skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
A harsh analysis, but entirely consistent with all I've been reading about Android Market experiences. The developers that luck out and get hundreds of thousands of downloads for a game or even another application, STILL hardly make a living out of it (for the limited time that the success lasts, that is).

It's enough for me to bury my own commercial Android plans. I'll just finish the hobby game I'm working on as best as I can and release it for free. For a few dollars a month I'm not going to pester users with ads either. Who knows, with that experience and changes in the market I'll still have a shot at an Android business later on.

For the braver developers in this thread who already have applications out there, and building on the network promotion mentioned here: Why don't you get together and set up your own system of referrals? That could work much better than just referring to your own other applications (if any) in a closed loop.
"There are other advantages to using unsigned types. For instance, it gives an explicit hint to the person reading the code about the range of the value."

This is, without doubt, the worst reason for using unsigned types, and it's the primary reason (IMHO) for the flaws in the C API that force you to use unsigned types unnecessarily. Unsigned types are not a documentation feature, and they are not merely an advert for an invariant; they are opting in to a subtly different arithmetic that most people are surprised by. It would be better to have a range-checked types, like Pascal, than to infect the program with unsigned arithmetic.

I find that most programs deal with values for their integer types with an absolute value of under 1000; about the only excuse for using an unsigned type, IMO, is when you must have access to that highest bit in a defined way (for safe shifting and bit-twiddling).
The usual technique is 'UDP hole punching'.
> the web literally blew away the platform differences to something that is comparable to a flavor rather than a huge technical difference or advantage.

yeah, web photoshop and web office are real alternatives ...
Sounds like a good idea. I was thinking of adding chat functionality similar to Facebook and Gmail with the bar at the bottom. Could be cool if you can chat to the people you follow and follow you on Instagram etc.
And yet Apple also trumpeted the numbers of apps available for the iPad on launch, despite the vast majority of these being iPhone or iPod Touch apps not optimised for the tablet.
We need a rich language in order to communicate effectively. By using a term differently than expected in your post, and then mixing it with the original meaning, you're making absolutely no sense. Let's call the iOS interface "accessible" (covering any number of characteristics) and acknowledge the missing feature of "arbitrary installs".

I'll grant that Android is not perfect. But the arbitrary install feature does not seem to be the issue. The crucial non-nerdy segment would never need to know about it, as they are free to explore the default market app to their heart's content. In fact, arbitrary installs are disabled by default and have to be enabled from deep in the settings menu.

As for the principle of disabling arbitrary installs, it's insulting, like a pair of safety scissors (an inferior product for intended safety).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10951607
Converse
Patio11 says Hello Ladies
Sorry for the karma bait title :)
Clickable link: http://snapfinch.com
Well, an ambiguous Sudoku is like a 12 line sonnet...

It isn't computationally relevant but even if trial and error were a simpler approach I feel like that is not in the spirit of the game. Sudoku is a number maze, the goal is to backtrack.

Also I refuse to attempt something that is supposedly too difficult for humans to solve, I'm incapable of quitting puzzles and don't relish spending the next X hours proving it can be done :)
Popularity of Data Analysis Software: R, SAS, STATA
Is Google Always the Best Search Engine? Answer is No why?
Are you kidding? Once more ppl get to know about the $5 books, OR will have to start verifying ownership or take a huge hit on sales.
The Barcode Recognition in Chapter 12 was fairly interesting. Anyone have some good beginning machine vision resources, Haskell or otherwise?
Who cares? Developers do! For example Nokia's decision to ditch Qt4 means that we have to wait for "write once, run anywhere" even longer. And I am not so sure whether the browser will solve it all again. I think Microsoft and Apple are going to make sure that this won't happen again. In fact they already did so by removing the customers' freedom to install and run software of their choice.
Do you use AdWords for PPC traffic? Is that allowed by Google?
You could charge for web apps. And on the plus side, if you do, you don't have to pay anyone 30% off your price.
this blog is terrible...and he keeps spamming useless shit
Is it Safe?
I have read this story like 4 times now, I'm still impressed about how much work is PG putting into the teams. On the other hand I can truly see that the teams work around the clock just to get the best result done before demo day.
Good luck for the YC 2011 participants.
You can use a developer's version of Wowza (the big limit is iPhone streaming is crippled).

A single license is like $1000, but you can instead pay by month ($60, IIRC).

Wowza also has a deal with Amazon, so you can run Wowza on EC2 and only pay by the hour (Wowza licensing included).
The Milestone is utter crap, and the reason I will never buy another Motorola product again (it took them how long to finally release Froyo, months after Gingerbread was available on other devices?). There's a port of CM7, though, which is a significant improvement:

http://android.doshaska.net/cm7

Can't fix the defective headphone jack in software, though.

As far as I'm concerned, the only Android devices worth talking about are the Nexus phones. Everything else is a second-class citizen. And yeah, going with Java and shoving XML everywhere...ugh. Fortunately the NDK is now good enough to develop a game entirely in C++, so it doesn't bother me.
Vps hosting
Lisp, 1958. Though technically they were invented in 1936 by Alonzo Church (in his Lambda Calculus).
India to oppose .XXX domain for porn sites
Xen 4.1 releases
Is this managed dedicated server good enough?
If you have development skills and a bit of sales skills. The best way to do it is to do a web design gig for about $4-10K. DO NOT do anything more complex than a form on the site as it will just snowball into a ridiculous sized project. Go to a web tech convention (in Boston, WebInno) and wear a name tag or shirt that explains that you build kick ass websites. You WILL get attention.

Our startup did the same thing until recently: do web design consultancy. In the past 3 months (and next 1) we've saved up (two of us) over $60,000 which is more than enough for at least a 6month full time run on our web startup. This on top of building our web startup's prototype and going to Ugrad (and doing decently I might add). If you have any further questions on how to get your web design co going in a hurry... pm me.
The Case Against the word "Macro"
Aircell Introduces the World’s First Airborne Smartphone
Cydia 1.1 Released faster and more stable [Update now]
What kind of a shock.
The color app is unsuable, the user experience is the worst i ever had with an app.
That's beein said, if data mining is there "goal", then i suspect they fail because when your goal is expressed in this way not in a way that match "user's" goal then you're going to fail.
Google never said: "Hey our project i about collecting as much informations on people as we can". There goal is to satisfy some needs of their users.

On the other hand i need to say i was shocked to read what Color was about because it was so close to my start-up gold "idea" (don't ask what? :-) ). But more the time pass more i feel their project is so far of what we'd be doing.

I whish they understand that they can't succeed in this way, they can collect user's data like all those social networks does, but in exchange they need to provide something in exchange.
This is the xml file used for that Donald Duck mashup. Reading through the timeline tag really made more sense to me than the actual demo (in terms of explanation).

http://www.rebelliouspixels.com/semanticremix/data.xml
you can let your customers make a reservation as well choose a table through their gadgets also you can add a service like that "make a pre order for drinkd for example'while you arrive!
Great, I wasn't aware that DrScheme was renamed DrRacket.
Why not give the store a simple web-server with a menu, and then let people browse and order drinks and food using their own smartphones? Then you can do things like collect ratings and complaints and such on the same interface (not necessarily all made public).

Using a QR-code on the table, you can send people directly to a specific URL which identifies their table without them having to key that in manually.

Plug a printer into the web server and orders can go directly to paper.

The same web server would be useful for take-out or home delivery.
Yes the privacy policy is at least clear about it.
Fantastic, thanks. This is one of the reasons I love HN.
How many NEW desktop apps have you installed recently?

We obviously won't see Adobe, Autodesk and some other professional software developers moving their products to web anytime soon, but when we are talking about the new products - web is usually the winner. Look at Chrome and it's pace of innovation, check out the examples from Mozilla Demo Studio, could you imagine that working in all latest major browsers 3 years ago?

Same is true for mobile, I don't see another space for innovation except improving web performance, integration & so on. Maybe you see some other directions where iPhone & Android can go?
GNOME Shell 3.0 Nears Release
How to Choose a Typeface
9x9 grid of digits with an ambiguous solution is not a Sudoku. It is part of the definition.

Within the set of initial grids that have unambiguous solutions there are ones which require guessing or backtracking, these are generally not considered proper Sudokus and are not presented to humans to solve.

A Sudoku is not a destination, it is a journey.
Ask HN: Can you introduce me to contemporary state of essay art?
I believe some HN readers enjoy reading good essays, especially since PG is one of the notable essayists (in my own opinion, at least).

I'm not from an English-speaking culture and English-speaking world still seems very foreign to me, so I don't know where to start looking for modern Borgeses. I've ran against one or two of them, like PG or Eco, but it definitely does not help me to see a big picture.

Maybe there is some magazine with reviews of new essays and authors, or even some books with essays (like a Hofstadter's one (not GEB)), or a blog, or you can just give me a few names. I love good essays, and they seem very valuable for me in this age of lame bloggers, but I need your help to dive in. Thank you

As you can see, I don't even know where such kind of question will be appropriate
I don't know about inspiring new genres, unless the end user-experience of this is something that could never be created in Flash (a streaming VOD that triggers javascript at specific video frames/times to update portions of the DOM).

I would like to see this used in an interactive, bi-directional manner. That would be some interesting stuff.
Just because everyone expects to get things for free on the web doesn't mean there aren't companies making serious money. They just make their money selling something other than software directly.
Have you been able to use Wowza with HTML5 using a livestream, not VOD?
Ultimately the limiting factor to Google’s agility will be its technology infrastructure, not its engineers.

Isn't that a contradiction? It's the engineers who build the infrastructure. As such I would expect them to be the bottleneck, just like in every other company that has an effectively unlimited hardware budget.
From the title, I was half-expecting a link to patio11's profile on some dating site.

Great video, thanks for posting.
In what world have online office solutions or, even better, web-based photo editing software replaced their Desktop counterparts for even the simplest use cases? I see no widespread adoption at all, which renders the argument moot.

Whoever thinks web apps have already taken over lives in a very peculiar bubble.
I wouldn't call constraint propagation "brute-force". It isn't enumerating every combination of values and backtracking (as either a non-contstraint Prolog program or a C program with up to 81 nested for-loops would). Rather, it's removing every possibility that has already been canceled out (constraint propagation), then saving undo information, making one guess, and seeing if that sets off another chain reaction or reaches a solution.

He acknowledges the possibility of using more "reasoning" in the article, but dismisses it:

"We could try to code more sophisticated strategies. For example, the naked twins strategy looks for two squares in the same unit that both have the same two possible digits. [...] Coding up strategies like this is a possible route, but would require hundreds of lines of code (there are dozens of these strategies), and we'd never be sure if we could solve every puzzle."

If you want to read more about constraint programming, there is an excellent overview chapter in CTM (http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/book.html). "The Art of the Propagator" (http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/44215) is also good, though it focuses more on arithmetic value propagation than set propagation problems like sudoku. For more advanced material, look at the clp(FD) papers by Danial Diaz (http://cri-dist.univ-paris1.fr/diaz/publications/cv-short.ht...); familiarity with Prolog terminology will be helpful.
The title is very appropriate. The talk is awesome too.
freaking funny.
I love this place...
Erlang.org Gets a Facelift
Following up to myself... using a plug computer and something like http://pagekite.net/, you could make this a plug-and-play product which works with any consumer Internet connection. Remote support will be relatively easy, as the product will actually have a public facing website.
I think you can get daily summaries quite easily, eg:

http://www.google.com/finance/historical?q=NASDAQ:GOOG

and from memory when the markets are open you can see the order book stuff:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ecn?s=GOOG+Order+Book

But I believe you have to buy the more detailed data from the exchange itself. I have no idea how you do this but as far as I know it costs maybe a few thousand per month.

So more stuff:

http://www.statslab.cam.ac.uk/~chris/links.html
Singularity Is a Religion Just for Digital Geeks
I was very happy when SICP in Clojure was announced. It offered to kill 2 birds with one stone. But it has slowed down over the months http://sicpinclojure.com/?q=content/current-status
stack overflow -site:stackoverflow.com

Not perfect, but it helps
This is a man who understands why people buy stuff. Awesome to see him talk.
Doesn't work on iPhone?
How To Deliberately Hide Bugs In Code (for use in a Novel I'm writing)
At the end of the video Patrick mentions his website has some example businesses for women. Anyone have the link to that page?
It's interesting that the author wants to use stuff like Hadoop/Cassandra, products that are clones of Google's older gen. systems, and are certainly inferior. (Just download the latest Hadoop/Hbase, kill -9, and it all goes to hell with data loss.)
That was a year ago, when they had no competition. Now the iPad has 65,000 apps optimized for its form factor. You don't get to compete with last year and still win.
Would be interesting to see how this fares performance-wise in comparison:

http://corp.galois.com/blog/2009/3/18/solving-sudoku-using-c...

It's a sudoku solver based on Cryptol, which is "... a language tailored for cryptographic algorithms." built on top of Haskell. The amazing this is that all you need to define is a function that checks whether a given board is solved. Cryptol does the searching for you!
This was great, but he seemed a little nervous, although his text was perfect.
This isn't a particularly insightful comment, but I get your drift. The thing is, for the generation of teenagers and young adults, web-based software is actually relatively easier to use than native software because they grew up on the web. Even if you sacrifice some functionality using Google docs instead of Word, many people prefer the benefits of an instant-on, no-install, free, auto-syncing solution. So yeah, it is a viable alternative.
Patio11, good speech and funny, too. Awesome job, man!
This article is incorrect on two counts:

First of all, the travelling salesman problem is not actually about travelling salesmen; a solution has to work on an arbitrary graph, not just one that is constrained to the actual geometry of space.

Secondly, the bees' solution to the problem is heuristic; there is no guarantee they will always find the optimal solution, though they'll almost always be very close. Computers can apply heuristics too (with the same caveat), and when they do so it's much faster than verifying an algorithmic solution.
Very impressive, Patrick! Love the energy and humor.

Just wondering, how many times you practice it? (I'm guessing at least 5 times)
May I suggest that you challenge your assumptions? Maybe the problem isn't sharability but something entirely different. Having said that, here are some general suggestions:

1. Make a widget creator that allows members to easily display photos on their site. Offer this as a service to (news) blogs.

2. Maybe you could offer a suite of commercial services? I can imagine some companies wanting to analyze their social photography presence. What about alerts a la google?

3. Are you working on an android/iphone app? I think you should be working on an android/ihpone app!

4. Any gamification you can throw in? How about battle between two photos where members can vote on the best/funniest/most touching one? How about score boards with people with the most comments, views, uploads, etc. There is so much fun to do in this space http://gamification.org/wiki/Encyclopedia
STUN and TURN are listed in the open source protocols used by FaceTime [1], so it is probably one or both of those. There are probably a few more methods too, and it will just keep trying until it finds one that works on the current network.

[1] http://blog.imtc.org/index.php/2010/06/09/the-technology-beh...
I did the same, need to dig into my back up hard drive to find it.
Maybe i'm going to expose a REST api for generating sudokus. Do you think this might be interesting?

"Did you know that in order to generate a sudoku you need first to solve it?"
New data mined from historic 'primordial soup' study
gimme optional dynamic typing and I'm sold
Thanks for posting this. I really enjoyed the presentation and have a newfound respect for patio11. Not that I didn't enjoy listening to him on the Techzing Podcast.
His blog:
http://www.kalzumeus.com/start-here-if-youre-new/
I find that calculating the sequence of stereo pairs for an MP3 file is much simpler and more accurate if I dispense with the human listener.

For instance, I just rendered "In the Year 2525" 593 times faster than a human can listen to it on a single thread of a core i3.
I have enjoyed Martin Amis's work, for instance "The War Against Cliché" is a compilation of his essays.
How to be a smarter entrepreneur with VCs
The article mentions the data file and visualizations, but doesn't link them:

Raw data file:

https://spreadsheets2.google.com/ccc?authkey=COCjw-kG&hl...

Visualization (in German):

http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-vorratsdaten
YouTube co-founders may team on new start-up
A Liberal Open Prison System - Bastoy Island, Norway (video)
Non-blogspam link: http://businessofsoftware.blip.tv/file/4933754/

Alternatively a direct link to the 70MB M4V (H264 & AAC) source (so you can avoid Flash, even though Blip.tv has HTML5 I think): http://blip.tv/file/get/Businessofsoftware-PatrickMcKenzieMa...

It's a video called "Patrick McKenzie. Marketing to minorities".

Title of the talk was "Software for underserved markets", he talks about women. It's quite short (<10 minutes) and full with wit and energy. Great fun to watch.
Porn's Lessons on Perl and PHP
Akshay Patil leaves Google to become the new Platform Evangelist for Foursquare
You're not going to find a bunch of Ruby on Rails or Django sites because it's harder to find Python and Ruby developers on the cheap.

The article is a bit old, but should still make for an intersting discussion.
The best line is when he says, "features.html should 404."

What he says is basically:

1. Develop a niche, and this is probably easier if you target women.

2. Sell an emotional experience, not features.

3. Tell stories because software is boring.

4. Profit!!!
Doesn't apply to chess imho. I still keep discovering different views of the game on occasional plays. The standard algorithm takes too much time, so you have to find out how to see what's important.
I prefer the original CDL, the commercial drivers license, with that you can certainly go far.
Ask HN: Why do startups use third-party landing page service?
This has been puzzling me for quite some time - I really can't think of any good reason why many startups use third-party landing page services.

My thinking is that any startup that has got to a state where they're ready to collect/offer beta or pre-launch registrations/invites ought to have all the resources to offer this on their own site.

So, why use third-party services?
Facebook already do more than photo sharing. I don't personaly like using facebook, but at least with facebook i don't share my personal life with everyone. What's more personal than your pics? your face?
Perhaps you could tell us what you are interested in? There is at least one noteworthy publication in each field.

For general reading of good, longer pieces I can recommend: New York Review of Books (not only a book review magazine), Foreign Affairs (although I don't agree with their interventionist political stance), The Atlantic (popular with HN readers) and Harper's. I'm sure that you would find something in interesting in each of these, but again, please post what your particular interests are.
Original post: http://www.p51labs.com/simply-buttons-v2/
I hope this meme won't enter the public mind like "science can't explain how bees can fly"
If you've seen his older videos and interviews you can see how far he's come along. Few more presentations and he'll be a pro.
Most common in my world? Not checking return codes. Or check return codes and logging "there was an error" rather than using errno.

A couple uncommon ones:
for (float x = 0.0; x < 3,5; x += 0.1) {...}

if (flag == TRUE) {...}
(TRUE was #defined as 1 somewhere, but someone else set flag to a different non-zero value like -1, !0 or ~0.)
Interesting. Design only, or HTML/CSS implementation?
"Software is just the monetisation engine for the emotion business."

That makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.
Dude your a tool.
What a trollish piece of BS, having two CEOs is not because RIM cannot decide who's in charge; this person obviously doesn't now shit about RIM.
レアジョブの口コミ・評判・体験談が学べる！！
New Entrophy Battery pulls energy from difference in salinity
Ask YC:  When Y Combinator receives equity, when does it start diluting?
We've been offered a term sheet from a startup accelerator.

I think the terms state that their position will continue to adjust, and not be diluted, until just AFTER we raise a round greater than $250K.

Is this typical of accelerators? For example, does Y-Combinator continue to hold its full 2-10% investment just after a $1M round is raised?