skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Money. They're in for the money.

a) Even if it is only 5%, it is almost pure profit for Oracle. Many big companies would like to expand 5% for almost free.

b) The decision maker might run mac. No mac support, no sales. (One of my customers is like that). This is similar to the "American’s with Disabilities Act" which requires accesibility even though less than 5% of the users are disabled.

c) 5% is the average. Many companies aren't average, e.g. universities and research based companies.
I'm no a meta-fanboy, believe me. But a real fanboy would have written that comment too.
Instagram seems to have made something people want.
Overview of Type Inference in F#
Another one:

5. Google’s services need to support every platform

Google services need to support every platform eventually, but nothing stops them from releasing something working on a single platform first. As I recall, Google Chrome was available only for Windows when it was first released.

I think this article suffers from hindsight bias. No, Google is not going to come with with every successful app or web service in the industry, and no, not every product it releases is going to be wildly successful. But saying Google has an innovation problem because it can't build an app like Instagram is like saying Warren Buffet has an investing problem because he didn't buy stock in Apple right before the iPhone was released.

Google's process isn't geared to create novelty hits in the app store, and Buffet's method doesn't lead him to pick high flying tech stocks. But Google and Buffet are still doing fine.
Something tells me that now I am going to get an email in my Gmail for every email that I get in my facemail telling me I have a new facemail.
Bunging in my own http://codeboff.in in the same spirit.
JRuby and the JavaCC parser generator
Which of the two can you replace? Which of the two would you regret walking away from?
jasonkester: in jQuery 1.4.3 a lot of work was done to make jQuery more modular. So you could take the peices of the library that you want and leave out the rest (i.e. effects).

This isn't the recommendation of the jQuery Team but if you feel the library is getting too bloated you now have the option to cherry pick only the options of jQuery you'd like to use.

Read the blog post here http://blog.jquery.com/2010/10/16/jquery-143-released/

Also we discussed it on the jQuery 1.4.3 episode of the jQuery Podcast http://podcast.jquery.com/2010/10/29/episode-38-jquery-1-4-3...
The whole thing hinges on the premise of not getting caught in the first place, so they'll do whatever increases their chances. If it involves killing someone who reacted to the assault, so be it, they think.
I noticed that if you keep on looking through the lot they have watson's and crick's original paper on DNA
http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/lot_details.aspx?from=sal...
This is really Oracle's news rather than Apple's.
I would be interesting in being a part of this project! Contact me if you want to take this from inception to conception!!! Email is on my profile.
Just reminds me how, with the way things are progressing, there will be no way for future civilizations to actually see out technological sophistication. It will all be attributed to superstition.
"Hey man, want any emails from people at harvard? I have them all. They trust me. Fucking idiots."
Probably more importantly not X11.
Fred talks about a five/six year timespan having been good. That's about the lifespan of a VC fund.

The burst will be caused by a tightening in VC spending, and I think poor returns on funds raised five years ago will cause this.

This makes sense - IPOs have been slim, and LPs must be getting edgy. I partly wonder if the 'rise of the superangel' is in fact the 'departure of the VC' (from certain types of deal)
The flip side of this is that a large number of Jewish people in Germany maintained their clear cultural separation for around 500 years even though the 'looking different' aspect seems to have diminished over time. In retrospect you'd have to say that outperforming the locals without becoming one of them isn't appreciated.
Indeed. And seemingly animate as well, since it "is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices." Would've thought that was the folks making and using them, but hey, I'm not the one wearing the turtlenecks.

(And yes, I own an iPad. But probably not the one that is going around defining things. Other than words. With a dictionary app.)
I find it hard to believe that a bunch of post-IPO facebook millionaires ($100mill+) would stick around and maintain/work on Facebook afterwards.
Yeah - I get that, but unless I've just been spared from the darker side of business, I've never worked for a company that would have called something "The X Killer" internally. People are aware of their competitors and what they need to do to beat them, but it seems like an unusual focus to focus on "killing" someone else product than coming up with something customers want even more.
I wish I were that disciplined... but I have weak will power and basically will keep coding for hours (once started...).
Facebook is making a billion of profits a year, and that's a 3-5-fold increase on last year.

The most we know is that their profits are in the "tens of millions", their revenues are in the billions.
Last time I flew, for some unexplained reason I had to do not just the scanner, but then the groping too (by a male who seemed embarrassed by it). I wasn't thrilled by either experience -- I did my ROTC scholarship payback as a Navy nuclear engineering officer, so I know that Mr. Ionizing Radiation is not our friend -- but they weren't the worst things I've ever had to endure.

The real question, ISTM, is whether we citizens / taxpayers are getting enough bang for the buck out of (i) the invasion of privacy and its long-term implications, and (ii) the billions TSA must be spending.
It's actually a more important announcement for Apple though in light of their stopping development of their own JVM.

This allows them to still be behind it without having to actually do the work.
So Fred admits he has been getting out sized returns investing in real companies that have revenue but is worried about other investors jumping in raising the valuation of companies and thus the salary of engineers. It sounds to me like the free market in action. His rates of return will decline as more investors jump in to the market. He does not give any reason why he thinks this current trend is unsustainable; are companies getting funded that have no chance of becoming profitable, stand-alone companies?
It's not "clean", only JRE that have passed the TCK (Java Compatibility Kit) get the patent waiver, if you modify the JRE and don't get it re-certified then you lose the patent protection. And to get it certified you have to agree to a restrictive licence from Oracle. Sun promised Apache to make the TCK available under an open licence but this never happened.

IBM was previously putting pressure on Sun/Oracle to make the TCK available under the open licence to Apache that they had promised, since IBM have switched to OpenJDK, it removes that pressure and makes Java much more closed.
I doubt it's a bug. PG is probably just minimizing what's cached outside of the most current and/or most viewed submissions. If a user views it, then it gets cached (for awhile, at least). Just guessing though.
Most ramdisks map memory non-pageable. So, no matter how long those files have been sitting around, they will still be memory-resident, even long past the the time the files would either be not in the on-disk cache or still held in memory by the OS cache manager.
Wow, can't wait to see all my personal contact info publicly available after writing a merry christmas mail to auntlisa@facebook.com
I don't think this has anything to do with that dispute (at least on Apple side). Rather, Apple wanted to lose the responsibility of bundling Java with Mac, but they couldn't abandon Java altogether.
Wasn't facebook's justification for not letting you export your friends' email adresses because they weren't an email application? Now that Facebook does email, will they allow an email export?
Apple contributing to OpenJDK project, ensures Java availability on OSX
If based on Cocoa, with more closed-source hooks, then probably not.
Your point (c) is the most important, in my opinion. I work in computing theory research at a major UK university, and well over 50% of the desktops I see used are Macs, and about 80% of the laptops. Many of our undergraduates also use Macs. A working Java implementation is quite important for this area - both for Apple, to ensure we keep buying them and Oracle, to stop people just saying "Well, we don't use that much Java anymore, let's just drop it".
You mean: "... if you don't look white or black..." Just ask anyone to draw a picture of an "All-American". Most folks will draw someone white or black.
We considered the Alpha 1 release feature complete. The goal now is to work on optimization of the code to make things run more smoothly. Alpha 2 fixed a number of bugs and made a number of improvements. Still much to do.

Thanks for your feedback.
What would they write the iOS apps with? Mac OS X is critical to all of Apple's products.
Because as browsers became more and more interactive, and computers became more and more interruptive, I found that I started subconsciously confusing the entertainment value of computers with the work value of computers.

Simple solution (for me, anyways): 2 computers at 2 different workstations. One for work, not connected to the internet and the other for the internet only. I used to have them in 2 different rooms, but I have found that that's not necessary. The difference between alt-tab and getting up off my butt is just enough to make this work.
It doesn't surprise me that learning from movies and the internet would make you more proficient than someone who learnt by living in the UK. When people are forced to speak a language that they do not know well they often end up reinforcing bad habits. Once someone has developed bad pronunciation or inadvertently trained themselves to ignore certain grammatical features it takes a lot of effort to correct the habits. Of course a committed learner can offset this to some degree, but most immigrants aren't willing to put in the effort and are only partially aware of the mistakes they are making. After three years they then speak in much the same way as they did after six months, but with a larger vocabulary.
GE to Purchase 25,000 Electric Cars by 2015
Ask HN: LESS vs SCSS/SASS
Are there any glaring difference between the two that are not immediately apparent? They seems to share many similar concepts like mixins, variables, and inheritance. Has any one encountered problems with performance in production?
Uh oh, make sure you provide a way to export your contact data too- you don't want to make google mad!
It's true, but many people pull all of jquery off google's CDN.
Almost as important is the announcement that the current Apple JDK, 1.6, will still ship in Lion. Given the release cycle of Java 7, that's a big relief to Java users and given the HN crowd, budding Android developers. Moreover, it seems to quash the (ridiculous) rumours that OS X Lion will end up being some locked down antithesis of previous versions of OS X.
I said "freedom" and you changed that to "greater good" to try to win the argument. Stallman was pursuing his lifestyle, people started to mess with it, so he created a legal document to secure his own freedoms and those of others. This enabled him to live his life as he wanted and helped a lot of other people - many who disagree with him on points minor and major - to live their lives the way they want to. In that sense its an individualistic community that values freedom protected by a clever legal document. Now if you think "making money" describes the USA better than "individualistic community that values freedom protected by a clever legal document", you'd be wrong.

I am not from America, but looking from afar I often get sick of the crude anti-Americanism that seems to get an intellectual free pass all the time. What can be more American than high level science? Given the endless Nobel prizes and technical innovations of the USA I'd think you could point to the AI lab at MIT as being a good symbol (among many) for the American contributions to science. It's ultimately American. Smack bang in the middle of the one of the first states which has always been an intellectual powerhouse mirroring the parts of England from which its settlers first came. A place which also bears the name "the Cradle of Liberty" with many political triumphs. The "blue states", as a reductionist might call them, don't play themselves up to us in the rest of the world, or domestically, as often as they perhaps should; that doesn't mean they aren't powerful or haven't changed the world in massive ways. And more than just residing in a center of American liberty and intellectual achievement Stallman used a clever legal document to do it. Lawyer jokes aside, using the beautiful common law system to protect rights, what could be more American? Starting a revolution rather than play along with it when someone gets up in your face and starts messing with your lifestyle. Tell me which country fits that description better than the USA. Yes, there is more than one America, there is Wallstreet and the Ayn Rand impulse you point to. I am not denying those exist, but don't try to claim them as being the only America or claim that they are the summation of one of the most important countries (perhaps "the most important country") in the history of human civilization. Stallman is as American as apple pie.
Hi -

When you qualify a prospect, you want to think about 4 letters BANT. Budget, Authority, Need, Timing.

1) Budget - does this prospect have enough money to afford my product/service
2) Authority - Am I speaking with the decision maker (the person who holds the purse strings - typically CEO for businesses with less than 50 employees). For an educational institution, you will want to ask, "how does your purchasing process work?" You need to be able to uncover who the final decision maker is.
3) Need - why do they NEED your product. Please note that "need" is far different from "want" your product. For example, is the educational institution behind on the technology curve? What does your product do to give the educational institution a competitive advantage in either making professors more efficient or attracting more talented students?
4) Timing - educational institutions are businesses. They have budgets. It is getting close to the end of 2010. Perhaps purchasing your product is within the budget.... for 2011. They may love your product but are waiting to pull the trigger on Jan 1, 2011. How do you figure this out? Well, you need to ask, What are the next steps on your end?

Every deal is different. One thing that is consistent is BANT qualifying prospects. If you can identify 1) a PROBLEM 2) a PAIN and 3) CONSEQUENCE - the probability of converting leads into customers goes WAY UP.

Hope this helps. :)

Ryan
If you've met Dalton, you know why Andreesen/Horowitz pumped $5M into picplz.
But did they decide the data was unreliable because they didn't like the conclusion, or because they had genuine reservations about the validity of the model and/or data? And if they did, why check the model, anyway?

What worries me about the mentality of "I'm not confident in this data, but let's check the model anyway" is that being irrational creatures, we're likely to use a positive result from the model as evidence that everything is okay, but ignore a negative result because the data is unreliable. That is, different results, same conclusion. This is not logically valid, but we're irrational creatures and it takes discipline to avoid the fallacy.
I'm Not a Real Scientist, And That's Okay
So my choices for my children in the airport are 1-allow a non-medical professional to view them naked and since the images can be retrieved and no one is accountable, possibly unwittingly create child porn, or 2-allow someone to molest them?

How is no one protesting this? The signs you could make would hit emotional hot buttons pretty easily.
Ellison gets another checklist on his sales brochure and will now continue to get a christmas card from his buddy Jobs.
How did you get 0.001%? It says there are ten million HNWI (millionaires). $3.5M is (assuming that one uses half of it for a primary residence, not unreasonable in the Bay Area) somewhat more than a million, so say seven million people are as rich as this guy will be. Seven million / seven billion = 0.1%, not 0.001%.
A bit of humility maybe?

Why? If you think your product is the best, say so. If you think your product is revolutionary, say so. If you think your product is magical, say so. If you think your product is defining the future, say so.

The only reason I can see to criticize a PR footer like that is if you think the company doesn't actually think of itself that way and is just trying to bullshit the reader.
How much did Tom Anderson walk away with in cash from Fox?
Sorry, I see a lot of people don't care for Dvorak, I probably should have put his name in the title. I do think he occasionally has something interesting to say. Simple, clean, fast is why I've used Google and I think that is primarily what has made them a success. If they complicate their applications, will that be a detriment to their business? That's an important question.
Any more unlawful ideas for Facebook revenue?
I assume they did not like the conclusion.

The company conducted a separate negative pressure test...

The test was failed, but was – for an unexplained reason – deemed a “complete success” by both BP and rig owner Transocean at the time, a presentation on Monday said.
It's a chicken and the egg thing. People weren't buying them because they were not competitive with other rack servers anymore. By using your logic Apple could just not update the MacPro for a few years and then pull line because 'people weren't buying them.' Apple created the people not buying them situation though.
Internet should not be a problem anywhere you travel within India. There are internet USB cards available with pretty decent speed & connectivity. Here are a few -
http://www.reliancenetconnect.co.in/
http://www.tataphoton.com/

With internet connectivity, you can travel to different cities and experience life there, rather than being based in only one city... just a suggestion.

Once you have decided on the city / cities where you want to stay while in India, for the accommodation, you can even post at HN google groups in India (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1885605) to see if any member can help suggest a good option for stay. And yeah, as someone suggested, check out airbnb as well.

Safe & fun travels!
Top 11 iPhone apps to do with Movies
Decent Movie apps are actually quite hard to come by on the app store, so I have dug up the 11 best of the lot for you and reviewed them for you here! (Yes you did read right, 11, just an extra you see!)
It's not that big of a deal, let's not turn this into an "Apple is evil" discussion. Apple deals with this in their own apps (iBooks, for an example off the top of my head.) Every iPhone developer deals with it as well.
The 'last snapshot as a splash screen' actually traces back to Jeff Raskin's work on the Canon Cat.

It counts on the user trying to remember where he left off while the program loads, so by the time you think "aha, I was gonna send an e-mail to Ron" the UI is responsive. It's a nice trick that saves you time in the end.

Of course, if the app takes too long to launch the UI would seem unresponsive, which is why Apple chose to not make it available to third party developers.
This is pretty much my exact plan if I ever fly anywhere that tried to implement this.

I've written about the unfortunate personal consequences of the DHS and TSA here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1850768 but I just don't see how I can go to a country that pays people to sexually assault men, women and (presumably if they or their parents refuse the scatter scan) children on entry or exit.
Unless I'm missing something

You are. Instagr.am is itself a social network and at least as much about looking at photos as sharing them. Where sharing is concerned, it's aimed at sharing across multiple sites at once, and quickly. The filters, as cheesy as many people find them, have a tendency to induce already snap-happy users to take and share more photos with their friends who then ask "How can I do that?"
As engineers the only thing we can do is to be prepared that demand for smart programmers may go down. Save the cash for the rainy day. And enjoy the ride till the rainy day.
I love #14!

There are two ways to looking at old code: "I can't believe I wrote this code" and "I can't believe I wrote this code."

I recently tabled a small module for about a month. I came back to it and had trouble remembering what I was trying to do. Why did I name my variables that way? What was the point of this function? How could this ever work? If anyone else had ever seen that code, I would have just crawled into a hole and died.

OTOH, I recently wanted to build a new UI gadget in javascript and remembered once writing something similar in VB years ago. As I went through that code, I thought, "This is really clever! Was I really that smart back then? Why haven't I written anything this cool lately? Am I losing it?" (The answer for me and everybody else is, "If you did it once, you can always do it again.)
The real problem seems to be that people are of too similar a mindset, regardless of backround.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/04/the-orga...
There was a similar YC startup. Does anyone remember what it is called?
It doesn't seem to working for my Blackberry Bold. I see only the plain HTML text.
You can use OpenInviter: http://openinviter.com/

I think you have to signup to download it, but it's free and you get the source.
I've been using the Pomodoro Technique for a while and it has been helpful. Primarily I use it for trying to stay more focused and overcoming procrastination to get to the level of work I think I should be doing, not really to excel at this point. Being able to look over and see you have 10 min until the next break 1) allows you to work until the next break because there is end in site and 2) makes you work harder to try to complete a task in a work period.

It reminds me of a quote by Royce Gracie on the topic of time limits in mixed martial arts fights... "if I [was to] drop you in the middle of the ocean and you look around and there is only water, most of the people - 99 percent - would drown on the first night. If I drop you in the ocean and fly away but tell you I'm coming back the next day to pick you up, you don't have to go anywhere, just float around the entire day. I'll come back and pick you up and you'll be there waiting for me. That's what the fighters are doing now. They know there is a time limit"
I'm no going to defend Apple here, really, but rather to point out that Apple tends to understaff, and what may read as malignancy from the outside can often be more charitably explained by too few people working too many hours.