skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That strikes me as spectacularly unlikely. JRuby and MacRuby aren't in competition; they meet different needs and have very different usage scenarios.

There's no challenge or threat. Ruby interpreters are not a There-Can-Be-Only-One Highlander scenario. You more or less have to be trying to imagine the most wildly cartoonish and improbably malicious motives to think otherwise.
"Coloring The Whole Egg" - Fixing Integrated Marketing
Might I say, "the up and coming MacRuby platform Apple has designs for"? At least a couple of the committers are Apple employees. But I misattributed the project as being "theirs", which apparently isn't true.
MacBook Air ships without Flash
I think you should clear you a weekend and devote it to the part you "hate" most, for example, a good UI and /just do it/. Once you start working on it, you will probably keep doing until you finish, but you need to get things rolling first.
On a related note, the "Where are the gays at?" thread was killed sometime in the last 24 hours. I'm at a loss for any good explanation why. There have been many other discussions about minorities, especially female CS students/women founders. There's no good reason why gay hackers shouldn't be equally visible.

Some of the commenters asked why it matters, as if gay hackers should be forced to prove why they want community. mcantor (who's straight) gave a great explanation: "Finding a community of "People Like You" can make or break someone's journey into a new field. That means the hacker community at large needs to be equally supportive of queer hackers, or a queer hacker sub-community must form."

There have been many similar discussions on here about international startup founders, female founders, older founders, younger founders, and more. I'm quite disappointed that the discussion about gay founders was shot down.
I think the logical next step is to replace the physical keyboard part of the Macbook with an iPad, which is okay to type on, and the keyboard can go away and become one big touch surface on demand, with graphics.

This also introduces a new class of touch-input aware Mac apps, which Apple can channel through its new App store.
This could be good news for anyone who uses a Mac to work with Java. There could finally be a JDK for OS X that doesn't lag years behind official Java releases.

On the other hand, the margin between Apple not supporting something and Apple banning something is incredibly narrow. Steve Jobs doesn't seem to understand the difference between choice and fragmentation very well.
I'd recently discovered 5Ghz wireless, which gives OK speeds to my Time Capsule, no need for ethernet - which I've been using for transferring big files, 720/1080p video.
This may be the best advice I've read today.

The thing is, how do you get the right people to notice when you fix things like that which really are a problem?

I have a real problem doing this, it feels like so much boasting.

But on the other hand, it does get discouraging if there is no recognition for when you go above and beyond, when you just know that the extra effort you put in is a big reason things are not falling apart.
that's great advice - thanks for sharing.
Andrew, you completely miscalculated your ROI:

(gain - cost) / cost = ROI

($4 - $100) / $100 = -.96

Your ROI was therefore -96% and not 3%.

Sorry to hear about your terrible returns, but thanks for sharing nonetheless.
It's perhaps true that if you're doing arithmetic and calculations above the elementary level it's a sign that there's something wrong. But if you observe and prove that two operations commute and that doing them the other way round allows various advantages such as check-pointing or extraction of common sub-expression computation, it's slightly less clear.

An anecdote. I once noticed in a web programming context that someone was doing the same calculations over and over. The way the code was organised made it necessary, results couldn't be cached, nor could they be precomputed.

I showed that a sub-class of the operations were commutative (that took several pages, and then a 2 day meeting with the chief designer) which allowed some of the loop/function-call orderings to be reversed. Compute time went down by a factor of 100, and scalability was achieved.

The problem reminded me of some stuff I'd done in ring theory classes, and had something in common with the idea of groups acting on a topological space. The math wasn't actually directly useful - it just brought it all into focus and gave me a way to think.
I don't think Oracle is even on Apples radar, Apple is largely a consumer/creator focussed business, Oracle is purely B2B.
I was thinking more specifically about the iMac - there was a recent patent application with an iMac that had the ability to lower and tilt up to become flatter (think drafting table).

I thought it was just one of those crazy things that companies patent anyway - but with the iOS-ification of OSX this looks to be more and more likely.

I doubt they'd do this with the laptops - that just seems to close the gap too much between the iPad and the MacBook Air, honestly.
The wireless Internet, no less. The Air doesn't have an Ethernet port and many devices in this category are commonly paired with (3,4)G data modems for mobility beyond the range of your own hotspot.

I don't think there's a decent way of getting 40 GB of movie onto an Air without plugging something in... and USB memory is still too costly in that range.
I imagine that a great number of people who hang out on HN feel the same way, myself included.

It is great to see PG giving back to the community in such a sustainable, profitable way. He has created a product that entrepreneurs want.
There's a webapp for that (forecasting dilution) http://www.ownyourventure.com/
Depends how much they're paying ;)
Recession aside, this is a great time in history for anyone who is willing to hustle and get some operations underway. The opportunities for a small entrepreneur are plentiful, even if most of the resulting business models aren't in scalable-startup format.
The controls are a bit different, true. Alignment and spacing are atypical, to say the least.

However, "The Finder" is the desktop file manager program in Mac OS X. The windowing theme is unrelated, so you may want to correct your post.
Honestly, I don't see the 2011 MacBook Pro refresh having optical drives anymore. Make way for even more battery space. Besides, if you really really really want to be stubborn about it you can also opt for one of their external drives. For the 2 times per year you may need one. Of course, even though I do tend to rip a lot of music CDs I buy, I'd still prefer just an external optical drive. The benefits of more battery in a MBP or maybe a second SSD/HD would be lovely.
This was a fantastic interview and I'm going to set aside 1 hour a week to watch more on Mixergy.com

I think his interview technique is very polished and this interview was incredibly watchable.

Anyone concerned about the "context" of the quote should also note: he explicitly asks what headline to give the interview in order to "game reddit" and increase hits - I think he did pretty well, don't you?
And here we are again - same mis-conception:

I would say that yes, my time is better spent learning
how to write understandable code instead of how to
solve complex equations.

Math isn't about solving complex equations. Common mis-conception, totally wrong, very understandable for those whose experience of math is limited to calculus or pre-calculus.

I don't solve complex equations, and yet I use math every day.

The problem I see is that people who might be really really good at advanced math are often completely turned off by high school math and the teaching thereof. Hence they never get the chance to see the really fun stuff that turns out to be useful in unexpected ways. Even more, I'd guess that the really good programmers who hate math are in that group.

I would so like to be able to test that hypothesis. There's a Ph.D. waiting in it.
So noted, however consistency wise the window chrome itself should be the same through out anything. Perhaps what I really should not have singled out the "Finder". I'll update my post none the less.
Er, actually it's not. It is mathematical induction, but with a broken case.
Months ago an SMS provider advertised on reddit. Rather than downvote or ignore the link, there was a veritable flame war of people signing up for the beta just to waste the advertiser's time and quite a bit of animosity going back and forth. Even though most of the people in that conversation wouldn't have utilized the service, they attacked the advertiser because anything involving SMS must be spam.

Having witnessed many cases where redditors attacked, I would never consider advertising there. I can only imagine most of their advertisers advertise once and never again.
The Cocoa (UI) bindings were already deprecated sometime during 10.4/Tiger if I remember correctly.
I've been feeling pretty down today about my thread being killed, wondering whether I had made some sort of mistake by posting it. However, this thread, and watching the Google Video, both have made me feel a lot better. Thanks for the supportive words. :)
This is usually true; your backend can be straight C and you can have a thin layer at the front end to glue your game to the target OS. This makes for easy porting between iOS and Android and Web OS.

But it won't currently work for WP7, as they don't allow anything but Managed C#. You have to do a top-to-bottom, from-scratch rewrite to target WP7.
yet, some java developers are mac users, losing them does not seem smart
You should probably escape the HTML in that.
is there such a proliferation? the only java app I use on the mac is cyberduck, and it is neither shoddy nor un-maclike
That's interesting. I've done things like that all the time, but never really considered it.
could I have an invite, too?
These aren't hacks really: they're just basic operations in binary arithmetic that anyone who has seriously coded C or assembly must have bumped into, probably quite early.

Other's have already mentioned but for real hacks in the unintuitive sense, check out Hacker's Delight and http://graphics.stanford.edu/~seander/bithacks.html.
Hostfiles are probably better in the long term than government control of DNS servers. Censorship at the DNS level is one of the low-hanging fruit of dictatorships.
Groove salad.
Had no idea Cyberduck is written in Java. If only all Java desktop applications are like this.
Update: I had to keep lowering the threshold to avoid server stalls. Currently at 50, where the site seems more stable.
I couldn't manage to get past the second or third "him and me". When I got to the "dropped out of high school" part, it all made sense.
A nice netbook with even passably decent hardware (ie not single core atom processors and really low resolution screens) does not cost $333. Realistically the cheapest laptops that even begin to compare (for example an Acer timelineX 1830) are 'only' about 30-40% cheaper, and then you're giving up on Nvidia graphics and an SSD.

I'm not an Apple fanboy, quite indifferent to the supposed merits of OS X and haven't owned a Mac in years. However I am in the market for a small, lightweight laptop and the 11" mba is very competitively priced compared to similar laptops from people like Lenovo, Sony and Toshiba. I'm going to reserve judgement until some more reviews come out and I get chance to see it in the flesh, but as it stands the new mba is probably going to be my first new Mac in years.
The value of a startup idea, or “Are startup ideas worthless?”
Granted, yes. There was discussion about whether the patent is at all valid, given abundant prior art. However, it depresses me too because you probably need lots of money and possibly a lawsuit to settle out the validity issue.
It gets better.

For most people, not just LGBT teens. Highschool is a weird anomaly really, inside there's one set of rules for what's good, what's important, and who's popular. But when you get outside you realize it was all crap. Being popular in high school earns you nothing in real life. Noone outside cares about what was important in high school.

Instead, you realize that the ones that were smart, that got good grades, that worked hard at the actual schoolwork, that got bullied, they're the ones doing pretty well in life.

It's kinda funny, because when you're inside, teachers and adults are saying this, but noone listens. I think that's the larger problem: why is highschool so incredibly disconnected from reality?
Yes, at one point Apple made a big deal about Java being a "primary" language on the OS X platform. It had proper Coca bindings, Mac like look & feel, etc. Steve hawked it in one of the early OS X keynotes as being the future of the Mac platform. An easy language for all those that were confused by Objective-C.

Several years ago Apple reversed their position on Java and have been ignoring it ever since. This is merely the last act in the Java play at Apple. Goodnight sweet prince!
Security holes in Apache HTTP Server
In what respect? MacRuby is a project hosted by Apple. It's lead developer is an Apple employee, and there are several other Apple employees working on the project. In what significant way is it not Apple's platform?
I have no idea what their hosting costs were, or their 5 salaries, but they did make enough to stay afloat, although not enough for CN to approve more staff. Jedberg's commented in this thread, so I suggest you ask him whether they were profitable pre-gold.
For all the competition, Apple and Google have loads more in common with each other (they both make immensely useful products for end-users) than either has in common with Oracle (who sells very expensive employment-insurance policies for people who'd die laughing three times over before touching the software they purchase with a ten foot pole).
Agreed. Students are also likely to have it as their only machine - and IMHO the MBA is a very enticing supplementary computer, but I'd be loathe to have it as my only.
Why am I unreasonably excited that after 17 hours this submission got an up-vote? Most of my submissions sink without trace, which over time I've taken as evidence of and accepted that my primary interests aren't well-aligned with the majority of HN participants.

But this one got an up-vote!

Woo Hoo!
UGG Short Chestnut Boots
Is this on a Mac? I'm guessing it's a desktop, or how did you manage to replace the optical disk on an apple laptop?
This worries me greatly because my startup's product is based on Java, which gave us an advantage over others in our space for being able to work across Mac and Windows while maintaining a great user experience thanks to a lot of customization on our part (see profile).

While I concede that Java has lost relevance on Mac, there are outliers like ourselves who've written native looking Java software and don't have a viable route should the worst case scenario arise.

My only inside knowledge is that the Java "team" within Apple was very small, which explains why it constantly lagged behind on updates.
I just bought Trainyard to thank you for having written such an interesting blog post.
Hermes birkin bag
Average age of Congress over time
No, it means that Apple is not bringing Java 7 to OS X.

It doesn't prevent someone else from bringing Java 7 to OS X, nor does it mean that the existing support for Java 6 is going anywhere.
Some redditors are college kids. Many, however, are professionals. Just look at the money raised for Haiti, the Colbert Rally, etc. They are notoriously willing to part with their money for things they like. I think the problem is not that the userbase is unmarketable, but rather that capitalizing on it would require more than the typical semi-related ad strategy. They really should create a system whereby advertisers can choose specific types of redditors they want to target. Rate everyone on a Meyers Briggs type scale based upon their voting, clicking, and subscription habits. Package that data into an API that advertisers can easily use to pick out the types of individual they want to target. Thus pro-prop 19 groups could target subscribers of r/trees or people who upvote pro-marijuana stories, without only being able to advertise in pro-marijuana reddits. Conversely, the anti-gay marriage folks who were banned could target people who would likely hold their points of view. This cuts out much of the risk that advertisers currently face, of running into people who quite vocally oppose their ads, and should also help to ensure a higher CTR.

It would require some hardware and development investment, but I think a strategy like this could pay off immensely. Better yet, it wouldn't run afoul of the users as a) no personal information would be given to advertisers, and b) they would be seeing more relevant ads.
Kind of a fascinating read. The UI approach seems interesting, but hearing about all the random things that don't quite work right (or at all) is disconcerting.

The Zune Pass streaming works like an expensive Pandora, except you get to pick and choose the songs you want to listen to.

That's funny, the whole reason I use Pandora is so that I don't have to pick out which songs to play.
Because of the guys who decided they would ruin the chat experience for all YC applicants, I modified the chat script, and now log ip addresses, and can simply add naughty people to DENY iptables. It is truly sad, I even had to do this, but, its now in place. :) Sorry about that.
When I was at CERN 10 years ago, the set up was similar. Instead of Macs the desktops were PCs. The code was Fortran, Perl and c++. All work was on remote Linux boxes (typically exporting a desktop over X), although physical not virtual OS instances. You'd ssh to a gateway IP and be logged into one of the hosts. All data and user accounts were stored on a distributed filesystem AFS. There was job scheduling and management middleware that'd batch process your analysis across hundreds of hosts in the datacentre.

"The cloud" has been around for a while, although implementation has changed.
I think Apple could absolutely make a killing if they'd allow people to pay for other things with their iTunes account.
A simple payment system that users trust and that you don't have to think about it is worth the 30%, IMHO.
...and many of those serious Windows developers started out as amateur Windows developers who weren't paying for that subscription.

Many Mac developers initially learnt by making small apps and making them available to everyone. I bet the iPhone App Store would have a lot less crap on it if new developers were able to learn iPhone development without having to pay a subscription and put their first apps on the App Store (and no, ad hoc does not count).
The phone looks pretty good. The UI isn't to my taste, but that's actually irrelevant.

However, I am in the middle of development of android client for our streaming server. There are three major obstacles for me to start developing similar client on WP7:

1. lack of multi-threading support

2. no access to network sockets (yes, microsoft omitted sockets support, at least for first version of their api, I couldn't believe it also)

3. development tools for linux

Hopefully, they will clear these obstacles pretty soon. At least first two, I can be flexible for the third.

EDIT: I have to correct myself, just found out, that there actually is support for multi-threaded apps. Cool, only one major hurdle left to fix.
No worries, your experience will probably be different but it generally starts with the kind of discontent you're experiencing. Just make sure to act on it in a direct and constructive way.
> My native tongue is Spanish, but I'm also fluent in English, French and German; however I find myself thinking in all of them

I think the point is that you can only readily think in terms of what you know. Now, if you're fluent in English, French, German, and Spanish, it's almost a given that you'll be able to think in terms of any of the prominent concepts in those languages. I think the author was really saying that, if you learn a language with a broad range of concepts first, it can only help you as you progress, because you'll be able to actively use those concepts.

For example, I know a number of imperative languages, but I've only recently experimented with functional languages like Lisp. The conceptual shift is fascinating, and something I wouldn't have quite grasped if I constrained myself to imperative languages.
I think you misunderstood. I'm not saying there shouldn't be a lock screen, I'm trying to figure out a way to keep the lock screen (so that it doesn't do stuff in your pocket) but be able to go from phone-in-pocket to doing-what-i-want-it-to-do, without going through the usual process of: take out phone, power on, bypass lock screen, search for app icon, etc. I don't know how to accomplish that, but it would be a huge feature for me if it was possible.
Interesting! I don't know arc, but I'll bet compiling scheme to js is a lot easier than compiling haskell to js.
Air Max LeBron VIII 8 Triple Black Shoes
I think it just means that Apple has no interest in bringing Java 7 to OS X. It certainly took them a long time to release Java 6.

Funny thing is, one of my favorite Mac apps was/is written in Java: Cyberduck FTP client.

Cyberduck is an open source app originally written using the Java/Cocoa bridge, then using some hybrid of Cocoa and Java. But the thing is, the end user has absolutely no idea that it's a Java application. The only reason I know it's written in Java is because I looked at their source code to see how they implemented Quick Look (before it was a public API), and boom, the damn thing's in Java! As a longtime hater of Java desktop apps, I was flabbergasted.

As far as I'm concerned, OS X was the only desktop platform where Java had any sort of chance for user acceptance, but it never caught on with developers. As such, Java has been effectively dead as an option for desktop development since OS X Leopard.
Startup Quote: Chris Dixon, co-founder, Hunch
This is great had some really good talks about YC, internet, and start ups. Check it out.
If you aren’t getting rejected on a daily basis, your goals aren’t ambitious enough.

- Chris Dixon (@cdixon)
1)I don't know if this is true but I have found that people who are very intelligent talk fast (not faster than people who are nervous).

2) I cannot comment on better, but ya I do think different (I take special pride in it). One of the few things I cannot understand about myself is my obsession with "the problem space". People have this tendency to solve the problem immediately after they have encountered it (at least the people I study with, can't say for HN guys). But I cannot start working on the problem till I have fully understood all the parts of the problems (from the first principles) itself. This has helped me a lot, because I can formulate solutions which solve specific parts of the problem and as these are usually byte sized I reuse them a lot.
But even in the linux space I see people migrating from CDs. Just remember that diskless instant on small computers originally came with linux. My only problem with that is that it's much more easy to deal with isos than with imgs.
But law, maths, computer science, and weirdly, classics all appeal to the same minds. Are there examples of people with English Literature or History degrees who say the same?

I would have thought they would be more useful for the sorts of things that programmers are bad at, like dealing with, or in, lies and half-truths. And not be so good for the 'long chains of precise reasoning' type problems.

Of course, you might equally say that being able to handle the political side of life 'makes you a better programmer', but I don't think you'd mean it in the same way.

Ideally you'd want both.
Oh, me neither! I really had to check this out.

The main point seems to be: They don't use any of the Java GUI frameworks. They instead use some Cocoa bindings.

See here: http://trac.cyberduck.ch/browser/trunk/source/ch/cyberduck/u...