skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Etymonline is back "on a solid footing"
Below is a message I received from Doug Harper (etymonline.com)

------------------------------

Dear Friends of Etymonline,

At last I can send a message to you who were helpful to this website during last year's IRS battle. My apologies for not doing this sooner, but I wanted to wait till there was a resolution to report. And with bureaucracy, that can take time.

As expected, I lost the fight to be kept from being defined by the government as a "business." However, aided by a capable professional person (reference available on request) who is also a fan of the site, I filed to incorporate etymonline, and did it honestly here in Pennsylvania instead of pretending to be from Delaware to save money, as some corporations do.

Then, again with the help of our accounting volunteer, my wife and I refiled our taxes for the year in question, with apporpriate deductions, and managed to erase the bulk of the debt. They even sent us back a check for about $20 in interest. I cherish that like a bartender who gets a dime tip from Scrooge. If this was a shop, that bill would be framed and on the wall.

All this should put the site on a solid footing. The non-profit option was tempting, but it turned out to be just not feasible in the current situation. The contributions from supporters got us over the hump.

So, etymonline is in business now. That shouldn't make a difference in the site. I anticipate continuing the Google ads, which, though they led me into this mess, generate sufficient steady income and require no extra work.

The next step will be some updating to the mechanics of the site. With a guaranteed income, I can now devote money to paying a professional web designer (who is working at a discount, as a frequent user of the site) to tweak the "search" function, make etymonline more friendly to the hand-held devices, and otherwise bring its functionality up to date.

Again, thank you personally for your help in getting the site through a trying time.

Best wishes,
Doug Harper
I got the feeling that the game was remade from scratch multiple times only a little of the main plot surviving each remake.
Google's hiring process is broken because they can afford for it to be broken. There's no puzzle, and in fact the system contains a relatively large amount of luck (e.g. Yegge's Interviewer Anti-Loop phenomenon) which they try compensate for by encouraging repeat applications.

There are almost certainly people "smart enough" to work at Google who do not. That's just a fact of life that Google seems to accept because, from their perspective, they're getting enough "smart enough" people already.
Ladies and Gentleman, this is the BBC
http://textify.it/js/hakim.textify.min.js:
"Recreates bitmap images using HTML text. Images are
drawn onto a canvas element so that the pixels can
be read. Letters, with colors matching the image pixels,
are then placed at random locations on the screen."

Looks like it also uses dat.gui for drawing.
A "business person" may be a domain expert in a vertical market. They may have an idea that requires an insight that only comes from years of working inside an industry that a developer, unless they have also worked in that industry, will simply not have. Furthermore the "business person" will be able to network in that industry.
Skylon Spaceplane development given go-ahead by UK Space Agency
This is great! Does gdb expose an API that makes building such tools possible, with a web-based UI?
You hope the iPhone or iPad doing the payment processing with the Square device is connected via network cable?

No. I was replying to this...

Starbucks already has wifi. Don't most payment processors use some sort of Internet connection these days?
Central Edinburgh is a World Heritage Site, it doesn't mean that nothing can change or that it's 'static'.

Mostly it just means you have to get planning permission to sneeze and you can't have wheely bins or on-street dumpsters.
I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I think it's a misconception to think that a nothing-but-the-proofs-and-definitions approach makes it any harder to understand math. Math is just freakin' hard. Making it fluffier only makes it seem easier if you confuse page rate with learning rate. On the other hand, knowing the motivation and context for a piece of mathematics is very pleasant, makes it easier to focus and work hard on the math itself, and occasionally can be as important as knowing the math itself. My ideal math text would contain a lot of exposition at the beginning of each chapter and then the traditional dry presentation of the mathematics itself. I wouldn't want the exposition and the mathematics mixed too finely.
We could have had the same discussion about IBM in 1986.

Think about it. Microsoft is handcuffed by their success, because anything that threatens the holy trinity of OEM Windows Licensing, Office and corporate EAs is not going to be successful. The impact to short-term bottom line is too much...

Look at 1986 IBM again as the example.

Do you want to be the 1986 IBM salesmen who sells some PC-based application system for $500k to a bank... a bank who may replace the IBM PCs with Compaqs in 1988? Or do you want to be the guy who sells a $10M mainframe/software package with multi-year service agreements?
Dropbox lying about their security guarantees ....
What is the future of dating and matchmaking services?
Plain text files are a communication protocol.

That's just plain wrong. They are something you can send over communication protocols. They are a very useful tool for sharing, transmitting, and storing information. I'm fine with files as all of those things. When files subsume conceptual territory -- this is when there's inertia.

It would be like people insisting that novels can only exist in the form of bound rectangular slabs of dead tree. Once you free concepts from implementation details, new flexibility is enabled.

Files allow you to give code to your friends without extraordinary means, to use generalized programs like git and grep, and to post a copy up on the web.

Yes, but to fulfill these functions, they do not have to stake out conceptual territory, like becoming the granularity at which your version control system must operate. Again, decades of Smalltalk development shows that you can use files to give code to friends, use programs like git (Monticello is git for Smalltalk) and grep, and post copies on the web. Smalltalkers do all of the above without files subsuming more conceptual function than just being files -- a particular means of storing and sharing information.
You can hold a tablet in portrait alignment, and have a news/reader app that gave you multiple tall narrow columns of text.
You might be able to get permission or license it. I think it would probably be much cheaper than actually licensing the content. Have you tried contacting anyone in the industry?
Troll Blasting Strategy
That should be the point where to, once and for all, clearly state the differences between analogy and the subject matter at hand.
In terms of victims or perpetrators?

Unlike finance, rapists only have one victim at a time.
Heroku highlighted in Salesforce's two-pronged cloud push
FF or Chromium (or both) should embed MuPDF[1]. It is extremely fast, reasonably small, and renders very well.

1: http://mupdf.com/
That's the typical stereotype of liberal-arts education's history, but I don't think it's that historically accurate, though it probably does describe some of the Victorian era's schooling more specifically. But the traditional liberal arts weren't greatly separated from what we now think of as the sciences, though they were indeed separated from engineering and crafts. "Amateur pursuits" typically included not only "toy[ing] around with a novel or two", but also toying around with a telescope and a beaker or formula or two; most great scientists and mathematicians before the modern era were a product of liberal-arts education.

It's also been popular in the American context, which isn't a society that has a rigid class structure. That at least used to be connected with a certain view of democracy and self-government, which held that liberal-arts education was a prerequisite for a working democratic society (e.g. Thomas Jefferson's views).
It's a good question. I did read an interview with (I think) Charlie Kindel who was talking about their approach to designing WP7 (sorry, can't find the link.) His story implied that it was somewhat different by design as an attempt to speed up access to the most common mobile functionality.

I guess you'd say that even if you were forced down that route, but it's still interesting to see good design and different thinking coming out of Redmond.
I feel 'naughtiness' represents disregard for the status quo, rather than a commitment to immorality. The obedient drone regards law-breaking as immoral, whereas the independent thinker would ask why the law exists.
I bet on 5631408
Whilst I really don't enjoy having to make websites compatible with IE (mainly 8 and below), I'm really glad they're sticking with IE as a browser. WebKit seems to have a monopoly on phones and so many mobile sites (and tutorials) don't think about other browsers.

I'd prefer more phones to ship with Gecko (Firefox), like my Nokia N900 but anything non-WebKit adds to the diversity.

Edit: I don't really have anything against WebKit and understand that it makes sense for mobiles as it's easily embedable but the fact that it has a monopoly in the mobile space really gets to me!
Aah. I am doing a PhD and always feel that I should leave PhD to start a company to build something more meaningful than systems that nobody uses. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side.
Actually I think you misunderstand and misinterpret my point. I'll try to clarify.

I think much of what's excepted in today's business environment can be summarized by the following statement:

"It's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to get permission."

This logic has been used to justify all sorts of questionable actions. It's what Pincus was speaking to when he said, "we broke every rule in the book" or when Facebook unilaterally changes a once private profile to a public one. Heck, I'd even characterize Google's Buzz in this category.

Businesses do this all the time. I don't necessarily blame them. Most times it's easier and quicker to simply execute on an idea and see if there's any backlash. Much of innovation comes about this way so I do see the value in it.

But I also see the negative consequences of it.
Eye cream-Your Skin Needs The Right Protection
Very good point about the economics of YC companies doing business with each other, and I would extend that to their investors' circles as well. It's worked so far ...
Interesting points. As far as I can tell, offering promotions has three possible benefits:

1. Introducing people to your product that might not have otherwise tried it, or might have forgotten about it. Some of these people may become loyal customers in the future paying full price.

2. Price discrimination: those with lower price sensitivity won't bother with the coupon and will pay full price, while those with higher price sensitivity will still be your customers. This only makes sense if you are making money even at the reduced price.

3. Creating a customer perception that they are getting a better value.

None of these things really works if everyone has ultra-easy access to coupons all of the time.
This is reminiscent of the HOTOL of the 80s : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOTOL
From a collaboration point of view, the thought of programming with single-function modules sounds like a nightmare. Now you don't have to find and install matching versions of five libraries, you have to find suitable versions of a hundred functions.

Perhaps nice people step in to stop the suffering and provide packages of function versions which are mutually compatible and which are usually used together -- but that's modules again.
Amazon Can't Handle Lady Gaga
"There are some people who just get what they want in the world. If you want to start a startup you have to be one of those people."

Think of it this way. As children we all needed to compete for the attention and resources of our parents, otherwise we would have starved. So typically the oldest child uses the strategy of being charismatic, in order to manipulate the parents into paying attention to it. The the second child comes along, but by this point there is no way it's ever going to out compete the oldest child on the axis of charisma, because the oldest child just has too much of a head start. So the second child often acts kind of sickly and pathetic, again as a different strategy for manipulating the parents into providing attention and resources.

The point is that in order to succeed in a startup, you need to be well versed in a variety of these strategies in order to get other people to help you. Otherwise you're not going to get any of the resources you need, because you're way too small and pathetic to be worth caring about based on any intrinsic measure of worth.
> Second, why not learn to make it yourselves? Without knowing what you want to do I can’t say how hard it’d be, but often it’s a lot easier than you might think.

Yup, because four years of school and five years of professional experience can easily be replaced with an O'Reilly book and a weekend in front of a monitor.

Yes, idea folks should know something about technology, but this is akin to suggesting that the next time my tooth hurts, I ought to just read a book and go to town with a mirror and a Dremel tool.
Yep, this release contains IE9 mobile.
I liked it with the exception it doesn't have assets built in, you will need another tool to build the screens and then upload. Doesn't powerpoint, slideshare or similar tools already do this? On the other hand the comments feature and Share capability is a plus which the others don't have. Balsamicq is actually lanching their web based mockup tool which haves the ability to share, comments, import assets to use (edit these), similar pricing structure.
Fanboyism is discouraged, but so is being a dick. Frankly, I'd say being a dick is a much worse blight on the community than "fanboyism". You're acting like there's no possible way you could have made that point and not get downvoted for it, which is obviously incorrect. I agreed with the main point of "it doesn't matter if pg said it", and I'm at 11 for that comment right now.

You don't need the attitude to get your message across. In fact, I'd say attitude generally harms whatever point you were trying to make, because people will react with similar hostility/rudeness. Being blunt is acceptable. Saying "Why does it matter that pg said it? I think people put too much weight to his words. We're hackers, shouldn't we be against 'fanboyism'?" would have probably got you upvoted, and started a decent discussion. Being rude about it generally just starts flame wars.

As for the point value, I wouldn't be surprised if downvotes take off more karma than upvotes, especially after a certain point. The paranoid "fanboys are downvoting me!" mentality is ridiculous.
And yet they still use the Windows "ding" for everything, because of course there's no budget for sound design in an ATM project.

I hear those weirdly-out-of-place Windows sounds everywhere. It grates on me the same way Comic Sans grates on those who appreciate type.

Someone who does sound design could pick up this banner and impress everyone with set of free UI sounds that are classic and usable.
Fine, more apropos- yeah, the guy was an idiot. I was going to pontificate on how one might actually pull this off, but there's always a problem: you're gonna make mistakes and eventually get caught.
They are now, but were they at the start? I remember a PG essay where the google guys were held up as an example of how even those developers with amazing potential can still be hesitant at the beginning, unsure of whether they want to or even can run a company.

<edit>

I think this is the quote I remember...:

from http://paulgraham.com/notnot.html

"There's nothing wrong with being unsure. If you're a hacker thinking about starting a startup and hesitating before taking the leap, you're part of a grand tradition. Larry and Sergey seem to have felt the same before they started Google, and so did Jerry and Filo before they started Yahoo. In fact, I'd guess the most successful startups are the ones started by uncertain hackers rather than gung-ho business guys."
The fact that they are a Y-combinator company makes this far and away the best example given.
This is how PHP works, and I think it's smart. But to avoid the pitfalls of PHP, the new global functions need to be named in a way that's logical and unlikely to step on any toes.
Is there any reason this isn't more common? Why aren't more US datacenters in the Chicago metro area where the air is dry and cool, and trillions of gallons of frigid water is available? The geography is mild and natural disasters that effect datacenters are basically unheard of.

It seems silly that so many datacenters are in central Texas, where not only are tornados and tropical storms fairly common, but it's hot and humid for 7 months out of the year.
Wow that is really some amateurish shilling. Almost all the major banks (e.g., Chase) offer the same bill paying functionality.
on mac (MBP laptop):

- it doesn't react on previous/play/next buttons on keyboard

- no last.fm integration
I mean that they have stabilized, and the biggest and most creaky company (historically speaking), has passed them up. The old saying was, "No one got fired for buying IBM".

It is a signal that MS is not using its dominance to get into new markets, grow products, and generally be an competetively active business.
All of whom have relevant knowledge and experience which tends to only be acquired by making enough money that they don't have to work again. Care to revise your estimate of the money it would take to hire them upwards?
And I've tacked this onto the top of the page: http://www.whit537.org/et/
With real estate agents it's even worse -- not only do they have to convince buyers that it's always a good time to buy, they have to convince sellers that it's always a good time to sell!
So you'll start prefixing all names with a string so they don't clash. Then you'll notice all your related code uses these strings, what a waste, so you'll create a "module" in order to be able to drop the string in a defined context. Thus namespaces/modules are reinvented. Function drives form.
http://blog.xkcd.com/2009/05/07/duke-nukem-forever/
I did an undergrad in English and then went on to do grad work in CS, I definitely feel that a background in the humanities has been able to give me insights into technical problems that people with purely technical background do not typically seem to have (not to mention all the communication skills that come in handy). My personal opinion is that degrees in the humanities are excellent, but that they should be followed up with a more pragmatic graduate degree (or pragmatic skill-set if grad school isn't your interest). There is way too much of a divided between technical fields and the humanities, and most people I've known are trained to think that interest in one completely excludes interest in the other.
The thing is that both the status quo and immorality often come down to judgment calls.

Is it immoral to gather personal data and then share it on the internet? (Facebook personal profiles going public.)

Is it immoral to pay a PR firm to portray a competitor in a negative light if it means highlighting their questionable practices? (Facebook hiring a PR firm to highlight Google Social.)

Is it immoral to characterize a service you offer one way while leaving important details to fine print or convoluted text? (Zynga's lead gen offers, DropBox security.)
Unofficial Hackathon: All Sony Related Websites ( another Sony property hacked )
The "with license" service only includes Oracle "Standard Edition One" which lacks lots of features. It doesn't have partitioned indexing or RAC for example -- among other missing features.
Square Register – The First Step in Going After Visa and Mastercard.
Learn to become an Oracle ERP consultant for 16 cents an hour.
I understand his frustration, but a single global namespace is not the solution. This would be a regression to the place that PHP has been trying to escape from.

If modules aren't available, then people will invent pseudo namespace qualifiers (e.g., misc_foo). A global namespace will become like the .com TLD--a few early landgrabbers with the cool names like foo and bar, then a bevy of latecomers with fooo and baaar67.

The module/namespace concept isn't a 100% solution, but it's sufficient. People understand hierarchy. It's simple and effective. And it also solves the global-visibility/encapsulation issue that he sidestepped.
To make things worse, they have to protect their trademark aggressively, else they do become generic

So what is the downside in this scenario? How is Bayer hurt by not owning an Aspirin trademark any longer?
"Under EFI, there is no guarantee that the OS owns the platform."
Check the bottom of the page for the list of "Things that happened since the List of Things That Have Happened Since Duke Nukem Forever Was Announced was written".
Given this article, I'm kind of surprised that they are using @EntMagazine for their Twitter handle. Why not sue @entrepreneur into submission too?
2000/2001 was also the years of the dot com bubble where every tech company tanked in some way. I think this has more to do with it than Ballmer's arrival (it was the time of the hugely successful and popular windows 2000 and XP, ballmer's damage if any would only be seen years later).
Definitive guide to AIR apps for BB PlayBook
I'll be in touch, I was hoping to launch in the next week.
This is an exciting year for Mixxx! The skin system logic has been separated and is now more flexible, allowing for QML and other formats of layouts. I'm looking at implementing multitouch which will give it a 1up on commercial DVS.

Also, Mixxx is internationalizing for the next version, and can use your help! http://mixxxblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/mixxx-in-your-language...
Also, don't forget about Google Books.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Book_Search_Settlement_A...
Those words don't have quite the right connotations, try the following edits:

naughty --> mischievous
entitled --> relentless and determined
Your point about IBM confuses me. Are you saying that Microsoft is going to be like IBM (a slow decline for another decades, followed by a huge boom ten years later)? Or that Microsoft should follow IBM's example by giving up on the consumer market?

There's many ways to make a buck -- Apple has chosen one, IBM another, and neither is obviously better than the other.
$4.25 million/10,000 employees = $425/employee

Retraining costs associated with switching to a different platform would be approximately an order of magnitude higher - i.e. you're looking at > 10 years to break even assuming zero cost for the new system.
Most YC companies sell their initial product to other YC companies (whether it is consumer or enterprise) because that is what everyone does when they start out: sell to people in their personal social circles -- that's who you have access to as a nobody with no sales force that is just initially developing a product. This is hardly a conspiracy; as with all products sold to friends and family, the initial customer set will give the product a shot, but won't continue to use it long just because a friend sold it to them. YC companies that are successful break out of this initial customer base and sell to people outside the YC network. This is a must for any company that wants to grow past its founders.

The YC brand has improved over time drastically despite the increase in companies. When I started in the first YC batch, there were only 8 companies but the only angels that could bother to show up to demo day were just some of PG's friends. Now, demo day is a who's who of SV investors, even though they have to sit through 5x as many presentations!