skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I don't think it is cynical, I think its more in line of "Having a zillion patents helps you when Oracle bitch slaps you about your use of Java."

So while I agree that its a silly patent, the idea of patenting as much stuff as possible to defend yourself against silly patents (ammunition for countersuits) is understandable.
Mapping the 2010 U.S. Census
Couldn't agree more.

I'm always more impressed by the companies that show a list of customers before they launch, then the companies assuming they need to launch to get customers (or that launching will necessarily lead to additional customers).
5 Exclusive Add-ons for Firefox 4
Sidenote : Growing up I also played monopoly that way and various other house rules. After playing some Euro games I went back and read the monopoly rules and played a game by the rules. No free parking, no extra houses or hotels, forced auctions, etc. The game took 45 minutes and was way more fun. Made Monopoly actually enjoyable again, though not as good as most of the really good Euro games out today.
In ASP.NET 4.0 and MVC, URL routing is built-in, and it's easy as pie.
It was Apple and MS, now Apple and Google. The structure of the market is the same because of the same acting forces. Google fills the same space for mobile non-PC gadgets that MS has filled for PC - the common software platform for hardware manufacturers. As in case of PC, the hardware manufacturers who isn't running the platform will become flushed out (except for Apple :). There is nothing in that situation that requires openness, even more - the openness may put the business at risk.
Most of the Node core team is vehemently opposed to anything they consider a language extension, which fibers arguably are, so I doubt you'll be seeing them baked into Node any time soon.

See: https://groups.google.com/d/msg/nodejs/GDqkQzmnwHM/FKETaPivX...
I think this happens any time you separate the people who think about risk and the people who think about benefit. So long as there's a team with the job of managing risk, that's what they'll do. Balancing those two sides then becomes the job of someone up the stack who doesn't have the time to focus on all of the details.
Did "Closed Source" development kill MySpace?
I've only been using it for a few days, but I love it so far. Now, if only it worked with cell phones...
At this time the utility of the app doesn't justify a user putting up with any of these processes.
You are assuming that it is computed on page load.
That's not his premise.

He's saying 1 new worker added to a firm that already exists is more productive and causes more economic output than 1 new worker added to a random new business that wouldn't exist without the government benefits for them.

He's not saying they're a colossal waste of time, merely incentivising new hires in established firms will create more output than making new firms. He's just saying what the data is saying.

"Opening an Applebees is better than making a random restaurant with your own brand and corporate structure is more likely to create more economic activity".
More like "F.lux: Better lighting...for your computer"

It's not Mac-specific - http://stereopsis.com/flux/
Nice little, makes me think...

"I believe that once we have made progress on vision (not in the narrow-universe setting) to the point where generic visual scene understanding is effectively solved, there won't be much left that needs to go into the "ethereal" mind which cognitive scientists want to empower machines with..."

This is a great point but it may have implications that won't make the author happy.

If the field of vision computer vision is "nearly as big as" the field of general artificial intelligence, it may not be a good direction from which to approach general artificial intelligence.

The vision problem involves low-level problems of light-physics-etc, mid-level problems of object transformation and distortion and high level problems of cognition. Saying that vision is hard is saying we need to find one algorithm which can fluently mix these levels rather than using several algorithms that just sequentially deal with each level. And such a level-mixing algorithm sure sounds close to general IA.

It fits with argument of people like Jeff Hawking that there's a "Kernel" of general AI that computer vision is just an instance of (see http://books.google.com/books?id=Qg2dmntfxmQC&lpg=PA101&...). But there's nothing there that says computer vision is useful direction to approach that Kernel from - the technical considerations of vision are hard and you haven't shown it provides a particular useful division in a divide and conquer strategy.
"I found out that someone very close to me was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer"

I'm sorry. This part of life sucks. I'm going to shoot from the hip and give some insight. My apologies if it hurts.

Make sure you go see them, and show them some affection and share some laughs.

If they have a loving family and friends, someone or a few people will be physically supporting them throughout their illness. Be mindful of those who are giving them this support. They will experience their loved one decline quickly. Give THEM support. Be wary of the person who holds it all together, does the right thing, and then falls apart when their loved one dies. They need company and friendship after it all.

Good luck, and may the sun shine on your backs.

---

"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome."
— Isaac Asimov
It's not that people disagree entirely, it's just your tone.
Apple Wins U.S. Trade Ruling in Nokia Patent Fight Over Phones
Android Market Publisher Console Now Comes With Stats
I realize this is just linkbait, but I'll bite.

I probably wouldn't want to work for such a narrow-minded person and I am not a .NET coder (may I never write Enterprisey code again!)

I realize he's probably just trying to use an imperfect filter to narrow the field of candidates but a lot of his criticisms extend to any framework, whether we're talking about Swing or RoR. Every tool you choose will limit you in some way. Oh well.
Does that mean its been approved or just filed?
Don't put too much faith in what Markus says. He lies about everything. Constantly.

I think he thinks it's a strategic advantage to understate the work and resources he's invested into pof. (Makes for a good marketing story and newbies think building a pof clone is easy so they waste lots of money trying.)

Right about the time that blog post was written peer1 had a marketing video on their site where there was a guy walking about a data center being interviewed by someone off-camera. As they walked around the guy waved at a few racks of servers and said these are plenty of fish's servers, walked further, these are [some other big web site].. And from that video it was clear there was no way he was only using 1 server. There were lots of servers in use.
This strikes me as the rantings of a CEO who doesn't have any touch with the reality of development. Thanks for the offer, but I wouldn't want to work for you anyway ;)

In all seriousness, I just don't buy that .NET is an amateur language that prevents you from doing certain things. C# is a great, rapidly evolving language with a lot of functional programming features built in. On the other hand (as a developer who used C# for almost 4 years), I felt it gave me more freedom than most other environments. You can even drop down to pointer manipulation in performance critical areas when needed...

And with all the support for asynchronous programming, it makes it easy to write truly scalable web applications with a similar paradigm to Node.js.

And ASP.Net MVC is really nice... if I weren't developing on a Mac and in love with Heroku, I'd probably be using it over Ruby on Rails.

tl;dr; - your rant is only applicable if you are only talking about VBA developers. Modern C# on .NET with ASP.NET MVC is a pretty nice environment.
Or Eric Flint's take on it, which resulted in Baen Books putting a respectable number of their books online for free:

http://www.baen.com/library/

It's been a good boost to sales.
The Amazon Appstore For Android
Okay, removed the name of the internal cluster management systems.
How is that possible? I thought that a generic word in common use couldn't be trademarked at all. Is the system really that broken?
Heh. I designed that facility.

Back then, it was for Raleigh Mann, who is now head of net ops (director?) at google.

The original design of that facility was supposed to be based on fiber to the desktop which would allow any idle machines in the campus to become a part of the render farm when not in use.

Immediately after this facility was designed, it was announced that they were looking to extend production to asia, which was why they were looking at singapore - as artists in asia are much cheaper than here.

The cable plant of the DC was pretty novel back in 2004 when we designed it.

This was one of the first 10G networks in production, based on Foundry MG8 chassis at the time. There was a DC powere plant that was designed for the datacenter - but due to design flaws in the foundry chassis, it had to be torn out and AC infrastructure installed.

When the DC was being built out, there was many tens of thousands of gear that were brought onsite and stored overnight in a cage in the parking garage - one of the workers apparently came back at night and stole a bunch of the core networking gear causing delays in deployment.

EDIT: I forgot -- when we were frst doing designs of the DC, I wanted to do the design to look like the inside of the deathstar -- and it was vehemently opposed by execs in lucas. I have no idea why, though...

We were all really disappointed that they didn't have any interest to apply some aesthetics to the design.
The comment below this one mentions Gaiman, which is pro-customer.

However, I believe the reference you are looking for was the comic author who was pirated on 4chan. Then he showed up and starting talking with them, and encouraging them. Of course "Pics or it didnt happen" occurred, so Steve Lieber (author/artist) posted the BoingBoing vs 4Chan chart.

"If nothing else, I'm flattered someone thought enough of the book to take the time to scan and post it" - Steve Lieber.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101021/10481211524/comic-...
So PHP developers are "constitutionally constructed to create large scalable websites at a startup pace"? (Facebook had to a TON of stuff to make it scale).

Ruby developers? (Ref: Twitter)

Java developers?

I think only HTML programmers are the only ones who are constitutionally constructed to create large scalable websites at a startup pace.
I'm voting that the original poster should have removed the word 'rockstar' and 'ninja' from the title, specific for HN. Just sayin.
I'd suggest applying for those jobs anyways. Often times the boilerplate on a job posting has little relation to the employer's expectations. HR wrote that, copying what similar postings look like.
I'm curious if this kind of presentation is useful for teams that haven't already been validated with YC backing yet. I imagine this format only works because the investors are already interested in the teams since PG is interested in them. In other words, if somebody were to make a slide deck that followed a similar format (no demo, most focus on team competency) and present it to VC's without YC backing, would it receive the same enthusiastic response?
Modal and Modeless Windows Best Practices
Why does a company that creates expense reports need "the best programmers in the world"?
Best iPhone Apps for Shopping | Technorox
The study he did isn't broadly valid because he only tested using a captcha system that is quite abysmal, and for which the results were not surprising.

If he wants to increase conversion rates, he should get rid of the irrelevant fields such as date of birth, zip code, country, gender, and check-to-agree to legal contract.

Ha, checking the actual site, "sign up" leads to "pricing" and not a sign up page. So much for their grave concern about losing sign ups at each stage.

On the other hand, his link to an article about including Honeypot fields is good advice and valuable. Timestamp analysis is not so great since it requires javascript and cookies. The more stuff you require the more users drop off. The problem with captchas is bad captchas that are impossible for humans to decode. Sometimes the reason these are used is because simpler captchas are implemented in a faulty manner that allows spammers to decode them without even having to do OCR. So the site developer upgrades to more complex captchas rather than fix the underlying problem that is breaking the captcha security.
I'm really not sure where to begin with my criticism of this article. Perhaps the McDonalds kitchen straw man. Or maybe the outright fabrications like:

"Big things, like obscuring the networking stack under so many countless layers of abstraction that it’s virtually impossible to even imagine what bytes are actually going over the wire."

The only actual examples of "incompatibilities" that weren't lies were trivialities -- who cares if DirectX is left handed or right handed? Flipping your Z axis is trivial.

As someone who has extensively used both .NET and other platforms (C++, Java, etc.), this article strikes me as the naive views of someone who hasn't learned enough .NET to form a cogent opinion.
This is a really bad take on Microsoft technology lol.

I've wrapped a lot of my stuff around .NET technology and is very happy with it. You can definitely save a lot of time and launch your product fast to draw attracting with .NET. In a B2C business, you need to bring your product to the market as fast as possible before you can present, the end user doesn't care what you are built based on. Just take a look at match.com..
I'd say this is clearly written by someone who hasn't worked with .NET.
That's fine I guess but you will miss out on good people even though you don't think you will. The reasoning here suggests that .Net doesn't require you to do anything outside of controls and drag and drop which isn't in my experience very true at all. I've been able to some the occasional control for what I do but it's never anything fancy at all.

What platform are you using that doesn't abstract the networking stack? Network programming in C isn't that that different than in C#. The same basic concept of I/O is there and the APIs basically work the same way.

Also .Net isn't a language. I guess you are referring to C#.
Looking for Shared Room in Hackers Den
Hey there,

I am Thanasis, 32, have my own startup which super consumes me.

I am looking for a shared room for permanent residence in a house full of sick hackers. Would like to be close to hacker dojo but i am open to any offer near Mountain View / Palo Alto / Menlo areas...

Read more about me at http://20minus.com

Contact me thp [at] geowarp \./ com

The sooner the better ;)
Blockbuster came pre-installed on my phone. It's been run exactly 0 times.
Give me a break!!! Teenagers with animated gifs, a horrible taste for colors and true angst along with Rupert Murdoch's old school leadership killed myspace. Before you blame the stack, look at the content and lack of a proper newsfeed. Ugh
You should change Opzi's web page, it still refers to you as headquartered in Palo Alto.
From the author of My Year as an Amateur Android Game Developer, which came across earlier today [1]. I was startled to see that over 40% of my users were Spanish-speaking (Spanish-speaking users make up only about 3% of all Android Market users). I added the Spanish translation more or less on a whim; I suppose it let me compete in a more narrow market.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2368077
Maybe. We did LAMP before I heard the term, with a site in '98, but then it was definitely Perl. I've understood it as mainly Perl, and later PHP or Python as possibilities.
Stop talking, start doing. After a while you'll become a ninja/guru/rockstar/superstar/ubber nerd/super geek/jesus/zombie/whatever you wanna call yourself.
No idea. They use it on the site as already granted.
A great story on bootstrapping: Stormpulse.com (video)
With all this talk about Amazon, I'd love to hear if Amazon actually has the same problems, and AWS is just a customer-facing product that you can't actually use internally.
I agree with previous posts, I don't know any programmer who can 'choose' the language. Usually it's the boss who selects the language the whole team uses.

And then it's a job to pay bills and maybe child support.

But, clearly it's just his opinion, as he makes references to backslashes or forward slashes. It's an uninformed opinion?

In certain circles, we call this trolling. He knows what kind of response he will get. He's attacking .NET programmers. Let's see how they respond, etc.
I've been using it for sometime (on Mac and Windows). Since I usually code at night when bright light is jarring, it makes coding that much more pleasant.
So true. To all of the people who think you will learn something at a big company, how many of you have founded a startup? Did the processes that you learned at a big company help you run that startup?

One of the reasons I decided not to pursue my idea for a Dropbox-like system in 2002 was because I thought I would actually learn something if I took a job at a profitable web commerce company. (See http://erickennedy.org/great-idea-before-Dropbox the full story.)

The only thing I learned at Expedia.com was how hard it is for publicly-traded companies to innovate if it has any threat on their existing business model. They were unwilling to allow their customers to write hotel reviews because they feared it would anger hotel suppliers. They paid advertising to TripAdvisor as it grew that business and only later acquired it. It was pointless innovate within Expedia -- even the CEO (Rich Barton) couldn't get the teams to add reviews.

Worse, I bought a condo and a car with debt at Expedia and no longer had the flexiblity to bootstrap a startup. Don't make that mistake. It's fine if you're working at a big company to build up a cushion to start your business, but don't believe that their processes are right for a startup.
While the McDonalds kitchen analogy is kinda applicable, the theory of malicious lock-in is just plain silly.

Did it ever occur to you that just maybe Microsoft's customers are big corporations that routinely employ the programmer equivalent of french fry managers? And maybe, just maybe, Microsoft's products are highly successful at achieving the benevolent goal of engineering a product for their target audience?

As a former hard-core .NET developer and Microsoft employee -- who hasn't run a Windows box at home since nearly two years before quitting Microsoft -- I agree that most .NET developers are kinda lost in a Microsoft-crafted echo-chamber la-la land. But I don't agree that it's got anything to do with nefarious intentions, rather it's got to do with social dynamics and product/market fit.
What about before DDay? Do startups within the same batch feel like they're competing against each other, or does everybody manage to get along and help each other out?
I dislike .Net. I enjoy perl/python more.

I work on a .Net app now. It has tons of complexity that any other app has, if anything more complexity because of the requirements put around you.

Perl and Python are like poetry. You can do whatever you want.

.Net is like a haiku. You have limitations, but often times those very limitations are what allow you to focus on the true meaning of the code, and what it should be doing.

I think there is some level of truth to the article, but it's overstating it, which is clear.

"Why we don't hire .Net programmers" turns into ".NET on your resume isn’t an instant showstopper. " turns into "If you are a startup looking to hire really excellent people, take notice of .NET on a resume, and ask why it’s there."

So ask why it's there. Just like ask why Python is there, or ask why Perl is there.

So really, what you're saying is, it's important to ask why they programmer in the particular languages they choose, and use that information to determine why they do what they do. Prefer people who do it like a hobby as opposed to those that do it as a job.

Great. But what does that have to do with .Net? Oh yeah, you just don't like it.

That's fine, I don't either but I don't immediately think a programmer is bad because they use .Net.

I think that they are bad because they use PHP.
When I interned at SBC/Yahoo DSL around 'mid 2000s, they used the LAMPerl stack quite extensively.
We have a UI in the works for "night owls"...people love the sunset, so we'll still include it, but we'll have a longer transition for people who want to work late (or who live in northern climates).
this is so arrogant..
At http://wakemate.com/, we have tested out f.lux and have seen a significant improvement in our sleep!

Check out the full story here:
http://blog.wakemate.com/2011/03/21/using-electronics-before...
"keeping the programmer far away from the details such that they’re wholly and utterly dependent on Microsoft’s truly amazing suite of programming tools to do all the thinking for them."

Kind of the whole point of frameworks. Including jQuery which they're using.
That would be cool. I'd love to play around with it.
AppEngine offers memcached support baked in.

https://code.google.com/appengine/docs/python/memcache/using...
Great assertions. How about some evidence or examples?

.NET was created to be as different as possible from everything else out there? Show me at least one example. Further, show that it was deliberately done in order to be different.

Backslashes in path names? What does this have to do with .NET?

Left-handed coordinate system in DirectX? What does this have to do with .NET?

A dozen complex files before you even write a line of code? When I start a new .NET project (desktop), I get an XML and a basically-XML file that are so straight-forward that I regularly modify them in a plain text editor, and I've never even read the documentation on them.

Allergic to open-source licensing? I use at least a half dozen open source .NET projects on a daily basis.

Every day with .NET takes two days to unlearn? The author is just throwing out random numbers and ideas at this point.

The author comes across as having nothing but preconceived notions of .NET. I'm with the others. I wouldn't want to work for you... or even with you.
As an ex-MySpace ID MDP employee we had staging servers. There were like 2 or 3 different levels of test, of course, that might have been unique to our team.
Sounds like a good decision for now. Although I wonder if it's smart in the long run to be blocking out root redirect to optimize.ly, which is the URL many users may attempt to reach, in order to have shortened URLs of that form in tweets, where the domain name matters less since people would just be clicking a link. I really like the concept of the name showing up instead of bit.ly in retweets, but then that might lead people who hear about Optimizely on twitter to be even more confused if they try to go to optimize.ly. I wasn't aware of this kind of setup with bit.ly; is this a common issue since the pro price point is so high?
Just because he managed to attain the title of CEO, doesn't mean all he speaks would be gospel. Having a closed mindset is, more often than not, detrimental to one's ventures.
That's where I first heard about it. It's improved my scores too.
I've always loved Learn you a Haskell for Greater good.

http://learnyouahaskell.com/chapters

The blog has been slowly been updated for some time now. I especially like it's treatment of zippers, a concept that took me longer to learn than I'd like to admit:(
Great catch. We're in the process of updating the site :)
How to setup FacesTrace to debug a lifecycle problem in JSF.