuse of data, is that your data will almost certainly be misused, on purpose or by accident. The more data, especially in one place, the more certain. I think the freelancers who suddenly had their clients exposed to each other were somewhere between surprised and horrified.

My own actions include not using my gmail account anymore, since a couple years. I use some of their products, but I don't sign in unless I need to be signed in to do something.

That doesn't mean that Google doesn't still know a lot about me. Even if I never had a gmail account they would still know a large part of my network, because a large number of my correspondents use gmail. Depending on my correspondents, I might become interesting to the Chinese government in another breakin, or I might get unwanted attention from law enforcement because I correspond with on of their suspects, creating even more potential for mistakes and misuse. The larger my actual or accidental Google network, the more likely something like that might happen.

There's nothing wrong with using Google. There's nothing wrong with using free services. But you should certainly think about how things can go wrong, and proceed from there. If you need your data to be online, it might make sense to keep some of your data with a paid for service (they aren't expensive) whose only interest in your data is the fee for keeping it secure and available; at least there's less temptation to play with it in creative ways and risky ways.
"take the hardest and most profound thing you need to do, make it great, an then build every easier thing out of it."

Indeed.
It'll be a bit like those online profiles that show people with a cellphone taking their picture in the bathroom mirror.
(It's kinda funny when they're mostly or entirely naked, but the camera blocks the face)

Maybe it's time for a phone that doubles as a razor?
Probably not. There have just been lots of bad MBAs in the last couple years that make clueless business decisions, and we've probably suffered under the hands of one at one time or another. Like asking to measure productivity in the number of lines of code. Sure, it might seem like it makes sense, but it'll soon be apparent it doesn't if you've tried to code at all, even just a little bit.

Having a business sense is great. But when you get MBAs that think that's all there is, it makes for bad business decisions that engineers have suffered under. Having some grasp of the actual nature of the business that you're in will go a long way.
I don't think being offended by any word is rational. Be offended by actions and events.

The list of outlawed words is growing by the day which is just ridiculous.

Nigger is used in rap music all the time.

You'd hear it come out of my mouth:

1. If singing along to R&B Rap etc
2. If quoting some comedy or trying to be funny

Certainly wouldn't use it in an aggressive/hateful way, and that's what you have to always bear in mind - context.
Are you sure that's what actually happened? It sounds to me that they were trying to negotiate a higher price, realised that you weren't going to take it (when you didn't) and so you effectively negotiated them back down to $199/yr.
I'm not sure I get it. Is Google supposed to get everything right on their first try? It seems many people would say yes, even many users of HackerNews. This is very counter to my understanding of the philosophies shared around here. I always thought it was best to push an new idea out there as fast as you can and iterate as you go. Granted Google's mistake is a BIG mistake, but condemning them for one act is somewhat irrational, no?
.text
.globl _a
_a:
pushl %ebp
movl %esp, %ebp
pushl %esi
subl $100, %esp
call L_getpid$stub
movl %eax, %ecx
movl $1808407283, -92(%ebp)
movl -92(%ebp), %eax
imull %ecx
sarl $3, %edx
movl %ecx, %eax
sarl $31, %eax
movl %edx, %esi
subl %eax, %esi
movl %esi, -76(%ebp)
movl -76(%ebp), %eax
sall $3, %eax
addl -76(%ebp), %eax
addl %eax, %eax
addl -76(%ebp), %eax
movl %ecx, %edx
subl %eax, %edx
movl %edx, -76(%ebp)
cmpl $0, -76(%ebp)
sete %al
movzbl %al, %eax
movl %eax, 8(%ebp)
addl $100, %esp
popl %esi
leave
ret
.globl _main
_main:
pushl %ebp
movl %esp, %ebp
subl $72, %esp
movl $0, -72(%ebp)
call _a
movl -72(%ebp), %eax
leave
ret
It is still A1 cool idea. Check out the video. http://brightcove.newscientist.com/services/player/bcpid1873...
Do you seriously think that in a functional relationship (as opposed to a dysfunctional one) a boyfriend get to do 'anything he wants'? Or a girlfriend, for that matter?

It's perfectly legitimate (not to mention a fact in 99.99% of relationships by my estimate) for partners to have different needs and wants. And limits. Yes.

Compromises are a way of life for a good couple. Having 'special occasions' is not a bad way to go about these compromises, doing something for your partner you wouldn't want to do on a regular basis, with a nice socially acceptable rhythm to it.

To pick an example at random, I wouldn't buy my jewelry every day (or week, or month), but a couple of times a year for special occasions (birthday, anniversary) are cool.

Wrapping up, if there was an increasing cultural effect making my wife expect (and hint at) increasingly weird and tasteless things that she'd like for her birthday (I'd getting shivers just imagining examples), believe you me I wouldn't be happy about it, and saying no would still not be easy.

BTW: if you comment above was sarcastic and I missed it, consider this comment moot.
It's really meant as joke, but I added this link now so that users won't be too confused. Thanks for point this out!

Here's a short explanation of the intention behind the site: http://niryariv.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/how-to-disable-goog...
Structured Procrastination
I hope he thinks about the implications to each business he consults before he starts crossing inventory out willy-nilly. Most of the time, it might make sense, and certainly, it's good to question whether you need it.

But just doing so to optimize solely on cost might be a local maxima. You might impact other less tangible aspects/dimensions/parameters of the business in a negative way, and usually other people have to suffer at the hands of MBA's decisions.
Couldn't agree more. [Edit: rest is unrelated to the article]

Recently, a facebook group against water fluoration started in my town. A few of my friends being in it, I checked it out, and saw a few things that didn't make sense in their affirmations: bad chemistry, selectively picking facts and misinterpreting them. I made a comment on the group to clarify them and was careful to put myself as neutral and mention some good points.

Well, they promptly deleted my post. I have a hard time understanding why they want to convince people with scare tactics and bad data, when they could do a perfectly credible stand without doing so. My opinion of democracy went significantly down with that. I wish I could refer them to Eliezer and Less Wrong... but I think these people aren't interested in truth.

(The group, if you speak french: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=262927717140&ref=m... )
"The App store is just package management, which Linux has had for a while, and which Mac OS X is sadly missing."

Ergo the users of Macs would have a better install/uninstall experience if they were running Linux. Ummm, OK.
Thanks for the clarification on the Qi screen. There are a few factors that make ebook screens usable in my opinion. I would say that you need a certain level of dpi to handle small font rendering well. After a certain threshold I don't know if it benefits you as much. The second factor is screen size the n770 had a 4.1" screen which leads to a lot of context switches. The kindle has 167ppi on a 6" screen. The kindle screen allows for much less context switches which are jarring to the mind. (context switch in this example would be turning the page) With the iPad's 10" screen the context switches will be much less even still. (Though the iPad has the least ppi of all the devices I mentioned I think it should be over the minimum threshold for readability)
Because this reads like a pro-choice joke:

Making fun of people like Sarah Palin, who believe that they are virtuous because they choose to bring mentally retarded people into this world, is funny.

Sarah Palin is an idiot, but people who don't kill their own children merely because they have some issues are relatively virtuous.

Well you asked..
Laser Hair Removal Side Effects and Risks
I have too much stuff. Most people in America do. In fact, the poorer people are, the more stuff they seem to have. Hardly anyone is so poor that they can't afford a front yard full of old cars.

Wow, Paul, you really don't understand what it is like to be poor. The poor people don't have a lot of cars in their yard because they can afford lots of cars. They have lots of cars because they never throw them away. Rich people throw lots of fine stuff away, but poor people keep everything forever, because they don't know when they can afford to buy another one.

I've been rich and poor and most of my family is still poor. While they don't have lots of cars in the yard, they are pack rats and worry constantly about a time in the future when they won't have anything anymore.

Poor people keep stuff because there may be a day when they'll need it but won't have the money to buy it. The regret of, "Oh... i had one of those but i got rid of it" is pretty strong when you need something you don't have but once did.
So it's almost identical, but with worse (IMHO) syntax!

It's all a matter of taste, but I can't see this as being more tasteful than js.

Also it's comparing to crappy js.

For example

// Splats:
race = function race(winner) {
var runners;
runners = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments, 1);
return print(winner, runners);
};

Could be rewritten

race = function race(winner) {
return print(winner, Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments, 1));
}
How is that making fun of anyone? It's true, and people who actually take care of retarded children and adults have to come to terms with it. Who's going to take care of them when you can't anymore?

The shock comes from finding selfishness in something that isn't selfish at all. How many people would volunteer to take care of retarded children they don't know for even a day?
Well, that's a whole different rabbit-hole you're jumping down there. My comments here have been seen as anti-female in the past so I'll refrain from airing my views on the matter but suffice to say I think sexual behaviour in general and pornography in particular reflects a very long-standing social dynamic.

I have never known a man who was selected against because he was dominant.
I would imagine that the pockets of air is going to matter less the longer you have the protein in the bath. What is your typical use case start it in the morning before work and then dinner? or is is a more abbreviated cycle?
I want to be able to see the automagic stuff in the windows, like the doctype and the javascript framework inclusion. I feel disoriented without it, and I don't think I trust the software to do it the way I want it done -- being able to see it on screen would make me more comfortable.
I highly doubt it. There are countless times when companies have rolled things out to everyone and it caused problems.

The irony here is that Facebook has failed this way many time and here google is trying ot compete with facebook with buzz and did exactly the same thing.

Google is full of regular people and they make regular people mistakes and will continue to do so.
Long time lurker here =).

Agreed, I'm doing an M.S now (non-business) and I've always been under the impression that the MBA crowd is a little bit older - not too old, but people that have had a few years of experience in an industry. Don't quote me on this but don't most Ivy MBA programs require 3-5 years of actual work experience for acceptance?

I also have a few friends doing MBAs and most of what they do involves case studies of real companies and problems that they faced.

-- Not advocating everyone go out there and get an MBA, but the title should mention that it's undergrad business school.
Well I read an interview with the founder guy and he indicated that only 66%-75% of the talks ever make to videos on the site. Given that 25% to 33% of talks never make it up then even if Silverman's doesn't appear it's not necessarily been "singled out" or treated specially.
Not necessarily: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08138/882650-85.stm
Capacitive multitouch is a new technology in consumer electronics.
You are going to have a very hard time convincing me that anyone who doesn't know Coffeescript syntax is going to undertand what this means:

number: -42 if opposite_day

however, almost anyone, even non-programmers can understand this:

if (opposite_day) {
number = -42;
}
Also, remember that you are _way more aware_ of your space than the typical person. Every day you are reading as much as you can in your area, so the chance of stumbling on a competitor is much larger for you than for your potential customers.

As a startup, don't assume that all your customers just read the great PR on your competitor. Most of them probably don't know that they want random chat (or live power monitoring)
Why are braces needed in the Math declaration? Is this not Pythonlike enough to use the indentation, or is there something else?
Oh I don't know. Surely "The Bucket Rider" can tell us something about dealing with bad customers. It's clear to me that Kafka meant this as a tale about how to be a sharp businessperson.

http://old.tcfreenet.org/people/hale/articles/bucket.htm
Yup, guess you're sure then ;) Though out of curiousity, have you actually looked at the stack when it's running? Also, I can see ESI and EBP being pushed onto the stack, but what's the missing third value?
Update: Actually, even more intriguing, why is the stack shifted by 100 bytes for the a() function??? I would have expected it to be 72, as it was for the main() function, ie 64 bytes for the ar[16] and then 8 bytes for the two registers that are pushed onto the stack.

Sigh. I'd love to actually have the time to dig out my Intel opcode books and figure it out, that would be fun, but I have to get myself back into Javascript headspace for work tomorrow morning. I wonder how many layers there are between my Javascript code and processor opcodes...
Hello sir. I had this idea yesterday for a site like facebook but with classifieds like craig's list in it and I'm looking for an experienced C/C++ coder...
I just stumbled on another site regarding ARM development boards: http://www.armdesigner.com/KIT%20OMAP3530.html
Now now, I'm sure there are coders who have those areas of expertise as well!

Seriously, coders are not the only valid cofounders for this kind of company, but they're the only necessary ones.

For example, I don't see a lot of coders begging for "a guy with the vision" who can provide them with a "can't-miss idea" they can put "sweat equity" into. It's always the other way around.
Thanks for replying. I completely disagree with the premises behind your statement that "people who don't kill their own children merely because they have some issues are relatively virtuous." But I know better than to argue with anti-abortionists.
Well Google's play book used to be push stuff out as beta or a labs feature. Let only the very sophisticated users opt-in and try things out before pushing it out to the general public.

This was obviously rolled out in a very different fashion. Plus they attached it to Gmail which is a tried-and-true product. Buzz feels very beta to me.

If Buzz we rolled out under labs or a separate interface I'm sure that there wouldn't be as much backlash as there has been.
That may be true, but what about when opposite_day is null vs undefined ... there are a lot more improvements than just inline conditionals.
Show HN: My project for this weekend (with source)
It's making fun of them because she's doing it in the context of a comedian on a stage telling jokes.
The test has only been shown to fail on Mac OS X Snow Leopard with gcc 4.2.1. I haven't been able to make it fail on any other platform. Because of the code involved, I suspect it won't fail at all on anything but 32-bit Intel.

I've never run valgrind...it'll be interesting to see just what it does to Hercules execution speed. mudflap, too. Getting that built into the code might get even more interesting.
The braces are there because JavaScript's object literals are already pretty nice. But it would certainly be an interesting feature, if assigning to a block implied an object literal.

obj:
prop: value
prop2: value2

edit: I've opened a ticket for this, here:

http://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/issues/issue/146
I was not sarcastic. Far from it.

I think there's a big difference between buying people whatever they want, whenever they want it, and sexual satisfaction. Of course you do not buy your partner jewellery every day or week. Good jewellery is expensive. And you can only wear so much.

But sexual satisfaction is different. Sex is free. And if the guy is not satisfied in their normal sexual behaviour, and has to wait until his birthday when he can really do all those things he wanted to do the rest of the year - well, I think that is weird and kind of pathological.

So yes in summary, in bed, of course each person in a couple should be able to "do whatever they want". Why wouldn't they? Just like they should be able to talk about whatever they want and watch whatever they want. If they can't do these basic things then .. what's the point of even being a couple?
The Math Equation of Making Love
That's not ironic. People have very different expectations between Gmail and Facebook.

When I used FB I expect that my news feed is public to my friends. It's used for open social interaction. The same goes for Twitter.

When I use Gmail I expect my emails and contacts to be private. I don't expect strangers to see what I'm doing.

The user's experience and expectations are different. This is why Facebook has more leeway (but they still get * if they do something that opens up your profile to the public).
There can only be so many minimalist apps, some startups have to aim a little bit higher than the low hanging fruit where it isn't so much about good marketing and a clean intuitive layout. For these people I don't think a long time programming is procrastination but rather a necessity.

Also if you have money tucked away to survive in some cases it would be better to sit back, re factor, add/ improve features until you have something your really confident about spreading it around widely. There is a lot of talk about release early, but for smaller unknowns you may only get one chance to make a good initial impression.
You can also do this, if you prefer equals signs:

number = -42 if opposite_day

Or this, if you prefer your conditions first:

if opposite_day then number = -42
People who do business try to do the marketing without building a product; people who build software try to build the product without doing any marketing. His point is that neither type will get anywhere.
Yes they did, but that wasn't a wrong move, business-wise. This is seriously wrong, because people actually care about this stuff. People don't really care about China or cookies. This, on the other hand, is so obviously invading people's privacy, that a lot of people seem to understand it.
I ordered one of the netbooks from Always Innovating, but they never shipped it. They kept promising to ship their backlog, but never did. Then I mailed them and asked to cancel my order, but never heard back on that either.
To be frank, I can't imagine signing up to use this service. It is too easy to build into almost any shopping cart system.

Why go through the process of integrating with a 3rd party and all the logistical and viability nightmares that come with such a decision when it's a trivial problem to solve in the real world?
I work with a lot of online publishing clients, who aren't always particularly tech savvy (you'd be amazed by some of the workflows). Designers would often like to justify text, which can cause some terrible whitespace rivers since browsers don't provide hyphenation. Browsers do, however, support soft-hyphens, which are hints that tell the browser where it can break a word.

Adding these hyphens manually is quite tedious. So I wrote up this little utility that takes HTML and adds soft hyphens automatically.

Background:

- Took a day to write (started it yesterday afternoon)

- Written in Python, deployed on AppEngine

- Uses OpenOffice's hyphenation dictionaries

Source code: http://github.com/fortes/softhyphen
Yes, he is.
He is the author of the "I made 20k in a month" post of some time ago. Just to put him in context.
As a counterpoint, if you take something hard and profound, and make a turd out of it, people that avoided the hard problem will probably beat you.

(GNU Guile maintainer speaking. No, we don't have fexprs any more. Yes, we are finally getting back to the level of other Schemes.)
I'm not from North America and as such wasn't aware of Sarah Palin's campaign against the word "retard."

In fact, we happen to find Sarah Palin a bit of a comedian herself... And don't take her seriously.
Brilliant. I was turned off by the need to compile separately with Ruby.

Now I can play with it without that overhead and always compile down when done with development for speed. Kudos!
I agree with your last point, but my point is that financial assets ("instruments"), starting with basic stocks and bonds, do not behave and scale in the same way that physical assets do.

E.g. a company with 10x the factories of another requires on the order of 10x more governmental resources (lets assume they are of the same size, perimeter, etc.). But a company with 10x the shares of stock or 10x the outstanding bonds (in dollars) does not require 10x the courts, regulators, etc.

The more companies issuing stocks and bonds the more of these resources are required, but that can in part pay for itself, as the state of Delaware has shown by providing a high quality court system for businesses. In case of malfeasance, though, the responsible company doesn't always pay for the policing it requires (e.g. Enron (dead) vs. AT&T and its breakup (all RBOCs still alive)).

Someone holding assets also requires different levels of expense from the government, with the physical scaling much worse than the financial (e.g. 1 house vs. 1 million dollars vs. 15 houses vs. 15 million dollars).
The JavaScript examples don't show what you would write in JavaScript, they show the compiled JavaScript output when you write it in CoffeScript.
Someone needs to make a very small attachment for the iPhone that uses mirrors to make the camera forward-facing.
MagSafe for the Rest of Us: A DIY Magnetic Power Adaptor