skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Wow. I personally read the companies argument as huge lie.

> They say they must be able to offer each other assurances that they won't lure away each others' star employees if they are to collaborate on key innovations that ultimately benefit the consumer.

> They say they must be able to offer each other assurances that they won't lure away each others' star employees if they are to collaborate on key innovations that ultimately benefit the consumer.

It seems like they want to build their business on deception, and hope that the employees can't figure out where is a better place to work, instead of what I interpet as an honest solution, being open and allowing people to choose where to work based on good information, and then trusting them.
Greetings from my corner of the world! We don't normally purchase phones through carriers here, although recently Apple and Blackberry have initiated such programs. That means we can get cheap Chinese Android devices (with predictable quality).
Thanks, but I wasn't trying to be reassuring, only to provide an explanation of what happened.
I would be willing to wager the vast majority of users never become "used to" dealing with every other platform. My general understanding is most of them are are completely terrified of computers.

Modern smartphone OSes (iOS and Android at least) have a chance to take all the scary away. So far, iOS is doing well, and Android looks to be too. But really only because they have non-scary user interfaces with stellar defaults. And as far as most users are concerned, defaults are just how the OS works.
My apologies if I sound harsh but have you even read the woman's blog post? The blame belongs entirely with the shop in my opinion.
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=443354298928&id...

Its clear from the writing that she didn't know what she was getting into when she struck a deal, she set her deal at a price point that she could not possibly sustain (against the advice of her husband/business partner) and never once contacted Groupon for help with the situation.

What was Groupon supposed to do? Read her mind?

To be fair, I'm sure going forward Groupon can put up big bright red signs warning sellers that they will send them a ton of customers (the horror!) and that they'd better plan to appropriately deal with it or pick a price point that they can sustain, but the implication in your post that Groupon is somehow at fault for the situation makes steam come out my ears.

edit: looks like they already have something like this for sellers "We responded to those concerns by creating merchant preparation materials, including this video featuring a Groupon merchant who sold 10,000 bagel Groupons in a day:"
How many thousands of companies have spent a combined hundreds of millions of dollars on Google AdWords and not ever made their money back?

That isn't Google's fault and this isn't Groupon's.
Benchmark showdown: High-end Android smartphones
I use history a fair amount, and I've noticed an issue that none of these articles mention.

For history to be useful, you need to be able to reuse previous commands without giving them much thought; in the time it takes to think in detail about a command, you usually could have typed a new one without using history. As a result, commands that are reused via the history mechanism need to be "safe", with no hidden pitfalls.

For example, I use "find" a lot. A normal thing to do with "find" is to get a list of files to delete. Now, I could do that with "find ... -exec rm" or "find ... xargs ... rm", but that leaves me with an unsafe "find" command in my history, just waiting to bite me when I try to reuse it. If, some time later, I type "!fi" without thinking much about it, I might end up deleting some random files. Not good.

My solution, in this particular case, is never to do "find ... rm" on a single line. To remove a list produced by "find", I do "find ..." and then "rm `!!`". That runs the "find" command twice, of course, but the second time, everything has been cached, so it's very fast. (The real disadvantage is that the delay -- for the first "find" -- occurs in the middle of what is conceptually a single operation: after I've typed the "find", but before the "rm".)

So, has anyone else run into this issue? Thoughts? Other ways of dealing with it?
Wow, apple fanboi? I was talking of the fact that my Pre plus is fine, not commenting on what other platforms do or don't.

That, and I despise Apple Walled Garden anyway so the qualities of the iPhone are moot. And iOS 4 multitasking sucks, ergonomically. They messed up, even multitasking on jailbreaked iPhones 3.x was better, though far from as neat as the WebOS version.
These puzzles are more about recognizing fuzzy areas in the problem definition than about any sort of logic. In conversational English, "the labels are all wrong" does not guarantee that each label is guaranteed wrong, only that at least one of the labels is done incorrectly.

Another example: You have a room with one light bulb. Outside the room are three switches. How do you determine which switch controls the light bulb by only opening the door once.

This problem requires you to suspend certain assumptions about the real world (you can't see light coming from underneath the door), while preserving other ones (you can hold the light bulb, and it heats up, it stays hot). Solving the problem is more about finding the right level of fuzzying the problem definition than any sort of test of logic.
There was a story here just a few days ago about Google employees interviewing at Facebook, despite having no intention of leaving, just as a wage negotiating tactic. Now let me just say that I have no problem with that, in "real life" you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.

I'm just saying that what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Sometimes the wider economy favours the employee, sometimes it favours the employer, that's all.
I do not get it. So groupon responds with some marketing spiel about how their offering have worked for a number of businesses, and like he say some corporate BS about win-win.

Nothing about speaking to the specific small business owners that got it wrong by using groupon and what groupon has done to prevent other small business owners from failing in the same manner. How groupon has extended or enhanced their offering to protect against a bad experience for all parties involved?

And since he was writing in response to the Posie cafe story, something about the specifics about the case making it a bad experience for Posie's would have been so much more interesting.

I have not used groupon and probably will not after this response.
Why Internet Explorer 9 needs to run on Android
It certainly isn't Groupon's fault - but if merchants regularly have negative ROI on this sort of scheme Groupon's days would be numbered...
They're probably expecting a negotiation and start out as high as possible (well, they could charge for their service, but that would be too much).
Using alternate App Stores with your iPhone requires jailbreaking your iPhone, complicating updates, etc. Not the case with Android. If you want to use an app store like m.slideme.org, no problem.
I haven't been able to run it, since my windows computer is pending repairs, but could you please find a way to make the native client stuff google has been cocking up working in IE9?

I ask, because it would help webdevelopers like me a ton to be able to work around slow javascript.

Also, can I install it alongside earlier versions of IE?
I'm with you here, I can't see why you would want a 7" tablet if you already have a 4 or 5" phone...
You don't need to create an app store. You can put your app on your own website and give it away or sell it. I can't even put my own app on my iPhone without jailbreaking it or paying Apple $99/year for a dev license.
One thing I've learned is some people artificially appear more productive by offloading unpleasant tasks. Some of those requests, for example, might have been things that customers specifically asked for. And someone else on the team would have had to implement them, maybe on top of their regular workload, just because this guy wouldn't. Some of those emails he wouldn't answer might have been blockers for other people. If you can get away with it, great, but eventually people will figure it out.
People have downloaded shareware and freeware for their desktops off websites for years. While people definitely veer towards convenience, I don't think acquiring mobile apps from websites is beyond the capabilities of the layman.
This is why I love Hacker News. Similarly, if anyone has any comments to pass on to the Chrome team, I can oblige; although comment is welcome on our mailing lists too, of course. And.. fight!
Actually it should properly be proprietary fork, since if it ends up with one company being like Red Hat, they can still sell (with added services) what give away for free.
Do you know if it has a command and control component? This author's analysis seemed to indicate that it was relatively simple, which seemed to be why he thought it was so focused.
Given that it is going to be easy to patch, it will likely have a short lifetime, no?
I've only recently discovered the difference between scotch and bourbon. I'm going to blame this on... um, the stress of having a startup? Sounds good.
I think more emphasis should now be but on training the shops that use Groupon how to get the best value out of it. It is really no one's fault but it is Groupons responsibility to make sure as many campaigns turn out well.
My site Techinch.com came up first for "techinch" with no problems on Google until they switched to instant search. Now it says "Showing results for techniche. Search instead for techinch" Grrrr

So would you recomend sticking it out, or trying for a new name? Just a small blog right now, but I definately want it to grow...
NFL 2009 Pro Bowl Cardinals #11 FITZGERALD Jersey Blue
Security is the killer flaw, though. They're going to have to change once MS stops patching it - and who knows what 0 day (or -300 day) flaws lurk in IE6.
I love the simplicity of the app. I think an iphone client would be an excellent addition as there are not many free/cheap cloud based to-do apps. Great Job, App is very easy to use, I would recommend fb connect or twitter oAuth for less sign up friction.
It's not about being completely free for you, it's about being mostly free for everyone.
Ask HN: Mentors and Mentoring
I'm just starting out on a project on my own but in an area I have little knowledge of. So having a mentor would help me tremendously in navigating the treacherous waters of getting an independent project off the ground and achieving some measure of success.

However, I'm not sure of the protocols of taking up a mentor and the entire mentoring process. What is it that the mentors hope to achieve in return? Is it the satisfaction of teaching the ropes to a newbie, some form of monetary compensation or perhaps some amount of stake in the venture/project should it succeed?

Edit: Also pointers to how the mentoring process works would be really helpful. i.e. How does the interaction take place, to what extent should one rely on the mentor and even follow the advice when viewpoints differ on say a particular point.
You say Samsung did not announce the tablet in comments about the article which was liveblogging of the announcement?
And how come that samsung.com has promotional videos on the first page, if they did not announce anything?

BTW, I find it interesting how little interaction is shown in those videos. Sliding the stocks, typing in some comment, and that's about it. I guess work is not yet done in UI department there…
Smart of them to respond quickly and swiftly, but the core issue of this specific case wasn't addressed. A naive business owner was aggressively sold into a plan that wasn't sustainable for their business, and by all accounts wasn't aware of the cap system which Andrew says "has always been Groupon policy to allow merchants" to have.

So the PR responses read wells to people who have already decided Groupon did no wrong here, re-enforces to businesses that there is a model that could work for them, but does nothing to address people who found the whole thing unsettling/distasteful.
Oracle Says it Will Mirror Sun Approach to OpenJDK; JDK Remains GPL
The large logo is part of Google Instant.
Electronic Arts stepping into the Android gaming scene
IRedMail 0.6.1: Mail Server With Postfix, Dovecot, SpamAssassin On Ubuntu 10.04
Nice project! We put something similar together earlier this year using GSV and Raphael, but this is pretty sweet (too bad it wasn't around 9 months ago :)

Although it does feel like SVG/images are still not quite as snappy to drag when compared to just regular images in the browser DOM (which is why we did a hybrid).
Is Good Code Enough for a Project to Be Successful?
As to the Pronounceable, Spellable, Memorable bit... That can't be emphasized enough. Actually, I bet you can find me personally emphasizing it a half dozen times if you do a search here.

But I don't buy the Google part.

I personally run a little startup that had no trouble ranking for its own name, despite the fact that the first Google search we ever did for the name resulted in "Did you mean Twiddle?" That only lasted a few months.

Now we've crowded that poor word completely off the results for our name, and we've even kicked it out of the top slot when searching for "twiddle". I won't be surprised when Google starts coming back with "Showing results for Twiddla. Search instead for Twiddle" for that search.

It just takes a bit of time and exposure.
New Cloud Server Security Suite launched for secure API & Web access
Must be some kind of miscommunication . . . I doubt either are lying about their perception of the situation.
Ask HN: How can I get video-editing gigs
Hi. I am from Bangladesh. I have a cool idea for a web app, but since I'm not a programmer, I need to hire someone to code it for me. The problem is I am a student and don't have the money. The only way I can make money is freelance online.

I have recently taken up video editing. I use Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere and After Effects and am getting good at it, but I'm finding it difficult to get some decent gigs.

Any ideas on where I can get some contract jobs to edit videos? I'm thinking that editing wedding video montages is a good niche, but I have no idea how to get started. Any ideas?
The part that really tuned my brain anti-Groupon in this article was:
Groupon sold consumers a $13 Posie’s credit for $6, and then sought to keep the entire $6.

I mean, that's a 100% cut with the business getting nothing. If that's serious, Groupon look unethical; if it's not, then the coffeeshop is lying (and others have doubted the sincerity of the figures, too, as well as their ability to run a business full stop). Either way my mind is slightly twisted to dislike Groupon now. Subtle!
Do like me and flag this post, it'll go away faster.
Exactly. And if the cars doors don't get you, all the broken glass that blows into the bike lanes will.

The only special cycling facilities I want are those signs that say "bicycles have equal use of road" and the picture of the bicycle on all the lanes. Those make drivers aware that I am not being an ass and trying to delay them, but am rather trying to find a compromise between banning cars and me dying on my bike.

They are pretty good about doing this in Chicago, and I don't detect much resentment that I exist. It's even better in Seattle. (They don't even need signs there anymore, everyone is used to all the bikes.)
Puma Men's Easy Rider Shoes, Male olympic Easy Rider Shoes on sale
How is the update cycle? Is it going to be as smooth as in Firefox and Chrome, or via Windows Update like Safari and Software Updates?
re the Minor Annoyance:

Middle clicking to close tabs works fine in Firefox and even IE8 (only browsers I have on my system). No reason to complain about moving the mouse to the X button when you don't actually need to.
"I have a rule that I never spend money on an idea in the first 48 hours." waiting 2-3 days before moving forward is also a great tip.
I checked online real estate; the cheapest land I saw was $45,000 for 2 acres - with services available, but not connected, and with road access. I expect an unserviced, with no road, on the "edge of wilderness" bush block would be cheaper, esp if a private sale and if not online.
I've tried looking in the past, with no luck; don't know how to find out about it.

Another conversion:

5 acres = 20,234 m^s
Some simple stuff (compared to making IE cross platform etc) you could do to make me happy:

Features to Copy from Chrome:

(1) "Paste and Go" in the address bar.

(2) Select a URL in any webpage. Then right click-> Go to "http://the_URL.com

(3) Fitts's law law, Fitts's law law, Fitts's law law - Stick the tabs to the absolute top of the screen/window.

(4) Show download speed in the download manager.

(5) Hide "http:// in the address bar by default.

(6) Tab closing should be intuitive - See http://bit.ly/6Zahdz

(7) In javascript alert boxes show the "Prevent further alerts from this page" option after 3 or more popups.
To me, it sounds like the salesman in the middle is at fault here - it was probably near the end of the months and he needed his sales for commission, so pushed this through knowing that it may hurt the business in the end.

It shows that Groupon overall isn't a bad idea but that they need to improve their pre- and after-sales care with customers.
Will IE9 be available on the Mac? On Linux?
A checklist that gets checked automatically.

Once you have good coverage of your code base you can make large changes, run the tests and be confident the system still works without actually starting it up and checking manually.
I'm gonna sound cynical here, but why do you think that? People in business lie all the time to cover their butts or prevent embarrassment.
Yes, that's what they are saying in the linked video, around the 1-minute mark:
http://www.hs.fi/talous/artikkeli/Google+raotti+ovea+hakukon...

[We will be] taking the heat outside of the building and
using cold [sea] water to remove it

So it could mean air cooling inside the building, using salt water to cool the air.
From my experience, I have found customers have a hard time answering some, if not most of these questions. Instead of rejecting the project because the customer cannot answer, I tend to provide detail to what each question is pointed at and provide a spectrum as an example.
A wild guess: Groupon gives a better deal to businesses without a cap, or with high caps. Or, if you set your cap too low, you never get your 'day' because you're stuck waiting behind other businesses that offer more juice to Groupon.

That's fair, though it may tempt small businesses with only a rudimentary understanding of their own margins to over-market.
The features making a website go beyond standards and into microsoft specific areas (menus in pinned sites, changing color on the chrome depending on which site you're seeing) gives me a feeling of 'this is wrong'.

Care to shed some light on this topic?
I've had mixed experiences. Generally a positive feeling from saving money, but one of the Groupons I bought (a champagne cruise in SF) still has yet to come in sight of being redeemed. The Groupon itself didn't specify that the cruise was only available at weekends, and the company insisted on doing everything by email with a 24-48 hour turnaround, so booking became a nightmare. After reading in this thread how easy refunds are, I may well do that instead.

I've also had trouble scheduling a discount spa treatment, and the one I did redeem came with a very heavily upsold expensive beauty purchase - sure, I could have stood firm and hassled my way out of it, but she was very persistent and I value my time and sanity more than the price of a bottle of facial cream.

The Groupons for "$5 for $10 of $ethnic food" I just don't bother with. To be honest, I only go for these group buy discounts if it's a really good looking deal right now, as I know what I'm getting into booking-wise.

And it does work for some; I just got my hair cut at a salon that had been Grouponed, leading to a handful of new positive Yelp reviews, leading to me finding them in the first place. Happily paid full price, but all the smug Yelpers boasting about their Groupon left a slightly acidic taste in my mouth.
A must read for any would-be freelancer. Freelancing doesn't mean just sitting in a Starbucks with your MacBook Pro.
Ask HN: What's next for this codebase?
Hi all!

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I'm looking for some brainstorming help on a possible future for some code which has reached a sort of crossroads.

This codebase is commercially known as "PocketMac for BlackBerry". If you're not familiar with it, it was the first Mac app that allowed users to sync a BlackBerry with a Mac. RIM licensed it for several years to give it away to users, until they eventually came out with their own app. It includes the drivers (of course), the low- & high-level communication stack, and a pretty robust sync engine.

This code probably represents the most comprehensive knowledge of the BlackBerry's internals found outside of Ontario, Canada.

The problems facing this codebase are:

- With RIM making their own software -quality of same aside- it will potentially become more difficult to sell this, at some point.

- Additionally, as with all devices, the future of the BlackBerry is uncertain.

- Finally, syncing mobile devices, as a market, seems to be something that 3rd parties are being crowded out of. More and more devices talk to Macs (or a good cloud service) right out of the box.

So, that brings me to the question of what's next.

Here are some very rough (~40 grit sandpaper) ideas I've been considering:

1. Pivot. Agreed, but, to what? As I said, devices are now shipping with this sort of functionality built-in, so it's not as simple as just porting a piece or two to a new platform, generating a new driver, etc. if there's not really a need or market for such a solution.

2. Wholesale sale/licensing of the code to another party. Maybe Google wants to offer a way for Android phones to connect to a BlackBerry and slurping in all of the user's data? Some of the recent headlines suggest there might be a foreign government interested in slurping up data from citizens' BlackBerry devices. (Remember, we're just brainstorming here.)

3. Open-source it. I'd love to. I really would, but I can't afford it right now. The software still sells and paid support doesn't make enough on its own. I'd consider some kind of Kickstarter project to open it up, but I doubt it'd raise enough money to be worthwhile.

That's as far as I got.

I'm hoping you will have some additional ideas, since I'm almost certainly "too close to it," as they say.

I welcome any and all suggestions.

Thanks in advance!
New York Tornado
Depression Recovery Differences Between Men And Women
>Does a human being have the right to contract with whomever he wants to sell his labor to?

Yes, but it's a negative right, not a positive one. There needs to be a willing purchaser of his labor, and they have the same negative rights.
Didn't Apple just drop skyhook as well? Isn't that worth mentioning?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/straup/2801691670/
A lot of this essay reminds me of the beginning of a startup. When days are long and sleep is optional and sparks are flying and people expect you to have cleaned the toilet because you've been in all day. (Except you've been sleeping, because you were up til 10am coding.)

The difference is the endless hand-to-mouth treadmilly cashflow problem transforms into something... well, similar and yet different, but I found it a lot more palatable than the idea of constantly writing blog posts for Calacanis^W^W^W^W^W chasing clients for tuppence a time.
>> "Great for kids."

Oh come now. It can't even render things like nickjr.com