skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I assume this article was submitted for the closing argument, which is pure gold:

"Not so fast…

Matt Mireles, the founder and CEO of the video transcription service SpeakerText, started his company in his Harlem apartment but recently jumped ship for the Valley. Mireles said he’s making the move because of a “chokehold” he believes Wall Street has on technical talent in New York. In his experience, entrepreneurs are stuck fighting over a few start-up-minded developers.

That said, Mireles admits his long-term plan is to eventually return to New York. “If I wanted to be where there are more hot girls and nightlife I wouldn’t be in Mountainview,” Mireles said. “But I’m doing this [move to California] so in five years time I can live in New York in a big pimped out loft or something.”"
I like that this ebook redefines thought leaders.

We're hearing from people that are touchable. They're real. They're available to you and I. And that makes more sense to me. And it makes their "one thing" that much more real, meaningful, and applicable to me.

Thanks, Shane, for a book that actually connects.
Yeah, probably related to the screen size issue. Forgot to test it on small monitors. There's a big "next slide" button on the bottom, but it gets cut off for smaller monitors.
> Adobe's PDF reader has been such a long-standing resource hog

It makes me feel old to remember a time when Adobe reader didn't suck.

The great PDF support in OSX is one of the things that's most jarring to lose when I use a Windows machine. It's incredible that you have to download a third-party utility just to view PDF files on Windows properly, and none of the options even comes close to Preview on the Mac. In fact, the only aspect of working with PDF files that does suck on the Mac is Adobe Acrobat itself.
Not sure how much I agree. There seems to be an intermediate step in your reasoning that goes something like: "FOSS fixes everything". Sometimes it's true, sometimes it isn't.

Why would Apple spend a lot of money and man-hours to port Flash for the iOS? Is not like the lack of Flash seems to be bothering anyone much (in terms of units sold). And Google actually did help Adobe to port Flash to Android, and it seems (from this article) that the job is not that good.

Maybe Flash would need a massive internal change for it to reach the speed it deserves: sometimes it's better to simply start from scratch. Also it's still not obvious to me that Flash is the right technology for the mobile/touch-screen Web.
Beginner's luck
Not too depressing, Automoblox are widely available on Amazon. Even if he had to fire-sale the IP his toy is out on shelves.
flash is flash, and it allows some people to make awesome stuff. (samorost mmm)
I use it for business, and the technology earns me money. I am not alone.
it's curse that it got too popular, to a degree that there are lot of people who hate it.
I don't hate flash, I like it a lot.
I hate situations when flash is used for wrong reasons.

for me it fills like microsoft. still huge, but for me it's yesterdays technology.
if i think about a new project I do not want it to be based on flash
This is my preferred pattern:

jQuery(function($){

});

It would avoid noConflict type problems.
I think the automatic translator is the most important part.
Locaterr - geotrack your friends through email
One of the problems here is that every week, someone creates a new Wiki, or Excel of HNers, or archive of posts, and a week later no one remembers it. What's going to stop the wiki from being forgotten?

I'm trying to fix this "Meta" problem with a webapp I created, which is basically a (votable) list of resources for HN or any other site. You can find it here: http://resourcey.com/site_details/2/news.ycombinator.com/. It's helping me solve this issue for myself, so at least I'm scratching my own itch :)
Scribble: programming language syntax for minimal keystrokes on an iOS device
Throwing together a bunch of trendy technologies != great product.
what does this article have to do with jQuery? can we please stop with the fanboy <<myLib>> is better than <<urLib>>? it's short sighted and misleading.

i've used both libraries in many commercial projects for large corporations. both have their strengths and weaknesses. in many cases, directly comparing them is like comparing apples and oranges.

YUI is well suited to larger "kitchen sink" apps where you require many rich widgets working in unison. You know that if you use a YUI widget, it's professionally coded, well-documented, and works cross-browser. The same can't be said for all jQuery plugins. YUI 2 doesn't have the syntactic suger of jQuery, however, YUI3 fixes that. Finally, YUI is ANYTHING but monolithic. you only load in the files you want. jQuery is the lib that is all in one file - the very definition of monolithic.

jQuery is great for simplicity and ease of development. Great for a website that you want to add some DOM interactivity and/or AJAX. Perfect for "find something -> do something". While it has a huge amount of plugins, they vary dramatically in terms of quality. If you are building a large web app, things can start to break down with a mix of plugins from different authors and line upon line of chained methods.

in short, both are great libraries with excellent strengths. use the right tool for the job.
If history is any indication, by the next OS update (4.2 or 5) they will be merged. Apple seems to prefer to keep its horses decoupled: technologies percolate more slowly through its stack, but it allows them not to get stuck (so much).

For example with Longhorn MS tried to change the underlying kernel, the user interface, and to add some of those changes in its main programs too. Apple instead can take up to 2-3 iterations for a technology to become entrenched: first its developed in some niche application (e.g. Core Animation in iOS), then it gets generalised and turned into a general framework, and finally later its application groups (iLife, iWorks, etc...) start making use of it.

(note: I am not saying either system is the best. They both have pros and cons)
Where did you get the idea that Galt/etc went on strike because they felt underappreciated? They left because they don't want to support a system they believed to be immoral - compare to conscientious objectors to military service.

Any CEO who wants to "go galt" can go right ahead -- they'll be replaced easily enough.

Rand is well aware of this point. You seem unaware that the fundamental conflict in the novel is between strikers (Galt, Wyatt) and scabs (Dagny, Reardon). For the strike to be a complete success, it is necessary for most/all of the high value scabs to go on strike so as to make replacing strikers difficult.

As for whether you owe society anything, I recognize that your moral principles are different from those of Rand. I'm just curious whether your criticisms of her go beyond simple disagreement.
It's not a bug:

x86: introduce /dev/mem restrictions with a config option
http://lwn.net/Articles/267427/
"This patch introduces a restriction on /dev/mem: Only non-memory can be read or written unless the newly introduced config option is set."

Command-line access to /dev/mem in Ubuntu
http://superuser.com/questions/39583/command-line-access-to-...
It's not only the CPU that's the problem, but swap space too. While a laptop would have swap disk, as the OS would require one, an iPad/iPhone/iPod would not, and it's limited by the memory there is. As there can be N number of flash applications running on the same web pages, it could be that you need N "flash engines" running (I don't know that for a fact - just guessing here). And because it's hidden from the main browser, it can't control it. For example the browse might be able to do some kind of limit how much javascript memory/cycles are used, but can't do for plugin like adobe's.

Just punditry on my side, but I've also tried the jailroken frash on my iPad - and while it worked fine, I clearly saw that certain games are not playable - they were made for mouse with buttons, and just does not work with fingers.

Obviously this could be changed, but what Steve is afraid, is that people might perceive this as iPhone/iPad/iPod failure, rather than flash application one just expecting a mouse, and someone trying to emulate it with "fingers".
We should have our own jargon file too :)
At Starbucks, people make a lot of choices because they often have opinions about how coffee-like drinks taste best. People spend their whole lives refining the idea of what food and drink is good, and it's virtually impossible to LIVE and to not be a view on the subject.

Most people don't like making decisions about computers, and just want the most basic solution that gets what they want done. Excel is a complicate piece of software, but that's because it's the only way to solve the problems of enough of the market to make it the standard. On the other hand, chat rooms, calendars, and file sharing are something that can work for almost everyone without a whole lot of options, as long as you're willing to conform your workflow to that of the tool. Since there are no "file sharing software experts" (your expertise is in creating the file; sharing it is just something you have to do afterward), software without opinions like the kind Joel is advocating will probably do poorly in this space.
If native optimized HTML5 video plays smoothly and Flash doesn't, nobody cares that it's not fair to compare the two. The "fracking mobile phone" point is irrelevant. Either Flash plays smoothly or it dies.
>However, it is absolutely no replacement for Flickr. Flickr does it better, and continually makes it better.

To an extent, you're correct about this. There are large numbers of people for whom Facebook is no replacement for Flickr. However, I, and many others have not posted a picture to Flickr for years (I once had a pro account event), because posting a picture to Facebook seems to be the easiest way to share it with everyone I care about.

But yes, calling the end of Foursquare is a bit premature. It does raise interesting points, however.
Octoshape has had some successful deployments recently, although I suspect they only offload some of the bandwidth from the CDN. Also, Google isn't the only game in town; P2P offers the promise that you could cheaply deliver video to large audiences without having to pay Akamai or give up control to Google.
If that's all you took from her philosophy - being an individual is good, working hard is good, etc. - then you missed a lot of the detail.

To Rand, the ultimate measure of one's self worth is how much money you are making vs. how much you could be making. Building a company up, then offshoring all of your labor to China is more moral than keeping your operations local, because it will lower your costs, and therefore increase profits. And profits, to Rand, is the only thing that matters, as long as you aren't stealing from somebody else.

Similarly, in Rand's book it would be moral for, say, hedge fund managers to make risky bets on bad mortgage-backed securities, even if such a house of cards would eventually cause huge harm to the world economy, as long as the hedge fund managers make money doing so.

In Rand's world, there are no such things as externalities. There is only black and white, good and evil. It is a fairy tale land where everybody is always capable of making rational decisions with perfect information. Markets are always perfectly efficient.

Within the context of her writings, her philosophy works because she gets to define the axioms. But it all falls apart when one realizes that the world is far more complex than she imagines it to be.
I actually doubt that Adobe has the competence to make high quality software, that would be required for mobile Flash (due to serious optimization that is required).
There is probably not enough engineering culture in the company for that. I also think that a proper software company cannot be located in San Francisco itself, otherwise they tend to attract programmers that are too cool/have to many outside interests to write a high quality code.
> This made me livid. I don't hire engineers with the intention of firing them the day before they vest, why would it be ethical to wait until the day after your cliff to quit?

Ethical is continuous vesting with no cliff, or at most a month or two of cliff.

> A vesting cliff exists so that both parties -- employer and employee -- can have a chance to get to know each other before stock is granted and make sure that they're making the right decision.

It doesn't take a year to make that decision.

Do you really think that cliffs benefit employees or were you just hoping to slip that by?
How To: Port Your Landline to Twilio, Forward to Your Mobile Phone
For the record, the article could have been talking about desktop flash and it would still be very accurate.
Watt didn't build the first steam engine, not even the first commercially successful steam engine. Newcomen's engine (in widespread use before Watt was even born) developed about 8HP and was widely adopted by British mine owners:

http://inventors.about.com/od/nstartinventors/a/Newcomen_2.h...
Half the Sky: trafficking women on par with genocide
"Also, it's a fracking mobile phone you are holding in the palm of your hand and you want it to be as powerful as a desktop experience? Reality check!"

This would be more persuasive if there weren't non-Flash video and non-Flash games for comparison that don't have the same problems.
Open-sourcing would open so many doors. Apple could modify Flash until it worked on iOS properly, Google could modify until it worked on Android.

If Adobe has spent years growing the Flash player code on the principle “make it work well on Windows, and then hack it as necessary to make it work tolerably on other platforms”, then even after it is open-sourced, developing a Linux- or iOS-compatible Flash player may be more than just a Simple Matter Of Programming.

Remember the long gap between Netscape open-sourcing its browser and Mozilla becoming a usable platform.
Many of Adobe's engineers are based in Ottawa,Canada and India.
Anybody know what happened after 2005?
Personally I've got little to say, but I think it's an important news, that should be displayed prominently (especially in this community full of LISP fans). So I up-voted it.

I'd also like to learn Clojure at some point (or some other LISPy language like Nu), but haven't had a chance yet, so it wasn't really an upvote because I like Clojure. :)
New Google Analytics Management API
There's a ton of things Flash can do that HTML5 cannot, besides run in nearly any browser (now). P2P video is one example, sound recording is another.

That doesn't mean Flash isn't overused. But its not useless either.
Webcams, P2P, advanced audio stuff, DRM (you probably consider this a bug), etc.
Crashes the iPad web browser.... I'll have to live without knowing that one thing. ;)
Actually, I think that the real great hack here is to alias the rm command to a trashbin script (as suggested at the end of the article)
They should move out of Steve Ballmer's basement and make their own OS.

Yeah, that won't have antitrust implications, or anything.
Buy it back with what? Nearly everyone would need to get another mortgage to buy back their debt.
I'm not taking it out of context. I'm pointing out how unbelievably stupid the context is.

Is the book in the fantasy section? Does it have a disclaimer "this context is nothing like the real world so don't apply any of these philosophies"? As I understand it, the book is attempting to make a point about the real world.

I'm saying that point is totally ignorant of how the real world works, particularly how leadership works.
Is zipped really better? I can see people on mobile devices preferring raw links in email, and maybe not wanting such a big file in the first place, unless they were actually going to use all 3 versions. Should be a option in user settings to enable each format. Then in the monthly email, whichever files they subscribe to. Thoughts?
Perhaps just adding a search box to the HN header or footer would help? It would certainly be better than clicking through to Google, then clicking to enter some search terms, then browsing a list of results on a completely different site.
I don't think the point is "FOSS fixes everything".

I think the point in this case is, "go FOSS and you've got a shot. Stick with the status quo and your death is assured".

I think the poster has a point. Maintaining a monopoly on the tools to create media in a certain format isn't going to amount to much if everyone ditches the format. Flash is already becoming a four-letter word. I don't see what Adobe can do on their own to change the direction Flash is headed.

Going open would give Flash a shot at survival.
It's not, but when the comments read like they're from impressed third parties, it smells a bit. Imagine if coauthors of a book posted reviews on Amazon along the lines of "Wow! This book is amazing and has a great design" without disclosing their authorship, it looks weird. Instead, they should have gone with something more natural like "Just wanted to say I was involved with one of the slides in this project and I think it's turned out great!" I doubt such comments would have been voted down to oblivion.
One of the original intents of the git project was to create an "SCM toolkit" where other people would use git to build their own little interfaces on top of it.

Then everyone just used git. It's interesting to see this dream come to a small amount of fruition.
Ask HN: Is 1 year of programming enough to work for a startup?
I just came across the link on HN about how to land a job at a startup just out of college (http://www.jasonshen.com/2010/get-a-startup-job-out-of-college/) and it got me thinking. I grew up in Silicon Valley, went to college in Arizona, and recently got a job at an IT company in Kansas City after graduation. I know I want to move back to the bay area and work for a startup, maybe within a year, but I'm not sure if I've got enough experience.

I took some basic programming classes in college, enough to learn the concepts, but I had a hard time understanding how to put it all together into a complete application. It wasn't until I worked as a student web developer that things really started clicking. I worked for a year learning PHP and coding small web applications. Now I'm working at an IT firm as a consultant and doing some hacking when I'm not working 8-5. I'm working on a personal project right now...It's not any groundbreaking technology, just trying to automate a process for an industry that has, for the most part, not embraced the internet for their operations.

My question is, would 1 year of web development experience be enough to work at a startup? I feel like startups are looking for awesome programmers with CS degrees. I know there are other positions at startups but I feel like I just have a well rounded set of skills, nothing that really stands out. I guess I'd like to ask you guys if you work for a startup, what is your background and did you find it hard to get hired?
Groupon Having A $4 Million Day Thanks To The Gap
Why is it that everyone is so concerned about where to start?

Because where you start appears to influence -- heavily -- where you end up, or if you end up doing anything important. How many big tech companies began and stayed in in Madison, WI, or in Florida? Almost none.

There's a whole field dedicated to examining why and how this happens: economic geography. See here for a decent intro: http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/patton.carpet . The carpet industry in Georgia is one such example; Internet startups in Silicon Valley are another; movies in L.A. is a third; and so on.

It's like moving to Hollywood because you want to be an actor or writer.

Take a look at William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade, where he says:

"I find Los Angeles a very difficult and potentially dangerous place to work in, and I think anyone seriously contemplating a career as a screenwriter ought to move there as soon as it's humanly or financially possible" {Goldman@74}.

Later:

Screenwriters should go to L.A. despite the problems. As Goldman says, "To begin with the practical: Simply put, they know things out there the rest of the country doesn't, and they get that information first. The movie business is a part of the fabric of life in Los Angeles, and that just isn't true anywhere else. It is, if you will, in the air" {Goldman@80}.

People who ignore this ignore it at their own peril.
You are assuming that the only thing preventing Flash from working on mobile is that it hasn't been "optimized" enough -- that opening the source to Google and Apple will unlock performance otherwise unattainable by Adobe.

But suppose Adobe's programmers are not completely incompetent? Perhaps Flash's execution model is genuinely unable to be optimized further. Or perhaps most Flash content in the wild runs at the limits of desktop performance, and that compositing vector graphics and text on top of video while running multiple VMs embedded in a webpage is just too much for a memory- and CPU-constrained device.

In that case, open-sourcing Flash would have little effect. Even if we had an optimal mobile Flash player, we'd still need everyone to rewrite their Flash movies to run well on it. That's why HTML5 has the advantage here: HTML5 content is being freshly written and tested for mobile platforms.
My point is that there are limits to the power of reason, which I never felt that Rand acknowledged. I freely admit that I only read her two major works (Atlas Shrugged and Fountainhead).

I would grant that you are correct that reasoning is a utilitarian good (for humans) just as claws are a utilitiarian good (for tigers), but it does not follow from this that reason can derive a notion of moral good.
Gosh, I hate articles like this. This one in particular seems to tick all the wrong boxes.

- List structure (especially telling you what you should do)

- The title is deceiving: it's not that you are doing something wrong if your flight get cancelled. These are "solutions" to minimise the damage of a cancelled flight, or to get priority over other people.

- Third, and most important, the advice seems to be: "Don't be one of those idiots following the rules: be clever like me and find ways to circumvent your fellow passengers (who are in front of you in the line)". I call that skipping the queue, and it's not a nice thing to do.

Really, if I could downvote this article I would!

(edited for grammer)
I remember Acrobat Reader not sucking up to about version 5 (PDF 1.4, circa 2001). Perhaps not too coincidentally, this is about the level of feature support that most non-Adobe readers have.

Only twice in the past year have I encountered a PDF that didn't work in Preview.app. The first was a PDF of my own creation: I was using LaTeX Beamer as an alternative to PowerPoint, and I embedded a 3d model in the presentation. The other file was a two page brochure where the two pages were individual attachments to an otherwise content-less document. (This was stupid enough that I think we can probably blame it on authoring tools making it too easy to use the fancy features and too hard to do the right thing, ie. concatenating the two documents.)
> It is a fairy tale land where everybody is always capable of making rational decisions with perfect information. Markets are always perfectly efficient.

Well, just as the Marx fairy tail is studied, I think the Rand fairy tail (and it is) is good for thought too.
brillaint
Hi Noah can you confirm
but it's actually a plan that's 1000 visits per month and only tracks one page
The sheer volume of this sale is very impressive, but I would have to imagine that Groupon would take a significantly smaller cut than normal to get such a high-profile deal on their site.

Still, Groupon is really raking it in.