skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I guess it depends on the granularity of the algorithm?

Imagine a transformation mapping one set of points onto another. If each individual transformation can be calculated with pen&paper, I'd hope the process is not patentable, even if running it a million times in a loop is what makes it useful.
"Nobody is going to 'win' this war."

This is an existential crisis for the smaller companies, but it's simply raising the stakes a little bit for Apple, who are making enough profit to afford endless litigation.

The whole contest has numerous immediate benefits for Apple. Since they're making the lion's share of the money in smartphones, they win simply by raising the table stakes (i.e. litigation costs and court awards), which eat up a disproportionate share of their competitors' profits. It's not outrageous to think that their lawsuits pressured unprofitable Motorola to first threaten to sue other licencees and then sell to Google under extortionist conditions. I wouldn't be surprised if other struggling Android handset makers (LG?) moved to the fixed cost of Windows Phone 7 over the headache of Android-related litigation. Of course, the Motorola purchase incentivises profitable Android makers to hedge their bets on WP7, too.

In the end, I think that Apple will be pleased if the product of their litigation is not to drive Android out of the market, but to create a phone market much like the tablet market - the iPhone and then a mish-mash of odd looking (to the average consumer) competitors.
This is a good example of why MBAs frequently make lousy entrepreneurs. So much in this article is wrong. First, Groupon actually does have more network effects than a simple retailer like Amazon (save reviews). Shoppers go where the deals are, merchants go where the shoppers are. Bigger lists mean better targeting. Etc. That's why Groupon has continued to dominate despite the plethora of clones.

But the bigger problem is the implication that Groupon will not adjust its economics in the future. Groupon could slash SG&A, sales and marketing to become wildly profitable and still grow quickly. It's actually quite amazing how long Groupon has managed to take a whopping 25% cut. This is likely to diminish as discounts become smaller and merchants negotiate better terms. But still healthy enough to support a very large business.

> businesses should become profitable before they become big

The opposite is true of most or all of the big internet businesses.

> Groupon's fundamental problem is that it has not yet discovered a viable business model

Taking a 25% cut of sales is a fantastically viable business model.

> I have no problem letting investors finance my cheap consumption. But as far as an investment goes, Groupon is looking about as profitable as giving away your merchandise for 90% off.

These statements are just wrong. Merchants are financing your cheap consumption. Who is giving merchandise away for 90% off? Where does that come from?

I am far from a Groupon apologist but so much of the "analysis" on the company is so bad. Comparisons to Pointcast, Pets.com or Webvan are totally unfounded. This company is generating massive cash flows.
Maybe the U.S. Congress sees law as one of the U.S. strong points and is using litigation as a way of bringing money into the U.S.

Look at how much Taiwanese money will be spent on U.S. lawyers. Yeah, Apple has to spend money too, but it's not leaving the country. HTC's money is new money to the country.

Joking aside, it would be a stupid and counterproductive policy, but probably better than what's happening. At least it would be a plan instead of a slow decline.
I might have missed something, so apologies if this is readily available. Where are you getting the information that "For almost all businesses, Groupon adds negative value?" Is there any actual data on how businesses who use Groupon, in general, feel about it?
Interactive robotic painting machine considers what it hears while it paints
Extreme scepticism expressed when this story was submitted three weeks ago:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2813705

Similarly here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2805125
My understanding is that between Chrome 13 and Chrome 14, they switched canvas backends. The new backend was a partial (perhaps even complete) rewrite that introduced some bugs and changed performance characteristics. I think the purpose of it was to introduce more pervasive hardware acceleration. They were originally going to roll out the new backend in Chrome 13, but they had to turn it off because it was too buggy.
The TouchPad didn't pass my two usability tests for tablets. I opened a book and tried to lookup the definition of a word. I think it was the TouchPad that opened a browser window and sent me to a Google search for the word's definition. I also opened two tabs for the browser. I couldn't figure out how to close a tab. If it doesn't pass these two simple tests then it's not worth buying.

The iPad is the only tablet that passes both tests in terms of performing the tasks easily.
Alternative title: successful men are seen as less agreeable.
Bleacher Report (#11 on the list) is looking for Ruby people in San Francisco. Great opportunity to work for a high traffic site and a fun company:

http://bleacherreport.com/careers/engineering
Griffin Intros iPhone Controlled HELO TC Helicopter
It's almost as if people derive personal satisfaction from poking holes in Groupon's success (or any startup, for that matter). Groupon has no viable business model, people will get tired of Zynga's games, Twitter can't monetize, Facebook will be killed by Google+/is useless/the ads on it aren't worth anything, etc. Every time one of these things gets pointed out, people show up and start high-fiving each other, say they've been saying this all along, etc.

I really don't understand this part of human psychology. We cheer entrepreneurs on, until they see a massive success, at which point we feel compelled to point out that their achievement is meaningless and we knew it all along. Are people really that jealous?
Since I had to look it up, I might as well share:

chattr +a sets the "append only" attribute on a file
It depends on what you are passionate about. Passion drives people to accomplish things, keeps them focused, and provides motivation. Being passionate about your work, your research, your art can all be very positive things.

Being passionate about a brand though is probably less of a good thing for you personally.
You might want to add (2000) to the title.
Is this something to solve US visa issues?
an international water HQ

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/silicon-valley-billionaire-funding-creation-artificial-libertarian-islands-140840896.html
Yes, right. However, your build/staging environment should be the same platform/architecture as your production environment, for lots of reasons other than just this. Development environments can be different, of course...
Yeah, I can perfectly see things in this light.

Look at programming languages. There are lot of passionate users, advocating the languages, and things don't turn sour like that. I would even call myself a Lisp and Ruby fanboy, I find it a funny word, not pejorative at all. Add GNU/Linux to that too. (EDIT: Of course I know those things have limitations and I wouldn't use them everything, they're not silver bullets, and that's why I prefer projects where I can use them)

The problem is this "us or them" mentality, when you can't stand people using different things, or think they're making wrong choices.

Just look at articles on ArsTechnica, CNet or specific iOS/Android sites and you'll get a bunch of comments like "iOS users are sheep who like shiny stuff" or "Android users are cheap bastards who don't buy apps".

Being "passionate" clearly isn't the problem here, being an asshole because you're obsessed with some brand, on the other hand...
Frothing at the mouth over other people's choice of computer or vehicle or clothing, excessive "keep off my property" signage, getting mad at being "looked at"... all signs of the same thing. Lack of self-image.
Number Laundry accepts phone number; returns clean version, country, Twilio rate
OK, this little helicopter looks crazy cool!
There's a Lanyrd API group:
http://groups.google.com/group/lanyrd-api/

But Simon mentioned there that work an API has been put on hold right now to work on other features. I've been hoping for an API for exactly this kind of app (a video mashup).
I think ten years from now we will look back at this time period and be baffled by the incredible amount and variety of complete junk that was dumped on the market to try and capitalize on the "tablet craze".

Sent from my iPad
I always thought this was an interesting example of Apple extremists being provoked by a hoax:

http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2004/02/62157

The hoaxer, identified only as "Andy," claimed he received a dual-processor G5 for Christmas. But preferring a Windows PC, he swapped out the insides of the $3,000 machine for the guts of a cheapo PC. The post included several digital photographs to prove the outrageous claim.

It generated insults from all over the world, and even threats of violence.

bediger also mentioned the possible presence of "reverse shills" being used to pollute the Linux camp. I believe there may be some truth to that -- it's one way to convince on-the-fence tech execs that Linux/Open Source supporters are extremists.

I also believe there's a parallel in politics: Many political campaigns, when they take the fight into online forums, blogs, and newspaper comment threads, attempt to make the other side seem as offensive and idiotic as possible. Extremist commenters repel moderates who might otherwise be aligned with the cause, and/or attract other extremists. I don't have proof of this (almost all such comments are anonymous) other than the staggering incidence of idiocy I see on comment threads when politicians are discussed.
You haven't read Boycott Novell or even Groklaw? The articles and comments are full of paranoid people who see Microsoft behind EVERYTHING.
I'm not sure this is well-known, and it doesn't appear to be given the comments here, but Groupon offers a self-service option (i.e. not "featured") where their take is just 10%. I feel that is a relevant, and often overlooked, option for those businesses with typically lower margins.

I don't do deals myself, but I find the trend interesting.
> Not sure if pip lets you run configuration scripts during various stages of install and un-install?

As far as I can tell, you can run config scripts during installation. A good example of this would be Cython. An even crazier example of this would be uwsgi. As for uninstall I'm not sure. A lot of this has more to do with what setuptools/distribute can do not necessarily pip. Pip just makes it easy to enumerate/install/uninstall with the aid of PyPi, setuptools, distribute.

> Does pip let you depend on C libraries and other system features?

Pip isn't smart enough to track down C libraries. This is the part that kind of sucks but I don't know how pip would even do this. Python is cross-platform by nature. Being able to hook into what Windows DLLs, RPMs, debian packages you have to see what C dependencies you've satisfied seems like an ambitious endeavor. Its already hard enough to get a SINGLE package management system working well on its own :) Usually if I know I find myself missing a C library, I read the python package's installation notes, do apt-get or whatever to get all those dependencies I need, then run "pip install" I've had to do this for MySQL-python, pycrypto, and matplotlib thus far.

> How does pip handle obsoletes and transitive dependencies?

By obsolete you mean you need a newer version or do you mean you don't need that package at all anymore? As for transitive, do you mean like a chain of dependencies? I haven't run into any issues just yet... I think pip just goes out and installs everything for you. This primarily depends on how well people implement their setup.py's though.
Cloud Security Alliance Introduces The Security, Trust and Assurance Registry
App engine blobstore size limits removed
Show HN: Our photo print & ship library for iOS
> way less spam;

That is exactly why I love DDG. I almost never get spam, but the fact that you want to make it even better is so awesome. Seriously, DDG's killer feature is a founder interacts with the users.
We put all of our query numbers up at http://ddg.gg/traffic.html.
That's a really good case for the mindset of a hacker. Buy a cheaper product that is hackable and customize the experience. With the current tablet wars, iPad is winning since it doesn't require hacking to achieve a high standard of features, performance, and user experience. This aligns with mainstream customers which is the giant demographic every company is trying to obtain.
Honor is always about doing things you don't have to, or not doing things which you could do.
But you do not need to be passionate about the right things from the beginning. For one thing, it is possible to move into a field late in life and make enormous advances. Fermat provided a brilliant example of this.

Of course, you could say Fermat was an outlier, but I suspect that anyone who is truly, deeply passionate about something is an outlier already. Most people go through their lives with little passion at all.
مباراة ريال مدريد وبرشلونة مباشر 17/8/2011  
مباراة ريال مدريد وبرشلونة مباشر 17/8/2011
Nope, we don't only talk about Ruby. We have a few PHP examples as well, but there's a lot more on CSS, JS, Git, server administration, etc.

There's not a lot of server-side code in the book, to be honest. Chapters like Creating a Widget focus on the client-side code - loading content in to your page and providing an example for what the data looks like, without getting in to "here's how you'd' do this in Ruby or PHP or .NET".
Good. Overreaching software patents and the patent trolls who file them are a cancer on the software industry.
Except if there's hate inertia:
http://abstrusegoose.com/388
The computer labs that gave birth to the digital world
You are able to transfer it. It's not the developer's fault Android won't run an J2SE application, just like it's not a music store which sells albums in FLAC that your e.g. iPod doesn't support the format.

You're free to convert it on your own.
In reply to your OT question - does your PHP app have an API at all? You could make a small standalone app that pulls from your existing API. Or go the other direction and create a Ruby app in Rails or Sinatra that aggregates some information for you and makes it available for your existing app to consume.
The work I do day to day sometimes seems so easy and obvious, for lack of a better description, that it feels like anyone could do it. It wasn't always that way; far from it. I worked hard to reach the level of skill I am at, but hard work is easily forgotten.

As such, it is easy to minimize ones achievements. There are people off developing autonomous vehicles and doing crazy things with artificial intelligence, and I'm here developing lowly web/desktop/mobile apps. I guess phony is one way to describe it: If I were a "real" programmer, I would be working on "real" problems [1].

[1] i.e. problems in which I do not yet have experience solving. I imagine once I gain that experience and become confident in my work in those areas, they too will no longer feel like real programming jobs and I will set my sights on something else that is, in my mind, a "real" programmer's job.
Another author here - To answer your first question, no, this book is very front-end driven. We will have one server-side recipe that will use PHP. The rest of the recipes that use a backend use a "no setup required" server I wrote called QEDServer (http://qedserver.napcs.com/) which provides a JSON API full of records and a way to serve HTML pages so you can work with things like Knockout and Backbone without having to set up an API. We use it in a few recipes.

But we really wanted to keep the server-side stuff to a minimum, and while we all use Rails, it's not the answer to all web development - especially with things moving more client-side.

Your second question, yes you certainly can. I've done it and the only tricky part is making them work together, and thanks to web services, that's not terrible. I even have a new Rails app consuming some XML I wrote with classic ASP.
CSS Hyphenation arrives in Firefox and Safari
Why would you write this article, but not include the text of the posts?
What are you talking about? Groupon's IPO could occur in a matter of weeks. Bankers have been selected. Road show planning is under way. Barring a global economic meltdown, Groupon is likely to IPO for $20-30 billion. Unless your site is Facebook, Twitter or Zynga, I don't think your comment has merit.
Same story as here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2883126

And why didn't you put the URL in the place for URLs, instead of in the text box? Color me confused ...
The evolution of sitelinks: expanded and improved
I give him points for being aware of the normal pitfalls of designated architects. But even in a good Agile shop I think it's incredibly dangerous to give somebody an "architect" title.

If architecture is one person's job, it means it's suddenly not anybody else's job. Software architecture is a pervasive concern, so everybody should be thinking about it. I think that's much more likely if anybody can notice an architectural issue and is encouraged to take the lead on sorting things out.
My view is entirely the opposite - I'm amazed at how well Apple nailed the first iPad. Aside from processing power (which is really just a factor of time), the only improvement on the iPad 2 was a camera.
Netflix Launches a More Kid-Friendly Viewing Experience
Ahh, I was not aware of that. I assumed OEMs built on top of Android (and google functionality), rather than ripping internals out.
Uber CEO roadmap: Helicopters, motorcycle rides and food delivery (Kozmo 2.0)
It's very weird to see human capability factor into it. I mean, a person very well COULD compare two images pixel by pixel, it just takes a rather long time. I'm pretty sure I have done things like that on occasion for very small images, in fact.
It's sometimes easy to check if someone is a corporate shill designed to discredit people or not. For example on Slashdot or HN, you can check their comment history. When you do that for Apple or Linux 'extremists' you always find them commenting normally in other discussions and even going in-depth into the ones that they're passionate about, i.e Apple or Linux discussions. If you think that those threats of violence were paid for by MS, I think you're being paranoid.
It's an irrelevant question and if a discussion were to spawn from it, it would detract from the actual content. This is a perfectly valid comment downvote.
Speakers - How they work, Simplified
I've used virtualenv extensively for production deployment in a large environment (100+ servers), with an environment very similar to yours. We developed on macs as well, and ran RHEL in production. All building/pushing to production was done from an RHEL similar to production. Some things that worked for us:

- We deployed tarballs to production machines which unpacked to a single directory that included a virtualenv that had both all our code and all the modules we relied on, and anything else that the code needed to function that wasn't installed in a very basic RHEL install.

- We used the --relocatable option in virtualenv to remove all references to absolute paths, which meant we could copy the virtualenv around to various directories and machines and still have it work.

- We had a series of makefiles that would make/update a virtualenv, and which worked on both mac and linux. We would use this both in development and when deploying. For several packages, we had to hand tune this to work on both mac and linux, but for most things, it Just Worked.

- When we deployed to production, we would unpack the tarball to a directory whose name included a version number for the push. We then had a symlink that pointed at the currently running version. This meant all we had to do to rollback a push was flip the symlink to the previous deployment directory, and restart. This rollback included any modules that changed (since they were in the virtualenv). I haven't seen any other way to reliably do this.

The one thing you mention that we didn't have to deal with was mixed 32/64-bit environments. One nasty solution is to have two build machines, one 32-bit and one 64-bit, but there's probably a better way...
this was one of the top five founder interviews i've ever done... Travis tells three epic stories.
Original article (posted yesterday): http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/exclusive-paul-ceglia-say...
What Babies Reveal About Our Tech Routines
Could be jealousy, but I think another side of it is those of us who saw the DotCom bubble can still be pretty cynical about web-based business models.
In response to This*: Stop letting engineers get away with social ineptitude
> business owners (national and local) that participate on Groupon, for the most part, are having bad experiences

My understanding is that Groupon's satisfaction rate is well above 50%. It seems that everyone forgets that, at worst, this is an advertising expense that guarantees revenue and foot traffic.
Scala.Net and Scala with Martin Odersky
It doesn't seem particularly high, but generally people fall off over time. However, I wouldn't actually recommend this tactic as a way of gaining followers.

1) Following too many people erodes the value of your Twitter stream, its better to be invested in the people you follow. You'll get a lot more out of the experience.
2) Your followers won't actually be as engaged as they would have been if they had found you though more organic growth.
3) I think people tend to judge accounts that are following way more people than follow them...but maybe that's just my own bias.
It's because once you take the time to become discerning, to have an opinion on something, that opinion shapes you.
Create a Hoax, Earn Damnation (2004)
It was in return for turning down the $6b Google offer.
It's still just an algo. It's still just math.
Understanding women
Place Your Bets: power-conservation, the next big thing in personal technology
Complete startup list (w/slides & contact info) from 500 startups Demoday
Gah, of course I meant Algol 60 (a much simpler language than Algol 68, there was no Algol 67)!
If you're performing a computation that cannot be done with pencil and paper, a computer cannot do that computing.
Does anyone have links to the actual papers?
Cool concept but I just never see myself using this. As a frequent event photographer, boy would I love a similar app that lets me quickly enter in a number from a file name take down payment, and ship a print that I will upload later to the customer.
Native+Web: The New LinkedIn Apps come with Backbone, Node, and more
Would be nice if you put a one liner saying what they're actually doing, or even just used the title instead of url for your launch.is links.
I agree. No matter what you start, there is usually something similar out there, even if the other solution is simply the status quo. Its all in the execution. There are tonnes of examples where its not actually the first to market that wins.
Getting started with Emacs for Clojure development in Windows
Cambrian explosion.
Been there, done that, bought the recession. Regulation, of course, isn't "solving the NP problem", it's modifying the boundary conditions to prevent the system from getting too far out of whack.
Paying $6b for a $20-30b company seems smart to me. The Groupon model is insanely profitable once you trim SG&A, sales and marketing (useful for hyper growth, not useful for sustenance).
You're right.. but from previous experience, apple doesn't usually do a lot more than 5 or so beta builds.

Still, its not like I'm doing more work anyway, going with ARC saved time on development. If Apple ends up never releasing 4.2, I would just had to "finish" the job.