skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Ask HN: Permission to mention another company in marketing materials?
I am building a software system whose design is based around one of the ARINC standards. ARINC is a massive American aviation corporation that publishes industry standards, among other things.

I really need my marketing materials to mention that the system "Painlessly spits out ARINC 458 widgets".

Does anyone have experience with the legal aspects of mentioning another company in marketing materials? Does it suffice to use the registered trademark symbol and a footnote stating the company which owns the trademark?

The ARINC website has some guidance here, which I don't fully understand:
http://www.arinc.com/about/legal.html

I'm wondering how this really works in practice. And it's not as if ARINC wouldn't notice - I'm planning to launch my product at an ARINC conference.
>Ordinary Unix processes are another sort of virtualization, and one which is far more efficient.

... and backed by hardware!
HTML may be easier for you (it certainly is for me), but that's because you are a programmer. You must keep in mind that Markdown targets a very wide audience: you cannot expect your average Reddit user to write emphasis tags every time he wants to say something sarcastic in a comment, and trust me, that's pretty often.

Likewise, you cannot expect the average Joe to remember the syntax of an HTML link tag when writing a comment in your website, but you do need (at least we do) to make sure that the links in your website have certain attributes (rel, target, etc): Hence, customizable Markdown.
"Objet petit a"

...in technology it is data loss. History and timeline.

Lack of archiving and activity indicators is haunting every time I post. Will I be able to go back? Some sites are vulnerably unsearchable, deleterious, bankrupt, block, unfree or datalock: same problem. My voice gets lost.

+ could - devastation

Maybe set a +example.
TDD is not an algorithm generator
Those are pretty significant numbers for a personal blog, especially for someone in software development (as opposed to a Kottke or whatever). Nice work!
I never said it was perfect, just that it wasn't as bad as the gp thought. However, the 15 min every 2 hours is a recommendation, and over the top safety. The page really seems geard towards saying awake And no, its not hard for me to believe people make mistakes when tired, I know people who have totaled cars because they fell asleep. However, I assume (and know anecdotaly) that for someone for whom driving long distances is their job, they understand the reality of the situation, know how to recognize when their body can't take it and most importantly know how to plan their sleep schedule for driving.

You can always, always be more safe at driving. Up to and including the point of advocating for the end of motor vehicle use altogether. Everything about driving is dangerous, my point is was just that the situation described wasn't as brick-shittingly more risky as the GP's tone seemed to imply.
I noticed the use of the word "invent" as well. It kind of hurt to read the first time. I thought after her first Google search she might realize that there was a better word for it, and start searching for how to "create" or "write" or "code" an iPhone application.
It is exactly the kind of innovative solution that multiple developers would discover independently. It is exactly the kind of idea that does not need a 17 year monopoly to incentivize investors to provide cash for its development.
Again, saved state. In my work projects often go on hold for months or years - I might need to come back to a project and pick up where I left off even though in the interim I replaced my primary computer, browser, and production software.

And in my writing side projects, I may leave a project for several months. So that's where I realized the value of VM's - the one's I use have survived an upgrade from XP to 7 with the same open windows and without any software reinstallation (and of course without any recreation of bookmarks). I'll add that they are also descendents of previous virtual machines used for the same purpose but different projects. It is more efficient from a workflow perspective to have six copies of Open Office each pointing to the relevant context than to reconfigure one copy each time the context switches.

To put it another way, the way in which one develops software projects from a custom starting point and the way in which references persist across IDE sessions during a project due to saved state are not unique to software development. They are indicators of the features which facilitate efficient project execution timelines.
I think there is a big difference between litigating your competition away and out competing them. I also see a big difference between the way Google approaches vendor lock in and their competitors do. I also can think of a big name brand competing service for just about everything Google does. Thusly,I disagree with your statement that Google is a monopoly or anti-competitive.
I'd like to challenge you to point to a single nontrivial piece of software that doesn't infringe on someone's patents. I'd submit that it's nearly impossible.
Hacking The Art Of Exploitation Book
No, there isn't really a consensus. FWIW, this is not a "new elegant Markdown", this is a 100% standards compilant Markdown library, with optional support for some extensions that we found useful. The syntax for these extensions comes, basically, from the Markdown mailing list and PHP-Markdown Extra.
See the problem is quite a few companies do not think Android is 100% Google's own creation. Oracle is asking a price for the Java part. Apple does not want its own UI to be a part. And FSM knows what parts Microsoft feels entitled to.
Have you looked at 99 Designs [1]? I havn't used it, but it looks useful!

[1] http://99designs.com/
I had a _great_ experience with 99designs, though I won't say it came cheap.

The most useful tip I was given about 99designs is to browse other contests and ask the authors of the best designs you see to join your contest.

Give daily feedback, and make the contest "blind" so that designers can't see each others submissions: you'll get less copycats.
PIE - Portland Seed Fund Deadline Extended to August 8th
Dealmap was just acquired by google, seems like there's something to these aggregators...
I've worked in the trucking industry for the past six years and I find this article pretty accurate. However, all of the problems that this driver is faced with can be largely impacted by better decision making and planning on the company side. Then again, I'm heavily biased since this is exactly the type of software I work on every day.

We have products to help companies choose which freight to run to maximize profit (and which to get rid of), find optimal truck/order combinations to minimize cost/time of haul, to determine where the truck should buy fuel (and how much) for his current order to minimize fuel cost, and track the asset in near real time to ensure management knows when it will be late or off route (much easier to re-schedule the drop a day or two ahead, for example). We've even put considerable effort to optimize a swap of trailers between trucks on the road so that a driver can get home in an emergency.

I am unsure about the burden of fuel on the driver, as many of our carriers have fuel cards for drivers to purchase fuel (sometimes constrained to our locations/amounts to ensure compliance) and the company usually charges a fuel surcharge back to the customer anyways. I work with both very large and very small carriers but I obviously don’t know the specifics of this driver’s situation.

As far as the government involvement, the driver's hours of service are logged electronically because it was all too common for drivers to carry multiple log books (and use the one which allowed them to keep driving to make a drop). Electronic logging is a good thing. Personally, I think 11 hours behind the wheel of a 45,000lb semi-truck is probably enough for one day. Incidentally, they can drive 11 hours per day up to 70 hours total before they have to take 34 hours off in a row.

Hauling freight isn't easy and they deserve some respect. Our Nation would crawl to a halt in a matter of days if they stopped doing their jobs. Try to cut them a little more slack and room on the road.
It's such a sad spectacle to see petty jealousy (or at least lack of empathy) by commenters here. As someone who grew up in a poor family and is now an immigrant, I can confirm that anything you achieve is earned and accomplished. There is no privilege, just because one manages to make 6 figures a year through hard work. OP has balls, big ones, to give up such a good job to try his hand at a startup.
I think willful infringement will play a large role in this Oracle case. For that case, we'll probably know over the next year if it was willful.
Informal Cloud Buyers - A Growing IT Problem
Hopefully Google will use some of those $3B to lobby against software patents.
Security Target - What Is a Security Target
Security target is the form of the technique which is used for certain documents that are developed with the help of information technology and it also highlights some of the properties too for differ
Dishonesty in Software development
Hi everyone,

I'm doing research for a Masters Dissertation on honesty in software development.

If you can spare 3-4 minutes, I would be extremely grateful!

http://tinyurl.com/44n2j98

Kind Regards!
if you feel dissatisfied by your current help desk solution, you should definitely check out assistly. it feels like they actually care about design and user delight, unlike the other things i've used/evaluated.

i am not affiliated with them other than as a customer.

edit: Also, congrats greg!
best luck!
docx, why?! You're being sarcastic, right? right?!
Web.com to Acquire Network Solutions
Me think Sun's java patents are very non-trivial.

But legally speaking, none of us have the authority to determine what qualifies as trivial. Google certainly has the fund to battle it out and demands re-examination of every patents involved. Just recently Apple got USPTO to declare several S3 patents invalid.

Just do it.
That's what XP mode does out of the box. I run my really stinking old version of Quickbooks through it.
You left out the part where it says that a patent troll can be defined by any of these points. Therefore only quoting the one I did was enough to define Microsft and Apple as patent trolls.
Google rips Patents
Whether topical circles would enhance or dilute G+ is a matter of opinion of course. You might be right -- I tend to enjoy deep dives more than most.

But I see no reason, either in functional integrity or in social practices, that topical circles would diminish G+. Those not interested would simply not use them -- this is true of FB groups and lists.

It is incredibly difficult to achieve the network density and connectedness required to make a social network stick. Attention is in short supply -- witness Ning's failure to become the social network of interest groups. Perhaps it's not feasible for vertical and niche networks to match the success of the generic social nets. For this reason strikes me as in the ballpark to enable sustained topical conversations where the audience already exists, and where shared topical interests could augment individual profiles and deepen engagement.
It's also a further disincentive to be involved in the American market. The Indian and Chinese markets aren't similarly encumbered.
congrats! Your posts on bash and sed/awk helped me a lot in my (ongoing) quest of mastering the terminal.
I think that some people have missed some of the points in the article in particular the aggressive litigation against Samsung, HTC, Motorola etc it isn't just Google thats being targeted. This is an anti-competitive stance, Apple, Oracle and Microsoft are being very aggressive in their pursuits. In my opinion the critical and genuine patents in mobile are linked to the radio portion of the device, the remaining patents are dubious as they don't represent novel or non-obvious solutions to a problem, more I did it this particular way so I am patenting it.

The US patent system, is broken. The cases as far as I know are being fought in the US, I doubt any of the claims would be accepted by a European court, though feel free to correct me.
On one hand I totally agree when you slam the people who are showing total ignorance to facts of the market, they are an extreme. But on the other hand you are also acting like an extreme when you condemn everybody for saving the proverbial nickel. If the truckers have it hard so does a large proportion of the customers of goods.
Yes, the Nortel and Novel patent acquisition a couple of weeks ago.
Ask HN: Can somebody help me with a few things in ruby on rails?
Hi,

First off I am an active HN user here, but I would like to use a throwaway for this question :/

So I'm learning ruby on rails, and building a custom CMS for my website (crazy as it sounds, I'm up to it. I have the time, and would like to learn ror). So far so good, except a few silly things that I can't understand... I just really need somebody that can just add me on skype or something and help me with them. I tried Stackoverflow, but my question was closed for some strange reason.

Anyway if anyone is willing to help my email is: rubyonrailshelp@gmail.com

Thanks
How to meet famous people
Was Aaron Swartz Stealing?
Not completely out of the question, but considering the risk to China's reputation (as you stated), and their ability to control the internet in China, you would think they would understand this false-flag risk, and take action to prevent this.
There is an anti-compete lawsuit going on between google and skyhook: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/10/internal-emails-reveal-go...

There needs to be significant patent/ip reform in this country, there's no question about that. Google isn't necessarily a "good guy", though. There is a lot of money to be made out there and all of the big guys are using everything at their disposal to gain the upper hand.
Is this why we're seeing a sudden burst of anti-patent news? Is Google in the early phases of drumming up grassroots support for a direct assault on software patents in general, without their name being on the effort? Is this post actually move 3 instead of move 1?

Honest questions, BTW, if there's anybody with answers who are allowed to give answers...
No specific requirements for the way in which something is implemented is the very nature of Turing machines.
Given the current state of american politics would you want to rely on "reform" as crucial element of your business strategy?
http://www.piepdx.com/
have to download a plugin to opt out wtf?
they never hear of do-not-track?
Yep, but piepdx has been submitted, this page is specifically to apply for this funding cycle. They extended the deadline because google jumped on board with their backing.
Ask HN: How Do You Come Up With Your Cool Ideas?
I've been exchaning emails with an employee at an analytics company that I'd like to intern at next Summer and his advice to me was to "do something cool" this year.

The problem is that I don't know what to do. How do you come up with your cool ideas?
Love the graphs... Makes perfect sense. I think in general; the real secret is you must satisfy the formula entirely and not just have one or two things right. Everything must go together just right including timing. Great article.
I think you are looking at it inside a box, as an isolated issues.

Patent litigation is simply a weapon used by companies offensively or defensively.

When in a fight with your competitors you look at your weapons and theirs. When evaluating the visible weaponry of their competitors they see patent litigation near the top of the list. When they look at their arsenal of weapons, they do not see patent litigation at the top of the list. Therefore, they have decided it's better to eliminate patent litigation as a weapon rather than to go into battle against it.

Their strategy is to change the rules of what weapons can be used in battle. :-) It's very smart.
To clarify: they're not personally targeted. With re-targeting they target a browser that's been to a site but hasn't converted. No company I know of targets based on specific identity.

But what do you mean by "targets based on a specific identity?" Clearly the intent is to target the same person who went to a site but did not convert. That sounds like targeting based on a specific identity to me.

Also, I can name at least two companies that target people (OK, cookie stores) based on specific interests or traits they (OK, their users) are surmised to have: Google and Facebook. These two are very high-profile about it, so I would be surprised if others did not do the same.
If you want to retain Arduino sketch compatibility for one reason or another (many identical builds but not at commercial scale? Who am I to question?) you can build Arduino clones from components and perfboard for under $10.

Edit: Nix that, just buy the Ardweeny: http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MKSB...
Not often you see a Lacanian reference in this industry. It's more than data loss -- or rather, data is as often the product of interaction and a form of communication as it is just data. So preserving interestingness and relevance by sustaining attention, which is easily accomplished by action (not data), is I think possible. Features simply have to be designed to privilege communication over raw information.
Patents are here and companies will find a way to exist with either DoJ's help or by acquiring their own patent portfolio. That's not the interesting news here to me.

I think by being offensive and teaming up with Microsoft, Apple is risking being at the losing end of a huge PR and mind share battle here. Microsoft still makes money using their market position but they are no longer in the mind share race.

Apple's business is in a position right now where they aren't a monopoly yet to start abusing it - unlike Microsoft which has so much leverage that losing mind share and having bad PR doesn't do much in terms of being a dent in existing, established business. However, for Apple if the rising tide against their close-ness continues with the help of economical realities and being perceived as a bully in the same league as Microsoft - they could see stagnation.

Apple has really no reason to pick that bullying route - they are always first to create new market categories, they are the most profitable ones, they still have lot of novelty factor going for them and they can compete in every better way if they wanted.
Apple iCloud: A Big Threat To Consumer File Sharing Services
In fact multiple people did discover similar strategies at the same point in time such as: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/auth.pdf
New research doubts link between cellphones and cancer
Court-finds-megaupload-could-be-guilty-direct-infringement-perfect-10-case
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110729/23181215332/court-finds-megaupload-could-be-guilty-direct-infringement-perfect-10-case.shtml
I'm definitely stealing some of this from Steve Blanks' Customer Development Model, but thought it would be worth citing.

Concept/Idea, Customer Discovery (First User/Customer), x number of pivots of MVP until Traction, Traction, Growth (Funding?)

http://www.slideshare.net/venturehacks/customer-development-...
> But legally speaking, none of us have the authority to determine what qualifies as trivial.

Technically we can be sued and the court will decide what is 'trivial'. But that is completely messed up. We, the software engineers, know what is trivial or not in our field - software engineering.

If lawyers decide what is trivial and what isn't in software, then every software engineer founding a startup needs a lawyer to go over all the code he or she writes. That's a horrible burden on innovation!
Vogue to Offer Every Issue Since 1892 Online
"Enterprise penetration" has traditionally been a matter of time, not features. Enterprise software is definitely on its way out so I get the feeling it will not need to penetrate.
I hope that the first thing you learn is how to pry open a casket.
It's striking to me that markdown has become so popular, when wysiwyg HTML editors have been around for a long time, and are supposed to be easier to use (I would expect them to be).

Perhaps it's partly that using asterisks for emphasis makes more intuitive sense than ^I or clicking a button etc; and partly that mostly people don't use it - let alone the more complex markdown features.
First I hate patent trolls, but the ill effects are financially not that devastating. Trolls do not kill the geese. No geese, no egg.

And then there are the tech giants, they do not notice you until you get real big yourself.

So yeah, the situation sure is depressing, but then again at the end of the tunnel is money and fame, it is only reasonable the path shall be difficult.
Have you ever had a moment where you want to have a service that solved a problem? Or a moment where you thought a piece of software/hardware etc. could be done in a better way? You could start with that.

Something cool could also mean helping out an opensource project, if you have time. Just my 2 cents.
I'm actually working on a fashion related project (an iPad app) and this is pure gold for my research efforts! This story may never hit the front page but it made my day -- thank you curthopkins...
99 designs is a great "easy" resource. They do both "commissioned" logo designs and recently introduced off-the-shelf logos too, which look better than they sound.
It's not so much the proverbial nickel that I'm angry about. Customers can't really be expected to know all the nitty-gritty details of how the good was produced and transported.

The much more relevant issue is people voting for systems that make the nickel the rule of the day. And in all fairness many of them are voting on other issues or are misled about the issues by the mainstream media. Or maybe families are just too busy and overworked and lack social support for childcare to have a chance to critically consider the system. In the end most people aren't bad, they're just people trying to survive as best they can. So perhaps the anger is misplaced.

But without anger you only have despair, and at least with anger you get heard.
But that's obvious. The point here is that patent trolling exists on a spectrum. While Apple and Microsoft may have a tenuous qualification, when I say patent troll most people who follow this stuff will think Nathan Myhrvold, not Steve Jobs.

It's same way that calling both a jaywalker and a burglar criminals just because both have committed acts against the law dilutes the word "criminal."
The hypocrisy is unbelievable:
Google is a major investor in patent troll firm Intellectual Ventures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_Ventures

http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2011/05/intellectual-ventur...

Amazon, Apple, Cisco, eBay, Microsoft, etc. are also investors but they are not acting like whiny babies and acting all high and mighty going around preaching about how patents are destroying innovation.

Fact 1:

-------

Google was willing to pay for $3-$4 billion for the same Nortel patents.

Fact 2:

-------

Google's page rank algorithm is patented. if you don't believe in patents then why the hell do you own patents?

Fact 3:

-------

Let me quote another commenter on another blog: "How many small and innovative companies has Google killed off by replicating what they do and making it available for free? Great way to keep the next Google from springing up."

Message to Google:

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

You can use other people's technology, you just have to pay for them. You are being sued left and right not because there's some organized propaganda against you, it's because you STOLE from other companies.
>Programming-centric news aggregators such as Hacker News and the programming subreddit give curious developers exposure to buzz about new languages.

Minor, but the coding subreddit is another good one: http://www.reddit.com/r/coding