skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
You don't spend $12.5 billion on a device maker for patents; You just buy the damn patents. (~_~)

I actually was far more bullish on Android's prospects before given the rapid device growth, the de facto stealing of Symbian's marketshare and the adoption of the platform as a basic and functional OS for most users. However, as a strategy I think this is quite flawed initially.

As a device maker, Motorola Mobility would be a good play for HTC or Samsung. They'd be integrating an established maker with contracts, devices, patents, etc. For the platform maker to outright buy them would immediately put most other makers on guard.

What guarantee do you have that Google won't favor Motorola? How do you know that they will keep things on an equal footing? You don't. Case in point: travel comparison on AdWords. Google has shown their willingness to integrate vertically and throw valued customers under the bus.

In the long run, it makes absolutely zero sense for Google to keep Motorola as "just another device maker" in the Android ecosystem. They most likely will give it lip service for a year, try and fight off some patent suits and then slowly integrate things much more tightly. I think they're betting that they can become another Apple in terms of integration with Android not being overly harmed by other vendors fleeing to Microsoft. It is the logical strategy - the one driven by reality, not some PR spin of being "open".
Tackling Software Piracy as a Developer
It's just one of many, many websites that makes their money by pandering to a niche.

It's tasteless, but profitable.
Hey, as for the lightboxes, I'm using a service to run the store, and everything's been working fine on my end as with a few friends.

As far as the clients – those are services that have either once lived or are still in the works. I'm not offering a successful company; I'm offering domain name suggestions.
The thing is, many deaf people prefer to type, not being confident with their speaking voices. Also, most hearing people don't have TDD/TTY machines.

Just a note.
Is Android violating the GPL? Not so fast
Can you provide more details of Crossbow? Who maintains it/status? I hadn't heard anything about it since OpenSolaris went dead.
Startup Weebly takes profitable leap forward
Scala Option will save you from NullPointerException
I would like to see a study of that; I think you watch too little bad television :)
How can a web/mobile programmer make $2000 in 14 days.
How can a web/mobile programmer make $2000 in 14 days.An idea, a mobile app, a website. any comments, ideas, gigs are welcome. Programming languages are Python, PHP, Java and C. Web frameworks: Django, cakePHP and Drupal
Anyone else having connectivity issues on US East EC2 today?
The symptoms appear to be similar to the last time it happened and I'm trying to narrow down if its the same thing again.
Cognitive Surplus Watch (TV viewing hits record high)
Ruby Thankful: Give Thanks for Great Code
You should be! As far as I can tell, Illumos is the only kernel project out there that is solving exciting new problems, instead of reimplementing solutions to old ones.
'Mafiaboy' breaks silence, paints 'portrait of a hacker'
Yes, under the product description, I make sure to explicitly mention that they are available domains. I'll certainly try my best to provide the best suggestions. I understand the "going nuts" bit is highly subjective, but I think I've got pretty good taste.
Google Is Now The Proud Owner Of Android.me
"Only recently?" If not for the $1B RROD write-down in 2008, Microsoft would have been profitable then. MS has been making money off Xbox ever since that writedown.
Funny the things we forget about... I wonder what other of our body parts are missing out on some extreme sensory experiences. What about our brain? Can we get this type of increased stimulation directly into our heads? I think perhaps video games did this job when they were new. New exciting activities can perhaps help (sky diving, racing a car, etc).
Capacitive Buttons, In Defense of
I think you did a great job. Tells me exactly what it does, I don't have to hunt down screenshots, the call to action button is obvious yet not obnoxious and it's clean.

Well done IMO.
Wireless companies are completely unproven? We've been doing them for nearly a century now...
Ask HN: Help me keep my promise to my 6 yr old daughter
This isn't so much tech as it is a teaching moment about tech for my child.

I am trying to simultaneously keep a promise to my 6 yr old daughter, show her the awesomeness of the web, how to build things using the technology available, and demonstrate that social media can be used by customers to have a voice with large companies. She's been pretty impressed so far. ;)

Please help get the retweets, and if anyone knows anyone at Easton Bell, forward this to them. My network on LinkedIn came up empty, but I did make an educated guess to the CEO's email, and it hasn't bounced yet.

http://www.manyniches.com/work-life-balance/thank-you-bell-helmets/
Since it's only one password, and there's no maintenance overhead, write it down on a piece of paper, wrap it in tinfoil and seal it in an envelope. Stick the envelope in the bottom of your desk drawer. If you're afraid of losing the password in a fire simultaneously with you forgetting it, repeat for your mothers desk drawer.

Yes, if someone who knows you well physically targets you for your password, that person will likely succeed. But he would probably also succeed using this method: http://xkcd.com/538/
He was largely right on profitability, no?
You might be right, though I would think that even a PR person would have tried to introduce some variability to make it sound believable.

I don't really know how these things typically work.
Knocking on Doors
FTFA: "Android is a copycat platform. The APIs copy Java, and the UI copies Apple's iPhone."
too true to read!
> The problem is, to get off of the analogy, that Google will be very tempted to design a great iPhone compete device. It's no secret that the iPhone is the best HW/SW integration on the market. For the first time Google can actually build something with no compromises w/ respect to Android.

I fail to see how this is a "problem". If Google keeps Android open, others can compete by doing great HW/SW integration as well. Competing via excellence is most emphatically NOT a problem.
I meant the Businessweek article, not the ZDNet one.

>Something which is yet to translate into phones sold.

That doesn't still warrant the 'phone OS that no one wants'.

>And we can see the difference now that Nokia is selling devices running WP7.

They announced the deal in Feb and they're going to release devices in Sep/Oct, is that not fast enough for a huge company like Nokia and with phone hardware that takes years to make?

>It means it's mostly ready - all hardware is supported by the Linux kernel and the effort to make it run Android is almost nothing. The N9 could have launched with Android.

And the N9 would now play second fiddle thanks to competition from Google itself.

>It's a fine OS that lacks a significant developer ecosystem. There is a finite number of phone developers and now they are all very busy writing software for iOS and Android. Only a few developers have chosen to target WebOS, which has a smaller user base but very little competition.

That's EXACTLY my point. Meego/Maemo risked ended up being like WebOS, thanks to competition from Android/iOS/WP7,especially if the OS and multiple phones weren't ready. Getting an dev friendly ecosystem ready is not a joke. RIM's platform sucks for devs even after

And Meego wasn't, that's why the board fired the previous CEO and hired Elop. You think you know more than them and that they're all fools? Nokia is Finland's biggest company. If you think MS can 'install' a trojan horse just like that resulting in thousands of needless layoffs, then you're either deluded or paranoid. You should really read that Businessweek article.
Calendar management that engages your audience and tracks social activity
Poll: how many folks will answer this poll?
0-25
26-50
51-75
76-100
126-150
151-175
176-200
200+
I'd agree that a balancing proxy is more appropriate for HA. The post mentions that this is specifically not intended as a high availability solution. It's a fairly narrow use.
Okay, but why should I use your service? What are you doing for $50 that I can't do myself?

I don't mean to be an ass, but these are questions I think everyone is asking. An 'About' link on your site would be really helpful.

Also, I'm running Chrome 13.0.782.112 m for Windows, and stuff's still not working.
Show HN: A REPL for leveldb
Unit testing is a team sport
Why not switch to Ubuntu-style version numbers? If they have to ship multiple version in a month, either include the day in the version number or call it Update X.

Using the date for the version number gets rid of any connotations associated with versioning (a .1 release being smaller than a whole number release, or that Firefox 7 is less advanced than Chrome 15 because its version number is half of Chrome's) while still allowing users to identify what version they're running.
> How are you going to convince folks in their 60s and 70s to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in something completely unproven if, at the very least, you haven't studied corporate finance and corporate strategy at HBS or Wharton or wherever?

That doesn't make any sense at all. For something completely unproven, corporate finance doesn't even come into picture. I don't know how your wireless example relate to this, since wireless isn't completely unproven - more like "it works
and we have a lot of base to build onto.

Let's say we are talking about self-driving cars, as an example of something completely unproven which is well served by millions of dollars. Corporate finance and strategy aren't going to drive that car for sure.
They left out a pretty major one - Valve.
Did this earlier this year: http://www.onedaywithoutshoes.com/

It's something to try every once in a while for a change of pace.
About Internet Scams & Fraud
But Asimov's answer was an indication of intelligence -- not the opposite. Intelligence often means dealing at a conceptual level as opposed to a more detailed level. There's a reason that there's the stereotype of the absent-minded professor. He or she will publish an important paper and then leave their sweater at work. They've sacrificed one level for the other. Asimov's mistake answering the question was the same as forgetting a sweater -- he just didn't spend any effort thinking about it.

And as for his point that there's an educational bias to IQ tests -- that's just silly. The intellectual requirements of being a nuclear scientist are more stringent than those of being a car mechanic. The qualities we ascribe to intelligence map more to the former than to the latter. Next, IQ tests don't measure intelligence. Intelligence is qualitative, like beauty, not quantitative, like height. We use it to look for attributes of intelligence. Knowing a woman has high cheekbones doesn't tell you if she's beautiful, but it gives an indication that she might be, for what that's worth.
You don't hear as much about it, but RavenDB is an excellent No-SQL solution in MS land. It was written from the ground up with .NET instead of being ported. It's become my first choice ahead of MS-SQL Server for .NET projects.

http://ravendb.net/
as with web apps, version numbers don't matter at the front -- features do. The Build numbers and versions should stay in there where people who need to can find them though, ala Chrome...
YES! I have never been happier with my switch to Chrome.

I'm actually quite frustrated with myself for having put my friends and family on Firefox as it's constantly needing updates, getting new versions, changing its look, etc.

It's more frustrating than dealing with IE now.

Mozilla's game of "look how fast we are moving" is absolutely frustrating and painful.

I can just click my "About Chrome" link now, and it says it's up to date. How refreshing.

EDIT: All a Firefox update means to me anymore is that my plugins won't work anymore so I need to stick with an outdated, probably less secure, and slower Firefox version.
I love that they are profitable, growing rapidly, and generally kicking butt. My biggest wish for them is to start taking market share from Adobe by making their website toolkit more flexible and advanced. When a professional designer can get everything they want in a browser, no extra software, and changes are real-time...for me, they win.
See here, however: http://www.intomobile.com/2011/05/02/apple-has-50-profit-sha...

While HTC's profits are unquestionably growing, their profit share actually declined a bit; remember it's a very rapidly expanding industry. Motorola Mobility, SE and LG are loss-making or close to it. Only Samsung is in a really strong position.
This is a good way for Google to get software into the non-smartphone market.
I disagree. There are examples of companies that did well with mediocre names, but it certainly doesn't hurt to have a great one, and it really can hurt to have a bad one.
Not sure when it was introduced, but I know I had it with iWork 2009 on Snow Leopard.
I think you meant about:support which takes you to the Troubleshooting Information page.
IAB Calls on ICANN to Withdraw Top-Level Domain Plan
I just quit my job at Motorola on Friday.....
Fantastic. Can't wait.
I've been told by my friends on HN and elsewhere that I've got somewhat of a talent for suggesting domains; so I figured I'd try to see if people would pay for that sort of service. There's nothing really I can do about the browser issue other than email the service I'm using to run the site – sorry.
I was a little worried that when I wrote that the rich should pay "more" without specifying that I meant a higher tax rate, someone would point out that they would pay "more" in the absolute even at a lower tax rate (as if I'm unaware that 10,000,000 * .24 > 100,000 * .24).

I really like open debate and discussion, but why do we go through this charade of nitpicking? It's clear that my post supports progressive taxation, so why get all crapped up about some non-existent ambiguity around the word more. If you're opposed to progressive taxation, and you think that warren buffet pays so much "more" in the absolute under a regressive or flat tax that it's fair to tax him at a lower rate than your average middle class worker, by all means, express your opinion. I certainly wouldn't downmod someone for disagreeing with me, and I think that probably goes for most of the people on hacker news.
I've been waiting for something like this for years. Cannot wait to read this one, if nothing else, for the inspiration.
Seesmic CRM for Salesforce
Those numbers aren't really version numbers. It's closer to build/realse numbers now. They used to mean major releases with major changes, now they don't. I can see why they are getting rid of them. You still can find the release number if you want (as you can with chrome).
Interesting. I just realized that I filtered out the word available because it is bold. Marketing-filter?
Joyent SmartOS
>Appreciate the "don't deviate from the norm" sentiment, but the norm is horribly broken for most users at the moment, and not deviating from it isn't going to make it better.

I'd actually challenge this assertion a bit.

Password management isn't as hard as it should be. I think Bruce Schneier is absolutely right when he encourages users to write down their passwords and store that paper securely -- in a wallet, purse, etc.

The problem, IMO, is that we've told users for years to "never write down passwords!" -- when, in reality, we should've been saying "write down a strong password and keep it safe."

>We learn from our screw-ups, not from dong nothing.

You're braver than I. Screwing up is expected, but security/privacy breaches tend to be among the least tolerated and most remembered screw-ups you can make.

If you do decide to pursue some sort of alternative credential system, it's in your best interest to get a consultation from an experienced security professional, as it could save you black eyes down the road.
Outsourcing motivation
Just out of curiosity, how will the user-agent string read?
What are you doing for $50 that I can't do myself?

He's finding 5 domain suggestions for your business in less than a half hour of billable time.

Perhaps that's not a good deal to you. As someone who's spent tens of (billable) hours finding domains for clients, it strikes me as an excellent value proposition.
Who needs innovation anymore when you can just copy your competition feature-for-feature, subsidize with ad revenue, give it away for free, and acquire patent protection?
The 3.x branch is not open (yet). The 2.x branch (we are talking about mobile phones, not tablets) is open.
Mind Your En And Em Dashes: Typographic Etiquette
Ask HN: What to do about unreasonable organizations?
I'm trying to organize an event at a certain university. However, to host most events, every club needs to go through a dragged out, tumultuous process with the Student Council. Luckily, what I was trying to do was OK by their rules, and didn't have to be cleared.

Being civil, I emailed them, asking for a schedule, so my event wouldn't collide with theirs. My email was passed around to 5 different people, and eventually one of the VPs of the Student Council sent me an response, threatening me, telling me not to host the event without going through their elongated procedures (even though by THEIR regulations, I didn't have to).

This organization doesn't run very smoothly, and no one outside the council likes dealing with them. Everyone thinks it's a pain, and half the time, they're not even sure where to direct an issue. Unfortunately, the university itself doesn't want to address the problem, since the council is its own entity.

I may have overreacted a little bit, and I've considered legal action, and even causing a big (legal of course) mess. However, I need a reality check. When faced with a similar situation, what would you all do?

I know I should pick my battles, but they're essentially strong-arming every student - and that's not fair. If I make a mess now, it's going to impact the organization, school, and myself negatively. However, it might mean some changes are made, and students in the future won't have to deal with this. If I let it go, nothing changes. Unlike companies, this organization can't really fail on its own.

What's the right thing to do here?
Another scenario: you wish to tell your web app's users that there are some issues on certain Firefox versions. You wrote "There are some issues for Firefox 7.xx". Users scratch their heads and ask, what version? Nightmare follows.
Corporate money belongs to the corporation, not to the shareholders. Corporation is a separate legal entity, it has its own property rights and its own will power. It also has an obligation to heed the interest of all stakeholders, including shareholders, employees, managers, customers, the public etc. Shareholders exert certain level of control over corporation, similar to how the board, the management, the employees and the customers have their own power, and while shareholders can change the board, they don't have any kind of fine-grained control, and even their control over the board might be limited by the corporate charter.

To say that corporate money belongs to the shareholdes is to trivialize a very intricate balance of powers.

Corporate income tax is a tax on corporate income. You can't call it shareholder tax any more than you can call it employee tax (or employment reduction incentive, if you will), or manager bonus tax, or capital re-investment tax. It's all of the above, and then some. It's not just one of the above.
You have a good point and I think tokens are very useful for anything were security matters, but of course if you are really concerned about security you will use multifactor authentication (password + token, or token + biometrics, etc).
Google should asset strip and re-sell Motorola ASAP
I've always liked displaying a name followed by a 'build number.' It's simple, straightforward and easy-to-understand.
It would be rather interesting if a password manager could be token-secured in a way that would keep it safe on a rooted and keylogged machine.
I think the MS brand has more clout than RIM; if for no other reason than most large companies will have a relationship with MS for other products. In all of the large companies I've worked at buying from an existing vendor was preferable if the products were roughly comparable.
Dropbox valuation is nearly as much as Moto mobility. I wonder if you hand those kids that started Dropbox a bunch of chips, whether they would make a Droid handset? Are these enterprises the same level of complexity and know-how? There is no bubble...
>It's tasteless, but profitable.

The problem is that they are bandied about as independent opinion and analysis.

Gruber sells ads on his RSS feeds, which seem to cost thousands of dollars each, thanks to advertising by iOS apps. No wonder he plays to his fanbase with the pro-Apple and anti-Google/Android/MS rhetoric. He must be laughing all the way to the bank while thinking up his next 'The precisely perfect placement of the Chair at Macworld' and 'Dirty Percent' article. Also, he gets invited to Apple events, which may quickly disappear if he gets too critical(see Gizmodo).
On the other hand, Verizon didn't upgrade our copper to make DSL possible until the requirement to share it was eliminated. And I lived in a very high population density area.
Winners and losers in the Google-Motorola deal
We actually just did that! http://blog.weebly.com/2/post/2011/08/a-summer-focused-on-de...

When we launched the Designer Platform, we completely revamped our theming engine to be super flexible and introduced a pretty cool web-based IDE with real-time preview of HTML and CSS changes (and pop-out functionality for dual-monitor development).

It's a huge focus for us going forward -- we'd love to hear your feedback on whether the new changes allow you to do everything you'd like to, or if not, where we can improve.
I think this fellow is on to something. I can't imagine walking into a candy store and seeing bare counters and plain walls.

I expected to see a white background with candy pouring in from the sides and reds and yellows.
> Hey, as for the lightboxes, I'm using a service to run the store, and everything's been working fine on my end as with a few friends.

The lightboxes close buttons and #lightbox-contact link don't work on Firefox 5.0, Safari 5.1, Chrome 13, Opera 11.5, or Internet Explorer 9 on Windows 7. They don't work on Chromium 13 on Linux. It is not "working fine" for any reasonable definition of the phrase, it is actually making it impossible for anyone who wants to give you money to do so (as you explicitly require using the #lightbox-contact link prior to purchasing, and that link doesn't work).

> As far as the clients – those are services that have either once lived or are still in the works. I'm not offering a successful company; I'm offering domain name suggestions.

That makes sense; I suppose that using the word "client" confused me. You might want to consider either providing an example list or a money-back guarantee if your domain name suggestions are crap.
> Meego/Maemo risked ended up being like WebOS

And that's why I wouldn't suggest going with it. The fact remains, however, that the transition from MeeGo to Android would be much easier and that Nokia would have a competitive Android phone (and a very good one) now instead of a WP7 phone in September or October.

> You think you know more than them and that they're all fools?

No. I don't think Elop is an idiot. Obviously, he is doing what his board perceives as the most profitable thing to do. What I don't think is that it will lead to Nokia making great phones as this is not a precondition to making a profit and Nokia has demonstrated, over and over again, this wouldn't be the safest bet.
I've long suspected there's some kind of madlibs for PR that all these companies use.