skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Patent-a-geddon continues apace. That Intellectual Ventures (IV) is revealed to be a patent litigation engine is not surprising to folks who have followed the careers of folks like Nathan Mhyrvold. Back in 1998 the company I was with turned down money they offered because, regardless of their pitch, too much rested on their staying benign vs this. It didn't help that I had come off a really sour experience at Sun where I had tried to negotiate a right to implement the RSA patent in Java and at the last second RSADSI pulled a fast one and rewrote key parts of the contract which changed it into a license for their software (of no value to the Java effort).

Patents are chum in the business world, and they attract sharks.

That being said the cognitive dissonance of the loop here (Google -> MMI <- IV <- Google) suggests to me a complete breakdown of sanity.
Steve Jobs Leaves Plans for 4 Years' Worth of New Products
I guess I could have answered my own question and made a direct point of what I was trying to say - RMS's comment is wrong because it's coming from a position of weakness and a desire for a closed software market where users have to choose inferior free software. Free software will never triumph with that attitude.
Unfortunately students have the same mentality and have no buying power on their own. Khan Academy has built a great brand but is free. The demographic analysis in the article supports the thesis -- in my unbiased opinion ;-)
I think that pinterest needs to be careful on how many of these "sponsored pinboards" they have. It is currently something cool and hip, but if the ratio of "sponsored pinboards" and user pinboards isn't correct, they can turn off a lot of users.
Patent trolls generally seek royalties or one-time license fees, rather then seeking to stop production. Patent owners seeking to shut down production are generally patent owners who are trying to stop a competitor.
I'm shocked that no one else (Gruber included) has picked up on the internal logic that the next iphone should be 6 not 5.

(1) iPhone

(2) iPhone 3G

(3) iPhone 3GS

(4) iPhone 4

(5) iPhone 4S

(6) iPhone 6

It's gonna be 6.
The google car is an exception where there is a lot of sophisticated software. UAV's like Boeing's and even the ones you buy online (with the open source software) are running on boards, not full-scale PC's with the ability to play a DVD.

UAVs are very complicated in terms of technology and engineering, but the hardware is simple because it's basically just running control loops on some board.
Seo London | London
just went to events.hackerdojo.com, they don't seem to have anything. emailed them to ask, i think more emails will help build the case
Eliminating the impulse to stall (on donating a bone marrow swab for Amit Gupta)
nicking an idea from a friend on IRC: you should set this up as a service for like $5 to crowdsource kerning for logos
OK, these were interesting. Are we ready to share thoughts on them?

For 1.2.10, I got a single equation involving the three unknowns--does that sound right?
Yeah but at least if he goes BSD then he too can use this code in a commercial product.
a) nice "taxation is theft" dig in there.

b) the entire purpose of the patent system is that ideas can be entered into a register and time-limited monopolies granted by the government in exchange for their public release at the end of the monopoly period.

the only weird part about non-practicing entities -- and I say this from the perspective of a Microsoft employee with no patent cubes yet to his name, who works in the same room as people with 15 -- is that they are effectively outsourcing the entire process of reducing their inventions to practice.
So why can't they give you freedom to root your own device or sideload your own apps. The 'safe garden' is still there for those who want it, and those who want more could do that of their own accord as well. Apple are unnecessarily restrictive.
In a past life I was a design major so here's a tip for kerning letters. Kern letters in groups of three, then step back and look at whole word, repeat until it looks balanced. Oh, and a bonus tip the number 1 and l (lowercase L) almost always have too much space to the left of the character, I see so many designs with '2011' badly kerned.
How about a slider to scale the spacing between characters and also letting me move the first and last characters?
So, Microsoft's thoroughly confirmed connection to Baystar who invested in SCO group while they were embroiled in an IP lawsuit against IBM about Linux technology is "not reality" either?
Revolution may be overstating the case, but taking a technology that is accessible to enthusiasts with the technical ability to program an Arduino and construct a robot out of components and making it accessible to users with the technical ability to plug in a smartphone and use a GUI opens up the technology to a whole new audience. Expanding the number of people interested in robotics is a good thing.

Just as I'm sure there are many people doing serious work in robotics now that got their start with Mindstorms, if this comes to fruition and is marketed successfully, I'm sure there will be many people who get their start with a simpler-to-understand smartphone robot now and later move on to bigger and better things.

Think of it as a gateway robot. :-)
was an exception designer
So the problem was actually the data validation logic in the application, allowing invalid data to get into the database (and why no constraint on the database field?) coupled with no exception handling on a division operation (always a red flag). None of that has anything to do with Windows, really, but it's an easy cheap shot to take.
What a mess. Finally found the section. For the next person who wants less of a headache, just load Part 3. The Jobs tribute is in there.
Are we really congratulating a "company" that makes no revenue on raising money again?

When will it stop?
For people who only know how to use Matlab, Octave is one less reason to go non-free.
Disappointed that I got 86/100 but this reminds me of sitting in front of a Mac in college obsessively adjusting the distance between Y and o.
I insist. Comments here are pathetic.
no, obviously they went to the trouble for the licensing fees. but they did, as a side effect to the licensing fees, agree to make their invention freely-practicable -- as opposed to the default, where it would be protected by trade secret laws in perpetuity -- after their monopoly period ended.

so that's worth something, I guess.
THANK YOU for posting this! I always had to figure out how to test my code AFTER the fact when reading Django documentation. This makes it much easier to write good code. Thanks!
I got 100/100 four times, but I had to squint a lot. :)
Ask HN: Solutions for managing your startup?
I was wondering what is your current solution to manage your startup: documentation, project planning, bugs, budgeting, expense tracking, etc.

Are you guys using several solutions or is something custom made?

We are 3, all working remote and email is starting to get unmanageable.

I'm trying Podio but it seems a bit overkill.

37signals: it seems like I need to use several of them (but my needs would be covered: wiki, chat, project management, etc) and for my startup it's simply not possible to spend that much (it adds up really fast)

These are just some examples. Would love to hear what you have going on.

Cheers.
Video: Python Fundamentals Training - doctest
Ventajas de Cruceros Todo Incluido para Viajar Ya
http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#...
Minor correction: the base Kindle only advertises 1 month of battery life. Although, for most practical purposes, the difference between 1 month and 2 months is orders of magnitude less important than the difference between 1 week and 1 month.
Building a College Startup – The Fampus Story
2 Minute Tip... Email
Whaaaa. It absolutely is designed better. Have you seen business cards from that time? Everything was business-dry, including my grand fathers.

Serif logos, Serif body, no color.
GREAT idea
You should be able to deselect them by click anything else, if it doesn't work let me know what browser you're using.
If investing in a company = becoming that company for purposes of news headlines, then virtually every financial firm has sued itself.
I would've been much more impressed had it not been post hoc rationalization. Of course it's obvious after the fact.
A related idea is the Distributed Proofreaders, a website that crowdsources proofreading of OCR'd public domain books. Unfortunately, proofreading is not very "gamifiable".

http://www.pgdp.net/c/
Apples and oranges. Funerals are for people who actually know the person that died. Everyone wailing here has never even met Jobs.

But even aside from that, RMS did not 'come to the funeral'. 'The funeral' 'came to him and asked him his opinion':

"Stallman made these comments on his personal site, rather than on the FSF site."

In your hypothetical, it's more like the funeral went to your mum's ex-boyfriend, known to be critical of her, while he was sitting at home, asked him for his opinion, then acted all offended when he answered as expected. The ex-boyfriend didn't leave his house to make the mourners unhappy, he just said his own thing in his own space.
Interesting question. I know quite a few Reed graduates, they all fit my personal definition of extremely well educated. I'd say the same for graduates of St. John's Colleges as well. In both cases though it seems the well educated part happened before they even arrived at either school. It's more their temperament and their depth and breadth of true knowledge not just trivia, and their interest in developing themselves and assisting those around them. Can't say the same for Yale graduates I've met, most who contribute little to society and are for the most part ignorant. Again we are left with addressing what does it mean to be educated. I might argue that ignorant people are not educated. But what does it mean to be ignorant? There's a lot to such a question and sometimes it's easier to say I know it when I see it.
there is a difference between 'choice' and 'informed choice'
>"taxation is theft"

extortion and theft are different :)

>is that they are effectively outsourcing the entire process of reducing their inventions to practice.

no. I have a few myself. The best purpose of these sh!tty "invention patents" is to protect yourself from somebody patenting that stuff and coming after you later. The worst - it to poison/booby-trap "Monopoly"-style the mental space of ideas so whenever somebody accidentally stumbles across or have no other way than to pass through they would be forced to pay. The trade secret laws wouldn't prohibit me from coming independently on my own with the same or similar idea and executing upon it :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_secret#Protection
The comparison here is not literal. It is an implied comparison of the iPhone to 'Android phones' made by your different companies.

In general, most of the latest and greatest Android phones sport larger displays and claim "4G" speeds, whatever that means for a given carrier. (Nexus One, Evo, Droid, Galaxy S, etc.)
This is consistent. The assumption is that defense will be top notch. Therefore attacking is hard and defending is, if not easy, solved.
So that's where the dummy contact "John Appleseed" comes from...
ATT Sells 200,000 iPhone 4S's in 12 Hours
There's nothing metaphorical about 'gut feelings'
And this SJ spam problem is not over yet...
At Amazon I signed a 1 year non-compete as an intern.

When I asked their HR dept about it, they told me not to worry because they'd never heard of it being enforced, but I wasn't particularly reassured.
Another awesome Austin startup is born
Steve Jobs as Tron!
Argh, this is addictive.

One suggestion for improvement: It would be nice if I could hit escape (or click outside of the text) to get rid of the cyan highlight on the letter. Color can change the perceived size of a shape, and when you're at the level of tweaking by pixels, it can make a difference.
I don't think Stallman was trying to persuade someone to do something with that email; I think he was speaking his mind about the circumstances that already obtained. I agree that it doesn't propose any coherent plan of action to improve the situation.
This post on reddit usually gets linked to when this question comes up over there: http://www.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/8zjv7/instructions_o...
Ah, that's quite clever! Upload as svg and let people kern the letters.

Right now I'm using it to get people interested in my upcoming project [Method of Action](http://method.ac/), an online course on design for programmers.
Soft real-time systems aren't used for things like drones. Look at things like INTEGRITY from Green Hills for that sort of task: http://www.ghs.com/customers/bae_herti.html
YapPal
YapPal is a multi-platform with the combination of the community and penny auction service. Register for free and you are not bound to making and purchase unless you are interested in bidding on our auction items. Our community is also a free-service for your assistance.
Dalai Lama and Archbishop Tutu to Video Chat on Google+ Tonight
FTFY:

"Why Companies That Deliver Incremental Improvement To Educational Services Already Provided Free To Most Rich-World Citizens Do Not Generate Sufficient Returns At Scale To Justify VC Investment."
For the first three or so I could de-select by clicking elsewhere, but then it no longer worked. My Google Chrome version string is "14.0.835.202 (Official Build 103287) m". I'm currently on a Windows machine.
I thought it was legitimately worth pointing out that there is a popular post on hacker news that is about hacker news.

I apologize for inappropriately using a meme to make that point.
As noted in the article:

"When the company dismissed its first president, Michael Scott, in 1981, for example, Mr. Markkula, agreed to cede the title of chairman to Mr. Jobs and become Apple's president -- but only until a permanent chief executive could be hired. That took two years, but when Mr. Jobs hired John Sculley in 1983, Mr. Markkula quickly stepped aside, though he remained on the Apple board."
The Bat!
Bigger is better, period, they say, and anyone who says otherwise is in denial

Does anyone really say that? My feeling is the 3.5" display is a very good size but so is 4-4.3" especially if you have poor eyesight, big hands, or fat American fingers. We have 4 different sizes of MacBook and no one is going to argue 3 of them should be discontinued because it's just too hard to choose or 13" is perfect for everyone. Two iPhone sizes (big and small) is going to happen eventually. There are too many 4-4.3" phones being sold to ignore that market forever. My guess is Apple is waiting until they can bump the resolution of the 3.5" display to the point where it can scale up to 4-4.3" and still maintain 300+ DPI. One resolution for both models.

I can’t help but see Siri as Apple’s first attack in the direction of Google’s crown jewels: search.

I couldn't agree more with this. Someday Apple will make a deal with FaceBook and things will get very interesting.

Siri, What movies have my friends recommended lately?

Siri, What is the name of that book Tom recommended to me last month? Great. Can you buy that for me?

Siri, Do you know Paul's wife's name?

Siri, Where did Paul and Linda go on vacation last year? How much would a weeks stay cost? Great. Book it for the 2nd week of August and send Paul a message asking for suggestions of good restaurants.

Based on the demos this is all very possible if Apple can get its hands on the data.
The most important thing that I got from this article was the realization that for most people to live an average life where they are not "screwed" they don't need a very high quality education; an average education which provides good value for money will do just fine.
A lot of it is about random chance. Your kid could get kicked in the head by a mule and spend the rest of her life suffering from severe brain damage, and that's not your fault. Your kid could hang out with the wrong group of kids in high school and end up as a stockbroker or otherwise doing something worthless. You can't control who your kids hang out with in high school or even in elementary school, you can't control their genes (much), you can't control most of what happens to them.

Of course there are lots of kids who suffer because of things their parents did, and you can avoid some of that. But mostly your child's life is not in your control. And that's a good thing.
Bob Iger Called Me This Morning » Chairman's Blog
Lessons Steve Jobs Taught Guy Kawasaki
UGG Classic Short
The Rise and Fall of Gil Amelio at Apple
Are there any idiosyncrasies besides the ones detailed here:

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/MATLAB_Programming/Differences_...

I say this because I'm learning Octave mainly to get familiar with the Matlab-ish world (kinds of coding used in real world academia) and I wonder what I'm missing.
Kernel Methods and Support Vector Machines de-Mystified
There are people here who believe that what happens with computers might actually be important — that who controls our communications and computational technology in the 21st century is a significant political issue. Stallman is another such person.
"You can't just slap Norton on these things and call it a day"

No, you can't - you have to slap Symantec Critical System Protection on them. /Then/ you can call it a day.
This really depends on how literally you take "freedom". If you think freedom is the ability to take away other people's freedom, then you won't like the GPL. The idea behind the GPL is to increase the amount of freedom in the world, not to increase each individual's amount of freedom.
You mean the company that patents crops(1), locks them away from farmers(2), and then files drive-by lawsuits wherever their seed drifts(3) is having trouble with mutant weeds? Say it ain't so.

Looks like mother nature had prior art, and boy is she pissed.

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto

(2) http://www.monsanto.com/newsviews/Pages/saved-seed-farmer-la...

(3) http://current.com/technology/89264825_california-legislatur...
Well, B&N is selling their remaining 1st edition Nook's at $89.
Visualizing Voice: listen to the map of American feelings about Obama & jobs
It's great to see all this action in the social commerce space. With Pinterest, Polyvore, Svpply, Fancy, Weheartit, Wookmark, Wanelo, Sumally, et al it will be interesting to see if there will be a big winner, or if we will end up with several players for different demographics and more targeted products.
Uses same shortcuts as Photoshop -- so if you are a hard-core kerner in Photoshop, try out the same keys. Pretty slick!
You're asking interns to write a garbage collector during the interview?
I don't see how that's proof.

If you throw out the original iPhone since it had no number designation, then there are two models that follow the generation number and two that don't. It seems obvious to me the next one will be the iPhone 5 (if not another iPhone 4 variant).

What generation model it actually is means nothing. If anything the number is a form factor designation.
Maybe advertisers figure you don't have much money if you can only afford $79.
I think it's hard to say that the FSF really "leads" a whole lot these days. I'd call the Apache Foundation the current leading lights, if I had to pick one.

This may be influenced by the fact that their primary spokesman is not a douchebag. Heck, I don't even know who it would be. Probably because whoever it is doesn't try to make himself or herself the story, unlike Mr. Stallman.
I'm not surprised people knew it was coming and they probably put off their purchases until now.
I tried this a couple of times, but the first and last letters seem so far apart that this becomes less about "make it look good" and more about "make it look less terrible". I can make the letters look great together with the first letter, which results in nearly a full letter's worth of space between the penultimate letter and the last. Perhaps this just represents an artifact of drawing the font extra-huge, but these fonts all feel like they need condensing to look decent.
When Woz spoke at Michigan State in May I heard him tell the story of how he built the original floppy drive for the Apple II.

Woz wanted to go to Las Vegas for a show (Comdex?) and was told if the floppy drive was ready by then he could go. He said after working for days he took a break and that's when the solution just came to him. He said with a big smile Vegas was great!
I want to literally get my hands on a Kindle and feel it (I've seen lots of them but never held one) to see if really has worse build quality than the flimsy NST. (I own an old but sturdy Sony PRS-505; other than wishing it were as fast as the recent Kindles or the NST, I have no complaints about it.)
Exactly. Most importantly, it can focus exclusively on statistics, rather than guesses.
Not sure I agree with any of this. Futurama was canceled and brought back and it's just as good now as it was before.
Fun, complete and easy to learn Haskell Tutorial
I always find it incredibly amazing to wander in to a wildly popular site that no one I know uses. It's a sad testament to how incredibly isolated hackers can be.
Yes, this was always the argument given in support of the monopoly Microsoft Windows used to have on commodity computer operating systems. Some proposed that having only one platform choice was more economically efficient for the industry as a whole. I don't think Apple was really on board with this idea back then.

I do not think that requiring all computers have only one display resolution for the convenience of software developers ends up being a winning strategy in the long run. It may be a winning strategy for Apple's business of course, at least until Apple decides to do an iPad or a "retina display" or for whatever other reason decides that a different form factor is in their own interest.
Computers, MP3 players, and smartphones would still exist without Steve Jobs. Although probably with a cheaper/uglier case, more complicated SW, and less marketing and design-induced love.
It seemed to me at the time that the 3GS was called the 3GS because "3G" wasn't actually a version number, and going from "iPhone 3G" to "iPhone 3" would just confuse people.
The idea of the replacement for the original Mac OS being sourced from within IBM (instead of from NeXT) is flatly scary. OS/2 is the most obvious source, and it actually had quite a few strengths, but it's really hard to imagine it being an elegant replacement for Macs, just as it's hard to imagine Apple turning things around without Jobs at the helm. Really, I don't imagine much of Apple would still be around at all.

So unless we imagine Linux storming the gates, I guess that would mean Microsoft vincit omnia. And without Apple, smartphones would likely still be niche Blackberry variants for heavy email users and such. Certainly the advent of tablets as popular consumer devices seems unlikely.

Wow, the technology world might be pretty different.
You can try someone out before you invest in them. Its called internships/probationary period. Lots of companies do it.
What is a "skill rating platform"?
Jobs had a well-known positive and beneficial side to him. Bad Steve did certainly exist, but Bad Steve doesn't give that commencement address at Stanford.

Stallman is at his core inhumane. It is not contemptible, but merely sad.
Thank you. I've only worked on small projects and never truly forced myself to embrace tdd. I've always wondered why, if the Django core guys are so supportive of tdd, why it was not represented more in the original tutorial. I don't mean any disrespect, the tutorial is the best I've ever seen for such a framework and I realize they can't spoon feed us everything.
USB flash drives are banned DOD-wide. Most DOD computers are setup up to not even mount them when they are plugged in.