skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
What the article actually says is:

> Not to mention the fact that users have built up libraries of dozens of applications and DRM-laden content that won’t transfer between devices.

What you say is (emphasis added):

> The article makes another great point about people not being able to leave iOS devices for a competitor because all their music, movies, apps, etc are in Apple's DRM format and won't transfer to other devices.

Music is DRM-free on iTunes and has been for some time. TV shows and movies are another matter and have other issues (such as only one download), which is why I won't buy them from there.

But it's not Apple demanding DRM. It's the content producers, who are still until the woeful delusion that DRM prevents copying. In reality it simply annoys customers. The only reason music is DRM-free on iTunes is because Apple extracted that concession as part of a deal that gave the RIAA three pricing bands for songs ($0.69, $0.99 and $1.29, which basically means $1.29 for anything new) over the previous model, which was $0.99 for everything.
I see. I bear you no ill will. I just happened to one day start seeing LOTS of osdir and markmail results in my searches. And it's not even that I mind what osdir does (I did find answers there), but that it's UI is worse than the original site and I feel that the originals should be given higher weight.
I only skimmed the article, but my understanding was that they're using long polling to connect the clients to the message queue. In that case, using node.js and socket.io (as swanson suggested) could considerably reduce the number of concurrent connections since clients with WebSocket or Flash support wouldn't need to hold connections open waiting on publish events.

That approach isn't unique to node.js, of course, but the combination of node.js and socket.io would be a valid way to improve scalability [0, Fig. 3] of most any app relying on long polling.

[0] http://websocket.org/quantum.html
I'm considering the same for a similar application and am interested in your overall impressions of this method? Am place we can hedge and spend time to improve the process? Does up charges/credits in cycle work well?
"We can pop a magazine in the post to subscribers for significantly less than that."

To paraphrase Tannenbaum, do not underestimate the bandwidth of a truck full of magazines, speeding on the highway.
Frankly, it makes sense to print Printable Document Format documents while showing a user HTML and taking advantage of HTML's features, notably javascript and net use. Of course Adobe put both of those features in, but it's not at the same quality that a native browser implementation can provide.
yes, make it work first!
I think it's a market which has lots of niches, for example a non-US centric blog, or one which focuses on particular types of startups.
I originally qualified that a lot more, but it read awkwardly, so I shortened it and assumed people would know what I meant. I'm sorry if it bothers you that much. Is the new wording better?
> all their music, movies, apps, etc are in Apple's DRM format and won't transfer to other devices.

Music on iOS devices isn't DRMed and hasn't been for some time. If your new device can't play m4a files this is a separate issue and you can transcode them just like if you had a pile of drm-free WMAs.

Apps are DRMed but even if they weren't it'd be irrelevant unless a WINE-analogue for iOS came about (and consider the time-scale this would take and performance issues, etc. UIKit is non-trivial). I can't move an Android app onto my iPhone either, despite its lack of DRM, and whether the blocker is legal or technical is irrelevant. The real problem isn't that a user can't move their 99c iOS whatever-app to their new android phone, it's that they can't find or don't know how to find or can't be bothered finding equivalent app(s) for their new phone. Leaving aside the whole question of relative top-tier application quality on the platforms.

Movies, I don't know the behaviour here. Do people collect big libraries of apple DRM-ed movies, enough to keep them stuck to a phone? TV episodes I could see, but those strike me as more disposable in any case.

What is the 'etc' in "music, movies, apps, etc"? It's not your photos. It's not your emails. It's not your calendars or your contacts. It's not even the data saved in your applications - there's a trivial API now for transferring files from an application to your desktop via iTunes; if you can't export the data from your favourite applications to transfer to a different platform, that's on the application developers, not Apple.

I suppose it could be your alarms, preferred weather cities and stocks app choices. Or your SMS database, which I bet most people don't even consider as something that should easily transfer from phone to phone (though obviously it should).
£100 / GB. Smells like bullsh-t to me.
Ask HN: Would you read a blog that focuses on revenue models?
I am thinking of launching a blog that focuses on revenue models for tech startups.

When we profile a startup, the overarching theme will be how they make money - and if possible suggestions/ideas on how they can make additional revenue.

It will also have articles/tools tailored/focused on helping tech entrepreneurs get to revenue generation as quickly as possible.

Tear down the obstacles in the way, etc.

Is that something that would be of interest ?

P.S. This post also contributed to inspiration: http://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/79435/what-is-stack-overflows-business-model
Yes, fighting a monopoly is often a losing proposition. This is already well-known. Ask Netscape. Does the fact that Apple's appeal comes from its monopoly position somehow make its actions less of a shakedown?
I think I found the slant: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2229149

Would love some feedback.
It's not necessarily trivial to monetize lots of traffic (see 4chan, for example).
While on that topic, can you please use bold for emphasis and underline the links? Links on the web should be underlined unless you really make a big effort to distinguish them from the text in some other way.

Bold font just doesn't cut it.

If you don't want to think about it much, just slap some nice blue and underlining on the links and be done with it. That's a standard that will be recognized by everybody.

It's better to have your links ugly than not visible (recognizable) at all.
I don't own or develop for a smartphone of any sort, but still disapprove of how Apple has been handling user (and developer, I do not consider them to be separate) rights. What Google does has nothing to do with how I feel (though I of course have opinions about their actions as well, they are offtopic).

On perhaps a slightly related note: I don't vote for whichever political party opposes the one I dislike the most. Maybe I'm weird like that.
What sort of project are you looking for ?
XL Recordings - the record label that's tearing up the rule book
if its general traffic, you're a rockstar and I want your autograph. if its linking in from a niche traffic source/audience, you're still doing very well and the product has a high stickiness factor. congrats!
If the basic argument is that apple's margin are too high, I agree completely. They are a massively profitable company; they don't need to be charging what they're charging.

If the argument is that there is something immoral about them charging people for use of their subscription service, I call bullshit. Until incredibly recently, they had no subscription service. Now they are offering the _option_ to use a subscription service. If you find the fees are too high, you are not obliged to take part in it. I think the real reason this upsets so many is that it clearly is worth it for many developers to take part in it, just like it clearly is worth it to let apple take their 30% cut for everything else sold on the app store. People are riled because they don't want to have to pay apple this fee, but hard cold business logic demands that they should, because it is profitable to do so (or less unprofitable than not doing so). It wouldn't be threatening at all if you felt like you could afford to just walk away from the ecosystem apple's built.

Which seems to indicate they are adding value.

Now, as to whether the value added == 30%, I direct you to the first paragraph. But what's the motivation to create such a wonderfully easy to use ecosystem if you can't derive a profit off it?
What would be really cool is if "NokiaPlanB was a hoax" was a hoax -- anybody could register a NokiaPlanB Twitter account and claim this.
Apple is still better than Microsoft.
>"That said, given the reliability of The National Enquirer, waiting for further news before jumping to conclusions is advised."

The National Enquirer broke the story about U.S. presidential candidate John Edwards' extra marital affair while his wife was undergoing chemo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Enquirer#John_Edwa...
Upgrade to Requests 2.0
You can't really fit IP into the same framework as physical property rights. Whether we think IP is valid, it should be treated as distinct. Be it through the theory of 'social value' (IP in general) or 'social incentives' (patents) or the needs of business identification (trademarks).

A physical property right refers to a physical good, whereas an intellectual property right refers more to behaviors (making a nondestructive copy) and to classes of goods (eg. storage media).

It's also relatively easy to define a physical good or a physical boundary of land, but 'original creations' are much less precise. Indeed, nothing is really created in isolation and oftentimes, the same invention is developed independently (and near at the same time) by multiple entities.

We should rather call IP an intellectual monopoly privilege, than a right to a piece of property.
I don't know you, and haven't conversed with you, so I can't speak for how you support Apple.

I simply oppose people who will defend any action, no matter how absurd, because they support the people behind that action in most other cases. You'll see all sorts of gymnastics used to justify it, but it really boils down to people supporting things they wouldn't normally, were they outside of context of their 'affiliation'. You see this a lot in politics (I used to do this myself, before I realized how silly it was), and you see it with popular consumer brands as well.
until enough producers move.
What I've been thinking about is doing all the editing in place but that ends up a little more difficult to implement.
Yes, fighting a monopoly is often a losing proposition. This is already well-known Ask Netscape. Does its resemblance to Microsoft in the '90s make Apple's actions more justifiable somehow?

You know who Apple doesn't resemble? Sun. Sun let everyone besides themselves get rich off of Java, and look where they are today.

And, monopoly, what? Having the best product doesn't make you a monopoly.
Apple is just like a religion or sport team to some ppl... no matter what happens they stay on their side, I hate ppl that take things as a religion.

BUT...

I don't disagree with apple in this one though, they own the infra and without them there would be no place to sell the stuff so you should pay.
Singapore has maintained an odd tradition, inherited from the British. They keep a regiment of Gurkhas around, professional soldiers from Nepal. They form an independent group within the Singapore Police, and are not allowed to form deep social connections within Singapore. This, in theory, keeps them a disinterested third party.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Gurkha_Contin...
So ideally they publish music from the artists directly, eliminating the other intermediaries and effectively making them the... the... the record label.
The architecture of the Eden system (experimental OS ca. 1981)
I got ace.io and zidy.io both from iwantmyname.com

My normal registrar doesn't handle .io so it's my first time with the iwantmyname.com registrar. They seem pretty on top of things.
RE: Star Trek: Yes, they do that -- only it's Isabella, the sentient space nebula, not Bob. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_Friend_%28Star_Trek:_...

I think you can fairly call Tolkien racist without bringing an external debate into it -- the fact is that as an author he spent an inordinate number of pages establishing racial heritage, and his characters are deeply straitjacketed by their race.
Ok, this is wrong. Ken Jennings said in an interview that the DDs are more likely to be in the bottom rows, so you actually can hunt for it.
Yes but why argue about whether Apple is good or bad at all, instead of talking about whether this latest In-App purchasing rule is good or bad. A bad idea isn't good simply because Apple has done great things in the past.
It's headed by PG, no less!
that's how university works.
based on books instead of reality.
I recall reading that Android was shipped on more phones in Q4 than iOS. If true, how can you consider Apple a monopoly if they aren't even the most popular mobile OS out there?
Assuming it's done correctly, I think it'd be useful for many to explore other ways to monetize their business that they may not think of.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned is that Watson is going to be consistent for the whole match. A human is going to vary in response time if their attention drifts just a little or their hand slows (maybe an itch, maybe a cramp).
I don't think I was hiding the fact that a big part of my Apple support comes equally from my distrust of Google than my love of Apple.

I just look at the wreckage each has created and would pick Apple's wreckage over Google's any day.

I'm a bit surprised that people find my position to be unusual. I think it represents reasonable behavior. But I often feel this way on HN. :-/
But that twitter account won't enjoy redirection from nokiaplanb.com
I doubt that one can easily convince a judge that loss of Google rankings is a cognizable harm under tort law

Considering how many sites have analytics these days, being able to show a strong correlation between a big blow to your traffic and a decline in revenue would (I think, IANAL) be very good evidence. Instead of asking the judge to imagine the possible ramifications, you'd be presenting solid data whose admissibility the judge could make a quick decision about.
...nature versus nurture in MiddleEarth's community's uprising.

ah, Hacker News...
1) raising the bar for the people you need to hire is a good thing. If you think that settling for mediocre engineers is ok, then you're doing it wrong

2) We've already have ~20 engineers writing scala code at foursquare. Not 50 yet, but the challenge of getting there will having nothing to do with our choice of language. If anything it's helped with hiring so far.

3) I did tell our VCs that we'll be using scala. They didn't have a problem with it. In fact a VC on our board agreed with me that "using cutting edge technology can give a real edge in recruiting."

Basically my experience growing the engineering team at foursquare has been the exact opposite of your claims.
I get what you mean, but it still locks you into Apple's devices. Also, Amazon is able to produce content without DRM. Mp3 format music, etc.
s/languages/licenses/
It's not just Gmail. It seems that Google have changed their header menu for search and probably other services, too.
How about replacing "Found" with "Presumed", "May Be" or "Possibly Discovered", then? That should fit easily into 80 characters.

The current title is simply wrong.

And why not stick with the original title? It's much more precise and takes 62 characters.

The linked article goes to extreme pains to point out that this is all "unproven", "believed to be", etc. Please don't counter the effort.
As a Texan that would love to see more talented engineers and innovative companies here, I agree with you.

But we have a weird mix here. Houston and Dallas have the rich people, but Austin has all the nerds. We need more cross pollination of both to ever be as attractive as Silicon Valley. That, and a lot less hardcore conservatives.
TL;DR = "Just Do It"
More Englishy translation of that page:

Drivers report that an interesting radar camera has been installed on Rt. 94.

The camera scans license plates of cars that exceed the speed limit, and a few hundred feet further there's a special display that shows this:

[DW 530GS SLOW DOWN]

I wonder what will happen when a car like this drives down Rt. 94?

The whole thing reminds me of this old XKCD strip
From what I can tell, there is no option - any type of outside subscription or content that can be accessed through an iOS app must also be offered as an app store subscription or in-app purchase (with the 30% cut). This means that books on the Kindle app, subscriptions through Rdio or Rhapsody, and many other low-margin products and services will be subjected to Apple's ridiculous 30% take.
See here: http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/16/google-new-toolbar/
I have been in your shoes: At the peak in 2007 I was a full time PhD student (Physics, CS & EE), full time startup founder/exec (35 staff, acquired in 2007) and new father (child born on acquisition day - no kidding). Without really strong alignment (and great colleagues in both arenas) this would have torn me apart.

Don't set yourself up for failure from day one by shooting in all directions. If pharmacy is your passion then try to weave it into all your activities. Always remember, Web2.0 entrepreneurship accounts for 99% of online buzz but less than 30% of actual investment activity. In fact, biotech is currently the largest investment and M&A sector if memory serves from the last PWC Moneytree report. If you like coding then by all means code, but don't feel like the only possible entrepreneurial experience comes from hacking websites.

Disclaimer: I am not a biotech guy, nor am I saying that Web2.0 ventures aren't a good choice. They are just not the only choice.

At the risk of breaking some kind of HN rule, I have a bit more info on how to achieve such alignment on an old blog post: http://bit.ly/hJmCEQ
I think the point of using Vim or Emacs is that sometimes you don't want a full IDE. Often when I'm writing code I just want my editor to be fast and not require me to take my hands of off the keyboard. Both Vim and Emacs have much better keyboard navigation and are much faster than Eclipse.
Would love to hear more feedback about how you think we could do this.
1600+ uniques after Wired tweeted this less than an hour ago (http://twitter.com/#!/wired/status/38030059625390080) and I have made a single sale. The Internet is weird.
To me the issue is the fact that if you have any form of subscription service -- then you MUST use the IOS service and you MUST pay apple their 30%.

Apple's service looks worthwhile and valid for certain use cases. But to insist that it must be used for any IOS Native app that has a monthly fee is a draconian change.

Reasonably Serious Case: I've been looking at building an app for my wife to offer to her fitness bootcamp clients.. By my understanding of the new rules - I need to allow people to sign-up / renew contracts from within the app. And give Apple 30% of the $200 or so fee.
Reading through the comments on Meta StackOverflow to the question, two things become really obvious to me.

1. I'm so used to the hyper-insightful Hacker News business users that the many of the SO responses seem very idealistic. In other words, I get the impression that a lot of them are coders who think the world 'should work a certain way' but have no real business experience.

2. SO isn't making much money and isn't too keen on telling what their business model, if there is one, actually is.
Are you willing to say how many simultaneous users you are handling at this point? (I obviously totally understand if you aren't.)
Oh that's gonna change, no doubt. Produces can't ignore iOS, true, they'll suck it up for now, but the mobile market isn't gonna stay this way forever if Apple continues to behave this way.

I say 80% of all apps we do, we do now both for iOS and Android. While Android used to be a second class citizen a year or so ago - often just recieving a 'port' of the iPhone version (ok it runs, we're done) - now there's much more focus on making 'native' Android apps (no more Back-button in the navigation bar etc.). Android revenue is still behind iOS, but it's profitable and worth doing.

Since Android is growing already at a much faster rate than iOS and the whole tablet & smartphone business is only expected to get bigger anyway, you gotta wonder where we'll be in say - 5 years from now? Which will be the next Windows, the OS with 90% market share, that everybody is gonna develop for? Well it could've been iOS, but I don't think that's going to happen anymore.
Or figure out how much they're NOT making.
After yesterday's dominance, it was a little surprising to see how (relatively) few questions it answered this time, and with lower confidence. Any explanations?
Nice! Yeah, I checked nic.io for ag.io and lost.
Now they are offering the _option_ to use a subscription service.

Wrong. Please don't misunderstand this new policy as something that is in addition to the existing rules.

The Kindle App currently in the app store (which doesn't offer in-app purchase or subscription) is now probably in violation of the app store guidelines in light of these new terms. They have forced companies that offer any subscription service outside the store to also offer it in the store and with a hefty 30% commission.
> ..and you're wondering, the answer is emacs.

He blog doesn't say anything about him using emacs. Just out of curiosity, can you link to where there's any sort of discussion about his setup?
I did something like this when I was drunk, basically you paste in the lyrics of a song, and there's two text-boxes for choosing a word you want to change, and then the word you want to change.

i.e. I'm on a boat (Lonely Island) could be: I'm on a cow/goat/tree/dog

I posted the link here (when I was still under the influence) and it had XSS in it (I guess you don't care about security when you're drunk!), so when I woke up the next day I scrapped it. I'm not sure how I came up with the domain name, either: wonklyrics.com
The App Store is 70/30 because Apple can take things straight from content producer to customer. When the Apple takes the place of publishing, distribution, inventory, sales, payments and shipping, there's real value for that 30%.

This was already addressed in the article. iBooks has a significantly smaller variety of books than Amazon. By becoming the sole gatekeeper for content, Apple is ruling out larger distributers. Users don't gain from this. Only Apple.
In response to your edit:

My understanding from every report I have ever read is that there just isn't a lot of money in Android apps. Not a lot of developers share, but those who do tend to report underwhelming results compared to what I see from iOS shops (and those who develop for both platforms have said exactly that in no uncertain terms). For example, Kreci posts his profits every month, and the monthly average is something like $1300 from 10 apps, several of which are pretty popular. All the news stories I see about the Android Market seem to agree with this. If you have better information, I would honestly be fascinated to hear.

(I don't mean to impugn Kreci's success. He's well within the range he wants to be in for where he lives and I'm nothing but happy for him — but for where I live, that's rent on a cheap apartment.)
He mentioned it on his forums once, way back in 2007 when I was preparing to be on the show myself:

http://www.ken-jennings.com/messageboards/viewtopic.php?p=12...

(Tuesday Trivia is his weekly email trivia contest.)
Oh fine +1 for you making it more "Englishy" =P

Yeh its like Rt. 94
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&...
On the contrary, it would be a very interesting little platform to play with.

Just because it doesn't run iOS doesn't mean you couldn't write code for it :)