skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That assumes that infringement and innovation happens in a vacuum for Google.

If Google came out of a rain forest in South America and just happened to have produced an iPhone with no human exposure in 2008 -- then sure I'd say maybe it was obvious.

Innovation doesn't happen in a vacuum for anybody. Apple didn't come out of a rain forest in South America and make an iPhone. They were exposed to previous innovation by MITS Altair, Xerox Star, Bell Labs Unix, Microsoft, Acorn, Commodore Amiga, Palm, Motorola, Nokia, and even some of their own previous work (NeXT, Newton). Innovations are judged as obvious or not in the context of the innovations that came before, not in the context of a primitive tribe. Besides that, functional patents don't cover

Patent discussions frequently get out of hand because a lot of issues get conflated. Some of the issues that should really be considered separately:

1. Overly-broad patents that effectively cover general ideas rather than specific inventions.

2. Non-novel patents that cover topics essential to computer science, covered by expired patents, and/or previously documented by academic papers whose authors are not associated with the patent.

3. Obvious patents that cover simple techniques used by everyone but nobody else patented because actual practitioners considered them public knowledge and/or too trivial to patent.

4. Patent terms that are ridiculously out of sync with the pace of technology.

The arguments I've read that led me to my current position on software patents are far too lengthy to summarize in a single post, but if you want to understand where I'm coming from, read What Technology Wants[0] by Kevin Kelly, along with the collected works of Pamela Jones, et. al. on Groklaw.

[0] Kelly makes some untenable logical leaps in nonessential arguments in the first few chapters, but the core ideas (that innovation does not occur in a vacuum, that most inventions are independently invented in parallel, and that innovation practically has a life of its own) are well-presented and defended.
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Linode doesn't notify their customers affected by outages, or am I missing something?
I agree about the design - but my design skills aren't great so I just got a template from themeforest.
Cool I've never seen this before. Ah ScreamTracker 3 I used to listen to mods in that all the time.

Does anyone know if there is a current good site that reviews/indexes good new mod/scene releases besides index sites like pouet.net or scene.org?
The post was edited after I posted. Guess I have to start Pinboard-ing everything I respond to now.
I think you'd have better luck posting on something like http://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco
I don't hate to be the guy to point this out, but I absolutely hated the layout of that website. I am on a 1440x900 screen. I do not want a website to be the god of my computer while I'm reading. This website absolutely did not support scaling on screen. It did not resize when I moved it to half of my screen, and it did not provide me with a scroll-bar at the bottom so that I could adjust my viewing window of the screen to see all of the text per line.
"What kills software projects is illegible code"

Technical debt is something that sinks projects, but it's by no means the only thing. This keeps engineers up at night, not project managers. A project manager worth his salt is worried about selling the wrong thing. Plenty of systems are messy, impossible to update, and wildly successful. I've worked on some of them. But few - if any - systems get away with solving a problem nobody has.

You hint that the goalposts have shifted for engineers, and that's a good point. Moore's Law gave us the room for a much stronger culture that worries about abstractions and meta-things like maintainability and cleanliness. But more importantly, technical restrictions have been lifted that previously prevented users from getting they software they need.
Please see my response to shpoonj.
At the uni in Oslo (Norway) there are plenty of low level programming courses. I've taken a few C (no plus plus) course with plenty of bit shifting. There is a course with a lot of assembly, you get to write a converter for UTF8 in assembly working with a lot of shifting on the registers. Then there is a course where you develop an OS and one where you work with multi-core architectures.

And I also feel that that guy in the article should have grey hair. It would give more weight to his argument.
It's actually a similar situation (obviously on a smaller scale) for PC users sometimes. For example gaming hardware manufacturers have cottoned onto this fact and made keyboards with a bunch of extra keys for ingame binds/macros, because gamers would rather learn what keys do what than have any delay in their actions.
Don't take this the wrong way, but it is "apprentice", not "aprentice".
The biggest "user interface" feature I noticed wasn't the buttons -- it's that there's velcro, and lots of it, everywhere. Well done.
Thanks for the reply.

I actually already posted a wanted ad on Craigslist and that got me a lot of weird offers. I'll post another, though, and see if I have better luck the second time around.
At my institute we had two electron microscopes. One was 20 years old and every setting had it's own button or knob. It looked like a space ship. The other one was very new and only had a joystick plus some terrible software.

People _loved_ the old one because having lots of buttons you can tune almost in parallel was much more efficient than the modal click-here, use-joystick workflow.

The newer EM generated much better images though, so the choice wasn't just between UIs.
All that glitters isn't Drupal : CMS vs Framework
And try paying more...that way you'll be able to attract the guys who can program both lower level and higher level ;)
Nuke plants have a great many buttons, dials, gauges and levers, too, according to one of Don Norman's books.

ADDED. Norman said that one of the advantages is that when one operator lowers the aperture on value 68 (or whatever) the other operators can easily tell that that is what he is doing.
That is actually an interesting point. I can't pull up the HTTP spec or Dr. Fielding's dissertation right now, but what precisely is the mimetype supposed to signify?

It seems that that the encoding of the response (html/xml/json/etc) is being conflated with a content specification for the response. XML already allows you declare a schema for validation purposes. There have been a few attempts to standardize this on the JSON side, but that will never be a first-class citizen in JSON (nor do I think they should be).

It appears to me, if you really care about the content of your resource, then you should use the schema facilities provided by your encoding, rather than imposing it universally on the architecture side, as the article implies.

Historically, mimetypes (afaik) have never made any assumptions about the content of a resource, other than it adheres structurally to whatever the mimetype declares. Should be kept that way.
The difference really is night and day. Amazing!

I have one major issue, though. Their original "Redeem" button was ugly and garish, but it looked like a button. It screams out "click me. CLICK MEEEEEE".

The new "Redeem" button is gorgeous, but it's actually a step backwards in terms of usability. First of all, it doesn't look like a button. Am I supposed to click? Where? Are the little circles also buttons? Speaking of the little circles, they really steal the show. They're so colorful and attractive, that you don't even notice the central circle - and, critically, you don't read the text that says "Redeem". I had to look at the pre-overhaul image to get a reminder of what I was supposed to be doing at this screen.
Hello, I am also looking for a place with other founders in Mountain View, Palo Alto area.

This is me: http://www.facebook.com/bahadir.balban and this is what we do:
http://www.slideshare.net/bbalban/b-labs-solution-personal-a...

I have recently arrived in Mountain View and been looking on Craigslist for a while. If anyone has a place that would be a match I would appreciate a reply at: bbalban@b-labs.com

Thanks,
Bahadir
Nuts. On challenge #1 my code passed 14/15 of their test cases, and failed on the final one. Only, I don't get sufficient feedback to determine where the bug is.

Ok - I only spent 15 minutes on this, and I'm not particularly interested in finding a job with any of the companies that are listed. Still annoying though.
I like how causing the LED to fail causes the microcontroller to decide to open the lock. And it even turns on the green LED when it does so!
Hunch meets Quora for the enterprise
Incidentally, I had more time this weekend and found that it gets a lot easier if I use a more suitable algorithm. Considering it as a S-M problem only makes things more complex, because there can be ties (which kills the nice algorithm for solving these) while introducing more complexity than is necessary, given that there's a single cost to be maximized, rather than two distinct preference lists.

Seems like I should have been doing it as an A problem, where you can just use the H algorithm. So I want to say thanks to the guys who posted the challenge: it was a good excuse to teach myself some combinatorial algorithms.

Lest anyone wonder, I'm using those weird abbreviations so as not to spoil the problem. Figuring out which algorithms to use is half the fun and I read about quite a few different types of problems before figuring out which was the most suitable. I'd hate to deny anyone else the same learning experience.
"2. When it comes to contrast: go big or go home!"

background-color: #F7F2DD;
color: #4F5354;

Uh huh.
Please fix the grammatical mistakes on your blog post.
Hm, I didn't feel like giving *$ my email.
But now that I tried it it says: "Please select a state or province." (I cant find anything in this list that is not US/Can) and "Please enter a ZIP Code at least 5 characters long" (we just have 4 digits). They just don't want my money..
http://scene.org/
Small bit of help here:

It turns out the magic word for finding short term places in SF is to search "furnished apartments" in yelp or google rather than "short term apartments," even if you could care less about furnishings.

Secondly, consider Berkeley or some part outside of SF that isn't as strict on credit checks/salary etc. The rent is also much cheaper, and you still have access to the city via BART.

Thirdly, use http://www.mapthatpad.com/ to keep a handle of all your apartment leads through craigslist. Lots of landlords are flakes and repost, or don't get back to you.

Lastly, start networking at places like ttps://www.noisebridge.net and ask around about 'hacker houses' that are common in SF, but not necessarily found by googling.
Actually, had you bothered to watch to the end of that episode, the point they made was about HOW a car is driven and now WHAT car you drive.

They drove the Prius as fast as it would go, because someone who buys a Prius will do that and at that speed it would be less efficient than an M3 which is the "sports car" you mention.

And I agree with that point. If I flog my Civic, it'll return much smaller mileage than if I drive carefully and efficiently. So, again, Top Gear's point is proven in that, people aren't willing to think critically and live in a reality.
Europe's tech entrepreneurs: Blooming
Show HN: Two line ruby quine
Thought you might like this. This Ruby program makes an exact copy of itself.

c = "File.open('new.rb', 'w') {|f| f.write('c = ' + c.inspect + '\neval c') }"

eval c
While the new design is undoubtedly prettier I'd wait to call it a success and see if it actually works better, because I kinda feel like the old design was better in the functionality department. Here's a couple reasons why:

1. It's very de auteur. If you watch it in contrast with every other Mike Kus design as beautiful and awesome they are you'll see that this design is not that original and looks just every other Mike Kus design.
2. The mobile app looks like a giant bueautiful useless splash screen. It has a lot more graphics and details and yet it conveys a lot less information that the 'before' design. For starters, that the damn button is clickable and it will redeem something from Mario's Pizzeria.

Or am I just becoming an old cranky designer?
It's ironic that the main method for sharing our favorite demos today is a youtube link.
According to the article, they're not shorting the LED itself but poking a different wire which activates the remote-open-without-code system.

Which, hey, that's convenient.
As you grow the service, you'll have the opportunity to dramatically reduce costs. You can buy candy in bulk, have it shipped by the wholesalers directly to the US, and so on - there's no reason your costs shouldn't be just a few dollars (for shipping) more than domestic candy prices, in sufficient quantities. After all, most domestic candy is made overseas anyway. :)

In the interim, can I suggest the following for your customers grouped in a single country (I'm using the example of the USA since that's what I know best):

- Find a friend in the states

- Set the boxes up so they're ready to ship from your friend's city to the subscribers' destination (you can do this with USPS online printable mailers in the states)

- Ship them all in one big box to your friend

- Have your friend open the big box and dump the contents directly in the outgoing mail

I think this would save dramatically on postage.
Flash required
This actually looks like a pretty effective interface for users who are willing to be trained for months. Think about it: after you are trained, every piece of information is just one glance away and every action is just one button click away.

Reminds me of the often-told story about Apollo 12 and how a little-known switch resolved an electrical issue that threatened the entire mission, though in that case it was a person on the ground who instructed an astronaut what to do. The following four-minute clip is from the documentary "Failure Is Not An Option."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWQIryll8y8
You know that the Turning machine is the ultimate abstraction in CS right?
But stop watching 15 minutes before the end. The end of the movie totally countered everything they were trying to say in the rest of movie, IMO.
You might think that this initial bias wouldn't help much in the end because the buyer would proceed to evaluate both startups and pick the one they thought was better. However, the bias isn't easily severable.

Again, I don't have any evidence beyond the anecdotal, but it's not even funny how critical a role this seemingly tenuous bias can play in large enterprise sales (where competing vendors offer nearly identical products / services). Makes a solid case (if you buy into the intuition, that is) for backing up an aggressive sales strategy with a well rounded marketing effort.
I wouldn't. I use trunk.ly for keeping tabs on the links I post to various sites, that's about all I need.
Programming Pearls is another excellent book in this realm.

http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Pearls-2nd-Jon-Bentley/dp/...
Right. You'll appreciate that I'm working on an entirely different model for generating income. Something about the way personal data gets crawled in the name of targeted advertising annoys me and you, I'm sure.

Won't be using #1 since I don't see FB as the solid rock is seems to be. Orkut tanked. Myspace died. FB is mortal, too.

I like #2 & #3. First, I must decide which schools to launch at and why. How am I to decide which locations are best for solid, explosive growth?

Another problem: Should I target HS students who are likely newer to FB or University students who have been on FB for years and have many friends?
Buy a homeless person a coffee this winter and have a chat with them.
How about putting everything in units of coffee? "There is at least 1 coffee on me" etc. "5 coffees were just added to me". This might take the emphasis off the amount of money on the card and onto the giving and receiving of coffee.
If you accept those constraints which you readily understand and discard those which require great discipline to master, you are unlikely to make informed decisions about your software's architecture.
Previous submission to HN:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2835059

(I found this with the search box at the bottom of most HN pages.)
Well, it's already prohibitively expensive to get patents all over the world, and -- People keep forgetting that -- a patent is an offensive measure - it gives you the right to sue and litigate, but not much else! If you don't have the money to litigate, your patent is already worthless. In some countries, litigation is cheap; but in the US, you need $200k-$500k available to have a chance to enforce your patents.

Applying for a multiple jurisdiction patent (in e.g. US, Europe and japan - which for example still doesn't let you enforce in Russia, Mexico and Switzerland) already costs upward of $50k
tl;dr

Make sure you use integration tests (or a smoke test) as mocking away the entire environment will hide environmental and system errors when you actually run things.
I would just like to clarify for people that it doesn't monitor links you send out. It's the opposite, it ranks links that people are tweeting and appearing in your Twitter timeline.
But some hobbyists /want/ to worry about it. Exhibit 1: the Fignition (http://sites.google.com/site/libby8dev/fignition)
Facebook: we have proof Ceglia’s contract is a forgery
The companies that died so that Groupon could live
1. Very tired of seeing this float around. I expect more from HN. (Here come the downvotes. So be it.)

2. This is a terrible, terrible idea. If you've got a smartphone, you'd just shop online. Maybe while you're riding the train.

3. It's fake? That would make so much more sense.
Of course, I understand your hate for this concept - I would hate me too if I was doing this in the name of spam.

I'm not. I'm simply searching for a way to indicate that a user is in my contact list before they've actually signed up and added data their profile. Maybe "seeding" is the wrong term.
Google deleted my Google Voice number. Need help getting it back
What's the Difference between AAA and AA+?
In this debate in particular, I think it's critically important to distinguish between "dollars", a currency controlled by the US government, and "wealth", the real things those dollars can buy. As has been pointed out, nobody denies that technically the US can spin up the printing presses and make as many dollars as it wants. However, even ignoring the other catastrophic consequences that would have, there's also the considerations of the real wealth consequences we're committing to. It isn't just "lots of money", it's also things like committing real people to build real facilities so that other real people will take care of the real old people living in those facilities for years at a time on the government's dime. To exaggerate for clarity, we can't afford to have an economy in which everybody is dedicated either to caring for old people, treating old people, or supporting those who do. Somebody's actually got to be able to produce something to feed the economy. Obviously we can't get to this point, but it's not clear how much of our real economy can actually be dedicated to these things, because the support networks can end up being a lot deeper than surface intuition would expect. Studying modern military logistics can be very helpful; in particular, look for the statistics about how many support personnel there are per front-line soldier doing the "actual" military work, and apply the lessons to the "real" economy.
... Or a paper clip.
"Please select a state or a province"
I selected "Armed Forces Europe" ;)
Interesting. With grep you need at least something to search (one argument), don't you? If you don't provide another argument to say "where", it reads from standard input (as most unix commands).

But you already know that because you're using it that way with cat. How can you don't remember then the order of the arguments?
Just a quick note. Make sure your VPS is Xen/KVM/Vmware and not OpenVZ or some other container based virtualization if you want to use OpenVPN since it needs access to tun/tap devices. On OpenVZ based virtual machines, the administrator has to specifically grant you that access, which might not be possible on a $1/month machine.
In most (all?) US cities, it is illegal to fill other peoples' parking meters

Is that true? A quick search brings up http://theexpiredmeter.com/2009/04/parking-ticket-geek-arres... , which suggests that, at the very least, it's legal in Chicago.
Decent article, but I guess I'll weigh in on the counter-points:

1. Uninformed consumers returning devices isn't unique to Android Tablets. It happens in basically every corner of the market. People buy Macs and wonder why their Windows apps don't work on them. There's really not much you can change about that, aside from trying to educate them slightly in whatever form of advertisement you have. I do think all the commercials for Android Tablets are terrible though. The iPad's wins by a landslide.

2. 16:9 vs 4:3 is really just personal preference. There are some apps that I really enjoy the 16:9 ratio for (like movies, books, and general internet browsing). For others, yes it does feel a bit wide or tall at times. This becomes a non-issue if you decide to go for a 7-inch tablet though, which I believe 3.2 just introduced support for.

3. There's a "Featured Tablet" application section on the market blatantly visible the first time you start the application. Unfortunately that's about where it ends, as there's no way to tell if an application is tablet-ready from its details page, and no way to filter for tablet-ready apps when doing a search. It's been said before, but the Market really needs an overhaul. I have noticed apps start to name themselves "HD" if they're tablet-ready, but that's not really consistent or a standard at this point.

4. Honeycomb's 3.2 version that released this past month now has the "app zooming" feature the author described missing.

5. It's been said before, but I'll repeat it here: the lack of tablet-ready apps is really just a matter of time. People tend to forget that it took iPad several months to get a decent selection of apps optimized for that screen size. This summer a good number started cropping up on the Market for Android, and now that more tablets are landing in the hands of developers (like the Transformer and Galaxy Tab), we'll no doubt see a ton of apps begin to flood us come Winter.
The overarching point is that there aren't recharging stations as ubiquitous as the fuel pumps and that it takes anywhere between 30 minutes and 12 hours to recharge the batteries. Was the point proven clumsily, yes, it's Top Gear, they're nothing if not clumsy especially Jeremy Clarkson.

The point still stands. Also note that Nissan itself says that repeated fast charging of the Leaf's battery will cause it to be unable to hold a full charge. The fast charge option being the 30 minute, 80% charge option which is the fastest you can charge a currently-in-production electric vehicle.

These are the facts and there's no agreeing or disagreeing with them. Top Gear presented them in a clumsy way, but they're still facts.