skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I think that's not how OP was thinking about it. People may not be able to create a startup--or even think to do so--because someone else's patented product could be unavailable to them (due to monopoly pricing), not because they feared that their final product wouldn't be strongly patentable. The number of people who are prohibited from even being be able to obtain the knowledge to innovate is uncountable.

Of course it's a trade-off between incentivizing innovation on one hand and enabling the spread of knowledge on the other, but needless to say the number of people who didn't create a startup because of patents is inestimable (not inestimably high, just inestimable).
What resource limits The Internet's growth? Human population, perhaps? Since population rises more than linearly, shouldn't internet growth go along with that?
To whom it may inspire
"Mercifully, nobody of character is paying attention. Nobody who matters judges a man by his hair, and nobody who judges a man by his hair matters."

Actually, the evidence overwhelmingly shows that people who matter (including those with "character") do judge others by superficial characteristics such as their hair.
Indeed. Adobe is already making some html5 tools, as well as allowing cross compilation of fla files to swf and html5. They actually want flash to die too, since the patent licensing of SWF is quite expensive, complicated, and restrictive.

Adobe has actually been saying this, too, but no one is listening.
Given that the mean length of a year is 365.2425 days, Office 365 only needs to maintain 99.93% uptime to stay true to its name.
Your article appears to be written in various ways which imply Java is in a bad state. Consider:

What is my client to think? That I have given them a marvellous, well-architected application? Or that years of bolting a feature on here and hacking a workaround there have created a nightmarish miss-mash where the velocity of progress is asymptotically approaching zero?

While not directly applying to Java, I feel the implication here is that Java is in the second category. However, the comparison with Java breaks down. I am sure the Java designers could have cleanly added lambdas in a very short period of time, and all other kinds of exciting features, if they abandoned backwards compatibility. There is a huge difference between modifying an app and a language in use by millions of programmers.

There is an interesting discussion to be had an apps become a "nightmarish mish-mash", and on languages becoming parallelised by backwards compatibility, but I am not sure they are as directly comparable as you wish. However of course, each to their own opinion.
Ethan Marcotte and PPK going back and forth about responsive design? Our children will look back at this post in awe.
I think that he's referring to a quote from Dijkstra: "Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." [1] Said another way: it's just a joke :-).

[1] http://thinkexist.com/quotation/computer_science_is_no_more_...
Adobe finally brings Flash to iPhone and iPad
>What is my client to think?

That you're trying to screw them. They will then proceed to hire someone else who will happily do in a few months what you claimed would take years. It'll probably involve throwing out all your code and starting from scratch in the new programmers favorite language/framework du jour.

To extend concept to programming languages:
When you need / really want a feature and the language is failing to give it to you there's a decent chance you'll throw out the current one and switch to one that will give it to you.
Watch Windows 8 boot in eight seconds, thanks to kernel hibernation
I think it really depends on the app. How long does it take before people get the hang of it? What's the average time it takes for a trial account to convert?
Casting SPELs in Emacs Lisp
But does it work on Safari on iOS?
I think it was Adobe that forgot it was a company that makes tools. They did make it Flash versus HTML5, and are now realizing that they should have been agnostic as a toolmaker.
>In science fiction, the sole purpose of God is to be mocked, criticized or denied.

As a normative statement, that would be debatable.
That's a nice quote, but if you could create a telescope that created more powerful telescopes then it'd be a better analogy.
As others have noted this is perhaps more a hardware issue than software, but it does highlight the real advantage at the core of apple's business; a tight synergy of hardware and software.

Seen elsewhere with improved battery life of the iPhone vs android phones, for example.
Fluff article, really despise these immature "wars" and biased blogs. I own an Android phone, iPad, Touchpad, and a Windows laptop. I use the best technology I can and let results decide my decisions rather than brand loyalty.

The new Media Server is for video content only - your iOS device will still be missing Flash content. Competent websites have already solved this problem. I'm all for HTML5 taking over as long as browser compatibility is maintained and developer tools improve for both designers and developers. For now, Flash wins in the performance, cross-browser compatibility, and developer tools.

http://www.craftymind.com/guimark3/
Is there any chance you'll support Android devices in the future? That was one of the huge selling points of Notifo, that it actually worked on more than just Apple products.
NikeMag Back For The Future
The trouble is that no one's reading books anymore :(
I have two give two huge thumbs up to a few books on that list:

* A Fire Upon the Deep - This book manages to capture both galaxy wide conflict and intense personal narrative in a manner that kept me riveted to the end. That and an extremely unique type of alien life form that gains its personality based upon a telepathic summation of individual consciousness of it's members, made for some really interesting reading.

* The Forever War - Take one part Starship Troopers (the book), add a dash of conscription and another of superluminal travel with full time dilation effects, and you end up with this superb novel. I've read it a few times already because it's so damned good and concise.
I am glad to finally see some competition with the mobile web costs. I have no idea how much it costs the companies for people to be on them, but it seemed like they looked at each other and said 'That company is getting away with charging per gigabyte and having no unlimited internet' and changed over to that. I hope that Sprint does this and the competition between companies drives down the price for these services, or at least brings back unlimited internet.
I think PG wrote the original combover metaphor: http://paulgraham.com/essay.html
Angry Birds was just an example for the level of functionality (graphics, animations etc.).
Ergo: nobody takes any.
Steve states: "objects > functions. At least in the context of getting stuff done in Ruby".

I completely agree that one should write idiomatic code. When you write Haskell, you write idiomatic Haskell. When you write Ruby, you should write idiomatic Ruby. Objects are idiomatic Ruby.
This "everyone" that criticized Flash pre-iPhone were web developers on message boards. Now lay people who are just Apple fanboys are partaking in this silly fight. I absolutely do not remember the level of hatred that exists today (again, as far as I can tell, mostly on Apple-leaning websites) pre-iPhone. But maybe we just have different viewpoints on the history.
I actually think Flash is not entirely bad, it just does not really belong in browsers. As self-contained apps, Flash applications are pretty cool - they are fun and easy to program (at least AS3 - AS2 sucks), and I often use it as tool for rapid-prototyping little algorithms. Trying to put Flash into browsers though is like putting a sandbox inside another sandbox - it just gets in the way and impossible to effectively interface the two.
A few things. First, if the policy really does change from an entitlement to an unspoken privilege granted by your immediate superior, then I doubt the policy was implemented properly. I suppose it depends on the industry, but if corporate policy says your vacations are not tracked, it stands to reason that your time off can't be requested/approved/denied. If you get your work done, your company should by happy with your performance.

Also, when you do leave a company, you don't always get the vacation days as a bonus in your paycheck. Sometimes those days just disappear. What's even worse is that some vacation days may be a part of your compensation plan, but work pressures prevent you from using them, and they expire within a year. Vacation days are hardly an entitlement.

Personally, my ideal work situation would allow me unlimited and untracked vacation days, absolute freedom to work when, where, and how I choose, and pay me ONLY based on performance (both my direct contributions and a percentage of overall company profits). I suppose this is fairly close to actual business ownership.
Sure, but why exactly is that level of functionality necessary?

It would be wrong to assume that HTML5 needs feature parity.
No, because HTML5's canvas performance on mobile browsers is comparable to Flash's performance on mobile browsers.
You need to go get yourself a recording of Rubinstein playing Chopin's Nocturnes. Hurry!

EDIT: I seek no arguments. Wikipedia says nocturnes are generally thought of as "expressive and lyrical". Surely that should be of interest to hackers...
What Would Happen if Social Security Disappeared?
It took me two or three tries, but now I put 2-6 up there with the first book.

I think the reason people have trouble with 2-6 is that they're ultimately a reversal or deconstruction of the Hero myth. The first book is a fairly typical "Rise of the Superhuman Hero" tale, and that's why it's accessible. Book 2-6 explore the dark side of this myth, which is why they're unique, somewhat inaccessible, and really interesting.
There's no doubt Flash transformed the web but not all of it was good. Flash was (and still is) buggy - how many browsers have crashed and how many vulnerabilities has the Flash plugin introduced?
This is pretty fantastic, though it would only be made better if you bought the wallpaper and put it up in the room with your computer in it.
Chain Rope Fail
What The New Patent Reform Act Means For Innovation
Slavery started when slave drivers realized that they could take everything, then give a little back, reluctantly, infrequently, and unpredictably, and engender gratitude instead of anger in their slaves.
This is just for video, most websites already support non-Flash video using one of the hundreds of Javascript frameworks.
I don't know what you mean about what Flash did to the web. A lot of restaurants and small businesses had bad flash web sites built. Before flash a lot of people made websites with tons of animated gifs, but that didn't cause me to hate animated gifs.
Sorry to hear about this. Nevertheless it is an inspiration to the rest of us, thanks so much for sharing your story. Best of luck to you and Paul both, you both have great blogs, I'm now a subscriber. :)
I think one of the biggest issues with this whole thing is the time-to-market. Lambdas are planned as part of Java 8. At the moment, that's in about a year from now.

Then consider when you'll actually upgrade your production code to use Java 8...I have a feel that by the time you see some stable lambda code in production (depending on how bleeding-edge you are), it will be quite a while.

Who knows by then how things will be. You might even be coding in Scala or Clojure...
is Anathem kept off your list on purpose ? :)
Agreed, my mom still doesn't understand why her "Smilebox" doesn't work on her iPad (video slideshow software).
I love these posts, and I am rooting for you guys, but find it a little depressing that you first started making real money by cloning someone else's crappy novelty fluff app.
Windows 8 to bring 10-second boot-ups to new PCs
They could only do traffic analysis.
I have only heard negative feedback on the "we don't track vacation days" policy.

How about if they say - you get a minimum of X vacation days per year and on top of that you can take any number you want. At least people will take the X days without any feeling of guilt.
copy-paste from a smart comment on the OP:

"When people ask what's your business model, they're not asking about pricing. They're asking who you're charging and why. Making more money than you spend just defines a business, not a model."
No Connie Willis (11 Hugos!) either, and Roger Zelazny represented by the fantasy series Amber rather than the almost universally recognized as superior science fictional Lord of Light? There are a lot of good books on that list, but a lot of strange choices, too.
> Flash is crappy and it's finally, slowly dying, that's all.

Is it, though?

Google bundles Flash on Android. Android device makers use the existence of Flash as a differentiating factor from iOS devices. And this is not just something disconnected from what users want, if you look at Firefox Mobile's input system,

https://input.mozilla.com/en-US/?product=mobile&sentimen...

then one of the top complaints is that Firefox Mobile doesn't support Flash.

I wish this wasn't the case, but it isn't clear at all that Flash is dying. Google bundling it in Android (and Chrome) is helping it quite a bit. If Google had taken a hard stance against it on Android, like Apple did, that would have been great. A lost opportunity.
I know a way to use another mobile carrier's data network without paying for any service at all. I thought about making a mobile app to exploit it, but I know they'd probably just close the hole in a couple weeks. It would make a good first attempt at an Android app, though...
But the point is that they didn't port! The game is running in a self-contained Flash environment.
The biggest fans of Flash are not users, but designers and game makers who have invested years of effort in mastering the creative tools. And I truly feel for them, both in terms of sunk time/costs, and the dearth of alternative tools that don't require a buggy and closed runtime environment.
> It is not "never urgent", it is a fundamental pillar of Java that users will never have to rewrite their code, and that is one of the major reasons that Java is so popular with business.

During my (admittedly short) time at a Java shop we were running all of our stuff on
Java X, where X was at least 2 versions less than the currently released version.
The newer versions had some nice features that would have been great to use, but we
never upgraded for fear of breaking something.

I got the hell out of Java-land as soon as I could, so I don't really know whether
people were justifiably afraid or just overly paranoid, but either way this seems to
be at odds with the "fundamental pillar" you mentioned.

My experience could very well have been an uncommon outlier though.

EDIT: Fixing formatting. I wish HN used Markdown or something instead of its own unique snowflake of a markup format.
Possibly the OP meant running on a mobile device?

I tried to see if Fennec would handle it, but their browser sniffing didn't let me find out...
Electrified bacteria kills uranium
Hm. The thing is, tech firms are known for having amorphous and ill defined vacation policies that seem very open in print, but in practice, no one takes it because you're not really allowed to.

So I want to know.

1. What is the average number of weeks per year taken by US employees. This tells the reality apart from the showmanship.

2. Please confirm that by "doesn't accrue" you mean that when you lay someone off, they are not compensated for time not taken off.

3. Please explain why US employees are denied vacation accrual if your intent is truly to have a good vacation policy.
I see all your apps are free, what are your thoughts on paid apps?
Does anyone have an opinion on the reliability of Microsoft’s hosted Exchange services (or alternatives)? My boss would love to move his email into the cloud, but we keep seeing stories like this…
http://mobile.engadget.com/2006/12/15/the-lg-ke850-touchable... on December 15, 2006.

While the design doesn't necessarily predate the iPhone, it was at least developed concurrently, supporting the thesis of industry heading that way.
Insanaly cool resume
Flash existed long before HTML5, there was no platform for the tools. They revolutionized the web and HTML5 is catching up
I Made this will you give me feedback. I Cant fix membership code
So you're saying it would have been great if Google released a browser that couldn't even play all of its YouTube content?
Have you considered releasing the code as open source and turning the current notifo service into a paid service or something like that?

I'd happily contribute to the source.

I've given both notifo and notify.io a shot, but they both lacked a lot of features along with an extensible API.

It looks the only way to do it is to either extend something other than notify.io or write something like this from scratch.

Whatever your decision might be, I hope notifo will continue to exist under one form or another.
If only people were rational enough in their behaviors and efficient enough in their communication for that to really be the silver bullet.

In a small company, there are rarely such neatly demarcated lines. Regardless of how well you communicate with your boss about arranging to be done earlier, you will feel the eyes of your coworkers when you head out the door.

edit: A notable exception being results-focused cultures that emphasize flexibility as a company value. If punching the clock is an expectation, it's hard to manage to be on a shifted schedule without there being at least a twinge of resentment when you head out earlier.
Isn't a theory a kind of idea?
Yeah, signed up yesterday at the request of a coworker.
แทงบอลออนไลน์ สมัครแทงบอลออนไลน์ เว็บแทงบอล พนันบอล ที่มีผู้นิยมสูง คลิ๊ก
* Video only
I believe Erik Ries said much of the same thing in a talk I saw once (can't find it now, of course). The gist of it was that nobody likes to get angry, and angry customers are therefor especially important because they actually care enough about your product to get angry at you for screwing it up.
In addition to your point, when writing in a language like Java, the overhead of writing code makes doing things the right way (in this case, using a design pattern) harder.

Steve's example of the Strategy pattern is a good example of this. Contrast using this pattern in C (function pointers), in Java (inner anonymous classes conforming to an interface) and in Ruby (a block).
You made an incorrect assumption. I hadn't littered my computer with anything. I'm talking about bullshit apps which came with the computer. Apps such as (I'll read these off for you) a control panel for my Radeon video card, the same for my fan (which was unbelievably loud), Windows update, Java update, sometimes Microsoft Office update, an icon which informs me if there is a shock currently being detected (never) and if the hard drive is running (always), Bluetooth devices (I had never used one with the computer), Windows Security alerts, Windows sidebar (a genius non-creation from Microsoft), the safely-remove-hardware interface, and an unwanted volume mixer which I never touched once.

This is Vista I'm talking about, perhaps half the fault is mine for not updating to 7. And a clean reinstall might have ridden the computer of a few of these, but only a few. Also, I left out Adobe update because it's completely 3rd party but in light of your second paragraph, I agree. That shit got annoying fast.

And yes, the point I'm making and that others have reinforced is that the OS shouldn't pretend to be done booting up when it's clearly not. These things are part of the OS.
Precisely.

I work for an agency that has the chance to invite different teams from adobe into our office every 6 months or so. Many people might not realize this but when they come to your office they are looking to hear what you have to say, they are not there to push an agenda of how they envision the future.

They have a whole process of looking over your latest work and hearing about where it went good and where it went bad. They discuss new features that may or may not be of interest to you, and then finish of by asking where you would personally choose to invest in adobe if you had the opportunity. They actually want to know if given the opportunity to be their bosses, what would you direct them to work on.

This is why this article strikes me so odd, because Adobe didn't lose anything, they asked their partners what they could build for them, and clearly video streaming to ios was a top feature request.
I'm not sure, but there are a few horror stories here in Bay Area about policy like this (you go for a two week vacation (no email, no phone) and you got terminated when you come back).

The problem is that eventually the policy like this will create a backlash and burn out. However, it will be hard to find why ... As of now, this policy will work because balsamiq is cool and hot. But after your company is not a startup anymore ('running repeatable business mode') you need to find something which will be more predictable. If nothing you might want to recruit a more senior people which do have a family. And then you will get into this "it is hard to find talent" bs.

Also if this is really a policy, why not to accrue minimum vacations anyway?
How to do Agile Project Retrospectives
Help build a list of vim commands ordered by importance
It's interesting to consider Java in light of the Innovator's Dilemma, since companies facing the Innovator's Dilemma would like to avoid it so they can continue making money.

But Java is a tool more than it is a company, so maybe it is actually good that it maintain its course, even if it means its gradual irrelevance for many of the tasks it was once suited for.
Not to hate, but:

1) Canada's YC is...YC. There is nothing preventing a Canadian from applying to and participating in YC.

2) It's misleading when they say "Grow Lab has matched Y Combinator's relationship with Yuri Milner and SV Angel (Ron Conway)" -- the $150k cash is important, but it's not even half of the value you get from those guys when they invest, even as part of a YC class.
And then they discover that transitioning undocumented business logic, retraining their user base, and adapting their business processes to use the new tools takes way longer than a few months, and indeed has a fairly high chance of entirely failing to dislodge the existing system.

Likewise, if you have half a million lines of code in a language, life will rarely be as simple as discovering that you need a feature and then switching to a language that has that feature.

For new project starts, switching languages is fairly easy. For individual developers, it may even make sense to switch employers to move to better tools. But if your business runs on a particular codebase and that codebase has grown large and powerful over a significant period of time, you throw it out and do a rewrite either after very careful consideration, or at your own peril.
So, um.

iPad: aluminium back, aluminium stretching out to create a visible border around the front of the device. Prominent single physical button on front of the device. 4:3 form factor.

Galaxy Tab: black textured plastic (?) back, front of the device pure black. No physical buttons on the front. 16:10 form factor.

But sure, identical on the outside...
Thanks doomlaser. With little money (especially back in September), it's incredibly risky to innovate, and in today's world, everything is a derivative of the other in some form. e.g., Facebook from MySpace, Lamborghini from Ferrari. Talking Gremlin was exactly this, on a smaller scale.

This is our philosophy: Find a successful business -> Discover as much as possible about it -> Re-implement it all -> Then battle them for supremacy.
Having an enemy brings out our primal instincts. Boom. :)
Searching for "semicolon injection" bugs in embedded Linux devices
Believe me, I didn't pick that title.
TurnTable.fm &gt; Pandora &gt; Last.fm &gt; Online Radio &gt; Radio