skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
We use SimpleDB from outside of AWS datacenters (Rackspace), and it does go down every now and then. Usually once a week for a couple of minutes we get timeouts and connection resets.

For us it was a good choice because we were on tight schedule, and didn't have to spend time on operation. In the longer term however, we'll migrate back to an in-house solution.
Netflix is 20% of network traffic during peak hours?
It is OK to raise your price for any reason or none at all. If you think a higher price is profit maximizing, raise your price. If a competitor lowers their price to undercut you, that sounds like a great opportunity to raise your price to make it clear you beat them on quality.

Your effort matters zero -- customers will only see what they get, not what you do. BCC is five times as much code as I write for consulting clients, but they pay several orders of magnitude more for my work. Pricing based on the availability of other products only makes sense if you compete with them: ideally, you have ready answers for why you do not.
SXSW Interactive Accelerator
I was one of the people that was very gung ho about Twitter's role in the Iranian Election brouhaha. I recently got an email from a friend linking the Gladwell post with the underhanded "Look at how wrong you were" statement.

There's nothing wrong with being wrong (albeit in a very public way), but my response was this: Even though Twitter may not have played as direct of a role as the media was portraying, it was the open, decentralized nature of new social media/communication that made it so much harder for the Iranian government to strangle what got out. These sorts of protests have been going on for a while in Iran, but those of us in the west have never had such an intimate, play-by-play look at it until the 2009 elections. That's how we got pictures of Neda shot to death, stories about the Basij wreaking terror at night, and so on, practically in real time.

Sure, most of us have forgotten about it and moved on (I haven't; most of my extended family is in Iran), but the level of coverage and fostering of connections just means the next time something happens, support from the rest of the world will be stronger (which I can personally say is extremely encouraging to my friends/family in Iran -- they've felt isolated, until now). Yes, I wasn't on the streets in Tehran, but I was helping some of them coordinate and communicate with shells/proxies/tunnels/etc.

I think at this point, a better interpretation of the phrase "The Revolution will be Tweeted" would be that in this day and age, if anything is happening anywhere, it will be tweeted about as close to real-time as possible. Iran is "lucky" in this sense, they have a fairly modern communication system. Imagine if live streams of the atrocities in Darfur or North Korea were up on Twitter. These causes could emerge from being momentarily trendy to actually being a subject of intense worldwide criticism. And then maybe something good will become of it.

</rant>
You might be interested in http://www.scratchbeginnings.com/
Awesome story - thanks for sharing!
If you read all the way to the end, you'll see that it was a common theme among those early developers.
very true - you can tell when jobs called TweetDeck "TwitterDeck" in his earnings call - quote here: http://www.businessinsider.com/tweetdeck-steve-jobs-2010-10 . Hopefully apple doesn't miss the social boat, because i'm a big apple fan
Having my main call-to-actions on the top right of the landing page
139 U.S. Banks closed so far this year
You should feel very lucky for having such struggles. It is a rare and wonderful condition.

I stopped looking for and setting goals, milestones, or anything else that was quantitive in measuring my progress a long time ago. Now I just listen to my gut and stop when I sense I am at a peak or my happiest.
good backgrounders on the concurrency landscape (messaging/actors, STM, datfalow

http://blog.ezyang.com/2010/07/graphs-not-grids/

http://www.igvita.com/2010/08/18/multi-core-threads-message-...

http://erlware.blogspot.com/2010/07/brief-overview-of-concur...

http://www.sauria.com/blog/2009/10/05/the-cambrian-period-of...

http://www.slideshare.net/twleung/a-survey-of-concurrency-co...
And you need to be poor to understand and effectively help the poor. And you need to be a minority to understand the problems minorities face.

Yes, participating in something or belonging to a group helps one understand it, but participating and belonging are not pre-requirements to help and understand.
Nicaragua, but all of Central America's a great place to live ridiculously cheap and hack away. Plus they're beautiful countries and latinas are so hot.

The internet's not fantastic (a crappy 1 megabit, and outages happen at least once a week), half of the TV is in Spanish, and you have to be careful sometimes since white guys are usually cashed up tourists and ripe for a mugging.

But when push comes to shove it beats trying to make $1000 rent + living expenses and trying to balance a startup around that.
And in Bombay.
Yep.

FOI requests are pretty simple the poster just needs to send them an email saying "I would like to an information request under the Freedom of Information Act, please send me any emails or documentation related to the shutting down of xyz service". They need to sign off with their real name, but that's about it in terms of what you have to put in a request.

The FOI contact information for tfl:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/foi/
Thanks for turning me on to an interesting blogger.

EDIT: Doh! I see you're promoting yourself. Well done!
Mongo technically only requires indexes to fit in memory, but in practice if your data doesn't fit in memory, performance is abysmal. We also use short names, but find that it's not terrible for readability because we use class constants representing each name, so what's the key for a playlist name? Why it's Playlist::KEY_NAME. We also have a function that renames the fields from their short mongo names to their full names when they get loaded in, so the vast majority of the time, nobody even needs to worry about the mongo key names.
So far, your reply about Haskell seems the only promising alternative to C. Could you imagine to develop in Haskell and use, e.g., HaskellDirect, for C libraries that are not available in Haskell for certain tasks? And, it seems you can even interface with Python (see "http://wiki.python.org/moin/PythonVsHaskell) via the ctypes. So far, I conclude that Haskell could be the most promising language for the upcoming "onslaught" of multicore/multiprocessor architectures (especially when I look at how clean the syntax for distributed processing is). But then I also have read much blogs like this one "http://www.jelovic.com/articles/why_people_arent_using_haske.... So is it really worth it to dive into Haskell?
I narrowly missed some Cafe Sua Da yesterday at the Bloomsbury Festival in London. I would've been up for it but had just had a latte. Doh!

I'm quite fortunate on the Turkish coffee front, my wife usually makes it on the weekend. If you ever want to scare little kids, suck some of the sludge in through your teeth, spit it back out in the coffee, look at the kid then smile at them. Guaranteed screams and tears :)
Looks like you're the only person who caught the not in the title
Don't do this. Will break password managers, like http://www.lastpass.com, with little upside.

On second note, would not putting 2 fields in one line, and having space switch from username to password in JS achieve the same thing similar benefits without the drawbacks?
Here in the States, the government knows full well how to deal with uppity citizens abusing our Freedom of Information Act.

We put them on hold for four years, then tell them it'll cost $1 million to get everything together.

http://www.9news.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=157782&...
I love this. Might be interesting to see the YC anti-portfolio. Anyone have any stories?
This month I'm traveling and working from cafés. When the battery runs out, it's time to go home. That gives me about five hours of efficient hacking. The time constraint really helps me maintain focus.
Similar to riding a bike, playing an instrument, writing code or cooking -- you never 'forget', but you definitely do get 'rusty'.
Internet TV and The Death of Cable TV, really
Thanks for the details. This is getting a bit off-topic, but can you describe how a foreigner should go about finding a place to live in Central America? Did you just fly there and look for "For Rent" signs or did you line something up beforehand?
The article you've linked to says it's the other way around. The Burgerbrau Budweiser beer came before the Busch one and was exported to the US a year before Busch started marketing their version of Budweiser.
Built a MFA (made-for-adsense) site: http://www.snapspans.com/

:)
The Guardian newspaper is a big fan of FOI and uses it extensively. I'm sure they'd love to pounce on this one. They're one of the few news services that get the web.
I think my best was 4th for all Ontario. How old are you?
I'm at the Visualising London event that's being held by the GLA on wednesday, I'll see if I can get anything out of any TfL reps that are there.
If they use a service like http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/ it's even easier, it keeps track of the responses and indexes them for other people.
The problem with Linux is not the urban legend, that Linux users don't pay for software (just ask Varicad or MathWorks), for example).

For Adobe, the problem might be, that Linux users don't pay for subpar software. The Flex Builder is a perfect example - it feels foreign on Linux desktop. Would Mac users pay for software, that feels so foreign on Mac desktop? Of course not, so why do you expect Linux users to do?
The practice of printing titles top-to-bottom vs. bottom-to-top seems to be more than a Western Europe vs. Eastern Europe thing, though, because French books (and I think German as well) are printed bottom-to-top just like Russian books.
Any actual information re: whether or not that's true?
I think that, actually, our (English) convention is (theoretically) to pick whichever seems more logical.

We would never say "Bank of America offer loans", however the poster used "TfL Kill Two of My Apps" because the act of killing was done be staff (plural) at TfL, rather than by the organisation itself.
How about working in Silicon Valley? Everybody knows that all the "real" startups are out there.

I'm calling bullshit on this, once and for all. I love SV, and I love the entire Bay Area, but it's not a requirement for startups.

He's mostly right, but he's also playing into the black-and-white fallacy. No clear-thinking person would say that being in SV is a requirement for a "real" startup. (It's not even technically true anymore, since I've been noticing that more and more startups are popping up with main offices in SF instead.)

It's just that it's more likely that you'll find startups in SV. Culture, draw, etc. It's true -- but don't mention that to the Foursquare boys in NYC.
Lots of tea (mostly english breakfast), lots of water, and I buy the odwalla super food (or similar) things in the big jug and drink one a week or so.

For booze, I like a good beer, paler in the summer, darker in the winter.

I fucking love bourbon, knob creek especially. Saphire martini (up), knob creek manhattan, easy on the vermouth, extra bitters (also up), or a shitty gibson martini on ice with lots of vermouth and lime.
If you want to be a game programmer I would suggest giving graphics programming a miss. I would suggest concentrating on one of the following:

1. Tools: C#, Maya & 3DS Max APIs, pipelines, UX. IMO the most important area in games (hence my startup), also very sort after.

2. Networking: learn about how to write networked games and servers that handle lag and heavy load.

3. Low level systems, memory, optimisation, in C/C++.

These areas are all heavily sort after in my experience. What the games industry doesn't need is more wannabe graphics programmers.
I just looked at my bookshelf, German books are indeed also printed bottom-to-top.
They really aren't into things like Craigslist or real estate listing sites. Houses/apartments for rent is literally done by a sign on the place combined with word of mouth, and often purely word of mouth.

Probably your best bet would be going to a backpackers hostel and finding one while you stay there - they'll set you back as little as $10ish a night, have internet and interesting people to talk to, and the people working there might know of a place and/or you can walk around looking for somewhere.
That seems to be a distinction without a difference. Offering loans is done by the staff at Bank of America to the same degree that "the act of killing was done by staff (plural) at TfL, rather than by the organisation itself."
Personally if I were reading a crazy conspiracy-theory book for some other purpose (research for a book I was writing about how crazy other people are, frinstance) I'd avoid reading it in public.
I like to cook, so I've got a diverse diet because I'm always trying to make different things. Lunch yesterday was shrimp sauteed in garlic and olive oil with egg noodles and a little butter, dinner was a quick beef stew I put together with some mediocre top round steak and red potatoes. Breakfast this morning was toast with strawberry preserves.

I have a list of a dozen or so dishes that I cook on a regular basis, to keep costs down and to try to eat healthier. I only have two red meat dishes on that list, a steak dish and a chili (that I will often use some ground pork in as well if I have it). I use a lot of chicken, and I'm trying to incorporate more seafood, but my wife is very picky about it. She likes tilapia, which I find boring, so I don't use it much. She doesn't like salmon, so I never use it. I'm keeping my eyes open for fresh wahoo and mahi (we always called it dolphin in Miami, but people everywhere else think flipper).

I don't usually cook much for lunch. I prefer an easy sandwich or leftovers from dinner the night before. I'll also go out for lunch a lot, if for no other reason than to get out of the house. I rarely eat breakfast, but I'm trying to eat more oatmeal. I like it a lot and it's good for you!
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/G/gorilla-arm.html

The side-effect that destroyed touch-screens as a mainstream input technology despite a promising start in the early 1980s.
Maybe I'm missing the point, but I don't see any legibility-on-shelf difference between top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top. Either way you need to tilt your head a bit...

Does anyone actually see a difference in readability here?
But when you read "Bank of America offers loans" you automatically assume that it's a company policy change, right? It's unlikely that the reason they are now offering loans is because the low-level staff who you ask for loans just happen to feel like it.

That said, yeah, there's a lot of wiggle room, and I've never known anyone argue about misuse either way... but in general, one way just sounds natural to our ears, and one sounds off, and which way sounds natural/off varies depending on scenario.

edit: I did actually have a slight "am I talking bullshit?" moment, rang up my mother who teaches English as a foreign language among other things, she backed up my interpretation so I'm more confident now.
As a fellow high-schooler ("one who high-schools"?), I'm impressed! You certainly seem to be doing everything that I wish I were doing right now.

This is new found motivation for me to start working on the Rails app that's been in the back of my head for a while now. Here's hoping that I can sustain that motivation long enough to build a finished product.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nota_bene
I tend to go through periods of overwork and underwork in terms of productivity. Sometimes my most productive periods are actually quite short. Other times they're long.

Earlier this year I used to start work around 7:30am and finish around 9pm monday to friday, and work one day a weekend. At the moment I'm doing 8am starts, a break to travel to the office (in which I use a notebook and pen if I'm working to limit me to ideas and high level stuff, or do stuff on my phone), then I'm normally back for 7pm and work maybe one saturday in 4. I've also started working from home one day a week. I tend to find that's my most productive day, but if I spend more time at home it blurs the lines a little too much for me.

Last week I got in at 10am one day, knocked off at around 4pm. I hadn't had a day like that (with relatively little to do) for two years.
Check out yugoslav dinar banknotes from 1955 onwards http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknotes_of_the_Yugoslav_dinar for great examples of socialist realism.
I didn't say that Bank of America made a policy change; I sad that they offered a loan. The persons doing the offering of said loan are low-levels, presumably acting within the bounds set by company policy; however, the degree to which they adhere to the policy is not relevant. In terms of who is physically doing what, this really is a distinction without a difference, except that to your ears it sounds wrong (which is fine; that's the difference between dialects).

My point is simply that in American English, there are strict rules about number. I thought that English English had similarly strict rules about number that just happened to differ from those that Americans use; apparently not. Interesting.
Paul Graham and most other (good) investors invest in people rather in ideas, so this is why it is less important for them to use social services to invest in social services.

As for Steve Jobs -- he's the perfect example for @cdixon's argument, because Apple doesn't get social.
Ha, we didn't consider selling cereal since we're not good at it. :-) So, when we needed money we decided to stick to what we knew best and started another service-oriented, and therefore instantly profitable, startup: http://buildasandcastle.com
Sharp To Withdraw From PCs and focus on tablets
exactly - I think that lifting your fingers is the 'normal' way to type on a traditional keyboard with raised keys. But, I love that when I type on my low-profile keyboard I feel like my fingers are always in contact with the keyboard and just kind of slide over the tops of the keys to hit their target.
On the occasion when I have to use a raised key keyboard, I have to re-remember how to lift my fingers to type. It takes me a minute to adjust before my fingers stop getting caught on all the key corners. Then again, it could just be personal style - anyways, while I am a pretty fast typist, I wouldn't say that I have the most pristine home row technique, so take my comments with a grain of salt.
IMO, issue 1 should be dealt with over here. Always a good idea to gain perspectives on people from other countries.

Issue 2 can probably be dealt with better on meetup.com. However, I'd personally rather see it here.
Madam, Are you Pregnant?
>"Says artist, designer and architect, Dr. Koichi Kawana, "Simplicity means the achievement of maximum effect with minimum means."

The maximum effect provided by minimum means may not be sufficient.
Ah, but it's only the overestimated ones you hear about.

Africanized Killer Bees, Asteroid Impact, Global Warming, Mayan Calendars, etc. Another new one comes down the pike every 5 years, and it's always going to end the world in the next 20 years. Fortunately, they're almost always blowing the downside way out of proportion.
Unless you read the article he linked to before delving into his rant, it's very unclear that he's talking about MongoDB, not MySQL. You are correct that InnoDB and as far as I know all other MySQL engines, does not store field names with every record.
If we are talking about nature, I agree. I love nature, and I love visiting cool environmental features. I was speaking mostly of cities, which is what most people I know want to visit when they talk about traveling.

Visiting Japan (suburbs, not city) was like visiting a sort of parallel universe. Everything was fundamentally similar, but totally different. Additionally, I was learning Japanese at the time, so it was rather exciting just trying to converse with native speakers. It was quite a while ago so I can't think of much in the way of specific examples of the 'bests', but they have a number of cultural aspects and traditions I preferred over their western equivalents, such as sleeping accommodations and choice in breakfast foods. (always found most western breakfasts beyond cereal/oatmeal and toast despicable)

Providence. Spent the week with a girl, roaming around the city a bit.
Android 2.3 release confirmed
I'm a big fan of Coffee from Starbucks, going with a venti vanilla latte or a venti iced caramel latte (frappuccino) depending on the weather. When making my own hot drinks, I'll switch hapilly between tea and coffee.

Cold drinks, I do like coke but rarely drink it (except if I'm eating out and don't want to drink anything alcoholic), absolutely love orange juice (with real bits in it, freshly squeezed), the occasional vanilla milkshake goes down a treat, too.

Alcoholic, I'm a big fan of Corona (with lime, of course) when drinking out, and when not trying to get drunk (e.g. while working) I greatly enjoy a good scotch, or a glass of wine.

Oh, and what I drink most: water, all day, every day.
I'd love to use it, but I'm on Windows 7 with Chrome.

If you port it I'd be willing to pay $ for it, maybe have a free version with those default sites but a paid that allows more sites to be integrated and allow users to submit their integrated sites?

Well anyway, nice idea, shame I can't use it :-(
starting about 3 years ago we tried to institute a "spend money on experiences or assets philosophy". By assets meaning things that hold or go up in value over time. So for household items -- spend a little more on an antique or quality versions, rather than a consumable that will only last a few years and end up in a landfill -- and try to tend towards not spending much money at all on things that are inherently depreciating, making that as small a portion of our spending as possible.

The experiences part we've been successful with, the assets part not always so much.
You can make distractions for the masses or you can consume them; ya can't do both. If you have a thousand telephones that won't ring, then social networks are a great way to get suckers to sell your garbage to each other with as little effort as possible. They're the internet equivalent of reality TV: The content creates itself, so it's cheap to run; product placement through aspirational, voyeuristic relationships are the paradigm; topics are vapid, memory is fleeting. Gen X mostly understands this, but we're basically irrelevant to the marketers -- actually, in most cases now we ARE the marketers, which might explain why we have a better handle on it. But Gen Y seems to have an impossible time grasping the idea that they're being used by all these neat little tweets and likes. They've got an insatiable appetite for short-attention-span candy. It's easy fishing if you want to profit off it; they're like a bunch of trained goldfish in a perfectly transparent tank. Total advertising saturation has apparently done to our culture what it was intended to do: Replace genuine interaction with a series of tailored sales pitches, in a Truman-Show-like fashion.

I guess the question now is, what do we do with 30 million kids who can't write a complete sentence? And the correct answer is: War.
That's not particularly desperate though. Often the startup ends up boosting the consulting side of a business to the point that it's making you more money in business development than in actual on-site revenue.
Excellent. Are short-term (1-3 month) leases available? What precautions do you take to stay safe?