skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Yeah, I'm going back to Linux because I realize I miss apt-get more than all the goodies and bling OS X brings to the table. I checked and Ubuntu 10.10 will install happily on My Macbook 5,2 and I've checked my app list: Skype for Linux? check, Spotify for Linux? check, OpenOffice? duh, Chrome? yup, Tweetdeck? there's Gwibber, the list goes on ... Textmate I'll miss and Preview.app is super-duper but apt-get install I miss you!
Quite -- it was innovation that killed Digg wasn't it?
Similar but it does seem to conflate the idea of a Model and a Collection. Also the instance changes API in js-model prefers an interface based around instance mutability instead of presenting the old and new value in a functional manner to the callback.

BackBone.js Models are also mutable. This is probably the only part of the design I would have handled differently at the cost of responsiveness in browsers with slower JS engines. In my experience it's too easy to accidentally corrupt the data which populates many UI components if you're passing mutable references around.
I agree wholeheartedly. Never trust input.
They've also recently created a Gold "Electorate" badge, which is defined as "Voted on 600 questions and 25% or more of total votes are on questions." This should encourage people to vote up good questions as well as good answers.
Only charts. All I meant to say is that I don't see how a speed comparison between Raphael and Highcharts makes sense.

I don't remember why we decided not to use Highcharts then, but I definitely looked at it and I definitely didn't want to reinvent the wheel for no reason.
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Would be nice to have a complete minimal web app using Backbone to get the feeling of what you can do with this.
In reverse:

Oh, I like my Macs. I like the environment. However, it's not all roses and unicorn kisses as some make it out to be. The problem is when you want to do something remotely outside the default. Like, for instance, if you plug in your iPhone and you don't want iPhoto starting up and stealing focus, then it's a headache. Smart defaults work best, defaults that don't interrupt your workflow. Look at TimeMachine. It works without disrupting you. Awesome. It's their when you need it, but doesn't pester you. I complain, but their are also a lot of things I like.

As for the Firewall: I've tried so many things. Yes, the firewall was one thing I checked. I don't know. I spent too much time on it already that the thought of going back and spending more time is frustrating.
I fixed it. Here's the original link:

http://lbrandy.com/blog/2008/10/my-first-and-last-webcomic/
Last company I was at provided me a quad-core 8GB mac pro. After the first week I wiped it and put Ubuntu on it so I could actually get some work done.

The biggest problem with OSX is that, for a unix-based system, it's so un-unix alike in key places that it's frustrating.
I've found another thing: when you're selecting a style, you're only allowed one. Rather than making it radio buttons, you've used checkboxes and popped up a JS alert when I select two. It means I have to de-select the original before changing my mind. You could keep the checkbox look while making it behave as radio buttons would.

This is really bad advice, IMO. A radio button implies "choose 1 of" while a checkbox implies "select 1 or more". That's a basic web design (and W3C) principle. I would suggest changing the list of trims to radio buttons, or at a minimum changing the span.checkbox background image to look like a radio button if you have other reasons for hiding the actual input fields.
Quoting myself: "Capital infusion causes market distortion. Not saying that's a bad thing, but it's worth recognizing."

If this comes off as an attack on Grasshopper Group - my apologies. I think what ya'll have done is pretty impressive, and I'd like to duplicate it myself. At the same time - Chargify wouldn't have ever gotten into the situation of supporting so many unsustainable free users if it (as a stand-alone product) was bootstrapped. That's all I'm saying. Calling that a "sugar daddy" was probably overly inflammatory.
The value of free users is the potential word-of-mouth that can reach other users who could potentially become paying users. Isn't that the point of offering and supporting a free service?
Stack Overflow is the ultimate long-tail resource. My favorite example of this is, what I consider to be, a very obscure question I asked then answered about getting (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/570076/netbeans-forwarded...) anti-aliased fonts and sub-pixel rendering working when running java software on a remote X11 server. This sort of thing is incredibly esoteric, yet, close to 1,000 people have looked at it in the last year. When I asked the question, and found the answer, there was no useful information that I could find about it, yet when you search on google today for 'x11 java anti-alias' the first result is my question, and the second is someone elses.

We've come a long way since expertsexchange.
30×500 Launch Class
Comic-Sans: The Movie (kickstarter)
Also, it's not even correct: there's been a massive decline in the public sector in the UK since its peak as an empire. It was a state-centered monarchy with strong mercantilist policies, not some kind of libertarian paradise.
I would agree that I love HN's minimalist approach, but the end game for HN and Digg are vastly different, aren't they?

I think the perceived value of rolling out new software is that Digg had hoped it would draw in more uses and entice existing users to become more active. If you're running a website that is largely user generated content and is also stagnant, how do you inject new life into it without adding new features? I'm genuinely curious.
Rethinking What Your Mother Told You
"in a single day"? You're not serious are you? Jason and the team have been working to build their expertise and reputation for YEARS and YEARS (and YEARS) to get to this point. Far from getting $37k for a "single day", attendees are paying for the insight that comes from YEARS of 37signals' work. No one gets $37k for one day of work. They might have an additional $37k in their pockets in one day, but they EARNED it over years and years.
This looks great. I'm primarily a Flex developer and JavaScript for web apps has always scared the bejesus out of me as I felt I was back to the dark days of ActionScript 2. I still feel I'm faster with strong typing and a good IDE (I hardly type anymore it's all code completion) but micro frameworks like this are a huge step in the right direction.

Is there an IDE for serious JavaScript development? Right now for JS work I use TextMate with a bunch of custom tag triggers.
The groups of startups have been gradually getting better over time. Since 4 years = 8 batches, they're now significantly better, as far as I can tell. Investors seem to think so too, because they have a much easier time raising money.
So, some insight into the checkbox vs. radio button thing:

We started with checkboxes because it used to be the case that a buyer could select up to 3 trims. This gave them more flexibility, but ultimately created a burden for dealers. From the dealers' perspective, they had trouble figuring out which trim to make an offer on (and, sadly, they are generally too lazy to make offers on multiple trims).

So we ran an A/B test to see if limiting the buyer's choices to 1 trim had any effect on conversions. Turns out it actually increased conversions a little bit (more on that later, but in essence: eliminating choice is good).

Then, we just forgot to switch it over to radio buttons now that the test is over, but the new changes will be deployed to production shortly.

Anyways, thanks for your feedback!
To conveniently search all of their stackexchange sites using Google including stackoverflow.com, try the search box on http://stackexchange.com/.

This somewhat helps with a problem they are facing which is fragmentation of questions and answers across their sites. For example, for Ubuntu you might need to search three or four of their sites before finding an answer to an issue you are having.
> Are you a Chargify customer?

Are you ?

I didn't see a sign at the door that said that only chargify customers can speak.

> For instance: why should Chargify not need that much support to begin with?

Because every other payments service that I've ever used (and that's quite a few of them) didn't need that either.

Download integration guide, spend a day figuring things out, test, fire & forget.

> Are you sure their business model isn't "get people to pay a premium for support"?

It could be.

> Are you sure you're not just piling on here?

Yes, I'm quite sure. For the record, I built 'webpay', one of the very first web payment services so I have a bit of knowledge in what goes in to a payment service and a bunch of people I know run an IPSP. When this whole thing blew I put up a bunch of things that were not too hot about how this was/is handled and that was before anybody else wrote as much as two lines about it. If you want to accuse me of 'piling on' then I'm sure you could find a better example to make your case.
I'm not really looking forward to that. With each upgrade comes that little bit of agony about the unix underpinnings: what are they going to do to the default python install? Ruby? ...
Wow I am incredibly impressed by this, great work to the DocumentCloud team! I can't wait to throw this into real-life use... it looks like everything I could ever want in a framework.

I too am a jQuery developer, but not your typical one. I tend to avoid slapping plugins together and write most of my own things from scratch, in my own pythonic classical style. I also tend to use the little jQuery helper methods and CSS selector tools purely as an interface to the DOM. The hard work is all done via classes, which drastically reduces the code that I write. I see other not-so-skilled jQuery script kiddies out there piecing together documents full of $('#blah') this and $('#bloo') that with little regard for chaining or simplifying things. I digress, as that is not the demographic for this wonderful library of code.

Here is an example of what kind of code I have been writing as of late: http://dpaste.de/pKOi/ -- as you can see, there is a small bit if boilerplate required and a 'var self = this' inside of each class method that is required. That's more for my own personal style actually, to help with preventing loss of 'this' scope down the road. Anyway... over time this code just sort of piles up and it would be nicer to 1) have a better way to define and organize it all, and 2) all of the great model/collection/validation stuff looks excellent! Evented programming is brilliant to, and the fact that a thousand pieces of code can all stay in sync thru events is just fantastic.
Being an Entrepreneur is Like Surfing
Rewrite Finder, again.

It has stupid limitations — files in use, can't put item to trash while trash is emptied. Still has only read-only support for FTP, locks up with WebDav, can't browse ZIP, etc.

Copying in Finder is much slower than with cp. On Samba drive it may need 10-20 seconds to replace 2kb file.

It handles permission errors erratically (sometimes asks for permission, sometimes fails, sometimes asks and fails anyway). UI for permission change is weak.

I could rant about Finder whole day.
Fair enough, but IMHO not letting me access the FAQ (which I can access by logging out anyway) won't help you increase conversions. Having a back button to go to the preferences also wouldn't hurt, but that can be debated. At the very least, stating prominently on the sign up page that users will be able to switch preferences after signing up seems like a no brainer.

I respect the idea of shipping the MVP though, and Carwoo looks like a very useful service!
> not as quick and convenient

Do you press ⌘-Space to open Spotlight? I'm not sure how it can get more convenient...
I think the assumption here is that you'd know about the copy on your mail server, that is also hopefully locked down. After all, free access on the mail server is probably much worse than a single PDF.
Great framework, terrifying logo.
Let me put this another way. If you take every suitable gamble you can, even if they're one time deals, you'll end up further ahead in the long run than the guy who only takes suitable gambles that are repeatable. Thus whether or not the gamble is repeatable should have no bearing on your decision.

(I'm using the term suitable somewhat vaguely here, since even +EV gambles can be bad ideas in the long run due to bankroll considerations. But for what we're talking about, we're assuming all the gambles are the same in all other respects.)
The Bamum* supplement section sure has a lot of cool glyphs

http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/Unicode-6.0/U60-16800.pdf

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamum_language
Aren't sites able to prevent this type of thing through a prominent terms of use link on every page? (Ticketmaster 2003, Cairo v. CrossMedia Services)

Is it that this is still a legal gray area, or is it that big companies can roll over small companies and individuals?

Ticketmaster - http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Ticketmaster_v._Tickets.com

Cairo v. CossMedia - http://itlaw.wikia.com/wiki/Cairo_v._CrossMedia_Services
You're right, I am probably being to literal in my definition of a ponzi scheme.

I definitely agree that Social Security is going to go through growing pains as the population demographics change and benefits won't be the exact same as the previous generation, but I feel like people use the term "ponzi scheme" to smear the whole idea of Social Security rather than articulating why we shouldn't have it.
In 2009, Apple added a video camera to the otherwise perfected iPod Nano. It was a sign: While one might have had to be quite prescient to imagine exactly what would come after it, it was obvious that Apple felt it had reached the end of what could be innovated with that form factor. The 2010 reinvention of the Nano was the only logical next step, at least for Apple.

In 2009, Apple released Snow Leopard, whose emphasis on optimization and subtle improvement seemed to signal the same kind of state for the operating system as the addiiton of a camera signaled for the Nano.

I think it's safe to say that what comes next will be fairly big.

I have a suspicion that among other things, 10.7 will introduce some new conventions to the basic problems of window management (though I might be a little biased). Apple has been at the forefront of dealing with it ever since Exposé debuted with 10.3, but in the years since the iPhone, iOS has thrown this problem into sharp relief. Part of me hopes they might even announce something that bears a resemblance to 10/GUI's linear window management -- I've unfortunately proven I can't really do much with the concept myself so far.
Are you serious?

Macbook Pros are premium notebooks in the exact same way high end Thinkpads are. The price between a Macbook Pro and any other high end notebook is competitive.

With an inexpensive brand, you're getting inferior screens and flimsy plastic bodies. The specs might line up on paper, but that's as naive an approach to comparing hardware as you can get. Buying based on a flimsy spec checklist versus matching up the device to your real-world requirements is going to result in a great deal of buyer remorse.

If you're a road warrior, the last thing you want is a laptop with a flimsy body and weak solder points on the ports. If you are using your laptop as your only screen, you don't want to be spending >= 8h a day looking at a cheapass LCD.

Just like you don't see professional carpenters using dollar store tools, as a professional developer, you need to invest in quality hardware - regardless of the brand.
Totally! I can't wait to replace my own internal model classification stuff with this (or at least play around with it in that sense) to go along with jQuery. I've become accustomed to the jQuery way of handling the DOM so it's nice to see something agnostic to that. I'd rather avoid a one-size-fits-all js library to be honest ;)
You're missing my point. It is not an iron law that every payment service needs to build the lowest-cost, most efficient Wal-Mart of payment processors. I'm asking, how do you know that the entire point of their business isn't to find out if lots of people will pay extra for superior support?
Here is the problem I see with this: $1000 is a price a big company would easily pay for its employees, as a benefit, to go attend a class on something. I think though that the content of this class would be more valuable to people who are trying to build / bootstrap new companies. But for the latter the opportunity cost is too high.

Maybe 37signals could do something online and charge less per person?
Unlike many other services, Chargify is involved in a financial transaction where there's always a third and fourth party involved (customer's customer and credit card processor).

Self-help timetables are unlikely to be acceptable to the third and fourth parties.Any technical or implementation issue is likely to be high priority for the customer. People tend not to have small payment issues even for nominal amounts.
I don't but I suspect if that was their point that they would have gone about it in a slightly different way.

Nobody incurs this sort of brand damage for research purposes.
If I was going to buy a new Windows only laptop, I'd buy a Macbook Pro.
Has it occurred to you that multiple devices having wifi issues could be your wifi setup?
A much more worthwhile, and factually based, read: http://www.jamesoberg.com/usd10.html
It depends on what you are running.

I run Emacs a lot, develop for Django, run Eclipse very rarely and I am quite happy with a very modest Acer netbook. Most of the time, it sits on my desk connected to a big monitor, keyboard and mouse. Web browsing and Flash-heavy sites are a problem, as is the Intel GMA due to the 2048x2048 screen size limitation for hardware acceleration.

I can't overestimate how welcome is the portability it affords carrying my whole "desktop" environment in a small bag. If I drop it, everything important is backed up thanks to the twin miracles of rsync and version control.

I have long given up on high-end notebooks. They are typically big and heavy and faster than I usually need. Also, losing one is a bit more painful than just having to pay US$400 for a faster equivalent and doing an environment restore.
Weird... it used to be on duckduckgo that if a Stack Overflow result was your first result, the answer would actually be displayed as well, but that doesn't seem to be working right now: http://duckduckgo.com/?q=Netbeans+Forwarded+over+X11+Font
I have this at work: http://www.system76.com/product_info.php?cPath=28&produc...

Just upgraded to 10.10 and everything works just as expected (provided you've installed the System76 drivers), including wifi and the webcam. It really is a beast too, performance-wise, with 8 cores and 4 gigs of ram.
I agree there are some core apps that have been neglected but overall usability in OSX in my opinion is still far better than the alternatives. The biggest issue seems to be that some applications have matured well beyond their original GUI so as new features have been added some of the simplicity has been lost. My guess is many of the core apps (Mail, iCal, iTunes, etc) will end up looking a lot more like their iOS equivalents.
See who has OAuth Tokens to Access Your Google Account
Seems like a pretty cool service and the intro video was pretty informative. I'd use it to buy my next car, because I'm terrible at negotiating face to face. A minor nitpick on the intro: I found it odd that they said "Follow us on twitter dot com slash carwoo". If the end user is savy enough to know what twitter is and want to use it, is the "dot com" necessary? It seems the phrase "follow us on twitter at [company name]" is used almost universally.

Congrats to the CarWoo team for launching!
It's somewhat hidden on the project page, but I love the annotated source view: http://documentcloud.github.com/backbone/docs/backbone.html

Edit: It looks like it's taken straight from the source (http://github.com/documentcloud/backbone/blob/master/backbon...) using Docco: http://jashkenas.github.com/docco/
That actually may be us. One of my business partners was involved in a company that produced tax and accounting software for Wang Mainframes that was later acquired by ManTech International.
I would love to see them release a Mac App Store. Of course, if they made it the only way to get new programs on a Mac, I would never upgrade, but I think providing a central market-place for software could be a very useful thing for a lot of users. Also, as a developer, I would love for there to be a way to sell apps that gives me the ability to reach a wide market, and also keeps me from having to run my own DRM system, or even my own payment system. The iOS app store is far from a perfect system, but I think this would still be a net win for developers. I think it would especially be good for iOS developers who need to have a traditional PC counterpart to their mobile app.

Of course, my pipe dream would be if they would release a Windows app store at the same time, with as little friction as possible for releasing apps on both platforms. I doubt that Apple would do that, but who knows.
I think it's mostly just lack of caring, not arrogance, at least in my experience. Sure, some people react badly when you try to coax them out of their comfort zone. Could be a cultural thing - Americans seem to be more confident overall, which could well manifest itself as arrogance in this situation.

I come across the issue occasionally as a contractor - where my work needs to be integrated with the help of employees who are totally out of their depth with it. In addition to making it all happen you get a second objective: not embarrassing them or otherwise pissing them off.
I like to SSH in from all over the place, and so a default deny iptables policy would be a disaster for me. After some research, I went ahead and blocked all of China and Korea using iptables.

For anyone curious I put my modified iptables rules up at http://pastebin.com/UPL3w6FQ

Backstory:

I wrote a quick django app that watches fail2ban logs and plots a heatmap of where in the world the attacks are coming from. After watching this for a bit I found that most of these attacks originate from Chinese and Korean IP space. So I set out to block all of China and Korea.

After some googling, I found that okean.com maintains a handy SMTP Chinese/Korean iptables ruleset at http://www.okean.com/antispam/iptables/rc.firewall.sinokorea. I took their rules and modified it to drop all traffic from these IPs instead of just port 25.
How would window management go away in a desktop OS? By having only fullscreen apps à la iOS/Android?

I don't see that feasible or desirable. In a small format it works, but on a desktop I very often want to see multiple windows at the same time. (say, reading documentation with code, or multiple files open at once)
Proper filesystem-level encryption would be nice.

File Vault is a poor hack. Needs logout to free disk space. You can't sudo into file-vaulted account. It makes Time Machine nearly useless: you can only restore entire home directory at once. It won't backup anything in home while you're logged in.
That the most probable explanation, I believe. But did you find a real figure somewhere? I couldn't.
Digg vs Stackoverflow server capacity
While it's cool they've had a million questions, I feel more interested in seeing stats on things like:

# non-closed questions (broken out by answered/non)

# questions with an accepted answer

# questions forced to community-wiki vs those that were not