skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
But do you keep the spare one in a remote facility, to secure yourself against natural disasters?
Posts like this seem like the designer equivalent of the music labels spending years complaining about how sharing music is wrong and trying to put the "evil" back in Pandora's box, while millions of people merrily continue to download music off bittorrent anyway. The reality of the internet is that people can easily solicit work on spec from thousands of designers, and they will get good stuff in return. Will it be great? Rarely. But it'll be good enough for most, and if it's not, they're out nothing. See 99designs.com.

This seems like classic game theory. While it's in the design industry's collective best interest to never work on spec like this, it might be in an individual designer's best interest to design Gap's logo for free. And even if it's not, if most of them think it is, you've still lost. Believe me, I understand that Gap's move here is a slap in the face, but many designers out there will do it anyway, just for the chance to say they designed Gap's logo.
Facebook takes common words and redefines them -- so that on Facebook, the 'like' button mean 'subscribe to updates', not 'I think this is good'. Facebook makes more sense when you realise the work is misappropriated.

I wonder if we should just mentally translate the work 'Friend' on Facebook as 'person I allow to post about me on the internet'. Only friend that those people you trust to speak for you, and to you. You aren't declaring a public friendship, but delegating your privacy to them.
> He was willing to pay thousands.

Any agreement to pay while his house is burning is unenforceable.

I've been in a similar position. Once the emergency was over, the person decided that it really wasn't worth what he agreed at the time.
it is the intention that counts. He intended to spy for a foreign government - clearly hostile action toward the US government. For example, if he just posted the info on the open Internet, i think the personal consequences would be much less severe (even though such action could have caused more real damage).
Awesome deal. Thank you very much for this one! I am busy redeeming everything. Some stuff might not be useful for customers outside of the US. Maybe "geographic deals" might be an interesting idea for a future bundle? :)
> Possibly, but first they'll file a tax lien, allowing them to garnish your wages or bank account etc., and make your credit record radioactive until it's lifted. If you've ignored a court summons, that might result in an arrest warrant providing for you to be taken into custody at a police stop.

Actually, what they do is evict you and sell "your" house.

That's what happened to the previous owner of my house.
What did you change since yesterday when the bundle have been criticized for the same thing?
It's ironic that the top two stories on HN right now are a post promoting a 99designs deal and another decrying design contests.
I tweeted this yesterday:

Why does Underscore.js get the order of arguments wrong? There’s a reason why it’s map(fn, l), not map(l, fn). And the reason is currying.

I find that very annoying for the kind of functional programming I tend to do. For that reason alone I started looking at Wu.js instead.

Am I missing something?
I'm not saying it didn't happen, just that it's not something that a "rational" algorithm would do, because the one that's taking liquidity is losing money. Unless they're profiting for reasons other than rebates, that is, which is another small but nonzero possibility.

My favorite theory is a purely technical one. I don't have much supporting evidence beyond the linked site though:

"""In summary, quotes from NYSE began to queue, but because they were time stamped after exiting the queue, the delay was undetectable to systems processing those quotes. The delay was small enough to cause the NYSE bid to be just slightly higher than the lowest offer price from competing exchanges. This caused sell order flow to route to NYSE -- thus removing any buying power that existed on other exchanges. When these sell orders arrived at NYSE, the actual bid price was lower because new lower quotes were still waiting to exit a queue for dissemination."""

Original report: http://www.nanex.net/20100506/FlashCrashAnalysis_Intro.html
More news from the same company: http://www.nanex.net/FlashCrash/FlashCrashAnalysis.html

In addition to the crash itself, they also have interesting charts from various algorithms behaving strangely.
5 of the Best Free Linux Music Tag Editors
Where to find a copywriter, 37signals' style?
Hello. I am building a website and I need help with the text. English is not my first language.

My focus is not to optimize the website for search engines or produce loads of crap content. I just want to explain what my company does in a simple, clear way. Like 37signals, wufoo, carbonmade, and some (not many) others.

I have searched Odesk et al. but it seems to me that most of the freelance copywriters are in the SEO field and think more about Google than the reader.

I don't have loads of money to spend in a big agency. I'm looking for a freelance who can do simple, clear text. Where should I look for it?

Thanks. Victor
Regarding Cofounder,
Have you thought of hiring an intern?

I would say, try SJSU, Stanford, UC Berkley, SFSU, etc.
May be somebody might be interested to work for a share (usually students ask for some stipend to pay their rent and bills).

This way you can try them for couple of months and see if your frequency matches with them.

One drawback here is, since they might not be as technically sound as an experienced developer might be, you gotta think about it.
switch in C syntax is terrible implemented, VB done this one so much better. That's one of the reasons why switch is not that popular in C languages (people tend to do crazy if-then-else stuff) and so popular in VB, most devs tries to use select where possible.
I think maybe this is what I like best about HN - both the guys from Twilio and the guys from AppSumo are hanging out in this thread.
Better solution would be getting rid of "break" and breaking by default like VB but no one would like that...
This article lost me when it called JavaScript awkward and obtuse. Sounds to me like they have little experience with JavaScript.
That last one is more about systems analysis than user experience.
Dox seems to just be explicitly marked documentation, not every comment.

Pycco claims to support Python, Ruby, JavaScript, CoffeeScript, Scheme, and Lua.
Aha. Had no idea there was a text tool -- since it's not in the frontpage demo.
I agree with Steve Blank's article. Strategy is not a to do list. But then what is it?

Strategy at the business/product level addresses the following four questions:

(1) Who is your target customer?

(2) What value (in the form of a product and/or service) are you delivering to this customer?

(3) What are your costs for delivering this value?

(4) Are you delivering more value at a given cost (value advantage), or delivering equivalent value but at a lower cost (cost advantage), relative to your competitors? In limited cases you can compete on both value and cost simultaneously (dual advantage).

The question is then what broad activities are you performing to deliver value to your customer (e.g., R&D, marketing), and what are the costs associated with performing these activities (e.g., time, equipment). Through activities, you want to maximize the wedge between value and cost for a particular segment of customers.

The "to do list" then flows from these activities.
Our of sheer curiosity, how would you compare "The Social Network" with "Pirates of Silicon Valley"?
How did you manage to scrap the Apple Store? Are you storing all the apps data locally? I guess it would be a huge overhead to send each of these queries to Apple...
The inside story of Microsoft's secret 'Project Natal'
I like what Perl does: it separates cases by making them look like regular blocks:

given($cat_macro){
when(/OH HAI/){
say "ceiling cat is watching you switch statements";
}
when(/OH NOES/){
die "FAIL";
}
default {
say "<picture of a walrus with a bucket>";
}
}

Pretty easy to follow the control flow, even when they aren't oneliners.
> Yes, so when his house catches on fire and you can put it out, you hand him a bill for $5000 or whatever the cost of a fire crew for several hours is.

That policy means that you can't afford to have a fire crew. The marginal cost associated with putting out fires is a small fraction of the cost of having a fire department.

> And if he doesn't pay, you sue him.

And you lose because contracts under duress are unenforceable.
have to do with scaling that system, and those problems were solved long after Zuck was no longer hands-on with the code every day

seldo was referring to scaling the software system, not the business. cynicalkane is making a valid point here: that Zuckerberg was not only faced with the technical problems of scaling a popular website, but also with those of managing a fast growing company.
I don't think you quite understand the sarcasm in the article (or perhaps I misread it...?)
That is a fairly risky move on Microsoft's part but I applaud them for taking it, especially if it works. Every average Windows user I knows notices and complains about the constant UAC popups. What's funny to me is that since 7 has come out, I've heard this a lot less. I believe since 7 got the connotation of being the "good" Windows and Vista the abject failure, people may be cherry picking their complaints to support their assertions that 7 is much better and Windows XP is too old to be a viable alternative.
Or it is just random chance. Out of 1 million people trying different things, a few are bound to be successful. At least for stock trading that is assumed to be true.
I did not understand either, I feel I am missing some context to this post that the writer should have included.
My "idea" is an online trading card game with a science and technology theme. So the "validation" I got from the survey results were things like:

- I asked how interested people were in playing games with different themes (medicine, business, ancient history, science, etc). Science and technology had the highest interest, both in magnitude (very interested) and percentage of favorable

- I was worried that people would not try new games, but would stick to the ones they already played. This was an issue for a minority of people but most people were excited about trying new games

- I was worried that people wouldn't want to play TCGs online. This was a valid concern, more than half of users had concerns. I got stats on what people like about in-person gaming and what they dislike about computer gaming

- I didn't know if people spent money on online TCGs. Turns out they do, but not as much as cardboard games.

This was not validation of a specific business model - this was answering the question: Is there a plausible market for this? I'll again survey for specific feedback on my game when it's ready to show, but if I found out things like "I'll never play another game besides my favorite" or "No one spends money on any online TCG", then I would have to reconsider.

You can see the whole survey here: http://geekstack.com/survey-for-trading-card-game-players/
Will you lose more when there are lots of people at the casino?
I mainly use Object-Oriented Style[1].

-----

http://documentcloud.github.com/underscore/#styles
I guess I'm missing something because the concept of quorum deals with partition tolerance. You require, to provide an answer, that X nodes agree on the state of the data.

3 nodes, 2 must agree. When the partition heals, the resolution process happens. It would have to be a SERIOUSLY bad network design and quorum setting that allows a quorum on both sides of the split.

It's just like eventual consistency. We're not talking days or even minutes. We're talking milliseconds/seconds of partition split. If you have a partition split for days, you have OTHER issues to address.
I like the books "Don't make me think" and "Designing the obvious" for some basic web UX knowledge. They are short and to the point.
Google Code-In: Like GSoC for 13-18 year olds
LibreOffice - Document Foundation's first week "shows strong support"
Yep. I used the Selenium framework to build a framework called Lebowski that does test automation of SproutCore applications.
But the point is, come up with any idea, spend two hours on Wordpress and copy, spend $100-200 on traffic to a site or survey, and in a couple of days you know if your idea is any good. With a survey, you also may find some guidance for a new or derivative product.
We agree that genius !=> success, but I don't think success => genius holds, either. Not everybody who is successful is a genius. Unless we allow some inflation of the use of the word.

Known genii (?) include Einstein, Shakespeare, Bach, Mozart, Jimi Hendrix...
Haha. That went completely over my head. Woosh!
Why Readable URLs Matter
Does VB have a switch statement, or do you mean select? (Not nitpicking, just curious. It's been a while since I used it.)
I'd also imagine more people would avoid sleeping on the floor for cultural reasons too. We perceive someone sleeping on an airport waiting bench to be a weary traveler. Seeing someone sleep on the floor in a very busy place communicates vagrancy.
That's not bad. I take it you you could have "when(foo or bar)" to handle multiple cases?
Stunning design doesn't really come from having "beautiful" html code so much I feel. People who really get design are the ones who think about how a product is going to be used, who is using it, and in what context. If you are talking strictly visual design, then the CSS/HTML markup is going to be even less relevant. For that I would go to CSS sites and galleries and derive inspiration from there.
Verizon CEO has harsh words for Microsoft
Requirements are mostly about trust between parties and understanding the problem domain and business needs by developers, and technical costs by business. It's much more about relationships and communication than documents.
HSBC upgrading their infrastructure to IPv6
I'm mostly curious what the revenue curve is on this project - was the majority of the earnings within the first week? How do sales dwindle when using this route?

Either way - great job and very informative.
The current energy industry is so over regulated that it completely stifles innovation. It's worse then Taggart Transcontinental
I think he was basically saying that good design comes from hard work and a deep understanding of a large number of variables, while the Gap is just getting a million monkeys banging on typewriters and picking the best design.
Other folks involved in this appsumo bundle are watching, too. ;-)
I dont really know why any person on earth chooses godaddy
Can you do things like

var sum = curry(reduce, add);

with the OO style?

Am I wrong in thinking that this kind of currying is one of the fundamental building blocks of functional programming?
Microsoft and Adobe Chiefs Meet to Discuss Apple
This is what we did for our startup. Started with 2 people, added a third later. 1/3 profit sharing, but only the original 2 founders have voting rights.
A bit of background on this. Gap just updated their logo, its getting pretty heavily slammed by the design community (I too think its god awful)

More here: http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2010/october/new-gap...

BTW the author's twitter feed, @Mike_FTW is one of the funnier feeds to follow.
You can remove the -00 and look through the history of the doc - it's now at a later revision.
Seems like GAP announced an unpaid logo contest.
Scary stuff. I've had too many bikes stolen. Good to know what I'm up against.
Good idea on the face but the energy needs to be dumped somewhere and dumping that much excess energy is tough and costly. Used to work in the industry, if the turbines tripped or anything else happened along the way, you SCRAM immediately as a safety precaution.
I don't see what this provides aside from redundant verbosity... How much a stumbling block is switch really?

"Oh you mean it just keeps going until you break? Okay, duly noted."

Fall through switch is quite useful, and if you really wanted an if-else, you'd use one, right?!
Just a heads up. There's a new process for redeeming the Twilio credit, which is outlined in your AppSumo dashboard. We had to change the process due to fraudulent use of the promo code. If anyone has any issues with redeeming their Twilio credit, please email help@twilio.com
Puppet Labs acquires open source framework Marionette Collective
Is its common use case to enable testing for people who aren't normally writing them, reduce total number of tests maintained for people who are writing them, or for writing additional supplementary tests to guarantee a higher confidence in interface functionality?

edit: context is prototypical M-V-C python or ruby web app development
What’s Wrong with “HTML5″
This seems to be the same talk given back in March 2010 and discussed on HN here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1140596

Regardless, useful points worth keeping in mind.
I have used Selenium in combination with 2 different wiki-based controllers/frameworks and found it very useful. I designed a number of features for Selenesse http://github.com/marisaseal/selenesse with my colleage Marisa Seal and contributed substantially to a 10,000+ test step suite of tests using http://search.cpan.org/~lukec/Socialtext-WikiTest-0.06/

I won an iPad from Sauce Labs using Selenium, also: http://saucelabs.com/blog/index.php/2010/05/announcing-the-s...

Disclosure: I was working at Thoughtworks with Mr. Huggins when the first version of Selenium was released. Also, I was the very first user of the Watir browser test tool, and at one time I was fairly active in both communities. I have been familiar with these tools since the beginning of their existence.
I just got a 'Promo code has expired' error and it charged me 20 anyway.
Refresh your screen. Thoughts?
> Even the most moderate islamic countries are still way behind modern countries on the status of women, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and other such democratic values.

I wouldn't say countries like UAE, Kuwait, Turkey and many Mediterranean islamic countries are way behind. It also helps that Western countries are eroding mentioned freedoms and values themselves. See for example burqa ban in France. Now that's what I call a country without a freedom of religion.
New York Comic Con Is Just the Beginning
The eReader incompetence checklist
I'm intrigued that you have that many buyers on wpplugins.com. Are people signing up for your support contract, or is that really 40 purchases in the first month? Do you expect this volume to continue, rise, or trail off?

In any case, I had a reasonably successful plugin a while ago that I still get occasionally pestered to update... I'd be a lot more motivated to do so if I thought I could release it to a marketplace and net a few hundred a month.
Agreed - I just wanted to take a look at it first, not agree to handing over my entire account.

What would work for me is to be asked at the time if I want to grant a permission (e.g. "Share this on my wall" triggers a Facebook alert the first time). I realise that this is extra work and there's a chance most users will agree to the initial screen without comment, but it's stopped me from going any further.
To be fair to the music labels, they at least have copyright law on their side. This is more like how professional journalists whine about bloggers.
And if the previous owner of your house had refused to leave before the final eviction date, police officers would have come to remove em.
given/when are better than that; see http://perldoc.perl.org/perlsyn.html#Smart-matching-in-detai... for all of the possibilities.
Arg! Much better example.
Access to News Feed is required to pull content.

I thought you could do it all via the Open Graph API /links/ feed? Or am I missing something? :)
Is it just me or is the new design really looking straight from the mid 90s.
The presets are actually much better than Photoshop's ones.
Isn't it wonderful how we've barely scratched the surface on what potential fission has?
My wife brings stuff to Half-Price Books periodically, usually getting close to nothing. One time I decided to help her out as we had a lot of old DVDs and CDs we didn't actually use. My wife was extremely excited when they gave us over $80 for everything. I asked about why it was for so much, and apparently a couple of the CDs I had brought in were extremely rare and quite sought after. The only one that I remember was a demo CD with only four songs on it, but apparently it was worth a lot to someone.
Counterpoint: you can remove yourself from a Facebook group, you can't remove yourself from a webpage or mailing list that someone else has control of. How's this so terrible again?
Why a used copy of ”Universal Principles”? It’s available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Principles-Design-William-Li...
That would still be a massively backwards-incompatible change. Lots of people run using E_STRICT.
Underscore.coffee
Isn't that "One of your friends liked this!" heading just a little bit deceitful? As far as I can tell it doesn't talk to Facebook at all - not impressed.
I wish this was from Dell, HTC, etc and not "Cherrypal"
yeah for me it looks like something a Hollywood prop department would come up with when tasked with creating a "Logo for Megacorp"
I have to say of all 37Signalers, I enjoy listening to Ryan Singer the most. He seems to have a genuine interest in teaching and not in a "controversial for the sake of marketing" kind of way. He has a bunch of videos on Vimeo.

He talks more about user experience and interaction, not graphic design, that as someone else mentioned, you can find tutorials on the tuts plus network.
Thanks again, excellent feedback. My network in the security space is somewhat Microsoft-centric and tools-centric so I've probably been thinking too much in that direction.

I'd be surprised if people were building highly-secure web apps involving personal information, photos, and friendships without threat modeling ... would love to see counterexamples. anything you can share?
You'll be waiting a pretty long time.
i need help to get on facebook at need to talke to my boyfriend someone help
Ah, thanks. Didn't know about that site. Interestingly, the memory usage is almost always much lower in Python...I wonder how Python would hold up with psyco.
A counterpoint:

I've programmed JavaScript long enough and on large enough codebases to know that JavaScript leaves much be desired.

Problems:

1) It's a language that has stood still since November 2000 as far as
standards go.
2) No sane package system (see #1) *everybody invents their own*
3) Expression problem, altering prototypes is ridiculously powerful,
but it's monkey-patching (see #1)
4) Browser environment is a ball-and-chain for the language's evolution (see #1)
5) Lack of rich datatypes (no sets) (see #1)
6) Object identity based equality (see #1)
7) Little facility to define new rich datatypes (see #1)

And on and on. The reasons JavaScript isn't totally crippled given these and more issues is that the language is wonderfully small, has first class functions, functions have variable arity, supports apply/call, its functions are modifiable objects, the context of a function call can be rebound, and it has prototypal inheritance. From these powerful bits people have created a many, many libraries that make JavaScript programming downright fun.

But to say that JavaScript is an especially capable PL is, to me at least, a bit of joke- it was clearly designed to run in a very limited scope, in the browser. And remember, this is critique from someone that has used JavaScript in large UI projects day in and day out since 2005 (before jQuery!).
If said organisations keep sensitive information in Akamai, then... oh well...
I think it was pretty clear that he was being sarcastic, but only up to a point. I am still left wondering if he actually has a logo to show or if he is offering his services in a professional capacity, or not.