skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> Is python really a 'standard'?

In an important sense I think it is. If I write a program in Python I can be reasonably sure it will run on someone else's system (obviously I have to take into account different Python versions, different underlying OS, etc). If I write a program in C++ or Scheme, what assurances of portability do I have if someone else's system is running a different implementation, with different libraries available, and different underlying behaviour in edge cases.

> rather, third-party implementations duplicate features and functionality from CPython based off the PEP they're defined in.

Yes; CPython is the standard. It's better if the standard is a program rather than a document, because you can run a program and find out what it does, but a document just sits there and does nothing (and may be hard to understand or ambiguous; the spec for Algol 68 comes to mind here).

> Python isn't used 'on the web', it's used on the backend to generate web pages

It is used as an http client as well as a server.

> Are you suggesting that Apple should include a Python interpreter in WebKit?

No, I'm suggesting that Apple should open up their platforms and allow people who have bought iPhones and iPads to run software of their own choosing on them; I'm sure someone would port Python fairly quickly.

> The simple answer would be 'because Python is not a language that is used in client-side scripting anywhere on the web'.

That's factually inaccurate; I personally have written code in Python that acts as a web client. As have some of my friends.

> No other browser supports it, and even if they did it wouldn't be widely used.

You seem to be under the misapprehension that client-side web programming must involve running inside a graphical web browser. This is not the case. Ever heard of wget? Or scraping?

> Python is used to send or receive documents over HTTP, so therefore I should be able to write a web app in Python to run on the iPhone? It doesn't make sense.

Yes it does. For example, I might want to write a program to cache certain web pages so I can read them even if I'm in an area with poor wifi and 3G access. And I might want to write that program in Python.
"why can't I write web software in Python for the iPhone and iPad?"

Ummm... you can. If you write 'web software' in Python, all an iPhone/iPad user needs in order to use it is the URL. Both devices have a best-in-class web browser that would be more than capable of running your web software well.

Also, check this out:

http://cl.ly/k0t

Apple is putting effort into make web apps first-class citizens on their devices.
Thanks for the great feedback nailer , the next version will have many of those updates. I'd happily send you a copy to test , since there's no email in your profile, you cand send me an email (see profile), and I will send you the apk.
Micro-loans for street youth in Nigeria
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks that. I've have several times where I thought I was switching applications only to minimize an active window due to the "inverse" colors.
Yep, Europe has set itself up in a situation where sooner or later, it'll have to get a unified economic policy. But it doesn't look like a bad thing to me:

* European countries are too small to be meaningful in worldwide economic (or military) matters: our markets would be too atomized, we wouldn't have any negotiation power unless we "harmonize" our positions: I'd rather have the decisions be taken together, rather than harmonized as an afterthought.

* Granted, today Brussels doesn't work democratically and lacks real power, especially when it comes to monetary policy. Giving real power to that shapeless bureaucracy seems stupid at first sight. For European elections, most parties are attached to a single country, have "national" (i.e. totally off-topic and inapplicable) programs, aren't kept accountable for anything once elected; the vast majority of voters either don't have a clue what a Euro-MP's purpose is, or would bet that they have none.

But all of this would change quite rapidly, if Brussels was to get some real, strategic, intelligible power: real programs would become defensible during elections, the purpose of real pan-European parties would become clear, and if elected people ran on a real program, they could be held accountable of it (well, at least as much as in normal democraties anyway).
But are politicians in Greece cutting spending? All I see are nationwide strikes protesting proposed cuts.

It's more likely they will be bailed out by the more fiscally sound countries.
CSS3 Gradient Buttons
I upgraded from dapper to jaunty 8 months ago with repeated edits to sources.list and dist-upgrades. There is nothing to fear but fear itself.
3D animation of 2008 OpenStreetMap data edits
When GMail launched in 2004, it took one step forward and 10 steps backwards from the mail application I was using. Even today, the major features GMail is releasing are simply trying to match the features I've had on the desktop for years.

Sachin, isn't that true about Posterous too?

While I agree with the points you make about the weakness of the web, you are missing one key point.

The web makes it possible for the end user to stop thinking about the OS and installing stuff. If we had to move to the model you are suggesting, people would have to start choosing browsers. It would be sad if I couldn't use Posterous because it doesn't work on the Ubuntu version of Firefox.

Besides, considering most people don't even know what a browser is, why would you want to make them install 5 different ones? It will only bring back the IT department.
At least you think you would. I'm not saying you're wrong, or that I know you better than you know yourself (I definitely don't), but sometimes its hard to separate what you "like" from what is culturally sexually driven. Or rephrased, why do you like them? How did that come to pass? They came from the culture, which values them for reasons that benefit sexual reproduction, etc. If that wasn't an issue, society likely wouldn't value them, they'd stop being a status symbol, and you may no longer "just like them."

We all like to think our personal likes and desires are entirely our own creation, but this is a fantasy.

Edit: the fast car you still might like, as it has utility (getting places quickly), but a house beyond a reasonable size has little utility beyond status.
tl;dr -- Evolutionary forces are far more complex and do not always select for strength over intelligence.

Evolution != bigger && stronger. If this were true, why aren't there still brontosaurus-sized creatures on land?

The truth is evolution selects the best adaptation for the specific ecosystem. Depending on the ecosystem, this could mean all sorts of adaptations, including more advanced intelligence and less advanced physical prowess, which is what happened with humans.

Your assertion that it takes too much time to evaluate intelligence is also not realistic. People spend years selecting mates, and there is nothing wrong with this. The average lifespan is 72-76 years and a good portion of that is fertile. We have plenty of time to select a mate and still have children to progress the genes.
"No, my argument is that your argument is misleading because it ignores the fact that Apple doesn't have a choice in keeping Webkit open."

Well, not to be pedantic or anything, but WebKit didn't have to be open at all. WebCore and JavaScriptCore (based off KHTML and KJS respectively) needed to stay open-source, but the WebKit framework that unites the two is a from-scratch Apple project that was open-sourced in 2005.

It could be argued that all the work happens in WebCore and JSCore, but the WebKit framework on top of them makes dealing with the two far, far easier than it would be to use them alone.
What is your next product? More importantly, how did you arrive at it?
It frustrates me to no end that SOAP is the face of RPC. SOAP is pretty much the worst thing ever, but there are RPC alternatives that don't have SOAP's problems and are less weird (i.e. don't attempt to adhere to an impossible ideal).

I highly recommend checking out JSON-RPC 2.0 or just rolling your own to see how easy it can be. The one I wrote is 200 lines of code and slightly more robust than you actually need to have a working RPC server (I added automatic casting and support for optional parameters with defaults, just for my convenience.)
As indicated in my first comment, the article is focusing on the regulatory problems first; as you note, filing with the SEC with a 120 day delay is awful. Letting the regulators of all the states into the game might be worse, in that I'm sure angel investments would be de facto or de jure outlawed in many states (the state residence of the firm and/or of the angel).

Massachusetts didn't let its residents invest in the Apple IPO: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1303133

But thanks for pointing out that often overlooked detail WRT to primary residence, as that will knock a whole lot more angels out of the game.
Haskell's tools mostly have the same sort of power as forkjoin (scheduling work to be done on separate threads; creating the right number of threads based on the hardware; providing an easy-to-use set of functions that call for work to be done in parallel).

The major difference is that the tools compose with the language better. Instead of having to keep "I'm working in a multicore environment" in your head all the time when you're writing your client code (as you would in Java, worrying about concurrent mutation and so on), Haskell enforces immutability throughout the language. Often you get the extremely convenient situation where you observe that something could be parallelized, change map to pmap and you're now using all your cores.
I'm looking to collect or download a dataset for music consisting of info such as artist/album/song. Any idea where to grab this from? There used to be a list hosted on Google around 2 yrs ago but I can't find anymore.
Four Seasons Hotel
How can apple crap on Adobe's proprietary tools when Apple send me updates for QuickTime every week. Hypocritical.
Woot finally
Has the most abundant stuff in the universe found a new role in energy?
That's the spin talking. The issue here is market control and always has been.
I find that I am using LinkedIn less and less these days. It is an easy way to keep a contact list (the adding part, but I never use it to communicate with). Facebook does this better, so I think Facebook could completely replace them if they add ways to group your friends and allow you to control what you share at a group level.
I have never seen any thread earning this many up-votes and comments on HN!!
Junk food could make you age faster
Micro-financing is a great way to help entrepreneurs in other parts of the world. You can basically help startups, like YC, but in other industries and countries.
To my knowledge[1], Apple never pays for product placement.

[1] read something online somewhere once.
A full app that runs inside a WebView is very different from an app that is just a WebView.
By "n" I thought you meant all the dimensions in the universe, not just 3+time. Like you were inventing new dimensions to expand into. So never mind that part.

But just because the dimensions we see are expanding, doesn't mean they are expanding into other dimensions we can't see. Here I ask you for some empiricism - what's your evidence? To modify the balloon example, just imagine a flat rubber sheet that is stretched to be a little bigger. No extra dimensions necessary.
> What did we exchange for this cheese and gimmicky design? Everything.

I agree that if you don't follow the proper protocol you will end up with an undesirable site. I can't argue that Flash == HTML in terms of accessibility. There are ways within Flash to harness some accessibility but it is up to the developer to implement these. An informational site in Flash is a bad choice. I would never suggest the use of Flash for broad use. A fun site (like http://www.myspace.com/fanvideo) is more appropriate.

> - you can link to

> - you can bookmark

Named-anchors and proper implementation (same as AJAX RIA)

> - you can copy and paste

"Selectable text" is an option in any Flash text field.

> - you can search for in-browser (doubly important if the website fails at layout, e.g. most Flash sites!)

> - you can search for on Google/Bing

Flash exports text within to the container. Google also can search SWF.

> Those are pretty important.

Agree.
Has Salesforce.com Understood The BPM Market Better Than The BPMS Vendors ?
I love Picwing! In fact, I was just uploading my latest installment of photos when I noticed this article came out. This is the only way my grandmother gets to see photos of her great grandson. I also have Picwing set to mail me the photos, so I actually have prints to frame or put in a baby album. Otherwise, it just wouldn't happen.
One of the big reasons I use Safari on Snow Leopard is that when Flash crashes, it doesn't take the whole browser with it.

That said, I've started using ClickToFlash, which prevents Flash from loading except when I tell it to, and my browsing experience has become far faster and more reliable than it ever was before.
The problems with browsers compared to web apps are well described by the OP, but I just don't understand the author's solution. Have everyone do their own thing? Make me download an app for every website I visit?

This seems like the worst possible outcome:

> Why do all browsers have to support the same standards? This only limits their innovation, and limits web developers.

Shouldn't the solution instead be a new, more powerful standard? (Ignoring how pie-in-the-sky this is.) As in, not band-aids like AJAX and Flash, but a from-the-ground-up standard? After all, 99% of iPad apps have the same basic capabilities; there's no reason you couldn't have a standard which replaces HTML which could fully cover those apps. Then, if you have a need for a really specialized service, you can create a dedicated app.
Don't bother with article. No information on the micro-loan program, just a Canadian film company begging for money to make a documentary about the program.
> You can't have a unified currency and monetary policy, while individual countries have massively different domestic spending policies.

This is factually incorrect, because for over 1000 years European currencies were backed by silver or gold and were thus the same, despite the fact that European polities had vastly different spending priorities and indeed levels of development.
Fantastic gents! I've loved the promise of picwing from day one. There is definitely a large market for the problems you are solving.

This was a great business pivot. I really hope it works out - and i think it will - you could be doing some serious revenue in no time.
Ugh the world is against me today. I'm at work, got the iso, can't find a USB key to install the new version on my netbook, fingers crossed this version actually boots. O well, 2 hrs till the desktop upgrade completes. EXCITEMENT!
That's exactly the mentality that keeps 'users' stupid.

Apple is basically saying: "users are stupid, let's protect them from thinking." Imagine if we said that about our kids: "Our kids don't know how to handle the real world. Let's protect them from having to deal with it." (never mind that most parents do in fact go through this phase).

The reality is that users are just kids who haven't learned how to use computers. Two factors make this hard: most computer software is generally poorly designed (speaking in terms of the number of poorly designed products vs the number of well-designed products), and most software is not designed to teach users how to use it.

Apple is busy buying fish for starving people. The company that teaches users how to fish is the company that will win big.
How would I get into one of those fields? I would love to be involved in some scientific research or some medical project. I have a solid and wide-ranging tech background, but I've only ever had luck working for tech companies and wouldn't know where to start otherwise.
This isn't true. There are numerous toolsets that allow you to have desktop grade applications. Fluid dynamic feel, drag & drop, etc. I'm the co-founder of one of these toolsets, NOLOH (http://www.noloh.com), but there are others such as Cappuccino, Sproutcore, qooxdoo, etc.

With the above tools you literally just sit down, start writing your application and forget about browser issues, or limitations. The issue isn't that you can't do it, but that people aren't.

Once we accept that the issues mentioned in the article aren't in fact issues anymore, since many toolsets have solved these problems, we can then sit down and spend a few minutes watching a video, or reading an article and help the web move forward. We don't get anywhere by saying we can't do things, because the fact is, we can. You just have to use the tools available to you.
That's Opera Mini -- most other mobile platforms have the full Opera Mobile browser available (or soon). That browser is explicitly against the rules of the app store (as it runs interpreted code downloaded off the Internet).

[Edit: What's with the down votes -- this is factual information]
The Wall Street Journal's opinions are driven entirely by which political party controls Congress.

After 8 years of the "deficits don't matter" administration, all of a sudden these guys turn into budget hawks 1 month after Obama inherits their fiscal situation. They're against quote "socialized" healthcare even though the bill didn't socialize anything that wasn't already a government program.. but the more expensive Medicare Part D program was just ducky with them. Etc, etc etc.

I have no problem believing there are problems with the bill that would accidentally affect startups. But if we're talking pithy 2-sentence characterizations from a source with a history of partisanship? Citation needed.
Why You Should Lie in Your Online Dating Profile
WebCore and JavaScriptCore are based off KHTML and KJS, but WebKit (which unites the two into a usable API) is Apple code and doesn't have to be open source (it was closed source until 2005).
.NET is a closed platform — but Mono, which does implement parts of .NET in addition to their own changes, is an open platform. All of Mono's design and implementation is transparent.
Exactly. Apple vs non-Apple (or more generally, things a company controls vs things a company doesn't control) is the only relevant point here. Everything else about open standards and performance woes is just spin.
Of course, but the surveillance was mandatory and its purpose was to control the public by identifying, suppressing and silencing nonconformists.
I don't know the laws in other countries, but where I live there is a database-law that explicitly gives the owner of a database rights. For example: you cannot simply copy the phonebook and put it on the web, it doesn't matter if you use ocr-technology or hire typists to type it all in manually.
I'm glad you use Picwing just as we had hoped people would use it!
What's your favorite presentation tool?
Flash & Flex Latency – The Unspoken Elephant in the Room
I think data is a detail and decisions are solid gold.

"We'll tell you the status of this customer's last forty-seven credit card payments" is a detail to your customers. An enormously non-trivial undertaking, but ultimately a detail.

"Hiya. We're Fair Isaac and we are going to purge the profession of underwriters from the face of the earth, saving you billions of dollars, decreasing your loan processing time from weeks to literally seconds, and allowing your consumer lending to scale in ways you cannot even imagine. By the way, some numbers are involved." is a wee bit more compelling.
Women heavily select for intelligence when choosing egg donors. Eggs from high SAT donors go for many times more than normal. Then again, choosing an egg donor is much more cerebral than choosing a man. Not nearly as hormonal as sex.
Google Analytics and AdSense don't leave many secrets on the internet.

They even watch us on Redtube.
You should be able to use SQLAlchemy with your Django database, they aren't mutually exclusive.

Also, if you think you need a more "powerful" template system, you are probably bloating your template with code that should reside in your view functions written in python instead. HTML templates should be mainly HTML.
Almost exactly 20 years ago, I started my grad-school research on this very topic: auto-parallelizing Haskell. Shortly, though, my advisor left and I had to choose a new advisor and a new research topic. It's been surreal to see Haskell suddenly (it seems) get so popular lately, and now to see a commercial push for the very thing I was going to work on is very cool. It's incredible that it's taken so long, but better late than never.
Ugh, dislike sites that require an independent registration to post a single comment.

On topic, I doubt lower-power microprocessors will be going anywhere for a while. Sure, you can stick an ARM in there, but what about battery life? You might save money and effort, but if power consumption is an issue, you have to weigh your priorities.
ITunes Is The 7-Eleven of Media
Parenting, the best job
I agree with you, and that's why we usually decide to support IE6.

But there's some things that just can't reasonably be done in IE6, and I think its OK to drop support in those cases instead of canning the feature entirely.
Agile Estimating in Scrum - Why Estimate Twice?
I should recognize what, exactly? That you're using relativism as a red-herring? I meant what I said, thank you very much.

Not everything is created equal.

SQLAlchemy's ORM is just better than Django's ORM. Better in the majority of objective metrics you can think of. The code is well designed, structured, and documented. It supports better features and more databases. It's not just better because "it works for me."

I didn't say that the Django project itself "is a mess." It still has a great community and leadership. It still has great marketing and strong appeal for a niche audience. What I did say was that Django may find itself in a mess when competing frameworks provide more than Django can offer because they rely on a community of components that individually are better than those offered by Django.

I should mention I base my hypothesis on years of experience developing large and small sites and applications using Django as well as a few years developing websites using other frameworks and using SQLAlchemy.
New data is usually costly to obtain. Most application ideas would be unapproachable by a garage-style startup due to the expense of data collection and the lack of proof-of-concept results.

Same idea as exploiting an underpopulated niche in an existing market rather than trying to create an entirely new market.
The filtering phenomenon is obsolete; as you note, GM probably still cares because it's old fashioned, but modern companies don't care at all. Even if the filter exists/existed, that's hardly a sufficient or effective motivation to start a startup -- good startup founders don't seem like the type who'd just take a salaried gig and become complacent if it was offered to them.

There's probably some traits useful to startup founders that are more common amongst dropouts than the general population -- like a willingness to take responsibility for one's future into one's own hands.
Although i agree that there are a lot of issues wrong with Flash, some of the things you mention aren't entirely accurate. For example, you can link directly to interior Flash content with SWFAddress (http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/). Also, there have been greater strides made in crawlers so that Flash content is more easily indexed by crawlers.

I will be the first to admit there are a lot of poorly designed Flash sites, but from an interactive design perspective, Flash still gives you the most freedom to create more innovative ways for user interaction. IMO this isn't something that should be dismissed so quickly.