skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
If all that mattered was the rendering engine, then Chrome would never have gotten more than 1% browser marketshare, and Firefox would reign supreme. It's pretty obvious to anyone that's paid attention over the last few years that the surrounding UI, Javascript engine, and experience encapsulating the rendering engine is just as important, if not more so.

With Chrome basically the entire UI, including preferences, extensions engine, syncing, and automatic and partial updates are completely open source as part of the Chromium project. Chrome merely puts the Google logo on the cover and packages some pieces of software that can't otherwise be distributed due to licensing constraints. Developers don't consider Ubuntu closed-source just because it has the ability to package closed-source software and drivers with it.

In short: there's no way you can consider Safari an open-source project. There are several ways to classify Chrome as open-source, to which many developers agree.
However, if you have the requisite skills, you can often contact these folks and say "Sure I'll help, but my rate is actually $500/hr, is that a problem?" and see what they say.

When you ask HR to run an advertisment like this they don't have any idea what they are asking, they hear "computer consultant for this program" and look in their book of "What do we normally pay consultants?" Oh yes, here it is $30/hr, put that in there. So when you contact them and tell them $500/hr they will initially tell you "No thanks."

Then they will tell the person who asked them to write the ad that some "Kook" said they would do it but for $500/hr and the manager will say "Did you get their number? Are they local?" and the HR person will fall off their chair, then pick them selves up and sheepishly call you back :-)
Agreed. Even in the case at hand, it seems like the patent holder could argue that a human couldn't perform this task at Web scale.
Regardless of opinion on the quality of the research, how does one person prove anything. What's that quote, "the plural of anecdote isn't data"?
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I think they meant customers as in business paying groupon for the deals.
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Thank you for posting the quote. I found the speech online (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/20/fiction) and read it, it's incredible. And saddening, considering the fact that DFW probably succumbed to the negative feelings he was warning against here.
It would provide the correct result of the algorithm which should be enough. Useful is outside the scope of patents (AIUI, IANAL).
This tactic to gain twitter followers does work and there is even tools for making it easier. Just google twitter follower exchange or something and you will find them.

Though if you do use those tools, your twitter stream will be full of stuff you really might not want to read.
Is it ironic that when I go to click on this security site's link I get the following browser warning: "The site's security certificate is not trusted!"
You can not have more than 10% more follows than followers after two thousand follows. This is so that this tactic wont be used too fast and the twitter bandwith wont be used so much for following.
In my experience, when two viable technical solutions are presented, one is decided on by weighing the pros and cons.

The problem with 'appointing' a formal architect is as the parent said: the architecture becomes the sole responsibility of the architect.

There is plenty of room for a mediator without having to call him the architect.
Good old Larkin! This reminds me of Toads, which, of course is well-known. However, he also has a poem called Toads Revisited, which, depending on your reading, may be heartbreaking in its conformism.
Tiered pricing comes to the Internet backbone
Seeing evidence of this trick is one criteria I use to block people and (possibly) report them for spam.
Oh absolutely, and surprising there should be a reasonable consultancy in it. But the trick is you need someone who understands both their domain (be it billing / accounting / catalog management) and legacy systems and can express that in a more modern system.

These people DO NOT WANT PROGRAMMERS, they want tools that help them do their job. So they see programmers like the masons who laid the brickwork of their headquarters, indespensible when it was built, but never to be seen again. So they build their business logic 'tool' and they run it, for ever, and ever, and ever. Sometimes on really cool old hardware like DECSystem 10's or PR1ME machines.
I know a few universities that are pushing programs to "fix" this problem in engineers by encouraging them to do more presentations and group projects.

It seems like there will always parts of "geek culture" that just don't care. Perhaps they're even proud of social ineptitude? But those aren't engineers I would want to work with.
Not ironic. The site uses a certificate signed by CA Cert. You do not have CA Cert's root certificate in /etc/ssl
Unfortunately, big companies with shipping products have every incentive to settle by cross-licensing & royalties.

What we need is someone with deep pockets to form a patent troll and actually block shipping products rather settle. This will force big companies to lobby congress to fix software patents.
There are many programs around there that can do this automatically for you. But imo it is not a good idea, real people are much more interesting. I don't think you will achieve that much with a bunch of people that are not really interested in you & just follow you back.
> closing a control loop in software (delay leads to instability; if you can't perform a computation fast enough, you cannot perform the control function, thus, certain such tasks could not be performed by a human with pencil and paper).

I agree with your point but I find a certain irony in the fact that a pilot is clearly closing a highly delay-sensitive control loop without doing any math whatsoever.
Herein lies the importance of metacognition - "thinking about thinking". If we are aware of this bias, it lowers the blow when it seeps into our consciousness. I am becoming increasing aware of the power of mindfulness, as promoted by Merlin Mann, Buddhism and more. This is the hack that can drive happiness, health, and the interaction of the two.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacognition
http://www.43folders.com/topics/mindfulness
must be slow week when people 'write' these articles. this is such a flame bait.

I wish my small biz doesn't have success like groupon. there are issues with how they do business etc, but they are both greatest and biggest deal makers for small biz.
> Groupon isn't adding value to anyone.

I agree. There are several arguments about the perceived value to the consumer regarding 'great deals'. But that's not how a business should attack attracting new customers and converting them into return customers.

With that in mind, the intended value to the customer is to find new establishments and sample their product/services where they might become regular customers. Right now all people see is: 'HALF OFF FOOD, K THX'.
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It's impractical to multiply two million-digit numbers by hand, but elementary schoolkids know the algorithm to do it. Does that imply that using a computer to multiply numbers of sufficient size would be patentable?

How about a particularly efficient multiplication algorithm that can be demonstrated by hand?

How about a linear problem optimization algorithm?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karmarkar%27s_algorithm#Patent_...

How about a network optimization problem?
http://www.google.com/search?q=network+optimization+patent

The whole idea of patents in a post-industrial economy is a farce.
Nobody discovers them because they offer dud deals like "Buy 1 get 1 Free" when you buy 2 drinks at full price etc.

Groupon ensures that the deals are good
The chain of events, as originally laid out[1], was:

* OP has paypal payment issue with This.

* Friend asks them via twitter "That's not cool. Suspending a friends account because of a minor PayPal dispute? When did you get into doing that?"

* They respond saying "Please mind your own business."[2]

* OP and This* get into a dispute about whether such a response was professional or not.

* Both accounts are then suspended. (This part is unclear from the original account. OP says that is at this point his account was suspended, while friend's twitter implies it had been suspended earlier. My guess would be it was originally supposed to be a temporary suspension until payment was worked out?)

* OP flips out a bit and swears on twitter.

* Backups deleted.

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

Friend's twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/boriskourt

OP's twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/berfarah

[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/web_design/comments/jk195/stay_the_f...

[2] http://i.imgur.com/Hc0Bh.png
BART police officers website hacked, database released
Jerf, this is a surprisingly insightful and concise statement--one that I largely agree with. I'm curious, though, and want to ask CWuestefeld as well:

If we accept that the free market can act in ways which are detrimental to the global objective function (without loss of generality, let's pick your favorite, e.g., "Everyone gets food", "Individuals have class mobility", "I can shoot and eat the homeless for sport" etc.), do we as a society have a moral obligation to adjust market behavior via regulation or incentives? How does one reconcile a desire for free markets with a desire to satisfy other human goals?
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no. yes. sometimes.

if you're having a crisis, i suggest you really try something else. you will either:

(1) love the new thing

(2) realize how much the new thing sucks compared to the old thing and rekindle the love with the old

(3) realize how much both suck and try something else.

one of my old mentors told me that the job i was loving as a fresh out will suck at some point, but to suck it up and do it because you get paid to have fun outside of work. i haven't regretted cutting any of these safety lines to do new things that make work (majority of how you spend your waking time) enjoyable ...
Curious: have you noticed any bump in downloads on the market since the new version started rolling out? Sounds like no.
Why should Google lead the charge when HTC, Samsung pay zero zip nil dollars to license Android? It's they that are making buckets of money from selling Android phones, see the financials. Why is Google supposed to feel sorry for them? Google now has Motorola additionally to worry about.

If they want patent indemnity, let them go to Microsoft, which provides patent indemnification to WP7 in exchange of $15 or so of licensing fees. (Same with desktop Windows vs. Linux).
> how does one person prove anything.

When the article includes the statement "Nice guys do not necessarily finish last, but they do finish a distant second in terms of earnings", it is a sign of either:

1. Imprecise writing, or
2. Wrong conclusions.

If their conclusions are wrong, then the article is a waste of bits. If their writing is imprecise, then just how imprecise are the generalizing statements that cannot be disproved with an obvious counterexample?

In either case, the article looks like all noise and no signal to me.
I don't think Apple really does anything different than what HN preaches. The best way to do "ship ship ship" well is to cut your feature set to the absolute bone, even if that means your initial launch is with just one single feature, as long as that one is polished enough and works well.

This is basically Apple's modus operandi; they'll take the hits from the nerds on not having every feature under the sun in return for being able to entice people with a small, well chosen set of features that "just work".

The HP's, Acer's et al are stuck in the mindset that they simultaneously need to shoe-horn in every idea they can think of while "ship ship ship"ing by throwing the product out the door as an unfocused, half-baked mess.

Aggressive curation of your feature set is a powerful strategy for nearly every company.
In 2010 China launched more satellites than America, for the first time ever
Nitpick: s/principle/principal/

Cheers!
That's awesome, many congrats.

Whilst Twitter is (obviously) now very well known, you are right that many people underestimate it from a communication point of view.
Microsoft wishes Linux a happy 20th birthday
Microsoft just want to say Happy Birthday
Given that female pronouns were used several times in the opening paragraph, even if one didn't scroll down to the bio at the bottom, to assume that she must be a he, even on the basis of something such as a name (cf. George Eliot) is entirely unwarranted without further reason to back it up. But, you're right, it could have been a case of bad assumptions and only single-whammy sexism (the author's gender is still not germane to the article in any way). And it's still a downvote-worthy comment.
So an otherwise fundamentally unpatentable algorithm could become patentable "when used in a time-sensitive application"?
I'm going to guess that Apple's contract with Best Buy probably has specific requirements on how their products are displayed in every store.
>A useful service would be to find customers who are willing to pay full retail price for your products.

The intent is that once you try and if the businesses treats the customer well, they would pay full price the next time. It is the businesses who don't understand this, that don't end up reaping the benefits.
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In what way is it "turning your brain off" to consider the 2008 crash the result of too much regulation?

The mother of all financial regulatory machinery, the central bank, is considered to be the primary cause of the crash by many. I find the argument reasonable. Correct or not is another story, but how can you dismiss the statement wholesale?
I suppose some of it is attributable to Asperger's -- some of it. In many cases, though, I can't help but suspect laziness and a holier-than-thou attitude.
MPE is not an add-on or an expansion. In PC gaming both of those words have specific meanings; both imply the addition of additional content to the original game. This Android installment of the game does not even interact with the PC installment. (The installment which you purchased at heavy discount, I might add.)

Additionally, the PC game is only a few weeks away from getting one of the largest updates in its history. It is unreasonable to state that you aren't getting your money's worth.
Can someone explain how Amazon's consumers benefit from network effects?

Ask an informational question, get what I hope is an informative answer. Amazon's network helps me as a buyer of products because I see recommendations based on the behavior of other buyers ("Customers who bought this product also bought . . . "). To me, that was one of the coolest things about Amazon in the early years, when it was by far the most interactive website (other than discussion forums) that I regularly visited. It was full of new information each day, about cool products I had never heard of through other channels (and I browse brick-and-mortar bookstores and search online library catalogs A LOT, but still learn about many new books from Amazon). Now that Amazon sells more products than just books, these network effects are even better. Today, an Amazon recommendation ("Customers who bought items in your shopping cart also bought . . . ") can span product categories that I didn't even know existed. I can't search for information like that--I don't know what search terms to use until I've heard of the new product. Amazon has gained many, many sales from me precisely because of the large network of users who use it.

Does that help answer your question?
> yet employers often find that people filling these roles with poor people skills are still employable. This needs to stop.
I’m of the opinion that every position is customer-facing.

Well fuck me, then. I'm sorry, it's already hard enough for me to find jobs as it is.

Frankly I'm glad we live in a society that has a place for us social retards. I really do believe that social "skills" can't be learned, at least not well. I'm glad there's a place for us, just like I'm glad there's a place for people who are short, black, or ugly. Yeah, there are fewer employment opportunities, and our salaries are handicapped consequentially (tech skills + people skills = high payed manager!) but telling us we should be out on our asses for something we can't help is cruel.

Obviously the guy should have been fired though.
Are there enough iOS apps that need this functionality to support you as a business?

And will there be enough in the future? I'm worried about this being way too niche...
The computer company or the record label?
Aparently, network effect is not a buzzword for economies of scale. Well, I guess Amazon gains more a/b juice from customers, which lets it target you with better suggestions. But I doubt that's really what they meant.
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If their conclusion is correct (and I have no idea if it is or isn't), the quite obviously that statement is a generalisation, and a perfectly fine use of one too. It quite clearly means "as a general trend", not "in absolutely every case". Did you honestly read that and think "aha, I can think of somebody who doesn't fit that statement, they're clearly wrong"?
I agree that there are long-term safety and efficacy studies that are fraudulently suppressed by some larger players in industry. It is an insidious problem that has horrible effects on patients. However, it is separate from my argument.

My point was that the registration of drugs is not effected by publication bias. The "suppressed evidence" typically comes in the form of post-marketing studies in significant patient populations, some of which aren't even randomized or placebo controlled (some are). NDA-directed studies are tightly controlled and reported. Then the drug is registered, and the FDA says, "we'd still like to see long-term safety data on this to see what things look like over time. We'll let you put this drug out there, but keep sending us more data."

I think the problem therein is related to the regs on post-marketing clinical studies. Companies have too much latitude to conduct post-marketing studies and then decide what to send FDA (or to publish), thus introducing the publication bias. FDA should have more control over Phase IV studies. The Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA, or pud-oof-a) was established to charge companies over $1million to register a drug, funneling money back into FDA so they could acquire more resources to review and grand NDAs. So the review times for NDAs went down, FDA got more efficient, and industry was happier. However, the act did not increase Phase IV controls as stringently as they should have, and companies have a lot of latitude on "additional clinical data" from studies conducted after the drug hits the market. That's why you see articles like the following:

GSK Suppresses Paxil Suicide Data: http://goo.gl/LCM94

AstraZeneca Suppresses Data on Seroquel: http://goo.gl/408fJ

Pfizer Suppresses Data on Edronax: http://goo.gl/fxLbW

So yes, there is publication bias and possibly fraud at work here, but it lies, in my view, early in the process (preclinical, basic science) and very late in the process (Phase IV studies). The registration process is pretty well controlled.

Note: My expertise is in preclinical pharmacology, toxicology, and NDA-directed studies (Phase I-III) not post-marketing studies (Phase IV), so if anyone has more experience here please speak up.
You're right, I have not contributed to the degree that _Why did. I think you misunderstand my point, though. When you do contribute to a high degree, and people begin to use and depend on your work, then it's not especially cool to just take it all away in a huff. _Why didn't just remove his web pages; he took a lot of his code with him. People managed to put up mirrors and otherwise reproduce what he took.

_Why is indeed a win for Ruby. I'm sorry he's gone, and I wish he had not. I also wish he'd chosen not to leave in the manner that he did -- whether you call that a "hissy fit" or just an abrupt exit.
Indeed they do. The awful Nadine Dorries MP was on the radio only yesterday explaining that it's OK when we do it because we're a democracy and by definition the good guys.
I can't agree. My professional experience involves enough interaction with extraordinarily talented engineers who have extremely abrasive personalities. Often, that abrasiveness is a side effect of their talent: the same ability which allows these talented men and women to see through the complexity and grasp the conceptually simple steps necessary to solve the problem also helps them see through the seemingly-meaningless boilerplate and social grease that we call people skills.

You can argue that if the culture shifted such that these individuals were marginalized and forced out then they would change out of necessity. I could see this argument--idealistic to the point of fallacy though it is--presented at other venues. However, those who frequent Hacker News should know that these people will find talented others who are capable of dealing with their social immaturity and will end up co-founding their own company and, unencumbered by the enforced social niceties of this fictional society, may very well end up becoming a dominant player and returning to the status quo.
Haha - fooled you!

If you tried this, you would probably fail!

The government (lobbied by big companies) will convince the courts to block your injunction and force you to settle. You know, "risking national security by ruining the economy" or something.
Some gamers might want to support the small indie guy and might offer their labour and skills to notch for free. Some might take the money and go help out the big guy. It would be like some medieval power struggle over a throne, with knights and dukes allying themselves to one side or the other. :)
He certainly carries himself in that young man thrill seeker type way, which probably appeals on a mass scale more to men. The 2nd book did focus on males (weight lifting, giving women orgasms, etc) a bit but wasn't exclusively for men. To me, he comes across as a guy you'd want to sit down and have a beer with.
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I'm not objecting to UITableViewCell subclasses to manage each type of view -- thats a nice, reusable design. getCellForTableView:controller: to return an instance of a given cell is essentially what I do (although I keep it as a class method on UITableViewCell instead).

My objection is to RootElement and QuickDialogController. What happens if you have to present a screen from multiple places? Or if you need to modify it at a later date, to, say, add another field?

For example: Say you have a login screen. And now you want to add a field to ask the user for another bit of information. With your design, you have to know everywhere that you can possibly log in from. Or, you have to add a method somewhere to set up the login view and then push it. And at that point, you might as well just make a separate controller to control everything. Which brings us back to tableView:cellForRowAtIndexPath:.