skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
$9 a month for an uptime SLA of 99.95%
is a pretty good deal;

That's only the initial fee you have to pay per application.

Prices have grown tremendously, since their new model is similar to Amazon's AWS, only more expensive.

apps are still free below reasonable quotas

Until now quotas have been fairly reasonable, but now they are announcing more restrictions. Considering the new pricing scheme I'm afraid the new quotas are going to be useless.

the Backends feature could be a game changer

No, not really, they are just removing an awful limitation.

In the meantime you could do the same thing with Amazon's AWS (slightly cheaper too), and Amazon also provides real map/reduce powered by Hadoop - you can specify how many instance you want, you give it the scripts to run, and it runs them for you, getting billed for the instance-hours used.

GAE is still the only PaaS that offers auto-scaling

I liked GAE because it was a cheap hosting solution suitable for the quick hacks I would do in PHP.

But now I'm not liking it any more. GAE is awful for scaling when you actually need scaling - IMHO, you can't scale unless you have complete control, and judging by GAE's past behavior (I'm especially referring to datastore latencies here), I don't have much confidence in it.

Migrating away is also a nightmare, unless you're talking about a 10-minute blog engine.
I tried CoffeeScript for a project, and went back to plain Javascript.

Maybe that's a Ruby/Perl thing that I didn't get. It's almost "too expressive", which I found myself spent quite some time thinking about "how to say something" in a elegant manner, instead of just saying it.
try http://www.v6.facebook.com
I've been having good luck with rails_admin[1], which is currently in the process of receiving a nice facelift[2].

[1] https://github.com/sferik/rails_admin/

[2] https://github.com/sferik/rails_admin/issues/317
It's very similar. Internally, its taking a different approach, but in the end, the goals of the projects are fairly close.

Active Admin provides similar features, but does so with a DSL instead of implementing classes, as is the case with Django Admin.
How much Scala have you read and written? I hear "xxx is too complicated" quite often, and it's always from people whose experience is having visited the language website once or twice.

Of course code is hard to read if you don't know the language.
Wait just a little bit longer ;) You should hear some news about this on our blog within a week. leaflabs.com/blog
I don't know. Obviously some of general stuff we talk about, you'd already know, if you'd done it before. But on the other hand maybe there are other advantages you'd be better equipped to extract the second time through. E.g. if I went back to college now I'd be able to learn a lot more than I did at the time.
Can't rely on encryption because hard to know when and how it is cracked (you only find out after its too late).

Much easier to just create an account to send just one email and then delete the account (after it is sent), or just never use it again.
Yeah, just like with iOS devices. Probably because it would be too confusing for potential downloaders who then couldn't access it anyways due to blocked IPs.

Never mind that it's still legal to cross borders with your phones/tablets. Couldn't watch netflix on my iPad when I was in the US recently, unless I go through all the trouble of changing my market place (which requires a US credit card yadda yadda).
Effective Capital Raising for Lean Startups
Kudos to the developer for having a nicely presented web site for the project too, and not just a github repo. All too often, a lot of awesome projects hide on github without some upfront presentation of the work beyond a short README file.

The developer will know why their work is great and how it can help others, but you have to make it easy to recognize for the uninitiated too. That still applies for technical projects that are going to require advanced programming efforts to integrate anyway. Don't think of it as marketing, think of it as a necessary step to evangelizing your work and bringing its benefits to a wider audience.
Teaching Introductory Programming Using Scheme
I’ve had to admit that I really don’t care that much about software
Court permits joinder in BitTorrent filesharing case
I think it goes back to the learnings from the original tech bubble: companies with a real business plan survive, those with a nebulous product don't make it.

For example: Amazon was a rising star during the late-90s tech bubble, and it's still around today. And it's very much a player in the tech space. How many of us use AWS?

Google has a solid business platform and has definitely made it by all measures.

Netflix is another example. Good product, has upset the industry, sky's the limit type stuff.

Could all of these golden companies fail? Absolutely. For example, look at Microsoft right now - they are still innovating in some spaces, but really struggling in others. Will they go the way of IBM? (Hey, I hope so, but let's not start dreaming now).

Then there's Facebook and Twitter - arguably the stars of the current tech bubble. Are they worth what people say they are? Really depends on what happens over the next few years. Both are definitely becoming platforms that people do all kinds of interesting things on. But at the same time, people could get tired of social networking. (That's my personal bias shining through).

So...it's a bubble for some and not for others.
Show HN: My new app, Cloak for OSX
One additional piece of information seems important though. The US has a prison population of 756 per 100,000 inhabitants. France has 85 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants. (that's according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison#Population_statistics)

Of course that says nothing about how bad the prisons are. But it probably does say something about the quality of the justice system as a whole.
thats what I think they are using native client for security/DRM

http://code.google.com/p/nativeclient/
I rewrote the JS of a webapp in javascript today, enjoyed it a lot. The only thing I'm puzzled about is how you do ajax callbacks (with jQuery). Like how you would add an anonymous callback function. But it makes a good excuse for refactoring messy javascript, and it's not hard to pick up. I'd say the readability improvement is instant and applies to readers who've never tried Coffeescript, even if they know JS.
Early stage start-up looking for Java/Mobile Engineers
RelayRides is the world's first neighbor-to-neighbor car sharing business (think eBay meets ZipCar), and we're looking for an awesome engineer to join the team! We launched in June 2010, in a little place called Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since then, we've been expanding all over town. Call us greedy, but one city wasn't enough for us! So, we went for San Francisco too, and now we're spreading our crazy car sharing ways around the city by the bay as well.

What else? Oh yeah, we've made some cool friends named Google Ventures and August Capital. They like us so much that they gave us a little bit of money, just enough to tide us over until we completely revolutionize the way the world drives. Seriously, we're passionate about making it easier for people to live car-free, which will help create a world with far fewer cars on the road, less pollution, and big savings (or income!) for all. I know that sounds crazy, but some smart people at The Economist, New York Times and Time Magazine have all said very nice things about us.

We are looking for an experienced engineer who has a passion for development and an appreciation for Agile development methodologies, such as short-development iterations, test driven development and refactoring. You'll be responsible for making some real cool stuff happen. So, roll up a sleeve, put on one of the many hats you're going to wear, and come join the fun!

Responsibilities:
•	Produce high-quality code using software engineering best practices.
•	Ensure proper technical design and documentation.
•	Proactively identify areas for improvement/scaling our current architecture and application design to keep pace with the growth and performance demands of our members and product roadmap.
•	Clearly understand key technical components and drive them forward in innovative ways.
•	Provide architectural input to project related decisions.
•	Develop tools and utilities to diagnose (and fix!) performance problems.
•	Be key participant in iterative Agile development process. We design, build, and evaluate features in very short periods of time.
•	Be able to work efficiently in a constantly changing and growing environment where the process is fluid and creative and unique solutions are desired.

Qualifications:
•	3+ years of professional coding experience.
•	BS in Computer Science or related field.
•	Extensive programming experience in Java.
•	Experience with mobile development (Android, iPhone or mobile optimized web sites) is a plus. Interest in mobile development is a requirement.
•	Ability to clearly articulate complex technical and business issues to a wide variety of audiences.
•	Experience in Agile methods.
•	Solid experience documenting code and designs.
•	A critical eye for design and usability.
•	Ability to take a task and deliver on it.
•	Outstanding written and oral communication skills.
•	Previous start-up experience is a strong plus.

Salary: Competitive salary, based on experience, plus equity.

How to Apply: please submit your resume along with a cover letter to jobs@relayrides.com
I don't even answer phone calls. Why is some telemarketer calling me more important than my friend saying something on Twitter?
Not that I would pick it up myself, but maybe it's a good time to put it on github and let this community run with it?
I recall that this was the strategy that the 9/11 terrorists used to communicate. I suppose that the Richard Stallman approach is the next evolution of it.
Right, but I don't want to use PHP. I don't understand why it wouldn't be just a straight-forward CSS/HTML/JS front-end. Is there some code generated on the server that I'm not getting?
I sent the site owner an email to see if he can comment on more general search queries he may have lost ranking on. If it is just that long quoted one I agree that your suggested headline would be better.
I suggest avoiding zebra crossings if you use this on any theorems involving the colors black and white.
Strange. We did an iPad giveaway last year and the response was significant, to say the least.
Remind HN: HN Parents Google Group
Same here; installs fine on an Evo 4G with Android 2.3.
$.getJSON url, (response) -> ...

# Or, more detailed...

$.ajax
url: "/query.json"
type: "GET"
success: (response) ->
process response
error: ->
alert "trouble!"
Hi, all. I just got the MVP of my new app out the door and I'd love to get your feedback on it!

If you'd like to give it a go, drop me an email [davepeck at getcloak.com] and I'll send you a special Hacker News invite code. (Or you can just sign up on the Cloak home page.)

Cloak is a personal VPN, only (1) it's super easy to set up and get going, and (2) we terminate in the cloud [AWS], which means we can scale dynamically to meet load and can pick a data center near you to decrease the latency. Under the hood, Cloak is built on top of the OpenVPN stack.

Cheers, and thanks for checking it out!
Most impressive.
Best Deals
Hum I read that more as, we need it secret or corps providing us info will never accept to do it and will fight to the end even if they are legally bound to provide the information.

So it's not that they don't want challenges it's that they think they can't even get what they legally can without secrecy.

It's not a very good argument by the FBI for sure. Obviously if people knew that some corps provided info but not other, it could penalize the first by losing customers but we already know we can't trust certain companies even with all the secrecy.
Having disabled webgl due to security vulnerabilities, I can't actually see this in FF4. Can someone describe it for me? Is it pretty?

Hey, remember when we all thought that HTML5 and emerging technologies like webgl would be so cool and so much more secure than Flash? Yeah....
That's a good argument for sending the actual emails in plaintext, but it doesn't explain why the storage drives weren't heavily encrypted.
Tsunami Run: an HTML5 JQuery/Spritely Game
I think this a great attitude towards optional syntax. For example:

xCoord(points[0]) - xCoord(points[1])

...is clear, but paren-ful, whereas:

print object

...is also clear, but has no need of parens.
Might not be tech-related, but this just made my day.
Debugging Legislation: PROTECT IP
Has anyone ever experimented with deleting/disabling features on an Android phone?

I'm always curious what it'd be like to have a "smart" phone with no email or web browser, but still GPS and a camera.

I'd like to work on my nervous habit of taking out my phone and checking HN/email/Twitter, etc all the time.
I also remember when we all thought that HTML5 would bring interoperability... Instead of "Designed for IE" we now have "Designed for Chrome". Is Google really that much better than Microsoft, or does the internet just have goldfish-like memory.
Linkbait and strawman. "Why didn’t we apply to what seems like a necessary program to launch a startup these days?" Even PG would not claim that YC is "a necessary program to launch a startup."
This music video is more interactive than most videogames today.
> Not a designer? Here’s how to make your web apps look awesome -

Hire a designer :)

--

I am saying this only half-jokingly. There's always a trade-off. Pre-made themes are great, but

(a) they are shared and have a mass-production stigma attached to them

(b) they are designed first and spec'd second, which is the opposite of the normal process whereby the design follows from what it is that needs to be achieved with it.

The title should really be "great looking designs on a budget" rather than focusing on the lack of the designer skills. Because if there are funds available, then contracting out the design and getting exactly what you want beats the hell out of purchasing a theme.
I saw it in several games in Direct2Drive, (this games had the same restrictions in other online stores).
I don't think is fraud though, as the same site sells other games to Argentina. This is what direct2drive says on the matter:
Why are some games "country restricted" ?
This is a limitation set by either the game developer or the internet distribution laws your country. We have to abide by both of their wishes.
I agree, I am a bit surprised this is on the frontpage. What is ironic though, is than now when I search for the 30 word phrase, two scraper sites appear with the article scraped from seobook.com. ...nicely backdated by 37 seconds.
It is indeed pretty clever to claim that doing something the majority of startups do is a bold move and worthy of attention on that account. (I wish the majority of new startups applied to YC, but that is almost certainly not the case.)
Do Artists and Technologists Create Things the Same Way?
Show HN: IGN's new Game Check-in app Dominate (Sencha + PhoneGap on iOS)
wow, that put my whole system into a spin lock for about 5 minutes. not fun.
> Firefox and Chrome are going to be on more equal footing in Ubuntu now, so webkit is more likely to be needed.

Chrome bundles a completely separate copy of WebKit. There would be no savings here, it would be exactly as if Chrome wasn't there for this matter.
They have also moved to text messages. It is rather amusing seeing the necessary mechanics of that type of meme distilled down to so few characters. No room to waste buttering up your emotions. No, they get right down to things like "Fwd to 10 people or BAD LUCK is on you tonight!"
This is a compelling idea, but how do users know whether or not they can trust your service? You would have access to all unencrypted internet traffic from your users while the app is active.
PG: Any chance of ever opening jobs up to the rest of us? Maybe with a karma threshold?

My contention has always been that it would actually help YC companies as well, because the job section would get a lot more page views. YC companies could be highlighted and/or sorted to the top.
Looks like I'm going to have to break up with Typus.

We had a long run, Typus, no regrets…
Interesting, thanks, if WebKit isn't used then I see no problem here.
Speaking as a South African, you do not want to go to prison there. People try to avoid it at all costs. Corruption is rife, and reports have surfaced of guards selling sexual access to prisoners amongst other unpleasant activities.
Source article:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/2011/05/19/donald-mackenzie/how-to-make...

Not set to be published until the 19th of this month.
A Possible Polymath Project?
Not useful to post this sort of thing here.
Hi kylec,

There are a few components to trust.

One component is trusting that the software does what it says it does. We're engaged with some reputable security consultants to ensure that we're delivering what we promise. We'll have (lots) more to say about that in the coming weeks and months.

The second component of trust is being a trustworthy, transparent company. Building that kind of trust takes time and presence in the industry and the community. We've tried to strike the right balance with our initial MVP website (see the features page at https://www.getcloak.com/about/features/) but we know we have a long road ahead of us. Let us know how we did.

In some sense, our problem of trust is no different than any other VPN, security, or service provider that deals with sensitive data. Trust is difficult and we'll work hard to earn it.

Thanks!
For markets to work one must try to get as much trading as possible on them. Only if the majority of trading happens on markets will markets be able to effectively discover prices.

If one puts such artificial limitations on markets, than there is always a danger that people will not trade there. If people trade in side deals instead of the markets, then markets would not be able to discover prices and all kinds of inefficiencies would result from the uncertain prices. For example if you put in your limitation, there will be occasions where both buyers and sellers will want to buy and sell at a certain price but the exchange will simply not let them. In this case the buyers and sellers will try to meet and do the transaction outside of the exchange and that is usually a bad thing.

I think there are other ways this can be fixed. For example one may even the playing field by simply adding a clock to the market so that all trades must happen on clock "ticks". This would prevent the advantage of HFT. Or the exchanges could just stop selling offer data to the HFT people. This would not cause the market problems discussed above, because it would only remove things that actual market participants do not have anyways. Thus, these measures would not remove any actual supply or demand from the market.

The solutions are not hard to figure, the problem is that exchanges do not want to implement them. Exchanges make a lot of extra money from HFT and want to keep and grow that money even if endangers uncertainty in their markets.
How bin Laden emailed without being detected by US
I was expecting something a bit more elaborate.
How prevalent is this tactic of spreading FUD about competitors? And does it usually work in with blogs? Is every blog post we read a result of PR lobbying on the media/bloggers?

Inside facebook says it's an industry practice, but i dont trust insidefacebook, they always tend to kiss facebook's ass too hard:
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/05/12/facebooks-failed-pr...
TwitPic Will Sell Your Photos, But No Cash For You
I think it's ok for YC cos to derive at least that much unique benefit from HN. Also I'm hoping that once the jobs page doesn't suck, it will get more page views. The jobs code had suffered from such bit decay that a lot of YC cos stopped posting jobs on HN. I'm hoping this will fix that.
Some commentary: http://www.boingboing.net/2011/05/12/all-your-pics-are-be.ht...
Is Netflix using WebM too?
Nobody seems to be mentioning that in NK, you go to prison, and your entire extended family, for 3 generations (yes, your great grandkids) will all die there. Comparison to us prisons is laughably pathetic.
Oh no! They'll find out everything they learned about greedy Western capitalist societies is true then...
For future reference, you're being downvoted because Hacker News has traditionally looked down upon non-contributive, vacuous one-word comments. Particularly if they looked like they're coming from new accounts to try to boost the article's ranking.

Since you appear to be one of the developers on this project, I think it would have been better received if you had introduced yourself as such.
Pricing is hard and often the only way to find out what is the 'right' price is to experiment and adjust.
JQuery Visual Cheat Sheet 1.6
Says our lead programmer: "The new parallel collections are amazing!"
A superb demonstration and an excellent song. Well done Google!
This is the approach I took with Disrupt.fm

I almost convinced myself to spend around $7-800 on a design from 99designs before I found an awesome admin theme on themeforest for $20

Just because you purchase a theme from themeforest does not mean that your site will look like 500 other sites that have the same theme. I bought an admin template so that I could use the styles....not the structure and layout.You should purchase a theme knowing that it's going to be customized to fit your needs, not to just drop it in and be done...plus, chances are most of the admin templates are used on the backend for a bunch of websites that the public won't see.
I am currently bearish on social shopping. Lots of people actually do not like to buy and sell from friends. And ultimately, you usually want as wide an audience as possible. However, I think Facebook and Twitter will continue to be important channels for gaining exposure and engaging with customers.

Regarding Novelo, the Facebook page is pretty much empty so I am not sure what the service does or how it works. I am unlikely to add the app without any information.

back at you on the plug: pricetack.com falling price marketplace
One would hope terrorist organizations don't have technical expertise to code review PGP.
Quick question about your implementation. Do you generate a key for each user using PKI, or is there a shared key for all users? I had a previous VPN provider that used a shared key for each user, which was a security issue.
If you're not using anyone P3k-incompatible libraries, and if you don't anticipate doing so in the future, and if you think you need something that is offered in 3.x that 2.7 doesn't offer, then it seems reasonable to go with 3.x.

For example, the 3.2+ GIL is far improved (and will not be backported, according to the bug tracker), so if you're using threads in Python, that's a good reason to go that way.

My impression is that most people can't really say with certainty that they'll never want to use an incompatible library in the future, so they'll stick with 2.7.x.

I just started a new project, went through this decision tree, and ended up at 2.7.

Game theory probably has something to say about the individual decision to defect (stay with 2.7 because it's more work to use 3.x) versus the public good that would come of using 3.x (i.e., more people use it, so library writers have more reason to support it, so more people can use it because it's better supported). Perhaps someone with more knowledge in this area can lend some insight into rearranging the incentives to make 3.x happen faster, too.
Pakistan Seeks Permanent Ban on Facebook: This Week in Online Tyranny
drop me a line at jeff@pagelever.com - I've got some tasks you might find interesting.

I've interned with TechStars, TechCrunch, Seth Godin, etc--so i have some experience with what it's like to be an intern in a startup situation...