skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Hi there,

You've done some nice work on the project. Since I follow most showHN posts, I think I am seeing this submission 4-5th time in last 1 and a half month with different titles. I tried to search for previous submissions but seems like they were taken down later.

Please don't get me wrong, I wish best of luck to this startup, but would you really still call it a 'weekend project'? I think not.
The brainstorming and initial reaction points are two points I actually forgot to make in the blog post. Thanks!

Regarding brainstorming, I've found that I tend to get locked into one line of thinking when brainstorming domains, and the workers don't do that (since they're all different people). As a result, even if the specific proposal by a worker isn't great, they're often on to an interesting line of domains that I can continue myself.

Regarding initial reaction, I found that the process of honing a description to get a good name was actually really similar to honing a pitch describing a company. When the workers didn't get the concept, they could not produce good names. Further, the best descriptions start to sound like what-problem-does-this-solve customer-based pitches for websites.
Kinda makes me wonder how easy it'd be to use them with c# and other .net languages, for anyone who was coming over from Python and already comfortable with those libs.
While being deprecated and non-standard, the Google Gears version of offline Gmail was much better than this.
Ask HN: Looking for a good short web pub platform.
I'm a big fan of http://tidypub.org/, but I'd like the option to add links, and maybe an image.

What are your favorites?

Thanks in advance.
Yeah, my wife is pregnant with our first baby - due first week in January. Absolutely no way I'm moving.
They aren't big enough to have a measurable influence on the overall market.
"If you really want comments, let someone like Disqus or Intense Debate handle it. Pretty much any dynamic feature you need can be outsourced."

If you are fine with your comments residing somewhere else, yes. I usually prefer to have them with me and to have them search engine indexable (that's free content created from users for me)
Well written and presented. Important not to miss out his closing comment:

"For teams that have to do formal releases on a longer term interval (a few weeks to a few months between releases), and be able to do hot-fixes and maintenance branches and other things that arise from shipping so infrequently, git-flow makes sense and I would highly advocate it’s use.

For teams that have set up a culture of shipping, who push to production every day, who are constantly testing and deploying, I would advocate picking something simpler like GitHub Flow."

So if you fall in the second category, this is a read for you.
Ask What Your Database Can Do for Your Country
I think you have it backwards. What would happen if car companies also owned the roads, and each brand of car could only be driven on the corresponding roads?
I've been introducing JVM practices to a ruby shop lately, and I felt that Scala was the easier langauge to introduce.

If I were to have total freedom in my choice, I really don't know where I would fall. Scala has some _amazing_ libraries and ensime for emacs is incredible, but its project workflow is almost humorously bad (and I am not a fan of where SBT is going, to the point where I am using raw pom files for project management). Clojure has Leiningen, which is much better to work with, but its library space is mixed in quality and its java interface is still worse than Scala's (and going back from Java to Clojure? Getting better, still harder). Lisp still sings to me, but when you're working with a lot of Java libraries, your freedom to really leverage lisp is blocked somewhat.

So I dunno how I'd come down, now. I like both, I dislike both. Probably depends on my mood that day. I do think that _both_ of those two languages stands pre-eminent for the kinds of systems and platform work I do. It's also easy to hire java folks and train them in; a freedom that isn't offered by other (arguably, always arguably) more powerful languages for this domain like Erlang or Haskell. Given the incredibly competitive hiring environment today, I must grudgingly give them points for that.
I thought they did something similar three years ago, but it didn't get traction and they sunset it. It makes a lot of sense, maybe the market is ready for it now.
She did mention that Pulse only pays for code or projects that would be used in production. Agreed, paying people for all interviews would not scale. :)
I agree. Furthermore, offline google apps don't work if you use multiple sign-in
I think people are too quick to throw out Apache + mod_php. It remains the defacto deployment environment for most open source PHP apps, which means that it is the best understood and best supported. For example, if you deploy using Apache, you don't have to worry about converting .htaccess rules that wordpress and some caching plugins create into an Nginx equivalent.

People bitch a lot about the memory consumption of apache, but it's often overstated. They add up the resident set for each individual apache process and come up with a huge number, missing the fact that a significant amount is actually shared between processes.

Apache's memory consumption problems have more to do with how it handles clients. Each client ties up a worker process for the entire duration of a request, or beyond if keepalives are enabled (as they should be). That means that the memory overhead of the PHP interpreter is locked up doing nothing after the page is generated while it's being fed to the client. Even worse, that overhead is incurred while transmitting a static file.

I use nginx as a reverse proxy to Apache. It lets me deploy PHP apps easily and efficiently. Apache returns the dynamic and static requests as quickly as it can and moves on to the next request. Nginx buffers the result from apache and efficiently manages returning the data to all the clients. I used to have Nginx serve the static files directly, which is more efficient, but added complexity to my config. I chose simplicity.

A PHP opcode cache, like APC, is also a big win, because it cuts the overhead of parsing and loading the PHP source files. I'm not convinced of the value of other caching for most uses. CPU time usually isn't the scarce resource, RAM is. The DB and filesystem cache are already trying to keep needed data in RAM. Adding more caching layers generally means more copies of the same data in different forms, which means less of the underlying data fits in RAM.
Having been on both sides of table this process makes more sense than a traditional white board coding problems. In regular interviews one always asks set of known problems so there is a good chance that candidate already prepared for these problems. In a company that I worked for we had a 2-3 day boot camp to hire usually these are new grads so most of the time they are ok with the lengthy process. We used to give them set of projects and allow them to interact with each other and use google to research etc.. .Although this process was good we couldn't sustain as the company grew.
There can be, in principle, very little "real competition" in the wireless space. See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2946463

Edit: I'm curious why this comment was downvoted. I'm new here and am trying to understand the policy.
Database.com is Open for Business
I definitely understand the resistance to this merger, especially on Dan Hesse's part, but lets step back and think about what a "big two" would look like (Don't we live in a free-market?). A Verizon, AT&T dominated market is still going to drive innovation and maybe even more important an AT&T merger with T-Mobile will help to improve the quality of their service for their customers. As an AT&T customer myself, I'm all for it. One thing I know for sure; $7 Billion in failure is going to drive AT&T to do what it takes to make this happen ($3 billion breakup fee in cash an additional $3 to $4 billion in spectrum and services).
I don't understand this at all. There's no direct bribing because of the ramifications, but there is a lot of post-office job offer and campaign contribution gamesmanship, as everyone recognizes. However, I'm not sure where you're drawing your data from. Could you enlighten me? My anecdotal perception is that the "required" donations operate largely the same between parties. As per data compiled by the reputable OpenSecrets, of the top contributing organizations from 1989-2010, most of them donate strongly to Democratic candidates (this I assume would be the amounts used to "bribe" politicians).[1] Regardless of this fact, I still don't see an analogy between a flip-flop vote (I don't know the vote numbers, so that phrasing might not be true) on TARP by the Republicans (while I don't know numbers, as I recall, the Democrats also voted heavily against a "bailout" package before voting for it) and the way that AT&T might use political clout to push through this merger.

[1] http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/list.php

EDIT: Interesting to note, however, that AT&T is third on the list of all time donors and on the fence for Dem/Rep support. If the justice department wasn't full of appointments or hires as opposed to elected officials, this could strongly weaken the likely outcome of this suit. In any case, will be interesting to note the effect in upcoming elections that this has on AT&T's donation patterns.
Boost is a brand-name under Sprint. So is Virgin Mobile in the US, and a couple of other mini-brands as far as I know...
I think you're mistaking "customer desires" and "customer experience". What Jobs is referring to is, what does the customer need, not what they want.

This requires far more than polling users and focus studies. It requires a deep conceptual understanding of what drives your target market (often not your current customers!) and how to get there.

Understanding the Kano model allows you to focus on the "right" features: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Kano_model
I don't get what you're saying. If the copyright holder releases something under an open source license, then he is not going to sue you for doing precisely what the license is mean to facilitate.

It would only be "illegal" if if it's against the law to write a program and reveal its source code, and that would simply be non-sensical.
I would have thought it's best features are that it's fast and clutter free compared to other browsers. Whether chrome updated every 5 minutes silently in the background or never updated at all would not make a difference to me.
Yes, this has been submitted a few times. And I'm finally getting the useful feedback that I respect HN readers for. Maybe what you see as spam is what I see as persistence. But I think a lot of getting good feedback from HN is submitting at the right time with the right title so your submission doesn't die on the vine so to speak.
Part of the point of the small initial investment is to force companies to be thrifty and resourceful. At this stage you are not hiring salaried employees. You are compensating in equity, deferred payments, recognition, favors, etc.
Wow, a JavaScript MVC application book with no SproutCore coverage whatsoever.

If anyone needed proof that SproutCore has failed to launch, this is it.
I disagree, Microsoft seems to be making a "shell" that is completely separate from the traditional desktop while OS X integrates the two together.
> they are the solution to many of most onerous problems with wireless service today

We disagree with what is the most onerous problem with wireless service today. The most onerous problem with wireless service today is carriers promising things that they can't deliver, then finding ways to up-charge their customers for features that were originally promised.
I'm not sure what that's in response to.
The introduction is hilarious.
Anecdotally, there are lots of very happy T-Mobile customers (I'm one of them in Minneapolis). I love their prices, service, and what they allow me to do with my phone (in comparison with other carriers). I was also very unhappy with the potential merger with AT&T and have a long, negative past with them that included me filing complaints with the MN Attorney General and the Better Business Bureau. I've sworn never to go back to them again, and if T-Mobile is consumed by them, I'll have to go to Sprint or Verizon, both of which are much more expensive than T-Mobile is now.

If the acquisition moves forward, it definitely has a significant impact on the level of competition in the mobile market.
Nice, I keep finding myself pressing ctrl-T when I'm using putty. Now hopefully will actually do something.
A $40 Billion Start-up
SSL Required for Twitter Streaming API by End of Month
As is vimperator and pentadactyl.
As did Viaweb.
In a tech company a marketer faces too many challenges
Do you guys know of anything that is $3 I can buy to qualify for free shipping?
Included in the "non-monetary benefits", T-Mobile would receive access to certain AT&T spectrum (it actually reads as if AT&T would simply have to hand it over)...

This shared spectrum is something that has been sorely lacking in the U.S. and has been terrible for the consumer -- government granted monopolies are auctioned off to single companies and most devices will only work in a single company's spectrum band, however, if the spectrum T-Mobile gets is in the LTE band, this would have a significant positive impact on their service quality.
No it does not. The license only applies to other people. As the copyright holder the choice of license does not bind you in anyway; this is why it is possible to release something under multiple licenses (say GPL & BSD), provided that you fully own the copyright. The GPL does bind the behavior of others, but only to assure reciprocity. It assures that corporations cannot freeload off your efforts without contributing back.
I don't think that's quite correct. IonMonkey also uses an SSA-based intermediate representation, and Crankshaft does generate type specialized code (as does TraceMonkey).

The big thing that IonMonkey is adding is type inference through static analysis, which is a big deal for JavaScript.
Top Ten Annoying Memes in Startup Land
There are obvious disanalogies, but if the options are between several competing companies with their own roads and cars, and having only one or two companies that collectively control all the roads and all the cars, the former is still better.

At the moment, those are the options on the table -- throwing our mobile infrtastructure out and starting over with a clean slate is not something practically achievable.
Good point. An unfortunate casualty. It might be possible to augment the statically generated blog posts with data via the comment providers' APIs periodically.
I use http://thesixtyone.com a lot. They have quite nice game mechanics, which are just nicely done and not annoying at all.

But of course, the main thing that keeps me on that site is good new music. I'll give your site a spin (ha!) and see how it stacks up.
I just run the Canary build and get auto-updated nightly. Until Google does something egregious, why not just help them build a great browser as quickly as possible?

Google, and now Mozilla too, is essentially crowd-sourcing, hopefully throwing a few million extra eyes on the problem.
Not only do I use Python on Windows, I use python at my job at Microsoft.
Which is not turing complete. You need database specific extensions to get that.

Edit: Also, not all databases follow the standard very closely
I lot of people share that opinion; nevertheless, I disagree with it.

There's a lot of thinking relating to design on the web that doesn't have anything to do with code. Big picture strategy, overall user experience, effective use of visual language, and a litany of other things are complex areas deserving the attention of the designer.

We hire smart people to think about design, and other smart people to worry about code. This works very well.

Some purists believe you need to distill a pursuit down to its base elements, in order to consider yourself a master. While I appreciate the noble sentiment behind such notions, I believe it to be flawed. For example, I knew one fellow in art school who insisted on grinding down pigment and making his own paint before he'd touch brush to canvas. The unfortunate part for him, was that all the time he put into this kept him from doing the important part: making great paintings.

A good interaction designer needs to understand the limitations and possibilities of code. They don't need to be a master of it, so long as they work with someone who does.

A reasonable comparison would be Peter Jackson. He makes great movies, because he hires individuals with great talent in their respective fields; then he concentrates on the "movie making" part. My hunch is that if he were to stitch together each garment for the film, he'd never finish a production.

The irony in my arguments is that they are, in ways, as impassioned as Andy's. Nevertheless, I believe mine have less manipulative ends in mind. My perspective on this one is largely informed by some of the (many) unsuccessful applicants who wish to work at our agency. The vast majority try to do everything, and therefore excel at nothing; I'd love to see more of those folks focus, and become really good at one thing.
Gmail is clearly more of a beta than a functional product (namely attachements don't seem to work), but the biggest question/implication of this change I see is evaporation of any business model (as in 'the ads are gone').

Besides that - I like the UI a lot, but for any offline access to make sens it has to be rock solid (which this obviously isn't).
I can vouch for that. I've had vanilla WP die on me from the gentle load that comes with a link going on HN. I assumed it was performant out of the box ... learned my lesson!
Since it's firefox we're talking about, this will likely (positively) impact the browser's own chrome and any extension you've installed, as well as in-page javascript.
Thanks for the links. From reading the release notes, it looks like there's a lot of changes around the behavior of creating/updating/destroying through active record associations - other than the release notes is there anywhere else that has a good writeup of these changes?
> The most onerous problem with wireless service today is carriers promising things that they can't deliver, then finding ways to up-charge their customers for features that were originally promised.

In my opinion these are symptoms of the REAL problem: telecos overcommit to investment in wireless infrastructure, then under-deliver every single time. Afterwards, they use non-sequiturs (iPhone customers keep us from investing! or we want to roll out 4G!) for what is obviously bean-maximizing behavior.
BitTorrent Grandma Was Wrongfully Accused, Lawyer Admits
Are you arguing in favor of public ownership of cell towers or are you arguing for Toyota ownership of the roadway system? I can't tell which.
Very inspirational. If you're a startup founder/entrepreneur, worth your time to read fully.

Reading from beginning to end, I found the last paragraph powerfully moving. (Skipping to the end won't work - that last short para builds on everything before.)
Brentano Fabrics at Unicahome
Chrome saves a copy of the last version, so if an update breaks something there is something to easily rollback to, even without network access. The updates are also impressively small, thanks to Courgette.
All fair points. Given the circumstances it was great, but it doesn't scale. The candidate worked as a contractor and wanted to transition to a full time position.
I was with Att before it became Cingular, and stayed with them through the transition back to being called Att. I lost plan features (device replacement insurance, competitive sms rates, etc.) and suffered rate increases both times the company restructured.

My company offers iPhones, so I really only keep a non-business cell for sms and an occasional call. So far, T-mobile has been great for that (in Houston), and I am confident my monthly price would increase - perhaps even double - under Att.
Programmers Survey
Con man gains trust and potentially swindles entire bitcoin community
IBM Builds Biggest Data Drive Ever
The problem is, patents are not a repository for searching for solutions and solving problems. If you were to do so, you open yourself for further liability down the road. Not only that, you then harm the person who discovers the same solution independently, even though, your patent did not help them in anyway.
When I was 5, I dreamt of owning a warehouse
in an offline mode how would you monetise offline ad clicks? google's business model is based on ctr not cpm. are you thinking of caching ads/pages too?
I was specifically referring to their installation of rootkits on consumer PCs through the Sony BMG CD channel. Also, their attitude about it. From Wikipedia:

> Thomas Hesse, Sony BMG's Global Digital Business President, told reporter Neda Ulaby, "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Did you downvote my reply, and if so, may I ask why?
There's only one downside to the tile interfaces: many of the apps don't let you customize what gets shown. Recent "issues" with my Windows Phone 7:

- Wonder what all the fuss in that younger generation is about and take advantage of your Zune Pass? Justin Bieber's face is now staring up at you.

- You and the wife decide to try something "fun" and capture the moment? Yeah, that's going to be hanging out front and center on your phone. Hope there's nobody around next time you check for new mail!

I've actually moved both music and photos off of the start screen because of this issue. And I assume there are other apps (i.e. do you really want people to know how many hours you've spent playing Angry Birds?) where this will happen to people as well...
I think the enterprise would benefit greatly from auto-updating. How many enterprise users today are stuck using insecure browsers?
The lack of a right mouse button is my biggest Mac pet peeve (yes, I know you can gesture on, but I find I often screw up the gesture).
Blogger’s fresh new look
Avionics simulation software.
He had my attention until he brought up Front Row.