skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Backblaze online backup almost acquired
This blogger appears to have an extremely superficial understanding of economics. Economists have no problems talking about economic efficiency when a few benefit at the cost of many. Corruption and Monopoly's are both economically harmful for similar reasons and both been studied for a long time.

Edit: Based on his credentials I suspect he is simply assuming his audience is both ignorant and biased.
There is one, it is called http or https. I agree that more direct interfaces would be nice, but there are currently methods of controlling and passing data to a PHP server from any language you can open a port in.
Get a launcher app. Quicksilver has long been a favorite of Mac users, but I'm much more fond of a newcomer called Alfred (http://www.alfredapp.com/). There are a few others, as well.

The idea is to extend the command-line metaphor to parts of OS X where a regular shell isn't useful, and most such tools provide a whole lot of functionality besides just launching apps.
7) +1 Spotlight or Quicksilver if you prefer.
There is also Alfred http://www.alfredapp.com/

If you listen to music while working, I also find Coversutra http://www.sophiestication.com/coversutra/ or Bowtie http://bowtieapp.com/ very useful.
Interesting! I am a half-breed; I write Python at my day job and Ruby in my personal projects. You seem to be suggesting that I am sort of making a mountain out of a molehill. Can you perhaps elaborate on this? I have definitely felt this pain before; I'm not just complaining about it because I "like the Python way more." But if I'm not using Ruby "as intended," I would like to know how I should be using it instead! I feel like the "Python way" is powerful because you don't have to think about whether you're dealing with an anonymous function or a function, whereas in Ruby you must know for sure which one you are dealing with, because they are invoked differently. I'm interested to know how it isn't really a problem, if that's how you feel.
Not an IE user, but I've been impressed with the work the IE team is doing for IE9. The quality of support previewed so far outshines WebKit or Gecko. WebKit and Gecko, I think, have greater support, but the quality of IE9's support is superior.
I'm not a fan of mixing tabs on the same level as the url box. but I can imagine it was a design decision to allow for a bit more reading on widescreen monitors.

I'm no fan to judge though, as I don't think I've actively used ie for nearly a decade now.
Possibly, your greater experience was the difference. I don't know what experience you had before, but if you came to Ruby with no experience in a "dynamic" language, everything seemed new and hard-to-understand. Later, coming to Python, you probably understood everything better as you were learning it, having had experience with Ruby.

Just a guess, of course.
> They took advantage of the situation

Contradicts the rest of what you wrote... The strongest point against that I can see is the fact that he saw it somewhere else first.
The trick is to write your OS in such a way that you minimize the chance of having races. The way I chose was to mimick 'QnX', a message passing real time OS.
Using SnapRocket will allow you to select different windows using the keyboard instead of the mouse.

http://graymatterlabs.com/snaprocket
I too was having audio problems with the video.

Why are startups good at doing things? The answer seems obvious IMO. They start with nothing. Therefore they have to do something in order to exist. Big companies already have things (product, revenue) so sometimes its not necessary for them to actually do anything.
But it is not obvious that a theory can be expressed by a program. I am prepared to believe that there are fields in mathematics or genetics or something where this is not problematic.

In physics, theories often describe a world which is both infinite and continuous, which is hard to encode in a form suitable for computation; typically finite-volume and discretisation approximations (at the very least) are made.

In these situations the theory represented in code isn't the same as the theory
you started with. One has to work quite hard to demonstrate that the differences are quantitatively understood and under control, and that the domain of applicability is understood.
Objects Have Not Failed [Guy Steele]
Automator Automator Automater (Free drag and drop scripting toolkit already installed on the machine).
IE9 can only go up
For vim and many other old programs ctrl+[ is equal to escape. So what I've done is map caps to control which lets me easily hit things like ctrl+c, ctrl+u or when needed escape. Mac also comes with a program that can map caps->ctrl in the keyboard section of system preferences.
The problem I see with this is that the application I create will be dependent on Facebook's service, what if I want to use something else? what if my application is so successful that Facebook decides to create a service/app that does what mines does? This is the problem with building on top of existing services such as Twitter, Facebook, etc... I see the benefits these companies get by letting other developers test new "features", if they see something having some success then they just implement it themselves...
But most browsers will support all of them: Safari and IE will use whatever is in the OS, and Chrome supports both.

Only Firefox (and Opera) has decided not to support AVC.

To me Firefox sounds like they want things their way and they can't compromise in any form. They won't use whatever is installed in the OS, nor will they include a codec they have to pay for. If they wanted they could implement it as a plug-in, and then FOSS people will be able to use it like they use Flash.

It seems Firefox can't choose between compromising on either principles (be that free software, or no external dependencies) and therefore is forcing everyone else to adapt to them.
i like my apps fullscreen to eliminate all the other noise and using spaces to navigate.

fullscreen macvim is actually a beautiful editor.
However, when they were asked politely by a family to remove a torrent of autopsy photos of the family's murdered children (just the photos--the family had no problem with the reports and other documentation on the murder case), TBP told the family, "That is one helluva gripe. No, No and again no."

> Pirate bay is a site run by an organization for a political reason

I was not aware that making money is a political reason. TBP is commercial. They are in it for cash and nothing else.
It would be nearly impossible for IE9 to not be simpler than IE8, so I am not giving them too much credit until I actually see something shipped that the masses adopt.

Interesting write on the simplicity of IE8 vs. Safari: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1638772
just get rid of your mouse for awhile, even if it kills your productivity. it'll make you figure out the keyboard shortcut for everything.
this is really interesting. do you mind to elaborate more?

i am Teng Siong Ong from GraffitiGeo(YC S2009). in fact, visa is the worst problem that many YC international founders face now.

this will really help if you could share your experience with all of us.
say i have a theory that says, changes in temperature depend on changes in pressure in some specified way. And you say, oh I have a similar theory, it's a computational model. In my model of the universe, when my model of temperature changes, then so does my model of pressure, and it changes in exactly the same way your theory describes.

I'd say ok, that's a great theory about your model of pressure and your model of temperature in your model of the universe.

And you say, no no, this is a theory about actual pressure and temperature in the actual universe, just like your theory.

In that case your model is not enough. I also need reason to believe that your models of temperature and pressure are relevantly similar to actual temperature and pressure such that relational properties that hold of the entities of your model also hold of the entities they're supposed to represent. If it turns out you modeled temperature as a jpeg representing a picture of a cat, then how is that a theory about the temperature?

Whereas my theory is a theory about temperature simply because my theory says: temperature, that real thing in the world, will do such-and-such.
You need an address box and a search box. You need tabs.
real estate concerns mean thats 2 lines so far.
you need a favorites line (or i do anyway)
you need a title line and a status line.

If the browser is missing any of these lines I will add it. The interface is exactly the same, internet hasnt changed browsing hasnt changed. What you need to do in a browser hasnt changed. Its nonsense.
I think there's a certain irony in this. Isn't FOSS a big proponent of these sort of dependencies? I mean, whenever you discuss Windows or MacOS way of installing software, you'll hear how Linux does it better because each component is separate and therefore they can fix something upstream and your software will automatically use it.

But suddenly now people complain because a piece of software doesn't have control of their pieces...

How are these two views consistent?

(incidentally: I like the Linux's way, and try to replicate it as possible with Macport).
I'm not from the U.S., can somebody explain to me why litigation is so common there?

Are there laws that somehow lower personal responsibility in general?
Every single time a new version of IE is released, I think "Hooray! The masses will be able to see the web as it's supposed to be seen!" and then I'm crushed.

Every. Single. Time.
Australians should take special interest in the E3 visa:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-3_visa

I can imagine that incorporating a company in the US and then having that company sponsor you would be a valid use of the E3. Once the company has an LCA to prove a US resident can't do your job (requires some hoop jumping and waiting around), it's super easy to get the E3.
For a really young/small company you'd probably need to go to some effort to prove that the company isn't simply a vehicle to get the visa for a foreigner.

I had an E3 and left of my own volition without applying for an extension. I tend to get a couple of minutes of extra questioning when going in to/transiting the US now, based on their assumption that I obviously want to return to live/work there, having experienced their awesomeness in the past. I know another person in exactly the same situation.

(edit: changed LMO -> LCA. I was confusing Canadian and US terminology)
Quite a bit more than that. They have something like 10 ASN's, many of which are advertising whole /16's.
If they can keep the site up with the extra traffic, it will be a great day to sit back and learn something new.
Learn to get burned - dealing with partners gone bad
> Pointless, that'll still get them blamed.

How are they doing now with Flash? Any record of users complaining with Firefox for a Flash bug?
Wow, this is great. One thing I've missed for years from Windows is being able to easily tile windows in a sane manner.
try tmux instead of screen. Supports vertical splitting. tmux is in macports.
One of those is an editor. The other is a lisp environment with editing functions.
Make a bookmarklet with this code:

javascript:(function(){try{var%20url=encodeURIComponent(location.href);var%20ifr=document.createElement('iframe');ifr.style.position='absolute';ifr.style.top=10+'px';ifr.style.left=10+'px';ifr.style.width=450+'px';ifr.style.height=100+'px';ifr.style.border='none';ifr.src='http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href='+url+'&show_faces=true&width=450&action=like&colorscheme=light';ifr.scrolling='no';ifr.frameborder=0;document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0].appendChild(ifr);}catch(e){}})();

Then you can visit any webpage and "like" it.
You have nothing to lose so why wouldn't you try?

And therein lies a story...

Basically I've got somewhere between 5 & 10 good ideas for a startup of the type that really need funding (my YC application lists 5 atm, and they aren't crap ideas). Then I've got another set projects that are bootstrappable, some of which I'm working on with other people.

I could use one of those ideas, and there are plenty of people who'd be happy enough to co-found with me.

But there is one idea I'm really excited about, and no one I know is the right person to do it with. Everyone I tell it to loves the idea, and says they'd try it, but for a co-founder I need someone with a very specific set of skills. I haven't met the right person yet.

So... is it best to go for the one I think is the best idea, or is it better to have a good team and a decent idea.
Nice updates to HAProxy funded by StackOverflow
One day, the Mozilla folks are going to wake up and realize that all the opinion-makers abandoned them for Safari and Chrome.
If you enter the US on a B2 business visitor visa, after being in the country for 60 days you can petition in writing for an Adjustment of Status to change your visa to another type. You can remain in the US under the terms of the B2 until you get a reply to your petition, even if it is after the 90 day expiration of the B2.

Note that the above is true for canadians. Ymmv for other nationalities.
Lean Startups: Learning Over Working Software
There's a distinction to be made between preventing risky behaviour and relying only on a programmer's good judgement to avoid mistakes. Even if your team is solely good programmers there's a lot to be said for discouraging unsafe behaviour by default since anyone can have a bad day, distraction, etc.

I view this situation as somewhat analogous to having guards on power tools: even a highly skilled operator doesn't want to rely on always doing something perfectly.
Caveat for what exactly? Technological transfer for Africa and Asia tropical climates? Or for the Brazilian agricultural model?

For the second case I can give an opinion, Brazil is a country with a fair amount of climate seasonal variations, where I live in São Paulo we have rainy summers and dry winters, and in the 24 years that I lived there were a fair amount of uncommon events in climate (including hot winters and dry summers), and yet year after year as long I can remember the crop yield rose, both in Brazil and in São Paulo.

I do not see how this can change in the short and mid-terms without a global climate mess that would also affect other countries in the globe.

EDIT: As mkr-hn pointed I do not know the difference between weather and climate, I think that the basic idea still stands.
It's easier for them to secure against all those attacks considering they have the all the code that runs on their servers and the people with the expertise to fix them ;p

Microsft just proved that opensource is the way to go. They wouldn't trust their business to software they don't have the code for.
I don't understand what you mean.

Do you mean they should have been "nice" to him? If yes, why? They were doing business, not having a cocktail party.
"Sadly, Microsoft has effective building security". That says it all, about corporate mentality.
In their defence, that's how windows usually work on (err...) Windows 7, apps usually have the top bar and sometimes something more where transparency is allowed (there's a system setting for setting the amount of transparency, or none).

I don't see a problem since the tabs are not transparent, just with a small gradient like Chrome, and it's probably not going to be possible to add things (icons from extensions?) to the main controls of the browser.
Very true. I keep thinking I need to stay off it for a couple of days, but it is a very easy way to learn tons of new things with very little effort.

My guess is that in the coming months we will see more third party tools (proxlet) which help filter out the crap.

Then twitter will probably release their own. :)
Along similar lines, there's Strange Maps [0], which has random weird maps of all sorts. In a different vein but still dealing with correspondence is PostSecret [1], in which people anonymously send personal secrets on postcards to the author.

[0] http://bigthink.com/blogs/strange-maps

[1] http://www.postsecret.com/
I'm not saying you don't need a search box, but I use the address bar as my search box. That's even the default layout in Google Chrome isn't it?
Doesn't surprise me - they refuse you for a visa if they have any suspicion that you're trying to immigrate. One time I was entering London and the customs guy was in a bad mood and decided to grill me. I made the mistake of saying I had a girlfriend in London that I was seeing as part of the trip - after that I got extensive questioning. Guy was halfway in a bad mood, but halfway having a girlfriend might be reason to immigrate in his eyes.

Nowdays regardless of what I'm doing, I won't say anything that'd remotely indicate that I might ever want to live in any country I'm visiting, lest I get in more questioning and hassle. And I'm an American, mind you, not exactly the country that people get the most skeptical screening process from.

If I was from a Baltic country or developing country, I'd try to casually work into conversation that I had serious commitments back home - good job, mortgage, graduate studies, serious relationship, things like that. (Actually, now that I think about it, that's what finally got me through that London questioning - when I mentioned I had to be back in Boston for my studies starting in late August, it was around July at the time IIRC, roughly five years ago)
Vintage Circuit Boards Create Stunning Sculptures
Why does Microsoft hate tabs?
Blockbuster is going bankrupt.The U.S. falling victim to a similar complacency?
News broke today that Blockbuster's is going bankrupt. As I was reading this morning I wondered how the largest video rental company (BY FAR) allowed a newcomer to become a serious threat to their business in a matter of 3-5 years, and force them into bankruptcy in about 10 years.

My conclusion after a bit of thought is that as the big player in the game, the incumbent has an incentive to be complacent. In the case of blockbuster, doing business as usual seemed to be a pretty good option. The owner (W. Huizenga) was a multi-billionaire and blockbuster was bringing in large profits every year. Complacency was pretty profitable. For Netflix howeverr, complacency would have meant non-existence.

On the global scale, I now see many countries that are as hungry as Netflix was in the late 90's. The generation before them grew up dirt poor and this history is never far away from their minds. They are now training their current generation to adopt the best from the U.S. and reject the worse. But they ARE changing..rapidly. They're diversifying their economies to build a base of manufacturing for the working man, and research for the intellectuals. In the U.S., the working man is going broke, and the intellectually gifted are often going to finance (take a look at Harvard/MIT recruiting over the past 10 yrs).

Software development is the one area where I can say the US is on very solid footing relative to it's peers, but is that enough?

It's somewhat cliche to say that China is a rising power, but I wonder if the rise of countries, particularly China, India, Brazil will mean a radically different future for the U.S. There is large segment of the U.S that are nostalgic to a past perceived American glory and yearns for even more complacency than we see today , and I fear what will happen if they get it.
Warning: Your Product May Be Doomed If You Don't Ask This
With tourist visas you need to demonstrate non-immigrant intent. If the immigration officer was aware that your friend was actively applying for a greencard (ie, they're intending to move to the US), they'd have to go to extra lengths to show that they fully intended to leave whilst on that tourist visa (ie, they're planning on visiting the US).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_intent
I see you're definitely not a typography nut.

Hey, I know. Comic Sans is on essentially every computer. We should all just use that.
No more drive-by teaching
True... very very true.
You need to put the URL in the URL field, not in the text field. However, here it is, clickable:

http://www.securityweek.com/content/how-defend-against-ddos-...

You seem to be new here, so I also suggest you also read these:

+ http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html

+ http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
http://ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
Startups Need Focus To Cross All The Chasms
You're behind the news:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/38833555/
I'm not trying to besnarky, but why even use a MAC. It seems like Linux is a better fit and less expensive. MAC is really about the UI, and if you don't take advantage of that you are just left with an almost Unix environment.
As I said, in Chrome, the address box IS the search box. It works that way really well, except on the outside chance that you're trying to search for a URL, or something, but I think we can agree that's an edge case.

I agree that you need tabs, but I thought that the IE9 preview was pretty clever in floating the tabs next to the address bar, meaning it takes up one less panel than before.

Do you need a title line? Really?

Do you need a status line? I think the default behavior in Chrome is that the 'status' line floats onto the screen when there's something to show, otherwise there isn't one. I agree that you need a favorites bar, but I disagree that it won't ever change.

As for your second paragraph, let's just say that I disagree with it both in premise and in practice. Chrome's UI completely obliterates the points you suggest in the first paragraph, and again, I think the assertion that it won't ever change is as wrong as the (faulty) assertion that it hasn't ever changed, because clearly it has.
Summer: The Right Time for Booties?
So considering I do both am I a Werepire ?

But seriously, on small teams, you can't avoid that you will have a few people doing both for a while. We have a dedicated a sysadmin but we work with him a lot considering he has to deploy our code and devs are terrible at helping out sysadmins. I get in these arguments all the time with other devs about making sure it's easy for the sysadmin to configure and deploy the app. When they write code that depends on random libraries, they need to ensure that will be deployable on production servers running Linux and not OSX etc..

I feel having experience with both is important for sys admins and devs to understand each other.
That's weather, not climate. Climate is something measured over centuries.

Climate is thousands of little weathers collected and analyzed.
I appreciate that you're trying not to be snarky, but that's a vast oversimplification of the differences between Mac and Linux.
Yes in that case it is not. They are just saving you a trip to the embassy and $100+.
Axiom: A general purpose Computer Algebra system (in development since 1971)
The following two sentences seemed a bit self-contradictory.

"They like agricultural research but loathe genetically modified (GM) plants."

"As the briefing explains, Brazil’s progress has been underpinned by the state agricultural-research company and pushed forward by GM crops."

Does anyone know if GM crops did play an important role in their newfound agricultural efficiency, or did they find major wins in other areas?
I couldn't agree more. My world has expanded because of twitter and the access it gives you to experts and people who are willing to share what they've learned and experimented with.