skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Wow, $42 million is a whopping huge Series A.

I'm actually surprised that Rovio is going this route. From what I read, it seems that game financing goes along a different route normally (taking the form more similar to a bond IIRC; anyone knowledgeable care to enlighten?).

Repeat success is any field like this is hard. There are only a handful of studios who have had sustained repeated success and that typically revolves around a successful franchise. For example:

- id Software (Quake/Doom);

- Epic Games (Unreal)

- Rockstar (Grand Theft Auto);

- Infinity Ward (Call of Duty).

One (admittedly huge) hit does not a franchise make, or at least not a proven franchise. It'll be interesting to see what Rovio does with this money, whether they try and (further) leverage the Angry Birds franchise and really what the future of mobile gaming is.

If you estimate that a Series A round will take a 25-40% stake in a company that puts a ballpark post-money valuation of $100-160 million, which is impressive.
It has gotten to the point where companies develop entire games then give them away for free, just as a vehicle to advertise for their other pay or freemium games.
Shuttleworth, Seigo: GNOME's Not Collaborating
My understanding is that the CVV2 is printed on the back of the card for phone and online orders and the CVV1 encoded on the strip for in person orders when the card is swiped.

I'm not sure what the security rationale is for 2 distinct codes. Maybe the CVV1 value is designed to prevent thieves from making swipable cards when they only have the credit card number and didn't clone a card (e.g. they obtained the card number from a rogue or compromised online store).
Mobile Safari bookmarklet to enable AirPlay video for web content
This alleged new one is more on-brand than the old one. It matches Google's simplicity better. I think it also gets away from the "evil robotic eye" feel, which can be an image problem for a ubiquitous tech company.

That said, I like the old one a lot better.
The first virus to infect PC computers was discovered in 1986.
The status bar can be turned on (and off) with Ctrl+/ (Ctrl+Slash). This takes care for the main issue for me.

The other issue I see is the the styling of the status bar, which seems incomplete. I added some additional styling to my userChrome.css and the bar now looks decent. (In Windows 7 with the Classic Windows theme.)

#browser-bottombox {
border-top-color: #808080 !important;
border-top-style: solid !important;
border-top-width: 1px !important;
padding-right: 16px !important;
}
JavaScript Performance Rundown
The first thing when I thought when seeing the Smart Covers was "this looks familiar." And then I remembered an article I read a few days prior on Apple's tablet computer history (http://liquidpubs.com/blog/2010/11/08/apple-their-tablet-com...) If you look starting at the 'Second Figaro Competition 1990' you will see various prototypes that have a very similar looking cover. I always find it interesting when you can see decades old influences for products.
The bulleted list is pretty hard to read too.
The Spiral tribe – marking the end of Debian’s unpredictable release schedule
What I find fascinating about node.js is that it is one of a long chain of products that represent the constant repackaging of old ideas - with better results.

Twisted has been around for a long time and was the best (IMO) platform for building real time apps. Many of the first great comet apps were built on twisted. But you really have to work at using twisted - the docs aren't great, the reactor / deferred patterns take some time getting used to, and finally and most importantly the community isn't effective in evangelizing their product (sorry Glyph)

Another issue seems to be timing. Low latency apps have a current buzz and you see people rediscovering old collaborative ideas like Push to talk (referenced in the article). I wish them luck - PTT has failed spectacularly in the past but maybe will have a strong second life in a world full of smartphones. Node.js seems to riding this wave - and the backers leveraging the buzz to drive interest in the platform.

I also wonder if location is an issue. The Twisted team had a strong core in Boston while the Node interest seems to be coming out of the valley - and leveraging that environment's idea pressure cooker.

It also seems that node.js would benefit from a good implementation of the generator pattern that would enable you to write asynchronous code in a (somewhat) iterative style. Unfortunately I don't think that V8 implements any of the ecmascript extensions pioneered by Mozilla that implement yield, list comprehensions, and other fun stuff.
If it's impossible to beat Apple on price at 10", what makes you think they will be able to beat Apple at 7", which should be cheaper?

Apple is winning because they defined the genre, giving them a 2-3 year head start.
A white back, all the WebObjects devs transitioned from xcode to eclipse. Rumor has it that Apple uses IDEA for WebObjects development internally. I wonder if this change could allow WebObjects to move back to xcode ?
1. I can drop-down the list of available search engines and see what's available, without having to remember any key-words to do the searches.

2. (and this is the killer feature for me) If a particular search engine is selected (say, IMDB), I can right-click on any word on a page, and one of the context menu options is "Search IMDB for <selection>..."

Also, horizontal real-estate is not much of a concern on a wide-screen monitor - how much of the URL would I really want to see..?
Can anyone please explain what's why PayPal (and other payment processors?) cannot afford accepting payments on behalf of others?
Most people that I meet who run startups do so because a) they enjoy the challenge of building something cool and useful and making money from it, and b) they would like to make enough money to not have to worry about money.

Even if you're trying to build a Gatesian empire, I'd argue that taking it in steps could be a better approach, more likely to get somewhere. See Richard Branson as a counterpoint to Gates/Jobs/etc. And the advantage of taking it in steps is that if you don't have what it takes in both personal qualities and incredible luck to make it to the top, you're still left with something.

I don't think anything you or I can say on a website will divert a Steve Jobs or Michael Jordan from their intentions, in any case. :-)

But, certainly, both philosophies exist and have their pros and cons. Which one do you think is right for most people?
Yes, and once you get it, you'll be hooked on apps. Expect to spend $5-$30 a month on apps.

$0.99 apps are like mini-muffins ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o-u4IwXkbE ).
That's very old post dated September 3rd, 2008
It’s time to stop using Subversion
Minimum wage is important because it prevents businesses that are so inefficient that can't even produce enough value to provide their employees with such a low payment.

Not every business is good. Business that can't pay minimum wage is just wasting people time. That time might be better utilized by some better thought out business.
I think you should look at this financing more as creating the next Zynga, than the next "old school game studio". I bet they proved they can up sell "different but the same" games thanks to the Halloween specials of Angry Birds, and so on.
I hope not. It isn't as flashy or eye catching. It is too simple
Only on iOS. The Android version is ad-supported.
This article doesn't look very ensuring. Every link in the text is a link in the site itself or one of the in-text ads. The frazpc.pl link looks no more convincing to me. I could be wrong...
Which one do you think is right for most people?

Neither. And that's the essence of what I'm getting at. I don't think there's a singular this is what people (or entrepreneurs) should do. It's widely variable upon the person, their constitution and tolerances, and for most people, probably altogether a bad idea. It's also a false dichotomy; in practice successful people, for either definition, do not choose between either or, but varying degrees of both.
I'm a software engineer full time. Investing is done outside of that, but it's almost a second full time job. At this point the idea is to market to individual investors and financial advisors.
[New Song] Aqua - How R U Doin?
Estimating Pi with Akka
That's why you will do well since people will try it.

It's also why you are doomed as they will try something else.

I wish you luck in getting a stable customer base to launch something bigger. You could use this product to start building pagerank and your brand. Look at http://www.6wunderkinder.com/ for ideas on how they are doing it.
By that logic, Microsoft should raise 50B from investors to bring their wildly successful MS Paint application to more platforms.
The new Chromium logo looks good, while the new Chrome logo looks fake. The muddied blending between green and red looks awful, and can't be taken seriously.

You can also see how the subtle highlights are done far better in the new Chromium one. It looks like someone just slapped low-opacity radial gradients on the Chrome version.
I think in this case, it's more about the timing. They want to get it done by SXSW. So it's not an arbitrary deadline, or worse just a philosophy that you have to drive yourself into the ground. They have a real deadline that, if they can hit it, they will likely give a nice bump to their launch and chances of success.

While I'd agree--killing yourself isn't good strategy or a real recipe for success--sometimes it needs to be done.
No. The only thing one could do to minimize the HTML is to use :nth-child() instead of classes.

If CSS would support higher order matrices for transform, it could be possible with just one line per vendor suffix. But CSS3 has only 2x2 matrices, which aren't enough.
Group of Japanese college students builds an exosuit
Meebo Packs Up Your Favorite Websites And Takes Check-Ins Mobile
Very cool! I wish I had checked out the blog earlier, but even following the more recent news with HubSpot and the future potential is exciting. It proves that a solid initial strategy must be in place for success, but the limit of success is unknown due to innovation. I can see this company booming very, very soon.
I am just glad that there is no mention of Tim Buckley anywhere in there.
I hope you are working towards being effective. I did, and my job basically became read HN for 4+ hours a day.
Thanks guys, appreciate the feedback. I'll be exploring some alternative color schemes.
I like it.

"Founders! Do what makes sense! Use your brains, dammit!"

Good advice for all :-)

Worth noting that I explicitly did not judge whether it made sense for the SocialCam team to do it this way - I'm only criticising the general stereotype that "you have to sacrifice everything in order to make it". Imho that method works in a very small number of cases and is dangerous in most.
Browser vs. App Argument Is A Non-starter
This article leaves me none the wiser as to what connect.me is. Perhaps 20k people are concerned with reserving their username on any service that springs up...whether or not it's clear what the service is.
Could be due to lack of social mobility http://goo.gl/K8Pg
The Pragmatic Bookshelf has a fantastic book that goes into some detail about how your brain might be working in these situations. Often sleeping on a problem and letting your subconscious do some of the work is the best policy. Check the book out here:

http://pragprog.com/titles/ahptl/pragmatic-thinking-and-lear...
My first computer was powered by Windows 3.1 and DR DOS 5. I made it a dual-boot with RedHat Linux several years later.

When I was working as a developer,there has has been a dual-boot between FreeBSD and Windows XP. But in most of the years I used to run Cygwin on a Windows XP. But Finally I switched to a pure Ubuntu workstation last year.
First iPhone App with WP7 user experience on App Store
I thought eLearning was something impossible to do efficiently - before I saw this video.

A compelling argument, and a great method! I can't count the startup ideas that could come from this.
At the moment, yes, math only. We're working to entirely cover K-12 math before moving on.

You can jump to any area or exercise you want at any time. We suggest exercises, but I've seen plenty of 5th graders jump to Calculus and play around with Limits just because it's interesting/challenging and they saw their friend try it.
Very old news.
I think it is worth-while to avoid PSDs in general, and I think people that master Lean UX (or CSS driven design) will be a huge advantage once HTML5 is standard.
I thought the original logo was bad. This is even worse. I personally think Google has really bad taste overall.
See, that's just it. Rails is a different "community" than Ruby. And, as someone who has worked with both the better part of 5 years, I've found Ruby very open and welcoming while Rails less so.

I take more issue with Jolie's unsubstantiated remark about "the Ruby community". She casts a whole group of people in a disparaging light and doesn't been take the time to source it.
Windows 7 x64, Ubuntu x64 and Windows XP.
Very interesting concept, almost reminds me of a community -- sharing files and talking about them between users.

I think the biggest trouble you will run into is that unless a file is very popular, you may not have any people at all in most chatrooms, which would make it seem like the community was pretty empty. You also have to think about how people download files -- are they coming to your site to download files, or are they coming for the community? On forums, people will chat with other users, and then share files. But when people are looking to upload/download files, I don't know how often they are looking for a community.
The concept is ok but the execution is poor. Fake.
Doubtful. How many pages of text do you want to warp?
"While it's likely true that people who sacrifice everything are rarely successful, I think that the people at the top of their fields almost always have."

Not to harp on my favorite old saw about randomness, but drawing generalizations like this -- by only looking at the successful end results and searching for common patterns after the fact -- doesn't really help. For example, say there are 10,000,000 who sacrifice everything, and of them, there are 1,000 who are at the top of their field. The other 99,990,000 are "silent evidence". ("silent evidence" is worth googling)

Moreover, the actual importance of "sacrificing everything" becomes further masked unless you realize the actual total size of your cohort. What are the odds that someone could become the top of their field without sacrificing everything? e.g., is there a one-in-a-million chance that someone can both be the best and sleep 8 hours a night every night? If so, for some handful of people in your sample, you'd expect them to have succeeded anyway (assuming you could estimate that prior, which is laughable :)

This argument can also be used when people applaud "genius investors" with a 100% success rate for any arbitrary finite timespan -- given a large enough population, it'd be expected that someone would pick right N times in a row, and nobody hears or cares about the failures.

Similarly, folks argue from the anecdote of a few rags-to-riches stories and say look, income inequality is nothing to worry about! But actually, given the number of people in the bottom 95%, you'd expect some number of them to be able to make it to the top 5% -- and a better metric might be to look at that rate across other developed nations. One in a million times x million = x bestsellers about "how my drive and ambition took me out of the gutter bla bla bla..."

Anyway, just pointing out that causation is a very, very difficult nut.

(Likewise, starting a startup is hardly irrational -- the host of 'intangibles', plus greater exposure to positive black swans, make it kind of a no brainer :)
Ask HN: Is there an existing *Amazon* for fair-trade goods "Made in Africa"?
Hi, I was just wondering whether any of you have heard of any e-commerce websites that sell fair-trade products (besides coffee/ tea) that have been produced in African countries ? I could only find individual organizations with such websites, and most of them were not really fair trade certified. If you know of any such place, please let me know. I am looking into the idea of getting a mock marketplace just to gauge the interest in this niche, and if any of you could provide any criticisms of the the idea[1], that would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

[1] Idea: To have a consolidated space dedicated to connecting fair-trade certified products made in African countries and consumers in first world countries (primarily usa).

Also, by Africa in title == African Countries.
Don’t Use Old-Style Retweets Unless You’re A Spammer, Says Twitter
If you're really serious about making money on it, then you should do the following:

1) Add a couple more features that are geared around integration with people's workflow, like phone reminders, and maybe some ability to, oh, I don't know, send a grocery list to a husband, or a parts list to a delivery guy.

2) Research, research, research, where people are spending money on the internet for something like this. You'll find the usual suspects, like Basecamp, and you'll want to avoid being like that. Instead, you'll want to find underserved markets niches, dozens of them.

3) Once you've identified the markets, build a list of them, and outline the contents of a landing page for each niche. Do this on the computer, so that you can programmatically create all these landing pages and capture some of the long tail traffic.

4) This should really be #1, but get someone to start paying, anyone. This will force you to scratch someone's itch who has money. Make whatever changes they need so that the service is valuable to them. You really need to find one person out there, who's saying "I wish I had an online task list that met my needs! If I only did, I could make $X more this week/month/year."
I'm kinda annoyed that every once in a while, somebody has to come along dissing svn, prophesying its inevitable demise and glorifying git. Yes, git is "better" than svn, I agree. I like the message in general, but I don't like the tone of it.

I still use svn. For personal project, I have moved to hg. I use git occasionally. They all have its merits, and svn certainly didn't deserve "you should probably stop using it".
Anyone in the world can make a little white dongle that reads credit card magstripes. What is the point of making an ultra-secure white dongle? How would anybody know you're using the ultra-secure one?
Indeed. When I clicked the article link, I expected to find something from ~2007.
Well, all the web browsers had Vim emulation, so Emacs was feeling left out ;)
Startups, Pay it Backwards.
I'm... not sure what the point of such a comment can be. It's interesting in unintended ways.
After keeping the close-tab button on the right, I say that they don't really care how Chrome fits into OS X at all.
It's Leaked?! I wonder what fate awaits the whistle-blower who exposed this totally secret branding-campaign. Marketing department will hold him in solit-conf, and beat him with a wet towel between simulated drownings.
And yet some of us are stuck using CVS.
"As a professional Final Cut Pro videomaker myself, I was personally frustrated that Apple kept making it easier and easier for anyone to replicate my technical skills with much simpler tools."

Sounds like something a tosser would say if you ask me.
Do you want to be comfortable or happy?
Sounds like founders taking cash off the table to me.
Take a normal desk and add cinder blocks; that's what I did and it only cost $20.
It's practically a rule of the internet at this point that every single news article about 4chan will basically only talk about /b/, even though there are dozens of other boards with millions or tens of millions of posts. This is like an encyclopedia article about Asia that only mentions China.

For some reason, /b/ seems to be the most interesting to the media outlets -- this lets them talk about Anonymous, hacking, lolcats, and other things that the media seems to like, without having to explain difficult things, like what "Dungeons and Dragons" or "Yaoi" or "Touhou" are.

Perhaps this is for the best, lest the rest of the site be overrun by the "Eternal September" that hit /b/ years ago. There's some surprisingly good communities left, with topics ranging from 3D modeling to tabletop gaming.
Components Of a Research Paper And Research Paper
When students are assigned the writing of a research paper, they should firstly be familiar with the many components of the research paper and then the process of writing it. Only then will students be able to obtain a good grade for their research papers.
Actually, I got so excited (and moved) when I saw his talk at GEL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTXKCzrFh3c

That I started my own channel for Programming in C++, for my students... I have 74 videos already... (in Spanish, sorry)

http://www.youtube.com/user/paueky
Entrepreneurs, Manage Yourself, Then Your Startup
For me, I think what makes the smart covers ugly is seeing the sections of the cover divided up by the folding joints, not to mention the combination of colors and materials, except maybe the black leather, don't seem to lend itself well to the iPad's fantastic, slab look. I do still think the smart covers are insanely clever and useful though, and definitely worth the cost.

Enough to make me wish my wife's birthday wasn't in January, so that I wouldn't have bought her the original iPad before this was available.
Burnie Burns of "Red vs Blue" on viral video and other stuff
Ask HN: rss of HN?
Is there an rss feed for /newest on HN?
It's good to formalize your deploy & provisioning scripts to cut out on human error. And it's nice when bringing up a decent number of machines. I've used rubber to bring up 150 machines without any problems.

The other nice thing that a tool like rubber or moonshine helps out with is auto-updating configuration. E.g., add a new app server and it automatically gets added to the haproxy pool.
PG: Paul Graham
I can't really answer that for you since I dont know your situation so I can only speak for myself. I'd try to find someone who's more than an "employee". I'd want someone that's as invested as I am.
Having just spent the last month converting our operation to Git here at work, I can tell you the main force in keeping Subversion around are Windows users who are used to TortoiseSVN. There still is no viable Git UI for Windows (or any other OS, really -- but Windows is especially immature) and the people who make decisions a) use Windows and b) "don't have time" to learn git on the command line.