skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Do the big tech companies know their competitors' plans?
It seems unlikely to me that a major tech company could manage to keep development of its new products secret from its competitors, for the following reasons:

- The stakes are extremely high; knowing your competitor's plans early can make or break a business.

- The major tech companies are constantly hiring employees away from each other, resulting in plenty of employees who know about the competitor's most recent plans.

This kind of activity may be illegal, but there's no shortage of examples of corporations getting away with bending or surreptitiously breaking the rules.

So: Does Steve Jobs know Google's product roadmap? Does Eric Schmidt know what the next iPhone will look like? (And so on.)
...Which crashed my browser, twice. My excitement to see Adobe embrace HTML5 was short-lived, it's still a good thing though I suppose.
Interesting that they're doing it as desktop software, since everything they demonstrate could be done just as well inside of a browser.

The reason I know this is that I'm currently building a prototype application that looks almost exactly like this, and that in its current form could produce the exact same demo in that video. Spooky, but comforting that we actually have a leg up on Adobe...
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1152389

Looks like we're getting close to doubling in uniques, compared to 45K 8 months ago.
So either a) hackers work less on Saturdays and Sundays or b) hackers work more on things they're REALLY INTERESTED IN on Saturdays and Sundays ;)
so what, digg started using the services of subvertandprofit.com? (a consistently useful and profitable startup for the past several years)
Headphones!
Every 3000 miles or 6 months.

3 months is quite unnecessary.

And if you switch to Mobil-1 oil you can bump that to 6000 miles, and yearly (but only starting from the second usage of it, i.e. the first time you use it stick with 3000 miles). The oil costs more, but you'll save money by doing less changes.

With newer cars you can go as much as 10,000 to 15,000 miles with regular oil.
if you do a derivative work from a gpl'ed piece, you are forced to gpl it. so if the mac osx links against gpl'ed code, they are doing derivative work, and therefore must gpl it.
Your parent meant the SEC staff, not Mark Cuban's staff.
Zynga’s Value Tops Electronic Arts
Let's just hope the "standards-compliant" code it spits out is better than that spit out by Dreamweaver, FrontPage, etc...
More discussion on the same article at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1255215
A great opportunity to go short on Sony. Apple wont buy them - Apple buy small companies that make successful products, which Sony has not for quite some time.

Make money when the rumor pops and short.
make it installable without having to understand the source

I wouldn't say that understanding Arc's source is a prerequisite for installation. The problem is more just that the instructions are complex [1].

It would probably help if they were updated to let people know that with arc3.1, you don't have to worry about installing version 372 of MzScheme [2]. (Unless there's some reason why you'd prefer people installed arc3.0.) Navigating their website to download the specific old version of MzScheme is especially confusing since they rebranded as Racket.

This reduces the install and run to (on Ubuntu 10.04):

$ sudo aptitude install mzscheme
$ wget http://ycombinator.com/arc/arc3.1.tar
$ tar -xvf arc3.1.tar
$ cd arc3.1
$ mzscheme -f as.scm

---

[1] http://arclanguage.org/install

[2] http://arclanguage.org/item?id=10254
Italy Orders Google To Clearly Label Street View Cars, Advertise Routes
In heuristics, I like Asynchronous teams [ http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/edrc-22/project/ateams/... ]

In multi-robot coordination I like the free market system [ http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/projects/colony/architecture.shtml ]

And regarding machine learning I like neural nets (MLP), however the algorithms that currently blow my mind are convoluted neural networks (CNNs) and deep belief networks trained with auto-encoders.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyzOUbkUf3M on the 21-minute mark to see it in action.
A bit under 2x.
RIM demonstrates its BlackBerry PlayBook tablet with Adobe
Added the legend in case anyone really does want it..

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=ls&chco=ff7700,00...
Oh. Well, I guess they beat me to the punch.
Very cool site. I can't remember the link, but I read a while back about a researcher who discovered that the optimum way to memorize using flash cards is if a learner who answers incorrectly is shown the correct answer and then asked again after a number of other questions just at the point where the correction is on the threshold of slipping out of his short term memory. This length of time has to be optimized for each learner by some sort of adaptive algorithm. Have you considered doing anything like that, or do you already?
I was in Tokyo around that same time - it was an interesting experience to say the least! The strangest thing was their tradition of having KFC for xmas.
I received 3 downvotes for a link to XKCD suggesting that readers lack a sense of humour. No one felt like leaving a comment stating why they downvoted.
I am very happy. I was very pleased when back in may 20 2010 they announced that clang passed its first fully-successful Boost regression test run. But this is another big step ahead.

The clang static analyzer is now part of my everyday life as a programmer and everytime I read "did you mean..." on the console I am amazed as the first time. It saves me a lot of time (even compile time.)
Sony makes really great hardware, and (most of the time) utterly wretched software. Sony could be a much better company with Apple's help. Not sure how such a merger helps Apple, though.
it's not just task management: as a newbie to the legal world, I would like to learn about software development / good coding practice to improve my contract drafting (which, not being a coder, I think of in the following terms: define the variables; find the right includes; structure it appropriately, in modules if possible; test; annotate)
Yes, RDBMDSes have built-in cache, but they are not as fast as memcached. So why the difference? I haven't really checked, but you have to populate and invalidate memcached explicitly, and it doesn't honor database isolation (if you invalidate cache after writing an object, some instances may read stale data after you already updated the db, etc). MongoDB's cache may cut corners in a similar way, I'd love to know.
Moving to QT Quick, Nokia has won the developers battle?
Ok, not quite an algorithm, but the PCP theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCP_theorem) is easily the most mind-blowing result in comp sci in the past 20 years.
I agree with fookyong - we met our investor as the consequence of a techcrunch article.

The comments about the traffic can be true depending on your product... But if you are launching a virtual child's doll company aimed at 3yos on TC you'd expect that in the same way you'd expect poor conversions if you were launching an AWS deployment service on a football blog.
I have a nagging idea for a product - basically a better mousetrap. Actually it's a better light-switch which sounds just as trite. It's not a world changing idea, but it seems like one of those inevitable products that's enable by mashing up existing technology. What would you recommend someone do with specific consumer product idea like this? Prototype and show around to brand name manufacturers? 3d model and sales pitch to distributer? Provisional patent?
Have you had any temptation to make one of your product ideas into reality?
You should record tab focus changes too. If I start to lose interest I'll often leave the video running while I swap tabs. I'm half-listening so I'll switch back if it grabs my interest again.
Though fierarul's comment leads to a natural question. The original comment explaining the graph is really necessary for the link to make sense. Explaining the graph in a comment seems to break the (apparent) convention of submissions being self-contained.

I thought the reason for disallowing both a URL and text in a submission was to avoid this. Though, if a submission that requires a comment is acceptable, why not allow submitting both a URL and text?
Agreed, but while the notation's simple, the iterative effect is hard to follow -

it's like a spinning rod, angle doubled and length squared each iteration, with a rod of fixed length and angle added to it each iteration (if the spinner is facing away, it gets shorter, but if towards, it gets longer). Iterate til it goes over 2. If it doesn't then it's in the Set (or maybe you need to iterate more...). [that's my current understanding]

It's pretty clear to me that I can't visualize what it will do over a few iterations (apart from simple cases) - and I sure can't see how it would produce self-similar (ie fractal) shapes. Agreed that that's amazing.
Not sure what features you are looking for, but Textmate has a Git Bundle that gives you access to a pretty good range of git functions. (It's what I use for all of my non-cmd-line or github git interactions)

http://blog.macromates.com/2008/git-bundle/

GitNub OSX:

http://github.com/Caged/gitnub/wiki

There is also GitK
Do you have any example of such an abstraction layer?
5 shell commands to install and run Arc using aptitude: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1833416
So once you spend a bunch of money on this, a couple of years pass, and a large chunk of software starts requiring twice the resources compared to today, how do you upgrade the machine?

Miniaturization is great, but couldn't manufacturers like Apple still use sockets instead of soldering everything on their boards?
Amazing the number of rumors flying after two vague, non-committal sentences in the earnings call last week.

We should start a betting pool for what companies Apple will buy. Oh wait, such a pool already exists and is called the stock market...
agreed, I've been hosting for 1.5 years now in Ireland and have had mostly very positive experiences.
True, but if your car starts making noises and you ignore them, it may be your own fault when your car breaks down in the middle of the freeway...
Why would I use Arc?

In particular, I've been playing with Clojure and enjoying that. It's still a Lisp, so it has a lot of the advantages that Arc has. In addition, it has some cool unique features and almost certainly has more comprehensive libraries thanks to being able to use Java libraries. What advantages does Arc have over Clojure?

I'm not trying to be mean to Arc lovers and call it a useless language. I genuinely want an excuse to give Arc a try.
I have - so what you're trying to get across is that the only difference between culture (driving or otherwise) in first and third world countries is in lack of necessary regulations in third world (traffic signs included)?

I call bullshit on this.

What does make a difference IMHO is having as few rules as necessary - BUT making sure that those few are sensible and respected.

Thus - "Don't be a jackass" is a worthy and sufficient rule - if enforced thoroughly.
"Touché." —The Developer Community
> Because then people might wonder if I really did represent startup.com

Well yeah, but I'd argue that that's better than having your users wonder if they're really getting emailed by startup.com or not.
Btw I enjoyed your http://www.tryarc.org website, great job.

It needs a big GET ARC button at the bottom though. Linking either to the canonical install page on arclanguage.org or the community anarki git repo. The decision is yours as to which one, no pressure ;)

[ The site is an amazing piece of advertising, but it's not closing the sale :/ ]
I think it suggests readers don't want HN to be a place where links to cartoons and lolcats are overvalued. Perhaps they go too far in the other direction.
> 2) Your product needs good OCR. Many times, documents, even
> electronic ones, are printed out on paper, delivered in boxes, then
> scanned back in...don't ask why, that's just the way the world works.

I've heard of lawyers that refuse to send things in PDF (even if they are available in that format) because the receiving lawyers will just print them out and charge you for the printing costs (since you didn't send it to them on paper). I'm also to understand that sometimes this is due to systems that have scanning of paper documents as the only input method... (ugh).
Pie in the sky rumours, but I will say one thing:

If Apple did buy Sony, the PS4 would have an awesome controller.
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While I also don't think Apple will buy Sony, they kinda are in the same place Apple was in the 90's pre-jobs. They have a strong brand but make a TON of mediocre products. Jobs coming in and axing everything non-essential to a small "only the best" product line up could really turn the company around. I wouldn't write them off just because of their current lineup.
Serious question: If you are registering and presumably renewing 1 million domains did the company consider becoming a registrar to save money and make it easier to own/manage that many domains?
now im curious. how does texting someone back on the iphone work?
A CPU is a lot more complex than wiring up your own NAND gates, but it's easier to write programs for the former.
I think Apple buying Adobe makes more sense than Sony..but even still, not likely. With Sony's headquarters in Japan and all, Steve Jobs can't have the control he'd want. And getting rid of the Sony HQ and/or massive presence there is a crazy idea.

If they did buy them, I don't think it'd be for a merger of any kind. But I'm certainly no expert at these sorts of things. I've been wrong before!
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Forget the toys, kids want iPads, iPhones for Christmas
The heapsort. It sounds very strange.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXAjiDQbPSw
Firesheep Shearing: How to force https with Apache2/Rails using mod_rewrite
The first thing that came to mind was the hockey puck.
Procter & Gamble Launches Widget To Convert Clicks into Water
Heres the trick to the background: create a small portion, maybe 150px by 150px, and tile it. Simple :)
Well... in my field about half of the top sites which are returned for the query "Learn Chinese" (or something similar) are thinly-disguided AdSense spam or content-free marketing landing pages of little use to anyone actually hoping to learn Chinese. They exist almost exclusively to serve AdSense. Sample URLS: elanguageschool.net, clearchinese.com, instantspeakchinese.com, minmm.com, mychineselearning.com. Or try pretty much any site on page #2.

My own Chinese learning site is Popup Chinese (http://popupchinese.com). We have fantastic testimonials, tens of thousands of users, and links from tons of places, but we're still invisible in Google after more than two years. The Skritter (http://skritter.com) guys (who post here occasionally) should also be listed far above where they are - they've got a great product and it's insane that they're drowned out by this sort of flotsam. Ditto for NCIKU.com.

Everyone I know in our industry views Google with complete cynicism. Quality sites that won't play black hat SEO are at a major disadvantage to much spammier marketing sites and link-farms. All that being said, it is nice to see someone at Google is at least asking the question seriously. And given what you are up against... good luck.
Sony seems to be doing OK with the PS3 and their A/V equipment sells pretty well too. They also developed the Blu-Ray format; possibly they get licensing fees for that?
Apple is obviously on top of their career. But the fact that they climbed up insanely fast relying on only one or two products. That's good, that is great, of course I appreciate their success. However they also experienced a near death. If it was not iPod they would be so dead already. So they still do not give me the confidence that they will be on top forever. Hope they don't acquire Sony, so we don't lose them both in case Apple falls.
I like a lot of Apple products but I've never used one of their mice that I've liked, even the new ones. Maybe it's because I once got stuck with that damned puck for a few weeks.
I got Trainyard as soon as I got my iPod Touch recently just because of this post on HN. Actually, it was the first (and only, so far) game I've downloaded, just because of hearing about it here. Awesome game, and definitely something I think most hackers would like as it makes you think through the solutions. Great way to kill a few minutes between projects =D

BTW, just like PopCap does with their games, I think this one could live on a Ton of platforms ... including PCs/Macs. That'd get in the people without an iOS device...
What are Wind Instruments? | Quazen
The VAIO Z series is a great product. Maybe not a successful one, but it's a nice machine. Faster and lighter than a MBA.

They also make nice iPod competitors.

Of course, there's no reason why Apple would buy such a huge company. They prefer to buy small tech companies that they can absorb without losing their design and management DNA. Not big competitors. Not $33 billion companies with 163,000 employees.
Their Playstation software is pretty decent, and I think the XMB even won an Emmy.
Nope, the button does nothing.
Nice. I watched the demo up to 10 mins in, it told me what I wanted to know. The first 3 mins weren't very engaging for me and I switched tabs while leaving the audio running, but when you started talking about "here's a demo" I flicked back and watched the whole demo section. Just some feedback on the video.

But yes, that's very good - shows me nicely what it does without me having to go through any effort.

You definitely need to improve the z-score thing though. How do I know 2.4375637465% translates to 96% confidence?

With conversion rates so low, I'm surprised you think the difference is significant actually. 0.003% as opposed to 0.009? This month my highest CTR was 0.74% higher than my lowest - with nothing different* (over 100,000 impressions).

So I wouldn't trust a 0.006% increase as significant at all!

* well - I say nothing different. In fact the content is probably always changing, but I would want to test different positions.

edit: PS: you keep saying "zero point six".... isn't it "zero point zero zero six"?
Apple should acquire the rights to Steam from Valve. It makes a good fit for their business:

1) Prevent competition on the Mac app store
2) Proven distribution/scalability
3) Instant community that can bolster Ping

Edited. Brainfart, put "Sony" there
It surprised me that matching is not NP-complete.
The interview with John Sculley indicates that Jobs has always had a great admiration for "the Sony way" and patterned early Apple processes after processes Jobs et al observed at the Sony factory.

As we keep that in mind and notice that Apple has converged into the consumer electronics space, which Sony had locked up back in the days of Walkman, Sony starts to make sense as a potential Apple interest. Perhaps Jobs feels that Sony infrastructure that he so admired is still lingering under the dust of wayward big-corporate management, caked on as Sony grew beyond good managerial capacity.

Apple is pretty big now and has been able to maintain that. Sony could go far in Jobs' hands.
I don't know why Apple would want to do that. How Sony looks at hardware, software and their product line-is is something I'd call very 'traditional' - (1) hardware is important, just patch in some software that can make users manage to us the hardware. (2) Build so much stuff that everyone can find something in the line-up that suits them (3) Keep the content business and delivery far off from the products.

I see fundamental differences between the two companies. What Apple gets by buying Sony is control over a brand that is instantly identifiable across the world (come to India to know what I mean). That might probably be of huge value to Apple, as Apple is definitely not seen as a 'people's brand' around here.
You're arguing that Jobs could fix Sony, which is probably true.

But there are many companies which could be fixed by a CEO such as Jobs. What brick would Sony bring to Apple's offer that makes sense to buy rather than make?

* brand recognition? Sony's isn't too bad, but it's leagues away from Apple's.

* a bunch of Wintel PC with nice-looking casings? Come on!

* a bunch of almost adequate MP3 players? LOL.

* rights on their music and movies portfolio? This sounds much better, but I doubt they would buy the whole Sony-the-consumer-appliances-maker to get Sony-the-music-major.

I fail to see what would make Sony valuable specifically to Apple.
Patent in China, as China only cares about Chinese IP registrations. Same with trademarks. At least, that's what China Law Blog says.
Auto Transport San Francisco
1 mba guy < 1 technical guy < 1 technical+mba guy < 1 technical guy 1 mba guy < 2 technical+mba guys.

I remembered one post here that stated that the best return if you partner one 'business guy' is if that guy has things like contacts, a customer list, etc.
The first laptop I used in real life was an Acorn A4 in around 1993. When things moved the screen blurred so much it was hard to use, but it did run RISC OS which I liked back then.
Why would Apple acquire Sony?

Blue-ray?
Apple thinks optical media is dead.

Playstation?
Apple has it's own gaming devices: Mac, iPhone/iPod, Apple TV (if they add an App Store).

TVs?
Apple can build it's own TV hardware, they don't need Sony.

Talent?
Takeovers of this scale are very hard. Apple probably has a very different culture than Sony. Apple could get key talent significantly cheaper than acquiring the whole company.

Components?
Same as talent and licensing is probably much less trouble and cheaper.

Music/Movies?
Creating content is not what Apple is about. Apple creates tools for content creators and content consumers.

B2B?
Apple/Steve is mostly interested in the consumer market.

The article also mentions Disney as a target. I thought Steve is the or one of the biggest single shareholders of Disney. Jobs is also on the Disney board, so he already has influence on Disney, without spending huge amounts of Apples cash.
How substantially modified is Hacker News code base from news.arc in arc 3.1?

What parts have been modified / extended?
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Apart from news.ycombinator.com/classic,are there other hidden features of hacker news?
Isn't Mashable just a bit embarrassed about acting as an unpaid arm of P&G's PR department?

Obviously, the widget is converting anything into water; what's really happening is that P&G has decided to donate some water, if and only if they can corral enough folks into generating publicity for them.

Because P&G is responsible for the actual “donations,” bloggers can spend their time writing and producing great stories instead of sending out e-mails to ask for donations, which makes the contest more about helping the cause than promoting oneself.

No, the contest is more about promoting P&G. And it is embarrassing to see a press release taken at face value.
It still needs to keep track of it for purposes of stopping double voting.
You could also use google translate from latin, although this particular phrase is somewhat special :)
Wow, I'm almost tempted, I've always wanted to go to Japan and was sad I missed it out when I travelled around the world - I'll have to check the cost of flights out.