skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
HP is so far from the founders' ethos that hearing people talk about the old days is like looking at pictures of Beirut before the civil war. I have friends who still work for HP, and it's an amazingly toxic environment with absolutely no concern for good engineering or quality products. I honestly think Fiorina and Hurd would have been delighted if they had the ability to fire every engineer in HP and outsource all product development to China.
I only recently started learning HTML and CSS so I was wondering if there is a good resource for learning how to use grids.

I don't exactly understand how to use grids (or even why). Is it for visual consistency or is there an underlying usability/maintainability benefit to using grids?
Wow nice, great to see them writing off outdated browsers.
fluff article, no description of the so-called 'coding obsession'. All this article says is he had a hit poker app, and then sold it and squandered the money. The end.
Yeah, direct radio communication beats an ad-hoc WiFi network anyday but a solution that you have got beats one that you don't have. And WiFi-enabled stuff (laptops, smartphones and who knows what else) is much more ubiquitous than amateur radio gear. The solution in the article is not meant to replace radio but to work when you don't have one.
I read that too. I just don't believe it. I think a two wing version with the same dihedral angle would be just as stable. Their design might eliminate the "complexity" of one motor though maybe they can do two wings and one motor. Unclear whether the difficulty in controlling it (which they also mention) is worth the tradeoff. There is the gee whiz factor though.
For a developer like me, that doesn't have a lot of time to sharpen UI skills, this is amazing.
If the owners didn't take ~700 million of the table from the last rounds of founding, groupon would be in a better financial situation than they are today.
NOKIA 500 LATEST TOUCHSCREEN SMARTPHONE AT ECONOMICAL PRICE FEATURES
I guess if you use a gmail account, a g+ account or some other google account all the tracking stuff can be connected to you.
I've known Pat Maddox for a very long time now -- I'm glad to see his stuff up on Hacker News. I think he is incredibly bright.

I think a lot of people tend to scoff at products that only make $2500/mo -- every startup is aiming for that billion dollar valuation. But given that he only had to put in 2-3 hrs a week in maintenance, he was really making something like $850-1250 / hr -- which is a rate most people would kill for.

As he mentions, with that sort of business leverage, he could have worked on other projects and just floated off the cash from his original business. Sure, it wasn't going to make him "rich" -- but it was at least a somewhat stable asset (unlike the car he bought).

I think a lot of people overlook these smaller, niche opportunities -- and I think there is a lot of money to be made there.
Is A Thunderous Flock Of Black Swans Imminent
When designing things, I like to make a few opinionated decisions. Just like we don't support IE6/IE7, we don't bend over backwards for users with JavaScript disabled.

Perhaps my post should be taken with a grain of salt if developing for mobile platforms, where sending unnecessary data to the user is a real concern. Leaving an extra input element on the page here or there likely won't affect the desktop experience, though.

Thanks you for taking the time to respond! Critical thought makes us all better off.
(This is different from worrying about pages that “degrade gracefully” is a terrible idead in my opinion. If you’re not using JavaScript, you’re not using the web. Special considerations shouldn’t be made for you.)

That's the full quote. And I agree.

Whatever your business is, its doubtful that supporting browsers with Javascript disabled would help.

"Degrade gracefully" - at least to the extremes (no js, no css) is just bragging rights / pride for developers. I can't imagine a business scenario where this would be a legitimate requirement.
Fired Software Engineer Hacks Employer’s System
A fired Software Engineer gets revenge by hacking his former employer!
It's just a convention to make it easier to be consistent, simplify your markup, and make development easier. Having a grid with a few defined classes for fitting into that grid is much simpler than building each page from the ground up. They also act as a shortcut for screen resolution compatibility. See http://lessframework.com/ for an example (there are other frameworks, but Less is just the one I remember right now).
YouTube Hangouts: Google+’s secret weapon against Facebook
All it needs is for that grid to be responsive using CSS media queries, and that will probably be the last CSS toolkit I'll ever need. I have my own internal boilerplate one that I use, but it's nowhere near as refined.

Bravo to the Twitter dev(s) responsible for this. You probably just saved me hundreds of hours of future work and frustration.
I agree, I have never quite understood this meme of mocking hipster stereotypes. It's mean-spirited and in most cases very hypocritical.
Is how this works, and its limitations, explained in the audio track? Because some of us are deaf.
Did groupon start in chicago or boston. The article says boston, but I thought it was chicago ...
Nice work and thanks for contributing. Look forward to trying this out on a future project I'm working on.
Once you get into HTML and CSS you'll probably find that modular layouts are inescabaple, and with those naturally come grids. They allow you to swap out certain parts of your site and keep others consistent based on the content being displayed, and that just results in visual consistency.
This seem like a perfect addition to a hackathon toolkit :) I'll definitely use it.

Random rant: Why do they call it "Twitter bootstrap"? IMO that kind of association is a little vain. Rails isn't called 'Ruby on 37Signals'. Besides, it's slightly confusing because it seems to have little to do with Twitter.
That's only weird to those who think open standards to be
the only viable standard.

Open standards are the only viable standard if you want adaptable, future-oriented and collaborative software ecosystems as well as likewise markets. You simply cannot guarantee or even create these circumstances with standards that are set by a single corporation (or worse, a trust) - which is only logical because they were designed to do the exact opposite ('defective by design').

MS Office is the de facto standard

I wasn't arguing that. My point is that this is bad and needs to be replaced.

your data is not vendor-locked when using it

I think you somewhat misunderstand the term 'vendor-lock'. Sure, you can open Office files with other programs and convert them into open file formats, such as odt.

This is, however, mostly thanks to people reverse engineering Microsoft's original binary file formats, and MS was not really happy about this to begin with. If they could have prevented it, they would have done so (and they tried). Even the newer OOXML is not entirely documented and prevents free implementations due to patents (which, no matter what Microsoft may claim, is the exact opposite of an open standard).

Also, while this conversion might work fine for simple, small documents (or other files), the more complex and larger your filed become the more impossible it becomes to convert without a major hassle, which brings us back to your misunderstanding of 'vendor-lock'. The terms doesn't necessarily mean that it's impossible to switch to alternatives, but also applies when measures are taken to make it as hard as possible to switch without investing heavily in time and money.

As a side note, I am not attacking MS Office specifically. It's just the best example for showing all that is wrong with closed standards and proprietary file formats.
Groupon's cash flow is just like any other business: it buys merchandise (coupons) from vendors (on a net 60 basis), marks it up and sells it to consumers. How is that a ponzi scheme? I think you might be confused since many news outlets are making it sound like today's Groupon buyer's are funding yesterday's vendors in some sort of mischievous way. But that's how all businesses work.
Foursquare now lets you Check-in to Events
I'm always happy when I see a big company releasing really nice stuff as free software, and that's the case. Congrats Twitter!
What are the best ways for building critical mass of a new q&a site?
Any other good ideas?
In reply to your last line: http://vimeo.com/26336202
Nokia, RIM and Samsung seem pretty committed to their choice of OS. Rumors of Amazon tablets running Android keep surfacing but Amazon and Google are not exactly friends - Android is likely the least painful OS choice. They could buy WebOS and be free of Google and avoid developing their own OS from scratch.

If you think about all the services Amazon offers they're basically just an OS and some hardware away from being a "full stack" iOS competitor.
The thing is, most people get into SEO because it's "free traffic" and they're all pitched on how they can start making money in just a few weeks, for free, working an hour a day.

SEO is very much a long term project, so you need to have long term goals in order to truly succeed. I'm close with many affiliates who make a metric shit ton of money with SEO. But that's because they build good sites, they aggressively build links, and they don't fall for all the guru crap that floats all over the internet. And they pick niches that are evergreen and will be around 1, 2, 3+ years from now.

The bottom line is that 99.9% of SEO Experts online don't know a damn thing and simply steal/borrow/copy SEO maxims from others. It's an info circlejerk really.

Any SEO who says spam doesn't work has never spammed, because it does.
Any SEO who says duplicate content doesn't work has never scraped, because dupe content works.

And so on and so on. It's a whole lot of FUD in the industry, FUD that gets newbies really excited and then leaves them wondering why they suck and everyone else is ballin'.
China learns limits of stimulus
You might find this SmashingMagazine article useful http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/04/14/designing-with-gr...

I prefer using the semantic approach to writing CSS using mixins (both Compass and LessCSS have mixin support). That keeps the html markup clean and maintainable.

Also to note, LessCSS (used in Bootstrap) is different from Less Framework (http://lessframework.com/), which is a CSS grid framework.
I feel there is a distinct difference between a "startup" and anything software related that you sell

Like maddox said himself, he had never the intention of running a business, and that's okay, that's perfectly fine, but it's not a startup. I feel lately everything is labelled a startup, while a lot of things could be, it is just not the case as long as you don't treat it like one.
12 NASA Blueprints to Help You Build Your Own Spaceship
I often see simple menus or product lines lauded on HN. I think this is a good example of getting it wrong. What was the bigger mistake? The signage or having bacon in the beans in the first place? I think having bacon in the beans was a bad idea for Chipotle, since customers who want pork flavor can order pork (carnitas), and Chipotle bills itself as paying more attention to the ingredients than its competitors.

I also feel bad for all of the people who are just finding out that they unwittingly consumed bacon.

Edit: I should have been more clear. I think that improving their signage will completely solve the problem. I was just exploring the possibility that having bacon in their beans was inconsistent with the simple design of their restaurant.
Groupon is based in Chicago and Chicago was indeed its first market. Boston, it's second market, gets cited frequently because Groupon itself spotlights it as an example market, possibly because it's a broader proxy than Chicago would be.
Canvas Now Offering Riak Hosting
Who's in?
Chinese team develop fuel cell that can clean water as it generates electricity
Thank you very very much!!
I'm American, whats so bad about it? Was easier to learn than French coming from an English speaking background. Not that I think I'm fluent in either.
Why Leo Apotheker will be fired from Hewlett Packard (February 2011)
A "dollar store" story: http://www.neardeathexperiments.com/smf/index.php?topic=1966...

Short version: on a casual challenge, I assembled a camping/survival ("bug out bag") kit from a dollar store with just $15.

Fun when a store has a broad range of stuff and one wonders "what can I do with pocket change here?"
> Seriously: Android needs to hire a UX designer, although I will say that 3.x is getting much better.

You're not familiar with Matias Duarte then?

http://allthingsd.com/20100527/exclusive-palm-loses-mobile-d...
I actually think this is a valid point. The productivity gains from the lack of goofing off might not, by itself, cancel out the cost of two programmers, but in concert with the other benefits mentioned, like fewer bugs, it could result in a net gain in productivity.
AppStores, in San Francisco, right by Union Square, need a marketing and community management intern, but you can make the roll as developery as you want. A developer evangelist would be hot.

We're a white label application store platform.

We just opened up a spot for an intern. We had two awesome ones from the east coast this summer and they went back to school.

* internship is paid

* a relocation isn't

* it's for the fall semester

* we have a lot of fun (we did Improv Everywhere on Tue, going bowling tonight)

More info and application here:

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/mar/2553730278.html
This is exactly the approach Google and Facebook are taking. Let time tell who is the winner
I love this, good on Twitter for realising this. Making the web more beautiful.
Unfortunately in the enterprise space, competent software isn't necessarily a requirement.
BIM Manager
BIMhub provides building information modeling and BIM manager help. Our Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology has empowered architects and builders with digital tools to carry out a construction project.
([](){})() is now legal C++.
Don't panic! The article isn't about an expiration or termination of the GPLv2 itself. It's about the termination of violator rights after the violator complies with the license.

GPLv2 requires all copyright holders (which is hundreds for Android) to agree to forgive the violator, GPLv3 assumes that the violator will be forgiven after they comply with the license.

Sounds like a good reason to upgrade to v3 to me.
Shipping Container Workshop To Kenya
Howdy,

My friends and I are building a workshop out of a shipping container, and we want Makers' suggestions on equipment.
We'll be sending a 20' shipping container from Austin, Texas to Bungoma, a city in Western Kenya.
The primary goal will be constructing chambers in which we can create biochar ( http://www.re-char.com ), and we want to make the shop as versatile as possible.

Thus far, we've definitively spent ~$8,000 of our $20,000 budget, mainly on a used plasmacam 4'x4' CNC with 2 plasma cutters, and allocated <20% of our space.
Here's our list of some proposed equipment: https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsejLtLc70nwdG5DeVJmOVA4OUxpcXl6alFaNzh5Unc&hl=en_US
What are we missing that we just shouldn't be without?
We'll have access to (dirty) grid power, standard industrial building materials, and (slow, expensive) shipping from the West.

Please add your ideas to the spreadsheet and your broader comments below.
We'll read everything, incorporate the best suggestions, and let you know what our final inventory becomes.
We need to have our container in transit by the end of the month, so don't delay!

Thanks,

Luke
AFAIK there aren't many...the only time I ever encountered anything that was like this was in the higher maths.

Even various systems/enterprise Architecture classes don't quite view the world this way. Sure you start with a high level problem, but very quickly you find yourself building up a solution rather than functionally decomposing the problem down to easily solvable atoms.

For example:

Problem: "Design an enterprise system for a company that meets these high level abstract goals"

Solution: Fill out the TOGAF framework.
Any clue what the browser compatibility is like, and how well it holds together in older browsers?

All they say is "only modern browsers in mind" -- but I see no details about that.

If it holds together sans pretty effects that's fine.
Well its a good thing $810M of their $946M round paid out the founders and early investors. Now no one but the late round VC's and the 5000 employees get stuck holding the bag if this thing implodes.

This is the problem with those early payouts (I don't mind these in theory but this case was egregious). There's not a lot of incentive anymore for the people running the company to do anything but what they're currently doing. They've already had their exit.
This is fantastic. Google created a stylesheet like this once, a while ago, that was extremely lacking when it came to real-world actions and layout. This is incredible.
Always cool to know too is acceptance of H1B
I think you are taking it way too literally and narrow. I might not have chosen to work at this specific customer project if they wouldn't pay ;), but I would definitely program in my spare time if I had a non programming job. So, fo me, I do for the living what I would do for free anyway.
Burnout is an unconscious phenomena - you don't realize you're burning out while you're doing it, and in fact it often feels quite exhilarating. It's pretty easy to be making 300k and suddenly find you just can't perform the job duties that net you that 300k. It's not a matter of choice, determination, or coping, it's a matter of your brain refusing to do the things it needs to do.
http://www.supergeorge.com/
I don't know about that. It clearly borrows/follows their house style. Besides, what else would you call it? Bootstrap Boilerplate? Twitter Boilerplate? Eh.
This looks very cool... we need richer frameworks to standardized web dev!
If they didn't, they may not have had a second chance.
The best resource on why and how to use grids is: http://www.amazon.com/Systems-Graphic-Systeme-Visuele-Gestal...

It's primarily used as an aid for visual layouts, but it took on the other useful qualities everyone else has listed as the grid frameworks got popular in the web.
I've been looking at Blueprint and Skeleton but this looks like a better option.

If I'm not a LESS user am I going to feel second class?
BountyBuy
BountyBuy is a marketplace where you can name your price on anything! By connecting buyers with our community of trusted shoppers, we take the hassle out of finding the best price online. No more wasting time sorting through endless pages -- so you can enjoy the fun of shopping!
The problem with all of these analysises is that they focus on rather meaningless things. Lots of companies operate with bigger debt than assets, as long you have incoming cash you can just get a bridging loan against it.

What profitability comes down to is what the lifetime value of a user (in this case we have two types of users, consumers and providers) is and the cost of acquiring a user.

Nothing else really matters, focusing on the accounting of how a company is handling raising money or managing it's cashflow isn't really that relevant in the long term. Sure it adds risk that the company might have cashflow problems in the short term, but it's the price you pay for agressive growth and presumably the investors are happy with it.

People seem to forget that you could have said the same thing about Amazon, in the early days it was losing money hand over fist because it was using investor money to subsidize product sales. Amazon gambled on the high LTV of customers and it paid off hugely for them.
Foretelling Future Development
This sounds like YQL, e.g. http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/console/?q=show%20tables&....
Starting With an Idea vs. Starting With a Goal
Wow, is it the fact checking department's day off? I mean they actually interviewed the president of Dollar General and yet they haven't figured out the fact that Dollar General is not a dollar store. Guess what Family Dollar is not a Dollar Store either.
I just moved into a 3BR by Glen Park bart for $2800/mo. Technically though, it's excelsior/Mission Terrace, so that excludes me from hip status.

General San Franciscan rule: If your neighborhood has parking, it isn't hip.
I wasn't super serious when I said that but comparing German to English ( not that I am fluent ) I have to say that I think English has a simplistic beauty to it that German can't live up to. Whenever someone asks me to translate even the simplest sentence / idiom into German I end up answering, 'you can't really say it that way in German'. German happens to be very particular about the correct choice of words and won't let just mix a bunch of words together like English does. I'll admit that there is some world-class literature / poetry that benefits tremendously from the depths of the German language but I'm neither a poet nor an author, I'm just in it for the practicality. Horribly off-topic btw.
Not all privacy laws are bullshit...but this one sure seems to be. The "Like" button (and the "1+" button, and the buttons to submit to Reddit, HN, and the like, which would all be covered) are completely optional for the visitor to the site. They don't have to click them unless they want to.

The same argument they are using against these buttons applies to off-site hyperlinks in general. Are those going to be banned in the name of privacy?
I am very much against the idea. I do think there are valuable excercises where you work in a pair to do software design, however the idea of sitting behind the same computer for 2 days with the same person does not sound great. That being said, I am always happy to have 2nd pair of eyes look at some of my code, just not in the moment its being written.

I do like these Shelby guys though, so I would love to hear from them in more detail of how it went?
In my limited experience: no. I'm sorry but $40k pre-tax is not a liveable salary in SF or any medium-->big city.
Company: reco jeans www.recojeans.com

Location: New York City

Relocate?: No

What we do: We make eco-friendly denim jeans for the contemporary market. Our holding company also does other projects too with different markets of denim, including a major web project coming up.

Technologies: Basic development skills (html/css) is a huge plus, but this is not a programming internship. Best fit would be aspiring marketers and possibly writers.

Length of internship: From one one month to as long as you desire.

Compensation: Unpaid, travel stipend, credit.
Take a look at Skeleton. It's created by a guy that works at Twitter and is responsive:

http://www.getskeleton.com/

The HN discussion about it is here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2772316
Killer leverage there. Also: mobile (touchscreen UI) development.
Yeah, the title text should probably read "A new wireless communication system . . . "

When I saw it my first though was "Someone reinvented the walkie talkie?"
I'm not sure what part of the country you are from, but I think this is a regional difference. Here in the midwest it is common to say, "I"m headed to the dollar store" and mean either Family Dollar or Dollar General.
Make Mike Arrington wanna use it. Or Scoble, at least ;)
In a disaster area cellular technology is often spotty due to massive power outages and people clogging the networks. Running ethernet cable to a series of hotspots would be great also, or using RF to propagate signals, but these things take time. If USAR teams have mesh networks built right into their phones I feel this would be extremely useful, especially in push-to-talk situations, receiving emergency notifications (fire/quake/volcano alerts, USAR needs to get out ASAP), comms back to hq etc. For me, this is an exciting and important area that can save lives and property.