skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
zintin looks pretty cool - the first part sounds a lot like loopt. How are you different or better? (not accusatory, just that loopt is pretty well known here)

Good luck and sell lots!
fyi: please note that comments should not be signed. thanks!
Where Apple's New iPhone Doesn't Help: AT&T's 3G Dead Zones
>sciencey_words/actual_content

ERR: Divide by 0.
"In your judgment, is our universe a chaos or a cosmos?"
Yahoo's BOSS program doesn't go far enough: Why not open up Yahoo search traffic?
Read the O'Reilly RESTful Web Services book. It's a great explanation of why REST is good, and has a bunch of design patterns for the major pit falls.

You could also look at some of the tricks we use at Yahoo. One thing I think is important is the way we handle JSON (http://developer.yahoo.com/common/json.html).
100% agree. I hate that iTunes store. I'd really like to legally buy an MP3 for my wife's Creative Zen and yet I have to install iTunes? Hell, I can't even see if they stock the track. Nah, don't think I'll bother thank you very much. I'll go and buy the CD from Amazon.

I think the browser/html/http combination are perfectly capable of delivering MP3 files but I guess that's not proprietary enough for Apple.
Yeah, the article is a perfect example of what I call lolscience.
Why the economics of ad-supported music don't work - blame the labels
An Open-Source Cellphone (Tinkerers, Have a Ball)
Its a shame that often it takes 'last ditch' desperation for companies to launch their most open technologies. If this is what it looks like then lot of great ideas could be enabled. But one has to wonder how long 'BOSS' will exist for if MS takes over.
I've heard decent things about the Nokia N95, but I'm not sure how it is with regards to battery life.
"Some new evidence suggesting that children aren't such bundles of joy"
Lots of free apps it looks like. Just what I was hoping to see. 'Flashlight' though? Wow...
Andreessen: "If you own newspapers, sell. If you own TV stations, sell..."
At least with iPhone web apps, you can bring up the numeric keyboard by default - and with two fingers, it's much faster and more accurate for entering digits than the scroller (I use alarm clock quite often, and can't stand it - overshooting numbers all the time, for instance).

You're correct that the keyboard would obscure the rest of the interface, but you shouldn't often need to see the rest of the screen when entering mileage. If it's a frequent trip, for instance, you'd just use the frequent trip shortcut.
Even faster websites (YSlow follow-up)
It’s Official: PlanetEye has Launched
I think acceptable BOSS usage can best be described as "anything that doesn't piss Y! off". Now, this may be a compromise between their lawyers and the host of innovative search offerings they can't put in a legal box at the moment, but I'm still hesitant to think this is all great.

Looking through the TOS I also found this beauty (good luck writing a blog post announcing that you are now integrating BOSS search results):

(a) You shall not refer to the Services, or use or display any Yahoo! trademarks, service marks, logos or other Yahoo!-related branding in connection with any Links or Web Search Results or in any other manner, except where expressly and specifically authorized by Yahoo! in writing.
There is no requirement in the Graphing Bylaws that states graphs must come from real data. They are just another way of graphically displaying what he believes to be true. Feel free to argue with his beliefs.

Blogs are about conveying opinions. I don't see the problem with using a graph to convey an opinion graphically.
Touché, you are correct. The ACL code would be not be considered "copyleft", but it would be conisdered "free".
Even if iTunes could be coded using jQuery+CSS, how would the sync to your iPod/iTouch/iPhone be handled?
As an employee at a face recognition company, I got endless uses for your 128 cores. Give me 128 cores on your machine and suddenly a whole lot of the "robust" media search algorithms become much more viable.
When someone claims they have the graphs to prove something, it is implied that they are backed up by something other than conjecture.
Maybe it is anti-web, but its leveraging the internet in what it does. We have created some hybrid apps that work really well - we have the power of the desktop (for what we do) and the connectivity of the internet (not web) for delivering a better service. I don't like how iTunes works, but I do like what they have been good at which is pioneering the service they have. I also use it for renting movies, which is a great service. At the end of the day Apple is a business - most of us are on here because we're looking at, interested in or running startup businesses and if we had a great idea that took off similar to iTunes I'm sure we wouldn't be so negative towards our own invention.
Wow, irrational arrogance in a well known developer. How unusual! </snark>

Does anyone who's followed this case even slightly find this the least bit surprising?
There are 27 pages of all iPhone apps in iTunes, including 7 pages of free ones. Looks like most chose to charge a fee.

The most exciting part about flipping through the 27 pages this morning was that there is still A LOT of room for more innovation.
Remember Truemors? NowPublic has bought it.
Announcing rubyjs_on_rails: ARAX sans silverlight
I really love this guys!
Agreed. I just perused all 27 pages and didn't see any application that just blew my mind. A bit disappointing, but like you said there is a lot of room in this space for a hacker with an innovative mind.

Funny, my company had a test iPhone with the 2.0 software on it (to test the Exchange connector) and we gave it back yesterday. The whole time I had it I could click on the "App Store" button but couldn't connect. If we would have kept it one more day I could be one of the first to try these apps out.
Good points! Apple is a BUSINESS :) Hey, and guess what - it seems to be working for them
It's extremely important, but not so relevant to this and only this site. It's relevant to everyone - we all use the web, email and talk on the phone. Between that and a big red politics flag, to me that means it shouldn't be here. There are much better places to discuss and act on this and the numerous other serious problems with the current government.
A little more content, still looking..

All-optical switching! Echoes of HAL2000.

http://www.cudos.org.au/cudos/news/Jan08OpticsPhotonicsNews....
Jim Rogers - China's the future, dollar is doomed and the Fed's a disaster (vid)
"mesothelioma survivor" for $42.58

"tax lawyer" for $28.68

"criminal defense attorney" for $27.11

Anything related to lawyers / attorneys seem to have the highest CPC.
Is this a news?
I'm glad the mobile platform is taking off (hopefully much faster now that the App Store was just opened!).

The mobile web has been underwhelming for far too long. Good to see something with so much potential finally taking off.
Yahoo Open Search Ecosystem BOSS
You're right. History doesn't matter and cannot possibly matter in a perfect game. After all, by using the same strategy for more than few hands the player gives information away unnecessarily. So in a perfect game people will switch tactics at any moment, which removes the history element altogether.

So the reason why changing tactics every hand is ineffective in the real world is because people believe that the way you played hands before gives information about your play in the future: your table image. But you only work on your table image in the first place so you can exploit it later. When playing against a perfect opponent you won't sacrifice opportunity to maintain an image, because the opponent will always play in the same way (the opponent knows you can change tactics at any moment).

However! The perfect strategy is still absolutely useless in a tournament and most other games. Because exploiting weakness and amassing chips is the objective for the first hours, and the perfect model is bad for that.

Still, it's all fascinating. Appreciate your explanation.
Gmail gets remote log-off feature
I guess I imagine that style of thing will be a rarity. Its not specifically proprietary software thats creating a problem in that case though, its that a company is stopping development on the open source project by hiring all the programmers away, that could happen with a FSF license as well.
I agree, it is. iTunes would be nothing without the iPod. It's not even that great a piece of software, and it never was, even prior to when Apple bought it.

Apple is consistently been anti-open everything, and iTunes is another example. Can't use their hardware with other OSes. Can't use their OSes with other hardware. The only reason they opened up the iPhone was because people were vehemently demanding it and were going to open the thing up by themselves if Apple wasn't.
Let them use iTunes for that, why not. But why not let me browse the selection on the web. I think you can also buy the stuff directly from the phone once you have one.
I think Apple is okay with Creative Zen owners not buying MP3s from them. They're only targeting iPhone/iPod owners, which has by far the largest market share.

The trouble of getting the iTunes store onto the web (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=242316) would not be worth it because they already have the largest market share in MP3 players AND in MP3 selling.

So I don't think they mind. People can complain all they want, but as long as Apples earning money, they won't be sad about it.
Anyone know if there's going to be a terminal/ssh app that you can use without jail breaking your iphone?

Would be excellent for a spot of emergency server admin when away from the desk :)
I started thinking on this subject after the major cable networks started picking up premium channel reruns.

It seems advertisements alone aren't covering expenses. The premium content (with higher production costs) brings increased viewers, so cable networks license premium content for better advertisement revenue.

However, I assume the premium channels will continue existing and prosper as long they get their tech right.
Typical "Apple is against freedom" linkbait from someone drenched in the Windows ecosystem. That being said...

Lots of links on the web are to other applications.
like links to flash, pdf, office documents, .dmg disk images to download, files to ftp, ...

The iTunes Music/Movie/Application store is just an egregious example of this because it renders a lot of stuff that looks like it could be rendered in a browser, which is why they use a browser under the hood.

But we could make the same argument about PDF, and the defenders would say that PDF can render things with a UI and a rendering model that surpasses HTML in fidelity, and that its users need that.

And that's the reason iTMS isn't a web site. Apple wants an interaction model that is difficult to render with fidelity in browsers.

We can make something almost as good in a browser, but almost as good isn't what Apple does. It's what Microsoft does, and that's why people for whom Windows is good enough don't understand why iTMS isn't a web site.
With a GPL license, you could hire up all the developers, but unless you really got all of them, or had a copyright assignment, it would be very difficult to take future versions proprietary.

As to how often that kind of thing happens, it's hard to say. BSD/Sun is a big, obvious case. It would be interesting to get statistics on others.

My general strategy is to use BSD style licensing when my code might be included in someone else's project (Hecl), and GPL if it's a "finished product" kind of thing.
There is going to be lot of crap to sift through. It would probably have been a better idea to let anyone distribute iPhone apps and then only include decent ones in the store. Stuff like Tom Peck's many novel apps (literally public domain novels made into an "application", one per app) don't make your platform look cutting edge.

Anyone find anything really cool?

Update: not sure why Apple let this through, but Tom got 43 novels posted as separate applications. That's a pretty high percentage of the total store!

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewArtist...
The annoyance is not that "Apple is against freedom", it is that I can not check what is on offer at the store right now.

At home I'd have to boot my gaming PC so that I can take a peek at the store (lucky I still have a gaming PC instead of a console). It is simply not user friendly.

But I know, Apple is making money with it, so whatever...
Yes. That's called Marxism. It starts off with assurances that it's really in everyone's best interest, but ends up as totalitarianism in practice.
Maybe no compelling reason for you as the user, but I'm pretty sure there are compelling reasons for Apple.
Classic Apple apologism.

If Microsoft did this, there would be a swarm of complaints, and rightly so.

I'll stick with the Amazon music store, which is not only cheaper, has no confusing DRM files to deal with, and is fully on the web, meaning I can link to music, buy it on any web-enabled computer, etc.

There are plenty of reasons to like Apple, but their music store seems backward and anti-competitive to me.
Ok, iPhone Users, We Are Ready To Roll With 2.0
On top of that, Google has the right to ban them. For example:
http://www.google.com/search?q=site:itunes.com+pink+floyd
Sometimes I wish Linux distributions would totally dump GNU and use newlib or something. I suspect the only thing that has kept GNU in the distros for so long is GCC.
Yeah, iTunes is "anti-web", by the enlightened standards of 2008.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out why iTunes is anti-web: iTunes was originally released in January 2001. The best-of-class web browser at the time was IE 5.5. IE6 was nine months in the future. Safari was two years in the future. Firefox 1.0 was nearly four years in the future. The XMLHttpRequest object had not been invented. The term "Ajax" was four years in the future, as was the first famous Ajax application, Google Maps.

Apple is a farsighted company, but surely it's a bit much to expect them to have traveled half a decade into the future and brought back Web standards that didn't exist yet. And, let me assure you: Web versions of iTunes built with the technologies of January 2001 were terrible (cough Java applets cough) compared to iTunes. That's not a hypothetical -- lots of people built such apps. They're all forgotten now.

Why, now that things have moved on, doesn't Apple abandon the iTunes model and build a web app?

A) Because iTunes needs to connect to iPods. Can you build a web app that can reach out over the USB ports and talk to an iPod? I'm pretty sure that, if I could, it would be treated as a dire emergency and high-priority patches would be issued. If I can talk to your iPod via JS, I can talk to your hard drives.

Even the Amazon music store communicates with iPods via... iTunes! There are few other ways, and no other sanctioned way.

You could, I suppose, reduce iTunes to a tiny browser plugin or a stub, but that would still require users to download and install a third-party plugin, and it would lead to problem B:

B) Now that iTunes is established with millions of existing iPod owners -- who are Apple's best customers, now that so much of iPod sales are to people replacing existing iPods -- why make a major change in their workflow, with no benefit for them and trivial benefit for the world? The risk of confusing one existing iPod customer may well offset the potential benefit of getting several new music-only customers like Jeff -- who obviously doesn't own an iPod or he wouldn't be complaining.

Plus: Cross-browser maintenance of an app as complex as iTunes is expensive and difficult, you can't control every aspect of the UI, and the population of people who balk at iTunes is small and is unlikely to contain many loyal Apple customers.
IPhone 2.0 Firmware download
Sell to whom exactly? Marc has also been quoted as saying "Never sell a company while it's still growing." In both cases he seems to ignore the motivation of the buyer.
I sympathize with you greatly, and you'll notice that on my own blog I promote Amazon books and music.

But you and Jeff are saying very different things: You said iTMS is annoying because you have a use-case it does not support, whereas he said Apple is Anti-Web because they employ a technique--web links to a proprietary desktop application--that supports a different use case.

I think I can agree with you while disagreeing with the way he frames his argument.
Socialbrowse makes web surfing a group activity
Found the paper!! Woohoo! Back to coding...

"Error-free 640 Gbit/s demultiplexing using a chalcogenide planar waveguide chip" (small but tantalizing paper pg.8-9)

> We have demonstrated, for the first time, error-free 640-to-10 Gbit/s optical time-division demultiplexing with a chalcogenide waveguide. Excellent performance is achieved with only 2 dB average power penalty.

http://www.iceaustralia.com/aos2008/pdf/PDPProceedingsfinal....
Shout It is just as useful... This is the equivalent of allowing someone to post their first music lessons for sale on iTunes. No one wants to buy (or if it's free, download) your Hello World app. Show your mom, don't try and impress anyone else.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftwa...
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OK, if you disagree, let's compare how the iTunes-only viewing has limited Apple's market share in music sales so far. Not too much. Then let's check back in 6 months or a year to see if iTunes and the App Store have bombed. Doubtful.

If you oppose something (that's you're not even paying for), but it still ends up wildly successful, then the aspect of it that bothered you clearly doesn't bother too many people. You can settle for being a minority.

(note: this isn't Apple fanboyism. This is the same argument I would give to people who complain about Windows, oil companies, pharmaceuticals, Hollywood, etc. If you're a minority opinion, then you have to DEFEAT the thing you hate.)
Trying to beat Android to the punch, eh? I wonder how long T-Mobile will keep this on the shelf after this big push:

http://www.moconews.net/entry/419-t-mobile-betting-on-androi...

Haven't seen any API yet, but add it to the list of mobile items to hack.
OK, let's agree ;-)
75 Bleeding-Edge Search Engines To Beat Google
While I wouldn't want to run a newspaper or TV station (although I could do some cool stuff if given reins), I'd probably keep my movie studio. Movies are still a pretty premium form of entertainment, whereas newspapers and TV are just ad inventory sales in an era where inventory is increasing.
I agree that this article is silly, but your tone is a bit condescending. I use a Moleskine notepad because it has a certain tactile solidity that I haven't found in cheaper notebooks. Maybe that particular quality of a notebook is not important to you, but it's not grounds to dismiss all Moleskine users as fashionistas.
NowPublic news site buys Guy Kawasaki's Truemors website
Well, the way of the future, for television, will be ala carte programming over IP.

We're cancelling our cable TV service today, as all the shows we like we can get from the cable networks own websites, or places like Hulu.

We'd even pay to subscribe, over the internet, to a HD stream of a few channels, if we could!
Our startup, Foo Brew, brews our own beer. highly recommended for frugal startups interested in chemistry (or cooking) and looking for a nice way to bost morale. No idea what it means for our survival though.
I haven't checked out the apps, but it would hardly be surprising if the first ones out the door were kind of crappy.

Suppose you've written an awesome iPhone app with a price tag of $9.99. Would you want to release it the day before anyone was even able to buy a new iPhone in the store? Wouldn't you rather wait until tomorrow, at least, so that on a day when the bulk of new iPhone owners unwrap their 3G Phone and visit the store your app will be near the top of the Hot New Apps Released Today list?

The problem of deciding when to launch a new app is nontrivial, actually. You want to pick a day when the first-day audience has potential to be as large as possible, which means waiting for some 3G phones to sell. But you don't want to be too late!
I guess if Apple was a presidential candidate, they would be fighting nails and teeth for every single vote, instead of saying "we don't care about you".

Yes, I don't have an iPod, but I am inclined to buy an iPhone. So in elections, I guess I would be a swing voter. Seeing nice apps in the store might just swing my vote to the right side (buy). Care or don't care - it is one customer more or less.
Holy Orders of Magnitude, Batman!

"except this switch takes only one picosecond to change tracks."

picosecond = one millionth of one millionth of a second (0.000 000 000 001 seconds)

"This means that in one second the switch is turning on and off about one million times."

Huh? I thought it only took a picosecond!
I'm really surprised no one has yet to mention this:

codingthewheel.com is currently going through an explanation on how to build a winning poker bot online. Here's the latest post.

http://www.codingthewheel.com/archives/how-i-built-a-working...
If you were one of the first people in the world to own an iPhone3g, would you take it to bits?
I do like the square brackets. They don't require holding down shift. And when you're writing the next killer app, and in the process, end up setting the world record for the longest string of subsequent ')' characters... that saves you a ton of stress on your pinky finger ;-)
New YCombinator startup idea!

Passwords are hard to remember. I can create a service to store their userIds, passwords and sites. That way people have to only go one place to get them. I'll call it a "personal ID agregator" during my VC pitches.

I could make all the data public and accessible from anywhere using a simple API.

Users could vote on which passwords are the strongest. The wisdom of crowds would lead us to the better security!

Man I need a cup of coffee to get going on this. No, wait, I've had 6 cups already...
> If Microsoft did this, there would be a swarm of complaints, and rightly so.

help me understand: how do I buy music for a Zune? I went to Zune.net, and this is what I found:

"For the full Zune Music experience, get the free Zune software. Browse over three million songs you can preview and download..."
I flagged this one too. This isn't hacker news.
As an ex-Palm/Handango user, I was hoping for more quality. iPhone games will rock. Time will tell...
Oh, and I left out Big Reason C, perhaps the biggest reason of all: Apple doesn't build a web app to sell music because several of their big recording company contracts don't let them sell DRM-free music.

Apple is being deliberately constrained from competing with Amazon by the record companies. They've decided to fight Apple's growing control of their industry by manipulating the market, allowing Amazon to sell DRM-free MP3s while refusing to give Apple the same terms. The recording industry is playing Amazon off against Apple in a spiteful attempt to maintain more control.

So: Apple can't sell much of their music without DRM, though they know as well as anyone else that DRM is a dead end. Selling DRM tracks through a Web app might not be impossible, but it certainly is difficult, and it's hard to believe it isn't a waste of time when Amazon is there to clean your clock in the marketplace (to say nothing of the P2P elephant in the room). Apple could put up a Web store that sells the DRM-free portion of their catalog while leaving the DRM-hobbled portion in iTunes, but it doesn't take Steve Jobs to see that as a spectacular marketing mistake.
Blizzard offers the Lua scripting interface which facilitates the add-ons. It seems to have been a successful strategy.
Guy Kawasaki's biography should be titled "Falling Ass-Backwards Into Money."