skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Sorry, but all the performance talk on Java are bogus. There are UI issues in Look and Feel, Nd some great developers have developed applications that fell 100% native in Java and work very well.

Large part of the web servers and back-end apps run on Java, and no Java on Mac means no macs for many camps. As noted Apple's own web infrastructure is Java based. Facebook, built maybe the world's best performaning databae server in Java, that stores data for 200M+ daily users (500M+). Google runs large parts of their infrastructure on Java. I have seen benchmarks on number chrunching apps where Java beat C++ performance (this is due to JIT, which almost every JVM has today - some only enable in "server mode" though - means that the Java byte code runs as machine code for the exact processor being used at runtime), not true for all types of number crunching but for some.

Java is not a one size fits alls solution but there are a large number of application areas for Java and hundreds of programming languages that run on Java Virtual Machine platform.

No Java on Mac is an unlikely scenario for Apple, but time will tell...
Shelf
This week in Anaconda #2
Aren’t the CEOs of Apple & Oracle bestest friends in the whole world? Will it be long before Oracle/Sun picks up the slack on this?
I use DBVisualizer, and while the GUI leaves a little to be desired, I love that app because of the value in the functionality.

I've heard Cyberduck uses Java as well. While I don't use that one any more, I've heard it's very popular. I could not even tell it was a Java app.

edit -- turns out I use a lot of Java apps myself, more related to work, though: Pentaho Studio, SQL Power Architect, etc.
I think this is the money quote in the article

"Once you get to the scale of computing we’re at, the language you use is much less important than the platform you build on it."
My predictions on how this is going to go:

- A few major developers will get on board with this, and publish their mainstream titles via the App Store. This will lend credibility.

- Indie developers will jump on next, seeing another low-friction distribution medium that gives them more eyeballs (at least at first) than they were previously getting.

- Enter the "fart apps", ie. low-value applications that do one thing (poorly), but only cost $0.99 or are free, providing downward pricing pressure for everyone else in the App Store.

- Another OSX release comes and goes, this time with warnings to users whenever they install "unsigned" applications. Developers are encouraged to get Apple to sign their apps prior to shipping, even if they're a boxed app on the shelf, to prevent the user from seeing the big scary warning. Conveniently, this is a very similar process to submitting an app to the App Store; App Store distribution increases.

- A few more OSX releases ensue, Apple stops signing applications that aren't also distributed via the App Store. Distribution of software outside of the App Store (boxed software, online direct-to-user, competing digital distribution like Steam) begins to wither on MacOS.

I'd hope it goes without saying that I'd like to be proven wrong about the above.
Windows 7? HP, come on, you're better than that.
Cool, so it's got a 1.8 gigahertz processor, and 2 gigs of ram and... and.... What's the battery life?

Unless HP is aiming for people to run Solidworks on this, a nominal amount of processing power is a given these days. The truly important question is battery life, more so for a 'business tablet' than an iPad 'toy'.

(I don't think the iPad is a toy, but HP's position that theirs is for business; they're saying that the iPad's a toy)
This is a huge disappointment for me. I teach and try to keep up with the (MS) software that my students are using so I can offer some tech support (though I'm not about to switch to Windows for their sake).

But the type of issues that aggravate Pogue are exactly what annoy me in software UX. Someone's going to have to write an mighty effective rejoinder to his review of MS Office to get me to follow this "upgrade."
A quick intro to writing a parser with Treetop
Ask HN: Which companies / people inspire you?
Some people don't consider anybody as their role model but some do.

Let me start with myself.

Few people that inspires me the most are ...

Ryan Singer (37 Signals), Seth Godin (Marketing Guru), Paul Graham (YCombinator), Tony Hsieh (Zappos), Jason Fried (37 Signals)
I'm pretty sure Sun handled the Windows Java port, not Microsoft. Java was available on Windows pretty early on, and I can't see Microsoft rushing to make that happen.
As much as I love Safari, Safari is the worst offender in terms of performance on my Mac. It probably doesn't help that I have a bad habit of leaving more than 50 tabs open at a time.

I almost have to admit that the 9 window limit on the iPad's Safari isn't a bad thing. Forces me to instapaper stuff right away and close the window.
You know what? I need a browser plugin that delays posting all comments until I've finished my second coffee. You make some good points, I suspect we agree on almost everything.

In a way, good languages are interesting because they make good practices so easy they're invisible.

Which makes me very interested in the question of documentation. Throwing tests out the window as documentation for the purposes of this discussion, how do you feel about DSLs as one form of self-documenting code?
Counter-counter point: We will make buying legit software so easy only broke college kids will bother pirating.
Twenty Dying Technologies: Here Today, Obsolete Tomorrow
Can I Make My Developers Write Efficient Code by Giving Them Slower Machine?
Do you know why Arch does not sign its packages?
Dear Oracle: Get a clue
Honestly, I think Apple has enough credibility to make it work already. Apple's software directory was already a major place to make sales for indie developers, their conversion rates are historically very high, and the app store for iPhone was a major gold rush.

I bet we'll see a ton of developers hitting it from day one, hoping to get in before everyone else does and the market gets saturated.

The install base will start out at zero initially and quickly rise, but I'm sure 90%+ of the people who install Lion (by definition early adoptors) are going to check it out and many of them will buy something.

I say this as someone who's planning to release an App for it, for what it's worth.
I am curious how they got around the patent.

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6658577.pdf
Another reason to not ship Flash is that by the time you install the OS, the version of Flash is usually outdated and you've got to install the update anyways.

Every time I reinstall an OS, Mac or otherwise, I find myself having to update Flash. If I've got to do that, I may as well install from scratch.
Great. When can I get Android on it?
You don't need to do `list(s.lower())`, you can already iterate over a string. Also, instead of converting the whole string to a new lowercase one, which means allocating "a lot" of memory, you can convert each character separately as needed.
> This week, we’re releasing a bunch of advanced audio processing features. These features let you normalize audio levels, fade in/out, control gain, apply a highpass/lowpass filter, apply a expand/compress effect, and apply basic equalization. We’re even adding a karaoke effect option.

Those are just the default audio filters in mplayer. At least it can't have cost much to implement.
We aren't missing why. All of the things pointed out in the article are obvious (to me anyway). There is already something a lot like this (it's called Steam) and the advantages and disadvantages are well established.
I had a slotcar track when I was a kid and I just bought one at a thriftstore last night. How serendipitous to find this site today!

I think I might be hooked.
trashtocash.ly
Things to think about:

1. Keeping the credentials (account number, name, telephone number, credit card number, routing number and account number, etc etc). You may have legal duties to perform certain things, or to delete them every so often.

2. Retries of failed payment authorizations. The ACH and credit card systems ARE NOT THAT RELIABLE. Your code will need to take account of network failure (failed to contact Paymentech or AmEx) vs a declined payment. Not the same things at all. You need to have the ability to retry an authorization.

3. Your own software failures can leave a "batch" of payments in an inconsistent state. The dangers here are double-billing a human, and on the other hand, not billing a human. In one case, your clients cry out, in the other, you miss some money.

4. Give your clients the ability to cancel a scheduled payment right up to the deadline, but don't let them schedule a payment too close to the deadline. Horrible race conditions that are hard to imagine ensue.
Clickable Link: http://www.Garmz.com
NASA and Foursquare team up for the first extraterrestrial check-in
http://github.com/robhudson/django-debug-toolbar

This is an invaluable resource for benchmarking performance, both CPU and database and will help you optimize your queries through the ORM.
Presuming you're a great engineer that dislikes PHP, you'd take a crappy language and build hacks on top of it? Your great engineers would probably have better things to do with their time. Artificial constraints are great for creativity; for engineering, they're just time-wasting and your good engineers will go elsewhere.

(unless you're the single exception where your business is just that compelling...)
Buy Essay from Online Companies
As writing essays is often a tough assignment for many students, they might decide that buying essays from online companies is more convenient. This is especially true. Any type of essay required, can now be bought from online writing companies.
I'm leaving a PHP job soon to start a Ruby job. The language was not the decisive factor, but it was a factor - I wanted to move to Ruby at some point.

The company I'm leaving solves complex, interesting problems in solid PHP code. There are developers here who are a lot smarter than I am. So my attitude is far from "you guys suck" or "I'm better than you."

But when I look out over the programming landscape, I see a lot more energy and activity right now in the Ruby community. A lot more people building new things and inventing new best practices. This is a simplification, but it seems like great ideas come from Rails and move back to PHP eventually.

PHP jobs run the gamut from high-tech and awesome to grunt work. Rails jobs tend to be more cutting-edge, because the technology is newer and there's just more stuff happening there.

So for me, the question is this: if the Ruby / Rails community is the leading edge for new ideas, and the AVERAGE (not to say all) developer in that community is better, and the AVERAGE job in that language / framework is cooler, doesn't it make sense for me to move that way? All other things being equal, isn't that a good career move?

It isn't snobbery, it seems like the most pragmatic thing to do. This is on top of the fact that I genuinely like the Ruby language a lot more than PHP.

So I don't think you have to feel slighted personally. And I'd expect this cycle to repeat someday: there will be a lot of Ruby / Rails apps that need maintaining, and a lot of developers will prefer some hotter, newer thing. Just the way it goes. But it's nothing personal.
I think they've decided that, at this point, Java is within a few years of being a floppy disk drive in the iMac era.

Okay, that's a little harsh. But apart from Android, Java doesn't seem to have much buzz these days. And Android gets into the whole lawsuit mess.

Also, there seems to be a lot of disruption in the Java space due to the Oracle acquisition. IBM ditching Harmony for OpenJDK, the Oracle/Google lawsuit, etc.

This seems like an opportune time to step away. Since the whole Java ecosystem is stirred up and reconfiguring, it makes sense for Apple to pull back before a new configuration has solidified. While things are fluid, let the Java organizations figure out what they want to do with OS X.
> The problem is what Apple said to Java developers at a time

Can anybody give any examples of businesses centered on selling apps written in Java for OSX please?
Clever Forkless "Phantom Bike" by Olli Erkkila
silo?
Things That Newcomers to Ruby Should Know
I agree. Every language is as good as the programmer that uses it.
I'm with Arrington on this.

"Making obscene profits may make you jealous, but it isn’t evil. There’s a reason so many people are using the Cash4Gold service – it’s easy and convenient. They don’t make promises on their website that they don’t keep, and they aren’t tricking or scamming people. They are simply buying low and selling high, and that’s capitalism at its finest."[1]

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/04/there-is-a-difference-betwe....
I don't think people pirate software because it's hard to pay for it and install it. I think they pirate it because they don't want to pay for it. Ninety-nine cent songs are one thing; $99 apps are something else entirely.
Interesting. In my case they seem to latch on to dead accounts or accounts with fake info.

If you're worried about services like Rapleaf, mix fake info into your public profiles. Most sites have no business knowing your birthdate, city of residence let alone your mailing address. Regularly forget your passwords and whimsically start over with new accounts.

Make it hard for automated scripts to harvest your real identity. Be "damaged goods" that can't be easily sold.
Hooks (like key hooks)
Apple has said it will have support for the normal cycle

It means deprecated for one rev and dropped the next. Just like they handled PowerPC supported in 10.4 deprecated in 10.5 gone in 10.6. So Java will be gone in 10.8.
I agree, but if you're trying to get someone to buy something from you, you don't tell them to take a look at some clutter.

freecycle sounds happy, the products are free, you're doing good by recycling. clutterbin sounds like a bunch of clutter thrown randomly in to a bin that you have to wade through.
This doesn't work on the iPad :(
New York Times has more Twitter followers than print readers
Ask HN: Building a job board. Worth the time?
As idea's are a dime a dozen and what really matters is the execution, I wanted to share mine and get opinion.
There are a lot of job boards out there but most charge big dime to post a job. Following are 30 day job posting costs:
Dice - $479
SO - $350
GitHub - $300
37Signals - $400

So when a small company wants to post a job, and for less money...they either start by reaching out to their network first and then end up posting jobs on craigslist ($25 for 30 days).

I want to get HN communities opinion on whether it would make sense to invest time in making a job board that concentrates only on small businesses, provides them features comparable to dice but still at the price of craigslist. Also, the motto of "do no evil" aka "don't sell candidates to recruiters" would be utilized.

What's your opinion?
Fascinating example of PR done right (by Foursquare, NASA and and JESS3). Quite sure this is going to be picked up by pretty much every blog and newspaper.

Yup, not everyone has quite the same leverage, but you have to hand it to these guys for pulling this off!
Seminar jakarta Indonesia 2011
Tahun 2011 tinggal menghitung hari, review bisnis tahun 2010 saatnya dilakukan, apakah bisnis anda mengalami kemajuan atau bahkan mengalami kemunduran. Jika anda seorang manager, direktur, kepala departemen bahkan anda seorang sales marketing pun tentu anda memiliki beban yang berat untuk menghadapi bisnis tahun 2011 tanpa melakukan hal berikut:
At the same time, kudos for showing actual product performance. Thanks to their advertising, I feel like I can make an accurate judgment of the device's performance.

Contrast the Slate's ad to the overly-aggressive critique of Nokia's advertising for the N97 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJpEuMidcSU
Social Coupons: Good for Business?
If you want the experience, you can already get it through other means.

I think this is all about dick waving. Rich people who want to boast they've been into space.
Web Scale
MObil keluarga ideal terbaik indonesia
Mau cari Mobil untuk Keluarga Ideal dan Terbaik di Indonesia?
Setiap keluarga kecil maupun keluarga besar pasti mendambakan sebuah Mobil yang ideal dan disesuaikan dengan keadaan Keluarga Indonesia. Berikut adalah beberapa Mobil yang ideal untuk keluarga terbaik Indonesia, yang saya review dari satu merk Mobil yang terkenal yaitu Toyota.
1) It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.
2) You should know what you're going to do ahead of time, and you should have done tests beforehand. The after-hours work isn't that complex if you're doing it right.

1. you have no idea how many systems have been utterly destroyed by "tough men" working beyond their limits. I have seen this many places I've worked as a SysAdmin... it's like a mind disease, and it's not any good for anyone.

2. You need to prepare ahead of time, and you need an easy way to roll back. but you /always/ need to be prepared just in case something goes wrong.

This is the other classic mistake: Make the new guy stay up all night handling the upgrade. I mean, the senior guys have tested it, right? It ends in tears for all involved. the new guy is the least able to deal with the stresses of doing the upgrade (and the rollback, and even if you test the upgrade, nobody tests the rollback)

Do your upgrades when your senior people are around, preferably towards the beginning of their shift. If everything goes as planned, it won't matter when you do it, because downtime will be minimal either way. If, however, it throws up on your shoes, I don't know about you, but I am significantly more effective at dealing with problems when I'm fresh. And yeah, that means I'm a wimp. But when you get down to it, most of us are.
CHOICE 1: Achieving product/market fit is more important than any technical decision.

As a side note, why can't the developers learn the other technology?!? Only bad developers can't learn...
The JDK would probably need/want to put things in /Library/Frameworks, which I suspect wouldn't be allowed.

All the jars and whatnot, I don't think that's the model Apple has in mind for things distributed via the App Store.
It doesn't make him right either.
Hehehe:

Got a ton more material done with Reworder. I patterned out the API. I enforced a clump of common lyric (who truly inevitably a equivalent word for "the"?). I also enclosed a bit of Javascript, as I truly need to learn that in order to go the front-end animal I want to become. Check it out so far: Reworder linear on Google's App Engine. It still inevitably a ton of work. I'd say I'm a day or two from a minimal feasible product (it really paraphrase decently and I have permalink-able URLs).

http://reworder.appspot.com/reworded/zheaji/

( Nice job though. Simple UI. Could be cool )
Ask HN:Web based IDE, would you use one?
Assuming that the IDE were fast, with code, highlighting etc, would you use it? I find that I cannot be productive sitting in front of my desktop all day and that I'm inspired when I'm walking around. I think I would get some work done on an iPad based IDE. Thoughts?
This is a great idea. I do think there is large barrier to entry in the industry since it is seemingly who you know versus necessarily purely vision of the designer or the aesthetic and build quality.
Oh yeah, let's leave it to the experts that are politicians and talking heads, right ? They're doing a GREAT job of discussing it rationally and improving the state-of-the-art knowledge about it.
...which is one newspaper in one particular country, who are betting (stupidly) on digital distribution.

Does it not surprise you that they're betting their money on a paywall site, and proclaiming that print newspapers will die? Of course they'd proclaim that! They want you to sign up to a subscription.
Enter the "fart apps", ie. low-value applications that do one thing (poorly), but only cost $0.99 or are free, providing downward pricing pressure for everyone else in the App Store.

Unlikely. A fart app has comic value on a phone because you can pull it out at the bar and use it to show off your iPhone while you're drunk. The comic value is seductive enough while drunk that your friends might buy it too, hence perpetuating the plague.

I'm not sure how laptop or desktop based fart apps would propagate, however. Would you download, even for free, a application that produces fart noises on your laptop? Dubious.

The rest of your scenario doesn't worry me so much. What does worry me is if they build hooks into the OS so that signed apps distributed through the app-store have greater privileges (e.g. with respect to playing DVDs) than other apps. This would finally be a way in for the so-called "Trusted Computing" initiative which would lock down your own machine against you (unless you jailbreak your mac, which seems just wrong).

Even with that, people will still find ways around it, but given that Apple did at some point agree to implement DRM restrictions on music files distributed through iTunes I suspect they'd also implement Trusted Computing with a bit of arm twisting from the MPAA. That would suck a whole lot more than the tragic disappearance of boxed software (good riddance).
Good stuff.

For v2 please consider adding non-uniform H scale. With some hues the difference in one point is much more noticeable than in others (e.g. 140-160 range vs greens or violets).

Also, could really use more precise navigation. E.g. if I am at the right hue and want to adjust saturation, I would ideally do something that wouldn't change hue when I wiggle my mouse. Perhaps account for a Ctrl key being held down, or make left click fix the hue first, and the saturation next... ?

Good stuff nonetheless. The logo is pretty awful though :)
digg could remove themselves from archive.org using robots.txt if they wanted to
Apple launches two new MacBook Air models
Spaceport America
A Modern Ghost Town
In general, ghost towns are normally old towns and cities that were emptied because of natural or human-caused disasters or failed economic activity. But how come that a new-brand city became a ghost town?
Why am I writing a data store? Because my online backup service needs to store 200,000 key-value pairs for every $/month of revenue, and existing data stores aren't optimized very well for very large numbers of very small records.

Really? Every one of the dozens of open-source key/value stores is so far off from your requirements that they just don't work for you?
We are a smallish group (50) in a very large company and we have been using fogbugz for a long while. We are currently transitioning our previous revision system into Kiln.
Nice concept. Where is your production and distribution based? London?

I remember reading about made.com, also based in London, who are doing something similar in home furnishings. I think they outsource production to China, the drawback being a fairly lengthy lead-time.
http://omgbloglol.com/post/1373695996/from-tl-dr-to-techcrun...

->

http://tldr.it/summaries/7744

Short, Medium, and Long show the same short piece of insignificant text.
No, but you could make development cost a lot more.
Only the freakishly excellent Crashplan, whose developers put out a statement on the Java contretemps this morning:

http://twitter.com/crashplan/status/28403694811

(Alas, linebreaks stripped by the website.)
I was asking this question because if it is just fluorescent lighting and a built in irrigation system, I think it would be much cheaper than $90,000 to roll your own.
Two problems: the classic chicken-and-egg problem, coupled with trying to differentiate yourself on price. Even for small businesses, $500 is a trivial cost when compared to the benefit of making a good hire, and anyone not willing to pay that is probably not going to be a very attractive employer.
What's so special about 73-76 miles? What happens there? How is it a better definition than the Karman line?