skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Heck, why not go even further back?

http://atomsandelectrons.com/blog/2010/04/apple-t/
one engine, two skins. but the real question is will that engine be any good, and are they going to attempt to compete at all with mozilla and chrome's accelerated release schedules?

i don't care how awesome the browser's UI is, can it properly display the UI of the websites i am trying to view?
I'm the author of this book, and I am blown away that it currently ranks #36 on all of Amazon[1], right behind the very deserving Eric Ries, who is also launching today.

Thank you so much to the entire HN community for everything. I can't even list the number of ways you have helped me, and you certainly have come through today. Thank you.

UPDATE: It's now at #22[2]. Right by Tim Ferriss. OMFG. Thank you for buying the shit out of my book today, HN.

UPDATE 2: It's now at #18[3], which puts it on the first page of best-sellers (where more randoms will see it). This is huge!

[1] https://skitch.com/kadavy/f3bw8/reis-and-kadavy
[2] https://skitch.com/kadavy/f3net/22-w-tim-ferriss
[3] https://skitch.com/kadavy/f3nae/number-18
Are you standing while posting on HN now? ;)
Linkbuilding is Social Networking
Rethink your business model to beat the incumbents
Win8 is overhyped. I know this because one of their pleebs was already cheering the death of iPad and this OS hasn't even been tested on a low-power system yet... so MSFT is full of poo.

Here's what Win8 is:

It's a bunch of changes to the shell.
It's a lot of functionality that we already have.
It's a lot of bloat we don't need.
One little thing will be impressive.
It won't work out of the box without a massive patch that ruins the stability and speed of it.

Just a few predictions is all...

Dear MSFT: if you want to be taken seriously don't cheer the death of your competitor before you see how the product REALLY functions.
Did you read the article? "Imagine you've got a shiny computer that is identical to a Macbook Air, except that it has the energy efficiency of a machine from 20 years ago."

It would take an awful lot of 1990's machines to equal the computing power of a macbook air.
In our case we have a board member that lives in the U.S. and helped us with the U.S. address. We also have a virtualpostmail address for mailing purposes only.
You could email those people who've emailed you, and ask them if there's anything missing that they'd be willing to pay for.

I have this vague idea of companies using your service to keep their customers informed and/or engaged in some way.
Very cool to see this go public. I used the SDK in the closed-beta period in several of my apps to help promote purchases... works great. The funnel analytics to show the user flows were very helpful also.

Highly recommended if you are an app developer with IAP.
There aren't jobs in academia, but there are jobs in industry. Intel, IBM, etc, hire people with physics backgrounds to work on new types of memory cells, etc.

But why would you? If you're a 1 in 100 physicist, you might make a discovery that will net your company tens of millions of dollars, but our laws are such that you won't see any of that money. Anything you invent will automatically belong to your employer. Meanwhile, even a 1 in 10 trader can stick with an investment bank long enough to bring in some $1 million/year paydays until exiting to a cushy corporate finance position.
It is on-demand. And no. of votes is not a pre-requisite (it is however helpful though). However, we do have want to keep an eye out on the number of grep-jobs we can run a day without affecting other services' performance. You should submit your grep!

PS: I am one of the engineers who built wegbrep
This may apply to 'small fry' as much as it does to larger companies but the wandering eye of the SEC will make a special exception for you when you do this for a public company. That is when they go after you with a bunch of very sharp pitchforks. Companies that have only had private investment and investors that are not about to sell or buy stock in those companies at the time they make their blog posts or other communications probably have very little to fear.

That said, it is probably good policy not to write about any companies that you have an active stake in, especially while transactions are in progress.

The people involved in public companies all have been 'read their rights' on this stuff and know full well the consequences of breaking the rules.
Having looked at neither of them closely myself, I wonder how this stacks up against Thomas Fuchs' keymaster.

https://github.com/madrobby/keymaster
I wonder how many casual Facebook users will understand this feature and find it useful. Seems like the main beneficiaries of getting subscribers are one-person fan pages, like Scoble. But they already have a following on Twitter and G+.
Uncertainty principle and spectrogram with pylab
This post show how to plot the spectrogram of an audio signal in python and explains the uncertainty principle using the spectrogram.
Court: Lake Erie public to natural shore
We do plan to eventually support regexes but slowly introduce them with limited-support and not jump head-first with PCRE. Of course, this is only within the scope of webgrepper that I am talking about.

PS: I am one of the engineers who built wegbrep
Lash out for perceived slights much?
> So you're cloning ohloh.com?

Not really. We are putting together information from Open Source, like ohloh, but also from private code, linkedin and stackoverflow. We put this information in a resume/profile visual representation. Also, ohloh has been always project centric and we are focused on people.
There's a simple keycode map at the top of the source. Should be easy to modify from client code.
This is a very well balanced look at daily deals. I think it goes to show that there will be a place for daily deals in the future but that it's not going to change how everyone does business. The businesses that it does help will continue to use them, and the others will tail off. Which jives with the stabilization of growth that we are seeing.
The only caveat with this is that it makes the "# of password retries allowed" number kind of fuzzy. An attackers gets two or three tries behind the scenes for every one they try. Like if they figure you used your cat's name, they get to try "FLUFFY" and "fluffy" and possibly "Fluffy" all at once.
The following study suggests repeat buyers range from 18% to 30% with an average of 19.9% (depending on the deal site). Loads of other interesting data are in this study.

"How Businesses Fare With Daily Deals: A Multi-Site Analysis of Groupon, LivingSocial, OpenTable, Travelzoo, and BuyWithMe Promotions"

Source: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~dholakia/

However, I would apply a haircut since this is based on merchant perceptions, which may be overly positive (people are likely to think more highly of something they've spent money on).
Here is a list of Greps that have already completed:
http://blekko.com/webgrep?status=completed
Ask HN: Please help me find or build this simple mobile photo app
I need a really simple mobile app to test a product idea. The user just needs to be able to take pictures and upload them to a server. No additional features.

Is there any existing app I can use to do this? I don't mind using any app, as long as it can upload the photos to a server specified by me. For example, if instagram had an API which let me do this, I would use it.

Or as a mobile newbie, but decent web app hacker, how quickly can I build this? I would like it to work on both iOS and Android. Is PhoneGap a good option?

Thanks!
The Republican Ponzi Scheme Bears Fruit
>Culture also has an important role to play. The Chinese were not looking for new lands or have any interest in converting people to their religion.

Bingo. Gene Roddenberry's genius is replacing the classical humans' violence fueled drivers of "new lands or ... interest in converting people to their religion" with "to explore new worlds, to seek out a new life, and new civilizations" :) I hope that he will eventually be proven right.
I wrote this for Canadian startups wanting to incorporate in the US, but it applies to most countries AFAIK. http://blog.carlmercier.com/2011/08/29/us-incorporation-for-...
Remind101 is Private Twitter for Teachers
Ultimate stand-up desk: table-sized iPad, only $17,950
IE 10 is a pretty solid browser. It's fast, it covers huge swaths of CSS3 including animations, hyphenations, transforms, and more, it supports HTML5 very well. In fact, HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript are a fully supported way to write full-blown Windows 8 Metro apps, and MS is showing how serious they are by having written nearly every single example Windows 8 app as an HTML5 app. To be honest, it feels a lot like webOS.

MS is really serious this time around. I think writing IE off at this point would be short-sighted.
First of all, Javascript appeared in September 1995. A quick glance at the timeline of web browsers reveals that Netscape did NOT have a monopoly at that time.
See http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/Timeline_...

In theory, you could have gotten input from Microsoft, IBM, Mosaic, and so forth before ever releasing Javascript. Did you? No. Even assuming that those other companies had an insignificant share of the market, and could safely be ignored, you still could have asked for public commentary on your design, like you're asking Google to do now. Did you? No again. It's hypocritical to blast Google for doing the exact same things you did, for the exact same reasons.

Secondly, every attempt to create a "programming language for non-programmers" has resulted in something horrible. According to wikipedia, "one of the design goals of COBOL was that non-programmers—managers, supervisors, and users—could read and understand the code. This is why COBOL has an English-like syntax and structural elements." When you are comparing your language design decisions to those made by COBOL, it is time to give up.

Your own stated rationale for getting Javascript done in 10 days was to "prevent something worse" from happening. This is the exact same reason why Google is developing Dart. The only difference is that for them, "something worse" is Microsoft Silverlight, Adobe Flash, and Apple iPhone applications.

Right now, if I want an application that "feels native," Javascript is a no-go, and I have to use one of these (closed, proprietary) technologies. Shouldn't we be saluting Google for trying to make the situation better, rather than blasting them for not asking their competitors for a mother-may-I?

Dart is going to be an open platform that is well-supported by Chrome and Android. That alone should be enough to make it a viable choice. It's great that you created Javascript and that it became an open platform for everyone. Now someone is trying to build something even better. You should be helping them rather than raising objections which are illogical at best, and hypocritical at worst.
It still won't process play/pause or next/previous buttons in any meaningful way.

The browser-hardware barrier arising from hardware makers never wanting to write standards, then never wanting to follow those that exists, never wanting to do anything consistently but loving to write custom buggy windows drivers makes me cry like a baby.

Every keyboard in the last ten years comes with play/pause, next, prev buttons - and the operating system and the browser seems to be horribly not sold on this fact.
Tesla's Musk Bets $1M for Charity that Model S Will be Ready on Time
I don't know about operating systems, but these folks at Canonical sure know how to make some pretty damn good fonts.
JSONLint by Arc90 Labs
It's an oldie but a goodie. JSONLint the JSON validator by Arc90 labs.

Tool:
http://jsonlint.com/

Source:
https://github.com/umbrae/jsonlintdotcom
Even theoretically there are agency problems in many situations re: evaluating credit risk. And as we have learned in practice, people are just bad at gauging credit risk. Finally, the traditional theory doesn't incorporate behavioral economics, which IMHO turns a lot of the traditional precepts on their head.
I'm just curious, how long did it take you to build this? There are a lot of js frameworks put to work here :))
For those who don't have the time to read the article, the authors conclude that the following types of businesses are most likely to benefit from running daily deals:

1) New businesses
2) Zero variable cost businesses
3) Under the radar businesses.

One reason I think the daily deal business is so fascinating is because it can really help business (1) and (3) to gain traction - which might just facilitate more local entrepreneurship (new businesses can quickly gain traction - IF they're good) and competition (under the radar businesses can finally get the credit they deserve - again IF they're good).
You need a ceiling-mounted computer screen (though a ceiling projection might be safer). That might actually work at home, but it would be a little freaky if everyone worked laying down at the office. :)
Should Government Be Funding Canadian Start-Ups?
I doubt any articles have been written about this. Because the people who successfully pull this off are smiling to themselves everytime they read these negative articles thinking "if only they knew.....".
I think impossible to market without daily deals is hyperbolic. Ghost tours of SF's China town have been around and successful for decades if not more without Groupon. Along with classes on tea appreciation, Red Blossom does great ones.
Create web sequence diagrams from plain text
Caused by Wikileaks revelations, Jordanians want US Embassy out
The thing that makes me skeptical of daily deals sites is that apparently a company like groupon takes in the same revenue as all of the stores when running a groupon. Yet despite the fact that running a coupon site should have lower overhead and much higher margins than, say, a restaurant, seemingly they still can't turn a profit. Maybe there's something I'm missing, but this sort of thing sets off some giant alarm bells for me.
No, it is not just about your interests, it is about whether you can be construed as giving investment advice, which is a very grey area, eg see http://handbook.reuters.com/index.php/Personal_investments_b...
> I wanted to point that the word hacker already had a variety of meanings even 30 years ago.

I agree with this, but the snippet from the book suggests it's the other way around--that "hacker" used to mean criminal and has only now begun to mean positive things.
Challenges in Large-Scale Web Crawling
I think that's the reason for the distinction between "a 1990 computer" and a "computer with 1990 energy efficiency." It's explained quite clearly in the article itself.
Estimating the Damage to the U.S. Economy Caused by Angry Birds
Why Dart won't work.
Testing pricing isn't usually a big part of interviews unless you are addressing an enterprise market. Also, Customer Development is larger in scope than pricing or interviews:

http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2008/11/what-is-custome...
Show HN: Shoppers Poll (Facebook app)
looks great- actually looks about exactly the same as admin_assitant/Puffer, just more featureful and well documented (compared to Puffer). Ironically I passed it by because it had Scaffold in the name so I thought it was a generator just like Rails scaffolding. Unfortunately I don't see any signs of Mongoid support.
AeroFS is Hiring Smart Engineers
You've heard about us on Hacker News, and now you've seen us on TechCrunch (http://ae.ro/oo9oUV).

We're a well funded (and no longer stealth) company solving fundamentally fun and hard problems in the system software space. Not only are we building a world class syncing and collaboration tool, we're also trying to redefine today's view of the "cloud".

We are a small and agile team of five Engineers and we're looking for smart people to join us.

AeroFS touches almost every layer in the technology stack, so you will have the opportunity to work on both incredibly low-level and high-level problems. Because of the size of our team, you will be "CEO" of whatever you create.

You should be extremely detail-oriented and have a high bar for quality - for us, performance is crucial.

If you're interested, shoot us an email at hnjobs@aerofs.com
======================================

Some fine print:

We really, really, want you to have a deep knowledge of:

* Highly scalable server architectures

* Networking and Distributed Systems

* Databases background is a plus

Additionally, you should have:

* B.S, M.S, or Ph.D., in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent

* Expert knowledge of either C++ or Java (Shell scripting and Obj-C are a plus).

* Familiarity with the UNIX working environment

If you have any projects you've done on the side, we'd love to see them!

Benefits:

* Competitive salaries and stock options at an early stage startup

* Medical/Dental Benefits

* Free lunches, snacks, and a fridge fully stocked with BEvERages

* Build your dream development machine

* Netflix, Amazon Prime, Foosball Table

* Working in Downtown Palo Alto (goes well with the free lunches ;)

* Did we mention we work on hard and interesting problems?

Email us! hnjobs@aerofs.com
Yeah that's what I meant, co-ordinate with reddit to offer this as a service to your users. So they create a site with you and advertise with reddit :-)
haha......maybe the Chinese were following an earlier version of the prime directive...LOL
How to drive traffic to my website
Hi,
From many days i wanted to create a website,
Last time I payed money but did not even created a home page .

This time I created a page and got a idea of creating Domain appraisal website.

I am constantly updating it and trying to derive a formula which can match my values with flippa .

But i am so frustrated i have got only 50 clicks from past two months .

I know hacker new ,Lot of guru's out there ,
Can you share some views or feed back what should i do.

Thanks for your honest comments
Regards
Harsha
Its kinda hard to hear the presenter, but otherwise thanks for the stream!
I am relatively new to HN so I've just come to accept it, I would prefer that products were finished, but it's not too big of a deal. Plus, it might give the creators feedback suggesting they shouldn't pursue a project or maybe even that they should invest more time and resources in a project. Either way, we would all benefit from creators being more strategic in their projects.

If the market is not there, then I would hope smart people would spend their time doing something else.
New York Picks Alta to Run Bike-Share Program
Can you comment on what you liked about the Psion? I'm afraid I never saw one and from photos I'm unclear how the interface worked. I'm currently doing research on the history of mobile UI and this is a big hole I hadn't thought about.
I'm running into an issue while in the Desktop where links open in the Metro IE, instead of Desktop IE. WTF? So I'm constantly switching back and forth between Metro and Desktop. The fullscreen flip animation is very jarring, not to mention tedious.

Besides that, my biggest complaint would have to be the Metro experience on a non-touch device. I feel so lost. I'm just pressing keys hoping it'll activate a Metro shortcut. Right click, Windows button, Alt-tab, Windows-tab, etc... Trackpad doesn't support multi-touch, so scrolling is awkward.
From playing around a bit, it seems like Kayak still has Google Flights beat on pricing by as much as 150 dollars. A quick comparison of a bunch of flights and I found that Kayak almost always had the lower price. I'm gonna have to agree with you on the 90% thing, I don't really see why Google would release something like this and not take pricing into consideration. I guess that will be fixed soon though.
I have a Microsoft Ergononmic Keynoard of some sort, with five buttons labeled 1-5.

Guess what I can do with then on my mac? A whole lotta nothin'. I think I can choose to launch an app, but it's literally easier to CMD-SPACE and type it in than to reach for the button.

I long for the ability to have those buttons run complex scripts of some kind.
A Discussion With Neal Gafter on the Future of Java
Want to buy it but can't find it either, why did the programmers need to change to a 3D Gaming platform? sounds like a good story
I think you took a couple of my comments differently from what I meant. The Louvre has an admission fee which is absolutely trivial considering the treasurs within; it makes no sense to quibble over it, not matter what the money goes to. Likewise having to watch TV adverts or spend a few pounds to see a masterpiece like On The Waterfront, is not something worth complaining about. Secondly, the issue was not that big studios are willing to make bad movies, it's that currently they're also willing to make riskier, less formulaic movies too. That could easily change if movies had little shelf life for future profits.

And to answer your question, I'm perfectly okay with not owning Mickey Mouse. I find it hard to believe anyone would get genuinely concerned over that. (In fact if Disney did not aggressively market and control their intellectual property, probably nobody would even remember Mickey Mouse by now.)
I've done a lot of microchip pic programming but for equally simple(read beginners) and cheaper avr development I would recommend a teensy. Besides using a standard pinout spacing you can also program it with the arduino ide if you feel so inclined. Of course if you want to use the arduino shields, it's more convoluted, but if you just want to light a few leds, read some sensors, it should be enough.

Anyway, it's quite nice to have all these possibilities; some years ago the barrier to entry was much higher, now with 10 minutes of tutorial reading you can light a led or control a servo through your browser from the other side of the world, which is fantastic.
fair point...
Windows 1.0 vs Windows 8
If you placed all the iPhones in the world end to end on a line, some of them would be in the ocean.

There, I wrote about iPhones. Now give me my ad revenue.
Can you do Socket programming on a PIC?
It seems things are changing http://allanmcrae.com/2011/08/pacman-package-signing-3-pacma...
Ask HN: What Search Engine do you use for your site?
On http://www.romku.com I've deployed Apache Solr to provide the search. There are about 100K documents and it works really well (in particular, I like the faceted search). There are several alternatives (Lucene, ElasticSearch, Google Custom Search, Xapian, SpynxSearch...) and would like to know which ones you have tried / are using. Which one would you recommend.

I've started a list here: http://www.romku.com/list/343869/search-engine-tools, feel free to add more in the comments below and I'll add them to the list. There's also http://www.romku.com/compare/148361/174594/324699/343868/150199/343870/253080 for a features comparison matrix.

PS: I'd like to start a series of posts asking which Tools are used by the Hacker News Community (Bug Tracking, Server Monitor, Analytics, Invoicing, CMS, Web Framework, Database, CRM, Screencast Tool). Would it be useful to you?
I did this in June. I'm from Canada and my partners are Australian so for us it was a bit easier. I took all the incorporation documents and my personal identification and drove across the border to open our accounts. The process was straightforward and simple and the business manager at the bank knew how to handle it. That said I think its easier for Canadians than people from other countries.
Nice. Finally motivated me to get the awk one as well. While you have mentioned doing a perl one next, I would also suggest considering something like "all the misc unix tools you never remember to use" (e.g. seq, col, cut, etc.) There is a bit of overlap among these tools to sed/awk/etc but this would probably lead to a nice "here is how you can do this in awk/sed, and here are the two args that make this command do the same job..."
Definitely a boob. Complete with nipple.
Anon's foil Aaron Barr is back - and he wants more cybersecurity offensives
CloudControl PaaS is hiring in Berlin/Germany
Steve Ballmer: We are "reimagining Microsoft"