skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
my thoughts exactly. pre-mature optimization is the root of all evil. When I first heard of this idea I ran through a list of ways to abuse it and make you guys go bankrupt :), but I've found there are far fewer crooks out there than there are honest people.

I love how you solved a problem for me without me having to jump through hoops.

True to the spirit of a hacker. This just screams of awesome execution, it's very refreshing to see in these days of startups.
Reason being, I'm developing a Facebook alternative of sorts. There are two paths, integrate Facebook Connect or just say no to Facebook.

Thoughts?
Yeah, hopefully we'll meet up with them and say hello. I've heard only good things about them!
Are you A/B testing already? I like how the heading subtitle changes on every reload
Like Cameron Moll (https://twitter.com/cameronmoll/status/43400482944847872), this blows my entire system up when opening in Chrome 9.0.597.107. Watching the videos don't feel that awesome, but I'm sure it would be sweet to actually be able to use (can't install Firefox 4 here).
While I think this article raises some interesting points on the future of America, as a hacker with entrepreneurial aspirations I have some reservations. With all of the innovation and opportunities brought up and discussed on HN what do you all think?
Stackoverflow would be a better place to ask this question.
The relationships between content length and upvotes on Quora
There is a difference between disabling a Red Hat patch and a group of changes between a set of files. Separating the large diffsets by fileset alone may provide good cues as to what they do.

You can always pay Red Hat to have their patches.
See also: "Bruce Vilanch is hiding under my desk right now. Unfortunately he's not writing jokes for me, if you know what I mean."
Thanks for the catch, fixing it now. We hope it has word of mouth potential too!
Two Chrome subprocesses jumped to 99.9% CPU usage after running that on this page. Awesome. (Chrome 9.0.597.102 on OSX 10.6)
I had trouble with the multi-touch on my android, so the demo game didn't really work, but it does seem to work, yes, sorry about that.

I see what you mean about sounds. I just went and tried some of the HTML 5 games I like on my iPhone and just realized they too didn't have sounds.

I'm thinking that if I create a native Android app and wrap the HTML 5 game into a browser, then I may be able to use SoundPool to play some sounds if the game and the app can communicate.

We'll see, may be purchasing today :)
The Macintosh let the user change the desktop background by specifying an 8x8 black-and-white pattern, which would tile the screen. It was very difficult to make a pattern that actually looked any good. (The default was a simple checkerboard that approximated a nice 50% gray.) Atkinson couldn't stand most people's custom patterns, which were TBH pretty ugly. So instead of making real Mac windows, all the MacPaint windows were drawn in place over a fake desktop, with the default 50% gray pattern. You couldn't change the "desktop" pattern when you were using the MacPaint app. And you know what? No one complained - it was a nice-looking program :-)

Source: at the bottom of
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&s...
Great article. It's Neil, by the way!
Ashton gets firesheep'd at TED
The following is a list of every ASUS laptop offering. This is far too many models.

http://www.asus.com/AllProducts.aspx?PG_ID=1quIC6RvvlvcvNbn
Can you try Chrome 10? Or can't you install any other browsers where you are?
Tom is not a douchebag. You, sir, are the douchebag
Why Apple can make a white iPad but not a white iPhone
HN really needs to fix this issue as well.
Tips on how to get a good domain name
Wow, long time since I have last read Pascal code. Makes me wonder if there any Pascal code still in use somewhere.
Couldn't agree more. One of my biggest complaints about living in SF was the endless panhandling, the odor, and the general sketchiness that comes from having homeless people everywhere. I'm very "live and let live" but everyone has a line - and SF is well past that point for me. I've spent plenty of time in other big cities and the problem is nowhere near as bad. I don't know what the solution should be, it isn't an easy problem to fix - but the current situation isn't workable. At least not for me.
I see your argument and think it's important. However, I think it's probably also true that the existing and historical models for rewarding musical talent exclude some people. The question then becomes, which models are better overall and less exclusive.

On the whole I'm not convinced that there is much value in retaining the horribly exploitive traditional model of the mega-powerful recording studio.
Phone = Credit Card
Entertaining perhaps, but I thought the interview with the IBM guy was a lot more interesting. There's not much on here except personal information and jokes.
Still no thanks to the quality of the comments posted, though, and that's the main problem with the site.

Jennings is fortunately able to be hilarious in all his answers, no matter how poignant the questions are.
Thumbs Up - Help Raise Money for New Zealand
Dwolla's founder Ben Milne had an interesting interview on Mixergy yesterday.

http://mixergy.com/ben-milne-dwolla-interview/
The Dress-Suit Bribe (What do you pay to be paid?)
That is a reasonable question.

You can independently contact Peter or myself.

Peter has his own company, Tattam Software Enterprises, which you can look up (http://www.trumpet.com.au/).

I work for Charles Darwin University, you can look me up on their web site (http://cdu.edu.au).

If you are unsure, contact either of us by email or phone.

Note: I will be unavailable from midday, Australian Central Standard Time.
I tend to agree, but perhaps they are looking at people leaving the BBM ecosystem for other platforms, and letting those who remain be able to keep connected to their friends and associates that have jumped for iOS and Android. Makes it easier for them to stay with RIM instead of following the pack? Not sure what the thinking is there. As far as the Playbook goes, I guess they are content just being hardware providers? Letting go of the app ecosystem like that and the potential for subscription services down the line seems odd.
Standing still for 45 minutes. Really good at concentrating. Minimalistic.

Asberger?
(Not that it matters)
Yes, related to the HBGary/Anonymous incident...The whole database was posted online.
Agreed: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5186868/working-with-thre...

Caveat: I heard about THREE.js at HN first and multiple times it was top page. Stackoverflow returns only 15 search results for THREE.js and all of them are just people suggesting that people should use THREE.js. It seems like there is a better chance of finding people who know the answers here at HN than most other places.
>They can control the experience and the app store to cut down on the crap apps and provide a more seamless interface.

I wonder if you'll be able to go outside of RIM for Android apps on the Playbook, or if they will act as a gatekeeper. Agree that gatekeeper is the way to go.
>Right, there's really nothing fundamentally different about HN and reddit other than the audience.

Yeah. It just has an incredibly more functional UI and working RSS feeds.
Possible to do it with Readability - my PHP port is here: http://www.keyvan.net/2010/08/php-readability/ - and similar tool (free software, can be self-hosted) using the PHP Readability here: http://fivefilters.org/content-only/
Update: the donate button I have at the site lets you pay with your CC.

http://thanksfortrumpetwinsock.com/
When did "Socialist" become an insult? I don't admit to it, I boast of it!!

http://raganwald.posterous.com/hello-my-name-is-reginald-and...
GCC, MSVC and ICC all have profile-guided optimization. From what I hear, it can produce significant performance boosts too, at least in some cases.

The problem with PGO is that you need a representative test which you can run automatically. The benefit of this idea is that the information could be gathered on any runs - not just ones specifically for PGO. Otherwise, yes, PGO does this. Of course, what I want (as explained in my other comments) is more than what PGO offers.
WebGL spec 1.0 is final — and also, WebCL?
If you're calling i18n and a11y "plugins", you're missing the point. These types of considerations are taken thoughout the framework in a consistent manner.
Yeah God forbid Apple conducts business like Microsoft and everyone else. I know we hold Apple to a higher moral standard for some reason, but come on, when has Jobs ever held back what he thought of his competitors?

I do agree the misquote was silly and unnecessary. I wonder if Jobs himself personally knew it was a complete deception or did he rely on fact checkers and speech writers to do his due diligence and simply wasn't aware the quote was wrong.
Warehoused? How do we prevent them from leaving the warehouse? Maybe we need some fences and armed guards.

And now that we've prevented them from leaving, how do we keep them from fighting and misbehaving? Maybe we put them all in separate rooms so they can't get at each other.

Congratulations, we've just created a prison and made it a de facto crime to be homeless.
Did you build the database of phone tree options yourself, or is there another place you're getting it from? Building such a database seems ridiculously time consuming.
You may be right for a small subset of VC funded companies, but finding myself in a similar position to the author, I find your statements rather insulting. Yes, it discourages people from starting companies, and I think this may be a good thing. Is your contention that the foreclosure of his home is not a big deal? Have you been through this, or are you repeating what you've read?

I have great worry that trying to start a business in the US is the largest mistake that I've ever made, and think I have legitimate fear that if it fails, there will be no legal way to recover. Suggestions for how others should avoid this position would be useful, but blanket statements that say that it really isn't a big deal aren't that helpful.
It's nothing about holding Apple to any higher standards, I made exactly the same comment about RIM a couple of months back, and in that instance all they were doing was putting their rivals down, not making up shit. And I'm a huge RIM fanboy.
For the impatient, skip to the end of the article.

It is the connection between memory and creativity, perhaps, which should make us most wary of the web. ‘As our use of the web makes it harder for us to lock information into our biological memory, we’re forced to rely more and more on the net’s capacious and easily searchable artificial memory,’ Carr observes. But conscious manipulation of externally stored information is not enough to yield the deepest of creative breakthroughs: this is what the example of Poincaré suggests. Human memory, unlike machine memory, is dynamic. Through some process we only crudely understand – Poincaré himself saw it as the collision and locking together of ideas into stable combinations – novel patterns are unconsciously detected, novel analogies discovered. And this is the process that Google, by seducing us into using it as a memory prosthesis, threatens to subvert.
Worthwhile and insightful stories are good. Stories that trigger worthwhile and insightful dialogue are good.

What's not so good is yet another link of Gruber dutifully cheerleading whatever Apple does, followed by comments about how all Gruber does these days is dutifully cheerlead whatever Apple does.
More likely, they're just giving you a random subtitle each page load for fun or as an easter egg.
>You are in FANTASY LAND if you think you would be paying a "couple grand" in licensing to scale out to what Stack Overflow must need to run its service. Add about 3 more zeros to that guess-timate.

Couple grand = $2000
Add 3 more zeros:
$2,000,000

Stackoverflow is paying $2 million in software licensing fees! Wow, using the Microsoft stack is expensive!!
I think he means that when a company switches from ignoring competitors to acknowledging them by ridiculing them, then they are not as far ahead as they used to be.

So it does imply losing steam in this case.

Phases:
1) Ignore
2) Ridicule
3) Fight
4) Lose

If a company was in phase 2 last year, and phase 2 this year they are not losing steam. A company is losing steam when it moves down the above phase ladder.
I'd rather lose people because the site is too good than because it's too bad. And I don't think we've lost a lot recently. I can only remember 2. If we got two smart new users in the same time, which is quite possible, we're ok.
Do you play an automated message when the tech comes on the phone? How many phone service technicians will actually sit there and wait to be connected to the actual user?
Never-Forget.me
Next Generation Group Photo Sharing? (The Next Flickr)
Tips For Building An Internet Company Outside of San Francisco
This is one of the weirdest applications of mod_rewrite I have ever seen. Cool :)
Argh! Top-posting!
Blueprint - code generator for {Chef,Puppet,shell} based on system state
Great idea but 37signals' list is too long. It discourages you from actually reading the whole list.
I bet you're a riot on April Fools.
you guys are awesome.

A few friends and I have been working on a similar project. You totally upped us on it.

Great job :)
Company buys copyrighted photos, sues blogs and media companies for online use
I'd presume that they've broken the million dollar bizspark limit or they're doing something very wrong...
Not for BBM messages.
People rarely pay sticker price for this stuff. Right now SO is still using bizspark, but lets pretend we are paying sticker for our NY Datacenter:

* 10x Windows Server Standard R2 for the Web Tier (~1k per)

* 4x Enterprise OS (4k) for the DBs (were are going to give SO its own DB soon)

* 8 Sockets of SQL Server Enterprise R2 (27k) .

So 10x1000 +4x4000 + 8x27000 ~= 242k sticker price. Again people don't tend to pay sticker price for this stuff -- but this guesstimate is not $2 Million by any means.

References:
http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/pricing.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/pricing.asp...
> Why do you tie my flight searches with my UDID and submit it to third parties like flurry?

We collect the following data points via a single third party tool, namely Flurry. There aren't any others, aside from the obvious booking partners who book your flight at the end of the process.

- How long is the import process

- What tasks throw exceptions or otherwise crash the application

- Which cities are most chosen

- How far into the future do users most often search

- Do people bother with flights displayed lower on the screen

- Do people bother with the alternate booking mechanisms we made

This is useful to both confirm initial hunches on how the app's UX should work and helps direct modifications and enhancements in future versions. Flurry collects UDIDs for a promotional program they do for app discovery but Hipmunk doesn't participate in that.
What does $S compiler directive mean?
First, that is a pretty awesome and appropriate question for said position.

Second, why do you think you've never been asked a good non-technical question?

Third, do you have any ideas for a non-technical question that wouldn't make you cringe?
Hg-Git Mercurial Plugin
Probably wasn't the best, but its a funny question to be asked;

I give you a glass jar, a penny, and a cork. I put the penny into the jar and seal the jar with the cork. Remove the penny from the jar without taking the cork out.

I'll reply with answer if no one can get it :P
I completely agree. It seems that there's a (mostly right-wing American) view that socialism somehow equates with communism and / or fascism (and even Nazism!). Fox News seems to play a part in ensuring that the view propagates, and lives on.

Socialism is simply about placing people before profits.

Unregulated capitalism isn't something that generally leads to positive outcomes - just look at the (cluster-fk) that was last couple of years for proof. Socialism can provide a useful counter to capitalism because it provides an alternative method of assessing worth.

Ideally we need balance - we need both.
The project to build 1.0 is dead.

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/11/the-project-postmor...
So you want homeless people to be jailed, because you like a clean side-walk? I find that... Strange.

I walk by a typical homeless sleeping spot every morning, and while I do not enjoy the smell, my first reaction is to wonder: Why are these people out here, why do they have no home, why is there no toilette for them to use, etc, etc?

How about donating some money to groups like Glide and other organizations that help the homeless? That's what I do.
Biz Stone: No Negotiations Between JP Morgan and Twitter
Yep. Most customer service folks don't mind waiting (they hear a phone ringing while we get you on the line) and they end up talking to happier customers, who are also much less likely to switch to another company than someone who's just been sitting on hold for 20 mins.
There are Java projects that use Oracle as the back end. Since Java is Free Software (technically at least) and Oracle is not, would you consider that to be a failure for Free Software?

Do you use a binary blob NVidia driver on your Linux computer? Would that be a case of not staying in the reservation?

You're a Rails developer, aren't you? twitter was hailed for a while as validation for Rails and Ruby in general. That is, until they realized it wasn't scaling and had to use something else. Failure for RoR? I guess they weren't religious enough (as you say) to stick with what they had and gosh darn it, make it work at all costs. After all, you can run your blog on RoR, just like you can on MVC. If you imply that using Redis on Linux to scale invalidates MVC as a viable platform, how is using TokyoCabinet (or whatever) to scale RoR any different? Unless of course your argument is purely ideological.

We make decisions on what technology to use based on what we know. On our areas of expertise and knowledge. If we pay X for something, it's because we believe that X is a good price for what we're getting back. If we decide to use Y because it's free, it's because it works the same as Z, which is expensive or limited.

If there are "true" MS loyalists out there who make decisions based on their adoration of the company, then that's their problem. More power to them and all that.

And by the way, if you feel that this represents a form of "capitulation" for the MS stack, then you need to go talk to MS about it, not StackOverflow. Because they made their technical decisions based on practicality, not religion (as you say). And besides, if it's supposed to be so embarrassing, why mention it at all? No one is forcing them to disclose what platform they happen to be running their key value store on.
On the Mac, Interarchy FTP client still seem to have Pascal code, according to this 2007 interview http://daringfireball.net/2007/02/interarchy_interview
All credit to Apple's WWDC 2010 session on building server driven applications. Great stuff in there, grab the video off of iTunes U if you've joined the developer program. Among other things, they break down the performance of various payload formats.

https://developer.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2010/

.
Thanks! Shoot us an email, we'd love to connect.
Show HN: Caribou CMS - 14 months of development, one 22-yr old developer
Q: "What is one epiphany/something that was said to you that made you realize 'I can maintain my fame and not be remembered as just the guy who once won big at Jeopardy!'?"

A: Screw that, I don't want to be famous. I keep getting asked who my publicist is. Why would I have a publicist?!? I'm just a guy on a game show. I got mine. I need a privacist.

His Tuesday Trivia messages are always entertaining, but they aren't usually this funny.
These stories of people running across streets frantically computing with their open laptop during the dead of winter invite so many more questions than just the survival of the device.
I am ashamed to say that I didn't notice this. My god, what have I become.
Yeah, we're just having fun there.
Sometimes a company stops being virtuous, and keeps market share.

Only with the government's assistance.
Ugh, seriously...
When did CNN start hiring Dvorak-style Apple trolls to generate traffic?
It's not obvious to me that fb is dying.
My data is stored in CouchDB. I've written a sort of poor-man's ORM for it and have filled up my image with model objects a few times when I failed to properly detect cycles in the object dependencies. But Gemstone/S is probably different, I didn't really get much of a chance to use it before going with what I have now which is CouchDB and using Seaside as only the app server.
No: tech people and hipsters aren't normal people. Grandma isn't going to ditch Facebook for the hot new social network.
By the time you finish you're alternative and get out your service, Facebook is not going anywhere. Just integrate it. Whats it matter.. in dev time should not make a big difference if you're accounting for both paths.
reality has a huge well-known gender bias. HN is a subset of reality.
He said further down that he likes to turn the assumption of boring mormons on it's head.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fwpzj/iama_74time_jeop...
Great idea guys!

Just curious, what happens when someone finally picks up and hears nothing? Is there a possibility that the other line will hang up before you have a chance to call us?
Not 'relaunch' – though sometimes that happens with new features, promotions, or positioning, and is perfectly legitimate.

Launch new products and services to implement the big vision the article discusses. Launch to wide adoption. Launch into the public consciousness.

The first-time-launch of Square's first-version two years ago is obviously not what the writer meant, so why quibble based on an extremely literal interpretation?

If there are multiple equally-good ways to interpret human language, locking onto the one interpretation that's false, to the exclusion of the others that are true, is a distracting digression. Language is not unforgiving, rigorous, deterministic code.
Apple, Google top Fortune's Most Admired Companies ranking
The most interesting bit is that he thinks trivia-game ability is genetic.

(Well, that and how he handles being a mormon.)
Why indeed. Where I live we have vacant free shelters where one can get a bed, a shower and a meal, and yet there are those who absolutely insist in pan handling for their next bottle. A sad picture.
Well, if your home gets foreclosed on, you find a rental. The only difference in lifestyle is now you have to get permission from your landlord to change the carpet.

All in all, I'd suggest that foreclosure is not a big deal.

Also, if you are taking on personal financial risk with a startup, you're already doing it wrong. Limited liability entities exist for a reason.
We originally looked at GetHuman, who really pioneered this space a long time ago. Their database is copyright so we would have needed permission, but one downside to crowdsourced data is that sometimes the crowd doesn't come back through and clean it. The result is that you have (for example) 9 different numbers to reach customer service, but what you really wanted was the best number. In the end we just did it from scratch.
Dennis Crowley: “The Hard Part Is Building The Machine That Builds The Product”