skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I don't find owning lots of stuff distracting at all. It's just all there should I need any of it.

For instance, if I need some super-glue, it's there. Should I need a certain color marker, it's there. If I decide to go camping, I'm not going to have to buy all sorts of camping gear (from sleeping bags to tents and everything in between) because I've already got it. Etc..

However, I do admit that owning lots of stuff has some serious disadvantages. In particular, it makes moving from place to place a huge pain in the butt, and makes it that much less likely that you'll move at all.

Without many possessions, you are much more easily able to just pick up and go wherever you feel like going on a moment's notice... and that is a real gift.
What would you try if you knew you couldn’t fail?
Is it really necessary to allocate less than 100% of initial shares when future rounds of funding and option grants can be handled by diluting the existing shares?
I was able to sign up by just having my Dad get an online account.
I work for US Steel and what you use here depends on the type of programming you do. On the mainframe, everything here is either DB2 or IMS (aka DB1). If you do "alternate platform development" (read: Windows and/or Linux) then you use Oracle. I'm not a mainframer so everything I create personally has to work with Oracle.
Do you work at an elementary school, by any chance?

I'm not trying to be a wise guy - it's more of a comment that elementary schools are often last to implement technologically savvy solutions (i.e. solutions that cost a lot of money), so I wouldn't be surprised if you said "yes" to my question.
WebOS/Palm/HP did a very good job of this. WebOS was far more productive than iPhone at the time. Nobody would have known though because it wasn't Apple. It came on cheaply made devices and had a skunkworks feel to it.
Large corporations also consider IBM's db2 equivalent to Microsoft's/Oracle's database. There should've been an option for that too.
This is a stereotype that has never panned out for me. Most of the time when you think the men have "let it go," they've just passive aggressively suppressed it.

I'd rather deal with someone who is obviously pissed at me than someone who is secretly pissed at me any day of the week.

(The passive aggressive thing has been much, much more prevalent amongst nerds, in my experience, compounding the problem)
Just because someone's in his mid 30s doesn't mean he's mature.

Many adults constantly act like children, particularly if they're in the political profession.
Walkbase does the best location detection on any mobile phone
CNBC Titans Offers Unauthorized Biography of Steve Jobs
Well, we're not using it ourselves, but at one client our application connects to DB2... on an AS/400... using JRuby :).
URL Shortener with great branding
Of note: ING direct was sold to Capital One last week.

Nooooooooooooooo! Well, if they screw it up, I'll move over to USAA. I also have a Schwab account, but don't use it as much as I used to.
I just started my download of OS-X. Either it is an old message, or the packages distributed faster then expected (see the note under that page)
MS really only has one relevant offering in this discussion, unless you want to add Exchange as a document-oriented store.
Oh, this web webdeveloer can be the CEO? And his plan is to buy a bunch of companies that make pretty things and give their founders free reign over their entire section of Yahoo! so that Yahoo! would just become a huge collection of brightly colored products with no real strategy? Well, I'm sold.
Whichever one you're better at. When people talk about "ability to execute", this is what they mean: being able to come up with a plan ("I'm going to consult, you're going to build, in 3 months we launch") and then stick to it.

If you aren't doing consulting, this model is not open to you. But if you can't consult, you probably can't sell product either. This is like asking, "if you're a business guy who just needs a web guy to implement his idea", &c &c.
Here is a graph of this poll: http://koldfront.dk/misc/hn/database2011/data.png

... and one of the 2010 poll: http://koldfront.dk/misc/hn/database2010/data.png

(Updated every ~4 hours currently; I will be fading out the update rate.)
Compared to ACH, they are pretty fast (hours in the worst case). If you pay a small fee, like 0.01BTC, they are pretty much immediate.
Having Oracle as your db doesn't mean that you are not working on interesting problems. Every company is not a startup. Some of us work on well established products used by huge customer base who use Oracle and in turn we are forced to.

Above all, are you helping a customer? solve his problems instead of compounding it - that my friend is more important than choosing Oracle or Mongodb.
Who should bear the risk for your startup - DotCloud or yourself? If you're creating a product you believe in, $100 (or more for that matter) should by no mean be out of reach - no matter if you're bootstrapping or looking to raise funding. In case you compare it to a cheap VPS, well, you get what you pay for - and you'll need to do the ops yourself, which is time you should rather spend building your business.
Also damn useful when plugged into NHibernate for bringing up test cases using in memory databases for performance.
Why couldn't the web browser also make phone calls?
That was my strategy exactly after quitting my former job (I was working as developer in a consulting company).

My plan was to start consulting on my own, get the deal flow running, bootstrap the consulting company and offload my work to the new guys with time. Then I would use the profits from the consulting company to fund my own startup(s) OR do some angel investing PG style.

But then while I have been slowly probing and negotiating some odd 7 gigs, on my third actual meeting I turned a potential customer into a co-founder and we're currently working on the project he wanted to hire me for.

By September we will see if the project takes off. If not - I will have spent my nest-egg by then, find a Job (for a year or so), save as much as I can and start out with the original plan again.

Why do I like this plan so much? For one I have similar view of capital as Niccollo Macchiavelli had of soldiers - I would rather fail with my own than succeed with borrowed money. The reason being that here in central Europe - typical "angel" investor expects a 50%+ share in your company for any money they commit. And if I wanted a boss I would keep my original job.
Ah crap, there needs to be a way to undo your vote -- I read "MySQL" as "MS SQL". Long day, sorry.
China: There is No Cyber War With the United States
Why is this necessarily nullification?
What no Intersystems Cache option?
I don't care much for the financial aspect of this, but if it's the thought that counts, I think it's great.

If you can, take in some of the great talent (not just individuals) and rebuild! And the idea that

"They would have 100% autonomy over the entire “Yahoo! [Photo, Mobile, Social, News]” division."

seems great! Especially from the AOL/TechCrunch content posted here about who has the upper hand.
Private Beta user here. I'll just preface this by saying that DotCloud has been the smoothest and easiest service I've used in the Heroku-umbrella of products.

That said, I'm extremely surprised at the number of services allotted for each tier of payment. For just a single site I'm currently using one for my Python app, one for the database, one for static files, and one for Solr search. If I absolutely had to, _maybe_ I could stretch a single service into doing all of these things (by using SQLite, serving static files from the application, and using a butchered search system), but it sure as hell wouldn't be pretty and would probably break under any kind of non-trivial load. One main site and a few novelty/hackday sites later, and I have to start shelling out for an Enterprise account (I assure you, the stuff I'm dealing with wouldn't warrant an account this big).

On the flip side of the coin, there's nothing stopping me (that I know of) from re-using services. My PostgreSQL one can just have separate databases for each site. I could re-use the static one if I abandoned the automatic push command and manually rsync'ed stuff (so other sites' files aren't overwritten). As for everything else: nope. And you can't double-up with products on a service. If I know my search box will be used very limitedly, I can't go ahead and use more resources on it by through Redis on there as well. They have to stay separate services. There's no way for me to quickly spin-up a novelty/hackday site that I know won't get a lot of traffic without having to upgrade all the way to Enterprise. I really want to continue using DotCloud as my experience with it has been phenomenal thus far, but I just can't justify the cost:benefit ratio at this point beyond using you for a single site total.

TL;DR: If you only intend on ever using a single site on DotCloud, this seems more than reasonable. You're only going to be using a few services, and they scale auto-magically for you by adding additional paid-for resources as long as you don't design like an idiot. But add one more site to that mix (like a personal blog), and all of a sudden you have to upgrade to their largest possible tier.
At that point you are basically just an investor in the project - since you will need to focus your time and energy on consulting and won't be able to contribute as a co-founder.
Performance was fine for me, when it would work. It just wouldn't work. It kept telling me I didn't have the plug-in installed.

That said, my computer has pretty beefy specs, so that may have something to do with it.
Love SQLite when doing some Django development. Great to easily scrap the database with a quick `rm` and repopulate with good data.
"bit of a weak argument if you're impressed by things"

I'm impressed by results
Ingres is underrated, I find it quite ok to work with.
exactly ... I was hoping to hear how they finally made it work on Postgres, since they initially migrated from postgres to mongo
Riak! We're ( http://bu.mp ) using more Riak every day. So far so good.
dan you should add 'hosted kv' as an option to account for appengine, simpledb etc.
Selling software where the target market is exactly the same as the people writing it seems like it's the exception not the rule. I assume most OpenTable devs do not own a restaurant.
For me it's testing. My testing consists of refreshing the browser, clicking some browser, then examining the console window. I know I can use PhantomJS but I can't bring myself to learn how to use it.
Ask HN: Groupon and others: Why emphasis on local?
As a publisher of a medical technology blog (Medgadget.com), I was looking for ways to increase our revenues. One idea was to setup a white label Groupon clone, to sell medical devices via an ad on our blog. Understandably, the process is cumbersome to setup and difficult to arrange with device distributors. That brings me to the question. Why Google Places (and Groupon, LivSoc) place all the bets on small local businesses? Wouldn't it make sense for Google and others to open a deal platform targeting websites and corresponding businesses? (Google can even integrate this platform with AdSense.) I would love to have an ad with a clock that says that only 4 hours left and one CT scanner to go to get a discount.:) But seriously, websites like mine can display today's medical deal (and get a cut from merchandise sold), and surfing sites will have a surfing deal. Why all emphasis on local, am I missing something?
That's my entire point though! They seem to think that they are a "utility" that deserves a "natural monopoly" status, in the meantime, they continue to inovate and compete, often unfairly, to both taxpayers and buisnesses.
Overlapping markers on your Google Map? Meet OverlappingMarkerSpiderfier
Agreed. I had to migrate a copy of Team City from MySQL to PostgreSQL a few days ago (due to a buggy mysql version in the Ubuntu 10.04LTS package repository). You just don't get crap like that with Postgres. It just works.
The relatively low amount assigned to couch is what surprises me. I thought it was fairly widely used (in the NOSQl world)?
I'm not sure what "piggyback" SSL means, or "unlimited" for that matter — but no matter; it's clear enough that you're not using SSL as a way of getting people to upgrade.

Thanks for clarifying; the pricing page made it seem like you'd need to upgrade to get SSL, hence my rant. I'll edit the parent a bit to make it less hostile. Sorry about the misunderstanding!
I liked my Palm IIIx (1999) better than my Android. That's not to say it was better, just that its simple, snappy, tightly integrated set of base apps helped me be more productive. My Android, which comes with nothing very useful, makes me unproductive.

PDAs were great time savers whereas 'smart' phones are great ways to get ads in front of people. :-)
> How many languages could survive 15 years without change and still remain relevant? And not only relevant, but expand their influence?

I can think of one other, and for the same reason: make. Both languages are still around because it's near impossible to replace them, no matter how much they may suck. They aren't timeless, they're calcified by being a part of some infrastructure that exists on millions of machines.
Auto-configure IPv6 for your Network
Express has a much bigger following and is still being maintained. Storify and Learnboost both use it.
The idea is that the things doing the designing are also hard at work redesigning themselves, presumably with a goal to get better at that, too. At least until intelligence reaches some sort of plateau, which would almost certainly be hit at some level way above human ability, it makes sense to assume that some sort of locally exponential or even super-exponential intelligence growth would occur.

That is, if humans are able to start the chain reaction and come up with something that's able to rewrite its own brain so that it's smarter than it started...a lump of plutonium that's not at critical mass is just going to sit there uselessly spewing out a slow trickle of neutrons, which is more or less what's happening with AI today.
Indeed - in relation to my other comment.

Since I do have (too many) ideas, but didn't like any of them enough to commit myself to it - the plan was to build a dream team (I have a knack for leading people - The Right Way(tm)) - and just practice execution until a killer idea in a good scalable market came along - and then run with it.
yes, you are probably right. i expect any new language to have something ambitious, pronounces unique point of view regarding computing problems. e.g. "everything is a process" Joe Armstrong preaches. maybe Go is too much about performance, refuses to make any bold statement.
An Electorates Illusion of Change
Darth Vader Wins Election (with a rigged voting system)
But most people can live just fine with the browser, email and maps. The other apps are optional.

Until 5 months ago, I still used a cheap Nokia as my primary phone, even though I also had an iPhone. The reason for that was the batter life - my Nokia could last for 5 days and ironically, my iPhone was unusable as a phone.

I made the switch eventually to Android, which has the same problems all smartphones have - but it took some change of habits, like not forgetting to recharge it daily.

But my Android is still primarily as a phone, even though I like getting my email and I like browsing the web when there's nothing better to do and I don't have my laptop in front. GMaps is nice to have too.

Other than that, most other apps are completely optional and I just keep them around for inspiration.
A Lesson In Low-Defect Software [pdf]
haha brilliant, what Yahoo needs is to buy more services that aren't even approaching break even. As brilliant as these companies might be at product as a public company Yahoo needs to make profit not promises ;-)
5 things startups can learn from Weinergate
If anyone is interested in investing in a project to legally provide work opportunities for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children like this journalist, you can send me a message via gmail and I'll pass it on to a law professor I know who is working on this issue with various legal and business leaders in the Bay Area.

Serious inquiries only please, this project is likely to require a significant commitment of financial and/or political capital.
They can, but they don't have to, so it's not inevitable.
I am having problems believing the 3rd point as Nokia is just laying of a lot of Meego-developers.

As for current Maemo/Meego-experience, I think not much can actually be said before the phones appear at stores this fall.
I think the real lesson here is to choose technologies based on actual experience rather than hype.

So that means extensive testing before nailing your colours to the mast.
How much of the client is GitHub specific, and how much is plain 'ol Git? Does it make sense to use it w/o using GitHub?

Couldn't find that info in either the announcement post, GitHub for Mac page, or the 118 comments so far here, and don't own a Mac so can't try it for myself (still would like to know whether to recommend to other people or not, though).
When they pretend to be a person and not just a commentor, yes. Have another xkcd http://xkcd.com/632/
I'd like to see some mad genius infographics of the new kind of job application "i want to be your ceo". That could be fun.
downside of bringing all that people from the outside would be to loose the current talent thats on board, imagine the people that have stayed with yahoo through the worst being limited in creativity not having much freedom hoping for a chance to lead being shut down again by putting someone else from outside in charge, i know i would quit.

on the other hand i do agree that they could have done better if they'd remained an operations level leads type of company, kinda like all the cool cats are doing right now.
Still suffers from the problem that in order to obtain the discount, a bunch of other people would have to request the discount on the graphics card in those few days. That's unlikely so I probably wouldn't bother asking for the discount (in turn, everyone else is thinking the same, which makes it even less likely).
How about training a replacement?

On the other hand - if you are lucky enough to run into people who are better at executing than you are - then funding them seems like the smartest thing to do, should they want to work with you that is.
"I'm not saying death marches are a good thing. But I've seen that in certain industries they do seem harder to avoid."

How hard they are to avoid depends entirely on how good the management is at coming up with excuses for them and at using carrots and sticks, and on how gullible and desperate their developers are.
Sorry about the spam filter. We get a shitton of spam (I think we're the largest Trac instance anywhere) and it makes the spam filter rather paranoid. If you're signed in it shouldn't get triggered.

Password reset is here: https://www.djangoproject.com/accounts/password/reset/
Doesn't it say on their site that they aren't really a bank, but just a simple... umbrella for other banks? I think they are just supposed to provide front-end tools for big banks so users don't have to deal with the banks. I'd rather it be a all-in-one bank.
How to Hack Overtone with Emacs (Clojure)
SQLite is indeed built into iOS and Mac OS X as well. Core Data's store uses SQLite as an option (XML and Binary are the others), and it is accessible via third party frameworks like FMDB.
Be Employee or Intern #1
We’re a yet to be announced YC startup with a launched product and great traction—including thousands of paying customers. We’ve built an awesome platform and need a top hacker (employee/intern #1) to help us build out new features and scale them.

You’ll push code your first day and work tandem with the CTO. We typically push to staging 5-10x a day, with production releases nightly. We have a packed pipeline of feature pushes on several platforms meaning you will not find yourself bored. Here's a sample of what we’re currently working on:

-Innovative social feature set, a loyalty program, a new admin panel, and backend analytics tool

-Mobile/tablet API and further development on Android and iOS clients

-Complete overhaul of our UI/UX

-Work with a cloud communications API (think Twilio and competitors)

We're a young, dynamic, and passionate group of twenty-somethings set on making a product that people love-to-use. While there are no hard requirements, familiarity with RoR and javascript is a plus. We're based in the heart of SF.

As employee #1, you'll earn generous stock options. Work and life will be exciting. If this sounds interesting, send us an email to benumberone2day@gmail.com with a little about yourself and and we’ll be in touch. Thanks!
I think it's a massive opportunity. These people are using Subversion because TortoiseSVN is a nice piece of software, not because they are anti-DVCS partisans.

If someone made an app like Tower but for windows and charged $50-100 for corporate licenses, they could make a killing.
+1 I wrote this above. They are just a front-end, nothing more.
Startup Visa Act - Keep Jobs in the US
I bet a lot of the proportion is down to most people writing in with what they use in their day jobs.

Also, while I love Tokyo's speed, it is just a better bdb - which is an impressive feat, but I can see why a lot of people would use something slower but more featureful.
Oh yeah, I did do that. My team got an award for having the least amount of engineers per students - only one! I was asked to come to the competition for free (the other students had to pay something over $100) because I was the only one who had any idea how to program the robot. I wasted most of my time working on a 3d animation in 3dsMax because I didn't expect to go at first, so our robot only had basic movement controls.
Some of us are unable to do anything "on the side". When I do something I commit 100% - so if I feel like working after hours - I would just do my regular work.
Making executable jars
Agency. We use SQL Server, MySQL, and SQLite. Rare, but have seen Oracle and PostgreSQL.
I still think that is really only true of the "geek" crowd. I am pretty sure none of my real life friends that weren't computer science majors have even heard of Instapaper or Reeder or Rdio or RunKeeper. The majority of the "number 11" apps that I use are mainly because either they don't have a workable mobile site (HN) or the mobile website doesn't quite work well enough (reddit, imdb, possibly facebook) but the latter category should be fixed just from phones getting slightly better and certain mobile oriented technologies coming out (like HTML5 offline support).

On a side note (not related to current enjoyment of phones) I really think it's not too long until the only things that are necessarily apps use lower hardware features (GPS, compass, camera, Shazam, game graphics), with even some of those possibly moving into the browser (disclosing location to sites already exists on desktop, Google just launched voice search on their desktop search).

I also think its a bit disingenuous to put the Twitter app (not an alternate third party Twitter app) in the same category as the others. Right now, a new mobile device would probably have a Twitter app and maybe even a Facebook app as a "native" app. When I got my phone Twitter and Facebook was already installed on it, equally presented alongside all the "native" apps like Googles, Maps, Music, Navigation, etc.
Practical Tips on Writing a Book from 23 Authors
Other - ZODB.
It's really courageous of him to come ahead with his story. I really hope he gets to stay in the country.
No, PHP is not a framework, it's a language.
Nokia N950 pictures: a gallery's worth of MeeGo to tell the story
On AppHarbor, you also get piggyback SSL by default, as well as you can add custom certificates for free. To be fair - we don't charge anyone yet, but saying nobody else does it is a stretch.