skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Is it possible in this context to replace Node.js with Event Machine without any kind of loss of expressiveness, abstraction, performances? Or, in other words, what are the advantages of node compared to an event programming library for another language like Ruby or Python?

Since Ruby supports fibers, it should actually be simpler to take the state across events firing, at least in theory, but since I'm everything but a node.js expert I would love to hear your opinion on the matter.
The probability of making a correct prediction is only 50/50 if both outcomes are equally likely. Flipping a coin, for example. The probability that one product will reduce demand for another is essentially unknowable. That said, it's possible to make an educated guess, and based on Apple's track record, it was an easy prediction to make. Mostly, I was just surprised that others disagreed.
Filtering proxies don't know Javascript or Flash. I also don't want to worry about the parsing and semantic differences between the proxy and the browser: a lot of differences might arrise.

Putting ad-blocking inside the browser seems the most logical part, especially since you get the DOM already made so you know you look at the same data.
To me it was a toss-up at the time, and I'm still not sure about the longer term.

I'm beginning to change my opinion on it being a fad though, I've seen some real-world uses that would be hard to duplicate with other devices.

But my netbook has absolutely no competition from tablet devices (yet), it is far more useful to me.
Apple Facing Antitrust Inquiry Over Digital Music
Because of the arena we work in we have to fight tooth and nail for contracts. Here's why:

One of our big contracts is for a couple of public service bodies; as with all contracts at this level there is a bid process.

We are the smallest firm in the bid process, previously (under the same sort of contract) we have done twice as much work for these bodies for half the cost (compared to the other 3 current contractors - being small and agile means we are able to work really efficiently). From a technical standpoint we are by far the best option for them.

But the CEO's of our 2 main rivals "play golf" with all the managers of these bodies at weekends... they offer them a much lower hourly rate than us and promise certain limits on hours/job that takes it just under our quoted overall cost. Then they schmooze the management into putting a good word to the legal department (who make the decision) for them.

Everything is, of course, legal - but who is going to ignore what their boss is "suggesting".

Trouble is; 6 months down the line the hours per job starts to creep up dramatically ("as you see in subsection e; we are now having to account for ISO1003490 compliance which adds drastically to administration cost...").

For us, though, fortune favours the honest. In one contract that we lost it took 3 months for the contractor they chose to become unable to cope with the workload - cue panicked phone call to us ("someone who can handle it") and the contract is re-awarded...

But it's a pain to go through this all the time, and we are luckier than most companies in the same position :(

sucks

The last time round the process was much like the one the same Redditor discusses here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/c84bp/how_realwor... (note: we don't work for the DOD, it's just the same method)

But it is still bitch to try and out manoeuvre the "big guys".
Wouldn't that require some kind of sell off of their assets?
Sometimes I wonder whether I should really try Ruby, but brainfarts like these always remind me why I decided against it the last time.
LifeLock Asks New Times to Alter Published Police Report
I also follow the RSS feed headlines nearly realtime in Google Reader. I was surprised to see that Hacker News has four times the amount of submissions/day than other feeds I follow:

109.8 Hacker News
25.7 Joystiq
25.4 Digg Offbeat
23.6 Slashdot
22.6 Mashable!
22.5 Digg Technology
18.3 Lifehacker

Surprised, because I have no problem keeping up with HN, while I often have to skip other feeds a lot. (That's the top 7 of total 116 feeds in my reader.)
Bad managers are often such a drag that you could get rid of them without replacing them with anything and it would be a win.
As discussed on the previous stories here: FoxConn has an extremely good suicide rate compared to the rest of China! By a big margin (I recall about 60%).

This sounds very much like them trying to react to the bad press (I will actually say to the unfairly bad press) r.e. suicides at the factory.

Signing a letter promising not to commit suicide possibly has a positive effect - so I can't disagree with it in general. EDIT: the bit about being institutionalised might be a little far; offering medical care is definitely a good thing, any for of enforced sectioning is too far though.

(that's not to say conditions are good there.. I really don't know because none of these articles have gone past the sensational.. I suspect no worse than the rest of China - and so a general improvement would be good)
You're right, clicking "sign up" does nothing in Firefox or Safari.

That can't be good for conversions.
I picked the IKEA Fredrik standing desk last week and it works great. Not as pretty as their older Jerker desks, but it beats the phone books I was using to lift my normal desk.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/60111123
Does standing in one place for a long period of time have a negative impact on blood circulation in your feet and legs, not to mention stress your heart? I've heard surgeons have circulation problems when they get older from standing all the time.
LindedIn becomes full-fledged Twitter Client
All this nonsense about whether google or apple will win is completely besides the point anyway. Both companies will end up with some x% of the market, whoever has the largest amount will - maybe - make a bit more money, or maybe not (apple seems to be doing just fine making more money from less sales).

"Winning" assumes a loser, and both Google and Apple are going to be around for a long long time.

The real winner in this battle is the consumer, both companies will do their best to get as large a share of the market as they can get, and they'll do so by coming up with ways of doing stuff cheaper, better, more polished or more powerful than they ever would do if they were not in a competitive situation.

Let's hope neither will win. And that they'll keep trying.
I have a feeling you might enjoy Common Lisp + Emacs + Slime.
Ok thanks for the help. At a gut level, I think i'm over documenting.

I dont think any documentation would be lost if somehow I leave some of it out. Since, it would be in the code and I would just need to abstract it out, if it's needed by someone.
Oh, no. Mistake! Thanks, fixed it.
We can't advertise the product as free because it isn't free.
Head mounted camera tracks with your eyes
I'm starting to implement a rough buffer of 48 hours on all my email replies. Unless you are a) a personal friend b) this is your first email to me or c) it needs addressing within 48 hrs.

It seems to be working so far - my productivity has gone up and the pace of email correspondence has slowed (so a 10 email conversation takes a couple of weeks now rather than a few hours).

Several people have commented that they enjoy talking with me for this reason; they don't feel pressured to reply "right now" and enjoy getting a response after some undetermined delay.

I sometimes wonder if the march of technology has had some downsides in terms of "right here right now" thinking.
I just converted to a standing desk at work last week. My experience so far is that I don't stand in one place. I'm constantly moving--taking a step back to think, bouncing on my toes, moving aside for my pair partner, etc.
Twitter is No Longer a Platform
Ha - that is almost precisely what I was going to say.

All this winner and loser and X killer is a press and blogosphere invention.

Fortunately the companies themselves know better.

Competition is a brilliant thing
Thanks for that link; I had not seen that. Do you put your monitor on the top shelf, lowering it? Or the middle shelf?
VoltDB launches next-generation open-source OLTP DBMS
You don't need permission for anything.
Gandhi, Malcolm X, DIY, open source & happiness (video)
The contractor has an incentive to identify caveats, the purchaser has an incentive to pin down those caveats before agreeing to the purchase. Where is the dishonesty in that? It is the purpose of the contract.
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Martin Gardner used to work at a standing desk - mentioned here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituarie...

http://alexbellos.com/?p=1255
Looks interesting, but a bit of FUD on their pricing page ( http://www.voltdb.com/pricing ):

Open-Source Community Project: "...This edition is unsupported and most likely to be used in non-mission critical applications."
You're welcome! Good luck with it, setting up trac can take you a couple of hours (if you decide to go for that solution).
> I wonder if there is a way a big corporation can avoid this path, they'll have to monetize somehow and once they're monetizing they'll have to do better and better every year of they will look like they are stagnant

You just proved that no big corporation is to be trusted. Each will eventually abuse its position, should that look profitable.

Facebook's buisness model was prone to abuse from the start. They were bound to turn evil at some point. It is worth bearing in mind when (if) singing in. Too bad so much users didn't.
Over the past 12 hours I've watched the rating on this comment go from 0 to -2 to +3 back to -1 Apparently we're divided on how we view Mr. Stallman.
node.js uses Javascript. That means, for example, I don't have to rewrite my code that identifies valid chess moves in two different languages.
The dishonesty is in undercutting another party that is willing to work without trickery by using a bunch of paper manipulation to effectively obtain a much higher price than the original bid.

That both parties collude in this makes it no less wrong.
Ask HN: PGP on the iPhone/Android Holy Grail?
Is there anyone in the HN community currently tackling the development problem for encrypted mail on a mobile device? The GnuPG support via Enigmail on Thunderbird would, it seems, be the obvious model to implement.

I doubt I am the only one who has a genuine need for sending/receiving encrypted messages. I travel worldwide extensively and often my iPhone is the only reliable internet connection available. I carry a laptop, but often leave it behind if I'm going somewhere for only a few days.

Lately I've been using only a notebook (the analog kind), a pen, and an iPhone and the setup is minimalist and very effective for me - and in turn my laptop increasingly feels burdensome, as when I receive encrypted messages from my company or development team, I have to race back to wherever my laptop is to decrypt and respond. In the worst case scenario, I have to find an internet connection for the laptop as well (I understand I can jailbreak, etc. the iPhone to tether the connection, but the instability for my main business phone just isn't worth it yet - and isn't really the focus of this post).

I realize there are some inherent security flaws in using a mobile device for encrypted mails, with your encryption keys being held on the easily lost device - yet I'd rather use some system, and a system I had control of at that, versus say hushmail.

Anyone working on this? Anyone heard of anyone working on this? Is there any hope for this happening on the iPhone? An encryption app, or system that was as easily integrated as Thunderbird/Enigmail? Or on Android? I'd be willing to toss out my Apple phone for an Android phone if this became available. I'd also have no problem paying dearly for such an app.
My understanding is that /opt is for programs that do not use the package manager. For example if you download a .tar file, and it has an installation script.

If it uses the package manager it goes in /usr like a regular program.
Has anyone tried treadmill desks? I would like to give that a try but would love to hear people's opinions on it.
how would they ever enforce/police that?
Why the Vista copy progress dialog doesn't show names of files being copied
I knew an old man. who covered his PC with a plastic cover,
to prevent from catching viruses.
Using iPhones to launch yourself into stardom
This bug might actually be difficult to find — 99% of the time memset is asked to fill the memory with 0.
Not quite Snow Crash here.

And is he really "first"? There must be a baby somewhere who swallowed a wireless flash drive.
Why not? With a VPN, anyone capturing data on the wire would see encrypted traffic to a single server owned by RMS or someone he trusts.
Scientist infected with computer virus
>how she worked 12-hours a day, six days a week.

>"The atmosphere inside our workplaces is so tight and depressing that we're not allowed to speak to each other for 12 hours or you'll be reproached by your supervisors.

Even with 8000 people applying for work daily, Apple, Dell and HP could and should pressure Foxconn to improve working conditions. Imho it's not about not-killing-myself but the daily "I feel like I have an empty life and work like a machine".
I want one...I mean at that price it will have a purpose...either as a back up netbook or an alternate or maybe yes...a kitchen PC.
Facebook: Moving Fast at Scale
'the rest of China' is a bad thing to compare foxconn with, you probably should compare it with the other factories in the same town to get a baseline.

The economic situation in China has a huge variation from location to location so it may very well be that compared to the local average foxconn is either much worse or much better.

Either way, this number of suicides in a single company in an absolute sense is bad regardless, whatever the relationship to other companies or regions.
I’ve wondered about these license conflicts for a while now, as I’d been tinkering away on a couple of apps I’m planning to open source.

This is, hands-down, the clearest plain English explanation I’ve heard regarding the combination of GPL and App Store EULA.
I'm not impress :(
An interesting read, especially the follow-up on DoD purchasing policies but...
This is not really about corruption but rather about brutal business practices? It focuses on "wining and dining" your customers and then robbing them blind through details and fine print in contracts and abusing politics as a means of pressuring the victims.

Corruption as I understand it would be bribing the officials with money to get the contract. "Wining and dining" and invitations to nice places is very close and there is a fine line between that and down right bribery.

Or did I miss a notion of corruption here? Not a native speaker.
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And I thought it was some kind of news.
Effective root cause analysis techniques
Two months ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1192790

Three months ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1102238

This is a really cool presentation. The idea and technique have their flaws, as are pointed out here by several participants, but what bothers me most is that the last two times this was submitted it sank with no up-votes and no comments. Yet here it as (as I write this) 74 up-votes and 17 comments.

How many more brilliant things deserving of our attention do we miss on HN? Is this really a problem? Can it be fixed? Should it be fixed?

Hackers Unite! Don't let the good stuff escape you! Find a way to rid yourself of the dross and find the good stuff!
I always knew Google pockets two thirds of the revenue.
I can only think of a few, but they're valid:

1. An API-defined callback signature where you need to use (for example) the first and third parameters, and not the second.

2. A public API function that has become deprecated and the previous behavior is emulated in a way that doesn't require all the parameters.

3. Stub/wrapper functions.

4. Init/cleanup functions for modules written to a plugin API, when all parameters passed are not needed in all cases.

5. Language binding closure/thunk functions.

Most of the uses, I think, boil down to backwards compat and fixed callback/plugin interfaces. In those cases I think an __attribute__((unused)) or void cast aren't a huge burden. I usually turn on -Wunused-parameter just in case.
As I mentioned in the post real bottleneck occurs when it's used with the other supporting libraries (which would be the practical case). Most libraries in Ruby (or Python) are implemented as blocking processes. This defeats the purpose of using an evented programming library.

In contrast, most of the Node.js' libraries are written in a non-blocking manner. This may be because of the initial path the eco-system took. Also JavaScript, being naturally event-driven language encourages writing non-blocking code.
Qucik Chicken Recipe
Just adding: I believe the end date is a pro-consumer thing and for me it's really essential because I like to make good decisions and that offers me a possible deadline days away instead of now or never.
Very good point. The cynic in me thinks that if Apple pulls GNU Go, it’ll be solely for the copyright issue. (Similarly, other GPL’d apps that may exist in the app store via unofficial ports or forks.)

What’s Apple to lose if a user or developer of an open-source GPL’d application mistakenly pushes said application to the App Store? That is, until another a copyright holder or another developer calls foul.

I’m interested to see how this plays out between the FSF and Apple. Some murky territory we’re getting into regarding Apple regulation on licensing & copyright claims.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/161872/hidden-features-of...
D&R (Death and Repudiation) License
If the void * is the last parameter, just leave it off your implementation of the callback function.
The $1 Onesuite incoming fax service (basic) comes with a phone number. You will be ask to choose an area code or city and your fax number will based on your choice. Not sure how they're able to profit with that kind of pricing but I guess they are hoping to convert some of those to upgrade to Onesuite Fax Plus which charges 2.5c per page sent.

Right now, you can only send fax through Onesuite fax program, if I can send through my email without the program (when I'm not using my computer) then it would be perfect. So there you go, make your hellofax able to send fax through email.
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By "a bunch of paper manipulation" you must mean a legally binding contract?

If something is specified in the contract, I find it difficult to see how this can be called "trickery", it is a magician telling you in advance that he may hide the coin up his sleeve.
No, this is The Daily WTF. "Oh look, someone wrote some really stupid code!" Who cares? How does it enrich us to know that someone mis-implemented memset() in a bootloader that possibly never even calls it, or if it does, probably passes zero as the argument anyway? (Or is dead code because on any arch anyone uses, memset() is implemented in asm.)
How WikiCity Founder sought acquisition opportunity & got acquired early
Practicality. Generally your stdlib is part of your cross compiler install. So now you'd need 2 versions of your stdlib--the small version and the speedy version. So now you aren't using -lc (which is usually built-in to the linker) foro your boot code but you are for your regular firmware. Now your makefile is more complex. And you are running a modified std library so it's a pain to upgrade. Blah blah blah the list goes on.

Of course you could do all that, but it's so much easier to just override the 5 functions you actually use in your code. Because of the way linkers work and the way standard libraries are designed, if you define your own version of a library function then the linker won't pull in the library version--effectively choosing your local version over the one in the library. That keeps the standard library clean of patches and keeps the small, tight code near the project that actually needs it.
Facebook should be careful not to follow Friendster and Myspace footsteps.
I would add that for the sake of simplicity the author only pointed out the glaringly obvious examples. Lots of government workers leave office and move into cushy consulting jobs. Lots of legislators have friends or family that lobby for laws that nobody understands (and that require extensive follow-on consulting to make sure people are in compliance) This game can be played on many levels, at the same time, and in ways that are completely impossible to see.

I remember my first job consulting with a contractor on a large government job. It was a disheartening experience that opened my eyes to how things really work. A lot of people on that job were really sad or angry. I determined to make it a learning experience about how people interact.

I'd like to add that there is a big of well-meaning whack-a-mole going on here. Some folks will read these stories and think "Well gee, we just need a better checklist" or a better contract, or a better process, or a better set of definitions.

These are the same people who have created huge Software Development Lifecycles for big companies. The idea is that every time something goes wrong in a human interaction that another layer of process, checklists, or formal hand-offs is needed to fix it.

The killer part is that the more complicated the plumbing, the more you need an inside track on how to work on it. So systems quickly reach a point where more and more safeguards are added on, but all it really does is make it easier to hand-pick the winners from the losers. If you had the right contacts, you could easily pick up a $1 million+ contract. This is called being "walked into" a contract, and it's done all the time.
That's why I was glad to get out of working for any organization that has a business model based purely on "professional services".

As far as I could see, who the clients would choose had nothing to do with the ability of the vendors to actually deliver something. Occasionally we'd get involved in clearing up the mess left by other, much larger, companies - which I found pretty soul destroying. On one occasion we bid alongside a much larger company who when they actually got the work turned round and subcontracted us to do the work - they did nothing apart from occasionally turning up a meetings. Nobody else, least of all the client, seemed to regard this as odd.
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