skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
> So what you're saying is that if I don't know the recent trends in functional languages, I don't care about programming?

No, I'm saying that if you're not interested in different programming paradigms, you're not interested in programming. You don't have to know about "recent trends" in functional programming (it's not actually that recent -- Lisp has been around forever, and the Haskell standard is over a decade old). But if you're not interested in functional programming at all, then no, you're not interested in programming.

> This guy is laying out arbitrary things which appear in his domain of knowledge, and discounting others for not having the exact same set of experiences.

But I'm not doing that. I'm saying that programmers ought to have some familiarity with some of the basics of the technology they work with. Knowing nothing about functional programming is like knowing nothing about HTML -- it is a big gap in one's knowledge.

> there is a lot to be said for mastery and focus.

I agree. Focus is good. But you can't have mastery without knowing the right programming techniques and paradigms -- these can change a 500 line program into a 100 line (and easier to understand) one, or a 5000 line program into a 500 line one.

> why is it that there is an expectation in software that my job has to also be my hobby

I have no such expectation. I neither know nor care what you do for a living or in your spare time. What I am saying is:

1. some skills take a lot of effort to master.

2. programming is one such skill

3. you're more likely to take the time and effort to learn a skill if you like doing it

4. therefore, programmers who program because they like doing it are going on average to be better at it than programmers who program because it's just a job
I'd have to look into it further, but I think getting a summary judgment is pretty damning. There are cases that get a summary judgment that do go onto getting overturned by the Supreme Court, but statistically those are, of course, quite rare.
as an angel in heyzap, i'd like to drive the ferraris, plz.
I've been occasionally hearing about the invention (but never use) of this for a while now.

"It not only presents the victim with a false sense of security, but psychological trauma," said Victoria Kajja, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Uganda.

But Ehlers said that she had taken the proper research and development steps before launching the product.

"I consulted engineers, gynecologists and psychologists to help in the design and make sure it was safe," she said.

Well, yeah, but that's not what that particular criticism was about.

Ehlers also pointed out how women take extreme measures such as placing razor blades in their nether regions to prevent rape in South Africa.

...that's pretty bad. I wonder if it actually helps any?
I've seen these toilets in action and from my few encounters, they work as advertised.

But after reading about how they work, I have reservations on the design. Depending on maintenance for keeping sewer gases from escaping seems failure prone. Humans err (and get lazy). I'd much rather depend on plumbing codes that have been tested over decades and work "automatically" than depending on changing a cartridge.

What happens if a bathroom with a waterless toilet is abandoned or isn't maintained regularly?
actually I know you were having a laugh - even commented with the rest of the guys here how I found your answer funny. Fact is, however (and I'm sure you know this), quite a bunch of people take that as arrogance.

Personally, I don't care - I agree with your policy on doing less (if your vision is in fact to do less with a product). The fact that some consider it arrogance (as I was alluding to) doesn't mean I do.

(your downvote on my comment was not necessary, but this explanation of my comment might have been. Apologies for the misunderstanding, if there was one)
As awesome as websockets are, websockets are an incredibly volatile standard in very early stages. The only shipping browser to support is (Chrome) does not even conform to the current draft.
We have to see what grounds they appeal the case on but unless there is a significant Constitutional question in play SCOTUS rarely grants cert.
The cloud is ill-defined.
Many cities in the US are having serious issues with their sewer infrastructure, so even if they have copious fresh water, dealing with it after use is an issue. Here in Portland, where we have no shortage of water, I still pay more for my water than for any other utility, mostly to fund upgrades to the sewers.
Agreed. It reads like someone who is so fried from overwork he can't spell anymore. Not a good advertisement for working 70 hr. weeks.
This is the kind of story I'd expect to see on the front page of Digg. An unusually protracted game of tennis isn't really hacker news, imo.

Don't forget: when you vote something onto the front page, something else gets pushed off.
The basic problem is that if you ask 100 different project managers what they want you'll get 100 different answers.

Every project manager (I'm using a very broad definition of project manager here...) wants a system that is almost but not quite what someone has already built. "Ohh this looks nice - wait I can't do X? Then it's totally useless." X is different for everyone. Some people can't live without a versioning system, some pople can't live without tasks that have a sign-off field, etc. There are literally hundreds of ways of doing it.

Nobody has solved this problem yet. Probably because it's extremely hard.
Here's why: We needed it for ourselves and we thought others might find it useful.

That, btw, is the same motivation we've had to release every single piece of software we've ever done.

Also, tadalist is the #1 google result for "todo list". It's an incredibly loved product that has a huge user base. For tons of people that's exactly what they need. Just like Draft was exactly what we needed.
The cost of litigating a case like this is pretty unfortunate. Some of the more on-point precedents were recently set by Veoh (cited on pp. 24-27 of the YouTube decision), who won their case and then went bankrupt almost immediately afterwards: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/02/veoh-files-for-bankru...
> If you did understand what is going on in your build process, you could write a makefile for it

Okay, your premise seems to be:

1) Understanding your build process means you can write a makefile for it.

This is only true if you know how to write a makefile. i.e. makefile syntax and the specifics of your toolchain.

2) Conversely, if you can't write a makefile, you don't understand your build process.

This is false, because I can't write a makefile since I don't know makefile syntax. I most assuredly do understand my build process, though.

Correct me if I've misunderstood you.
Congrats Immad. To other HN'ers looking for a job talk to this guy. Besides technical expertise, he has a very crisp notion of what HeyZap is and is not and why. It's not surprising that they were able to raise this much money.
It's private property. You can walk past it, I guess.
Since they're running pipes anyways, I wonder whether it would be better to have a urinal that auto flushes itself once a day or so. The water savings would probably be comparable to a plain no-flush, but it seems like it might save some of the maintenance issues the article talks about.
I'm sure they're equally opposed to any plan to raise delivery prices, but right now universal coverage costs quite a bit more than it generates. I'm not sure there's a lot of fat for the USPS to cut, and to the extent that its budget shortfall is covered by the treasury it's an indirect taxpayer subsidy to Amazon.
Or that everyone will be using competing browsers, at which point they have less tying them to Windows. It also doesn't hurt to worry about making Windows a first-class web use and development platform via a decent first-party browser.
I think the biggest point is that it's much harder to find a developer that understands the build mechanism of a project now than it was, say, by the mid-80's. We are doing more complex builds and VS makes it easy to fall prey to a huge pile of complexity where there should be a much smaller, addressable, tangle of dependencies.

The point is that what appears to be an easy approach to project build management is, in fact, a loaded shotgun aimed at your feet.
Yes! In all the years I spent in Germany, no one was able to adequately explain to me the reasoning behind the "poo shelf". It was the biggest WTF about my whole Deutsch experience.

It seemed like someone sat down and said to himself, "now how can I make this toilet worse? I know!"
Boot Camp for Entrepreneurs, and Trying to Revive a City
The source to my game Information Overload, where you shoot at news feeds
I don't particularly need definitive answers to my questions, it was really an open invitation for anyone to share if they've had any experience. Thats why the title of my post was "What do you know about stocks/securities barriers and startups?".

Actually, a person wouldn't even need to know any answers or have had experience. If they happened to come across a relevant article recently, even that would be awesome.

I'm sorry my post insulted you and your norms for social conduct. I think you should leave it to the person who "has the answers" to view my request as an insult or not.
> I assume they did it to make the lives of developers easier.

I imagine you're right, and it's an entirely reasonable thing for MS to do. What I took exception to is the way the book spun it as an amazing new technology.
If you just want to try the game, it's on Kongregate:

http://www.kongregate.com/games/EvilTrout/information-overlo...
Is there a service which will take a mobile/print view of an article and put you back at the canonical one, at least for major websites?
At the risk of getting meta, I was complaining about the quality of the evidence for the assertion. I never made any assertions about the company suffering in any way because of this guy.
"Flash Crash" analysis: HFT algos using DoS
According to W3Counter[1], the iPhone OS has 0.83% market share among web browsers. Even assuming every single user is using the built-in browser, that's less market share than even Opera.

So, no, the iPhone does not matter.

[1] http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php
Stephen Fry reviews iPhone 4
$9.99 is an order of magnitude too much for this app period
Oh, I absolutely agree it should be included with the OS itself, but having it just in the browser is better than not having it at all. We need a standard video format that everyone can use. A standard video tag is worthless without one — you'd be better off sticking with Flash video otherwise. WebM has the chance to be that, but not if the user is required to have already installed it himself.
Settlers of Catan on Microsoft Surface
37signals Are Idiots...
> enjoyable compared to writing Windows C++ code.

Care to share what you find so distressing in Windows C++ coding? I'm genuinely curious.

I hear a lot of people -- primarily Linux C coders -- bashing Windows[1], but they never seem to have any specific reasons, at all. I chalk it up to subjective taste and something that's like imagined oppression, or imagined insult (e.g. Windows is too easy to code on, dues aren't paid, etc.).

[1] I can rarely nail down if they dislike the Windows user experience, Visual Studio, the Windows API, it just seems like Windows-oriented angst.
You don't have to deal with Java if you don't want to when using RingoJS. Also, have you tried http://www.akshell.com ?
Fascinating - according to that link, the Wolfinger quote stated the opposite, that the plural of anecdote _is_ data. I guess I could see it going either way depending on what you were arguing, which kind of makes the statement lose its punch.
We were just talking about the overtime rules of various sports at lunch today. Tennis has (to me) one of the fairest systems. The sport is aided by the fact that every serve onto the court ends in a point being scored. Basketball is also pretty high up there on the fairness scale. NFL football is terrible (we'll have to see how the new rules play out); college football is much better (but not perfect). Soccer and hockey are not good; I don't like the game being decided by a special mechanism (penalty shots/shoot out) fundamentally different from the regulation time play.

There's my unsolicted $0.02.
A few comments on this summary judgment ruling:

1. The decision came at the trial-court level and is not binding on other courts (though it might be persuasive). It is a summary judgment, meaning that the judge decided it before a trial could be held based on affidavits submitted by the parties. This also means that it will be easier to reverse on appeal than would a decision after trial.

2. The decision puts the burden on a copyright holder to identify item-by-item each claimed instance of copyright infringement and to report it under the DMCA. It leaves the hosting party in a position of being able to ignore what may or may not be infringing on its site so long as it responds promptly and faithfully to take-down notices for specific items.

3. The court sharply distinguished precedents concerning sites that had facilitated P2P copying, concluding that those cases had nothing to do with the DMCA safe harbor. Viacom had obviously played up those cases, essentially arguing that the defendants here profited from the regular and widespread posting of infringing materials on the YouTube site and therefore should be guilty of some form of contributory infringement liability. The court stiff-armed all such arguments by saying, in effect, "no, that's all different - Google's sole obligation here was to comply with DMCA and, if it did, it can't be held liable as a contributory infringer."

4. The court also dismissed the idea that Google could be held liable for not doing wholesale take-downs upon receiving a general notice that broad categories of materials on its site were potentially infringing (in essence, holding that a hosting site cannot possibly be in a position to determine what truly is or is not infringing just because it falls in some category or other of materials that might be infringing). Thus, the court refused to interpret DMCA in a way that puts the hosting party in a position where it must actively monitor its site for offending materials apart from its obligation to respond to specific take-down requests.

5. What is really involved here is a policy dispute over the safe-harbor protections of DMCA: Google says it is enough that it complies with take-down requests; Viacom says Google should still be liable if widespread posting of infringing material is regularly going on and if Google is profiting from that activity.

6. Though the judge did not make formal mention of it in his decision, it cannot have helped Viacom that it appears to have had dirty hands in this mess, in part by having its own agents upload a good number of the allegedly offending materials to the site. This sort of conduct really stinks of a setup and prompt judges to shape their formal legal reasoning in a way that reflects their disapproval of such misconduct.

7. On a final note, summary judgments are notoriously difficult to uphold on appeal and so this will be appealed and the outcome of that appeal will be anybody's guess. Therefore, an important victory for Google but by no means any sort of final one.
Have you used Adobe Ideas? Its featureset is much closer to Draft than MSPaint. Your "features" scarequotes make it sound like you have no idea what you're talking about.

It has two more colors and you can change the marker size. Oh, and you can pinch-zoom, which really shouldn't need a user guide on the iPad. Some of the buttons on the drawing screen in Draft are on the documents screen in Ideas.

Ideas' simplicity rocks, and Draft looks good too, though I'm not in love with the white-on-black scheme.

One thing I would like to know: if 37 signals only makes apps they use to get their work done, and the only work they get done is to make their apps... have we discovered a perpetual motion machine?
About 10 years ago I was approached by Oprah's producers to be on her show. I showed no interest but they were very persistent. They called me every day and tried to get me to change my mind, but I told them "No" every time. They eventually called my boss (!) and tried to get him to convince me to be on her show. Luckily, he was aware that they were harassing me and took my side and basically told them to leave me alone.

I respect Oprah for what she has accomplished but I detest how her producers deal with "recruiting" the people who go on her show to tell their stories. All they care about is being sensationalistic so they can hook their audience. They don't give a flying fuck about the people who go on the show or how going on the show affects them afterwards.

So, when I question whether Oprah's people are rigging the vote? Well, my mind is made up. It's pretty obvious to me.

But don't be surprised if Oprah "reaches out" to Zach and has him on her show but doesn't choose him to have his own show.
Some Warning Signs That Your Business Sucks
I wish you had told me the link would resize my window.

I would then have forgone examining the contents, rather than, as now, forgoing examining the contents and being pissed off.
One can learn the syntax of standard make Makefiles in about two minutes, without cracking open the manpage for that.

It does not follow that if you don't know how to write a makefile for your toolchain the necessarily you don't understand your build process. But, if you can't write it after you understand its syntax, then you are pretty much doomed.
The extension just changes the font to Helvetica Neue. Here's a picture with the extension disabled: http://cl.ly/1SJe
One key thing to remember is that for commercial spaces, you are bound to the text of the contract. If it's in there, you've agreed to it. If it's not, then don't count on it. This differs significantly from residential where you can't sign away certain rights.
Safari 5 supports WebSockets, and supposedly the nightly builds of Firefox do as well.
I'm actually surprised that HN-ers aren't more sympathetic to the professor.

Let's suppose the prof is, himself, so passionate about his work that he's devoting all of his time to it. He's made an effort to recruit people who are equally dedicated, because when the colleagues he depends on go home before him, that puts a bottleneck on his output. Furthermore, if most of his grad students are content sacrificing their personal lives for this work, doesn't it sour morale to have one guy who's always last to arrive and first to leave, yet who expects equal status?

Plus, while other commenters have suggested that this professor is mainly motivated by ego, it's also plausible that he's doing life-saving research, thst he decided long ago that he has a moral responsibility to sacrifice every waking hour to his work to save others from years of pain and sadness.

Again, I don't know if any of the above is true, but it's easy for me to imagine circumstances under which this memo would be totally reasonable. Surely anyone who's worked at a startup knows how important it is for everyone's workload expectations to be aligned?
I would think that the number could greatly fluctuate. Perhaps there are better ways to measure complexity of code such as http://thinksimple.pl/entries/88-Ruby-static-code-analysis.

These tools could be used to turn code smells, duplication, and poorly written tests into a total "score" for well-written code. Although this should hardly be the way code is evaluated.

Also, complex code that isn't written "the best way" isn't so bad. It incurs technical debts. Like financial debt, technical debt can be very good if used properly--or end with disastrous results if used irresponsibly. So let some component of a code base bloat if you need to hit a deadline so long as you're going to refactor later.
Gotta disagree with you a bit. Most content that users watch online isn't (easily) downloadable and playable anywhere except in a browser. And even if it was, I'm not sure that anyone except a very small minority of users would ever take advantage of it. To a growing number of users, the OS is just something that you need in order to run a web browser, nothing more.

I think it's far more important to ensure that video plays easily and looks consistent across multiple machines, at least when played in the same browser. I can see someone understanding if a video doesn't look the same in Firefox as it does in WMP, but I suspect they'll be pretty annoyed if it works in Firefox on the computer downstairs, but not on the computer upstairs.

Most users don't know what the hell a codec is and don't care. They just want the software to work, and they want it to work the same across multiple computers and platforms. And if bundling the codecs in with the browser makes stuff 'just work,' then that's where the codecs ought to live, bloat be damned. Bits are cheap, goodwill and usability are expensive.

Web video is too important to a user's experience with a browser for browser developers to leave it up to the underlying OS. Bake it in, and it's guaranteed to work. If you let it depend on plugins or underlying media frameworks, then you're just asking for trouble.

That said, some sort of option to let the OS handle video wouldn't be bad, with a fallback to the embedded decoder -- this would let users take advantage of OS features or plugins that are tailored for their hardware (or just bleeding edge), while still ensuring that everyone gets at least basic video support just by virtue of installing the browser.

Put bluntly, video is a core part of the web and has been for some time; it's part of what many users expect a browser to do, and do well. You don't outsource core features if you want them to be done right and consistently.
Tumblr down for maintenance. Posterous /switch related?
I think you are talking about IORAD - http://www.iorad.com/

It's funny you forgot the name because that was just the comment I made!

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1437395
"RedLaser" - what a great name for such an app
Google Shares Insights on Accelerating Web Sites
This is such a minor niggle compared to not having real typesetting via TeX or something. Nothing else is even worth complaining about until these stupid eBook readers can do real (as in the non-ragged-right and non-shitty-justify) layout. "But it's CPU expensive!" That shit worked decades ago, it is definitely doable. Get off your butts! Or I might have to do it!
Well, by that definition, Google can also be considered your customer. Or any vendor can also be considered their customer's customer.
After a match this long, I would bet heavily that whoever wins will lose their next match. I wonder how much odds-makers will adjust odds in the next round because of this.
Sure, that's true as far as it goes, but it gets a little strained when you see the similarly-priced competition. Pricing isn't a function of absolute utility and value, it's also a function of economic environment.

Take Apple display adapter dongles. Do I get a ton of use out of them? Do they make my MacBook better? Sure, but $30 is still a cruel fucking joke.

My wine key feels great in my hand, never breaks, and has given me loads of value and joy over the last decade but I would still be a fool to pay more than $5 for it.

I've carried a plastic Japanese fan in my bag for more than ten years that has saved my sweaty ass in many social circumstances, and is indispensable for my personal well-being between July and September; it's covered in ads and I got it for zero yen and I wouldn't have paid much more than that for it.

All that said, the correct price of a thing is whatever people will pay for it, and 37signals has certainly demonstrated an uncanny ability to find their market.
Startup CEO Pay on the Rise?