skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I use linux for all my work perl/ruby stuff and I use Windows for all my home perl/ruby stuff.

The big question: are these scripts you are running yourself or deploying?

running yourself it's not that big a deal, because you can fix headaches as you hit them. Expect to be running CPAN a lot to grab modules. Expect to be re-writing any system calls to use similar functions in the language (your scripts will be better for it).

It is WAY easier to run linux on a virtual machine than it is to develop under Windows. Windows has a million and one quirks that will have you screaming if you're used to coding on linux.

If you have to deploy on Windows, I generally use perl2exe or rubyscript2exe to create a standalone exe -- usually less painful then trying to get machines to have matching perl distributions.
With the exception of a few distro's (Ubuntu and Sabayon are the only ones that spring to mind), how many ship with Fusion enabled? Let alone working graphics drivers needed for Fusion to run? It's great that one or two distro's can do this, but I thought the strength (and bane) of Linux was supposed to be that there's so much choice and ability to customize things. That you're not locked into a single distro; yet if you want things to work right away, you're still locked into a limited number of choices.

You mention that linux needs a "…catchy name and distinguished set of applications…" before it can gain popularity or widespread usage. How did Linux manage to surpass other OS's if it doesn't have the same/similar features that people use?
What do you think about the idea of running a head-to-head comparison with your competitors' products? Useful to prospective users? Not useful because of the obvious bias?
People sometimes make software usage a religion.

It's only human. I was a Haskell religious nut for a while. (Then I stopped programming and changed hobbies to skateboarding. But I'm studying modal logic from Konyndyk, so I'm still in the Haskell-ish geekspace).
Failed? As in how? Do you think open source will die or something? Do you realize that hackers will never stop hacking on software - and that this is the important part? That whatever happens to proprietary software developed, it stays with the company that built it, companies which do have the ability to die? For open source software to die, to fail, would be for all open source hackers to die; nothing less will stop them from improving/working on their projects.

Seriously, have you ever met an open source developer and contrasted this to a corporate programmer who has never worked on open source software? It's pretty obvious who's better.
Wicked cool PR score... Glowing review in the LAT. Congrats Octopart guys!
I would like to have a healthy discussion here but your post seems to be a set of randomly collected issues without a core point holding them together. I could respond with a similarly random bag of rants regarding OSX or Windows or anything else, really.

But I won't. The original statement was that "Desktop Linux Failed". I objected and offered a way to "Succeed": IBM/Lenovo could have taken their existing ThinkPad line with its 100% hardware compatibility, put a prettier face on a hundred or so selected Gnome apps, give it a cool name and spend $50 million promoting them on TV, exactly what Apple did to BSD.
"After a weekend of soul searching, Morey dropped out. Graham presented him with a T-shirt: "Strap on some plums."

Plums strapped, Morey persuaded Agarwal to drop out of Berkeley too."

Does anybody ever actually explain that shirt? One version I read said it referred to the courage to talk to investors, not cofounders (http://mattmaroon.com/?p=263). And YC seems to think it's an important bit of intellectual property (http://ycombinator.com/legal.html).
C-x b is my notepad.
> Do you realize that hackers will never stop hacking on software

Will they? Or will they move onto theoretical computer science hacking (like Sigfpe and stuff) or even formal logic (like I did)? Is meant-for-widespread-use hacking gonna continue? That is an open question.

You really should read the de Landa essay. It's surprising no one has; mine was just commentary.
That's an example of a long opinion piece with no point. Yes, Matt thinks that Copyright is actually useful, but what's your point? What's the action you want me to take? Why did I just read that - I know some people think copyright is okay, and some think that it's not okay, I did not have to read a long article with absolutely no new conclusions or any clear purpose.

You basically took a two sentence argument and stretched it to waste 3 minutes of my time.
1. Get all your music for free. 2. log your usage. 3. Use a micropayments engine to slice out support.

You could dial the support up or down, maybe giving a disproportional amount to a certain band.

I think you're totally right: unlimited and immediate access to music is just better.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't directly support the artists.

The RIAA can't compete because they are fundamentally no longer part of the exchange. They add nothing. They continue through momentum, and will die soon.
Ubuntu server is cool (I use it on my machine). Also, the book Hardening Linux is good for the security side of things. I found online references to be best for setting up individual packages.
(I just looked at google analytics. _One_ person clicked through onto the text I was merely providing commentary to. Manuel de Landa is an actual philosopher, I'm just a crummy young-ish blogger ;))
Ask HN: experience using big LCD TV (42"+) as monitor?
In an attempt to create the ultimate ergonomic workspace, I'm considering mounting a 42" or larger 1080p LCD panel to the wall about 4 feet from my desk. I'd use this as a 2nd monitor for my 17" macbook. Has anyone tried this and were you happy with the results? Is there any reason to get a panel better than what is available at Costco?

I make projected software generated art as my job, so this is also a way to have a demo environment.
Is there any place where lawyers (or investment bankers) are rated? It seems like this would be a nice addition to TheFunded.com.
I thought it had a lot of points. Defending the usefulness of copyright is a rare position on the internet, and he does give some actual reasons as to why copyright is useful (which is why his article is pointful rather than pointless)--it protects movies and books and other forms of creative content that are difficult to produce. He also takes some common defenses of copyright infringement (though he seems to reconstruct a couple as strawmen) and debunks them.
Sure, because helping kids in the third world is suddenly not important if it's not gonna help promoting your relgion, er, platform of choice.

Did everyone but Negroponte _really_ leave in disgust? Boy, the zealotry actually surprises me, and I spent six years watching Slashdot for several hours a day.
It's my experience that there's a hugely bimodal distribution in people's feelings on this issue. Some folks like Spolsky just eat it up. Thinking about office space and design turns them on, and it feeds back into being happier with everything (or conversely, working in a gray-carpetted drywall office drives them nuts). That's fine. To each his own.

But for a lot of the rest of us, it's just not a big deal. The mechanics of the work environment (good location, quiet, offices with doors, etc...) certainly matter. But the look? Meh. To us, no matter what the physical space is, it's the coworkers who really define the work environment. Just bear that in mind before you decide that you have to write that huge check to the interior designer.

At best, pretty space is going to help retain people on the margin: maybe it's a tiebreaker between you and google, etc... But it's never much more than a tiebreaker.
Sign up for Slicehost and work through the articles. They will take you, step by step, from a new slice to a hosted application. Two months ago, I was in the same position you are. I now have three slices all running apps. I have learnt about load balancing, database administration and tuning, web server configuration, the inner workings of Linux, scheduling, bash...

At times, system administration will make you want to kill yourself, but it's worth learning. Building your own slice is a great way to start.
EditPlus is a good one for windows development
> Anyone can become a Linux sysadmin in six months of training.

I would find that insulting if I thought you knew what you were talking about.

Responding to your original blog troll http://dayvancowboy.org/2008/05/de-landa-tackles-open-source...

1. you have your facts wrong. Linux is picking up in the consumer space, and many more people are starting to use it who aren't programmers. But, this has nothing to do with open source. HP, Dell and IBM all ship computers w/ Linux; which makes for an interesting definition of failure.

2. De Landa's understanding of open source is simplistic and wrong a movement that can be said to encompass both Theo De Raadt and Richard Stallman is not one given to unity of motive. One could say that there is no open source movement as such, merely individuals who use open source as a tactic.

3. Given 2. it is absurd to speak of "Open Source" "Failing"; it's like saying academia has failed because some people do not get advanced degrees.

There went my lunch hour dammit.
20 Years Later IRC is Still Useful; Are You Taking Advantage of it?
Are you really comparing the expertise of a Linux/Unix sysadmin with that of a classically-trained orchestra-able violinist?

Boy, you need to get out more.
I am using SciTE again. I recently installed Ubuntu 8.04 and started using GEdit. But, I was really annoyed with the text selection in GEdit (programming in Python) and I missed replace within selection in GEdit. So, I switched back to SciTE.
ive run apache, php, python w/ django, mysql, activeperl, and more on windows w/o issue. in fact, its been really easy to get just about everything going.

the only real problem ive ever encountered was that sometimes you'll need cygwin around to compile custom perl, php, or python extensions and modules. in the same vein, some (like orange, a data mining module for python) are made to be compiled with visual studio and can be a hassle to set up for anything else.
A lot of people left... it's not just the switch to Windows, but the switch to Windows is symbolic of other failures of the project.

http://radian.org/notebook/sic-transit-gloria-laptopi
Ah, sorry about that. Didn't mean to be randomly collected, it was more of a spur of the moment post. It's not worded in the best way possible, but there is a core point in there.

The basic point of the first part of my post was supposed to be that very few distros contain all the features that make the distro equal to OS X or even Windows. Because of this, it's inaccurate to say that Linux as a whole is equal.

The second part of my post was a reply to a statement you said. It makes a lot more sense if read separately instead of part of the same post.

To reply to what you said in response to me (Pretend this is the start of a separate post for more coherence if you like): What reason is there for IBM/Lenovo to do such a thing? Apple had a clear reason for buying Next; the failure of Copland. But how would taking Linux, developing a new UI, and rebranding everything else help IBM/Lenovo?
This sounds less like a second monitor, and more like a test environment that is meant to mimic real life usage.

I've found TVs to not be very effective second monitors.
IA is based on a hypothetical man-machine symbiosis, with direct brain to computer interfaces.

Here we tap into the power of other's people minds, and of what would happen if we could think collaboratively.

This is more of a mix between the IA and the internet scenario, except it's technically possible to implement it right now (ethical issues aside, of course).
I support that model in general, but I'd much rather spend my money supporting live performance.

My favorite band is Radiohead. I didn't pay for their most recent album, because it didn't seem worth it. But I have paid over $200 to get 3 tickets to see them in concert this summer.
How long will it take for Google to index this?
Google has gotten much faster at finding new pages lately. It would be interesting to know how much faster.
"There's a huge movement towards cheaper PCs."

Sure, but the major cost center for PCs is hardware, not software, at least not the operating system anyway. Major manufacturers are permitted to install Windows on their machines for only a small fraction of the retail price, so installing Linux instead doesn't save much money.

Either way, the main driver for open source isn't price, it's flexibility. Not everyone needs it, but for those who do, it's a huge boon.
Why do you have such a bias against expertise in technology vs. expertise in violin/anything else?
OpenBSD's FAQ, then man afterboot

Its online tutorials are not as abundant say to FreeBSD, let alone Ubuntu; however, you want quality, not quantity - Excellent man pages

OpenBSD is created and used by people who love their own craft -- you can feel it -- When I'm forced to use Ubuntu, i felt like i was using Windows ... I miss OpenBSD dearly

Maybe there's a blub paradox playing in OS
Why Perl 6 Scares The Hell Out Of Me
Feed Compare: Alexa for Feedburner
It's an area where personal contacts can really help. I have a carefully husbanded (and very short) list of people who will work for equity + insurance cover.

If the list was longer I would be willing to share, but sadly there are very few people like that and they are already very busy :/ But drinking in lawyer/banker hangouts might net you a few good people - especially ones who want to get out of a mega firm and have enough secondary skills to make them valuable to a start up.
I'd also recommend setting up xampp to get going quickly - its pretty handy. For scripts and perl command line in win32 I found ActivePerl the best - you can get a version for free from here -> http://www.activestate.com/Products/activeperl/features.plex.

More info on perl on win32 here -> http://win32.perl.org/wiki/index.php?title=Win32_Distributio...
I had a bit of trouble with it at first, until I realized that I was supposed to be pulling it apart and making it bend to my every editing whim.

The combination of keyboard-focused editing, on-the-fly extensibility, and decently thorough and clear documentation has made emacs my editor of choice for just about everything.

Not to mention that you can get a constant source of ideas to code to keep yourself sharp, if that's your sort of thing.
Scientists build mind-reading computer
A Look at TruPhone Anywhere for International Calling
Reddit Alien goes for a ride
"Wurzel came up with the name because he liked the concept of an octopus reaching out with its tentacles to grab different parts"

Hmm, I always thought the site name was a play on Octopussy.
Faircompanies.mobi: the ethical twitter
faircompanies.mobi aims to be your ethical watchdog

* faircompanies.mobi is a microrecommendation platform for ethical consumers. Like an ethical Twitter (TM).

* Use SMS, IM or the web to tell your friends which product you consider [fair] or [unfair], and why, by answering one question:

--> How is it going with the product you are using right now? <--

* Model of one message:

--->(brand: optional) + product + fair/unfair [choose one] + your explanation or recommendation <---

No need of symbol "+", periods or commas, but allowed. You can use or not the brand of the product/service you microrecommend. You must use the name of the product and type after it "fair", or "unfair", when a negative microrecommendation.

* Examples [140 characters to be used]:

"Apple) iPhone fair. Nice to use, revolutionary product. The good: charming, easy to use, full web, music, impressive interface. The bad: using coltan in the battery, plus it's a really closed and expensive product!"

"iPhone unfair. Quirky, expensive, nobody can type in that keyboard, plus the platform for developers to bring applications to the iphone is so controlled by the company. Time to think Linux."

* faircompanies.mobi is free. Sign up and enjoy!

The *faircompanies team
How hints help speed up math performance and what this says about memory
Defending copyright is not a rare opinion in my world. The opinions he talks about there are like the most basic opinions that anyone trying to defend copyright would come up with. Nothing new at all.

It's as if he suddenly decided to think contrarian, then quickly wrote down the first thoughts he could think of.

I used to work in the development division of a very major recording company. Reading his article would be like a competent C++ programmer reading an article about why classes are useful - sure, the article may be correct, but it's pointless reading, except for people who have never even entertained that thought.
Arghhhhhhhhhhh! My site is still impacted... and they keep telling us we are going to go live again - no dice!
Um... I think his point was that the RIAA wouldn't be able to compete. They would go out of business, likely taking a large portion of the music industry with them. Copyright laws prevent this from happening by preventing waffles.fm from going mainstream.
Bell sued for throttling internet speeds
I don't. My main expertises are technology-ish (in statistics, to be specific). It's just that these people seem to divide the world between "Joe Six-Pack" and "computer geeks". That's close-minded.
http://ibiblio.org has a lot of good information.
Laws only have so much power... Oink was close to breaking into the mainstream before Interpol hit. Problem was that Oink was hosted in the UK. Waffles is hosted at the PRQ, so given sufficient server capacity they can dabble in the mainstream.
It all depends on what you expect from the display.

A 42" plasma/lcd/etc doesn't have as much resolution/pixels as even a standard 22" monitor these days. So while your image is larger, it's also going to be less crisp. Text will generally be less readable as well.

If your use is primarily graphical, then it may work very well for you. If you think it's going to function as a true second monitor for day-to-day stuff, you'll probably be disappointed.

FWIW, I have 2 42" displays and a 60" display, all with Mac Mini's attached to them (along with various other devices) at my house. They work great for watching movies, general/occasional web surfing, weather, etc. They do NOT work well (IMO) for reading emails, reading text-heavy sites (like HN), doing heavy photoshop work, etc. YMMV.
wow, that is trollish and completely irrelevant, and basically tells me that you aren't here for substantive discussion.

A classically trained musician is operating in a field that demands perfect form and creativity, but allows for endless practice.

A good system administrator is like a Mississipi river pilot, he knows the environment and his equipment, and he is able to respond to changes quickly, on a variety of equipment under a wide variety of conditions. And he should also be able to foresee consequences and alternative courses of action.

If you think six months of training is enough to turn _anyone_ into a competent admin you are an ID10T.
What is Facebook's motive in doing so? I don't know - but here are guesses:

- Defeat OpenSocial 'monopoly' on cross-network applications

- Allow other social networks to deploy fbOpen so that as people build for other social networks, they can run it also on Facebook, increasing the marketplace

- Facebook supporting the OSS initiative? They've done it before (see: Thrift, memcached)

- Allowing developers to code better since they know the API better (from the TechCrunch comments - this is BS, since I wouldn't get anything out of reading this code)
A 42" screen 4 feet away will only appear the same size as a 21" monitor 2 feet away. Remember its all about view distance. Any distance at least 1.2x screen width is usually considered acceptable but if you want the screen further away for being able to show more people thats fine. It will just diminish the perceived size.

If you use it frequently you might strain your eyes though, focusing between near and far all the time. If you start to get a headache you could just try moving it closer.
"I think you're totally right: unlimited and immediate access to music is just better."

Better for users, but not for producers.

Also, Matt has made the point that the vast majority of people are unwilling to donate when they don't have to.
"With the exception of a few distro's (Ubuntu and Sabayon are the only ones that spring to mind), how many ship with Fusion enabled?"

How many people really need Fusion? The vast majority of distros are niche designed to showcase a particular innovation or for a particular application, which may have nothing to do with general desktop use. Many others are designed for 'enterprise' applications and also have no need of Fusion. Yet more are designed for power users, who may or may not want Fusion, and certainly know how to install it if they do. only a few distros are targeted at casual users and of them, only a couple think that Fusion is the proper solution.As you must understand, linux about flexibility and just because a particular distribution doesn't pack the features that you think it should have doesn't mean that it doesn't suit its target audience very well.

"How did Linux manage to surpass other OS's if it doesn't have the same/similar features that people use?"

Different target market.
If you are into Windows, you might want to check out our server admin tutorials: http://www.learnwindows2003.com/
not to mention TiVO, and the old Linksys routers.
Live music is certainly awesome. It isn't the only model though.
You're probably better off posting this at webmasterworld.com than here.
I'd like to second the recommendation for slicehost. Great, honest service and the tutorials are good even for those of us who think we know what we're doing.
30 to 90 minutes for this site
Yeah, that's actually not bad... looks like someone owns the .com already though.
What the author sees as a weakness is what many people here see as a strength: tailoring the language to the application.

I don't think I know enough to agree or disagree with the author, but I'm curious to see what people here have to say.
I think there was more to it than the switch of platforms. If I recall, Negroponte expressed a notion that he was more interested in selling the pcs than helping children.
Indexed. 25 minutes?

In their excerpt, they note that it was posted 21 minutes ago. So that seems to be their score.
It's the only proven model, and the only one that has even the slightest hint of economic viability yet. Maybe you'll change that. I hope that you do.
Perhaps, then, you should have posted a link to the paper rather than to your 'crummy' commentary.
20 minutes ish. Very good. Keep in mind that as they update the 21 "minutes ago" will get farther, so it may have been even sooner.