skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I just want to buy channels from a few primary vendors, not individually evaluate pricing, delivery, terms and conditions from multiple vendors. There's a cost for carrying more vendors - look at complex manufacturing operations that tend to try and reduce supplier counts to manage. On a personal basis, the more individual billing accounts I have to juggle, the less time I have to do things I actually care about.

The vendors should care about transaction models, because if I'm evaluating the price of each item individually be it per show or per channel, I'm likely to spend less on content overall vs a ongoing account.
First of all, I said "approximation". Second of all, genes and values are inherited as well.
We have a SIP call accounting, rating and routing product that is driven by a SIP proxy that calls a lot of Postgres stored procedures on the backend. (The SIP proxy's configuration is written in a pseudo-programmatic, interpreted scripting language, but one lacking in many basic features and data structure primitives that can be taken for granted in the runtime of a general-purpose programming language, so most of the business layer is in the database of necessity, in addition to all the other reasons for doing it that way.)

All throughout the platform, there are many points at which the ANI/caller ID and the dialed digits (the user part of the request URI) must be "translated", which is a fancy phone switch term for stripping one or more digits and then prepending one or more digits. It was such a common operation that it was genericised into our most oft-used PL/PgSQL utility function:

-- Character stripping and prefix prepending transformation, which is applied
-- to the ANI and DNIS at virtually all entry and exit points in the call
-- processing machine.

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION strip_prepend_transform(_token varchar,
_strip_digits integer,
_prepend_prefix varchar)
RETURNS varchar
AS $$
DECLARE
_strip_len	smallint := 0;
BEGIN
IF _strip_digits > 0 THEN
-- If the strip length given for some reason exceeds the
-- actual string length, trim it down so that those digits
-- that do exist are still trimmed.

IF _strip_digits > LENGTH(_token) THEN
_strip_len = LENGTH(_token);
ELSE
_strip_len = LENGTH(_token) - _strip_digits;
END IF;

_token := SUBSTRING(_token FROM (_strip_digits + 1) FOR _strip_len);
END IF;

IF LENGTH(_prepend_prefix) > 0 AND _prepend_prefix <> '' THEN
_token := (_prepend_prefix || _token);
END IF;

RETURN _token;
END
$$ LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';
Not all companies are like this. I work for a company that believes enforcement of patents stifles innovation. And looking for the next innovation and gaining a first mover advantage is much more important than spending time and resources protecting past ones.Plus the end user is much better off in this market. We will patent to protect ourselves from other companies, but not enforce it on others.

However this needs an idealistic leader and wont work large scale across markets so while it annoys me when I see these spiderwebs of who is suing who, I really put the blame at the fault of the patent system. I don't know what the answer is but it seems something is seriously broken.
First Look: Ubuntu 11.10 “Oneric Ocelot” Alpha 2 « The Writing Confederation
But if the owner didn't pay, the mortgage company - and by extension, whoever got the rights to that debt - can foreclose on the house and sell it, no? I assume whatever company know owns that mortgage wants to recover their losses by selling it ASAP.
Yes but in the world people don't take offense at bland statements and smack you upside the head as they walk by. I'd like not to care, but am not a sociopath.
Neat. The code's even pretty readable. Fantastic news for the OSS crowd, and multiple implementations are critical for robustness's sake - no single point of failure.

/me adds to my ever-growing to-read list
Care to explain why you disagree instead of just downvoting?
I spent 2009-2010 working at a traditional Japanese company in Japan, and it's interesting b/c the vast vast majority of Japanese students looking for their first job will use the shotgun method (this is particularly the case for Humanities students, not so much for science/engineering students though).

It's pretty typical for college students to apply to anywhere from 50-200 companies during their 3rd-4th years of college. The situation is so bad that students compete for spots in "explanation sessions" at their universities by using smartphones to snap up openings as soon as signups start (exacerbated by the fact that many companies have cut new student hiring by anywhere from 30%-50% following the earthquake and power supply issues).

I believe the advice of this author applies primarily to people applying to foreign subsidiaries operating in Japan (the so called "Gaishi-kei" companies). His advice isn't really relevant for applying to Domestic Japanese companies (what anditto writes is pretty accurate: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2769466)
Come on, he is a prodigy. The only person I know that have matched impressive ingenuity is Stephen Wolfram.

Great, now after reading their bio, i'm feeling more depressed ... sigh
Ah yes, the belief that powers Western capitalism: your choice in trivial matters somehow becomes part of your perceived identity.

What does it mean? Can you answer in a way that isn't couched in the fashion of the day? There was a time when a Hotmail account was not looked down upon. What makes this instant in time so different, besides fashion?
Pilot 78G with a fine nib. I found it on eBay for $10 with 3 ink cartridges. The only think I don't like about it is that it needs to be capped when not writing.
Given the article it sounds like he's satisfied all of the conditions, everyone wants him out (hostile), he's filed the paperwork (open), he's had it written about in the paper (notorious), and he's established residence by camping in the living room.

Even if he doesn't get the house he's still living rent free.
You should drop the "potentially." Anyone with the opportunity to work with and learn from Tristan should consider themselves extremely lucky. He's one of the most awesome, humble and driven people I know.
I couldn't help thinking about software when Jefferson refers to ideas. The thinking power called software...
slides: http://www.slideshare.net/CameronWestland/websockets-8031217
Is this just a hype title, or did they do something different to what people are doing all the time using wikis?
Hotmail ruined its reputation in a few ways, but the primary way was how they would embed advertisements in your emails. So if you receive an email from an @hotmail person, you also receive a cute little ad!
> Hotmail is also working hard to eliminate accounts that have simple passwords such as “12345678″ and “password” by increasing security measures and not allowing simple passwords to be created.

Awesome. Not like I use Hotmail, but... So now if someone's password generator just happen to generate "weak" password not containing, for example, a digit (uh, even `openssl rand -base64 12` provides such outputs from time to time) user'll have to step away from usual password generation scheme and create special password just for hotmail.com.

Please, for the love of sanity, never ever forbid any passwords (except for too short ones, with a reasonable minimal length). Just freak user out so he'll think twice before using possibly weak password. You'll educate users this way instead of frustrating them.

(And never limit maximum length or set of possible characters, except for rare cases where there are technical obstacles requiring to do so - like non-8-bit-safe protocols. If user wants to authenticate with a passpoem, written in runic alphabet — let him have it.)
Without "potentially," I'd be describing him as a great non-technical cofounder, which would only be true if he were a cofounder. I am sure that he is an actually, not potentially, great person. :-)
A short criticism of Amazon SQS
Related: Many cool collaborative Google Docs/Spreadsheets have begun here on Hacker News. It regularly impresses me when I glance at my Docs list and see them constantly updated/floating to the top (recent timestamps), getting more orderly and valuable over time.

Examples:

* The Web Design doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14Ym6LTR9hLBGI0cM0mMU_BDE...

* The HN Contractors spreadsheet:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AlD_6iE...
Depends what you want, but to access the data in info boxes look into http://dbpedia.org and sparql. For a quick intro into that see Bob DuCharme's post http://www.snee.com/bobdc.blog/2008/10/learning-more-about-s...
How baked is this? Has anyone written any apps on it?
I'm not sure I understand how some of these are being used, specifically whether they're being used safely.

API keys usually exist for preventing abuse. By exposing an authenticated API proxy you're allowing anyone to abuse someone else's API using your key, likely leading to them banning you. At a minimum you should implement your own rate limiting.

Likewise, with a JSONP proxy you're allowing other sites to circumvent the browsers' same origin policy to access that API, which could also lead to abuse. At a minimum you should restrict requests to ones with a recognized HTTP Referer header.

Of course with JSONP you also need to trust that the API isn't doing anything malicious, like injecting cookie or other data-stealing JavaScript instead of valid JSON. It would be a good idea to validate that the response is indeed JSON before passing it back to the clients (actually a properly restricted sanitizing JSONP proxy would be a good idea even if the API already provides JSONP)

So use these techniques cautiously...
Indeed, the example code isn't actually JSONP, since it hardcodes the callback.
When a company isn't paying it's bills, it is likely on it's way under.

To the degree you aren't getting paid, you are not actually working for the company. And leadership which will forgo paying employees while allowing them to come in and work on their projects is not behaving ethically.

If you are in the US, companies which are not meeting payroll are frequently also not paying payroll taxes and using the withholding portion of each employee's salary to cover operating expenses.
Start thinking with portals, for starters.

Though that didn't/won't go too well in the past/future. We will/have learned since/until?/by?/after then!

(damn it, where's Dr. Dan Streetmentioner's Time Traveler's Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations when you need it?)
why only 4 followers?
Summary of a summary of
http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archiv...
Many people can edit at the same time in Docs, which is one difference vs a wiki.
Actually, they spend substantially more on R&D than appears under that heading in their financials.

Much of their R&D is outsourced to component suppliers, paid for by advance funding of new factories and other production facilities.

But their spending is incredibly effective in terms of developing products people want.
What on earth does that have to do with capitalism? And what makes you think your choice of how to present yourself doesn't become part of how others perceive you?

You might wish to read this: http://lesswrong.com/lw/yp/pretending_to_be_wise/
The other <pre> and print_r()-based solutions don't work quite as well when you're writing an AJAX-based app. I use error_log for everything:

// PHP error_log() wrapper
function el($var, $die = true) {
error_log(var_export($var, true));

if ($die) {
die();
}
}

Also, Paul Irish's Javascript log() function is amazing. It can be found in boiler plate, but here's the gist:

// Javascript console.log() wrapper
window.log = function() {
log.history = log.history || [];
log.history.push(arguments);

if (this.console) {
console.log(Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments));
}
};
... or that this sort of exams don't measure correctly the ability to get Fields medals.
At the same time Steve Jobs is openly and repeatedly quoting Picasso's "Good artists copy. Great artists steal." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CW0DUg63lqU for one example) which directly contradicts the "let's monopolize ideas" trend.

They say often whatever is convenient and aligned with profit motif at most times and the truth some times.

Apple (i.e. Jobs) publicly talks about how many ideas they have monopoly on to scare competition, reassure analysts and because it the current legal system it is a great advantage. That's the profit motive speaking.

At times, when talking about necessity of stealing other people's ideas, Jobs speaks the truth because we all know that everything we build is an improvement on something else. Once we patent everything, there will be nothing to build on. No ability for new people to disloge incumbents by improving on what they did in the past and therefore no incentive for incumbents to improve. Why spend effort improving things if you can collect just as much money by selling the stuff you did 5 years ago?
I know nothing about Ruby, but it's possible if a language implements an array as a linked list so the tail elements don't actually move. (At any rate, I hardly think we're worried about a modern computer workload of at most 25^2 string operations.)
Aren't there anti-competitive laws that forbid banning competing ads?
Wave comes to mind, I prefer an inline comment! Just kidding, plus probably isn't going anywhere :)
Have You About Jennifer Lopez?
(Repeated) kernel panic on Macbook Air/Chrome I'm afraid.
That wouldn't be fun.
They are launching later this week--this HN post is their first publicity (as far as I know). They literally just enabled the beta invites to attract some attention.

It looks pretty good on the inside. Sort of an amazon.com with bitcoin.
> In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car.

It's funny, my brother did that just last week. It was extremely muddy from when he got it stuck in the middle of a pasture.
because it was just announced for the first time a few minutes ago.
the second and more significant problem is that if you ever use JSONP to transmit private data then you've essentially lost the cross origin protection of data present in the browser.

That's assuming the API is using HTTP cookies for authentication, right? If it's not then theres no way for a 3rd party to construct an authenticated request without knowing the credentials.

The real problem here is that a JSONP proxy allows 3rd party sites to access the API from your IP address (and API key if you use the suggestion of an API key proxy). Rate limiting and restricting to specific HTTP Referrers would be prudent.
On a related note: I have an idea/vision for a next generation movie theatre, but I decided to put it on the backburner for a while, perhaps forever, due in part to all the legal & bureaucratic obstacles related to the MPAA and studio/theatre system. But there are so many obvious ways to make theatres better than what we have today.
The best patents in any area are those kinds of novel inventions that people will look for to solve a problem, not after accidentally breaking them.
Twitter Launching Advertising API in Q4
Good point. I believe Windows' task manager reports it the way I said, while OS X's Activity Monitor reports each core up to 100%.
Ah, I sense sarcasm. I suppose without explanation, my comment is too harsh, and I come off as an Apple hater.

Quite the opposite, I love my MacBook Pro and iPad, and I think Apple's products are great. But that is exactly why I am so disappointed to hear that they are now exhibiting the same behavior as Lodsys, which we have come to hate.

In the spirit of transforming the landscape and creating revolutionary devices, attacking HTC and Android is a great disappointment to me. I am very regretful that our generation's best and brightest people and corporations are caught up in these legal and corporate squabbles. Their energy could be better spent on innovation or solving real problems.
Ask HN: Does anyone have access to nodejs cloud hosting?
I want to try out no.de or nodejitsu.com but both are in private beta or require a coupon code. Thought you guys might have the ins to get me in.
Bullshit.

Yes, some of the robber-barons were and are philanthropists.

But robbing to give it away is not much more moral than robbing to spend it yourself or give it to your heirs. Both are still theft.

For examples of modern non-robber philanthropists, see H & P, Buffet, et al.
I looked at the API for SQS a long time ago after writing this:

http://www.rockstarprogrammer.org/post/2008/oct/04/what-matt...

I really felt like I must be missing something. This made no sense to me. The linked article suggests the author is also missing something, or Amazon just did it wrong. I don't know where I'd actually use SQS.
I recommend the videos at http://ideveloper.tv. They are high quality and the conversational style really helps.
A few months ago I was writing a little application where I was doing a lot of asynchronous calls in javascript and having to track their completion to do some other stuff, it resulted in this:

// Synchronizes asynchronous calls: sync(functions..., completionHandler)
var sync = function() {
var argLength = arguments.length - 1
, completed = 0
, callback = arguments[argLength]

for (var i = 0; i < argLength; i++) {
arguments[i](function() {
completed++;
(completed == argLength) && callback && callback();
});
}
};

It pretty much takes a number of functions that perform asynchronous operations and execute a callback function upon completion of whatever the async operation is. Once they're all complete it calls the last function it received as a 'completion handler'. Example that I wrote out without bothering to test at all (treat it as pseudo-code):

var pageData = null;
sync
( function(cb) { $('#pageContainer').fadeOut('slow', cb); }
, function(cb) {
$.ajax(
{ url: 'page.html'
, success: function(msg) {
pageData = msg;
cb();
}
}
);
}
, function() {
$('#pageContainer').html(pageData).fadeIn('slow');
}
);

So that will start by beginning the jQuery fadeOut animation on the pageContainer html element, while immediately doing an ajax call to get another page's data. Once both operations are complete, it will take the new page data, put it into the pageContainer element, and fade it back in.
I did a math minor at UCLA, and he taught the upper-division linear algebra class I took. He didn't like the book, so he decided to write his own lecture notes, which formed a book unto themselves. They're still available online at http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/resource/general/115a.3.02f/. If you ever have the itch to learn linear algebra, read them, they're quite excellent.

It was pretty obvious at class and obvious hours he was crazy smart -- but I had no way of knowing he was Fields Medal smart. But unlike other crazy smart professors I've had, he's a very gifted teacher as well. I mostly learned by reading the books and considered the lectures as an ancillary learning aid, but his lectures were very illuminating. I'm glad he now has a blog to teach a wider audience at http://terrytao.wordpress.com/, but unfortunately most of it is beyond what I can understand. If you're a math die-hard, be sure to read that.
It has got to come to an end soon. Too much time and energy is being spent on these ridiculous legal issues and not enough on moving forward.
I really think we have lost something since those days since a computer you can program cannot be gotten in the under $200 category.

// I suppose somewhere there is an example, but nothing I've seen in a big box store
For what its worth, it seems to be running now without any changes on my part.
IANAL, my understanding is that it's illegal to ask people to work if you can't pay them. The company almost certainly knows this; if they do, and if this specific situation is illegal, then they're knowingly screwing you by knowingly breaking the law.
Yeah, the price of floppy drives was insane (bought an Indus for my Atari 400), but it sure made you feel great after using a damn tape drive (I curse you Atari 410).
Excellent link. This phenomenon has been driving me up the wall on another site I frequent and that article captures it well.
By providing everyone with free search to locate information, providing them with free high quality email, adwords to market their wares/services, adsense to monetize their traffic.
DotCloud is pretty flexible and has open registration: www.dotcloud.com
No, shii's with Red Hat.
One of my banks limits passwords to something like 12 characters. I called and asked why, their response was "because it's hard enough to remember 12 characters!".

sigh
It's a prediction, and not a very interesting one at that. Still, I don't want to reveal it until the discussion has fizzled out. I promise I'll sate your curiosity in 24 hours.
The best thing the tech community can do is to encourage Schumpeterian creative destruction in other areas of the economy (such as finance). The tech sector is so successful because it's essentially the wild west, free from a lot of the interference of other areas of the economy.

When it's easier to start Facebook than a coffee shop you should not be surprised that there is more demand for programmers and less demand for baristas.

Asking what the tech sector can do for the rest of America is like asking what America can do for Soviet Russia, the answer to which is wait until they want to change their ways.
Live entertainment production, and arts administration.
Entre los grandes: Perú venció 2-0 a Colombia y está en semifinales
You might also enjoy browsing his Math Overflow questions and answers.. http://mathoverflow.net/users/766/terry-tao
If you read their dev forums it doesn't look like they're trying to make an open facebook, but rather a system with built-in anonymity, encryption, and filesharing. It'd be cool if they could get it off the ground, but they'd have to marshal far more dev time than they've been able to in the past.
Last line isn't quite accurate: If successful, Dawn’s double-destination mission will mark the first time a spacecraft has orbited two bodies in the solar system.

Of course the Apollo manned missions orbited both the Earth and the Moon, so we certainly have precedence for thrusting out of one body's orbit into another.
Namco owns a patent on minigames during loading screens.
IKEA Product Names Matched With Their Google Image Results
That, and it took a bit for Hotmail to catch up on having huge mailboxes. It used to be that if you weren't on gmail or a private provider, you probably couldn't handle getting 3-4 CAD files a day for weeks at a time.
More about the ion engines:

http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/ion_prop.asp
Warp Zone HTML5 Game Jam
crewbuyer.com is a startup focused on group sales where members establish groups (otherwise known as a crew) to buy products. They have an setup that'll let members refer friends in return a 1% discount for each member referred.

I hope that helps.
It's pretty useless for anything beyond memes, however.
And yet the amount of horse-power generated from steam engines pretty much flatlined in England when Watt's patent was granted, while in other countries it went through the roof. When Watt's patent expired, then the real industrialisation took place.

"During the period of Watt's patents the United Kingdom added about 750 horsepower of steam engines per year. In the thirty years following Watt's patents, additional horsepower was added at a rate of more than 4,000 per year."

http://mises.org/daily/3280#note4
I don't see why you would think minimizing a window would somehow stop youtube from streaming the clip. It would take less processing power from your computer, sure, but it's still streaming. It's not like if you remaximize it the video won't be there or anything.
Yeah. Although, in modern browsers, the overhead is really trivial.

I just tried timing it in modern Chrome. The overhead of calling a function like isDefined(), versus typeof x !== 'undefined', seems trivial. On my machine, after 100,000 calls there's a difference of 50ms.

Still, I concede that there are some situations where it would matter, if you were driving an animation. And in older browsers it might matter a lot even in other circumstances.