skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I have never cared about, or taken notice of any 'culture'. I agree that some programmers do, but I think you only pay attention to 'culture' if you don't really know what you're doing. These are the programmers that copy and paste code from google and ask questions on stackoverflow all day. Just read the damn language spec/APIs.

A programming language is just a tool. You can use it as you wish to. There is absolutely nothing inherant in Java that suggests you should create a mess of Singletons Factories etc. And if you're a good programmer - you won't.

Our job as 'hackers' is to not do things the 'accepted way'. To think outside the box. To go against 'accepted wisdom'. That's kinda the point.

So just because some idiot in a cube somewhere creates 18 Factory classes an hour in his IDE, and somehow that's become "accepted wisdom" about how Java should be used, it doesn't have any bearing whatsoever on how you use it. I'd like to think we're all better programmers than that here.
MIDEM Music Hackday Hacks
Yes. In my experience it's typically done by less technical users who simply haven't noticed that the connector is asymmetrical, so if it's not going in it must just be a tight fit.
Perhaps... although there may be little or no correlation between where one chooses to go to school and how good of an engineer they'll be.
Apple’s iPad Revolution – One Year Later [Infographic]
Google Buys SayNow to Boost Google Voice
Would people be interested in an article on "How to Run a Marathon the Hard Way"? There's a ton of stuff out there on how to run a marathon in four months and survive it, but not very much on how to spend two years gradually working up through the shorter distances so you can feel completely prepared for the marathon.

I think there's a lot of enjoyment from the shorter races that it's easy to miss out on from just moving straight up to the marathon. The camaraderie in most local road races and running clubs is great, and can really improve both your social life and enjoyment of running.
This is the first thing I thought of when I saw the headline "minimalist phone". The wikipedia page confirms it's not available from Motorola in the US. I'm curious if anyone has had luck using an unlocked one?
This is much more relevant outside SW engineering/internet. Knowing about law schools, medical schools, etc., or different types of degree, would be useful for a lot of otherwise uninformed students taking on debt.
I've researched this topic for a while in university, and the idea was to keep a general purpose FPGA as a programming device, and load preconfigured images to it when needed. For example load up an encryption module when encryption intensive operations took place, or load a video encoder/decoder whenever needed.

There were a few problems:

* Each FPGA vendor has its own architecture and such a technology requires momentum from these vendors. A 3rd party cannot do much about it.

* Dedicated ASIC circuits often perform better with less power consumption. So keeping a general purpose FPGA may not bring sufficient benefit to develop the technology.
Good article: things that are complex should have long names, things that are simple should have short names. Like the approach.
The "Motofone" is simpler and would cost less if they sold it in the US. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2143197
Have them all forward to one gmail account and manage them from there.
Rejection Therapy, iPhone Programming, and Irrationality
I have a bluetooth dongle, but it was bought for and only used with my wiimote. Which was fun.
Actually, that 15 minute policy is a big source of piracy. All it takes is a rooted phone and you can get ANY app you want for free. Honestly, from a developer's point of view, Apple's way of doing business is a lot better.

Also, if you're like me, I can get sick of any game in 24 hours. Or at least, complete all the levels (Angry birds just takes a few h), so with the previous 24 policy you could enjoy paid games for free legally.
If they are not "happy" with the purchase rates then perhaps they should start by fixing the performance of their market-app.

I'm on a fairly high-end android (Samsung Galaxy S) and it takes nearly 60 seconds to open the market-app for the first time. Over WiFi.

Yes, a full minute. I kid you not.

And the agony doesn't stop there. Moving around in the shop is choppy and slow. 10-20 second lags are normal. Overall responsiveness is atrocious. And that's without any app-downloads going on in the background. Go figure what happens once the phone actually begins downloading...

I don't think this is the only reason for the relatively low purchase-rates. But it surely plays its part...
Culture exists and can't be ignored, but that doesn't mean you have to be a slave to it. I find the most (perhaps only) annoying thing about Python the thinking that leads to the zombie-like refusal to deviate from PEP 8 and other habits/styles that are considered "Pythonic." And the need to defend yourself from (or ignore) the inevitable criticism that you face as people bikeshed over details that are completely orthogonal to the quality of your code.
The 13 USB devices hooked into my desktop would disagree with you.
Excellent to see FB moving to site-wide https.

Haven't the social captchas been used for some time now? I'm sure I've seen them before.
Just because it has been a while doesn't mean it's not a PR problem. I know I'm not alone in the group of people who know and have used Perl, but just don't use it anymore. There's no big investment required, I've just moved on.
It's even a bit worse than that because of the Market's restrictive file-size limitations (versus the App Store). Many larger games download data from some other server after they've launched. It can easily take longer than 15 minutes to go from game-installed to game-being-played.
And that's mainly because the Apple Store is terrible on the iPhone version of Safari.
Tool of the Day: EmbedPlus, YouTube Videos, Enhanced
Actually, the achievements mimicked gaming achievements fairly well. A mix of goofy, funny, ridiculous, and painful. I don't see a problem with that at all. As a humor piece, which is what it is supposed to be, it succeeds.
Your comment amounts to "Why can't people know everything and never make mistakes?" I hope you see the problem with that.
How elegant.
From the figure ($60) it seems you probably launched an m1.small instance instead of a micro instance. IIRC the free tier only covers a micro instance and those amount to only $14.40/mo when run 24/7.
Can't Decide? Undecide (Undecidable games and puzzles)
.. Aaaaand does this work outside of the goddamn US of A?
The classic on this kind of overengineering is Spolsky's architecture astronauts essay[1]. Which also describes another way to go wrong --- getting so lost building general structures that you actually lose track of the problem that you were originally trying to solve: "... then they'll build applications ... that they think are more general than Napster, but which seem to have neglected the wee little feature that lets you type the name of a song and then listen to it --- the feature we wanted in the first place." Worth a read.

[1] Whole thing here: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000018.html
For anyone wondering what "Whoooooosh" is supposed to mean, it is a meme for "you missed the point". It is usually used of the topic was sarcasm or irony and someone did not realise that.
Use Readability[1], and stop nagging.

[1] http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/
Don't change the title:

"Italian Scientists Claim (Dubious) Cold Fusion Breakthrough"
Apple often updates their site to reflect treatments in their desktop OS. A lot of the elements here, I expect in Lion.

For fun, here's a Flickr set since before time, including now.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kernelpanic/sets/283374/
How to Build Content That Converts Into Users
I initially read this as "people who use Linux are odd" and had a much needed chuckle. After reading it's descendants I don't think that's how you meant it, but thanks, nonetheless.
I wish casinos allowed betting on science news, then with each headline we could get the over/under spread. And I would only bother reading things when most people put money on them being true.
Hey, why not do the same thing that the guys of Angry Birds did putting ads on your games? I strongly suggest you to try this at least with one of them and see how it goes.
> Excellent to see FB moving to site-wide https.

Except they're not really doing that yet. Read the full section: some facebook sections, and most applications aren't yet HTTPS. And it's off by default. And the setting is hidden deep inside your advanced security settings.

They do say it will be default at some point in the future, which is exciting. But for the moment, this HTTPS step is just a small one.
True, it's a major pain to distribute software in object code form on Linux. The many package systems, moving target libraries, C++'s lack of a standardized ABI; they all make it hard. Originally my previous post had a long-winded ramble on the many evenings I wasted downloading the 25 or whatever many it were parts of WordPerfect, assembling them to the right places, fixing issues with libraries, ... It was most certainly not end-user ready, but the user base at that time was composed of people who could theoretically have managed the technical parts, but just weren't willing to pay (that includes myself).

But since you bring up Debian, they were the first with a fully functional and well-working package system that automatically downloaded packages etc., it worked (still does, probably) great. But the Debian community was ('is', maybe, I don't know the current state of affairs) so infused with the Free mantra that any for-pay software to be distributed through them would be politically unthinkable. Yes there are practical issues with distributing binaries that you can't recompile yourself and yes I know about non-free, but there is downright hostility to encouraging, fostering or even enabling a for-pay Linux software ecosystem in the Debian world (elsewhere too, it's just an example). I subscribed to some Debian mailing lists for a while 7 or 8 years ago, and on the non-technical lists most of the traffic seemed to be about if this or that package was Free enough to be worthy of inclusion in Debian! I mean it's OK, they all have the right to do what they want, who am I to tell people what not to. And one person isn't the next one and when there are 10 nerds in a room there are 11 opinions on anything, I know; my point is, let's stop claiming that Linux users would pay if only there was no DRM, or ease of use, or better quality, etc. etc.; let's just all face the facts and say that the culture is generally hostile to the idea of paying for software, that binary-only software is a second rate citizen, looked down upon to the point of contempt, and that no software company has enough cloud to change this.

All of the above is OK, if that's what people (other people) in large enough amounts want. Those who don't will go elsewhere, it's a (mostly) free world. But let's also be honest about the fundamentals. I've deluded myself for 10 years with the Free Software mantra and used the same tired arguments - we're being held down by The Man, next year will be the Year of Linux on the Desktop, there's real money to be made in support and training and customization, etc.; the reality is simply the opposite. (I guess that's why I'm railing so hard on this now, just like ex-smokers are the most obnoxious anti-smoking "activists" - I guess it's the self-loathing after a major disillusion of realizing you've been wrong on something you had strong beliefs about for a sizable amount of time :) )
> "Culture exists and can't be ignored"

Yeah it can, why can't I ignore culture?

I download a tool, and use it as I wish to within my company.
Every OO horror story I've ever been involved with has that same phrase in there somewhere:

...it does not allow us to select the algorithm we wish to use at runtime

I'm an embedded programmer so this kind of thinking is alien to me. But really, everyone plans for runtime configurability but is it really needed that often?
The pricing of Amazon SES is certainly very attractive, but it's worth considering why the price is so low. If you are looking for a minimalist service, then it makes sense to go with Amazon SES. I work for JangoSMTP and we often have clients coming to us from other transactional email companies, because they needed more than what these companies offered. Deliverability is a major issue that comes up. You may be able to send out mass quantities of email, but without an experienced email marketing provider you may struggle to reach people's inboxes. Delivery is as much an art as it is a science, and it takes constant focus to stay on top. JangoSMTP offers the choice between sending via API or SMTP. With Amazon, you have to use the API. We also offer open and click tracking, as well as advanced reporting (Google Analytics, logging, etc.). If reporting is important to you, you will want to consider a service like JangoSMTP that is more advanced than Amazon SES.
Heh ARMH did ok today. Wonder if this article was the reason? Currently up 3%. I predict a sell-off tomorrow.
HTMLUnit has its own share of parsing gotchas.

I've used Selenium with Firefox and Xvfb to do headless scraping in the past; looks like my toolkit just got simpler.
I like the hipster angle. It affords a better tagline:

"John's Phone: It's not an iPhone or anything. You've probably never heard of it."
Zuckerberg's Facebook fan page hacked
Seems like a cool project. I know that of the two businesses that I have started/am starting doing good is something I want to be at the forefront. Tom's Shoes is not a tech company, but they are a great model for doing well and helping out.
Yeah. I think what you (and I) really want is a phone with a two-color LCD screen from seven years ago.

Actually, I think those are called tracfones, but they have a stigma of being used by only elderly people. Dang it.
I'm really sorry, but I have to link to this.

http://ethnicity.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Writing/a.html

An/a is not based on vowels, but phonetics.
Vulnerability in Sendmail Delivery Agent code in Mail

It affects the code in Mail that sends mail using the sendmail MTA.
This is similar to the core message of the e-myth, which declared that starting a business didn't make you an entrepreneur if you were really a technician who had one entrepreneurial thought.

I know myself (I'm a business coach) that I meet many business owners who started a business for one reason - often technical ability, a desire for more money or control, and sometimes passion - and only later realise they need to develop business skills.

And if loving your job and turning it into a business is hard, then loving a hobby and turning it into a business is an order of magnitude harder again ... hard, but possible.
Awesome article Allan. Excellent insight into many of the problems with app sites today.
Only if you don't know what you're doing and need to write several algorithms that you can try out at runtime :/ It's an absurd use case IMHO
You don't need a desktop environment, so it can run without ancilliary support on a server.
How Philly Is Leading in The Glasses Free 3d Revolution
> Yes, Python was going to be my counterexample - it's very easy to embed yet much bigger than 100k lines.

He's not talking about lines of code – the lua interpreter/runtime is only approximately 150kB in size.
Commit messages and successful build/test messages automatically get set to read by a filter for me.
How to Use LinkedIn for Your Web Design Business
In this post, we’ll look at ways to beef up your profile as well as use new applications and sections to optimize your networking with clients, prospects and others in the design community.
Polar bear's epic nine day swim in search of sea ice
What is sad is how true it is. I've encountered non-Java programmers who were fond of taking simple stuff and wrapping it in layers of abstractions which provided real costs to no discernible benefit. But the density ( * ) of such is much, much higher in Java.

* Density could accurately refer to a number of possible things here.
I think Benji Smith's "Why I Hate Frameworks" rant is even better:

http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.219431....
Seems like they have a rather minimalist web server as well:-/
Wonder if it had anything to do with this
http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/01/26/1417208/Mark-Zuckerber...
Top Domestic Gadgets for the Ultimate Geek
Twitter, YouTube Become "Russia's Main News" Agencies Following Airport Attack
Some trivial arithmetic, topped by the not-so-insightful conclusion

"In our opinion, this is one of the easiest ways to grow your business [...]. Just add value."

Is this HN front page material these days?!
Facebook Beefs Up Security With Social Captchas and All HTTPS, All The Time
Well, but the letter was not directed toward Volokh, for one thing. For another, this is not the sort of RFC that the Internet is particularly good at. The proportion of informed opinion to opinion on the matter is unlikely to be large.
Buying appliances online is not as smart as you think.
Life on Earth may have been seeded by material from asteroids or comets
Reasons to be skeptical here: http://io9.com/5742290/no-italian-scientists-have-not-discov...

Briefly, the claimed reaction isn't one predicted by current theoretical work, and the apparatus isn't described specifically enough for anyone to replicate it. They say it's been "running a factory" for two years, but don't elaborate on where it is, or what it's been doing. And these guys started their own "journal" for the sole purpose of publishing their paper after no one else would take it.

But if you still think there might be something to it, you're in luck --- the gizmos will be on sale shortly. Reserve yours now!
Right, but the problem is not so much about me as it is about the rest of the world. Not being able to write messages is fine, but people expect you to be able to receive text messages.
> ... self-important masturbatory Java bullshit

Priceless :)
Tobechi Onwuhara: King of home equity fraud
I enjoyed this writeup too, but was also distracted by the errors. I do a lot of proofreading; I'd be happy to send you a list of editorial corrections if you feel like it is worth the time.
'Speed kills' - how Apple foot-dragged to victory
The main thing was the frequent use of "where" in place of "were." Another thing that jumped out at me was the omitted words in the introduction. If you'd like me to go back and proofread, I'd be happy to.

Thanks for an insightful article.
"You don't sell 300,000+ handsets a day targeting the geek demographic."

You are missing the GP's point. The majority of those 300k handsets are being sold to people who want a nice phone that can browse the web. They need a cell phone and, if it can do something else, great. It certainly doesn't mean they are cheap, just not focused on the same things.

One the flip side, the majority of Apple's 350k iOS devices are bought by people who are buying the whole package, including the app marketplace.

What that means is a large difference in app purchasers. Sure, the demographics are the same, but the market segments are VERY different.

EDIT: Too early to do math. Fixed my numbers of iOS devices sold.
Ask HN: Does anyone know of a good android app tutorial?
I've googled already, I assure you. But none of the ones I've seen so far do it for me.

Do you guys have any recommendations? If so, what's good about your recommendation?

Thanks a lot!
-M
Both app stores have room for improvement, but here are three areas where the Android app store fail in my opinion:

1. On my iPod Touch I have JUST the apps I use. I've removed everything else. On my EVO I'm stuck with apps I don't want because my carrier thinks I shoud have them (even though they'll NEVER be launched). It degrades the experience and reduces my overall perception of the value of the apps on my phone because it's a mix of stuff I want and stuff that's just total shit.

2. Half their screen is consumed by the top green carousel thing. It's ugly, takes up WAY too much space, and tries to sell me stuff that's already on my device.

3. No iTunes. Having a desktop-component to the sales process is powerful.
it's not mail(8). it's just the rubygem "mail".
If you do not like Eclipse, don't use it (for Android application development).

There are at least two other free IDEs (IntelliJ IDEA CE and Netbeans) and you don't need one anyway. Use a text editor and you're just fine. I'd recommend building with Maven but if you really want to use ant.
This simplification is just as wrong as the blog post.

It's very common to invoke different algithms based on specific instances of the data. To give a baby example, its typical that one uses a different sorting algorithm as a function of size and data distribution and key type.

Theres a popular fft package, FFTW, that is based on this as well.
Somehow the menu style reminds me of Widgets/UI-component from the Windows ecosystem.
I've seen the social captchas before, usually when I first logged in from a different city or tunneled through a VPN that exited somewhere other than my hometown.
This is where having a centralized gem repository might come in handy... If you have 15 projects, you're going to have to go update each and every one.
You're missing the grain of truth to the article, which makes it absolutely hilarious & tragic at the same time.
Isn't this phone pretty terrible for SMS, since it basically uses a calculator style display?
"...they haven’t provided any details on how the process works."

"...their paper was rejected by several peer reviewed scientific journals, it was published [on their own web site]."

"...a patent application was rejected."

And the article is by Fox News.
See, I just read it as satire and whimsy, and I thought it was great---I was laughing by about a third of the way in. Perl and C have their obfuscation contests; clearly the analogue for Java would be the overarchitecting contest, which this post would be a good competitor for. ;)
Bird Control
Bird Control throughout the UK, Bird and Pest Control Services | Call 0800 1583885 | Bird Control Company UK.
Amazon Launches Its Digital Short Story Collection with Kindle Singles
He forgot to "synchronize" his singleton and cache variables :-)

Java: because it pays the bills, not because it's good. (TM)

Seriously, I kinda knew what to expect when I waded into the article, BUT, his "punchline" at the end about actually learning the domain of the problem, and jumping in a completely different direction about a O(1) way to generate an approximation in some cases, rather than further crap-plating the "solution", was GOLD.
> The smart Java developer would know when to stop.

But a really smart developer would know not to use Java in the first place ;-)
Thank you very much for offering. I would really appreciate it, if it will not consume too much of your time.

You can mail me at, me[at] ashmokhberi [dot] com

Thanks very much in advance.
I'll never look at Donald Duck the same way again. On the other hand, I guess we know now who designed the USB connectors...
Usually you do a bundle install when deploying. If you've specified >= 2.2.14 in your Gemfile you just have to redeploy: "cap deploy".

Thanks to user wycats (+team) for bundler. :)
Perhaps the difference then, was that I read through the article thinking "WTF would you do that" and "eugh that code looks rubbish".

I'm guessing some other people were thinking "Oh how true! Java is such a bad language" which I think is a shame. Not particularly to Java, but to themselves.

If you think it's Java's fault when you write utter crap in it, you're not a very good programmer to start with. Languages don't force people to write bad code.