skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Apple licensed OSX to clone makers in the past, but that was one of the first things Jobs put a stop to if I recall correctly. There's a strong thread in Apple's strategy to prevent computing from becoming a low margin commodity. This helps Apple with its image of high-end or well-crafted devices, increases profit etc. Which is a smart move if you don't own the entire market (but can differentiate yourself from your competitors)

Apple was profitable before the iOS devices hit and much of that was due to this kind of smart thinking. It reminds me of Nintendo, who, despite not dominating the market, still manages to be quite profitable (especially compared to their competitors) with a very similar strategy.

Letting anybody build any ol' system willy nilly would cannibalize Apple's profits, plus give them quite a bit more work since ensuring drive compatibility with random hardware would become a major priority.

As a user I think it sucks, but I have to respect that as a business strategy.
The Making of a TechCrunch Blogger
> I hate javascript, most of the time.

Yeah, I hate how easy and fast upvoting is on HN. It's almost...too fast.
It's not like they completely control the marketplace

A year ago it was a real possibility that they would dominate mobile computing (soon to be just "computing"), and even today it's not out of the question if Android lawsuits go badly. I and plenty of others don't want to see a world where we're denied control of "our" hardware, and told we're criminals if we try to reclaim it.
Using Twitter: What Should I “Tweet”?
I'll be damned if I end up as an MG Siegler-type reporter

Turns out that guy isn't a reporter, he's a blogger. That's why TC is light on journalism, analysis, and cogent commentary.
i'm dumping on a google doc all my thoughts about a mobile client, massive multiplayer space based game, similar to Eve Online, and like you said best, i'm searching for information on technical and mathematical theory, particularly at the moment, on possible approaches to consistently implement the players resource "ticks"
Thanks, really helps. Any idea how to post such that it appears in ASK HN.
It can certainly be used as an excuse for laziness, it needs to be weighed along with anything. Optimizing an algorithm in a method that only gets used rarely and that only ever handles a tiny amount of data is a waste of time.

Sometimes O(n^2) algorithms are ok even when O(log n) alternatives exist. If it takes a trivial amount of time to write the slow algorithm whereas it would take a lot more time to write the better one and if you can guarantee the input complexity the algorithm will handle won't exceed a certain range, then it's fine.

Consider a factorial function for integer input & output, for example. What's the best way to implement such a thing?

It actually doesn't matter. The most important aspects are to get the error handling and input bounds assertions right, because 21! is larger than 2^64, and the difference between recursion, iteration, and caching at that scale is probably just noise unless you are calling the function thousands or millions of times a second.

P.S. This is a good reason why clear documentation outlining design decisions and their rationale is important. When someone decides to take some pre-existing code that "works great" and massively expand how it's used without changing it the result can be disastrous if people haven't taken into account the inherent limitations of that code.
I use unittest (and the 2.7 features backported in unittest2) unconditionally over doctest. I don't think I'm alone there, as most of the Python devs I know do the same thing. The learned skill of unit testing the Java way carried over nicely.
Is Facebook a billion burning machine?
I tried earlier check http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2109084 but my post is not appearing in ASK HN , any trick for it
There's no point. Either they're disposable e-mail addresses, or they're addresses they made up and probably aren't even valid. Or perhaps they're e-mail addresses they usually send spam e-mail to (belonging to innocent people).
Neat! What do you mean, "professional watchmaker"? Do you still "make" watches? Do you make components, or do you do full assemblies? What kind of watches?
Do you believe that the difference between what we believe and can prove (in science, of course) will eventually go to zero (barring a small number of topics)?

Perhaps not. Philosophically, much of what people believe is unprovable insomuch as it would require proving a negative...which isn't strictly possible if I'm to believe my courses in logic and mathematics.

(I suppose you could prove a negative assertion positively through an exhaustive proof, but that's unfeasible for most cases since it would require observing and documenting everything possible. e.g. You cannot prove there is no God, only that God has not been observed.)
It'll be interesting to see whether Google will take on some of the bigger sites. Add BizRate to the list too (its pages have a 'Related Searches' keyword stuffing section, and 99% of the site is auto-generated), along with WiseGeek: possibly the worst and most spammy content farm I've seen, IMO.

I personally am always baffled how some of the really large, spammy sites with low quality content are rewarded with premium AdSense accounts and great rankings.
So, Facebook has now raised, like, $2.3 billion in VC? Isn't that some sort of record?
"The short answer is that according to the evaluation metrics that we’ve refined over more than a decade, Google’s search quality is better than it has ever been in terms of relevance, freshness and comprehensiveness."

The long answer is that without Wikipedia results, Google's search quality would be at an all-time low in terms of relevance, freshness and comprehensiveness.
You can't discount the filtering mechanism of Y-combinator that easily ups the valuations of the companies that participate and later seek funding. I'm sure the 2-10% equity stake is largely made up for because of this.

Edit: If there were many more accelerators, they wouldn't all have the same degree of filtering, and thus the valuations companies would get wouldn't be as inflated. It wouldn't be justifiable long-term.
This site's UI is basically perfect for my taste.
A Faster Way to Dispense Beer on Tap
Their own sense of integrity.
Indeed. Ever notice how when you read something in the news on a subject you are very familiar with the piece is often misleading and filled with inaccuracies? Ever wonder how that works out for every other news story?
I was in the process of porting frothkit [1], a web framework, to run on gnustep.
I gave up on that, sadly.

[1] http://frothkit.org/
Hey, cool. I used a thumbdrive as my primary Mac for a few months in 2009:

http://carlos.bueno.org/2009/12/soul-of-portable-machine.htm...

It was pretty nice, not having to lug a machine around. But there were enough minor annoyances that I gave up. I think eventually your computer will be an image you carry around on your phone.
Linux package managers solved the problem long before Apple's App store.
Tagmask - a fun mix of Twitter and StackOverflow
Twitter Great Applications
This is my little startup attempt. By now is only a webpage with the Twitter authentication enabled to recover the user data. The post of tweets is disabled by now. This is a work in progress at a very early stage. Stay tunned!
Isn't Zuckerberg getting very close to getting his share control to the point where he doesn't retain a ~50% stake along with his staff[1]?

[1]: http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-who-owns-fac...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_hydrogen_battery
in the case of reviews and tech stuff it doesn't always work

This is one of my pet peeves. If I search for "product X review", most of the result I get back are of the form "be the first to review product X", which is absolutely not what I want.
I didn't vote you down, but I'll comment on the issue.

First:

> Why? Why do all companies have to operate the way you want them to and why do you have to buy their things?

klochner never said companies "have" to operate a certain way. He just said that a company annoys him. That's all. He said nothing about how the company "should" or "must" operate. Just that the current model was annoying.

Second:

> I don't understand why people who don't buy Apple products complain about Apple.

For the same reason that people who don't run Windows complain about Microsoft. Apple and Microsoft are defining forces in their industries. Even people who don't buy their products are massively affected by the actions of those companies.

Examples: I don't own Windows or Office, so for years I could not reliably open .doc files. [1] Microsoft's proprietary file formats affect those who don't have enough money / don't wish to purchase their products.

I don't own any iOS devices, but I am a software developer. If the future of computing moves to iPad-like devices (say, tablets, phones, whatever the future brings), Apple's closed model affects me greatly. I would be less capable of selling my own software due to their practices.

Microsoft doesn't demand money from you if you want to develop for Windows. Apple does demand money from you if you want to develop for iOS (and seeing as iOS will soon - or already has - gained more users that OS X, I believe this is a fair comparison).

This is not a good model for the future of computing, but it is the model Apple is using and they are a powerful force.

So even though I do not own any Apple products, they are a dominating force in the industry and what they do matters to me.

Edit: [1] I think that .doc is now an "open" standard, right? LibreOffice will probably eventually be fully compatible, but it's not ready yet.
Disclaimer: This is my little startup attempt. By now is only a webpage with the Twitter authentication enabled to recover the user data. The post of tweets is disabled by now. This is a work in progress at a very early stage. Stay tunned!
It may not necessarily be a matter of burn rate; they may be trying to do what Groupon did and spread abroad and compete in areas where they aren't the primary social network like Russia (and Brazil?).

You'd think they already have enough money, though ...
Jersey Shore Season 3 episode 4
Ask HN:150+ hits,25 download of beta in 1 day but what's next?
Hi All,
I have posted about my first android app "Dawg", social news updater. Though my post not appeared in ASK HN category, still got decent response. I am trying my hard to reach masses and collect feedback but don't know best way to for it? I haven't thought of business plan and how m gonna make money just followed my heart and executed idea into reality. I still need review to take it to next level. Check my post http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2109084 and guide me what i need to do for pre-launch buzz.
I don't have the expertise to debate the definition of communism, etc. but I was personally inspired to become an entrepreneur after reading Marx. It explained much of the frustration I had previously experienced as an employee.
The one bright point is with that terrible, fast-updating internet journalism, people can at least try to get out that a story is plain wrong within a few hours, as opposed to days, weeks, or months later (when few people care much about the story).
Apple selling "experience" is more and more true. See this chart:
http://www.asymco.com/2010/10/19/60-percent-of-apples-%20sal...

Looks like >60% of Apple's revenue comes from iPhone/iPad/iPod/iTunes.

Although you could argue that a modern cellphone is technically a computer, I'm pretty sure that in the minds of most people it's a "SMS and email and web browsing appliance" rather than a computer.
So how does the average Joe get in on the IPO action?
Sure, but it appears that there was no intent and that the actual damages from the infringement are roughly $0. It may result in a small penalty, but it's in no way a threat to Android's future.
As a general (and quite accurate) rule, if you have to ask the question, then the answer is 'no'.

If your goals are to become the next Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Larry Page, Steve Jobs, etc., the answer is 'no'.

If you're sick of your current job, want a change, and hate being a subordinate, the answer is 'no'.

So, when is it okay to turn your current life, and risk it all for what seems like a gutshot straight draw? It differs for everyone, but the motivator must be sheer passion for eliciting change and realizing a dream. Moreover, the dream must be for you; it shouldn't be for anyone else. If you're developing a product, develop a product that you yourself would back; if you aren't absolutely, unquestionably committed to your product, then it is my personal guarantee that no one else will be.
You can currently add 1 screenshot of the project, but I'm working on making that easier (and clearer) to do, and allowing more images.
My earlier post http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2109084
Link to beta : www.zubhalabs.com
Wait. Never saw a developer with a Mac? I surely know more developers who own a Mac than any web-facebook-itunes-email guys.

Talk to some Rails developers, I will bet my nuts that none of the experts, ninjas, you name it are developing on a Mac.
To respond to that challenge, we recently launched a redesigned document-level classifier that makes it harder for spammy on-page content to rank highly

When is recently?

We’ve also radically improved our ability to detect hacked sites

Since when; all the complaints I have read are from the last few weeks, and when I looked up a medical complaint this week?

And we’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower

Oh, are you now? Of course... Translation 'We are looking into it'. D'uh.

that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content

This last part is the only datum I got from the article - they explicitly respond to stack overflow, etc... It is still fluff though.

What I would have preferred:
I made a change on 2011-01-15 and you should see it here, here, and here. 'Here' can be broadly defined.
Finite formula found for partition numbers
Smaller competitors can't eat their lunch in web search, because all the content that was on the web is now on Wikipedia, YouTube, or Google Maps. Personally, I search these directly from the address bar. For the past four years I've only had two use cases for web search:
1. as a spell checker for proper nouns (and before Alpha, as a calculator)
2. to circumvent paywalls on scholarly papers by doing filetype:pdf on the title (works better than Scholar most of the time).
There are a couple of wikis already up. At the risk of showing people a project I'm not ready to launch yet, here's a list of general libraries of information (a meta-wiki of wikis):

http://christopherliu.net/startup-wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Encyclop...
> It may result in a small penalty

Especially considering they did register their copyright on Java 5. I know because I have read the court exhibits.
Slighty different take on this idea

http://whobuilt.it/
If it's massively multiplayer then I think you're better off exploring economics than game theory. Try these:
http://smartech.gatech.edu/bitstream/handle/1853/31657/bilir...
http://www.gamestudies.org/0302/castronova/
I want a nice, high-quality laptop or smartphone with hardware designed by the very best, and good production values from start to finish.

I can't really get that from anyone but Apple. I've got a Thinkpad, but even that very nice machine is in a lower class of industrial design compared to Apple products. Likewise, my HTC Incredible is a great phone, but bits of it are clearly of lower quality than my friends' iPhone 4s.

That's why some of Apple's practices annoy me-- because they're so damn good at everything else, they tempt me anyway.
I don't believe no one has created a FF plugin for expert sex change (yet)!!

Edit: Even a GM script to remove all the leading spammy divs would do...
He doesn't need more than 50% common stock to retain control of the company. Facebook has different classes of stock. Zuckerberg has more than 50% of voting rights based on ownership of certain classes of stock.
Offer HN:  SyncMy* Domain names
Hi all. Long time lurker, been starting to get active. I was just going through my hosting account and I have a couple of decent (I think) domain names which I've never used and would be happy to give away if someone could put them to any sort of good use. These were purchased back in the beginning of '06 and I've been paying renewal fees and just don't see myself ever getting around to using them. Interested? Ping me.

syncmycalendar.com
syncmycontacts.com
syncmyemail.com
syncmyoutlook.com
syncmymusic.com
syncmyphotos.com
I think he uses the word communism to show a contrast with our current form of capitalism. In the current system established corporations keep increasing their profits while keeping the workers' wages flat since 1970. Because of computers, outsourcing, there is a surplus of workers, who generate increasing profits for the corporations. Much of the profits go to a small board of directors, who in turn use them to undermine government that was expected to look out for the workers.

Startups are a holy grail because they share profits with more workers, supposedly.

I'm just summarizing his emotionally charged lecture here, I don't fully agree with his premise, but it's an interesting perspective.
The Clock Is Set For A Facebook IPO By April, 2012
Everyone reading this post is in the top 5% in terms of computer skill

Yeah, pat yourself on the back, you're smart.

who's still getting the hang of EBay and Amazon, who
Googles URLs instead of typing them

Never used EBay, never bought anything from Amazon and I also Google for URLs from time to time ... pretty sweat if you can't remember the exact string.

techies ... mis-over-estimate the skill of the average computer user

I actually think we underestimate the "average" computer user more often than not.

Apple's products are not idiot proof. The iPhone itself does take some time before you become productive with it. But they make the learning process fun and they respect their customers enough to not make them feel like idiots.

Also, there is no such thing as an "average" computer user, as that would mean some kind of common-denominator, which would be false since all people have different personalities / skills.

I've actually never played Angry Birds.

The game is free of charge in the Android market. Search for it and click install.
Sorry, but just to be sure - am I getting it right, those emails were false-positives

Yup. For the most part, ones that I'm fine with - e.g. order confirmations from stores - but I've found the odd one in there from someone the first time they email me, most frustrating.

On the other hand, I once nearly missed out on a fun blind date after my initial email was helpfully filtered by Hotmail into the girl-in-question's spam folder. And it didn't even mention Viagra!
Here is a script that I wrote and have been using, should work on most Linux's and OSX to bootstrap a Rails Development environment. Also ensures that git is installed. You can run it with one command (after reading it's contents of course) as follows:

curl -O https://github.com/wayneeseguin/rvm/blob/master/contrib/boot... && source bootstrap_rails_environment

This automates installing the prerequisites across many Linux package management types and then bootstraps a Rails development environment using RVM.
Like I said, most of the time. No one is complaining that replies on HN aren't AJAX'd :)
I don't see how that graph is interpreted as a "crushing" -- you may as well make a graph of the sales of Techcrunch's print edition, and see who wins then. The New Yorker could have flat zero web presence and I doubt it would make very much difference to their bottom line. They sell printed pieces of paper, not page views.

It's true that there are lots of other magazines which sell many more copies; I'm just suggesting that they appear to have a lot of headroom in terms of "having a big enough market to be a profitable business."
yes, thanks (i'm missing some words on my vocabulary)
i've always thought password authentication is not the best way to be doing auth for websites. certificates seem to be the right solution, but difficult for the user to manage. (i love certs for ssh.)
>You have to divide by population

All the comparisons I mentioned do.

>once you research it you'll find PPP seems specifically formulated to make Americans feel better about themselves

Oh?

>Which country is richer is impossible to quantify in a meaningful way because it has to take into account quality of life, and being qualitative, will change per person.

I was responding to your post, in which you asserted that Sweden is richer.
I say start with the purpose and work backwards. As the good Dr. Lecter said, "First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing ask: what is it in itself? What is its nature?"

People really only use data for a few reasons - to be or take action towards pleasure, to reduce risk, save time or make money. Combine any of the following for extra points.

Why then do we love data that is socially generated or a derivative thereof? It turns out to be really good at leading to those outcomes as it communicates experiences others have actually had.

Take Amazon's 5 star rating system. A very nice graphical device that helps me lower the risk I will buy a bad product. You know what is even better? The graph showing the counts of ratings in each star. It tells so much more! I make better decisions. I don't buy anything without first checking if Amazon has a rating.

If you are going to show me a graph - it better lead to one of those outcomes and rather quickly. Once you nail down the purpose then you can decide everything else.
I admit Visual Basic is not near as cool as say Scratch, but it is pretty visual, especially when compared to BASIC. I think it was fair for Microsoft to use the term, some 20 years ago, given that visual languages at that time were called dataflow languages. Now, had they called it Dataflow Basic, I would have been pissed.
does this mean he will have to raise funding for his ideas also :-)
+1
and my perfectly non-spammy blog was rejected by them. They didn't mention the reason but I have a hunch that it was because it isn't about any one or two things. It's about a bunch of things I find interesting - both personally as well as professionally. Now, google must have found it difficult to determine what ads to show, so they just black-listed my blog for ad-puposes. Period.
You should change the button from "merge" to....something else. "Go" "See results" heck, even "submit" would be better.
I think this true cause everytime people are asking my why I use a overpriced machine they are arguing with something like this "Oh what a big deal my 300-dollar-netbook can do that too" and I say yes it can do it but not in the same way and with the same experience.
I mean this is saying something like: I could watch a great movie in IMAX 3D which would cost 16 bucks or I could just watch a mambo-cambo movie which will cost just 5 bucks. Saying that boths are movies is true but not the point. We are not going to the cinema cause we want to go to the cinema, no we are going to the cinema cause we want to watch a great movie, right?