skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I was using Facebook, for a lot of reasons, but deleted my account yesterday.

I'm living fine without it. No one is forcing me to use it, and email (free! but using Mail.app and my iPhone to give it a boost I want and need–though I wouldn't mind Letters.app to appear) handles most of my needs, along with Flickr and Twitter, which are also both closed platforms.

I'm not too burdened by the software I use. I use what pleases me most. Right now that spectrum includes emacs at one end and iPhone OS at the other.

As someone pointed out above, free software fundamentalism has its place, and I respect it. But I also respect the hard work and effort that goes into software like 1Password and Things, and they both make my life a little bit better.
Good luck man.
Personally, I really don't care who knows what surgeries I've had, who I'm sleeping with, or how much I enjoyed either experience. It's not so much a matter of my being clueless if you find out about my horrible secrets on Facebook unless I genuinely didn't want you to find out about them. And I'm not the only one who feels this way.
I am in NYC too! Except I got a home. It's hard finding people interested in design, programming and startups.
Mark Zuckerberg’s sister sorta threatens to take down bar's facebook page
Except on the internet you can AdBlock in which case you never see the banners to begin with.
I really think the reason why people haven't done it is they're trying to compete on Apple's terms.

Palm trying to out-iPhone the iPhone, Microsoft trying to out-iPod the iPod, both of which weren't successful on the same level.

You either need to transcend their technology (which is difficult given the positive brand experience that Apple has) or compete in different fields to truly beat them. This just hasn't happened yet.
> That's a non-argument. Like saying if you don't like America why don't you leave.

Bzzzt! But thanks for playing... Unfortunately there's this concept known as citizenship. You're sorta born into it (usually). Ask any immigrant you meet, and I'm pretty sure they'll tell you that getting over all the legal requirements associated with moving countries is non-trivial (and that's even considering that the US, for all the criticism it receives, has one of the more open immigration policies in the world).

You know what it takes to be free from the tyranny of the iPad? Don't buy one! So why is that a non-argument? Because you're entitled to an iPad under terms and conditions you feel are reasonable? Freedom comes with citizenship because you don't have a choice there...

> It's certainly not because open platforms are unsuccessful

Did I say that? Here, let me try this again: Apple makes a product and sells it for a price. You have a job (presumably) and make money to spend on products. You can buy Apple's product, or not. They're not trying to trick you by claiming this product is something its not. You, having not entered into a contract commissioning the product they are selling have precisely zero right to demand the product be anything other than what it is.

If you don't like the product, buy something else. If there's nothing else comparable to buy your choices are:
1. make something better yourself
2. ask somebody else to make something better for you to buy
Interesting, Google.hk (the source for unfiltered Chinese search results) is still accessible...even after all of that Google/China hullabaloo
I'm more interested in the 'blood stained dagger'

Hopefully it is just a bad translation
Add to that

A blood-stained dagger was found with Liang and his body sustained several knife cuts.

So he stabbed himself and then threw his body off the ledge?
I promise we'll create a "productive techy-roommate finder" once I find the right people :)
I agree - same reason Rubinius will probably be the future of Ruby.

Smalltalk has been around forever and one of Smalltalk's strengths is that most of the implementation is in Smalltalk itself.

When I first got into Ruby I kept the implementation handy and a Textmate project set up for all installed Ruby gems to make it easy to read through the code. Rubinius makes it easier to read the implementation code. I installed Rubinius using an OS X installer, but then went back and installed the source code.
Presentation Hacks (All of the posts)
The work of a modern critic is not in their individual opinions on individual works: rather, a single "Thumbs Up" is more like a single dance step in a ballet, an atomic element that works with others to create the actual art.

What you get from a man like Ebert is a partial ordering of an infinite set; a way to overcome choice paralysis, by culling all but a finite number of the choices. Criticism is how we deal with the Information age, and critics are valuable because they willingly go out and spend their days drinking from the firehose, so we can get a rather more purified liquid from the other end.
You know...you're right. No single person ever did anything of significance. My vote with my money won't do anything. My vote on election day won't do anything. My life will never amount to anything. I might as well go buy and iPad and bitch about Apple's walled garden...

...nice attitude you've got there
In an election, you have a single up-or-down on everything the official says/does. Finer granularity would be nice >_>
Taste is nothing without the balls to follow through even when everyone thinks you're crazy.
Every hacker appreciates humor, but unless it's part of a more substantial post, it has to be a bit more clever than the modified 4chan memes that get massive upvotes on Reddit.

I'm also not the HN culture police, and there are obviously exceptions. But with two -4 replies to each other, I figured I'd step in and mention why. Seems to be good netiquette.
Hmm...my website http://whyspam.me provides emails to hide keep your identity safe is apparently still reachable in china. Wonder how long that will last?
The true in theory is the successful in practice. Have you considered that your ideals could be wrong?
Pinging doesn't mean port 80 content is available.

It's not a solid indication of the positive OR negative.

Websitepulse seems to have the best approach so far.
> When people talk about "genericness", or "generic programming" in front of me, the first example they give to me is the parametric polymorphism of the STL.

The STL embodies (and accomplishes) far more than parametric polymorphism. As far as I know there is no other language with as comprehensive a collection of container-independent algorithms in the standard library.

> The fact that template are Turing complete doesn't hide the restrictions they come with (like how they interact with inheritance). I know they have others goals than mere parametric polymorphism. I even admit that I don't understand these goals. I just say that one goal wasn't met: simple parametric polymorphism.

And you're still wrong. Templates achieve parametric polymorphism and more. I can write a simple, templated, singly-linked list class in C++ which can do everything the same `'a list` in ML can do.

> About lambda lifting being a (simple) syntactical transformation, please stop. You're right, but in a trivial sense: every compilation process is a (less simple) syntactical transformation. That includes lambda lifting, ghc's crazy optimizer, and every static compiler on this planet.

I was making a greater claim that you seem to understand. Lambda lifting is a simple syntactical transformation. I can explain the entire transformation in a paragraph or less. I can offer example code of the transformation off the top of my head with ease. All lambda lifting does is make explicit what closures allow to remain implicit.

Your following two paragraphs are a fairly obvious attempt to change your original, wrong statement into something defensible.

> So, a language without lambdas doesn't treat functions as first class citizens.

Ridiculous. A language without lambdas is just that: a language without lambdas. Remove lambda from Python, and you remove only the ability of a Python programmer to define unnamed functions. Functions remain first class; their binding rules remain exactly the same. The only difference is that now programmers must give a name to all their functions.
I'm certainly not trying to start a fight or anything, but there's a lot of bad testing out there, and people like trumpeting the results of such things.

Having more machines reduces the performance gained from multigets. This is often a pretty big performance boost. This is especially useful with synchronous clients that serialize requests across servers (which are very common in many popular languages because popular languages don't seem to encourage proper concurrency). Four times the number of servers will quite often make requests take four times longer.

Some of the memcached clients will do additional work to hash the keys using an independent node location key just to ensure locality of related data so the values can be retrieved more efficiently.
Developers also have choices, though, and if they feel Apple isn't treating them right they should develop for another platform. As a group, developers have a lot to say about the success of a platforms with consumers.
Last I checked, the agreement that iPhone developers enter into says nothing about their rights regarding freedom of development language...in fact I think this whole fuss is about it doing the exact opposite. Nobody promised these devs anything, as far as I know. I suppose Apple could've put a warning on the sign-up page: "Warning! You're developing software for a platform that we control and may decide to alter at any point in time."

...but honestly, how many devs would've turned around and walked away if they had?
Who monitors the monitors?
Really? Have you ever fielded support requests for a startup? You'll be BURIED in feature requests and you'll master the art of saying "probably not" without pissing off users. And you'll probably say "yes" way more often than you should.

Of course users WANT simplicity-- they also want their software to do everything that want it to do. This is how bloated software gets built.

Do you have an alternate explanation as to why smart product designers would make privacy controls complex/powerful rather than simple/less-customizable? Do you really think they are TRYING to confuse people?
Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity
I never knew that I had to have a bachelors to be an "intellectual". I refused to join Mensa even after I could have, does that make me "not gifted"?

I think the truth of the matter lies somewhere in the uninteresting middle, and depends a lot on what school you go to, how much you apply yourself, and other factors. Sure, you might learn some things from school. Are these really things that you couldn't learn outside of university walls?

Just saying that a Bachelor's degree isn't helpful to a lot of people doesn't make anyone anti-intellectual, any more than advocating squeaking through a 4 year degree in "University Studies" at Podunk U. makes you pro-intellectual. Being an intellectual is a mindset. A Bachelors degree is a piece of paper that says you did whatever was required to get said piece of paper, which probably didn't involve being an intellectual 100% of the time. That what's I was trying to get at with my unfortunately-snarky-sounding Mensa comment above.

I realize that this part of your comment might actually have been suggesting that if we declare a Bachelors as useless for a bunch of people, the masses will decide that stupidity is an acceptable state of being. If that's the case, I think we should be honest and admit that someone squeezing through a crap degree just because everyone says he should isn't going to cure him of whatever problem allows him to look at learning and knowledge with such a care-free attitude. If someone isn't capable of understanding why learning is important or, worse, is looking for any excuse they can find to tear down people who value education, there's a problem that's being ignored way before they even think about entering college.
Being a non-creator, the quote at the end of the article has hit me so hard, I cannot get it off my head for hours now:

"When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than ability. Your tastes only narrow and exclude people. so create."

As for the programming is a science or art debate: It is' of course wrong to make such a dichotomy. People who draw a thick boundary between these two, I think, appreciate neither art or science. Programming is a science, it's true, but it also is a thing of beauty, much as a game of Go, or a beautiful mathematical theorem. Any scientific endevour you do passionately is worth to be called an art, I think (and vice versa). Let us not make the mistake that John Keating makes when he says:

"We don't read and write poetry because it's cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"
That would cut into iPhone profit margins.
Looks really cool, just from a sales / marketing perspective I'd change "Braintrust Features:" to "Braintrust Benefits:"
This is a baby step away from Onion level.

"In the employee's pocket was a short suicide note with the wrong date. It read 'I am so sad I decided to jump off the building. Oh and I may or may not have decided to cut myself with a knife, too. Goodbye cruel world.'

Mysteriously, the employee spelled his own name wrong in the note.

Police are still investigating if this was a suicide."
After reading this article, I want to start a company

Do you really want to? or do you just want to pontificate on the internet using this as a coy rhetorical device? Because, you know, if you really wanted to...well, you might just be successful!
I saw a comment in here about people who earn degrees but end up in jobs that aren't even remotely related to them:

I just started a job at the data center of a major mobile provider, electronics developer and appliance manufacturing organization. My particular department is the IT department that supports the call center operations, there are six guys total in my department.

I have a degree in political science.
Jim (names have been changed) has a degree in biology.
Joe has a degree in English
Ken has a degree in environmental science.

Just barely 80% of the people in my department don't have computer science degrees, but we're working in the IT department of a mobile provider. How did we get the jobs? We're all hackers who grew up around technology and got practical, real-life experience.

Personally, I think that's the way to go.
But at the same time, I'm reminded everyday of how important humanities studies are, when I'm in a conversation with someone younger than me about politics, and I bring up the Holocaust and they genuinely don't know what the Holocaust is.

Then I see people who vehemently defend the notion that if you don't make practical application of the knowledge provided in these humanities class, they're moot and you don't need to know them.

Talk about being on the fence, I'm living it everyday.
Put your pants back on. People don't need a contract to complain. I bought an ipad because I thought the advantages outweighed the disadvantages. I still do. For now, I'll occasionally post about the advantages & occasionally also complain about the disadvantages. Maybe I'll jailbreak it. Or maybe I'll sell it when something better comes along. Life is more complex than "buy something else" & there are more important things to get angry about.
Canada is a bit of a backwater. Depending on your action plan, if you plan to unfold you product line at slower rate, it should be fine. Things here move alot slower...
And for when investing into you, I found that investors want more then commitment and the team. There is alot of money to be invested in Canada, but they don't go for same kinds of new technologies, as they do in U.S.

Most of tech shops in Canada are founded as outsource points for development support for startups south of the border.

Reason number one, start-ups aren't welcome here(as they are in U.S.), is that in Canada you need permission - for everything. You are sort of expected to get permission to do your own disruptive thing. Which kind of defeats core purpose and dynamics of a startup.
There are ALWAYS going to be polarizing issues and periodic political turmoil of some variant and degree. A leading point of merit selection (appointment) is stability and an independent leg of the three legs of federal government from the whimsy of term service on the electoral system. Consider the stability of government where all three branches are subject to strong lobbyist (big big money) influence on decision making. A branch of government which serves as an appointed anchor provides stability, like the string on a kite. Cut the string and where does the kite fly?
Jobs is simply saying for anyone who doesn't like it there are other stores to shop at.

It's more like an entire state prohibiting any stores whatsoever except Walmart and then dictating Walmart can't sell pornography. So, sure, if you don't like it, you can up sticks and go a long way away (or just use Safari to get stuff off the Web, like anyone sane does).
"Kill Apple" is a poor goal. One of the first things Steve Jobs said upon returning to Apple was "We have to let go of the notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft has to lose."

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1001-202143.html

Instead, try to make things people want.
To be fair, Foxconn employs over 300,000 workers in Shenzen. Yes, really -- they are the world's largest electronics manufacturer. To put that in perspective, that's more than two Shenzen Foxconn employees for every living MIT alumnus. Three hundred thousand. That's a lot of people.

What has made these stories news is the suicide last July of a Foxconn employee who lost a prototype iPhone. However, suicides since then have not all been further results of product security breaches. Again, it's not entirely unexpected when you're talking about three hundred thousand people in close quarters that there will be some suicide, drama, criminality and perhaps even murder within that population. It's probably doing better by many measures than most cities of that size in the region.
> This prediction has been made for decades now. I suppose if people keep predicting this indefinitely, someday it will become true.

One day is on purpose very vague, I haven't a clue on what timescale we're talking. But I'm fairly sure what will be the sign that we've reached it, it's when we will remove the term programming from language and use 'teaching' instead.

> This is up to you. Was building Google, Amazon, Linux, Firefox, iPhone OS, etc. etc. etc. more like knitting or weaving than puzzling? Maybe what you are saying is that most programmers aren't good enough to build those kinds of products, or would just rather stick to their knitting and weaving. That I would agree with.

Most of those were huge projects, but if you break them up in to little pieces some of them were artwork, most of them were bricks. The architecture of each of those was likely artwork.

> This is trivially true of any cognitive task.

Yes, but many programmers seem to think there is something 'magical' about the ability to program, as if there is some kind of essential element that differentiates those that can program from those that can not.

And I think that is not the case.
1) You read pre-OS 4.0 developer agreement. You decide it sounds reasonable. You decline the job offer from BigCorp, buy a Macbook, and code your application in MonoTouch as C# is your personally preferred programming language. You pay $100 and your application appears in the App Store.

2) Apple changes section 3.3.1 in the developer agreement for OS 4.0.

3) You have to spend the time and possibly money to learn a new language if you want your application to work on OS 4.0, or forgo your previous investment of time and money. Most iPhone OS devices will be upgraded to 4.0 relatively quickly.

Legal? Probably. Justified from Apple's point of view? Likely. Reasonable, fair or ethical? That's pretty subjective.
I don't get why people are blaming US consumers for the popularity of the subsidized handset model. Of course people take the subsidies. If you're going to pay the same monthly rate whether you get a discounted phone or buy one outright, then why waste $200-300.

Once the rest of the US carriers follow T-Mobile's lead and let people pay less in exchange for bringing their own phone, then a lot more people will start going that route.
I really wonder what would have become of Steve Jobs if he didn't have that opportunity to stand on the shoulders of Steve Wozniak.
but it seems most colleges seem to define their experience primarily by their curriculum.

It's important to remember who typically has the biggest say and financial influence over choosing a university to attend: the parents. Steve Jr might have a few party colleges in his roster, but mom and dad want to pay for the "best education." Sell what the people with the money want ;-)
Brought to you by another episode of snide answers to snide questions. This kind of question doesn't merit serious response, it is not meant to engage in a serious discussion. It is meant to humiliate and deserves only a response in kind.
Money != determination

Look at Zune -- First generation was ugly (eh, that's a personal opinion), but it had some features the iPod didn't. Second generation cleaned up the design a bit, was at least competitive on price, and had a feature that iPod's still to this day don't have: the ability to sync wirelessly...

...but was Microsoft ever really that into Zune? I mean, they made one strong push at the start, but then what? Microsoft is such a schizophrenic company these days. If they were really determined, I think they could've beaten Apple.

But, then, if they were really determined I think they'd have to do something radical...like change their name. I mean, come on! Microsoft? That's so...80s! Sure, changing their name would mean throwing away practically priceless brand identity, but I'll bet you it would improve their ability to compete with Apple in the consumer electronics market. What's that you say? They'd be stupid to toss the brand behind their Windows/Office monopoly just to compete in consumer electronics? Well, maybe...maybe they don't really want to kill the iPod...maybe the Zune was a half-hearted, ultimately misguided attempt...

...maybe they don't have the guts. I did hear about this one company that changed its name and abandoned the best selling personal music player so that they could introduce a new model with less capacity at a higher price because they believed that flash technology was better than mini-hardrives and then held their announce their annual developers' conference wouldn't cover their operating system even as sales of it are better then they've ever been before...

GUTS!