skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That's kind of like saying Jeffrey Dahmer and I are also almost identical, since there are billions of people neither of us have killed and eaten. Bill Clinton and I are almost identical, since there are so many nations neither of us have been the president of. And so on.

In many contexts, the difference between zero and one is extremely significant.
I wonder how often these "HN existential angst" subjects come up, and how their frequency correlates with HN's traffic.

S.P.: feel free to start political threads in http://textchannels.com/Politics
Perfect security is not possible, this is true.

But it would seem that Sony's general culture in that arena is significantly below what could be reasonably expected, and hopefully everyone else is now actively checking to make sure theirs isn't...
You really think Python is losing its simplicity? List comprehensions are much easier to read than a multi-line for loop (obviously, though, nesting list comprehensions is A Bad Thing for readability) - they are much simpler. Generators don't add simplicity!? Do you even know why you would use a generator, why does this run:

for i in xrange(1, 10000000000000): print i

and this doesn't:

for i in range(1, 10000000000000): print i

To make the range() example run, you have to use generative behavior anyway, in some form or another. Generators are a simple way of expressing that kind of algorithmic behavior.

(for the record, this little example is being ran on a machine with 2GB of ram)

I know that is a very silly use case for generators, particularly when range() is going to become xrange() anyways - but it is a perfect example of why generative behavior can make things simpler. The trade off is memory vs computation - range() builds the whole list then iterates over it; xrange() generates the next item in the list; use normal list construction when the list is knowably going to be small, use generative behavior when the list is going to be big!

Decorators make the language less simple????? A decorator gives you the ability to modify a function/class at runtime. Decorators have made my python code (where they are useful) much much simpler!! Decorators have given me another dimension to follow DRY with!! Decorators do make the implementation more complex but they make the code you write simpler - the trade off is very clear and the cons are almost non-existent.

If you think decorators are cool, try picking up Common Lisp or Scheme - Macros will rock your socks off.
(think of the Newton, his first attempt to create an iPhone-like device)

FWIW, Jobs didn't create the Newton, he killed it. You don't have to look to hard to know this - http://www.pencomputing.com/frames/newton_obituary.html

As long as native apps have access to parts of the platform off-limits to web apps there will be a place for them.
Even your present reply makes me glad that the Sonne article was submitted to HN. To you, the Sonne story is important. To me, it seems important, but I can't be sure what the article's biases might be. I suspect there are some, since I generally have faith in Ontario's justice system. I know of no better place on the internet than HN to have an article's flaws exposed. The absence of significant disagreement in the HN discussion increased the article's credibility for me. Your reply offers some further evidence that Sonne really is a good-standing member of the security profession, and being a friend of a friend of an apparently level-headed HN contributor is to his credit.
The thing about vacation time is remember to have enough to use for things other than a long vacation. I'll use a week of time for the Friday after Thanksgiving and some time around Christmas/New Years.
Not at any UK company I've worked at (1 corporation, 1 retailer, 1 startup).
Digested. Was musing a long time - 'the workers'? 'the drones'? 'blue collars'? In the end, settled on the best non-offensive term my limited vocabulary could come up with :)
One Bullet Is Never Enough (2002)
That's what's so surreal about this entire discussion. "I have 7 weeks paid vacation!" as if employers were paying them for 52 weeks' work and then were shocked every year to discover that they only get 45 weeks of work.
"the Zune strategy": everything that's wrong at Microsoft
Detroit Native Defends Video Games as an Art Form on Fox News [video]
"Our flagship, Sales Cloud, continued to crush the competition in the quarter. Microsoft's desperate strategy of underfunding, pricing with undifferentiated and highly proprietary products basically has had the same impact on our business as the Windows tablet and Zune did against the iPad and iPod. We call Microsoft's strategy, "the Zune strategy".

It's the concept that they can take a proprietary, undifferentiated offering at a lower price and somehow make an impact on a high-value, highly differentiated product that's loved by customers. Microsoft has not changed our exceptional win rates or affected our average selling price with this Zune strategy."
It reminds me of Zope 2
So really they are describing Mobile Apps that run on the browser rather than directly on the OS.

The more things change the more they stay the same.
They are using LASERS on fiber now? Sheesh - what will they think of next! Soon you'll tell me that RADIO WAVES can be used to transmit information!
It's not clear to me what problem taxpayer-subsidized broadband is intended to solve.
IOS 5: Every Rumor Exposed & Analyzed
It's pretty common, actually. They do it for the reasons awa pointed out, as well as to reduce the debt burden for the compan. IANAC [1], but I believe this has something to do with unused vacation leave being charged as outstanding debt. It's also a way of saving money by shutting down operations at a time when less gets done anyway.

Sun, like most companies, did give the option of taking the leave without pay and preserving your vacation time.

Maybe that's one option for US companies - pay for two weeks of vacation time, but culturally allow up to six without pay. Then we'd actually be somewhat more like European countries, but with an option - reduce your salary if you'd like more vacation, but keep working and make more money if that's more your style.

I doubt I'll see this happen - first, "leave without pay" is unusual in the US, typically done medical conditions where the employee wants to return to the job, but will be forced to leave for long periods of time (pregnancy leave is often handled this way). Another problem is that it may actually be inefficient - it would create a financial incentive to take minimum vacation time, and a lot of people believe, with some evidence, that workers are less productive this way.

[1] IANAAC: I am not an accountant ;)
Think of it more like metadata. I've had good summaries get me to read the entire article, when I would have blown it off by the title alone. (Time isn't infinite... You have to choose somehow.)

So in that respect summaries can indirectly add to the discussion.
Entrepreneur is someone who has a vision for something and a want to create.

- David Karp (@davidkarp)

http://startupquote.com/post/5770235881
For Firefox, there's FlashBlock:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/flashblock/

which I can attest works wonderfully.

For Chrome, I believe there's a version of FlashBlock, and for Safari, www.clicktoflash.com looks good (I have not tried either of these though).
How is it on battery life?
Hulu plus works on the iPad.
Fortunately, those don't actually need to be changed very often (no matter what the Chrome team says). As long as the rendering, JavaScript, and other parts that touch untrusted data stay up to date, you're probably fine with a URL bar that hasn't had today's unfashionable components removed.
Try Sparrow. I've been running their trial version as well. It is really good and 10$ for full version.
Another great cheat: the AIGA pictogram symbols, which you can download for free with the Google search [aiga pictogram EPS].
I've been at a company where even normal holidays (Christmas) were considered vacation (forced for non-scheduled personal - i.e. most IT). They were also one of those companies that combined sick leave and vacation. They really didn't give enough days to compensate (starting people really only had about a week and a half of vacation if they didn't get sick / stuck in hospital).
Good tool, thanks
(Users) * (Revenue/User)= Why LinkedIn's Shares Are Overvalued
Why LinkedIn's $100/share is grossly overvalued.
Please cite that. That could be very important, but I've never heard of such a thing before.
Unless you have college loans that you start paying on immediately after leaving college... which is bordering on most people these days.
Agreed. I paid the $10 and I have not looked back. I really like this app.
Out of curiosity, anyone know if sabbaticals common in Europe?

A software developer I know worked tirelessly for 4 years at a large corporation before burning out. He may have taken a week off here & there, but was always answering his emails.

He finally requested a sabbatical. Those are rare and very tough to get, but his manager fought for him and off he went. He returned refreshed, though he left the job shortly thereafter (which is a major reason why that company made it tough to request a sabbatical).

I'm just curious if the same kind of phenomenon occurs in Europe.
It seems just a matter of time before APIs for these become part of HTML5.
My guess is that it just came off as unnecessarily (and unproductively) defensive, as it amounts to the argument that it's not impossible to write clean applications in Perl. Perl's problem has never been that it's impossible to write 'clean, well-factored' programs.
That doesn't address the user experience when interacting with the apps written for desktop computers on a tablet, which was one of the core complaints.

The truth is that interacting with applications written for a different platform sucks. It sucks especially for Flash because Flash was generally used to build interactive applications that HTML/JavaScript couldn't. However, it isn't confined to Flash. I've had HTML5 apps that expected mouse/keyboard usage that couldn't be replicated on a tablet and they sucked, too.
I wish NewEgg had a program like Amazon Prime.

Edit: I was just browsing NewEgg and it looks like they have joined with Shoprunner.com to offer 2 day shipping for $79/year.
It really depends on what projects and groups of people you're interacting with. We have a wonderful community around Ruby Mendicant University, but it's because the folks there really care about teaching and learning as a primary goal, so they self-select towards being friendly.

Ruby isn't really a community anymore, it's an ecosystem. So if the current neighborhoods you're hanging out in don't seem too friendly, look for other ones. Different projects and organizations have different culture, and even if the union of all of those distinct groups is on a downward trend, there are still new and old groups that are going strong who are nice and helpful.
I respect people that create toy languages. But you are obviously trying to market this language to people with real world projects.
The only thing that I'm interested in when I read about a new language are these:

1. How fast is it?
2. How does it interoperate with C and Java?

Any other advantages are worthless if those two things are not present. Provide some benchmarks against popular webframeworks like nodejs, and if you are faster, we may have a deal.
Startup Lessons Learned Conference Livestream
And that is relavent how?

I am sure he got that way by not spending money he deemed as frivolous just to spend money.

I am not a millionaire but I spend money on services I deem necessary for me.
Hehe no, most often not. If you're a webguy, contact me (nixy at bede dot se). We're hiring in Stockholm! (The e-mail domain has nothing to do with the company, it is my private e-mail.)
Are there any recent third party comparisons between x264, WebP and JPEG encoded images like this one from September 2010 [1] by Jacob Garrett-Glaser?

From the WebP gallery [2], it looks like JPEG and WebP are pretty comparable for those selections of images (with Nærøyfjorden, Norway having the greatest difference). The comparison study [3] looks favorable to WebP at all comparable SSIM.

Is anyone familiar offhand with the algorithmic complexity of WebP compared to JPEG?

And finally, does the 16383x16383 maximum WebP resolution limit WebP (compared to JPEG at 65535x65535), or will that limit increase as the ability to easily create gigapixel images increases?

[1] http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/541

[2] http://code.google.com/speed/webp/gallery.html

[3] http://code.google.com/speed/webp/docs/webp_study.html
Yep. We already have access to GPS location data in HTML5.
My Attitude Towards Piracy of My Book
I guess the cool thing is that those are all basically HN readers. Would be a pretty solid HN user following.
Thanks for mentioning us. Just noticing: we are a "hibryd" startup: we have a focus on Desktop market, but we have to pay attention on the "Web side of the force" too. :-)
Most undergrads are only making ~$0/year, and seem to get by just fine. Adding an extra $40k into the mix would only seem to help.

I made $37k at my first job, and managed to put $10k of that into the market for the first four years. So yes, it's possible.

Everything the grandparent says is good advice (apart from the waiting tables thing. Freelancing pays 10-30x as much.) Live cheap when you're young, bank away as much as possible, spend your 30s living on a beach. It's very doable if that's what you want.
ah, that makes more sense. though, its tough to judge them on it yet. they decided to try out a different type of product to see how it works. if it doesn't work out for them, i'm sure they'll tone it down in the future.
This is the same sort of application churn that was underway before the bulk of the PC market largely settled on MS-DOS and then on Windows, or the morass that was the then-current and then-far-more-fragmented Unix market, which led many vendors to support multiple then-current platforms. With the associated costs.

Split your application into its core pieces (written in something reasonably portable, and kept modular where you can) and partition the rest into the platform-specific frameworks and calls, assuming that you can't find an analog to what was once called a "4GL" that meets your requirements and your budget.

And from the last time that the third-party 4GL schemes and their sales-critters were prowling the areas I was then working in, it was easy to end up looking at Morton's fork choice. More than a few folks saw their "portable" applications locked into the 4GL frameworks and its continued development plans. Which wasn't a whole lot better than getting tied to the platform, if/when the 4GL vaporized, or raised its rates, or otherwise became less desirable.

All common-sense stuff, of course.
Dunno where you are, but in New England $60k seems to be entry level and you can get much more if you're skilled and have good college-age work experience.
In eastern North Carolina especially, there are often times only one ISP in an area. Also, since it is often times rural in nature, said ISPs may not get you service because there aren't enough subscribers on your street. So there is that problem. The other is this: pricing. In my city there is only 2 broadband ISPs, both have settled on pretty high prices for pretty slow speeds but since they have absolutely no incentive to add value for their customers, it has stayed that way for the past 4 years. Those two issues essentially lead down the road to where if you are a business and you want decent broadband, you must pay out the nose, and even then you may not be able to get it due to the company not wanting to run the lines.

If there was a municipal provider broadband could be more affordable, and more easily accessible. Ultimately helping to create an environment suitable to the education/tech industry.
Startups with Co-founders rather than a single founder more likely to succeed
Review of BusinessMan - Affordable CRM for small businesses
Most jobs are advertised at the government-run (but great) Platsbanken

google-translated: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&u=...

I cant imagine Swedish would be much of an issue if you work with software development. Even outside technology, most swedes speak english well enough for basic communication.

Still, if you get a work permit (easy), you get to attend free Swedish lessons.
Increasingly, however, the answer has had more to do with economics, rather than bragging rights.
Why I’m wrong about Lodsys and everyone should go bankrupt fighting them
Random Hacks of Kindness Philadelphia - June 3-5
I've honestly never thought about asking somebody else in that situation. If a company doesn't want to market to me (which is what their website is doing), that's fine, but I likely won't patronize them. Too many options are available for me as a consumer to waste time working around a business' short-comings.
Boy, judging from the replies you guys must have some crappy cinemas...
Does it just pull from HN or are there other sources - if the latter, what are they?
Mobile apps will die off for the simple reason that it is too expensive for businesses to create and support 6 mobile platforms in addition to their websites. How many businesses are going to pay top dollar for an Android developer to port their IOS app? Dollar for dollar they're better off adding mobile capabilities to their website and support every platform.
Wholesale Nike Hyperdunk 2011 All Star Blake Griffin Shoes
> "Quit thinking in those terms and you'll live a much happier life."

I agree in principle, but it's not always so simple. When you're young, have no kids, no mortgage, no car loan, etc, it's pretty easy to just say "fuck off, see ya" when your employer acts abusively.

When you have all of the above, that becomes more difficult. Relocating is more often than not the norm in this industry, and you don't exactly want to sell your house, or move your kids around, etc etc.

Disclaimer: I don't have kids, or a mortgage, and I'm very mobile right now, but I also understand this probably won't last forever.

It's a warning for living beyond your means anyways - I've noticed many people that I work with have huge mortgages out, to the point where the continuous stream of income becomes paramount - even a few months of interruption could possibly mean ruin for them. This strikes me as an idiotic fiscal policy.
I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Dropbox yet - for me, it's certainly the most useful online service I pay for.
Well my favorite fix is more "sold!" emails, but that just fuels the addiction.

It might not be welcome here, but listening to this guy: http://lamamarut.org works very well.
Cansole
For now just HN. Plus users sometimes submit links themselves.

I plan to expand on that. Add other sources, perhaps add a way for people to add their own sources. RSS feeds filtered by topics would be cool.
Sony forecasts a $3.1B loss for FY 2011 due to quake, PSN failure
This application wants to post tweets on your behalf? Umm, no.
Cool to see that they use Stripes as their Java web framework. Stripes doesn't get anywhere near the attention/respect it deserves. It's definitely the simplest, most easy-to-use framework in the Java space IMO.
I highly dislike the fact that native is still more awesome than webapps. It's just not quite there, canvas is slow, webgl is slow to its native counterparts. I mean come on when will this change? Will it ever? Until that day it just feels "meh" to develop "cool" webapps. :(

//Disgruntled js developer
Up until January of this year I was making $40,084.00/yr. That means about $2k/month net.

I was paying $156/month on rent by living in a small house with two roommates. I drive a 15yo car that is paid off and I live 3km from work so I don't depend on it.

You can live on $12k/yr, you just chose not to.
Haha, nice. I have a 1.6% chance of winning, at the moment...
I've seen people reading more, now that they've iPad. Content websites should consider creating a usable experience for iPad. It's a focus and regular audience
I did that as a mid level dev. I had timing on my side though. I waited until we finished a big project, and then I presented my two week letter and went on a month long trip. I came back and found a job almost immediately. My point being that when your body asks you for change, do not hold back, and make that change. Be confident in your skills and don't be afraid of telling your boss that you need a break. Because even though the Germans may think so, we are not robots.
For the record, pacman already supports diffs like this, but Arch has not set up official mirrors that host binary diffs instead of full packages. There has been at least third-party repository that hosted diffs for ArchLinux packages.

I too think this should be a much higher priority than it is for many. Fedora has had (non-default) support for this for years, but that's about it. You shouldn't worry so much about diffing against previous versions -- if you diff against the last two versions, it won't use much extra disk space, and the worst case scenario is that someone has to download the full package as a fallback, which everyone has to do now.
WebM would not help you at all if you only want one codec, unless youre comfortable losing every iDevice immediately. If you want one codec, it's H.264. Native support on iOS and Android devices, and you can support Chrome via Flash (which is seriously making me think about switching back to FireFox).
Holidays tend to clump up in the summer, so there are a few weeks there are almost no activity, and full activity the rest of the year.
The relevance is obvious.

"it seems like a high price"

...

"The guy who wrote that article is a millionaire"
Gesture Recognition Moves Beyond Gaming: Kinect & competitors as a new UI device
Just saw someone comment....361 paid signups in 3 months. Well shit that is pretty good. Thoughts? Would you really shut down a shop that had over 100 new paid signups a month?
I wasn't really aware of the ads (running AdBlock), but I think he is a little bit abusing his blog. I think HN traffic is very valuable if he knows how to leverage it.
Preach on, brotha!
No, it will not post tweets on your behalf. It will automatically follow the three winners of the lottery, though. That is all.
Totally disagree, I've used both the iPad and a Honeycomb tablet. I was able to watch so much more content with the Android tablet, stuff from blip.tv, custom players, even custom streaming video players. It's not as good as the desktop version, but it's a lot better than the Flash player on Boxee and others.
There are many apps that could be just as easily done with current web technologies, so in a sense some of the mobile app space will die. Do I really need a native app for every single website out there that already has a rich web app? As more and more hardware features are exposed through the browser, I think a lot of app programmers will move to web interfaces and technology.

That said, there are still several classes of apps that can use the resources provided by native frameworks. Streaming media, high power games, and apps that can be accessed quickly on the local device without network connections all still have a place on the various mobile platforms. Like every new platform, there is an artificially high demand for native apps from developers and hiring companies, but that desire will subside eventually.
Relax people, the guy's article is cathartic expression. He's sharing his raw experience of a topic that's hard to talk about for most guys and especially most entrepreneurs.
Literary Criticism for the Idle Programmer
It has frustrated me for years that DNS recognized that mail might like to have multiple hosts that can respond to a domain, but failed to recognize that there might someday be other protocols that would like the same.
"This application will be able to:

* Read Tweets from your timeline.

* Update your profile.

* Post Tweets on your behalf."