skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
On the contrary. Since software source code is (at a fundamental level) math, it is purely informational in nature. One of the goals of the patent system in the first place was so that information would be shared rather than kept secret. The patent holder makes the information public, and in exchange he is granted a temporary monopoly over the physical manifestation of the information. But not the information itself.

This makes it really strange then when you attempt to patent a software algorithm. What is the physical part? Am I allowed to make a book containing original descriptions of patented algorithms? How is that different from sharing code on the web?

Patenting software algorithms is akin to patenting speech itself, which is protected under the first amendment. So I think the "math" thing does matter. A lot.
>At all. I find that to be a disingenuous or at least off topic insult.

Is it even possible to insult a multinational company?

My point is that the article suggests that Apple is a big friend to HTML5, and that the growth of HTML5 will be in large part due to Apple's "massive support". I do not believe that Apple is a "massive" supporter of HTML5.

Apple's first priority is securing their own walled garden, not HTML5. HTML5 and its associated technologies are capable of creating fully-featured, offline-capable web apps that work on a variety of smartphone platforms with minimal changes. Apple will not allow such submissions into the App Store, and instead channels users towards an Objective-C, Apple-only path. They are pro-HTML5 when it suits them (fighting against Adobe) but when it threatens their walled garden, they discard it.

It isn't my intention to single them out in this- Google is just a bad with Android, as is MS with Windows Phone. The only reason I'm focusing on Apple is because the original article made them out to be a big flag-waver for HTML5, and I think that is disingenuous.
There is some value in dogfooding. Perhaps he might be better able to envision and guide the Android teams if he were using one every day. What Android is doing right/wrong may be easier to tell when he has one rather than sifting through customer feedback.

Besides all this are the PR/consumer confidence aspects of this, which I think a company is responsible for managing. To some degree, your success in business depends on what the public perceives of you.
it was taken this week.
Open the door all the way until it hits the wall, throw a towel over it, and start doing pullups. Some people use workout gloves, but it's basically anything that will serve as padding. The door will hold, for sure.

Here's a video of what it looks like: http://youtu.be/dCkqIMKTSa4
All Those Floppy Disk Formats…
> I can't think of any reasonable examples

Exactly, no one can, because your premise is wrong.

> except I remember my friend showing me a very old book about Chemistry

That was pre-science. If you can't find a modern day example there's a reason for that, the wheel of science only turns one way, forward. New science rarely if ever disproves past science, what it does is give us more accurate theories; the old theories are still correct within the framework they were made in. Einstein for example, didn't prove Newton wrong, he just had a theory that was even more accurate than Newton's.

It's not ego, it's how the process is meant to work.
They are using some form of AJAX (JavaScript talking directly to their server without reloading the page).

In this case they appear to be using PubNub. http://www.pubnub.com/how-it-works
I've certainly known some. Anecdotally the ones that I knew tended to start in the mainframe world. Not so many in the Unix world. Which is kind of surprising given that I don't have many connections to people in the mainframe world.

If my small dataset isn't a coincidence, then someone who lived in the Unix world could easily be blissfully unaware of how different other environments were.
Ironically the same Kevin Mitnick who declared using default passwords "not hacking" gave a talk at HOPE http://thenexthope.org/ about his adventures avoiding law enforcement in which social engineering played a central role. Is lying to someone on the phone to get a password "hacking?" Maybe, maybe not, but he would have been unable to complete his goals without those crucial soft skills.

Perhaps password guessing and SQLi is "script kiddie stuff" but it makes me think of a "skilled thief" who scales a building and deftly opens a locked window 3 stories up, while a less experienced accomplice tries the back door and finds it unlocked. It's silly to condemn someone for using a simple method if that method is effective.

EDIT: Kevin Mitnick is cool guy, I don't mean to criticize him.
> The U.S. Treasury: $1.63 trillion (11.3 percent)

How can the Treasury have US Debt?
I ask something similar of my people. I think it's fine, it's trying to set expectations about how you work together.

I ask, that when given a "requirement":

1. Question why we do this. Think: is this feature really valuable, or should I rather be working on stabilizing the server? If so, say so, let's discuss.

2. Question how to do it. Think: is there an easier way to implement this feature that gets 70% of the value for 30% of the work. Can we cut half of it? Then let's discuss.

And yes, totally agree with your nr.2. My people should understand what we are trying to do (ie. have context), but they don't need to know about all the crap.
Hit Game Designer Speaks Out on Ever-Improving Graphics, Reduced Innovation
Right. I'm just saying that if I write and I want to assume a query after that write will include it, I will need W=N since R=1. Which is fine... but tricky. W=2,R=2,N=3 has been my favorite combination but I guess there are always cases to try other setups.
They're constantly requesting a JSON file about once a second. Example contents, formatted: http://pastebin.com/uMv7d8xS
FQL: a powerful way to query Facebook’s Graph API
A lot of good points but I still think Monopoly is a pretty poor game by design.

Games are about decision making, and there is very little decision making to be had in Monopoly (Real or not). There is no strategy shift for the opening, midgame, or endgame. There's no secret scoring or clever traps, there's no imperfect information of any kind. Assuming dice rolls are the same, playing against yourself and playing against another person or playing against a computer will have pretty much identical outcomes.

In other words, if you want to play Real Monopoly with me, just go ahead and play against yourself and do the rational thing for me if a decision comes up. Let me know if I win.

Even in the shorter form of the game, the winner is usually apparent quickly and then there's a long march that resembles the Trail of Tears more than it does board game turns.

If you're going for an interesting board game, instead of Real Monopoly, I'd highly recommend:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico_(board_game)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Settlers_of_Catan
My acid test for finding out the mainstream definition of a word is to ask my parents (50-ish but relatively tech-savvy).

In this case hacker means someone who tries to steal your shit by breaking into their computer with viruses.
The quote on your homepage comparing your service to Jesus is offensive.
So here is a sad prediction, we'll get to the point where we start calling it 'the h word' and technical people will call each other hackers and laugh but if some non-technical type calls someone a hacker, well that will be completely unacceptable.

And while you think "OMG did he just compare calling someone a hacker to the scourge of racism that we have yet to purge ourselves from?" Yes, I did. You see at some point I suspect it will become, from a non-technical person, a vicious form of character smear to insinuate that a technical person uses their skills to steal from society. And these 'technists' if you will, will arise from a population that is afraid because they depend heavily on technology in their day to day lives and yet they don't understand it, and they are at the mercy of people who do understand it, and that makes them angry because for some, they will feel inferior. And folks who are angry and afraid lash out in vicious and brutal ways to try to salve that fear and anger.

I've tried for years to split the meaning by using 'cracker' vs 'hacker' or simply 'criminal' but to no avail.
If I had money, I'd invest in you guys. Congrats on the funding!
If you'd like to use this lib in nodejs, @mikejihbe and I have a port that you can use. We're currently using it at Yammer (alongside coda's scala lib.)

https://github.com/mikejihbe/metrics
Seconded. $200k _is_ possible if you factor in all bonuses, but even then it's not an easy gig to land. Not even for brilliant programmers right in Silly Valley. I'd like to see a pointer to those opportunities...
Klout scores really show more of a relational-sort of data. I actually don't place much faith in the quality of their "ranking" system, IMO.
Unless x==0 is often true, it's probably better to put the conjuncts in the other order:

return (!(x & (x-1)) && (x != 0));

because that way you don't have to test x against 0 so often.

(On my machine it appears to be about 10% faster.)

[EDIT to clarify: 10% faster with the particular sample of x values that I tested, which happened to be all the integers from 0 up to 2^30-1 once each. Of course if you only ever call it with x=0 then the original version will be faster. Also, if this is really in your inner loop then you're probably doing something wrong :-).]
I've seen people with really high Klout scores because they are part of a small group of people that always respond to each others tweets.

We thought measuring click-throughs would be more useful for startups to see who can actually get the most people to take a look at what you are doing. If you can get those influential people as your ambassadors / talking you up, your golden!
Here's a treemap visualization of U.S. debt holders, based on data from this article:

http://coding.pressbin.com/110/Treemap-shows-who-holds-US-de...
Anyone who knows enough about the stock market to attempt such an article owes it to readers to educate rather than fear-monger, with wild unexplained references to being raped by Warren Buffett for so much as buying a stock.

It's true that the average person can't make a lot of easy money these days by throwing their savings into the stock market hoping a rising tide will lift all boats, or by watching stock graphs go up and down and trying to be clever. Rather, investments tend to pay off if you truly have some information or insight about a company, which can take many forms, or some influence over the value of what you're investing in (for example, you own the company), and/or if you understand the mechanics of the stock market well.

The article basically dresses up these basic facts in a ridiculous costume.
Omnipotent Hacker Myth Lets Business Off The Hook
Like Coda's Metrics Talk? Check out the NodeJS port.
As good as Jesus, then?
Yep. The JS looks like they are doing it with Visual Website Optimizer.
If it's on a separate domain, it's probably because they want to do some SEO testing without losing any rankings for the origianl fogcreek site.
Not all leaders can commit to these rules themselves, that's why.

If they're not leading by example (as the writer says) then it's possible that "doing the right thing" and being communicative will eventually get you reprimanded, not rewarded.

Which is why it is important as someone who reports to others (most working folks do), it's important to make sure you know your management and choose (if possible) good management who you can trust and support your work-style.
As a fellow EU citizen, I'm interested in this. Could you elaborate? Are you able to found or work at a start up in the U.S. with only a temporary visa?
>"I hacked together this RoR site over the weekend" makes me think, "You used a popular, well documented website building framework for it's intended purpose... how exactly is this hacking?"

It's a third sense of the word, meaning something like "put together without a plan, by trying things until they worked". When someone says "I hacked together this program", they mean "I threw code at it, and now it seems to do what I want".
Well at least the bad guys can be 'computer pirates' and we can debate which is better pirates or ninjas. And if we somehow managed to get the pirate vs ninja meme into public debate then that would be a very clever hack indeed.
Sears inadvertantly prices iPad at $69
It should actually be "somewhat" since the RSS feed is what /newest shows.
Regarding Your Lack of Privacy Online
Unfortunately, we're still in that time. I don't see "ALTER TABLE" go away any time soon :)
Folks should try out the revamp that Ian and Brenda came up with (veteran game designers). The docs are low-rez, but the play is interesting.

http://www.studio360.org/2011/may/20/monopoly-redesigned/
looking forward to giving it a try. cool.
Personally, I'd prefer the line height to be the same for all the mentioned items for a consistent vertical rhythm.

In any case, I know the line height was small enough that I noticed list items and comments felt cramped even before I saw you'd asked for feedback.

In this example, regardless of font size or face, the vertical rhythm follows the same beat:

http://www.alistapart.com/d/settingtypeontheweb/example.html

Another example (using third step headings for section spacing) showing smaller font on the same baseline grid:

http://www.thesheep.co.uk/examples/vertical-rhythm/

A calculator to help make the CSS:

http://topfunky.com/baseline-rhythm-calculator/
The second testimonial makes me think this is a parody.
this happened over a week ago
All of my apps get minor traffic only. The most popular one gets less than 1000 unique visitors per day and runs on 1 Dyno.
Gannett launches DealChicken
Ask HN: Building channels for customer development? 
Hi guys,

Let's say, that my target market is physical service contractors -say, plumbers, electricians, roofers, etc- wanting to generate more clients for their businesses; and I have a product, which can do just that.
How to reach out for these people for custdev?

I realize, that this is fundamentally a different channel building, than that of customer acqusition, in that it doesn't have to be scalable, or even repeatable much, BUT it has to lead to an open, mutually beneficial conversation (preferably in an office), in which they don't feel they are being sold to, and can openly discuss business.

How would you attack this problem?

Many thanks.
"Can you help me fix my phone?"
Paperless with Evernote
I'm guessing the reason this got up voted so much was because this site was featured as one of the offenders. It is pretty hard to read the text on a sunny day on my phone. Maybe the revolution could start with HN?
He actually said it, but in jest. We thought HN would appreciate a little humor
Apple Store dance
Holy shit faceted search is now attracting patent trolls?

I would do 2 things:

1. Talk to 4 or 5 different patent laywers (for free). Learn.

2. Contact other companies that also use faceted search (everyone does) and ask to talk to the person in charge. Perhaps you can work together?

I'm pretty sure there will be prior art to the patent. The first time I saw faceted search on the web was epinions.com (2001-ish), but it's been described in depth in the 70s or earlier in library science (Ranganathan). Good luck!
From the post:

" We’ve also seen an entirely new business model emerge in the last few weeks, with lots of developers wanting to advertise in the app."
Ars Technica’s OS X Lion review made $15,000+ in 24 hours on the Kindle
Ancient Chris Brogan Secret: ‘Fish Where The Fish Are’
Developer: .NET, Java, Axum, Cloud Computing, Perl, C, SQL and NoSql :), basic Perl and Ruby, Windows (Win32 API) and Linux
The wildly influential Joel on Software blog has been on joelonsoftware.com for ten years. FogCreek.com is where they sell their products.
Your points are well received.

The idea was to go where the users are already thanking each other (since, as you mentioned it's the norm these days). We didn't feel that it made sense to try and replace these traditional forms of media, but rather to embrace and attempt to extend their use for our purposes. The overhead right now is next to nothing, so it made sense.

Another challenge has been extending interaction beyond the first, "Thank you" and "Your Welcome" (hence the comments). We are already working on adding "Winks" and "P.S.'s" in order to accomplish this.

Myself, and 100's of people we've talked to have said, "that thanking via social status' ISN'T as personal as a handwritten note and that they only do it to save time, expense and so they don't feel guilty about NOT sending anything."

As I mentioned in the previous comments response, we plan on adding Physical delivery as an option in a later iteration. We think having that option will make it much more personal than just a Web link to a Note page (which, in the opinion of users we've polled, is more personal than just a status message).

Thank you for the input, we'll keep asking our users how they feel and go from there!
I think it is a good thing to use competitors products, it lets you know what they are doing well, and where you can improve/compete.

I highly doubt a blackberry is his only phone, I suspect he's got an iPhone, a WP7, maybe even a WebOS phone hanging around.
It's very unclear whether that's a .LT or a .IT - Might be worth looking for a new URL.
There are lots of good games out there. I'd tend to recommend Agricola and Power Grid also in the economic theme, but you'll do fine just browsing the recommendations at Board Game Geek and seeing what strikes your fancy.
http://boardgamegeek.com/
Again, how is having a native platform in any way shape or form hostile towards HTML5? The only possible way I could understand your paranoia was before Apple turned on Nitro for their embedded web views. Now that they've done that, there's simply no reason to believe that they would deprecate their browser or fork HTML5.

Besides the article doesn't say that they're a big supporter (though I think they are: WebKit, Safari, Mobile WebKit, millions of iOS devices, etc) of HTML5... it simply says they are putting capable browsers in the hands of users.

>Apple will not allow such submissions into the App Store

A false accusation, and more importantly... HTML5 applications using those technologies would not even [need to or benefit from] be submitted through the App Store. That's the entire point. What are you even talking about? The only way your argument makes any sense is if you're implying that Apple scrap Mobile Webkit, remove Mobile Safari, or intentionally REGRESS their own mobile browser to prevent native-app-like-features from HTML5... which, I'm sorry, but I find to be a ludicrous assertion.

Who isn't bad in your scenarios? Every platform in existence has a native layer in it that you could "cite". If it weren't for Google (Android, Chrome, WebKit), Apple (WebKit, Safari, Mobile Safari) and Microsoft (IE9, Mobile IE9), we wouldn't even be speaking hypothetically about web apps as the future, as they'd be impossible!
This is always absolutely awesome. I chipped in over average this year but I'm dismayed by the people throwing in less than a buck, you're just making the developers pay the CC companies!
I can't give Twilio access to my microphone on Lion with the latest stable version of Chrome. So no, I can't really someone someone who cares.
The man was once blind and now he can see. I'd say that's a Jesus-like miracle.
Bug.n — great dwm-style tiling WM for Windows Too few people know it.
We've also had other problems with our lithuanian domain registrar. We do not recommend .LT
Good question. The Treasury controls numerous trust and pension funds that are heavily invested in US Bonds.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holders_of_the_National_De...
Thank you for that little trick. Even if it doesn't matter for this case I will remember it for later. I know I've read stuff like that before, but I haven't learned enough of that part of discrete math to really understand why (but it seems kind of intuitive).

As a coincidence I got "A Concrete Introduction to Higher Algebra" by Lindsay Childs in the mail today. The concrete part of the book is that he uses properties about integers to introduce and teach concepts about algebra (and then he goes on to polynomials and other stuff). So now I got no excuse to not know that stuff any longer :-).
4. Make sure when you explain "A" that the person you're talking to doesn't hear it as "B".

Not sure why, but this seems to be very common with programmers -- especially when one programmer is explaining a task to another programmer.
Yea, I get this all the time. Probably happens about 10% of the time I pause the video.
Don't forget about the 80's flick, Gung Ho, where a Japanese Company takes over an American Car plant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gung_Ho_(film)
Apropos of nothing, here's water where there isn't light!

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2085298,00.ht...
It could be three apps with buttons to activate the purchase in the other apps (or one could create a separate pasteboard just to store activation data)
Poll: What gives you the most hope about the world?
And with that comment I'd like to share this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj4y0EUlU-Y
Physicist Richard Feynman describes an experience where he and a fellow student visualized the elementary concept of counting in different ways... "What we're really doing is having some big translation scheme going on where we're translating what this fellow says into our images."
"[My site's] love nearly doubled unique visits from 55 to 105 in less than 10 hours. www.wil.lt yourself."

How exactly would this increase traffic to your website? I thought this was an analytic tool.
xbmc is ok enough. It handles 95% of stuff.
I'd appreciate it if more submitters would make the first comment more context on the issue.
Review New Startup: LynxTo
Startup: LynxTo
Website: http://www.lynxto.com
Launched: July 25, 2011

Comments:
I am the developer, so I do not have much creative control or the ability to hand out free accounts, or I would. I am looking for initial impressions. Do you understand what we are offering from the website? Does anything seem confusing? Do you have any advice that you feel would help improve the site?

How it works:
You sign up / pay for your account. You then get a dashboard that allows you to modify your LynxTo page. You receive a QR code which you can place wherever you'd like (Business cards, convention tables, wherever). People scan the QR code, they go to your LynxTo which gives them the icons you choose from the Admin. You can see an examle by going to the webpage and scanning the QR Code under "Scan It"
I don't see the problem. This class is an abstract factory so yes it is abstract!
Data point for one non-U.S. country: in India, computer programming (in BASIC/Pascal/C/etc.) (and also a bit of elementary computer architecture and elementary computer science) has been part of the schools' curriculum for some years now, AFAIK. High schools, that is, not colleges. (The use of the term "school" to mean college (as well as high school or lower) is an Americanism, I believe.) Also, even in schools that don't have computer subjects as standard, many students join private computer classes. I'm not commenting on the quality of those classes, which can vary widely - from hole-in-the-wall fly-by-night operators (cashing in on the software "boom") to quite good ones, that's another story entirely ...

Also, I don't have specific numbers, but going by observation and reports, there are a good number of girls/women who go into the software field. It's seen as a good option for women workers here because it is a white-collar job, seen as prestigious - good office environments, at least in the mid- to high-end companies, air-conditioning, good pay compared to many other types of jobs, etc.)
He didn't have a tweet button before www.wil.lt? We just copied his tweet. We have no idea who he is.