skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Well, not quite J2EE, but it is Spring based. Spring relies heavily on magic that makes tracing code very difficult without a debugger. It wasn't my choice, and I wouldn't choose it again, but at least it's better than J2EE.
I appreciate the valid points. Thanks for your time!
Open market for web apps for iPhone
Microsoft got into its initial monopoly position because of an "interesting" deal with IBM. Specifically Microsoft got a contract with IBM to deliver a product, turned around and bought the product from another company that had already developed it, and then delivered that to IBM. Microsoft then hired the person who developed said product because they didn't actually have the expertise to support it themselves. See http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa033099.htm for confirmation.

About charity, Microsoft may have improved, but a few years ago standard operating procedure was for the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to tie charitable work to large Microsoft purchases. If a government bought from Microsoft, the foundation would come in and start providing assistance. If the government went to Linux, the foundation would pick up and leave.

The use of this tactic has left me with a bad impression of said foundation, despite all of the unquestioningly good work they do. (They may have gut this out more recently. I no longer pay attention to Microsoft now that it is clear that they aren't going to be able to destroy the parts of the IT world that I care about.)
What do you want to jot down? only chords, chords + melody?
It sounds to me like you've grown accustomed to a difficult, obtuse tool and don't like to hear that it is difficult and obtuse. That's understandable, you put in all that work to become proficient at a needlessly complex tool and it bothers you to see how simple interface design can be with a better tool. It makes you feel superior because you trudged through a hopelessly befuddled design and now that you've mastered it you can feel smug as you look down your nose at anyone who might dare suggest there could be a better way.

But software design is ever improving, so don't be discouraged when the world passes you by because you've stuck with your antiquated ways.
Ask HN: Payments/Subscriptions Based Startups and Niches
I'm doing some research for an article and would like your help:
What startups and niches use payments or subscriptions as their primary revenue model?

The immediate one that comes to mind is groupon, but there are plenty of others. Like dating sites for example. What startups, niches or ideas can you think of that follow this revenue model? Please list as many as you can.

P.S. Lets leave out those that sell and ship physical products.
On my way to publishing a Kindle book
Innocent people are going to die because of every action you take. It's not usually nearby and it's not usually predictable, but that's what happens every time you change history.

Wikileaks intent and (I think) a reasonably probable outcome of this is to lower the number of innocent people being killed. (Probably on all sides, in the long run.)

I don't see any value-of-life argument that this leak is a bad thing /at all/, or that wikileaks has anything to justify on other grounds.
I would guess that the Shirley Sherrod mess is a clear rebuttal to the statement: "no one bats an eye at anti-male/anti-Caucasian rhetoric." Not only were eyes batted, but heads rolled (even though it was an entirely false accusation of discrimination).

Other examples of widely condemned figures who are, or appear to be, anti-white or anti-male: Jeremiah Wright, Louis Farrakhan, and Andrea Dworkin.
4) The identity element is the same as that in question 3.

5) It's the same question as you've asked me to come up with something that when it's put through a machine that computes the '+' operation with another thing it comes out the same on the other side. In this operator it's limited to this {0, []}. I don't know how I know this, and I don't know if I can prove this but I think that this is the answer.
It goes away as soon as you put the MooseX::Types declaration into its own package. Which one does pretty often, since reusing types and coercions produces more maintainable code in general. The title of that library isn't "Organise your Moose types in libraries" without reason :)
> I think you underestimate the false negatives you get with that idea.

Maybe so, but false negatives are not nearly as disastrous as false positives.

If someone hates github, I'd be fine looking at bitbucket, gitorious, etc too. =)
Was there a question being asked here? If you are looking for a programmer-for-hire, there are freelance sites for that sort of thing. This isn't even an hard/interesting problem, and anyone who could "build a mobile site/app" should be able to code up this trivial service in minutes.
Python has closures
All you have to do is sign up. There are a number of services that deliver groceries, at least there are in Portland, OR. Some even specialize in local/sustainable produce.
I'll start -

groupon.com

match.com

pandora.com
IBM Creates the Most Detailed Map of the Brain To Date
This can only mean one of two things: Either Apple is being extremely hostile and alienating one of their top developers, or they are preparing themselves for an acquisition of taptaptap in the immediate future.
Ask HN: Is Linode Performance Terrible for Anyone Else Today?
...or is it just me? Even their website/dashboard is barely usable.

Corrected: s/barely/simply not/
I don't know if Google Voice can do that out-of-the-box, (though it technologically could) but services like Twilio/OpenVBX or Tropo can definitely do that.

I would think that one problem right now is that not many people are really thinking like that yet. So amongst the people who do think about that kind of setups, each solution tends to be pretty specific to their own use.

That's why you have on one hand Google Voice which presents some options around what I would call "programatic telephony" but not fully customizable, and on the other, OpenVBX's kind of solutions which are highly customizable but not trivial to setup for "regular" people.

But yeah, it's now trivial to do and I'm sure it'll come with time.
Just started with "Learning Python the Hard Way" and would love to join but unfortunatley I'm living in Germany... ;-(
India's Hacker Community
Hey Alex. I was there at the post-party reception. Hope you'll join us!
I think Apple has been forced to patent everything they can: Nokia sued Apple for e.g. "using positioning data in applications". If Apple did not create a huge portfolio of patents, then Apple would very vulnerable from attacks from Nokia et.al.

Patents are the business equivalent of the cold wars nuclear weapon: we have peace because if you bomb us, then we will make sure that you are completely bombed too: The thought was to keep peace by having lots of weapons and mutually behaving like no weapons existed at all. In the end, it was all just wasted money.

http://www.nokia.com/press/press-releases/showpressrelease?n...
"Get off my lawn you damn kid directors!"

Gimmie a break.
The last Nokia phone I truly loved was the 6310i. Was using one until last year when refurbs started getting too expensive for my taste.

I now have an N900, which I also love - but I don't regard it as a phone, I regard it was a small portable Debian install that just so happens to also make phone calls :)
>The only way these patents are going to matter to you is

...if you want financing.

The investment community keeps a close eye on patents, because it's a major potential liability.

>Obviously, I don't know if Apple is being defensive or offensive here, but it's pretty difficult to imagine them going from retail hardware company to professional patent troll

It's easy to imagine. Microsoft went through exactly the same metamorphosis. Originally their patents were "defensive" (which is a spurious to start with -- simply documenting making an idea public is just as much of a defense), but as the growth curve started to peak they started looking at that portfolio as a way to assure their continued success, if by less productive means.
I agree everyone needs to obey the rules of the road... But the situation is such that when a cyclist disobeys rules, it never causes the automobile driver to die. Whereas when a giant SUV disobeys the rules, it can kill a cyclist.

Disclaimer: I live in Florida. State with the highest cyclist death rates.
Historical records show that it's mere coincidence, as we have been consistent with our day of month and time of day.
http://bit.ly/sdhackernews

I MEAN. It was intentional :)
There exist combination washer/dryers (all in one, no moving laundry!)
Mongrel2 Has A Complete Manual Now
He's still writing it. The huge numbers of blog posts it is a synthesis of are available at http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences
It's not binary. I'm speaking of a matter of degree, and about US culture specifically. Meaning: we're becoming a polarized nation, two Americas (America and 'mer'ca). Of course the human race has always had tribes. But tribalism (tribalitis?) means: too much tribal loyalty.
Teenagers and Poor Business Sense
I'm not sure even a full code-audit is practical. Some big vendors use libraries under licenses that don't allow them to distribute the source to third parties (I don't know how prevalent this is on iPhone, but I know it happens in general), and Apple has shown an aversion to rules that mess with the big guns this way. It would also require a much higher caliber of app testers, because finding malicious code in a large codebase is nontrivial even if the malware writer isn't being particularly clever.

This would basically require Apple to severely choke the App Store pipeline, and given Apple's relatively lax attitude toward security, I don't think they'd make that tradeoff.
We have about the same number of customers (maybe a bit more). We have 2 full-time support staff plus another that does support half-time.

This article makes some good points (about product quality and fixing bugs), but I would counter the article with:

1. Just because you support X customers with 0 full-time staff doesn't mean you do it well. I like to think of our support staff as a sales channel. When you have a great support staff, it builds a reputation for your company and results in a lot of referral sales.

2. A product like NewRelic is for developers/sysadmins. That makes it a lot easier to have engineers support it since they're usually talking to other engineers. I doubt it would be as effective for Saas apps for Joe the Plumber.
And the consequence of that is that I sometimes can't remember some products' prices.

"Was it $699 that I mentally converted to $700, or was it $799?"
There's a difference between a defensive and an offensive patent portfolio.

The fact that you choose not only to ignore it, but to declare holders of them 'evil' shows that you're a child.

The fact that you got upvoted is a reminder that HN has turned into an utterly worthless shithole.

No intelligent person would write or upvote your comment. Soon the unaccomplished wantrepreneurial morons like you will drive the real users from this site.
I think we are getting pretty cavalier with the word evil these days, its not like apple is killing babies here. I'm not saying its right, but evil?
The money comes from those with us-vs-them mentalities (your example of the Moon shots), but that isn't where the urge to innovate usually comes from.

when it's used in the extreme (or tending towards being extreme)

That's what I was trying to get across -- extreme behavior considered to be normal. Everyone on the freeways driving either 45 or 90, no sane moderation.
> If this is an analogy to sport and say the sport is baby killing. Then I can hate the game and the player. You have a choice to get involved in the game.

My point is that Apple is merely playing by the same rules as everyone else. Getting upset because Apple patents something broad or obvious is just misguided, they're quite honestly doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing as a publicly held company.

Some companies may avoid patents for ethical reasons, but ignoring the problem isn't going to solve anything.

IMO, anyway.
Answering the question directly, enough people still use IRC that axod has built a sustainable business from a web-based IRC client (mibbit.com).
I come from a family history of physicians. My father is an MD and professor at Johns Hopkins.

It's difficult to conceive how little we know about the human body and biology in general. People are working on things related to it, but we're really nowhere near even understanding the problem. Just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it isn't being worked on.
What we've found is that people want and need a lot of help marketing their fundraisers -- especially individuals, because they don't do this for a living.

We're already starting to automate some of this. That said, I think there will always be a need and opportunity to provide help from a real human being, whether that's a member of our team or a community of users.
Check out our one day app
Hello fellow hackers,

Our team took a break from normal development to put together something simple, useful, and fun. Our goal was to get it finished and out the door in one day.

Introducing: Fready ("fresh and ready": http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fready)

Fready syncs with your google calendar, pulls out names, companies, and locations from the title and description of an event, and injects google news and search results about them back into the event. Fready is a great way to stay informed with very little effort.

It will not modify events that have invited guests, and you can turn it off at any time by visiting your Google authorized sites page: https://www.google.com/accounts/IssuedAuthSubTokens?hl=en

Fready is completely free and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. I hope you enjoy our simple app!

http://getfready.com/
Why not use ImageMagick?

I have used it to create thumbnails for a demo website and they looked OK. Does it have any performance/ aliasing/ whatever issues I'm not aware of?
Good food: Salad, main course and dessert for around £4. Lots of vegetables and other (healthy) perishable ingredients. The thing with perishable food at home is you either have to constantly buy in small quantities, which is time consuming, or buy more, plan your meals up-front, and hope you can use it up before it rots. This is also assuming it makes sense to travel home for dinner most evenings and cook, which is not true a lot of the time. Three good courses is what I'll do for a dinner party, not when I've come in late and tired.

Also, in a food hall you don't have to do the washing up.

Still, it sucks that your setup is so expensive and the queues are so long. The worst I've seen is a university where they've outsourced everything to a bunch of chains. The food is overpriced, processed and bland - it's just like eating in a mall.
http://getfready.com/
maybe they are trying to protect the app, so that folks on other platforms (cough-google-cough) don't rip it off?
They'd have to pry it from Disney.
I have a question on Clojure in general. Is it Lisp people that are flocking to it or is it trending amongst other developers as well?
Starcraft 2 gets a BSOD
Don’t install windows on your 174 Gigawatt mining laser, unless you have a death wish. Must of been Windows XP.
> clear rebuttal to the statement

I don't know, you picked three extreme nutjobs[1] and one person who looked like they were completely derelicting their duty but it turned out it the evidence was mistaken... I'm not sure there's a clear rebuttal of anything.

But regardless, that was a small part of the comment. The bigger point was about discrimination articles that focus on examples of discrimination against women and non-whites and not the other way around. Seems like that's a bad thing that teaches bad lessons in the modern world. Would you agree that's a bad thing?

[1] I should clarify - Wright and Farrakhan are serious, serious anti-Semites to the point of being totally offensive. Dworkin... well, you can google for quotes from her if you've never been exposed to it.
Your product makes a huge difference. I'm a company of 1 working after hours and I'm supporting 9,000 users with little more than email.
Tell HN: I'm launching 2MinsADay.com - Learn new concepts in 2 minutes a day.
Ikea restaurants are loss-leaders to get people into the store. I too will quite happily pop into an ikea just for food too but the idea is that you have come to shop.

But as a loss-leader it doesn't make sense to have independent stores in town.
2MinsADay is the side project I've been working on for some time. There's still a lot of work to do, but I've decided to stop waiting for it to be more complete, as it was already some kind of mental evasion.

The concept of the site is to help its members learn something new each day, a single simple concept of their interest, readable in less than 2 minutes at an average speed. Past ratings will be used to guess an item of interest for each user each day, and mail it to him or her.

Members are encouraged to submit their articles too.

I would really like to hear your criticisms and answer any question you could have.

Thanks for your attention.
freenode for channels about opensource projects
undernet for goofing off
My group of peers does the same thing. It's a pretty broad cross section of nerds (as broad as that can be) -- the channel is busy 8-5 weekdays and dead outside those hours. Basically, they're my virtual (and one physical) officemates.
This is interesting, not in a way that's easy to understand. A few of his keypoints are:

- On Design: when designing something, think beyond (in fact, way beyond) the thing that you are designing.

- On Living: the smart way to live is to build stuff for many people (the more the merrier).

- On Civilization: do your best to fulfill your part.
I assume that you mean for the Java language, not the JVM? There are already languages that run on the JVM that have closures.
I couldn't agree more. What can we do about it, other than donating to organizations like SENS?
This is so true. My company uses Concur and I'm sorry to say it's actually worse than doing it the old fashioned way. You wouldn't expect that from their homepage, but the actual app is godawful.

I know the receipts are an IRS thing, but why can't the rest be easier?
Inception wasn't creative enough for you? Aside from general spy-action genre tropes, I haven't seen much else like it.
We're on the same page about transparency. Any mention of fees is going to reduce donation rates regardless of what the fees are. That's okay though - the information should still be clear.
And the ways around this are not necessarily working well sometimes. Recent experience: getting a prepaid SIM card for my iPhone in France. Turns out that it would randomly and without my knowledge connect to WiFi hotspots and completely drain my credits.
The habit was fading. Thanks for reminding.
The Volt is an aspirational automobile, much like the Prius but with an added scoop of patriotism.

This is a powerful formula, and if the car is halfway reasonable GM is going to be selling a lot of them.

Others have said this part but it bears repeating: a car with a battery system and a gasoline-burning electrical generator is a very different beast from a hybrid or a pure electric. It's no surprise that it's more expensive, nor does the price seem unreasonable, considering that a) it can cover most people's daily commute with zero gasoline and b) it can then be filled up and driven across the country.
Aren't they suppose to compare this year with some of the other years to show this is the "Worst Movie Year Ever"

The infographic shows what happens every year, some of the highly anticipated movies don't work (Sex and the city, Prince of Persia) , some of them work (Toy story) and then there are a few surprises(Inception, which released 2 weeks back so the $ figure will go up)
Good tips. Make the unsubscribe page an opportunity to fix the problem that is annoying your user, such as reducing frequency.
CerealDb - A PHP Key store without a database or memcache.
Can't stand his accent, and I'm french...
Why is the author so hung up on "Dinner For Schmucks"? It didn't seem like he's seen it yet and so far its RottenTomatoes score is a bad but not horrible 56% while Grown Ups is just at 10%. Unless he's seen it I don't think it's fair to call it the likely worst film of the year.

Is it just because no one is allowed to remake French movies?
Full hotswap capability (which is available as a patch, today, due to the work of a true genius Thomas Würthinger and his team) should be the first entry, the second entry, every entry all the way down to the end. All the rest should be footnote nice-to-haves.

The JVM Language conference once again demonstrated how out of touch with day-to-day JVM development it is. The focus was nearly entirely on how to make dynamic languages fast (method handles, apparently) and how to deal with concurrency (functional programming, of course.) The first problem affects _maybe_ 1% of the JVM's users. The second problem isn't nearly the crisis it is made out to be (server side software keeps the CPUs full and, when it doesn't, there are plenty of fork-join-like libraries out there.)

Meanwhile, poor assholes doing java web app development are breaking concentration to bounce their server every time they change a method signature.

Unbelievable.

Cheers,
Carson
Still, God kills a kitten every time a proprietary license is sold.

Even if it's your startup selling it?
Also: great name. I wonder when there will be an american electric auto that isn't named after an early scientist in the field?

I'm expecting an Amp sooner rather than later...
Very good point. Apple uses OSS for the sake of creating better software, not because they believe in any FSF ideals.
I think you're mistaking tap tap tap and Tapulous, no?

Tapulous is the maker of the Tap Tap Revenge series that was recently bought by Disney. tap tap tap is another very successful iPhone app company but to my knowledge they haven't been bought out. (and with their huge marketing machine, they would let it be known)
Seems like it depends. The Dodgeball guys clearly hated the transition.

Then there's FriendFeed. Bret Taylor became CTO of Facebook very quickly after the acquisition and is now the second, and arguably better, public face of Facebook. His talent level is clearly off the charts though.
I read a lot, that is how I know about most of the algorithms in my arsenal. But in this particular instance we dealt with Levenshtein Distance in a cryptography graduate class at Iowa State and I've used it in a couple other places other than Atomiq.

I'd recommend reading as much as you can. Go out to wikipedia and start with the article on Donald Knuth, anything cool worth noting about algorithms isn't more than 2 or 3 links removed from his page.
Consider if there were no advertising; the result would likely be that A and B would both lose because nobody would know they exist.

So it's not completely inefficient. How much would you pay to not have to look around who knows where for things that you want?
Except that Oracle didn't actually break anything...

Though I agree, they would have been wise to test some of the popular 3rd party apps based on Java.
Insight, "Flip A Coin:  Decide for Me"
UK gov won't give up on IE6
I'd be happy to build you such a service. Would be quite simple. email me- theIntuitionist@idont.no
"In case you haven’t figured it out, this book will be fun and slightly obnoxious. That’s not intended to insult you, but just to keep you interested so that you want to read it."
Anything worth knowing about CS can be found within 3 jumps from this page
removed from sale, sometimes happens when you change the app languages or app world store availability. check to go to app country availability and select all countries
Or Big Brother freeing the source to their Ad-magic.