skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Wild guess (I've never programmed Javascript (pathetic, I know)): They've used something like http://code.google.com/closure/ on it to make it more efficient, and any comments have been "optimized" away together with the intentions behind the web as a text based, open, readable format.

That way they can make sure HTML5 really IS the next Flash, i.e. so unreadable that it might as well be a proprietary format. Your source code will be safe from prying, learning (i.e. stealing) eyes.
I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who expect to have a private playhouse online where they can say anything without any consequences, particularly if they want it as a consumer product.

If you're going to boast in public that you like to drink a Sparks for lunch, violate the open container law, and walk by the police station, don't be surprised if the cops notice.

In fact, if you're going to say something that you don't want to get out, you'd better be really careful of how you protect it. Nixon learned that lesson the hard way.
1. Unsatisfied with working at Google, Googler leaves to become a founder at a startup

2. Startup does stuff that Google wants

3. Google acquires startup, Googler is back at Google

4. ???

5. Profit!!
Eye-Tracking Interfaces Look for Killer App
Eye-tracking interfaces have made great strides but are pricey. The key to broader accessibility is a mass application that drives down costs.
You forgot about scanners.
Phone store list
Probably because they seem to have assumed people go on facebook to be social. So they've tried to emulate that with wave and buzz.

"it turns out" people go on facebook to play casual games often.

All Google need is to make a farmville type thingy, or make a platform on which someone else can make a farmville type thingy. Then they're in business.
To Crowdsourcing Friends, Foes & Fanatics: Just How Loyal Is Your Community?
Google adds advertisement to Google Finance
http://clojure.org
Would you care to elaborate? Your assertion implies that arc is going to surpass clojure in popularity. Why do you think so? Personally I think that's unlikely to happen given the traction that clojure has been getting already. Clojure has been designed for practical use and is already being used in real world projects whereas I get the impression that arc is sort of a research project where Paul is just experimenting with some ideas and is not constrained by the desire to do practical work.
> My project has an extensive test suite that we rely on to make major design changes with alacrity, just exactly the way that unit-test advocates advocate. We couldn't dream of doing what we're doing without it.

My experiences are the same as yours. I've refactored code where the unit tests caught that the new structure introduced subtle logical inconsistencies in the program. The unit tests meant I caught this immediately; without them I would have had to wait until subtle and hard-to-fix bugs emerged.

On a different project, I've been able to play around with the structure of the code, secure in the knowledge that my regression test suite will tell me when I fuck things up.

Tests, when done well, are a lifesaver, and essential to any large complex codebase.

> But these are points that belong in a serious discussion, the kind that recognizes tradeoffs.

Exactly.
I think there are many uses for CSS (like a drop shadow) where your site should work just fine without it, and those who choose to use a better browser are rewarded with something that looks better. I believe the shorthand term for this concept is "degrades nicely". If more sites took advantage of that point of leverage, we could collectively speed the demise of broken browsers, and we wouldn't have to continue this debate into my autumn years.
This is anecdotal at best
Facebook is doing more than just taking away something from their users, they're being downright dishonest. Until recently Facebook's pitch to users was that it was a way to connect with people that you actually know. They were deliberately closer to the closed/private end of the spectrum. And back when they had real competition (myspace), privacy was one of the key differentiators. I still think privacy is one of the big reasons that Facebook's popularity took off like it did.

Now they're pulling a giant bait-and-switch. Attract users with privacy, kill competition, then kill privacy to gain easy profitability. This alone is pretty disingenuous, but to make these changes behind users backs (for example, pictures that were once private became publicly viewable) shows a blatant disregard for the trust that users gave Facebook when they signed up.
Congrats to the CEO of Ruba for looking out for his team enough to find them jobs before dissolving the company.

I'd jump on this guys next gig in a heartbeat.
Thanks for this. I was literally searching for this information yesterday and you are all too right in saying this how-to information is scarce. Kudos. :)
I call it 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'. Some of the worst behaviours I have seen have been from people who believed they were being helpful or protective of someone.
I've been programming for nearly 30 years, and started doing unit testing about 8 years ago. I've found it helps me a lot.
RubyRags shop for sale
I have a Nokia 2630 for phone use (basic & light, but has bluetooth for syncing contacts) - this frees up the iPhone for pure data & abroad usage. People can still get hold of me on my normal number, but I can take advantage of local SIMs.
More like "bad unit tests are useless, good and useful unit tests are hard and take a significant chunk of time, therefore weigh the costs vs the benefits before deciding whether to bother or not"
It does happen. I've met more than one family where an elderly mother and/or father where forced back into working because they invested in their entire life-savings into their child's (or nephew's, niece's, etc...) hair-brained get-rich-quick scheme.

That said, I don't see how it's governments role to make sure people don't screw themselves over. Bring on casinos, lotteries, and open investement as far as I'm concerned.
Besides being a Lisp, Arc does not exist anywhere near the the same territory as Clojure.

Lisp introduced us to: code == data

Clojure introduces us to: code == concurrent high-performance immutable data
I think you've nailed it, bait-and-switch is the frustrating bit.

That said though, 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.

So the only way to maintain that - and for facebook monetization has always been an issue - was to squeeze the lemons a bit harder.

Some of them will squeal, but as long as the majority stays you can't really fault them, no matter how sleazy it is.

Network of friends = lock in, lock in => abuse.

It's always been like that.
I'm doing this in a week, actually. And I'll be couchsurfing for the forseeable future, living out of my backpack. I can't wait. Road trip and then SF!

This post was extremely valuable for me. Thanks.
For that matter, does Googles bot support websites which use SNI?
Stop Using the text-indent:-9999px CSS Trick
It seems like a pretty meritocratic way to earn a bigger pay raise than you'd normally get.
We have one such service here, but they have a per-order charge that's only 50 € cents below their per-postage-order charge. Their pictures aren't that great quality either, unfortunately.
So... what are the real impacts on a commercial website that uses AGPLed code?
>Clearly you've never lived in a major city or around poorer people

I live in one of the very odd Atlanta zip codes that abuts a very poor zip and very wealthy zip (byproduct of segregation in the past). BMW's and Lotuses drive through the Taco Bell which is across from Section 8 Housing. (Here is the taco bell if you want to see, no Beamers in the drive thru at the time of photographing): http://bit.ly/a1RHMe

Of COURSE there are compulsive gamblers: They exist in every population.

I actually DO see people play the lottery all the time (and when it's over 100 million, I sometimes purchase a ticket or two). And I'll say, people of all stripes buy lottery tickets.

But again, I show you the size of commitment between business investment and lotteries. While in aggregate, people may spend lots on lotteries, at any one time, they are not forced to spend 1-50k dollars to do so. However with business investment, they spend those much larger amounts, and MUST spend those larger amounts to "play the game" so to speak. While some crazy people may spend hundreds per week on the lottery, exceedingly few spend thousands. Exceedingly few spend their savings.

However with BUSINESSES, people think "Oh, this is a SAFE investment" and they DO spend money they shouldn't spend and instead should be saving. (And yes, the compulsive gamblers have no savings, we know that, and they're not going to have any savings if you let them invest in websites either).

If you look at the data contined in:
http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/emily.oster/papers/powerball...

You'll see, lottery funding comes across from ALL income groups, and the vast majority of lottery sales come from the middle 60% at all times. (Fig 1 on page 15)
I run www.thathigh.com on google appengine and I can say it handles extremely well under some pretty high loads.

Every once in awhile Django will barf but it always dies and restarts nearly instantly. If you know how to optimize your app for appengine, it's a very sustainable solution.
Can't they decide that? Wouldn't they be in the best position to know that first hand? Why do you think you know better? How could you possibly know better?

The same argument exists for why Social Security is a good idea. Right now the government takes 15% of my income while saying they know how to spend it better than I do. They've started wars, bailed out G.M., the banks, and whoever else has paid them off. It seems like they're not to be trusted with much of anything that matters.
Mayor Bloomberg Calls For More NYC Startups At TechCrunch Disrupt
I didn't make any assertions. Clojure is wildly successful and follows a pattern of development that seems fruitful to emulate. But in the story, the tortoise does win.
Rescue Time Google Pac-Man post featured on BBC News
AFAIK even modern webkit browsers round up at the 1000th's place, so that's where I stop. I'm guessing those are value spit out by some sort of CSS calculator as part of a framework or similar. Having said all that, it's certainly "future proof."
... ruba will be closing shortly.

/cynical
In a hundred years, is that something that will matter?
Do you really want to trust the opinion of someone who has decided you aren't that great to work for anymore? Derek is a special case, but generally speaking that's not a gamble I'd want to make.
I agree with the exception of the lottery. I'd rather not have the state involved in this. I just don't like my tax money funding (even if the lottery more than pays for itself) something I consider immoral.
Not just oil: US hit peak water in 1970 and nobody noticed
:) That's what I came to say

http://kerneltrap.org/node/4705

I also have some other links :

These people saw 10% gain in their Scheme
http://people.csail.mit.edu/jaffer/CNS/interpreter-branch

And this concerns reducing power consumption using Branch Prediction Prediction !
http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~moshovos/research/iccd02.pdf
Web devs, don't forget to code for accessibility
Which podcast? TWiT? I haven't found a more entertaining (and somewhat educational) podcast than that, including other non-tech-related ones. I'm probably very uninformed, though, so I'd like to hear which others might be worthwhile.
I see not a whole lot has changed!

About 14 years ago I wrote the control software for a machine that used high performance inkjet heads and fast-drying ink. Inkjets were fairly new then and we went to a LOT of trouble (working directly with Canon) to get good print quality, and to keep the heads from clogging up with ink & paper dust while still making it easy for the user to replace ink cartridges. We even had to design a mechanism to periodically wipe the orifices clean or they would clog within minutes.

Anyway, the reason I mention that is that after that experience, I never trusted the reliability of inkjets and have always bought laser printers. I've owned two and the only reason I had to buy the second one is that after about 10 years of service it made more sense to replace my Canon LBP (Laser Beam Printer -- love that name!) than to buy a new toner cartridge.

I really can't believe that after all these years and millions of inkjet printers shipped, the consumables are still so expensive and replacing your printer's heads with cheaper ones is still a problem for some brands. Clearly it's in the best interests of some companies to not bother making it easier/cheaper for the user.

Yeah, I'll stick with lasers!
The List of Real Life Cheat Codes
Building a Better Submission Form
I think facebook is a perfect example of what happens when businesses are created "by accident", where a product is created first then a business model is grafted on afterwards. As the article mentions the needs of the users are in conflict with those of advertisers and it's a problem.

An increase in value for advertisers means a decrease in value for users. Users want privacy, advertisers want everything in the open. Facebook in an attempt to sustain growth has effectively forced users to accept people within their networks that they aren't really close to and this makes users less comfortable in their own space.

Facebook is at a critical juncture and its future depends on how it manages the problems they are facing now because the house of cards can come tumbling down at any moment. What they have going for it though is that there isn't really any clear alternative at the moment that users can turn to. What clear though is that people do want an alternative but till then I suspect most will bear with it till the alternative comes to their rescue.
I think the us v.s. them aspect of this is all in your head. We all like working on our hobbies, but unless we're able to get paid for it that's all they'll ever be.

Clojure has been trying to solve this problem for a while (see http://clojure.org/funding). If they're able to make something like this work then I think that's great. It's still an open source project, it's not like they'll be rejecting patches because they come from the wrong people.

It just means that more people can do Clojure for a living, which'll improve the language itself and the platform for everyone.
That's just the point: when Facebook started, they weren't "boasting in public." It was private to their circle of friends.
Age is a meaningless metric for a bug; "age" + "severity" perhaps, but an old, low-priority bug is less likely to be fixed than a new, high-priority bug, given a non-infinite amount of development resources.

Case-in-point: Mozilla bug #350 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=350 was open for 11 years: that means it predates Netscape Navigator 4.06, but it wasn't fixed until Firefox 3.
I'm sorry, but I wasn't just referring to the grant money. I mean the money that colleges get from tuition, donations, etc. Where is all that money going to? What is costing so much now?

For all the talk about costs of colleges going up, I have never seen a single explanation of where the money is going. And if it ain't going into research, then it's gotta be going somewhere.
Introduction to my Business Card
Are you saying that if I explicitly set my privacy settings on Facebook to be fully private, it is still o.k. for Facebook to make my data public because I should have no expectation of privacy on the Internet?
Facebook was monetizing just fine. They had simple ads that were generating millions in revenue and profit.

The problem is that they are trying to hyper-monetize. Zuckerberg turned down a $2BN offer from Yahoo, so clearly he believed he could make the company worth more than that.
And your point is?

We're comparing confident "The Sky Is Falling!" predictions, which among other things led to real legislation such as the Volker proposal or whatever, which was discussed in a recent HN thread, with the actual reality of how derivatives as used by people with a clue haven't resulted in the end of the world.

With this sort of thing, you can test propositions, but only anecdotally. We don't have multiple Earths/economies where we can set one aside as a control and play with the rules in the others.

In another comparison, which you'll find repeated in less dramatic form elsewhere (e.g. the sewer mess in a Mississippi? county), the oh so wise political class which so many insist must police this instruments of the devil show they're not exactly fit for the task.

To tie that back together with the Volker proposal, which proposes to forbid banks, companies that own banks, etc. from investing in/using/whatever these and a variety of other "dangerous" instruments somehow made an exception for those sold by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac....
You may have missed my point. I take time to offer supported criticism because I want to see Clojure succeed. To succeed, Clojure must keep the community or there is no business in supporting the language.

Some language comparisons: Perl got where it is on the strength of its community which now supports many language-focused businesses. Community is also cited as one of the strengths of Python and Ruby which also have associated thriving businesses. Community is regularly cited as a problem with LISP (wait, wait, hold the spears - I'm a LISPer too!). PTL Scheme is the exception that seems to prove the rule - good community there.

Languages and tools do prosper and my point here is to highlight how they do so by building a community and what Clojure's "core" risk through making this distinction.

I see I may initiate a language dispute and that is not my intention. Other projects just seem the best source of supporting comparisons.
There's this theory out there that there are creatures that aren't birds but somehow fly through the air using wings. Anyone who has looked for these mythical "bats" knows that they are just fantasy.

Here we see the risk of asserting something isn't real just because we haven't ourselves seen it. I've held a bat in my hands, and I've had my butt saved countless times by tests I've written.
even without likely/unlikely, branch prediction still occurs in branch-prediction supporting processors. the kernel optimization just optimizes for the first case. once the branch prediction state machine as aligned itself towards the more likely branch, accurate branch prediction will occur for the resulting calls (typically iterations or something like that)
Who is your largest customer? It would be interesting to know about companies using Clojure.
You mean, made up? Like, a fable? Didn't read like that.
Web Browsing Performance on Android 2.2 Hampered by Flash Compatibility
I've never had an employer offer to find me my next job, why would an employee offer to find their next employee?
concurrent high-performance immutable data sounds pretty much like the fabric of reality. So I would hazard a YES :) In fact it'll probably matter in a million years from now.
I am looking for a senior level developer who knows either flex or java. The work is all remote and is for a major video game company, fun stuff! Email is in my profile.
There doesn't seem to be an existing London meetup, so I've created this google group to try and organise one: http://groups.google.com/group/hn-london

If you do know of an existing one please comment or update the spreadsheet.
My guess would be that it's the cost for a hospital to get it from a blood bank.
On that scale the money they were making was relatively little compared to other sites (for instance google, yahoo) with the same number of pageviews / uniques.

Zuckerberg is actually proving that they're worth more, the way in which he goes about it is not the most elegant though. I'm still willing to bet he'll succeed but the image of facebook is tarnished for ever, and it could very well be that if he does manage to sell for a much higher valuation that the buyer will find themselves with another broadcast.com.
Gross and I think the word he is looking for is "greedy" not entrepreneur.
I am quite excited about Perl 6 features (not a fan of the syntax though ... coming from Python). While I enjoy Python, I would actually consider using Perl 6 because of features like macros, regex etc. I am not sure if Perl 6 has TCO. However, I would be a little bit concerned about using Perl 6 (rakudo) in any sort of production system before say 2013 or so considering that Parrot has just started to add some critical pieces[1] like JIT and threads.
I suppose based on the interview Perl 6.1 would coincide with that.

[1] http://wknight8111.blogspot.com/2010/05/fitness-of-parrot-as...
Intelligently growing up with a generation, or just trying to stay ahead of plain 'ol American competition?

McDonalds got it's kickstart because it was cheaper and faster (self-service) than drive-ins. Happy Meals kept parents from choosing other burger chains. Salads and low-carb choices came in response to dieting trends. Coffee was upgraded to avoid losing breakfast business to Starbucks.

But I'd wager none of these innovations would have come as quickly if there wasn't a business threat to the company.
The same choice is still possible on Facebook, no? There is a default-unchecked "Keep me logged in" box and a Logout button.
I like the Ning model. I think the value of a social network is in the common traits among users. Ning facilitates this extremely well by allowing users to create their own social network. The creator of the network pays for the network so no need for Ning to monetize people's private data because the users are the customers unlike facebook where they're the product.
Rethinking Cron
Glad you like the tutorial!

Another reader mentioned the Heroku issue as well; sorry it caused confusion. I'll check it out and get back to you. If it continues to be a problem, I suggest moving back to 2.3.5 for now.

Update: It works if you add an explicit gem requirement to RAILS_ROOT/.gems:

rails --version 2.3.8

My hope is that Rails 2.3.8 will Just Work™ on Heroku at some point; I have an email in to them to see if they expect this to be the case.
Network of friends = lock in, lock in => abuse

Bingo! Facebook is the best available means of keeping up with geographically distributed and loosely connected friends and family, which was the core conflict I faced when I decided I didn't like how I was being treated by Zuckerberg, et al.

I resolved it internally when I realized that they were essentially holding my relationships hostage to get what they want out of me. After that it was easy to leave.
Doesn't sound at all like that's what the parent poster is trying to say. Sounds more like a caution against posting anything, anywhere, that could be harmful or damaging to oneself, while harbouring the unreasonable expectation that it will remain private for eternity. Whether that privacy breach comes from maliciousness, or negligence, the same cautionary principle applies.
How to Land Venture Funding