skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
IANAL, but even I can see that it is inaccurate in at least several places:
> Google wanted to use a C library that was not licensed
> under GPLv2 in order to “keep GPL out of user-space.”
> Instead of using glibc, therefore, it created a new C
> library called Bionic.

glibc is licensed under the LGPL; the LGPL does say you have to give users some rights (e.g. to decompile your binaries), but you can link LGPL libraries against code, make a binary, and not provide the binaries. Google could have cut back glibc headers to only include the interface to Linux, licensed the resulting library / header file set under LGPL, and then built a library that uses that LGPLd library, licensed under whatever terms they want (within the minor restrictions of the LGPL), and that would have been entirely within both the spirit and letter of the LGPL.

> But even if you were to undertake this analysis and
> segregate the copyrightable expression from the
> non-copyrightable, it doesn’t change the fact that GPLv2
> covers the entirety of the kernel code and any
> derivatives of it. Picking and choosing pieces of the
> kernel code to include in a new library is creating a
> derivative work, and, accordingly, GPLv2 would still
> apply".

If Google successfully removed all copyrightable code from the Linux headers, and included only the interfaces, then they wouldn't have to comply with the GPL license for the kernel, because the whole point of the doctrine of fair use is that you can do it without a license. It therefore wouldn't need to license its library under the GPL.

If, on the other hand, the doctrine of merger didn't apply, and it wasn't fair use, they would need a license to distribute the kernel headers. The GPL is the only one available, so they would need to comply with its terms. Their arguments that what Google did wasn't fair use seem to be more coherent, although I haven't checked their claimed facts.
A short-term contractor with highly relevant domain expertise can charge 2-3x what the same person would be getting on salary. Finding clients reliably is the real trick of course, I wish I knew that.
related post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2324934
While I agree that you shouldn't knock lifestyle businesses, I feel that the TechCrunch quote was taken a bit out of context. The "dipshit" companies looks like its referring to the kind of apps that have no business model but ride on the hopes and dreams of overeager VCs who swear this is the next Google. Anyone who creates a company without a business model and hopes to sell to Google for $25MM is a dipshit. But those aren't lifestyle businesses, so it seems like that quote was a bit irrelevant.
Technically, the theorem doesn't apply. Actually built computers aren't Turing machines: their memory is finite.

The algorithm to answer if a program running on a deterministic finite-memory machine is trivial: Run until it either halts or repeats a state. Halting means it halts (duh); repeating a state means it doesn't halt. This algorithm is, of course, not implementable.
No, I'm saying that they'd get better representation if people didn't think "the government has already taken care of the problem, so why should I donate?"

Imagine the effect of a government program intended to assist stranded motorists (suppose that the program maintained a fleet of trucks which carried common spare tires, gas, compressed air and the like). Fewer people would stop to help, and that program would function about as well as any other government program does, which is another way of saying that it would work a lot worse than any private roadside assistance program known today.
This post saddens me. Startups should aim larger, not smaller. That is, in my opinion.

The blog post (which I am interpreting as "every entrepreneur wants to raise VC and swing for fences") is generally wrong, in my experience. For every "a million dollars isn't cool, you know what is? a billion dollars" startup founder, there is one that insists that Groupon is over valued, and startups should monetize on day 1 and be in charge of their own destiny by retaining all equity.

There is no right or wrong answer in terms of what your aspirations are. But there is a huge audience of startup founders that are building lifestyle businesses, and killing it.
What PG and FW both missed about AirBNB in their email exchange
I'll carry your data packets for $50!
Honestly I saw testing as part of the problem from time to time, with the attitude "if it passes tests it can be merged". Testing is useful but not so powerful, unfortunately.

I get into this argument with my coworkers from time to time, and I have to say I disagree a million percent. Tests are the only way you can see if the software is going to work.

After you make a change, how do you make sure the software works? By trying it out? Congratulations! That's testing! Now you just need to invest some mental effort in teaching the computer how to do that test for you, and now you can automatically achieve the same level of safety that you had before.

I'm all for code reviews too, but code reviews do not scale the way that tests do.
> (20% less weight = 20% less energy wasted pushing it, not to mention cost and reliability)

Unless the weight of the competing engine is 20% of the weight of the car plus payload, reducing the weight of the engine can't get you to 20% less weight.

Also, cost and reliability don't necessarily go up as weight goes down.
McDonalds spent 17 years being a diner before Ray Kroc got involved: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_McDonald%27s

Also Starbucks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starbucks#History

I don't claim to know whether that model extends to tech companies, but with enough time, I'd be willing to take the long side of that bet.
I love the term "cereal entrepreneurs" from one of the commenters on Fred Wilson's post:

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/03/airbnb.html#comment-16689887...

(The Disqus link doesn't quite work all the time tho...)
Nexus S beats iPhone in "real world" Web tests, says firm
Oh, look at me being downvoted because what I'm saying can't possibly be true...
JavaScript Getters and Setters
Ouch. My personal feeling now is that there's no intuitive connection between the logo and the thing it represents anymore. Firefox has a red panda curled around a globe, representing both the name and what it does (the globe being a common symbol for the WWW). Internet Explorer has a Windows-blue 'e' for "explorer" [of the internet]. Safari has a compass, which is related to both safaris and navigation. The old chrome logo wasn't great, but at least it was really shiny. When I think 'chrome', I think really shiny, so it made sense to me and I could easily make the association backwards, that the really shiny logo meant 'chrome'. The colors might represent Google, but honestly I didn't notice that until just now. When I see red, yellow, blue and green, I just think primary colors -- RGB for light and RBY for pigment. In my head, red, yellow, blue and green are just the "default" colors for anything where you want something to have four different "equal" colors without it getting clashy or garish. (As much as I love the secondary and tertiary colors, using them all together can sometimes make things look younger than intended.)

To me the new logo looks vaguely like someone went paint-by-numbers on the James Bond shutter. There's nothing there that I'd associate with the internet, the word "chrome", the concept of a navigation tool, or anything else like that. It might be more aesthetically-pleasing but that's not what logos are for.
There seems to be a curious lack of history here. I'm not a Perl programmer at all, but even I know that CPAN has had reviews and ratings and this sort of stuff for forever (in Internet terms).

It seems to me that this blog post could be replaced by a single line - and would be better, actually - if that line was 'GitHub, please do that review stuff however CPAN is and has been successfully doing it for years'.

Bonus points if he knew enough to explain how CPAN avoids all the obvious failure modes raised by commenters here.
The clear insinuation is that web apps running outside Mobile Safari have been made to run slower, but that’s not true. What happened with iOS 4.3 is that web apps (and JavaScript in general) running inside Mobile Safari have been made significantly faster.

This is such a ridiculous argument, and Gruber chooses to lead with it. So, according to Gruber, if 10 years from now everything else on iOS got crazy faster (including Mobile Safari), but web apps on the home screen remained the same speed as they do today, then Apple still wouldn't be hampering them. How can anyone even read the rest of the article after this?

But, if we do, we find the security argument is equally frivolous when it comes to home-screen web apps. There is nothing less secure about a home screen app (which is just a glorified bookmark) than MobileSafari. MobileSafari is connected to the web, which means they're already allowing anything access to Nitro. If anything, there would be a much better argument for ONLY allowing home-screen web apps, because the user is implicitly stating they trust it more (than any random page you might be redirected to).

Beyond all this, I am willing to believe the "hey, it'll come with time" argument. But we should just say that, not bend over backwards to manifest false reasons.
Yes possibly this is the only possible alternative...
In other words, they're a commodity, and pretty much all the same no matter who makes it.
Badges in the real world
How is it any more inaccurate than: http://www.flickr.com/services/api/request.rest.html
Trust ratings for websites
Do you think http://www.skeptive.com is a fun and/or useful site?

Skeptive.com informs users about the trustworthiness of a site based on their and other similar users' ratings. Skeptive also provides a platform for debating disputed topics or questions.
It seems like there might be some justification for restricting Nitro from UIWebView because then you have to trust a third party app... but a webapp launched from the home screen is completely controlled by Apple's apps just like if you launched it from Safari (except less annoying). Surely these home page webapps can be treated just like Safari?

<cynical>Unless, of course, you want to discourage their development</cynical>
With all due respect, I really don't buy that story. I'm a fan of Digg and Alexis.

Paul Carr said it best: "So at best they did zero research before they launched Reddit into a space that kinda relies on the founders knowing where to find cool new stuff online."
Yes, I think this is exactly right. The pattern you'd expect to see wouldn't be a small business spawning a large one; it would be one of the principals of the small business cashing out and leaving to start something that eventually got larger.

Ah, but this reminds me. I know three people who have made $500M or more on their earlier businesss who have cashed out and gone on to found new startups. Only one of the three funded the startup entirely out of his own holdings; the other two have other investors involved. I imagine the latter two think that they get more value (advice, connections, etc.) from these other investors (who I think include VC firms) than they give up in equity.

FWIW, the business funded entirely by the one founder eventually failed (I worked there for several years). Arguably, this was a failure of marketing, as we had a small number of wildly enthusiastic customers that never became a large number. Also arguably, had experienced VC firms been in on the deal, they would have made sure that the marketing was done competently.

So I'm suggesting that if you want to start something that you hope will get large, you may be well advised to involve professional VC even if you don't need the money.
I'm not against tests, but passed tests is not enough to merge some code from a programmer you don't know very very well, you really need to review the code in a very careful way, and this possibly may take more time or the same time as writing it from scratch...
But aren't they within the same process? (I'm asking an honest question - I know nothing of iOS internals).

Doesn't that imply that the JIT has privileged access to pages that other code within the same process does not? As saurik (who knows about these things) mentions elsewhere, Apple can trust Safari to not tamper with the executable pages - can they trust 3rd party apps?

Home-screen based web-apps being another question entirely.
Three Questions that Will Kill Innovation
Not to brag, but at least the Rdio API doesn't allow non-idempotent calls over GET.
Whoops, just forgot to add that new option into the docs.

That's the kind of thing he's talking about, not just the code itself behaving according to strictly defined unit tests, but the project as a whole, and its health.

1) Does it work
2) Is it being updated
3) Are the docs good enough to get my job done as a user
4) Can I tweak it to my specific use case? Options? Source code patch?
I like this idea. I've often found projects that are useful or interesting, and clicking a "Follow" button doesn't seem like a fitting action. Ratings would let the community reward good developers and let the not-so-good developers know what they're doing wrong.

To give more "weight" to the system, GitHub users could have their average project ratings displayed on their profiles, and rankings / leaderboards could be generated. Users could receive badges, maybe: "Documenter of the Month — March 2011", etc.
Getting six-pack abs is simple. Build muscle and burn fat by eating healthy, exercising and lifting weights. BUT... you've got to do that every day for a long time before you get results.

It's the same with building a successful $10k/month business. Find a niche, solve a problem people are prepared to pay money to have solved, market your solution and deliver on your promises. But all that won't happen in a week will it? Because of this, most people will give up before they get to the top of the mountain (or before they have six-pack abs).
who cares ?
BTW he is talking about the frequency new articles appear - not page load speed.
Jens Alfke suggested PEST - Post Everything STyle:
http://jens.mooseyard.com/2011/03/dudes-this-is-so-not-rest/...
That's correct , but its possible that the time has come when narrow-band-efficiency is an appropriate technology.

A "typical" car with a piston engine directly mechanically connected to the wheels needs an engine with a wide rpm and power output range.

A hybrid electric drivetrain doesn't necessarily need that - if a motor that could run at 60% efficiency but only at 8725 +- 15 rpm existed, it'd be useless for a traditional car, but it'd be easy to integrate that into a hybrid electric vehicle...
You can't read Gruber in the same context you did five or six years ago. At this point he's an established journalisty blogger who depends on a network of sources, some of whom are within Apple Inc. That means, like most working journalists, he needs to consider the tone he takes with any individual article vs. what that article is going to do to his network of sources. The result is his writing still contains the smart incisive analysis it always has, but he also has to bend over backwards to make sure he's presenting what the the internal Apple take on the situation is. Compared to what you or I might say about Apple's behavior over a few beers, yeah, he comes off sounding like an apologist, but compare his coverage to what other in-the-tank tech writers say about Apple and he still comes off as an independent voice covering the company AND someone who can provide a level of context other people can't (details on Nitro's implementation)
The thing is, and I believe Gruber himself has pointed this out regarding Microsoft's past transgressions, you don't need a Simpsons style committee of evil for this stuff to happen. You just need a normal corporation filled with employees smart enough to know what's in the financial interests of their employer, and that sticking to those interests aids their own career progression.

Bugs and difficult to solve issues arise in all sorts of code. Just by prioritising what you work on and fix you can hose your competitors both within or outside your ecosystem. In this case, extra speed for Mobile Safari was clearly more important to Apple than extra speed for mobile apps that compete with their native apps.
Yeah it has got to feel like killing off a child
I love these ads because they work as a filter for new products I might be interested in.

The ad networks are selective about the companies they accept.
Great stuff,I just started getting interested in learning Ruby and theirs some gems in here, excuse the pun.
Mozilla CEO: Google isn't 'open'
APL is actually not inherently so bad, because at least the operators have some vague relationship to what they're doing and are all distinct. I can't read J at all because in attempting to embed the APL operator space in ASCII they went in for multiple token operators that can be modified (so =, =., and =: are all different, and actually quite different IIRC).

A better way of doing this is Fortress, which tries to use mathematical notation when possible but doesn't try to compress it as small as possible.
One solution to potential issues with this would be to limit the visibility of the reviews/ratings to just the project owner.

There's two main benefits to reviews/ratings:

1. The project owner would get an assessment of his project

2. Potential users/committers would know the "quality" of the project

Making the reviews/ratings private would eliminate #2, but it would also solve most potential spamming, gaming, and stale issues caused by making them public.
It's an interesting question but I think the main focus has got to be that you're trimming fat. I'm sure that all the effort produced still provides some valuable lessons that will save you time in the future. Focus on the positive and keep moving forward. Don't be a hoarder.
SmugMug was a bootstrap too.
So... certs?
Thanks for the clear response, though I disagree on a few points.

1)your definition of discrimination I think is twisted to fit this case. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&defl=en&... .

2)as jeremymims points alludes, the ability to network is a key part of the job requirements, therefore, the ability for one to show that the challenges they faced in reaching through their network or the creativity in getting an introduction could be favorable in getting hired.
You misunderstand. I'm merely using STL/Boost as one example of advanced non-OO programming. Many other such paths to sophisticated programming exist that don't go through OO, including the ones you name.

I use STL/Boost in this case not because I think they're wonderful but because they're realistically what I'd have to use, as our codebase is mostly C/C++.
When you say that "people are idiots", it seems to assume that there is a thing called "intelligence." Well, there is no "g", or general intelligence that anyone can pin down.

Let's take the simple view and say that people's actions and judgements are a product of the information they have gathered, the habits they have, their ability to analyze and combine that information, their ability to optimize within constraints and their ability to recognize and evaluate constraints.

If someone is clearly wrong, then they have some bad information or bad reasoning. Learning their bad conclusion, many people then go on and do a "well, i'm right and if they heard my reasoning then of course they would agree with me!" That can work within relationships that have a high degree of trust and rapport (not most relationships.) Outside of those relationships, it is too self-centered.

Changing someone's mind is like fixing a bug in a foreign code base. You don't just look at the erroneous output in order to debug, you also look at the source and the input. Similarly, to effectively communicate with someone who disagrees with you, you should seek to understand the information and reasoning that lead them in a different path.

Understanding where they went wrong (in addition to their erroneous conclusion) gives you a great level of preparedness. When you know where they went wrong, you can usually get them to change their own mind by asking them to teach you about how their model of the world is consistent even though you have seemingly contradictory information.

For instance: "oh, how is delivery guaranteed if there isn't a confirmation echo?"

Basically, you take the stance of being wrong, and "use" them to teach you about where you are wrong. If their answer seems to ignore information you have, you can ask "How does this relate to the stats they released last week?"

This "please teach me" questioning approach doesn't undermine their judgement or threaten their ego while giving you control of their thought process (or at least more insight into it, which translates to having more control ultimately.)

This takes a long time, but when you start learning to model other people's reasoning ( a skill unto itself) you will get better at asking the right question that guides them to the right conclusion without telling them what the right conclusion is.
For those who, like me, wondering how SecurID might be affected by attacks on their servers, from Wikipedia:

"""

The RSA SecurID authentication mechanism consists of a "token"—a piece of hardware (e.g. a token or USB) or software (e.g. a "soft token" for a computer, PDA or cell phone)—assigned to a computer user that generates an authentication code at fixed intervals (usually 30 or 60 seconds) using a built-in clock and the card's factory-encoded random key (known as the "seed" and often provided as an ASCII file). The seed is different for each token, and is loaded into the corresponding RSA SecurID server (RSA Authentication Manager, formerly ACE/Server) as the tokens are purchased.

"""

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SecurID
They might be in the same process. I guess they don't do process isolation for hosted browser controls? If not, they should. Otherwise the app stack is always at risk of running arbitrary javascript in process.
How To Install And Use MyDLP
This document can be used as a guide to installation of MyDLP Appliance. It also describes the basic usage.
I think timescale plays a part here. It's all well and good to open up a restaurant, then another, then two more the next year, then 5, then 20, then 50, then 200...Problem is, you're looking at at least a decade before you're large-scale. McDonalds is a 75 year-old company. Starbucks is 45 years old. OTI, the pace of growth (and failure) is much higher. Facebook is ~6 years old. Who knows if it will be here in another 10?

That kind of growth takes money. It's nearly impossible to scale from 3-4 people to 3000 in a couple years if you're self-funded. Now, the article was arguing that that kind of growth is unnecessary; that it's perfectly acceptable to have a business making 100-200k/year. That't true, but it in no way negates the need for VCs and angels.
So, for those of us that just clicked on this to see a 404-page, what was the big deal?
How To Keep Reading the NY Times For Free
I heard the blogs have moved to a decent platform...
EMC division RSA warns of security breach
What's it wrong about, that people don't respect lifestyle businesses? Hmm, I wonder if that's the silicon valley reality distortion field.

The post says that most people don't consider lifestyle businesses, and they should. And you're claiming that lifestyle businesses are in fact quite common, and that you wish more people were searching for scalable businesses. You agree with the post that a lifestyle business is a perfectly fine, viable option. Am I getting all that right?
wondering if i could get an invite, email is in the profile or @tmy on the twitters
As someone once told me, "Internet Explorer is the application I use to download Firefox"