skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
On one hand you are suggesting "we can't know anything, let's not bother" but on the other hand you are saying "let's talk about things we should actually do".

Ok! I moved to Canada (Quebec) from the US. The healthcare system is overloaded, there are weird things like a) it's extremely hard to get a family doctor, b) you have to go to a clinic early in the morning to get a number + time of day and then come back at that time to be seen, and c) you still need to pay your own way (or get insurance) for dental / vision. You have to wait weeks/months to have a surgery, but you have to do that in the US and then promptly file for personal bankruptcy.

That's still a whole hell of a lot better than a random unexpected illness or injury sending an employed, insured person into bankruptcy. Seeing a doctor is now a possibility instead of a dangerous worst-case scenario that could ruin my life. No more hoping the pain/infection/whatever just goes away on its own.

Thus, I still think moving towards a government program / single payer / whatever you want to call it system is the best idea. Now, I based this all on personal anecdotal experience and not statistics, so I wonder if anyone will actually agree with me. :)
As a TA for an intro to programming class taught using Java, I wish, wish, wish we were using Ruby instead. I spend 70% of my time teaching people Java's obtuse syntax, rather than teaching the underlying concepts. Once a programmer has developed the concepts, she can code in nearly any language, but she really has to learn the concepts. Ruby's syntax is straightforward enough that little kids get it down in days, so students can actually learn computer science rather than Java science.
I don't use my real name on here, but anyone can find it with about five seconds of Googling my username, so I suppose so.
Ask HN: Quick screen recording plugin/software?
What do you guys use to screen capture? I find that often I need to record a quick session to show a client a bug, rather than a series of screenshots a small video would be nice.
This is probably my 6th or 7th account here. I switch accounts frequently. I prefer anonymity but also have an account with my real name.

I visit HN every day (since the very early days) and don't like the idea of every one of my comments from my entire history here being linked and available to anybody.
This is a great critique! I am using OSM for storing thumbs and printable maps for users, but they are pretty poor quality compared to the equivalent zoom google maps. The data is there, it's just the default rendering that isn't. Obviously this can be mostly solved with custom styling, but getting a well functioning tile server is a decent task.
>I wonder if an argument could be made that given the USs propensity towards unhealthy lifestyles that the US is in fact great at healthcare because the life expectancy is as high as it is?

This is no argument to be made about the US having great health care. I don't know how a place where a random illness can wipe out your and your family's finances can even be considered first world.

To address your specific claim "we must be good because we make horrible life choices and don't die!" I would point at the UK and alcohol consumption. Their bad life choices are driving costs up to the point that they'll probably have to make some big changes to deal with them but so far the system is doing a reasonable job of keeping them from dying from it.
Is there a way to force Talika to display icons for windows open in secondary monitors?
We were just in Canada in early September. As soon as we crossed the border, AT&T send me a warning-text saying, "you're roaming now, data is $15/mb, so heads up." (Obviously paraphrased, but the number is real.)

However, it was still hard to know when we were and weren't using data. There are options in the iPhone to turn cellular data on/off (which needs to be on to use GPS), and not to allow data roaming, but I still was unsure of when it was being used.

Our bill ended up being $217 for the month. It could have went much worse.
Assuming you decided to ditch the tabbar as well, I like to mentally model it like this:

CTRL-N: new globally scoped window. Cycle with ALT-TAB.

CTRL-T: new locally scoped window. Cycle with CTRL-TAB.
This is so true. The other big item missing from OO for Windows is the outlook equivalent (with email but also calendar, exchange, etc.) Evolution doesn't come close even for small business usage.
Ubuntu 10.10 cloud servers with root access launched by CloudSigma
I'm based in Jacksonville, Florida. All of my work is freelance telecommuting though, and my standard rate is $125/hr. And I have no trouble finding work.
There's also the whole is-ought problem here: leaping from some facts to justify some actions based on some values, without there being a solid connection between the facts and the values.
'only' being relative :)

And you bet there would be layoffs if this happens.

I think the chances of it happening are slim though. They rejected $40B from MSFT, they would look really stupid to accept half of that now (personally I think they should have accepted the MSFT deal, I owned stock at the time)
We use Mercurial here. Easy, secure (ssh with keys) never forget files, small transfer size, possibility of committing regularly when the client has access to the files. With hooks, the update is done as soon as the changesets are received.

In some cases we can even create websites on the fly with a simple "hg clone"

I guess Git allows more or less the same workflow but Mercurial is easier for your designers.
Once this is setup the major task is driving traffic, which is far beyond the scope of this article.

Yes, and it's the hardest part of the process. Saying "start early" doesn't help much if you punt on "start what?" Glossing over that 650 strong list is skipping the meat of the subject. How much did they cost, where did they come from, and how long did they take to get? Those are the questions worth answering. You need to answer (or guess at) those questions before you decide when to start your marketing.
He was also lucky, in the right place and time, and savvy enough to exploit his luck. Plus, the value of Facebook (and other sites mentioned) is the community and mindshare. You can't just buy a Facebook clone and expect overnight success.
I know when I read a Balsamiq post that I'll get inspired and re-motivated for my own frequent back-burner mini-ISV goals.

Peldi - Grazie for the transparency.

No update on the iPad app. However, it appears the company is doing so well (a very good problem) that the iOS app has fallen on their backlog. At least, Apple has now officially allowed Adobe's Flash to iOS technology. The last blog post about the iPad app (June 2010) was "This Fall: shipping the iPad app (or at least a beta)"

That is one app that I would buy an iPad for.
“Daniela”: Wooden Vespa Scooter Built From Scratch
Was this option not available? It seems like the only convenience is the bundling here, or were Mifis never without contract before?
Just be glad you guys don't live in Canada (at least not when it comes to wireless data ;). One of the larger providers up here, Telus, charges $30/month for 500mb and $65/mo for 5 gigs... and that's all ON TOP of whatever your actual wireless plan is. Yick.
I think the hallmark of any good teaching language is the ability to get up-and-running quickly, and Ruby (and PHP and Perl and Python and scripted languages in general) have that over Java, C++, and others.

But I think it's important to compare and contrast languages for just that reason, so that when moving to a language which requires a lot of preparation before you can even echo "Hello, World", the student doesn't get frustrated.
Your list has some interesting ideas, but I think that (10)ArticleBody has been executed very well by the bookmarklet ViewText at http://viewtext.org/article?url=http%3A%2F%2Fviewtext.org%2F

I'll add the list:

A FF and/or Safari extension to emulate the text focus that occurs when double tapping on a column of text on iOS devices. If you haven't seen it, it zooms the page to the width of the text column and is one of the best features of the iPad. It would probably be best implemented through a right click. I haven't played with extensions yet so I have no idea how difficult it would be, any thoughts?
I can't really ready your post because of the background. I'd recommend changing it
Nobody should work more than 8 hours per day. Somewhere around that mark, you start getting diminishing returns on additional hours. In Sweden, the work week is 40 hours. The maximum overtime is 150 hours per year, extensible to 300 hours if the employee and the union allows it.
Ask HN/YC: can I ditch Clickpass but keep my HN username?
I don't use my Clickpass account for anything other than logging into Hacker News. Can I ditch my Clickpass account but keep my HN username?
Because you aren't giving your money to that person - you're giving it to "the system" which says, "hmm, this sweatshop business is great, let's go on doing that!".
Ask HN: How do I create a video demo?
I've been working very hard with bringing out our software product and now finally did it today. I am running out of time and I now need to create a nice demo video for this and start presenting it. Unfortunately I've never done a product demo video before and now need to do it fast and good.

Do you have any suggestions to how I can shoot my product video?

- Any consultancy who could help us shoot or edit my shoots?

- Any software that I can use?

I am on an emergency timeframe so any helpful recommendation to do this in a short timeframe would be greatly appreciated.
Apple now third-largest PC seller in U.S.
I agree...it should the language and language only if you are teaching a beginners class.
I started to use http://www.deployhq.com/. I was already using their http://codebasehq.com for GIT hosting. Works great, server does not even need to have GIT installed, it can use ftp or ssh.
I deploy my CodeIgniter apps via the Springloops hosted SVN service.
In Defense of Comments.
You mean un-unix or un-linux?

Which parts?
"Canada is such a technologically backward nation that it costs an order of magnitude more to send data over their maple-syrup-soaked drunken-beaver-operated telecommunications system than it does here in the US."

This is so true!!!
Thanks for that link, I'll run my test set through it.

neat idea, that zoom!
There is one - but it suffered from a Y1900 Bug
Are the FSF's endorsements really worth anything? How many people on HN are using an FSF endorsed linux distro? The full list is here: http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-distros.html Spoiler: Ubuntu, Fedora, and Debian aren't on it.

What's the point of having such lists if they don't appear to exert any pressure on entities to change? (The aformentioned distributions seem in no hurry to move to compliance.)
So, in summary:

"So how would I have approached my dudes problem? [8 step list follows]

How his friend tried to solve the provlem? [1 step list]

Following this line of thought to its logical conclusion, if everyone thought thing was such a bad thing, Hacker News would likely not even exist. Sharing knowledge is what the internet does best.

(Disclaimer: I'm not advocating never reading source code, I do it all the time for topics I truly want/need a deeper level of understanding on, but for the rest of the time…)
He's right. How many people have failed to launch a product because they couldn't figure out how to do it? How many have failed because nobody wanted it? You can buy technical execution with little risk. Not so for marketing execution.
I'm in the same boat as you. I use "icey" pretty well everywhere and have since I was in college; but I'm slowly making the transition to use my initials for everything. If I were to register today I would have done that instead.
For screen capture: http://markup.io (its fantastic)
For quick video: http://screenr.com

Both are great.
Everything I do on the internet is under the name "epochwolf". I've grown quite attached to it. It's who I am online. So in one way it's my "real" identity, I need to think about what I say here because anyone online can find me. I have another life I live off-line with a few close friends and at work but I try not to connect them too much.

I do have a linked in profile under my real name so I'm not anonymous in google. If I want employers to know who I am online, I give out my github account.
It depends what you're learning. If all you're learning is to memorise blocks of code, then Ruby is probably easier to learn because there's less of it. If you're trying to learn what a programming language is actually doing, I don't think Java is any more difficult than Ruby. If anything, most Java code is a lot more clear about exactly what is going on.

FWIW, I learnt and tutored Java at University and have recently been learning Ruby and Ruby on Rails for fun.
I have seen bindings running on iOS, and it has massive potential, especially for areas like live updating of on-screen table rows etc. Fully expect them there soon.

Will be astonished if they get deprecated on desktop, too. Value is far too high.
You know what I hate about google spreadsheets. When you open a long spreadsheet it won't open at the last row. You have to scroll all the way down. Excel seems to handle this issue fine.
Saying OO does the same thing as MS Office, after someone says that Office does the same thing as OO is a bit redundant.

So just to be extra redundant, let me repeat that saving and opening Word documents in Word doesn't guarantee it looking the same (e.g. if you un/plug a printer, it can change the margins and hence the paging of your document) so it's hardly a damning indictment of OO.

If you want to enforce how something looks, you use PDF. That's what it's for. Word's .doc and ODF aren't designed for that, they're more like HTML in that people are terrified of trying to get some simple formatted text to display in two versions of the same Microsoft product, never mind some crazy free software with a silly sounding name. Meanwhile people are somehow managing to send Hi-Def video round the globe and watching it on hardware with the cheapest Chinese chips possible and generally not batting an eyelid because it's based on some kind of standard that's actually worthy of the name.
First off, the article is "Why" to do this, not "how to market a startup." I named it this way for a reason; marketing is a huge topic. I devote an entire chapter to it in my book, and am tossing around the idea of writing an entire book on the subject.

So offering the how and why in a blog post is a bit more than you should expect.

And there is value in saying "start early." Most devs I know don't do this and it costs them when they launch. If you've heard it and already know this that's fine, but many others have not.

With that said, here are quick answers to your questions:

>>How much did they cost

Typically nothing.

>>Where did they come from

It depends on your niche, but typically from being involved in that niche's community, publishing blog posts that get mentioned on Twitter, being interviewed on podcasts, and generally getting in front of the audience who will buy your application.

At a 50% conversion rate you only need 1300 uniques for a 650 person list.

>>How long did they take to get?

Most often 4-6 months. Most first-time startup founders can drive 1300 targeted uniques to a landing page in 4-6 months.

For more on this topic keep your eyes on the blog; I'll be posting more about this kind of stuff over the next few months.
Unlimited Vacation: It's the Thought that Counts
Hi there. It seems that our new slice is having a hard time keeping up with demand, so if the site is slow for you, please be patient. We're working on it...gah!!!
Warning: user perspective ahead:

I have to agree with this. I work as an analyst in an investment bank, and my tools include MsWord, Excel, PP and rarely a python script. MSWord and PP are completely interchangeable with they OO or google docs equivalents, but Excel is just another story, and its not just the learning curve, the software has a lot of features and capabilities that their competitors simply don't have (even for my less technically versed coworkers)
Since I'm only updating one PHP app at a time, I commit my changes to the SVN repo, then SSH into the server and update.
You need to understand the fundamentals of a web application before diving in. For example, do you understand how a simple form works? How data is transferred from a web browser to a server and back?

I found that the when I was trying to learn the web, I was too obsessed with learning a particular language..rather understanding the basics first, like static html vs server side html, form POST/GET, Css, Js etc.

My suggestion? Write a series of static html pages with css and js. Get a simple page working with a form, then try to submit that form to a server to process.

Once you have a form posting to a server, try generating the entire static html page you wrote on the server side using a simple scripting language (php, asp.net etc)
Developing for 100 different versions of Android?
those awkward finger-in-the-ethernet-port moments

Does that really happen? And what is awkward about it?
I use an alias as a username, but I don't go out of my way to hide my actual identity.

The main reason for the alias, is to avoid having HN pop up when someone searches for my name in Google. Tech people may know that Hacker News is for startups, but the rest of the world would think of much more negative things.
We have build scripts for phing, exports from subversion, migrates the database, loads stored procs, triggers and views, creates symlinks for data here and there, creates our dojo build layers, and builds a couple of executables we need.

Capistrano is better for the simple stuff, but once we started doing more we moved to phing.
I use OO as well, because of Linux, but I dislike it very much. If I did not use LaTeX I would have switched back by now. I am nearly infinite calm person in general, but OO has cured me of this. It is the only program that has ever made me angry.
Good post, although I disagree with it :-)

One thing that bugs me is the Hello World example. While I completely agree that the Ruby is example is far cleaner, the Java/C/C++/C# example doesn't add much confusion in my experience teaching intro programming. The concept of classes is often confusing, but setting aside the code isn't much of a mental challenge for any student I've met.

It just feels like its the wrong place to have the discussion of magic. The places I see students get tripped up is with iterators, recursion, classes, byref, and metaprogramming.

I think the standard ceremony vs convention concern that people in the blogosphere love to talk about is generally a non-issue for almost everyone except those people who like to blog about it. Show how those other issues are made simple, yet don't miss important facts, with Ruby (or whichever language you think is most effective) and you've made a powerful case (note, I think this is largely the argument as to why SICP is so well regarded as it did a decent job on most of those).
Yes, it could happen but the likelihood of it happening between various Word versions as it happens from OO to Word is not nearly as bad. Your point is completely valid, but the severity of the problem isn't as great between native versions of Word as it is coming from OO or another doc type.
I recall I loved IRC so much when I was young I learned all the protocol even if I didn't want to actually use it.
I'm ambivalent about this. Having been through a few different startups with various degrees of marketing, it seems like the issue is really sensitive to your product and your schedule.

Mog.com started out with minimal hype despite a lot of effort by its CEO, and had an very (almost disastrously) slow startup phase. When we ran into implementation difficulties we compounded this slow-start problem even more. Mog managed to pull through this because of prudent financials and perseverance, but it was a near thing.

Powerset had the opposite problem, we had so much hype we didn't know what to do with it. What Powerset delivered was pretty impressive, but much less than what people expected. Cries of "Deeply Disappointed!" rained down on us like drops of acid, and we were powerless to do anything but deliver on what we could and say the rest was either too expensive or too difficult for the moment. But we did have a lot of users and interest, so we had a huge launch.

Now I'm at BankSimple, which is somewhere in between these other plans. BankSimple is aggressively talking to people and getting their message out, so there is some pent-up demand. We're also very diligent about responding to people as people, we do a bit of research before replying to (almost every) email. This means that we get some impatient tweets and messages (“Who cares what you look like? Where is your service?!”) asking for unreasonably fast development time, but it also means we get a lot of insightful feedback and commentary.

Our biggest obstacle seems to be controlling the hype. It's very easy for people to build up what we promised into veiled hints some kind of complete reform of the US financial system, which is probably an unreasonable launch goal. ;)
Often only for "business" use. Everyone of course ignores this since it's ridiculous and unenforceable, but that'll probably be what it says.
When do you think we'll see the next generation of home robots? Do you guys think iRobot has any revolutionary consumer products in the works?

BTW when will lawn mowing robots be commonplace? It doesn't seem that much of a harder problem than vacuuming.
IIRC you could buy a no-contract MiFi but it was much more expensive.
... and some details, I have 2 Flip mino HDs. An office space, and a machine running the software to show the video. (no screencasts)
Cyberwars: Already Underway with No Geneva Conventions to Guide Them
I'm pretty sure Verizon's MiFi is contract only (and $60 for 5GB data). Virgin's just recently became unlimited, but I /think/ it's always been contract-free, it just used to be 5GB.

Virgin's got a public awareness problem (at least among the people I know), however, so for most people I bet the only known options were from Sprint, Verizon, AT&T, etc.
EFF: DHS using Facebook to "spy" on Americans
Skype with Facebook integration and group video calling - Skype 5.0
Is Yahoo about to be acquired?
The truth? You spewed out a fantasy 007 yarn that has nothing to do with reality.

Reality: every terrorist that actually tried anything has reached their target (though most blow it and fail to do any damage). The CIA isn't a super group that's swatting down terrorists like flies and we only hear of the 1 or 2 that get through while thousands are blocked. That's pure fantasy.
We also can't underestimate how much of an effect being familiar with a certain style and syntax has an effect on our judgment of languages which break from that style.

Since I started with Pascal and C++, and then branched to Perl and PHP, the first time I looked at Ruby code, it looked like gibberish. But Java and Google Go immediately looked very familiar to me.

I've since learned Ruby better, and it's kind of come into focus, but I think that's definitely something to keep in mind when we're teaching programming to others.
I deploy a large symfony php app with capistrano.

The only big change I needed to add was to tell it not to run the server restarting code, other then that it wasn't that hard.

Rollback support, and the fact that I don't have to login to the server and run commands each time I deploy is great.
Me too. I chose IUGuy because it made sense at the time for something we were working on at work, but it doesn't really reflect who I am, and my comments on here don't really reflect work at all. Then again, if I register a new name I lose all my points.