skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Can I suggest to you that, if they were not barred from doing so by law, any rational and profit driven business would eventually merge with all its market rivals to form a monopoly and extract monopoly rents? I think the facts of history are on my side here (see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act).

I am suggesting (in line with what I thought were the commonly accepted tenets of free market capitalism) that their self-interest be channelled, not that this motive is intrinsically bad, just that it is not intrinsically good since externalities and market failures can be exploited in the name of corporate self-interest without any compensating benefit to society.

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." -- Adam Smith
What about memory consumption? What's the maximum memory CPython or IronPython would use to run through one of the benchmarks?
Cool. I'm sure many will enjoy your archives for years to come.
Just my opinion: I don't think this argument applies to America, but only to the Silicon Valley (SV) culture (and all influenced others). Generally people want only to have a decent living, while those exposed to the SV culture (usually), are looking for the big opportunity.

EDIT: (Disclosure: I am an European exposed to the SV culture :)
It is sad that when thinking of my own achievements, I first tend to evaluate my 'virtual accomplishments'. These are tasks related to programming, design, etc. that have no actual existence in the real world. These are related to creativity. However, when referring to real life, I have nothing to mention that is not common. There is nothing real that makes me anything more than normal. I guess that is what draws me to the creative world that exists in my own mind... because there I can accomplish a lot without interference from the real world.
Initially I wanted to post a silly comment to the original question, but after I read your answer, I can't. You have my full respect, man. Your ghetto story is way more awesome than mine. :)
aieeeee, just checked availability before i posted, and there was nothing. sweet baby james!
yea, gt5... mmmm
Forgive me for not understanding, but if I can ask for further clarification--

In your last post, you said: "Anti-competitive actions are always pragmatic if you're not going to get punished for them." From this, I conclude that when you say "anti-competitive", you are referring to actions that ought to be punished. Then, I asked if it was anti-competitive for companies to act in accordance with their own interests instead of aiding competitors, to which you say yes.

From this, I conclude that you are saying that acting in one's own self-interest instead of aiding competitors ought to be punished.

Where have I made a mistake?

erecting barriers to entry (by excluding those who can't or won't pay patent fees)

I don't understand. Native h.264 support is not mandatory for competition or spec compliance. h.264 patent fees, and Mozilla's inability/choice to not pay them only constrain what they implement. It does not prevent them from competing or from adhering to the spec.

For a counter-example, Mozilla was the driving force behind having Theora made a mandatory part of the spec, which would have excluded any parties who couldn't or wouldn't implement it. Would that have been anti-competitive?
Beautiful PDF Search Engine
"Should I have a more positive outlook?"

Yes, I believe you should and I apologise if I came off a bit snippy. The campaign I was involved with (the PCG, opposing IR35) was ultimately unsuccessful in parliament but won some victories on a case-by-case basis and ultimately made a significant difference to people's lives. In my own case, the Inland Revenue tried to over-tax me but were forced to drop the case because of what the PCG did. Did I feel pleased about that? I think so, yes.

I also wrote letters about the RIP Act when that was going through parliament. I wrote to (and met with) my MP, Mark Oaten, who seemed like a thoroughly decent and intelligent man who grokked the issues immediately. I also wrote to Jack Straw, Tony Blair and (because she was saying the right things) Anne Widdecombe, even though I suspect she is in all other respects quite barmy. Of course, they ignored me, afaik.

What I think did make a difference was a casual conversation with an acquaintance who turned out to be the Conservative front-bench spokesman in the Lords for Trade and Industry (Francis Lord Northbrook if you're interested). He asked me to write a briefing paper, which I did -- a couple of sides of A4 saying what was wrong with the legislation. He used it as a basis for his response to the RIP Bill, as it was at that time. OK, it shouldn't come down to personal acquaintance but it sometimes does, and if I hadn't written all those futile letters we would never have had the conversation which prompted his request to me.

Now to my point: if the situation is really that desperate why even post the article? Just STFU and continue to let them rip you, me and everyone else off. Or you could, you know, engage with the flawed people in this flawed situation and possibly, I don't know, do something to make a difference. Win or lose, I'd rather participate than sit and whine about things.

"What did you do during the Internet Wars daddy?"
45 degrees Celsius = 113 degrees Fahrenheit
I'll admit something... my story hampers my present.

The problem with such a dark background and fighting out of it is that once out, not going back dominates everything you do. This translates to, "Don't risk what you have".

And therein lies a problem, if I have little but can't risk it then I'm risk averse and cannot gamble on high risk opportunities. I desperately want to do a start-up and to do something new, but what could possibly encourage me to risk what I now have, I've earned a normal life and I have no plan B were I to jeopardise it.

So I fight to never go back, which isn't the same as fighting to get somewhere in the future.

The real achievement, if I ever manage it, will be to get out of that predicament and to be free to take risk without fearing too greatly the repercussions. I probably won't ever be back on the street, but it's very hard to shake the fear of it. If someone else's tale can tell me how to do that I'd be grateful.
The most basic one is the "one-click" Amazon patent. Most of Apple's patents on forms of interaction with touchscreens or other touch-sensitive devices are little more than reflections of physical interaction with objects.
But how does thinking about changes rather than versions make things easier, Joel? You never quite explain...
Does this paper represent one of those "Only Nixon could go to China" moments?
I haven't programmed in Logo in years, but I recall it as pretty full-blown: isn't it a dialect of Lisp (with a funny infix syntax but) including macros?
Since I'm getting (anonymously) downvoted anyway:

Did the team buy all software they used to create the site themselves? Did they discuss it during work hours? Did they mail each other ideas or designs at work? Using email addresses of the company? What is the quality of their work focus between now and the time they stop working, which IIRC is in May sometime? They're still being paid, but I'm pretty sure they are quite focused on ramping up their own marketing during this period.

Note that the blogosphere is really enjoying this interaction and the company is coming off as stupid, out-of-touch etc. Do you think it's helping Garmin or hurting them, on balance?

It comes down to do-unto-others. I'd prefer not to burn the bridges, myself. I loathe corporate game-playing as much as the next person, which is why I write and sell my own software. But I fully understand that some decisions are just very hard to make, and beating up on Garmin seems a bit simplistic.
If you mean you want to alter the scope of the DEB by redefining the internet then that won't work.

UK Judges commonly look at the intention of law when considering judgements and when the normal language [at the time] is not sufficient to define the word then definitions are included (made up example: "for the purposes of S4 the meaning of xylophone excludes instruments constructed primarily of metal"). Also there are laws on harmonising with European law and so when a law is drafted and intended to harmonise with European law the interpretation in the European courts can also be taken into consideration.

Perhaps this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers is the sort of thing you meant?
Ah ... that reminds me of my first car, a red 1972 Toyota Celica. That was a great car.
Hiding HN Karma
Yes, it looks fantastic.

Still, needles are not that hard to thread. It's not like there's a great nationwide backlog of sewing that can finally recommence because people can finally thread their needles again.
I wouldn't be surprised if the reason might not have something to do with the fact that the birds do not chew their food but rather swallow it whole.

It may also have something to do with the bird's gizzard: some species of birds regularly consume rocks to grind food in their gizzards. It's possible that the plastic items are substitutes for the rocks.

From the Wikipedia article, it sounds like the plastic is not the worst threat to the albatrosses, but it's certainly a graphic one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albatross#Threats_and_conservat...
Raymond Smullyan (my favourite guy to quote around here) told the following story in one of his books.

A particular fellow was famous for his modesty. One day he started signing all of his correspondence "He who is modest." This irked one of his detractors, who wrote back to ask, "How you be modest if you sign your correspondence so flamboyantly?" The result came back swiftly: "I no longer think of my modesty as a virtue."
Mandatory up-vote. This could become one of the best thread on hn ever. Nice idea niqolas.
A version is just a changeset, so for me, it makes little sense to claim "changes" are a completely different way of thinking than "versions".

Perhaps it comes down to how you divide work up. I just don't like branches. They're mess.
"we developed a new way of developing software using if statements instead of branches."
Is that critizing feature flags? Or is more to that?
Such is the life of hipsters.
There was one image of a painting of his on his site. Then he took it down or moved it.
My dad was responsible for the blue diamond marshmallow in Lucky Charms.

As for myself, I have zero debt, no outstanding loans at all, including no car payment and no mortgage.
GM Makes Your Entire Windshield a Head-Up Display
Lord Finchley tried to mend the Electric Light
Himself. It struck him dead; and serves him right!
It is the duty of the wealthy man
To give employment to the artisan.
"What a surprise to find a whole thread and blog post dedicated to the search for my identity.
I consent to a benevolent search for my identity or identities. I was quite surprised to see the speed and scale of this development - another symptom of networked life."

This person has said that we can find out his identity... if at all possible. Therefore, you are welcome to search based on his own permission.
It often makes sense to have 2 alternate implementations of a component in the same codebase, so you can switch between them at startup/during runtime, and compare them side by side. Something that isn't as easy to do if you create 2 separate branches.
I find JavaScript and Python are more similar than they are different.

Coming from Python, learned JavaScript, felt right at home.
(just have to remember the vars, {}s and ;s)
About the 80 million dollars Blue (#0044cc)
Two chicks at the same time!</e-peen>
I used the 38degrees pro forma and got a personal response from my MP the next day. FWIW. He also asked if my specific objection concerned the 3 strikes and I gave him a rather long response which I'm sure his research assistance will enjoy!
I don't really consider Tarsnap to be in the same category as those. Sure, I think Tarsnap is a fantastic online backup system; but that's rather subjective. If/when Tarsnap becomes wildly successful, I'll be able to make the objective claim of "I started a company which (is making $X/year profit | I sold for $Y | has N customers | etc. )" but until that happens, Tarsnap isn't really something to "brag" about.
So you downvoted me because you did not like my opinion.

The thing with Customer Service is that when you don't need it, sure everything is fine. When you do need it, you want to be sure it's there. My problem is, with Google you can't be sure. And that could be problems with ordering the phone, warranty service, or whatever other unforeseen problem comes about.

Look at Google's history, and with whatever product they offer, be it Gmail, Apps, AdSense, Adwords, and you easily find the Customer Service complaints. For buying a phone, I have a choice. For Adsense/Adwords, not so much.
Dear Apple, Microsoft, and Google: Please don't kill HTML5 Video. ("Why should I change? He's the one who sucks!")
I don't know about your, but I have the impression that the whole photograph changes only in color balance (a 'sepia' filter?).

the right part seems less green because it contains more green. If you look carefully on the left side, you will see that it's less green too.
Isn't "open source" usually used for projects that include source code? Maybe they made the original design diagrams open, but I still can't see calling it open source if it doesn't have a microprocessor or any code running in it.
Firefox, Gecko, HTML5 and more: An (Email) Interview with Mozilla’s Asa Dotzler
I wrote a small improvement on the default lisp indentation:
http://www.vim.org/scripts/script.php?script_id=2951

Vim users are yet to have a full Slime replacement, but Nekthuth is quite nice.
I paid off at age 24.
Thanks for all the work over the years. The silent majority is grateful.
I believe I can say that I have done my bit in the Internet Wars so far, and will continue to do so by engaging with the flawed people in this flawed situation. As you point out, posting the article suggests more than a passing interest in the situation.

But I see the system as flawed and part of the problem, and have a huge amount of frustration stored up as a result of trying to talk to my elected representatives. Please excuse my whining; it is a symptom of desiring positive change and trying to do something to get there.
Isn't the case about multi-touch though? Or am I mistaken?
A quarter of UK schoolchildren admit attempted "hacking"
One of the strong indicators is the use of italics in the post. Many users will ignore formatting within their posts. I am confident this user has used italic formatting before for emphasis and has done it often within their HN posts. It also indicates a comfort level within HN which means they have likely posted frequently. (At least one a month)
I've sewn on buttons many times. Never successfully. They always come away after a short time.
It's taken months for them to get it through the Lords.

If they manage to get it through the Commons in 10 days flat that would be a ridiculously impressive feat. Can't see it happening myself...

http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2009-10/digitaleconomy.h...
That sounds like a decent explanation, but won't they sense that something is wrong when they touch these objects? I mean stuff like plastic caps are stiff and hard, while fish are not. May be the fact that they evolved to swallow their food instead of chewing it may make it harder for them to distinguish a fish from a plastic cap even when it's in their beak?
So simple anyone could have done it, right?
Making a startup with Django and 50$
"hacking" is a bit too much like link bait, but "attempting to access a Facebook account that wasn't their own." was too long for the title.
I once kicked a tin foil sandwich wrapper into a bin on the street from my hands at about a 10 foot distance without losing a step. Unfortunately nobody witnessed the most glorious moment of my life, and I looked around with massive futility to find someone who actually noticed. The moment after my most glorious moment thus became my least glorious moment.
it is very nicely done, and very simple. Though I'm wondering why the default, or only option is to download the pdf's rather than have them open in a new window?

I see the 'download' buttons, but was expecting a click on the link to open the pdf, not download it. I don't need a download folder chock full of pdfs

Otherwise, a really nice site.
It's funny how one can see that you are a mac/iPhone user.. You are, aren't you? ;)

I don't own a smartphone; if I did, it would never ever be an iPhone. I do own a macintosh laptop, but run Linux on it.

The reason I think the submarine patent is fake is that submarine patents are a risk for H.264 as well. MPEG LA are laying low until H.264 is widespread and they can really apply the thumbscrews; who know how many dozens of other companies are using the same strategy, biding their time until payday?
It is highly significant to me that Apple switched its general counsel this past September by bringing in Intel's general counsel, Bruce Sewell, to fill the role.

Intel has been notoriously aggressive over the years in using its patent portfolio as a hammer against rivals, including AMD, to keep its competitive advantage, and Mr. Sewell is, among other things, a leading patent litigator by background, training, and experience. His fit for the role of leading protector of Apple's treasure chest of patents is, to me, an obvious one, and it is a fit precisely because Mr. Sewell has lots of experience in fighting patent fights on both sides of a case. For a pretty good write-up discussing Mr. Sewell's appointment as Apple's GC and some of these implications, see http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/apple-snaps-up-bruce-sewe....

Another point to note here: Mr. Sewell replaced Dan Cooperman in the GC role. I worked with Dan years ago at a prominent San Francisco law firm and he is a splendid lawyer but he is not a litigator and never has been. He is said to have "retired" in stepping down from the Apple GC role but he in fact moved back to his old firm, where is once again doing corporate work (http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202446350729&rss=...).

Now, a switch in general counsel can happen for many reasons but the circumstances here would suggest that one very important reason for the switch that occurred last September with Mr. Sewell's appointment is that Apple intends to be very aggressive about patent enforcement. While we can't know this for sure from the outside, we can know that it has certainly armed itself well to pursue that goal should it need or desire to do so.
Kids writing code
Looks nice, but "Powered by Google Search Api"..
It helped me to think about it in terms of connected graphs. Nodes are versions and arcs are changes. A path between two versions is the aggregation of changes.
Merging then becomes walking down the same path, but starting from a different node. I start at my current version node, and I walk down your path of changes. It's very different than trying to merge two nodes.

(This is just my mental model, no need to read into it more than that)
Open Source beer, Open Source Restaurant - Neither of these have a processor or code. But they are still called Open Source. Maybe you don't agree with those terms too.

But taking the idea of free/open source software in to anything in real life is an interesting trend, IMO.
I think the biggest conceptual difference between looking at "versions" versus "changes" is that versions imply a linear, static, and/or sequential history of revisions. By instead thinking of changes, you get a more open concept of a malleable history, in which you have more freedom to change histories or branches.

Eg, if you want to split the development branch (trunk?) into two competing experiments, and then discard the losing branch at the end, a linear history of version/revision numbers split between two branches seems limiting IMO.

Eg2, if you are working on a new feature or set of code that you haven't yet pushed to the server, having an open stack of changes gives you the freedom to modify and improve those changes without cluttering the commit history. When you're done, you simply push the finalized set of changes on top of the target branch.
I think the article says it has been done before but that the previous version had too wide a gap, and possibly a different morphology, and so the thread would slip out.

This appears to be a rediscovery of an old invention in that case, so presumably a patent won't be granted.
Which Tread Pattern: Directional Or Asymmetric? « Tires and wheels guide
but you didn't figure out about canadian sales tax yet ;) http://www.tarsnap.com/legal-why.html#NOCANADIANS
Sorry, but I couldn't resist, I'm pretending that someone asked me those questions...

Programming FAQ by edw519

What editor do you use?

Textpad.

How can I learn to program?

Find a customer with unreasonable deadlines. Hit them. Repeat. It won't be pretty, but you'll be the kind of programmer I'd go into battle with: great at the things that really matter and mediocre at the things that don't.

Why do you advise plunging right into a programming project instead of carefully planning it first?

It's incredibly difficult for anyone to define what they want when they start with nothing. It's human nature (incredibly easy) to criticize what you have and how to make it better. Plunging right in and producing anything raises you from LevelIncrediblyDifficlut to LevelHumanNature.

Why do you keep going on about PICK?

I have a very small back pocket that holds everything you need to program in PICK. Whatever you can do in technology <x>, I can probably do in PICK, often quicker and easier.

Isn't object-oriented programming naturally suited to some problems?

Sure, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to use formal object-oriented technology. You can mimic the concepts with almost any technology.
PG actually hid comment karma for a while, but it was quickly restored. It's just a very useful shortcut for scanning comment threads.
you got it totally backwards

concept is exactly what you apply a patent for, implementation is application of concept
* was a guitar prodigy in my teens

* almost got booted from college for publishing the president's dirty laundry on Paul Schrader's dime

* had 3 top 40 songs with my band on the radio (alt top 40)

* founded a pr agency at 26

* had my own newspaper column before 30

* got a client 25 minutes on cnn int (valued at 6 million us)

* was the first to publicly attack the junta after the coup in thailand in 2006

* was interviewed on live tv for an hour without a script (hellish)

* taught myself a handful of computer languages and secured early funding for an internet startup

* got to brag about it all on hn =)
I like the idea of recording, but I don't really like the idea of ranking users. For one, who does the ranking? The users themselves are biased towards their own works and wouldn't produce a fair result, and ranking the performances algorithmically sounds like a recipe for disaster.

I think a better solution is to instead try to form social networks. You could be matched with other users that like the same sort of music and have the same sort of skill level as you and you can swap performances and compositions.
Right. Digg dropped memcached entirely from their architecture when we added RowsCached to Cassandra.