skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Downvoted for not thinking through the numbers.

When Zynga launches a new game, they can get over 1M new DAILY players on that game within the first week. [1]

For their games, it seems that 7% of daily players are online at any given time. [2]

So within the first week of launch, you have, about 100,000 people playing, simultaneously.

Let's say the client is sending 5 requests per second to the game server. And let's say that this week, all 1000 servers went to the new game.

Now, of course that's just an AVERAGE across the day. In reality, there will be a cresting factor, like any distributed system, and sometimes the load will spike, say, 8x.

Is it ridiculous for a single server to process 500 requests per second on average and 4000 requests per second peak? That seems pretty standard by my book.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/14/pincus-frontierville/
[2] http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/17/zynga-launches-first-locali...
You guys are silly. I only meant that I agreed with it so much that I wish there were a way emphasize my vote. Now its "Oh wait, those guys voted down his post, I will too!"

Way to build community guys. I still love you though.
the iOS update just hit the store a few minutes ago
Secret? They aren't shouting it from the rooftops, but I have known this ever since they published the report.
Oracle has already fired close to 7,000 people of the original 27,000 that were part of the merger, in June they announced a further 1,000 people to be thrown out but at the same time said they would hire 2,000 new ones mostly for the sales division.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6536G820100604

I don't see how IBM could have done much worse, and I think that Java would have fared a lot better under IBM, which in the longer term would have probably meant more rather than less job security for the people working near Gosling.

If he was talking about the company as a whole IBM would have had to fire more than 8,000 people to date do be doing as bad for the employees as Oracle did, now of course we'll never know so we can't really make any statements about that but I find it hard to conceive of it being so bad. IBM is very image conscious and I think they would have had a hard time murdering the core team around java at this clip, let alone destroying the technical core of Sun and replacing it with 'sales'.
I am teaching myself LAMP and just spent the weekend trying to figure out how to install all the android packages on my Linux laptop.

You are right about the iterations. Thanks.
How much did you know about the industry? Did your company know any promoters or booking agents? Could you get a band that signed up to do business with your company an opening slot on a tour? Could you get them a write-up in a music magazine? Did you know where to send them when they got kicked out of their practice space?

See, that's the thing. Music isn't just distribution of content on the Internet. There's a lot of other shit going on.
From the trailers it looks like a drama about money, sex, betrayal, etc. Seemed pretty mainstream to me. I almost get the idea that Facebook users might find it a little over the top. I don't know anyone who takes facebook all that seriously, even though they use it everyday.
That is exactly what I tell everyone who asks me that question!
I'm curious if you know anything about the band Fugazi. They've remained independent of the industry but have had a lot of success.
Yes, that's probably very true, in part this is Gosling being a similar sized fish in a much larger pond.

But if I compare that to google where there are lots of 'names' from just about every era of computing working and being reasonably happy I can't help but notice the contrast.

That changes the atmosphere of the place and that definitely does filter down to lower levels.
There was a similar thread in HN long ago (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=670453) and an awesome comment from 'plinkplonk' on this subject (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=670795).
There's your problem. Apple loves iTunes. That's why it's such a pain, because Apple loves it to the degree that they want to use it to control everything. Saying "Apple should buy dropbox to replace iTunes" is like saying "Microsoft should buy Ubuntu and use it to replace Windows".

Apple doesn't need to buy anything, they have plenty of talented designers and engineers, they merely need to realize that the way iTunes works and the way it is used to manage devices is broken and they need to come up with a new model for managing devices.
Smartphone app ?
I've heard that, I think it is in one of the Apple documentaries as well. Good example.
I know about the market and elasticity very well, thank you. Saying that the market doesn't solve every problem in no way implies that it can't solve a given problem. But one key ingredient is that you have to know what you're purchasing, which is one reason why health care is so messed up.

By opt-out I mean opt-out of your standard assigned school district, not out of education. You should be able to take your $X per-child that would go to the district and spend it on any educational program that meets defined standards.

Teaching 20 kids per year is worth $30K by definition, because that's what we pay people to do it. There is a high, positive return on additional money invested in better education, but we as a society are not opting for it.
85k before taxes. And no, advances in the music industry are not paid back. You won't see any royalties until they've exceeded your gross advance, but so long as you've delivered the record the company won't come to you and demand repayment.
Sell site merchandise, if applicable. I don't mean using Cafe press, I mean do a survey of your viewers and ask if they'd be interested, take the number of "yes" votes and halve that, and if you've got more than, say, 50, do a run of tshirts based on the sizes in the survey you put out. Make sure you have a quality design, make sure the tshirt printer shows you a proof before you give the go on the large batch, then put it on your credit card, and sell the shirts. A one color print job on a single side of a decent shirt will run you $5-7 USD, and you can sell them for $15-$30, depending on a number of factors.

Before affiliating with eBay and Amazon, I would do a fund drive every couple of years. You know, "Hey, we've got 80,000 monthly unique viewers, if every one of you pitched in a quarter, I'll never bug you about cash again." Asking for donations once every two years is much more effective than leaving up a 'donate' paypal button, in my experience.

eBay and Amazon have easy to use APIs that can generate affiliate links which can bring income. You can either build out a merch page a la http://theninhotline.net/features/merch/ or if you're writing about stuff that might have related reading (or in my case, music) link to stuff on Amazon within your content every now and then.

Having said that, don't make a post just so you can link to Amazon. Don't let your affiliation drive your content. But if you think linking to a book might genuinely be interesting to your audience, do it, and use an affiliate link.

I look at ads as a last resort, but that's because I'm odd. I've only rarely put ads on my site, and only on a direct-sale kind of thing. MTV contacted me asking me if I could link to something of theirs, I wrote back and asked for what I thought was a reasonable price (based off what I made in Amazon and eBay) and they agreed to pay for the link, which I had creative control over, and which featured in my sidebar for a month.
The [New York] Times Has a New Opinion
These seem like slides for a talk - quite difficult to follow
at which point were you able to get direct advertisers?
Extracting Useful Review Snippets from Yelp Using Natural Language Processing
if the label wraps the form field it's associated with, you should be ok. However, the "alt" attribute is completely inappropriate for tooltips. If you're looking to do something like that you should provide real tooltip functionality either using the title attribute, or better, display text right next to the field that's visible, which you turn into tooltips when JS is enabled. Then everyone wins.

From HTML4's spec:

"The alt attribute specifies alternate text that is rendered when the image cannot be displayed (see below for information on how to specify alternate text ). User agents must render alternate text when they cannot support images, they cannot support a certain image type or when they are configured not to display images."
This is going to be my first app so raising my profile will also be very rewarding.
Workers unearth huge fossil cache in California
Thanks. The comments have been insightful.

I guess I don't know what I don't know. I can find out how to work through relatively simple tasks by research but my common core of experience is so out of line with what most people in the field take for granted, I find I am spending most of my time just trying to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I guess I don't want to feel like I am wasting someone's time with what might be a dumb question.
Ask HN: Which tool to use for creating some informal architecture diagrams.
I normally just use MS Word or sometimes Visio. But want to check if there is some better tool to create some simple architecture diagrams to keep the team on the same page. Something not very fancy, just very basic.
This raises an interesting question for igouy: there are dozens of jvm knobs you can pull to optimize each benchmark: "-server", "XX:MaxInlineSize", the many "XX" options to play with GC etc. I'm assuming that the same settings would be used for java, scala, and groovy for any single benchmark, but are these switches tuned for that particular benchmark, or the same used for all benchmarks?
Suddenly, everyone is making Android apps
It's very much a mistake to say that given words should universally be saved for emphasis or used liberally. In most social contexts, there are a variety of words that can and should be used liberally. In the contexts where profanity is to be avoided,they tend to be things like "please" "thank you" and "that's great" or "I'm looking forward to it."

But in contexts where profanity is encouraged, and even a sign of belonging to a social group, there's no point in being elitist about it. I'm not sure I like social stratification, but I've found it's difficult if not impossible to have meaningful social interaction without adopting the social conventions of those around you.

That is of course distinct from a style guide for an investor writing about business, who should probably maintain a clear and inoffensive tone to his writing.
Causality: Guest Post by DAV
It's likely fully automated since it's running on EC2
I dunno. In that comment, he describes being the first in his family to graduate from high school or college, and his mom sending him away to live with an aunt so she could work.

In the original post, he described not being able to scrape together $300 for a test to go to college at all, and "not taking the job because you can’t find someone you trust to watch your kids". Sounds like exaggeration to me.

I still don't think he's writing from experience. He went to a high school he liked, a nice out of state college, and got a nice job. Just like the rest of us. He hasn't had to "try to think of a way to make the kids understand that the box [of Raisin Bran] has to last." Maybe his parents or friends did. Or maybe it's exaggerated and mythologized.

Who knows?

I'd rather access the reality of poverty through reason than emotion. Practical compassion for the people I know personally (and he is not the only one with friends and family who are poor!); statistics for communities and definitions and trends.
Biopace-like designs returned to the PRO peleton a few years ago, though the shapes are a bit more radical.
Oracle sounds as bad a company internally as externally. I'm hugely grateful that I've found other languages, frameworks and databases to base my career on and minimise Oracle's involvement in my life.

Although I never worked for them, I loved the hardware and software output from Sun. It was good to have them in the tech ecosystem. I can't say the same about Oracle.
September 2010 Directory Listing Special Offer
I love it when a plan comes together. Thank you.
The only dumb questions are the ones you never asked.
AngelGate: Super Angel Collusion? (the tweets so far) On Keepstream
Malware built to sabotage nuclear plant
Where do you find your site layout templates?
I don't want to put too much time into design when i'm testing out a new idea. Where can I find good layouts to use with software? I was looking at themeforest, and they have a clause that says if you use it for online software, you have to pay 50X the normal price for a regular website.
I have not enjoyed getting teachers who make $60k explain to me why I need to subsidize them (haven't hit $60k in my entire life).
It probably doesn't matter much to Oracle to stay on good terms w/ the technical community since technical people aren't their customers.

The people who have the budgetary authority to buy Oracle's very expensive products very likely haven't been doing anything technical for many years, if they ever did. Programmers in organizations that use Oracle aren't asked if they want to use Oracle, they're told they're going to use Oracle...

Unless you get your kicks from working on a 30-year-old database written in 80's style C, I don't think there's much appeal to working for Oracle as a programmer.
Adobe meltdown on Wall Street continues
Disappointing. I would have been interested in those statistics.
What does public key encryption have to do with it? Password or pin + salt + hash function like MD5/SHA would be all it takes to securely verify that the CC holder knew a secret.
Stephen Colbert Interviews Google’s Eric Schmidt On The Colbert Report
What a Package Hears as It Travels Across Europe
Was just forwarded this from a friend. It's a public record of everything going on with the AngelGate scandal.

All the records of who said what, linked appropriately are there. Makes for a good public depository of everything.

Feels like being a real reporter on a real case collecting all of the facts about the story!
No, I agree. Looking at a large program can be a college education. Looking at toys is what the article complained about: you learn how to make toys.
IBM has a policy of shipping as many jobs overseas as can be managed. They've moved tens of thousands in the last decade. What I've heard from friends suggests that it's not a pleasant environment for rank-and-file employees. AFAIK, Oracle doesn't have the same zest for shipping jobs overseas.
Facebook Promotes Its Credits as Path to Dollars
I am doing just that. The learning curve is steep-I am so far behind. I am not discouraged though, just hungry to learn.

Thanks.
Artistic Books
They are innovative, interesting and creative. They come in different shapes and sizes and you will be eager to start reading them.
Guesses About Who Was At That Secret Valley Super-Angel Collusion Meeting
It looks like an import from MS Word to me.
Using Mechanical Turk with data-based reporting
Programming is like making windup toys, or kinetic sculpture, or children. Once you're done, they come alive and entertain you! Unlike most art for instance, that just sits there.
Let github be your mentor and try to find someone to write/share/debug/review code with.
They don't. It's going to supply power for arctic exploration projects.
Built the site back in February and got my first direct advertiser in July.

I've learned that these things unfortunately take time. Trust needs to be built, traffic needs to happen, and companies are sometimes understandably reluctant to shell out a bunch of money for some ad on a website they don't really know anything about.

But if you can provide actual traffic for them, they'll pay for it.
IBM with its DB2 product is a direct competitor, and seems to do a bit better, blue suits & company hymns notwithstanding.

SAP is a special case, as it has a more limited target audience. The financial environment has a heavy, erm, taint on the typical SAP developer. Most of them are in it for the money, so I don't think a lot of them care all that much. College students in Germany often joke about selling your soul to become a SAP consultant… Whereas most Oracle developers or DBAs I've met are still more engineers than business types.

Some companies just don't need a flourishing developer community. I think Oracle – especially after buying Sun – isn't one where this would seem advisable, but apparently they think different. Wonder how that will work out…
so 3 of his rants could have been resolved by simply reading the docs. brilliant.
I can kind of see this for GE, because it isn't a software company. But Oracle does nothing but make software -- programmers are the absolute most important people on their projects.

Oh yeah, I forgot. Oracle is a marketing company. If you want a nice database, use Postgres. If you want a database that sponsors a sailboat, buy Oracle.
as has been stated before in other threads in this topic, the decision to use oracle products is rarely a technical one. its a business one, made by business/managerial types. and so that is who oracle plays to. if you build a product that treats the client's developers as interchangeable incidentals, you're going to do the same to your own developers.
Darryl K. Taft is a horrible writer.
What do you have to do with the information? Do you have to give it to various 3rd parties or fill out forms with it?
Big in Japan (ShopSavvy) to Offer Product Warranties Through SquareTrade
Where I was a teacher, $60k was the highest you could earn without a PhD. And it took 10 years to work your way up to that level.

EDIT: This was 5 years ago. I doubt teachers are making thousands of dollars more these days. My point is, the argument "teachers make so much money! What are they complaining about" is at best misinformed.

If you're hurting for money, try substitute teaching for 1 or 2 days and see what the difference is between a teacher's workday and your own. You'll probably take your less than $60k job over their most-likely-also-less-than-$60k-more-like-$30k-job
Compojure demystified with an example (in 6 parts)
Oracle has brilliant opportunities at the moment: they own a great processor (Sparc) that they could closely integrate with their database, application software and even Java... and (finally!) give IBM a run for their money. They have the cool and fast technology of both Sun's JVM and BEA's JVM (JRockit). They have acquired other brilliant technologies, and have in practice endless resources to acquire more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Oracle http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/acquisitions/index.html

But... although it's simple to appreciate the advantages of combining technologies, it's very very hard to actually do. For example, the IBM 360 project, of a series of machines of increasing power (and price), that were all compatible, so customers could upgrade, is a simple idea. But implementing this was a bet-the-company project, it was celebrated as an incredible, miraculous achievement, and the lessons learnt from it remain popular to this day (The Mythical Man Month, by the leader of the 360 project, Fred Brooks.)

To pull off these technical feats, you need the public superstar developers, but also the hidden superstar developers (the x100 coders; the people who, after working closely with them for a while, you observe, oh that guy's a genius); and then the x10 coders, who want to hang out with the geniuses and learn from them. It's places like HP used to be, where Woz wanted to work, at almost all costs (Woz himself being a x100 guy.)

If you only have x5 or x7 coders; and if you don't support them (with infrastructure, secretarial etc - not just compensation, adequate decision-making power, and some kind of recognition.), then, well, you can't do these technical feats. You may seek but not find; ask but it shall not be given; knock but it shall not be opened. Though this is not a disruptive issue, the same factors occur of the difficulty for an established successful company to change its culture and business architecture. And Oracle doesn't want to change anyway.
What happens if Tornado doesn't meet your needs? How easy is it to move this framework onto something else?
Totally and completely tongue-in-cheek. Check out his work in the Washington Post.
Student makes history with human-powered ‘flapping-wing’ plane
I cannot help but notice that this entire page uses serif fonts.
William Hill Casino Reviews
Ass-kicking Powerpoint Design
Innocent Until Proven Guilty Might depend on your Race
Well that's what made it a "hard decision." But so far so good. It's been a few month and we've become good friends since then, doing social stuff together not only startup work.
Targeted niche sites can do pretty well with direct ads even without a lot of traffic. 50k+ pgviews is a great start.

Quick pitch - I work at isocket, a company that makes it easier to manage your direct sales. We take care of billing/invoices, scheduling campaigns and stats. You can focus on the human part - selling - which we can help advise you on.
The only drawback I can see to this system is that you can't spin the pedals backwards while coasting. I do this a lot to stretch my legs and just to pass the time on hills when I don't feel like speeding up. Peddling backwards will engage the forward motion "but along a miserable curve".
I don't think it was a great article by any stretch, but you're sounding really foolish.

Helvetica and Akzidenz (and Universe/Avenir/Frutiger, Clarendon/Rockwell) are plenty different. And yes, there are designers that spend their careers alternating between a few similar typefaces. Just because two typefaces have similarities doesn't mean they both can't be useful in different situations.

Clarendon was recently chosen by Pitchfork, purveyors of cool, for their logo. Ruby Tuesday also went through a rebrand with Clarendon within the last year or two. Wells Fargo does fine with it. Modest Mouse and Belle and Sebastian have used it on album covers. Typography is subjective, but what exactly is your problem with it? It's very clearly still relevant.

"Why would a designer ever use Avant Garde"

That's a pretty ignorant statement. If you look at the portfolios of mondernist designers from the last 5 years, Avant Garde would probably appear as often as anything but Helvetica.

I'd expect that someone delivering such harsh criticism would at least be an expert on the subject, but I went to the Matasano homepage and found a hodgepodge of 4 or 5 different sans-serifs, sloppy tracking and leading...no wonder.
This is pretty amazing! watch the video here http://www.vimeo.com/15168317

The wings really are flapping like a bird!
Bryce Roberts confirms he was at dinner, says it wasn't like MA told it.
There's also shaft driven bikes: http://www.google.com/images?q=drive+shaft+bike

The design in the wired article, while interesting, seems like an overly complicated solution to the chain "problem".

> "[The] asymmetry [of traditional designs] has been the source of lots of problems"

I'd like to hear more about that. Sure, the rear wheel is balanced a little differently to account for this, and I imagine the feel is a little different if the both pedals are directly attached to the "cranks" (or their equivalent pulleys here), but I don't see a lot of problems caused by the asymmetry of a traditional design. Am I just blind to it? What are these problems?