skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Why are these competitions always restricted to the US? I'm in the UK; Amazon sells European-based S3 storage and they have offices in the UK. What's the problem?

I'm working on a cracking idea that I'm sure would arouse their interest. It's so disheartening when I see these kinds of competitions and then realise I'm disqualified for being a dirty European.

Perhaps there's somebody who could demonstrate trustworthiness on here who would allow non-US residents to enter this competition (and others) by proxy through them?

pg - Would you be interested in doing this?
I don't know much Haskell (it's on my list), but am I right in thinking that code doesn't implement parenthetical grouping or alternation? eg:

(ab)*
a|b

I think it's aiming at Perl or command-line style of regex, not mathematical regular expressions (EDIT not saying either is good or bad).

(BTW: I didn't write the 14 line Python one, I'm just studying it).
On facebook you can release any app without approval. The only time you need approval is to be added to their app directory. I don't think facebook ever bans apps without a tos violation.
I've read the article. I look forward to when people can actually fly into space themselves and stargaze from orbit.
The argument you didn't respond to is close but not exactly the argument I didn't explicitly make but was thinking of.

DRM limits the ability of the consumer, and at best it is benign. RMS is actually not being outlandish when he calls it digital restrictions management. And for what? Do they actually succeed in making it harder for people who plan on pirating to pirate? How many of these people would buy the content if they couldn't pirate it?

I think your recurring argument about "first x weeks" revenues is reasonable. But I see little benefit gained by content producers after that. All I see is a net negative for the customer. It may be more negative for me than a typical customer, but I think this difference may decrease in the future. For example, Amazon reviewers experiences with Spore :)
I don't know Ron Conway but I'm always cautious about taking advice from someone who is an {0} who tells me that I should really consider using a {0} instead of a {1}. Interesting article and I don't refute any of the points ( I like them actually) but, to me, it's sort of like Paul Graham telling me that I should use seed capital; I always wonder, "Is he really being altruistic and sharing this info or is there an ulterior motive? In other words, why is this man writing this [i.e., doing this interview] instead of spending time with his family/hobbies? There has to be a reason - is it because he truly wants to helps others or a more profitable reason?"

I know that sounds cynical - it sounds cynical as I write it - but it's how I think.
I'm not so sure. I think it is substantial. Duplicating the devices' core functionalities could be a substantial area of development.

It was never 100% clear that Apple would bar that. It still isn't.
ido has advantage that it is included in Emacs22 (no third-party packages required)
Are you seriously suggesting that as "Generation Y" grows up, they'll start using Facebook in a business context? Facebook's great for light, non-detailed interaction, but the idea that I'm going to hash out the details of my day-to-day work over Facebook, Twitter, or any other social website is asinine.

I think you could easily argue that Gmail and Google Calendar is nipping at the heels of Outlook, and that over time, that's going to be a substantial threat to Microsoft. But Facebook is a completely different beast, meant to facilitate a completely different type of communication.

The people who write this sort of nonsense have a fundamental misunderstanding of work/play balance. This may be because they're caught up in the hype, or maybe they don't have a social circle outside their work, I don't know. What I do know is that when I'm emailing a coworker, I don't want to be distracted by their social network, nor do I want to know all the details of my friends' work lives. There is a meaningful dichotomy there, and it's going to remain one.
Megalisting Used Books on Amazon
Old Bill Gates Interview
It's all about perspective. When it's just you or you + one other, you can easily start thinking, "Man, I could do so much with only $200,000." But you really couldn't - you just think you could. Oh sure, you could spend it all on marketing and/or R&D to drive interest/adoption. But if you do blow it all on those and you are successful, you and your co-founder will no longer be able to handle it all; you'll need an inside sales person, an outside sales person, HY, bookkeeping, legal help, operational help, etc. And now you need more money. And raising more money takes time. After all, you just got $200,000 - "Why do you need more so soon?"

Don't get stuck in that mindset; plan for success and spec out your hires before you get there. You'll quickly find that you'll be able to spend more than you thought you could once you start writing your business plan.
That's stupid. If someone makes a better podcatcher than Apple for the iPhone, the iPhone does podcasting better than before which sells more iPhones, which makes Apple richer. I don't see why it's such a threat.

Any time you implement a feature for a product you have to do it in a way that can't possibly please everyone. If you let your developers implement alternative versions, it's conceivable you could get close to pleasing everyone, which makes your product better because it then covers obscure use cases that you can't afford to deal with. It becomes as if third parties are developing the product for you for free.
You should get a bonus for being conveniently close to Paul.
Not that I can remember, but class action lawsuits have.
I learned to program on a TI-55... Upgraded then to a 59. Lots of fun.

Good times.
There is a bit of truth in it. Not necessarily the comparison to a diet, but still.

Becoming indignant & saying 'I'm out' is not useful. There's a potential snag here. It is a man made snag that's unfair, unreasonable or whatever. But that doesn't mean the opportunity isn't there. It's not really more of a reason not to develop then any other reason that isn't unfair: too hard, too much competition, etc. The only difference is emotional.
Gall's law
This also assumes that an organization that big would ever even consider paying the going-rate for a piece of software. Now way.

They also would never thrown down their credit card for a 40k/month expense.
I believe we're both from Texas too. Oh I guess I should mention I'm paying my way through college myself too.
I disagree.

Obviously some people who think Facebook is silly will always think it's silly. But for current Facebook users, I think it will only get more useful to them as they get older.

Up to a certain point in life, getting older usually means more responsibilities; jobs, kids, etc. That's less time to maintain and cultivate face to face social relationships.

I think you'll find Facebook's population is only getting older as people with limited time go online to create and maintain those relationships.
So is consensus that the RockYou app disabling was legit? The power to ban for a ToS violation still seems strong -- this isn't something Microsoft or Apple (or any Linux distro) has on the desktop, right?
The first page of the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/books/review/Sussman-t.htm...
That would require some sort of law being broken, or some sort of right to be violated. I'm pretty sure all rights have been signed over to Apple in SDK agreement so that one wouldn't go very far. The only law I can think of would be anti-trust, but there are couple of problems with that:

1. Apple is not a monopoly in any traditional sense of the word

2. Anti-trust is moving very very slow. Look at Microsoft.

If majority of app developers pulled their apps for a week from the app store, that could get Apple's attention. Until the non-members jump in and start filling in the void... yeah, well I guess this idea won't work - you can't really prevent the strikebreakers from moving in.
Yeah,. Agree., even if I wish it wasn't the case.

I have been seeing a lot of cool thinking on how The Cloud can go private for these orgs.

In a way, that has started. A lot of software providers (including us) will sell a VM image that can be loaded up and moved around as needed (to provision more hardware). It seems like a baby-step.
I was a little disappointed he never touched on the best use of fuzzy matching: function names. Lisp would probably look like APL or Perl if we actually had to type "with-open-file" instead of just "w o f TAB RET".
For those people who do not receive the calculator and are on a tight budget, you might want to try MathRider (<a href="http://mathrider.org">http://mathrider.org</a>;)
It's hard to argue that the typical consumer --- the only one Apple should rationally care about --- is influenced by these issues. The iPhone is spectacularly popular, just like the iPod before it.

Is it? I've already noted a couple of cases where iTunes is hostile to users (non-iPhone MP3-capable phones and mobile devices, and netbooks running Linux, which are slowly but surely becoming more popular among "typical" consumers). I've never used iTunes so I don't know what other pains exist...but it sounds like you're aware of a few that I didn't know about. Every one of those frictions and pains is the difference between a good consumer experience and a bad one. When the balance tips, iTunes becomes the less attractive option, and all of the things that make Apple's user experience superior go out the window. For me, they never moved into the "superior" experience category, because not being able to play my music on my primary computer (which runs Linux) was a non-starter. For others, that difference is further out and perhaps not as obvious to people who only use Apple products. But, Apple market share is not that high and the small percentage it does have is not infallible. iPhone will never have a significant market share of phones that can play music (though it may be the most popular smart phone for the next year or two, even dumb phones are beginning to get MP3 players built-in), as it's too expensive for most folks. So as the next generation of phones comes along, a majority of which can play music, there's going to be an awful lot of people who can't carry their music with them, if they bought it on iTunes. I think it's a bit short-sighted to imagine that that won't have an impact.

I don't think anyone would argue that Apple hasn't done amazing things given a problematic industry (without DRM, perhaps the iTunes store could not have existed...but Amazon Unbox, and its lack of DRM, gives us a clue that maybe keeping DRM is an unnecessary and unappealing component...though Apple now has a vested interest in keeping it, since it locks folks into devices that have licensed player codecs from Apple and keeps people coming back to Apple for permission).

Anyway, my point was that iTunes loses some sales because of DRM. How many? I dunno. But I suspect it'll be more in the future.
When I posted this, I was looking for working examples of the freemium business model on the Google Apps/Flickr end of the spectrum - mostly about the free users. (They're not examples because I don't think they're pulling sufficient revenues yet. Correct me if I'm wrong)

From what I've gathered, there are more examples at the other end of the spectrum closer to the 'free sample' - free users get a good, usable trial, but premium users are what it's about. I'd call that more of a sales method then a business model.

Anyway, from that I'd say that a hybrid trial/freemium² is a reasonable idea. I would put more chips on the product if it's for businesses.
Just for you: http://startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com/2008/09/sem-on-fiv...

Would love your feedback, if this is helpful.
The difference is that it's unpredictable, based on Apple's whims. If they said "Hey, here is a list of apps we won't accept from third party developers because we consider them to be competitive," that would be one thing. But as it stands, we don't even know where the line in the sand is, because the line is based on Apple's best interests, not those of the developers. Dozens of developers have released apps that duplicate (and improve upon) the functionality of the built-in Notes app, but when someone writes an app for podcast streaming (which the iPhone does not already offer, but which I'm sure they're planning on adding eventually), Apple nixes it. It's not just difficult, it's demoralizing.
In simple words. There is no standard in the mobile industry for application developers. You have to tackle iphone and bb differetnly. You have to tackle ATT and Verizon differently.

My point is not that Apple is more open than others. That still does not make it standard.

Yes you can build apps that polls a server etc..., but again when building apps, there is no standard. Iphone apps do not work on Symbian phones. What kind of open is that?

BB is not truly open either. Maybe this has changed by now, but we could not get to collect SMS. How open is that?

The point I am trying to make is that developers should not be suprised where there apps are shut down by the SMS gateway provider, or the carrier, or Apple, or BB, or ......

Developers should focus on applications that they can write once and can deploy everywhere.
SEM on five dollars a day
Shoot me an email if the OP doesn't set you up. I'm pretty sure I can dig up a sturdy old 89 (I think I had another one as well, 85 maybe?) for you.
Anillos de Compromiso Joyeria Mave, argollas para todas las ocaciones
You're talking to an audience of people that decide something's win or fail the day it comes out. Good chance being persuasive here, even if your point is accurate.

And comparing these two services is stupid. They're entirely different, they have two different business strategies. Apple and Google are not competing directly, and that'll be reflected in the developers who flock to either side (or to both).
I think that they are interesting & telling in & of themselves. Apple is pissing off developers. And it isn't being met with 'get out of it.'
Too many competitors. You've got Silverlight. You've got Chrome. Both are trying to do the exact same thing. And AIR doesn't have much going for it beyond the fact that it got there first. Not many killer apps for it. Therefore, it doesn't get nearly as much attention as the much larger web sphere, which hasn't been relying on AIR for anything yet.
The best explanation I've seen is embedded in this http://everything2.com/node/876627
My little brother is taking Precalc at a community college and a TI-89 and it's magical symbolic manipulation would probably help him get a B instead of a C.

If anyone has an extra used one for the right price I'd probably buy it for him.
If your bottleneck in development is typing speed you're doing something terribly wrong.

No, you just think faster than you can type - but liberal use of macros, snippets, syntax-directed editing, code completion, etc. can help.
> But, thirdly, the republicans routinely have the least progressive attitude towards software patent reform, public domain status, copyright reform, and tend to enforce monopolies in, for example, media.

Huh? The record and movie company donations almost all go to Dems. Repubs don't care.

> Fifth, a huge number of hackers are from immigrant populations, whose livelyhood is increasingly threatened by the demand for visas and protectionist immigration and freetrade policies.

The amnesty and expanded immigration proposal, McCain-Kennedy, was pushed by Bush and McCain.

The protectionist stuff is all from Dems. What little free trade stuff there is comes from Repubs.
Actually, it's a lot easier to make it work if you've made it right to begin with. (That said, I've always found the best way to develop is to add functionality to a working program, no matter how small it starts out).
That might be the logical conclusion, but I don't think Apple sees it that way. They've never been very big on this "third-party" stuff...
lots of money over there
Money isn't the only source of bias. It isn't even the most influential or most common source.

Folks who are bought don't care all that much. True believers, on the other hand, do care, and they're no more likely to be correct.
History of IEEE P1003.1 POSIX time
It isn't so much about how often it happens as it is about the fact that it happens at all. No, 90% of apps aren't being turned away for competing with the iPhone's built-in apps, but if any application is turned away not because it sucks, but because it's too good, that's a problem and it will discourage innovation.
Platform/Forum to gather feedback from Beta Users
A couple of weeks ago I was looking at a platform designed for capturing feedback and feature requests for beta testers. It was essentially a forum but devoted to product feedback. I think they offered a free version and I just can't remember the name of it. Has anyone come across something like this?
This is a good example why the industry as a whole is always salivating for [software as a service | client-server apps | web apps]. It puts control squarely in the hands of the vendor, rather than the user (I count developers as being the users of a platform).
I think that as tech people, we often forget that the vast majority of people that utilise tech are often less logically inclined than we are.

Or to put it another way, simplicity + attractiveness sells.

David Pogue did an interesting TED talk on this in 06 in which he made a quick stab at the start menu thing at about 10 minutes in. Linked below for reference.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/david_pogue_says_simplici...
President Palin
write in Sarah Palin, viable grass roots implementation?

http://www.newsminer.com/
No. We fell completely ass backwards into it. I had a little blog in 2004; towards the middle of 2005, we felt like we had crappy marketing, sales, and outreach. We wrote a marketing plan with 3 major prongs --- Google ads, having everyone start writing for the blog, and I forget the third thing. The only thing that worked was the blog.
Circuit behind the Internet Age turns 50 years old
Seeing this type of thread here warms my heart. It's really great to see this type of stuff.
Big, round numbers make for easy examples. Picking on examples makes...
See also:

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/09/dayint...
Cool Free Fonts | TechJaws
You could not have said it better. Apple being a tab less restricted than others does not make it Open.
Dunno.

Personally, I haven't replaced my work e-mail with FaceBook messages yet, or started using Events for business meetups (though there is a news.YC FaceBook group, and I wouldn't be surprised if some of the news.YC meetups are on there). However, there've been times I've been called up by a college classmate, in a business context (he was doing market research for a hedge fund client), when he said "I got your number off FaceBook. It's pretty handy for that." Another friend (also at a hedge fund) told me over G!Chat that "One of my coworkers is into webstartups. Shoot him a FaceBook message and see if you'd be a good match for each other." When my cofounder quit and I was searching for a replacement, I sent one of my former coworkers a FaceBook message to see if he was interested.

I get the impression that most people my age (2-3 years out of college) don't really know what to make of social networking in a business context yet. I get a lot of panicked notes saying "My boss friended me on FaceBook. What do I do?" Some people are shutting everyone from work out of their FaceBook accounts because they really don't want their boss seeing the photos of the drunken revelry they had last night. But others are using it like an online Rolodex & e-mail client, which it's always sorta been. I think it could go either way. It's certainly not as cut-andd-dried as your incredulous reaction suggests.
Thanks for takng time to put in all the links, Kris.
"He doesn't really mention in his post the fun fact that you've got to pay a fee so Apple can review/reject your app. Definitely not feeling warm and fuzzy about the investment so far."

You'd rather they get flooded with an absolute ton of crap? The fee isn't _that_ much and it separates the boys from the men, so to speak.
For what it's worth, the first time I used a Mac quite a few years ago it took me a good five or six minutes to figure out how to log off.
Someone is always going to bitch about apple. period.

Hypothetical example: What if apple is already working on a better podcasting app that works on the iphone, yet they _don't_ reject any apps?

Then, when their podcasting app comes out and kills off the competitors (usually because it is free--but also because they write damn good apps), then some author is going to bitch about how apple targeted them and killed their app. Sounding like that whiny sandvox guy doesn't do anyone any good.

Maybe... just maybe... this is the better alternative.

Personally, I'm going to write the quickest/smallest app I can that gets the 1.0 beta 1 idea into form. I'll apply with that. If I get accepted, great. I'll pump out a lot of releases getting it to 1.0 final. If not? I didn't lose that much time/effort.
At our small local radio station (I know it's not YC, but I hope this is vaguely relevant), the blog is pretty awful. It's simply an endless stream of calls-to-action along the lines of "come to event X on Saturday", or "listen to our new drive time host", or even "visit our sponsor, XYZ Ford on High Street". It's quite possibly the bossiest blog I've ever come across, and being the muppet who's ended up in charge of web stuff I write most of it! We don't even have commenting turned on by order of management, "in case someone was to post something offensive". In common with most things related to the radio industry's fumbling forays into the online world, it's like something from 1996. Accordingly, visitor numbers are through the floor.

Given a free rein to write what I wanted, I'd change the tone of the thing completely. First, I'd start writing posts that really put across the atmosphere of an exciting radio station full of creative people. I'd make posts about funny or interesting things that had happened that day, guests we'd had in the studio, events we'd reported from. I'd point readers to things on the web that we'd liked and give them an insight into what it's like behind the scenes.

Perhaps--shock horror--we might even write occasionally about things that aren't work-related and are of interest to people outside our immediate audience, in the same way as Pingdom, that uptime-monitoring firm that gets on the social news sites every five minutes. Then I'd flip the commenting switch and turn what is currently a fairly dull company mouthpiece into a conversation, where listeners could tell us what they thought and communicate with us and between themselves.

I might just do it and see what happens.

On a related note, the blog at http://onegoldensquare.com/ makes for an interesting read. It's from a British national radio station called Virgin Radio, which is changing its name and programming. Rather than smothering itself with the thick veil of confidentiality that usually surrounds the radio industry when it does things like this, they've set up the blog with posts by staff from the programme controller down about what they're doing and why they're doing it, along with writing on all sorts of diverse subjects. It's a refreshing change and well worth a quick look at as an example of a quality company blog.