skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think there is another way to look at it -> Bootstrapping allows you to stay in control.

You get to decide how many financial sacrifices you take for your business. We do 3 days of contracting and spend another 3 days working on our product. Yes, this even includes one "free" day on a regular basis.

I don't even think it hurts our progress that much. Personally I couldn't focus on a business while not being able to pay my bills.

Being limited on time, but having a little extra cash has been a very good combination for us so far. We spend our time efficiently, and we can sometimes hire people to help us with stuff we're not good at.

Note: I live in a nice big place in Berlin paying most expenses for myself and my girlfriend (she is studying). Not fancy, but certainly not sacrificing anything either. (YMMV, especially in a more expensive city or with kids)
I totally agree, just make sure you list what technologies they will be using. Then indicate that the applicant must be really good at them or be willing to learn them fast.
I don't know about you guys but I'm already seeing Facebook looking more like MySpace in the sense that a lot of people got on, but I see less and less usage by most people in my circle. Of course a few people use it heavily, but the majority of my circle seems to have lost interest.

Just an anecdote.
Then explain why there's no EU-comparable regional service in areas of the US with far greater density, like any of the top ten metro areas. Even the cell carriers have large roaming-only gaps and dead zones, not just in the unpopulated western US, but on major freeways in California.

Using national population density to explain the extraordinary relative suckage of US broadband is a straw man argument.
FYI, that link goes to your Google Apps login page. :)
I understand your comment. The list is very developer friendly. But it's just meant to help companies that want to appeal a bit more to developers and get more applications.

There are great companies with great people out there who just don't know what developers are looking for. They don't have to implement all of these tips, but maybe they'll be able to mix and match them with what already works at their company.
Ask HN: is there a place for content management on mobile?
While just walking between my lappy and a hair cut that almost ripped my scalp off, i was wondering about the web and mobile apps, how there are numerous CMS systems for easy content management that allow technical and non-technical people to get content on the web, from blogs to simple personal and corporate websites (let's say "mom and dad businesses").

Then i started to wonder if there was a place on the mobile app space for content management. Although i haven't yet exactly been able to almost point my finger on what it means, i was thinking about something along the lines of allowing (easy) content editing (from non-developers) that would be deployed as an mobile app and would be accessible off-line (since it's already possible to get content on the mobile at least through the browser).

Am i making any sense?

EDIT: typo
That's an interesting point, perhaps its a proxy for "older hacker, perhaps with kids, less likely to hop jobs".
Most of Europe taxes gasoline very heavily to encourage alternatives and discourage use.

Here in Finland, roughly 75% of the price of gas at the pump is tax. Or in other words, we have a 300% gas tax.
When I was most recently looking for a job here in Connecticut, it seemed like every job posting had "PHP", "Python", or even ".NET" in the title, and then required 4+ years or so of Java as well. With no explanation.

I just assumed the poster had no idea what they are talking about, and moved on.

(Edited for grammar)
Does anyone know what highly advanced interpolation "Snagit" does?

And wow, that Caldera desktop made me feel old. Worse than a twm screen, for some kind of reason…
The Wikipedia of Long Tail Programming Questions
Join a small startup, of which there are many in the bay area. You will probably get a lot more freedom to contribute ideas, and will learn a lot more about what it takes to make a company successful than when working at a big company.

You will also make contacts that will think if you when they are ready to start off on their own.
Check in your contract and surrounding law who owns IP created by you in your own time.

Make sure you own it.
Very well could be, and in which case it'd be in their interest NOT to say that outright (discrimination and whatnot)
Oh come on, do you really think that governments are so shook up over WikiLeaks that they might encourage ISPs to turn the internet into a series of walled gardens? For that matter, do you really think that they're that evil? Obviously they're not happy about WikiLeaks, and I'm not saying that governments or ISPs are perfect, but some perspective is badly needed here.

What you've written screams hyperbole and is veering dangerously into conspiracy theory territory. Net neutrality is a real issue, but it's got nothing to do with WikiLeaks. Governments aren't as dastardly or hell-bent on destroying your freedoms as you (and many others on HN) seem to think. It's actually quite disconcerting that so many on HN think this way -- hackers (in the good sense) could have a lot of influence on the future of democratic nations, but this kind of anti-government slant has the ability to really hurt our credibility and keep us on the sidelines.
How about starting with the application/business metrics first (as those are presumably easier to articulate). As things fail over time move down the stack (infra/system) to get earlier warnings?
As an emacs user, one of the biggest contributors (other than SLIME method list prompts and the like) to my appreciation for Lisp is Paredit[1]. If you ever find yourself frustrated with counting parentheses, this is the thing for you. Essentially, it only adds delimiters in pairs - so you never delete closing parenthese, and provides functions for (| indicates cursor location)-

1. 'slurp' the token on either side of a list

(|a b c) d -> (|a b c d)

a (|b c d) -> (a |b c d)

2. 'barf' elements from either side of list

(a |b c d) -> (a b c) d

(a |b c d) -> a (b c d)

3. 'drill down' into nearest list

(|a b c (d e f)) -> (a b c (|d e f))

4. 'break out' of current list

(a b c (d e |f)) -> (a b c |(d e f))

5. And more, like 'jump across next list', 'delete next list', etc.

Using any of these commands re-indents the code. It is the best method I have ever encountered in any language environment for doing 'code surgery' like placing existing code inside conditionals. I even use it for C (although it is not nearly as smart about C/C++ as it is about Lisp, so the benefit is not as great - c'est la vie. Perhaps one day I will attempt to hack decent C/C++ support into paredit). If I ever switch to vim, attempting to port paredit will be the first thing I do, and, if I fail, no switch.

Well, that got long. Too bad the original poster on the newsgoup will never see this.

[1] http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ParEdit

[2] 'slurp' and 'barf' are the "official" terminologies, by the way
There really isn't a whole lot of information on the website about the language itself, though the couple examples I see look like PHP. The description makes it sound like a web framework, and it has some extra database select methods to help out.

Why would you pay $100 to use software which hardly sells itself and probably can be done better with existing tools like Rails, Django, (and maybe CakePHP)?
Small talk sucks, or how to have a conversation with anyone
JSONP middleware for Rack applications
I'm not convinced most job postings are that clever.
I believe it, frankly.
Hackers uncover secret PS3 keys
Amazing 2011: The year of ONES (1s)
Agree. To pretend that XMPP is some sort of success is crazy. After 12 years, it's hardly used compared to other protocols.

The protocol is amongst the worst imaginable. Over engineered crap.
I agree with you, a more public process for creating liquidity in stock would be great.

Unfortunately, while Sarbox may have prevented another Enron/Worldcom, it also prevented/delayed the Facebook IPO. (Interestingly, that's exactly what assorted limited government crackpots were worried about back when Sarbox was passed.)
Would love to but not many HN'rs in Copenhagen!
"Increasing the value of the firm they are investing in? Great job guys."

Did Goldman increase the number of Facebook's users or add a new awesome feature? Did they address the privacy concerns of Facebook's users? Did they make Facebook experience better for the users? No, no and no.

All they did is increase the "perceived financial value" of the company, which as we know from not too long ago, is intangible and fleeting at best, and total BS at worst (Reminds me of the $100bn "valuation" that 37signals got http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1941-press-release-37signals-...)

As far as I am concerned, Goldman can do whatever it wants as long as its actions don't have negative effects on the rest of us. Internet bubble of 90's hurt many people, and so did mortgage bubble of late 2000s. I don't want Goldman to contribute to and profit from another one of those. How do we make sure it doesn't happen?
Opera for Tablets [video]
It's great. Notice there's a legacy branch for Rspec 1.3.
A Brief History of Apple's Open Source Efforts (2006)
If you're in a position to try starting your own company, you're already in a position of great privilege. Either do it, or don't do it, but don't complain.
Selling your logo
Interesting. I've never used 'volatile', would you mind explaining how it works in this case?
Finland has a population density of 17/km^2. From a campaign, I can right now get unrestricted data at 384kbps for 3€/month, or "as much as the connection can handle", up to 14,4Mbps, typically 4Mbps, for 14€/month.

Lower population density actually helps wireless internet -- the cost is mainly not about the transmission equipment, it's about the very limited amount of total over-air bandwidth.
There are some regional carriers but they're not necessarily well known. Not to mention that at&t, among others, have spent crap-loads of money lobbying to make it more difficult for smaller companies to get spectrum.
Don't look like a recruitment agency - Absolutely. Even when my job search was in its most desperate throes, I was reluctant to apply for any job that wasn't straight-forward about who they were or what they did.

Guarantee a response - I don't think a guarantee is all that necessary, but a timetable for the process is always nice. Along those same lines, I always greatly preferred postings that had an email address, even better if it's a person's. But really, just something that indicates an active, rather than passive process. Filling out a form and hitting submit just has a hopeless, waiting-at-the-dmv feel to it.
So basically, recognise that you are employing human beings rather than machines, and treat potential candidates with respect rather than going for obviously one-sided positions that good candidates are going to see right through? It's a little sad that this isn't just common sense, isn't it?

What I don't understand is how nearly universal bad employment conditions seem to be. I can understand businesses wanting to maximise the benefit from investing in hiring staff. However, all the evidence I have ever seen shows that sustaining long hours is counter-productive, supporting a good work-life balance keeps happier and ultimately more effective staff, etc. The big improvements in productivity I've seen have all been at companies that have dramatically improved their staff's working conditions, for example by experimenting with shorter working weeks, complete flexi-time, allowing off-site working by default, etc.

How is it that even large companies with dedicated HR departments, training for managers, etc. still seem to push in the opposite direction? I suppose good working conditions, particularly those based on flexibility, are always open to abuse, but surely staff who are going to take advantage regardless will just find other ways to do so if you judge them by bum-on-seat metrics. Meanwhile, I wonder how many people take advantage of employers in some way mainly because they consider the deal to be abusively one-sided otherwise, and how many good people never get hired in the first place because they wouldn't work under those conditions...
>They're lawyers, not engineers, and I don't see any reason for lawyers to conclude "It's fundamentally complex, impossible to get right, and going to have problems"

Very true, my brother who, is the press secretary for a relatively prominent senator, said to me when we were debating the health care bill, "Complex problems have complex solutions." and then... "Getting to the moon was a complex problem, and I'm sure it took lot more than 2000 pages to explain the process of getting there."
You could have said the same about Madoff....
PHP floating point bug crashes servers
This is pretty cool -- how do they deal with changes to the metadata, like when a country has a new code?
Interesting idea - could go well. Having just spent the last couple of weeks building a mobile web app the most obvious think I have noticed is that I have to keep reminding myself that it is a mobile app and not a desktop app. The rules are different and the user expects to interact in a completely different way. That difference could be a business opportunity.
And I have to say, what's with your tone? That somehow, because a person might think a government could be dodgy or work in a way they don't want, that they have to shed that belief if they want change? If that's how it works, isn't that just a confirmation and vindication of the original belief?
Burrito Breakdown: The Economics of This Mexican Favorite
Problem is if borders declares BK, it will wipe out your equity and give control to creditors. If you thought BK likely, better strategy may be to buy debt if you can.
Eh, putting it on sarbox reminds me of the attempts to blame the mortgage meltdown on Fannie Mae. Way, way too ideologically convenient. I mean, they just picked up 500 mil, I think they could find the resources to do a little extra accounting, even if you're contending that it's an unnecessary burden.

Everything that I can see (as an outsider) about FB's corporate DNA tells me what they want to stay private for as long as possible regardless of whether it costs them an extra 100k in accounting to go public. I mean, they just picked up 500 million. I bet they could scratch up the money to bring in Accenture and have them do a bunch of excel sheets once a year.

I don't really have any solutions, here, aside from some ill-conceived and emotionally satisfying proclamations of "destroy the IPO underwriting industry!". I'm just noticing that, if things are working the way the article says they are, it seems like Goldman's job in this case is all about creating exclusive deals and making insider connections, and very little of it is about evaluating Facebook's proper worth. Although maybe they think they're making a value investment. Who knows.
API as in the standard C API and obviously the part for ASCII string management. The UTF encoding was designed to keep that API working with Unicode. How would an encoding standard be an API? (Application Programming Interface)

I can't believe your smug attack gets voted up. You just proved you're either an idiot or a troll. You add nothing to the discussion.
megamark16, wmeredith and I already had a mini-meetup over lunch. It was good.

If we do a lunch, I suggest The Cashew.
If we do a happy hour, I suggest McCoys / Foundry.
Don’t answer questions that have already been answered elsewhere. Yeah, you might earn a couple of points of reputation, but...

Doesn't this just suggest that the reputation points system needs tweaking.
"Sarbox ... also prevented/delayed the Facebook IPO"

Could you elaborate? (I'm genuinely curious)
Not sure if this was meant for me or not, but I hope I didn't come off as complaining in that post. I just wanted to make sure people thought about the personal side of things before diving into it. People tend to overlook the spouse's point of view, and I wanted to make sure I pointed that out.
It's not too late to add the full URLs to an errata page, too.

That's a minor nitpick on a great book, though. :)
Discoverability.

Discoverability, discoverability, discoverability.
Now I feel bad for not posting it here as well (I posted it on reddit a few days ago: http://www.reddit.com/r/java/comments/et5az/libphonenumber_g... ) :(

I often avoid posting java links to HN, thinking that the HN community is more focused on Rails / node.js / python. Guess I should reconsider :)

Funny how this intangible karma stuff affects me :)
In fairness, that particular problem sometimes crops up on OS X too.
It still uses predefined PHP files recognized by their name. It has an extensive (and good) API, but it's still common to see SQL in the view. MVC is so 70s anyway ;)
I think the plasma forms a complete enclosure, i.e. there is no "break" in its surface at the tail of the spacecraft. The pole will need to cross the surface of the plasma shield meaning an exposure to very high temperatures. OTOH the pole can be insulated the same way the front of the craft is. It looks doable in principle, so I wonder what other problems are there.

Could it be that extending the pole during the descent makes the design of the hull more complex and through that more fragile?
almost every floating point value given as a string in decimal notation will not be representable in binary given a floating point format with fixed precision. if the number to convert lies within the range of your binary fp precision (eg iee 754, 52 bits of mantissa, 11 bits exponent), it will in general be sandwiched between two numbers that are exactly representable in binary. the task is to implement an algorithm which choose between these 2 numbers in the best possible way (eg without introducing systematic bias).

the apple engineers simply rely on the compiler library: they collect the mantissa digits into up to 2 integers, thus generating an exact binary representation for mantissse of up to 18 decimal digits.
thereafter they coalesce these integers into a double variable having an implicit cast from int to double - that's where the library or compiler-generated sequence of machine instructions take over.

the pgp guys actually do the same thing. however, after this step they continue to adjust the result for obtaining the best approximation in the sense above. it can be proven mathematically ([1]) that this task _cannot_ be performed for all inputs using arithmetic with any given precision. [1] also provides a near-optimal non-iterative solution which the author of the php conversion routine has improved upon. however the computations involve floating point (processor) arithmetic which suffers from a specific error in intel fpus. due to this error intermediate results are altered in an unfortunate way so that the adjustment algorithm no longerterminated in spite of the theoretical guarantee.

some more words about the 18-digit mantissa mentioned at the beginning. the apple code cuts off the mantissa after 18 decimal digits and its authors claim this operation won't affect the result. that would not be a problem if the input strings would be given with normalized mantissae (first digit not a zero), as the error was introduced in the 18th decimal / approximately 60th binary digit while ieee 754 double format only caters for 52 matissa digits. as the strtod.c docs do not detail the 'internal fp representation', this might be problematic (it would be eg. for 80-bit extended precision on x87 coprocessors featuring 64 mantissa bits).
however, as they allow non-normalized mantissa values, their conversion runs foul on strings with 'many' leading zeros, ie they'd convert 0.0000000000000000009999E+0 to 0.

hope all this makes kind of sense.

greets, carsten

[1] http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/989393.989430
William D. Clinger,
How to read floating point numbers accurately,
ACM SIGPLAN Notices,
v.25 n.6,
p.92-101,
Jun. 1990

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_precision_floating-point...
fp formats for starters
I don't know what plan you have, but tmobile for me is 60 a month for unlimited internet, sms, 500 minutes, unlimited nights/weekends.
...which is explicitly banned by Google's Android Market Agreement:

4.5 Non-Compete. You may not use the Market to distribute or make available any Product whose primary purpose is to facilitate the distribution of Products outside of the Market.

http://www.android.com/us/developer-distribution-agreement.h...

More likely, they'd make arrangements with carriers/manufacturers to have the app pre-installed, much as they do with their current Amazon MP3 app.
Good call. If you're not used to failing, and failing often, then this isn't for you.
Are you suggesting Goldman is using fraud to inflate the value of Facebook? If not, the comparison to Madoff is a nonsensical and inflammatory one.
Little fockers megavideo
Scientists squeeze more than 1,000 cores on to computer chip
Atheros never supported the development of the open source drivers until ath9k/802.11n. The reason they are so robust is because Atheros chipsets are one of, if not the, most common WiFi chipset in use. Atheros was also one of the first to market with 802.11G chips and madwifi was one of the first to support 802.11G on Linux.
I was waiting for Tree Style Tabs to switch to Chrome, finally gave up and switched anyway two weeks ago. While the vertical tabs option does exist in Chrome, it's inferior to the Firefox offering in a number of ways. In particular, there's no tab grouping / collapsing, and the UI is really still ugly and not themable (at least on OSX, tabs retain their 'top tabs' shape, there's an unchangeable blue background on the tab bar, and tab dragging does not work properly). IMO, not ready for prime time yet ... hopefully soon though.
Sarbox adds additional accounting procedures, with the goal of preventing another Enron or Worldcom, where lax accounting procedures meant that they were telling their investors "everything is fine!" one day and "we're bankrupt, your stock is worthless", the next.

The contention is that these additional procedures disincenvitize companies from going public. My counter-contention is that they're a very small drop in the bucket compared to the pre-existing incentives and disincentives.
Algorithms Take Control of Wall Street
except for gmail/gtalk and facebook and gmx.de and more.

really though, there are more users than you expect.
Just give me an android smartphone with a true docking station, and slighly more powerful hardware. Tablets are fun, but they don't fit any usage scenario for me. I'm either:

1. Mobile and not wanting to carry anything larger than my phone. Anything too big to fit in a pocket might as well be a laptop.

2. Stationary and wanting a full keyboard/mouse/monitor.

The phone itself can already handle the functions I need: RDP, VNC, SSH, Email, IM, etc... Any important data/services/tools live on one of my servers already. Give me a good docking station setup, and it will be my only device.
Computing 10,000x more efficiently
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After Strong Holiday Sales for E-Readers, E-Books Outselling Print
But if that is the main (or only) goal, why spend $3 billion to buy the company when you could license or buy IP for much less?
Does anyone know whether from an SEO perspective it's better to have fewer pages with more content on each or more pages? As a user I prefer more content on one page so I'm glad Stackoverflow is approaching this problem from a wiki standpoint.
They're not being entirely consistent on this. http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/11/dr-strangedupe-or-how-...

Jeff in November: "Having one “perfect” form of a question that contains every possible answer to every slight variation of that question is a myth at best and actively harmful at worst"

Joel, this month: "Don't answer questions that have already been answered elsewhere"