skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Very impressive right ? Except the journalistic angle is basically "kids make money from nothing" when the reality is that they have access to two MacBook Pro's, at least one iPhone , two iPad's, a broadband connection, a credit card to pay for the Apple Developer license plus web hosting.

I typically despise this point of view. Sure, I can readily admit that there is an element of luck in success - but I've never done it to the extent of belittling other people's accomplishments.

On a sidenote: this is why I didn't enjoy Malcolm Gladwell's outliers- you can't diminish people's success to merely luck - even if you pre-append your babble with, sure they were smart, but they were really just lucky.

I mean where do you draw the line? To use his own example - Lebron James isn't talented: he was just lucky to be born with athleticism and ability? Were Larry and Sergey just lucky to be born with an ability to reason and work hard? Give me a break.
Sticking it to the man -- great;
hitting passers-by with foam balls and laughing at them -- not so great.
I'm on my third mac (I just can't find a comparable product to a MacBook Pro), but the whole apple lifestyle stuff is a big turn off for me.

If I could get a comparable laptop (obviously by my own preferences) then I'd jump ship in a heartbeat, just so I didn't have to feel like I was part of some Apple fanboy club.
Think about it in terms of concert/sporting event ticket sales. Everyone hates scalpers. They aren't real fans, they're not going to go see the act/game. They know when all the ticket sales are going to be, since their entire life revolves around getting tickets, and they know all the pre-sales and other ways of snapping up tickets. They buy tickets in huge blocks when possible, use intermediaries and partners to buy more tickets to get around any limits.

When you, the fan, get around to buying tickets for the event you find that they're all sold out already (except for the nosebleeds). But you can get tickets on Craigslist for 3x the face value of the ticket from some guy who bought several large blocks for the sole purpose of re-selling them with a huge markup.

Maybe the venue shouldn't care if re-sellers are buying up all the tickets, but it sure makes for a shitty experience for their actual market (i.e. the people showing up for the event). It also limits the venue's ability to control supply and demand because they no longer have any direct say over the market price for their good/service.

So both fans and the venues seem to be worse off, while the middle man makes a big profit by artificially restricting supply.

The guy in the article exhibits the same type of buying behavior that a scalper would: buying more iPads than a normal individual would require and then reselling them at a markup. Apple doesn't have any way to tell that he's trying to extend their market abroad to people that can't purchase an iPad locally. But I'm pretty sure they have the same view toward a middleman that concert venues would. And the local customers trying to get an iPad when supplies are scarce are also going to be frustrated that one individual is making (effectively) block purchases.

One of the cardinal rules of good business is to cut out the middleman. That seems to be what's going on here.
No, and that's because my eye doesn't radiate light.
I usually stick with the default theme, except for reconfiguring the panels. Why change the default theme? Last time changing themes excited me was when I had an Amiga 500.
How I'd answer if I had a liberal arts degree: "If I make up a hypothetical situation where you wouldn't fit in, does it prove you're worthless?"
I can't imagine that you wouldn't be able to manually add the notification area. It probably just won't be enabled or installed by default. As a last resort, you can just enable it, but for developers who want their programs to be easy to use, they'll have to make sense for the many users who won't have notification areas.
> 2) Licensing. The Unreal game engine is in hundreds of games.

You can license the right to use a patent, but you don't have to have a patent to license technology you own. Epic Games owns the engine technology (source code, documentation, data files, etc) that licensees pay for the right to use.
actually, baseball is where its at
They discussed it in their shareholder's call. But really though, is it that surprising? 30% does not go far when you take servers/bandwidth, customer support and credit card transaction fees into account selling mostly $0.99 products.
Get him one of those one-volume kids' science encyclopedias to carry around.
> but why then was Flash at the same kind of penetration #s prior to Flash supporting video (Flash 6)?

Back then, it was animation / interaction. Flash took advantage of a lack of standards across browsers as people were afraid to use javascript extensively. That time has passed.

Right now, Flash lives because of video. The animation necessity has mostly been replaced.

Assuming Google releases VP8, then your only argument left is that either:

1) Flash does video better (by a little)

2) Flash will find the next big thing to keep it alive.

I do not find (1) a compelling argument to use Flash for video on most sites. In fact, the irony is that Flash may be kept alive for backwards browser compatibility.

Until I know what (2) is - concrete examples please - I'm not willing to put any confidence just b/c Flash prevailed in the past. It is too small a sample size to put so much confidence in.

*formatting
That photosensitive paper that lets you make 'photographs' of objects (like leaves and rocks) was pretty fun.
It's somewhat unfortunate that technology is moving a lot faster than the law can keep up with. Among some groups of people, Facebook is essentially the modern-day version of the phone network: how they do their routine communication. But the phone network has a bunch of legal protections, e.g. if the police want to listen in on some conversations they need a warrant, even if the phone company were willing to sell them a wiretap without a warrant (that's why the warrantless-wiretapping scandal was a scandal). But Facebook is currently just treated as a simple case of a company that has some information, which the government can purchase if it wishes.
You'd have to build it, but how about model rockets?
have anyone used highcharts? how does it compare?
Adding a co founder in 140 characters or less
Well, maybe to backtrack a little, I don't have a problem with that Steve Jobs pioneering attitude. You can disrupt the market if you'd like. But to have that immediate effect on the developers of applications, making them change their UI fairly significantly just for Ubuntu, I don't think it's their place. If they really wanted to be bold like that, they should make the changes in the apps themselves.
I don't see much excessive punishment, they did rough him up, take him out the back and break his fingers, or even march him out of the store.

Also, like a lot of big companies, they tell there employees to not answer tricky questions, because they often get it wrong, or make up stuff. On top of that, the employees probably don't know much more.
Exactly. There are a lot of kids in their social class who don't work as hard and don't get as much back as a consequence.

The measure of a person is not what they started with, it's what they did with it.
Regarding point "b)", I think you made your own point against yourself already: for most people, the scene is 100% different since they don't understand German. If I were to make a parody where I changed the words, I don't think it would be a valid argument to say "but for deaf people the scene is exactly the same!". Similarly, keeping the music and doing drastic changes to the visual you could argue "but to blind people its exactly the same!".
"Were Larry and Sergey just lucky to be born with an ability to reason and work hard?"

Almost anyone is born with the ability to reason and work hard. Larry and Sergey were obviously born with this ability. In addition they were both born into families where both parents were professionals in the mathematical sciences. Larry's parents were CS professors. Sergey's dad is a math professor and his mom works for NASA. In addition, Larry's older brother Carl sold his company to Yahoo for $400M+. Thus not only did math and programming run in the family, so did software entrepreneurship.

Not belittling their achievements, but parts of the backstory make it seem like Google was predestined. Where do you draw the line between luck and work, indeed...
For those of you who are too lazy to read the whole article, here are the 140 characters:

@joe I expect this co-founder position to be worth ~30% equity.
My goal is to incorporate in about a month, let’s see how it goes by then.

:-)
I grew up as a smart kid with an aptitude for math and computers, much like my dad and my oldest brother. Went through high school, college, and grad school wavering between math and computer science, thinking some sort of math-with-computers would be my dream job. During grad school I made my first big shift: I realized I really liked teaching, and thought I might become a math teacher.

Shortly after, I participated in a program that paired me with a public school teacher. I liked working with the kids, but I felt like I was out of my depth (didn't have proper training to work in the classroom) and the teacher didn't like me personally (my politics weren't acceptable to her.) Here, I made my second big shift: I realized I liked teaching, but I didn't like schools, either in terms of their structure or the prevailing politics.

I ended up burned out, left grad school, and got a low-paying job teaching in an aerospace museum. Here, I had solid training, and nobody ever got on my case about my political views. At first I was disappointed that I wasn't using the skills I'd developed in grad school, and I began to envision some sort of software/systems engineering position as my dream job (my wife is a systems engineer.) Over time, I realized I didn't really care that much about the specific math or engineering stuff I'd done, I just wanted to do something worthwhile, and inspiring future generations was just as worthwhile as building airplanes.

It was in this context that my wife and I started talking seriously about having kids. Over the course of many months, we'd discussed all sorts of strategies for avoiding child care -- me working 4 10's with her part time, or both of us working 3 11's on alternating days, or all sorts of crazy schemes. Eventually I realized: when we had this discussion, she was really enthusiastic about her career, while I was really enthusiastic about kids. One of us made the suggestion that she could work full time and I could watch the kids, teach them, and be a "domestic engineer" (that is, create processes and systems to run the household), and I realized we'd just described my dream job.

So for me, it was a process of convergence -- several steps leading me closer to the realization that this is what I want to do with my life. I don't think it'll change in the same way patio11's dream job changes every 3 years (but good call on citing that comment; it was what originally inspired me to respond.)
I just have 2 desks at work and two monitors. Works pretty well for me.

If you don't want to buy two monitors (hint I didn't) then you could always make a desk with a hand crank. That wouldn't cost too much, it seems like a motor and controls is the expensive part of that desk.
I can offset your lack of seeing it. I rented it via Netflix solely because of the parodies. I wanted to see the real context, and for what it's worth, it was a good movie.
Seriously. I have a hard time believing that anyone who can found a startup incubator can't afford to give at least a couple grand to each of the founders that got nixed. It's the least you could do; compensate for airfare home and give them something to use for housing, food, and other necessities while they try to figure out how to support themselves going forward.

I don't know what the contracts said and I'm sure they were very one-sided, as usual, but this should serve as a lesson to startups that they shouldn't get on without proper legal protections in place.
Microsoft’s Quarterly Income Rises 35%
New Material Has Negative Index of Refraction for Blue Light
Would this scenario have broken laws in the US?
I think the ticket analogy is a little loose. Once tickets are sold out, there are none left to buy but from the scalpers.

Apple will make more iPads if they sell out. The supply is almost limitless.
Yes. If you have a point you should just write it, because I don't understand it from that question.
JDBC Type 5 Drivers Needed to Overcome Type 4 Limitations
Jonathan Bruce tells Java developers and architects that Type 4 JDBC drivers are the source of many problems in in the modern Java ecosystem and "Type 5" JDBC drivers are the solution.
A huckster is somebody who is after your money.

NASA already has your money, and now they are trying to demonstrate a little ROI. So pipe down and be amazed :-)
> I would also add that the opportunity of selling extra iPad accessories, insurance and/or warranty is only possible instore, and not from a reseller. This would hurt Apple due to the lost revenue.

If a retailer is unable or unwilling to enter a market, why should they be able to artificially ban anyone in that market from obtaining their product?

Take this outside of the context of Apple here. If Universal decides to release a DVD in the US, but wait 2 years to release that same DVD in the UK, should they be allowed to ban people in the UK from trying to obtain the US version? Trying to artificially create segment markets to suit your business goals like this goes against the entire idea of a global marketplace.

If anything, Apple is losing that revenue because they are 'unable and/or unwilling to enter that market,' not because someone isn't in the store shopping for their iPad. The argument that Apple is losing money over this is like the argument that the media industries make when they claim that every download is a lost sale.
The term liberal arts denotes a curriculum that imparts general knowledge and develops the student’s rational thought and intellectual capabilities, unlike the professional, vocational, technical curricula emphasizing specialization. The contemporary liberal arts comprise studying literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics, and science. In classical antiquity, the liberal arts denoted the education proper to a free man (Latin: liberus, “free”), unlike the education proper to a slave.
It's a good example of how corporate policies create a pseudo-government and censorship environment, and our ethical ideas have not caught up to deal with it.

Let's keep in mind WHY he was doing it: to send to other countries. But that's okay to bar him, because Apple doesn't explicitly mention race or nationality, they just don't sell them elsewhere. So what we've got is a type of class-system based on nation states and residencies. And most people consider that normal and reasonable. In my opinion this classism is not a minor issue, and in the future it's going to be a bigger as the U.S. steadily loses economic superpower status, whether it happens now or later.

Or instead imagine Apple as a Chinese company and China continues its progress and actually manages to usurp the United States as economic superpower and someone gets banned for life for purchasing an iPad for American friends. Seems sorta craptacular all of a sudden.
Which is their MO, when you consider the App Store.
For most people the scene is the same since they don't understand German or English.

In any case my point about German speakers was subsidiary to my actual point: it's quite a small change to the original.
Heh. Many people believe that Facebook was founded by people from the CIA, which would make perfect sense for them to reach back.

See http://www.itsecurity.com/features/cia-facebook-conspiracy-0... for a reasonably balanced take on that theory.
I don't know the duration, but would be surprised if that huge structure lasted more than a few hours (due to the lack of visible rotation of the feature -- the rotational period of the sun is about 27 days as seen from Earth).

The spatial scale is also awe-inspiring. The diameter of the prominence is about 1/6 that of the Sun. The Sun is about 110x the diameter of the Earth. This means 15-20 Earths would fit, end to end, inside the magnetic loop. For another point of comparison, see:

http://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/eit/images/Sun_and_earth.jpg
You're not convincing... If you're not using Akregator, why don't you close it? Pidgin has a setting in (translating into English - text might be different) Tools -> Preferences -> Show icon in the notification area - choose "Never". It could be argued that the default Pidgin behaviour (enabling the icon) is good, because many people expect only the icon, not the whole communicator to be visible while they work.
Ask PG: new downvote limit?
I'm seeing some -5 on comments now, can you clue us in to what the new limits are and why?
Agreed. There are more spots per potential player, there are more outlets if you don't make the big leagues in the minor leagues and internationally, and most importantly it doesn't do the same damage on your body.
CSS Tips I Wish I Knew When I First Started
A/B Testing iPhone App Names + Icons
I would only delete "possibly" from your answer. The lack of any useful answer from the Apple store employee was troubling. The canned corporatespeak does not give a good impression of Apple as a company and the Apple Store as a retail outlet and employer.
Replace System.out with an object that responds to all of the same methods, but which does something clever with them. For instance one that adds timestamps on output, logs stuff somewhere, filters, etc.

This is a very powerful trick. However the downside is that it is in the category of things where only one person gets to be clever. Because the second person to replace that object breaks the first. So they decided to discourage that.
Agreed. Ubuntu is no less cocky than Apple. I see Ubuntu as the "Apple" of the Linux world. And they have to be cocky if they want to make any breakthroughs or any real innovations.

As another example, I have been running 10.04 beta for a while. At first I disagreed with their choice of moving all the window controls to the left, but now I am used it and actually like it better. I think it is more "efficient" as it usually minimizes my mouse movement. What is the point of this rambling? Ubuntu did something they thought was right, but wasn't popular initially. Eventually many people realized it is a better design choice. Apple (and GNOME in the Linux desktop world) have taken the same approach before. Sometimes it backfires but often it works well.
Using Node.js and Cappuccino to create real time collaborative drawing
As you said, not very practical from a programming perspective, but it's an interesting way of looking at the problem. Thanks.
All world secret underground bases build for space travelers
Problems with anonymous (and mean) online reviews
"A single-user client SHOULD NOT maintain more than 2 connections with any server or proxy". In reality, it is 6 in IE 8, 8 in FF 3.x, Safari and Opera
or culture.
sounds ok, does the -c mean that I don't need to make any keys, like if I look at the file on another computer?
That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be fully cognizant of the fact that most of us are privileged. Most of us grew up at least middle class in our respective countries, and had access to computers as a kid.

And we should also figure out ways to bring as many of those same advantages (food in the stomach as a kid, good learning environments) as we can to more people, so that we can benefit from the potential economic output we're missing now.
When it's time to replace an iPhone, one might stop and think, "You know, that Google Maps app is awesome...I wonder what else Google has in Android that is just as cool??"

Or, "Love Google Map? Get the entire suite with Android."
Hello, let me tell you a secret.

The only reason Flash doesn't yet have awesome-looking first person shooters is the inability to implement mouselook properly. In all FPS games the mouse cursor is locked to the center of the screen, so you can turn left by any amount by just moving the mouse left, without worrying that it will hit the screen's edge or leave the active area. Flash can't do that. Neither can HTML, as far as I know. So don't get your hopes high for first-person shooters using Canvas.
Former Hacker: Microsoft More Secure Than Apple, Adobe
Lean 4, Fat 0: Some Arguments We Have Had at KISSmetrics over Lean Stuff
Microsoft's Bing/MSN Loss Rate Balloons To ~$3 Billion A Year
Adobe's Secrets Revealed for New Creative Suite 5
Or perhaps Apple marks up the online store similarly to the markup that retail stores do?
A quite minor comment, but I found it funny that he refers to Orlando Figes, age 50, as an "eminent young historian".
I really like the design/layout. Looks promising!
It's not so much that roads are necessary, but that every single lot must be directly adjacent to one - it's entirely reasonable in real life to have large complexes that are pedestrian primarily, connected via some kind of mass transit, where road density is greatly reduced.

This is impossible in SC4, since every single building must be directly adjacent to a road.

Also, because of the city size limit increases between SC3000 and SC4, the pathfinding algorithm used for transit calculations is really barebones - your sims will only ever travel towards their destination. Even there was a direct subway line to their destination right behind them, they won't take it. This makes transit in the game a complete pain, since the model the game follows is counter-intuitive to the max.

The trick of course is, with a grid road network, this pathfinding works really well. This only compounds the problem - since a subway system, no matter how well designed, has a hell of a time competing with a road network - and in no time at all you have citizens screaming about congested roads, and a perfectly good subway system that's sitting at 5% capacity.

There are ways to "trick" the game - mostly involving designing your road networks in such a way that you create disconnected islands between demand zones. In essence, you're creating a ludicrously broken road network nobody will ever use just to get people onto mass transit. But it's worth it (in the game, and IMHO maybe real life also) - the capacity and density of rail mass transit blows the crap out of driving, and allows you to get people much further, much more quickly. Air pollution becomes a complete non-problem
I find it interesting how Ubuntu is modifying the actual GUI, when I would have thought such a task would fall to the GNOME developers.

As a kubuntu user, I've always hoped I'm getting a vanilla KDE with ubuntu's packaging; I want all KDE programs to work out of the box. Is KDE similarly altered by canonical? This move seems like it can only further fragment Linux.
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Full Disclosure: That's my app.