skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
"Microsoft is synonymous with software that you use on your desktop"

This is insightful. While some of us geeks have a grudge against Microsoft, most people don't. They probably do, however, have a mental separation between the desktop and the web.

Microsoft was slow to embrace the web because it threatens their core products. So the web grew without them. Now they're saying, "oh, we're on the web, too!" But when people think of the web, they don't think of Microsoft. They missed the chance to make that association. And it's hard to get it back.
My wish is that the moderators would more ruthlessly prune the politics/economics stories. They draw in anyone and everyone (who doesn't have opinions on those things?), rather than people interested in startups and tech. And the debates are old, old, old. I'm reading an interesting book now, Grand Pursuit ( https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0043RSK4Y/ref=as_li_ss_til?tag=de...; ) about the history of economics and some famous economists. And a lot of the very same more state, less state, right vs left stuff was being argued about 100 years ago... it just goes around and around and around, it seems.
For some reason I've had the 'new style' facebook feeds and chat for a few weeks already.

Usually when facebook releases updates and everyone has a little rant about it I just sit back and roll my eyes. These things usually have a long term advantage, and change is always a bit painful for users.

However I've had a list of about 25 friends in alphabetical order, from A through to D, just stuck at the right side of my screen for about 6 weeks now. I have no idea why they are there. They're not online. They're not people I historically interact a lot with, I can't sort the list, or add favourites. I can't hide it, because that also hides the people online I might want to chat to.

I honestly would love to know the reasoning behind this. Someone, somewhere sat through multiple planning sessions and laid out some kind of argument that this delivers value somewhere, either in some obscure way to facebook themselves or somehow to the end user. The design doesn't bother me, but the functionality does seem... arbitrary? What inherent interest could I possibly have in my first few alphabetically sorted friends?
I cracked my 3G screen with as much ease as I cracked my 4, unfortunately.
Exactly. I wouldn't say it's a bad thing. In fact, the quality of discussions hasn't boiled down to BS in spite of the popularity.
For the longest time I didn't realize that there was a Top News and a Most Recent news. When I discovered it, facebook became a lot more useful to me.
Mine says 4/21/2012, so I wouldn't read too much into it.
for me (as a new member) I really like HN for one reason, and one reason alone - the quality of the discussions. The people here seem smart, civil and informed about their posts (and the one's who aren't get voted down). That, to me, is far more useful than startup news, all the time (not that I have any problems with startup news I actually like it).
Right. Then why is it luring Facebook users, not Skype users, or business users that don't use FB right now? I think the headline implies the wrong premise again, that FB and G+ cannot co-exist. I think they can and will.
It IS unusable regarding the newsticker. It annoys the hell out of me and gladly someone made a chrome extension to make this thing go away.
PG explicitly switched the site from just Startup News to Hacker News.

Sorry you missed it.
Isn't an external session store practically mandatory regardless of your backend?

I'm no fan of Node, but even if you have $100k machine running the JVM with a thousand threads you will (if successful) eventually need a second machine, and a third, etc. Not to mention persistence (what if you need to restart the app server?).

Sessions belong in a database of some kind unless you can get away with signed cookies.
> I've been using various flavors of Linux for a good chunk of the last decade (since 2001) and totally ignored Windows until last year, so I am no Windows fanboy.

You know there is a fallacy there, don't you? It's perfectly possible to ignore something for decades and still fall in love with it later. I've seen lots of Windows and Linux fanboys fall for OSX and become very annoying in the process.

I can believe you are no Windows fanboy without you presenting credentials.
Apple's New Headquarters
The Blocky visual programming system
I'm not a tax professional, but corporations are taxed on income, not revenue. Tax preparation fees, travel costs, conference registrations, pension contributions, and other expenses of the "small business" author (computer, internet, mailing manuscripts) all turn in to usable money that isn't taxed. (Via income tax, I mean. In some cases property taxes may apply.) Expense tracking becomes more of a chore than for the average wage earner, but there are trade-offs.

The author's "corporation" can also manage paid salary from year to year to correlate with deductions or navigate tax brackets, further minimizing any double-tax effect.
Microsoft deserves some credit for the XBOX.

They had the foresight to include a NIC (Network Interface Card) in the XBOX, right out of the gate. It was also the first game console to include a hard disk.

The PS2 did not initially include a NIC, and Sony offered the add-on PlayStation Network Adapter in order to compete with Microsoft. In addition, Microsoft launched XBOX Live approximately four years ahead of Playstation Network.

Regarding missteps, Microsoft has experienced their share of technical hurdles [1].

Regarding financial losses, Sony has experienced the same [2].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360_technical_problems

[2] http://www.engadget.com/2009/08/25/sony-still-losing-money-o...
By most accounts the iPhone 5 will not have LTE. That's going to sting with Verizon customers in the United States. While it will probably support HSPA+ on AT&T which is already decently fast, Verizon CDMA is direly slow.

It will be a hard sell to get Verizon customers to pass up LTE for the next two years when there are already a few really good Android phones with LTE and most major cities have LTE coverage right now. Not to mention the many more cities will have LTE in just a few months.

I suppose that is just a sacrifice Apple will have to make. It will not matter for AT&T or most of its other carriers around the world.
I am not a typical user of this application. (I don't even have a Mac!) But ...

* I think that "Auto-open" is not a good idea. Perhaps kind of balloon notification is better, with an option to open the file on click.

* I think that the wormhole drawing is too big. I'd like a small icon with a nice wormhole effect while transferring the files.
Sometimes the upgrade date can be moved up if you pay a lot per month because of a larger plan, unlimited sms/data, etc. You pay off your subsidization quicker.
Trello: How A Proven Founder Launches A Startup – with Joel Spolsky
You might be interested in the #FTPstandsfor hash tag.
Ok, so here is my 5 minute solution: I just flagged every piece of content that I think does not belong on the homepage, now I'll scan the first 3 pages of the 'new' section and upvote all those articles that I think should be there.

If everybody else does the same thing then this should correct itself.

I'm betting that it won't make a bit of a difference. Want to try?
The author is selling google way short here: "It's a little scary to think that one company (~85% of the world population searches the web with Google) can make such a trifle assumption and make a simple, clear cut spec like this virtually unusable." In short, I believe the author is making an unfounded and probably wrong assumption when he says that Google is making an assumption.

It seems to me from reading Google's blog post on the subject (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/09/paginatio...) that they're basing their behavior on what they believe to be preferential to their users based on the data they've collected. Here's an example: "Because view-all pages are most commonly preferred by searchers, we do our best to surface this version..." They don't say "we are assuming view-all pages are preferred," they actually know that they are.

It's true that Google's post doesn't say something similar about why they choose to surface the first page in a sequence, but I think their reputation suggests that they have numbers to support the idea. In any case, I wouldn't assume that their behavior is based on an assumption.
I doubt it, since CFN (CloudFormatioN) doesn't support spot instances yet.
It won't the JavaScript does not have to load from an external domain.

If you can inject JavaScript-code in the HTML you are just as screwed.
One tiny (?) change would make my day: Purge (dead) links from the 'new' section as soon as it's flagged to death.

Quite often I follow that section and see most interesting subjects to 'make it' in minutes or to drop off the page due to (dead) spam links.
Probably a little from column A, little from column B.

No great empire is built without a burying a few bodies, but it seems like the skeletons Mr. Ceglia wants to shake loose don't hold together in the light of day.
I always wondered why it was 'hacker news' but clearly run by a company that promotes startups, and not hackers in general.

As happy as I am that it turned into 'hacker news', I see it turning into 'general news' and it makes me sad. This is the best hacker news site out there right now, and finding a replacement will be tough.
I think you're on the verge of discovering that a utilitarian philosophy isn't the only way to look at the world. It's just so ingrained in us that it's hard to look beyond it.
Very cool. I'd put the demo on the front page, actually, so people don't even have to hit the 'Demo' button to see the list construct itself.

Is this a Smartnet system? Are you running a wideband front end with a dedicated DDC for each physical channel?

(I did something like this for the Seattle-area trunked radio system a few years ago -- http://www.ke5fx.com/equinox/equinox.html -- but users have to download a dedicated Win32 client, and it only allows a single user to control the hardware at any given time.)
Some of us already do that, either from the 'new' page or from the RSS feeds. It doesn't seem to be helping much, as you predicted. The people submitting those kinds of stories have an agenda, and they're using every tool they have to promote it.
What exactly is this meant to be the solution to? That some random blogger missed the transition from Startup News to Hacker News?

What do you think flagging does?

Why are you so special that the current voting system should be changed to fit your preferences?
Google Wallet logo looks familiar...
Ah, that could be it. My girlfriend is on my plan as well, so I'm paying a bit more than your average customer.
Apple May Announce iPhone 5 on October 4
You're probably correct. I was just saying that there's no need for the entire Windows installation to be signed, as jrockway implied. Such a requirement would be nearly impossible (and would require scanning the entire OS at startup to verify the signature).
Isn't it that way by default? In any case it's a preference; make sure "showdead" is set to no in your prefs.
Flags will push content down on the homepage, early flags on the new page stop content from getting on the homepage at all.

In other words, flags are a crude mechanism that you can use to modify the rankings, effectively they are downvotes.

It won't take many flags to clear the homepage of the political and mainstream content. My guess is that it won't matter because that same strategy can be used against content that is on topic. And I've seen that happen, plenty of times.
Just set "showdead" to "no" in your profile.
Implementing secure boot is a risk that Intel et al are going to take. They've already taken a similar risk to support BitLocker with TPM hardware. None of this will stop Internet darlings from running Linux if they want, though.
I don't get this. I have absolutely no desire to read/see ads, why would I ever want to +1 it?
From the official announcement https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/nodejs/fqBTNLwhEAI

The main advantages/differences over Connect/Express at this point are:

- Patterned after WSGI/Rack. This implies some significant differences in the API.
- Built on node 0.4; takes full advantage of streams.
- Built-in support for streaming multipart parsing/file uploading (uses node-formidable's parser).
- Built-in support for gzip encoding, URL rewriting, and URL mapping.
- RFC-compliant support for content negotiation using the Accept, Accept-Language, Accept-Encoding, and Accept-Charset HTTP headers.
- A specification with middleware to enforce it.
Yeah, I have sort of the opposite complaint: too much startup-scene drama news (e.g. anything having to do with Techcrunch), not enough hacker news (in which I'm willing to include "anything remotely technical").
You're right, of course, and I'm an idiot.
I somehow expected showdead to affect nothing but comments.
Why I decided to start yet another shopping startup
Please don't, I'm sure moderators have enough to do already without people trying to game the site to fit with their world view.

To be honest r/startups doesn't look very appealing to me:

'Hey r/startups, I'd love your feedback - I'm running a deal site for small businesses. What deals do you want to see? '

'Had what I thought was a great idea, turns out it there is already a startup with MASSIVE funding working on basically the exact idea.'

'I'm joining a start-up, getting paid with "equity" - Is it worth anything?'

'Another what to do/how to tread after finding a first to market competitor question...'

'[In SF] Can anyone tell me where to find local start-up events and hackathons?'

Whoopie. Loads of self posts by clueless people. The Ask HN posts that appear on the front page here are much better and nearly always worth reading.
Good idea on the demo thing there. I dropped the "possum" call into the top page after watching a few hits come in and it got way more interesting in terms of people checking stuff out. I'll find a way to make the whole thing work without that extra click -- thanks!

The city is using a Smartnet system as far as I can tell, and I'm using a software-defined radio system to pull in the whole band and then split off the chunks I care about. I'm also decoding the control channel so we know which talkgroup is responsible for a call, which frequency they're on, and all of this.

Your approach sounds interesting, and I bet you could get a web frontend onto it which would bring about more attention and cross-platform compatibility, too! It's worth a thought if nothing else.
Personally, I don't know the first thing about hacking, and I don't have any particular affinity toward startups. The reason I visit HN on a daily basis is because it's a great cross-section of news that delves into design, development, tech law, tech businesses large and small, and yes, even a little bit of politics and economics. And often, the comments can be incredibly insightful. I find articles, software and businesses here that I otherwise wouldn't find.
Mid 2008 I was thinking this was really something I should do. I'd just done some PITA work on bunch of legacy php forms for a client and I knew there had to be a better way and I worked out what I thought that was ...

... but, you know, I needed the income from my contract work and couldn't find the time, etc. Realisticly, I didn't have the skills or experience to compete with WuFoo but that doesn't mean I couldn't have made a better service than a number of others out there.

So my current idea, this one I'm gonna do, just as soon as I finish a few more contracts ...
What other areas need a Wufoo?
Great advice. I'd say managing the results you get when googling your name is important as well. You could write 500 blog posts, but if the blog itself can't be found easily, what good is that for?
See also: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3021165
There are only so many "Five reasons why we do a lean startup" self-promoting blog posts to go around, and even those get tiring after a while…

I'd say that there's still a lot of startup content, probably not less than at the beginning. The percentage might be a bit down, because nowadays a lot of people use this as their primary news site and don't want to switch between HN for startup content, and e.g. reddit/r/programming for tech stuff. News for startup guys doesn't have to center around startups all the time.

And as some others have said: Hacker News.
> 1. Windows was never originally designed to work as a Server side operating system at the first place.

That's not exactly correct. Windows NT was designed to compete against Unix in the desktop workstation and non-dedicated server market. It was designed by a team formed mostly by DEC alumni. I call it "the bastard child of VMS" for a reason.

> 8. Unix is open source, its freely available.

Linux and BSD are, but OSX and Solaris are only partially open source and AIX and HP-UX are very proprietary.

> 10. Lack of multiuser login,

I believe Windows servers can currently host more than one user session. I used this with NT TSE and I don't think this feature was removed since the late 90's (when I used it). It may be some idiotic license restriction.

> 11. GUI overhead

Windows' GUI is rather primitive. I can't imagine the resources it consumes are relevant these days. I have seen more sophisticated stuff on Symbian phones.
did you get a new one each time?
Ask HN posts are so shortlived on the homepage that they might as well not be there. The penalty on an 'Ask HN' reinforces that.

They do have their own section but it is far less popular than the homepage.

This effect is so strong that it prompted someone to ask if the 'Ask HN' mechanism is broken somehow:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3018343
The Rolleron
Really? I highly doubt that. Most people don't want their own business, they want a steady income and not think about their jobs after 8 hours. A small decrease in tax won't change that.
I agree. Although you can find these discussion elsewhere on the 'net, I appreciate the level of discourse here and like to read the tech take on politics or economics of whatever. That kind of stuff is meaningful in a lot of people's lives and can even affect their businesses. I just gray out the rest of the noise in my head.
It switched from "Startup News" to "Hacker News" and the guideline is stated as "Anything good hackers will find interesting, which isn't limited to just hacking."

Then the site became popular, and so everyone thinks "I'm on Hacker News, and I can contribute anything I think is interesting." With the enormously wide range of interests covered by the entire population now on HN, there is no focus. Everyone clamours to be the first to submit the latest piece of gossip about any company or person remotely connected with technology. Or companies. Or anything, really.

In particular, though, the "welcome" message asks for things that are "deeply interesting". One thing is for sure - we don't get that.

My interests are in math, science, education in math and science, theoretical computing, elegant hacks, and running a business. To find anything about those I have to hunt deep in the stack, because they rarely make the front page. HN is no longer a sensible filter for stuff I want.

In fact, I don't think it really serves anyone well any more.

I'll bet this item now gets flagged into oblivion. Any discussion of the current state of HN is regarded as "meta" by the majority and seen as criticism of them. The democratic nature of HN's voting system implies that the majority rules, pretty much everyone can flag, and as I know to my cost, flags will effectively kill an item.

Added in edit: this is now less than two hours old and has 26 points - it should be on the top page, and it's actually down at 156. Flagged to death, despite the fact that it should be interesting to everyone here.
Yes-- i pay $250/mo on my plan (international data & etc) and also bought the iPhone4 subsidized day 1, and my message says I am eligible for an upgrade now.
How To Complete Anything
Patent trolls rush to the courthouse before new rules take effect
Nice app. One thing I did see that you might want to add is some examples. I know it's a simple contact form, but some people will want to see how it looks before signing up. You can include a few different examples.

Edit:
After 5-10 minutes, I JUST noticed the email me button at the bottom of the page. I think if you moved the button slightly to the left, so that there is a gap between the button and the side of the page, it will help with visibility. I think my issue was, the button being in that corner it didn't catch my eye, or look out of place enough for my eyes to look there. If it's not touching the side of the page, I think it looks more out of place (I don't mean this as a bad thing) causing people to see it sooner.

Looks great though, congrats on 4000+ users!
I really like the idea of visual programming languages. I know nothing about LISP though, is knowledge of LISP needed to play with this?
Rakeback is just an affiliate program -- it's exactly the same as the concept of FatWallet CashBack or Bing Cashback when it existed. In affiliate marketing this is all just called "incent" traffic. (incentivized).

Stars didn't pay a dime in rakeback unless you hit one of their VIP tiers via their point system. Vast majority of players, I'd guess, didn't qualify.
That seems unlikely. +1 was integrated with their product before G+ launched, they already own the social graph, Google+ is about as close to their brand as possible without being their brand, and this name has gotten a lot of exposure. They can't afford to confuse people if they're trying to get a userbase on par with Facebook.
Linkbait.....post... Exaggerated title designed to make people click..
damn, i don't have downvote privileges.
> Personally, I feel product announcements should be made by the head of the team that developed the product in the company. That's what Google does, for example.

At Apple, the head of the team for any major product release is effectively the CEO.
Stop Outsourcing Content Writing Overseas
Content First, Keyword Research Second
Site Search Analytics
Quitting sales job to learn how to code - 1 year later
I like that point. Googling your name shows interesting things about who you are. Getting "above the fold" is surly important!
Because McAdams Wright Ragen paid a PR firm to get mentioned on CNN. Now Sid is what's known as a "source".
The systems admin ones are crazily basic:

On a Linux server what command line tools might you use to perform the following functions?

a) view the firewall configuration

b) format a partition using the ext3 filesystem

c) viewing the configuration of the eth0 network interface

d) unpack the file archive.tar

e) create a symlink
Does anyone think that these plans in conjunction with 3D printers would result in a lot of fun?
I think messenger is part of windows live, which I've been told falls under the windows umbrella.
Maybe that is the date other carriers get it?
By style guides, like the one by AP.
> Which is why my employer really doesn't use Outlook/Exchange for email, or Sharepoint for the intranet, or IIS for the public website, or ActiveDirectory to manage logins and whatever else it does, or ....

If you really have to live with all that stuff, I'm deeply sorry for you. I use Exchange and AD and it's bad enough.