skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
1) Now you can buy DRM free music from hundreds of websites online.
3) You can still buy applications freely for any of these mobile platforms. (Jailbreak, etc...)

Good lord, ya' crybabies, just vote with your dollars. Apple is not beholden to us in any way and nor are we to them.
I am a tinkerer, I have had many cell phones, and the iPhone is the first I made an app for. I specifically always bought phones with some kind of cable to a PC, but in reality I never did it. The secret sauce for me was

1. Great docs on the API including tons of 3rd party sites and books
2. A straight-forward way of getting the app to a store
3. Integrated payment
4. A market

With my other phones, I guess I could have created the app, and used it myself, but the extra incentive of making a few bucks (and that's all I made) was enough to get me to actually do it. I have lots of things I like to tinker on, so it's about prioritizing.

Also, I don't understand what the issue is -- if you want to put an app on your own iPad/iPhone, you can -- just get a developer cert and have at it. You don't need appstore approval. You are in a sandbox, but it's a lot more permissive than a web app is to the browser on your PC, and no one's claiming that that is an impediment to tinkering.
1) Before the iTunes music store, the only way you could get music legally on the internet was a $10 a month subscription to the Real Player music store. You did not own your music and you could only play it on a number of devices. Concurrently, many music publishers were trying to develop technological means to prevent users from taking music from CDs they had purchased and ripping them to MP3's.

This is simply, and provably, untrue. I had an eMusic account several years before iTunes existed. It has always distributed DRM-free MP3s.

2) Before the iTunes video store, you could buy a few DRM encumbered videos from Amazon (pretty sure they were the only game in town at that time).

I don't know about this, as I'm not a big movie/TV watcher. I'll leave it for someone else to debunk.

3) Before the iPhone App store, the only way you could get an application was through a carrier approved store.

Demonstrably untrue. There was a thriving and open application market for Palm devices, Windows mobile devices, and others, long before the App Store. The Sidekick had a similar marketplace model to the App Store and a similar approval process, and it was in place for many years before the iPhone. Pretty much all smart phones allowed installation of applications from third parties before the iPhone and App Store. The success of the App Store, for Apple's bottom line, was the primary motivation for several other vendors introducing similar markets.

But, I wasn't talking about iTunes (though there are probably things to say about iTunes, I don't really know enough about it; as I mentioned, I've been an eMusic user for many years, and have never wanted anything iTunes had to offer; besides that iTunes doesn't run under Linux, so I can't use it). I'm talking about specific negative things Apple has done for openness and creativity in the technology world with the iPhone and the iPad, which is the subject of all of these rants.

The iPhone and iPad are the most tightly controlled ecosystems in their respective niches (if we count netbooks and other tablets as in the iPad niche, which I kinda think we have to, for now). This is a bad thing.

And, I was saying that the kind of apologia you're using is enabling Apple to do these bad things. One shouldn't apologize for bad things Apple has done by presenting the good or neutral things Apple has done. We know that the closed nature of the iPhone/iPad and the App Store ecosystem is bad for developers and bad for tinkerers and would-be hackers. We should call them on that bad behavior.

Praise them all you want for other behaviors, but don't use it as an excuse for the bad things they do.
Correct and if you start screwing around with your engine... it voids the warranty.
You should disclose what you consider to be "worth reading". Hopefully you have a bias that is different then the front page, otherwise it's really no different than that.
Mitsubishi Targets Sub-$30,000 U.S. Starting Price for i-MiEV Electric Car
A quick search of Wikipedia leads to an interview (link below) with this:

Now, correct me if I’m wrong – and please fill in any gaps – but here’s what your story looks like to me:

In 2002 you were doing freelance consulting, web-development and tech writing. Meanwhile, after months of picking out the right “slate blueish background color” you finally launch Daring Fireball and begin writing articles for which your wife was the first reader. Two years later you start offering the membership and also end up working at Bare Bones. Then two years after that, in 2006, you quit your day job and now spend your time publish DF from home.

JOHN: Your chronology is a bit off. I worked for Bare Bones from 2000 to 2002. I started DF a few months after that. Joyent was the company I worked for while writing DF, from January 2005 through March 2006. When I left Joyent was when I started writing DF full-time.

http://shawnblanc.net/2008/02/interview-john-gruber/

That doesn't sound like he ever worked for Apple. I think the interviewer would have mentioned it as part of Gruber's story in this context.
I think playing music while on the road is useless.

You are unlike much of the human race. Music is part of every culture and part of the way your brain works. http://www.amazon.com/This-Your-Brain-Music-Obsession/dp/045...
Facebook has acquired Divvyshot (YC W09)
We'd do it together. He doesn't want to do it himself for a variety of reasons.
Any plans to summarize or highlight the comments you find most interesting?
"Something important and valuable is indeed being lost as Apple shifts to this model of computing. But it’s a trade-off, because something new that is important and valuable has been gained."

This is true, but for people like me, beside the point. A car is either open or closed, to the extent the terms mean anything. A computer doesn't have to choose! It can be closed, until you press the "Yes I Want To Possibly Break My Box" button and all it has to do is stop checking executable signatures and let things that aren't from the official source run. (Isn't this how Android works? I don't have one.)

This is not a fundamental tradeoff that Apple with some regret has been forced to make to make their product easy to use. Gruber is hiding his arguments behind a technical tradeoff that is entirely manufactured by Apple in the first place.

A few weeks ago I bought my wife an HP Mini running Windows 7. She will never crack the hood. It is an easy to use machine, browser here, open office there (which, by the way, I was allowed to install), IE locked away behind this icon over there to access her ActiveX-based time-and-attendance system. It is one application install away from having an "app store"; for instance, Steam could probably be installed in about five minutes.

And I could turn it into a Linux machine in about half-an-hour. Because none of that ease-of-use actually requires the machine to be tinkerproof.
If we go on doing it [Google's] way, we end up with a wholly-owned list of digitized books, many stolen from their owners, totally controlled, managed, opened and closed to public use, by a profit-making corporation interested in furthering its monopolistic control of information. - Ursula Le Guin

As opposed to, what exactly, how the publishers of the United States of Fictionalamerica do? Or did Le Guin really thought her publisher was a honest non-profit interested on sharing and expanding the public domain?
As much as I enjoy reading stuff like this, I have to admit that I've been buying a ton of these lately (>20K in March) and, as long as my cash flow permits, I'll continue to by just a little more than my monthly needs to help hedge against future increases.

I use them on the outbound mail for MailFinch (which, by default, uses Forever Stamps instead of a postage meter -- customers swear it increases the open rates but I don't have any data to back that up).
All New EQUINOX
All New EQUINOX
Midsize SUV. Full Economy, Safety, Design.
There are step-by-step instructions -- it's easy. The only real impediment is $99. Getting an app on the iphone is several orders of magnitude easier than writing an app. Being able to run emailed .exe's is precisely the kind of stuff that is killing the PC for most people.
A possible solution:

* Apple still charges $99 for a developer license/kit

* Apple still runs their AppStore

* Apple releases specs/API for creating your own AppStore

* People create competing AppStore implementations

* By default, Apple's AppStore is the only one configured

* The interface for adding extra AppStores is a bit hidden and rough around the edges, so that people have to be motivated to actually do it. (i.e. raise the bar a bit, so that the people that do it know what they are doing)

The majority of people would still just use Apple's AppStore, but this would allow Apple to side-step the "We can't approve that because it would be bad for our company image to have it in our AppStore" type of issues. Apple could even void the warranty for people that use competing AppStores as a way to raise the barrier, but at least it would still be there for the people that wanted to use it.
So whenever you need stamps, buy forever ones. But don't buy a lot of stamps and hold them for the future, 'cause you could have done better investing that money and buying stamps as you need them.
What's nice about mailing physical media is that the movie studios don't have much control.

Have you noticed the Netflix and Redbox release windowing? First sale, what first sale?
It was presented as a MAME game, so I'm not expecting it on the AppStore. More likely it would be a HTML5/Flash game or some emulator ROM hack or something.
Thank you for your answer, which makes it clear that his point is actually more generally important than I had realized. Perhaps this is well known to people with an interest in security, but it was news to me. Fascinating.
That is intense! Way to go Sam!!
I'd like to call a moratorium on iPad speculation until the damned things actually ship. You know, wait for some concrete data, rather than bullshit hypotheticals.

Our imagined use-cases are usually wrong. Telephones were going to be a broadcast mechanism. Java was going to be an embedded systems language. Wave was going to replace email.

Sorry to be such a grump, but I feel like all useful analysis has been exhausted. Wait until people actually buy (or don't buy) the device, then we can talk some more.
Sounds good, but one thing I'd like to know is if the author of that article has any affiliations with DDG.
I agree with your point.

But often times it is used exclusively (or in majority) on the server-side. If the server side language follows the underscore_case convention. That's where the ambiguity creeps in.
But we're not talking about advancing language design--we're talking about a small modification to an existing, widely used language whose basics are not going to change. There are a lot of problems with Java I'd like to see fixed before null, and the Java community has dismissed most of those as too radical (like closures).

There are languages which work (mostly) without nulls on the JVM though. Scala does something very similar to Haskell's Maybe. (Although for interoperability with Java it can deal with nulls if you insist.)
> because they're perfectionists.

I think that you mean he is a perfectionist (as in Steve Jobs). I doubt that everyone at Apple is a perfectionist, but perfection is expected of them as an edict from 'on high.'
Consumers are given a choice, and many choose the path of overall least resistance.

This is a good point, but when you buy an iPad you are giving up that choice, and you might not know it.

When I buy a car, at least I know I can change the oil myself should I choose to. I can also install a new battery, or listen to any radio station I want.

I don't mind Apple selling a locked-down device, as long as people are aware that's what they're getting. How many people do you think would buy a car whose manufacturer dictated what stations were allowed to play on the radio, and closed off the oil tank with a proprietary cap so that you had to take it to the manufacturer to have the oil changed? Probably not very many.

So the danger here is that manufacturers take advantage of the mass-market's lack of understanding and preys on their desires for a very powerful computing system that just works, pushing more and more investment towards more closed devices at the detriment of more open devices without most people even realizing how it's harming them.
Would there not have been an address on the mail?
I think in a relatively niche community where the readership submits the content and then determines what's popular, ranking probably correlates better with quality vs billboard or other mass media where the relationship is strictly producer -> consumer. That's just my intuition though.
Dwarf Fortress 0.31.01 released
Matz chose underscore_casing in Ruby because non-english speakers have an easier time reading underscore_cased words.

One can also make the argument that code is read more often than written.
Facebook Buys Divvyshot
Using .gemspecs as Intended
They do. But they release it to Pay-Per-View and On Demand services for more money than they get from Netflix, then they get Netflix's money anyway.

They view Netflix as more of an analogue to the "TV Syndication" stage of a property's life. Until Netflix has a 'premium' club paying more for early access to new material (so that Netflix can pay more in streaming license fees), they'll continue to see it as such.
You are not subsidizing their ability to receive mail from you. You are paying for your ability to send mail to them. It's the same rationale as the universal service fund for phones. A network like the phone or mail network reaches it's full potential only when it connects everybody.
Web Designer Wanted for Mid-Sized Profitable Startup (San Diego, CA)
Yontoo Technology (http://yontoo.com) is seeking a web designer with 3 to 4 years of professional web design experience to work in-house with the development team. Candidate must be proficient in HTML, CSS, XML and JavaScript. Any graphic design or Flash experience is very helpful. Designer must be able to work with creative, technical and business teams to develop a variety of websites for social media apps. Must be able to manage multiple projects and meet deadlines. Must also have the flexibility to design in a variety of styles for appropriate audiences. Projects include html web pages, interface design, web applications, banner ads, xml, site maintenance, search engine optimization and some graphic design.

Responsibilities and Duties:
-Design and maintain HTML files, CSS, and JavaScript for all sites
-Optimize all graphics and create XML code
-Be responsible for the quality, accuracy and testing of all code before posting
-Help create and implement all SEO functionality
-Update and create
-Various graphic design projects
-Skills required:
-Must be able to hand code HTML, CSS, XML, Java
-Photoshop, Flash

Good communication skills
-Flash Actionscript , PHP, ASPX knowledge a plus

CRITICAL: Good ping pong skills

Yontoo Technology is a dynamic and fast growing company with tremendous career opportunities. Compensation is dependent upon experience.

Next step:
To be considered, please send a cover letter, your resume and links to examples of your work to michael@yontoo.com
How long have you been reading his blog for? In order for my arguments to make sense to you, you will have to read more than just couple of his recent blog post.

I don't think it is ad hominem, I think it is widely accepted that he is an Apple fanboy. Your mileage may vary.

I am a happy macbook/iphone owner (but not exclusive apple user) and I think he is an apple fanboy.
Nation’s First Undergraduate Web Science Degree Launched
Previous rant on this topic: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=949027

Unfortunately, we didn't come up with any good answers.
It's not really fair to compare an Android device with 32M of RAM to an iPhone with 256M or RAM.

Try multitasking on a Nexus One or an Archos 5 Internet Tablet. It works brilliantly.
I get the feeling mock-ups are the next step of the interview process...
Perhaps Apple products represent the progress of innovation. Since Henry Ford was young, the kids tinkered with gas engines and buggies. Now, automobiles are a mature technology and largely black boxes. Consumer electronics have gone the same way. There used to be a time when kids tinkered with radios. Now radios are black boxes. Progress, though, has not destroyed opportunities for innovation. On the contrary, opportunities have grown. Robot technology, for example, seems to be just beginning.
I'll concede that... to a limited extent. Not every job makes that possible. Even the ones that have the possibility, the number of employers that would allow that is also limited.

VPN access, in my experience, is in the hope that people will do MORE work when they normally aren't expected of it. As opposed to having a more flexible work environment.
none. I wrote it since I really like DuckDuckGo.
Agreed, especially since it's something normal people can easily relate to. But, barring a public relations stunt by Facebook, I suppose this is going to be quietly settled like the RIM patent suit mentioned in the article (another promising, highly visible suit, since an injunction against RIM had the potential to kill all the Blackberries on Capitol Hill).
I don't find craigslist well designed at all. It is terrible at displaying the information in a digestible format. For example, instead of browsing the rent section on craigslist I go to houseingmaps.com
Ok, let's take it to a bigger scale. Airline industries declare bankruptcies and gets bailed out time and time again, to tunes of billions. Homebuilders transfer assets to new entities, then declare bankruptcies, pocketing billions and evades creditors. Banks leverage themselves with trillions of debt, and gets bailed out by the government.

Meanwhile, regular people have to pay for the billions and trillions of mistakes, with loss of social benefits, or taxes, or inflation. When does it stop?

And you would prosecute the politican who enacts a law to incriminate, and prevent future bankruptcies (by saying NO MORE!)?
How common are debt-financed startups? I was under the impression that they were funded by equity, unless they were starting to show profits or had some assets. In fact, a loan to a startup would behave like equity with a ceiling on appreciation, not like consumer debt.

For whatever reason, I can't recall hearing about a single successful startup founder who previously declared bankruptcy. The closest I can think of was Bill Bartmann (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_18/b4032066....).
Related Valley drama:

"I was the one who came forward about the Macbook Air" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1160643

Starring Divvyshot founder Sam Odio, Former TechCrunch Intern Daniel Brusilovsky, and Jason Calacanis.

Looks like Sam made out OK.
Don't be afraid of a failure - video
80% of PCs sold will have the starter edition of Office pre-installed
We missed the memo :(
If by "affiliations" you mean "works for" or "is paid by" DuckDuckGo, it's highly unlikely. DDG is the product of solo founder Gabriel Weinberg (epi0Bauqu). Check out his awesome blog: http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/.
Do people actually quote the number of options without reference to a percentage or a stock price?
UVa startups are 2 for 2. Way to go, sodio!

ps. I've forwarded this to the whole comm school.
They don't need to go the dvcs route, just get merging working.
Denied: Python Micro-Framework (Sinatra-like)
Agreed, and I don't take issue with Doctorow's position.

My point is that plenty of developers and consumers seem to rather like the App Store model. And I can see how that won't change, at least for developers. Yes, you pay $100 a year, and yes, Apple ultimately decides if your app is worthy, but for a lot of devs, this is actually a win, as they don't have to market their software.
If we must trot out the old car analogy trope, let's at least be realistic.

If the iPad were a car, you'd only be able to install car radios approved by Apple, of which there would be forty or so wildly different options, some of which generally sucked, some of which were meticulously built around a particular set of stations, and some of which you could tune to anything from low-frequency maritime navigation channels to shortwave.

Or you could just take out the radio and install a talking river trout in its place, so long as it was available in the aftermarket catalog.

And there'd be a sea bass version as well.
Excited to be working in close proximity with Sam and Paul again! Congrats guys.
and now there's a good chance you can walk into a random café and see someone using your product.. :)
Are you aware that your site is vulnerable to XSS attacks? I mentioned it in a previous thread[1] and also on twitter[2] but it never got fixed. The attack pattern still works[3]. I can imagine you would like to ignore me but please, for the sake of piet, fix it as soon as possible.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1210001

[2] http://twitter.com/antony311/status/10921429114

[3] http://cloudomatic.com/?s=<script>alert(1);</scr...;
You don't even need that, and I don't know why he mentioned that as an issue...I was able to flexibly balance with virtual hosts with HAProxy on EC2 like with any other server.

The issues I was considering with la nuebla:

Data is a pain. S3 is great in theory but a pain to integrate. The same goes for EBS, which is really pricey for more than a little. If you can get a good connection on your own and admin a simple file server, serving data is very easy, stable, and cheap.

Amazon's options are prone to serious failure if you do something wrong with them. I don't lose my hard drive's contents when I accidentally pull the plug, but that is the case with EC2.
> The quality of your wife is 40% who you are, 20% who you choose, and 80% how you conduct yourself during courtship and marriage.

This is incredibly idealistic - and doesn't really jive with the real world. It says if a man is a good man and conducts himself exceptionally during courtship and marriage, his wife is almost certain to be quality.

And this is false! I mean, there's so many real world examples - some people are undisciplined, unambitious, self-centered, reckless, not grounded, etc, etc. Unfortunately, I know a couple guys, good guys overall, who married such women. No matter how much he toils in the marriage, it can't and won't be a good marriage.

The character and quality of your spouse has a lot to do with their character - you can help them grow to some extent, but you need to start from a good place. The idea that "be a good person and conduct yourself well and things will work out" sounds nice, but is in fact dangerous and bad advice. For both men and women, the base character of your spouse matters a lot - and that's before even starting to look at compatibility and having complimentary views. Idealism - "be a good man and things will work out" - sounds nice, but it's the sort of thing you need to be careful with.
Patents maybe were effective at encouraging innovation before the information age. Now that innovation happens so rapidly, patents slow things down.

Currently, Patents are all about making certain techniques (business processes, algorithms, etc.) illegal unless licensed.

Who honestly reads patents to learn about technology anymore?
I did read this post, but as a warning to others, it says nothing that you didn't already know Gruber would say about the iPad.

(Sacrificing karma to illustrate double standard.)

EDIT Clarification: double standard remark is wrt my guess on how comment voting would turn out.
Christoff? actually it's a full stack prototype on rails...
Typewith is not funded by YC. It just uses some open source software created by a YC-funded co.