skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
So, by lumping together four (or five) different platforms, you manage to come up with a number that is larger than those using Rails? That's not entirely surprising.

I think he meant "either of these by itself".
seconded - please file bugs atleast. Or help in debugging. A lot of bugs, by a lot of people, are about their particular hardware not working.

Please atleast install debugging symbols/packages and submit better bug reports. Ubuntu developers dont have access to _all_ varieties of hardware.

Yes, delays do happen - but help the developers in helping you.

Better stacktraces, log files, even debugging-enabled-but-slow-Ubuntu helps in fixing issues.
If it supports SDHC you could put in a 32GB card for ~16 hours of recording. Displaying images on a map based on GPS EXIF is a trivial thing and there are many tools (and of course data-hungry online services) for this. Such cheap "spy camera" with GPS is something I have not heard of yet though.
I think perhaps what the parent meant is that Apple wants to maintain the current barrier to entry. I think perhaps they're worried about the shitload of crap apps that will end up being submitted for approval once Flash CS5 is released.
Grafico is really good but lacks pie charts. You have to use http://g.raphaeljs.com/ for Pie's. But that is not so bad as Grafico uses raphaeljs.
How to start in Parkour «
Really? Try HP Deskjet 6500 series with duplex module installed, connected to non-HP jetdirect.

The only way to make it work on OSX is to install ghostscript and hpijs and then dive into cups internals. On Ubuntu, it works out of the box.
I'm not an iPhone developer, but I am surprised how many of them here think they're being helped out by this.

I see it as a step to hinder them (this is modified from another comment I wrote a couple of days ago...):

1. Apple are increasing the barrier of entry for iPhone devs in to OTHER mobile development worlds - they're no longer able to develop a solution that is easily portable to Android, WinMo, BB, for example. They're forcing devs to bet their ability to write popular mobile apps on the fact that Apple will always provide the platform they need, and (more worryingly) that they will continue to keep the App in the App Store. If Apple chose to duplicate the functionality of any app themselves, the developer can't easily move to providing it for Android - so they're screwed. Given how Apple don't seem to care about doing this, I think it's bad for iPhone developers' job security.

2. There will be more ObjC devs now, so iPhone developers' hard earned ObjC skills will be less unique and useful in the long run.

If, however, the move results in a working ObjC-->Other platforms compiler, point 1 becomes less important.
This is a great introduction to the sport/art. It’ll help you get started without hurting anything…at least too badly.
Watch All Live Rugby Sports On Your Computer in High Definition
Match scheduled:
Last updated: 11-04-2010 from 14:45 until 16:45
08-04-2010 on 09:32
This article may be provocative or even flamebait but the author still has a point.

I'm constantly bombarded with things working in a previous release no longer working in a new release. This involves everything from video-drivers, GDM, wifi, powermanagement etc etc ad infinitum.

And yes. Constantly breaking things which used to work is not what I call progress. See fewt's take on this for a more technical breakdown on how Ubuntu's internal workings can be (1).

It's become so extremely annoying that for me, that right now the only thing I'm using Ubuntu for are shell-VMs with a fairly predictable "hardware" config and for my netbook for lack of better choice.

(1) http://www.fewt.com/2009/10/i-give-up.html
>I can't help but think that what Jobs means here is "intermediary layers that aren't ours automatically produce inferior products".

Is that not true though? In most cases, apps that use an intermediary layer will not be as polished or usable as an app developed using the native tools.
Their site says: "Qt double-escapes % characters in addresses, meaning those cannot be loaded".

That sounds like a major issue, isn't? Using % in a URL is very common.
It depends on the situation, I guess. You can “cache” specific results inside generator object/function and still return generator. If your result is something one can iterate over you should return generator. If you then need list you can just convert your generator into one. If your list is actually some kind of data structure than perhaps a more object-oriented approach is suitable? Python is not functional language after all. But if all you need is to iterate more than once over generator you can just cache it as a list and reuse if needed.
I'd say it is a testament to its quality, because the less preservatives the food is stuffed with, the better it is for the consumer. US regulations are close to none today, as the food industry manages to lobby for their wallets time and again by raising the bar of what's ok to put in food. I'm happy that I live in Scandinavia and not in the US.

addendum: it's entertaining to see the rabid downvoters in action on this and the post below me. I think it speaks a loud and clear message.
Ask HN: Hacker News without voting?
Is there a way to view Hacker News without all the voting crap in comments? I'm getting plain tired of bullcrap downvoting and it'd just be easier not to see it ever again.
The article was about Europe AFAIK, which is certainly far more diverse in ISP offerings.

In the UK you have a choice from a few hundred ISPs, so there is no real monopoly here.
Top 2 Reasons Enterprise Developers Use Dynamic Languages
It seems like these cameras have the lens on the "long" side which of course is hell for aerodynamics. If anyone finds a camera like this with the lens at the top (smallest side) please link.
That nymag article title made me cringe. I clicked it not thinking it would be that visceral of an experience. :)
I think Apple feared that more third-party toolkits are on the way, and that they'll become more popular.

I don't think is it. I remember when Metrowerks PowerPlant was the main framework. Apple had let their own MacApp and MPW languish. Arguably Metrowerks CodeWarrior saved the Mac as a development platform.
Michael Porter's Big Ideas
Making a traditional TV in to a video camera would require adding hardware (capture, storage) at significant cost. Incidentally, Apple did turn the TV in to a video camera[0].

Turning the iPad in to a platform where children could explore programming with Squeak, eToys or some as-yet unreleased environment would only require that Apple not actively prevent it.

[0] http://www.apple.com/ipodnano/
The article goes into well-written details of why what you suggested here was tried and didn't work. 1) they also wanted print fonts, 2) they made a bitmap font but it didn't scale right, 3) people want a large variety of font forms, which they couldn't provide. 4) At the OS level, what do you map your key to, if the character code doesn't exist? 5) Applications chose different, incompatible key-bindings, and 6) for the entire country?

There's also a difference between making a font and making a good, generally usable font, just like I as a 7th grader could program, but they weren't good, generally usable programs.
What I hate about your programming language...
Cheese and Milk get a MUCH longer shelf life with "Pasteurization" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurization) which has nothing to do with additives.

(Basically intense heating for a very short period of time)
I love how people do these experiments without a valid counterpart. Sure it didn't rot but where's the home made fries with a home made burger? Then you would be able to deduce that the McDonalds meal is full of pure evil. If the author bothered to do that then I might give a damn. Even then you would still need to prove the facts by getting at least one professional to give their deduction.

There's no actual facts in that post. Not one piece of verifiable information apart from the observed fact that McDonalds looks visually ok to eat a year after it was cooked.

I think its just a case of "lets see how high I can get my Google Analytics to go". I will still go and eat a Large Triple Cheeseburger meal this week because that post had no valid information in it what so ever.
Another thing to take into consideration is how prize money is awarded in track and field competitions: There is most of the times a separate amount of prize money awarded for breaking a world record as all hosts of competitions would love to see new world records set in "their" events. This prize money is often higher than the regular prize money for winning.

So for an athlete it makes kind of sense to try and set new world records in incremental steps in order to earn as much prize money as possible. It also might lead to more frontpage cover stories in the long run.

That being said, this might not 100% apply to Usain Bolt as he is already a popular figure contesting in a very popular discipline of track and fields but it might make sense for an athlete of a less popular discipline like Triple Jump.
I agree with that last point, I have a few friends doing consulting for RoR and they don't seem to have any problems finding work, but then again, neither do COBOL developers.

RoR developers are as hard to find as RoR jobs, so I stand by my initial claim that RoR has become a niche framework.
I have to agree with the author about the lack of backports and the time it takes for some bugs to be fixed. Examples:

- Backports: No Thunderbird 3.0 on Karmic 64-Bit ("we'll get it in the next release"). Good luck with the daily builds.

- Bugfixes: Yesterday, I got locked out of my account after enabling auto-login with an encrypted home-directory. I consider this a showstopper for end users. The bug was fixed after twelve months, and only for Lucid.
I agree. The Supersize Me person who did the experiment seemed intent on attributing a blame on McDonalds being evil, and their food being bad. But leaving the food out on the table isn't the same as eating and digesting it. This argument holds no water, figuratively speaking. It is just another pointless experiment.
Re: Scala

This is off topic, I'd suggest playing with Scala. In addition to ML family influences (immutability, pattern matching, tail recursion, static typing with type inference, optional lazy evaluation, etc...) it's also very true to the Smalltalk/Ruby vision: everything is an object, there are Mixins (one can mixin multiple traits, which can contain implementation code unlike Java's interfaces), it's really easy to write your own control structures (despite the lack of macros).

Afaik, one of the implementers Clojure's collections was also Odersky's student at EPFL. So there's talk now if seeing them back in Scala (it can also be done directly e.g., http://github.com/codahale/yoink)

OCaml had shown to me that statically typed languages can still be very expressive and succinct. Scala shows that OO + static typing combination has been unfairly tainted by C++ and Java.

The only "issue" with Scala is that it does aim to be entirely backwards and forwards compatible with Java. There are countless obvious benefits (e.g., being able to use tools such as Jetty's websocket support, freely mixing actors together with j.u.concurrent, using mixins to enrich/"de-boilerplate" existing libraries/APIs), but it does mean that some features aren't as robust as they are elsewhere in ML family (pattern matching is better in OCaml).

It's interesting if F# had to do the same "Faustian Bargain" (perhaps the CLR allows for more flexibility?), I'll have to play with it under Mono.

That being said, there is one 70s/80s concept that I'd like to see more widely used: dynamic typing, with optional static type hints -- to allow for judicious optimization. Common Lisp does this beautifully (at least with SBCL and CMUCL you can actually examine assembly code and see it match what you'd write by hand). Some Smalltalk VMs had been able to do this as well.

Clojure does do type hints, at least for Java interop. Interestingly, HotSpot VM is based on Strongtalk (one such Smalltalk VM). With Clojure re-awakening Strongtalk's ideas while running on what was once its VM, we may be coming full circle :-)
I'm a C# developer who learnt objective-C and started down that path, went to Monotouch when it came out as it made sense. I trust people who specialise in memory-management to do a better job at object allocation and deferencing than I can do manually.

I'm annoyed that Monotouch and a few others are essentially caught in the cross fire of what is clearly an Adobe hate campaign. Monotouch makes you write using wrappers around UIKit and doesn't water down Cocoa unlike the Flash libraries do.

I would love to see a solution where the clause was slightly amended to read "C-derived language" (though arguably ECMAscript is based on C). They would also need to remove the tools clause which won't happen. There has to be a court case over this if it doesn't change, and I fear Apple will probably win.
Before this, if I was going to develop for the iPhone, I'd have leaned toward doing it in Scheme. Now, my only options are languages I don't like.

Previously, if I had an idea for a mobile app that seemed financially promising, I'd have written an iPhone app. Now I'm convinced that developing for the iPhone platform is too risky. The only way I'd develop for the iPhone now is if I had some other project that would really benefit financially from a mobile tie-in that didn't work as a web app.
Yep, there is a reason for which Americans has the worst statistical life average out of all developed nations. Actually life expectancy in many developing countries is better than the US. (i.e. Poland, Hungary).

Bon Apetit!
Timsah Videos Online - VideoSurf Video Search
> Their robots.txt is password protected now. (?)

It lets you in regardless of the username/password combination. I just logged in with this:

username: you morons

password: this defeats the whole damn purpose

I wonder if any of this gets logged at their end.
Thanks! You learn something every day :)
"Why didn't we spot that" (HTTPS attack)
Why is it interesting? You can be affected by the rules even if you are not yet an iPhone dev. Since many companies copy Apple's approach, you can be affected even if you never intended to dev for iPhone.

What if you would like to develop for iPhone, but don't like C? Not entitled to an opinion?
> So apparently native look 'n feel isn't all that for some people in their choice of applications.

Heresy in Mac-land. This is contrary to just about everything the Mac GUI has historically tried to support/enforce.
The things that really broke Desktop linux' back was that there was never a cross-distro way of installing things (rpm vs apt, package managers changing all the time). If Fedora, Ubuntu and openSuse had worked together when the world was watching Vista fail, linux could have grabbed a significant market share. It's sad to say this, but I think it's too late now. Linux might succeed on severs, smartphones and cloud os devices, but it has lost the war for the desktop to Windows and Mac Os X.
And it appears Apple won't be the one pushing it forward, despite all their work on webkit. Which is enough for me to jump ship when the time to get a new phone arrives.
Apple Goes Where The Portals Failed: It’s The Hardware, Stupid
I am. I'm an iPhone developer, and I do a lot of stuff in Phonegap. While Phonegap seems to be safe, for now (they explicitly allow Javascript in their Webkit in 3.3.1), that might change, which is scary.
Also I have just discovered Titanium, and played with it. It's impressive: it's easier to make nice looking apps with it than Phonegap, and native components still react (a bit) better than elements in a webview. I would argue it's also simpler/faster to develop in Titanium than in Objective C. I would be really disappointed if the Titanium apps I'm building won't be allowed.

Also, on a more (for me) theoretical level: I do believe a lot of innovation around languages and compilers is and will happen outside Apple's 'approved' tools. They will hold their platform back if they don't allow this. It also pisses me of they change the rules like this.
In a way it's a modern company disallowing tools like those newfangled 'Computer' thingies..

I don't really buy into the quality argument: It's also possible to build really crappy apps with Objective C (have a look in the Appstore). Also, they already have their testing in place, and can not allow crappy apps.

It seems Apple wanted to stop Flash. I have talked to people in the CS5 beta's, and it's not easy to build a well-working Flash iPhone app: It takes a lot of optimization. So I understand they not wanting Flash apps. But the way they worded this has a lot (too much) collateral damage.

tl;dr: I'm affected by this now, it sucks both in principle and in practice.
In no point I see this labeled as a scientific study. It is just an opinion based on an observation. And it looks like an interesting and valid observation that I enjoyed to read.
I would assume that the printer was meant just as an example of the problem (which is that new releases may break things that used to work).

That said, I've been using Ubuntu as my main OS for about 2 years and I've never had any real problems (that I didn't cause myself...) with it, so I don't quite agree with the author.
SpeeDxD.WebS.CoM - SpeeDxD
It's from Steve Jobs email account (perhaps I should change 'Apple' to 'Steve Jobs' to make this apparent, but it's too late) The relevant part:

.net dev > So, I replied back to him, and explained that my firm intends to both create in-house applications, as well as distribute apps via the app store:

Steve Jobs > (Paraphrasing his reply:) "Sorry, if you use the app store, you need to adhere to the T.O.S."
Google Maps Envelopes
Op-Ed Contributor - An Internet for Everybody
Last week I inserted my USB key and it didn't mount automatically as it used to on previous Ubuntu release.
I spend an hour to find out what could cause this and found that the automount was not checked in the gnome desktop config. It was checked in nautilus. After I checked it the USB key was automatically mounted. This might be the cause of here printer problem.

It is frustrating. I feel her pain, but dislike her way to handle it.
Is there anyone who actually makes a living off of iPhone development that was affected by any of this? Can anyone honestly speak to this being a problem?
I don't care that much if printer x doesn't work on netbook x, because I don't own a netbook. Just saying, maybe the bug is not that high priority after all.

If she really wants to support oss, perhaps she could pay a developer to fix the bug?

Also, a new printer probably costs less than the dev time to fix the bug, and less than her time for writing the rant is worth.

Edit: i've also had an old scanner stop working. Os x doesn't support it anymore either. Inconvenient, but it is old, after al. No biggie.
Rodents eat discarded Mcdonald's food. I've seen it.
Excerpt: 500 apps in the App Store are built on Mono and Unity3D alone. That's excluding non-3D apps. Source:
http://www.mono-project.com/Software

Presumably these would all be affected.
I'm currently not an iPhone/iXX developer and this Apple move is a strong incentive to stay away from it. The risk on the investment into it is too high for me now. By risk I mean being suddenly locked out for arbitrary and unpredictable reasons, or access fee raised, etc.
Just stumbled on these links while reading http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1253411 . While not strictly about interviewing, they might be of interest to you in your quest for developers:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FindingGreatDeveloper...

http://stu.mp/2010/03/howto-recruit-rock-stars.html

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1451216/how-to-recruit-gr...
I like how "dynamic languages" now means "not C# or Java". The reason C# and Java projects take a long time is because C# and Java suck. But there are "static languages" that are just as quick to develop in as "dynamic languages", like Haskell, Scala, F#, and so on.

I guess ActiveState doesn't sell support for those, though, so no need to mention them, I guess...
OK this is a common failing in minds of laymen..

The fact that 99.4 cents of every dollar spent "after the hardware purchase" goes to apple platform.. doesn't make it a monopoly.. it merely means that it is the most successful add-on market..

A good example for comparison.. is a bit old, but illustrates this particular point beautifully.

The fact that more companies are interested in producing add-on stuff for a product and that consumers are more interested in BUYING that stuff.. doesn't mean that a company is anti competitive/antitrust regulated/a monopoly..

Volkswagen beetle aftermarket parts spent some 30+ years as the king of aftermarket parts .. everything from "third party" replacement oem style parts (stuff that matched the original but was cheaper for whatever reason) as well as stuff that essentially completely changed the product into something else (dune buggy conversions, engine swaps, totally different interiors, etc)

Was VW a monopoly because for 30 years 4 out of every 5 dollars spent on "aftermarket parts" was spent on Beetle bits? no and no one ever thought to consider or call it one.. it was just a hugely successful model that didn't change every 11 months, and therefore was a fixed point in space for manufacturers to target.. but more importantly CONSUMERS WHERE BUYING.. as opposed to your avg Ford/GM/Chrysler buyer who for the most part do NOT just go out and buy total conversion kits/hopped up engine parts.. there where many manufacturers who made parts for various successful models such as muscle cars over the years, and still do.. they didn't cry about antitrust because VW add-on makers made more money, nor did they cry that VW should change the way they made the beetle so that "beetle engines" would fit in any car (or vice versa)

There is NO ONE who could bring a class-action and win, and there is no way that adobe could sue and win either.

Because "customer choices" when they have real choice, do not make a monopoly, rather removing customer choice creates a monopoly.
It's generally acknowledged that Yelena Isinbayeva has been doing exactly that in the pole vault over the last few years.
thanks, i checked it out, i wish it could output png though.
The world is not made up of just science/not science. This is an experiment for the purpose of discovering or demonstrating. If the experiment is set up in a way that makes discovery or demonstration of something false, it is a bad misleading experiment.

That has nothing to do with its labeling. It's like justifying some demagogue because in no place is he labelled a philosopher.
The talk by Robert Martin - 'What killed Smalltalk, could kill Ruby too' mentioned in the blog was fantastic
Ask HN: What was the chances the poland president die in a plane crash ?
I already heard it's about 1 on 10.5 millions for anyone, but what about the chances it was the president ?
Towards a Twitterwords API?
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K
This is probably the wrong forum but there is a mistake in the regex in the makeFilename method. In trying to detect https it will strip the first letter of any domain starting with s. Check it out:

>> name = 'http://super.com/'
=> "http://super.com/"
>> name.gsub!(/\W/, '')
=> "httpsupercom"
>> name.gsub!(/^http(s)?/i, '')
=> "upercom"

Cool, though ; )