skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Interesting that your chosen alternative was a laptop rather than a netbook. Along those lines, if you think in terms of the evolution of personal computers as desktop -> laptop -> netbook -> tablet, that last step is a puzzler.

If you take the author's 10 reasons and strip out the stuff that's a retread of previous products ("Look, it's portable! And OMG you can watch movies!") it seems to me you're left with one key point: the user interface makes it fun & easy to use. I don't think it's an accident that the only two tablet platforms that look viable so far, Apple and Android, are based on years of usability testing in the smartphone arena. Tablets may be computers inside, but in terms of product design they're consumer entertainment devices.
There was, and is, a lot of FUD about the HL2 leak. One of the confusing factors is that there were actually multiple leaks - at first it was "they just stole some code which no one can get to compile" and by the end it was "there are playable levels". Basically everything Valve had at the time was leaked it seemed - there was a huge amount of assets, a fairly complete engine, multiple levels including bits of the now-infamous E3 demonstration.

The reason it was delayed is, quite simply, that it was nowhere near ready, and I think this would have happened with or without the leak. Valve aren't exactly renowned for releasing on time, there's no way they would have released an unpolished game just for the sake of a deadline.
Leave it as-is. I'm not quite sure how the power balance in the iPad ecosystem is, but if Apple needs Amazon more than Amazon needs Apple, they may be able to force a deal. Especially if Amazon communicates with its users about why the app is threatened if Apple is killing it.

Also, though, the cost isn't just the Apple surcharge. It's the cost of changing their sales and distribution system to support sales through third-parties. Basically, Apple is asking Amazon to change the way they do business. That's not a very good deal for Amazon.
Both to scratch an itch, and the hope for financial gain.
> The problem in all this is not with the concept of patents or copyright but that the way it works in practice is to enable the powerful to squash small innovators who are actually doing useful stuff.

If an idea can't work in practice then doesn't that make it a bad idea regardless of how pretty it is?
This reminds me of hunch.
I think the lesson from this guy is that you should invest your time in a clone/copy website in a different country and by copying someone's idea, you'll get funded. Not being snarky, but just look how many times he uses clone in his article.
Abstract (I can't access the paper) mentions aerobic exercise training and lessened memory loss. But I like the title.
"the DRM goes away in most cases."
It seems to me tough that music is the exception to the rule.
Computer games mostly have some form of copy protection.
Most computer programs have copy protection, minimally with a serial number, many with activation schemes.
One of the "features" of web applications is that it's practically impossible to pirate them.
How can we know that ebooks will be any different?
Not as much as I should.

Yes and yes. But I don't spend any/enough effort on them.

Very. I live in a pretty remote low-population part of the USA. The people I want to work with will probably only ever get to know me online, until I move somewhere more in line with my goals. Offline presence is important, too, but there's not much opportunity for that here outside of the 3 or 4 possible programmer workplaces.
Google reader has the "Recommended Items" feature that's pretty close to what you're describing here.
RootsTech: The History of Your Family is in the Future
If you didn't click the speaker icon in the upper right, do it!
His reasoning may be fallacious but his conclusion is correct - Far Cry 2 is a terrible, terrible game. I actually quite enjoyed Far Cry and Crysis though, YMMV.
I see netbooks all the time. I'm the only person wandering around the local coffee shops with an iPad.
Doesn't surprise me. Intel consider the ARM as a gnat on their x86 empire. Sold off their ARM division to Marvell. They will reap what they sown. Smartphones are the new PC.
This is a great question. I've been spending a lot of time recently building a personal landing page, getting more established on public social media, etc. It's incredibly time consuming and I feel really torn - I'd much rather be learning new tools and languages. However, I've definitely gotten the impression that if I can't somehow advertise the tools and languages that I already know, I may as well not bother. Offline presence is also really important - but I recently turned up to a meetup without any business cards to swap and won't ever make that mistake again.

I moved from an academic background in the UK to the startup world in California, so I feel like I've been born naked into a new world. I didn't even use my Twitter account until recently. I'd like to hear from some "veterans" about this - who has gotten a real impact as a result of their self-marketing efforts?
Mojave: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/29/vista_taste_test_cha...

They didn't change Vista at all for it, though.
That is what copyright is for, not patenting. If someone doesn't have a license to distribute your code, you can collect damages for copyright infringement.

But patenting covers independent inventions of the same algorithms. And it's frequently used for ideas that are profoundly obvious, like a straightforward application of machine learning techniques to a particular data set (Bilski). So if you think of an idea by yourself, you can be sued for implementing it.

As a developer, it is recommended that I not read patents, as if it is determined that I read a patent that I then violated, it will be triple damages in a lawsuit. So I have no way to avoid implementing somebody else's patent.

Now Sony's lawsuit isn't about software, or patents. It is about certain special secret integers. It so happens that used with readily available software they blow a wide hole in Sony's horrible security system for the PS3.

But Sony doesn't own those integers. It doesn't own the hardware it sold to people under pretenses that it would always run Linux, and it doesn't have the right to control how people would choose to use their hardware and GPU. Hotz never used PSN software or any of Sony's other products.
You are right, in that this act would exclude folks who want to quit their H1B jobs here and start a startup and are not yet at a stage where they can be funded, or do not want to raise funding.

However, if the startup visa act were to remove any filtering requirements for startups, the effect would be a huge spate of tens of thousands of folks who want to open shops, ebay stores or gardening businesses applying along with the single founders of scalable startups - and no one would get a visa in time. The only other 'right' way of fixing this is having the USCIS adjudicate the scalability of business for everyone that applies. That process is hard to scale.

Edit: Actually, I forgot - there may be another way. Some other countries have made the process objective instead which makes it scalable, but introduces other filters. For example, Canada uses a points based system where you get points for education, work experience in your field, fluency with languages etc. If you get past a threshold, you get a (relatively) quick interview and permit on the spot.

Note that a points based system may exclude a young, college dropout founder with no experience. In other words - a plurality of YC founders. May be you could make it either/or - raise investment, or get enough points based on your profile.
I just forked Moonshine and added a patch for this: https://github.com/jarinudom/moonshine

If you're already running ree187 with Moonshine, just install that fork and run 'cap ruby:upgrade' to update to the latest version (or wait until it gets merged into https://github.com/railsmachine/moonshine).

Edit: Oops, I forgot it's in a branch on my fork, so you'll have to do something like

$ rails plugin install git@github.com:jarinudom/moonshine.git -r ree187-2011.01
> but IP law is what ensures someone can't hack into your files, steal your proprietary "innovative" programming and re-sell copies of it as their own to the customers you were planning to.

I'm pretty sure breaking into someone's computer system like that is illegal regardless of IP laws, and history appears to show that understanding what you're selling gives a rather large advantage.
"Let's take Android. It's something new and the world is loving it. So what happened once it became a hit? Patent and copyright infringement lawsuits up the kazoo. Is that going to encourage innovation? And it's not just Android. It's any successful technical product. They all have to spend millions in litigation. And it's a drain on the economy too, because when the plaintiffs win, that money isn't a win for innovation, not when the law allows patents to be owned and litigated by entities that make nothing at all but litigation.

See what I mean? When the law overprotects, it kills innovation. That's what protection means. It means protection from innovation. Let's call a spade a spade."

Amen.
And the backup plan: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6168696/Spoon.net_-_Sandboxe...
Why are article titles on the web so disconnected from the contents of the posts ?

This title to me meant "Scientists are complaining that greater availability of data is making it harder to do research."

Instead it turns out the post is about scientists losing data due to not having places/formats for storing it.

I have trouble understanding how someone thought this was a good title for this post. Are titles being chosen simply to maximize click rates ?
I'm not sure how wise this was. I couldn't resist the Half-Life 2 leak, and it did actually detract from my experience of the final game. It was buggy, crashed a lot, many of the levels were completely untextured or unscripted, but there was enough dialogue already in the game to spoil the plot. I agree it could use a more pleasant rewrite, but in their position I would want to put people off playing the leak for that reason alone.

Oh, and they have made a demo - it's been out on the 360 for a couple of weeks I think.
One of the major reasons that Nokia lost to the iPhone is that Nokia never respected their external developers. Its the apps that really give the iPhone its staying power against Nokia phones.

Nokia (at least internally) acknowledge that mistake, but it seems like they've learned nothing since they've essentially done it again. Which is a huge shame because they have made some great products and MeeGo looked like another one.
Correct, didn't think that sounded ambiguous.
Most non-US investments I make have US educated founders, mostly from Stamford and Harvard business schools.

Also, it's safer to invest in copies of American concepts rather than innovative concepts.

Moreover, the entrepreneurs you back refer you to other entrepreneurs...

I also lived in many countries and speak a few languages which helps...

Fabrice
They call it "Chaos" in this video, but the correct short name would be "CCC".
Where I live you honestly can't say that diet stunts people's growth. That would apply in places where food isn't readily available, but certainly not in the western world. From looking at people I know I can tell you too, that the differences in muscle size is more related to how much muscle they had before going to the gym than how much time they spend there.

Can you start going to the gym and get stronger than your friends who don't go? No. Out of 10 friends maybe you'll pass 1 or 2 of them in strength, but that's it. That is what I have seen but I'd say it is pretty far from what you suggest.
Great post, Jon. This mix of tenacity/hustle/risk can't be learn. DNA.

After reading this I'm even more excited to be an investor
Every Phone Looks Like The iPhone
A SAC existed in original series as well, in the form of all the copycats of the Laughing Man, who never existed in the first place.
Ugh! Why not use ie 9 instead?
I think he's looking for qualitative, and not quantitative, data. Saying "a good number of people build webapps for reason X" from the results of this survey is okay, saying "Y% of people build webapps for reason X" is not.
In addition, Microsoft made great development platforms available for their programmers, for free.

Apple never really cared about their developers, which is evident in the way they are treating them.
Ask HN: any luck using admob ppc for free app?
I am thinking of spending a bit in Admob to jumpstart my free app downloads. Can anyone here share any best practices/tips etc.? Or share your story of success/not so successful
This was really cool. It just goes to show you what an experienced programmer with the proper understanding of the tools can accomplish. He right away zeroed in on the blocking nature of certain operations and "erlangized" it, making the entire thing almost as fast as git-daemon.
Interesting. Somehow, I had never heard of South. Thanks!

For others like me, from http://south.aeracode.org/docs/about.html

South brings migrations to Django applications. Its main objectives are to provide a simple, stable and database-independent migration layer to prevent all the hassle schema changes over time bring to your Django applications.
Oops, sorry about that. Thanks for letting me know.
You are exaggerating. Sure many talks have people speaking english with a very noticable accent or trouble speaking clearly (due to lack of experience or because they are very excited), so what. As long as you can understand the content, I welcome any ugly english.
There's a difference between significance and buzz. Netbooks were refinements of the laptop at a better price point. I don't think either category is going away anytime soon. Heck, given that even netbooks let you drive a desktop widescreen display, it's astonishing that desktop machines are still kicking around.

I'm obviously not a member of the iPad's target audience -- they can have my keyboard when they can pry my cold dead fingers from it, etc. But I appreciate the appeal of computers that can be held in one hand. Over the years I've had several mini-laptops (anyone remember the Toshiba Librettos or the Sony Picturebooks?) In most respects the netbook has hit the sweet spot for me.
I don't know... Hearing you say that you expect a drastically reduced cut for in-app purchases sounds like a move Facebook might make to become a ubiquitous PayPal type entity.

I really don't think Apple would let people get away with such a little surcharge within their walled garden.
Electrified sand, Exploding balloons: The long history of weather manipulation
As the site made clear, these are useful for developers that want a quick way to test that their site works in multiple older versions of IE.
So I have been known to make the claim that the next great re-flowering of tech will begin in 2015 and grow solidly through 2020. I base that claim on the observation that patent silliness really ramped up in 1995 and grew exponentially to 2000, those patents expire between 2015 and 2020. And while technology overwhelmed the ability of patent examiners to credibly evaluate its novelty or newness, that doesn't matter once the patent is now public domain.
Ditto. It's a great feeling to see an application that I've coded actually do what it's supposed to do. My second favorite thing is when an error message disappears.
ECloudEdit Part 2: CouchDB
Part 2 of the eCloudEdit of Erlang, Webmachine and Backbone.js
Times change. The relative cost of a compare is considerably higher now than it was in 1978, thanks to the cost of branch (mis)predictions.

It's entirely possible that a modification which was a significant loss in 1978 is a significant gain in 2008.
Mobile is different because people have to pay for bandwidth
Like most open source projects, this has good intentions, good technology, and a terrible design.

> Form follows function.

Apple begs to differ, and they have been extremely successful thanks to their philosophy. Form very often shapes function and it's at the core of a product's usability.

When designing something as complex as a car, form and function need to be equally considered every step of the way.
>We spend much time perfecting irrelevant papers to get them through peer review.

Maybe stop publishing irrelevant papers? Admitted, academia has serious problems. The solution isn't open source though.

Building a collaborative framework around research would be great, but solidarity and small group research will continue to be the primary drivers of innovative research.
The Reality of Teaching in a Small School in the Bronx
Nokia is going to get licenses for WP7 at essentially zero cost from Microsoft.
"It's HP's iPad." - Apple's total dominance in mind share
The more you code, especially in mobile, the more you realize that there is a better way of doing things. It's ok to throw away old code and start over. That's part of the fun. Otherwise, we'd be copy and paste monkeys. I've personally gone through six or seven iterations of how to deal with UITableViews.

Watch the WWDC sessions. Or if you do Android, watch the Google I/O sessions and study their methods. It's fascinating and interesting to learn from people whose main passion (and day job) is making app code more efficient, more responsive, or a better user experience.

WWDC10 session #104 "Designing Apps with Scroll Views" is an amazing look into how Apple's own Application Engineers make iOS apps. You may not ever work for Apple (most people aspire but probably won't) but engineering code like they do will be a subtle way to differentiate your product from the unwashed apps out there.

The more you learn about design, the more valuable you will be. The best coder I know is a better designer. And that is saying something. Strive to be a better designer than coder and eventually things will balance out. Anyone can code - that is a commodity - but being able to code and craft a beautiful user experience - that is something quite rare.

Good luck and keep going, do it for the journey not for the paycheck! Even if you don't get paid, it's an investment that will pay off.
Nokia uses Apple’s iMovie to produce their Microsoft Partnership video
I'd be willing to bet that this attitude in young people is greatly influenced by the constant hammering of media produced for young people on the point that IP violation is a crime that will get you put in prison.

Disney makes a lot of the entertainment for young people in America. They harp a lot on piracy being a crime that gets you arrested immediately, regardless of the truth - I don't watch a lot of Disney, but I can think of two instances right off the top of my head, one being an episode of iCarly, and the other being Minute Men, a made-for-TV movie my kids and I watched last night on Netflix.
Appreciate the comment. Will definitely check out the podcast.
"If you don't narrow enough, on specific topics, you let irrelevant data in to the results, if you narrow too much, you cut out posts that were tangential but possibly even more relevant."

I like Amazon's recommendation engine, but I'm surprised when I check out suggested future releases and get no more than a single page. I'm interested in a whole lot of things, and I think my purchase history and such would support that, but for whatever reason Amazon sometimes doesn't show me very much.

I'm guessing it's a side-effect of also marking some items as "not interested", with the software unable to make reasonable distinctions between likes and dislikes.

It's not uncommon, for example, to start getting recommendations for damn near every new DVD release simply because I put a DVD into my wish list. As if liking "a movie" == "liking movies" => "show all movies."

But if I then mark "Saw XII" as "not interested" it infers "does not like movies." Or something; it's hard to tell.

The absence of metadata in my choices make this quite hard. I like some rock music, but probably dislike most of it. Same for electronica or folk or whatever. Discerning just what I like about this or that artist or piece is hard, even for me. Same goes for books and movies. There are clearly common threads, but deducing them is non-trivial.

In many ways I like the same music and art I liked 20 years ago, but I don't always like the same musicians or artists, nor do I always like hearing or seeing things represented or presented in the same way. So, it's the same, but different.

For example, I loved "Metal Box"-era Public Image Ltd., but do not want to listen to "Metal Box" forever; I want to know what is the 2011 equivalent of "Metal Box". But that requires understanding current musical norms and conventions, not just the tonal and rhythmic qualities of a particular album.

The whole "When are two things the same?" question is at the root of AI, and a seriously tough nut to crack.
If phones are destined to become nothing more than screens, then a heads-up display in a pair of glasses is practically all you need (plus a little 'pebble' in your hand with a couple of scrolls/buttons to interface with it).
Fred Wilson Explains Why He Wouldn’t Invest In Groupon Or Pandora
Gillmor Gang 2.12.11 (TCTV)
"The only possible issue here is the non-public domain content, so that is what I mentioned."

The point is that if copyright were 14 + 14 years instead of life plus 70 years, then everything published before 1997 or 1983 would be public domain, instead of only content published before 1926. This means that there would be exponentially more public domain material that could be added to Wikipedia, so not only is copyright term not a red herring, it's basically the central issue.
You have just been shown an amazing invention: the BWT. Rather than dismiss it and the entire field of performance obsessed people that find it more useful than any hash based algorithm, perhaps you should study it. The speculation in your comment is laughable, from a cluster costing double digit dollar difference over a single machine, to sequence data being used in forensic DNA. Sure, you throw around some introductory jargon that may fool an outsider into thinking you know what you're talking about, and that's why I'm bothering to comment so that no one is deceived.

BWT =~ suffix tree with far far greater memory efficiency
Yup, it's like hunch but for feeds.
In the best case it means a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, which I don't have. Hence, not too inspired to innovate there.

I'm transitioning my career from commercial software development to data security research/hacking. There's appreciation for innovation there, the business models are new and fluid and the lawyers haven't figured out how to attack them yet.
MPEG LA puts Google's WebM video format VP8 under patent scrutiny
His point is that current IP laws prevent anything from entering the public domain, so that they can become equally useful someday.
they needed an iOS alternative/killer and they wanted to kill it fast as possible =)
and open/free because there are weren't other open/free platforms..
The difference between this approach and the ones that startups have been trying (I see a lot of them) is that this idea will work. They've been trying to create something that works for everyone. This approach only works for people who actively forward or retweet links.
>sells something

Something electronically distributed. If you buy a physical book via amazon, then they do not.

Actually amazon should make a "Screw the apple tax" bumper sticker, sell that and include various free kindle books with purchase of the bumper sticker.
In Egypt, Will an Economic Revolution Follow?
David Key of Fresno: From 3D to Reality 
David Key Fresno, president of Virtual Engineering seen to the right, is directing workers to the details of a custom waterfall being built within the Fresno Acura dealership.
The IE7.exe wont run on my system (Win7 x64)