skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
As a fan of SPs:

They offer a clean and easy (IMHO) way of making sure I've got the exact same code for common jobs encapsulated and tracked within the database. One routine to add a user (for example) which is common to all client interfaces, handles all the exceptions in exactly the same way, tracks all the security in exactly the same way. I've had my share of problems where you get an odd bug because the app has subtly different SQL for the same job in different places, which just don't happen with stored procs.

In theory you can get this benefit from any common code repository and indeed, where SPs haven't been available, I have written code with a common SQL cache held outside the database. SPs have the advantages though of being incredibly easy to update - no need for a build and deploy, you can correct the code on the live server without disturbing it almost immediately if you need - and of doing so in a way that is then fully trackable by the database itself. I can easily query the information schema to find all procedures that reference a certain object that haven't been updated in the last week, for example.

They've also got security benefits. It's common practice in some areas to lock the tables down completely and restrict access to purely through SPs by permission, which can offer major benefits because you've got far greater control over what user accounts can do what to your database.

They're not perfect and I agree they're not portable (though in practice I've needed that very, very rarely) but I find the benefits hugely outweigh the downsides and will pull a face if told not to use them because it's simpler just to treat the database like a slightly funny version of Excel (or words to that effect, which I have had and don't get me started...!)
Is this manually curated, or are you querying extension permissions from the app store?

I've got an extension that combines the collapsible threads with the ability to highlight new comments. However, I never did put it in the chrome extension directory. It's available here:
http://hckrnews.com/about.html
My challenge now is to grow the userbase of MetaExtension itself, otherwise this would become one of those forgotten apps and fail to fulfill its promise. Besides just throwing the app out there on the Chrome store and hoping for installs, I'm also trying to create linkbait-type pages targeted to certain websites. I did one for Digg and HN now as first tests. Digg was total failure, not one person besides myself even clicked the link.
Traditionally (and to this day) mobile connection providers don’t want to become ‘mere’ data pipes, as it becomes difficult to differentiate yourself from competitors. To this end the mobile companies have been furiously ‘value-adding’ for the past 15 years (given a certain definition of value). In the UK at least this has lead to operator branded phones, an operator defined catalogue of phones available to buy, operator ‘enhanced’ phone firmware, operator apps, highstreet operator-run shops and plenty more failed projects including music stores, walled content gardens, etc etc.
Yeah it says so in the blog post. Which I just realized you are the author of.
Manually curating now, I look at a list where new submissions arrive and click accept / deny after checking that the submission seems to work and isn't of lower quality than some submission from before. I think having several apps that do exactly the same thing isn't very beneficial.
Venture Capital Deal Buzz: Mc10
Why Twitter outguns Facebook in Japan
Want to Startup America, fund Mega Projects and R&D not more web apps
My Date With The Aesthetician
Metaphors and analogies are good tools for conveying subtler meanings that may not be evident at first sight.
I've been involved with the SAP implementations there. You wouldn't believe how poor the off-shoring quality is there. One of the guys in Malaysia once said (paraphrased) "This data warehouse is too complicated to support so we need you to put more documentation together".

EDIT: I will say this, they've utilized Microsoft Communicator to the max. All conferences are done VoIP and its been extremely successful. It makes a 24/7 around the remote globe support cycle quite efficient, especially for a large company.
It's like a movie: instead of sitting down for two hours in front of the screen, after buying your ticket the seller could just tell you what happens at the end. There, you just saved yourself two hours of time you could spend productively.
Partially. It's one of many factors used in ranking websites, of course, that only applies to the default international search, if you select "results in x country" the local TLD's for that country get extra weight.
ha, not the author
Ahh, I just assumed since you have that site in your about. Do you own it?
co-founder, yup
These are what I call real startups. Many of them are imaginative and solve real customer needs. I hope that many of them can grow into thriving businesses.

One point that I think is interesting is that even though they're all "offline" businesses, most were started with very little capital investment.

I sometimes get the feeling that the HN crowd is a bit (understandably) myopic and focuses too much on simplistic websites. But I believe that more articles like this, which showcase business ideas in other fields, could be very valuable in inspiring people and getting the creative juices flowing.

There's a much bigger world out there than one might imagine!
I did a quick search if the USPTO database and the name Lugaru isn't trademarked yet. So iCoder may have a case. Best defense might be to complain that the GPL is incompatible like the VLC coder did.
Not to mention that they were introduced at the same time as Netflix launched in Canada, and the providers' own TV-over-IP services were exempt.

Caps were in place on the vast majority of Canadian connections (meaning direct customers of Bell, Telus, Rogers, Cogeco, etc) long before Netflix came to Canada. The UBB decision impacted a very small number of customers on services like TekSavvy.

Not saying it's right, but just want some context in there.

Further, I hope you can appreciate how a provider's own internet services don't carry the same demands and costs as an outside source. Though perhaps they should be forced to allow Netflix to colocate a distribution server in each of their distribution points to deal with that.
The space matters
Except that if you can partition it you can also take it down. Even if the world "kill switch" doesn't express their intent, it will still effectively be one.
Not exactly an app for Hacker News, but Printful (iPhone and iPad) includes support for multiple news aggregators, and HN is included. This is how I've been reading HN for some weeks:

http://imgur.com/a/OeAwD

Disclaimer: I'm the developer
It was often said when the National Lottery was first introduced that it's a "tax on the stupid". It's easy to see how it preys on the poor, and I've seen this first hand. When you're poor life is mostly an unhappy slog from one highly precarious situation to the next, and an infinitesimally small chance of winning even modest amounts of money seems attractive because it would mean at least temporary respite from life under a low upper bound.
Earth from Above
Not only am I interested in the product, but I'm eager to read more about the process, such as estimated timelines, margins, fulfillment times.

Can you imagine creating a startup that connects hardware craftsmanship to designers and rewards contributors in a beneficial way? Why stop at your own teams design instincts, there could be a broader opportunity you've uncovered. Cafepress like, but much more design/quality focused.
Dubai in VideoStreetView 360° immersive video mapping
They weren't particularly swift. Every other party had come out strongly against UBB while the conservatives would only say they would be "paying close attention" to the ruling.

Opposition parties are always quick in reacting because there is little to be lost. They get zero credit for that.

This was simply such a wildly unpopular decision that it would have been political suicide to support it

Again, let's be rational here- the UBB decision impacted a very small number of users (although its competitive impact may have been larger over the longer term). Further there is a political risk in taking action like this in that now the opposition has the ammo to say "Well can't you let the experts do their job? Isn't this what they're supposed to do?" (see also: Census).

It isn't as clear cut as you proclaim at all. Now Bell can intentionally cripple their pipes for a bit, blame bandwidth hogs, and the Consveratives will be in hot water.
$title ~= s/7 u/U/
It's a great looking site. You've got something good on your hands here. I wish you and your co-founders the best of luck.
thanks coderdude, drop us a line if you are ever in boston: kevin at bostinnovation.com
Your diagram there was unfortunately wrong. Swannie's variation was actually correct.

The issue here is not about the last mile. I'll say it until I'm downvoted to oblivion, but people keep restating this incorrect statement.
I created a fork of the Hacker News Chrome extension back in October to add Instapaper support for the articles (https://github.com/johnmichel/hacker-news-for-chrome).

I'm not trying to steal any thunder from the original extension. Adam (the developer of the original version) accepted my pull request almost immediately after I sent it. I'm only posting this because it looks like the one in the Chrome Web Store isn't the most up-to-date version with Instapaper support.
> no one is typing a url by hand. We use google

I type urls by hand and do CTRL+Return to add the .com and get there.

But even if everyone is using Google, a unique name like "roollr" will certainly be easier to find than "roller" that will exist in many tlds. How will your users remember that you're the .at one, and that .com or .it have nothing to do with you?

It's so much easier for everyone to use a .com

(BTW I don't know if you chose roller as a generic example, but roller.com is apparently for sale at sedo).
Nice list, hated they way they were shown.
Totally agree. The place where you work is important, everything has his part - the light, the smell, the way you've arranged the furniture.

I hate the concept of workspace without windows, unfortunately this seems to be the norm in North America, at least here in Canada this is what we usually get.
Congratulations!

Also, YC S05, we are in 2011. Work hard, play for the long run, listen to your customers. Go through the lows and the highs, never stop, for nearly 6 years. This what I take from this story :)
Ask HN: When would you do when a big company "breaches contract"
Lets assume you have a royalty and IP agreement on a specific product
with one of the world's two biggest companies (According to Forbes
2010). You've been trying to come to some sort of IP buyout
arrangement for 6 months. At the eleventh hour you find out
informally from a mate that they have already licensed that software
without honouring the royalty. The buyout terms you've previously
said "look perfect" have a clause that renders the agreement "null
and void from the outset" - you haven't signed. You spend 7 days of
dead wall correspondence trying to work out if they have done the
dodgy. However, very senior management decline to confirm it.
You've spent 7 days trying to find a good law firm that doesn't have a
'conflict' in representing you.

Assume:

* they played hardball in the original negotiations and took
you down from a fair price of 100 * x to 50 * x and then much lower.

* they are in "Fundamental breach of Contract" and you are thinking of
suing for punitive damages (assume this is possible).

What is your aim for a settlement?

1) Push for a 100 * x settlement.

2) Push for punitive damages (i.e. risk going to court) even if you
don't feel you deserve the money.

3) Take them for everything.

4) Don't play hardball, they'll find a way to screw you.

5) Other.

Note: You meet with your legal representation for the first time tomorrow.
Since then you've been on your own (whilst trying to find a good firm that
doesn't have a conflict).

I'm interested in
getting a feeling for how hard you would push. My culture is not one
that seeks too much revenge, justice is enough. Do other cultures
feel the same?

What are peoples' balance points between justice, punishment, revenge, greed and renumeration? How would you justify taking more than you actually deserve?
> Your assertion Bing is most likely to be accurate about Bing ignores self-interest and spin.

We can't apply skepticism to one source and not the other. Either Google and Bing are not blogging with self-interest and spin - and thus Bing are more trustworthy because they're blogging about themselves, or they both are blogging with self-interest and spin - and still Bing are more trustworthy because they're blogging about themselves.

You just can't legitimately discount what Bing say because of self-interest and spin without also discounting what Google say for the same reasons.

> The query "happening" to be in the URL has no "search > result" meaning without a parser being told to look for Google's particular keyword query indicators and correlate the subsequent page.

No. remove non-alpha from entire URL with no preconception about search queries or any of that. You're left with "google com search q QUERYTERM". All the words apart from QUERYTERM has plenty of other signals in Bing's system. If QUERYTERM is a highly unusual word then all Bing have to go on is the data they gleaned from Google.
>in a future version, I hope to sandbox `<script>` to minimize the potential impact

I have basically the same issue. If I manage to find a solution for it, I'll keep you posted.

See http://simpliwiki.com/simplijs/DoAngularScriptExample where I basically copy/pasted your example.
tried that. failed at it. asked my girlfriend to change my facebook password. clicked the 'forgot password' link 2 days later.
Energy Harvesting - wireless power for electronics
The way the Norwegian law sounds is that the claim gives Sony an automatic temporary injunction while the matter is clarified, which doesn't seem completely unreasonable.

The question then would be on who is it incumbent to prove whether an infringement took place or not, and whether there is a penalty for making false claims.
Y SIN EMBARGO magazine » hypomnεsıs, jef safi: yse #26
I must be really sleepy. I clicked on the article thinking ... 20 million "dollar businesses" ... wtf? Parse Error. Need more caffeine.
You wouldn't. Redis doesn't support implementing an LRU cache. Redis does function well as a cache, and is far better than memcached for any data you don't want randomly disappearing, but it just doesn't do an LRU cache.

Redis will only evict data when it's explicitly removed or expired, and it will store as much data as you put into it.

memcached will evict the least-recently used data based upon memory pressure, and will only use as much memory as you configure it to.

They overlap in functionality, but I find they work better in complement to each other than having one replace the other. Redis for data you want to persist, possibly with a timeout -- user sessions, for example. memcached for data you want to cache, as long you have the free memory for it.
>> No notion of the hard work (and natural talent) required

No, no, that's not true. What he suggest to his readers, like low carb diet, or no-news diet is quite a hard work.
I'm giving this a go, though I must admit it feels weird not to have the time to glance up to - so I'm not sure how long I'll last.

Perhaps all those souls brave/stupid enough to try this should all meet back up in a week to discuss? :) We can share stories of missed appointments and accidental late nights into the early hours, before we realize the time and disappear off to bed cursing the OP :D
This really depends on your target audience and your marketing strategy (if you have one).

The techie audience should have problem remember a non .com, and be comfortable accessing it, other may not.

If you're planning on doing non-online advertising then its more important to have a .com, as people will have to remember the url and type it in at a later date. If you plan on doing stuff online then people click on stuff and it becomes less important.
Small businesses move rapidly into the Cloud for their Accounting needs
The author seems to be a fan of conspiracy theories.

I don't think Apple will take such a drastic measure, after all with rise of the Android, Apple will want his coders happy and not under draconic measures. They will do what is best for their business.
For Windows Phone 7 there's "News for Hackers" my OSS app http://hackernews.codeplex.com/
...a "tax on the stupid". It's easy to see how it preys on the poor...

This is a sentiment I hear often. Yet whenever one suggests that "stupid" might apply to more than just the lottery and might even be a cause of "poor", one is treated as an evil and unsympathetic person. It's a dichotomy I can't wrap my head around.

A question: do the poor actually live in a precarious situation in the UK? I was under the impression that the UK has extremely generous handouts which made working more or less optional for many people. (This is a genuine question, I don't know how the welfare state works in the UK beyond vague American stereotypes.)
This list forgot my favorite: http://ihackernews.com
Sock subscriptions - what an awesome idea!
I couldn't agree more. One situation I'm using redis for is loads of writes (fast ones) from a rails app.

Because this data adds up and I later need to query / report on it, I'm taking it out of redis after it reaches a certain age (every night) and bulk inserting (archiving) it into postgresql with a bit of aggregation. This gives me the advantage of super fast writes using redis, but also super fast SQL queries for reports that don't have to be real time.

This is probably more hassle than you want to deal with for most situations, but when you do need those fast writes, and you're not super concerned if you lose some data if the server craps out, it seems to be a nice fit.

I'm very happy with the performance so far.
I use this for my iPhone (4):

http://michaelgrinich.com/hackernews/

I enjoy the UI. There's no way to see your settings in it (at least, that I have found)- like to check the threads on which you are commenting and what-not, but for a reader it's nice- and you can comment and vote also.
They just got 20 times the amount of page views though. If they provided a list that means you could have skipped through and decreased their page views.
Next gen banking malware emerges after Zeus
Another good presentation like this was done by AdaFruit, the open source hardware company. The founder and an editor at Make: pinged 13 OSH vendors and found in aggregate they were doing $50MM a year in revenue. I'm fairly impressed by it considering they are mostly 1-3 person operations.

http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2010/05/03/million-dollar-baby-...
Mobile Cheatsheets for iPhone, Android and Blackberry App Development
2=x^x^x^x... cannot be solved, since x^x^x^x... will only converge to 0 (if x=0) or 1 (0<x<=1) or -1 (x=-1), ignoring complex numbers. So the original equation is false.
As a general rule, shorter URLs are more memorable, better for SEO, and better for social sharing.

Memorable: 7 letters or less is best, 9 is still manageable, and anything more than 9 calls for misspelling, too long to type, etc. I personally believe that a 2-word 12 characters name is better than a 5 letter weirdo name or random characters, but I haven't seen a study to support that.

SEO: the URL shown in google SERPs plays in a role in clickthrough rate. A shorter domain name means more of the URL will be shown, as many services limits the maximum number of characters shown.

Social sharing: same as above, short and meaningful domain names are more likely to get clicks and be shared again than a URL that passed through bit.ly and friends. Doesn't apply as much to twitter, but think email, facebook, linkedin.
There is another startup like that in Boston called "ManPacks". A subscription service for socks, tshirts, etc. I thought it was a kind of dumb idea, but if that sock revenue number is real they are onto something big!

http://www.manpacks.com/
Do you hate people (and especially managers) overusing positive words?
That's two. ;) And I'd argue that bit.ly has a special advantage in the confusing-silly-suffix department, being a service that appeals mostly to (a) relatively sophisticated people who know about URLs -- they know what URLs are, and they know that a short URL is better, and they know that one URL can redirect to another -- and (b) robots that shorten URLs automatically and that are very good at remembering arbitrary rules.

Can we name any other prominent examples of non-dot-com stardom? The poster child of the cutesy URL movement, delicio.us, dropped the idea halfway through its rise to, um, near-death and relative obscurity at the hands of Yahoo. So I'm not sure they're a very promising example. Any other big stars? What am I missing?
Football Industry just need to tighten their contracts to ensure that people stick to selling in their regions.
The issue is that a Spanish company has sold a box to a British pub.

Instead of territorial argument with the other broadcaster, Sky decided to take legal action against the pub operator.
Bing versus Google, some observations
I use wvl's extension (hckr news), and it's awesome, especially the "new comments highlighting" feature.
Three quick things off the top of my head:

First and most important, you should probably take this post down right now. Whether or not you have a confidentiality agreement of any sort with this company, saying bad things about an "anonymous" major player--which could be just one of two companies--exposes you to potential liability and a headache that you do not want to deal with. I put no research into this, it's just my immediate opinion.

Second, ordinarily you cannot recover punitive damages for a breach of contract. You can recover actual damages and sometimes (rarely) attorneys' fees and costs.

Third, the size of the law firm is proportional only to the fees you will be charged--fees that you probably will not be able to recover. More important that office size and advertising budget, make sure that you get along with your lawyer, trust him or her, and be certain that the lawyer has adequate resources to handle your dispute--which sounds pretty basic. You do not need a firm capable of litigating a federal antitrust prosecution or a multi-party international-trade dispute. Focus on the lawyer, not the brand.

Good luck.
OkCupid was always one big inside joke. That line is just part of it

And it may rotate now, but it didn't used to, years ago. I distinctly remember it saying Match.com and nothing else.
Along with convergence not being identity, any time you start playing with infinity, and then pretend that (∞-1 = ∞) you know that you are looking at a proof with problems…
I made a chrome extension to sort posts by points. Updated it recently to allow for automatic sorting. Hope anyone finds it as useful as I do.

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/anmdmfcnlenkjbif...
Startups And Investors To Rock GeeknRolla, March 30, London
> whatever happens to unused electicity?

Re-orient your thinking a little and it will make sense. We're talking AC systems (not a SWER) so it is a closed-loop as far as the electricity is concerned. The electricity doesn't go anywhere, it constantly oscillates. What you are actually generating in a meta sense is ability to do work. You are overcoming the electrical resistance from all those users' machines doing work.

Does that analogy help?
What Separates Startup Men from Boys [The P word]
revenue != profit.

take the Fiero guy...sure 2 mil is impressive...but car parts are expensive...and his profit margin is most likely only 7%(seems to be the average for car parts)...which turns his 2 mil into $140K.
Microsoft's Bing versus Google, some observations