skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"Browse contexts" would not be able to be stored client-side, so the server cannot hand one out to everyone who visits a page. The server hands out an ID that references a browse context that exists on the server. Each browse context must be unique if you're logged in (otherwise you would see News.YC from someone else's perspective).

When a user is logged in, one browse context is generated per link-that-requires-a-browse-context. Each "reply" link references a new browse context each time a page is loaded, for example. So if there are 50 comments on a page, then there are 50 "reply" links, each of which references a unique browse context. (If you mouseover each reply link in Firefox, you can see the ID of its browse context in the status bar. If you refresh the page, each reply link then references a different, unique, server-side browse context.)

So it's easy to see why this could get a little expensive. It's essentially a time-consuming optimization problem to get rid of the "unknown or expired link" error, at this point. And it is not hard to work around.
Google’s Awesome New Web Measurement Tool Doesn’t Measure Itself
Or the salt was simply eaten by some martian animal - I can already imagine the disappointed faces of the NASA scientists when they find that out.
I think that's the sort of cold shower that a lot of people need. DHH waves his hands about working 10 hours a week, and "all you have to do is ask for money, it's so fucking simple!!!", but the reality is that it's far from simple.
Nothing. JTV is powered by magic.
The impression I get from the following newsgroup thread is that mzscheme doesn't support serializing continuations to disk... at least not easily:

http://www.cs.brown.edu/pipermail/plt-scheme/2007-February/0...

Perhaps it is possible under other Schemes, though?
I find it useful to think in terms of watts, like Saul Griffith does here: http://www.wattzon.org/

It puts 1W standby energy in context of a total "wattage" we each use.
then you would be reinventing scribd, it saves a copy of the original pdf and you CAN download it.
Who Saved Silicon Valley?
I can't decide if he was joking or not.
They are using a new communication medium to have the debate.
Mac People: Safari or Firefox 3?
I've stuck with Safari till now for performance as well as aesthetics. I like the new firefox look on mac, and the performance is better as well. Anyone switching over? Why or why not?
"Be careful out there!"
http://trends.google.com/websites?q=news.ycombinator.com&...

1. There's no absolute number of visitors

2. Also searched for "do if inside grill gets wet"
A lot of misquotes there or things taken out of context, I wanted to pick one or two but then just gave up.
The recursive lambda in ruby
Hmm... I notice, however, that the "reply" link takes you to a fairly similar page as the "link" link in the comment's header: both contain a reply box. The "link" link, however, doesn't contain a fnid in the URL -- just a REST-like comment id.

I wonder if these fnid-less URLs avoid generating continuations? If so, perhaps we could drop the "reply" link entirely and just label the "link" link as "link/reply"? If I understand your explanation correctly, that would both eliminate the error for initial replies and dramatically reduce the rate that continuations expire when using other site features...
From the link you kindly provided, your hypothetical case is not inflation.

Although "inflation" is sometimes used to refer to a rise in the prices of a specific set of goods or services, a rise in prices of one set (such as food) without a rise in others (such as wages) is not included in the original meaning of the word. Inflation can be thought of as a decrease in the value of the unit of currency.
Google Faces Off With Compete, Alexa, Comscore, Quantcast (And Soon Firefox)
Google takes on Compete, Alexa
What's a developer to do? (poem)
As near as I can tell the authors point is "all [scribd] does is strip me of basic functionality...So some engineers could do some flash-based masturbation & feel web 2.0". It's just an ignorant rant. Plenty of other people pointed out that scribd has the features he claims it lacks, I didn't feel the need to echo that. What I did feel was important is that the author of the article missed the point of why scribd exists entirely. It does not exist to strip functionality or demo flash skills, or to "lock things up by placing it in their own jackass format". Scribd is a service that allows people to share documents. I thought pointing out the parallels between the service youtube offers and what scribd does, and the compromises inherent in implementing such a service would be illuminating, but apparently it's not helping you. I also said that since scribd basically translates all the various formats uploaded to one standard display format, it makes sense that they have total control over the end format. I thought that shed some light on why they chose to use ipaper instead of pdf or any other format, but apparently you don't agree. Whatever.
p.s. Let me know when i can turn my points in for a prize.
I'm still sticking with Safari. Firefox's faster, but there's nothing that beats the speed of Safari on Mac, and in addition it is Cocoa (while Firefox is Carbon.) For some reason, this makes Safari feel like a more solid browser, and Firefox feeling like a typical Carbon app (whatever that is - just a weird user experience using it.)

If the dealbreaker is extensions, then I have to say that the only extensions I use in Firefox are Web Developer Toolbar and Firebug, which are excellent extensions. I only start Firefox to a) test sites on Firefox and b) use the aforementioned extensions.

Safari has a good built-in alternative to Firebug, which is available by going to Safari > Preferences > Advanced and checking Show Develop menu in menu bar. Then go to Develop > Web Inspector (or the other tools there.) Good for quick Javascript troubleshooting, as it also has a Javascript error/eval console.

In Firefox, I've found that other extensions usually make the browser more bloated and slower to use. They're nice, and sure, you could have ForecastFox tell you the weather, but it's not worth the bloat, in my opinion. And themes... :|

If you're like me, you'll miss a lot of extensions, but realize in the end that you don't really need most of them. del.icio.us was a favorite extension of mine. On Safari, I put the del.icio.us bookmarklet as the first bookmark on my menu bar. Then I hide the menu bar (apple+shift+b.) When I want to bookmark something to del.icio.us, I hit Apple+1, tag, save.

Firefox is a great browser, and Firefox 3 makes it even better, but Safari is a fast, no-frills, and great web browser. Although Safari has less 3rd party addons (and most of them superb, like Inquisitor) it's a web browser that does what you should expect it to do, and fast - browse the web.
Am I missing something obvious on scribd? I saw no way to download the original PDF on the scribd page. I was as annoyed as the original poster when this paper (HPL-2007-193) was on HN and I tried to save it so that I could read it later. I ended up doing Print->Save As PDF from scribd. When someone later posted a link to the original PDF, it was much nicer looking, smaller in size (4MB versus 164KB), and had the original metadata (e.g. authors, description).
http://openjdk.java.net/legal/binary-plugs-2007-05-08.html
Yes, you're correct. That would both eliminate the error for initial replies and dramatically reduce the rate that continuations expire when using other site features. Unfortunately, that would completely remove the ability to "reply". :)

When a logged-in user loads a Hacker News page, the server must generate a unique set of continuations for that user (one per each link that requires a continuation.) In other words, if everyone shared the same set of continuations, everyone would see the exact same Hacker News. The username in the upper-right corner would be the same, everyone's comments would be tagged with the same username, etc. Does that make sense?

So the "reply" link requires a continuation because you're adding a comment that's tagged with your username. But the "link" link does not require one because you're simply viewing a comment.
When I switched from Windows, I went straight to Firefox because I felt comfortable there. But (3 years ago), Firefox started getting buggy and slow. I loved the add-ons, but I switched to Camino because it was more Mac-like and stable. But since Beta 3 for Firefox came out, I've switched back and been really impressed with it.

One feature that Firefox and Camino both have is the "Search for text when I start typing" which I use a lot for mouseless navigation.

I don't have any major gripes against Safari, I just prefer Firefox.

The GrApple Delicious theme for firefox is a must have for any Mac user.
Did you click on the "link" link? It has a box and reply button just like the reply page. So removing the "reply" link wouldn't remove the ability to reply. I assume the inputs for the reply function are adequately captured by the URL (comment ID) and cookies (logged-in user) and thus don't require a continuation.
Use it in a terminal with no X. Much faster [to use] that way and this has a minimum of clutter. It does cause a problem with some picture intensive things though...
I never understood why nobody has built a documentation webapp where you just enter the SVN/CVS/GIT of a project and the webapp checks out the code onto the server's backend at a fixed internval then generates documentation from a standardized commenting layout, kind of like doxygen but more social.

It could be neat, you could even have the app merge user submitted comments or changes to documentation (submitted via the web-app) back into the code documentation in the repository. Maybe set a convention where you create a DocApp folder for pages, all synced with the online webapp.

I hope this is what Nodata is working towards.
>"Measuring inflation requires finding objective ways of separating out changes in nominal prices from other influences related to real activity. In the simplest possible case, if the price of a 10 oz. can of corn changes from $0.90 to $1.00 over the course of a year, with no change in quality, then this price change represents inflation. But we are usually more interested in knowing how the overall cost of living changes, and therefore instead of looking at the change in price of one good, we want to know how the price of a large 'basket' of goods and services changes."

Basically, I'm trying to point out that inflation is a hotly contested complex term, which we are currently demonstrating by linking to different sections of the same entry that somewhat contradict.

It is far to large a topic to be understood in a one page primer that states: "Government prints too much money."
Oh snaps son. I got burned. You're right, I didn't click on the "link" link and assumed that it was only for viewing the comment. I sincerely apologize.
I am just totally enamored by Webkit. It's insanely fast. I usually run nightlies and haven't hit a nasty bug yet.
No problem. Now all we need is for PG to tell us why it won't work. :)

It's obviously a slightly different user experience, since users that aren't logged in won't get prompted to register/log in when clicking on "reply".
Almost all of this stuff is taken out of context. Almost all of them are statements about immediate practicality, not predictions of the future. When Kelvin said that, there wasn't even a hint of an engine that could actually power an airplane. He was basically right: in the middle of the 19th century, the Wright brothers would have failed to produce an airplane.

Likewise the Western Union quote about the telephone. The devices demonstrated in 1878 really were primitive, and competed very poorly with telegrams for rapid communication.

But yeah, it's all funny.
Man i don't even know my neighbours, this is scary lol
It's the demo/test app for Arc. Arc is intended for quick and dirty prototyping of webapps. It is PG's position that a continuation-passing style is the easiest way to do that. The fact that links to continuations must expire is a byproduct of the fact that computers have limited memory.
Keep in mind that getting rid of the "reply" link continuation would make the "Unknown or expired link" error less frequent, but it wouldn't solve the core issue of "each user requires a unique set of continuations". It would be a good stopgap measure in the meantime, though.
Find me a family-run retail store that can get the prices that Walmart gets from its suppliers. It's not even close.

Large corporations are big and slow. They make poor decisions a lot. But they got big by doing at least one thing right. Sometimes it's just an efficiency of scale, but it's an efficency nonetheless. In software specifically, it is sometimes possible for a startup to outcompete an established competitor, but certainly not always.

And outside of software it's almost unheard of: try to displace Exxon/Mobil by being "smart" and "agile", for example.
FF 3. Just hope they get the bug fixed QUICK. Safari is a huge resource suck and horks on a lot of sites I use.
Look at the patent app again. It's not just privacy settings; it's the blueprint for the mechanism that the Data Portability group has been talking about. That's why Zuckerberg doesn't want Facebook to really play their reindeer games. They want to build it themselves and have Facebook as the hub of the wheel with spokes off to everything else.
Safari has the search for text while typing now too. It's cool.
I settled on Safari a while ago. I'll probably stick with Safari as my default, but make more use of firefox and it's plugins.
I always thought it was a security thing... it doesn't happen that often to me anyway.
If there is, I'd expect it to be fixed as soon as someone does it, which'd break your architecture. It really is a potentially gaping security hole, and it's not wise to depend on security holes for your application's core functionality.
An API-accessible variant: http://www.postalmethods.com/
Here a more technical link on Ct: http://techresearch.intel.com/articles/Tera-Scale/1514.htm
Here's a company that's a little over a year old with paying customers.

http://blog.spanningsync.com/2008/06/spanning-sync-p.html

Solve a real problem and customers will pay.
Yes this is pretty annoying - I've even seen it when I hit the logout button.
Last weekened I visited my aunt who lives round the corner from the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchetster - it's well worth a visit if you're in the area.
http://www.msim.org.uk/
Alternatives to XML?
I have grown to really dislike XML as a comunicating protocol/data serialiser. It is very verbose and inefficient, especially for mobile use. Its main advantages are: it is ubiquitous, and there are many free tools, parsers, marshallers available for any languages.

Assuming you have control both to the server and client, what would be a good alternative to XML?
I thought about Json, but I don't like its syntax.
What's your experience with these alternatives?
SproutCore - Apple’s JS library
I thing Java took a wrong turn with 1.5 and especially 1.6. Introduced new complexities to the language, without adressing its main drawbacks: verbosity, and lack of proper closures, and functions being first class citizens
yaml? not used it myself, but possibly worth a look.
yaml or thrift (binary)
Objective-C 2.0 introduced garbage collection and "properties", as well as a new enumeration syntax.

The best beginning Cocoa book is "Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X", found here: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321503619/bignerdran...

It's a great book, and a huge number of mac developers got started with it. The new version (which has Obj-C 2.0, Leopard, and other updates) just came out a few weeks ago.
For simple transport, I've always liked http://cr.yp.to/proto/netstrings.txt
No, there isn't a huge difference between Obj-C 1.x and 2.0.

2.0 brings you object properties (just syntactic sugar), object iteration (for x in ...), and garbage collection (but not on the iPhone).

http://theocacao.com/document.page/510 is a good overview of the new features.
A Vending Machine for Crows [video]
Agreed. It's a nice college freshman first project.
Compartmentalizing helps prevent the possibility of total catastrophe, so for me it's Firefox for work, Safari for personal business, Opera for browsing, Camino for everything else.
never heard of it before, but our custom protocol is pretty similar to this.
Working for someone else has its problems. Working on my own projects, I feel heroic. Like Prometheus.

Never before have I had so much power to do so much good.
If you build a solution to solve a business problem and have an underserved market ready, then you can make money.

If you build something like Twitter then you need funding.

Personally, I think most people would be over there head if they trying to develop something so generic like a twitter or a video upload site. Not that it is hard but if you are not solving a problem that people are willing and waiting, no begging, to pay for then well you need venture funding for sure. The chances of venture funding is about squat for your average joe.
The "site" I was describing was HN, so I guess my sarcasm was a bit too subtle. Additionally, you can only get a copy of the original PDF if you register. I can understand why they went with this sort of bait-and-switch tactic, but it is slimy.
Don't be a jerk. Quote exactly where this guy went wrong if you want to help.
I've like Safari's text-rendering better then FF in the past, but FF3 is looking great, and I'm intrigued by the ability to tag bookmarks.
Ask YC: As a user/developer, do you care about privacy?
I've always worried about online privacy. Recently, I've begun to feel like I'm in a shrinking minority. Every day, I see people trade even their most sensitive information for convenience or fun. Ambivalence towards privacy might be partly due to ignorance, but it's also possible that people just don't care about it.

As developers, do you try to protect the privacy of users? Do you care about your personal privacy enough to NOT use a really cool web service? Do your users click your privacy policy of ask you about it?

As an aside, I predict:

- Extremely aggressive behavioral targeting will be adopted by all major ad networks including Google. Less than 0.1% of people will opt out of 1st or 3rd party cookies if they have the option.

- At least 20% of the most successful social network applications will make their money by exporting and reselling personal information. Aggregation will provide little anonymity for good data miners.No social networks will aggressively enforce its T&C's, including FB.

- Consumers will continue to assume that a well designed homepage is a proxy for security. (e.g. Mint).

- Online and offline companies (e.g. credit cards) will regularly provide information for government investigations.
> He says he’s largely letting his machine-learning lab at Cambridge run itself these days

I hope the humor was intentional -- especially since The Register has a whole section dedicated to the "Rise of the Machines™."
Agreed. When they were doing the re-creation of the Wright Flyer for its anniversary flight recently I was quite taken by just how primitive the engine was and how much mass there was just to get a few HP. The advancement in engine power to weight ratios over the next forty years is absolutely amazing if you consider how slowly things have moved for the previous hundred years.
I'm not trying to solve every problem. I'm just trying to solve browsing the list of threads.

So, I'm not talking about reply. I'm not talking about links. Just giving me the main list of threads, that's why I wanted to call it "browse context". Not "reply context".

I also do not suggest sending the "browse context" to the user. I'm suggesting sending an ID to the user, while the server can store up to 1.9 years worth of browse contexts, so that I can hit reload on the main page for up to 1.9 years without seeing an expiration.

I would solve issues with reply separately. Maybe HN is meant to just be a demonstration of the power of continuation-based web dev.
But can you navigate with it?
While 40W may be small compared with the bigger picture, it is still energy that is completely wasted

Not quite - the "waste" is just emitted as heat, which will often be useful.
DIY Yahoo! Resignation Letter
Can you show me how I can learn biochemistry in two days? I would be really interested!
I'm already a little bit used to it. http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2008-06-20/

Privacy link is clicked a lot on my startup's page. People still care.
Camino has to be one of the worst browsers I have ever used. I don't know what they are up to. In my mind, Camino should simply be Firefox with Webkit replacing the gecko engine... but it's not even on par with Firefox.

One thing I hate about Mac in general is their hate for navigating solely with the keyboard. A lot of third-party apps do a good job letting you navigate using your kb only (such as cmd+1, cmd+2... to hit tabs in FF) but the last time I used Camino they were seriously lacking in that department. Clicking links with the mousewheel is also very important to me (to open in a new tab).
Firefox + Foxmarks
^ no chance for Safari
So, should we link to every cool youTube video too then?
Speak English, Stupid Computer! (Powerset)
Yes, lots of people care. Just because it's not trendy to program in java and it doesn't get as much hype as ruby/python/etc, doesn't mean it's irrelevant.
I hadn't considered that but you are right, Facebook's pages are kind of similar. A Twitter version would be better though because it will be more interactive and real time. And since it will revolve around messaging, it should be easier to monetise on an ongoing basis.
yep. me too. i got FF3 too but i'm sticking with WebKit as my number 1 browser!
Meh. This sent me looking for Meshuggah!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMmsVxn8d4k&feature=relat...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZIvgEsmB_U&feature=relat...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up6WgwAnf2I&feature=relat...
Tipjoy: 8916 tips totaling $10100003101.93 given since Feb '08!
Um, Google is an ad supported app.

People in enterprises use that one a lot.

And if you have an enterprise willing to use your app, then you can make them pay for an ad-free version. Basically, your argument here is pretty easily overcome.
Aquamacs tries to use the Mac system (only one buffer per window frame)

Thanks! That tells me that I really need to stick with Carbon Emacs, because I've been using emacs longer than OS X and such behavior would drive me straight up a wall. :)

As someone has already suggested on this thread: If I really wanted an editor that elegantly blended the emacs style and the Mac style, while refusing to compromise its Mac-like status, I would be using Textmate right now. As it is, I gave up Textmate and went back to emacs, but I do agree that Textmate is a work of art.

Thanks to all for their answers. Happy editing!
I already disclosed what I don't like. This fellow is a sock-puppet and a coward. That's where he went wrong.

For your curiosity however:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=222803

"It's no wonder that almost all of your silly startups will fail."

No doubt a porn site would be a successful startup. But, most of us are here for more than just money (big ideas or at least something you can discuss with your family) and blanketly accusing this community of wasting its time because it doesn't want to make money this way, is offensive and quite hostile. Especially coming from someone who is hiding behind a sock-puppet.
I've switched back-and-forth a bit, but have settled in with Firefox. Not having the extensions I like is a killer.
Your point is sound but 200k/yr is a little extreme. More like $100K, all in. (Salary + options + benefits)
http://delicioussafari.com/

It's shareware, but it only nags when accessing bookmarks, not when saving them (which is all I ever used the FF extension for anyway...)
She is one a "handsome" woman.