skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
As a restaurant point of sale developer myself (Ambur, an iOS app), one thing: OpenTable isn't a POS, it's a reservation system. I didn't see the conflation between sites and POS systems in the article, but I see it throughout your comment.

Everything else rings true. We have to invest a lot of time into each prospect because they're used to buggy systems that have feature overload and as a result are hard to use and impossible to setup. We're selling at a ridiculously low price ($999 for unlimited device licensing as a single site), and we're doing well, but the time investment into each prospect is very high.
Thanks! I definitely agree with you about the chicken/egg thing. I won't launch unless I can build a big enough interest. Haven't bothered with a domain/design for this reason :)
A few thoughts:

1. Under Rule 24(a)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the court must grant Apple the right to intervene as of right if Apple can show: (1) that it has filed a timely motion to do so; (2) that it claims an "interest" in "property" that is the subject of the action; (3) that its ability to protect its interest in that property may as a practical matter be impaired or impeded if the legal action is allowed to be disposed of without its participation; and (4) that existing parties cannot adequately represent that interest.

2. Consistent with this rule, Apple's legal argument boils down to the idea that it has a license from IV to protect, and rights under that license, all of which will be impaired or impeded if Lodsys is allowed to pursue infringement claims against developers who develop apps for the environment to which Apple's license applies. Hence, Apple must be allowed to step in to defend the integrity of its license and to argue, based on that license, that Lodsys is barred by the doctrine of "patent exhaustion" from pursuing claims against the developers.

3. Apple thus argues that it needs to be in the case to protect its own interests, not those of the developers. Now, de facto, this might amount to the same thing since Apple does not want to face a revolt among its developers. But there is irony here in that Lodsys is arguing, as one of its major points on why Apple should not be allowed to intervene, that Apple has no obligation legally to hold the developers harmless (i.e., based on Apple's agreements, the developers are on their own). In seeking to intervene to argue the patent exhaustion doctrine, then, Apple is saying it will protect its license rights primarily and developers only incidentally and, again, without undertaking any legal obligation to indemnify any developer.

4. All that said, "patent exhaustion" is a potent defense, the effect of which (if upheld) would be invalidate the patent for misuse. "Misuse" here lies in the idea of extending the exclusive rights afforded by the patent grant beyond their legitimate scope. Apple's ability to prove misuse, though, is by no means easy. To show misuse, it will essentially have to show that the IV license was intended to cover separate products (apps) that did not even exist when the license was granted and that do not constitute an integral part of the Apple product when sold. This will be tricky at best and obviously will take a party of Apple's sophistication and wherewithal to marshal the arguments and factual development effectively. That, of course, is why Lodsys does not want Apple in the case. It would much prefer to bully smaller and less sophisticated parties because that is how patent bullying works best.
Will we have International Haskell Day later this week?
Linux is an F/OSS Unix, but there was still room for Mac OSX. Some of us like nice things maintained by somebody else.
From what I understand, it can't be predicted by the user -- it depends on factors such as application's memory image size, system load, idle time, etc.

As a user, I don't know when the app will go away.
I am waiting for Gruber's justification for this. I am sure he will be able to cook something up as he always does.

On the other hand, I think this is one of those things, which have brought down Apple time and time again in the past, from the pinnacles of success to being competitively obsolete, mainly due to its inability to adapt to the changing market dynamics.
That's an awesome idea. Perhaps it could kick in at a karma level.
I don't think I called out Jordan as Islamist, I said that a Star Trek universe is conceptually the inverse of an Islamic universe. Creating a theme park in the Middle east which is dominated by Islamic politics seems unlikely to succeed at best.

Jordan is perhaps one of the few places where this project could even get off the ground (Dubai as well perhaps). The fact that it would be built, in spite of being antithetical to a large chunk of possible 'customers' is where the dissonance comes in.
It's kind of true. I tried selling software to restaurants (http://Tablely.com) with some friends, and another Seattle company (http://OrderSm.com) is still trying, but working with the owners is terrible. They are too busy dealing with their day-to-day crap and technology is really not on their mind. It's sad, but it's true.
Cheezburger DVCS Workflow: A History
I mostly use my MBP for Java, Lisp, and Ruby development and I like Lion, after about 10 days with it. Reopening applications where they were before seemed lame at first, now I like it. Same for showing the last bit of text in Terminal windows.

One thing that I really like is FileVault 2. I have a lot of sensitive data for several clients on my laptop (SSH keys set up for their servers, AWS credentials, proprietary materials, etc.) and I used to go through a tortuous process of having encrypted file volumes that I had symbolic links to files on the volumes. I wasted a good 3 or 4 minutes a day with this. I set up FileVault 2 and encrypted all of the external disks that I rotate for TimeMachine backups (I tend to use one for a few days, switch to another, keep rotating), and now I just keep everything on my permanent disk partition. One hassle: I lost my time Machine "history" because the conversion process to encrypted external disks requires a reformat; I thought that it was worth it.
It's a big baloon payment. It is not FREE after the probationary period. There are definitely strings attached. There was a big stink about this with a well known open source .NET developer who worked at MS. It would have ended costing his startup a lot more based on the cost of a SQL Server license, etc. He settled on Rails + MySQL. Search for Rob Conery.
> Are consumers do dumb they won't notice that their tablet says SAMSUNG instead of APPLE? Doubt it.

I'm pretty certain that I said this isn't one of those situations.
I started this during the latest <plug>Hack-a-thon at Causes (causes.com/join_us),</plug> and now it's beta enough to open source.

Unlike some other existing solutions, this one behaves like an XMPP MUC (group chat), and doesn't require that you run your own XMPP server or have an extra XMPP user.
TextEdit is a developer example that you can just download and build, if necessary. :)
Why startups fail: Lack of focus
Seattle Lean Startup Panelists discussing tips for entrepreneurs.
brew install emacs --HEAD --cocoa
The music on this pubs site convinced me to go. http://www.thirstyscholarpub.com/home.htm
Dow Soars 400 points
fyi, cox has their own local speed tests which can be informative as to where the hangup might be. The local one to me is:

http://azspeedtest.cox.com/

It's actually somewhat frustrating to see that register phenomenal speeds when the web past their internal routers seems ... buffering ... buffering.
My next startup is targeting this problem. I'm pitching it as "About.me for restaurants" ... a single-page, instant setup site that has location/hours/menu/contact info.

I'm planning on posting it to HN for review in a few days.

If anyone wants a peak now, drop me an email.
Dynamic dns effectively keeps track of it, but it won't record it: http://dyn.com/dns/dyndns-free/

On a sidenote, one way to get a new IP is to go into the router control panel and change that MAC address.
I have to agree, but I may be basing it off the first iPad. I was a bit stunned on the plane when I saw how much thinner my tab was than this girl's iPad. I thought they'd be more similar. I was a bit jealous of her monopoly game app though.
Stypi Is Etherpad Reborn
Just hope you don't run into some sort of underground power line: http://www.jwz.org/blog/2002/11/engineering-pornography/
I don't get it. Is this sarcastic? Did you not buy music in March '03 to get the basis for comparison? For normal people who do not organize their lives around user interface critiques, iTMS is shatteringly convenient: type name of song, click button, listen to song to make sure it's what you want, click "buy", wait a minute, own song.
Yes, PDF download is that bad, especially on mobile. It will likely be larger and thus take longer than html, and in many cases requires opening a different app.
I figured I was getting Cox'd

That's what she said...

I noticed the same with Fark as well. Also HuffPo.
That requires write access to the database, not just read access.
> This is because restaurants often don't have tools to update the text on their sites

That part struck me as well, because it's complete and utter bullshit. The tools exist, they've been implemented for years across a variety of industries and they come in all flavors. There should be no need for a restaurant operator to ever have to get on the phone with their technologist, and I use that term loosely, and request an item change and any developer with a couple of years experience should know that.

The reason they're so shitty, imo, is that restauranteurs are ocd-minded workaholics who spend most of their time focusing on their own operation and very little time researching the technology aspects of their industry or comparing themselves outside of their business column. Just pick up any of their trade publications. They simply don't have the time or the inclination and more often than not the money to go out and hire a bonafide design or technology firm to implement a solution for them. They see what other restaurants are doing, calculate the costs of copying them and call it a day. As long as nobody else is innovating, why should they?

Another aspect of the business that leads to poor internet marketing is the people that they have filling those positions. I'm willing to bet that upwards of 90% of the people who make the decisions on the restaurant's website have a) no business experience, b) no technology experience, c) no desire to be anything than someone who works at a restaurant, as long as they don't have to serve food or pour drinks. They are, and having worked in the industry for many years, mostly an underachieving lot who are most happy sucking down a cold beer that a friendly bartender comped them. Seriously, I build web-based, cross-platform financial applications and my restaurant friends still ask me to help them with the Yelp. They have absolute no clue what the internet has become in the past ten or twelve years. And if they can get their favorite cocktail waitress' friend to put together some crap website, then they're just as happy. More often than not, you'll have to print the pages out and send the paper site along with the invoice so they can look it over.
In what way is Amazon superior to iTunes? Just, "not having to use iTunes"?
This sounds like such a great idea. I travel in two circles that would love to check this out. Please do post it.
> My question on this issue is: Is a PDF download really so bad?

It's getting better, but it's still a hassle to download and open a pdf. Well-designed html is much preferred for me. That said, a well-designed PDF that downloads quickly is better than a poorly-designed menu section that loads slowly or worse, is inaccurate.
While I agree with some of the analysis, I'm not sure I can agree with all of it without some perspective from the customers. The author makes it quite obvious they would not pay for a $72 or $400 meal. However, what do the people who would pay those prices think of the site? Perhaps, they don't want to be reminded of the price on the website, but rather of the good experience.
Ripoff Report Removes Itself From Google's Index
Yes, the article seemed pretty clear that 1. disappearing an application is at Lion's discretion, and 2. that the behavior changes over time.

Perhaps if you really think about it, it's deterministic, but it's 'casually non-deterministic'.

So yes, I'll admit to abusing the term in its pure sense.
I've got Qwest/CenturyLink and they change my IP quite frequently. A month ago they were changing it once a week. In the early evening (9-10 PM local time).
Great post! To your point on the "little price competition" - Every industry has that.

Why can't you niche the daily deals for spas? Allow one of your Spa customers to do a daily deal on the home page along with having a listing of local places.

I would put myself into my customer's shoes in this case. What would I want to show if I was searching for a spa?

Again - great post.
Applesinsider.com reports that Google is rushing their next mobile OS while Apple is waiting and not rushing their next mobile OS.
Facebook on Android is a consistently bad experience. What's worse, I occasionally deactivate my account for periods of time to focus on school / work /etc. The app comes pre-installed on my HTC so I can't remove it. However, it keeps trying to authenticate and randomly gives me can't-authenticate errors or launches the browser to a facebook login. Pretty disappointing experience.
True. Sign up for yCombinator :)
Making quit-on-close a UI recommendation for things that don't naturally run as a background service with no visible UI might be a cleaner solution.
This is something I admit I don't quite understand. How are encryption keys stored in a way that makes them significantly less accessible than the database? I'm interested in the nitty-gritty details of this.
It took awhile to warm up to but I think I'll be finally purchasing my license once the next update rolls along.
You could do that and add book costs aggregations as well. Like Chegg.com vs the other book renting/buying services.
Twitter Adds Image Upload Feature
Bloomberg is an incredible company obsessed with quality. The TV channel is great; their terminal is downright mind-numbing.
No it does not. This is a normal part of business. Why people feel the need to associate 'being afraid of' and 'suing someone' is just strange and biased.
Yes, same experience here, but doing a search popped it right up.

This should be a direct link to it.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/github-issues/id453833494?mt=...
It may be a bit hyperbolic to say Walmart was "unable to compete with iTunes." From what can be gleaned, neither Apple nor Walmart makes much of a profit reselling songs for 99 cents. Apple, of course, has other reasons to want to take a loss or operate a marginal music store that helps it sell iPods, but one can understand why Walmart wouldn't realize the same side benefit.
In a decade we won't ever have to open and close applications. We'll have enough resources to have everything open, always.

No opening, no saving, no closing. Just instant switching.
Yes PDF menus are terrible, especially if you are making a decision on a mobile device.
> 64 comment-thread go-rounds later, you have indeed come up with a reasonably strong password storage system.

The reasonably strong password storage system is a one-way hashing with bcrypt. That'd be the way I store them, grumpy asides like "the way you'd encrypt passwords" not withstanding. No need for "free consulting", thanks, especially when delivered in such a manner.

My point is not "you should use reversible encryption". My point is "reversible encryption is not the same as plaintext storage", a point borne out by people using HTTPS, PGP, etc.

I don't like getting a plaintext password sent to me via e-mail any more than you do. That's completely besides the point.
Why You Can't Buy Creativity
Anonymous' Next Target: Facebook
Simply amazing, all of the companies are doing something tangible and real.

I tend to compare myself to others... makes me feel pretty useless...lol
Usertesting.com results on Facebook's usability
Unless your goal is to put songs onto an iPod, the amazon MP3 buying experience is much simpler. If I want to buy some MP3s and listen to them on my PC or on my Android phone, I:

Click the buy button on Amazon's site

Wait a moment, the Amazon MP3 downloader starts

Wait a few minutes, the downloader tells me the files are downloaded

I can click once or twice to automatically open the folder where these new MP3s live

And then I can now listen to them (in my player of choice) or copy them to my phone. And now that Amazon has their cloud player, I can skip the entire downloading step and just listen to them on my phone.

if I used iTunes as my music player of choice, and all my portable devices were iDevices, iTunes would be more convenient than the Amazon store. However, I don't, and they aren't. Also, iTunes is still kind of a pile of shit, so 'not having to use iTunes' alone would be a big advantage even if the Amazon experience wasn't better in other ways.
We're required to have our sensitive data on an encrypted volume by a client (a major financial firm). Sometimes, calling the 24/7 techs to enter a passphrase is a perfectly appropriate solution, especially if you have enough capacity to let a server or two wait until the morning.
It was a historical reference
Oh yeah, Vagrant. That is the name of it. If I had to use VirtualBox, that would be what I would be using to manage the VMs.
I live and work in Santa Monica and two horrific ones are Santa Monica food staples:

Bay Cities: http://www.baycitiesitaliandeli.com/
Swingers: http://www.swingersdiner.com/
The Fermi Paradox is like the "bumble bees can't fly" paradox, it merely means we don't understand the fundamentals of technological life in the Universe.

Edit: thanks downvoter, can you point me to your source of knowledge about all technological life in our Universe? I'd settle for just our galaxy if that's easier to come up with.

The problem with the Fermi paradox is that it doesn't tell us much. It could tell us that colonizing civilizations are unlikely or have a limited lifespan, or it could tell us merely that colonizing civilizations don't work at all the way we'd predict.
Don't pitch it as "about.me for restaurants". I had no idea what about.me is and I'm in the startup community, read HN, TechCrunch, etc... The people you're selling to will have no idea what you're talking about.

What about "Facebook for restaurants"?
That attack isn't unique to a system with reversible encryption. If I can change the e-mail column, I can do this on any system with one-way password hashing too.
Looks like a cool web app, although I fail to see this as a commercial product.
I would use this only as a free product, and I'm sure as hell that my friends won't pay for this either.

Maybe I just lack vision, but I don't see how this app can possibly pull in big revenue.
Can someone please prove me wrong?
Your point is pretty reasonable, considering the meme sprang to popular awareness in it's 'Slashdotted' form, doubtless melting many servers down prior to appearing in the MSM.
JSON (slightly scrubbed): https://github.com/imperialwicket/usdaFarmersMarkets
Isn't that still not being able to keep up? Whether or not either of them makes a profit on the sale, Apple makes money selling songs as a loss leader, and Walmart doesn't. Outcompeted.
I personally figure it's the Apple Tax, aka very comfortable profit margins, plus the short life cycle of technology.
The last time i used iTunes was months ago, i'm on Rdio now. My workflow went more like this:

1. Open iTunes

3. Wait 1-2 minutes, literally.

3. iTunes has crashed, often taking exporer.exe[1] with it.

4. Restart iTunes and/or windows.

5. After waiting 2-3 additional minutes for iTunes to start up, it's now open and i can search for songs.

6. Search for the songs i want and buy them.

7. Enter my payment details as Apple has forgotten them again.

8. Wait 2-3 minutes while the payment is processed.

9. Something wasn't good enough for Apple. Change something in the huge form and goto 8.

10. Done! Download the songs.

YMMV, this is just my own experience. For comparison, here's the workflow with Rdio:

1. Enter a song or album name into the search box, or pick one from my extensive library of albums.

2. Press play and listen to the song.

[1] Yes, unfortunately i do have to keep Windows around to use iTunes.
Let me provide an explanation for this, hopefully so that you can avoid further downvotes. I perceive three implied assertions that your comment relies upon:

Assertion 1: people who understand right and left folding are fairly high on the scale of CS knowledge.

Assertion 2: a person with suitably advanced CS knowledge can find a well-paying job or start a project that is rewarding and grants them a high-level of autonomy -- i.e. they don't need to uninspiring shitwork.

Assertion 3: PHP is for shitwork, and people only develop in it when they don't have a choice.

I agree with these assertions, and the question makes sense to me.
I once opened a password reset e-mail from my (former) bank while at work and wasn't hugely pleased to see my password pop up in plain view for a coworker to see.
Businesses definitely need apps like this. Beats the hell out of emails and MS Word.
PHP 5.3.0 was released in June of 2009, not 2010.
LiquidWeb also does this from my experience. Sign-up for a new account and have them call you for verification. Their verification question is "What is your password?".
Isn't Apple's problem that a lot of this money is overseas, from overseas operations, and could not easily be bought back into the US?
Gentoo can be a pain in the ass, but the occasions when I need package masking and using precise, specific library versions, there's nothing else that does it.

Ultimately, I think Homebrew will win out because:

(1) It is on github (http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2010/04/01/github/)

(2) The Homebrew DSL is far, far easier to work with than Gentoo ebuilds

(3) From what I've seen, you don't need root privs to develop Homebrew formula, but setting up fakeroot to develop Gentoo ebuilds is a pain.

Homebrew or not, VM'd Linux hosted under OSX is a sweet spot for what I'm working on.
Swarmplayer: video inside Bittorrent swarm can directly be embedded on webpage
SproutCore 2.0 Beta 3 Released
It gets better. Amazon will sync your files into your Clouddrive for you automatically when you buy them, if you want.
You are right, we are much better using color rather than price. Apple is the most colorful company in the world.

Is there any point in arguing about price and value without suggesting an alternative? This is an old argument.
I'd be very surprised if ANY MMORPG didn't constantly iterate as you describe (all the current major ones do, at least), and virtually all multiplayer games allow for balancing at the very least.

The problem is that most single-player games are finite. Once people have completed them, they're done. Replayability is something comparatively few people can stand for any length of time, especially in a crowded market. Add the problem of an exceptionally short tail for most games (20-50% of total sales in the first month would not be atypical) and the value of updating the mechanics of your single-player game becomes much less valuable. Best to make another game in the series that improves all those flaws.

A few exceptions, all indie games: Minecraft, Eufloria and Darwinia. All of these have had major updates to gameplay over time.
רשלנות רפואית
Creating tech jobs will drive tech salaries up. That will attract new workers to tech (make it worth the investment to retrain, etc), and 'trickle down' money to manufacturing and other industries.

Making the pie bigger is good.

Of course $90M and a few hundred jobs won't shift equilibrium much on its own, but it's a step in the right direction.
The EC2 API as a Defacto Standard