skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
In an ideal world businesses would not behave anti-competitively and this would have great benefits for society.

In this particular real world you can't micromanage like that, and you'd end up with bad government if you even tried, but still companies are punished for the anti-competitive actions which are big or bad enough to be worth prosecuting, and are generally expected to refrain from doing so all by themselves. (Often they are encouraged to self-regulate by the threat of intrusive mandated regulation.)

I personally would prefer it if patents, standards bodies and a few other such institutions were reformed to encourage greater competition and prevent anti-competitive behaviour.

In the particular case of H.264 there are a range of problems with the current system, even before you bring web standards and browsers into the picture. Basically patents plus network effects are a bad mix and MPEG has the whole world on a patent upgrade treadmill. Ironically, standards were a previously successful tool to avoid proprietary vendor lock-in, but they have since been captured by the very organisations they were meant to regulate.

Making any royalty-free standard mandatory (e.g. Theora) is only an issue because of potential patent claims from trolls in general or MPEG-LA members specifically. This can and should be fixed in the patent system (e.g. China have announced plans to compulsorily licence patents that have claims on mandated standards, some US legal authorities suggest that it be your responsibility to notify standards bodies of patent issues or else you lose your patent rights, many EU member states don't consider MPEG "open" standards because they require royalties and so can't be used by government). Without that patent threat there is no substantive reason to not implement Theora (or any potential VP8 derived codec).

My own understanding is, even with the vagueness of the current patent system, that the groups who have refused to implement Theora have done so primarily because of influence brought to bear on them by MPEG-LA which makes any suggestion of anti-competitiveness of Theora circular since it relies on the existence of an anti-competive body which is using its power to prevent implementations of rival codecs.
Can you recommend an Io book for me? I want to hunt down the author and try to encourage them to make their code more Rubyish. Because you know, that's helpful.
Whether you consider these things amazing is up to you, but I'm happy about them.

* I obtained a government apology for the mistreatment of Alan Turing

* I wrote an original book

* I went to Oxford after my state school told me I wasn't up to it, I stayed and did a doctorate there

* I learnt to swim when I was 21

* I learnt to speak French fluently as an adult
I think a better solution is to have both features in branches, and have a 3rd branch which allows realtime switching between the 2.

a nice upside is that you can merge changes to each feature up into the "combined" branch as they get stable, to test side by side. when you finally finish, you can leave feature a behind by merging b into your release, or vice versa. or maybe even merge both into mainline.

sorry, the point I was trying to make is that cheap branching and merging is still an easier way to manage this situation than just ignoring branches altogether.
Android Wins Over Open Source Mobile Developers, Growing 3x Faster Than iPhone
Opera + Chrome + Mozilla (i.e. Theora supporting) market share varies by region but is probably over 50% in every european country bar the UK

Why do Opera users always say something like this? "Opera (and the important browsers) has some huge market share!" 0.2 + 18 + 43 > 50, but the 0.2 really doesn't matter.
The plaintiff is "a 12-man operation that gets most of its revenue from licensing its intellectual property".

So they sue people who use stuff they've patented but don't actually use themselves.

Patent law badly needs to change.
first link i checked was pay-for, despite "free" appearing in various places.
It is. Reducing China's dependency on Coal is a huge priority for both China and the international community. It was a big point of discussion during last year's talks at Copenhagen.
I think in this case a version is the changes along with the base they're applied to. Whereas a change set is a difference between 1 version and another. like a diff or delta.
To make them easier to compare, before and after pictures resized so they line up with each other properly.

Before:http://img714.yfrog.com/i/beforem.png/

After:http://img185.yfrog.com/i/afterq.png/

It shows up the use of the clone tool around the bottom of the images more clearly.
Why do you find it "frustrating"?
I noticed Apple's shareprice had dropped slightly yesterday. I searched for Apple news an wasn't surprised to find a story like this reported on the same day.
Wait no, I lie, it's still out there in the tubes

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_KKByGBh0xRM/S0FD11qiIXI/AAAAAAAAA1...
Have they also put alongside them recycling cans? Changed their suppliers to ones that use reuse, recycle and manufacture with recyclable materials?
I presented at the first 3 web conferences in '93, 94 and '95 at CERN, Chicago and Darmstadt.

Quite proud that the paper I presented in Chicago in '94 suggested that it might be a good to build programmatic extensibility into web browsers - possibly using a virtual machine. I remember the audience thinking it was a very silly idea... ;-)

Given the precedent of the Eolas case I wonder how much my employer might have made if that idea had been patented. Fortunately they didn't approve of me doing that work so that never happened.
Do you really think there are too few people that want to buy a breadboard in Boston that the store would take a loss on having a few in stock? I think it's just not "profitable enough" for them.

What I said was that the fanboys claim that the free market will utilize every opportunity of profit, and I'm claiming that's not borne out by experience.
aren't threads already sorted by karma (amongst other factors)?

but anyway, i'm not saying karma is not useful - this just makes the way i use the site less frustrating for me. i threw it out there in case others felt the same way, is all.
I imagine this might have an unplanned benefit to sewers -- you can use a smaller needle for the thickness of thread you're sewing with. Even using a threader requires you to pull the string through doubled. However, it looks like the eye of the needle is thicker than other needles of the same size. I can't be sure, because I can't tell how big the needle in the picture is.
Cassandra isn't easy to learn like, say, couchdb. But Couch uses JSON (An awesome choice, BTW), and Cassandra uses Thrift.

Cassandra is kinda difficult to pick up because there is no SQL equivalent, there are no relationships, joins or "where"s.

So, basically, it's an engine without user friendly controls. But - it's probably the most awesomely powerful storage engine yet available in the public domain.

Imagine if Google released a server image of one of their storage nodes... ostensibly, that's what Facebook did with Cassandra.
Employers: Look to gaming to motivate staff
schliz writes
"Like in World of Warcraft, students of Indiana University's game design classes start as Level 1 avatars with 0 XP, and progress by completing quests solo, as guilds, or in 'pick up groups.' Course coordinator Lee Sheldon says students are responding with 'far greater enthusiasm,' and many specifics of game design could also be directly applied to the workforce. These included: clearly defining goals for workers; providing incremental rewards; and balancing effort and reward."
The reason uncached reads are slower in Cassandra is not because the sstable is inherently io-intensive (it's actually better than b-tree based storage on a 1:1 basis) but because in the average case you'll have to merge row fragments from 2-4 sstables to complete the request, since sstables are not update-in-place.
>That whole 80's-00's trend of making products disposable to increase sales and profit margins was really a waste.

You think that this isn't still going on? Electronics are still get more disposable and designed to fall apart more quickly AFAICT.
I didn't mean a psychiatric definition, but a common usage, 'dictionary', definition. The point is that you need different words to be able to distinguish between people incapable of displaying social behavior and people that choose to display antisocial behavior part of the time. An asshole boss usually still behaves in a civil way towards his peers and would even show altruism towards them. You can be a complete jerk that proposes that homeless people are lazy bums that should be incinerated and that still doesn't make you a sociopath or a psychopath, if you take out the trash for your disabled neighbour at the same time. To use those words for such people muddles the issue: it suggests a lack of ability where we are dealing with a conviction that can be changed given the right circumstances.

You can't have 1 in 25 people being a sociopath. You can have 1 in 25 people being an antisocial asshole.
I can sympathisize with newcomers being frustrated by patents for technologies which seem like 2nd nature to them.

But what patents does HTC itself hold and enforce? I'd like to find that out, cause you know, 'live by the sword, die by the sword...'
Student+entrepreneur Not hard
er... you'd leave your laptop unattended? but not a camera?
* Grade 9 (age 14) I Raised $3500 for the Stephen Lewis Foundation (Fighting Aids in Africa), I was the 2nd highest fundraiser (A gr.12 beat my be $50) But b/c of our fundraising we (the Gr.12 girl and I) got to hand Stephen Lewis (the United Nations' special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa) a giant cheque for $40,000

* My parents are from South Africa, emigrated to Canada during Apartheid, and my relatives were good friends of Nelson Mandela's and played relatively important roles in the Anti-Apartheid movement. While imprisoned on Robben Island, Nelson Mandela wrote a letter (or two) to my Great Aunt. There's a copy in a biography I read. I believe he also went to at least one of her birthday parties. Later, when he was in Toronto (1998) I got to meet him, and sing ABC' and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with him (I was 7 @ the time)

* My great uncle used to work with Mahatma Ghandi, when they were both lawyers in India. There are pictures somewhere in India's archives of them together.

* Last week while in the grocery store with my dad, a woman near us yelled that the guy running stole her purse. Myself and another guy immediately ran after him (another guy joined us on the way) and we chased the culprit into the parking lot. He gave up and I sternly asked for the purse back, then I handed it to the lady and a bunch of people called the police. (I didn't want to brag about that one, but now seemed like a good opportunity)
In what way easier?

A: Create separate branches, manage merging/updating unrelated changesets.

B: Create 2 implementations of something in code, and manage nothing.

I guess it depends on how easy it is to isolate the part you want to create 2 implementations of, so it may depend on what language you're using as well as how you architected things.

Branching+Merging just seems like something extra I have to do, manage, and remember. Like filing. And I still can't see what benefit it gives for many cases.

But that's fine I think... I just don't get it. Maybe I'm too old ;)
Really? You have no idea why people are outraged?

Maybe it has something to do with the pictures.

What you cant see you ignore...
well, you can check my recent comments, but one way of looking at is that it's a "judgement" that doesn't fit with my own idea of what is good and bad. this is a simple way to avoid having to consciously reconcile the difference.
http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=onetimetoken

Says it all.
It's a blunt tool, agreed. But it was supposed to be a simple indicator only, not a measure.
* Owned my own incorporated business at the age of 15 (Looking back, it was kindof dumb. It was essentially just freelancing with a shitload of paperwork attached). I dissolved it at 18 when I went to college.

* Self taught every programming language I know (Started with BASIC, then JavaScript and PHP, did some windows programming in VB, then later VB.NET and now doing asp programming in C#. I've also toyed with Objective-C/C/C++)
I'm really impressed by some of the comments here. I've had a better understanding of these languages than most of my professors (which probably speaks more to the quality of my school than my programming ability)
Google Pushes TV Initiative
It would be nice if links to the data used for the visualizations was available. It would be interesting to play with.
Yes. The singularity is near. Resistance is futile. We are the borg.
I see it more as a big publisher trait. The execs at the top are falling over themselves to use Twitter and Facebook and iPhone games. They've never used Facebook or Twitter themselves, of course, and they have Blackberries, but these platforms are making lots of money so it's important to stumble in to the market as soon as possible. Mandate issued.
Awesome page. Love it. An audio sample would be a great way to really show me how good the service is though :)
For those interested in learning more about all this, the latest edition of The Economist has a special feature on Germany.
Richardson Maturity Model: steps toward the glory of REST
Are you measuring the value of an MBA by the odds of becoming a billionaire (or even >$100M)? People achieve that level of success without regards to their education. Hard work, luck, tenacity, luck and connections are more important. I considered getting an MBA from a top 10 school. Basically, it offers the easiest path and best odds of earning $200+K/year and more flexibility in terms of careers (tech management, consulting, banking, etc.). Being a lawyer is grueling and boring, a doctor is grueling and takes a long time, and a tech entrepreneur is a crap shoot. I ended up in the tech path because I enjoy it and I don't care too much about money.
Cheap Flights to Lagos
Search cheap Lagos Flights, book Flights to Lagos securely online and visit Lagos. Save time and money and relish Lagos Holidays.
Open Source Printer
I don't think it matters as much how we think about it. What matters is that the implementation of the VCS "thinks" of them as changes, which results in the easier merging.
How the Backchannel Has Changed the Game for Conference Panelists
So... anyone here reckon they're a psychopath? ;)
wow, awesome specimen of how to outsource/delegate.
So you are frustrated because you feel it gets misused. Or that you don't enjoy having your opinions rated?

(I'm not trying to be factious, I'm genuinely interested)

I saw one of the things you listed in previous comments is you don't get up voted when you get closest to the correct answer. Is it that important?
as a European (Irish), I can say that it's obvious that Americans are pretty far from narrow minded when it comes to tech given the high percentage of early adopters in the States. Anyone launching a new service would be foolish not to consider America as a key market, if not THE key market.
I love how there is no actual USAGE of the color in the article. :-P
I'm all for it, I was actually quite surprised by the number of people that joined in. And the sportsmanship of the 'hare' (see his profile).

I'm aware of at least three people that are now writing software to try to figure out who the 'mystery person' is.

I'd say you need to somehow cap the time a contest runs, so that if it hasn't been solved in that time the prize money moves to the pot for the next one, and to rule out the 'brute force component'.

After sending Daniel my guess he responded: "you can brute force this by sending out a blanket 'are you it?' message, you'll get 999 'huh?' responses and one 'you're a genius'.

Some puzzles are not open to that kind of attack, and I think those could have infinite runtime.
They though of this: http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2007/06/self_threading_nee...
I strongly believe in initiative, achievement, and success, but for some reason, I find this thread a little troubling. Not because it's bragging, but because it's seems to be mostly about "me me me". I'd rather hear people brag about what they've done for others.

At the time I write this comment, most other comments are about "me".

Noteable exceptions:

- jgrahamc obtaining a government apology for the mistreatment of Alan Turing

- AN447 paying off his parent's mortgage

- patio11 saving a life

Great job, guys! You inspire me. (Apologies if I missed anyone.)

As for me, I've done lots of cool stuff, but if I had to pick one thing to put on my tombstone, it would be, "He made his mother laugh when nothing else would." Everything else seems to pale in comparison.
Open Recipe, mayhaps?
Very awesome achievements. Congrats.
I particularly like the guitar/music stuff. Anywhere I might be able to hear those songs of yours?
And by prodigy, was that specific to a style? Like classical etc?
Absolutely true, but this is more a criticism of experiment design than statistical methodology.

Also it is bias in uncontrolled variables that is most concerning. (More than uncontrolled noise although that will reduce the power to detect real differences).
Seeing as entire lakes have dried up, I really doubt it's just color balance.
For me though, the linear element of versions helps me since it mirrors how I work - linearly with a constantly increasing value of time.
Jobs is definitely a psychopath:

He returned to his previous job at Atari and was given the task of creating a circuit board for the game Breakout. According to Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari had offered US$100 for each chip that was reduced in the machine. Jobs had little interest or knowledge in circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the bonus evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line.

At the time, Jobs told Wozniak that Atari had only given them $600 (instead of the actual $5000) and that Wozniak's share was thus $300.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs#Early_years
> * I've read the Bhagwad Gita, the Koran, the Bible and the Tao Teh Ching. I am still an atheist.

Perhaps that's why you're an atheist ;)
Stop with the google-wrapper spam! This has got to be the 10th time these guys have pushed one of their domains to the front page. Here's just a few (some dead):

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1181715

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1112868

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=961822

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=962800

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=587490

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=731096
Why not just do

filetype:pdf $BOOKNAME

in Google?
Will the MSc help by providing a "safe" fallback position / opportunities should a venture not succeed (and/or a sense of same)?

I don't mean the question simply rhetorically -- although it initially popped into my mind in kind of that sense. I really wonder what your perspective is in that regard.
Same as for button repairs and trouser cuffs repairs and so on, I bring it to the shop down the street where they fix it perfectly for less than 3$... (Living in China is great for that)
The first application I ever wrote, theoretically saved the company $10.2 million dollars.

I was working as a systems administrator at a Big 3 automotive supplier and identified a gap in our million dollar production system. If we ever lost connectivity, the system would be useless and the off-line backup system was insufficient. Our contract stated that we could be charged $10,000 per minute for shutting down the plant. I wanted to learn how to program, so I wrote a backup app in perl.

The electric company dug up our data lines and we lost communications for 18 hours. We tried using the backup system, but it could not keep up with production and we put the plant in jeopardy. My app, which was not in my job description to create and not supported by the company, ran production for 17 hours without errors in a complex automotive sequencing environment.

I don't know that the Big 3 automotive company would have actually charged us $10 million dollars, but it would have easily been > 1 million.

Raising 3 kids as a single father, among other personal accomplishments, by far trumps this achievement, but it doesn't sound as impressive on paper.
He probably can't afford it.
There is a reason that this wasn't invented 50 years ago -- most people who regularly thread needles have been doing it for so many years, that this is a non-issue.

That being said, I asked my wife (who makes her living with needles and fibers) what she thought, and she said that she has seen similar designs before, and thinks they look great, but just never tried them.

This is actually a great product design insight -- what looks like an amazing product isn't solving the problems that the serious "users" actually encounter. It is solving the problem that the casual or new users encounter.

Which shouldn't diminish the fact that it is a great idea. It just probably will have a long ramp-up before it "takes over the world."
2 Suggestions:

1)Result Snippet summary can probably be improved, see google results for pdf files for python - http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=filetype%3Apdf+pyth...

2)Website Info(domain name,url etc..) having the download link can be displayed alongside each of the search results.
Come now, there's no comparison between sewing on a button and trying to repair a potentially lethal electric apparatus!

As to duty, what is the fully loaded cost of going to a third party for a trifle? I'm thinking of transport in particular.

You remind me of those folks who take their bikes to repair shops when they get a flat tire... :)
Chickenfoot
Thank you for what you've been doing over the last ten years. I'm not sure what my career would look like without Joel on Software. It really helped shape my outlook and encouraged me to invest in reading and learning more about programming than I would have otherwise.

I wish you nothing but the best with your new venture and with Fog Creek.
> 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".

This supports his point. If you think that a version is a changeset, as opposed to thinking of a version as a monolithic collection of files, you have already achieved enlightenment.
A question that these statistics raise: both obesity and the number of hispanics have been increasing. Hispanics are more obese than average.

Is it possible that the increase in obesity is partially/completely explained by demographics?
This is actually an interesting problem; If you can't evaluate technical people, how do you evaluate your technical advisor?

(I have the same problem in reverse; I don't know how to evaluate business people, so I don't have one.)
There's a technique to it, to be sure; but I have rather found the reverse. Many designer shirts I've bought have had poorly attached buttons, whereas those buttons I reattached myself stayed secure.
That's interesting. I had no idea you were the person who did the pi calculation. My co-worker and I setup all of the computers in our development area to help the cause. Looking at the old stats, we were the #4 producer (Viper). Brings back memories. Thanks for putting that together!
6 Solar Baby Steps Towards a Better Tomorrow
One case that comes to mind - quite often when I do unit-testing in JRuby, and run a single test from the command-line, the test will take 1sec with JRuby vs almost nothing in regular Ruby.

So I find myself running the individual test using MRI Ruby while developing, although the whole test run will be done with JRuby in the end, just because of startup time.