skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Unethical according to whose ethical system? Yours? Mine? Zuckerberg's? There is no ethical system that people universally agree on. And the fact that a third party fails to satisfy the requirements of your ethical system doesn't strike me as a problem.
Remember just as there are extremes of cons, there are extremes of pros.

The question is that is the average case worth the cons? Is the investment going to work out where they are held liable if they fail to deliver anything within x time? How can we dictate what is valuable and not deliveries.

With investors you know who you answer to. Here... not really. The risk is sort of both ways, but one of the two has been eliminated with the donation model.
It's very easy to explain why things will fail. In fact, most startup fail. Most VC investments, with all the balances and checks, fail. For any given tech venture, anybody who says "it will fail" will be right probably 99 times out of 100.
Great wisdom, indeedץ
Yes, this project is far fetched. Yes, the tech idea is still not clear. Yes, these guys don't have previous experience. Yes, it's not a common funding way. Yes, Facebook is the current almost monopolist player.
But to all the Jason Fried's out there: We wish them luck. They did the right thing in the right time. Many people gave a small sum each for a good cause. And like many other ventures: they may just succeed.
There will always be more critics than makers; the trick is to remember which really matters.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood...

http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trsorbonnespeech.html
On the Rails Maturity Model
That's another one that's annoying :/

I created a keyword bookmark 'dfeojm' so I wouldn't have to type the whole thing in. I'll probably just create a 'dtwon' bookmark if I end up using the site oten.
The Creators Project
What makes you think people want a soundkey on their business card, magazine, or restaurant menu? I'm guessing almost no one really does, even if they also agree its a neat idea.

I understand how easy it is to convince yourself that a neat idea is a great business idea. That's what it seems like you're doing.
Uhmm...seriously?
I'm surprised @Apple was available on Twitter.
More on Clickjacking:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickjacking

For a real world example, there was a clickjacking worm spreading through Facebook earlier today:

http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001955.html
It's an interesting, if severely opinionated, analysis. The author makes a sound argument, but I think he's wrong. The landscape has changed a lot in the two years since Appleseed was abandoned.

Also, it used to be that facebook was only used by the savvy folks. Now my grandmother has a facebook account.

If they made a one-click installer that ran on my iMac and automatically discovered all of my media, then configured it into a personal web server, then allowed me to friend people via email, I'd probably love it. I might even pay for it.
It's not a "recipe" for brownies. It's a specification for a very specific food item (actually, two items: a brownie and a oatmeal cookie) which form part of an MRE, which has to be shelf-stable for a very long time.

One might similarly point and laugh at NASA specifications for hand tools used on the Apollo program. Yeah, a screwdriver is a screwdriver, but there's a world of difference between the $3 one you can pick up at Sears and one that's designed to be usable under extremely harsh and unusual conditions in space. Similarly, there's a world of difference between the pan of Duncan Hines brownies you might make when you want a chocolate fix, and a supply contract for millions of brownies that are going to go into MREs.

The thing is interesting because it provides a window into government procurement, which is something most people really don't understand, but it's not meant to be, and really isn't, humorous.

(That said, however, the spelling error in the title is pretty bad.)
OK - I've edited the original, and will probably do so further
as my understanding increases.

Summary in a comment elsewhere in this submission.
Now, you are in denial ;)
From the outset, I'm aware that programmers who haven't tried to design programming languages will likely disagree with me; but I'll express what I've learned anyway.

The truth, from the language designer and compiler author's perspective: programmers should be protected from their own worst instincts, and programming languages that do this well are of a higher quality than languages which don't. Patronizing, to a point, is good. The flip side is that features whose use should be encouraged should be included in the box, turned on by default, made easy to use, etc.

Ruby is patronizing because it's memory safe. C and C++ programmers don't like this kind of patronization. Ruby, and Python, are unlike C and C++ in this way: they are rigid and uncompromising in their type safety, disallowing unsafe casts and operations.

Michael makes some category errors in his rant. For example, he says:

"[...] we’ve made the assumption that some language features are just too powerful for the typical developer -- too prone to misuse. C++ avoided reflection"

The problem with this abutment is that C++ avoided reflection in its quest for power (or what C++ users thought was power), rather than its avoidance of power: C++ users wanted to hew to a philosophy of pay only for what you need. The problem with that philosophy is that if you make certain features optional, or pay as you go, then the community in general cannot assume that everyone is using available features. Instead, third-party library authors must assume that only the lowest common denominator set of features is available if they want to maximize usage.

Java and C# have avoided multiple inheritance for good reason; and Michael's rant is not a good reason for them to reintroduce that feature, because it remains problematic.

"The newer breed of languages puts responsibility back on the developer"

This is simply untrue, and bizarrely myopic, in my view. The developer always has responsibility, but the responsibility has shifted to different places, as the emphasis on abstraction level in programming languages has shifted. To take Michael's thesis at face value, you would need to believe that C mollycoddled the user and didn't bite their fingers off when they didn't take care of their pointers, or carefully handle their strings, or foolishly used fixed-size buffers for dynamic input.

Of course C put responsibility in the hands of the developer for these things. But guess what? Ruby, Python, C#, Java etc. all take away responsibility from the developer for these things! Michael says that dynamic languages like Ruby hand over the power of monkey-patching etc. to the developer, and that this is a new development; but to get equivalent power of dynamic behaviour overriding in a C application, you'd be using very abstract structures, likely looking like a Ruby or Python interpreter behind the scenes, where you would have a similar degree of responsibility. But not only that; you'd also be responsible for the dynamic runtime, as well as the memory management and all the other unsafe stuff that comes with C.
Hardly a game. I just got to level 3 scoring 3840 without doing anything - I just let it play on its own.

Very cool technology demo tho.
Going from 1 ATM to 0 doesn't kill you but going from 9 ATM to 1 will

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_acci...
Possible bug report.

I like it, but I typed in Mariners and it said they play San Diego "on the road" tonight, but it's a Mariners home game. So either it's unclear that it's saying San Diego is on the road, or it's incorrect because I typed in Mariners and it should say "at home".

MLB.tv's scoreboard homepage shows everything on one page though. Not sure why I'd go somewhere else.
Ironically, the rails maturity model is down right now (returning an error).
Um, no, it is not a dangerous project at all. See my message earlier in this thread to learn that (1) Muslims don't get angry over generic depictions, (2) Insulting Muslims with pictures of Mohammad is no more insulting than just using words, (3) Muslims are a tiny relatively powerless minority in the US, and (4) there is no rational basis for believing that drawing pictures by itself will endanger you.
Well, I wake up every morning feeling like P Diddy...
A 26-page Brownie recipe is perfectly fine with me (I have to take advantage of the chance to echo 'Heck of job, Brownie!'). Compare/contrast with the inefficiencies in communications you see in businesses and organizations everywhere. I've never seen a simple project that, when done in Corporate America, doesn't require 6 months, reams of documents, and hours of meetings.

In other words...in large institutions, nothing is very efficient.
The argument I take is that while you can write well-behaved and consistent code in any language, there is no language that forces you to do so. So picking a language on the basis that it will force/encourage people to write well-behaved and consistent code--even if they don't want to/don't know how to/don't give a toss because they're a cheap contractor six time zones away--is a broken choice.
I agree. I'm pretty sure the diaspora team wasn't expecting such a huge response and priced their rewards accordingly. "What is someone donates 1/5th of what we need? Let's send em a computer!"
Um, who exactly has a knife to your throat? Are you really so paranoid as to believe that your life is in danger?
You need to not read the default list. I don't.
Wow already jumping into implementation, the funding is not even over yet.

Honestly, I am assuming one goal will be to make it flexible. And a second goal and major dev effort (or maybe even a plea for help) will be to make it so a child can use it effectively.
The best way to find out is to look at the iSuppli teardowns.

iPhone 3GS 16GB teardown: http://www.isuppli.com/News/Pages/iPhone-3G-S-Carries-178-96...

I'm having trouble finding a teardown with cost analysis of the iPod touch, but it seems like even with a 50% margin like Apple likes, it's not in the raw materials.
Sorry, didn't notice I was complaining. Thought I was making an observation on the state of open discussion on the net. I guess that makes your post "complaining about complaining", and this one ...
> So of course it is not easy, but don't forget that if there is a need for such a thing […]

I'd rather say "if there is a perceived need". The actual need is there for quite some time. The hard part is to collectively realize that.
I wonder how much of the code was inspired by Neven Mrgan's PieGuy iphone webapp game, also written in html/js.

http://mrgan.tumblr.com/post/257187093/pie-guy

http://mrgan.com/pieguy/ <-- go here on your iphone
Your browser is mis-configured. reddit gives you the language that your browser says you prefer.
People are expressing the right to mock and criticise ideas. They are using Mohammed as people unfortunately have been murdered for publicly insulting him, and they are showing solidarity. This is a good thing, and shows people who want to hurt others that the people they prey on have a lot of friends who they'll also have to hurt if they are to succeed in their objectives. This is a good thing.
Automobile Security Analysis
Indians GM Mark Shapiro read "Moneyball" and decided speed and defense meant absolutely nothing. He had, arguably, the best starting pitching in the Majors at some points, combined with the worst infield defense. They were streaky at the plate, and slow on the basepaths. They would lose to mediocre pitching 9 to 8, and good pitching 9 to 1.
Hafner fell off the map after hurting his shoulder. This also conveniently coincided with the height of the steroid blowup. His overpaid contract has crippled the team financially since just about the second he signed it.

CC and Lee were traded immediately after winning Cy Young Awards for prospects. That's not something you do when you want to keep a winning team together. Especially when the prospects you receive back have been less than thrilling so far.

Carmona seems to be running on the fumes and reputation of one successful season. Before that, he was a failed closer. Since then he's been up and down as a starter.

The Tribe sent Martinez to Boston because, while he's an awesome hitter, he's an average at best catcher and the team felt they had better prospects coming up behind him that would be cheaper (that's a recurring theme for the last decade or so).

The Indians are hampered by a cheap owner, an uninterested fan base, and a town that ranks them a solid #3 behind LeCavs and the Holiest of Holy Browns. Home attendance this year was right around 10,000 fans the last time I checked. The weather in Ohio hasn't been the best but that's still miserable for a team that had such a long sellout streak back in the day.
Javascript Pacman... on the Google homepage
As others have said, humor can be found virtually anywhere on the internet. Hacker News is one of the few places where I know that if I see a few comments on an article, there will be actual meaningful discussion of the content rather than easy joke sniping. One reason why I've grown to like HN better than reddit is that I never know what the top comment will be, except that it will usually be a decent and generally well thought out opinion on the topic. On reddit (and other sites, I'm using reddit as an example since I'm familiar with it), the top comment is almost always an mildly amusing joke that I can predict the subject of, if not get it word for word. Anywhere on the internet, I can find laughs, but I come to Hacker News to think.
Google's Web video could use pointless squabble
Another problem I see with creating artificial barriers is the demoralizing effect in can have on someone trying to learn a language. Whenever I'm prevented from doing something because some committee thought it was too complex for me, I begin questioning whether I'm using the right tool. Who knows what other random rules are going to jump out and bite me later.

I would much rather do something the wrong way and be burned by it (and probably learn a lot in the process), than be prohibited outright from using certain techniques.
Markov text generator that learns from the Twitter streaming API
You've missed the admittedly rather subtle point I was trying to make, and have assumed I meant that iPods and iPhones were 'credible alternatives to a computer'.

The reason for my sarcastic, annoyed comment is the continual shock and disbelief that a low-cost product that completely freaking nails its intended target is outselling the recently-antiquated paradigm that is the personal computer.

People have been pining for this sort of device in their little black hearts for decades (if you want insight into the zeitgeist of a society, examine their art & culture for their hopes and dreams. Case in point: the Star Trek PADD, etc. Who could possibly NOT want one of those ;) ), and as such the "pent-up demand" comes to me as no surprise.

The iPad won't be the only one of its breed to surface in the near-future, but you can damn well better believe it will always be one of the best if not THE best-of-breed. In fact, I contend that these devices aren't "well-executed PC alternatives" so much as well-executed PC REPLACEMENTS. We may end up seeing the "personal computer" as we know it relegated back to the days of the concept of a "workstation", reserved only for those that need the on-site computing power, and the 'cloud' on the horizon seems make this even more certain.

Yes there have been other tablets. Yes there will be other tablets. "It's not the hardware, stupid!" (It's the interaction model that makes it so successful, and why Apple is miles ahead of everyone else in this respect, and will most likely remain so for the near term.)

Sorry for the rant, and of course nothing personal, just don't like the flavour of other people's words in my mouth and felt like my point was misinterpreted.
I don't know. For some reason they never really put it all together. I've only loosely followed them since the 1997 world series. Been more of a Browns fan lately. It's easier because I don't have to worry about being disappointed. Any win is a celebration.
More than half of Facebook users may quit site, poll finds
> you're doing it just because you can, then you're doing nothing to help reduce inter-religion tension and

Agreed. But I think individual rights triumph the need for harmony with people who seek to rule our minds and tongues.

> in fact, are exhibiting some of the same sort of dogmatic insistence that everyone conform to your views that you are railing against.

How so? I'm not trying to change how anyone else thinks, or what they say.
I've always wondered at the UI of alarm clocks. It seems like they gave up after "let's make the snooze button big!"

Now what I'd really like is a programmable alarm clock, allowing me to encode an optimal awakening algorithm. "at volume x, play song y. If snooze button is not pressed yet, double volume and play The Safety Dance."
Redis is unbelievably cool. It is so easy to set it up and connect to it in Clojure that I find myself using it whenever I need to cache anything with persistence between runs. Even for a single set of data it's actually easier to use Redis than deal with data files and their problems (naming, overwriting, concurrent access, etc).

Redis is also great because it's essentially a collection of data structures with concurrent programming primitives, persistence added on top. Data structures mean you can offload quite a bit of work onto it. For example, we use it to cache search results — and you can do results paging entirely from within redis (LRANGE).

It isn't really comparable to Cassandra, they really do different things. Also, I am not a fan of the whole "NoSQL" thing. I use PostgreSQL when it makes sense, and Redis when Redis makes sense.
Wow.
No Yoda?
[drops kimono ... lights candle]

At NextProof (nextproof.com), we have 4 paid plans and a free plan. Right now, our ratio is 61% free plans and 39% paid plans.

The ratio was much higher until I changed the layout of our pricing page (http://www.nextproof.com/pricing/). I used to give the free plan details equal weight ... once we buried it, our ratio moved quite a bit in our favor (our overall conversions dropped a bit, of course).

As for traffic, our rate of conversions/total visitors is 2%. I suspect this isn't a good number, however, because the site includes our help pages. We convert 4% of organic google searches. We also convert about 1.5% of clicks on the small footer of each client's site.

It's also worth noting that we do a lot of cross-promotion with our main product and we offer a discount code to clients who use both. That might be why our ratio is not standard.

One more thing–our "free" plans have no monthly fee, but we still take a % of any transactions they make (we are a 3rd party payment aggregator). So, we still make some money from them.

Hope that's somewhat helpful ... I can answer more questions if you'd like.
Why do you believe a group that murders and threatens people with death (fundamentalist muslims) are powerless?
I just ran the numbers for S3stat, and it looks like we get almost exactly 25% of our Free Trial users converting to paid at the end of their 30 days.

We don't have any form of free plan other than that 30 day trial, so that might explain why the conversion rate is a bit better than other posters here. People know before they sign up that it's going to cost them money if they decide to stick around.
Could, yes. But would they?

People get busy. If someone reading this starts looking at VC in a month, will they find this story again? If they do will they have time to go back and search for it? I'm betting not. And so they won't draw the connection.

Their odds of drawing the connection in a month are much, much better if they've seen the name instead.
Does this also mean that Android is destined to be as disliked as Windows, with all the problems that come along with being compatible with some many devices from so many different manufacturers?
I think a few HN's just went 'shit' before realizing the grandparent made a mistake....
Study: 60 Percent of Facebook Users Mulling to Quit
For Facebook, the Privacy Snowball Just Keeps on Rolling
Programming languages are UIs. Your assertion is tantamount to saying that there is no such thing as a bad UI; that a choice between UIs is a broken choice, because you can still get your job done no matter what UI is there, or similarly you can still do a crappy job no matter what UI you use.

But this is just wrong-headed thinking, to my mind. UI definitely influences user behaviour. One thing currently in vogue is game mechanics; the whole point of using game mechanics in your UI is to encourage certain kinds of behaviours, and it works, dagnabbit! Most UIs that have any coherence to them at all have a way of working with their grain, and many more ways of working against their grain. If they're good UIs, working with the grain ought to reduce your non-essential work load and make working a pleasure. If they're poor, you'll have to work against the grain, fighting the design, to get your job done.

Programming languages are directly analogous to this.
"Most users couldn't care less about why things work the way they do. They just want them to work. Google's job is to make the average users have the most seamless experience possible, a job at which they excel."
OMG this is SOOO stupid. Hackers will get annoyed enough and will move to other search engines and development platforms. And after some time average users will follow.
This is exactly the twisted (non)thinking coming from Microsoft these days. Lets make an OS for 80 yo grandpas. Why not remove the drive free space indication in explorer, it confuses old ladies (and the same explorer ships with Windows Server ...). How bright do you think is the future of Windows and Microsoft?
Google honors the birth of 'Pac-Man'; share your memories
A bridge oscillating (Russia)
This article has so much crazy that I almost don't know how to respond to it.

C++ coddles programmers and Ruby doesn't. Really? That sounds like a sensible thing to say?

C++ avoided reflection because it would be misused by programmers? Only a profound misunderstanding of the design goals of C++, or having never actually used it, could inspire such a claim.

ActiveRecord is a Rails innovation that took decades to realize? What? Why would you think this?
History of NSA Computers
http://searchyc.com/submissions/barbie?sort=by_date
1) It will only succeed if it integrates into shit like facebook. (as in can pull friends from there)

2) It will only succeed if setting it up is only a tiny bit more difficult than facebook.

3) It will only succeed if a hosting service provides basic plans for say 300M of storage of an automatically set-up account. The idea is its as easy as facebook BUT you own an encrypted account instance which can't be used by the hosting service. The service makes money by people investing 1-10 bucks a month for their super awesome more space service.

I cannot imagine it ever succeeding if these conditions are not met. (1) is an uphill battle, (2) possible, (3) idk what the cost possibility is.

Maybe 1 is not so bad, but when FB started MySpace was not the size of facebook today, and it was sort-of crap. Will people be willing to just leave facebook and their friends and stuff to go to this new service? Its like why people still use AIM today. AIM protocol ain't great, but if your friends are on there, you can't use google talk, because everyone you know is not there.

But yea the article is all about "kids cant succeed" and circular arguments.
Why Is Google Bothering with TV?
Apple officially ends "Get a Mac" campaign